The girls called to see if I could pick them up from the bike trail. They’d gone out riding and somewhere between the in-town house and the end toward camp, one of the bikes starting giving them problems. Of course I said I’d come get them. I drove up to the trail in the van as close as I could get without actually driving on it. I could see the three girls were not far away, otherwise I might’ve turned right and driven all the way down to get them just to be funny, and to show her I would’ve done it for her too.

They thought the whole debacle was hilarious, as girls do. I was just happy everyone was okay. I did begin laughing at the next ridiculous challenge which was to fit three bikes and three girls into the minivan. It seemed like it should’ve been able to be done. While they were walking toward me with their bikes I was putting down the back seats and moving sandals and large Styrofoam pieces out of the way. We had to also put down one of the middle bucket seats, which left us short a seat for bringing the girls back into town. It was a windy and cold 32 degrees.

The all volunteered to ride in the back, but I told them I could not risk other people’s children’s lives. I told my daughter to drive and that I would sit back there. She was like, “Mom I’ll just sit back here, it’s fine”, and I was like “Whatever, fine” and got in the front. The bikes were dropped off. The two other girls were dropped off. My daughter got her car and was actually back home a few minutes before I was. I had to stop and get gas on the way home and for pictures by the airport.

Do you ever just sit at home at night and wonder where the time went? I did a little bit tonight but before that I’d met up with a church friend for supper. It’s been almost a year since the last time. Life happened and things got busy for us both. You can’t really have friends at this point in your life if you’re not okay with things like this happening. It’s not like high school where you’re basically inseparable.

I told Josh not too long ago that he was my best friend, one of them at least. I am trying to be more vocal with these thoughts as they come. I’ve never understood the men online who argue that best friend status is a demotion from being a wife. I think I understand what they’re saying, that you don’t want your husband to treat you like he treats his guy friends. That’s true but I also see it a little differently. To be friends with your spouse is one of the greatest honors you can give to them.

The grocery store had to wait today. I didn’t have the energy to do that too. I met with another mom this morning at Hae’s. The prayer card making over the weekend went well. Laura’s mom was there along with a few others. Dad had a few meetings of his own today, one for the high school, and then lunch. This is one of those times where I just have to fill up my line spacing and then be done for today.

Tonight was our last day of class for the quarter. I spent most of the day, and weekend actually, finishing up a take-home test. It was nice not to have a paper this time. We also had to do and turn in these self-tests located at the beginning of each chapter and then report the percentage change after taking it twice. I texted my son because he is the one who knows math. There was some odd formula I would never have known.

But it made me happy. The kids have their own smart phone now. My mother-in-law gave us Papa’s old one. There’s a new number and in my phone it says “Kids”. They haven’t ever really complained about not having a phone or asked for phone. Our reasoning for not is basically that we’re not giving them hand-held crack any sooner than we have to.

This will be nice for them to have though. If Dad and I go out somewhere then they’ll have something here they can use without either one of us having to part with ours. Elianna took it with her to Bloomington yesterday afternoon. She was home with me over the weekend while the boys had their woodcutters retreat. She and Miles had their one year anniversary over the weekend. They went to the lookout tower for stargazing.

One time during Sunday School I had to teach the story of Joseph. It’s one of those lessons where the story is so long that the assigned readings included multiple sections and chapters. One of the parts we read was where Joseph speaks to his brothers after Jacob has died. The brothers were afraid that since their father was dead that Joseph would turn against them and seek to exact revenge for all the evil they’d done.

But Joseph doesn’t do that. We came to the part where he says, ““Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good…(Genesis 50:19-20).” I thought to myself, “Now how did he know that????” How did he know that God had meant all those terrible things that had happened to him for good? He didn’t have Romans 8:28 then. You hear people say things like this all the time.

God this. God that. He worked in such-and-such a way, He opened a door and closed another one. Some people feel uncomfortable talking more about their thoughts and feelings. I think that’s just about the weirdest thing in the world, but it’s also how I feel when it comes to talking about my faith. I’m not here to parade it, not that I think that’s what these other people are doing. They have more courage than I.

So I went back thinking I’d look through the Joseph chapters from the point where he had been sold to see if there was anything there to give any indication as to where Joseph would’ve gotten such a bold, faith-filled statement from. It didn’t take long to find things, and after one chapter I didn’t need to read more. “The Lord was with Joseph”, in Genesis 39:2. Again in 39:3, “His master saw that the Lord was with him.”

In 39:5, “The blessing of the LORD was on all that he had, in house and field”, and in 39:21, “But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love”, and finally, in 39: 23, “because the LORD was with him.” So somehow the Lord being with him must have given Joseph the assurance that in his trials, “Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen (Psalm 77:19).”

I officially told the boys we’re transitioning out of morning birthday balloons. I wasn’t referring strictly to the balloons per se, but more in regard to the production that has been involved these years with the kids and birthdays. The birthday sign, chalkboard drawings, balloons, photo albums, and in some years when I thought of it, Dollar General plates and napkins.

The transition actually began several years ago, when on January 6th I was in the ER. I had not put anything up for my son and for the rest of that year the days were thrown off. It was simply one long endless night. I sometimes wish I would’ve written more here, but there was nothing to say, nothing new to report. I would write when I was better and could endure the screen light.

That was another weird symptom that I had. For as tired as I was I couldn’t sleep. I would lie in bed awake. By the evening I would feel as though I was on the verge of a seizure. Mid-January through March were truly the worst. It didn’t feel like I was going through hell, but more like a more comfortable outer suburb of it. I praised the Lord when I’d finally taken nap.

I sometimes wonder now if it was a side-effect of the medicine. The problem was that I needed to take it. It was the only thing that brought any relief in that it made being conscious tolerable. I told the doctor it was like being in pain, except it wasn’t pain, it was some vibration in my nerves, some indescribable state that no one could give me an answer as to what it was happening.

At times things return and I get discouraged: The shortness of breath and fatigue upon walking. The shaking in bed when I lie down at night is still always there. Two times today this Psalm, “Then I thought, ‘To this I will appeal; the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand. I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.'”

We had the morning to ourselves again. The past couple of nights and days we’ve been asking for and missing each other, but the timing just has not been right. Tim has been here during the day replacing windows and fixing trim. I’ve been more tired again the past couple of days. Nights have been taken up with series shows that Dad and the kids watch together. I thought about texting, but sometimes someone is talking to Miles.

I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t sleep. I feel like sleeping times as well as arrangements is one of those discovered things about marriage where there could grow to be some serious incompatibility. What if one person goes to bed or gets up earlier? What waking for an infant was in the decade of birthing babies seems to have morphed into a different level of expected and adjusted to sleeplessness for love’s sake.

But I will go downstairs if it’s been too long and I start to sense the that 5 o’clock hour would be too early to undo the hours of thinking it took to get me back to a sleeping state. I fell back asleep thinking of my aunt, and woke to the daylight after a stark dream where I was bawling my eyes out watching a movie about her life. My parents came up earlier this month and together we watched her remembrance service here.

I’m still thinking about this Elisabeth Elliot book I mentioned, and feeling like I did not articulate the fullness of what was truly bothering me. I don’t think it was because a famous and respected Christian woman had flaws. This was woman was married three different times. Her first marriage, of course, was the famous one to Jim. Then there was the one to Addison Leitch which, and this is what bothered me, started before

his marriage to his wife of 30 years was even over. While she was battling cancer he was meeting with Elisabeth giving her compliments and kisses. It was only mentioned happening once. Was it a full-blown affair, no, but did the two of them having feelings for each other? Absolutely. Addison was remarried to Elisabeth less than six months after his wife died, and according to Elisabeth this was all such a joyous gift from God.

That was not all. Then Addison dies this horrible death from cancer only a few years later. She was sure God would heal him even as he wasted away. She accepted God’s will and nursed him for months until he died. As time went on she longed more and more for a man. There was one who had been in her life for several years, but she didn’t love him. He was not in the same league as Addison or Jim in Elisabeth’s eyes.

But she married him anyway, and then toward the end of the book the author states how Elisabeth within two weeks of their marriage had told her closest family and friends that she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. This was an intelligent woman who had known two happy marriages before and no similar statements about those marriages were reported by the author, though both had known their ups and downs.

That her third “mistake” of a marriage then lasted 38 years was disturbing. All while the happy ones were both grotesquely cut short. There were reports of her third husband being angry and controlling, even as he had been so pursuing and helpful to her in her former years of widowhood. So why was this all so disturbing to me? Because if her marriage truly was a mistake, then I feel like she should’ve been able to get out of it.

One of the reasons I don’t like posting here in the morning is because too much happens in a day to put it down then. I was rushed, overwhelmed with thought but also trying to make a deadline of fixing potatoes for my mother-in-law’s lunch she was hosting for the auction workers. They had an auction and sold most of my father-in-law’s farm stuff. Josh sent a picture of the combine being driven off the property down the half mile lane.

It was just as grievous as Solomon said it was, where a man toils and works for it to all be left to somebody else, strangers and friends alike bidding on items with the hope of gain. The auction actually did very well, which is good for the one left behind needing money. I get overwhelmed sometimes when in the presence of great wealth. I can’t even imagine. It might be the closest I get to envy when it comes to money. I’ve never known a poor farmer.

Okay, I take that back, because my grandpa wasn’t rich. The only money they really had came from my grandmother’s inheritance. It’s still there supporting her, and she offers it to be used for anyone who wants to travel to visit. It’s the best my mother-in-law can do with her own house, opening it up for others who in that day are passing by. It’s a lovely place but today it seemed cruel, being destined for aloneness without a partner to share the home with.

I packed up the food and called the secretary to let her know I was picking up the boys early. We’d been invited to join everybody for lunch. The table was set and the shed nearly empty. One guy bid from all the way from Iowa for a tractor. His was the highest but he isn’t able to make it out until Saturday. I’m still processing one of the Ellen Vaugh biographies on Elisabeth Elliot I recently finished. Some books just end up leaving you feeling more disturbed.

She was beset with all of the same character flaws and shortcomings as the rest of mankind. This used to be more of a comfort for me, to hear that even the so-called Christian role models were normal, but in some ways it still is disappointing. Angels may not be on the same level of “special” as we are since only humans are made in the image of God, but they sure do consistently get one thing right that we don’t. They won’t stand to be worshiped.

As the first semester quarter is winding down my mind is opening up to remember people in my life who get crowded out otherwise. A DCE mom asked if I’d like to come out on a Saturday and help them make prayer cards. I’m finally now getting back to her. We did make a plan to meet again for coffee, a monthly habit we have been trying to form.

Meanwhile, I ran into another pastor’s wife while visiting churches. We used to get together more. Once I stopped homeschooling the boys, I slowly faded away from the homeschooling group we had also tried to form and kept up for a few years. Truthfully I’d faded from it long before that, though I tried to be loyal despite my parched thirst for friendships that deeper suited my needs.

“I just don’t have time for friends”, she said, exasperated by this life that can become so full with good things, your own set of hardships, and the day-to-day tasks of survival as livelihood. I know the story and don’t in any way fault her for it. She’s always looking at me with glistening eyes, in wonder of how I am so far ahead of her in the parenting journey.

And then there was another I caught up with on the phone while out for a walk. It’s always good to catch up. She doesn’t have the same absence of peers or families more of her age. Their church is booming with fellow mothers and classical homeschooling families. She’s not homeschooling anymore though, and I don’t fault her for that either. She too has surpassed me in immediate busyness.

What do I admire now? I thought it was people raising families or women who could keep their house from falling apart. And then it was those who did not lose their joy, who maintained Christian hope in spite of trials. A teacher emailed yesterday, begging forgiveness for falling asleep in church. Is it wrong to say that each is truly perfect as they are?

Two times recently someone has asked me if I am almost done with school. The answer I give them is sadly, no. Without the school closing stuff I was supposed to be done at the end of this year. I do not know now how long it will be or have any yet of finding out. While UIS has tentatively been approved as one of the teach-out programs, they will not have the official word until the HLC has a meeting in April. The people at UIS prefer to wait until after that meeting has happened before moving too far with any students.

So while I’ve sent my transcripts and filled out an application, there’s just this waiting period now. In the grand scheme of life this is not a huge problem, I just liked having everything laid out before where you knew when the classes were and when you were taking this or that. School for me has currently lost some of its luster as I will not have any more classes with the women my age who I had sort of made friends with.

The intensive I had has been officially dropped and the money borrowed returned to the lender. I really wasn’t up for it at all. The kids had another holiday of school today. Josh has been running a mile every day and Elianna today joined him with some of the still remaining snow. The boys played outside and spied on the kids’ group who was here for a confirmation retreat. They wanted to have a snowball fight with the other kids but they were busy. I had an assignment to turn in so I did that most of the day.

We went to church in Chatham this morning. The student council is doing this thing where the students are invited to attend a service at each of the several association churches. There usually aren’t very many students that come. Ethan’s old friend who is a girl was there along with her parents and siblings. I had determined when we got there that I was going to wave at her mom and just be normal again.

They had talked for almost two years via email. Senior year homecoming he finally asked her to a dance. It was funny and fun seeing him wanting to find a tie to match her dress. Neither of us knew what we were doing and I was trying to make things way more complicated by coordinating with the dress instead of full-on matching it. Once I understood that it really was as simple buying a purple tie, it was fine.

I used to read their emails–not very often, maybe a handful of times. I really just wanted to know what in the world they were talking about. I knew something was wrong when after the dance she didn’t talk to him hardly at all for the first 24 hours. That was the last dance they went to together. I’d seen her mom soon after the dance and she said the thing about how she’d had a good time as just friends.

It’s not that I was mad at the girl or the mom. They both are very sweet people. But I was a tad bit hurt that she couldn’t have just been a little more honest at the game when I saw her. I was prepared for a full on depression and heartbreak situation but he really seemed to bounce back fine. He had a friend who was good to him and had been through a similar situation with a girl. I stopped reading his emails then.

The older kids went back for youth group tonight. While they were gone Dad and I took the boys to Cancun. I told them earlier that I’d been in contact with the tooth fairy. She wanted them to take inventory of unaccounted for teeth. She goes on vacation, or gets busy, or forgets. Their teeth have definitely gotten more valuable as the years have gone on, at times worth five, ten, twenty dollars a piece.