Sacred Mundane: The Blog

Jeff and I just crawled into bed and both declared that today was the perfect day.  Of course it wasn’t actually perfect, but just about as close as you can get, and perfect for us and where we’re at and what we needed.  And since God’s Word says we are to proclaim His wonderous works, I’ll proclaim about the sweet day He gave us.

I guess it started last night–Jeff had a 9pm softball game, which meant he wouldn’t be home until 10:30 at least, and he’d been gone every night this week, and I feel like it’s important for us to do as much as we can as a family, so I decided to be wild and crazy and take the kids to the game, even though it’s obviously WAY past bedtime. We bathed, jammied, got snacks, diapers, the whole bit, then loaded into the car with daddy.  Now understand, I have a strange breed of children who NEVER sleep in the car. Ever. Ever.  They come by it naturally because I never could either. But anyway, we almost get to the ballpark and I say, “Wow, Dutch you’re getting to stay up WAY past your bedtime tonight, is’nt that fun?!” and I turn around and he is sound asleep–out–in his car seat.  Hilarious.  Now what do I do? So I say to Jeff that maybe we could park near the field and I could try to watch from the car. Less than ideal, but it would do.  We get to the park and it’s packed, and I realized we might not even find A spot, let alone a close one. Plus, there are 5 fields and only one has parking near it.  Then right as we pull around, a car that’s parked RIGHT behind the backstop of the main field (the only one with close parking) pulls out.  Jeff spots it, swings in, looks at the # on the backstop and says, “This is our field…”  I figured as soon as we parked they’d wake up, but to my amazement, they both slept the whole time, and I got to just sit outside, right behind the stands, right by the car, and watch the whole game. They slept the whole way home, we tucked them into bed, and ate ice cream. 🙂  Good start, huh?

So my recent struggle has been getting up early enough to have my quiet time in the Word and prayer before the kids get up.  But, by God’s grace, this morning I woke right up and bounced out of bed while Jeff got to sleep (he’d been running on WAY too little sleep lately). I had an amazing time all alone with God, sipping my tea, savoring the silence of the house.  At 8 I went in and snuggled with Dutch before getting Heidi up and making breakfast.  Then Jeff was wonderful and remained “unplugged” almost the whole morning. He played with Dutch while I did my mountain of ironing (ok maybe the day wasn’t perfect) , and I got the whole thing done.  He then read him Bible stories while I packed our picnic lunch, then we did our new favorite thing: family dance party.  Jeff bought me the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, which has killer dance music without words, so Dutch and I hold hands and jump around the room while he laughs hysterically.  Then I even got to go on a run alone (that’s a big deal to a mom!) and worship God to Tenth Avenue North on my hand-me-down ipod that I love.  Lately running has been an amazing time of refreshing for my soul.  And for me there’s nothing like running alone.  Just me and Jesus!

Then we packed up a big picnic lunch and met my parents out at Promentory Park for a long afternoon of boating, which was amazing. The weather was perfect–I learned some things (more later), and we crawled back into our car with that awesome feeling of exhaustion that’s physical not mental or emotional, the kind of exhaustion that actually feels good.  Then after contemplating having people over for the night, we opted to stick to family night, and got home, had dinner, bathtime, storytime, and both kids in bed by 7pm. It is now 9 and I’m headed to sleep after having a few wonderful hours to sit with my honey uninterrupted.  Oh, and I ate two bowls of ice cream. I know–somebody pinch me.

I share all this just to say thank you to our good and faithful God who knew we needed a day like this.  After a FULL week and some hectic days, we felt like all day God was slowly but surely recharging our batteries, filling up our tanks with His presence and His joy.  And since this is loooong already, I’ll save my little “lesson from today” for … tomorrow. Goodnight.

“Day in the Life” post to the left.

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I am blessed beyond words.  I am thankful tonight for women who truly recognize that ministry is all about Him.  I mentioned earlier that I will be taking on a little more involvement in a formal ministry setting, and tonight Joy and I had a meeting with several ladies, long-term servants at our church who have been faithfully providing leadership to the women of Willamette.

I was truly blessed.

Far too often we view the work we do in ministry as “ours”.  Our small group, our Bible study, our our our.  Anything that’s about us isn’t about Him.  And I must say that I am blessed to be part of a body where I consistently see people demonstrating, with their actions, that this is about Him.  His glory. His fame. His recognition. His power being demonstrated in people’s lives.

Lord, we bow to You. We look to You. You are the King, the glorious One.  Make your name famous, make your glory known. Draw people to You, we pray, In Jesus’ name.

Before you read the title and think that I’ve backslidden into oblivion, hear me out.  I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer lately, partly thinking I really need to “get serious” (whatever that means) about praying for our house to sell, because I really sense God’s up to something cool (when is He not?), but somehow I’m to be partnering with Him in this.

I’ve also been motivated to pray because I really sense that we (Jeff & I) and perhaps our church too, is really under attack.  I’m possibly getting more involved in serving at our church (besides the informal stuff I do), and Jeff is up to his eyeballs in ministry work, and as we’ve headed into our 7th year of marriage, we both sense that if we’re not careful we can get engulfed in the stuff of life and lose each other in the process. No good.  I’m not saying we’re falling apart, I’m just saying that as we’re juggling life and ministry, and two kids and the house stuff we’re trying to learn how to stay in stride with each other. Fair enough.  That said, I need to pray like never before for God’s grace and power in our lives!

So yesterday we spent a glorious 4th of July holiday out at my parents’ house at RiverSong.  A few friends from church joined us and we had a fabulous time truly resting, soaking up the sun, playing badminton, eating s’mores and homemade ice cream, and watching Dutch be his ridiculous hilarious self.  Since it’s always so fun to show new people the beauty of RiverSong, we took our friends down to the river, to our neighbor’s swimming hole, and swam around in the cold river water.  Jeff swam all over, then as he and his friend Matt got out of the water, all of a sudden he stops: “Oh no.  My wedding ring.”  I look down at his left hand. Gone. I close my eyes.  He lost his ring in the river.

He lost our first wedding ring in Half Moon Bay when we lived in California, but this current one was way more significant.  I’d saved and saved and secretly gone and taken my purity ring, the one my parents gave me when I was 13 and that I’d worn every day for ten years until Jeff and I had gotten married, and I had the jeweler actually stretch that yellow gold band and inset it into a white gold band, so that Jeff’s wedding ring was actually melded into my yellow gold purity ring. Needless to say, it was pretty cool, and very significant, even to me, Mrs. Non-sentimental.  And it was gone.  They looked and looked, but the river was murky and super deep.  Eventually we gave up and went back to the house.

Later on that afternoon, Jeff found some scuba gear and took his friend Jerrod back down to the river to look some more. I knew there was no way they’d find it.  When we got back down to the water, Jeff and Jerrod stood on the shore, holding their scuba masks, and prayed together. Jerrod cried out to God that He’d just be gracious and lead them to the ring. Then they searched. And searched and searched, while a friend and I sat on the shore and watched. Finally Jeff gave up and came ashore, it was shady now and the water was dark and it was hard to see anything. Just then he called out, “Let’s give up–” and as Jerrod took a step toward the shore, he reached down, “Here it is!”  And to our absolute astonishment, there it was, at the bottom of the river, in an area shallow enough Jerrod reached right down and picked it up. Needless to say we were amazed.

Wow, the power of prayer, right?  Well, not quite.

You see, today Joel pointed out a key aspect of prayer that I’d always kind of vaguely thought about but never was able to pinpoint it exactly.  So many people talk about the power of prayer.  Prayer is amazing!  We talk about different kinds of prayers to pray–prayers that avail much perhaps.  We pray Jabez’s prayer or so-and-so’s prayer, and I’m not saying that written prayers are bad, not at all.  But I would insist that I don’t believe in prayer.  I believe in God.  I don’t believe in the power of prayer, I believe in the power of God.  Anyone can “pray”–muslims pray, Catholics pray to patron saints.  There is no power in prayer. There is power in God, and the point of prayer is to connect with God and partner with Him as He works His will on earth as it is in heaven, aligning our hearts with His.  Prayer isn’t magic. It’s supernatural to be sure, but not magic.

I’m saddened by how often I’ve prayed just to pray, and missed the point entirely–fellowship with God.  I’m saddened by how often I’ve really just been praying because I want to see my will be done, instead of laying down my will so His can be done.  I’m wondering how often our belief in the “power of prayer” isn’t really belief in the One True God who can do whatever He pleases.

Perhaps it seems a small thing, but to me it changes my perspective entirely.  Do I believe that prayer works?  No. But God does, and that I know for sure.  Do I believe that God can do everything and that He has graciously chosen to allow us to partner with Him through prayer? Yes!  Do I believe God enabled Jerrod and Jeff to find his wedding ring, despite the fact that it seemed an absolute impossibility? Yes! Do I believe God can sell our house? Of course! Do I believe that He’s writing a cool story with our lives that will bring glory to HIS name and draw people to Himself? Yes!  In fact, what’s so cool about the ring story is that Jerrod (who found it) is one of Jeff’s Jr. High leaders, and today’s lesson for the Jr. High kids was on prayer and Jerrod was in charge of sharing a little lesson from his own life on prayer.  Um… how amazing is that?  Just the day before Jerrod happens to come out to our place, Jeff loses his ring, and after praying, God miraculously enables them to find it in the murky dark river waters.  And today they were able to share that story with the Jr. High kids.  It’s about so much more than a wedding ring…God’s name was glorified.  And God’s glory is what it’s all about.

Prayer is not the end. It isn’t the goal.  God, and His beauty, His glory, His fame, His worth lifted up and praised by every tongue, tribe, and nation. That is the end, the goal.  God is the goal. God is the gospel. God is what we get.  I believe in God.

So virtually every day Dutch says something new that makes my jaw drop and want to run to the computer and share with the world.  So, to prevent this blog from turning into a nauseating relay of cutesy toddler stories, I’m creating a page called “A Day in the Life”, where I’ll just post fun Dutch-isms, stories, basically stuff that grandparents like but that many of you probably don’t care about.  To alert those of you who care I’ll just add a quick heads up to my normal post, K?  Ok but until then, one last quick story.

So I hope you’re not squeamish and it’s a little embarrassing to share, but I developed this odd random cyst on my face almost 3 years ago when I was pregnant with Dutch. It started really small but has grown significantly in the last year (gotta love pregnancy, ugh), and now it’s big. Really big.  And I hate it.  Thankfully the doctors finally think it’s weird enough that they’re removing it soon (yay!), but until then I have this really bizarre bump on my cheek and I know I’m vain and it shouldn’t matter, but who wants to have a weird thing growing off their face?

Anyway, I pretend like it’s not there but tonight as I was snuggling Dutch into bed, we laid there with our faces close together, and I was kissing his cheeks.  He then stopped, looked, reach up and poked at it.  “What’s that?!” He asks.  Jeff’s eyes widen (I think he thought I would burst into tears).  I smiled. “That’s mommy’s owie,” I respond. He thinks for a second, then leans up carefully and plants a soft, wet kiss right on the spot.  “All gone!” he happily exclaims.

Oh my sweet boy. Yes.  In your world owies are kissed away. “All gone!”  I love your childlike faith and joy, simplicity and exurberance.  You are a challenge, yes, but your smile and kiss make all life’s troubles all gone.  Thank you, son.