Thank you for the grace.

I so appreciate ya’ll (that’s for you, Joanne) allowing me the grace to take a blog break.

I can’t say I’ve actually got it all figured out yet…Natalee said some things that really helped me to look inward and attempt to discover my reasons for blogging. What? You don’t know Natalee? Here she is.

I had the incredible pleasure of “meeting” Natalee when I won a contest on Vicki & Jen’s site. Talk about God-ordained-timing. I’m sure Natalee is still reeling from our phone sessions together. She got me smack-dab in the middle of Sarah’s downward spiral. Natalee so helped me put and keep things in perspective.

Many, many things are on my mind these days.

Kathy reminded me that folks tend to say, “just suck it up and NOT be stressed”. Okay, by folks I mean my well-intentioned-husband. And folks (the same guy) follows that up with “if you got out and exercised every day and gave up the caffeine, blah blah blah…” As Kathy also so wisely stated…the treadmill is in the basement, I just don’t seem to make it down there to work out on it! (So we gave our treadmill away.)

Well, yeah. Of course IF I did that stuff it would HELP. Knowing and doing are two different things. I totally know what to do. Now I need to start doing.

I have to tell you that the night of Wednesday, August 20, was an entirely sleepless one for me. August 21 we took our oldest child to college. I wasn’t up worrying. I was up remembering. My heart was so full of thankfulness for this child. And yes…I also thought about life with him away. Around 4am, God brought a special reminder to me. It would be easier to leave our child behind at college if I tried to picture what it was like for our sweet friend, Cecilia, to drive away and leave her first born child behind that rainy and cool day in April. There were no warm, long hugs. There was only cold stone and newly turned earth. There were no whispers of encouragement. Only whispers of regret, pain, tears. When we left the Longwood campus that Thursday morning, I did shed tears. But they were tears of sadness and sorrow and pain, shed for Cecilia and Steve. God kept them on my heart the entire drive home and continues to do so.

I really don’t want to end this post on the sad reminder of losing Nick. So I’ll end with a word God gave me this morning.

In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3:6 (KJV)

I couldn’t help but notice the last word was plural. More than one path. Every path. I needed to read that this morning and be reminded of it as I finished this post.

Hugs and blessings to every stinking one of ya’ll!