The Way That Leads to Light {A Post by Tony}

The woman walks towards us wearing nothing but short shorts and a red bathrobe emblazoned with gold dragons. 

The bathrobe is completely open, her mouth is slack and her eyes are stagnant pools, lifeless.

I catch the eye of the two older kids sitting behind me.  My quick glance sends out the message, “Ignore it, don’t draw attention to her.” 

It’s an eleven passenger van; that leaves 9 little ones that don’t need the shock; they’ve seen enough already I’m sure.

My mind drifts back to earlier in the week; I was driving by myself.  A woman, mid-twenties, in a canary yellow jean romper, riding an old BMX bike, stops next to me. 

Her make-up is beyond done up, and her hair is in little-girl pig tails.   Tracks race up and down her emaciated arms. 

She lifts her eyebrows at me and I imperceptibly shake my head and we both pull away from the stop sign, headed in opposite directions.

While I’m getting a haircut I ask the barber, a local church attendee,  “Hey, is it just me, or are you seeing a lot more prostitutes than usual walking around?”

 He pauses, then nods, “Yeah, definitely.”

If this upsets you then ask yourself the question,  "Are you looking at pornography on your phone, or reading some mainstream erotica novel? If so, what’s the difference?"   

There isn’t one.  You’re just as chained to filthy rags as these.

I tell kids the same message - sin comes from our nature, we desire to accomplish injustice; it looks good to us.

In fact, this excuse is used throughout the Bible,

Genesis 3:6

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Judges 14:3

…But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.”

Joshua 7:20

And Achan answered Joshua, “Truly I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I did: when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them.”

I don’t read Bible stories anymore and think the way I did when I was young, “What’s wrong with these people?” 

I read Bible stories now and think, “I’m what’s wrong with people.  I’m inches, seconds, whatever measurement you prefer, away from making the same mistakes.”

A kid I hired at Starbucks once asked me, “Hey Tony, my dad used to be a really strong Christian but now he’s on trial for rape. What happened?"

So I told him, “The second you put yourself outside of God's will and start to think that you know better - it might be today, or 20 years from now - the downward spiral begins.  Eventually you’re far enough outside of Jesus' will that you end up suffering consequences.  Irreversible consequences by human standards.   You hurt not only yourself, but your whole family.”

I love, as much as it breaks my heart, that Achan clearly articulates his sin. It’s not against Joshua or Isreal, or even his own family, but he says, “I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel.”

I used to run all the time in college. Mostly I was praying and sometimes I would end up doing five miles or more, simply caught up in the process of giving my thoughts over to God and I would forget about the physical pain from the exertion. 

Once in mid-run I was crying out to God about my ‘thorn in the flesh’ and the answer came to me so clearly that I stopped dead in the middle of my run. 

I had been asking God why I had to deal with this reaccuring sin, and the answer went something like this, “This ‘thorn in the flesh’ is not from Me, it’s from you. You’re intentionally sinning because you desire to do what is wrong. You want to sin and you’re making excuses to justify your sins.”

I can’t say working that out was easy, but God’s grace was sufficient.

John Milton, in Paradise Lost says, “Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell, leads up to light.”

Some sins we struggle with are like that. I have no idea how it feels to know I can’t stop stealing.  I have never stolen anything; I have no desire to take other people’s possessions.  In fact, I’m afraid I might get their germs if I do.  However, if coffee was outlawed, like it was by a Pope in Rome in the year 1600, I’d be a first class criminal!  I’d be dealing and making all kinds of excuses to my clients and cops about how, “Government can’t regulate me, man!”

This is humanity - we want our own way, and we’ll be damned if God’s love would EVER send us to hell! That’s just not right!

Look at your sins and ask, “Is this a thorn in the flesh or am I doing it to myself?”

The answer is often so bitter and self-effacing that like the rich young ruler in Luke 18, we become very sad; it’s difficult to look at a situation where we know we’ve been wronged and say, “This is my fault too.”

The only way out is humility, and I must confess that they only time I’ve ever had any, is when I asked God to give it to me.

I’ll sign off with this, my go to, super deep, theological prayer: “Dear Jesus, I am such a despicable mess, I cannot escape who I am without Your love. Please help me.”

If it works for you, feel free to use it. 

Dear Miriam

I stood in the back of the room looking for a seat,

looking for someone I knew in the sea of women seated facing forwards.


I saw her near the front and I headed in her direction.

Only, by the time I got there, she had leaned forward.

I could hear her sobbing.

Women jumped up before I got there and surrounded her with arms and tissues and the quiet murmurings of voices slipping underneath unspeakable pain to help bear the weight.


I slid into the end of the pew feeling helpless and small, unable to reach through to join in. Feeling foolish for not having seen the pain before.


We stood to sing together, the tune of the hymn familiar and strong. I opened my mouth and joined my voice to the hundred or so other voices around me.


What a friend we have in Jesus,

All our sins and griefs to bear!

What a privilege to carry

Everything to God in prayer...


I have sung these words since I was small, learned to play them on the piano and know the feel of the chords beneath my fingers.

I have known the truth of them and they became my prayer for my friend bowed over in grief.


There was a book wrapped up and placed under our Christmas tree about 3 years ago now and I eagerly devoured the pages.



I remember falling asleep in evening services to strong voices around me lifted up in the rich and ancient truths found in the hymnals tucked into the front of the pew near my knees.

I remember that Sunday the projector made its way on to the stage at the front of the sanctuary, the words and chords laid down on transparent paper and songs like Majesty and Faithful One and guitars and drums joining in with the piano and organ.

I remember my first worship service that felt nothing like the quiet sanctuary of the small church I had been born into. The rush that I was somewhere modern, somewhere new.


I remember the joy I felt the first time I heard the beginning chords of a hymn after years of the absence of one. Oh, it had been reworked, yes, but it was beautiful.



This book I had read, it talked of the importance of the "why" of what we sing.

We sing during worship, not for our emotional filling or really for anything about us - we sing during worship for each other. As we sing, we are singing praise to Jesus, yes, but more importantly, we sing to encourage the brothers and sisters around us. We sing to strengthen broken hearts and point them back to the tender and holy mercy of our amazing God.

We sing to hold the gospel out to those around us who don't know Jesus. To surround them with the beautiful truth of a compassionate and loving God who sent His Son to die for the sins of the world and draw us to Himself.


Every Sunday at the end of the service, our pastor, without fail, closes with an opportunity to know Jesus. With all our heads bowed, he extends the invitation for anyone to raise their hand, to receive the gift of eternal life.

And then, without fail, he asks us to all join our voices together and lift them in prayer...us who have already prayed and received. Us who have already walked with Jesus for years. I lift my voice and it joins in with the many and brothers and sisters lift up the voice of one who is receiving Jesus for the first time and I am reminded that we are not meant to walk through this life with Jesus alone.



On the edge of the Red Sea in the book of Exodus the Israelites are found standing. They are facing a charging, angry Egyptian army who are hell-bent on taking the people back who they believed were rightfully theirs. They stood there full of doubt and fear. But God, faithful and steadfast in His love and mercy proved in a mighty way that these weary and broken people were His.

Moses breaks into a song of praise that wraps around each Hebrew heart and draws their eyes up to the Most High God who had set His love on them and rescued them, first through the marking of blood and now in the parting of water.

As his song fades away, his sister, Miriam, takes on the song and I wonder if she isn't an example to us as sisters in Christ:

Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. And Miriam sang to them:

“Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;

the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.”  

Exodus 15:20-21

It doesn't say that she led some women, or a few women...

it says that all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing.

And in this beautiful picture of celebration, Miriam sings to them:

Sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously...


The Creator of the world around us, the One Who set the sun and moon and stars in place - Who upholds the hugeness of the universe by the very power of His word,

He created you.

And not just created, as amazingly beautiful and tender as that is,

but our God who creates and is sovereign over all things, He bent low and He became man, He died for you and for me and He really did triumph gloriously.


Where can you be a Miriam? Where can I? Where can we pick up our voices in praise and lead all the ones God has purposely placed around us to see the beauty and grace of our Savior...and not just to see, but to know the One who became the Way, the Truth, and the Life for us.



This road winds and twists and is marked by death and fear and so many unknowns, but this road is one, when we believe in Jesus is one that rings with the song of hope.



So let your life be one that fearlessly goes out into the broken spaces around you with praise and joy, even through tears of sorrow, because our trust in the last words that Jesus spoke here on earth are the ones that fuel our faith.


Sing loud, dear Miriam - we all long to hear you.

For When it All Breaks Outward

The list of names is growing in the back of my Bible.

Even though our rooms are overflowing and it seems at times there are more kids than any of us as staff can handle together, there are faces that you come to expect each day - smiles and voices that  you suddenly realize haven't been seen or heard by anyone for a few days.

When a couple of weeks pass, I pull out my pen and slowly write each name under the one above it.

There is a mama and her family here in town who loves strong...who is strong. I know the secret of her strength, because I know Him too, and she opens her heart and her home to kids who need somewhere safe and there have been some kids that we have known who have ended up under her roof and her care - who have been enveloped in peace and the love of Jesus the moment they have walked through her door.

She has a list too.

I've seen the growing expanse of it when I pick up my kids from their Friday mornings with her, their names painted up on the walls of her home - I've seen the names I recognize and I know that they have been loved deeply here and I am grateful for all the ways God crosses paths.  Grateful for the ones in this community who have said "yes" to the uncomfortable and the awkward. "Yes" to the hard and the heartbreaking. "Yes" to the loving and the praying and the entrusting, not only of these children they don't know, but the entrusting of their own children into the Hands and ways of a good God Who asks us to love like He does.

The last couple of weeks have been difficult - I think I can write that down here.

Feeling as though I'm fraying on the edges, I've only wanted to hide out in my home. We've been sick, off and on, and I've been thankful. Thankful for the moments that meant I could curl up with my littlest and let her sleep on me on the couch. Thankful for vomit and sore throats and fevers and all of the extra snuggling that meant. Thankful for the volunteers who took one look at me after a bout of food poisoning and sent *me* home, telling me they had everything under control.

When the edges are raw, I want to retreat, and for about a week I could.

But the next week pressed in harder and by the time this past Friday finally came, I thought we were all going to collapse.

Spring bursts onto the scene, but so does violence in this place we find ourselves. A double murder happens just down the road a ways, police presence is thick. We hear yelling and screaming and gun shots and I see the color red everywhere - caps, shirts, shoes, shorts - and I find myself double checking our own attire before we head out for the day; the red bag I take with me to work gets replaced by a gifted brown backpack.

The overthinking everything rounds my shoulders in weariness.


I don't remember ever reading anywhere how lonely ministry can be. Surrounded by many, pressed in on all sides by children desperate to be seen, but it can still be so lonely.

I see it in my own children when we venture out past the inner city - their struggle to find where they fit.

They see and hear things that are much different here. My oldest daughter leans against me one evening last week, sobbing because of the horrors that her friends right here experience and bravely share with her tender heart...how do you voice that outside of the inner city to your peers? I watch my children flail at times, trying to get their footing...and it breaks my heart. I know that God is using this, that this is part of His plan for their lives for the good works He has planned for them, but I don't know how to help them through these moments where they feel like misfits - like the odd one out.

But isn't this a feeling common to everyone?

It's just worn differently, depending on who and where you are.

Sure, it's easy to see in a Red or Blue shirt, in the woman strung out on drugs, on that man who walks by our house, desperate to get rid of his demons by trying to drown them in the alcohol in that bottle he carries around.


I wear my glasses.

Now, there are times I wear them because I genuinely need to - contacts aren't as comfortable anymore, no matter how many brands I try,

but there are days when I put my glasses on to put a wall up between me and the world outside. As though that one small barrier will make my smile stronger.


Because things are easier to carry around, to wear. Being bold and vulnerable and saying to the person across from you that you are a mess is just...well...

messy.


And who has time to be bothered anymore?


Everyone is running around like the world is on fire, because it feels as though it actually is.


And our alone-ness feels as though it is going to consume us and it's so much easier to just play one more round of the newest game on the newest app on your phone.

But the hiding it just hardens us...

at least, it hardens me.

The kids all went fishing this past weekend at a local Kid Fish event put on a by a number of people who go to our church. Madison House packed over 40 kids into a couple of vans and they reeled in a good number of trout.

I opened the door to a little boy who proudly carried the fish my girls caught in Ziploc bags right up into my home. Marched across the threshold and through the school room and up to the kitchen counter and plopped them down on the counter.

Plopped them so hard the bag burst open and fish...juice...went everywhere.

 I sighed.

Loudly.


And I watched his face fall.

I still want to cry over it all - not the spilled and watery fish liquid, but over how I reacted. I love this kid like he is part of our family. I love how brave he was and how comfortable he is just to walk right in my door...but in the trying to hold it all together, I became brittle and it took absolutely nothing at all to break me into shards.

Our shards always break outward, hurting those closest to us.

It doesn't seem to matter how deeply I know this, I always seem to forget when I am most weary.

There's a portion of verses in Exodus, when the Hebrew slaves are groaning over their burdens in the heat of Egypt, that always jumps out at me - seems to come to my mind most when I feel most alone, and it's simply this:

And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew. 

Exodus 2:24-25

I think to that page in the back of my Bible, of the wall of my friend - both marked by the names of the faces who have touched out hearts, no matter how briefly we have known them. We write them down because they have worth - these children matter, their souls bear the very image of the God Who created them.

Their names are written down, because they are seen and known - not just by me...not just by her - they are known by Jesus and should I ever be given the opportunity to sit down with one of these children who came by everyday and then just didn't - I want to be able to pull out my Bible and show them this - show them that they have never been forgotten; they have been prayed over and loved still, no matter how much time has passed.


The One Who is Most High and Almighty, He sees you and me. He sees each one that feels most alone and forgotten - the one who feels like the misfit and outside of everything. But He doesn't just see - He knows - and in the knowing, He came near...He is near.

Monday is less than an hour away and a new week will begin. Madison House will be open and who knows how many children will press in close and yell and push to be seen.

My edges, they still feel a tad raw, a bit frayed. I'll admit here that I feel a bit of a mess.

But it's the raw and frayed edges that open my eyes to the beauty of Jesus. In Him I'm not alone and when I press into that, I can point the other raw and frayed ones to His love that took on our grief and our sorrows, our pain and our sickness. The One Who wears our names in the scars on His Hands.

There isn't a pen in the world that can beat that.

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.

For When You Want to See Through

The smallest, she turns three at the beginning of the month, and already she begins to claim she is four.

As though she has absorbed through the air the never ending thrum of the whispers around her, always searching for the next thing, the better thing.

And he, that man of mine, begins classes at a university a state away and I watch him hunch over iPad and notebooks and pencils begin to twirl in his fingers as that brow I love knits in deep concentration. I hear the professor's voice drone on about numbers and I hear his weary laugh and January never slows.

I don't know why I thought it would.

But like a newborn flailing, the days have all blurred together and like a sleep starved new mama I beg for eyes to see above the fog.


Instead, the fog grows heavy.


I have my green chair and he has his, placed  in front of the century-old stained glass window and we face each other in the quiet.

He had been stopped after an event at church, had been told some news about one of our children and my blood runs cold and I just want to see through the fog.

Grace, stamped in brass and wrapped around my wrist bumps against my skin and I reach for it with my other hand. There is grace in this too...there has to be.

Jesus, He promised to never leave us...to never forsake us. He gently leads those who are with young and that's me. I don't deserve His promises with my track record, with my history of failings, but I guess that's kind of what grace is.


So, on Sunday, as I am walking around the car to buckle Zee  into her seat, as three gun shots are fired into the quiet afternoon air; as I duck down and quietly count heads and reassure wide eyes and ask my fearless husband to maybe not stand so far out into the open, I don't really wonder at my lack of any fear.

It's not bravery that wraps around me, I know this.


There are puppies and geckos as I drop my children off at the home of a friend and as I drive away after hugs and kisses I find myself driving by the second home we lived in here in this town I've grown to love. The one we still own, but that someone else lives in. Our neighbours, the elderly ones, their house has sold and someone younger lives there now.  Dino had cancer, last I heard, and that's why their house was on the market.  And now they are gone and I'm wondering at how short our lives truly are.


But it's there in the dark, when it's time to drive back to pick up my four, after I slip through the Starbucks to pick up a card to say thank you. It's as I'm looking left and then right before I pull out into traffic that my breath catches in my throat and it's been a long time...almost 5 years and an Alberta horizon...since I've seen a moon that close and full.

Just a glimpse, but I didn't need more, though I chased it down side streets and got lost only once. Just one glimpse for me to feel the full magnitude of what my heart felt Him say.


That moon, full and wide as she was, could only shine the way she did when her whole surface was facing the light of the sun. It was only as shocking as it was because of how dark the sky of night had become.


My soul, parched and broken, clung to this and it was then I felt the fog lift.

Jesus, He is the Light of the World. He has said it and I desperately believe it. And He, who is Light, has, with stunning grace placed His light within me, within all who call on His name and believe. And as I stood in the middle of a dark street with my four children staring at me through foggy windows, I was reminded: The darkness can never overwhelm me with Christ in my life. Oh, it may feel like it - it may press in heavy and hopeless.  But the dark only seems darkest when I turn my face away from His glory.

I have known, and I have seen, when my face is turned towards Him, my heart is strengthened, my weakness seems like a gift and His grace is more than just an undeserved gift...it is the very breath and joy of my heart.


The moon, it's already turning away again from the blazing light of the sun...you can see it around the edges.

But my heart, it's begging to face Him, choosing to be set ablaze by the One who tenderly leads and gathers all the little ones close.

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 it's September 1st

My dad's birthday was on the 1st of September.

Same day as his father's all those years ago.

It's been close to 40 years since he last heard the sound of his own father's voice and  over 5 years since I've heard the sound of his own - since our relationship reached the breaking point and everything crumbled and fell apart.

And I want to hold these words carefully and tenderly because I haven't always done so.

I write these words as a marking.

As a recognizing.

Not to shame or point fingers, but to hold what is wounded to the Light.

I spent years leading up to the first babies wondering which day would mark their births - what ordinary day would become extraordinary that I didn't know just yet...and so dates on the calendar hold weight for me. They always have.

I don't expect that to change.

There are days that heave with grief, and ones that fairly explode with joy and those square boxes on the pages of the planner in front of me are more than just blanks to hold words and names and appointments that I pen in. They hold deep emotions that mere ink can't convey while tears evaporate, leaving only wrinkled blots behind.

Elias, he sits behind me in the van around 10 this morning asking a hundred questions in 60 seconds and I smile as I try to keep up. He asks me if we are going to Madison House today. And then he asks when we are going to church...when our next day off is. When Christmas will be.

And I listen to him as he processes his days.

It's all so innocent.

He's not aware of the wars that are raging, of the people who are fleeing and the little ones who are dying and washing up on shore.

He's not aware yet that the news is hard to sit in front of, that the never ending stream of words sinks fear deeper and deeper into air already so emotionally charged.

He just knows that Sunday is church and Friday is for incentives at Madison House and Saturday mama really, really wants to sleep in.

This past week, as the air has been getting cooler and dark clouds mark the sky above us, our yard has been full of little ones after the Madison House doors have closed for the day. I've sat inside near the big front window to keep an eye on the craziness of the "restaurant" that has set up residence on our porch. Everything is whirling in the middle of their play and I miss the quiet conversation happening just down our front steps.

There's a little girl who has latched on to my oldest girl and they sit and whisper secrets and learn what it means to speak from the heart. This little one, her daddy has died and there are a lot of fears that rip at her heart and this is what she shared with my daughter.

Lyla, who has only ever known the presence and love of a father, she asks quietly if her friend knows who Jesus is.

There's only a small shaking of the head.

So, in her soft way, Lyla offers to pray with the one sitting beside her, offers to help the fatherless find her Father and while the air is full of yelling, a little one opens her heart up to the Love of Jesus and she is no longer lost, but found.

The ground all around us is holy.

I don't know how long it's been now since I first came across these words, but something deep resonated inside of my soul when I first read them.

Each month, I print out the pages and I place them up on my wall and when everything starts to tilt, when fear creeps in and I find myself overwhelmed, I grab onto the words of who Jesus is.

It was on that last day of August that I reached for the paper still warm from the printer and as I picked it up, my breath caught -

Beside the 1st of September were the words, My Daddy.

The day marked already by so many emotions, I stopped.

It's a day marked by the birth of a man who carries the title of father,

and son,

and the tears of a daughter who sits in front of that large front window wondering.

And Jesus, in His tender, merciful way calls to the deep in me that feels as though it is sinking and causes my swirling thoughts to slow, to recognize this day and this man as created by a Holy God - and then to turn my heart to the One Who calls me child because of wholly undeserved grace and kindness.

I think of the unfathomable-ness of God - how Isaiah trembled over the vision of Him and the train of that robe that filled the temple. How he crumpled to the ground because he couldn't bear the weight of such glory...this is Who calls me daughter. This is Who calls me to love and serve outside of what makes me comfortable.

This is He Who marks my days, both the ordinary *and* the extraordinary, not merely with words, but by His very presence.

Each day should bring my eyes to this fact first - God Himself is my Father and everything else rests on this foundation.

It's Friday today, which means a late evening with loud games and louder laughter filling the halls of Madison House before we head home for the weekend and rest.

But in the middle of it all is One Who is drawing us all to Himself,

and all the sons and daughters are finding their way Home...

Grace and peace to you from God our Father

and the Lord Jesus Christ.   Ephesians 1:2