Texas Anniversary

At 4:00 am on September 30, 2015 we rolled into T. Texas after leaving everything we knew, sending our belongings along to some unknown residence, calling two locksmiths, being stopped by two police officers, breaking one AC, nearly hitting several deer, and Christian-cussing-out a paper, fold-it-up Texas map that tried to send us to Mexico. The journey entailed 35 of the more miserable hours of our young lives. But there we were.

And here we are. One year later.

In some ways, it feels like the construction of a new life has been a much speedier process than 365 days. In other ways I can't believe it's only twelve months later.

In the last year I have had to be an adult, and make big adulty decisions, and kill big adulty bugs that I didn't have to kill when I was a kid.

In the last year we bought a new house, a new chreuck (as a Hannah with a rapidly colonizing Texas accent calls our Ford), and an antique store's worth of new old furniture and decor... including a chicken box, which still sits ever-so-judgmentally on our breakfast table.

I've visited 15 different churches, found one to call home, and made sweet friends there, who challenge me, and forgive me, and love me. Which mostly makes up for the three months of ridiculous theology I endured in every whack-a-doodle sanctuary in central Texas.

I wrote a Bible study. I attempted to get said study published. I baulked at the soul-crushing horrors of the modern Christian publishing market, and ate lots of chocolate to get my mojo back. And then I wrote another Bible study. Because maybe it would be better the second time?

I drove myself to an unknown city, navigated through said city to find an unknown zoo. Watched my two minions fall in love with said zoo, and drove back twenty more times. For a woman both horribly shy and directionally challenged, this was quite the feat.

 Justin gave CPR to infants. So I fell in love with him again and more.

I put my flipflops in every water feature in central Texas. This was the summer of wet sandals. Splash pad, water park, river, lake, pool, water guns... you name it, it soaked us. Sounds fun? Sure, as a necessity for survival in the Texas summer. It was fun in the same way that breathing is kind of a gas.

We played at every park in central Texas. We walked to them; we drove to them. We played in the rain, in the wind, and in the sun. We played in a house, and yes, with a mouse.

We spent over $4000 on car repairs. I had inexplicable excruciating headaches for a month. Justin had heart palpitations. Hannah got some weird Texas disease. She was also cured of all her allergies except peanuts. Noah started school. We bought a grill. And a truck. And a chicken box. We lived life.

I loved my God, who does not abandon His exiles. I loved my kids, having the opportunity to be with them all day, every day... every day... all day. I loved my husband, who I see anew and all the more amazing every day. I loved my church, though probably not half as much as she has loved me.

All in all, we could probably do another year.

Weekend activities in Middle Earth

My Mac died. It was a wonderful little Mac. And cheap, because I'm a girl, and really what is the point to being a girl if you can't conjure up a few sniffling tears and get $150 knocked off the price of your already discounted laptop? Nurturing, artistry, fierceness, and beauty? Is the trouble of femininity really worth these virtues? No, but 150 bucks certainly is. Because I have my head on straight. And a scathing sense of reality.

Back to the point: my Mac died. And it made me sad. I've been a-coaxing and a-conjuring, a-begging and a-threatening with various sized mallets, but she won't comeback to me. The need to blog has finally outweighed my despisal of Justin's Intel. I don't like it, but I have no choice. My muse has the flu again, and words are just vomiting out everywhere... it's been a long time, I need to get back into the swing of not being a weirdo. Bear with me.

One final excuse before we continue: the spacebar on this maleficent, Windows 10 monstrosity is a wee bit sticky. (Kind of like that Farside cartoon where one sinner in hell murmurs to the other, "Man, the coffee's cold. They thought of everything!" Windows 10 left no pang unprodded.) Ergo, if you come to a word that is a paragraph long, know that I am not just making things up again. I am being thwarted. By a machine. Which is poetic, and maddening... and rather cliché.

It was bone-chilling cold here, so Justin decided it was a perfect day to take up Frisbee golf. We put several coats and hats on everyone and soldiered out to a Frisbee golf course. I'm not sure if this has ever come up, but I am a dis-embodied Frisbee-ist. When a human being loses their proprioceptors, they are no longer able to act physically in the world without visually focusing on the limbs/joints needing to move. (It's a thing. Again, I'm not making this up.) The brain via it's five primary senses has to willfully urge the body to act. That is how I play Frisbee. My eyes scream rather telekinetically at my wrist to break with enough whip to project the Frisbee forward, but to stop before I throw the rebellious disc into the next county off to my right. Disc games are exhausting. So much effort.

But the husband grew up throwing whatever was put in his hands, so he cannot empathize with my body's active betrayal of my conscious mind. And he brings kids back to life on a daily basis, so he gets to pick our recreational activities. ... Which is a pretty good system.

Thus we tromped. Over the frozen earth. Ears being gnawed on by the wind. To play eighteen holes of Frisbee golf. It took me nine throws to sink my "putter" Frisbee into the basket on the first hole.

It was then I lost my cherub-like demeanor.

And then this happened on the second hole.

In case that picture is unclear:

An Ent stole my Frisbee. And he put it in the 32.5 degree water down an embankment; because at some point inmy life I must have stepped on an acorn.

I would have included my lack of proximity to the hole in this picture, but the hole is behind me about three miles away on the other side of the Misty Mountains. As I trudged back up the embankment, Justin asked, "Are we done, then?" Oh, baby. Are we done.

Alas proprioception, you carried me through the Narrows in Converses, but Frisbee golf in Fangorn has bested you.

Unless Justin single-handedly reaches through the Matrix to Neo-like massage some kid's heart back to beating, I get to pick the next pass-time. And it will not involve any throwing of any kind... okay, maybe throwing pizza dough. I can't imagine how that could go wrong...

Let's Never Do that Again

My husband turned to me with the look of a man who is talked down off the edge because it would be too tiring to jump, and that man who I pledged to hold to in good, bad, and worse muttered the phrase, "Let's never do that again."

Rewind 34 hours.

I just said goodbye to my world. The ecstatic high of speaking at our church's women's retreat, being surrounded by friends and relations I'd known for years, was followed up by the dramatic low of packing everything I owned into a truck, realizing the truck had no address to go to, selling our house, and sleeping on couches for a couple nights. And then we had to say goodbyes.

The worst was saying goodbye to my sister-in-law. It took us forever to become friends. (That would be my fault. I am not conducive to be-friendings.) Now, I could call her at any time and know she would have the wisdom, the optimism, and the vicious bite I needed when in the throes of almost taking something on this planet seriously. I don't hold tightly to people. Some may see it as callousness, but it's my personality. I want folk to be useful. I want them to risk and choose and make a difference. I want people to serve a purpose, not my purpose, but a purpose. When they don't, they drift away, and I can't muster the hootzbah to reel them back in. But I wept leaving my sister-in-law. Because she is purpose, passion, and courage incarnate. In a world where I find it easier to grow enormous beanstalks and slay giants than to befriend another woman, she took up the adventure beside me.

And then the worst was saying goodbye to my wing girl. And I just want to ask why we all say we need a Goose? He dies people. So, I'll fall on that sword: I needed a Maverick. I was Goose, and I needed the star of the show to find value in me. I needed a woman who had big ideas, and wanted to do things, and blamed her drunk dead German ancestors every time she cried (which was right up along the lines of never. That's a girl I can get behind). Read the blog. I don't need to re-write it here. She's awesome. All that nice, but slightly untrue stuff she said about me (and really, Miss Pastor's Wife, we're going to lie in writing for all the world to see? bad form), I believe that about her, but for real. And we had to say goodbye. I didn't cry. But it's only because my dead German ancestors were sobered up by too much coffee and a swift slap in the face.

And then the worst was saying goodbye to my dog. He climbed into Grandma and Grandpa's car and sat there with that big stupid grin on his face, and I wept. He's obnoxious. But apparently I love him.

And then the worst was saying goodbye to our parents. My dad just held my son. He held him while everyone else was hugging, crying, and goodbye-ing. He didn't cry. And he didn't let him go. My mom just kept telling me it would all work out, that it would be alright. Because she has had to be courageous for years. She has had to hold people up unseen, but vibrantly beautiful. She wanted to make it well. And in my spirit I believe her, but my heart was broken.

Still puffy, we closed on our house and got on the road, hoping to reach Texas by dinnertime the next day. The kids had never been in the car for more than forty-five minutes in a spurt. We were now going to drive them 23 hours across country. What could go wrong?

Our last Sunday at our church I sang a song, "It Is Well." This has been the lesson of the last years. Mountains thrown into the sea, oceans broken for us, through it all it is well.

And I believed this, right up until I locked the keys in the trunk.

And we called the lock smith three times, and upon the third call they declared they had never heard of us before, so we called another locksmith, and we got back on the road three hours later.

And the bored cops in New Mexico pulled us over, despite the fact that we were the only people on the road and driving quite conservatively for the abandoned middle of the desert.

And the AC went out. At 2:00 in the afternoon. In New Mexico.

And we got lost. My fault. Directionally-challenged.

And we got pulled over again in the middle of Podunk, Texas at 2:30 in the morning, for going 76 in a 70 mile per hour zone. And as my husband desperately pleaded our case to the police officer, indicating his sleeping children in the back, the upside down map in his wife's hands, and the lack of coffee in his system, the officer felt himself a right good chap to let us off with a warning. But he didn't help us figure out where we are. He just left us there.

And we got lost in our soon-to-be home town. And we stopped to ask a guy outside a gas station. Who was either new to town himself or high. I'm going with high due to the massive donut in his hand.

And when we got to our hotel room there was one full size bed for all of us, so we made a nest of pillows and blankets for Noah on the floor. Because there's nothing like rewarding your child for being a traveling stud like a warm snuggly floor. They found a crib for Hannah, which we wedged between the desk and the bed.

As we peeled our contacts off our eyes, and collapsed into bed at a time when I would normally be getting up, my husband uttered the phrase, "Let's never do that again."

The next morning, I found this crumbled in the bottom of my backpack. I had scrawled it out at work. For no rational reason. Nothing was wrong at the time. I was just ruminating on the phrase. So after the voyage from hell, I read these words:

It is well.

Satisfied. Peaceful.

I am saved, assured, always and forever, my sin removed as far as the east is from the west, by the blood of my King, I am saved. It is well; because I have assurance.

God is good. Whatever darkness comes, whatever tragedy, pain, loss, grief, temptation, or sin, God is good. It is well; because He is good and creates goodness.

God is sovereign. He is on the throne. It is well because there is one Power who holds sway in my life, and It is a power of passionate affection. He is never inattentive, or unloving. It is well; because of who He is.

God provides. Whatever we need, He provides. Courage, counsel, grace, peace, joy, time, energy, family, friends, faith, finances. It is well because He delights to give when we need.

We can hope perfectly. I am a daughter of the King. I am promised an inheritance, an eternity in glory, an eternity of glory. It is well; because heaven is not far off.

Because I choose for it to be well. I choose to believe that my God is bigger, stronger, greater, better, more loving, kinder, more powerful, more in control, more than more of everything I hope in. It is well because I can make a choice, and I choose to be satisfied in Christ.

An Anomaly

An unusual occurrence just overtook me. Bed time for my kids was forty minutes ago. Normally, this is a blessed time of day that I look forward to with eager anticipation. I love my children, I find them hilarious, inspiring, and amazing... and exhausting. There have been more days than I would like to admit, where I chanted in my head, "Just make it to 6:30. Just to 6:30."

Tonight, both kids were feeling particularly whiny. I think the Purple Tornado was over-tired from a day of destruction and mayhem and being too adorable for words. The boy-cub was having a rough time: mommy cut off the tomato supply after only six, the nasty copyright people pulled Josh and the Big Wall from YouTube, and... well he has an intense weather pattern for a sister. It's a rough life. We managed to get them fed, milked up, "clean handsed", and we had our moment with Hulk and Elmo. (Noah has an Incredible Hulk toothbrush. The toothpaste is Sesame Street. When he is ready to brush his teeth, Noah will put on his deepest, growliest voice and bellow out "HULK 'n ElmOOOO!" Sometimes he will add Cookie Monster, Big Bird, and Iron Man into the mix. Curiously, the only Sesame Street character left out of the toothy inventory is Super Grover. [Who I think would be a smashing addition to the Avengers... Maybe they could trade and send Captain America to Sesame Street... "I don't wike it!"]) From there diaper changes, prayers, kisses, and winding up butterfly mobiles commenced. Then finally the doors were closed, and I slumped into the ten minute post bedtime fuzz.

Now it's 7:30. Usually, the time I take on evening adventures (Bible study, working out, gardening, pounding junk food, and watching Chopped reruns). But tonight, I was overwhelmed with the desire to go back into Noah's room and hang out with my best buddy boy. It's been a rough time, lately. The roller-coaster of this past year in our life has taken another cheek flapping dive, leaving my stomach and my hope back on the last peak. I'm clenching my teeth for the next hard twist, white-knuckling anything solid in front of me, and just praying we don't get flipped upside down again. There are so many blessings we have, but having to count them so often is wearing on me.

This week it has been little things, miniscule, "blips on the radar of our lives" according to my mother. But tonight it's been hard mustering the good cheer to not devour an entire pan of rice krispie treats. Or a full container of feta cheese (I know, I have problems).

I want to hang out with my son. Even in the midst of the whines, they give me such joy. I want to read The Little Blue Truck for the 8,000th time, and have Noah make all the animal sound effects. I want to have him drive his trains down my arm like a railroad track with a chugga-chugga. I want to enter the great monkey and teddy bear debate he is currently hosting, and confirm once and for all who is the fluffiest and snuggliest.

His troubles are simple, not irrelevant, just simple. His moods change quickly, the darkness never lasts too long. He still giggles at things I think are funny, but am too grown up to laugh at. His world is full of light, and drama, and color, and fresh wonder. I just want to be with my Little Man for awhile and remember that he is utterly amazing, that life itself is singularly phenomenal.

But for right now, I have to be a parent. We have a schedule to keep. We have order and discipline to maintain. I have to offer him consistent boundaries enough to keep him safe in a world so free it is paralyzing. I have to be an example of putting aside one's own needs for the better of someone else: because ultimately, it is better that he get some sleep, that he have a routine, that he understand night time and obedience and independence.

Of course, once he falls asleep, all bets are off. He's a deep sleeper, and it wouldn't be the first time I've tiptoed into his room, re-covered him with a blanket, and thanked the God outside of the roller coaster for the twists and turns that made me this Little Man's mother.

The bulldog finally served a purpose

In the quiet and the dark I lay awake in bed. The thought had just struck me and snapped my eyes open: I left my laptop on the kitchen counter, and we left the blinds open. The mac would be out there blinking like a Vegas sign "Come and get me." Pictures. I have thousands of pictures on that laptop: our vacations, our children, our bulldog, our young marriage, my pre-Justin life. They can have the laptop, but maybe, out of common courtesy they would allow me to pull the pictures onto an external hard drive... and then not steal the hard drive.

After this thought, my spirit-filled self woke up, and reminded the rest of me that they can have the pictures as long as I can keep the kids, God is in control, and would you kindly go back to sleep because my holy side skipped it's coffee this morning.

Contented, I closed my eyes and started drifting into stage 1 sleep, wherein hallucinations happen. Suddenly, the bulldog (who had squeezed himself under our bed) darted out (ok, he tugged and sucked in his gut, and vowed to skip the lamb jerky treats for a few days until finally in a fuzzy, jell-o-ey blob he popped out from under the frame) and ran into the living room with a loud bark. I groaned. Dumpster will bark at anything: strangers, friends, family, cats, wind, and occasionally leaves that have an ill-favored look. As long as he doesn't wake up my children, we indulge his paranoia.

Then we heard the door handle jiggle.

Justin jumped up and pulled on some basketball shorts. (The reason he was not wearing said basketball shorts previously is another post entirely, and not the one you're thinking of.) He stormed out to the door with the heavy steps of a man who, like a puffer fish, is inflating his imposing torso to appear most imposing to all foes. In my disorientation I assumed the rattling lock was most likely the wind, Dumpster nosing at the door, trying to get out and disembody the neighbor's cat, or, at worst, a family member sneaking in to borrow their ladder back. (It's ours! the husband would scream in gollum tone, creepily caressing the ladder and muttering and spluttering about possession being nine tenths of the law... Not the point.) I decided to sit up; the distraction was a good opportunity for a midnight chocolate chip scarfing.

And then I heard the husband say, "Get off my property! Get out of here! I want you off my property now!" I mean, he didn't just say it; he sort of announced it with the cold clarity of a man under threat, who is secretly thrilled that he might have the opportunity to carry out his long-meditated upon plan of violence. I was almost horrified at the control and acuity in my husband's voice considering he had bolted out of bed only seconds before, and generally when something wakes him up (like a screaming child) he isn't lucid enough to know which way it is to the sound and ends up somewhere in the vicinity of the refrigerator.

In moments of intense stress people have been known to carry out amazing feats of heroism: women lifting cars off of infants, men jumping in front of speeding vehicles to pull damsels to safety, dogs keeping children warm through long frozen nights.

In approximately 1.36 seconds I was fully dressed (back to that whole other post, that is not what you think), and standing outside the rooms of my children like an ex-con bouncer outside a posh nightclub.

Justin stormed back to grab a shirt and his cell phone. Seeing me trying to look imposing in my 'penguin spicy chili sauce' shirt and bubblegum blue shorty-shorts, Justin said there was an old man who was very clearly inebriated trying to get in, but he had stumbled off the porch and wandered over to the neighbors. Going back to the door, the husband called 911 and spoke with the same frightening evenness in his voice to the 911 dispatcher. He gave them a description of the man, an account of what happened and some information about our house and family. The man stumbled back over to our porch, and was trying to get his keys in the door. This proves that the man was very clearly plastered. In terms of attempting a B&E, one of the last people on earth you want to throw the door open in your face is my husband. Justin is broad-shouldered, has biceps like pythons, an ex-marine corp haircut, six feet and four inches that he has filled out quite nicely, and self-control that suggests a concerning cunningness behind those steely blue eyes. Our would be attacker was 5' 9", 150 pounds soaking wet, and older than Moses. And drunk. Falling down drunk.

The 911 dispatcher asked Justin if he had any weapons to defend himself with... oh there are so many delicious answers to that questions:

"No, but I pretty sure I could aim my strong-willed fifteen-month-old in his direction, and you'd have to send a body bag instead of a cop car."

"Did you not hear the description? I could attack this guy with a marshmallow and be victorious... my wife could attack him with a marshmallow and be victorious" (Justin did not say this, because while generally very submissive and conforming to classical gender roles, said wife has a slightly feminist streak in her, and would not attack the husband with something so soft as a marshmallow.)

"I have two weapons, both of mass destruction, one is named Bi, the other Cep."

The response the husband finally selected was perhaps the most tame: "I have a Maori war club from fiji that I've always wanted to see in action." He said the dispatcher didn't laugh at all. But I found it amusing.

Shortly after this the police arrived. They tried to figure out where the man was from to see if they could get him home. Otherwise he would spend a night in the clink. (Oh how lovely, I've never had the opportunity to use the word 'clink' in a blog before!) One of the officers told Justin that the man was "blitzed." Getting first my Bachelor's and then my Master's degrees in a postmodern liberal arts program, I have become familiar with many unique references to a state of intoxication: plastered, smashed, shnockered, feeling no pain, sloshed, floored, trashed, pickled, ripped, slammed, and my personal favorite besotted. But blitzed was a new one. Always learning things, even at 12:45am.

Our midnight friend was taken away in handcuffs, and one by one the police cars drove off into the night. Justin sighed a little. "I was kind of wondering what would happen if I just really hauled off and punched a guy, you know, a scientific curiosity."

Note to future self: don't anger the husband. ... and let's make his favorite for dinner tonight ... and every night until we die.

So that was our midnight adventure. Even after crawling into bed at 1:00 am I was too hyper to sleep. I think I finally actually closed my eyes at about 3:30 am. I spent that time thanking my Mighty God for his protection, thanking him for my imposing husband, and thanking him that Justin's nightshift clinicals don't start until next week.

Outnumbered in Retreat

Part of my responsibility on our church's Women's Ministry Team is to help organize, facilitate, make brownies for, lead worship at, and generally agonize over every detail of the annual fall women's retreat. (I'm not kidding. Our fearless leader made everyone sign a contract at the beginning of the year. I didn't actually read through it, but I am sure at some point it mentions retreat brownies frosted with agony. ... and given the nature of our fearless leader, I probably signed away a child to her as well. ... which, since we are in the midst of a bout with teething, I could really be okay with.) The retreat is a week and a half away, and whilest all the details have been considered, the finances to accomplish said details are not what you would call... um... there.

Since our first retreat six years ago we have grown every year. Steadily, God has been faithfully increasing our numbers. It is a wonderful trouble to have. Two years ago we all stayed in one house and a third of our blessed attendees slept on the floor. (I slept on a couch, but lest you think I am a spoiled little Women's Ministry Team princess, the couch was in a closet and was about eighteen inches away from my six week old child. Loads of retreating happening there.) Last year there were so many women we rented two houses and shuttled folks back and forth. This did not turn out so grand, but, I believe, God still used this time, the speaker, and the fellowship to encourage, bless, and challenge his people.

With the steady incline our team undertook a quest to find a house big enough, inexpensive enough, in a good location, and suited to as many people's needs/interests as we possibly could (and we figured if we satisfied at least two ladies we would be doing rather well). With the process bathed in prayer we found a new mansion with beds for sixty people, 8 bathrooms, a big worship space, and it was only an hour away from the valley. We started signing women up four weeks ago. With one more week left, we have twenty less registered than last year. As my son would say, "Uh oh!"

In true Peter fashion, I strapped my sword to my hip (right under the baby sling) and set off to rescue the retreat. I posted to every facebook wall, sent emails, prayed, encouraged, coerced, mentioned casually that I'm armed, and in all other ways implored women to come retreating. As I completed my onslaught, thought one of the day flashed through my mind: "Wouldn't it be awesome if I got all these women to come to the retreat?"

Not a full second later, I literally heard Priscilla Shirer's voice in my head as she paraphrased God's message to Gideon, "You might actually have the audacity to think you had something to do with it." I feel I would be much holier if the mind that God has given me was just a few seconds quicker witted than my flesh. Proceed to the dropping of one very foolish forehead onto one very solid table.

God says that He will accomplish mighty things, He will deliver, He is the One who knows the beginning from the end, by His hand the mouths of lions are shut, and in our weakness His strength is perfected.

I find it funny that our team is now outnumbered by too few. It is my prayer that God would use our weaknesses: our planning, our limits, our exhaustion, the worries of life that make us think we don't have the time or energy for His work, as a foundation to build a monument to His great Name. I am excited for what will be accomplished in a week and a half. I am thrilled for those almost thirty women who are coming to meet God and to see the valley through His eyes. I anticipate a new perspective, a new day, a new hope, uncried tears, laughs that have been bubbling up flying out to the joy of our hearts and God's. I am excited. And I am unafraid. And I have nothing to do with it.

Overpacking

Growing up with a little sister who is severely handicapped, I learned the value of over packing. Going to church on Sunday mornings required a sherpa. Sending her to school was a mass undertaking. A trip to Yellowstone?... Forget about it; we had two car-top carriers and the back and sides of a van packed to the rafters... or whatever it is that forms the top of a van... emergency lights? Even more than with a normally able-bodied child, with an alternately-abled child there is no telling what may happen, and you have to plan for every possibility. You have to take warm clothes and blankets in case it is cold and light clothes in case it is hot. You have to take an extra sleeping bag, more insulating mats, several many food options, diapers, clothes for diaper fails, special chair, special wheelchair, toys, distractions, etc, etc.

Because of this need to prepare for every eventuality, I learned to over pack. I would take the biggest bag I could find on trips and would have to sit on it in order to zipper it closed. My first real confrontation with this understanding came on my trip to New Zealand with Youth For Christ. After I raised my support and got my passport, YFC sent me a duffle bag. I was allowed to fill this bag and then bring a sleeping bag along with me. And that was it.

I started to compile the things I would need for a month away from home in a foreign land. It began massing in a heap in the center of my room. Seven pairs of pants (they promised laundry once a week... this did not happen... it did rain every single day however, which is kind of like laundry, right?), ten shirts, three jackets, three pairs of shoes, two skirts, and necessary under-riggin's. That was just the clothes. Then, I had to think about other necessities: my wave iron, a blow dryer, plug adapters and a voltage converter so I could plug in said hair toys (really, what is so wrong with everyone having the same plugs/sockets? I suspect when the aliens visit they will go back to their home-world pub and report to all their alien buddies, "Earth? Don't even bother! All their technology plugs into different types of sockets. They're a mess!" I feel in our galactic marketing scheme, nonstandard plugs are really holding us back from our target audience... I digress.) hair gel, hair spray, shower stuff, camera, extra memory card, extra battery, YFC binder, food in case the apocalypse occurred or our flight was downed in the Pacific and we had to swim to a deserted island and survival depended on the food I brought and coconuts (the food I brought being a cup of mini Oreos and a Reese's Fastbreak... and yes, we would be doomed, but we would die happy). Oh, and my Bible. Maybe an important thing to bring on a missions trip.

Needless to say, I got two pairs of pants and a couple shirts in the bag, then felt the weight of hopelessness bearing down on me. I relinquished the need to have perfectly straight, smooth hair on a humid pacific island in the wet season, I selected one pair of shoes aside from the ones I would wear on the plane, and I broke my toothbrush in half. The latter action did nothing to save space, but did accomplish something for venting frustration. In the end I took that one duffle bag and my sleeping bag and soldiered off into the unknown (with maybe just a few extra pairs of socks accidentally rolled up in my sleeping bag. "How did those get there?" she asks with innocent doe eyes.)

I have grown better at being less prepared, and I have come to appreciate the spontaneity and creativity it takes to survive inside of limits. As I have matured (a little) I see this psychology for what it is: a need for control. Limited in my mortal humanity in a vast, unpredictable, and often unkind world, I have a mental imperative to be prepared to exert control, to bring down order, to fend off the discomfort of uncertainty with the range of stuffs I carry on my back. This leaves little space to exercise the range of faith I carry in my heart, or the vastness of God's strength and grace. Perfectionism is a desire for control, and it leaves very little room for the beauty of life as Christ's child.

Priscilla Shirer calls it God-margin: the space between your abilities, your talents, your time, your resources, and what God has asked you to do. She states one of the beautiful paradoxes of the Christian life: "God does not call us to do hard stuff; He calls us to do impossible stuff," and at the same time, "You don't need all the things you thought you would need." Gideon faced the army of the Midianites (a paltry 135,000) with 32,000 men. But, "The Lord said to Gideon, 'You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, 'My own strength has saved me.'" The Lord cut Gideon's men down to 300, and said "Now you are ready."

My 300 is living on one small (from my perspective on the hillside) income for the next nine months, my 300 is being for all intents a single mom, my 300 is the raging battle of perfection, control, and stock-piling in the face of a God who has declared that He will provide for my heart, my spirit, and my family. In my weakness, God, may your strength be perfected!

August Showers Bring Great Glowers

It all depends on your perspective.

After a flight to New Zealand, whereon I ceased to exist for the span of one day (and why does that always happen on Saturday?), got pelted by a Thor-grade thunder storm, took a 2:00am detour to Fiji, and finally landed in Auckland exhausted, starving, and brimming with excitement for the adventures ahead, all I really wanted out of life was a shower. ... and maybe a kiwi. ... the fruit, not the other kind. ... I mean seriously, who would land after such a traumatic plane ride and want to snuggle up to ... a rare, flightless, soda straw beaked bird? ... and not the other, other kind either.

(It just now occurs to me that you have to understand New Zealand slang to think that joke was at all funny. Sorry.)

After our brief NewZea orientation (wherein the kiwi joke was explained to us [if you're really curious I can attach a power point presentation outlining the nuance of meanings, which infuses humor into all previous phraseology]), we went to the Marae. If you've never experienced a Maori greeting and welcome onto the Marae, it is beautiful, moving, haunting, and warm, a curious juxtaposition of forgotten worlds and those to come (except with sloppier sneakers, because I swear, it NEVER stops raining in New Zealand). My need for a shower was lost in feelings of awe and honor, family and community, fear and food. However, once we had been through the welcome ceremony, a huge meal, singing and dancing together, and a philosophical lesson from the story-teller, my shower craving had returned. A short-circuit in my brain was processing all information in a binary of 'shower' / 'bed.' (For example, when asked my name it would come out: -shower-shower-bed-shower-bed-bed-bed-shower.)

So for the first time in three days (well, four according to the calendar, but that pesky oblivion doesn't count), shampoo and razor in hand I stepped into a shower. Allow me to set the scene: Outdoors, top half of a wooden crate set over a drain, dingy tile walls, 'that's a curtain?!' shower curtain, COLD water - adjust - COLDER water. And Jethro. Jethro is the wee froggy who lives under the wooden crate. And Roland. Roland is an enormous unfolding spider who lives on the shower wall... with about 50 of his buddies. I was having a Cirith Ungol, Forbidden Forest shower.

In all honesty, I found it most entertaining. It was an adventure. Abi's love adventure! Of course there were spiders in the freezing shower, that's how adventures work. How else would you know you were on an adventure if there weren't creepies in the dirty hole where you are supposed to get clean? Adventures require frogs in the shower. They serve the same function as parakeets in the coal mines. If the frog passes out, it's time to go. With all the balance of a ninja, you angle your back out of the freezing spray, and your leg crooked in front of you so you can manage to shave slice your legs with the utterly chilly razor. It was fun!

Flash forward to last night. Finally, I gave up on getting my sweet baby to go to sleep. After a very hard week, I peeled off my clothes, swept back the 'that's what a curtain is supposed to look like' shower curtain, and stared into the eyes of a very broken faucet. So here's a sentence I hope none of you ever have to write: my dog ate my shower. He jumped in and either smacked or bit the water gusher part and broke off the little bits that make it shoot from the top. (That is my advanced plumbing vocabulary coming into play. Sorry, if I left any of you behind with my elevated, PVC diction.)

Justin was doing homework. I think at this point, that should be a given. Despondently, I gathered my shampoo and razor (and a few other necessities), wrapped a towel around me and trudged downstairs to use the other shower. Allow me to set the scene: Indoors, clean white, 'you can't see me' door, COLD water - adjust - COLDER water - adjust oppositely - warm water, and only a few unsightly insect corpses. All in all, from a neutral perspective, better.

But it wasn't better. It was all worsely all over. It was one of the more wrathful showers I can recall in my brief history. I seethed at the small space, cursed that I had to use all my ballet training to shave my legs, and grumped at the innocent deadlings swirling down the drain. When it was all over I swung the door open. BAD IDEA. BRRRR COLD! I snatched my towel from the floor. Oh, did I mention the shower kind of leaks? How silly of me to leave that glorious detail out! So my towel was wet and probably about 32.5 degrees Fahrenheit. And so without a stitch of clothing on, hair dripping wet, and eyes blazing red I stormed away, leaving the offending shower to sulk in its steaminess.

It's all about context. I will endure most anything in the name of adventure. I will endure it with the joy encouraged in New Testament letters. Sans adventure, there is very little I will tolerate.

Tea Testimony

After a series of very humorous ploys by our loving Savior, I ended up sharing at the Women's Spring Tea. This is what it was sort of like:

"God has been incredibly faithful to me, and His promises have been so real in my life. Often these are very emotional experiences. And being so pregnant as I am, my emotions are neurotic enough. So I decided to share God’s faithfulness in my love story with my husband. Because it’s cuter and funnier and won’t make me weep like a little child.

At the beginning of 2006 I discovered a Youth for Christ summer missions trip to New Zealand. And I fell in love with this idea of serving people, and going on adventures, and pretending to be an elf off in Middle Earth. I became obsessed with New Zealand. All I thought about was going there, and serving God and His people, and following my Captain on His adventure. It was almost literally all I thought about.

Around the same time my-now-husband, but then just an undyingly handsome acquaintance joined Youth for Christ as well, and began planning a yearlong internship in where-else, but New Zealand. And around this time I started falling in love with him, but we are both such outgoing, big talkers (insert ripe sarcasm) that I didn’t dare say a word, and apparently neither did he. But with us both heading off to magical New Zealand, I imagined we must be cosmically connected somehow. Because once every five years I’m allowed to be a little girly.

God was amazingly faithful in helping me raise funds for this trip, and the people in my church were so generous. I started fund raising in February, and by the end of March I had raised $3000 dollars, which was $47 more than I needed. It was like this amazing confirmation that I was in God’s will and on the right path, and He was just going to bless me so much for making this decision.

Not so much.

The first week of April I got an email from YFC that my beloved trip to New Zealand was cancelled. I don’t tend to be dramatic, but let me tell you, I read this email and ran out of the office, tears pouring down my face. I was utterly devastated. I’m going to share what I wrote in my journal that night:

I thought if I read the email again it would change, that my eyes were just playing tricks on me. But reading the email three times more did not change the words on the screen. The dream which had become my obsession, the service I’d given my very heart to, the hope I’d fallen in love with was gone. And there was nothing I could do. You can’t imagine the sense of betrayal I feel, the first time I’d truly given my heart away to something, truly fallen in love, and my dreams are crushed. There is always the burning question, “Why God, why did You let this happen?” Why would God allow me to suffer after I followed His leading as best I could, after I took steps toward what I thought was His will, after I gave of myself to His work? And I had no clue. And I still have no clue.

Because I’m not at all ever dramatic.

But because his trip was just him and a year long, Justin was still planning to skip away to New Zealand for his missions trip. And let me tell you how happy that made me. Not only was I now stuck in Utah for the summer, betrayed by my Creator, it would be a year completely devoid of the man I was quickly losing my heart to. And I felt very sorry for myself.

Around this time I read Romans 8:26-28. I love this chapter of the Bible, and at the time it was so relevant. As my faith was faltering I knew I had an Intercessor, a hope, and a future.

In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

I clung to this promise throughout the following year. Another New Zealand trip came up for 2007, and I instantly applied. All my funds were already raised so all I had to do was wait. And daydream about Mr. Perfect Justin for hours on end.

I still didn’t know why God would make me wait, and what His plan was, but I felt like I had perhaps grown a little in my faith. Isn’t it a shame that pain is often the best way to teach us. And sometimes the only way I learn.

So Justin returned from New Zealand on July 20^th, 2007 and I left for New Zealand on July 19^th, 2007 and because of the time change we very literally passed each other in the sky. And I snickered at my Lord because He’s just so funny. And I spent a month in New Zealand. It was everything I hoped (except I didn’t turn into an elf, which was disappointing). I served, I grew, I learned, and prayed, and somehow I became less a little girl and more a woman. And I raced go karts down a mountain, which was almost as cool as the fact that Justin got to build a snowman on Mount Doom.

After returning home, and readjusting to non-missions life, Justin asked me out to coffee… like, every night for the next few months. But we weren’t dating… I just have to make that clear. We weren’t dating officially, until December. I asked him since we are both so shy and quiet, why he finally asked me out. He said since I had just come back from New Zealand, and I knew the people he met there, and had seen the places he’d been so recently that he felt like we finally had something to talk about. We had both just come back from this amazing experience, and we had a connection, not something mystical or magical, but something definitely God-ordained.

So maybe that’s why I had to wait for a year. Because my soon-to-be husband needed some reason to ask me out. And New Zealand, if nothing else, is a good excuse for a date."

Six Months

My six month old Little Man is napping in his crib. He won't nap in your arms, doesn't like being held like a little baby, and log rolls out of snuggles first thing on a Saturday morning. Despite this resistance to being held like an infant, he is incredibly affectionate. He'll grab your face with both hands and pull you close to him. When he's sleepy, he'll throw an arm around your neck and bury his face in your shoulder. During playtime he wants kisses, and zurberts, and tickles galore. As long as you remember that he is a whole six months now, and not a baby anymore.

Oh my Little Man. You are forevermore my baby. When you take your first steps, I will beam with pride and bite my lip with nerves. When you go off to school, I will smile and wave with joy and fight back tears. When you have your first heartbreak, I will sing Dashboard songs for you. When you pick a career, find a job, a wife, have little ones of your own, I will laugh, love, help, guide, and try not to meddle.

And I will pray and worship.

I will worship because you are of infinite worth. Regardless of the choices you make or the paths you tread, the fact that you are made in the image of our Captain makes you endlessly valuable. On every journey you will carry the marks of our Maker. In every dark place you will have the opportunity to share in the Light. I will love you because you are mine, a blessing and a gift. I will love you, and by loving I will worship.

And I will pray. Because though you are forever my baby, the object of my motherly affection, a human being of incredible worth regardless of how you choose to live, I know you have free will. I will pray that you grow to be a man like your father and even more a man like your Father. I will pray that you live fearlessly and in the fear of the One who most loves you. I will pray that you are brave, truthful, and strong in a world of cowardice, lies, and weakness. Above all, I pray that you will know Him who is unknowable. That you will meet the God of the Ages in this brief moment of your life.

And I will pray that somehow I can be part of this amazing adventure on which you are headed. That somehow I can show you the best way to live in our humanity, and the best way to live for eternity.

Happy six month birthday my Little Man. You may think you are all grown up, but we both still have a lot of growing up to do.

My Motley Crew

For day five of my Seven Days of Valentine's the Husband got me my very own pirate crew!

They are the very best sorts of pirates: rough to look at, but all sweets inside. I swear the man is fattening me up like Gretel, to have an Abi sandwich. We are basically living in a candy house.

And on that note: don't go see Hansel & Gretel. Terrible waste of money. And we went for free!