The Year the Gifts Were Stolen {A Letter to My Four}

The snow started falling last Monday.

The flakes were small, hardly noticeable.

Really, it was barely a scattering compared to the heavy fall of Thursday.

But as your faces were lifted up in wonder in the parking lot of that church, trying to catch bits of white on your tongue,

your Christmas presents were being lifted out of their hiding place, unbeknownst to us, and the gifts we had purchased for you were now in the hands and homes that they were never intended for, security cameras capturing it all.

I remember telling a Sunday School teacher once how much I loved the nighttime, how my soul felt like it was reviving when the days started growing shorter and dark would settle earlier.

He didn't give me any time to explain why before he told me he questioned my faith. Questioned whether or not I had given my life to Jesus. Encouraged me to question my eternal state.


Only two of you have faint memories of living in the places where I spent my years growing up. You only remember the flatness of the Albertan prairies from pictures I show you. You have no concept of a town of less than 2000 people, of the nearest major stores being over an hour away, of an Arctic wind blowing from the north and freezing your skin in less than 30 seconds if you weren't properly covered.

Your memories of those things come from my own.

You don't remember the long drives from a trip in to the main cities in the black of night that had settled in just after 4pm on a highway that seemed to go on endlessly while a moon reflected off of the fields covered in a hard packing of snow.

But I do.


I loved those drives, not just for the quiet hush with only an occasional lone car passing us, lighting up the spaces around us for just a brief moment,


I loved it for the way light became a beacon.


Dotting the empty vastness of space around us, light would flicker bravely from farms and homesteads planted firmly in their places reminding us in our state of motion that we were not alone in our traveling.


I found that when the moon was new and gave no light, when the air dropped to -40 C and the cold around us was bitter, light would appear to be shooting straight up in to the dark whether it was from an approaching car or a single bulb hanging over the door of a barn.

The colder and darker the air, the straighter and bolder the light would appear.

I never got to tell my Sunday School Teacher that,

but I am telling it to you now.



Because last Thursday, when we had discovered your presents had been stolen, I tried to be brave and have hope.

But on Friday, once names and faces were known, I crumbled and felt like all I was doing was failing in this place where we live and work.


Failure can make air around one's soul grow dark and cold.


The four of you don't even know of this space that I sit down to write in yet. None of you are aware that I am trying to preserve memories for you in pictures and prose. None of you will know until you come across this specific post of this year: the year that your Christmas gifts were stolen.

I want to keep it that way.


Because tonight in the quiet hush of the dark, we will light the third candle for Advent and the space above our mantle will grow brighter, the other candles that I've placed around them waiting for the celebration of the day of Christ's birth, heightening our anticipation.

The name of this candle is Joy.

I want this to fill your memories of this season.

Yes. You saw me grieve on Friday, cry out my anger and my hurt and frustration. You saw loss in my tears without knowing the why behind them.

You bear witness to my wrestling, yes, but you will also bear witness to Christ's Joy ringing triumphant.


I know this.



In the moments before we discovered the theft and the loss of the things we had purchased and hidden away for you, we opened an envelope passed to us across a table at a dinner we had attended that same night.

Tucked in the folded crease of a Christmas card full of cheer was a reminder that God knew long before we did of the things that would be taken and had provided enough to cover what we had lost to the greed of another.


I love the dark and the cold of the winter because it is a continual reminder, every year, of the truth of who Christ is.


You who were so small and filled my arms now stretch tall and only the smallest of you can still curl up on my lap and I know that the days are coming when you will begin to know more fully the dark and the cold of the world around you.

The darkest days can seem like the most endless. And when it can't seem to get any darker, the fiercest winds can pick up and freeze you in your place.

But you must keep your eyes open.

You must wrap yourself in the truth of Who Jesus is.


Because Jesus, Emmanuel, He came into the darkness of our world.

Because Jesus, Light of the World, pierced the darkness of the world in the piercing of His own flesh.

Because Jesus, Risen and Conquering King, fills us with His light who believe in His name and place our faith in Him.


I long for the dark roads some days, my heart longing to see the flame of light stretching straight and true up through the dark.


But then I look at you, the four who love and laugh and live loud, and I can see it beginning, that flame flickering within you.

And should the sky grow darker around us as time spins with chaos all around us, I'll keep my eyes open and look,

Christ's Light is all around and within us, guiding like a beacon, pointing us Home.

Dear Olivia {A Birthday Post},

It dawned on me last week, that I had you all wrong.

As though the world was flipped upside down and I could finally see all that I couldn't before.

It took 8 years and 9 months short of a week to see and there have been so many times in the last 7 days that I wish I could go back and make up for all that I didn't understand.

I wasn't ready for the gift of you.

I remember the pink positive sign and the tears of fear I cried, feeling wholly inadequate to be a mama to two children under the age of two.

I remember the miles the midwife had me walk, pushing your sister in the stroller, trying to navigate old and broken sidewalks in tandem with trying to navigate old and broken fears while you grew strong under my heart. Your quiet and small flutterings belied the powerhouse you would be.

It was during that time, when we found out you were a girl, that the name Olivia was mentioned. And loving words the way I do, I looked up the meaning to discover that it meant peace.

I craved peace.

I honestly craved quiet both in soul and surroundings and I thought that was what peace was...quiet.

So when you, Olivia, turned in all the wrong ways came bursting into the world on your very own terms and screamed your way through life for the first 2...3...6 years of your existence, I was convinced that we had named you all wrong.

That you weren't peace.

And in naming you such, you...and I...would always be reminded of that fact.

Oh, sweet Liv.

I've been so wrong.

So, as I sat in a conference last week while you were in the classrooms above tracing maps and coloring pictures and keeping an eye on your brother (to help your teacher, I'm sure. :) ), my heart was getting pried open and my eyes were beginning to see clearly.

The word Shalom gives a strong glimpse into the beauty of your name...and into the beauty of you. This greeting, said as a blessing, means this: You will have no lack, you will have peace and rest because you have everything you need.

Your name is a blessing.

Which means, when I call you, when I talk to you...when I talk about you, I am speaking a blessing over you and over those around us. May this very thought stop me in my tracks when our emotions run high and we both misunderstand the other.

I thought peace meant calm and quiet and when you weren't, I was blindsided. But peace, according to the woman speaking over us, it means that there is no area of lack. She spoke of A Plan for Peace, mentioning that it started with being in Scripture...because the word Peace is like a guard dog at the front door.

It makes me think of your insatiable desire for the Bible. How you keep the Scriptures right under your bed so that you can grab it before you go to sleep. How when you sense me growing frustrated you ask for us all to stop and pray. You long for the presence of Jesus and you desire to sense Him near.

I learned, in the back row of that conference, that peace isn't passive or quiet, but it is active and it moves with purpose and passion.

8 years and 4 months ago, when I saw you moving on that black and white screen, when you were named with a wrong understanding, Jesus knew that this name was the very right one for you and for all of the very right reasons.

This morning, just as the sun is coming up over the horizon, before it even has the chance to heat the air into the furnace it is supposed to be, in those early hours you will slip from being 7 and become a brand new 8 year old with all the flair that marks your every movement.

And I will have your breakfast birthday cake on the table and as you walk all sleepy into the room, I will pull you close and whisper your name into the air around us, inviting the One Who is Peace to come near because with Jesus, Liv? We really do lack nothing. I'll fail you in so many ways, but when we have Jesus, we are made whole and the blessing that we speak over one another becomes words of worship to the One Who created us.

8 years ago, I held you in my arms having no idea how my life would change.

 

You have changed it for the better, sweet girl; our family lacks nothing with your addition and we have been abundantly blessed.

May this year ahead grow you deeper and wiser - may it find you falling even more in love with Jesus. May you see that with Him, you lack no good thing always. Always. 

Happy, happy birthday, dear Olivia Grace. I love you so very, very much.

With all my love,
Mama



  

 

Dear Elias {A Birthday Post},

You may not remember that Sunday when you began sobbing in the back of the van on our way to church.

You hadn't yet turned five, but your imagination was huge and six months before you had created this family inside your head and you were convinced that it was with them that you truly belonged.

I had been sitting on the floor when you came up to me, your eyes all bright and your smile so wide and you said, 

Mama? I have another Mama! And I like her better! Than you!

I could only answer by asking what she had done that made her more lovable than the very woman who bore you, and your reply was sure and swift,

Because she gave me a brother.

So six months later on the drive to church across town, as your wailing grew louder and your tears began to pour down your face, I couldn't imagine what was causing such emotional pain in someone so small.

Words began to accompany the crying and I began to understand,

They died!! They died in a fire! Last night my family died!! They are all dead!

I would have laughed, except you were still lamenting as we walked into the building and as you were signed in and passed from my hand to theirs, I had to whisper to the woman leading you to class that this family grieved for actually never existed outside of the heart of a little boy who felt a deep void.

This year has been a hard one for you, I think. Your big eyes take in so much around you, and as brothers come to the doors of Madison House and you watch the way they interact, you are realizing in small ways that they have something that you don't have.

You came up to me today, this last day of being 5 years old and you put your face so close to mine and you whispered,

It would have been better to be a girl.

I didn't understand right away, and I put my nose next to yours and I told you all the really super cool things that come with being a boy, but that wasn't what you were trying to tell me. Instead, you broke through my list and said with a trembling lip,

But if I was a girl, I'd have someone to play with.

Because as much as your sisters will sit down and play cars with you, they don't understand the excitement that comes from the crashing and the racing and the chasing. Well...Liv may, but that's a whole other topic. 

You fall asleep to the sound of your older sisters whispering and giggling in the dark down the hall and there are secrets they share that shut you out. You're still trying to decipher what Zee is babbling at you through the slats in her crib, or why she is screaming incoherently at her blankie all crumpled up on the floor as she determinedly tries to swipe your favorite car and flush it down the toilet. I can almost hear the thoughts building in your head some days...the ones that whisper, a brother wouldn't do that.

Only, he probably would, but you don't know that. All you know is that you are a little brother in a sea of sisters and that's probably a pretty lonely feeling sometimes, no matter how much they love you (Whether they show it or not).

You have been given a daunting task, brave son of mine. One you may not even realize you have. With two older sisters who feel it's their place to be Mamas #2 and 3 after me, you could easily be bowled over by the motherly attention.

In a different church across town tonight, you sit in a row and you sing songs and eat snacks and probably wiggle around more than once. You slipped on your VBS shirt and as you bounded out the door, your sadness was quickly forgotten.

And as I sit here in a quiet house I am realizing that maybe I have been looking at this all wrong.

I reached into the fridge to grab the cream for my coffee as I remembered Paul.  You know the one? The one who started out as Saul? He never had a son. He never had a daughter either, but I think there was something in Paul's heart that longed to be a father to a son. And I truly believe that God knew that longing in Paul's heart and do you know what He did? He brought along Timothy. Timothy who was raised by his Gramma and Mama - two women who loved Jesus more than anything and wanted their little boy to know Him too. A little boy surrounded by Jesus-loving women, but I can't help but wonder if little Timothy didn't long for a Jesus-loving daddy as well.

Maybe it's not a daunting task that you've been given, Elias, but a very intentional void. First, that this void would turn your heart to your Perfect Big Brother - the One who died for you and is preparing a place for you with Him. He loves you Elias, and sometimes He uses what hurts us deeply to show us His tender love in ways that we would never understand without it.

But this longing for a brother? I think it's like Paul's longing for a son, and Timothy's longing for a daddy. I think it made their hearts more tender to the need in each other. I think it opened their eyes to the void that each man carried and they were able to recognize Christ's hand as the One who ultimately filled those empty places. And it makes me wonder, sweet son of mine who carries this want so close to the surface, I think if we kept giving this desire of yours to Jesus, you may be surprised to see how many brothers He brings into your life. So many more than I could ever give you.

Because really, with our track record, you'd probably get a few more sisters out of the deal if we left it up to your Daddy and I.

Six years ago this evening, I remember laying on the floor of our living room, realizing that I would hold you in my arms so very soon. I remember wondering what it would be like to hold a son and be a mama to a little boy. I had no idea, I had only known daughters. You came so quickly in those early morning hours but the moment you were placed against my chest, I knew we were going to do just fine. 

You were named after your Papa and your Daddy, both strong men who have loved Jesus so strongly...but now there is more to your name as I pray over your days - the reminder of a little boy who longed for a daddy who loved Jesus and the amazing God who joyfully filled that desire.

Elias Timothy Tony, may you come to know Jesus as the only One who can ever take the ache you feel and fully satisfy it in Himself, but may you also come to know the joy of sweet answered prayer as He grows your family beyond us and opens your eyes to the breadth of His family and HIs Blood that connects us all.  I can't wait to see your eyes light up as you realize.

You turn 6 in the early morning hours while we are all still under sheets and the sun is just beginning to light the horizon. A Birthday Breakfast Cake will be waiting for you on the table and a car or two waiting to be unwrapped. And my heart will ache and grow just as  little bit more as your small years fade and your bigger years come near, but I will take delight in the son I was given and pray for so much joy to cover your days as you uncover more of Jesus in the dark and light of the seasons ahead.

I love you so, so very much.

Love,

Mama

Dear Zeruiah {A Birthday Post}

You turn one today as the fog rolled in over the hills around us and the only fanfare you heard was the song of your brother and sisters.

You turn one only once and this mama's heart aches and that candle was blown out by the two sisters at your side.


I wanted today to last forever and I want tomorrow to stretch out long too.


You are the fourth and the youngest and wildly unique and the laughter you were born on is the laughter you bring and as you napped this afternoon I listened to the song that marked your transition and I long for you to know Jesus as holy and good.

The days will come, sure and steady - roll faster and faster one upon the other.  There will be days that seem sluggish and mundane and others that will leave you breathless and reaching to wring out just one. more. moment.

But my prayer for you, sweet Zeruiah, is that in all the days that He gives to you, you will offer each one back to Him. That He will give you eyes to see that what seems mundane and worthless to the world around you are actually sacred places for His glory to shine...through you.

You were created to be filled - may you be filled with the One Who created you.

You will be hurt and your heart broken - may those broken places be where He shines His light most brightly.

You will feel lost and unsure - may your feet always lead you back to the very feet of Jesus.

I think back to the moments between 2 pink lines and your heartbeat fluttering on that monitor...I was so unsure.

And then you, my precious girl whose very presence embodies the meaning of your name. You truly are a balm of God.


Tonight under clouds and stars you sleep, and tomorrow you will wake up and wave your hands until you have a banana on your plate, but know this little one - your mama loves you and the God Who planned out your very days is wooing you even now with a love faithful and strong.

I love you, sweet baby. Always.

~ Mama

For Tony

The roads going home from those woods wound deep beneath the tires and the tears on my face were making tracks of their own.

I may have over-watered the pepper plants three days ago that I promised our older three I would keep alive, but I put them back in the garden window where the sun shines strongest...

they may perk back up.


It's been thirteen years since I said yes to that job - the one I accepted for all the wrong reasons. But you know that by now. You know that I only said yes because I knew that you would be there too, and despite my resolve of just being your friend, you had captured me all the way down to my broken and beat-up heart.

I look back at the two of us in my mind - under that dark prairie sky and I wonder: Two college kids tentatively moving towards the other while balancing school work and youth ministry and was there an inkling - the tiniest bit of one - at what was ahead?


I find it hard to look back and pinpoint what it was about you that captured me so. I find it hard to separate what i know now from what I just dreamed about then, but if there was one thing that bridges my now to my then it is this:

You have a strength that is gentle and good.


I used to think it was your humor - the way you could capture a group and have them laughing at some outlandish thing. Or the confidence that exuded from you - the way you stepped in front of my fears and gave me sure and strong footsteps to follow. It's always been the look of your face, the broadness of your shoulders, the arms that hold me close - all of these, deepening and maturing through the years, but it's the strength tempered with the fierce gentleness that draws out the deep places in others.


And you take this job because God burned in your heart and you are white and you are 38 and you don't speak any Spanish beyond the basics, but God burns and you have Him and so you go down across the tracks because He leads you there.

And you let me come with you. You invite me in to this sacred space.


Those red-brick walls, that cracked sidewalk, those pillars on either side of those stairs - that ground is holy ground and God is there and Tony?

I never knew you could love so deeply.

Oh, I knew you could love me,

could love our four...


But when your dad died, when my family fell apart, when I fought His plan with everything in me, we both began to protect our hearts from the outside in and those years when grief was fresh?  We fought to even breathe.


I've known that healing has crept in for a while now, that what encased your heart and mine has cracked free and somehow these hearts of ours have grown bigger, beat harder, burn with a passion for Jesus and for those kids that filled that lodge this week.


And I struggle to get out these words because they are swelling up my heart that used to be so shriveled-small, but they've been swirling in my chest since i watched you this morning and you have to know how proud I am of the man that you are.


I didn't know that you could love so deeply.

I didn't know that when you took this job, that it could make you even better then who you already were. I couldn't know that when you turned at me during that annual meeting and gave me that look that God would be using you to change the both of us completely.

I didn't know that our hearts, already full with love for our four could be busted wide open, but not broken, and filled with such love for a bunch of kids who feel like family and home.

I didn't know the passion that would fill both of us for the lost and the forgotten - the ones that society withholds time from and throws "why bother?" at instead.

I didn't know how your heart would remain so unsettled until you followed His leading and kept seeking out the one that didn't want to be found.


Can I say to the deep-soul places in you, that I think if your dad could have seen you today - could have stood in the back with me and watched you speak life and hope and the love of Jesus into each volunteer and staff member today that he would have nearly busted open with pride over his son.

Over you.

You miss him.  I know that has weighed heavily on you this week.  But Tony? Your Heavenly Father was standing right there, right there with you pouring His love into your heart that still breaks over your loss. And all those broken heart-places? They let His Love spill His glory all over that room, over each person sitting there.

God was in that space this morning - the Holy Spirit was moving in that place and when I think back to those two college kids, trying to navigate through the small beginnings of is it worth the risk?

I want to shout across the years at them, Yes!!!  But don't wait so long! Don't wait until crisis shatters the numbness that comfort and ease brings.

I want them to know that life will wind unexpected and the loss and the shock will feel like they will kill you, but that God is good, all of the time...in the good moments yes, but more importantly in the worst of those moments.

But then I remember, you've been whispering that to me all along, because your strength knows its Source and your heart belongs to Jesus and loving you has made my world so much larger.


I love you, my Tony.


Always...