Proverbs 14:1...a wise woman builds her home but a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands.

I am living in what I call survival mode right now. Struggling with losing a daughter to marriage...struggling to stay connected to my husband after 29 years of marriage...struggling with feelings of failure and loss that I cannot find words for. So...I am just sitting in the desert...waiting. I am waiting for the manna from heaven...for the drink of water from the well of life...waiting to not feel strangled and without air...to be able to draw a full breath without my heart breaking. The wilderness is unmapped, unknown. I do not care for it...but I do trust the God who created the wilderness just like he did the sky...ocean...forest. I trust that if he created the wilderness.....he is in charge of it. I know that he has not left me nor forsaken me...even if I cannot feel him around me. I am waiting then on him. I choose not to trust my feelings...not to trust what is in front of me...not to trust my circumstances..but to trust in the great I AM...my precious Savior who has never forsaken me. He is with me..he is working all things to my good. He is busily conforming me to the image of his son. I choose to trust Him instead of me. I am sure that he who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it. He will continue to support me...to love me...to grow me. He is faithful and I am thankful.

I have debated and debated writing a blog about husbanding from a wife's viewpoint but decided that it may be helpful to say some things that are general about so many marriages. I read all these marriage blogs about marriage that make it sound so perfect, so divine. While I am thankful for good Godly marriages that shine Jesus, I am also well aware that marriage is as much about heartache and hard work as it is love and fluffiness.

People want to touch it...they run their fingers through it...they laugh when it springs back. Goodness... my hair has been a real source of wonder for those around me since I curled it....the only thing is...the curl is fake. It is the result of a very costly well done perm. It acts like a regular head of curl would act but there are distinct differences that set it apart.

I hear it when I go to Wal-mart....when I stand in line at subway...when I do business at the bank....everywhere I go...

Time is a funny thing. It moves all the time. It moves quietly so you're not even aware of it leaving. Life happens and things are busy and it just keeps moving while its busy. Today my daughter, my youngest daughter Rebecca, got engaged. What a joyful lovely day for Becca and all those who love her! And while I sit here on my couch (that my precious beautiful friends bought me) I think about all the time I've had to love Becca. I can see her so clearly down through the years. I see her running around with a basketball in her shirt because she thought it was funny. I see her hiding from her sisters behind the tree while she was yelling I'm here I'm here. I see her crying because she lost Jewel Parkhill whom she loved so dearly .....asking all kinds of questions about God and death and why. I see her face lit up when daddy comes in the door... so excited to see him. I see her wrestling with her sisters in the living room floor laughing hysterically because she could finally take them. But the thing I'm thinking most right now is the ending of this season. Did I treasure it enough? Did I love it? Sometimes when our kids are little we think things like ....its always going to be this way ...what good am i doing? It's because we can't see the long-term picture. It's because we get caught up in the small everyday things and we forget we are raising adults who someday will leave. I thank God today that I treasured every minute. I think God that even the hard days were treasures to me and her dad. While I sit and remember I pray this... I pray that I will love this new season. I pray that I will love this new joy. I pray that I will only mourn for a short time and then I will rejoice in what God is doing with her.. to her.. through her ...and for her. Seasons come and go. Time does not stop. You can choose how to spend your time. You can choose how to enjoy your seasons. You can gripe about the snow... you can gripe about the cold.. you can gripe about the heat...but you cannot change the seasons of your life. They will pass and they cannot be retrieved. I beg you live them with screaming joy....live them with passion...live them unto the glory of God who made them. Live them with tears and laughter. Live them in real genuine truth. Live them so that you wont regret when they are gone.

Three scenarios women never refer to as gossip..

I am the daughter of Dave and Joyce Hoke...the Granddaughter of Pearl and Bud...the sister of Cindy and Judy...and more aunts and uncles and cousins than I can name. That is the family I was born into by birth. And I thank God for every single part of them...the good and bad. But in my lifetime I have been blessed to be born into another family...the family of God. What has that meant in my life? Let me break it down in practical ways.

James 3:10 My brother out of the same mouth pour blessing and cursing. This should not be so.

We have a Wii and we have a program called Wii fit. It is an exercise dealie . . . how in the world exercise could ever be thought of as fun is beyond me, but, anyway, one of the goals of this program is to create good posture and balance. Anyone who knows me knows that balance and me are, well, not well acquainted. I am the reason weebles wobble and do fall down. So, it is a hoot for my family to watch me "balance" on the Wii. There is one game in particular called soccer head. In soccer head you are supposed to stand on the Wii board and move your upper body to hit the soccer balls with your head. Now, this is a hard enough challenge but you also have to miss the stinking panda bears and dirty tennis shoes they throw at you. Well, I have consistently scored under 10. I see one coming to the left and jerk all the way left to get it, then to the right and jerk all the way to get it and then they throw one through the middle. I inevitably cannot get my body back to the middle. I cannot get it to stop swinging from one side to the other. The ones in the middle always get away, and the pandas and tennis shoes on the outside always kill me. No balance whatsoever!