Easter

Yesterday I had the privilege of standing with some of my best friends in front of 36 women and giving my testimony. I was nervous that I was just going to stammer and cry the whole time, combine that with the ever present fear of what will everyone think of me now? and let's just say it was a roller coaster ride of a day. In the end I sucked it up right along with everyone else. I knew ultimately I had to post it here too because it's screaming in me to do so, so I'm pulling up my big girl panties and letting it fly...

2 yrs ago we lived in Tucson and every Easter we celebrated w/the rest of the masses at a huge Easter egg hunt at the local park where they would helicopter in the Easter bunny, for years every time Ethan saw a helicopter he would jump up and down yelling BUNNY, BUNNY, BUNNY!!! 2yrs ago today, on March 25, we shut the door of our moving van, strapped in the kids and said goodbye. Goodbye to our marriage counselor, goodbye to my cardiologist treating my severe anxiety, and that was all. I didn't need to say goodbye to any friends because I didn't have any. 11 years in a strange city and no one to really say goodbye to. I thought I was fine, I thought I had my little family and we're all good. Which would of course be why I had a marriage counselor and a cardiologist. 11 yrs I didn't go to church, I didn't practice the faith of my youth, I didn't need to. 11 yrs I prayed as if I was placing my order at McDonald's, when it was convenient for and about me and for 11 yrs I called myself a “non-practicing-christian”. For 11 yrs I lied, cheated and deluded myself into thinking I was being the best wife and then mother I could be. For 11 yrs I felt trapped in a cycle of deceit and self-centeredness that I had created, until it slowly began to unravel. And it felt good. When my husbands current job was handed to him a few short weeks after I told him I wanted to move here, my attitude changed. My eyes started opening to how much I hated my life. The very real prospect of another on the horizon. I made a promise and it was unconditional. When we got here, we would start going to church. Within a month we found one we agreed on something we hadn't done in 11 yrs. It was not easy getting up every Sunday morning. It was even harder to go when Eric had to work and it was up to only me, but I did. The more I went, the more I wanted to go. The more I read, the more I wanted to read. 2 yrs ago I had to buy myself a bible, I didn't have one. When I climbed in that van if you would've told me I would be coordinating a christian moms group I would've laughed, if you would've told me in the same 2yrs I would be teaching Sunday school, I'd be asking you what you're smokin'?! But I am. All because I became an active participant in my faith. The same one I placidly had for 11 yrs. I no longer wait around for my faith to bowl me over and send me the answers on a winged dove, I go in search of the answers. If I'm mad or confused or my anxiety is taking over once again, I open my bible and I read it, and in doing so, I found a loving God who was waiting for me all along. Jesus died on the cross so I can continue to screw things up and like a loving father tell me it's OK, you'll do better next time. He took on all the stupid thoughts in my head, the angry outbursts at my children and all my crazy rationalizations for the choices I continue to make so that at the end of the day I can lay it all before him once again and once again start a new. For 11 yrs I tried to make it so complicated, we didn't have time, did he really exist, does it all really matter? It matters. I'm surrounded by amazing women who fall just like me and who offer me a hand back up every time, because that's what we're supposed to do. I was robbed of 11 yrs of confidence in my life. My anxiety was out of control because I didn't possess the faith that ultimately it will be OK. Life is not roses and butterflies but I know without a doubt who will win in the end. Easter isn't about bunnies in helicopters, it's about all my crap nailed firmly to that cross so I can start each day clean, new and un-conditionally loved.