I am left handed, I was born on christmas day, I hate holiday shaped reese cups. I love to work with power tools, and I am terribly flawed. I say all sorts of awkward things, and I totally laugh about them later. I assume everyone is my friend, but then that they hate me all the same. I like cool whip in my coffee, and I eat way too much fast food. I am absolutely terrified of heights-and escalators- but I have no problems eating dinner in a restaurant alone, or speaking to a stadium of people. I am terribly flawed.
Last week, I went to a thirty one party with some friends from work. For three hours I sat on my friends couch thinking of ways to get out of buying a $30 utility tote with owls on it. For three hours I sat on my friends couch thinking about how abnormal it was to ponder spending $30 on a utility tote with owls on it.
The other day I was thinking about my childhood and came across a memory from when I was 6 or 7 and dreamed of growing up to be an architect. I use to think to myself how awesome it would be-when I was old enough to call my own shots. I would make all the right decisions and I would have the perfect family.
Looking back I wonder where I went wrong, or if I did at all. I wonder what would've happened if I had stayed on the straight and narrow. Would I be an architect? A lawyer? Would I even be any better off?
I am always the girl with a story. I have a "make it out alive" mentality that I desperately hold onto. I am prone to checking everyone's intentions, and I am impossible to befriend. I say all the wrong things, and I get in too deep. Everyday is a struggle. I do not know right from wrong, and I do not want to be the girl with a story.
I want to be normal. I want to know where I came from without a preface. I want to look back and say that I went to one school, and my favorite part of growing up in this one town was getting ice cream at that one place. I want to walk down the street where I learned to ride a bike, and finally change that old wallpaper at mom's house. I want to get excited over utility totes with owls, or purse parties in general. I want to make friends and trust, just trust, that they want to be my friend too. I want to walk through life without sizing myself up. I want to know that what I'm doing is alright. I want a memory, any memory from being a child that is just good.
I want to be boring.
I want to give my son a boring life too.
Showing posts with label My Heart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My Heart. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Trying not to boil
I am having trouble today catching up with my own mind. I have about 7 posts in que that I can't seem to finish because my mind is going a mile a minute. What is on my heart today is change. The kind of change that is life altering. When you can feel in your bones that something big is going to happen. Something that makes you feel scared and comforted at the same time. When you do not want to stay were you're at, but you have no idea which way life is going to go.
This past eight months has been very challenging for Jay and I. Starting in January we had a huge shift, for the worse. By May we felt so beaten down that we weren't even sure if we could ever get back up again. Now it is September, wow. We are hoping that good things will happen again, and that is the only thing keeping us going. The hope and faith that we could possibly be launched into something great.
It is the beginning of September and I am reminded of a few things.
What has been going on for the Bentlage's you ask? Well, the deep dark truth is that in January we had a very tough period in our marriage. Since then, we have completely rebuilt and God has restored us. At one point, I was not sure if we were going to make it to our third wedding anniversary in October. We got a big wake up call there, but if we hadn't those issues would still be lingering. I honestly like to refer to that period as a good period, although it was hard, it brought light to everything that was tearing us apart. Next, I had a "break up" if you will with a person who was a very big part of my life.
I heard a quote once that was something about ^. That right there is vulnerability. We're not afraid of the dark. We're afraid of what's hiding in the dark. We're afraid of being vulnerable.
That is exactly what happened. I trusted someone, looked up to them, took their advice to find out that I had invested three years into that relationship and I had been manipulated the whole time. What do you do when you have been thinking someone loves you, thinking someone has your best interest in mind, to realize-they don't. ?????? You break up.
While these big emotional changes were happening we also knew that life was happening too. Just like everyone has, we had a period where whatever could go wrong did. Car accident, speeding tickets, Getting stuck in the snow ditches, appliances breaking, our rental property having problems, car problems. The things you try to take in stride and could handle, if only the rest of your life wasn't leaving you raw.
Lastly, we were robbed. Wait, we're talking about vulnerability right? Someone coming into your home and invading your personal space is the ultimate vulnerability. Someone had been watching my family casing my house and waiting. Waiting for their moment to seize our sense of safety. For two days following Jay and I slept in the living room to be closer to Braxton. We couldn't bear sleeping in our own bed. Someone had been in my room, in my things, and now they know.
We did lose many items including jewelry, B's piggy bank, laptop, camera, ipad, money, etc but what we lost the most was our sense of safety. We felt dirty in our own home. I did not want to touch door knobs, and I had to wash every article of clothing they went through. We felt as if we had no protection, whatever we own is just there for the taking. There for the world to see.
Someone was in my house, they saw my secrets, my way of living.
The messed up part is that in the days after the burglary, I couldn't help but wish my house had been cleaner. Like I should have picked up before the robbers came. How. sad. is. that.?
After all of this happened we hoped it was the last of it. We hoped, and still expected good things.
It wasn't until I started to change my mindset about my career that we saw real hope. When you're going against God it simply does not work. Joyce Meyer says: "If it's God it will work, if it's not, it won't" Simple right? Well then why did I spend 7 months trying to make things work when it wasn't God.
For some reason I thought I had to be big, instead of just being me.
Now, eight months later my family is in a period of rest. A period where we can start to rebuild. We have a sense of compassion we have never felt and an appreciation for what we have.
At this point I am dealing with a sense of defeat. Where I am hoping and praying that good things happen and we can get out of a slump, but when I think about it actually coming through I am surprised.
How do you deal with being in the gutter so deep your mind is challenged by any other way of life?
You know the saying that when a frog is put in a boiling pot, it will jump out. But if you put a frog in lukewarm water and slowing bring it to a boil, it will let itself die? When bad things happen over and over and over again, you start to feel strings being cut from an old life. My heart is calm, and full of God's peace. My mind though, is chaos.
Right now, we're just trying not to boil.
This past eight months has been very challenging for Jay and I. Starting in January we had a huge shift, for the worse. By May we felt so beaten down that we weren't even sure if we could ever get back up again. Now it is September, wow. We are hoping that good things will happen again, and that is the only thing keeping us going. The hope and faith that we could possibly be launched into something great.
It is the beginning of September and I am reminded of a few things.
"Your darkest hour can only last 60 minutes."
What has been going on for the Bentlage's you ask? Well, the deep dark truth is that in January we had a very tough period in our marriage. Since then, we have completely rebuilt and God has restored us. At one point, I was not sure if we were going to make it to our third wedding anniversary in October. We got a big wake up call there, but if we hadn't those issues would still be lingering. I honestly like to refer to that period as a good period, although it was hard, it brought light to everything that was tearing us apart. Next, I had a "break up" if you will with a person who was a very big part of my life.
"You're not afraid of the dark, you're afraid of what's in it"
I heard a quote once that was something about ^. That right there is vulnerability. We're not afraid of the dark. We're afraid of what's hiding in the dark. We're afraid of being vulnerable.
That is exactly what happened. I trusted someone, looked up to them, took their advice to find out that I had invested three years into that relationship and I had been manipulated the whole time. What do you do when you have been thinking someone loves you, thinking someone has your best interest in mind, to realize-they don't. ?????? You break up.
While these big emotional changes were happening we also knew that life was happening too. Just like everyone has, we had a period where whatever could go wrong did. Car accident, speeding tickets, Getting stuck in the snow ditches, appliances breaking, our rental property having problems, car problems. The things you try to take in stride and could handle, if only the rest of your life wasn't leaving you raw.
Lastly, we were robbed. Wait, we're talking about vulnerability right? Someone coming into your home and invading your personal space is the ultimate vulnerability. Someone had been watching my family casing my house and waiting. Waiting for their moment to seize our sense of safety. For two days following Jay and I slept in the living room to be closer to Braxton. We couldn't bear sleeping in our own bed. Someone had been in my room, in my things, and now they know.
We did lose many items including jewelry, B's piggy bank, laptop, camera, ipad, money, etc but what we lost the most was our sense of safety. We felt dirty in our own home. I did not want to touch door knobs, and I had to wash every article of clothing they went through. We felt as if we had no protection, whatever we own is just there for the taking. There for the world to see.
Someone was in my house, they saw my secrets, my way of living.
The messed up part is that in the days after the burglary, I couldn't help but wish my house had been cleaner. Like I should have picked up before the robbers came. How. sad. is. that.?
"Everything will be okay in the end, If it's not Okay,
It's not the end"
After all of this happened we hoped it was the last of it. We hoped, and still expected good things.
It wasn't until I started to change my mindset about my career that we saw real hope. When you're going against God it simply does not work. Joyce Meyer says: "If it's God it will work, if it's not, it won't" Simple right? Well then why did I spend 7 months trying to make things work when it wasn't God.
For some reason I thought I had to be big, instead of just being me.
Now, eight months later my family is in a period of rest. A period where we can start to rebuild. We have a sense of compassion we have never felt and an appreciation for what we have.
At this point I am dealing with a sense of defeat. Where I am hoping and praying that good things happen and we can get out of a slump, but when I think about it actually coming through I am surprised.
How do you deal with being in the gutter so deep your mind is challenged by any other way of life?
You know the saying that when a frog is put in a boiling pot, it will jump out. But if you put a frog in lukewarm water and slowing bring it to a boil, it will let itself die? When bad things happen over and over and over again, you start to feel strings being cut from an old life. My heart is calm, and full of God's peace. My mind though, is chaos.
Right now, we're just trying not to boil.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Playing With Purpose
So here we go world. My first serious blog. I'll be honest, I tried this blogging thing YEARS ago, and I have no idea where those blogs even ended up. It's funny how we revisit past "failures" huh? We get led down paths that we took forever ago, hoping they'll be different the second time around. Maybe blogging isn't the best example of that, but, it does lead me to the entire point of this blog. Playing with purpose.
Originally I thought about naming my entire blog "Playing with Purpose" because I feel like that's where I am at in life. (*many posts to follow about that one.) Let's face it, I am a super two- year- old- obsessed mom, how could Braxton not be in my title? That's just it, friends. As a mother, wife, and almost ex MK consultant, its hard to find identifiers in life that are not "jay's wife" "Braxton's mommy" or "that Mary Kay lady"
Hence. My blog.
I feel like that last few years I have totally thought I had life figured out. This past year has taught me otherwise. I tried blogging before when I thought I had it all together, and I think that's simply what went wrong. Right now, I have NOTHING in life figured out. I am simply a girl on a mission to find myself. To figure myself out, and maybe pick up some just-as-confused- as -me friends along the way. I have a million things to write about, here's to hoping that something will strike your interest along the way!
Originally I thought about naming my entire blog "Playing with Purpose" because I feel like that's where I am at in life. (*many posts to follow about that one.) Let's face it, I am a super two- year- old- obsessed mom, how could Braxton not be in my title? That's just it, friends. As a mother, wife, and almost ex MK consultant, its hard to find identifiers in life that are not "jay's wife" "Braxton's mommy" or "that Mary Kay lady"
Hence. My blog.
I feel like that last few years I have totally thought I had life figured out. This past year has taught me otherwise. I tried blogging before when I thought I had it all together, and I think that's simply what went wrong. Right now, I have NOTHING in life figured out. I am simply a girl on a mission to find myself. To figure myself out, and maybe pick up some just-as-confused- as -me friends along the way. I have a million things to write about, here's to hoping that something will strike your interest along the way!
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