Category Archives: Sacred Mundane

*If you haven’t had a chance to meet our neighbor Ernie yet, I’d be most honored to introduce you to him here … Blinds and Jan Hagels. Flowers. Parsnips. Hope. And if YOU are a woman named Susan, from Alabama, who is having lunch with me right now (wink) — I THANK YOU with my whole heart for your selfless generosity to me. There aren’t words. Oh our God is amazing. And to all: Enjoy…

It was a Tuesday when we took the parsnips over, and his front door was flung wide-open.

We went as we were–kids barefoot, I wearing a huge hooded sweatshirt, Jeff still in his toolbelt, and Debra donning a tie-dyed t-shirt. We’d just eaten dinner out in the yard, the sun slanting in from the west.

We walked up the sidewalk, past the dry dirt-bed where we’d poked sunflower seeds down deep into the soil. Debra dug the holes, the kids and I dumped in handfuls of potting soil and carefully buried the seeds.

We’re still waiting for signs of life.

Or maybe we’re already seeing some?

We were just passing the statues, still lined up like graves, when I noticed the front door. I squinted in the sun. Was it really … open? 

This is the man who didn’t crack his blinds the first four months we lived here.

“Knock knock!” I called out as we approached. The TV blared, like last time, but Ernie appeared in no time flat, shuffling his walker toward the door.

“Well, hello there!” He looked surprised, but not unfriendly.

“I brought you some parsnips.” 

He smiled. 

We introduced Debra and immediately Dutch pulled his encyclopedia out from under his arm and began a detailed discourse on something scientific. Ernie listened patiently with … Was it? Yes I think it was--a twinkle in his eye.

“Would you like to come in?” I’m not sure who was more surprised, us or him, at his eager invitation.

“Of course!” We tramped in noisily, more loud-life and chaotic commotion than he’d probably had in ages. The smell of my grandma’s house, from when I was a child, enveloped me. Exactly the same smell. The living room was neat and tiny, the mantle filled with pictures, tiny knickknacks, dozens of figurines–an indoor version of the yard.

We talked long and animatedly. I looked out his enormous picture window (the blinds were pulled wide open) and saw what he would see, each day: Us. Our yard.

It’s so odd to see your life from another view.

He looked at me and pointed out the window. “You did a lot of work out there!”  

I smiled. I had wondered if he was watching. I’d spent several back-breaking days digging out years’ worth of weeds along the side of our lot–the side we share with Ernie. Although it was bright outside, so I can never see in his dark window, I had wondered several times if perhaps he was watching me. And I somehow knew he was. And it seemed right. Not in a weird creepy way, in a way that made me feel happy. Like me just being there, working the ground for long hours right outside his window, might somehow make him happy. Might make him remember. I wondered if my presence–just being there–might make him glad. It sounds weird as I write it down. Perhaps you understand?

“Yeah, it was hard work, but it looks so nice right now.”

“Yeah, it does. I had my yard guys do a treatment for the weeds too, so that should help.”

I smiled. “Great, thanks.”

A small black and white photo on the mantle caught my eye–a dark-haired young man, wildly handsome. I picked it up and showed Debra. “Who’s this good looking guy??!!”

Some emotion waved across his face. He smiled. Quietly: “That’s the old man.”

We hooted and hollered. “YOU?! That’s YOU?! Wow, Ernie! You were a hottie!” He laughed as we slapped his shoulders.

After we’d teased him enough, we asked about his kids. Turns out his son is 57 years old and has cerebral palsy, since birth. Lives in a care facility here in Oregon City.

Ernie visits him every Sunday.

Interspersed with joviality was plenty of profanity and bitterness. Several times we sat in awkward silence, wondering how to take the conversation somewhere, anywhere, fruitful. When we left I wondered to myself, “What do we do with that?”

As we walked back up the sidewalk I looked back down at his dirt-patch. The soil was full of rocks, dry as a desert, filled with weeds. I know there are sunflower seeds there below the surface. I know because we put them there.

I know they can grow.

But man, there’s a lot of junk on the surface.

Honestly, I don’t know if those sunflower seeds will ever break through. Don’t know if flowers will come through that rock-hard soil.

But we’ll keep watering and waiting:

Ernie, and his seeds.

 {May you be encouraged to water whatever seeds God has given you this week, patiently waiting, and trusting His grace. Thanks for reading.}

Imagine, just for a moment, the Garden of Eden. Paradise. Perfection. Peace. Do you know the reason it was such pure bliss? Sure, because there wasn’t any sin around, but you know the other reason?

There weren’t any other women around.

Eve had the whole world to herself. She had the only man on earth to herself. She had no competition, no one showing her up, no one hurting her feelings. She didn’t have to compare her children to anyone else’s children. She didn’t have to compare her home to anyone else’s home. She didn’t have to compare her body or her brains or her looks or her man. It was just her.  There are times that sounds like paradise to us as well, doesn’t it?

I’ll confess, over the years working in the trenches of women’s ministry there are plenty of times I’ve told my husband Jeff I’m quitting altogether, and we are moving out into the mountains where I will live the life of a hermit with no one but him and the kids. In fact, I’m embarrassed to confess just recently, in a torrent of tears over some hurt feelings, I actually uttered the words, “I hate women.” Of course I confessed my sin, and Jesus, in His infinite grace and mercy, forgave me. But why do we struggle so often with animosity toward our fellow females?

I’ll tell you why: Because women can be mean! They can be difficult to work with. (And the they includes me!) So Eve’s reality, as the only woman on earth, certainly seems like paradise sometimes. And it was.

And yet, in the middle of that paradise, she still sinned. It makes me wonder, If she would have had a good girlfriend by her side, perhaps she’d have chosen differently? Perhaps a good girlfriend would have said, “Girl, what’re you doing?! Stop it! Listen to your man and stay away from that cotton’ pickin’ tree! There’s no good in that tree. Now GIT!” A good friend does that, right? Many of us have been blessed with a true friend who’s willing to say, “Now just stop it!” But without such a friend, Eve ate, and we all know the result.

Brokenness.

Then, after the fall, I wonder what it was like as Eve slowly populated the earth. Now that she was touched by sin and insecurity. I wonder what it was like as she bore daughters, then as those daughters grew and became attractive, intelligent, compelling women. They probably had wonderful fellowship at times, but I have to wonder, Was it hard for Eve?  As she grew older, saggier? (Keep in mind she was the oldest woman on earth! We can always find someone older and wrinklier than we are, but she was always the oldest!)

As the curse wore at her physical body, was it hard to see her daughters grow and take her place? I wonder, in her now fallen nature, what it was like when one of those daughters married Cain and became her daughter-in-law. (Strange thought, yes?) I wonder if she enjoyed the female company but struggled with it as well. I wonder how they interacted as older and younger.

Sadly, the world was never given an example of female friendship before the fall. There is no pre-fall female friendship. So every single example we have is tainted, in some way, by sin. By brokenness.

We never have a chance to see Eve interact with the other women on earth. No commentary is given for us to follow. But we do know that generations later, God calls Noah’s wife to live on a boat, with her THREE daughters-in-law, for more than a YEAR, along with a thousand other stinky animals.

And they manage to all make it off that boat alive, without killing each other.

So there is still hope for the world!

If you’re ever tempted to believe that we’ll never make this female relationship thing work, there is still hope that females can get along, that mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law can get along, that they can even co-habitat without committing murder. This is God’s amazing grace.

But even in that story, we don’t get any inside glimpses into their female relationships. We don’t even know their names. We simply know that these four women, who all came from different families of origin, lived together on a boat with their husbands and 1,000 animals for over a year. I’m sure there were some priceless lessons learned, but we’re not privy to what they were.

Much like Noah’s wife and daughters-in-law, I was thrown into the thick of female relationships without much say in the matter … (Read the rest here, it’s FREE today. And yes, you can download this book even if you don’t own a Kindle, just click “Available on your PC” or “Available on your Mac” just above the “Give as Gift” button on the righthand side of the Amazon screen–and click the gift button to give as many copies as you like to the women in your life! Thanks for reading.)

As long as I keep looking at this picture, I’m fine.

I will save it forever. Us. Just like this.

That weekend wore her out like nobody’s business, but she hung on for dear life. Dad drove the RV to the camp, along the Oregon Coast, where I was speaking. She shuffled to my sessions, all except the last.

“I just can’t do it, sweetie. I’m sorry.”

But she’s already done it. That’s all I want her to know.

She’s already done 33 years of giving me life. Over and over and over. And she’s still giving me life. And I see how she suffers now, how brave she is in the face of disease, how she carries burdens few of us will ever know. And all over again I hate sin and death and that damn curse and I double over in bed and I look at this world and it’s just a bleeding mess.

Sin, the curse, the fall, has hacked us up and we’re hurting, bleeding, dying. This is the first Mother’s Day that Kaleb & Kushaiah will be without Mama Shawna. This is the 4th Mother’s Day that Quinn & Kate will be without Mama Rachel. This is the 22nd Mother’s Day my sweet Mama will be without her own. And Melea and Brita and Pam–they all flood my mind as I dig down deeper under the covers and the tears burn and I want to scream it at Him — Why do You connect us through that umbilical cord when the cutting of it is so unimaginably painful? 

Why?! 

Then I chide myself for moping–my mom is here! Praise God! She’s alive! I have yet another year to hold her in the flesh and, like yesterday, do her 9 laps at Riversong, up and down the driveway, slow enough to watch the flowers grow.

We stay later than normal, wanting to soak it all up. So when it’s finally time to go I slip back inside to say goodbye. I knock gently on her door. Wait. I look down and there it is–the photo. An 8×10 photo from more than 30 years ago. I’m probably 2 or 3. Dad has his classic grin and Kris looks just like Dutch. And then there’s Mom.

Glowing doesn’t even begin to describe her smile. Her eyes are bright, her cheeks round and smooth, her chin up, her smile wide with parted lips, as if on the verge of laughter.

I just stand in the hall and stare at her–the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.

She cracks open the bedroom door and shuffles out to say goodbye. I lean in and kiss the top of her head. I can’t breathe.

“Goodbye, Mama. I’ll see you Sunday, for Mother’s Day.”

On the drive home, Heidi falls asleep. Her curls fall loose around her face. Once home, I carefully unclick her seatbelt and slide her into my arms. She’s sweet with sweat.  I lean in close to smell her breath, in-out-in-out, from her slightly parted lips. In her room, I slide her under her covers and crawl in, pulling her body close to mine. My gaze drifts up, along the wall covered with her artwork and Hello Kitty stickers. My eyes fall on the pink wooden plaque printed with a poem–the same one that hung in my own room as a child. The title:

My Daughter Grows Up

And the words are kind of cliche but they capture something too, about days slipped by like water and how we always wish we hung on just a little longer.

I bet Mary felt that too.

When Jesus hung on the cross she was there. When all the disciples abandoned Jesus, His Mama was still there. She watched. And His final earthly act was looking down at her, His Mama, and ensuring she’d be cared for after He was gone.

Jesus understands how much we love our moms.

So whether our mamas are right next door or already ahead of us in glory, we do rejoice this weekend. We see the bleeding, hurting. We feel the cutting. We grieve. But we rejoice that He has given us a human connection unlike any other. A Mother. And we thank God for mothers, and for all those blessed women who nurtured, trained, loved, and embraced us somewhere along the way. This is glory. I thank God for Grandma Zyp and Grandma Zoet, for Aunt Lois and Aunty Linda. I thank God for Momma Janie, for Betsy. And of course …

for Karen Zyp, my mom.

She still glows.  

{For all the grief and glory Mother’s Day may bring, for all the joy and sorrow surrounding the closest human connection on this earth. I pray special grace, hope, and joy over and into your heart this weekend. Thank you for reading.}

*Friendship: A gift to give, will release FREE this Sunday for Mother’s Day. Also, today and tomorrow Plenty: 31 sips of joy for moms everywhere is FREE on Amazon. Snag a few copies for the mamas in your life!

“You are Wonderful.” Funny. This wasn’t what I planned to write.

I planned to write about a false god. My false god. Yesterday my gracious True God gave me a gentle and loving revelation. I had been reading about false gods, idols, and the like. As I wrote Monday, I’m embracing a season of putting the book on hold and focusing on my sweet husband, children, our seedling church-plant Renew, and allowing God to weed and dig around and till up the soil of my heart.  It’s good and hard all at once. Good because it’s freeing. It’s peace-filled. Even though we cling to things, it does feel so good when they’re no longer in our control. As Jonah said, “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.”

Forfeiting grace is no fun.

Receiving grace is a blast. 

But hard because conviction’s never easy, and one conviction was this: the false god of Self-Improvement.

Wowza.

In the name of “sanctification,” in the name of “seeking God,” in the name of Christian excellence … could it really be just Self-Improvement?

Could so much of my, the church’s efforts, at growing spiritually are really just Self-Improvement dressed up in religious clothes?

Ugh.

So the conviction is clear–it’s about the motive, the heart, the goal. Is it Self-improvement or worship? Is the goal God or really just a better Me? On the outside it all looks the same. But this one small revelation casts everything–everything–in a new light. All the “Five steps to a better you” sort of messages ring hollow. Incomplete. Even many of our missional efforts or initiatives to give more or help the poor. Is my goal to “be a missional person” or is my goal to “love my neighbor.”

One is centered in Self, the other centered in Others.

Is my goal to “be a better listener” (self-improvement) or is it to “better understand the heart of God, my husband, neighbor, friend.”

Here’s the crux of it all–Where is our gaze?

Are we just religious navel-gazers? Forever digging around inside ourselves, working on Self, Self, Self. Or are we embracing the joyous self-forgetfulness that comes in losing ourselves in pursuing God and Others.

And in the midst of all this, I open my laptop, and here is the message: You are wonderful. A blank post, open.

My husband had typed the title.

To me.

The truth is, he thinks I’m wonderful. The truth is, My Heavenly Father thinks I’m wonderful. I don’t have to agonize or inward tweaks when all He wants is for me to look skyward and bask in His presence.

Jeff just wants me to receive His love. I just want my children to receive my love. 

Yes, I want them to learn and improve. I’m counting on the fact that someday Dutch will be able to pee without dribbling down the front of the toilet. Heidi will learn to fall asleep without her thumb. But more than anything I just want them to know my love for them. To know they are wonderful. Not because of all their efforts of self-improvement.

Just because they are my kids.

Does it seem prideful to receive the words, “You are wonderful”? Actually, it’s not. It’s humility that enables us to receive those words of grace. A grace-gift.  Because we’re His kids. It’s pride that makes us so absorbed with Self-Improvement that we can’t hear the whispers of adoration from our Father.

So today, what you need to know, is that You are Wonderful. If you are tempted to slave away on self-improvement today, perhaps, just for today, relax and rest in knowing He loves you with crazy, crazy, everlasting love and thinks you’re wonderful because you’re His kid.

Because you are precious in His eyes, and honored, and He loves you.

For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
Cush and Seba in exchange for you.
Because you are precious in my eyes,
and honored, and I love you. (Is. 43:3)

{Resting in His love today; praying the same for you. Thanks for reading.}

* I’m so excited and grateful that, Lord willing, on Friday we will have a NEW e-book for you, special for Mother’s Day. Friendship: A gift to give. It will be FREE on Friday. Praying it can be a blessing to you and your girlfriends, sisters, and mothers-in-law. (Plus, free is a super awesome price.)

The shovel sliced deep into the dirt, a quiet crunch as it tore through tiny roots and clumps of clay. I pulled back on handle, using my weight as leverage to lift the bulk of soil from the earth. Tipping over the shovel, the soft, loose dirt made a mound next to the hole, like a little grave.

Six graves dug.

But I was just planting tomatoes.

And, I had cheated. But then again, who in Oregon starts tomatoes from seed, really? (The ones with greenhouses, that’s who.) I had waited until all threat of frost was gone, had gone to Bi-mart and filled my cart with six nice big tomato plants, two of which were already blossoming (definitely cheating). I carried them all on my lap as Jeff drove us home, inhaling the sweet, earthy scent of the leaves.

Then I dug the graves. Heidi dumped the topsoil around the roots and patted everything into place. She sprinkled the plant food around (there’s a lot of cheating going on here) and patted some more. Then we watered. When we finished we looked around the yard, deciding what to do next.

“Mommy, let’s see if my flowers are growing!”

She bounded across the yard to the small earthen plot where we had buried those seeds last week. She had so carefully taken each one, pushed it down, covered it up.

And now there was nothing. She was clearly upset.

“Mommy, where are they?” Everything around had sprouted up. Bleeding hearts three-feet-tall and little purple somethings waving happily in the breeze.

“They’ll come, babygirl. We just have to wait.”

She stared at the barren ground. “When will they come up?”

Oh, babygirl, I’ve asked that question so many times, in so many ways.

“I don’t know sweetie. You never know how long.”

I say it silently, inside: Why is planting so much like dying?

Just that day I’d sent an email I never wanted to send. To my literary agent.

I think for now I need to put [pursuing a publisher] on hold and allow God to do some work in my heart … It’s not just tweaks and re-tweaks, the picture I keep having is of letting it die, like a seed, and burying it underground and letting God rebirth it (grow it) in His time. …I have no time-frame. I don’t know how long God will have this thing buried underground, waiting. 

I had sent this to my faithful prayer-team earlier that week:

I hate the idea of letting it all die, after working so much for two years straight, but I also believe that when a grain of wheat falls and dies then God can bear fruit by it. I’m not even sure what “dying” looks like … maybe that’s the part where you come in with wisdom. 🙂

At that point all I could think about was dying. The death of a dream, if it’s real, feels like death. Like grief. Even though I had some vague sense of John 12:24 being key, letting this die meant doing dying-stuff. Emailing my agent. Coming to grips with the absence of this massive component of my life. I’d spent thirteen years dreaming and two years working, praying (getting up at 4am for crying out loud!).

And like sweeping up crumbs on my kitchen floor–whisk, it was gone.

But then, a few days later, her words popped into my inbox:

…You’re asking what it looks like to let something die … I would encourage you to continue to reframe it as you did at the end of your email … think of it purely as planting a seed.

Yes. The reason planting is so much like dying is that because burying is essential for both.

And the reality is, anytime we plant a seed we really don’t know if it will ever rise again. I planted basil seeds and pepper seeds. The Basil is going hog-wild and the peppers are nowhere to be found.

But we plant nonetheless. By faith.

Because burying is not the same as quitting. Dying is not the same as quitting. Quitting is the complete anti-faith. It refuses to trust, to bury, to plant, and instead foolishly tosses the seed packet into the trash.

It is almost as foolish to hold onto the seed, gripping it tightly in your fist, and expect it to grow.

I refuse to do either one. I bet you do too.

And so we faithfully bury. We plant seeds. We let things die, most of all our Self.

We engage in the greatest faith-act of all: Waiting. 

Death must be redefined. Planting not quitting. Faith-filled not failure. My childhood best friend, Dawson, always said: “Death is not the end.”

The End. 

{May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 15:13). Thank you for reading.}

• My kitchen sink–my sacred mundane center. 
• Things living and growing.
• Reading the One Thousdand Gifts devotional. Re-embracing thanksgiving.
• Cultivating. Nourishing. Nurturing.
• Death, redefined.
• Long hours digging up weeds. Backbreaking. Worth it.
• Beautiful berry bushes set free.
• Kids squealing through the sprinkler.
• Heidi’s Tinkerbell bathing suit, too cute for words. (Thank you, Nana!)
• Sore back, legs, arms. Evidence of good work.
• Day with the neighbors. So fun!
• Heidi and the “big girls,” together, hours lounging on a towel, painting toenails. So grateful for 12-year-old wholesome girls who love on my Little!
• Slip ‘n Slide for hours.
• Exhausted from sun, fun, work, laughter.
• Wrestling, dying, surrendering, releasing.
• Burying seeds.
• Rolling burdens onto Him.
• Dutch falling in the creek. Priceless.
• Catching crawdads.
• Coffee early.
• Strawberry-avocado salad with honey lemon dressing and candied walnuts. Wowza!
• Another day of life.
• Sun-kissed cheeks.
• Grace-drenched days.

{Learning, again, to give thanks in all things. Thanks for reading.}

It was Ann Voskamp who helped me acquiesce.

That is, when I finally figured out how in tarnation she managed to write a book with six homeschooled kids at home. I was not a little humbled to read her interview here and realize the answer was simply a woman willing to live on less than four hours of sleep a night. Shame on me for feeling overwhelmed here while she shouldered a burden I can’t even fathom.

“Shame on me for feeling …”

Funny how that rolls right off the tongue. 

It was this same “shame on me for feeling” that kept me stubborn about the writing cabin. Jeff suggested we finish a portion of our old detached garage and make it an office for him and writing cabin for me. Of course I inwardly loved the idea, but struggled with how to justify such an endeavor. Besides, I write about the sacred mundane–so shouldn’t I embrace the messy chaos of the mundane when I write?

There’s that should again.

See, somehow I got Ann Voskamp and Susanna Wesley mixed up. It was Susanna Wesley who had 19 children and, when she needed a quiet place to pray, would flip her apron up over head to signal to her children this was her time alone! Well, that is well and good, but I need more than an apron on my head in order to write a book, and apparently so did Ann. So her husband built her a small, simple cabin on the edge of their property, where she could be alone. For several weeks I kept thinking, “I shouldn’t want to get away from my kids. I shouldn’t want to escape from them into a quiet place. I shouldn’t  need to be alone in order to write.”

And after being should on for several weeks, I finally confessed these feelings to a friend and she promptly dismissed my ridiculousness and told me to relax and let my husband bless me.

Oh, ok. Well that was easy.

It was just the week before that a dear friend had confessed her need to grieve. Because of the unique challenges surrounding her parenting life, she faces continual opportunities for resentment, bitterness, and frustration. But the hardest part is that her challenge is also a gift. And certainly she is diligent to give thanks for that gift, but she also needs to grieve the fact that her gift also requires a radically altered lifestyle from all those around her. Her words:

“I know I shouldn’t feel this way …”

Says who?

Then just yesterday another friend confesses a need to grieve. She had wanted the gift of the child and God decided to give her a two-for-one deal! Twins are a gift, to be sure, but in her beautiful transparency she confessed a need to grieve as well. Instead of living in the shame of “I should be more grateful for these twins!” she was freed up to grieve, “Wow, this isn’t what I had in mind, God.”

The honesty makes space for transformation. 

The confession makes space for freedom.

We’re such quick judges, we women. When a feeling pops up, we immediately analyze it around and around, “Should we feel this way or shouldn’t we feel this way?”  And instead of confessing it–good or bad–to God, too often I just ruminate on it, turning it over in my mind.

Kept inside, those feelings too often turn to shame. Confessed–to God or to a person–those feelings can be sorted through. Some will be validated and acted upon. Some will be repented of and turned from. But either way, there is no shame.

Shame comes from hiding. From holding onto all the ways we shouldn’t feel.

The truth is: Sometimes I want to get away from my kids. And there will be times to act upon this and get away, and there will be times to ask for extra strength to stick it out and just stay put. But we won’t know the answer until we acknowledge all “the ways we shouldn’t feel” and let God sort through them on His own.

Inside your own heart: What are the ways you shouldn’t feel? What are in the inward struggles you don’t think you “should” have but you do? Dig deep. Be honest. Say it straight to God and let Him sort through it all on His own. He’ll make it clear where to go from there. And if appropriate, would you share a glimpse with us?

Sometimes it helps to know we’re not alone in all the ways we shouldn’t feel.

{Happy Monday. Thanks for reading.}

• Just minutes ago, home from truly take-my-breath-away weekend FLOURISHing with the dear ladies of Foothills Community Church, at Rockaway Beach. Too many praises to recount, and I’m too tired to type, but this little shot captures the sweetness of this day. Discovering hundreds (thousands?) of tiny crabs in the tidepools, spending hours exploring before heading home. Dutch’s words: “I’ve never ever seen a place filled with this much life!”  Oh so true, in more ways than he can even imagine. Such a weekend filled with so much life. Thanks for reading.