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Me and My Man

Valerie Basham

January 2, 2014

As a little girl, I had a man. He was my dad. I wanted to marry someone just like him – hard working, funny, strong, and wise. By God’s grace, I did just that sixteen years ago today. My man is not perfect, but that’s okay. His wife isn’t perfect, either! We’ve traveled many roads together in just sixteen years. We’ve moved nine times and visited two foreign countries together. We’ve endured personal heartaches more than once together. We have seen five babies born into our family. He was by my side as I buried my dad over nine years ago. He has cared for me when I was sick. He’s cheered for me when I’ve succeeded. When I got my first *paid* article published, he surprised me with a framed color copy of the check! Every time I see it in my room, I am reminded that I have someone who believes in me.

I cannot properly put into words what my husband means to me. He’s more than a friend. He’s more than a soul-mate. He is as much a part of me as my hand or my heart. It has not always been this way. In our early days of marriage, we had more than a few disagreements. After one such argument, I was crying very hard and even scrunched down in a corner of our 500 square ft. apartment and cried out to the Lord, “I thought this was Your will! I wouldn’t have married him if You had said not to!” I had mistakenly thought that life in God’s will would be trouble-free. I thought that we would live as one with perfect unity and harmony, because we believed we were marrying in “God’s will”. I had more than one person in my church go as far as to tell me that if God meant for two to marry, there would be no problems. In these sixteen years, I’ve learned that we are, in fact, in God’s will, despite the rough waters we have sailed through. We have managed, with much prayer and patience, to finally come upon that harmony that I had expected from day one. I guess I just wasn’t prepared for the work, the waiting, the listening, and the learning that it would take. God graciously has allowed me to come to this wonderful place in my life, and I’m so grateful. I owe each minute of my blissfully happy marriage to Him!

Happy anniversary to the greatest man alive, Terry Basham, II! I love you, Terry, and I pray God gives us many more years in which to serve Him together.

Goodbye, 2013

Valerie Basham

2 comments

December 31, 2013

It’s hard to believe that we have come to the end of another year. This time last year, I was looking out of our school room window at the tall, swaying pines, wondering where I would be when 2013 ended. I never dreamed that I would be in Oklahoma, and in my own home! The Lord’s mercy and love for me never cease to amaze me, because I realize what a wretched soul I am. This year, however, I stand in particular awe of what He has done for me. I have made so many wonderful new friends, and met many joyful, enthusiastic people that my cup truly runneth over. I am excited at the thought that perhaps this will be the year the Lord will return! If He doesn’t come back this year, then I am excited to think about the amazing possibilities we have to reach our area for Christ!

I finished reading my Bible through today and it always makes me kinda sad to come to the end. I’m very glad that I can just flip back to the beginning and start over tomorrow in a new year! My husband used the Robert Murray M’Cheyene Bible reading schedule last year, and has encouraged me to give it a whirl in 2014, so I think I will. If you’re looking for a daily Bible reading plan, click HERE and scroll to the bottom for links to various types of schedules.

I realize that I have no idea what each new day holds, much less a year, so I must run to Him each morning for help. I cannot count how many times I’ve read something from His Word in the morning, only to see it bear fruit in the afternoon. His Word is the most crucial sustenance of each day. I don’t always get to it in the morning, but I do my best to get to it sometime before sleep overtakes me. I am so thankful for a husband who will corral the kids (if necessary) so I can get in my Bible time in peace and quiet.

We’re standing on the precipice of a brand new year! What are your goals this year? I am hoping to see the Lord do great things in my walk with Him – I need to draw closer to Him. I want to be a bolder witness for Him this year. I want to be more confident in HIM, not in myself. On a temporal note, I have a truck load of books that I want to read. 🙂

Happy New Year to you! Thanks for ending your year with me. Join me next year, too! 🙂

Love,

One Year Ago Today

Valerie Basham

4 comments

December 30, 2013

One year ago today, it was a Sunday. Terry had an appointment in the afternoon. The appointment was with a group of men, a pulpit committee, at a church in Lawton, Oklahoma, and it was all happening over the telephone. One year ago today, after the meeting, he came in with a look that said, “It’s not the place.” I let out a sigh – because we knew God was edging us out of our comfortable spot in Arkansas, but we weren’t sure where we would end up. I was sad, but also hopeful. After all, Oklahoma wasn’t on my “dream list” of locations. No offense to any Sooners out there, but the parts of Oklahoma that I’d seen weren’t all that great. So, I was sort of sad and sort of excited about who might call next.

A few weeks passed, and Terry got an email. The email said something like, “We’d like to meet with you and your wife, if she wants to come, for a face to face interview.” Wow! This was the place we’d given up on! What an unexpected turn of events! We went to that meeting in February. I was a nervous wreck. I talked too much, for one thing. The more nervous I get, the more I talk and the less I listen.They asked me about my parents. I told them my mom was in Benton, Arkansas, and my dad was in Heaven. At that point, I started sobbing like my dad had died the day before! I wiped the tears and apologized and felt even more stupid. I went back to the hotel and thought, “Well, if they don’t call him, Valerie, it’s all your fault! You’re an idiot!”

All the way home the next day, I looked out the window and continued to feel as though I’d ruined everything. I probably even said to my husband, “You won’t get it and it’s all my fault!” Somewhere along the way, the Lord said to my heart, “Valerie, if I want you to be there, then you will be there. It’s all in MY power, not yours.” From that moment, I had peace. I felt great joy when they contacted us two (agonizingly long) weeks later and said they would like him to come in view of a call! We went on March 24 to meet them. Yes, I was nervous. Yes, I talked too much and I laughed too loudly. Yes, I worried incessantly. But I did feel more at rest in the Lord. (Hey, I’m a work in progress!) 😉

On March 31, they actually voted to call my husband as their pastor! And it all began one year ago today.

I am learning many things in this life God has given me. I’m learning that He can take the girl voted “least likely to marry a preacher”, and have her marry a preacher. I’m learning that His plan is often different – and always better – than my plan. I’m learning that I don’t have great faith, but He can use me in spite of that. I’m learning that any forward progress in the Christian life is good – even if your eyes are squeezed shut and you’re just feeling your way along. I’m learning that a gorgeous landscape doesn’t make a place beautiful, it’s the people in that place that give it beauty.

And I have learned that Oklahoma is a very beautiful place.

Merry Christmas!

Valerie Basham

4 comments

December 24, 2013

Leslie, 8; Lauren, 14; Matthew, 3; Mitchell, 11; Laci, 7

Me and the man – age undisclosed. 😉

Merry Christmas from our home to yours!

Some Christmas Perspective

Valerie Basham

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December 21, 2013

Christmas is naturally a busy time of year for those who celebrate Christ’s birth. Parties, family gatherings, food, gifts, wrapping and more occupy our minds during this season. I tend to really get stressed about finding the perfect gift for each person and making my home comfortable for visitors. I wish I had the secret for relaxing more and frowning less over things like baking! One thing I do not get stressed over, though, is whether or not my kids understand the meaning of Christmas. Why? Because they do understand it. Not because of what we do at Christmas, but what we strive to do all year long. Christ graciously and mercifully saved me twenty years ago. He has given me these twenty years to serve Him. Whether it’s by training my children to love Him, serving my husband at home, singing, writing, speaking – whatever I do, I want it to glorify Him. Even a sinner like myself will see God work in amazing ways when I serve Him the best I can and rely upon Him to do the work of the heart that only He can do.

Here are just a few ideas that help me to relax and enjoy this joyous season as much as I can between fretting over the turkey and the chocolate pecan pie.

#1. When I see a selfish act in my children, any time of year, I remind them to think of others. This brings forth fruit at Christmas when I see them light up at the thought of buying a gift for someone else, especially a sibling. If we, as parents, only encourage selflessness at Christmas, it will be hard to come by. They need to be selfless all year long. Likewise, when I see them act selfishly at Christmas, I can (hopefully) remember sometime during the year when they were happy to do for others. It all balances out.

#2. Limit Christmas confusion. I used to get a photo with Santa when I was little. My family would sometimes sign the gift cards “from Santa”, just for fun. Today we have Santa, Elf on the Shelf, Jesus and much more to squeeze into one season of the year. It can be confusing for kids, and exhausting for moms and dads. To limit my stress, and their focus, we leave Santa out and the Elf on the store shelf. It just makes my life a little less complicated. If you can keep it all straight, you are my hero! The season is a happy and fun time of year. Just enjoy it!

#3. Keep simple traditions. I love tradition- family tradition, that is. I love how Dad made his homemade pancakes on Christmas morning, how we took turns opening gifts to properly “ooo” and “ahh” over what someone else had gotten. I liked drawing names on my mom’s side of the family. I have carried some of those traditions over into my own family and started some new ones. I feed my kids three times a day, but more than feeding their bodies, I want to feed their souls, that part of them that loves music and art; that part that feels love and pain – it needs nurturing in ways which only a mom can understand. I think traditions help nurture the soul of a person.

#4. Remember that Christmas is optional. There have been many Christmases in which we could barely afford one gift for each of our children. Somehow, our love and excitement overflowed and they didn’t notice the sparseness. Last year, I read how a woman needed new tires on her car, but instead of getting them, she bought her kids toys for Christmas! Her words were “We know what’s important.” Sadly, she doesn’t. Keeping her family safe on the road is far more important than having an XBox or Nintendo or any toy! You see, good tires are a need. Food, heat, clothing, water and electricity are needs – an iPad is not a need. A vacation is not a need. Christmas is not a need. We can remember and celebrate the joy of Christ’s incarnation any time of year. It’s not a command from God’s Word to celebrate it, and He most certainly was not born on December 25. It’s just a date chosen to remember Him in any way we’d like. We don’t need parities or presents to live. They are a blessing, not a need.

Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I wish you joy, happiness and blessings today, and every day! I leave you with a funny shot of the kids when I was trying to get a Christmas card photo. 🙂

With love,

A Little Poetry, Past and Present

Valerie Basham

2 comments

December 20, 2013

I was going through some photos on my phone and came across several videos, too. I had recorded the kids quoting their poems back in September, but never did anything with the video. I wanted to share them here so I’d have them. The poems are from the Abeka spelling, vocabulary and poetry books for their grades.

The first one is Laci quoting “The Elephant”.

Here’s Leslie quoting “Overheard in an Orchard.”

Leslie’s poem reminded me that Lauren had quoted the same poem, many moons ago when she was in third grade.

Here’s Mitchell saying “The Pasture”.

Mitchell quoted these when he was in Kindergarten!

With each child I’ve had, my life seems to have sped up. I’m so thankful for technology, and the ability to savor moments over and over again. Thanks for watching. 🙂

Why I Left Blogger

Valerie Basham

2 comments

December 19, 2013

I have been busy on the blog lately, but not just writing. I’ve been working on host and design changes.

A little history…

I began blogging with Blogger over six years ago when we lived in Texas. I called it “Life in the Hill Country” because we lived in the hill country of Texas. I never even considered what I would do with the title if we moved! Terry had worked and waited for seven years to become a pastor, we would never leave! But, we did just that after almost three years there. My “Life in the Hill Country” was then going to be “Life in the Timberland Region” of Arkansas. Not too catchy. I changed it to “Valerie’s Hope Chest”, because that was the name of our city. I didn’t like that name much, either. Then, a man in our church (who left long ago), whom I’ll call “Joe”, said he knew a lot about blogging and websites offered to do the church’s website. He also offered to help me. I only wish I’d known that he was the most unreliable man in the world. With Joe’s help, I purchased my first domain name (valeriebasham.com) and tried to learn about mysterious things like “My SQL” and “FTP” and “plugins”. I was helpless without Joe’s aid, and that became harder and harder to come by. Eventually, Joe gave up the church’s site. I quickly saw that my advice-getting-days were numbered, so I bailed. Everything I had written that year was on a server (which I had no clue how to access) somewhere out there. All I could do was call the company and cancel my domain. That’s like pulling the plug on your computer, it doesn’t gradually shut down, it just dies and quickly! I decided to go back to Blogger because at least I knew how to use it. I had posted over 150 posts on self-hosted site, and lost all but thirty. That was a horrible, terrible, very bad day. Before I shut it all down, I went to the site and managed to copy and paste those thirty posts, and their corresponding pictures, into a Word doc. I then copied them from the Word doc onto the new blog on Blogger.

I was still unsure what to call the old/new blog. One day, weeks later, the name “Valerie Write Now” came to me. It seemed to fit. It had my name, what I love to do, and the topics of which I write – what’s happening now – all in one short phrase. The best part is that it was a name I could take with me everywhere! (Though I didn’t plan on moving.) I found that I could purchase a domain name through Google, and keep the Blogger platform for my writing. No crazy My SQL or FTP or plugins! Just write, add photos and share! Ahhh…

And now…

Several months ago, I started having issues with the gadgets on Blogger. (Those are the links, menus and photos that were on the right side of my blog.) I didn’t worry about it because Google (who owns Blogger) has always been very good about repairing things like that pretty quickly. As of last week, I still had those issues, plus new ones! I noticed the search button for my blog wasn’t working. And when I tried to investigate, the entire layout page was blank! No problem, I’ll just contact the good folks at Google. But… you can’t just call them, you must *ahem* google them. Well, I googled every thing under the sun that was remotely close to the issues I was having, with few results. The possible solutions that I did find, I tried with no success. Finally, I decided I was done with Blogger. If I’d wanted to host my own site and write my own code, I would have stayed with the self-made site I’d had long ago. So, I researched what it would take to move everything over to WordPress.com and point my domain there. Believe it or not, it wasn’t that difficult to to do. It took several hours and much reading, but I did it!

Now that I’m here, and adjusting to the new setup, I really love it. I wish I’d done it years ago. They have so many options for writing posts, adding images is easier, and it’s just a cleaner looking site. I love that they share my posts for me automatically on various social media. AND, I have been able to get my questions answered quickly by searching their support site! My favorite feature so far is the dropdown menu for my pages (the labels across the top of the page). For instance, if you’ll hover your mouse over the label at the top of the page that says “About Me”, you’ll see a dropdown menu that has “Postpartum Depression (PPD)” and beneath that one is “Contact Me”. The same is true of the “Good News!” tab – there are other pages relating to that topic that drop down. This was only possible with Blogger if you could write the code for it yourself. Also, there is no limit to the number of separate pages you have! Blogger only allowed you to have ten.

It has definitely been a learning curve, and a bit overwhelming at times, but I like learning new things. I hope you will look around and make yourself at home. If you “followed” my posts using “Google Friend Connect”, you will no longer be able to get updates that way. Also, if you had subscribed to the feed on my other site, you will need to re-subscribe, even though the web address is the same. You can also use the WordPress “follow” link, which goes to your email, or choose from the social media buttons displayed in the sidebar. I’d love to hear what you think, so leave me a comment! 🙂

Thanks for reading and for keeping in touch!

The Word of the Day

Valerie Basham

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December 18, 2013

I love words. I’m not as good with them as I’d like to be, but I plan on pursuing them for as long as I live. God has allowed me to have access to an unlimited number of books to read. He has allowed me to have this blog for over six years which I lovingly fill with words as often as I can. I have also been privileged to be published in two different homeschooling magazines, and various and sundry other “little” places. But it doesn’t matter where I write or what I read that is important to me, the words are my passion. I’m even trying to learn a new language – ah yes! A whole new world of words! 🙂

I subscribe to a “word of the day” email. Everyday someone, somewhere sends me (and a few hundred thousand others, no doubt) an interesting vocabulary word with its definition, pronunciation and usage. It’s a lot of fun! Someday, maybe I can actually use one of them in real life! 🙂 As I read over my word email today after reading my Bible, the Word of God, a thought hit me. What if I picked a word of the day from the Word of God? What if on one day, I decided to focus on “love”, for instance? I need to love God with all my heart, mind and soul, which can only be done through His help. I need to show His love to others around me: my family, friends, church family, cashiers, mailman, bank tellers and on and on! I would be busy with just that. What if I chose “forgiveness” another day? When that offense from years ago came to mind, I would be reminded to forgive. When Satan brought up that sin from long ago, or the one from not-so-long-ago, I could recall that I am forgiven. When my husband snaps at me or the kids gripe, I could remember to forgive them right away, not to hold a grudge. The words are endless! There’s grace, mercy, meekness (yeah, I really need that one!), gentleness, peace, truth, virtue, kindness, holiness, discretion, perseverance, diligence, goodness, faith, strength, joy, knowledge, understanding, courage, patience, prayer, singing, humility- and the list is as long as the Bible itself!

I love words, and to be honest, I love my own words a lot. Why else would I talk and write so much? I am disappointed in myself to see that, really, I am often more passionate about my own words than those of God’s Word. I want to strive to keep HIS words first in my mind, and value them more than any others.

This Seems Familiar

Valerie Basham

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December 17, 2013

Here is a photo of Terry doing a major re-model on our master bathroom in 2007 when we lived in Burnet, Texas. It was a big job, and one which we didn’t have quite enough money to do right (it was a parsonage). In the end, we weren’t too happy with it. I believe the pastor who came after us tore it all out and made it look great, but at least we made it use-able.

And here he is last week doing a major repair job on our bathroom here:

Our last house, which was another parsonage, also required a major plumbing repair in both bathrooms!

Bathroom repairs seem to be our lot in life.

The reason for our recent repair job is that a pipe to our hot water heater (behind the wall he’s working on), sprang a teeny-tiny leak. Slowly over time, it saturated the sheet rock until the tiles on this wall started falling off! The leak was easy to fix, but the wall, not so much. And then, once he tore into the wall, he found we had termites! The house had an inspection before we bought it, but, they missed them. I believe we caught it before serious damage was done, and that’s because of this leak. I thank the Lord for allowing us to find out before the roof collapsed or a wall caved in completely! He is so good to us!

I’m also really thankful that my husband can repair just about anything. He had never tiled a wall before, and I think he did a great job. The original tile had some kind of pattern in it, which we couldn’t match, but he got as close as he could for now.

We hope to someday be able to do a complete re-do of our master bath and an update to the bathroom in the photo above.

But I hope we can hire someone else to do it! 😉

Mitchell’s Recital

Valerie Basham

6 comments

December 16, 2013

Mitchell had his first recital in Oklahoma last night!

Lauren has taken a break from lessons, and sadly, she was still too sick to even get to be at his recital. I am thankful I could record it, not only for myself and our family far away, but for Lauren. The video below is missing the beginning! I thought my phone was all ready to record, but it wasn’t, thus causing the delay.

After we listened to the 25 other kids play their pieces, and after the cookies, I had Mitch play it through again, so I could get the whole thing.

He also played the harmony of “Deck the Halls” with an ensemble. He had never practiced with them before, and he’d had to memorize the music in class. He never even got to bring the music home! He worked very hard on the tempo and his teacher was very impressed with the job he did. I didn’t post the video because it was hard to hear his part. The audience sang along and it drowned out a lot of his music.

He had a great time and even told his teacher he’d like to play a recital every month! 😀 She told him that would be fine if he would organize it! 😉

We miss our piano teacher in Arkansas so much. She was more than a teacher, she was a friend to our family. I am thankful that Mitchell (and hopefully all of the kids) can continue their music training here in Oklahoma. He sure does love it!