Summer 2013 - Recap Part 1

You know that verse in the Bible - the one about locusts - where God says that He'll restore the years the locusts have eaten.....

Well when I think about the summer of 2013, my first thought is, "Well go ahead and chalk one up for the locusts."

Lots of hard and sad.  Lots of struggle.

I honestly don't even want to go there - it was what it was...

SO in light of this reality, I wanted to blog NOT about that, but instead about the ways I'm being provided for - the goodness that keeps raining on me even in the struggle.  I've come to call this place a "wilderness," and I've realized that God is providing "manna" all the time. I don't feel like I'm feasting on grapes from the Promised Land...but I have enough.  God is enough.  I do believe this...

And them sometimes I pray that He'll help me believe this.  It's weird how belief and unbelief can be side by side so close.

I decided to hang something I call a "Manna Board" in my room where I can put the beautiful reminders of His goodness up to see and remember.  I'm finding it keeps me from getting all crabby and ridiculous to be around...and it keeps my perspective in a more accurate place.

(Of course, I did destroy the drywall in my attempt to hang the Manna board where I wanted it - someone's going to have to come fix that...go figure :)

SO....the following is a list of some of the great things about this summer.  Things that were accomplished.  Beautiful experiences.  And supernatural ways I was reminded that God loves me and that I am abundantly blessed.  This is Summer 2013 - Part ONE

* Audrey's Recital at the Cincinnati Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired.  If you can be a part of this and not feel the need to cry something might be wrong with you.  This event is such a mixture of beauty, pure love, sorrow, hope, and so much more.  I was blessed immensely by being there.  Everyone should go.  It would change your world.

* Mom's retirement party - hearing my dad get up front and talk about my mom...watching him choke up and tear up while telling them about her love for the kids she took care of at the preschool...was beautiful beyond words.  I listened to people talk about my mother and I was inspired by her legacy, and thankful beyond words to be her daughter.

*Girls weekend at the Cabin!  Oh how I love those gals - around them it feels like coming home....like I remember a little better who I am after being with them...especially at the Farm - such a beautiful place that I've come to love.  Stace, Page, Amanda, Emily, Sandra, Francie, Daphane, Erin, Katie - the memories I have of sitting at those huge tables eating together are in my heart in a serious way.  Love you all.  Thank you for knowing who I am...

*Saw the new Superman movie with Crystal!  She got tickets for the preview night!

*New gutters installed and shingles washed.

*Trained with Bob Ronkers in June - reconnected with a gal I was in New Orleans with for Habitat for Humanity a few summers ago.  Yay for hanging out with Lindsey!  Yay for meeting her friends! AND YAY for having running buddies now in the running group!

* Traveled with Mom and Brad to West Virginia to be a part of my aunt Kara's Relay for Life Team!  It was wonderful getting to see family that I don't get to see very often - aunts, uncles, grandma...  And for such a beautiful cause...and to celebrate Kara's healing.  Thank you, God.


                                   

              

* Hair done at High Five Salon with Sam.  I leave feeling like one of the most special people in the world.  I leave feeling unique, beautiful, and seen.  I'm pretty sure most people leave feeling this way - which is probably why it takes 6 weeks to get an appointment.  What a wonderful gift he has.

* Mike's baptism in the East Fork River - a group of us hiked down a huge hill to the river at the bottom...such a beautiful surrender to Jesus witnessed and celebrated.

* Dinner with the neighbors several times.  I love walking to a restaurant with my neighbors - what fantastic folks I have living around me, and I am loving getting to know them more!  I'm the only single one - but I decided that once you get to 7 or 9 people, you're not a "wheel" anymore - you're just a person.

* Fountain Square with my dear friend Karen, Bakersfield for Tacos, and swinging on the swings down by the riverfront - Beautiful friend, Fantastic Guacamole, and a whole lot of FUN down by the river.  Those swings make me feel like a kid!  Go Cincinnati for putting those in...seriously!

            

 

                                                         

*Went to a few classes at the gym with Jenny and others - emphasis on the word "few".  Spent a bit of time unable to move important limbs because of it.  Jenny - you make me laugh.

* Dinner with the Amlin gals - Always a blessing to see Emily care so beautifully for her girls.  I see the Lord's goodness all over them.  I'm inspired and encouraged by Emily's faith and belief in God.

*Went to Kings Island with Nathalie - layed out at the pool and ate blue ice cream.  It's always good to be in a valley with someone else :)   Especially when that friend is an inspiration!  Thanks Nathalie :)

Why the big, open mouths?  Why not, man?!

* Keith Urban concert with Lindsey - I always enjoy getting my country on!  And this would be where I started to realize that "midriffs" are now back.  

* Gelato and Crepe tasting event with my friend Heather.  She's a food blogger, and gets invited to things that are really cool and sometimes I get to go!  This new place opened up near my house and she took me to their special "private" event. We ate crepes and gelato until we were stuffed.  The Lemon/Lavender Chiffon crepe was fantastic!

*Mac-n-Cheese and Cider with Marina and Meredith.  Those 2 girls bless my socks off.

Summer 2013 Part One - Part Two coming soon...

Pruning

I've thought a lot about this thing called pruning.

You prune a plant before the flower or the limb is dead.  This is what makes the process of pruning so painful.  A dead flower or branch is so very easy to cut off...who needs or wants a dead branch?  Just go ahead and lop that bad boy off and it makes everything look better.

But what about a branch with life?  A branch that still has blooms?  A branch that has green leaves growing revealing that life that is still happening and growth is still going? Now that's a different story altogether. 

...And that's exactly where the pain in this process called pruning exists.  It is painful to watch my hydrangeas that still have some color in them be cut off from the branch.  It just seems that life should stay connected to the plant.
But this removal of living blooms is exactly what needs to happen for plants to be full and healthy.  Otherwise, you have a plant with mediocre blooms everywhere but no purpose or direction - too many blooms, spread to thin...

Likewise, this is what will need to happen in our lives if we want fullness of growth and beauty.
God removes branches that are still alive in order to flourish branches that could be so much more than what they currently are.  He knows what needs energy, and what should be sacrificed.   I have to be willing to embrace the adventure of and believe in the fullness of what is to come - instead of hanging on to that little piece of life being removed....

otherwise, that little piece of life will suck far too much energy out of my other divine purposes that were prepared for me before my life began.

They say that when you buy flowers to plant in the spring you should pinch off all the blooms in order for the plants to grow bigger and fuller than they currently are...I've only been able to bring myself to do this a time or two because it's just too sad for me to watch those healthy blooms fall to the ground.  It's so counterintuitive.  But if it's better in the long run....

May I not be so fearful in my life.  May I not fear the life that is being cut from me.  I want to trust that if something of "life" is being removed, then there is a greater life somewhere else that is going to be grown.  May I allow God to prune me carefully so that I am the fullest, flourishing version of myself - a gift of beauty and grace to the world.

God's Faithfulness in Audrey's Surgery

Audrey just had surgery on her head.  They took a metal plate and fit it inside the hole in her skull and then put the skin back over it.  It just amazes me that they can do this kind of thing...and that 2 days later, she is walking and yelling "Nellie!!!" to me when I walk into her room to see her.  Unbelievable.

This surgery, of course, was scary for all of us.  I cannot even imagine how it felt to Daphane and Tim.  We just kept imagining what if must feel like to take Audrey and hand her over to people who we didn't know and she didn't know...knowing that she had no idea what was coming.  Absolutely heartbreaking.  But Tim shared a story with me after the surgery that just I have to share - it's undoubtedly a reminder of Gods' presence.

The Sunday before the surgery, after the church service at Crossroads, Tim took Audrey down to the front of the auditorium to be prayed over.  He was sharing with a gal or two down there about why he wanted to pray for her....
after he explained it to them, one of the gals said, "I'm going to be in that surgery."  Tim was a bit confused by this as it seemed terribly random that she would be in the surgery. When he inquired more about it, she explained that she was actually a resident and was going to be following Dr. Mangano (the neurosurgeon) all week and would be in his surgeries....

Unbelievable - this prayer warrior praying for Audrey after church was actually going to be in the surgery with her?!  How absolutely amazing?!  I can picture her in that surgery watching it take place and lifting sweet Audrey up in prayer as it took place.  Through her presence, it's as if God spoke out loud to remind us, "I'm with your daughter."

I'm finding that God is doing these sorts of things - giving us these unexplainable situations, coincidences, and people to remind us of His love and His presence.  I believe He does understand our weakness and our struggles - the struggle to believe, the struggle for faith, the struggle to hope...

and He meets us there and says, "I am here in this battle, and I love you."

Thanks to God for being with sweet Audrey and for reminding us once again of His Faithfulness.

Carl and Cross-Country

I received an message from my former coaching partner, Carl Anderson.  He and I coached cross-country together for 10 years.  He was texting me to say that tonight was the first night of practice for the season...and he was thinking of me.

Oh I miss that sport.  And I miss Carl.  We spent hours over the years talking about our runners.  We spent hours upon hours running with them.  We spent loads of Saturdays walking through fields that were wet with dew at 7 a.m. in the morning - a trail of 50 middle schoolers romping around us - with wet shoes and anticipation for a win.  In our time we saw a great deal of success and even swept the City Tournament in all 4 races one year...never been done...might never be done again.  I have multiple plaques hanging on my office wall from Oak Hills, reminding me of what, thanks to God, our teams accomplished.

I miss Carl - his friendship, his excellence in coaching, and his completely obsessive, unbalanced passion for the sport.
I miss the kids - their middle school moronic behavior, their tiresome effort, and watching them grow and become more than they even thought they could be.  
I miss practice - training with the girls, reminding them to breathe rhythmically, telling them to stop crying while running, listening to the drama of their lives, and pushing myself up to my own physical limits.
I miss the races - running from spot to spot on the course to see what position the runners are in, counting the runners to see if we were going to beat Mason, reminding them as they ran by to focus on their breathing, and watching that final stretch to the finish line; seeing up close what courage in the face of so much pain looks like.
I miss my mile time - it was the fastest of my life (6:34) - man I wish I could get that back again.

There is no other sport like it.  The life skill of mind over body, choice over desire, purpose over pain - it certainly transfers to other areas of life.  To want so badly to quit, to be in so much pain, but yet to choose to keep going because you believe the end is worth it....that's some seriously good stuff.  And to do it not because your peers at your school are going to glorify you for being a cross-country champion (we all know that's reserved for other sports)....but to do it because of some greatness in you or because your team desperately needs you....now that's incredible.  I owe a deep gratitude to Carl for allowing me to coach with him and for showing me what excellence in coaching looks like.  As I look back I realize that my life is different....it is better....because of those 10 years.

Thankful.

Not enough oxygen for that.

While climbing Kilimanjaro on the Western Breach Route, the hardest day of the climb was from Arrow Camp to Crater Camp.  I remember being down at Arrow Camp looking up the steep rock where we were going and saying, "Yeah, I don't see any way up that I'm okay with..."

Most of the camping spots before this were empty except for our group, but at Arrow Camp lots of crews were merging from different routes, so there were tents and people all over the place.  I remember waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of a man loudly puking outside of his tent.  I unzipped the tent and looked out to see that it was a man that Stace and I had talked to the evening before.  I wonder if he made it to the summit?  The level of altitude at Arrow camp and above is seriously nothing to mess around with...Throughout the entire trip, we had a porter named Roger whose entire job was to stay not far from us and carry the Hyper Chamber Gamow bag.  This is the bag that's used if you have issues such as pulmonary edema or cerebral edema and have to be rushed off the mountain.  They inflate this bag, throw you in it, and carry you off the mountain.  The oxygen inside the bag is like sea level and it can save your life.  At the hotel before we started the climb, we actually met a man who had to be saved from pulmonary edema while he was at Crater Camp.

So we got up early in the morning in the freezing cold and started our ascent to Crater Camp.  And then from Crater Camp it would only be a couple more hours to the summit.  The goal was to camp at Crater Camp, and then summit the following day.  We knew that once we started on this route, there was no turning back as it was too steep to take you back down.  You had to get to the top.  My first memory was how cold it was...it seemed to take at least an hour for me to feel my feet.  The climb was a winding, switchback sort of walking up the side of the slope. There were a couple places where they roped us in for safety, but I distinctly remember thinking "Why here?"  It seemed there were several places prior to being roped in that I was in serious danger too  - but without ropes for safety.... 
I remember it was so steep and we could see so far down that it took me about 4-5 hours before I could look down the side of the mountain.  We would stop and I would sit and stare at my boots.  I told Hatch she had to take pics for me b/c I just couldn't look. I had no idea until this moment in time, that I was this afraid of heights...yeah, a great way to find out huh?  Once I did look, the tents a couple thousand feet down at Arrow Camp were the size of my pinky nail. 

So we were going from about 16,000 to 18,370 ft.  that day, and all in all it took us about 10 hours.  You can't help thinking hours into this gruelling day that they advertised this online as "a walk in the park"...and it makes you kinda angry...

We would stop periodically for rests.  They took our oxygen saturation at various times during this day to make sure we weren't in serious danger, or dying, or something.  Stace was nauseous most of the day from the altitude.  We were both exhausted from climbing for so long.  Ed from Canada wasn't a very steady hiker and he kept slipping...he was hiking in front of me so I kept thinking that if he went down he was taking me with him... There was nowhere to go to the bathroom, so I literally had to ask everyone to turn around so that I could pee right there.  And then I moved a foot or two over and ate my lunch.  It's rough folks...

At one point during a break, Stacy turned around and looked at me and said something to the effect of, "I just need to cry."  At which point I totally agreed, and the two of us sat there and started bawling.  Not serious, mature, silent tears, but total and complete girl crying...
It felt kinda good - as crying usually does...until our guide Francis cut into our therapy session and in a stern tone said words I'll never, ever forget...

"Damas (sisters), you MUST stop crying.....there is not enough oxygen for that."

Wow - talk about a mood killer.  And do you know how hard it is to stop crying once you have fully given in to it?  But we wanted to die less than we wanted to cry so we sucked it up and stopped.  Can't even have a good cry on Kili when you need to... 

 

Ten hours after we started the climb that day, we finally made it to Crater Camp at 18,370.  Gorgeous blue glaciers and a volcano crater steaming with sulfer awaited us...but man...it was a rough road there.

 

 

 

 

 

Ode to Kilimanjaro - Jackleboo

I haven't written any posts yet about my climb up Kilimanjaro.  Quite the adventure...and what stories I have to tell... I think today I'll just focus on one tonight - dear Jackleboo.

Background:  In the summer of  2005, I went to Africa.  Since I was going to be in Africa I decided I might as well climb Kilimanjaro while I was at it.  I have this dear friend named Stacy who is about as crazy as me...and decided to fly to Tanzania to meet me for the climb.  (love you forever for this Stace!)  There is, of course, way more to all of what I just said, but for now I'll leave it at that.

Story #1  - Jackleboo
Stace and I climbed up the mountain with Ed from Canada and 19 porters and guides.  Lots of fellas were with us - some spoke English, some didn't.  We had a sweet man who would bring our food to the dining tent for each meal.  He had a huge smile and a kind face, but didn't seem to speak much English.  Toward the beginning of the trip, I asked Stacy what his name was, and she said something to the effect of "Jackleboo."  Well I was certainly puzzled by that as it's not a name you typically hear (even in Africa), but figured "what do we know" and proceeded to call him Jackleboo all week.  After all, one of our guide's names was "Honest".  When you consider that, how different is Jackleboo really?

We were around Jackleboo a lot.  He would come by in the morning and yell to our tent that it was time to get up.  He brought our food each evening to the dining tent.  I still hear myself saying "Thank you Mr. Jackleboo."  "How are you doing Mr. Jackleboo?"  "Dinner was wonderful, Mr. Jackleboo." 

all week long...

Sweet Jackleboo...I still remember the last night on the mountain -  I was crying with Stacy in the tent about how bad we smelled - our clothes, our tent, everything.  We had dirt crammed under every single fingernail.  We had stopped brushing our teeth days back.  We had lost all sense of decency...and sweet Jackleboo came by and gave Stace and I a warm bowl of water for us to soak our hands in...  I can still remember us laying with our torsos out of the tent with our hands in that warm water.  Gosh I wish I could thank him now for that.

At any rate, that evening we had our final dinner on the mountain with our guides.  Jackleboo was serving the dinner as usual.  Our head guide, Francis, was listing out the porters who had helped all week so that we could give a tip at the end of the trip.  He wrote everyone's name and their job for the week.  I looked at the paper.  You can imagine my suprise when I read the words "Server - Jacob".  WHAT?!?!  JACOB...but our server is Jackleboo??  I still remember looking at Stacy across the table and saying - "His name is Jacob!?"  She of course responded with something to the effect of "I swear I asked him and he said Jacaboo!" Which was also a suprise to me as I thought she had said Jackleboo earlier in the week.  And all of the sudden, it sounded so clear to me - Jacob with a Swahili accent totally does sound like Jacaboo. 
Well JACOB came back into the tent and we looked at him sheepishly and said "You're not Jackleboo?"  And he got a BIG huge smile and shook his head no....
"You're Jacob?"  And he got a BIG huge smile and shook his head yes....and this is where the apologies started.

Jackleboo - your kindness and your smile is not forgotten...and wherever you are... thank you for your graciousness to these two American dingalings  :)


More Kili stories to come.

Only Love Remains by J.J. Heller

Gorgeous...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5Hd211fJOw


Scenes of you come rushing through
You are breaking me down
So break me into pieces
That will grow in the ground
I know that I deserve to die
For the murder in my heart
So be gentle with me Jesus
As you tear me apart

Please kill the liar
Kill the thief in me
You know that I am tired of their cruelty
Breathe into my spirit
Breathe into my veins
Until only love remains

You burn away the ropes that bind
And hold me to the earth
The fire only leaves behind whatever is of worth
I begin to see reality
For the first time in my life
I know that I’m a shadow
But I’m dancing in your light

Teach me to be humble
Call me from the grave
Show me how to walk with you upon the waves
Breathe into my spirit
Breathe into my veins
Until only love remains