Reality...

...it's not that I haven't been honest on my blog over these past months, or years, I'm not really sure how long I've been blogging.....but the things I blog about are true and real and from my heart....it's that there are subjects and circumstances that I just avoid bringing to my blog. I'm not sure why....maybe it's out of a sense of privacy, or respect, or maybe it's me hiding behind a facade that I have it all together. This morning I'm here to say...I soooo don't have it all together.

Things feel like they are coming apart at the seams....and I think maybe they are.

Here's the reality of what I am struggling with right now. One thing is my marriage and one is my job.

My marriage....I met Vern in 2001 after (during, really) a very difficult divorce. I had been in a mariage for nine years with a man I met in church, I served with in church and who, on the surface, everyone thought was a good, solid Christian man. The man I went to church with was not the man I lived with. And in all honesty....the woman he went to church with was not the woman he lived with. I didn't know how to respond to the issues between us with anything other than anger...so our home was a war zone. We fought it out and hung in for nine years, wounding each other more and more deeply as the years went on. And, I might add, wounding my sons with the anger, stress and tension that hung thick in the air in our home. I ended up on the psychiatrist's couch and on three different antidepressants to begin to lift the fog of despair and hopelessness that had engulfed my very being when that marriage finally ended.

It was during this time that I met Vern. There was a sweetness about him that drew me to him immediately. I was disillusioned with God, and Christianity , and church......and I clung to Vern like a port in a storm even though he wasn't a Christian and didn't even believe in God. We were inseparable from the beginning and fell head over heels in love...well at least that's what I thought. When I married him I did it in virtual secrecy so that I wouldn't have to listen to the warnings and cautions of my friends.

So anyway...fast forward to now. We have been married amost five years. We don't really fight much. But we don't talk really either. We live together separately. There is no companionship...unless we are out doing something. I will say that....Vern is a great companion to go someplace with. But as soon as we get in the door at home, all companionship ends. The television comes on and I am once again completely ignored. There is no affection and we are celibate.

I have begged and cried and gotten angry over it...all to no avail. I have tried to be a better wife so that I am not somehow pushing him away....but I am finally realizing that I am not the cause of Vern being unable or unwilling to love me.

I know that there are wives who live in these loveless marriages for years on end and they do it with grace and peace and contentment...but that's not me. As hard as I have tried to convince myself that I can be completely fulfilled in the Lord...it's not happening. There is a hole on my heart that grows a bit larger with each passing week. I am struggling so hard to try and avoid having that hole fill itself up with biterness and resentment....and I seem to be failing at it.

So all of that is leading up to this...I told Vern this weekend that we either get some counseling and BOTH try to build a solid marriage...or I am filing for divorce.
I realize that's harsh and possibly even sinful...but I am done being married all by myself.

And I am frightened and feeling oh so very vulnerable right now..that's the reality of it.

Words fail me...

Today my heart is breaking for my sweet friend AmyB and Her family.

Please keep them in your prayers as they experience this unfathomable heartbreak.

I love you Amy and you continue to be in my prayers and on my heart.

Fret Not Yourself....

This morning in my devotional time I was reading in Psalm 37 and verses 7 and 8 caught my attention.

Psalm 37:7-8
Be still and rest in the Lord; wait for Him and patiently lean yourself upon Him; fret not yourself because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked devices to pass.
Cease from anger and forsake wrath; fret not yourself--it tends only to evildoing.

The part that really jumped out at me this morning was that both verses warned against "fretting." In the amplified translation it reads, "fret not yourself." Can it be that fretting is something I do to myself?...and it leads only to evildoing? Wow!

So being the lover of words that I am, and considering how looking the words up in the dictionary gives me a clearer understanding of things....I looked up the word "fret" on dictionary.com.

(Have I mentioned how much I love my iPhone? And that I use it in my devotional time almost every morning because my quiet time is downstairs where I can be alone and my computer is upstairs in our bedroom? And I have two apps on it that are becoming almost indispensable to me!? I have Dictionary.com and a bible app that are ever so useful!)


ok, so where was I? Oh, yes, I looked up "fret" on dictionary.com (on my phone--insert smiley face here)and I found this...

fret
–verb (used without object)
1.
to feel or express worry, annoyance, discontent, or the like: Fretting about the lost ring isn't going to help.
2.
to cause corrosion; gnaw into something: acids that fret at the strongest metals.
3.
to make a way by gnawing, corrosion, wearing away, etc.: The river frets at its banks until a new channel is formed.
4.
to become eaten, worn, or corroded (often fol. by away): Limestone slowly frets away under pounding by the wind and rain.
5.
to move in agitation or commotion, as water: water fretting over the stones of a brook.
–verb (used with object)
6.
to torment; irritate, annoy, or vex: You mustn't fret yourself about that.
7.
to wear away or consume by gnawing, friction, rust, corrosives, etc.: the ocean fretting its shores.
8.
to form or make by wearing away a substance: The river had fretted an underground passage.
9.
to agitate (water): Strong winds were fretting the channel.
–noun
10.
an irritated state of mind; annoyance; vexation.
11.
erosion; corrosion; gnawing.
12.
a worn or eroded place.

So here's what I came to understand about worrying and fretting myself...when I give in to the temptation to fret, I wear away and corrode my faith, peace, and contentment that God freely offers to me. I torment and vex myself, allowing worry to corrode a path right through my faith and into my heart to torment me.

I have a choice. I can be still and rest in the Lord, leaning on and trusting in Him. Or I can choose to "fret myself."

Today I'm reminding myself to choose the better path.

So my sister and I went on a retreat...

...we took matching bags


And we had matching pedicures.


It was on Mt Palomar, so we stopped at the observatory.


We saw some of the local wildlife on the drive up.


And were fascinated by the woodpeckers while we were there.


Of course I made friends with the camp cat. I am a cat person you know.


We wore matching hats,


and we had matching bedding....and we dressed alike too.


We drank coffee together in our matching pink hoodies!


We had some quiet time to reflect on the Word.


My friend the cat, who was called "Stinky" by the staff, but who confided to me that his name is really Edward, joined us for coffee each morning.


And finally we had a really wonderful communion service, after which we symbolically wrote one thing that we felt God was calling us to finally, truly, surrender to Him, on a piece of paper towel and dropped it in the "blood" of Jesus. It was a moving and emotional act.



The retreat was a lovely, three day weekend. I have been intending to share the photos of it here for a while, and today I finally found the time to do so.

Saturday...

Oh Yeah...Saturday...coffee....God's Word...lounging in my PJs....I love Saturday

And so the day begins...

Go Eat Popcorn

I'm here! I'm not missing. I am trying to reprioritize my time and so far I'm not being too successful at getting much on line time. So anyway...one of the things I am determined to begin doing again is having a consistent quiet time, time in the Word, each morning. So for the month of October (actually I started yesterday)I am going to "Go Eat Popcorn" in my devotional time.

This phrase was told to me many, many, years ago by the mother of someone I was dating. It was back when my life was crazy and out of control. I'll spare the details but suffice to say that this was not a healthy dating relationship in any way, shape, or form! Anyway...one morning, after I had spent the night at this man's home, doing drugs and partying, etc. I was getting ready to leave and his mother was there. She began to talk about the Lord. I wasn't a Christian at the time. I don't remember anything else about the conversation except that she told me I should get a bible and "Go Eat Popcorn," meaning I should read Galations(Go), Ephesians (Eat), and Philippians (Popcorn), one each day until I understood what they were saying.

I don't remember this man's name or the mother's name. I honestly don't remember much about that relationship that took placed during that drug induced haze. But I remember the "Go Eat Popcorn" phrase. So here I am twenty five or so years later...and I am going to "Go Eat Popcorn!"

Ephesians 2:1-5
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.