Sometimes, music just hits you right where you are, ya know???

"Faithful One" ~Selah

"I Believe" ~ JJ Heller

"I Have To Believe" - Rita Springer

"Still My God" ~ Avalon

"We Are The Reason" ~ Avalon

Haven't heard this song in forever!!! Still love it.....don't mind me, just having a li'l worship experience in the hospital room this morning.....& trying to pull a certain someone into it with me ;)

Moms. We can be so annoying. :P

‪#‎PrayForAshlyn‬

Music Speaks....

Hard day for my sunshine....in more ways than just physical. She thinks I'm playing some of my favorites on youtube for ME. The songs that bring peace to my heart & soothe my soul in the most painful of times, the words and truths of God set to music..... music often does things that words spoken in other ways can't. Mamas of teens, and mamas of teens who are faced with something that is so terrifying, have to have a few tricks up their sleeves sometimes.

This is where she finds out what kind of faith she has. This is where it gets real....

‪#‎PrayForAshlyn‬

Strength for the Weakness

Watching my girl who turns 16 in 20 days sleep on a couch nearby, drinking more coffee....and praying that she'll feel good on her 16th bday, a day she was planning to celebrate surrounded by her amazing friends at camp. If I could have hand-picked her friends, I would have picked the exact same ones she did. ♥ I don't even know what to plan for her :'( ....I was hoping when morning came, maybe ...it wouldn't be true. I don't want it to be..... I want to go to bed, pull the covers over my head and pretend it isn't. Come on coffee....do your thing so I can get movin' on another day.

"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Matthew 16:24

Can I PLEASE carry hers, too?? :'( :'( :'(

"But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:19-11

Don't feel you have to comment on this one. Just showing I'm not as strong as everyone thinks I am.

HE is.

 

"Our Hope Endures" ~ Natalie Grant

♫ You would think only so much can go wrong
Calamity only strikes once
And you assume that this one has suffered her share
Life will be kinder from here...
Oh, but sometimes the sun stays hidden for years
Sometimes the sky rains night after night
When will it clear?
But our hope endures the worst of conditions
It's more than our optimism
Let the earth quake, our hope is unchanged
Emanuel, God is with us
El Shaddai, all sufficient
We never walk alone
And this is our hope ♫

"Broken Praise" ~Todd Smith

After more doctor appts, more tests, & a scheduled and cancelled surgery...I received a diagnosis for Ashlyn this afternoon. 

Another case of no words. But there's always a song for that....

"Come To Jesus" ~ Chris Rice

Why's this song gotta come on the radio & make me cry??? Makes it kinda hard to see the work I'm trying to do. :'( Blaming it on the rain....that must be why....

"Carry Me To The Cross" ~ Kutless

"How Sweet The Sound" ~ Citizen Way

When there are no words....there's always music.

Running Shoes Are Made For Dancing....

I just got back from a walk/jog.....and stopped walking/jogging where the road meets the drive that leads to my house and with it being a long, private & isolated drive....with no one in sight....I proceeded to totally rock out & dance like no one was watching to Superchick & Carrie Underwood all the way.

 Until I reached the corner where I take a turn or head into the woods. It was then something caught my eye and I turned around. Behind me was a truck with 2 work men in it, laughing & grinning from ear to ear. Welcome to the comedy act that is my life....

 

It's a good thing I know how to laugh at myself :: A sense of humor is critical at times like this ;)

"Broken Hallelujah" ~ The Afters

Sometimes just the right song comes on at just the right time.....like when you're sitting in your vehicle waiting on your young-un, feeling exhausted & numb from a really hard afternoon, following a really hard weekend, following a really hard week...... :'(

"Worn" ~ Tenth Avenue North

"Whom Shall I Fear" ~ Chris Tomlin

"Unredeemed" ~ Selah

"I Can Just Be Me" ~Laura Story

Laura Story - I Can Just Be Me (Official Lyric Video) from laura-story on GodTube.

One Step Closer to Letting Go

Today was meet the realtor day....the day we took one step closer to putting my Granny's house on the market.  She was here for five minutes and as I listened to her talk and begin to get details about the house and why it was being sold......I couldn't stay.  I walked to the back of the house, closed the door to "my" room and fought with myself as tears and sobs escaped and I struggled to stuff them back in.  Deep breaths, tissues, shoes on......I had to get some air, had to go for a walk.  My sweet youngest son went with me and as I walked down the drive, I looked over my shoulder at the house, the yard, the trees......and cried.  Once again willing them to stop, his sweet hand found mine and his sweet voice told me, "I'm sorry this makes you so sad, but I understand......I love you".  We walked and walked and walked around this little town, walked until I felt like a grown-up again and could return to the house and act like one.

For the next two hours or so,  I listened to the realtor talking as she walked through the house with my  mama and uncle, commenting on how big it is, on the five bedrooms, what good shape it's in, trying to pry up carpet that needs replacing to see if there's hard wood flooring underneath.  I listened as she said what a good house it is and how great it is that the only things that will need to be done to get it ready to put on the market are cosmetic, painting rooms, replacing light fixtures......I wished she would go.  She couldn't believe how big the rooms are, how "just wonderful" it is, how the timing for putting it on the market is perfect.....blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.....I wish I could move here and make those changes myself and keep this house.  Irrational and unrealistic, maybe.....but I still wish that I could.

I listened as they talked of selling my Granny's things at a yard sale.  A yard sale.......the thought of strangers carelessly sifting through items that mean nothing to them, looking for a cheap bargain & haggling over fifty cents here and a dollar there, makes me want to yell and scream......and cry, yet again.  The items from the kitchen.....they won't know how my Granny used those items, pots and pans and baking dishes....to love her family.  They won't know how she put that secret ingredient.....an extra dose of love....into everything she served.  They won't know that nothing gave her greater joy than to cook and bake for her loved ones, and how much pleasure she got from watching them eat and enjoy the fruits of her labor.  How she would literally beam as she watched plates being cleaned and people going back for seconds, exclaiming how good everything was.  Those baking dishes and other items....gifts given, from a daughter's cruise or a grandchild's trip to Sea World, and trinkets collected from family trips, will just be a good deal to them, something they picked up for a dollar or two from someone's yard one Saturday.

I listened more as they talked of taking down pictures, removing items that make this house a home, the items that are all pieces of my family's story, that tell the tale of the lives that were lived here, of the people who were loved, of milestones reached and accomplishments achieved, of moments shared and of memories made.......so that another family can move into this house that my PawPaw built "from the ground up" as I always hear my mama say, brick by brick.  They won't know how the original family of five lived in a two-bedroom house until my mama was in her teens, how they worked and worked and worked at their restaurant and store and gas station, and worked in other ways as well, to save......until they could build this house.  They won't know that in these rooms, I can still feel the assurance of the unconditional and desperately needed steadfast love that I found here, strong and steady when the world outside was not.  It won't mean as much to them as it does to me......I didn't even realize how much it meant to me until now.  I never knew you could be so attached to a house, but with each step of letting it go, along with saying goodbye to someone who was so precious to me,  it feels like I'm losing a big part of myself, too.

One of Granny's sitters came by and brought a friend with her and they walked through each room, looking around, and I overheard them talking about the furniture, overheard the friend telling my mom that she was interested in some items....what good shape everything is in and what nice things she had.  Much of it is already spoken for.....many items will be going into a house we are currently building and as I listened and inwardly raised my eyebrows, I'm pretty sure I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up and the thought went through my head before I could stop it, "too bad, so sad".  Eloquent and mature, I know.......the thought of others rummaging through the items that made up my Granny's life and the reality of it happening is a hard one and I think I can sympathize well with people who are hoarders right now.

This day tore me up inside and I literally trembled as I struggled to keep it all in,  keep it under control.  The only way I could keep the tears and emotions at bay and keep my composure as the realtor and my mom talked to me here and there, asking me questions, asking my thoughts and input.....was to channel it all and write my way through it.  I sat and typed as it all went on around me, smiling and talking when needed, while everyone thought I was working on something.....never having a clue that behind my calm and quiet demeanor, a torrent of emotions was threatening to erupt.  I thought about how weird I am, having to write to keep those emotions under control, to keep from crying.  The same compulsion to write through my Granny's death and funeral pull at me now.  I told myself I was being stupid and that people have to do this all the time, that I should just get over it and it shouldn't be this hard, shouldn't be making me feel this way.  And I heard the voice of a friend telling me more than once to stop belittling my feelings and struggles.  That it doesn't matter what other people think or have gone through or are going through, that my pain is my pain and that I'm entitled to it and have to let myself deal with it in the ways that I need to.  To stop being so hard on myself.

The only person whom I think could possibly understand what I'm feeling and why lives very far away, our family estranged by hurt and bitterness and unforgiveness.  Relationships broken and severed.......but she would know and she would understand.  I wouldn't have to try to explain anything to her.....I know she would know because this place in the middle of nowhere meant as much to her as it means to me.....she shared that with me recently, wrote nearly the same words to me that I have thought and spoken to a few when trying to shed light on this part of what I'm going through.  I stared at her words in disbelief that, so completely different than me, she was feeling the same feelings and I found it somewhat of a comfort.....to know that maybe I'm justified in the depths of my hurting.  Because I always have a need to justify it in order to allow myself not to feel guily for feeling it.

Two girls, six years apart in birth and light years apart in personality.  Two girls who lived through the same childhood, survived the same dysfunctional family, different in how it affected us, different in how we reacted and responded, different in how our hearts were broken, in the wounds and scars left on our souls.....but forever bonded by blood and the hurt that both share whether different in nature or not.

On this chilly January night in Middle Georgia, as I write to try to settle the onslaught of thoughts that won't quiet down because it seems to help....it does help, enough so that I'm doing it regardless of what people think,  I wonder if it's possible to feel more alone than I do right now and I wonder how many tears a person can cry before they just run out.  Pulling my Granny's blanket up a little higher, I am beyond thankful for the Bible studies done,  for the scriptures and songs that flood my mind in response to each thought and feeling that pierces my heart.....telling me, once again, that even though it feels as if I'm alone....I'm not.

(You can disable/mute the auto music player at the bottom of the page so as not to interfere with the video)