Let me tell you about my tree

I must begin by telling you the truth: I am by no means a gardener. I have killed plants that are supposedly "unkillable". It's a sad fact. But I have this tree in my back yard that I have bonded with. I think God uses that tree to reach me, over and over, so I'd like to share that story with you.

We closed on our house in February of this year. The trees and bushes in our yard had been allowed to grow with no intervention, so they were a bit out of control. I opened our guest room window and one of the juniper bushes fell into the room, so I knew something had to be done! I borrowed my father-in-law's electric hedge trimmer and massacred (Stephen's word) the front hedges. I thought Stephen was going to have a stroke!

When it came time to work on the back, I took a different approach. This is my tree, in a photo from the MLS listing of our house:

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The one I refer to is the odd tree out in this photo, and I have no idea why it was planted there. By the time we moved in, this tree had grown outwards a bit more and resembled the Tree of Life at Disney World (without the awesome trunk, of course).

It had begun turning brown, because the volume of limbs meant that not all were receiving the sunlight they needed. I did some research on how to prune a tree, and then realized that I needed to help shape this tree while thinking about what I wanted it to grow into. It reminded me a bit of parenting, because you have to make decisions based on the person you want your child to become, not just what makes them happy in the short-term. I took my time pruning the tree, removing most of the lower branches and shaping it to bloom up, not out. The tree looked great when I was done, but the coolest thing was seeing how quickly the tree blossomed and grew following the pruning! It turned a beautiful shade of green and gained height, and even became home to a family of birds:

You'll realize that one of my favorite parables is (as I mentioned last week) the one with the vine and the branches. I feel closest to God when I'm working with my hands, and it took many hours to prune my tree so He had plenty of time to talk to me. I felt him saying that just like this tree can't flourish if it grows uninhibited, I can't reach my potential if I'm trying to do everything. You have to cut off some of the smaller branches, and cast off the dead, brown ones, and only then can you regain health. I'm not saying I'm perfect at this, because all of you know that I tend to try to do everything. It's an uphill battle for me, but praise be to God that His grace has covered me. Here is a photo of my tree from this morning:

It's time for another pruning, as you can see. There are some flourishing branches near the bottom of the tree, but I know that they must be removed so the tree will gain its "adult" shape. I am thankful that God gave me this illustration, because I know he is working on pruning my life as well. He is helping me focus on the things that are most important in the large scheme of things. One wonderful example comes from this past Friday. If I were still working at UMC, I probably would not have had time to experience this:

Anna Ruth's first pep rally was precious! We love her new school, and our new extended family, so much. This was one of those moments that we won't experience again, and I'm glad God gave me the opportunity to be there. I look forward to reaching my potential on the course He has for me.

Interruption or intervention?

Today I am very encouraged. I was able to attend Manna, the Thursday morning bible study, at my church, this morning and was pleased to see many ladies I haven't seen in a while. Even better than socializing, however, is the lesson we will be diving into for the next six weeks. The book is Jonah, by Priscilla Shirer, and focuses on navigating the "interruptions" that pop up in life. The timing could not be more perfect for me.

I was struck by a number of things Priscilla said, but the most convicting was her challenge to not run from interruptions via action OR attitude. Jonah literally ran from God's instruction to go to Ninevah, but often times we use our negative attitude (or indifference) to oppose his will instead. If I just coast along through life, as I wait to see where God wants me to be, I'm not really doing His will. I should realize that God has me HERE, at home, for a reason at this particular time. I'm looking forward to helping with Anna Ruth's class at school and finishing projects at home, but moreover these things are feeling a need in God's greater picture. Mrs. Shirer said a shift from seeing "interruptions" to seeing "Divine Intervention" is one step towards that better attitude. Our workbook states that, "The interrupted life is the cure for the search for significance," which reminds us that we can only be used in God's plan when we quit resisting.

I am encouraged and challenged, and wanted to share. I'm not certain anyone actually reads this, but if you (general you) are out there please feel free to hold me accountable :).

2011

As our close friends know, 2011 has been a challenging year. <--Okay, that's probably an understatement.

One Friday in January, our daughter had an accident at school. Her hand was caught in the hinge side of a closing door, and the tip of her pinky finger was amputated. She ended up having surgery to rebuild the pad of that finger, and round off the bone shard, but it took months for the tissue to be stable enough for surgery. Receiving the phone call from school was devastating, as was being handed a bag with "tissue" to take to the ER. It took several days for things to sink in, and at that point Stephen and I needed to make arrangements for child care while Anna Ruth recovered. Like most families with two working adults, we had no clear "Plan B". My Mom was able to move in with us, temporarily, and she was a lifesaver.

At the same time, we were in the process of purchasing our first home; in fact, Stephen had to leave the ER to have our home inspection performed. My Mom was a tremendous help with the moving process as well. The plan was for her to remain with us until Anna Ruth started school at the end of May, but she had to leave in March to help care for my grandfather (her father). At that point Anna Ruth's surgery was completed and she was recovering nicely, but we still had no permanent childcare. We were able to piece together a schedule where Anna Ruth rotated between Stephen's parents and a family friend four days a week and I stayed home the fifth. This is a lot of back story, but bear with me.

When we decided I would stay home one day a week with Anna Ruth, I was still on Intermittent Family Medical Leave from her accident. We knew that I would take unpaid time off, since my paid leave had already been exhausted. But just as before and just as He will in the future, God faithfully provided for my family. We have been very open about God's continued providence for us, because there is no other explanation for the happiness, peace, and blessings that we have experienced among the chaos of our year. I was reminded of these things this morning, driving home from the Children's Museum. We have had another crazy week, and face another period of uncertainty and decision-making.

This Monday, I found out that my position at UMC is being eliminated. It was an unexpected announcement and just like any other shock, it took a day for me to process. I have worked since Anna Ruth was 14 months old. I entered the workforce because I did not feel called to be a stay-at-home Mom; the patience and compassion that SAHMs require are not gifts I possess. I left my office Monday morning and had no idea what to do. Stephen came home that evening and we discussed a new "plan", but came to no clear conclusions. We feel that I should continue the MBA program and earn my degree, but past that the possibilities are vast. I recognize that this is an instance where I yearn to make clear plans, and the anxiety that I struggle with should be driving me crazy, but I have felt such peace this week. I have told numerous people that I should probably be more upset about losing my job, but I'm not. It's amazing, but I am resting in the knowledge that my Lord has a plan for me and that He has plans to prosper me. I heard this Matthew West song in the car this morning (the song is "Strong Enough"), and it affirmed that for me. Here are some of the lyrics:

Well, maybe
Maybe that's the point
To reach the point of giving up
Cause when I'm finally
Finally at rock bottom
Well, that's when I start looking up
And reaching out

Not that I feel that I'm at rock bottom, because I do feel overwhelming peace, but I still feel it applies. A dear friend reminded me last night that if you're miserable and not growing where you are, you're probably not in the right place. It reminds me of the parable of the vine and the branches.

John 15: The Vine and the Branches 1"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunest so that it will be even more fruitful.3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.5 "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.8 This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. 9 "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love.11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.14 You are my friends if you do what I command.15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.17 This is my command: Love each other.

At the moment I have no idea where God is leading me. Experience has shown me that His perception of time is different than mine, and parenthood has taught me that you don't always tell your child everything at once. My prayer, however, is that I let Him use me as He sees fit. He has my life in His hands, and I have the time and desire to focus on Him.

To end this post, I am enclosing a photo from today. This girl reminds me, every day, just how much God loves me. I would do most anything for her, and I know this parental love I feel is only a fraction of what my Heavenly Father feels for us :).

I found it easy to write the past two posts; it seems that time has given me the clarity to see the ways God has provided for our family in accordance to His plan. I'm having a bit more trouble recounting more recent events, but I promise they are on the way. In the meantime I will tell you a bit more about the beginning of this Stenmark family...

As you read in my first post, Stephen and I met during our undergraduate years at Ole Miss. Stephen is almost two years older than me, but our birthdays caused us to be only one year apart in school. He was a member of Delta Psi (St. Anthony Hall), a fraternity that appealed to many of my male friends from the Honors College. Stephen says we were first introduced at a bowling party his fraternity hosted prior to Rush Week, but I don't remember...I blame it on the awe of being a freshman! As is tradition in Oxford, football game weekends provided opportunity for the fraternities to host "house parties". Stephen (Stenny, as his brothers referred to him) was known as the guy with the music, so he was often visible during these events and this is when I got to know him though the majority of our early friendship was spent chatting on AOL Messenger. The first time I remember an effort to hang out was in March of my freshman year, when Stephen (and some other mutual friends) took me frog gigging. I am happy to say that we saw no frogs; I still do not know how one gigs them but I'm a little grossed out by the prospect. Being the non-outdoorsy girl I am, this should have been a sign that I was willing to do silly things to spend time with him. We became a little closer after that adventure, and I can still remember Stephen picking me up during finals week of my freshman year to get ice cream (he called it a study break).

He went home to Madison for the summer, and I stayed in Oxford to work for a summer camp at Ole Miss. I can't adequately recount Stephen's experiences over that summer, but it was a great time for me. I was busy taking classes and working with the children in my summer program, but I was also able to spend time alone. When you grow up in a small town, you have to really struggle to establish yourself as an individual. The tendency is to view a person as "_____'s daughter", "______'s friend", or "_____'s girlfriend". Moreover, people in Cleveland rarely did anything alone; even going to Wal-Mart was an event that required a group. Since we defined self-worth that way, an enormous amount of time was spend ensuring we had those ties. That summer I learned to go to a restaurant and eat alone, enjoy shopping by myself, and (my favorite) take a blanket to the park and lay there and read. Oxford in the summer is peaceful and blissfully un-crowded, which surely helped my feelings of peace. I made plans to continue being happy alone once everyone came back to school in fall, because it gave me a freedom. Despite my self-discovery journey Stephen and I continued to chat regularly, and I made plans to visit him over Independence Day weekend.

We got together with a number of our friends for the holiday, and my plan was to continue to Hattiesburg the following day to visit my friend Mimi. Stephen surprised me, though, by making it clear that he thought we should start dating. This scared me on a few levels; my experience was that friends that date unsuccessfully can never return to their previous closeness. Stephen was a dear friend to me, and I was not willing to jeopardize that. But also, my recently-recognized freedom didn't seem to align with a relationship. So I did what any scared girl does: I got in my car and ran. Bless Mimi for talking to me on the way and welcoming me to her home at 4 am! As you can imagine my friendship with Stephen changed after that night, and we didn't talk the rest of the summer. That time "apart" made me realize exactly how much Stephen meant to me, so by August I was ready to attempt dating him.

Stephen invited me over for lunch one weekend right after he moved back to Oxford, and I was happy to accept. He cooked spaghetti, which is still one of my favorite dishes that he cooks. I brought frozen garlic bread, which was one of the few things I could "cook" at that point. I burned my arm making the bread (I still have the scar!), and his roommate's girlfriend managed to shoot dirt at me from their vacuum cleaner while trying to unclog it so Stephen said, "I was pretty sure I'd never see you again!" Despite all of that, our first quasi-date was to an 80's party Stephen's fraternity hosted in Fall 2004.
After that, Stephen was my date to every football game that season. He will tell you that our first actual date was in November 2004, when he went with me to Memphis to shop for a dress to wear to his semi-formal. From there I was hooked, and we became "us". We got engaged on December 10, 2005, at the restaurant at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, and we were married on December 9, 2006.

We have been married almost five years now, and I am so thankful that I didn't stick to my stubborn plan that summer. God sent this man to be my partner, and though we are so very different we complement each other perfectly.

Introduction, part 2

My last post briefly described life for this branch of the Stenmark family through 2008. I hope that writing this blog will remind me of other details about this time period, so I am certain I will revisit it at some point. The period of time I'm focusing on today marked another milestone for our family, where we moved from one stage to another. For now, I'll pick up at Anna's first birthday.

We took Anna to her first Ole Miss football game the weekend before, and she was not very impressed...the cannons startled her and it was very noisy. We still have time to train her properly.

Next was her birthday party, where we realized she inherited her Mommy's sweet tooth.

In November 2008, after fourteen months at home with Anna, I began my first "real job" at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. It was not the first position I applied for, but it was the first and only that asked for an interview. At this point, Stephen and I had to navigate the world of childcare. What we did not know is parents apply for spots in daycares and preschools early in our area, in many cases before they share news of their pregnancies with friends and family. Luckily, we were able to find a place for Anna until something more preferable opened up.

The first nine months of work passed in a blur that rivaled the newborn stage for us, because we had to learn to adjust our schedules and fulfill responsibilities at home as well as at work. We made it through that stage, however, and have established a routine that works for our family.

Stephen and I joked with friends and family that we were lucky to have Anna immediately after college, since we were used to not having sleep or money. But honestly, God never let a need go unmet. Whether we had one income or two, God's accounting always ensured that food and other necessities were available. This is a pattern that we have witnessed many times in our marriage, and I hope that we can continue to remember his providence and promises.

Let's start at the beginning

Hi, I'm Angel. Most of you know this already, but it seems appropriate to begin by introducing myself. It is probably helpful to provide a little background information, just in case I haven't already told you, so here we go:

In 2003 I moved to Oxford, MS, to begin my freshman year at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss). I was away from home for the first time and a bit nervous, but I found a great group of friends through the Honors College that ended up introducing me to Stephen (aka Husband). Stephen was a year ahead of me in school, but we became friends and eventually started dating (that's a LONG story for another day). In December 2005 we got engaged, and we were married in December 2006. At that point, Stephen was one semester from earning his Masters of Accountancy and I was due to finish my Bachelor's degree. We felt happy and blessed, and were planning and dreaming of our future life together. Silly us :).

We had plans to move to Jackson when we graduated. Stephen had a position at an accounting firm waiting for him, and I felt confident that I could find work as well. We visited our families for the Christmas holidays and had a lovely time. We were in for a big surprise when we returned home, however!

Meet Anna Ruth, or as we called her then, "Nathan James". In case you haven't noticed yet, Stephen and I are usually wrong in our plans and assumptions. There were seven generations of boys in Stephen's family, so we were certain our baby would be a boy. The first outfits I bought for baby were blue and precious. You can imagine our surprise when we found out this baby was a GIRL!

It was an adventure to bring her into this world; I went into labor in late July and spent six weeks on full bedrest to stop the progression. I was released from bedrest at 36 weeks, and every indication was that I would deliver Anna soon thereafter. We revised our schedule and plans, since Stephen was scheduled to travel every week in July/August for work...I was sure that Baby would stick to her parents' plan. Of course, our precious girl did not actually arrive until September 6, 2007, when she was evicted via C-section at 39 weeks and 8 pounds.

If the first year of our married life taught us anything, it would be that God has a plan for our life that is much different and much better than anything we could imagine for ourselves. Most people don't expect to celebrate their first anniversary with a newborn, but that's where we we found ourselves. By Anna's first birthday, Stephen had passed the CPA exam and begun to establish himself in his firm. Our Lord has always provided for us, and my goal with this blog is to document some of the many instances that His providence and blessings were illustrated to us. I know that there are many more times that we did not notice, just as children do not realize every thing their human parents do for them, but my prayer is that my blog can remind me and encourage others as they face challenging times.

A few more photos from this period of our life:

(Just after our first anniversary)

The day Stephen passed the final section of the CPA Exam...a tribute to St. Anthony Hall (Stephen's Fraternity)

Until next time...