Living the Good Life

Well, t minus one day to the wedding, and I just feel like I have reached such a good place in my life.  And not because life is perfect. It's just good, ya know?

As I am typing this, the sounds of someone walking on my roof were what woke me up this morning. At first, I couldn't figure out what the sound was.   I laid in bed and contemplated the possibility of a raccoon. lol I wondered WHAT on earth my father in law, who is visiting for the wedding, was doing in the next bedroom.  Then I remembered our roof, and that the repair guy had said he would be here sometime this week.  Our roof has been leaking for a while, but money has been tight.  So for a while, we put buckets in the attic, just trying to make do until we could save the money.  But a bucket in the attic just wasn't going to cut it anymore. There was a storm last week, and the ceiling in the boys' room was soft, and now there is a HOLE in the ceiling of the boys' room, where my husband's foot went through.  Anyway, it was past TIME to repair it.   And it's costing us money I wasn't anxious to spend while also helping to pay for a wedding.  So when I say life is good, I am not referring to the roof repair.

There are, if I look for them, still a thousand and one reasons in my life I could find, if I wanted to, to say that life isn't good.  (Although even those frustrations have their blessings in them.) But there are also a thousand and two reasons why life is good.  Today, all the reasons why feel larger to me.  More important.

I think I have had YEARS of my life I have wasted, so consumed with pain for the rejection of people that I wasn't really put here for, and all this time there have been people around me that I WAS. Put here for, I mean. That's what I am feeling and seeing today.  It's okay to grieve for the people you love that didn't really love you back, but it's a wonderful thing to recognize the people you ARE here for, and to be brave and vulnerable enough to receive their love.  I think I have wasted years of my life trying to please others, afraid of the rejection I would feel if they saw my true self, my struggles, my hurts.  Actually, I have experienced a lot of that rejection.  So it's not just theoretical.  But I am also at a place now that I can even see the benefit of those rejections, and the way they shaped me to be a more compassionate person than I would otherwise have been.  I have come to the place that I wouldn't undo my wounds, because the scars are becoming my greatest places of healing.  It's become the part of my journey where God entered in, and did His greatest works in my heart.  I found out that I was ENOUGH, because HE IS.

My marriage is at a good place.  And that has been after several really hard, really painful years.  We still argue sometimes, of course, but there is something very powerful in knowing there is truth in our relationship between us, and in being accepted and loved as you are by another person.  There is a mutual respect there that wasn't there years ago, in our immaturity and youth.  I feel secure in our relationship in a way I didn't before.  I see the hurts differently.  I can recognize the filters I have used in how I see my husband, and sometimes, I discard those filters, if they are faulty.

I have friends I LOVE.  And I believe they love me too.  And I am working on being better not just as giving what I think others need from me, but in RECEIVING from others, and allowing my true self to show.  I know this means that some people won't receive me, but I remind myself that's okay, that I'm not here for everybody, and I want to be KNOWN by others.  I don't want a facade of knowing.  I want the messy, beautiful reality of truth and love all mingled together.  I am learning more and more that authentic friendships  are worth the risk.

My daughter is getting married.  And the young man she is marrying- well they just both make me so happy because of the people they are, and the beauty inside them put there by God.  I see two joyful, imperfect but beautiful young people so well suited for each other, and I see the love they have for Christ first, and then each other, and I have hope. I see God bringing them on a journey together with Him leading and guiding them, and I wish that every marriage could have such a beginning.  I have no idea what challenges they will face in the future, but I have hope for the road ahead.  I know the God who has brought me and Joe through so many trials will walk faithfully with them.  So I suppose, ultimately, my hope is in God.  My prayer is that His love --the abiding, eternal love of Christ---will be the rooting and grounding that establishes their love for each other, and that He will use their marriage to teach them what love is, and also to give and receive that love with kindness, respect, honesty, gentleness and authenticity.

Anyway, this is where I am today.  It felt like such a good place,  I just wanted to share my joy today.

Some thoughts on the free press and truth telling

I was reading this article tonight ( https://www.biography.com/news/king-louis-xvi-and-marie-antoinette-execution-anniversary) about the real Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, because I was curious if a movie about them was actually historically accurate. From what I read, the movie actually seems to be. However, as I read the article about what Marie Antoinette and Lousi XVI were actually like, what was really disturbing to read were all the lies the press of that time told about Marie, and how easily the public in France just believed it. I am not saying Marie Antoinette was an angel by any means, but nor was she a devil. All of this made me think of President Trump. Honestly, I don't agree with the way the man often communicates nor do I hold him up as a paragon of Christian virtues. He is a man with both virtues and vices, just like Obama was. What really bothers me is how willing people- and most especially the press-- seem to be to not just to report the true facts of what happened, but to exaggerate facts to suit political agendas. Marie Antoinette never said "Let them eat cake" but unhappy people were swept into a fervor of emotion, accepted it as fact that she did say that, and used it as a contention point against the aristocracy. What resulted from all that fervor was the French Revolution, both bloody and cruel. Reading this article and finding disturbing similarities in America's political climate gave me pause. I have come to a place that I would wish that all of us, whether Republic, Democrat, or Independent, will strive not to just post angry rants, and not to use anger as an excuse to stretch the truth into lies which suit our own agendas.