Not Just Surviving ...

I admit it ... before I set out on this journey called Deployment, the fears I had compiled in regards to the experiences I'd have and my ability to handle them were many ... topping the list was a large dollop of doubt that I'd be able to even enjoy my life apart from Will and away from the help of family. This led me to believe that all I could really hope for was to simply survive the seven months the best I could ... stay alive and healthy, keep the kids alive and happy, keep my head down, do my chores and wait for it to be over. These feelings included the thought and hope that people would be praying for us and that God would graciously help us through as well. I had never been through a deployment with children before and the last one I "lived" through was 5 months of mostly misery. I expected intense loneliness ... I envisioned a desert ... I saw days and nights full of tears and anguish, just trying to keep going ... I said in a previous post, "I feel like I believe that God could move an actual, physical mountain, more than I believe he can make deployment a happy time for me."

The only vision I know of to express the truth of what I actually feel most days, and realize overall, is that of a type of baptism ... where the sun has set on the thoughts and fears that I had, and has beautifully risen, still just on the horizon, with the reality and beauty that is still my life, even a life miles away from my love ... now I know He can move mountains because He did what I believed to be impossible during this time in my life ... He has made me glad.

spinning

I wanted to blog tonight, for once, in a month, or almost 2, but I'm just too tired. I just don't have time to do justice to the wealth of emotions, thoughts, blah, that is running through my head right now - just 7 short days before Will deploys for 7 long months. I feel like I am on a new planet from anything I've experienced emotionally in a loooong time. Ok, maybe just 4 years, since his last deployment, but now I have 2 kids and another on the way. Oh yeah, I forgot to blog about that, surprise blog world- I'm 11 weeks pregnant!! :) due April 22, just a few weeks before Will returns. These parts of my life fill thoughts and words and posts beyond what I'm capable of enscribing here tonight, but I know that I will, and need to for my sanity, soon.

For those of you wondering what I need or what you can do (hopefully there are some of you) :)
- please pray for us whenever we come to mind
- please randomly call me to say hi for no reason at all, other than human contact. I hate being alone and I rarely get phone calls, probably b/c most of my friends are busy Moms whom I already run in to at church or on Facebook, but for those of you who have the time, or can make a moment to spare (even if I just saw you at church), I know I'd appreciate it. (ps. you don't have to ask how I'm doing, just talk about anything) :)
- please forgive my mood swings ... any sarcasm, defensiveness, ungratefulness, self-deprication, denial, avoidence, fakeness (the one I hate the most), are all likely to represent during the next 7 trying months of my life, so I ask for your grace ahead of time while I vent to blogland.
- if I manage to blog during this crazy, busy time, I would appreciate any comments, encouraging or critical (can you tell I crave human interaction?) :)
- come visit me! :) or get together, especially on the weekends (which will turn into just another work day for me)

Meanwhile, I will be praying constantly that Divine interaction would fill me until I thirst no more. While I'm extremely emotional about this, I'm also extremely hopeful and full of faith that God can make this time sweeter than I could have dreamed. I know He doesn't promise that I won't struggle or reach my hypothetical limit, but I believe that when I do, He will be there to help me in ways that only He can. I pray also that I SEE these ways and don't miss them and become bitter at God for letting me hurt so much. I hope that I can have perspective about how blessed I am, all the while allowing myself to deal with things that are still difficult for me now.

I have already seen His hand moving and preparing a way for me. I know there is more He hasn't even revealed yet and I am anxiously looking forward to sharing that here and experiencing it with my boys and my friends.

Lord, please see us through.

precious moment #2,395,217,024

putting the boys to bed tonight. i pray with each one and sing them a song. right now it's Kurt Kaiser's hymn "Oh, How He Loves You and Me". Ben wouldn't even let me sing to him until i remembered this song and tried it; now he asks for it every night.

so I sang and prayed with Ben. then went over to Charley ... prayed, started to sing, Charley started to sing with me, then Ben ... all to the very end ... oh what heaven.

it's moments like those that make all the tears worth it. that, and the fact that God loves them and they're precious, ok well there's that.

anyway, it was beautiful. thanks El Shaddai.

Nina Simone

I just discovered the jazz singer, Nina Simone and am decidedly a fan. I love her songs, the tone color of her amazing rich voice and the variety and diversity of her songs and her voice. Some might recognize her from the movie The Thomas Crown Affair, or if you're older ... from the 60's. She sang the "Sinnerman" song when Thomas was putting the art back and stealing another painting at the end of the movie. Great scene! :) She also sings "Feeling Good" which was sung on American Idol recently (last year, I think). She was most famous from singing at rallies and things in the 60's, very powerful.

Anyway, I just bought her "Compact Jazz" album on I-tunes this morning, yay! :) If you want to her some of her songs just go to You-tube. One of my favorites is "Ne Me quitte pas" ("Don't Leave Me"). So moving. Enjoy!

Good Friday

Blessings on this Good Friday. May we all feel the enormity of God's love for us on this day as we celebrate Christ's defeat of death by giving up His own life on the cross so that we could live with Him for eternity. Thank you Lord for providing a way for us in this, and in life everyday. Your mercies are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness!

mmmmmmm

I was just playing with my son, Ben. He was playing peek-a-boo and tickling me and then he tried to pull my socks off. :) Whenever I get these one on one moments to just play and enjoy my kids, the same thought often comes to mind, "I must be the luckiest person in the world to be playing with this little child right now."

I guess I just imagine how incredibly special they are; then I think about how someday they'll be special to other people and hopefully do some really good things for people; and that makes me feel like I'm so special for even being given a moment of time with them. Because later on, when they're grown and gone, I'll remember that I was given some of the biggest blessings I can ever have . . . time, fun, love and a simple smile from my baby boy.

Kipling

I mentioned Kipling in an earlier post and wanted to share a few of my favorites of his. I found these at this site. Another that I like that was too long to post is "The Female of the Species". Enjoy!

When Earth's Last Picture Is Painted
1892
L'Envoi To "The Seven Seas"

When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it -- lie down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.
And those that were good shall be happy; they shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets' hair.
They shall find real saints to draw from -- Magdalene, Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!

And only The Master shall praise us, and only The Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They are!
-------------------------------------------

The Gods of the Copybook Headings
1919

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I Make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place.
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four --
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

* * * * *

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man --
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began --
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mice,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire --
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
--------------------------------------------------


IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

some music

I just wanted to mention some more great music I've been listening to lately . . . the latest "Pride and Prejudice" movie soundtrack featuring Jean-Yves Thibaudet at the piano. I wasn't a huge fan of the movie, but somehow, the beauty of the soundtrack makes me want to see it again. Anyway, the music is really enrapturing and if you're getting a taste for my lyrical, melancholy taste in music, this really fits. :)

It's the only thing I wanted to sing or play on the piano in college ... anything with a pretty melody, lyrical and in a minor key. I guess some things never change. ahh I need to compose again. Anyone got any poetry or lyrics? :) Although I used to write only instrumental stuff, I find myself wanting to try something with lyrics. I promise it won't all be in a minor key. :) Maybe I should start with some Kipling poetry. I love him. I'll have to post on of his poems that is one of my favorites, "The Gods of the Copybook Headings".

John Barry, the composer of many beautiful soundtracks, such as "Somewhere in Time", "Out of Africa", and "Dances with Wolves", is another favorite of mine. Also, "The Red Violin" soundtrack is beautiful too. Joshua Bell is amazing on the violin.

All this stuff really calms me after a long day on my own with the boys. :)

this makes me cry

This classical piece is beautiful! It's Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No.2 in C Minor, Op. 18: II. Adagio Sostenuto. The one I prefer is played by Lang Lang and the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre & Valery Gergiev. I don't think it's legal to post the music here, but for those of you who have i-tunes or an equivalent, I strongly encourage you to go listen to this. It's about 12 minutes long depending on the tempo of the pianist you listen to.

I think this is the most beautiful piano concerto I've ever heard (and there are some beautiful ones out there). I'm not a huge Rach fan; I supremely prefer Brahms and Tchaikovsky, but I heard this on my roommate's (thank you Andrea) Piano by Candlelight tape (yes, tape) my fishy year in college and have been looking for it ever since.

I don't know if it conjures emotion now simply b/c I was going through a lot at that time in my life or because it's truly that beautiful (probably a little of both). I'm simply thrilled to be reunited with it. This piece, to me, feels like a musical description of the storyline of my soul. (sorry so cheesy, but it's really moving). ups and downs, peace and confusion, depth and simplicity . . . all wrapped up in one amazing creation of God. In a word ... beauty.