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the state of my faith

I was in a spiritual wasteland for over a year after Meredith was born.

My beliefs never changed – I always loved and trusted God – but I stopped putting the effort into the relationship. As a result I experienced a lot of anxiety and frustration.

I have mentioned before that right around the time Meredith was born the church I had attended since high school (and that David’s family had been at for 25+ years) closed down. I never mentioned the reason, but I will now: the pastor, who we thought of as a very good friend, had systematically alienated and manipulated the members, obtained sole financial control without accountability, and then stole or took all the (tithed) money for his own personal use, quit, and moved away.

It was hard.

I had a new baby, I was full of anxiety, and my second family was scattered. I was lost in the bubble of new parenthood and when it was time to emerge there was no community of faith to welcome me or support me.

I’m not blaming the sad state of my faith on anyone else but myself, but I floundered for a long time after that. I let myself get caught up in the demands of balancing work and parenthood and hobbies and I neglected God. David and I visited a whole slew of new churches and several times we thought we’d found the one where we would settle down at and commit to, only to feel something not quite right after a few months.

In the meantime I wasn’t doing much on my own. Meredith’s birth, while in some aspects reviving my prayer life (Dear God, please keep her safe, healthy, and happy…) in other ways distracted me even more from my faith. At times I felt (and feel) that I was (am) in danger of making her (and her safety, health, and happiness) my god. I feel like if I lost her, I couldn’t survive – and that’s how I want to feel about God.

For a long time I didn’t read the Bible. I didn’t even pray every day. In general I always try to live out the values that I believe in, and that’s good, but it’s not good enough for my soul.

For awhile now we’ve been attending a church that is starting to feel like home. It’s a church plant that meets in a temporary place, which we originally didn’t want because of our past experience, but it feels like a family. We starting attending a small group for young families and made some immediate connections. Next month we will officially join and have Meredith baptized. This is helping.

But my turning point came on our trip to Kansas last October. I was talking to my college friend Ellen about the struggles of daily life – even though our day to day looks much different we always seem to struggle with the same things – and she talked about finally coming to the realization that she wasn’t going to be able to fix everything and how she was learning to give things (and people) over to God and just pray.

I saw that I was trying to do it all. But I can’t. And I needed to release that burden.

So I forced myself to start a daily devotional time. It wasn’t easy. My alarm goes off at 4:30am now. Originally I thought there was no way I could get up any earlier than I absolutely had to, but a funny thing happened. I actually look forward to getting up that early. It is the only time during the week, ever, that I get to be alone in a quiet house. I drink coffee, and I sit in the peaceful room I call the library, and I read. I have been following #shereadstruth (I love it, but one day I may branch out). I read the daily verses and then I write down one that pops out at me and I journal my thoughts.

It has been amazing. I am nicer to my husband now (I think). Bad days don’t affect me like they used to. I have more joy.

I’m not saying I’m doing everything right. I just know that this is a good thing.

***

Ironically today is the first day in months that I haven’t been able to do my morning devotion due to ragey toddler circumstances. God grant me serenity…

January 17, 2013
works in progress

A few things in progress around here…

I chose my quilt size and design! For a couple of weeks I thought about just going for a king size (which is what I really want to make for our bed) but in the end reality won me over and I decided to go with a crib-size to use as a throw. I’m very much a beginner at quilting and sewing so I don’t want to get in over my head. I chose the half-square triangle design below from the book Denyse Schmidt Quilts and I plan to follow the directions exactly other than choosing a different color that will match my house better.

On a whim over the weekend I pulled out my embroidery floss and started on matching friendship bracelets for me and Meredith. I already finished mine and I’m working on hers. I love when these fun, simple projects pop up.

Last week I finished reading The Passage by Justin Cronin (can’t WAIT to discuss it at book club – thank goodness for Lauren who just finished it too so we could talk about it early) so I’m back onto Moby-Dick. They are such different books so I’m having a bit of difficulty getting into the groove again, but in all honesty I’m finding it funny and suspenseful and dramatic and beautiful in its own way.

I meant to start a cross-stitch project over the weekend since I wanted to always have one going, but Meredith is getting two molars (while skipping all the other teeth in between) so there were a lot of things that I wanted to do that just didn’t get done. I’ll just leave it at that else I have flashbacks and PTSD from last night’s epic tantrum.

January 15, 2013
project life 2012 : last page

It sure feels good to have one whole year in the books. I still love it so much.

I tried a couple of new things on this last page that I will be doing more of in my 2013 album. One of them you can see in the top photo, which features the group of us who gathered for New Year’s Eve for the 7th or 8th year in a row, where I added text right onto the photo in PSE.

On the bottom row I cut out the “notes” from a Paper Source wall calendar and wrote a summary of our year, and the label on the bottom right is a printout from the Studio Calico Day by Day class along with the stamp.

But this is the coolest thing ever. I got the idea from Manda’s blog (which you should read because she’s awesome). I uploaded a video to YouTube and then used this website to create a QR code for it, took a screen shot, cropped it down, and printed it out so now my album is interactive! I’m kind of obsessed with this idea and I’ll definitely be including it whenever I have an interesting video. (This one has some silly dancing from NYE on it and is private for now.)

To round out the pockets I cut down a calendar from Paper Source with this pretty paper, and then just stamped 2012 all over a piece of kraft paper.

I never really lost steam with this project all year but I am now completely reenergized. I’m expecting my core kit to arrive this week and I can’t wait to tackle 2013! Most likely I’ll share my title page next week along some more thoughts on how I’ll proceed this year.

Happy Monday!

January 14, 2013
project life 2012 : weeks 47 – 48

This is the last spread of 2012, and all I have left to do is the back ending page! I’ll share that with you in the next week or two since I’m awaiting the arrival of my core kit to start 2013’s album.

A color scheme emerged naturally this week. I usually don’t use much red but I love it as an accent color with the teal + neutrals since it was Christmastime.

On the left side are some everyday photos & journaling about Meredith’s favorite stuffed animal, plus I cut out some of the kraft paper that she and I colored to wrap David’s present in. Included a duplicate photo of our work Christmas party that I already have in the December daily, and then I thought the calendar page (from Paper Source) fit in perfectly. Those labels are printables that I got from the Studio Calico Day by Day class. I am sooooo excited to have a working color printer now!

I made this journaling card out of a Project Life grid card and washi tape from Target.

On the right side, if I could go back and change something I’d probably switch the black and white chevron paper with something more muted, but it’s not bad as is. I got to include a quote I cut out from a magazine months ago (I think I was just barely getting around to reading last year’s Christmas issues, ha) that is perfect for our life. In the bottom left I put in the essentials from Meredith’s first Christmas card since it was too big to fit on its own (from a favorite patient of mine, blurred for privacy). Then the single photo I took on Christmas day, of my parents in front of the gift pile in my house. :)

I didn’t want to go into detail about Meredith’s 5-day-long illness since I wrote about it lots in the December daily album, but these two photos pretty much sum it up.

I listed our main gifts received on a SMASH journaling card. Then wrote just a couple sentences about the hellaciousness of work post-holiday, on another printable from the SC Day by Day class.

Yay! So I’ll wrap this up hopefully next week and then it’s onward to the next album!

January 9, 2013
10 cross stitch

This is a simple challenge I’m setting for myself, to make ten cross stitch projects. It doesn’t have a deadline because I can’t handle deadlines right now.

I do, however, want to keep stitching. It’s one of my favorite crafts and something that I can pick up and put down as needed. Like a book, I want to always have one going. My style is simple, “modern grandma” if you will, so there’s no reason I can’t get through more projects than I do.

Also, they won’t count until I finish them off. Right now I have one that’s been done for a couple of months but I haven’t found the right frames for it, and I hope to be able to share it soon. (It’s actually one of my January goals.)

Any other cross stitchers out there?

January 8, 2013