todd agnew

I am so into todd agnew's cd, "better questions." Here's my favorites so far in order
"if you wanted me"
"on a corner in memphis"
"martyr's song"
"glorious day"

i was going to just print some lyrics from "if you wanted me" that really stuck out to me, but all of them do, so here's the whole song:

I'll admit I'm glad we're not disciples
Out on a lake paralyzed with fright
'Cause I'm afraid I might have laughed at Peter
Until he stepped into that stormy night

If You wanted me to walk on water
Why'd You make this solid ground seem so right?

I'll admit I'm glad I'm not King David
Ruling over everything I see
'Cause I think I've fallen for more than Bathsheba
Your creation's a temptation for me

If You wanted me to love You only
Why'd you make the moonlight sparkle in her eyes?

I'll admit I'm glad I'm not John the Baptist
In a jail cell waiting for my day to die
'Cause at least down here
I know what we're chasing
And it's hard to trust
Your dreams are so much better than mine

If You wanted me to die to myself
Why'd You make me fall so deeply in love with life?

If You wanted me to surrender
Why'd You make these hands able to hold on so tight?

If You wanted me to be like You
Why'd You make me like me?

the imagery and truth to these lyrics amaze me and touch my soul. they remind me that God didn't have to create me, that He made me the way He did for a reason, and even though i will always experience temptations and challenges He wants me to keep striving to be like Him, even though He knows I'll never attain that, He wants me to have a heart like His, and in trying to become more like Him - every attempt draws me closer to Him - maybe even more so through my failures than my successes.

dogs

i sooo wonder what dogs are saying when they bark in response to each other. the ranch dog, comet, is on our front porch barking at only God knows what, and my blind dog, ginger, and my crazy dog, tabor, are set off by his barking, and they are barking, and i wonder what it's all about. is comet warning them of something he hears from his lookout? is he just saying, "you lucky dawgs, get to go inside and sleep in a warm big house" or "hey! you left me out here! i'm still out here! are you ever gonna let me come in there?"

we got hooked on "the dog whisperer" when we were in daytona this summer, and let me tell you, ceasar has changed my life - and tabor's. it's really a cool show, and it shows how screwed up dog owners can be. i was one of them. i totally misinterpreted a few of tabor's behaviors, but after 10 years of having this dog around, i think we've got him figured out, thanks to ceasar.

date night

Michael and I finally have our date night back after moving to the ranch. Before we moved out to Waleska, our date nights were different. After we got married, because it was just the two of us, date nights always ended with us at home by ourselves and it was kinda like the date would just continue on until we decided to go to bed. Well now, since three 18-year olds live with us, when we get home, we're not alone, so now it's kinda like the date ends when we get home. The cool part about it is that it feels like what it used to feel like thirteen years ago when we were really dating. Back then, we lived an hour away from each other, and we would look for ways to make our dates last as long as possible. We looked for anything to do that would prolong someone from having to go home. That's kinda what these date nights are like. We'll look for any way to spend alone time together and keep the sacredness of our "date". It's so awesome that God blessed me with a man that after 12 years of marriage, I cannot get enough alone time with him. I am so excited that when I attend a wedding (which we did today) that I can sit through that ceremony and still be grateful for the man who took my hand in marriage 12 years ago.

I pray that I can still live up to the vow I made when we exchanged rings - "With all that I have and all that I am, I honor you."

I gotta stop so I can go watch some football and see what's happening between Auburn and LSU. :)

Metamorphosis

I'm reading a book that I stumbled upon at a cool little bookstore in Woodstock called Foxtale Book Shoppe. It's a great little shop. The book I came across is Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution (Testimonies from our Imprisoned Sisters) (Gary's brother? :) ). It's a pretty amazing book of stories from women in prison who have been involved in a writing workshop that Wally Lamb leads on a weekly basis. Wally Lamb wrote two books that I have not read before, mostly because they were on Oprah's Book Club list, (the reason I don't like to read books on Oprah's book club list is material for a different blog post). I might read them now though. They are now on my wish list (that's a shameless plug right there, btw). Anyway. These ladies fine themselves through writing. I just love that!!!

I took this amazing writing course a couple of years ago in college, and it changed a part of my life. It opened up a place in my heart that I rarely ventured to. I actually walked away from class on the last day and had to fight back tears. I learned so much about myself through the course, through writing - writing about my life. And it was as if I had been in some type of prison - mentally and emotionally, and through writing I was set free. We were constantly encouraged to "write from the heart" and that I would write stuff that is "flammable" - meaning that it would be stuff that people might think should be banned from libraries and there would be book burnings over the stuff I wrote.

The ladies writing in Wally Lamb's book are definitely writing from the heart and their writing is flammable. The stories I've read so far have very little to do with the crimes they committed that have led them down a path that leads to prison, but about "crimes" committed against them as children or things that have happened to them that definitely had something to do with the road they ended up on. But through their writing, they are experiencing healing and freedom even though their words are written from inside a prison. Their hearts are metamorphosed through writing.

Here's one of the first things I wrote in my writing class. The assignment was to come up with a visual Life Logo and then write about it. The logo was a picture of a caterpillar, a cocoon, and a butterfly, kinda combined all in one.

I love to see a butterfly floating, lifting, soaring through the sky. To think that once a butterfly was some type of caterpillar crawling along and at some appointed time, only heaven knows how it knows when, the caterpillar finds a branch or even the coziness of the inside of the wing of a garden angel statue and covers itself in a bed of silk and enters the chrysalis stage, and through an amazing metamorphosis completely changes into a beautiful winged creature that fights its way out of the bed it’s made for itself and rises to new heights and spreads its beauty as it glides along its way bringing joy wherever it goes.

My life has been a metamorphosis.

My father’s death when I was five years old left me feeling so alone and afraid. I grew up crawling around with ever-so-low self esteem brought on from the years of longing for my father’s love and touch. Oh how I would long for just one more hug, one more chance. I was a caterpillar just wandering from place to place, eventually making a bed for myself that consisted of heart break and falsehoods, and I never really knew who I, Linda Lenore Love, was. I was smothered in the silks I allowed my friends and family to cover me in, smothered, suffocating from trying to be the person I thought they all wanted me to be.

I had made my bed, and I was about to die in it, but somewhere deep inside me, there was a mustard seed of hope, and by the grace of God at age 24, I fought my way out of that chrysalis and found a beauty and worth in myself that had been in me all along fighting to be freed.

I still long for my Daddy’s love and touch, but that longing is no longer a factor in defining who I am and the heights I can soar to with my beautiful wings.

My hope now is that I can spread some joy; help others find the worth in themselves that is already there waiting in the chrysalis stage, longing to be released so they can spread their beautiful wings and soar to new heights.

fear creates change

I have a fear - it's a fear of not being all God created me to be. But I don't really treat this fear like a real fear. It's somewhere in the background of my life, and it's this thing I sometimes choose to ignore. If I don't think about it, it will just go away, right? If I don't focus on it, I'll feel better, right? Not so much. I just walk around pretending that I'm not afraid of this major thing. But holy cow, what am I doing to myself? Somehow I need to fight the urge to cover this fear and actually face it. But it's hard to face something I cannot see. I am burdened by it though. I'm burdened with the complacency I feel when I choose to overlook this huge fear.

Michael and I are in the perfect place to get in better physical shape, financial shape, spiritual shape and be more usable for Him. We are going to a church we love, Revolution, and this church is making it harder for me to ignore my fear, and I am soooo thankful to God for that.

We have this awesome opportunity to work out at the YMCA in Canton, and it's been awesome. We work out on weights every other day, and we do cardio stuff on the days in between. I have felt a heck of a lot better and had more energy. I'm starting to lose some pounds. I started doing this Cycling class two times a week, and it kicks my butt, but in a good way.

We have been working towards becoming debt free, but we had kinda slacked off some, so the current message series at our church is helping us get back on track with that. We feel like we are in a better place to become debt free than we've ever been, but we've got to make it long term this time.

And then we have more time than we've ever had before to spend time with God and in ways that have never been more available to us. Where we live lends itself to lots of cool ways to spend time with God. And we are looking for ways of getting plugged in as volunteers at our church, which also offers us opportunities to grow.

So here's the deal, I don't want to screw all this up by being focused on me and not God. It's so easy to get focussed on me.

I'll end with this thing from my notes in church today.

Being poor doesn't make you super spiritual.
Being rich doesn't make you less spiritual.
Money is just a tool, don't let it be your master.

Pain = Life

Holy cow, I cannot believe it's been since July that I've blogged. I've so wanted to so many times, but since our lives changed and we've been at the ranch, I've been so focussed on what goes on here and learning about life with more than just Michael and me in our immediate family, that I couldn't come up with much to blog on. I kinda lost myself in the craziness of this new life. Not that I haven't had plenty to blog about, but I've been so focussed on life here, that every time I felt the desire to write something here, I couldn't come up with anything that didn't involve the boys. I just couldn't write without it being personalized about them. I couldn't figure out how to write about them using generalities; it's way too personalized to do that. But now (I hope) that I've found myself again and have way more to blog about.

For instance, pain. The last two days have involved physical pain for Michael. Yesterday, our dog's (Tabor) foot got caught in an animal trap, and while Michael was trying to free him from the trap, Tabor, in his panic of trying to free himself from the trap, was gnawing at Michael's hands. Once Tabor was free, we realized that he was okay, but there was blood everywhere from where Tabor had bit Michael several times. Tabor essentially was not hurt, and the blood that was on Tabor was Michael's blood, not his.

Then today, Michael was helping take apart a stage and one of the pieces of the stage fell on his back and leg, and we spent some time in the ER getting his leg stitched up. His back didn't need stitches, but that is where the piece of the stage hit him first, and that hurts worse than where he got stitches.

I know where I'm wanting to go with this, but I'm not sure how to get there...

So, if you're alive, you must experience pain. I mean isn't that the deal, once you're dead, um, no more pain? It's way more than just physical pain, it's emotional pain too. That goes away once you're dead too. But sometimes I go through times in my life that seem to be pretty pain free. So does that mean I'm not really living? Does it possibly mean that I'm not growing, or that I'm not living to the extent that God created me to live? God is ALIVE! Does He experience pain? Does God's heart hurt when I don't live out the life he created me to live?

But someone might argue that if God wants us to live life and live it to the fullest, why would He want us to experience pain? The simple answer for me is that living life to the fullest doesn't mean we are exempt from pain. I think to live life to the fullest, we must experience pain, heartbreak, loss, misunderstandings, and failures. It's getting through the pain that gets us closer, that helps us grow, that builds us up, that prepares us for the next steps of the journey.

But we pray so hard to be exempted from the pain, as opposed to God seeing us through the pain. I pray that I will not fear the pain, but that when it comes, that I will not be exempt from God holding me close in His arms and seeing me through it.