Mr. Nice Guy

A friend excitedly told me she wanted me to meet this guy who had moved back to the panhandle – he was such a great guy and he was soooooooooooo nice. My smiling face said “Sure” but my brain was saying “Nice. Right. There is no such thing as nice.” She invited me to a weekly accountability group and lo & behold, Mr. Nice Guy was a member of the group. He was always cheerful and seemed to be an integral part of the group. He shook my hand when we were introduced but that was about it. Ya'll he was ca-yuuute (for you non-southerners -- C. U. T. E. is actually two syllables at bare minimum) and I didn’t mind looking at him a bit but beyond that, I hadn’t a thought in my mind. After all, timing was not right according to my time table and I was still pretty fragile.

Fast forward several months - it's a Tuesday evening about 8:30. For some time I had been meeting with two sisters to just pray – it was such a great time and one of the high points of my week. One of the gals had already left and I was just casually visiting with the other when the phone rang. I answered the phone and my friend could tell there was something quite momentous about this phone call. She watched as my eyes widened and I promptly backed up to prop myself against the wall behind me. Instead, I bumped into a shadow box with 4,738 miniatures in it and knocked it kerpow, straight to the floor. My grace astounds even me.

“Michelle, this is Mr. Nice Guy. How are you this evening?”
“Oh, I’m fine! And you?" I think it actually sounded more like mmm,..uhhhh, fffffine.
“I was wondering if you would like to go to Amarillo with me this Saturday evening?”

HOLY CRAP. I was 37 years old and I was going on a date.

I did what any self-respecting girl does in a situation like this. After agreeing and getting the details I hung up the phone, looked at my friend and …………..

screamed.

Merciful Heavens it is finally the end of the story...........

Those are the stories of my life…in the boat, and out of it. Going down for the 3rd time and walking across the top of the waves….What have I learned? I learned that what happened to me had to happen in order that God be able to mold me into a vessel he could use. Back in that first part of my life I was trusting fully in my ability to do all the right things and none of the wrong things. That was an empty, vain religion that was no life preserver when the storms of life hit. It was only after I was broken that God was able to begin a work in me that he hasn’t finished yet.

Once at a ladies retreat we looked at Hebrews 11 and the great hall of faith heroes. Our speaker suggested that we all add a verse to that chapter so that our verse 41 would read “By faith ______(insert your name) did...." If my Bible had a verse 41 it would say "By faith Michelle hung on” As I was thinking about that lesson God allowed me to see vs. 40 with new eyes. I thought about that long list of people who did great things by faith, parted the red sea, left their homeland, offered their only son, hid the spies and many other things. The chapter closes with this verse, “these were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.” But they had faith that caused them to act whether they saw the fruit of their faith or not. Just like Habbakkuk said in chapter 3 of the book that bears his name “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vine, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food. Though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord.”

And so my conclusion is this – authentic faith isn’t gained by staying in the boat. It isn’t a faith that sees. It doesn’t have all the answers but it is one that is in a God that is big enough to handle the questions, the anger, the doubts. It’s the faith we possess when we are honest enough to admit “God I don’t understand. I may never understand. I don’t have to understand.. It’s a faith that says ‘Whatever, Lord’.” And that is enough. I’d like to close this long saga with a paragraph from a book I read recently that has powerfully impacted me. (The Prisoner in the Third Cell by Gene Edwards)

"You have now come face to face with a God whom you do not fully understand. You have met a God who has not lived up to your expectations. ....You are going to get to know your Lord by faith or you will not know him at all. Faith in Him, trust that is in Him...not in his ways. ....today you are resentful of those who so callously hurt you. But no, not really. The truth is you are angry with God because, ultimately, you are not dealing with men, you are dealing the with sovereign hand of your Lord. Beyond all events, behind all things, there is always his sovereign hand. The question is not, "why is God doing this?" Why is he like this? The question is not, Why does he not answer me? The question is not, I need him desperately, why does he not come rescue me?" the question is not, why did God allow this tragedy to happen to me, to my children, to my wife, to my husband, to my family? Nor is it why does God allow injustices?

The question before the house is this: Will you follow a God you do not understand? Will you follow a God who does not live up to your expectations?

Your Lord has put something in your life which you cannot bear. The burden is simply too great. He was never supposed to do this! But the questions remains, "will you continue to follow this God who did not live up to your expectations?"

And for me, the answer is yes.

Almost to the end.......

There is a quote from Charles Spurgeon that spoke to me when I first heard it:

God is too wise to be mistaken
God is too good to be unkind
So when you cannot trace his hand
Trust his heart.

So I trusted God to show up and I asked him to hold me up. For four years we lived through the highs and lows of a family that loves an addict. I went to places I never dreamed I would go…both literally and figuratively. I never ever expected to see my child in an orange jumpsuit behind bars. I would never have imagined a day when I would say ‘thank God he is choosing alcohol now instead of pot…at least it’s legal”. Long periods of time would go by where he was almost the happy funny kid I gave birth to, followed by periods where he gave into Satan’s lies and slide into the cesspool of lies that the enemy filled his mind with and he would attempt yet again to drown out those voices of insecurity and inadequacy with drugs and alcohol. I prayed for him to get sober. I prayed that God would somehow make him hate alcohol. I didn’t see it happening. But it began to matter less to me. Not that I quit caring….not by a long shot. Not that I began accepting his life style choices. Never did I or would I do that. But I began experiencing the sweet serenity of knowing God was in charge. God loved my son more than I did…hard to imagine but I knew it was true. I still cried. I still mourned the loss of dreams I had for the kid. I still panicked from time to time. But over all I knew that he was one of God’s sheep and God doesn’t lose his sheep. [As an aside, he chose to get well on October 14, 2004 and as today has been sober nearly three years. Recovery works. He will never be cured from this dreadful disease that he has but he has chosen to live in recovery and I praise God for the deliverance. I am deeply grateful to all those who own a part of that recovery because of the battle you waged on your knees for his soul. You’ve loved him, accepted him as your own and that’s a debt a mother can never repay.]

More and more.......

This next storm was nothing I could anticipate, expect or be prepared for. This storm involved my first-born. I have a connection to him that defies my explanation…I deeply love and adore all three of my children but there is some sort of psychological, spiritual bond that I can’t explain that exists between myself and my eldest. I have always been able to sense when things weren’t right in his life. When his daddy left he was almost 11, he was old beyond his years and totally devastated by his dad’s actions. He would pour over his Bible in his room and copy verses that he would then write to his dad and ask him to explain how he could do what he had done if he preached the opposite. He grew angry and angrier.

When I remarried and moved here we brought along a little boy who had been a very big fish in a very small pond and put him in an elementary school that itself was larger than the entire K-12 population of the school he had moved from. He made his very best friends in the youth group; he was in the Gifted/Talented program in middle school and high school. He had a sweet girlfriend. He also began taking drugs. I knew something was wrong with Matt…but never in my wildest dreams would I have come up with the answer of drugs. That was foreign to me. I wasn’t stupid – I read all the signs a parent is supposed to watch for….change in friends…nope. Falling grades….nope. Disruptive, defiant behavior….nope. He went to every youth group party, devotional, mission trip, road trip….he maintained an A average, scored a 1300 on his first attempt at his SAT without preparing at all. So of course my son wasn’t doing drugs. He got a very generous academic scholarship to a Christian college and in the fall of 1999 he moved to West Texas. There, away from the confines of home he became a bona fide addict. I would venture to guess he was high nearly every day of his freshman year. Having a 2.3 grade point average doesn’t impress the scholarship folks and at the end of that first year I think he had 13 total credits. We were in debt….and furious. But still ignorant. Still with no clue as to what he had been doing out there….other than not his class work to be sure.

Shortly after he got back home that May we discovered what the problem was and I was completely shocked, heartbroken, and terrified. We told him he could not expect to smoke pot and live in our home – he had to make a choice. For the first time in his life he yelled at me and walked out. Out of his home, with the clothes on his back, a contact case and his car. I didn’t see him or hear from again for over two weeks. That was when I really learned about crying out to God. I became aware slowly that the panic I expected to feel was usually at bay….amazingly enough I could sleep. For two weeks I didn’t know if he was alive or dead, where he slept, if he had anything to eat….he didn’t have clean clothes. But God provided me with the strength for the moment. There is no other explanation because this girl could not/would not have survived the ensuing years. After a couple of weeks he called and asked if he could get his clothes. He rented an apartment near our house and so began a period that lasted four long years.

Yet still more..........

This was not a storm I was prepared for. It was a storm fiercer than any other I had faced. I was swept out of my boat and into the darkest, roughest water I had ever imagined. Most of the time the best I could hope for was keeping my head above water and oftentimes I was barely that. This was the beginning of the long dark winter of my faith. Unlike my previous storm where I called out to God and He responded in unmistakable ways, this time God was silent. I couldn’t sense his presence. I didn’t see his hand in my life. Life became a battle---making it to the end of the day so that I could go to sleep was the highest of my goals. And every day was exactly like the gray day before it. I came to church but could never make it through an entire service. I prayed prayers that felt empty and futile. The only person in my life who loved me completely and unconditionally was gone. How was I to go on? WHY DID GOD DO THIS TO ME?

Through the love and support of a good husband, good friends, a good counselor and good drugs I was able to eventually claw my way through the depression that had settled but I still couldn’t feel God’s presence. Would I ever hear his voice again? I didn’t even have a chance to make it to the boat let alone get settled in it before the next storm hit. In many ways it was the worst one yet. The other storms had been devastating…but none came as a complete and total surprise. I knew my husband didn’t love me….I was shocked that he would choose divorce but still – mentally I had a degree of preparedness. While I certainly did not expect Daddy to die on my kitchen floor a week before Christmas I knew he would die someday. And I knew I would never be ready to say goodbye to him. This next storm was nothing I could anticipate, expect or be prepared for.

Story of the storm.........

I am the oldest of four. My parents had three girls in three years and six years later my brother came along. For a lot of years I got to be Daddy’s “son”. Friday night football games were our date nights right up until I was in high school. I got to go to work with him in the summer. I spent lots of hours riding with Daddy in his truck. I grew up believing there wasn’t any thing worth knowing, any thing worth doing that he didn’t know or couldn’t do. He had lost his own mother when he was a small boy and so grew up being passed from relative to relative…whoever could feed an additional mouth during the days of the depression. As a result of that he wanted to build a family unit that was strong – providing for us the sense of security he never had. In the eyes of the world he lived and died without much that makes a man a success. But it was through him that I learned I could do anything I set my mind to. It was because of him that I’ll tackle nearly every home improvement job I think up. I can still hear in my mind “Shoot, if they could do it we are smart enough to figure it out too!” It was also through him that I learned a deep appreciation for the Word of God. Daddy’s work day started at 4:00 a.m. and if you ever got up to go to the one bathroom our house had in the middle of the night you were most likely going to find him sitting in his recliner with his Bible in his lap. He taught me by example to “hide the words in my heart” as it says in Psalms 119:11.

In December 1997 mom and dad were coming to our house for an early Christmas celebration. Because my sister is a 12/25 baby she has always gotten top billing on that day (and rightly so!). So Mom and Dad came on Thursday the 18th and were going to go on to Abilene on Monday the 22nd. The next day was the last day of school for the year and the kids were all excited about the class parties and Secret Santa’s and the school break. That Friday morning I got my kids up and out the door while welcoming into the house the two little babies I was keeping at the time. Rylee was 2 and Nicholas was 1-1/2 and we were going to have our own Christmas party. Nicholas had gotten very attached to “grandpa” the night before so as soon as he got there he was looking for Grandpa. Daddy had waited until the kids were gone to get his shower and so it was after 8 when he came into the kitchen with Nick draped around his legs. They sat down at the kitchen table and began to play with the toy that he had just gotten and I asked Daddy if he was ready for breakfast. “Sure Hon” was his reply”. I turned to get the muffin out of the oven, butter it, pour the coffee and answer the ringing phone all at the same time. Tyler was calling – he had forgotten to take his Secret Santa gift to school. During the conversation I heard the unmistakable thud of a head hitting the floor. Moms of boys are well acquainted with that sound. Nicholas cried out and I turned expecting to scoop him up into my arms. As I bent down to get him out of the corner of my eye I saw daddy slumped in his chair and then watched in slow motion as he slid to the floor.

The next events remain vivid in my mind’s eye…as though they were burned into my consciousness forever and yet the minutes, hours and days leave no real perception as to their actual passing. I remember grabbing the phone and dialing 911. I remember screaming at the operator both to come and to let me go because I knew CPR. I can see my mom sitting on the floor and cradling Daddy’s head in her lap and asking me over and over “Don’t you know what to do?”. I can feel his chest under my hands as I began CPR – a skill I had never intended to use and certainly not on someone I knew. I can still hear the paramedics tell me I had done well and to let them take over. I cannot erase the pictures of his body lifting off the floor as they shocked his heart over and over. The surreal-ness of following the ambulance to the hospital still overwhelms me. I remember every face of every person who had heard the news and come to gather and support me in the family room of that hospital. I remember the pain in Keith’s voice as he prayed for us. I remember going into the room where the shell of the man who had shown me the way to Jesus was laid, gathering my babies to my chest as they cried tears of fear and confusion and hurt. Instead of gathering around a Christmas tree that year, my family and I gathered in the snow around a hole in the ground where they laid that shell to rest. I remember crying harder than I imagined a person could cry until it felt as though my very insides had ceased to exist.

Short story today.......

It was in the storm I met Him.

I learned that storms, though brutal, do not last forever. They eventually end. I learned that storms are survivable when God is in control. I didn’t need the oars anymore. God was captain of my ship and I thought I was exactly where God wanted me to be. He brought a man into my life that adored me and was eager to become Dad to three hurting kids. The fact that he was willing to take on a woman scarred by divorce and serious trust issues and three children who were dealing with abandonment issues of their own is proof either of God’s direction in his life or insanity on his part. The jury is still out on that one! All of a sudden this country girl found herself living in a metropolitan area that was literally 50 times larger than the community she had moved from. I went from a place where we grew and canned our own food to a place where people were far more likely to get dinner from the drive through than their back yard. I was in culture shock but God was in control. (As a complete aside from this serious post I would like to say that I have completely adapted to that drive-through thing and am compelled to say the day-in and day-out cooking thing is highly over rated!)

And so the story goes on.....

Remember the rule based religion I talked about earlier – I was finding that doing the right thing didn’t necessarily means I would get the right results. It didn’t protect me and you know what? It didn’t comfort me either. The first lesson God wanted me to learn was that He alone had power over the storm. He didn’t cause the storm but he was in control of it and he knew Michelle’s boat was rocking but not upside down. The second lesson and probably the most important was the hardest for me to accept. God had people all over that little community of 3500 that didn’t show up to the same building I did on Sunday morning. I know for some of you that is hard to understand why it came as a surprise to me. But for my time in the world it was a huge revelation and one I didn’t accept easily. There were great birthing pains as my faith stretched before I could wholeheartedly believe and accept that. Even that I had to learn the hard way though. The church we had worked with were grieving, in shock themselves and most believed (and told me) that I should leave. Only when it was those in other faith groups who sat with me, cried with me, made sure I had a place to go on holidays, who told me they were fasting for me. Only then did I accept and believe that I was receiving the love of Jesus from people who months before I would not have fellowshipped. Accepting their love for God provided me with the greatest freedom of all…I wasn’t their judge and in freeing myself from that responsibility I received even greater freedom. The freedom to make mistakes myself. I finally was free to admit I didn’t and couldn’t get it all right. And that was ALL RIGHT! The greatest lesson I learned during the storm was if I kept my eyes on Jesus the storm wasn’t as frightening. If I took my eyes off him I saw the waves just like Peter – but when I was keeping my eyes on him life was euphoric. My faith grew by leaps and bounds. God’s word became real and active. He met me where I needed him. With whatever I needed. With all I needed. For perhaps the first time I understood that God was actively involved in my life and He was really REAL. He wasn’t some judge far off but a father very near. God saw me through that first real storm of my life. I am ashamed and sorry to admit that up until this time I had been absolutely faithful in my service to God. I had been teaching Sunday school since I was 14 years old. I held teacher-training workshops and tried to teach other women to love Bible class teaching as much as I did. I went on mission trips. I was THE preacher’s wife for goodness sake….and yet I didn’t really know God. I knew all about him. But I didn’t know him. I replaced my idolization of my husband and other men of God with an idolization of the only one worthy of my worship. I wish I had time to share this part of my story. Of the ways I would pray a prayer for a specific need and a few hours later I would get a phone call that would begin with “Michelle, you don’t know me but…” Every single need. I had no job history, no marketable skills and yet we were provided for the entire time I was a single mom. I ended up with my own business that was exactly my skill set and I was able to provide food, clothing and shelter for my family. The fact that any of this happened and that I was able to do any of it is proof positive that God was in control of the storm. None of what was accomplished during that time was me…none.

and still more.......

It was somewhere during this most difficult time that a young man moved to the community as a vet in the largest vet practice in town. He was different from anyone I had known before. He talked of a personal relationship with God that was intimate and engrossing. He thrived on talking about Jesus as though he were a friend and most of all he exuded a joy that eluded me. One fall day when the pain was so great I could bear it no longer I got down on my knees in my dining room and cried out to the God that I had all but abandoned. Truth was I was angry at him. Everyone repeatedly told me that my husband was gifted from God…his ministry certainly seemed to be blessed by God. I couldn’t reconcile that with our day-to-day life and had decided that if God was blessing my husband then I didn’t want anything to do with God. But that fall day I was desperate enough to try him one more time. I told God through the tears that I didn’t understand what it was that Greg had but I wanted it and to please take anything in my life that was standing between me and the Lord’s active presence in my life. No sooner had I uttered those words than I quickly added on a postscript to please not let anything happen to my children. I didn’t think my emotional health was strong enough to live through anything happening to them but I offered up everything else in my life. As was my habit at the time I then set about planning God’s answer for him. I don’t know why I thought God needed my help…or why I thought I COULD help…goodness only knows things were a mess. But I always wanted to help so I figured out that my husband would take a sabbatical from ministry. We would have time to reunite as a family and we would be very poor but we would grow back together and things would be great. Somehow in my warped head of rule keeping I knew that marriage was for better or worse for life and I assumed that everyone played by those same rules. I was wrong. On the day after Christmas 1990 I was packing our bags to return to Texas after spending the holidays in Colorado at my parent’s home. My husband had just gotten the latest Max Lucado book and he had gone to bed early the night before pleading a sore throat. He was going to read the book and he asked for notepaper to take notes. He was an inveterate note taker and that request wasn’t the least bit unusual. I checked all the rooms for any shoes or new toys that we would miss at that precise moment when it was too far to go back and get them. No toys, but there lying on the floor between the wall and the bed was that ML book. I reached down to pick it up and the papers fell out. I picked them up, shuffled them a little to get them back inside the front cover when I noticed the words “My Darling”. An apology note I thought to myself…for any of a hundred neglects and so I sat down and began reading. I hadn’t gotten much beyond the first paragraph when it dawned on me that this wasn’t making any sense and only a little bit farther when it became painfully clear that the letter was to one I would have called my best friend. From my husband. The boat I had been riding in was rocked in a wild storm that completely caught me by surprise. The oars were washed overboard, I couldn’t see the shore and I didn’t know how to swim. Those days were the most gut wrenching I had ever experienced. In one decision by my now ex husband, I lost my identity (Preacher’s wife), my house (preacher’s home), my financial support and my church family. For 16 years I was the preachers wife.. 16 years I had lived in 3 different places. 16 years removed from the community I’d wanted to spend my whole life in. It was no longer home. Daddy had gotten sick and for me and 3 kids to move back home would have been a financial hardship. My kids were Texans! Through a series of events God led me to believe he wasn’t done with me yet in that little community.

More....

As I said, I grew up in a home that was ruled by alcoholism of the generation past. We were so busy living perfect lives and being perfect examples there was no room for mistakes or weaknesses. The way we dealt with them was to deny their existence. Keeping up appearances was the most important thing in my life. So there was nowhere to turn, no experience to rely on of how to ask for help. We were not long into our marriage when one inescapable fact was glaringly apparent. My husband and I agreed on one thing. We both thought he was the greatest preacher/teacher/man we had ever known. He was truly gifted in ministry. People came to him in great numbers. No matter which community we lived in the church where he preached quickly became a drawing card to the community at large. He did weddings, funerals, graduation speeches….he was truly gifted. But he didn’t’ love me. I became lonelier and lonelier. The verbal putdowns became more and more frequent. The predictable thing happened – I began to believe what I heard which only further exacerbated the problems. I had always wanted a big family – would have been happy to have six kids. Instead I had endometriosis and fertility was a huge issue. By the grace of God I finally got ½ my original 6 but the years of drugs and surgeries and dashed hopes took their toll on my emotional health. I had reached such desperation that I found myself standing at the bathroom sink and staring into my own eyes, willing myself to empty the contents of the medicine cabinet into my mouth. The thought that I had 3 precious babies who needed at least one parent in their home always kept my feet on the planet earth but I was broken as could be. Still, I had a role to play and I played it well. No one knew we weren’t the happiest couple in the neighborhood. No one knew that our marriage was a sham that was ruled by criticism, silence and absence. If the absence wasn’t physical then it was emotional.

Faith story continued.....

My grandfather was an alcoholic. Although he was dry the entire time I knew him, he was very much practicing his addiction when my mom was growing up. Those living with alcoholics learn to keep secrets, to act as though you have no problems and to maintain control at all costs. Even though there was no alcohol ever in our home those coping mechanisms were learned. So you better believe I stayed in the boat. I stayed in the boat with the oars firmly secured in my arms and no other’s. As long as you acted right you could get a "right" result. I carried this understanding into my religious life as well. You went to church every single time the doors were opened and you kept a checklist of the required acts of obedience. Each week you checked them off and then could feel somewhat confident in knowing you were doing right. I didn’t curse, drink, dance or date those who did. The religion worked for me and I thought I was doing exactly what God wanted from me. The boat never even left the dock but I didn’t know it was supposed to. I graduated from high school and began college right in the little town in southeastern Colorado where I had grown up. I was going to marry a local boy, I knew exactly what side of town we would live in, which elementary school our six children would attend and who would give them piano lessons. I met my local boy future husband and he would come to church with me and decided he needed and wanted to be baptized. Then the story went awry. He decided he wanted to become a preacher. Clearly my boat was getting ready to move out into the harbor a ways. I didn’t like it – not one little bit. But I could still see shore – I still had the oars and I adapted. We lived in Denver for a year while he finished school and then we began our lives as “The Preacher and his wife”.

My whole entire faith story

I don't know how God works but I know when He starts nudging me along a certain path there is something up ahead for which He is preparing me. For quite some time I've been thinking about my journey and how I got here. I've shared it recently but I don't think I'm done because there's still not that sense of "AHA! so that's why...." So I am going to be writing about it for the next however many days it takes me to get it all out there...maybe someone will be blessed or encouraged and maybe I'll figure out what I'm supposed to be doing at the moment. And so the story begins....

When you look in your Bible at examples of faith there are many - but the one that I am thinking of right now is Peter, and one particular incident in Peter’s life. That would be when he looked out across a raging storm tossed sea and in spite of everything sane he put his legs over the side of the boat and walked on water. We spend a lot of our lesson times on the fact that he walked on water. That is huge, don’t get me wrong. But for me, the real miracle began earlier. The miracle was he got out of the boat. I mean what is in a person’s head that they would think the thing to do is get out of the boat in the middle of a raging storm? You see, I’ve spent most of my life in the boat. I didn’t know that wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I liked the boat. Reality is, in real life and in spiritual life, I am afraid of the water. I cannot swim. Way back in the days of childhood when summer came my mom enrolled my two sisters and me in swimming lessons. The way it was arranged there were three different groups at the shallow end of the pool. You started at one side and progressed through those three beginner groups until you moved on to deeper water. It took me all summer long to make it to the 3rd beginner group and I am convinced it was a social promotion. I was head & shoulders taller than those kids who were jumping off the high dive but I never got over being afraid of the water. That pretty much symbolizes my spiritual and emotional life as well.
(to be continued)......

Random

I have a headache/backache today and have not been worth shooting. I spent the afternoon flipping between movies until I discovered that one of my all time favorites was showing and so I happily settled in to watch Pretty Woman for the three thousand four hundred and sixty eighth time. That got me to thinking about my favorite movies and so in no particular order I believe these to be the greatest all time movies:

1.) Pretty Woman
2.) Steel Magnolias
3.) Fried Green Tomatoes
4.) Dirty Dancing
5.) The Sting
6.) Lethal Weapon - all
7.) Rush Hour - all
8.) Die Hard - all
9.) Pay it Forward
10.) Ocean's Eleven

Some of those are really fine movies. Some of those are really bad (I mean can you really compare Rush Hour to Steel Magnolias?) but I love them all. This list is so bizarre that you can only come to one conclusion. I have multiple personalities and I obviously need medicine.

All good things come to an end......

and so it is with the fifty fabulously fascinating things about yours truly.

40.) I love to eat my steaks just one little second before medium rare. I want the center to be warm, not cold but I don't want it to be "pink" either. Pink. That's for sissies. I like to say I want to hear the echo of that steer's dying cry when they bring me my plate. If it weren't so early in the morning this post would be making me really hungry.


41.) I am afraid of heights and the older I get the worse it gets. When I have to go to the fifth floor to get guests I have to walk across this "bridge" that is obviously 5 floors up and it's just open space below me to the main floor and the sides of this bridge are glass. I have to look straight ahead and stay in the middle of the walkway or take a Xanax - one or the other. I hate going to get Outside Counsel...here I am trying to act all formal and business like and trying to lead them back to the elevator without passing out on that stupid walkway. Or trying to keep them from realizing I have the look of terror frozen on my face. Or keep them from realizing I have stepped in between them so they are now on either side of me. Hey, if this thing goes down I want to land on somebody besides myself.


42.) Here lately I have been growing concerned about my mind. I really think I've lost it. Why am I coming to this conclusion? Because I really honestly keep thinking I would absolutely love to have another baby...or three. I miss their sweet soft skin, those sweet baby sounds and the feel of them in your arms. I miss the wonder in their eyes when they learn something new. Then I remember that babies turn into teenagers. Which explains why I believe my mind has left the building.


43.) One time I was on the sidewalk in my home town of La Junta, CO watching a car blow up over and over - it was a scene from the film Mr. Majestyk. It was incredible to watch how it all worked. It was quite exciting - I mean this is La Junta CO for goodness sake. I was on the corner of 4th & Colorado, right in front of Colorado Savings & Loan. Someone came up behind me and hollered at someone on the street. I turned around and it was Charles Bronson. In the flesh. Right beside me. That movie was really awful but it was so cool to recognize all the scenery and know where things were filmed that we could overlook the awfulness of the movie itself. They actually filmed several movies in that area believe it or not. Quite a bit of Badlands (Sissy Spacek) was filmed on my former in-law's property. Eddie Albert and James Arness were there for some film. James Arness was quiet and shy but all the locals loved Eddie Albert. He just joined in w/ life in La Junta - went to the high school football game, etc. For the record - Charles Bronson - not friendly.


44.) I do not get my nails done. I do not have a person come clean my house. My indulgence? I get a massage every two weeks. I'm working to see how I could get that to every week. Aaahhh, heaven.


45.) I only had 4 serious boyfriends in my young life. Just four. But I liked at least a gazillion. I read that old adage "You have to kiss a lot of toads before you find your prince" and took it to heart. My grandma used to tell me "Michelle, boys are like busses. Just stand on the street corner long enough and another one will come by." I didn't get to date until I was 16 so I figured I had a lot of time to make up for. I thoroughly absolutely loved my teen years. I had a blast. I have very few regrets, didn't do much I would be ashamed to tell about all these years later; but I had FUN.


46.) I have struggled with depression for 20 years. I say struggle because it took me a long time to face the fact that I have a chemical imbalance in my brain that just has to have help to do its thing. I fought and fought the notion that it somehow made me weak or sick or crazy. I fought the feeling of embarrassment and shame. Now I say "what the heck??" If a pill in the morning helps me enjoy life like it was meant to be enjoyed then I'm going to take it. Right along with my calcium, Juice Plus, One a Day vitamin, Flax Seed Oil and baby aspirin is my Wellbutrin. Praise God for the miracles of modern medicine!


47.) I used to make all my own clothes. I only had one speed in sewing too - FAST. I didn't care a whit about how things looked on the inside so long as they looked good on the outside so I took every short cut in the world, never pressed my seams open, etc. There were many days in high school when I got up in the morning, decided I had nothing to wear and hurriedly whipped something up at my sewing machine. I made my first dress when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. I just sewed all the straight seams - my mom did the armholes, etc. It was just a straight dress (they called them "shifts" back in the olden days) but I made it myself and I was hooked on sewing from that moment on. I never had more than one "store bought" dress at a time I don't think -- I made everything. All my friends were so impressed. It makes me so sad that I don't sew anymore.

48.) I do not remember a time in the last 30 years that I haven't been trying to, about to or giving up on losing 'about 20 pounds'. For crying out loud, Michelle, just do it.

49.) Some times when I am quiet and still I am overwhelmed at how blessed I have been to know and love so many people. I was horrified that my life was going to take me out of La Junta Colorado and not only that, but I was going into a life that would most certainly have me moving around. And so I lived in Denver, CO; Flagler, CO; Texline, TX; Spearman, TX and now Allen, TX. In every one of those places I have left a life friend who impacted me greatly and I loved deeply. I might not see them again in this life (I sure hope that isn't the case) but I'll forever be in heaven with them. How differently my life has turned out from what I thought I wanted way back in those teen years when I was planning everything. God has blessed me richly.

50.) Number 50 -- what to say last of all? I think it should be really astonishing. This is something I haven't told anyone except my daughter and my husband. It was so painfully embarrassing I cried. So I need to just get it out there -- laugh at my own expense and give you a gloriously ridiculous image to store in your mind when my name comes up. This just happened last year. The most embarrassing thing ever. It was so funny I wanted to share it a million times but then it was also so embarrassing I couldn't. But now - for all 3 of my blog readers -- the unveiling of Michelle Collard's most embarrassing moment. It was Christmas shopping time. I was in Collin Creek Mall. Thomas was there but we had separated so I was all by myself. I had to go to the bathroom and I was in Dillard's so I went to the bathroom there. It is tucked way in the back on the second floor past little boys clothes. I was wearing a belt on my jeans for some stupid reason - it's not like they were going to fall off (see #48). Since I won't touch the flusher w/ my hands I always have to turn around to do it with my feet. Somehow in doing that my belt caught the toilet paper roll. You can see where this is going. I walked out of the stall with the toilet paper caught in my belt. I think I took a good 6 feet before it broke off. But did I know this at that time? Oh, no. I washed my hands, adjusted my hair and walked out. Picture me walking all the way through the boys clothes, the girls clothes, the jewelry, the purses, down the escalator, through the women's clothes and out into the mall. I walked down the hall into the middle, across the center portion of the mall, down another hall to J.C. Penney's. This is no short walk mind you. The entire time I was letting every single human being in the mall know exactly where I had been. I walk all the way through the men's department in Penney's to the escalator and I'm going up when I hear someone behind me say "Miss" and I turn around and she is pointing behind me. I turn around and there was my royal train. If God would have called me home right there I would have been so happy. But no, he left me there w/ a face much redder than my hair and complete mortification overtaking me. BUT, I'm a Finnell above all else and we never ever ever let on that we have emotion or weakness so I reach around and grab that t.p. say "Oh for goodness sake!" and walk nonchalantly into the ladies clothes. Where I call Katie and am fighting back tears to say "you will never guess what just happened." I didn't feel like shopping anymore. So I called Thomas and said "we're going home where are you?"

Now when I think about that I just have to stop and laugh out loud. How many people's lives did I brighten that day!!! Don't you know at least one million people called their friends to say "You'll never guess what I just saw!"

And now you know 50 completely irrelevant things about me.

50 things continued

21.) I fell head over heels, madly, deeply in love in college. And being with him was more important than anything else in my world. Including going to class. Which explains why I didn't get my degree. I didn't end up with the boy either.

22.) I miss wheat harvest. There was just something exciting about that - riding in the combines, taking the truck filled w/ grain to town. Cooking all morning long and taking a huge spread out to the fields to feed the crews.

23.) My 8th grade science teacher used to keep a bottle of "listerine" in his desk drawer. I guess he had germs that wouldn't die since he had to sip from it all year long.

24.) I got pregnant on my honeymoon. I was certainly old enough to know better than that.

25.) I used to make all my husband's dress shirts and pants. Now I don't even sew on buttons.

26.) I cannot swim. Yet.

27.) I don't care about that either.

28.) My favorite dogs are Great Pyrenees.

29.) I could eat Mexican food every night of the week.

30.) I love the show Boston Legal. Denny Crane makes me laugh. I secretly wish I could be as outrageous as he is. Maybe I will be one of these days.

31.) I think Ronald Reagan was a great man.

32.) I love to vacation in Red River, NM.

33.) I have never been drunk. Never.

34.) I've had two black eyes in my life. The first one I got when I was 7 or 8 and was playing in a wagon at Grandma & Grandpa's farm. Second black eye was just a few years ago. Thomas gave it to me! That's my story and I'm sticking with it. Actually we were trimming trees and a branch fell the wrong way and whacked me good. It was really really really black.

35.) I used to spend hours playing Galaga on my son's Nintendo. I was darn good.

36.) I hate ferris wheels and roller coasters.

37.) Even though you have to be seen in a swimming suit in public, I love to go to the Schlitterban in New Braunfels. It takes me about 30 minutes to get over the humilation and then I realize no one is looking at the old bag because they are too busy staring at the naked young girls wandering around. So then I relax (except I never quit holding my stomach in).

38.) I drink my coffee and my tea straight. No sugar. In fact, drinking sweet tea actually makes me gag. Truly.

39.) My first car was an orange Vauxhall. And can you believe it? We don't have one picture. That car got about 50 miles a gallon. It was the greatest. No one had ever even heard of a Vauxhall and it was the only one in the whole Arkansas valley. Years later when we moved to Texline I met a girl that became one of my best friends. Her first car? A lime green Vauxhall. What are the odds?

And the list goes on........

11.) There were 172 people in my graduating class. I was 23rd. I don't remember ever taking a book home those four years. That means if I'd tried I would have been higher in that order. So I wasted what God gave me.

12.) I was a flirt in my high school/college days. I think I took that art to a new level. Enough so that I earned the nickname "Scarlett" (as in O'Hara). Liz and I set a goal one summer to meet 200 new boys. We did it.

13.) Connie Mack baseball was big in my home town. Also there was the Koshare Indian Kiva there - big in Boy Scout world. So when summer comes there is a gigantic influx of boys. Hence our success mentioned in #12.

14.) Paul Faulkner was the preacher on the Sunday morning I got baptized. It was one of those "Gospel Meetings" that we used to have in the good old days. All I remember is him talking about the crucifixion and I felt convicted that I had put Jesus on the cross. There were 13 baptisms that morning.

15.) My girlfriend that lived across the street when I was growing up and I used to go scouting the alleys for pop bottles. Those were in the glass bottle days. And then we would go turn them in for a nickel a bottle until we got $1.00 which would get us both into the swimming pool. Yes, it's true. $1.00 - 2 girls.

16.) Liz and I put 100,000 miles at least on our two cars combined and 99,000 of them were right in the city limits of La Junta, Colorado.

17.) I have never been out of the United States.

18.) I'm okay with that.

19.) I don't love flying.

20.) I am addicted to Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

to be continued..............

Fifty things, part 1

Here's one of those blog things that goes around and for want of anything more interesting to blog about I'm going to begin the "Fifty Things About Me" list. I don’t know how long it will take me to think up 50 semi-interesting or unknown things about myself. I could well lose interest long before I get through. But all the drafts sitting in my postings are way too deep and serious for me to even consider at the moment. So...mindless and worthless information follows:

1.) I was born in Garden City, KS but have no memories of that because we moved to Colorado Springs, CO somewhere between my 2nd and 3rd birthdays.

2.) Our first dog was a boxer mix named Spike. I loved that dog. He was extremely protective of us kids. My favorite memory is him attacking my cousin's boyfriend because Spike thought he was going to hurt one of us. He just grabbed the guy's pant legs in his mouth and spun him around. I don't remember being a bit frightened - only incredibly impressed.

3.) I learned how to embroidery because my grandma did and I thought it looked like fun. So she got me my own hoop and pillow case with a pattern stamped on it. I'm sure it was a mess. But I had fun. The memory that stands out is the time I was seriously concentrating on my stitches and when I was done I realized I had stitched my dress to the pillowcase. I don't know how old I was exactly but no more than five. FIVE! Oh I would REALLY like to see that pillowcase now.

4.) One time at my grandparent’s house I was walking up a dirt road with my cousins - I was the oldest by several years. I was maybe 7 or 8. We came across a snake in the road that scared us absolutely to death. And what did I do? Ran like the wind!!! Leaving my little preschool cousins to fend for themselves. Poor Mike. I can remember his screaming to this day.

5.) My first boyfriend was a kid named Jerry who I loved madly....in the first grade. One time he even kissed me in the classroom and the kids told the teacher. My mom would never let me go over to his house and play because he was a boy and boys and girls didn't play together apparently. Probably a much bigger reason that I couldn't have understood at the time. Like he was a hoodlum. I know that because he left that school and was gone the next year. In 3rd grade he reappeared and we were in class together again. One day he didn't want to do whatever it was that we were told to do and he threw his books on the floor. To this day my knees get shaky when I visualize Mrs. Kelly stomping down that row and yanking him up by the hair on his head knocking over the desk and chair and pulling him up to the front and whipping him with that paddle that hung on the blackboard up front. And then, Jerry never came back to that school. I later learned that he'd circled all the way through the other 3rd grade teachers. They thought Mrs. Kelly could straighten him out. Boy, if that day didn't do it I imagine Jerry is in the pen somewhere. You can say what you want about teachers being able to paddle -- but I guarantee you that Mrs. Kelly did not have one single discipline problem the rest of the entire year.

6.) I like to iron. I’ve always liked it. My mom used to pay me to iron starting from the time I was 8 or 9. I’d still enjoy it if I had the time. But time is a commodity I don’t have anymore so my neighborhood cleaners get to enjoy ironing our clothes now.

7.) I think my Dad was the second greatest man to ever live. Only Jesus Christ surpasses him.

8.) I really, really, really miss Daddy.

9.) My first (and second, for that matter) cars were manual transmissions. SO I had to learn to drive a stick shift before I could drag main. One time I stopped at a stop sign and then couldn’t get the darn thing in first gear. I turned the key to off, got out of the car and walked home. With my car sitting right in the middle of the street. I was so mad at Daddy for insisting I learn to drive a stick shift. He had more patience than Job, I’m telling you. A couple of years later my little sis did the exact same thing.

10.) My best friend in kindergarten went to a different school after that but we reunited again in junior high. From that point on we were absolutely inseparable. People made jokes about never seeing one w/o the other. My favorite? “Michelle, you look different! Have you done something to your hair? No….it is your makeup? No…Oh I know now!!! Where’s Liz?” Idiots. They were just jealous.

Well, that's long enough for today. Thank you walking down memory lane with me. Maybe the next ten things won't be so long winded.