Oh, Recovering Gypsy...

Oh, the wanderlust...
It calls to me so strongly,
The adventure, the unknown,
The never-ending longing.

Oh, the strange belief...
Belief that it could happen,
Possibility abounds,
Imagination, my haven.

Oh, reality...
Where dreams become mere fables,
An unwanted nemesis,
Like wire stripped from the cables.

Oh, the travesty...
Of butterfly wings turned dust.
Hypocrisy, irony,
As you do just what you must.

"In this world, not of this world,"
"A daughter of the one true King,"
Are words without true meaning,
When it's a mantra that we sing.

Expecting the Unexpected

You know the moment you fully expect something to be one thing and it turns out to be something else entirely?  Yeah, me too...  I've become intimately acquainted with that feeling over the past 3 months.

Leaving on a Jet Plane...

It's finally here!  I was hoping to have posted at least a few times since my last post, but unfortunately I have been so busy with last-minute details and packing, that I just haven't had the time to sit and write a post.

But it's time! It is finally time.  By this time next week I will be sitting next to my love and soaking in the warmth of having my family all in one place again, after almost a whole year apart.  I will be reveling in the joy of watching my children get to know and come close to their father.  I am so ready...  6 bags of luggage, 2 carry-ons, a diaper bag, and a stroller later, and we are ready to go.  Our paper chain that I made for GC to be able to visualize how much time is left it almost gone.  Each day that passes brings us closer to tearing that last glorious piece of paper!  

I feel prepared enough to expect the unexpected, and I am going into this with no expectations and completely open to whatever and wherever the spirit leads us.  We have no plans for the future or for settling down quite yet...  Well, except for the prospect of raising sheep.  :)  That would be a trip, for sure!  I would LOVE to do that!  

Right now, my mind is full of speculations and wonder at this adventure knocking at my door.  I am convinced it will be glorious, even when it does not appear to be so, because I am fully persuaded that this is right where God wants us to be.  

Please pray that we get through customs without any hiccups.  I know Aduana can pretty much do whatever if they see something they want.  Not that I have really cool or expensive stuff, but I do have a lot.  Pray also that we are able to enjoy our homecoming with Papa, be welcomed into our new home, without any physical illnesses.  We have been downing acidophilus like crazy because last time I had a horrible weak stomach for the first 10 days I was there...  Not fun.  And after so long, I would really love to be healthy and able to enjoy and relax for the first time in a year.  

God is so good!  Thank you all so so much for all the support you have been to me, physically, financially, and most importantly, spiritually.  It is such a blessing to be surrounded by people of encouragement to lift you up, both with words and with prayer.  And even more powerful when you see God answering and manifesting himself in those ways.  

Be on the lookout for an update in about a week or so FROM MEXICO! God is good.  See ya on the flip side!  ;)

Is He Really that Good?

I wish I had more time to write...  My life is so busy.  If you have little children, then you well know how taking care of them alone is a full-time job, but when you are doing it alone, the extra responsibilities of working and all the little things that add up to major time-eaters, definitely keep a woman and mommy BUSY!  I am currently sitting here writing with a nursing baby in my lap.  She was sick all week with some kind of cough/throw up/fever thing and has been in Mama's lap every second she can.  My room is a wreck...  I washed clothes last Saturday, more than a week ago now, and they still sit folded in the laundry baskets, lol.  I've been to the store about 3 times this weekend because my head is in so many places, that I can't get it together and remember everything I needed.  And I will still have to go again this afternoon because I forgot to remember that we will have to eat this coming week too, haha...  Oh the joy!

But I'm happy.  I don't know if I've ever felt this much joy and peace.  I'm at rest, despite the fact that my surroundings might suggest otherwise.  I'm excited and full of anticipation for what is to come in our lives!


There is so much good that has gone on, true miracles that I didn't know if I would ever see that I would love to share, but it's not mine to share so publicly so soon.  Later on I'll be able to post it.  :)

What I can say, and it's really the only important part anyway, is God is so good.  He is so good to me, so good to my husband, so good to my family.  I know that he has plans for us in Mexico, and I can't wait to walk in them.

He has had me in such a place of peace and joy, just so wrapped in his love, that I feel and experience it in a way that I never have before.  It's like...  I always had the right answers to the tough questions, and "knew" that God was my loving father instead of an angry judge, but I lived my life and expected those around me to live by the "right" set of rules.  And now I know that this was actually evidence of the fact that it was only head knowledge and symptoms of the unexperienced truth of God's character. It was rhetoric.  Man, I had no idea what it meant to know God's love.  And it's like... He didn't just show me, he overwhelmed me.  Overwhelmed me with his presence, with his embrace.  I don't know how else to explain it...  Except to say, God is so good.  And that is a major understatement.

He showed me his love first in an experiential way, just a comfort and rest in knowing he was taking care of me, and revealing to me how sweet and what a blessing these last 8 months have truly been.  And it was enough.  It was more than enough.  It was glorious.  Then, he started actually taking care of things.  Money is tight and I was just making it before we found out we would be moving to Mexico.  Add on top of that plane tickets, passports, finishing paying off our immigration attorney, vet visits, survival money for Carlos until he gets a job, and another million seemingly endless things that you don't think about think about until it's time to go, and time-eaters, like driving back and forth THREE times to the passport office because of distraction and lack of paperwork.  Like having to find a way to sell or give away a house full of items that have been accumulated over the course of a lifetime, piddly things and sentimental things.  But in the end, they are just things.

Anyway, so Carlos and I decided we would sell my car without fixing it, since I can't take it with me, and I've been without it for the last 8 months anyway, it just wasn't worth it to come up with the money to fix it, only to then have to turn around and sell it.  Just minor issues, something that anyone remotely handy around a car could fix in a matter of an hour or so, but unfortunately, I am NOT technically minded, haha.  But the thought of selling the car was so daunting!  How do I do it?  What do I say?  How do I explain what the problem is if I don't even understand it myself?  So I sat on it for a few days, and then, out of the blue, I get a phone call from my niece (the car was being stored at her house) saying that she woke up to a note on the windshield of her car.  A name and phone number of someone who drove by, saw the car, and was interested in buying it!  And he paid exactly what I had in mind to sell it for!  God.  It was just God.  He took all the "work" out of that, and just blessed us.  Hopefully, my car will be a blessing to the man who bought it; it sure has been one to me all these years.

Before deciding to sell the car, I had received a message from a friend that someone was going to anonymously donate money to our Mexico trip and needs!  WHAT?!  And it was exactly the amount I had calculated needing in order to get everything done.  Look, I really hate talking about money, it just makes me really uncomfortable, always has, so I avoid it at all costs.  But, WHAT?!  Unfortunately, despite my aversion to the subject, it is necessary in this world.  And my heavenly father knows that.  He didn't make me scrape and scrounge and beg (although I have before), he just ...gave it to me... and he is so good.  To be honest, I am really glad it was "anonymous" because I would have a really hard time being face-to-face with that person(s), lol, just because, well, I don't know, it's weird.  God is soooooo good.  He just is.  And not because of his benefits, but because of his relationship.

Am I getting too mushy?  I don't want to be, as I really am not too much of an emotional person, but there just isn't another way to express it than this.  And it's really awesome when God makes things so apparent, when he takes all the guess work out of it.  I don't "deserve" any of this.  I didn't work for it, thank God, that's too much pressure, and I don't handle "expectations" too well.  Now if HE wants to do all the work for me?  Go right ahead, you do it, you change my heart, you make it happen in me and for me.  You be my Daddy, a Daddy who cares for his daughters, his sons.  More than I care for mine.  Now that's a thought... A scripture comes to my mind a lot lately,

"And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher.  And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.  Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images.  You will scatter them as unclean things.  You will say to them, "Be gone!"  And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous...  You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel."
          -Isaiah 30:20-23, 29

Again, a super long post, sorry about that.  Maybe if I posted more often they wouldn't be so long, but alas, life calls... and children... and responsibilities... but this post has been running through my mind for a few weeks now, and I just had to get it out.

Love you all.

The Great {IN}Justice System

Today is January 3rd.  The last day available to appeal the judge's last decision to remove Carlos from the great USofA.  And, of course, we won't, that was already decided, but now that it's here, they are free to come pick up Carlos and put him on a very long bus ride "home."

"Home" seems a strange word to relate to a place I barely am even acquainted with, but I'm sure I will come to love it.  I do love Mexico already.  I always wanted to live 100 years ago, and well, in some ways, this grants that request.  Of course Mexico isn't all antiquated, they have cars and cell phones, internet and TV, but the style of living from 100 years ago continues, only it coexists with modern technology.  It's a strange relationship to me, but one that I will come to know well.  I look forward to learning my new environment, new customs, new "norms" although I usually go against them anyway.

I am a little frustrated (to say the least) with the way this whole thing has gone, though.  And to think that "justice was served" is quite maddening.  How is it just?  What defines justice?  A hard-working man, taken away from his family indefinitely, sent back to his "country of origin" without the least regard toward his wife and children, who by the way are US Citizens, is thrown away, and we call this justice because he was never supposed to have been here in the first place.  So what then?  Is it better to throw away one man who didn't belong, and sacrifice three of it's own citizens?  Is it just for my own country to have betrayed me and my children?  This "Land of Opportunity"?

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free;
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless,
Tempest-tossed to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning,
And her name, Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome;
Her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor
That twin cities frame.
"Keep, Ancient Lands, your storied pomp!"
Cries she with silent lips.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free;
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless,
Tempest-tossed to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!