When He Writes Love {A Post by Tony}

I was speaking with someone the other day about a job I needed done on my house. 

Near the end of the conversation they made some comment about Madison House and then followed up with this,

“I’ve heard a lot of good things about you.”

I hesitated for a second and then responded with a smile,

“Thanks. If you hear anything bad about me I would think that is true as well.”

They laughed, but not really. I think the nakedness of the idea caught them off guard. They recovered quickly, a very classy man, he was.  

Kimberley is an amazing woman. She’s always writing incredible things about me. I don’t have her same perspective on me.  I see a never ending mess ahead of me that I’m struggling to give back to Christ on daily basis, mostly failing but with patches of light that help me continue.

Kimberley is electric, an Adonis, a blazing fire on a long bitterly cold day.  She is entirely the funniest woman I’ve ever met and the gentlest heart.

To hear other men talk about their wives, then listen as Kimberley imparts to me marriages she catches glimpses of, I feel sorrow and joy and the guilt of a survivor.  With Kimberley in my life I KNOW I went through the war and came out on the other side; wife, children, and job, all intact and accounted for. 

So here it goes: Kimberley is always writing down lists of things she is thankful for, so here is my list of Kimberley’s joys and the treasure that I have found in being with her.

1.     She gets up and does devotions for over an hour.

2.     No, seriously, she gets up EVERY MORNING and does devotions for over an hour!

3.     She never nags. I can’t explain that, it never happens. I’ve never felt nagged.

4.     She is incredibly respectful of me in front of the kids.

5.     She is respectful of me in front of the kids and others even though I don’t deserve it.

6.     Kimberly respects me in private, public, socially, and at work, even when we’re in the middle of an idiotic fight.

7.     She spends hours sitting with me and gently rubbing her hands over my back while we read and listen to music together in the evenings.

8.     During this time a kid will inevitably poke their messed head of hair around the corner and yell, “Mommy, I poop my pants!” or, “Mommy, Lyla throw up on her bed and it stinky!” Kimberley works with me to clean up any mess.

9.     I sleep very little but when I do I may as well be dead, and Kimberley, who Is a lite sleeper will deal with most of the 2am kid problems without trying to wake me or making me feel bad the next day.

10.  I interrupt people. It’s a really bad habit, worse than smoking, and Kimberley quietly waits while I jibber jabber about whatever nonsense was in my head and then quietly continues after I’ve wound down.

11.  Kimberley is amazing at taking a dollar and making it stretch out to the end of forever.

12.  The bed is always made. It is with great joy that I enter our bedroom to find that the covers are clean, warm, and soft.

13.  I wake up with Kimberley’s arms wrapped around me. 

14.  If I complain, it’s not at Kimberley. It is for more time with Kimberley. The communication is strong; I want to be with her, I want more of her, she is the safest place on earth.  Whenever there is gunfire and sirens outside the house, I’m not worried; Christ is with us and Kimberley is with me.

15.  Don’t you think Kimberley is a sexy name?  I do. Kimberley, Kimberley, Kimberley…

16.  Hair, make-up, clothes, I don’t know how she does it but she always looks like fire from the gods and I often find myself staring like an idiot.  Yes, idiot. Wake up you fool! But I don’t want to wake up, I want to stay here forever, with only you.

17.  Other women just aren’t getting in the door. They may as well be blind. Where is the door?  Only Kimberley knows, and she can let herself in and take up residence whenever she pleases.

18.  I love making Kimberley laugh. I’m so thankful she likes my sense of humor because it gives me great pleasure to see her throw her head back and enjoy the peace of laughing.

19.  In an age of such sexual, unmitigated, dis-holy catastrophe, Kimberley is a very modest dresser. Not Amish, stylish.

20.  Eric Clapton said it better, “Yellow Tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.”

21.  Not much phases me, but I have to admit, if Kimberley is gone 15 minutes later than she said she would be I get dry mouth and start internally freaking out that she is dead or maimed or has been kidnapped by terrorists or all other manner of hideous horrible.  Then she breezes in the door, laughs, and kisses away all the ugly manifestations of the monsters of my imagination.

22.  Lastly, for this list, “My baby don’t mess around because she loves me so and this I know for sure.”  -Andre 3000-

I love you Kimberley and it is a logistical impossibility for a me to encapsulate the essence of your radiance with a list of poorly stated, “22 reasons.”

You are the only woman that can break me with a flash of her eyes and a tilt of her head.  All other woman are wax candles, dissolving in a river of imprecations before your insatiable flame.  I have only ever been with you; I will only ever be with you.  16 years have been too short to know you and a 1000 more will never do.

Eternity will have to suffice. 

I love you, I love you, I love you.          

   

e00 more will never do,f humor,y guy, he was. o suffice.  i  fire. s of the monters of imagination. ll other mannner s into, i

e00 more will never do,f humor,y guy, he was. o suffice.  i  fire. s of the monters of imagination. ll other mannner s into, i

For the First Fifteen

I walked down that aisle 16 days before he turned 27.

I can never forget that look on his face.

I don't ever want to.

There are men who use words as cruelly as they use their weapons and their fists.

Men who see a weakness and exploit it,

abuse it,

break it even further down.

There are men who see their work as an escape, an excuse to stay far away from the women they married, the children who call them Daddy, the life they said yes to as a covenant was being formed with words and bodies and love.

It was in a little country church that I met him all dressed in white with a bouquet of roses and heather clutched tightly in my hand, saying those ancient words that would entwine my life with his as long as both our hearts were beating.

There were words I had never said to him - words about my life and my mistakes that I had never shared with him. Afraid of rejection, afraid of not being his.

He lifted that veil over my face to seal those vows with the only kiss we had ever shared, but I allowed a veil to remain over my heart.

It took well over a decade of days with this man and his loving and our 4 babies to loosen my tongue - to unveil a veiled life and lay myself bare.

Jesus, He had taken my life that wanted Him in name only, wanted nothing to do with His Church or His people or His Word and over a decade of days He wooed my heart and made me desperate for Him and His holy grace.

It was Jesus who loved me into lifting every veil from my heart and it was Tony who, in the middle of his own pain, tenderly took the bloody mess of my hidden secrets and helped me lift them up to the Light of forgiveness.

There is a man who walks fearlessly in the dark places. I've watched him from the quiet of our front porch. He reaches out to those who others would turn away from and loves deeply enough to point hard and broken hearts back to the truth of Jesus and His Word.

I've heard this man's strong voice call hope into the mess of a drunken haze leaning on those old front steps of ours - the firm words that reminded as long as there was breath in the lungs, no one was ever too far gone.

My ears have caught his voice singing hope to our children as he prays words over bowed and sleepy heads.

I know a man who walks with me on a road that leads us to Jesus, who lovingly traces the scars of my past and lifts my eyes off of those broken days and points to the One Who is calling His Bride to Himself.

I know a man whose life has been one with my own for fifteen years. His arms hold the dearest comfort, his heartbeat is more familiar than the thrum of my own. 

I know a man who walks in the ways of our Savior, whose eyes hold the Light of Life. 

Fifteen years of moments and days and I selfishly want more of more gift of him. 

My dearest Tony,

Your love has been the greatest gift I have ever received. Thank you for the ways that you give yourself to me...to us. Thank you for loving me and for leading me back to the love of Jesus. Thank you for loving me as Christ has loved the Church - for giving me a glimpse of the beauty of our Heavenly Bridegroom and the way that He loves us.

Thank you for fifteen incredible years.  You have my heart and my love.

Always,

Kimberley

For the Ones Who Call Me Mama

I opened my eyes in the morning light of my tenth Mother's Day to find the littlest one had crawled into our bed in the early hours of the night and curled up into the curve of my hip with a sleep-clenched hand resting on my face.

Lyla, she turned 10 just a few short months ago - went and spun my heart in bewildered circles with how fast time really does go.

She laughs when I ask her to stop growing, to become small again. 

I look back onto the very first post I ever put on the internet, the one where she is only 4 months old and still able to be held, all curled up in my arms and my brain can't fathom at how all those fully lived days have become wispy and faint memories. 

Our lives looked so different - he and I were so different.

We were at the very tender beginning, still wondering how many babies we would have, still figuring out how to relate to one another as husband and wife now that we were also Daddy and Mama.

Our families, both immediate and extended looked so different - I never could have imagined the great gaps that would be left where people should have been.

I thought mothering would look like the ideal picture in my mind that had grown large since I was small - 

but that's just it...my picture of mothering was based on my own ideals and dreams.

 

There's a little one who pulls up her chair beside me in the tutoring room Monday-Thursday. She always has something left over from lunch, and as she pulls out her sheets of homework, she'll pull out something to nibble on too.

She has my heart - I'm sure she doesn't realize this,

her mothering hasn't turned out the way she thought it would either.

This small one, she had curled up beside her mama just a few short years ago, curled up for a nap in the early afternoon pressed up against the one whose heartbeat she had known since her very beginning...but when she woke up, her mama didn't.

Medications were unknowingly mixed and turned lethal.

And this daughter was left without a mother.


She came in one afternoon a few months ago and plopped her backpack right beside my feet. Started pulling out her homework and as she laid it on the table, she turned her eyes on me and asked,

Can I call you Mom?


My own four had been running in and out of the room, homework done and freedom calling and shouting my name over every little thing.


The juxtaposition of both situations made my breath catch.


When was the last time she had even said the word, Mom? And here were my children yelling it freely and without thought.

I wrapped my arm around her and told her how much I loved her - how much I wished that she could. I told her how everyday I looked forward to her showing up, how my day was that much brighter when she came around the corner and sat down beside me.

I told her that I could never be her mama, but that I could always be her friend.


It made me think of my own family, my own small four - how where there has been lack, God has always been so faithful to provide.

It may not look like what I imagined and dreamed about all of those years ago, before there was Tony and the life that we've made...but we have never lacked love.

A decade into this journey where all four of my children are under my roof and I don't know what the future will look like for all of us.

I know what my dreams and my hopes are for each one -

I know that I hope they will always love and follow Jesus, that their faith will be strong and grow...

that, should they become mamas and a daddy themselves, that their marriages will be ones that are grounded in the beauty of the gospel...their love for the other would be deep and faithful and lasting.

That the faith that we are sharing with them now would be passed on to the next generation of grands that we don't yet know.


I can hope these things and pray for these things,

but I can't guarantee it.

The world around me, with all of it's statistics and foreboding predictions would have me believe that hoping for good is foolish, to prepare for the worst instead.

But just when I begin to worry, just when I begin to think that maybe the darkness will win out in the end over my children, I am reminded of the verse that begins the recounting of those before me who had faith and hope in the sovereignty of God alone:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1

The further in to the chapter one gets, the more it becomes apparent that faith *doesn't* guarantee all we hope for and dream about...the final verses of the chapter talk about their successes and victories, yes, but just as quickly we read about mocking, flogging, imprisonment, torture...

What I need to be reminded is that hope should lift our eyes off of ourselves and what is right in front of us and cause us to realize that what, or really, Who we are hoping and longing for is Jesus. What pushed all of these men and women listed in the 11th chapter of Hebrews to remain faithful to God?

It was the promise of Christ.

My heart that loves my children fiercely is slowly learning to see their hardship and struggle in a different light. 

Learning that when my heart breaks over their pain, that this is a tender mercy as well. That here, when everything feels like it is falling apart around them, that Jesus is showing Himself to be all that they need. That He is greater than this moment, this temporal pain...and He is even greater than the joy that threatens to overwhelm.

So, for the ones who made me a Mama,

May you know how deeply you are loved, despite my daily failings and fumblings.

May we enter into these days together firstly and fully recognizing that this is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!

May you be bold and courageous when others are mean and unkind and when you hear gun shots across the street, because sweet ones, the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

May you face the future with hope and joy regardless of what the outside circumstances are, because in Christ, God always leads us in triumph.

The four of you are the joy of my heart, even on the days when I feel so overwhelmed...over and over you point me back to the feet of Jesus and make me see my deep need for Him and feel such deep love for each one of you.

As we press into each other learning from and growing through the good and bad, may we be found pressing into Christ together, for He is our refuge and our strength.

With all of my love, always,

Mama

 

For When You Come Home... {A Post by Tony}

Yakima, Washington.  

From time out of mind, it never mattered.  It was just another town I had to reduce my speed for on the way from Seattle to Sun Valley, Idaho.


I came here once, by accident, in 2005.  I ventured as far off the freeway as the Olive Garden where my wife and I stopped for lunch.  I remember us telling each other as we left, "It seems like a nice town".


In 2011, when Starbucks transferred me out to Yakima to open a new store, I wasn't too worried; I had no connection to Yakima and people telling me I would be killed or shot, or worse, seemed like the normal panic I assign to those who are overly concerned about a life and death they can't control anyway. 

      "Don't worry about it', I told my wife, '"There are bad parts of Seattle too and we avoided those once we were aware of their locations."

 So this week, early on a Monday morning I found myself in the Terrace Heights Cemetery stumbling and slipping in the wet grass and mud during a rare downpour, trying to find a body, or at least what was left of it.

  In 1858, Leonard Andrew Foster was born in Ohio.  In 1899 his wife died giving birth to his last child and he decided he'd had enough.  He didn't want to live with the memories her life and death brought by the very familiarity of his surroundings so Leonard packed up and moved to a place with no memories:  

Yakima, Washington.

He remarried a woman named Alvira who was from Kansas, lived in a quaint little house behind Target and worked as a night watchman until his death in 1942 at the age of 84. 


When Leonard moved west he brought his son Claud with him.  Claud settled down and had a son of his own named Ken and Ken had a daughter named Karolyn.


Karolyn lost a brother in Vietnam and swore that her sons would never play with guns. But, boys being boys, and fathers having the last word, the first time I was ever shot at was at the age of 13 while my father and I took cover in some rocks, bullets whining past our heads.  The hunters below us had buck fever and couldn't see past the deer they were shooting at so we hid in the rocks while they spent all their bullets, missing everything.


 The week of Thanksgiving, 2015, I was at my house, across the street from Madison House when 5 of the older kids dropped by needing gloves and scarfs.  I told them I would meet them at their house, and headed to Target.  


Their house is further up and further in to the area known as "The Hole". (As you can see, I've wisely taken my own advice and stayed out of the dangerous parts of town.)


 Before I can knock, shots ring out just down the street, another volunteer is with me and we stop and listen thankful for the concrete walls of the basement entrance.  More shots fire into the cold night air, 12 shots have been fired in total, two revolvers. A couple seconds later one of the kids I am bringing gloves to flees down the alley behind the house and looking back I see 3 more MH kids running along the front of the street. 


I head back out to the street knowing this is the moment when I could be killed, but I also know that fear is a weakness I have always resented when I sense it in myself.


Jesus did not call us to weakness but to acts faith and great kindness.  Besides, once the shooting starts, I am fully aware that it is over quickly and the instigators take flight almost immediately.  As I reach the street in front of the house I see residents coming out of the their homes armed with bats and other weapons in case further fighting breaks out.  I take a head count of the kids I was bringing clothing too, all are present.  An unmarked police car pulls up and I take point, explaining who I am, what I am doing down on 7th.  The police let us leave without further incident and I hug each of the kids and tell them to stay safe; I know they won't.  I head home to my wife and kids, thankful to be serving God in this capacity of His work - it is truly a blessing to be used by Him.

I never had a connection to Yakima until my sister was digging through some of my grandmothers old papers last week.


 I stare down at the small brick that has been depressed into the earth by time.  It is covered in mud and I had to kneel down on the soaked earth of Terrace Heights Cemetery and remove the leaves and filth just to read the name stamped into it: Leonard Foster. 

If I could speak to him I would tell him that his wife's death, was not in vain.  That even then, God, knowing everything, was planning to use his great great grandson's life to reach kids in Yakima, but that Leonard would have to lose someone he cared about for that purpose to come to fruition. 

 God gave us His son, someone He loves, because He loves us. For the same reason, I am not afraid to die, so that others may know Christ.

To Love: A Valentine's Post {by Tony}

I'm fifteen years old and I'm in the backseat of the car.   My friends and I have just left youth group and the conversation has turned strange to me.  They are discussing how attractive our youth leader's wife is.  I sit listening for a few minutes and then I blurt out, like a dumb kid, 

"Hey that's another man's wife!"  

 There's a pause and then the boldest and the oldest of us smirks and says, 

"Who cares, she's hot." 

 I don't respond because I've already said my peace and been overruled. Besides as I relive this conversation in my head, I also notice that I'm a scared, young kid, giving in to peer pressure and going down without much of a fight.   

  Fast forward 7 years and I'm in college, I'm listening to another conversation and feeling a different level of confusion.  Our friend who's getting married that summer is excited about his new discovery,  "I found a website where you can count down how many days it is until you get married. I only have 110 days until I can have sex!" 

 Internally I think, "You can actually have sex any time you want at this Christian institution as long you have a car and no conscience." 

  Out loud I say, "Why are you marrying this girl? What is it about her that you love?" 

There is initially a blank stare. I've ruined the joy, but the blank stare is quickly replaced by this explanation, 

"Well, uh, she loves God and is smart, and she's really hot!"  

"Yeah!" yell out the other guys in the room to much high-fiving and "that's what I'm talking about!"  I leave the room realizing that I'm probably just going to make people angry.  


 So let me get this straight: women are supposed to, 
- be smart and hot, 
- really hot, 
and, oh yeah, I almost forgot, if you're Christian,
- love God.  

Or...at least say you love God so your parents will approve of your spouse. 

OK, got it.  So apart from the standards of the world the only other criteria of Christianity is 'love God.'

     
I wasn't asking these questions at this age out of anything other than confusion and concern.  Women in general at the high school level did nothing I thought was very impressive (I wasn't impressive either) and in college I felt that the only reason women were there was to procure a husband.  I wasn't' there for a wife so I was not meeting any of their expectations.  My wife still laughs at the story I told her about the time I didn't hold the door open for a girl in college and she yelled at me, as a large group of us headed into church,

"Hey Tony Baker, you didn't hold the door open for me!" 

 "Why should I?", I shot back, "Your arms don't look broken. You can open it yourself." 

Yeah I know, subtly wasn't my forte, or necessary in the mind of a 21 year old. She quickly lost interest the second those words left my mouth.  

Good.
 
Nowadays I just fight a war of sedition and contrition against any woman showing more than passing interest. A well placed e-mail or a disappearing act are just as effective and no one gets as embarrassed or hurt.

So, what did I want?  

I kept coming back to, 'Love God.'  


Taylor Swift, in the song, Blank Space, states,

"'cause darling, I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream." 

I believe this is a excellent description of the entire human race.  

All of us walking around in this macabre attire pretending to be Snow White, but that poison apple we willing took from the wicked witch is slowing seeping it's way into our already tainted blood, just waiting for the perfect set of pride and circumstance to eliminate our witness and neutralize any threat we pose to the king of evil angels.    

 If you really believe the Bible is true, that Satan is a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour then, 'love God' is really your only chance.  Besides, isn't Jesus seeking you, not to devour, but because you are his creation. He's the very sacrifice that paid for our salvation.  He FIRST loved us.  This is love, that Christ loved us and gave himself. 

  There it is: Jesus sacrificed.  In Ephesians 5, men are asked to love their wives as Christ loved the church.  


  When I got down and my knees at the age of 26 and asked Kimberley to marry me, I wasn't asking her to have sex with me for the rest of my life because she was hot.  Getting down on my knees was an act of service, not just that one time, but for all time.  I was asking her, "will you let me sacrifice myself for your every need for the rest of my life."

   This last weekend, Kimberley used the Madison House to put on an 'IF' women's conference.  She was going for small and intimate to reach a few women at a deeper level.  This still took hours of her time planning and organizing.  I put our four kids, ages 3-10, to bed by myself on Thursday night.  When she got home late I asked her, "What more can I do to help?"  She needed to talk for about an hour and then she really needed to sleep.  Since I had already done all the dishes and organized the kids into a house cleaning army before she got home, she could sleep in peace.  

 Photo credit: Nicole Spellman

 Friday night was the first day of the conference and it was supposed to run from 7-9pm,  I took the kids home from Madison House around 5:30pm. We cleaned the house again, washed dishes, solved 25 different fights about chocolate, seating, and so forth; did devotions, read a book and then I put the kids to bed around 9:30pm.  Kimberley  texted me and asked me to pray because the feed was going out on the Internet.  The conference lasted until 11:30pm.  Kimberley got home and into bed around 1am.  I tried to wake up and talk but I remember nothing except thinking, "she needs more from me tomorrow."

Saturday was the last day of the conference so I was responsible for the kids breakfast, lunch, and dinner and everything in between.  We re-cleaned the house, and then tackled laundry, mountains of laundry.  Elias claimed, like he claims every time, that he "forgot how to fold a pair of pants."   A quick frown from me and shake of the head got him back on track.  The 3 oldest quickly formed themselves into a laundry folding assembly line and we took about a hour to fold all the clothes.  We did the dishes, again, cleaned the house, again, and then it was time for shopping and dinner.  

 Midway through Costco I was practically hanging from the cart and my two oldest daughters grew concerned and asked, "Daddy, are you ok?"  "Oh yeah," I said, "just fine, I have been fasting today for your mother and her conference.". They asked what fasting was and I explained it was something that their dad does for spiritual reasons.  This particular day I was fasting and praying for their mother to be strengthened but more importantly that the ladies she was working for would be blessed and encouraged by the Word of God. 

 We got home, cleaned the house, again, did the dishes, again and folded the last of the laundry that had finished drying while we were shopping.  Wash, rinse, repeat - this is having children.  Next was devotions and jammies.  


  When Kimberley got home all she had to do was help me pray for the kids and then put them into bed.  I had let them stay up till ten because I knew she missed them and after three days with old dad, they REALLY missed her. 

  As Kimberley and I settled into the evening she needed to talk for a couple of hours about how well Saturday had gone, in juxtaposition to Friday.  She was glowing, the whole experience was a blessing.  She talked till it was late and I was so excited to have been a part of it.  I get deep satisfaction from working hard for her and seeing the fruit it produces in her life.  

  The next day, after church, we went over to Madison House and broke down all the set-up, did all the dishes and brought everything back over to our house.  The only truly happy marriage is one of sacrifice.  I didn't complain, I didn't throw any Mantrums(man tantrums), I found joy in serving Kimberley, her joy over the event was enough for me to feel that I had served the purpose that God has given me for that specific weekend.  

 So...what's the plan for Valentine's Day?  Our Friends from Seattle moved out to Ohio for a couple of years and I've conspired with them to send Kimberley out there for five days while I watch the kids.  I can't wait, I love Jesus, I love our children, I love my wife.