Slap the stupid out of me.

Dear Readers:
I’m mad. I mean, REALLY MAD. In fact-I’m going to use a phrase I never use. I’m spit-fire MAD. And here’s why:

We, as crazy, wordy humans, say a lot of things. Extreme things: never, always, I’ll just die.

Ambiguous things: I dunno, maybe, kinda, yep.

Things to each other that we don’t honor: I will love you forever, I could never be mad at you.

And we text and email and IM all these words back and forth to each other. And before you know it, we mix the most sacred of words with the most mundane of all conversations.

I love you.
I love those shoes.

Forever, I’m yours.
I haven’t seen you, in like, forever.

I will marry you.
This sandwich married together perfectly the spicy mustard with the pastrami. 

Which leads us into devaluing what we say and what we’ve commit to.

Be mine, for all time.
He used to be mine. 

Till death do us part.
I was going to kill him if we had to stay together.

He makes me so happy.
We weren’t happy anymore.  

I’m an observer. I enjoy watching as marriages, relationships and friendships begin.
The first time a conversation is sparked leaves each party feeling elated and renewed. Weeks later, there is still so much to learn about that person and neither one could imagine life without the other. Your old friends think that you’re ignoring them, and to be perfectly honest-you don’t care.
Months roll on by and that person is maybe less of a priority, but still high on the list. You quit planning your entire day around them and start to schedule them in.
Years roll by and you find yourself either without the relationship intact any longer, or it’s down on the totem pole of priority. After all, you’ve got to live your life.

Which leads me to asking, “What happened?” Why is the “spark” out? Why does that once intriguing friend now bore you? Why is the person you just couldn’t get enough of, now-get on your every last nerve?

We are a finicky race, us humans. We allow our minds, our thoughts, our eyes to wander when something prettier, newer, skinnier, less complicated comes along.
A decent car now looks like a jalopy when parked next to that brand new, never driven Mercedes.
A nice laptop suddenly pales in comparison to that fancy new one at the Apple Store.
When you visit your boss’ house, your house suddenly seems small, out of date and embarrassing.

And your husband becomes commonplace and unappealing as you read “50 Shades of Gray” (for the record, I have never read this book-but I’ve heard enough talk about it to know what is up, ladies).

The socks left by him at the foot of the bed-for days-start to get under your skin. I mean, can’t he put those in the basket?!
The little tiny hairs from him shaving and not properly rinsing out the sink grate on your nerves. I just cleaned that!
He chooses just the most inopportune time to become amorous. I just ate pasta. Really?!

And then, along comes this guy. And he’s perfect. And interesting. And funny.
And he smells great and opens the door for you and he knows just what questions to ask and when to ask them and he moves the hair off your face and tucks it behind your ear just right and he thinks you’re awesome and, and, and…
And his socks would never bother you and he never farts and you know he’s a clean freak, just like you, and, and, and…

So you entertain the thought of him. And you open up your facebook and you “friend” him. And you start to message him. And you keep it from your husband.

And suddenly, your “forever” is more like, “when it’s convenient and it still makes me happy.” Before long, your “forever” is over. And that is what is making me spit-fire MAD.

And you look back on it and wonder when it started to go all wrong. It went wrong way before dating and marriage and facebook. It went wrong the first time you compared what you had to what someone else had-and you were ungrateful.

I’ve done it. My scratched up, 280,00 mile van is embarrassing surrounded by brand new Lexus’, Mercedes and BMW’s in the parking lot of where I occasionally work. My clothes have holes in them. I dress vintage because it’s cute, but mainly due to lack of advertising funds. You better believe I’m comparing my TJ Maxx purse to that women’s $1,500 Prada bag. I’m finicky. I compare and judge and evaluate.

And, I’m ungrateful.

And that is what makes me MAD. So, when you see me do it-slap me. Slap the stupid right out of me. Remind me that I’m being ungrateful and its a slippery slope from cars to clothes to shoes to husbands.

I believe love is forever and it is most certainly worth fighting for. I believe the “till death do us part”. I believe in what I said at the altar, what God has said about marriage and I want to be grateful-every day-for that. So, dear readers: you have my permission to slap me and get all spit-fire MAD at me if I start to slip.

Hold me to it.

God is so full of it!

Right now, I bet you are a little uncomfortable after reading the title. You might be wondering why I’m not dead from an immediate strike of lightening and you are slowly moving away from your own computer, afraid of the after effects of my impending doom.

Good thing that God knows the heart of this writer and not your heart-which apparently believes I deserve a strike of lightening. You naughty reader, you.

I woke up at 5:02 this morning (Biceps let me sleep in 2 whole minutes) and after saying aloud, “God is so full of it!”, I realized how funny it was. I laughed for awhile.

Things are always most humorous when one is lacking sleep.

But, God is full of it. He is so full of hope, grace, mercy, creativity, love, righteousness…the list goes on and on. Let me give you an example. You see this storm here? It looks pretty bad, doesn’t it? As this rolled in, I was pretty sure we were all about to see the end of the world.

The sky turned black. The birds quit singing. The trees stopped moving. The cats clawed at the rugs. (Well, that’s just normal for them. Sorry. Ignore that last statement.)

However, a whole lot of nothing happened. There was a downpour for a few minutes which cooled off the earth, watered my garden and filled my rain barrels.

And then, the storm moved on. It reminded me of one of the darkest hours in my life.

I’m about to get real and I will probably be judged by a few of you. I might even smash the facade you have of me. But, if I can’t be real about my past how can you trust me in the present?

Back in college, I didn’t have a strong relationship with the Lord. Sure, I believed in Him. I was going to a Christian University-that was kind’ve a prerequisite (not really-money was the prerequisite). I read my Bible. I lifted my hands at the appropriate times-but when it came to Him being the LORD of MY life-yeah…not so much.

I was bad, I treated my fiance at the time badly, which made our relationship go bad, which allowed the other “Christians” around me be bad to me.

I was asked not to come back to class by my professors-during finals mind you-because I was a “distraction” to the other students. Overnight, I lost all of my friends save two. I quit going to the cafeteria because I was so humiliated. I shrank to 98 pounds and really had no desire to eat.

I allowed the fiance to torture me for the next two months, along with his family. I received hateful phone calls at all hours and put up with them-thinking I deserved them.

I truly believed what they said to me-“I was a gold ring in a pigs snout.”

And that’s where God found me. Alone, ashamed, humiliated, wishing for death to end my pain laying on the bathroom floor. He found me and spoke to my spirit the simplest words, “You’re going to be alright.”

For the first time in years I wanted to read the Bible and the Word came alive to me. I read this:

“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.” Psalm 130:1-6

Nothing changed overnight. I was still reaping the consequences of my sin. Almost two years had to pass before I felt truly whole again. And almost a decade had to pass before I could truly forgive myself and look others in the eye that knew of my past. Tulsa is small, too small.

So, dear readers, whatever situation you are in right now, know that “You are going to be alright”. God is so full of hope, mercy, love, forgiveness, and more. He can meet you right where you are. Even if you are laying on the bathroom floor right now, wishing for it all to end. He loves you. He forgives you. Ask Him to make His Word alive to you once more. He will not let you down.

One, Big Happy Family-the Power of Prayer

See this happy family? See that cool girl in red, wearing her big brother’s jacket because she was freezing to death but insisted on wearing that red dress no matter what? The girl with the immovable, poofy bangs protruding from her forehead? Yep, that’s me.

(Usually we were a much happier group. I think the cold froze our smiles off. Or it’s more likely we just sat through one of the most boring sermons at my Grandma’s church and were starving, tired and cold.)

Anywho-when I was about this age, while I sat in youth group one Wednesday night, sporting my sweet Guess jeans and a bright pink Guess T-shirt, my youth pastor told all of us to begin praying for our future spouses NOW.

And so, being the rule follower that I was, I did. I started off asking God for a hot guy. Then, I added to that a Godly guy. Before long, my list had grown to 42 things that I wanted in my man.

And ladies, this was what I was praying for all those years, unbeknownst to me. (If you ever had any doubt about the power of prayer-this is some smoking hot evidence that prayer really works.)

Here are a few things from the Spousal Prayer list of an 11 year old:

1. Brown hair, blue eyes and good-looking
2. Can skateboard (what?!)
3. Looks good at the beach
4. Likes to exercise
5. Hot body
6. Has ridden a bull
7. Encourages me to be me
8. Loves God, loves his family, loves my family and his family loves me
9. Wants kids
10. Likes cats
11. Is a musician, can play an instrument, likes to sing
12. Is a virgin
13. Raised in a Godly home

(It seems the “body portion” was very important to me at that age. Oh wait, it’s still important now.)

There were 42 things total and this man fulfilled my list-and then some. God is so good to a weird little girl and her 11 year-old dreams.

But, let’s take a look at #8 and #13 in particular.

At one point in my life, I dealt with a boyfriend whose family didn’t like me. It was awkward and awful. However, when I met Biceps’ family, they were easy to be around and instantly gave me a nickname-“peel-eater” (for eating the peels on my sweet potatoes-genius, I know).

The “mother-in-law syndrome”-that I thought was inevitable in a marriage-was nowhere to be found between us.

This beautiful woman (on the left) raised her children with God’s wisdom, honors her husband and honors the Lord with her life. Without her knowing it, she answered my prayers-particulary #8 and #13. And I love her for that-and for so much more.

Today is her birthday and I wish I could be there to celebrate with her. Instead, I will say a prayer of thanks that I married into such a wonderful family. And another prayer of thanks for the hot man God blessed me with.

Happy Birthday, Connie. You are an amazing woman of God. And by the way, great job at pro-creating. You made a good one-a real good one (see #1, 3, 4, 5).

Because I don’t want to….

This is what I should be doing this weekend.

I cannot remember the last time I’ve washed our car which is found underneath a layer of dust and bright purple bird poop splotches. The neighborhood birds have been eating some form of black berries which seem to pass through them at lightening speed and they are using our car for target practice. Thanks, birds.

The tea, coffee, flour and sugar tins on my counters are sporting a mess of water spots, food tidbits, and fingerprints. But hey, who cares?

The rugs have a fine layer of white cat fur resting atop of them. But if you shut the door to the living and dining room, you don’t know that it’s there. Job done.

And then there’s all of this that I could do but haven’t.

Instead, anytime Biceps puts his studying material down even for just a second, I want to be there to offer him this. I’m such a doer, a get-it-doner, that it’s hard for me to ignore all of the chores that should be done. But, they’ll be there tomorrow and Biceps will be back at the fire department. I’ll still have the laundry, but not the lips of my beloved.

I hope that’s ok with anyone that visits my house this weekend. If not, come back later.