And the Floods Came In: Fighting for my Home

I had a completely different blog planned; it was to be a part two for my Women’s Woman blog, but then in came the flood.

Many of you may have heard about the flood in Colorado, well my husband and I were part of that. Luckily we weren't right in the middle of it the worst parts. We did several inches of water pouring into our apartment that we had to fight off. While doing this I had a bit of an allegory for this came to mind.

For you to understand this, let me start at the beginning….
It was Thursday morning and I was about to attempt to go to school, even though it was pouring outside. I had a Math quiz at 9:30 am and I didn't want to make it up later. So, I put a coat, put on shoes I didn't care about getting wet, placed a towel over my backpack and trudged out into the rain. Now, I don’t drive to school, I commute via bus and train and to get to my bus stop I need to cross a busy street. I came upon this street and it was gone. The street was a fast moving river of water- I could see the current rushing past. I debated whether to try and cross and get to school. That was when I had several scenarios run through my head of what could happen if I tried crossing and none of them were good. I went home and told my husband, “I don’t feel like crossing the Nile River today.”

In the end he stayed home as well and we spent the day mopping up the water pouring into the front of our apartment and using his boss’s shop vacuum. We were at work fighting off the oncoming waters from 8 am- 4 pm.

Towards the end of the day the water had stopped rising and we could rest a bit before getting back to work. Before that one of us was squeezing out towels that we had lined against the wall. The other would be using the shop vacuum mainly on the carpet. It was hard work, but we weren't about to let that water into our home.

In the middle of all this I felt like my husband and I were fighting for our home. Yes, were fight off the flood waters, but it kind of reminded me how the world likes to invade the home and ruin what you have created. Just as the water could have ruined our carpet, furniture and books if we hadn't been attentive and stopped it.

In that one day we had vacuumed up over 100 gallons of water, and that’s not even measuring the water we squeezed from our towels. But we were determined to keep this force at bay and keep our home safe.

Problems and trials and hard times sneak their way into our home, even when we do our best to keep our home and family safe. My husband and I love our apartment, as small and quirky it is- it’s our home and place of refuge.

When that flood came we were fighting for our home in almost the same way we fight the world out of our home. Sometimes it’s all we can do to keep the problem at bay and all hands on deck are need to not sink. Sometimes we can step back and take a breather, reinforce our strength before diving back in and fighting the problem off. But, if we don’t keep an eye on it, it can leak back into our home or even find a new place to enter.

When we thought we had it all under control we found water leaking in from the neighboring apartment that is currently vacant. Back to work we went.

We had neighbors, from the last flood, which had to move because the damage was too great; I didn’t want to end up like that. I felt if we had to move that our fighting would be in vain. We worked hard to not keep us safe, but our home safe.

I’ve seen it in the world where people gave up the fight for their home and let the world stream right in and they wonder why they can’t find any peace. Or they move, hoping to find peace again. They don’t fight because they are tired of fighting.

We were certainly tired from the fight and could barely keep up with fighting off the water when a friend came with more towels. We traded out our soaked things for fresh towels to do the work our towels couldn’t keep up with anymore.

“Ask and ye shall receive knock and it shall be open unto you,” that’s what it says in the scriptures. Help did not come until we asked. Reinforcements won’t know you need help until you call out for help. (But of course it’s good to ask when see a friend losing their fight.)

Accomplished: A Women's Woman

Men look to those who are called a “Man’s Man,” such as Indiana Jones, James Bond, Han Solo, Russell Crowe in Gladiator and Mel Gibson from Braveheart and many of those superheroes. They see these men in movies or read about them and view that as being a man.

-         Tough, as in able to hold his own in a fight

-         Loyal to his friends and the woman he is with

-         Smart

-         Wants to fight or stand up for what is right or good

These men all have very clear qualities. Women on the other hand that answer wasn’t so clear. So, when I was presented with the question of who or what a Women’s Woman is I found I needed to do some research and may need a little more definition. The ladies we discussed try to lead their lives, it would seem, in ways that magnify their natural grace and show their accomplishments or talents.

And in my research of finding who the Women’s Women are and what traits they all had in common I was reminded of this scene from Jane Austen’s book Pride and Prejudice:

Bingley- Well, I think it’s amazing you young ladies have the patience to be so accomplished.

Caroline- What do you mean Charles?

Bingley- You all paint tables and play the piano and embroider cushions. I never heard of a young lady, but people say she is accomplished.

Darcy- The word is indeed applied too liberally. I cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen women in all my acquaintance that are truly accomplished.

Caroline-  Nor I, to be sure.

Elizabeth- Goodness… You must comprehend a great deal in the idea.

Darcy- I do.

Caroline- Absolutely… She must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing and the modern languages, to deserve the word… And something in her air and manner of walking.

Darcy- And, of course, she must improve her mind by extensive reading.

Elizabeth- I’m no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any.

Darcy- Are you so severe on your own sex?

Elizabeth- I never saw such a woman. She would certainly be a fearsome thing to behold.

You’re probably wondering why I was reminded on this insignificant scene of one of the most well known and beloved stories by women. Well, you’ll understand pretty soon.

I did get a wide range of answers from women like Audrey Hepburn, Xena Warrior Princess, Princess Kate Middleton, Wonder Woman, etc. But the qualities and traits that appeared the most that were had by the kind of women that appear even in the outliers had some similar traits as well. All-in-all they were, using the word from the Victorian Era, “accomplished.”

You see, when a young lady was accomplished in the Victorian Era in America and Europe it meant she had many skills that helped her become connected and be respected in society. Her skills would often precede her allowing her to do well in the world.

Now, I, being a lover of words, looked up the word accomplished and was led this definition, “proficient as the result of practice or training… Having social accomplishments.”

After reading this definition I had the idea that it’s “ladies” who are considered accomplished; so I looked up the word lady and found: “A woman of refinement.”

I then wondered what the dictionary had to say about the word refine. I found this under to refine, “to improve… to free from what is coarse, vulgar or uncouth.”

This led me to come to the conclusion that an accomplished lady is one that tries to improve herself and become better than what she was or is and possibly tries to be her best self and to smooth her rough edges, avoids vulgarity. It’s not that she seeks perfection, but she has that drive to seek out to become more.

No one can be perfect in this life (excluding Jesus Christ himself), but most have that drive to better themselves and be accomplished if not in many things but in something.

This drive is what I found in common among the names given to me as examples of a Women’s Woman. They all were or are talented and done well in their field of choice.

-Audrey Hepburn: A talented, classy actress who started the timeless trend of that “little black dress” that is a must have for all women.

- Kate Middleton: fashionably modest princess of our day.

- Marjorie Hinckley: An excellent example of a mother and wife to the former President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

- Hermione Granger: The fictional young lady from the Harry Potter Series who is clever, loyal, brave and well-loved by all fans of this series.

- Maggie Smith: The skilled actress who seems to be amazing at every character she plays.

Others that were mentioned were Julie Andrews, Sandra Bullock, Mandy Moore, as well as Anne Romney. Some fictional women are Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Eyre and Dr. Jane Gray.

            Some notable qualities the all possess are:

-         Talented

-         Kind-hearted

-         Graceful

-         Classy

-         Quiet Strength

-         Comfortable with who they are

-         Loyal to family and friends

-         Clean image

I can go on and list more women, but then that would be redundant. There are many other note-worthy and great women who are talented and made something of themselves, in politics and in other fields such as, art, sports, etc. These appeared the most.

I’m not saying we ought to model ourselves after these ladies or even worship them, but I am admitting that they seem to be on the track to something good. Why is it that people seek out to know about these ladies of fame and fortune? Why is it that Clothes Company try to copy their style so people can dress like them? We are drawn to them, we see things in them that we want; talent, confidence, classiness, gracefulness.

Now, I’m not saying these ladies have it all together in their private lives, but they can hold themselves together and not spill their private problem out for all to see, at least they seem to try. They have this quiet strength that helps them move forward.

We as women, I’ll have to admit that we, in some way big or small, we are drawn to these ladies. We are drawn to the same way the men are drawn to their action stars and heroes. We want to know about them and how they came to be who they are. We want to know their thoughts on certain subjects. It’s even true for the everyday ladies in our lives.  Think of that friend or woman you admire because they have this certain way about them that draws people to them in a good way.

It can be said about these ladies, “They light up a room simply by entering it”.  In our hearts we want to be like that. I’m not saying we want to be popular or famous. We want to be talented, strong (but not course), graceful, confident, and timeless. We all want that moment even if it is just once where when we enter the room and we light it up.

The sad part of all of this is that most of us don’t think that this will ever happen to us; that we will ever reach this point. Doubt, our own lack of faith in ourselves and the world tries to prevent us from getting there. The world tries to make this ideal seem unreachable or not something that ought to be reached. These ideas turn women the other directions. On one extreme of the spectrum women could turn harsh and controlling or on the other end, where we think we are untalented or the only talent is catching guy’s attention.

Think about it, there are the “strong” business or political women who have that masculinity about them, as they try to leave their femininity behind assuming that is a weakness. The other women on the other spectrum they are sex symbols. Pamela Anderson’s only obvious skill was able to look good while running down a beach. There are also women, like Paris Hilton, who are famous because of their looks or they have successful parents. In the end these women are just girls, making a mockery of what it means to be a woman.

I’ve seen this in women today, ordinary women. Women who think they have to be “strong” and independent and not let anyone in, leaving behind their gracefulness. Then the other women who think the only thing they assume they are good at is looking pretty and/or drawing in the attentions of guys.

These girls don’t have much in the way of hobbies or developed talents. I’ve seen them many times in my life. Ask them what they are good at or what they like to do and the kind of respond they will give is something like, “I dunno…”

What many people don’t realize is that when someone is good at something confidence comes with that. Women who find their worth beyond guys and within themselves are on their way to becoming a Woman’s Woman.

Safe Place

It’s been said to be peaceful and “…turn the other cheek…” as Christians, but what many people don’t know  is that God wants us to be warriors for we are in enemy’s territory when we are in the world.

            In Ephesians 6:11-17,

“Put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.”

So, weeks ago we were discussing this scripture in a Sunday School for women in my church. We talked about this scripture, to use it as a tool to stand in holy places. We aren’t to just to idly stand by to let the hard world beat down on our different morals, but we are to find strength in the symbolic armor of God and stand in safe places.

            Well, in this Sunday School class I made a comment about how, my husband and I like to keep our home safe, so when we come home we can take off our armor and rest. After I made this comment the teacher declared, “No! Never take of the armor!”

            I tried to explain my thoughts by saying something along the lines of, “…of getting away to a place where we don’t have to fight all the time.”

Now, like many times before, the right words have come to me.

            Like in any war there is armor, we where something to protect our body. But like any armor it won’t hold up forever, it won’t protect us from hits always. Like in any war there are safety points, home bases where the soldiers can rest, heal from their wounds and repair their armor. Even in a child’s game of tag we create a “home base” to catch our breath.

            Now to recap about the symbolic armor of God there is…

-          Girt our loins with truth

-          Breastplate of righteousness

-          Shod our feet with preparation of the gospel of peace

-          Shield of faith

-          Helmet of salvation

-          Sword of the Spirit

Each piece of this armor and with its weapons is needed to protect us and fight off the attacks of the Adversary and those who fight for him. But in any battle with any soldier repairs are needed to protect our heart and stay standing strong. Even a sword needs sharpening.

Yet, fighting again and again gets tiring and our sword can get dull. So what can a person do to regain strength? Go to a safe place.

“In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of Refuge,” Proverbs 14:26

            In any war of any kind a safe place is needed, as I have said before. For me in this war against THE Enemy my safe place, my refuge, isn’t just church, but my home. My husband and I want to come home and take off our defenses, take time to repair our armor.

            How do we repair our armor? Well, for us personally there are a few things we do.

·         We spend time together, just us. We talk about our day, the good and even the bad stuff. We swap stories and even jokes. We’ve been known to exchange some of the corniest jokes (I will spare you on telling them to you).

·         We have our time that we call alone, but together time. We may be in the same room but we are doing different things. For an example as I am typing this my husband is studying the scriptures.

·         Studying the scriptures (both alone and together). This is to better understand what God wants to do and achieve. This strengthens our faith as well.

·         We love a clean home. Yes, it gets messy at times and we aren’t neat freaks either; but we feel a strong sense of peace when things are in order.

·         We serve each other. Strangely enough we’ve even fought over who gets to do the dishes. We both don’t like it and we know if we take the other person’s day of doing dishes we are serving that person.

·         One of the biggest things that keep our home a safe place is we limit how the world gets into our home. For us and our home, we choose not to have cable and internet. We are even rather particular with what kind of movies we let into our home. (We’ve both thrown out a few movies from our collection- and we are BIG movie fans).

 “But how do you live like that? So cut off from the world?” some of you may ask. It was hard at first, at least for me, I can’t speak for my husband. But I’ve gotten use to it. It’s better for me to keep the world away like that for I am rather addicted to television and surfing the internet.

            To close this out I want to end with story from my past. I was born into a good Christian home, but I didn’t have my own zeal to go until I was about 13 or 14. Since then I would get spiritually filled every Sunday at church, but by the time the next Sunday would come around I would be empty, I would be filling low. I often called myself, a cup with holes. It wasn’t until I was 21 that I realized what was missing. I would combat the world for six days without rest, combating it even in my home and then by Sunday my armor would be weaken and I would be exhausted. I wasn’t stepping back from the fight to my safe place, because I didn’t build one up outside of church.

            Even now I am stilling learning about building a safe place for me, my husband and always have for visitors and for our children in the future.

            I doubt anyone who isn’t religious will be reading this, but I could be wrong, I don’t mind being wrong. But those who don’t seek the same beliefs I do I am sure you too need a safe place to recover from the fight. The world is a hard place to live in and we can’t do it alone and we definitely can’t do it ALL the time.

I was thinking about wrinkles...

Why does youth get all the beauty?

In a class of mine today, yes I’m still in college, we were preparing for our sonnet presentations for next week. As practice we were studying a sonnet by William Shakespeare.

SONNET 65

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower? 

O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?

O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid? 

O, none, unless this miracle have might,
   That in black ink my love may still shine bright. 

Now… you are probably wondering, “What the heck does that poem mean and what does it have to do with this first line of this blog?”

Well, it was this sonnet that got me started on my train of thoughts that lead me to ask, “Why does youth get all the beauty?”

This sonnet is William Shakespeare posing a question is if all the strong and sturdy things in the world can’t last for forever then how can the sweet and beautiful things in life such as flowers or the sweet scents of summer last? This sonnet then closes, in the last two lines, with the idea that pretty much says, in modern English, “Can I provide a miracle and preserve beauty in what I write?”

The sonnet has really nice sentiments, I enjoyed it. It was the discussion afterwards that got me started on this idea.

After the class understood the poem the teacher asked us, “Where is beauty in our lives?”

Most of us responded with, “In our youth,” or “When we’re young.”

 Well, like always one person had a different response. What she said was pretty much the same idea, just phrased differently. “Right now,” was the girl’s response.

Of course the teacher, he being a quick-witted kind of person, said this to her, and kind of to all of us young college students, “For you, wait a few more years when everything drops,” gesturing to his wrinkles and thinning, white hair, “and opens wide,” gesturing to his round stomach.

He went on using himself as an example of good looks fading due to the aging process.

The thought I had with this topic of beauty or good looks fade with time was I really didn't agree with that idea. Who decided that beauty fades with age, why isn't it that it just changes? Does the world say the youth gets to hog the category of “Beautiful”?

I want to know why can’t there be beauty in a wrinkle, in a hundred wrinkles? Why can’t grey or white hair be more than just distinguished?

There seems to only be very few good attributes with age. Being wise, distinguished and experienced is about all that really comes to mind. For the rest the negatives run thick; helpless, weak, grumpy, achy, old fashion, and so the list goes on and on.

In my life I have had the opportunity to meet and know 3 grandmothers, and 3 great-grandmothers, an adoptive grandmother, a grandfather, a great grandfather and several great aunts and uncles. All, who have seen their share of years, hardships, good times and experiences of all shapes and sizes; with all those years were visible on their faces. And you know what, I would put them under the category of beautiful for the ladies and handsome for the men. I love their wrinkles and look forward to have some of my own. For when I do, I know I would've led a full and long life.

In the world we like to tuck away wrinkles and cover our “flaws”. I am guilty of this too; it seems that we cover our scars, wrinkles, acne, etc. and only let ourselves “endure” the sight of seeing our so called ugliness.

Men are guilty of such acts as well. I've been around my brothers, uncles and guy friends to know they too have their own self-consciousness about aging and losing their good looks. One time I teased an uncle who is proud of his good looks and told him he had a receding hairline. He refused to believe it but before he departed he pulled me aside and asked me seriously, “I don’t have a receding hairline do I?” I reassured him that he didn't  but the point still stands, that guys still worry that passage of time will take away the good looks of their youth.

Will we think we get uglier and uglier the older we get and we over-look the things that get more beautiful and desired with the passage of time.

What am I talking about? Ever heard of antiques?

My mom liked to hunt for older memorabilia, taking me with her to countless antique stores. Really, I have lost count. I have learned that people pay big bucks for the old and aging items of the past; calling them amazing, beautiful, and unique. We don’t we say the same kind of things when we get old. How come we don’t call the older people, amazing, beautiful, unique, and priceless? Instead they are stuck with being simply; distinguished, wise and experienced.

So, who decided that old age comes with ugliness? Why can’t thinning hair, wrinkles, bags under the eyes, graying hair be the thing we look forward to getting because like antiques we get more beautiful with age.

I want to look at what time gives me on my face as a gift because of my long and full life. Each line will be a marker of the many times I have laughed at a good joke shared with friends or proof that survived hard times. My grey hairs will beautiful because there will be so much behind me to share with my children, grandchildren, and whoever will listen to my long stories that will begin with, “When I was young,” or “When I was your age.” (Please feel free to imagine me saying that in an old woman’s voice.)

To end my thoughts on this topic I have a request. I want you to watch or read “Five People you Meet in Heaven”. This book changed the way I look at life. But the point I want you to look for is the moment when Eddie meets up with his wife in heaven. There is a moment in there (at least in the movie, not sure if it’s in the book) where he asks his wife to change to the older age she was at before she died. At that moment Eddie says that she is beautiful.

Who says we don’t stay beautiful when we age?

Here is the Trailer for the movie/book I mentioned: