2018 Christmas Letter

I remember holding a Christmas card from some faraway friends when I was a child and reading a letter about the amazing exploits of their children, accompanied by a polished and perfect photo of their family seated in front of their Christmas tree.  I wish I could say that my young spirit rejoiced in their smashing successes and their obvious upward trajectory in life, but I am ashamed to say that I remember my heart constricting under the weight of my own keenly felt mediocrity.

Our family was so normal, and our lives were so mundane in comparison to our friends—and usually I was content to have it so.  In fact, I see now that I had a supremely charmed childhood, but at that moment, in the bright glare of another family’s yearly highlight reel, shadows fell over my own good life and gave rise to a seedling of discontent.
  
Now, by the grace of Facebook, we all get the hour by hour opportunity to hold the nitty gritty of our real lives up against the airbrushed high points of our friends’ lives and either feel inadequate or elated over the steady stream of exciting events and achievements of hundreds of close friends, acquaintances, and strangers. I hope you do better at that balance than I do.  The number of prayer requests alone and the myriad opportunities to serve special people can lead to emotional overload and even burnout if we are not careful.
  
I confess to adding a skewed picture of our good life to your Facebook feed this year.  Yes, we had some real triumphs—a college graduation, sports victories, sweet moments of familial bliss, miscellaneous academic successes, celebrations of friendship, and milestones of growth in our children.

But we also had (more) health scares, job losses, moments of selfishness and squabbling, broken friendships, and moments when we didn’t live up to anyone’s standards of kindness, goodness, or self-control.  Trust me, no one wants to see those lowlights, but neither do I want anyone to think we have achieved model family status.
  
So, what is my point? And what is the use of a Christmas letter in an age of social media?  I guess I am glad of the opportunity to lay down a tangible expression of gratitude to the God who SEES.  In some manner, I feel that we humans have a desperation to both see and be seen (otherwise why would we spend an average of two hours a day chasing information and approbation on our phones?)

And Christmas is the season that, more than any other, should call us away from that endless pursuit to marvel over the fact that no matter how obscure or notorious we are in the eyes of the world, the Almighty God holds us in His gaze entirely-- not just our well-framed, well publicized exploits, but also our dirty deeds, our deepest desires, our uncelebrated virtues and secret vices, our unheralded sacrifices and unconfessed selfishness. 

We are seen in our entirety in a sort of divine Facebook feed that stretches from the dawn of time to the end of all things and contains every second of our conscious and unconscious existence.

 Lest the thought of that level of scrutiny drive you to despair, remember that we are not merely seen completely, but also loved intensely and entirely to the point that God condescended to trade eternity and omnipotence for the constraints of time and flesh on our behalf. “God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”  John 3:16

God saw all the lovely and unlovely things about you, unfiltered, unsorted, uncovered, unedited and found you worth following—down to the brokenness of earth and through the barrenness of death so that He could invite you to truly know Him and ultimately live with Him forever.

To all of you whom we are privileged to know and care about on this earth, I pray you will find time to pull your gaze away from all the good things this season brings and find a quiet space to ponder the best news that ever broke upon any news feed anywhere at any time in history.  

As always, you are in our hearts and we hope that you will come and see us whenever life brings you close to our neck of the woods!  Merry Christmas!

“For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” 2 Chronicles 16:9

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,  even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),  and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,  so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. “  Ephesians 2:4-7

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How God Showed His Love to Us Through 

Unexpected Circumstances This Year

A 2018 Christmas Reflection 

by The Birmingham Family

Rebekah (23): 2018 did not go at all to plan. After finishing my coursework at Western Michigan University in the spring, I looked for an internship which was the last step towards finishing my degree. I applied to several and was turned down. Several other promising sites also didn’t accept me. 

As door after door was shut not just in my academics but also in my personal life, I cried out to God, asking what He was trying to teach me. The answer came quite clearly:  That behind every ‘no’ is a bigger ‘yes.’ Even though my plans may have changed, my purpose has not. Even if I don't know what I'm doing next year, I am still called to serve him here today. He has taught me that when I don't know the answer, He is still God. When I can't understand the reason, He is still good. When it's not what I had wanted, He gives more grace to accept no for an answer and seek His face and what He wants for my life. 

One of my favorite songs by Shane and Shane says, "Though You slay me, Yet I will praise you. Though You take from me,  I will bless your name. Though You ruin me, Still I will worship, Sing a song to the one who's all I need." 

Christina (20): 2018 has been quite the year for me. As I look back at my journal entries from 2018, I spot a theme. Hardship often brings gigantic blessings. The kind of hardship that cuts my selfish wants out and carves me into the woman God wants me to be. The hardship of not wanting to wait for good things but making myself do it anyway because the gems will be so much more precious at the end of the wait. The hardship of almost failing most of my classes last year, and then getting meds to help me concentrate which brought me from barely scraping by to becoming an A student this year. The hardship of losing some friendships and yet the blessing of cultivating stronger ones with the people who choose to stay with me. 

This year has not been easy, but I am blessed beyond what I deserve. One of my favorite quotes is, “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” – C.S. Lewis

Elijah (16): Now that I think back on my year, it has been tougher than I remembered! First, this is my second year of high school and has been a challenge. I feel though that I have better embraced the responsibility that comes with school as well as the things that come with being an older brother. 

I also had quite a difficult struggle this summer. I was in the middle of baseball season when I fractured my spine. I was devastated that I could not finish my season of baseball with my team. God taught me through that one bad thing both patience and trusting him and his timing. He was in control and only three months later I was in physical therapy, and then in a couple weeks, back playing basketball. 

Though I may not be completely in shape for the season, it is better than being in a brace for life which my doctor said was very probable with many kinds of breaks. I have been blessed, and I am so grateful for those who helped me through.

Isaiah (13): This year I realized I need to try harder to be grateful for my brothers.  It is easy to see them as annoying, but here is what I like about them.  Elijah is good competition for me in…everything.  He always reminds me when I am doing something wrong (thanks, Elijah!) and helps me when I get off track.  Jude knows everything about everything about sports, which is nice, so I don’t have to look stuff up for myself.  Kaiden is good at making conversation and is pretty funny, but please don’t tell him I said so because I will never hear the end of it.  

I’m glad God gave me brothers.  Usually😊  Because I basically have three people to try to beat, which may help me rise to my full potential, and vice versa.
  
Jude (11): This year, I was playing on a great baseball team and we won every game and made it to the league championship and thought we would win no problem, but we lost. In spite of that, our coach paid for our entire team to go to a Whitecaps minor league game and we got to go out on the field with the players at the position we played on our league, which was fun. 

In August, my brother knocked my glasses off and they fell lens first on the cement and broke. It was two months until I got my new glasses. It was hard to wait but it made me thankful for my new glasses and being able to see. 

For Thanksgiving, we went to my cousin’s house and we had such a feast! I was also thankful that we got to spend time working together outside.

Kaiden (11): I almost got knocked out at basketball practice yesterday, but I didn’t. I’m thankful that God has kept me safe in sports. I am also grateful for Classical Conversations. We have a new tutor and I really like her. I’m also doing Essentials for the first time which is hard, but I enjoy playing the Battleship math game. I am also going to try out for Memory Masters. 

Keira (9): “I am thankful to God because He makes me brave.” –the words of a little girl who works hard to sort out all the sights and sounds and words and expectations that this world throws at her.  Yesterday, she stood with her classmates in front of a hundred parents at her 3rd grade Christmas concert.  She did not sing, and she barely blinked through five songs, but for her it was the emotional equivalent to any one of us giving an impromptu speech to the U.N General Assembly! And she did it! 

Keira was diagnosed with a form of autism this year, and this has helped us know how to go about helping her navigate life and learning.  She has a beautiful, loving, trusting heart and we are blessed by her every day.
  
Jamey and Sandra: At this time last year, we did not know that simply unloading some groceries would cause a disc to rupture in Jamey’s back compressing a nerve in his leg.  Spine surgery followed soon after, and then an unplanned “vacation” of 3-6 weeks for recovery.  

A week after returning to work part time, a bigger change was in store.  After 11 years of developing a combined pediatric and adult rheumatology practice, Jamey was told that his contract to practice at the Children’s Hospital would not be renewed.  The hospital had decided to no longer work with subcontracted employees, and Jamey was one of the ones let go. 

The timing of this massive career change could not have been much worse, with the recent forced time off and still being physically low.  The influx of Jamey’s pediatric patients created a situation at his private practice which made it clear that he would not be able to practice there in the long term, and so he made the difficult decision to part ways.   

The departure from two busy practices at the same time made it difficult to maintain continuity of care for many long-standing patients.  We had more than a few anxious moments this year, but also saw the provision of God and the overwhelming support of many colleagues and patients who sent notes and expressed their care and concern in unexpected and often touching ways.  God showed His great faithfulness to our family in both the known and the unknown.

Ultimately, all the changes opened the door for a new opportunity, and Jamey, a lifelong Ohio State Buckeye fan, began a brand new combined pediatric and adult rheumatology program through Metro Health, an affiliate hospital of the University of Michigan!  That irony is not lost on us!  

Jamey has ambitious long-term goals for how he hopes the program will develop, and a vision for an intensely patient-centered, holistic medical practice, filled with people who share the same goals.  The transition has left him busier than he has been at any time in his rheumatology career, but the prospect of growth and the level of support he has received make it all worthwhile.  
We are both thrilled and amazed at how the events of the year worked out to create a practice situation which is exactly what he has always dreamed of having but would probably never have sought out without an external push.  So, we are extremely grateful!

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A Poem On the Occasion of Finding Yet Another Snake in My House

Ode To Uninvited Guests

Beloved children, shut the door.
(I know I've mentioned this before).
Each time you manage to escape,
You leave the blessed door agape.
The heat blows out, the leaves blow in
And also, much to my chagrin,
Animals of every sort
Waltz in and wantonly cavort
In random corners, closets, drawers,
Entryways, and kitchen floors.
Reptiles, mammals, birds, and bugs,
Showing off their ugly mugs,
Sharing all our sacred spaces,
Chirping, buzzing, leaving "traces".

Your inability to close
The door is threatening my repose.
For instance, let us take this snake.
(Yes! Take her! Please! For heaven's sake!)
All I wanted was a snack.
I got instead, a heart attack.
While I was reaching toward a shelf
She casually introduced herself
And pointed to the friend beside her,
An obviously pregnant spider.
I did not think this very nice
Because it made me panic. Twice.
Enlisting help, I managed to
Re-acclimate the motley crew,
But in the process, sad to say,
My appetite went clean away.

I'll end up in the loony bin
If you keep letting wildlife in.
I'm growing jumpy, nervous, pale,
Hearing squeaks and seeing tails
Which may or may not really be
Existent in reality.
A bolted door, a fastened screen
Is all that's standing in between
A pleasant mom and one who shouts
And gasps and waves her hands about.

Choose you this day what you will do
'Cause if I'm going to run a zoo
I'll charge admission by the day,
Set up concessions, make you pay
Outrageous prices for your lunch,
Sell your toys to hire a bunch
Of carpenters and masons whom
Will cheerfully convert your room
To an authentic habitat
For all the horrid creatures that
You roll out the red carpet for

When you refuse to shut the door.

#truestory #havingdejavu #mayipresent #snakenumbertwo
😳

A Love Letter--Part 2

Every so often during my childhood, a man in our community would behave in such a way as to open my eyes to the idea that as a father and a husband, my dad was a standing stone in a torrent of temptations and "easy ways out".  

Among my classmates, there were more than a few being raised by single moms who were doing their best to do the jobs of two people.  More than a few girls I knew in high school were devastated by the abrupt abandonment of their daddies.

Several I knew had dads who were habitually unkind or unreliable, leaving them scared and angry.

Some had fathers who were present, but checked-out emotionally.  

Other stories filtered down about fathers who were crude and inappropriate, exposing their daughters to humiliation, leaving them stripped down and hurt and at the mercy of a hungry culture.  

In the same way that fresh air and good health are most noticeable by their absence, I had the privilege of being largely oblivious to the blessing of having a wonderful father when I was young.  Now that I am a parent, I am applying retroactive thankfulness to my own parents.  

Parenting is a hard job. Relentless. Joyous. Heartbreaking. Wonderful. Exhausting. Delightful. Overwhelming. Satisfying.

And if it is done well, then due to the lack of trauma and drama in their lives (and the presence of peace, happiness, and security) most often your children won't even notice how well you did until much later.

Such was the case with me, but gratitude is better late than never!

The following is my tribute to my daddy, who has been and continues to be so adept at his many roles as to make them look easy.

Dear Dad,

You have been many things in your life: Before I knew you, you were a son and a brother, a student, a paper boy, a truck driver.  I have known you as a father, as a husband to my mother, as a business man, a landlord, a property manager, an owner/operator, a college professor, a church deacon, an avid reader, a peacemaker, a joke teller, a dispenser of wisdom, a man of ideas and insight.

And I have known you as a farmer.  In fact, after "father", "farmer" is what I picture you as being. 

When I think of you in your element, I see you striding across one of your fields, a waiting combine rumbling in the background, or coming toward the house at dusk in your blue jeans and work boots, white t-shirt smeared with tractor grease, hands black, face streaked with a day's worth of field dust.  

You are a study in contrasts.  Your expression holds both weariness and excitement, worry and contentment, patience and eager expectation.  Your posture conveys a relaxed readiness.  

You stand like a giant in my estimation. My respect for you held me in check during my childhood--and yet you were my beloved and approachable daddy, whose affection and esteem I have never once doubted.  

It strikes me now that you have always seemed comfortable to live in the tension between opposites, and you move between them even now as if they all seem like home: tender and stern, concerned over us and confident in us, busy and restful, a safe-haven and a risk taker, a seeker of truth and a repository of wisdom. 

A business man and a family man.

A man of academia and a man of the soil.

I have sometimes wondered if the instincts which have made you such a great farmer are also the same ones that have made you a great father.  

I wonder if you have noticed the strong parallels between tending the land in your care, and stewarding the hearts in your home.  The two vocations support each other beautifully and you have lived them out faithfully by putting one foot in front of the other and putting your heart before God day after day after day for as long as I've known you.  

Here are just a few of the things you were mindful of, both on the farm and in our family:

1) Soil.

Every spring, I remember how closely you monitored our fields.  Before a single seed was sown, the temperature was checked and rechecked, the soil was tested for PH and nutrient content.  It was examined for signs of disease.  

At just the right time, the land was burned to cleanse it from any possibility of being infected by diseases or pests left over from the previous year.  It was cultivated and purged of roots and rocks.

So with me.  You took care to nurture the soil of my heart--to carefully turn over the hard parts, to remove stones of doubt and disbelief, to wait to speak until the moment when my spirit was warm enough and soft enough to open and receive the good words you wanted to plant.

As with farming, sometimes the seed and the soil did not work together perfectly, but the time you took to know me and to carefully consider the timing and type of words you spoke to me went a long way toward making me receptive to the habits and beliefs you wanted to grow in me. 

2) Seeds.

You were choosy with the seed you planted.  How well had it been stored?  How pure was it?  How quickly was it able to germinate?  Was it a good match for the field in question?

If any of the answers to those questions was "no" then the seed was not sown.

Likewise, you were careful with the messages you brought into our home.  Before images and words fell into our eyes and ears, they were run carefully through your head and your heart--examined for purity, for truth, for their ability to grow good fruit in our family.

You did not blindly accept the conveniently pre-packaged bundles of propaganda the culture was offering up because you weren't about to entrust our souls to the clever slogans and shiny pictures on the wrapper.

You and mom broke open every idea and looked for weeds among the grain, so that the worldview planted in us would have the best possible chance to produce a harvest of righteousness.

It took much time.  I'm sure you were criticized as being too picky, too particular, and maybe even a bit snobbish about your little garden of souls.  I'm sure your choices cost you more than we knew, but ultimately I think Dan and I felt that we could accept the truths you offered us, because we saw   you carefully test and trust those same seeds in your own lives.  

3) Season.

In farming, there are windows for sowing and spraying, for burning and tilling, for watching and waiting, and for reaping a harvest.  It doesn't look the same every year.  

It is weather dependent. It requires vigilant observation, readiness to act when the moment is right, and a willingness to stand back and wait.

A farmer doesn't take vacations in the summer because missing a window by even one day can mean a costly setback, or even the total loss of a crop.  

Sometimes when I was growing up, I must admit I wished you would take a vacation in your parenting. Sometimes I wanted to grow wild--or not grow at all.  But you were not willing to be a lazy parent any more than you were willing to be a lazy farmer.  

You showed during our formative years, and even now, how faithful you are to speak a word in season.  

Were there times when you spoke when you should have waited, or waited when you ought to have spoken?  Sure!  Just as, despite the best laid plans, there are sometimes miscalculations on the farm. But never did I doubt you were doing your best to be a faithful steward of either us or your land.  

And now that I am a parent, I can truly appreciate what delicate and subtle signals children send out for their mother and father to read and act on!  It is truly some of the hardest deciphering I have ever done and it only raises you in my estimation!

4) Waiting.

I have heard you and Dan talking about how many farmers work themselves out of profit and yield because they are not willing to simply stop at certain points and just wait for their plants and livestock to grow.  

Fussing over and tinkering with crops and cattle and equipment that don't really need anything but time to get bigger or more mature, can actually stunt or destroy them. 

But many farmers don't want to relinquish control to the rain and the sun and wait for the slow, patient unfolding of stem and leaf and bud.

And it always ends up costing them something.

So I have seen in my own parenting when I fuss over and drown my children with words and lessons and lectures, instead of letting the good seeds in their hearts take the time they need to mature.  

Maybe sometimes you sprayed too much, or over-fertilized or over-spent on the farm.

Maybe sometimes you did the same with us, but I also see now how much restraint you showed (and continue to show!)--not to the point of neglect, certainly, but for the intention of letting the truth take its time to unfold and take root in my heart.

Thank you for waiting for me all these years.

5) Guarding.

It is not enough to get the right seed in at the right time.  

I remember driving out through our fields with you sometimes.  You would put the truck in creeper gear and let me steer.  From time to time, you would jump out and walk, sweeping a giant net back and forth among the young plants as I bumped along beside you, and after a minute you would pause and dump a squirming, buzzing harvest of insects into the palm of your hand, studying the mass for certain harmful bugs--the arch enemies of your crop--and for others which were beneficial for pollination or for eating pests.

These routine sweeps would tell you when you might need to spray, or how well the bees were doing their good work, and you did the same sweeps of our hearts on our travels around the farm or as we worked alongside you during the summers.

In the winters, you made sure to take us kids along with you on errands and as "special guests" for the day at the university where you taught. Our conversations were plentiful and pleasant and I am sure you gathered from us a mix of wisdom and foolishness.

Field checks and heart checks were a normal and natural part of my growing up, and I see how intentionally they were done, and how gently and consistently the pests and weeds were identified and treated, allowing for both your crops and our hearts to grow strong and true.

6)  Serving.

Most days in summer, you were gone well before I woke up, and you were coming home as we were getting ready for bed.  I remember the tired in your eyes, the dirt on your t-shirt, the grease on your jeans.  

I remember your hands.  They were rough and brown, wide at the knuckles, nails blackened and sometimes split.

Not uncommonly, you would have a gash in your skin or your clothes where a tool had slipped during a repair.  Dirt gathered in the lines on your face and in the crooks of your elbows.

You outworked every one of us, every day of your life, tending to the hundreds of farm and field tasks that called for your diligent attention.  In the winters, you taught classes and mentored students, and then brought back piles of papers and tests to grade after dinner.  You owned and operated businesses on the side, bought and sold property, maintained our home, served in our church, and nurtured your wife and children.

Likewise, your parenting was relentless.  It still is.  Not for one moment have I thought you would do less than sacrifice your comfort and rest to meet our needs before you considered your own.  

Your example in this has been immensely important in my own parenting journey.  I hope my children remember me being up before them, asleep after them, earning and enjoying wrinkles and callouses and gray hairs and tired eyes for the joy of seeing them flourish and thrive.

7)  Sacrificing.

Farmers give up a lot.  Their sleep and their time is controlled by the demands of their livestock and crops.  They lay out a ton of effort on the front end of their endeavors and only see returns months later.  Maybe.    

They risk a tremendous amount of money and spend a tremendous amount of energy on things that often fail.  Machinery breaks.  A lot.  And almost always at inopportune moments. Pests and blight strike without warning.  Droughts hit and wipe out young plants.  Heavy rains fall and prevent the harvest from taking place.  Rising oil and gas prices raise the costs of production, eating up profits. Freak snowstorms or heat waves obliterate an entire year's work.  Diseases strike livestock, leaving them unmarketable.  Government regulations strangle farms without warning.  Markets collapse unexpectedly.  

Sometimes I wonder why anyone still farms at all,  but I'm so glad they do!  

They are a special sort of people, who for the hope of seeing a piece of dry earth yield a bountiful harvest, will sign up for the risk of heartache when it doesn't.

For the joy of blessing their fellow man with  healthful and plentiful foods, they bend their backs and pour out their own sweat and blood.

For the privilege of tending God's creation, they forgo many safer and more reliable means of earning a living for their families.  

You did that, Dad.  Some years it was wonderful and there was money left to improve our buildings and buy new equipment and still leave us with plenty.  

But some years it was awful.  I remember how you looked when whole fields of seed pods shattered before you could get the combine into them.  Or when beautiful little blossoms got bitten off before they could set seed at all.  Or when the the fickle market took the beautiful, brown mountains of seed that you had cut and cleaned and dried and made them almost worthless.

Why did you keep on farming?  Was it for the same reason you have kept on loving and guiding and nurturing and supporting me, even in the years when I was miserly and selfish, or neglectful, or foolish, or ungrateful?

I think it was.

It is interesting that the great "Love Passage" in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, doesn't spend any time at all describing whether the object of that love is worth loving.  

It doesn't say, "love is patient when there is some indication that the person will eventually come around to your way of thinking."

It doesn't say, "love is kind to people who aren't jerks."

It doesn't talk about love being protective of "people who are not engaged in routine foolishness", or trusting of "folks with a good moral track record and an A+ rating at the Better Business Bureau", or forgiving of "those who aren't prone to impulsivity and recklessness", or hopeful toward "those who know enough to come in out of the rain."

And boy, am I glad!  


I have seen that both a good parent and a good farmer are willing to endure a tremendous amount of risk and an equally tremendous amount of pain,
because for both, love wins. Period.

Farmers know going in that they very well might lose it all, but they love the land, they love being hands-on stewards of living things, and they love the opportunity to work intimately and co-creatively with the earth and its Maker.  

Likewise, a good parent is willing to embrace great risk in order to enter the sacred adventure of creating (or adopting) and nurturing another human being. 

Only something as all-consuming as love (in its truest sense) would make this level of sacrifice worthwhile. Love, by definition, is sacrifice (John 15:13), and Dad, I have seen you do that for your farm and for your family for as long as I can remember.


8) Sovereignty

I know there are farmers who do not have a relationship with God. We know some.  But I have observed something in many of them that I think your faith has saved you from.

It is a kind of desperation.  A need to control all the variables, to manipulate outcomes at all costs, and an inability to live peacefully in the land of "come what may".

I remember some farmers who grew bitter and hard whenever their land did.

I remember some trying to grab and grasp their neighbors prosperity in order to make up a shortfall in their own.

I remember some who cut corners and dealt harshly with their animals, or ran their equipment into the dust.

I remember some who made rash decisions out of panic and some who always suspected that they were being cheated.

But you taught us that God gave us dominion over the earth and that our job was to be stewards and caretakers.  

The land exists for our good and His glory.  We don't own it.  God does. We can't control it.  God does.  And so when we have done our best with it and given our all to it, and it turns around and rebels against us or closes itself off like a stone, we can leave it right there in God's sovereign care and we can rest.

We are not to panic. We are not to deal harshly with one another.  We are not to grasp after vain hope or make false promises or hedge our bets.

God is our hope and shield and He will hold us fast.

So you seemed with me.  Protective but not possessive.  Concerned but not consumed. Loving me very much but not worshipping me.

The balance is not easy to maintain, as I am learning every day, but I am grateful for your continuing example of how to relinquish the illusion of control of both my life circumstances and my children, and instead take rest in God.

9) Harvest

Harvest was one of the most exciting times of the year.  Everyone's spirits were high and we all wanted to be at the field to watch the giant combines devour endless rows of yellow grass and spit out glistening waterfalls of shiny, brown seed into waiting wagons.  

It was the culmination of a long season of hard work, waiting, and wondering and no farmer I ever knew would have missed having a part in bringing in the fruit of his labor.  

When it went well and the price was high and the seeds were fat, it was a joyful, almost giddy experience.  When it was thin, there was still satisfaction in ending a hard thing well.  

Dad, I have always appreciated the fact that you and mom have wanted to "enjoy the harvest" with my family and Dan's.  I am sure there are decisions we made that made you cringe (there probably still are), and I know there are things you would have done differently, but you have wanted to be here in the midst of our lives through thick and thin.  

You are hopefully taking joy in the work of your hands and seeing good fruit from your labors.  We are so glad you did not shake the dust off, wave goodbye, and retire to the golf course in parts unknown.  

I am glad that you are still working your farm up north AND still planting wisdom and love in the hearts of your children and grandchildren.  

I am glad that you are still getting your hands dirty and coming in with tired eyes and working early and late.  

I am glad you still want to nurture and care for the lives and the land God has given you, and I hope you will continue to do so for many, many years.  

Most of all, I am glad that YOU are my farmer-father.  I could not have been blessed with a better one and I love you very much.

Happy Father's Day!💕

A Love Letter

Dear Mom,

When you were raising me, I'm pretty sure I viewed Mother's Day as a kind of yearly atonement for my generally unbridled sense of entitlement, my voracious consumption of parental resources, and the liberal behavioral latitude I typically allowed myself.  

I actually remember congratulating myself on giving you one whole day of respite from my normal self.   

Sure, I did my part to honor you by presenting you with the picture I drew in Sunday School and the lopsided clay pot I painstakingly formed, fired, and glazed in my elementary school art class.  I also remember collaborating with Danny to make you breakfast and to be extra careful to be good and grateful, and to not argue with him in front of you for an entire day.  

And for these efforts, I paid myself back in smug, self-congratulatory spades.

Thank you for graciously not remembering how selfish I really was.  

As so often happens, age has brought clarity to the situation, and now I am overwhelmed with embarrassment for my childhood immaturity, and gratitude for the job you did and continue to do as my mother.  

Here are just a few of the things I appreciate about you, in no particular order.

1)  You are a relentless thinker.  

You taught me to love ideas and to search out answers to my questions, to not accept the sound bite or the majority opinion without doing my own research, and to filter everything through the grid of God's word.  Period.  

When I was young, I did not always appreciate your reminders to ask myself what message the music or the book or the movie of the day was trying to sell me, but now I can see that ideas are not neutral ground. You taught me the importance of worldview, that everyone has a religion, that truth is discoverable, and that much of life is about sorting out and analyzing the ideas which flow around us continuously.  

Fun stuff, but you have to be awake for it!  Thank you for teaching me to recognize and be attentive to the important things in life.

2)  People are worth it.  

You showed me what it looks like to be a fierce defender of the voiceless, the helpless, the weak, the abandoned, the abused, the ones trapped in material poverty and in poverty of spirit.  

So many of my memories of you involve the people you blessed with your time and your talents.  You took us to hard places.  You cared for hard people.  You poured unconditional love on folks who didn't even know what love looked like, and so sometimes they lashed out or took advantage of you or held out their bottomless cups for more without even thinking to say "thanks". 

I remember you being wise and good in your dealings with them, and taking the time to explain to me why you were going to continue to give in certain places and why you were waiting on others.  You were soft where it mattered, and hard when firmness was the kindest thing.  

You may not have known how closely I was watching, but I was.  I learned from you to see the image of God in every human being, and to love Him by loving them.  

3)  Hard work is a blessing.  

I never knew you to not be involved in a major project--never at the expense of us, but alongside us.  You ripped up and refinished our floors, you painted and papered, you fixed broken furniture, organized messes, created warm, inviting spaces out of barren rooms, preserved, restored, planted, watered, and harvested.  You drove equipment and made big farm meals, hosted friends and strangers alike at a moment's notice, burned fields, and cleaned out barns. 

And you found JOY in the work of your hands. 

I remember you worrying that you had been too immersed in projects when we were growing up, but all I remember is a pretty, dark-haired mama who had a remarkable ability to get things done, but always had time for a conversation or a bike ride or a picnic at the field where Dad was working.  

Thank you for helping me see that the purpose of work is not to get you to the next vacation, but rather to bring order and beauty to your beloveds in the right here and right now .  

4) God is first. 

This was so much a part of our lives that it almost never occurred to me that life could be otherwise.  Our family way was to care about God's word, God's ways, God's people, and God's creation.  There wasn't a sphere of life from which He was excluded.  

We were taught to love God in our language, honor Him in the entertainment and activities we engaged in, and consider Him in the ordering of our days.  His love and care and beauty came up in conversation.  His people were family.  His house felt like home. This deep, abiding sense of the lordship and friendship of God has grounded me and given me peace.

Because of this, it was as natural as breathing to transfer those habits into my own home and to speak in the language of grace when Jamey and I were married.  I feel we don't always manage to do it as well as you and dad did, but we strive to!

5)  Life is not about me.  

You taught me this in two ways.  

First, you showed me that life was not about YOU.  You are one of the most accomplished women I know.  You speak knowledgeably about a wide range of topics.  You are well read and interested in everything.  You are a gifted writer and a talented seamstress. You have a shrewd mind for business, an incredible knack for organizing, a tireless work ethic, and a talent for hospitality.  You are a gifted teacher, an adept money manager, a wise counselor, a devoted wife, and a loving mother, but even with all these gifts and talents, you have never sought to bring attention to yourself.  You are no diva.  In fact, when I think of our childhood, I picture you as always there, but always in the supporting role, never in the spotlight.  

And you were content to have it so, rejoicing in the successes of your friends and family, and (hopefully) celebrating off stage in the quietness of your heart.  

Secondly, you let us live under "NO" when it was best.  "No, you may not inconvenience your family to engage in selfish fun."  

"No, you may not shirk your responsibilities."  

"No, you may not live unkindly/beyond your means/at the expense of others/immodestly/against what you say you believe/wastefully/arrogantly/deceitfully/self-indulgently/hypocritically."

And of course, I tried sometimes.  And it would have been easier for you to just smile and let me have my way, but you were willing to be the iron that sharpens iron.  You stood up with clear eyes and reminded me of who I had said I wanted to be, and to Whom I belonged, and you asked me to line up my actions and my words, even when it made sparks and heat and tears.  

Thank you for reminding me that I am not the queen of the universe, and for helping me remember my place in, and my responsibility to the community of souls, for the glory of my true King. 

5)  Encouragement is as essential as air.

If I had not seen that you were my biggest ally and my greatest fan, I probably would not have allowed you to hold me accountable the way you did (and do).

I never for one second doubted that you loved me more than your own life.  You cheered me at every concert, game, and performance.  You listened to every silly fear, applauded my little successes, held me through my failures. You told me I was designed and valued by God.  You showed me that no matter what I accomplished, I was enough in your eyes.  

You still show me.  You still tell me you are proud of me.  You talk me through my parenting failures.  You still put your own life on hold in order to bless your children.  You pass out my writings to strangers at McDonald's (😏).  You continuously remind me of my worth to God and to you, and this gives me wings.  

6) Love is an action.

You are not one for sloppy sentimentality.  Words of affirmation is not your particular love language.  Although you do say, "I love you", more often you show "I love you". 

This was such an important lesson for me growing up. I am good with words, but where I needed your example was in the daily, mundane, selfless, often thankless acts of service that whisper, "my life for yours."  

John 15:13 says, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."  This is more than words.  It is what God did for us, and what we are called to do for others. 

It is what you do for dad.  It is what you did for your mother as you cared for her so beautifully for the last eight years of her life.  It is what you do for your circle of friends.  It is what you did and continue to do for Dan and me and our families.  And because I have seen how beautiful it is, it is what I want to do too.

7) Marriage is meant to be forever.

One of the great gifts you and dad gave Dan and me was the security of your marriage.  You loved us, but you loved each other first.  We knew your relationship went beyond feeling (although you nurture and enjoy that aspect of your marriage) into a bedrock commitment to God that would last as long as your lives did--which is why when you and dad had differences of opinion (which I am glad we sometimes got to see), we did not fear that it would bring an end to our family.

Watching you work through occasional conflict was actually a very reassuring thing because it showed us that a successful marriage did not depend on choosing someone who would think exactly like we did on every issue, but rather on choosing a person whose ultimate loyalty went past any feelings we could inspire in them, all the way down to the eternal moorings of their love for and fear of the Lord.  

Thank you for painting a picture of the everlasting love between Christ and His church in your marriage. I appreciate the sacrificial protection that Dad offers you. I appreciate the nurturing place of honor that you offer Dad.  I love watching you serve one another.  I love that you have not run out of things to talk about, that you enjoy each other's company, and that you still sharpen each other after all these years.  Your marriage has been a model for Jamey's and mine and we both honor you for the example you have set.

8) Honesty is invaluable.

I am glad you were not one of those moms who only ever told their children that they were the most wonderful, beautiful, talented, brilliant, golden examples of their species ever to grace the planet.  I would have seen through that in a second because even at a young age, I knew it wasn't true.  

Children are not idiots, and you never treated us like that.  This is not to say that you withheld praise where praise was due.  You didn't (seen point #5).  But neither did you puff us up with exaggerations and half truths.  

I knew that what you said to me, good or bad, could be trusted.  This does not mean that either of us thought you were infallible in your knowledge and assessment of a situation, but I did know that you were going to give me your best observations and opinions after careful thought, and that I could trust you for that.  

This is why I still go to you when I want to cut through the haze of my own thinking.  At best, you will have a well-reasoned solution.  At worst, you will give me another perspective to consider.  

Either way, I will have your honest opinion, which in this world of smoke-blowing, flattery, and half-baked tweets, is worth its weight in gold.  

9) Children should be addressed like sentient beings, not like baby animals.

This is not to say that you never chirped and cooed over your babies and mine.  You did.  But you also started conversing with us all at a very young age. 

I remember you taking a walk around our back yard with baby Isaiah (a.k.a. Jack-Jack) just after one of his 8 hour, volcanic, no-holds-barred kickboxing matches against normal night-time sleep habits.  He was exhausted.  I was exhausted.  Neither of us understood each other and we were both out of words for the situation.  

You scooped him up in his quivering, red-faced, wild-haired state, and began explaining the morning to him in a soft, mature cadence.  You talked about the leaves and the trees.  You told him about wind and sunlight.  You told him how much he would enjoy growing and running with his brother and sisters, and you sympathized with his frustration over being so tiny in such a big place.  And he just watched your face and was quiet and comforted.

Your words about children being able to understand a lot more than we give them credit for has also rung true in the lives of my children from hard places.  I have remembered how you spoke to me about big things at a young age--gently, but honestly--and I have tried to do the same thing with my little ones who are trying so hard to contextualize their trauma and loss.  

I think that honest, open, dialogue has great power at any age, and I credit you with teaching me this.

10) We do not need to fear the future.

One day I want to be able to rest in the face of the unknown like I see you do.  I want to not be paralyzed by my fears over my own future or by fears over the paths my children may take.  I know this ability has come over time, but I also know it comes through prayer and practice.  Prayer first, but also:

Practice at giving the reins of our lives back to God (who holds them anyway) and trusting Him with the end results.

Practice at holding our plans loosely (which you have said comes via loss and uncertainty).

Practice at letting go of outcomes for other people (which you remind me we have no power over anyway).

Practice at loving God for God's sake and not for what He does for us (which gets easier as He proves Himself faithful over a lifetime).

I am most grateful that you have taught me that my future rests safely in God's hands, and that because of that, my future with you has no end either.  I am grateful for our years here on earth, and even more grateful for the years we will one day share in eternity.

Thank you for being such a special mom, such a wonderful role model to me and to my children, and such a good friend.  I love you!

--S

Singing in the Pain

Once upon a time, I had two, sweet, cheerful, well-behaved little girls, and a six week old infant who spent his (very few) waking hours gazing about him with big, bright eyes and a faintly amused expression.

When he was not peering out from his baby carrier like a tiny owl, he was sleeping peacefully or chirping and murmuring over his food.

When my girls were not bouncing through the house in one of their cheerfully shared pastimes, they were at my elbow learning, singing, helping, laughing.

Perfect?  No.  But generally easy enough to cause me to float along in a peaceful, self-congratulatory stream of confidence.  I was winning at parenting and winning at life.  

I had methods to share and advice to give.  In fact, I had this thing so in hand that I registered myself, my baby, and my two small daughters for a day-long bus trip garden tour with my local garden club when Elijah was only six weeks old.

Without a second thought.

Of course it would go well!  I had created a bubble of peace and tranquility which would follow along wherever I went, enabling me and my children to enjoy every fresh opportunity that broke upon us.  

And we did.  The bus trip was a delight, and the gray haired grandmas in my club fluttered and cooed around my flock and told me what a beautiful family I had, and how excellent their behavior was, and how content my baby was, and I nodded and blushed and smiled, accepting the compliments like bouquets from adoring fans.

Truth be told, I took the credit and sat on a ballooning cushion of pride.  

Now, I'm not saying it is bad to want easy infants and well-behaved children. That has been and remains my goal.  I have not stopped being a student of clever parenting hacks.  I have not stopped trying to be a person my children would want to be close to and be like.  I still exhort and encourage and pray and plan.  

But I no longer take the credit for "success" in my home.  Life has uncovered in me a recognition that much of my self-acknowledged equilibrium was only there because I wasn't being bumped.

By the grace of God, after a season of relative peace, Jamey and I entered a decade that we have affectionately named "the screeching fall."

It was both devastating and enlightening.

And also necessary.

That decade included a steady stream of health problems, the death of a brother, the birth of a couple more kiddos who didn't just sign on to the existing "Birmingham lifestyle protocol", but rather blazed new trails--one by basically, inhaling the world via his enormous appetites and personality, and one who arrived with a health and disposition as delicate as a china cup--combined with grueling hours for Jamey at work, the seven year search for a medical partner for him, and finally an interminable foster care saga ending in the adoption of two precious but badly wounded kiddos.

It blew up my existing strategies and shook me to the core. My confidence waned and made me second-guess myself in both appropriate and foolish ways.

There are years I barely remember, other than that they were marked by a pervasive sense of my inadequacy to meet the deep pain, fear, and uncertainty that were the biggest emotions in my smallest children.  Their pain bled out into the lives of our other children and into Jamey and me.

For a long time, I remember thinking, "I can't wait until..." or, "things will be better when..."

I think in the back of my mind, my plan was to cling tight to my faith through the crisis phase of life en route to a new plateau of peace, where I could again gather my chickies around me, regroup, dust off my plans, and resume the life wherein I was reliant on God and grateful for his help, but not all sloppy and pathetic about it. 

I much preferred to think of myself as strong and courageous in my faith, not embarrassingly desperate, wild-eyed, and prone to bouts of weeping.

My hope was to eventually be able to enter society again looking somewhat put together--or at least without ugly, unmet needs hanging out all over the place.  


But there I was, exhausted. Uncertain.  Even afraid.

That's not the life victorious, is it?

Maybe.  For some of us it is. 

Because it is the life I wake up to every morning, and these broken hearts are the ones God has given me to love, and this is the place where I am called to stand and be faithful, pouring out my time and energy and gifts into a well whose depths I cannot fathom.  

I stare into little eyes every day that carry scars behind them.  Some of my children came into the world having been soaked in a poisonous cocktail of alcohol and drugs for nine months.  Just like their mothers before them.  Victims of addiction and abuse.  

And so our homeschool doesn't look like I dreamed it would and my children don't process life like I wish they could and our happily ever after doesn't look like a happily ever after should. 

Instead, I teach the same things over and over and they try so hard to concentrate, but the world is louder for them and confusing, and their little minds refuse to hold on to many of the things that come so easily to their peers.  And they greet people with suspicious eyes and they take what they want and lash out at the slightest provocation.

And my bio children have issues they were born with too.  As do I.  As does Jamey.  And in addition to those issues, we have other issues that we have picked up along the way via shell shock, exhaustion, and chronic illness, which makes us a somewhat motley crew.

But this is what I want you to hear:

There is beauty here.

And if my life sounds a little bit like yours, I invite you to lean in a minute and see that although there are many things we don't have (and may never),

there are many things we DO have...

...and they are rare and wonderful.

Consider these blessings:  

1) Our smug self-reliance has given way to a desperate dependence on God.  

There is no shame in desperation.  As with so much in the kingdom of God, the thing we fear often becomes the doorway into the thing we really need.  Matthew 5:3 says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 

We enter the kingdom of heaven through repentance for sin, and by humility and submission to God, so each day that I come to the end of myself and acknowledge the hard truth that I have no power here, very little strength, and immense need, I taste the sweetness of total dependence on God and through that I see what is mine in Him.

When I am not distracted by my own "awesomeness", I can actually focus on His.  

I never used to go to sleep praying, and wake up praying, and really crave the presence and affection of my Savior in a visceral way all day long.  

Now I do.  That is a gift.

2) We have more grace for people who are struggling with things we don't understand.

I don't know the way out of my own struggles much of the time.  I can feel myself floundering and I know I am caught in a vortex of pain, but I don't have any idea how to fix it.  

Oh, this has been good for me!  Now, I can recognize another sinking soul from a mile away, and my heart is right there with her because although I may not share her exact struggle, I know what struggle feels like.  

And I know how good it feels to catch hold of a helping hand or to rest for a moment inside the warmth of a tender heart.

So I want to be those things whenever I can, to whomever I can.  We floundering souls understand "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy," don't we?  

Because mercy has become our only hope for making it down here.

3) We realize that our need for grace is limitless.

This is true for everyone, but we see it.  

We see it in the little ones who fight against us even as we fight for them.  (Can you hear the echoes of the passion and compassion of Christ toward us?)

We see it in the way they run to us for forgiveness after they have hurt us...again and again. (Can you see yourself running to God?)

We see our need for grace when we blow up in moments of stress, even after we've promised ourselves we won't add to the ugly.  

We see it in the way we are forgiven, time after time.

Beauty from ashes.  Hope from despair.  And it is ours.

4) Our understanding of God's love for us has been enlarged.

I desperately want good things for my children.  Even when they don't want them.

Even when they are actively running from me. 

Even when they are fierce and adamant about rejecting both me and the beauty I so badly want to give them.  Especially when they are fierce and adamant.  

I have seen myself in their flashing eyes and snarling lips.  I have heard echoes of God in my pleading with them. 

"Come to me!"

"You don't have to be afraid anymore."

"Relax into my kindness.  My heart is toward you."

"Won't you believe that I love you?"

And I have seen myself in their stubborn refusals.  In the way, they burrow down further into their pain, decorating their personal prisons with accusations and fabrications and distortions--things that have no basis in reality, but which confirm their own suspicions and fears.

I have been in that prison, and God's heart has bled over my stubbornness too.  And if He can keep reaching for me, I can keep reaching for them.  

The constant reminders of the deep love of God for me has given me sharpened desire to please Him, to be pure and lovely for Him.  And that comes with a promise.  "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." (Matthew 5:8)
 

5) We realize that people don't all start from the same place and God doesn't judge us by another person's standard.

This does not mean that we are not all sinners, in need of the same salvation.  But like a parent who knows His own children, God does not burden each of us with more than we are capable of.

I know I have a child who has clawed her way into every bit of knowledge she possesses.  She struggles to understand social cues and reacts without thinking about consequences.

I know she does not think about or process life like "typical" kids her age.  

I know I have a son who sees rejection around every corner.  His trust is gained in inches over years and lost in a moment, and he can find reasons to fear even in the midst of celebration and tenderness.

I am fiercely protective of their fragile hearts, and I judge harshly those people who lavish favor and friendship on the lovelier ones and turn hard words and disdainful looks on the hurt ones--as if an innately cheerful disposition or a quick wit is any less a natural dispensation than a melancholy spirit or a damaged brain.

As if pain and emotional disfigurement is less worthy of attention and understanding instead of more.

Who are the least of these?  Who is most deserving of mercy than the most needy among us?

Don't we who live among them know the answer better than anyone?

Which of us would not want ourselves to receive a special measure of care in our infirmities or disabilities?

If I am so understanding of the limitations of my children, how much more perfectly will God understand mine?

If I am so angered by the unkindness of others toward my children, how much more zealous is God in His anger toward people who hurt His beloveds?

And for that reason, how careful I have become to stand up for the weak and the overlooked, and to not have a condescending spirit toward one of His little ones! 

Matthew 5:5 says, "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." God has made a place of safety for His little lambs.  No matter how weak, frail, and inept at life we are, we are known, understood, and loved by God and given a place of security in Him.  And that is our calling toward each other as well.  

6) Our expectations no longer enslave us.

The expectations I put on others kill my enjoyment of who they actually are.

The expectations I put on life kill my gratitude for what I actually have.

I no longer have expectations that the unique parenting challenges I face every day will ever be lifted.  In fact, I may have a child living with me for the rest of my life.  I don't know. (News flash:  Neither do you. Life can change forever for anyone in a single instant.)

We parents of people from hard places have a head start in actively putting to death our dreams for achieving the "perfect" family.

Again, it is not wrong to work toward raising healthy, functioning adults who love the Lord and bless you with beautiful grand kids and surround you with love, affirmation, and happiness all the days of your life.  

Those are good things.  But they are not a given down here, and the absence of them is not a reason for despair.  

The promise is (and I have tasted it) that every hard thing can become a doorway through which God can draw you into a closer walk with Him, or give you an insight you didn't expect, or an opportunity to grow or a glimpse into His beautiful heart.  

Or just a chance to believe without seeing.  To cling hard to a promise that remains unfelt.

To show God that your love goes deeper than what He can do for you, all the way down to the bedrock of who He is.

I am not saying that we have to be happy when our expectations crash and burn.  There is a real sense of loss when our dreams for something or someone go up in flames.

Grief over loss is appropriate, in fact I think I mourn over something almost every day, but the point is that God does not leave His children uncomforted.

And we don't just get the proverbial, second-best "consolation prize" at the end of the loser's round.  

We get the blessing of not being tricked by the façade. 

We see beyond. The broken hearted don't mistake the lost, broken, dying world for the prize.  We never get confused about where our home is or where our ultimate satisfaction lies.

You won't catch us trying to establish permanent citizenship on this battlefield.

Because we see and feel the war deeply every day, we are reminded that even though we will celebrate victories here, and experience love and friendship and honor and camaraderie, this is not our ultimate kingdom. 

Matthew 5:4 says, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." We do grieve for the world in which God and His will are being flaunted, in which beauty is twisted and potential is wasted.  We grieve the death of our hopes and expectations and our bodies, but we know the ending. 

God wins.  And He is bringing us home.

7) The peacemakers and the persecuted better understand the patience of God.

Sometimes I see waves of fear and anger playing behind my son's eyes, and I hear him say hurtful things from a place of panic or desperation, and I have learned to stay. Right. There.

If I do not react in kind.  If I do not express my irritation, or force him to bend to my will, or even correct him in the moment of his fury, then almost always I will see him soften.

If I am in possession of myself, I wait and slowly push through the thick smog of his enormous feelings, and I tie my heart to his, thread by thread with my presence and my patience, my waiting forgiveness, my love for him.

And IF I stay--because I stay--eventually he will allow himself to relax into that love and ONLY then can we begin to talk about circumstances and consequences and the reasons why his behavior is not OK.

Often I can see he still does not understand and he is still angry, but because I have shown him I will stay, he wants to try to trust me.

I said try.  For now, that is what he has to give.

Sometimes that is all we have too, isn't it?  

"Oh God!  I believe!  Help my unbelief!"

And because He stays, we keep running back to His heart.  

This is what I have been given in the picture of my young son, and it gives me hope for him, and for me.

7) We get good at forgiveness.

The more you do something, the better you get at doing it.  I live with a lot of people, and a lot of those people do things to hurt each other and me on a more than average basis.

Once upon a time I had the luxury of arranging my life so as to not be surrounded by people who excel in the fine art of piercing my soul.

Now I live in a hotbed of hurt.  I cry almost every day.  It could be because I am pre-menopausal, or it could be because I don't have a break from little (and big) explosions which require me to not lash out in return, to not hold a grudge, to not keep a ledger, and to not return evil for evil.


It is exhausting and overwhelming, and every time I lift up my broken heart and say, "Not again, God. I can't. It's too much.  Too far.  I'm too tired," I see Him saying, "As I have done for you from the day of your birth, as I will do for you until you take your last breath, so you will do for them out of the overflow of My love for you." John 13:34-35 

And I do.  Because it is a fresh picture of the limitless ocean of grace that is mine, even when I am the one snarling in the corner.  "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God." (Matthew 5:9) 

How can we not be richer for the these opportunities?

9)Gratitude thrives on rare air.

We know this.

Who has the more grateful spirit, the first-world child sitting like a fat chicken on her pile of trinkets and toys, or the little girl from a place of poverty who hold and cherishes and guards her one ragged doll?

The most bored and dissatisfied among us are the ones who have everything and can do anything.

So it is with me.  I don't think to appreciate a head that doesn't hurt until the day after a thrashing migraine.

My parenting challenges also provoke me to gratitude.  Because they come like rare gifts, I measure smiles and kisses less like rain and more like ounces of gold.  When a math concept or a spelling word is remembered two days running, I celebrate.

Peace, flashes of gentleness, and moments of unexpected kindness are great and precious gifts because they are dearly earned.  My thankfulness has spread to include the very small, previously unacknowledged mercies of God.

One of my sons fought all day today to find a kind word for anyone.  His eyes were like lightening and his whole body was as tight as a drum.  All my prayers for peace with him went unanswered and I walked into church tonight with a battered spirit and tears behind my eyes.

But when I joined my boy in the pew, he slid toward me until his elbow was touching mine and laid his head on my shoulder.

And it felt like a benediction.

I pray he comes to the place of trust and security someday where he can meet the storms of life with an easy grace and an understanding of how many people in his life are FOR him.

But for now it is still fight or flight, and so when his little shoulders relax under my hand in the middle of a sermon after a hard day, I mark it in my heart and give thanks.

10) We develop a deep hatred for sin.

In high school I could sing songs with lyrics that advertised a low view of women and a cheap view of sex.

I could watch TV shows that made a joke of violence and abuse and immorality.

I could make allowances for sloppy spirituality because I was insulated from my enemy.

So I didn't take him seriously.

I was playing at war because I didn't know what live fire looked like.

It is like the difference between how a WWII soldier would have felt as he ran training drills with his buddies stateside before he was deployed, and the way he would have felt as he ran shoulder to shoulder with the boys who stormed the beaches at Normandy.

 When I was young it was a game. 

Now I am on my knees, cradling the broken minds and bodies of the ones whose Mamas believed the lies about cheap and easy sex and the pleasures of addiction and violence.  I have their innocent blood smeared on my face and hands.  Their tortured spirits writhe under my helpless gaze and I can barely stand to think about how lightly I took the threat.

Our enemy wants us dead, folks.  Not just dead.  Tortured and screaming and dragging as many others with us as possible.  My hatred for him is as much a part of what keeps me running back into the fray as my love for God is. 

I am just like the soldier who is fighting both for the love of his country and the hatred of all that threatens to destroy it.  And because I have seen the red jaws of evil, I want no part of it any more.  

I will not make light of sin.  I will not laugh at it.  I cannot allow it a space on my bookshelf or on my i-pod or on my television screen.  

To my fellow war-weary comrades, I say this:

Our bullet wounds, and battle scars, and PTSD don't make us the life of the party, but at least we have learned not to be slouchy about the dangers of sin, and that may save our lives someday.

I'm pretty sure that people are sick of hearing me tell them to duck and cover.  I know I am tired of throwing my arm up and feeling my heart race every time the floor squeaks around here, but if a few more Christians would take evil seriously and stop making goo-goo eyes at the spiritual equivalent of the Taliban, maybe the full weight of this fight wouldn't fall on those of us who are already busy pulling charred bodies off the field.  

There is enough work to be done without having to constantly yank our own comrades back into the trenches every time they try to go out dancing in the minefields.

Would I go back?

Back to the days when I thought I had it all together?

Back to when I could be casual with both my faith and my faults?

Back to the illusion that I could special order my happy endings?

Nope (mostly).  Don't ask me tomorrow when I drop my shoulders and finally let those tears slide down my nose.  I do look sideways at other people's pretty pictures sometimes, but deep down I know I am glad I'm here.

Because I would rather live in a hard reality than a pleasant fiction.  

Except for a few weak moments, I would not change places with my younger self.  It is not hyperbole to say that the mental position I have gained in a decade has been worth the bloody knuckles and black eyes.  

I would rather have my faith tested by fire and found true than have it on a shelf--shiny, theoretical, and wrapped in a nebulous hope.


There is a saying attributed to missionary and philanthropist William Borden which I love.  "No reserve, no retreat, no regrets."

Amen, brother!  Today.  And tomorrow.  And the day after that.

Let it be so.