Happily Ever After

God gave me a very precious gift one November evening on the cusp of the midnight hour.    I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than to hobble around still sore and tired, try to feed and appease a newborn and host a houseful of company, but with the help of my best friend that was exactly the scenario November 2002.  Fast forward almost fifteen years, and  the little ants hiding in the secret crevices in our house heard this conversation, “Hey, mom. The day after thanksgiving? ” “Yes, Black Friday son.”  “Yes, Black Friday, I want that to be my birthday celebration at Disney… at the Magic Kingdom. I’ve booked fast passes for Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Space Mountain.”  “That’s great.. all the mountains. I guess we will be able to do that. Dad’s off work that day.”    There is something you should know about Nathan.   On the chance that you would and could look up the definition of a Disney fan in Webster’s dictionary,   statistically speaking you have more chance of seeing a picture of my dear son than being struck with a lightening bolt at Disney.   When the parks were conceived, the life of  Walter Disney,  the “old school” rides, the “new school” rides, the apartment in Disneyland where Walt resided , to finding hidden mickeys at Disney World, yep, he knows it.  His wardrobe consists of a variety of overly-priced Disney World t-shirts, and the hat he wears when he frequents the park hosts none other than the time-line of the historical mouse himself.  When all other park goers are too tired to trudge forward, Nathan fearlessly leads them to Frontierland adding pictures to his over one thousand Disney World album along the way.  You get it!!!  He loves Disney!  It’s magical, and I have never seen him in a foul mood in the parks unless he has to leave early.  So, there was nothing else to do than leave all the sale flyers behind, ignore the pressing, crushing demands of a jammed -packed life, pack the Disney cooler backpack and head straight into the crowds of Tomorrowland, Adventureland, and Liberty Square.

Some nights I can avoid the elbow to elbow sea of faces that make up the fireworks extravaganza…. but not tonight. This was different.  This was critical, essential, and signifigant. This was the fifteenth birthday celebration, and not only was it a party but Nathan’s older sister had joined us from Ohio.   Half kneeling, half sitting, with a dying cell phone battery two hours before the spectacle began, I suffered on the cold, Disney pavement.  The right viewing position had to be found and protected.  Protect it we did, and then it happened, the lighting dimmed, the crowd pressed in as I peered into the faces of four exquisite siblings. I could barely keep my gaze on the castle as my heart swelled. There they were huddling together, singing at the top of their lungs to the songs that delighted, eyes sparkling, laughing together, loving together.. together… together.

The narrator’s voice crooned, “And they all lived happily ever after.
Each of us have a dream, a heart’s desire, it calls to us,
and when we’re brave enough to listen, and bold enough to pursue,
that dream will lead us on a journey to discover who we’re meant to be.
All we have to do is look inside our hearts and unlock the magic within.​

Then…. more elaborate lights, projections… look inside your heart.. adversity will come but you were meant for more.  All truth except.. except… whose more were we meant for.   I glanced over again, and I knew I must NOT ruin the moment but the Disney ideal… find yourself, find your dreams, find your heart’s desire, Oh it is the age old longing from the fall.  Oh sweet Disney, magical Disney, there was a time when life was Happily Ever After. They walked with Him in the garden, they were together in perfect union with each other and with the God of creation, the dreamer of all dreams. He had breathed life into them. And then the disobedience, He’s holding out on us, Surely He didn’t say we would die. Surely, the wages of sin isn’t….  In one moment, from openness to hiding, from life to death, from wholeness to brokenness, in one moment, happily ever after no more. Disney dearest, lovely Disney… can’t you see?  This is the longing of all creation to be restored, to be reborn, to be remade, to be recreated.  The more we are meant for is and was and always will be for relationship with Him.    His heart could not bear the absence of happily ever after.   In just a month after my son’s birthday, we celebrate another moment.    In one instant, the God that transcends time stepped onto the stage of human affairs.  He wrapped Himself in human flesh, limited Himself to run to us… to embrace us .. to repair, to be the ultimate remedy for the horrible rift that sin set in motion… to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth.    And then one day… the King of this Kingdom will return for those of His Kingdom.  It’s not a Kingdom of the making of human hands… the King will return and every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is the “more” we were meant for and the dream in our hearts.  As I looked at my precious children during the Magic Kingdom birthday celebration, I longed to take them in my arms and declare to them that I am not a citizen of this kingdom, and my heart longs for them to know today and always the King of the kingdom in which I am a daughter.  How can I  even share the deep longing of my heart for this King to return?   For one day, He will right all the wrongs, the star breather, the voice of many waters, the bright and morning star, the bread of life, the living water, the advocate, the bridegroom….  He will wipe away every tear from the eyes of His bride. He will be our happily ever after.

Grumbling, complaining and such…

Goodness what a whirlwind I can make of my life.  Always something to do, something to see or some place to be.   Hurry….. I must find shoes… where did I put my purse… (note to self e-mail school board director) … now to find the keys… (did I even take dinner out of the freezer.. uggh.. no.. text Tony that he has to cook dinner)… aha.. here they are… pack computer… grab Vera Bradley bag or was it the red Disney bag.. which bag do I need?  Have you ever had one of those days?  Have you ever had one of those months?  How about one of those lives?  I must confess so often I am to blame for my ADHD disorganized personality and the over extension of my life.  Yet, even when I am not to blame, a full life, a wonderful, crazy, amazing full life can leave you feeling like you might just like to hibernate like the animals you taught your daughter in science. It was one of those messy twenty four hour periods where it just seemed like there were NOT enough hours to get everything accomplished… especially after I added a 4:30 a.m. trip to the airport, numerous interruptions and a less than motivated child.   I grumbled as i put some groceries and children’s ministry prizes in the car.  Lord, help me want to be motivated.  Help me want to follow through.  Help me NOT do a spring/summer hibernation.   The engine started and a man’s voice rang out… “When you grumble and complain, you are doing that in the face of the King Himself.”  He continued, “In one part of the Bible God says he has this against a group of people.. that they had turned away from Him and were NOT thankful.”   Complaining?  Grumbling?  But surely that couldn’t be me… complaining about too much to do when there were some who were not able to get out of bed… grumbling about having to prep food when some go to bed hungry… complaining about lack of quiet when some have lost their hearing… grumbling about not being able to sleep enough when some do not sleep at all as bombs explode all night long.  Oh Jesus, forgive me this holy week.  Maybe the cross get in the way of everything.. may it overshadow me until any frustration, complaining, or grumbling dissolve in the light of Your glory.   Give me eyes to see Your great sacrifice that gave me eternal life and may I never complain in the face of You.. Your majesty.   I bow at the foot of Your cross.  In my hands, no price I bring, but simply to Your cross I cling.  May I ever be thankful.

Unseen/Seen

It was a exquisite, Florida morning when I hit the button on my I -phone and received that call.  I wondered why they were calling again. I had just connected with my parents that lived just over forty five minutes away. They probably forgot to tell me something, a tid bit of info the doctor said about mom, a bit of information about the community in which they are living.  I was, however, unprepared for the words, “We just got some bad news.”  A close family friend of ours had found his 42 year old son deceased… ..undiagnosed  cancer, he wouldn’t go .. the words hovered in and out of focus.  No, that can’t be real.. a father shouldn’t have to say goodbye to his child let alone be the one to pick his  body off the floor. Don’t tell your sister…. YET, just pray.     Pray… that’s right … we believe …. in the valley of this disastrous, unfair , life.. where sin reigns .. in this present world where things happen that we can’t even begin to comprehend. In this world where Syrian refugees see unspeakable acts, little girls are violated , the organized church is used for a cover for control and pedophilia at times,  and  a retired man has to call the morgue for his “taken too soon” son, we believe.. Yet we find ourselves declaring, “Where are You?  Why are the heavens shut up?”  We believe.. in this world…. we believe…. we will have trouble….we believe.. , but You have overcome the world.”    So we fix our eyes NOT on what is seen but on what is unseen.. for what is seen is temporal and what is unseen is eternal.  You entered into our suffering Jesus.  You clothed Yourself in human form and marched right into the midst of all of our  suffering.  You suffer with us. You are violated with us.. . the great heart of God is pierced with every human blight, every pain, every heartbreak, every dispointment, every tragic moment.  And even in the midst of it, You give us power to extend mercy and  justice and free us from our sin one situation at a time.  One day all the wrongs will be righted when Your kingdom reigns on a new earth.   And when Your kingdom reigns on earth as it is heaven, we shall see You as You are…when the unseen things are made seen. I am longing for that day.  Selah

Undone

It was just another typical, beautiful morning in South Florida as I walked the familiar perimeter surrounding our small lake. Sleep had been illusive the night before, therefore, the picture of this middle-aged woman was.. well.. there was no sugar coating the view, disheveled.. hair thrown back into a pony tail, sweat pants, baggy t-shirt, no make-up endeavoring to conceal sun spots, wrinkles or age spots.   This was “real”.. a “real” mess.    Arriving home, I was greeted at the door by my sweet ten year old who informed me that she had a piano lesson with her new teacher at the local Christian school  in no less than ten minutes.  Would I go with her as she was still a little nervous with this change in her life?    As we walked the short jaunt hand in hand, I gave no thought to my appearance or how I appeared to others.  I was just trying to get the day started with some joyful movement, a cup of hot mojo, and a positive thought.  I seated myself in the hall now feeling like a seventh grader who had been sent there.  Even though I home educate, I have always loved the sights and smells of a school. Any school.. private, public, elementary, middle, university.. they all exclaim “Oohhhh, let’s discover something today!!!!! Let’s celebrate our minds!.”   Teachers and  administrators came and went all perfectly dressed.  The females donned in feminine skirts and delicate blouses and the males in white shirts, dress pants, and ties. I smiled at each one and greeted them as they went about their work.   In an instant, I became more and more aware of me.   I breathed a quick prayer, “I look awful Lord.  I feel undone.”   Suddenly, an inner awareness of His presence whispered, “You are undone.. all are undone.”  In this instant, I was once again conscious of the reality that without Him.. I am indeed undone.  Undone in my selfishness, undone in my pity, undone in my self-righteousness, undone.. just like Isaiah proclaimed when he came face to face with the holiness of God,  “I am a man of unclean lips, in a generation of unclean lips.”    I am in no way proclaiming that dressing or presenting ourselves well  is wrong.  In fact, I like to slip on a dashing outfit, style my hair, and apply a light coat of female paint.  Studies show if you dress for success, you become more productive. Yet, it is possible to scrutinize our appearance and how our actions appear to others without allowing the Holy Spirit to do the deep work of the heart… the purifying.. the refining.   God’s Word says that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and that we are to be constantly renewing our minds.  Why this constant renewing and the focus upon dependence upon our Lord and Savior Jesus?  Because we are nothing without Him.. nothing without abiding in Him. We are whitewashed tombs with the appearance of holiness, the appearance of intellect, the appearance of godliness, the appearance of all good things,  without the filling of His Spirit that produces love and the off shoots of love. (joy, peace, patience, kindness,goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control)   We are simply undone.. unclean.. and don’t even know our own hearts without Him revealing our deep motives. As I look back to that day in which the Lord reminded me of the enduring truth of complete dependence and openness with Him, I celebrate as He keeps pursuing me. Jesus, keep reminding me and showing me my incompleteness, my undoneness, my inability, my ignorance, my gracelessness, without You… and draw me close, lean into me and may I forever rest in Your completeness.

My smudgy, messy, beautiful, hopelessly disorganized life…

Smudgy..  the uncanny ability to be messy despite the fact that one cleans ALL of the time or at least desires cleanliness paralleled with the ability to lose important life tools such as keys, insurance papers, clothes, and at least one time a child. (this was short lived thank goodness and to my credit this child took off by themselves with a cousin walking down the beach, so maybe this doesn’t count) 🙂

According to my mother, I have been smudgy since about the age of -five months.   My dedicated, selfless, mumsie would dress me meticulously for the glorious Kindergarten day, and upon arriving home, my perfect outfit would look like I had taken to wallowing in the trash cans in the parking lot dumpster after school.  Through out my life, the one constant  has  been.. well.. my smudginess.   And  it doesn’t really seem like my fault…. I mean for crying out loud, I am living life to the fullest, minding my own business and then all of sudden there appears toothpaste splattering on the bathroom mirrors, trash cans overflowing, dust bunnies hanging from the ceiling fans and honestly I know my keys move just to see my frustration.    My newly married self was able to manage these smudgies, at least a little, but then these tiny humans made their debut.  This is when the smudgies began to overtake me, hunt me down, me, taunt me and laugh their diabolical cry of house domination.

I truly mistakenly believed that I had made peace with this smudgy side of me.  I almost felt prideful in the fact that I could don the banner over our house, “Excuse our mess, we are raising children.”  Then one day,(or maybe not just one)  it happened. I snapped… my even, jovial self, transformed into the mom version of the hulk. (just like in Moms Night Out)   I could  feel my skin turning green, and my clothes disintegrate  as my muscles protruded.   I raged!!   Oh, the horrors of the mess, how could we live here? The disgust, the dust, the clutter… oh the unfairness of it all!!!   I had just washed that door and there it was AGAIN.. little fingerprints and SMUDGES everywhere!!!!!   Then out of the chaos of my heart, a still small voice spoke peace, like He always does.  When He speaks, perspectives change, the storm may rage but refuge is near.

Proverbs 14:4 says, “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.”  A more updated paraphrase would say,”Where there is  no  community, the landscape is clean, but abundant joy and growth come by the  strength of community.”   When we do life together, whether as a family, a church, a city organization, it gets smudgy.. it just does.  The physical environment tends toward disorder and constantly needs attention as well as the emotional vista.  When we live in relationship with others, we have not only fingerprint smudges on doors and windows, but we obtain smudges on our hearts.  Thank God for those smudges on my door for they symbolize precious life, precious laughter, as well as precious hurts.  Thank God for the messiness of  us as human beings.  For as we live together, eat together, love together, we gaze upon  the countenance of each other and are given the opportunity to extend grace, forgiveness, and favor  to those who may have wronged and wounded us deeply.  In this smudginess, we grow, we become, we create. So today I give thanks for every single one of the  smudges  made by the incredible  people in my smudgy, messy, hopelessly, wonderful, disorganized life.

First attempt..

April 12, 2013 Hello all… since my daughter and my son are now blogging, I refuse to let my children learn things in which I have no clue. 🙂 I opened this blog, Pilgrims in this World, back in 2012 with every intent to blog. Life happened, and there just did not seem time to record our lives. I am in hope of using this blog as an encouragement for others that are 1) traveling through stormy weather in life, 2) home educating and need encouragement, or 3) interested in a more frugal lifestyle. I think that pretty much covers most of man kind. Since, I am a Christ follower it is appropriate that this first post be about Him. Recently, (very recently) our family received some news about another family member that tossed us into the proverbial stormy sea of life. It seemed prophetic that the pastor where we attended church on Easter Sunday mentioned the very storm in which we face in his message. My dear sister who has been one of my best friends from.. well since we were little girls (smile), was diagnosed with that dreadful “C” word. It is a word that strikes terror in the strongest of us. Most of us have had some gruesome experience with this life-changing disease. We hate it, we loathe it, we question God about it, and we demand a cure. We had no choice but to plunge into this ocean of hard choices, doctor’s appointments, tests and more tests. On the way home from being my sister’s support for her first oncologist appointment, I was contentedly (well maybe not) traveling down the tried and true highway that led to home. Suddenly, ahead I saw those familiar blue lights and immediately questioned what had happened. The road home was closed.. no explanation.. no sign of accident, road construction or any other tragedy.. just closed by a couple of police officers. We were directed to make a U-turn in the median, and I found myself driving in the opposite direction. I am not a back road kind of girl! I like the well-marked, lighted routes in life and in driving. However, I am married to a back roads kind of guy. He rather enjoys meandering through unfamiliar routes.. finding different and interesting ways to get from here to there. Upon calling my back roads guy, he commenced to recite a long litany of back roads directions to me via cell phone. “Slow down.” I commanded, ” I am lost.. I will never get there at this rate. Give them one at a time.” So,  he stayed on the phone with me slowly reciting directions… a left turn here.. a right turn there.. and every once in a while when I would cave in to frustration at being detoured he would say, “You’re not lost. I know exactly where you are. ” Those comforting words  brought me safely  home. And then it dawned on me, our journey in this world is much like my journey home that night. Sometimes, our planned roads are closed.. no explanations, no warnings.. just like that.. CLOSED. In times like these, we begin to lose our bearings, panic, and cry out,”I’m lost. I’m lost. I can’t see the way home!” Our God, my Jesus,  sees our world, our tragedy, our pain, our joy, from a different perspective. He says gently, “You’re not lost. I know exactly where you are. ” I don’t know about you, but that gives me great comfort. I know there are many that question the mere existence of this Heavenly Father, but in my life.. I have  found Him a faithful, loyal friend who is more than enough.  Today maybe you need to reflect upon those words in the midst of pain, hurdles. Maybe you face financial hardship, mounds of laundry, even just cooking dinner seems an insurmountable mountain.  Amidst the wrinkles in our lives as well as the waves that threaten to drown us let me remind you, You’re NOT lost. He knows exactly where you are.