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The next place we moved is really important. I don't think any of us knew it at the time, but it was REALLY important. Sometime during the summer after 7th grade, in Linneus, we began making plans to move to a small town in Texas, called Oakhurst. I'm going to try to remember as many details about this as i can. I remember that i got a letter before we moved, from a girl in the church where we were going, who was my age. Her name is Kristi. Kristi had been praying for a Christian friend, and she wrote me a letter to say hello and welcome me to our new church. It felt really really good to have someone waiting for me, expecting me to be their friend. Kristi's dad is/was a builder, and he was still in the process of building the church parsonage when we moved, so we got to stay in a really neat house owned by Kristi's uncle. I thought it was a neat house because it had a finished basement with a big bathroom, and it opened up to the back yard. That worked because t...

After Brookfield, we moved to Linneus. Linneus was about 15-ish miles from Brookfield and a smaller town. We lived in a bright yellow two-story house, and it was 7th grade. I remember turning 12 that year. Linneus had a mini-mall, which i think was an old school, where 3 or 4 people had opened up shops for icecream and hamburgers or something. In Linneus, i learned that i didn't have the stamina to reply with love to boys who called me "Thunder Thighs" on the bus. I also learned how to fight with and beat boys who abused their younger siblings (that was eye-opening and weird.) I learned that even though 3 minutes didn't seem like long enough in between bells, that i could get to class with plenty of time to spare. This was after some months of 7 daily near heart attacks ever time the bell rang, but i learned. I got a weird nick name in Linneus. *I had a history teacher with a speech impediment, who called me Beff. *Some classmates thought that was great and started ...

Brookfield is where our new rental house was. About 30 minutes/miles away from Chillicothe as i recall. I can't say i remember what the plan was there. We were only in Brookfield over the summer months. I was home alone a lot while my parents were working, and i remember trying to make myself like coffee. It was time, i decided, for me to grow up and learn to like coffee. After all, i was nearly 13 years old, (or was it 12?), and it's very important to take those steps to do those adult things so that people will see that you're an adult......or something like that. I tried very hard to like coffee. I tried to drown it in sugar, and that didn't work. I'm not sure if i knew about cream, but at some point i gave up on coffee - until i got to college......that's when desperation inspires deep abiding love for coffee, but that's another story. I have really good memories about those months in Brookfield, and to be honest, i don't know what they were. I...

Last time (before i rabbit trailed a couple times), we were in Melrose Kansas, where i met my friend, Hannah, 14. We lived in Melrose for 10 months, and then we moved to Missouri. At first we stayed with a pastor family in Chillicothe, Missouri. I don't remember exactly what the plan was or anything, but there we were. The idea was for us to stay there just long enough for Mom and Dad to find work and a place to live. The thing about this short stay is how God answered my fervent prayers. I don't remember their house being a bad place to stay or anything, but at some point, i know we were really ready to have our own place, but things just kept stopping progress somehow. One day, i curled up in one of those round wicker things with a big round cushion, and i just wept before the Lord, and i asked Him to PLEASE give us our own house. That same day my parents came home with keys to our own house. It still makes me tear up...the feeling to know that God was listening to me, a...

Before you start reading, just know that this is a complete break from the chronology of telling you about my childhood. This is just something i want to share. A few years ago, a well-meaning family member tried to get me interested in a website about astrology. I felt wrong about it, but for the sake of social fun or whatever, i explored it just long enough to enter my birth date and time and see "what the stars would say..." All of us at this particular family gathering were surprised at the apparent accuracy of the personality profiles produced from this website, which got me more interested. And though i couldn't explain this phenomenon, i heeded the warning of the Holy Spirit in my heart to stay away from this dangerous territory. A few days ago, my husband ran across a book in the book store, which attempted to do the very same thing - and once again, he was astonished at how accurate it seems to be--that someone who he has never met could tell him specific an...

I didn't realize until this morning that i must've been feeling a little stressed out lately. I've had to get up pretty early every morning this week, and i worked late a couple of days; then today (Friday), my husband needed to take me to work 2 hours early (we share a car). So i am in the kitchen this morning around 4:50 or so, packing up a serving of the chilli mac my husband lovingly stayed up late last night to prepare for my lunch, and when i go to put the dish back in the refrigerator, it slips out of my hand, flips upside-down, and lands on the kitchen floor, breaking my only serving dish into about ten pieces, but somehow keeping all the contents clean because it all stayed on the plastic wrap that was covering the bowl. What did i do? I should've rejoiced that the contents were saved, i suppose, but i did not. Instead, i stood in my kitchen, a grown woman, stared hopelessly at the mess on the floor, and burst into loud sobbing tears. I continued to stand t...