What brings me joy

I have never been a person very moved by music. But ever since my kids (and specifically Isaac) brought piano into our home, I have become so chill-bumped by the beauty of music. 

Tuesday Truth

Tribe Life Tuesday: The Disposition of Desperation

A weekly post from my childhood to grown-up friend Carrie ~ 

sharing her awesome life and her desire to have community while doing it!

What a title, right? There are many places to go but I will stay concise today. I find desperation is the best place for my heart. I know this may sound counter-intuitive, but stick with me. If you haven’t noticed through past posts, I’m a feeler! If this is the first post your reading, just keep on and you will see. I recently took one of those personality tests and of course the result said I am 75% feeling. I guess it's just the gift bestowed on me. Needless to say, feelings direct many of my decisions, but Joe keeps me balanced. 

So let’s talk desperation. Joe (my husband) and I moved to Texas about three years ago, and it was a great move. It opened us up to a whole new world, and we are so grateful for the journey. We moved to Texas from Florida with hope in our hearts and enough money to get us through the fist couple of months here. Much of which came from the generosity of our Florida tribe! We hopped in the car on a Sunday night after family dinner and headed north. We had no jobs and no home, just a few boxes of necessities, each other, and hope. The world was ours for the taking. We were bright-eyed and ready for anything. 

Twenty-ish hours later we made it to our destination and this is where the story really begins. 

Texas offered us something we desperately needed. This move was a chance to discover who we were and who we wanted to be. Here we planned to establish our own little family culture and branch out! Florida gave us roots and safety and still does, something for which we are grateful. 

The first several weeks that we were here we stayed in hotels and looked for jobs, because the money was transient. At first we had standards and would only consider jobs or work that "fit." Then, as the days and weeks passed, the job standards needed a bit of give. We considered many different options, and that's where I want to simmer with you today. There was a point when I got desperate, not for a job, or money, although those were seemingly non-existent. In those moments I became desperate for God. I’ve learned this about myself: when I am squeezed, the only thing that loosens the grip is to go deep spiritually. So that's what I did, I dove deep, because it was the only place where I was satisfied and felt like I could actually get through. 

Looking back, that time of struggle was incredibly brief but when I was in it, it was an eternity. I needed reassurance, in that time, that God was hearing me. It didn’t really “feel” like it but with everything I’ve learned, I knew He was. I was desperate for the right job, desperate for the safety that came with it and, at a deeper level, I was desperate for God to say "I got this under control." I had quite literally done absolutely everything I could do: applications, resumes, you name it. I honestly don't remember if He ever answered me, but what I do remember is etched in me until forever. I distinctly remember having next to nothing materially yet having everything spiritually. There was so much that was empty when it came to one part of my life. Yet in another area it was outrageously full. I was so aware spiritually because of my desperation. I, to this day, can’t pinpoint exactly why. 

But once our life started to take shape and we began to gain more material things: apartment, furniture, groceries, etc., the disposition of my desperation began to diminish. Now, let me be very clear about this: YOU CAN HAVE BOTH! Material wonders and spiritual desperation are not mutually exclusive. I am still on the journey to figuring out that balance. I would love to say I am close to figuring it out, but I am not and honestly probably never will be; it will probably ebb and flow all my life long. I am along for the ride. Sometimes we are thrust into this disposition due to surrounding circumstances, and other times it is a deliberate choice followed by action. I think that’s where the balance lies. Even when I have all the material possessions I could want, I have to consciously position my heart in a place of desperation. 

We are so fortunate to have worked hard and have been afforded incredible opportunities with jobs, community, safe places, etc. but when things start to oscillate, I remember that time and it re-aligns me. Recalling that time of desperation brings me back center. 

Thank you for reading.

See you next Tuesday,

Carrie

*Please note that content in guest blogs is not necessarily shared by the station manager (i.e. Wendi!)

My "sphere of concern"

I'm not sure if this is something my husband stole from somewhere else or not. But during the last few days I have had an epiphany of sorts -- thanks to his help.

I have realized that we have a "sphere of concern" and a "sphere of influence" in our lives.

Our "sphere of influence" is our small group of people in our life and it includes the real things we can influence. It is our immediate circle. It is our "people." It is our community.

But our "sphere of concern" is the things we are ... well ... concerned with.

Truthfully, those spheres should line up. They should be similar. They should be almost the same.

But for me, my "sphere of concern" has gotten way TOO BIG.

I truly believe, in my own life, this is due to the power of social media. We are so inundated with so much of people's lives. If we lived one hundred years ago ... heck even twenty years ago ... this wouldn't be happening. But social medial brings up close to so much more.

Twenty years ago, I only stayed in touch with people who wanted to stay in touch with me, and I wanted to stay in touch with. Marginal people would fall off of our radar. We would hear about sadness but only the sadness we needed to hear about. Not the sadness that just made us ... sad.

I have decided to try and make these spheres the same. The same size. Covering the same things.

I can't stop it totally. But I am narrowing my focus. I have plenty to focus on within my "sphere of influence." It's enough for me. I am a feeling person. And I just can't handle how much I am being asked to feel when I let in too much.

I am going to be writing more about this in the coming days and months. It has really spoken to me, and I feel convicted to make a change. I can't completely get off of social media as we use it often with our farm, our non-profit organization, and the homeschooling group I review for.

But so many of my friends are stepping back. They are getting off of Facebook primarily. They are having the same epiphany I am.

I am going to try to hit "pause" a bit and majorly slow down what is coming in. I am going to be eliminating visiting the Facebook "feed". I am not going to be going to extra websites that don't feed my soul only burden it.

I am going to narrow my sphere.

More to come. I'm still processing.

How to Grow (Slowly)

By Wendi Kitsteiner

When I was twenty-one, I married my high school sweetheart. Like him, I had been born and raised in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I had grown up in suburbia, felt comfortable with “city life,” and never thought about doing anything but what I knew. I assumed my husband would feel the same way about our life once he left the military.

At some point during the next twenty years of our marriage, however, my husband’s desires morphed before my eyes. He picked up a book on farming and permaculture at a local library and was hooked. He never looked back or wavered. He was focused.

He wanted to own a farm.

I knew nothing about farming other than what I’d learned during a few days on my great-aunt’s farm outside of Chicago when I was a young girl. I never did anything else remotely rural with my family. We weren’t campers. We weren’t hikers. We were city people who played sports and stayed in hotels and kept ourselves relatively clean.

To read the rest of this post, jump over to THE GLORIOUS TABLE. 

Joni brings Roy to the Farm!

First up on Roy and Joni's visit -- Isaac talks Joni into playing Bean Boozled. (Roy was having NONE of that.)

Next up, Joan and the kids took a walk over to Grampa and Grama's to visit Ritter. (We have the dogs split up right now because Arabelle is in heat.)

And as always, Joni captures some random wonderfulness from my kiddos: 

Then we take Roy on an adventure to feed and collect eggs:

Joni and Roy went to visit an old friend about an hour from us and took the boys with them. She captured some fun pictures of their adventures (including the boys trying to help each other up onto a hay bale): 

Showing Sidge some bear claw prints!

Roy really liked meeting our pups:

Military Moments (with Amanda!): It's so hard to say good by

I am so excited about a new weekly Blog post from my Amanda. She is going to be doing a "Military Moments" post where she discusses and shares ideas and stories from military life. 

Saying goodbye sucks.  It doesn’t matter why you are saying goodbye. It is just hard to look at someone for what may be the last time, but will certainly be the last time for a while, and try to imagine tomorrow when they aren’t around.  This is the basis of #6 on my pro and con list of life in the military.  “Con –You have to learn to make new friends all the time.”

Last night I had the final dinner with my friend before her family PCSs to Texas. They flew out today, and I’m not sure when I’ll see her again.  I know I said the con was having to learn to make new friends all the time, but the other half of that is that you have to then say goodbye to those friends … again.

We move to a new place still thinking about the people we have just left behind and then trying to figure out how we will present ourselves to the new people we are about to meet. We are caught between never wanting to forget the people you left and trying to fully embrace the possibility of the friendships you could have. I spent the last year getting close to my friend who left.  We will call her Nikky for this post. 

She isn’t like friends I’ve made before.  Usually, I find myself becoming close friends with introverts. I’m sure it’s because I love to talk, so it’s easy for me to do that when I’m with introverts.  

Well, Nikky is even more extroverted than I am. She loves to talk as much as I do, so there was NEVER a quiet moment with the two of us. I’m sure anyone around us could attest to that.

Finding friends may not be the easiest thing, as I’ve learned well over the last 10 years in the military, but when you click with someone it seems effortless and you just know you will forever be connected.  

That’s how it was with Nikky.  

She has two boys, and my two boys loved to play with them. So that added another connection for us. The downside to this, as it always is, someone has to leave. We come into these friendships knowing that we only have a certain amount of time together. 

When you move to a remote assignment, you know the month you will be leaving when you arrive.  One of the first questions people ask each other here is how long you have left. We do it just as conversation starters, but also because we aren’t wasting a lot of effort and brain power to meet someone who’s leaving next month. We try to find people who got here around the same time we did so you aren’t floundering for your last year at a place because your friends all moved at the same time and you’ve been left behind.   That’s what I do, at least, so I can’t speak for everyone.  It’s probably my selfishness coming out, but it’s just hard to say goodbye, and it is hard to get attached to people and watch them walk away or walk away ourselves. 

We know where we are going next, so we are in the mindset of heading out. We are officially the “old” people here because we are in our last 6 months of the assignment. It has all passed in the blink of an eye. We were just getting here and setting up our house, and now we are going through each room deciding what we can live without when we move again.

The military life seems so normal to me now, but it wasn’t always like that.  I am very patriotic. Of course I am, right? My husband is in the military, so maybe it’s a requirement. I don’t know, but I am, and I always have been.  I am used to seeing my husband and a lot of other people walking around in their camo and other uniforms, but it still gets me every single time I hear them all stand up and say the Airman’s Creed.  Their voices all coming together to say that they will fight for me and defend the country I love.  I go to any event where I know they’re going to say it, and I try every time not to cry, and it just doesn’t help.  It is my most favorite thing about being surrounded by these men and women. 

But we still have to move and leave each other. We still have to make our children say goodbye to their friends and watch them cry because they just wanted to see someone one last time. They are used to moving and packing up all of their belongings, and that part doesn’t seem to bother them anymore, but it’s the people.  These people that we meet and connect with. They take a bit of us when they leave us, and we leave a bit behind every time we move. In one way, it is amazing that I know so many people spread out over this whole world, but on the other hand, I am so spread out and pieces are removed so many times that eventually I worry there won’t be enough left of me.

Saying goodbye sucks!

**For a great post on saying goodbye from a non-military family, read this:

Dear Military Best Friend,

The Airman's Creed^[1]

I am an American Airman.

I am a Warrior.

I have answered my Nation’s call.

I am an American Airman.

My mission is to Fly, Fight, and Win.

I am faithful to a Proud Heritage,

A Tradition of Honor,

And a Legacy of Valor.

I am an American Airman.

Guardian of Freedom and Justice,

My Nation’s Sword and Shield,

Its Sentry and Avenger.

I defend my Country with my Life.

I am an American Airman.

Wingman, Leader, Warrior.

I will never leave an Airman behind,

I will never falter,

And I will not fail.

Opinions expressed in guest posts are not necessarily those of the station manager (i.e. Wendi!)