An Unexpected Journey

Sweet Makiah, Mommy remembers when I turned ten.  We had just moved to Cairo (yes, where you lived!) a few weeks before my birthday.  I invited two girls that I had just met at school over for a spend the night party.  I still played with cabbage patches and dress up clothes, but this year we added makeup and pretended to be teenagers.  I started a puff paint business with grand plans of selling t-shirts designed by yours truly.  Your Uncle Will and I practiced limbo tirelessly in the driveway with two yard chairs and a measuring stick in great hopes of being the Saturday afternoon limbo champs at the local skating rink.  Uncle John was only four, and I recall he was a whiz at playing Super Mario Brothers with me already on our nintendo. Tonight the girls and I made brownies together for your 10th birthday.  Abby suggested we put a candle in one, tie balloons to it, and float it up to heaven so you could have a piece.  Maddie Grace sang to you...

Sometimes I rush through bed time with my kids and get in a huff when they call me back ten thousand times for an endless litany of things.  Other days I stay with them longer and stroke their hair and remind myself to savor the moment.  It was one of those nights when Abby popped out with, “Mom, I don’t know how the Holy Spirit helps me.  When there are too many toys and you tell me to clean up, I don’t see Him moving ANY blocks!”  I tried not to giggle out loud.  But really, I think she is onto something.  A deeper question of humanity right from the mouth of a babe.  We often look at things around us and we don’t SEE God doing anything. The truth is it is hard for us to acknowledge what we don’t see with our eyes.  We want God to be like us.  To fit in our box, and well, let’s be honest, it would be great if He would just do our work for us!  Sometimes when He doesn’t “move the blocks” we pout and wonder if He is really helping u...

On good Friday we remember that Jesus gave up His life for us.  Not just that.  He was God.  Infinite. Limitless with all power and knowledge at His fingertips, but He left all of that and choose to clothe Himself in a human body perhaps for all of eternity.  For us.  To reach us.  To bring us into that circle of unbroken fellowship that the Trinity shares among itself.  Love cannot exist in isolation.  A requirement for love is fellowship.  One to give and one to receive and to repeat that over and over or else love is meaningless.  God is perfect and complete.  He exists in three perfect parts.  God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.  God never lacked love.  And yet you mean so much to Him that He designed a master plan to extend that love to you. Saturday is the in between day.  Jesus had died.  The resurrection had not yet occurred.  On earth things seemed hopeless and Jesus followers forg...

Five years.  An eternity of days.  And yet it’s passed as quickly as a blowing breeze.  Time is a mystery.  Days that have often felt endless now seem to have fled like the shadows chasing after a setting sun.  It is a strange thing to watch your younger children out grow the oldest.  I have always had memories of Makiah to cling to as my little ones passed each new stage.  We have stepped across a threshold.  It’s like the tape ran out.  I am constantly surprised by the things my twins can do- things like writing words other than their name.  It’s almost as if my mind forgets that I will actually watch these children grow up.  We have been in the same season of parenting for almost 10 years, and the new journey into unknown territory constantly catches me off gaurd.   I am excited.  I feel like I am standing on the edge of something really good that has taken a very long time to get to.  I am sad.  The new ...

I could wrap my heart up in Christmas carols this time of year.  They are like a warm cup of coffee to my soul.  We were singing O Come Let Us Adore Him one Sunday and my imagination began to wander.  No.  It began to wonder.  And I stumbled into wonder. Imagine with me.  For a minute.  What Christmas in heaven could entail.  This is not what heaven is like.  Heaven is better!!!  The Word says… “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9 So go with me for a minute down the rabbit hole, if you will.  And know that nothing we can imagine can even come close to the glorious reality that is… The backdrop is breathtaking- a bit like the terrain from Lord of the Rings.  A sky with strokes of brilliantly mesmerizing color spreads out as a canopy across the heavens.  The vibrant hues are not flat but almost ha...

The air is crisp and cool.   Brightly colored leaves crunch underfoot while a handful still cling to their homes overhead.  It was almost time to pack for the trip home for Thanksgiving.  Warm hugs.  The sound of little running feet and giggly cousin laughter.  Muffled laughs after the littles have been tucked in.  Too many cups of piping hot coffee.  I love the fall.  I love family.   I couldn't wait.   Then I got the call at work last week that the baby was throwing up.  I almost cried right there in my little office.  We have so generously shared the stomach bug with our family the last three years at the holidays.  I just couldn't believe it was happening again.  Sure enough, the kids began to fall like dominoes, and I knew we couldn't bring this gift home again.  What are the chances of this timing!? And then I remember... In the words of John Eldridge, We have an enemy who is hunting us.  And as P...

1 Peter 1:3-9 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls....