Monkey Arms

Happy Last Throwback Thursday!

I have enjoyed sharing some points from my past that have helped shape who I am today. I hope you have enjoyed reading!

I feel like, writing as a woman, body image issues have to be addressed. I decided to be really brave and share what I am most self-conscious about.

My arm hair. (Please note: This picture does not do it justice! There is so much!)

My parents both plenty of arm hair so I am doubly "blessed" and have even more than both of them! It really started showing around my middle school years - perfect timing right? In the 7th and 8th grade, a group of boys started calling me "Monkey Arms" and as us girls waited in the lunch line (they separated each grade into two lunch sessions - boys and girls) they would point, laugh, and comment. Around that same time, those boys saw a movie called "Congo" which features an ape named "Amy." Oh the irony...

I took to wearing long sleeves. I once shaved my arms and quickly realized I didn't want to have to do that every day for the rest of my life so I went back to the hairiness.

In high school, I became somewhat more okay with my hairy arms but I still did my best to hide them under long sleeves and especially in pictures. Then, around junior year, my Mama found this amazing Avon product that bleaches dark hair without turning it orange! It was a huge turning point, we invested in many bottles of it, and I finally felt like I didn't have to worry.

Then...

As I led a tour of future students and their parents, I asked if there were any questions or comments. One parent raised his hand. "Yes?" I said. He replied, "Dang girl! You have the hairiest arms I have ever seen!"

Yes. A parent said that!

Geez.

By college I stopped caring and quite honestly with the exception of wedding pictures and holding Annabeth pictures I have forgotten to hide them. Then...

Last fall, my best friend and I went to a new nail salon to treat ourselves to pedicures and manicures. All was going well until the manicure, I rolled up my sleeves, the manicurist began the process. Then she giggled. A tiny, little giggle. I immediately thought of my arm hair. Then I thought, "No. Amy. Stop. It's not about that." More tittering, giggling. Finally, in a Cambodian accent, "Oh. You have hair like monkey." Fits of laughter.

So...there you have it...I am most self-conscious about my arm hair. My monkey arm hair to be exact. But, in the end, Mark says he doesn't mind it and Annabeth loves to brush it so I guess it's okay with me :)

Words from my Younger Self

Happy Throwback Thursday!

In true Throwback fashion I have reread my high school journals and am including some wise (perhaps beyond my years) words. Enjoy!

10.06.03
"Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose." - The Wonder Years

10.16.03
I have had one of the happiest, most joyful weeks of my life. Why, you might ask. Well, I have no idea. Nothing superb or amazing has happened and yet I am sitting on top of the world. Major annoyances are being taken in stride and all of my world feels okay. Hmm...who am I? Oh, to be 16!

12.31.03
As always, I must use the last day of the year to reflect on the year as a whole. - This was my butterfly year. I spread my wings and learned to fly. I gave my time and love to the world. I left little bits of me all over the country. In this year, I allowed myself to tell someone how I really felt. My New Year's Resolution for 2004: to allow myself to fully love someone AND accept their love in return. I aim to dive in the deep end just to see what it feels like to sink, swim, or float.

02.14.04
Today I am 17! My first words of wisdom and a great lesson to include in my journal is that: no matter what happens with others learn from that person who you do or don't want to be. The hardest thing to do is say nothing at all. Happy Birthday Amy!

07.11.04
I came home from Lakeview yesterday. Oh goodness, I love that place! Maybe it is the constant awareness of God surrounding me or the time in nature, the people, or the love. I cannot pinpoint it but I love it. I cannot say I learned any huge life lessons however I grew so much in my faith these past two weeks.
"Amazing love, How can it be, That you my King would die for me. It's my joy to honor You, in all I do, I honor You."

04.21.05
Lately I have been feeling very unappreciated by certain friends. So much so that I have withdrawn from a lot of people and social situations. I had confided this in Treva earlier this week in a phone call. Then today, in band class, Treva gives me this note and and a bag. The note says "Thanks for it all! I love you!" She told me to open the bag. I expected a poptart or candy but when I opened the bag it was a whole bag of notes saying "Thank You." She had gone to all of our friends and had them write to me. It was by far one of the sweetest and best moments of my life.
**Note: I still have this bag of notes and each time we clean out my dresser I take the time to read them and smile. Proof that the little things matter so much**

07.12.05
In the insanity of my return to reality from the beauty of Lakeview, I struggled to find a way to write this. I know that it will not be perfect nor will it come close to being able to express my emotions I feel but I am going to try. There's this song called "Breathe" and the last two lines are "I'm lost without You, I'm desperate for You."
I've sung that song every summer at camp and I have always liked those lines but never fully grasped their meaning. But the night of Jesus Walk there was a huge storm. It had started as just rain so we were trying to hurry from station to station. My little girls were scared of the storm and some were whimpering. My cabin was on the porch of Ottawa and a huge branch fell on the roof. The whimpering turned to screaming and we ran through the woods back to the dinning hall. As I ran holding hands, with two very afraid little girls, I realized I was completely helpless. I couldn't stop the rain or the thunder or the lightening. So, as we ran I said, "Let's pray!" I said one of the most desperate prayers of my life. I prayed that all of camp would safely reach the dinning hall, that the Lord would calm the little ones fears, and that the storm would end soon.
When I got home and reflected on my two weeks as a JC I kept going back to that moment and I realized it was like the song. I was lost I was desperate, and I turned to Him.

And from my last day of my first year at UofL:

05.05.06
It's the middle of the afternoon and I am sitting outside of the UofL Library. 9 months ago, I sat on the other side of this sidewalk and wrote about being so proud of living my first day alone at college. I remember walking around campus and finding each building for my classes. There were no people, just me. Today is much like that. I felt the need to complete this year as I started it. 9 months ago the walk here was so exciting because each new turn on the path was new and unexplored. On my walk here today, I smiled as each turn holds a memory. This year I did things I never dreamt of doing and also things my heart could never have even dreamt they were all so wonderful. I poured my heart and soul into this place and these people. I have no regrets on how I spent my time or who I spent it with. I think about how many hundreds of times I stopped my life and just fully appreciated and loved the moment I was in. I fully loved the peopled I met here. I haven't wasted many moments and the few I did were just because I wasn't fully soaking in the moment or loving the person I was with. I feel so much peace in my life and love and my heart.

I love that last entry especially. It was so true and hopeful and pure. That month my life changed completely as I lost one of my closest friends in a car accident and met Mark the week after that. But for this one entry, this one moment, life was just perfect at 19.

Words from my younger self, so much to learn from, even now.

Infertility.

Infertility.

I first heard this word at 20. It was fall of my final year of college and for about six months I had been in horrible pain during certain times of the month. Finally, I called home and told my mom I needed to see a doctor. 2 visits and 2 ultrasounds later I learned the words Endometriosis and Infertility.

Mark and I had been engaged since the summer before. We had discussed wanting children (him 2-3 and me 1-2) and just assumed they would be part of our lives after we married. I drove to visit Mark at school and we went through everything the doctors had said. I told him I wanted him to really think about marrying me. I knew that, more than anything, he wanted children and I knew that he was not necessarily open to adoption. I told him that I needed him to really pray and be sure that I was still the future wife for him. He did. He said I was. And in the months that followed the Lord opened Mark's heart to the idea of adoption.

We married in May 2009. We decided that we would allow the Lord to give us children when and how He saw fit. Then we waited. And waited. And waited.

A year in I saw my family doctor and we were referred to a specialist (read VERY expensive doctor) on the north side of Indy. I called the office and was scheduled six months out and nearly fainted when I heard the cost of one office visit. During that time, I switched family practitioners and found a wonderful doctor in Dr. Kimberly Franklin. She was the first one who suggested that our fertility struggles did have something to do with the Endometriosis but there may have been other underlying factors. We ran a ton of tests and found that while my blood sugar always tested fine my insulin levels were 10 points higher than the high end of the scale. I started on Metformin and changed my diet. She suggested a vitamin plan for Mark and myself. We foolishly thought this was the magic cure-all. I fully expected to be pregnant within the first few months of those changes. Still nothing.

It seemed every other week someone we knew was announcing a pregnancy: "We weren't even trying!" or "I cannot believe it's our third!" or "We just got drunk, I guess I'll marry her now." Every woman I knew had some crazy advice - and I tried ALL of it! It began to really consume our lives, the want for a child. We kept praying that adoption would feel right but it never did. We really felt the Lord answering a firm "no" to that prayer. That made it all feel even worse - not only did the Lord not see fit to give us a biological child but also was giving us strong feelings against adoption. We canceled the appointment with the fertility specialist. I shut down. I could no longer attend baby showers, shop for children, go to the mall (because every pregnant teenager would cause me to breakdown right then and there), I would avoid facebook and blogs in case someone else was revealing a pregnancy.

In October 2010, we put away the charts, the calender, the thermometer and we just gave up. No more. We decided that in the new year we would begin the adoption process even if we still felt the Lord saying "no." It was one of the lowest points in my life. The holidays that year were very less than merry - we were just trying to survive. All I could think was "How many more until we have a child?"

On New Year's Eve, I made the resolution to be happy as a family of 2. I vowed to enjoy the life the Lord had given me.

We started the year off busier than ever. We never got around to getting the adoption process started. We welcomed a visit from the SD Riley's, Mark worked Boy Scout Winter Camp, I hosted a ladies junk exchange - we started living again. Then, January 28, 2011 we realized that it wasn't just the two of us living life - we were THREE!

Everyday of expecting Annabeth, we lived in fear her little life would end. I counted hours between appointments to hear her heartbeat. We lived for that 20 week ultrasound. I slept so little and threw up so much. And then this happened. Then, by God's amazing grace, she was ours.

The name Anna means "God is merciful." We chose it because it's beautiful and it is in part a family name but in the end it fit so perfectly. God is in fact merciful. We are so blessed.

We know friends who have to adopt who are still waiting, after years, for a baby. We know friends who have been trying for years to conceive. We know that to those our nearly 2 year journey through infertility is nothing. To them we are blessed beyond measure - they are right.

God is merciful. To Him be all the glory.

Forever: When I Knew Heaven was Real

I spent three summers as a Junior Counselor (JC) at Camp Lakeview - the camp I had grown up attending and loving. In my first summer as a JC, I was really growing in my faith as a personal relationship. Having grown up in the church and with a Christian family I had known "the basics" my whole life. I knew that God made the world in 6 days, I knew the Old Testament Sunday School Favorites (Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, Jonah) and most importantly I knew that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. I knew that he died on the cross for me - for you - and that because He paid the ultimate price we are able to live in Heaven with Him forever.

But was this heaven real?

In my young life, my great-grandparents and a boy from school had gone Home. I remembered bits and pieces of their funerals and what adults had said to me. "It's okay. They are in heaven." But that heaven part never felt real or personal to me. I figured it would be where I would go...someday because I believed in God and Jesus Saved Me.

Then, one summer night, while our JC group led the campfire devotions we sang this song:

The nails in Your hands

The nails in Your feet

tell me how much You love me.
The thorns on Your brow
They tell me how
You bore so much shame to love me.

And when the Heavens pass away
All Your scars will still remain
And forever they will say
Just how much You love me.

Forever my love
Forever my heart
Forever my life is Yours
It's Yours

I had sung this particular song dozens of times as a camper, in the months away from camp, and now as as JC. I loved the way it sounded musically. But that night, standing by the tree in front of Lakeview's campfire it hit me: Heaven is real. It's where I am going. Forever. 

I closed my eyes and for the first time ever I really sang the words: "Forever my love. Forever my heart. 
Forever my life is Yours. It is Yours." 
Forever. My. Life. Is. Yours. 
I recommitted my heart to the Lord that night, forever. 

Waiting to Kiss

I was 16 years old and I had been "dating without the labels" my best friend since the summer. It was my first love and then I was convicted and my whole life changed.

It was the night before Christmas break. We had just spent a lovely evening with dear friends and exchanged Christmas gifts. He walked me out to my car as snowflakes fell around us. The driveway was surrounded by snow covered trees and twinkling Christmas lights. It felt like the end of every romance movie I had ever seen. He leaned in to kiss me. I panicked! I quickly hugged him and drove off crying.

On the way home I had this conversation:

"What the heck Amy? Seriously?! You've been waiting for that moment for months. Go back. Go back. You're 16, kiss him."

Then I heard this, plain as day, as though someone was in the car and said it to me:

"You should only kiss one man. Your husband."

"Ummm...What?"

"One Man. Your Husband."

I pulled into a parking lot and prayed.

I spent the next few months really struggling with this. I was a Christian, I went to church, my parents went to church, but they had not made this particular decision. Many of my friends were Christians but they had not made this decision. They all had first kisses years before. It was confusing. I always had known that I wanted to save sex for marriage but it seemed like everyone was kissing everyone. It was lonely. Most of all, it at the time created a broken heart, as I didn't know how to explain to my 17 year old boyfriend that I did not want to kiss anyone until I was sure they were who I was to marry. That lack of honesty and communication caused me to withdraw my heart from the relationship and ultimately it ended, albeit into friendship, within a month of "the" night.

My freshman year at UofL I became involved with Campus Crusade for Christ (CRU) and in those Bible studies I met quite a few young women and men who not only were saving sex for marriage but also limited the physical intimacy in their relationships. Finally, other people felt like I did. It was so wonderful and so refreshing to be able to talk about it.

At 19 I met Mark, we began dating, we quickly approached our relationship as a courtship where we knew that we were planning to become engaged quickly with marriage to follow in God's time. Our first kiss was September 2, 2006 at Franklin College. It was the perfect moment. The moment I had waited SO long for.

I am so blessed to had my first kiss be my one, my always, my forever, and someday, before I return Home, my last.

Me and Mark on our First Wedding Anniversary - 05.23.10

(No one wants to see people kissing pictures so this will have to do!)

Linked to: Raising Homemakers

Throwback Thursdays: Introduction

I do not have Twitter but often see the "Throwback Thursday" Twitter links on Facebook.

I have decided on the Thursdays leading up to Christmas I will post some "throwback" thoughts that may help you learn a bit more about me and some reflections on the moments that have REALLY made me, ME!

Enjoy! :)

Week One, November 21: Waiting to Kiss
Week Two, November 28: Forever: When I Knew Heaven was Real
Week Three, December 5: Infertility
Week Four, December 12: Words from my Younger Self
Week Five, December 19: Monkey Arms