Who am I?

 Hello everyone and I am sorry that I haven't bothered you in a while.  I have been thinking of what to write to you and really, nothing came to mind until recently.  I have to be honest with you. I really didn't have anything to report on the house.  That doesn't mean nothing is going on.  The weeds are growing really well this year.  The garden is blooming with weeds and the house is still there.  With Tom's work it is very hard for him to get some time to just do something.  And then he is usually exhausted when he comes home.  I don't quite get that.  I mean, the guy is out at four in the morning driving and hefting heavy boxes until sometimes six at night.

I do have another confession to make.  I have not really wanted to write a blog.  I have been too busy doing my own thing.  But more of that later.  We had a chance to have a wonderful vacation with the whole family in German, something we haven't been able to do for five or six years.  My parents celebrated fifty years of marriage and we were able to celebrate with them and family and friends.  It was a really wonderful time and I am so thankful to have been there.  Seeing people I haven't seen in, well 25 years, was really cool.  We got to spend time with the cousins and saw everyone in the family.  It was a precious time.  We also got to go and take a trip to the Mosel river in central Germany.  What a gorgeous area!  I also got to get my first speeding ticket ever!!!  Fun, fun!  I  hope my Dad sends me the picture.  I would love to see my sister's too.  It was her fault!  I'm kidding! 

School has started and it has been hard for me this year.  But once we get down to it, we do really well.  We have a great time.  I have been allowing myself to do something I never thought I would admit to, let alone dream of sharing with others.  But that is not the point of this blog.

People say that writing is good for you and that you can learn things about yourself.  It is therapeutic.  I never understood that.  I always had to write and I hated it!  I was very bad at it too.  But lately God is working on me in areas that I never thought I would visit.  That is what I want to share with you, so pull up a chair, grab some beverage of choice and make yourselves comfortable.  It's gonna take some time to explain.

There are not many pictures of myself that I like.  I always wondered why that was.  I always hated that thing being pointed at me.  I was never thin enough, my smile was never good enough, my eyes were never looking in the right direction, whatever you can name, I thought it!  I was stuck in a bad place.  I think a lot of women/girls are stuck there.  When I was a kid, I hated being stuck with the girls.  Ugh, girls!  I was not going to do what they did.  I was cool!  I played with the cars, the guns, climbed the trees (not too well), and did tomboy things. 

And in my heart, I knew things weren't right.  I wanted to be a girl, but I didn't want to be considered a second rate citizen!  No, not me.  Girl things were out!  In my heart and in my room I did all the girl things.  I played with the bardies, did the doll thing and even danced to music.  Yup, I was a closet girl! 

Okay, you got the back story here?  Good, now moving on.  I carried that with me everywhere, the closet girl.  I dressed in baggy jeans, baggy sweaters anything to avoid being a girl.  I had a hair cut like Rod Steward my first year at boarding school!!!  It didn't look too bad, actually.  I carried that into my relationships and my family.  I was still the closet girl/woman. 

Fast forward, twelve years ago.  I win a computer.  I have some time on my hand and I start writing a story for my daughter because I just couldn't stand what is out there for her age group.  I share with my friend who reads a little bit.  Her comment is, "You're a writer!"  Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha, eh, no!
I don't have a degree in writing, journalism and my papers in English came back dripping with red ink!  I am not a writer!  Since that time I have come to write more, and more and more and now I have this crazy blog!  Fast forward to last year: I finished Tasha's story (yes, 12 years later)!  Now what?  Write another one, I am told by the Boss.  Not a chance! 

Because this one is close to my heart!  I can't let people see the things that are in my heart, can I?  Write the story, the words just keep popping into my heart.  No, thank you!  I won't!  Because this story has been part of me from the beginning of time.  Yes, but I will make you whole if you trust me and write the story.  True enough.  Through writing the story that has been on my heart for the last thirty years, I have come to realize something and so much more.

I am a hopeless romantic!  There, it is out!  I admit it!  Give me a good old fashioned romance and I will cry with the best of them.  I also realize that it is okay to be a woman. Mmmm, that was really hard to admit.  It is okay to be whom God has created me to be.  It is okay that there are limitations on who I am.  I am not superwoman, I am not a supermodel, I am  just a woman!  And that is totally all right.  Just because I am a woman doesn't mean that I am a second class citizen.  I have been created!  Most importantly I was created a woman.  Scripture tells me that I was knit together in my mother's womb. 

My mother knitted when I was young.  To picture that God took out the needles and knit me together is a little ludicrous to me, but it is true all the same.  His word also tells me that I was fearfully and wonderfully made! Yikes, me?  I would agree that maybe if I were a boy I would be fearfully and wonderfully made but me?  Yes!  I, a woman, am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Realizing that the same God, who spoke and there was light, took His knitting needles and made me to be who I am is really incredibly humbling and it is so comforting.

I don't have anything to prove!  Here I am, I have a masters degree in teaching and pretty much in horsemanship, I can get on any  horse and not make a fool of myself anymore, I homeschool three kids, and I am building my own house with my husband.  But I really don't have to prove that I can.  Because He has made me.  And even if I didn't do any of those things, I would still be fearfully and wonderfully made.  That same God Who knitted me together and Who fearfully and wonderfully created me in His image (wow, He is a creator) created me to be a woman, a mother, a wife, and so much more.

I have been made complete!  Not because I am all that!  No, the same creator who created me also send His only son and He died for me!  A woman!  He shed His blood to cover me and protect me!  Emm, no, that is impossible, because I am only a woman.  But it is possible, because I am His child, no matter what!  I am not afraid to admit that I am a woman. 

The picture at the top of the page was sent by my parents.  I like the picture.  I think it is the best picture of me yet to date.  That is the way I see myself at this point in time.  I am just another woman on the street.  I have nothing left to prove!  I cry, I laugh and I make goofy faces if you point a camera at me.  Although that may change now.  I may not even care anymore what I look like. 
    

The nice thing about being in Germany for my parent's 50th anniversary, is that 25 years ago Tom and I got married.  I love being whom God has made me into.  I am free not to be just a woman, but one who was created in the image of God!  I can't say that I am ashamed of that, can I now?