And It Must Be Said

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Meet the Kiddos...

We spent lots of time with the ankle-biters in CA. Here are some of our favorite little people...

Uncle Benji with our "nephers" - Seth Michael Fletcher...wouldn't you know, they're watching baseball?

A walk with Sydni Mae Sundstrom. Her favorite trick is throwing her juice on the ground as the wagon rolls along...her Mom is my best friend and suitemate from College...

Greta with Jacob Mateo Walker, 2.5 years (this is the guy who screamed for Chicken and Rice at 4:00 in the morning)...he wanted me to ride in his car with him. It was a little small...

Benj with Rebecca Luciana Walker, 10 days old...Jacob and Rebecca's parents are our best friends in Ventura, our "Compas..." and now their kids are the "Compalitos"...

Man, they can scream and cry. They can also be adoringly cute. Still, we're thinking we've pushed parenthood back about 15 years after this vacation...

On the Shores of Hume Lake...


If you've been reading Benji's post you know that we took a blissful vacation to the Grand Canyon and California over the past 3 weeks. Friday, May 26th was a special day for us. It was our fifth wedding anniversary.

We spent the day at Hume Lake Christian Camps, up in the Sequoias in California. We've both been going to this camp since middle school...through high school...then as counselors. Its a place with history for us.

We took a walk around the lake, then had a picnic by the waters' edge and sat and talked and read our Bibles. It was good to be in such a special place and reflect on what 5 years of marriage have brought.

Sitting there on the shores of Hume Lake, I remembered how, eight years ago, I cried at the very place we were sitting. My girlfriend had just asked me what was "going on" with Benji and me. I started crying. "Nothing." I said. "Yeah right" she said. "I am not the only one who sees what's going on between you two." I remember telling her through my tears that I didn't want to love Benji...anymore...ever....that I'd prayed that God would let me just be rid of my feelings for him, but it never seemed to work. I already had a boyfriend back at college, I certainly didn't need Benji! Puh-lease. No thanks. I cried. " I just don't want to like him...but I do!"

Fast forward a week: a long letter from Benji, a break up with my boyfriend, and a long talk in an old Honda. We've been together ever since.

When I tell people that we've known each other since middle school, I usually get the "Oh, that's so cute" gushing. I suppose it could be cute, but for us it isn't really. Because there are times when we were in each others' lives, with funny memories with our group of friends and laughing about the things we shared, not as an "us" but just as friends.

But then there are the sideline memories...the ones where we looked on at the other from a distance, because we weren't there, weren't welcome in the inner circle of the others' life. Watched each other make stupid decisions. Trying to tell ourselves that it didn't matter, because its not like we belonged to each other.

This whole "sidelines" business was probalby the hardest thing we've had to hurdle as of yet. When we started dating we agreed that "the past is the past" and we'd move forward and really, what was the benefit of re-hashing the past? Well, we found out the benefit. The benefit is that confessions that needed to be made were held onto until a few months before we got married, and we spent the first two years of our marriage working through and forgiving through and crying through things we should have dealt with several years earlier. It was a tough time. Lots of prayer and good, honest friends who shared our hurts helped.

And God, as He is, was faithful to us. We learned lessons of love and grace and the beauty of redemption that you can't learn except to experience them in all their pain and gore.

So I sat there and rejoiced in all that God has done in us. Grateful for my marriage. Grateful that I got lucky and tricked Benj into marrying me. God redeemed me. And He redeemed my marriage.

The best part of the day? My anniversary gift. An 18 page allegory that Benj wrote about a boy who struggles with and overcomes...loneliness, self-doubt, self-pity, lust, laziness, pride and selfishness - to get, of course, the girl. He read it to me as we sat by the lake. It was 1/2 of a story that seemed very familiar...

I've never felt so loved.

Tough love...tough to love

I love Dallas Theological Seminary.

I want you to read that again and please remove any hint of sarcasm or other atittude you generally associate with me and things I say....sigh....

I say that because as much as I like to poke fun at the institution educating my husband, I also have much love and respect for it. I love the things he is learning. I love the friends he has. I love that the few times I've been on campus professors call him by name, and then ask who I am and what I do. As seminaries go, this one is at the top of my list.

But it is not perfect. There are attitudes there that drive me insane. I call it into question because I love it. God calls me into question because He loves me. Not that those two things are much of a comparison, but I think I'm allowed some room to be honest and still love.

So I write this because it is important to me that you know that. And also because one of my friends told me I sounded like a total liberal bi*** with my last post. I'm trying to dispel that rumor.

So, thanks to those of you who emailed me your submissions because you didn't want them associated with your name. There were multiple of you. And they were quite funny, much better than mine.