HEART'S CRY

Today I had the opportunity to meet some very amazing people.  Everyday people.  Hardworking.  People who have not just survived but have thrived. I met a father today who struggled with learning until he learned about dyslexia and then finished his BS degree.  This very intelligent Dad and Mom raising their children to love the Lord, count their blessings, work hard and put family first.  They have not let labels, distances, struggles or illness to derail them. Amazing. Sitting at the table tonight with two cancer survivors.  I'm so blessed to be part of the Relay for Life this year.  So many people have or are fighting life threatening illnesses that try to steal not just their health but their spiritual, emotional, relational and mental life.  These two people at the table who have not just survived cancer but are living passionately and with purpose.  They could have plopped down on their couch and just let life pass by waiting for othe...

    Remembering that old poem hanging on my Mom's wall... Cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow for babies grow up I've learned to my sorrow so quiet down cobwebs and dust go to sleep-I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep. Michael and I 10/11 Football Year. My poem for Michael's Senior Year: Cleaning and scrubbing and meetings and committees can wait till next year for high school goes fast I've learned to my sorrow.   So quiet down emails, phone calls, classes and trainings .. I'm hanging out with my senior and seniors don't keep!!! Corney poem but that is just the way it is going to be for the next year or four.  It is hard for me to say no, not to anticipate problems and try to fix them and getting myself over-involved in what's around me when all my boys really need is my time to be available whenever they need. Day at the Lake! Michael and I on 4th of July!

I'm wondering today...can exhaustion build up in your body?? Do we on a daily basis build levee systems to prevent it from seeping out or busting through and then once it does it floods your system?   Does our own stress hormones that flood our system with fight or flight chemicals stay in our system until our guard has let down? I have to know the process.  People have told me to reduce stress to help weight loss, increase memory, energy and overall health.  Why?  How does it all connect?  Where's the emergency brake to stop the stress? Here are some of my attempts at understanding what stress does to my brain and my body.   This is one website that I found. http://www.youramazingbrain.org.uk/brainchanges/stressbrain.htm Our brain perceives a threat and it sends immediate nerve signals down to the adrenal glands.  "Once released, adrenaline increases the amount of sugar in your blood, increases your heart rate and...

http://daniellehelzer.blogspot.com/2011/06/is-there-value-in-blogging_26.html  I wanted to share with you this blog from someone that I follow.  She lays out some great points for the power of blogging and what  "real" writer is.  Hope you check it out!

This book by Sandra Dallas takes you on a journey with a young homesteader and her family.  I felt like I was climbing right into the story along with Matti, Luke and all of the neighbors.  Based on a journal from Hazel's (In Denver) Grandparents. I'm amazed, humbled and even chagrined at reading the challenges faced by those before us on the plains.   That we have any trees at all comes from the seeds and vision of those hardworking people before us.  Those who "when the going gets tough-the tough gets going!" Taking the time to remember and reflect on our history, our family's history and the history of our own communities is not just an exercise in sentimentality but connects us to the bigger picture.

Fragile.  A novel by Lisa Unger.   Again, not the kind of book that I would normally pick up to read but it turned out to be a fascinating one.  It will not be on my read again list but I really did enjoy it.  Mystery and the secrecy and cover up that only a small town can provide.  It was an interesting narrative on family and community and the pain of unresolved issues.

Wonder.  Start. I wonder. I wonder if my three boys know what a wonder they are.  Do they know how proud I am of the men they are becoming? I wonder at the strength, determination and fortitude of the men that were my baby boys.   I look at them in awe.  Like caterpillars morphing into butterflies. And yet...I still see babies and toddlers and middle schoolers... I wonder how I could ever love anyone more then them. I wonder at the gift of family.  How God places two people together and multiplies exponentially His gifts. I wonder at the sunrise, at trees and at my dog!  How he knows me.  How he cheers the boys, plays with David and loves on me. I wonder about wonder.  Have I lost my sense of wonder?  Did I take it for granted?  The passion for discovery?  Stop. http://thegypsymama.com/category/five-minute-friday/

My celebrating the Big Picture of life is captured in the tree that I saw yesterday during my drive through the SandHills of Nebraska.   Represents strength, adaptability, strength, life, continuity, longevity and hope. This tree sits in the middle of the windswept sandhills where rain is either feast or famine.  Stands through the cold and icy winters and the hot and arid summers.   Birds find their haven in this shelter.  Cows stand in its shade.   Bent, cracked, stressed and neglected and yet it thrives.   It is. It stays. It doesn't wish for a better pasture or conditions or what it could do to get it.  This tree has used what it has and made it beautiful and function. http://www.undercovermother.net/

I read somewhere that the masks we wear keeps the fragmented pieces of our mind together and that we have to carefully and intentionally do the work of unmasking our soul. The masks keep us from having to see the reality of us.  They cover and camouflage our true desires, wants, needs and hurts.   In fact, Melody Beattie states that, "Denial is the shock absorber for the soul."  Denying our own shortcomings, addictions and feelings as well as denying our wants, desires, goals and needs.   This can be good for us to not have these direct shocks to our system constantly.  BUT we cannot stay in this protected hidden place.  We have to get it out in the open. The way we were designed. Our life needs to be lived according to the following:  Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. Matthew 5:35

Protects Guards Seeks Holds Helps Teaches Loves Security Safety Restful and Peaceful Trustworthy Steadfast Loyal Intimate Authentic Real Hero Mirror to reflect who I am. A rock to stand on. A hand to hold. A shoulder to cry on. A mind to pick! A heart to tie to. My Father who is in Heaven. Who looks for me and calls out to me. Who remembers. Who never abandons or rejects or leaves or fails. Who loves without Strings. Who is devoted to me. Who takes all the time in the world with me. Our perfect and always Father. The only perfect father. The only total provider.  The only one to fill my heart completely.

Really?  Honest to God? What does that even look like? I'm not truly honest to myself, to God or to anyone else for that matter.   In fact if I were truly honest then I would have to confess to you how much I lie.   I lie to myself about who I really am.    I dress up my heart, soul and mind so I don't have to look at the truth that underlies the coverings and the masks and the layers.  Excuses, justifications, minimizations, defensiveness, martyr syndrome, people pleasing self-righteousness and fear are just a few of the layers that I've used to cover up reality.  My reality.  Not the reality I want or the reality that feels good right now.  The reality of my heart laid bare.  Naked.  Uncovered.  Unprotected.  Real.  The reality of my heart sliced by the sword of truth to divide reality from my own spin and make believe. Separate the real from the dress up.   Pretend from the authe...

Tomorrow-our family celebrates you!  Who would have thought that the hippie with the tail who had hardly ever held a baby would be such a good Dad?  I did! "Honey-We Are Pregnant!" The first time I said that was at the little ND clinic.  You turned colors and was full of questions for 9 months.  You went from shock to excitement.  From, "How did that happen?"  As if you didn't know how babies are made.  To:  "Can I be a Dad?  What do I do?  How do I do it?  Will he know I love him?"  You were behind the desk at the Firestone in Valentine when I shared the news and you woo hooed so loud that you scared the book keeper.  By then you knew how this happened so you went right into the celebration of getting to bring another baby home. It was part of April Fools the 3rd time as we called our parents in the morning to play the annual, "We are pregnant" joke ...to the Dr. confirming that news at the end of the day.  I lov...

"Where the River Ends" by Charles Martin left me feeling like I was hooked behind the canoe and feeling the wake behind them.  Abigail Grace Coleman and Doss Michaels meet, fall in love and face scores of challenges on their 15 year journey of marriage until the end of the river.  Story about life, cancer, death and the journey. "We all live, we all die-there is no get-out-of-jail-free card, but it's the part in between that matters.  To love well...that's something else.  It's a choosing-something done again and again and again." (Martin p 27) "The river can be a magical place...No  matter how you hurry or how hard and fast you pull the paddle, the river controls the tempo.  She stretches every minute and steals back every lost second.  Rivers do this naturally.  They don't give two cents about the destination, only the journey.  It's why they're crooked.  Name one straight river and I'll show you a man made canal.  People make ...

Five Minute Friday..... A place. A feeling.  An opportunity. Inspiration. Rest. Restoration. Healing. Vision. Dreams. Hope. Safety. My Home.  My husband and anchor. My Home.  My boys and their laughter. My Home.  Garden and pets. My Home.  My books and my guests. Home is something that I sink in to and pull from. Home connects me and frees me. Home stabilizes and excites me. Home with four walls and home with the wind.

I'm taking a stand and saying it loud.   I'm taking this title, taking it out of the mud, cleaning it up and putting it back on shelf.  It's stamped on my heart and I wear it with more pride and honor then a gem covered crown.   Real Mama's boys are strong, brave and risk takers.  When my boys were little and they would come to me in pride over an accomplishment-I was their biggest fan.   I fawned over those big muscles whenever they would show me.   I never tired of listening to my boys telling me stories and their dreams.  No doubt ever came from me!  "Wow that will be so cool.  I can see you flying to the moon.  Running the biggest ranch.  Flying helicopters.  Designing space crafts. Being an anesthetist." I played dumb (until it wasn't playing) when they would tell me how things worked.  And I intentionally GAVE them lots of opportunities to teach me.  "I can't figure out how this works....

Little boys are made of snips, snails and puppy dog tails!  Little boys are rambuncous and sweet.  Curious and explorative.  Affectionate and tough.  Little boys love to take risks and tackle the challenging. I love all of our church kids and love when they sit by me at church and at times wish that I could go back and take my little boys' adventures in church more lightly.  At that time we were there to "lead the church and we were supposed to have it all together with little boys all sitting in a row" and NOT FIGHT! But back to the little boy this morning.  Moths have been a plague this year and when we open the door to church we have to duck so when Jackson came to sit down today he was very excited to see the bugs and naturally wanted to go and get them.  I got him a fly swatter for just in case they came our way and he was more then ready.  During one song I looked down and saw him under the altar bench on his tummy with his hands on his fa...

"Losing the Moon" by Patti Callahan Henry was a thought provoking book in an odd way and a quick read.   Amy Reynolds was happily married with two teenage children and enviable life until her son invited her to meet his girlfriend and her parents then she came head on with her past. I usually avoid romance book but this was different.   All marriages go through rocky times with two individuals striving to become one.  Whenever we begin relying on someone else to meet all of our needs-we set ourselves up for a fall.    When we become so busy and stuff our emotional and relational needs at all cost--sometimes that cost is beyond measure.  At times a long lost love of what could be or a warped view of what was.  Patti Callahan Henry brings all of this about Amy to the surface and she didn't perfectly deal with it. Honestly, I don't know how anyone can make in this world without God and especially through difficult times of healing and r...

I'm ashamed.  As I sat at the table with the boys going through a Bible that belonged to Aunt Marjorie they said, "I don't know her.  Who is she?"    I must have scared them with the force of my, "What?  Not know about Aunt Marjorie..." because they listened carefully as I went on and on.  My Aunt Marjorie shared my love of horses and the Bible.   Her Bible wasn't a relic nor was she holier then thou. Aunt Marjorie who had Dennis come to her place in Faith and taught him all he knows about horses and I loved hearing the countless stories that we heard from them.  My Dad adored her. Being the oldest I had the opportunity to ride with her once down by Shelane and Jeff's place near the Apple Orchard overlooking the Belle Fourche River.  I was young and fearless and she...was old and fearless.  No one was as good of a horse woman as she.  She gave Mom, Jimmie the horse.  He was my 4-H rodeo horse and could run like th...

The moment when I first knew...really knew... was when he asked me to come with him in the pick up and go to Hereford and get a pop.  I couldn't believe it.  This was big.  I'll never forget walking through the creaky old door and in to the Hereford Store.  I can see it like it was yesterday.  An old wood counter that filled two sides of the room.  On part of the counter were rows of antique mail boxes and an old cash register sat on the other.  Lois's  kitchen door behind it.  The excitement though was in the corner where the pop cooler stood.  The kind where you opened the top and pulled out a glass bottle and opened it on the side of it. On the way home he told me that he was celebrating because this was our day.  The day I became part of his family.   I loved being his helper whether driving so he could throw bales, moving cows, holding the light for operations, handing tools and even had my own REAL tool box that...

Just finished "Tall Grass" by Sandra Dallas this morning.  This book is not what I expected!  Sandra Davis wrote the Persian Pickle Club that I had just finished, so I thought that Tallgrass would be similar.  And it was and yet so different.  This riveting book looked square in the face the rounding up of Japanese Americans during World War II.   Interwoven with small town America life at that time and told through the voice of 13 year old Rennie. Reading the cultural changes happening during the time period in a story that combined both historical and fiction. A wonderful read for the summer!!! http://www.amazon.com/Tallgrass-Sandra-Dallas/dp/0312360193

This is twice now that I've read this book from Jeannette Walls.  A fun story about Jeannette's family in an honest and straightforward way without apology or excuse.   I love this book!!!  She validates my viewpoint of similarities between people and horses.  My time growing up with the horses taught me so much about the kids that I am around today.  The primal fear of the horse is so similar to the fear the half broke horses that I am around. "The problem with half-broke horses like these, was that no one took the time to train them."(p.49)  She was explaining to her daughter this simple truth.  Broke but not trained.  So much could be said about this.  They were usable. My husband asks, "What if half broke is who they are?  What if they are just fine that way?"  I told him to read the book. I was also thrilled with her teaching philosophy and how it relates to the Strength Based push of today.  She said, "I never m...

So life was good.  I had grown up, went to college, married and had my three boys.   Growing up in a family with a mom and a dad and five sisters and a brother.  What more did one need in life?   Him.  I still wanted and needed him.  He was still in my heart and on my mind.   His name ran through my mind and was spoken on those special days...birthdays, graduation, marriage, babies etc.  I carried him in my heart. How could you be part of something or feel part of somebody that you had never met-I would ask myself.   Did he even know I existed?   Had he thought about me?   Was he still around?   Did he want me?  Where was he?   What was he doing?  Who was he?  Why?   How did it all happen?   Was there someone else?   Would I belong with him? I always knew about him.  On my special adoption day-I would ask.  I knew his name....

Becoming is a word about process.  Becoming this or that.  Becoming controlling or anxious or fearful or uptight is a process.  It didn't happen overnight so the process of not being these things will be a process as well so this is my new word.   The Art of Unbecoming.  Becoming different the same way that I became this way. Control.  A figment of our imagination that keeps us from letting go.  This is not the abusive control that I am talking about where someone uses power and control to trap someone.  Nevertheless it is control.  It is taking responsibility for everyone else but us.  It is fixing, rescuing, caretaking, planning, working, worrying, obsessing and taking on too much.   For many of us it comes from a time in our lives when we were out of control or in a place where someone was taking our control away from us through abuse or neglect.  Life was chaotic and a fearful place to be so to deal with it we ...

My friend April told me about Garth Stein's novel about an old dog Enzo and a young family on their race called life.  Combining intuition, humility and vision through the eyes and perspective of a dog took me for a wild ride.  I couldn't put the book down!!!!  Being where we are and yet keeping our eyes and our intention on the next corner.  We go where our eyes go. "It was where we were, and he was happy to be there, and I could feel the joy emanating from him, the love of life.  But his attention-and his intention-was far ahead, to the next turn and one beyond that." 156 "The car goes where the eyes go." 321 We have the choice in the direction we go, our mood and what we look to when to gather our bearings.  "Or did he finally realize what it is like to be me, to be a dog?  Did he understand as those interminable minutes ticked by, that being alone is not the same as being lonely?  That being alone is a neutral state; it is like a blind f...

http://www.amazon.com/Persian-Pickle-Club-Sandra-Dallas/dp/0312147015 Thankful for running into my friend Kathy at the library who recommended this book.  I could not put it down and am taking it back to the library today. A beautiful book of courageous women in the depression era meeting to quilt and to talk.  "In her magical, memorable novel, Sandra Dallas explores the ties that unite women through good times and bad." I loved this book!!!!!!!!!  Very endearing.  I was drawn to the thinking of these women and felt at home in their club.  For example: "Then she added, 'She's a worker.'  We all nodded, because that was the biggest compliment you could give a Kansas woman.  You didn't say she was smart or pretty.  You said she was a worker."   Dallas, Sandra. St. Martin's Press 1995 p.16

I am blessed and look forward to celebrating Father's Day and sharing those near and dear to my heart -my Dads. I've been struggling lately and a little wimpy! Praying the Lord's Prayer has been encouraging. We take it lightly and can become words without meaning.   We forget the Power & Truth in the Words!   It's THAT truth that changes our lives.  Not how I feel but who He is. Our Father who is in Heaven.  Holy is your name. To speak with the Maker and Creator of heaven and earth in such an intimate way is breathtaking.   The God of all creation longs to connect with me in a candid and face-to-face talk.   To open up the most secret and innermost places in my heart to the only one who can know me in that way.  Hmmm.  That is all I need.   Without reserve.  Without second guessing.   Father. Thank you for loving me, accepting me and drawing me to you.   You are in Heaven and in my heart...

All floods are not equal.   Right now our ground is satiated; rivers, lakes and dams are full.   The flooding caused by all of this water is devastating for many.   It seems like another time when our area was dying from a long drought.  Even the experts said that it would take years to refill Lake Mac and yet today we are worried when the wind comes up and the waves lap onto the road. I wondered as I drove across the state yesterday if the water is just moving through quickly or does it find it's way to the groundwater and is it recharging our ground with life giving moisture?  That is where water makes the largest life giving difference.  Water that seeps through the topsoil and the rocks to the aquifer below us is critical to our future. Farmers and ranchers and naturalist know it takes vision to see past what is right in front of us.  Vision to look past quick yields and quick gains on cattle at the risk of losing the land. As I...