I like to eat dinner in the bathtub. I write poetry and when I was 15 Chicken Soup for the Grieving Soul asked to publish my writings. I actually think I’m a really beautiful girl without an ounce of makeup or my hair done up 😉 I own more dresses than t-shirts and enjoy being out in nature more than anything. I’ve always had a loud laugh. I make friends faster with people twice my age than I do my peers, I enjoy hanging out at the bingo hall and listening to live music. I’ve been the subject of jealous rivalries in the workplace during the majority of my career 🙁 I love to research and have a fetish with colors, textures and smells. I’m a health nut, I like to order dessert first and have had a crush on Jack Black since… I can’t even remember. I have the heart of a 5-year old; simple, innocent and in awe by most things. I’ve never considered running a marathon as even a plausable challenge to take on. My family inspires me, my heart breaks for children and I enjoy everything I do in life. There you go, a few things you probably didn’t know about me.

Isn’t it interesting when you watch a movie and the climate for characters start to become perfect to the point of utopia, the audience can predict something very bad is about to happen. I wonder if that kind of thought process goes beyond just watching movies and rubs off on our own lives. At a moment when things seem surreal, we expect catastrophy. And because our focus is placed on the worst, those events actually do come true.

Then I wonder if perhaps God saves us in a manner from critical thoughts creeping into our lives just before death. He doesn’t manipulate minds because the bible says He gives us free will, but perhaps his human creation is made in such a way that whatever, just before we die, makes us so undeniably happy happens to a point that the mind can’t even comprehend that a negative is imminent.

It’s just a thought.

Isn’t it amazing the depths we go to in our lives to find the fullness that God created in us and yet one day we wake up to find that over time, we have sacrificially let ourselves deteriorate to a stripped away version of all we worked so hard for? I have a lot of turmoil surrounding my place in life and I’m searching for the fork in the road where I took a left instead of a right. I’ve been reading in Proverbs that when we cry out for understanding and wisdom, God will give it to those who are faithful. Have I not been faithful? Have I not given every ounce of blood in me to better the lives of everyone else? Then should I not have more conclusions than question marks?

Perhaps all that God has for me is too much to handle… maybe it’d just blow my mind if He gave it all up at once. With my lack of patience, I’d probably attempt a fasttrack to the end, leaving behind all those lessons I need to get there. So all I’m asking for is discernment. I don’t want a spoiler alert, just discretion and discernment to get back where this all went wrong and take a right when I want to take a left.

In the last six years, I have spent a good portion of my time traveling to lands far away and seeing the most incredible creations God has given. I have journeyed alone and discovered a whole new me that I didn’t even know existed. I look back at this time as God calling me into the wilderness, as if to find who He made my core to be. There comes a point though, when we have to leave the existential and be awakened to reality. I feel my heart being revived in a sense. At the deepest of my makeup, there’s a yearning to do life with others that I hadn’t realized before.

I’ve been planning a trip to Nepal in the Fall; I wanted to climb Mt. Everest and do a little humanitarian work while I was there. But as I look back at my time ‘in the wilderness’, there’s a longing that I had someone to share smiles and those treasured memories with. So I canceled the trip. Why continue with a plan, if it doesn’t align with my principles?

For some time, I have been gathering a list of places I’m saving; memories I want to share only with that special someone. Now I’m producing another list of all the experiences I want to go through with the dearest of family and friends. Living is more than just a ticket stub, passport stamp and a few photos. I want one day to sit in my rocking chair, staring out from the porch and laugh with someone about the time when…

Have you ever thought about writing a mission statement for yourself… a kind of constitution that you live by or refer to when something questions why you do what you do, make the decisions you make or think what you believe? I’ve been fleshing out a sort of constitution for my life. It’s more than a strategic plan or goal setting, it’s the why before the what. I’m constantly defining the what; what I’m doing, about to do or want to do. And I have a quick answer for the why; the bible says so, but nothing in writing that incorporates all that I want the why to be –like what’s important to me, values I have and talents I’ve been given.

I think having a self constitution would lend more balance, more harmony and maybe better decision making! If it isn’t found within the mission for myself, it’s a no… done! It could be that simple. In a couple days I’m going on vacation for a week. I hope this will be a time to let my imagination play a huge part in dreaming up this constitution of Trisha Keehn.

Let a man radically altter his thoughts, and he will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will effect in the material conditions of his life. Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are. – James Allen

Just for today I will be happy. Happiness is from within; it is not a matter of externals.
Just for today I will try to adjust myself to what is, and not try to adjust everything to my own desires.
Just for today I will take care of my body.
Just for today I will try to strengthen my mind.
Just for today I will exercise my soul.
Just for today I will look as well as I can, dress as becomingly as possible, talk low, act courteously, be liberal with praise, criticize not at all and not try to regulate nor improve anyone.
Just for today I will try not to tackle my whole life problem at once.
Just for today I will have a program. I will write down what I expect to do every hour (and I may not follow it exactly). This will eliminate hurrying and indecision.
Just for today I will have a quiet half0hgour all by myself and relax.
Just for today I will be unafraid.

If you’ve ever met me, one thing that comes across pretty quickly, besides being fastidious, is that when I get involved with something, I’m all in 155%; my hobbies, my faith, my family, my friends and my work. Shortly into 2010, I discovered a new library in town; I consider it my mecca. During the first visit, I checked out nearly thirty books! I thought I would teach myself all the technical tidbits that could take my work to the next level. I wrote up a plan to initiate projects that were once impossibilities and ideas that would catapult the company image. I spent two months studying pages of jargon and taking tedious notes.

It was then that my company took on new leadership. And the order came that I was to do away with the research, notes and plans I had made; work was heading in a different direction. Imagine the crushing heart break I felt to hear all I had put my life on hold for in the last couple months was basically useless, to say the least. And as you can guess, I was very upset; everything I put my mind and efforts toward were suddenly being shut out? I wrestled with God to make things right. By right, I meant, make things go my way. I wish I could tell you those prayers worked to my liking, but things only got worse. What do you do when you’re under leadership that’s going in one direction and you’ve got ideas to take the company in another?

About a month later, God reminded me that those who rebel against the leadership God put in place, are actually rebelling against Him… and rebels only bring judgment on themselves. That is a tough pill to swallow. Basically, it doesn’t matter if I believe in my leader’s direction or not. As long as I work for her, it is my duty to submit to the authority God has placed me under. Ouch– for a month, I’ve totally been in the wrong. That hurts. It’s okay though, because now that I’ve got myself thinking how I can best support my leader’s new direction, I actually feel a burden has been lifted. Thank you God for reminding me of the word and setting me straight. Where I would be without it, I don’t even want to know.

There’s more though because I thought about my reaction to God’s authority in my life and the parallel that exists between how I submit to his leadership in my life and those he has placed over me. I recall being pretty angry in several occasions with God when He’s directed me down a path that wasn’t in my plans. And honestly, its a real issue I still struggle with today. So now I’m thinking about that 155% I put into life and pride myself on. There’s no doubt I learned a lesson here on where i’m spending my time. I heard a quote yesterday that basically sums this up by saying “I used to be afraid of failing at the things that mattered to me, now I’m more afraid of succeeding at the things that don’t matter.” God isn’t impressed with how many books I read and what kind of plans I have, He’s more interested in me giving that 155% to living out His word.

Yesterday I went in to my hairdresser for a trim. It’s been a few weeks since I had my last cut and he was pretty astonished at how long my hair was. I hadn’t even noticed. It’s always funny to me when I go to the salon, the other hairdressers drop their clients to touch my hair. It’s silly… but I have really healthy, soft hair and they like to run their fingers through it. weird? My secret, I don’t wash my hair everyday… sometimes not even every other day… sometimes not for three or four days 😉 But that’s not what I’m here to share. My hairdresser asked to cut off a couple inches. I wanted to know why if it was still healthy? He said, ‘well, because its old hair. The ends have probably been on your head for six or eight years’. woh. six or eight years?! That’s a long time to be carrying around something day in and day out. I gave him permission to snip the ends off… but I couldn’t help but think about what my hair had been through. Alot has happened in the last six to eight years… alot! I was still in Iowa six to eight years ago. I was still working in television six to eight years ago. I was in love with another man six to eight years ago. I was dreaming to become a missionary six to eight years ago. There was a level of innocence I still possessed six to eight years ago. There was also a level of hurt, anger and confusion I was experiencing six to eight years ago. I was dreaming of better days six to eight years ago.

Wow. That hair had been with me during some really important times in my life! The last six to eight years have been life changing. And here I was about to let that go. Every bit of life that my hair had stuck with me through, I was cutting off its life source. That is just incredible to think about. It almost makes me feel fresh, like I’ve started a new life since my trim yesterday. Because the hair I’m carrying around today has probably only been there five years. That is just crazy to think about… the past is gone. What was left of me that was still experiencing those six to eight years have been shed. I’m taking a deep breath in as I think about it. Yesterday’s visit to the salon was more than just a hair trim; it was a letting go of the last bit of past I had left on me from six to eight years ago.

I’m not good with sharing my goals and dreams with people, let me just start with that. Mostly, I just forget. I’m off accomplishing it. This past weekend, I was having coffee with a friend and mentioned my plan for adopting kids in a rambling for future plans. She had no idea and wondered why I never talked about my plans. I guess after sharing with family and my immediate circle, I never really saw a point to telling anyone else. Which I’m not happy about that I would think such a thing because I’ve always been a proponent of people sharing their lives with others. Stories are blessings, why hold that back?

Maybe it was my mom and dad having me in the delivery room at the age of 7 to watch my younger sister be born, maybe it was growing up hearing my dad talk about his experience being put up for adoption at nine years old and what that felt like to have a family say ‘We’ll take him’… and maybe it was all just God placing a burden on my heart, but for whatever reason, I’ve had a yearning to adopt children since I was prepubescent. As the years rolled on several events occured that funneled me down the path toward adoption. I was diagnosed with thyroid disease at 18 and told it would be very difficult to get pregnant. At the age of 24, I was raped by a man I trusted more than anyone in the world, causing me to struggle today with any form of sexual intimacy. Just two years ago, former roommates enlightened me to the statistics of 8-year olds to age 18 who go the rest of their lives without a family because most parents want newborns or young children to adopt.

My heart broke at the thought of these children spending their ‘growth years’ feeling unloved and navigating life without parents to share their experiences with. I have no longing to give birth to my children, I just have a longing to show love and help nurture and grow people through Jesus.

My brain is always setting plans. So I looked at my life goals and what this would look like if I adopted children between ages 8-12. Here’s my thought: I would definitely have some time to accomplish a few more personal goals in the next 10 years without feeling as if I’m not giving enough time to my children, holding myself back or that I’d be limping on the practice fields trying to be a good mom and keep up with young children. Also, I wouldn’t have to worry about pushing 60 before my kids were to leave the nest. Theoretically, I could be 40, adopt kids (8-12 years old) and by 50 they would be out of the house, off to college, just in time for me to finish up a dozen more working years before retirement. That actually sounds pretty great.

I think I’ve mentioned in past posts that my mind and heart have been centered around my future. I’ve been keeping a healthy lifestyle (eating right, working out at the gym, nurturing myself) so that when the time comes that God gives me children, I’ll be more ready than ever. And maybe that time won’t come. In this event, it’s okay. I’ve been absorbing every ounce of time I have with my friend’s babies and children, soaking up their laughter, ‘firsts’, smiles and cries.

Interestingly enough, I’ve always been a magnet for young children. I’m not sure why, but kids love playing with me… probably because I get lost in their world of imaginations with them. So it’s not like I don’t like young children, quite the opposite! Another interesting thing is at the age of 7, after my sister was born, I was introduced to the world of babies, diapers, feeding and such. Four years later, another sister was born. By this time, I had some training. Both sisters slept in my bed with me. I remember waking up in the middle of school nights to a sick sister and having to handle the situation while wiping their tears. I would strip the sheets from the bed and start a load of laundry while drawing a bath at 2am. After new bedding was laid and their bodies were clean, I’d switch the laundry over to the dryer and we were back to sleep until the alarm clock sounded for school. I recall several nights like this. Mom and dad worked and needed their rest.

During the summer months I was ‘mom’. I signed my sister’s up for swimming lessons, teeball practices and library programs. I couldn’t drive yet, so I peddaled around town with one sister strapped into my bike car seat and the other at my side on her little Huffy. I had a routine. I would wake up, make breakfast and then quietly slip back into the bed and wake my sisters up with whispers and kisses. At breakfast I would go over an itinerary I planned for the day, which included all the activities mentioned above, plus arts and crafts that I put together myself and of course some cleaning before mom and dad came home. For arts and crafts, we tried to make candles once and melted a whole box of crayons in the oven on one of mom’s cookie sheets; don’t worry, I had wax paper over the pan. Many times we made bracelets, necklaces, anklets and rings out of thread, fishing line and beads. We also made decorations for the house out of yarn and paper. We had fun. And cleaning, that part was probably most fun. We would play fun music and dance around the house… it was fun helping to grow my sisters. I think God gave me that experience for a reason.

Another thing that is interesting is that for a dozen years, I served as a camp counselor working specifically, year after year with 5th and 6th grade kids. It was an age I was very good at working with. And each year, it never failed, I was served up some of the most challenging situations with this age of children. It became a joke after a while; God put me there in those situations for a reason. Perhaps it will be years before I ever conclude why, but for now I sure do enjoy pondering the purpose behind it.