Life Beyond The Chair

Listen Listen for the voices that might have been Listen for the stories needing to be written Listen for asign they might be alive Listen for the hope that did survive Listen

"Remember my yellow room mama?" "When we will go home, mama?"Wyatt would ask me these kinds of questions over and over again after we lost our home in 2008. I was always amazed as the months turned into years that his memories stayed so accurate. Wyatt was only 6 when the financial devastation that followed my injury, took its largest toll. This time it took our home. It took our little red house nestled in a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains. It took our little red house that looked like a wreck to everyone else when we bought it, yet to us, we saw in it, our dream home. It took our 5 acres. It took our gardens and our goat pens. It took our shops and our schoolhouse. It took everything. As we drove out the gate one last time, I realized that we were losing something far greater than our home. We were losing our feeling of home, belonging and roots. We had planted our family story in that house and its roots ran deep. I had moved throughout my entire lif

"You should write a book!" I have heard this over and over from people most of my my adult life. I always find it flattering and a bit funny. While I know that my life is far from normal, why would anyone else care? We all go through life and have many different experiences and challenges, why are mine noteworthy? I guess I should be flattered that people find me so interesting:) If you know me personally, you know that I most likely have more than one story to tell. I have, I must amit, been very Blessed with "experiences" throughout my life. When God sat down to write my story, He must have thought I had a lot more strength that I do.  There are many parts to my story that would look beautiful written down. Stories of hope, dreams, love and faith. However, the darker more difficult times do not flow as easily. It's as though, if I write them down, if I let them out, they will become alive again. These stories speak of lost hope, shatte

WORSHIP I did not worship at all following my injury. I remember a period of bargaining and pleading in the early weeks. A mindless plea to nothingness that somehow gave me a much needed peace. However, once it became apparent that my condition was permanent, God was dead to me. He was dead in my heart and He was dead in my home. I could not begin to comprehend a God that would give me 7 beautiful children and then take away my ability to care for them. What?! I had weathered more tragedy than I cared to remember. I heard all the " Don't be a fair weather" Christian sermons, I was well versed in it all. I dutifully Prayed through the death of my infant son, I lit candles for my mother and her endless addictions and I accepted that it was God's will that our home burn to the ground New Years Eve 1999. Through it all I never waivered. Faith was the only thing that got me through the dark days. But paralysis? This was too much. God, or whatever was out there h