Missing Stocking

Today my little Neve would have been 22 months old.  Not a significant age, but an age and a date that have hurt more this year than last.  Christmas has always been my favorite holiday, and has become even more special as I have had children.  I especially love children at Christmastime when they are 18 months to 2 years old.  The joy of the lights, hearing them try to sing along to jingle bells, and watching them open Christmas gifts by themselves brings an innocent joy to Christmastime.  This year I am missing the lost memories that would have been created.  As I shop and plan and make for Christmas, I wish there was one more stocking on the fireplace, and one more name on the list.  Maybe she wouldn't have been with us anyways, I don't know what that future held.  I do know that in my missing and longing I can't really wish her back on earth.  She gets to spend the most wonderful time of year with the reason for the season.  Would there really be any better way to spend the holidays than worshiping the Savior with the Savior?  So Merry Christmas, baby girl, someday I will be home with you for the holidays!

Grace is Enough

If I have learned anything from my trials and struggles through this thing called life it is this...it never goes how we want, but God is still good.  Sometimes my heart doesn't agree with that as I look at broken relationships, life-altering sickness, and empty arms and ask, "God, if you are good why?"  But He is OK with the questions and the ugly emotions.  In fact I think it is in the raw moments when we say, "Lord, I don't understand this, but I trust Your best for me," that God is most pleased.  Faith in its purest form is when we look at the lack of evidence and move forward.  When we move forward in obedience knowing that at the end of the day the obedience may mean more heartache.  If I had my way in my detailed, organized world I would have had my house 3 1/2 weeks ago when they told us it should be finalized.  The house would be safe for the kids to move into and clean and there would be no nights without a place to call "home."  (Oh, the security in that word.)  But I wake up each morning knowing that whatever reason God has is for the best.  Maybe it has nothing to do with houses, but more to do with trust, joy, and peace despite what the circumstances are.  As Christians we become delusioned with the idea that if we are walking in God's will He won't allow anything bad to happen or that God won't give us more than we can handle.  Paul's trials in the bible refute that idea and beat it to the ground.  God allowed him to go near death, allowed him to starve, and shipwrecked him more than once.  I am pretty sure Paul would have said, "I can't handle this Lord."  God's only response is, "My grace is sufficient for you."  In the coming to the end of me I have come to the place where I can see God more fully, and remember that the only thing I can cling to is Grace.  Oh, sweet grace that I do not deserve!  If I could do this on my own I would have no need of God.  Though I don't enjoy the trials in my life I do welcome them (though often not with open arms) knowing in the end God is shaping me through them.  The days and years ahead will not be easy, and maybe even what is ahead will make what is behind seem light and momentary but I ask God to walk me through whatever is ahead, and not allow my foot to stumble, and that in every moment I will choose to bring Him glory.  Thank you God for being good!

The Well

Today I feel like I am at the bottom of a well.

And once again it has run dry.

So many times I have dug to water.

The life giving water of God's strength and presence.

 

When I was young and first dove in the well it overflowed me

and I swam in His strength.

Now that I am older I have found at times the water has run dry.

I have used my own strength and found it useless

and turned around to find the well is empty.

So I dig....I dig to new water.

I dig with all I have and taste of the freshest water.

I worry our son has something deathly wrong

and I dig and the water comes

and I swim in His strength.

I worry that money will never be enough

and I dig and the water comes.

I obey and I lose two children I deeply love

and I dig and the water comes.

I am stripped of every image of self-worth

and I dig and the water comes,

 more slowly this time, but it comes.

and I daily depend on Him to bring me what I need for that day.

The nine months of unemployment comes

and I dig and find new water seeps in again,

 but it barely satisfies.

 

 Now I find myself at the bottom of the well again,

 digging with every ounce I can find,

 I dig to find the strength to face the uncertainties

 and unknowns of God's will.

But every place I dig brings no relief.

  But I keep digging for I know one taste of that precious water

 will satisfy like nothing else in this world.

I dig because one drop of water is better than the death of hope.

For the water has said,

"He will lead them to springs of living water.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." (Revelation 7:17)

 

I will continue to wait for the water

 but this time praying that I can lay aside my own strength,

for the digging only collapses the walls and hinders the water.

And I will pray that once again the well will overflow

and spout back to new life.

  For in the end that's all the water wants

 is for me to rest and be flooded.

Happy 1st Birthday, Baby Girl!

Dear Neve,                                                                                2/14/13
Today would be your 1st birthday.  I hope in heaven we get to celebrate things the way we celebrate them here on earth.  I love birthdays!  Today we are celebrating your birthday without you here on earth.  Is Jesus giving you a birthday party today?  I hope He will at least pass on a hug for me.  When I brought you home from the hospital I hoped I would be around for your first birthday, but there was no guarantee.  I hoped at least to pass along the wishes.  But there is no tangible earth to heaven communication.
The last couple of days my mind has played that day so often.  Almost a year ago, I rejoiced in the call and was giddy waiting for you.  Searching for the baby things I needed in such a short time.  Daddy got the carseat and we set up the crib for you.  Waiting in the hospital room I couldn't wait to set eyes on you.  And the moment I did I loved you.  At that moment your heart and mine knit together in ways even I don't understand.  Daddy and I try and figure it out, but the simple truth was in that moment you became our daughter and secured your place in our heart.
I miss you baby.  I still see you in every child that is your age.  I miss you at holidays and family moments.  I miss all the moments we didn't have.
Somedays the guilt and fear overwhelm me.  What if I had done things differently would you still be here?  Would you be alive and celebrating today?  But God gently reminds me that His plan is perfect and even "if," He forgives that too. 
I pray someday I will feel that forgiveness down to the depth of my soul.  I pray that my missing you won't shadow so many of my days, and that someday the rejoicing will overshadow the pain.  And while I do I also whisper a prayer for your other Mommy and pray for peace for her.
Today I remember you and celebrate what time I had, and I whisper words to God (please pass them right along), "Neve, my daughter, I love you and always will!"

With forever love,

Your Mommy

Chapters and Seasons

Life has chapters and seasons, and God has brought me once again to the beginning of one.  This time though I am reluctantly turning the page.  After 5 and a half years of teaching my children and spending the better part of 24/7 with my children I am now sending some of my children to public school.   Homeschooling, like many jobs in life, becomes a part of your identity.  It is an intricate part of who you are.  Some people look proudly on your decision and others think you are a crazy, reclusive family.  The simple truth for our family is that I was mostly home schooled, and it was the comfortable route for us.  I loved spending time with my children and watching them grow, change, learn, and explore over the years.  I love knowing what they are learning and meeting their friends.   We have every year evaluated the decision for our children knowing there might come a time when our family, or maybe even just one child, would need to go to public school.  I firmly believe that homeschooling is not for everyone.  It takes a lot of time, patience, money, and commitment (which, besides having a lot of the time, I have very little of).  Somehow when it came time for our decision it was a harder one to make than I expected.  Today 3 of my 5 children will explore the world of public school, teachers that are not their mom, and new friendships.  We may venture into this season and find out we love being involved with schools, or we may come to next fall and find that our experience was not good and, by experience, that homeschooling is the best for our family.  Truth is I will still be a home school mom, not only because I will still be teaching Bre, but I will also still be as involved as I can in my children’s school learning.  I hope I will always be one of those homes that my children proudly invite their friends over too and hang out at for long periods of time.  As I look at the friends that I admire and look at their upbringing it was not whether they were home schooled or not, most were not.  I see one thing that connects them all; their parents took the time to be involved in their life.  And whether we do public school, or home school, that will never change.  In fact I hope with public school I will have more energy to focus on the heart issues and not just the 3-R’s.  So as I turn the page in our family history I also change a page in my heart.  I take a moment to trust that God will work all things out for good and that this will be a blessed experience for all of us. 

Holiday Traditions

Have you ever stopped to consider your traditions?

I am a thinker so I often considered our family traditions.  Which ones will stand the test of time?  Which ones really aren’t important?  Which ones should we start to add depth and meaning to our holidays?

Moving has really brought to the focus our traditions.  After living in the same house for 10 years and starting our family in that house all of our holiday traditions were centered around what we did there.  Bo and I both LOVE the holiday season.  We love everything about it…being with family and friends, the food, the lights, the music, the decorations, giving gifts, and remembering the long expectant child.  We started our Christmas celebrating as soon as we could.  Usually we would go out the Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving to get a Christmas tree from the woods with my dad.  We started the holiday music while shopping Friday morning and would go to Locomotive Park after we got the tree decorated.  We would light the holiday candles of the advent as we prepared our hearts for the coming.  Sometime in the season we got together with family and friends and made TOO many Christmas cookies.  Christmas Eve we would spend with Bo’s parents and brother’s families opening gifts and eating our laid back family meal.  With kids underfoot it has always been a time of excitement and joy.  And of course every present chaos was started with the reading of a Christmas story by one of the grandchildren.  Christmas day would start off with stockings outside the kid’s doors that we opened in Mommy and Daddy’s bed.  Than after mom got her shower and everyone was dressed we would head downstairs (to a tree that somehow in the night got buried by presents).  We would take turns opening gifts until the tree was empty and the arms filled full.  Usually around lunch my parents and grandpa would join us for Christmas dinner.  We would light the last Advent candle and read the Christmas story while enjoying Jesus birthday cake.

As I reflect on these traditions I have truly missed some this year…This year it’s a fake tree in the corner decked out in homemade paper ornaments.  There was no holiday baking party and with traveling we won’t have the surprise of presents (they saw them get loaded in the car).  I don’t know how Christmas will play out, but I do know that there will be no Papa and Nana this year or Christmas dinner at our house.  In some ways the only thing that will be the same is Christmas Eve party, but this time we just have to load up the gifts and take them out to the trailer.

I often wonder what will be different next Christmas.  Will the house we buy have stairs for the grand entrance?  Will we still go to the woods to get a tree?  Will we travel next year? Or will someone visit us?  One thing I do know traditions that last are the traditions that count.  We will always do advent.  And at least for a few years all of our children will be home for the holidays. 

What traditions do you treasure this year?  What one do you hope to start for next year?  What traditions do you need to let go of?

Merry Christmas friends! 

May your holiday be bright and full of Christ this year!

October Journey

Some lessons in life we remember having before and wonder why we have to relearn that, some are fresh and bring us new insight, some we plead that God will never have to teach us, or that when He takes us through it we will come out victorious on the other side.

Recently God took me on a journey of faith so real and so hard that I wondered if I would come out victorious.

As we prepared our house for sale and started looking for a new job in Western Washington I was praying for God to line up all the things that needed to happen like dominoes.  I prayed that everything would work out so perfectly that we would sell our van and buy a economical car, Bo would get a job just as the house sold so that he wouldn't have to leave without us or that we were homeless while we waited to find a job.  I believed with every part of my being that God could do this if He was willing.  The test of faith came in just that.  Did God desire this for us?  Would God punish us for a bad decision even if we were pleading the whole time for Him to allow, or thwart, our plans according to His will?  It was not a matter of "Is there a God"? or "can God do"?  but "did God care enough about my personal life to work everything out"?  And more importantly how would I react if the evidence showed what I feared; even if truth was not in the evidence?

There were so many dark days as I pleaded with God for Him to show me His plan.  Show me where He wanted me to be or what He wanted me to do.  How do I plan for tomorrow when I don't know where I will be?  Do I get involved or not?  Days that I could feel God's silence as thick as smoke as it chocked out my faith and my confidence in a God that cares.

I felt like I was on a roller coaster of emotions.  I would get excited with each house viewing, as we got an offer on the house, as Bo had an interview, and than the frustrating silence after the house viewings and interviews, the sadness as the offer fell through, and the days of wondering.  Than within one week we sold our car, bought a car, we had a new offer on our house, and than Bo was supposed to call a man back after he had received Bo's resume.  I was excited as it looked like God had done exactly as I had asked.  Soon we discovered that we couldn't contact the guy for a job.  He wouldn't return calls and never answered his phone.  I was devastated.  Though I was grateful for what God had done I was nervous about the house deal.  The buyers financing had fallen through the first time would it go through this time?  We still had the assessor to come look at the house.  Would he approve it for an FHA loan?  And where would be live if the house did sell and we had no job?

The next week Bo got a call back from one of his previous interviews.  They wanted to hire him and he was set to start in 3 weeks.

I went on for the next 3 weeks with soo many questions.  Not packing because we were told to wait until the assessor approved things and the financing looked good.  The last week especially was hard.  We had fixed a few problems the assessor wanted fixed and were waiting to hear if he had approved them.  I knew if it went through I had to be out in a week, but yet not wanting to pack if it didn't go through.  Should I find a place for the family to live and risk a deposit?  Did we find a place for Bo to live and try and find a way to afford 2 housing costs?  Even the simple things-Do you do your monthly grocery shopping and move it all, or buy less and buy when you move?  Do you request things from the library for school, or would you not be here to need them?

Every morning I had to get up and physically choose to believe that God was working out the details and that He knew what was best.  That He wasn't ignoring my cries.  Scriptures kept playing in my head about how God cared for me.

1 Peter 5:7  "Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you."

Finally on Friday we got the call that everything had gone through and they wanted to know how soon we could be out of the house.  We promised to be out the night before closing (which was supposed to be the following Friday).  Than it was a whirlwind of saying goodbye, sorting and packing, taking loads to the farm for storage, cleaning, closing accounts, and arranging an apartment.  God was good and we were out by Thursday night (except a little bit of garbage we left in the neighbors yard to take care of Friday morning).

Now see how incredible this was-God had already taken care of the cars.  On Thursday we signed the house to the new owners, on Friday we said goodbye to friends, Saturday we moved to Tacoma and into our new apartment, on Sunday we started unpacking and got new phones, and on Monday Bo started his new job!  God's timing was perfect!

I thank God that he answered the prayer of my heart and brought me through.  I still wonder what if God hadn't done it all?  Would I still believe the same way?  Maybe these struggles seem trivial to you as you battle your own test of faith.  The test of trust, waiting, and not worrying has always been the hardest for me to learn and walk in.  I pray that someday I can sit back and relax when life is full of too many questions and not enough answers.  Until than I will battle each day to "let go and let God" and trust Him for each day.

Psalms 27:13-14

^"I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord."