Chapter 2

The annual Thomason family beach vacation slays me. I suddenly feel the need to give myself permission to do all the things I would never do on a daily basis. Eating 7 meals a day, laying a chair half naked for hours, reading a boo in its entirety, and blatantly people watching are all on the list. I wear lipstain and bronzer and too much eyeliner. I suddenly care about what my hair looks like. My outfits match. I order things like "remoulade" for my blackened butterflied shrimp. I say things like "I would really love a ginger ale, hold the ice please". It's true. In a round about way I'm confessing to you that I'm a vacation diva. I don't know when it started or what causes it. Sun exposure? Increased caloric intake? Decreased physical activity? Lord forgive me for my vacationing gluttony.

All that being said, it's incredible to be sitting here on this plane, on the brink of a huge transition. Between one extreme and the next.

Y'all I really don't like transitions. I'm bad at them. It makes me feel like 8 year old me and I've lost Tina in the mall. It strips me of all of my self imposed maturity and security. Even writing that sentence makes me want to write some sort of witicism to mask the vulnerability of it. It requires me to look straight into the face of Jesus and see if I really believe that He's my security and savior. I want to be a woman who feels and lives in the light of the truth I've received. It's a struggle. It's a process my flesh would like to happen in a single 3 minute event- or sometimes not at all. My brain knows the truth of Christ, His redemptive power and the security that is found in Him. Transition requires me to live in the light of His truth. Lord baptize my mind.

I feel like there are so many people I need to thank for pursuing me and for loving on me in the transitional weeks at home. The weeks I was not ready to face, but came to love. The weeks I feared, but rather found confidence and foundation in. The weeks that looked like a bowl of nasty pea soup from afar but ended up being a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream when I got to it and actually ate it. Thank you for sitting with me on the porch. Thank you for letting me hold your baby. Thank you for letting me go grocery shopping with you-always. Thank you for the late night skype calls. Thank you for leaving me funny pictures of yourself on my facebook. Thank you for laying with me on the beach. Thank you for taking me to lunch. Thank you for letting me be your student again. Thank you for being the same. Thank you for the letting me be in your everyday even though we're hours apart. Thank you for calling me from camp. Thank you for helping me discover the organic gas station. If I could hug each of your necks right this second you know I would!

So here we are! Ready or not, PC! Here I come.

Coonicide

You guys might need to sit down for this one. Grab a box of tissues and some chocolate. Have your mommy on speed dial.

Also. This post could certify me as a redneck. I desire to be the opposite. Sometimes I view the opposite of being redneck as being British. I want to be able to say "Cheerio, mate!" and wear floral from head to toe and have afternoon tea. Instead I'm a ginger Arkansan with a father who has a "man cave" in our house where he keeps his shrine of deer heads and stuffed in flight ducks. One of the ducks has duck calls hanging from its neck. Oh the irony. You win some you lose some.

This is a tragic tale about a relatively normal Wednesday night. The night started out with Jo Beth. Sister is my ridiculously tan, hilarious bestie who just got home from too many weeks in Costa Rica. That's false. It was the perfect amount of weeks in Costa Rica but i'm selfish and wanted her with with me to laugh and be absolutely ridiculous with. Jo Beth is one of those people who I laugh with like no other. Ugly laugh x 10. Snorting. Crying. Lack of breathing. The kind of laughter that mends your soul and makes you feel lighter. Being with her is pure joy.

We started out working on our fitness. It's a favorite pasttime of ours. Ask anyone at the HPER. We're animals. All the boys stare. Not really. But really.

About 3 steps into it I was doubled over in laughter because we started talking like cavemen. I know that's not funny. Needless to say we made a scene. The walk continued. We walked to Meg's house and loved on the sweet one for a little bit. We got chased by a herd (atleast 5) of miniature poodles. Then we decided to go get a snowcone to make up for all of our burnt calories. Life was sweet. All was right with the world.

I got in my car. Sang my little heart out to Sleeping at Last. I was smiling and laughing and driving down a country road with no one around but the Lord Himself. It was like a scene straight out of Gilmore Girls. I thought I saw Lorelei and Luke sitting on their front porch. Then I remembered they were fictional TV characters and not real life. And I think that show was set in New Hampshire or something cray cray like that. Let's just say I was plum confused.

And that's when it happened.

I was speeding along a back road singing and that's when I saw it. A huge. Wriley. Angry raccoon. Bless it's furious heart. It was no match for my 2005 Suzuki. I couldn't swerve fast enough. It couldn't scamper quickly enough. It's too small brain couldn't function that fast. I literally saw it's life flash before its eyes and then the rest is history. I drove the rest of the way home in a, "Oh my goodness gracious. I just killed a raccoon. I wonder if it had little raccoon children? Don't think that!" stupor.

Fifteen minutes later I was texting Jo Beth and laughing my head off about it. Dumb bunny, coon. Served it right walking in front of my beast of a car. Did I just say that?

Headgear

I have a confession. I am not an athlete. I know this comes as a surprise to 89% of the people reading this, but it is the honest to goodness truth. I have truly tried being a poser in numerous sports.

Softball being the first. It was hot, and I spent more time playing in the dirt than listening to my coach who just happened to be my best friend on the team's dad. He was serious business and we were going to ANNIHILATE the other seven year old girls teams. I was terrified. My only claim to fame is that I hit a grand slam once. But then it took me 13 minutes to run around all the bases. By the time I was done my little team had totally forgot why I was speedwalking, and had resorted to playing with eachother's hair and drinking pink gatorade.

Ballet, Tap, and Gymnastics were my next victims. I was awkwardly tall for my age and that was certainly not to my advantage. The other little girls were petite and dainty and cried when the teacher looked at them. I was lanky and had a frizzy ginger fro that nobody knew what to do with. I giggled and overexaggerated all the the dance moves the ENTIRE time. It starts young, y'all. All the other little girls wore little black leotards. I wore a pale pink leotard that made me look like I wasn't wearing one at all. We have a home video of dance class. All the other girls are dancing gracefully and unified with the teacher and I'm standing in the back smiling, waving, and posing for the video camera. It starts young, y'all.

Basketball was the sport I was convinced I had a future in. Basketball is the sport I'm convinced I have a future in. That's a joke for those of you who have never seen me run. Or just seen me in general. I played upward and that of course made me legit. I made 3 baskets my whole 4 year grind of basketball playing. I did however get hit in the face with the ball 5 times, tripped countless times, elbowed in the eyesocket, scratched, yelled at, you name it. I came out of games looking like I had been trapped in an alley with a cougar. Another perk about my basketball years is that those were the years my orthodontist decided to attack my gap tooth. I would literally practice basketball in my driveway wearing my headgear. For those of you who don't know what headgear is, google it. That actually has nothing to do with playing basketball, but it's a funny mind picture. You're welcome.

The last, but certainly not least was my valiant attempt at golfing. Now, I went to a new highschool and naturally we got to be involved in whatever our little hearts desired. My logic in higschool worked like this. "P.E. is for unathletic losers. Ope, I have a brilliant idea. I'm going to play golf for my P.E. because I've done so well in all the other sports i've participated in." I soon realized that P.E. was for normal people, and golf was for cray cray gingers who thought they knew all the answers. But grace abounds and playing golf was the best decision I ever made. Ask anyone who golfed with me. I missed the ball over and over. My first golf practice I tried to Tee-up the ball in the fairway. For those of you thinking, "I had no idea you weren't allowed to do that" I'm right there with you. I was ignant and I basked in it. I would ugly laugh, loudly, and yell at my ball to go further. I was that girl on the golf course. At one point a group of old men simultaneously asked me to be quiet. I got so good that my coach promoted me to snack cart driver. It required no golfing and a whole lot of eating and socializing. I'm a master at both of the latter.

The Lord has refined me so much through the things I am terrible at. Trust me, the things i'm bad at are not solely sports. They include actively listening, singing on pitch, patience, and a laundry list of other things. They are things I used to cringe at and think of as ugly. They stayed in the cave of my brain, the place I never took anyone, especially the Lord. He couldn't see me like that. It was gross and embarrassing. I think the older I get the more He puts me in situations where my weaknesses are on full display. "But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast more all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." ( 2 Cor 12:9) Those words are like candy when I've been eating nothing but saltines. A snowcone in the desert. An open field when I've been in a maze. I have fretted and acted like an absolute ninny in the process of trying to get things right. Trying to cast of my weakness like last year's shoes. I think i'm learning to wear my weakness openly and honestly because only there will we find God's grace and power. When I'm weak I get to humbly point to Him and my need for His power. There's no room for my own strivings and assumed strength. It's an opportunity and a blessing to put my weakness out there like a banner. It's an opportunity I can't pass up anymore.

Tom Foolery

Y'all. There is a reason why I don't venture out into public before 11 am. This morning affirmed that I have been making the right decision.

I have never ever lived in a house outside of my parents house before. I have no idea how it works. What do I do with my trash all week? You mean there's not a neighborhood dumpster? You mean I'm responsible for my own lawn care? Wait a second, I HAVE TO CLEAN MY OWN GUTTERS? I HAVE GUTTERS??! Lord, please forgive me for my dramaticisms.

Our house was in desperate need of some internet. How are we supposed to facebook and shop online and waste time if we don't have internet?! And by we I mean me. Four phone calls, a spoonful of confusion, and a headache later, we had an appointment. I was secretly impressed by my mature completion of adult duties. But then again I just laughed at the word "duty" as I typed it so I guess the former sentence is void. The sweet lady on the phone informed me that the internet man, let's just call him Tom Foolery, would come between 7am-12. Of course in my brain, combined with my selective hearing, I heard "We'll see you at 11". Let's just call me Silly Sue.

So, this morning, when the doorbell rang at 7:30 am, you know why I was dazed, confused, and just about ready to call the fuzz.

Whit and I had pulled our mattresses into our living room amidst the array of our randomly moved in furniture because we couldn't handle sleeping in a room just yet. That's translated to I'm a pansy and it was our first night sleeping there and I didn't want to sleep in a room by myself. So, naturally, we pushed our little twin mattresses together and placed a lamp in between us and slept right in the middle of our living room. I felt like a little kid who had made a pallet in the living room. All we needed were pigtails and retainers. You can guess which one I had covered.

The next sequence of events are an unbelievable blur to me. The doorbell rang. I immediately thought to myself, "Dumb bunny doorbell. Tina will get it. What time is it....oh my lanta where the heck am I!?" I rolled off the bed, and slapped on my nike shorts. The next thing that happened will haunt me for the rest of my life. I opened the door and simultaneously realized I had my shorts on backwards, I didn't have a bra on, and screamed, "GOOOOOOD MORNING!!!!!" in a pitch that only dogs can hear. It was an inappropriate recipe for disaster.

The person staring back at me could have been a jcrew model. I tried to play a mind game with myself and say he looked like an ogre to save myself compounded embarrassment, but it was to no avail. The more I tried to tell myself he was ugly the more he looked like a handy man version of Jude Law. Lord help us. He came in and immediately got to work. I ran to the bathroom to brush my teeth and try to salvage any piece of dignity I had left. I looked in the mirror. The latter would be impossible. And that's when it happened. He couldn't find the cable. And, to my horror I heard the following conversation happen:

Tom Foolery (TF): "Where's the other lady?"

Whit: "Umm...in the bathroom"

TF: "Um. Erm. Okay."

Oh geez. Oh no. Please Lord, let me be dreaming. Please don't let him think I'm doing something embarrassing in here. I ran out of the door and moved quicker than I had in 24 hours. I wanted to inform him that I was just brushing my teeth and putting a bra on but that would be SO MUCH MORE inappropriate and embarrassing than anything I had done prior to that right? Am I right?! Thinking clearly only minutes after waking up is not a strength of mine.

After 20 minutes of tinkering around and being a handy man, Tom Foolery got us all set up. I signed the papers, I made no eye contact, and prayed he wouldn't remember the past 30 minutes of his life. On his way out the door Whit said, "Thank you. Sorry we were sleeping!". Bless you Whit.

Tom foolery, if your reading this A) I'm dying of embarrassment B) Has anyone ever told you that you look like Jude Law? C) I'm sorry that I'm not sorry I was sleeping at 730. I am sorry for a list of thing including bralessness, my hair standing on end, and acting like a psychotic dog trainer but I refuse to apologize for being asleep at 7:30 am. Whit's a better person than I am.

Pumpkin oatmeal

I'm going against my better judgement, and I'm writing this bad boy at 12:11 am. If you see me tomorrow, haggard and glazy eyed and frazzled- No it's not because I'm a cray cray 21 year college student. It's because my mind is a hamster wheel and keeps me awake. I'm still unsure of who the hamster is. One day I'm going to stick it to the man and find an off switch, but until then you get to put up with my strung-together-late-night thoughts. Bless your heart.

In the fall, I was fresh out of camp. Jesus was pumping through my veins like a venti iced coffee with a quadruple shot. I had seen miracles there. Redemption. Healing. Reconciliation. Sancitification. All the -tions were in attendance and in full force. I was fired up. I was humbled. I was broken. I was ready to give Conway a big a bear hug and inform her that we had some work to do. I refused to think it was a camp high. No not me. I'm too cool and disciplined for that baloney. I had a smile slapped on my face and I was going to buckle down and GET. ER. DONE. I had my chacos and nike shorts on and I was going to take Conway BY STORM!! Sometimes i'm a skipping home from church camp, striving ninny poser.

The Lord planted a seed in the middle of my "I'm going to get strive alot" ninny-ness. Over labor day, I went with a couple friends and stayed at a girls ministry house with some of their friends from camp. It was sketchy and beautiful and old. It had character and style and a prayer room and most importantly lots and lots of space for them to have people from their college town over. They had plenty of space to love on their town.

It made us want to throw up. It was everything we wanted for Conway. A place to have small group. A place to feed people. I place to call home instead of to call apartment. A place to make cute. A place to stay up late and be giggly, irresponsible school girls. Rather, a place for me to stay up late and be a giggly, irresponsible school girl.

Every Tuesday morning from then on out we would meet for breakfast and pray when it was still dewey and foggy outside. I would muster up all my culinary abilities and make them pumpkin oatmeal and cereal. We would stagger to my room with cereal mostly because the pumpkin oatmeal was weird, and would pray. And pray. And pray. We would pray for Conway. For the Lord to provide a ministry house for girls if that was His heart in Conway. We prayed for the people who would live in it, that He would prepare them to live there together. We prayed that in the end that He would be glorified through it all, that He would be the sole provider of it. We wouldn't look, or ask around, or horn in, or make it happen. You know, all of my go to responses to things. We would pray for the family we nannyed for. We would beg the Lord to give us grace on our tests that day. We would pray that above all He was glorified in us and through us.

Winter came in went. Christmas break ended. Spring semester started with a vengance.

We quit praying together in the spring. Mostly out of doing too much. Mostly out of exhaustion. Mostly out of lack of passion, for me. I think I just took the lack of anything happening as a sign that we would just live in pairs in apartments.

Sometimes I think the world revolves around me and my time table and that I know the thoughts of the God of the Universe.

Sometimes I write run on sentences and leave them.

Sometimes I stomp my foot like a disobedient 4 year old wanting skittles in the checkout line at walmart. But that's another story.

In March a miracle happened. It makes me want to weep, jump for joy, fall on my knees, tell everyone I know, "Oh my goodness gracious great balls of fire. The Lord is REAL and He hears me. Little, ginger, ridiculous, overthinking me!"

Without us doing anything, a house opened up, and we were asked if we wanted to live there.

It's brown. It's unassuming. It's in a quiet older neighborhood. It's perfect. I entertain thoughts about it all the time. About how I'm going to decorate my room. About having people over for dinner for the first time and the joy that's going to flood my heart in that little moment. I pray over it. It's almost like i'm crushing on it. I stare off into space and think about it. I write it's address all over my notebook. When it looks at me I blush and giggle and flip my hair off my shoulder. Too much? You win some you lose some.

From the outside, the house is not impressive. When people drive by they don't think to themselves, "Hey! There's the house that the Lord provided for those girls!" The majority of people will never know. Although in my brain I think everyone gets weepy and goofy joyous when they look at it. It's a complex.

It's amazing what lengths the Lord will go to grow our faith in Him. The detailed huge scale things He will do for an individual for His glory. Humbling is the understatement of the year. We'll never be the same. We'll never look at prayer or provision or faith or persistence the same ever again. Praise Him!

Yesterday

There are days that I live the dream and don't even realize it. Yesterday was one of them. There are also days that are weird and cray cray stuff happens and I don't even realize it. Yesterday was one of them. I like to think of myself as observant. I think the evidence is against me.

Rick busted up in my room at 8:47 am and scared me so bad I almost fell off my air mattress. Mind you, I had not seen God's green earth before 9 am in what felt like 47 years, so this was a shock. Also, I'm well aware that the drop from the air mattress to the ground is probably 6 inches tops, but in that state of horror and confusion the last thing I was doing was thinking rationally. Rick informed me we were going to breakfast. Praise the Lord above. I slapped on the clothes I had worn the day before and quickly forgot about the past 3 minutes of life and ran out the door. The prospect of donuts has that effect on me. (Affect? I can never get it right. If you're one of those people who cringes at the thought let alone the sight of school girl bad grammar, please forgive me for my schoolgirl bad grammar.)

We arrived at Rick's bakery. Rick and I have graced Rick's bakery with our presence for years. It has character and spunk and you immediately feel like you're a little kid again. It makes me want to stuff my face with cream filled donuts and drink chocolate milk. It also makes me want to grab Rick's hand and skip. One of these days i'm going to just to see his reaction. I had only be awake for 12 minutes and was certainly not in the mood for holding hands or skipping so I acted like a caveman instead, pointing and grunting at the donuts I wanted. At times I shoudn't be allowed in public.

We sat in the back room and ate and talked about life and laughed. The kind of laughter that bubbles up in you and is really loud and you can't control it. Rick had been in China for a week and a half and it was a delight to have him sitting across from me eating donuts. He didn't even care that my hair was standing on end and that I was wearing that outfit round 2. Love abounds. We left Rick's and got coffee at Starbucks. Rick would never admit it, but he's a coffee snob. I'm a coffee snob. Lord, please humble me and my coffee preferences.

I got home and took Foxy for a walk in an attempt to walk off the donuts. I probably would have needed to walk from my house to Chicago to make that happen, but one can dream. We had been gone for 2.3 seconds, and that's when I saw it. A huge, ginger colored dear standing in my neighbors front yard staring at me. Now, I live in suburban Arkansas complete with cookie cutter houses, mowed grass, sidewalks, mulch and roses, the whole 9 yards. And it was noon and broad daylight. I thought I was seeing things. I thought the donuts were playing tricks on me. When the deer saw us it ran through peoples front yard and down the paved road. "Probably off to go scare some other unsuspecting ginger trying to walk off her donuts" I said to Foxy. Not really. But I wish I would have.

After I got back from the walk my day started over. Rick and I went and got starbucks, yes again. No I didn't get the same thing again. Yes I wanted to.

Tina and I went on walk round two after starbucks visit round two. As we were rounding the corner, we saw a ground hog and some friends scampering around. I've never seen a ground hog in my neighborhood. I exclaimed, "Mother dearest! I cannot handle all of the wildbeasts in and around our neighborhood. A ginger deer, and now this?!" Not really. But I wish I would have.

We ate dinner, and sat by the fire pit, and went and got icecream, and I ran for a wee bit.

I can't define grace. I don't understand it. I know I need it every moment of every day. And then the Lord gives me a day like yesterday. A day full of starbucks and time with Rick and Tina and blessings and donuts and ground hogs and ginger deer and fire pits. That's grace and blessing. I don't deserve it, but then he abundantly lavishes the gift on us. Praise Praise Him!

The Time Machine and the Monkey

Y'all it is no joke when I say coming home makes me regress to a hormonal 15 year old. I have wandered around, slept for 12 hours a night, eaten more fruit snacks then I would like to admit, spent too much time on the couch watching food network, and listened to "I still care for you" on repeat. I've acted jaded like a moody highschool bandie who just got dumped by her shakespeare loving boyfriend of 2 weeks (Note: if that is your situation and your reading this, forgive me. I'm a school girl.)

But as much as I like to make light of my own feelings and actions, this weirdness has really affected my everyday. I knew it was deeper than jaded feelings, but I was afraid to look it in the face. It worries me. It's the monkey on my back I can't get to go away. It's the reason I didn't want to come home.

Conway is a superb distraction. Complete with a Slim Chickens AND a fantastic park. And a kazillion people to worry about and pour myself into. Basically, the park in Springdale sucks and the closest thing they have to slim chickens is a sweet little place called rocking chicken- Which is close. But sorry RC, you just don't measure up. And your floors are sticky. Most importantly there's no one here to distract me except Foxy- my annoying, overgrown lap dog.

In the middle of my confusing inner turmoil, I have been living in a time machine. I ate lunch with my kindergarten teacher at my elementary school. I drove by the house I grew up in, twice. I went through my room and heartlessly threw away almost every memory of my childhood, except for a box of nostalgia that Tina couldn't stomach getting rid of. I got a snowcone at the snowcone stand that my friends and I lived at during the summer in highschool. I read through the journals of prayers I wrote while at John Brown. I've ran around my block night after night. I've eaten more meals with Tina during this time than I have in the past year. I've sat on our back porch and prayed and cried and read.

During this entire time, I've ashamedly and confusingly felt really rebellious against the Lord. I would read truth and understand it in my brain and think about it a ton but it wouldn't affect my heart. It was almost as if my heart was hardened, and have you read the bible?! That's BAD NEWS BEARS. Needless to say the Lord is good, and he's teaching me what faith in Him to save my life really means- even when I act a hardhearted fool. Even when I feel like an unsavable ninny. Which is the basic, but if we don't have Jesus then what's the point?

I needed to come home in more ways than one. I knew I needed to. It's like knowing you need medicine and someone to take care of you. But, In your head you know that the medicine is a pill the size of your fist and it tastes like a mixture of brussel sprouts and Maalox. And you've done so well taking care of yourself. But taking the pill and letting yourself be taken care of heals you. And in the end you end up liking the taste of maalox. But who would ever admit to that.

Praying for a buffet

I have a list of things I don't like doing. Things that I need to quit "not liking"- It's a work in progress. A very slow process. If you want to throw up a prayer asking the Lord to change my heart about said things, I wouldn't hate it.

Going to celebritory functions for people we barely know out of obligation is on the list. If it were up to me we would just send them a gift card to target in the mail. Tina is a better person than I am.

To add insult to injury, my morning was a wardrobe catastrophe. Tina insisted that the only thing appropriate for me to wear to said function was a black dress I've owned for the past 4 years. It's cute, but it makes me look like I have a muffin top. I have a muffin top, but I don't want to look like I have a muffin top. I like to live in denial. Living in denial looked like me wearing an obnoxious floral romper that makes me look like I have the build of a stocky 14 year old boy. I love it. It was also an immature act of rebellion against the black dress and Tina who, bless her heart, gets the brunt of my regression to a hormonal 15 year old when I'm home. Lord, help me and my school girl ways.

The romper was on. It was staying on and that's all there was to it. And then, I accidentally walked past my mom's full length mirror. What a mistake. The romper came off. The black dress came on. Once again, the mirror. Someone needs to get rid of that mirror. The black dress came off. The green dress came on. I had grown since wearing that green dress. No, surely the green dress just shrunk- in all ways possible. It was too tight. It was too short.

Tina was in the car laying on the horn because we were 20 minutes late. I was out of time and the green dress was it. Time was up. I was that girl.

We arrived at the country club on all of our late, frazzled glory. Rather, my late, frazzled glory. Tina, her petite self, looked precious in her plum little dress and tan skin and newly painted fingernails. I looked like a yeti wearing baby dress, chipping off my bright blue nail polish as we walked in the door. I was praying for a buffet. You win some you lose some.

The first person I saw was my pastor's wife. Immediately I tried to act like I had the modesty confidence of someone wearing a turtle neck and a floor length skirt. Ope. It was a no go. I was Bathsheba.

Praise the Lord my bestie got drug to the same occasion. Grace abounds. We hid in the corner and cuddled with her baby and laughed and ate chocolate covered strawberries. We covered my naky legs with the baby's blanket so no one could tell that my watermelon was nearly uncovered. I tried to look good and impressive and instead I ended up looking embarrassingly inappropriate. I dreaded the occassion and instead it was a delight. I think that's how God works sometimes. Showing that He's in control- and that our efforts are useless without him. That although we assume something will look one way, our human minds can only assume human outcomes. Praise the Lord we serve a redeeming God who makes beauty from ashes- and covers naky legs with baby blankets.

My bestie's baby

Meg is weaved into almost every part of my life growing up. Our parents are best friends. Our dads work for the same company. Our moms made a life out of raising us. We each have brothers that are five years younger than us. Over the years her family has become family to us. Through Christmas's spent together, birthdays, summer dinners, card games, sitting beside each other in church, sledding together, helping each other get ready for prom, growing up together, making our dads eat our disturbing easy bake oven creations, through heartbreaks, moving houses, decorating rooms, broken bones, football games, the thick, and the thin. Meg has always been there, just like her mom has always been there for my mom and the same for our dads and brothers.

When Meg and I were little we used to have those babies that looked so real that people often mistook them for real when we would push them around in strollers in the mall, at Walmart, and all the various other places we took them. Meg was three years older than me and I wanted to be exactly like her- naturally that meant doing whatever she did. When she would hold her doll out the window while we were driving by its foot, I would follow suit. When she would act like she had tripped and dump her doll onto the floor on its face, I would just happen to trip too, less gracefully of course, and fall on my face along with my doll. People would run to us horrified, screaming, "That poor child!" only to find out they were only dolls. It was the funniest thing this ginger had ever experienced. We would giggle and high five and look around for another unsuspecting grandma to terrify. Tina and Kell would tell us to stop. Our dads would laugh.

What we loved most about it was that people actually thought these babies were real. We would fantasize about what having our own kids would be like. We couldn't wrap our minds around the idea. I would have giggly ginger children. Hers would be dark headed and sweet. My daughter would be named Eloise Rose, and hers would be named Addison Marie. They would be the best of friends and grow up together, just like we had. If something went horrifically against our plans and one of us had a son, that would be okay. They would just marry each other. Even better.

In April, when I met Meg's baby for the first time, I was speechless, and emotional, and overjoyed, and humbled, and out of control, and excited, and changed. She was tiny and snuggly and warm and innocent and really real. Her little hand couldn't fit around my finger. That day will forever be in my memory file. The real life day when something hoped for became incredibly real and life changing and infinitely better than we could have ever imagined.

Cheesecake for dinner

Tina makes the best cheesecake of all time. It's just fact. Ask Mason. He ate it for dinner last night. It's the kind of cheesecake that makes you want to die after eating it because life certainly couldn't get any better past there. Overdramatic? Probably. True? In my brain, sometimes.

We have cheesecake 3 times a year. One being my birthday. The second being Memorial day. Side note: I just love memorial day. The pool opens. All of your family comes over. You get to eat all sorts of grilled food. Summer is ahead of you. School is behind you for a little while. Flies are everywhere but you don't really care because, hey, it's summer. Tina makes cheesecake. It's a win win win. The third being thanksgiving/Christmas time. Not necessarily on those days but around that season. When Tina makes cheesecake it's a special time. Let's be real, the day of my birth is special. Christmas? So special. Memorial day? A delightful rarity.

I told Tina that we should make a cheesecake every week this summer. Try something new. I mean we love it why don't we have it more often? Right? I've got to be right. But my petit, slim mom shook her head and said, "I would weigh 481 pounds by... the end of summer and it would steal our joy of only having every once in a while. In the meantime, we should definitely eat it for dinner."

My first thought? Mom, you cray cray.

Eat it for dinner? But it's against everything you ever taught me! I should be eating vegetables for dinner. Perhaps something considered "lean cut" and fat free. Cheesecake for dinner? That can't be okay. It's against tradition. You've been lying to me my entire life. The rug is getting pulled out from under me. Just the thought of that makes me want to run a marathon. What will my vegetarian friend think of me? She'll probably shake her head and think, "That unhealthy, fatty. She should be eating something considered lean cut and vegetables for dinner". She would never actually think that about me. At times I'm an irrational and dramatic schoolgirl.

I think learning to rest is a lot like learning to eat cheesecake for dinner. For the longest time I didn't think I needed to rest. I didn't think it was okay. I was too busy meeting with my small group girls, or working, or trying to rest to no avail, or running from one crazy overwhelming situation to the next. Over time I just get more and more exhausted and confused. I panic. I forget that rest is where pure joy and peace meet. Rest recognizes that the Lord is fully in control and that life continues without me thinking everything through. Truth is, when I try to run my life I usually run it into the ground.

Rest is so necessary. Eating cheesecake for dinner is so necessary. It's countercultural. It's against everything you think is right. It's against doing, because you don't do anything. It's blissful and joyous. It's the sugar of life. It's a God given gift. It's a hard gift to accept when you haven't accepted it in a long, long while. He uses it to recharge me. He uses it to show me who's boss. He uses it to hold me. He uses it to teach me grace. He uses it to show me I'm weak.

There are times when you just need some cheesecake for dinner. A big piece. And when you're finished scrape the plate. Make sure you get it all. Thank the Lord for it. Refuse to feel guilty about it. Let your heart feel sweet satisfaction.

If that isn't enough, watch the celebrity apprentice in your unders with your mom for a couple hours. Make a fire pit in your back yard and roast marshmallows with your brother when it's still light outside- and then laugh a lot when you smoke up the entire neighborhood. Read Cold Tangerines and cry like a little baby because it so resembles your life you can't handle it. Lay in your bed really still under a quilt that your great great grandma hand sewed and see how it feels to be really still and really quiet again. Discover peace again.