Hello, I am Loni ~ And You?

Hello friend! Thank you stopping by to visit!  What a blessing it is to call many I’ve met over the  past 9+ years of blogging, friend,  ~ most of which I will not meet until we join our final home in the new heavens.  In the meantime, I hope you come back to visit often ~ and do drop me a note in my comment box! I’d love to meet you too! Who am I?  I am a kept, loved child of God that I am just barely beginning to wrap my mind around this amazing truth! I’ve felt broken most of my life and yet, am understanding how God is putting the pieces back together, sometimes in a painful way like surgery without anesthesia, and other times in such amazing overwhelming ways of showing me the beauty out of the ashes.  This broken vessel will someday be without any blemishes and like Him!  Pretty amazing, huh? In the meantime God has appointed me to be the wife of one man for over twenty-nine years.  That alone is a miracle!  We’ve walked over some rocky terrains, fallen in a few pits and yet been blessed beyond measure with twelve amazing children, two of which we will be reunited with in heaven; our stillborn daughter, Angela Hope and our forever 16 year old son, Matthew Norman.  Both of these children are a book in itself!  I am also so blessed to have ten children walking this road of life, with us, ranging in age of 5 to 25, three of which are now married!  This past Thanksgiving we had 16 tucked in tightly around our dining room table. It brought tears to my eyes as we talked, laughed and joined hands together to pray.  WOW!  It’s moments like this I wish I could push the pause button! We have homeschooled all along for over 22 years which has not always been easy, yet worth guarding hearts and minds.  Two of our children, at this time, are attending a charter school for a couple of high school classes.  This is a new territory for us, and I am thankful for the things my children have not seen or heard through their early years of growing. So why do I write?  This author shares it perfectly: “But I talk about my life anyway because if, on the one hand, hardly anything could be less important, on the other hand, hardly anything could be more important. My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours. Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, you and I, of these stories of who we are and where we have come from and the people we have met along the way because it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity…that God makes Himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally. If this is true, it means that to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but also spiritually. “Telling Secrets: A Memoir by Frederick Buechner (page 30) I began blogging after the death of Matthew.  Writing was part of the journey to finding joy in the morning.  It was an intense, long night, and sometimes the clouds of it creep in again, but God’s promises of never leaving  has sustained me more than I ever imagined.  I am thankful for the dear ones that carried us along the way in prayer and encouragement, mentioning our son’s name and allowing us to remember him openly. Maybe you understand with me, life is hard, but God is always, always good. My writing is not of my having it all together. HA!  It’s this broken vessel that God is using to teach me how to put the pieces together where He wants them, in His fashion and His timing.  I am slowly learning, and I hope you join in with me, share with me as we learn of Him together! PS Do leave a note in the comment section!  To help with my time and weeding out spam and junk mail, I do not provide my e-mail address publicly.  So if you could kindly leave a note to me in the comment section, I will get back with you as soon as possible.  Because I respect your privacy as well, your comment will stay private, unless I have previously approved a comment of yours on my blog, then it may show.  If so, just leave a quick note that you’d like me to contact you, and I will do so! If you are interested in my reviewing a book or product for you, please visit this page and leave a comment  there. If you are interested in my helping you start a blog or webpage, also leave your name in the comment section, and I can give you more information.   I look forward to helping you begin a wonderful new adventure of writing, journaling, and/or sharing a part of your life that can touch so many!  I can provide numerous webpages and blogs that I have created and a very economical price in helping you begin this journey!   I look forward to hearing from you!

I am from the dust of the earth, God breathed life. I am from God in His likeness, a daughter of the most High King. From trembling giving hands of a frightened birth mother, To awkward welcoming hands uncertain of parenthood. I am from a suburban ranch brick home, creaky pocket doors and a pink chandelier dancing it’s beauty on mirrored walls. From honeysuckle bushes crimsoned with berries fencing in a private pool for swims from the high noon sun to stars sprinkling the sky. From simple TV dinners served on metal TV trays in a shag carpeted, paneled family room. I am from lumpy oatmeal every Saturday and milky scrambled eggs each Sunday. I am from a hymn singing baritone daddy, a radio news broadcaster, from an only child mom who found miracles happen birthing a first & only baby at 42 – my now missed sister. I am from a God-fearing grandfather, living in the same home, with secret taps on the wall each night reminding me of his love. From being told not to “drink or chew, or go with those that do”, “keep your elbows off the table”, “sit straight”, and “because I am the mother, that’s why”. I am from rejection and a broken vessel, though not discarded. I am from Life is Hard, but God is Good. I am from a white steepled Baptist church, Vacation Bible School and Sunday School mornings singing Jesus Loves Me. I am from walking a church aisle to Just as I Am, from a 1982 New Year’s Eve immersion baptism with my sister. I am from sin, saved by grace and a new unbroken, mind boggling adoption into the family of God. I am from the sweet smell of malt, the hops of beer in Milwaukee, melt-in-your-mouth German Schaum Torte topped with ice cream each Christmas Eve. I am from the honey taste of Greek Baklava from birth parents, & 8 siblings whom I’ve not all met. I am from few childhood pictures & painful, fading, God-healing memories. I am from 29 years with my husband and precious gifts of children from God. I am from overflowing scrapbooks for a dozen children and two tear-splattered gravestones for children worshiping in heaven. I am from the journey of mourning and finding joy in the morning. I am from a Book, with my name engraved in it, never to be blotted out or disowned. I am from the . . . GREAT, I AM. © LVS 2006; 2009, 2012 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  Exodus 3:14: “I AM THAT I AM” – (Hebrew: אהיה אשר אהיה, pronounced Ehyeh asher ehyeh, orYahweh) is the response God used in the Bible when Moses asked for His name, which means Jehovah – meaning “to be, to become” – self-existent One.  (from Bible study book, LORD, I want to Know You, A Devotional Study on the Names of God, by Kay Arthur). ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ This post is part of a meme that has been around for numerous years. To write your own, Where I’m From poem, read here.

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