Beauty in the Ashes

Am I the only one who found making friends as an adult complicated in ways I never saw coming?   Am I the only one who searched through college and beyond to find her niche?  A single place where she belonged?  Only to fail again and again? My story (and Matt's too, for that matter), might not be terribly common.  We belonged to a crew in high school that was diverse and tightly-knit and irreplaceable.  These people became my support group and my best friends and my whole life.  Then college hit, and we scattered across the state and the country and the universe (not really the universe)!  Still, moving into Newman Hall in the fall of 2005, I had high hopes of a new chapter on my own.  Surely in a crowd of nearly 11,000 people I could find my place.  No I couldn't, and don't call me Shirley!  Everything I tried either fizzled or exploded.  At best, I didn't fit in.  At worst, I was being yelled at for missing a bible st...

     I begin with four words: We. Got. The. House. Not just a  house, but the house .   This is a tale about dreaming and faith and trust and a love lavished on us by our Father, from whom every good and perfect gift comes.        Matt and I are a bread and butter couple...fundamentally different but complementary when joined together.  We work well because we have different personalities but share common interests and find the same things amusing.  (The couple that laughs together, stays together!)    I might argue there are two types of house-hunters out there--"Move-in Ready Me" and "I Love a Project Matt."  On our last day of happy hunting, I found a house in Newburgh that had everything on our checklist and was, you guessed it, move-in ready.  I was ready to make an offer.  By the time we got to the driveway, Matt couldn't even remember what the kitchen looked like.  My gentle, quiet spirit and ...

  We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. Hebrews 6:19 I am putting my fingers on the keys and forcing myself to type.  I have waited to write these words, hoping that a little distance will make them easier to look at in black and white, but that does not seem to be the case.  So I will weep and write and get these thoughts from my head to the screen...because I never want to forget. We had already sent Dad on the first flight home two days before, on the 4th of July.  I had taken to putting on snorkel gear and talking to Papaw underwater, believing if ever two people had a fighting chance at telepathy, it was the pair of us.  On the 5th, I forced myself to tell him it was okay to let go.  I thought maybe he needed to feel somehow that it was all right with me.  Did you know you can cry underwater?  It is possible.  Mom and I did a lot of crying in the Gulf of Mexico.  I also remember sitting on the balcony...

Why does a girl with O.C.D., pale skin, a hearty disdain for getting water up her nose, and issues with all things slimy love, love, love the beach?  This question has occurred to me, said girl, many times as I trudged out to the Gulf of Mexico through perfect, sugary sand.  I don't seem to care about the germs or the fact that I always eat a wave for breakfast at least once a day or that icky things are all around me or that a jellyfish might sting me if I forget to shuffle.  My answer is always the same--The beach is just bigger than all of that.  I look to the horizon as far out as I can see, and the brand new waves breaking every second, and the perfect sun in the sky, and I remember God is bigger.  Perhaps it is the sinking-in of this knowledge that completely transforms me each time I set foot on that shore. It wouldn't be me playing the lead in this story if I'd left my worries in Sweet Home Indiana.  I did not.  I brought my fear...

     I haven't written lately because sometimes the tough stuff is too overwhelming to put to paper.  What I have felt like writing about, time and again, are the wonderful people I am blessed to call friends.  If you are one of those wonderful people, I hope you find yourself in one of these paragraphs.        To My Old Friends, "Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away." George Eliot            Matt and I have both been blessed by enduring friendships with incredible people. You are the friends I call family. Like my family, you are the ones who know the full contents of my heart and love me in spite of myself. There is ...

     As I sit at my recently-fixed computer, staring out at the sunny day I'm missing, I'm thinking about graduation.  In two short days, my baby brother will leave the halls of high school behind forever.  .      I recently read this on his facebook page: "Ben McClure hates when people talk about going from high school into the "real world."  So the problems and struggles of the past 4 years weren't real?  And everything from here on out is downhill?  How can you possibly go through life thinking that the good part is over?  High school was great, but it's time to move on to bigger and better things."      What was I, the artist formerly known as Lauren McClure, up to in May of 2005?   I had really great friends; I had some perfect rounds as the captain of the Spell Bowl team; I nabbed a senior favorite spot for "Most School Spirit;"  I was elected Class Secretary (which meant a white robe at ...

Sunday, March 11, 2012      My day began a little like this: I rolled out of bed angry at the hour of sleep I lost even though I never fall asleep when I should anyway.  I stared at the clothes in my closet like it was my first time getting dressed. Do you ever have days where getting dressed feels like a complete enigma?  I just kept staring while my brain put forth a valiant effort to come to the party.  I finally put together an outfit and slipped on my brand new shoes—THE shoes I found on yesterday’s shopping extravaganza that actually fit my feet (this never happens).  I grabbed my Coke Zero from the fridge and made my little car fly to the north side.       At church, I went through the usual routine of getting all the kids checked in and trying to remember multiple things at once (thank God for pens and spare church bulletins).  At some point, I decided it would be a good idea to carry four boxes in front of my face wh...

     Writing about my Grammy feels a lot like describing myself.  This woman, like my other featured family members, has given me treasured experiences and taught me many valuable lessons.  More than anything, however, she has taught me a lot about what it means to be me .        My earliest memories of Gram involve nursery rhymes. When I spent the night, she would recite nursery rhymes at bedtime, and I loved trying to remember all the words.  In one of my literacy courses in college, my professor expounded upon the importance of teaching children these rhymes, and I was grateful Grammy took the time with me.  Taking time...that is pure Grammy.  My mind fails to call up a picture of a more patient person.  Have you ever taught an eight-year-old to knit?  And crochet?  And cross-stich?And embroider pillowcases with piggies?  And line dance?  She has.        Sleepovers were ...

     Do you ever fight about the fight?  That is a phrase Matt and I learned in a book we bought before we were married.  For instance, you and your significant other have a simple disagreement about dinner when the disagreement ignites a knock-down, drag-out, guns-a'blazing battle.  Ever been there?  Matt and I never have, of course...(ahem)...      Alright, it might have happened once.  On the night in question, I might have thrown a shoe.  Alright, I threw a shoe. If you do not get the reference, please visit the following link immediately!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D5oKEVqQJg            It was not a fun night, but it was the first time I came to the monumental realization that my place of security had moved right out from under me, and worse, I had done the moving.  There I was, furious, ready to storm away--I grabbed my keys and the shoe I didn't throw, and I made my...

           One of my favorite parts of my early elementary school days involved shopping (no surprise there).  Every year, around Christmas, "Santa's Workshop" would come to town.  It set up shop in our Gymnacafetorium, and we bought wonderful goods for our families and friends.  Over the years, I found a quality friendship necklace for Audie Horrall, a crocheted snowflake for my mom, and some other fabulous gifts for lucky recipients.  The best year by far was the year of the award ribbons.  They looked like grand prize ribbons from the county fair, but they were attached to safety pins.  Wearable art, pals.  That year, Santa's Workshop made one of the best Christmas memories because my cousin Matthew and I (an hour away from each other in our respective schools) had each purchased a ribbon for our grandparents.  I got "Classy Lady" for Grammy; he got "The Boss" for Grampy.  They still have those ribbons. ...

     Today Matt and I will celebrate our second anniversary.  We have been together for six years...plus the five big months of my freshman year of high school (which was ten years ago!). Christmas Dance 2001 youth group party at my house-December 2001       I started keeping journals from the time I was about eight, and it is fascinating to me to see what I wrote about the boy with the perfect smile who smelled SO good that I would actually haul the couch cushion he'd leaned against upstairs to my waterbed so that I could smell his Candies cologne as I drifted off to sleep.  Even if I had a friend spending the night, the cushion stayed.  A bit neurotic, I concede, but I just loved that smell.  They don't even make that scent anymore!  It's hard to believe that was over a decade ago.  I had braces!   I was fourteen !  Yet, some part of my heart just knew.   I always tell him, "There was only ever you ...

     Papaw and Me somewhere in Florida (our favorite place to be!) -1987      Call it destiny.  Call it fate.  Call it the effect of the first grandchild.  Call it the joy of torturing Granny.  Whatever you call it, Papaw and I have always had it--an instant connection that bonded us for the ages.  I love to hear my mama tell of the day I (as a sweet, precious, and perfect baby) would not, for anything or anyone , stop SCREAMING.  My parents, probably completely exhausted, finally called Papaw.  Mom says that when he held me, I miraculously stopped crying.  Just like that.  That was the beginning of a life spent in Papaw's arms.   This picture makes me feel safe!      As I have written before, I spent an enormous amount of my childhood growing up in the funeral home/ambulance service world of my grandparents.  How either of them found time to teach me anything while running two b...