what idol do you worship and i don't mean david archuleta...

so, i'm going to be really honest. (like us margraves AREN'T?)

there was a bit of dysfunction in my upbringing; i wasn't particularly close to my parents. they were products of their upbringing and so forth and so forth. (by the way, if you had a particularly close and loving relationship with your parents, don't feel free to comment and give me advice. thanks but no thanks.)

when i got married and had my own family, i was ecstatic. not that we didn't have our own problems (baggage) like everyone else; but, i felt like the family we "created" was pretty normal. we were involved in our children's sports and school activities as well as active in church as a family. our children did well in school and had friends who hung out at our house. the boys found it entertaining to make video movies - silly, pre-puberty boy-type movies that they willingly showed us the next day. that was when we noticed the clock in the background of the video that read "2:30 am".........the boys also built a fort out back, tried to dig a swimming pool in the backyard (and couldn't figure out why it wouldn't hold water) and buried a "time capsule" when they were in sixth grade to be opened when they were seniors. their senior year, the boys gathered and dug up the time capsule and laughed at the silly things they found.

the girls had sleepovers and cabbage patch kid birthday parties. they mixed "potions" out of mud, leaves and water on top of the air conditioner compressor. they roller-skated up and down the alley, racing past the yard with the mean dog that ran up and down the length of the fence until they had passed; they played "detective" as they watched cars pass by and made up mystery stories about the occupants. they played dentist and library in the built-in bar in the family room and played "apartment" by locking and unlocking bedroom doors with "keys" which were actually bobby pins.

we were often chaperones for dances, backstage workers for musicals and brownie scout and cub scout leaders. dads went on indian princess and indian guide campouts (these men who have been friends for over 20 years meet for breakfast EVERY saturday morning - EVERY) and moms took 30 girl scounts on campouts. couples went to cotton bowl games and then that night gathered the children from babysitters and congregated at one house to watch the orange bowl game while the children played in the back room. the children were always rounded up to watch the half-time show which in those days was much more spectacular than it is now.

and there was much more. growing up with cousins a few miles away - church and weekends together. cookouts. birthdays. etc. etc. so when my nest emptied, boy, did it empty. suddenly. both kids moved 1100 miles away together. i had always known i would have to face an empty nest.....i just didn't realize i would have to face an empty STATE! needless to say, i didn't handle it well. i missed them terribly and suffered depression. what i realize now was that they made the move and separation easily because of how THEY were raised; i still suffered not even knowing why. i just knew that the family that had been was no more. or at least that is how it seemed. with the loss of sydney grace, the distance between us now seems much further than it really is. text and emails (and an occasional phone call when there is time in a busy day) are the extent of the relationship. thank goodness for new technology and not having to walk to the mailbox every day to look for a newsy letter - it is instantaneous. but it is still distant. the emptiness that i felt when they moved is nothing compared to the emptiness i feel when i know someone else is meeting her needs and giving her physical hugs and making her laugh. i'm so grateful that she has such a strong, loving support group. and i also know that is how life is supposed to be. if you meet the needs of your children, they don't need you as much. if YOUR needs weren't met as a child, you need them too much. and i do.

having a daughter is so, so special. the saying "a son is a son til he takes a wife, but a daughter is a daughter the rest of your life" is so true. i mean, i still have a close friendship with my son and i LOVE how we can share sports, books and theological and political discussions. but mothers and daughters have a special bond if they are lucky. i never had a true friendship with my mother; i felt like i did with my own daughter. when my mother died, i grieved the relationship we didn't have. and it made my friendship with my own daughter even more precious and treasured by me. we have new neighbors; they are a young family with small children. the mother and i have already become friends and we both have commented on how much alike we are and how easy (and fun) it is to be around each other. i am happy about that. but she is still not my daughter. my daughter has said that one of the reasons she misses sydney grace is because of the relationship she wanted to have with a daughter BECAUSE of the relationship she and i have had. i know she would have been (and some day may still be) a good mother to a daughter. and i hope that when the time would come, she would find it easier than it has been for me to let go. and that brings me to another topic. i have made my children/family my idols. i have put them before God. that is NOT what He wants. but my love for my children seems bigger than my love for Him. and i don't know how in the world to correct that............and that is a topic for another post......

forgotten tears, by nina bennett

so, i finally picked up the book i ordered a couple of months ago. "forgotten tears" is a grandmother's journey through grief following the stillbirth of her granddaughter. i found myself intentionally skipping pages that were too painful to read - feeling the familiar lump in my throat and knot in my stomach i just pushed everything back down to where it has been for the last few weeks. i don't even have words any more. i am still fighting it. i still want my daughter back. i know she will never be the same. i know there will always be something/someone missing in our family. i want to be already down the road. far away from this spot we're muddling through.

excerpts:

"as a healthcare professional, stages of grief were someting concrete i could describe to people dealing with the death of a loved one. yet, when i was faced with the death of my granddaughter, i didn't feel as though the stages had much relevance to what i was experiencing. how could i possible resolve the loss of my granddaughter? how could i "move on"? the fact that maddy had not survived delivery is unacceptable. "

"Our own pain threatens to overwhelm us, but to see OUR children in so much pain is, in many cases, more than we can bear. this adds another layer of complicated emotions for grandparents. we want to be able to help our children in any way possible, and yet we have other responsibilities. we are pulled in many different directions. we need to return to work for financial reasons as well as limitations on time off; yet, we want to be available to our child. we need to grieve our loss, yet we feel as though we must hold it together and appear strong in front of our children. we want to spend every minute with our bereaved child, yet we have other family members who also need us. our hearts break at the sight of our children's anguish and we long to help them. at the same time, we are also experiencing what feels like unbearable pain, and we need to find our way through our own grief. as tempting as it is to deny what we are feeling, we cannot put our grief aside while we help our child. it sounds contradictory to say that we need to do our own grieving simultaneously while doing whatever we can to provie comfort for our child, but that is precisely the complexity of being a bereaved grandparent."

"I am powerless, i am helpless, i am frustrated, i sit here and cry with her. she cries for her daughter and i cry for mine. i CANNOT help her. i can't reach inside and take her broken heart. i must watch her suffer day after day and see her desolation. where is my power now? where is my mother's bag of tricks that will make it all better? where are the answers. i should have them. i'm a mother."

"There are times when i looked into my daughter's lost dark eyes and thought i would never see the face of my real daughter again. that is what cut my heart to ribbons even more than losing my grandchild - the thought that i had lost my daughter as well."

"what i didn't expect was that i would still be crying several months after maddy died."

"sudden, unanticipated death casts an overlying layer of trauma on the loss. the person's emotional responses are intensified; he or she may even exhibit symptoms of posttraumatic shock. the suddenness and lack of anticipation of the death overwhelm the mourner, leaving little resources for coping. "

and words like these, written by a grieving grandmother, words i could have written myself, i race over in an effort to control wracking sobs:

"maddy (sydney grace) will always be a part of me. she will never be forgotten. every breeze that touches my cheek will be my granddaughter whispering secrets. every fluffy cloud that floats across the sky is a kiss i am sending her. i will see her in every soft sunrise and brilliant sunset. and when i'm in colorado and feel a snowflake on my face, i know that maddy (sydney grace) will be telling me its time to stop crying. maddy (sydney grace), i loved you from the moment i knew you existed and i will always love you."

i still cry in church every single sunday morning. i can't help it. usually it is when i am singing that God cares about me, is wonderful to me, is my Strength. funny, that when i sing of all those things He is to me and is for me, that is when i cannot control the tears. and it lurks beneath hillarys and funny bloggers and broken trees on houses and all the other stuff i vomit to keep my sadness from becoming who i am.

this is all just so dang hard.

"

i laugh out loud....

http://candleatbothends.blogspot.com/

this blog makes me laugh EVERY TIME i read it. her accounts of motherhood are laced with sarcasm and wit and wonderful humor. enjoy.

changed from within....

i love this pastor's blog. please go to his site to read his most recent post - it contains an amazing testimony!

http://kerussocharis.blogspot.com/

by wade burleson

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

I Would Not Have Sinned, Except for the Law
Some Southern Baptist leaders believe that the way to stop believers from straying into sin, or to keep church members living lives consistent with personal holiness, or to establish churches with a worthy 'Baptist Identity,' is to lay out for Christians 'the law' of proper behavior. Following the articulation of 'the law' (whatever it may be from church to church), comes the use of threats (see picture below) to keep those Christians who violate the laws of the church. In this manner, some Southern Baptist leaders seem to feel comfortable that they have done all they can to perserve the purity of God's kingdom. However, in my experience, such behavior exhibited by church leadership contradicts the beauty of the gospel as an internal change of heart. To demand conformity through outward pressure is the tactic of religious cults, not Christian grace.

(go to the site for continuation of this post)

what if better doesn't come......

http://conorbootheandgirls.blogspot.com/

please check out boothe's post today. wise, helpful words.

metaphorically speaking......

i'm going to see the amish.
soon.

don't ask me any questions.

you won't get any answers.

Proud or Broken?

Differences Between Proud and Broken People
"There are times when I need to take a step back and evaluate my spirit in writing, ministry, and
life in general. The following table is helpful in terms of identifying, acknowledging, and repenting
of any spirit of pride in my life. It outlines the differences between proud and broken people."
Grace and Truth To You, by Wade Burleson April 17, 2008

i occasionally read a blog by a young pastor in oklahoma; he recently posted an interesting table pointing out the differences between proud and broken people. with his permission, i tried to copy the table but it didn't copy as a table and that truly is the best way to compare the differences. PLEASE go to to http://kerussocharis.blogspot.com/ to see for yourself. it is VERY convicting!!

(WHY does my blog print like this when the previewed sample is lined up perfectly????)

crazy is as crazy does.......

pipsy, this one's for you! sometimes i get a little obsessed. the list of blogs i read is situated to the right of my post. the blogs i have recently opened and read appear in black print. the ones still waiting to be opened appear in blue print. sometimes i can't stand it until they are all in one color so i open all of them until they are all black. oh yeah.

you can pick your friends but........

i read a post today from a mother who has recently had to bury her newborn boy. my heart hurts for her and i don't know her. it is more difficult still to hurt for your own family member. a sister whose husband is awaiting a possible cancer diagnosis, a neice whose father's life is stilled by a tragic accident, a daughter whose athletic husband drowns in a freak accident...or in our case a daughter who, almost 8 months pregnant, gives birth to a stillborn baby girl.

i haven't talked to or read posts or comments by any other grandmothers or grandfathers or aunts or uncles who are walking this road with their family member. i don't know if they don't know about the blogs, if the family member doesn't want to 'burden' relatives or impose sadness on them so they don't tell them about the blog- maybe most of us old geezers don't even know what a blog is or still prefer smith and corona manual typewriters.

the post i read today spoke of the difficulty of grieving and how relationships change through the journey. she commented that it seemed that the ones most sympathtic and most in constant contact are the new friends; and that even family had disappointed her. and it is well-known that any couple experiencing the death of a child, even a newborn, can easily become part of the divorce statistic. i had a friend whose daughter was 16 and killed on new years eve many years ago. she and her husband ended up divorcing and later re-marrying - AFTER the grief process had been completed - differently for each of them.

grieving husbands, wives, grandparents and siblings who may have always been close suddenly face a changed relationship; and if these relatives haven't been very close, it may be even harder to maintain the facade of a "normal' family. i read of a girl whose mother gets upset because her daughter is upset and then the daughter gets upset because she upset her mother. just as any death in a family can upset a seemingly stable family dynamic, a miscarriage, stillbirth or the death of a newborn can do the same. often, there is emotional baggage that family members carry that friends, old or new, don't have to tote around.

the girl who wrote the post also spoke of feeling irritable and snappy and angry. common reactions to recently experiencing a personal loss (and evidently, according to what i've also read recently, a physiological reaction). and don't you know that it is much easier to snap at a friend and experience forgiveness than it is to rail on a family member who unfortunately brings a trunk, 2 large suitcases, 1 carryon and a makeup tote full of family history? think about it this way: we yell at our children and spouses and complain to them about things they do that we "let go" with a wave of the hand and a smile when friends do the same things.

this journey is hard. watching from afar as a family member is confusing. wanting to say enough but not too little. not wanting to impose but wanting to be available. wanting to say her name but wondering if it will cause more pain. it's tiptoeing around the broken pieces for awhile, then deciding that isn't supportive enough and then stomping right through the middle of the shards before walking away in silence for awhile and then coming back to try again. all the while with the realization that the difficulty that you are experiencing is NOTHING compared to what she is going through.

so i pray for the girl who wrote the blog and i pray for our family and others like us. i pray that friends would continue to be supportive and comforting. and i pray that families would be healed and relationships mended....

....and that He would give us patience with ourselves and with each other.

she died in Christ.....

a woman i knew in church years ago died today. her daughter had gotten pregnant as a teenager and come back to the youth group as a teacher - her testimony was strong and effective. she went to college and married a nice young man and is six months pregnant with her second child. her mother died today after going to the hospital with an intestinal blockage; she had been looking forward to having another grandchild. my sadness is for her daughter and grandson and the grandchild she will never know as well as her close friends. but i know that right now she isn't worried about missing her grandchildren or daughter or her friends. she is in Good Hands and happy.

1 thessalonians 4:13: ".....do not grieve as do those who have no hope"

the high cost of filling up the tank....

i have been thinking about my daughter (i never stop thinking about her, really). throughout the last few months of reading blogs, i notice that rarely, if at all, do grandparents make comments. do they read their adult childrens' blogs? are they familiar with the blog world? or do they, as mentioned in cfhusband's blog, have full lives of their own - so much so that they don't have time to be part of the blogworld?

i love my job - it hardly feels like a job. i love the people i work with and i love the children - i am attached. aside from that small part of my week, it is pretty much internet, tv and sleep. when i am with my adult children there is conversation, busyness and keeping up with grandkids - but those times are scattered and occasional.

my question to myself is "what fills a life" ? i drive by the park by our house and see little boys at t-ball practice or soccer practice; i drive by the elementary school and see brownie scouts gathering for a weekend campout. i drive by the high school and see middle schoolers readying for a trackmeet. that used to fill my life. what now? what do i do with these last twenty or so years of my life? years i thought would be constant with family?

sometimes i feel like moving far away and saturating myself in missions. but my motive for that should be to glorify God - not "fill my life".

my tank feels empty. how do i fill it up?

ellaiden's birthday pics!

to the right are more pics - at one point we missed ellaiden and her friend naomi - we found them snuggled up in e's bed! happy birthday, two-year-old!! (oh, and the tulips? 6 hours after we bought them, this is what they looked like....)

little miss e...

we went to austin for the weekend to help celebrate ellaiden's 2nd birthday. we were very busy all weekend. grocery shopping for the food, cleaning house, planting flowers outside, cleaning up and setting up the patio for the party, preparing veg and fruit trays - and the weather was perfect! there were around 35 people - friends from chris and jenny's church (mosaic/austin - don't know how to make this a link but you can check it out online) and friends chris went to high school with who we have known for as long. the whole thing was outside and there were lots of little kids running around. (i'll post pictures later).

we brought ellaiden back with us for the week to give chris and jenny a much-needed break (e is 2 and soren is 7 months); evidently this is common practice for grandparents because we learned that lauren bagwell dietz's mother-in-law brought braxton back to austin from north carolina and then flew back with him to get him home and turned around and flew back by herself to austin. sounds familiar :) we got back from austin tonight around 6:30. ellaiden was supposed to take a nap before we left but didn't so we thought she would in the car but she didn't. she watched a winnie the pooh movie and a backyardigans movie AND part of an elmo movie - close to home she ate some ham and a bowl of vegetables, some goldfish and a cup of milk. she was GREAT!!

when we got here she walked right into the playroom and checked out her bed and the toys. i put away alyssa's doll house furniture that we bought when we lived in pennsylvania when she was 10 years old; i bought some inexpensive furniture and dolls at hobby lobby for the grandchildren to play with. ellaiden immediately sat down on the floor and rearranged the furniture. she was pretty tired after a bath and after one story, she was yawning and about to fall asleep snugged up in dora and diego bedding.

even though tonight there is a frost warning (go figure) the day-time temps are supposed to be in the mid-70's so we hope to make it to the park and church playground this week. ellaiden plays hard and is a good sleeper so i think the week will go by really fast.

i told her parents we would keep her as long as they wanted us to. maybe til she is 4! :)

i think that i shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree...

Joyce Kilmer. 1886–1918
Trees
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

so, my 24-year old friend who i've known since she was 3 months old came into town. during her college years each summer we would play scrabble til the wee hours of many mornings. so last night i said, come on over and we'll play one last scrabble series before you leave town again. we played until 2:30. only got 2 games finished (tells you how long we ponder over words in an attempt to get that 85 point word). she finally said i'm just going to sleep on your sofa and go home tomorrow. i went to bed at 2:38am. quick deep sleep.

about an hour and a half later i heard a sound i'd never heard before. weird wind. no train sound. no howling or whistling. just weird. before i could get my eyes fully open i heard a unusual and dramatic sound. i didn't jump up. i lay very still and in my semi-conscious foggy sleep-state i said "i think a car just landed on our roof." i don't know why i said it and then i thought i had dreamed it. i stayed under the covers.

when we looked outside it was apparent that the 50 ft fifty-year old oak tree had been twisted up out of the ground - much like the cork we had unscrewed from the wine bottle at dinner earlier in the evening. a double-trunked tree. one trunk fell into the street and the other larger trunk fell across the gable of our roof and onto the neighbor's roof. we were lucky. our damage was minimal, unlike many in plano and allen.

as the tree service began the cleanup i asked the site manager about the way the tree fell. i said surely since it was situated so close to the house that if it had fallen straight toward the bedroom window it would have just rested against the house. he laughed at me and said, "honey, not a 15,000 lb tree. it would have landed on your bed!" gulp.

i think i'm going to be sick......

i don't quite know exactly what i'm about to say. i just know it has been on my heart for a while and i haven't known how to word it; i will probably still stumble but here goes. my intent is not to offend or hurt or misunderstand - i'm trying to figure things out as well.

i once had an acquaintance who a sweet, compassionate person. she would do anything for you and she had a heart of gold. she also was willing to share the burdens of others; she felt the pain of others and wept along with anyone who was experiencing sadness or grief or even just a serious personal problem. she probably, like me, carried the pain of stories splashed across the television and in print - stories of tragic car accidents or misfortunes that would arrive at the doorsteps of neighbors or even those unknown to her.

the only problem was that she couldn't let go of it. people would see her coming and began to turn the other way. it wasn't that they didn't care and it wasn't because they didn't want to help. but she seemed unable to grow through her grief - even with the support and love of her friends. she was a victim and she seemed unable to un-victimize herself.

i don't want to be that person. as sad as i am, as hurt as i am for my daughter, as much of a loss as i feel our family has experienced, i don't want to be that person that people begin to avoid. i don't want to continue to bring darkness and despair into the lives of others if i'm living a joyless existence. heaven only knows they have their own situations to deal with. wouldn't i rather be light? even in the midst of my own misfortune? what am i called to be? i choose jesus so what is my responsibility?

i continute to be amazed at the young women whose light continues to shine even though they have suffered great loss. oh, they speak of sadness and what-ifs but i never hear bitterness. they feel anger for sure but it is tempered, perhaps by their tone or their language and also because of their ability to claim joy in the midst of their grief. don't get me wrong. i still sob. i still see young mothers with precious live bundles of spit and drool and poop and my knees go weak and the knot in my stomach tightens.

the other thing i continue to struggle with is blogdom. when i read a post from a family that has just experienced great loss and they write of the hundreds of comments they get and how much they are uplifted by every single prayer and the support even from strangers, i am convicted to continue to blog-stalk and comment. but then, i begin to question that practice of saturating my time at home with the tragedies of others. PLEASE don't think i am callous; those who know me best know better. my heart tells me to READ READ READ each and every story and COMMENT COMMENT COMMENT so as to be supportive and prayerful. so......

.....i am in a quandry: 1)i don't want to remain a victim - this doesn't mean i deny my grief or the process of moving through it and 2)is it healthy for me, or anyone else who has experienced a loss, to dwell in the world of sad blogdom and 3)even though i gain support and prayerful encouragement from others, am i really leaning on the blogsters more than my God in order to heal and 4)as my blogging is considered a public on-line journal what really is its purpose? is it to vent my feelings? is it to help others? if it is to help others, how am i most effective? in expressing my raw feelings so that others will say 'i feel the same way'? or in expressing my raw feelings BUT reflecting a sort of peace and reliance on God AND evidence that He truly is working in me in a good way. if i continue to express my bitterness and anger am i inhibiting those who read my blog from moving forward? should much of that posting be in a private diary? I DON'T KNOW!!! if i am told 'grieve at your own pace' for ME does that mean that i will still be grieving 10 years from now as if it is a fresh wound and my life will be a reflection of my grief, not my joy?

i just know that i want to crawl out of the pits. i want others to crawl out with me. and i don't know if that can happen if i don't take the outreached hand of the One who assures me that He is in control and reflect that in a positive manner. when i grieved my own personal loss 35 years ago, i was in darkness. i was a christian but didn't KNOW my Lord. i am so grateful to be where i am today knowing that i don't have to stay in the mirey clay.

i was talking to someone today about grief groups. i expressed to her the concern that if i were in a grief group that didn't have an agenda or a spiritual purpose, i am afraid i would remain stuck - almost embracing my grief. i might not even realize that i was carrying my grief around in my purse or wearing it on my lapel like a purple heart pin for all to see. i have another friend who lost a baby a few years ago and the other day i asked her how did you ever get to the point where you weren't wearing your grief like an easter corsage. you know what she told me?

"i just got sick of myself."

i think i understand that. i don't want others to get sick of me and i for sure don't want to get someone else sick. it doesn't mean i won't still feel my sadness. it won't diminish my loss.

Lord, help me to get sick of myself.

.

Preparation isn't always easy.....

as i'm dashing off to work - from my daily devotional flip-over on the kitchen counter calendar:

April 7 - "Once you grow and develop the right condition inwardly, the words which Jesus spoke become so clear that you are amazed that you did not grasp them before. our Lord doesn't hide these things from us, but we are not prepared to receive them until we are in the right condition in our spiritual life." Oswald Chambers

on the other hand......

okay, forget that last post. i was having a moment. i care too much. :)

will it ever stop?

this is how it works. once you connect with a tragedy exposed on-line in the blogger world, soon you see another story posted and you check that one out. after awhile you begin to know that family's personal hell as you become familiar with their journey through grief. after a while, someone posts of another suffering family. before you realize it you have bookmarked dozens of blogsites to "check in on" daily. i found yet another one today of a precious, beautiful three-year-old who drowned.

i don't think i can do this anymore. it is becoming such a major part of my life that i feel surrounded by darkness and sadness and dashed hopes. i know God is there in the middle of all of these posts and there is much growth occuring in all of these situations BUT i don't feel like it is healthy for me to be as consumed by the tragedies of others as i appear to be.

some of the sites i first visited i feel connected to and probably can't abandon. but my word, it goes on and on and on and there are more and more and more and i just don't think i can do it.

weird....

suddenly i'm feeling awkward about posting. feeling awkward

about being a 58 year old non-traditional mother and

grandmother with a tattoo and a facebook page........not sure

what THIS is about. weird.

NOTE TO THE WORLD:

note to the world: whenever a person's life is spared from a tragedy DO NOT say "God was really looking out for him". that implies that He was NOT looking after the person who lost his life. our God doesn't work that way. He looks after us all.

lacking.....

i don't have the wisdom or the spiritual depth or the biblical background or the confidence. i just love her and hate to see her in pain.