Have you ever felt flawed? Ever had a moment when you said..”I’m not sure how I feel…but I know nobody seems to get me?”…I can remember growing up…and feeling sometimes like the square peg in the round hole…I would look at my hair…and not be satisfied…my shape was just not what I wanted it to be…could my feet be any bigger? I wish I wasn’t so shy…I wish I looked like her…or spoke like her…I wish I lived where she lives…I wish my family was more like hers…sometimes..I wondered why all of my flaws seemed so magnified…I took many of those thoughts and feelings into adulthood…then I realized I was not alone…there were many women who felt the same way…media…society and a constant silent comparison of each other causes so many of us to question how we look…how we act…how our families measure up…it brings feelings of “I’m not enough…I need to be better”…”I need to be MORE“…well fast forward…I had this wonderful epiphany…I am ENOUGH…I discovered a lover…NO!… it is not at all what you are thinking…GOD is my perfect lover… He answers all of my questions about me…He fills in all of my blanks…quiets all of my misconceptions about who I am…He embraces ME…the IMPERFECT ME…flaws and all…with all of my quirks and idiosyncrasies…all of my failures…and all of my successes…all of my strengths…all of my weaknesses…all of my brokeness..and all of my discoveries……EVERYTHING…

NOTHING withheld… And guess what? HE loves ALL of ME…HE perfectly loves the IMPERFECT ME…now that ladies…is good news❤

39 years and counting…WE celebrate our wedding anniversary tomorrow..it has been 39 years of mountaintops and valleys…of light days and dark nights…of joy and pain…of understanding…and confusion…of beginnings and endings…of holding on to God so that WE could hold on to each other…I still remember that couple standing at the altar…so young..so full of promise..eyes wide open…expecting the best of everything…he in his “tailored to perfection” suit and me in my lace gown..there was no one else in the room…just the two of us…WE were a team…the dynamic duo…well… life happened in those 39 years….. and some times the hits were hard… there were times when WE doubted those vows that WE made to each other so many years ago…but WE didn’t quit…our determination was to get to the other side of whatever the problem might have been…that is still our resolve to this day..WE don’t always get it right…and it is not always easy…but it’s always been about US…whenever there is a storm…one of US is holding the umbrella so that as a unit WE stay dry…it doesn’t matter who is holding the umbrella because… WE have a common goal…to survive the storm…when there are victories…WE celebrate..together…I am often amazed today at how easily marriage is discarded…thrown away like a used tissue…with little thought to the WE and the US…it seems like”I” hijacks many marriages…and storms are not contained in the confines of US…but are allowed to seep out… and it is no longer US..but MY…It’s comforting to know that WE have been able to encourage others through the years to not forget the US…to remember…WE really do need each other…and when WE learn each other’s rhythm…marriage becomes more like a dance rather than a boxing match…when you dance…you must hold each other close…you learn how to move together…your movements have one purpose…to get to the same place…together…so glad WE stopped boxing and learned to dance…hope you do too❤

Here’s what I know…Women are resilient…and we are also very stubborn…yes…I am a woman and I publicly admitted that we are stubborn… “I am woman hear me roar”…is a great song…but it can be a destructive way of thinking…We are determined to get it done…without help..we are a self-sufficient bunch…we’ll say “I’m good…”I got this”… “no thanks”…while the whole world is crashing in on us…about 5 years ago my husband had to have emergency open heart surgery…it was sudden…fast…no time to plan…it had to be done…”I had to keep all the balls in the air”….medical decisions had to be made…I had to work…and make sure my husband was good..I had to keep the home running and make sure the bills were being paid…and I was getting it all done…until a check bounced…and I had to go into the bank to correct the deficit…I thought I was good.. until I unraveled…right in front of the young lady that was taking care of my transaction…I began the ugly cry…out of no where…I had a complete melt down…It was at that moment that I realized I need help…I can’t do this all by myself… I was raised to believe that a strong woman does it all…she doesn’t ask for help…wrong…in that bank…at that moment…I dropped my Super Woman cape…I let my Wonder Woman bracelet slip to the floor and I cried…and it felt good..it was cleansing and it purged the stress that I was denying… the stress that was weighing me down…It was there that God met me…at that very moment…..my weakness summoned His strength and He held me up…He carried me…I came to the correct conclusion that only He does NOT need help…He is God…I am a woman..I went home and slept…I slept! When I awakened it was clear…He is God…I had taken His job…I quickly handed in my resignation…I am clearly NOT QUALIFIED…I AM A WOMAN…I AM NOT GOD…THAT JOB IS ALREADY TAKEN…I am a woman…and that is wonderful and powerful…but who I am Not is God…weakness speaks to His heart and He rescues us..that day in the bank…my weakness found His strength…and that was a good thing😊

One of my greatest challenges has been overcoming my “people pleasing” tendencies…I have said YES to some things that I absolutely did NOT want to do…all because..I didn’t want to hurt the feelings of the person that was asking…or that I believed it would compromise our relationship in some way…so I took on tasks that I was not designed for…I accepted invitations to events that I did not really want to attend…I sat in rooms with people that were excited about whatever was going on and I was mentally home on my couch wrapped in my comforter sipping a cup of tea watching my favorite show😊…What I found was this caused me to become anxious and even bitter at times…I would be quietly angry with the one who had assigned the task or given the invitation…I was not having fun…and I was internally at war with myself…now I’m not saying that everything you do…has to be something that you absolutely want to do…because in life there are some tough things that we may have to do that we do not like… to make it to our NEXT…however…I think we all know the difference…when we are afraid that our NO will offend or tear down a relationship… then our motives and motivations are all wrong..I learned this wonderful lesson…if my NO changes our relationship then it wasn’t very secure anyway…if my performance is the measurement that our relationship is judged on..I will always have to perform…I choose to embrace those things that speak to me …and the very purpose and plan that I was designed for…I would hate to think that I spent a lifetime pleasing others and then missed my “God planned life” …so glad that God Himself dropped this nugget on me some time ago…it absolutely reduced my stress level…and restored balance to my life…who are you pleasing?

Have you ever thought about a season of your life that if it were possible…you would love a “Do Over”? I thought…boy…I had made some really poor choices in my past… I began thinking…that was a big hiccup…my brain was obviously in “neutral” when I decided to do this or that…I remembered some of the consequences and the great struggles that it bought about…how challenges were created and how strength was my only option…I can hear the speeches I had to make to myself to sometimes simply “move forward”…I had to learn how to stretch a dollar until it covered all the bills…I had to encourage myself that “it won’t always be this way”…I celebrated small victories…and declared that “today is a better day”…I would throw in the towel every night..and find it sitting on the bed in the morning😊…I learned how to find a song to sing in the darkness…I found a tenacity that was dormant..until it was needed…I realized that if I had the ability to actually experience “a do over”…I would have missed many “growth spurts”…those hard seasons taught me so much about myself…I learned that it’s not so much about the seasons I find myself in…It’s Who is in the season with me…God’s presence became my strength… I found that do overs may make it easier…but…I would never have known the woman that I know now…life does not allow “do overs”…but it does give us “teachable moments” that make us better…I’ve experienced many of those…how about you?

Have you ever had to dig through the rubble of your broken heart to find love again? I have… Have you ever decided that sometimes loving on any level was too big a risk…took too much time…took too much energy…expended too much emotion? Has loving someone caused pain? Has it ever made you have commitment phobia?…have you ever refused to allow people into the inner courts of your heart? Has past pain dictated future failure? Have you been invited to love..but sent your “regrets?”…. does loving on any level seem like too hard of an assignment to undertake? The wonderful thing..(you think) about guarding your heart…and remaining numb and hiding from love..is that you will never get hurt again…you will never fully engage with someone…always withholding just enough of you to remain whole…one day as I quietly talked with God about this…His query was…”How is that working for you?”…Is it bringing you joy? How about peace? Why are you proud that you have closed your heart? Why do you fear the one thing that will free you? But…I thought I was free…the truth is…I knew I wasn’t…God quietly reminded me that love was His idea…and that I HAD to trust Him to guard my heart….that was His job… He would protect me…His love was able to repel pain and restore the joy of loving again…so I handed Him the keys to my heart…and just like that I became vulnerable again..but I’m not afraid…because loving with God is a safe thing…but hiding from love is a hollow existence. I choose to love…what do you choose?

Eventhough I complain about the winters…and the snow and how cold it can get in the Northeast…there is something spiritual and wonderful about watching the seasons change…about anticipating something new and different…it’s exciting to feel the air change from a cold chill to a warm breeze…if you’ve experienced a cold winter…you cannot wait for the spring…And because God often speaks to me through His creation…this is a perfect place for me to live…I love to stop and gaze at the sky and embrace every cloud formationAm I “Becoming”? Finally finding the authentic me? The woman that has passion in every aspect of her life? I sat quietly in a Sunday Service…and I felt absolutely undistracted..perfectly focused on what God was saying…not to the congregation…but to ME…I heard the Pastor say…”Don’t you want to know the person that God created you to be?” I heard myself breathe out an audible YES…who is she…who is Mary? Why was she hurled into this universe?…at this time?…in this part of the world?…what questions was I designed to answer?…who’s heart was I built to touch?…I wanted to know that woman…the one who was not defined by anyone other than her Creator…wow…the original me?…the authentic me? You have my undivided attention…and so started a journey of “Becoming”…and I love it…I’ve had to confront the counterfeit me…(you know the one that family and friends and life and traumas and self promotion have created)…I had to stare her down…and remind her…I will not quit until she releases my authentic self…I must know this woman…I already see glimpses of how incredible she is…what a shame it would have been if I never got to meet her…thank you Pastor…on that day you offered an invitation that I could not reject…no regrets here…responding with pleasure…I’m all in..Are you Becoming too?…I sit and watch a sunset or sunrise as though I’m at the theater…It reminds me of how great our God is…and that He is a skilled and detailed artist …I remember one extremely brutal winter…it snowed nearly every week…the trees were dry and brittle…I kept my eye on one particular tree…it was lifeless and it did not appear that it had survived the extreme cold…but I heard God whisper…”keep looking…don’t give up on that tree”….so…every day before starting my lists of things to do…I would check on “the tree“…and every day it seems even more lifeless…but I remembered God’s instruction…”keep looking..don’t give up“…I maintained my vigil through the days and weeks…and one morning as I wiped the sleep from my eyes…I saw it…a small bud on the very tip of that sad looking tree…and as the days continued there were more and more buds..until the sad looking tree was full and lush…it was alive..it always had been…it just seemed dead to me..God reminded me of the many times in my life when I had declared death…in my relationships..in my friendships…in my finances…in my emotions…in my career…in my very spirit…but as God whispered to me about that tree…He also whispers to me about all those things I thought were dead…He says…”keep looking…don’t give up…It’s not dead…it’s just dormant…waiting for me to touch it…to breathe on it…to restore life to it”…what things have you declared dead? don’t quit in your winter…spring is coming…

Am I “Becoming“? Finally finding the authentic me? The woman that has passion in every aspect of her life? I sat quietly in a Sunday Service…and I felt absolutely undistracted..perfectly focused on what God was saying…not to the congregation…but to ME…I heard the Pastor say…”Don’t you want to know the person that God created you to be?” I heard myself breathe out an audible YES…who is she…who is Mary? Why was she hurled into this universe?…at this time?…in this part of the world?…what questions was I designed to answer?…who’s heart was I built to touch?…I wanted to know that woman…the one who was not defined by anyone other than her Creator…wow…the original me?…the authentic me? You have my undivided attention…and so started a journey of “Becoming“…and I love it…I’ve had to confront the counterfeit me…(you know the one that family and friends and life and traumas and self promotion have created)…I had to stare her down…and remind her…I will not quit until she releases my authentic self…I must know this woman…I already see glimpses of how incredible she is…what a shame it would have been if I never got to meet her…thank you Pastor…on that day you offered an invitation that I could not reject…no regrets here…responding with pleasure…I’m all in..Are you Becoming too?

She came over right after his funeral…her friend…her co- worker..she was struggling to understand why he had made the decision to take his own life…to end his days…to permanently arrest the demons that had obviously plagued him..as we talked she tried to make sense of his desperate decision…she reflected on what she might have missed and how there was nothing obvious that told her he was in despair…then we began looking at our own lives and spoke of the moments that we found ourselves in the darkness… groping for light…when we wore the mask of contentment and in actuality were full of fear and forboding…internal chaos was the truth…the voice that everyone else heard was calm and metered…while the voice that resonated within our own hearts was a “Silent Scream“…it was the voice that kept us awake all night..and the one that was our constant companion during the day…the Silent Scream…the voice that said…”ALL IS NOT WELL“…the PAIN IS SO LOUD…it is deafening…we talked about the private struggles we both had gone through…and relived the fears of that dark tunnel…we asked..how can it be that so many are drawing this conclusion?…to end it all…we’re hearing it all too often…on the news and in our own lives…people are screaming silently…their hope is being snuffed out by the struggles of life..I pondered…what was the difference between my silent scream and theirs…the truth is…it is too complicated to give a quick…cute…packaged answer…there are so many pieces to this dark puzzle…mental health issues…isolation…lack of support….ineffective support…and sometimes not having our ears tuned into the frequency of the heart…sometimes we’re moving so fast..the silent scream is muffled…and sometimes we are in our own struggle and are so fixated on ourselves we miss the screams…as I said goodnight to my friend…I fell into my bed..grateful…that my silent scream became so loud that someone else heard it…and cared enough to tune into my frequency…and helped me find the light again…Are you tuning into the frequencies around you? Slow up…tune in…you may be able to help lead someone out of their darkness…and put and end to their “silent scream“…or maybe it’s you that’s screaming..reach out to find help to get back into the light…trust me…there is still light…and I promise you… LIFE is still worth the struggle…

Tomorrow I will be traveling to my hometown to celebrate my 50th High School Class Reunion (yes…50th…I can’t believe that either) Where did the years go?…There are so many things I have done in these 50 years…I continued my education..I’ve had several careers…I married…I had two children and four grandchildren…I’ve had many victories and some defeats…I held on to some old friends and made many new ones…I celebrated births and wept at funerals…I had a couple of hospital stays and experienced illnesses and losses in my family…I was mentored and then became a mentor…so much has happened…BUT…this is what I know…there’s so much MORE.. there is a propensity in this country to resign people of my age to “rocking chairs”…and “comfortable shoes”…aging in America is something to laugh at …to make fun of…rather than to honor…somehow reaching a certain age says…”you have nothing significant left to say”…well..I have come to debunk that myth…this is an amazing age…there is nothing left for me to prove to anyone…I am wealthy with experience and knowledge…I have learned endurance and perseverance…I have sat in “the classroom of hard knocks”…and excelled…please don’t believe the hype…just because you’ve reached a certain age…it does not mean you have lost your relevance……There is a lie that has been resonating…that age determines our significance…I now understand that this is a rich and productive time in my life…I want to encourage you..what have you been dreamimg about?…what has fear said you are too old to accomplish? what have you left unfinished? I don’t know about you…BUT..I’m just getting started…I want to finish strong…How about you?