Eucharisteo

Four months ago, I wrote concerning my own conviction, that hoping in heaven should be met with thankfulness and rejoicing over each day my heart quickens. Today, in this moment, I am undone.

Today we once again drove downtown, navigated the beige labrinth to Lily's Pediatric Internal Medicine Infectious Disease Specialist. And there, heard the sweetest of words.

"Lily seems like a healthy child who, for a few months, got very, very sick."

No more scans.

No more blood draws.

No more doctor appointments.

No more waiting rooms.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you for the blur of blonde pigtails racing to rip snowpants off the coat rack.

Thank you for cool, dry foreheads.

For noses white with whipped cream and hot cocoa breath.

For the counter naked of the thermometer.

For that breath.

And that breath.

And that breath.

Thank you, Lord, for life abundant.

Prayer, Thanksgiving, and Lily

If you go to the very first post on this blog, you will see that it was created for Lily. Though she didn't have a name yet, we were looking for a way to chronicle what we knew would be our last pregnancy. Even after our first daughter, Jaime, was born in fetal distress at 29 weeks, and our fourth daughter, Tirzah, was stillborn, we had no answers as to what continued to go so severely wrong with our pregnancies. We'd made the decision that we would try for one last (eighth) time, and try to give each day of it to the Lord. And so we did, desperately. Each day, I endeavored to thank God for her heart quickening inside me, for one more day with her, and rest knowing that God numbers the days of every one of us, and I could rest in His sovereignty.

This last year, He has taught me this lesson again. Through Lily's hospitalization in June with pneumonia, and the heart sinking news that it was back in November, we've desperately tried to, each day, give her back to Him. Some days, better than others. Since November, as she's had continued nonspecific fevers and weight loss and general exhaustion, we've tested her for everything we can think of (and many things we never would have).

And tonight, I'm reminded of where we were at the beginning of her pregnancy. The dust has settled. We know many, many things she doesn't have. In spite of sweat tests and blood tests and CT scans, her illness remains a mystery. And so, we move forward, each day, trusting in His sovereignty. We move forward, praying desperately for our daughter, praying once again for life. Once again, we are left without a name for what it is we are even fighting, but also assured that we have a God who knows her and loves her and hears our prayers.

Throughout the months, I've captured numerous pictures that are part of Lily's story. Here's a few...

Our little diva getting breathing treatments in ER, June 2011:

Happily eating a cheeseburger while admitted for pneumonia, June 2011:

X-Rays at Rockwood, July 2011:

Pneumonia again, November 2011:

Getting a hug from daddy during her sweat test, December 2011:

Playing "I Spy" with Emily at Sacred Heart, December 2011:

Coloring at the pulmonologist's office, December 2011:

Brushing up on her patient history skills at the Pediatric Infectious Disease Specialist, December 2011:

Beauty beholds beauty, December 2011:

In six days, we celebrate five years of Lily Elianah Baker's life, and the "answered prayer" that she was and is. And we move forward. Waiting. Praying. Trusting. Thankful for each and every day.

The Greatest of These

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13

October 21, 2004, my father ceased to abide. The malignant brain tumor that ravaged his body finally stilled even his heart. His life is no more. No more do my sister and I have our father. His presence in his grandchildren's lives is finished. His plans to complete another marathon, his intimate friendships, his painfully stupid jokes and love of cigars, his giftedness with apple pies and his soft smokey voice weaving elaborate tales around a campfire...all went to the grave seven years ago.

And yet.

And yet, his faith is no more. Seven years ago, it too ceased to remain. It ceased as he left his broken, earthly body and woke in the presence of his beautiful Savior. What we see partially, he sees fully. Faith no longer remains.

And yet, his hope is no more. No longer is he hoping for an end to the suffering here. There is no longer a fight, minute by minute, to walk in the Spirit. He is freed from sin. And most glorious of all, he is with God. All the time. Every day. For eternity. He can look upon Christ, behold His wounds, fall at His feet in overwhelming gratitude for the One who did what we could not. Hope no longer remains.

And yet.

And yet, seven years later, love remains. Love remains here, as we weep and hurt and remember. Love remains as our children grow and experience new things and I long for him to be here to see them. Love remains as his oldest daughter walks down the aisle with a handkerchief of her daddy's, even smelling of his cologne.

And love remains as my father is clothed in Christ's righteousness, praising Him for all eternity for what He did because of His great love for us. Truly, love is the greatest of these.

Therefore today, we rejoice. Not in cancer, not in a life lived with my dad's absence, not in the profound pain forever intertwined in the memories of those last days of saying goodbye. No, we rejoice in faith becoming sight. In hope becoming reality. In Love conquering sin and death and Love waiting to spend eternity with us.

Seven years ago today, my dad's life ended.

Seven years ago today, my dad's life began.

So Much Better Than...

Today I stood in the church parking lot and wept in Loren's arms. It was relatively minor, in comparison to some of the things we've faced in marriage. We said goodbye to Jaime and Emily as they embarked on a three week cross country trip to Washington D.C. with their other family. Exciting times for them, but difficult for me to say goodbye.

It was only later that my stormy heart turned sentimental. Remembering back to that fall, nine years ago...

As a 21-year-old-divorced-mother-of-two-baby-Christian, finding a husband wasn't high on my list of priorities. While I'd agree with the "When Harry Met Sally" premise that a man and a woman can't be "just friends," Dan, Loren, and I pulled it off quite nicely. Dan and I had our three weeks of junior high dating earlier that summer, and we were both confident in the mutual decision that it was not the direction God was leading us. After a horrendous first impression, Loren and I were finally warming to each other enough that we could be in the same room. And so, all romantic feelings off the table, we were able to prove "When Harry Met Sally" wrong. We were, simply and without complication, just friends.

It was a sweet season. Playing UNO on my living room floor while Jaime and Emily slept in their bedroom down the hall. Hikes at midnight after I got off a swing shift at the hospital. Bowling, Veggie Tales, Bible studies that were way over our head. Riding to church together on Sunday mornings.

And then, that night. It was an entirely forgettable evening, making dinner at Dan's apartment, waiting for Loren to get off work so we could eat. Just as Loren walked in, I checked my voicemail. A message from Jaime and Emily's dad shattered me. Due to a change in job, he would be living in Oregon for the next several months and wanted to change our every-few-days schedule to every-three-weeks. Three weeks without seeing my girls? While I completely understood the necessity of the change, I was shattered.

I served dinner to the guys, and just sat there as emotions twisted my heart. There was so much to be thankful for in our custody schedule. Mike and Erika were great parents to Jaime, Emily, and their new baby Alyssa. Two years of schedule changes had always been met with flexibility and grace, never courts and decrees. I knew I owed it to them and the girls to say yes. And yet...my mother's heart broke.

Late into the night, we decided to go on a walk to the park. Once there, the guys started doing stupid tricks on the jungle gym. I stared at the empty swings, thinking of the empty weeks ahead. Crumpling on a picnic table, I wept.

I vaguely registered Dan and Loren coming over, putting their arms around me, telling me that God was in control and His plans were "good, pleasing and perfect." And then, in the quiet of the deserted park, Loren prayed for me.

In those moments, God began the slow revealing of His plan for us. Loren prayed aloud for the first time, completely unaware that the prayer would be for his future wife and daughters. I wept in the uncertainty of what God was doing with my life, of what the coming months would hold, never imagining I'd be engaged in only a few months.

Over the coming weeks, our interactions changed as gradually as the season. We still exchanged Bible verses and went bowling and watched Veggie Tales. We finally scheduled a time to hang out when Dan was at work. And in the middle of November, he picked up Jaime, Emily, and me for McDonald's and a midweek church service. Late that night, once the girls were asleep, we both confessed that we felt God leading us towards marriage.

I heard a song recently that brought tears to my eyes. "But everything I had to lose came back a thousand times in you." And so it has. All those years ago, the girls did go to Oregon, and for a season, our custody schedule did change. And yet, not only was God in it and got me through it, He also gave me the gift of my husband to walk alongside me in it.

Therefore today, mixed up in all of the feelings of excitement for Jaime and Emily and sadness in saying goodbye, there is also a deep thankfulness. Thankfulness for nine years of leaves swirling and seasons changing and crying over my girls in Loren's arms as he whispers truth and comfort in the midst of the pain. Thankfulness for God's providence, for His "good, pleasing, and perfect" will.

"This was not my plan. It's so much better than."

Andrew Peterson's song "Family Man":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KixAGPNmGs0&feature=related

Thanksgiving and Rejoicing

Six years ago today, I held my beloved fourth daughter for the first time. Memorized the feel of her miniature hand in mine and the weight of her swaddled form in my arms. Marveled at the shock of dark hair, at rosy lips and a perfect scrunched baby nose. Six years ago today, we said goodbye.

God has taught me much in those six years. Mostly, lessons in the hope and assurance we have in eternity, that on my darkest days here, it is that hope that I am to cling to. There has come an acceptance that pain is real and God is real and God is good and therefore I can breathe today. And in the pain, in the breathing in and out for the last 2,191 days, there has been hope. One day, the pain will stop. One day, babies will no longer die and mothers will not purchase balloons for cemeteries. One day.

I assumed, in that hope, that God had taught me what I needed to learn. Tirzah’s brief life was, in part, to teach me a very practical lesson. My hope lies not in this world and what it has to offer, but in eternity. Yet this year, this birthday, has me feeling like there is still more for me to learn. For a reason I can’t fully know, I am still here. Six years ago God stilled Tirzah’s heart while quickening mine. And for six years, I’ve risen from bed each morning, focused on raising our other children and being a godly wife to my husband and loving and sharing the gospel with those that I am in relationship with. I am still alive and therefore God is still working in me.

So, as we remember in heartbreaking detail the day that would forever change our family, I feel God pushing me forward. Hoping in heaven was the first lesson, one that I desperately clawed at sometimes. Now comes part two. Reconciling that hope, that yearning for Jesus to come and the brokenness of this world to be made new, with the conviction that I am still here, my heart still beats, and therefore I must meet that with joy and thanksgiving, rejoicing always.

Therefore today, there is thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for our beautiful brown haired girl who brought more love and more heartbreak than I thought any day could hold. Thanksgiving for the conversations we’ve had with our children about heaven, and their continuous expectation of being reunited with their sister. Gratitude for the wrestling over a God that is good and does good, even when babies die, and the rest in that conviction over the last six years. Gratitude for the incomprehensible bond that exists between parents when a child is lost, and the grace that has found us clinging to one another in the storms of this life. And finally, for God Himself. I believe God does bless us, and He does want to bless us, but that blessing? It is GOD. HE is the blessing. And so we are blessed. And so we are thankful. And so we rejoice. Even today.

On Cancer and Hope

Six years ago, cancer made me grimace a bit. Say, "I'm sorry." Certainly feel sympathy for the person unfortunate enough the receive such a life altering diagnosis.

Then, for two years, I cried.

I cried as my daddy walked me down the aisle and gave me a big hug, then smiled as I married the man of my dreams.

I cried when my mom called to tell me my successful, intelligent father was unable to compose an email, was dizzy when running as he trained for a marathon, was confessing to her that he was worried that something was not right.

I cried on a Friday evening in Holy Family ER as we received the news we'd expected; we'd feared. A brain tumor.

I cried the following week as he underwent surgery, praying that as the skilled surgeon removed a portion of his left temporal lobe, he would not be forever changed.

I cried as we received word that the surgery was successful, the tumor was removed, and he was in recovery.

I cried later, home in Loren's arms, at the doctor's words to us in a secluded room. Glioblastoma Multiforme. An incredibly aggressive brain cancer with a life expectancy of one to two years.

I cried, alone, in the parking garage of the Sacred Heart doctor's building, after the bumps and clangs of the MRI machine battered my heart, and the appointments following told us the inevitable, that the tumor had grown, that there was a new tumor, that there was not much time.

I cried as the smallest, most meaningless things were taken. The ability to walk. The ability to talk. Sleeping in his own bed, in his own room. Each indignity brought fresh tears in the solitude of my car, my childhood bedroom, my home.

I cried when I heard the news that his pastor, Chris Merkling, came and preached the gospel to him, quoting Romans 10, and my dad, with his limited speech, professed Christ.

And I cried that last weekend, as the two men I loved most in the world, my daddy and my husband, sat on the deck in the cool October air and smoked one last cigar together. Inside, Jaime and I held each other, and she wept, "I'm going to miss grandpa." Me too, baby.

And finally, I cried as he miraculously overcame the insidious tumor long enough to awaken, squeeze my hand, look me and his youngest grandbaby at the time, Abby, in the eyes, and say, "I sure love you guys." His last words.

And so tonight, I cry again for a man who does not know my name, who I have never met. Matt Chandler is an amazing pastor in Texas who I've linked a few videos to. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and from the pathology report, it appears to be the same aggressive form that my dad died from. I cry for his wife, for his small children, for a church whose hearts must be breaking as the news continues to get worse for him. I cry that words like chemo wafers, gamma knife, and astrocytoma will become routine.

And I cry from the hope of his message, recorded before he went into surgery, that I just summoned the courage to watch tonight, after prodding from Loren and other friends. It's the hope we cling to, even in the midst of an impossibly aggressive brain cancer with no cure, very little treatment, and unfortunately, no hope.

But even as I cry, this is NOT where our hope is. My dad's hope was not in his physical body before cancer, and it wasn't after. Our hope is in Christ. I pray that you will take four minutes to watch the video of a man staring in the face of a death sentence. And that you, too, will find hope in something much, much bigger than yourself.


http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/blog/pastors/?p=363

Thankfulness

There are few things as ruthless and refreshing as Montana air in the winter. Here, somewhere between Butte and nowhere, time and space lose their traditional definitions. Today is thanksgiving and I am thankful.

Loren. My best friend. The one who I wanted to play cards with and go on hikes with and sing loudly in the car with seven years ago, when you were the quirky guy who somehow seemed to see me as I saw me. Not an object, not a conquest, but the goofy girl from Seven Mile who grew up making mud slides and riding horses. I love that we can still play dumb made up games and fall asleep holding hands. When I read to the girls of prince charmings and happily ever afters, it's you who have made me believe in them.

Jaime. My unexpected firstborn. You taught me how to love someone more than I thought possible as the days stretched into weeks in a sticky hospital bed. You taught me how to make a three pound infant breathe again. You made me appreciate the smallest of blessings, as I held you days after you entered the world, carefully maneuvering your wires and tubes and holding my breath as I prayed for your breathing to continue. Each year you are with us is a little victory. Every cartwheel at gymnastics, report card, and conversation late at night in the stillness of the sleeping house is a gift that, after nearly eleven years, I still dare not expect. Your very presence in my life is evidence of God's grace.

Emily. I was speechless when you entered the world, and nothing has changed in nine years. You fulfilled every girlhood dream of motherhood. The day you entered my life remains my perfect day. From the sweet pain of your birth, to the feel of your moist warmth in my arms seconds later, to taking you home the very next day, you gave me everything I grieved for the first time I gave birth. My sweetest memory of you remains the minutes when everyone left our bedside, and the two of us were alone for the first time. I lay there and marveled at your impossibly small fingernails, your scarlet lips, and fell deeper in love than I thought possible. You teach me to expect the unexpected, to dream dreams and hope hopes. You are quickly becoming not just a daughter, but a friend. I love singing off key to worship songs on the long drives to and from school and talking about Jesus with you.

Abigail. When I became pregnant with you, everything was new again. You were a great adventure undertaken by two people dumb and in love. I ran screaming down the stairs when I first learned of the life growing inside me, and everything with you has continued to be exciting. You entered this world and clung to us. Your first night home, you slept on your daddy's chest, nestled in the comfort of his arms. Five years with you have taught me tenderness, of the joy of burned toast and lukewarm tea and limp flowers. I love being able to say "Remember when..." and knowing your daddy will remember, from day one. I hold you tightly, in my arms and in my heart, loving that I don't have to let you go.

Tirzah. Our longed for fourth daughter. Before church one Sunday, we found out of your life inside me, and we wept and thanked God and first prayed for you. I clung tightly to your little life, with ultrasound pictures on the refrigerator and the sound of your heartbeat on the doppler sweeter than the most gifted orchestra. When we chose your name, it was a beautiful marriage of a girl blessed with a second chance in the Bible, as well as a girl given a second chance in my favorite novel. You were to be our Christmas gift, born only two days before we celebrated the birth of our Savior. The morning I did not feel you move, my "worst" was a preterm birth like your big sister. God used the agony of bringing you into the world, holding your still form, of playing with toes and stroking your hair and saying goodbye, to show me that even my darkest, scariest imaginings are not beyond the scope of His love and comfort. There will always be an empty place at our table. I will always pause when someone asks how many children I have. And heaven will forever be sweeter with the hope of the reunion that awaits one day.

Lily Elianah. Our answered prayer. Every day, every minute of your pregnancy, I worked to give you back to God. I held you loosely and chose to be thankful for each day your heart quickened inside of me. I cried when the test results were bad. I cried harder when they were good. Week after week I fought for you with nonstress tests and ultrasounds, closing my eyes and taking comfort in soft movements and God's sovereignty. When you came into the world, blue and silent, I once again gave you over to your Heavenly Father. Those first cries, so hard fought, were bells. Every day with you is an adventure. I hope I never get used to your little pink pajamas, the way you call me "mommy." After nearly three years, we still call you our baby, and even as you grow, I still see you as the baby I never thought I'd get to hold, the one to complete our family. You remind me that even in the pain of this life, there are ribbons and butterflies and little girl kisses.

The past. Thanksgivings spent at Hill's Resort with the Currer family, skiing out our cabin door and falling into a deep sleep beside Stacy, thinking we would all live forever. The bittersweet holiday, years later, when we knew that it would be our last as a nuclear family as my dad's brain was slowly overcome by the cancer that ravaged it. Staying at Loren's apartment our first Thanksgiving, talking nonstop across the miles that separated us as he spent Thanksgiving in Montana with his family. Bringing Jaime and Emily there to meet them weeks later as he prepared to ask me to spend the rest of our lives together. Hours spent in my childhood kitchen, working alongside my mom to prepare food, learning about cooking and service and Biblical womanhood from the woman that remains who I aspire to be as a mother.

The present. God's provision. The amazing kids and volunteers at Youth For Christ that make us laugh and cry and ultimately look more like Jesus. Carpooling five kids to and from school and watching two two-year-olds besides and reminding myself of the years I yearned to do just that. Tim and Summer and Sara and Travis and Karen and Steve and Ben and Brenda and Doug and Heather and Steve and Wayne and Jaymie and Bianca and Brian and Holly and Trish and Carey and Jim and Sara and all of the other beautiful friends God has brought into my life. My stepdad Larry and Cheryl and Irene and Mark and Mason, and the cord that somehow seemed to draw us together as a family again. My EMT certification, a second chance and a balm to the wounds left from cancer and stillbirth and the inability to save.

And finally, to my Maker, who has given me more than this page could ever contain. To Him belongs the praise for the family laughing inside, for the family gathering without us in Havre and Spokane, for the 29 years blood has coursed through my veins and He has worked in my life. Looking out at the snow capped mountains in the distance, my heart is full in my chest. I am thankful.

My Story

Note: After originally writing this, it was pointed out to me that I never resolved the story with my ex-husband. While I deliberately omitted the negative details of our marriage, I did him a huge disservice by not finishing his story. After divorcing, he married an amazing woman, Erika, who has loved our children as her own in a way that humbles me and makes me see God's grace all the more clearly. They've been together for about eight years now, and while co-parenting is never easy, their flexibility and generosity and acceptance make it as glorifying as I can imagine. They continuously challenge us to be better parents in their love and devotion to the girls. So Mike and Erika, I apologize for not finishing YOUR story. For just as mine didn't end when we divorced, Mike, neither did yours. I'm incredibly sorry for giving the impression that you are anything other than an excellent husband and devoted father to the girls.

On November 4th, I spoke at Young Lives, a local ministry to teen moms in Spokane that I am involved with. Here is my own story of teen pregnancy, broken dreams, hope, and a future...

Seven years ago this week, I celebrated my 22nd birthday and was given this ring. A promise ring, promising sexual purity until marriage, coupled with a mother’s ring. A strange combination, admittedly. To understand, let me back up a few years.

At seventeen years old, I met my prince charming. I was living with relatives due to my dad’s unpredictable behavior and alcoholism. I pretty much did as I pleased, coming home only when my friends had all reached their curfews. It was not a big surprise to find, at the end of my junior year of high school, that I was pregnant.

Things from that point forward were fairly predictable. Fifth in my class in high school didn’t mean much when I dropped out early into my senior year. One week after my 18th birthday, I married the father of the child, a 21-year-old I’d met on a camping trip. Two months later, my first child was born.

Teen pregnancy is an unusual place to be. On one hand, just because you suddenly find two lines on a stick does not make you grow up the way one would expect. I still wanted to play games with my friends, talk about boys, and listen to music. None of that had changed. Unfortunately, I was entering a stage of life my friends were not. They weren’t excited about maternity clothes and baby names. They weren’t going to OB appointments. They didn’t understand the changes happening to me.

And frankly, I didn’t understand them. One minute, I wanted everyone to sympathize with me and how my fragile world had just been rocked, again. I wanted to be grownups and discuss colors for my new home and show them ultrasound pictures. Then, the next, I just wanted to be a teenager, and why couldn’t they let me forget for just one second everything that had happened?

On top of that, there were the hormonal changes that only intensified my already strong feelings. I felt intense guilt for everyone I let down. My parents, my teachers, my friends. All I could see was how my future had suddenly changed. College applications were left unfinished.

Worse were all the things I chose to believe about myself. I was a high school dropout, a teen mother, an unfortunate statistic. I’d willing chosen to trade in a future for a husband I barely knew with a job that would barely support us and a baby I didn’t know the first thing about caring for. There was no “I’m sorry” that would get me out of it. The future was dark, scary, and nothing like what I’d pictured my life being.

And, I believed in addition to letting down everyone in my life, I’d let down God, too. I knew enough about the Bible to know what it said about sex outside of marriage, and I figured that I’d blown it. Maybe by the world’s standards I was doing the “right thing” by getting married, but in God’s eyes, I’d sinned, and the result of that would be with me the rest of my life. I stopped going to church. I stopped reading my Bible. The idea of going to youth group pregnant was laughable. I made plans for a wedding, plans for a baby, and tried to not think too hard about the plans that I’d had only weeks prior.

So there I was. 18 years old. Married. A mother. Seven months after my first daughter Jaime was born, I became pregnant again, and soon I was caring for two small daughters. We separated two and a half years into the marriage. I was now a 20-year-old single mother of two.

I managed to get a good job at a local hospital, and custody arrangements were worked out. When I had my kids, I devoted myself to them. We fed ducks at Manito Park. I bought a sandbox and teeter-totter for my backyard. I put together a barbecue with only a butter knife, which is still probably the single accomplishment that I am most proud of. On the outside, it looked like I had adjusted and was doing well.

Inside, though, I felt worse than ever. I foolishly believed that if I’d only been skinnier, prettier, a harder worker, my marriage would not have failed. I self medicated the pain with alcohol and late nights with coworkers at bars, more often than not going home with one of them. I was the one in control, and I found myself hurting and rejecting guy after guy, as though I’d reach some point where I would finally feel good about myself.

And for awhile, it worked and I believed all the lies I was telling myself. Until May of 2002, when I lay in my bed, alone, miscarrying the baby of a guy I barely knew. Finally, after four years of burying all of the pain and disappointment and rejection, everything came to the surface. I wept and cried out to the God that I had believed I had no right to approach.

And amazingly, to my disbelief, He answered. As I lay there, broken physically and emotionally, I became a new creation in Christ. Romans 10:9 says that “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Finally, four years after first becoming pregnant, I was ready to admit that I was alone, I was scared, I needed help, and what I was doing wasn’t working. “Sin” may seem like an old fashioned word, but it basically means rebelling against God. The guilt that I had carried with me was guilt over deliberately disobeying what I knew to be right. And try as I may, there was no way I could ever obey. I’d proved I couldn’t. I saw, finally, that my life didn’t end when I got pregnant. I was born a sinner, it was who I was. It’s who we all are. And the beautiful thing about it is that Jesus came and died in our place, that everyone who believes on Him would be saved. Everyone. Even single, divorced moms who thought their lives were over. Finally, unimaginably, I had hope.

The next few months were not easy. None of my friends understood the change in me, why I no longer wanted to go out drinking or have another in a long line of boyfriends. They called me holier than thou, a fanatic, and made fun of me both behind my back and to my face. In their place, I developed two strong friendships with two other very new believers, two boys named Dan and Loren. The three of us would get together several evenings a week to go bowling, hike, study the Bible, and watch Veggie Tales, and would attend church together on Sunday mornings. With friends at my side, it was easier to field the inevitable questions that came from people about my kids and relationship status. I learned, along the way, that most of the Christians I met didn’t judge me for the decisions I made but honestly wanted to get to know us and help where they could.

Which brings me back to the ring. November 6th, 2002, I received one small box from my parents, containing a white gold ring with the birthstones of Jaime, Emily, and myself. Inside was inscribed Jeremiah 29:11, which says, “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” It was my promise to God, to give him my little family, my heart, and my body, and a promise from Him, that He still had plans for my life, good plans, to give me a hope and a future.

One week later, Loren sat me down and told me of his feelings for me, and his desire to pursue marriage. We were baptized together the following March, and we were married two months later. That day he came with three rings, one for me and each of my girls, promising to love each of us as God has loved Him. Six years later, he placed another ring on my finger, with a stone for each of our five daughters, four here on earth and one up in heaven. The same verse is inscribed on the inside, a reminder even now that God is faithful and His plans are good.

And so tonight, I have to ask, do you have that hope? Do you believe that there is a God that has good plans for you, that you have hope in the future? Or like me, have you decided to believe instead that any future you may have had is now over, that your life is now limited to the consequences of being a teen mom? I know how hopeless the future can seem, how worthless you can feel, how overwhelming life can appear. But the last 11 years have shown me there IS hope, and that hope is found in Jesus. If you don’t have that hope, would you pray with me?

Dear Jesus, every single one of us here has rebelled against you. Some of our lives hide it better, but every one of us is a sinner, and we all need you. Please forgive me for all of the times I’ve messed up and chosen to do things my own way. I want to do things Your way. I want the hope and future that you promise. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

On Social Awkwardness With Five Year Olds

"So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us." 1 Thessalonians 2:8

This week, I'm volunteering with Vacation Bible School. With five year olds. Those of you who know me well are laughing right now. To say that it's not the age group I prefer is a pretty big understatement. Yet I've been unexpectedly blessed, not just by the children (who have turned out to be pretty awesome), but also by the leaders. One in particular is Carey, the pastor in charge of the week. His joking around and playing games with the kids seems so natural, and he always has a smile on his face. Somehow I can't picture him rushing home afterwards and throwing himself on his bed like I do.

Yet, honestly, that's not a huge surprise to me. I knew, signing up, it would be work. I'm socially awkward around five year olds. I don't really know what to say ("So...how's your day?") or how to relate to them, even though I have one. The best I can do is be schooled at playground games (I suck at throwing a frisbee) and try to smile and laugh instead of standing awkwardly against the wall.

But here's the point. Today, after sleeping off the exhaustion of the morning, I called Loren and asked about having a few of the YFC boys over tonight. It's been a stressful week and I thought it would be fun to hang out. It was only after confirming plans that I realized, essentially, what I would be doing tonight was more "ministry." I look around my house and see countless signs of high school kids. The camera they used to make a school project, and the fun it was to witness taking pictures of oil and vinegar and hairspray on fire in our driveway. The homemade bass that one of the boys gave Loren. The variety of sodas that are continuously stocked, waiting for spontaneous game nights. The stack of board games on the hutch that represent hours of missed sleep, mockery, and countless YouTube songs to entertain us between turns.

God reminded me today of those verses from 1 Thessalonians. That these youth have become very, very dear to us, to the point of being ready to share with them our own selves. Other versions translate the verse "our very lives." In the years of doing youth ministry, much of it has ceased to become ministry, and rather, our very lives. These kids break our hearts with their bad decisions, never fail to ruin a long awaited date night, and more often than not are the subjects of the prayers that bring me to tears. But they also have given me countless laughs (many at my own expense), immeasurable joy at celebrating the victories of driver's licenses, passed classes, and decisions to follow Jesus, and love and affection more than I thought possible.

So tonight I'll stay up too late playing Ticket to Ride with teenagers, eating quesadillas and being endlessly mocked. And tomorrow I'll get up early and gird myself up for three more hours of five year olds, knowing that while I may not be able to understand the inner workings of young children, I still have the amazing privilege of being a part of the sharing of the gospel of God and our own selves. And that, no matter where you are called, is the unbelievable blessing of ministry.