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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On the Dark Nights When You are Counting Days and Remembering

It is three weeks ago today that I last talked with my Dad, last heard him speak back. That day blurs into that night, and then it was Friday 2:08 am and he was gone.

My sister, mom, and I had tracked the evening hours on a paper chart, slipping in soluble morphine and attavan pills between Dad's drying lips, moistening them with a little blue sponge.

"Dad, can I give you some more medicine?" I had asked respectfully, as the hours passed and his sleepiness mounted. His words lessened, and his moments of lucidity stretched further apart.

Pain rippled across his face, and I gripped his hand. "The morphine will help, Dad. It should kick in really soon."

Friends had driven on dark country roads after rush-hour traffic to stop in and greet him. Dad recognized them and opened his eyes briefly. They stood tall and uncertain beside his bed, searching for a special hymn's lyrics on their phone before starting in, their voices strong and speaking truth.

"God sent his son, they called him Jesus. He came to love, heal, and forgive. He lived and died to buy my pardon, an empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives."

My dad heard and moved his head, faintly singing along, these truths he has built his life and joy on. My mom, sister, and I joined in, my voice cracking in emotion

"Because he lives, I can face tomorrow, because he lives, all fear is gone." I swallowed, "...because I know he holds the future, and life is worth the living just because he lives."

Dad's two friends sang on, swiping tiny lyrics higher on a touch-screen phone, both men squinting to see in the dim lamp-lit room.

I stopped singing as I saw Dad wince and reach towards his neck and shoulder, then fumble in his side pocket where the meds usually were. Checking the clock, I saw we were close. "Here, Dad. It's time for your next dose."

His friends finished the song, and we stepped out to give them privacy as they said good-bye. Nurses had said my Dad was in his last days, and the minutes drizzled away.

In dignity and strength, my Dad lived. In dignity and strength, my Dad died.

We have seen God's sweet kindnesses taking care of us each day. We have felt the tangible love of friends and family near and far, who have dropped off meals, mailed cards, helped in countless ways, and walked beside us.

We stood tall at Dad's funerals, so proud to be associated with him, nodding and smiling in joyful pride at the stories friends and colleagues told of him. I gripped podiums tight and spoke in tremulous pride, shuffling papers and describing African night skies. Three special songs rippled out harmonies that explained my Mom and Dad.

I'm finding that grief looks like efficient hours of phone calls and business letters as we confirm the death of a dad.

Grief looks like driving in silence and twice pulling into the driveway with the gas light blinking orange. It looks like staring numbly, moving slowly, and blankly wondering what project I was in the middle of.

Grief feels heavy, makes me exhausted at three pm, and leaves me ready for bed at nine-thirty. Grief for me looks like tears and sobs the first week and a half, and an inexplicable feeling of being "too sad to cry" this week. Time stretches long, and has it only been three weeks? Yet it feels so long since I've talked to my Dad.

"This is the first class I've taught that I didn't talk about with my Dad," I told Mark Monday night as I drove away to teach my college-level Village Schools of the Bible Cover to Cover Bible Survey class. Grief slid down my shoulders to my back. I pictured talks on the back porch with my Dad, and our love for God's word.

My mom and I had a girls' sleepover last night at my parents' house, both of us pulling our Bibles closer. She spoke out verses from Romans chapter five about God gently, beautifully, wielding sorrow to craft beauty and character in us. I scrawled G2 pens fast across notebook paper and talked about the tender love of God who longs to walk beside his people, helping them know him intimately.

I spoke it aloud three weeks ago today, (Thursday morning, October 26th), sitting cross-legged on my Dad's bed, hugging him in a period of his pain, and breathing out any words that were truth and that would offer hope for both of us.

"The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. 
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. 
The precepts of the Lord are perfect, giving joy to the heart. 
The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. 
The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. 
The ordinances of the Lord are sure, and altogether righteous. 
They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold. 
They are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb..." 

We had studied them together earlier that autumn, and now they were the only truth I could grab while he was in pain. I alternated between singing songs to him, praying for him, speaking God's words, and hugging him, or rubbing his back.

In between two dear friends leaving, two pastors arriving, a phone call to hospice triage, and several of us there, I wrapped my arms around my Dad gently, his body so frail and easily broken at the end. I kissed his whiskery face, told him I loved him, and grabbed the only truths I knew.

And I grab them now, and know that God's heart can be trusted.

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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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Transfused Strength, Vitality, and an Unshakable Force for All Your Rough Roads Ahead

It was right past the homeless man with the guitar, and I loved that he was jiving and rocking along to the music. Our homeless gifts bags slid around on the floor at my feet, and I can't remember if we were able to give him one that day or if the intersection light turned green and we had to swing away, a long line of cars behind pressing us to move.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Hal Dick, Creative Commons cc license

The orange square sign announced it. Black words on tangerine background stating the truth that has already been shaking my world. Rough Road Ahead, and you can see it coming, know that it's coming, but there's still nothing like crossing the smooth-sailing calm traverse you've been on to bump into the rock and gravel of the rough road ahead.

And we can see that sign ahead, and know it's coming, even in the midst of our service to others, and loving service to family.

The secret that I've seen, may I spill it to you? Because I've been watching and spying and seeing it ripple out. The secret that I've seen reverberate, rippling out peace, beauty, calm despite unrest, and joy wrapped in deep pain, has been rooted in this.

I've seen it scrawled on paper across kitchen tables, beside the coffee mugs and bobbing purple orchid blooms. I've heard it in soft voices from across round church tables, and in quiet homes with stuffed couches and armchairs. I've seen grown men crying in handsome dignity and seen it written across their faces.

The power and strength to traverse any rough road ahead is written in ancient ink from the Word-God himself. This word that gives light to the eyes, joy to the heart, makes wise the simple, revives the soul and renews us daily is an unstoppable force and available to us all.

I've seen God's words in the Bible transfuse strength and comfort as a woman traces the well-worn pages with silk-skin fingertips after hours of yard-work and a life poured out for others. I've spied out weary-worn men and women who rise in unnoticed silence and grab fiercely to the Rock that sustains them and gives them truth, and again and again I see them grab onto God's word.

It is active, alive, vibrant, life-changing, sustaining, and transformational.

I have been immersing myself in the Bible's pages especially this summer as I prepare to teach with Village School of the Bible's Cover to Cover immersive Bible survey classes this year.

There is still time to join us! I'll be teaching Mondays from 6:45 to 8:45 pm at Living Faith Church in Blaine/Circle Pines, Minnesota, starting August 21st. (If you live anywhere near the Twin Cities suburbs, you are welcome to join us. Feel free to invite family and friends.)

Register by calling Trish at VSB at 952-540-9460 or email: trish@villageschoolsofthebible.org.   Cost is $129 and scholarships are available. You are welcome to even just visit the first night and see what you think. 

Here is a testimonial from a mom and her daughter who went through the study together.

Join me?


P.S.
Want to hear a powerful sermon by my Dad, Bruce Pinke, sharing the Six Truths he's learning through suffering as he is dying from stage IV cancer? It is encouraging, beautiful, and God-honoring. Listen here.

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What Cowlicks and Warriors Would Tell You about Living Well

The fir tree has a cowlick. Spouting out from conical symmetry is a two-foot-long branch, and I want to snip it each time I see it, but it's twenty feet up and in my neighbor's yard. The branch points north to my neighbor's front yard where at night Orion the Warrior is tangled in a tree.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Erica Franck, Creative Commons cc license

One month into my Dad's stage IV terminal cancer diagnosis, and I find myself scrolling websites, scrawling notes at doctors' appointments, and counting calendar months. Chest tight some mornings, I pull my Bible closer while Daniel sits beside me untangling addition problems, and I wonder about subtractions.

Yesterday we took a break from math and phonics to refill bird feeders. Charcoal-colored sunflower seeds spilled dusty from the bag, whooshing against my fingers on cold metal frame. I sliced old juicy oranges into halves for the orioles. Crushed citrus a fragrance on my skin. Daniel and I placed vivid orange slices between lines of drizzled seeds on the deck railing, then slipped back inside to watch the birds come. Black-capped chickadees soared tremulously close, skittish but hopeful.

And I remember it, recounting the ways that God has tenderly laid bread crumb trails of hope and wonder for me this spring, long before I even knew I would need them. I line them up in my mind, and shake my head in gentle wonder. He is so good. In January, I stepped out and chose my very first Word of the Year --Brave --thinking I meant it to be moving more boldly into my writing and speaking ministries. God knew of Dad's impending cancer, though, and kindly tucked the word inside me. Earlier, in November Mark and I co-taught a sermon at our church, stating that joyful thanks-giving is always possible, even in the darkest nights. We mentioned our daughter's young cancer scare when she was five years old, and other crises over the years. Meanwhile my Dad's cancer grew in silence. The breadcrumbs continue in my mind, and I see it clearly, God's loving trail for me.

Pulling my Bible nearer, I pause to answer Daniel's math question before sinking deeper into God's words. "I have put my words in your mouth and covered you with the shadow of my hand," his book tells me, and I lean into that.

"Mom, I listened to Grandpa's song a lot yesterday," my tall twenty-one year old said quietly to me. Jeremy Camp's song "Reckless" has become my dad's mantra these months. He air drums away to it, nodding his head.

"Can we play it again?" my Dad says softly. "I'm not afraid to die. I know where I'm going," he smiles. Jeremy Camp sings about wanting to love and live recklessly, boldly, because of Jesus's love for us.

"I want to die well," my Dad says, thinking of a Henri Nouwen quote. He and Mom have been sharing their stories of God's rescues and passionate love all the more boldly now to the people they meet.

Outside my window, I can see it, the fir tree with a cowlick. Beyond the Warrior Orion hangs the Big Dipper constellation.

"If you're ever lost and need to find north," my Dad had taught me, "follow the mouth of the Big Dipper. It will pour out into the North Star."

And now it changes how I see the cowlick. It's directing me to a poured out life that always points me home.

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Living Two-Handed and Two-Faced

"Where's the video on college dorms?" she asked.

We clicked computer screens until the welcome week college video started playing. Smiling faces toured the university campus, music pulsed, and Morgan and I watched footage of dorm room move-ins and bunk bed assembly. Joy welled in me, and I thumped her back.

"I'm so excited for you!"

"Me too!"

Her long ponytail trailed her back and we sat in chairs pulled close to my desk. Music throbbed and the short film ended. We laughed to see that we were both wiping away excited tears.

Photo Credit: Flickr user COD Newsroom, Creative Commons, cc license

"I think it's the video," she stated.

"Well, I'm just so happy for you," I exclaimed.

She stood up, her enrollment deposit paid, the move-in date now written on our calendar. Bouncing downstairs, she was gone and the kitchen was silent.

I've been learning this week the dual truth that joy and grief can be simultaneous. Nine days ago, sad family news stopped my world. Since then we have walked numbly to doctors' offices, pens scrawling notes in solemn vigil. We have scrolled medical websites, estimated timelines, and stared silently into space.

And he said it once, a wise friend of ours, "We rejoice with those who rejoice and we mourn with those who mourn, and sometimes we do it back to back."

I am learning this week what it is to hold grief in one hand while navigating life with the other. In wanting to live transparently, I have been sharing our family news in occasional prayer emails and to friends in person, crying against their shoulders. But I also see the need to interact and to be present with sensitivity to a variety of settings. At Wednesday night youth group, junior high teens bounced energy as we played zany games of Pictionary Telephone and Four on a Couch. Their joy was evident and legitimate. Seeing their sweet faces that are so loved by God and us, I looked deep into their eyes and chose to be present, to be there, to be playful with them.

And we can hold grief and zany laughter in one body. I am learning this surreal and complicated reality: that joy and grief can co-habitate and that I hold them in honest hands before me.

I can mourn. I can rejoice. And I'm trying to honestly, transparently, let myself hold them in two hands, in two faces, back to back.

Photo Credit: Flickr user johnjodeery, Creative Commons, cc license

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Watching You

I've watched you.

You smoothing tablecloths across MOPS tables with your kids latched on to a leg or perched on your right hip. You carrying egg bakes in one hand and round-faced, red-cheeked toddlers in the other, welcoming new moms with warm smiles.

Photo Credit:Flickr user Elvis Kennedy, under permission of Creative Commons cc license

I've watched you in church hallways, in doctor's offices, in YMCA lobbies, and in homes full of loved ones. You as you stare deep into the fridge and whip up a meal from what's there for your hungry crew. You who trade words in gentle authoritative reply to your growing willowy kids' attitude. You who smooth small foreheads and care for older parents, who help with homework, and who tame a wild home.

Sleeting ice balls pelt the dark bedroom windows one morning this week, waking us before six a.m. slumber pulled us under again.

Snow flakes fall silently later as Daniel and I sound out phonics and read stories of dogs and bugs and logs. All week, we've slipped across frozen boot-treads in the ice that look like trilobites in the driveway.

After the joy of meeting moms at Waconia MOPS January 27th, at Sauk Rapids Moms-Next on February 2nd, Woodbury Lutheran Church MOPS on February 6th, and Salem Covenant Church MOPS Friday, I relished times at home with my family too.

Daniel sniffed. Blowing his nose into a white and blue handkerchief, he pulled the math book closer. At the sunny cherrywood table, I stretched legs out and sipped hot coffee.

Oily pots stacked high in the sink behind me. Yellow curried bowls stood in cock-eyed slant, resting one on top the other, shifting dangerously atop four plates. A metal cookie sheet took up most of the counter, and silverware splayed out greasy. Whew. Life can pile up so quickly, huh?

I turned my back on the kitchen, though, lifted coffee to my lips again and rubbed Daniel's tiny shoulders.

"It's nice to be back by you, bud. I'm glad to be home."

Mom, dads, grandmas, grandpas, friends? Your presence matters.

I know the dishes and laundry are piling up. (Don't even ask about the black swimsuit bottoms that doubled as underwear this week. The skinny black bows bulged under each jean hip pocket.)

For now, snuggle in. Take a moment longer, listen a few minutes more to the complicated Lego story  by the breathless boy beside you. Stop all else. Lean in. Savor.

When the snow stopped, school was done and Daniel was playing in another room. Clearing the sink, I lifted the metal faucet and hot water swirled in steaming. Bubbles shone iridescent. Music pulsed behind me, and I scrubbed, wiped, and restored order to my counters and kitchen.

Beef stew bubbled nearby, carrots and onions tumbling past celery. Turning it to simmer, I stole up behind my man and wrapped arms around his neck. Heads touching, we stood quiet, his face warm against mine.

"Thank you, God, for these people in my life, for moments to pause and see. Thank you for the beauty of watching people in all seasons of life lift and love, smooth and savor, bend and bring order." 

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What Marbles and Ice Slip Significant into our Lives Tonight

"Every year I take one out," he says.

He describes a glass jar of marbles that hulks on a corner of his desk. He is professional, efficient, an accomplished businessman, and his words have stuck in my brain ever since.

"I set up the jar, estimated how many years an average person lives, and now every January, I take one marble out."

Photo credit: Flickr user Sally, Creative Commons, cc license

Marbles catch the light and diminish slowly in the jar on his desk, and his meaning sinks in.

"I wanted to remember how fast life flies by and to make sure to live fully."

His exact words are fuzzy to me now, but the image still reverberates.

Weeks, months, years trickle through our fingers and leave only memories. Our children's heads race closer to our foreheads and then flash by. Ankles flash pink skin cold in winter growth spurts, and I peek into my garage for the purple plastic bin of Daniel's next size clothes. Morgan brings home a brand new college identity card, grinning cheeky at her row of color-coordinated gel pens and bulging pack of binders.

We carve calendar dates for two graduations this spring, and both John and Morgan step into their last semesters. They each organize their rooms and start packing. Morgan dreams of college dorm-room decor and spies out small sets of kitchenware. John boxes up childhood mementos, making room for another carton of wedding supplies, and brainstorms apartments for the summer.

And your children too, are stretching taller by the week, their shoes and jeans shrinking by the month, and how do you slow down time?

Our marbles diminish so subtly, so silently, that I look and am surprised to do the math and see where I am today. You too?

Our words matter. Our minutes are priceless. As cells stretch, divide, and stretch again, the loved ones in our life grow taller, older, and seasons flash by. 

Snow melts here in Minnesota today. Last week's arctic chill now slips grated snow through my black metal patio table, shredding ice into stalactites below.

I crunch out to my compost bin this afternoon before supper, scowling at the rabbit tracks, and trying to halt their entry into my yard. I'm comfortable without a winter jacket and the snow crunches and melts underfoot.

The cold had seemed so impenetrable and now snow shrinks by the hour. Tomorrow and Thursday are supposed to be warm as well.

And the snow disappears from my deck.

"Mom, will you play a game with me?" Daniel asks, his tousled hair still standing up in the back despite each day's water.

"Sure, bud. Let's play."

Throughout the night, I sneak down to hug my two oldest kids who are cramming homework.

"I love you so much." The words fall naturally as I reach up to hug them, leaning my head against their chins.

Take a marble with me, my friends. The snow has melted even more since supper and I don't want to miss a moment.

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This is When It Strikes You Most

In the whispering crack of my door opening, I wake and feel him tiptoe near.

"Mom?" he asks and I know.

"I'll be right there."

Photo Credit: Flickr user Daniel Gies, Creative Commons, cc license

He pads away, hands out to navigate the dark room and hallway. I hear his door open and shut across the corridor. Wrapping myself in my blue African cloth, I maneuver the bed, the laundry pile, and into my eight year old's room.

"What's up, bud?" I crouch and sit down beside his low bed.

"My cousin, Ben, you know?"

I nod sleepily.

"My cousin, Ben, and me, we were at Grandma and Grandpa's house in their yard, and there was a big snake -- a black cobra. And he got Ben!"

I rest my hand on Daniel's chest. His heart, still fluttering and hammering against bone and skin, bounces under my palm.

"I'm sorry, bud. Dreams can be scary." Smoothing his hair, I stroke his cheek and feel his breathing slow. "Should we talk to God?"

He nods vigorously in the dark.

"Want me to, or you?"

"I will," he says and he starts immediately. "God, I'm scared. Will you help me? Will you help me not be scared? Thanks.

"Mom? Will you sing a song?" he asks, a quiet voice rising up from the blue and pink Piglet pillow in the dark.

"Sure," and I wrack my brain to be awake, to find helpful words and this is when it strikes you most. Need to know What you Know that you Know? Ask a sleepy brain to spout truth. What bubbles up is what you have become convinced of, what has become ingrained in your bones, what pounds in fluttered rhythm with your heart. A verse come, its reference forgotten but its truth burnished in dark bedroom from constant use. "When I am afraid, I will trust in you." The words ring out, the refuge is clear, and I say it again, then move into the next.

"I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you, oh God, are with me. I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you, oh God, are with me, Psalm 4:8, Psalm 4:8, Psalm 4:8." And even the reference is part of the song lyrics we made up years ago in an effort to imprint these truths in our hearts, in our beings.

There were two other songs we sang, childlike and simple, yet with truths that have become bedrock and bone to us. "God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, he's so good to us. He gives good things, he gives good things, he gives good things, he's so good to us." We end with "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so; little ones to him belong, we are weak but he is strong." 

"Thanks, Mom," he murmurs and I can hear the peace in his voice, the thick tiredness creeping in. I kiss his face, trail my fingers on his quiet chest, and pull the door shut behind me.

Slipping beneath my blanket, I lie awake. The minutes stretch to hours in this new forty-something season. My brain flips topics and writes To Do Lists, making mental notes for morning. I think of the college applications my daughter has been doing (some colleges looming distant); remember this week's presidential debates; ponder futures, and I feel my own heart start to flutter faster.

And like my son, I whisper to the God of the world, "When I am afraid, I will trust in you... I will lie down and sleep in peace for you, oh God, are with me." A story and passage teases my mind from earlier and I vow to look it up. Today over coffee, I page to find it and smile in recognition. An ancient world leader in crisis speaks it out and his words are timeless: "[God], we do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you." 

And those truths settle deep beneath our ribs, bubbling up when bidden and shaping who we are.

Hi friend. What truths or foundational verses bubble up inside you? I love to learn and hear from others. 

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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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Of Parties, Time Capsules, and Choosing Your Trajectory

The party was tonight. It was the Dougan Leap Year Doughnut Party.

Peering into the doughnut case this afternoon, we nabbed two glazed ones, two white frosted sprinkled ones, and one filled with raspberry jelly. On the way home, Morgan and I laughed and talked, with me purposefully reigning in my own expectations.

Photo: Christine Rondeau, Creative Commons, cc license

Upstairs around the dining room table, the five of us clambered into chairs. Two plastic cases of strawberries and blueberries sprawled open invitingly, and the five doughnuts gleamed beneath a translucent panel in the cardboard box.

Cracking jokes and tossing berries into our mouths, we stopped to pray, and then we began. Two slim paper envelopes held our attention, and I slid my finger under the seals, drawing out multiple sheets of paper.

"Morgan, here's yours from 2008. John, yours."

"Look at how small our writing was then!"

"I only wrote three lines!" another exclaimed. "Here's a drawing I did," she pointed, laughing.

"Who wants to read theirs first?" I asked.

One by one, we took turns reading our handwriting from eight years ago. In childish print, we heard echos of their younger voices pour off the page.

"Here are your 2012 letters," I said, handing across folded handwritten sheets of paper. "For Morgan only" one of them read in green ink pen. They reached out eagerly, unfolding longer notes written from themselves just four years earlier, and silence dropped in the dining room. Daniel shuffled uneasily.

"Where's mine?" he asked.

"You were only three years old then, but here is a photo of you from then," I replied, unwrapping the accompanying photos, creased from four years in an envelope.

I confess I've been looking forward to this day for years and months! Unwrapping paper, we got to unwrap our lives from eight and four years ago. In time capsule format, we peeked back into who we were four years ago, seeing how we've changed and how we've stayed the same. 

Taking turns, my kids read their letters aloud, their younger selves asking their older selves questions about what life is like now, casting imaginative questions from the past. "Do you have your own car? Are you living in your own house?" a twelve year old John asked his twenty year old self, and we laughed at what a third year college student's life really looks like.

And then my favorite part began: a reflective silence fell as everybody grabbed pens and sheets of paper. Writing from 2016, they talked to their 2020 self, presenting life from this angle and wondering about life four years in the future.

Scribbling messy black words across blue lined paper, I wrote my own letter, summing up the last four years, and speculating about the next four. And it couldn't fail to hit me. My choices now affect who I am then, and my mood turned more introspective as I continued to write. 

Who are you now? Who do you want to be in 2020? And those answers start your trajectories... 


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Parenting Adult Kids: Navigating Life Alongside Them

He said it straight up, this truth I had been feeling deep down too.

Sitting in chairs pulled up close enough for our legs and knees to touch, we sat across from each other for maximum eye contact. And the prolonged eye contact had been stacking up, my neck tingling deliciously, our eyes flashing at each other, and his voice husky and flirting. We had been alternating between laughter and serious conversations that assessed and reviewed our relationship.

Photo: Flickr user Seif Alaya, Creative Commons cc license

Suddenly my husband's eyes turned reflective and his voice signaled a new paragraph, away from the marriage retreat material.

"You know, you need to be careful with the way you...," and he described an interaction between me and our seventeen year old daughter.

"You're right. I was thinking that late last night too," I agreed, and we sat silent in a conference room filled with twelve to thirteen murmuring couples.

"I'll talk with her and apologize for coming off so intense," I mused. Mark and I grinned, flashing eyes at each other again, and he made a joke, raising his eyebrows at me. I shifted my legs closer to him and we read the next marriage discussion question aloud. Peace and determination settled deep into heart crevices inside me.

Traversing life's many choices with our adult and near-adult children is something I'm learning as I go. Standing up on tip-toes to hug my almost-twenty-one year old son and my willowy high school daughter, I can sense this deepening gap between us. Not that we aren't close! We're very close, but parenting looks different here. 

"I get to be a groomsman," my twenty-year old son tells me, grinning. "There'll be two weddings that day!" he laughs, holding up a wedding invitation that just came in the mail.

Meanwhile, Morgan researches colleges, gobbling up class descriptions online like me in a chocolate store, and we debate the pros and cons of transfer credits and build-your-own-majors.

"Hey, Morgan." I strung words together distractedly as we pulled onto Highway 35W south this morning. "I'm sorry I came across so intense the other day. I am on your side and we'll research this together. Sound good?"

Windshield wipers scraped grey frost to the sides of the car and I could see it from the corner of my eye. Her smile was soft, warm. "Thanks, Mom."

Parenting tall young men and women is a joy and privilege. It's a constant chance for me to learn and grow as well. Side by side, my husband and I are laughing, learning, and praying as we go.

What are you thinking about this week? 

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Coaxing Friendship Between Siblings

There were days when I wasn't sure of it myself: this brave notion we were telling them.

"It's true," I had insisted. "Friends may come and go, but family is always there. Brothers and sisters can be really close friends."

They had stood there scowling. He was mad that she had crumbled his Lego creations by mistake, and she was hurt that he had laughed at her.

"MOM! John told me to be quiet!"

"MOM! Morgan is bugging me. Tell her to go away."

The battles raged. Pink tutu-ed Morgan had stomped her foot, sticking out a hip with all the attitude a skinny six-year old can muster, and John had rolled his brown eyes in droll ten-year old nonchalance.

Once, in a story that has become legend at our house, Morgan had thrown her tiny five-year old arms backwards, lowered her head in charging rhino-fashion, and barrelled across the room to tackle her big brother. Snaking out a long arm, John had held her off with laughing glee.

I had felt my patience slipping down to hide among the Legos on the floor.

"Hey, you guys can being really close friends someday, but we've got to work on this now..." my voice had trailed off. Mediation took time, and each person had wanted to explain their side.

Besides lots of prayer, and this repeated refrain of someday you can be really close friends, there is one other thing I'm so glad we got into the habit of doing as a family. And it started unexpectedly as newlywed marriage advice.

"No matter how mad you are right now, tell me five things you like about him," my newly-married friends and I would badger each other in those early years. Sputtering and sighing, my female friends and I would hem and haw, before softening and speaking aloud several things we loved about our men.

Overwhelmed one day during a sibling battle between my two children, surrounded by Lego blocks, stuffed animal bears, and Barbies in various stages of disrobing, I had tried it on my kids.

"John, Morgan, some day you two are going to be really close friends. John, you're going to want Morgan's advice on girls, on relationships, and maybe on fashion. Morgan, you're going to want John's perspective on guys, on relationships and life, and you will want his big brother input. So before we leave this conversation: John, what are three things you like about your sister? Morgan, what are three things you like about your brother?"

Their eyes had flashed fiercely at me, their eyebrows declaring to the neighborhood the ridiculousness of my notion. Stuck, though, they had paused, grumbled for a moment, and then quietly reflected.

"Morgan, I like how you..." John's voice had been gruff but soft, and I had watched Morgan's shoulders relax as her brother had spoken aloud the good he saw in her. She had followed, in a small high-pitched voice. "John, I like..." and I had seen the anger melt from my son.

They flounced away to their separate rooms that day, still slightly angry, but the bluster had faded. I had thanked God, prayed hard for them, and looked forward to the days ahead.

And now eleven years later, I am so proud of them. John is a towering twenty-year old, and Morgan is a willowy sixteen years old. Purposefully looking for ways to connect with each other, they head out for ice cream some afternoons, play computer games together, and stay up late into the night laughing and talking. They are close friends, dear to each others' heart, and thankful for the other person's input into their lives, friends, and heart issues.

We still sometimes hear angry roars downstairs, but they are short-lived. John and Morgan know how to apologize and how to work for reconciliation. And that truth? We're convinced of it, and I thank my God for how he can weave friendship between siblings.

I wish I could remember who to thank for the idea of having kids do that too.

As my youngest son watches his older siblings now, it gets to start anew. What has helped you and your siblings build closeness? What have you found helps your kids build closeness in their siblings? 

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Creating a Home in Life's Chaos

Standing in line on a Minneapolis street in 2006, we started crying. Wiping tears off our cheeks, we laughed self-consciously.

"It doesn't feel right to be here without Mom, Dad and Jeremy, huh?" I said. My sister nodded.

Photo: Carolyn Pinke

Fifteen years earlier in war-torn West Africa, our family of five lived in a green concrete house. Under towering mango and papaya trees, our corrugated zinc roof roared raindrop music in the daily tropical storms. Red dirt circled our house, clung to our feet, and spiraled off military jeep tires as they passed. Militia and rebel groups increased on both sides and BBC radio broadcasted growing concerns. Soon atrocities and the American embassy required our evacuation to neighboring Ivory Coast.

Photo: Carolyn Pinke

By kerosene lantern light, my mom poured rattling popcorn kernels into a metal pan. Dad shuffled plastic cassette tapes beside our battery-powered stereo, clicking one into play. Canadian musician Bruce Cockburn's guitar thrums and throaty voice swelled into familiar verses and choruses. Hot popcorn sizzled and exploded, a salty nut smell hitting my senses...

Follow me over to Emily's site for the rest of the story, please? 

I'm honored to be guest-posting there during the release of her newest book, Making it Home: Finding my Way to Peace, Identity, and Purpose. Her writing and heart are beautiful.

How To Hold Summer Long

"Have you checked yours yet, Mom?" he asks from downstairs, laughing as I am struck temporarily deaf by the dishwasher's hums below me and do not reply.

"Oh! I thought you were talking to Dad," I bumble and grin. "Yes, I walk out each morning and eat the reddest tomatoes!" I exclaim. "I'll have more today," and my delight and glee is evident.

John is searching for his socks, gathering items for his work day, and talking about tomatoes. Golf ball-size red ones, nubby-naveled yellow pear tomatoes, and ruby grape-sized cherry tomatoes mound and glimmer crimson from a plastic bowl in his hands.

We each have portions in the four garden beds where Derby and Early Contender bush beans stand in tight rows, dangling long velcro green beans in the shade of their leaves. Zuchinni leaves furrow in wide elephant ears and orange flowers trumpet new growth beneath. Nasturtiums peel out in pinks, yellows, and corals, while gladiola flowers stretch upwards, knobby buds hinting. Pea pod plants curl in withered browns and creams, announcing summer's end.

In between the high school class roster, the first grade book-ordering, and an offer to help college boy buy textbooks online, summer glows a dull red. Tangled day-lilies mass and jumble in the flower bed, and the first purple aster opened last night, winking eyes at a single crimson maple leaf in a verdant tree. And the summer can slip away from us so silently.

I brew cold water ice tea in a scuffed Tupperware pitcher this morning, while water boils to pour over Bulgar wheat for a fresh tomato and mint tabbouleh salad. Two kinds of mint herbs teem and wrinkle vibrant flavor from a container pot beside the purple cone-flowers, and how does summer pass so quickly? I snip, wash, and twist the leaves to release oils, and dunk them full into the sweet southern tea.

We're staying local this vacation week, looking for creative ways to make memories and cherish family moments. Tuesday, we licked salty popcorn off our fingertips in a dark movie matinee, watching our seven year old giggle at yellow cartoon minions. That evening when our eldest got off work, we poured out mini crepes for supper, and then poured all five of us into the car for an ice cream outing.

Twenty minutes away at a legendary St. Paul ice creamery, we sidled and stood on one foot, faces pressed against the cool glass window, trying to decide between salted caramel, maple nut praline, Superman blue, and cotton candy. The creamery's smallest size still towered high, scoops of ice cream spilling out and over until the employees simply up-ended each cup into a wide brimmed plastic bowl. We sat, sticky-fingered on a sticky pink- and blue-dripped table outside Snelling Avenue as city cars slid by.

"Don't lick the table!" three of us cried out in slow-motion too late, as my youngest followed his rainbow-colored ice cream to the picnic table top.

By eight-fifteen that night, we were full. Sweetness still in the creases of our lips, on our tongues, and rolling out in satisfied groans from us, we leaned back in the car seats and loosened our seatbelts slightly. Sunshine slanted long and low across the city streets, the whirring highway, and the curving suburban lanes home.

Summer tastes like hot tomatoes, green bean earthiness, and salted caramel ice cream on my lips. August mounts, climbs, and spirals up the numbers, ticking to the end, as hot green days linger. Have you checked yours yet? These days that pass in sun-dripped light.

When Your Stakes Seem Higher

The stakes seemed higher. It's funny how that happened. Every week without a blogpost here raised the cost of words for me, and weighted each one heavier.

Photo: Martin O_ob, Creative Commons, cc license

Busyness first halted me, carrying me away from my desk and you. Days passed, weeks mounted, though, and suddenly fear crept in. I wanted the words to have beauty, to hold meaning, and to be worthy of your time. And that wrangled a finger hold around my throat. It choked my words inside me.

Simple images of grandpas and gardens, and two sons in the dirt. My dad, silver-haired, looking more and more like his dad, kneels on dew-dropped grass blades. "I forgot my knee pads," he murmurs, dipping an orange-handled shovel into a shallow channel.

We're building four raised garden beds again, in the new yard. His hair is starting to curl around the edges, "Like Uncle Kurt," my mom and I notice, and he is so much stronger since September's cancer surgeries and the ceremonial-eating of the only apple on the tree. 

My twenty-year old son is there for his strength and his love of the outdoors. He and his grandpa wield a borrowed yellow mallet, heavy enough to tip me over when I pass it unexpectedly at one point.

"Can I help? What can I hammer?" hopes six year old Daniel aloud.

"Hey, Daniel. Here's a spot you can hammer." John points to an upraised metal reebar tip and crouches beside his brother, and my mama heart sings.

A red cardinal crows birdeee birdeeee birdeee from the highest point of a silver balsam tree behind us, and the rising morning sun warms us. My nose runs from the cold air. A wind shakes cottonwood seeds down around us from the neighbor's tree.

"Ready for the next post, John?" my dad asks, and I snap out of reverie and jump green corduroy sneakers onto my pitch fork, preparing the soil before them.

Write what you know, right? I know about heavy squares of sod chopped and shaken to save any garden dirt; black-capped chicadees and cardinal soliloquies, and sons with grandpas wielding mallets. I know french-pressed coffee oils swirling atop hot mugs, and dirt under the nails despite three washings. I see hard-working loved ones, and smell rain-fresh brown dirt, sliced grass sod, and lilacs from the neighbor's front yard.

And the moment captured is enough. My job is to see and note.

For you? Is there anything that looms taller with each passing day? Step in, pull up the chair, take that first action. The fear will still be there, I confess, but the hidden joy that comes from doing what you were made to do will spring up and delight you. I promise.

How are you? I've missed you. Catch me up?

Straddling True Relationships in a Busy World

Brassy coronets and high-hat-swinging percussionists ring out Benny Goodman's jazzy Trees. Crescendos echo and fall before Louis Armstrong steps up to croon Let's Fall In Love. Piano keys traipse up and down their black and white board.

Photo credit: Darwin Bell, Creative Commons, cc license

Behind me on the small desk stool, my nineteen year old folds himself up to fit on the chair. Long legs bend around bony knees, feet curled under him. His arms swing excitedly, hands gesturing, as he talks about his day and a new game he is making.

I nod, half-turned sideways to see him, while stirring at the stove. Red pumpkin curry sauce splatters and simmers next to a bubbling pot of rice. I repeat words back, striving to truly listen and focus on him, but am embarrassed to note that I've momentarily stopped listening. He nods and continues, while I slide a fork into a chunkier piece of chicken to confirm the pink is gone.

My timer dings that dinner is done, and four of us gather at a table set for five.

"Let's pray. Morgan will be here soon and John has to go to work," I suggest. My husband Mark and six year old Daniel take turns praying, and the front door clatters.

These moments with the people in our lives are so fleeting. I'm trying to do them well with God's help, but they look differently than I had originally guessed. 

Earlier, my niece and I followed three preschoolers across a backyard. The boys swung sticks, laughed in happy battles, and helped me clear dry leaves from the strawberry bed. My niece and I talked by the swings; talked by the slide; and talked in the kitchen. Wiping mashed black cookie bits from wet faces, slicing up apples, and refereeing pebble squabbles, we grinned and conversed through it all.

In these days of interruptions, how do we narrow in and let loved ones know they are truly seen? 

I'm still acquiring this, and my children can roll their eyes or share laughing stories of some of my comical failures, but here's what I'm learning. We invest in loved ones by following their eyes, by striving to truly hear, and by coming back again and again to the topics at hand. "So, tell me about this film," I asked my niece, and we laughed and resumed our focus.

It looks different than I thought it would, this desire to connect and bond with the people in our lives, but it's worth it. And the relationships are priceless.

From White-Capped Mountainous Men

Ahh, I have missed being here with you!

Photo credit to my cousin, Naomi W.

Sipping dark roast coffee in my favorite brown and navy mug, I'm pulled up close to my roll top wooden desk and smiling as I think of you.

• You: my online community of bloggers in these growing friendships across the nation and across the world; or
• You: this group of almost 500 of you who have signed up to receive these blog posts by email; or 
• You: friends, family, and acquaintances from women's retreats, conferences, and MOPS groups who stop in here from my facebook page; and
•  You: the quiet readers online who smile, and nod, and I know we are sharing a common experience at times too...

I am so thankful for you and humbled by you being here. Thank you.

 I flew out to Washington state last week to honor my grandma at her celebration of life service in Yakima. Touching down at the Seattle-Tacoma airport, I craned my head for glimpses of mountains.

The weekend flashed by in vivid moments with relatives:

• My mom and cousin delighted at the chance to buy dozens of roses for the occasion. Fragrant crimson, peach, coral, honeyed-yellows, pinks, and white roses dotted the church dining room
• Long talks with my brother and sister curled up around his gas stove, wrapped in warm blankets
• Tucking up legs under us on a couch, or standing and swaying with the motions of passing people, my cousins and I got re-acquainted, and I got to meet old family friends and relatives too.
• My grandpa moved to tears as we hugged, and later hearing his wavering but strong voice as he sang a Hebrew blessing from the Old Testament over his extended family. 

I sing that in silence for you too, my friends, this weekend.

The Lord bless you
and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
 and be gracious to you; 
the Lord turn his face towards you 
and give you peace        (from the Bible book of Numbers, chapter 6).

And as craggy white-capped Mount Rainier towered across the airport, looming larger than I could believe, my brother's car pulled away from the curb, and I strode into the airport that Sunday afternoon. My grandpa's voice and words still linger.