The Soundtrack of Our Lives

During our Friday "date night", including a grocery run and a stop by the church office, Kyle noticed a change in my selection of music on Satellite radio.  He made a comment about coming around to his way of thinking.  As I rolled my eyes, I described how lately I've been drawn to music from my childhood.  Kyle said something that rings very true right now, "Music is a hyperlink to memories."

On Saturday morning, I grabbed my hot pink iPod and went for a walk.  As I was listening to Taylor Swift's "Fifteen",  one of the lyrics really struck me. "Wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now."   With a house full of teen/preteen girls (including their friends) and with one daughter who is particularly similar to a younger version of myself, it seems I have the perfect opportunity to help my girls learn from my struggles, sparing them the difficult lessons and mistakes of life.  I got to thinking about the pattern of my life  and how I seem to learn everything the hard way.  As a teen, I swallowed the foolishness of this world entirely, including popularity, status and love of self.  In the twenties, a hot temper and self centered attitude made for colorful years as newlyweds.  In the 30's, while raising babies and toddlers, I found myself conflicted by a mundane life at home and the seeming absence of mind stimulation.  Even at the outset of my 40's, I'm learning the balance of work and home life and erring on the side of working too much.  I wish there was a "Life for Dummies" for the spiritually immature like me.   As a pastor's wife, I know that the scriptures contain everything we need for life and godliness.  However, with a lack of spiritual maturity, I didn't see the Bible as food for my soul.  For many years, I read the ten commandments, and thought to myself, "I've got this."  Now, even a quick reading of the law convicts me of pride and self-centeredness and reminds me that I do not love the Lord or his people as I should.

Like any mother, I long to control and protect my girls from difficulty and learning things the hard way.  In my unbelief, I think that my girls shouldn't have to go through the same struggles and suffering where God shapes and fashions them.  However, by God's grace, Sunday morning worship brings refreshment to my soul and redirects my heart to God's work in our lives.  The music before the sermon brought me to tears.  "Speak, O Lord" is a regular selection in the service.  However, this week the words seemed to jump off the page.  "Teach us, Lord, full obedience, holy reverence, true humility; test our thoughts and our attitudes in the radiance of Your purity.  Cause our faith to rise; cause our eyes to see Your majestic love and authority."  

During the sermon, Kyle kept referring to the soundtrack of our lives being connected to a story, either in this present age or in the age to come.  The soundtrack of the age to come includes a powerful refrain, "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the Lamb." While the text of the sermon was Revelation 7, he directed us to 2 Corinthians 4 as well.  It is a beautiful picture of God's saving grace in my life and it reminds me to humbly and confidently pray for my girls.  May the words of "Speak, O Lord" become the soundtrack of their lives.   The Lord will surely prove himself faithful to them as he has always been to me. 

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.  We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.  For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.  ........ So we do not lose heart.  Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.  For this slight and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."

Friday Night Delight

After slugging it out in the classroom this week (that is teaching while feeling awful), I arrived home on Friday to a surprising treat.   Our evening included pizza by the TV.  So, what makes this unusually delightful?  It was rare because it included just Kyle, our 13 year old and me for a night together.  Kelly was off at a birthday sleepover and Katie was babysitting. 

Typically, I'm greeted six days a week with bullet fire questions.  "Can I have ____ over to hang out?.... Will you take ___, ____, and me to the basketball/volleyball game?   I want to study with ___ at Starbucks."  (Yeah, right!)  As we enjoyed our dinner, I kept waiting for the social engagement to surface.  It never came.  She suggested a romantic movie and we settled into a simple and most pleasant night together.  I was quietly soaking in her company and contented presence.  

Only 5 years ago, pizza nights were the norm with all three girls gathered on the couch.  I used to think, "We need to spice up our weekends."  Now, we've entered a phase where you need a spreadsheet to keep the whereabouts and activities of the girls straight and quality time with just one daughter is a complete treasure!   Having been a parent for 15 fleeting years and realizing we will be "empty nesters" in just 7 short years, I'm going to savor every unexpected occasion like this one. 

Chief Nag to Head Cheerleader

When the girls were babies, toddlers and in elementary school, I would kiss their sleeping heads each night and pray for them.  It was a very short prayer: "Lord, please help them to love you more than anything in this world."  Now, my teenage/preteen daughters stay up much later than me, so this ritual has shifted to the morning hours while they are still sleeping and I'm leaving for work.  Parenting struggles have changed in some ways, but my prayer hasn't changed a bit!  So much remains the same, yet my confidence in parenting has diminished with the need for a new style of influence.  Safety is a common thread throughout the years and sharing continues to be a front burner issue, but authoritarian and controlling leadership is no longer effective. 

If I could sum up my role in the home, it would be "Chief Nag".   When I walk in the door from school, the first comments often include, "Have you done piano, homework, folded laundry?  Who left the bowls, cups, chip bags on the coffee table?  That is too much make-up!  That skirt is too short or tight, etc., etc., etc....."  In just three years, our first daughter will be ready for college.  I don't want to nag her to death during the fleeting time we have her in the home.

My desire as a parent would be for them to know that I'm am their biggest fan and cheerleader!  With driving and dating on the horizon, I can only imagine the challenges ahead.  I pray that the Lord will grow in me a winsome spirit of grace and mercy that helps navigate these years with loving and patient influence.  Believe it or not, I can distinctly remember being their age and being attracted to and influenced by people who believed in me and encouraged me to live in a way that honors the Lord, those who inspired me to love the Lord more than anything else in this world! 

A Tapestry of Grief

Well, thoughts of retiring the blog were premature.  Grief has followed me into 2013, so I will continue to write.  When you lose a loved one, you hear a lot about the "Stages of Grief".  My gut response at my Dad's memorial service was that people can use a stage (anger perhaps?) to keep from healing and finding acceptance.  Remembering that I'm Carl's daughter, reminds me that moving forward is always the goal.  Wallowing is frowned upon in our family!   My experience has been more of a "tapestry of grief", not necessarily stages where you progress from one to the other.  I find myself in denial, depressed, angry and bargaining all in the same day.  Clearly, I haven't come to accept the reality just yet.  I have to remind myself daily that he is really gone.  It doesn't seem real that we will never see him or talk to him again this side of heaven, especially considering the sudden and tragic way we lost him.  I find myself constantly thinking of questions I would like to ask him and things I wish I could tell him.  "If only thoughts" are the norm right now.  At first, denial and shock was my only experience.  At my Dad's memorial service, I comforted others with a stoic, almost heartless, attitude.  I told one of his lifelong friends (who was in tears) to "snap out of it" before the service.  At the hospital, after we lost him, I watched others dissolve into tears and thought, "What is wrong with these people?"  Really, it was an unbelievable experience of being removed from the whole thing while in my happy place of denial.  Now, I still find myself looking at pictures and thinking he's not really gone, but that is combined with an element of anger that our girls will not have the blessing of a grandfather's strong influence in their adult years.  At the same time, I'm dabbling with melancholy that resembles depression at times.  During the holidays, I hit rock bottom while obsessing over photos of him throughout my life and also the pictures he took on that last trail ride.  Come to find out, from campers who witnessed the accident, the horse threw him off as he was taking a photo.  I spend a lot of time looking at that picture.  His last view on earth was breathtaking!  He died enjoying the beauty he loved to capture on his camera.  New Year's Day was particularly sad for me.  Our family made a big pot of chili, but I just wanted to stay in my pj's all day.  I could almost hear Dad telling me to get my act together.  He was all about celebration and hospitality.  So, we invited friends over and and had a very enjoyable time celebrating the New Year, sparing myself the uncomfortable thought of disappointing Dad.  After four decades being motivated by a desire to make him proud, his influence continues in his absence.  Recently, I found his last email to me.  It contained four words which will stick with me for the rest of my life.  He simply said, "You are on fire."  Those words sum up HIS life and his role throughout my life.  It is surreal to me that my Earthly father and my Heavenly father are both in heaven.  I've always desired to honor my Heavenly Father, though I can not see Him.  Now I find myself driven by love and faith to honor both of them in the way I grieve and live. 

Dr. Seuss, Dad and this Blog

The post-Christmas lull has got to be one of my favorite times of the year.  For the 2nd day in a row, I woke up with nothing to do!  (Well, nothing I really HAVE to do.)  While one of our girls was bemoaning the boredom of a day with no plans and road conditions that kept us from venturing out of the house, I jumped into lecture mode.  "Being bored is one of the greatest luxuries on earth.  It is a gift from God."  I can turn anything into an annoying teaching moment.  It's a gift, really!  This lull also comes with an element of melancholy as it gives time for memories and thoughts that are painful to consider.  In one sense, being extremely busy is also gift in that you don't have time to rehearse loss and sadness in your life.  I was surprised to find the Christmas holiday far more painful than Thanksgiving.  Our activities, surroundings and company were nothing but enjoyable.  To look at our pictures and abundant blessings surrounding us, you would think everything was peachy and perfect,  but looks are deceiving.  There was a deep ache in my gut (still is) as everything seemed to remind me of Dad.  Even today, we are left with delicious Honey Baked Ham leftovers.  Yet, my thoughts return to Christmas two years ago when I awoke on the 26th to a "Green Eggs and Ham breakfast" prepared by Dad and the girls.  The table was topped with the Dr. Seuss book, eggs colored with green food coloring and our ham leftovers.  Who does that?  As Kelly dove into her Santa gifts, I longed for Dad to engage in a Nerf Gun War similar to the "World War 3-Water-Gun-Battles" that he is known for during summers in Colorado.  He brought a strange delight and fun to the simplest of things.  Several years ago, when Barbies were the gift of choice, they were known to hang from the light fixtures and to walk in line across the mantle.  Growing up, I thought these things were normal, but as I remember him in almost a dream-like fashion, I realize the blessing it was being raised by someone who was anything but "normal".    As we approach 2013, I wonder about the future of this blog.  It was created to connect and keep in touch with family and friends during my time in Africa.  It has provided an outlet to process unexpected loss and to make sense out of a year that changed me profoundly.  Honestly, I've always thought blogs were a little self-centered and once said that I would NEVER write one myself.  (Now, we can put that comment in the collection of things I didn't have a clue about, including---I would never go into ministry or teach kindergarten or live in Texas!)  Still, part of me hopes that life over the next year will bring uneventful routine with little reason to continue writing.    Either way, thank you for sharing this season of blogging with me and especially for remembering us in your prayers through it all.   I wish you and yours a very Happy New Year!

Lord, Help My Unbelief

A classroom of twenty or so 5 and 6 year old children is a most glorious place on earth.  Some days I sit in my green teacher's chair and just marvel at the beauty on display before my eyes.  Little people love to take ownership of their world and genuinely thrive in surroundings where they are safe and comfortable.  During the fall of 2012, while the circumstances of life gave little reason for joy, I returned each day to my sweet students and found great encouragement.  Innocence, joy, peace, and curiosity filled the room.  The news of a gun man breaking into this world was unbearable to me.  It is a most sacred place. 

Along with the rest of our country, I've ached and cried over the evil of last Friday morning.  It shakes my faith.  While getting ready for church on Sunday morning, I cried out to the Lord.   While I do not understand his ways, I prayed that he will help me to trust him more.  Even when things crumbled around me this fall, the classroom was a place that appeared to be immune to the horror of this world, a place where hopes and dreams were on full display and joy and goodness reigned.  Sadly, I've been reminded that our world is broken in all areas by sin with nothing being spared.  My only response  to this is to humbly return to Christ and to ask him to help my unbelief as I question and grieve what I do not understand.  As we approach the Christmas holiday, I am longing for the return of the Lord Jesus.  Our Sunday service included "O Come, O Come Emmanuel".  The last three verses really struck me.   Christ is our Emmanuel.  Now,  I sing this Christmas hymn with the same expectation as I long for him to return and to bring us to our heavenly home. 

"O come thou Rod of Jesse, free thine own from Satan's tyranny; from the depths of hell thy people save, and give them vict'ry o'er the grave.  O come, thou Dayspring from on high, and cheer us by thy drawing nigh; disperse the gloomy clouds of night and death's dark shadows put to flight.  O come, thou key of David, come and open wide our heavenly home; make safe the way that leads on high and close the path to misery.  Rejoice! Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee O Israel." 

Great Is Thy Faithfulness

Eight years ago, our family moved out of a small and very happy home in Tampa, Florida, said goodbye to dear friends and started the long drive to Ft. Worth, Texas, back to the central time zone for the first time in 10 years.  The drive included lots of tears and much anticipation for what seemed like a crazy decision/move to me.  Two days later, we pulled into the driveway of a large home in north Ft. Worth with a  banner across the front porch welcoming us to Texas and to a new church family.  On January 2nd, 2005, we began worshiping in a strip mall in Watagua, Texas with 40+ people who were committed to having a work of the Presbyterian Church of America in the newly developing area of the city.  Since the first service, many of the original families have gone on to new cities and other churches, but the Lord has seen fit to grow our body with new families and a growing faith and dependence through the years.   At first, we were a group of nomads moving to different facilities consistently, a day school and then elementary school cafeteria.  During the months in the day school, Kyle would vacuum the hallway before worship on Sunday and church members would set up the chairs each week.  In 2007, we moved into a permanent home through the Lord's provision of land and the funds to build a lovely building for worship and education.  This has been our happy home for the last 5 years, and frankly, I'm sad about the thought of not worshiping in our first chapel anymore.    As the pastor's wife, I will admit to a lack of faith and trust from the initial move through seasons of a "revolving door" as a church family.  Why the Lord called ME to be a minister's wife?  I will never know!  I have grown in faith and dependance as I've witnessed the Lord's work in our midst.  It has not been a work of man, most especially, not the pastor.  The Lord is faithful to his church and his people as he uses imperfect souls to do the work of ministry.   Much like the experience of that long drive to Texas, I'm full of anticipation for the next chapter of Grace Community as we move into a larger and stunning worship space this morning.  I expect there will be new and difficult challenges and a continuing revolving door in the years ahead.  Who knows?!  However, I am confident of HIS great faithfulness regardless of the circumstances and I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for his abundant goodness to us!  This morning is sure to be a time of joyous celebration and happy tears as we worship the Lord in our new home.