Sacred Mundane: The Blog

God never ceases to amaze me.  As you all know (and perhaps are sick of hearing about), we are in this adventure of house-selling/building/wondering how it will all work out.  If you haven’t read the first part of the story you can CLICK HERE to read.  So we’ve been living in our awesome little apartment that I’ve come to love to pieces.  It has some quirks:  1) the bathrooms always, always, always smell like pee.  I’m pretty sure instead of cleaning them they just re-calked the base of the toilets.  No matter how hard I clean, the smell is there. But that’s ok!  2) When the neighbors do dishes or laundry or something our toilet overflows with soap suds. I know, that’s weird. Sunday I walked into the bathroom after church and there were soap suds spilling out from under the lid, out onto the floor and the bowl was full.  Hm.  3) the dishwasher doesn’t work, so we handwash all of our dishes. (not a big deal)  4) all the way around the edge of the carpet is dog hair. We don’t have a dog. (that is actually really gross to me)  Other than that, I LOVE this little place.  There is a lot of freedom that comes with apartment living. Stain on the carpet? Oh well.  No decor? No one cares.  Toilet’s full of soap?  Big deal.  We love the little deck we have that looks out onto a busy street.  Dutch and I stand out there for hours and name the colors of the cars that drive past.  We frequent the pool, Jeff walks to work every day, and I can holler at friends across the street at Starbucks if I want.  Oh and our grand total of bills this month was $45.  Tell me that isn’t beautiful.

But, in the midst of all this we still sensed God was up to something with our house.  The house that we’re building is due to finish/close on September 14th, earlier than we’d thought.  Our Corvallis house still hadn’t sold.  And even though we kept reminding ourselves that it would be ok even if we had to walk away from the new house, we kept sensing that God wanted us to press in and pray, that He was going to amaze us.

Part of the sermon from last weekend was a four-step response to fear and crises.  Worship. Wait. Walk. Watch.  (sounds cheesy, but it wasn’t) First, worship God to get your full attention on Him, not on the issue.  Wait on Him instead of acting rashly.  Then, when He gives a directive, walk in it obediently.  Finally, watch and see GOD move gloriously.  As I sat in the sermon I very clearly felt that we’d done the first three.  We’d worshiped God by surrendering the whole house thing to Him.  Then we’d waited. And waited and waited and waited.  For what felt like a long time. Then just last week we felt like we were supposed to drop the price on our Corvallis house, and then even sensed that we were supposed to pray specifically for the house to sell in two weeks (by July 21st). Only two weeks.  (The initiative to pray for that actually came from our realtor, an awesome man who loves Christ.  Jeff and I both felt that that was God prompting him.)

Then, Watch.  Ok. Watch. So even though it sounds crazy I kept feeling like we were supposed to pray that the house would sell in two weeks.  I didn’t feel like it was us giving God a deadline, but rather us stepping in line with what God wanted to do. His initiative not ours.  In fact, this probably sounds crazy but last week as I was praying one day, I very much felt like I heard God’s voice: “Your house will sell.”  It was such a clear and strong sense that it brought me to tears.  I’d felt so unsure of what even to pray, and this seemed to confirm, that for whatever crazy reason, we were supposed to pray it’d sell by July 21st.  I told my parents about the two-weeks thing and they prayed that too.  So we watched.  Nothing. But I still felt led to pray it.

For the last month  I’d purposely avoided our mortgage agent because I didn’t want to have to talk about interest-rate lock-ins or closing documents when there was still a chance we’d have to walk away from the whole thing.  On Monday some friends informed us that mortgage rates had dipped and they were refinancing.  Tuesday our other friends who are building the house across the street (amazing God story that will come soon!!) locked in their rate.  This Thursday (tomorrow) would be 60-days from our closing date, which is when we’re allowed to lock in our rate if we so choose.  Jeff and I discussed contacting our lender to lock-in tomorrow, but felt like we shouldn’t move on anything until our house sold.  So we waited. Watched.

So today came and it was just one of those days that seemed like everything was discouraging. Ministry felt discouraging.  Relationships felt discouraging. I just felt tired and discouraged, and even though I really do love our sweet apartment, I just started to wonder if I’d made up all the hearing from God stuff.  No. As I spent time with God again I felt like we had to keep praying.  In fact, I even felt like maybe I was supposed to share it on my blog, because God glorifies Himself through doing the impossible, and by revealing beforehand what He will do. But I wimped out. I didn’t want it to seem like I was giving God a deadline.

As I went through the exhausting routine of naptime, putting Dutch back in bed a hundred times and finally just getting in bed with him and holding him until he fell asleep, I just felt discouraged.  Were we crazy?  It’s not even that having a house is a huge deal, but we’d been feeling like we were following God’s steps, and yet it seemed like it was coming to a dead end in many ways.  No. Again, I felt. Must keep praying.

At 5:30pm I got a text from Jeff.  “I’m bringing a surprise home.”  I looked at the meager leftovers on the stove.  I texted back: “Is it a person?”  I sure hoped not, because we’d have nothing to feed them.  “Better.”  He sent back.  “Good.” I replied.  A while later I saw him walked up the sidewalk (love living right next door to church!), and took Heidi outside to meet him. He was on the phone, so I just silently hugged him.  After he hung up, he dug in his bag and I expected him to pull out a cookie or a soda, which is usually what he brings me as a surprise (my two indulgences). Instead he pulls out a few sheets of paper and hands them to me.  “I brought you an offer.”  He smiles.

My jaw drops. In my hand is an offer on our Corvallis house, faxed over from our realtor.  I can’t even speak I am so amazed.  You cannot tell me God is not absolutely amazing.  The day before our 60-day window began. Amazing.  Now, to be honest, it was a very low offer. And, our realtor, who we trust and respect, advised us to counter-offer. So, we are doing that tonight.  And, if for some reason the deal doesn’t go through, God is still good. I’m no longer going to wait until things are a done deal before I proclaim His greatness.  If this deal is of Him, it will happen.  If not, He has something else.  He is good.  And He holds all things in His hand.  It sounds like it’s a perfect fit for the buyer too, so I’m praying it will bless them as well.

The other cool little piece of this is that when Jeff told Joel (friend, lead pastor) about it, he said that this morning he really sensed that he was supposed to pray about this specifically for us. And he did.  How encouraging is that to his faith as well? It’s always so much bigger than our little needs and wants.  He’s writing a story that displays His glory and goodness.

So, I don’t know how this chapter ends, but this little paragraph ends with us praising God for His faithfulness…and counter-offering.  Praying for an accepted offer tomorrow. Will you join me?  Love being part of His glorious story.

Ok breaking my rule (to not just post cute kid stories all the time) and posting a quick thought from Dutch this morning:

First of all, apparently we were wrong when we started feeling like the terrible two battle was coming to a close. I feel like we were in a movie, in some great battlescene, and in the midst of the fiery battle we began to see the enemy retreating…Hooray! They’re giving up! Hooray, the terrible twos are giving up! Dutch’s will is finally yielding! The stubborn horse is being broken! They’re giving up!  And as we sat around high-fiving each other, just as we unstrap our helmets and lay down our swords, we hear a terrible rumble, we look up to see dust on the horizon, and we realize—they weren’t retreating, they were just quietly regrouping in order to come at us one last time, for the final kill. It is then we realize–we’re toast.  They’ve joined forces with all the other armies and we’re dead.

Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but just this week apparently Dutch has joined forces with all the powers of strong-willed two year olds across the globe.  The main issue is naptime and bedtime. Now Dutch has been in a normal twin bed since before he was two, so he’s been trained to stay in his room either sleeping or quietly playing until we come get him. This was one thing we had down pat.  Not an issue.  Naptime and bedtime were a breeze.  And now, all of a sudden, the crazy boy will not stay in his room!  And just in case you’re thinking that we’re being slack on providing consequences for this action, we’re not.  Every single time he gets a negative consequence. And yet it’s like the crazy boy has disconnect in that little brain and he still does it — over and over and over and over and over. I think we’ve been through it 100 times in the past five days, no joke.

So this morning we’re getting ready to eat breakfast and Dutch comes and gets his oatmeal and is carrying it to the table, and he announces that he wants his bib (I know, odd–sometimes he can’t live without wearing his bib). So I hand it to Jeff and ask him to put it on Dutch and Dutch pipes up, “I do that! I do that!”  “You want to put your bib on, Dutch?”  “Yeah.”  Ok, I look at Jeff and roll my eyes. A child who’s not yet able to eat without spilling on himself is asking to tie on his own bib? So I hand it to Dutch and after fumbling with it he cries, “It’s not working! It’s not working!”  I love it. Of course it’s not working, Dutch.  Because you can’t do it by yourself.  You are two years old.  So Jeff patiently reaches down and helps him.  And then I realized I am exactly like my son.

Yesterday I had called my mom to ask if she had any advice about the bedtime/naptime thing.  She affirmed what we were already doing and said the season would pass.  Then she said, “Are you praying with Dutch about it?”  I sat there, dumbfounded.  Of course we pray with him at night, but no, we hadn’t together prayed and asked God to help Dutch learn to be obedient and learn to go to sleep without getting up.

I had demanded that I put on the bib all by myself and then cried out in frustration, “It’s not working! It’s not working!”  Instead of asking God to help me, to help Dutch, to help us.  I know this is really elementary, but I guess I’m a really elementary person.  I need to be reminded, over and over, to ask God for help. And now I need to ask God, together with my son, for help as we together navigate the water of toddler years.  Thanks, Dutch, for showing me more of myself and more of my need.  Now please go to bed.

Last night and this morning I heard an incredible sermon preached by James Allison, a local area pastor who is also a friend of our lead pastor Joel.  Wow.  I’m not going to attempt to recreate it here because you’re better off just listening to it (I’ll post the link when the audio becomes available), but I’ll just share one little tidbit that stuck out to me.  James and his wife have three children, two boys and a girl, and their youngest was diagnosed with aggressive leukemia when she was 2 years old.  She’s spent 2 1/2 years battling, going throug intense chemo and treatments through her tender toddler years.  Amazing.  The story he shared was from 2 Chronicles 20, where King Jehoshaphat leads the army of Juday in prayer and worship, and God goes before them and defeats the three massive armies that had come to destroy the people of God.

I love it when I hear passages that I have even taught myself, and yet God brings them alive in amazing new ways. That’s what this was for me. I’d always gotten the part about “worship God first and watch Him fight your battles” (by “gotten” I mean seen, not that i’d necessarily lived it out!!), but something James said really stood out to me.  He pointed out how Jehoshaphat received the bad news (armies are coming to destroy you) and he turned his full attention to God.  That’s literally what the phrase means there in the passage.  Now our normal reaction in a crisis is to pray, yes–everyone prays.  It’s naturally for us to go “Help! Help me! Look at me! Focus on me! Help me!”  But even though our mouths are going a mile a minute to God, our hearts, attention, eyes, focus, and energy if still firmly fixed on the problem at hand, on the circumstances.  What Jehoshaphat modeled is what we should do instead:  Rather than just blabbering to God as if He doesn’t already know about the problem, we should turn our full attention away from the trial, away from the fear, away from the circumstance, and consciously turn our attention on God and His greatness, His glory, His perfection, His faithfulness.  That is different than just whining to God about our problems all day long while we are still firmly focused and fixed on the tragedy or trial.  Huge difference!

I’d really suggest listening to the audio if you have a chance.  Very powerful sermon with even some subpoints that were awesome regarding parenting and leadership.  For me, my goal this week is to not just pray with my lips, but to pray with my heart, mind, energy, attention, and emotions firmly fixed on God rather than the waves tossing and turning around me.  To turn my attention to Him.

I shared yesterday about our “Perfect Day”.  The part I skimmed over was the afternoon of boating…the highlight.

A friend of mine was just saying yesterday isn’t it weird when we see our little quirks and idiosyncracies running around with diapers on? Yes, our children are so much like us!  Well I saw it big time in Dutch today.

While he is SUPER BUSY and active beyond words, he’s definitely not a dare-devil.  He’s very shy at first and doesn’t like to try new things.  He’s absolutely content to stay home all day and play with his trucks and read books, without going anywhere.  In fact, the fact that we go to the park every day is because mommy needs a  break and wants some exercise, not because he asks to go.  He’s a homebody just like me.

So this morning when we told him we were going boating he firmly insisted, “No! I want play home.”  We tried to tell him how fun it would be but he wanted nothing to do with it.  Finally we lured him with a peanut butter sandwich and got him in the car, but when we got to the boat dock he started crying and said he wanted to go home and go to bed (now that’s serious).  When we tried to put on his life jacket he went totally ballistic and clung to me, crying–huge tears streaming down his face (that is rare).  So I carried him onto the boat and just held him for the first little while as he got more used to things. Sure enough, he slowly began to lessen his grip, look outside, and eventually even walked around, put his feet in the water with Daddy, and cheered and clapped for Daddy as he wakeboarded.  He was having a blast.  But when we asked him if he wanted to go in the water it was still a firm, “No!” and then he’d cling to me again.  Yes, it is true, I have a mama’s boy on my hands.

Then there’s me: Dutch + 100lbs. + a ponytail.  I used to waterski.  But I realized today it hadn’t been since early college, ten years ago, that I last skied.  Certainly not since Jeff and I have been married.  I’m always wimping out, or too cold, or pregnant (that’s a good excuse), and I never go.  But as I watched Dutch today, as I watched him try to be brave but come back and cling to me, as I watched him refuse to go in the water, I thought, “I’ve got to ski for Dutch.  That’s the only way he’ll be brave is if I do it first.”  So, I pulled on the lifejacket, jumped into the water (cold!!!), and pulled on the skis I hadn’t seen in so many years.  As soon as I sat there in the water I thought, “there’s no way I’ll get up. We used to have a pole and now we don’t, and I haven’t done this in so long.”  But as soon as I yelled “hit it” Dad took off, and would you believe it–I popped right out of the water and found myself screaming at the top of my lungs in delight as we raced through the water.  When I finished (I don’t like crashing so when I get too tired I just let go of the rope and slowly sink), they were all cheering and I was beaming ridiculously, bursting with silly pride.  I swam over to the side of the boat.  Then, to my amazement, Dutch says,

“I want go in the wa-wa.”

We all look at him with wide eyes. “You want go in the wa-wa with Mommy, Dutch?”

“Yeah!”  So to all of our surprise instead of waiting for my dad to lift him carefully over the edge, he goes to the back of the boat and just like he does with me in the pool–he jumps right off the back of the boat into my arms.  Poor guy, the water was COLD and I don’t think he expected that, so it was a bit of a shock, but he stayed for a second before getting back in the boat.  You better believe we cheered like crazy at his brave little self jumping in the lake!

But this was where I really saw how similar we are: of course I’m an adult so I hide my ridiculousness but I must admit when I got out of the water I felt pretty darn pround. We had driven past this decked out boat full of high schoolers and skinny little girls in their barely-there bikinis, and I thought, “Ha! I got two kids in the boat! Take that!”   I know. Silly.  I realize waterskiing is NOT a big deal. But you’d have thought I scaled Mt. Everest by how happy I was.  So then later Dutch gets brave again while Jeff is in the water and decides he wants to go back in!  And this time, Jeff holds him and jumps in and accidentally tips just right so that Dutch’s basically dives in headfirst–dunked under the water! Dad and Mom and I gasp, horrified, thinking he’ll never want to see water again after being dunked in the icy lake. And yes, Dutch was a little shaken, but after coughing for a sec, he was all smiles, and when he got back in the boat, it was the most hilarious thing, it was like watching myself, except without adult inhibitors. He jumped around and shouted, “I got in the wa-wa! Way in the wa-wa! Wa-wa on me! I wet!”  You could tell he felt like some gladiator, a conqueror of all things marine.  We were hysterical

So by the time we left, Dutch was driving the boat–literally.  He drove the boat in, he loved the boat. He was ready to move into the marina.  What a change from the scared little boy clinging to mama who had arrived just hours earlier.

So I had to reflect on the drive home, how like Dutch I am.  Dutch is so busy and wild it’s easy to think that he’s naturally brave.  But he’s not.  And you know I can create a whirlwind with my busy schedule and pretend like I’m taking on the world, but inside I’m pretty much a wimp, clinging to mommy instead of diving into the water.  So today was big, for both Dutch and me. How thankful I am for my son, who shows me more about myself than I ever wanted to know, and challenges me to do more than I ever want to do.  Thanks, son.