My Three: Day two

So I know that technically there are only 2 hours and ten minutes left in this day but nonetheless here goes day two of My Three!

(yes I know this doesn't look like me.  That's because it's from my freshmen year of college (i think), 2002 to be exact)

Meet Megan F.  Despite the fact that Megan and I grew up about 30 minutes down the road from each other we never met till we got to Virginia Tech.  We ended up living in the same dorm, she on the first floor, I on the sixth.  I spent many a night on Meg's floor due to a bad roommate situation and we quickly became good friends.

The one year that we lived together during college I distinctly remember Meg waking up a bit early every day to spend some time with God.  If I ever got up before 7, it was almost a guarantee that I would see her door cracked, light on, and smell the coffee brewing (really it was already brewed and in hand, she had to have her coffee :o).  I wasn't much of an early riser back then, and to be honest I'm still not, but I saw such discipline and devotion to the Lord in Megan that it not only encouraged me but challenged me to do the same (just maybe not in the morning).  

I've been going through a study on Ruth by Kelly Minter this summer and yesterday in my reading she was talking about how Naomi, though it sounds harsh, is to be admired for her honesty with God at the end of chapter 1.  This couldn't remind me more of Megan.  Some of my favorite time spent with Meg is laughing till I cried BECAUSE of her honesty but she also could not be more real in what's going on with her walk with the Lord.   

This last year has brought lots of changes to her life (you can read about that and more of her honest heart here).  I'll never forget talking to her just a few weeks after Liam was born.  She was telling me how all the doctors kept telling she & Joe that they just couldn't get over how peaceful and calm they had been and then she said something that took my breath away, something she meant, "We want to be sure we're showing these doctors the love of Jesus through it all too."  Here she was awaiting news that would change her life and she was thinking about God's glory.  Such faith.  Such trust.  Thank you Megan for showing me what it means to "continue in my faith, established and firm", even from 3,000 miles away!

My Three: Day One

Instead of linking up with E, Myself, & I this week, I'm using a little inspiration from a blog I was introduced to last week.  If you're a parent, Orange Dad is well worth your time.  As I sat in Panera last week reading it for the first time, I was trying to hold back the tears as I thought about what it means "to shepherd my daughter's heart." 

Anyways,  I think I'm going to do a series of posts based on a few of the questions he poses.  The first being, Who are your people?  The ones who've invested in you and influenced you in your walk with the Lord.  I've narrowed it down to 3.  I'll be posting one a day for the next three days!

So in no particular order here we go.

 (please ignore the fact that the Uebels somehow all managed to wear pink & white stripes that day- or as Nic likes to say pink/white/and MAROON stripes)

Libby G. is one of those people you can see every couple of years and somehow feel like it was just yesterday.  She's also one of those people you're just naturally drawn to because she's so fun, so when I saw her last Thursday :), nothing could've been sweeter.  Libby worked at the BCM (BSU back then) as an intern my freshman year at Virginia Tech.  I think God must have given her an extra dose of patience to stick with my bratty, obnoxious, "thinks she knows it all" 17 year old self, because for some reason she did  Libby was the first person to teach me not only what it meant to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and strength but to actually live like you do too.  Her passion for the Lord practically exuded in everything she did, whether it was teaching me how to pull off funny pranks or how to read the Word.

Libby was my friend & she taught me how to be a friend too.  If it wasn't for her persistence in getting five freshmen girls to actually hang out together once a week I probably wouldn't have some of the 4 bestest friends a girl could ask for!  I can still remember her telling stories about her besties from college & how she desired for us to have those same kind of life long friendships.    I recently found a bunch of prayer requests from that year while I was on a quest to "rid my house of all this crap."  Every week we would write our prayer requests on a sticky note and at the end of the year Libby gave them all back to us.  Thinking back on it, I never doubted for a second that Libby didn't pray over each of those requests, because that's just who she is (p.s. it's ok if you missed a week or two Libby, my observation still stands).

Now I sit on her side of the equation, where it feels like I hear a ton of prayer requests throughout the course of a week.  It's so easy to pass them over and say you will but never actually pray for them.  Seeing those post-it notes was a challenge to me of what it looks like to love and serve God well.  So thank you Libby.  Thanks for being a big part of the reason I wanted to be a college minister in the first place!

It's time for...

Midweek Confessions.  I feel like these are a little lamer than usual.  Thanks for bearing with me & my goofiness though :).

• Last night Sadie woke up & could not get herself back to sleep without screaming for over an hour.  I probably tend to be a bit melodramatic at 3am so as I lay awake staring at the ceiling all I could think was: Will I ever sleep again?  Why God why?  (side note- I certainly understand why God makes babies so darn cute now!)
•  I found a few (like 4) grey hairs last week.  If you ask me about them in person I'll flat out deny it and call you a liar.  I like to refer to them as my "bleach blonde" hairs.  I may have had a mini nervous breakdown when I found them too. 
• While we were childless last weekend I kept telling Nic we needed to stay out late, go see a movie, or live on the wild side a bit.  Instead of going to see The Avengers we went back to the B&B at 8:00 and finished watching Season 2 of Downton Abbey.  How sad are we?
• I got my first gold card in the mail this week.  It was for Starbucks.  I let Nic nickname my card online, to which he affectionately termed it "Gold Digger."  Should I be concerned that he's trying to send me a subtle message?

Five Minute Friday-Perspective

We're up in Ann Arbor, MI (which by the way is a fabulous city) celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary this weekend but I figured I could still squeeze in five minutes of writing.  So here goes the 2nd edition of Five Minute Friday with The Gypsy Mama.  This week's topic: perspective.

Go

"Perspective is the ability to stand between yesterday and tomorrow and understand how and where today fits in."

What's funny is I tweeted that quote a couple of days ago.  I was reading my MOPS Intl. Handbook of all things and came across it.  It seemed pretty profound to me because though it seemed so ideal, in reality I am absolutely terrible at it  I feel like I spend so many days just waiting for the hours to pass away or for Nic to come home, yet somehow I look back and the years keep flying by.  How have I been married 6 years on Sunday?  How is my daughter already 16 months old?

When I look at time in the broader picture it makes me want to savor every minute that I spend napping on the couch with my sick baby or singing in her ear while the doctor examines her and she screams bloody murder.  The days don't seem so unbearable at times because it all too quickly is passing away.

Stop

Mideweek Confessions-Round 2

Hopefully you haven't rolled your eyes at me too much from last week's confessions.  Here we are for Round 2.

• I cleaned my bathroom last week for the first time in a month probably.  It was every bit as disgusting as you're imagining right now.  I'm talking single, college boy, "I clean my bathroom once a semester" dirty.  The ironic thing here is that I used to pride myself on having a sparkly bathroom that was cleaned at least once a week.  Oh motherhood, what have you done to me?
• All week I've been obsessing over thinking about these confessions.  Something will happen and I'll think, is that worthy of a confession?  Yes it is "summer" for me and I do have more time on my hands thank you. 
• Since I was blessed with bad teeth and they seem to be worsening, I left my dentist appointment last week with a $120 electric toothbrush in hand.  The hygienist and receptionist kept raving about how much I was going to love it.  Meanwhile I was thinking "Yea, yea, yea-you're just saying that because I just spent $120 on a TOOTHBRUSH."  I stand corrected.  That thing is awesome- I'm officially obsessed.  Seriously, it feels like you just left the dentist every time you brush your teeth (I'm also noticing that I am easily "obsessed" with things; maybe I have more of an addictive personality than I realize.)
• I get angry, like legitimately angry, when a show doesn't end the way I want/expect it to.  When Psych ended about a month ago I was literally screaming at the TV in horror.  I then proceeded to spend the next hour searching the internet for any spoilers and proclaiming "I wash my hands of this" if Henry is really dead.  Now I just obsess (again a theme) over all Gus' (Dulé Hill) tweets, searching for some kind of answer.  

Not your Hallmark kind of Mother's Day

It's been pretty quiet around here this weekend.  It's the first time, in a long time, that we've had nothing to do.  As life would have it though, that's been a very good thing.  Little Miss has been quite sick.  A high fever two days in a row warranted a visit to the doctor this afternoon.  Not exactly how I imagined spending Mother's Day, but there's certainly no where else I'd rather be than taking care of the one who made me a Momma.  Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there (mine included-love you mom)!

 Hanging out at the Mother's Day brunch at preschool on Friday

 My awesome Mother's Day present- they say "Toms loves Moms"

Five Minute Friday: Identity

Today I'm linking up with The Gypsy Mama for her Five Minute Friday.  The idea is "to throw caution to the wind and just write, to share what five minutes buys them. Just five minutes. Unscripted. Unedited. Real."  Today's prompt is Identity, so here we go:

I never really realized how much my identity was caught up in what I do until I became a mom.  I tell people all the time that when we had Sadie it felt like somebody pulled the rug out from underneath my feet, both literally and metaphorically speaking.  I went from having a plan/feeling confident in said plan 99.9% of the time to feeling completely clueless. 

The first few months I was in pure survival mode so I didn't really see the identity crisis happening.  But once I reemerged into the world from a sleep deprived fog, it slapped me in the face.  Sure I was still a campus minister but my time there had been greatly reduced.  Somehow I had decided (in my silly head) that being a mom wasn't quite as valuable as working full-time in a real job, I felt like I had no purpose anymore.  I think you see where that's headed.  I was an emotional wreck with multiple meltdowns that strangely are quite similar to the temper tantrums my 16 month old is throwing these days. 

stop.

*editor's note: so this whole typing just for 5 minutes was a lot harder than I thought.  Perhaps I'll finish this stream of thought sometime next week.  Leaving it without a conclusion is killing me, but that's what I'm supposed to do!

Midweek Confessions

  

In an effort to be more authentic, I'll be linking up with Elizabeth from E, Myself, & I on Wednesdays to share my not so perfect moments.

•  Yesterday I ate at least 6 chocolate chip cookies for lunch.  In my defense I had a big breakfast around 10 o'clock (I can tell these honesty posts are going to include a lot of "in my defense" phrases).
• As much as I like to tell people I'm not obsessed with my iPhone I totally am.  I check Facebook/Twitter/Email a lot (I should count for next week's post).  Sadie totally acts out when I do this too.  It goes a little something like this, "No Sadie, don't stick your hand in Mabel's water dish.  (looks down at phone) What?  Megan Fox is pregnant. (hears squeals, looks up)  Ahhh, that is not a bathtub Sadie!"  
• Speaking of social media, sometimes when I'm talking to people in real life, I act like what they're telling me is the first time I've ever heard it.  Really I've already read it on FB/Twitter, I just don't know how to tell them without seeming rude.  Any ideas on what the proper etiquette is for these situations?  
• Nic has been waking up early to exercise.  Sometimes when his alarm clock goes off I totally act like I'm still asleep or "play dead" as I like to call it.  I did acknowledge this to him last night, his response "Oh I know."     

Eeeek, I can not believe I just posted some of those things on the world wide web.  Don't judge me!  
 

Jars of Clay

I have a confession to make: I'm a self-diagnosed perfectionist.  I've known it for a LONG time but I've just recently decided to make it public.  It's probably why (read: it is why) I haven't blogged in almost two months.  Every time I sit down to blog I struggle to know what to write about and then I convince myself no one cares anyway so why waste my time.  It takes me 10x longer than a normal person to write a short post because I type something and then delete it (like I'm doing now) at least 5 times per sentence. Heaven forbid it not sound right or gasp, have a typo! 

In all honesty though, I'm kind of a hot mess or an oxymoron rather.  In small group settings I've been known to be honest to a fault, at least in most areas of my life, but there are so many other parts of my life I think I might die if someone really knew about.  All because, gasp (note the dramatic turn this post is taking), they might see that I'm not so perfect after all.  I feel like Nic has to give me the 'ole "You're not perfect and nobody expects you to be" speech at least once a month and each time he says it I die a little bit more inside (love you babe-keep it up because I need it). 

I've been going through a bible study on 2 Corinthians and yesterday I read "During New Testament times, clay pots were big business.  Since each jar of clay was handmade, it was inevitable that it had some cracks.  Everyone knew about the cracks.  But since it was big business, the people selling the clay pots would cover the cracks with wax.  It was all a game.  Like those pots we're handmade by God, completely unique.  But since we live in a fallen world, some cracks are inevitable.  In other words, everyone knows about the cracks ."  Imagine my dismay when I read on to see "That's because people don't need to see how perfect Christians are; they need to see how powerful God is (Partow, 2003)."

Really?  You mean somebody else, besides Nic of course, knows I'm not perfect after all?  I'd love to say reading this gave me ultimate freedom from the back breaking weight of perfectionism, but it didn't.  In fact I think I could've written a 5-page paper on why this doesn't apply to me after reading it.  As much as I hate to admit it though, it's true, I'm not perfect, and apparently I'm the last person in the world to know it. 

Obviously I'm exaggerating a bit but if you watched the way I act sometimes, you'd say I lived as if I believed this was true.  Thus begins my quest: my quest to be more honest with myself and to tear down the wall that years of perfectionism has built between me and the world.  My hope is through blogging a bit more, I can document the journey.  I do certainly believe that there is a line between being honest and sharing too much that you must walk tightly at times.  But it's time to let you in on what goes on in this crazy mind of mine and not just put my best foot forward all the time.  Hang on, it's a little crazy in there!