It's official. I am starting a Master's program in Marriage and Family Therapy at George Fox University on August 31, 2009. For those who don't know, the university was founded by Quaker pioneers in 1891. The majority of my professors are also pastors and ministers of faiths other than LDS. I am in for a great learning experience. We have already moved into a new little town house located 5 minutes away from my campus.
Graduate school. . .I am scared. I'm taking 13 credits to try to stay in the 2 year track, but I've heard that that's a lot. I also have to sign up for my own therapy (at least 20 sessions of it) and cannot graduate from the program until I've done so. I was talking to a therapist who works where I work (she graduated from George Fox) and she said it was an extremely demanding program in lots of ways, but especially with personal issues. Every insecurity, issue, problem you have or have not dealt with will be brought to the surface. I feel like that has happened in my life before: getting ready for my mission, living my mission, getting home from my mission, getting engaged, getting married--maybe I've been prepared for this.
Actually, I know I have been prepared for this--the Lord has lead me to this decision and this experience. I do not know the meaning of all things, but I do know that he leads me. August 8th would have been our miscarried baby's due date. I would not be starting this program had our baby lived. Reassurance comes when I need it most--it will continue.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Marriage and Family
We just celebrated our 1 year anniversary yesterday--how love grows so sweet and rich in just one year. I wish we'd have planted a tree the day we were married. Then we could watch it grow and compare our developing love to roots sprouting, a trunk with limbs branching out, little green shoots. Time and Sonlight allow love to flourish.
Of all the beautiful things in this life, the beauty of a family happily interacting brings me the most joy. We just got back from Sunday dinner at my aunt and uncle's house--cousins, grandparents, me, my husband, all eating and laughing around the table, taking turns sharing memories. I zoomed out like a camera and watched for a second, hoping to hold the picture in my permanent memory card.
And then I think of the saddest things in the world--families that don't talk, don't share love or joy or warm apple pie with melting vanilla ice cream. I taught the young women in church today about forgiveness and how often it is the hardest to forgive the ones that are closest to us--how bitterness rots the heart and makes you stiff inside where there is no room for the warmth that only family can bring.
Next week I'm interviewing for a Master's program in Marriage and Family Therapy. I've spent the last few years trying to make life better for families in need. As I dig deeper into the lives of mothers, fathers children, I recognize patterns of behavior and belief the debilitate loving homes. Therapy is not a solve-all. Therapy is not comfortable. Therapy is not cheap (getting it or studying it). But most families wouldn't hurt to have someone help them "zoom out" for a moment to notice the trends, the cycles, the dirt that often gets swept under the rug but is there anyway, silently collecting for a day of reckoning.
I want to help in this beautiful and often painful process. I want to help strengthen marriages and families. I feel lead down this path, and it's only starting. . . .
Of all the beautiful things in this life, the beauty of a family happily interacting brings me the most joy. We just got back from Sunday dinner at my aunt and uncle's house--cousins, grandparents, me, my husband, all eating and laughing around the table, taking turns sharing memories. I zoomed out like a camera and watched for a second, hoping to hold the picture in my permanent memory card.
And then I think of the saddest things in the world--families that don't talk, don't share love or joy or warm apple pie with melting vanilla ice cream. I taught the young women in church today about forgiveness and how often it is the hardest to forgive the ones that are closest to us--how bitterness rots the heart and makes you stiff inside where there is no room for the warmth that only family can bring.
Next week I'm interviewing for a Master's program in Marriage and Family Therapy. I've spent the last few years trying to make life better for families in need. As I dig deeper into the lives of mothers, fathers children, I recognize patterns of behavior and belief the debilitate loving homes. Therapy is not a solve-all. Therapy is not comfortable. Therapy is not cheap (getting it or studying it). But most families wouldn't hurt to have someone help them "zoom out" for a moment to notice the trends, the cycles, the dirt that often gets swept under the rug but is there anyway, silently collecting for a day of reckoning.
I want to help in this beautiful and often painful process. I want to help strengthen marriages and families. I feel lead down this path, and it's only starting. . . .
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Volunteers
I've spent the last month pretty much begging. Begging businesses, resturants, and even the organization I work for--begging for donations for volunteer appreciation. I've had a few successes, but mostly I've had a lot of frustration: no one feels that gratitude is worth money. Sure, saying thank you is always appropriate, but why spend money on "free labor".
It isn't even the lack of money that brings me the most frustration--it's the attitude behind the "we don't have the funds for that right now" that gets me sad. I see money and "stuff" thrown around for all sorts of advertising, staff development, partnership opportunities, but there's never enough for the lives of those who are lifting the real loads.
All of the dirty work--the labor and time intensive work--that is done at my social services center is done by volunteers. They spend the gas money to drive to the food bank for 3 truck loads of food (60 miles) each week. They stand in the rain to wait for the food distribution. They break the sweat that loads this food into trucks and onto our shelves. They sort through smelly, musty, smoky bags and bags of donated clothing, getting rashes from unknown contaminants.
Nothing is beneath them. They are without guile and without honor from their "superiors" bring sustained life to needy needy families. They are the least among us and yet are the greatest. I am humbled. I pay tribute. I appreciate volunteers.
It isn't even the lack of money that brings me the most frustration--it's the attitude behind the "we don't have the funds for that right now" that gets me sad. I see money and "stuff" thrown around for all sorts of advertising, staff development, partnership opportunities, but there's never enough for the lives of those who are lifting the real loads.
All of the dirty work--the labor and time intensive work--that is done at my social services center is done by volunteers. They spend the gas money to drive to the food bank for 3 truck loads of food (60 miles) each week. They stand in the rain to wait for the food distribution. They break the sweat that loads this food into trucks and onto our shelves. They sort through smelly, musty, smoky bags and bags of donated clothing, getting rashes from unknown contaminants.
Nothing is beneath them. They are without guile and without honor from their "superiors" bring sustained life to needy needy families. They are the least among us and yet are the greatest. I am humbled. I pay tribute. I appreciate volunteers.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Most Recent Pics
If you want to see where I live and what my life is like, please check out my little (taller) sister's blog: She has a log of all her adventures when she came for a visit last month.
http://laceysstateofmercies.blogspot.com/
http://laceysstateofmercies.blogspot.com/
Friday, April 3, 2009
Dreams can be reality...
My dreams became a reality one year ago yesterday. I got engaged to Tyler Joseph Anderson on the 2nd of April, 2008 (the location seen in this picture, two and a 1/2 months later). Last night, as I wrote in my journal, I flipped back a few hundred entries ago and read the following:
"Yes! I am engaged. I am in shock. I am in love. I am scared. I am happy. I am in engaged. What in the world? Me, Sundy Lynn Peterson--engaged. To Tyler Joseph Anderson....Oh, I love him! It's unreal. I can't believe this is me. I love him. Love, Sundy Lynn Anderson to be."
While the initial giddiness and shock has worn off, the love and excitement has not. I love being married to a wonderful man. We live for each other. We want to be one more than anything, and we work at that sometimes humbling process every day. How do you explain what it's like to bawl your eyes out in someone's arms who feels the same pain that you feel, or can whisper soothing words in the middle of an intimidating or horrifying situation that actually do sooth. Or the excitement I feel when waiting to see his train coming around the bend from downtown Portland.
So, "the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." I didn't dare dream it would be this good, real, deep, and happy. But it is....
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
A "Good Christmas"
Since October 30, my mind has been buzzing with Christmas preparations. Not for me and Tyler, but for the 5,000 families who have or will be applying for various holiday sponsorship programs in Washington County. 30% of the people who live here cannot afford to, meaning their gross income does not cover basic living costs, let alone a packed Christmas season of presents, stockings, and homemade candies.
The family resource center I work at is doing the only thing we know how to do; taking applications for possible sponsorship, warning each eager-eyed parent that this form is not a guarantee, but a plea to the community to "help 4 the holidays."
The system gets complicated. A family writes down their contact information, if anyone in the home speaks English, each member of the family's sizes and desires for gifts, and whether they would like to pick up the presents and food at the center or have the gifts delivered to their homes. Explicit instructions are given--each gift idea should be limited to $25. I fan through the 200+ applications from families (we've only been accepting applications for 9 days) and see over and over the words "bike", "Ipod", "plasma TV". Then there are the parents who say "anything will do--I just want to give my children a good Christmas."
I cannot judge these families. They are the families that come monthly to our center, expressing gratitude after gratitude for the help they receive--school supplies, diapers, food, clothing, free dental care--they they could not make ends meet without us. Why do they want Ipods and plasma TVs? Because everyone else has Ipods and TVs. I'm sure in their minds a family who wants to sponsor another family is overflowing with the wealth and capacity to fill such requests from both their own children AND the needing family who has requested assistance.
But the sponsor side of the coin is its own world. A man who waited at the center for over 2 hours for free dental care watched as families poured through the door, asking for applications for the holiday sponsorship program. He came into my office and asked what was required to become a sponsor. Surely he is not planning on buying happiness for his own children this Christmas. He wants to give, though, and while a $25 gift per person for a family of 4 will stretch him thin, he desires the joy from the stretching.
Most sponsors have contacted me through email, specifying what kind of family they want to sponsor--"We'd like three families with 3-4 people in each, English speakers who live in this zip code, people who want us to come to their home to drop off the gifts...." Forget our system of first come, first serve. I flip through the pages of forms, hoping to find families who meet the sponsors' requirments.
Tyler and I went to the Salvation Army's holiday sign up on Saturday morning. This was a larger run on an agency then my center receives, as Salvation Army has helped families for Christmas for years and years. Everyone knows to get there early and stand in line until the doors open and 5 can come in at a time. I walked around in the rain, greeting the families. They saw my volunteer badge and wanted to know what I was going to do about the 10 people who'd cut in front of them, and didn't I care that they'd been here since 6 am, and that they were cold from the wind and rain. Oh how I care.
And oh how I wish they could know what a "good Christmas" really feels like--how it fills up every hole in your heart to sing songs of joy to the King of Kings with your family and friends, to watch children dress up as angels and wisemen, to look up at stars and ponder why The night was a holy night. To fall on your knees and hear the angels' voices.
Good Christian men rejoice with heart and soul and voice! A good Christmas is possible regardless of your bank account. "Come, my brethren, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come buy and eat; yea, come buy wine and milk withoutmoney and without price" (2 Nephi 9:50).
The family resource center I work at is doing the only thing we know how to do; taking applications for possible sponsorship, warning each eager-eyed parent that this form is not a guarantee, but a plea to the community to "help 4 the holidays."
The system gets complicated. A family writes down their contact information, if anyone in the home speaks English, each member of the family's sizes and desires for gifts, and whether they would like to pick up the presents and food at the center or have the gifts delivered to their homes. Explicit instructions are given--each gift idea should be limited to $25. I fan through the 200+ applications from families (we've only been accepting applications for 9 days) and see over and over the words "bike", "Ipod", "plasma TV". Then there are the parents who say "anything will do--I just want to give my children a good Christmas."
I cannot judge these families. They are the families that come monthly to our center, expressing gratitude after gratitude for the help they receive--school supplies, diapers, food, clothing, free dental care--they they could not make ends meet without us. Why do they want Ipods and plasma TVs? Because everyone else has Ipods and TVs. I'm sure in their minds a family who wants to sponsor another family is overflowing with the wealth and capacity to fill such requests from both their own children AND the needing family who has requested assistance.
But the sponsor side of the coin is its own world. A man who waited at the center for over 2 hours for free dental care watched as families poured through the door, asking for applications for the holiday sponsorship program. He came into my office and asked what was required to become a sponsor. Surely he is not planning on buying happiness for his own children this Christmas. He wants to give, though, and while a $25 gift per person for a family of 4 will stretch him thin, he desires the joy from the stretching.
Most sponsors have contacted me through email, specifying what kind of family they want to sponsor--"We'd like three families with 3-4 people in each, English speakers who live in this zip code, people who want us to come to their home to drop off the gifts...." Forget our system of first come, first serve. I flip through the pages of forms, hoping to find families who meet the sponsors' requirments.
Tyler and I went to the Salvation Army's holiday sign up on Saturday morning. This was a larger run on an agency then my center receives, as Salvation Army has helped families for Christmas for years and years. Everyone knows to get there early and stand in line until the doors open and 5 can come in at a time. I walked around in the rain, greeting the families. They saw my volunteer badge and wanted to know what I was going to do about the 10 people who'd cut in front of them, and didn't I care that they'd been here since 6 am, and that they were cold from the wind and rain. Oh how I care.
And oh how I wish they could know what a "good Christmas" really feels like--how it fills up every hole in your heart to sing songs of joy to the King of Kings with your family and friends, to watch children dress up as angels and wisemen, to look up at stars and ponder why The night was a holy night. To fall on your knees and hear the angels' voices.
Good Christian men rejoice with heart and soul and voice! A good Christmas is possible regardless of your bank account. "Come, my brethren, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come buy and eat; yea, come buy wine and milk withoutmoney and without price" (2 Nephi 9:50).
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