yesterday i got pulled down into the dregs of emotional swampiness, bombarded with inner conversation such as:

you will always be doomed, so forget trying to excel.
you will never excel, so just lie back and be doomed.
you are nothing, nowhere, nobody.
you are hopelessly helpless and helplessly hopeless.
you'll never be anything but "fill-in-the-blank-with-any-and-all-negative-self-defeating-adjectives"

this emerged within me in the face of ALL the blossoming blessings i am increasingly inundated with from my interior and my exterior worlds. this sentiment slithered its way through like insects, worms, and weeds in a garden. and it just scared me a little.

i would like to reiterate for my own benefit and for the enrichment of the world at large:

anything that remotely resembles any of the above "black" statements is always, absolutely, unequivocally, 100%, LIES, LIES, LIES. the only response to such lies is the swift decisive application of TRUTH, TRUTH, TRUTH, and more TRUTH! so here goes:

my future, past, and present are all beautifully blanketed in amazing grace.
this grace empowers me to flourish and fly.
my life is overflowing with the beauty of my husband, daughter, best friend, family, other dear fellow strugglers i love dearly, and all the rainbow abundance that God lavishes on me continuously.
all moments of self-sabotage are nothing but verbal mirages, False Evidence Appearing Real, FEAR!

so what am i afraid of??? what are we all afraid of??? why, the very thing we need the most, that unfailingly sets every captive soul free...the truth. SABOTAGE equals MIRAGE. that's a little "bumpersticker-ish" but a worthwhile thing to remember and be healed by.

hi blog world, a hearty welcome back to me! where have i been? oh, just living a little and dying a little every day, in big and small, good and bad ways. but i am pleased to report, mostly GOOD! yes fine folks, life is an even more exciting adventure than ever. new house, new music, new plans, new grace. i can't believe i honestly thought i had no option but to put myself out to pasture and hang around waiting to keel over. depression is such a deceiver, and deceit is so depressing!

all right, the KADOBRA update:

KA: Karen my bestest friend extraordinaire -- it's ok for me to get a little giddy when i think of this lady, because quite simply, she rocks! every day in every way, she's rocking with increasing, inspiring health. in fact, we're doing the des moines marathon this weekend--walking the little 5K path, but ya gotta start somewhere. anyway, time is a taker in some ways and a giver in others. i've been given an imponderable wealth of loyalty, grace, friendship, goofiness, fun, and companionship in this beautiful package of womanhood.

DO: Dove my dream daughter -- more giddiness to report when it comes to this exceptional human being. college has been an incredible garden for her identity to emerge, and i am being given waves of grace and fulfillment in every phone conversation, every visit to her own apartment eating her very own food sitting on her very own couch, every laugh and coffee run and especially, every reunion home when she gets to come.

BRA: Last but not least, "nothing you could say could tear me away from my guy!" Brandon Findlay has given me love beyond my dreams. We have worked, played, struggled, strangled, bungled, behaved, misbehaved, laughed, cried, sang, ran around, and sat still with each other for almost two mind-blowing years now. God has given us a truly astounding partnership, and we are riding high and proud, not into the sunset, but into a thousand sunrises.

Time is a taker and time is a giver. it's real easy to dwell on what she takes, but i'm enjoying the new reflections of what she is giving me in this era of my life, gently increasing grace and peace, clearer perceptions of love and truth, the ability to say i am okay just as i am, and life is good just as it is; and the desire to kick my inner stagnancy to the curb every day. all my heart keeps saying is: thanks be to God!