Dedicated to Alison

I am a very lucky girl. I have several friends who live in my "best" category. The neat thing for me is that they are all "best" in different ways.

One of those best friends in my sweet, smart, deep, inspiring, loving, amazing friend Alison.

Last year I did something unforgiveable in my opinion. I forgot her birthday. And I don't mean I forgot and then remembered it the next day. I remembered it like three months later. It was a crazy time for me, but still it is no excuse to forget something as important as the day my friend was born and get the chance to celebrate her.

So this blog is dedicated to Alison for being such a wonderful friend to me. Happy Birthday Best Friend!

Alison and I met through church. In fact, she and her husband led a small group that my husband attended. We started hanging out and soon started spending lots of time with her and Herschel. This was eons before any of us had kids, so we spent lots of weekend nights playing cards and games and eating yummy food together.

Eventually, I joined Alison's Bible study group that she was leading through our church. This was even a better way to really get to know her. I learned that she, too, was an only child. I learned that she had grown up in Portales, NM, and gone to college in Minnesota at a private school. I learned that she and Herschel, who were just friends in high school, started dating the summer before they left for college and maintained an impossible long-distant relationship when Herschel moved to Norman to go to OU.

I learned that she couldn't stand it anymore and moved to Norman to take her last few hours at OU so she could be with Herschel in the same time as a couple. After years of dating, I learned they finally got married and settled here in Norman. I am so grateful! I would not have met them otherwise!

Mostly I learned about Alison's impeccable character. If Alison says something is true, you can count on it 100% every time. Alison has never said or done anything to hurt me in all the years I have known her. I wish I could say that I haven't hurt her, but she has forgiven my thoughtlessness. Even though I am forgiven, I wish I could take it back.

Alison has always been there for me, not just as a shoulder to cry on, but as someone to challenge me to do better when I needed to do better. And if she gives me things to think about, I always do. She challenges me in love and with enormous respect which I couldn't possibly deserve.

As my small group leader, Alison pulled me alongside her and showed me how to lead others in Christ. She encouraged me and eventually became my shepherd and coach as I co-led with her and then led many, many of my own groups. Any time I encounter something new, have a question, run into a problem, or even want to share my successes, Alison is the one I call. I respect her knowledge, her heart and her experience more than anyone I know.

Alison and our other best friend Jen invited me to Bible Study Fellowship. Well, actually they invited me a lot: beginning 2 years before I actually went. But when I did finally go, I was able to share my wonderful moments of learning and growth with Jen and Alison. BSF has revolutionized my spiritual life and hopefully made me a better Christ follower, wife, mother and friend. I’m glad she kept asking…

One of my favorite things about Alison is the way she loves not only her own children, but my children also. When Ryan was 5 weeks old and I had to go back to work, I trusted Alison to keep him five days a week. And despite the fact that her son Andrew was only 7 months old at the time, she loved both babies, held both babies, fed both babies (and oh screamed bloody murder when he was hungry) and took care of both babies just like a mom should.

When Will was born, she frequently traded me out for babysitting, too, because her second child, Beth, was just 6 weeks older than Will. Here we were raising our kids and sharing our most important life moments together. When Ryan was 3 and climbed the fence, fell and cut open his arm and needed stitches, she calmly handled it and called me. If I would have been there I would have called 911!

She has entrusted the care of all of her children to me on short trips, long trips and extended trips. She has returned the favor for me. And I trust her implicitly to love, care for and even discipline my children when they need it.

There are so many more things I want to say about Alison. She is a wonderful travel buddy. She is the one of the very best moms I know – her kids are amazing. She is a wealth of information. She has spurred my growing love of reading. She has amazing financial discipline and integrity. She is loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and self controlled. She loves God with all her heart and she walks with Him. She leads by example.

I love my dear friend and am grateful to God for her presence in my life. She is a calm breeze in my turbulent waters. She inspires me to learn more about God. She sets the example for me to be better at what I do. And she loves me despite all my flaws.

Happy Birthday Best Friend!

Cleaning the Backyard

So I have this thought that I have been mulling over in my head for a few years now. Let me pose the question to you: Which is more important to keep clean and manicured, your front yard or your backyard?

Seems like a cheesy question. And I know there are debates on both sides, but God has made me think about it deeper and in a more meaningful way.

We have lived in our house nearly 3 years now. We have a big backyard with a fort and lots of room for the kids to play. Our front yard is also quite large. We live on a corner that backs up to a busy roadway, so we are also responsible for a long side yard and the grass behind our house between the fence and the street. We do a lot of mowing, edging, weed eating and grooming of our lawn.

So here is the dilemma ... if you have time to only mow and manicure the front or the back, which do you mow? Which does it matter more looks nice, the front or the back? Which comes first?

Argument for the front: People are driving by seeing our front yard all the time everyday. It is important to keep it looking nice so our neighbors are happy, so people don't think we are junky and that we take care of our home.

Argument for the back: Although no one driving by will see the back, we spend most of our time back there. The kids play in the back every day and the grass needs to be cut, the dog poop needs to be picked up, the trash needs to be thrown away so they can have nice clean area to play in.

It's a little bit like the life I am living. I am 34 years old and went out without make up for the first time in my adult life on my birthday this year. That is a little sad. I have been worrying about my appearance. Is my hair cute? Is my make up on? Are my clothes nice? Am I presentable to people I might run into or even to strangers? When I go to the store, what classification will I be given by strangers based on my appearance?

To this end, I am obsessed with my hairstyle. A major treat for myself is a pedicure. I try to wear nice clothes. I get my eyebrows waxed, although not often enough. I worry about my weight. I care about fashion and trends. I care about what I am projecting to others.

Lately, I have cared a lot more about my outer appearance than my spiritual well being. I have focused on the outside and neglected the inside. Sort of like caring about what your front yard look like but letting the back yard get overgrown with weeds, trash and junk.

All this came to the forefront this past weekend as I spent hours with my family cleaning our back yard. The puppy had shredded toys everywhere, the kids had thrown their trash everywhere but the trash can. Broken toys littered the yard. The grass had grown high. Two dogs had pooped all over the backyard. Broken branches and tree limbs were strewn about.

As I cleaned the yard, I thought about cleaning up myself, my inside, my emotional and spiritual health. I can put on a happy face on the exterior that everyone sees. I can fix my hair and make up, I can have a tan, I can wear cute clothes, but what does it really matter if my heart is cluttered?

I am making the choice today to focus more on the backyard. I will spend more time in prayer and studying the Bible. I will spend more time writing. I will focus on my health, both mental, emotional, spiritual and physical. I will tend to the "backyard" first for a while. I think in my world it's what matters most.

Keeping Score

EDITOR'S NOTE: Just so you know, I realize that, in the category of gross over-generalizations, that this is definitely one. However, since it is my blog, I am ok with that ...

So I was sitting at my 7-year-olds machine pitch baseball game last night and had an epiphany. This epiphany came after two things happened:

1) Ryan hit a ball that resulted in a 2-run home run, his first one ever. This home run did include some "errors" on the other team's part, but it was a home run for Ryan never the less.

2) A dad next to me of one of our players gets a phone call and he says, "I don't know what the score is ... you know I never keep score."

I was appalled. I not only knew the score but the number of outs, the count on the pitches and that we were winning 4-1 (which ended up being the final score).

So I came to the conclusion that there are two types of people in the world: those who keep score and those who don't. I am obviously the type who does keep score. I always have in everything When my kids were barely 3 and playing in the YMCA soccer league where they don't keep score at all, I always did. I always knew who won and how many goals each kid had scored.

I also keep score in a weird way when I play coed indoor soccer. You see, much to my disappointment, women's goals in coed soccer are worth two points. So I keep score of actual goals, not points on the board, to determine if we actually won or not.

Needless to say, I am pretty ding dang competitive. I don't understand the logic of those of you out there who don't keep score. I mean, how can you NOT care about winning or losing? My brain just won't go there.

Unfortunately, this applies to other areas of my life to in some not-so-flattering ways. I am definitely a person who offers forgiveness to people and not hold grudges*. That asterisk means that I am like that after the apology. If someone owns up to a mistake or admits they were wrong or says they are sorry, I totally forget the error of their ways. But unfortunately for me, it is not easy for me to forgive them otherwise.

One of my best friends brought this to my attention again yesterday. She is totally right. And I know it. And I am working on it. How sad is it that I am this way? I know that I am only hurting myself, but alas, I continue on.

Now I have managed to get past this in some cases, but usually it has taken me years to get to that point. Also very sad. For me. I keep score to my detriment. I know that I should follow the Bible's guidelines on forgiveness. In Matthew 18:21-22 it says, "Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”
“No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!"

So here I go working on not keeping score. Here I go working on forgiving without a request. Here I go not holding a grudge or remembering the wrongs in my life done to me by those who never said they are sorry.

But I will keep score in little league. There are some things a mom just has to do! ;-)