#FacebookFail

I started the day with a text message from one of my best friends: "OMG... I just saw Facebook. Are you okay???"

I did a mental check. Wondered if I had posted something the night before when I was tired that could be misconstrued. We had gotten ourselves into a precarious situation the day before when hiking, but I was pretty sure I'd kept that bit of information to myself. Finally I opened Facebook and saw the culprit.

It wasn't something I had posted, but something someone else had posted on my wall. It was the worst of all possible things someone could have posted. And even though I didn't believe it for a second, it still took my breath away:

"Wanted to send support to you over the loss of your mother."

It had been a week since I'd talked to my parents, but there was no possible way I would find out something so devastating as this on Facebook of all places. Yes, my father would be wrecked, but he would still find it in himself to make that horrible phone call.

My gut reaction was to reply to the comment and ask if he'd meant my GRANDmother who passed away in early summer. And then to say that this is how rumors are started and you need to get your facts straight. But that tiny seed of fear had been planted. And I had to call to be sure.

Of course no one answered the home phone. And that tiny seed began to take root. But when I called my mom's cell she picked up right away. "I just called to make sure you are alive," I said. "Yep, I'm alive," she answered cheerfully. And I breathed a sigh of relief.

While my situation turned out to be a misunderstanding, there are people who have learned devastating news about loved ones in equally impersonal and public ways. I didn't confront the person who made this post, knowing that it wasn't malicious, but it did make me pause and think about how we use social media and how we can use it better.

First of all, it would be wise to let the family make the first mention of the loss. Once that person has made the information public, then feel free to offer condolences in the comment section. Second, make sure you have your facts straight, including what this person's relationship was to the deceased. Third, make use of Facebook Messenger to send a private message. If you are making a public statement just so everyone else can see it, then your motives are wrong.

And finally, if you have a way of contacting your friend/loved one outside of social media, do it. One of Randy's best friends from high school passed away this week and he's been on the phone ever since. Not checking Facebook for updates, but making actual phone calls to family and friends. Offering condolences and breaking the news in a more personal way than a text or a post.

Facebook is a wonderful service when it is used to keep in contact with family and friends, but we are responsible for using it wisely.

Begging Sucks. Compassion Doesn't.

The young man at the intersection held a sign in his hands. "I like it," Rand said. "Me too," I agreed. We drove on, but the words were imprinted in my mind:

Begging Sucks. Compassion Doesn't.

Perhaps the fact that we kept driving is why we did what we did next. Or maybe we would have done it anyway. We'll never know.

We had driven to World Market, which we had a gift card for, and were in search of a cookie jar. After Rand and I got married, my new grandkids told me that the secret to being a good grandma was in the cookie jar. So obviously I wanted to live up to their high expectations!

While getting out of the car, two women pushing shopping carts approached. The younger woman with a child in her cart kept walking. But the older woman with the empty cart asked Rand if he could spare any change. His response: "Let me ask my wife."

I almost never give money to people who approach me in parking lots and Rand doesn't either. I'm not sure where this "rule" of ours comes from, except that I'm uncomfortable when people approach me directly. I'd much rather roll down my window or even hop out of the car and give money to someone sitting on a corner than I would someone who walks right up to me and my purse.

But we had driven right past the man on the corner with the compassion sign.

So I handed Rand $5 and he passed it on to the woman who expressed her appreciation.

Which would normally be the end of it. Except this time it wasn't.

We went in to World Market, perused the cutest cookie jars, settling on a yellow one shaped like a beehive, used our gift card to pay, and returned to our car in the parking lot. Where we saw the women we had just given $5 to loading bags into their trunk and driving off in a brand new jaguar.

Our jaws dropped. We went from disbelief to anger and back to disbelief in a matter of seconds. Finally settling on feeling sorry for someone who is so destitute in their spirits that they would ask for money they didn't need. Essentially taking money from those who do need it. Because even though we can do without that $5, maybe the man on the corner with the compassion sign couldn't. And instead of giving it to him we'd given it to her.

This is the challenge we face and why so many people choose not to serve others. Because they don't want to get taken advantage of by people like this woman.

But we are called to serve. We are called to listen to that voice in our spirit that nudges us to show kindness to others. Because for every woman who drives off in a new jaguar, there are dozens of others who are truly in need. Who truly hate begging and who are truly blessed when we show compassion.

So we must continue to serve. And not worry about what happens after we've given our time or money or love. But trust God to use it for His glory. Because for all we know, our $5 may be just what it takes to turn that woman's life around.

ADVICE ON THE OCCASION OF YOUR 3RD MARRIAGE

During the month leading up to our wedding day I started having nightmares. They say that marriage changes things, but for me the simple thought of getting married again was enough to send my emotions reeling.

But the nightmares had nothing to do with Randy, and everything to do with my past marriages.

In my nightmares I saw all of the ways that I had failed my past spouses. And worried that I would fail Randy in the same way. In my nightmares I saw all of the ways my past spouses had failed me. And worried that Randy would fail me in the same way too.

That’s not fair to Randy or to me or to us. This relationship is not those relationships. We will succeed in different ways and fail in different ways, but our commitment is to one another, not to the past.

Marriage is hard enough without carrying around the baggage of past marriages! So if you are considering divorce, I urge you to please, please, please reconsider. Remember the love you had for one another on your wedding day and do whatever it takes to get back to that moment and the commitment you made to one another.

But the reality is that many of us are divorced. And many of us are divorced more than once.

Because it’s so common, I figured I would find a wealth of advice out there to help me navigate this new journey. So, about a week before Randy and I got married, I googled “advice for your third marriage.” And I did find a couple of articles, all of which included the statistics of how likely I was to fail, but none of which told me why or how to avoid those pitfalls!

So I wondered, what advice was I hoping to find? What advice would I give others in my situation?

1.  If your past divorce was all your spouse’s fault – DON’T GET REMARRIED!

Have you heard of the 5 stages of grief? Well, these aren’t just for when you lose a loved one. These apply to so many things we face in life, including divorce.

The five stages are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

After my first divorce I was in total denial. I traveled to another country, moved to a different state, changed jobs and friends, bought a house and got a dog and acted like the whole thing never happened. Denial seemed easier than grieving the loss of my relationship with not only my spouse but with the step-son and in-laws whose lives I would no longer be a part of. And it was easier at first. Until I started dating again, and 3 years later remarried, and all those feelings were still there, unaddressed. After 3 years! And we had only been married for 2!

It was a huge reason why my second marriage didn’t work, though I wouldn’t have admitted that at the time. I wanted to dwell in the stage of anger during that divorce, blaming him and “his problems,” because that was easier than admitting I’d had any part in yet another failed marriage. And if I could blame him, then I could justify all of my wrong actions.

Which leads to bargaining. Bargaining is such a strange stage. It’s amazing what the mind will come up with. Things like, “I can make this right by convincing my first husband to marry me again” or “God if you forgive me for this divorce I promise I’ll never get married again” or “If you can convince him to go to rehab I promise I’ll stay in this marriage forever.” The “what ifs” and “if onlys” are endless.

Depression of course is the stage we are all trying to avoid and is why we want to jump into a new marriage without going through all the other stages. If we meet someone new while in the stages of anger or denial we can easily focus our energy on the new, prospective spouse and pretend that everything is going to be puppy dogs and rainbows. After all – it was their love we were missing all along.

WRONG!

Getting to the stage of acceptance BEFORE getting remarried is the healthiest way to give your new marriage a chance. If you are thinking, yes, but this new person is helping me get through all these stages, then you are probably in a codependent relationship. Ouch, right! Well, truth hurts. This is why we have platonic friends, family, and God – to help us through the stages.

And the truth is, you are not the same person you were before you were married the first time, and you never will be. Acceptance is not about being okay with divorce or being glad you got divorced, it’s about accepting your new reality and becoming the person you are now. Which you can’t do when you are all caught up in someone new. (And if your friends are saying this new person is your soul mate and you have to snatch them up before someone else does – see #2!)

2.  If your friends tell you to move in together to “test it out”, or you are having an affair and your friends say he is your “soul mate”, or any other advice that if you were in your right mind you would know was ridiculous – GET NEW FRIENDS!

One day during a high school gym class we were sitting on the floor watching a tutorial about how to keep score in bowling. Obviously not the most exciting day we’d ever had, so some of my girlfriends were chatting and giggling, as high school girls are wont to do. The gym teacher started calling off names, giving out detentions. He called each of my friends and then called me. I was outraged! “But I wasn’t talking!” I said. “It was my friends!” He quickly replied, “Get new friends!” And off to detention I went.

I didn’t take his advice. And I kept getting detention.

While it seemed harsh at the time, the wiser I get the more I see the merit in what he said. I wouldn’t trade those friends, but nor was he asking me to. He didn’t tell me to ditch my friends, he simply told me to get new ones. Because we are influenced by the people we spend time with.

I think it’s important to have a diversity of friends, but when it comes to making huge life decisions like moving in together or getting married or staying married, we have to be very careful about which of those friends’ opinions we listen to.

The temptation is to listen to whomever agrees with you and what you want, and to distance yourself from those opinions that tell you that you might be (or definitely are!) wrong. But this isn’t hurting them, this is hurting you. Because you are the one who has to live with the consequences of your actions.

Moving in together is a serious commitment! Not one that should be used to “test” the relationship. Affairs are selfish and cowardly and if your friends tell you otherwise – GET NEW FRIENDS! The consequences of marriage and divorce are life-long, and it’s important to surround yourself with people who will help you see clearly.

So, as hard as it may be to hear, it’s important to have friends who you can go to when faced with major decisions who will tell it to you straight. And if more than one of your wise friends is telling you the same thing, you’d be wise to listen!

3. If your divorce was pre-Facebook – IT NEVER HAPPENED!

A friend of mine told me recently about a girl he is crushing on, but this girl is “disillusioned” about relationships because of her past divorce. My first thought was, ‘I know this girl and I had no idea she’d been married before.’ Or maybe I did and I’d totally forgotten?

As Randy and I were talking about getting married my instinct was to worry about what everyone else would think. Like my life is a scene out of “The Runaway Bride” and my entire community is talking about all my past failures. And that they would certainly judge me if I were to put on a white dress and have my father walk me down the aisle of a church.

But as we got closer and closer to our wedding day I realized that “they” weren’t the ones who were worried about which marriage of mine this was. It was ME who was feeling unworthy of dress shopping with my mother and having bridesmaids and flower girls and a first dance.

That’s when Randy told me to stop calling this my “3rd marriage” because “this is OUR marriage.”

While some people will judge, most people will forget or maybe never knew. In fact, some of you are probably reading this thinking, “with all her world travel, when did Katie ever find time to get married and divorced, not once but twice?!”

4.  If your relationship is like an audition for the Fast and the Furious 8 – SLOW DOWN!

In my experience, one person in the relationship is always “ready” before the other – ready to get married, ready to move in together, ready to change their Facebook status. But it’s important to be true to yourself and when YOU are ready.

In our relationship Randy has always been ready before me.

He invited me to move to California after we’d known each other for less than 2 weeks. I was ready 7 months later.

He proposed to me after we’d known each other for a year. I was ready 5 months later.

We still ended up moving in together and we still ended up getting married, but it happened when we were both ready.

Folks, this is forever. There is no reason to rush it. If you don’t trust your partner to wait, then you have bigger issues. If you don’t trust your partner to love you once they’ve seen all of you, then you have bigger issues. If you think you are so in love that you can’t wait another minute to be together, you definitely need to wait another minute!

Something about dating as an adult makes relationships progress at warp speed. But remember when you were in high school and you dated the same person for 4 years and YOU DIDN’T GET MARRIED during any of those years?! Well, this is one time when adults should take the advice of teenagers. We can enjoy a long courtship too!

5. Even if you know the secret ingredient to her banana bread and how he likes his socks folded – YOU STILL HAVE A LOT TO LEARN!

On about day 30 of our walking the Camino together across Spain, Randy asked me, “Why do you always give me the heel of the bread?” And I responded, “Because it’s your favorite!” And he said, “What gave you that idea?”

We had spent over 700 uninterrupted hours together – more than most couples spend in their entire courtship – and the whole time I thought I was taking care of him, meanwhile he thought I was selfishly taking the softest parts of the bread and leaving him the crust!

What no one likes to say (especially those of us in the Christian sector) is that, if you’ve been married a couple times before, chances are you are living with your partner before you actually tie the knot. The temptation then is to think that you know everything there is to know about being married to this person. Which is not even close to being true.

While driving home from our ocean-getaway where we went the night of our wedding, Randy and I talked for the first time about what we wanted his and mine and our relationship to look like with his children, who are all adults. And even though his 19-year-old son lived with us for 6 months and we had to navigate boundaries and other things with him, decision making is different than relationship building.

There will always be new things to learn about our partners. And we can either be fearful of this or excited by it.

I love how well I know Randy and how well he knows me. I love that he knows I need time to transition from one activity (work) to the next (being together). I love that I know coffee makes him sneeze and bread gives him the hiccups. But I also love that every day I have the opportunity to know him more and better.

We would do well in all of our relationships to approach them with the mindset that there is always more to learn.

And my final bit of advice on the occasion of YOUR marriage is: make it the marriage and the wedding of your dreams. If you want to get married at the courthouse or in Vegas or in the park or in a big church wedding, do it! If you want to wear a white dress or a pants suit or jeans or a tuxedo, do it! If you want a big reception or a quiet escape, do it! YOU DESERVE IT! Because whether this is your first or your fifth marriage is irrelevant to the fact that this is YOUR marriage and YOU are responsible for making it the marriage of your dreams.

CONGRATULATIONS!

From a Chance Encounter to a Surprise Wedding!

The evolution of my relationship with Randy has been unexpected and unusual, at least for a girl with Midwestern values.

We met 19 months ago today on a tiny street in the southwest of France, and out of necessity spent our first night together in a tent. Over the course of the next 23 days we became more than walking partners – we became best friends, confidantes, and eventually fell in love.

On day 22 we met the mayor of Grañón, Spain. He offered to marry us in the town square the next morning at 8 a.m. But as we often did on the Camino, we overslept. We walked to the town of Rabé de las Calzadas that day, where we had a communal dinner over which we became best friends with our bunk mates. They quickly saw the value of our relationship and desire to make a commitment to one another and we all stood together as Randy and I made our vows to one another.

Over the course of the next 6 months, we had what you might call a “courtship,” dividing our time between California and Ohio, getting to know one another’s families and a sense of what real life might be like together. At the end of those 6 months, I packed up my house and my dog Jovi, and Randy and I spent the next 3 weeks visiting family all the way to California.

Four months later we returned to the Camino, to walk the final 300 kilometers together. But our first stop was that tiny street in southwest France where we first met. It was there that Randy got down on one knee and presented me with a ring he had designed special for me, a ring he had asked my parents’ permission to give to me. And I said yes.

I should clarify – I said yes to Randy, but I did not say yes to a wedding. We determined that once I was ready for wedding talk, I would propose to him!

Five months later, on August 29, I got down on one knee in our living room and, with a bread tie from a loaf of wonder bread in my hand, asked Randy to marry me. And he said yes!

Did you get all that?

• 19 months ago – we met
• 18 months ago – we said our vows
• 11 months ago – we moved in together
• 5 months ago – Randy proposed to me
• 1 month ago – I proposed to Randy

Do you see what I mean by the “unusual” order of things!

But the fun doesn't stop there! On August 29, when I proposed to Randy, I told him I thought it would be amazing to get married on September 29, because it was 18 months to the day that we said our vows in Spain. That way we could celebrate our wedding anniversary every 6 months! Plus it was a Tuesday and we’d always said if we were ever going to get married again it would be in the middle of the week.

He laughed at me and we went on about our lives. We traveled separately to Anaheim for work. We traveled together to Oregon for vacation. We spent a day in San Francisco. My brother came to visit from Texas. We went to a baseball game, took on the care of my mother-in-law's dog... Every day an adventure!

But little did I know that he was plotting and planning the perfect wedding for me!

On September 28 at 4 p.m., Randy gave me a note that said “Tomorrow at noon will you come to the old Auburn courthouse and marry me??” And this time, without any hesitation, I said “yes!”

From there we delivered a week’s worth of meals to a family in need, and then went to Nordstroms to buy our wedding attire. The next morning we went to the nail salon for mani/pedis, went to the county office to secure our marriage license, and made it to the old courthouse with 20 minutes to spare!

Randy’s entire family and a couple of our friends were there to meet us and my heart was so full! We met briefly with the judge, another family friend, who was to marry us and he said, “Do you want to get married in the courtroom or outside?” Randy said he’d been told that it was a 6-month process to get married outside so he assumed we’d be in the courtroom. The judge gave us a wink and outside we went!

Which is how we ended up getting married in the most beautiful outdoor wedding, surrounded by friends and family, on September 29!