Staycations rock.

The boys left last night for the grandparents’ for the whole weekend!

My man and I had a Groupon for one of those Japanese steak houses where they cook the food in front of you (hibachi?).  So we had a late dinner last night.  Then we wandered around Old Town.  We had just missed the concert that had been going on, so we settled for a little wine bar that had outdoor seating with a guy playing a guitar and another one on the djembe.  They played fun songs like Brown Eyed Girl, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and something by Johnny Cash.  It was such a beautiful evening.

This morning I taught an 8:00 class, which ruined my dream of sleeping past 6 am.  But, I got to drink my coffee while it was still hot.  Lovely.

Dan wanted to work out and make a Lowe’s run after.  So he shooed me off to the salon (he likes to shoo me there).  I lost my mind and went blonder.  Meh.  It’s alright, I think it looks fake.  Plus it’ll be higher maintenance.  Can I get an amen that I’m already high maintenance enough? 

Dan’s been working hard getting our living room painted before his helpers get back tomorrow night.  I’m going to a girls-only birthday dinner, then we’re gonna go see some manly movie.  (We try to only see action-type movies on the big screen; there is no reason to see a rom com in the theater.)  Pacific Rim it is.  (At least there are no zombies in it.)

Next week is our last week of vacation.  Dan has meetings starting back up and soon my first born will break my heart and go off to Kindergarten all day.  So we’re gonna do lots of fun end-of-the-summer stuff. 

I have felt like He’s been pouring, just drenching us in blessings lately. 

He’s so generous.

I tend to be busier than I should be

 And I tend to think that time is gonna wait for me

 Sometimes I forget and take for granted

 That it’s a beautiful life we live

 I don’t wanna miss the moments like this

 This is a beautiful life You give

 You’re the reason for every good thing, every heartbeat

 Every day we get to breathe

 You’re the reason for anything that lasts, every second chance

 Every laugh, life is so sweet

 You’re the reason for every good thing, every good thing

 Every good thing, every good thing…

There will be days that give me more than I can take

 But I know that You always make beauty from my heartache

 Don’t wanna forget or take for granted

 That it’s a beautiful life we live

 I’m not gonna miss the moments like this

This is a beautiful life You give

 It’s our family, it’s our friends

 It’s the feeling that I get when I see my children smile

 You’re the reason for this life, everything we love

 It’s You alive in us

 You’re alive in us

The Afters, “Every Good Thing”

What an evening.

We sold Dan’s car.  As in, people gave us money in exchange for his car.  (The hubs was a mechanic and we were totally honest about its issues, so we don’t feel guilty.  Because, listen.  Dan’s car dies.  A lot.  Like, you’ll be driving down the road and it’ll stop running.  Or as my friend said last night, “You know how the point of a car is to get you from point A to point B?  That doesn’t always happen dependably with this one.”)

So anyway.  Down to one car.

I had agreed to sub an afternoon class today from 4:00 – 4:45.  Well, turns out, that’s when Zumba is.  My class was to be from 4:45 – 5:30.  This is a problem.  Because Dan has a class at 5:30 across town.  So we were in a pickle.  (Dan loves when I do stuff like this.)

Anyway, we decided he should take the car and we’d get a ride home after the second class I was to teach, since his class doesn’t get out until after the boys’ bedtime. 

So into the gym we traipse with two car seats and one boy dressed as a Ninja and the other a cross between Spiderman and Iron Man – and both carrying swords.  (Because a huge church in town had a massive garage sale today…the boys love garage sales because Mommy actually says yes to buying stuff.  Because it’s fifty cents.) 

I do my thing and then remember we have no ride home.  So I call my good friend to rescue us because she has a van that can fit us all.  She’s out picking up dinner so she swings by.  On the way to drop her dinner at her house, my oldest goes, “Mommy, do you have the garage door opener?”

Dang.

We can’t get into the house without it cause all the screen doors are locked from the inside.  So we drop friend off so she can eat dinner with her family and borrow her van to head across town to find our parked car with the garage door opener.  As we pull off, I see another friend walking.  I do a U-turn in the street (in the middle of which my son asks, “Mommy, do you know how to drive a van?”) to talk her into joining us on the cross-town ride.

This friend acts like this happens everyday, hops in and off we go.  Good chatting and laughing.

We finally retrieve the garage door opener and head back to the first friend’s house.  Second friend thanks us for the interesting evening.  First friend hops back in the van to drive us across town the other way to take us home.

And in the middle of all this, first friend is preparing to go out of town tomorrow morning!

I love our community.

I’ve been working through this study with Jesus.

It’s much more of a devotional/journal type exercise than a deep text study.  I’m loving learning more about David, but she immediately applies everything to my daily life in journal exercises.  Which means I don’t feel much need to work it through on here.  (Oooh, she also has us pray His Words back to Him at the end of each daily section.  Love it.)

But today the reading was from 1 Samuel 4:1-11, where the Israelites treat the ark of the covenant like a good luck charm in battle and are whooped up on as a result.

She asks:

“In what ways do we well-meaning Christians sometimes use our faith like a good-luck charm, thinking that if we handle it just right, it will grant our wishes?

What’s the real danger in this?  How have you seen this cause other people’s expectations of God (or perhaps even your own expectations of Him) to stray from biblical truth?”

Almost immediately my thoughts went to James, where the Spirit’s words have kicked my tail a time or two in my faith walk.

James 3:13-16:

“Who is wise and understanding among you?  Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.  But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth.  Such ‘wisdom’ does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil.  For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.”

Oh man.  If I could only recount all the times I’ve been driven by bitter envy and selfish ambition.  The next set of verses are my prayer:

“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.” (vs 17-18)

Jesus, make us peacemakers.  Give us the wisdom that comes from heaven.  Rid us of all bitter envy and selfish ambition.  May we never treat you or your expressions of goodness as good luck charms or idols.  Give us holy fear of You. 

If you could soldier on

 Headstrong into the storm

 I’ll be here waiting on the other side

Don’t look back

 The road is long

 The first days of the war are gone

 Take back your former throne and turn the tide

 Cause if you never leave home, never let go

 You’ll never make it to the great unknown till you

 Keep your eyes open, my love

 So tell me you’re strong, tell me you see

 I need to hear it, can you promise me to

 Keep your eyes open, my love?

 Just past the circumstance

 The first light, a second chance

 No child could ever dance the way you do, oh

 Tear down the prison walls

 Don’t start the curtain call

 Your chains will never fall until you do

 Open up

 Open up

 Open up your eyes

 The weight is unbroken

 Open up

 Open up

 Open up your eyes

 Keep your eyes open

 Don’t let the night become the day

 Don’t take the darkness to the grave

 I know pain is just a place

 The will has been broken

 Don’t let the fear become the hate

 Don’t take the sadness to the grave

 I know the fight is on the way

 When the sides have been chosen

 Cause if you never leave home, never let go

 You’ll never make it to the great unknown

Open up your eyes

 Keep your eyes open!

 So tell me you’re strong, tell me you see

 I need to hear it, can you promise me to

 Keep your eyes open, my love?

 So show me your fire, show me your heart

 You know I’ll never let you fall apart if you

 Keep your eyes open, my love

Need to Breathe, “Keep Your Eyes Open”

New Testament Scripture stacks up too much evidence for us to claim that suffering is never within the plan of our sovereign God, whether through His perfect or permissive will.  Do the new covenant priorities of inward works and the role of suffering discourage me from asking and believing God for miracles?

Hardly!

And I’ll tell you why. 

Knowing the truth always sets us free (John 8:32).

Knowing the truth about God, His unceasing ability to perform miracles, and the truth about the undeniable role of suffering under the new covenant only frees me up to believe Him more. 

Why?

Because I’m freed from what scares me, and many of you, most about getting out there and believing God.  We’re scared half to death that He won’t come through for us, dignify us with a yes, and prove faithful.  Or that we’ll prove to be failures at having enough belief for Him to bless with a miracle. 

If I’m convinced that God really loves me and has certain priorities for me that take precedence at times, then I am ‘safe’ to walk by faith.  I am freed to know that my God is huge and my God is able and that if I don’t get what I asked, if I’ll cooperate, I’ll get something bigger.

I’m going to believe Him to do anything His Word says He can, then if He chooses not to, I don’t have to assume…

He doesn’t like me

He doesn’t answer my prayers like He does others’

He hardly knows I’m alive

He can’t do it

He’s never willing to do it

I didn’t have enough faith

I wavered for a split second

I have that sin in my past

I’m a failure

I’ve made a fool of myself

Instead, I get to know that a greater yes is in progress, and I can count on the bigger miracle. 

Beloved, we are safe with God.  We are safe to believe Him for miracles…We are free to believe that God is who He says He is and can do what He says He can do.

Neither His dignity nor ours is at stake…

…Having been a cessationist for so long, I have experienced a dramatic difference between my old approach and my new.  Before, I may have hoped for a miracle, but I can’t say I ever expected one.  I treated a miracle as a last hope. 

Quite often now a miracle might be my first hope, prayer, and anxious expectation; but if I don’t receive it, I assume God has a more inward agenda.  The difference is like night and day.  I have witnessed God’s miraculous intervention more times than I can count and a greater sense of peace and confidence when I haven’t…

‘Do not attempt,’ C.S. Lewis advises, ‘to water Christianity down.  There must be no pretense that you can have it with the Supernatural left out.  So far as I can see Christianity is precisely the one religion from which the miraculous cannot be separated.’

– Believing God by Beth Moore

We loaded up our friends last night.

Aside from our separate experiences overseas, we’ve lived in the same city as them for the last 13 years. 

Now they’re moving to help plant a church somewhere that needs it.

We will miss our friends.

What can I say about her?

She was one of the first “real” friends I had in college when God first began to change my heart.  She was always so open and vulnerable and she taught me with her example how to be that way, too.

She is a dreamer and taught me not to be ashamed of that more introverted part of myself.  We would dream about weddings, friendships, careers at the little cottage she lived in.

She is a talented photographer and always amazed me at the beauty she could find and capture in the simplest things.

We hadn’t known each other for years and years when she asked me to be in a bridesmaid in her wedding.  Want to know the poetic way she asked me?  She wrote a note and quoted You’ve Got Mail:  I know we have only known each other for a short time.  And “the odd thing about this form of communication is that you’re more likely to talk about nothing than something.  But I just want to say that all this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings.”

Yes, she speaks my sappy love language 🙂

I can’t describe how happy she and her man were when Dan and I got together.  Along with some other friends, they were eternal proponents of our relationship.  In a middle school like drama she was the go-between for me and him before we were officially a couple and he was heading off to China for a whole semester.  She was the one who told me he would email me when he got there.  Then she giddy-ly read and analyzed each email with me.  (What?  That’s what twitter-pated 20 year old girls do!)

Since I was overseas on a FOCUS trip, I missed their wedding.  Sad face.  But I heard all about it and marveled at gorgeous photos with her later.  I also heard how Dan dove for the garter at the reception.  We started dating a month later.  Hee hee. 

They bravely embarked on an overseas adventure with one other friend expecting the rest of a group of us to join them soon.  But due to company changes (and God’s sovereign plan) that didn’t happen.  I was so proud of the way they kept plowing ahead and loving people and receiving other friends who were able to come for extended stays. 

When it was our turn to live the dream they were such wonderful support.  She sent us cookies at orientation.  They encouraged us with emails.  They sent us care packages including photos of friends’ weddings.  Such thoughtful people.

We watched from afar them becoming parents for the first time.  I enjoyed seeing how their personalities parented their sweet girl. 

And when we realized where God was calling us to next, and that it would be in Wichita where they were, they were excited and so, so helpful getting us set up here. 

And sharing life with them here has been a joy.  We’ve, of course, shared them with so many other people.  And, no, this isn’t like college.  But they’ve been so wonderful to pursue and love on us.  We’ve walked through adoption journeys together, borrowed their truck more times than they’d like to count, house hunted, shared coupon deals, belly laughed at how crushed ice at QT is a stay-at-home moms highlight of the day, garage saled, watched our kids love (and fight with) each other, and shared so many meals together.

I know they’re not moving to the moon and we’ll see them again.  I just recognize that when you live in different cities things inevitably change.  So I want to appropriately grieve this season of our friendship – even as I excitedly anticipate how God will use them in this new season.

Their new ministry team is so blessed to have them.  He is a talented worship leader.  She is an amazing relational connector.  God has orchestrated every detail of their move.  It is not hard to be stoked at how obvious their call there is.

Guys, if you read this, we love you dearly. 

Thank you for everything. 

I can’t wait to hear all about it.

Jesus, thank You for heart friends.  God the Spirit, move mightily in their new city.  Use them any way you see fit to advance Your kingdom.

And thank You that we get to look forward to spending eternity together on the New Earth. 

I can’t wait to share many a meals there with them again.

Best prayer anyone ever taught me to pray:

“God, please teach me how to fall in love with You.”

He is faithful to answer such prayers.

You never have to wonder if it’s His will.

(1 John 5:14-15)

Oh my graciousness.

Do you have friends with whom you don’t even have to try at all?

Of course you do.

Hanging with some of ours the last 24 hours was a delight.

We talked team challenges for them, ministry goals for us, a year of grieving for their son and the subsequent ministry God has given them with others who grieve, parenting struggles, and updates on national friends we haven’t seen in 5 years.

My heart gets so homesick for the area they live in when we talk.  Nothing could ever replace our 2 years there in my heart.

This verse has been haunting me the past couple days.  Not sure why.

“For Christ’s love compels us…”

2 Corinthians 5:14a

Yippee!

Our really great friends we were teammates with overseas are coming today to spend the night.

Then in August they’re gonna live here for 5 months on stateside!

I need to clean my house.

I am on an iPad while Dan types a paper for class on the computer.

So that is all.

More for the women.

Sorry, those of you out there of the Y chromosome.

From Captivating:

“God endows Woman with certain qualities that are essential to relationship, qualities that speak of God. 

She is inviting.

She is vulnerable.

She embodies mercy.

She is also fierce and fiercely devoted.

As the old saying goes, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”  That’s just how God acts when He isn’t chosen.

“I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God who will not share your affection with any other god!” (Ex. 20:5 NLT).

A woman’s righteous jealousy speaks of the jealousy of God for us.

While Eve has a glory for relationship, that is not all she is essential for. 

Back in Genesis, when God set His image bearers on the earth, He gives them their mission:

And God said, “Let us make a human in our image, by our likeness, to hold sway over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the heavens and the cattle and the wild beasts and all the crawling things that crawl upon the earth.

And God created the human in his image,

in the image of God He created him,

male and female He created them.

And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and conquer it, and hold sway over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the heavens and every beast that crawls upon the earth.: (Gen. 1:26-28)

Call it the Human Mission – to be all and do all God sent us here to do.  And notice – the mission to be fruitful and conquer and hold sway is given both to Adam and to Eve.  Eve is standing right there when God gives the world over to us.  She has a vital role to play; she is partner in this great adventure…

When God creates Eve, he calls her an ezer kenegdo. 

Hebrew scholar Robert Alter, who spent years translating the book of Genesis, says that this phrase is “notoriously difficult to translate.”  Alter is getting close when he translates it “sustainer beside him.”

The word ezer is used only twenty other places in the entire Old Testament.  And in every other instance the person being described is God Himself, when you need Him to come through for you desperately. 

You see, the life God calls us to is not a safe life.  Ask Joseph, Abraham, Moses, Deborah, Esther…ask Mary and Lazarus; as Peter, James, and John…

God calls us to a life involving frequent risks and many dangers.  Why else would we need Him to be our ezer?

The longing in the heart of a woman to share life together as a great adventure – that comes straight from the heart of God, who also longs for this.  He does not want to be an option in our lives.  Neither does a woman.  Eve is essential.  She has an irreplaceable role to play. 

And so you’ll see that women are endowed with fierce devotion, an ability to suffer great hardships, a vision to make the world a better place…

It is here, starting in our circles of intimacy, that we are first and foremost women.  It is here that we must first turn our gaze to ask,

“What does it look like to offer my Beauty, my fierce devotion, my love?  How do they need me to be their ezer?”

You have an irreplaceable role in your relationships.  No one can be to the people in your life who you can be to them.  No one can offer what you can offer.

There are many things God calls us to do, but loving well always comes first. 

And don’t your relationships feel opposed?

Of course, they must be fought for.

[The enemy] makes a woman feel like, “What do I have to offer, really?  They’re probably doing fine.”

Don’t you believe it for a moment.  You have been sent by the Trinity on behalf of love, of relationships.

Fight for them…

Many of the Scriptures on the role of women in the church are a reflection of God’s concern for a woman’s protection and spiritual covering.  We live in a dangerous world.  Satan’s opposition of the Church is vicious.  He bears a special hatred for Eve. 

It follows that God would want to ensure that a woman helping to advance His Kingdom would be offered the covering and protection of good men.  Issues of headship and authority are intended for the benefit of women, not their suppression.  You know how dangerous it can be to try to come alive as a truly feminine woman.  Right?

God desires that wherever and however you offer yourself to the Body of Christ, you’ll have the protection of good men over you.  Not to hold you back, but to set you free as a woman.  Christ has made man as his warrior, to offer his strength on behalf of Eve so that she might flourish.”