TRUST

Recently I took a trip to visit my sister in Vancouver.  GO VISIT YOUR SISTER.  I highly recommend it!  However, I have to confess that days and even weeks before my departure, I had terrible anxiety about going.  All kinds of terrible thoughts and scenarios played in my mind.  Things like: #1. What if the plane crashes and my kids are left without a mother!  #2. What if the plane crashes, my kids are left without a mother and the laundry is undone.  #3. WHAT IF the plane crashes, my kids are left without a mother, the laundry is undone and the kids go to school in dirty clothes without anyone to tell them about how babies are born!  Exhausting right?  Well, that was my brain leading up to the trip.  Yes, when we love someone SO much like we do our kids and spouses, the very thought of losing them stirs up emotions that feed our fears like no tomorrow.  Who wants to live a life in fear?  Well, my story does have a happy ending.  

In walks a little "friend intervention."    

Janie: How are you?  

Me: Great!  I’m going to visit my sister tomorrow

Janie: That is just precious Karen.  I hope you have a really good time.

Me: Thanks.  But I’m kinda nervous about going.  I have this feeling something bad is going to happen to me.

Janie: It’s a real lesson in trust isn’t it?

Me: Eyelash blink 

You have to LOVE your girlfriends!  Those friend interventions can really bring you back to reality.  Truly.  When in doubt...bump into your Christian girlfriends...the ones that can remind us that when we TRUST in our creator, all fear evaporates in the blink of an eye!  I am happy to say the trip was a success! I arrived home safely to two happy little girls, laundry to keep me busy, and a husband who is so thankful that he does NOT have to be the one to tell our daughters about the birds and the bees.  Thank you Janie!  Thank you Jesus!   

Psalm 37:5

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act

Happy New Year! What now?

A new year rings in.  The tree comes down and memories of yet another Christmas get stored away along with boxes of decorations.  Resolutions are made.  Children file back to school.  The house is cleaned. Bills are payed.  Quiet spills in with winter sunlight.  Another holiday season over.  The only thing left to do is ask “what now?”  

What will happen in 2013?  What paths will your feet walk for the next 365 days?  Whose heart will you touch?  What choices will you make?  Is there someone’s eyes you will look into and ask forgiveness?  Is this the year you will launch a career, walk down the isle, watch your son fly from the nest, pen a novel, grow a garden, slow down from chasing something, get off the couch and live boldly, hold a newborn in your arms, move somewhere new? 

Every morning when you wake, hundreds of decisions get put into motion.  Maybe you think none of them amount to very much, but then again maybe every decision is a choice that can have an impact on the kingdom for all eternity.  

Thank God for the year that has passed.  Ask Him to guide your path in the days to come.  Put your worries at His feet.  Thank Him for all He has done and watch as your question “What now?” becomes a beautiful picture of what His timing and your trust in His authority over your life can bring.  

Philippians 4:6 Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.

Christmas

Before we are even able to sit at our thanksgiving tables and give thanks the world shouts “Christmas”!  Hurry or you’ll be left behind!  Shop!  Buy!  Spend!  Decorate!  Organize!  And suddenly there are 50 emails that weren’t there before about savings you just can’t pass up!  Fed Ex is working overtime.  Packages are piled high at your door.  Mothers are flocking to department stores to find the perfect Christmas attire for the perfect photos and green and red outfits for each day of the week.  Families are stressed.  Husbands are hunched over their computers looking at finances.  Wives are striving for perfection and drinking hoards of coffee to keep them running like hamsters on wheels.  Kids are circling every single toy in the catalogue for Santa.  It’s madness.  It’s overwhelming.  It’s Christmas?

Yesterday, my doorbell rang.  It was a package from one of my dearest friends.  I opened it and had to sit down for a minute.  It was a book.  I turned the crisp pages carefully and studied the words, letting them pour over me and into my spirit.  As I did, the world got quiet.  My to-do lists vanished and in that moment, even the most beautiful decoration I had could not compete with the words on the page.       

I read: “If we could condense all the truths of Christmas into only three words, these would be the words: “God with us.”

“God saw what the world most desperately needed, and what He chose to give us was Himself....This is the message of Christmas."  

The stuff that our humans eyes crave on earth, are merely dust in the wind compared to the treasures our spirits will inherit in heaven when we meet our maker.  And the story of  our maker...the Christmas story is the only gift whose wrappings can bring peace until we get there.  

This Christmas, let the true meaning adorn you.  It will be the most beautiful decoration you’ve ever had in your home and your heart.

When Church Feels Like a Chore

Do you ever have this kind of self talk on a Sunday morning: 

The kids look so darn cute in their pajamas and they are playing so nicely together!  Why ruin a good thing by snapping fingers and demanding that everyone get dressed in frilly dresses and uncomfortable fancy shoes?  Why not just EASE into Sunday with coffee, a pancake and omelet breakfast and some cuddle time with the family?  There are plenty of church programs on tv you can tune into to quiet that guilty conscience of yours.  Some of them even have real “feel good” preachers so you can go about your day feeling motivated and inspired.  You have so much to do around the house too, so staying home and getting things done is such a wise decision.  The garage floor needs sweeping, the drawers need cleaning out and you really should go through all the stuffed animals and give some to goodwill before Christmas.  You are just too busy for church!    

OK, so what’s the deal?  There will always be 101 reasons to stay in your pajamas on a Sunday, but the number ONE reason to get out of bed and out of your house and into a house of worship IS....because God has invited you.  It’s as simple as that.  It’s not because it will make you a better person, or because the church needs you to work in childcare, or because you should be seen as the woman who goes to church.  

It’s because God invites us to worship Him.   

If you are having issues with going to church, take it to God.  Tell Him you are having a hard time with whatever it is.  The music, the teaching, the lack of donuts in the foyer.  Whatever it is, big or small, God is the only one that can fill your heart and soul with what you feel is missing.  But here’s the deal.  He wants you there.  So He can fill you in community.  So you can be a light to someone who needs it.  So you can hear yourself say: "Why yes, King of Kings, I would lOVE to accept your invitation!  

See you on Sunday friends.  It’s been a while.  

Love

Karen

A Bowl Full of Grace

My little one helps me set the table.   She looks at me with her big brown eyes, eyelashes as long as feathers and asks if she can put out the plates.  She likes to help.  

“What’s in the green bowl mommy?”  

“Words, I say with a smile.  Special words just for us.”

 I stop what I’m doing to look at her and the moment between us, before the dance of dinner plates begins is the moment I tuck into my heart and keep forever.  

For 3 years I prayed for her.  I cried into my husbands shirt in the toilet paper isle of Sam’s club because my womb was empty.   God heard my cries.  He saw me in the woods alone at the women’s retreat, my nose in a book.  He told me to look upward.  I saw three of them.  Wings gliding without effort on the wind’s breath.  He whispered to me.  You don’t have to work so hard.  I have you.  Glide.  Like they do.  I’ve got you.  In that moment I surrendered.  All of it.  The counting of days.  The google searches.  The waiting. The testing.  The crying.  The trying to have the baby that would never come.  Offered it all up in a single word.  Surrender.  That’s when the Lord gave her to me.    

Friday I sat on my knees on the floor holding her hand because all the chairs were taken in the room where they worked on her teeth.  I cried.  My baby.  Perfect.  Prayed for.  The devil was at me that day.  This precious one.  You’ve ruined her.  My mind raced over every birthday party bag filled with treats.  Chocolate in her milk.  Syrup on her pancakes.  Ice-cream in her bowl.  Standing on tip toes watching snow cones getting made.  I want rainbow mommy!  

Am I a terrible mother?  We don’t buy juice or soda.  We love apples at bed time.  We brush.  I sing while the brush spins.  It’s not enough.  They put the needle inside her cheek.  The devil puts one in my heart. 

Her big sister named her before she was even conceived.  The neighbor told us that my 3 year old daughter Paige announced at the play date “mommy is having a baby.  It’s a girl.  Her name is Annalise!”  I looked at the neighbor and apologized.  I have no news.  But oh how I wish!  Nine months later I did give birth to a girl!  We named her Annalise because when I looked up the meaning: “devoted to God” and “Grace”...I knew it was meant for her.  

She puts the forks and knives sideways beside the plates.  It makes me smile.  

"Can we read the words now mommy?"  

"Yes!"

  Everyone takes a card from the green bowl.  “God has a plan for my life” “ I am wonderfully made.”  “It’s okay to make mistakes”  We read the words out loud to each other.  His words feed us.  Fill us in our imperfection.  Nourish our bodies and our souls.  The green bowl full of words. 

     

The devil wants to grab hold and devour us doesn’t he?  Wants to tell us how we fail.  Tell us we can’t ever be good enough.  Tell us we are unworthy.  Unable to lose weight.  The miscarriage was our fault.  The cancer could have been prevented.  We are not good at anything.  We’ve ruined a good thing.  We will never be enough.  Lies.  He spews and spits at us.  But when we are together and partaking of the truth, we know that God’s goodness prevails.  Always. 

We put the cards back in the bowl but the words stay in our hearts.  We are grateful for how His love has brought each of us to the table.  Together we are ALL devoted to God and together with the ones we love we choose to feast on His grace. 

Picture Perfect

I bought this print early in my marriage.  I loved the romance of the couple dancing on the beach and it reminded me of how much I enjoyed being in my husbands arms.  

Ten years later...  

I am sitting in my living room saying a prayer.  It went something like: "God, what do we have to do to communicate better?"  At that moment the Lord revealed the answer in a picture I had looked at thousands of times.  

“If you want your marriage to look like the couple dancing, you have to be the servants.” 

I’ve never seen that picture or my marriage the same way again.  In seasons when my marriage needs a little extra prayer, I try to remember that my role as my husbands partner in this thing called life is to make sure he is taken care of.  And yes, my husband is called to do the same for me...and when we are both serving one another with all of our hearts, the dance, the picture perfect dance begins.  

I hope you never stop serving and dancing with the love of YOUR life!

Ephesians 5:22

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord

Ephesians 5:28-29

In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself.  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.

Grace, Olympic style.

Proverbs 24:16

For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again.

Aren’t the Olympics SO much fun? My family cheers for the Americans, the Canadians and the underdog.  We cheer for those athletes whose back stories are rich with details of the challenges they have overcome to be standing there. We cheer for the favorites. We cheer and cheer and cheer and make jokes about our own Olympic abilities. My husband is an Olympic water daddy. That’s the fine sport of balancing your daughters in the pool like surfers until they plunge into the water screaming DADDY! I sit on the sidelines, an Olympic potato chip eater, devouring bags of the crunchy snacks in world record time while cheering for the water Daddy. Sometimes between bites I’ll offer scores. “9.5”!  When the Olympics are on, everything becomes a silly competition in our family.       

My favorite sport to watch is women’s gymnastics. My own little girls are amazed at the flexibility and strength of these young athletes. We can hardly take our eyes off of team USA in their red shiny body suits and slicked back sparkly hair.  And as we are watching girl after girl mount and then execute their routines on the balance beam, we are nervously aware that any misstep could cause them to fall off.  So much is at stake and the tension of this truth weighs heavily in the air. 

A day later images of the gymnasts are still with me but this time I imagine that I am the woman in glistening red and I’m balancing more than an Olympic dream...I am balancing my family on that narrow beam. The sport of parenting is under a harsh spotlight and the judges wait to deliver my fate.  If I misstep, I risk dropping the most important people in my life.  If I try and do too many steps at once I will lose focus. If I focus on the child I’m balancing on my left side, the child on the right side will fall and likewise if I focus too much on the right side, the child on the left will suffer. Each step I take must be perfectly thought out and balanced.  If I stop moving, if I stop thinking, if I go too fast, too slow....each move will be followed by a consequence. I must be perfect. I am being watched.  Judged.  I love my children so much!  That’s when the weight of the girls in my arms becomes too heavy and I let go of my family.  Completely let go. We all fall. Hard. And on the dusty floor, before the pain of the fall even pierces me, I hear the Lord whisper, “It’s time for a coach.”  

What? But I know what I’m doing.  I’ve been parenting for 8 years.  I’ve got this. And then I look around at my children on the floor and that’s when the pain pierces and that’s when the Lord takes my hand and I weep into his hands as he raises us back on to the beam.  

"Lord, I cry, I had SO much focus on my family...why did we fall?"  And the moment I ask the question is the moment the answer comes. God wanted the focus to be on HIM. 

The judges have left. It’s just me and my husband, the kids, the beam and the Lord.  

And so we begin again.  

Grace.  Amazing Grace how sweet it is.