Suburbia & Shootings

“Smell! Do you smell that?” 

We were standing at the open deck door, our toes hanging over the white edge. He sniffed fiercely, his tiny shoulders rising with the effort.  

“Rain! Doesn’t it smell good?” 

The wind blew droplets into our faces and we inhaled the moist earthy scent of rain. Hints of hot wet asphalt mixed with the fresh promise of clean. When water started puddling onto our dining room floor, I grinned and closed the door for a while. An evening of rain soaked the silent suburban streets. 

This morning I drink coffee soberly and ponder street-side shootings. A new friend of mine mourns her twenty-six year old step-daughter at a funeral right now. 

I met my friend three weeks ago at a wooded women’s retreat. Seven women from the inner-city joined seven or eight of us from the suburbs. Together we shared stories and photos of our children. We talked about our marriages, opening wide, being accountable, and looking into God’s word for guidance. We prayed, sang, laughed and ate together. In a large screened-in cabin, we swatted bugs, peeked over bunk beds to hear each other, and laughed at late-night tirades. 

My friend spoke of her upcoming wedding at the end of this month, and paged through wedding magazines. Her daughters were to be part of the ceremony. 

This last week, though, an armed assailant walked into their home, shot her daughter, and left. No one knows why or whom. Neighborhood vigils, grief-stricken parents, and news anchor bits culminate in today’s funeral. 

I’m too new and didn’t have all the information right away so I’m here at home, praying for her, aching with her, and feeling uncomfortably quiet in my safe suburban home. 

I traced down her phone number, and corrected the wrong email address I had for her. Soon, I hope to go and sit with her, hugging her, and aching quietly beside her. 

Will you join me in praying for my friend Christina? Thanks. How can I pray for you this week? 

Linking with Imperfect Prose...

When You Wonder if He Hears You

It’s a striking image.

 A stately government official in his mid-eighties, perhaps with distinguished silvery hair, standing on the banks of a large river, dressed in flowing Middle Eastern robes.

His colleagues and lower-ranking staff have suddenly fled and hid themselves in the long grasses, terrorized by a presence they can’t see or explain. An angel that only he can see speaks with him.

“Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.”

There had been a delay – a wild, unimaginable delay that needs a separate blog-post on another day just to ponder it—but a delay, nonetheless. In Daniel’s timeline, he waited three weeks for a response and for peace. He was worried, anxious, and spent extended time in prayer.

Then, beside a rushing water, that answer came. “Don’t be afraid, since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before God, your words were heard…”

Wow. Where are you in life right now?

Is this a rushing water kind of day where God is speaking to you loudly, even if no one around is hearing him? They may still be noticing that something is different around you, though.

Or are you in a quiet anguish-filled silence of waiting and listening, wondering what God is going to say next? He hears you, friend. No matter what the delays feel like, he hears you and is working on your behalf.

Meanwhile, back at the river bank, our stately gentleman is amazed and terror-stricken at this uncommon method of hearing God speak too. The angel strengthens him by a touch on the shoulder, lifting him up, gently encouraging him to talk and ask questions, and the words, “Do not be afraid, you who are highly esteemed. Peace! Be strong now, be strong.”

Daily, I want to set my mind to gain understanding and to be humbled before my God.

Daily, I want to remember the huge grandeur of my God who sends the angels to do his bidding, who orchestrates world leaders and history, and who whispers, “Don’t be afraid....Your words were heard... Peace, be strong now, be strong.”

“Your words were heard. Peace…” 

Photo credit. 

Summer Barbecues and Family Times

I sip hot coffee while barbecue smoke seeps deliciously in through my open deck door. Marco sings along to a plaintive song on Pandora, monitoring the sizzling grill outside in between chopping jalapenos for colorful pico de gallo.

Orange and brown afghan fort walls flap outside on the front lawn, while my daughter and preschool son sprawl across the grass, trying bird calls. A squabble erupts and fades away. Blanket walls tumble and stretch tall again.

Family days feel brief and precious now.

School years start with notebooks stacked high in September, and months that seem to stretch long, full of promise and plans. Suddenly June is here. Notebooks swell with maturing scrawls and math sums; and plastic binders burst with history and literature.

High schooler cleans his room, finishes homework on the Vietnam war, American Literature, and Algebra II, then bikes away to see friends. Our times with him are sweet as well, centering around bike rides, speed scrabble games, late-night talks, and laughter. College beckons in a year.

In between hopping up to mince mounded Vidalia onions and lay out plates, I join you here and type. Now the fire outside burns lower, roasted meat lingers savory on my tongue, and marshmallows call to me.


How are you savoring family and friends this weekend?

Tearing Down Walls in Marriage: One Woman's Story

“Here’s your assignment for the week,” the counselor told my brown-haired friend. “Touch his arm.”

My friend couldn’t believe it. Sitting in the counselor’s office, she hated to hear this advice.

“Husbands need lots of touch,” the marriage therapist reminded her. “This week, I need you to touch his arm.”

“It took me two or three weeks to do it,” my friend recounted to me later. “Each week, my psychologist asked me about it, and re-issued the homework.”

There is a smile in my friend's voice now as she shares this story and says her husband’s name, but that wasn’t always the case.

“After 25 years of marriage, it all kind of blew up,” she began. “Looking back now, the one thing I never understood --or maybe it was never taught to me--is that spot in Song of Solomon that mentions ‘little foxes that sneak in and destroy.’ Little things that happen; your spouse may say or do something and you get that little coldness. We should just talk about it right then, but we don’t. Instead we build a wall brick by brick. Taking that wall down later is so hard, and so much work. Some incidents are even so forgotten by then that they are slightly embedded in your memory, but still need to be dealt with.”

My friends are a strong couple and family in the church, involved in missions, church programs, and working hard alongside all of us. In 2006, it blew up, as she calls it. We didn’t know details and shouldn’t have. Instead our church family respected and admired them, and was so proud of them as they vulnerably cried, and had us pray for them. In honoring-vagueness, they didn’t speak poorly of each other, they merely confessed that marriage was hard right then and that they were getting help.

“I took my commitment to marriage very seriously,” my friend said. “Getting up everyday, and doing what I had to do. We both had separate counselors, plus a joint counselor—seeking wise counsel. He had two groups he went to, and I had a group I went to. I had to put aside my feelings, and do what I knew to be right.”

My friends worked hard, through tears, anger, walls. Her husband had an in-house separation, and then moved out for a more official separation, as the couple continued to walk through Christian counseling and the hard work of rebuilding their marriage. All 2007, they worked hard. “In early 2008, we were getting back together,” she said softly, "and he moved back in the summer of 2008.”

The turning point that melted her heart happened one day while she was driving past his apartment on an errand. “I felt God telling me to call my husband and ask him out for lunch.” 

“'No,' I replied. The voice told me two more times. Finally I did it, calling him, but I hoped he wouldn’t be there.”

They met then and, in a long conversation, her husband opened up to her about hard things, sharing his heart with her. My friend melted, and they started re-connecting. “If you hear God telling you something, do it!” she advised me over the phone.

Over the next few years, our church family got to see God mend their hearts and re-ignite their relationship with passion, tenderness and romance. Their daughters feigned disgust at seeing them kiss, and hold hands everywhere, but there was a happy peace and relief in the children's eyes. 

Now my friends date, and enjoy spending time together, saying their marriage is the best it has ever been. They still know the secrets of working hard for their marriage too. 

Hi friend, what is one piece of marriage advice you have found invaluable? (If you are reading this through your email and would like to leave a comment, simply click here. Welcome!)

Guest-posting over at "Chasing Silhouettes"

I'm guest-posting over at my online friend and writer Emily Wirenga's Chasing Silhouettes website today, a "place of hope and healing for families and caregivers on the eating disorder journey." Join us there to mull over "How to Be Beautiful" and feel free to leave an encouraging comment. 


If you are visiting here after my post from Chasing Silhouettes, welcome. I am so glad you are here.
-   -   - 

Recently, I was getting ready to attend a Friday night wedding several hours' drive away. I chose an outfit, combed my hair, and laughed about the incongruity of applying evening make up at 1:30 in the afternoon. (Men, you'll just have to take our word on this.) Realizing my necklace looked tarnished, I remembered a home tip I had heard of applying toothpaste to tarnished metal for a fast shine. 

Minutes later, with goopy blue Colgate gel congealing into the crevices of my necklace, I realized with horror that the home remedy probably meant white tooth paste. Laughing at myself, I submerged the necklace into the sink and tried to wash away the blue. "Look for me at the wedding," I chuckled to myself. "I'll be the one with smoldering brown eyes and a neck that smells of toothpaste!"

Later that night, smelling minty fresh, I watched from a pew as the bride and groom stood before us all and made promises. Their eyes stared deeply into each other's eyes, obviously having faded away from all other sounds and sights, save the words and the promise and the looks that asked, "Really? Just me? You mean this?" 

I sat enraptured by the glimpse into their minds and hearts. There is a... (read the rest of the story "Smoldering Brown Eyes and a Neck that Smells Like Toothpaste"  here). 

Dandelions, Thistles, and How Do You Grow Faith?

I bike to my new yard, a yellow child trailer bouncing along behind me. This is it! The new home. 

Earlier, a friend, in black “blinged” flip flops, and I, in brown bejeweled sandals, walk in measured paces across the knee-high grass. Counting feet and meandering mildly-haphazardly through the dandelions, we guess at the dimensions for a privacy fence. I dream gardens and landscaping, and skip excitedly. 

“I could put the garden there, and plant ferns here.” We sidestep thistles, and scratch itchy ankles. 

“Mom, I think I’ll wait in the van,” my friend’s daughter finally surmises, as my friend graciously walks and plans with me. We plan summer outings and moving days, and then she drives away, sharing my joy and excitement.

At the local hardware super store, I amble the aisles and ponder two by fours. 

I keep being drawn now to the yellow and green trim house, eager to move in, and ecstatic with our Abba for blessing us with this lovely home. My daughter and I peer over internet real estate photos of our new home, wondering about furniture placement and divvying up bedrooms.

Boxes accumulate in our current home, moving plans are made, and the closing dates loom three weeks away. Ensconced in our boxes and memories, we say farewell to our neighbors of fourteen years, finish up school, and marvel at our God who provided this new home for us. 

Thank you, friends, for praying for our current home to sell and for a new home for us. It’s been a ten month journey, and a great time to practice waiting and trusting. 

Thank you, Abba, for extravagant answers to prayer. I stand awed, humbled, and convicted that I had doubted. 

In tiny pencil on narrow margins, I had etched my worries last week.  In lead script beside ancient Old Testament type, I had joined the prophet Daniel’s prayers with my own words. Beside his lofty prayers for wisdom in discerning an impulsive king’s dreams, I scratched in my own request. Daniel urged his friends to “plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery” and I scrawled out, “A house, Lord? 5/18/12.” 

On the next page, when the young biblical prophet Daniel is given the dream’s meaning and bursts out into jubilant praise to the God who “reveals deep and hidden things” and who had “made known what was asked of him,” my pencil scratched again. “A house, Lord? 5/18/12.” 

Days later, our realtor called. Amid dancing and squeals, and hurried phone calls to family members, I opened my Bible again, and added a new date to those etched pencil-marked margins. 

“Yes! 5/22/12.” Thankful praise penciled into two pages, and across two spots in my heart, reminding me that yes, his heart is for us, and yes, he hears and answers prayers – over and abundantly. 

Oh me of little faith. I’m taught again, and so I return, by foot, by bike or by car to the jumbled grassy lawn. Walking through the tangled dandelions and thistles, I grin, amazed at my Abba, and humbly thankful.

Kid Bedtimes and Gathering Storms

Grey clouds blanket my evening sky. Wind-tossed trees are now still and a heavy mugginess descends. Swollen drops pockmark my deck, and then nothing. 

Like silence before the curtain rises, the yards wait quietly. A slight breeze stirs the leaves and a distant car muffler hums and fades away. Silence again. 

My three year old tantrums from a dark bedroom bunk-bed, trying out an angstful attitude he’s seen. Sarcasm rolls off his lips, and tiny arms are crossed. Angry eyes burn out at me. Wow, where did he hear that monologue? It saddens me, layered between the brief hidden humor at hearing his, “Hmm! What do you think about that?!” final rant. 

“Daniel, I’m so sorry you’ve heard people talk like that. How did you feel when they did that?” 

“Happy!” he huffs, crossing his arms the opposite way for emphasis, and frowning at me.

“You don’t look happy. It’s not nice to talk like that. We use kind words and voices.” I kiss him, and rub his back. Miniscule ribs beneath a red striped shirt that his towering brother used to wear. The room is dark and my hand brushes his small back for a few minutes. He’s so little. 

“Good night. I love you. You need to go to bed.”

“Nooooo!” he yells as I leave the room. We’ve hugged and tickled and prayed together. We sang our songs, and snuggled close – me trying to avoid his mono germs and yet smothering him in further-away kisses. 

The rain droplets have evaporated already outside, leaving no trace on the deck and driveway, yet the grey-green sky waits. It’s dark for seven thirty. 

He gets up again, my son. His anger intersperses with tears, and we talk it through. There’s no more sarcasm thankfully, just sadness and a hopeful expectation that bedtime will disappear. He’s mistaken, poor guy. 

The bedtime mandate stays; hugs are layered on; and sippy-cups are filled with fresh water and ice. 

“Good night, my sweet. I love you.” 

In silence outside, the rain falls, releasing the hot asphalt smell of rain and tar that signals summer to me. A cool breeze starts, and the mugginess lifts.


Linking with Shanda's On Your Heart Tuesday, and Emily's Imperfect Prose on Thursday.