29 on the 29th.

Since I'm 29 this year and it's the 29th of December I thought it would be fitting to list out 29 things that this year has gifted me with.  Some beautiful and sentimental.  Some just silly and fun.
I'm grateful for this year and all that it's brought me.  The lessons, the heartache, the joy, and the growth.  Some moments ripped my heart out and some were so beautiful that I just cried from the prefect lovely joy of that moment.

All of the photos except for this first one are compliments of my iphone5.  Don't judge.  Also, it's not my birthday.  I'm 29 and a half in case you are wondering.

1. Not sure how to emphasize this one enough.  And really, all of the other's are going to be silly and frivolous after this one,  The best and number 1 thing of 2014 for me is that my kids were protected and safe for this whole year.  No contact with their father, no regression into the places they used to be.  This is beautiful and amazing for so many reasons.   This first point could easily turn into a novel if I chose so I'm going to stop and go on to number 2.

2. My divorce was finalized.  9 years is WAY to long to be married to someone who has done everything possible to make you and your kids lives hell.  Having this closure is beautiful to the point that I cried tears of joy on more then one occasion.

3. We were able to take a trip to Great Wolf Lodge and loved every second of it.

4.  We went camping a few times and it was awesome!  I will probably spend most of summer 2015 in a tent.  You've been warned. 

(Our outdoor movie theater made from a soccer goal, a quilt and a projector)

Kids all crammed into my tiny car. 

 The Walking Tacos. 

5. I bought a new (to me) car.  I was long overdue for something reliable.  This is it.  It also has leather seats which make me happy.  

6.  I took my older two to their first ever real concert: Cage the Elephant.  Olivia proved to be my child when she crawled through the last few people blocking her view and made it all the way to the front. Proud mom moment.  Casey made it eventually but was much more polite about it.

7.  And since I'm talking about concerts and those were highlights for me this year I have to mention Portugal the Man and Grouplove.  It was hard for me to pick a favorite show from this year, but I think this just might have to be it.   PTM blew me away.

 This was also the concert where I had a moment of insanity and decided to crowd surf.  I lost my car key in the process, spent a lot of time digging through trash with no luck, and had to call a locksmith for my car.  Expensive mistake. It was a fun moment but not worth it.

Since I'm still on concerts though I'm going to give The Airborne Toxic Event Number 8.
Meeting Mikel Jollet was bomb.  I still get a little giddy thinking about it.   Their music is touching and beautiful in all the right ways.  I love them.


9.  Kicking butt at the ash kicker.   Even though I drank to much post race and made an idiot of myself, (LIGHTWEIGHT!) the race itself and the wonderful time with my girls was amazing.

10.  I got in great shape this year. I worked hard for the ash kicker and surprised myself with how well I did at it.  Getting in shape is tough.

11.  I also ate my way out of great shape this fall.  Why am I putting this on my list?  I enjoyed every last Olive Garden breadstick, Red Robin Cheeseburger and Chipotle burrito. Good food must be celebrated.

(This is from the Olympic Club.  My mouth is watering).

12. Speaking of fall.  My work crew this year was awesome.  We spend a lot of time on the road together and having people that you actually enjoy being with is pretty rad.

13.  My traditional girls weekend away.  A weekend of just girls, in a lodge in the woods with lots of food is awesome and it was exactly what I needed after several months of 60 hour work weeks.

14. Swimming, floating and being outside a lot this summer.

15. On a more serious note.  I've spent a lot of time learning to forgive myself.  Forgiving others is hard enough.  Forgiving myself for my mistakes?  SO hard.  My view of God as a child and teenager was very performance based and not grace based.    I could write a whole post on this subject, but I won't, or at least I'll save it for later.  I'll just summarize by saying that this was the year that I truly came to know God's grace in the richest and fullest sense, and it's good because I desperately needed it.

16. I also spent a lot more time actually listening to God.  I failed at it a lot, but the effort and my heart have been there.  I've learned a lot.

17. Good books.  I've tried to shut off the tv more and feed my brain.  I love reading, but I'm infamous for never finishing books.  This year I finished a lot more than last year, no idea what the number is, I just know that it's been a good year for reading.

18. I learned how to walk away from the boys that hurt me.  Not gracefully, or beautifully, but I did it.  I ended up having to do it a few more times with a few different boys by the end of the year.  But it's gotten easier and I've gotten stronger.  Being nice doesn't mean being a doormat.

19. We took a lot of day trips this year.  I'm so happy we did.  The kids and I have some beautiful memories from what we did and I can't wait to make more of them.

We totally passed a cop while we were doing this and he just smiled and waved.   

20.  Started and completed advent with my kids.  We went through"Unwrapping The Greatest Gift" and it was a hit.  We had some great talks about some really good stuff and there were a few moments in it that hit my heart in all the right places.  I definitely recommend it.

21. I wrote more this year and healed more.  This blog and my journals have been so therapeutic for me.

22. I spent more time with friends this year.  2013 was rough, 2014 was a definite improvement for me.  I have some great memories full of laughter that I'm so glad to have experienced.

23. I quit caffeine this year.  It was a horrible experience let me tell you. But I'm so glad not to have that addiction in my life anymore.

24. I worked on dinner time traditions with my kids.   We sit down for dinner now at least 3-4 times a week.  At the table.  Considering how busy our lives are, that's a huge success.  We also have a routine of discussing our best moments of the day and what we are most thankful for.

25. I grew a backbone.   I've never had a problem with standing up for other people, but I really struggle with standing up for myself.  Well I did it this year and it didn't go good. But I grew and I'm really happy and relieved that I did it.   It's an ongoing thing, I'm still growing in this area, but I know I made some huge steps and I'm glad.

26. I didn't give up on the budget thing.  I've kept at it.  I'm still not where I want to be, but I definitely have a system and it's working for me.

27.  My kid's cuddles. They sneak out of their beds every night to give me "snuggles" and while I get to be all firm and parental with them and send them back to bed eventually, it is definitely one of my favorite things.

28. Bonfires.  We went to a lot of them this summer.  My kids have the s'mores thing down.

29. And last but not least.  I know in my heart that I've given 2014 my best and my all.  I chose right when it came to my kids, and I've continued to fight with everything in me for them.   I'm looking forward to 2015 and the new joys it will bring.  

The Struggle is Real.

"The Struggle is Real."  I hear that statement frequently these days.  Usually in sarcasm.  Usually over something silly like having to put on pants, or wear a bra, or my favorite.....

I get the humor.  I get the sarcasm.  And I probably use that statement far to often, right up there with #firstworldproblems.  It makes me grin every time I hear it.  I figured a little smile would be a great way to start out sharing this actual real struggle I'm going through, and since this struggle isn't life or death, it's mostly just mental, I'm going to be lighthearted about it. 

I've worked really hard to keep my heart soft lately, but there have been many months of my life where I've failed at this and found myself locking my bitter angry heart up and refusing to feel anything.  2013 was the year of bitter angry Jessica.  One friend referred to me as a zombie and a shell of a person when we talked about it the other day.  It was true.  I was dead inside.  Hurt and wounded to the point that I merely walked through the day-to-day motions of my life.  I let people say and do things to me that were awful.  I almost couldn't feel it.  What little part I could feel was denied.  I didn't want the floodgates to open and I was scared that once I grieved the cruelties that were done to me and worse yet, my own sin, it would never stop.

Then things changed.  Light broke through.  God softened my heart and I began to feel EVERYTHING.  Grief happened.  Wretched, awful, sobbing until my face was swollen grief, and then came the healing and the restoration, and finally joy.  Sweet joy.

It was nearly a year ago when God broke through my hard shell. To say it's been all joy and rainbows since then is just silly.  I've wrote frequently about the struggles and emotions I've gone through just in life.  Fear overwhelms me still.  Sometimes I don't feel God's presence. I still find myself stuffing things out of reflex and then having to un-stuff and let it hurt.  Sometimes the feelings, the real deep feelings that I feel of love and sadness and pain and joy are so real that I am overwhelmed.  But I feel again, and it's beautiful even when it sucks.

This is where my struggle lies.

The realness of who I am is that I wear my heart on my sleeve now.  I love people. I feel for people. And when those people hurt me they get to see the unfortunate result of their actions.  The shaking with sobs while tears stream down my face because my heart has been wounded again ugly messy me and I want it to stop, because when someone sits there and says they are sorry over and over and over and you know they feel like a worm and you just can't stop crying?  It is the worst feeling in the world.   I want to lie and say it's okay.  But I can't, because it's not.

I feel bad for feeling hurt.  And this is my struggle.

I feel bad that I am naive to the point that it's almost stupid.

I feel bad for only seeing good in people.

I feel bad for trusting.

I feel bad for wanting more than just being told that I'm pretty.



I struggle because right now?  I hurt.  And it would be so easy to just stuff it and move on.

The struggle is to let myself cry and feel the pain and embrace it until God heals it.

The struggle is to be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove.

The struggle is to open my eyes to peoples faults while still loving them

The struggle is to know that I don't have to trust everyone.  I only have to trust God.

The struggle is knowing and believing that I'm created for more than flattery.  I have depth and beauty inside me, and cheap compliments should never be the way to my heart.

That's my struggle today.  The struggle is real.

My unbelief.

I'm going to write a vulnerable post.

Well truly, eveything I write has a hint  vulnerability in it.  But this one is going to be especially raw and open.  

Going through what I've been going through spiritually, emotionally and with the court system has been hard, that is no secret.  But this last few weeks have been a struggle that I haven't experienced since I was in the initial stages of separation with my ex.

My last post talked about my faith in God, how I trusted Him to protect us, and even if the worst happened, I knew it was all going to be okay because He was in control.  At the time I wrote that (and other posts like it) that was how I truly felt. But going on through my week, dealing with attorneys and court stuff and therapist's and this whole giant nightmare? It shook me. 

I had a conversation with a friend this week and I was really honest with him.  (Tyler is probably going to hate that I talked about him on my blog again).

My confessions to him looked like this:

I'm going to feel really let down by God if He allows my ex back into my kids life.  I know I say I won't, but deep down inside me? I think I will. God has done so much to protect us for the past 4 years, and I am afraid that my faith is going to be shaken if "the worst" happens.  I'm afraid that I'm going to feel like God is punishing me for my mistakes.  

Ugh.  I hate that that was even in me.

"God is not a vending machine Jess."

Ouch.  He had a lot of truth to say, but that sentence is what stuck.

I know this to be true.  Sometimes God says yes, sometimes it's no, sometimes we wait, and sometimes he has another plan.   I speak my faith out, I believe He will continue to protect us, and try my hardest to stand strong in that. But what if His plans are incredibly different then mine? Will I still trust Him?

Sometimes my doubt overwhelms me and I find myself pleading for God to help me with my unbelief.  

Tonight, in compliance to a court order, I had to write down things about my kids - what they enjoy, what their personalities are like, their favorite things etc. 

I read what I had written down to my kids to make sure they were okay with everything.  

My daughter almost started crying.  

"Is dad going to read this?"

"Yes"

"Can you please take out this and this?"

She pointed to parts that described her friendships and extracurricular activities.  "I don't want him knowing any of those things about me."

She was shaking.  

I was shaking by the time I finished erasing what I had wrote. 

The fear is still there and I can do nothing to fix this for her.  I beg and plead God to move and end this for us, to not allow my children to be forced into something they are terrified of.  But I'm truly in a place where I have done everything I can and the rest is fully in God's hands.  It's both freeing and terrifying at the same time.  

I trust Him, and then I don't, and then I do.   

Please help my unbelief God. Please help me trust. 

Not by my own strength....

This week we had court again and things didn't exactly go like I had hoped. They didn't go terrible, but they didn't go great.

Essentially I get to continue on in this state of limbo.  I get to keep fighting, keep hoping, and keep advocating for my kids with everything in me.

I was hoping for closure.  I'd love to close this door to my past and my ex.  But God must have more to teach me in the current and exhausting state that I am.

I don't know what the future holds.  Then again, no one does.

I do know this:  I will do EVERYTHING I legally can to protect my kids.

I've spent more time on the phone with therapists and attorneys this week then anything else.  I haven't received my legal statement yet for the month, but I know it's coming and it's not going to be pretty.

And at this point, despite the chaos and the money troubles, all I can do is stop and thank God.

Whatever happens, good or bad, God has given me over 4 years to recover and help my children recover.  We are different people, stronger people then we were in 2010.    My older two both have thriving relationships with God.  I find my oldest boy frequently on his knees in his room with his little devotional bible and Olivia?  She is hungry and poetic and her soul is just beautiful.

I have to trust that even if my worst nightmare comes true that their faith is going to stand.  Because in the grand scheme of things, that is what matters.  I've surrendered my kids to God.  I know how desperately and madly I want to protect them, and I know that God wants that even more so then I do.

Even though I have no idea what the next few months look like, I trust God.  He has complete control and even in the worst of situations he can still make beautiful things happen.

Hitting a wall

Do you ever feel like you just hit a wall spiritually?

I do and it's where I'm at at this moment.

Most of this spring I felt like my walk with God was reviving and growing by leaps and bounds.  Granted, I had some steps backwards and made mistakes. And some pretty big ones at that.   But I kept pushing forward and trying and I could see the progress.  My attitude was better, my emotions were together, I was staying away from guys altogether and I just felt spiritually healthy.

But somewhere this summer I hit a wall. At first I thought that maybe it was because I tried to date again and that distracted me from God.  But that's not it.   Because I'm back to not dating and I'm still feeling like I hit a wall.

I'm really busy right now, the kinda busy that I think other single moms would get. Busy days, lonely evenings. 

Quiet time, focusing on on God? It's hard to find that place. I keep trying and I fall asleep when I try. That's embarrassing to admit.  But that is what has happened the last few times. Granted, it has a lot more to do with having to be up between 3:30 and 5 am most days than my attention span.

It's frustrating when you know Gods voice and no matter what you do you can't seem to hear Him in your life.  I'm at that spot again where I'm asking Him where He is and why I can't feel Him and I'm greeted with silence.  

I know this isn't forever.  I've been in this spot before. But I'd like it to be over.

I'd like that joy and excitement to be back.  

I know that sometimes continuing to go through the motions and just asking God to reveal Himself to you in new ways will do it. 

And maybe it would. 

But I'm writing it out and posting it this time. I know a lot of people pray for me and my little family.  We're really blessed in that area.  So if you think of us, and me, right now, I'd love to break through this spot I've been in and be able to feel again.  

I'm numb at the moment.  And maybe that IS God's grace for me because of what is going on. Maybe He knows that if I felt everything in life that I should be feeling or normally would be feeling that I would collapse.  I don't know the answer, but I'm going to keep trying to figure it out.  

The Edge of Hope

I've been incredibly indecisive the last little bit in a lot of aspects of my life.

I thought and prayed about it for awhile and realized it's simple - I'm afraid.  

Last year my inability to stand up for myself and make a choice I knew was right got me hurt horribly.  I didn't stand up because I was afraid.  

And I'm still that same girl.  

I can make excuses.  Truly I can.  Someone that has loved as deeply and wholely I have knows what I stand to lose by jumping in.  

Into what? 

Into any life altering choice.

Dating. Singleness.  Moving.  Not moving.  Change.  Of any kind.  It all terrifies me.

Where I'm at, my little home, my three kids, and a job I love? I don't want to mess it up.  And so jumping into anything at all, knowing whatever jump I make could affect in a good or bad way every other aspect of my life? I'm terrified. 

So I stand at the edge of the cliff, watching.  Watching others take leaps of faith on my right and left. Some fall, some fly.  I sit and just watch.  I wait, hoping that somehow someway I'll just "know" when I can leap.  And I wait, and wait, and wait.  

Someday I hope I can push the memories of my last fall out of my mind.  Someday the excitement and hope of flying will outweigh the fear of falling.   

But someday is not today.

Today I'm sitting at the edge.  Just waiting.  Just hoping my heart can heal a little more.  Just trying to stay soft, and kind, and gentle.  Trying to not let the past heartbreaks harden my heart.  

I know God is sitting with me. Ever so patient.  Ever so loving.  And He gives me hope. Hope that flying isn't as far off in my future as I might think.  

I only cried a lot today.

Today I took my oldest to summer camp.   I only cried a lot.   He didn't at all.

I stuck around for awhile after most the other mom's left, not because I'm that mom....oh wait, yeah, I am that mom.    And yeah, I may have totally helped him carry stuff to his cabin, and I may have hung out and taken a bunch of photos, and yeah I may have totally asked one of his counselors to switch beds so that Casey and his friend Chase could be on the same bunk.  Yeah. I'm THAT mom.

I'm really glad he gets to have this experience with his friends.  

I'm really glad he has such good friends. 

Then I came home and had to find photos from when we stayed at this same campground 7 years ago as a family.  

I was helping out with a youth camp.  Chases parents were the youth pastors at our church at the time. 

Casey was 3, Chase was 2.  

(All the other photos I have of the two of them, either one of them is crying or one is running away from the camera....toddlers, what can you do!?)

I started crying looking through the photos. (It's been an emotional day, for real!) My kids were so little and so innocent. I was so naive and innocent. And for a moment I found myself feeling kinda sad at all that my kids and I had stolen from us in the ways of innocence.  

But then I thought about this amazing thing that happened at camp 7 years ago. 

My little family was prophesied over.  I don't remember much of it, but I do remember the one thing that stuck out in my mind. 

The prophecy at one point was specifically over my ex and it was about how the generational curses in his family ended at him and wouldn't be passed on to our kids.  

I didn't know what that meant at the time.  I can't blog about what all that means to me now.  I'd probably get sued over it or something really. 

I think about that prophecy now and I am in awe at who God is and what He does.  He knew even than that my world would be ripped apart but that it would be unto something better.  And not just that, He was going to rescue us from something even more horrible.  There would be pain in the process, but that in that process and in that loss and in that pain? He would be there.  

And today? Seeing my boy, in that same campground, with that light in his eyes, his hunger for Jesus and so much joy on his face?  I know that every bit of that word given over my little family 7 years ago was true and I am so grateful, so humbled, and so very loved by my Savior.