bsmiles and sunny days

If I have learned anything this year, it's this: God doesn't owe us anything, and He doesn't do things our way. It's a sweet stiff shot of "Trust me". And I mean to say, a stiff shot; a dose of hard medicine prescribed to initiate total dependency on Christ. All of our marriage we have lived fast and tried to follow God's leading, as far as being where He wanted us to be and doing what we thought He wanted us to do. Contrary to what is advised in Scripture, I tend to trust in what I feel. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Our little adventure has never put me quite so at ease as the move to Missouri. I have always been excited about the next chapter no matter where it was, but when we moved here it was different. It was like we had found a place to land; I was content and at peace with our lives, really for the first time. Every other place was volatile and and unstable more often than not, I knew we had to be here for three years to f

You gotta give a little, take a little, and let your poor heart break a little; That's the story of, that's the glory of love. As long as there's the two of us, we've got the world and all it's charms, and when the world is through with us, we've got each others' arms; You've got to win a little, lose a little, and even have the blues a little; That's the story of, that's the glory of love.

Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it. GK Chesterton

Forty hours of vacation earned in nursing comes out to a week off with time to spare so I scheduled my first week off and made a flying trip back to Nebraska. Sandysendbigpresent moved into a new house a couple of years ago that I've never seen and has had two babies since the last time I saw her, so it was an overdue trip. We spent a chaotic first night in her house with a total of nine children under foot, including three two and under, three preschoolers, and three grade schoolers. At one point she said, "You know how something seems like a good idea when you are making plans for it and then you get into and you think, 'what was I thinking?'" Our usual late night conversation ended early after countless interruptions from children. Needless to say the patriarch of the house slept in the basement. Kennedy has wanted to cut her hair off for at least two years now. Dale promised her she could do it on her 12th (how would you write that out? twelfth?) birthda

Sweet Leila is one. And what would we do without her? This precious little screeching bundle off beautiful innocent naughtiness... She is a ray of sunshine. And not too sure about the open flame on her birthday cake! Jasmine's expression in this picture is enough to root my feet deep in the soil where I stand. I have everything this life can afford any one person. I have this chronic nagging that pulls and tears at my security and confidence as every day the phone doesn't ring. But really, who cares? What is there to be desired beyond these four walls? Is there really such a desperation in me for what the modern world deems security more than what God wills for our lives here, right now? Where is my faith in the Almighty? Why have I transplanted that precious well that was so abundant and full in Christ into my husband and myself and our ability to control things or not control things as is evidenced in our present situation? People say all the time, "It'll work out. J

It's the emotional swing from elation to devastation that wears me out. It's good news, it's no news, it's good news, it's no news. I wish we could just have a crystal ball so that we'd know what to do, which would eliminate faith altogether and then we'd be empty, but full of confidence. The journey... it's all about the journey. Sometimes I think about the days and wish them away to the next stage, then other times I think about the end stages and hope I don't wish away the years because I can attest to the fact that sometimes the golden years are more like the tarnished years. I know it sounds really sad and pessimistic, but I see people that spend every day of the end of their lives locked inside a strange place with no one that knows their secrets or their favorites or their middle name. I just want to cherish the days for what they are *a gift* and not wish them away. I have never gone without. I have never suffered a loss that disfigur