Run The Race

I am a keyboard fanatic.  Anytime I can use my keyboard rather than the slow, ridiculously painful mouse, I'll do it!  One of my favorite shortcuts is Ctrl Z (or Cmd Z for Mac users).  If I make a change, and it messes everything up on my screen, then "Ctrl Z"!  Ctrl Z is the "undo" command. One time as I was walking through the house with way too much stuff in my hands, I dropped something fragile.  As it was falling, my brain was saying "Ctrl Z! Ctrl Z!"... unfortunately the "all-fixing", "never-failing" keyboard command did not work in real life. As we continue to wait for the adoption to progress, I have to admit that this is turning into one of the most difficult situations in my life.  It will be 2 years this week since we started this process.  Nothing is as it was when we first started, and the only thing in which we have control over is backing out (which I'll discuss more later, but is not really an option in our m...

A small group of us have been reading through the Psalms together and discussing them.  During our time together this last week, the majority of our discussions landed on forgiveness... or lack thereof.  Each of us (including me) had a story of unforgiveness - the way it stirs our hearts and minds.  Some of our stories included people still in our lives, others will never see the "offender" again - yet each story stirred an amazing amount of emotion in each of us. God taught me to forgive my abuser almost 10 years ago.  There are times when something triggers a pain from the past and I have to go through the process all over again.  After forgiving this person, it seems like I could forgive anything, yet I still struggle with it at times.  So as we discussed our unforgiveness this week, I was really pondering the "hows" of forgiveness. David, a man who wrote the majority of the Psalms and was also chosen by God to play a significant role leading up to ...

The landing gear was stuck as my friend was flying from Fargo, ND to Dallas.  Preparations were being made by the flight crew and the pilots for a potential crash landing.  The Dallas runway was cleared and emergency crews filled the area.  Then the call came from the flight crew to the passengers, "Assume the crash position." Scary. I'm thankful that I have never had to assume the crash position on a flight, but there have been many times in my life in which I had to produce "survival" positions in order to protect myself from whatever situation I was in.  These positions come from instinct - I believe that often times they are God-given protective skills.  But what happens when we continually use the protective skill even when crisis is over? Consider my very unhealthy relationship as a young teen.  This young man was controlling, manipulative, and abusive.  To eventually remove myself from the situation I got into survival position - I mentall...

TEN years people... this Friday, Ron and I have been married for 10 years!  Woohoo! At Celebrate Recovery I often introduce myself as someone who gets to be a part of a healthy marriage.  I am blown away by this possibility... I thought for sure I had blown it... no grace could be big enough to bring me back to enough of a purified state that would allow me to marry a man that would cherish me. I WAS WRONG. God is so much bigger than our choices and our circumstances.  Don't get me wrong; there are still consequences to choices that I made, but the shame associated with those choices are gone and there is a simple reminder often associated with some of the resulting scars - but ultimately all things have been made new, as scripture promises. Many times I hear stories in books or on the radio that say, "I went into the marriage with blinders on, and I wasn't expecting it to be so hard."  I was exactly the opposite - I went in assuming it was going to be ...