My Tree

I wrote this little paragraph awhile ago... when I had a tree to sit under.  But I keep rereading it because it is such a great reminder of where I've been and where I"m going.

I love the shade under my tree.  I love its canopy of leaves, the rustling of the wind, the sound of the bids.  It was once my favorite spot to sit with Jesus.  But as time went on I lost interest, I was too busy to sit with Jesus, too hurt to sit with Jesus.  I was caught up with striving.  Striving to be a godly woman, striving to be a godly wife, striving to be a good, striving to have a clean house and yet never becoming one of these things. Actually, I've been moving further and further away and really I was too tired to care.  But slowly and ever so gently Jesus has been calling me back to my chair on the porch under the bright green canopy of leaves.  In this chair, I'm just sitting with Jesus and I'm ceasing to strive.

"You are like Gilead to me"

Do Not Be Afraid - A Birthday Tribute

8 years ago, this morning, one of the scariest days of my life began.  Three days before I had listened to a friend speak at a convention in Denver, and she spoke about this command that appears over and over in the Bible to not be afraid.  The day after she spoke I ended up at University Hospital in Denver having contractions at 34 weeks.  The doctors at University stopped my labor, sent me back to the hotel and suggested I should check with my doctor in Cheyenne when I got home.  So, having had two small children in a hotel room for a week we decided to not stay for the rest of the convention and just head home.

The morning of the 27th began as normally as any Saturday morning, but within an hour Paul was frantically calling my doctor's pager because I was hemorrhaging.  Although there are many details to this story, the most important detail is that although the placenta had separated I delivered a beautiful little boy that day.  All day that day and for the next couple of weeks I kept reminding myself... Do NOT be afraid.  I think even if Jesus had been visible to me, he would have been saying the same thing.  It is in my nature to be frightened to worry, to wonder, to let my imagination run away to the worst possible place.  The thing is our little boy struggled for the first couple of days, he really didn't like this new world, he couldn't breathe, he didn't like to be touched, he had to be fed through a tube and eventually hang out under an absurd light.

I look back at 8 years ago and remember the fear, but also the promise that came after Do Not Be Afraid.  It wasn't a promise of perfection or ease.  It was a promise of faithfulness, it was a promise from a Savior that said, "I know this is scary, but I really don't want you  to be afraid, because I'm going to be there with you every step of the way.  We will laugh together, cry together, but know that you will never endure this alone."

When I look into the eyes of my 8 year old I see God's grace and faithfulness.

My Story

It seems that every time I read the Old Testament, I wade through Leviticus and then I'm on the shore of Numbers, thinking why do I care?  But then something changed.... in Leviticus, I started to realize that it was showing me the extent to which I need a Savior, even my unintentional, accidental sin is an abomination to my God. But then comes Numbers and it still starts out as a list of people.  What's a girl to do?  Then a light bulb comes on...

Last spring, my parents were on vacation and I started getting emails and texts from my dad.  He wanted to know my husband's grandparents names and where they came from.  So, I pass off the information.  In a couple days time, I start getting emails from my dad that start listing off my husbands ancestry.  And this image floats into my inbox:

This is the copy of the 1930 Census in South Dakota and on it are my husband's great-grandparents, his grandfather and his grandfather's siblings.  All it took was this blurry image to spark my imagination.  I immediately notice that Paul's great-grandfather is of Danish decent and his great-grandmother is of German decent.  And now I want to know their story.  What brought their family to America, how did they meet, what was it like being the child of an immigrant?  Each person on this piece of paper is a person with a story and yet like a vapor they are gone.  Someday I will just be another name on a piece of paper, a vapor, the name that someone reads and says, that was my great-grandmother.

Numbers is similar to this census paper.  It is the beginning of the chronology of the Israelites, it is their link to the past.  Each name, each tribe, has a story.  For most of the names, their story died with them, but I think as the Israelites would gather and read the names and recall the stories, there was excitement.  Children would whisper, "That was my great-great grandfather, that was my grandma's cousin, that is MY story."

Dear Friend,

Today, I was thinking about you, actually whenever someone asks me to tell my story - I think of you.  I think of sitting and chatting in your car or over coffee.  I think about serving together, worshiping together and learning together.  


But I don't think about growing together because I'm not sure we were actually real with each other.  How could we be? We were in a place where being the best you could be was valued and it was more important to challenge each others sin than to actually know each other.


One day our chatting stopped.  I thought it was because I wasn't worth anything to you anymore.  In all honesty I sort of felt used.  I had served with you and worked hard with you, but when my life circumstances changed that, the getting together stopped.  


But that wasn't the final blow to the relationship.  The final blow came when 
I didn't have the guts to stand with you.  I watched the whole community ostracize you and I wanted to step out and grab your hand, but I didn't know how.  Everyone around me said, she chose sin, she knew what she was doing, we must break fellowship with her.  But my heart kept saying, I don't know why this was her choice, but she is still one of us.  I feel hurt too, but I believe that she is a child of God, a saint.... a saint who is sinning, but still a saint!  


How I wished grace had been poured out, I wish grace had been poured out long ago, long before the sin, the junk, the mess.  What if long before we had stood together as saints who sin, not relying on our ability to challenge each other's sin but relying on God's grace to resolve the sin around us.  What if just for a second we had taken off our masks and revealed what lay behind them? Would it all have been different?  


But, its not different, it is a mess!  And it will continue to be a mess unless we can stop pretending, pretending that we have to look good to be a part of God's community, pretending that we are the only ones with issues, pretending that our abilities out rank God's grace, pretending that if we just muster up enough strength we can drag ourselves out of the pit, we can be better, we can be mature, we can make the right choices.  Maybe you had to get stuck in a pit so deep, so dark, so ugly that you could only rely on God's grace to get you out.  Maybe we are all kidding ourselves, if we don't believe that we also have to feel the darkness in ourselves before we can see the light of Christ.  


I'm starting to learn to rely on God's grace.  I'm trusting Him to transform me, and I'm trusting Him to transform others around me.  I'm realizing I don't make a very good barometer for other's issues, but Jesus, He is able to do it perfectly.  
I hope this letter finds you doing the same.  I hope that you have found hope and grace.  I pray for you often, that you will find a community where you can be yourself, that you will know forgiveness, that you will know that you are loved and maybe someday we will sit and have another cup of coffee. 

I want to Treasure Jesus and what He Treasures!

I just read this quote from the Truefaced guys, "Performance-obsessed cultures can never promote healing. Rather, they create more wounding." I was struck by how profound this statement is. I know the wounds of the performance-obsessed, from the extreme (in our puny little minds), adultery and porn addiction, to the benign (though not really benign), gossip and the need to fix those around us. But yet at any given moment we are all prone to fall into a mode of being performance driven. I notice that sometimes when my kids are doing something childish (imagine that - childish children) I start managing their behavior because I want them to look good because then I look good. Or sometimes I will say something, just because I know that someone around the table will think it is a really intelligent statement or really funny.

The dilemma is that although my children might look super on the outside they are as rebellious as ever on the inside, or maybe they aren't rebellious maybe they are content to please mom and change their behavior. But what if in changing their behavior they also start to believe that who they are isn't pleasing to me so they need to be something else - check out the wound I have just inflicted on their spirit. Or what if I create a mask so that when others see me they see an intelligent, put together, homeschooling mother of three with an impeccable sense of humor and one day I show up and my mask isn't on just right and they find out that I'm not all that intelligent or put together, and my humor falls short most of the time. I don't know about you but I have done my fair share of mask wearing and I have the scars to prove it.

And then I found out that Jesus isn't as interested in my performance as most of His followers are. I found out that He had already called me His own, so it doesn't matter if others want to disown me. He not only called me His own but He created me with a unique personality and He doesn't really want me to cover His workmanship with a mask. So, I'm on this journey to treasure Jesus, which flows over into treasuring what Jesus has declared His..... and that is you and me.