Facebook "friends"?

I recently read a blog post which had a title much like this blog post. The premise of it was that, as Christians, we have no business in front of a screen with fake "friends" but should be in face to face interaction with real "friends". (Oh the irony that this article was posted on Facebook) Of course, most of you know by now that I've been in a rather long season of shaking off the shackles of legalism so I naturally bristle when people call things evil that are not evil. This particular blog post gave me such a reaction. But more than that, I want to defend Facebook for a few minutes because it's not only NOT evil, it has actually been a huge blessing to me and has given me a wide range of real friends (not in quotes) even though many I've never met face to face.

Before Facebook existed I lost touch with the majority of my old high school friends. Once it came along, I reconnected with many of them. I see their kids pictures and achievements. I know their struggles and they know mine. During this very dark season I've been in, high school friends that I haven't seen in 30 years came out of the woodwork to minister to us in very tangible ways; bringing food, offers to sit with my mother, offers of help with the work of closing out Mom's estate, taking me to lunch, attending my mother's funeral. That would not have been possible without Facebook.

We have a dog. His name is Buddy. We took this dog from a family who could no longer keep him. They live in South Carolina and I've never met them in person. But they have a terminally ill child and have faced a mountain of difficulties all known to me only through Facebook and blogs. I've known their family for years. When they needed to find a new home for Buddy, they put out a plea on Facebook and through a network of great dog rescue people I know, we transported Buddy from South Carolina to Alabama and he's been with us about five years now. Plus I keep up with their son and his condition and I know how to pray for him and for them every day. That would not have been possible without Facebook.

I posted daily updates on Facebook during Mom's illness and especially during her final days. It was a great one-stop-shop to keep friends and extended family informed on what was happening moment by moment. I had people I've never met from all over the country writing to me and praying for me and offering me much needed advice. I have blogging friends from back in the day when I was a serious blogger that I only keep up with now through Facebook. One posted this as a comment to one of my messy, sorrowful posts:

Angie, though we've never met I consider you a close friend and my heart is broken for what you are going through. Please know that we are praying for you and you are never far from our hearts and minds.

That would not have been possible without Facebook.

Facebook is my online journal. I have used it as therapy to put down my thoughts and emotions through our many trials this year. It is where I go to see what's happening with hundreds of friends I wouldn't have time to interact with personally on a daily basis. But it gives me a quick glimpse at everyone and I can laugh with them, see their needs, find out how I can pray, and be encouraged. It's an outlet for me to write down everything that's on my heart that day.

Of course, it can be used for evil just like the car in my driveway can be used to rob a bank. That doesn't make car ownership evil. Sure everyone needs balance in their lives and if you have no real "friends" you might want to step out in the world and meet some folks. But without Facebook, we would have missed a myriad of blessings and ministry from the people who came around us and carried us through it. Without Facebook, I would miss the opportunities to do the same for my friends (some in person and some not). Some of my truest friends are those I've never seen in person. Some of my most fake "friends" are some I know face to face. Friendship cannot be measured by the mechanism of meeting or staying in touch. It is measured by the sacrificial love and ministry to one another. I'm thankful for my friends.

Dear Mark Zuckerberg, I love you. That is all.

My mom

It's been a hell of a winter. My baby had heart surgery on December 5th and that was the most inconsequential thing that happened over the holidays. Her surgery was an complete success and she's doing beautifully, praise the Lord! That's pretty much the only happy thing I've got, but it's a big one.

My mom got very sick just two days after Hannah came home from the hospital. We found out that the cancer spread to her liver and further into her bones. There was also some discrepancy whether or not there was cancer in her brain. The neurologist said yes. The oncologist said no. Turns out the neurologist was right. We limped through Christmas bone tired and recovering from a family-wide stomach bug. Added insult to injury.

Mom continued to get crazy confused and began to lose her ability to speak after the first of the year. They started radiating her brain. She had four treatments. The first day she walked in and signed herself in. The fourth day we carried her in and she could barely form a coherent sentence. It was on that day that I pulled the plug on treatment and we went home on hospice.

Eleven days later my mother died.

Notice I said died. I didn't use the more polite "passed away" or the Christian-ese "went home to be with the Lord". And I believe wholeheartedly that she is with the Lord. It's not that. It's just that using those phrases whitewash what really happened. What really happened was ugly, traumatic, searingly painful, and horrific. I watched my mother in those eleven days have seizures and lose her ability to say anything but chants of 'Help me. Help me. Help me.' I watched her eyes go different directions. I watched her lose her ability to swallow and control her bodily functions. I was on the frontlines for all of it. And it sucked. It haunts me in my quiet moments. I see her bald and wild eyed and afraid. I see her trying to reach out to me but unable to tell me what's wrong. It's too much to bear.

Mom has been gone for three weeks and in some ways it seems like it's been years and in others it seems like just yesterday. I'm left trying to sweep up the pieces of my life that have been strewn around in a mess for so many, many months. My life was consumed with medicine schedules, doctors' appointments, treatments, and her daily care. It was my full time job and now I'm unemployed in a sense. I don't quite know what to do with myself.

I'm trying to figure out how to do life without my mom. I'm not there yet.

Kitchen Remodel... Phase 1

I have found an unusual stress buster this holiday season. Tearing down walls and painting all things light, chocolate brown. And all things dark, ultra-white. It's been amazing how calming those activities can be. So three weeks before Thanksgiving we launched the first of several phases in what I like to call Home Improvement Therapy (patent pending).

Here are a few before and after highlights...

And then on Thanksgiving I had this...

Phase 2 will consist of painting the cabinets white, another window and back door white, building butcher block countertops, extending the counter to accommodate bar stools, and adding an ultra-white beadboard backsplash. We won't launch that phase until after the holidays.

Oh I've got plans for this kitchen and it includes lots of parties and grandchildren. Yeah, baby!

Cancer sucks

I'm tired of being polite. Cancer sucks. If you don't like the word sucks, get over it. Am I mad? Yes. My mom's health is declining and she's anemic and she's getting weaker and more frail every day. AND I HATE IT!

I am tired of holding it together and my life being held hostage by the unknown and the future always looking bleak and sad and painful. I have nothing more profound to say than that.

Stress 101

How do I handle stress? Living a stressful life is my area of expertise. I have an honorary PhD in it, in fact. I'm your go-to gal when it comes to coping skillz. And I feel I would be remiss if I didn't share my knowledge with the Interweb because I'm a giver that way.

When life is crushing you from various sides and worry is your spiritual gift and you might have a mild form of OCD that makes you freak out at the thought of enterovirus D68 and Ebola, what should you do to find your place of inner calm and relaxation?

This.

OK, here's what happened. Things with my mother's health are getting dicey and my daughter's heart surgery is looming and I'm hosting Thanksgiving in a couple weeks and I walked into this dank pink and blue kitchen, which I thought was simply wonderful in 1995 but now makes me gag, and said, "I CAN'T LIVE IN THIS PINK AND BLUE KITCHEN ONE MORE COTTON PICKIN' MINUTE!" 

So I wanted to paint before Thanksgiving but my floors are blue so then we decided to change the flooring but then we would also have to change the flooring in the adjoining dining room/computer room so why not just knock out a wall and make one big kitchen because with seven kids we're bound to have a lot of grandkids and we need a bigger table to seat them. Whew, was that a long sentence or is it just me?

Anyway, has anyone besides me read the beloved children's book, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie? My kitchen is a lot like that book right now. But destroying my kitchen is the MOST stress-relieving activity I've had in months! There is something quite cathartic about knocking down walls and scraping paint. It's downright blissful!

I need prayer and possibly a psych consult.

A few of my favorite things

Can we just talk about last night's shellacking of the Democrats in the midterm election? I haven't enjoyed this level of beautiful politics in I dare say a decade! Red is my favorite color. Do I think Obama has been neutered and we are ushering in a golden age utopia? No. Obama and his executive order pen both think the Constitution doesn't apply to them and the GOPs, generally speaking, are a bunch of pantywaists. But still, it was delicious. Truly.

Another Duggar girl got married and I'm a sucker for a sweet wedding. Jessa wore blush and the staunch legalists of the world united in an uproar over her lack of purity. As a recovering legalist, I thrust my fist in the air and said, "YES to all blush dresses of the world and the fundamentalist girls brave enough to wear them!" Embrace the blush, ladies. It was gorgeous from what I've seen of the carefully and slowly doled out pictures from People.com.

I'm in a home remodel mode for a couple of reasons. One is my mom's health and my very keen awareness that I need to make the most of every moment. Add to that The Nesting Place. The Nester speaks to me. She guides me with her beautiful pictures. She clearly told me to paint this fireplace white.

She also told me those horrible Little House on the Prairie sconces have to die a horrible death. I'm determined to have an amazing Thanksgiving and Christmas. And who can have an amazing Thanksgiving and Christmas in a dated pink and blue kitchen? Who can have an amazing Thanksgiving and Christmas in the presence of those sconces? Not I. So, the pink and blue kitchen, the drab fireplace, and these stenciled leaves, which I stenciled when I was still in my 30s, have got to go.

Neither the Nester nor I approve. Put all these things together and this means in the next 21 days I shall repaint the main floor of my house, paint my fireplace white, and replace my kitchen floor. I am (a crazy) woman, hear me roar.

Along those lines, I found the most adorable Christmas decorations! Snow owls. Why snow owls? I can't answer that but as with many things lately, they speak to me.

And I bought them. Lots of them. I'm having a blingy red and silver snow owl tree. I'm having two trees actually because it's going to be that kind of Christmas. My theme for this Christmas is "The Year of Bling". Everything bright and full of glitter makes me giddy. Sparkly, fresh paint, and owls. With the Nester on my side I. Cannot. Be. Stopped.

I couldn't have a 'my favorite things' list without including little granddude! If he doesn't make you smile, you better check your pulse. This boy puts the grand in grandson. So much smoochy goodness!

Gigi loves you to the moon and back, grandbuddy!

Sometimes life is messy. And sucky. And hard.

I'm starting a new blog because I have things to say that don't fit 140 characters or less or the confines of a Facebook box. Those have been my primary methods of communication for the last couple of years and while I dearly love Twitter and Facebook, they're just not enough.

But I hardly wanted to spend money to keep up Where The Kudzu Grows since it was a sorely neglected mess. So back to a free platform where I can write down things that help me purge my heart and mind on all my issues. And I have a boatload of issues, y'all.

Let's play catch up, shall we. The last few years have been, if I'm being polite, horrible. Here's the quick run down in no particular order:

~my daughter miscarried two babies due to a clotting disorder. (she has since had my beautiful grandson whom I love and adore thanks to wonderful doctors and daily heparin shots in the stomach)

~my mother's breast cancer metastasized to her bones causing her to break her femur, pelvis, three ribs, and a hip. We spent 10 weeks in the hospital last summer for a boatload of surgeries, radiation, and a chemo treatment that nearly killed her. She continues to decline and her current treatment has stopped working. We're waiting for them to decide what the next treatment option might be.

~my husband's best friend was accused of and later confessed to being a serial pedophile. He's now serving time in prison.

~because we attended church with the pedophile, things transpired that caused us to leave our church of eight years.

~several pillars of the faith that I highly respected and probably borderline-idolized were exposed as adulterers and/or child molesters.

~a minister that I worked for 15 years ago and who baptized one of my children stabbed his wife to death so he could marry his gay lover. Allegedly. Trial/plea deal still pending.

~my 14 year old daughter was found to have a congenital heart defect at a yearly check-up this summer. She is undergoing a heart procedure in 9 days.

~in her pre-op testing, we discovered my 14 year old has the same clotting disorder as my married daughter so that makes her surgery more challenging.

That's about it. I joke sometimes that the Lord intends to slay me with stress. The word "stress" seems like such a paper tiger. It has been so debilitating that at times that I found it difficult to function in my daily life. I gained 40 (maybe 50... who weighs anymore?) pounds over this time. Refined carbs and I had become FAR too close and we had to break up. I have been ineffective at homeschooling, homemaking, and being social. For the longest time I just stayed home and stared at mindless sitcoms.

Don't underestimate the healing power of mindless sitcoms, however. They have been therapeutic to my beaten and bruised psyche. Don't underestimate the power of trials in your life either. The Lord has used each of these things, some far more painful than others but all of them awful. He has changed me. He has pulled me into a far closer walk with Him than I ever enjoyed before. He has shown me what living in grace and mercy is all about, something I forgot about a decade ago when I slipped down the slippery slope of legalism. He has shown me His grace is sufficient when I face rejection and ridicule. His grace is sufficient in times of abject terror. His grace is sufficient in times of intense sorrow and grief. His grace is sufficient in ALL things. You know those things as a believer, but you never really *know* them until His grace is all you have.

So, my life is still in the midst of horrible trials. There are a lot of tears and sorrow ahead for me. But I'm finding my way back to health, productivity, and joy. I even put on make-up every now and then.

I'm back!  (and all the blogging world rejoiced)  :-)