The Lighter Side of Darkness {A Post by Tony}

“How was your weekend?”

It’s a question we ask each other and the normative response is generally, 

“Great.”

Follow up. 

“What did you do?” 

And you find yourself going down a list of things you did that weekend.

People ask me this question and I’m always ready with a response based off who they are and what I really think they are asking.

There are people just asking in general how it’s going but they really don’t want to know.  

Let’s use this weekend as an example. 

So on the follow up question, “What did you do?”, to that person, I would say, 

"On Friday night we hung out with our kids, played games and watched movies.  Saturday we cleaned the house, and went shopping at Costco.  That evening, Kimberley took our three girls, along with Gane, to the Davis High school production of Beauty and the Beast and I stayed home with my son and watched Monster Trucks, a movie about a family of Friendly Octopus Sharks, or whatever they were, that help kids overcome the evil environment ruining oil company by becoming the engine in their trucks.  It was your basic E.T. rip off and my son was none the wiser and loved the whole thing.  We went to church, took three Madison House kids with us, took everyone to Starbucks afterwards and then that afternoon had a family of Madison House volunteers over to the house for dinner, just so they knew how thankful we are and how much their help and more importantly friendship means to us."  

That’s so happy! 

Here’s what I left out of that story. 

Friday night there was a prevailing feeling of spiritual darkness over the area.  

At 10pm someone stood in front of our house and unloaded a .45 revolver into the house next door.  

Six police cruisers, all with their lights off, pulled up within a matter of minutes. There was no ambulance so we had to assume no one was hit.  With no shell casings, no witnesses and no bodies, the police left within the half hour. 

Saturday morning one of the kids that lives in that house, a Madison House regular, came out on the porch to let me know that even though the bullets went through 3 of his walls, he was alright!

Great.  

Sunday afternoon the family of volunteers we had over decided they wanted to end the evening playing on the Madison House playground.  We headed over but in a matter of minutes we had to leave because an MH kid warned us that, “There’s a guy driving around with guns in his car and my brother said you guys should all get off the street and into your homes.”

As the family got into their car and left I walked back to the house and Kimberley and I could hear gunfire break out from the next street over.

Both those stories are true, I simply tailor them for who happens to be asking and what state of mind I’m in when asked.

Yesterday, Tuesday morning, our daughter Lyla was awakened by a crack addict screaming profanity and pounding on the dumpster in the alley behind our house as he came down off his high.  Someone called the police and a cruiser came down and slowly escorted him out of the neighborhood. 

Kimberley made mention later that she was feeling anxious that day and I began to pray.

That evening it was nice out and my family, along with Gane' and a couple of the MH kids that live next door all sat out on the front porch drinking Starbucks and talking while we watched Lyla practice with her soccer team across the street.  During practice I walked over to the house next door.  Gang members were all over the porch as though they were expecting a war and I greeted the ones I know by name and made sure the ones that didn’t know my name now did.  I reiterated to them as I have many times that should anything go wrong they can come over to my house and we’ll help them out.  

Jesus did not come to heal those who are not sick. 

10 minutes later Lyla came home from soccer practice and 5 minutes later a silver Honda pulled up in front of our house and shot eight times into the house next door (there’s one house between my house and their house, who is my neighbor?), hit the gas and disappeared. 

My wife, Gane, our kids and the MH kids all did as we’ve instructed and practiced many times, they hit the ground or piled into the house. 

Police showed up and cordoned off the area, tagging shells and taking witness statements.  Again, no one was hit and some of the gang members across the street lamented their disappointment that, “They didn’t have a chance to fire back.”  

I silently thanked God they didn’t because it would have meant they were firing in my direction.

I spent the next half hour walking home scared kids that lived close enough and driving home the ones that didn’t. 

We have so much to be thankful for and this is where my mind always settles.

   

My wife and children, though a little shell shocked are fine.  

This will mark our fourth summer living living on Fourth Street and it’s becoming old hat.  That’s not callous, it’s simply true. You live a certain way long enough and what may have seemed crazy or difficult at one time, now seems normal.

Lyla, didn’t seem overly concerned and when I asked her how she was doing she said, “I’m fine. It’s like you always say dad, Jesus is going to take care of us; whether it’s keeping us safe on earth or taking us to be with him in heaven, either way he has our back.”  

No Madison House kids or gang members were killed. Praise Jesus. We still have an opportunity to reach them before they stand before God.

I had an opportunity to talk more about Jesus to the kids I was walking or driving home.

If you would like to pray for us, please pray not only for us but that "Jesus' love would continue to be acted out through our lives, and the kids will see our good works and glorify God, accepting him as their Lord and Savior.”

Pray that no one who doesn’t have Christ is killed. 

Pray that the community will start to see and act - Nothing changes when you do nothing. 

Thank you for all your prayers, volunteering and financial support, but most importantly, your  prayers.

To Love

His sister dropped him off with those two bags filled with his dirty clothes right outside the abandoned house beside us.

I caught a glimpse of his face, just before I turned back inside the house,

just before I cleaned out the rest of the clothes from the washing machine.

He had called Tony and asked if he could do his laundry at Madison House because we were all leaving for camp in the morning, but when the washing machine here in our home is large, and there was already crazy chaos happening, why not just do his laundry here?

He said yes in his quiet way.

We've almost been at Madison House 4 years. Not long, I know, but long enough to have memories that are embedded deep - long enough to know that first impressions are rarely correct.

He scared me, in that first year, and I'm not sure why anymore. I just know at some point, it changed. At some point, he began yelling my name across the street and waving as I would walk by with my little ones up the front steps. At some point the guard came down a little.

So when he walked in our front door and filled up the washing machine with his things, it didn't feel odd to have him in the house. I know it probably seemed a little odd for him, but he is loved by the people who live here.

Tony and I, we slipped out for a quick dinner and while we were gone, he must have slipped out too, promising to be back to finish up the wash.

Only we got home first, and I still had laundry to finish while his last load spun 'round and 'round in the dryer.

He kept telling me that he could do his own laundry, switch the loads and put it away - but he wasn't here and I stood in my laundry room completely unsure what to do. Not wanting to do the wrong thing, or offend in any way.

There's a sign just above the washing machine that a friend made for me in Canada that traveled with us here and that just keeps getting hung back up wherever I find myself washing clothes - a reminder of what I'm actually doing when I'm bent over those tubs and filling with soap or changing loads...I'm not sure if he saw it, but the words, "Blessing Room" stop me each time I take the time to read them and so that is why I did what I did.


Because folding his clothes was no different than folding the clothes of my own children - praying over him as the stacks grew taller was just as natural as praying over the piles for each of my four. One doesn't have to bear the title of "son" to be loved like one. Loving others takes place in the mundane and quiet moments - and sometimes actions are the only way to show the truth of it.


I had to run home the next morning before we headed out of town and away from wifi for the week to rescue a blanket a certain 3 year old had forgotten, and as I jumped out of my car the first yellow bus drove by and his face looking out at me from near the back windows beamed with a joy I rarely see.

And I have to ask myself why I am so often afraid to be bold enough to love? A woman who sits regularly under the shade of a tree across the street wanders by our front gate tonight while I sit on the porch reading and as she gets to the end of our property line, she begins to jerk around erratically. By the time she crosses the street, she is having a full on conversation with the air and the man in the blue house sits calmly and watches with his cowboy hat pulled low while he brushes his dog. When she double-backs 20 minutes later, she is calmer, her walking smoother and I keep rocking in my chair.

And I think, "Water. Why didn't I offer her water?" If I am to love like Jesus, offering water should be a natural thing.

I don't even know how to pray.

Neighbourhood kids leave our yard half an hour later and as we are cleaning up the last of the mess, Olivia whispers to Tony and I, "I think the lady in that car is dead".

Tony's eyes meet mine and he quietly walks out the gate towards the Suzuki that's been parked by our house for the last 2 days. Windows are rolled down, and that's when I see her face, mouth open, eyes closed.

"She's breathing", Tony calls to me and as everyone heads to the door he leans close and says, "I think you should give her some water".

And that fear settles in as I walk to the end of the kitchen and pull down that mason jar and fill it with water, as I reach for the biscuits Liv had made for dinner...the ones that were in the shape of a heart.

And Tony and I, we go to the passenger window and 3 minutes feel like an eternity when you are trying to wake someone up you don't know and as she's jolting awake, she's trying to convince us she's fine, even though we all know she isn't.

But she takes the water. And she takes the bread baked into a heart.

And as I mopped up the water spilled on the kitchen floor later, I *know* that could have been me. It could have been me just as easily strung out and asleep in a car with the windows duct tapped together, I know the wickedness of my heart and where I could have followed it to.

Moving down to 4th Street was nothing heroic or grand on our part - as Tony said this past week at camp, "There's no good or bad parts of town - they are all bad apart from Christ. Our sinfulness is just expressed differently in different ways and places".

My sinfulness is exposed more here than maybe anywhere else - but the beauty of Christ's grace is that He allows me to see it so much faster and He gives me opportunities to try again in ways that I can easily recognize.


I picked raspberries in the garden of a dear friend while she was out of town at the beginning of the month and at first, I found it hard to know where to begin. It wasn't until a cat brushed against my legs and I looked down that I found the heaviest and sweetest fruit was hidden under the leaves and branches near the bottom.

And it's true here...and there...bending low in service, worship, and love - it can be difficult - it can be hard and hurt deeply, but in the quiet, in the Shadow of the Almighty, we can find the sweetest Peace and Joy.

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.

The Pastor's Pew.

She came to the door about 6 months ago,her hair coiffed and graying. She knew the family that had built this old house and her husband had hung a light fixture long gone in the entrance way near the stairs.

I just wanted to see the old house, she said, and I was wondering if the fireplace was still there.

I forgot, for a few moments, how strong memories are and how dear. 

To me, the fireplace is one of the most amazing things about this aging home, and so I threw the door wide and welcomed her in.

Only, this home isn't the home that she remembers.

The life that fills it now doesn't look the same as the lives who loved and breathed and filled these places when she was young and the shock came out in words of hurt over so much that had changed.

I wish she hadn't left so quickly. I wish I could have asked about the ones who dreamed up this space. - The ones whose faith marks it so deeply.

It's called a Pastor's Pew.

I had never heard of it, and haven't seen another like it.

But like the pew benches that held me when I was small in that quiet little church that was like a second home, I am wrapped in a feeling of familiarity when I curl up in the corner.

I am held in peace.

There is something sacred about a space used for worship.

Back when doctors still made house calls as frequently as the local pastor, this foundation was laid. And when the cold winter winds would howl and the wise would stay home, there was a fool for Christ who would brave the chill and walk up the front steps to pray with the ones who lived here.

This alcove, flanked on either side by the age old symbol of church and prayer and that one sweet gramma singing off key, it has held the voices of the ones laying their hearts down before the Risen Savior and these pews have held the tears and laughter and words of those no longer here.

The fire may have warmed chilled bodies, but there is rest to be found for weary souls here in the quiet of this space.

I received a text in the dark as I was making my way home.

Just two words with no other explanation and my heart raced in fear with all the possibilities:

Please pray.

Was it my children?

Did something bad happen?

Are you hurt?

I asked all the questions instead of just doing what the text said.

I didn't know that while I had been out, one of our older Madison House kids was in our home. This kid, angry and troubled, was breaking apart and he showed up here, on our front step, cold and undone.

My 3 older children, recognizing his pain, raced to help their daddy get hot cocoa to warm his insides while Tony fed the fire to full blaze and then invited this young man to sit on one of the pews.

And here, on wood that has been prayed over for more than a century, two souls sat opposite one another; one seeking answers, the other holding the Answer.

I walked in to hear yelling. 

To hear the broken sobbing of pain,

while my older three all snuggled together in the school room, completely at peace and unafraid.

Mama, they whispered, you need to pray. The boy in there is *really* sad.

And as the questions raged, I heard Tony's calm, sure voice speaking the Name of Jesus, inviting him to come and find Peace.

All I could do was pray. 

All I could do was stand in the kitchen, hip against counter and pray.

It was the silence that caught my attention, and it was the two of them kneeling before the fire in the space between the two pews that pulled me to the doorway as I witnessed the holy moment of a fatherless man tenderly lead a fatherless boy to the heart of the Heavenly Father Who will never turn either away.

In the past few days, this home that was ours to rent and then wasn't and then was ours again - this home that God wouldn't allow us to live in until all of my dark had come out...it has become ours officially.

I don't know why it has in the way that it has. I'm overwhelmed at all the ways this has come together, but I am so incredibly grateful at the way God has shown Himself again as Father at the beginning of a season when this word is filled with so much pain.

Our prayer since the beginning has been that this home would be a light in a dark place. That refuge would be found here; that in the middle of chaos and confusion, the clarity of Christ would be seen most clearly.

I think of that family who first saw this plot of land and drew up plans for this house and in the heart of these walls placed a refuge for their souls.

They couldn't have known that all these years later, a lost boy would be found by the One Who knew him before all of time began right in the middle of where they themselves gathered.

The world seems to be spinning out of control. News channels and social media scream fear from all sides and terror turns us wild, devouring one another with words and opinions behind the safety of a screen. Everyone wants to change the world and the views of another.

But, right there, outside my own front door is a young man who needs a Father and a homeless woman stopped with her cart across the street talking with me about Jesus over a cup of water and a granola bar.

Each moment, each place I put my foot has the potential to be a space to build a Pastor's Pew, a meeting place to seek Jesus and the good of another. These moments, where we drop to our knees side by side place us on level ground. There is no scrambling to find our footing here, there is only utter dependence on the graciousness of God.

The fire is burning brightly still in the early hours of this morning as the pews wait expectantly reminding me that there is no one to far gone to come to Jesus, 

inviting me to pray...

Why Are You There?

On this street that we live on we hear the rumors,

the whisperings of the ones who carry danger with them everywhere they go.

It's said quietly and hushed,

Avoid them, at all costs. Stay away if you see him (or her) coming.

Tony, he drives home in our car that is blue in a territory that is clearly marked red and he drives towards this one man as the sun is setting in the late haze of a summer evening; while the setting sun is blinding the other man's eyes who hesitates because he can't see clearly who is driving.

I was standing on the front porch spray painting desks when I watch his hand reach under his shirt into the back waistband of his jeans...while he begins to walk slowly towards the car my husband is in.

Tony, calm and sure, reaches his hand out of the rolled down window and calls out his name, says hi as though it's no big deal and diffuses a tense situation.

But it confirmed in my heart that truth we had been told,

This man is dangerous. Stay away.

October passed in a whirlwind of days of anniversary, ocean, birthday, and visiting.  We come home from the beach and I turn and prepare for 2 weeks of company and finally tackle the leaves that are building a fortress on our front steps.

There is that pile of dirt, stubborn and resilient that I can't quite get to budge out of the corner of the third step up and I'm more focused on that then I am on the street behind me. Barney, our dog, makes an odd sound as Tony steps out onto the porch and I turn and look toward the sidewalk and pause.


He is slowly approaching us on the other side of the fence, his eyes locked on mine while he asks if our dog will bite.

I don't know how to answer...mostly because I don't know how Barney will react. But I don't know why he's asking and so I say so,

I don't really know.

I turn to look at Tony because I know we are to avoid this man, and he whispers quietly, urgently,
Get. In. The. House.

Not fully comprehending, I tried to finish up what I was doing, not wanting to look panicked or make the wrong move when I realize this man has lifted up the gate latch and is walking up the front walk towards us.  As Tony steps around me, whispering again for me to get in the house, I quietly slipped in through the front door and sat down and began to pray.


There is always the possibility, no matter how small, when we have a member of a gang come by and sit on our porch with us, that an opposing gang could drive by and open fire.  For the most part, I have come to peace with this. And while I know how foolish this may sound to those around us, I firmly believe God has His hand on us and He will protect us. After all, as I was told before, we are bulletproof until God calls us home.

But there was something in the air that afternoon that had me shaken, and I didn't know what it was. So I prayed. And then I was able to listen.

I'm not sure how much alcohol this man had consumed, but it was enough to slur his words and open up his heart.

I have heard brokenness before - I've felt deep brokenness in my own life before, but I have never, in all my life, heard such all-consuming hopelessness in the voice of another.


Alcohol was making his mind wander, but Tony kept drawing him back to Jesus in the most tender and gentle of ways.

I'm too far gone.

I can never come back.

When he called Tony "good", Tony would quickly and confidently say,

No. I am a horrible man without Jesus. He makes me good. Without Him I would do horrible things.


I sat there as I listened to his words and thought of the apostle Paul - murderer, persecutor, cruel...

No one is ever too far gone when Jesus enters a life.

He stayed and listened while Tony presented the gospel to him and he didn't say much, but as soon as Tony started to read the words of Romans 6:23, he got up, shook Tony's hand and wandered away.

I felt torn over the next few days. He had shared much with my husband and I wrestled between the fear of, what happens if he thinks he said too much and tries to hurt Tony?, and He heard the gospel, please Jesus, let the seeds planted take root.

I'm grateful for the prayers of those around us, who were aware and prayed for peace and protection because the fear I felt lifted and my prayers for him have become stronger.

But it begs me to ask the question of myself,

Why are we here?

And by here, I mean here, in this house, in this neighbourhood.

I keep hearing the cliches, the prettied up sayings,

Just Free-fall into Faith.

Jump and the Lord will catch you.

And I get it, because I believe that the sentiment behind these sayings is true - but am I doing it?

Am I trusting the Lord so much that I will share the truth and beauty of the gospel with those around me, no matter what I have heard of them?

Now, I know that there is wisdom in listening to the counsel of those that Christ has placed in my life to guide me and who know this area and gang culture better than I do...

but,

I almost allowed fear of man to close my mind to the possibility of the salvation of another.


And that's why I have to ask myself,

Why am I here?

Do I believe that the most difficult child in my classroom can be redeemed, or will I just roll my eyes and pray their 20 minutes in tutoring will pass quickly,

or will I come near and pray that the Holy Spirit will make Himself known to this restless child who experiences more horror at home than I will ever know, grateful that I can used by God in this moment?


Why are you where you are?

Have you thought of this?

I guess this isn't the normal blog post, because there isn't a neatly wrapped up bow in the end. We haven't seen this man since that windy afternoon last month. I don't know if or what he remembers, I don't know if he is still alive or not.


That little one in my tutoring room is still just as disruptive, still refuses to listen and sit still.

But my heart is changing as I ask for new eyes to see.


And you, the one reading this, may the Lord bless and keep you;
{may} the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 
the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

And may you come to know deeply why Jesus has placed you in this place where you sit, and may He open your eyes to the deep need around you and strengthen you to act.

For When Everything Changes

It keeps spinning, regardless of our circumstances. I know the truth of this. But there is a small part of me that wonders at times if there is a slight stuttering in the moments that matter, that form and change us...those moments that move us from one direction to another.

I guess the world would stop turning all together with all our many moments that bear the weight of change and notice, so I know it must keep orbit, held in the hand of the One who formed it. The weight of these moments instead lay deep in the heart, where He alone sees us most clearly.

It flashes in time with the blue and red lights filling the street just down from our house in the middle days of July, in the aftermath of bullets that fly from that rolled down window and enter the house just across the street from our front door. As officers tape off the road to block traffic and my phone rings with the number of a visiting dear friend. While she wraps her arms around me and calls out to Jesus for help as tears run down my face from not knowing if it was the house of one of our kids...from not knowing if someone we loved was hit.

In this circle of prayer, as we call out to the One who is Peace Himself, I find my footing in the anchor of His Name.

He hears us in the middle of chaos.


We leave for the unhurried craziness of camp in the hot heat of July. We leave the confines of wifi and cell service for the freedom of play and we find rest there, even as physical exhaustion sets in.

The second week that finds us in the height of trees and the cool of mountains, while the full moon was rising high and the field was full of the night game and teens, I slipped out of the lodge to walk in the fresh air. I wasn't expecting to hear the guttural scream or feel the tension of the next moments before the rushing and the call for 911. I see Tony's face and I know it's bad. Arms reach out for Zeruiah and I run with him in the dark on a dirt road so that we can direct the ambulances and emergency vehicles. I reach the field as it begins to fill with swirling lights circling around one of the most dear women I have come to know. This woman who retired just one week before coming to counsel a cabin full of teen girls and point them to Jesus was now laying on the ground with a leg twisted in all the wrong ways and there are times that tears are the only answer to the moments that don't make sense.

And as everything is tilting from the weight of pain and confusion, as her broken body is lifted up in pain onto a stretcher, the rest of us lean into the presence of each other as we hold the hands of the ones beside us and lift our voices up in prayer.

In this tender place, as we call on His Name, we find Him and He sets our feet on the truth of His presence. And He is there as the moon climbs higher and the smallness of us is deeply known.


It's here on this night, this night filled with so much brokenness and confusion, that a girl who knocks on my door back home and draws maps of imaginary places for my girls, who smiles shyly when I point out her creativity...it's on this night that she hears the beauty of Jesus and how He makes the broken beautiful and she says yes and makes the decision to give her life to Him alone. She gives Jesus her yes in the hours before her counselor gets rushed to the hospital and we could see how God uses all things, good and bad, for His glory.

For whatever reason, I think of the story of the Good Samaritan and the brokenness he embraced. How Jesus used the unlikely to open our eyes to the beauty of mercy and calls us to a life that comes near to the hurting and tender places in another.

That's the key, I think. We may be afraid and uncertain, trying to feel our way through the dark and unseen, unsure of how it is all supposed to look. We can choose to stay back from what we don't understand, feel ill-equipped to handle, or even of what we are afraid of. We could, and it would be understandable. But Jesus pointed out the beauty of the most unlikely to a lawyer who looked the most likely in order to reach his heart.  The Samaritan, who was considered "Bad" by the ones who hated him most, came the closest to the wounds of  the broken in front of him. He didn't just come close, he gave of his time, his comfort, his resources - he gave of what he had and God called him "good".

Tony and I sit in the aftermath of these weeks at camp in our coffee shop chairs that still smell of caffeine and pastries and we ask the hard questions of each other that we had been praying over and seeking direction for to find that sometimes the greatest gain in our lives means the giving up of what feels safe and familiar. Realizing the small ways that I've been relying on things or "this is the way we have always done it" rather than on the faithfulness of Jesus.

I've been afraid to go smaller and simpler, afraid of what it would mean for our family and schooling and ministry. But if I look at the model of what Jesus put forward, I see a man who let go of what he had in order to add to the care and benefit of another.

The hearts of my children matter no less, the beauty of our family demands that Jesus and what He is asking come first. Letting go of the known for a season opens our hands to receive the gift of the unknown, trusting that every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights. Letting go of the much allows us to give even more to the ones that He brings into our lives - we give from a place of trust and find that the stuttering moments have only just changed the orbit of our lives. Where we once focused on what was we now find our lives lined up next to the I AM and there is rest here.


Only half of the moon showed her face last night, she orbits and her face shows less then it did in the dark of a field surrounded by towering trees just one short week ago, but I'm not afraid of seeing the smaller picture anymore because I know that we are all seen by the One who spoke our days into existence and we are safe here, for we are always under the watchful eye of our good God.

  

When He Remembers

I'm reaching for a pair of her pajamas when I hear her yelling from the other room. She's become a yeller, the smallest one of mine. Loud indignation pours from her lips over any injustice she sees, real or imagined.

Tony comes around the corner, smile barely contained and shoulders shaking.

Elias grabbed something from Zee, he quietly tells me, and when I asked him, "Elias, did you take that from her intentionally knowing that would make her scream?", the lines around his eyes deepen as he starts laughing, Without missing a beat, Elias grinned at me and said, "Yes!".

Earlier, in the kitchen, after a dance party in the living room, he turns on one of the songs that I love to hear him sing and he holds out his hand and offers me a dance. Gently swaying on the tile, he pulls me close and I lean into the strength of him.

Kitchens can be incredibly romantic.

Olivia joins us within moments and starts chanting, Ewww!!! Brody!! Brody!!! Guys! Mom and Dad are kissing!! Brody!

I wait for a few moments for the song to end before I turn my head slightly to whisper that "Brody" is a boy's name...the word she wants starts with a "gr".

Oh...she grins, I'll remember for next time! and runs off to another room.

Even with the song over, the magic still hangs in the air and I don't want it to end.

The dishes can wait, can't they?


This past week has been record breaking heat-wise, temperatures soaring 20 degrees above normal and plants and people begin to wilt under the blanket of it. Last Monday, we escaped the furnace of Madison House and brought out the dishes and pans and served dinner out on the front lawn for the kids gathered for Sports Camp. The heat only seemed to intensify hunger and plates were heaped high.

I heard her voice before I saw her, insistent and pleading she kept calling out to see if she too could have some food.

Above the faces I was bent over serving, I looked up to see her face pressed up against the fence, hair wrapped up in a scarf and a face weathered and worn. She looked into my eyes and asked again, Could I get some food, please?

I looked over at Tony beside me and he smiled wide, Yes! Of course you can!, and I grabbed a plate of food and began to pile it high.

She stayed pressed up against the fence watching, remaining on the outside.

I look at her and I see Jesus as His words start running through my mind,

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty

and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was 

naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me,

I was in prison and you came to me.    Matthew 25:35-36

Tony, he's acting before the words are done rolling around in my mind and he is inviting her in, encouraging her to come near and get food.

And there is joy as she is telling us about the food she had smelled down street, how she had searched it out and found it here and as I ask if she wants tomatoes and jalapenos and onions and salsa, she just laughs and tells me that she'll take it all.

And I want to pile her plate higher.

Because yes, she's a stranger and a little quirky and yes, she had a little more than water to drink before she came across us, but she is made in the image of God and because of that alone, she has beauty and she has worth.

She takes that plate in her hands and smiles again and says a loud thank you before heading back out the gate and on down the street. 

I think of her today, after I tuck small ones into bed and listen to them giggle...I wonder if there is a mama out there somewhere missing her. If there is a mama who holds memories close to her chest and aches over everything that seems lost.  I wonder if there is a mama who had tender dreams for her girl and wonders over all that seemed to go wrong.

I wonder over her as a daughter and where she lays down to sleep tonight. I wonder if somewhere in the haze of what clouds her mind if she longs for home. I wonder over the choices she made and what path led her to us, if even for a moment.

I curled up in my green chair this morning before church and let the verses in Psalm 78 press hard into my soul, and I can't seem to get away from verses 38-39,

Yet He, being compassionate, 

atoned for their iniquity

and did not destroy them;

He restrained His anger often

and did not stir up all His wrath.

He remembered that they were but flesh,

a wind that passes and comes not 

again.

  He remembered, and still remembers that we are all but flesh...that we are but a moment in light of eternity and that we only come this way once.

How beautiful that this stirs up His compassion towards us, us in all our sin and brokenness. It doesn't repulse Him,

it stirs up His kindness.

I think of my children, the ones who need me to remember this the most - to remember their frailty in the middle of mistakes and messes.

I think of the opportunities that He gives us everyday as we walk in the doors of Madison House, to remember His love for us as we see pain and fear and beautiful joy in the ones we get to serve.

I think of the sidewalk outside our home, the one that brings dear friends and gang members-turned-dear-friends and everyone in between up to our front door. I've purposefully marked the porch with reminders of love, not for beauty but for our hearts to remember why we are here.

We are here to love deeply, to see the image of God in each person we interact with. We are here to speak of His grace and His sacrifice to those around us. We are here to serve even the stranger because we are really serving and loving Him; seeing the unlovely places transformed to beauty because His love has been freely given for us.

He dances with me on kitchen tile and keeps his hand on my lower back while we sway. There are children scattered throughout our home yelling and reading and drawing and watching the way a husband loves his wife.

These are moments that are fleeting, moving so quickly, barely allowing my heart to catch up while bringing me one step closer to breathing eternity's air, and I don't want to waste them.

So, I'll love the ones that made me a mama and live alongside of me each day. I'll love them and serve them point them to Jesus, and when I mess up ~ which I do so very often ~ I'll point them to the wonder of grace and the beauty of the cross.

And for the ones who wander, who are lost and forgotten, who have a mama somewhere...or not; I'll love and I'll serve in the gaps where Christ allows, I'll love for the mamas who can't. I'll choose to see Jesus in the hardest of places and watch with faith to see Him bring beauty and healing.

And I'll keep dancing with that man of mine in the kitchen, until the wind of my life blows me Home...