"I Smell my Brother in the House"

I like how he said it. Right between math problems and sitting beside the open window, he said it.

"I smell John in the house. I smell my brother."

I stopped, smiled and took in a deep breath, wondering what my twenty-four year old smelled like to my eleven year old.

Familiar fragrances of french press coffee, wooden pencil and rubber eraser were all I detected, none of which epitomized John to me.

"Really? What does John smell like?" I asked.

Sun caught in Daniel's tousled blonde hair as he shrugged small shoulders. "I don't know." He looked up from his math page and glanced towards the stairway where John and others were playing games downstairs. "I smell John," he declared happily, pleased with the observation.

Recently he sat beside me in church, this tall lanky man-son. His wife not with him that day, he had wandered over to our row and joined me. Both of us smiled up at his Dad who was drumming in front. I grinned happy, hugged him, and picked up my book bag to slide further down the row, making room for him.

Partway through the singing, I heard it. His voice, grown up, fully his, lifted in worship to his God, and I teared up to hear my voice singing beside his. Eyes closed, arms raised, he sang out love to His Creator, and my mama heart swelled. I know of no greater joy than that my kids know You, God, I had whispered it quiet to my God. Tears welled and I blinked them away, before trusting my voice to sing again.


And our church has been studying it during the Sunday morning adult Bible study time over coffee each week. ... This idea of Loving God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and then loving our neighbors (all of humanity) as ourselves. We've been wrestling with what does that really look like? How do we do that? And what are all the practical aspects that ripple out from there? We've barely touched the surface, I know.

Tonight I mull it over, Daniel's recollection of knowing his brother's scent, and my joy at singing beside my eldest son. This joy of knowing God, loving Him, should mark us so much that it radiates out from us, rippling out from us in voice and spirit, so that we are known and recognized by how it changes us. Our very essences, our heart, soul, mind and strength should be marked, changed, by knowing Him.

I'm still curious about that over here, and mulling it over, swishing it around in my head. What do people notice when they see me? How can I respond with love and respect to the people around me? Am I marked by a different fragrance?

Rain falls lightly tonight. Red and yellow celosia flowers tip and bow to the side, heavy with rain. Buckets and bowls scattered across my deck collect the rain and pool it. Night's twilight is fresh, clean, smelling like autumn rain.

And maybe that's the answer? What we take in is what we can reflect and refract out.

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Of Dragons and Gauntlets

He walked in with an orange bearded dragon on his shoulder. The college-student stood at the coffee shop counter, ordering a pastry and a drink, and his lizard perched beside him.

Minutes later as he prepared to leave, two women in yoga pants and headbands approached him, their phones out.

"Is he real? Can we take a picture with you?"

I stood up, grabbing my phone too and idling closer.

The blonde-haired student assured us the reptile was real and handed him over to the woman in fleece.

"Oh? Me to hold him?" she asked shyly, "Will he bite?"

Persuaded, she let him place the two foot-long orange spiked lizard in her hands, the tail trailing up to her elbow.

He was a therapy lizard named Ivan, we learned. "He was brown when I got him, and only an inch and a half long."

We exclaimed at the change, staring at the jeweled orange bearded dragon on the woman's arm. "He's my emotional support animal," the man explained. "I chose him because colleges will let me keep him in the dorms."

"Can I pet him?" I asked.

He agreed readily and I stroked the small dragon's dry back, long tail, and spiny sides. "Hi baby, you're beautiful," I crooned to the bearded lizard.

"Many people choose soft and cuddly for emotional support animals, but I like his rough back," the young man said, retrieving him from the turquoise woman, gently detangling a curved rear toe-nail from her sleeve and stroking the dragon's back.

We listened and gushed, loving this chance to learn and experience. Thanking him, the women left and I did too. The young man was gracious, friendly, generous with his time and story. Pausing to balance the dragon, pastry and drink, he grabbed his keys and walked out the door.

"What a nice young man," the navy shirted woman told her companion as she pulled out her green wooden chair again, beside her laptop.

I agreed silently, sitting at my own nearby table, and pulling out Bible and pen.

And I love how his brave transparency calls us to courageous conversations too. Turning pages to my next passage in the Bible, I see it -- how God continues the conversation.

"O Lord, I call to you; come quickly to me. Hear my voice when I call to you...
Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; 
Keep watch over the door of my lips. 
Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil, to take part in wicked deeds..." (Psalm 141:1,3-4a)

The verses continue, talking of the traps and bad choices we can fall into, and I remember bold words from an earlier lesson in Genesis 4. In Genesis chapter 4:6-7, God speaks it bluntly, throwing the gauntlet down before Cain. "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

I don't know the traps around you, but I know our God. He is whispering them to you even now, and to me too.

I think of the dragon owner's brave transparency and write bold words in my journal, examining these verses, talking to God, and listening long. I love that our God whispers back in the lull after the heavy truth hits.  "...For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose" (Philippians 2:13).

And we can sense it: what God is warning us about, what he is pointing to, and the choice is before us. I love that he gives us the will -- the motivation, the desire to obey. What a loving, humble, gentle God he is!

I choose You, God. I choose your face and your warnings. I choose to move away, to side-step the traps, to keep watch over my lips, mouth, eyes, actions, and life.

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When God Pulled the Fire Alarm

Just one glance at the text sent my heart racing.

Alarm bells were blaring at our house, but we were half a nation away.

On a special once-every-ten-years-vacation to sunny Florida with my husband's family, we were still rubbing aloe vera salve onto our sun-burned skin when a neighbor in snowy Minnesota contacted us.

"Your neighbors are hearing a loud beeping noise coming from your house. Do you know what it could be?" she asked, the text glowing grey and green in the dark night.

My heart raced. "Mark!"

In hurried conversation, we thought of friends we could ask to drive to our snow-dumped home at night and to wade through six-inch high drifts of snow in our unplowed driveway to check out the sounds.

Minutes later, our son's father-in-law in Minnesota grabbed boots and mittens and drove his cold car over crackly iced roads to our house.

In another time zone, in dark humid Florida, I curled up legs onto our borrowed bed, and listened to my husband's side of the conversation. He spoke door codes through the phone, and soon after, we could hear the alarms pealing over the phone lines, across the nation, and into our dark quiet room.

Entering cautiously, our friend sniffed the air, testing for smoke, for carbon monoxide, for anything amiss. The sound drew him into our son's bedroom. After locating the ceiling-mounted fire alarm and noting the expired battery, our friend Jay disabled the alarm until we could return to repair it.

And it was then that God blew us away!

In the silence that followed, Jay noticed the creeping chill. Frost blew from his mouth. Indoors? Feeling abnormally cold, he checked the thermostat. A blank grey screen lay where the numbers should have been, and the men spoke in concerned voices across the phone lines.

A blank thermostat confirmed the chill. A malfunctioning thermostat meant a malfunctioning furnace. A malfunctioning furnace meant frozen and burst water pipes were imminent.

I bounced impatiently on the bed in Florida while our friend in Minnesota headed downstairs to the furnace room. Mark and Jay talked about screw drivers and batteries and hard-wired boxes that should have worked, and they problem-solved.

And we saw it, how God had set off a fire alarm in the bedroom that was perfectly-placed to grab our neighbor's attention so we could halt the freeze before it burst our pipes and flooded our home.

Our creative God pulled the fire alarm, and I grin to think of it.

"Okay, it's thirty-nine degrees," Jay said, breathing into the phone as he wielded a screw driver in one hand and a phone in the other.

Twenty minutes later, Mark hung up the phone after we had thanked our friend again and again for driving to our house on a dark cold Minnesota night. In a month of record-snows and cold temperatures in Minnesota, our sweet God pulled the fire alarm and saved our home.

We declared it again and again, marveling at what he had done. Thank you, God, we breathed in grateful joy.

Brushing teeth and slipping into bed, we stared at our packed suitcases for the next day's flight home. Thinking of a gently-warming house, and fearful cats who would be relaxing after the alarms had stopped, Mark and I stretched arms under pillows and pulled the blankets higher.

"Let's thank God again," I murmured, wiggling my toes and leaning back against Mark's chest. His voice rumbled behind my head, and I felt my shoulder sink deeper into the pillow.

"What a creative God he is!" I smiled sleepily, and closed my eyes.

Hi friend, how are you? What are you thankful for today?

Do you live near Minneapolis, MN? I will be speaking at the Set Apart Conference 2019 in St. Paul this Friday and Saturday, March 8 and 9th. Come find me and say hi! 

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Our Bold Dares

It's audacious and daring actually. What is it about this bold act that says it'll ever work?

We push fingers into dark soil, scooping out vaults. Then with brazen hands we press small brown bulbs into the earth and claim they'll rise again.

Burying them, covering them, we smooth the ground and walk away, with nary a trace of them left.

It feels like a swindlers trick, a money scam, and yet every few years I peruse bags, choose colors, and plop money down.

On a sunny day this month, I kneeled onto damp green grass. Red leaves swirled and dropped. Yellow maple trees shivered and shook in the breeze. Autumn afternoon sun scattered brilliantly across a shocking blue sky. And the beauty caught me. I stopped and snapped photos.

It relaxes me, this time of plunging hands into earth, smelling the loam and dirt. I scooped and filled, scooped and filled. Planting bulbs in October reminded me of my Dad's death, the one year anniversary of it came and went October 27th.

While heaven's hello is still far off, I know the results of pressing violet, fuchsia, and yellow tulip bulbs into the ground, along with tall bobbing purple alium heads. I've seen them. Can't deny them. I look forward to seeing them each year, and have been bowled over by the gorgeous beauty that springs from them.

Bold, brave, audacious flowers erupt each year from dark empty-looking dirt. I've seen it. I know it to be true.

And so I peruse bags, choose colors, and pick up my dusty trowel. It looks different at the end. The splendorous results are nothing like the simple bulbs I handle now, and I know it to be true. Life will come. This is not the end.

Several days later, my husband and I clear off the kitchen table, and plop heavy pumpkins on it. Six squat orange squash await faces. I pile knives and carving tools around them, and scatter empty bowls around for the seeds and pumpkin pieces that'll follow.

"Mom, when are they here?" Daniel asks impatiently, popping his head in the door.

"Soon, buddy! Want to climb a tree?"

He dashes out, eager for his big brother, sister-in-law, and sister to arrive.

For hours into the night, six of us smiled giddy at our pumpkins, imagining their faces, picturing who they would be. We carved and cut, deliberated and decorated. Deep dish pizza slices dripped juices and oil onto small plates. Tangy lime papaya cubes glistened as we popped them in our mouths.

Pumpkin seeds waited and dried, spread across metal trays. Sometimes the good things are now, sometimes we have to wait.

But the bold dares? The audacious hopes? They seem less daring as the evidence piles up, as each year's experiences and gifts stack before me.

Our God's gifts are constant, tender, daily as the sun. His presence is there. He walks beside us. Some gifts are now. Some gifts we await.

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Our Best Spring Forward Beauty Truth

He perched on the black armchair, hanging off the right edge. His blonde head hung upside down, arms trailing the cream carpet.

"...and then I fought the boss..." Daniel's words rippled on, describing video game adventures and I tried to pay attention.

Photo Credit: Flikr user T. Papadopoulos, Creative Commons cc license

Pinching lips shut and trying not to breathe, I shoveled and cleaned an odorous area of our laundry room. Pets were an affectionate part of life, with one Downside.

"Mom?" Daniel's words broke in.

"You're beautiful," he said.

I stopped and glanced out through the laundry room doorway to where he was dangling off the armchair. He dimpled and held up three round fingers in the "I love you" hand signal.

Love flashed through me.

"Thank you!" I replied, surprised and touched.

I reflected ruefully on my black yoga pants, whisked-up-hair-do for around the house errands, and my wise-beyond-his-years son.

He saw the truth deep that I had missed.

True beauty glows best behind gentle loving hearts, behind hands that serve, and lives that breathe kindness.

Washing my hands later at the sink, I thought back over my day. I had been grumpy that morning, getting breakfast and helping family members into their days. It wasn't until I had slowed down and talked to my God, that my heart had dropped its cantor.

Choosing to stop and savor, to linger in love, I had changed my attitude.

And from his upside-down perch, my son had watched it reverse my heart and home. 

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The Question that Dangles For Us Who Grieve in this Season

It was after her question at the hardware store. Trudging across broken pavement in biting snowy cold, we pushed hands in pockets deep, my arm through hers protectively.

Inside the red box store, she asked it --my mom wanting to know -- and it has reverberated inside the depths of me still.

"I want the kind that keeps burning even if one has burned out."

Photo Credit: Flickr user Rakka, Creative Commons cc license

She's holding a defective string of Christmas lights, but it feels like me. How do we keep burning even if part of us is gone?

At the customer service desk earlier, we had graciously handed back the cardboard box of twinkly lights, sliding the receipt beside it.

"Anything wrong with them?" a red-sweatered woman asked smiling.

"Nope, they're just the wrong ones. I want the lights that'll keep burning even if one bulb is dead."

Later in the parking lot, we walk arm in arm and I unlock her door first.

"Jennifer, I've realized that I need to let my friends know what I've been learning -- what God has been teaching me in these hard times. God has been teaching Dad and I so much about suffering..." she trails off, her voice breaking slightly.

Dad is gone, and Mom has been sobbing in the loving closeness of her God as she walks through the grief of losing her husband.

Her friends are veiled elegant North African women, emigrated to Minneapolis. My mom learns the lilting beauty of their language and helps them navigate English grammar and vocabulary. They eat sambosas and saffron-flavored rice, and speak often of husbands, children, and aging parents faraway.

"I get to tell them of the hope we have in Jesus and of the confidence we have that Bruce will be in heaven with God."  Mom spoke excitedly of the Christmas presents she was gathering for her international friends, and she carefully chose cards to accompany them.

At home later, Mark and I uncoil our own long strands of lights and assemble them end to end. Wrapping the tree in strands of red, blue, green, and yellow, all the wiry lights culminate into one outlet plug. Electric current courses and the lights shine on.

Verses of Bible truth grab me this Christmas break as we march wise men to a starry stable and gather shepherds near, their sheep already fallen over. I pour eggnog and grind another portion of French Press coffee beans. In crowded rooms here and there, we pass gingerbread men and Belgium chocolate truffles, talking loudly as nieces and nephews race with toys underfoot.

And my mom, sister, and I plug into our Source again and again, drawing strength and constancy from God. As the tears come, and we count it out -- two months now since Dad died-- we play his songs, and laughing-cry as we scroll through old photographs.

This intermingled grief with joy is a sharper chapter for me now, a newly-formed reality. As the question bubbles up: "How do I keep burning even when part of me has burnt out?" I sense the answer.

Pulling out pen and paper, I reflect further. I trace the words and underline "In Him" and the lights keep burning -- through no strength of their own.

"We wait in hope for the Lord; 
He is our help and shield. 
In Him our hearts rejoice for we trust in his Holy Name. 
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in you." Psalm 32:20-22.

Merry Christmas, you. May this New Year bring you an even deeper sense of God's rich love for you and his delight in you. May you rest in his presence. What have you been reflecting on this month?

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When You Feel Like You're Just Hanging On

It had been hanging by a thread for a while.

Silver filament too flimsy for such a pendulous weight. Mark had even warned me.

"Jen, are you sure this chain is strong enough?"

"It's fine," I said, sliding the round silver Courage pendant onto the silver chain.

This morning in the dark hours before full wakefulness, I had flipped and turned. Thoughts of our upcoming Vow Renewal flashed happy in my mind and I mentally made a list: tea light candles, a miniature amplifier to boost volume in my parents' backyard.

Wide awake but trying not to be, I had switched to my stomach, stretching chest smooth and tall against the bed, and swinging right hand under my neck to sweep long hair up across the pillow.

And then just like that, my courage had fallen off and slipped away.

Mark stirred beside me.

"Mark, my necklace broke!"

"Oh no," he murmured, voice husky and drowsy.

My courage had slipped away and fallen from sight, and the irony is not lost on me. My sweet silver-haired Dad on hospice has recently been coughing and breathing in shallower breaths, and thoughts of him inhaling and exhaling, and looking all grey and ashen are never far from my mind this week.

And did he lose weight in his face since I saw him two days ago? His temples gape empty and I pressed my fingers in them wonderingly yesterday, gently caressing his stubbly face.

"Je t'aime, Papa," I had murmured then, brushing my fingers across his cheek and short hair, and leaning in for another hug.

I had kissed my mom goodbye as well, and driven home in a daze in evening rush hour. The sun sank orange and crimson behind Interstate 35, cars moving in stop and go patterns. A crashed car stacked up the left lane for miles, and a caravan of cars snaked careful through crushed glass and I prayed heavy for the people and police on the side on the road as I passed.

And then this morning in dark pale light, I swiped hair aside and tore the last filament of Courage from my neck. I find myself reaching unconsciously up to slide my finger in the silver ring's center, ready to brush fingertips across the burnished edges and fading Courage font, and then stop when my neck is naked.

And perhaps it's best this reminder now of where my courage lies. It's not in a faded pendulous pendant on too flimsy filament.

And I hear it in my mind, and scramble to find the full verse and reference. "For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are committed to him," and I grab it and trace the empty neck, and for today, this is enough.


Welcome! I've missed being here with you. Sorry. My Monday night college-level class that I'm teaching takes up much of my time, besides loving being a mom, wife, home schooling mom, and daughter to my dear family members. I think of you though, and am glad to be popping back in here today to greet you. How are you? How can I pray for you this week? (Feel free to comment here.) 

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The Lie that'll Ruin Your Sex Life

(This is the second post in the series, Let's Talk about Sex. The first is here.)

Photo Credit: Flickr user Milena Mihaylova, Creative Commons cc license

You've crept up to me quiet and said it in hushed voices. In conference hallways, outside workshop doors, or pulling me aside at retreats and MOPS groups, you've swiped hair back from your face, and bravely opened up.

"I know the stereotype is that men want sex more than women, but it's the opposite with us. He's not interested in sex any more. I'm the one always asking."  

or

"We haven't had sex in months, and I know it's important to guys, but I'm never in the mood. What should we do?"

And women --you with your eyes down, your face flushed, and your voice quiet and worried --I've loved your honesty, and you are not alone. I am so proud of you for voicing what is a concern to lots of people. In your courage, you stood up and broke the power of the lie.

And the lie that will ruin your sex life is this: "Nothing will change. It's no use talking about it."

Because the truth is far from this. Experts in the field assure married couples everywhere that sex can just keep getting better and better. Redbook magazine shocked themselves several years ago after compiling content from surveyed couples and individuals. Working from a non-biblical worldview, they gathered information from a variety of people's sex lives, and what they found surprised them. >> Married monogamous couples rated the highest in mutually-satisfying sex lives, with the most active sex lives, including the most frequent orgasms, and the highest-reported satisfaction in males and females.

And this shouldn't surprise us since sex was God's idea. He created it and us, and called it good. He sculpted male and female bodies beautifully, and purposely entwined nerve bundles and sensory organs that would trigger pleasure. Our Creator even devoted multiple sections in the Bible to talk openly about issues surrounding sex, giving guidelines for its best use, and desiring for it to be a gift, not a weapon or tool to cause damage. We have a God who talks bluntly and unblushingly about sexual intimacy.

Dr. Willard Harley, author of His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-proof Marriage, states: "Since men and women differ so greatly in the way they come to enjoy sex, no wonder we find so much sexual incompatibility in marriage. The key of communication unlocks the doors of ignorance and opens up to each couple the opportunity for sexual compatibility" (Harley, 52).

Because in truth, "...any marriage can have that sizzle!" affirms Harley, from the vantage point of years of counseling couples. His book then delves into some of the complexities of sexual intimacy that can be resolved with communication. For example,

 "Men experience sexual arousal and climax with relative ease. Precisely the opposite is true for the majority of women," states Harley. "...My counseling experience has shown me that even sexually-active women usually enter marriage having rarely experienced arousal or climax..."

"Husbands often enter marriage assuming their wives have far more sexual sophistication than they have. Because they don't want to appear naive or lacking in sexual prowess, some wives don't level with their husbands. Instead they act as though they truly experience sexual arousal or climax, when in fact they do not.... Many otherwise compatible couples fail to find sexual fulfillment due to their own ignorance or deception."

"As the bottom line, many husbands do without sex or exist on a very limited diet (in their opinion). The husband blames the wife, of course, but the real culprit is sexual incompatibility, which needs to be overcome through the efforts of both partners, not just the woman" (Harley, 52).

Dr. Ed Wheat, author of a great sex and marriage book entitled, Love Life for Every Married Couple: How to Fall in Love and Stay in Love spends several chapters pinpointing and solving various complexities in couples' sex lives. Addressing issues of past sexual abuse, flagging libido or desire, effective foreplay, the role that emotional issues play in a couple's physical life, and more, Wheat outlines the biological, psychological and physiological circuits of our desire, arousal, and climax stages. At each stage, he illuminates possible weak areas that would hinder the process, and then offers solutions for each break in the circuit. Wheat's book even raises awareness of which medicines may accidentally be affecting one's libido, and how to change that.

Feeling uncomfortable with all this talk of sex? You are not alone. Lots of people clam up at the topic of sex. But the truth is, "Any marriage can have that sizzle!" And my desire for you is a passionate married sex life, with confidence and sensitivity to each other.

Thoughts? Have any marriage or sex books that you've appreciated? Found this helpful? Please feel free to forward any of these posts onto friends or family, or to share them on facebook.

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Revised and reprinted from the archives in 2014. 
 

For When You Don't Feel Like You Fit and You Just Want to See the Cover

A cement mixer rumbles and churns on white-washed sidewalk. Grey rivulets swirl silver along the gutter. I step off the sidewalk, afraid of falling stone, and sidle beside trucks and cars parked out from the two-story metal scaffolding and men in hard hats, until I reach Spyhouse Coffee's entrance.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Neil Moralee, Creative Commons cc license

Photo Credit: Flickr user Adelie F. Annabel, Creative Commons cc license

A hot Honduran coffee scalds my tongue and condenses droplets beneath a plastic lid.

He had said it to me and you this weekend in a wooden chapel filled with four hundred squirelly middle schoolers and their coffee-toting leaders. Flashing photos on the screen of his little seventh grader self, and displaying an email from his seventh grade teacher who had found him just recently, youth speaker Cesar Castillejos spoke to you and me as he spoke to my teens too.

God will use everything in your life to make you who you are. Cesar spoke of growing up Filipino with a Latino name in a white suburban American school. He spoke of not feeling like he belonged; of divorce; of senior year basketball captainhood ruined by underage alcohol at a party; of a lifelong love of words; and of his seventh grade-heart's hope to help kids see their value and potential.

"Oftentimes we see the puzzle pieces of our lives, and we just want God to show us the cover," he said.

"I was praying for you," his seventh grade teacher told him in that recent email, and Cesar looks back with new eyes at his middle school and high school years.

God sees your puzzle pieces, my friend. He is shaping and molding all the circumstances and experiences in your life -- even the hard ones. He is crafting, cutting, and creating your passions, heart cry, and skills. Weaving in invisible people who pray for you and invest in you, God is at work. 

"Now, I get to speak to and teach teens, and preach at a church on Sunday nights, and do some writing too," Cesar said, smiling wide, and his heart for teens to hear the truth that they're valued and loved by the Creator of the world has been obvious in each chapel session all weekend.

God clicked Cesar's puzzle pieces into place throughout his life, creating beauty and purpose, and he is clicking your pieces into order too. 

At Spyhouse, I sip my Honduran coffee and notice the walls. "You changed the art," I crowed to the barista handing me change.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Clint McMahon, Creative Commons cc license

"Yeah, we do that every month or two," she said as I dropped my change into the blue jar.

Through double-wide open doors, warm October seventies air flows in, unscreened. Two coffee house employees grin and waddle past, hefting a large barrel container of flowers between them. Setting it on the sidewalk, they mark the boundary of their sidewalk terrace, while the cement mixer churns half a block away.

Spyhouse's street signage is not back up yet on the bare-faced stone building where mortar waits to be chinked, but progress is being made. Bare brown bricks stand two-stories tall with gaps for next week's mortar, and beauty remains.

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When You Find Yourself Red-Faced and Hot at the Woodfire

In between sticky smores, sandy swimsuits, and splashes in the crisp Mississippi River headwaters, it washed off: the weight of everyday life. Hamburger hobo stews wrapped in tin foil oozed steaming carrot and potato juices. We smelled of wood fires and mosquito repellent.

Hiking through bogs on wooden boardwalks, slapping mosquitoes, hypothesizing which "leaves of three" to avoid, we explored an Old Timer's cabin, whose round planks stacked four or five broad  pine trunks tall. Piling twelve-cousins onto a stool, the dusty sweaty kids laughed and made faces at the camera. I snapped furiously, trying to capture each smile and smirk.

After the 1930s cabin, half of us took a new winding curved route back to our cars. The path narrowed quickly, filled with slippery boulders and wet dirt in the shade, and crossed by garishly-twisted and snapped trees, felled in the storm a week earlier. Giant red and white pine trees trailed the ground, their splintered white insides gaping and exposed.

"This seems much longer than a mile," we panted, "Is it two?" We wondered if we had gotten lost on alternate hike paths. Eight year old Daniel and his short-legged five year old cousin huffed and panted alongside us, their small legs trekking a longer trail in proportion to us.

"You can do it! We're getting closer," I cheered them on. Swooped up into his dad's arms, my nephew laughed and gurgled as he bounced on his dad's shoulders. My brother-in-law put foot in front of the other and plodded on, his son's legs sticking out from his left shoulder, arms extended on the right.

Four adults and two children, we hiked in hot sunshine, passed ferns, carnivorous pitcher plants, and towering pines. A blue lake sheened in the heat just out of reach through the trees, and then we were at the end. In the parking lot, our small group grinned wearily, gulped cold water from a metal park spigot, and rejoined our extended family.

The week passed in beautiful rhythms. Loons warbled in the night, raccoons rustled and grunted as we lay in sleeping bags nearby,  and we tip-toed shy feet to bathroom breaks in the night, hoping to avoid bears. Early mornings brought hot coffee, scuffed muddy knees, and boy snacks by the dozen.

And somewhere in between the bonding and the kissing over the board games, words sliced fast. The fights are never about anything important, are they, these husband and wife disagreements? There were two ideas of how to cook chicken shish-kebabs, and multiple ways of expressing it. We bombed that. He said, she said, and then both of us were red-faced and hot at the wood fire.

Later in a patch of grass off to the side, we offered quiet apologies, explanations, defensive hurt feelings and hopes, but angry words splashed warm again. Walking away to wind down, we finished supper, speaking civilly to each other, but knowing that more effort was needed.

Behind a zippered tent, I prayed with my eight year old and pulled his sleeping bag and blankets high. "I love you, bud," I murmured close to his soft forehead, breathing in his scent and kissing him. We talked for a few minutes more and then I pulled out my Bible and scooted to a far corner of the tent to read silently nearby as he started to fall asleep.

My bookmark saved where I had left off, and I resumed reading with a shake of my head. "Very funny, God."

"Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of God dwell in you richly... (Colossians 3:15,16a)."

I could feel my heart softening and my breathing deepening. Unzipping the tent and slipping out, Mark and I found each other and talked, faces closer, apologizing, choosing soft tones, and starting over each time. We grinned and kissed again.

And I love that about marriage. Sometime it's like addictive smores over a woodfire and other times it's like a muggy hike through the woods that feels longer than you expected. At those times, our God can swoop down, whisk us up, and carry us until we get our second wind.


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Just After Hitting "Send" to God

"Nalia, look!"

I called her over and we both stared into the rumpled earth.

"I planted these last year and they hid under the snow all winter."

"What are they?" she asked in ten year old curiosity, as my seven year old Daniel peeked over her shoulder too.

Photo Credit: Flickr User: See-Ming Lee, Creative Commons, cc license

"They're parsnips; kind of like a white carrot," I laughed. Plunging my fingers deeper into cold spring soil, I traced dirt away from the white round vegetables in the ground.

Feathery green plumes marked each veggie treasure. I tugged and gently loosened them one plant at a time, before ripping them out of the ground. Black dirt crumbled and tumbled from the round tubulars and I laughed to see food and life burst from underground.

Because the truth was I had forgotten about them. Twelve months ago I had eagerly torn open the paper packet of seeds and stared in dismay at its contents.

"They're so tiny!"

Round brown flakes swirled and mounded inside the seed packet. Pouring a handful into my palm then, I had been afraid the seeds would blow away in a May breeze or be snatched up by cardinals and sparrows. Poking tiny finger holds into cool soil up to my knuckles, I slid one or two lightweight seeds inside, hoping at least several would grow.

Like a Bermuda Triangle in my garden, that corner of raised beds stayed stubbornly bare that spring, while Queen Ann sugar snap peas, Early Contender bush beans, and the butterfly-seedling life force of morning glory flowers had sashayed out of the ground.

In early summer, tall fern-like plants had stood up and crowded that corner of the garden, bowing heads conspiratorially, and I had hoped parsnips were fattening underground. Summer had swelled, crescendoed, and abated. Autumn's trees had dropped reds and yellows that crumpled into browns and tangled in the parsnip greens.

"Parsnips are better after several frosts," I told Mark as we peered out the living room windows in November and December. Snows fell.

This week, the soil warmed and ready, my red tulips bobbing in the breeze, I walked barefoot to my garden and tugged curiously on a parsnip's green top. Wiggling, prying, I pulled up a plump white parsnip.

"Nalia, come see!"

A small mountain of white parsnips mound up on my patio table now, the rain washing them nicely for me. And the parsnips suddenly remind me of my prayers.

Like tiny tremulous seeds I shake out and hold in small hands, they feel so paltry to the task. I plant them and wait, and time seems to slow some days. There are days when I wonder what will grow to fill that space. And as I wait, wonder, and trust the Grower's instructions, seasons pass. 

Life unfolds beneath the surface. In the dark, treasures swell and mature. In the time I've forgotten them, God hasn't. They are sweetening, ripening, growing better by the day. It's in the frost that kills and in winter's long nights that the parsnips grow the sweetest.

After winter's thaw, petite purple crocuses and grape-like hyacinth clusters mark the passing time. Greenery emerges new life from the parsnips corner and I'm suddenly reminded of prayers and plantings from a year ago.

Crouching to my knees, I dig and pull, finding the treasures God has been growing all along.

What's Sidling Up Behind You?

The worry's been creeping in again.

Hunched over a library computer today in between carpool trips, I scrolled website pages, scribbled notes, and slipped into anxiety. I don't know about you but for me it can masquerade as proactiveness or "being prepared," yet the truth is more subtle. It's about control.

Photo Credit: Flickr user, DeSales University, Creative Commons cc license

Earlier, in between lunch and carpooling teens, I scrounged up my green corduroy shoes and headed out to the backyard. Above-high temperatures of sixty degrees in a Minnesota spring has left an entire state giddy. Crouching beside cedar mulch flowerbeds, I brushed brown soil off spiky green and white variegated crocus plants, their growth a gift in slow motion. Giant purple crocus blossoms will be next. Three chunky daffodil or tulip plants poked nubby green heads from behind an oregano plant, and my fingertips brushed them excitedly.

Sliding long metal pruning sheers from their plastic sheath, I sliced and crunched out last year's dead branches, making room for spring's new growth. Beneath a cascade of rumpled crisp leaves, I spied them: small round purple and olive-colored oregano leaves unfurled in the warm sun. Crushing the herb in my fingers, I raised my hand to smell the heady fragrance.

Several hours later, back from the carpooled class trip and the library research, I'm feeling out of sorts, grumpy, and unsettled. Do emotions hit you that way too? Sidling up from the rear, they are faceless and vague. I'm often unaware of their effect until I sense it in my shoulders or recognize it finally in the quiet tumult inside me.

Relaxing my shoulders, rounding them up and back in circles, I capture my thoughts too, which have been spiraling unnoticed inside. Images flash in my mind of the nubby new life sticking out of the ground. Growing taller each day, the sight of them brings bubbly joy to me because I know the beauty they pack. Brilliant purples, magentas, crimsons, creams, yellows, and oranges are folded just out of reach within clumpy green budding plants or hidden still under ground. I know they are coming, though.

Life surges. Beauty awaits. New growth hovers, and you have to linger to see them fully.

And these truths about our Artist God's ability and character crackle away last year's brush from within me too. Hope and peace sink in, and I repeat the truths of who he is. Remembering that changes take time, I'm eager to see what he's growing in me. And what he's growing in you.


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Of Oil Swirls and the Painter's Canvases

Remnants of Korean Steak Wraps spread sesame oil and soy sauce in brown swirls beside romaine lettuce leaves on two plates still on the table. Minced garlic and ginger hang fragrant in the air.

Photo: Megan Myers, Creative Commons cc license

My husband's voice slips out from seven year old Daniel's bedroom, reading a bedtime story aloud. Daniel sniffs and coughs, reaching for his handkerchief, a re-purposed cloth napkin.

"Mom, what makes colds go away fast?" he asked wearily a few minutes ago. 

"Sleep, buddy. Lots of sleep. Let's have you go to bed early, okay?"

He's brushing his teeth now, and a sentence from my daughter's AP Drawing class has been running through my mind this evening.

"Create an entrance to the picture for the eyes to travel to the subject," states her Art Principles handout. "The eye should travel in a circuit from the subject to the secondary subjects before leaving the painting. Do not place an obstacle in the picture which prevents the eye from going beyond it." 

And it's funny to have an art concept speak wisdom into my life, but I can sense a deeper truth from it in relation to my walk with God. This concept that I want the observer's eye to scroll right to the subject is something that reverberates truth in me. I desire for people glancing in my life to find their eyes directed to the beauty of Jesus. 

So, Morgan's art principle is on repeat in my brain, and I find myself reviewing all aspects of my life. In my attitudes, am I pointing viewers to the beauty and transformative power of my God? In my stories and the words that I choose to describe my life, my marriage, my family, and my sin struggles, am I pointing to God's restorative grace and his unstoppable love?

Just like a painter or a sculptor chooses what to paint, where to highlight, and what to bring the eye to, I choose how I perceive and receive my world and attitudes. This color-swirled, majestic canvas of our lives is a gift and masterpiece still being finished by the Master Artist. I desire to have each curving Van Gogh-like flourish draw the eyes to our Artist God.

It reminds me of a verse I've been thinking about this week from my Bible reading in 2 Corinthians chapter 6. Paul is writing a letter to some believers and he says, "We put no stumbling block in anyone's path so that our ministry will not be discredited."

It reminds me of the art principle about placing no obstacle in the picture which prevents the eye from moving on. Then Paul racks up a seventeen-item list about all the ways he and his co-workers are striving to make right choices, but he ends with this thought: "We have spoken freely to you and opened wide our hearts to you."

And I think this is the way we draw the viewer's eyes to the Subject each time. We speak freely, striving honestly to have clean hands but admitting when we've stumbled, and we point always to the beautiful work of the Artist God in us. He gets all the credit. 

And we open wide our hearts to you. Thank you, friend, for this online or email friendship, for this pointing to the Artist God together. I appreciate you and would love to get to know you more.

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One Fraction of a Moment is All We Get to Decide...

And you can say what you want, but it all comes down to one split second....

One fraction of a moment is all you get to decide. Speak or not? Respond harshly or not? Rise up defensively or seek reconciliation? Click or don't click?

Photo: David Melchor Diaz, Creative Commons, cc license

Despite our values, our faith, our hard-fought-for beliefs, it can all boil down to one split second. Do I obey God here or not?

This week our house has been a hill of skirmishes. Battles bloodied, hearts gashed, words tearing.

In between the beautiful and warm moments have been the heart-aching, sharp-tongued ones too. How can our hearts and mouths encompass so much emotion?

In several relationships, we've been scrambling up hills, muddy-kneed, chiseled-hearted to fight anew for us, for each other. Each inch of victory is chosen, prayed for, and battled towards with deliberately-soft hearts, humble spirits, and apologies-in-hand. "I'm sorry."

"Me too."

"Can we start over?"

And lost ground is gained one word at a time. 

It all comes down to a split second. One fraction of a moment is all we get to decide.

Do I obey here or not?

After several days of choosing wrongly, this afternoon when the moment came, I paused, weighed my options, wavered, and then obeyed.

Joy came. I walked away, turned on rocking music, and the joy of obedience crashed in hard.


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Your Bold Audacious Hope

"I wonder if he's still here," I told Morgan as we ducked our heads low, dodging rainfall across the parking lot. Inside Dunn Brothers, an espresso machine hissed and whirred, while baristas tamp-tamped old coffee grounds from metal filters.

Photo: Petteri Sulonen, Creative Commons, cc license

"No, he's gone," I noticed, seeing someone else at the table where my dad and I had sat twenty minutes earlier. "We had such a nice time," I exclaimed as Morgan carried her blueberry muffin upstairs to the loft. "I like my dad."

Spreading books and notebooks across our customary round table in the corner, Morgan filled in rows of boxes with Chinese characters for the words: mom, dad, brother, and sister. I sat in thought for a moment.

My dad and I are similar: loving foreign cultures, languages, coffee, and learning. He had slid a bag of Turkish coffee across the table to me earlier, knowing my cache was gone.

 "Thanks, Dad. What do I owe you?"

"No, it's my gift to you."

"Are you sure? I can pay you back."

"No, no, it's my gift," he said, and our talk turned to other matters.

An hour and a half later as I left to pick up Morgan from her class, my dad had sat back down at our booth in conversation with the Spanish gentleman beside him. They were discussing the man's Portuguese language book there on the table and talking about cities in Brazil.

Indoors again now with Morgan, I cup hands around my tall refill of Colombian dark roast coffee, shivering from the damp walk in through the rain. Morgan and I tear off chunky sugar-topped bites of her blueberry muffin, and I pull my Bible near. Silence slips in and God's word sinks verses deep into my heart and mind. Paul's writing to the Corinthian church describes the new way of doing life through a ministry of the Spirit of God. This new life through Jesus gives humans a restored relationship with the Creator of the Universe.

"Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold."

"...And we.... are being transformed into [God's] likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."

"Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart."

As you and I spend time with our Heavenly Dad, he is transforming us to look like him. And in these ministries he has gifted us with --  be it your marriage, your family, your job, your writing, speaking, teaching, your Art, your passion, your ministry-- you can be very bold! Have hope and do not lose heart.

"Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart."

The espresso machine whirs and hisses again, and the sky is grey and cool. But you? You're looking more and more like your Dad. Be bold. 


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Your Bedouin Invitation

There are suitcases straddling the couch and sleeping bags coiled beside them.

Photo: Charles Roffey, Creative Commons, cc license

Photo: Kashfi Halford, Creative Commons, cc license

"Do you think it'll be cold?" I ask, grabbing a blue plaid shirt. There are replies from across the house. "We can always layer more, I guess."

Phone calls come and go from teens, parents, leaders, and the camp speaker as Mark and I finish a board game with Daniel and take turns packing.

Sixty-six of us are driving three hours northwest of here this weekend for a youth group fall retreat. There is a van crammed with food, a bus filled to capacity with students eleven to nineteen years old, several other vehicles, and a slew of cheerful leaders looking forward to connecting with our teens. I can't wait.

In a lull of packing and details, I grab my Bible and journal and curl up beside the kitchen table. In between the cell texts and checklists, I want to meet with God. I'm reminded of a story in the Old Testament during the ancient time of Moses and the Israelites. The nomadic group of two million former slaves were fleeing their old life in Egypt and encountering the God of their ancestors, who was wooing them in Red Sea crossings, food from the sky, glowing firewalls, and other miracles.

The Jewish desert tribes were learning about their Creator, and remembering how to worship and follow him. At the edge of the campground, Moses did something fascinating. Setting up a tent, he called it the Tent of Meeting, saying that anyone wanting to talk with God could enter.

What grabs my attention today is that the text doesn't tell us if people went into the tent. I imagine -- I hope-- they did, but it doesn't tell us. I know that on other days, the desert Jewish bedouins pleaded with Moses, "YOU go inquire of God," and they hung back.  

My prayer this weekend is that we would meet with the God of the world in life-changing ways.  I know that we can create the setting and make the plans, but encountering God is something that happens when we are willing to step in.

Like the Bedouin outside the desert Tent of Meeting, Lord, I want to step into intentional times of meeting with you, of worshiping you, of getting to know you, and of hearing from you. I want that for myself, for my teens and leaders at camp, and for my online sisters and brothers here too. 

And at the kitchen table with my Bible, journal, and pen, it can start now. I confess that all too often I see the invitation and yet walk away, assuming I'll come back later. Not today. Right now, I'm stepping in, choosing quiet, and slipping into the tent. Join me?

What the Engagement Books Never Tell You

Our words hung in the air, awkward and heavy. With anger and hurt on both sides, there was no easy fix.

Photo: Ed Yourdon, Creative Commons, cc license

"I have to go. Morgan needs to get to class."

The drive is quiet, somber; a respectful honor in the silence.

Beside a sunny library window, I text words of apology and await his. I journal and rant for several pages before asking God to soften me, to soften my husband, and to bring peace. Help me, God, to choose my words, to use them well, to seek appropriate times for deeper discussions, and to do them honoringly? Erase my anger and his.

We bought a new bed several years ago, my husband and I. Constructed with a layer of memory-foam on top, the bed is designed to conform to your body, offering optimum support. Two years later, we see now that the mattress tells a story of who sleeps where. Here is his side, here is mine, and in between a raised ridge where weight and time don't dwell there as long.

He pulls me near in these cool autumn nights, and in the still-dark mornings, into this middle ground on the bed. And I grin and nestle closer, feeling his chest strong against my back. We move in sleepy familiarity into the spoon-cuddle mode. He moves forward, pulling me next to him, and I wriggle backwards, dipping under his chin. While I pull my long hair high on the pillow, he slides the edge of the pillowcase across my neck, hiding any ticklish hairs, and we sigh. Our breathing slows, matches inhalation lengths, exhaling together.

And perhaps this is how a marriage lasts long? Pushing down any walls that creep between us, asking God's help to soften our hearts, and curling up in syncopated breathing.