Love Remembers

The last 6 months have completely rocked my world.  Not because anything has happened to me personally, but because I have watched those that I care about, or those that I know, suffer of the greatest kind.  In it all, I have been looking for God, searching for His sovereignty and wondering where He is.  I don’t know if I found what I was looking for but by searching, watching, and listening, I have learned of the greatest love in the world.

Love comes in so many different ways and shapes and sizes, but these last few months, I have learned that love is always there.  Love remembers everything that happens, sacrifices that were made, things that were lost, hearts that were broken.  Love is always there.  If we choose love, it will remain.

Love remembers my friend Charity.  Charity and her husband, Tony, were blessed with a beautiful baby girl named Alethia Joy.  She was born on February 3, 2009 and was ushered into the safe arms of Jesus before she ever drew a breath here on earth.  In watching Charity (and Tony, but mostly Charity) deal with her grief, I know this: she doesn’t belong here.  People like Charity don’t belong on the same earth as me.  People like Charity belong in Heaven.  People like Charity bring Christ to this earth, and I look at her, and I just know that there’s something different about her.  I think it’s because she was asked to give up her one and only daughter to the Father.  Like He sacrificed His Son for us, for us to grow closer to Him, Charity gave her daughter up to Him, for Alethia’s story to find someone’s heart, so that the lost could grow closer to Jesus.  Since hearing the news late on February 2, there has not been a single day that I don’t pray for Alethia and her mom and her dad.  There’s not a single day that I don’t wish the best of God’s love, the greatest of His blessings on their family.  I sometimes look at my own beautiful daughter and wonder why I was allowed to keep her, but Charity wasn’t allowed to keep her baby, and it breaks my heart.  It’s not fair.  I pray that I never forget Alethia’s story, because her story is Charity’s story, and Charity’s story is of a human’s love for her Father, a woman who loved her Father so much that she chooses every day to give Him the glory for the life that she had to give up.

Love remembers a boy I knew in high school.  I managed the swim team, he swam backstroke.  After graduating he married (get this!) a teammate’s sister and had a beautiful baby boy.  About three years later, they were expecting their second child – a girl.  They named her Hope Elizabeth.  Shortly after they found out that the baby was a girl, they found out that Hope had a heart defect, one that would demand open heart surgery shortly after birth.  There began a campaign to get Hope to the best pediatric cardiac center in the country.  Hope was born, a full term baby, and the quest began to get her healthy enough to nurse, to thrive, to live.  Hope shocked all of her doctors by coming through surgery and making it, being stronger than anyone would have ever expected.  And then, three weeks after her birthday, Hope went into cardiac arrest and died.  But her legacy is one of a baby who fought with her whole heart.  Her parents remind everyone that only Jesus could heal Hope’s broken heart and now she was perfectly whole again.  They remind everyone of Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Love remembers a friend whose husband has had four affairs.  FOUR.  He apparently had one of these while she was bearing one of their children.  After each of these she has taken him back, forgiven him, and started over again.  They have raised a family together, but after almost twenty years and affair after affair, she’s throwing in the towel.  She’s done.  But love remembers her heart for forgiveness and gives her strength to go on.

Love will remember a little boy whose father struggles to do what is right for his son, while losing so many things that are important to him.  Love remembers the father whose own heart breaks for his boy, at the same time trying to make his own life better.  Love remembers a young man who can’t remember what it was like to be happy and who’s scared to be on his own.  He doesn’t know what it’s like to want to get up in the morning, and he can’t remember days when he would smile and laugh.  But love is there, if he would choose to believe it.

Love also remembers the husband and wife who put each other above everything else.  Love remembers the big brother who brings his little sister a cupcake from school.  Love remembers the little girl who smiles just because mommy gave her a kiss.  Love remembers best friends at school, who look forward to each morning just to see one another.  Love remembers the teacher who poured out everything she had for her students.

I think my point is this: when the people around me begin to suffer, I begin to look more for God’s love to be present.  And what I’ve found is that if I look for it, it’s there.  If we choose to look for God’s love, we will find it, but like so many other things, do we choose love?  Or do we choose something else?  I vote we choose love.  Because love remembers us and it will always remember us.

And it begins

Today is my first day of summer!  Hurrah!  This past weekend JJ and Rob, with some help from Steve, built us a new deck.  It is awesome.  And very safe.  JJ started working around 8 and didn’t get finshed until almost 10.  They did stop for meals, though.    And while that was happening, I washed and kindof detailed my car.  I didn’t get to JJ’s.  I need to, though.  Probably this weekend.

Sunday morning Natalie and I made cookies.  It was my first real cooking project with Natalie, even though I have allowed her to do things like put salt in the potatoes before now.  I measured out the flour, and she scooped it and put it into the mixer.  She turned the mixer on and off.  She helped shape the cookies.  All with my help, of course.  The resulting cookies are quite good.  I was a little surprised, I have to admit.

This week’s big project, now that the deck is done, is to create Natalie a playroom.  Right now all her toys are in the living room and they’re taking over.  It’s impossible to keep that room clean because how do you explain to a one year old that EVERY toy has to be put away ALL the time?  It’s really unfair.  So we’re cleaning out the study, moving the computer upstairs to the guest room, painting it blue (I get  a blue room!) and moving her toys in.  By Sunday she should have a place to call her own.  I hope.

In other news I have officially started my half-marathon training program.  By following the schedule I’ve printed out, I’m supposedly going to be ready for a half in about September.  That gives me a little wiggle room for vacation and such.  I’m also glad that the training schedule allows me to work in some swimming and lifting.  That’s my kind of training program.  We’ll just have to see if I can stick to it.  And if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll even lose a few pounds along the way.

Sunshine and summertime

I am, traditionally, not a big fan of summer.  I don’t like the heat.  I don’t like the sun.  I don’t like the heat.  I don’t like sweating.  I don’t like the heat.  But I am a HUGE fan of having the summer off.  It’s the perfect job for a full time working mom because as a teacher, I get a few weeks a year when I can just be a mom to my one daughter.  The rest of the year I take care of and pray for and teach about a dozen or so other children but for a few weeks a year, I’m just mom to one.  And that makes the heat all worth it.  We’ve already gone swimming half a dozen times, for walks by the lake where we saw turtles, a blue heron, and mallards, and played in the backyard with bubbles and the inflatable wading pool.  Next week we’re going to make bread and cookies and we’re going to read stories and paint things.  It’ll be fun.  I can’t wait.

On a slightly more … mundane note … I did something unusual today.  While we were shopping for pull-ups and toddler underwear (woohoo for potty training!), I saw a couple of cute shirts and grabbed them.  As we were getting ready to leave I put them back.  This, in and of itself, isn’t that unusual.  What’s unusual is the REASON I did it.  Why did I put those shirts back on the rack?  Because I thought I would look ugly in them.  Not because of the colors or the cut, but because I’ve come to the realization that it’s hard to enjoy the way you look in any clothes at all when you’re as frustrated with weight loss as I am.  And before you reach for your mouse to click on comments to tell me that I look great etc etc let me just point out that this is not a vanity based thing.  It is an adjustment to a life that doesn’t revolve around working out.  I know it’s been over 5 years since I had a regular workout regimen, but every day I still miss it and still wish that I had the energy for it.  I have never had a desire to be skinny per se.  But I have always wanted to prove that I can do things that others can’t, or that others wouldn’t believe I could.  But it is frustrating to do all the things that everyone says to do (I eat 5-7 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, 80% of the pasta/bread I eat is whole wheat, I drink skim milk, I rarely eat candy and dessert usually consists of an apple with peanut butter or a scoop of raspberry sorbet) when it comes to food and I went out last weekend and ran 3.5 miles.  These are not the behavior of a person who is, medically, listed in the category of obese.  I would dare anyone else my height and weight to keep up with me in the pool or run as regularly as I do.  Ergo, frustration in the extreme.  It’s the annoyance knowing that, until I drop another 30-35 pounds, I won’t even be considered for life insurance to take care of my family in case I croak, because my weight is a “risk factor.”  SO frustrating.  It’s not a vanity thing at all – it’s not a “I’m ugly, woe is me” type feeling.  It’s the frustration that comes with the fact that no doctors seem to believe me, nor can I actually prove anything since I can’t get the weight off (so it would seem).  I put those shirts back not necessarily because I didn’t think I’d look good in them – I put them back because I would FEEL ugly in them, knowing the potential I have yet to achieve here.  There is, however, an opportunity that is just waiting to be used: starting Friday afternoon I am OUT for the summer.  No school, little work (just here and there) and a little more time.  So I’m going to try and do this.  30-35 pounds OFF by Christmas.  6 months – that’s about a pound a week-ish.  I’m hoping that if I get back into a routine of it, I’ll get over the annoyance of having to “work it in” to my schedule.  We’ll just have to see.

Natalie has started to talk!  Kind … of.  She has started to use about a dozen words regularly in a variety of forms.  Up, out, go, school, momma, dada, dogga (doggie), yes (or “ye”), and, yes, it’s true, Gabba.  In fact, I think that other than mom (which was what she’d called me up until this week – not mommy or mama – no, no, MOM) and dada (which was her first word) I think her first word was, in fact, Gabba.  The funny thing is, she’s lucky if she watches more than 10 minutes of TV a day.  I think she just considers it a novel treat and learned how to ask for it in a hurry. But on the other hand, she has learned to ask to snuggle when watching TV.  She’ll snuggle only at 2 times – when she’s just woken up, be that in the morning or naptime, and when we’re on the couch watching TV.  The temptation is to watch more TV because she’s definitely NOT an affectionate child by nature, but *sigh* propriety of parenthood dictates I ought to do something … useful instead like learn to hold a marker or read a book.  Such is life, but every minute is totally worth it.  A thousand times over.