Looking up

"He who can no longer pause to WONDER

 and stand rapt in 

AWE, 

is as good as dead, his eyes are closed."

-Albert Einstein

While visiting dear friends over the summer they introduced us to the murmuration of starlings.  Starlings flock together in the evening to roost.  Before they roost they put on amazing displays in the air, each reacting to the others movements.  The individual movement of each bird colliding with hundreds of others to create  this artwork above.  We stood on the pier heads tilted up to the sky as they gathered and moved across the water.  It was as if they were all tied together in movement, one would tilt up and the whole flock swung up with it. A dip down and the entire mass flowed down almost touching the sea.  And then, all at once they swooped under the bridge for the night.  I had never seen anything like it. Until that evening I could not have even told you what a Starling looked like.

My dad is home.  His last stay in ICU another realization that we are in a new stage with this.  We were  prepped for the sudden taking, instead of the gradual.  And now decisions are to be made.  There are machines that can pump his blood and new therapies, medicines, and doctors.  Decisions that will limits his life but possibly prolong it.  And I listen to his response, face exuding peace.   "I would rather just live each day trusting God, and not spend it hooked up to a machine."  Fullest of life is what he wants. That and to trust God for the number of his days, not man or machine.  For the quality of the days to outweigh the quantity.  And as he said this I began to see that this last month I was trying to figure it all out.  Constantly peering through the fog, stumbling on the path with fear and doubt.  Thinking it was all up to us, all about us.  But there is such a bigger picture than the path in front of us.  I forgot the views to be had when not focused only on my feet and where they were going.  And I look up and see that what He has for us is so much bigger than where the path leads or how long it lasts.  In the looking up I understand why it so was exhausting to only squint nervously forward. So, we will not go from here looking at our feet shuffling forward into the unknown but  looking up to see the God who knit us together with a love and purpose too amazing to fathom.  This knowledge driving out the fear and doubt like nails.  We are standing, heads tilted up and eyes wide open to how big God is.

Driving home the other night I saw a small group of starlings.  No more than twenty, all on the ground, heads down looking for food.  We whistled loud and in that instant they lifted and swooped together in form.  Dipping and gliding past the treeline and into the sunset.
  If you have never seen a murmuration of  Starlings here is a two minute video of one.  It will help you understand the beauty of looking up and knowing we are a small part of the bigger whole:
Murmuration Video  

Isn't that amazing?  Imagine paddling, eyes fixed forward, pushing through the water with  land in sight and then glancing up to see that!  Praying that you will stop squinting ahead to figure out what is next and look up to the sky for a moment.  Look up to the One who gave you that moment and thank Him.  That you will quit bracing for storms ahead and look instead to the One who commands the wind and sea.  And that your heart will not be seized with fear but instead overflow with gratitude for the life given, 

and the life lived in Him.

"You hem me in - behind and before; 

you have laid your hand upon me.  

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, 

too lofty for me to attain."

Psalm 139:5&6

The Comfort

"Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are."

-Dinah Maria Mulock

Ian loves his ball blanket.  That is what he calls it; his blue ball blanket.  The one I got on clearance at Target and will never find a replacement for.  As he falls asleep his chubby hands search for the corner.  Not the one with my quick fix gluing.  He still has not let me forget how I put glue on the unraveling corner and forever changed the feel of it.  He finds the one that is smooth and pointed and rubs it on his eyes, nose, and cheek and drifts to sleep.  There are moments when he has been hurt that my yell of  "Everybody stop and help me find Ian's ball blankie" gets Luke and Levi moving faster than if I had yelled "ice cream for dinner".  They know that the ball blankie comforts where even ice packs and kisses cannot.

I am not good at talking about the hard parts of life.  I was made, like Levi, for belly laughing and silliness.  I would rather explore the woods for moss and ferns and play legos and nerf sword-fight than wear the heavy cloak of grief.  

I had a friend stop by today, and words poured out onto the driveway between us.   Clunky words describing how much I hated congestive heart failure, how much I hated my weakness, hated my tears, the struggle to trust when I know HE IS GOOD.  I used the word hate, a word the boys are not allowed to use.  But it poured out of me between the "I am sorry" and the "I am not always like this..."  But today I am .  Today I am not wanting my dad in the hospital again, not wanting broken relationships, not wanting all the unknowns that are testing my faith and joy.  So I choke out the fears with family and friends.  I share them in the hospital room, while standing in the driveway, and twisting a napkin on a couch beside Jeff.  How will we leave with it all like this.  Jeff and I pray and talk and talk and pray.  Friends call and stop by and nudge me out of hiding.  And they are safe.  Safe to let the guard down and let them stand with me in faith when I am ready to sit the bench for a day.  

Luke and Levi saw me crying during worship at church.  They know that Papa will come home from the hospital again this time.  We get more time.  More laughs and more tears.  And Luke whispered to me that he knows even when Papa doesn't come home we will get to have him forever because of heaven.  Levi adds that next time he goes into the hospital we should sneak in a black marker and write P after all the ICU signs.  "Get it?!?"  he giggles, "everyone will read ICUP"...How sweet it is to have them understand the crying and the laughter that comes with loving.

The biggest blessings and the most painful parts in life are tied up in relationships.  The most vulnerable and most secure.  I am thanking God today for the relationships He has brought into my life.  The ones I don't deserve.  The ones that are a comfort and safe place.  I don't have a blue ball blankie, but I am pretty sure I know the feeling it brings Ian.  I know the balm of family and friendship in hard seasons.  What it is like to have them hug you without words.  I pray that there is someone you can cry with and not just belly laugh with.  Who can stand with you in the pain and not just in the joy.  This week I pray that you are able to see and thank Him for the painful blessing of relationship.

"Be completely  humble and gentle; be patient, 

bearing with one another in love."

Ephesians 4:2

"Jesus replied, "love the Lord your God with all your heart  with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.

And the second is like it:

Love your neighbor as yourself."

Matthew 22:37-39

Provision

This picture makes me smile.  Levi was at a friend's pool party this summer.  The friend happened to be a girl, and she was in the middle of opening up very girl-like presents.  All of this is very new to my boys, girls presents at a girl's party.  Luke was nervously waiting for the presents to be over and to get on with the cannonballs.  Levi, however, had this look on his face the entire time. 

 Sheer wonder at something he is admittedly clueless about...

 My dad asked a week and a half ago what would it take to have Jeff get a full paycheck again.  Jeff answered $12,000.  We had just found out donors had given above and beyond the normal amount this month to get us to 50% pay for Feb and some additional had been pledged for March.  If  love could write a check it would have been given the moment my dad heard the amount.  My dad's heart may be physically ailing right now but it is ferocious in it's faith and love.  He said he would pray and he did.  Others did too.  Three days later we answered a knock on the door after dinner.  It was not a high school kid  but someone grinning holding a check.  A check for $12,000.  And we stood looking like Levi above realizing we are indeed provided for.  This was not a person who had seen a club or campaigners.  They had never been to a Culpeper, YL Banquet but they felt led to give an incredibly large amount out of love.

We continue to walk out the day to day of YL, Culpeper here while trying to stay faithful to what He is calling us to next.  We continue to be full of faith that God is able to provide for Basque while knowing finances may be the door He chooses to close to redirect us.  We wait in hope, sometimes feeble faith, and an amazing amount of love and support.  Thank you for praying for us, standing with us, and letting us live out these steps of faith in a very messy way.  

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."

Proverbs 3:5

Open Hands

"I have held many things in my hands, and have lost them all;

but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess."

-Martin Luther

  

He has a plan for us, and He is good.  I write this in my journal with the words He and good traced again and again until they become bolder than the others.  If I had more composure this would all look a lot better, believe me, I know.  In the end, I hope that I will be more humble and deeply rooted in the knowledge of His love.  Poise is overrated anyway.  Short lived.  And a horrible teacher.

Math still gives me heartburn and sweaty palms.  Yesterday I had the experience of a sweet, young Toys-R-Us worker breaking down the receipt line by line to explain why the total was higher than I thought it would be.  Flustered she looked for her mistake only for us to both realize it was mine.  In my head I had added up buy one get one free instead of buy one get one 50% off.  Yes I had seen the sale tags everywhere and managed to confuse even my ten year old son who is very good at math that my total was the correct one.  Luke paid the new total and gave me a quick lesson on what 50% off really is...

We are at a place of math not adding up.  I feel like we are looking at the receipt and trying to figure out who messed up, but no one did.  We are just inching towards 33% raised for us to go help Young Life get started in Basque, Spain.   Jeff will switch to 50% salary for Young Life Culpeper next month.  The plan was to go until July with full salary.  He is still doing Young Life while substitute teaching and coaching to make ends meet.  Our current time line has us leaving in July.  Needless to say heartburn and sweaty palms are wanting to be my constant companions.

    Last week I read about Gideon defeating the Midians with only three hundred men when he could have taken thirty two thousand into battle armies "thick as locusts".  This week I read about Jesus feeding a crowd of five thousand with only five small barley loaves and two small fish.  His math does not look right.  The numbers don't add up.  Gideon was in the weakest of all the clans, his number of men were then cut to less than one percent.  But things don't have to add up correctly for Him to be able to use them.  And they won.  

A large hungry crowd and a boy's small offering.  Hands cupped open with enough food to feed only himself, instead feeds five thousand.   God's glory was shown in both.   So here I am clutching the little we have done here and the little we have raised to go.  I have to trust that holding open my hands, the offering of these small things will bring Him glory.  And that it is in our willingness to obey and give that He is also glorified.  Gideon was fearful, needing God's reassurance often.  The disciples questioned the math in the feeding of the crowd with so little.  But all were willing to see what He could do with the little they were able to give.

We would love to keep moving forward in Young Life International.  We know that our time here is coming to an end.  We aren't ending this part of the race burned out or fearful of how it will continue.  Incredible leadership and volunteers are in place to carry on what God is doing here.  It is just feels like it is ending before the other is ready to begin.  That we are trying to do something that seems impossible with the little we have.  So I will not even try to show you poised composure but ask instead that you pray.  Pray that God is glorified through this and not man.  That His will would be completed in us and through us despite our lacking.  And we will pray that you will experience God's math with us.  That you will see  Him do amazing things with your small offerings this week.

"Here is a boy with five small barley loaves 

and two small fish, 

but how far will they go among so many?"

John 6:9

Still Learning

Things we have learned in the last six months:

I would never had married Jeff, taught art, had kids, or gone into a life of 

full time ministry if I had listened to my fears.  

We will not move forward if we listen to them now.

    We are made for adventure, not a comfy couch.

We are bound to get messy.  This has not been a clean, 

easy process so far 

but I think we will look back and say, 

"That was worth the ride..."

Loving something is one of the most precious gifts we are given.

Losing something we love is one of the hardest lessons learned.

We are learning to hold the things most dear 

with open hands.

Sometimes jumping is the easy part, it is what comes before and after

that teaches perseverance.

We are not designed to be alone.  The joy, grief, laughter, 

and journey is 

so much sweeter when shared.

The greatest joys come after a long wait,  feeble trust, and refined hope.

"Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Matthew 11:29&30

Removing the Dross

"Living by faith includes the call 

to something greater than 

cowardly self-preservation."  

-JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit

What a week it has been.  The wrestling and doubting.  Feeling the tension between faith and the very real present.  Trying not to hold offense when I thought I knew what God was doing, and I was wrong.  Fear seized thoughts being handed again and again to the One allowing the dross to surface. Allowing it to surface because He knew it was there all along. 

I think of all the times we could have played it safe.  Taken the path that would have lead to something different than this.  I still have moments when I am quiet certain that would have been easier, more responsible, less the risk with more the security.  "We don't have to do this"  I find myself saying to Jeff.  "I could teach full time, you could build houses, we could try normal life for awhile, get our footing."  He says he knows.  We sit in silence.  Saying it feels good, like we have options, a choice.  But we both know we will not trade this life in.  

Luke at age six or seven asked me why Jeff was always talking to High school kids.  Why when we went to the park, store or out to eat he was always talking to them.  I told him that he loves them.  And because he loves them he wants them to know God created them in even greater love and with a purpose.  "What?! So WHO do they think made them?"  Luke was shocked.  I told him they think their mom and dad made them, that is it.  "Well, then what do they think this life is about?  Just to make money and buy stuff and die?"  

I replay his words in my head again and again this week.  Right now, in this moment of not knowing how this will end gracefully and how we will begin the next chapter with confidence.  And when the dross of fear and doubt appears I offer it to God.  Knowing the dross is sifted and I am left with more of Him.  Jeff has lead us well.  He is a man who trusts God to provide and protect year after year.  The leaner seasons filled with substitute teaching and building.  Provisional bookends that happen before and after Young Life.  Today I found a poem written about Jeff by one of the first Culpeper High school guys he worked with. It was written long after we shared the last of the high school years with him.  Here is just a piece of it: 

  

... the young lives who do not just imitate his humor,

or that throat-clearing before the bomb drop,

"Here's the thing guys..."

but young lives that imitate who he is imitating,

this, a line dropped from heavenly booth-

a calling-and not just a static call, but extended (call-ing),

extended like an arm out of the clouds, meeting the finger at just one atom,

and he is not impersonating, but following some invisible pathway,

is always in a constant state of arrival-arriving,

meeting each new challenge with faith

the kind of faith that trusts, 

and we can't help but trust Him in turn."

I cannot say how encouraging it is to read some of those lines right now.  To know that it is worth it.  And that the next chapter will be worth it too.  There is no other life worth living than one lived in Him and for others.

"Remove the dross from the silver , 

and out comes material for the silversmith."

Prov. 25:4

"For whoever wants to save their life 

will lose it, 

but whoever loses their life for me 

will save it."

Luke 17:33

Love

"Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love 

that does not show itself in protection from suffering.  

The love of God is of a different nature all together.  

It does not hate tragedy.  It never denies reality.  

It stands in the very teeth of suffering."

-Elisabeth Elliot

I am a quick fix person.  I have puttied holes in the wall with toothpaste, colored in wood scratches with brown marker, and even hemmed and entire skirt with tape. Tape that fell off in long strips throughout the day as I taught art.  And yes, I throw out entire puzzles if one piece goes missing.  Things should be whole, or at least fixed.  An attempt made to be aesthetically pleasing.  I get frustrated that things have been made so breakable, so easy to lose in the first place.

So, maybe I shouldn't be so surprised when it feels unbearable to see my friends or family suffer.  Why it is I am tempted to slap band aids and OKs on confessed pain.  Why my own past sufferings have produced a frenzied busy instead of seasons of receiving.  I am in a place of seeing friends suffer.  I am often left not knowing what to say or what to do.  Their combined pain making my humbling week seem small in scope.

It is hard to not be able to fix.  To not have the ability to help a friend make sense of why  God seems silent and the heart feels tricked.  Why would a good father not protect, not provide?  Why would a friend abandon and hope of a child not get realized?  Sickness and slow healing.  I know my eyes are weak.  I can't see what He sees.  I only see in part and I am afraid of what everyone's whole will be if it keeps going this way.  But He does know of the redemption to come and that the tragedy and the heart break that will 

lead to our faith affirmed.

Luke is done with The Hobbit.  I asked him how it compared to the Chronicles of Narnia.  He said, "No offense to C.S. Lewis, Tolkien writes a better story.  The risk and danger in it all.  He (Bilbo) almost dies.  Two of my favorite characters do die!"  Then why should I finish it, I ask, that sounds horrible.  "Mom, that is how it is suppose to be.  Biblo becomes who he is suppose to be in the end."  He becomes more of who he is created to be, because of it all?  I prod him to tell me more.  Luke tires of talking about it, "just read the rest of it, then you won't have to ask me questions."  

I think about my friends.  Their risk and danger.  More real and scary than my story right now.  I want them to be more of who they are suppose to be,  their true self made in His image.  I want to be that too.  That story includes the tragedy and the reality that we are not there yet.  And the here can feel down right painful.  But He has not brought them this far to abandon them.  He has not turned from their cries silent.  He is a Father who loves far more than we can imagine.  Who doesn't see in part, but sees the whole beautiful story.  He pulls off the band aids and takes the OKs off our lips.  And lets us walk through the suffering with the knowledge that we are not alone.  We are protected and provided for, and WE ARE LOVED in this moment, in this very part of our life.

I pray that we are able to rest in His love this week. That 

 we will be able to trust a good God who has not abandoned us. 

That we rest in a love that protects and provides and is not silent even in the suffering.

"Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 

perseverance, character; 

and character, hope.  

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love 

into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

Romans 5:3-5