There is a “thing” going around on Facebook currently where you list a specific number of things people may not know about you…

I’m not sure how it started, but if you comment on someone else’s list they’ll send you a number and that number is how many facts have to be on your list.

I don’t think I can do it… Most of my life is an open book.  My entire life, I have been a sermon illustration – sometimes with my permission, most of the time without.  I was/am used to it and it really doesn’t bother me.

Back in August of 2007 (scroll through all the blog posts that I shifted over here and you’ll find the entry), I wrote about hating being a preacher’s kid.  One of my reasons was because everyone knew everything about my life – or a least thought they had the right to.

I’ve gotten over the anger you’ll read in that post – though my dad’s “early retirement” to the beach area has helped that tremendously.

Really- I rarely hide anything about myself.  Ask Amy, Ashley, or Crystal – they’ll tell you it is true.  It is one of the things that I *think* drew Jeff to me – that I’m just me and I’m pretty outgoing with it – but it is also something that we argue over from time to time.  Did you know that my husband is a very, very private individual?  Do you think he was on drugs when he decided to marry me?

As I sit here typing that I am an open book, I can think of just a few things people don’t know.

1. I cuss in my head.  It was one of the things I rebelled well in – my language.  Now, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve risked taking God’s name in vain.  That is not a commandment I have broken lightly and I feel guilty for the few times I’ve done it.  BUT, there are a couple words that flow through my brain in moments of stress that I have to fight hard to keep inside.  They slip out every now and then (I fear that one of my children will say “damn” in front of my grandmother and it will be all my fault), but it is a fight that I will keep fighting until I finally get those words tamed.

2. I’ve been married before… Now most everyone who will read this post knows this already.  But, I’ve made some new friends in the last couple years that may not know it.  I was young.  We barely knew each other.  It was the worst year of my life.  I was so depressed and so unwilling to share what I was going through.  I was the Youth Director at the church I was a member of.  I was in charge of the middle & high school kids and what on earth kind of example would it be to tell them that the marriage I rushed into was a mistake.  I went to counseling.  I got on antidepressants.  I stuck it out until he finally cleaned out our bank account and moved out.  I was broken, but I had been broken for so long that the actual end came as such a relief.

3. I started dating Jeff RIGHT.AWAY.  Again, if you’ve known me a while, you know this.  My mother was… angry is not the right word… She didn’t really speak to me for months and I was living in her house.  She wanted me to take time for myself and I just wanted to move on.  If you didn’t know the situation, you might have thought that my 1st husband and I split up because of Jeff, but that is not remotely the case.  I didn’t know Jeff knew who I was – or that he assigned any type of importance to me – until after I had announced my separation to my church.  We dated for almost 5 years before we got engaged and we got married about 5.5 years after we started dating.  Someday I’m going to post more about this – perhaps telling you more about me that you don’t know.

Well, I’m sure I might have been able to get to five, but that precious baby boy is waking up from his nap and he’s not really happy.  He rarely wakes up in a good mood.  I may come back and edit this to add more, but for now –

Are you keeping secrets?  I find that secrets make me edgy… but at least I’m not a sermon illustration on a regular basis anymore, right?