Picking Up the Stitches

I knew it would be a hard gift to receive and I both looked forward to it and dreaded its arrival. Since leaving WI (and our wonderful living situation together) six years ago, Heather had taken up the wonderful craft of knitting. I knew that she was knitting something for Thing 3. I knew it wasn't something for him to wear but she wouldn't tell me for sure what it was...she liked to surprise about as much as she liked to give.

I have so many gifts in my home from her. One of the earliest was probably the mission style rocking chair that she and her husband gave us as a wedding present. It sits in our living room next to the one that she INSISTED I buy at the Walworth County antique swap meet. It was such a steal that I think she threatened bodily harm if I DIDN'T buy it. You see by then they had so many rockers of their own that they had a "moratorium" on rockers - so then the next best thing was to make her friends by them.

Other items from Heather aren't all so big - little red measuring cups and spoons she sent me one year to support my obsession with my new red Kitchen Aid mixer. And of course, knitted red wash clothes appeared in another box from her. Bib overalls for my first born and a red curious George blanket that she insisted would have to be his favorite blanket of all.

Heather was a giver through and through. Of her time, of her wisdom, of her heart. That is partly what made her such a wonderful friend and probably why she was able to be such a wonderful friend to so many of us. She made the time to make the people she loved know that even with thousands of miles between us, we were still a very present part of her life as she spent hours knitting away the next gift and making the time to send it.

Yesterday it arrived, an absolutely adorable Rabbit for Thing 3. She had become quite the accomplished knitter. Her weekly knitting group of friends lovingly finished "Peter" and even marked the place where Heather had left off and they picked up her stitches. I know she would want - no INSIST - that this become his most favorite toy.

It will be hard to see "Peter" get drooled on when I really want to put him up on a shelf to be safe and protected, this her last gift to me. But that would hardly reflect Heather's heart - she who never lived life "on the shelf" where she couldn't get dirty. She was a go getter from start to "end" and I'm sure she is still go-getting up in His Presence even now. Now it is my turn to "pick up the stitches" where she left off and carry on her legacy of giving. Her breadth and depth of friendships challenges me to reach out and give a little more than might come naturally to me. Whether it be of myself, my time, my talents...or purchasing AND sending some little item I saw that made me think of someone.

With the arrival of Peter Rabbit comes the end of her gifts to me. But it is not the end of her love for me or any of us. I'm so grateful for each little item in my home that reminds me of her generous and caring heart, one that I hope to emulate and honor the memory of by becoming more of a giver and living life to the fullest just like she did.

Life with The Things

Today Thing 1 prayed at lunch, "Dear God, thank you for this beautiful weather, thank you that my big poop came out, and thank you for our new pool."

We have an new member of the family - his name is "Piggy". T1 named him because he says he "looks like a pig". In all actuality he is a toad. We just happened to have an aquariam leftover from goldfish long departed months back. So I decided since they had been asking for more fish I'd take the easy way out and let them keep the toad they caught in our backyard. He now lives happily in the mud room with pea rocks, a log to sleep in and more crickets than he can shake his little amphibian legs at. I'm currently perfecting the art of stunning a fly without killing it. Apparantly toads only like live food.

The other day I laundered the shower curtain, captured an escapee grasshopper and returned him to his doom, located 34 library books due TODAY, discovered at library that T3 had pooped ALL OVER, happily found 4 wipes with non-pooped-on-hand, put poopy baby back into carseat and proceeded inside, found 3 books on toads, removed drowning fly from coffee and sent him to his doom. My life is a glamorous novel just waiting to be written.

Life

First - some pics from our recent visit with family in Wausau. It was so great to have everyone together again, if only for a few days.

Mom treated us to a nice lunch out, just the girls while we were in Wausau.

Showing off Thing 3's toosh to all the aunties. He was so good, didn't
pee on me once!

Hangin out with at Mom and Dad's with the fam.


Cousins!


Uncle T. the snake catcher and entertainer of the family.

So much of life happens between posts that I wish I had the time to share with you all. One significant thing that God did I already emailed to many of you but want to put down here for my own record and for any of you who I missed telling this story to. On the morning of July 30th a friend/co-worker stopped by and my kids were outside playing. When she was about to leave I decided to walk out with her b/c I hadn't heard my kids for awhile. I walked out front first with her and didn't see them or hear them. I started to walk to the backyard and happened to glance toward her car parked in our driveway. I could just barely see Ben, my 3 1/2 year old sitting on the ground playing by himself right behind her jeep. If I hadn't seen him she would have walked around the front of her car, gotten in and ran him over for sure. This still just makes me panic even now. I'm usually pretty good about knowing where my kids are playing but we do have a lot of people come and go and they usually don't think to look behind their cars before they leave. I'm praising God for protecting Ben and am reminded to always check before I pull out or if anyone else is leaving the house. I decided to have a sign made and put it up in our driveway just as a reminder for folks to walk behind their cars before the leave. Here is the link for the website that I designed it on - it was reallly easy:
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Some other highlights have been seeing some Navigator staff friends from our region at a quick get-together in the Dells. Though not all our kids are big on water slides, we did enjoy our time splashing around. Thing 3 took the "Lazy River" to heart and fell asleep on me as we floated through as a family. Speaking of family we took a quick jaunt up to Wausau from there to have the whole family together again which is a rare occurrence at best with us living on different continents!

Hubby blessed me last weekend with my first night away from all the Things. Though I missed them all, Thing 3 especially, it was really refreshing and healing for me to attend the Beth Moore conference. I nearly grabbed the baby a few seats down from me during one session just to hold him...but I thought better of it since the mother probably would not appreciate a stranger commandeering her baby. I really enjoyed my time with 2 other staff women and a whole group of women from our church who went up to Fargo to attend. The worship was incredible and I was caught off guard by how quickly the tears for Heather and thoughts of her came while we sang. What is it about music that you can't hide your heart from? It just draws it out - both joys and sorrows. Glad it was dark in there while we sang! :) The teaching was excellent as always and if you ever get a chance to hear her - go!

We have also squeezed in a few last and really fun times together as a family at the city pool. I'm sad that it is already closed for the season. And the two older Things cashed in about $2k in "library loot" for all the reading "they" (ahem) did this summer. They went hog wild buying all sorts of junk..err...toys at the library store. Those boys will listen to books until I go hoarse if I let them! We have been doing a lot of books on tape lately to meet their need for more stories!

That is all for now...we are off and running with planning our fall semester. Our staff team (up to 9 of us now- wooohooo!) all came for a day of planning yesterday. We ended the evening with dinner and games together. I'm blessed by each and every one of them. And though my main ministry these days is managing the Things, I do enjoy and appreciate the times I am blessed to minister alongside them outside our home.

For the next 3 days our staff and 30 of our student leaders will be meeting, planning, praying and a little playing of course! Please pray for God's hand to be leading them as we prepare for the school year ahead. We are all excited for things to get into full gear again!

In The Storm

You know I love to start off with disclaimers - so as not to disappoint - this isn't in any way supposed to be an accurate teaching on what God intended for us to take from this passage - it is just where my mind went with it for today - tomorrow may be different. With that said...

I don't know if God does this to you, but sometimes I think He gets my attention best by repeating Himself. In the last few weeks John 6 keeps popping up everywhere I look. The account of when Jesus walks on water, to be more specific. At first it was just in my daily reading through John, then when I randomly picked a sermon to listen to online(a great website with thousands of sermons to minister to our hearts), guess what passage she drew from? I know it came up at least one other place as well. For awhile I was confused, what is my storm? What are you trying to tell me through this, Lord? Yesterday I finally had a little revelation as I journaled and prayed through this passage once again.

I really liked some of the insights that Jill Briscoe brought so I'll list them here first ( when you have 20 minutes I encourage you to listen for yourself and hear the many other great truths she draws, the sermon is called, "Trusting" and is in the archives on July 28th):
- The disciples knew the storm was coming and didn't want to get into the boat - but Jesus insisted they get in without Him and start across the lake
- Even though it was very dark and they were three or four miles out, Jesus saw them
- Jesus came to them in the storm
- Once they invited Him into the boat they immediately got to shore

At first I was confused making the obvious connection of Heather's death to my current storm, "Lord, this isn't going to just pass like a storm will, I think it is going to last until I see her again." But then it hit me, when Jesus got into the boat and they immediately landed on shore, the storm was still blowing. They were on safer ground, but the storm didn't end, they just had a much better chance of surviving.

My grief is my storm and I know the only way I'll survive it, and the many other storms this fallen world will bring, is to ask Jesus into the boat. At first the disciples were afraid, not even recognizing Jesus, but then as soon as they invited Him into the boat they were brought to shore. It brings me comfort to know that they couldn't see Jesus through the storm, but Jesus saw them and He came to them in their storm. There are so many days I can't see Him in my grief, to see His plan in all this pain. But in the midst of the deluge He still sees me. And He doesn't just see me, He comes to me. And then He waits for me to invite Him into my boat.

Some days I do invite Him in and He carries me through the dangerous waters of despair where my faith seems so fragile and thin and I think my grief will overwhelm me. He climbs in and ushers me back to firm ground. Other days when I don't want to accept His will in this and I just want to ask "why" and be mad, I strain against the oars and protest even getting into (or in my case, being in) the boat like the disciples did. And there I remain in the middle of the lake until I allow Him to climb into the boat with me. When He does the ache is eased a bit as I fall into His embrace with the tears still streaming down my face. The storm is still blowing, but Jesus is with me.

I don't think that storms of grief ever completely end this side of heaven. But I do think with time comes healing and there will be days, and eventually weeks and months where the storm moves off a bit to the horizon. I'm sure it will spring up with sudden showers in unexpected places. Like the other day when I was helping my 5-yr-old put his clothes away. I suddenly remembered the day Heather and Phil gave us that dresser and I can clearly picture standing near the storage area in their basement with her. Oh, how I miss her! The pain squeezes my heart once again with those four little words and there I am again in the middle of the lake. Will I invite Jesus in, accepting His will in this, or keep straining against the oars?

As time passes, in these instances I'm able to more quickly come to the place of saying, "Lord, I don't understand why You asked us to go through this storm, but I want you in my boat anyways." Immediately I'm back on shore and He helps me take the next step onto firm ground. To smile at my 5-yr-old as he has moved on from putting his clothes away and is now explaining to me the way he likes to get dressed. He is completely oblivious to the squall that just blew across my heart and threatened to take me down once again. He doesn't know that Jesus is using him to help me take one step at a time back into every day life, storm or not, I have to keep living.

Right now for me it's still raining, but it is one of those strange showers where the light begins beam through onto the soaked ground below. And Jesus is with me in the boat, helping me step onto the shore.