About six or seven years ago I found myself at a point in my life where I was either going to be alright with being single or I was going to focus on what it really meant to be a wife. To that end, I wrote down a list of the attributes that I would like to see in a husband. I gave my mother and father a copy, and they committed to pray. Here is the list:
A heart and mind to do the Will of God
Integrity
Provider
Leader
Loves Jesus and puts Him first and above all else
Is not ashamed of sharing the Gospel
Is in tune with how I feel
Can communicate
Adores me
Has his life basically together
A close and intimate relationship with Jesus
A presence
Supporter
Matthew 6:33-34
First Samuel 1:9-11
On December 3, 2002, God brought me to you. June 26, 2004, we were wed and what a blessed day that was! Lovie, you have exceeded my desires for a husband. I praise God for you every day. I some times feel that I don’t deserve you. When I am at my worst…you love me. When I seem to loose my way…you gently guide me back to reality. You lead our family under the covering of God. I just love the way that you love me. You are an answer to prayer… I sometimes find myself waiting impatiently for you to return home, just so that I can see you or hear your voice.
I love the way you are with Jax. I love even more the way he adores you. Sometimes, when you leave, he’ll get his diaper bag and tell me bye-bye and head for the door and point and say ‘daddy’. It’s hard for me to explain to a 16 month old that he can’t go with you and you’ll be back after his afternoon nap. I can’t wait to see you with Ashlyn.
I’m at a loss for words to properly articulate the way that you make me feel. It could just be the way that you love me…
The Engagement
The Wedding
Happy 4th Anniversary Lovie! I am so happy that God has brought me to you. You are perfect for me…I couldn’t ask for a better husband, partner, or friend. I love you more than my heart can hold…
As you well know, my birthday was June 20th. Another piece of information for you is that I am 32 weeks pregnant (for all you “month” people…I am in my eighth month). My husband surprised me by sending me to get a “Mother-to-Be” massage at Gould’s Day Spa. This was the BEST gift EVER! Here is a description:
Mother-To-Be Massage
During pregnancy, a woman’s body undergoes many changes, some of them stressful and uncomfortable. Massage is the perfect way to reduce stress and promote general well being. Available after the first trimester.
If your wife is pregnant, I HIGHLY recommend that you do this for her. Ask for Tracy…she is awesome.
I AM A HUGE FAN OF BIRTHDAYS…PRIMARILY MINE. So last year, when I heard from many women that they had a really hard time turning 30, I was determined to embrace it and celebrate anyhow. But I soon found out that my BIG 30th Birthday was just going to be another day. This realization was kind of hard for me. The difficult part was that with this being my “monumental 30th birthday”, all the people (primarily family) that I really wanted to celebrate with were 5.5 hours away. But anywho, that was last year…and I did have a good birthday. This year, however, is a different story.
To me, turning 30 finally validated me as being an adult…even though my mother constantly says/does things to remind me that I am still her ‘child’. I am married, have a kid and now I am 30…ADULTHOOD! Life has been great. But on June 19th I realized that on the 20 I will be 9 years closer to 40! I am not doing too well with getting older gracefully. Yeah, I am meeting a personal goal of mine to be pregnant with my last child at 30 (Lord willing, this is my last child…), but I’m 31. Oh yeah, and it didn’t help that the day before, my silly mom decided to call me and remind me that it was my last day to be 30. I quickly reminded her to enjoy the last two years of her 50’s! Also, my dad calling to inform me that he had OLD children…WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT? I digress…anywho
Besides my psychological turmoil, I had a WONDERFUL day. I got to “sleep in” (in quotes because my body is programed and the most I could stay in the bed was til 8am), had some personal time at the nail salon, ate lunch and saw a movie with my husband (by ourselves…no Jax!), and hung out with some GREAT friends! (Additional info about my bday gift from the hubby in another post…) All in all, it was a wonderful day.
What is the great spiritual implication that I have learned from this? Nothing really…just thought that I would update you on my fight with aging.
I consider myself to have pretty good knowledge of my faults and shortcomings. I know and embrace that I am a continuous work in progress. One of my biggest issues is my ability to walk away from people who hurt me…I used to be able to do this without blinking an eye or having one convicting thought. I was reminded of how far I have come during the Final Thoughts sermon two weeks ago. A little background…
It is often stated of me that I am a loyal friend. That statement is more appropriate now, than it did when I was younger. During my preteen and teenage years, I was more concerned with doing whatever it took to keep the few friends that I had. If that meant letting them run over me, use me, letting them think that I was something that I wasn’t, then so be it. I was a pushover. However, I wouldn’t have considered myself a people pleaser. I didn’t aim to please everyone, just my few friends that I called close.
As I grew older, I began to shed the need to please my friends and found the value of having one or two people that I shared authentic life with. These were people that knew me better than I thought my parents did. One friend in particular was my right hand. Where she was…I was. Where I was…she was. She knew things about me that no one else did. My family loved her…her family loved me. Inseparable! I could keep going, but you get the picture. Everything was bliss until one event, a deceiving associate, and some bitter words occurred. I won’t go into details. I cared less about the event. I cared even less about the deceiving associate. What hurt me the worst were the bitter words spoken. The words that were spoken misrepresented my father and family life…and they were told behind my back to people that really didn’t know me. When I confronted her, she didn’t deny it and she was actually blasé about it. That was it. I walked away from her and the friendship. I was already living in another state, so that made it a lot easier. However, what it did do was put me on a seven year path of destruction. A permanent wall went up. There was no climbing over it, walking around it, and you could forget about trying to break it down. Yeah, I would be your friend, but we got no deeper than superficial. And when someone tried to hurt me, I would politely explain to them where they were on my “Significance Level” by stating: If I walked away from a 14 year friendship, with no regrets, what makes you think that I won’t do the same with you? HORRIBLE! I know, but that was where my childish mentality was. The truth was, I did have regrets about the way the friendship ended. My pride was the wall that I had built. NO ONE was EVER going to hurt me again…not if I could help it. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. You had one time with me. But God gave me no rest until I made things right, on my part, with my friend. It wasn’t my place to make her apologize, God had to work in her life. I was commanded to apologize for my part.
It’s been about 7 years since amends has been made between the two of us and do you know that it is still a struggle for me to not write people off?!?! I don’t use the words ‘write people off’, I like “Redefining the nature of our association” a whole lot better…but I know that it is still wrong. God is working on me…pray for me!
I’m not feeling too well today. I went to sleep and I feel a little better. Thanks. Anywho, this song was in my head before I laid down, while I slept, and when I got up. Enjoy…
I sometimes find myself trying to do things within my own strength…and after failing miserably and when I am at my last, I find that the Father’s Strength is Perfect.
There are few things in this world that have occurred during my lifetime that have angered me to the point of tears. I am dumbfounded…not really knowing what to say in this post, but feel that I need to write something. So please forgive me if this post isn’t eloquent or even a well construction of ideas…in other words, forgive me as I ramble. My emotions are all over the place.
Back to my original thought. Yes, racism, genocide, famine, AIDS, mistreatment of human beings, The World Trade Center attacks, war…I think you get the point…all of these things have happened and are happening, and my heart breaks. But, what has brought me to my current state of bewilderment is a report I read on CNN.com entitled “Charity: Aid workers raping, abusing children” . It honestly took me the whole day to read the article. It angered me that much! I had to stop and start…it was just too much for my mind to try to comprehend. I’m still processing…
Dictionary.com defines Humanitarian as:
1.
having concern for or helping to improve the welfare and happiness of people.
2.
of or pertaining to ethical or theological humanitarianism.
3.
pertaining to the saving of human lives or to the alleviation of suffering: a humanitarian crisis.
–noun
4.
a person actively engaged in promoting human welfare and social reforms, as a philanthropist.
5. a person who professes ethical or theological humanitarianism.
I understand that there is evil in the world and that there are some things that I will never understand on this side of Heaven (that’s also working under the assumption that the Lord will reveal these things to me in Heaven), but how evil, sick, and/or perverted does one have to be to enter into a Humanitarian effort under the guise of helping people and end up abusing them? My husband even challenged me with the thought that some may have gone in with pure intentions and were led astray. I get that, but still…really?
To make matters worse, this is a bigger issue than is being reported. Why don’t more people know about this? They were too frightened to report the abuse, fearful that the abuser would come back to hurt them and that they would stop receiving aid from agencies, or even be punished by their family or community. “People don’t report it because they are worried that the agency will stop working here, and we need them,” a teenage boy in southern Sudan told Save the Children.
DID YOU READ THAT!?!?!? The abused children are so afraid that if they tell, then the workers will stop helping!
What does one do? I am just one person, with finite abilities. BUT GOD! I serve a God who can do exceedingly abundantly above all that I can ask or think! God I cry out to you for these precious children and their communities…
I need to stop now.
If you want to read the entire agencies report, go here.
For anyone who ever said that ‘pregnancy brain’ is just a myth…I am living proof. Before pregnancy, I considered myself a person who thought things out and made wise decisions. Since I’ve had Jaxon and am now 27 weeks pregnant with Ashlyn, I’ve been extremely absent minded and really not making the best decisions. One example is my “Shower Epiphany”. Then you have my last nights BEST DECISION EVER! I decided to have a sweet tea with my dinner. Not just a regular 8 oz. glass…NO, I had to have the Chick-fil-A LARGE with light ice. I had said beverage at 7 pm, and if you know me, I’m in bed by at least 10…are you tracking with me? If so, then you know where I am going. I used the bathroom three times before I went to bed. Not just the little trickle, but the “I’ve been holding this all day” kind. I then proceeded to go to the bathroom EVERY TWO HOURS during the night. I am exhausted! Pray for me…I have a lot to do today and accomplishing theses tasks will be difficult considering I can no longer rely on my decision-making abilities!
While watching the Grey’s Anatomy season finale (yes, I am a Grey’s fan…however, after seeing where they are going to be taking one of the ‘relationships’, I may not be watching next season. I digress, that is a post for another day)…I fell in love with a song by an artist that I thought was Amy Winehouse, but it clearly wasn’t. Her name is Adele and she hails from London. Rick and I listened to a few of her songs and liked what we heard. Judge for yourself. Here is the song that was played during the Grey’s finale:
I was reading my husbands latest blog entry, and realized that I had recently taken a picture of Jaxon that looked eerily similar to one of Rick’s. Judge for yourself…
Not to be outdone…here is a pic that is proof that Jaxon, at one point, looked just like me!
Yes, that is me with my beautiful mother, Karen Loritts. I don’t know how old I was, but as you can tell, I didn’t have much hair either! Our poor children!
