Stunningly Beautiful

I heard the sweetest compliment last night that far outshines casual, "You look nice" comments.

David was going home and sometimes I cannot get enough kissing him. It is as if he is the air I breathe, my source of happiness and strength, and my one perfect place in his world where magical moments are mine as long as our lips and souls are connected.

Saying good night is sometimes ... just one more kiss. One more moment of perfect.

I was telling him how handsome he is when he told me, "Tonight when we were having dinner you had a certain expression on your face. Twice I looked at you and you looked exactly as you did when you were 20 years old, stunningly beautiful."

I love that we knew each other in our youth ...

... and what we have now are magical moments.

I Am Not the Holy Spirit

I have been job hunting like crazy.

The daily wear of working at a rescue mission often leaves me utterly depleted. I run the meal ministry in a rescue mission located in 1 of the 10 most depressed areas in the United States. In addition, I am the most front line staff person at the mission because I feed the homeless and hungry, run a meal ministry with over 300 different volunteers/workers who walk through the doors every month and leads that it happens, serve an average of 7,400 meals per month, and am present for the shelter residents all day. Six days a week.

Crime in our city is escalating. Everywhere across town share the same theme ... things are getting worse.

I have lost track of how many people I have had arrested in my 1-1/2 years at the mission and recently I have been aware of more and more that walk through our doors who carry guns and most recently last week a street thug intoxicated, on cocaine with a knife in his pocket I had to ask to leave.

I am also the only staff member every evening when we open the doors and feed the public. Thank God for my wonderful assistant who is there two nights per week covering for me. We are both female.

Sometimes I thrive and love it, other times the needs overwhelm me.

I began Prayer Partners approximately eight months ago where volunteers come in to pray individually with anyone who needs it. It was just what the mission needed.

Last week I began Bible Stories for Kids, where we pull kids out of the parking lot waiting for a meal and bring them in prior to the meal ministry for child-focused lessons from the bible, an activity, and cookies & milk. The children who eat every day in the meal ministry believe they are going to church, extending to them age-appropriate lessons is the least we can do.

The weight of the needs are far bigger than me. Giving until I have nothing left of myself in a population where needs continue to grow bigger often leaves me at ... them or me.

Job hunting empowers me to feel as if I have options. Given a choice would I stay or go?

It is as if one foot is barely moving in front of the other most days and I often feel I am not the person for this position or this position is not the right one for my life.

In this overwhelming place a common theme is happening from workers, to shelter residents, to dinner guests to and to volunteers reinforcing the impact that I personally make there matters. That I do a great job.

It's like being a mom. There are days I feel successful and days I feel like an absolute failure. I apologize often to God for my rotten attitude, short patience and my desire to want to battle with many of them.

I continue to press on giving my best. I also continue to keep my eyes open. Where needs are great, a fresh, re-energized perspective in this position may be what it takes to accomplish what God wants done there in such a wear-n-tear position.

He can decide if it's a season or lifetime.

I am not certain I am the right one for the lifetime though.

I am also not the holy spirit.

Just a girl with God-given personality strengths and weaknesses. Open to be used and quick to fall on I am human.

"Looks Like a Celebrity!"

Brooke and I were walking into her doctors office when her physician said to me, "My gosh, you are so incredibly gorgeous!"

That's always nice to hear and I graciously thank her.

As we sit down in her office she asks Brooke, "Does that embarrass you to hear your mom is beautiful and looks like a celebrity?"

Brooke shakes her head and says, "No, I hear it everywhere we go."

Both of my girls are proud of me and they request I wear certain things to their special events or functions because they like that reaction. I am happy they are proud.

I never want my girls to feel less than. I see their expressions on their faces when boys their age and up notice me and not them. They realize it and one day ... when they come into their own as a woman with experience and confidence like a perfume they put off will be noticed across any room.

I just turned 45 years old and I confess it is still wonderful to hear and every year that passes I wonder when my best years will be behind me.

Perhaps it's not in the caring that removes any desperation of want that becomes a confident woman put together on a mission.

Clarity Becoming Crystal Clear

When you begin dating visions of a life you cannot even see or predict begin to form. Romantic fantasies of a perfect scenario created from our individual ideas of what it will look like are a blur at first.

Add in real life and the vision often becomes muddied. Add in love and the clarity becomes crystal clear.

Time and choices take those visions + all those little details = and blend into a journey of living color.

David and I have been together for 2 years and 3 months. Our journey has been unconventional to say the least, but what a journey of love and passion it has become.

Two hard-headed, alpha personalities who love each other desperately, stand our ground fiercely, learning to pick our battles carefully, forgive often and choose love. 

Our life together is being fine-tuned and I am excited that purchases are being made for our life together.

3 + 3

School is back in session, thank God! There is balance with structure.

Mariah turned 20 years old last week and it was odd the realization of life changes that happen so gradually that all of a sudden life is on a different path.

Moments in life feel like a vapor. My life has had several before's and after's:

   Single then married.

      New life with a baby, Mariah was born.

         Then divorced.

            Surprise! Brooke is here.

That 18 year span of being a single mom, raising babies,building a life and the millions of details wonderful and not-so-wonderful that included.

Those 18 years felt like 50, then life shifts again.

Mariah is no longer a teen, but a young woman living her life in a direction filled with the things she loves, Jeremy.

Brooke is a Sophomore embracing new freedoms and just celebrated six months dating Alex.

Mariah's birthday dinner included both my daughters significant's for 1st time. As a mom, I felt that shift, it was obvious and I was more than aware of that detail all evening.

It makes me smile and embrace the new season in life we are entering. Each of us with significant's, independence, new freedoms, and our family growing. After 18 years of it being 3.

I embrace these wonderful additions.

Indescribable

How do you describe love? [Stop and really think about that.]

It is like trying to describe God. A God we cannot even wrap our minds around.

We cannot wrap our minds around God, creation, the universe, billions of details on our earth, and the invisible realm. Lists can be made forever on this subject.

In all David's analytical thinking and logic that has served him well in his life, he is struggling to grasp and wrap his mind around the logic of love.

The foundation of the Bible is written because of love. Wow, look at those stories and people God chose to use!

The power of love defies boundaries we cannot even grasp.

I know David loves me, I have been an important priority in his life for over a couple of years. A shift happened to him a couple months ago, as if a veil has been removed from his eyes and he went from logically loving me to the indescribable kind of love that defies boundaries.

Sometimes I feel as if I am the air he breathes. He needs me for strength and fulfillment. He doesn't love me because he needs me, he needs me because he loves me. And, I him.

When the shift happened, I confess I thought he was talking himself into being who he thought I needed and that this temporary, complete adoration would fall back into normal life.

It wasn't temporary. I feel as if I have a new partner when I thought I already knew him and I am learning this man that I love who went from loving me, to everything-is-different-in-so-many-ways loving me. Girls, there is a difference!

It doesn't mean we live in a protected bubble in life with everything perfect, by any means at all. There is just a power wrapped around us that continues to grow.

I understand what he is trying to grasp, when he actually gets frustrated trying to communicate to me, but has a hard time because he cannot logically explain love. But, how do you say, "I know exactly what you are talking about, because the very way you have truly fallen in love with me, I have been in love with you."

I guess I just accept indescribable love like God, you simply cannot describe Him.

Thank you, God, for love that makes a difference. xo

Our Best Photos

We were driving down the road pouring over photos in my iPhone and every time I saw him smile I asked to see what photo he was looking at.

Each photo holds a memory.

      A special day ...

           ... a funny moment we could laugh at.

Sometimes he cringed or I did because we didn't like the photo of our self.

A photo is like an olfactory scent, it takes you back to a time and place.

Sometimes the memory was not a good place. In those moments some of my favorite photos of David and I have been captured ...

I have thousands of photos from the last couple of years and truly our journey has been unconventional.

From this girl whose mantra has been "love is a verb," I have experienced the power of true love in the midst of our biggest storms.

Love is not a feeling. It is a verb, an action word, a choice and when I have been the most unlovable and unlikable are the most raw moments when truly I have felt the strength, the endurance, the perseverance, the substance and the power of love.