Empty Places (A happy post, I promise!)

Tomorrow is my 10 year wedding anniversary, and this Sunday is Easter. These two days are so incredibly special to me, and this time of year always brings about a lot of reflection on where I've been in my life, and all that I still have ahead of me.

When I think back on my earliest thoughts and memories, all the way back to the ripe old age of 4 or 5 years old, I've always had my eye on some kind of goal. Some folks that I have known for a really long time will remember that during my middle school years, I was absolutely convinced that I would someday be President of the United States of America, and no one could convince me otherwise. Dream big, or go home...that's my motto. A few years later, I learned how slimy and corrupt politics can be, and decided that I'd rather keep my integrity intact, thank you very much.

At other times in my life I wanted to be a doctor, then a famous author, then a professional singer, a horse rancher, a civil rights lawyer, and the list goes on. But one thing remained constant...I wanted a family of my own.

To be a mother to a few (or a lot) of kids...

To have a home of my own...

To have one husband for the rest of my life.

My sweet hubby and awesome kids!

The best part is that I got it all, folks! My kids are the most awesome little people I know, and I'm blessed to be able to stay home with them full time. We live in a home that keeps us warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and we have everything that we need to thrive. We love and care for each other deeply, and support each other in every little hope and dream that floats in and out of our lives.

And it all sprouted from the most unexpected place...emptiness.

I know that sounds like a pretty dark turn for such a happy little post, but it's not. There was a time when the thought of emptiness seemed like such a desperate, hopeless thing, but I don't see it that way anymore.

Within the constantly evolving list of goals and dreams that I have had for myself, I don't think that I ever really considered that I just wasn't dreaming big enough. Over time, during my college years, it dawned on me that the fulfillment that I was looking for was not possible as long as that emptiness remained. I had to fill that spot, and I tried a lot of things. More goals, people, acts of service...nothing really worked, until I tried to put Jesus in that empty space.

All of a sudden, CLICK! Everything started to click. It didn't take long before I figured out that many of the hopes and dreams that I had for myself were dreams that He had placed within me, but here's the strangest thing. All of those dreams became secondary to becoming closer to Jesus. I was so enamored with all that I was learning about Him and His love for me and those around me that everything else paled in comparison. Up to that point, I had made a real mess of trying to do it all by myself, trying to play by my own rules, but once I gave the reigns over to Jesus, living under His protective and loving hand, He cleaned it all up. He filled up all of that empty space, and welcomed in a rush of God-given desires and dreams all at the same time.

Now my dreams had the fuel that they needed to take flight.

That's the power of First Love.

It was shortly after this remodel of my insides that things on the outside started to change. I met my husband, which was one of the first links in the chain of fulfilled hopes and dreams. Little did I know that while Jesus was working on my heart at my small college in Kentucky, he was also working on Adam's heart at his big university in Tennessee. And little did I know that God would lead Adam to my small college in Kentucky in the Fall of 2001, and that He was aligning our dreams before we ever knew that the other existed, and that He had bigger plans for our future marriage and family than we had ever dreamed.

And there is still so much more to come.

On our honeymoon in NYC! We had no idea what God had in store just 10 years down the road.

These are all reasons that it is next to impossible for me to separate these two very special days, Easter and our wedding anniversary. On Easter, we celebrate Jesus coming back to life after spending three days, dead, in a tomb so that we could have unhindered access to the grace and mercy of God, allowing us to spend all of eternity with Him. Believe it or not, He wants the very best for you, and, believe it or not, His love for us is the very best. My meeting and falling in love Adam would not have happened without Jesus. And had I not met and fallen in love with Adam, I would not be living in this house with these two awesome kids that I love spending my days with, knowing that the same Jesus who has led me into this beautiful life will lead them into their very own beautiful lives. Not perfect, and not always sunny, but always beautiful.

It all started with emptiness. First an empty tomb, and then an empty heart, waiting to be filled by the One who fills and fulfills. Emptiness does not have to be hopeless. It can be the opportunity for a fresh start, and new life.






 

For the sake of transparency...let's talk about feeling sad

I keep thinking that I should write a funny post since we have daily moments of hilarity in our home. My red-headed, too-wild-for-words son is a tremendous source of funny material, and that in combination with a spastic dog, a dry-humored husband, and a too-smart-for-her-own-good, sassy daughter give me an overflowing variety of topics to write about. We love to laugh in our house. Laughter is highly valued in our family, and I adore a good blog post that can make me belly-laugh to the point that everyone in the house wants to know what is so funny (because, of course, they want to laugh, too).

But lately, those posts just won't come out.

As a matter of fact, the reason that it has been so long since my last post is because I was holding out for a real knee-slapping post. A real zinger, you know?

But it won't come.

So for the sake of transparency, let's go with that...

Sometimes, I'm just sad.

Things make me sad. They cause me to grieve, to be dissatisfied with the way things are, to mourn things that are lost.

To be very, very clear, I am not depressed! Actually, I am generally a very happy, positive person. We are blessed beyond measure, and if my life on this earth ended tomorrow, I would feel confident that it was a very full life, indeed.

But, sometimes, I'm just sad, and there have been more of those moments in the past year than usual.

There are different kinds of sad.

Sometimes we get sad because we our feelings have been hurt. We were left out, left alone or ignored. It stings, but it seems that most of the time, there's a good explanation, and we can put on our big girl panties and move on.

Sometimes we're sad because one phase of life is ending, and another one is beginning. This can be so bittersweet. I get a little sad at the change of every season when I have to clear out the kids' closet and drawers to make room for the bigger clothes that they will wear in the upcoming season. It's an indication that they'll never be that small again, but also that, by the grace of God, I have kept them alive long enough to see another season.

Sometimes we are grieved for our friends, and sometimes for strangers. It's part of carrying one another's burdens, and is probably the least selfish kind of sadness. There have been so many very sad situations that I have watched sweet friends go through in the past year, and it can be easy to start getting lost inside of the grief of others, but it's also a great opportunity to get outside of one's self and do something for someone else.

And then sometimes we are deeply sad. The kind of sad that can go from grief to rage in a heartbeat. The kind that leaves us asking, "Why?" The kind that, no matter how badly we want to, we cannot talk ourselves out of feeling, and we struggle to mask from others. This kind of sad leaves our eyes puffy, our head aching, stomach churning, and desperate for either the life we had before the sadness, or for the life that is to come if we can just get ourselves together.

At some point in the last year, I have experienced all of these and more, and while I do not like it, I know that it is almost always a precursor to great moments of joy and breakthroughs. Not for everyone, and not all of the time, but speaking for myself, some of my greatest moments of grief and heartache have been followed up by some of the most joyful times of my life.

Lord knows that I am banking on that now.

I am praying for beauty from the ashes...

for at least temporary relief from back to back disappointment...

for curses to turn into blessings...

for redemption of every ugly and unfortunate thing that has happened.

The beauty of having lived through happy and sad times with and without Jesus in my life is that I can honestly say that they are both sweeter with Jesus, hands down. Sweeter because I know that I am not alone, and that this life is just a wink on the timeline of eternity. Before Jesus, there was no hope from the pit. This life was all that I could think about, so spending any amount of time in grief just seemed like such a waste, which drove me even further into grief. Seriously, if anyone ever got their hands on the hundreds of poems I wrote out of hopeless angst, I think that I would crawl under the table and never come out!

To walk through trouble and heartache with Jesus is like walking toward a light off in the distance. You know it's there. You can just see its glimmer up ahead, but to get there, you're going to trip over a few things. You might drop a four letter word or two when you stub your toe, and you're going to wonder if you're ever going to get there without falling in some hole that you can't even see...but you can still see the light. You know it's there, and you know that it will be so nice when you finally get there. That's where I am. Jesus promised, and He's brought me through some pretty dark places before, so I have no reason to think that He won't bring me through again.

He is up to something, and I'm going to just keep walking...