out of material

If you're wondering why I haven't written anything in a while, it's really not because I've been that busy, or because I didn't want to. It's simply because I'm out of material. I have nothing of interest to write as of now.

I guess I could bore ya'll with stories of Thanksgiving in Oklahoma, and how Scott and I were delayed a day because I got sick and we barely made it out to the family gathering in time to taste turkey (his family are carnivores. The veggies would be fine, but if we wanted turkey we had to be on time). Or of how I got to sleep in while he went hunting on Friday morning even though it was 20 degrees outside and I slept so good on that queen sized waterbed with all the blankets and the heat on while he froze his little toushy off in the deer stand and shot nothing (even the deer slept in because it was cold).

I could write about how Scott and I drove out to the back pasture in Daddy Henry's truck to button up the deer stand before we left and it was so cold that I had to wear Scott's camouflage insulated coveralls and he laughed at me and said I was adorable as I tried to walk in them. And how we stopped at the home of his great aunt and uncle who share the pasture with his grandparents, and who raise deer and have a pretty much thriving deer tick business in the process and she took me through the house (camouflage coveralls and all) to show me her 5 inside Christmas trees and her seven bookshelves of little Christmas villages and I had to think up something creative to say about each one...

Or I could write out our experience in McAlister, Oklahoma, on the way home when we stopped at Walmart and might have actually walked onto the set of Deliverance and been more comfortable, but we found an unfathomably good deal on pomegranates and quickly discovered why as we picked some out and held an impromptu class for an eager audience of no less than five on how to eat them.

For that matter, I could have written about the weekend and relaxing on Saturday and watching so much football and Sportscenter that even I know almost all of the NFL quarterbacks by name and could quote a lot of their stats by now. And how on Sunday Scott got drafted to play the piano for the service at his parents' church and we drove up for a second Thanksgiving with his parents and brother but his Dad got a bad viral infection so we wound up eating yummy Mexican food for our second Thanksgiving and then visiting his grandparents at the hospital where Maw is recovering from hip replacement surgery.

Lastly, I could have written about going to the Mavs game on Monday night and being sorely disappointed in their poor performance and subsequent loss, but greatly enjoying playing with Scott and my camera phone in the Dart train on the way home.

But I didn't write about any of those things. Because, honestly, I didn't think them blogworthy or interesting. Until now.

an upside

Being newly married does have some pretty happy perks. Really far down on the list (but still on the list) is the one I encountered today.

Sitting here working at my desk, the phone rings. Some girl from Microsoft Online is on the phone wanting to do some sort of customer survey. Two years ago I signed up for a program through Microsoft Online for a former boss. After he left the office, I unsubscribed. They've been bugging me to reconsider ever since. Today was like every other, they start with a customer satisfaction survey and want to tell me of how they've improved and talk me into resubscribing. But today, first of all, she wants to verify that I am Bonnie Little. I said no. Haha. She asked me to transfer her, and I said "There is no one by that name working in this office any longer."

So I was technically telling the truth, because legally and marriedly (?) that isn't my name anymore. So being newly married and all that can, apparently, get you out of being stuck on the phone for 20 minutes telling somebody over and over that you don't have time for a survey. ;-)

thanks for the memories

There is a certain song by a certain group that I heard on a certain radio station (certainly) this morning on my way to work. The song is called "Thanks for the Memories," and is about, in a word, promiscuity. Funny thing, I'd never really listened to the words until this morning. But now that I have it changed my view toward the song a little...

One thing it definitely made me think of, though, was my hubs. How much I appreciate his faithfulness to me, the way he loves me and treats me with respect. We may have our little squabbles from time to time, but it is without doubt that my hubs is made from solid gold. I can't imagine being married to anyone else, he's the love of my life. The way he has learned me in just these last almost 5 months of marriage, the way I have grown to love him even deeper through our short marriage months, it's all the beginning of the most wonderful adventure of my life.

I thank the Lord that He gave hubs to me. I will never forget the loneliness of single life, the times when no one was there. I will never forget the way that the Lord sustained me through my single years and grew me in ways that I could never have grown within marriage. But as I have started this next chapter, the Lord is growing me in even more new ways as I see my life completely differently through the lens of marriage.

So, Scott, I love you more than words could ever come close to describing. The way you look at me, the way you smile, your laugh... When you call me on the phone sometimes I close my eyes and just listen to the sound of your voice (just not while I'm driving. :-). I've loved these almost 5 months, and can't wait to see what unfolds in the days, weeks, months, years, and decades to come. I love you. We know what memories are really all about.

trying to catch up

Life moves so fast, sometimes. It's almost the mid point of November already this year. Suddenly I look back and feel like I've missed most of it. From flying through the spring (although a lot of that was really fun) to just not feeling well from July until the present, it feels like I've been watching someone else's life happen around me. But yet, here I am, and in some ways it feels like I don't know how I got here. Does that make sense?

I woke up exhausted this morning. That's a pretty common occurance. About once a week I wake with the feeling that I can't get my body out of bed, that I'm just not going to make it through my day without a total physical or emotional break down. Yet I do. The Lord has been faithful to sustain me... if I could just remember His faithfulness on the difficult mornings I would feel much better. The mornings I wake with that swimmy headed feeling, the aching in my body, and the feeling that there are pounds of heaviness weighing down on me... I know it's going to be a difficult day.

So I search for the meaning, for I know and hold fast to my conviction that the Lord did not give me this for no reason at all. I struggle, but I try desperately to struggle well. As difficult as it may be, I am determined to struggle so that the Lord is glorified. What that looks like... well, I'm still figuring that one out. But at the end of this I want to be able to look behind me and say that I struggled and saw the Lord heap His love and mercy upon me. Because I know He is being merciful to me in this, however that may manifest itself.

defining moment

Some moments you just know are going to change your life forever.

"Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work. If one falls down, his friend can help him up."

(Ecclesiastes 4:9-10a)

sweet memories of you

To the One who has been with me from the earliest memories of my life, I am grateful. You have pursued me, guided me, protected me, and loved me since my birth. You selected me to be Your child since before the foundations of the world were set in place. You have bought me at a price that no one else would ever be willing to pay for one such as myself.

Yet I struggle. With my health of recent times, with my relationships from now and of old, and within my heart and mind I struggle against myself and against Your firmly gentle guiding hands. If I could only remember always the love of my Father. If I could only remember the ways in which you have used me, worked through me, developed Your attributes within me throughout all the struggles and mishaps of life. My current state of health annoys me. I grow weary so easily, I am discouraged with my fatigued and aching body. I rebel stubbornly against the pills in my medicine cabinet that hold hope of healing me. And worst of all, I glare out of my fatigued body and ask You why the first 4 months of my marriage have been so wrought with struggle. When others blissfully sail through (or so it seems from the outside), I have been given this fatigue and moodiness and vertigo, I have been made to rely on my new husband in ways I never imagined, and have seen him serve me so unselfishly. And yet I have also seen him struggle. Struggle against his desire to have a wife that is no longer physically hindered, a wife who laughs and plays like the woman he dated, the woman he proposed to, the woman he married. It hurts that I have caused my husband struggles. It hurts that I have struggled in myself.

But my memory is so short and my vision so limited. For if I were to look behind me, I would see Your fingerprints on this mould of life that is still shaping me - and Scott - to be the most detailed and intricate images of Christ who is in us. I would see last year and the Lyme disease that Scott suffered and the fear of MS or cancer or permanent paralysis that You saw us through and refined us so carefully to love one another most deeply and to know You more fully. I would see the master's degree that I sweated and cried and poured my heart and energy into and finally completed, not because of any work on my part but because You gifted me and stretched my mind and awarded me a degree at the end - but I received so much more than a degree from You.

If I looked back, I would see years of hurt, happiness, ups and downs. But if I really looked back, what I would see is You. Not a tear has fallen from my eyes that You have not seen, no sigh has escaped my lips that You have not heard. You have been there for the days where I have laughed so hard I cried streams of joyful tears, and for the days where I cried so hard that the tears could no longer come. You have been there for the days where I have fallen on my face in worship, and the days where I have thrown the selfish tantrums of a 2 year old when I didn't get my way. And You have used it all. You have worked through everything and made me who I am, right now.

So I struggle with my current circumstances, but if I were to examine them clearly what I would see is not a body that is flawed, but Your merciful love that is not satisfied with me as I am right now. This is not about me and my health, but about You, and Your desire to see Your Son in me. Bring it on, Mighty Father, I look at my current struggles with fear and trembling in my heart, which tells me all the more that this struggle is needed. Heal me if You desire, but open my eyes most fully that I might see Your glory made perfect in my weakness.