I Wonder

I wonder what it would be like to be known.  Truly be known.  Have someone see your sad face, know it's your sad face and know why your sad.  Have someone look at your tears and decipher whether they are tears of joy, sadness, grief or it's-just-one-of-those-days.

I wonder.


I wonder what it would be like to have someone know your mind.  Know what you're going to say, even before you say it.  Complete your sentence once you start.  Know what you're thinking without saying a word.

I wonder.

I wonder what it would be like to have someone know your innermost thoughts, secrets and dreams.  Things you've never told a soul, but somehow they know anyway.

I wonder.

I wonder what it would be like to have someone know your heart.  Know the good and the bad.  Know when you talked to that girl, stumbled over your words and offended her. Yet know your intentions were good.  To know when you smiled at that other girl, but you really wanted to smack her in the face.  I wonder what it would be like to have someone know what's in my heart without saying a word.

The thing is, I really don't have to wonder that hard.

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you..." (Jeremiah 1:5)

"I'm and open book to You;
Even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I'm never out of Your sight.
You know everything I'm going to say
before I start the first sentence
I look behind me and You're there,
Then up ahead and You're there, too-
Your reassuring presence, coming and going (Psalm 139:1-3

Thank you, Lord, for loving me.  Individually.  I know that You love this whole world, but thank You for loving just me.  All of me.

20 Years

Yesterday was our 20th anniversary.  We don't have much money, we wanted to do something special, like go on a trip or cruise.  The 20th year is china, like 25 is silver and 50 is gold.  Since we couldn't afford a trip to China, we settled on Chinese food and a movie from Redbox.  It was fun.  :)

On our wedding day we had saved the top of our cake and froze it like everyone told us to do. So on our first anniversary we thawed out are beautiful cake with butter cream frosting and raspberry filling and went to feed each other just like we did on our wedding day.  It was nasty!!  It was dried out and tasted like we were munching on a mixture of bark and sawdust.  I was so disappointed.

Our first kiss.  Well, as husband and wife.

To be honest, that's all I remember of our anniversary.  I remember our wedding.  Our crappy honeymoon...or rather, non-honeymoon.  I remember him giving me a card on our first MONTH anniversary, but the year anniversaries kind of blend together.  However, the marriage doesn't.

I remember when Rich and I was first married and he was training in Madison.  He was usually home at a certain time.  That time came and went.  Then another hour.  And another.  We didn't have cell phones back then, so I called the training center.  They tracked him down.  He was so irritated on the phone (first irritation).  He said he'd be home soon.  When he got home he questioned me about why I called and I told him I was worried.

He said, "you know I would be home eventually."

I said, "well, I know, but I was worried.  You could have been in an accident! (first quiver of voice and spring of tears)  You could have been killed!  You could... "

"Geez Beck, you have such a wild imagination." *gasp* (first fight)

He brings me into a hug.  "I'm all right.  But I'll never hear the end of this from the guys."*sigh* (first make up)

I remember telling Rich when I was pregnant with Micayla, when I was pregnant with Dale and Abrieanna... and when I was pregnant with the two other babies...and telling him when those babies went to heaven.

I remember giving birth to Micayla...30 hours.  Then after the exhaustion of having her, Rich holding this tiny little bundle on his shoulder, rocking her, loving her... He never looked so good to me.  I had her at 4 in the afternoon on a Sunday.  At 6:45, he leans in to me to give me a kiss and says, "ok I'm going to go." (Insert surprise) "I'm going to make sure I can catch the show" (he was show director for the Rock Aqua Jays water ski show). (Insert surprise mixed with icy look with daggers).  So I sat with my little precious, sobbing hormonal tears til he came back and asked me what was wrong.  (not the first of many eye rolls)

I remember the first time he was injured at work and had to have major surgery on his back.  I stood as a young bride listening to what the doctor was telling me with his parents at my side.  I couldn't stop crying and barely comprehended what he was saying.  When I was growing up, when someone in my family checked into a hospital, they never came out.  Or if they did, they came home to die.  All I heard was Rich needed emergency surgery... that translated...Rich is going to die.  Therefore, my marriage was over.  The love of my life is leaving me.  What am I going to do?  I remember the doctor talking to me then kind of sighing, then turning to his parents to tell them the rest.  haha I imagine him rolling his eyes inside and thinking, "Sheesh!  Pull it together lady!  It's just back surgery!  He's going to be fine!"

And he was.  He came out of the surgery well, but he has lived with chronic back pain most of our marriage.

We've had a lot of great times, we've had a lot of low times.  There have been times where we've looked at each other and thought, "I have never loved you more."  And there have been times where we've looked at each other and thought, prison doesn't seem so bad.

Most of our marriage we have been in chronic pain, Rich with his back for 18 years, me with chronic headaches and migraines for 15.  But you deal.  Other people have it much worse than we do.  We've been blessed.

There have been times when we have had it pretty good financially where my dream of being able to help others came true.  We were able to pay someones bills or buy them food.  And there have been times where we didn't know where our next meal was going to come from...how we were going to pay the kids' school fees.  But God always came through for us.  He was always faithful to provide.

God has been the glue that has held our craziness together.  If it wasn't for Him, I would have fallen apart when Rich went through his back and shoulder surgeries or miscarriages, death of parents and family members, or a hundred other scary moments in our lives. If it wasn't for Him, we wouldn't have gotten through our financial problems.  If it wasn't for Him we wouldn't recognize that it was Him who provided the joy and the goodness in our life.  If it wasn't for Him, I wouldn't be so very grateful for my family.

I've been to a lot of wedding over the years.  I really listen to the wedding vows.
"for better, for worse
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness, and in health,
to love, honor and cherish
'til death do us part..."

It seems to me that sometimes those vows are taken lightly.  We tend to remember the "better" the "richer" the "health" but forget the other stuff.  Marriage is hard.  It's hard no matter who you're with.  The grass isn't greener on the other side, you just have different landscaping problems.

Now, I'm not naive enough to understand that there are times where divorce is necessary.  There are times when a man or woman truly needs to get out of an unhealthy relationship.

On my wedding day, my dad came up to me and said, "now remember, divorce is no longer in your vocabulary.  God has blessed this marriage."  True.  Although as Ruth Graham (Billy Graham's wife) said, "Divorce? no.  Murder? yes."  =)

I love my husband with all my heart.  Here's to 20 more.

Gone

My Dad died.   One year ago.  365 days if we're keeping track. If a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like a day in heaven, he's spent just a few seconds there.  Yet I've missed him every second of this last year.

It seems like I've said, "man, I miss my Dad" or "I wish my dad was here" more times than I can count.  Although I wouldn't want him back here the way he was.

Dad died on a Sunday and I spent the night the Friday night before at my mother's.  Everyone had gone to bed.  My mom had fallen asleep in her chair.  The house was quiet, save the oxygen machine for my Dad.

I pulled a recliner as close as I could to Dad's bed.  I tried to monkey with the settings of his bed to make the levels even with the recliner and at the same time,  not wake my Mother up. I laid in the recliner, pulled a pillow close to him and held his hand; my thumb skimming the back of his hand.  My mind catching the irony of how our roles had reversed. Every once in awhile I'd check his chest to make sure he was breathing.

I hummed old hymns that we use to sing together, I whispered stories about my kids, tears spilling down my cheeks, into my ears and onto my pillow.  I told him about my relationship with the Lord, my hopes, my dreams, my fears.... just as if he could respond.  Then I hummed some more.  I rubbed his arm and my eye caught his tattoo.  It sagged across his upper arm.  It was a picture of a bulldog with U.S.M.C. underneath.   He was always ashamed of it while I was growing up.  Always covering it up; trying to hide it.  He said he had gotten it while he was drunk when he was in the Marines, before he knew the Lord.  However, I didn't know that when I was a child.  All I saw was, well, blue mush that sort of looked like a dog with letters underneath.  I told my friends at school that my dad had a tattoo of his dog that died named Usmc.

The only photo I have of his tattoo

However that night, that tattoo represented that my dad was once a man.  A strong man.  One that proudly served in the United States Marine Corp.  Who lied about his age just so he could serve his country.  I didn't see any shame in that tattoo, I saw honor.  I saw valor.  I saw a glimpse of who my dad use to be.

Love a man in uniform =)

He wasn't an old man that was reduced to a shriveled skeleton with skin on...a mere 70 pounds.  He was Ivan Gerald Christianson.  My father. Bigger than the world.  Who could do anything, was afraid of nothing and could love everyone.

I turned 39 last Friday.  It was profound to me because that's the age Dad was when he had me.  It made me think of how in the end our roles had reversed.  I had wiped his eyes clean.  Helped carry him.  Helped change and bathe him... brush his hair, put his shirt on.  How many countless times did he do that for me?  Most dad's in the early 70's were "hands off", but my dad was in the delivery room, and took care of me just like a little mama.  I remember sitting on his lap in church, playing with his silk tie, sucking my finger and just feeling...safe.  I wonder if dad felt that way when I held his hand that last Friday stroking his hand.  Did he feel safe?  I remember being afraid after a bad dream and wandering out of my bed seeking comfort from my mom and dad in their room.  Before I could reach it, I saw the back of my Dad in the living room strumming his guitar and humming old choruses and hymns.  It soothed my heart and brought me comfort.  I went back to bed without anyone knowing.  I wonder if that Friday while I was humming those old choruses did it soothe his heart and bring comfort?

I rememeber coming back from my voice and piano lessons in Madison with Dad and he was sharing some of his ideas and dreams for Special Kids N Us (mom and dad's ministry).  He got all excited and sped up on the Interstate.  It made me feel special that he would share such intimate thoughts and dreams with me.  I wonder if Dad felt special when I shared with him about my children, my hopes and dreams, my fears and doubts?  Or if he heard me at all?

But that's the thing about my Dad, just when you think he's not listening, he squeezes your hand, or winks at you or tells your story to someone else.  The last day of Dad's life he sang with me.  Not with his voice, but he mouthed it.  He was listening the Friday before... that was one of my hopes.  I prayed for that.

He accomplished much in his life.  He had a long, loving marriage, 16 kids, a ministry to special needs children, 100+ foster children.... yet his greatest accomplishment was his relationship with the Lord.  That's his legacy. That's what he wanted to pass down to every one of his children.  Not money.  Not possessions, not heartache...but a true knowledge of Christ.  Everyone needs to work out their own Salvation.  I know that.  But Dad pointed us in the right direction.  He was the compass that pointed us to Christ.  That was his gift to us. I pray I can be the kind of parent that he was to me.

I'm so proud to be his daughter.

I miss you, Dad.