Dear 2021: Losing my religion

Dear 2021,

…..

….

..

I’m sorry y’all. I got nothin.

Just been staring at this blank page thinking about how I’ve stepped back from this space in these past couple of years. How I haven’t felt I could safely or authentically share my words here anymore. How that has been an act of a combination of a little bit of fear, a little uncertainty, a little of “what can I even say that does anyone any good”, and a little bit of me just protecting my mental state by holding my thoughts to myself. Maybe a little of me holding some space from a world that seems to be collectively on the offense, ready to pounce at anything and anyone that seems “other”. But also maybe harming my mental state a little too by withholding from myself the one thing that ever really felt like healing for me.

But then I also thought of how I’ve never missed a New Years post, the anniversary of the day I first hit publish. Wanting desperately to write again. To connect with that deep part of my soul and listen to the voice compelling me to share what’s hidden there. To shut out the voice that says “you can’t say that out loud. That? Oh no, you definitely can’t say that. That? Oh noooo,no,no,no. They aren’t ready for that. No one will understand. And that? Girl have you lost your *@&$!* mind? Definitely do NOT share that!”

It seems these past few years, well, they took a lot from all of us.

And along the way, somehow, it seems they also took my voice.

I want to pour my heart out here again. I want the words that I type out on this page to ring true and bring comfort and hope and community and that years from now we could go back and read them and say that they held.

The truth is , as with any one that shares their life on a page, words don’t always hold. I’ve been writing a story. A story filled with truth, a story filled with hope, a story filled with things I authentically believed were true when I wrote them. And they were , they were true to me in the moment. Even though I had doubts, I held tight to the faith that everything would be ok. And it is. In the whole scheme of things, we are more than ok.

But, over the past few years, the world collectively seemed to go a little sideways. In my own story, looking back at some of the things I wrote made me feel like a fraud. Even though I know it shouldn’t, because you only know what you know, and truly, the things I wrote were authentic to my perceived reality at the time.

As with science, parenting, faith and life in general, you only know what you know at any given time and hopefully you do the best that you can with the knowledge that you have at that time. When you know better, you do better, and what you don’t know, you don’t know, until you know. Ya follow? Ha.

My point is, a lot of what I wrote was truly helpful to a lot of people. And also a lot of what I wrote was me convincing MYSELF that I was making the right choices for myself and my family. I encouraged you all to look for the good in everything. And I still do.

But I also acknowledge that there are some things that there is just no good in. And so you really have to look outside of certain things and situations to find goodness. And while I told you all that things will work out if you work really hard, and have faith that your life will be better than before, well, honestly, I can’t guarantee that. I regret that I shared maybe a few too many “Christianese” platitudes that weren’t actually helpful in the long run at all, or maybe left some of you feeling like God overlooked you because your story isn’t playing out quite the way you’d hoped.

Out of the probably 30 something people in my old support group of women I connected with 6 years ago, probably only a handful of them made it through these years after infidelity and are still married. They all worked hard. They all had faith. But ultimately a lot of them ended up divorced. Some of the ones still together would tell you that though it was a difficult road, life and marriage is better than ever and everything they dreamed of. Others would say they had hoped to have that, but what they ended up with doesn’t look quite like what they imagined or hoped it would be. Some would say they are barely hanging on by a thread. And some that eventually divorced have moved on and found happiness and others are struggling to get by.

My point is, sometimes where we end up doesn’t reflect our level of faith or ability to focus on the good or even God himself. Sometimes where we end up is just the reflection and impact of other peoples choices that are out of our control. And that is the one thing that God absolutely will not control, personal choices and freedom of will. So if my words ever led y’all to believe that if you’d just trust a little more, or be a little more positive, things would work out perfectly for you, I apologize. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. Your level of faith does not determine your outcomes in life. One of you is not more favored or loved than another. Sometimes, other people make choices that change the trajectory of our lives and it’s not a punishment or a curse or a sign that you weren’t good enough or that God didn’t love you as much or that you lacked faith. Some people have it easy or seem to get everything they ever wanted and more, and sometimes, bad things happen to good people for no reason at all and there’s no explanation for any of that other than life is just life.

So I won’t tell you that believing for the best will always ensure you end up with the best. Is a positive outlook important and even helpful, yes, for sure. Are you more likely to be happy with a positive outlook? Yes. But, Sometimes, life is just hard, and the only thing you can control is you. So yes, look for the good, hope for the best, do the work, make the best choices for yourself that you can in each moment along the way, and know that even if you end up somewhere that doesn’t look or feel like the best, in the end, you’re still gonna be ok. Without sounding too full of empty platitudes, there is still goodness to be found and life worthy of being lived, and people worthy of being loved, no matter what. If you hear nothing else from me, hear this, you are seen, and you are loved, you are worthy of good things, and you are not alone.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s discuss the dumpster fire we have all endured over the last several years. 😩😂

Politics became a terribly scripted reality show. A pandemic happened. Religion and a large portion of the church became a platform of Nationalism and gave more space to political figures and ideologies than to Jesus himself. Some, not all… but too many decided being on the “right side” politically was more important than just being the love and light that Jesus intended. They spoke of their “God given freedoms” more than they spoke of Jesus commanding us to love the poor, help the sick, the widows, the orphans, the refugees. To genuinely care for each other. To put others above ourselves in general. Instead of sermons of hope and faith and love, they gave their podiums to political figures to make bids to win your votes. They preached a kingdom of exclusion, of us vs them, a version of Christianity that says if you vote for “insert candidate here” then you aren’t a Christian, basing someone’s value to Jesus himself on political stances. Basically sending the message that to be a part of the kingdom, to be loved and accepted by Jesus, to be a part of the faith community, you gotta be exactly like us.

Call it deconstruction, call it a dark night of the soul, call me a heretic if it makes you feel good inside, but if that’s what being a Christian is to people these days… I’m not that.

I’ll stick with Jesus follower and leave it at that.

And if me believing that politicians having the podium at church is wrong, like separation of church and state is right, that doing everything feasible to try and bring an end to an uncontrollable pandemic is essential, and that giving up a little personal freedom or comfort for the overall good and health of others, especially the immune compromised is more Jesus like than refusing to mask up for the sake of “standing your political ground and demanding your personal freedoms”, my belief that all races are equal in Gods eyes and as such should be given the same rights privileges and respect without fear or predjudice, and that LGBTQ people are precious and dear to God and deserve every bit of a beautiful life with love and marriage and family as the rest of us makes me a liberal or a democrat or whatever other word you want to call me, then so be it. I don’t claim to be a democrat, I’m pretty dang far from republican, and I’m not a socialist either. I wasn’t a fan of pretty much any of our political choices. I mean, is it too much to ask for a candidate that is smart, has integrity, is level headed, wise, not narcissistic, not racist or homophobic, and kind hearted?

If I have to claim a party or title, I don’t think I could because I’d say I probably hold some aspects of almost all of them. But mostly, I err on the side of love and goodness, So if that makes you hate me, or call me names, or slap labels on me, that’s between you and God. I don’t have all the answers, but when I weigh my stances on political issues, I will always, always land on the side of love and inclusion, and others before self. I have friends that feel the same as me, and friends that don’t agree with me on a lot of those things. And thats ok. We love each other for who we are, not our political or spiritual views.

As for me and God, we’re all good.

I may have left religion and this nearly unrecognizable version of Jesus that Christianity has seemingly become behind, but my faith, and my relationship with Jesus, is fully and completely intact.

God loves America. Sure he does. But he doesn’t love America any more than he loves Africa, Germany, Japan, Iraq , Australia or any other country on this planet. Heck, we along with many other countries didn’t even exist in the Bible, so there’s that. Should we have love for our country because it’s our home and should we be thankful to have the freedoms we enjoy? Absolutely, but it’s just plain silly to put ourselves on a pedestal as if we are the only chosen ones. God’s love is for all. His kingdom is for all. We are ALL chosen and loved.

God loves Christians. Sure he does. But he doesn’t love us any more than the Muslims, Mormons, Hindu or Atheists. His life message was not one of politics. No, In fact he railed against it. His message was simply “do good, act justly, walk humbly, love mercy.”

Do good. To everyone. Not do what benefits myself the most. Not do good for only people exactly like me. Not do good when people are watching.

Do good. Period.

Act justly. Treat others with respect. Insist on justice for everyone. Not just the ones that think like you, or look like you. Every race, every ethnicity, every political party, every religion, every sexual orientation. We are ALL precious in his sight. We are ALL made in His image. There is a bit of God in every single human that inhabits this planet. “What you do unto the least of these, you do also unto me.” We would all do well to remember that.

Walk humbly. Not create a platform to bring attention to myself and my political views as the end all be all and use God’s name to justify it.

Not call people names that see things differently than me. Not puff up with pride and hold myself as superior to anyone.

Love mercy. Not jump on the bandwagon of berating. Not hold hatred in your heart for those that don’t see things your way. Care for others. Have empathy for others. Show love, speak love, and BE love to others.

The Jesus that’s been presented over the past few years is not even close to the Jesus I know.

The Jesus I know is the one that fought for the underdog. The one that served the underprivileged. The one that chose a table of regular folks or even “sinful” folk that many Christians today would snub their noses at and deem unworthy. The Jesus I know is the one that walked into a temple that was showcasing politics, capitalism, commercialism and self righteousness and flipped every single table. The one that said “if you have not love, you are nothing.”

The Jesus I know whispers to every person, “You are perfect, just as you are.” The Jesus I know does not require anyone to meet any standard of perfection, because he already paid the price. When he said it is finished, he meant it. His sacrifice was a gift to us all. ALL. It requires nothing of us in return. Nothing can separate us from His love. Nothing. Even if we make bad choices. Even if we get mad at Him. Even if we all but ignore Him. His love never leaves. Life is a lot sweeter, and a whole lot less lonely no doubt, when we acknowledge and have relationship with Him, but His love is a constant and a given NO MATTER WHAT.

Religion fails us. Churches often abuse and manipulate and cause harm. Pastors sometimes value money and power more than love and kindness. People will disappoint us and break our hearts into a million pieces.

But Jesus, He is love, and ONLY love. He is light, and only light.

And that is the only Jesus I care to know. The one who sat with me on my bathroom floor when my heart and world were shattered. The one I screamed every single expletive imaginable at through my sobs in anger for every way I felt like He had failed me and my family. The one that just sat with me there, in that fear and heartache and anger and uncertainty and held me close. The one that meets us in our heartaches and our joys. The one that sits with me still.

We live in an imperfect world full of people that make terrible horrible choices and He isn’t there to control those choices. It’s just not what He does. But He is most definitely there when those choices or the choices of others send us to the bathroom floor, or the bedroom floor, or the side of the road. The Jesus I know sits there in our pain beside us and just listens. He isn’t taken aback by our angry outbursts, he doesn’t condemn us for being furious with him and the world and the people in it that hurt us. He doesn’t tell us to hush that crying. The Jesus I know takes our hands and says “I get it. I know what it’s like to be betrayed. I know what it’s like to see no way out, I even know what it’s like to be angry at God and mad that He didn’t change the circumstances. So I’m gonna sit here with you and hold your hand and tell you that it’s ok to be sad. We’ll be sad here together. Its ok to wish things were different. It’s ok to be angry. Yell at me all you want til you feel better. I can take it. The night is dark but the morning always comes. And I’ll be right here through it all. You are known. You are seen. You are loved. And you are not alone. “

The Jesus I know was that for me. And as the years have passed, maybe the words I wrote have not all held true. Maybe, like all of you, the last few years have held more disappointments than I care to share. Maybe, like you, I envisioned my story playing out a little differently than where we’ve ultimately landed. But I imagine that’s true for everyone. It’s just life. Imperfect, unpredictable, sometimes awful and also beautiful life.

But there’s always goodness to be found in it. There’s always joyful moments along with the disappointing ones. And I’ve found plenty.

Covid has taken so much from so many. It took a beloved uncle and a couple of cousins from us. There’s no goodness in that. Not one bit. Like I said – imperfect world. Life isn’t fair and death isn’t either. The best I can offer is that their suffering is done, and I believe they are enjoying the beauty of heaven.

Despite the overall suckiness of a pandemic, there has been good to be found.

I have my big extended family.

Love is our banner and we are GOOD at it. I do not know why some people are given such a gift as this, and others are not, because like I said God does not love one more than the other, but it is a gift I am infinitely thankful for. In the lottery that is this imperfect world, I hit the jackpot on this one. We love each other fiercely and we will love you fiercely too. I also got a pretty great family of in-laws that love me as their own. Goodness all around in the family department.

I have my girls. My beautiful , intelligent, kind girls. One who pushed through more hard days than this Mama’s heart cares to imagine. Who is kind and thoughtful and smarter than almost anyone. Who finally found the courage to be herself and found the one who her heart loves. The one who makes her face light up. The difference in her countenance since being able to fully and comfortably be herself with her family and friends and God and the rest of the world is good fruit that can be readily seen and measured, and it warms this Mama’s heart to see it.

🌈 Come at me if you feel the need on that. But, don’t you dare come at her. You have never seen fierceness the likes of this Mama bear. Actually, don’t even bother coming at me, because it’s a waste of breath unless you truly want to hear my heart on it. I will gladly give you the resources if you wish to do your own deep dive into this subject and how translations have been manipulated over the years, but I will NOT debate it with you.

Jesus is love. Only love.

And I see more of Jesus in the LGBTQ community than I see in a lot of churches these days. And that’s all I have to say about that.

I am infinitely PROUD of every bit of who she is.

My second one, she has a tender heart. She’s beautiful , kind, ambitious, and a loyal friend. She also pushed through some very hard days, and made some tough but smart choices in school and in relationships. I love seeing her thrive and the way her face lights up when she talks about her classes and her future now. She’s got that boss babe ambition that I know will get her where she wants to be. She’s the baby and y’all better be sweet to her and treat her right because this Mama Bear will take you down in a hot second. 😂 She is smart and ambitious and caring I am infinitely proud of every bit of who she is also.

Watching my girls find joy and beauty in their lives brings me joy.

We’re still married. It definitely wasn’t what I thought it would be when I took those vows 30 years ago. And maybe it isn’t even what I thought it would be when I gave it a second chance 6 years ago. But there’s goodness in it. The past few years have been trying for us for sure. Ok maybe that’s an understatement, 😉 but we still have the best time together visiting our favorite places and planning new adventures. And he still brings me my coffee in the morning. With almost as much caramel creamer as coffee, just the way I like it. He occasionally still rubs my feet. Not often enough but I’m not against him making that his New Years resolution 😂. And let’s not forget about the folding of the laundry and the whir of the dishwasher going and the clean countertops when I get home from work most days. There’s a whole lot of goodness in that.

I imagine you all have your own stories of trauma, hardship, heartbreak and loss from these last few years. But platitude or not, if you care to see it… and some of you that were dealt much more unfortunate cards may have to squint real, real hard, there’s been goodness in them too.

So here’s to you, 2022. May you bring more health than sickness, more healing than trauma, more success than failure, more fun than boredom, more inclusion than exclusion, more justice than injustice, more security than insecurity, more peace than anxiety, more love than hate, more goodness than evil, and more joy than sadness.

And may we all find the true Jesus. The one on the floor sitting in our sorrow with us. The one in the valley and the one on the mountaintop and the one that walks with us every step in between.

The one who is love and only love.

Maybe I lost some things over the past few years. I may have lost my “religion”. I may have lost my voice. I may have lost some friends or some time or some things.

Maybe I’ll lose some of y’all after you read this. It is what it is.

There may have been promises made that didn’t hold. There may be things I wrote that haven’t held. Maybe you lost some things too. Maybe all the things spoken to you, or things you yourself have spoken, haven’t held.

But Jesus, he held. Love held. Love always holds. And that, love, is all any of us need.

To be loved.

To be LOVE.

Let’s all try real hard to be a little more of that. Maybe a lot more of that.

Happy New Year.

❤️

Amy Thurston Gordy

Dear 2020, oh who am I kidding, you were anything but a dear.

As I’ve pondered what to say in this years annual installment of my letters to the previous year, I find myself not even sure what to say. So many events, so many situations, conversations, conflicts, emotions… it seems impossible that all these things have actually spanned just one solitary year. Somehow it feels like my last “Dear 20__” post was more like ten years ago instead of just one.

I went back and read through last years post, and it felt like another lifetime. One full of trips and plans and looking ahead to the things we expected to come. I posted that we had survived the year despite having some of the worst arguments in our five year post affair history. Little did I know those were small potatoes compared to the ones we were gonna have in 2020.

2020 came swinging for us much like 2015 did, just in different ways. And it very nearly took my marriage out. There was no infidelity this time around, but we found ourselves at constant odds. I’m not at all proud of the number of times the word divorce came up over the course of the year. And when our youngest daughter, the one who was devastated at even the possibility of it five years ago, the one that would say to me back then, “Mama, Daddy is so sad and he said he’s sorry so why won’t you let him come home?” … When she looked at both of us a couple of months ago and said, “ oh my gosh, would y’all please just get a divorce already!” It’s then that we knew that things were really really bad and we were reaching a breaking point and something had to give. Honestly, at that point I wasn’t even exactly sure how we ended up back in such a bad place , though I knew some of the core issues that got us there. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t angry. Angry that God somehow brought us through all of the things he did to have us disintegrate over what pretty much boiled down to differing politics and world views. If 2020 did one thing for everyone, it was this: it burned off all the outer layers, sifting and refining and exposing what was in our hearts. What was at the core of us. The things we believed in, and the hills we were willing to die on. And it was no respecter of persons, it came for us all.

And it left me questioning my decisions over the past 5 years, wondering if we had made the wrong one and wasted 5 years and for what? Had we found redemption, and shared the hope of that with thousands of people only to have that come crashing down in a pile of disappointment and regret? And if so, what had been the point, and why had God allowed us to take this path only to find more heartache? And should I even be blaming God at all, or did we truly just have ourselves to blame?

We were basically both at our wits end, struggling to find any common ground, or any path back to loving each other well. Looking at each other saying, “How do we fix this?”, and neither really knowing what to do next.

And in that moment I realized, we both needed a reminder of where we came from. What we had overcome. What we had almost lost five years ago and the lengths we went to to fight our way back and build something good. So then I pulled out the big guns. I went into our room and I dug out the daily journal Jeff’s life coach had him keep while we were separated, and I read it, and then I walked into our living room, and I told Jeff that I was going to ask him to do this one last ditch effort for me…for us, and read that journal from the first entry to the last, and that if after reading it, he saw no way back to that, and truly thought our future was better spent apart, that I would go ahead and file for divorce, knowing that we had tried our best. I knew that the only way I know to fix this, was to go back to our darkest, hardest days. To remember the pain and then the clarity and then the hope and the willingness to do all the hard things to glue our family back together. I knew that if reading that, and revisiting those feelings didn’t change our hearts on the matter, nothing would.

And that was the turning point. It was exactly the reminder and the swift kick in the gut we both needed to put our focus back on the things that really matter. We still live on completely opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to things like politics and soo many other topics. But when it comes down to it, what we can agree on is that our family, people, and love are what truly matters. So we agree to disagree on the rest. We try extra hard to keep from getting in heated discussions of our opinions on ALL the hot topics, and focus on the good things. And apparently that old adage is true, opposites truly do attract. 😂

Its been a tough year for all of us. Emily struggled her way through quarantine, some really difficult online classes and facing some life changing personal revelations.

Kate went off to college excited about the college life and all the fun things that normally entails only to end up stuck in her dorm room and having an experience that was absolutely nothing like what she had envisioned.

But Emily absolutely aced all her classes, (she always does) and faced some really hard things with bravery. And Kate left college and came home and started herself a small online business. So we were empty nesters all of about two whole months 😂

And that’s ok. Because I could not be prouder of the way they navigated this year and all of its unexpected curveballs, and it makes this Mama’s heart happy to see them both chasing after their best life and their true selves.

I started out this year thinking I would do so much writing, but ended up writing less than in any of the past five years. I thought about that book that is halfway written, knowing I couldn’t write another word in it because I suddenly and unexpectedly had absolutely no idea anymore how our story was gonna play out. And as far as this blog goes, I waffled this whole year back and forth somewhere in between having absolutely NO words to having SO,SO many words, and struggling with which words I truly wanted to share with the world. Or I should say, which words I SHOULD share with the world. So, I’m sorry for my obvious absence from this platform. But know that I’ve spent this time away , sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally growing, learning, sharpening, reflecting, deconstructing, rebuilding and no doubt preparing my heart and mind for the words God would have me share in the future. I am not done here yet, of that I am sure. Writing is a part of very my soul, and no matter how long I may avoid it, I am always drawn back to it, and the way it soothes my weary or anxious soul.

2020 has changed us all. It took so much from all of us, but I believe over time , we will see the necessary ways in which it brought about change and that it also gave us more than we realize or can even see yet.

So, 2020, it’s been real. And unreal. It’s been literally a roller coaster of ALL the things. And to be quite honest, we are all done with you. DONE.

If we take nothing else good from this year, I hope it is this. Be grateful. For every good thing. The big ones, the small ones, the exciting moments and the quiet ones. For the people that we love. For the people in the world doing good. For food. For shelter. For family and friends. For our sweet fur babies. For every moment we have with every person we love. For the moments of joy between the moments of loss. For the hope of tomorrow. For the promise that for every long dark night, the light of morning always, always comes.

Dear 2021,

We are weary. We are tired. We are frustrated and we are sad.

But we are also full of hope.

So be good to us.

What is my resolution for 2021?

To do all the things that need to be done and to encourage as many people as I can to do all the things that need to be done to make it possible for me to go sit in my Mama’s kitchen again. To smell the bacon my Dad would most certainly happily fry up for me, and to eat all my Mama’s snacks while listening to her tell a story that tickles her so very much she can barely get the words out for laughing so hard.

I want to plan trips with them and stand closer than 6 feet away and hug them when I arrive and when I leave. I want my nurse husband and my nurse sister in laws and all of their coworkers to not be overwhelmed with the overflowing number of patients coming into our hospitals. I want to open Facebook and not see post after post about someone’s loved one fighting for their life against this virus. I have so many more words about this, but won’t get into that here in this post. If you want to read them, go see my last post from yesterday on my Facebook page, that pretty much sums it all up.

So for all of you reading this, let’s all resolve to just be good to each other. Lay down the politics, the disagreements, the paranoia, all of it, and follow the true call of Jesus which is to love thy neighbor, and put the good of others ahead of ourselves and our opinions and our political loyalties and leanings. The Bible tells us to have faith, but it also says for us not to be foolish. We can have full faith in God while also trusting science and that God has gifted us with people that have the knowledge and the ability to create medical miracles like vaccines. We can have faith in God while also taking precautions to protect ourselves and others. What kind of message does the stance “faith over fear” and the proclamation that “I can gather in crowds and disregard all safety measures, because God will protect me.” , send? When someone falls terribly ill or their loved one dies, the message they hear from that is that God didn’t protect them. That maybe God doesn’t love them, or somehow your faith was superior to theirs. And that my friends, is not the message of love and compassion that Jesus has for us all.

“The Lord will take me when it’s my time”, you say?

Ok then, let me ask you this, do you step out in front of a bus to test if it’s your time or not? Do you push someone else out in front of that bus and hope it’s not their time? Do you ignore the red lights that some very smart people invented as a safety measure and precaution because you don’t need anyone telling you when it’s your turn and it’s your right to put others at risk by not yielding to traffic? No. No you do not.

Ok, so maybe I had a few more words after all. 😂 I guess I always do, lol.

I pray that 2021 brings us a resolve to be kind. To be thoughtful of others. To truly love our neighbors. To see that sometimes the answers to our prayers come in the form of scientists and health care workers. I pray this next year brings us all more peace, I pray it brings us health and an end to this pandemic. I pray that it brings us a release from all the anxiety and that we all feel like we can breathe again. I pray that it brings me and my brothers and sisters and all of our kids safely back to the table in my Mama’s kitchen, laughing uncontrollably at one of her stories while our Dad cooks us an “eggy sandwich” with bacon.

I pray that at the end of next year we can all find ourselves celebrating Christmas in the biggest most joyous of ways, together with our families and loved ones.

I pray for peace and comfort for the ones who have lost the people they love.

I pray we all find the paths we are meant to take, the ones that lead us to our best lives and our truest and best selves.

I pray that we will all do our best to just be good to each other. To love each other well.

And most of all, I pray 2021 brings us all joy. Pure, unspeakable joy.

Happy New Year.

❤️

Amy Thurston Gordy

Always call your Mama, Part Two. The baby goes to college.

This morning seems much like every other Sunday morning in our house. Jeff wakes up early. Annoyingly early. Like, can you not just enjoy the fact that we don’t have to hurry out of bed and off to work? No, no he can’t. If the sun is up, Jeff is up. So I do what I always do and try my best to drift back off to sleep until a more reasonable hour. Usually unsuccessfully, so about an hour and a half later, Jeff will walk through the door and say, “You ready for your coffee?”

And I, reluctantly accepting that my days of sleeping til noon, or even 9:00 am, are long gone, reply “sure”, and he returns a few minutes later, turning off the fan we run at night because he knows I don’t like it blowing on me while I drink my coffee bc it makes my eyes hurt, and serves me my coffee in bed, nice and hot and with a ridiculous amount of caramel flavored creamer, just the way I like it.

Weekend mornings have been quiet here for years now. Long gone are the days of little girls giggling, or the sound of cartoons playing from the living room tv, or little feet pattering into our room to climb into our bed or ask for breakfast, or to ask us to come and play.

Kate in particular as a toddler would climb in the bed, and sit on top of you, and tap her hands on your chest, or your cheeks, saying “Get up! Get up! It’s time to wake uppppp!”

But when the teen years hit, they sleep til noon if you’ll let them. So the silence of today isn’t all that out of place.

Yet, the silence of this morning, is somehow different.

Kate has a day bed with a trundle. We bought the trundle so that her friends had a place to sleep when they spent the night. For a while now, Kate would pull her trundle out at night even if there was no friend sleeping over, because every morning, when Jeff would get up, our dog April would go and push Kate’s door open, and go lay on her trundle bed. Every. Single. Day.

But not today. Because this morning, she pushed open the door to Kate’s room, and no one was there, so instead, she pushed open my door, and quietly laid by my bed.

We rarely allow April on our bed. But today, I said, “Come on up here girl. I miss her already too.”

So today is different, because today we woke up as empty nesters.

How crazy is that? Like, how old ARE WE?? How did this happen?

On the way home late last night, Jeff said, “Weren’t they just babies like a couple of years ago? Why does it suddenly seem like only weeks ago she was 5 and trying to pretend to be a movie star for our home video at Disney World and accidentally choking a little on a pretzel and then laughing like crazy at herself over it?”

You spend their entire little lives going between exhaustion and feeling like this stage will last FOREVER and also staring at their little dimpled hands and memorizing their smile and watching them sleep and sniffing their sweet little baby lotion heads, and laughing at the hilarious things they say, and wishing you could freeze time and hang on to them for just a little longer.

You spend their entire childhoods making decisions and second guessing EVERY SINGLE ONE. Sometimes you know immediately that you got it wrong, and sometimes you look back years later and think, “Ugh. Why did I handle it that way?”🤦🏻‍♀️ And you just pray that somehow, some way, you at least got most of it right.

And then suddenly, they are turning 18, and going out into the world. And seemingly, time is up. Sometimes, they even come home and say, “so, I kind of did a thing today, and you’re totally gonna hate it, but I love it.” And show you their fresh tattoo. 😬

And you’ll cringe just a little because those things are PERMANENT, and what if they hate it in five years? But ultimately you say “hey, you do you boo.”

And those days when they were small that seemed SO long, now feel like they went by in a flash, and you find yourself wondering, “How did we get here already? Where did my babies go?”

And it feels a little bit like loss. It’s the end of an era, and there is definitely some grief felt over that.

And there’s the realization that somehow we actually have reached our late 40’s, even though our minds would have us believe we are still much, much younger. How was it so long ago that we packed up our own car and drove all the way across the country to start a new life? By the way, Mama, I totally get how that must have felt for you now. My babies are two hours or less away. I was all the way on the opposite side of the country! Sorry about that!

We’ve talked about this day for years now, Jeff and I. We knew it was coming, and we had plans. Lots and lots of plans. We were gonna go places. So many places.

But wouldn’t you know, 2020 apparently had other ideas. Like a pandemic, and travel bans, and the risk of picking up a virus that may or may not kill you depending on your luck but could most definitely kill your parents if you accidentally bring it home to them.

So, the most travel we’ve seen since early March was a trip to the beach, in a private home on a private beach where we were able to still keep our distance from other people while enjoying the fresh ocean air and scenery. The cruise we spent months planning… cancelled. The weekend getaways we thought we had to look forward to… not happening anytime soon.

So, being empty nesters doesn’t look exactly how we imagined it. So far, it’s actually looking like a whole lot of this…and I ain’t mad at it. 😉

But, as with all things, it won’t be like this forever. So we will just look forward to the days that we can do all those things we planned, and try to make the most of the things that we can do for now.

Yesterday was a long day, filled with last minute trips to the store to get the few things we inevitably had forgotten she needed, lots of last minute packing and organizing, and loading and unloading two vehicles full of stuff in what felt like 100 degree heat and 100% humidity. Y’all, you truly have no idea the amount of stuff they need for such a small space. It’s nuts. I cannot begin to tell you how thankful I was for the student volunteers that came out and unloaded our cars and took all of it upstairs to her dorm for us. They were truly doing the Lord’s work.

We spent about 5 hours getting everything unpacked and put away and decorating her room. It turned out so cute!

And then we hugged our girl one last time. We told her to be sweet. To make good choices. To have fun but to make sure she actually gets up and gets her schoolwork done, because this is not a vacation. 😂

We told her we loved her, and then we left.

As we drove away, I sent pics of her room in a group text to our other daughter, my niece, and my sisters. They asked if I cried, but honestly, I was too tired to be too upset. I got a little teary, but didn’t really cry about it until I started writing this blog this morning.

But as we drove away last night, I said to Jeff, “It feels weird to just leave her there.” In that group text , I texted “I feel weird just leaving her there. Like how will she live? What if she doesn’t eat enough? Who will make sure she gets out of bed? Why’d you have to grow up Kate? Lol. “

Seriously, though… who told her she was allowed to grow up?

When my girls went to Pre-K, I clearly remember the thing that broke my heart the most was picturing them having to get their own lunch tray, and carry it ALL the way to the lunch table all by themselves. For some reason the vision of that just tore me up. I would imagine all kinds of things, like , what if they dropped it, or what if they trip and fall while trying to carry that big ole tray, or what if they can’t get their milk carton open and they’re too afraid to ask for help? Or what if they don’t like the food or are too anxious and they don’t eat enough?

And leaving them at college feels very much the same. A Mama ALWAYS worries.

But when it comes down to it, I know they’ve got this. I know they are strong. They are independent. They are capable. They are smart. And they are ultimately God’s. So I just pray. I pray for their safety. I pray for their happiness. I pray they have favor with God and with their professors and with everyone that they come in contact with. I pray they are blessed beyond measure. I pray that their path is clear and that they grow into the fullness of the person God made them to be.

I pray that we didn’t scar them too badly with whatever mistakes or parenting fails we made over the course of their childhood, and that they mostly just remember that they were so, so loved.

And I drive away, leaving my heart in two different college towns now, knowing that if they do drop that hypothetical lunch tray, they are fully capable of picking themselves up and brushing themselves off, and getting a fresh new tray. But also knowing that if they ever struggle with getting back on their feet, Mama is right here, a text, a phone call, or a short two hour drive or less away.

So Kate, a few more things I didn’t get to say last night as we left….

Be safe. Don’t stay up late every night. Don’t press the snooze button so many times in the morning. GET UP 😂

Take your school work seriously. But also have lots of fun. I’m sorry your freshman year doesn’t look quite like you had always imagined, because 2020 😩

But I’m so proud of your resolve to make the best of the situation you’ve been handed, and your intention to be true to the words tattooed across your rib cage,”live abundantly”.

I hope you stay close to your childhood friends. And I hope you make lots of new friends, and especially hope you find more of the very best friends. The ones that will be your forever people, the ones you can always depend on, whether near or far, that will be there for you through thick and thin, and encourage you to be your best self.

Make good choices. Make YOUR OWN choices, and never let the pressure of other people or situations keep you from doing what is right for you. Be true to who you are at your core, always. But also don’t be afraid of change, because sometimes it is the changes that we are afraid of that end up bringing us our best life. Have so much fun with your roommate and be good to each other, but leave some space and time for yourself and for other friends.

When it comes to relationships, choose wisely who you love. Don’t ever settle. Learn to be happy on your own before you fully give your heart to someone else.

If you feel sad, or mad, or hurt with someone more than you feel happy, they aren’t the one.

Don’t be in a hurry to find “the one”. Live your life. Enjoy your youth.

I hope you love your new home away from home. Sleep well. Eat well. I hope you learn and grow and have the best friends and the best experiences. I hope you have SO MUCH FUN.

And I’ll also tell you what I told your sister several years ago when she left home….always call your Mama. All the time.

Ok, I realize you kids these days don’t like to use the phone as an actual phone. So I guess texting will do. 😂

I am so, so proud of both of my girls and the people that you are. Every single part of you.

So most of all, I hope you always know that we love you more than you could even imagine.

So go, go and live your very best life. But come home often. Because we miss you already.

❤️

Mama

Check your heart

Well, ready or not, here come all the words. All the words that have been floating around in my head these past few weeks that I’ve struggled to put into some sort of order. Because with so much going on in the world, I don’t even know where to start. And I don’t even know that I feel qualified to write some of them. I’m not an expert. I’m not fully educated in mental, historical or social matters. I definitely do make an effort to soak up information from all sorts of different sources. Being a collector and absorber of information is an inherent part of who I am. But, while I may be somewhat educated on a lot of these subjects, I’ve never walked in the shoes of another. So, because of that, I feel less than qualified to try and find the right words. However, what I am, is a fellow human being that cares. That wants to understand. That has empathy, and compassion for others, and that wants to do what’s right. And maybe, that is all the qualification needed for any of us in this moment.

Some of you may not like what I say. Some of you may even decide you don’t like ME. Maybe what I have to say will make you uncomfortable. I hope it does. I hope that somehow, my words might open hearts of those that have been closed off, and maybe put just a tiny crack in the darkest places of all of our hearts, places that we maybe weren’t even aware were there, or maybe places that we knew existed, but refused to acknowledge or we justified them and refused to call those dark places what they truly are. I hope that my words pierce even just the tiniest pin prick to let the light in. Because just a little light is all it takes to overcome the darkness. Now, all that being said, I have a feeling some of you won’t get past the first few paragraphs. But please, if you can muster the courage, read to the end, because there’s some stuff at the end that I think if there’s any goodness in you at all, and I know that there is, will hopefully resonate in your heart.

Number 1: White privilege is real.

Andddd there go a whole bunch of you logging off without even trying to hear what I’m about to say. Y’all just give me a minute before you decide to check out.

White privilege does not mean that you grew up richer, or with more opportunities for advancement.

I hear your argument that you came from a poor background. That you had to work hard and overcome obstacles and that makes you no different or any more privileged than any Black person. You had to face many of the same obstacles and road blocks that Black people have faced. The difference though, is that the color of your skin was not one of them.

The fact of the matter is that you don’t have to teach your children from a young age how to not draw attention, and how to not look suspicious when they are going about their daily activities. You don’t have to worry when you are walking down the street with your best friend or your girlfriend that someone may call the police because you look suspicious or like you “don’t belong.” You don’t have to worry when you walk in a store that the sales clerk could automatically assume that you might steal something simply because of the color of your skin.

This is what white privilege means. We do not face the same racial bias that a Black person comes across in their every day lives.

You don’t believe it happens? Ok then, I challenge you to search out the stories. The testimonies given over the past few weeks on all sorts of platforms. There are personal posts on social media, and videos from many churches all over the country that had Black people share the experiences that they have had. Watch them, listen to them, attempt to imagine yourself , or your children, in their shoes, and then tell me if you’d still like to call them liars.

Oh, but you say you’ve watched 5 or 6 or maybe even 10 videos of Black people that are telling you that this hasn’t been their experience and that they don’t experience racial bias? Ok, maybe there are a handful of Black people that truly don’t feel they’ve experienced it, and they are actually telling their personal truth, or maybe that particular person is reaping some sort of financial benefit for posting that video, either way, for those few videos, there are thousands more that are stating their experience is the opposite, and I can’t sensibly ignore the voices of the majority because of the few that have somehow been lucky enough not to have experienced it.

Think back over your own life, and recall instances where you’ve seen someone being treated differently because of the color of their skin. Certainly you have witnessed it yourself, whether it was some small intentional or unintentional hurtful word or act or possibly even something outright blatantly unapologetically racist.

I mean, there are still golf courses here in the south that don’t welcome Black people to play.

Y’all still want to claim racism and/or white privilege doesn’t exist?

Ok, if you still don’t believe it, go find some of your Black friends or neighbors or coworkers, people that you know and respect. Actual people that you know aren’t being paid to push anyone’s agenda. Ask them if they would have a conversation with you and share their actual personal experiences.

And then ask yourself if it’s possible that you’ve passed this off as not a real thing, simply because you’ve been unwilling to listen. If you’ve chosen to only give credibility to the handful of people posting videos telling you that it doesn’t exist because that is a more comfortable dialogue for you. If you can sit, and hear the stories of these people, good people, and not feel empathy for them, not feel sorrow at the injustice of it, well… then my words probably won’t make a difference for you either. It will take a true divine intervention of the Holy Spirit to pierce a hardened heart such as this.

Number 2 : Police brutality is a real issue. Now, before another large percentage of you check out, no, I am absolutely not saying all cops are bad, and I am certainly not for doing away with the police force.

There are thousands of good men and women serving in this capacity, with good hearts and good intentions.

I appreciate and respect the job they do and absolutely do not see how a world without them is possible as long as there is evil and true crime in the world.

But there obviously are also those that abuse their power to the detriment of others. So I think we can all agree that there are definitely areas that need change and improvement, and that the implementation of new programs and policies are necessary.

I don’t believe that it is right or ok to place blanket judgement on any group of people whether it be because of their job, their beliefs, or the color of their skin. There are good and bad in every group, every ethnicity, every belief system, and every profession. And my heart breaks for the good ones that are caught in the middle of this struggle and facing such hatred and adversity, when their intentions were good. As far as “defunding the police” goes, I suppose there are many different viewpoints of what people think that means. While a small amount of people may believe it means abolishing the police force all together, in most cases, this is not what is being proposed. It is more simply a restructuring of how things are done. For instance, currently, in addition to calls for break ins, violent assaults, rapes, shootings, etc, cops also have to respond to to mental health calls, medical calls, calls about the homeless, and calls about people with addiction. It is proposed that in these non violent cases, instead of adding to the already heavy call load, these types of calls are responded to by a team of medical, mental health, and social work professionals, who have been extensively trained in how to diffuse these situations and provide the mental or social help needed moving forward for the people involved in these calls.

By taking some of the funds allocated to other programs within the police departments and allocating them to fund these professional teams, the police officers are no longer having to respond to those calls, and can dedicate themselves to doing what they were intended to do, which is fighting actual crime. Police are grossly overworked, and this would help with that. So, maybe the narrative of defunding the police is confusing in the way it’s worded, and surely there are those that would take it to the extreme and say abolish police all together, but the majority of what I’ve seen after doing the research is calling for simply a restructuring as I’ve described above and something that isn’t inherently bad, or anti cop. As described above, it would actually be a benefit to them as it would take a lot of unnecessary work load off of them and give them more time to work on true criminal cases in a capacity that they’ve been more extensively trained to work in, instead of expecting a cop with minimal training in social work or mental health to do the job of a social worker. As I said before, I’m not an expert and police budgets are not my profession or area of expertise, so I have no idea what the current budgets are or what would or could be reallocated to make this work for the best interests of everyone, but I think it’s a credible proposal that could be beneficial to both citizens and the police.

Number 3: Black Lives Matter

Oh, now that one made you bristle up. Some of y’all are shouting at your phone right now. I can almost hear ya. As many of us here in the south have heard our southern Mama’s and Grandmama’s say….”Before you go getting your panties all in a wad”, let me break things down a little.

I will be the first to admit, that there was a time that I, just like some of you did not like or understand this statement. I, just like you, thought, “well, shouldn’t we just be saying all lives matter? Because all lives matter to me, and certainly all lives matter to God, no matter the skin color.” And there is truth in that. But at the time, I , like you, was taking it out of context, and not receiving it in the nature that it was intended. No one is saying that ONLY black lives matter. They are just saying that they are in a crisis, and they need us to acknowledge it.

Here are a couple of analogies that put it into perspective:

Imagine your neighbors house is on fire. The fireman come and they start working to put it out. You do not look at the fireman and say, “but why aren’t you checking on my house? My house matters too.” The reason he isn’t checking on your house is because the immediate crisis is the fire raging in your neighbors house. No one said your house doesn’t matter. Today, it is the black community that needs our attention. They need us to acknowledge the racial bias that exists in the world. They need us to step up and speak up and help to put out the destructive fires of racism.

Imagine you are at a rally to raise awareness for breast cancer. Someone runs up to the podium during your speech and says ,”But I know someone with ovarian cancer, they matter too. Why aren’t we just bringing awareness to all cancer? Y’all must think my friends cancer doesn’t matter, because all y’all are talking about here is breast cancer.”

In reality, everyone at that breast cancer rally cares about people with other types of cancer, they are simply focusing on this particular cause in this particular moment, to get the help needed for that particular cause. It in no way detracts from the importance of all people.

Sounds like a silly thing to be upset about when you think about it from that perspective, right?

So the perspective I and many others now are able to view this statement from is , yes, of course you matter. Yes, of course everyone matters. But until we collectively value the lives of people of color at the same level that we collectively value people who look like us, then the statement that All lives matter isn’t really completely true is it? Until you can accept and acknowledge that Black lives do indeed matter every bit as much as the rest of us, not just as a platitude but actually show that you mean it in words and in deeds, then you can’t really say with any amount of truthfulness that you believe that ALL lives are equally valuable. Some of you would argue this further and say well then would it be ok for me to make the statement that white lives matter? Why is it ok for them and not for us? I’ll tell you why.

Because we as white people have never been oppressed because of the color of our skin. We’ve never been enslaved because of the color of our skin. We’ve never experienced being disallowed to enter a building because of the color of our skin. We’ve never been sent to the back of a bus because of the color of our skin.

We’ve never been segregated to a different bathroom and water fountains. We haven’t been denied entry to restaurants or stores due to the color of our skin. Historically, the lives of white people have been held at a higher esteem than those of black people. So no, we don’t get to say white lives matter, simply because we have never needed to.

“But Black people have more rights these days”, you say. And yes, you are definitely right about that. Compared to 100 years ago or even 50 years ago, they do, but there are still too many people in this world that have hung on to the bias and prejudices that have been passed down throughout generations, and because of that, we still do not have true equality.

Number 4: You might be a racist.

Now, if you’ve made it this far, don’t leave now. Y’all just stick with me.

But I’m definitely not racist, you say.

Do you use the N word? If the answer is yes, then you might be a racist. Do you make derogatory comments about black people in general on occasion? Do you engage with your friends when they tell racist jokes or maybe even tell them yourself? Oh, so you say that you might use the N word on occasion or say something ugly about Black people in general, but you’d never say it in front of a Black person, because you’re not rude or mean and would never want to offend them? Hmm. Just because they didn’t hear you say it, doesn’t make it any less mean or hurtful. In the same way that if you steal something, but no one saw you do it, or you cheated on your spouse, but they never found out, just because the offended person may not have been aware of your wrongdoing, doesn’t make any of those things any less wrong.

Matthew 12:34 for whatever is in your heart determines what you say.

Luke 6:45 A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.

Check your hearts, y’all. And I’m not just calling y’all out. I’ve had to do some heart checking myself over the years and found a good bit of inherent bias that was passed down through generations or learned from growing up in an era where things such as calling the area of town where mostly Black people lived “N-town” was acceptable behavior. And the people that I heard these things from growing up were not inherently bad people, and most didn’t say these words with bad intentions or considering themselves to be racist. They would have told you that they had Black friends that they loved too. In these cases, it’s more ignorance from having grown up in an environment that told them this was acceptable and never having occurred to them that this was hurtful. But, y’all. When you know better, you do better. And if you don’t….well, then, you might be racist.

“Well, I may do or say some of the things you talked about Amy, but I’m definitely not racist. When I’ve said those things, it was just talk. It doesn’t mean I really meant it. I have Black friends. Not a single one of them would say that I am racist.” Ok then, if one of those friends heard this conversation right now, and heard you say that you thought the remarks you have made sometimes about Black people were “just words, or you just cutting up with friends”, do you think if they heard you saying these things openly, that they would still believe that you aren’t a racist, or at the very least, have some bias and racism buried in your heart and in your mind? If you were in their shoes and the roles were reversed, how would it make you feel to know that this was in the heart of someone you considered a friend?

I say all this to get to this one point. CHECK YOUR HEARTS. Not just on the surface. Not just what you let other people see. Really check your hearts. Ask God to reveal those parts of you that don’t honor Him and others. And then ask for forgiveness and do the work to change those things in you.

Number 5: All of this stuff is just a diversion/conspiracy/hoax created by the left/right, Democrats/Republicans to stir things up and serve their agenda/gain control, blah blah, blah. Y’all. Please. Please stop making EVERYTHING about politics. You think one party or another is trying to divert your attention and push their agenda with every single issue that is brought up. I’m here to tell you right now, I could care less if you are a democrat, republican or any other party that exists. We have to stop putting our faith in this party or that party and stop viewing every issue and every hot topic through a political lens. There is not one single party or even one single person that is right about every single issue. I beg of you, BEG OF YOU, please step back from all of the politics, stop trying so hard to make everything a conspiracy and try your best to just be a good human being. Let the lens you view these issues from be one of compassion. One of empathy. One of being open to see where you might have some hardness of heart and need to make changes. And if you are truly a Christian, step back from all your politics and ask yourself how God would want you to view these issues. How would He want you to treat others? What response can you have that best honors Him and the loving , compassionate, merciful God that He is?

Turn off Fox News and CNN today and take a few minutes to simply ask Him to drown out all the noise and the politics and ask Him to break your heart for what breaks His. Ask Him to reveal any hardness or darkness in your heart that needs to be healed. And ask Him to show you how to be an instrument of change in this moment, in this pivotal time in our history, and how you can best bring honor and unity to your fellow human beings of all colors and in doing so Honor the one that created us all in His image and views every one of us as nothing less than precious.

You can have totally different political views from someone and still love them. Stop letting your political views get in the way of your relationships. Be kind and agree to disagree. Don’t tear down someone you love. Choose family over politics. And maybe more importantly, ask yourself if the things you disagree on are truly a political issue or if they are actually a matter of the heart.

Take just a few moments to ask yourself if your words and your deeds are honoring of other people and of God. If you are a follower of Jesus, but your politics make it ok to dishonor others, then you may want to reconsider your politics. Stop making excuses for your own behaviors or prejudices and stop using politics as an excuse to stay stuck there. Just be a good human.

We complicate things and make them so much harder than they are because of all kinds of things like pride, ignorance and stubbornness. But, It’s really not that hard y’all. Lay down the pride, lay down the ignorance, open your hearts, and just be a good human.

With love, ❤️

Amy Thurston Gordy

Love over everything

Well, I’ll preface this post by saying I know a lot of you won’t like it at all. Matter of fact, I’m well aware that it may cost me a nice chunk of followers.

But as I’ve always said, in this space, where I have the privilege of writing my words for the world to see, I will always do it with honesty, and from the heart. And with this health crisis the world is facing today, one thing has been weighing heavily on my heart today more than others.

We’ve all been put under a soft quarantine of sorts. Advised by medical experts, health organizations, and the government to adhere to certain guidelines regarding social distancing.

Some of you still think the whole thing is a hoax. Some of you believe it’s real but think it isn’t serious. Some of you are taking it seriously and are being cautious while being careful not to become overly fearful. And some of you are in a straight up panic.

Regardless of where you fall on that list, one thing is clear.

This thing is real. Those sick people actually exist. And there’s more than we will probably ever know because of the lack of testing and the fact that a large majority of people have mild to no symptoms. I’m not sure we will ever truly know the scale of this pandemic. But one thing is sure. For many, this has been or will be deadly, and/or life altering.

I’ve been as guilty as the rest of you in these early days. I’ve gone out into crowds and exposed myself and my loved ones unnecessarily. I believed it wasn’t as bad as it was being made out to be. But now, having seen and heard the testimony of countless others that are in the hot zones, I for one, will be taking it seriously.

For all of you that are brushing this off and looking the other way, I ask you to do your own research. Find the stories of the people in the hot zones. Where just two weeks ago, they were like us. Pretending it wasn’t that big of deal. Continuing to gather at parties and concerts and churches. And now, they are paying the price. Something that could have been a few weeks inconvenience if they had all followed the instructions and the guidelines to restrict contact, could have been avoided. Now there are mandatory quarantines in place. And people are sick and dying and there are not enough medical resources to help them all.

People are dying.

Some of you will say I’m just being another fear mongerer. I can assure that is far from the truth.

I am not afraid. But I am concerned. Concerned that the restaurants are still full. Concerned that the churches are still opening their doors and encouraging their people to come.

Faith over fear, they say.

It is true, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but he has given us a sound mind, and I dare say He expects us to use it.

I ask you, pastors and church leaders, if your church was suddenly infested with poisonous insects or snakes, would you encourage your members to come anyway, and just trust that God will protect them? Because this, opening your doors and not following the guidelines for social distancing and encouraging them to gather together in droves, well… you may as well hand out the snakes.

Yep. I said it.

On some posts I saw people asking what message it would send for churches to not gather in this time of crisis, and that they needed to proclaim their faith. I ask that you consider what message you’re actually sending by encouraging them to come and by using faith as a catalyst for your cause. By saying that we must ignore the urgings of our experts and leaders, you are saying that we shouldn’t respect those that have been given authority over us for one.

But most importantly, when you say things like “we have great faith and won’t give in to fear and our church members are covered by the blood of Jesus”, it insinuates to all the people that are sick, all those people in Italy and other places and even here on our own soil that have fallen ill or died, that their faith must not have been as strong as yours. It speaks to them that maybe God just didn’t love them as much.

Because they went out. Just like you. They went to their churches. Just like you. So to say that you are protected while they weren’t, that is not a message of love, and certainly not one I believe Jesus would approve of.

I can 100% guarantee you that although my family stayed home from church today, our faith is no smaller than yours. I have seen God pull us out of many a desperate circumstance, this y’all know. I have seen Him give breath to my firstborn that was by the doctors account all but dead in my belly. I have seen the miracles He is capable of. And I know that should He see fit, He could wipe this virus out with a wave of His hand. But I also know that is not always how He works. I know that sometimes in this world, bad things happen to good people. Rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. And I know that in times like this, we have to trust Him, but also be smart and make wise decisions, and not put others at risk because of our own stubbornness.

So I dare say that it is not your faith that is bigger than the rest of us, but that maybe you might consider the thing that is bigger starts with an E and ends with a go.

Yep. I said it. And I just made a bunch of you real mad.

I’m not trying to call anyone out, or make anyone angry. All I’m asking is that you search your hearts. Ask yourselves if you are truly serving the best interests of your people or if maybe you’re just a little bit afraid that if the people can’t physically come to your building, they might miss a tithe or two.

Did I just say that out loud? Oops.

Yep. I told y’all I was probably gonna ruffle some feathers.

Sorry not sorry, I guess?

Truly, I love y’all. All of you. And I don’t want to lose a single one of you to this illness. So I don’t come here to make you angry, but to hopefully make you contemplate thoughtfully your steps moving forward. Maybe this virus won’t affect you or your children. But maybe that person you hugged at church today visits their elderly parent at the nursing home later and unknowingly passed it to them, and guess what? That’s on you. Do you want to be responsible for that?

I don’t.

Jeff is a nurse. So his work can’t be avoided, and I just pray that this thing slows down and he and all his coworkers don’t have to experience choosing who gets a respirator and who doesn’t like they are having to do overseas. And I pray for his protection and for all the doctors, nurses and first responders.

Right now, my office will stay open. But there may come a time that we have to close either due to lack of supplies or simply for the safety of our staff and patients. Will going without a paycheck be hard if it comes to that? Absolutely. But it may become necessary to stop the spread. And if it does, we will have to rely on that faith we spoke of earlier.

So starting today, my family will avoid crowded places. We will stay home except for required work and a trip to the store when needed.

We took our parents some supplies and asked them not to go out for anything unnecessary. None of us kids or grandkids will be visiting them until it is safer to do so. We will talk to them by phone or text or FaceTime and I encourage all of you to do the same with your older loved ones to avoid possibly exposing them as much as possible.

If we need to get out, We will go on hikes or go fishing or for a walk. But mostly we will stay home, which is the only way to best protect everyone and ensure that this is over sooner rather than later and doesn’t blow up all at once to the point we don’t have adequate medical care. We are gonna do our part, because it’s the right thing to do.

Church is not a building. There are thousands of services online. Bible studies and life groups can be turned into Facebook groups. When the Bible states where 2 or more or gathered , He is there, it doesn’t mean we have to all be in the same building. When we all join our hearts in sincere and fervent prayer to the Father, we are gathered together. When we worship from our homes, He hears our praises just as well as He does from a church building.

I truly believe with all my heart that God would not encourage you to put yourselves and others at risk. There’s absolutely no reason why we can’t all do our part to try to get this thing in check. We need to make the right choices now, in order to avoid the choices being made for us later.

You may say faith over fear, but I say

LOVE OVER EVERYTHING.

We must have both faith and love, but God says that we should have love, above all else.

Faith is trusting that God will be present, and carry us through even the darkest of days.

Love is making wise decisions to protect the lives of His people.

So be that.

Be love.

❤️

Amy Thurston Gordy

Dear 2019

Wait, what? Time for my yearly letter already? When I realized that I needed to get this post written yesterday, I fleetingly thought to myself, “I think I’m just gonna skip it this year.” I’m not sure why, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I suddenly couldn’t imagine what it was that I had to say to this year. Not because it was incredibly bad, and not because it was especially good, but honestly I think it’s because it was a bit of a blur. But, I’ve written this letter every year since my very first post on New Years Eve 2015. So I can’t go breaking tradition now. And once I start writing, I always find that I actually do have something to say. It’s the getting started that is usually the struggle.

365 days. Really, really full days. Seemed we were constantly on the go, with very little down time. Well, we had down time, just not the specific kind that I consider necessary for my overall well being. I love going places and doing things, but I’m one of those people that needs quiet time to myself at least once a week to keep from feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated. And if I go too long without it, it shows. My anxiety level goes up and I start to shut down. So I’ve really got to make more of an effort to create that space for myself.

Overall though, I’d say it was a really good year for us.

We definitely had a handful of bad days. Actually, we probably had some of our worst arguments to date this year. The kind where you look at each other and think, “Who even are you?”

One of them started with a disagreement about shoes of all the silly things, and ended with Jeff walking a couple of miles home in the dark cold night. 😂 It didn’t feel funny at all at the time, but it’s pretty funny now.

Like everyone else, there are times that we disagree. There are some things that we will never see eye to eye on. There are times where arguments about the most ridiculous and unimportant things will suddenly and unexpectedly become about something much bigger. And there are times that we let those arguments get the best of us and we forget what really matters. But we always know that is not who we want to be, personally and as a couple. So we find our way back to the stuff that matters, and try to remember how to love each other well.

We took more short trips this year than we ever have. It’s always fun to get away, and this year brought us several getaways with friends, with family, and for just the two of us.

It ushered in our youngest daughter’s senior year, which has already been packed full of events and college planning and forms and fees. Good Lord have mercy at ALL the fees. If y’all have children, start saving now. Ha. Senior fees, photo sessions, cap and gown fees, Guild fees, formals, college application fees, housing application fees, oh and let’s not forget college orientation fees. That one really stumps me. They want to charge $125 for her to attend a mandatory freshman 2 day orientation. And an extra $50 per person for Jeff and I as her guests. Is this some sort of a trick? Not sure what that $50 pays for exactly, but from what I gather we get to sit through seemingly endless hours of information overload and get a parent reception with some cookies and drinks maybe? That better be a darn good $50 cookie. Lol. I know we already have one kid in college, but she took a different route, doing her freshman year at a community college then transferring to the university as a sophomore so we bypassed all this “extra” stuff. So this is all new to us.

Still, it’s an exciting time for her and I’m praying she gets there and loves it and thrives and follows her heart and makes lifelong friends and finds a career path that brings her joy and financial security. Because this Mama will find a way to pay whatever fees necessary, and spend 2 long boring days of my life that I’ll never get back in parent orientation if it means helping my girl find her best life. 😂

This year also brought the opportunity to do some long overdue improvements on the exterior of our home. I know all too well how stressful renovations can be, so it was both something I was super excited about, and also super stressed out about. Especially when choosing materials and colors, and trying to stay within our budget. But luckily for me, I have a cousin that runs his own renovation company, and he did such a good job and made it as stress free as possible, keeping things cleaned up as much as possible as he went and getting us the look we wanted within the parameters of the budget we had to work with. We got new siding and trim, new windows, replaced the two large sections of our deck that we had not gotten to when Jeff replaced the deck around the pool, and he also built us a lean-to with a tin roof to provide a covered area on the deck. I love it so much and can not wait to get the rock pressure washed, the yard cleaned up and new flowers and plants planted in the spring so we can truly enjoy the space.

Our oldest daughter finished out fall semester in college with a nearly 4.0 grade point average. That was with a schedule full of really tough stem classes and labs, so that’s a real accomplishment. And she’s getting ready to move out of her apartment and into the most adorable old house with the most precious pink claw foot tub you’ve ever seen. She will start her senior year in the fall. When I asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she sent a list back and at the top was “otoscope”. So I texted her back and said,”You mean the thing doctors use to look in people’s ears?” “Yes”, she said.

“So, you’re telling me that for Christmas, you want an otoscope, so you can look at people’s ear drums… for fun?”

“Well, yeah. I really do.”

Ok then. I think it’s safe to say she was meant to be a Doctor. 😂

And so this Mama bought her an otoscope. Did y’all know you can actually order those on Amazon? You totally can. And I totally did.

I started off this year with the intention of writing more, but somehow ended up writing less. Mostly this year felt like I was just passing through it. Jumping from one event to the next one on the calendar. Crossing off items on to do lists and going to the next thing. I did get some more of that book I keep saying I’m writing written, although I put it right back on the shelf again shortly after I picked it up. And that’s ok. It’s a work in progress and so am I.

2019 also brought me a lot further in my quest to find a way to forgive the other woman. I’d have to say that was definitely my biggest accomplishment this year. It brought me a new understanding of what forgiveness truly means and how to truly be able to let the hatred go. I’m pretty proud of the level of forgiveness I’ve been able to reach. That doesn’t mean that we would ever be friends. It doesn’t mean that I’ll ever have feelings of endearment for her. It doesn’t mean that I won’t ever think about the pain she caused and it doesn’t mean that the human side of me just plain doesn’t really like her because of what she did. But it does mean that I can see her through God’s filter. It does mean that I can wish for her and her family to have the same redemption that my family has found and the same happiness that I want for my own family. And it means that we can unexpectedly find ourselves sitting about 6 seats away from each other on the same aisle in church and it doesn’t phase me one bit. Yep. That happened. And it was fine.

Jesus loves both of us. We both have a seat at His table. And if those seats are in close proximity to each other, that’s ok. Call me crazy if you want, but we aren’t gonna be able to avoid seeing each other in Heaven. So might as well accept it and get used to it now right? Ha. Earlier this year I reached out to her husband by text to discuss the church situation, and see how he felt about it and to see how he was doing, and I found a lot of peace in hearing from him that they were in a good place and that he was happy. So, yes. Sometimes I see her at church. And sometimes we end up in close proximity to each other. And that’s not something I would have thought at one time that I’d be capable of handling. But God wants the same good things for both of us, and I guess that is what gives me the peace that passes all understanding, and allows me to share that space. Because my focus is on Him.

She did something awful that she never formally apologized for…to me anyway, and I have no idea where her head and heart are at concerning any of it. But when it comes down to it, that’s between her and her family, and mostly it’s between her and God, so it’s not my place to judge her heart. So, instead of choosing to hate her for it, I pray that she has made things right with God, and I pray regularly for her family, that they would have the same happiness and blessings that I want for my own. It wasn’t easy to get to a place where I could do that, and it took a really long time, but finally getting to a place where I can wish her the best has definitely brought my own heart a lot more peace.

So overall, 2019, I’d say you treated us well. Even if you felt a bit rushed. A bit overloaded. Maybe a bit stressful. But I’m pretty sure that was all on me, and not really your doing at all. We filled our days up, and this year was chock full of really good things. So if I had to pick a resolution for 2020, it would be to try to slow down, take each moment as it comes, and try to soak it all in a bit more and not get so stressed about getting things done and looking so far to the next thing that I miss so much of the now. Because by this time next year, we will be empty nesters. 😱 How did that happen so fast? Advice to you younger parents out there, the same advice that I heard a million times and yet it didn’t really sink in til I actually found myself here… don’t get ahead of yourselves. Don’t get so caught up in the stress of parenthood and your daily to do lists that you miss all the little moments. Because it really is true that one day you suddenly wake up and they are GROWN. And you wish you would have listened to all the older Mama’s to savor it all. Because while it feels like forever to you now, and all you really want is a long uninterrupted nap, it truly is over in a flash. So take my advice, even though I still obviously struggle to take it myself, cut yourself a break and stop over scheduling yourself and stressing over the unimportant stuff like the dishes, and snuggle those babies while you still can.

It’s hard to believe we are about to begin a new decade. The last 10 years brought me some of the greatest joys, and also the most devastating heartache. Halfway through it, my world got shaken and turned upside down and inside out. I found myself broken, and my world unrecognizable.

It was dark, terrifying, and incredibly disorienting.

But the second half brought me redemption. Healing. Wisdom. Deeper relationships with friends, with family, and with my husband. It brought me a deeper sense of self, and brought me purpose. It brought out gifts that had been hidden away, under the walls I had built, and revealed an inner strength I had no idea that I possessed. But mostly, I found a closeness with God that I didn’t even know I’d been missing. A dependence on a Heavenly Father to make all things new. A new understanding of His promise to work ALL things for our good.

So thank you, 2019, and the whole past ten years. You broke me in ways I never could have imagined, but you also gave me a new life I never could have imagined. And I came out of it, battle weary and with more than a few scars for sure, but stronger, wiser, more empathetic, bolder, and a better version of myself than I would have been without having been refined by walking through your firestorm. And knowing, more than ever before, that no matter what life throws at us, and no matter what surprises lie ahead of us, God goes before us, walks beside us, and cleans up the messes we leave behind us. He’s there in the dark, and He’s there in the light. And He always, always keeps His promise to work all things for our good.

While I know I can never forget the pain of the past decade, I’ll mostly try to remember the goodness. Because there was SO much goodness. So, I walk into this new decade thankful, hopeful, and expectantly watching for all the goodness the next ten years will bring. I pray it brings so much goodness for all of you, and for your children. I pray that all of our children, as they make their own way in life, find a deeper relationship with God that will carry them through all that they have ahead of them. I pray for blessings on all of our families, and that the next ten years brings an overflow of goodness to us all.

Happy new year. Happy new decade. May it be the best one yet.

Psalm 20:4-

“May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.”

❤️

Amy Thurston Gordy

Busy, busy, busy….blessed

It’s been a busy few months, and I finally have a morning with nothing on my calendar, so I am taking this rare opportunity to sit on my sofa with a hot cup of coffee and a warm cozy blanket and write. After an especially long hot summer, in a days time winter has suddenly made its appearance.

It. Is. Cold. Y’all.

Not sure what happened to fall, it seemed to show up for all of a few days here and there, but never quite stuck. It’s been a crazy busy few months since I last wrote. We’ve gone out of town nearly every other weekend since August. Which has been awesome, because I love to travel. But it has left me little time for cleaning, writing, spending time with friends, and the million other completely necessary, absolutely ‘have to get done or things fall apart’, things on my to do lists. So I feel like I’ve been scrambling to get things done and not quite hitting the mark.

I have a senior in high school this year, and the weekly to do list for that alone seems endless. There’s the yearbook ad that had to be created. Which was actually kind of fun even though I waited til the very last day to get it done. We spent a whole evening going through boxes of old photos, trying to narrow down the perfect ones to include, and it was fun looking back, and being reminded of all the fun memories we’ve made. Seems like just yesterday she was this sweet little angel face baby.

There was homecoming court. There are multiple junior guild parties requiring costumes to be created, formal dresses and tuxes to be bought, and the scheduling of hair and makeup appointments. There are senior photos to schedule, college/high school dual enrollment forms to fill out and classes to be registered for. Then there’s college financial aid forms for next year for both girls to be done. It was also time for open enrollment for medical insurance, which I barely met the deadline for. Literally got locked out of the website and finally got it done the night before enrollment closed. Whew. There were car registration tags to be renewed. So many fall birthdays to plan for. Oh, and in the middle of all that, we refinanced our home, so there was what seemed to be endless paperwork to be done for that, and then a whole bunch of decisions to be made about the improvements we will be making to our home. And y’all know how I am about making those kinds of decisions. Lol. So hard to choose something that is hard to envision and that you know once it’s done there’s no going back. It wouldn’t be quite so hard if it weren’t for the original a-frame design of our home, with the old style gray flagstone rock around the bottom that has to stay, requiring me to figure out how to work the updated look I would like to have around existing things that I can not change. The colors and styles I would normally choose just don’t really work with the existing structure. I know I don’t want the bluish gray we currently have. But I do like a dark Navy blue. However, perhaps a true gray would work best with the rock. But then, do we go with light, medium or dark gray. And is that too monotone? Would white look ridiculous? And now I’m suddenly considering a color that I wasn’t considering at all before that looks light grayish but has a green hint to it. And then I go back to, “probably safer to stick to one of the basic grays”. Ugh. So complicated. Jeff says, “Whatever you pick will be fine.” But in my head, I’m thinking “What if I choose wrong and it looks terrible and then we are stuck with it and I’ve ruined our home and one day when we want to sell it no one will want it and they will say “why did she choose that color, and that trim, it looks terrible!”

There’s a quote out there that goes something like, “My decision making skills closely resemble that of a squirrel crossing the street.”

Yep. That pretty much sums me up.

So. Much. Pressure.

And all this, while also working full time. This mom thing ain’t no joke y’all. And it doesn’t end after they graduate. It gets a little easier yes, but the to do list doesn’t get all that much shorter. At least not for a while. But we are almost there!

I got through another September 10th, anniversary of our D-Day. We’d been so busy, I’d hardly given much thought to it at all, so going in to it, I honestly felt like this one would be pretty easy-peasy. I wasn’t feeling bad about it, or worried about it, or having any anxiety about it at all. I knew it was coming, but things are good these days, really good, and so I thought, I’ll just try to have as peaceful a day as possible, and then it will be over. Then the day came and I woke up and there it was, the heaviness and weight of the day, like a weighted blanket on my body, but not in a comforting way. I wasn’t even having bad thoughts really, there was just that physical sense of heaviness.

With trauma, the body sometimes “remembers” and reacts, even when you are mostly in a good headspace. It’s weird, but it’s real.

It wasn’t that bad though, I’d experienced this cellular memory before, and knew I could push it off. So I just told myself that I wasn’t going to let the memories of this date weigh me down, that all I needed was to try and make sure I had a peaceful, low stress day, and that I’d be fine.

Well, it turned out to be the absolute opposite of a peaceful day. It was a stressful busy day at work. Then there were things that came up with the appraisal and inspection for our home loan that had to be straightened out. Then there were issues with an online math class that Kate was taking that if not worked out, could have affected her being able to graduate on time. As these things came up, I just pushed through, did the things I could do to straighten them out, and decided to just try to have a peaceful night at home. But I did not come home to peace. I came home to an irritable, stressed out husband and child, and an immediate barrage of pointed questions as to why and how I had or had not handled one thing or another and what was I going to do about this or that to fix it, and let’s just say my resolve to have a good day crumbled under all that pressure and it ended in a stressful puddle of tears and defeat. All these circumstances and stressful situations that had absolutely NOTHING to do with what happened 4 years ago, still brought forward all those same feelings of fear, anxiety, disappointment, and the feeling that I just wasn’t enough.

So I ended the day with a bit of a breakdown, and the words, “all I needed was for today to be a peaceful day.”

The devil tries really hard to keep us stuck in that feeling of defeat I guess. And I suppose he knows that particular date is a weakness for me. So he used every circumstance and every person around me that he could to break me down. And he may have won the day this time around.

But it was just a day. And we got through it. The day passed, and September 11th was a new day, and when it comes down to it, no matter how my mind or body reacts to September 10th rolling around on the calendar, what it really represents now is another year of surviving what was meant to destroy us. Another year of goodness. Another year of hope for the future. Another year filled with blessings and a life we never imagined 4 years ago that we could dream of having.

Yes, this season has been a busy and sometimes stressful one, but it is also so, so full of goodness. Full of opportunity, and time with each other, and time spent with family.

And while those never ending to do lists can feel overwhelming at times, how blessed are we to have the things that bring these to do lists? To have the cars that need registering, the home that we can make improvements on, the marriage that nearly disintegrated, all the birthdays that mean we got to spend another year with the people that we love the most, the extended families that support and love us, the children that we can help shape a wonderful future for. And despite the busy-ness of all that we have had going on, we have had SO MUCH FUN.

So, there may be a pile of laundry on my sofa, mail scattered on the kitchen table and dirty dishes in the sink.

I may have gotten wayyy less writing done that I had intended.

And I may get something on my to do list done mere minutes before the deadline.

Or I may forget to take care of something completely.

You may hate the color I choose for the exterior of our home.

And we may just take off on another weekend getaway, just because we can.

And everything will be just fine, because we are blessed beyond measure.

So as this busy season continues, I’ll continue to try to meet it with gratitude. Gratitude for what God has brought us through. Gratitude for how he used it for our good, to bring us to this very place we are in life now. Gratitude for all the plans he still has ahead for us, and excitement for all the goodness it will bring.

And I will hope beyond hope, that I choose the right siding color. 😂

❤️

– Amy Thurston Gordy

Jesus and peach ice cream

Summer is almost over, y’all. That happened so fast. We’ve had a full summer. Lots of goodness around here.

But as I wrote in my last blog post, it started out a little rough.

I last wrote to y’all about a dream I had, one in which evil had come, looking to destroy us.

And in the space of time just before and after I had that dream, he’d been doing just that.

Attacking us in our most vulnerable spaces.

Whispering words of temptation, or words of doubt.

Whispering the lie that we will never be enough.

Calling out our faults and telling us that is who we truly are, and that we can’t be anything else.

Whispering the lie that things are worse than they are. That every argument, every disagreement, is somehow the end of everything.

Whispering words of fear.

Temptation.

Doubt.

Insecurity.

Discontentment.

False Identity.

Discouragement.

Frustration.

Fear.

Lack.

Defeat.

These are his weapons.

And he came at us with EVERY last one.

And there were moments, a couple of dark moments, when I thought he just might have succeeded.

And then I remembered. I remembered the dream I had. And I remembered the pained whisper.

And I realized what was happening, and I said to myself:

No. Nope. Nuh-uh.

Not having it.

And so I prayed.

I prayed for Jeff to remember who he really is. I prayed for his eyes to be open and his heart to be softened. I prayed the same for myself. I prayed that we would both have the discernment to be able to call the attack and the lies of the enemy out and rebuke them with the truth.

I prayed that the goodness inside of us would be bigger and the voice of truth louder than any of the darkness the devil was trying to cloud our minds with.

And finally, as we lay in silence in the quiet of the night, both of us feeling tired and somewhat defeated, I simply, and inaudibly, whispered: “Jesus, fix it.”

And within minutes, Jeff turned over and started talking, and everything was sorted out, and the darkness was gone. The heaviness was lifted. The light pushed out the dark. The truth spoke louder than the lies.

And love won.

With nothing more than two hearts, turned towards Him, and a pained whisper of “Jesus, fix it.”

So we had a little rough patch, but, like we always do, we found our way again.

And since then, we have had a lot of really great summer days.

We had an adult trip to the beach, where I ate basically nothing but baked oysters topped with every kind of cheesy goodness. Ugh. SO good. I wish I had some of these right now!

We spent a morning boating to Crab Island. I took late night golf cart rides with my sister in law and cousin in law laughing until our stomachs hurt, and I sat on the beach for endless hours, so, yeah, that was pretty awesome.

Emily came home for the summer. She recently switched her college track to pre-med, so we’ve been working on preparations for that. When she is here, the Tupperware cabinet is always organized, the kitchen clean, and I sometimes come home to find all my laundry has been folded in these neat little Marie Kondo type of tiny little squares, which is fascinating , and I always get to try new vegan meals and treats that are always good and sometimes surprisingly especially delicious. Having her home always makes this Mama’s heart happy. This week we will move her and her cousin into their new apartment, and I will miss her so much, again, but am so thankful we get to see her often, and so proud of the sweet, super smart, hardworking, ambitious woman she is.

I had a birthday. I turned 45!

FOURTY FIVE y’all.

It’s ok. I’m ok. That’s not old or anything, right? Those aren’t gray hairs I see popping up. They’re just silvery blond highlights from the sun is all. That’s what I keep telling myself. And, I’m still gonna keep praying those grays at least hold off a few more years until Kate can finish high school and college and pay for her own hair color, because this Mama can’t afford regular appointments for balayage for the both of us.

Seriously though, I’ll take it. Another year older versus the alternative.

Life is good, I have the best family and friends in the world, so give me ALL the years, please. And Botox. If anyone wants to gift me some Botox and/or fillers for these lines on my forehead and just under my eyes, I’ll gladly take that too. I’m thankful for getting older, but I’m still on board with fighting these wrinkles for as long as possible and in any way possible. Lol.

I’ve had fun weekly Bachelorette viewing parties with the very best friends and sisters in the whole world. Good friends, good food, and fun trash tv shows make for the best nights. Make time for your most favorite girlfriends y’all.

We had a 4th of July trip to the lake with Jeff’s family and some friends.

We spent time on the boat, spent time floating in the lake with friends, and shot off our own fireworks on an island in the middle of the lake.

I only nearly died once when an errant firework went flying between me and Kate and missed both of us by inches, despite the fact that I was keeping a more than was probably necessary safe distance, because I’m a fraidy-cat. Ha. That was scary. Here is video to prove it. Yikes. I might have…ok, I’ll admit that I definitely DID let out a cuss word, which thankfully was not picked up in the video. Sorry,Mama. Ha.

I mentioned to Jeff one afternoon that I would love to have some dark stained wood floating shelves to put over the sofa. He asked me to show him a picture, and the next thing I know, the man is outside building me some. He likes to make me happy. And look how great they turned out! He’s a talented builder, and a pretty sweet guy.

I took a road trip with just my parents, and my sisters, and one of my brothers. My other brother didn’t get to go because he was on the road with the band he plays with, so we missed having him there. But it was one of the MOST fun trips I’ve ever had. I can’t wait to do it again. We are so blessed to have such sweet, fun, amazing parents and I’m so thankful we get to spend time with them.

I also prayed for Kate to find a job. Because she’s a teenage girl that likes to hang out with friends, buy Starbucks, eat at Sonic, Zaxbys, and the Japanese restaurant, drive all over the place using tons of gas, and also wants to buy cute clothes, get her hair colored and nails done regularly, and let’s not forget about her absolute obsession with ridiculously expensive sneakers.

That thing they say….”having a daughter can be like having a little broke best friend that thinks you’re rich”… totally true.

She is now gainfully employed by two amazing Moms, picking up some very sweet and very adorable kiddos after school. Thank the Lord! Mama needs her debit card back,stat.

That sweet girl is a senior this year. Not sure how that happened. I’m slightly sad thinking back at how fast it went, but also somewhat excited at how easy things have gotten. She drives herself everywhere, and I never have to work on another science project or pack another lunch, and the freedom of that feels pretty darn good!

She had her senior yearbook pictures made last week.

It’s bittersweet, when the baby is a senior. It’s the end of an era, yet also an exciting new beginning.

My sweet baby is almost all grown up. Sigh. Just look at that sweet face.

We planned a weekend beach getaway, and then figured out there was a mixup with the reservation dates, so we couldn’t go. It was so, so sad. To make up for it, we took Kate and her boyfriend to an amusement park, which also turned out to be a complete bust, and so the next day we went zip lining to try and make up for the busted beach trip AND the terrible amusement park. And it was awesome. So much fun, except for the suspended swinging bridge with unevenly spaced planks to walk across. That was terrifying. TERRIFYING. But give me ALL the zip lines. So, so fun.

And Jeff finally took me fishing. I’ve only been asking like, I don’t know, a year. It was a sweet afternoon, spent in a rickety old fishing boat on a small pond. I only reeled in one fish. But one is better than none, right?

We spent more than one sunny afternoon going to the peach farm for the best fresh peach strawberry swirl ice cream cone in the world. And I’ve pretty much ignored my low carb diet for the most part in favor of the occasional cheeseburger and fries, lots of ice cream, summery pasta salads, one Oreo cheesecake chocolate birthday cake, homemade brownies with ice cream and hot caramel sauce, strawberries with homemade cheesecake dip, homemade blackberry and peach cobbler, and all the fresh summer peaches, cherries, watermelon and tomatoes I can get my hands on. Oh and poundcake. Because if a coworker’s sweet Grandma sends a still warm, fresh from the oven poundcake to your office, you eat it. Because who can resist a good Grandma baked poundcake? Not me. So if you notice that I’ve maybe, (ok..definitely) put a few pounds back on, just know it’s because I am living my best summer life and I’m not about to give up the joy of these summer time treats for the sake of a few pounds. I’ll go back to the low carb life shortly and hopefully get quickly back to my target weight. Life is short, we should enjoy it!

So, my message to you today is to always be aware. Always be vigilant of the attacks on yourself and on your family. Keep your eyes open and don’t get blinded by the lies. When the arguments or the setbacks take on that deceptive illusion that the situation is hopeless, or just too big or too hard or too overwhelming, or that you are something that you’re not; actively remind yourself and each other of the truth, the truth of who you are, the truth of who they are. The goodness inside of yourself and in them.

Enjoy all the big fun moments in life, and the little ones. Make space for the good stuff. Take the trip. Eat the ice cream. Definitely eat the ice cream.

And when the lies of the enemy get too heavy, and the darkness starts getting too thick, a simple “Jesus, fix it.”, and maybe, a freshly baked poundcake or a really good peach ice cream, is all you really need.

❤️

Amy Thurston Gordy

The pained whisper

About a month ago I had a dream. I was in a house, and there was a demon there. I knew it was there, I could feel the presence of it, and I knew it had an awareness of me also. I dreamed of being in the rooms of that house, and I would try to walk out of a room, and as I went to push a door open, I would feel it pushing back. Trying to keep me from getting the door all the way open and leaving the room. I would push harder and the resistance on the other side would grow stronger. Then I would suddenly skip ahead and find myself in a hallway, and would come across a door, and when I would try to open a door to enter a room, the demon again would pull from the other side, trying to keep me from entering. Again and again I would find myself in this tug of war at every door. Trying to enter a room that I couldn’t get in, or trying to exit a room that I couldn’t get out of. Until I finally found myself walking into a kitchen/ living area. And I saw Jeff standing there. And then suddenly, the demon was in him. He is coming at me. Swinging for me. Trying to get to me so he can put his hands around my throat. He wants to hurt me and he wants to use Jeff to do it. I know what I need to do. I just have to tell the demon that he doesn’t belong here. That he’s not welcome here. I have to tell him that he can’t have Jeff. I know exactly what to do. I know I have the authority. And so I try to speak. I have the words. But my throat feels like it’s closing up. The strength I’m using to push the words out should be creating a loud shout, but I can barely push them out. I am straining so hard to make the noise come out that it literally causes me physical pain. There is definitely a little trepidation in me, for I know the seriousness of facing this demon. But there’s a boldness within me that pushes back that fear, and pushes me to fight. I dig deep and try to pull as much strength and authority as I can muster into my voice as I try to speak. But all that I hear coming from my mouth is barely more than a hoarse whisper.

“You can’t be here. You can’t have him. Get out. You’re not allowed to harm me. You leave in the name of Jesus! Go and don’t come back. You’re not welcome here. Get out. Get out. In the name of Jesus, GET OUT!!!”

Over and over I try to speak the words. Sometimes managing to barely make the sounds, and sometimes only able to push out the air as I mouth the words.

But I keep trying. I keep fighting that demon. Wishing I could get the strong shout of rebuke that I have within me to come out as more than a whisper. Fighting off the fear that maybe I don’t have as much authority over him as I had believed. Beginning to wonder why my shout keeps coming out as a strained, painful whisper. But even still, refusing to back down. Grasping hold of the promise that no weapon formed against me shall prosper. Holding tight to the hope that my voice may be nothing more than a whisper, but that the power of God in that pained whisper is enough to defeat that demon.

It’s not the first time I’ve had that dream, or some version of it. There are variations of it, each one slightly different, in a different location, or with the demon taunting me in different ways, but always ending the same, with me staring him down, and struggling to make my voice reflect the power behind the words I’m trying to get out.

I have spiritual dreams every once in a while. It’s not completely out of the norm for me. So I didn’t think too much about this one when I woke up.

But looking back, I can see now that this dream, along with every other one I’ve had like it over the years, is usually a reflection of something going on in our lives. They come as a warning sometimes. A warning that something is not right. A warning that we are under attack, and to be vigilant. Other times they come just as a reminder. A reminder that the fight can be hard, and that the fight may take more out of us than we think we can handle.

A reminder that sometimes even when it feels impossible, even when it seems we are drawing on what feels like our last breaths just to force out a battle cry, no matter how small our voices, no matter how weak our shouts, we only need the slightest whisper of His name.

I always wake up in the midst of the fight. Usually just as the demon in whatever form he has taken has me just within his reach. But I never wake up afraid. Or feeling defeated.

And so I’ve often wondered if it was enough, those pained whispers. Enough to drive the demon out.

And as I thought about it today, I realized that is why I wake up. Right in the middle of the fight, just as the tip of his fingers nearly reach me, at a point where I should be terrified, I always wake up, completely unafraid. Able to go right back to sleep.

And so it occurred to me finally, that maybe it was enough. Maybe, the pained whisper was all I needed to defeat him. The pained whisper of the name of Jesus was enough to drive him away and wake me from the nightmare and bring me peace.

I didn’t realize it when I had that dream, but we were in fact, facing a spiritual battle. The past couple of months had been stressful. The usual things that affect most families. There had been some financial stress. I had also been under a good deal of stress because of an abnormal mammogram result, which was followed by a couple of follow up appointments spread over a few of what seemed like very LONG weeks. It turned out to be nothing to worry about, thankfully. There was also some college stuff for both girls that needed to be worked out. I’d not been sleeping well due to some leg pain from my old back injury. In the middle of all that, we also had some serious trust issues resurface. And somewhere in the midst of all that busy-ness and stress, there had grown a distance between us. I felt it, he felt it. Neither one of us quite sure what initially caused it or when it started growing, but both painfully aware that something just wasn’t right.

And to say that my PTSD-like reactions were triggered by all of that would be an understatement.

He felt defeated. I felt panicked. And sad. And slightly terrified.

Two months ago we were fine. Better than ever. We felt like we were in a really good place. And I can’t really tell you where or when things went wrong specifically. All I know is that we got complacent. Maybe a little lazy. We let one too many things slide. And it didn’t seem like we were that far off track. Except for that dream I had. Except for this gnawing feeling that things just weren’t right. This overwhelming prompting to perk up and pay attention. A feeling that we somehow ended up unintentionally perched on the edge of a cliff, because of our lack of intention.

And I’m not gonna lie to y’all. It got kind of bad. Actually it got really bad. It was the second big fight in the past few months that had us both feeling like we were reaching our breaking point. It culminated in an emotionally charged discussion in which Jeff hinted at the possibility that he might be ready to give up, and me suggesting that if that was truly the case that he should maybe go pack his bags.

Yep. That bad.

And just like that, we had fallen off the edge of that cliff.

All it took was for us to stop paying attention to where we were standing, just for a little bit, to stop paying attention to where we were headed. We stopped talking to each other as we walked down that road and yet somehow were still surprised when we found ourselves on the edge of that cliff. And by the time we got there, we were so disconnected and so frustrated and feeling a little lost as to how to find our way back to the path we were on before we went so far off course.

And looking over that edge was so dizzying. So disorienting. And so we tumbled right on over.

But we didn’t die there.

We found a ledge on our tumble down, and we grabbed it.

Suddenly, painfully aware of this precarious position we’d gotten ourselves into, we began to face the hard truths of what got us there. What are we doing out here, hanging on by our fingertips? We don’t belong here. And so, we climbed.

With admitting that we had both taken our eyes off the ball.

With him apologizing for some not so great choices.

With me admitting that my reactions to situations can sometimes be bigger than the situation warrants because I’m not really reacting to whatever is going on at the moment necessarily, but am actually reacting to the fear that whatever the thing we are fighting about triggered inside of me.

We pulled ourselves back over the top of that cliff by acknowledging that all of this stress, and this downfall was really a fight with the enemy, and not so much with each other. We pulled ourselves back up by realizing that to get where we want to go, to have the relationship we want to have, and be the people we want to be, we’ve got to fight together, instead of against each other.

We’re a bit exhausted, if I’m being honest. These past two months have been A LOT.

A lot of me facing my biggest fears.

Fear for my health.

Fear of lack of provision.

Fear of being deceived.

Fear that Jeff would let me down again.

Fear that these past few years, all of our hard work, everything we’ve put in to rebuilding this marriage, would end because of a bad decision, or because one or both of us just couldn’t push through one more hard day. That we would do all of this, only to fail. To end up with nothing.

And then there’s the fear that we would let all of you down.

I looked at Jeff, in the middle of our fight, and said, “This is not just about us. We’re at a crossroads here. There’s something big ahead, bigger than just us, I can feel it. And I feel like we need to be real careful how we move forward. A lot of people look to us. They look to us as an example of hope. The choices we make here, now, don’t just have the potential to affect us, there’s a whole lot of other people we would be letting down too.”

We’ve been given this platform, and we don’t take it lightly. So, yes, besides the fear of being hurt again, letting you all down or failing you in any way is one of my biggest ones.

But the truth is, we’re human. We don’t have the magic formula for repairing a broken marriage. I’m not an expert. We aren’t licensed therapists. We aren’t ordained pastors. We are just Jeff and Amy. We are two people that walked through a very dark place. We’re the guy that made the worst mistake of his life. We’re the girl who’s heart was broken. We’re a couple that found our way through the brokenness to forgiveness. We chose goodness. We chose the hard path of refinement and redemption. And I’m just the girl, following the pull on her heart to share it all with you. To be real…and sometimes painfully, raw, with sharing our story with you in a way that most people wouldn’t. Because I feel so strongly that this world needs more people willing to share their truth. Not in a vague way. Not in a glossed over highlight reel. But in the details, in the hard truth of the trenches, and the bright light of the mountaintops, and all the highs and lows of the moments in between. The world needs more people willing to shine a light in ALL the dark places, to admit that you’ve been there before, and help others see that there’s a way out.

It’s become painfully apparent to me that my biggest struggle is with fear.

I constantly have to remind myself that the fear, all that fear that I fight on a daily basis, is a liar.

He’s the demon in my dreams trying to hold the doors and keep me stuck in a place where I can’t share God’s goodness. Trying to strike out at me and wrap his wiry fingers around my throat and choke the light, God’s light, right out of me. He’s the one I see in the face of Jeff at the end of my dreams, the one telling him that he might as well give in. That he’ll never win this fight, that he’s not the man God says he can be.

The truth is, even if we failed, even if, after all these years of work and hope and sweat and joy and tears, we end up falling over the edge of the cliff, God is still there.

And He will no doubt have a path full of goodness mapped out for us. He will hold out his hand, and pull us up, and show us the way out, whether that be together, or apart. All we have to do is look to Him. I’ve seen many, many examples of God’s goodness in situations where a marriage ultimately doesn’t work out. And so while I won’t stop fighting, I also shouldn’t be afraid of letting you all down if we fail. Because while this blog is about restoration and redemption and hope for broken relationships, it’s also about restoration and redemption on a personal level. My hope, our hope, the true hope of God is that He has a plan for you, no matter the decisions of someone you love. We can’t control the actions or choices of others. All we can do is look to Him and trust in His presence and His goodness.

He’s there on the good path. He’s there on the easy days. He’s also there in the midst of those really, really hard ones. He’s there on the edge of that cliff.

And if we happen to find ourselves falling over that cliff and ending up crumpled and broken at the bottom of that canyon, He’ll be there too.

I know, because I’ve been there.

We survived the initial fall all the way to the bottom several years ago. And the climb back up has been hard, and exhausting, but also rewarding, and full of joy. We’ve had more good days than bad ones. I could have chosen not to share any of this latest struggle with you. I could have given in to the fear that to continue to give you the hope you need, and to “promote the brand” or keep up a certain image that we need to have a perfect marriage from here on out, with the appearance of neither of us failing and only having good days. But the truth is, we aren’t perfect. And a dishonest version of redemption is not a story of redemption at all. I don’t write this blog to create a brand or to gain followers. I write it to show you that we all have good days, we all have bad days, we all have victories and struggles, and that God is right there through all of it. I share our setbacks and our failures with you so you know you’re not alone. So you know that just because you’ve pushed through your hardest days, you still have to be intentional and fight for your family, for yourself, for your marriage, for the life you want. I do it so you’ll know that the goodness is worth the fight. And I do it so that you know that even if you get off course, and take a little tumble, that it’s ok. It happens to all of us. You can still grab on to that ledge and make your way back up to steady ground.

We took a little tumble. But we climbed back up. And we woke up the next morning with a renewed sense of purpose. A reminder to be intentional.

And also with great expectation. Because when the devil comes at you like that, it’s usually because God has something in the works. There’s something ahead that God wants for us that the devil does not want us to have, and maybe something that God wants us to do that the devil does not want to see come to fruition. So he came swinging at us, aiming for all the places we are the most vulnerable.

And we have just a couple of words for him:

Not today.

Jeff had a dream of his own last night. He dreamed that he and I were both in basic training.

I don’t think that was just a dream either.

Ephesians 6:12 (NLT)

12 For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.

Sometimes we all have setbacks. Just because we’ve come so far and healed so much does not make us immune to the attacks of the devil or immune to simply making a mistake. But we can win those battles and overcome those hurdles. And I strongly believe that most of our setbacks are really just setups for something on a grander scale in our future. We just have to see them for what they really are and keep our focus in the right place.

So we’re gonna keep fighting.

We’re going to keep fighting for us. We’re going to keep fighting for you. And we can’t wait to see the good that God will bring from it.

Don’t give up.

Don’t lose hope.

Don’t give in to the fear.

Just keep fighting.

Even when it’s hard. Even when you barely have enough breath to push the words out. Even when all you can manage, is a pained whisper of His name.

There’s power in that pained whisper.

That pained whisper is enough, and it’s all you need to win the fight.

❤️

Amy Thurston Gordy

Smoke monsters

A few weeks ago we had a pretty big argument. I wish I could tell you what even set it off. What we were even mad at each other about or fighting over, but for the life of me, y’all, I can’t even remember. The fact that I don’t even remember what it was that caused this particular flare up in and of itself is an important detail in this lesson.

We are over 3 and a half years in to our story. And y’all know, since I’ve shared nearly every moment of it with you, how incredibly hard that has sometimes been. Y’all also know how amazing and beautiful it’s been. And now that we are over 3 years in, we tend to have a whole lot more amazing and beautiful and easy days than hard ones.

But every once in a while, one of those old ugly triggers will pop up, or maybe it might not even a be trigger, but maybe just a normal, run of the mill, married couple disagreement. Which, by the way, are never just a normal, run of the mill, married couple disagreement after an affair. Every disagreement, whether related to the affair, or a trigger, or a memory, or not, holds a little more weight. The undertones, the fears, the insecurities, always seem to somehow integrate themselves into these disagreements, no matter how mundane or unrelated those disagreements are. It’s one of those built in consequences of an affair.

So whatever that argument we were having was about on the surface, it quickly became a doubt filled extravaganza focusing on the fact that the affair still has effects on us and whether or not it ever really goes away, (side note: it doesn’t.), and words being tossed out there such as how it’s easy to see why people give up and walk away because it’s frustrating and it’s exhausting….and wait, wait,wait, let’s back up a minute here, did you just insinuate that you are considering walking away…., or that it’s even an option at this point??? Like for real? Is that where we are at right now? And if so, how exactly?? Because I’m pretty sure this is not even close to what we were originally discussing when this argument started, and things haven’t actually been bad between us.

There are alarms going off. Alerting us that something, something isn’t right here. And we both know it. We know we shouldn’t be hurling out these words we’re saying. Deep down we know we don’t mean it. Yet it’s hard to grasp on to that truth because these big, big feelings of frustration feel so big and so real. These things we are saying to each other, they feel real in the moment and larger than life, yet we know, even as we are still saying them, that they don’t quite ring true. And just for a second, we recognize those alarms going off in the back of our minds, and we push through the haze and start to question the direction this argument has taken.

How did we go from a seemingly normal day to we suddenly aren’t sure we can do this anymore? I mean, just yesterday we were great. Weren’t we?? Actually we’ve been great for WAYYY more days than we weren’t. And wait, WHAT were we even arguing about and how did this suddenly turn into every thing is terrible and nothing is really better and we will never get past this? And that’s when the smoke cleared, and we realized that everything is not terrible. Things really are better. And ok, so maybe we aren’t past it, but maybe we shouldn’t really ever fully expect to be. Regardless of the answer to that, one thing is for sure, this argument is not going to be the end of us.

Y’all know how that happens. That downward spiral that starts small and ends up feeling like the bad stuff is all encompassing and all the good stuff fades into the wall of smoke swirling around you, and you suddenly forget that everything IS so much better and you have actually made a TON of progress and you’re so disoriented in the moment that you can’t see that this is all just a giant smoke monster, a dirty little trick that fear is playing on you to ruin all the good God is doing in your life and keep you from the fullness of seeing that through.

But that is the truth of these downward spirals, sucking you further and further in to the dark smoky air, trying to suffocate you and snuff out all the light you’ve worked so hard to find.

A couple of nights ago, the house across the street from us caught on fire. We watched for hours as the firemen fought it. It would be completely out, and then suddenly, a small flame would pop up in a far corner, just the tiniest faint flicker, and within seconds the fire would be raging again. As I watched, it occurred to me how much it reminded me of how an affair ravages a relationship. How in the beginning, after the initial discovery, after the decision to try to find a way to reconcile, the fire just keeps popping back up. Aggressively and persistently. You put one out just for another to pop up. One step forward, three steps back. Every reminder, every argument, every trigger, bursting into a flame that threatens to destroy everything that’s left of you. The fight with those persistent flares seems to last forever. A never ending, exhausting cycle.

The burns you sustain in the fight, the damage to the nerves, causing a nagging, constant pain that never seems to fully dissipate. But you push through, things get better. The pain fades a bit. Sometimes, you almost even forget to notice it at all. It becomes mostly just a small twinge, or maybe a dull ache, that can sometimes get worse and slightly more noticeable when a storm is near. You adjust to it. It becomes a small part of you, and though it’s not something you ever wanted, you learn to see that there can be purpose in it, and that it’s maybe even somehow made you a better version of yourself in some ways. Because it’s made you stronger, wiser, more empathetic. You see that you can rebuild something new in the ashes of what was left from the fire. You see the hope, and the beauty of the possibilities.

The fire is out. but the faint smell of smoke always lingers, the memories clinging to every surface they can find like a dark coat of soot and ash. And somewhere, in the dark corners of the attic, the fear that any tiny sense of a flicker of things not being right between you, tends to stir that fear that you could go up in flames at any moment. Or maybe, the fear that yes, you survived the flames, you survived the fire, you think you’re in the clear, all the smoke has settled, but suddenly and out of nowhere, you’re coughing and struggling to breathe. You survived the flames, but the smoke, the smoke that filled the air for so long after, the after effects of the fire that destroyed everything you knew, that is what can sneak up and kill you if you’re not careful. If you forget that the fresh air that you need to fill your lungs with is right there, just on the other side of that deceptive wall of smoke.

We fought for nearly two days, over that apparently so insignificant a thing that I can’t even recall it now. Because we all know our arguments are never about whatever it is we are arguing about anyway. We all know the argument is actually seated in our fears, our anxieties, our deep seated insecurities. The arguments are not truly about whatever thing you did or didn’t do. They aren’t about the mean words you said when you were angry. The argument is really about these questions: “Do you really love me?, Do I matter to you?, Am I safe?, Do you value me?, Are you going to break my heart?, Will we ever truly get past this?, Did we go through all this, push through all this, just to end up a failure, just to end up with nothing?”….. etc.

It is when you are able to see that these flare ups, these bad days, that, depending on where you are at in your healing might be happening frequently, or only a time or three per year, they aren’t really at all about whatever the fight began with. It’s when you are able to take some time to calm down, and come together and acknowledge that at the core of these flare ups, are all those questions and fears that I just listed, that you’ll be better able to pull yourself back from that destructive spiral, and move past them. All the other stuff, the petty arguments, are just ornamental fluff to the real issues underneath the surface.

So you sit down and have a discussion. And you focus on the truths, the real answer to those questions, instead of the lies fear is feeding you.

1. Do you really love me?: “More than you could ever possibly comprehend.”

2. Do I matter to you?: “Absolutely. You mean the world to me.”

3. Am I safe?: “I hate what I did and will never do that to you, to us, to our family again.”

4. Do you value me?: Yes, and I will never, ever take for granted the gift that you are.”

5. Are you going to ultimately break my heart again?: “I never, ever want to see the pain in your face again that I saw after what I did. Ever.”

6. Will we ever get past this?: Y’ALL PAY ATTENTION TO THIS ONE. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. IT’S ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL YOU HEAR ME ON THIS. An affair is not something you “get past”. It is also not something you will EVER get over. NOT EVER. You will not get over it. Do not expect your spouse to ever “get over it”.

The only way for it to ever disappear from existence would be for someone to be able to go back in time and change the fact that it happened. And that is not possible. It happened, and there are consequences and long lasting effects that there is no way to avoid or make magically disappear. You can make things better. You can even make things great. But you can never, ever take away the fact that it happened, or erase the pain and the scars it caused.

An affair is not something you can ever “get over”. It is something you “get through”.

You do not get over it, any more than you get over any traumatic experience or any great loss. BUT YOU CAN GET THROUGH IT. And you can have a better life, a better marriage, and a million blessings you never, ever imagined not only despite having gone through it, but because of having gone through it.

Even if your marriage didn’t survive, even if reconciliation was not an option for you, you can still get through it, and you’ll find God’s blessings waiting for you along the way.

7. Did we go through all this, push through all this, just to end up a failure, just to end up with nothing?: The answer to this one, well, it’s completely up to you. As far as your marriage goes, it’s up to both of you. Only you can answer how much your marriage is worth to you. Only you know how much of the “hard” you are willing to push through. And you really have no control over your spouse’s choice on this matter. I can’t tell you with certainty that your marriage will survive. But I can tell you that if you are both willing to push through, and to fight your way out of the belly of those smoke monsters that come for you every so often, your chances of having an amazing marriage that you never would have believed to be possible, even on your best days before the affair, are extremely high. It’s not easy, not even a little bit, but the result is worth it.

In the words of our wise counselor and life coach, Joey Grubbs, when I asked him what if we failed, if we spent all this time and energy trying to save our marriage, what if in the end, it just didn’t work, he said : “You will never regret putting in the work to try and save your marriage. Even if it doesn’t work out in the end, it’s never a mistake to do everything you can to work towards reconciliation and redemption.” And he was right. Even if we had failed, even if we do fail at some point in the future, I could never regret knowing that we gave it our all. And the work that we’ve done not just in our marriage, but ultimately on ourselves, will serve us well for the rest of our lives. It is never a mistake to work towards being the best version of yourselves, and the best version of your marriage. It is never a mistake to work towards becoming the person that God intended you to be. In the end, no matter what, God is for you. And He has good plans for you, no matter the outcome.

So, today I encourage you to stay the course. When the smoke gets stirred or the sparks start to fly, or you maybe even find yourselves hurling some of that soot at each other, try not to get caught up in it. It’s so easy in that moment of chaos to forget how much progress you have made. How much goodness you actually do have. How far you’ve come and how much you’ve pushed through and the possibilities and opportunities that still lie ahead for you if you will just stay focused, and not lose your way in the smoke.

Fear is a liar. A giant, ugly, smoke monster. He will sneak up and consume you, blind you, and choke the very breath from your lungs if you let him. Don’t let one, or two, or even seven straight bad days trick you into forgetting all of the good ones. When you find yourselves having one of those days where things suddenly seem dark again, look that smoke monster in the eyes and remind him who you are.  Remind yourself who you are. Remember how far you’ve come and all the goodness that you have. Remind yourselves that those big feelings, and those words you’re exchanging in the heat of the moment are not the truth of who you are and where you’re at in this process. Remind yourselves of what you’ve overcome.

Push past that veil of smoke and take a deep, deep breath of the truth.

You’re doing great.

There was a fire, and it was devastating and life altering and you will never, ever forget it. But you survived. All you have to do, is stay the course, get back on track, call those smoke monsters out for the fear mongers and liars that they truly are, focus on the good, and just. keep. breathing.

❤️

Amy Thurston Gordy