Karey's Overflow

'Overflow' refers to me having a wide variety of things I do, from writing books, to daily living of a wonderful life, and art work.

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Name: Karey
Location: Colorado, United States

I garden at 8000 feet, cook from scratch, needle felt, read books continually, study history and epistemology, write daily, contemplate spiritual theology, and pursue heirloom arts. I love to paint pictures of living beyond maintenance -- living creatively, discovering beauty in everyday ordinary things. I've been happily married to Monte, who is a geologist, for a long time and still very much in love, even after raising a family and building two houses. Our children are our best friends. Heather is newly married to Bill. Travis, a minister of the fine arts, is married to Sarah. And Dawson is in college. I naturally live first-hand and have recently realized that this is how we educated our children and ourselves. I love to learn about everything, teach, and work with my hands. I love my home, but my life has overflowed -- as a teacher, radio/conference/retreat speaker, author, and most recently as a MOPS mentor. Kareyswan.com is an ideal way for me to share my overflowing life with kindred spirits and those hungering to move beyond maintenance -- to be known by who they are, not just by what they do.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Spouse Story

I did a devotional for MOPS this morning. With Valentines Day tomorrow I thought of love and marriage, and thought of a personal story in connection with our family. It has a "rest of the story" aspect to the original story.

When our kids were little we used to have fun with them telling them the future person they'd marry could be alive right then living somewhere in the world - like Australia, or down the street, or so-and-so. "Naw!"

Monte and me are almost eight years apart, so it's fun to tell young kids that that person might not be born yet, or even worse (to them, when they're say 5) that that person might be 12 years old! "Naw!" But we talked about praying for that unknown person. And as teens - that whoever was dating your future mate, they'd protect and honor them and the same goes for you with who you're spending time with.

When planning Travis and Sarah's wedding with Sarah's parents we were sitting around sharing stories. For some reason we talked about the time when Travis was three he got very sick. After me sleeping at one hospital with him for a week (I couldn't leave such a little one alone!) and him undergoing lots of tests, they sent us to the National Jewish Hospital. They did more tests and were about to diagnose him with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis...

Travis was unable to walk. Every four hours when the aspirin wore off, he was in pain. I had to do everything for him. His joints hurt too much to crawl. Monte was imagining his little boy not able to run and play and ride a bike, climb trees ... But then after a month, there seemed to be a turning point ...

Sarah's mom asked his age again. She was quiet a bit, then said that at about that time she got an urging to pray for the person Sarah would marry. (I always start tearing up at this point.)

We never know what praying may be doing, but we have to believe and trust that it is powerful! I then went on to play a recording of a song Monte wrote about praying for our kids future mates and the hope "that they love Jesus just like I do". We had sung it as a family and captured Dawson's voice at 5 and Travis singing as a teen.

Hardly a dry eye in the room.

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1 Comments:

Blogger montego said...

I had forgotten that story as well. Makes Karson's current flu/cold/asthma issues seem like nothing. Thank you for the many "reminders" in this post my sis!

February 13, 2008 8:04 PM  

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