Love Does, our story

This is the 10th, or maybe the 11th post in the Bloom Where You're Planted series inspired by Mary Englebreit and The Nester's 31 Days series.  

Almost 13 years ago, I traveled from Tulsa, Oklahoma  to North Carolina for a wedding.  

My wedding.

Love does that kind of thing.

Sometimes love even goes out on a limb like that.

We married six days after I arrived and settled into my husband's home.  We worked together, faced trials together, made a life together.

Love does that kind of thing.

We rocked three babies together.  We reached across the dark to feel our little ones breathe.

Love does things like that day after day, long night after night.

I was in North Carolina for almost 13 years.  We made a life but every day there was a moment when I was not at home, because my heart wanted to be Home.

This summer, B applied for a position in Oklahoma so that I could be close to my family.  It was a long shot. 

Did you know that divine intervention is real?

About four weeks later, he was in Oklahoma.  I stayed another month and then he came back to get us, to move us 1,280 miles. 

Let's not pretend.  He came back to get me, to move me 1,280 miles.

Love does that kind of thing.  Love goes out on a lot of limbs.

B left his friends to bring me back to my old friends.

Love does that kind of thing.

He left his family so that I could be with mine.

Love does that sometimes.

Love talks and dreams and plans and waits.  These things are sweet and smooth and they feed the soul.  These things blow gently like a warm breeze or soothe like cool water.

But love also does.  Love takes action and wields power.  Love has the undeniable power to blow pine trees over in the night and move the seashore, little by little, like the tide.  There is power in a love that does.

Love is like that sometimes. 

Love talks and dreams and plans and waits.  These things are good.

But I am also blessed by a love that does.

Thanks B,

michele

Stone Soup...a confession

I want to be good, to make Jesus happy.  I remember thinking those thoughts as I left the pew in my little church as a child and went forward toward a rather ordinary-looking grace that would change my life, hinder it though I may.  I went to Pastor David and told him I wanted to be saved, I wanted eternal life in the presence of God. When he asked me why I said that I wanted to make Jesus happy.

But I have a confession.  I don't make Jesus happy.  I bear bad fruit sometimes.  I want to do better.  I want to BE better.  I am showing my children how to grow bad fruit and that makes me sad.  I thought if I shared a little reality, it would help, sort of like a step-program...I confess to you.  I...I...I can't do it by myself, what I really need is a new heart.  Luckily, that is possible.

A deep breath in my soul and here it comes:

Judgement.  That's my sin.  At least the one I am most aware of today.

Perhaps my opinion of myself is low and so I feel better if I think I am achieving more or doing it better than someone else.
If I have a cleaner house then maybe I am not the worst person?
If my kids don't swear (yet?) then maybe something I do is worthy of righteousness or on the sliding scale of sin that is a total lie, I am not as bad as others and therefore I must be better than some?
If I manage to get make-up on and you didn't then I am a better wife right, even when I nag because it is all about the skin right?  Or is it the wallet?  No...that's not it either.

For whatever reason, I judge.  I look around and I think, "My ____ isn't perfect but I would never do that or at least my kids don't _____."  Hateful and there it is right on the ground between us.

But what should I do when I look around and see with truthful and loving eyes, see others in sin?

When the Jews ran to Jesus, dragging their guilty victim, talebearing in their hearts and on their tongues, our sinless King said,

"He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first."  John 8:7

Would I throw a stone at Her?  Who Her?  A beloved friend?  I would never! Right?  A relative or sister or some other precious, sinful Her like me?  Surely I would not.

But I do throw stones.  I throw them every day.  I throw them at my neighbors and people I see at the gas station.  I throw them at you and I throw them at my church and I throw them at myself.  And I hate those stones and they lay there accusing ME and calm moments like this when I can see into my own heart, I hope you don't even know and those stones hurt me.

Now comes the scary part, and the scary big promise right from the mouth of the King himself.

"For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.  And why do you look at the speck in your brothers eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?...Hypocrite, First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."  Matthew 7:2, 3 and 5 NKJV

That's me in verse 5, Hypocrite with a plank in her eye.  This makes me fear deep in my soul and I am not talking about the watered down "reverential trust" kind of fear that your modern bible translation might offer, I am talking about respectful fear of Creator God who looked down on pre-flood mankind and was sorry He made them.

BUT, gracefully, the tide turns when you dive into the Word and learn about the God who does good for us because he loves us and for no other reason than that he chooses to love us, He who planned to love us from the very beginning.  Read Moses speech to Israel in Deuteronomy 7, 8 and 9, and though we aren't Israelites, you get deep insight into His mind and motives, "that He might humble and that He might test you, to do you good in the end." (Deuteronomy 8:16 NKJV)

And Moses relays God's message over and over in these chapters that it is not because of their righteousness that GOD SET HIS LOVE ON THEM.

Oh my, take a knee if you are able because He set His love on us.  We can only stiffly resist with our proud necks or let ourselves be crushed by the love that He set on us.  Crushed by His love.  May it be, My God, give me a new heart and let me be crushed by Your love, crush all the stones in me and soak me right up and accept my gratitude for this promise in your word...

"Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.  Judge not, and you shall not be judged.  Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned.  Forgive, and you will be forgiven.  Give and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom.  For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."  Luke 6:36-38 NKJV

"For every tree is known by its own fruit."  Luke 6:44 NKJV

I have only to look at my fruit to see what kind of tree I am and we don't even want to go there...because God's word is not silent on the fate of trees, but it is full of promise, and the Word bears grace and it does not bear stones and so I want to leave my stones on the ground right here.

My sinful heart is broken and that is the only sacrifice that I really have anyway but luckily, it is not my sacrifice that matters...

And the promise in Luke, the warning and the promise that whatever measure we use it will be measured back to us and maybe not even equally, but in good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over and it will be put right into us but we need help.  

I can't change by myself but the Spirit, the Spirit can bear fruit right out of me, I am grafted onto something good and that is the fruit I want and I don't deserve good but the God of All went and set His love on me and poured out grace and there is literally and blessedly...nothing I can do to change that.

Blessedly crushed,
M

Happier than a pig in Mud...

In January, 10 months ago now, my husband and I decided to improve our physical fitness by creating a training and meal plan that would enable us to increase our strength and stamina while...never mind, we started counting calories and moving our backsides because we wanted to stop gaining weight and get in shape.

Being 40-something with three kids does not, in fact, doom a person to a life of going downhill...at least not coasting down at high speeds.  If I am going down, I am doing it with two parachutes open and the brakes on!

Soon after, my husband discovered a worthy motivation.

THE TOUGH MUDDER.

This is an event where you pay the organizers to let you run miles and miles stopping only to crawl through, jump over, climb under, hang from, get shocked by, or freeze in whatever obstacle they have set up.  Oh yeah, the proceeds benefit Wounded Warriors.  Your thanks for completing the course?  An orange sweatband and a beer. (Oh don't get all worked up, just don't drink the beer if you don't want to...its okay to be the salt you know...)

So, my husband trains and I walk. We write down calories, a surprisingly easy and cheap way to alter your eating for the better, and I lose a size and my husband loses 30 pounds.  *sigh*

The day arrives and we drive down, all five of us, the kids are crazy excited.  They have done lots of "training" with him (health, it's not just hereditary but contagious, yes?) and they are ready to watch some funky monkey (monkey bars) and the kiss of mud (crawling through mud under barbed wire) and other obstacles with slightly edgier names whose double meaning was lost on the kiddos.  (I just used some of the less conservative elements as a springboard to brainwash the kids with my own point of view.)

Look at the hands on the right edge of the pic above, those hands waiting to help a stranger up.  When was the last time I helped anyone up?

This is not a commercial for the Tough Mudder but a commercial for the world around you.  I had forgotten that people are not just mankind but uskind and we are loved, if not always by each other but by our Creator.

Everyone was so nice, participants, volunteers, family members, everyone.  Some of the costumes were skimpy but really, we saw the same amount of flesh in a fast food restaurant the night before.  There were signs encouraging determination, reliance on--wait for it--OTHERS, doing your best and getting back up when you fall and above all, HELPING OTHER PEOPLE WHO ARE DOWN.

You see, in my insulated little world, I fear I have lost my saltiness.  I admit to you that I stand apart when I venture outside my circle of family and church.  I don't know quite how to handle the world at large because I seem to be rarely in it anymore.  And considering my faith, this makes me quite useless.  So I was really encouraged to see what potential we have to impact the world around us.

I saw people at the Tough Mudder wearing their faith, talking their faith and walking their faith and these real people and the others there who were having fun on behalf of a noble cause, these should be some of our heroes, not the folks on TV who are paid but the ones who have paid just to help someone else.  A worthy model, don't you think?

The Tough Mudder Creed

As a Tough Mudder I pledge that:
I understand that Tough Mudder is not race but a challenge.
I put teamwork and camaraderie before my course time.
I do not whine, kids whine.
I help my fellow mudders complete the course.
I overcome all fears.

Now, with your permission, I would like to editorialize...

Abba Father,

I understand that life is not a race but a challenge and the goal is a race worthy of a "well done" from you, and certainly NOT to finish first!
I put love of you and love of my neighbors before MY chosen course.
I do not whine but try to be thankful in all circumstances because You are God and I am not.
I help my fellow mudders complete the course, enough said.
I overcome all fears only through You who strengthen me.

And another thing, this event was physically and mentally challenging.  We need more of that in general.  Let our men and boys, many of whom were made to be warriors, let them have challenges and do hard things and fail and try again.  Let them test and exert themselves. Spiritually, can you imagine how salty they could make an event like this if they were to come in droves?

And for your girls, what an inspiration.  My daughter watched a beautiful young woman cross the monkey bars (these bars, about 20 of them, followed the inclined roof line going upward, peaking and coming down), with the guys in her group cheering her on.  We were so impressed because those fitness nut guys cheering, they had fallen from the bars into the muddy water before that girl crossed.

Events like this are springing up all over now.  Test them to make sure the cause is worthy but we are inspired to action.  The boy, 9, watched his daddy cross "the monkey"and said out of the side of his mouth, "How old do you have to be to do this?"

Trying to be worth my salt,
Michele

Superman's Secret Identity Revealed

Let me let you in on a little secret, Superman is real and I know who he is.  I married him 12 years ago.  I know he has super powers because a friend who lent us a mower once said my husband could break an anvil.  Maybe that isn't what he meant...

He can hit baseballs out of the park, coach for days in freezing February weather or 102 degree sun, if you put oranges in your water cooler it makes a difference, you know.  But let him go too long without sugar and, lets just say hunger is his kryptonite.

As crazy as I was about him, I didn't even know his secret identity.

But then something happened, a miracle actually (but that is for another post) and we found out we were expecting.  A baby shoe with an apple seed to show the size of our child the day we learned he existed and a poppy seed to show the size of his already beating heart.   Twenty-one days wonderfully made and our child's heart was beating.

Superman became Mr. Safety, spending two hours in the car seat aisle before actually making a purchase.  I am not kidding.  He did the finger sticks to test the sugar in my blood and worked in his gymnasium office while I walked that sugar off at 10:00 PM.  While I lay in a hospital bed recovering from a c-section, he changed tar-filled diapers, eventually becoming such an expert by our third child that he made a list of the supplies he wanted, forget cotton balls, you need industrial wipes for that stuff.  I began to suspect that he was not to be taken for granted.

He is the "master swaddler" who kept vigil over me and the new ones every minute we were in the hospital.  He came in the door from work, kissed me (is that how all this got started?) and says, "Give me that baby, he needs Daddy-time."  He is the daddy who took the boy to daycare the whole first week because I couldn't stand to do it and then hurried there to get him first.  He always has room on his chest for a sleepy little one.  I reach out to the little one who can't lay down while he sleeps, strapped in a seat to keep his milk down, and I touch him to feel him breathe but his daddy's hand is already there.  These are the things you do when you are a daddy.  These are the ordinary things that turn men into heroes.

He is learning to live on kid-time and how to eat with a person on his lap.  The man of steel drives slower now.  He has used words like "onesie" and "exersaucer" and he says, "Sorry, not today, I am with my kids."  He learned to appreciate the sounds of babies breathing, squirming and talking to their toes while we tried to sleep because that means they are there and they are healthy.  These are the changes you make when you are a daddy.  These are the ordinary changes that change you.

He likes to be with the kids and misses us when he can't be home with us.  He tells me, his wife, that I take good care of our children when it is 5:00 AM and one of them is up again.  He says I did the right thing when an emergency room visit spawns a $1,500 bill because our son shook strangely without cause when he was nursing.  He bundles our children for the trip to church.  He worked long and hard to get his National Boards and principals' degree because he looks to the future and wants to take care of us.  The man of steel has made a commitment of steel.  Commitments of steel make it possible for ordinary men to leap tall buildings.

He loves me, the mother of his children, chooses to love me every day.  He works hard so that I can raise our children and it matters.  They wait for the lights of his van (major sacrifice there!) and run when they see him. They still cry sometimes when he has to work too many nights in a row.  They don't miss TV heroes but they need him and he is there.  Above all, these kids know, day after day, minute after minute that he loves them.

He endures an ever-lengthening bedtime routine and says daddy prayers over them.  These are the things that teach your children what a daddy does, what a hero is.  These are battles fought  with hard choices and adventures lived in wee hours and a legacy well worth leaving and I know that his power doesn't come from the planet Krypton but from a holy place that is not fiction.  He knows it too and that is why he is more than a man, but a hero to four of us whose day really gets started when daddy comes home.

Love always,
M