Lovely Lee

Tonight, I dropped off two boxes and four bags of clothes, shoes and home decor at Savers. I walked in and loaded my items into a rolling cart. I threw up the peace sign to my beloved belongings, as the lady handed me a 30% off coupon for my future shopping spree at savers. How does this woman know my life? How does she know that I WILL BE BACK? I may have just dropped off a cart full of crap, but don't worry, I'll be back. I will also use my coupon. You're welcome. While we were in Italy, I read the book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up . As soon as I got home, I began applying the principles I read in the book. I took every item of clothing and I threw it on the floor of my bedroom. I began to make piles. Keep, give away, throw away. Looking through my give away pile, I realized I had some cute clothes in there. Curiosity set in and I began wondering what selling my clothes online would look like. I reached out to a few friends who had success selling their clo...

Its 5:26am. This is the fourth day in a row where I have woken up and not been able to fall back asleep. It doesn't help that my grandma tendencies have me asleep before 9pm. It's almost as if I am not capable of staying awake past 9, and I become a zombie and beg Jonny to come snuggle me. This of course is from Jet lag that I am experiencing from our beloved trip to Italy.  The trip was indeed a dream. I saw so many beautiful sights, experienced rich history, and ate enough gelato to satisfy me for a lifetime. Rome stole my heart. I adored the small streets in which cafe's and stores are located below apartments and hotels lofted above them. Little faces peer out from glass windows watching the passerby's below. Our favorite sights included The Colosseum, The Vatican Museums, and St. Peter's Basilica which took my breath away. In front of the Pantheon  Vatican City  There was a particular corner that sold flowers and I had Jonn...

I am a classic good girl. For as long as I can remember I have been a rule follower.  I have struggles, but have become very good at hiding them, mostly because since entering into marriage, it's mostly been my husband who has had issues. (sarcasm) My identity has always been found in the things I could do well for myself, others, and God. I desire to be strong, and good, and I have put my hope in the fact that these things would keep me from trouble and hurt. For about 24 years, they worked really well for me. The last three years have been an unravelling of the depths of my heart and mind of why I do the things I do. What I have been discovering mostly is that I am afraid to disappoint God because I don't want to receive judgement. If I do everything right then He has no reason to judge me, discipline me or punish me- and life will be grand. This has been an exhausting journey, because trying to be right all the time is HARD WORK. The past couple months have been excrucia...

I met Jonny in college. I remember seeing him in a coffee shop on campus, he was wearing my favorite blue flannel, jeans and he had a laptop bag. I remember thinking that he was way to cute to have a laptop bag. This man needed a backpack or something besides a man purse. He grabbed a double stack peanut butter and jelly and a coffee, and waved hello to me. We had known each other from a few years back, and was surprised to see him back on campus. We exchanged hello's but I didn't really know anything about him, except that his green eyes were crazy beautiful. A few months later, we got placed on the same team to go to Indonesia and I got to know him as the weeks went by. He had a new girlfriend and had turned his life around, and decided to follow Jesus and leave the booze, women and drugs behind. I was drawn to him, but not in a romantic way. Our stories were so different that I admired him for choosing the road less traveled. Each week at our training for our trip, he woul...

She made her way to the front where I was sitting on the edge of the stage, after leading 100 college students in worship at a retreat in the mountains this past week. She joined me on the edge and whispered in my ear: Girl: "Does the word beauty mean anything to you?" Me: "Yes, Why?" Girl:  "Because you are beautiful, but not in a worldly way. When you are worshipping, You have a beauty that reflects Jesus, all your beauty points back to Him. All your beauty points back to Jesus, all of it." Me: (tears filling my eyes) "Thank you, that means so much to me." Girl: You are welcome. I just thought you should know. She walked away as quickly as she had approached, and I sat there in awe of what this college girl had just revealed to me. My whole life I have wanted to be beautiful. I have wanted others to see my beauty and tell me I am  "beautiful." What girl doesn't? From the time we are little, we want to be pretty, we...

I just put a banana bread in the oven, and while Jonny was watching the football game, I licked the bowl clean because that's how I'm going out with 2016. No traces it was ever there. 2016 was by far the hardest year. Ever.  It was ugly in every sense of the word. I have literally never been so excited for a new year or a fresh start as I am for 2017.  If 2016 was a fruit it would be a prune. Awful and ugly, and used for one purpose only, to flush the system clean. Too much? Sorry. But since you are already 2 brief paragraphs in, I will wrap up 2016 with maybe some hope for 2017. I'm not sure what good came out of 2016, even though I am sure I will look back in 10 years and say that was the year that God literally carried me every step of the way. I always laughed at the footsteps in the sand poem. Well no joke, there was legit only one set of footprints in 2016. His hands carrying me through every single minute, every day, to this moment right now, where I can...

There are moments you wait for your whole life. Ones that seem to pause all of time for just a brief second, when all is right with the world.  This post is not one about one of them. A few weeks ago I thought that I was pregnant.  I had some of the symptoms, and was late. I remember telling Jonny, "babe, I think I might be pregnant." He's so optimistic. "No, you can't be. WAIT.  Do you really think you are?"  I was extremely anxious. I started planning how perfect it would be if I was pregnant. Jonny would even rub my tummy saying "If you're in there, I love you so much." But then I would doubt everything and it was just overwhelming. We were in Texas with my family and I was trying to keep every emotional breakdown that I was having to myself. I was shopping with my mom and Jonny  at wal mart for some groceries and Jonny headed to the check out stand beforehand and got a pregnancy test. Bless his heart he bought the digit...