J and I are starting a house cleaning business. she ordered the starter kit and they should be in any day now. we already have a bunch of customers lined up. as soon as we start getting a little profit stash built up, we’re going to add pet grooming to the business, which i will do. washing dogs, clipping nails, that sort of thing. we’re also painting the walls back to neutral when families PCS. that ought to make some decent money.

i dyed my hair back to dark brown last night. i really like it. i’ve been getting into couponing lately (i know right….) and i had a coupon for the hair dye, so i got two boxes for really cheap. my hair is pretty long now, so it takes two boxes.

next weekend (the 8th of septembre) J and I are going on a trip to a town outside of Sendai to help clean up after the tsunami. arron doesn’t really want me to go, but this is something i have been wanting to do for a long time. he thinks i will get cancer. i don’t think i will. we will only be there for one day, and we’re not going to Sendai, we’re going to a town outside of Sendai. and if something were to happen, i would rather it be helping than, say, smoking cigarettes.

well, i think that’s all the updates for now. until next time.

i am frustrated. i have been making every effort to be a better wife. i have been keeping the dishes and the laundry done. i clean up after myself, i’ve been making dinners and desserts. i made a peach cobbler yesterday which turned out really good. and i have been making efforts to keep our “between the sheets” time active. that’s hard for me because of things in the past, but i have been really working on it and things have gotten much better.

so recently, i tried to communicate with him. he had a day off and i came to him and told him the awful thing that every man must dread one day hearing from his wife, “i want romance.”

he got that deer in the headlights look. “………………ok………………” very, very cautiously he said it. like he was afraid that if he made the wrong move, said it the wrong way, or unintentionally flinched, i would morph into a herd of velociraptors and destroy the entire base from the inside out.

“I know it’s hard for you, so I’m just trying to communicate the way that you can understand. I’m not going to hint and speak in some code and expect you to understand it. I’m just telling you bluntly, directly, and to the point. You have the day off, so I just want to have a romantic evening.”

in retrospect, maybe i should have given him time to prepare? i don’t think so, because i have done that before and it resulted in him putting it off and putting it off and then never doing it. then i get a wound that never heals because he avoids talking about it, we go round and round, it’s just bad, it’s a very bad experience for both of us. so this was just me trying a different approach. well here’s what wound up happening. he got nervous. i won’t belittle the situation, he was downright terrified. and what does he do when he’s scared? the worst. thing. possible. he makes jokes. he turns into a class clown. it’s a defense mechanism, i know, but it really is the very worst defense mechanism the poor boy could have. it made me feel like he wasn’t taking me seriously at all. i became frustrated.

i tried to stay calm. i said all sexy-like “i’m going to go take a shower” as i sauntered out of the room “maybe you could join me?”

well that didn’t go very well. it was okay, i guess. it was really just a frustrating experience. military showers are practically stand up showers. there’s a tub, yeah, but it’s like cramming two cows into the back of short-bed. it’s uncomfortable, whoever isn’t *in* the water is freezing their rat-arse off, we like different water temperatures anyway, you try to sit down and there’s knees everywhere, and at that point the person in the water (me) has water in their face, so they try to back up and there’s a person there, they try to sit forward and there’s a faucet in their face, and they’re hacking, sneezing, and spitting up water–we wound up  just washing as fast as we *possibly* could and got the heck out of that hell-hole.

so next we tried dinner and a movie. well that was a flop. it wasn’t romantic. it was just dinner and a movie. we’ve done it a thousand times. don’t get me wrong, spending time with my husband is always special. but we rush through dinner, ignoring each other, and the movie is just two people staring at a tv. next to each other. miraculously at the same time. it’s not intimate. it’s not special. it’s cold and dead.

what i’m starving- literally starving- for is intimacy. romance. i want to feel like my husband said to himself “gosh i just really love my wife and i want to do something special for her. i want to go the extra mile and take time out of my day to do something just for her.”

he says “well, i make dinner for you?” well, yes. but i get the impression- considering the man loves to cook- that he’s making dinner for him because it’s what he enjoys doing. i love the food he makes, but to me, it’s like when a man goes hunting 365 days out of the year,  plops a freshly murdered carcass on the counter, and says “hey babe. i did this for you.”

no. you did it because you get something out of slaughtering animals. bringing home din-din was a bonus. what would be special to *me* is a candle-light dinner with flowers and conversation. a walk in the park (which for the love of all that is holy is no longer under construction) or another camping trip. that camping trip was awesome.

it’s frustrating being a woman, because you *have* to give the man what he wants. he gets sex because it’s a woman’s duty to give her man sex even when she doesn’t really feel like. why doesn’t she feel like it? because she’s not getting intimacy. she doesn’t feel special and loved. she feels belittled and degraded because when she’s asks for intimacy, he rolls his eyes and sighs and says “well what do you want? i make dinner sometimes.”

intimacy and romance in a marriage is JUST as important as sex. sex and intimacy are not the same thing. being intimate is more than a roll in the sheets. it’s sharing secrets, inside jokes, communicating without talking, a massage, LISTENING TO ONE ANOTHER. he comes home from work and vents about how the people in his shop are just so frustrating to work with. i love him. i listen to him, i encourage him, i don’t just say “uhuh. yeah. uhuh. right.” i actually listen to what he’s saying and i hurt for him because he is so smart and such a hard worker and i know that man deserves better. i want to make his life better. what i really want is to go into that shop and snatch a knot in all their tails. but i can’t. *rolls eyes*

in return, i want my feelings justified. when i say “i’m telling you seriously, baby. it really hurts me when you come into the kitchen and make me feel like i’m not doing anything right. this is my meal, please just let me make it. encourage me, don’t tell me that instead of making the marinade, i should have just let Jack Daniels do it.”

instead, what i get is “look. you need to quit being so sensitive. toughen up.” that’s not validation of my feelings. that’s belittlement and degradation. it hurts me and it makes me even more starved for intimacy.

so what’s the solution here? how, oh how, does a woman convince her man that she needs more? i don’t know. i guess next i’ll just try doing it myself. if i want romance, i guess i’ll just have to show him myself what romance is.

when i logged into wordpress today, my plan was to rant about how frustrating it is as an airwife to watch people on base be stupid, particularly married men. but then i wound up reading some of my past posts and i was just amazed. the Lord touched my heart in early of august last year to begin revival in my heart. i didn’t really question why, it sounded like a good idea, it sounded exciting, so i pursued revival. i was on a complete mountain top and i never wanted to come down. but through it all, in the back of my mind, i knew that i couldn’t stay up there forever, hard times were coming. revival is followed by hard times- testing, refinement, and beautification. still, i relished the revival while i was there. it lasted from august nearly all the way through october.

in early july, the call came. it was very early in the morning around 2am. it was arron. he sounded upset. “you need to call your parents.”

“why?”

“your grandmother is in the hospital. it doesn’t look good.” i knew that gramma was in for a surgery, but she was always in the hospital. she always came out okay.

“but dad said it seemed like she would be okay?”

“no baby” his voice broke up “they….they’re hoping you can get home in time for the funeral.”

i burst into tears. all i could get out was “no! no, no!”

he cried with me for probably a half an hour before i needed to call my parents. i was able to get through to my mom, my dad was in the room with gramma. i told her to go into the room and whisper into gramma’s ear that i was on my way.

leadership on base was amazing. they were able to get me on a kc10 within two hours. i was absolutely out of control while driving to the pax terminal. it was and still is the only time i have ever experienced stand-still traffic on base. i was literally screaming at God, begging him to make the way, getting me to the pax terminal. if i missed that flight, i was convinced i would not see my gramma. i BEGGED him to keep her alive, “please just let me see her one more time!! PLEASE!!!!!”

by some miracle, it was like He slowed time and i was able to get to the pax terminal with time to sit with (i believe it was) the colonel’s wife and have coffee. i honestly am not sure exactly who she was. it was all a blur. i really need to find out and send her a thank you note… she was a great comfort and helped distract me a bit so i could keep it together. after she left, God provided me with another friend who i didn’t even know worked there. he walked over and asked me if i was okay, “you seem very upset. where are you going?”

“my gramma is in the hospital and they don’t think she is going to make it. i’ve never had someone so close to me die. it never occurred to me that gramma wouldnt’ be here forever.”

“oh gosh, i’m so sorry….i wish there was something i could do. i’ve experienced it and i know that it is very hard. i know it doesn’t help right this very moment but i want to tell you that it does get better. and remember that i will be praying for you.”

we talked for a few more minutes until they took us out to the plane. i’m very grateful that someone i didn’t even know that well decided to reach out and be there for me also.

and at this point, i need to take a break because writing about this is very hard. i will continue tomorrow.

my beautiful gramma and my papa

I was sharing my bed with my great grandmother. I looked over at her, worried about how I could protect her, but knowing there was nothing I could ever do. My mother and grandmother were in both their beds on the other side of the room. I could hear the whistling wind and heavy rains outside and I knew it wouldn’t be long. It started out like the sound of a faucet left running and quickly changed to the sound of a waterfall. This wasn’t rain; this was the ocean coming straight for us. I looked towards the front door in a panic. Just as I fixed my eyes on the lock, both of the large bay windows in the living room shattered from the pressure of thousands of tons of water tearing through. I grabbed my great grandmother and turned her towards me, facing away from the water. She wasn’t even fighting it. She wasn’t afraid. In only a matter of seconds I had lost my grip and was swept across the room. Both windows on either side of me shattered, and bit by bit the wall gave way to the pressure of the sea. Clinging to the wood for dear life I knew I could not hang on for long.

“Why, God, why?” I screamed. “Not my family! Please don’t take them! Lord, save me! I can’t do this on my own, Father, help me!!!”

The terror completely paralyzed me, the thought of being swept out to sea, tossed about by the waves, with no support, no foundation, nothing to cling to…just completely helpless…beaten down until there was nothing left of me at all.

I woke up in a cold sweat, sat straight up, shaking, gasping for air and scared completely out of my mind. That was the scariest dream.

And my first thought was, that dream was different. It meant something, I just know it did. I immediately went to God.

Lord, I know that dream had meaning, please tell me what you are trying to say.

It was like he was right inside my head, speaking to me as clear as day.

“You are like a leaf, tossed about by the wind and the sea. You ran to me, you threw yourself at my feet, you repented, you begged for mercy and grace, you ripped your hair out, you cried and you prayed, and just like that, you threw yourself away and withdrew from me as the wave withdraws from the sand.

I am your God, I am your foundation, I am your strength and your mercy. Dig your roots deep into my name. Reach your branches out for my grace. Raise your leaves to sing my praise. I am your God, worship me. I am your Father, come to me. I am your holy spirit, rest in me.”

Now I could be just completely running away with an imagination here, but this was real to me and it buckled me. Two weekends ago, we had the Friendship Festival and Arron and I worked both days, all day, volunteering. It was miserably hot and humid, and we were in this tent, selling hot dogs and hamburgers. We got off late, came home exhausted, and I never even touched a Bible. That was Saturday and Sunday. Then Monday was my first day of classes so I was caught up in that. Then the weekend came and a new couple PCS’d here, so we were showing them “the town” all weekend, and then by Monday I had classes again. This dream happened Monday night. I thought about it the next day, and I thought, it must have just been my imagination running away from me. God wouldn’t speak directly to me, would he? And then tonight, I just couldn’t get it off my mind. And again, it was like he was speaking directly TO ME. Saying the SAME THING. I was like a leaf, so easily tossed about by the sea. It was far too easy for me forget and turn away. And now I repent again, get back up and worship the one true God.

James 1:1-18

*****update–just read this evenings “morning and evening” by spurgeon. Wow. What ARE THE ODDS? Wow. That is just. Man. God just spoke directly to me. Wow!

I’m not sure how I feel about the whole Arms and Legs thing, only because, what is falling at the feet of Jesus if not completely falling? Perhaps it is a difference in intent, though, I’m not sure. I think you may have really touched on one of the points that has bothered me– because we always say, “without God, I am nothing.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard the converse of that phrase, and I think I always assumed that even with God, I am still nothing.

“I am nothing, God is everything.” I guess it would be sort of hard to go anywhere from that mind-set wouldn’t it? I mean, God is perfect and all-powerful, and he made me. While I certainly don’t mean to imply that he made mistakes or anything, I am a human and I am flawed. That’s because Adam and Eve sinned, I have sinned, and I am imperfect. Without God, I couldn’t breathe or function. So, I do have inherent value because I am a child of God, but I am still nothing without God, and that brings me back to “but WITH God…..?”

Maybe this is something I should really put a lot of thought and prayer into… while I wait for the enormous amount of wisdom I always enjoy from my brother and dad!

Gosh this is just so amazing! I’m getting teary eyed again. It’s like God is saying “okay, vacation’s over, time to get down and dirty, cause we got a lot of laundry to sort through!” I knew this would come. Like Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant hears!”

As a side note, man, I cannot imagine being Samuel and having to tell news like that to Eli, especially as a little kid. I would have been devastated.

Well, I’m off to read Samuel, and Jonah, and spend some serious quiet time with God! Mata ato de!

Those who pray with their very lives for peace

Though they’re in chains for a higher call

Their mourning will change into laughter

When the nations fall

In spirit poor and mercy rich

They hunger for your righteousness

Their hearts refined in the purity

Lord let me shine for them

Lord let me sing

Lord let me shine for them

Lord let me sing

I can hardly even come up with a way to begin this post. In only 24 hours, the Lord has grabbed my heart and stirred up a commotion so unfathomable within… It is beyond words. He has brought me to my knees. These lyrics come from a song by Caedmon’s Call entitled “I Will Sing/Hope to Carry on [Live].” I listened to the CD while I was at the gym today and I almost had to step off of the treadmill because it so touched my heart. I have spent the entire last two days on the verge of tears, not because of sadness or despair, but due to the powerful movement going on in my heart. I know that revival is temporary and hard times will come—we can’t always be on the hilltops because the spiritual high is so shallow. I need to dig my roots firmly into the Word so I have a foundation to stand on when the spiritual storms come. But I find it hard to resist wishing I could stay on this hilltop forever!

I’m probably taking on too much when it comes to my reading material, but at this point I am pretty much spending all of my free time with God. I am reading “The Love Dare,” and the accompanying book, “Night Light” by Jim Dobson (?), Spurgeon’s “Morning and Evening,” John Bunyan’s “Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners,” and S. Thomas Aquinas “On Prayer and the Contemplative Life,” and of course, the Bible. That’s quite a load, lol. And let me tell you, that Love Dare book really hit’s hot issues. The very first day dealt with patience. They just jumped right in there, lol. The dare was “For the next day, resolve to demonstrate patience and to say nothing negative to your spouse at all. If the temptation arises, choose not to say anything. It is better to hold your tongue than to say something you’ll regret. (James 1:19)”

Boy was that hard!! It’s easy to not even notice the little demeaning things you might say or think of your wife or husband. Of course I didn’t just wake up and start cursing Arron out today, but even little things like getting angry when he was rushing me out the door to go to the gym, or refraining from saying “honey can you not put trash in the sink?” or “baby please don’t pick the cat up and throw him across the room just because his meowing is getting on your nerves.” Nothing negative AT ALL. That can get really hard!! But it is so rewarding because it teaches you to pick and choose your battles which is inVALuable in a deep and fulfilling marriage! Now obviously, later on, throwing the cat will probably be a battle I do choose to fight, but gently tossing the cat, no. Kitteh’s are pretty tough. But trash in the sink? Not worth my marriage. And that’s a phrase I’ve come to repeat over and over again: “is it worth your marriage?” 99% of the time, no it’s not worth my marriage.

I’m so excited too, because 1 or 2 times Arron has shown interest in what I was reading. I’m trying to not shove this whole thing down his throat, but sometimes I just get SO excited and I just have to share what I’m learning with SOMEONE, and he’s right there! The first day of Night Light was so sweet and heart wrenching today, and he read it with me. Now we say “Shmily” to each other J

Well, today has been quite a day, filled with God-hugs, and I am ready to hit the hay. Though I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep tonight due to excitement about what amazing things the Lord will teach me tomorrow!

let’s start with a little history. when i was a little girl, my mom told me something that i was determined to make come true. she said that she believed that God had a plan for me and that i was destined for great things. of course, every mother tells her children that–it’s like saying “you’re the most beautiful girl in the world,” or “you’re the best daughter ever!” or “sure honey, you have a wonderful voice….” it’s just what you’re supposed to say to your children. i was raised in the church and became a christian at a very young age. Immediately God began working on me. Let’s be honest, when God works on a person’s heart, he does not play around. Being an all-knowing Creator, he knows all the right buttons to push.

I am a very critically-minded person. I analyze everything. I break things down, look at them from every angle, and because of this, I usually avoid making a move because I feel that the “thinking about it” part is never complete. I don’t want to act because what if I missed something or didn’t think about something? I’m afraid of making the wrong choice. What my mom told me has affected every decision I have—or should I say “haven’t”—made. I have been afraid to pick a degree because what if I don’t pick the degree that God was going to use for His Kingdom?

I have tried SO hard to make sure that I was doing what God wanted me to do, that I have ended up spinning my wheels practically my entire life. I’ve known the entire time that I’m doing this, and many times I have gotten on my knees and said “I’m giving it up to you, God. Do with me what you will, guide my hands, my heart.” But saying that doesn’t make it come true. That’s only half of the equation.

And that’s where the true problem comes in. I have been relying on my faith in faith more than my faith in GOD HIMSELF. My faith in the church, my faith in the pastor, my faith in my parent’s faith and my brother’s faith. All the while, my own faith has been stagnant and lukewarm. My belief in God is passionate and true, my desire to pursue him as well. but my actual pursuit has been fumble after fumble. I want to know Him so badly, and to follow Him, I want Him to completely fill my heart and soul, to take complete control over my life and my mind and everything that I do and touch, but my actions to not follow my desires and I don’t understand why it is so hard for me to just sit down and meditate on Christ. My own walk with God is similar to an infant giraffe making desperate attempts to walk…for 20 years. One could argue, “well if you aren’t truly pursuing God, then you must not truly have the passion for Him that you say you have?”

My response would be “oh, well now that we got that cleared up, oh look we’re right where we started, and I still want to know God more.”

I don’t believe that you can rely on any person to help you with your walk in Christ because A) only God can bring you closer to Him and B) people don’t really know….anything. As much as any one person pursues Christ, no one directly knows how God works or what His plan is for the future outside of what He has allowed us to know in just about the most general terms possible. No one knows what is in any other person’s heart. I guess I always assumed that, like Moses, Noah, and Jonah, at some point God would just miraculously reveal himself to me and make it all clear—give me a check-off list and a map, “Go here, do this, then go here, pick up this, take it here, give it to this person, and grab me a burger and a milkshake while you’re there. K thanks bye.” But even for Moses, Noah and Jonah, it wasn’t that easy and it wasn’t that clear. Moses wandered blindly in the desert for 40 years, Noah was willing to look like an idiot building this giant boat for some reason (I’m pretty sure he didn’t even know what rain was, much less a flood) and Jonah was terrified of the difficult things God was telling him to do and tried to run. He was about 120% sure God was sending him to his death.  (***edit- Jonah wasn’t scared, he knew that God would be gracious with them and he didn’t want them to be saved, he wanted them to be destroyed–thanks Dad!***)

Me, I can’t explain how my brain is working. It’s not that I don’t have faith in God, it’s that I don’t have faith in myself, even though that’s essentially the same thing as not having faith in God because God MADE me, and relying on God means believe that God will get me through whatever path I put my faith in him leading me through. Say that five times fast.

SO. For the next God-set appointed amount of time, I am going to be on my knees. I believe that part of the reason we are in Japan is because, while I was in Charleston, I was mostly relying on Pastor Buster’s faith. It’s really easy to accidently start having faith in Buster’s amazing walk with Christ because the man is just absolutely blessed. It’s sometimes hard to imagine him ever stumbling. Being here, I can’t be dependent on a pastor. The churches out here are either completely opposite to what I believe, some convoluted version of Buddhism or Unitarianism, or the on-base church which is basically a “God is really nice, and you should be mostly nice too” kind of church.  I will still listen to Buster’s sermons on podcast and try to get to church here as much as Arron’s work schedule allows, but I am going to be earnestly on my knees and in my Bible every single day, and recording my thoughts and light-bulb moments in my blog.

Some of the changes I am starting with are pretty standard “revival of the heart” changes:

1. Posting little Bible verses on my mirror and fridge, and all throughout the house.
2. Avoiding television and spending most of my time in silence, accept for
3. Ditching secular music and only breaking the silence with Christian music like Kathryn Scott and Caedmon’s Call—THANKS MOM AND DAD FOR SENDING ME THAT MUSIC!!!
4. Spending every day in the word.
5. And learning how to meditate.

Simultaneously, I am also trying to purify my body of junk food. I am drinking a slim fast for breakfast and lunch, having 2-3 100cal snacks a day, such as those little 100cal fruit cups, or crackers with those tuna creations packets, and then a reasonably healthy dinner, usually involving grilled chicken and two types of veggies. I’m on day three of my diet and I’m definitely starting to notice “changes.” I spend a little bit of time hungry just because I’m used to just pigging out when I’m hungry. Now when I get hungry, I only eat a little bit, and it’s something healthy, not a Twix or ice cream or cookies. Don’t get me wrong I’m not fat, I’m not even really overweight, I weigh about 125-130 and I’m 5’7”. I’d like to lose about 10 lbs or so, and get tone. I want to be HEALTHY healthy, not just “ok technically you’re healthy for your height.”

SO, these are the changes, and this is the plan. For those of you reading this who do pray, I would certainly appreciate your prayers and support in my new adventure. My greatest fear at this point is that I will, like most projects, leave this one unfinished. That I will become distracted, burned out, frustrated, and give up. But this is of all projects the single most important of my life. This one is not just “I want to give it a try and see how it goes.” This one is mandatory, critical and giving up is out of the question. And of course, I can’t do it by myself and no one can do it for me. I have to rely on God. At this point, I don’t even have legs or arms. I must rely on god to be my wheel chair and my grabber. >.<

so, I think I will be picking up our new kitten on Monday or tuesday. They have been waiting on test results for feline leukemia for the last three weeks. I was completely convinced the kittens were gone and the lady had lied to me about posting the ad on YOKOTA ads but I was able to convince arron to go to the pet care center today and see, just see, if they were still there and they were!!! they are all so cute, I don’t know how we’ll ever pick! Their tails are all crooked in the most adorable and awkward ways lol! one of them completely spins around like a little piggies tail! aw and two of them are colored in the moat peculiar ways, it’s like a mixture of black and orange and brown and grey. Very pretty! They are all so precious though, sigh!! I just can’t wait for poor kiko to have someone play with! It’s so sad watching her chase invisibles, you just know she wants a little friend to run around the house with! I can’t wait to see them play!
and I started my new class on Monday and BOY is it tough. We learned 20 kanji and we had a test today. I got one wrong, I was so mad! But I made an 85 and I think that’s pretty darn good for so little sleep and time to study. I immediately got with mizu and jensen about study group, and we’ll meet tomorrow at 11 at the yujo! That’s great news for me! I need it! Mizu is an angel and a REALLY good teacher, she saved my butt last semester lol! I’m glad she’s doing this.
Well, if I have even a small prayer of sleeping tonight, I must hit the hay tonight so I can hit the books tomorrow. 御休みなさい 家!! Oyasuminasai uchi!