Miscellaneous Monday…

while i’d love to tell you i’m ‘bringin’ it back’ (Miscellaneous Monday that is) i cannot promise that at the moment.
not that it’s a big deal either way.
but, when i think that i really want to blog and then a couple days turns into ten days and then two weeks and still i’ve not had the time to sit down and blog, i am disappointed.
with myself.
because, i’ve decided that is really why i blog.
for me.
readership is not where it’s at for me.
although i DO love the comments!! =)
making this blog a certain ‘style’ of blog will never be ‘me.’
nope.
when it all comes down to it, i blog for me.
a little tiny corner where i can speak without interruption, where i can put my thoughts down as they roll through my mind and where i can stow my pictures and memories.
so, doing this Miscellaneous Monday thing is an easy way for me to jot a few things down and post a few pictures when i really have other things that feel more pressing, but i really just want to take a minute to myself.
if your being here, reading my random thoughts brings a smile or blessing or anything positive to your day, then yay.
my blog is for you too.

carrying on….

it seems we are closing chapters and doing all these ‘one last time’ things.
Lord willing, we will be on our way West the first part of March.
it is certainly surreal.
a week ago, i closed the chapter on my health issues from this past year and shed a bucket of tears over all of the myriad of emotions that flooded my mind as we drove away from that health campus and hospital ‘one last time’.
my husband preached his last sermon a week ago also and there again, i shed tears as i heard him pray in that position ‘one last time’.
it is the strangest thing to be watching the years and life here all culminate in this way.

so many times i’ve said to myself, and occasionally to others, that if you would have told me all that this past year would hold, i do not think i would have believed you.
it’s made me think again and again that God can take some of the most unexpected things in our lives and make something new and so much more and so wildly beyond our imagination.
it’s this whole thing of redefining us as we go along in ways that are hard for our mortal minds to understand that really gets me.
i want to hope and believe that all of the bad AND all of the good can redefine me into something more effective and more powerful and more who He wants me to be.

i’ve been thinking about the things in this life that we take to the grave with us.
not to be morbid.
it’s just that sometimes i look at my/our lives and the lives of those around me and i know, i just know that there is always more to the story than meets the eye(s).
so, we can choose to carry these things with us for all of our lives here and keep the burden to ourselves, or we can take it to the Cross and bury it with His blood and redemption and let His justification win the war for us.
wherein lies true freedom and weightless-ness.
but, sometimes, i think that even after we’ve done all of these things that we need to, we still take things to the grave with us.
not burdens, but crosses we must bear.
and, that’s the difference.
when we carry it alone, it is a burden.
but, when we bury it with His blood and righteousness, even if that ‘thing’ is still with us, it is a cross we bear for the sake of Christ.
sometimes i have to remind myself of this in the middle of hard places and relationships and circumstances that i wish could be different.

so…crazy/rainbow looms anyone?!?!
ohmylands.
i stepped on my daughters the other day and broke it.
which was in one sense a tremendous relief and in another sense, a real shame.
i felt badly enough about it that i did replace it today.
i’m really, really sick of these things, but my daughter finds so amusement and entertainment out of it that i’m letting it run it’s course.

my kids Christmas outfits that didn’t get worn until the second week in January.
i decided to go a little un-traditional in their outfits this year, with the thinking that they could wear these for much more than just Christmas.
i was super glad i did that after we were sick and not able to go to church for 3 Sundays in a row.

we went to the opera a couple weeks ago, Tim and i.
it was a Christmas present from me to him.
this we did right on the heels of watching Phantom of The Opera.
which,i found to be movie filled with romantic and sad and full of beautiful examples of both selfish and unselfish love.

that’s all for now.
i’ll be back when time allows.
until then, it’s back to the boxes and organizing and closing chapters.

with love,
Rachel