Guilt and Graham Crackers

I have been back in the classroom for two whole weeks now with students, three weeks in total. So, needless to say, I am up to my eyeballs in papers to grade, lesson plans to write, resources to create and several other tasks to tackle. Additionally, I still have a house to keep, meals to cook, dishes to wash (more than normal because my dishwasher decided to give up and die), and laundry to manage. On Thursday night, little man had a very rough night. He went down for his usual bedtime and I thought all was well. After only about 30 minutes, he was up and crying. In frustration, I went into his room and tried my normal method, telling him all was well, kissing him, and leaving him to sleep. But, tonight, none of that was working. So, with a heavy sigh, I picked him up. I took him to his old glider chair and I held him, rocked him, and kissed his little head. With each rock of the chair, my mind raced. Rock rock...I have a stack of essays to grade before tomorrow. Rock rock..those dishes won't wash themselves. Rock rock...no one has any clean underwear in this house. Then, as I rocked, it struck me again. Someday, and soon, I won't be able to hold this little man in my arms any more because he will be big and he won't want to be rocked. Someday soon I will want those moments and I won't be able to have them back. There will be lots of time when he is 5 or 15 or in college for me to keep a spotless home, free of graham cracker crumbs in every corner of the couch, kitchen, and car seats. There will be time, when he is grown and has a home and family of his own, for me to never have piles of laundry or soggy training pants soaking in the bathtub for washing. These days are exhausting and exhilarating. There are times when I feel like I don't exactly know how I made it through my day, but somehow I did. I know it won't always be like this. I also have those moments where I feel guilty for NOT doing more...more training, more teaching, more loving of my little man. Those days when I pick him up at school and discover he threw a toy at his friend or tried to push his teacher I wonder, am I doing this right? But then, I am reminded...all I can do is my best. That's all I can do. The Word reminds me that I must "train up a child in the way he should go." So, right now, what that looks like is reading him at least one verse before he goes to bed each night. Helping him commit one verse to memory each month. Teaching him to have "kind hands" with his friends at school, to say sorry when we wrong someone, and to be obedient to our daddy, mommy, and teachers. Right now, it means I clean up at least five "puddles" per night as we potty train with real underwear at home (because I may have to take out a second mortgage if I have to keep buying pull-ups). So, for right now...we will balance it all. Balancing guilt and graham crackers...and I am ok with that. :) XOXO-- AMY

It took a Hurricane--Final Edition

If you remember, at the start of the summer, I found out about the closing of the college I graduated from. I wanted to write a tribute to the place that I called home for three years of my college experience while also detailing how I arrived at CCC as well. Tonight is the final installment of said story. Tonight's story isn't about buildings or classes or the debts I incurred getting my education. Tonight's story is about people. People were what made Clearwater what it was to me. So, tonight (mostly because I just cannot get to sleep--its teacher training week at work and my mind just refuses to shut down) I want to tell you about several people and how God used Clearwater to bring them into my life. Linny: The way I met Linny is one of my favorite stories. It was a Sunday morning. Almost everyone on campus had already left to get to church. Being that I was one of the lucky few to have my own car, I was planning to drive myself to the church I was going to visit that week (since I had yet to pick one, officially). Before walking out the door, a girl from a neighboring unit came over. "Hey, so I was wondering if you could do me a favor," She asked. How bad could this really be, I thought to myself. "Ok, sure, what is it?" I offered back. "Well, see, everyone in my unit has already left for church and one of the girls in my unit has this toe that is infected. I don't know, but I think she needs to go to a walk-in clinic. No one else with a car is still here. Could you take her?". Now, being more reclusive that an old cave-dwelling hermit, the idea of taking a complete stranger in my car, for an undetermined amount of time, and being obligated to fill that time with small talk, shook me to my core. However, I am also a chronic people-pleaser.... so naturally, I said yes. Thank the Lord I did. It was on that day, driving a total stranger to a walk-in clinic, for an infected toe (most random injury of the year award goes to....) brought me one of my dearest friend. As an added bonus, it also introduced me to her sister who also became a dear friend. Lin and Julie were in my wedding. We were roommates from the next year and every year till graduation. When I got married and lived in town, they came over on a weekly basis for "family dinner" (which was always spaghetti because it was easy and also cheap... ha ha). When they moved back home after graduation, they called when their family came to Florida for vacation and I came for the day to catch up. They were among the first people to know that Joel was going to be born. They spent countless hours shopping, coffee drinking, laughing, secret Christmas party throwing, birthday surprising and the list goes on and on. What great friends from such a weird story. Julie: One of my favorite memories with Julie was the time we decided to dye her hair. This was not an uncommon practice in the dorms, in fact most of the desk chairs in the dorms bore the tell-tale marks of hair dye drips down the backs of them. For whatever reasons, we convinced Julie to trade her totally perfect blonde hair for a new shade. The problem was, none of us were really very good at dying hair to begin with. In the end, Julie spent a day or so with nearly pink hair. I felt so bad. She cried. I took her out to coffee to try and dull the pain. In the end, we asked a professional and she suggested stripping the hair, but warned us that it would be very damaging to the hair. Cue insane practical joke/payback. I went to my R.A's apartment to talk with her about something and Lin came to get me. When we started walking back to the unit, Lin told me that Julie's hair had started to fall out in clumps and she was crying hysterically. I fell apart. I just knew she would never speak to me again! How happy I was to find that she still had all her hair, but it was restored (albeit with a little bit more of a reddish hue to it) to its former glory. Never again became my motto when it came to hair color after that. Ryan: Of all my college stories, this one is the most insane and yet it is my favorite one to tell. I first met Ryan in Bible class. Being an "Arnold" at that time, my seat was at the front of the class, first row, in fact. Ryan, being a "Withee" was all the way at the back. My first recollections were that he was the loud, opinionated boy that sat in the back... and that would have been the end of it, except that one of my friends was going to be attending the Christmas formal with him... so our paths began to cross more frequently as they hung out from time to time. While all of that was happening, I had officially discovered that my very first dating relationship had ended. He and I had met when we were in high school and were very good friends. But, since I was not permitted to date till I was in college, no real attachment formed prior to that. So when I started college, we officially started "dating." We had dated during my freshman year, but most of that relationship took place long distance as he had been deployed to Iraq. When I started at CCC, the relationship was pretty much on its last leg anyways. After a few painful phone calls, I was once again alone. Since I had never dated before that ONE relationship, I was pretty unsure of how the whole ritual was supposed to go anyway. Well, my friends decided that I really should not go to the Christmas banquet alone. They decided to set me up with someone. So, a few weeks before the banquet was to take place, I found myself on my very first "first time" date. He picked me up and took me out for dinner so we could get to know each other and decide, I guess, if going to the banquet together was going to be fun or straight up torture. That first dinner was enough to clue me in that this guy was a strange one. Over pizza, he wanted to know when I thought I would want to get married, how many kids I would like to have, if I thought social drinking was acceptable (cue foreshadowing music and lighting since that's what he found himself "politely asked not to return to CCC" for)and my life story... over pizza (I do have to say, it was REALLY good pizza... which ought to tell you that the pizza was the only highlight of that date because I really don't remember much else except that I was really glad the date was over by the time we drove back to campus). However, I was stuck at this point because I had already said I would go to the banquet with him... and being a chronic people pleaser, I felt like it would be rude to not go with him now. So, the plans were finalized. I would go with "Pizza boy" and my friend would be going with Ryan and a fun time would be had by all--except probably not me and "pizza boy." The only snag in the events of the evening would be after the banquet was over because the "unwritten laws" of Clearwater demand that after the Banquet everyone MUST stay dressed up in their fancy attire and go bowling, or white water rafting, or laser tagging, or out for coffee or SOMETHING to prolong the fun and make it seem worth it getting all spiffed up. After the banquet was over, everyone in our group would be going out for coffee, but my date, had gotten himself in trouble and was campused (basically grounded). Long story short... at the end of the banquet, my friend and I traded dates. Like a trooper, she stayed behind with grounded boy and I went out with Ryan (with Linny acting as our official chaperone as we were not old enough to date "alone" off campus yet). The rest, as they say, is history. Eventually, "pizza boy" left CCC and Ryan and I continued to date and eventually get engaged and here we are... married for seven years. CCC was more than buildings, as I said. It was more than the life lessons I learned in the classrooms and in the dorms. It was more than the work-study program. It was more than the endless coffees I made in the café or the cheese I scraped out of the nacho machine at the end of a work night. It was so much more than all of that. It was the people. It was the friends and life long bonds I created while I was there. Many of those bonds continue to this day. When I turned 27, my parents and hubby wanted to do something BIG for that birthday (it was my golden birthday because I turned 27 on the 27th). You know who they flew in for it? Yeah, Lin and Julie!!! A full five years after I had graduated and left CCC. I think, in a way, that's why the legacy of that place won't die. It does on with us. We still text and call. We still know when the other ones are having a struggle. I know I have prayed for them when I knew they were going through a storm in life. THAT... those relationships and bonds....THAT is CCC. It keeps going on as long as we carry on with loving and caring for the family we met there. Boy, I am so thankful God sent that hurricane to Pensacola at that EXACT time. It made me uncomfortable. It shook up my world and my plans. It brought me to something bigger and better. It took a hurricane to get me to CCC... and I am so thankful.

Open Letter

Dear Little Boy, I have actually fought with myself over this letter to you. Should I write it? Who would be offended? Who would it bother? I fought with myself for at least three days. I mean, I don't know you, you are not in my family, and I won't ever meet you until the day I die and enter heaven. But I felt it needed to be written. Then today, I couldn't fight it anymore. I was tending to my day, just like any other Saturday. But, on my way to the store, I saw the straw that broke the camel's back. There were the protesters where they are almost every Saturday. They were gathered in front of the clinic that murders babies just like you. This time though, they were trying to talk to a woman who was leaving that place of death. But, by looking at her face and the sadness etched in it, I knew it was too late to save her baby. I was hoping she would take their information, because I know for a fact she will wish she had never made that choice but she may need help to cope with the path she now finds herself on. I am not ignorant. I know abortion exists. I teach history. Roe v. Wade is a case I cover every year when we finally make it into the "modern" part of Modern American History. I also know it existed long before that "big" case. However, I never put a face to it, until I watched the video that introduced you to the world. I had to force myself to watch it. I have never aborted a baby. I believe it is murder. I had a different reason for not wanting to watch it. I begged God for babies. I have been pregnant four times... but I have only held two of my babies and only brought one baby home to stay. I did not wish that on myself. I would not wish it on the most hated of enemies. But, given my history of loss, I hope you understand why I did not watch it sooner. I couldn't do it. It made me angry. Every time they talked about you I wanted to scream at the screen "I want that little boy...I would take him. Please don't kill any more of them... send them to me." But, I made myself watch it. And I wept. I wept tears for all I have lost. I wept for all the other nameless babies who had been killed. I even wept for your mother, whoever she is. I can imagine that in the future she will feel agony every time the day you were due passes by. Another year without you. I know I still get sad when I see a little girl who is as old as my Hannah would have been by now. I still stay home on her birthday. Most of all, I wept for you. You didn't get a name and you didn't get a family. Rather, the world met you because someone murdered you and then callously sold you. Yet, the butcher who took your life and your organs took the time to tell the world, "it's another little boy". Its a phrase that should have been uttered with joy while you exercised your voice for the first time in this new world you would have found yourself in. It should have been uttered to the couple who could never have children of their own but would have been getting you because you were going to be adopted. Now, I know you were a human soul long before the world met you. You were a human soul before your mommy knew you existed. God knit you together. Its because of this sin cursed world that I have to write this letter to you. Evil did this to you. I also know that even though you likely felt pain when you were taken from your mother's body...I rest in knowing that you will never again feel pain because you are at home with God. You are safe and there you are loved. I do want you to know, however, that while your mom may not have wanted you or loved you... this mommy would have taken you in a heart beat. I have held in my very hands the little lives of my own babies that are in heaven with you. And what those murderers called "tissues" and "products", I called "my sweet baby" and wept when they were gone. While in my heart I blamed myself for their loss, in my head, I knew there was nothing I could have done differently. God is sovereign. He took my babies home... maybe to spare them a life of pain. But whatever the reason, I am thankful I got to carry them until He called them. Know this, little boy, many mourned you when your story hit the airwaves. We also mourned the millions of others, just like you, who never got the chance to know a mother's kiss, a daddy's hug, a first birthday cake, or milestones that make up this earthly life. I also want you to know, sweet boy, that this genocide against babies like you has to stop. This mommy's heart can't watch any more of those videos. I can't. The only way that will stop is if the murder of babies like you stops. I will do my part. I promise you. I am happy you get to enjoy heaven. I am sure my babies have already introduced themselves to you (their daddy is very outgoing so I am sure they are quick to meet new arrivals like yourself). We will meet someday. When we do, I will have you to thank for helping me see what's right in a world that has gone crazy with wrong.