New things for a New Year

Made it through Christmas!  5 days left of 2012!  I am not sorry to see it go.  This year has been filled with lots of challenges.  We go through hard times because they bring us growth and good times afterward.  2012 was the year of hard times, 2013 is going to be the year of good times afterward.  They year where we put to use all the lessons we have learned.  At least that is the plan.

I have been contemplating a few options for my word/phrase of the year.  Last fall I wanted to take on the word, "Discipline".  Self discipline, self control.  I was going to create a schedule and stick to it.  One for me, one for Isabelle.  And I was going to mentor Jake and John to do the same and we were all going to turn into godly men and women who achieved and accomplished all they planned in any give day.  We would be the super family.

Not sure I made it even through a day with that plan.  John and Jake just looked at me like I was crazy and I was too tired to ever start a plan for Isabelle.  I still think this could be the word of the year for 2013.  Last fall we were just full of so much stress.  "Discipline and "survival mode" do not really go together.  Maybe they should but they don't at our house.

I still like that word.

But as I have struggled through the fall with my desire for control--oh my ever present control issues--God gave me a phrase this fall, "Get out of my way!"  Because God shouts at me sometimes.  Because I am a little slow at times.  Because sometimes I forget that even when I am not present He is.  That even when my plan is not the one being followed, His plan is always the one that ends up triumphing.  And at the end of the day that is the plan I really want too.  So if I could just get out of his way, stop tripping other people when he is trying to lead them down a path, stop tripping myself, then maybe he could get some work done.

So, I am thinking about the Phrase, "get out of the way" as my phrase of the year.

As you may recall I am reading through Isaiah.  I am getting a lot out of it but at the same time there are sections that don't really feel relevant to my life.  So I had sort of been avoiding it for a few days.  I really needed something from God but didn't feel it was in Isaiah and so refused to pick up the bible and was basically brooding for a few days.  Then I woke up one morning and had a strong sense of God saying today is the day there is something in there for you.  He was right, of course, there in Is 43 were the familiar verses with the exact words I needed on the exact perfect day they needed to be said.  "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."

I think I should start indexing the verses I mention here because I am pretty sure I have covered this one before but can't remember.  Forgive me if I am repeating myself here but, I love how there is an explanation point after "see, I am doing a new thing!"  Like God is super excited about the new thing he is doing.  And this thing is so cool and exciting he can't believe you can't see it, "Do you not perceive it?"  And then he can't stand it anymore so he just tells you what is going on, "I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."

I am not going to lie to you, I could really stand to have someone really excited about what is happening in my life, excited about what they are doing in my life.  And if God is doing a new thing in my life and is all excited about it, then I am pretty excited about it too.  Cause I definitely feel like I have been lost in the dessert for a while and a nice refreshing stream sounds like just thing thing for me.  I can totally see myself sitting on the edge with my feet in the water and scooping up a refreshing drink.  I love a good mouthful of cold fresh water. So now I am really excited that there is going to be a new thing in my life, in relationships that have been hard this year, in work, in family, in me.  Woo Hoo, Go God, make new things happen!

I flip the page in my bible and God goes on to say, "...I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland (I know he said something like that already but he likes to repeat himself), to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise."  He is doing something so great it will cause me to praise Him.  Sing his praises.  I love to do that.  (Secret:  I love to sing God's praises and at home I am a loud worship leader with hands in the air and everything.  At church I am a good conservative Scandinavian Baptist.  I am a Pentecostal at home.)  God is doing the work and we just have to praise Him.  Awesome.  I can do that.

So now I am thinking this is probably going to be my scripture for the year.  Maybe the problem with this year is there was no scripture for the year.  But really the fact that there was no scripture for this year is sort of indicative of how it started and where it went and here we are and what can I tell you?  It is what it is. 2011 we had the verse: "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matt 6:33  That was a perfect verse for that year.  Just what we needed to focus on that year.

OK So let's summarize where we are at with my 2013 word/phrase/verse options:  discipline, get out of the way, "I am doing a new thing".  Hmmm.  I think I know how I am going to bring these together but I am going to pray about it a little before my big announcement.

How about you?  What is your word of the year?

Don Hardacker

There they are.  In the glory days at Isabelle's 3rd or 4th birthday way back 3 or 4 years ago.  Before cancer.  When diabetes was Don's only problem and he walked laps around all the malls in the area all winter making friends as he went.  Front pockets of his shirt full as always, the full beard and mustache I had never seen him without, glasses on...teeth in.  Standing proudly with his arm around his Patty.  His love, the woman that has stood by him and with him through more than we could even begin to enumerate.  The woman he was still flirting with less than a week ago as his mind came and went.  They did a lifetime together.  They were passionate about each other.

Tuesday he began a new life, a new chapter, one without his Patty, without his children or his friends, save One.  He went to be with his Lord, his friend, his love.  Someday we will all join with him in the joyful praise and worship of the Lord, the life he is now living.  Until then we celebrate who he was and the blessings we all received from knowing him and being part of his life and his stories.

Death Sucks

My father in law is dying.  I know I have mentioned it before but now it is getting serious.  After a year and a half of threatening to die I think he actually might go and do it in the next few days.  And I am exhausted.

Why am I exhausted?  If you are family and reading this you might be really thinking that.  I mean I haven't been sitting at the house for 8 hours getting up and down with him and mom, I haven't taken any night shifts, I wasn't there last night for all the crying out in pain and emotional turmoil as they waited for someone to deliver the morphine and the wait for it to take affect.

I  have done nothing. Literally. I have done nothing for the past few days.  I am just standing at the ready.  Afraid to involve myself in any project, just sitting and waiting.  A million things on my to do list, my son home from college and yet here I am.  Waiting.  My job is support.  I mainly support my husband but try to have a loving word or scripture for the family as well.  But mostly I am just waiting for John to come home and talk to me, tell me the latest, and experience the emotions.  Normally I get to break down but this time it is his turn and I will be the rock.  And it is exhausting and I don't want to do anything.  I don't even want to write this but I am trying to force myself to do something this afternoon and I usually find it helpful to write out my feelings.  So I am sharing with you that I would rather be doing something destructive.  Eating everything in sight or, better yet, a little retail therapy, buy everything in sight!

So now that you know I am totally not feeling it right now I am none-the-less going to share a few scriptures that I am finding encouraging.  I  have brief moments where I decide not to run away from my emotions and here are a few things I have found during those times:

Ps 100:4-5 "Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.  For the Lord is good and is love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations."

I am calling that one the verse that starts off for Don and ends for the rest of us.  Don is going to enter the Gates of heaven but his faithfulness, Don's steadfast and unwavering devotion to the Lord, continues through the generations that come behind him.  The generations that he has influenced.  And while we are quick to think of his family Don has made a difference in the lives of men and women well beyond his family through his teaching both of the Word at church and through his teaching of Advanced First Aid (now EMT) at Normandale.  Many a Minneapolis cop got their initial first aid training from John's parents in the last 80's and early 90's.  How thankful we all are, how blessed and rich our lives have been because of the gift of Don.

I read other things and think of Don:

Is 21:3-4 "At this my body is racked with pain, pangs seize me, like those of a woman in labor; I am staggered by what I hear and bewildered by what I see.  My heart falters, fear makes me tremble; the twilight I longed for has become a horror to me."

I know, that isn't encouraging at all.  But I love how the bible can express pain as well as give hope.  I don't know why some people have to die so painfully.  It doesn't seem fair.  This is not a man who deserves this death.  Even yesterday when I was over there we were laughing as he started asking John's mom if she knew the Truth.  As his mind goes what is left is the Truth of God's love and his continued need to share it with others.  John drove their car home last night as Jake and I both needed cars yesterday.  On the floor of the passenger side are the scripture memory cards his parents continue to read and memorize. When I mentioned Ps 100:4-5 at the house John went to get the bible to read it.  John's mom kept saying, "recite it".  I bet she already knew what he was going to read.  God doesn't promise us freedom from pain or trials in this life on earth but he does promise us that freedom in heaven and soon Don will follow Jesus through those gates and into that peace.

And finally, and again this isn't really for encouragement here just something I read and thought about,

Proverbs 25:20 "Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar poured on soda, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart."

When someone is struggling, it isn't helpful to be cheerful.  This sucks!  Watching this man die sucks.  Even if this wasn't a hard and long death, if he has simply died peacefully in his sleep, this would suck.  I will not be denied the right to grieve nor will I deny my family that right.  We are not alone, God is with us, and one day we will sing songs again but today we will feel and experience these moments of pain and grief and be stressed and overwhelmed.

Bleh...

Off to switch the laundry.  I like to be prepared with clean underwear in all situations.

Eagle Scout Court of Honor

Well it is done.  NOW, my son is officially, officially an Eagle Scout.  We have all the stuff now.  Of course I still haven't gotten the picture of him with the flag.  The one they hang in the scout office headquarters of  all the eagle scouts.  I guess that will happen at Christmas.  I can only do so much during a 4 day Thanksgiving break...

I have many more photos than this of the ceremony and such but apparently I have used the maximum amount of storage space for a free blog.  Who knew it was even possible.  So I am going to have to research next options, something I don't have the energy to do right now, and give you more photos another day.  In the mean time you can enjoy a photo of Jake and I after the ceremony with him wearing his official Eagle neckerchief and pin on his left pocket.

The Keeping Room

As I have been sharing here for the past year and a half, my new favorite quote is, "most people over estimate what they can do in a year and under estimate what they can do in 10 years."  We are living there daily at our house pushing ourselves to keep taking that next step as we walk down a 10 year path to the reinvention of John's career and our life.

One of the places I find inspiration to keep walking this path is from the stories of people who have done what we are doing.  Who have set 10 year goals and made it to the other side.  Today I want to tell you about my friend Jen.  When her kids were just starting school God planted in her heart a passion to return to school and get a Master's degree in psychology.  Her faith had been growing during those pre-school years and God had given her a desire to provide true Christian counseling to hurting families.  She started, one class at a time pursuing this goal.  Keeping her priorities in order and letting God lead the process, she raised her children while pursuing her Master's degree.  Along the way God refined the vision and she began developing a purity ministry for young girls.  Starting with one small group of girls she now leads several groups of girls and a group of boys, encouraging in their walk with God and their understanding of His plan for relationships and purity.

I will admit that over the years her classes just became part of her day to day life.  While I knew they were leading to a goal, it was easy for me to loose track of that and just see this as what she would be doing forever.  But she never lost track of her goal and was constantly preparing for the day she would move from student to counselor.

This past year she did it.  She graduated and became a Christian Counselor in the state of Georgia.  A long pursued goal.  She didn't do it in a year or even 2 years.  Honestly, I lost count but I am thinking it was 8 years of schooling.  Without missing a beat, and because of her ability to set and pursue long term goals, she moved flawlessly into the next phase of the plan, build a counseling practice while growing her small but growing purity ministry.  This fall she launched a blog to promote her business and her ministry called, "The Keeping Room".  A name she came up with way back at the beginning of her education.  It really is excellent.  Short, simple but powerful messages to help you grow in your faith as you live daily life.  Check it out at www.keepingroomchristiancounseling.com

So with 8 years of education behind her but with 4 years until her youngest child is out of the house, she continues to live in that long term goal.  A goal that wasn't to get an education but to build a successful Christian counseling practice to work in when her children were grown.  As we sit at 1-1/2 years behind us, just at the beginning of starting to strategically think about how the choices we make in the next 6-7 years will affect our ability to launch John's career, I can look to examples like Jen and be encouraged that we are really going somewhere, we will really be standing on the other side of this educational journey someday and it will most definitely have been worth the effort.

A run through the neighborhood

I love running outside around our neighborhood.  Besides the fact that I love the fresh air, the wind on my face and the sense that I am actually going somewhere, I love getting to know my neighborhood.  It is different knowledge running slowing through my neighborhood physically seeing each house, tree and crack in the road than to quickly drive by.  When I drive I see the houses and the trees and the road but I don't really see them.

As I start my mile loop I walk by the first of several patches in the cement road and see BJ's initials.  I don't know who BJ is but in the '80's this kid made his mark on the neighborhood road patches.  I usually start my run at the big pine tree in the yard across from my friend Judy's house.  As I go around the corner the face on the tree of her neighbor always makes me smile.  I run a gentle downhill slope for several blocks noticing how different each of the homes are.

It took several months of running by one of the homes to figure out he had a business in his garage and after a few more months I figured out that he does iron work.  Which also explains why he has so much beautiful iron work around his house.  I wave at him as I run by although we have never spoken.  But I have stolen a few lilacs off his bushes in the spring.  Shh don't tell.

As I loop around and turn to go back up hill I hit the part of the road that could use some new patches and have learned where to veer right or left to avoid twisting my ankle and having to hobble home.  I contemplate the names of the streets, Susan and Lois Lane (the second never stops being funny), and I wonder who the women were that the roads were named after.  I imagine they are the daughters or wives of men who wanted to honor them as they were developing the area.  I know where the fire hydrant at the crest of the first steep hill back toward home is, the one I fix my eyes on when I am pushing up that hill.  And I know that even though the rest of the run back to my house looks relatively flat, it is actually a gentle uphill climb and when your legs are tired it can feel like a cliff.

Then I turn down the horseshoe road my friends live on.  Although I don't know everyone on my street, I know most of the women on this block.  I think of and pray for these women and these friendships as I run down this block.

As the road curves around I run by the park.  The place where I told Jake we were adopting Isabelle because he was such an awesome kid we wanted to experience that awesomeness again.  Where Isabelle and I have spent hours and hours both alone and with friends, a place where we reconnect with neighbors on those first warm days in May when we all come out of hibernation and flock to the park.

I can see some of that just driving by but the connection I have with my neighborhood because I slowly run through it, seeing, experiencing and taking time to think about each thing is so much stronger.

I am currently reading the book of Isaiah in my quiet time.  The other day I came across the very classic Christmas passage, "For to us a child is given, to us a son is born..."  I knew it was in Isaiah, I have heard it and read it many times.

The bible is a big book, and it is confusing and sometimes it doesn't make sense or doesn't seem relevant to my life.  That is especially true as I read Isaiah or the genealogies in Numbers or dozens of other passages.  Yes, everything in the bible is relevant and the inspired word of God useful for teaching, rebuking and training in righteousness (2Tim3:16) blah, blah, blah. But when I read it doesn't always feel that way.  I am not a theology student, I don't study the details.  I do rely on other people who have but on a day to day basis I just want to know how this applies to my life today, this morning, right now as I read before the family wakes up and the crazy circus that is my life begins.

I realized reading Isaiah slowly, one chapter at a time, that I am getting to know it in a whole new way.  Like getting to know my neighborhood on a run.  I have driven by Isaiah many times,  I have been to some of the homes along the way but I don't really know Isaiah.  I had never read that passage in context, I am not great with specific references and couldn't have told you where in Isaiah it was.  A general idea will probably get you to the right passage in Ephesians but Isaiah has 66 chapters, I wasn't going to stumble upon it.  If I don't know the whole book and how it is put together I could never pull this verse up with any efficiency.  But now I know it is in chapter 9, and specifically it is near the beginning of Isaiah.

Yesterday as I came across that familiar passage foretelling the birth of Christ in Isaiah I thought about how connected I felt to it as I read it in context, as I slowly walked by it rather than flying over it.  I have beamed directly to it before, I flew over it a few years ago when I was reading the bible in a year and just getting through my daily reading but, yesterday I got to know it.  There is certainly value in just focusing on one verse and I loved the overview of the bible I got the year I read it all.  But yesterday I realized how much I am really getting to know the bible by just walking through the neighborhood, taking my time and seeing and experiencing the details.  I love when I come to a verse that really inspires and speaks to me in my reading, like bumping into an old or new friend on my runs but some days it is just about exercising and getting to know the neighborhood and being strengthened for a new day.

So today I learned that even though not every book, chapter or passage I read in my slow walk around the bible feels significant, I am getting to know the bible, and in doing that I am drawing closer to the Lord the author and resident of this book.  And really that is why I pick up my bible each morning.

Remembering before it is over

Last year John took Comp 101 and we discovered he is really a very gifted writer.  His dad was literally diagnosed as terminal the second week of class.  He wrote a couple things about his dad during this class but hasn't written since the class ended.  However, today, as we enter the last days of his dad's life, he posted this on facebook and I thought it was worth sharing:

I often wish people could hear the wonderful things that people say about them at a funeral. In the movies there is usually the camera aerial recede that makes it appear like they can. I think the reality is, it is better to say it before they are gone, before you lose the chance to say what you will only wish you had later.
All that to say, I was at my dad's this weekend. It was a good visit, it may be our last. I hope there will be more, I hope there will be chances to laugh over the funny Halloween costumes we had as kids, or relive the time my older brother sprayed the cold water hose over the top of the shower on dad. More important, I want everyone, especially my dad, to know how much he has meant to me as a boy growing up, and as a man, still growing up I suppose. If not for my father, I would never be the man I am today! He is the one that taught me how to fix my bike, how to sweat a pipe, how to hit your hand with a hammer while working and still keep working. He showed me how to sacrifice for my family, he showed me that hard work can really pay back more than money. Dad taught me to fight when the time was right, and that the time was almost never right. He showed me how to love my kids, even when they aren't being very lovable, he demonstrated how to love your wife, and most of all, how to love God over all else.
I will miss having my dad to call when I am having some plumbing problem I can't figure out. I will miss having his dry sense of humor at family functions, his quick wit at the least expected time, I will deeply miss the support he provides for my mom. Most of all I will miss the man himself.

I love you dad!
You are a great man, you have been a great influence in my life, and you will continue to inspire me throughout my life.
p.s. No hurry, the Lord is patient, he will wait a little longer if you are up to it.