Category Archives: Sacred Mundane

Although most of you have probably already heard through my facebook status and text message frenzies–our counteroffer was accepted! Sale Pending! And, we were able to lock in a good interest rate on Friday, which means that now we get to “relax” (relatively speaking) and watch God complete our special new little home.  Lord willing our Corvallis house will close September 1st and our new home wil close September 14th. What amazing timing! We are still in awe of God’s goodness to us.  Plus, although we didn’t get as much as we’d hoped to out of the house, we got–almost to the dollar–what we needed to close the new house and pay off a small school loan from seminary that had been subsidized until this month. Thank you, God.

–On a completely different note, in the midst of our house-sale celebration I got a nightmare on my face.  Yes.  Right now I am sitting in bed with 12 white dots of calamine lotion and an ice pack on my cheek.  To my horror (I know this sounds gross), my long-term friend the bizarre bump on my face somehow got infected and how it’s swollen up HUGE and red and hurts so bad I can’t sleep on that side of my face.  Then, the next day it was so hot we left the doors open and apparently the mosquitos went crazy and I woke up with TWELVE mosquito bites on my face.  Yes.  You can imagine between the giant bright red crazy bump and the 12 bright red bites I looked in the mirror and felt like I was in a horror movie. What happened to my face?!!   I also had another 15 or 16 now on my arms and hands.  Needless to say I marched over to Safeway and bought Off! and calamine lotion. Nothing like spraying on the Off before going to bed in your apartment. 🙂

I know, I’m vain.  I know, I’m wimpy. But my face hurts so bad I can’t sleep.  So anyway, they got me on antibiotics for the infection and I”m hoping someday soon I won’t look like a monster.  Why am I sharing this? Partly because I’m hoping someone can find some humor in it and maybe feel oddly encouraged knowing no matter who bad you might feel about yourself at this particular moment, I PROMISE your face looks better than mine right now! 🙂

The other fun thing is that someone had apparently kidnapped our sweet son and left us with a crazy-boy instead.  The boy won’t sleep and it’s making for difficult days and nights!  For 2 1/2 years we’ve had this sleeping thing down. And now he won’t sleep!  And yes, I’ve been praying! Yes, I’ve snuggled. I’ve read stories. I’ve held the door shut (yes).  I’ve opened the curtains. I’ve closed the curtains. I’ve sp-nked.  In the middle of the night it’s like having a puppy. Last night I’m sleeping and all of a sudden I feel something on my feet.  What the? Then it slowly wiggles up, up, up, and next thing I know his little warm self is snuggled up right next to me, then his little wiggly self edges me off the bed.  I finally gave up, left him there, and I went and slept alone in his bed!  Enough!  Anyway, tonight getting him into bed took 2 hours of perseverence. Naptime today took 2 hours.  This is getting old.

So I know these things are m-i-n-o-r but between not sleeping because of my enormous throbbing cyst, and not sleeping because my crazy son won’t sleep, I’m tired and my face itches like crazy and wouldn’t you know it, Jeff is preaching this weekend.

So Jeff says that all of our trials and suffering are working for us. They are producing character, hope, they are drawing us to Christ. They are preparing us for seasons of ministry and leadership. They are entering us into the fellowship of Christ.  I agree. I really do.  I’m just wondering what my frightful face and insomniac son are working for me right now. I suppose it’s showing me my vanity and impatience.  I don’t know.  I think the real reason I’m writing this is because my blog listens better than anyone else I know. 🙂

Thank You, God for my crazy face and my crazy boy.  Give me patience.  Help me not complain.  Goodnight.

Ministry is hard.  I don’t mean that it’s not glorious and awesome, obviously Jeff and I both think there’s nothing else we’d rather give our life to, but it certainly isn’t always easy.

In the midst of praying about some ministry situations, I’m going through our Women’s Bible study workbooks, which is on attending the Bride of Christ, studying how our service in the church is really us preparing Christ’s Bride (the church) for His return.  Now I think one of the trickiest things in ministry is figuring out what to do and what not to do. There area  million “good” things to do. And there are a million people to serve.  But you can’t do it all! And you can’t serve them all! And for every person there is a different set of preferences, needs, desires.  Trying to figure it all out can make us what to throw up our hands and tell everyone to fend for themselves!

Yesterday I read this sentence in my Bible study book: “We must rediscover what’s most important to the divine bridegroom, exchanging unproductive religious activity for actions that are wholly focused on pleasing Him, actions that truly prepare for His return.”

I remember my own wedding a little more than six years ago.  Though it was far from glamorous and sophisticated, I have absolutely no regrets about how the wedding went, and I owe that to one thing–I wanted everything to be about blessing Jeff (and our union) and glorifying God.  Instead of buying an expensive dress, I borrowed one from a friend for free (and it was gorgeous!).  Instead of renting an expensive facility, we married in my parents’ yard (which was gorgeous). Jeff specifically requested that I not have professional hair and makeup because he wanted me to just look like myself, which I happily agreed to (professional hair and makeup people scare me), so that was free.  We made our own invitations (which Jeff designed–he love that sort of thing).  We served limeade instead of punch because that’s Jeff’s favorite.  We had a drum roll during our first kiss (woohoo!).  Jeff had the awesome idea to do “JK museum” as centerpieces for each table instead of flowers or candles, so we had a different fun item that represented our relationship, along with a framed little explanation.  For example, on one table we had a stack of our favorite books, another table had our laptops because we loved to dork out together and study side-by-side. Another had a few of our old, worn Bibles.  Another one had our letterman jackets because we both loved sports, another had the lite-brite he had used to propose to me.  Another had a picture of our most ridiculous faces (I have a monkey face that will bring you to tears).  It was just a fun, silly way to share with the guests little bits of our love for each other–to tell the story of our love. For the actual service, we with worship songs.  At the end of the ceremony, Jeff’s best man (a pastor) shared the gospel and gave an invitation to receive Christ. Three people gave their lives to Jesus that day.

And let me just say there were plenty of moments that we felt some opposition to our less-than-traditional ideas.  But over and over I kept reminding myself: this wedding isn’t for the guests, the family, the bridesmaids.  It is about my Jeffrey and my Jesus, the love of my life, and making everything about this day revolve around his joy and His glory.

I thought of that yesterday when I read that sentence.  It’s so easy to get caught up wanting all the wedding guests to be happy.  Will they be impressed? Will my wedding stand out?  What about the groom??! It is so sad that often the groom is the least-considered person in a wedding.

So I know there is a balance, because in ministry we are to meet the needs of the people we serve. And yet, I’m so thankful for this reminder that ultimately, every single bit of this “wedding preparation” called ministry should be filtered through this: Is it for the Groom or for the guests?  Does this truly please Him and prepare His people for His return?  Do we cater to the people? Or do we cater to Christ?  Thankful for the new perspective, I pray for grace to live it out.

God never ceases to amaze me.  As you all know (and perhaps are sick of hearing about), we are in this adventure of house-selling/building/wondering how it will all work out.  If you haven’t read the first part of the story you can CLICK HERE to read.  So we’ve been living in our awesome little apartment that I’ve come to love to pieces.  It has some quirks:  1) the bathrooms always, always, always smell like pee.  I’m pretty sure instead of cleaning them they just re-calked the base of the toilets.  No matter how hard I clean, the smell is there. But that’s ok!  2) When the neighbors do dishes or laundry or something our toilet overflows with soap suds. I know, that’s weird. Sunday I walked into the bathroom after church and there were soap suds spilling out from under the lid, out onto the floor and the bowl was full.  Hm.  3) the dishwasher doesn’t work, so we handwash all of our dishes. (not a big deal)  4) all the way around the edge of the carpet is dog hair. We don’t have a dog. (that is actually really gross to me)  Other than that, I LOVE this little place.  There is a lot of freedom that comes with apartment living. Stain on the carpet? Oh well.  No decor? No one cares.  Toilet’s full of soap?  Big deal.  We love the little deck we have that looks out onto a busy street.  Dutch and I stand out there for hours and name the colors of the cars that drive past.  We frequent the pool, Jeff walks to work every day, and I can holler at friends across the street at Starbucks if I want.  Oh and our grand total of bills this month was $45.  Tell me that isn’t beautiful.

But, in the midst of all this we still sensed God was up to something with our house.  The house that we’re building is due to finish/close on September 14th, earlier than we’d thought.  Our Corvallis house still hadn’t sold.  And even though we kept reminding ourselves that it would be ok even if we had to walk away from the new house, we kept sensing that God wanted us to press in and pray, that He was going to amaze us.

Part of the sermon from last weekend was a four-step response to fear and crises.  Worship. Wait. Walk. Watch.  (sounds cheesy, but it wasn’t) First, worship God to get your full attention on Him, not on the issue.  Wait on Him instead of acting rashly.  Then, when He gives a directive, walk in it obediently.  Finally, watch and see GOD move gloriously.  As I sat in the sermon I very clearly felt that we’d done the first three.  We’d worshiped God by surrendering the whole house thing to Him.  Then we’d waited. And waited and waited and waited.  For what felt like a long time. Then just last week we felt like we were supposed to drop the price on our Corvallis house, and then even sensed that we were supposed to pray specifically for the house to sell in two weeks (by July 21st). Only two weeks.  (The initiative to pray for that actually came from our realtor, an awesome man who loves Christ.  Jeff and I both felt that that was God prompting him.)

Then, Watch.  Ok. Watch. So even though it sounds crazy I kept feeling like we were supposed to pray that the house would sell in two weeks.  I didn’t feel like it was us giving God a deadline, but rather us stepping in line with what God wanted to do. His initiative not ours.  In fact, this probably sounds crazy but last week as I was praying one day, I very much felt like I heard God’s voice: “Your house will sell.”  It was such a clear and strong sense that it brought me to tears.  I’d felt so unsure of what even to pray, and this seemed to confirm, that for whatever crazy reason, we were supposed to pray it’d sell by July 21st.  I told my parents about the two-weeks thing and they prayed that too.  So we watched.  Nothing. But I still felt led to pray it.

For the last month  I’d purposely avoided our mortgage agent because I didn’t want to have to talk about interest-rate lock-ins or closing documents when there was still a chance we’d have to walk away from the whole thing.  On Monday some friends informed us that mortgage rates had dipped and they were refinancing.  Tuesday our other friends who are building the house across the street (amazing God story that will come soon!!) locked in their rate.  This Thursday (tomorrow) would be 60-days from our closing date, which is when we’re allowed to lock in our rate if we so choose.  Jeff and I discussed contacting our lender to lock-in tomorrow, but felt like we shouldn’t move on anything until our house sold.  So we waited. Watched.

So today came and it was just one of those days that seemed like everything was discouraging. Ministry felt discouraging.  Relationships felt discouraging. I just felt tired and discouraged, and even though I really do love our sweet apartment, I just started to wonder if I’d made up all the hearing from God stuff.  No. As I spent time with God again I felt like we had to keep praying.  In fact, I even felt like maybe I was supposed to share it on my blog, because God glorifies Himself through doing the impossible, and by revealing beforehand what He will do. But I wimped out. I didn’t want it to seem like I was giving God a deadline.

As I went through the exhausting routine of naptime, putting Dutch back in bed a hundred times and finally just getting in bed with him and holding him until he fell asleep, I just felt discouraged.  Were we crazy?  It’s not even that having a house is a huge deal, but we’d been feeling like we were following God’s steps, and yet it seemed like it was coming to a dead end in many ways.  No. Again, I felt. Must keep praying.

At 5:30pm I got a text from Jeff.  “I’m bringing a surprise home.”  I looked at the meager leftovers on the stove.  I texted back: “Is it a person?”  I sure hoped not, because we’d have nothing to feed them.  “Better.”  He sent back.  “Good.” I replied.  A while later I saw him walked up the sidewalk (love living right next door to church!), and took Heidi outside to meet him. He was on the phone, so I just silently hugged him.  After he hung up, he dug in his bag and I expected him to pull out a cookie or a soda, which is usually what he brings me as a surprise (my two indulgences). Instead he pulls out a few sheets of paper and hands them to me.  “I brought you an offer.”  He smiles.

My jaw drops. In my hand is an offer on our Corvallis house, faxed over from our realtor.  I can’t even speak I am so amazed.  You cannot tell me God is not absolutely amazing.  The day before our 60-day window began. Amazing.  Now, to be honest, it was a very low offer. And, our realtor, who we trust and respect, advised us to counter-offer. So, we are doing that tonight.  And, if for some reason the deal doesn’t go through, God is still good. I’m no longer going to wait until things are a done deal before I proclaim His greatness.  If this deal is of Him, it will happen.  If not, He has something else.  He is good.  And He holds all things in His hand.  It sounds like it’s a perfect fit for the buyer too, so I’m praying it will bless them as well.

The other cool little piece of this is that when Jeff told Joel (friend, lead pastor) about it, he said that this morning he really sensed that he was supposed to pray about this specifically for us. And he did.  How encouraging is that to his faith as well? It’s always so much bigger than our little needs and wants.  He’s writing a story that displays His glory and goodness.

So, I don’t know how this chapter ends, but this little paragraph ends with us praising God for His faithfulness…and counter-offering.  Praying for an accepted offer tomorrow. Will you join me?  Love being part of His glorious story.

Ok breaking my rule (to not just post cute kid stories all the time) and posting a quick thought from Dutch this morning:

First of all, apparently we were wrong when we started feeling like the terrible two battle was coming to a close. I feel like we were in a movie, in some great battlescene, and in the midst of the fiery battle we began to see the enemy retreating…Hooray! They’re giving up! Hooray, the terrible twos are giving up! Dutch’s will is finally yielding! The stubborn horse is being broken! They’re giving up!  And as we sat around high-fiving each other, just as we unstrap our helmets and lay down our swords, we hear a terrible rumble, we look up to see dust on the horizon, and we realize—they weren’t retreating, they were just quietly regrouping in order to come at us one last time, for the final kill. It is then we realize–we’re toast.  They’ve joined forces with all the other armies and we’re dead.

Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but just this week apparently Dutch has joined forces with all the powers of strong-willed two year olds across the globe.  The main issue is naptime and bedtime. Now Dutch has been in a normal twin bed since before he was two, so he’s been trained to stay in his room either sleeping or quietly playing until we come get him. This was one thing we had down pat.  Not an issue.  Naptime and bedtime were a breeze.  And now, all of a sudden, the crazy boy will not stay in his room!  And just in case you’re thinking that we’re being slack on providing consequences for this action, we’re not.  Every single time he gets a negative consequence. And yet it’s like the crazy boy has disconnect in that little brain and he still does it — over and over and over and over and over. I think we’ve been through it 100 times in the past five days, no joke.

So this morning we’re getting ready to eat breakfast and Dutch comes and gets his oatmeal and is carrying it to the table, and he announces that he wants his bib (I know, odd–sometimes he can’t live without wearing his bib). So I hand it to Jeff and ask him to put it on Dutch and Dutch pipes up, “I do that! I do that!”  “You want to put your bib on, Dutch?”  “Yeah.”  Ok, I look at Jeff and roll my eyes. A child who’s not yet able to eat without spilling on himself is asking to tie on his own bib? So I hand it to Dutch and after fumbling with it he cries, “It’s not working! It’s not working!”  I love it. Of course it’s not working, Dutch.  Because you can’t do it by yourself.  You are two years old.  So Jeff patiently reaches down and helps him.  And then I realized I am exactly like my son.

Yesterday I had called my mom to ask if she had any advice about the bedtime/naptime thing.  She affirmed what we were already doing and said the season would pass.  Then she said, “Are you praying with Dutch about it?”  I sat there, dumbfounded.  Of course we pray with him at night, but no, we hadn’t together prayed and asked God to help Dutch learn to be obedient and learn to go to sleep without getting up.

I had demanded that I put on the bib all by myself and then cried out in frustration, “It’s not working! It’s not working!”  Instead of asking God to help me, to help Dutch, to help us.  I know this is really elementary, but I guess I’m a really elementary person.  I need to be reminded, over and over, to ask God for help. And now I need to ask God, together with my son, for help as we together navigate the water of toddler years.  Thanks, Dutch, for showing me more of myself and more of my need.  Now please go to bed.

Last night and this morning I heard an incredible sermon preached by James Allison, a local area pastor who is also a friend of our lead pastor Joel.  Wow.  I’m not going to attempt to recreate it here because you’re better off just listening to it (I’ll post the link when the audio becomes available), but I’ll just share one little tidbit that stuck out to me.  James and his wife have three children, two boys and a girl, and their youngest was diagnosed with aggressive leukemia when she was 2 years old.  She’s spent 2 1/2 years battling, going throug intense chemo and treatments through her tender toddler years.  Amazing.  The story he shared was from 2 Chronicles 20, where King Jehoshaphat leads the army of Juday in prayer and worship, and God goes before them and defeats the three massive armies that had come to destroy the people of God.

I love it when I hear passages that I have even taught myself, and yet God brings them alive in amazing new ways. That’s what this was for me. I’d always gotten the part about “worship God first and watch Him fight your battles” (by “gotten” I mean seen, not that i’d necessarily lived it out!!), but something James said really stood out to me.  He pointed out how Jehoshaphat received the bad news (armies are coming to destroy you) and he turned his full attention to God.  That’s literally what the phrase means there in the passage.  Now our normal reaction in a crisis is to pray, yes–everyone prays.  It’s naturally for us to go “Help! Help me! Look at me! Focus on me! Help me!”  But even though our mouths are going a mile a minute to God, our hearts, attention, eyes, focus, and energy if still firmly fixed on the problem at hand, on the circumstances.  What Jehoshaphat modeled is what we should do instead:  Rather than just blabbering to God as if He doesn’t already know about the problem, we should turn our full attention away from the trial, away from the fear, away from the circumstance, and consciously turn our attention on God and His greatness, His glory, His perfection, His faithfulness.  That is different than just whining to God about our problems all day long while we are still firmly focused and fixed on the tragedy or trial.  Huge difference!

I’d really suggest listening to the audio if you have a chance.  Very powerful sermon with even some subpoints that were awesome regarding parenting and leadership.  For me, my goal this week is to not just pray with my lips, but to pray with my heart, mind, energy, attention, and emotions firmly fixed on God rather than the waves tossing and turning around me.  To turn my attention to Him.

I shared yesterday about our “Perfect Day”.  The part I skimmed over was the afternoon of boating…the highlight.

A friend of mine was just saying yesterday isn’t it weird when we see our little quirks and idiosyncracies running around with diapers on? Yes, our children are so much like us!  Well I saw it big time in Dutch today.

While he is SUPER BUSY and active beyond words, he’s definitely not a dare-devil.  He’s very shy at first and doesn’t like to try new things.  He’s absolutely content to stay home all day and play with his trucks and read books, without going anywhere.  In fact, the fact that we go to the park every day is because mommy needs a  break and wants some exercise, not because he asks to go.  He’s a homebody just like me.

So this morning when we told him we were going boating he firmly insisted, “No! I want play home.”  We tried to tell him how fun it would be but he wanted nothing to do with it.  Finally we lured him with a peanut butter sandwich and got him in the car, but when we got to the boat dock he started crying and said he wanted to go home and go to bed (now that’s serious).  When we tried to put on his life jacket he went totally ballistic and clung to me, crying–huge tears streaming down his face (that is rare).  So I carried him onto the boat and just held him for the first little while as he got more used to things. Sure enough, he slowly began to lessen his grip, look outside, and eventually even walked around, put his feet in the water with Daddy, and cheered and clapped for Daddy as he wakeboarded.  He was having a blast.  But when we asked him if he wanted to go in the water it was still a firm, “No!” and then he’d cling to me again.  Yes, it is true, I have a mama’s boy on my hands.

Then there’s me: Dutch + 100lbs. + a ponytail.  I used to waterski.  But I realized today it hadn’t been since early college, ten years ago, that I last skied.  Certainly not since Jeff and I have been married.  I’m always wimping out, or too cold, or pregnant (that’s a good excuse), and I never go.  But as I watched Dutch today, as I watched him try to be brave but come back and cling to me, as I watched him refuse to go in the water, I thought, “I’ve got to ski for Dutch.  That’s the only way he’ll be brave is if I do it first.”  So, I pulled on the lifejacket, jumped into the water (cold!!!), and pulled on the skis I hadn’t seen in so many years.  As soon as I sat there in the water I thought, “there’s no way I’ll get up. We used to have a pole and now we don’t, and I haven’t done this in so long.”  But as soon as I yelled “hit it” Dad took off, and would you believe it–I popped right out of the water and found myself screaming at the top of my lungs in delight as we raced through the water.  When I finished (I don’t like crashing so when I get too tired I just let go of the rope and slowly sink), they were all cheering and I was beaming ridiculously, bursting with silly pride.  I swam over to the side of the boat.  Then, to my amazement, Dutch says,

“I want go in the wa-wa.”

We all look at him with wide eyes. “You want go in the wa-wa with Mommy, Dutch?”

“Yeah!”  So to all of our surprise instead of waiting for my dad to lift him carefully over the edge, he goes to the back of the boat and just like he does with me in the pool–he jumps right off the back of the boat into my arms.  Poor guy, the water was COLD and I don’t think he expected that, so it was a bit of a shock, but he stayed for a second before getting back in the boat.  You better believe we cheered like crazy at his brave little self jumping in the lake!

But this was where I really saw how similar we are: of course I’m an adult so I hide my ridiculousness but I must admit when I got out of the water I felt pretty darn pround. We had driven past this decked out boat full of high schoolers and skinny little girls in their barely-there bikinis, and I thought, “Ha! I got two kids in the boat! Take that!”   I know. Silly.  I realize waterskiing is NOT a big deal. But you’d have thought I scaled Mt. Everest by how happy I was.  So then later Dutch gets brave again while Jeff is in the water and decides he wants to go back in!  And this time, Jeff holds him and jumps in and accidentally tips just right so that Dutch’s basically dives in headfirst–dunked under the water! Dad and Mom and I gasp, horrified, thinking he’ll never want to see water again after being dunked in the icy lake. And yes, Dutch was a little shaken, but after coughing for a sec, he was all smiles, and when he got back in the boat, it was the most hilarious thing, it was like watching myself, except without adult inhibitors. He jumped around and shouted, “I got in the wa-wa! Way in the wa-wa! Wa-wa on me! I wet!”  You could tell he felt like some gladiator, a conqueror of all things marine.  We were hysterical

So by the time we left, Dutch was driving the boat–literally.  He drove the boat in, he loved the boat. He was ready to move into the marina.  What a change from the scared little boy clinging to mama who had arrived just hours earlier.

So I had to reflect on the drive home, how like Dutch I am.  Dutch is so busy and wild it’s easy to think that he’s naturally brave.  But he’s not.  And you know I can create a whirlwind with my busy schedule and pretend like I’m taking on the world, but inside I’m pretty much a wimp, clinging to mommy instead of diving into the water.  So today was big, for both Dutch and me. How thankful I am for my son, who shows me more about myself than I ever wanted to know, and challenges me to do more than I ever want to do.  Thanks, son.

Jeff and I just crawled into bed and both declared that today was the perfect day.  Of course it wasn’t actually perfect, but just about as close as you can get, and perfect for us and where we’re at and what we needed.  And since God’s Word says we are to proclaim His wonderous works, I’ll proclaim about the sweet day He gave us.

I guess it started last night–Jeff had a 9pm softball game, which meant he wouldn’t be home until 10:30 at least, and he’d been gone every night this week, and I feel like it’s important for us to do as much as we can as a family, so I decided to be wild and crazy and take the kids to the game, even though it’s obviously WAY past bedtime. We bathed, jammied, got snacks, diapers, the whole bit, then loaded into the car with daddy.  Now understand, I have a strange breed of children who NEVER sleep in the car. Ever. Ever.  They come by it naturally because I never could either. But anyway, we almost get to the ballpark and I say, “Wow, Dutch you’re getting to stay up WAY past your bedtime tonight, is’nt that fun?!” and I turn around and he is sound asleep–out–in his car seat.  Hilarious.  Now what do I do? So I say to Jeff that maybe we could park near the field and I could try to watch from the car. Less than ideal, but it would do.  We get to the park and it’s packed, and I realized we might not even find A spot, let alone a close one. Plus, there are 5 fields and only one has parking near it.  Then right as we pull around, a car that’s parked RIGHT behind the backstop of the main field (the only one with close parking) pulls out.  Jeff spots it, swings in, looks at the # on the backstop and says, “This is our field…”  I figured as soon as we parked they’d wake up, but to my amazement, they both slept the whole time, and I got to just sit outside, right behind the stands, right by the car, and watch the whole game. They slept the whole way home, we tucked them into bed, and ate ice cream. 🙂  Good start, huh?

So my recent struggle has been getting up early enough to have my quiet time in the Word and prayer before the kids get up.  But, by God’s grace, this morning I woke right up and bounced out of bed while Jeff got to sleep (he’d been running on WAY too little sleep lately). I had an amazing time all alone with God, sipping my tea, savoring the silence of the house.  At 8 I went in and snuggled with Dutch before getting Heidi up and making breakfast.  Then Jeff was wonderful and remained “unplugged” almost the whole morning. He played with Dutch while I did my mountain of ironing (ok maybe the day wasn’t perfect) , and I got the whole thing done.  He then read him Bible stories while I packed our picnic lunch, then we did our new favorite thing: family dance party.  Jeff bought me the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, which has killer dance music without words, so Dutch and I hold hands and jump around the room while he laughs hysterically.  Then I even got to go on a run alone (that’s a big deal to a mom!) and worship God to Tenth Avenue North on my hand-me-down ipod that I love.  Lately running has been an amazing time of refreshing for my soul.  And for me there’s nothing like running alone.  Just me and Jesus!

Then we packed up a big picnic lunch and met my parents out at Promentory Park for a long afternoon of boating, which was amazing. The weather was perfect–I learned some things (more later), and we crawled back into our car with that awesome feeling of exhaustion that’s physical not mental or emotional, the kind of exhaustion that actually feels good.  Then after contemplating having people over for the night, we opted to stick to family night, and got home, had dinner, bathtime, storytime, and both kids in bed by 7pm. It is now 9 and I’m headed to sleep after having a few wonderful hours to sit with my honey uninterrupted.  Oh, and I ate two bowls of ice cream. I know–somebody pinch me.

I share all this just to say thank you to our good and faithful God who knew we needed a day like this.  After a FULL week and some hectic days, we felt like all day God was slowly but surely recharging our batteries, filling up our tanks with His presence and His joy.  And since this is loooong already, I’ll save my little “lesson from today” for … tomorrow. Goodnight.

“Day in the Life” post to the left.

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I am blessed beyond words.  I am thankful tonight for women who truly recognize that ministry is all about Him.  I mentioned earlier that I will be taking on a little more involvement in a formal ministry setting, and tonight Joy and I had a meeting with several ladies, long-term servants at our church who have been faithfully providing leadership to the women of Willamette.

I was truly blessed.

Far too often we view the work we do in ministry as “ours”.  Our small group, our Bible study, our our our.  Anything that’s about us isn’t about Him.  And I must say that I am blessed to be part of a body where I consistently see people demonstrating, with their actions, that this is about Him.  His glory. His fame. His recognition. His power being demonstrated in people’s lives.

Lord, we bow to You. We look to You. You are the King, the glorious One.  Make your name famous, make your glory known. Draw people to You, we pray, In Jesus’ name.

Before you read the title and think that I’ve backslidden into oblivion, hear me out.  I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer lately, partly thinking I really need to “get serious” (whatever that means) about praying for our house to sell, because I really sense God’s up to something cool (when is He not?), but somehow I’m to be partnering with Him in this.

I’ve also been motivated to pray because I really sense that we (Jeff & I) and perhaps our church too, is really under attack.  I’m possibly getting more involved in serving at our church (besides the informal stuff I do), and Jeff is up to his eyeballs in ministry work, and as we’ve headed into our 7th year of marriage, we both sense that if we’re not careful we can get engulfed in the stuff of life and lose each other in the process. No good.  I’m not saying we’re falling apart, I’m just saying that as we’re juggling life and ministry, and two kids and the house stuff we’re trying to learn how to stay in stride with each other. Fair enough.  That said, I need to pray like never before for God’s grace and power in our lives!

So yesterday we spent a glorious 4th of July holiday out at my parents’ house at RiverSong.  A few friends from church joined us and we had a fabulous time truly resting, soaking up the sun, playing badminton, eating s’mores and homemade ice cream, and watching Dutch be his ridiculous hilarious self.  Since it’s always so fun to show new people the beauty of RiverSong, we took our friends down to the river, to our neighbor’s swimming hole, and swam around in the cold river water.  Jeff swam all over, then as he and his friend Matt got out of the water, all of a sudden he stops: “Oh no.  My wedding ring.”  I look down at his left hand. Gone. I close my eyes.  He lost his ring in the river.

He lost our first wedding ring in Half Moon Bay when we lived in California, but this current one was way more significant.  I’d saved and saved and secretly gone and taken my purity ring, the one my parents gave me when I was 13 and that I’d worn every day for ten years until Jeff and I had gotten married, and I had the jeweler actually stretch that yellow gold band and inset it into a white gold band, so that Jeff’s wedding ring was actually melded into my yellow gold purity ring. Needless to say, it was pretty cool, and very significant, even to me, Mrs. Non-sentimental.  And it was gone.  They looked and looked, but the river was murky and super deep.  Eventually we gave up and went back to the house.

Later on that afternoon, Jeff found some scuba gear and took his friend Jerrod back down to the river to look some more. I knew there was no way they’d find it.  When we got back down to the water, Jeff and Jerrod stood on the shore, holding their scuba masks, and prayed together. Jerrod cried out to God that He’d just be gracious and lead them to the ring. Then they searched. And searched and searched, while a friend and I sat on the shore and watched. Finally Jeff gave up and came ashore, it was shady now and the water was dark and it was hard to see anything. Just then he called out, “Let’s give up–” and as Jerrod took a step toward the shore, he reached down, “Here it is!”  And to our absolute astonishment, there it was, at the bottom of the river, in an area shallow enough Jerrod reached right down and picked it up. Needless to say we were amazed.

Wow, the power of prayer, right?  Well, not quite.

You see, today Joel pointed out a key aspect of prayer that I’d always kind of vaguely thought about but never was able to pinpoint it exactly.  So many people talk about the power of prayer.  Prayer is amazing!  We talk about different kinds of prayers to pray–prayers that avail much perhaps.  We pray Jabez’s prayer or so-and-so’s prayer, and I’m not saying that written prayers are bad, not at all.  But I would insist that I don’t believe in prayer.  I believe in God.  I don’t believe in the power of prayer, I believe in the power of God.  Anyone can “pray”–muslims pray, Catholics pray to patron saints.  There is no power in prayer. There is power in God, and the point of prayer is to connect with God and partner with Him as He works His will on earth as it is in heaven, aligning our hearts with His.  Prayer isn’t magic. It’s supernatural to be sure, but not magic.

I’m saddened by how often I’ve prayed just to pray, and missed the point entirely–fellowship with God.  I’m saddened by how often I’ve really just been praying because I want to see my will be done, instead of laying down my will so His can be done.  I’m wondering how often our belief in the “power of prayer” isn’t really belief in the One True God who can do whatever He pleases.

Perhaps it seems a small thing, but to me it changes my perspective entirely.  Do I believe that prayer works?  No. But God does, and that I know for sure.  Do I believe that God can do everything and that He has graciously chosen to allow us to partner with Him through prayer? Yes!  Do I believe God enabled Jerrod and Jeff to find his wedding ring, despite the fact that it seemed an absolute impossibility? Yes! Do I believe God can sell our house? Of course! Do I believe that He’s writing a cool story with our lives that will bring glory to HIS name and draw people to Himself? Yes!  In fact, what’s so cool about the ring story is that Jerrod (who found it) is one of Jeff’s Jr. High leaders, and today’s lesson for the Jr. High kids was on prayer and Jerrod was in charge of sharing a little lesson from his own life on prayer.  Um… how amazing is that?  Just the day before Jerrod happens to come out to our place, Jeff loses his ring, and after praying, God miraculously enables them to find it in the murky dark river waters.  And today they were able to share that story with the Jr. High kids.  It’s about so much more than a wedding ring…God’s name was glorified.  And God’s glory is what it’s all about.

Prayer is not the end. It isn’t the goal.  God, and His beauty, His glory, His fame, His worth lifted up and praised by every tongue, tribe, and nation. That is the end, the goal.  God is the goal. God is the gospel. God is what we get.  I believe in God.

So virtually every day Dutch says something new that makes my jaw drop and want to run to the computer and share with the world.  So, to prevent this blog from turning into a nauseating relay of cutesy toddler stories, I’m creating a page called “A Day in the Life”, where I’ll just post fun Dutch-isms, stories, basically stuff that grandparents like but that many of you probably don’t care about.  To alert those of you who care I’ll just add a quick heads up to my normal post, K?  Ok but until then, one last quick story.

So I hope you’re not squeamish and it’s a little embarrassing to share, but I developed this odd random cyst on my face almost 3 years ago when I was pregnant with Dutch. It started really small but has grown significantly in the last year (gotta love pregnancy, ugh), and now it’s big. Really big.  And I hate it.  Thankfully the doctors finally think it’s weird enough that they’re removing it soon (yay!), but until then I have this really bizarre bump on my cheek and I know I’m vain and it shouldn’t matter, but who wants to have a weird thing growing off their face?

Anyway, I pretend like it’s not there but tonight as I was snuggling Dutch into bed, we laid there with our faces close together, and I was kissing his cheeks.  He then stopped, looked, reach up and poked at it.  “What’s that?!” He asks.  Jeff’s eyes widen (I think he thought I would burst into tears).  I smiled. “That’s mommy’s owie,” I respond. He thinks for a second, then leans up carefully and plants a soft, wet kiss right on the spot.  “All gone!” he happily exclaims.

Oh my sweet boy. Yes.  In your world owies are kissed away. “All gone!”  I love your childlike faith and joy, simplicity and exurberance.  You are a challenge, yes, but your smile and kiss make all life’s troubles all gone.  Thank you, son.