21
May
2007
By Pattie
(originally posted at Pattie’s Place)
This is a tough week at our house. Chaplain Hubby is shipping out for the “World’s Largest Beach.” I have been reading “mil-spouse” (military wives and husbands) boards and blogs of all branches of service, but nothing has prepared me for the heaviness of heart and sadness I feel as his departure looms ever nearer. The longest we’ve ever been apart up till now is with a military assignment which was around five weeks.
I have it so very easy compared to others. I met a woman a few weeks ago who cannot talk to her husband the entire year he is deployed. He’s in special ops of some kind and is in communicado. Another wife I know is home alone with her two sons while her husband has a remote assignment for a year. Thankfully he has leave around the holidays, and can come home, but then back he goes. I worked as a para one year for a teacher who had that same situation, and it was okay. Tough, but okay. Four months is nothing in comparison.
If you think of me, pray for us, my girls and I. We’ll be fine, and we’ll be strong, and we’ll stay very busy and play and pray and travel and keep a scrapbook and take lots of pictures on my new Mother’s Day/anniversary camera and go swimming and play at parks and attend a wedding and visit family and see our friends and eat fast food sometimes . . . and miss him with all our hearts.
Written By: Pattie
Posted under: On Being a Parent, Women's Voices . 
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14
March
2007
By Pattie
There is a praise song, the chorus of which is:
God of wonders beyond our galaxy, You are holy, holy
The universe declares Your majesty, You are holy, holy
Lord of Heaven and Earth
My ten-year-old was singing at the top of her voice,
God of wonders, beyond our wildest dreams, You are holy, holy
I said, “Did you know the real words are…” and I told her. She shrugged and said, “I like my way better.”
I think I do, too.
Written By: Pattie
Posted under: On Being a Parent . Email This Post
24
February
2007
Several years ago, there was a Super Bowl commercial for Mountain Dew (click here to watch the commercial on YouTube). There is a guy (who actually happens to be my actor cousin) riding a dirt bike, chasing a cheetah over the rocky terrain. He finally catches up to the cheetah, pulls out an empty Mountain Dew can, and says, “Bad cheetah!”
The best line is the last one, where the biker’s friend says, “See? That’s why I’m not a cat person!”
I was thinking about cats and dogs today, when I read an online friend’s blog and saw that her family adopted a new dog. I’m absolutely a dog person, not a cat person. There have only been two cats who have tolerated me: KittyKat, whom I used to watch in high school when her family went out of town, and Buttons, my best friend’s cat who lived with us one month when my allergic husband was away.
My dog now is Princess Buttercup, an adopted spoiled rotten cocker spaniel who is a great companion to me. Why is she so great? Well, she’s loyal while also slightly neurotic (she likes to tear up used kleenex while I’m out and leave the pieces out for me to clean up when I come home). She’s always home with me, and she responds to my voice. She comes to me when I call her. She’s a good lap warmer when I’m on the couch. And she listens.
There is no doubt who is Princess’s master. It’s me. Always. My husband says when I’m gone, she goes upstairs and sleeps. She doesn’t really come to life, not really, until I’m home.
Mark Twain has a quotation about dogs that I absolutely adore:
“Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.”
I hope that I’m as loyal to Christ as my dog is to me.
So, are you a cat person? Or a dog person?
Written By: Pattie
Posted under: Women's Voices . Email This Post
5
January
2007
By Pattie
Yep, I’m a resolutions girl. Every year, without fail, I make a list of ways I’d like to improve, things I’d like to accomplish or finish, and promises I make to myself and to God.
In fact, making new resolutions is one resolution I keep each year!
This year was no exception. I made my list. I tried to make it as realistic and reachable as possible, but I still went above and beyond what I will probably be able to accomplish. And that’s okay.
I’d like to think I learned something valuable about myself in 2006 that I carry into 2007: I set myself up for failure far too much.
It’s true. I do. Then I beat myself up for it. It’s a vicious cycle.
Therefore, for 2007 I’ve decided to work with my procrastinating, perfectionistic personality as it is. Instead of trying to change who I am into someone I could never hope to be, I’ll try to accomplish my goals in spite of my shortcomings. My theory is if I work with who I already am, I’ll be more likely to succeed.
Ask me in a year how it worked.
Written By: Pattie
Posted under: Women's Voices . Email This Post
20
November
2006
By Pattie
I had a terrific birthday this week. What hit me hard, though, was the number. Both my parents mentioned it in their happy birthday phone calls. They cannot believe I am 37 years old. Thirty-seven? What? When did that happen?
Apparently all those silver hairs that I cover up (with artificial yet stunning hair-color-from-a-box) don’t lie.
I am closer to forty than thirty. And that feels strange. It feels especially odd since I do not feel old. I feel pretty darn good, actually.
Finding out which celebrities are my age always gives me pause. I study their faces on the big (or small) screen and wonder. I wonder if I look my age, if they look their ages, and what my age should really look like anyway. I also think, “Wow, she has an Oscar. What do I have?â€
There’s nothing like a good birthday to make a girl count her blessings.
I have health, a husband who sent me flowers when he was gone on my birthday, two adorable and beautiful (completely objective opinion, you understand) daughters, friends who love me from afar, a dog who lies at my feet as I write, and that’s just the beginning of my list.
As we approach the Thanksgiving season a bit more quickly than usual this year, take a moment to list some blessings.
Don’t forget to add hair color to the list, for me.
Written By: Pattie
Posted under: Women's Voices . Email This Post
9
October
2006
by Pattie
Vasthi’s post about finding her own journals reminded me of something I wrote last year. My writer’s group at the time loved it. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it too!
_____
I met myself the other day.
My fourteen-year-old self, that is.
While preparing a seminar on the benefits of keeping a journal, I was reading my old high school journal notebooks. There are five of them, all Mead spiral notebooks such as I used for my schoolwork. The handwriting is round and loopy, the color of ink varies with mood, and the expressions embarrassingly dated.
I was surprised by fourteen-year-old Pattie. She had self-esteem issues, put entirely too much emphasis on boys, worried about her friends, and stressed about her hair. She spent a lot of time at church and wrestling out her faith on paper.
She was silly, she liked to have a good time, she loved her family. She was incredibly innocent. She wrote about her dreams for the future.
Want to know something? I have fulfilled many of her dreams. I have taught high school English. I am married and have two beautiful girls. It’s good to know that young Pattie would be happy to know this.
There are times at age thirty-five that I feel like I’m nowhere near as grown-up as I should be for the age I am. I still have self-esteem issues, I worry constantly about my friends, and I still hate bad hair days. But reading my own words from twenty-one years away sure makes me realize how much I have grown up and learned and changed.
28 March 2005
Written By: Pattie
Posted under: Women's Voices . Email This Post
15
September
2006
originally posted at Pattie’s blog.
I love hymns. One of the very very cool things about the Air Force Protestant chapel’s “blended” worship service is that the song leader picks a hymn and a chorus that thematically and musically “flow” together. I like to think of it using a real-life picture: the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. If you’ve ever been up in the Gateway Arch in St. Louis on a clear day, you’ve seen this.
The confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers (read here for more info and pictures) is truly amazing. The Mississippi and Missouri are both known as “muddy” rivers, but from the Arch it’s the Missouri River that appears browner. The Mississippi looks clear and sparkling in comparison. Yet together, both rivers make up the fourth longest river system in the world. They work together, if you will. The two rivers flow together and even though there’s a distinct color difference on a clear day, they are still rivers and they still converge. There isn’t a land break or a sand bar in between them. Just water.
To me, it’s the same thing with worship music. And no, I’m not calling either type of music “muddy”!
I have friends who scoff at hymns and hymnals (jokingly, I hope!), while others couldn’t dream of singing anything else in church. I have been in churches that didn’t sing anything but the “old” hymns (where a Twila Paris chorus was “that new music”), and I’ve been in churches that sing nothing but praise choruses. I think a mixture is in order. I think it’s best when the rivers work together to do the job they were created to do.
My soul thrills at singing a familiar hymn, then on the last chorus hearing the drums speed things up, the keyboard and guitar playing in tandem, to lead us into a praise chorus taken straight from the songwriter’s walk with God. Blended.
Yeah, I like that.
Written By: Pattie
Posted under: Women's Voices . Email This Post
6
September
2006
We’re all sinners in desperate need of a savior. We need the grace of God every single day. Nobody’s perfect. But everyone needs friends. Someone to talk to face-to-face, to laugh with, to cry with.
I am blessed beyond measure to count two best friends, the kind I could call at 3am if I needed to. These two gals have been with me through it all. They stood by me through a painful betrayal by someone I counted a friend (causing me to have some trust issues, which is why I am careful about what I post about myself and my family online), as well as through my parents’ divorce a few years ago after 36 years of marriage. They met through me and decided they are twins separated at birth. We’ve laughed together and cried together, volunteered at Women of Faith together, and consumed lots of coffee together.
I tend to have trust issues, as I mentioned before. I hold back and focus on the surface stuff. Easy stuff. Stuff that doesn’t take much sharing. However, a Bible study a couple summers ago on John Ortberg’s If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat really changed my thinking about Trust. Walking on water means you have to get out of the boat, even in the storm. The ladies from my home church are much different from the ones in the previous church who betrayed me and my trust. These ladies, of all ages and walks of life, build each other up. One lady whom I now count as a good friend even shared how God provided for them through a devastating house fire and subsequent rebuilding and birth of their fourth child. It was so neat to hear her be vulnerable and share how much she depends on God. THAT is friendship. Trust. Love. Hugs and kleenex.
As I begin again to learn to trust new women in our new congregation in the Air Force, I am reminded of these lessons I’ve had to relearn my whole moving life.
Who would like to walk on the water with me? Hop on out of that boat and let’s Trust.
Written By: Pattie
Posted under: Women's Voices . Email This Post
25
August
2006
Note from Meredith: This is Pattie’s first Violet Voices post! Welcome, Pattie! Thank you for sharing with us.
I hate to iron. It’s hard work, particularly because I tend to iron in almost as many wrinkles as I iron out. My husband is a minister, so of course he must have his dress clothing ironed.
One particular day several years ago, I was ironing a white shirt for him to wear to a difficult funeral. This funeral was going to be difficult because it was for a well-loved deacon’s wife in our new church. We hadn’t been able to spend much time with her, but she’d lived years beyond what the doctors predicted for her with her chronic heart condition. One morning, she didn’t wake up in her home, but in heaven. Can you imagine one morning waking up in the presence of Jesus? What a morning.
Anyway, back to the shirt. It’s a difficult one to iron because it’s 100% cotton and very easily wrinkled, but very sharp-looking once it’s finished. I was ironing away, when suddenly I realized the analogy: we are like 100% cotton shirts, and we sure get wrinkled, don’t we? Circumstances certainly work against us and wrinkle us all up. But our Heavenly Father irons our wrinkles, perhaps spraying us with some water or uses the steam to get the deep or difficult wrinkles smooth and beautiful again. When He’s finished, we look pretty sharp!
Unfortunately, I have to iron shirts again, don’t you? They get wrinkled and dirty, so we launder them and have to re-iron the same shirts. We also have the same wrinkles that reappear, don’t we? Just like my husband’s shirts get wrinkled in the same places each time (around the waist, at the elbows), we wrinkle in the same places (feeling sorry for ourselves, selfishness, attitudes that aren’t pleasing to the Lord, complacency, and the list goes on and on). I know I struggle consistently with some of the same sins, and feel sometimes like I will never learn the same lessons. Does the Lord get tired of ironing the same spots over and over? Do I feel the pressure of the heat and steam of the iron? Of course it isn’t comfortable. Just like the refiner’s fire, or the potter’s molding and firing, or even the washing machine (all analogies of the Christian life with which we’re familiar), the Lord’s working in our lives doesn’t always feel good. However, we rest assured that He who began a good work in us will perfect it till the day of Christ Jesus, right? Even if that means we have to be thumped, baked, steamed, pressed flat, and otherwise re-molded in Christ’s image, we still want Him to continue working in our lives.
I know there are times I don’t want to go through this ironing process. It hurts, and it doesn’t feel good to acknowledge all the wrinkles that I have in my life. But when the day comes that I wake up in the presence of Jesus, I want to be wrinkle-free.
For I am confident of this very thing,
That He who began a good work in you
Will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
Philippians 1:6
Written By: Pattie
Posted under: Women's Voices . Email This Post
