It's Organic - Friendship!!

On yard work days I always wear pink!!! It's my way of making the job feel more empowering. While I actually do have a sense of pride once I've finished and look over the manicured lawn...but I still grit my teeth, as I push the mower and wipe sweat off my brow (while also peeking in on kids, moving a trampoline and gathering up Nerf bullets to avoid another job of cleaning up scattered pieces). It's not so much the work as it is the reminder of the fact that this is one more job that now, I have to take on. I am generally up to the challenge of a job, especially one that feels so organic! But with the rigged equipment and tools that I inherited along with my new job - I am not so eager. I just can't seem to figure out what the tricks and quirks are of this equipment that also seems to resent the fact that I am now doing the job!

I have begun asking for some inexpensive referrals to hire out the job, once I can figure out where that money will come from. As a result, a few friends have offered to help me out. One day my sweet friend called up and explained..."My son needs to be some one's blessing and we picked you...so we are coming over tomorrow to mow your yard." I was stunned. She had to do some convincing and to help me look at getting help with a new perspective. It's a new thing to me to not be completely self sufficient within my own home or family. It is not at all an ego, I just am not yet comfortable accepting help outside of family - part of my 'dream' was to be a self sustaining family that would create a community of our own, within our home...So now it's just another part of accepting the new road I am on and the new roles that people will have. The crazy thing is that accepting this kind of caring and love from FRIENDS is very uncomfortable for me...I am not sure why?? But God has decided that I need to get comfortable with it because He has given me some really amazing friends and they keep coming with labors of love, gifts of the heart and words of wisdom that help me get through hard days.

One weekend I had a knock on my door...a girlfriend with a big bag of fresh Texas produce (garlic, limes, cilantro, onions, tomatoes, avocados). It was beautiful and fresh from the farmers market!!! This touched my heart far more than she even knew...not only fact that it was a nice gift but that she KNEW ME so well that she knew the PERFECT gift for ME. Later, another friend had homemade strawberry preserves fresh from her kitchen for me and the kids - YUMMY!!! Pure and natural - both in the gifts and the reasons behind them. It just is so simple but means so much to me.

I remember sitting in my counselor's office several months back...giving it my all to make things work. I was in tears but tried my best to explain what made me so sad. I wanted to be KNOWN, I wanted to feel loved and to be shown it...in ways that showed you know me. I secretly had wished for a little romantic movie scene of my own, where the man does his best to explain why he needs her and then spells out all the idiosyncrasies and oddities that make her special to him. I have felt so overlooked, avoided, resented and neglected that I was beginning to question my own worth. There was a turning point that soon followed when I realized that I was NOT VALUED...and now I am learning that does NOT reflect on my WORTH!!!

Yesterday I was showered with love from so many different directions...first, my beautiful Mom with an early birthday gift to make life more fun and more importantly time with me and the kids. Then a friend of a friend tells me I have an herb garden coming that was made especially for me (I barely know this person - how did she know I wanted to grow my own herb garden!?), a girlfriend comes over and brings dinner & dessert, a couple shows up to do my yard work, my neighbor down the street comes to offer handyman help, another neighbor stops by to say she wants to take me to lunch next week, another calls and invites me and the kids to join them at the lake. I was seriously so overwhelmed with emotion that I broke down. I cried and cried as I hugged one of my angels - It's just incredible to me how much people really do love me, that aren't even family!!! Sometimes I am so blown away by friendships that I just cannot even breathe. What a joy it brings to me inside...when I sit at the end of the day and recount the outpouring of love...love that seems to flow so freely from those that REALLY do feel it and aren't even being asked to show it. It's GOOD STUFF and it's exactly what I needed.