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What happens when we pray…

Since living on a wooded lot for 10 years in SC I’ve prayed and asked God to see an owl. It’s one animal I’ve never seen in the wild. The animal I asked to see before that was a fox. God allowed me to see one several years ago. It was amazing.

Last night He gave me my owl. And there is quite a story brewing with it. I can’t tell it all now but I just have to laugh at My Father sometimes for He is such a God of order, timing, knowing my soul and answering my prayers at the perfect time. I have literally been praying to see an owl for 10+ years.

I have no idea what kind of owl I saw last night all I know is that it was my owl, perfectly timed and being perfectly orchestrated by the One who loves me best. I can’t wait to tell the full story as it unfolds in my life. Stay tuned….

Julie

2 Comments

Posted: August 4, 2010 by Julie |Category: God Breathed | Tags: Florida, God, owl, prayer

Traveling again…with numbers.

Numbers often cause me to feel comforted……then other times, uncomfortable.

But driving home yesterday (back to Florida) I felt comforted by these numbers. It had been a good week of visiting friends, another piece of letting go, bringing more furniture, and several HARD conversations with Rocketman. (Note to self: I’m going to have to come up with a new name for him now that he no longer works for a company that makes airplane ignition systems).

Hello lovely digital car odometer numbers. Predictable. Rational. Systematic. Orderly. Infinite. Well, unless when they represent mileage on a car.

Hello again….predictable friends of mine.

And the numbers I’d been waiting for……

Hey there round, straight, nice pretty numbers.

Oh! Here are some more. I like you too.

Oh, I know what’s next!!!

I liked these too….

There is something comforting about God’s order of things (like numbers). They spoke to me as I pulled a U-Haul and kids 6 hours to Florida yesterday. The kids kept asking why I was taking photos of the odometer. “I don’t know.” I’d say. “I just want to.”

Rocketman followed or led depending upon whether or not I was talking on the phone. He says I go fast when I’m not and slow when I’m talking. That’s probably a good thing right?? Oh, and yes, I pulled over to take everyone of these shots.

Even the fact these made it all the way made me feel good.

The passenger side seat looked like this: gifts from friends, plants from the house, water cup for dog, band-aid that has been wrapped around my hanging plant for about 15 years…..

And a few of my favorite things that sat on my desk once I got home……my favorite lamp (I had to talk myself into buying), two of my favorite vases, my candle from a dear loved and missed friend , my favorite photo of baby girl picking flowers (sorry for the flash), my new phone and my coffee cup (also from that sweet friend) and a supply of pens and pencils. Something about them bring comfort too.

Order.

Feelings evoked from material things.

Thank you Lord for both.

Won’t it be wonderful when one day all our comfort is derived from just looking upon His face? I’m thankful now though that I’m allowed a few creature comforts. Now….off to that cup of coffee on my desk.

1 Comment

Posted: August 2, 2010 by Julie |Category: Our Family, Our Lives | Tags: numbers, odometer, order, traveling

“a comma is a punctuation mark used to…”

I’ve revised (just a little) a letter I wrote to a dear friend of mine today. She attends the same bible study I attended in SC…..

Dear Sister(s) in Christ ,
I thought I would write to you, for you have been on my heart for weeks and I need your prayers.
I miss you all so much. Just thinking of Bible Study beginning again makes my heart long for each of you.
This transition to Florida has been very difficult on me. It’s amazing how I worried about my kids and it’s me God has put to the grinding wheel.
I have spent months looking back and grieving but purposed several days ago to look forward. Grief will rise it’s head again and again but hopefully I will look at it with a different focus next time. A God focus.

We are still renting and have our house on the market in Liberty. We lost one sale. It’s a slow, slow market.
I think God is using it to keep us renting and not buying here. I always think of His “no” as His protection over me.

Although I would love to be “settled” in a house, to know where I’m going to live, to paint and to nest I’m having to learn (and it’s hard GIRLS!!!) to be content in this place of God’s protection.
For pete’s sake I have mauve walls, brown carpet and purple carpet. How do you decorate that????
Oh how I say I trust Him and my heart denies that very thing.
There is a Paul living deep within me.

My husband ordered me home while he took the kids to Cocoa Beach last night and today. This morning has really been my first quiet time with the Lord since moving.
I feel as if I’m always behind the 8-ball, grasping at peace as if it were a forbidden piece of fruit.
This morning my house is quiet and my heart is following. My niece asked me to read Psalm 23 this week and I got the chance to do so this morning.
There before me were all my Beth Moore notes, making my heart long for you all even more.

A few things smacked me in the face.
1. David WALKS through the valley of the shadow of death. He doesn’t go around it but purposes step by step to walk through it with steady, slow and deliberate determination.
2. Shadows are bigger than real life. There can be no shadow without light. Which one am I looking for?
3. Valleys cause my personal relationship with God to grow. I think to my life verse Isaiah 30:15. “In repentance and rest is my salvation. In quietness and trust is my strength.” and then I read in Psalm 23….”He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, HE RESTORES MY SOUL.” I think my life verse and Psalm 23 collided this morning.

Please pray for me as I feel so like a fish out of water. I miss my protected and safe bubble I lived in when I was with you all, surrounded by people who loved me, communing with His people.
Marian, Monique, Pinky…..all the names make my heart cry out.

Jacksonville is very different than my home in SC. Larger. Meaner.
I feel more like an extremely vulnerable dry sponge here. My heart soaks in the meanness of the world it feels overwhelming.
I have learned to appreciate kindness in a way I have never appreciated it before now.
I took it for granted, even expected it, but I don’t anymore.

And now for you my dear sister. I miss you so much. I feel so like you right now. I was a rock or thought I was. Now I realize I’m not. I need others. I need people. I need God in my pain and my grief. I have seen your heart change while caring for your husband and in the aftermath of his death. My, how God has tendered you. As he is now doing to me. No longer the strong Julie, but the weak, wondering in the wilderness of this new life Julie. It’s hard, very hard. I realize my bravado was a front, a shield of protection when God should have been my protection. I don’t like the vulnerable place. But it’s where I am, laid open for the world to see. Ah, but much more likely just for me to see. For I know my maker and he’s all about me knowing the truth about me.

And because I know you to be the stickler English grammar woman you are I ask you to forgive all my misplaced commas. I love them.
I’m feeling like a comma myself right now……waiting for the rest of the story to be completed.
What comes after the comma?

Pray for me dear sisters.
I miss you all so much.

After writing this after my quiet time I got a chance to talk to my birth mom today. She lives in WI where I’m imagining snowflakes and winter coats. We talked a lot about punctuation today. I told her I’ve always felt like a question mark or an exclamation mark, but never a comma. She said, “Well you could be a dash!” To which I quickly exclaimed a dash was way better than a comma. Why? I don’t know it just sounds stronger. Comma’s just hang there waiting on what comes next. But after reading her email this afternoon I think I really feel loved today. By my Maker, by my husband who gave me a day of rest and by my family.

This is what she wrote:

By the way, the dictionary states a comma is a punctuation mark used to “indicate a separation of ideas or elements within the structure of a sentence” and “a pause or division” – the third definition is some kind of butterfly.

This makes so much sense – of course when God’s growing you and molding you there is going to be a separation of the old into the new and there will be a pause as He molds you to His will – you don’t plop a seed into the ground and see the flower immediately – there has to be the time of preparation for it to blossom and grow into the beautiful lovely flower (or butterfly).

I will pray for you often. Take care of yourself and allow the growth to happen.

2 Comments

Posted: July 24, 2010 by Julie |Category: God Breathed | Tags: comma, God, moving

Feeling alone

My best friend and I haven’t talked in a while.

We’re both in very hard life places. But I realized today as we emailed that I tend to close myself off when I don’t have anything good to say. When did I decide everyone only gets to see happy Julie?

The fact is we’ve moved. It’s hard. I miss all my friends. I’m not ready to make new ones yet. I’m grieving. It’s hard on my husband, on my kids and on me. I can’t move myself out of this place. It’s where I have to be until I’m done. That’s all there is to it. When we last moved my 11 and 10 year old were 2 and 1 and I was pregnant with #3. I remember it taking a year to get out of the place I was in. I missed my church, my friends, and most of all my support group of family who I’ve depended on so much since getting married. They are the people God puts in my life to share it with. We were in KY for 3 years. The move to SC took almost a year of grief. We just moved to Fla from SC after 10 years. I’m not liking the math that’s running through my head at the moment.

Another fact is I struggle just to get through the day. Yea, I know all the “go out and meet people”, “stay busy”, stuff but it doesn’t do any good. Everything feels hard right now. We’re renting. I have mauve walls, no energy to paint. I have brown carpet, purple carpet. I don’t have my bed, or my friends, or my CVS guy, or the post lady, or my bible study group.

You know, nothing makes sense when you are grieving. Nothing anyone says. Nothing anyone can say.

Grief is just grief. It looks different for everyone. For me, it’s climbing into my shell. Wanting to disappear from the world and lick my wounds. That’s hard to do with four demanding children. I know they know mom is not ok. I know they feel my sadness. I hate the way it comes across at times.

I’m not really good being the weak one. I do much better in the support role. God has given me much strength there. But in the hard place where nothing feels right and nothing makes sense. That is where I stink at being honest with myself and others. God feels far away even though he shows me he’s here with me. Grief just feels so strange, so foreign, so hard.

I think of others who have lost children, loved ones, and I feel guilty for feeling so sad.

Like I said, “Nothing much makes sense right now.”

Nothing.

Image borrowed from http://www.howtolivewithgrief.com/

4 Comments

Posted: July 20, 2010 by Julie |Category: Our Family, Our Lives | Tags: grief, moving

A Motley Looking Crew

Friends from SC came to visit over the 4th of July.

We never got a photo of all of us but did of the kids right before we left the beach. They look like real beach bums don’t they??

We also found a starfish that was still alive. He was fun to play with and let go back into the ocean to do his little starfish thing.

1 Comment

Posted: July 19, 2010 by Julie |Category: Our Family, Our Lives | Tags:

…and then there were two.

My sister loved the one of these we had while she visited. Now it has a brother ( or dad, or something)

Florida

I’ve not a lot to say about the state of Florida yet.

I’m having a very difficult time with the transition. I miss my friends, my community, the guy at CVS, the manager at Ingles, the lady at the Post Office. It’s nuts. My poor kids and husband don’t know what to do with me. I don’t know what to do with myself.

The last move took about a year to adjust. I remember being pregnant and feeling depressed for about a year.

I hope it doesn’t take as long this time.

IN HIM

julie

4 Comments

Posted: July 13, 2010 by Julie |Category: Our Family, Our Lives | Tags: depression, Florida, moving

Go away bugs…..Homemade Bug Spray

None of the insect repellents on the market appeal to me since our skin is our most absorbent organ covering, I don’t know, about 100%, of our body.

So I found this ?advice on the Make homemade bug spray page on GreenYour.com

I also found this great piece of advice here on Journey to Forever.org.

Apparently you can grow lemongrass (go figure) and it’s a wonderful mosquito repellent. Just follow her advice. Not sure if the stuff can be grown everywhere but it looks good to me!

?????

5 Comments

Posted: June 13, 2010 by Julie |Category: Other Happenings | Tags: mosquitos, organic, organic mosquito repellent

The way He talks….

I am always amazed (and always want to be) by the way God speaks to me.

Some believe in an audible voice and I’m sure that happens to some. For me, it’s the voice in my heart where the Holy Spirit lives. It’s audible to me but it comes from inside me, not a booming voice from the clouds.

Friday is trash day in the neighborhood in which we live. Most folks put their trash out on Thursday night. As I was walking Sparky that evening I walked by a perfectly good white shelving unit a few houses down from mine. No damage, just dirty. I looked at it for a few minutes and then decided to knock on the door to see if the home-owner minded me taking it. What a perfect excuse to meet my neighbors, right?? The funny part was the man who owned the house I had already met and he was watching me from his window checking out his trash. I can only imagine what he was thinking.

As I went to the door a face appeared in the glass beside the door. He opened the door, laughing, and said, “Caught ‘cha!”

I admitted to him, “Yes you did. Can I steal your trash???”

“Sure! Take whatever you want.”

So off I go with Sparky in one hand and wheeling the shelving down the street with the other, honestly hoping not a soul was going to see me. Yep, call me Fred Sanford. My youngest son was riding his bike up the street looking for me and offered, “Where did you get that mom?”

“From the trash.”

“For free?”

“Yep!”

“Cool.”

Putting the white shelving in the garage and planning to clean it later I continued my walk in the other direction down the street with my son riding his bike. There we found a filing cabinet, two chair floats for the pool, a hose box (one of those things you role your hose into) and a small piece of hose that fit perfectly from our faucet to the pool so I can add water when needed.

Yea, I sniffed through there trash as if I’d found gold. Another chance to meet a neighbor, right?

Knock, Knock.

“Hi, I’m your new neighbor, Julie, from down the street. Can I steal your trash?”

(I just have to laugh at myself recounting my antics.)

“Sure, take whatever you want.”

Meanwhile, the neighbor across the street is checking me out checking out my neighbor’s trash. He walks over and offers me his wheel barrow to tote the load down to my house telling me I can take whatever I want from the neighbor’s trash pile. “He won’t mind.”

The wheel barrow man was a very interesting man who worked for Home Land Security until 2 months ago. He’s a retired Navy officer. Funny as can be with a German wife and a 45 year old son who just returned home after a divorce. His nickname for me now is Fred, as in Fred Sanford from Sanford and Sons. Remember the show? He ran a junk yard?

That’s him on the right. Ok, so maybe some of you are a little young to remember that but it was a great show from my childhood.

To continue with my trash story……

As I was putting all my “finds” in the garage God quietly spoke to my heart telling me, “See how I take care of you? It’s never like you think I will.” He’s WAY too creative for that. He likes blowing my mind. It lets me know He is God and I am not. And it lets me see His creativity at work, first hand. Makes me wish I had been around when he made the rhino and the giraffe.

The same day my new friend and neighbor brings me about 8 squares of carpet samples from her husband’s store. He runs a flooring business and always has old carpet samples. Now I have rugs to wipe your feet on when coming in from the pool or in the front door. Most were a very short piling but one of the ones she brought me reminds me of my favorite rug at home. It’s green shag. It’s a little darker than the one in SC but it feels SO good on my feet. Odd that I placed that one in the bathroom on the tile in front of the toilet. Now, each time I, well, you know, I’m reminded of her and of God’s provision for me. Odd thinking of people and The Creator in the bathroom but He talks to me a lot there. So, hey, whatever works!!

The following day (yesterday) the same friend brings me a paper grocery bag full of Panera Bread. Their church gets all the leftover bread they can’t sell. Of course it is still perfectly good. Their church members get some and they distribute some to the needy.

Bread.

God. The bread of life….

…a sack full, overflowing and smelling like Panera heaven.

And once again overwhelmingly free.

He’s an amazing God, providing for me in ways that blow my mind.

“I love you Lord!”

julie

Our neighborhood

I can already feel Rocketman getting attached to our neighborhood. It really is pretty. I’m also thankful God has given us this chance to live here to figure our where we want to live, what we are willing to sacrifice, and all that jazz. We live in an older section but one that has lots of character. It’s a gated community. I’m not accustomed to locking doors or any of that but here it’s something we do. Big city folks and all, ya know?

So here’s a glimpse of the view from the front porch…

Looking to the right….