A Series on Struggles: Holding on and Letting Go

I have a really hard time letting go of my past. I don't know why I can't just move on from things. They stick in my brain like boots stuck in thick, goopy mud. I could get the boots out if I pulled really hard, but then I'd have to carry them far, far away from the mud to sit them down. Every now and again, I succeed in pulling the boots out and feel victorious, but I never carry them far enough from the mud, and they always sink back down into the sticky abyss.

I've mentioned in a previous blog how I sometimes make up facts and then choose to believe them, or I let my imagination go a little crazy, and the stories that I invent become reality for a few moments. This also applies to "my past." I like to think I remember things accurately, but more often than not, I'll remember an event, and then remember the emotional reaction I had to that event, which is always coupled with the "story" I add to the event (of what could have happened to cause the event, of what I don't know that really happened, etc.). Because of this, past events are generally more potent than they should be in my brain. This causes the mud to be stickier. Goopier. Harder to break away from.

I've struggled with this my entire life (or at least as long as I can remember). Generally, the struggles revolve around whatever is most important to me. I constantly worry that whatever it is that I love (my husband, my family, my friends, my pup, my writing, my knitting, etc.) will somehow reject me. Now, I know that writing and knitting, things I have control over, can't reject me, but I can really, really suck at doing them, which in my brain is a form of rejection. I'm always second-guessing the love of others toward me. Because of that, I'm always second-guessing their intentions, their words, their actions. I want to hold on to the things I love SO tightly, because I'm scared they'll vanish.

So, I hold on to things I love and the things that cause me pain (past things, silly things, imaginary things, misunderstood things), yet, I need to let go of those things that cause me pain, and I need to, if not let go of, loosen my hold a bit on the things I love. You know that old saying: "If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were." (Richard Bach)

I need to learn to trust that the people I love, who love me back, aren't going to fly away if I let them go. I need to trust that I don't have to be perfect, that I don't have to apologize for every imagined slight, that I don't have to try so hard to make them love, because they already do.

By that same token, I need to learn to let go of things that don't need to be held on to. I need to rip my proverbial boots out of the mud and take them far, far, far away. Then I need to wash them, dry them, and wear them only on solid ground.

I think it's important to remember your past. I think it's important to know your limitations and the things that set you off, but it's just as important not to let those things have power over you. I want to be able to look at the things that make me feel bad, make me feel powerless, make me feel like I won't ever amount to anything, and walk away, because I want to know that those things aren't truths.

Tomorrow begins a new year. I want to begin that year walking away from the mud. I want to walk beside the people and things I love, and trust that, just because I'm not holding on to them as tightly as I can, when I turn to look, they'll all still be there.

A Series on Struggles: Vanity

I write a lot about my struggles, but generally it's in the context of something else. As a form of self-therapy, and as a way to really confront my demons in a setting where I can't lie to myself or hide from truths, I plan to write about them, one at a time, over the next few weeks.

First up: Vanity.

I can't speak for every little girl, but a lot of little girls dream of growing up to be princesses. I never dreamed of being a princess really, but I did dream of growing up and being beautiful and tough (the kind of girl who was no doubt stunning, but could also kick your butt if the need arose).

I distinctly remember, when I was very young, trying to imagine what my adult self would look like. Would I be tall and thin? Would I develop womanly curves? Would I have a face--big eyes, big lips, the perfect nose--that I thought the ideal woman should have? I worried that I would grow up with none of these features. I was really, really scared that I would grow up and not be beautiful.

That was at least twenty-years ago, but I still carry that baggage. I still look in the mirror, and some part of me hopes that the features that I so desperately wish I had would somehow have appeared. I think that if I eat the right things, exercise the right way, put on the right makeup (not too little, not too much), and wear the right clothes, then maybe this dream of "ideal beauty" will become a reality. Sometimes, if I don't look in the mirror too often, I even convince myself that something has shifted and it's become a reality.

But, always, I do look in the mirror, and I see all these things that I'm not happy with. (I want to say that the things I'm about to say are NOT so that people will try and compliment me. If I'm going to deal with these things, I'd prefer it if people didn't refer to them at all. But I think it's important for me, if I'm going to really deal with this, to be transparent, even when it's unpleasant.)

I don't like my profile. My nose often looks nonexistent and my chin slopes down to my neck so that it looks like I don't even have a chin. Straight on, my face is very round. Due to some nerve damage as a baby, my face is just uneven enough to be noticeable. I can't control the muscles on one side of the lower half of my face at all. When I smile, I'm all teeth, and my lips all but disappear. If I stand up really straight, and pull my belly button toward my spine (like I'm told to in yoga), I'm sometimes almost happy with my body, but the minute I see a photo where I'm not actively doing these things, I cringe. I'm not nearly as heavy as I once was, but I'm all squish. And even with the weight loss, my hips and shoulders are wider than I'd like, since I'm so short. Even my fingers are short and squishy, making it hard to wear pretty jewelry, because I don't want to draw attention to my hands. I have a very short torso, which I've been told by many people is an extremely undesirable feature, and my legs are round and short. Even my hair (now that I can see what my natural color is after years and years of dying it to make it better) is a color that I've been told is like "dirty dishwater." Some people aren't even sure what color it is, it's so bland. It isn't straight and it isn't curly. It isn't thick and it isn't thin. I'm pale in a way that looks a little bit sickly and showcases dark circles and red marks easily. Overall, the only part of my body I like is my feet...

I don't need anyone to tell me why any of these things aren't true, or don't matter. People have tried to tell me those things my whole life, and while I really, really appreciate the encouragement and love that people have poured out on me, what it really comes down to is what I believe. And I believe what I wrote about myself, even if I shouldn't.

All of this pain that I've put myself through for twenty plus years is because of how I view physical beauty. I wish I could be the kind of person who doesn't put that kind of thing on a pedestal, who didn't think that looking a certain was desirable or important, who didn't think about her appearance all the time, but right now, I am. I'm a vain person who wishes with all her heart that she could look different...could look better.

I'm writing this not so that anyone who might read it will tell me that I'm pretty. I have amazing family and friends who try to build me up in that regard almost on a daily basis, and I love them for how much they pour their love out on me and try to build me up. Rather, I'm writing this so that I can see, verbatim, just how vain I really am, and by seeing it, start reshaping the way that I think about the way that I look and the way that I want to look.

It's scary, because for as long as I can remember, I've wanted to be beautiful. Now, I want to want to not care about that. I want to not think about how I look when I laugh (which, right now, I don't like). I want to be able to stop worrying if I look fat by sitting a certain way, or holding my head a certain way, or wearing the "wrong" thing. I want to be comfortable in my own skin, and I think to do that, I have to let go of this desire to be beautiful.

I'll never be a different person. I'll never have a different face. I may have a slightly different body (through diet and exercise), but it'll still be the same basic structure. These are things I can't change. It's time to stop wishing that I could change them, and instead work on changing the way I think about beauty.

I'll never be beautiful in the way that I've wanted to be beautiful for my whole life, but maybe I can realign the way I think so that that doesn't matter so much anymore.

A Gentle Tongue is a Tree of Life

The older I get, the more I realize how little I really know about how things are supposed to work. Each year, I look back and see all the things I knew and how that knowledge was shattered and replaced with something that I was sure was false.

Recently, God has been working on my heart in a serious way. In recent months, He's pushed me in ways that, left to my own devices, I would have run the opposite direction from. Every day, with little things--a comment from a friend, a conversation with a stranger, reconnecting with someone in a small way--He is showing me how He wants me to live my life.

I used to think that God wanted me to be a big writer that wrote powerful, inspiring blogs, and someday books, for His glory. I thought, "This is why He's given me this passion to write. So that I can really do something with it." What I didn't realize at the time was, by thinking that, I was really only wanting to glorify myself. I want to publish a book or two and I want my name to be known, but now I think that that kind of stuff doesn't matter so much to God. Maybe He gave me this love of writing as a gift just for me...as a way to glorify him by creating stories and transferring ideas and drawing pictures with words, even if I'm the only one who ever reads it. Maybe He gave me the passion to write, simply because He knew I would like it.

I don't think God wants me to live to be a writer. I don't think He wants me to live in a certain city, or a certain type of house, or have a certain amount of money. But I do think he wants me to live my life, my whole entire life, intentionally loving people.

I've blogged a few times about what I think love is. I don't think it's an emotion we feel, but rather, how we treat people. We can not like someone and still love them...but we have to intentionally show that person our love, despite our feelings.

There have been two things that have happened lately that really made me think about this.

First...I'm a very emotional person. I'm also a person that lets my imagination run wild. Because of this, I often let an emotional cue in my life grow from a feeling, into a fictional tale that corresponds with said feeling, before it settles as some sort of twisted reality in my brain. 9.9 times out of 10, there is zero truth in this false reality that I've created. I know this, and yet, I let it live in me.

Recently, I've reconnected with an old friend. I won't go into the details of what happened, when, and why, but I will say that over time, having no contact with this person, I had created a false reality in my head that told me that this person would forever hate me. I believed this so much that I would get angry just thinking about it...but this was anything but true.

God often has a way of making us turn and face these falsehoods in our lives. I'm so thankful that, despite how uncomfortable I felt at first, and despite how scared I was, He pushed me so hard that I couldn't help but turn and face this fiction that I'd created and see through it to the true story that lay beneath it.

When I went to this person, fighting back this crazy, irrational thought that they hated me, I was met with warmth, gratitude, and peace. My fiction was anything but even close to truth.

I know, without a doubt in my heart, that God was the one who brought me to this place with this person. It's like He's holding my shoulders, facing me toward this situation, and saying, "See? Do you see what I have for you? Do you see what I have for all of you? I want you all to go out and love each other, no matter what. That's all."

I didn't want to go to this person. I didn't want to love this person, because I was sure I would be met with rejection and pain. But God kept pushing me. GO. And when I did, look at the gifts He had waiting. Peace, healing, and love.

The second thing isn't quite as pleasant, but it's just as important.

Anyone who knows me know that my husband is the most important person in my life. I would do anything for him. He's my best friend in the whole world. Together, he and I have been through a lot. Because of this, you might think that loving him would be as easy as breathing...and it is, unless we're having an argument.

When I say "loving him," I mean actively showing him that I love him. In an argument, if you feel mad, or sad, or hurt, it's hard to reach out and show someone else love. It takes a really strong person to do that...And even though Vince is the most important person in my life, it's often really difficult for me in an argument to tone down my anger, or my hurt, or my sadness, long enough to stop and think, "How can I show him love? Because in this argument, he's hurting to." More often than not, I think, "Why is he hurting me this way? Why can't he comfort me?"

It's always hardest to love someone else when all you can do is look at yourself. And when I'm hurt, or sad, or angry, or irritated, or anything but happy, my eyes immediately go inward. Me. Me. Me.

Near the end of most fights, Vince walks over (and I know he's still upset, because we haven't come to a conclusion yet), and puts his arms around me, and holds me. He lays down his negative emotions in order to show me that he still loves me. I'd like to say I instantly become repentant and show him love right back...but I don't always. Sometimes I stand there, stiff, unwilling to show him that I love him too, knowing it hurts him, but unwilling to lay down my selfishness to take that pain away.

Why is it that I'm so willing to reach out in love to someone I'm not very close to, yet so unwilling to lay down myself for the person I care for more than anyone on this planet? Perhaps it's because I know, at the end of the day, Vince is going to love me and I'm going to love him. But that doesn't make it OK for me to take time outs from my desire, my duty, my privilege to love him.

We're all going to get angry. We're all going to get our feelings hurt. We're all going to lash out in anger. What God is teaching me isn't that we aren't allowed to feel these ways, but rather, to be aware of the way our words and our actions affect others.

I want to be able to hold back the words that my emotions tells me to say when I know that they'll hurt someone. Even if I just have to bite my tongue until my emotional state calms enough to say something I won't regret. I want to be able to do what Vince does, and push aside what my negative emotions tell me to do, and instead reach out in love. I want to be able to reach out to a stranger and show them love just as easily as I reach out to my husband in an argument, because even if I know at the end of the day that he's going to love me forever, I want him to be shown my love, no matter what.

"A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseneess in it breaks the spirit." 

Proverbs 15:4

Emotional Epiphany

I often let my emotions dictate my actions and words. Excitement, joy, sadness, anger, contentment, whatever it is, I let what I'm feeling decide how I'm going to interact with the world. (Anyone who follows me on Twitter can follow my moods based on the kinds of things I post. My apologies.)

My husband tells me that being a person that is intensely in tune with my emotions is a good thing. Some days I agree--others, I beg to differ.

My whole life, I've thought that there was something wrong with me because of the intensity with which I felt things. I thought there was something broken in my brain--some synapse that fired incorrectly--that caused me to feel so much so often. Whether it was feeling like I was going to die, because a boy broke up with me, or feeling like nothing could ever be wrong again, because my cat had kittens and I was as happy as anyone could be--I felt too much to be a rational, sane human being. Often, these emotions only lasted short periods of time. If a boy broke up with, I was sure my heart would stop beating...and then a few days later, that seemed ridiculous. It was, after all, just a boy, and really, I didn't like him that much. If the kittens overflowed my heart with joy, I was sure nothing could be better. But then, someone I knew would get married, or have a baby, and suddenly that was the pinnacle of joy.

There's no apparent rhyme or reason to my emotional state a lot of the time. It goes up and down with force. As I said, I believed my brain didn't work like a human brain should.

Last night, my husband and I talked about all this. He told me that my ability to feel things so acutely was one of the things that drew him to me initially. (I countered with the fact that my emotional reactions often cause arguments, but I want to focus on the positive words he spoke into my life right now.) When he told me that, for the first time ever, I started to think that maybe I'm not defective...maybe the way that I feel doesn't make me crazy...maybe it's a gift, and maybe there's a purpose for it.

I've always believed that God creates each of us with individual talents, interests, and passions. I've always believed that each person I meet is unique and beautiful. But I've never applied those thoughts to me. Though I believed wholeheartedly that everyone was unique, special, and beautiful, subconsciously I've always thought, Except me. I'm not those things. I'm broken. Maybe I'm crazy, too. Then I'm blessed with this amazing man in my life who says, This thing that you see a defect is something beautiful to me. I love this thing and I love you for, and in spite of, it. 

It shook me.

Perhaps God made me the way I did so that I could experience his full range of beautiful, heart-shattering emotions, and in so doing, be able to empathize with others when they experience these things. Perhaps I this thing that I've seen as a downfall, a major flaw, has always been a blessing that bloomed very slowly. Perhaps this stockpile of emotional baggage that I've added to and carried my whole life is there so that I can draw from it and in some small way, help someone else deal with their emotional stuff.

I don't think I'm the only person who feels things intensely.

I don't think I feel more than everyone else.

I don't think that without me the people who talk to me couldn't get by.

But, I do know that I feel things, in the core of me, when the people I care about feel them.

I do know that when I feel something, I feel it as a real, tangible, physical thing.

And I know that, if I let God work in me, that He can use this as a tool for His glory, 

as a way for Him to love.

My God made me an emotional, empathetic woman, and He made my husband and logical, loving man. My husband's logic helped me to see that the way I am isn't wrong. I can't let my emotions control me, but I can be thankful for the ability to feel things so deeply, and hopefully to be able to use those emotions and the knowledge that comes with them to help someone else. 

I'm thankful for the ability to feel, even when it's hard. I'm thankful that I have such a kind, loving, rational husband, who helps me by encouraging me and not coddling me (despite what my emotion-driven-self demands of him). And I'm so very thankful for a God who loves me enough to make me who I am, and who loves you enough to make you who you are.

We're All Hungry for Something

If you read my last blog post, you know that lately, things for me haven't been great (emotionally). I've had a lot of down moments and down days, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was that was causing it. I should have been able to figure it out, but I'm stubborn. Often, I keep my eyes closed tight when I know I should open them wide, because I know that when I open them it might sting.

Tonight, Vince and I went to Lexington to attend 608--the church service held at Southland Christian Church for college-ish age people. The pastor, Jon Weece, talked about running from things and running to things. He then told us the story of a woman who was abused as a child, and ended up turning her life toward things that were harmful to her and to others--sex, drugs, alcohol, and self-injury. The story ended when after this woman had run from her past for years--from all that hurt she endured as a child and then allowed herself to endure as an adult--until she ran to someone that opened up their heart to her and loved her. This woman wasn't judged for the way she'd lived her life. The word sin was never used. Rather, this woman was described as someone who had been hurt, who was hurting herself and others, and who, in the end, was loved simply because she needed to be loved. That love healed her brokenness.

I'm not doing this story justice. We got to hear the woman, via video, tell her story from beginning to end, and it broke my heart. She talked about her drug and alcoholism, her prostitution and career in the porn industry, and about her broken childhood with a mother who introduced her to many of these things. This was a woman who was broken in so many ways, and who in the end was healed by the love and grace of Jesus. This story is miraculous. It's miraculous because Jesus' love, through people, helped this woman heal, but it's also miraculous, because, despite what I've seen from people for so, so long, the people in this story never made this woman seem like she was less. 

I've been to many different churches, and I've talked to people with varied beliefs--Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Baptists, Catholics, Jehovahs Witnesses, Methodists, Mormons, Muslims, Wiccans, you name. These different groups of people have vastly different views of God, religion, and the world, yet there's one common thing that ties most, if not all, of them together. The idea that what they believe is right.

What stood out as different to me about this particular service, about this particular story, was that I never got the impression that the people of this church thought of this woman as any less than them. I never got the impression that they saw themselves as being better than her. They weren't going out and loving her because she was lost--they went and loved her, because she needed to be loved. No questions asked. No holds barred. They just loved.

Pastor Weece told another story about a young boy, a second grader I thing, that was a pretty violent kid. Once, he took a swing at a teacher, and Jon had to pull him away. The boy bit him, and when Jon got his hand free, he pulled the boy into a gentle bear hug and took him to see the principal, holding him the whole time. As they walked, the boy fought against Jon, still full of anger. When Jon got him to the principal's office, she saw him, went back outside, and brought the boy a peach. He ate as if he hadn't eaten in weeks. Why did he act so violently? So angrily? Because he was hungry.

We're all hungry for something. The woman I talked about before, she was hungry--desperately hungry--for love, for a sense that she was important, that she belonged. The child was hungry for food, so hungry that all he could do was be angry. I'm hungry for things, things that I may not even realize I'm hungry for. I know that you're hungry for things too.

As I said in the beginning of this, emotionally, things have been rough for me lately. I've lashed out at my husband, at my family, and at my friends. I wasn't happy. If I'd opened my eyes up, I would have been able to see that it was because of how hungry I was. I've been starving for Jesus, and I didn't recognize those hunger pains for what they were. I've been hungry for God to move in my life, and what I didn't see was that I was also hungry to go out and live my life for God, and to share the love that He so freely gives me.

I'm not trying to idolize Pastor Weece, or Southland, or the 608 service we went to, but I do want to say that tonight's message opened my eyes and my heart in a way that I haven't experienced in a long, long time. The message made me realize that a little bit of love, the smallest thing, can set in motion a chain of events that might change someone's life. And if it doesn't, that little bit of love can at least make a person happy for a moment. The message made me want to go out and love.

Vince and I talked about the service after we left. We felt refreshed, renewed, and excited to go out and live our lives, and our marriage, for God. The entire service was centered around not who was right, who was wrong, and how we (the "right" ones) can correct the thinking/beliefs of the "wrong" ones, it was centered around the need the world has for servants--for people who go out and love others no matter what. In the story about the little boy, the principal and Jon loved him and gave him food, not because he was angry, but because he was hungry. In the story of the woman, she was shown love by the people at Southland not so that she would believe what they would have her believe, but because she was hurting and needed to be loved.

My heart broke tonight in a way that it hasn't in a long time. My heart broke for myself when I realized that I'd gone for so long not living my life loving and worshipping Jesus by loving others. My heart broke in a beautiful way when I realized that there are people that are living that way right now. My heart broke in a refreshing, exciting way when I realized that there are churches out there right now that are going and doing the things that make life beautiful--they're out there spreading the love of God. There was no political agenda, or church agenda, no secret, hidden reason for why the people of this church are doing this--it just is what it is, and what it is is beautiful.

Jon challenged us to go out this week and do for one person what we wished we could do for the world. To go out and show one person love. What a beautiful opportunity, and what a beautiful way to live, to go and give someone love, and to do so not in order to change the way they think, or the way they act, or the way they are, but simply go and love because we all need to be loved.

31..."The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches." 

-Matthew 13:31-32

Antithesis

A photo I took in October of 2011.
This was one of those days.

Every now and again, I'll have one of those days in which I can't shake a feeling of, for lack of a better word, badness. That's a terrible word to use there, but it's the first one that came to mind, and in a strange way, it fits.

A terrible word for a terrible feeling.

These days seem pretty random. Sometimes they're set off by something specific, but more often than not, I just feel bad...generally I feel bad in specific ways, and those different ways pile on top of each other until it's just a general feeling of badness (there's that word again).

On those days, I get random urges to tweet really melodramatic things. Sometimes, those things don't even pertain to the way I'm feeling. For example, yesterday I tweeted, "Perpetually looking over one's shoulder is no way to live." It sounded kind of sad, and kind of paranoid, so I tweeted it, because I was maybe feeling a little sad, and maybe a little paranoid too. I have no idea why. I get random urges to pour my little melodramatic heart and soul into my many social media outlets and to my close friends via text (if you're one of these close friends, and you've gotten one of these texts, you know how horribly annoying and pointless it can be). Lately, I've done a stellar job of fighting those urges (except for my paranoid-shoulder-tweet). This blog is my attempt at channeling all of that badness and turning it into something...not so bad.

If I let thoughts and emotions live in my head for too long, I get kind of crazy. My husband notices...I'm the least careful about holding it in around him. I'm very sad to say, he has to take the brunt of it...when I let things boil in my head, sometimes the steam burns the ones closest to me. Nine times out of ten, that's Vince. He has to deal with his burns, while trying to keep the pot (that's me) from boiling over, as well as trying to keep me from getting burned, too. Thinking about it that way makes me sad for him, and at the same time, makes me very, very grateful to have such a loving, compassionate, patient man.

I've had these spouts of badness since I was a kid. A part of me thinks it's just my lack of control over my emotions getting the better of me. That makes me want to learn to control it, and makes me feel like I've failed somehow by not being able to. Another part of me thinks I have some as-yet undiagnosed chemical imbalance and need to see a doctor or a therapist (that's the easiest option to "fix). And yet another part of me thinks that I have some deeply rooted issues in the depths of my brain that, every now and again, peek out to see if they can join the party, but they don't peek out long enough for me to see them in their entirety. Rather, I see them for only a moment, and rather than being able to deal with the issue, the root, as a whole, I focus on the effects or symptoms of that issue. Namely, comparing myself to what I see as incomparable beauty, the idea that I'm unlovable,  the idea that I'll never live up to an expectation that's always going to be unspoken, but in my head, will always be there.

The most likely scenario is that it's a lovely mix of all three of these things.

In a way, this blog is just my very long-winded way of melodramatically-tweeting-over-140-characters. In another way, it's my way of writing out these "major issues" that I think I have, so that I can see them in black and white. Seeing things in black and white always helps put things in perspective.

Some days are bad and some aren't. I suppose that's normal, but I'm tired of it being a toss of the dice for me. My goal is to bring the bad days into the light, so that they're eventually forced to become their antithesis. I'm not sure how I'm going to do that exactly, but I have a few ideas to try. I'm going to talk to my husband before all of the emotion I carry boils over and hurts him. I'm going to try positively redirecting the tangle of thoughts in my brain. I'm going to quit comparing my photos to photos of other people. And lastly, I'm going to try and limit my social-media-time, because as great as Facebook and Twitter can be, they're both always excellent venues to commit self-esteem suicide when left to my own devices.

A photo from a few days ago.
This was not one of those days.

I actually wrote this last night, and waited for a new day and a new frame of mind to decide if I wanted to post it or not.

Now that I've decided I will post it, I'd like to ask that no one take the time to tell me that I shouldn't compare myself to others, that there's no unspoken expectation of me, and that I am lovable. Rather, if you choose to comment, I'd love for you to share your struggles with me, too. Or maybe you could tell me something that helps you when you're having a bad day. I cherish the encouragement and love that the people in my life are always so willing to pour out on me, and I appreciate it more than any of you can ever know, but this time, I'd rather hear about you.

The Best Decision I Ever Made

Moments after we made
the best decision ever.

On July 4th, 2011, Vince Frantz got down on one knee in the middle of his mom's living room with a ring in his hand and said, "So, you know we're getting married, right?" It was perfect in all the ways that stories are perfect, and in all the ways that unique, true things are perfect. I felt my heart leap into my head in the most pleasant way. I said yes, and he hugged me, and we kissed, and it was like I was meant to stay right there, holding him while he held me, forever. And then...our sweet pup, Juno, pooped on the floor next to us (she was excited, too). So we both laughed and cleaned it up and loved on her for a while. Just like our relationship before we got engaged, and our relationship ever since, we don't do many things the conventional way, and that's what makes our story ours. We let life take us where it will, and when it does, we embrace it.

Engagement photo by Rob Reed.

Vince is my best friend. My whole life I've had different best friends. Girls, guys, older, younger--they've all come and gone, and while I'll love them each in different ways forever, none of them even begin to hold a candle to the friendship I have with Vince. He's honest with me and he helps me be honest with him, even when it's hard. He makes me talk about the things I'd rather bottle up, and because of that, I grow, and we grow together. Joining my life to his made me feel, for the very first time, truly whole.

My tattoo, with a bit added from
a song Vince wrote for me.

I fell in love with Vince long before I knew I'd fallen in love with him. But, I knew that I loved him from the first time we hung out. I loved how he laughed, and how he made me laugh. I loved that I could make him laugh! I loved hearing him play guitar and sing, and I loved singing with him. I loved drinking french-pressed, black coffee (OK, at the point I didn't love the black coffee, but it was the beginning of a loving relationship) and sitting up until four a.m. talking about our lives, our troubles, our pasts, and our futures. I loved him because of how natural I could be around him, and because of how natural he could be around me. I suppose saying I ever fell in love with him is misleading. I didn't fall. I walked into that love with both eyes wide open, I just didn't realize I'd walked all the way through that door until I heard it slam behind me, and I knew I could never go back. I knew I'd never want to go back. When I realized I was in love with him, when I was struck with that realization, and with how absolutely comfortable I was with that, I knew I was finally home. For the first time in my life, I could be me, and I could rest in that with someone who wanted me to be me.

Our first kiss as
husband and wife.

Before we got married, before we got engaged, before we told the world we were dating, I knew, deep in my heart, that I wanted to be with him forever. It was scary to think about, because it was so fast, so I didn't admit it out loud for a while, but I knew. There was something about his heart that pulled me to him like a magnet. He was and is the other half of me.

For a whole year now, Vince and I have been Mr. and Mrs. Frantz. We've had wonderful days that I'll never forget, and hard days that I've learned from and let go. We've learned an incredible amount as a couple, and as individuals. I'm so happy that I found him, that he found me, and that we get the opportunity to spend the rest of our lives together. I'm so excited to get to learn different ways of loving him as our lives go on, and to go out into the world and love others with him. Because the greatest, most wonderful, most beautiful aspect about my husband is his amazing heart, and his compassion for others that I know he gets from his love for Jesus and his desire to live as Jesus would have him live. I want to be the Mrs. Frantz that is equally yoked with her Mr. Frantz, and I think that, together, we have a great start.

July 4th, 2012

People always told me I should never settle, that I should marry my best friend. Those people were speaking a great and wonderful truth into my life, and I'm so, so glad that I listened.

On July 24th, 2011, twenty days after we decided to get married, I followed that wonderful advice. And now, after a year of marriage--of days filled with joy, laughter, tears, disagreements, and kisses--my love for my best friend has grown by leaps and bounds. Every day I realize something new about him, and about us, and my love for him deepens. My understanding of what love really is, what it really means, grows.

Vince, thank you for being my best friend, and for being my husband. Thank you for helping me stand when I beat myself to the ground. For loving me through my good days and my bad ones. Thank you for teaching me how to love you, and others, better. Thank you for teaching me how to have fun when I get too serious about unimportant things. Thank you for always wanting to spend time with me, to laugh with me, to hold me, and to talk with me. Thank you for all of your compromises, all of your loving words and gestures, and most of all, thank you for being such a true person, friend, and husband. Happy Anniversary! I love you, boon.

I Want to Be a Tree

16-year-old me.
I thought I was fat...

My whole life I've wanted nothing more than to be skinny. As a girl, and as an adult, being skinny was the ultimate accomplishment. The skinnier, the better, I thought.

After my 50 pound gain.
My expression is accurate.

I went away to college when I was 18, and about a year and a half later I stepped on a scale and realized I'd gained 50 pounds. I looked back at high school pictures and thought, "I didn't know that I looked like that when I looked like that!" 

Since then, over the last six or seven years, I've tried different tactics to lose weight. Weight Watchers, crash dieting, mild exercise, calorie counting...some worked, some didn't, but I would lose, then gain back. I wasn't ever happier, even after weight loss.

When Vince and I were dating, we got a dog. An energetic doberman named Juno. Energetic dobermans needs walks. The three of us started walked every day. We walked and walked. Pounds started melting off, but like any change in routine, eventually that plateaued too. I thought, as I had so many times in my life, I'll always be like this. I'll always be ugly.

Despite my less-than-toned physique, Vince asked me to marry him. We only gave ourselves two weeks to prepare for the wedding, but during those two weeks, we worked out, and we worked hard. In two weeks, your body doesn't change too much, but it was the thing that kickstarted my desire to be fit.

Vince and I talked about wanting to be in shape so that we could stick around with our kids for a long, long time. We wanted to be fit so that we could run and play with them, and do all the things younger people do. (He's been an athlete for a good portion of his life, so he started on his fitness journey with me at a much more advanced place.) I've never been athletic, or in shape. I've always been the reader, the writer, the doodler, the sitter, the couch-potatoe. Now, in my mid-to-late twenties, I've started becoming the one who is in shape.

A friend of mine wrote me today...she said that she was worried about me, because my focus seemed to be so dedicated to being thin. Her message woke something up inside of me. Do I still just want to be that skinny girl that I idolized my whole life? Or do I want to be in shape? And most of all, who am I doing this for? 

Being trim is still a goal of mine, but more than that, I just want to be healthy, and strong. I could lie and say that I'm doing this just for me, but I'm not. A part of me still thinks, If I can tighten up my arms, if I can shrink and harden my tummy, Vince will be more attracted to me. But it's a small part of me that thinks that, and it's shrinking every day. I want to be fit for me, and so that I can live a long, healthy life with Vince and our future children. 

I've started drinking more water. 

I don't like water all that much, but I feel so much better already!

I made myself a workout plan, so that I wasn't going at it willy nilly. 

Goals and directions help me focus.

I have a workout buddy! 

Melanie is such an encouragement!

I have family support. 

Vince, mom, dad, and my friends all push me to keep going.

I take Zumba classes, and I recently started Yoga! 

Regular structure keeps me going, too.

I've made myself become aware of what I eat, and I eat every 3-4 hours. 

Your body needs fuel! Fuel it with the right things!

It's never too late to start taking care of yourself. I'm lucky enough to have a huge support group that encourages me, pushes me, and supports me when I need it, and that loves me enough to challenge me to think about things in a new way, even when it's uncomfortable, so that I can grow. Like a tree, I want to sink my roots deep in soil that will nourish me and keep me growing for a long time. I want to stand tall and proud, and not hide the person that I am.

My first yoga photo. I'm a tree!
[Left to right: Kimmy, Justin, and the aforementioned Melanie!]

If you'd like to read more blogs of mine about health, fitness, weight gain & loss, diet, and exercise, click the tab above that says "I Want to Be a Tree" or click here! 

My Wonderful Deedee

When I was a baby, I would wake up before the sun rose every morning. When I was old enough to walk, I would go to my parents' bedroom, stare at my dad, and wait for him to wake up. I was always amazed that within a few moments his eyes would pop open and he would get up with me. I would sit with him in the bathroom while he brushed his teeth, shaved, and maybe put his contacts in, then we would go eat breakfast and watch cartoons. I never remember feeling like his getting up that early with me wasn't exactly what he already wanted to do. In retrospect, I understand that no one wants to get up at 4 am, but sometimes, you do anyway.

My daddy can be a quiet man, and he can also laugh as loudly as anyone I've ever known. He's brilliant (even though he'll never admit that he is, and if you tell him he is to his face, he'll shake his head at you) and he's humble. And for my whole life, up until the time that I met my husband, I compared every boy I met to him and they all fell short.

When I was five I wrote my first 'book.' It was called The Golden Pony. I think it was probably 4x5 inches big, and maybe 5 or 6 pages long. My dad helped me bind it together so that I could hold and read my book like a real book. Now, over twenty years later, I'm still writing books, and he's still helping me bind them together, but in new ways. He reads the stories I write, and shares them with his coworkers and friends. He sends me writing opportunities when he finds them. He pushes me to keep following my passion, and he follows it with me.

My wonderful daddy has always had my best interests at heart, even when I didn't realize it. I don't ever remember a time when he didn't offer his love to me unconditionally. Even if I'd done something to really make him mad, I never felt like he didn't love me.

Daddy (along with my momma) taught me how to love. He showed me that it was OK to feel sad, and it was OK to feel happy. He showed me that we should choose to love, that our main goal in this life should be to love. He taught me how to have empathy towards people, and toward animals. I learned from him that if you can take care of a person, or an animal, you should. He taught my heart how to reach out and open up, even when it's scary.

Dee and Zee

When I was in high school, and went through a break up, daddy didn't let me sit and stew in it. He took me on a date to the movies, and pulled me out of the funk that I was going to let myself sink into. When I was in college and went through a break up, he sat with me and let me cry, and then verbally reaffirmed all the positive things in my life that I was going to let myself forget. Whenever I've had friends 'dump' me, or I've gotten into arguments, my dad has always been a voice of reason, helping me see what was, and what wasn't, my fault. And whenever I finally started dating a really good guy, even when things were rough, dad said, "Don't give up on him, yet. He's a good one, Zee." Even when it was hard, and I wanted him to just sympathize with me, he pushed me to do what he thought was right...and with dad, he's right almost every single time.

I'm so thankful that my dad is the way he is so that I had the best possible person to model what a husband and father should be. I'm more and more thankful for my daddy every day, and though this blog doesn't even begin to express how much I love him, it's a start.

Happy Father's Day, Dee!

I love you more than words can say!!

My First Love

Every day I go through trials, I think we all do. Whether it's a thought that pops into my head and pesters me until I'm upset, or a decision (big or small) that I have to make, or just an emotion that makes me respond with less love than I should. Every single day these types of things happen.

Some days it's easy to breeze through, trials or no, and enjoy the day. Others, it's all I can do to pull myself through the mud and make it to the safety of my bed and sleep that night. Each day could be exactly the same, and each morning I could wake up and handle the same set of trials differently.

Lately, I've been asking myself a lot, Why are some days so easy, and some days so hard? I never think I have things figured out, I know that I'll always be changing my mind, and my ideas, and my conclusions, but this one...I feel like it's the one thing I can always be sure of.

The easy days, the days when I can have negative thoughts and just brush them away like dust on a tabletop, are the days when I've been reminded that there are greater things than myself. That love trumps any trial, any tribulation, any irritant I may face. I see that love from my husband, from my friends, from my parents, my brother...I see that love all around me, and on days when I'm aware of it, consciously thinking about it, it's easy to stride through the difficult patches and maintain a sense of calm, and even a sense of joy.

The hard days, the days when those negative thoughts and emotions eat away at me like acid, those are the days when I've forgotten to look past myself. When I've forgotten the awesome power of love.

As I said, I see love in my husband, family, and friends, but I know that they're not the source of this love. This isn't meant to diminish the roll they play. Without them, it would be much harder to see it, to feel it, but they aren't the source. The source of that love that saves me every single time I encounter it is Jesus.

I've been married almost a year, and it's very, very easy for me to get wrapped up in the love I have for my husband, and in the love he has for me. So wrapped up, in fact, that I tend to lose sight of the source of that love. Before Vince was in my life, Jesus was there, and He poured His love out on me from so many different sources.

I don't want to forget about my first love, but I often do. I want to live with the intention of sharing that love with everyone I encounter. I want to remember that He loved me first, because when I remember that, it makes the trials I face, if not easier all around, at least easier to handle emotionally and mentally. I want to have my first love on my mind and on my heart all the time, because intentionally holding Him close pushes me to intentionally love more--to love my husband more, my parents, my brother, my friends, people I meet at the coffee shop, at the grocery store, the guy who cuts me off in traffic, or the guy who calls and leaves nasty voicemails--holding Jesus close and intentionally thinking about what that means keeps me in the frame of mind of the person I want to be.

My first love, my Jesus, pushes me to love bigger. He pushes me to stretch what I think I know about the world, about people, and to see things differently. He pushes me to keep myself in check, and not to fall into the trap of thinking that, because I love Him, that I'm always right (on the contrary, this pushes me to see that because I love Him, and He loves me, it's OK to be wrong, and He'll help me when I am).

Before I was married, Jesus was my husband. Now, he's the glue that holds my marriage together and keeps it strong. Since I left home to go to college, Jesus has been my father and my mother when I couldn't be with my actual mom and dad. When I'm homesick, he's always right there with me. When I'm sad, Jesus is my joy. He shows me every time how to find joy in sadness, and how to find light in the dark. Always, Jesus is my hero, and always, Jesus is my first love.

Mental Malady: Another Confession

Sometimes I like to pretend that I can't control where my thoughts go...that my brain simply does what it does, and I'm nothing except a helpless bystander that's being carried away by the tide of my mental synapses. But that's not true. I let myself pretend this, because it's easier to say, It's my brain's fault, than it is to say, I don't have enough self control. I let my thoughts snag on something, whether I know it's true or not, and I let myself get carried away in it.


I'm all about public-blog-confession for myself, because it forces me to come to terms with things. I can come to terms with things all day in my head, but if it's just in my head, nine times out of ten those terms go out the window. Before anyone makes assumptions about where my thoughts go, let me clarify what I mean.

My thoughts stray, more often than is emotionally healthy, to a person from my husband's past. I've been married almost eleven months. In those eleven months, my husband has shown me over and over again how devoted he is to our marriage, how devoted he is to me, and how much he loves me. He's never done anything except pour out his love to me, and work ridiculously hard to help me learn to love myself. Now, I'm definitely on the path toward doing that [loving myself], and I think that perhaps this particular confession is one big step in that direction for me.

Not everyone knows the story of how Vince and I came to be, and not everyone needs to. I will say that it was a tumultuous beginning, one during which he was at the brink of a major life change--deciding whether or not to let go of an old life and start a new one, or try to make that old one work. Needless to say, he chose to let go and start a new life with me. [Neither of us handle change very well, so this was a huge decision for him, and for me.] Since he made that choice, he has been completely devoted to us.

I say all of that so that no one will think that anything I'm about to say is a result of something Vince (or anyone else) has done. Everything that follows is a product of my insecurity, and my inability to love myself for who I am.

As I said, Vince and I have been married for almost eleven months. Next month, I will happily have been Mrs. Frantz for a year. Marrying someone who I can truly call my best friend was always my dream, and now it's my reality. Yet, (and here's where I want to blame my brain) I can't let go of his past.

A few very close friends know all this...they're the only ones I felt safe enough to confide in with my fears and struggles. Because it was secret, it was easier for me to let it keep happening. Just like an alcoholic has an easier time feeding their addiction in secret, I allowed these thoughts and fears to live in my brain, because no one really knew how deep their roots were. If no one knew, if I could keep it a secret, then it wouldn't exist to anyone but me.

I've considered writing this blog a hundred times. I haven't, because I fear judgment. I fear people will say, If she's feeling that way, they shouldn't have gotten married. I even fear that people will say that I fall short in the comparisons I make. Even as I write this, and proofread, I'm scared of what people will think.

In my head, I compare myself to her, to Vince's ex, all the time. It's not healthy to compare yourself to anyone, but it's really unhealthy to compare yourself to your husband's ex. Many will say, If he wanted to be with her, he would be. He chose you, so be happy in that. Even though that's true--he did choose to be with me just like I chose to be with him--there's still a sense of competition in that. It was never a competition...it wasn't me against her, winner gets Vince. It was, instead, the collision of three lives, during which people got hurt, people learned, people got angry, people were glad, people had joy, and people were just people. The end result was a new path for all three of us, but there was never a competition.

And that's what I have to keep telling myself. I was never competing with her for Vince. I'm not competing with her now. Except...I am. In my head anyway. I know I shouldn't. I know there's nothing actually to compete with. I know that she's happy in her life (which makes me glad), and I know that he and I are happy in our lives (which also makes me glad), and I know that her life and ours are now separate. But, in my head, I still compete.

It makes me feel like I'm going crazy.

When I'm comparing myself, Vince can tell a difference in the way I behave. He doesn't know what I'm doing in my head, but he knows that I don't react the same, I don't behave the same...and I know that I don't show him how much I love him like I should, because I'm too wrapped up in the drama I'm creating in my head.

When I'm not comparing myself to her [or anyone else] things are so much smoother. I'm happier, which makes Vince noticeably happier. When I suffer [even when it's from a mental malady that's self inflicted] I see him suffer with me.

If not comparing myself to her, or anyone, makes me happy, and it makes him happy, 

then why don't I stop?

Our marriage isn't perfect, no marriage is perfect, but our life together, the story that we're writing, is my favorite story of all. I've added more than my share of plot points with conflict to it already, because of the lies that I allow to live in my brain. But now, I'm confessing this to you, whoever happens to read this blog, so that I can be held accountable.

It would be so much easier if I just ignored all this and said to myself, Your brain's gonna do what your brain's gonna do. Get used to it. You can handle it. But I know that's a lie, and there's no more room for lies in my head. So, here are some truths that I don't quite believe [not fully, not yet], but that I want to believe in my heart. I know them in my head, but I want to know them fully, without any doubt.

My husband loves me, because of who I am.

I have my own talents.

I'm beautiful in my way, and no one else's.

I'm smart and I'm funny.

I'm not her, I'm not anyone in the world but me, and that's wonderful.

And last, but definitely not least, 

God made me who I am. 

As with all growth, it's going to take time. I've spent over 20 years comparing myself to other girls. This comparison is the hardest of all only because it affects the person I love most in the world. But maybe that will help give me the strength to change my belief system about myself. Vince tells me all the time, You have to learn to love yourself, before you're gonna believe that I love you. To love myself, I have to quit thinking that I should be like anyone, but me.

(Thank you, Jasmine, for sharing the following verses with me! You're such a sweet, sweet person.)

Galatians 5:25-26

Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

The Swan

I've written many blogs about having a low self esteem. I've talked to many of you who are reading this about how I view my self, how I view my body, and who I compare myself to. And many of my friends encourage me away from these things...

But then there are those people who, without meaning to, push me toward those thoughts. People who say things about women, who demean women, who look at women as if they were nothing more than objects to be ogled, compared to modern beauty standards, and disregarded.

Look at that girl over there, she's so hot.

Man, that girl needs to lose some weight.

Look at what she's wearing. She really shouldn't be seen in public like that.

Phrases like these shaped the way I thought the world, how I thought men, viewed me. Do I look like that "hot" girl? Am I one of those girls that people point out and laugh? Am I thin enough? Do I have the right hair? The right clothes? How do I become the "hot" girl? 

In 2004 a reality television series aired called The Swan. I'm ashamed to say I watched this show from my dorm room. The premise was simple. "Ugly" women sent in videos and photos of themselves. Producers chose two women for each episode to come in and be sized up by a coach, a therapist, a trainer, a cosmetic surgeon, and a dentist. These professionals outlined plans for the women to transform them over a three month span from ugly ducklings to beautiful swans. The women had plastic surgeries, went on radical diets, had zoom bleaching and fake teeth implanted. After that, someone made their hair, makeup, and clothing look as "perfect" like as possible. At the end of each episode, one of the two women featured was voted off for not being beautiful enough, and at the end of the season, the winners from each episode went up against one another in a beauty pageant to determine who was the Swan.

The show was cancelled after season two. It was criticized for advocating 

unnecessary cosmetic surgery, as well as a beauty standard processed and packaged 

by the fashion industry. This show preyed on emotionally vulnerable women.

 Journalist Jennifer L. Pozner, in her book Realty Bites Back, referred to it as 

"the most sadistic reality series of the decade."

In today's society, women are made to feel like they have to look a very particular way in order to be beautiful, in order to be desirable, in order to be accepted. We're encouraged, not to be kind, or smart, or generous, but to be tan, with a certain size waist, a certain length of hair, and certain size boobs. Our worth is determined by these things. The question I feel the need to ask is, Why?

Why are women objectified regularly? And why is this seen as OK? 

I am proud to be a Christian, but in Christian circles, why is it okay to demean a woman by talking about her like she's an animal in the stockyard up for sale, but it's not okay to say another word for poop? 

Why should we be made to feel like we're less because we wear a size 8, or 12, instead of a size 2?

And why is it wrong for me, or any woman, to be insulted and hurt when a male friend is objectifying other women around them? Why is it wrong to speak up?

I know many, many beautiful people. Every single person in my life has beautiful, unique, wonderful qualities. But many of those beautiful people [like myself] can't see those wonderful qualities, because we're too blinded by the popular idea of what we should be, and we can't see all the great attributes of who we are.

I don't want anyone to think I'm arguing against being in shape. On the contrary, I think every person should strive to take care of themselves--mind, body, and spirit--but that doesn't mean not eating, that doesn't mean trying to make yourself someone else. Eat right. Exercise. Make good choices. All of these things only allow you to be the person that you are for a longer amount of time.






But I am arguing against girls being made to feel like they're less. I am arguing against girls being made to feel like they need to live up to the media-driven-myth of perfection.

The ladies on The Swan were given boob jobs, liposuction, tummy tucks, 

all sorts of fat and synthetic implants. Their teeth were whitened and replaced. 

Their hair was dyed, cut, curled, woven, and sprayed. 

The very shapes of their features--noses, eyes, chins, lips, ears--were altered 

to fit some bizarre modern conception of what beauty was. 

In all of that, these women became something else...something that, 

in the long run, only pushed more girls into the same vulnerable, hurt place 

that they were in before they went on that show. And, as someone 

who's struggled with my self image vs. the media's view of what my image should be, 

I can only imagine that after all those painful surgeries and procedures,

 they didn't feel any more comfortable in their own skin than they did before. 

That skin was changed, and was supposed to be better, but it wasn't real. 

It was a pre-packed shell that was only considered beautiful because media says so.

This is a topic that makes me very, very upset. It makes me angry, sad, and it hurts me in a way that's hard to put into words. Not to sound melodramatic, but I often think about all the times I cried, poking and prodding at my face, stomach, arms, and legs, wondering why I had to be made in a way that was imperfect, that wasn't beautiful...and then I think about the countless number of girls who I know do the same thing, and it hurts me that they can't see how beautiful they are. It hurts me that it's so hard for me to see how beautiful I am. And I don't just mean physically... 

It's up to us, to regular people, to change this. The media uses the female image to sell things [prize horses up for sale, pieces of meat], and they keep doing it because we keep buying it. We watch the shows where the women walk around in bikinis and talk like morons. We read the tabloids that show who's fat and who's anorexic, and we praise the ones who found that "beautiful" middle ground. 

We feed the media cash, and they feed us garbage in return. 

We eat the garbage, and we grow sick. 

What do we do when we're sick? 

We turn to the media for a quick fix, and the cycle continues.

We, men and women alike, should love ourselves for who we are. 

We, men and women alike, should respect each other, both genders. 

We, men and women alike, should fight the machine that tells us what's beautiful, 

and instead look at the person without any media-filter.

YOU are beautiful. YOU have talents, attributes, interests, and quirks that make you unique, that make you imperfectly perfect. YOU should let who you are shine bright. Don't try to hide behind a mask. Media is going to change what we consider beautiful time and time again.

Don't let the media make you feel like you're worth less.

Don't let it change you.

The Kitten Who Followed Us Home

Two nights ago, after the heat of the day had left a little, Vince and I took Juno for a walk. There's a neighborhood across the road from our apartment complex, and we often walk her around that loop because it's more interesting and well lit than our apartment loop. As we walked, we heard the distinct sound of a kitten crying. It's little mews cut through the warm night air, straight to my heart. (Anyone who knows me knows what a sucker I am for animals, kitties in particular, despite my allergy.)

Vince told me to go look for it if I wanted, so after about 3.5 seconds of deliberation I did. I used the flashlight app on my phone and searched the tall grass that lined the road. I walked until I couldn't hear the kitten anymore, and assumed it had heard me and quit crying because it was scared, but Vince told me it was back the other way. I looked, and looked, and then there he was. A little gray and white face, staring up into the light mewing his little heart out. I tentatively put my hand down, and he moved toward me, so I picked him up.

Vince and I talked about it, and after much back and forth on both our parts, we agreed that he would walk Juno home, and I would see if I could get the kitten to go back the way it came. I put him back in the tall grass and walked away. Immediately I heard those little mews and looked back. I'd walked almost completely across the road. His little head popped out of the grass, and he bounced its way across the road to where I was...where he promptly climbed up onto my tennis shoe and sat. He then stood, turned, and put his little paws on my leg.

I picked him up and started to cry. 

Vince and I are both allergic to cats, and we have Juno, who freaks out around other animals. I couldn't leave this kitten, who was so sweet, loving, and little alone in the dark by the road. I didn't know what to do.

I called Vince, and he said he would make up Juno's crate (which she hasn't used since Vince and I got married) for it, and we'd figure something out. Despite this, I put him back in the grass one more time, just in case it decided to go home, and walked a different way. Again, he popped out of the grass, and when I stopped he ran to me and sat on my shoe. I decided to walk home, and see what he would do. Of course, he followed me.

About halfway there, he started mewing again, so I picked him up and carried him home (despite my itchy arms and neck). Vince had Juno's crate lined with newspaper. We put him in there with tuna, water, a towel, and a homemade litter-box (a cardboard box and shredded newspaper). He ate a little, drank a little, and after being petted for a few minutes fell asleep.

At this point it's at least one in the morning. I posted pictures of the kitten all over the internet, hoping someone would want to adopt him. My friends Raina and Matt both saw him and started advertising for me, too. I went to sleep hoping I wouldn't get too attached to him, and hoping that we'd find a good home.

Luckily, we did. Well, Vince did. Sandie, my mother-in-law, had been talking about getting a cat for Vivian (our niece), and this one was just about the perfect age, and literally walked into our hands.

After a hasty breakfast, we made sure Juno had what she needed, made a travel box (complete with another towel, some nice, frayed yarn, and a ball with a bell in it) for the kitten, and drove over three hours to Sandie's house.

Vivian loved the kitten, and after we left, Sandie made a big box-house for him to stay in while he got used to his new home. Vivian named him Milo, and promised me she would take good, good care of her new kitten, who she loved very much.

Our plan for Monday had been: Wake up, eat breakfast, maybe go to Purdy's, rent a movie, work out. That drastically changed all because we made the small choice to help a helpless creature. Some might say it was just a cat, but it was a living, breathing, feeling thing that was asking for help. I believe, with all my heart, that we should all be willing to take those few extra steps to help where we can, whether it's a cat, a friend, a stranger, a pup...If we can, something in us tells us that we should. I'm so glad that Vince and I were able to help such a sweet kitten like Milo, and make Vivian happy in the process.

Salt of the Earth / Light of the World

On Wednesday, Dustin talked about The Beatitudes. I don't think he intended to, I think his aim was to share the verses that followed them. Regardless, he did share them, and hearing them spoke to something inside of me that yearns to be set free.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matt. 5:3-12)

Even as irregular as my church attendance has been over the course of my life, I'd heard these verses many, many times. When Dustin read them, and talked about them a little bit, I felt something in me--a set of preconceived notions that made it easy for me to live the way I've been living--start to crumble. 

I've called myself a follower of Christ since I was a child, since before I realized what it could possibly mean to follow in Christ's footsteps. At 27, I realize that I don't have it all figured out. I realize that I'll never have it all figured out. And I realize that, despite these two facts, I can still work hard toward living like Christ would have me live.

In each of the Beatitudes, the blessed are those people that are broken, or the people that seek out good. To me this says that the blessed are those that show awesome, crazy love; those that choose to love in exceptional ways by not retaliating, by showing mercy, by bringing peace; those that seek to improve the lives of others, rather than their own lives; those that are humble and selfless.

Dustin went on to talk about the following few verses (Matt. 5:13-16). These verses talk about how we are the salt of the earth. I've heard that for years, and never understood what it means, but Dustin's words shed some light it for me. A simplified version of what he said is, salt was a preservative. To be the salt of the earth is to preserve the earth. These verses also say that we are the light of the world. To be honest, I've always thought that we--people--were a little vain to think of ourselves as lights to the world, but I'd never before considered the fact that the light shining from within us isn't our own light, but God's light. That by living the life he calls us to live, and by living for Him, we're lights to the world. 

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." (Matt. 5:16)

How does all this tie together? To be lights of the world we must do what we can to preserve the world, to love it, to tend to it and take care of it. God put us here, not because he hated this place ("For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son..." John 3:16), but rather because He loved it and He loved us. We're here to take care of it, to take care of each other. We're to tend to our gardens, our plots of land, our animals, and more importantly, our neighbors, our families, our friends, and our enemies. Blessed are the peacemakers...the pure in heart...the merciful...those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. 

It's easy to live your life for yourself. I do it every single day. It's much, much harder to live your life for something greater. To live your life in a way that may not yield instant gratification. In a way that may cause yourself some hardship. But our goal shouldn't be instant gratification. Our goal, my goal, should be doing what my heart tells me is right. To love despite conflict. To reach out and take those extra steps, those extra miles, that will show someone else--friend and foe--love. As always, I believe with my whole heart that Love is the key to everything.