If Meadows Speak....

Where Do I Go From Here

2015-03-04T17:57:00.000-06:00

This is it.

This place at If Meadows Speak has been my home, the place where I wrote terribly from my heart and chronicled my faith journey while balancing truth-telling and vulnerability within boundaries that kept my soul intact. Some days I lost the battle. This has been where I began and where I struggled to begin, again.

I'm still trying to find a way to collect my favorite blogs into one place since I'll no longer be using the Blogger-feed. That is one of the best things that I'll miss besides the things I learned about myself while here.

I've grown so much in this community, the commenters who encouraged me and the readers who contributed to the conversations. Thank you. A thousand thank you's.

In transition, I found the subject for which I never tire of writing as I scrubbed my list of posts to "take" with me. That'd be thanks to you, those who stood by me here, walked beside me, and generally became my people.

Armed with what I learned in this process, I decided to hone in on that subject I never tire of. I decided to pin that thing to the wall and stare it down. So of course, I gave it a new home and invited you to join me. Come see what you taught me about myself. I also wrote it in a small eBook, that is yours for free.

Here's to good times and seeing you on the other side.

~tammy

Ps. If you have any suggestions for blog-feed readers for me, please leave them in the comments or message me. I'd love to continue my collection of your words in one main location (besides Facebook or email).

In Which I Say GoodBye and Permanently Stop Writing Here

2014-12-06T14:39:00.000-06:00

The wind is blowing hard in these parts. Leaves are rustling around in noisy piles. December has come and I've been writing, quietly. Hidden away, in nooks and crannies, I've gotten into the habit of holing up. And I think it's time for change, just as sure as the months keep coming, like today.

Monday happened upon me in a flurry of activity and yet, slow it went. Enough time passed to be productive, for once. Gray skies pushed out the 70's and ushered in the cold, again. The fifteen-ish extra pounds that I've gained since I stopped working out a couple years ago, keeps hanging 'round too. I've grown accustomed to them even as I make promises to chase them away.

But it is Advent. And this is the month of birthing and re-birthing, of remembering the labor pains, the gestation of becoming alive in ways never experienced before. I've contemplated change this year, prayed over a word that could be the one for 2015, and questioned my commitment to all of this writing stuff.

Truth is, I process through writing and this is how God has counseled me on so much of life. So I dug and kept at it even as insecurities railed against me. Because I firmly know and believe--words change us. And the Word is still changing us and for that, I went on.

When I was young, the focus of faith or religion was on salvation, on saying a particular prayer to get "it". If you got that, then you had everything. But nobody told me there was more. So much more. It was not until I was in my mid-20's, making a comeback after living a prodigal's life, that I discovered it. And it was not in church. Instead, I found more between the lines of black and white, than all the sermons I'd heard, rolled into one. Between the red words and the dark ones, was a Holy Spirit shooting rapid-fire truths like a two-edged sword, cutting to the marrow of what that "more" entailed.

There is more which leads to a rich and spiritual relationship available to any one who seeks it. But also, it is a supernatural God invading our lives in the right now. Not just in the there-after's, but in the present-day-this-very-moment, now's. It also happens to be what I continue to talk about, over and again. For I've also been convinced of the necessity of how we need Narnia eyes to see. Not to glorify the unseen, but to know how marvelously mysterious and magical God is, in contrast to our own temporal, finite thinking.

As Advent and the New Year approach, I plan to be absent here. I don't plan to return. But I'm going somewhere, in 2015. During that time, I'll be in the interior life to allow God to excavate what He is doing in me. Whatever that means to my soul and flesh. But I'd love for you to walk with me, along the quiet corners, as I discover how that effects my faith, or what God is doing in the midst of the struggles, or how it will be impacting my sanity and security, or how it challenges me and you to do the scary God stuff we're called to do.

Since I am a community-orientated person, I want us to stay together. I have crazy ideas, scary messages, and I need a safe community to share these things. So, you could help me process and find the footing I need. I plan to do that through a community of email subscribers because it is more intimate that way. I'm not sure where it all leads, but I'd be ever so grateful to have you there beside me as I figure it out.

~tammy

__________________________

P.s. In this intimate community, here are some of the ways you could hold my hand and I'll hold yours: allow me to share some of the behind the scenes of what I'm doing at Outside the City Gate where there's an invitation: To Collaborate With You. Or you can be with me regarding a Church of Any Color, which by the way, won't leave my mind, soul, or heart. Plus fear has been teaching me about pressing in, of facing it in the eye, and how we could work on overcoming it, in spite of terrorizing roadblocks. Then there's a small ebook which scares the fire out of me that I've been writing, wringing my hands over, and plan to give away for free (if I don't lose my nerve). Hence, talking about fear, and us being there for each other. To which, there are some strong things to say about the ol' fear thing. Because Kingdom come, there is power on earth as it is in heaven, right? Maybe you know a thing or two about that and together we will walk this out?

P.s.s. And also, am I excited for this girl right here who is stepping out of the boat in many, many ways and is offering a place for unique gift ideas. And do you know, she is a speaker too? Yep. She is getting her brave on. I'm over there, helping her kick of her #reclaimingbeauty series where I talk about my farm and share some photos from it.

P.s.s.s I hate goodbye's. They are so awkward. How about, "see ya later" and take this conversation to email, shall we? Otherwise I feel a need to say, "And I would like to humbly thank, Blogger, for this wonderful opportunity and to those who've been here for me in the hard places of my faith journey....." Gah. Let's just not break up. I'm not good with either, goodbyes or breakups. See? This p.s.s.s. drags on, like a bad record. So I just need. to. stop.

P.s.s.s.s. Because of P.s.s.s., one last thing:

Let's Get Something Straight About Condemnation, Shall We

2014-11-16T21:30:00.003-06:00

As if making up for the years of loss, or the years of disdain, the years of running away from myself, of trying to be this or that or the other, I am here. Stepping into who God created me to be.

In this week of reflecting and being intentional with a new, local writing community, our gratitude in sharing life (and words) with each other has been at the forefront. Behold, the blessings when sharing our selves with others. And I've been feeling this deeply.

There are brave souls, both far and wide. Yet how often? How often do we play safe? We hold back for fear, or pride, or cynicism, or insecurity, or the whatever. We withhold not only the blessing from others, but from our selves as well.

In research for something I've been quietly writing (and who knows what that even means), I came across a website on spiritual warfare. So I read. And I read. And I kept clicking to the next article and the next, because there was such truth there for me.

But it was a particular article on condemnation which struck me in the core. It was something God had already revealed to me, years earlier. The article was brief, however it did get me to thinking about it all over again.

Even though we know, intellectually, that the enemy stands as our most vehement accuser, we do not really know it. For if it was as easy as that, then what kind of enemy would that be? These are schemes, sly and sneaky, so that deception trickles out in little drops so as not to disturb the waters of our conscience (or soul) as to notice it.

Of course, there are two sides of a coin, conviction and condemnation. The one leads to sorrowful repentance, setting us free. The other towards self-hate, or worse, "false" humility as we equate not liking ourselves as humility. Or that our self-depreciating thoughts are those too.

The source of condemnation comes subtle or not so subtle, even unrecognizable at times, as the enemy deceives even that part of the lie too. So we think the ones condemning us are: our spouse, or those in the latest dust-up from church, or the church itself, or from our (forgiven) past, or from friends (or the ones we used to have). But then there are many times that we don't give others the chance to condemn, because we jump ahead of the (imaginary) line and turn ourselves in before anyone else has a chance.

Oh how the enemy loves it. It can stick with us in our day-to-day, considering our worth is measured only by what we do for others. Not much else.

That's what makes this kind of false humility dangerous, because we believe a lie. A slippery slope, sinister and demonic, that leads us straight to the pit of condemnation. One that is hell-bent on punishing ourselves, or "jinxing" our self, or committing self-sabotage, or self-defeatism, or playing those negative tapes in our minds. Lots of self and thinking bad about it.

See what a rabbit hole I've fallen into?

God created us to be who He made us to be. In His image, we bear the marks of Christ for those called according to His name. In fact, we are rubies, the ones written on His hands, worth as much as the precious Son we've made Lord of our lives, because His Spirit has now made a Home. We are the temple, holy of Holies, living inside.

So let me stop here and look at the true. Because true humility thinks on God's purposes. True humility does not get wrapped up and bent around the axle of, self. It goes about the Father's business. This humility rests in Christ and gets on with it.

True humility is brave. It counts the cost and considers all else a loss. It looks into the face of Jesus, leans a head on His chest, and listens for His heartbeat. It walks away from the old man and embraces the new Life it has been given.

And then true humility walks it out among others with a Love emblazoned by a holy fire. Because true humility thinks of things above.

So we take our ash and sackcloth, and we step between the torn curtain. For we come, as He did, bringing Heaven on earth, through these vessels ready to be full of His glory.

And praise.

~tammy

(Ps. I'm not saying we do not ever think about our self. My aim is to contrast the lies versus the Truth. The Truth about who we are in Christ.)

*Gratitudes*

~my best-friend-of-a-hubby who surprises me with joyful things

~a God who has been bursting my heart with His fullness that I want to share and give it away to anyone who'll have some

~a group of brave friends, near and far, who make life fun and much more interesting, and especially grateful to be witness to all of it

~fun soccer days wrapped in thick blankets with excited tournament players, all bubbling with glee and emotion along with the parents

~a group of kids who worked as a team and then tackle-hugged their coach into a pile of arms and legs

~a red-hot fire that keeps me warm and cozy, as slight chances of snow, tease us with promise

~hope of having a full house for the holidays, in a reunion of epic porportions....a girl can dream, can't she?

Catawampus Days of Homeschooling

2014-11-11T21:21:00.003-06:00

There is a symphony of trees shaking their leaves today and they are making it known -- change is coming. The whipping winds rip the colored leaves from their perch in a loud display. From inside the house, the trees dance and the bushes wave with fierceness as they sway back and forth. Now dotted with the debris of Fall, our backyard is covered in it.

Today feels hopeful. Yet, it was just two days ago I wanted to quit. As homeschoolers (as any teacher, public or private school, would know), there are hard-wanta-quit, days. There are glorious days too. And all types of days between glorious and hard. But yesterday, was one of the hard ones. And it was the usual suspect getting us catawampus.

As I pushed the tears back, holding them at bay behind a quivering dam, I was thinking, "How can I write of gratitude with days like this?"

It was not lost on me that within a local writer's group, we are supposed to be reflecting and writing about the goodness right in front of us. And funny thing is, it was my suggestion from the days of joining Ann Voskamp, way back when. The irony of such things makes me suspect spiritual warfare or perhaps my own need for intentional gratitude becoming obviously plain. Yet, when days cut you to the wick, you are doing good to just breathe and not let the tears overcome you. All the more reason to suspect and fight the battle. But there are days we give in, for a little while and for me, yesterday was one of those.

But I know. I know gratitude. And how this is the very, exact thing in which we need. In which, I need. There was a time when I did the list of thanks, even though I'm not a list person. There was a time when I purposefully looked for the beauty of it. There was a time I stopped navel-gazing at my situation long enough to look up with intention to see with a thankful heart.

When my husband and I gave up our dream home to live on an old, dilapidated farm, to take care of my ailing Grandmother, we were high on God. But we quickly plummeted to the to dark valley of what that care and ultimate sacrifice would look like in our day-to-day survival. We understood the Israelites who pined for the choice foods of their slavery, as we did the same for our dream house as we mourned it's loss. That first Christmas we celebrated without so much a decoration, but we played the Christian radio (which also played Christmas music) like it was a lifeline. Music imparted a small glimmer of hope for the long journey ahead of us. So we grabbed hold of it.

That was almost six years ago.

I stopped looking for gratitude and just lived. But I have a need to remember, again. This month, right now.

Today.

Something's gotta give and so I will start. Because Jesus said we will have catawampus days, but to go ahead and smile, laugh a little or whole lot, and remember--He overcame the world, catawampus and all.

~tammy

A local group of us are joining together and more are coming (as they get brave with their new blogs). Join --DaughterRising, Jennifer and Jenny's.

Gratitude's:

~~marshmallows, campfires, and belly laughs that draw kids out of the house to check on the commotion of adults.

~~late night shenanigans of parents pulling pranks on the kids

~~family within walking distance after years, decades even, of moving town to town, or in other countries, separate and far away

~~sunsets that take your breathe away, and people crazy enough to jump in the car with you and run out to meet it

~~friends who travel to places like Sudan with a burning in their heart and come back to tell of the stories of hope

~~brave writers willing to take chances on life and dreams and words

~~a hubby who is always willing to listen, despite the avalanche of words

~~two boys who are growing up to be men, before my very eyes

~~a daughter and granddaughter, dearly loved, and carried in my heart

On Why It's Ok To Not Instagram Every Moment (post Allume)

2014-10-30T14:59:00.002-05:00

It's this crazy world we live in, longing for our place. And there are days we gather around one another and we hope they will like us, that we won't disappoint. So we stand awkwardly in our boots or cute clothes, and we scan groups of small huddles and wonder, is there room?

But our feet burn under an ache from shifting our weight side to side, so we move. We stumble toward tables and seats and faces. And we know to push past the silly voices in our head. Because we are here with intention.

Then we pass her or him, acknowledge one another, until we are communing over sweet tea and between keynotes. Our sore muscles relax into the chair. And when it's done there are plans for pj's and sacred communion in the hidden away places. Because God is doing a work and we didn't know until now. So we listen, we share, and we climb into the guts of another someone's story. And we are not thinking of iphones, or Instagram, or capturing this sacredness. We are just cherishing these things in our heart, much like Mary, Jesus' mother, did.

But when it's gone, we want markers. Oh how we want a way to memorialize something from it. Yet, we were too invested to take a chance of losing ground, so we stayed. in. the. moment, instead.

It's a week later and the once shiny polish is now chipped into scraggly patches on my fingernails. A wrinkled pile of suitcases with tags from Comfort Inns, or American Airlines, or such travels, now carry limp clothes home.

This is the aftermath. When we are left with words from God moments stirring the stuffing inside, we come now and turn for rest into the valley of everyday living. With these people we call home, because they make any of this possible.

But God goes too, carried like a Himalayan buried in us. And we walk under the shadows of His peaks.

****

I’m sitting at the airport in Atlanta, four days postAllume. Cross-legged on the floor is a man in a suit talking about clients and CEO’s on his phone, as I type. So much has happened since I first landed at the Hyatt hotel. Many chapters of my life are being written in my heart from folded hours of hallways, private rooms, quiet couches tucked into corners, and Gilmore Girls.

Many a time, I found myself circling the elevators on the ground floor trying to process. Allume lived up to it’s name but it was beyond the keynotes or the seminars or the speakers, even though those were good in their own right (and a few are still sticking with me, now).

There are things I can not write about yet, years of things culminating into one week that have slayed me. But it was the prayers and the spontaneous preaching coming at me sideways, from unexpected angles or people, which lit my soul with gratitude for the mighty Spirit abiding within us. And it was a creamy white pitcher that prophesied a blessing and a hope on a counter which declared His goodness to me.

After newly arriving at Allume, before we'd reached the miry depths, before the waxing between weary joy and somber awareness, I had a strong urge to share the worth of our spirits. The deep-down, laid-bare, beyond the insecurity of finding our place at a table, God sees the worth under the layers of worldly cares or outfits. He lives the inside out. As much as we want this place among someone's, we want God more.

I am always hungry. Like a starving child pleading to be feed. But it's for the soul. It is for the nourishing, building, and strengthening inside. And we know God longs to speak in His timing. There are droplets of dew only touching the surface or floods ripping through the fibers of our being.

It was the latter which came for me this week.

****

I left Greenville, breathless by an all-consuming God. And I drove my rental car, not to Texas, but further away into the hills of South Carolina. I worried not (as my past habit would have it) if my face had the proper amount of mascara or if the right shade of brown covered my brow. I was ready to be seen, in the raw. To not let my "put-together" life sacrifice love.

I drove further east, far and away from my Atlanta departure because sometimes you have to go backwards before you can go forwards.

That's when the roads began writing my story through the tree-lined curves of Carolina pines and hardwoods. Fall colors burst beside me as I whizzed past. I saw the dark-skinned people walking the streets with their grocery sacks. A past as personal as the heart that beats inside me, has been lived here and I once saw only pain here. But, as God would have it, I saw light. Everywhere.

Around me came through filters of grace, hope, and redemption. So obviously, I sent myself text messages (because I'm weird like that) about what I saw. I made markers. But they were hidden away, tucked safely in my heart and on my texts.

And it is ok. It's ok to not post every moment. Because there are times to labor, of caring for the body and caring for life. And that means carrying the moments (or people) in the wombs of our souls until we're ready to give birth.

I'm bit swollen with it all. Yet there was no captured, or Twitter-ed, or Facebook-ed trail per se', but God continues to call deep to deep. And some days, weeks, maybe years, we are letting the deep slay us. I will possibly feel the contractions, one day. And when I do, the groaning's will be birthed into words in this small corner, as a way to illume the trail that began there. Until then, my soul is full and I'm grasping at the overflow, frantically looking for cups to capture it.

~~tammy

(If you missed Allume, then you are warmly welcomed to join us over here and catch up.)

For the Dog Days of Homeschooling

2014-10-20T10:42:00.001-05:00

The year is in full swing and here you are, homeschooling. Everywhere is a classroom and you are trying to keep these two eyes open to see the wonder of it, to find opportunities. Because you don't want to miss. You don't want to miss one single moment even as the whole world feels like it is sitting on your shoulders. Or in the least, the educational scales are.

You know what it means to have opposition, right inside your own family. You have faced the criticism, the doubts, the downright venomous opinions of how homeschooling is "damaging" them. And you don't deny that it can be that way, with emphasis on "can," but anything can for that matter. And for the life of you, as much as you beg and plead and cajole, some people will never come around. On the bad days, it'll be difficult bringing your self around too. But when it's good, what exactly do you see?

The sun bursts through from the east and there is a patio afire with blinding bright as honey bees try to suckle from some white Knockout rose bush somewhere. Each day is wide with possibilities. Year to year and day to day, you take it, not always sure what it holds. You've heard the negative reviews and posts about it all. But. You've also read the positive ones, the articles about how homeschoolers are well-adjusted in College, about how they tend to have good family relations if the relationships were handled with care, about how they have more time to really get good at a sport or musical instrument or anything they are passionate about. You read about how homeschooling did not damage but in fact did much good. And you are buoyed because there is life after this, a promising one.

Maybe your family has tried the routes of public school or private school or both, and still you are here. Doing the thing you swore you could never do. Ever. But teaching is a great burden and you admire any soul who's willing to tackle it, no matter where they school.

So you take today, for what it is and you make the most of it. You don't promise any die-hard rules about the future because right now, you are in this moment. The inverted fractions, the soft-spoken tutoring lessons, learning how to say "unsweetened tea with lemon, please" in Spanish, doing speeches on current events in front of a classroom about a spacecraft called M.A.V.E.N., or sitting on the trampoline while you do astronomy and talk about stars or constellations, and basically become more engaged than ever before.

The exhaustion and hunger which used to hang heavy dark shadows after your son or daughter plopped their school bag in the car, are gone. Even your own mind refused to want to think of the public (or private) classroom because there were papers to sign, field trips to pay for, early mornings that required a good nights rest (and early bedtime). But there were still lunches to be made, homework to do, and maybe even tears over ugly social issues cropping it's head into your child's life. And you wonder of socialization and how so many people emphasize it. Not all socialization is good and especially when you see it damaging your little people's spirit.

At one time, you may have homeschooled for fear of the world. But now you do it for love, of holding these precious years close. You've seen how quickly they slip away. Yet, education is serious and you take it as such. Many a day you find yourself researching all the ways of learning, because you are determined this is what you're called to do and you don't want to ruin it. You employ help where needed, drive long distances to get your little person the resources he or she needs. As much as you are a teacher, you are the student too.

So you prepare them. Not to hide. No, you want to prepare their little souls to take heart to be in the world. Because at home, bullying and teasing from a gang of peers has ceased. And you aren't apologizing for that. Instead, you are putting one front in front of the other and you are studying them, heart and soul. You are becoming a pupil who is learning how they tick as you find ways to make learning alive. There are hard days, like any other. But at least you can nap, get a snack, take a break and start over. You are learning how iron is sharpening iron and on a good many days, your children are that iron. Yet, homeschooling isn't about squelching any of it.

The sun is rising higher and now it's time to begin. There is no romantic novelty here. Just work. So you put your head down and get to it. And you love. Lots of love. You hold these pupils loosely because they are learning to grow in love too. You want room for them to breathe it in, to exhale the tension so close to the surface in our world.

And you fall in love with them all over again, just like the day a man with a wall of diploma's placed their swaddled frame in your arms. There are no illusions. But on some days, your heart bursts with this gift of homeschooling. So you savor it for what it is.

Because who knows what tomorrow will bring.

~~tammy

At Kelli's Unforced Rhythm's.

In A World Full Of Trouble, My Childlike Faith Will Rise (Playdates with God)

2014-10-11T20:40:00.000-05:00

It's 3 a.m. and once again I'm wide awake. As the darkness quietly sits in the room, the bottom of my room-darkening shades are glowing from the moon stretching its bright fingers beneath. I can not sleep. And my mind is heavy and somber with thoughts about where I am in my journey, of what it is to walk forward, and exploring (or rediscovering) my own childlike faith.

But the words are still too fresh, too murky. So I close my laptop.

Three days later, it is a new day as the rain hems me in and I welcome it. The world lies just a key tap away. A whole library of events ready to be delivered: of diseases, lives violently extinguished in horrific manners, of bombs, political unrest, streets upended, wars and rumors of wars. There's no head in the sand these days.

And yet.

Focusing too long on the evils of this world, on the troubles and the tribulations, my childlike faith grows up and leaves me standing with a tired and fearful heart. So I must look away.

Because my God.

"Isn't this the way of a little child? To open the mind wide enough that the huge presence of the impossible can fit inside? Children don't suspend disbelief. They enter into belief with their whole of the beings." Laura Boggess, Playdates with God

In a good way, this book has disturbed my thoughts. It has awakened my need to return to this kind of faith, more so today than ever.

Yesterday, someone had a heated discussion with me about a worrisome current event. And it was passionate and loud and it was unsettling. Too many times, I see the world seeping into relationships. The cares of this world, the rising food costs, the new norm of escalated gas prices, the trajectory of nations, of healthcare, of violence, of rights, freedoms, and liberties, and the slippery slope of any of these, have become damaging wedges. The world can harm relationships we cherish just by existing and being accessible to us.

Knowledge. Much of it exists by the deluge. I've chased it long enough to know it's power to rule our lives above others, in spite of others. I don't always look away. But I can look so long that I forget.

The world looms large around us and we get swallowed in the mire of it.

Evil. How sly it is, silently or not so silently, snaking its way into our lives, in-between lives. Unsettling, separating, turmoiling, and dividing by the mere over-abundance of it.

"When we admit there are things that we cannot understand, we give our minds permission to open to the sheer magnitude of all that God is capable of." Laura Boggess, Playdates with God

Once again, I'm reminded of my needed return to this simple faith, where the world pales in comparison to the One who created it. Laura's book has uprooted something in me and in my investigation of it, how does one live in as a grown up and still gain a childlike faith, to be harmless as doves but wise as serpents? To give ourselves "permission" of enriching our personal relationship with God with child-like faith-ness? How can us responsible adults shed the worries, the weights, the burdens, or shackles to re-discover it?

As I meditated on this, I thought of Paul. When he wrote to Ephesus, or Corinth, or Galatia, or Colosse. His overarching theme was to operate according to the Holy Spirit that was given us, to love one another, to not be restrained by legalistic Jewish rules, to exercise His gifts in a way that honors God and others, and to encourage us to run our race. Even the letter to Rome, a society not completely unlike our own today, which started out with depravity and idols, judgment and a need for circumcised hearts, found the whole world is guilty. But what enters in at Chapter 3?

Faith. For two more chapters, even more faith.

And then we find our new life in Christ (Romans 6), even as sin wars in our members (Romans 7), and the Spirit gives us hope (Romans 8), even as others reject Him (Romans 9), Paul reassures us that our right standing comes by one way--

Faith, alone (Romans 10).

We've entered into this commune by faith.

The world has lured me out too many times. I have been drawn away by train wreck after train wreck of current events. As they kept coming, I followed. And when I tarry there, I enter the darkness of this world with only a wee match to see my way around.

"And Nicodemus, in the cover of darkness--from out of that cloak of legalism--asks, 'How can a man be born when he is old? Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!' (John 3:3-4 NIV 1984). Laura Boggess, Playdates with God

How can I indeed? That is why I must. It is too easy to be lost in fret and frustration. I need the eternal and true in a ever-darkening place. Besides, "whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:4 ESV

There are many delivery rooms in life, each one birthing something new. And in a world full of trouble, I give my childlike faith permission. To play. To rest. To sing a-long. To break away and swing with my feet in the sky. To dance. To capture tree tops glowing against a setting sun.

I give it permission--to rise. Because there is ample time for the rest.

~~tammy

{A special thank you to Laura Boggess for her book, Playdates with God. This is helping mold my faith with a desperate and needed message. And in this day and age, as the days grow more and more dark, I'm finding that I need "a childlike faith in a grown-up world." }

Also, at Kelli's Unforced Rhythm's.

Ruminations

2014-09-22T23:08:00.000-05:00

Summer slipped out quietly like a visitor feeling too awkward for a goodbye. I tried to enjoy her. I tried to suck every moment, savor the searing seconds, and bask in the place between muggy heat and toes finding the balm of water. But she's gone. And as much as I love Fall, there is a bit of wistful lingering.

Time was in too much of a hurry. And in its haste comes change. So I turn into it.

I've been reflecting, which seems to be what I do this time of the year. All around are signs, tell-tale ones. And if I look back over the changes, then I'd see the year when I was learning how to live all over again because of the dark, winter of soul. So much has happened from there to here. Some of that began in the first fruits of life when soccer was saving my (lonely) life.

Looking back, I noticed how this was all an offering.

As it is now, we are in another year of Soccer. And yes, there is something special about a team sport your kids love to play, even when it is less dramatic than saving your life this time. I have been getting a sideline view of my young people playing with all their heart as I pace and cheer in a voice my younger son compared to "shouting like a bird, chirping for it's life." Because obviously, soccer is dramatic.

So here it is--Fall. And what of these days which flit around like a restless Gold Finch? I barely have time to admire the yellow breast, the tiny shocks of color, before it's flying off to perch on a distant branch.

I pause to breathe. Out my dining room window, I glance at my boys playing on the trampoline with their cousin and I appreciate the sly warmth of what is leaving and embrace what is coming. I gather my loose ends and wonder where they lead. There are things I want to do but life gets busy and I only hope that I am doing it in a way that honors this one, wild one I've been given.

As the world spins, it is with words I stop and go backwards. I can look from this vantage point and 'though I can't see up ahead, I can see the path behind me.

Writing is a trail of finding our way home. Perhaps of finding our way out, but also, of finding the life in this small moment. Of noticing the pebbles, the leaf, the caressing wind, and the little (rapidly growing into what is becoming less and less, "little") humans in our midst's. We may not be able to so slow them down, but we can see, acknowledge, and pull over to grab as much as we can. Only when we are waiting does time move slow and push the limits of being obscene. So we write it down, to remember, to leave a trail of what life brought us and how far we've come, or how little we've moved at all, but we will see it. For surely, God was in the place and we didn't know it.

But we want too.

I want too.

And we write, despite ourselves. Despite the landscape. Because we need to breathe in or out of season and writing has this way of waking alive our souls from it's deep slumber. For we shall know.

"When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he said, 'Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.'” Genesis 28:16 HCSB

~~tammy

Follow me to Laura's and Kelli's.

What I learned from #50women, Giveaway & Review

2014-09-16T10:22:00.000-05:00

There are many books about Martyrs or men who have been giants for the faith, but not many are dedicated to women of the faith. And why is that, I wonder?

Enter 50 Women Every Christian Should Know.

As I read this book, I was reminded of the women who surrounded Jesus and how their faith is documented in the Gospels. And 'though some of these women in #50Women & the Gospels lived long ago, I was also reminded that we are not separate and isolated cases. We are one in Christ and for that we are connected. For "there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise." (Galatians 3:28, 29).

This is our history, my history, as women, as Christians. Despite where we fall on doctrines or theologies, these women stood up for what they believed. This is not about the 5-points of Calvinism or the tenets of one doctrine over another. Instead, this about the appreciation of the trials and tribulations of those who went before us. They believed what they believed, and they were persecuted for it. How can we not learn from history? These #50Women stood by their convictions, even when they struggled for their faith.

Tale upon tale is told of how they persevered, even to the point of isolation, ex-communication, exile, and torture. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to try and imagine how devastating it would have been. But these women lived normal lives, some of them were married with children. They were daughters, Mom's and wives, sisters, and Aunts. They were like us. And they had a passion for Jesus, for God, much in the same way many women I know today, do.

If there's one thing we can learn, it'd be--standing for our faith isn't easy. As I read about these women, I found that courage and faith comes from the most unlikely of sources. And if it came from these, then it still comes today. This also reveals that we are still, in the present day and age, surrounded by unlikely sources, even among our peers, friends, or communities.

From #50Women, two women's lives stayed with me the most and they shared the same name too, Anne.

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Anne Askew (1521-1546) was a daughter of a knighted member of Parliament whose wealthy family afforded her a leisurely life. But her strong believes in Protestant reform and Jesus as her only salvation, kept her from enjoying such wealth. Parts of her history that intrigued me most were these quotes from Michelle's book 50 Women Every Christian Should Know:

After stating, on trial, that she was able to learn about God, through scriptures and that she believed as the scripture informed her. "She angered her prosecutors when she challenged them to find any dishonesty in her, claiming that there were many who claimed to read and know Scripture but who did not live out Jesus' teachings as well as she did."

Anne defended her right to discuss scriptures. But "her male interrogators, who included the Bishop of London and other powerful state and church officials, charged that Anne blatantly disregarded Saint Paul's proclamation that women should remain silent in the churches." (And yet, she continued to proclaim the simple gospel of Jesus to the courts.)

"She emphatically denied the charge of heresy and declared that she would confess her sins not to a priest but to God directly, fully confident that she would be forgiven."

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Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643) married her childhood friend, had many children, and took care of her mother-in-law. Plus she was a midwife. But it was the gospel of grace that saved her. Her family moved to Boston just to hear more about this Gospel which was far less confined then her English religion. She discovered the revelation of scripture through the Holy Spirit. But this is also what got her in trouble. Anne's "theology suggested that one could receive the word of God directly from the Holy Spirit, an idea that the colonial leaders found not only threatening but also heretical."

This eventually lead to her being put on trial. In one of the court sessions, "as she went on to cite how the Holy Spirit was revealed to her through verses in Isaiah and Daniel, Anne gathered steam, concluding her testimonial with this emphatic declaration: 'Therefore, take heed how you proceed against me, for you have no power over my body. Neither can you do me harm, for I am in the hands of the eternal Jehovah my Savior. I am at his appointment.'"

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Marie Bride will be receiving a copy of #50Women in the mail! Congrats, Marie!

***Also, Michelle Derusha is giving away some gifts as well. So make the rounds by clicking on her name.
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Shared at Michelle's #50Women book launching post. Yay!

So Maybe I Was A Wrong & The Seaon I Can't Shake

2014-09-04T15:46:00.001-05:00

He said there would be times that we'd desire to see The Day , and yet we "will not see it." We are the ones, the people group, who desire after a sign because we want justice already and who is able to bring it but God, Himself? And I've read and re-read, because surely I've had it right (or wrong in this case)? That I am to know, that we will know, the times and the seasons? In my furious word search, I only found things like: take heed, watch, and pray. But as for the seasons, I found that it is not for me to know.

So I walked away, empty-handed from what I once believed this meant to me. These days there is a river of peace and hope that endures beyond my feeble understanding, beyond the media frenzy, beyond what the world is offering both in blessings and persecutions. I have been carried away by these two themes and for the life of me, I haven't been able to shake them.

This leaves me to watch the crimson red in our Autumn Blaze, or the fading gold's from an October Glory, and the chilly finger of dropping temps crawling up my arm from my favorite patio chair. I will keep my eye out for the leaf to fall, one after another, until I have a pile of them blowing away, to God knows where.

It'd seem the season keeps telling me what time it is and there are days my soul may cry for a little bit of heaven but, Oh!, the maples which ignite with life right here in front of me. And then there is the news which borough's like burned cigarette stains inside my aching soul for all the pain out there, that is more than one person can bear.

So I will heed, watch, and pray. And maybe my prayers will resemble groans and heartache, rather than intelligible words. But I will look for the rain that is surely to come as the Live Oaks, the Post Oaks, the Winged Elm, and the Chinese Pistachio trees begin to slip off their garments in praise.

I believe where evil increases, Good increases even more.

All in all, each season is a co-laboring one where there are no separations when people are one in Christ.

And if I peeled the layers back, took my French-English-Germanic-American Indian roots out of the equation, if I removed any identifying markers, and peered into the roots of each and every season, the ministry of reconciliation would look all the same. I need God and I need to be reconciled even if I'm swimming upstream against my angst and my own personal cynic.

"He has committed to us the message of reconciliation." 2 Corinthians 5:19 NKJ

We are called to be salty and we may have our ideas of how that looks when played out, but it too ends with peace for one another. I firmly believe that each of us was designed so uniquely that no two gifts will look the same, even though God says that there are many.

That has been like marrow to my soul. I know the world can not offer true peace, for that is as fruitless as the rumors surrounding its wars. But rather there is a peace, the kind Jesus gives, the kind that continues to baffle me, the kind which holds hands with the salty ones, the kind that seasons me. And that right there is the season of hope for me and a season I have come to know.

"Salt is good, but if the salt loses its flavor, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another.” Mark 9:58

~~tammy

I'm A White Girl in the Deep South And I'm "Going There"

2014-08-11T09:20:00.001-05:00

As a child, I remember passing swampy trees with large trunks in water with moss hanging from limbs in haunted fashion. I liked the windows rolled down with the Arkansas wind loudly roaring in my ears with a "Rhinestone Cowboy." Down large dirt roads, for miles, I remember driving out to my cousin's cotton farm. I remember long days of playing near the chicken's coop, running along a muddy creek, or climbing the old tractor in the barn, and flat horizon's of rows and rows of cotton stretching as far as my small eye could see.

There were nights spent on the screened-in porch, playing cards after midnight. And running between dusty lanes of low-lying white balls stuck inside twiggy branches. And chasing a dirt devil as if we could catch a tornado. Or standing on the edge of the freshly picked cotton piled high in a red metal trailer about 12 feet up and me falling backwards, laughing, into a puff of white. Some of the blackest things I knew back then were my bare feet.

My young southern-brewed days were full of 8-tracks and vinyl records with the likes of Neil Diamond, John Denver, Frankie Valli, and Barry Manilow. I caught toads as large as my hand and ran from yellow jackets and red wasps.

But when we moved into our country home near brown lakes and hot springs the neighbor girl, Carmen, soon became one of my closest friends. She was black. I remember being at her house, how kind her family was to me, and how I wished they could be my cousins too. I did not think of color or differences, back then. And I was not color blind. It just was.

It wasn't until we moved to Georgia that color became bigger than me. And if I wanted to be color-"blind", after living there, I no longer could.

As a teenager, I drove my white Ford pinto, with my snazzy tape player and my ultra-cool sunroof popped open, down the long strip where we cruised. And when I entered the Bojangle's restaurant on the south side I got a taste of segregation. I chatted distractedly with my friend as we pushed through the tinted glass door to order my favorite biscuit. It was then, I looked around. It was then I noticed color. It was then I noticed I was the whitest thing in there. It felt like the whole restaurant was looking at us, black eyes mostly. I didn't know there were "white" areas and "black" areas.

And when I took my guy, black friend home from work, I entered "small harlem." When some black girls hollered at me, to this day, I do not know why. But I can guess. And when my friend told me he could not walk in my white neighborhood at night because he might not live to tell about it, I hardly believed him. I didn't want to believe him.

I went to high school in the deep south. One of those schools being my favorite school of all the schools I ever attended. And I attended many. But this one was special. It was mixed, black and white. I felt the least amount of cliquish-ness among the class.

But there were also invisible lines, I soon found out. I didn't understand why the cute dark-haired white boy was shunned by my white friends until I found out it was because he dated a pretty black girl. They called him names behind their hands but if looks could kill, he'd be too dead to care. White circles and black circles were distinct even if we talked freely between them. But dating? That was a whole other level. So forget about the nice looking black boy on the football team who flirted with me in economics class. I was too scared to "go there."

So when I entered the military in my 20's, the multi-cultural life was a relief. One of my white best friends was in a "mixed" marriage and we talked about race and how these things were new to her. Being raised in the northwest and in a small white town, color was not something she knew much about. But when my friend lived in the south, well, these things became acutely a part of their life.

I despised what I saw. But I am white. Pale, milky white who lived among her white family with her Def Leopard and Motley Crue. And being white, I could sometimes feel the tension which was thick enough to cut my peppered steak at the local Golden Corral.

And it is not just the blacks. After living in Asia, it was another class of Asians who were so poor they were dragged off by their father. From their small hut where monkeys played near the outdoor shower deep in the jungle, young women were taken to work in brothels and strip joints. Beaten as a virgin, a girl is taken from her idyllic home, so she can "better herself" {or their families} to work in back alley clubs or red-light districts. Some American-born women looked down on them because of their seedy beginnings with our American culture which financed it. I know of their stories because they were my friends too. They, who loved their family and would invite me to their big parties with their cousins, neighbors, and people group from their culture. And I cautiously ate weird food I could barely pronounce much less spell.

This is a heart issue that is not exclusive to America or to black and white. Over seas, in places like Africa and the Middle East, ethnic cleansing continues to cycle through history. This is a spiritual issue. Bigger than me. Bigger than my white-ness. But not bigger than God. This is why I listen. Why I strain to learn from other's stories. I don't know how to give them happy endings. But I can listen anyway.

And for me, it was through friendships where color or ethnicity became background issues. I see a friend. Not an ethnic group. Not a particular color group. Not a pat-on-my-back-congratulatory gesture of mixing cultures. But just a friend. A person who's personality endears me, as an individual.

People change when they are in relationship with each other.

Jesus talked to a Samaritan woman, one who was married 5 times, who was living with someone even then, and his own disciples questioned his ethics and boundaries. But then He talked anyway. Because it was in her story, in their stories, that when I listen, I learn to cross lines. But even better, I learn to make friends.

~~tammy

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At Kelli's Unforced Rhythm's.

And joining these conversations about "Going there" started by Deidra at Jumping Tandem.

**Jennifer Lee's "I'm a White Girl From Rural Iowa....and I'm 'Going There'".

**Lisa-Jo's "I'm a white girl from South Africa and I'm 'going there'".

**Lori Harris' words about moving her white family into a black
neighborhood here.

**Alia Boston's "On Coming Together" here.

When You Wanted To Quit This Week & Rumors of Wars

2014-08-04T20:46:00.003-05:00

Like a faded distant mountaintop standing behind a haze of miles, the headlines scrolled on my computer screen, barely registering in my foggy mind. After traveling from a writer's Retreat and in direct contrast to trivial things, war. Conflict and death and strive and so much information, more than a person can bear. Far removed, by bodies of water and dead bodies of children and languages and cultures I don't understand, how does one comprehend the depths of it?

Exhaustion is real and tangible. This week I've fought heaviness which pulled my eye-lids down. My skin tingled in weariness like a small vibration throughout my body, only stilled by my bones laying in a quiet, soft place. An ache for the heavy mink blanket at the foot of my bed, beckoned a lost battle and so I caved to recalibrate. It is then, I enter an old song and dance of quitting. Everything. I want to stop my ears, my mouth, my heart. Stop everything, dead in it's tracks. Because who can take it all in? Or better yet, who can dish it all out?

So I force myself. I force rest, angry and frustrated that my body needs so much of it. Back to the patio I went, where Hummingbirds routinely suckle our Red Sage's and wasps flit around from one sweet smell to another. I watched our orange tabby stalk a Fork-Tailed Katydid among the red droppings of our pesky Crape Myrtles in full bloom weighing down the heavy limbs in awkward droops.

A large green sandstone from the front pasture of ankle-high Bermuda was found near one of our many gates. My hubby dug it up, lugged it around with his leather gloves, so we could place it among our white landscaped rocks much in contrast in both size and color. Large enough to bust a gut, this one required a front-end loader to transport past a tin-of-a-shack-dilapidated-abandoned mobile home, down the white-graveled drive, past the old house that was moved on the property over twenty years ago, and past hole-y metal shells of former, commercial chicken houses. With a thud and a few grunts, it was given prominence for a daily viewing directly in line with my favorite lounge chair.

Because I have a life to live and digging up boulders happens to be one of them. And how am I to turn over every stone in this world and live?

How does one carry the weight of the world, much less the weight of words?

And if writing is our way of unloading the weight, then how can we quit?

And maybe my words don't make big thugs and need man-handlers to push them around for me. But I need my words moved, to be re-moved. In some small way, if they're pent up they become boulders. Green hulking sandstones creating lumbering mountains insurmountable for me to climb. If I'm honest, I need to be moved. There are all the things happening, even if nothing new is under the sun, but they are new-to-me in this lifetime. Not new to God, but every beating heart lives them as if they were. Because who could live with such wars, rumors of wars, of fighting and in-fighting, over and over again, forever and forever, until the end? What mortal soul could survive such travesties?

This world needs less of many things, so much so that I could say it needs less of me too. That is, until once again, I am filled with such a word that I'm pregnant with the gestation of more. And I need to be moved and re-moved for a clear view of something I can only see when I put my hand to a proverbial pen. Even as wars rage and death seems as common as it is horrible, I feel the need to push, the need to deliver myself beyond myself to see myself different, to see the world different, to find the Hope in any of it.

I have a life to live. And maybe if I'm noticing it and it hurts like Hades, then maybe that's the best way to live it. The whole world is in birth pangs, so I will not escape the labor. But in-between the hard breaths and gut-belting boulders of the world's news, I will fill up. Then I will feel up this one life I've been given any way that is humanly possible because within me, He holds the key. And one day, rumors and wars will be locked away.

But that day is not today. So I watch my youngest son in his dark blue bathrobe with his ginger hair flapping like a bird-wing as he jumps on the trampoline. And I watch another sunset cast long shadows from a three-year old Red Maple while our yellow lab, Sammy, softly snores from his man cave. And despite the odds, for right now, I let them be children.

And I'll write what I see. Because this life is fragile and hard and sweet and birthing. And who wants to live it as a blind mute?

~~tammy

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**Joining Kelli's community of Unforced Rhythms and at Laura's Playdates with God.

"All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us." The Message 8:22-25

"Don’t fear: I am First, I am Last, I’m Alive. I died, but I came to life, and my life is now forever. See these keys in my hand? They open and lock Death’s doors, they open and lock Hell’s gates. Now write down everything you see..." Revelation 1:17-20

Despite The Pain of It #fmf

2014-07-11T11:30:00.000-05:00

Talking on the back porch when the skies are turning their shades of brilliant evening paints has become a marital past time verging on tradition. Many "unpublished" snaps clutter my i-phone and computer.

Lounging on the red and beige-stripped chairs I bought last year at Wal-Mart, my husband pauses as I grab my i-phone for another shot. Shaking his head {perhaps only in his thoughts}, in the usual fashion, because I am known by my distractions of such displays.

A pink cross is hanging over my house which I only notice, just now, as I include it here for this post. And how perfect.

At the end of my daily battles, my tears of failure and fears on being a {homeschooling} teacher, Mom, wife, writer, and keeper of things near and dear to my heart, this is where I belong. More than this family, these kids {near and far}, more than these parents who live down the graveled road and past our cattle guard. More than the sister who is the best-est friend a girl can have, who's willing to expand our circle and "adopt" more sisters along our merry way. More than the hardships endured and the small victories of accomplishing math without whine and grind. More than the anxiety building as my boys near high school. More than the laughter of good friends and sitting on cool leather couches visiting on a hot July day. More than the pleasure of meeting writing friends and finding ones coming out of the woodwork within my own circle, locally.

Bigger than a Dugger household, we belong to One who writes love letters in the sky. We belong, you and I, despite the pain of it some days.

We belong.

~tammy

Five Minute Friday is over here at Crystal Stine's today. Join us by linking your own post on "Belong."

Also at Diane Baileys, Photo Friday, join her debut link up today!

Summer Begs for Attention--Indepedence Day, Writing, Childhoods, & Farming

2014-07-02T21:13:00.003-05:00

I've been resisting. As if fighting myself and restraining words from coming is somehow making me better. Many times recently, I've made promises with myself to sit down and do the work because I need to write, for my own sake. Writing is where my crooked thoughts find a way from their cramped quarters. I've been here too many times to know-- this is just Summer.

The leisurely pace is stained on my toe-nails which are displayed by a simple slip of a toe between the throngs of my sandal. Even when the haywagon refuses to stack the two-hundred-plus bales dotting the Coastal hay meadow in long-lined rows due to a broken link in a chain, Summer begs for attention and cool heads.

Today, Hubby and I sweated in the back meadow even as I tapped my finger on the iphone screen to watch the weather radar show a large green area covering three counties, north of town. Rain. Farmers plan their crops according to the seasons and especially to rain. My hubby waited until just the right dry stretch to bale. So any rain on these small square, unprotected bales will ruin all two-hundred plus.

Building up in a small burst to the south of us, one dark puffy cloud after another, moved quickly into a mothership over us. I tapped the screen again. Nothing. Even as it was looking ominously close to a downpour we looked at eachother, shrugged our frustrated shoulders, and exhaled. "Whatever. If it rains, so what. We did what we could."

And we hauled what would fit in the back of a truck to shelter.

But the day ended and no rain. Late afternoon skies were pale blue with a sun boiling the ground in a humid haze resembling a mirage over the grass, known mostly in July and August.

Subtle changes make this miracle seem like a small twist of fate. But I know better. Creation testifies.

The 4th of July is coming and with it, more than half the year behind it. On a large area of Bermuda grass near the glittering swimming pool and city park straddling a black-topped street, are some of the most earth-shattering fireworks. Last year we sat as close as the colorful debris falling from the sky and into my hair, when the wind was blowing just so. The kids played with their friends as they weaved in and out of neighbors and small-town folk who had set up their blankets or chairs in hodge-podge fashion of an informal gathering with a spectacular show. Between holding my head at a ninety degree angle for Independence day brilliance and snapping it upright to stake down my boys in the crowd, a slight headache throbbed against my temples. But I hardly noticed.

Memories were being made. And day-by-day, our family is making history, for the days of "I remember when." Nostalgia cycles and recycles our own childhoods even as our children are creating theirs. It's celebrations like the 4th of July that we remember when, as we get older.

So if I write nothing else 'til Fall, with yellow puddles around the trunks of scruffy oaks, I lean in the seasons and press in the silence or the richness, whichever comes. And for now, I celebrate life, however it needs to be lived. Because soon enough, it will end, but only after I savor the wonder around me.

~~tammy

Join me at Kelli Woodford's place of Unforced Rhythm's.

When You've Wanderlusted Your Way In The World--an Atlasgirl reflection

2014-06-24T12:36:00.000-05:00

From Imperfect Prose to Atlas Girl, I'm following my friend, Emily Wierenga, as she shares her new memoir about finding our way for the weariest of travelers but this link describes it so much more eloquently-----> click here. If you're tired of searching and running, then Emily has something for you.

I remember the Christmas, as a child, when dolls where still a thing for me. They were very much apart of my imaginary world. My sister and I each received one that year. After ripping through the glossy red and gold paper topped with a bright bow, I found my fancy doll as if she stepped out of the mid-1800’s. A long hooped dress of baby blue and blonde tufts of hair were piled high on her head and a porcelain face buried under a flamboyant hat.

But then it was my sister's turn to open her package and when I saw her doll, I knew someone must of have made a mistake. I re-checked my package and indeed, "To: Tammy" was marked clear as day.

The dolls were as different as M&M's and hot salsa, sweet and spicy. My sister held the dark exotic one with a red flamingo style dress which was shorter in the front than in the back, in stark contrast to the modest baby hues of my creamy one. The Spanish doll held a hint of my dreams as I imagined a life far from Arkansas toads, bumble bees, and hot springs.

I could hear the finger cymbals clanking while dancers widely swirled and I could feel the grit in my throat of gypsies kicking up dust as they caravanned down dirty roads. I do not remember how Spain made such a deep on impression on me as a child, but since I had invested so much of my playtime to such adventures, my sister conceded to switch dolls with me that Christmas.

To this day, I never made it to Spain.

But I did travel exotic places just the way I dreamt I would as a child. Asia was never on my list, but it was my first experience of living abroad as a young adult who was now on her own, making her way in this big wide world. This place was so foreign and the language so far removed from lakeside camping under Arkansas pines that I quickly became homesick. Local holidays would include strange dragon costumes with fireworks and scary masks which made no sense to my english-speaking bubble.

At first these things were a delight, that even my red Spanish dancing doll could not compare. I marveled. I delighted. I walked with eyes wide open. I drank bizarre things. I ordered menu items I couldn’t describe. I befriended women of the sex trade industry. I walked red light district with friends. I saw darkness.

I saw much. And this helped me to grow up.

But even so, homesickness ached like a hollow pit threatening to eat my insides. Even when I lived among the beauty of Europe, years later, surrounded by castles, turrets, and stone walls etched magnificently against the green lush landscapes of Germany, the ache gnawed, still.

From place to place, an intense wanderlust began to grow with the pain of feeling far from home, the sickness festering despite where I lived. On one particular road trip across the Midwest, I saw a house sitting back off the road with Maple trees glowing their fire-y orange and red leaves in the front yard. This is home for the people who lived under it's roof and maybe they have a son who has memories of swinging from the lowest branch of that tree. As if from that one moment, I realized home is less about places.

It is by our relationships and it is known by this: home is where our familiar comfort resides. It is not just corral reefs, or autobahn highways, or elegant cathedrals, or Sugar Maples turning a lakeside picnic into a burst of golden reflections, or places and things, themselves. It is the people and lives lived together making history that gives home an enduring and endearing quality, and making it even more beautiful than the places we go.

~~tammy

Emily T. Wierenga, award-winning journalist and author of 4 books, has released her first memoir, Atlas Girl: Finding Home in the Last Place I Thought to Look. They say the book is like “Girl Meets God” meets “Wild” meets “Eat, Pray, Love.” I say the book is inspiring. You can grab a copy here.

Your Calling, Battle Cries, And What I've Been Doing

2014-06-18T13:44:00.000-05:00

I started this blog over four years ago as a baby bird being pushed out of her nest. Those first, awkward posts were sent out with my heart in my throat followed by panic. They were childish murmurings of one who stood on fledgling legs. One day, I don't remember what month or year, I emerged stronger, able to have less panic {most times}, and was able to stand on my own two legs that they call "your voice."

But lately I've been considering change and how exactly that looks or how much energy I have for one. And right now, in a sense, I'm returning to the hidden work of writing. I'm learning to fly, quietly these days. Yet there are times for these open spaces and I need these too.

In my {new} journal, I recently wrote: "Perhaps a little bit of self-loathing is prone to artists because we can despise our vulnerability when we look at it too close, too soon. Usually after several days, do our words or our work make some sense to us in a way we can have some mercy and grace for ourselves." But I share this because it is much less about me. This is much more about you.

Because we are called, you and I, and we might as well believe it. "When we are crawling on our dirty hands and knees into a grave like damaged goods, saying that they may as well 'Go ahead and bury my shattered, worthless pieces right here,' make no mistake, a light is still glistening off the jagged edges. And we may have to hold our sword so long our arms begin to shake from the weight of a lie we are fighting, but we are equipped for battle."

I wrote that for us {at Outside the City Gate}.

Today, I am over there beating these drums: In Which I Write About How You Are Called {A Battle Cry}? Will you join me?

~~tammy

When You Are On A Journey You Never Intended {a review of Finding Spiritual Whitespace by Bonnie Gray}

2014-06-04T20:35:00.001-05:00

"Even now, as I finish this chapter, I'm struggling. I'm trying to type words onto the screen but only blank space stares back at me.

If you've ever experienced anxiety--the kind that wraps around your heart with a cloak of stress--you understand how it tethers you back.

It keeps you silent."

~~Bonnie Gray, Finding Spiritual Whitespace

It wasn't so long ago, and yet it was, that Bonnie began writing this book, the same book that triggered her depilating post-traumatic stress disorder. I was there before it began, in the typical days of her Faith Barista linkups, those times when everything was just "fine".

But life has a way of dealing us a hand to find us, to heal us in ways we never knew we needed. Just like that. She went from sharing her routine Barista shots, to sharing vulnerable posts about a pit with a dark hole and how day by day, week by week, she was climbing her way out. Not all days were successful.

As a reader, I began to sit up straighter, lean forward in my chair, and read with greater interest than all the "normal" faith-brewed days of yore. Her words resonated and so it began, the readers journeyed on with her. There was a story here, my story, her story, our stories as readers and we found we were in the hole with her. She may have felt alone during those periods of crazy insomnia and crippling flashbacks, but the reader, I, was there too. As she continued to share her journey, she was writing for me as well. All the things she was learning along the way were--me too.

A whole readership was climbing out of the pit, alongside one another. I had clawed out a similar path, through words. And together, silently, separately, en-masse, we wrote our way back.

Then the book came. It filled in all the cracks for me. It was everything I imagined it to be.

And more.

But you do not have to be there from the very beginning almost 3 years ago, now. Bonnie tells how it began, the impact and stress, the life-altering changes that would be necessary to come, how she was slammed to the ground with PTSD's, quite literally. Through it all, how she must find whitespace to save her body wracked with the "doing"s of a survivor. And you too, reader, will be there with her, much in the same way I was all this time. We learn in telling our stories and in finding our rest too.

If you are needing permission to slow down, to breathe and smell the roses, this book will not only give you that, it will help you see the imperativeness of it. But more than that, this book will walk you down the corridors of an interior life, hand in hand, where your soul can find quietness in your own whitespace.

Consider this your invitation.

~tammy

"The world may view our broken stories and tell us it's better to hide them. To forget the shame we carry, put on a smile, and disappear under the work we do, the people we please, and the frenetic activity of keeping busy.

Spiritual Whitespace brings us to a different peace where we are real. Are you walking through a storm in your life, where you see parts of yourself from the past resurfacing? Are you afraid to move forward because it brings you back to where you've been hurt or insecure?.....

Sometimes we can't escape the places we find ourselves. But we can turn to Someone who has faced the trap of darkness, even though he was the Prince of Peace."

~~Bonnie Gray, Finding Spiritual Whitespace

How My Farm Is Teaching Me about My Mess

2014-05-27T12:33:00.002-05:00

My face flushes hot of the things a guest will see before they reach me. I try to remember, this is a work in progress. But the decay is so evident, so visible, so much in your face, there is no way of passing by in oblivion. If you've ever beaten the gravel path to my place, you know it too. And if you wonder what in the sam-hill-beans I'm talking about, then join me here at Nacole's Six In the Hickory Sticks for a picture and some words of what I've been reluctantly learning out here....

~~tammy

In Which I Ask You To See Beyond The Virtual--an {in}courage invite

2014-05-19T07:56:00.000-05:00

Peeking over our eastern border is the sun piercing the top of our wooded edge like a fire set atop the trees. A morning fog has finally cleared. I've already made my routine rounds of oatmeal breakfast and vitamins. Now, I am typing while tucked under thick blankets. My multi-pillow pile is behind me as I lean against my headboard. My writing music is playing through my ear buds as I stop to look at the white and yellow Knockout Rose which has gathered several blooms and pushed them up high enough for me to enjoy them. But this distraction has caused a ruckus in me and so I stir.

Instead of the comfy king-sized office, I find myself pulling the covers back to rush outside because the beauty of the day is too irresistible to be ignored. So I move locations to write you from the back porch, the sun is warming my legs in direct protest to the cool air that's trying to run me back inside. But I've been racking my brain for a few days, for clever words. So I stay, out of spite.

Maybe simple and slow is the way to start. Or deleting several paragraphs to begin again, as I already have done.

While enjoying this vitamin K dosage along with a gentle and natural breeze, I'm thinking how community is a lot like this day, this breeze even, and like these words I've tried to write you. Like the way I can struggle to say something or wrestle with needing a place to say something at all. Or how I can be left with a blank feeling as if I have nothing to offer, like a blinking cursor mocking my emptiness with one virtual eye turned up in a smirk. Other times, I'm watching the fog as it moves around me, marveling at the mystery of it's floating even as I'm shrouded by it, unable to see too far ahead, and for sure, to see any friends near by. Or the way in which a change of scenery, locations, a move of sorts, is needed before I find my voice again. Community can be all those things.

But then there are times, like right now as I recline outside, that community can also cause me to rush out and great it, for the beauty of it. There are seasons and times of day, different weather patterns, hot, cold, wet, dry, sunny, cloudy, windy, and so it is, the sky and air are metaphors of how community has her highs and lows.

As I wrote the last two paragraphs, my blind Labadar, Sammy, plopped his meaty behind next to me. This is a rare treat. Rare by the fact of age and health, but he's ever the faithful one around here.

I can learn a lot from Sammy. If anything testifies to being a buddy and friend, it is a lab. But alas, I am human with a slightly different brain and a soul that can wreak havoc in my relationships. However I've found time and again: I am wired for community, for a buddy and to be someone's buddy. But there are varying degrees. And numbers are only part of the equation because I know, it is quality over quantity when trust is involved. And social media? There are limits. And yet.

I've seen how this whole social networking has forged friendships, communities, and even marriages {like mine}. I've been able to be part of my extended family, shared our lives through pictures, comments and moments I'd miss if not for social media. I've witnessed firsthand relationships crossing virtual lines to meet flesh and bone. I've hugged necks I never thought was possible after three years. Three, I-don't-expect-this-to-ever-amount-to-much, years of blogging with others, replying, reading their journeys, only to reap dividends before my eyes and in my arms, literally.

So when I joined my first {in}courage community group over a year ago, a group for writers no less, I was skeptical but willing. However, I was not sure I fit in with the crowd. Not sure if I considered myself writerly enough, but I came. I nervously entered this new thing they called a community group, not knowing if it would work out for me. But right out of the gate, on the first day, after swapping some "about me"s, I found others also questioning their writerly-enough-ness. Nothing like those "you too"s to make a person feel at home. And every session after that has been like groundhog dog, in the best of ways. Even when I joined the group for Prodigal Moms the first time this past session, there was a collective sigh of "you too"s. So if social media gets a bad rap, these are the ways it is redeemed.

This is where I'm handing you a white cardstock invite, the size you can tuck into any pocket. Carry it in a place on the front of your shirt, if you must. The one closest to your heart. The place you can remember how near we can be out here in these inter-webs. Because I need someone's like you to come along side me too.

So if you are questioning who are your friends and where are your people, may I offer a starting place? May I point you to where I'm dreaming of a community that sees past our virtual screens for the real lives being lived behind them?

May we hold virtual hands until we can hold the flesh and blood ones? And should our flesh and bone not meet this side of Heaven, may we hold each other's hearts?

~~tammy

Amy Breitmann and I are co-leading an {in}courage community group for Women Without Church Community. Here's my awkward invite. There are some blooper recordings floating some where in cyber space. Behind the scenes were hysterical laughter and outlandish behavior. But when the camera was "on" and recoding it was deer-in-the-headlights. Blink. Blink. Blink.

When You Forget About Regrets

2014-05-12T10:48:00.000-05:00

Humidity sticks to me like a sponge swelling with invisible moisture. But here on the banks of the lake, a wind is blowing. Strong and sure.

We spread out a quilt. I don't recall how this particular quilt came to be part of the family, but one day, possibly from emptying out a house of a parent-in-law who had passed on, it appeared. Come to think of it, I'd be willing to gamble this is a relic of some bygone heritage from that old house. It had been forgotten, shoved back into some corner or box when we finally discovered it in our own house. It is perfect for picnics.

The lake is in front of us and all four of us sit facing the water, letting the warm wind whip through our clothes, our hair, and our napkins. We ate there at the water's edge. But we weren't the only picnickers that day. Another family close by is grilling and the smoke of a juicy meal is wafting down to us on the quilt. There are kids splashing in the cold water while a woman sits on the dock, leisurely watching.

There is no rush. No jockeying for lanes. No reckless driving to get to the next redlight. No construction zones under a mixmaster of multiple highways causing accidents or road rage, which seems to be all the rage of Dallas traffic.

We'd left Dallas/Fort Worth behind from a three day visit in the heart of downtown and now were are at this lakeside retreat only minutes from our home. Most days, we are far removed from the clamoring, the racing, the aggravations, and the outright madness. All the bustling, noise, and the obnoxious, they are easy finds on the streets of a big city.

But even in Dallas and Ft. Worth, once we stepped out of the car, there was relief to finally walk and see the Elm trees, the black top roads, and breathe in the natural humid air instead of the air-compressed-conditioned one inside a metal car. Once we were face to face with others, the people forgot all about the hectic time it took to get there. They were pleasant. Friendly. Unforced and unhurried.

All that is behind us now as we sit here quietly sipping our drinks and eating on this forgotten quilt. Out here, among dairy farms, cowboys, and hay meadows, there are no overpasses stacked high with four-laned highways underneath. Our lanes are country ones, where you must pull over and be neighborly because they are barely big enough for two.

I'm pulled from my thoughts as a napkin is being yanked out from under my leg, by the wind. I secure it further under the weight of me as I survey the clouds above us and the direction from where the wind is coming.

Across the lake, there are houses. I can see them with their green yards and big windows. And I wondered out loud, "Do you think they ever get tired of looking at this?" My family looks up from their ponderings and we all agreed, "No. Never."

Maybe what the lake offers is the invitation to an unhurried view of living? It's not lost on me that many of these homes may be owned by Dallas transplants who retired or escaped, I'm not sure. Then I confess out loud, "If we ever decide to give up farming, I want to live here." Once again we agreed, so that is the plan. Just in case.

As if the humidity wasn't enough, we fold our quilt to put it back in the cab of the truck, and wrangle our bikes from the back. We trek the state park's road, stop by a rustic shelter of a cabin with four bunkbeds ready for the next camper, and pass a large R.V. with their potted plants and outside chairs. We stop under some pine trees and Sweet Gum's for a water break, a bit out of breath from the hill we just conquered. The park rangers wave a friendly hello from their utility vehicle as they pass by.

By the time we return to where this day began, we are hot and tired. We pull out the quilt one last turn, to sit by the water. Our stay is shorter. And then we decide to load up and call it a day.

A good day.

A Sunday.

A day in which we are reminded, why it is we love small town living. We don't live on the main roads of easy access. People don't just stop by. They have to come with intention and usually an invitation. We're far removed from towns. Far removed from getting places where I can be with friends. And some days, I regret that.

But then, there are days like today.

Perhaps, the key to not having regrets is a life lived at a pace where we can breathe long enough to remember what good things are still within our grasp. Being slow and far may seem too long in coming or in getting us somewhere, but then some days we find that's what we needed the most.

~~tammy

Sharing today at Kelli's place, Laura's Playdates with God, and excited to be at Kristen's place for this new link up. Also joined Lyli's Thought Provoking Thursdays.

The Risk of Hospitality, Community, & What You Will Learn-- an {in}RL Post

2014-04-28T07:44:00.000-05:00

There's been something in this life that you have wanted to be a success, so you know of time and energy. You plan, you calculate, and when the time draws near, you wait for its fruition. But there are many days you waited, only to watch it's demise. This story is for those times, too. Risk rarely goes the way we plan.

But nothing is wasted. Because risk is a learned skill. Despite outcomes, at least you are practicing. Familiarity does not make it less pleasant, just less paralyzing.

When I began blogging over four years ago, I nay-sayed my words because fear was a monster continually living inside my head. But I wrote anyway. I wrung my hands. I would have terrible anxiety and night sweats. I'd chide myself for my perception of saying it wrong. But that is what risk does.

This year, I went on a limb {for me} to host an {in}Real Life gathering at my home and half-begged a good friend of mine, Jenny, to co-host with me. Having moved so much in my life, hospitality was the least of my gifts and the least of my experiences. But living in a small community has stretched me.

Hospitality is a risk.

There's no guaranty of reciprocation, much like friendship.

I did not expect many. Was not really sure, if any would show up. After all, I live in the backwoods with a bumpkin address. To come to my home is a commitment in both time and distance. So I was not surprised by the cancellations or those who wrote me personal notes about their inability to come. But failure, you know? An ugly head reared a time or two. I had to beat back a lie. I thought of those who'd mock me. The former friends who were out there and saw my invite go out to the world for small-town gossip fodder. But really? What could they say, that they would not say already?

So I loosened my grip. I gave it back to God. I resigned myself because risk humbles your soul and makes God bigger than yourself.

When Saturday came closer, we had one solid RSVP, besides me and the co-host. Our theme was an indoor picnic for it's casual setting and fun flair of pink checkered table clothes, quilts, baskets, and flowers. Jenny and I were like two high school friends getting the house dressed up for somewhere to go. Then I received a text from a friend's unexpected notice that she would be there. Then, the door bell rang with another unexpected guest, and then a phone call from someone who got lost on the way. And before long we were grabbing chairs from other rooms. All in all, we had eight when the ninth guest could not make it, at that the very last.

We ate sandwiches, veggie chips, and fresh fruit. Pink lemonade was served with mason jars. Cold water was chilled in an antique pressure-cooker pot. We laughed at the zany ice breaker questions provided by the {in}courage team as we passed a glass bowl for the next person to pull theirs. Jenny talked about a ministry which shares women's stories and is close to her heart, called Trades Of Hope. And of course the best picture taken, was by Jenny after she snapped us saying the word she suggested. I mean, who would not get deliriously happy at, "Dinner Rolls!!"? Because, this is what bread means to a girl. Unfortunately.

Then we presented our items from home that were part of our story. And the first girl went, the one I least expected, and she flew past the "fine"s. I pictured a door. Just like a friend told me this week, as her finger made like sign language and said, "It takes one person to bravely be a door to make a way for others." Our friend was that door.

When it was my turn to share, I picked the antique pot holding our chilled water. It was a story I've written about many times. But there's something about telling our stories in real life, face to face, which cracks our well placed dams. For years, my tears have been carefully stored behind a wall where I could regulate their release, on my schedule, and in my timing {as best I could manage}. In other words, I did not cry much, at all. Rarely.

Mostly never.

But as I shared my same old story, the one I've told a ga-zillion times on my blog, I choked on a sob. My lip started quivering and I threw my hand to mouth. Because what in the world? I briefly could not talk as I tried to find the emergency button to close the dam. But instead, I was swallowing something that was trying to rise out of me and not have a full blown breach. Heaven forbid. I even said to my {in}Real Life friends, "This is stupid! I write about this all the time on my blog!" Then I said the obvious. "You can write about hard places, but saying them face to face, is a whole other element." Because real life community dredges up things our soul needs to shed and bare.

There is something about God's Light shining through others, that can touch areas that we never knew where there. And when friendships or church hurt you, that's when you dig deeper to God's heart. That's when you scour His words or you seek a praise from your dry and thirsty lips. But eventually, you get up and you try again.

You risk.

This is not about faking it 'til you make it, community. 'Though we can have brief moments of depth with people and never go there again with them, but that does not make it less real. This is about a gritty bravery of being naked with an intentional community willing to go there with you. This is about setting captives free and shedding Light on darkness. This is about knowing some of our hidden pieces are poison to our souls. This about releasing lies and shame.

This is {in}Real Life and it is not found in numbers. It is about invitation, despite how many do or do not cross your threshold. This is about becoming a door. Because no matter what it is God has called you to do or not do, risk will be there too. You are developing your risk-taking skills because another one is sure to come.

And you are determined to not be paralyzed by it.

~~tammy

The "Dinner Rolls!!" picture

Sharing this over at {in}courage, Laura's, and Michelle's place today.

the other side of rock bottoms & the glue that holds us {a Five Minute Friday}

2014-04-18T18:43:00.000-05:00

This is us, you know. Smeared by the sticky mess of those days, long gone. You and I, stuck like so much Elmer's paste. Who can touch just one dab without leaving a trace? A dried stain or two, landing outside their designated spots.

But isn't that part of the fun, the challenge, the fight, the sweetness of getting your hands dirty, even if it goes awry some days. I can see my faded glitter still sparkling in the paleness of crusting and peeling layers. Yours is more stout with strength, like some silly gorilla. Really, where did they ever come up with such a name?

Children's play doesn't come without risk of wrecking the craft of a masterpiece. Years go and go, and some days, re-arrange normalcy. But here we are.

I lean hard. The Deposit is just what I'm banking on these days. Because I don't have it in me to hold it all together. Even glue becomes brittle with age.

So how about you press in and I'll fall? And just like some woman who said He was here and then gone, a cord will carries us along, like a rope or a song.

~~tammy

At Lisa-Jo's today.

when you feel the ordinary weariness of today

2014-04-07T15:59:00.003-05:00

The rain has come now, for three days. Our ditches along the driveway, stretch a third of a mile long and have been working overtime to keep puddles slowly draining away from our graveled path. There's a bit of cabin fever happening and today holds much the same. I've grabbed the black and white blanket with a picture of a horse on it, one too many times, in reprieve from the cold and wet.

These are the days I hermit away. I become a bear of hibernation, craving sleep in a dark cave for a bedroom. All of this becomes a bit dangerous for my soul to recluse with such tiresome isolation, like the fiddle-back spiders we sometimes find on the farm, here.

But there is green, lots of shades of green as if each rain drop holds pure oxygen of emerald dyes. Our ducks have happily splashed in the mini pools forming hodge-podge in our backyard. They've flocked from one end of the greenery to the other without so much as a care for the cold. Our two farm dogs, which lazily take turns sleeping with their backs against our patio door, have been friskier of late, except when lightening was striking so close and loud as too feel like bombs being dropped around us. Then they huddled like scared rabbits and shaking leaves about to take flight in a blustery Fall wind.

Ordinary is as long as the days are in coming, each one after the other. Sometimes, I'm trying to muster up the energy of my 10 year old self, imagining I could harness something of those by gone days. But it's in the ordinary pattern of waxing and waning, between taking on the world to crawling under the nearest fuzzy blanket, for which I reluctantly accept. Because we must give permission to our selves to rest, to fill up, to pour out, and to somehow balance our lives.

But just as the rain rushes with such energy, it's taken away by pipes and drains, to be carried off like my own stamina seems to do on these kinds of days. I wonder if life was always this way or if I'm just now alive enough to notice the lulls.

God gives the seasons, the rains, the blizzards, and the hibernations. Because you must find ways to go inside and be with those you have in your life, today. To find time to curl up on a soft, brown couch to read and be available to watch homemade videos with Lego characters or hear yet another creation of imagination.

These are the simple ordinaries, the times you're reminded of restful reflections in all the slumbering anticipations of change. There'll be time for outside walks and glorious blue skies making your heart burst with gladness. There'll be park days with scooters and kids bounding over obstacles and friends talking together between scolding the children to include someone in their play.

But today, there is only a simple-ness unraveling, a time to grieve, or mourn, to rest, and open your eyes to look around, like a turtle poking his head from the shell. So you blink the sleep from your eyes, because surely God is in the place and your soul is too weary to know it. And there's more to life than that king bed beckoning you to sleep your life away and you want to live it.

This is why you weakly call on the Spirit to do miracles, to breathe a holy breathe of life because this flesh is tiresome and weak. And so you grope in the dark because He never leaves us nor forsakes even when are minds are wearied by carrying these bones He gave us. Nothing is too difficult and so you hand that ordinary weariness of the day, to rest it firmly in His hands for whatever may. And then you watch the skies because surely the sun is coming soon, just as the morning rises after the dark.

"When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!" Romans 8:10 The Message Bible

~~tammy

I'm over at Laura's and Michelle's, join me?

maybe today is the day you need this {on owning your space}

2014-04-02T15:12:00.000-05:00

The windows are drawn mid-way and my writing music is playing in my ears through the same earbuds I use when jogging. These are the days where I want to be outside but I'm stuck half-way like my blinds, letting half the light in while also keeping half the dark with me too.

The wasps are looking for sweet scents to investigate along our back patio windows that we keep spraying with peppermint. Our Summer Maples have already exploded in red and have turned green, small infant leaves coming to life under Spring skies. Speaking of which, are overcast today with hints of rain, short sleeves, and leisurely watching Post Oak trees gently swaying.

I pause here to show up. Because yesterday, I taught homeschooling high schoolers about "owning your space" when public speaking. So I preach to myself.

I come, just because. When things feel all fumbly, from pulling this way and that-a-way, I can neglect. I go where He leads and sometimes I need to be lead home, as if I'm a pigeon needing to hone my skills by bringing my message back, full circle.

Because you can give and give 'till you give out. So you must refresh. After blogging for over four years, I've learned this well {even when it's not so well}. And so you must find your cadence between, home, writing, speaking, jobs, or just looking someone in the eye.

And I come, if for nothing else, to root for you as well. Maybe today is the day you need this as much as me.

So it is: I cheer you onward. Because I need you to show up for yourselves too. Walk up to the front of your life and stand solidly right there for a moment. Breathe deep. Look around and they will look back. Engage those watching and get down to business, speak with passion and from the heart, play like nobody's business, love like there's no tomorrows, but show up. Relax those muscles and give it all you got.

Show up and live this one life. Own your space, where ever that is, today.

~~tammy

Sharing at Laura's and I'm at E.E's today for her revival of the Saturday Evening Post.

laying down idols like an 80's legwarmer

2014-03-25T06:26:00.003-05:00

me, as a teenager around 1986

Even though I considered myself a punk rocker in those days, I still grew up on Tootie in the "Facts of Life," "The Cosby Show," "Square Pegs," and was highly, fanatical over the "Lost Boys."

Being a true punker meant listening to non-commercial music like the band I watched when slipping into a Dallas club with a mohawked friend. I didn't particular care for the mosh pit or the screeching songs. I found the people more interestingthan the music. Besides, I was a "poser" because I liked "Yaz", "Dead or Alive", "Depeche Mode", "Tears for Fears", and "Howard Jones." I was more of the "new wave" group than punk. Walking the line to one genre didn't fit me. So whatever I secretly liked was kept hidden from the hard-core types.

I had short spiked hair as an eclectic 80's girl who didn't care much for being pigeon-holed. I fancied "Purple Rain" and "Sixteen Candles." My rose-patterned, tie-dyed jeans were mostly tapered to my leg with black ankle boots and a camouflage jacket with one large dangling earring {just ONE, on purpose}. The day I wore all pink might have had something to do with "Pretty in Pink." But then there were days of dressing in all black, with not a stitch of color, before it was considered gothic. One girl asked me, "Are you going to a funeral?" Maybe I was, I didn't know. I never thought of it that way.

Back then, I didn't want to be a "Jesse's Girl" or "Jack and Diane", 'though my name was changed to Diane for a good many years of my life {after adopting my middle name}. I didn't want to be a "Maneater" or do the "Mickey" or wear parachute pants. And so what if I veered off into the "Rapture" by Blondie or "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaac, and watched "Loveboat" or "Fantasy Island"? And maybe I considered cassette tapes the hippest thing since 8-tracks, Barry Manilow, or Neil Diamond? But those weren't things I would necessarily say outloud.

Fitting into a group was hard. There were hidden, and not so hidden, standards for being "one of them." You may leave High School but sometimes it still preys on you. The need for approval from a certain group can still creep back in like your 80's hair. There's no two "Diff'rent Strokes" about it, you may still feel like a "poser" among peers, keeping your likes and dislikes to yourself, because well, the group and approval. You want them both. And let me say in my Robert Palmer swag: we can be "Addicted to Love" in the worst way. But get this part loud and clear: you are pre-approved so tell your love idol {aka, approval addiction} to just “Beat it.”

{Courtesy of the 80's. You're welcome.}

~~tammy

Join us as Jennifer Lee starts a Love Idol revolution.

To keep this 80's Love Idol train going, click on this sista's Glamour Shot of Amy Breitmann, because we are laying down our approval for Aquanet {or men and women} to know we are pre-approved.

On a more serious note, Love Idols are seriously damaging to us and Jennifer Dukes Lee is talking about it in her new book.

Also, have you seen this two+minutes of loveliness?