I had a special moment yesterday when I caught a glimpse into the past. This letter was written on my birthday, but thirty-one years prior to my birth. And it was written just six days after my mother was born, by her father, stationed away from his family during WWII.
December 8, 1943
“My Dearest”
How precious to read his handwriting to his “dearest” about his happiness to receive the telegram about the birth of their second baby girl. While he gave some news of the goings-on about him, he more mused about how his family was doing. He so wanted her to be well and happily settled back at home. He must have been so anxious to hold his new daughter!
I can’t imagine being apart at birth and yet I know it happens regularly, families separated by wars, external or internal.
I am so grateful for the examples all of my grandparents, parents, and in-laws have set by demonstrating steadfastness and faithfulness in their marriages, even when external forces made that so hard. We will strive to do the same.
I can imagine my sweet “Poppy”, young and in uniform, pouring out his love on paper. and imagining his wife and new baby so far away and still in hospital. I picture his heart welling up to be with them. He let his JOY loose!
“Your Loving Husband”
My grandfather signed his letter “your loving husband”, and he remained most definitely so for the duration of his long life. I’m so thankful I got to have this glimpse into his heart this week. What a treasure for my mom to still have his letter, and to know how happy he was about her arrival all those years ago!
Have you enjoyed any glimpse into the past that have touched your heart and caused you to be grateful? Tell me about it in the comments!
Do you ever catch sight of something and get transported back in time in an instant? That happened to me today. It was the yellow boots I saw in the store.
My son, Morgan, was about 4 when he inherited some boots just like these from a bigger kid he looked up to. He. Loved. Them. He wore them everywhere, and there was never a pair of boots that more accurately expressed his sunshiney personality.
A Big Personality
Morgan had such a big and joyful presence that you could feel him coming. These were just right. (Plus yellow was always his favorite color.) But then one Fall day he lost them. Worse than that, we almost lost him.
The yellow boots
He was out with friends and their dads fishing for the afternoon. All was awesome – they were just stopping to fish along the lakeshore as they walked. The kiddos took off quite a bit ahead of the dads and then stopped again. It really was quick, but little Morgan accidentally tumbled in, yellow boots and all, and the drop-off was significant. I’ve heard from his dad that it felt like an eternity to get to him and when they did he was really struggling.
I’ll tell you what: Superdads are a real thing. I didn’t want to re-live that snapshot, but there were those yellow boots in the store today.
Sadness turned to gratitude
But instead of making me feel sad and experience the anxiety again, it actually turned me to gratitude.
So grateful I still have my sunshiney boy. Life is precious.
So grateful for his dad and our friend making such a quick rescue.
So thankful that we know a Heavenly Father who walks with us through difficult and traumatic times and doesn’t leave us to bear them alone.
So glad that Morgan is now a very strong swimmer.
And I’m eternally grateful that he still lives as though he’s sporting those yellow boots – walking through life with joy and vibrancy that affects everyone around him.
What about you?
What about you? Do you have difficult memories that you can turn around to praise today? How will you bless the Lord at all times?
I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.
What does it mean to stay present? Is it always possible? Because sometimes life seems to hit you unprepared. It comes crashing in with surprise and chaos, and yells that you are not in control. And you do what you can to tread water and grasp into the dark for a life preserver, but everyone else around you just lives like normal. Even those who know what you are experiencing and see you drowning still sit in their boats and paddle on. And everything inside you wants to just run away. Or dive down deep and hide.
How to stay present when all you want to do is
run & hide
I write a blog about joy. If you’ve spent any time here, you know that’s not because joy comes naturally to me, necessarily. It’s because I needto cultivate it. I need towork at choosing it. I actually need to remind myself sometimes that joy even exists – it’s real, and it can be mine.
Sidenote: I have a snapshot memory of Phys. Ed in fourth grade. Somehow, the inner voice in me convinced me that I needed to convince other people that I could have fun too. I could be fun like the other kids. Where do those thoughts arise in a fourth grader? Did I already realize I had a tendency to be melancholy? So I jumped higher, threw further, and laughed louder than the others, just so you’d all know I was having fun… (rolls eyes about this now).
Choices
So, if even in the everyday-ness of life I have to make choices to cultivate myjoy,what in the name of time am I supposed to do when life gets stupid? Or painful? Or downright traumatic? Paste on a fake smile and push through it? Or just run away and hide?
I’d like to, but no. I need to stay present. To open my eyes to the places where God’sjoycan actually be my strength.
Another sidenote: It seems to me as I grow in my faith that many of the cheesy things Christians offer as bandaids in difficult situations are actually… true. Yes, you may literally want to punch someone when they offer you a trite phrase, and it may not actually help at all in the moment. BUT, sometimes, that phrase will echo through your mind again and again and you’ll eventually believe it and lean into it. Phrases like:
God will bring beauty out of these ashes…
Remember, you never walk alone…
Where you are weak, God is very strong…
Because those are all true. But when you are in the midst of a crisis, they don’t necessarily seem to be true immediately. When your emotions are running high, and doubt is threatening to swallow you whole, they are honestly the last thing you want to hear. (End sidenote.)
Stay Present
Our family has been facing very difficult things for the past six months. That’s why this blog has gotten quiet. I didn’t have the capacity to walk through what we were walking through, continue my role as a Worship Pastor, and somehow dig deep enough to write here. So I just got quiet. Week after week, quiet. Because it was taking every last ounce of energy not to run and hide from what we were facing. It took all I had to stay present. Forgive people for their unhelpful, trite answers, and really stay present.
Most of our difficulty has been wrapped up with some of our children. A harmful relationship initiated areas of pain and fear in one, and tried to convince us all of hopelessness. A season of darkness led us to dig deep for truth and at one point search the streets for a runaway. It culminated in a courtroom, where we had to face someone who had caused great pain.
A challenging decision by another has put us on a path of learning and grace like we haven’t known before. It has caused us to pray differently while grieving, to love differently while pursuing truth, and to ask the Lord how we are to walk as Christ did. And He, of course, has been faithful. But this is painful, stretching ground.
My children mean the world to me and I love them fiercely. And though you may wish I would give more details, I will not infringe on their privacy in this forum. I appreciate your care for their hearts, their wounds, and their growing confidence.
Trauma Unearths Stuff
Trauma reveals weaknesses and strengths. It highlights defaults, which aren’t always pretty. In fact, I’ve had numerous conversations with trauma victims where they reflected, “I always thought that if I faced [traumatic circumstance] I’d respond by [expected response].” But very often, our responses surprise us. Trauma can also teach what fears we have, whether realistic or otherwise. And it unearths our most valuable confidantes, prayer warriors, and friendships. We especially want to know which ones will help us stay present.
Our double-dose of grief came wrapped up in shock and disbelief. And it bid us with the temptation to despair, and even to run away from it all. We had to fight to stay present and vulnerable when it would have been easier to hide. But there are things I learned in six months of darkness that may help you stay present too, should you face unsuspecting grief in your life that tempts you to turn inward.
This Life is Worth Living
Key Revelation: This life is, in fact, worth living. God has gifted us with the incomparable opportunity to live a vibrant life in the here and now. But a vibrant life doesn’t necessarily mean a trouble-free one. You may have read before that “suffering leads to perseverance, perseverance to character, and character to hope which will never put us to shame.” (Romans 5:3-5a). Vibrancy looks different under different circumstances. But a vibrant life is ours to live in every single one. So what do I mean when I say “living”, and relate that to walking through difficulty? What does it mean to “live”, as opposed to running away to hide?
“Living” means being honest about struggle and asking for help
It is very vulnerable to ask for help. For us, with the kinds of issues we were facing with our kids, our openness could only be with people of impeccable integrity, empathetic hearts, and an active faith. We needed prayer support like at no other time in our lives. We were in need of people who would not reject our children, but who would lean in and love them with us. These situations made us desperate for people who would recognize these pivotal moments in our kids’ lives were opportunities for incredible victory, and not pits of despair. We prayed, God revealed, we opened up, and we received help, counsel, and shoulders to cry on. We gleaned wisdom, and found a few champions who would hold us up to be brave.
Opening up to people and being vulnerable about our needs breathed energy into us and propelled us forward. It helped us lean into life when death and defeat were beckoning. It helped us to stay present, even in the most distasteful of moments.
“Living” also means being gracious with the truth & open to explore the unknown
Much of our last 6 months has been the painful deconstruction of lies and the unearthing of truth. Not only that, though, but it has been the often uncomfortable re-examination of what Scripture says about certain things. It has caused us to honestly uncover whether we believe what we do simply because we were taught to, or because it is what we truly see Scripture to say. This has formedus. It has made us become more comfortable moving in to unfamiliar territory. And is has also solidified our faith.
There was a point in our trauma and grief where we were incredibly discouraged by lies. It felt as though we couldn’t even lift our heads; that we were being swallowed up, and losing to deceit. But in a moment of pure gracefrom our Good Father, my husband was reminded that when things were hidden in darkness, we were on losing ground. But as soon as lies were revealed, as soon as things moved out of the dark and into the light, we won the victory.Truth reigns and darkness is defeated. This moment of revelation and grace emboldened us to claim triumph, even when we could still not see the “win” in real life. We began to walk as victors.
As we bravely claimed victory with one, we were also graced with confidence to pursue unseen victory with the other. And this truly is livinggrace. Because it has taken us places we’ve really never been. It’s caused us to question things we’ve not questioned before. It’s made us realize biases we didn’t know we had. And it’s given us incomparable peace to speak truth even in very difficult conversations. This is living. This is how we stay present.
“Living” means allowing every part of your life to reflect and glorify Jesus
The Apostle Paul wrote that “whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Cor. 10:31b) My husband often says that we don’t get to choose our circumstances, but we do have a choice how we will walk through them. We have reminded ourselves and one another, as well as our children and our friends that we have the opportunity to honor and reflect Christ with our responses. We could curse Him and die,as Job’s wife encouraged him to do, or we can painstakingly pursue Him, honoring Him in our thoughts, words, and actions. Then we will truly “live.”
Oh how I want to liveand leave a legacy of honor. No matter the hardship, trauma, or disappointment, I want to be the kind of person that leans into life. I want to stay present even when all I really want to do is run and hide. This is what it means to let joy loose. I hope this post helps you pursue the same.
My husband and I have known for many years that God was calling us to enlarge our tent and expand our borders.
Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities. (Isaiah 54:2-3)
The Rearview Mirror
We married at ages 22 and 26, and almost as soon as I became a wife, I became a Christian, and then a mother. We had our (fabulous!) children in years 2, 4, and 6 of our marriage. We started child sponsorship with Compassion right away, one per child. My mother-heart wanted to keep growing, and at that point, we fully expected to have more kiddos.
But then we didn’t.
By this time we had moved a few times for our ministry roles, and settled in to one of the most challenging and rewarding seasons of our life and ministry in northern Maine. This was right after our littlest had her first birthday.
(Look at all that cuteness! How could we not want more??)
But the next 6 years rocked and forever changed us.
Boundary Lines
The boundary lines of our lives were growing wider and our tent was being stretched further, but somehow I couldn’t see it. God wasn’t working how I expected Him to.
We began to explore what it meant for our family to expand our borders. If it didn’t mean more biological children, then it must mean adoption, right? A quick look into international adoption showed us that our immigration status at the time disqualified us. After all, we had recently entered a different country for my husband’s work. A quick perusal of domestic adoption looked like it held potential, but that door soon shut too.
I was confused and discouraged. Why did I have a desire to expand our family borders if in reality we wouldn’t be able to bring others into it?
Pure and Undefiled Religion
At about the same time, God was pressing in on us what worship looks like:
Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:27)
With this passage, God was igniting our hearts for orphans and widows even though no adoption doors were opening. We studied it, prayed it, and even wrote a song, “Undefiled Worship”, for our congregation. Then all of a sudden, two of the teens in our youth group were effectively abandoned by their family. Surely this was what God was preparing us for! We invited them into our home.
And they turned us down.
God’s Ways are Higher than Ours
We just couldn’t understand why we felt such a burden to enlarge our tents if God didn’t intend to increase our family borders. I confess I was ready to give up on God’s plans for us in this regard. And instead, we just threw ourselves into our ministries, and started filling our empty bedrooms with interns and missionaries. If God didn’t want to expand our borders, then we would.
But His ways are higher than ours. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. (Is 55:9)
Little did I realize, this was part of His plan all along.
We began what became a years-long arrangement to provide housing for students interning for ministry. And over time, several stayed with us for one year, two years, our home then becoming their home-base when back from the field.
And what started as a favor to a University we supported became a deeply rewarding facet of our family’s life.
We couldn’t have predicted how our hearts would enlarge to love these young adults.
We could not have expected our children to embrace an older “sister” and “brother” in this way. Our borders had expanded indeed.
Nothing is Up to “Chance”
Then a “chance” meeting with a couple from our church kindled the flame for enlarged borders even more. Even though we barely knew them, they came to our house to share with us her story of adoption. She had placed a child up for open adoption while in her late teens, and had been able to have an active role in his life as he had grown. We couldn’t have known that our “chance” meeting to hear about adoption was another part of our own border expansion. Because it was going to look so different than we could have predicted.
We began to grow closer to this couple, and to do ministry together. We celebrated the birth of their second son with them not long afterward.
And then tragedy struck in the form of a wintery accident, and we had a widow with two tiny boys to love.
Expand Our Borders
Nothing really prepares you for caring for widows and orphans. We just knew we were called to it. God had been whispering to us about it for months…years. And since caring for a young widow in her primary season of bewilderment and grief opens up so many opportunities for withdrawal, misunderstanding, and exhaustion, it is tempting to retreat. But God beckoned us into it, and she welcomed “family”.
We didn’t really know what we were doing, other than loving her and her boys. So we simply made our home their home whenever needed, and tried to listen more than we spoke. We made meals together, changed diapers, cried, and continually offered ourselves to the Lord to be used in their lives. Birthdays, holidays, and regular days were all shared. Our children became like siblings.
Days became weeks, and weeks became months, and months became years. And “Mondays” continued to be a constant for our families to be together.
She emerged from her grief a woman of strength and grace, and her boys triumphed as vivacious and strong bundles of energy and character. And their family ministered to ours over these years every bit as much as we did theirs. Our lives are exponentially richer for this season.
We could not have predicted how God would expand our borders when He began calling. And we would not change this season for the world.
And Now…
It is ten years since that tragic phone call, and both of our families have moved away from each other. Our hearts remain intertwined, our family borders blurred.
And God is calling us to enlarge our tent even more.
I no longer have a preconceived idea of what that might look like. For us it wasn’t having another child or being able to adopt one. Enlarging our tent has looked like:
Hosting people without family over the Christmas holidays
Bringing large groups of students in our home for meals and games
Loving our kiddos’ friends and bringing them on vacation with us
Sharing our faith
Hosting a life group
Friends-giving
Offering our vehicle for others to use
Grieving with those who grieve
Celebrating with those who celebrate
And reaching out to others for help and prayer when we’ve needed it most.
It has looked so different than I could ever have imagined.
For 2018
At this point, I simply open my hands to receive whatever might come our way. In these early hours of 2018, my prayer is that God would help me to continue to open my arms up wide. I pray He would expand our borders in whatever way brings Him most glory.
We will set extra places at our table, make extra beds, or walk with people through seasons of grief. We will have hard conversations, depend on the Lord to fill us with love, and hold people to accountability.
And we believe that as we expand our borders in this way, we will spread out to the right and left, and our joy will be let loose in the desolate corners of the world.
As we round the bend of November and Thanksgiving, I love that we immediately head towards December, with its Advent Joy for sharing this season. Our family looks forward to Christmas, but we have to be careful to slow down and lean in to the Advent season first, even as Christmas trappings swirl all around us. Our cultural Christmas screams that the holiday is already here in music, parties, and lights, but the Christian story of waiting is still unfolding in the quiet places.
Even in Christian circles, prioritizing Advent has become counter-cultural. As a worship leader, I can run headlong into aaallllll the stuff that is Christmas in church ministry, OR I can continually remind myself that my congregation needs the Advent wait too, just like my family does.
So, what is Advent?
Advent is actually the beginning of the Christian calendar year. It is the “reset” button for those who pattern their lives around the Story of Christ. And it is a time to reflect on what the anticipation for the Messiah was like 2000 years ago, and how much they needed God to send the Light of Life into a world of darkness. It also helps us to consider how our dark world still needs the breaking-in of Jesus, and to look forward to His return. Check out Seedbed for some helpful Advent history.
So, how does a family, or a church family, lean into Advent Joy in the middle of a Christmas-crazed culture?
Today I’m sharing 6 ways we can engage in the season of Advent this year.
6 Ways to Advent-Adventure this December
Share Joyful Blessings:
I actually started this one early. Beginning at Thanksgiving, I wanted to begin to look ahead to what Advent Joy there would be. Our church Life Group was hosting a “Friendsgiving” on the Saturday prior to Thanksgiving. (If you’ve never done a Friendsgiving, it is wellI worth your time and effort!)
Our Life Group (15 adult members in all) invited family, friends and neighbors to a huge pot luck Thanksgiving dinner at our home. These could be people who already know Jesus, or people who don’t. All are welcome. Each LG member brought a portion of the meal, and were able to seat all 42 people who came! At one point, several of us shared why we are grateful, including how Christ had transformed us.
My mother-in-law had given me 101 Blessings of Joy Cards – A Box of Blessings back in August, as an encouragement on my joy-journey.This seemed like a perfect time to bring them out. Each card holds 2 blessings, quotes, or Scripture verses (one on each side), to encourage others in their joy.
So, I decided to use these joy blessings in my table settings, drawing attention to them as we prayed for our meal. We encouraged people to read them and even use them as conversation starters. I know for me, this helped me begin to focus on the upcoming Advent Joy season. And these will also serve nicely at table settings all throughout the month of December.
2. Daily Advent Joy Readings
I love to shift my focus in the month of December. I try to be purposeful about what I read that helps me to engage with Advent Joy. This year, I picked up John Piper’s The Dawning of Indestructible Joy: Daily Readings for Advent, an inexpensive little paperback that I sense is loaded with power. Piper’s reason for writing it was that He was praying for an experience of Christ’s fullness. Wow, do I ever want that too!!
That is my prayer for you this Christmas–that you would experience the fullness of Christ; that you would know in your heart the outpouring of grace upon grace; that the glory of the only Son from the Father would shine into your heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ; that you would be amazed that Christ can be so real to you. – J. Piper
Though I haven’t yet started the readings–I’ll begin on December 3rd, the first Sunday of Advent–I anticipate that the Lord will use these in my life.
3. Advent Wreath
As our family grows, we find it increasingly important (and difficult!) to make space for family meals around the table. Throughout the month of December, we will use our mealtime together to light Advent candles in our wreath. The Dawning of Indestructible Joy may serve us well for readings in the evenings, to focus us all together. But there are other valuable resources as well.
Last year, we used Kaylene yoder’s Names of Jesus Advent Pack on as many evenings as we could be together, and found them very helpful. I wrote about it here. We would accompany the readings with the lighting of candles, adding one more each week of Advent.
This morning, I posted the first of 4 blog posts I am doing for Waterline Church, where I am the Director of Relational Arts. We are calling these our Advent Adventures.
We were looking for a way to help our church family engage with the Advent Joy of the season. So I am creating this series with the twofold purpose. They will teach more about Advent. And they will give people (of all ages) tangible “adventures” to take. We pray that we will all slow down and experience the joy and hope of the season. Especially if we do these simple activities with our families and friends. I’d invite you to head over here to see if they might be activities you could incorporate into your December family activities.
5. #GiveJoy Challenge
A friend and Joy Let Loose reader recently shared a great resource with me that I’d like to pass along to you today. It is called the #GiveJoy Challenge 2017 from Amy Pike. I love it because it is designed for families. I think it will help parents and children alike to look beyond themselves this Christmas, and to look for ways to let joy loose this Christmas. That is something I can definitely get behind!!
Amy’s #GiveJoy challenge 2017 offers families 28 challenges, complete with instructions for each day. Obviously, you can pick and choose to go at your family’s pace. But there is something for every day of Advent if you are up for it. And you’ll find opportunities to share joy with friends & family, community members, and service professionals. Why not join Amy and spread a little joy this Advent?
6. Life Skills
Practically speaking, the Advent Joy season is a preparation time for Christmas. And we all know we generally have a lot to do to get ready! One group I’ve chosen to come alongside here at Joy Let Loose is Skill Trek.
I love their taglines! There is “Lifeproofing the next generation like nothing else”. And “Making ’em ready for anything”. Skill Trek has been designed for parents, to assist in learning important life skills that generally aren’t taught in schools. They have fun adventures for kids of all ages in everything from hygiene and cooking, to financial literacy and emergency preparedness. And they offer varying levels of digital curriculum for families of different budgets.
One thing I recently learned about from Skill Trek is The 12 Skills of Christmas, a seasonal curriculum they offer. Since Christmas prep is so busy, why not pull everyone into the festivities? We can help them learn to prepare holiday menus (including turkey!). Or organize a neighborhood cookie exchange, or create their own Advent calendar? It’s on sale right now, so it’s a great time to pick up this fun curriculum to help you organize and teach your kiddos this season.
I hope that this post inspires you to actively engage in the Advent season with your family. There are many ways, even beyond the regular holiday festivities. I’d love to hear from you in the comments below if you do try any of these ideas, or if you have some great family Advent traditions we should know about here atJoy Let Loose!
