Ah, Summer!






It’s been a good weekend! Kyle had some long time friends/mentors, Dave and Sheree, stay with us Friday night. Dave was Kyle’s youth minister growing up and the two of them share that bond youth ministers always seem to have with 'their kids': lots of laughter-lots of stories. The four of us went to the Outback for a tasty dinner and then we all returned home for banana splits. I don’t think there was a quiet moment between all of us the entire time they were here. If only we had a few minutes more!

Saturday morning rolled around, we saw our friends off, I grabbed my yoga mat, hopped in the car and journeyed to the Yoga Tree while Kyle went to the gym. This has turned in to a Saturday morning ritual in our home. It was a dreary day so while we originally had plans to participate in “Field day”—an afternoon of outdoor games sponsored by Knetic, we decided instead, to hang out indoors. I was fully intentioned to order a movie off of the TV but I got side tracked with the movie idea because The Contender was on. Who knew? This show brings out a side to me that I never, EVER knew existed. Somehow I got hooked during Season One and unbeknownst to me, Season Two is upon us. Kyle came downstairs yesterday expecting me to be lazily watching “Pride and Prejudice” and instead he found me sitting upright, at the edge of my seat, watching The Contender. I get all worked up rooting for my chosen victor and yet, at the end, I always end up a bit teary eyed for the guy who has to go home. “Megan. It’s box-ing”, Kyle will say with an exaggerated roll of his eyes, as if he’s telling me something I don’t already know. He's right but it never makes me any less weepy. :) I'll always root for the under dog--even if it IS boxing. Anyway, the day came to a close as we went to church and enjoyed an evening together.

Today, after Kyle got home from church we went out to Boone Lake which is a mere mile or two from our house. It was such a beautiful day. The lake was alive with the activities of summer. Hammocks; kids fishing with their dads; the echoes of laughter floating all around us.

Presently, Kyle is outside washing the vehicles while I sit upstairs and type. We enjoyed our dinner out on the deck-the smell of the grill lingering on our clothes. We tricked Stinky into giving him a bath and so now he’s tearing through the house trying desperately to dry off. It’s been a weekend full of ordinary life-and someday it will blend into the recesses of my mind where every other ordinary weekend resides. But for today, these are the moments that feel good to my soul. Simple summer pleasures.

…“Why am I afraid to dance, I who love music & rhythm & grace & song & laughter? Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh & the living colors of the earth & sky & sea? Why am I afraid to love, I who love, love?”


--Ragamuffin Gospel

















There’s a young woman at church whom I have never spoken to. I do not know her name. She comes regularly with her family, and they always take their seats near the front of the congregation. If I had to guess, I would say that she appears to be in her early teens; she is not one who blends in with the crowd. There is nothing average or ordinary about this girl. To judge by appearances, one may recognize that she has some cognitive delays but that’s not what makes her extraordinary. She has a spirit to her that sparkles. She has no idea, as she takes her seat, that 5, 10, or 15 rows back I take notice of her and I find myself grateful, once again, just to be in her presence. Her joy infects me. When the music starts? She jumps up from her seat when they ask us to stand; it’s almost as if it was taking everything in her to stay seated. She rocks and sways as we sing…hands clapping on beat, off beat and every beat in between. She sings to her own melody without care or consideration for what the person beside her is doing. There’s no volume control. If her heart is happy the Lord knows it and so do we. And her family? There’s no sideways glance at their neighbor as if to say, ‘so sorry, we apologize for our daughter’s unrestrained behavior’. They choose to sit in the front of the church without apology. It’s the most amazingly beautiful worship I’ve seen to date. Sometimes, when I’m close enough to hear, I close my eyes and silence myself and listen to this young woman sing. I imagine what it would be like to look down from heaven. One girl rocking and swaying in the middle of hundreds; unafraid to worship and love our Creator with unrestrained joy and abandon. This is not to say that she’s not surrounded by hundreds of people who are equally passionate about loving and praising the Lord. But, she moves me because I see in her what I long to experience for myself.

…"We have been given God in our souls and Christ in our flesh. We have the power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt. This and so much more is sheer gift; it is not reward for our faithfulness, our generous dispositions or our heroic life of prayer. My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.” --Ragamuffin Gospel

I'm praying that I'll grow to experience and know the freedom that has already been won on my behalf. There's a war waging within me; a war between my spirit and my flesh. But God is big--bigger than the battles and His love is always enough. I don't want or need to wait on heaven to worship with abandon-He desires it in the here and now--and honestly, my heart craves it. Every week--or every few weeks--I get a picture of what that freedom looks like. It comes in the package of one young girl; completely unaware of her ministry. Oh, to experience the fullness and richness of life as God intends. To bask in the knowledge that we are deeply loved by God. What, then, shall I fear?

“Tell me about something beautiful.” Her request caught me off guard. I looked up from the note I was pensively writing and looked at her face. I leaned in close and looked intently into her eyes for the first time since I entered her room. She was my last visit of the day—added to me at the last minute so I will confess that my heart was not engaged in what I was doing. I was rushing to wrap up my day. Upon getting to her home, I mechanically completed her assessment. As I inspected her from head to toe I filled the silence between us with chatter. Once I was satisfied with how she was checking out, I silently sat down beside her and became lost in my own thoughts as I feverishly filled out the paper work. I nearly forgot she was living and breathing beside me. Her question came as an intrusion to my disengaged mind and heart. “Something beautiful?” Now that she had jarred me back to the present moment, I was floundering a bit to come up with something that I thought might be satisfying but real. With her vision almost completely gone and confined by the limits of the hospital bed, I knew what she meant. She wanted a taste of the sunshine. She wanted to see with someone else’s eyes; out of the bedroom; free.

I retraced the events of the day. I told her how the sun was shining brightly as I left my home early this morning and that even in the early morning hours, I could already feel the humidity like a cloak around me. I told her about the winding road I traveled as I drove to my first patient’s home; the bends of the road in perfect harmony with the river on it’s east bank. I described how the river road became wooded with it’s canopy of giant trees of old, and how for a few minutes the glory of the sun was muted by the lush green leaves overhead. I told her about a patient who smiled today who’s smile we had not seen for quite some time. As I recounted the day’s events in light of beauty, it made the feel of the whole day different.

And that’s when I saw it. The shine of tears in her eyes; upturned corners of her mouth. She transcended the confines of her withering body and journeyed with me. I didn’t get to tell her about the “something beautiful” presently lying beside me due to the emotion that had crept into my throat. In her quest to see beauty with someone else’s eyes, someone else’s eyes beheld beauty.

After a few minutes, I packed up my things, gave her a kiss on the forehead and said good-bye. She nodded yes with her gaze fixed on the ceiling-her expression unchanged. I hoped she was still driving along the country roads as I walked out to my car and got inside.

I know we all get busy, we all become disengaged-we can’t expect ourselves or anyone else to be “on” every moment of every day. But I didn’t notice the brilliance of the sunshine today in the early morning hours until I recounted it this afternoon. I didn’t appreciate the canopy of trees along the river road until I traveled it once more in my memory. I wouldn’t have seen her, if she hadn’t asked. Sometimes I’m so busy living ahead of myself, getting stressed over my list of things to do/ people to see, that I miss it.

I’m reminded at the end of this day that God delights in our pleasure and that He created a world full of beauty for us to behold.

Today, was a good day. A day of beauty. And to think, I almost missed it.


My neighbor, Rachel, was quite a lady. A woman of wonder. She had this larger than life personality-the kind that welcomes strangers off the street and bakes for all the neighbors; the kind that thinks nothing of prancing around outside in a night gown, all hours of the night and day. With her deep, raspy voice from far too many years of chain smoking, we’d delight in her story telling—even when we already knew, verbatim, how that particular story ended. Rachel had a love for gardening. Flowers bloomed year round in the small plot of land in front of her home. Stiff joints and creaky bones made it increasingly difficult for her to stay stooped over in her garden. Therefore, in the springtime, we had this system down where she would insist on financing all of the mulch for our adjacent gardens and Kyle and I would be the work horses. She’d stand on her porch and shout orders at us as we moved plants to and fro, yanked weeds, and mulched the flower beds. When the skies grew dark and the thunder clouds rolled in, we could always peek out our front window and there she’d be: sitting in her white rocking chair, in the shelter of the porch, appreciating the spectacle of the storm in all of it's glory. Any time a rainbow graced the horizon, she’d come knock on our door and all three of us would stand together, in the middle of the yard staring up at the sky. She always said, “I hate to bother you but something like this is just too beautiful to experience alone”. And she was right. I remember once, after a snow storm, I glanced out the window again just in time to see her pick up a handful of freshly fallen snow and eat it. This is a strange thing to watch a full grown adult do but somehow, it was fitting and not at all surprising. The wonder of it all.

We lost Rachel one warm, sunny spring day when the skies were blue and the garden was blossoming. Copper Hill, as we knew it, would never be the same. And fortunately, neither would we.

Today, her white rocking chairs grace our porch. The single guy who moved into her home doesn’t know a thing about gardening and Kyle and I are doing our best but that doesn’t say much. The wind blew in a storm today and it reminded me of her. Sometimes I think I feel her in the air. I wonder how many rainbows we’ve missed without the knock on our door? But, days like today it all comes back: her larger than life personality and the warmth and wonder of it all.


Dreaming of missions




I can't begin explain what goes on in my heart--Kyle says I'm easily swayed from one day to the next. If I'm being honest, there's no denying it--one day I want a baby, the next I want to travel; one day I want to save every penny and the next I'm ready to put the down payment down on our home. But, one thing I know for sure, I have this gigantic dream to go overseas and to spend time in an orphanage. The older I get the more intense the dream becomes. For as long as I can remember I have dreamed of medical missions-and my heart has been set on Africa. Naturally, most people with whom I share this want to know, "why Africa?" And the thing is, I'm not really sure why. Is that strange? There are orphanages everywhere and children too many to count in need of love and attention, so why a land that is foreign to me in every way? But, then, why nursing...why Tennessee...why does my heart delight in anything? Where does any passion come from? I dream of missions; I don't know all the reasons why but I know what happens to my heart once I'm in those settings. In some ways, I become broken. In other ways, broken parts begin to heal. In all things, I see God and His grace. I see Him in the poor, in the sick, in the widows and the orphans. I see the human condition in some of it's purest forms: inexplicable strength, joy, sorrow, hope. I see life, with all it's worldly distractions sifted away. To live in that place for a day or a month changes everything. To go where nothing is familiar or comfortable is when God is wild and big but always good.
I don't know when but I do hope to get there someday. And maybe only then will I truly begin to grasp why my heart beats for the people of that far away place.

I realize this doesn't fit with the 'African' theme but recently the CMDA went back to Ecuador (where Kyle went last year). Carolina, the girl who stole my husband's heart was still at the orphanage and sent a friend of ours home with letters and drawings to share with us. We thought we'd post her picture below: she's holding the bear we sent to her.



babies, babies everywhere!!




All our love and best wishes to Allison and Chris. Natalie Grace was born July 1st: 7 pounds 2 ounces. So beautiful! Everyone is healthy and my girl Allison has her sparkle back after a long, hard labor and delivery. ;) We love you guys! Keep the pictures and stories coming!

Also, one of my favorite pictures ever of Marcia, Greg and Ava. We can't wait to see you guys and love on her!



"I've learned it's worth it to have the fight. The 'throw your arms up in the air, cry if you must', sort of fight. The hardest times over the past 5 years have come when we've tried to pretend it all away. Sometimes the best way to love each other is to go where it's crazy, painful and chaotic--knowing that when we do, it always gets us to a better place than when we first started."

Last night over dinner we bantered back and forth about what we've learned over the past 5 years of marital bliss. Some of our present realities are: I still can't cook-it's looking like I never will. In the mornings, I look like some wild unkempt version of the woman he thought he was going to see each day. My version of clean and his version of clean are two completely different things. (We'll let you come to your own conclusions about that.) Sometimes, I "lose control" when I find something amusing--occasionally this aggravates my husband which only fuels my outofcontroledness. I love yoga--the last time I tried to talk him into a yoga position he got stuck. He loves hiking the Appalachian Trail and all things outdoors. I prefer a fuzzy blanket and a good movie.

There's freedom in marriage. Freedom to own every bit of who you are and to celebrate every detail of the other. Can't dance? Shut the blinds and crank the music and dance like you've never danced before. Can't sing? Turn up the tunes and sing like a rock star. Can't cook? :) Pull out the cookbooks and try to make the most amazingly delicious meal in there. Body composition not what it used to be? A little wobbly around the edges? Right then. I think you see where this is going. We love each other as much for what we lack, as for what we are. It's safe to do the ridiculous in the presence of each other.

I've never been one to deal with conflict and neither has Kyle. But, we've learned by default along the way, that every now and then, there's nothing more cathartic or healing than a good fight. :) It keeps us honest, it keeps us moving forward and it allows us to love each other's quirks for what they are. So, here's to the next 5: may we love hard, fight hard, trust each other with the ridiculous and always extend grace knowing that there is far too much at risk when we do not.