I can’t count anymore how many people I know who are divorcing, have divorced or are experiencing marital difficulties. I hear about a new couple breaking up weekly. Frankly, I’m not sure if my heart can break anymore. I can’t stop thinking about the husbands who have betrayed their wives, the wives who have betrayed their husbands, the parents who have betrayed their children. I feel a little betrayed myself. Neither Jim nor I have parental examples to look to so I find myself looking to others I respect to see how a marriage should work. Who are we supposed to look to anymore?

Mark Driscoll talks about how a lot of Christians stay far away from sin because they don’t want to become sucked into it. But it’s the people who are right up in sin’s face that know exactly why they would never want to participate. He talks about living in a neighborhood with drug dealers and users, watching them throw their lives in the toilet and knowing that he never wanted that for his life.

I’ve experienced adultery in every aspect of my life except my own marriage. I’ve seen the destruction infidelity brings close up and I want nothing to do with it. Sometimes being married is not all peaches and cream, sometimes I am attracted to other people, sometimes I am certain that my life is not what I want. But I know for certain that a moment of pleasure is not worth the end of my life as I know it now. I know that the covenant that I made with my husband and the promise that I’ve made to my children is WAY, WAY more important than ANYTHING else in my life. I know that acting on my emotions is the most unwise thing I could do. I’ve gotten right in the face of it and I KNOW that I couldn’t and won’t willingly break the people I love.

What more can I say? I just send my plea out into the cosmos, to all the people who are married: I beg you, please, stay faithful to your family. Even if you don’t have kids, your life effects EVERYONE. Your choices effect everyone. Please prove to the world that selflessness is still possible, that promises still mean something, that pleasure is not our number one goal. Please.

Today Jim had to put his dog, Daisy, down. It was sort of sad, but something that we knew was coming. Then we had to tell the kids. They were surprisingly calm, Honor just made sure that Tucky was still ok and Eden asked if she was in Heaven and that was about that. Death is still such a weird thing for me to comprehend. It’s amazing that the kids can handle it so much better than us adults.

Here she is with Tuck.

So long Daisy.

Today I attended the funeral for my dear knitting student. I’ve lost very few people in my life (I am lucky) and death has always been a hard one for me to grasp. I keep thinking, “She can’t really be gone. I don’t want it to be this way.” As if my will power alone will change the course of history. I think it’s the finality of death that is hard to grasp. There is nothing else in life that is so absolute. It also brings to light the fragility of life. In an instant everything can be different. Keeping that at the forefront of my mind would change the way I live my life.

Sitting in the memorial service, I was struck with a thought. I don’t know if I can say this without sounding like an ass, but why does it seem like the people we lose first are the last ones that should go? The very best are usually the ones we can’t hang onto. Life is so terribly unfair.

I do know one thing though, my life is better for knowing her. Tangle is better for knowing her. She was a wonderful person who could light up a room and I will miss her so much.

Tuesday one of my very favorite customers came to the store with some terrible news. She’s been fighting a battle with cancer for a long, long time and it seems the cancer has won. With very limited time she is preparing for the end of her life.

“God, I just want to knit.” She told me. “I mean God I just want to knit.” And then she said something to me that I will remember for the rest of my life. “You have been such an unexpected blessing to me. I don’t even have words to describe, but you’ve been such an unexpected blessing.”

I can’t even begin to grasp the loss that so many of us will be experiencing, but until then, I have one recurring thought:

Can the simple act of knitting be a gift from God? I think maybe so.

I can’t believe it’s been over a week since I blogged. I think that’s the longest I’ve ever gone without blogging since I started almost 3 years ago. The problem has been (along with being super busy) that the only thing on my mind to talk about is the only thing I can’t talk about. (And I’m sorry for being so mysterious, I hate it when people tell me they have a secret they can’t tell me, but I’m about to explode – this is my most precious outlet.)

Earlier this week I found myself in one of the most difficult situations I’ve ever been in. I was out of town to help someone I love that needed me. Very quickly I was at the point where I was totally overwhelmed. I was away from my family and I tried calling everyone I knew in the town I was in. I just wanted to be with someone stable and normal. I needed help regaining my outlook. When I couldn’t find anyone, I sat in my car and bawled… repeatedly. I felt so alone.

I went on my trip looking for hope. The cards have fallen the wrong way in this situation and I had finally found some semblance of hope. And I wasn’t about to let go of it. When my hopes were quickly smashed into a million tiny pieces, I didn’t know what to do. I was so sure that God was going to come through for us.

I came home Tuesday from this seemingly hopeless situation and at first I was mad. I was mad that the person I was trying to help had gotten in this situation to begin with. I was mad that even though I was offering and willing to help, I wasn’t being allowed to. I was mad that my wisdom was being dismissed when I had fought SO hard to get that tiny amount of wisdom from God. I was mad that it seemed like I had wasted my precious time.

I came home exhausted, completely emotionally drained and so thankful to fall into the arms of my family. I found myself with so many things to be thankful for, but having a hard time giving thanks. I needed God to be there for me, desperately, and he wasn’t. He wasn’t there for me the way I wanted him to be. I felt so hopeless.

But I still have to believe that God will come through for us, but I don’t know how and I don’t know when. All I know is that he is the only possible hope. There is NO other way, no other hope. And I realize that it’s not going to happen on my terms, it’s not going to be MY way no matter how much I need it to be. Maybe that is what faith is: when all other hope is stripped away, when there is no other way for things to be made right – God is the only hope. He is simultaneously the easiest and hardest hope to hang onto.

So I guess that on this day of giving thanks, even though the possibility of hope seems so remote, I’m thankful that I still have it to hang onto. And trust me, I’ve got a death grip.

(I’m trying not to make every single post this week a “whine about my tooth post.” Just a little update though: Yesterday the dentist gave me some heavy duty drugs which knocked me out without doing much for the pain. They started to at least take the edge off the pain last night. Today I’m surviving, I actually just got to eat my first real meal all week. Hopefully I will continue to improve.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about a few rude comments I received last night on one of my posts. As long as such judgementalism about my parenting skills doesn’t come from people I know and care about, it doesn’t really bother me. But I guess it made me think about being open minded.

When a person sets their mind to think a certain way, they don’t leave open the possibility that there is more than one right way to do something. They don’t realize that they may not know all the facts. It’s easy to have an idea of how you think another person should parent, especially easy when you haven’t been a parent yourself. But I guess the thing I find most amusing is that the comments came from people who are a members of a “child-free” group. They demand that no one tell them that they should have children. So why waste so much time belittling someone who has made a different choice than they have? I guess that being child-free affords these people extra time on their hands to come harass me.
Why must there be only one way of thinking?

I was at the fabric store earlier today picking up some strapping for the purse that my mom is helping me make. As I was waiting to get my items cut, Honor was trying to get into the big bin of buttons. Fearing the backlash from the meanies at the store, I told him no, and picked him up. He asked me “Why?” And the lady cutting my strapping said, “Oh, I miss that, the ‘whys’.”
I jokingly said, “Trust me you don’t.”
And she replied, “If you like being mom you do. I guess if you don’t like this age and can’t wait for it to be over then you don’t. But I liked being a mom.”

I didn’t even know how to reply to that, so I just stared at her.

I received this comment today on my post about church. I know who the person is that sent it, but I will keep the name to myself. (ip addresses tell a lot.) I tried to send my response via email, but the address provided was bogus. I am very upset by the fact that I know the person who sent this and that they would actually send this to me.

I find it sad that so many are looking for something that doesn’t even exist…….”The Perfect Church”. We’re putting conditions on what WE want the church to do for us, instead of who we need to become in order to bless other people. We don’t go to church to see what WE can get, we go to church to hear the Word OF GOD and to get equipped to help other people. It’s not about US. We’re suppose to rise above the complaining & moaning about us not getting our way all the time. There will come a time when we have to be accountable to Jesus himself for what we have done with our lives……….What will be your explanation or EXCUSE of why you didn’t go to the church where HE called you? I don’t think He’ll be very pleased when all we have are selfish excuses.

Here is my response.

I just wanted to say that I find this comment to be so incredibly rude and offensive. Not only did you obviously not read my post, but you have no right to tell me where GOD called me. I’m just so shocked that you would be so incredibly judgmental – it’s very disappointing.

I’m going to close comments on this, because I just needed a way to respond to this person, short of calling them on the telephone, which I may still do. I just want to say that people like this are why I hesitate to ever attend another church.

EDIT: I also want to say that anyone who lives in this town and knows me and thinks they might know who this comment is from. Please check with me first before making assumptions.

I’ve been sitting here for an hour trying to find words about the devastation in Louisiana. I’ve taken this long to write about it because I’ve selfishly been wanting to keep it out of my mind. I’m at the point where I can’t ignore it anymore and I still can’t find the words. There’s no real way to pay tribute to what our fellow Americans are going through; this very minute, some of them are fighting for their lives.

All I can say is I thank God for our safety. I feel guilty and selfish thinking of my safety and my family first. What if this was happening to us? It scares me beyond belief.

I cry out to God for the safety and protection of those trapped without food, water, or medical care, who are fearing for their very lives and safety. I wish I could send money, I wish I could take a family into my home and make them feel safe, I wish I could be there to help with…something I think that perhaps the scariest part is there are people who need help so badly and they’re not getting it. I think, in general, we put too much faith in our governments ability to SAVE us, and to find out in such a terrible way that the government isn’t coming through fast enough, is heart wrenching.

Many of us are left with only the ability to hope and pray and cry. And sitting in my air conditioned home with food in the fridge and running water – my family is safe – it doesn’t seem like near enough.

I just wanted to thank you all for your kind words of support. Things are just really difficult around here and I may not have a chance to email you all. To top it all off, I’ve got a really painful bladder infection. Life is so fun!

At least the kids are cute right?

But possibly the worst news in the entire world is… I’m ashamed to even admit it… I KNIT WRONG! It seems that I twist my stitches. Instead of wrapping the yarn counter clockwise when I knit AND purl, I wrap it clockwise (which is much easier, by the way.) I taught myself out of a book, so when the yarn store owner told me over the phone that she wanted to watch me knit before I taught the class, I knew that it could be quite possible that I WAS doing it wrong. I whipped out my Stitch n Bitch book and realized the painful truth. The thing is, this was something that I thought I was really good at. I’ve taught countless people to knit and I’ve made many, many things the wrong way. It kinda breaks my heart a little. It was nice knowing I was really good at something. Even my little sister admitted that I was really good at it. (Now that’s saying something.) I hate the thought of telling her…

So today, when the thought of peeing makes me want to cry; when it seems like we’re not even wanted at our church; when there may or may not be something really wrong with my husband; when my uber hyper son takes every chance he has to make me look like a fool in public; when we’ve got a new niece that we’ll never see, now supposedly living in the SAME town as us; when the business stress could not possibly be any worse; when my relatives are being hit by tornados; when my friends are being kicked out of their bands, landing in the hospital, hating their jobs, needing stitches; and now I can’t even knit, I say BRING IT. I’m pissed and I’m ready to beat the crap out of whatever you throw at me.