To the Scorned Woman:

To the Scorned Woman: 

I've learned many lessons in my short life. 

I have faced battles that many grown women have yet to taste before the age of 20. 

I say this not out of pride, but to express in the rawest way possible that I know more than you think about life, love & religion. 

I've hated God.

I've convinced myself He doesn't exist at all. 

I've fallen in love with Him over and over again. 

I've tasted the distain of bitterness, the sweetness of romance and the rotten aftertaste of heartache. 

I have failed. 

At many things. 

I have bottled up pain so great it would bring even the strongest women to brokenness. 

Listen to me closely you broken woman. 

You scorned woman. 

You talked about, beaten, trampled over woman. 

You who think you should just shut up and lay down like the door mat people see you as. 

You who think a good woman is one who grins and bears it. 

You who beat yourself up every day for being a girl that just wants her fairytale. 

You listen to me. 

You are a strong woman. 

You are full of courage and fire. 

You are nobody's door mat. 

You are precious. 

God sees you.

God is not looking down at you with a face of shame. 

Let people gasp. 

Let them talk.

Let them flap their busybody lips until they fall right off their face.

By remaining silent you are already above them. 

There is a time to stay silent and a time to stand up. 

I will stand up for you and with you. 

You are not a china doll; fragile and designed to sit on a shelf and collect the dust of comfort. 

You are a woman. 

A beautiful, fierce woman. 

Fear of the unknown. 

Fear of yourself. 

Fear of others. 

Drop it. 

Kick it. 

 Don't pick it up again. 

Do not lay in the dirt and let anyone throw their stones at you like a victim.

You pick up those stones and build a fortress out of them. 

I've learned many lessons in my short life; 

One of them being that I am worthy of love.

You are not the victim.

You're the heroine. 

Signed, 

A Once Scorned Woman

Shedding Your Dead Skin

I know, my title is pretty gross this time.

I couldn't think of a more perfect analogy to convey my heart. 

As a marathon runner, my feet take a huge beating. 

Blisters, callouses, the works. 

After an endurance event I always go and get my feet worked on. 

This is going to come as a shock, but I never cry over the stripping away of my dead skin. 

Fresh. Soft. New. 

Finally. 

Granted, those callouses served their purpose in my training at some point along the way. 

If I had scrubbed them off myself before running 26 miles, you would see me hobbling at mile 15 with feet covered in blisters. 

Alike, a cocoon serves its purpose, but you do not see a beautiful butterfly lingering around its old cocoon mourning over the loss. 

 

When I was a young girl, I would take my mothers mason jars and take them to the backyard; I was on a mission. 

In the south, kids found it fun to pick locust shells off the trees and save them. 

Now, looking back I see I was just a strange kid.

Funny thing, I never saw a locust weeping by its old shell wanting to go back into its dead skin. 

Yet, so many of us weep over dead skin, callouses. 

Some sort of life choice kick starts the process of shedding the old and gaining the new. 

You will shed people or places, maybe both. 

Mourning has its place, but this is a time of celebration and rebirthing. 

Change is your ped -egg, shaving off every dead particle you no longer need to flourish. 

The butterfly, the locust, they don't just slowly walk away from their old, empty shells; they fly. 

They free themselves with extreme haste and celebration! 

The callouses have served their purpose, but it's time to show off that new skin. 

Enough with the analogy merry go round. 

Some people are in your life to teach you who you do not want to be or who you are not. 

Some people are in your life for a season simply to strengthen you. 

Do not consider their disappearance from your life desertion; it is shedding of a callous. 

Harsh? 

Maybe. 

Not all people are designed to be the encourager or loyal companion you want every human that walks into your life to be. 

Some are in your story to help you find yourself the hard way. 

Celebrate, because mourning over dead useless skin would be bananas. 

To My Father.

To my father: 

I love you. 

I think God understands your anger. 

I think God understands mom's heartache. 

I think God understands me and my sisters fear. 

I think God understands human suffering, but knows we never will. 

I think disease is like a tragic car accident for most people that they casually drive by on the freeway. 

They look in their rear view mirror at the mangled mess and say, "man looks bad," but never think of that scene again a mile down the road. 

You don't know disease until what you love is tainted by it. 

It is unlike any other tragedy because nobody can see it. 

It's not something a human can wrap their hands around. 

We only feel the aftershock of its blows. 

I can't really say I know what you feel. 

To want to be the stone foundation of your family, the strong fortress for those you love, yet you feel like you can no longer shield us. 

You have been my hero even before you knew I liked you. 

I remember the exact moment I really saw you. 

I was a little thing; tight curls glued to my head and eyes bigger than my face. 

You came home in your business suit with your black suitcase that I tried breaking into any chance I got. 

You sat down in a pink chair the size of your hand & drank invisible tea with that little girl who felt so small. 

You made me feel like I was the only person who mattered as you ate fake cookies I sat before you. 

From that evening on, I've seen you and loved you more than anyone could love their father. 

When you feel small, know I still see you as the man with his briefcase, sitting down to my tea party; the greatest, most precious father a girl could know. 

When you feel weak, know I still see you as the man who threw me on his shoulders after that baseball game on a summer night. 

You saw the storm brewing and tossed me up like a bag of feathers. You ran from the stadium all the way to the car with my chin bouncing up and down on your scalp. 

I was scared of storms, but not that night; my dad was strong and instead of feeling fear I felt safety. 

You are still that dad that would set me on his back and do push ups in our living room as I giggled all the way. 

You are still the man that took me and my sister kite flying every chance you got. 

When you feel helpless, know you helped me. 

As a person, I don't have any of the answers. 

As a girl who loves Jesus, I know I never will and I'm trying to be okay with that. 

As your daughter, the only thing I know is that I love you; that somehow I know we're gonna be alright. 

Confessions of a Stepmom

    I never saw myself as the "motherly" type of gal.

I've always joked with those in my life that God forgot to put the womanly qualities in me; cooking, nurturing, the works. 

You know, the stuff that makes your mom a mom. 

When I was growing up during the holidays all the girls would be prepping, baking and talking jargon like "put it on broil at such & such degrees for so & so minutes until browned." 

I'm sorry, what? 

I was typically in the living room with my dad and all the uncles listening to talk about hunting and whatever else men discuss. 

Talk of politics would be floating somewhere in the background as a television show about southern men catching large bass flickered on and off. 

I had no interest in hunting or baking pies. 

My interest was eating. 

I never was the little girl that wanted to play mommy & daddy. 

I played adventures! 

Princess! 

Heroes! 

Villains! 

While other little girls daydreamed about their future husband I had fantasies of saving the world.

Just Britney. 

Solo. 

Ms. Independent. 

Dressing up in a white sheet pretending it was your wedding day seemed pretty lame to me. 

Who wants a flimsy dress when you can have a cape? 

Obviously the teen years hit and boys came into my world like a meteor struck straight into my core. 

I made countless foolish decisions like many teenage girls who are in deep, wreck less "love" do. 

My stance on children never wavered even when I dated someone who desperately wanted children. 

Something just wouldn't settle. 

I got the typical, "ohhhh you're just young. You'll change your mind!"

Didn't happen. 

I grimaced at mothers who licked their fingers and wiped their kids' day old chocolate off their face. 

"Ohhh it's different when their your own. You just wait!"

I am currently 23 years old.

I still grimace at the mom spit move. 

I am full of sarcasm and a "suck it up" attitude. 

I make mistakes. A lot. 

Choice words fall off my lips when I step in mud puddles. 

I've got 13 tattoos and I fancy lip rings. 

I like "that's what she said" jokes entirely too much. 

But there's one thing God instilled in me from the start: deep, unconditional, unwavering, loyal love for those that I let into my heart. 

Some people naturally waltz into my heart effortlessly while others have had to fight their way in. 

There are three boys that danced in like it was always how it is now. 

Like a natural occurrence. 

Like how the sun rises every single morning. 

Coming in so late isn't easy. 

Any step parent will tell you that. 

Some days I go to sleep with less hair than when I woke up with that day. 

Some days...I go to bed smiling from the sweetest hug or "goodnight Britney". 

Sunday night, our oldest hugged my neck and told me he loved me for the first time since I made the transition here. 

My heart swelled with pure joy-a joy I can't remember ever feeling before. 

At that moment, my world tilted.

All of those moments where I felt broken or confused as to why I couldn't picture myself having a child of my own burst into a million fragments.

I imagine the way my spirit felt when I heard those words fall off tiny lips was how Edison felt when he saw the glow of light for the first time. 

I am most certainly still learning how to navigate the ship of parenting. 

God knew what He was doing long before I knew Him. 

He saw me with glazed eyes as other little girls sang "hear comes the bride" with a funny piece of toilet paper hovering over their face to attempt a veil. 

He saw before I did that I would one day step into this challenging, beautiful, rewarding role of a step parent. 

When people raise their eyebrows at me and ask, "so you think you're ready to be a mother to three boys?" I know they don't understand the dynamics of this whole step mom thing. 

I am Britney. 

To those three boys, I am Britney.

I'm not here to replace or to be their mother. 

I'm here to love them as hard as I can as Britney.

When they fall off their bike.

When they get their heart broken.

When they get a bad grade.

When they need a bandaid, a kiss on a scraped knee or just a pat on the head with my typical "Hey kiddo."

That's what I am. 

I will be their cheerleader.

I will guide them as far as I know to go.

I will protect them before protecting myself. 

I will sacrifice late nights with friends for sleep overs in the living room. 

I'm 100% human with a 100% chance of screwing up a few good times as I sail the seas of growth. 

I am constantly still trying to find my footing in this climb.

Every giggle, kiss on the cheek, hand holding I receive is a confirmation of where my heart belongs even on the days I can't seem to wrap my mind around the journey I'm on. 

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I have ended up where I needed to be.

Heard it Through the Grapevine: Gossip Grapes

" I heard it through the grapevine

not much longer would you be mine.

Oh I heard it through the grapevine,

Oh and I'm just about to lose my mind.

Honey, honey yeah."

I'm sure you've all heard these famous lyrics and even used the phrase that you heard a certain piece of gossip "through the grapevine."

We've all taken a grape off the vine of loose lips.

Most of us have been on the receiving end/giving end. 

And for some of us, we were the wine of the season. 

Everyone was tasting, talking about just what we were made of; how we measured up to the wine they tasted last month. 

I have a bit of news myself to share: 

Those tasty grapes from the grapevine are small bits of poison. 

Each time you pluck one of those little morsels off and feed it to someone else or even take one from someone else who hands it to you, you are poisoning yourself. 

The bible even tells us that the tongue is the most difficult thing we possess to control. 

Psalm 34:13 ESV 

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.

Proverbs 17:28 ESV 

Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.

Proverbs 15:4 ESV 

A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.

I don't know about you, but to me a break in my spirit sounds like pretty serious stuff. 

The last thing I want is for my lips to be loose and be a "Did you hear?!" Christian. 

The last thing I want is for my ears to be so open that I never block out my neighbor stripping another follower's character to shreds. 

Someone once flippantly said to me: "It isn't gossip if its true." 

This is untrue and disturbing that so many believers see talking about others so lightly. 

Gossip is idle talk or rumor about the personal or private affairs of others. It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts, views and slander.

This term is used pejoratively by its reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted, and it also describes idle chat, a rumor of personal, or trivial nature.

Now, many times we see our flapping lips as justified. 

I mean, if you know all the facts it's okay right? 

You couldn't be more wrong. 

You're eating the poisonous grapes without even realizing it. 

How dangerous. 

We never know all the details, especially not enough to claim our snip bits of here say as facts. 

You either fall into one of three categories: 

The plucker, the receiver/processor, the wine. 

I've been all three.

I've plucked the gossip grape, received and savored the grape but I've also been the "wine of the month." 

On display for anyone and everyone to inspect my quality of life. 

As Christians we often like to take what we like and leave the rest that makes us uncomfortable. 

We like to hit on adultery, homosexuals and drinking margaritas. 

We like to sweep gluttony, gossip and greed back under the couch. 

They're all in the same list people, have we forgotten? 

I want to encourage all three groups. 

To the plucker: you are serving poison to your neighbor.

Would you serve rat poison to sweet, half way dead Mrs. Flowerbed next door? 

Of course not. 

Stop the cycle. 

Your spirit hangs in the balance.

To the receiver/wine taster: 

Have you ever attended a wine tasting?

You taste small glass after small glass. 

Then you find yourself fumbling to find your car keys. 

You are slowly poisoning yourself glass by glass. 

Say "no thank you" to the plucker who made a nice glass of gossip just for you. 

To the wine: 

Just like the finest bottles, you will get better with time. 

Hold on. 

People who speak hurtful words behind your back are right where they belong: behind you.

Don't let this season cause you to be a bitter wine. 

Ephesians 4:29 ESV 

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.