The Meaning of Life

I’m not sure where to begin. The front stage of my life has been about Angel, about being a mom and mourning a son and allowing redemption and healing to trickle slowly back into my life into a pool of faith. It had so much signifigance that it became my only perspective. Life seemed hard to keep up with on good days and all I heard was noise on the bad ones. I am mourning. But I am still me. I write. I look up recipes for homemade lemonade. I am writing a worship song with my husband. I get excited about pumpkin gelatti at Jerimiahs, pumpkin bagels, pumpkin bread, spiced pumpkin lattes. I will dive head first into planning a 5k for a brand new not for profit. I want to pray prayers that hold weight in my life. I want to have the expectation that God is moving. I will start painting again. I light too many candles and curl up on the couch with a good book often. I have been listening to Christmas music for the past 3 weeks already. I have the most amazing small group anyone anywhere could ever ask for. Everywhere I look my life has meaning, I have been too scared to hold onto anything because I was afraid I could lose it. And I still can. But the power of life lies in the embrace of it. That is the choice I am making today, and will continue to make. The power of life lies in the embrace of it.

Facebook…. you win

I have avoided Facebook all of my adult life. It seems like a blackhole where all time and space are frozen and you blink and your entire day has been devoured by it. And I have no idea how to use it. However, I need to be the administrator for the Conway Kids page. I was completely up for that. Now, somehow I have my own facebook page. Facebook, you were a worthy adversary. I now must admit defeat and spend my morning trying to figure out friend requests. Well played.

Riley at 5 weeks

Today I’m thankful for #7

God’s response. Sometimes it’s wait, sometimes it’s no and sometimes it’s blessings poured out. The hardest prayers that you pray are some of the sweetest answers you ever receive. Confirmation that you are doing your best to align your heart with Gods.

Today I’m thankful for #6

Biscotti. I was reading the latest issue of Real Simple and there’s a great recipe in it for cranberry pistachio biscotti and thinking how fun it would be to make everyone biscotti for Christmas. I am a biscotti expert. Actually far from it but there’s a great story to go with it. My friend Ashley invited me to a cookie class at one of those fancy “we can teach you how to cook anything that’s how good we are at it” places and I was soo excited because it involved 2 of my favorite things, Christmas and cookies. So we get there and there’s a lot of people and you get to make 1 cookie each and they hand you the recipe. Well the directions weren’t very clear and I didn’t have a ruler to measure 6 inches of cookie dough so I did my best and ended up with a massive cookie logish square that I put in the oven. I then turned around and saw a lovely woman making the same cookie recipe and hers looked completely different. In my head I decided she must know what 6 inches was and I also decided mine was wrong and terrible and pulled it out of the oven. I then went to find Ashley, who by the way is fantastic at making cookies. Also Italian. I explained to her that my cookies were terribly forever ruined and half baked and she started laughing. I did what any good friend would do in that situation. I told her that I was glad she thought it was so funny and promptly started crying. “You’re crying? There’s no crying in cookie class!” Turns out mine were actually excellent (the other lady burnt hers) and I will never ever live the crying in cookie class thing down. So I am thankful for biscotti today. And awesome friends that walk me to the back of the cooking class so I can wash all the cookie dough off my hands and stop crying. Easily one of my top ten favorite cooking experiences.

Today I’m thankful #5

Today I am thankful for stories. There’s a healing service at church tonight and I’m trying to put my thoughts together as to what I’m going to share. I have seen the best of the people I love throughout all of this. I have learned what I look like when I am in pieces and faith is the only thing holding me together. I have the story of my journey, how grief and faith are both an ongoing process.  Sometimes you just have to acknowledge the unfairness of everything and keep walking. And telling your story if for no other reason than God has given you a story to tell. I realized early on i wasn’t going to get through this without God and all of the people I love in my life. I had to learn how to surrender what little strength I had and lean on them.

I am thankful for the story God has given me.

Today I am thankful #4

Silliness.

You can cut tension with a knife. Or silliness. I am definetely thankful for the time in my day when I can forget all of the potentially stressful things on my plate and just be silly. Today I agreed to pastor the marriage ceremony of one of my friends at work if she can find a suitor by the weekend. This included a 3 minute marriage counseling session (how hard is marriage really?) and by skipping the communication chapter and the money chapter I think she’ll be happily married in no time.

I am very thankful for silliness today.

Today I am thankful #3

 My comforter.

My comforter is the source of much, well, comfort. It was all I wanted for a whole year and showed up under the tree one Christmas long ago. It’s red and orange and yellow and the only thing I have ever gotten from Anthropologie. I could live in that store. Well I don’t trust dry cleaners with it so I thought I would wash it myself. I filled the washing machine with Woolite and my plan was to dip my comforter in and then rinse it in the bathtub and hang it to dry. This was a good plan except for fact that after it gets wet my comforter weighs 300 lbs on a skinny day. It was literally the heaviest object I have ever tried to lift. So 30-40 minutes later it’s now in the bathtub and I’m exhausted. I squeeze as much titanium weight moisture from it as possible and in something resembling a circus act hang it up on the shower curtain rod. It is leaking water profusely all over the floor. So I did what anyone (except Martha Stewart, she would have handled it beautifully) would do. I got every bowl out of our kitchen and placed it underneath the comforter to catch all the water. I should have taken a picture. I also turned on every fan in the house and spent hours with my blowdryer pointed towards it on the coolest setting possible. This was after I had talked to my husband and he suggested if it didn’t dry quickly enough, mildew could start to grow on it. Two days later it was finally completely dry and smelled great. I think about that every time I curl up with that comforter. It was worth it. I’m thankful.

Today I am thankful for #2

Today I am thankful for family. I love mine and it reaches from my husband and all our relatives to the church at large. It’s the details of family that make me most thankful. The fact that whatever you’re facing right now, you’re facing it together. And how my mom will come over at lunch to check on our new puppy once she’s here. It’s little things like watching my dad and husband share a game of pool and conversation when they’ve both had hard weeks. I’m thankful for my family, for the love they pour out so freely, for the way they fight for you so fiercely.

Today I am thankful #1

So…. the tone of my blog lately has ventured from self- therapy to a sad song played on repeat. I am going to fix that. This blog will now be about counting my blessings. One day at a time. Today I am thankful for, 1. A cup of tea or coffee really early in the morning. I love the quietness of this time of day, my husband is still sleeping and I drink it out of a cup so big you have to use both your hands. It’s during this time that I read the bible or Door Sixteen (awesome site if you want to check it out) and just emotionally and physically stretch for the day that is ahead. I am thankful that sometimes the smallest and simplest pleasures can provide so much contentment. Today it is peppermint tea and toast with black cherry jelly.