panama

Many of you know that Savannah has decided to go on a mission trip with Teen Mania. Her first choice was Panama and just before she was accepted the age requirement was changed. We have been going back and forth on where she was supposed to go, and I even had a few days of wondering if she was going to go anywhere at all. Yesterday we spoke with yet another Teen Mania rep and she was given special dispensation to go to Panama! I am so happy for her because I know that it was her first choice, and the place she felt led in her prayers to go. Now, today I have the ball in the pit of my stomach in realization that my daughter is going out of the country for almost a month at the tender age of 13. She will be the youngest on the trip. I guess there are several girls that are 14 going. We have known for a long time that her calling was to the world. She has just begun to verbalize the desire to be a missionary. She may change her mind as she grows. I know I wanted to "be" many things when I was young. Somehow this seems more like a "being" than a "wanta be". I am proud and scared all at the same time. Please pray for me! I get a lot of looks from other parents when they hear that I am allowing my child to go. Not that I care so much about what they think I just doubt my and Jason's decision. I know in my heart 13 is a big age of spiritual decision and that this is going to be a life changing event for Savannah. I just need the nagging fear to go away.

on the same page

We have had a really sweet thing happening in our house. With the movie The Lion the Witch and the wardrobe coming out my husband Jason decided to read nightly the C.S. Lewis classic to the girls. The last couple of nights he has lit a fire called us all over to him and we read. The book has some difficult words for the younger girls but the book does, do a great job explaining itself as it goes on. This morning it is all they can talk about. There is a beaver in the book and my youngest asked if she could color one. I don't know about the rest of you but when we hit the mark of family togetherness, it just feels good. There is no guilt about the girls watching too much TV. Savannah is not on the computer, and Jason and I aren't off somewhere else in the house. We are all sitting together, all on the same page (pun definitely intended) and enthralled in a wonderful fantasy. We are doing at that moment exactly what we need to be doing: simply being a family! As a young woman this was the ideal life I dreamt of.

If life is a highway

If life is a highway then I am going 150 miles an hour. Help I feel like things are passing me at alarming speeds. It seems like yesterday that I was feeling as if I lacked purpose but today I have more than I can handle. Now as I write, my house is full of noises big and small. My mind is cramped and I feel like screaming. If God's voice is still and quiet how does he expect me to find Him amidst my chaos? Why does it seem like it is my responsibility to mellow my crazy life and find Him? Why can't He find me sometimes? I imagine I have answered my own question, with the phrase "my crazy life". If He is a God of free will then He is not going to intervene into my schedule. He lets me spontaneously combust into a desperate need for Him.

I do that, you know; I blame God for all kinds of things that are my own fault. Sometimes I wonder why He even puts up with me. I am so glad He does.

Happy Thanksgiving

missing my boy

I talked with Christopher on Sunday and it was wonderful. He sounded happy and grounded. I know that he can charm a lollipop from a baby, but I can't help being pulled in. My Christopher is smart, beautiful, and kind. I struggle with why things turned out this way so far. I struggle with loving him like a mother, and not being his mother. I struggle with wanting more for him, than he wants for himself. I know without a doubt that I believe in him more than any other person on this earth. From the day I saw him, I knew he was supposed to be a warrior in God's army. The first time I saw Christopher he must not have been older than five, and he was wild looking. He had a ring of red around his mouth from nose to chin of chapped lips. He was wild and sweet looking all at the same time. It was obvious that he did not have a Beaver Cleaver life style. I got in the car after that first encounter and at my ripe old age of eighteen, I cried for him, my heart grew for him. I know we were supposed to leave Utah in part to let him free. I find myself this morning however, wishing that we were together. I want him to be talking my ear off about the car he thinks is cool, or some crazy trick he did on his snowboard. I miss his laugh, and how he got scared during power outages. I love how he is afraid of roller-coasters and yet not afraid to jump of a 10 foot cornice. I love how after I made a dinner he liked he would stick out his skinny belly and say he was fat. I love how he would cover his butt going up the stairs because he knew Jason, the girls, or I might pinch it, (Yes we are a butt pinching family). I love how he tells his friends that he loves them when he gets off the phone and makes them say it back to him. He is a funny boy, my Christopher, and I miss him terribly.

taking up offenses

I have written and deleted three times what is in my heart to say today. I am not really sure how to start so please be patient with me. Yesterday I went to a memorial of sorts for a child who died a year ago. He was almost two and had lived his short life sick and much of it suffering. Just days after we arrived in Ohio, he had passed away. The child's parents and their three other children go to our church. We met them at dinner not long after Avery's death. I was shocked at their strength and resoluteness to live. Over the months we have become friends. Last Wednesday we were invited to meet in the church parking lot and send off balloons to remember and celebrate Avery's life. I was honored to be asked, because we had never met Avery. As Chip (Avery's Dad) prayed and thanked God for Avery's life I felt overwhelmed with the unfairness of it all. Their children started sobbing, as did Savannah. Memories of loosing my nephew began sinking in anew. I know this is so unchristian but I yelled out inside "God what are You thinking?" "Why do You let these things happen?" "Do You have the power to heal or not?" Jason says there is room in his view of God for suffering, and because I have such a merciful heart that it is a hard one for me to grasp. I know that I am the child and that God the Father knows best even though I do not understand. How can I understand I am only a child? But today I am fighting the desire to slam my door, turn up my radio, and ignore His reasoning. I want to put my hands over my ears and yell LALALALA! The funny thing is that Avery's parents never question God. It makes me wonder why I am taking up their offenses. Who am I to be mad at God for something that did not happen to me? Just as I had trouble starting this post, I don't know how to end; I am unresolved. I guess I will just wait out today and let my anger diminish. I do this a lot and so far God seems to love me anyway. I will not stay angry forever. God has a way of easing me out of it, just like a father can cause his child to smile after a hard day.

Getting back to my roots

Its funny how a little thing like hair in a girls life can be such a big deal. I have been in Ohio a year and have tried three stylist to do my hair. Not one of them can seem to do what I ask. My hair seemed to get lighter and lighter no matter how much I asked for help to get my hair to match my roots. I bought a box once this year and turned my hair orange. A friend at work suggested I go to the local beauty store and talk with them. Jason has been working a lot of nights, so without his reasoning in my life, and the boredom that set in... I went. A young man with black and purple hair, a shrill voice, and finger nails significantly longer than my own, knew just what I needed. Sixteen bucks poorer and I was off. My hair is now a nice reddish auburn. Not that it is bad really, just not my original color. My sweet 12 year old helped me put on the color and loves the end result. My husband is a bit shocked (he had no warning). This seems to me to be somewhat like life. I think we go from wanting to be everyone else, to just wanting to be more of ourselves. But just like coloring your hair for years and years it is easy for one to forget the original color. I am learning that the road to authenticity is a long and hard one. I guess getting back to ones roots is in the process not the product. For now I will just enjoy being a red head (for the next six weeks or so) and try again to get back to my roots at another time.

butterflies

Jason and I have a home group and there are several new Christians in the bunch. I have found it such a sweet thing to watch their faces as the light goes on and they understand. Or even when their faces crumble up in a lack of understanding at the Christian ease thrown around the room. The red flush that comes over them as they build up the nerve to ask and risk looking silly is also so beautiful. It causes me to remember being wooed by my sweet Jesus. As a child I literally got butterflies thinking about Him. Sometimes at night I would dress up in my best night gown and hope He could see me as I talked to Him. For a while I had a flashlight and a long note pad. I would stay up at night and write to my Lord. I remember one night realizing I may not remember all the bad things I did that day and not be able to tell Him. I was so scared He would be angry, and not forgive me if I did not give Him my apology. I think that is the first night I really heard God. He knew I could never remember, He knew I was doomed to fail. Then I felt this amazing warmth and I saw in place of the black spot I see when I close my eyes, the cross. Jesus told me that night He would have died on the cross only for me, if I was the only one. I was nine and my life was gone to Him for good. I have made many mistakes along the way and God seemed far away sometimes, but I have always been His. Last night as I watched the faces around the room, I remembered, and again... I got butterflies.