Four Years Ago

It's been four years since the April 27th tornado outbreak. To be truthful, I had forgotten until later in the day when I saw some fb posts about it. Four years. So much has changed in four years.

Four years ago, Ben was taking classes from Amy. They were supposed to meet for classes that day, but we cancelled when the first round of storms came through. Today, it was Sara who was in class with Amy, and today's weather couldn't have been  nicer.

In the last four years:
Jeremiah was born.
Rebekah was married.
Rachel left home.
Ben and Sara entered high school.
I had cancer twice.
Daddy died.
And that is only a partial list.

It's hard to believe. Four years ago, cancer wasn't even on my radar screen. I probably had it growing inside me, but I didn't know it.
Four years ago, I "casually" called mom to talk on this day, because I wasn't sure how the day would end. I remember talking to her when I heard that a tornado was on the ground and headed my direction. For the first time in a long time, a storm had me scared. I didn't know what to do...but I had talked to my mama - just in case.
Four years ago, after the storms had done their worst and we were trying to get in touch with everyone, we couldn't call each other in town. We could call Memphis, and mom and dad could call the others and relay info. Mom and Dad to the rescue, as always.
Four years ago, I could talk to my daddy. I'll not do that again.
Four years ago, I could not see how things would play out. I was caught completely off-guard.

I'm not going to lie. The last few years have been the hardest of my life. I had a cluster of completely heart breaking things happen, each was enough to break my heart by itself, but the events kept piling on one after another. I'm not the only one to experience such a period of time. I think it must come to everyone. But I thought I'd get by without having to go through it. For a while, I cried and cried. Then I learned not to cry.

I'm focusing on the sad as I write. Much good has come in the same time period. and I'm in a happy place now. It has been good for me to walk through these fires that have purged my soul and shown me my own shortcomings. The important thing, I think, is you just don't know how a day is going to end. And that's one lesson I learned four years ago, today.

Voice

I've lost my "voice". When I began blogging years ago, it was easy. It was an outlet in a crazy season of life. When I first entered that season, it wasn't so hard, but then the years went on, and life got harder rather than easier. I held so much inside, and finally ended up with breast cancer. I believe cancer in general, and more specifically breast cancer, is the body's response to too much stress. And suppressed stress is the worst.

I enjoy writing, and connecting with folks through the written word in a way I find difficult by simply talking. Friends have encouraged me to blog. It doesn't come easily anymore. In trying to find my "niche" in the blogosphere, I've lost my "voice", and I'm trying too hard to find it. On another site, I have started writing again, and posting to fb when a post is complete. That feels so vain. So I will begin again, quietly and without trying to attract attention, to write on this site again.

Are there ever days when you have "opinions" about everything. Yesterday was a day like that for me. I woke up, and felt pushed all day long. I felt disappointed - not about the day's activities, some of which I was really looking forward to, but about events in life that had disappointed me to my core. Sometimes I don't think I'll ever get over the disappointments (or the surprise at how things turned out). I was a true believer that if you did x then y would be the result. But there were other variables that I did not take into account.

Now, overall, my life has been good. I'm not complaining, really. I'm just trying to work out the disappointments so that they do not continually come back to haunt me. One thing I have learned along the way is that everyone has these disappointments, even those who choose to keep quiet and hide them from the world. Everyone has a story, and all good stories have problems and troubles that must be overcome. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a true story, and reading it would be boring.

I love to read, but I'm not much of a fiction reader (something that needs to change). One book that I read recently is Epic, by John Eldridge. He points out that all our human stories follow a divine pattern. The master story, the one that God is writing, is one that starts out well, but has a villain and trouble enter the picture. There is struggle and heartache, but the story will resolve with the triumph of the hero (Christ). I found that a very enlightening way to look at life. And after reading it, I began to see stories everywhere.

If I succeed in finding my "voice", it will be in looking at not only my story, but the stories that surround me.