I’ve been sitting here staring at the screen for several minutes.  I’ve typed and deleted a couple sentences.  I don’t know how to begin this; This rambling post that has been swimming around in my head about how I write a lot, but feel like there’s more that I don’t understand than what I do understand, and all the questions that swarm my thoughts on a daily basis, and while I try to be faithful to what I have learned and know to be true I can’t escape the reality that the more I know, the more I realize I don’t know.

I think I repeated myself a couple times there.  See, that’s what happens when I just vomit my thoughts on a page.  At least, I think there is one coherent thought in there, somewhere.

Every once in a while, someone will say or write something so nice to me, thanking me for what I write, or asking my advice, or wishing they could’ve known or thought something earlier, or whatever people say that makes me feel all sunshiny inside.

(It makes the icky comments and mail far more tolerable, by the way.  People are so thoughtful, you know, trying to point out all the things I’m doing wrong, or at least not perfectly.  It calls for some self-examination on my part, but usually I’m just humored by the idea that they think I’m so influential.  Whenever I am feeling down I just go back and read my hate mail, so I can feel like I really am significant and have such impact.)

While I appreciate the nice stuff (Who wouldn’t? What, you think I’m made of angel dust?) I kind of get uncomfortable if I begin to feel like someone is getting the impression that I think I have it all figured out.

Honestly?  I sometimes feel like I am drowning in doubts.

Not drowning as in every once in a while stopping and considering the possibility that I might be wrong about something.  I’m talking about drowning as in Oh my God, please help me have a clue about something.  Anything at all.

(Assuming there is a God, because yes, sometimes I feel like I could be talking to a cute little green man in suspenders just as much as the Creator of the Universe.)

So, yeah.  There’s the gut-wrenching uncertainty that even what I believe right now could be proven wrong tomorrow.  That always sucks.

And while I wish that the topics I write about was stuff that has appeared on glitter-sprinkled scrolls I found beneath a fern leaf in my garden, there’s instead the undeniable truth that much of what I have learned, I’ve learned by doing the opposite and making a complete butt of myself.

I’ve had to battle the weight of crushing debt.  I’ve screamed at my husband with tears running down my face and my hands clenched into fists.  I’ve cried myself to sleep over the horrible way I responded to my children on a particularly frustrating day.  I have felt the chains of anger, laziness, pride, and the inability, no, the unwillingness to forgive.

Heck, if I’m really gonna be honest here I’ll have to say I’ve broken my toe because I meant to angrily kick over a pile of folded clothes and ended up catching the corner of the wall as well.  Because I’m that awesome.

I’ve also known the freedom of taking responsibility.  I’ve felt as if my heart could explode with the exquisiteness that comes from deeper intimacy with my husband.  I’ve enjoyed the results of learning how to better relate with my children and raise them in a way that actually makes life with them a huge blessing.  I’ve experienced liberty from captivity, in several ways.

But my writings aren’t only my stories.  I’ve read letters and listened to women.  Some who can’t contain their joy as they excitedly share their story.  I celebrate with them.  Others, who make my throat swell even as I write this, who have spilled their hearts and related their tales of pain.  I mourn with them.  And then there are the ones who I may not even know, but share their story simply by the way they speak, or dress, or post pictures of themselves on Facebook.  They’re the ones I think about most of all.

And that’s what I pour out on the page.

I won’t be online for the next week.  No blogging.  No surfing.  No Facebook.  The best part?  Baby Daddy is in on it, too!

I’ll see you next week.  Until then, go laugh with your kids, take time to relax, and french-kiss your husband for no reason.

We all want to be heard.

We need someone to listen.  We want someone to take the time to really hear what we’re saying.  We want to be able to safely pour our heart out.

I want to be heard.

But do I listen?  Do I take the time to really hear what others are saying?  Can they safely pour their heart out?

Sometimes, despite my desire to be heard, perhaps what I really need to do is listen.

Through taking the time to meet someone else’s need to be heard, there is another need in me that is met.  A need that isn’t quite so loud and demanding, and therefore easily overlooked.

See, it is more than wanting to be heard.  It is wanting to connect.  And one can only really connect through being heard and listening, because…

What am I saying, anyways?

To be heard you have to hear, and to listen you have to be listened to and it is all about connection and needs, to take the time to really hear what people are pouring out. In their hearts.

Listen with your heart.

Pour out your listening ears.  Do you hear me?  Listen.

Connect with my need, and I’ll overlook your demanding that is loud and needy.  I hear it.  Someone is listening.

Take the time.  A time out. You need to listen.  To hear.

See what I’m saying?

What?

Yeah, alright.  It got silly there.  It was one of those times that I was just typing as quickly as I could capture the words that were coming, until I got to “And one can only really connect through being heard and listening, because….”

And right there I stalled, the typing grinding to a halt.  Then I re-read what I had just written.

Lame.

Big, fat, craptastic lameness.

Normally, I would let it sit in my drafts folder for weeks until I either changed it to make sense, or deleted it altogether.  But this time I just kept going, randomly piecing together the previous words and phrases  I had used, laughing maniacally the entire time.  Baby Daddy kept worriedly peering at me over his own laptop, probably wondering if I had indeed finally lost my mind for good.

Welcome to the life of a writer.  Just because the words are flowing doesn’t mean they’re going to come together as a great post.

Sometimes it’s just literary vomit.

Several times a month, I consider quitting the whole blog writing thing.

There’s a lot I don’t like about it.  I mean, posting one’s thoughts for everyone to see just seems kind of a self-important thing to do.  Granted, it’s not like I’m making anyone read it, but just the act of putting it out there seems to assume I think I have something worthwhile to say that others want to read.

Oh, hey, look at what I have to say!  I’ve even taken the time to put it in black and white because I’ve made the presumptuous decision that it matters to you!  Yay, me!

That’s weird.

And then there’s the whole mess that comes along with making one’s thoughts public.  It’s inviting criticism.  If you hold something up for others to scrutinize, prepare to be hit with a few arrows.  It’s all part and parcel.  Very few people can disagree respectfully.  Heck, they usually can’t even logically participate in thoughtful discussion.  Thankfully, that hasn’t happened openly on the blog itself.  I’ve seen other blogs completely held hostage by a troll.  *shudder*

But the hardest part about blogging is how it personally affects me.  Oh, it’d be no big deal if I always kept my writing to easy things like decorating or a list of my day’s events, or even only about funny things my kids said.  If I were blogging for me, that would be the way I’d do it.  But, no.  I often write about relationships and tender mothering and passionate marriage.  I share my failures and what I’ve learned through them.  I encourage women in ideas and standards that are vastly different than what the culture says.

What I’ve found to be true is this.

Simply by aspiring to greater blessing as a woman in all that I am and do, and by inviting other women to do the same, I find that those areas in which I write about become my biggest struggles.

I’m not one of those people who see a devil around every corner.  At the same time, I cannot deny the fact that those who openly express a viewpoint are held to a higher standard than those who sit and say nothing.  And call it spiritual warfare, fate, Murphy’s Law, or just coincidence, but usually anytime one takes a stand on something, their foundation will be tried.  It’s like a whispered sneer in your ear, “Oh, you think you had this figured out, didja? We shall see!  Does it hurt here?  How about here?”

It’s like I shared yesterday; In case you haven’t noticed, I am passionate about honestly relating the way I believe love and marriage really works.  Not because I think I’m an expert, because I’m not.  Most days I feel like I am grasping and clawing just to remain someone who has any right at all to claim to be in a happy marriage.

And, call me paranoid, but I swear that there are those who are just looking for cracks in our marriage and even see it as their duty to test the strength of it by any means they deem necessary.

Yet, I cannot stop writing.  I have taken time off here and there, to no avail.  The words eventually push up through my chest and pour out of my fingers, refusing to be sentenced to a life of mulling around in my brain.  I used to be content with scrawling them out in paper notebooks, and I consider often the wisdom in returning to that practice.  After all, if I have to write, why not just have it be for me, and no one else?

And then, one of you tells me how much you appreciate the blog, or sends an encouraging note to me expressing your thankfulness of something I’ve written.  Even when I took that several month break a little while ago, so many of you conveyed your disappointment that I had stopped blogging.  I was blessed by those of you who communicated the dismay you’d experience if I chose to never continue.

But, as much as I love my readers, I don’t exactly blog for you, either.  Because then I’d have to stick to subjects you want to read about and what good would that be?  You can read garbage about how cool you are and how you can fly on the wings of eagles just about anywhere.  Not here.

The encouragement is important simply because it’s a tangible confirmation of what, deep down, I already know.

Compelled, called, intended… whatever.  I’m just supposed to be blogging.

My dear husband wrote on Facebook today, “my baby (aka supermom) is not feeling well. ” which led to a number of inquiries, each wondering how I’m doing.  And then, if I actually answer honestly I’m often met with, “What? I didn’t know about any of that!” meaning, of course, that since they read my blogs they assume they know most everything about me.  Which is somewhat true.  But.

I don’t normally write about stuff like, say, the fluid filled membranous sacs that frequently grow on my ovary.  I know. Ew.  Part of me feels somewhat dishonest, as if I’m sidestepping a large part of my life, especially since their unwanted presence has such an impact on me.  I did mention it once, I think.  It’s just one subject I avoid since experiencing increased traffic, because frankly, who wants to read about that?

Besides, throwing out anything health related usually means one is bombarded with everyone’s opinion about how you should be handling it.  The fact is, many women deal with ovarian cysts.  It’s not like they’re really unusual.  The sad part is, conventional medicine offers nothing beyond “wait and see” and then cutting them out if they get too big, or going in for intravenous antibiotic if they burst.  Preventative measures are nonexistent, besides taking birth control pills.

So, without going into great (boring) detail of all the icky symptoms, for the most part I have learned to cope while learning how to treat them naturally.  But that takes time.  When one does grow rather large, it is apparent to me and I pray that when it bursts it isn’t painful.  Some are, some aren’t.  However, even after that is finished the following weeks continue to be difficult as the toxic fluid is absorbed.  I continue to use natural supplements to keep help my immune system remain strong throughout the additional burden.

And then this week I developed a urinary tract infection that is putting up quite the fight against my arsenal.  Sigh.

So.  There it is.

I’m laying low, which basically means I’m still in my pajamas at lunchtime, laying on the couch spending way too much time online, begging the kids to not make a really huge disaster.

The really good thing about days like this is the increased appreciation I have for the days that I feel good.  I am truly blessed.

Normally, the words pour from my fingertips, and I tap furiously on the keyboard just to keep up.

But not recently.

It’s not that there wasn’t anything to write about.  Quite the opposite, in fact. But where does that line of honesty and authenticity get blurred into telling what is not fully mine to tell?

I have stories to describe.  Lessons to share.  And, even though it’s just recently dawned on me, I have hurts that need to heal.  Old battles that I thought had been won long ago began to rage again.  Some friendships caused more pain than encouragement.  Physical issues demanded attention.

I find myself grieving deeply over.. everything and nothing at all.  A hundred reasons jumbled together, and not one really big one.

As I tried to write through the experiences, it just oozed out me as resentment.  I cannot abide whining, even if it’s me doing it.

So, I was faced with waiting until I could write what I have learned from the experiences.

It’s coming.

I’ve just been taking a break from blogging.

Yeah, I know that the nice thing to do would have been to write a post in which I inform you of the upcoming absence, and perhaps give an explanation. 

Blah.

To be perfectly honest, just the thought of writing that one post seemed too overwhelming.  Let’s just say a lot of things swirling around in my life and heart have come to a head all at once, and I’m working through them. 

I may blog about it when I’ve sorted through some of it.  I might not.

Keep checking back, cuz I can’t stay away from writing for very long. 

In the meantime.. Chin up, girls.

Blogging took a back seat today.  It was a crazy weekend, and then today we attended the funeral of a wonderful, godly friend.

I’ll be back on track tomorrow with pictures of a necklace I recently made. So that’ll be fun.

Remember when I was complaining about most frugal websites advocating unhealthy eating?

Carrien from She Laughs at the Days invited me to shut my mouth and do something about it.  Okay, so she actually invited me to become a contributor to her awesome Food That Nourishes site, The Real Food Revolution.

So my first post is up, after many hours of internal debate and oh-my-land-what-in-the-world-do-i-do-for-my-first-post quandary.  If you’ve been over recently, I likely served this so at least you know I actually eat what I write about.

So go peruse The Real Food Revolution.  She has some fantastic recipes on there already, as well great information and tips on healthy eating.  I especially love the posts under How we think about eating category.

I can’t wait to read his blog someday.