It's been too long!

Wow...I hate that I've let this go as I really valued the time I took on here to sort things out that God was doing and hear back from some of you. This has been a busy season with finishing up counseling hours, etc.... but mostly I've felt free and in this space in my walk with God where I've been purely experiencing Him more than writing about it. It seems like I've spent to much time in counseling and training and introspection...I think I sort of pushed away from needing that for awhile. By doing that, I don't want to communicate to my friends that I don't need them! I love connecting at a heart level with those of you who read this.

We had a snow day today and I actually had time to do Christmas cards and even make a blanket. You guys know I dont' make stuff, so this was huge! It was fun to let my creative side come out. I'm not doing much in the way of gifts for Christmas, but I spent about $100 at Joanne's Fabric's 50% off sale and have enough polar fleece to make "tie blankets" for my mom, ken and josh, my 2 neices and 4 nephews! Very fun! I even managed to make a couple of scarves with the scrap material.

We probably have 2 feet of snow on the ground or more and are expecting another 8-10 inches tomorrow. I just hope it stops snowing long enough for our plane to take off to FL on Tuesday! I can't wait to have a reprieve from the frozen tundra, as beautiful as it is.

My heart...I have never felt more fully alive. It's hard to explain. Things I used to struggle with are SO in the past. I don't even have to fight away the thoughts that used to plague me. It has taken awhile to get used to living in this new reality....unsure of it at first, but what freedom! The possibilities are endless! God is asking more of me and it doesn't feel like a burden, but a privilege. We've moved to a church about 30 minutes away, (www.portagechurch.org) and love it. God orchestrated this and called us to moved to a place with a lot of needy people and I am all in! I love what He is doing there so freely in people's lives. The boys love it and that makes my heart smile. Mark is there sometimes, but is happily trotting about the WI countryside doing what he does most days.



Bye for now....

summer not lazy

such a non-stop summer so far...mark has had one mission team after another in. Great stuff happening there, but many 12-14 hour days for him. i'm teaching summer school 3 mornings a week with 3 elementary-aged autistic/mentally handicapped boys. josh has been coming with and loving it....really enjoying the experience w/ him. ken has had baseball 2 mornings a week, football camp all of this next week, and a class at the middle school to help get adjusted to middle school life. july is millman birthday month, so we've been partying hard on the off-time...took ken to a brewer's game friday w/ one of his buddies and then josh, ken and i went up to osh kosh for "lifest" yesterday...probably too much in one weekend, but we made some good memories and worshipped GOD while we were at it.

Retreat

We had our CBA Women's Retreat on Friday and Saturday of this week. It was good to get away from the endless packing for a few hours and connect with God. I was especially struck by taking in Psalm 103...realizing that the love He has for us is higher than the heavens are from the earth. I laid on a bench and looked at the sky and tried to imagine how big that is...too much for me to take in. I'm still working on it....

newness

the newness of being free and not shackled feels so strange. freedom is a good thing, one would think. but it feels weird...kind of like it felt when i got my arm cast off when i was 7. SO nice to not itch anymore and have that smelly thing on, but my free arm had to catch up with the feeling of being a few pounds lighter and able to move. it had me feeling light-headed at first and not sure how to walk around in that new-found freedom. so, I keep pinching myself and realizing there are empty holes to fill in now...holes I used to fill with crappy, bad, not-good-for me or God-honoring thoughts. the tendency is to lean towards the familiar and go wade around in the muck again. i haven't felt the need to fight it until last week. it was a fight, but i didn't hang out in the swamp too long. i looked around me and thought, "this isn't who i am" and just left. sigh.

Lord, help me fill in the holes with good things...with You. i want more and more of You, because it's only you who truly satisfies. thanks for setting me free....now turn me loose to set my little part of the world on fire for you. it's all i've ever wanted.

Solitude?

A week alone...seems like the chance of a lifetime. Mark took the boys to Indiana for their Spring Break (mine was last week). I was looking forward to some down-time and won't say I haven't enjoyed it. But I do miss my guys in a huge way. I am very much missing Mark, which I see as a good thing. I rented a few movies that were duds, worked a lot, and slept a lot. I tried to do something for myself tonight by going down to Chicago to hear Sue Monk Kidd at Loyola University. I've been looking forward to the event for weeks. A friend at school, our school psychologist, was supposed to go down with me, but she had to back out at the last minute. I was sort of counting on her b/c she's driven in Chicago plenty of times, but I decided to be adventurous and head down there alone. I got half-way there and blew a head gasket on the van. By the time I got the van checked in at the dealer and rented a car, it was too late to make the SMK event in Chicago. Only slightly bummed, I drove back to Madison in the driving rain and rented Jetta. Sometimes things just don't work out!

Some exciting news...we're buying a house! We put an offer on a place in the neighborhood where the boys go to school...way below the listed price and they accepted right away. Yes, I believe we are in a buyer's market! If inspections, etc.... all go well, then we'll close on June 23rd. It was nice to find a place in our realistic price range (not what the bank wants to qualify us for) and see that we'll still have money to eat after paying our mortgage. The boys are excited and I am looking forward to calling a place our own and making it look/feel the way we want it to.

That's the update here....nothing deep or grueling to report. Just livin' the life up here....

Holiness

Well, nothing too deep to write about today (wow!). Life has been on a pretty even keel....sort of strange to find myself not bothered or troubled by much. I heard a good message at an evangelism conference we went to this weekend on holiness and it left me longing for the Holiness of God in my own life. I'm beginning to see glimpses of it! Here are a few:

• Driving back from the conference yesterday, I got behind a slow farmer on a long road with a pile of maneur in the trailer he was pulling. I slowed down, turned off my radio, and heard God speak to my heart, "I want you to slow down in life. Look around you. I made all this." I thoroughly enjoyed the 20 minutes I spent behind Farmer Joe, looking at the scenery that he likely takes in and enjoys every day.
• As we start to see glimpses of Spring, I find myself thanking God a lot lately for the newness of life He promises and delivers every day.
• When a client has a breakthrough or is doing especially well, I can tend to pat myself on the back from time to time, quietly owing it all to my natural ability and extensive training. This week, I had an especially good session with an older woman I've been working with. For the first time, she seemed hopeful for herself. After she left, I just sat still in my office and heard God say something like, "I am giving her hope. I may be using you for a small part of it, but I have been whispering to her heart for the entire two weeks since she saw you last." I felt a wave of humility sweep over me and asked, "God, why do you let me do this? I haven't done anything to deserve the awesome privilege of watching these things unfold in people's lives." "No, you really haven't. But let me work through you and amazing things will happen. I will give people hope." What a relief that He is constantly on the job. It takes so much unneeded pressure off my shoulders.
• The "big sky" effect here in the Mid-west has been amazing lately. So many colors....orange, pink, gold. It's a hint of the newness of Spring and I've found myself turning off the radio and just taking it in on my way to work each day.

The Holiness of God has a way of making itself known in countless ways!

Quiet My Heart

God is quieting my heart in so many ways right now. Going over some things w/ the new counselor is really clearing my head about an awful lot. Some things I just missed or didn't get to in my 14 other rounds of counseling...so glad I gave myself room and permission to do this for myself.

We were singing "I am free..." in church on Sunday and it had a very new ring to it. Some cool things/opportunities are coming up these days. The crisis pregnancy center where I volunteer asked me to pray about joining their speaker's bureau to promote the center and the post-abortion ministry in area churches. They're having a speaking/communicating training led by an area communications professor to help with skills for doing this. Very cool....scary, but I am so ready to push out of my comfort zone a little.

Bye for now...