Choosing a Lasting Legacy.  0

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” — ee cummings
I regularly have moments when I look around me and feel like there must be some mistake.  I couldn’t possible have given birth to this many kids.  And where did these adult problems come from?  But yes, there are many (children and problems), and the dance to stay one step ahead isn’t always easy.  In fact, it often overwhelms me.
This raising kid thing is exponentially harder and more amazing (often all at the same moment) than I ever imagined it would be, and as they get older and I realize the enormity of bringing another person into the world (which didn’t end at the moment they exited my body), I find myself gasping for breath, unsure how I’m ever going to see it through.  It’s usually during that moment of sheer panic that God gently reassures me that it was no mistake that these children are in our home and that in between the crazy is plenty of amazing stuff.
As William’s tenth birthday approached, I wanted to do something that we’d never done before with him.  Also?  I figured Peter and I deserved something more than a slice of cake for actually making it to the first decade mark.
So Peter and I took Will for a weekend on his own, to do whatever he wanted to do. We had the greatest time. After a night in a hotel, we drove to The Adventure Park in West Bloomfield, Michigan and played around on the ropes course.  I will have you know that I did most of it with the boys, but I sat out the third course so I could take pictures.  If you really want proof that I did it, you’ll have to check Peter’s phone for the video of me screaming through the zip line.  It was a blast and I was so glad that I didn’t just sit on the sidelines.
There’s something about the camera lens that captures more than what I could see with just my eyes.  That day, standing at the bottom watching William maneuver in and out of the ropes, I was struck with the significance of our activity and the life we’re striving to build with him and with the girls.
You know, someday when Peter and I die and our kids look at our will, we won’t have an enormous inheritance to give them.  But what I pray we pass on is a lasting legacy.  I love to do things for my kids that make them happy, but I don’t want that to drive the way that we live as a family.  And I’m guilty of forgetting that what I leave in them is much more important than what I do for them or what I give to them.   Slowly I’m realizing that when happiness in my kids is my ultimate goal, I’m selling them far short of what God has designed them for.
One of the principles I’ve learned in parenting the last ten years is to “Imagine the End”.  When I feel stuck on a decision, I play it out in my head.  Where do I want my kids to end up?  Who do I want them to become?  If I believe (and I do) that God is writing the story of my life, I have to believe that He is also writing a narrative in my kids.  And I want them to shape their lives according to His plan for them.  This is the kind of legacy I want to leave.
What does that mean for us as parents?  It means that we let them do the hard things.  And we push and we encourage, but ultimately we trust that, just as we learn the most from the hardest times, so will they.
It means that when I so badly want a reprieve, I rejoice that God gives us strength to do what we had no idea we could do.
It means that I watch my kids in awe, amazed that God is working so quietly, so significantly in them that I am left breathless with wonder.

“When it comes to my children, the most difficult thing I have ever done is to admit my limited capacity and trust God to show up and do what only He can do.  Some days I just need to be reminded that my family is a part of a bigger picture and that God desires to demonstrate His redemptive power through us.” (From Parenting Beyond Your Capacity  by Reggie Joiner and Carey Nieuwhof)

Thanks to this blog post for this idea of a birthday adventure!  I can’t wait to see what Kate chooses in just a few years.

A Little Adventure.  1

“We cannot think our way into a new kind of living.  
We must live our way into a new kind of thinking.”– Richard Rohr
Exactly two years ago, Peter and I were in Ecuador with Compassion International, spending time with Jefferson, the boy we had sponsored for many years.  I wrote about our trip a handful of times.  It continues to shape me still.  It had been a lot of years since I had let the reality of poverty seep into my thoughts.  I realized that I can do all the reading and watching and talking that I’d like, but nothing compares to being in the thick of it.  When poverty has a name and a face, it wrecks you.  At least that’s what it did to me.
When I think about my life here, it’s pretty comfortable.  And honestly, that’s not what I want. At least it’s what I fight against wanting.  In the mornings, when I think about the one life that God has given to me– this finite number of days that I have here on this earth– I just don’t want to waste it.  I am determined to make the most of my minutes.  And then I get out of bed.  My feet hit the floor and my eyes open to the piles … and before I know it, I’m overwhelmed by laundry and requests for more snacks and obscene amounts of grass on the kitchen floor.  Before I know it, I seem to only have time for the tasks that concern me and my little family.
I know, I know that those things are important.  The dailyness of a Mom’s life is invaluable.  But I worry when those tasks become more valuable to me than my relationship with Christ, my concern for the poor, the orphans, my community.  And that, my friends, is definitely not what I desire to be modeling to my kids.
I’ve noticed lately that when I’d sing, “Break my heart for what breaks Yours…” It wasn’t hitting me deep down.  I’d become hardened.
And so, when my friend Neile wrote to me about joining her in Haiti, I hesitated for a bit, but I knew it was an opportunity I couldn’t let slip through my fingers.
On September 12, I’ll leave Peter and the kids (along with my awesome in-laws who will come to help in my absence) and I’ll pretend to be brave.  I’ll travel to Port-de-Paix, Haiti and spend the week with Waves of Mercy.  We’ll spend time with children who have been orphaned, have a birthday party for young Mamas and their babies, and love these people who have so little and are still so devastated by the earthquake four years ago. Something tells me it will split my heart right open, and honestly, I’m more than a bit terrified.
But I long for a new kind of thinking.  I believe that the Holy Spirit is working among His people in a huge way and I want to experience it for myself.  I’ll never get there if I only think about it.  So for me, right now, that means spending a week with those who have been through so much tragedy and are still able to live with hope.  I cannot wait to see what they will teach me.  And I pray that in some small way, I will be an encouragement to them.
Will you pray for me?
P.S. I feel so blessed to be at this point in my life that I can leave my kids in capable hands, knowing that they’ll be well taken care of.  For many of you, putting a stamp in your passport is just not an option right now.  But it doesn’t always take a plane ride or extra money to live a new kind of life and have a new way of thinking.  I really like the way Kristen Welch thinks and writes and her post on “100 Ways for Your Family to Make a Difference” is dynamite.  I am always trying to find new ways that we can teach our kids to look for the needs of others before themselves, to live against the culture that so smoothly convinces them that they deserve it all.  Some days are easier than others, but I keep telling myself that one day they will get this. In this world of entitlement, it is such a huge battle.  If you’re in the thick of it, keep fighting.  It is worth it.  Don’t believe the lie that you have an excuse not to serve beyond yourself.

Taking the Sting Out of Suffering  0

 

It happened that as he (Jesus) made his way toward Jerusalem, he crossed over the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten men, all lepers, met him. They kept their distance but raised their voices, calling out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

 Taking a good look at them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”They went, and while still on their way, became clean. One of them, when he realized that he was healed, turned around and came back, shouting his gratitude, glorifying God. He kneeled at Jesus’ feet, so grateful. He couldn’t thank him enough—and he was a Samaritan.

Jesus said, “Were not ten healed? Where are the nine? Can none be found to come back and give glory to God except this outsider?” Then he said to him, “Get up. On your way. Your faith has healed and saved you.”– Luke 17: 11-19 (The Message)

For months now I have been thinking about the story in the Bible about the ten lepers.  For so many years of my life, I remember feeling disgusted at the ungrateful nine who didn’t thank Jesus for healing them.  After all, He not only saved their lives, but made it possible for them to be normal again.  So many things changed for them on that day.

Leprosy is a disease that kills the nerves in the body.  Essentially, those with leprosy feel no pain.  This explains why they lose fingers and toes– because they often injure themselves, but don’t realize it until it is too late.  I keep thinking about the 10 lepers who so desperately wanted to be healed and I imagine the moments following their healing, when they stubbed their toe or stepped on a sharp rock or burned their finger… and actually felt pain.

Don’t you think that the glow of being healed might fade a bit in those moments?

I’ve written about the fog of grief and I’ve written about longing to feel the pain.  Now, with almost five years under my belt, I can see myself articulating my feelings differently, living with the ache of Annie like a familiar friend almost.  I can’t imagine life without it, really.

I certainly can now relate to the nine lepers who didn’t return to Jesus to thank Him.  Because learning to live with pain is one of the hardest realities of life.  And you know as well as I do that it’s true.  Chances are, you’ve had your share of pain.  You’ve had life hit you hard and it knocks the wind right out of you.  Maybe you get up quickly the first time, but by the second, third, fourth blow, you’re ready to pull the blankets over your head and spend the rest of your days in the safety of your bed.

And so I think about the leper that returned to Jesus and the courage it took him to be thankful for the pain.

I was running a few months ago through the baseball field that is behind our house.  Hank had given up on finishing with me because he is an old dog now, so after he ran one lap with me, he sauntered off to the neighbor’s burn pile to check out what leftovers they had after dinner (Welcome to country living) and then found a cozy spot smack in the middle of the diamond, watching me circle around and around him.  For me, running is more about shaking off the cobwebs of my brain and getting a chance to just have 20 minutes of coherent thoughts without interruption.  I clearly remember that day, looking up to the sky and realizing I had never flat out thanked God for Annie’s death. It was a new and strange thought to me.

Thanking Him for something so costly to me, something I will never get over, seems to negate my pain.  Isn’t that like me saying, “I’m glad it happened?” Because I’m not.

However, thanking Him sucks some of the bitterness out of it for me.  It allows me freedom to see how He uses her life and redeems my pain.  It shows me His bigger plan and His sorrow in a world groaning for His return.

Peter and I are trying to be more intentional in the way we live and we recently found ourselves writing out the negative turns in our lives and the redemptive perspective to them.

We’re using Donald Miller as a basis of our discussion.  He writes,

“Every human being experiences suffering and challenges.  Our attitude toward suffering, though, can redeem it and perhaps even allow us to see it as something beneficial.  The temptation to play the victim is intense, but  (Victor) Frankl* believed stopping to make a list of the many ways a hardship also serves as a blessing takes some of the sting out of our suffering.  Suffering and challenges often require grieving, but we can also celebrate our uniquely human capacity to rise above those painful experiences, redeem them, and turn them into something beautiful.”

God started something in me during that evening run many weeks ago when I had the courage to speak my thanks to Him for the death of my daughter.  I was surprised that it didn’t make me angry at Him or throw me into despair.  Instead, as I later made a list of ways that God has walked with me, given me opportunities and love for people that I can’t imagine having so fully without experiencing grief first…. I was in awe.  It doesn’t take away my love for Annie or my sadness or even those hard days that I thought would be over by now.  But it does give me freedom and peace to search out the redemption and to thank Him for His sovereignty as He works in my life.

That brings me to you, my friend.  I don’t know where you are in your life or what has happened to you.  I may not even know who you are.  I’m also very mindful of the fact that you may have to thank Him for a bad decision that you’ve made yourself…. which takes a whole different kind of courage.  Today I am praying for you, that you would be brave enough to come back to Jesus.  To kneel at His feet and find something to be grateful for, to allow Him to redeem the wounds in your life.

He will make something beautiful if only you, like the leper, return to him in courageous gratitude.

**Victor Frankl was a psychologist and spent years as a prisoner in Auschwitz Concentration Camp during World War II.  In my brief research about him, I found this paragraph (On Wikipedia of all things!) that I really liked: “Frankl believed that the meaning of life is found in every moment of living; life never ceases to have meaning, even in suffering and death. Frankl concludes from his experience that a prisoner’s psychological reactions are not solely the result of the conditions of his life, but also from the freedom of choice he always has even in severe suffering. The inner hold a prisoner has on his spiritual self relies on having a hope in the future, and that once a prisoner loses that hope, he is doomed.”

summer blogging.  0

Why I never blog:

The kids offer to take the dog on a walk!  Yay!  I can write for a few minutes.

They inadvertently slam the door.

It wakes up Eliza.

She gets up, puts her head sweetly on my shoulder and comments on every. single. letter. that I type.

(“Wow!  You’re Fast!”
“What is that letter?”
“Go up!  I want to see that picture!”
“Can I do it?”
“How old is Daddy?”)

The laptop battery dies as they dryer buzzer goes off.

I decide that making cookies is a better idea.

The end.

Planting Seeds  2

I often struggle to be a parent to Annie.  I know that may seem like a strange statement, since she is my baby in Jesus’ arms.  Nevertheless, I find myself yearning to do things for her.  There are so many things that I can’t do for her– cut up her food at dinner time, buckle her in her seatbelt, teach her the alphabet, snuggle her in bed and take her to the dentist.
When Annie’s birthday rolls along in March,  my sadness comes swift and catches in my throat. So each year, we pray as a family about how we can help others with the money we would spend on a party and gifts and cake. Because you see, fighting the urge to pull the covers over our heads and instead using what little we have to bless and serve others is like a healing salve to our souls.  It’s upside down, it makes no sense … but it works.
This year, we found Mercy House, a Maternity Home in Kenya for young pregnant girls living on the streets.  They help them by providing education, nutrition, housing, prenatal care, Bible study, counseling and job skills for sustainable living.
We were able to buy a package of bracelets from their website and sat down one afternoon together.  We made a list of people we are praying for right now, people who have carried us through our grief over the last years, then painstakingly whittled it down to 25 people (It is so humbling and amazing to make a list like this.  We are so blessed).
And then we made bracelets.
This?  This is what we do.  This is how I can be a Mama to Annie– by taking her too-short life and breathing new life into those who have been given so little.  It brings me to tears and it brings me to my knees.  Who am I to have this privilege of bringing beauty out of ashes?
Immediately after we made bracelets, I got out some seed packets that I’d been waiting to plant with the kids.  And as I watched Eliza’s sweaty little hands trying to get the seeds to fall from her palm into the dirt, I heard Jesus gently whisper to me words I so desperately needed to hear… words of hope and affirmation.
In our broken, jumbled grief, He allows us to be used.  And I am reminded how God is a redeemer, graciously bringing beauty into our brokenness.
When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs, where pools of blessing collect after the rains!– Psalm 84:6

Snapshots on a Thursday  1

I get stuck sometimes, wondering if my kids are only going to have memories of a grumpy, impatient Mom.  Sometimes a trip to the Photo Archives on my computer is just what I need to remind myself of the fun we have as a family.   These days can be physical and mentally draining, but there is much joy sandwiched in there, too.
 Today, I want to remember….
  1. The way Nine Year Old Boys smile for the camera.  And how the moments before and after pictures are filled with genuine, amazing laughter.  I just have to be sneaky to catch it.
 2.  The day the kids decided to make homemade flip flops and the grass was a glorious green (coming soon again!!)
 3.  Their shrieks of joy when I make blueberry muffins.
 4.  The way she poses even when I’m not taking pictures of her.
 5.  Smiles after tears.
 6.  How she wears this hat all the time, even to bed. (Note to self: Throw hat in laundry asap)
 7. The way the animals run around the corner when they hear the kitchen door slam, hoping for a bit of our leftovers. (Those branches from the Christmas ice storm are still there, unfortunately…. but the snow is not!  Hallelujah!)
 8.   The surprise that she no longer needs a chair, but the relief that at least she still has to stand on tip toes.
 9.  The way she so carefully set up her dolly to take the picture, sweet talking her the whole time.
 10.  The way we celebrate Annie’s birthday with banana muffins, every year.
11.  And maybe my favorite?  Not a particularly great picture, but it is so perfectly my kids this week.  William riding his bike (always active), Kate taking pictures of everything in sight (always artistic), and Eliza sporting a huge mud spot from falling moments before (always hilarious… You’d think I’d have it figured out by now not to dress her in white pants for a spring walk).
Do yourself a favor on this Thursday and remind yourself of the great snapshots you’re building into your family.  Don’t be discouraged by the sticky floors, bickering kids, looming decisions or tears of grief.  Instead, take a deep breath, be courageous and embrace the beautiful mess of a life you’ve been given by God.
So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover’s life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.
Philippians 1:9-11 (The Message)

Adopting Rhythms  1

Did you know that William is actually known as Will to his classmates and almost everyone besides us?  I asked him the other day if he’d like us to switch it up (way back when he was born, we had wanted him to be a “Will”), but he told me that he likes it that we call him William.  So William it will be for us.

Peter overheard our conversation and started laughing.  Did you know that he is Peter to most everyone, except for his parents and family?  To them, he will always be Peter Jon.

I love the way that my kids are like us in big and little ways.

Some of it just happens . . . the eye color and the slow waking up and the aversion to certain foods.

But most of the time, I realize that my kids are going to mimic me and are going to model their behaviors after me.  It’s tough and humbling and scary, because I fully realize that I don’t have it together, even on my best days.  And yes, I just end up asking for forgiveness a lot.

 

When the kids were little, I remember panicking a bit, because we didn’t have any “traditions”.  Were they going to get new jammies on Christmas eve?  What were we going to do with Santa?  Where would our “vacation spot” be?  I thought we should have dates with each of our kids each month on the anniversary of their birthday, alternating between Peter and I.  Ha!  So complicated.  I felt like a failure before we even began.
After a few years, Peter and I decided that we didn’t need traditions . . . what we needed were rhythms.  Things that our kids knew would happen and could count on happening.  Sometimes it’s the silly things like a candy trail on Easter morning, but most of the time it’s ways that we can build into our kids a love for Christ, a deeper understanding of who He is and why He matters in our life.  I don’t want them to just be able to spout off what the true meaning of Christmas is or recite John 3:16– I want it to change their outlook, their habits and they way that they frame their world.

We do our best to be really intentional about the rhythms that we form as a family, trying out a lot of different ones, tossing the ones that don’t work and keeping the ones that do.

Here are a few things that we’re doing right now:

We began Ann Voskamp’s Lenten readings this week.  Sometimes her writings are a little above my kids thinking, but I actually really like that.  I want my kids to know that sometimes things don’t cater to them and even if they don’t understand every word, they can attain to it (p.s.  they get more than I ever give them credit for).

We’ve also been slowly memorizing our way through the book of John.  The challenge is to truly love God’s Word, not to just read it because I need God to do something for me. I keep these taped up beside our dining room table and we repeat them most days.  When I overheard Eliza telling her babies, “The Word was with God”, I knew that we had stumbled on something that works for our family.

Following Margaret Feinburg’s suggestion, we are starting to pray for our food differently.  Many times before a meal, we’ll spout of a quick prayer thanking Jesus for the food, for our day, for our family.  But we’ve begun to look at our food and thank Jesus for the people that had a hand in bringing it to the table.  So that means we pray for the truck drivers that drove our food to the store, the people who stay up at night and put it on the shelves, those in other countries who grew our bananas and grapes and oranges.  It’s a powerful way to pray. (I also like how she gave up prayer for lent one year)

That’s what works for us.  In the front of my mind, most of the time, is this thought that we’ve been given such a short number of years to train our children and we have to make the most of it.  I don’t want to waste these years with my kids.  And in a real way, these formative years of teaching them is actually teaching me so much more.  As I’m preparing them, I’m grounding myself and reinforcing truths that I already believe.

Rhythms are everywhere in our lives.  In the spring, we sign up for Little League. Before we go to bed, we brush our teeth.  At Thanksgiving, we have turkey.  Establishing rhythms in our family life isn’t something new, it’s something we already do.  But sometimes it’s good for me to step back and evaluate what we do and why we do it.  This allows us to tweak what we’re doing to make it more meaningful and to edit out what’s unnecessary, replacing it with things that intentionally point us to Jesus.

(One afternoon, over hot chocolate, the kids taught Eliza how to play rock, paper, scissors. Ha!)

 

 

Cabin Fever  2

Last week, in an act of surrender to this never-ending winter, I bought my kids pocket knives and a book on whittling.

We’ve done all the coloring/ stickers/ painting/ crafting/ wrestling/ cooking/ legos/ board games possible and before we all sink into a coma of unlimited Netflix, I rallied one last crazy idea.

I told a few of my friends of my purchase and they broke into hysterical laughter and said, “We can’t wait to see those pictures on your blog!”

So, Jamie, Amy and Angela, here they are.  I will spare you the bloody ones, but I will say that I put Band-aids on the grocery list because we went through quite a few.  Ahem.

But it gave us an hour of time together, with no bickering.  The kids talked about what they wanted to make, about going outside to look for twigs, their hands were clean from all that handling of soap and I declared, “This is good.” I’m pretty sure it’s not our golden ticket to bliss until Spring decides to show up, but for now, I’ll take it.

*Yes, they were supervised the whole time.  Yes, I believe in letting my kids do dangerous things, even if it means they may get hurt.  And no, Eliza didn’t get to try it.  She was taking a nap and the knives are safely out of her reach.

 

On the Mystery of Prayer.  1

I’m sitting at my kitchen table, listening to the banging of sledge hammers destroying our bathroom.  There’s a whole lot of cement in a 60 year old bathroom.  It’s pretty incredible, really.

I’m thinking about prayer today and how hard it is for me to feel confident when I pray– to get past the guilt that I don’t do it enough, to actually believe the words that come out of my mouth, to not put up the false image that I have it all together.

I kind of want to take a sledge hammer to my own brain sometimes.

I sit with a group of 12 other ladies on Wednesday nights and we talk.  This time we’re studying Margaret Feinburg’s Wonderstruck.  It’s been good.  Last night it was my turn to teach and I was glad/terrified when I realized I’d be leading on prayer.  Glad because I knew that the truths would go a little deeper since I had to know the material in order to teach.  Terrified because I have a hard time grasping prayer.  It’s just such a  . . . mystery to me.  I don’t know how else to describe it.

Margaret asked for three reasons we get tempted to give up praying.  Without hesitating, I wrote (1)  No answer (2) No change and (3) Gets worse.  But in her next paragraph, she wrote,

“Persistence in prayer isn’t only about making the same request to God repeatedly, but about continuing to grow in our prayer lives– even when God doesn’t answer in the way we expect.  As we pray, we can walk in the confidence that God will give us mercy, grace, and strength we need to endure whatever we must face.
I find comfort that Jesus knew we’d sometimes be tempted to give up on praying.  He knew we’d look at our world and the countless injustices, the overwhelming brokenness, the hardness of human hearts, and consider throwing up our hands and walking away.  Yet Jesus challenges us to pray and keep on praying.  Prayer isn’t merely an expression of faith, but through prayer, faith expands in our hearts and lives.” (Wonderstruck, p. 104)

 

For the last few weeks, we’ve let the kids watch a few minutes of the morning news to catch up on the Olympic highlights.  Of course, we saw other news headlines, too, namely the unrest in Kiev, Ukraine.  William was especially taken by it and prayed for it out loud.  The next morning, when we again turned on the TV, the news was that Peace Pact had been signed and things at that moment were better than they had been the day before.  “God heard your prayer,” I told him. “Your prayers matter, even if they’re for something big like that way across the world.”  His eyes got big as he pondered it  …. while I was wondering if I truly believed the words that came out of my mouth.  There are so many people, so many layers of anger and unrest, so much still going on.  He’s just a kid who prayed a one-liner.

God is gently teaching me more and more about Him and when I think I have it figured out, He reminds me that I haven’t even scratched the surface.  My friend posted this on our facebook group:

I so appreciate our study last night. I am a person who has few words and have always felt if I could pray longer with the right words then they would be heard… I have found it easier to pray today with my few words.

And slowly, I feel the walls of my heart crumbling.  God gently destroys my inadequate feelings and the pressure I place on myself to Pray Better! Pray Longer! Believe More!  Instead, I want prayers that are marked with increasing faith, humility, in agreement with the will of God . . . and, most of all, full of thanksgiving for Jesus, who promises He’ll hear me when I pray.

 

 

with you.  1

Back in December, Peter was amazing and took the girls to the Library on Gingerbread House day.  Truly, he is Super Dad because he willfully walked into a room filled with candy and frosting and dozens of hyper children all so I wouldn’t have to face the whining of my offspring claiming that they’re the ONLY ONES in the history of the world who don’t get to (1) do Elf on the Shelf and (2) Make Gingerbread houses.

On this particular day, Santa was also at the Library, and Peter asked the girls if they’d like to sit on Santa’s lap. 
Kate had no problem popping a squat and shooting the breeze.
But Eliza was another story.  There was no way she was going to willfully go to a stranger, especially one with a fake beard.  Peter told me she backed away slowly, flatly refusing.
Until.  
Kate offered to sit between her and Santa.  And then she was happy.
Our family has been memorizing bits of John (here’s where I got the idea), and we flew through 1:1 and 1:5, but when we got to 1:14, we started having trouble getting the flow of the words.  
“The word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen His glory, 
glory as of the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
He is Emmanuel, God with us. He dwells among us.
It’s what the angel said to Mary in Luke 1:28:
“Greetings, you who are highly favored!  The Lord is with you.”
At a time in her life when she needed it most, Mary received a promise that God would be with her.  As each day passed and her belly got rounder and the rumors got bigger, as she wrapped her baby in rags and caught her breath, as she watched her Son suffer death . . . I wonder how often during her lifetime she pondered the words of the Angel that first night.
The Lord is with you. He dwells among us.
None of us escapes those phone calls, those moments that tears come quick and we find ourselves shaking our heads.  The memories that make your knees weak with fear and you beg night to come so that you can pull the covers up and slip into darkness . . . that is, if sleep comes and the nightmares stay away.
Scripture says that God is a God of all comfort, who promises to be by our side, to come between us and our situation, and who comforts us in our trials. Much like Kate crawled between Santa and Eliza, so God is with you in whatever you are facing right now. 
His promise to Mary is a promise to you.  He dwells among you.  
Here’s the deal, when you understand that the God of the universe, the All-knowing, All-powerful, Ever-present God is with you…that changes everything. 
When you are lost and don’t know where to go, He is with you as your guide. 
When you’re hurting and feel alone, He is with you as your friend. 
When you’re in the middle of a trial, our God is with you as your comforter. 
If you’re ever sick, our God is with you as your healer. 
Whenever you’re weak, our God is with you as your strength. 
Anytime you’re lost in your sin, our God is with you as your Savior.
I think the reason I’m having a hard time with John 1:14 is simply because I find it almost unbelievable that God chooses to dwell among us.  I look at this earth, I look at my life and I wonder where God is.  I can easily list a half dozen huge, heartbreaking things that those close to me are experiencing right now.  It keeps me up at night and overwhelms my heart.  And I wonder, “God, where are you?”  
Today He whispered to me, “Look back”.  Tears are in my eyes as I see the ways He has been with me.  Little moments that seemed insignificant at the time.  Big moments of trust.  Hard times and good times.  Times alone and times in rooms filled with thousands of people.  It’s true.  He has dwelt in me.  His fingerprints are all over my life and I am in awe.
When we open our heart to God, we realize that the hard times in our life will still be there, but no longer are we alone.  He comes alongside us. 
 He is with you.

** I can’t take all the credit  for this.  Most of this was taken from a sermon Peter preached a few weeks ago, and I haven’t been able to shake it since then.  I love my preacher-husband. (Also, the pics are his, too. )