Thoughts – Page 7 – Joyful Domesticity

May 5, 2015May 6, 2015

Creating Memories, II

Continuing in our conversation on creating memories… intro here, my own childhood memories here , fun quotes here… Now I will share with you some specific things (both activities/events and overall penetrating themes) which I hope, pray, endeavor, and work toward my own children embracing now and remembering as time goes on, and in a couple of days I will expand each of these areas to share about the hows (and maybe the whys) behind them. Remember to share in the comments (or link to your blog) if there are specifics that you want your own kids to remember as they someday look back upon their childhoods as well ~ I would love to exchange ideas with you!

CREATING MEMORIES, II
specifics I want my kids to remember

~bedtime serenades~
In the evenings, after tucking them in, kissing them, praying for them, and blessing them, I scoot myself over to the piano. I play for roughly thirty minutes, and the children love falling asleep in the midst of it.
Recently, they have begun requesting harp in addition to piano. Sometimes I play one instrument per night, other times I play a little of each.

~joy at the table~
We need to keep working on this one. 🙂 I long for my children to look back at mealtimes not just as opportunities to fill our mouths and bellies with food, but to love one another and spend time with one another… especially the dinner table where all of us sit down together.

~love of learning, delight in playing, embracing of all we call neighbor~
Especially as a homeschooling family, but regardless of it just the same, we seek to daily inculcate a love of curiosity and creativity and learning.
We encourage a delight in playing, especially playing together.
We also seek to embrace our neighbor in these things, especially as learning and playing coincide.

~Sabbath as a joy & monument, Christ everyday & in our everyday~
Have you ever read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Farmer Boy” and been taken aback at the description of Sundays? As I recall, it’s the same in “Little House in the Big Woods,” and I don’t think the legalism and harsh realities of what “Sabbath” meant to people is really very far-fetched for most of us. But my boys, who are old enough to pick up on the nuances of these details we read about, find it absolutely unimaginable. They love Sundays!

~weekly family fun night~
Part of our merrymaking on the Lord’s Day is how we wrap up the day with family fun night!

~music~
As a musical person myself, I have sought to teach my kids about music and singing from the womb. I have grand visions of incorporating music and singing into every meal, like a regular liturgy. 🙂
It would be an enormous blessing (and honestly a huge success in my eyes) if my children were to look back on their childhoods as being regularly seasoned with music.

~words~
Our children love singing, reading, writing, (oh do they ever!) talking. I hope our children remember words in their childhoods being seasoned with grace.

~laughter~
I want my children to remember their childhoods as filled with laughter.

~forgiveness~
I suppose above all else, even above joy itself, is that I want my children to remember their home as a place where forgiveness was both sought and given wholeheartedly.

May 3, 2015May 4, 2015

Creating Memories, I

A couple of days ago, I introduced a conversation to you. A conversation about memories ~ those from our own childhoods, and those that we desperately wish to inculcate into the lives of the children around us, in our homes, in our charge. As we jump into a few days’ meditation on this subject, please allow me to first share with you some of the hallmark memories from my own childhood, and the overarching theme which I remember permeating our family home & life. You are invited, and most welcome, to share your own experiences in the comments here or link over to your own blog if you have one. The intent is not to compare or even to contrast childhood memories, but to encourage one another as we see different beauties and varied glories in different homes among different families, to see with eyes of grace how the Lord has written different stories for each of us, to be lifted in spirit as we remember where we came from and look ahead in faith & hope to where He continues taking us.

CREATING MEMORIES, I
what I remember from my own childhood

~bedtime—singing, Daddy on guitar, Mama’s fingers running through my hair~
I remember bedtime like no other time of the day. Some of my very earliest memories (coming from someone who has a notoriously bad memory…) are of bedtime. Perhaps because it was the one predictable time of the day when all four of us were together, doing the same thing at the same time. I don’t remember how we got from the dinner table to our beds; I don’t recall if we had dinner, evening, or playtime routines; I don’t even honestly remember if my super-busy pediatrician father who was incessantly in high demand was with us every night for dinner or not (although I know for certain he was there often, and I imagine he did absolutely everything he could to be there every night).
But I remember being tucked in. I remember my dog either curling up on her pillow at the foot of my bed or scurrying underneath my bed to sleep. I remember my parents taking turns saying goodnight to my brother and me, singing to each of us separately, sometimes my dad settling himself with his guitar in between our bedroom doors to sing to us both at the same time. I remember my favorite “song” to request was “make-up, Daddy! make-up!” and he would make something up on the fly. I loved that! I remember my mother kneeling at the side of my bed, combing my hair with her fingers, sometimes just while she said goodnight and sang me a lullaby (which words she crafted when I was a wee thing), sometimes continuing until I had fully fallen asleep. I remember falling asleep with the most peaceful feeling that this was home, this was peace, this was comfort, this was love.

I remember how well they loved us without actually using words.
Because sometimes words are too difficult to hear.
Sometimes you’re just not ready to dissect what you’ve been through.
Sometimes you need both more and less than the words.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p98~

~freedom in playing & schedules & schooling—the comfort of balancing freedom with boundaries~
I remember feeling so free in my childhood. We were not married to schedules although we definitely kept to routines (don’t you kind of have to, in order to all function together smoothly, and to interact with the community around you?). I remember routines like “Thursday School” and going with my mom to her ladies’ Bible studies. I remember going to “the club” with my mom, coloring in Disney books (Ariel might have been my favorite… and one of my friends may have taught me to draw mermaids freehand, although I always ended up with the shells near the belly button somehow…), while my mom did aerobics. I loved watching her, tapping my toes to the rhythmic music. Sometimes we got to go swimming, play tennis, or play on the playground at the club. I remember the routine of Friday mornings, where my dad would take my brother and me on rounds with him at the hospitals. I remember hanging out in nursing stations while he donned yellow gowns and examined sweet tiny babies in nurseries. I remember the smell of the hospitals. I remember he would take us out for breakfast too: Jack In The Box was our agreed upon favorite at the time. Colin ordered things without eggs, I ordered things without sausage. We loved the delightful spoiling of getting to have a treat like Sprite or orange juice on a weekday morning. I remember getting to bring my schoolwork to my dad’s office, to sit at the little fold-up desk he had built right there into his own workplace. Sometimes I got to interact with patients, or hang out with his staff (including my grandma, who was the financial guru), but mostly I think I did try to focus on math and reading and writing. I remember doing schoolwork at home, and watching Little House on the Prairie on channel 36 when I was done with my lessons… although I tended to do more lessons in one day than I was technically supposed to. I remember my parents encouraging fieldtrips and experiences and reading for hours on end. I remember hanging out at the Saratoga library. I remember learning and growing and my curiosity expanding. I remember having time to create things, to play music or read books for hours on end, to run free and wild in our acre-wide backyard, to gather wild blackberries or catch tadpoles in the creek or hike through backyards to say hello to a horse a few homes down (I called her Sweet Pea, but I never actually found out her real name). I remember my friends all being tied to schedules and having very little downtime. I remember wishing my friends wouldn’t be grounded so often, because it always seemed to hurt my heart more than it hurt theirs when our precious playdates got canceled (perhaps that’s because my friends all had sisters, and I was the only one who didn’t). I remember feeling so beautifully free, but I remember the comfort of knowing my boundaries and of resting in the knowledge that breaking boundaries would result in the bittersweet blessing of discipline. I remember feeling loved and safe in the freedom of those boundaries.

~being my mama’s shadow and being allowed in my daddy’s world~
I remember following my mother everywhere. From the moment I was born, I think I somehow knew she was going to be my lifelong best friend and forever mentor. Church events, errands, hospitality, visiting those in need, catering monthly office lunches at my dad’s office, Sunday night family dinners at my grandma’s house, hosting tea parties, doing housework, cooking meals, folding laundry, adding chemicals to the swimming pool, sewing clothes and curtains and gifts, reorganizing cupboards and redecorating rooms. I loved shadowing my mother, learning from her, watching her, coming alongside her to groom my clumsy hands slowly into shadows of her skilled ones. I hardly ever remember being without her. When I did find myself without her (at piano lessons, ballet, or even if I waited in the car while she ran in to the bank or Safeway), I do recall a feeling of painful separation. I didn’t like being without the one whom I shadowed. I embraced it and loved it and was blessed by it. Thankfully, I think she did & was too!
I remember being allowed in my daddy’s world. From the weekly trips to breakfast and on hospital rounds, to the times (was it weekly also?) when I would spend mornings doing schoolwork in his office, to playing tennis, to learning different swimming strokes, to watching him woodwork in his shop, to singing alongside him while he strummed his guitar, to recording music together on cassette tapes, to driving around buckled into the back left seat of our minivan and shopping at Home Depot for wood or Fry’s Electronics for techy stuff I really didn’t understand ~ I loved being allowed in his world. I followed him like a little duckling, not always shaping my hands to imitate his, but always watching and gleaning and loving and respecting what his hands were doing… and his hands were always doing.

Here’s just one oddity about being people:
I don’t remember anything about showing up on this planet (and neither do you).
I am here. You are here.
Others have to explain it to me.
I take it on faith.
Everything that I believe about my own origin and the early years of being me,
I have heard secondhand.
I was clearly a free agent (based on the stories).
I was assessing things and making decisions and taking action (with an emphasis on self-interest).
I was living life to the fullest.
And all of it is gone, at least from my memory.
But humans are not intended for data storage (though we have that capacity).
We are intended for living, for moving through a story.
~N.D. Wilson, Death by Living, p96~

~my brother as my constant and best friend~
I remember how people would comment about our brother-sister relationship, how we never argued (let alone fought), how we were sometimes mistaken for twins (red head blue eyed freckled waifs!), how we had vastly different hobbies & interests but always found middle ground to love spending time together. I remember always looking up to him, and wanting to be like him in any ways that I could. I remember how he shadowed our father like I shadowed our mother. I remember knowing early on that he was basically a genius, and I tried hard to keep pace with him until we were teenagers when I realized calculus and computer languages just were not going to be my thing at all. I remember playing with him in the creek, watching him practice archery on the woodshed, how he helped my dad build me “a prairie house” playhouse, how I learned to type by watching him type, how he helped teach me to drive, how we did music together, how we did Scottish Highland dancing together, how we shared friends, how we shared love of being country kids (he with his cows, me with my horse) and he built me a chicken coop for my fifteenth birthday present because I was given nine little chicks that year. I remember being told that it would change when we grew up, that boys grow into men who necessarily have to love wives so intensely that sisters will have to grow into the background. I remember not believing what I was told. But even though our friendship is not the same depth because we do not have the unique time alone together for days on end anymore, our friendship is still present and unique. He is always there for me. He always answers the phone when I call him, whether with good news or bad. We pray for one another. We embrace one another’s kids with abandon. I see us in our children… and I see the beauty of my lifelong friendship with my beloved big brother reflected in the loving friendship our children now share. He is the only other person who shared my childhood, who has common memories with me, who gets the inside jokes or secret looks across the dining table at my parents’ house. Age and distance will never change that. And the things I remember from childhood, growing up with him as my only sibling and only real bosom friend, haven’t begun to fade yet, and I seriously pray they never will.

Because [he] is my only sibling, and I am his,
there’s something completely singular about our relationship.
There’s no one on earth who has shared our history,
no one on earth who can see the world from the corner that we alone inhabit.
… Now we are grown. And he is still one of my best friends…
There is a whole world, a whole history between us that no one else knows,
that no one else understands, and there are times when my brother and I catch eyes
in a room, across the dinner table, or across the yacht club,
understanding each other perfectly, wordlessly.
What a gift it is to share this town, this history, this family,
this corner of the world with someone like him.
~Shauna Niequist, Bread & Wine, p238~

~truth, beauty, and goodness as overarching themes that penetrated our everyday~
I remember the gospel glories of truth, beauty, and goodness penetrating every aspect of our family life. Home, church, homeschooling, hospitality, Daddy’s work, Mama’s work, our relationships. There was never any doubt Who ruled our home and family. There was never any doubt that the only things truly worth pursuing (individually and corporately) were those which held truth, beauty, and goodness ~ or at least the seeds or seedlings of them. Woodworking, home decorating, feeding bellies, lavish tables, huge Christmas trees, clothing, speaking, writing, singing, fellowshipping, exercising, serving at the City Team homeless shelter, leading Bible studies and craft nights, science projects with the J girls, hiking through the hills, finishing math pages, playing dressup… there was no aspect of my childhood where truth, beauty, and goodness did not permeate and saturate. Even (perhaps especially) when I sinned, and was disciplined, those three glorious themes were huge and everpresent. The forgiveness of my father was something I craved and loved and clung to… and it taught me about the forgiveness of my Heavenly Father as well.
While my parents may not have verbally used the tri fecta of truth, beauty, and goodness in so many words all the time, as I reflect upon my childhood, that is what I remember. It is what I knew, and what I know, and what I pray to continue knowing.

May 1, 2015April 30, 2015

Happy Birthday, (Grand)Mama!

As I begin to delve into a little blog series on childhood memories, I wanted to take this little opportunity to say happy birthday to my mother.

The woman who has embraced me, pursued me, let me go, and prayed for me ~ every day of my life.

I know she’s praying…
The faithful prayers of a woman
who isn’t just being polite when she says, “I’ll pray for you.”
I’ve come to recognize that for her,
that phrase isn’t the worn-out cliché I’m used to,
but the battle cry of a warrior.
I don’t take it for granted anymore.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p126~

One of the greatest gifts my mother has given me is her love of prayer.
She pursues it daily, in big and little ways.
You might not know she is seasoned in combat just by looking at her, but I know that she is a warrior ~ the Throne of Grace has been battered by her cries repeatedly, daily, continually… not the least cries of which, have been on my own behalf.

I have always wanted to be like my mom when I grew up. At the same time, like most adults, I am more like her in some ways than I thought I would be… and maybe even like her in some ways I wish I weren’t. But I was made partly in her image. I am half her. And I’ve learned to love and embrace that, with its vibrancy & its shadows.
I want to cook like she does. Paint like she can. Play with my grandkids like she does. I want a vibrant and militant prayer life like hers. I want to be passionate and unafraid like she is. I want to honor my husband and adore my offspring in the private & public ways like she does.

Happy Birthday, Mama… you are grand. xo

April 26, 2015April 25, 2015

I will live myself to death for them

As Nate Wilson said, I am thankful
“for the people I am meant to live myself to death for.
For bigness. For smallness.
For bread. For wine.
For all they represent”
(Death by Living, p188).
May I live accurately,
according to this thankfulness in my heart.

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May I live myself to death for the people God has given me.

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April 6, 2015April 5, 2015

Easter Lessons

This year, we went out of our way to do a few more hands-on lessons and Easter preparations with the children. The older they get, of course the more they grasp ~ and it is delightful to hear their own 6, 3, and 2 year old sized insights into why we do the things we do.

On Good Friday, rather than doing our normal homeschooling routine, while the little ones had individual room time (learning to play on their own for a solid hour is a good skill to learn), Gabriel helped me clean the house. We washed windows, cleaned bathrooms, swept floors, mopped floors, did laundry, washed dishes, wiped down cupboards. And while we worked together, we talked about why we were working so hard, and why is this what we chose to do on Good Friday. When I asked Gabriel what he thought, he paused in thought, then profoundly said, “Well, today is the day we remember the whole reason why Jesus came. He came to clean our hearts. So I guess that’s why we should clean our home.” I wanted to just stop the conversation right there, and leave it at that ~ because my kid gets SO much of the Gospel story, and I love hearing his perspective on it. It’s beautiful. But we went on to talk about how Jesus served others, even though He was King of all. We talked about “our people” ~ and who are our neighbors. Gabriel even asked if he could wash my feet when we were done cleaning, because he wanted to bless me and serve me like Jesus.

But I hate to admit, I forgot about the feet-washing, because by the time we were done cleaning the house, the little ones were ready to be done with solitary playtime, and we needed to move on to the phase of dirtying things back up again. Funny how we do that in my line of work: we clean things up so we can make them dirty again!

So after a little lunch, Evangeline was ready for a nap, and the boys & I got out supplies for some crafts that would hold more lessons.

We had already dyed Easter eggs with Grandmama, Auntie, and cousins, complete with super sweet and thoughtful conversations about the metaphors, symbolism, and just plain fun of the tradition. My children and I have talked numerous times this week about the symbolism we can see in the eggs… how they symbolize the rock which closed the tomb, but new life can spring forth from it… how we can take plain eggs and give them new clothing, as we do when we take on new life in Christ… how the yolk in a cracked egg can symbolize the glorious light of Jesus’ resurrection from the dark tomb when He burst forth in glorious array…
Click here to read about Easter Egg traditions throughout the life of the Church, following the Lenten season. Even plain old Wikipedia had some great thought-provoking things about Easter Eggs, or Paschal Eggs. And for some fun nuances on Easter Egg traditions, click here and have some fun with the kids in your life.

Romans 6:4
We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death,
in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glory of the Father,
we too might walk in newness of life.

Thanks to Ann Voskamp’s diligent sharing each and every year, I finally felt like my boys were old enough this year to really grasp & enjoy a couple more unique & detailed hands-on projects.

First we had a snack of nuts and figs, while we made a crown of thorns (using a small grapevine wreath and a few dozen coffee-stained toothpicks) and talked a lot about the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Three year old Asher was nearly in tears (I love how his forehead crinkles and his chin quivers when he feels genuine sorrow), talking about Jesus being tortured, bleeding, and dying. He finally smiled again when I reminded Him that this was why Jesus came, and this is how He worked to save US from OUR sins. And in his sweet little voice, Asher proclaimed, “I sure love Jesus, Mommy.”

Matthew 27:29
…twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head…

Mark 15:17
…twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on Him.

John 19:2, 5
And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head and arrayed Him in a purple robe. So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

Next we went out on to the back porch and put together our own little Gethsemane. Using a small moss planter (I used this, and don’t let the word “large” fool you!), we filled it with soil. Then we set our tomb carved in the rock in the corner of the garden (I found that aquarium accessories could offer some neat options, like this cichlid stone), before filling the rest of the garden with plants. We used some little succulents we got at a local store along with some pretty decorative moss, and then Gabriel used small smooth stones to make a little pathway through the garden to the tomb. Last of all, the boys went on a stone hunt outside to find something that would serve as a tomb cover.

John 19:41
Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.

Luke 23:55-56
The women who had come with Him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how His body was laid.Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

On Good Friday, we used last week’s palm branches and our homemade crown of thorns to decorate our dinner table, when we ate lamb and roasted vegetables and matzo ball soup, along with the Seder plate with all its elements and plenty of wine.

Our kitchen island was cleared of all other decorations, and that is where we laid our own little Gethsemane. On Friday evening we closed up the tomb. On Saturday morning we found a little soldier to keep guard outside the tomb. And the children looked forward to seeing what would come of it on Sunday morning.

Matthew 27:59-60, 66
And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. … So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.

Come Sunday morning, the children came downstairs to find the guard fallen down, the stone moved away, and a piece of linen folded inside the tomb.

Matthew 28:2-8
And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.He is not here, for He has risen, as He said. Come, see the place where He lay.Then go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead, and behold, He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see Him. See, I have told you.”So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell His disciples.

Luke 24:1-12
…On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb,but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?He is not here, but has risen. Remember how He told you, while He was still in Galilee,that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”And they remembered His words,and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles,but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.

They found a table set for a beautiful little breakfast. Fruit salad, hard boiled eggs with sea salt, mimosas, Easter story cookies, and Easter tomb rolls (the kids had helped me make those all on Saturday, which was really wonderful). Candles and music and the excited rush of gathering and eating and praising God together, singing Christ The Lord Is Risen Today. Gifts for each one at their place ~ books and chocolates.

Once the morning feasting was done, it came time to don our Easter clothing (clothing is hugely metaphorical and meaningful in Scripture and the history of the Church) ~ even the Easter sermon mentioned this, because we had three baptisms during the service and these Scriptures were emphasized.

Ephesians 4:17-24
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus,to put off your old self,which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Colossians 3:12-17
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Galatians 3:27
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

And so we got dressed in new matchy-matchy clothes (and my heart ached in all the heaviest and bestest of ways, because I have been given a family to clothe, and children who can wear sickeningly matchy outfits!), and talked about putting on Christ, putting off our old selves, putting on the new self in newness of life and the beauty of holiness, putting on love above all other things.

And then? Then the party really started. Gabriel pointed out, “there sure is a lot of joy around church and everywhere today!” and I couldn’t help but laugh. Because isn’t that just exactly, precisely the way it should be?! May the joy of the gospel, and of the Resurrected Christ, and of the hope He has given His people, shed forth from your homes, your families, your churches, and your wanderings until He comes again and everything is made new and all is set right.

To the glory of the Father, amen. Allelulia!

April 4, 2015April 3, 2015

Saturday… Waiting… Where is My Hope?

Job 30:26
But when I hoped for good, evil came,
and when I waited for light, darkness came.

Hope is a double edged sword. Walking through Holy Week, we think along the lines of so many events… It’s so busy! Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem while His people worshipped and called hosanna, He cleansed the temple and taught His people, He is betrayed by one who is unfaithful, He is perfumed by one who is faithful, He gives thanks even in the presence of His betrayer, He hands out bread and wine to His followers, He prays in solitude, He is captured and taken away, He is scrutinized and condemned, He is taken before leaders and stood before multitudes, He is burdened in every imaginable way, He is stripped and scourged, He is hung and nailed through, He cries out, He is forsaken, He bleeds, He dies, He is taken away, He is buried in the dark tomb…

Now what?

The time between death and resurrection feels so dark, so empty, so long. What is happening in this day between Friday and Sunday? What are we to do as we sit outside the tomb? And what is our Lord doing in the darkness, the cold grips of death?

I was asked to guest post for Olive Tree Bible Software’s blog this weekend, so to continue reading, click here…

And click here to see what my husband wrote a couple days ago as he shared with us a remembrance that the Lord’s rejection ultimately lead to our acceptance in the Beloved.

Ephesians 1:3-10
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.

April 3, 2015March 30, 2015

A Little Bit Broken

A little bit broken.
That’s how I feel on my best of days.

Rough around the edges. Stained on the inside—and sometimes on the outside. Cracked here and there, a chip or two gone missing. Things leak out, sometimes because I spill them and sometimes because I am incapable of holding them in.

A chipped teacup with some leftover flecks of dried out tea leaves nestled in the mar—parts of my story that rest mostly in these shadowy cracks. Add some water, swirl me around, and you will see my beauty mixed with my pain. Which parts are the most lovely is difficult at times to ascertain. The dark bits swirl around, and eventually settle on the bottom. Take a sip, drink the water—it is flavored by what came out of the chips & cracks that had been hiding, but it is the water that carries it to your tongue and that flows into you and satisfies the parts of you that were longing to be quenched.

I am useful despite my imperfections. Perhaps all the more because of them.

2 Corinthians 1:3-7
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

The Lord meets me in my brokenness and comforts me. And then He gives me the ability—the empathy—to reach out from my own chippy cracks to meet others in this same place and comfort them. He gives Himself to me in a measure that is truly immeasurable, and then He makes my cup overflow so that I can give a measure to someone else. We pour into one another, often from the lip and more often from the cracks.

Sometimes I wish I were a perfectly kept, shiny, whole teacup without stains and chips, no hidden leftover tea leaves and no cracks threatening to leak little drips or big splashes. It gets messy—I like tidy. But I trust in the Lord my God, who created me to be His vessel, and He holds my broken self in His loving hands even now. (Psalm 31:14, 12, 15) Who is it that made me? Who cares for me? Who numbers my days and has already prepared the good works that I shall do? God my King, the Potter who forms us in His clay—who creates us, molds us, changes us, uses us, and even chips us—as it seems good to Him. (Jeremiah 18:3-4)

When I remember these things, I am reminded and comforted—all over again—that sometimes it is the chips and the stains that bring Him the most glory, that do the most to reach His people, that give me opportunities for greater good for the Kingdom, that make me useful and beautiful at the same time.

I am not meant to be left on a shelf. Beauty does not mean untouched, unchipped, unstained, unused. I am meant to be used for His glory, poured out for God’s people—after all, I am made in Their image, I came from clay, but I am a reflection of Him who poured out all of Himself for His people (Isaiah 53:12), and in the little ways He has prepared for me, I imperfectly image that pouring, that dying, that bleeding & brokenness. And that imaging and imitating is perhaps the most beautiful of all fragile things.

Brokenness doesn’t automatically bring us to the thin place,
the sacred place where God’s breath and touch are closer than our own skin.
Heartbreak brings us lots of places—
to despair, to bitterness, to emptiness, to numbness, to isolation.
But because God is just that good,
if we allow the people who love us to walk with us
right through the brokenness,
it can also lead to a deep sense of God’s presence.
When things fall apart,
the broken places allow all sorts of things to enter,
and one of them is the presence of God.
~ Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet, p94~

April 2, 2015March 30, 2015

Exercise of Faith in Suffering

Though the fig tree does not blossom,
and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails,
and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold,
and there is no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will exult in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength;
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
and makes me tread upon the heights.

Habakkuk 3:17-19

I know this passage. I know it well. I have memorized it. I have memorized a couple different song versions of it. I have sung it in church before. I have clung to it through years of trying to have a baby but finding the blossoms & the fruit failing. I have used it as a frequent reminder that regardless of my physical situation, my soul’s stability remains unshaken — my joy and my strength being grounded in the One who created the mountains and the trees and the animals, storylines and climaxes and rainclouds, life and laughter and suffering and me.

But until last week, I don’t think I had ever gone to the length of putting my own fears, my own troubles, my own sufferings and shadows and dark corners by the means of words into this form.

“Though the _________________________________________________ and there are no ___________________________, though the ___________________________________________ fails and the ___________________________ produces no ___________________________________, though there are no ________________________________________ in the __________________________________ and no __________________________________ in the ____________________________, yet I will rejoice in the Lord….”

So when Mr. Palpant suggested, at our final Lenten lecture meeting last Wednesday, that we fill in these blanks according to the story we are each currently living, I might have (okay, I did) melted into a puddle of weeping at the table in the back of the room. Boy, did it ever hit home. In good, painfully sharp & cutting to the bones, Christ-be-with-me kinds of ways.

In your own path of suffering, of doubt fighting with hope, of walking with the Lord on the heights as well as in the valleys, passing by both sunshine and dark shadows ~ what would your own version of Habakkuk 3:17-19 look like?
This is what I came up with that night, and what the Lord has challenged me to claim with joyful confidence rather than with fear every day since.

Though the miscarriages continue to come and there are no more living children for my arms to hold, though the medical treatments and the prayers for life fail and the pregnancies God puts in my womb produce no more little redheads to nurse on my breasts, though there are no end to the longing in my heart for my family to grow in the home God has given us here on His earth and no more siblings for our children who beseech the Lord for babies in the beauty of their own childlike faith, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.

March 30, 2015March 30, 2015

Hosanna in the Highest!

All glory, laud, and honor to Thee, Redeemer, King!
to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.
Thou art the King of Israel, Thou David’s royal Son,
Who in the Lord’ name comest, the King and Blessed One.

All glory, laud, and honor to Thee, Redeemer, King!
to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.
The company of angels is praising Thee on high;
and we with all creation in chorus make reply.

All glory, laud, and honor to Thee, Redeemer, King!
to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.
The people of the Hebrews with palms before Thee went;
our praise and prayers and anthems before Thee we present.

All glory, laud, and honor to Thee, Redeemer, King!
to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.
To Thee before Thy passion they sang their hymns of praise;
to Thee, now high exalted, our melody we raise.

All glory, laud, and honor to Thee, Redeemer, King!
to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.
Thou didst accept their praises, accept the praise we bring;
who in all good delightest, Thou good and gracious King.

Ride on, ride on in majesty! Hear all the tribes hosanna cry;
O Savior meek, pursue Your road with palms and scattered garments strowed.

Ride on, ride on in majesty! In lowly pomp ride on to die.
O Christ, Your triumphs now begin o’er captive death and conquered sin.

Ride on, ride on in majesty! The host of angels in the sky
look down with sad and wondering eyes to see the approaching sacrifice.

Ride on, ride on in majesty! Your last and fiercest strife is night.
The Father on His sapphire throne awaits His own anointed Son.

Ride on, ride on in majesty! In lowly pomp ride on to die,
bow down your meek head to mortal pain, then take, O Christ, Your power and reign.

Yesterday in worship, I got to say my son’s name a lot. Hosanna. His name means save Lord and is a cry to the only One who can save to the uttermost. The service began with the choir, pastors, and dozens upon dozens of children processing through the sanctuary with palms in their hands while we all sang to the Lord of His glory and honor, lauding Him with our praise. We cried out to Him beseeching Him to save us! And since we are on the other side of the story, we know with confidence that He is the Savior! He has saved us! He did triumphantly bear our sins and conquer death, saving us from the holds of those shackles! Amen!

But we are still in the midst of the story.

I sat there with my family, in the midst still of our own story of asking the Lord to save and preserve and give us life in place of death…
In front of us was a family whose daughter suffered a terrible cancer some years ago, and the Lord preserved her precious life, and there she sat with parents and siblings, with health glowing in her cheeks and hair and the saving presence of the Lord spilling from her eyes as she sang…
In front of them sat a family who buried another son this very week, the Lord saved Gilead by ushering him to heaven, and now He saves this family every moment by upholding them even in the midst of horrible grief…

I cried repeatedly.

Suffering everywhere I looked. Sometimes already redeemed. Sometimes not yet.
It is hard to wait for the redemption, and wonder whether we will see it here in this life, or whether we will be yet waiting to see it in the next.

And then the sermon came. And Pastor Sumpter spoke on hope & joy.
He said, so much of joy is bound up in hope.
How painfully, purely accurate.

Jesus came to restore the places where suffering and despair have reigned.
He came to save.
He came to give us hope.
~Toby Sumpter~

And so as we begin to walk through this week leading up to Easter, where we consciously focus on the work of Christ in His final days, I am also focusing on His current work even now as His Spirit continues to save and give us hope.

Romans 2:1-5
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

This week, I will be reminding myself day by day to be joyful even when I don’t know the end of the story. Because that is why Christ came. I rejoice in hope ~ and this hope is not bound up or settled on the things of this world. This hope in which I rejoice is bound up and settled on the glory of God. And because of this, because of God’s glory, we can rejoice fully! Even when suffering comes. Even when endurance is necessary. When character is tried, tested, affirmed.

This hope is not foolish. Hope that is grounded in God’s glory will not put us to shame. He died for me. So that I could have hope. So that I could rejoice. So that as I remind myself of these things this week, walking toward Easter, I will remember the joy and the hope along with the suffering and the grief. It’s the dichotomy of living the Christian life. May He give us the strength and peace to glorify Him this week through all of this.

We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
~Toby Sumpter~

March 24, 2015March 23, 2015

Goodness Rising & Multiplying

Food is the daily sacrament of unnecessary goodness,
ordained for a continual remembrance that
the world will always be more delicious than it is useful.
Necessity is the mother only of clichés.
It takes playfulness to make poetry.
~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: a Culinary Reflection, p40~

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Courtesy of one of my hubby’s coworkers a couple weeks ago, that’s a little peek at some of the yummy goodness that I sent to Steven’s office to cheer the hard laborers there. I like to send goodies every so often (I would like to do it at least monthly, but my brain & my follow-through is not always up to par with my desire!) But I am kind of well known there for my cinnamon rolls. A few years ago, I tried this recipe and now I just have my own sort of recipe (guidelines, really…) in my head, and I just make them from my own memory, and with my own intuition, using my own five senses. And honestly, while I did not grow up liking cinnamon rolls all that well (even though my mother totally rocks at them!!), I do miss these cinnamon rolls on my low-sugar, gluten-free diet. It is the sugar, the gluten, and the way the yeast rises in glorious goodness that makes these the cinnamony delights that they are.

Don’t go easy on the butter, don’t forget to use a heavy hand with sugar and cinnamon, and don’t mess with the flour ~ gluten free or freshly ground whole wheat, for instance? Umm NOPE. Don’t even bother. Don’t waste your time. If you aren’t going to indulge in the best cinnamon rolls in the world, then don’t even try to ease in around the edges. Some things have to be full fat, full sugar, full gluten. And these are definitely a solid case in point.

I had signed up to bring coffee hour snacks following yesterday morning’s worship service. It’s funny how different groups of folks can be. (Yes, little rabbit trail: oblige me, please.) At our old church, it was practically like pulling teeth & twisting people’s arms to bring enough food for stuff, or to bring generous quantity to supply all the grumbly bellies & grabby hands. At our new church? People might not necessarily sign up in advance, but they show up with abandon! There are always leftovers. There is always enough for seconds, thirds, and sending leftovers home with people who might need extra food in their hands later. The way these folks bring to life real examples of loaves & fishes multiplying in real tangible ways, with joy and humility and thankfulness… cups overflowing… brings tears to my eyes. It is life-giving.

So as far as I knew, I was the only one who had signed up to bring food for the coffee hour yesterday, and I wanted to be a blessing. My mother has long blessed people with food, and that is one way I delight in following closely in her footsteps. (Someone needs a meal? We’re having a potluck? People are coming over? I’m there!) I was raised in that you always bring twice as much food as you think you might need, because there is no blessing like the blessing of superabundant delicious food. So I made six dozen cinnamon rolls on Saturday. (That’s a double batch, in my book, in case you’re wondering.) I bought two big bags of gala apples to slice, and six pounds of easy-peel mandarin oranges. I put together a plate of sliced cheese with spirals of crackers. I had a package of rice crackers and a small gluten free coffee cake, to boot, because I am not the only one at our church who needs to eat gluten free out of necessity (you know, rather than fad).

Even just what I brought could have fed one hundred people, easily. But then other people showed up, arms full of edible blessings. Someone brought two dozen more freshly baked cinnamon rolls! Someone brought a few dozen Easter cookies fresh from a bakery, just the way the kids dream of. There were donuts and pastries that someone dropped off. And all of a sudden, coffee hour became a festive party. Afterward, we were able to package some things up for the freezer so that in other weeks we will once again have lots of goodies at church over which to have conversations about everything from the weather to Bible studies to childrearing to book collecting. And a few people went home with bags of leftover apples and oranges, handfuls of cookies, and cinnamon rolls to stash away for an afternoon snack. I’m pretty sure nobody needed to go eat lunch after that.

I was thinking back, upon looking at all that multiplication of food, how it just showed up naturally without anyone twisting arms or begging for people to provide it, and what a metaphor of God’s grace and miraculous handiwork it is. He may have provided it through fairly predictable, human means… but He still provided it, and He still showed His grace & handiwork through it. It reminds us of other times when His provision was not predictable, and when His handiwork was miraculous & physically inexplicable rather than common or ordinary.

Mark 6:41-43
And taking the five loaves and the two fish,
[Jesus] looked up to heaven and said a blessing
and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people.
And He divided the two fish among them all.
And they all ate and were satisfied.
And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish.

As I look back on the baking of my cinnamon rolls, which was a very ordinary way God worked to provide food for people ~ through a woman’s hands working common ingredients together in a formulaic manner ~ I can also see another metaphor of God’s goodness and work. I think of the beauty and the wonder of leavening. Of little tiny yeasts (which are single-celled fungi, isn’t that delightful? read more here) that grow and produce bubbles, by eating sugar and producing carbon dioxide, and cause many wonderful changes in the lump they use for life. Scripture talks a lot about bad leaven (the leaven of the Pharisees, for instance), but Jesus also taught us about good leaven (in the parable of Matthew 13).

Matthew 13:33
“The kingdom of heaven is like leaven
that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour,
till it was all leavened.”

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Watching my dough double and rise until it flopped over the edge of the bowls in the warming oven… rolling it out, smothering it with buttery & sugary & spicy goodness, rolling it again & slicing it up into pretty little round pinwheels… then watching it puff and rise again… oh! It is such an encouraging thing, and reminds me so much of God’s good works. In the dark, in the moist places, when the dough has been pounded and kneaded hard, and left for a while to rest and be on its own… amazing things happen not because I can follow recipes and not because I did things right, but because God is gracious. And even when God in His terrifying holiness seems so categorically unpredictable, He is yet predictable!! He is always gracious, always good, always benevolent and magnanimous! And those of you who know me, know that I don’t say that through rosy colored glasses or eyes of ignorant bliss. I have felt the terrible hand of the Lord. I have been pounded hard, kneaded long, and left in dark places. But this is precisely where so much beautiful rising and multiplying happens. Because the Lord is gracious, He continues to further His kingdom in me, through me, and even in spite of myself.

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What mercy!

A man’s daily meal ought to be
an exultation over the smack of desirability
which lies at the roots of creation.
To break real bread is to break the loveless hold of hell upon the world,
and, by just that much, to set the secular free.
~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: a Culinary Reflection, p115~

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So next time you too put together water, milk, fat, honey, salt, flour, and yeast ~ when you smother it with the fatness of creamy butter and the deliciousness of sweet sugar and pungent cinnamon ~ think about the work God accomplishes even in you. I imagine that you, like me, can see how we fit into the description of even a humble cinnamon roll meant to be ripped apart and enjoyed and shared and prayed over and devoured. I am mixed, kneaded, pounded, left, punched down, smothered in goodness, rolled tightly, sliced into pieces, left again, and heated by an uncontrollable fire, and at last slathered with a thick layer of even more fatty sugary goodness simply because God likes to pour grace on top of grace… and why? Because it blesses my King, gives delight to my Creator, and feeds others around me.

Because God is glorious.

Because sometimes He works through ordinary, common, daily means.

Because sometimes He wants us to smile, and simply see Him in things like rising dough and multiplying food.

Because this is where the Gospel meets the edible.

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And it’s good.

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