all this beauty

So if your name is Christianne, Christin, Sarah, or Kaari, you've already seen this. But when you've got all this beauty, it must be shared.

You might have to close your eyes and slowly open wide ...

Song: "All This Beauty"
By: The Weepies
Album: Hideaway

hellos & goodbyes

Mount Baker {Whatcom County, Washington ... that's right, we went there!!}

I don't even know where to begin. Words fail me. I'm only beginning to process through my experience.

The past several days with these girls was nothing short of amazing. They really are extraordinary. Our time together was filled with laughter, smiles, tons of pictures, a few tears (mostly mine), lots and lots of talking, and plenty of key words and phrases to inspire raucous laughter. It was a slumber party in my basement every night: we stayed up until 4 a.m. talking (darn our need for sleep!!). I can't remember when I've had so much fun. I can't remember when I've ever felt more connected to any other human being on this planet, let alone three of them.

In short, God is up to something and we're not quite sure what it is. He showed up in surprising ways in our time together and we're all starting to think about, walk through, and ponder and process it in this new space.

In the midst of their time here, my family faced a sudden and unexpected loss. Slater (our cat, who you may also remember from here) had to be put to sleep due to kidney failure. When I picked up the girls on Wednesday, it was a "wait and see" situation; by Friday, the vet told us that there was little hope he could ever recover. So Mom, Kaari, and I went to the vet Friday morning to say our good-byes.

I was a mess.

But if I had to be a mess, I was thankful to be surrounded by some of the safest and most caring, empathetic people I know.

I've been sighing a lot since they left: missing their voices and looking for them to come up the stairs. It was hard to say goodbye. But we will meet again.

photos by kirsten.michelle
** see photos from our time together at our flickr group pool. **

soaking in every minute

one more sleep!!

I've got one more sleep until my girls get here ...

... and I've got my party {hat} on!!

Dearest Christianne, Christin, and Sarah ... I'll see you tomorrow!!

Wahoo!!

Note to my lovely travelers:
Check out the latest on the local weather.

remembering the suffragists

It's hard to believe that it was less than a hundred years ago in this country, women did not have the right to vote. What's even more incredulous is that many women today do not exercise the right that just ninety years ago, the suffragists dedicated their lives to securing for future generations of female citizens of the United States.

The right to vote was extended to women in the passage of the 19th Amendment on August 18, 1920, but the fight for women's suffrage in this country was a long and arduous one, beginning some seventy years earlier. It first gained public notice in 1848 when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony held the first women's rights convention on July 19 and 20 in Seneca Falls, New York.

Alice Paul

Fast forward to 1912 when Alice Paul and Lucy Burns joined the fight. They spent several years campaigning for a constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote, gaining support slowly and steadily, but not without opposition. In driving rain and falling snow and forceful wind, members of the National Women's Party stood outside the White House day after day, season after season while passersby hurled insults and food at them. Their decision to picket a wartime president was an unpopular one.

It was because of this picketing in 1917 that several members of the National Women's Party were arrested and sent to Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia where they were treated brutally and force-fed when they went on hunger strike. Finding no valid charges to bring against them, the women were charged with obstructing traffic.

Below is a scene from the HBO film Iron Jawed Angels that depicts the suffragists in the Occoquan Workhouse. Alice Paul has joined her fellow suffragists in prison and once again, refuses to eat. She maintains that she is a political prisoner and being held without just cause. When I watch this film, I am proud of what these women did, of what they fought for and how they fought for it. I want to honor their choice to fight tirelessly to ensure the women of this country would have full rights as citizens.

The amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920 and certified eight days later: just eighty-eight years ago.

You better believe I think of them whenever I cast a ballot.

It's not actually until tomorrow, but let me be the first the wish you a happy Women's Suffrage Day.

hope rising

I can't thank you all enough. If I had any doubts as to being cared for, all I would need to do is to look at what you all wrote in response to my previous post. You people blow my mind and invade my heart. Seriously.

And you pray. Boy, did you all pray. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

On Monday (the day I published that post), I went to my family doctor to follow up on some things that had been ongoing for several months. I had received instruction to come back and get checked out if they hadn't changed.

CAVEAT: Sorry if I am being vague, but I want to be sensitive toward any readers who aren't particularly curious or desirous to read about the finer details of how my body does or does not function. If you want to know, I really don't mind telling you -- really, I have no inhibitions left when it comes to discussing the topic -- I just don't want to put it out for general consumption or to cause anyone to lose his or her cookies while reading.

I already knew I'd be in for more tests: more needle sticks, more deep breathing while shiny stethoscopes were pressed on my skin. More lying back on cold tables covered in white tissue paper. I told my doctor what was happening: or rather, what wasn't. Two months and no change. And I got one of those looks again. Oh, and some new digestive complications too. That's been going on two months or more, too. Another frown. I told her I had already scheduled an appointment with the gastroenterologist again. August 25.

I was sent to the lab again; the phlebotomist and I are familiar to one another now. Once we knew the results, my doctor would know what our next steps would be.

On Tuesday, I stayed home from work. I was worn out. I felt overwhelmed with sadness and confusion; my anger had worn me out and my boss was kind enough to give me a mental health day. I slept in, I drank my coffee out on the back porch. I made a second cup. I read my Bible and I journaled. The words weren't as angry this day.

It was shortly after 10 a.m. that things changed. I suppose they changed a little before that, but that is when I made my discovery. The two chronic complaints? Let's just say things are working as they should. The things that weren't working started working then (at the same time) and they are still working. My digestive and other (formerly chronically troubled) body systems are normal and functioning as they were designed to function. [Cue loud music and exuberant dancing around the house.]

Yes, you better believe I danced that morning. I'm still going to be vigilant, still going to follow-up with my physicians, but ... yeah. Things are good right now. And that's really good news.

As for the lab results, I received the official word today: even my thyroid is back to normal.

So thank you, people of God, for bathing me in prayer, for lifting me up to the Almighty. Less than 24 hours between the time I posted and the time God chose to extend His healing toward me. You were on it.

He turned my mourning into dancing, my weeping into laughter. This is your party, too.

Anyone wanna dance with me??

sunrise photo by kirsten.michelle

in a dry & weary land

Hi friends,

It's been awhile -- at least it seems that way to me. I could hardly believe it when I saw my last post was two weeks ago. But as blogging seems to have slowed down in general for the summer, I'm okay with it.

I'll be honest: I've had a hard time of it lately. My health is not improving; in fact, my insides are behaving as though they're forty or fifty years older than I am. As I was discussing the latest slough of symptoms with my naturopath, he told me that the conversations we're having about my health now are ones he usually has with patients in their seventies. Simply put, my body is failing at some of its most basic processes: digestion, elimination, absorption, and some others that I just don't want to talk about here.

The word chronic has been used.

On a good day, I'll tell you that this body makes me long for heaven. I'll tell you that I am finding blessing in unexpected places. I'll tell you that I know and trust that God will redeem this.

But on the days that aren't so good or as hopeful -- on days like today -- I am angry. I'm frustrated and weary and truth be told, just plain furious. I wonder what my later years might look like if this is my life and my health now. I wonder what the point is of trying to be healthy at all when my body is failing anyway. I wonder where God is when I cry out for mercy and heaven is silent and still again, again, and again. I wonder with the Psalmist, How long, O Lord? How frickin' long?

I'm tired of investing money and energy and hope into remedies that seem to help at first, but later have no effect on my body.

I'm tired of the way hope inflates and deflates inside me.

I'm tired of having a carrot dangled in front of me only to have it yanked away time and again.

I'm tired of being chronically unwell. I'm tired of the sounds of my own complaints.

I'm tired of trying to find blessing or anything good in this place. I'm tired of taking the long view, of wondering how God might use this to bless others in a distant time known only as someday.

I'm tired of the tension that exists between knowing God is there, but having the feeling as though He's absent, silent, and idle. I'm tired of how any prayer I offer hits the ceiling and falls in a heap at my feet.

I'm tired of spending time in the offices of every doctor who has a chart for me, of talking about my bowel and menstruation habits at length, of being subjected to test after invasive test, of lying exposed on cold tables, of hands pressing in on my body.

I'm tired of the looks from physicians who are as baffled and frustrated as I am.

I'm so tired of trying every possible option to be well and as far as I can tell, of it meaning nothing.

I'm tired of how isolated and alone this makes me feel, of how difficult it is to feel engaged in my own life, of how much I don't want to accept that this is my life.

I'm tired of being the oldest thirty-year-old that I know.

This doesn't mean that I don't want to know how you are, and it certainly doesn't mean I don't want to celebrate with you or hear about your days. This doesn't mean that I don't want to talk about other things or that I've lost sight of the world beyond the boundaries of my skin or that I'm incapable of laughter. I may be quiet or I may be absent from time to time, but I'm still here and I love knowing that you are, too.

I know it's difficult to be with people like me in these kinds of places. There's nothing you can say or do, no solution you can offer that will make it better. I understand this, and I can appreciate the difficulty. That being said, please know that I don't expect solutions or cures or words that will illuminate all of this perfectly. I don't expect you to know how to fix this.

I'm just glad that you're here, listening and sharing in this life with me.