reflections.

What a different year this has shaped up to be than what was before. What was before was beautiful, healing, root growing. This year has been about going deeper. I think my roots found some life source that was always there but hadn't been reached, tapped into, or even known. I remember watching Matt come alive his first semester in law school, as if someone had literally lit him up from the inside, because he had found and was immersed in the world that God had made him to be a part of. Here I am, a year later, in love, absolutely in love with art therapy. There is something elemental in the theoretical foundations of it that resonate so true to me. And lord it's hard to put into words. People ask me daily what art therapy is. The simplest way I have found to describe it is to say that as an art therapist I believe that there is something about the creative process of making art that is healing. In those processes are innumerous metaphors for life and the working out of them through art is practice for the grander scheme of life. Challenging yourself, trying new things, facing your fears, bringing out the inner world into the visible one without denial but rather acknowledgement, questioning, and finding answers....And as I'm immersed in this artsy philosophical right brained world, Matt is lost in the letter of the law. Well, rather found. He lives there. Thrives there. What a pair we make. :)

We have been here, in Virginia, for 3 years and 3 months now. Shall I also count the days? Do you ever wake up and think, Holy crap, I'm a grown up?!? Wonder how you got here? Became this person, in this place...? I never ever thought I'd be 26, married, 2 dogs, living on the east coast, one of us in law school the other in grad school, kids not even a consideration for a few more years.... I mean really? I was a granola eating, burkensock wearing, hippy homeschool girl from a little fishing town in the pacific northwest who wanted to travel the world, live on a cot in an orphanage in russia and teach kids. How did I become this person? Not in a negative way but in a questioning-crazy-in-awe-of-life way. Life is not ever what you think it will be. God's plans are not only greater for you than what you dream or imagine, but they also fit and form you in just the right way. His way. ......maybe I'll go do some painting about it. ;)

PS. a few pictures from our travels this summer. :)