Friday, August 22, 2014

Miserable cows....moooooo!

I've come to realize that some people are just miserable people and truly suck. I mean, no redeaming qualities at all.

I don't say this lightly. 

I appreciate all the people who have loved, supported, encouraged and prayed me through the toughest of times. It's not always easy to love someone when what you are loving them thru is tough. 

I've had people who have loved me thru the loss of Tucker and Fletcher who have never known the pain of losing a baby. I've had others who have lost babies and know what the pain of losing your heart feels like. 


So forgive me, just for a moment while I  speak to the miserable, bitter, anger people who are determined to try to make the lives of others as miserable as their own lives simply because of choices they have made and I know they have no friends.  Who can send a message like this and then call me pathetic in their next bipolar moment.  It's hard to keep up with the crazy train. 

I live my life pretty much as an open book. And with that I get the good, bad and ugly that others have to offer. Some can understand, others have no idea but I've been really blessed with people who have stepped out of their comfort zone to offer support and love. 

I so appreciate that and you'll never know what your kindness and love has done for this mama. 

What I have zero tolerance and absolute no patience for is people who have lost babies, know the pain of burying their child, who use that to their advantage when it serves them well but who can also turn on a dime and offer criticism, judgment and ugliness to do nothing more than to try to make themselves relevant, when the truth of the matter is, they have nothing relevant to offer anyone. Other than to try to make themselves feel important 



If you have never faced loss and can offer someone who has love, kindness and encouragement, thank you. If you are someone who has faced that pain and finds it within themselves to shed nothing but negativity, hate and judgement in an effort to make yourself feel important, shame on you. 

Send me messages of hope and understand and then call me pathetic and looking for attention. Guess what! I have the blog, I get to shed the spotlight on the crazy. It's not on me. It's on you, who has been run out of a few sides of town for being cray cray.  You're welcome for me not posting the crap you spewed earlier, or attaching your beautiful picture to it. You're welcome! 🐽

You lost a child. You shared with me quotes, verses, encouragement, 10 years past your own loss only to turn and use it against me to gain some relevance in your otherwise sad life, shame on you. 

I'm pms'ing and clearly not in the best frame of mind to offer grace and mercy. Luckily I blocked out your name, you hateful cow. 

You've done nothing but show yourself as someone who doesn't deserve any of the support, love and condolence of a parent who has buried their child. That you can make fun of someone who has been in your shoes shows your inability to deal with reality. 

I've never once blogged, posted or written about my boys in any effort other than to show they were loved, wanted and missed every single day. My life is full. Despite losing my boys, I have a beautiful full life. 

I will never be someone who has to laugh at or make fun of someone else's loss to make myself relevant.  It annoys me that I even have wasted words to defend myself against the ugliness that such a gross, nasty, woman can say. I won't call her a mother because I don't believe anyone who can spew the hate that she has spewed should be given that title. A mother is someone who nurtures, loves and encourages. 

Some people need to be heard, in whatever capacity they can be heard. Cowards who block themselves after spewing hate, I have nothing for. Other than to say this. 

Don't you ever, ever, send me another email telling me you understand my pain and share my grief when you can so quickly cast judgement on a mother who is honest in her emotions. You are a gross, disgusting person who will have a lot to answer for. 

I wouldn't normally give any thought to someone so ignorant and disgusting as another "mother" who has lost a child, but when they judge those who have walked in their shoes, I have nothing to say but bless your heart.

You block me sweetheart, but still choose to post. Please, make yourself relevant somewhere else where your ugliness, hate and disgusting heart are welcome. It sure isn't here. 

I have been surrounded by love, encouragement and support. Thank you to those who love me. To those looking for a reason to judge me or laugh at me,
kick rocks. I'd tell you to go talk to your friends but I know you have none and that's why you continue to try to spread your misery to others. Won't work sweetheart. I know those who love me. That's why I'm blessed and you've been run out of town. 

Mwah, sweetheart. Mooooo

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Is the speaker supposed to be a sobbing mess?

Seldom do really great things happen when you're comfortable.  For me, it took stepping out of what I knew and being uncomfortable to know that I was being obedient to what God was asking me to do because I didn't want to do it.  At all.

I became uncomfortable.  Like I would imagine it would feel after getting in a car wreck and the air bag deploys and punches you in the face but saves your life. 

Yesterday was huge part of healing but it hurt in a completely different kind of way than the hurt I've grown comfortable feeling.

A dear friend started a teen ministry called "Metamorphasis" and she asked me to speak at the teen conference a few months ago.  I told her I'd pray about it knowing full well I probably wouldn't because it terrified me to even consider sharing my heart, face to face, with teen girls.

God had other plans.  He laid it on my heart, I prayed about it, I knew it was something I was being called to do so I told her yes and prayed that God would speak thru me to touch the girls who would be there.

I think I sent her like 5 texts throughout the past few weeks that I couldnt do it.  I was terrified and completely freaked out.

I thought this was going to be something selfless, that I would share whatever God laid on my heart and I was confident He would speak through me and something I said would hopefully be a blessing and encourage someone there.

I get this email 30 mins before the conference started.




So yea, there to talk about my heart for Jesus, to teen girls, and being transparent and all that He's brought me through and I get black and white that someone feels pretty strongly that I don't have a sincere heart, that I'm selfish, they need to protect kids from me and who do I think I am blogging.  

So, that was kinda confusing. Until I considered the source, realized Satan was trying to derail me and kind of laughed knowing that if Satan was trying so hard to break me before it even got started that God must have some mighty moving to do.

Was feeling pretty good.

Then the first song we sang was called, "Have Your Way..." I'd never heard it.  We started singing it and immediately tears start pouring.

"Feels like I've been here forever,
Why can't you just intervene,
Do you see the tears keep falling?
And I"m falling apart at the seams,
But you never said the road would be easy,
But you said that you would never leave.
And you never promised that this life wasn't hard,
But you promised you'd take care of me."

DANG!  I love music.  I love songwriters that can write something that speaks exactly to my heart.

Song after song, speaker after speaker, testimony after testimony, skit after skit and dance after dance, God was speaking and moving so deliberatly and strongly in my heart.  One of the other gals said something about wounds and scar tissue being different.  Scar tissue is stronger because it's healed.  A wound is open and painful.  Made sense to me.  And kind of cut me because I had thought, up until I'm praying before my scheduled time to speak, I realized I'm not quite to the scar tissue part where all the broken parts are healed.  There were a lot of "gaping wounds" still fresh in my heart and all the praise and worship, the honest emotion from this girls, their hearts seeking and on fire for God, being part of something bigger than myself was exciting but completely gutted me.  It felt kind of exactly what I'd assume taking a salt bath after being cut and shattered would feel like.  Completely raw and painful.

I thought the theme of this years conference was "Beauty in the Broken".  It wasn't.  It was "Beautifully Broken."  Close but so completely different.  I told the girls I was more Hot Mess than anything and that proved to be pretty accurate.

I shared my heart.  It was painful.  There were moments I couldn't speak, the tears were falling and the weight of the pain was too much.  But it was so important for me to get through the pain to show that I wasn't staying there.  In my life, in my journey, in the middle of sharing this on stage, I'd make them laugh, I'd tell a story, I'd get to a part that really hurt, I cried through it, I prayed through it, when I couldn't speak for the tears, I took a deep breathe and I kept going when I was able. Kind of like I've lived the past 1.5 years.

I was terrified because it mattered.  I wanted those girls to see that if God can use this completely broken vessel, if I can keep trying to move forward even in the moments it hurts, they can keep going too. There was no shame in moving forward, even when it hurts, as long as you keep moving. I was a little worried that the message was getting lost in the snot and tears.

At one point I took a makeup wipe and took my makeup off in front of them, standing there on stage in my heels and jewelry and trying to look put together, with tears streaming, I took that makeup wipe, and took off all my makeup standing there in front of all these confused girls wondering what the crazy lady was doing.

I wanted them to see that it's ok to take off the mask.  I wanted them to see, in me, someone who wants to have it all together but clearly doesn't.  I wanted them to see in me someone who proudly is a Christian and sometimes as much as we want life to make sense, it just doesn't.  And it's ok to hurt and cry and be upset, but God will and can still work through you, IF YOU LET HIM!.

I was letting Him have his way.  And taking off the mask, onstage, changed me. 

My life verse for the past 9 months has been Exodus 14:14 "The Lord will fight for you, you need only be still."

I don't want that verse anymore.  I'm tired of being still.  I want answers.  I want an escape.  I want my life to stop being confused and start to make some sense.  I told another dear friend this week that God had laid that verse on my heart in Jan and I was glad it was no longer my verse because I don't like being still.  She tried to hide her laughter and very kindly told me, that's still my verse.  I was like,  nah, moving on to a different verse.

It's still my verse.

"So I'll stop searching for the answers,
I'll stop praying for an escape.
And I'll trust you God with where I Am
And believe you will have your way,
Just have your way."

I finished my testimony and tried to sing Meredith Andrew's song "You're Not Alone," which has been my anthem.  It's funny that I was most worried about being on pitch, I didn't take into consideration how hard it would be to sing through sobs.

I was trying. I warned them that I may not be able to sing the whole thing.  I tried.  I cried.  I looked out at one point and I was singing thru my tears and looked from face to face of these beautiful teenage girls that weren't judging me, they weren't laughing at honest emotion. weren't completely freaked out by my heart, they were singing along with me.  Some with smiles, others with tears streaming down their own face.

I finished and they clapped.  Then they all stood up.  Then when I walked off stage, there was a group of girls that rushed me, they ran towards me and nearly tackled me as they squeezed me into a group hug of encourgement.  I nearly melted into the floor overcome with emotion at the selflessness of these teenage girls with hearts so on fire for God and concern and love for a complete stranger.  I was completely
humbled and overwhelmed. I was praying for God to work thru me and He spent the hour working in me. Wow!



"When my friends and my family have left me,
And I feel so ashamed and so cold,
Remind me you take the broken things and turn them into beautiful.."

Sharing the hurts, pain and blessings is hard.  But compared to being completely vulnerable face to face, blogging is easy.  Writing an article is easy.  I write my heart and walk away from it, come back, edit it, pray about it, put a picture that's relevant to go along with it and hit publish.

God asked me to do something and I did it, praying that I would be a blessing somehow to others.  I never could have imagined the chang, healing and strength I would take from it.  God changed me.  In ways I never could have gotten to had I not made myself completely raw and uncomfortable.   I have spent the day reflecting, praying and seeking His answers on a lot that has been laid on my heart.

I'm broken.  That's obvious.  It's moved on to a brokenness that's no longer about the boys but the aches and longing I have for other things in my life is a pain that I can't hide. But another speaker yesterday said that when you have a light in a vase with no cracks or breaks, the light has nowhere to shine except directly up.  When there are pieces broken, the light shines even brighter through those broken places, in unexpected ways and directions.

Some new cracks were revealed to me, some balm was applied to my wounds and I felt some scar tissue forming.  It has been a very long time since I've felt, 100%, that I was exactly where God wanted me to be, broken before him, spilled out and filled up more than I've been in too long. 

I'm broken.  I'm healing.  I'm blessed and I'm seeking.  I'm obediently walking where God takes me and I wont let anyone keep my from allowing God to work in me.

I was part of something beautiful.  Something so much bigger than me and it was incredible to feel God change my heart and my life from less "Hot Mess" to more "Beautifully Broken."