P.S. Don't even ask if we can still be friends

Dear 2011,

There's no easy way to say this, so I'll just spit it out.

I'm kicking you to the curb. 

We're over. 

Done. 

Stick a fork in us and let the alley cats fight over whatever scraps remain

I wish I could say I had a good run with you, but the fact of the matter is you slowed me down. You made me believe you'd taken me somewhere -- one giant step closer to 40 -- and that the time for me to achieve my lifelong dreams had come and gone.

"Face it, you're just different from others. You have to work so much harder for good things to happen to you," you said.

You made me question whether or not the dreams I had for myself were truly mine.

"More deadlines. More pressure. You hate that stuff. I don't think you really want to be a writer," you said.

OK. So, I'll give you credit for making me take the time to reflect on what I truly want out of life and the reasons I've chased those dreams for so long.

But that's all you get. 

I'm done feeling sorry for myself. I'm done with the doubt. I'm done with this anxiety you've made me feel when I look at a blank page. 

Someone told me last week that the Lord had given them a great gift through my writing. That meant something to me...more than that person will probably ever know. 

It also tells me there is a reason I've been chasing these dreams for so long...and there's a reason I should keep chasing them.

But I think the chase should go on without you. 

So this is goodbye, 2011. 

I'm moving on to 2012, a year some say could be our last on earth. Whether or not it's true makes no difference to me because I've decided it's time for me to start living like it is.

It's time for me to just start living. Period. 

I just can't do that with you. 

Don't let the door bump your big, fat, lyin' behind on the way out.

Sincerely,

Kat

The art of letting go

I shattered the windshield of my sister's Datsun 710 with my head when I was in eighth grade.

Some lady in a tank -- er, Station Wagon -- pulled out in front of us as my sister drove me to choir practice. With the exception of some nasty scrapes on my knees and a big, gosh-darn goose-egg on the top of my noggin, I wasn't hurt.

At least, not physically.

Emotionally, it was a little different. My sister and I spent the first few weeks of summer break that year trying not to tense up as we entered major intersections.

She eventually got over it.

Me? Not so much.

As with many other things in life, I've struggled to let go of my strange fear of moving vehicles.

On Sunday -- as my oldest daughter turned 16 and ventured out alone for the first time -- that fear morphed into something so much bigger. Pangs of dread rippled through me while I watched her pull out of the driveway. I probably looked something like this...

This is actually Molly during one of her many
 collick episodes as an infant.

I don't doubt Molly's ability to operate a vehicle (although ...)  But I know one day soon a moving vehicle will start up, back out of the driveway and carry my little girl off to college, off to a life of her own, off to a life where mom's input isn't always wanted or necessary. (Not that it is right now.)

Kitty Forman, a character on That '70s Show, once made a poignant statement about the things we teach our kids. It sits heavily on my heart right now.

She said from the moment our children are born, we're supposed to teach them things -- how to walk and talk, dress themselves, feed themselves, and then one day we wake up and realize that all this time the only thing we're really teaching them is how to leave.

Wow. Before that happens, someone better teach me how to let go.

Writerly Wednesday: Lost in the middle of nowhere?

The road to Valentine can seem endless.

The town sits smack in the middle of Nebraska's Cherry County -- an area almost five times bigger than the state of Rhode Island and home to only 6,148 people.

You can drive for miles and miles without seeing another soul. Indeed, the roads through the "Nebraska Outback" are a desolate -- but beautiful -- place to be.

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I spent the weekend there with some musician friends, who were scheduled to perform for a cancer benefit and then provide music at church the next day.

I had trouble falling asleep after the benefit, so I was a little groggy at Mass on Sunday morning when the priest mentioned his plans to travel west that afternoon.

But my ears perked up when he said: "The road out that way is long and desolate. Sometimes you have to stop to help other people along the way."

Although he said it in passing, his words struck me in a significant way.

When I named this blog, it had more to do with promoting a novel-length story I'd written called The Long Road to Heaven. Over time, it has become less about that story and more about my own journey to find peace. It has become somewhat of a personal chronicle on my road to find faith in myself, my writing, my God and the world around me.

Recently, I emerged from a very dark place spiritually and emotionally. I've spent the better part of time since then asking, "What was the purpose of this? How was this horrible experience supposed to make me a better person?"

The more time I've spent seeking answers to those questions, the more I've begun to realize it's not just about me. It's also about helping others who are in danger of breaking down on the journey to reach their dreams.

The road to publication can be a lonely journey.

As writers, we need a support system. We need people to criticize us when our heads grow too big. We need people to encourage us when our faith gets too small. We need people to squee with us and to cry with us. We need to recognize that sometimes it is OK to take a break.

We need people -- other writers and friends and family -- to help us.

And we need to be able to put aside the pride that keeps us from asking for help when the road gets too rough. (The same goes for the road of life, too.)

Really, it's OK. I've been there before. I've got the map.

In short, He aced the test

Somebody once told me that hell is the absence of God. If that's the case, then I've been using the right word to describe the past several weeks of my life.

I don't mean to come off as melodramatic. I know there are people out there who have gone through much worse. But for awhile, it really sucked to be me, especially since my ol' cup of faith wasn't runneth-ing over.
It didn't help that I had people trying to convince me that those who believe in God are naive fools.

On second thought, maybe I should be thanking God for those people.
You see, I'm a stubborn girl, and I will hold onto what I believe is right until my heart tells me otherwise. That's what kept me from letting go of my faith in the first place.
That's what made me listen to that little voice in my heart that kept saying: "Faith is all you have left, Kat. If you let go of that, you'll have nothing."
That's what made me do what Christians aren't supposed to do when their anger toward God turns into anger at themselves for believing in God.
I tested Him.

I was pretty upset that night. I went to bed cursing at Him, saying, "Why aren't you listening to my cries for help? I'm beginning to believe all of those people who say you aren't there at all. I'm about ready to give up on you because this is too much, so you better do something to let me know you are still there."

I truly believe that when I picked up my Bible from the nightstand and opened it, it was a last-ditch attempt to salvage whatever faith remained inside me.

I truly believe it was divine intervention, the way my eyes immediately settled on this passage from John 6: "On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"

Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

"You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.

Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

I closed the book, shocked.

I went back to the the part about the disciples complaining about Jesus' hard teaching and thought about how it applied to me. I've always said the best place to learn is the school of life.

And yes, sometimes the lessons are hard.

Very hard.

I realized that those are the times when I need to hold fast to my faith.

Looking back, my "long road through hell" reminds me of something a pastor from my hometown once said to me, something so profound it eventually found its way into my first manuscript.

The Rev. Thaddeus Roberson once told me, "Anytime that struggle comes and adversity comes, the devil has made his biggest mistake because he’s knocked you down and thrown you to the feet of Jesus."

I think I'll stay here awhile. It's not such a bad place to be after all.

When the day turns to dust and shadows and the demon is at your door...

Yesterday I updated my Facebook status to: "God, I've prayed so many times just so I could see the things that I want most of all are the same things killin' me."

A couple of people e-mailed me directly, wondering if I was okay. (Thanks.) A few others inquired on Facebook about what had happened to make me leave such dismal words.

Well, it reflected the way I felt: powerless.

The line is from my novel; when the MC is rapt in the throes of addiction, she writes the lyrics to a song called "Other gods" without realizing the darkness it reveals about her current state of mind.

The song title is based on the first commandment: "I am the Lord your God. . . .Do not have other gods before me."

Out of the ten, this was probably the hardest commandment for me to grasp.

The cynic in me used to interpret it as a sort of admission that there are other omnipotent beings in the universe trying to knock God from His pedestal. Early on, I pictured them as mythological titans. Later, I thought maybe it was a reference to the gods found in other religions.

I started to get a firm understanding of the meaning of this commandment when I tried to step inside the mind of an alcoholic while writing about Heather.

Then, while watching my husband struggle to quit drinking, I received a first-hand lesson on what it means to put other gods first.

I realized then that having other gods means zeroing in on that which separates us from grace.

Everyone has one.

It's whatever fills us up but leaves us empty. It's whatever leaves us lusting for affirmation and pleasure from outside sources, when the only source that should matter is the one that lives within us.

For some, an other god is gambling.

For some, it's cigarettes.

For others, it's cocaine, meth, heroin.

For my husband, it's alcohol.

My other god is food. And yesterday it had me on my knees.

But they say the first step to recovery is admitting there is a problem.

Now that I've admitted it, the coming days will be a fight to remove that other god from the pedestal on which I placed it and to put my God back where He belongs.

Prayers (if you're a believer) and encouragement (if you're a non-believer) would be greatly appreciated.

And I think Bartles or Jaymes said it best: "Thank you for your support."

(OK, yeah, wine cooler reference was probably inappropriate, but if it made my husband laugh, then you all have to, too.)

The Dark Hills

A little boy ran in from the darkness. Out of breath, he collapsed into the arms of a priest and cried, "My mother is going to kill my baby brothers."

The priest rose from his seat and ran with the little boy back to the shanty where he lived with his mother and younger siblings.

The mother stood outside sobbing.

The priest reached out for her, asked her why she wanted to kill her children.

"My babies are starving to death," she said. "I have no food for them, and I don't want them to suffer."

I heard this story several years ago from a priest who served as a missionary in Haiti.


On Saturday, I spent several hours watching national news organizations report on the current situation in the third-largest nation in the Caribbean.

"Rescue crews are having difficulty getting life-sustaining supplies the citizens of Haiti," one reporter said.

"People are dying. The situation is dire," another said.

But I say: "The situation there has always been dire. Where were your cameras before last Tuesday? And where will your cameras be when the ratings start to slide?"

Will wonders never cease?

Anyone who knows me also knows I firmly believe everything happens for a reason -- even life's irritations and tragedies.

Over the years, I've experienced many events to solidify my faith in that notion. But few of them are as incredible as what happened to my friend, Kelly, on Monday.

Kelly and I work together at the newspaper. Although she's in a different department (she's a graphic designer), she and I have forged a pretty good friendship over the years during our shared lunch breaks. She listens to me ramble on about my writing; I listen to her tales of what it's like to raise a rambunctious 8-year-old boy.

Monday morning Kelly's car refused to start in the cold weather. Her son urged her to see if they could use her folks' SUV. So she did. After dropping her boy off at school, she started on her 40-mile commute to work in her parents' vehicle.

That evening, as she traveled down the four-lane highway at 65 miles per hour, a box truck ran a stop sign. Kelly slammed on her brakes and swerved to miss the truck. Unfortunately, she was unable to stop and the truck T-boned the driver's side of her parents' SUV going about 40 miles per hour.

Coincidentally, the husband of another coworker drove by and saw the emergency personnel using the Jaws of Life to extract Kelly from the car. The husband later said when he came upon the accident he didn't believe anyone had survived.

But Kelly did. As a matter of fact, Kelly returned to work yesterday. Miraculously she emerged from the accident without any broken bones (except for the one she broke when she crashed her bicycle several weeks ago).

Both Kelly and her son are acutely aware of how bad the accident could have been, especially if her car had started that morning. So what seemed like a problem at the time probably ended up saving her life.

Isn't it amazing how God takes life's inconveniences and turns them into miracles?

Blog Chain: Like a good neighbor...

It's blog chain time again.

For this round, Mandy asked:

How do you prioritize? How do you balance paying attention to your writing, critiquing for friends, spending time with your family and earning a living?

This is a kind of a funny question for someone who flies by the seat of her pants. (That would be me.)

I know my answer may not be comfortable for some people to read. Not everyone believes in the same things I do.

That's okay. We all have our own journey.

But since Mandy asked. . .

About 13 years ago, I worked as a pharmacy technician. I hated it. The hours were long. The pay sucked. And, to be quite honest, people are cranky when they're sick. (Not to mention the fact that I picked up every little bug that came along.)

To top all of that off, my situation at home wasn't so great. My husband and I were dirt poor and way too immature to care for an infant properly. It always seemed like I was shoveling to fill one hole only to create another.

I was miserable. There were mornings when, on my way to work, I considered dropping my daughter off at daycare and driving away from my life.

Seriously.

It was that bad.

And then one day, I lost it. As my little girl napped, I sat on the floor of my single-wide trailer and broke my long silence with God. In a nutshell, I told Him I couldn't stand the imbalance in my life anymore. Something needed to change. I didn't know what it was, but I knew I couldn't do it alone.

Of course, as God often does when I speak out loud with Him (as noted here and here), He spoke back.

He told me I should only have two priorities in my life: 1.) Him and 2.) Everything else.

I scoffed. "Geez, God. That's a little self-centered, even for someone who is omnipotent."

His only response was: "Trust me."

That's when I started going with the flow of my life instead of trying to swim against the current. I started listening to that voice inside that told me when to write, when to read, when to crit, when to work, when to push it all aside for the sake of family, and most importantly, when to ask for help.

Oddly enough, less than a month after my conversation with God, I received a job offer from a place where I had applied more than five months earlier. It was a temporary position in the library of a Catholic high school. When that job ended in the spring, my boss -- the principal of the school -- gave a glowing recommendation to the daily newspaper where I now work as a business editor.

Don't get me wrong, I still hit snags. There are times when I get impatient with the speed of my life and push God out of the driver's seat. But the nice thing about crashing now is knowing my assurance provider always has me covered.

Check out what the ever-charming Eric had to say before me. Check out what the colossally creative Christine has to say tomorrow.

Gift of gab

It's been almost a week since my last post.

(Well, I pulled the post with my book trailer because I decided it needed further tweaking. More on that later.)

Last night, as I began feeling bad for neglecting my blog in such a manner, I sat down and implored myself to write something.

C'mon Kat.

Be witty.

Be smart.

Be charming.

Tell an uplifting story that will make people laugh.

I couldn't.

The more I tried, the more frustrated I became.

I'm a writer. Words are supposed to come easily to me.

They didn't.

My frustration grew.

Then, for some reason, a memory flittered through my head. At a church group meeting several years ago, a good friend of mine and my husband played this song. I thought it was so amusing to hear this friend play this song because this friend was endowed with the gift of gab.

That was the point, he said. Sometimes, we need to shut up and let our soul do the conversing.

I guess there's really nothing more for me to say today except:

Influence

There's always something interesting going down on Lynn Rush's blog.
Sometimes she tests your movie trivia. Sometimes she sends you on walks down memory lane. And sometimes she makes you bust a gut laughing at her Friday Funnies.
Yesterday, she blogged about The Noticer Project that began on Michael Hyatt's blog.
The idea is to call out five people who have influenced you in your life as a way to recognize them. (Actually, he calls it a challenge, but I found the only challenge was narrowing it down to five people. So, of course, I cheat a little bit.)
Here are my five biggest influences.
1. Dana Harris. Of course, I'm going to list my husband. I think it would be ridiculous not to acknowledge the influence he's had on my life after being married almost 15 years. My husband has taught me faith and endurance. Often, I find myself envious of the courage he has displayed in the face of his alcohol addiction, and I admire the strength he has shown in lifting that "higher power" down from its pedestal and allowing God to move in its place.
2. Molly Harris. My 14-year-old has taught me patience. The first time I held Molly I didn't feel that warm, fuzzy feeling all new moms are supposed to feel. I believe the feeling in my heart was, "Oh crap ... ready or not, here life comes." For a long time, I felt unworthy to be responsible for something so fragile. I felt ill-equipped to handle 3 a.m. feedings, chronic constipation and unbridled colick. (Here's where Molly reads this, slams her computer shut and says, "Mom? Do you have to talk about my bowel movements on your blog?") I wondered when, oh when, would I feel those warm fuzzies new mom's always talk about. It didn't happen for a long, long time, but when it did, I cried. (And she said, "Geez, mom, you're such a bawl-baby!") :-)
3. Elizabeth Harris. My 7-year-old taught me that not all blessings are expected. Her presence in my life has shown me that accepting the unexpected surprises we are given can have lasting rewards. I had finally established a comfortable groove in my marriage and motherhood when I discovered I was preggers with Boop. Knowing how long it took to find the fuzzies with Molly, I wasn't ready to do the baby-mama thing all over again. But then, when she was only two weeks old, she smiled at me, and despite the fact that she had just peed on me at 2:30 a.m., I knew her and I would get along famously.
4. My sisters: Kim, Kelly, Kristi and my twin cousin, Jill. (Yeah, here's where I start cheating on that five people.) From these four people, I have learned how to laugh at myself (mostly because they spent so much time laughing at me when I was little). When I was two years old, I fell down the stairs in our split-level home and got rolled up in the runner (those plastic rugs with pokies on the bottom). Knowing I was uninjured in the ordeal, my family laughed at the sight of me trapped in that stupid rug. Even though I used to get angry whenever I heard one of them retell this story, I eventually realized how goofy it would have looked. (And how if my parents had had the sense enough to video tape the incident, I'd have won $100,000 on America's Funniest Videos.) And Jill, although she and I only managed to see each other once in a blue moon, the way we found the stupidest things to laugh at (screaming willows -- what is that?) has taught me to always find the humor in dull, depressing or otherwise rotten situations.
5. And lastly, my parents have taught me responsibility. (I'm not quite sure if they'll consider that a compliment or not, though.) Whether it was 110 degrees or four feet of snow, my father rarely missed a day of work. And my mother, who worked full-time up until a few years ago, still managed to find time to raise four daughters, make it to their extracurricular events and do all of the things traditional moms are supposed to do. I never realized how hard that stuff would be until I became a parent and had to put my own interests on the back burner to care for my family.
I'm grateful that each of these people are in my life. It's hard to imagine WHO I would be without you.
Now, who are your five?

Pedestal

"If you could be any person in the world, who would it be?"

I'd be Kathryn. Or Kat.

But I wouldn't be Kathy.

I know it sounds anal, but I don't like to be called Kathy.

That's what they called me in school. That was the name to which I responded during a portion of my life where I spent way too much time pretending to be someone I was not.

Receiving 12 years of private education was like a lifelong lesson on oxymorons.

While my mentors and teachers encouraged me to be myself, the crowd pulled me to the left and urged me to pursue the definitions of worldly success and popularity.

Never a member of the popular crowd, I learned quickly to suppress the person blossoming inside me.

Luckily, she didn't wither and die. Thankfully, I shed the skin of that phony persona I tried to put forth in order to fit in and let Kathryn live.

I try to stress upon my children the importance of being comfortable with who they are.

So, I worried when my teenager asked this question during lunch the other day: If you could be any person in the world, who would you be? I wondered why she would ask such a question. Was something so terrible about her own life that she dreamed about being someone else?

Who did she want to be? Amy Lee? Demi Lovato? Miley Cyrus? Any girl on TV who gets to do a smoochy scene with Joe Jonas?

It concerned me.

But my concern somewhat paled in delight when my seven-year-old exclaimed: "I know! I know! I'd be me."

I hoped Elizabeth would continue seeing that there is nothing wrong with who she is, and that heroes and idols have a tendency to eventually fall from the pedestal on which we put them.

Before I gave Molly the answer to my question, I turned it back on her to see which direction her thoughts were traveling.

Molly shrugged, smiled and said: "Don't worry, Mom. I'd be me, too. Only I'd have straighter teeth, more money and I'd be famous."

I guess that would be my answer, too.

I'd be me...only better.

Surviving vs. Living

A brief note from Kat: I did an interview with a woman that really touched my heart last week. The story I wrote for the paper can be found on the Norfolk Daily News Web site. This post is written in response to that interview.

*********************************************************

I should have been offended.
While paying for a meal at a local pizza restaurant several months ago, the owner and I became distracted by the news channel offering reports of another politician entangled in a sex scandal.

“Reporters, I swear, they’re the biggest scum of the earth,” he said.

At first I bit my lip, but when the pressure of restrained laughter rattled open my clenched jaw, he asked why I thought that was so funny.

Of all the strangers coming into this man’s restaurant, he had to mutter his opinion to a reporter.

Watching the way this particular news channel air this politician’s dirty laundry ad nauseum, I couldn’t disagree with the gist of his statement. But I didn’t want to fall into that generalized “scum” category either.

Contrary to popular thought, (most) reporters (all of them at the Daily News) do have feelings. Remember Walter Cronkite’s tears when Kennedy died?

We try not to show them. We try to be tough and present unbiased facts in news stories, but sometimes feelings aren’t so easily held back.

Interviewing Katrina last week, my feelings got in the way. Sobbing throughout most of the interview, she made the desperation she felt for her family’s situation clear.

Christmas wasn’t Katrina's concern. Survival was.

Imagine standing in her shoes.

Whatever savings you may have had were depleted when surgery removed your ability to work. Your spouse, who has been eking out just enough money at his new job to take care of your family of six, suddenly finds himself a victim of the economic downturn. Unable to receive unemployment, you swallow your pride and visit the Department of Health and Human Services to see if they can provide assistance. Returning from the trip, the only reliable means of transportation you have is totalled in an accident, and insurance offers no help on a vehicle with negative equity.

What do you do? Where do you turn? How do you put food on your table? Pay for heat and electricity?

How do you tell your youngest child – who turns six on Christmas Day – that Santa can’t make it and mommy and daddy can’t afford a birthday gift either?

Katrina’s description – a living nightmare – couldn’t have been more accurate.

As a reporter, it’s difficult to get through an interview like this and not shed tears. I wanted to reach out and help.
Hopefully, there are people out there who will read Katrina’s story and feel the same way.

You don’t have to step too far outside your back door to find other families struggling for survival the same way the Ostrand family is.

Those people are in your town.
Right in your back yard.

They need help. They need prayers. And they need to know they have not been forgotten.

As if I don't have enough to do

Before I start writing, I'll just tell you I'm not complaining.

Really, I'm not.

I'm merely questioning my sanity.

Last week at our church's pastoral council meeting, we were informed that the church lacked a teacher for eleventh-grade CCD (religious education). I've considered teaching religious ed before. After working five months in the library of a local high school, I discovered how much I loved working with teenagers. Before the end of the school year, the students would not only ask me how to find a book using the out-dated card catalog (it was a long time ago), but they would ask my advice on relationships, what to wear to the prom and the best way to get out of reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" in Mr. Bivens' class. (The answer is you don't. It's a good book. Read it.

But whenever the opportunity arose to teach religious ed, I usually allowed someone else to step into the position before I volunteered. I figured if God wanted me in that position, He'd find a way to get me there.

Weeeell, He kinda interfered long enough last week to get me to say, "I suppose I could do it," at the meeting and then He snuck back out again. Before I knew what was happening Father and our religious education coordinator were expressing joyous gratitude over one less thing to do.

I stepped back and said, "Well, I probably better look at the curriculum first. What will I be teaching?"

Morality.

Yesterday, Father asked me again if I was still interested in teaching the eleventh-graders. Of course, I said yes. I couldn't say no. Not after God interfered and all.

Sometimes I wonder what God has up His sleeve. This should be an interesting -- not to mention busy -- school year.

Disconnection

Caution: I intend this post to be one of the most serious posts I've ever written.



Someone sent me something this morning that had an interesting observation inside it.

Professionals built Titanic. An amateur built the ark.

This tidbit of wisdom made me feel pretty good. You see, I've been going through this phase -- long phase -- where I feel a deep disconnection from the Holy Spirit. To say the least, it bothers me.

I've prayed about it. I've meditated and asked for the connection to be restored. Coincidentally, at a recent Mass, the priest spoke of the differences he observed between Peter and Paul.

One had a strong relationship with God. Needy, almost.

The other spent long periods of time in disconnection with God before coming back under His protective wing for rest. Eventually, he would always disconnect for a long period of time again. The priest said he thought it would be difficult to live in that sort of relationship with God.

I know firsthand. It's hell.

I feel sometimes as though my relationship with Jesus has been on hiatus, as though He has become like so many of those close friends from whom I've allowed myself to drift. Never parting on sorrowful or unfortunate terms, I find joy in unexpected encounters and excitement over rekindling the friendship. But I always allow myself to become distant again.

I wonder why.

I wish I knew why; I feel like I need that close relationship now more than ever as I start to pursue my life's biggest dream in earnest.

I don't want to impose on the few number of regular readers I have on my blog, but I really need prayers. I need to re-establish that connection with the Holy Spirit. I need His divine direction as I make baby steps toward my goal to publish my novel.

Counting blessings

John 11:40 "Jesus said to her, 'I told you that if you believed you would see God's glory, didn't I?'

Several years ago, some friends and I visited the Holy Family Shrine along I-80 in Nebraska.

Friends since high school, the seven of us had only gathered one other time -- for a wedding -- since graduating in the early 1990s.

I had been going through a difficult struggle with my faith during that time, wondering if the strength of my faith could endure, wondering if the strength of my faith would make Jesus proud.

A person would true faith can move mountains, right?

During our time together, three of my friends talked about their infertility issues. One friend had a baby shortly after high school, but -- as a recent newlywed -- was having trouble becoming pregnant a second time. The other two friends had undergone tests and therapy but to no avail.

Standing next to the fountain in the entrance to the shrine, I heard God whisper to me. He told me to stick my hand in the water and touch my friends. He would heal them. I stuck my hand in the water, but I thought my friends would think I was looney if I told them what I'd heard in my head.
I kept quiet...until we were leaving. Then I the recent newlywed friend about my experience, and she excitely insisted we return to the inside of the building. I told her it was okay. We didn't need to go back in. I had touched my hand in the water, all she had to do was touch my hand and believe.
She did. And within a few short weeks, she was pregnant.
Since then, all three of my friends have been blessed with children of their own.
But the big surprise came yesterday when one of them called me up to say, "Guess what? We're pregnant again!" It wasn't expected. It wasn't planned. But my friend couldn't be happier about the having another baby.
Was it faith healing? I don't know. I'd like to think God's test for me became a blessing for my friends. It's pretty cool.

Year 14 and counting

Next week will mark 14 years. My how time flies when you're having fun!



Dana and I will celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary next week. I'm devoting today's post to the thoughts that ran through my head during our firsts.

The first time we met, he sat on the brick terrace landscaping outside our college's music hall with a white Gibson guitar in his grip. I remembered thinking someone better cut the excess ends from those strings before it puts an eye out. (My mom worked for an eye doctor for 30 years -- all of my thoughts are in relation to eye safety.) He said, "So, you can sing, huh?" I said yeah. He said, "So, you wanna be in a band?"

Oh, a long-haired, guitar-playing, tattoo-having, earring-sporting college boy! Just what I always wanted.

The first time I told my mother I met someone (in reference to Dana). She said, "Is he Catholic?" (This question is incredibly hilarious coming from her because she's a former Lutheran whose family members nearly disowned her for marrying my Catholic dad back in 1963.) I said, "He sure is. He's also go long hair, an earring, a tattoo and he plays guitar." She said with dismay, "Oh, Kathryn."



The first time I kissed him. We were looking at the stars above Lewis & Clark Lake and I remembered thinking, "Well, here goes. Might as well get it over with." It was that thought exactly, but I can't remember what it I was trying to get over with. Maybe I knew then already that I was about to lose my heart, so it was just time to surrender.

The first time we talked marriage: It wasn't the romantic setting most girls dream of. I had grown tired of paying rent and was in the process of moving back into my mom & dad's home in an effort to become a more mature human being. He said, "So, you wanna get married?" I shrugged and said, "Okay."

The first time we found out we were pregnant: We had only been married for eight weeks and couldn't wait to get started with our lives together. That included having children. We celebrated by going out to eat, and I puked for the next nine months.

The first time we fought was the first indication he had a drinking problem that would almost end our marriage several year later. I buried my head in the sand until a friend later pointed it out to me, but that's another blog.

The first time we bought a car together he was so mad at me because I spent $8,000 on a POS Neon that would never last. That was 1998. We still own the only Neon in the world with 158,000 miles (and counting) on it.

The first time we saw our youngest daughter, we looked at each other and said: Wow, it's a girl. We weren't expecting that! and that was quickly followed by, Wow! She has red hair. Where'd that come from?

The first time we stepped foot into the house in which we decided to raise our family he fell in love with it; I thought Lord this is a lot of work for this much money. We still live in the money pit, but it has comfortable character. My only complaint about it now is that its 15 miles from work and gas prices are outrageous.



The first time my husband told me he had accepted Christ as his savior and was finally ready to be confirmed I was elated. I still swear I felt the presence of his deceased grandmother at Mass with us that night. She was crying tears of happiness that he'd finally come to the Lord.

The first time he promised to quit drinking for me and the girls was the last time he ever touched a drink. I respect him and love him so much for having the discipline to abide by that huge sacrifice for himself and for us.

The first time I saw him with short hair I thought: DANG! I'm married to a hottie!

The first time he bought a welder to work on the car he's restoring, he acted like a little kid with a new toy ...wait, he's still acting like a little kid with a new toy because of that thing.



The first time I had a notion of my own aging was when I looked at Dana and saw the gray hairs starting to form in his mustache and subtle sideburns. I thought, Wow, it's going to be great growing old with this guy.

And I still think that.

Never alone

There's something about being sick that just sucks.

I awoke at 1 a.m. Thursday with a horrible stomachache. Nausea forced me down the stairs and into the bathroom, and my electrolytes dropped so quickly in a relatively short period that I started to black out.

My husband takes Ambien for sleep. Waking him up for help wasn't an option. My daughters are also very heavy sleepers. They could sleep through a freight train rolling through their yard and not be fazed. So, there I was in the bathroom, blacking out, feeling as if I was about to die -- alone. I hit my head on the bathroom counter on the way to the floor, but managed to catch myself before too much damage had been done. I knew, then, my Thursday would be ruined.

When my family crawled out of bed later that morning, I told them I was going to have each of them fitted with a remote electroshock button to wake them if this ever happened again.

It's frightening to be so sick and all alone. It's strange what starts running through your head, and it sparked sorrow in my heart for the people who are sick, elderly and die with no one at their side.

I started working at the paper as an obit writer many, many years ago, and yesterday started me thinking about a couple of the obits I had written about residents of our area who died alone.

Vividly, I remember one funeral director telling me about walking into a 3-story apartment building and immediately being able to smell the decomp. Apparently, a man who had no one to care for him died three weeks earlier and no one noticed until his rent came due. Another was an elderly gentleman who lived by himself on his farm. His wife had passed on and his children lived far away. He lay dead for 12 days before neighbors finally called the police because they hadn't noticed any activity for several days.

I'm saddened by stories like these, and they happen all too often.

My cousin, who is a registered nurse for hospice, said many people who are near death are visited by loved ones who have passed on before them. It helps the transition to death an easier one to bear, she said. For the sake of all these people who died with no one around them, I hope that's true. It's comforting to know that no matter how alone I am, someone will be there.

But if I ever see my grandfather while I'm worshipping the porcelain god, I'm pretty sure I'll scream loud enough to wake my family from their sleep.

A funny thing happened on the way to work

A funny thing happened to me on the way to work. Not this morning. As a matter of fact, it was quite some time ago, but I like sharing this story because it illustrates how God uses humor in my life to get His point across.
I love my job. Don't get me wrong.
There are times, however, when I get bored. About three years ago, I was finding myself in a career lull. I had been editing the faith section of the newspaper and doing entertainment stories for quite some time. I had the opportunity to interview some pretty big names in show biz: "Weird" Al, Larry the Cable Guy, Ron White, Dierks Bentley, Third Day, MercyMe, Susan Tedeschi, Cheap Trick. I had written some awesome faith-based stories about the end-times and faith healing.
What left was there to do?
I found myself wondering whether I had done all of the writing God wanted me to do. I was writing all of these stories about people who had given up everything in their lives to do mission work and, after reading and praying over the New Testament, I wondered if I deserved the blessings I was receiving.
Then I interviewed Todd Agnew.
Todd, for those of you who don't know, is a Christian musician. (Actually, I believe when Jesus sings, it sounds like Todd Agnew.) He's awesome.
His publicist sent me a copy of his new CD "Reflection of Something." (This was a couple years ago.) I found myself mesmerized by the music. Every morning I listened to Track 5 on the way to work. Listening to the intricate way the guitar worked with his voice kept me focused on the beautiful creation around me instead of the lack of joy I was finding in my work. Every morning -- for weeks -- I listened to this song. I never even knew what the name of it was. I could sing it though: "I saw the Lord, seated on a throne, high and exalted and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were angels with six mighty wings . . .and they sang holy holy holy is the Lord Almighty...."
Well, one day I decided to clean out the horrid mess that had somehow accumulated in my vehicle. In the process of cleaning, the CD jacket fell out and I saw the name of the song was Isaiah 6.
"Awesome," I thought to myself. "Later on, I'll have to go look this passage up and see what it's all about."
Later on that evening, as I climbed into bed and waited for my husband to finish taking the shower, I was mulling over my thoughts for the day. My husband's Bible fell off the headboard of the bed and literally conked me on the head. I suddenly remember I was going to look up that passage.
Imagine my surprise when I read the very next line of the passage -- the song stops just short of using this line -- and discovered that God was asking "Whom shall I send to be my messenger?"
Uh? Perhaps the editor of a faith section in a newspaper? Perhaps a writer who often questions why she has been blessed with passion and love of bringing His word to people?
OK, God. I get the picture. I'm supposed to be doing this job.
I recently had another opportunity to interview Todd Agnew again. I found it amusing when he talked about why he couldn't understand how God used someone as simple, someone without a formal education in Biblical teaching as himself to spread His word.
Well, Todd, I wonder the same thing about myself.

I am...

My grandparents' wedding anniversary would have been today. If my grandfather were still alive, they would be celebrating 75 years with one another.
Unfortunately, my grandfather died two weeks after celebrating his 65th wedding anniversary with my grandmother. His death changed my life, and I will never forget the event for as long as I live.
To understand where I'm going with this, you need to see where I'm coming from. My other grandmother died when I was in high school. I'll never forget that sunny September day. I was traveling with my parents to a relative's house, and when we arrived, the nursing home called to tell us my grandmother died. We immediately repeated the hour-long journey back to my hometown, where my grandmother had been living, to take care of arrangements.
I remember telling my parents they needed to drop me off at home because we would certainly have company and the house needed to be in proper order. I didn't want to go to the nursing home where the curious eyes of old strangers would constantly be upon me. My only other option would be to stand in the room with my grandmother's body and wait for my parents to finish with the mortician.
I chose to wait in the room with my grandmother's body and, at the time, it seemed like a mistake because it messed with my head. I became angry with God for taking this once 175-pound woman who had been so active and full of life and turning her into a 90-pound, bedridden shell. I internalized the feelings, refused to go to her funeral and, for the longest time, couldn't stand being in a nursing home or going to a funeral.
Then my grandfather became ill with congestive heart failure.
Ten years had passed between the two events. I had grown older, married and had a child. I had recently made peace with God because I found myself stuck in a dead-end job that made me miserable and I needed His help to get me out. I wanted to be a writer, but not having the patience or funds to finish college, I resigned myself to a life of bottom-feeder jobs that wouldn't be considered a career by any stretch of the imagination.
I was working as a librarian's assistant at a high school when my grandfather became ill. My mother called and told me I needed to come out to my grandparents' farmhouse to at least sit with my grandmother (maternal) for support.
I told her no. I couldn't do it. I preferred to remember my grandfather how he was the last time I saw him weeks before: His bald head turning red at the assertive burn of the shot of Cherry Pucker he had been goaded into taking by my cousin.
Throughout the morning, something gnawed at my soul, told me I needed to be there. So, I climbed into my old Mazda and took the 20-mile journey to the farm I grew up believing resembled what heaven really looked like.
I never imagined this experience would be the legend on my roadmap of life. My grandfather, who was in and out of consciousness throughout most of the day, awoke long enough to tell each of us that he loved us and that he couldn't wait to tell us how beautiful it was.
"Someday, I'll tell you all about it," he said.
We prayed. We cried. Later that afternoon, he began talking to his parents who have been deceased since the 1970s. My cousin, who has been a hospice nurse since the dawn of creation, said when terminally ill patients get close to death, it's not uncommon for loved ones who have died before to "come help them with the process."
I suddenly was able to accept death as natural and beautiful as birth. I have no doubt about where my grandfather is. I have no doubt he's in a good place. By that token, I had to accept that my other grandmother, who had died 10 years earlier, was also in that same good place. I just didn't see the beauty of it when she died.
I firmly believe being there that day opened my eyes to what God intended me to do: write. Write about Him and how He has a purpose and reason for everything. As believers, we need to pray for wisdom to discern what He wants.
Two months after my grandfather's death, I found out my job as a librarian's assistant would end. I ended up finding a job as an editorial assistant writing obituaries at a daily newspaper. Without experiencing that moment at my grandfather's bedside, I would have been too afraid to take the job that eventually morphed into a career as an editor for faith, business and entertainment sections at the same daily.
I have a woman who comes up to me after church every Sunday to tell me she likes (insert whatever story of the week here) that was in the paper. I don't know if I'd ever quite get her to understand that I view each story I write like my faith -- it is not of my own works, it is a gift I thank God for every day.