Tindell Baldwin »

I spend a lot of time at the dog park. My energetic Beaglier or fancy mutt has a lot of energy and our one bedroom loft doesn’t give him a whole lot of space, so i spend a lot of time at the dog park. I am always entertained by the different types of dogs and their unique personalities (a lot of times as unique as their owners) and I love watching how each of them react to each other. Aiden is a sniffer, he likes to get a good sniff in all the wrong places and then head on his way, some dogs are biters, see my tweet from two days ago, and some are players (in a non jersey shore type of way). No matter what type of dog they are though their are certain characteristics God made them with that we can’t flush out. Like my male dog who likes to mark his territory on every bush that has ever had a root or a great Dane I saw that literally came to my chest. Yesterday I saw a pack of husky’s that were all running perfectly in sync and all I could think was that I would love to hook up a sled to them. I wonder if that’s what God was thinking when he crafted them, they do seem perfect for a good sleigh ride. It got me thinking though, these dogs have God given traits they don’t try to erase, no matter how hard we try, but we can’t seem to master the same idea.

God gave us each strengths and weaknesses but we seem to always want to acquire someone elses God-given strengths. For example,  I was born a great Dane, most people come up to my chest, but I want to be a malti-poo all cute and cuddly. I just wasn’t made to be that way. I will do anything I can to look smaller, meeker, and more compliant but then my mask comes off and I yell too loud, I say whatever I think, and there is no bone in my body that is meek. We all want to be something we are not but what if we embraced who God made us to be and ran with it. We seem to all want to fit into a mold but God doesn’t have molds, he is forever creative and we are unique to our breed. We weren’t made to blend in with others but be unique in who we are. Right now my four best friends all want new jobs but they are all scared to pursue the talents God gave them and as I was pushing them last night to be who God made them to be I realized if I follow my own advice I have to stop slouching in public.

This is the one of those rare moments where everyone in my family is gathered in one place. It’s been two years sense we could all get away together, blame it on a family of 13, but this weekend we are all together. I am in heaven. 

Again, i’m sitting a hotel room in Dallas, this time its the Westin so i am even cooler. (if you dont understand see post below) and I am wondering where my life is taking me. For the first time in my life i feel like i have a purpose. I have found a job doing what i would love and something that shockingly i might be good at. I sat at dinner tonight with people who are much more important than me and just talked to them. I used the skills my dad teaches every class but to me they are nature. I just talked, asked question, talked again, got a few email’s and called it a night. It was wonderful. It is what I strive for, building relationships. but it’s something I haven’t gotten to experience in a long time. I sat their tonight blown away by how much this was touching me, how much i really cared to be noticed, to be appreciated, and most of all be heard. I wish I could say it was deserved, that I had earned their recognition but the only thing i had was a name tag that stated that I was Tom’s daughter and Tom is the big shot. He teaches and they hang on every word because this isn’t what they were brought up knowing. That is what makes his approach so unique and that is what makes me want to work for him. I want to expand his influence so that he can reach more people. I want the story I heard tonight about how my dad helped a woman accept herself for who she was be the stories that resonate in the company’s motto.

Then again I have a lot of dreams. Right now I am just focused on getting my ideas out to his company and convincing him that it would be in his best interest to hire me. Then of course there is my God concept, am i pushing past what he wants for me? Right now I hear no but that could change in a few months, because with each life change we have to reevaluate what he thinks is best. Its a process im not used to. I like answers now. So ill pray and make one heck of a sales pitch next week. Prayers needed

I’m sitting in a hotel room in Dallas, I love starting blogs this way because it makes me sound cooler than I really am, really though I am sitting in a hotel room in Dallas. It’s my me and my dads first business trip together where i have to do something besides lay by the pool and I am pumped (my word of the week).  First off I get to hear my dad do sales training, which has been a big family mystery, we all know he does it but no one has been able to catch him in action kinda like filming an exotic animal.

I have always dreamed of working with my dad, ever since he could take me to his office I have thought we would make a great team. I am hoping this trip proves the same thing to him. We have shockingly similar personalities and love brainstorming together. We are both visionaries but my dads vision’s turn into plans where as mine sit in a pretty box in the closet. My dream has always been that we would work together at his company and then when the timing is right we would start a ministry together. I want to do a ministry for teenage girls and their fathers. Obviously i would do the teenage girl part and my dad would be the father (if we can just get him to act like one). There is so much to be said for the father daughter relationship and I think we could say it. Mostly because we have had many challenges but always remained close. When I was in my great rebellion my dad would sit me down to talk about why i was drinking not just telling me why I shouldn’t. He made my faith come alive when he challenged me to read and I still sort through my faith that way.

So this is my dream. Who knows if it will happen but I keep praying it will. I am learning that just because I have dreams I don’t get to demand that God make them happen. I have to wait patiently and see if they are his dreams or mine. My dreams always sound good but his are the ones that are fulfilling and full of purpose. Now lets just pray my dad feels the same way.
More to come from dallas soon!

“Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” 
Proverbs 19:21

My parents come in town in less than twenty four hours and my heart beats with joy. It hasn’t even been that long since i’ve seen them but I like having them where I do life everyday. At first I couldn’t imagine moving more than two hours from my parents and now I am over 800 miles, which in case you are wondering, makes running home to mommy and daddy not so easy. I am content now, only by the power of God, and happy in the life we have created here in Houston. We are living proof that God is faithful. Because it was in one community service project that we met the people who would become our best friends. 


The first time I met Jessi she was shooting hoops with the rest of the boys and doing way to well. Every time she would make a shot her husband would give her a slap on the butt or a peck just to show a little support. I gagged. I was in a deep stage of bitterness and I wasn’t ready for one happy couple to bring me out of it. They did though, over the week Jessi’s bright smile and joy for the Lord made me realize I needed to get to know this girl. After our first day Ben asked me if we could go out with Jessi and her husband Matt, I shrugged, sounded fine to me. I was hesitant at first, I told him she was too peppy and i am not a peppy person to which he told me that I needed a little pep in my life. After we hung out once we bonded and learned that we were each praying for a friend and in Gods faithfulness we had received that. 


Tiffany was there those few days too. She was one of the brave ones who dealt with the small children. She had the kindest smile and something about the way she talked to the kids made me know she was very tenderhearted, that and the fact that she told she cried at almost anything. Her wedding was only a few weeks away and I prayed after it was over that we could bond. We did and now we spend our days off together walking and shopping if our husbands allow. 


My point in all of this is that God is faithful, it took us a year to have a community but it is exactly what we needed and only God knew how to orchestrate it. A year ago I was on the brink of giving up on my marriage, my faith, my life really. I wanted to crawl in a hole and never wake up and I shudder now to think about all that I would have missed: the good times with my husband, the girls night, the lessons, and the joy of knowing God cares. 

After reading my brother’s blog this morning I decided to make myself sit down and write. For someone with severe ADHD (me), this is the hardest part of the writing process. I sit down to write and my to-do list from the last two weeks pops into my head. So many useless things begging for my attention, and all I want to do is get one sentence out. Taylor so graciously reminded me this morning that writing is my calm. For Taylor putting his feet to gravel is where he can focus his attention and for me its putting pen to paper. I keep thinking of things I want to write about and then losing the thoughts. Mostly though I have been suffering from a lack of motivation and a decline in seratonin levels.

I was diagnosed with depression my Junior year in college after one extremely over-worked summer in “ministry.” For some reason working for people who work for God almost always brings you to near death. Two months after leaving my sleep deprived summer I had a stress-induced breakdown and have never been the same. I used to be ashamed that I could be so “weak,” but after many visits to my therapist I realized that depression isn’t a weakness, it’s a sickness (if you think I’m a nut-job feel free to unfollow at this point).

I have spent the last four years on and off antidepressants, but always on sleeping meds, wondering when God was going to cure me. I always assumed that Christianity and depression could not be uttered in the same sentence, but my depression had no effect on my standing with God. This seems to be my thorn. I can go from joy to tears in a matter of days, and fall into a pit so deep only the hands of angels can lift me out. I ache for joy, but so many times all God will grant me is grace. It’s life though; we all suffer, and mine by comparison is nothing.

One of my good friend’s brother recently passed away from cancer, and she suffers. They were as close as siblings get without incest, and now she is an only child. Daily she suffers, but not without the comfort of our heavenly father.

Sadly, suffering is a part of our lives here and just a reminder that we don’t belong. My mom has been sick since I was two, suffering. My uncle has brain cancer, and he and his family suffer. One of my best friends has an absent father, and she suffers. We all suffer, but only for a while, and if there is how to raise a member what pills to drink to cause anything Jesus understands it’s pain. Our suffering doesn’t make us unique; it’s how we handle it that does.

See, I can stay in bed and cry, or I can get up and deal with a broken world. Yes, I can grieve, and yes, I can hurt, but as a good friend recently told me after the loss of her brother, “I can’t quit life. It’s just not realistic.” I can’t quit because Jesus didn’t quit on me. When he felt the weight of the world on his shoulders he didn’t quit, and even on my worst days I haven’t felt anything like that. So this is my promise, to not let my suffering get in the way of the joy God gives me through writing.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. ⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Ben and I are spending another Sunday afternoon at a coffee shop, he’s reading and I’m trying to work on my book. I got a few lines down when the couple next to us literally starts to make out. We aren’t anywhere where they serve alcohol so we both looked at each other confused. I put my headphones in trying to avoid the smacking sound coming from a booth away. I type a few more lines when Ben taps me and whispers,
“They are having an affair”
“How do you know?” I ask
“They are talking about it”

Makes sense now why they have to make out in a coffee shop. I take out my headphones to ease drop just to confirm that they are in fact talking about their affair out in the open. Mindlessly I twist my wedding band around my finger and wonder at which point they decided that it had to come to this. I wonder when the grass on the other side of the road became that green. What I really want to ask them is what their story is. Is his wife unavailable and her husband too busy at work? Or maybe they just decided this was more fun. I don’t know their reasons but I would love to ask them. Sadly talking to strangers about their extramarital affairs is frowned upon other wise I wouldn’t hold back. As much as I want to judge them though, I know I have the same kind of selfishness in me that they do. At some point in my life I will face a cross roads where I can betray the ones I love and live for me or I can follow jesus. Those are really the only two options because you either live for something greater or you live for you. At some point I might want to pick other things besides Ben to love with all my heart, i’m sure when kids come I will be tempted to put them first, and if I ever have a career I will have to learn the balance of marriage and work. Honestly everyday I am faced with options that satisfy me and hurt someone else. I can call a friend in need or wallow in my own self pity. I can buy a dress that looks good or save the money for our future. It’s small decisions to a unselfish life. Its waking up everyday and deciding Jesus is worth following.

He is, In case you were wondering. It wasn’t so long ago that I lived for me. I remember the moments of gratification but what sticks out more is the overwhelming feeling that I was made for something more. We are made for bigger moments that coffee shop make out sessions. We are made to follow a huge God who has control of the world.

My prayer is that in twenty years Ben and I are still sitting together happily in a coffee shop enjoying a life made up of something more.