“Marion is now more wonderful than when she lived on this side of life, which when here showed Christ’s love to me and many more.”
~J. M.~

From Darlene:

What can I say about Marion?

She gave grace and love to those who unexpectedly but by God’s sovereignty, crossed paths with her. She left a legacy of providing for those in need oftentimes by way of housing them or adopting them as her own. I will always be amazed that God saw fit to bring her and Ken into my life through Antonio.

We shared the majority of our holidays and birthdays together over the 14 years that I have been married to Tony. 

Marion left a legacy of nurturing and caring for women. She had an ability to see when someone just needed a friend or to be mentored and led to Christ and she filled that role.

She wasn’t only Grandma or Mom but she was a dear friend to me. We often would get together on a whim when I would stop by with some pizza hut and just spend time talking and sharing life together and we treasured those moments.

When she left NY we found ourselves traveling to see her and I would joke that we were her groupies.

Let me tell you why we loved her so much and why we would travel the world for her and why we took her in to spend her final two years with us.

It is because of her heart, her love for Jesus, her generosity in every way, and the way she loved us as if we were her own. She loved my kids like they were prized possessions who were worthy of her love. She loved Tony and I without hesitation and we loved her so much.

In her final weeks and days she had episodes where dementia had taken her mind on adventures and I never once heard a bad word from her or anger- I heard her giving Bible studies, organizing missionary conferences, making sure her grandkids weddings were done well, her dinner parties were organized, etc, which truly reflected her life of service.

Though we mourn not like the world and we rejoice for her to be in her heavenly home we can’t help but feel a huge loss. We are so grateful God gave us Marion even though we wish we had longer!

Elianna had an indoor meet in Charleston. The boys and I spent much of the morning doing house chores. Dad left around 6:30 to drive to Nebraska to pick up Ethan for spring break. He was finished with his final class at 2:30. They’re supposed to be home around 11 tonight. Every time he makes this day’s round trip I am just in awe.

The meet was so fun. Miles came along since he’s still home for spring break. We picked him up on the way out to Grandma’s where I dropped off the boys and the dog. Then we drove to the high school to pick up Elianna which wasn’t too far away. I asked if she could give Judah the phone since he was going to have to drive himself to practice.

She said she’d already done that. So we drove the two hours to the indoor girls’ meet. It brought back memories from driving Ethan to the boys meet and being there when he ran. We found a spot in the bleachers and watched through the heats. I Facetimed Dad and Ethan and Miles recorded. She ran a personal best. I was happy we’d gone.

“For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source…”
~Hebrews 2:11~

I’m really enjoying having Alexis at the Contact site this semester. It’s one of those things where “she was a godsend” feels like an appropriate statement. It just makes it more fun when we can both arrive around the same time, catch up in the side room, go over each other’s plan for the evening, talk about class or whatever else. Then in between sessions we catch up again and talk about how things went.

Sometimes I think I’m resilient enough for counseling work. I don’t feel like the work come home with me or that I spend large amounts of time thinking about what happened in session. But sometimes different sessions get to me where afterward I get strangely emotional. One time I bawled the whole way home. All I could think was that for one inkling of a microsecond I felt the love that God feels for a person.

I haven’t had exactly the same experiences at Thrive. I’ve felt more disappointment there, either from not getting clients or feeling disappointed with myself for not opening up more in group. I finally prayed and asked God recently to help me open up in love, to come out of my shell. He says it’s just a matter of jumping in. That’s easy to say when you’re the one used to talking with everyone already listening.

I don’t know where the shyness comes from. There was a guy in group who said he didn’t have any trauma. We had just watched a video of Peter Levine and Gabor Mate.’ I used to watch their YouTube videos in bed. He said it’s a block for him, the whole talking about trauma. I told him those blocks are often the places that hold the keys to our deepest healing, and that we cannot heal what we don’t acknowledge.

There were a few other things I tried to say as my voice became weaker and the lump in my throat grew. So I counted that as hours because I actually talked to a person. And now I’m crying thinking about him because over the past several months of being together in that room we’d looked at each other enough little times. I’d heard enough about him and knew this was the time so in that moment I loved him.

Man is like a breath;
his days are like a passing shadow.
~Psalm 144:4~

The past couple of days the weather has been horrible. It’s been rainy, windy, snowy, with even a mixture of icy. We still had class though because it wasn’t enough to shut anything down. So that’s where I was on Ash Wednesday, in Brookens Library, room 369. We do our check-ins and then bring up any issues we are having at our sites. I didn’t have anything to report. I feel at peace with each one.

Dad had to preach in Delvan. It’s a smaller church up north that is in a vacancy so they’ve been calling him more. He had to be there for church at 6:30. The older kids were back from track practice in time to see him before he left and to play with Zorro before putting him in his cage while they went to the Lenten meal and Ash Wednesday service at Good Shepherd. She texted when they’d gotten there.

I wrote (and then deleted) that for Lent I’m repenting of my slothful tendencies. I keep thinking of that verse, “the last enemy to be defeated is death” with regard to this, except the word death is replaced with sloth. It’s like for whatever reason this is the one that saved for last. I still get tired and I still need naps, but it’s everything else. It’s everything else that is calling out to me saying I can do more.

Tom is a good cat who doesn’t bother anybody. He knows he is privileged to get to sleep inside and when he comes in he does his best to find a quiet spot. Sometimes when he’s in the living room he gets this look on his face like, “Really? I’m in here? I don’t know how this happened but I’m not going to say anything. I’m just going to sleep right here and be on my best behavior.”

He used to be scared of getting in trouble. Sometimes I think he still is, but I like to reassure him that nobody’s mad at him. We do have one cat who doesn’t like him inside. Cats can be fairly territorial but they don’t mind sharing as long as everyone respects everybody’s space. I don’t know where he goes to the bathroom. I’ve never seen it.

One of the boys shares an affinity with Tom. He said to us one time, “See? I’m just like Tom. Nobody cares about him but he still survives.” It made me laugh to hear him say that but it also made me sad because both are true in some way. But I know lots of people care about him and I know at least two of us care about Tom. Since God is love’s source, there is always enough.

‘…he took eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and fathered twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.”
~2 Chronicles 11:21~

Rehoboam ticked me off the other day. I feel like with Solomon you can kind of understand how having 700 wives and 300 concubines was in some way a formality and just part of being a famous king who had to make treaties and alliances with foreign nations. He didn’t really care about most of those women and there was no way he could actually be having sex with that many.

But then comes Rehoboam whose numbers when you read them seem to me as equally as outrageous and then some. I have never liked it when I read about these men and their multiple wives. It’s not that my blood boils, but it starts to get warm. The boys were at the table and Josh came in from the office and when he walked into the kitchen I said, “Hey, do you have a second?”

I started to talk but then stopped and whispered, “Is anyone in the office??” The amount of times I have humiliated myself because our house is connected to the office door is enough so that I can barely even look at the office secretary anymore. We used to talk and gab until time got away from us and once I broke down and got sick that all stopped. The counselors, the LCMS legacy guy…

Ugh. Lauren was in there but I didn’t care. She’s a grown up and a woman and can handle these things. He grinned while I ranted and he stood at the stove. Why is it the men can have multiple wives, indulging their desires for multiple women, while the women are afforded no such luxury. Why was it alright for them to rot away in harems with no further chance to find actual love?

He said it probably had something to do with women not being able to reproduce as quickly. But I’m not sure I buy that argument either. I have mulled this over in my head many times trying to figure out the answer to “Is monogamy natural?” Like how do you argue from science that it is? So Rehoboam could father many children, but there’s no way he could’ve been a good dad to that many.

Good dads are part of a thriving society. If something is good, it has to be good for all parties. Fathering children as a man is not beneficial unless he can provide a steady love throughout their lives. It was bothering me so much I asked my own dad about it. I texted my mom to see if either of them were free to chat. I heard back pretty soon that they both were there and we talked for a while.

My dad said we aren’t being conformed to the image of Rehoboam.

I can hardly believe we’re already in March. It seems like not that long ago that we were in February or some place else. Dad and the boys had their woodcutters retreat. The dying pines trees on the way to the retreat center were finally cut down. It made me happy to see the X on both of their trunks. They weren’t even green anymore.

Elianna had a track meet so I was home with the dog. It went pretty well. I am still kind of scared of him and don’t like trying to put on his leash by myself. So we didn’t go for any walks, plus is it was cold. He was very excited when the boys came home in the later afternoon. The track meet went well and she was happy with her times.

I told my son we were postponing his birthday until Monday when we’d be more free. When you’re 12 that’s kind of what starts to happen with your birthdays but he handled it well. I’d rather do it right than throw it together and then the moment passes us by with no effort. We’ll bring mashed potatoes to Grandma’s and a birthday dessert.

It alternates between looking forward to the night or to the morning. I love waking up to morning coffee when I follow behind my husband to our single cup machine. This morning a cat had peed in the hallway and he said, “Hold on”, as I approached the potential slip or sock wetting hazard. Paper towels are one of those thing we need to keep a steady supply of but don’t. He had handful of napkins and covered the puddle.

I walked past him, then stopped and turned around and put my lips out for a kiss. We’ve been having more of these kisses lately, before I leave or when he does. And sometimes it’s the night I look forward to when we are finally back together. You hear of couples who can’t have their feet touching or who get too hot if they get too close. I tilt his head in the night if he wakes me up and I wake him up if I have a bad dream.

The cats have their nursery in the living room. One on the ottoman, the sofa, the loveseat, and one awake roaming with night vision eyes. “Good morning, Oreo”, I say, or Shadow, or Julie. Casper was banned once the weather turned warmer and I haven’t felt sorry enough to let him back in. If I think about him out there too much it will sadden me. But it was my wintery shower curtain two times in a row and that was too much.

Today was my grandma’s first birthday in heaven. I celebrated by working a four hour shift in her memory. It flew by because all I was doing was meds. If I can keep this job (if I don’t screw up) then I can see myself doing this forever. I can’t get over how perfect it is and how much I enjoy the atmosphere and environment. The only thing is that it can be lonely because there isn’t another nurse on the floor to hang out with.

And somewhere in me I still don’t like going, like there’s that anticipatory dread beforehand that makes me feel like I would rather stay home. I told Josh in the morning that I see things being different with the therapy job. Like that I can see actually looking forward to going and spending my day with the people. I was thinking about how I actually might not mind doing kids. Not all the time but I’d be open to seeing them.

I was looking at a website of therapy places in Chicago. There were rows and rows of female therapists with the occasional male ones. It made me wonder how I am supposed to stand out in a field that seems saturated with women and all within the same 20 year age range. I brought this up in our class tonight and asked what the odds are of finding an job. One girl said community mental health sites are always hiring.

But the catch is that the pay sucks. I finally feel like I caught a break with the lengthening out of my hours. Instead of having to do my grid four times, once for every semester of internship, they said it is optional which semester I do it. So I only have to do the presentation one more time, just as long as I do it before graduation. I told my supervisor about the video I would’ve had. She said she thinks I will get a better one.

I missed the boys. And the texts that were coming in from my family about Grandma. And the one from the friend who lost her dad and I’m trying not to be so negligent in responding. I came home and we had lunch. Dad told me about his visit and I let him have the remaining potatoes. The boys cleaned up and I took a nap, longer than normal as I was sleepy. The kids stayed with Grandma in the evening and had a wonderful time.

In the summer this would be considered cold but in the winter 40 degrees was a blissfully warm day. The boys didn’t wear coats and I only wore my sweater. We took Zorro for a walk at some point in the morning. We walked down the camp road toward the woodshed where Tim was stacking firewood. Zorro wanted to run over to him and Tim didn’t mind. They have a rougher way of playing and seem to know each other’s ways.

We walked toward the bigger hill and one said we could take Zorro down to the taps. In some kind of blast from the past I said, “I don’t think I can walk that far.” So we walked instead down to the dam and mostly crossed it. The ice had become a thicker slush across the water that would not hold rocks when the boys threw them. They found a drainage pipe where the ice had fallen out.

After internship tonight Ethan texted asking if I’d heard about the planes in Chicago that almost collided. I said that I hadn’t, wondering why there’s been so much more scary plane news lately. Their nationals team was on the plane that was landing. I was horrified to hear this and thanked God they were alright. I came home and played the videos as we were sitting down for supper. We did birthday muffins and a mylar balloon.