The Valley part 3

My children wanted to be near me so I built a playroom. It was the envy of everyone on the street. I was determined that I could still be the perfect mother and the perfect shopkeeper. I had forgotten about my dreams about my marriage let alone being the perfect wife. I was far too busy to be the perfect anything but still I labored. I was almost mindless in my determination to make everything work. On my scale everything was ultimately going to balance but success somewhere became equal to me succeeding in the store. There were whole weeks I have no memory of; they all began to run together.
The first night I I stayed over at the store was to do accounting. I had set up a break room of sorts in the back of the store and I settled in for a long night of math. At about 2:30 am I got a creepy feeling like I was being watched and put all my work down to check out the store. That feeling never left me that night but it was the first time I can remember stopping and thinking, “Stephanie! What are you doing?” I now believe that feeling was the presence of something bad hovering around me when I went into a quite place. I didn’t like to be in the quite because I had not slowed down for so long. The feeling was something definitely evil and from that night own I had a hard time shaking it and not thinking about it. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
As I look back at the fateful moment when my eyes were opened for the first time and I realized my shop was going under, I know it was a direct message. There were a lot of messages from God but at some point I had chosen to minimize His input. That night was something else trying to take hold in my heart. I had become bitter and resentful lashing out at my husband and even my children. I had forgotten why I was there and why I even wanted to be there.
In September of that same year, I had begun having panic attacks. I wasn’t sleeping but a few hours a night and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being preyed upon. There was one person who would come into the store that had what can be best expressed as a dark presence. He spooked me and whenever he came into the store I felt like the air had been sucked out of me and what little peace was left was wiped away. It soon became clear that he was not there to be supportive but like a sentinel hunting for something. And it wasn’t just me who felt this. Others close to me felt it to and I became afraid of the store; certainly at night when it was quite.
On September ninth, I’d had enough of the panic and the daily treadmill and I knew I wasn’t going to make my rent. I was already behind and I just couldn’t see a way out of this mess. I went into the bathroom and got on my knees and prayed. The very thing I had forgotten to do was the last thing I did. Isn’t it interesting that the first thing we are to do is take it to God but It’s always the last line of defense. Sometimes, now over a year later, I feel like He was just waiting on me to see how far down I’d gone or how far down I’d go before I reached up for help. That presence in the store had not left until that moment. I had started teaching again at church and we were talking bout the faith of Abraham and Moses not wanting to do what was asked of him.
I pleaded with God to help me not even knowing if He would still listen to me. Fundamentally, I knew He would hear me but to what ends an answer would come I didn’t have the slightest inkling of a clue. He’d led me to this but was it time for me to go?

At about 7:30 pm, on September 9th, here is basically what I prayed, on my knees in the bathroom of the store:
“God, help me! Do not let me die here because I feel like I am going to die. Whatever you want me to do, like Abraham, I’ll pack up my tents and go where you lead me; even if it means closing the store and giving up on this. Help me, I will follow you. I need to know if you hear me and will help me. I am sorry I forgot to include you.”
Sean knocked on the door and we went home. That night was the first time I slept a whole night in six months.

The Valley Part 2

Things moved along very well for a while and I was ignorant of the fact that everything was about to change. There is a song called “Slow Fad” and one of the lines says “ It’s a slow fade when you give yourself away…” Daily I was giving myself over to the demands of this petulant child called “Almost Home”. Even the name meant it was just one step away from heaven. But it was far from heaven before long.
In June of 2008 after just five and a half short months things began to change. They were changing all along but I didn’t see it. The economy was showing signs of weakening and there were not as many customers as there once had been. Those that did still shop didn’t buy much and the original owner was getting to move her restaurant in the back out to a new location. I didn’t realize how much I had come to depend on the other people in the store for little things like opening on time and helping me run the register and just general accounting and support.
I stopped being a labor of love and became a bad dream. It wasn't perfect anymore. People did shop and the store was really cute just as I knew it would be but not enough people shopped and gas prices started going up in the state and fewer people shopped and then the economy began to show signs of real trouble and still I soldiered on despite all of these things. I would wake up like a zombie, get dressed and not to see my family until after the children had gone to sleep. I began to miss my life befre the store but I was so deep in the valley that I couldn’t even see the sunshine over the top anymore. So slowly the cutest store ever became the albatross around my neck. There was water everywhere but certainly not enough to drink. Stores around me were having trouble too and we all commiserated together but believed in our plans and just knew it would come back. I knew God had placed me here for a reason but I believed I had not achieved it yet and I certainly was not going to give up now. I dug in my heels.
It did not come back.
I was determined to save my perfect endeavor. After all it was my dream; and dreams cannot NOT come true. If you just work hard enough and long enough it WILL happen. It will work. I began working more and being home less. The ideas I had of personal perfection began to slide all into my store. Gone were the ideas that my children and husband needed me as much as they do. I became so focused on the store and making it work that I let everything else slide. My friendships, my family, my housework all lived somewhere in the distant background.
I simply needed to be at the store more. We needed to be open every day until 9 at night. 50 Hours wasn’t going to be enough I needed to work 70 maybe 90 hours; I needed to be smarter about all my business endeavors. Somewhere I had missed something and that one thing was the key to making it work. I had to be better, perkier more charming wittier and people would come shop with me and at my store. The store was becoming me. I was becoming the store and as it failed, I was becoming a failure. The entire store was moving in and taking the place of everything in my life and all because I couldn't separate myself from the physical store. I certainly couldn’t hire anyone because I didn’t have enough money to even keep the lights on. I would have to be enough for everyone. And I tumbled deeper and deeper into the valley until I was on my knees.

More to come...

Things I found in the Valley Part 1

"Being happy does not mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to see beyond the imperfections."
It has taken me a while since the closing of the store to realize that it is okay that things do not have to be perfect; just a reasonable version will do in most cases.
What is perfect?
I grew up going to church so I knew what perfect meant, intellectually. As a child I pictured perfect as grades and a clean room. That was as far as my mind was able to go. After I was baptized I knew it meant living a life for the Lord and I did do that but keeping my eye on the ball was hard. As a young woman, perfect meant the perfect job and the perfect boyfriend/would-be husband. As a Married woman perfect meant a clean house and a perfect marriage with no problems and no issues, attending church and basically trying to be a good person for everyone. Perfect was $10k in the bank and no debt. As a mother, perfect was well behaved children with no issues, immaculately dressed and perfectly coiffed hair with a bow on top as though it was the cherry on my perfect life. It continued to mean being all things to all people except for one, me. I HAD to be all things to all people; never let anyone down; do not disappoint and whatever you do, do not say no because that is a sign of weakness and a lack of "moral fortitude;" the same "moral fortitude" that would carry you through even when you dreaded the very thing you had just said yes to. Perfection meant to everyone and for everyone except the one person who was actually supposed make that happen.
In 2007, I was at my wits end. I was half a person inside. I wore a great façade and no one knew the depths of my personal exhaustion. I volunteered for everything and wanted to be in charge of things and yet still believed that I could have the clean house and well disciplined children I knew was possible. I had left the most important thing out of the equation. My faith was strong but I forgot that ask for help from God. I stopped praying and started doing on my own. That was also the year I discovered I had ADD and began medication. Frankly I’m not sure how I made it, with any grace, up to that point. I realized that was part of the reason I was all over the board and spread so thin and GOT bored with things very quickly.
Luckily, I looked around and everything was a mess. My house was a wreck. (I’ve never been a housekeeper anyway) I realized my mistake and started trying to close in on what was really important. I knew in my heart that I needed some time of introspection and focus so I started teach the first graders at my church. I wanted to get back in the Bible and I wanted to work on myself spiritually. I wasn’t sure where to start so I went back to my first love which is teaching children. That did help but I’ve always felt inside like I was meant to do something great; not for myself but to help others. I love to help. I’m just built that way but I had to make my own opportunities happen if I wanted to be the person I felt God wanted me to be and I knew in my heart I wanted to be.

In retrospect, sometimes I wish I had taken another path but God knew I needed a valley and not a summit. I had to appreciate the valley; both for it treachery and it’s beauty. Sometimes I wonder if another path would have been just as effective but God knew exactly what I needed to get my head on straight.

More to come....

The end of Basketball Season

Garrison is a funny little guy He is not nearly as competitive as one might think. That is until he gets on the Basketball court. In the last game he ran for a total of 60 minute (they were short 2 players) becasue he played the entire game. his coach names him the most inproved player becasue he was no longer afraid of the ball, like at the beginning of the season. Sean claims that he was a lot like Garrison when he was younger. He likes it once he's on the court but when it comes to practice and leaving the computer well that is a different story. He does not trash talk like some of the players...

Like Kamdyn...

No remember Kamdyn is only 6 and on her second Basketball team. Here are a few of the quotables...

to her own teammates-
"What are you doing? Can't you see the basket?"
"Just get the ball to me and I'll put it in the hole!"
"I'm right under the basket! OPEN YOUR EYES!"
"You had better pass me that ball next time!"

To the other team it is worse. This is my favorite.

"You're going to 'BRING IT'? Are you going to Bring it like Kamdyn is going to bring it?
Another great one is, " I've got my eye on you." and "Stop crying!" "You better bring your 'A' game!
All of this is in the Upward Christian Basketball League.

Kamdyn is very competitive and can actually hold her own against any of the teams. They practice against the coaches son so the girls have upped their game quite a bit. Most of the girls want to play on the same team going forward which is against the Upward rules but the coach taught us a way around that rule. Like a loop hole. I'm thinking Kamdyn might be more like her Uncle Greg on the court. He apparently loved basketball and was quite good in school. Knowing Uncle Greg he might have talked a little trash also. But who knows. Kamdyn likes being told she is like Uncle Greg on the court.