First Things First

In the real world, I do not think I am that great with introductions. I'm getting better at faking it, but I consider myself an introvert by nature.  Couple that with social anxiety and you get someone who often nervously smiles, blushes when asked a question and draws a blank every time it's her turn to speak anything intelligible, so yeah...let's see if I can win you over with a written introduction of me. <Wink> 

This introduction is going to include a lot more info about me than I would normally give anyone upon first meeting, but I believe it will be a good thing. My hope is that by me being vulnerable and open with you, that you will have a sense of "knowing me," more like a friend and allow me the opportunity to speak to your heart. I may not know some of you personally, but I care about you. I care deeply about the things God cares about, and you are one of them! God has given me this empathy and compassion for others. I have a deep desire to help those who may be struggling with a stronghold or emotional battle, because honestly, I often go through them as well. I am a strong believer that everything God brings you through, is so that you can in turn throw the life raft to someone else. God often uses people in our lives to meet us where we're at. So here we go!

I grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota, in a family of 4. Me, my mom, step-dad (though he adopted me at 2 years of age, so he's always been, just dad) and my sister who is 2 years younger than me. My parents have always been hard working individuals. My mother a nurse at a well known hospital most of her career and often working the night shift when I was a kid. She would pass the baton to my dad who was and is a photographer. My sister and I spent a lot of time, especially during the summer months off of school, at our aunt and uncles house hanging out with cousins, or at our great-grandparents house. I have fond memories of both and am grateful for the influence they had in my life.  

From as long as I can remember I have been an over-thinking, anxious type of a person. I swear I came out of the womb with a quizical brow. Often afraid of my own shadow, I was a perfect target at school to be picked on. Growing up was tough. I wouldn't go back even if someone paid me! Though, I do often wonder if I could take what I know now and go back, maybe I could have talked some sense into myself and given myself a few pep talks on how to handle bullies, disappointments, and fear, then maybe things would have turned out differently? I will never know, because life moves forward. We can't and shouldn't live in the past. For better or for worse, they make us into the people we are today.  Sometimes those negative experiences are not for nothing. We should always learn and grow from them.  

My teenage years were filled with a series of bad choices as most peoples are. Again, learn and grow. I had identified as sort of a part-time Catholic until I was 15 and then we began going to a non-denominational church and suddenly I was propelled to see life through a different lens. Things radically changed with my family's belief system and structure, church attendance, moral filter, and our social groups. In some ways for the better, but in other ways it opened the door to more confusion for me. If I'm honest, it was an awkward time to be introduced to all of so much change at 15 years old. It was a completely different way of viewing life and I had already started to form this "other" picture of who I was. So, I rebelled. Not in the weed smoking, binge drinking sort of way like some of my friends at the time, but I threw myself into relationships with guys that were unfulfilling at best.  I had so much insecurity and so much confusion, I just craved emotional security and thought that this was the way to get it. I mixed a "Catholic guilt" mentality with this new theology and found myself more insecure than ever. God became this personal being in my life that was different than the static higher power that lived up and away, but now it only brought the guilt for every bad decision and thought, even closer to heart. I feared I could never measure up in this new relationship that I had embarked on with the creator of the universe. That lingered on for quite sometime and is something I still wrestle with in my soul.

After high school I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life.  Somedays wanting to go to college and be some kind of successful business woman and other days, I wanted to be an artistic vagabond with no big picture long term goals. I lived day to day just doing whatever I desired in the moment with no real momentum or direction. I was taking part-time college courses at a community college and when I was 20, I started dating the guy who owned the house I rented from with a roommate. After only dating 5 months, I became pregnant. I was going to say unexpectedly, but then again, if you are in a physical relationship with someone and you become pregnant, you should have at least half expect that it could happen. It obviously was unplanned and it was a very devastating thing at the time. I became so afraid and unsure of where my life and now my baby's life, was headed. I ended up moving back in with my parents for a short while and the relationship with my son's father crumbled and left us both hurting and confused, yet trying to find a balance in which we were both part of our son's life. It's funny, I actually never thought I wanted children and suddenly I was faced with thinking long term about the kind of future I wanted to have that now included a child.  

Pregnancy really jolted me into this mode of reevaluating who I was and wanted to be. I decided to give my life back to Jesus and started going to church again. I got water baptized when I was 9 months pregnant, in a lake! For a while, I lived the single mom life with my little boy in an apartment. I endeavored to do things "right," in God's eyes, because after all, I wasn't just making decisions for me any more. It was time to take things seriously.

During that time, I met my husband that I am married to now. It really is a fairytale story that I won't go into too much detail on, but I believe God gave me my husband as a gift after I recommitted my life to Him and it was so much better that I waited for God to bring him to me than me following my own fickle feelings based agenda. Scott, my husband, fell in love with me and my son. It takes a special kind of man to be able to love a child not his own as though he was and I am forever grateful. We married when Joshua was 2 years old. Since then we have added 4 more kids to our quiver! Karissa is going to be 16 this summer, Noelle is 13, Caleb is 10 and Ashton is 8. Joshua, our oldest, is going to be 20 this year! His dad married and had another son and I am happy to say that God really worked out all things for the good in our situation. Josh is an amazing young man who loves the Lord and has a bright future ahead of him. We all have a great relationship, not without hard work and being intentional about it, but we are an example of how blended families can work together despite their differences to do what's best for their child.  I am proud of us.  

After our 3rd child was born, I started to notice that anxiety wasn't just my typical anxiety anymore, but I felt more stronger feelings of despair and depression on top of everything else. I tried very hard to overcome them on my own which mostly meant trying to deny that they were there, by guilting myself every time I felt anything other than happy. After the 4th child, things became really difficult.  I recognized with the help of my psychologist that it was postpartum depression.  I continued with therapy and was doing fairly well and then, you guessed it, I became pregnant with number 5!  During all of my pregnancies I felt great.  It was after wards that I noticed I kept getting a little worse with each one. So with a combination of medicine, diet, supplements and God, I got to a better place where I could say I was now in control of depression; it was not controlling me. I still deal with moments of depression, but they are not every day occurrences that I can't get out of. I will share with you some of the things that have helped me along the way, but that is for another blog on another day.  If this is you, there is hope and you should not give up.  You are not alone.  Capeesh!

Then, six years ago we made a GIANT decision to move to South Carolina.  Scott and I were on a vacation in Myrtle Beach, SC.  My in-laws agreed to watch the kids while we got away on a mini trip for a long weekend. We were time starved with all of these little kids at home and finally Ashton (the baby) was weaned and eating solid foods, so we were thrilled to get out. Our accommodations were free under the condition that we listen to a timeshare presentation. Yeah, one of those! Annoying, but if you can look past the inconvenience of being golf carted around to staged condos that never look like the ones you actually get and then be pressured like you've never been pressured before to buy "today," then it's worth the free trip! So there we were, huddled on the beach in February trying to expose some parts of skin to sun in the hopes of returning with a bit of color and Scott turns to me and says, "I think we should move here!" I laughed, but deep down I had been feeling that same thing for a couple of weeks as we were making our plans to visit. I thought it was just me having cabin fever in the middle of winter in Minnesota and was just excited to get to the beach. Scott was totally serious in that moment!  And for him, this was a shocking statement, because he never makes these kinds of spontaneous declarations! We both always talked about living in Minnesota near our families for the remainder of our days. It never occurred to us that we would consider anything else. This decision and desire was so "otherly," that it had to be God! I said to him, "really? Are you serious?" He shrugged with a smile and wide eyes. And so it began. We had many ups and downs and questions along the way, but God confirmed and reaffirmed that decision so many times that even though it took the biggest trailer that Penske had, to haul our stuff across the country, the pull from God to do this was much stronger. We absolutely love living in Charleston, South Carolina. It was a bumpy and lonely road at first, but we are happy to call it our home. The beaches, the history, the southern charm and moss dripped trees, it's a beautiful picturesque place to live.  

Last year an opportunity to take over an art studio dropped in our laps and after much consideration, we jumped on the opportunity.  I have always loved painting and this little studio had become a favorite place to go for date nights and girl time with my daughter, so it was a perfect fit for this momma who had been a stay at home mom for 18 years prior. I would like to report that everything with that has been butterflies and rainbows, but it has not. It has been difficult to say the least. The impact of the Coronavirus has made it of course 10 times worse, but we are hanging in there. I realized that I spent a lot of this last year complaining about the difficulties of running this studio instead of doing my work as unto the Lord and trusting Him to bless the work of my hands. Perhaps that is part of what stunted it's growth? Who knows, but it sure didn't help my attitude any. Now that we are just getting into the second year with the company, I am dedicated to seeing this thing to fruition. Right now, I am doing free classes on Facebook Live and it's actually quite satisfying. I've never been much for teaching the in-studio classes (I have 2 artists that teach for me), so this is something I am able to do and perhaps it will stay on our menu of options for those who are also socially anxious, have no babysitter or just plain want to stay comfy at home and paint! 

Now, I will throw out some random things about me, sort of how like movies give you the bloopers at the end of a nicely wrapped up story or tidbits of extra info that may lead up to a sequel.  

One, I dislike exercise. I cringe every time I hear someone crave a work out or a good run.  (What is that?) My husband on the other hand, works out 5 days a week and loves it. I did not get that gene I guess. I do value physical exercise, but I would much rather do yoga or go for a 5 mile walk out in nature. I usually do something like that every day.  

Second, I so enjoy movies! Not just any movie though. My movie genre of choice is anything Marvel. You know, super hero stuff! Currently we are binge watching all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe shows in story order from Captain America "The First Avenger" to Spiderman "Far From Home." What else is a person supposed to do while a stay at home order is in place during a pandemic? I also like pretty much every other super hero movie, Star Wars, good romance flicks like Pride and Prejudice with Kiera Knightly of course and the classic 80's films like Back to the Future, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Big, Dirty Dancing, and the Labyrinth! (yeah, David Bowie!)  

And lastly, I love theology. I like to dive deep into the bible and understand all that I can about who God is, creation, life's purpose and meaning, God's omniscience, His power, His justice, salvation, who I am to Him, eternity, and prophecy to name a few. I can't even tell you how many times I have cracked open the bible with a plan to read it all in a year and get stumped in the first chapter. I need to pull out all the biblical dictionaries, commentaries, expository books, concordances, etc... For me, it's not enough just to skim. I have to go deep.  That's how I want all my relationships in life to be and especially with my heavenly Father.  The deeper the connection, the deeper the relationship in my mind.  

So, hopefully I've done a little bit of that with you. I've dove deep into parts of my life, sharing with you some intimate things about me in hopes that you will see not only my humanity and hopefully humble intent, but my journey and how it's not uncommon to some of yours.  

We are all in this life together and if you are reading this, just maybe God wants to use me to whisper something to you? Or maybe God will whisper something to me? I hope so! When you dedicate yourself to God and His purpose, you never know what He's going to do. I am excited. I look forward to giving Him the glory in this blog. I am committed to being His Ardent Scribe.  

I have had this blog in my mind for YEARS! I am embarrassed to say I have let the enemy of my soul talk me out of it for so long. I believed the lies that I wasn't good enough. That I didn't have enough victory over anything to be in a position to help anyone else.  But you know what God told me?  He said, "my word is still true no matter what your feeling."  "So if you tell them what I want you to, you could never be a hypocrite, because I am not a God that I should lie."  So yes, I may not have it all together like some people say, but my pastor recently told me that ALL TOGETHER in God's eyes, isn't what the culture says it is. It's not being perfect without weakness. Being all together is strength with weakness, victory and failures, down days and good days. Let that wash over you. It sure gave me a sense of peace!  This life will never be perfect. It isn't supposed to be. We will always have a "rub" with our life here on earth, because satisfaction will only be fulfilled in eternity. Praise God! That's good news.  

Besides, do you want to hear from someone who has never dealt with anything difficult or even someone who has had some difficulties but now they live a life of perfection and if you just do what they do you'll be perfect like them? No! I don't want to read that either. That only makes me feel more defeated and that I am just not "getting it" or something. I endeavor to be real with you. I'm not going to suck you down into my pits of despair when I get in them, but I will share with you how God is leading me and providing strength in my weaknesses and hopefully that will inspire you to keep your hope and focus on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.  

Thank you! Thank you for reading all of this! Thank you for reading my blog and for being open to receive from your heavenly father from someone who is committed to being a willing vessel for His purpose. God bless you. Until next time...