My beauty

As much as this was written for my wife it also speaks of my relationship with Christ.

I haven't given my all to my beauty.
I selfishly held on to a part of me.
Yet I demanded all from my beauty.
Where is the love in that?

Today I give myself to my beauty.
All of me, all my love.
I long for my beauty to accept my love.
I belong to my beauty.

I belong to my beauty and her love is for me.
Our desire is for us.
We long for one another.
Evil longs for us apart.

I see her pain and know her suffering.
The emptiness, loneliness, and lies wound so deep.
Fragile love.
Wounded hearts waiting, hoping.

Come to me my love. Come to me.
I vow to protect your love.
To hold it tightly, to care for it.
To cherish its value.

I give you my all, my love.
I desire your all, my beauty.
For you to be in me and me to be in you.
I belong to my beauty and her desire is in me.

Who am I?

Who am I?
What did God intend when he created me?
Have I been true to myself?
Have I been true to God's creation and plan for me?
What is his plan?
It would be so much easier if we came with instructions.

Looking at these questions, wondering...searching.
Some days I just hang my head, knowing that I must be so far from what he desires.
Awaken me.

Success

It was a cold, cold, cold morning. At times it felt like the wind would just blow right through you. I met my brother-in-law and three nephews at the farm. We normally head out to the stands an hour before light...today it was so cold and windy we waited until about 1/2 hour before light. By the time I got to my stand it was almost light out. Thankfully I was sitting in a large pine tree that provided some shelter from the wind. Not long after first light I heard one of my nephews shoot. He called on the phone to say he had shot a big doe. We sat for another half hour before getting down to see his deer. We drug it out of the woods and began the gutting process...by the time we got back to the barn it was a little after 9 am. While we were loading everything up one of my nephews noticed another deer out in one of our fields in some tall grass. Three of us quickly headed in that direction and figured it had bedded down to get out of the wind. We began stalking through the grass...the doe jumped up right in front of my nephew that spotted it and he made quick work of putting it down.

When I drove into the farm at 5:45 am today and the wind was howling and it was like 13 degrees with a windshill that I am sure was below zero I didn't think we had much of a chance of seeing anything. Two deer and my other nephew had a big coyote run by him at about 3 feet. Its been an awesome Thanksgiving Day so far...it can only get better, right? Bring on the mashed potatoes and turkey.

Frozen Tundra

I am heading out to the frozen tundra this morning. It is Thanksgiving Day. It has been a pretty special day for me. It means I get to go hunting this morning and get to enjoy an awesome dinner with family for lunch. Its not quite opening day feeling, but still a pretty special feeling day. So I am going to go and sit in a tree and enjoy this bone chilling wind and snow. Hopefully I don't freeze to the tree and miss lunch.

Winter Wonderland

This whiteness is crazy. I had three people today mistake tomorrow (Thanksgiving) for Christmas...must be the snow throwing everyone off. Oh well it is supposed to be warmer and rainy next week so it will probably feel like spring outside.

Well tomorrow I am heading out to the woods before we devour the turkey. I am pretty excited. Snow adds such a different dimesion to deer hunting. You can see so well. Movement of the brown variety stands out like a sore thumb. You can see tracks, which can be both good and bad. Good because you can see where deer are moving and bad because you can see there are no deer or your blind and missed the deer. It could be a good morning with the cold front moving in at daybreak...only time will tell.

This snow is also setting off the bunny hunting itch. My beagles, Penny and Abby, have noticed the snow and are giving me that evil look of, hey did you notice the snow...you always take us out to chase those things when there is snow, so lets go. To bad they are going to have to wait another month.

We lost power today...it actually just came back on. Its amazing how we take things like that for granted, you never think about it unless its a cold, snowy day and its freezing in your house and dark.

Well I've got to go do my stomach stretching for tomorrow...got to get ready for the stuffing, turkey, corn, beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, and apple pie.

Hamtramck

Last Saturday was one of those days where I woke up with no idea what was in store. Little did I know I was going on a cultural expedition. We were heading out to New Baltimore, a suburb of Detroit, to a birthday party for Natasha's cousin's daughter. On the way there we were to make a stop in Hamtramck.

So we left early so that we could make a pit stop at a store in Hamtramck. Natasha and her relatives have this...I would call it an obsession with Polish Pottery. In the midst of Hamtramck there is a Polish Pottery store. I know wooohooo! The drive was pretty uneventful until we were almost there and we hit a dead stop of traffic. We sat and inched and sat for almost an hour. The highway was closed because of an accident and we were detoured off the highway. Natasha grabbed a map and took us a different way than all the other traffic. She is pretty amazing and got us back onto the highway at the next on-ramp. We made it to the Polish Pottery store. This is pretty much where it got interesting.

The owner of the store is interesting...that would be the best way to put it. After looking at all the pottery in 5 minutes I realized Natasha, her sister, and cousins were going to take a bit longer. That would be the first thing I didn't wake up planning on doing...being in a polish pottery stores with 5 woman who are polish pottery addicts...it was scary. Luckily the store had a book section on Polish history. Then the second thing...the store owner decided that I really needed to try some of her pickled garlic...yeah, I had no idea when I woke up I would be eating pickled garlic before 11 am. It actually wasn't to bad...tasted like a pickle, not garlic. After looking at everything in the store for my 5th time I was excited to see the checkout process was about to begin. Then the third thing...for one of Natasha's cousins it was her first time purchasing polish pottery and Natasha's sister made a comment about taking a moment to celebrate the occasion. Well that is not something you say in front of this store owner...I think it was more of a challenge for her. It started out with taking a picture of the occasion then we had to take a picture at the wall of pottery...not just any picture...we had to hold glasses as if we were saying cheers...no that wasn't good enough...I got a polish man's hat with a feather in on my head a scarf around my neck and everyone else was given some sort of polish outfit from the owner to wear for the photo. On the way out she gave us all some chocolate candy...it turned out to be some sort of alcohol encased in chocolate.

I did not wake up expecting to be eating garlic, dressing up for a picture, and having a candy shot all before lunch. As much as I joked and complained I had a great time...its fun to have days when you can look back and say, I had no idea when I woke up that I would be...

It was fun to be at Gwen's first birthday party. It was great to see a hungry kid with her own cake and no rules.

Walk the Line

I went to see Walk the Line, a movie about the life of Johnny Cash, tonight. It hit home...hard. Not that my life is exactly like his...I can't even sing and clap at the same time, I might fall over...but I lost a brother also. That's where the similarity with Johnny Cash is, it starts and ends there. It ends there because I never knew my brother, he died before I was born. We didn't get to run, play, and fish together. I guess I probably share some of the same emotions and feelings too. The anger, guilt, unanswered questions...

I have never understood why. Why I never knew my brother, why he got leukemia, why God took him from my family...Why? I wonder what he looked like, what he liked, what he did, and a lot of other things like that. I wonder what life would be like if he was still alive.

So I drove home tonight with tears streaming down my face, wondering why?

I have had three straight nights of none to little sleep. It seems like I have so much on my mind...its racing, wondering that question of why about so many things.