Merry Christmas!

 

 



Happy Birthday to my Savior, my Lord.

Roots



Everyone, meet my favorite spot in the entire state of Texas.  Favorite spot - everyone.  I call it 'my island' and yes, it must be visited several times a week.  My legs last until the other side of it and then it is time to sit under the most perfect tree.





Charles and I were taking a rest here the other day and I stopped and noticed the exposed roots I was sitting on.  They were huge! And bumpy. And hard. And not the prettiest. Spreading in every which direction, kinking up and smoothing out, intertwining with neighbors, creating the most chaotic pattern.  'Oh what a story this tree could tell,' I thought.  Tree roots are ususally so deep underground and so rarely exposed, I've never really stopped to think about how as much of a tree is hidden as is above ground.

My, oh my, what we really can't see.  So much more lies beneath, those sprawling and sturdy underground limbs holding us up, their curvy and bumpy path having hit so many blocks and with simply changing direction or merging with other roots for added strength, continuing on.  Above surface, we may look tall and strong, stable and steady, but underneath we are each on a chaotic and curvy path.  Perfectly straight roots would not yield such depth and lengths. Stubborn, on their own roots, would not be as strong without the melding and support of others.  What's underneath may be messy, may be wild, may be turbulent and disorganized, but only such courses can support a tree growing at a slant out of the water on an island.

bringing comfort

how I wish I could send Charlie to every single on of those families.

God be with those sweet babies. God be with those families.

The Nanking Massacre



Have you ever heard of this?  1937?  The Japanese raid this city in China and DESTROY it.  Destroy it's people (literally).  In just the first month, over 20,000 rapes of women and young girls were reported.  Horrifying that this is true, sad that I've never heard about it.

I watched a movie about this (The Flowers of War - last one of Christian Bale on netflix I haven't seen) and my mind was blown.  The story goes that there was a school for girls run by an American missionary that saved literally thousands of lives from rape and death.  The Japanese soldiers raided her school and demanded 13 girls to 'sing at a party' they were having.  Everyone knew, the girls included, that if they left with the soldiers, they would be used as sex slaves for the soldiers and eventually killed.  A group of women taking shelter in the school cut off their hair and donned the girls' school uniforms and went instead. The soldiers never recognized the difference and the women were taken and never to be heard from again. These women were former prostitutes and in my mind, they were heroes.

I immediately started researching it and have become entralled on this horrible event. I watched another film tonight about it that was more of a reading of journals and letters of the missionaries over there that tried so desperately to save so many.  It also included interviews from real survivors and soldiers (of both sides) recounting their experiences.  My hand was over my mouth many, many times.

The suffering and trials the human body and soul can come back from is just unimagineable.  God bless these people and the opportunity they have to share their story.

progress

I was talking to my bishop today, introducing myself and telling him a little bit about me.  It took a while and I thought, 'oh - he will need to know you are sick.'  As in, it wasn't my first thought about myself - as in, there was more to me in my mind than that.  People, that's huge. 

Am I feeling better?  not a lick.  Blood pressure was 78/40 tonight and I am a mess.  Twenty minutes later it was 156/135.  I dare say that is not normal?  My dad kept telling me to go to the er - for what - more degrading judgment. I'll pass.  They will just hype me up on drugs to regulate it and tell me to check with my primary care physician for further treatment (you mean the one that said, 'I don't do blood pressure')? Instead, I am going to sit in my home and be happy. 

You have no idea how wonderful it is to say 'my home.'  I don't own it, can barely half of rent it, but baby - it's mine.  For the last six years, I have felt like such a burden, such a 14 year old burden, that is. My friends have all moved on in life, hitching, hatching, homeowning, as they should - I was not able to progress with them, however (and that's okay! my goodness I am blessed).

Sleeping in other people's homes, eating their food, running their a/c, feeling like a high school drop out with no motivation to get off of the couch was quite hard.  Oh the guilt.  Yeah, yeah - I had my reasons for living with the folks, and I will be forever grateful to them for being so supportive and understanding through all of this, but it is so wonderful to be out in the World, just making it.  There come's a time, that you just need to feel like a normal person, a human being with a little part of the Earth of their own.

My bishop asked me how I am doing in learning the lessons the Lord surely has in store for me through this trial.  I'm really getting there, Austin just may be my medicine after all.

happy.

Someone asked me the other day, 'what brought you to Austin.'  I've been asked this question many, many times.  'A little voice,' I have been replying.  Honestly - that's it.  A voice much calmer, quieter and sweeter than mine - one that can see a whole lot further out than my own.  I listened to it instead of my own for once and wow, what a difference.