Happy Birthday, Halli Rae!!

Ten years ago....
... in Indiana, a dark haired, dark eyed little girl was born.

Was her mom and dad excited with this new life they held?
Did she squint, wiggle and squirm and have all those new baby sounds?
Was she a good sleeper?
Did she have colic?
Did she nurse well?

These things, as her gramma, I don't know.

I wasn't there.

In fact, I didn't get to know this angel until she was 7 turning 8.

Due to some choices her parents made, and decisions made by those in authority to protect children, she became a participant in our county foster care,  Just a few weeks after we loved her into our family she had her 8th birthday.

I was there for that.

I pondered what her little life of 7 years had withstood.

I watched as she tentatively watched us.

She smiled a lot. She was kind. She knew how to love and receive love.

I prayed then that her 8th year {and beyond} would be kinder to her than her first 7 had been.
I thanked God for allowing us to love her...even just a short while, until her home situation could improve and she could be in a better, safer place.

We were new to foster care at that time, and it's all I knew how to do. Love those that we came in contact with and pray for them.

Prayers get answered. {always}

Her 8th year was kinder to her. Her 9th year she was adopted into our family. Her home situation did improve and she is in a better, safer place.

Tomorrow we celebrate our grand daughter's 10 birthday!
We're having her favorite breakfast of sausage gravy and biscuits.
I'll listen to her stories, her giggles and laughter and all the sounds excited 10 year old girls make.

I'll be there for that.

I'll thank God for allowing us to love on her, and I'll pray that her 10th year will be all that God wants it to be....

and I'll be there...

watching, cheering and loving on this beautiful young lady as we continue to celebrate birthdays with her.

Happy Birthday Halli Rae!!

Like mother, like daughter...

Today in my newsfeed on Facebook was a link to a letter written by a gal to her mom.

I read that letter and it resonated within me in such a way I was just speechless.

I could have written that letter to my mom.

To read it was healing for me. I only wish my mom could've read it. It would have been healing for her too.

Grab a Kleenex....you can read the letter right here

My mom struggled the entire 65 years of her life with her weight. She never felt pretty, she never liked how she looked. She hated shopping for clothes.

My mom had wonderful willpower when it came to a diet. She was able to deny, deny, deny....just long enough to get to a weight she wanted to be. I remember her doing that for my wedding. She dieted for months to lose weight for my special day...

Isn't she beautiful??

 

My mom was beautiful. She was the life of the party and lit up rooms when she entered it. She had an energy that was contagious. People liked being with my mom.

 

But, she lived in a silent pain. She didn't love herself. She believed the lie that her significance, worth and beauty was based on her size. Believing that, she believed she had no significance, no worth and no beauty.

 

That is so far from truth. My mom was a wonderful mom. She loved her 5 children. She loved us a lot. Mom wasn't perfect...no mom is, but she loved us.

 

My mom died in 2001 from a resurgence of breast cancer that she had battled 10 years earlier.

I remember standing at her memorial, nodding my head in agreement to all those who would fondly tell me what mom meant to them. There was a recurring theme throughout that day....

 

....my mom was remembered for her love, her joy, her "lighting up the room" she was in.

 

Not. one. person. mentioned my mom's size.... not. one. Nor has anyone EVER in the 12 years she's been gone...

 

Now, I realize, no one in their right mind is going to talk about someone's size at their funeral...but what occurred to me that day was just what my mom was remembered for...what was right there blaring at me....her personality won....her personality was what people talked about, what people still talk about when I see her friends.

 

Fast forward to today....

 

I lived with that silent pain myself. My mom always told me I was going to be fat..."just like her"....and like my mom, I also believed to be fat meant to be worthless, ugly...horrible.

 

Mom wasn't being mean, in fact, just the opposite, my mom was trying to protect me from the pain she lived with all her life.

 

I've counted calories, denied myself, tried new fad diets....all in the attempts to reconciling how I felt with how I looked. I wanted to "feel" good about myself, and I too, believed the lie that I would "feel" good about myself when I was "thinner"...

 

 

But, I know better, now.

 

God taught me much in and through the death of my mom. I'm sad for my mom that she struggled so much with her weight. I am sad that so much of her time was spent worrying about her body size and how she could shrink it...time that would have been better spent seizing the life she had.

 

...and God showed me that much of my time, I was doing the same...

 

It was a wake up call...a wake up call for me to seize the precious moments I have. To live them fully and completely. To make the changes I wanted to make in the midst of living life to the fullest.

 

I still struggle, I still stumble and some days I just feel like giving in to the lies, believing that my worth, significance and beauty is bound up in the size of my waist....but God desires so much more than that for me, and I trust Him...and most of all, I know He loves me..

just. as. I. am...

I am His daughter and He loves me. I am His creation, and in me is His perfection.

What on earth could be more significant than that?

 

I am often told that I am "just like my mom"

 

I absolutely used to shutter when I heard that...

 

Now....I smile....

 

....and continue to "light up" the rooms I enter, bringing my mom's joy, love and laughter to those around me.

 

Thanks, mom!

Letting go of my baby...or so trying...

Well, today was yet another day of letting go of my little boy...well, ok, he's not so little, he's never really been little...coming into the world at a whopping 10 pounds makes him a big boy...but, in my heart, he's always been and most likely always will be my little one.

He turned 18 this past February....

He graduated this past weekend....

He sent in his application for a passport today for his year in Korea...starting in September...of this year....in just a few more months...

Yes, today was another day of letting go.

We as moms will all face this day...or in my case weeks..actually make that year...I've had opportunities all year to "let go" of this little {ok, big} guy. It started when I ordered his senior year textbooks for homeschool. It screeched "LET GO!!" when he turned 18, I cried when he left to get his senior pictures taken and I secretly listened to the pomp and circumstance so I didn't cry like a bumbling idiot at his graduation...well, that worked, but I didn't practice seeing him in his cap and gown...swallow hard, hold back the tears...you can cry later...which I did.

He's the baby of the family...I don't have to do this again.

I graduated 3 children before him. This one has been different...perhaps because I knew I had others yet at home to busy myself with, to absorb that fact that my nest was getting empty. I don't have that now.

I took all the advice of the many older moms as they told me to enjoy my days, to savor the moments because time is fleeting, time goes fast...yes, they spoke truth, and yes, I did enjoy my days and I did savor the moments, but I still have to let go...walk into a new "season" of my life.

But, I'm living in TODAY, and this is where I am TODAY! God has given me a wonderful journey with raising these children given to me 26 years ago...it's been an awesome journey that will continue. I will be on a different path so to speak, but on a journey still the same. God is already shaping my days and activities in a different way because of where I am. I'm a mom, I will always be a mom...and that... I don't ever have to let go of...ever.

I don't fight today. I live in it...

Whew!! Well, I've finally made it to this point...I'm not talking about having a "blog" of my own now, but just basically getting to this point of writing my very first post! Who would have thought that creating a simple blog {because everyone can do that} would cause as much utter frustration as it did me these past few days? Well, I'm telling you, I didn't think that. Jeepers with blogs popping up all over the place, and everyone seeming to have not just one, but several, I asked myself, "how hard could it be?" I'm fairly proficient with the computer, {I said fairly, and I realize that is pretty broad}, but this whole blog thing was a bit more than a "fairly proficient with the computer" project for me to to tackle! What have I learned as my "take away" today?

1. my boys have no idea why I'm not fixing them dinner tonight {sorry!}
2. that I'm eating any chocolate I can find...because I want a "cute" blog {how I deal with stress}
3. that I'm not the admin of 1 blog but 3 blogs!!! Ok, I have to admit, I have no idea how that happened and when I went to try to delete those other two blogs...well, it added another layer of frustration {wish I had more chocolate!!}
4. pinterest is so much more fun...{not to mention all those awesome chocolate recipes!}
5. I'm determinted though, to make this work for me {cuz, I'm all out of chocolate at this point}

So, that said, I'm glad I'm to this point. It will be nice to click "publish" and jump over to my blog page and see this post....my very first!

Then, I must get some dinner around...I guess it's still early enough in the evening that I can throw something together...but, I'm not that hungry {wonder why....} and I don't like to cook when I'm not hungry. ...or I could learn a bit more about this whole blogging world...try to find a cute banner, or buttons or whatever else I may need to make this blog cute-er...cuz, it needs to be cute-er than it is.

I hope you come back and see all my new additions as I learn about everything in this blogging world there is to learn...then I can get onto why I wanted to blog in the first place and that is to be an encouragment to you to live your life TODAY! That has become a mantra, so to speak, of mine this past year as I've been ushered into a new a season of change in my life {50 birthdays has a way of doing that} I look forward to sharing that with you in later posts...

I'd tell you to sign up for email threads or something like that, or to follow me, or whatever bloggers do, but I'm fairly {there's that broad word again} sure that my page isn't set up for you to do that...I don't think...

Thanks for stopping by....