Happy Birthday to my darling husband! I love you! In other news…

I attended my 20-year high school reunion this past weekend. Boy am I getting old! Well, at least I feel that way sometimes. You know how it is. Things don’t work quite like they used to. I did find while attending my reunion that there was one thing that had not changed in the past 20 years, and it was not for the better.

That was the insecurity and need to impress that I felt when around some of the people I saw this past weekend. Seriously. What’s up with that anyway? To provide a little history…

I ran with the “popular” crowd in high school. Please don’t think I’m bragging here. I’m not. We all know that there are different cliques in high school. They happened to be mine. I took the highest level of courses you could take at that time and graduated 13th out of a class of 120. I was in Beta Club, the band where I was drum major my junior and senior years, served on the staffs of the yearbook and school newspaper, voted one of 10 outstanding seniors, FBLA, FCA, had the lead in our school musical one year, etc.

Again, please don’t think I’m tooting my own horn. That truly is not my intention. I mention these things only to help you understand how these people I saw this past weekend knew me. The me I described above is the me they knew 20 years ago. I felt there were certain expectations, and somehow, I felt that I had not met them.

When we graduated from high school, everyone with whom I had hung out my entire high school career (and in many cases, my entire school career) had plans to go to college…except me. I wanted to go to college. I had always dreamed of attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I am a rabid Tarheel fan, and I had always longed to immerse myself in a sea of Carolina blue while taking the next step towards who I wanted to be when I grew up. But, it was not to be.

When the parents of all of my friends were moving them in at college, my mother was moving me into a private mental hospital. Yes. You read that right. I was only there for two weeks, but, still, not something you want to share with the “one’s who knew you when” when asked what you did after graduation.

There’s lots of history about what led up to that trip that may or may not be for another post. Either way, it doesn’t really matter for the purposes of this one except to say that my mother was the one who should have been checking in, not me. If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, then you are familiar with the story of my mother. If not, and you are interested, you can read about that at Pink Petunias and Pink Petunias Revisited. Anyway…

It has always bothered me that I didn’t go to college (except for a year at community college which I didn’t finish either because I started working so I could move out on my own). I have taken some college courses through the years and could go back any time, but it wouldn’t be the same. I wanted “the college experience.” I can’t ever get that back. I had one chance for it, and that chance is gone.

The truth is, I don’t feel the need to go back. I don’t think it is necessary for what God has planned for me to do, but I still grieve for that lost opportunity somehow. Twenty years, and it still bothers me.

So when it came time to tell people what I am doing now, I didn’t feel that I could say that first and foremost I am a stay-at-home wife and mother. I don’t have a problem telling other people that. I just couldn’t tell my old classmates. They have all gone on to college degrees, some post-graduate, and are working in their chosen majors.

It wasn’t that I didn’t get around to saying that I stay at home, but only after I had listed other things that I do. I was honest in what I said, but I didn’t prioritize in the order of my actual priorities.

After God, my husband and my daughter ARE my top priorities. And that is as it should be. And I am content with my life. I haven’t always been able to say that. I haven’t even always been content to be a stay-at-home wife and mother, but I am now. I love my life. And I am so thankful that my husband goes to work every day to support our family in a manner that affords me the opportunity to pick my daughter up from school every day, volunteer in her classroom, be on the PTA board so I know what is going on, and a whole host of other things that I am able to do because I stay at home.

I can’t go back and re-do this weekend. But I can learn from it.

There was talk about having another reunion in five years. I hope that is the case. With God’s help, hopefully, I will be an even different person than the one they saw this past weekend. And that person will be proud to say exactly who she is because her identity comes from who she is in Christ, not who man thinks her to be.

Blessings,

So…this new blog look and title I’m sporting (get it…sporting…oh, I crack myself up…ahem) is just one more example in my life that God most definitely has a sense of humor.

People, I am SOOOO NOT the athletic type. I don’t even like to sweat! Seriously. Just ask my husband. He says that things are about to get hairy the moment he sees my upper lip beginning to glisten. And yes, I said glisten. We genteel girls down here in the South do not sweat. Nor do we perspire. We glisten. As I was saying…

Nike is not going to be calling me anytime soon for an endorsement. My face isn’t going to be featured on a Wheaties box either. If you’re too young to remember Bruce Jenner and the Wheaties box, then you probably don’t need to be reading this. Just kidding! However, if you really don’t know what I’m talking about, Google it. Anyway, lots of people have had their face on a Wheaties box, but I am not going to be one of them.

I did play volleyball in high school, but only for one year. That was so I could get a letter jacket. Of course, you had to have played a sport to be able to have the really cool leather stripes with braiding on the shoulders. See my daughter wearing Exhibit A.

Yes, that really is my letter jacket from 20 some years ago. The leather stripes…yeah, I sweated…I’m sorry, glistened…my way through one year of volleyball to earn the right to have those babies on the shoulders.

And believe you me, when I had that letter in my hot little hands, the volleyball sneakers were put in the back of the closet! Enough sports for me!

I don’t like to exercise. I have done it during various times in my life but never with any consistency. It’s one of those things I know I should do, but IT. IS. SUCH. AN. EFFORT. FOR ME…..Until recently.

You see, several weeks ago, I decided that I was going to resume exercising. I love the Leslie Sansone Walk Away the Pounds videos. I can walk in my living room rain or shine, it doesn’t matter what I look like because no one sees me, and the only cost involved is the DVD’s I purchased. The other thing that I really like about these videos is that they are an all over body workout. They use weights, and you use your arms as well.

When I began working out again a few weeks ago, for the first time EVER in my life, I actually enjoyed it. It wasn’t grueling. I didn’t hate it. I wasn’t watching the clock wondering how much longer until it was over. I was exercising faithfully six days per week. Well, until my back went out.

I was down for the count, and I had to stop exercising. And do you know, I have missed it, and I can’t wait until I can begin again. That right there is God Almighty at work! If I can say with a straight face that I miss exercising, then it really is true that “with God all things are possible.”

And, I believe He is smiling right now because the joke is definitely on me.

Blessings,

I found this over on Renee Swope’s blog. Please take the eight minutes to watch it. I couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

Our God is a powerful God. He is mighty to save, and He is in the healing and redemption business. I know because He redeemed and healed me.

My cardboard testimony is:

First Side: I Looked for My Self-Worth in the Eyes of the World

Second Side: Now I Find It In Who I Am In Him

What is your cardboard testimony?

If you’re still waiting to write the second side, God has the pen and wants to help you. Click on the Ready? button in the right sidebar to know more.

Blessings,