Anybody else have the ear worm “Don’t Stop Believin'” by Journey today? Anybody else have a pre-Valentine’s Day hankering for a vase of roses? Anybody else still reeling from the UGA overtime victory last night?

Not all will, but the best will. (This is satire, if I need to explain.)

Boy, my beloved Georgia Bulldogs pulled off a win last night that left half of the Bulldog Nation breathless and the other half with a pulse that could rupture arteries and blow out an aorta quick as a Sony Michel run for the goal line.  And if you claim to be a part of the Bulldog Nation and none of those two scenarios applied to you, then you may need to check if your heart is beating. Hell, even the very heavens rang out with cheers of “Go Dawgs!” as God allowed the departed faithful a front row in the celestial sky box to one of the most epic games in recent history.  My blood pressure just regulated and I can finally take the paramedics off speed dial.  For the moment…

Gone are the days when I was an undergrad at the most beautiful college in all of the land: I’m now a married mother of three in the southwest corner of the great state of Georgia.  Though my birth certificate states otherwise (as well as my pants size, sheesh), I would swear in my mind I’m still a young, fun 20-something college girl.  (I’m still fun! and young!-ish.) What I wouldn’t give for just one more semester there…preferably during football season…only heaven would compare…and perhaps the birth of my children…and possibly my wedding day.  Still.  College was THE life.

Through Facebook feeds and Twitter tweets and Instagram posts of pictures and well-produced video snippets, we can glean some of what this set of Georgia Bulldogs is comprised.  And people are watching –watching the players and the coaches– and hanging on to every word, every victory dance, every catchy hashtagged motto, every playful relationship– and sharing and liking and retweeting because that’s.our.team.  Those.are.OUR.BOYS.  That’s part of what makes a team one to follow.  Letting us have an “inside” track and also living a little vicariously through them.  We know their names, we know their numbers, we have nicknames for some.  But what makes them WORTHY to follow is more than these things.

Listening to interviews of the players makes me all the more proud to claim my spot in the UGA fan base.  Humble, gracious, committed, determined, and faithful…those are just a few words that describe the players and coaches.  As a mother to a little boy who is at the tender, impressionable age of 4,  I’m thankful that I can plop him in front of a Jake Fromm or Sony Michel or Nick Chubb interview (and there are others, too) and know that these men are of character that I’d be proud for my son to emulate.   I can’t think of better role models for him to have next to his Daddy (who is the hero of all heroes in his eyes). The grit and resolve of this team of men is a lesson for any to imitate, including my 8- and 7-year-old girls.  The “keep chopping” slogan isn’t merely just that.  These guys showed us throughout the course of the game, and of the season, no less, that they mean what they say and what they hashtag.  Their actions back up their words.  They are and have been serious about staying the course and I love the example they have set and are setting for the youngest of their fans. It’s a lesson for even the oldest of fans, too: never quit, never give up, never say never, keep chopping. You know, “keep the main thing the main thing.”

These fellas’ Mommas should be proud.  I know I am for them. The world watches as their boys are transforming into men — men of integrity, men of virtue, men with pluck.  That world lens can often be cruel, condescending, judgmental, unkind, even untrue: but their Mommas love them.   I wonder if they ever think of their one-time four-year old boys– with skinned knees and dirty hands and wide eyes and time still for their mommas laps and all the world waiting for them– and wonder how on God’s earth that it all has come to this awesome time for them in what surely seems to be lightning fast time travel. I pray for their hearts as they must certainly watch in awe and know that they have only our Heavenly Father to thank for this course for their boys.   GLORY.

The knowledge that we get to go the title game only adds to the palpable excitement.  As the lyrics to Journey’s song go: “Don’t stop believin’, Hold on to the feeeeeeeliiiiiiiin!” I know we won’t stop believing in our corner of the Bulldog Nation.  Go Dawgs!

I’ll be putting 911 back on speed dial on Monday…

Thinking on this time of year brings out many an emotion for each one of you that may read this.  And the spectrum of emotions can range– year to year, day to day, shoot–minute to minute– if you have little ones at home. (And I’m so sorry that Mothers Morning Out and school is letting these monkeys out of their cages for what might be an eternity.  Or about 12 days, but still.  Close enough to eternity.) That gamut can range from joy, excitement, delight, stress, anger, sadness, exhaustion…I mean, you know them all.  You probably say “yes” to every one of them.  It’s just a weighty time of year.  And wait-y.  Again, those with the kids feel me on this one.  “No, you may NOT open a present yet! You have to WAIT until Christmas!” And the weighty part is literal as well as figurative in my corner of the world.  All the calories come home for Christmas.  Home being my butt and gut.  All the ones I attempted to send off to boot camp throughout the year–or at least the couple of weeks before I knew I had to get in a bathing suit (with a cover up that more resembles a uniform for a sack race) in public.  Seriously though, there are a lot of feels to feel at Christmas time.

Which brings me to this feel I’m emoting right now: indebtedness.  And no, not feeling that for the money that I owe on my Capital One card, nor the $10 due the room mom for teacher gifts, and not even to the creator of poopourri (though that person deserves a million dollars in small bills).  No.  This indebtedness is such that I couldn’t repay it in this lifetime if I worked three jobs and fed my kids only ramen noodles for the rest of the time they are under my roof.  In fact, it couldn’t even be “repaid” because there is no monetary value to place on it.

For many that know me and my family, you know that my father-in-law recently received a life-saving and life-giving lung transplant.  The story of the journey that concluded with the transplant is nothing short of a miracle and one not to be hidden under wraps.  However, that entire narrative is for a different time and post, and perhaps not even for me to share, but rather for him or my mother-in-law.  That will be determined at a different time.  I digress.

How does one say thank you for the gift of life? Especially knowing it means losing a loved one’s own? Though the words of my mouth fail in that department (shocker being the talk-your-face-off-talker that I am–especially if you add wine), my heart ponders these things often.

I think of the family that made the decision to share the hopes and dreams that would no longer be lived out in their loved one’s life with a loved one of mine.  And I suppose that we say thank you by saying how we so look forward to the life yet to be lived.  We have joy because of their grief.

I think of a life lost, and how it was, I assume, so very difficult sitting around the Thanksgiving table for the first time this year without that soul still here on earth, and an empty chair where it once sat.  Maybe a favorite recipe wasn’t made for the first time in years, or the one that always said the blessing or was the comic relief, maybe that wasn’t there.  And I hope they know how our Thanksgiving was so different this year.  How having a piece of their loved one living in one of our loved ones at our dinner table (or hospital tray, but still), and a chair that could have very easily been empty filled up, made us all thank God with an even truer intention.  Thanks-living will have new meaning. I pray that they know this and it comforts them.

And Christmas.  The time together that wasn’t the same this year.  Perhaps an ornament was hung upon the Christmas tree that brought someone tears as opposed to cheer this year, and was placed on a branch a bit gingerly as an object of remembrance and memorial.  Someone didn’t get a present under the tree from a loved one for the first time in years. Handwriting on a gift label that wouldn’t be there anymore except perhaps on a recycled gift sack’s hang tag…

BUT Christmas.  The Baby in the manger.  The tiny, precious loved One of a naive young mother.  “What child IS this?” Who at the time had no idea how this Babe would have to be sacrificed in order to save others.  What that would look like, how that would feel, but loved that baby regardless.  And she pondered these things in her heart.  She gave Him life, and He gave us life.  Us that are so very undeserving, but so very, very in need of Him.  Life-giving.  I see a juxtaposition with my father-in-law’s recent gift.  Who knows that we may in death have an opportunity to save another? And that, much like Mary didn’t get to choose whom her Son would save,  this family didn’t get to choose us or decide whom should receive those most precious organs, or if he was even worthy, but gave them away anyway.   I pray that they know that these lungs are cherished and that my father-in-law was worth it.  I pray they know we say “thank you” every time we look at the man who is breathing without a tube, every time we hear Big Daddy’s voice with breath from their loved one’s lungs, every time we get to talk about the future that wasn’t to be had they not so unselfishly chosen to give a gift bigger than any other this side of heaven and next to Jesus.

They gave Bob life again.

They gave us life again.

Jesus gives us all life again.

I hope they know we say thank you.

I hope we all live in ways so Jesus knows our thankfulness.

Life has a way of sacking it to you.  Some sacks sort of stink, like a quarter back sack or a 10 lb bag of 2 month old taters.  And some sacks are pretty darn great and they include words like “Anthropologie” and “Wine World” and “Godiva” emblazoned on the outside.  Either way, getting sacked is a special hobby of mine and I’ve found the best way to escape the quicksand bog of my mind on these said life sacks is to get it out and on paper.  Though this not paper nor plume, I find that I can type in the rapid fire way my brain works faster than I can scribble words down. And, I can share for a bit of self fulfillment in my oh so very needy way.  (I can’t help it: words of affirmation is my love language.  I’m listening.)

So, I’m going to try and take to this and blog in the bog of the moment.  I’d love to have you read along.  And positively affirm as you see fit.  And the walls come tumbling down…