Wow.  What a freaking summer.  It seemed as though things were never going to calm down.  Here’s a rundown for ya:

May 16: Grandpa finally gave up the ghost and went to live with his Lord!  Yay for him!, crappy for us.

May 18: We seriously got hit by a tornado.  An F2 tornado.  According to the Fujita Scale of tornadoes, here’s how an F2 is classified -Considerable damage. Roofs torn off frame houses; mobile homes demolished; boxcars pushed over; large trees snapped or uprooted; light object missiles generated. They aren’t a kiddin’.

It went through our front yard, about 20 or so feet from the house.  The wind it generated sucked our cattle trailer over on its side (check out pics below), picked up our 5th wheel camper, plowed it through the pool enclosure and dropped it upside down in the back yard on top of the neighbor’s fence.  It took the kids’ trampoline, twisted it all to heck and dropped it in the field north of the house.  It took Caedmon’s playhouse (big, giant insulated playhouse) and threw it at the house, right through the weight bearing post holding up our extended dormer over the front porch, and through the front door.  Thankfully, the steel door behind the screen door held it back.  Two windows broke, the office’s broken through both panes, causing a little mini-tornado in my office.  Grass on the walls, glass shards stuck in monitors, water and dirt everywhere, papers ruined and scattered all around.  It also took the french doors between the office and front room and tried to rip them off the hinges, breaking the frame in the process.  The doors took the beating quite well, but the hinges are so bent that the doors won’t close.  Ripped the back window off of my car and Jeremy’s pickup, along with taking the flat fiberglass topper off the pickup and throwing it behind us about 1/2 mile south in the neighbor’s pasture.  One of our calf huts was broken, but we could only find part of it.  The other part?  1 1/2 miles south, still sitting in the creek.

We had so much crap strung all over the yard, but especially in the neighbor’s pasture.  It took 3 adults (thank you Eric & Gini) 3 hours to clean up all the remnants of the camper.  Did you know insulation gets really heavy when it’s soaked?  And it sticks really well in the ground, too.  Also, anything can become a projectile missle when powered by a tornado.  I found a paper plate embedded sideways in the hard pasture ground.  Ridiculous!

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The very next week: Audited by the IRS – for the 3RD TIME!  They have never found anything, but somehow that ‘random’ pick always picks us.  So, spent a good week getting 4 year-old paperwork together.  Yeah, that was 2 Windows Operating Systems and 3 Quickbooks ago.  Had to use Gini’s computer with XP and ’03 Quickbooks to pull all of our information up.

I seriously thought I was going to lose it.  In fact, one day I nearly did.  Jeremy and I got into this huge argument about I-don’t-even-know-what and I left for the rest of the day.  And night.  I spent the night in my car in the empty church parking lot.  I had hit a point where I felt like I just couldn’t give anymore; I didn’t have anything left to give.  Call me crazy, but isn’t that when the entire world is at your doorstep demanding attention?   I was done.

But God, through the grace of His Son and my husband, was not.  Jeremy let me vent, which I don’t do often enough.  God brought me close, where I could feel His warm embrace.  My kids still loved me (and were none the wiser anyway) and still offered their unconditional love.  My home still needed tending to, as only I can.  My purpose, though fuzzy, still rang strong and true:

Even though I don’t have it all together,

God still counts on me to show up.

To listen.  To talk.  To cry.  To love.  To be loved.  By Him and the family He has entrusted to me.  I don’t have to be perfect, because in God’s perfection I am.  He takes the little I can offer and uses it for His Glory’s sake.  The tiny bits of appreciation I show to Jeremy – God enlarges them to accolades in my husband’s heart.  The little strokes of comfort I give to Jonathan and Caedmon – He produces His love and encouragement to carry on their day.

My purpose?  To show up.  Not because I’m good enough, but because God is good.