It's hard to believe Thanksgiving is actually THIS week. Time just seems to fly by. This is by far my absolute favorite time of year. I love the leaves changing, the cool air, drinking hot tea and hot chocolate, attempting to make delicious fall treats, the holidays and getting together with family and friends, starting and carrying on traditions. So many things.

This month was Matt and Kathryn's birthday! Matt is officially a "30 year old"...That's so funny to say now. It honestly doesn't seem old to me at all. I've always thought of age as just a number. Of course, he likes to remind me that I should "obey my elders"... He's such a funny old man. (He knows I'm joking.) We celebrated Kathryn's sweet birthday as well. She is two now and every day she is turning into such beautiful little girl. No offense to all my amazing girl friends out there, but she is hands down my favorite girl. (I am sure my friends have already figured that one out..) I can't get over her sense of humor and how witty she can be. It's so fun just laughing at each other during the day over the silliest little thing. Here are a few of her latest phrases:

"Carry-o please" - translation: "Carry me please"

"Help-u please" - translation: "Help me please"

"Whats dat?" - translation: "What's that?"

"Uh-oh, it fall down" - she says this about 50 times a day for anything that falls..

"Where'd he go?" - usually asking where Dada is or Cooper is or where Michael is...

"Luv-lou" - translation: "Love you"

Her current favorite foods:

Bean burritos -- that's my girl!!

Chips and salsa -- that's my girl!!

Carrots and ranch dressing -- (To everyone who thinks I deprive her of sweets, Matt introduced this to her!)

Apples

Oreo Cookies

Pictures to follow soon .... trouble uploading right now and I don't have the patience to keep trying!

frustrations and ramblings

I know I haven't written in a while and I'm sorry to post for the first time in a while on a "not so light-natured" topic, but I'm in a funk and I need to type and sort my thoughts out. This is one of the toughest situations I've ever had to come to terms with and this post is raw emotion and a needed outlet right now.

Yesterday evening, we had ABC News on with Charles Gibson. We never watch the news. Ever. I hate the news. After you read this, you'll know us having the news on last night was no coincidence. I was cleaning up the kitchen from dinner and in the background I heard, "We have never-seen-before footage from the Taliban. The date, July 13, 2008..." I jerked my head up so fast looking for the remote to turn the volume up. They showed home-video like footage of the Taliban hours before they attacked a remote outpost of American and Afghanistan soldiers. They talked of how they found out about the outpost and their plans of attack, their preparation and their encouragement to one another. They showed their discussion and prayers beforehand then they showed the actual attack - the fire, gunfire, rocket propelled grenades. I was watching the actual footage of the attack that killed MBP and eight other brave American soldiers. To clarify, I'd seen footage of the attack already. When we heard the news, I scoured the internet on any and every piece of information for weeks on end. If there was a story, interview, picture out there, I had to see it. What I saw yesterday didn't compare to anything I had already seen. This footage was all from "their" perspective. The enemy's perspective. I saw the attack from the Taliban's eyes and it was a victory to them.

I was instantly filled with hatred. Hatred may not even properly describe what I was feeling. Words like livid, and despise, and contempt all flushed over my body in an instant. I have never felt such bitter emotion so strongly towards someone in my life. I remember being so angry when I first heard the news about Matt and I really thought for a few weeks that I would never be able to forgive the men that killed him. I struggled with God so much during that time - pleading, questioning, begging, praying. It was almost a year before I had true peace with everything. To even say that is so surreal to me because I know it had nothing to do with my doing. It wouldn't have been possible if it were up to me. The reason I can say that is because I'm very capable of declaring who is evil in this situation and justifying my anger. I'm one of the best 'judges' I know and in this circumstance, my friend was the victim.

Peace in that type of circumstance isn't possible for human beings without God. Up until last night, I had a calmness so to speak knowing where Matt is and the glory that has been and will be received. That, I am firmly grounded on. I also believed I had forgiven. I think in my mind the forgiveness aspect was jumbled up in there since I had a peace about everything. With my reaction to seeing the video footage of the attack and my struggle today, I'm not sure that that may be the case. This is a very conflicting struggle for me. It's hard for me to concentrate on where Matt is rather than how he got there. I know typing this up has definitely helped me bring it back to Christ; which ultimately is where it should be. I'm doing a Beth Moore bible study called, "Living Beyond Yourself: Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit". We're only in the third week of the study but I can already tell you that the title, Living Beyond Yourself is the best explanation to how I'm coping now. No peace, no clarity, no forgiveness is even possible without Christ. It's literally beyond myself and my capabilities.