Category Archives: hope

A prayer for the aftermath

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I don’t know about you, but today I find myself once more broken over the state of our world as I weather a day of heavy hearted tears for towns ripped apart by a wave of deadly Tornados.

Something about moments like these cause us to pray “Come Lord Jesus” and “Lord, don’t take us home yet” all in the same breath, wishing to return home and clinging hard to here.

Our heavy hearts find a deep sense of gratitude in the small things that only hours ago seemed so ordinary and everyday.

Dinner dishes in safe homes with hungry mouths still open wide and chattering loudly.

We go for seconds and thirds on bedtime hugs with our children, embraces that would last for hours if it wasn’t for the wills of clean and wriggly little ones.

We wonder why we still hold so much in our hands when others are going to bed wracked and empty.

With each tragedy it all makes less sense to me and I loosen my grip on the reigns realizing that we live in a gorgeous, broken place and serve a loving, gracious God who isn’t pulling the strings on these tragedies but reminding us that he will set it all right someday.

My tears are hot with grief and salty with hope.

I shake my fists at God a little less these days and spent much more time in prayer, 1 part grateful and 5 parts desperately asking for supplication.

We may sing “Where oh death is now your sting?” but in reality even the most faithful feel that sting like a persistent fog.

So I walk through the house, I flip the news on and then off again, I put my heart into basement play time realizing that as much as I think things will never change, they already have in an instant.

How dare I waste a day of this gift?  How do I remember this feeling in a few days when my life goes back to normal so unlike so many families in Moore.

I want to scribble this truth on my arms in sharpie: “You are blessed!  Grieve with those who grieve and delve deeply into your life!”

Because I have life, and I sustain life with the gift of momentary breath.

So Oklahoma, even though I’m newly removed from your soil, I will keep washing and wearing my crimson T-shirt to remind me who I am and what you gave me.

I will turn on News 9 and pray and cry for by the grace of God my Oklahoma children are still here, still making messes and asking for warm milk.

I pray yours are too.

Peace to you, the Peace of Christ to you

What Oklahoma Gave me: A Beginning

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Hello from a laundry basket in the middle of our mostly empty living room floor.

I have a grapefruit sized lump in my throat that makes basic function tricky.

I can see the sun coming up through the oval leaded glass window on our front door and it rises on my last moments in this home.  (and it’s all soundtracked by Jamey Johnson’s “In Color“)  

(If it looks like we were scared to death like a couple of kids just trying to save each other… you should have seen it in color)

And suddenly I’m watching a music montage of my own life happening all around me Continue reading →

Remain

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I spend a large part of my brain space analyzing my life and beating myself up for the little ways in which I fall short on a daily basis.  I calculate how many calories I consumed, how many vegetables our family ate, how much money is left in our gas budget, how many episodes of word world we watched and how faithfully I’ve been keeping up with my YouVersion bible reading plan.

I use a planner, a chalkboard, a spreadsheet, an iPhone ap, blogs, books, eating plans, vitamins parenting strategies all in an effort to find the one thing that will make it all click.  The one perfect strategy I can swear by  to hold things together.

Something that will bring us health and joy, bring me energy and clarity, patience and perseverance.

Is it in all about counting gifts and choosing joy in the little things?  Would it all be okay ig I gave up TV in favor of more reading and or daily walks?

Should I do a strict Paleo diets?  Or opt for the micronutrient right option of Juicing?

What can I do to make me a better writer?  A more engaged Mother?  A faithfully prayerful Wife? A stricter Budget-Keeper?  A more efficient homemaker?

What am I doing wrong?  I never stop trying, I feel like all these components are screaming at me constantly, demanding attention I’m running low on to begin with.

What am I missing, what system must I adapt to find joy and peace?

So yesterday I found it, a huge challenge, a truly hard way to live but certainly one that will bring my life together.

pansies-remain

Remain daughter.  Just remain.  I am the vine, you are the branches, unless you remain in me and I in you, you will surely wither and bear no fruit. (John 15 paraphrased)

This verse quietly reminded me of my true glue, my only real system all contained in something simple and incredibly profound.  Jesus puts it simply using a word picture that his audience could understand, one that is easy to grasp for us still today.

I am the vine, you are the branches, apart from me you can bear no fruit.  None.  Remain in me and I will remain in you.

Right here our Jesus meets his audience in the space where they live by farming language.    If he were speaking to me personally, where I live, he would say this:

“You know how Noelle picks pansies from the front flower beds and it drives you crazy?  Can you count the number of times you’ve gently explained to her that when she takes the flowers away from the plant, they die?”

Well you are the flower and I am the plant, if your beauty is removed from me, you loose all your nutrients and start to shrivel up.  You can put the flower in water but it’s only a patch, a flower removed from the plant, the flower bed, will surely die.”

It’s so frustrating how easily I forget this concept and run to everything but my true source.  I flail about like a fish on a dock, trying everything else before flopping back in the life giving water.

There is no perfect diet or system that will pull it all together, there are some that may be helpful add-ons but the only true source of joy, the only true glue for me is to remain within the ever-helpful, sustaining, nutritive presence of God.

I cannot earn it
I cannot make it
I cannot schedule it
I can only, truly just remain.

To remain, just to be in Him, that’s our only real system, everything else is just details.

He Messy, Bloody Loves Us

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If you spend much time in the church or around Christ followers you’ve heard these words a thousand times:

“God loves you.”

We’re conditioned to it, we see it on billboards and t-shirts, hear it in song lyrics and on the lips of people on the street corner.

“God loves you!”

Where does your mind go when you hear these words?  Do you think of something small like a latte or a car?

Have these words lost their power over your soul from overuse?  I’d like to go out on a limb and say that I think that for all of us, they have.

I have to confess that lately I’ve become keenly aware of where my mind goes when I think about the love God has for me.  And you know what I’ve found?  I focus on the small potatoes, the very temporary, the daily bread type of gifts, this isn’t bad but it’s certainly not all.

Yes God is good, we’ve sold our home and found a rental.
Yes God loves me, we have enough grocery money to for milk, eggs and bananas.
Yes God loves me, we have two beautiful children.
Yes, God loves me, I’ve found time to pray over a warm cup of coffee in the dimly lit morning of our living room near my favorite Target lampshade.  I am blessed.

Yes, these are good gifts, 1,000 gifts worth counting.

But, I have to confess that all too often I forget that it is ever so much bigger than my cup of coffee.  Not only has he given me bread, children and a new house in my home state but he has set me free.

Free.  Free.  Free.

Free from defining my life by these small things.
Free from the relentless dance of earning my salvation
Free from fear
Free from sin
Free from death.

messy bloody loves

Yes, coffee, Yes houses but guys…. freedom from sin and death?  Hope in the direst moments of grief?  A copy of the final chapter?

A knowledge that he is going to set every painful thing back to right and quench the thirst of a creation that cries for him?  I’m sorry but I need this so much more than I need bread.

Have we become desensitized to the true meaning behind the reminder that we are loved by the God of the universe?

Maybe I need a little less thanks for daily bread and a little more thanks for this freedom over death that, upon reflection makes me want to go in the backyard and dance like a fool in my pajamas, to hell with what the neighbors think.  (truthfully I think they expect crazy at this point)

We need both types of thankfulness, that of bread and of salvation but honestly? My thankfulness teeter-totter in uneven in favor of the small and temporary evidences of God’s love.

I see the small, the coffee and bread and I think that’s where it ends, I forget that it’s just the introduction to the book of love that God has written for me, for my life.

It’s Holy week, It’s Easter, and yes I am daily thankful for the small things, We are conditioned to pray for the daily bread.  It’s so good to do so.

But guys, he beat death, we win! I get to see my whole, restored redeemed parents again!

This pain and depression has an expiration date, the fighting the bickering, the death and suffering has already been licked.

God loves you, he forever beat death loves you, he messy, bloody loves you.

And all the people said…. Amen, Holy, Bloody, Beautiful Amen.x

Yes to now

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because the oil-rig Oklahoma sunsets aren't forever.

because the oil-rig Oklahoma sunsets aren’t forever.

This evening we gave the grill its annual test run.  As Kel came in to check on the sweet potato fries some leftover grease flamed up and filled the patio with billowy smoke.  This left us with crispy asparagus and hamburgers which were pink on the inside, but charred on the outside.

But we didn’t complain, we were too busy chewing in amazement that this spring day arrived and brought with it so much summer.

Crazy at it sounds for March, the kids spent the afternoon in the sprinkler simply because the lawn was freshly cut, the temps hit 80 and it seemed cruel to say no any longer.

Right now I find myself curled up on the couch with the final chapters of Shauna Niequist’s new book Bread and Wine.   I’ve been savoring like you do a regional food favorite you know you won’t get again for a while, you don’t want to swallow that last bite, even though you can’t stop eating.

That’s how Shauna’s books are to me.

As I lay here, the sun comes through the patio window, over the love seat and onto my face, just enough to be delightful and not so much that it’s blinding me.  I can hear the sounds of my children dancing around the backyard and when I look to check on them all I see are blossoming pear trees and sun haloed children.

Seriously, could right now be any lovelier?

To top it all off my son runs in buck naked and announces that he has put his diaper in the sink, then as I go to take care of it he commandeers my computer and sits on the couch, giggling and naked typing.

In a little while the kids will get a good wipe down and they will snuggle into their beds and Kel and I will pop a bottle of champagne because guess what?  Today we accepted an offer on our house here in Oklahoma.

Today the dream of moving home to Michigan took a great big step into reality.

I’ve spent all day looking up rental houses and estimating moving costs, a day defined by dollar signs and worry.  Will our savings get us by until we’re back on our feet again?

This comes on the heels of a week that was defined by the big house showing, we scrubbed, staged and planted Pansy borders.  I went through more homemade febreeze than any one person should in a lifetime.

But tonight?  It’s a sun warmed and obvious gift, tonight I say
yes to now
yes to burgers
yes to Oklahoma sunsets
yes to sticky naked babies (No to diapers in the sink)
and yes to reading a book on the couch in the midst of dishes and chaos.

Yes to Grace

This next season is bringing with it a thousand unknowns but tonight I can say yes to now.

This season is coming to a close and I want to savor it, like a bottle of good wine or a Shauna Niequist book.

My Manna (what’s sustaining me)

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heart bread

This week I told you that I picked up some extra work to improve our financial situation. Well, in doing so I gave up my Tuesday and Thursday kid-free work time, it’s all the way gone.  I had no idea how deeply this would wear on me until the weekend came and I realized that I’ve had little to no quiet-alone time in the past few weeks.

I’m the sort of person who needs to retreat to process life, and life just hasn’t allowed for that lately.  Even my writing is crammed into stress-filled spaces and is starting to feel like a burden instead of a joy.

I eluded to this in my What I’m into February post but I can’t stay awake in the evenings anymore.  As soon as, and sometimes before, the kids fall asleep, I conk out on the couch and Kel nudges me to bed as I mutter protests like: “But I miss you, we never talk anymore.” or “I have stuff I want to do now that they’re sleeping….”

But I obey and fall asleep with unbrushed teeth and makeup still in place.  I regret it in the morning, but let’s be honest, I’m already asleep and sleeping people don’t swing by the sink.

This is a tough rhythm to sustain and tonight Kel and I are going to talk about how to change things up a bit to squeeze in some much needed self-care.  But I know that in the long run it will be one of those “push through” and “it’s just for a season” times in our life and I’m making my peace with it.

Yet, God keeps feeding me with nibbles here and there and they’re my manna, just enough, nothing extravagant but 100% nourishing for the next step. Continue reading →

These are my people, and they’re tall.

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I love sharing our stories, and since it’s Thursday, not quite Friday, I thought I’d share a piece of mine to brighten your afternoon or evening… or morning really, any time of day will do.

So, my Dad was one of 5 children and I am one of 14 first cousins on that side of the family. 8 of us are married and have started a new generation of over a dozen gorgeous great-grandchildren.

When we get together, it’s a raucous party with all the trimmings including monkey bread and jello “salad.”

There are people everywhere you turn and I want to hug every one of them.  I usually do.

I love and adore my family, these cousins are some of my best friends and have been for as long as I can remember. We grew up in the same towns, went to the same schools, rode our bikes to each other’s houses and did nearly all our vacations together.

This close-knit bunch didn’t happen by happenstance, my Grandparents were intentional about it. They wanted their grandkids to be friends, they wanted a family who had their hands in each other’s lives, that played cards together and swapped stories over second helpings of blueberry buckle.

So they skipped fancy Christmas gifts in lieu of renting cottages to foster togetherness.

They planned simple camping trips where we took up 6 lots in a row and made tonka pizza pies.

They still send us all cards on every holiday, pray for each of us every day and know us all by heart.

I can’t write these words without tearing up.  These are my people, these souls are a huge part of the reason I became the woman I am today.

Because of them, life without parents is a lot less lonely than you’d think.

I fall in the middle of the pack of cousins, with all of the younger ones (besides my own siblings) coming from my Uncle Mike and Aunt Dawn’s family of four, three gorgeous blonde daughters and a sweet youngest son named Chad.

The three oldest girls are all in college (Calvin College) now, and playing basketball for the team, for the first and only time in their lives.  And their younger brother Chad is in the stands cheering them on, forever their number one fan.

You see, Chad was born with an undiagnosable mental handicap and it has shaped this family, for the better. He brings humility, joy and laughter to the table, his excitement for his sisters cannot be beat.

He’s one of Noelle’s favorite people and mine as well, every time we circle to pray as a family his enthusiasm is contagious.

He passed out the bubbles at our wedding, and instead of waiting until our sendoff he encouraged people to blow them right away.  This led to a whimsical, wonderful bubble-filled reception for Kel and I.

Today I want to share a video about this family and show you a bit of where I come from.  I hope it makes you grin as much as it does me.

Watch, smile… trust me.

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click the picture to watch a 3 minute video clip about an inspirational family.  

You guys, these are my people, aren’t they amazing?  Now you understand why I’m always a bit homesick.

Kuyper Coffee Dates- Tuesday

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KuyperCoffeeDates_zpse49f9fa2 Today I’m continuing a week long series called Kuyper Coffee Dates, for more information read up on Day 1.  The short version is as follows:

A beloved college professor of mine gave her students an assignment to select a blog which spoke to spiritual formation, mine was one of the choices.  They had to write a short paper about their reading experiences which included an answer to this question:

“If you could go out for coffee with this writer, what questions would you ask her?”

A few weeks back I got a stack of about 20 college papers, all reflections and questions about my blog.  I was beyond flattered and humbled and I want to answer these  questions as best I can.

So Kuyper Students, readers let’s have coffee, shall we?

Is it hard to do something so public, like sharing your story on a blog, and still give all the glory to God without wanting to keep it for yourself?

Yes and no all at the same time, while it’s easy to puff up with pride when the page views are high and the comments are many, my pit fall seems to be completely losing focus of who gives me the words in the first place.

I do catch myself thinking I’m the shiz every once in a while and when that happens I remind myself that I am just another one of God’s kids who has clumsily managed to be be faithful with gifts I’ve been given.

The best lesson I’ve learned on this subject is that God is the one who is to be glorified in my writing, if I start taking it for myself or start putting my writing above my Creator he swiftly takes away the words.

He won’t fuel me to do something that is taking precedence over our relationship and communion.

Your husband Kel seems like an amazing Father and Husband, how has his spiritual leadership been a part of your journey?

No disputing this one, Kel is an amazing guy, so glad you picked up on that!  Kel and I have already weathered some crazy storms together.  Some moments the pain brought us together, sometimes we allowed it to come between us.

Yet during every painful season Kel rarely left my side.  His quiet prayers and support were the strongest spiritual leadership that he could have possibly shown me.  There were no words that were going to take away the pain I was feeling, so his quiet support was the simple, yet strong leadership I needed.

He loved me in simple ways by putting me to bed early, watching our 1 year old during my two hour baths and putting up with my ever changing moods.  His love was healing and I felt God’s love through his actions.

If someone asked me how to best support a spouse through grief, I would tell them it’s to dole out mountains of grace.

The odds are that your spouse isn’t going to be their usual self for a while so give grace and drop as many expectations as possible. This when they don’t meet your expectations or can’t engage your typical routines you’re not as upset or surprised.

I would ask Leanne how she has been able to go through all this grief and pain and still have such a strong and unwavering faith in God?

Okay, I am so glad that you got unwavering from my writing but to be honest with you, it’s felt very… waivery.

I’ve been angry, cynical and I’ve as good as given God the silent treatment.  There have been seasons where my most prominent prayers have been little more than: “What the hell are you doing here?” and “Please just sustain us.”

Yet I will tell you that not even once did I consider walking away from my faith. I screamed, threw selfish tantrums and bought into a hundred useless lies but I knew I wasn’t going anywhere.  God was my Father, even though I was one of his most pissed off and petulant kids.

I don’t know how I did that, I was real with my community of faith, they knew I was angry and in no mood for trite platitudes.  I don’t have any tips or tricks on this one, just keep talking to God, keep taking steps out of your anger and cynicism and he will be faithful to lead you into healing.

Will you Pray? (8 things I’ve learned to ask for when asked to pray)

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Every once in a while a text message pops up that stops you in your tracks.

The faces and words are always different but the message is the same:

“something unexpected and nearly unspeakable is happening, has happened… our hearts are sinking, will you pray?”

I’ve been on both sides of these messages in my life, I’ve both sent and received prayers with a crumbling heart.

Today one of those messages came through, just now at the tail end of naps, while I was doing nothing but warming our couch and waiting for the my son to cry out signaling the end of his afternoon snooze.

Often when I realize that someone I love is hurting I burry my face into the carpet and bring them to Our Father in a wordless sort of way, because ultimately he knows.

Yet I am striving for the sort of relationship with Christ where I try put words to my requests, in a very real, descriptive, relational sort of way.

When faced with breaking hearts, what am I asking for?  What do I mean when I say I will pray?

All too often I start off with a bit of vain anger, how could he allow this in the first place?  Can’t he just undo it, turn back the clock?  This is a prayer I’m prone to get stuck on so I’m trying to move past it, it does me no good.

So what do I/we ask when we intercede for the breaking hearts of our people, our family?

1) We pray for peace.  Because with peace the human heart can believe that even though life is all broken apart right now, someday it will come together again. Continue reading →

My One (painful) Word: Trust

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Last night found our family playing together on our new Wii, the one I got Kel for Christmas that he almost returned GRE study material (which is crazy if you know Kel.)

Noelle was having a riot boxing on the beginner setting and Caedmon was delighted with the idea that we had created computerized versions of ourselves.

At some point I looked up from my book and remarked to Kel: “We’re past the worst of it I think, we’re on our way up.”

All four of us were engaged happily together in our home, which doesn’t happen often given our recent ministry slump and Caedmon’s nearly two year old fondness for epic tantrums.

But here we were, simply together and happy to boot! (and I don’t want to talk about the fast that it was video games that did it)  It was so lovely that I remarked about it and that remark was so beautiful that Kel spent the entire evening reflecting on it and after I’d drifted off to sleep he wrote me an email thanking me for my optimism.  Wow.

The thing is that lately I haven’t said many things like that, rather I’ve said many things that sound just the opposite of that.

Things like:

“God’s just going to leave us where we are because for some reason he loves to teach us lessons the hard way.”

And

“If we ever make it back to Michigan I’m going to have to get three waitressing jobs and give up writing just to survive.”

And to be honest, this is the PG-13 version of what I’ve been saying lately.  I’ve been all glass half empty, or emptier.

OneWord2013_trust Continue reading →