Remember Your Roots

I was walking out of church that last Sunday in Ohio, dangerously full of 18-year-old-swagger with all the bravado of “The Boss” himself, sick of "living in a dump like this” and ready to find the something that was happening somewhere.

I heard a car pull through the parking lot and an elderly man in the church yelled to me,  “Erica, remember your roots!"

I smiled and waved, asking my Mom what that was supposed to mean. She, relieved someone else was trying to pull me back to earth, said, "It's a way of saying even though you're leaving, never forget where you've come from." 

I resented his advice. Maybe even despised it. In many ways I wanted to get away precisely so I could forget where I'd come from. Leave it behind and start over. So much was a mess in my heart and I didn't even know where to begin sorting it all out. So I figured it was easier just to start from scratch than deal with the junk.

But I’d soon learn that you can't run from your own heart. As hard as I tried and as fast as I ran, the hardships of life in those Appalachian hills of southeastern Ohio kept their grip on me, pulling me back. The roots were deep and even though I desperately wanted to, I couldn’t forget them.

So in many ways, I tried to cut off the people from there, even my mom and the husband she married a few days after I left. But that only compounded the sin in my heart. Come to find out, you can’t remedy sin with more sinfulness.

I’d sneak in the closet under the stairwell of our college dorm where the cleaning products were stored and cry out to God. So many bitter angry tears flew from my bitter angry heart onto that unassuming floor. No cleaning product in that whole closet was powerful enough to remove those tear stains and clean up my mess.

But slowly I began to feel him pruning and untangling the vines and branches that were choking me from the inside out. I began to see the tender hand of the Vinedresser helping me bear fruit in keeping with repentance. I began to follow his hand, always careful and wise, but sometimes allowing me to feel the harsh and bloody prick of the thorns, tracing back to the people and places and faces I only wanted to leave behind. 

“I planted the seeds,” he’d say, “that took root in the soil of your heart. Don’t let the trials of life choke them out. Instead, hear the Word and understand it so you can bear more fruit.” And by his grace, I did.

A few months ago as we traveled those same Appalachian hills I had associated with much pain and sorrow from my past, I thanked God for the joy going home now brought me. I couldn’t miss the metaphor as we reached the highs and lows of the mountain terrain that my life course had been similar. Those treacherous hills were responsible, in part, for the death of my dear grandma, but they were also the birthplace of my spiritual life. “Except one grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it will never bear fruit.”(John 12:24) I had experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows in that place. No matter where I’ve gone since, God has graciously allowed me to remember my roots.

And I can remember them now, not with anger, or guilt, or shame or bitterness, but with thankfulness. Because there was One who grew up like a root out of drier ground than the coal mining ground of southeastern Ohio. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And he bore my griefs and carried my sorrows, not just up the rolling hills in Cambridge, Ohio, but up a hill of death to Calvary where he was crushed for the iniquities I’ve committed and for the iniquities committed against me. And his wounds have brought me healing.

So, if there’s a way I would now tweak that wise, older man’s advice to my 18-year-old self, I’d say, “Erica, remember your roots by remembering his.”

Cracking the Books

Today as you're cracking the books for another school year, it also means we're closing the chapter on the summer of 2016. Another one's crammed full of memories and shoved in the books for safe keeping.

Every first day of school I feel like a bandaid has been ripped off a tender part of my heart and I'm left reeling in the pain of it all. It takes it awhile to heal, although I don't think it ever fully does, before that tender part is uncovered again by another difficult feat of motherhood, keeping me raw and vulnerable.

There were smiles and tight hugs and brave words choked through tears as we sent you off this morning. For some moms I guess it gets easier. I'm not one of them.

But, I tell you to look up and remember that we're all seeing the same sky and bright sun formed by the God who is there with you in the classroom, lunch room, and on that playground. And with me here as I'm grimacing in pain.

I tell you to listen up to the word of God that has been poured in your heart day after day in this home of ours.

And I tell you to speak up, telling the truth to yourself about who God says you are, talking to those who need a word of love and encouragement, and declaring who Jesus is to a system opposed to his way.

I'll do the same, and we'll catch up about it all at 3 PM today. Then we'll do it over again tomorrow, with his help, writing each page of this book of the 2016-2017 school year. He's a good author and I love his stories. And in the end, even though it's another rough beginning, I think this will be a pretty good one too.

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Caught Between

I'm putting on my make up in the bathroom and you come in wanting to talk. You look frustrated and tell me how hard it is to be caught between being a teenager and a little kid.

Today you turn 11, and you say there are so many changes and the process is emotionally exhausting and it feels like you'll never get there. We've been through it before and I have my go-to encouragements, but this time God strikes my heart with a new compassion because I realize I'm there too. My circumstances are different but I'm still caught in between.

When I see myself in the mirror of the Word, I feel the tension between the already and the not yet, and I think I'll never be what I should be and I can relate to all the awkward in the process of change. Saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, growing into what God is making me, not feeling at home in my own skin (or feeling too at home there) when my spirit is (or should be, depending on the day) pulling toward heaven.

So I look at your big brown eyes so full of the complexities of where you are in life and I tell you I know. I know how hard it is, sweet girl. I know the growing pains and the long path to change that feels like one step forward and two steps back. I know the frustration of day by day wondering who you really are and what you're really becoming.

And once again, I find myself almost out of words, out of pretty bows to tie up all those concerns and sadnesses and overwhelming feelings. There are fewer quick fixes the older you get. No more just kissing boo-boos as you skip off happily. But really, that's a sign you're right where you need to be, feeling the tension, feeling God forming Jesus in you, feeling God pulling you toward him, and seeing God change you into the woman he wants you to be.

So I tell you that we will struggle together to get where God is taking us.

We have a saying as the teenage years approach, looming before us like a necessary but unwanted rain storm. It's not becoming a teenager that could make us grow apart. We remind each other: the only thing that can make us grow apart is sin. Only sin can create a wedge between us.

So as you're stuck in the middle, between your teenage years and your childhood, make a habit now of fighting sin. Don't let others tell you how you should look, act, and talk. Don't let others tell you what you need and how you should feel. Don't listen when your peers say we don't understand, are old-fashioned, and unloving.

Instead, I'll take one side of that shield of faith, described in Ephesians 6, and you take the other and together we'll help guard our hearts against the devil and all his schemes we are so prone to follow. We'll oppose those fiery darts of well-timed temptations that he's hurling at us. And I'll keep teaching you to use that sword, which is the Word of God, to combat the lies your generation and mine are screaming in our faces.

One day, Stell, we will be what we should be. And because of the difficult journey there, it will make our arrival all the sweeter. But until then, if we have to live between where we've been and where we're going, I'm really glad that we're caught here together.

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God's Ruby

I kiss your cheek at the stroke of midnight and from a heart bursting with love and concern spontaneously pray God's care over you in this next year of life. You're another year older today and I hope we are another year wiser. There's so much inside of this bundle of Ruby and 8 years isn't near enough time to unpack it all.

You are complex and I listen to your heart open as words and tears pour out. The fears that grip you, sometimes paralyzing you. The empathy that affects you to the point of physical illness. The sensitivity to injustice that makes you put pencil to paper and write a confrontation to your class about racism and bullying. The discipline that makes you to run laps and do push-ups and practice soccer in the front yard. The continued outbursts of anger when you're told no or contradicted. The desire to control situations and manipulate them to get what you want. The compassion that motivates you to give when the rest of us turn our heads and move on. How you can seem aloof and disconnected and then unearth a profound thought, keen observation, or timely encouragement.

You say that you used to be "iffy" about the existence of God. But now you see him everywhere. All around you, in answers to prayer and how our life plays out. But you say trusting him makes you nervous. Kind of like riding a roller coaster, you say. Like you know it's going to be great and that in the end it will be fine, but it's just how you'll get there that makes you nervous.

You pray about specific things over and over and report that God doesn't take the struggles away. But when I tell you instead of asking him to take them away, to ask him to help you trust him through them and change you through them, you nod in an unexpected and eager submission that I don't often see. And I wonder what's going on in that heart of yours?

God knows though, so I continue to take those snapshots of your heart, only small glimpses I get, to him. He has you figured out and all sorted out because he made you. He knows everything about you. All those paradoxes that confuse me and all those extremes that scare me, aren't perplexing to him in the least. He's steady and sure in what he's doing in your life while I can be overwhelmed, and just plain tired.

I often think of Psalm 139 in terms of personal application, but it brings me such comfort as your mom when I apply it to you too.

You have searched Ruby, Lord, and you know her. You know when she sits and when she rises; you perceive her thoughts from afar. You discern her going out and her lying down; you are familiar with all her ways. Before a word is on her tongue you, Lord, know it completely. You hem her in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon her. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can she go from your Spirit? Where can she flee from your presence? If she goes up to the heavens, you are there; if she makes her bed in the depths, you are there. If she rises on the wings of the dawn, if she settles on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide her, your right hand will hold her fast. If she says, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created her inmost being; you knit her together in my womb. I praise you because she is fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Her frame was not hidden from you when she was made in the secret place, when she was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw her unformed body; all the days ordained for her were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts about her, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when she awakes, she is still with you. Search her, God, and know her heart; test her and know her anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in her, and lead her in the way everlasting.

I cannot attain to God's knowledge of you, Ruby. So I trust your Maker with you, the precious girl he fearfully and wonderfully knit together in my womb and in my heart. I ask him to use me and Daddy to keep leading you in his way, working out all those days he ordained for you even before we got to hold you and hug you and love you. We get to be used by him in your life, starting with new mercies this morning on this new year of your life. You are his first, so Happy 8th Birthday to God's Ruby. . .and thankfully, ours too.

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I Married This Man

I listened to you preach on Sunday, watching you form your words and pull that passion right out of your heart. I knew the Word had kept you up late and got you up early and it needed to come out. And I was praying for you, assuring you even though I couldn't help you carry the burden of your care for the church, that I could carry you.

And as I listened and saw your wet eyes at the thought of the cords of love that have tightly bound you to him, I took that Word from your heart to mine and couldn't help but thank God for it and for who he is making you.

They say the longer you're married, the more people you marry. And I think it's true because I married many different versions of Matthew Owen these 14 years. I married the young energetic one with boyish enthusiasm and loads of ambition. The one who drove me and my mom around Greenville with reckless abandon, hair blowing in the wind in our rented convertible. I married the seminary student pulling all-nighters drinking coke and coffee by the cups full, never turning down an opportunity to socialize or give his opinion. I married the one hesitant to become a father and then watched his heart fold in tenderness cradling our newborns, resolute in disciplining our toddlers, and compassionate in nurturing our tweens. I married the dad who rises and bends with all the back-breaking and heart-wrenching duties of fatherhood. I married the entry-level call center employee who worked his way up to Audi Business Analyst, being offered a job from a competing marketing company with the salary and perks to boot. I married the one who thanked God for the opportunity but turned it down because pastoral ministry was calling him louder. I married the man who had to tie that call to the altar and give it to the Lord, not knowing if he'd ever see it again. I married the one who knelt before our MI church congregation, since the Lord did give him that desire of his heart, and watched them ordain him to be a minister of the gospel. I married the man who needed me by his bedside off and on for two years while he fought a strange, troubling and sometimes debilitating physical illness. I married the one who rose up out of that bed of affliction, and has never stopped humbly acknowledging his dependence on God for his next step and breath. I married the man who realized his ambition alone couldn't make things happen and his opinions didn't really matter that much. And I married the man who took a chance on the girl from a broken home who had no religious pedigree in which to boast, and commit to give me his name and trust me with his heart.

I still have to pinch myself and thank God that I married this man. What do I have that I haven't received?

On our 14th anniversary, I thank God for the Matthew Owen you are today. I don't know what man I'll have married in five more years or ten, but I pray that God will use each trial, each joy, each success, and each failure to make you more and more like Jesus. I see him restoring his image in you and I like the way it looks. Even better than Leonardo DiCaprio.

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Because of Aaliyah and Shiloh

My last post over five months ago, was written through tears of disappointment because God had used us in a birthmom's life in a way we wouldn't have chosen - being there for her through the struggle of her uncertainty, ready to welcome her baby into our family as our own, but then being called to rejoice with her as on her way to the hospital she called saying she was choosing to parent her child. After we hung up the phone from that call, without wasting much time, we went through the house putting away the pack and play, the car seat waiting to be grabbed on the way out the door to the hospital, and the pink onesies and sleepers ready to dress Aaliyah, our anticipated baby girl.

It wasn't primarily for me we cleared away reminders of the bundle who wasn't coming home, but because we knew who would be coming home in just a few hours. The three children God had called us to parent. And we didn't want to make the sight of unfulfilled hopes harder for them to bear.

I laid with Stella in her bed later that afternoon as she sobbed heartbroken, hugging her and wiping her cheeks, blotchy from tears. I couldn't help but wonder how navigating the peaks and valleys of emotions associated with adoption might effect her heart and view of God. But that was out of my control. As a family we talked through it, prayed about it, and grabbed onto the same truth that had us securely strapped in all along.

So, we were not greatly shaken when our second adoption fell through a few months later. We opened our hearts to learn and be and receive whatever God wanted, and prayed for baby Shiloh and his future without us.

Then God surprised us again today, as he loves to do in adoption. But not with a baby to hold. Instead with a third place ribbon around her neck from Stella's speech contest. She competed against over 200 students and placed for her speech articulating why adoption is important. In it she said how adoption has helped her understand birth parents who are in situations so different from hers. She concluded that together we are loud in supporting adoption and helping children have loving homes.

Once again, God has reminded me that he has not wasted these last three years as we've been waiting for an adoption match to finalize. Through it, he is working in our hearts - and our kids' hearts - every step of the way. So even though we never got to kiss Aaliyah or snuggle Shiloh close, God has used them to draw us and our Stella, Ruby, and Schaeffer, nearer to his heart. This medal will continue to be a visible reminder to us that our empty arms are not an indication that God is slow in keeping his promises. Instead, he is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9) So we ask again, keep working in us and through us for your purposes, Lord!

 

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Because of Aaliyah and Shiloh

My last post over five months ago, was written through tears of disappointment because God had used us in a birthmom's life in a way we wouldn't have chosen - being there for her through the struggle of her uncertainty, ready to welcome her baby into our family as our own, but then being called to rejoice with her as on her way to the hospital she called saying she was choosing to parent her child. After we hung up the phone from that call, without wasting much time, we went through the house putting away the pack and play, the car seat waiting to be grabbed on the way out the door to the hospital, and the pink onesies and sleepers ready to dress Aaliyah, our anticipated baby girl.

It wasn't primarily for me we cleared away reminders of the bundle who wasn't coming home, but because we knew who would be coming home in just a few hours. The trio of blessings God had called us to parent. And we didn't want to make the sight of unfulfilled hopes harder for them to bear.

I laid with Stella in her bed later that afternoon as she sobbed heartbroken, hugging her and wiping her cheeks, blotchy from tears. I couldn't help but wonder how navigating the peaks and valleys of emotions associated with adoption might effect her heart and view of God. But that was out of my control. As a family we talked through it, prayed about it, and grabbed onto the same truth that had us securely strapped in all along.

So we were not greatly shaken when our second adoption fell through a few months later. We opened our hearts to learn and be and receive whatever God wanted, and prayed for baby Shiloh and his future without us.

Then God surprised us again today, as he loves to do in adoption. But not with a baby to hold. Instead with a third place ribbon around her neck from Stella's speech contest. She competed against over 200 students and placed for her speech articulating why adoption is important. In it she said how adoption has helped her understand birth parents who are in situations so different from hers. She concluded that together we are loud in supporting adoption and helping children have loving homes.

Once again, God has reminded me that he has not wasted these last three years as we've been waiting for an adoption match to finalize. Through it, he is working in our hearts - and our kids' hearts - every step of the way. So even though we never got to kiss Aaliyah or snuggle Shiloh close, God has used them to draw us and our Stella, Ruby, and Schaeffer, nearer to his heart. This medal will continue to be a visible reminder to us that our empty arms are not an indication that God is slow in keeping his promises. Instead, he is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9) So we ask again, keep working in us and through us for your purposes, Lord!

 

We Don't Get To Decide

The situation takes me back 9 years ago. I'm standing at the counter mopping up crumbs while I mop up tears too. Wiping up a kitchen mess while I wipe my red, swollen eyes at the same time. The familiar lessons of sovereign bullets and choosing to give thanks in the taking, quickly come to mind. They are a strange comfort to my grieving heart, messengers of sorrow, but simultaneously singing a sweet refrain.

For two months now, we've anticipated the December placement of a baby girl in our home. We met with her expectant mom and talked, crying and laughing, for over an hour. She set up a hospital plan, inviting us to visit her during labor and take over parenting responsibilities immediately following delivery. And then yesterday, she changed her mind, and decided not to follow through with the adoption plan.

While we rejoice for this life and the unification of a family unit, we can't help but grieve over the loss of this baby being added to our family. Adoption always involves grief, and in this case, in spite of our tears, we are thankful that we are grieving so this birth mom doesn't have to. When starting down the path of adoption, it's easy to talk a big game about taking risks, being a father to the fatherless, and painting this glorious picture of the gospel. But actually, we don't get to decide how it all ends. Because really, God is the one who is ultimately Father to the Fatherless, and maybe what he really wants us to do is be faithful to show his love to those in need in smaller ways, like getting an expectant mom through the roughest six weeks of her life because she knows someone cares and is willing to love her child as their own. Maybe he wants us to bring her flowers and write her a reassuring card telling her she matters. Maybe he wants us to faithfully pray for her and her child because no one else is. And maybe he wants us to be willing to open our hearts and enter into her hard story and make it our own, helping her bear all the heartbreak and drama it involves. And in the end, maybe our arms are empty, but hers are full. And that's OK, because we don't get to decide how he uses us.

As friends (who have had more than their share of grief in the adoption process) told us, "We don't adopt perfectly. But God does." And our expectation has to be in him - the real Father to the Fatherless and Helper of the poor and needy. Maybe our adoption story doesn't end like we expect, at the front of a courtroom all smiles with the same last name. But maybe God chooses to use our willing hearts to love others in a smaller way, even to our personal hurt, as just a part of the process and writing of a few short pages in the longer story of their lives.

And we've decided that what he decides is good enough.

 

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Marked By Motherhood

I walked you to the door of the Kindergarten building and let go of your chubby hand. That hand I've held for five years telling myself on so many occasions, "Don't forget what this feels like, Erica." You took your place in line and started taking in your new surroundings, thinking thoughts sprinkled with cluelessness and over-confidence, I'm sure. :) Stella, with the sweet swagger of an upper elementary classman, assured me she knew the way to her portable. So it was just me and Ruby headed to her building. And the girl who has never had a smooth start to school wrapped both arms around my neck and kissed my face and went in with a skip in her step. I was so grateful. Because on that day I was the one struggling.

The 1st day of school we had an ER visit because of a tripping accident on the way out the door. So, this is the 2nd day!

I could've gone out a different way, but I just had to walk back by your building again to see if you were still in the hall and if I might get one last look at you. Sure enough you were. And all of the sudden our roles were reversed and instead of your saying, "Look at me, Mommy! Watch me do this!" I was the one fighting for your attention, wanting so badly for you to look one last time so I could blow you a kiss and give you a thumbs up. In spite of the other distractions, your eyes made your way to mine and I got to wave to you again. My boy. The last of the trio of blessings who've been with me for 10 years now.

For 10 years I've had a baby on my hip, a toddler under my feet, or a preschooler at my table. For a decade I have been surprised by the monsters I've seen surface from my own heart, chased monsters all around the house, and prayed away monsters in the dark. For a decade I have worn spit-up covered clothes, transition clothes until I "lose my baby weight," or the same clothes three days in a row. For these past 10 years I have had Mommy brain, Mommy hair, Mommy jeans, and finally realized becoming a mommy is something you never recover from. I've been marked by it forever.

So when I got back to the quiet van, I was ashamed at how many times I had wished for the quiet that all of the sudden I had and despised. I opened the door to our house and instead of being frustrated that I had to answer the same question for the millionth time ("What are we were going to do today?!"), I was frustrated that no one was asking. And just like that, I realized the door was closing on the little years with our three. Just. Like. That.

There are numerous things I can pour myself into in this new school-aged season of life, and I will. There are things I cherish about their ages now and ways it stretches me and drains me and keeps me on my knees, and I want to be faithful here and now. And by God's grace, I will. But this week, I'm letting myself feel the weight of the goodbye to this season of life with my babies. I'm rehearsing lessons learned, facing oh so many regrets with the forgiveness of Jesus and the good news of the gospel keeping me from despair, and remembering the sounds of laughter, pitter patter of newly walking feet, squeals of excitement, the bright wonder of little eyes, unending interrogations about everything, tender cuddles, loud belly laughs, silly tickles, filling, refilling and spilling sippy cups, and wiping bottoms, noses and mouths. So bear with me if I remind you how fast it goes. And bear with my puffy eyes and stuffy nose and sentimental reminiscing. I've been marked by motherhood, and I couldn't be more thankful.

 

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Doubly Loved

I got a foretaste this week of maybe what being a grandparent will be like. A grandmother once told me, "You love your grandkids so much because you love them twice. You love their parents and then you love them. They're doubly loved!"

And so are these dear ones.

We spent nearly 7 years loving their parents, our friends and precious brothers and sisters in Christ, and for the past week we got to love those parents' kids. Thank you for sharing them with us. They are doubly loved. . .and doubly missed.

 

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You Are Strong but Not Strong Enough

 

How can I almost cry through a soccer game watching your little body sprint and muscle bound legs extend up and down the field? It's not like you're wearing a cute dress with your hair in curls singing a sweet, smiley song in a school program. You're sweaty and throwing elbows and have fire in your eyes and there's really nothing sentimental about it. But I almost cry through all of your soccer games because along with that YMCA uniform, you wear your heart on your sleeve. I see it and it pulls my heart right into my throat. You are fighting to win that game and that ball with all the strength of your 40 lb body. You want to run fastest and be the best and I see your exertion and know as hard as you're fighting if this all ends in disappointment, you'll fall hard. Your emotion usually evokes my emotion. . . for better and worse. After all, the days are long and mama's temper is short. Isn't that how the saying goes?

Godly Women are Strong Women

I've spent most of the past 7 years clarifying womanhood for you in these posts so you could be assured godly women are spiritually strong women. You love muscles and rough and tough and I think that coincides beautifully with the inner grit required of a woman following Christ's path. No flowery beds of ease. In fact, sometimes, no bed at all, just like the Savior she follows.

So knowing the foundation we've already given you in some of what it means to be a Christian woman, this past year we have been encouraging you in one of the many paradoxes of the Christian life. Strength through weakness. There's a true, lasting strength you won't experience until you are weak, at the end of yourself, undone by your sin, and realizing your neediness.

#mightyruby

Last fall, when Kacy Catanzaro became the first woman to complete the City Finals Course and make it to American Ninja Warrior National Finals, the trending hashtag was #mightykacy. You watched her 5 ft frame defy obstacles that should've been too hard for her at her height. You said you couldn't wait until you're old enough to try out! So we started calling you #mightyruby on occasion to encourage you to aim high and use your God-given athleticism as far as God allows it to take you.

#mightiergod

At the beach on Saturday, the tide was low, so we ended up farther away from you than normal. I kept my eye on you though, and couldn't help but see the contrast of your little form against the unending shoreline on each side of you. I watched the waves tumbling in, threatening to devour you with each thrust, one after another. You were for the most part, oblivious, until we we stepped into those crashing and foamy towers and then you clung onto me realizing again their power and your weakness. I told you, in so many words, that waves are one of God's many ways of flexing his muscles. And that as strong as we might feel, we wouldn't last long if we tried to fight against them. I asked you if you could strain your eyes to see where the ocean ended and you laughed saying, "No!" As we jumped through the current, I reminded you the Bible says God holds these immense, expansive and devouring oceans in the palm of his hand. Amazing. Do you see it, Ruby Jean? #mightyruby is no match for #mightiergod!

So that's why we point out the sin in your heart, so you will see your need and let him conquer all of those rebel powers fighting within. That's why we love you enough to show you the battle you're fighting is a losing one and holding onto your sin isn't a sign of strength, but foolishness because it's leading you to the grave. We don't mince words but speak the truth in love so you will know, as Hannah prayed dedicating her child who was an answer to her prayers and weeping and longing too, "It is not by strength that one prevails; those who oppose the Lord will be broken." (1 Samuel 2:9)

See the weakness and neediness in your sinful heart #mightyruby. And bow the knee to #mightiergod. That is my heartfelt and heartbroken prayer for you in this 7th year of your life. Because Ruby, your physical strength might take you far in this life, but you can't strong arm God to get to heaven.

"[God] said, ". . . my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses. . .For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:9,10)

 

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He's Our...

Home Sweet Home.

So thankful to be back together as a family!

 

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Something Better Than President (To my Mom for Father's Day)

I guess in some ways it would've made more sense to write this post on Mother's Day. I could have, but I didn't. Because although you have been a mom to me these past 39 years, you've also stood where a dad should've stood all these years, too. When you're a single parent, you don't think about taking off the "Mom" hat to put on the "Dad" hat, do you? You just see what needs done and said and paid and corrected and kissed and tackled and you do it. All. Alone. Every. Day.

Last week, I glanced at our faces in the mirrored dining room when we laughed, not sure which was yours and which was mine. Our eyes, our hair color, our size, our smile. Have two mothers and daughters ever looked more alike?

It's no wonder I have a hard time telling us apart. A baby doesn't make itself and neither does a toddler, a preschooler, a student, a teenager, or a woman. So much of who I am, you have made me, and what I have, you have given me. I can't always sort out what's mine and what's yours on the inside either.

When my newborn hand first wrapped around your barely 19-year-old finger, you wrapped your love in determination and sealed it with a kiss on my tiny black-haired head. That kiss was full of expectations for how we would get through. Starting with the first time the babysitter would pry my little arms and legs from around you so you could go to work. You'd be brave, telling me and all my tears I could too and then run to your car crying on your way because you hated leaving me scared and sad. What hat were you wearing then? "Mom" or "Dad"? Or were you just knowing you had bills to pay and our mouths to feed and if you didn't work, who would?

You had expectations for me the summer before Kindergarten when we took a walk on Daytona Beach and you told me things would be different. I was becoming a big girl and would have to go to school and pull my chin out of my chest and make friends. And you knew I could do it. I believed I could too because you said so.

You had expectations for me when Amy, who had every toy she wanted, made fun of me because I didn't even have a dad. You didn't say all I'm sure you wanted to say about her, nor did you justify our situation. You helped me take pity on her because she had toys, all right, but she didn't have a relationship like ours.

You had expectations for me in 3rd grade when Carla said I looked like a chipmunk with my buck teeth hanging over my lip. You didn't rush to the orthodontist and throw some braces on me to boost my self-esteem or tell me buck was the new beautiful. You expected me not to take myself too seriously and suggested that I go with the theme and dress up as one of the chipmunks for Halloween. So out came the over-sized sweatshirt and paint for Alvin's signature "A". Trick or treat!

You had expectations for me in 5th grade (Stella's age) when I had to start setting my own alarm clock for school and getting myself out of bed, ready, and out the door on time. I couldn't miss the bus because you were already at work and couldn't leave to come get me if I did. I think I ran to the bus stop many mornings that year, climbing those bus steps panting and wind blown. I may have even chased it down a few times, running across Forest View Drive to the last stop in our neighborhood. (Punctuality was never my strength. Wonder where I got that from?!)

You had expectations for me in 7th grade when I didn't make the cheerleading squad in spite of being favored for a spot going into tryouts. The teachers picked the girls from "good families" and who knew what mayhem I might introduce considering the kind of family I came from. You gave me strict instructions that I was to be as glad for the girls who won as I would've been for myself. That I shouldn't dare talk badly about the judging or any of the other girls who beat me, regardless of what I thought of their "barely off the ground toe touches" and "horribly uncoordinated dancing."

You had expectations for me in the summers from 5th grade on. I was to be out of bed by 9 AM, check my to do list for the day, and get busy completing it before you got home that afternoon. I was also to read Five Little Peppers and How They Grew and list every word I didn't know the meaning of. Then I was to look up those words in the dictionary and write out their definitions. (Thankfully, you let this one expectation go after awhile!)

You had expectations for me in high school when one of my teachers, who by all other accounts was a nice person, had the audacity to say a woman could never be President of the United States because she would constantly be changing her mind about what color the drapes should be in the White House. (Even typing those words now still makes my blood boil a little too much.) I don't think I'd ever heard someone criticize and demean my gender like that because you had taught me, not in a man bashing way, nor in a we-need-men-as-much-as-a-fish-needs-a-bicycle way, women were as competent as men. Didn't everyone think that? I knew you couldn't care less what color the drapes were in the White House, but you were a woman who could capably lead our house and your office, with a multi-membered staff and several departments, because you were smart and decisive and strong. And you expected the same from me.

For 26 years under your roof, you told me what I should be and you lived it for me like a mom should and like a dad should've. My old high school teacher might be surprised that you raised me to be something better than President. God used all you invested in me and expected of me to help make me a Christian woman.

Happy Father's Day, Mom. For all the days you did what needed to be done, said what I needed to hear, worked your fingers to the bone, studied into the wee hours of the morning to earn your degrees, stayed up late to wash clothes and floors and dishes, and lived the expectations you held me to. You became part of who I am. And I couldn't be prouder to be so much you that I can't tell us apart.

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*Some names have been changed in this post to protect the guilty:)

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Stay on the Bike: A 13th Anniversary Admonition

I left her tough and tender hand for your untried one that Saturday morning.

You opened it up to me and I held on tight, in faith, to my husband-to-be, wondering what you would be.

Samuel Rutherford was right. This bride loved the beauty and simplicity of her white satin dress, but on that day, I was only eyeing all the handsomeness of your chiseled 22-year-old face. We looked like kids, but even kids can sometimes know what's up.

So we looked up, lifting our hopes and voices at the front of our church to the only One worthy of our praise.

"For Thyself, best gift divine,
To our race so freely given.
For that great, great love of Thine,
Peace on earth, and joy in heaven:
Christ our Lord, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise."

We let the wind carry us where it would and it blew us right into the city named after it.

I clumsily followed you around Lake Michigan on my bike too, trying to remember how to ride (and they say you never forget). We laughed, joking about pedestrians passing me while I was the one on wheels. But we stayed on our bikes, basking in the electricity of young married love, fed by a city as energetic and ambitious as we were.

You sat through My Fair Lady gleaning helpful knowledge about Spain and rain and Hampshire and hurricanes.

We went to a steakhouse and I checked my fruit and veggies at the door for my meat and potatoes man.

For breakfast, before our food, we each ordered dark black coffee and sweet and tangy freshly squeezed o.j., eyes wide over how tasty everything was, and over . . . the bill! Who knew we should've made a meal out of those drinks to stay within budget?!

Figuring out life together was a lot like my relearning to ride that bike. Couples passed us who had been at it longer telling us those molehills I made mountains wouldn't seem so big once we'd really climbed a few. Those expectations I had and demands I made would show that you could never be for me what only God could. And all those adventures you shared that I was so quick to reason our way out of and shoot down on the spot would highlight the fact that you wanted me to be a friend to laugh and dream with, not a legal counselor or risk assessor.

We needed space to have some wrecks and work things out on our own along the way, but we also needed examples to show us how it's done. To show us what it looked like to stay on the bike and to love God and each other more than we wanted to be loved ourselves.

It's 13 years later, and I'll be the first to admit I still have a ways to go. But I think by the way you've learned to love me, you've actually made me better at loving. You slow up for me as I still timidly pedal at times and push me to go faster and pedal harder when you know that's what I need. And sometimes I have to tell you that fast isn't everything. Half the fun is in how we get there - the journey - not just in arriving. The road is full of bumps and sudden turns, so in some ways we're still working it out one ride at a time. But in other ways, by God's grace, we keep pace pretty well with those older pros.

Photo Credit: Robyn Moore

So, to you young couples still new at this sometimes (often?) difficult marriage ride, trying to steady that bike from tipping or even thinking it would be so much easier to abandon it at the curb, could we ask you to stay on the bike? We are giving you space to fall and try to work it out together. But we're also here if you need a hand to help you up, to dust off the gravel, and to get back on.

Decorating 101

We've been in our house just over a year now. After hotel living for about a month, we were so grateful to have walls between us again, never mind if they were unfinished and the floor was dusty concrete in places.

I've enjoyed making this house our orange and yellow haven these past months. We are thankful for the unnecessary, but helpful, blessings of more bathrooms and more space.

Just before we moved in, I discovered Myquillyn Smith's blog, Nesting Place. Her mantra, "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful," helped me find contentment with our budget and provided some focused commitment to shop the house with new eyes to reuse and rethink how I could be creative with the decór I had. It was fun!

But this past month, probably in part because of my expectation that our house should look a certain way after 12 months of residence, that motto hasn't been cutting it. I still see some bare walls and floors and not enough or too much of you name it.

All the wise shopping and saving and minimizing and digging deep in still unpacked boxes has left me discouraged and even frustrated with my imperfectly beautiful surroundings.

A few Sundays ago, a friend from church texted and asked how she could be praying for me. I told her about my admittedly silly struggle with contentment regarding my house. She wrote back saying she could definitely relate and added, "I know I've had times when my head is just swirling with to-buy lists- it's hard to shut off." Spot on.

I knew I could run to Home Goods and pick up another $10 knick-knack to cross one thing off that "must buy" list. But I've worn a path down that road and knew in about 2 hours (if that) the problem would still be there with a new "needed" item now added to the list so I could complete the vignette I started.

The problem is that although most of the time I can see beauty in my imperfect surroundings and be thankful for what I have, my heart doesn't just crave beauty. It craves perfect beauty.

My problem, then, isn't solved by a bigger budget to buy higher end and better quality things. Nor is it solved by getting a more inspired vision for what I can creatively reuse. My problem isn't with my physical eyes but my spiritual ones. The eyes of my heart long to gaze upon something -or someone- who lacks nothing. Who isn't just beautiful enough. But beautiful completely.

So I take his Word and see him as the perfect satisfier of all my heart wants - yes, even what it wants to fill the dry walls and laminate floors of this brick edifice. Like Moses, I see all his goodness pass before me, and the eyes of my heart are captivated by perfect beauty. "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin." (Exodus 34:6,7a)

My heart is at peace because I find all it has been craving met in him. "He satisfies the longing soul." (Psalm 107:9)

Although I still have my list of wants and make use of Myquillyn's helpful slogan and practical expertise, these past days, I have reminded myself that the decorating primer I've needed and the kind of beauty for which I'm longing, aren't fixes I can make with my hands or see with my eyes, but instead, are apprehended with my heart.

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I Love You When You Lose

Battle of the Books

Because this Museum of Memories isn't just for the wins. It's not about making me look like a rock star mom with above average you name it, so I can manage a certain public opinion of our family. It's about recording for each of you a history of our constant love for you, often in good times, but even in disappointing times. It's about assuring you we love you regardless of your performance. I just so happen to keep learning that lesson from the One who promises to love me with an everlasting love and continues his faithfulness to me. (Jeremiah 31:3) He recorded that message for me, in a museum of sorts, because He knew I'd need to keep remembering it too.

So rejoice in our love for you on this difficult day! And remember this is real life. Our love will help you learn from it and grow through it.

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Being a Christian Isn't Easy

Your 9-year-old hand penned those words and this mother's heart breathed a rare sigh of relief, since at least one of the things we've seemingly done right (still all of grace!) is not communicating to you that being a Christian is as easy as walking an aisle or merely saying a prayer. But at the same time, my 39-year-old heart, which has seen it's share of painful battering and still tender bruising, wonders what you can possibly know of how hard it really is.

So when your daddy asked you, "Do you promise to follow Jesus all the days of your life?", I had mixed feelings as you emphatically answered, "Yes!"

I've been 3 decades farther down the road of life than you, and as I grieved with a friend suffering loss recently, felt afresh the thorny ways, dreaded clouds, and bitter tastes which make up this life of following Jesus. What about all of those things you've yet to encounter? The few struggles you've had in your relatively easy life are nothing compared with what might, and most likely will, lie ahead for you in this cursed world.

How could we let you make such a promise?

Because God reminded me the strength of your promise made isn't in your ability to follow, but in his ability to lead. He is always putting us in a position which requires us to trust him, without all the specifics, but based on the fact of his character and actions. He often says, "This is who I am and this is what I do. Will you follow me?"

So as you answered with that enthusiastic "Yes!" God was really asking me again (as he has done so many times these past 9 years), "Do you trust me with her, Erica? Do you trust that I can lead her based on who I am and what I have promised to do?" And so, in my heart, I murmur a less eager but still resolute "Yes!" too.

I have to keep letting you go. Because you make a great daughter but a horrible idol. So I relinquish all my claims on you and submit them to his much higher and better claim on you. Yes, Stella, follow him! Follow him with all the passion your 9-year-old heart can muster. Don't look at the path, look at the Leader! Don't look at the building, look at the Builder. Don't look at the created, look at the Creator. Don't look at the story, look at the Author! He is a big God with a big plan for you.

Those thorny ways will lead to a joyful end, I remind myself. Those dreaded clouds are immense with mercy, and why wouldn't I want you to share with me in their breaking shower? And those bitter tastes are graciously washed down with the same free living water which has quenched your thirst eternally!

So welcome to his table, our daughter and sister. Jesus, thank you!

*Thanks to RJ and Emily Vergara for the powerful video of this special day in the life of our church.

The Joy of You

I watch you out the window as you run to our mailbox, eagerly anticipating the treasures in today's delivery. Any mom who spends her days at home can relate to this simple highlight of the day. And just like you don't want to miss the joy of the mail, I'm so thankful I haven't missed the joy of you, my boy.

Your sweaty curls bouncing, your eyes lighting up and smile spreading wide when you see your mama's there. You wave in excitement like it's the first time we've seen each other all day and run to the door to report, "It's boring mail today, Mama."

I remember that other day watching for you, just five years - more like blinks - ago. What would it be like having a boy? How would I parent you? What new things would I learn?

And then I held you and knew it would be OK. That I'd learn about you and how to one day at a time.

And by God's grace, I have.

Since then, I've learned that you are an early riser, even beating the sun up some mornings. You are immediately cheerful and busy from that first flip of your light switch. You throw open your drawers, get dressed and make your bed right away, ready to begin the play and conversation of the day.

I say conversation, because I've learned that you are a talker. Wow, can you pile up words! And I'm not always good at it, but I make myself stop and listen and look you in the eye, trying to make sense of how you're trying to make sense of life.

I've learned that you have a tender and empathetic heart. You have ears that hear both the faintest ambulance siren off in the distance and the one blaring right next to us, and always want to pray for those in distress. Even you know all is not as it should be in this broken world and have learned to call out to the only One who can fix it.

I've learned that you are a classic extrovert. You love meeting new people and your energy level rises exponentially in comparison to the number of people in the room. The sooner you can get to know them, the better. You call our neighbors by name and make small talk with them from across the street. Your friends at the YMCA can't wait for you to get there because everything's more fun with Schaeffer! One of the employees who could have today off is actually coming into work just because it's your birthday! You love people and people love you.

Along with that, I've learned that you do not lack confidence. Before your first ever soccer game you declared, "I'm gonna be good, Dad." And when you head into a new situation with new people present, you've been known to say, "They'll like me, Mom." I tease your dad that you have what I like to call "male reality distortion" (shown humorously in the Dove ad parody, "Men: You Aren't As Beautiful As You Think"). But whatever it is, prayerfully tempered with a good dose of reliance on God, I know it will serve you well in this hard world as you take risks and enter intimidating situations.

And because of all that I haven't missed, Son, there's so much that I'm going to miss about you when you head to kindergarten in just a few months.

But the Bible tells us you are another arrow for us to send off. So we'll start with that first brave five-year-old step into a new place, meeting that new person God has already prepared for you to learn from. She'll teach you things in a different way than I will, and it will be good for you to learn from her approach and to learn to respectfully submit to her authority. You'll meet new kids God has hand picked for you to grow with. Some will make you cry and some will make you laugh (and some will make you do both!), and you can count on the fact that I won't miss the opportunity to help you through it all with the only help I and your dad know, God's Word.

We won't miss the chance to apply it to your hurts and joys, your relationships - good and bad, your choices - easy and difficult, your education - what we agree with and what we don't, and your sin - always warring within you, in school and out.

But for now, these last few months we still have everyday together, we'll keep waiting for the mail, meeting new people, and praying for hurting ones.

And as much as I love writing about what a joy you are, I think it's time to close this post. Because I hear you a few rooms away, already awake, I'm sure dressed in your superhero shirt of the day, ready to talk and play...and I don't want to miss it!

Happy 5th Birthday, to our Schaeffey-Boy!

Photos Credit to Robyn Moore

 

Birth Announcement - here

First Birthday Tribute - here

Second Birthday Tribute - here

Third Birthday Tribute - here

Fourth Birthday Tribute - here

 

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Sunshine's Blaze: A Birthday Prayer

I've borrowed breath for 39 years now. I've borrowed love, words, wisdom, rest, strength, and many other gifts. Actually, what do I have that I haven't received? And what have I shared that I wasn't given? You see, at best I'm a bankrupt borrower. And always, he's a lavish lender. So, I have a hunch the year ahead is going to be more of my needing and more of his giving. May his blaze ignite this borrowed ray of my life.

"O light that followest all my way,

I yield my flickering torch to thee;

My heart restores its borrowed ray,

That in thy sunshines blaze its day

May brighter, fairer be."

-G. Matheson

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Lunch Note

 

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