I am posting this because I can't figure out any other way to keep the video.  This is the most recent video of my sister that I have been able to see.

What I Learned in 2012

I learned a big lesson in 2012. My sister taught me. Her name, if you don't already know, was Jessica Hope. She was amazing. Big-hearted, loving, loyal, and generous. She was rambunctious and fearless. She could rip you apart with her words, but she would forgive all 5 minutes later and speak the most encouraging words you'd ever hear. She was full of love for everyone. She was talented, artistic, and creative, and beautiful.
November 29th, 2012 was her 27th birthday. She died that night from a combination of alcohol and narcotic pain relievers. I knew that she was struggling with a substance abuse problem. I had known it for years. I saw how it was affecting her, and it was painful for me, so I turned my face away. I didn't want to watch her struggle. I always thought she'd eventually get better, though. I thought we had so much more time.
I thought there was more time, and that she would get better, but I was wrong. And now I can never tell her that I'm sorry. Sorry for not trying to help her. Sorry for not taking more time to talk to her and for not telling her how wonderful I always thought she was. Sorry for not even telling her that the reason I didn't talk to her as much was because I loved her and didn't want to have to think about her hurting herself. Sorry for being so unbelievably, disgustingly selfish and not even knowing it.
What if God treated me the way that I treated Jess? If anyone has the right to turn away from someone who is making bad choices, it's God. But He doesn't. How very selfish and arrogant of me. How vile and depraved. I have refused to give mercy while at the same time having it lavished on me by the only One who really knows just how much I do not deserve it. How can that even be possible?
The love of God is amazing. Unfathomable. Incredible. We say that all the time, and at times it becomes almost cliche. Jessica opened my eyes to what those words really mean. I am amazed that God could see down to the depths of my selfish, prideful heart and love me anyway. That is truly amazing.
That's what I learned this year. I should have known it a long time ago, but I was blind. Jessica helped me see. My prayer for 2013 is that I will carry that lesson through the year and apply it to every circumstance that I encounter. That I will give love and mercy freely, as it has been given to me. And that I will learn from my mistakes and honor the memory of my precious sister. I am so thankful for Jessica. I love her so much. I can't wait for the day when I can look her in the face and tell her so.

Halloween: Scary is Fun?

I hate Halloween.  Call me a Halloween Scrooge.  Ba!  Humbug!

I didn't always hate it.  I used to participate and as a new mom, really enjoyed dressing my baby boy as the cutest pumpkin ever.  But as that boy got bigger, and we added a couple more to the quiver, the costumes in their sizes went from cute pumpkins to vampires and zombies and ghosts and such.  We decided very early on that our kids could dress up, but never as anything "evil" or supernatural.  They don't fight it too much, as they want to be super heroes or GI Joe anyway.  But as the years have continued to pass, I have noticed more and more of what my children are actually exposed to at this time of the year, and it gets me pretty unhappy!  I don't allow my kids to eat garbage, right?  So why in the world would I allow them to put garbage in their minds??

I hate the thought of my little boys lying awake at night, imagining some demonic monster from a cartoon or their pal's halloween costume lurking in their closet.  I know kids will be scared at times anyway, but I will do everything in my power to protect them from unnecessary exposure to things that will make it worse.

Last year, when Eric was gone, I finally came to a point where I had to decide to protect my own mind that way, too.  Sleeping alone for a year through a dark, cold winter was not easy.  There were many nights where some little noise had me up all night, shaking in fear.  I realized that almost everything I imagined could be making that noise was something terrible from some horror movie I had seen.  And so I decided that from then on, I was opting out of anything and everything horror or scary or occultish or graphically violent.  And I asked God to renew my mind, and clean out the old images that kept me awake at night.  Some of them were as old as accidental exposure to Freddy Krueger as a kid!

So anyway, a few minutes ago, I was scrolling through facebook and came across an ad for Paranormal Activity 4.  You know, the series of movies about a demon stalking families and killing them?  Yeah, that one.  I know what it's about because I watched the first 2.  Mistake!  Talk about scary images to keep you up at night.  The ad had the trailer right there so it just took one click to watch it.  I thought about it.  Just out of curiosity..."what will the stupid premise be this time?  It won't bother me, it's been so long since I have seen anything scary, and I really feel like God has cleaned out a lot of the old junk that used to effect me.  It's been a good long time since I've been up, afraid at night or had a disturbing image from a movie come to my mind.  It will be fine to just watch this preview, right?  Just to see...?..."

NOPE!  I almost did it, and then I just had this overwhelming sense of "NOPE.  PASS.  UNNECESSARY, AND DON'T".  Maybe it was prompting from the Holy Spirit, protecting me from putting more of that junk into my mind again.  Even in just a small dose.

Maybe I sound oversensitive to some, but I don't care.  I really think that our culture these days doesn't realize how accepting we have become of watching other people suffer in terrible ways as entertainment.  Even if it is fake, it still looks real, and the image becomes a memory that is very hard to get rid of.

So now all my friends know why I suddenly started turning green and running away whenever talk of going to see some new, scary movie came up.  Or, at least any of them who might read this...   :)

And yeah, Halloween... Boooo!

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things.

Philippians 4:8 

S'up?

Hello, my many readers ;-)

I have been sooo bad about updating this.  I think I can count the number of times I blogged through deployment on one hand.  Which is pretty sad, considering all of the learning and growing that went on during that time.  It could have been a great time to share what God was doing in our lives.  On the other hand, it was a very emotional time, and sometimes it's better to let a storm pass before I open my mouth to talk about it...you know, gain a little perspective on it from somewhere other then the very middle of it.

Anyway, what's done is done, and here I am now, blogging again.  Can't promise I'll be any more faithful in this, but I will say that I have felt very inspired to share lately.  God has been so faithful to me and my family these past few hard years, and there's so much about Him that I just want to talk about.    I know only a few people read this, but it's still a way to share, and I guess that's why I'm feeling led here.

A quick summary of what's going on in our family at the moment:

Eric is getting back into a normal, non-deployment work routine.  So far, he's had very reasonable hours, in spite of the fact that he's picked up a lot more responsibility lately.  Nothing like the crazy 14 hour workdays where he was gone from before the boys got up until after they went to bed.  At least not yet!  He's done so well at his job, and I'm so proud of him!  He also works hard at home to help me around the house, and is very purposeful about spending time with the boys.  We are very blessed, happy, and thankful to have him home again!

Caleb is, of course, out of school for the summer.  I love spending my days with all 3 of my boys, and we are taking advantage of everything Fairbanks has to offer, particularly the weather!  We spend lots of time at playgrounds and taking walks on trails.  We also love to frequent the library, and one of our favorite regular events is the dollar movie day at the local movie theater.  I'm pretty sure that Nate is going through a growth spurt, as my picky eater has been asking for seconds and thirds at almost every meal!  And Sam is rapidly changing from toddler to boy.  He is the most rough-and-tumble of my three rough-and-tumbling boys.  He has no fear, and never, ever lacks enthusiasm or energy.  All 3 of them are at fun stages and parenting them is a blast (and also good cardio)!

I just got back from a whirlwind trip to North and South Carolina to see my beautiful sister get married.  While I was down there, I was blessed to get to spend some quality time with several other very dear family members.  It was amazing to see everyone!  I am so thankful I was able to go.  I got home a few nights ago, and am now slowly getting back into the swing of things.  Life has been in a happy state of upheaval since April, when Eric got home.  My normal, scheduled life had to become very, very flexible, and a lot of my routines went out the window.  Now that Eric is getting back to a normal schedule at work, I am excited to get back to a normal schedule at home.

Ok, so I kind of got the "what's happening" stuff out of the way.  I've had several times where I wanted to write about certain things, but thought it might be weird to just jump in, talking about some random topic, when I haven't updated in so long.  So now I consider myself free to write about all that other random stuff that I have the desire to write about.  I'm sure you're thrilled :-D

Be back soon!

........maybe.....

  

Kid Quotes for the Day

Some of my favorite quotes from today:

Nate to Caleb:  "Caleb, tell Mommy about that evil kid that stole your snow pants at school!"
Caleb forgot his snow pants one day, so he went to borrow some of the school's.  Apparently, he grabbed a pair, and then realized he had forgotten something, so he laid them down to go get it.  When he got back, another kid was putting the snow pants on.  They were the last pair of snow pants available, and Caleb's sense of fairness was greatly wounded.  As was Nate's, obviously.  I smiled inside when I heard this, though, because it shows that my boys are now having conversations like friends, telling each other about their day.  Love it!

Sam to no one in particular:  "Go, go Power Win-jahs!" 
Power Rangers-he is in love with this show now.  I had a headache yesterday and sat down to watch a Power Ranger marathon with him and Nate. I have to say, that is one of the worst shows of all time.  But I had an absolute blast watching it with them!  They love to get up and mimic the fight scenes, complete with sound effects.  They are true boys, to the core!

Caleb to his teacher:  "A drone, because all they do is lay around and get fed."
He was asked on a test which kind of bee he would prefer to be and why, and this was his answer.  His teacher still gave him some credit, but she marked underneath is "no, they go out and find the food.".  Even though it is a little disturbing to hear him speak so unashamedly of his desire to be lazy...this still made me laugh pretty hard.  Hey, maybe he's just being honest.  He is a pretty hard-working kid.  I've asked a lot more of him since his dad has been gone then I would have under normal circumstances.

Nate to me:  "Dis is a great wunch, Mommy!"
The boys had-per their special request-plain hamburger buns for part of their lunch today.  Nate was overjoyed and talked about it all day.  He is my picky eater, so it was sweet to hear him enjoy his food so much.

I have awesome kids.  They may be a lot of work, but they are definitely more then worth it!  Love 'em!   

The Broken Glasses Saga

Well...I broke my glasses.  It was a bummer.  I loved those glasses.  They were so cute.  And Eric loved them, too.  But alas, they fell off a stack of books I was carrying across the kitchen and broke right in half.  I put them in the case and went to bed, hoping that I would wake up in the morning and they would somehow be back together again...but obviously, that did not happen.

So I'm pretty blind these days.  Thankfully, I haven't had to leave the house too much, and when I have, it's been during the day so I can wear my prescription sun glasses.  I've had a lot of headaches these past few days, though.  Not being able to see is not fun.  I don't know how people managed it before the modern technology of glasses.

I wanted to rush out the day they broke and get new ones.  But we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.  And by Kansas, I of course mean, anywhere in the US besides Alaska.  There were literally no options in town for me to go and get new glasses that day.  The soonest I could get in was today, 3 days later.  I couldn't find anyone that could make glasses on their premises and get me in with their eye doctor, so I had an exam at one place and took the prescription to another to have the lenses cut and buy the frames.

The exam was done in the optical department of a large discount shopping club store that I will not name in case I'm not allowed to.  The doctor was really nice, and did a quick exam and didn't mind my 3 kids cartwheeling around the exam room the whole time.  The receptionist was also nice, and even offered to watch my kids for me during my exam, but the optical department is not at all closed off from the rest of the store.  Right after she offered, she turned to answer the phone, talk to a customer and work on the computer all at the same time, with her back completely to my boys.  I could just picture them wandering off and getting lost forever in the store...or worse.  She insisted on doing it several times, even after I told her that I didn't think it was a good idea.  So when the doctor finally called me back, I just took them with me.  Yeah....you guessed it.  She never even noticed.  Not an ideal babysitting scenario...

Thanks for the nice thought, ma'am, but these boys are eyes-on, all the time.  Eyes.  On.  And the ruckus they made in the exam room is nothing compared to the chaos I would have caused if I came out and they were gone or hurt.  I realize that they are loud and don't always behave, but I LOVE them.  Heck, I even like them :)  And I kinda want to make sure they're safe.

Anyway...that place takes 2 weeks to get glasses ready for you.  I generally can't go 2 weeks without using my eyes, so I took the prescription to a clinic on post.  I was pretty nervous about picking something ugly, since I have never had to choose glasses without input from the most important person (my husband!), but lucky for me, the clerk was about my age and not busy so she helped me a lot and gave me feedback about what was cute and what was NOT cute.  I ended up picking some that I liked and feel pretty good about.

So my new glasses will be ready by tomorrow afternoon.  Praise the Lord!  It's only been a few days without, but boy do you realize what a luxury eye glasses are when you break yours in half in Fairbanks, Alaska!

Getting Closer!

I was thinking last night that the stop-mail date (the date at which it is too late in deployment to send soldiers mail, because they won't be there long enough to get it) is coming up within a few weeks.  Once we hit that date, we are so very close to being together again.  I guess I hadn't allowed myself to think about how close that date was because the fact that there are still a few months left of deployment is painful to dwell on.  I know that at this point, it should all be eager anticipation, but after this very difficult deployment for our brigade, there is still a lot of fear.  They are still over there, and even though it's not for too much longer, it only takes a moment for tragedy to occur.

The nearness of the date did finally dawn on me last night, though.  And it feels pretty cool to have come so far.  It's hard to describe how the time has passed.  In a way, it feels like it's been forever, and in another way, it feels like he has hardly been gone at all.  

Along with the excitement of the ever-closer redeployment date...and the fear that it will never come for us, is a sense of urgency.  Have I learned what God had for me to learn during this time?  Am I going to end up where He wants me when it's over?  If I'm not on the right track for that, I only have a little bit of time to get there.  As hard as deployment is, I have tried throughout it to view it as a special opportunity from God to get to know Him better and to strengthen my faith in Him.  Lots of people live with certain issues most of their lives, placing them on the back burners of their hearts because nothing challenges them in doing that.  Living under constant pressure, pain, and fear forces such issues up to the forefront, where they demand to be dealt with.   It reveals what is really in the heart, both strengths and weaknesses.  You learn pretty quickly how much you really, honestly do trust God, and when the question is whether or not you get your spouse back, I think most of us find that the amount of real trust is pretty small.  It also brings forth opportunities to share faith that don't happen when life is normal and easy.  You meet people that don't know the Lord through the Army, and the stress and fear that we are all living with can bring Him and His peace up in many, many conversations. 

I will be glad (really, really super-duper glad!) when deployment is over, but it is definitely a gift from God in my life, and I don't want to waste any part of it.  My goal for the next few months is to ask God to show me how to finish it well.  To have my eyes open to what He has left for me to do and learn in this season of my life.  And not to do what feels natural, which is to check out and find distractions to get it over with as quickly as possible.

Ecclesiastes 7:14a  In the day of prosperity be happy, but in the day of adversity consider-God has made the one as well as the other...