Buried.

I have to be really careful about the things I wish for in front of my husband. I mean, like, really careful. Because once I say it, he does his best to make it happen. He's like a genie except without the outfit. Or the bottle. Or the smoke legs.
Once in our previous house I was standing in the laundry room folding clothes. He came out and I said nonchalantly as I bent over to get more socks, "I wish this window was bigger in here. It would let in so much more air and light." Three days later I came home from work and guess what?

Yep.
A breeze.
Seriously.

It's not just windows.
Me: OOOhhh I should get a food processor so I can make my own veggie burgers!
Guess who has a food processor? Yep.
Guess how many veggie burgers I have made?
Loser.

Me in an antique store with Jeff: Oh. My. Gosh. Look at these old typewriters! I love them! Coolest thing I have ever seen!
Guess who has an antique typewriter with the sweetest note typed in it given on our anniversary?
And an information book on how it works that was ordered through amazon? Along with black and red ink?
Yep.
Me.

Seriously.

So I should have known better when I said, "Oh we should plant a garden! We have all this space and ...blah ...so many veggies and ...blah ... save us money and... blah..."
Guess who has a garden?
Uh huh.
Guess how big it is?
I could feed a small country.

He's kind of an overachiever. God bless him.

I woke up this morning knowing it was going to be a weeding kind of morning. Before the sun gets too hot, before I watch too much Pretty Little Liars.
As I walked out there and surveyed the garden, or "The Amazon" as I now refer to it, I felt more than a little overwhelmed. I took a picture of it and posted to my facebook (because you know I love facebook!)
and it allowed me to procrastinate for three more minutes.
I'm grateful that I did though because a wonderful writer friend of mine, who loves all things beautiful, commented and said, "I do some of my best praying in my garden. Have at it!"


Two weeks ago I started a study on secrets. I wasn't sure why I felt so pulled to go because even though I admire the speaker, the study topic made my stomach roll.
I don't like secrets.
Period.

The class meets on Wednesday nights and each time I have left I have been on-my-knees grateful I showed up. I mean, I'm not saying me and secrets are cool and I'm going to ask them to stay and party but I am gaining some insight on the control they can have and that I am able to say, hasta la vista.

baby.

Last week we spoke about the vault.
I bet you can guess the question of the night.
What's in vault number ONE? Two?

Three?
Ten?

I mean, basically my vault looks like a crime scene.
Yellow tape.(caution. cautioncautioncaution) everywhere. Little red flags in the ground marking where all my bad things are buried. I'm pretty sure if I look closely, I may see a body.
I'm pretty sure it's a little girl.
Her eyes are closed. Her feet are bare. She is cold. She looks dead.
But she's not.
I'm pretty sure she's pretending to be dead so nothing will actually kill her.

Opening my vault almost causes a panic attack in my garden amongst the corn that towers over me and shields my face. As I move through vines and cut them back
prune
prune
prune

I can hear the Lord trying to talk to me. I can. I know He is trying to say something but I can't make it out. I can't make it out because I am screaming inside myself ...
WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO KNOW? What do you want me to see in this stupid, stupid, vault?!

What?
What?
WHAT?

But he can't answer me like that. God doesn't scream.

He waits.

Until I was quiet. Until it was just me, cutting vines,
prune
prune
prune.

Just me

and dirt,

and vines,

and

quiet.

My fingers are a mess. Scratched. Wet dirt under my nails. Sweat dripping into my eyes. I can hear the bees. I am hoping corn spiders don't drop on my neck and crawl on me. I will freak out if they do.

I prune.

This garden.
It's so overgrown. everything living on top of everything. haphazard. zigzagged. twisted.
this is what happens when you leave it.
this is what happens when you leave it alone.
it grows wild.
without direction.
without focus.

And I can't see any fruit. I can't see any vegetable. I can't see anything. It's buried. Deep.

Under the vines.

What God?
What?

Shut. Up. My daughter.

shhhhhhhh ....

And i continued.
Removing the excess. Throwing it behind me.

and then there it was.
beautiful. green. attached to the vine.
growing.


And finally, finally, I heard Him.

Look.
Look how perfect it grows.
Even here.
In the dark.

And right there. On my knees, in the dirt, with dirt on my face, and bugs crawling over my fingers...
I began to cry.



And i couldn't stop.



I stayed there. Until the pain was gone.

And the peace settled in.

proverbs 14:1

I love facebook.
It's almost embarrassing to admit, but there it is. I am not a teenager. I am a grown-up with a job, and bills, and kids.
But i still love facebook. No time for a phone call or coffee date? Power up. It's an icon away to see the dirty, gleeful faces of my friends' kids as they terrorize summer. It's just a five minute scroll to see who is eating lunch at the Loving Hut, who started their 2.6 mile run, who is "so over" their Monday at work, who is going to happy hour, and who is chugging their way to "Vegas Baby!!!"

We can stalk old boyfriends, their newest girlfriend, past friends, new friends, and even the ones that don't want to be friends, in the privacy of our homes, our cars, our closest Starbucks while sipping an iced latte. It's a window to our kids and the lives they are living away from home, on their own. I may not talk to my daughter every week but I can see pictures of her latest hike and I know what Disney movie she watched cozied on her couch. It connects us and shares us and sometimes takes the pressure away.

But there is the dark side. The side that we don't "like" or "share" but undoubtedly still read.
The side that can leave us a little breathless, a little "what the eff?"
Sometimes we see things that a few years ago, would have remained PRIVATE.
Closed. (KEEP OUT. NO TRESPASSING.)
Friends and Family Only.
It would have been one of those ... "oh but what happened to so and so?" And then, "Oh it was so heartbreaking... tragic ... a few years back..."

Not the entire world. Not people that you've only met once or twice, or is a friend of a friend that you ran into at church; a face that you'd recognize but if it wasn't for facebook, you wouldn't remember their name, much less where they recently vacationed (Hawaii!!), or if they are dieting (the last five pounds!), if their kids are taking swimming lessons, that their anniversary is in five days, or ...

if their marriage is falling apart.

if they are having an affair.

if they are getting a divorce.

if they hate each others guts.

But suddenly
here I am, here we are.
seeing every grim detail, exposed to each raw emotion, a gaping wound with leaking arteries, we watch a love story that once swelled and moved, passionate and full,
gasp
and die.

with their very own hands, in their very own words, their pulsating pain reaches out

a wrecking ball.

every insult - a brick. every barb - a shattered window.
Their house,
smashed into chunks and pieces.

it makes my heart hurt.
it causes me to pray.
alot.
and sometimes
i cry.

It isn't my business.
Yet it stares me in the face.

a mirror.

I tell myself, Turn it off. Shut it down. I don't want to see.

And like a reality show that exposes weaknesses and vulnerability and betrayal for fun and ratings,

I leave it on. Mortified. Heartsick. I can't take me eyes away from it.

why?

because i know.
i know what it feels like to be in that house, a bleeding mess that refuses
oxygen,
love,
forgiveness,
healing.

I know what it feels like to want shove it in their face, how happy you are now, how hot you are now, how wanted you are now, how appreciated you are now.

how carefree you are now.

except you aren't.
not really.
it's pretend.
and other people help you pretend.
telling you what you deserve
(them)
and how different they will be
(but they're not)

and every time you post, every time you pose, every time you say one more thing in offense ...

you rip part of your house down for all of us to see.

How easily we forget how hard it was to build it in the first place.

I tore my house down once too. We can get pretty comfortable, can't we? In our marriages? I know I did.
No boundaries, No safeguards. No tending.
We guard our cell phones, our car keys, our Starbucks Gold cards, with fiercer protection than our marriages.

I said what I wanted, to those I claimed to love.
In tones that cut.
With facial expressions that demean.

Instead of holding close, I flung away.
Instead of going towards, I turned my back.
Instead of choosing to love, we chose complacency.

It's no wonder we didn't make it. It's not that we didn't care.
It's more that we didn't know how.

My heart aches for you, crumbling marriage divided with pain.

I heard this by a preacher man one morning on the radio. He said, "Marriages don't just explode out of nowhere. It's not a giant burst.
Marriages are punctured."

Stabbed.
Wounded.
Holed.

and then they lay down and bleed to death.

I believe in miracles. I do. I believe marriages can be fixed. Healed.
and then more than healed. They thrive.
I have seen it.
Not in my own.
No. We tapped out.
I tapped out.
I didn't want a miracle.

That's the beauty and the agony of it, isn't it?

We get to choose how our life is going to be.

And then we all get to see that life.

On Facebook.


* I titled this proverbs 14:1. but just know, this post is equal opportunity. We all tear our houses down.