Have You Given Up On Church?

I found myself in the old church building that I grew up in this week. It is across the street from the new one we built and moved into in 1991.

My son was participating in the music festival. Singing. It was beautiful to observe, he did a great job, and I am one proud Mama!

I looked over to where my family used to sit. When I was little, we sat near the back, I was allowed to lay my head on my Dad's leg, and he would play with my hair and draw his finger around my ear and nose. I would listen to the flawless 4 part harmony of our congregation singing. I loved to sit between my parents and let their voices fill my ears,  my father's bass voice rich and warm and my Mom switching between soprano and alto as she pleased. It was a very musical church. Part of me is sad my children do not have those memories. They have not been part of that exquisite vocal experience. They never learned to pick out Bill Voth's marvelous base or the voices of countless other talented singers.

I remember wrapping my arms around a leg in the foyer and looking up to see Mr. Jake Esau smiling down at me. So many suits, all the same color, all the shoes the same! How was a kid supposed to find her Dad when she was only knee high to a grasshopper!?!

As my sister and I got older our family moved up the pews, the closer to the front we got the better behaved we had to be. All of a sudden I was too old to lay down on my Dad's leg.  I had to sit up, listen, sing. We went back to evening church every Sunday night, Pioneer Girls midweek, Children's choir. When we got older Youth Group on Tuesday nights, adult choir on Wednesday.

I remember participating in music festivals, feeling glad that I could play in a building that felt like home. Because it was home.

We were a family. I felt safe there and knew these people cared about my family and me. It wasn't a perfect family. No family is. But I felt a part of it, welcomed & loved.

After all this time I sat there in that hard pew, warm, fond memories and feelings welling up in me.

You may have given up on "church." In reality, you have given up on your family. It isn't the building, it is the people. You have given up on your people. People can make terrible family members. People are broken, messy and flawed. That means the church can be too.

You may think that I don't know the half of it. How can a girl who felt loved, welcomed and part of it understand??

Some of my deepest pain has come from the church. From God's people.

God's people can wound each other terribly. Wounds so deep that they change us forever.

I thought the pain I experienced would crush me. I didn't know if I could get through it let alone past it. I thought the church would never feel like family again. I wanted out. I wanted to run as far as I could and never look back. I thought I could never trust God's people again. Even when I wanted to run I couldn't.  I begged God to let us go.

He wouldn't let us go.

You see as broken as the church is, she is the treasure of God. Deeply loved. Close to his heart.

God healed my wounds. He was patient as I learned to function in the family again. He used the church family to help heal me, and he used them to help me find my place in it again. He loves his family and because of that so do I.

I am more connected now. Church is richer now. God turned the ashes of my pain to beauty again in the context of the community that I experienced pain in.

We, followers of Jesus, are on a journey of being made holy by the Spirit. We may have expectations, expressed or unexpressed which make us more vulnerable. Because we choose to live life together, we are open to hurting one another. We can take the time to heal, but to walk with God, we need to walk with his people. We mature one another into the fullness of Christ.

Make no mistake, we are God's family. We are commanded to not give up meeting together. We are incomplete, unable to function properly without one another.

We often don't get it right, I am sorry!

We hurt each other. I am so, so very sorry!!

Please don't give up on us.

God hasn't.

Even though we are broken, flawed people, there is beauty, authenticity and honest journeying of life that can happen together. We do not get it all right, but we do not get it all wrong either.

I believe God is doing a new thing. It may look different, significantly different. We cannot live out biblical community without one another. We cannot give up on each other! There is no support for that in Scripture. I know you do not want to hear that, but if you read through the New Testament and what it says to believers, there is no doubt we are meant to live in a community. It may not look like the North American Church, But it is definitely not life without one another.

We need to listen to the Holy Spirit together. We need to earnestly love one another. We need to live out compassion, sympathy, and tender-heartedness toward one another. We would be better off with you. We would have a better chance of getting it right if you were with us. If you could add your voice, gifting, and presence.

We are incomplete without you.

Please help us help you find your way home.

10, 9, 8, 7...

Getting into the car the other day our son all of a sudden had the realization "I don't have that much time left in high school."

Ugh!

Wasn't I just here??

Were we not just processing launching our daughter?  Did I not pour all I was feeling into writing Bitter-sweet?

Why is it so hard the second time around???

Isn't it supposed to get better??

I have moments where the reality of our second child launching out of our home hits me deeply.

He is a big personality. Action, conversation, sports, music. He fills our home with energy, humor,
and love. Everything he does is fierce.

Envisioning our home without him feels weird, just like when we thought of our girl leaving.

There is just a great big hole...

Quin has been a whirlwind from the start. Taking his first steps before he was 8 months old, he was off running a week later and hasn't stopped since.

His brain is inquisitive and always needing to chew on something. He watches TEDtalks, researches things he has heard about and draws us into fascinating discussions on what is going on in the world and what he is learning.
I love how he processes information and interacts with it. It is fun!!

It has been a ride watching his mind grow, logic, reason, knowledge taking root and flourishing.

He is active and watching him take on sport and recreation has been so enjoyable. He is powerful, quick and strategic. He is growing in those abilities all the time and trying new things. I am glad that God gave him the chance to continue his sport at College next year. I am hoping we will be able to get to some games because I will miss watching him hit a ball!

He is a loving and protective brother. He cares deeply and is consistently reaching out to connect with his sibling. He is fun-loving, full of loving teasing. Watching you relate to your siblings will be one of the things we miss most!

Just this weekend we had the pleasure of watching him participate in the Music Festival after only 6 months of vocal training. He rocked it and it, was such joy to see him take that on.

Music took hold of him when he was 13, and he has taken a self-directed approach supplemented with lessons here and there for both Piano and Guitar.  He is a gifted musician and has an instinctive knowledge of theory.

God has also seen fit to give him a chance to develop those skills a little more next year. We eagerly anticipate what he will do with the interest, understanding, and ability God has given him. Can't wait to see it develop more!!

Watching Quin grow in his faith, understanding, and love for God has also been fierce. Like everything else, Quin does this with all he has got. When he wrestled with God, it was some of the most painful times we have endured. Bearing witness to this battle was very difficult for my heart. To see God patiently, lovingly earn Quin's trust and love was one of the most beautiful things I have witnessed. God was and is faithful. As we learned to be quiet and when to talk, as we wrestled in prayer and entrusted our son to Him and watched as God worked his will out in our precious boy's life, we learned to trust and wait.

Quin has had some sweet opportunities to share his faith with peers, invite people to their prayer group at school and to church. He is bold in ways that are true to how God has made him, and it has been a thrill to watch him embrace this. Just today my heart was overflowing as I watched him respond to the call of the Holy Spirit.

He is fun loving, extroverted and entertaining. There will be an emptiness in our home when he goes. We will miss that first-row seat to watching him grow, learn, develop and become who God has called him to be.

The joke is "Who are you going to replace me with Mom?!?"

I love having young people all around us. It is why we pick up a few more each year and add them to our table. We look for young adults who are away from their families and missing that family time.
We love these kids.

Each of them unique, gifted, and fun. They enter our family and allow us to enjoy their company and embrace them as our own.

We grieve deeply when life takes them away from our table, yet know God has good things for them. We trust Him to continue His work in their lives and keep us connected. They are, after all, family!

While these beautiful young people do not "replace" our kids. They fill our hearts. They keep us from being too lonely for the ones we are missing and give us a new adventure.  We are forever grateful to them for this gift of friendship and shared life journey.

Quin, just as your sister is, you ar irreplaceable!!

It has been a privilege and joy raising you. You amaze us in every way. There are no words adequate for how deeply we love you. We are incredibly proud of your character, integrity, wisdom and love for others. My soul grieves when I think of our home missing your laughter, jokes, music, intelligent ideas and conversation. Who you are is amazing and we are so honored to be your parents!

God has good things for you! Stay close to Him. Keep getting to know him. Talk to him, about everything. Learn to listen to Him. Follow where he leads. Keep God first, his rightful place in your life. Everything will come together in the correct time if you do. How incredible it will be to see who you become and what you do with all that God has given you and all he has planned for you!! We love you to the moon and back kid!!

The Place

We have this spot. 

I would consider it "the place" in our home.

It is the coveted location.

It has the best vantage point. It overlooks the kitchen the living room and the hall. From this place, you can enjoy the company of people sitting at the island in the kitchen. Talk with whoever is cooking. From this location, you can benefit from the view of the backyard tree house and field from the kitchen window.  It gets the natural light and is right in the middle of the action.

This chair is 15 years old now. We bought the set when our youngest was two. This furniture has weathered our children growing up. Food was snuck onto it, crumbs and spills leaving their marks. Bed-time stories from when they were so small all three could sit side by side on it.

It is getting threadbare on the corners.This particular chair has a 1.5" slice in the fabric. No one fessed up, and not one of us can figure out how it happened. We have flipped the cushion as much as we can and still the wear is showing.

When we have friends over, we quickly tell them that the furniture is "curl up" furniture. You have to get your feet up on it, that is how it is best enjoyed. It is cozy, inviting. It hugs you back.
When our family sees this picture, there is a warm, positive feeling of comfort, safety, and rest that fills them.


This day, with the sun pouring in through the window, I came up from work and noticed the light bathing this particular place in its glorious light. I was compelled to take a picture. I did not want to tidy the blankets, fluff the pillows or position the foot rest. I just wanted to capture it. Rumpled, lived in. This moment in time encapsulated a feeling that this spot has come to represent in our family.
No matter how "lived in" it looks, it is always inviting, beckoning you to come curl up, rest, relax and soak in the light.

It has come to represent Soul Hospitality to me.

Soul Hospitality is mindfully creating space for another to find community with you. By opening up your soul, another can find safety and a place to let down the protective barriers they have built up to guard themselves.  It is creating a still, peaceful place of rest in yourself for others to find security, healing and shared journey. In reading this description, you may have already thought of someone who offers this to you, you may just not have had a name for it.



Sacred Companions author, David Benner, describes it like this:

"Soul hospitality is a gift of safety. Think of feeling safe enough with another person that without weighing words or measuring thoughts you are able to pour yourself out, trusting that the other person will keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away….
Soul friendship is the gift of a place where anything can be said without fear of criticism or ridicule. It is a place where masks and pretensions can be set aside. It is a place where it is safe to share deepest secrets, darkest fears, most acute sources of shame, most disturbing questions or anxieties. It is a place of grace- a place where others are accepted as they are for the sake of who they may become."

Soul Hospitality is a sacred place.


A pure gift.

It is rare and beautiful.

It is a place of mercy and grace. 

A judgment free zone.

You cannot be this for everyone. Your rumpled unlovely places line up with others who have similar rumpled, unlovely places. To offer yourself like this to anyone means that you first fill up in God, the one in whom light and life are found.

Soul Hospitality occurs when someone is brave and allows us access to the parts of their soul that have been, wounded, rumpled, even torn. In sharing their "lived in" soul with us, we find safety to start revealing ours. It is the rarest form of friendship. These bonds become your people. For women, these are the beautiful ones who become our soul sisters. For men, their band of brothers.
Sacred friendships, where life is lived and shared together.

Do you need to risk opening up yourself, wisely and prayerfully? Who might God be leading you to create Soul Hospitality for? 

It is "the place".

It is a piece of the Heavenly Kingdom on earth.


It is where all of you is loved, unconditionally, and viewed not as who you are, but as who you are becoming.

Help I'm A Mom: How Parenting Has Ruined My Self-Esteem

Are you a parent? Do you have any self-esteem left? Are you thinking about becoming a parent?  How much do you value your self-esteem? Writing just cannot capture humorous tone!!

Self-Esteem is defined:

1. A realistic respect for or favorable impression of oneself; self-respect.
2. An inordinately or exaggeratedly favorable impression of oneself.

I don't know about you, but parenting has definitely increased a realistic view of myself. That view is not necessarily favorable. Parenting has not increased my respect for myself. I cannot say that after 20 years of parenting I have an exaggeratedly favorable impression of myself.   

All in all; parenting has completely ruined my self-esteem.

Let me explain.

Parenting has increased my realistic sense of self, but not always a favorable view of self. Watching a toddler emulate my language or behavior, has been one of the most sobering experiences of my life. Having my school age child recognize the inconsistencies of my life has been intensely humbling. 

My kids see the real me. Every day they are firsthand witnesses to my good moments and bad moments. When I have seen "ugly me" coming back in their behavior, words or attitudes, it has been a gut-wrenching glimpse at the reality of my true self.

Parenting may have ruined my self-esteem, but it has made me humble. I have a more realistic view of myself.

I remember leaving the hospital after our first born's birth, an increasing sense of alarm rising in my soul.  "How can they let us walk out of here with this precious little??? Don't they know I haven't got a clue how to look after this sweet innocent life???"

I cannot even count how many times in raising our children Craig and I have felt out of our depth. How many times have we looked at each other bewildered?  "What do we do???" has been spoken way more than "I know how to handle this!".  This repeated experience of not knowing what I should do has not increased my sense of self-respect, that's for sure!!

Parenting has caused us to cling to and depend on God in every way.

Parenting may have ruined my self-esteem, but it increased my reliance on God.

The practice has not made us perfect. With the first child, we thought, "We will figure it out. With the second, "We will improve our skills."  By the third...you would think that by the third child we would be ready to teach courses, write books. We should be experts by now, right? I still read, ask, investigate, listen to podcasts.  

Yeah, all experience and practice have taught us is that there is still lots to be learned. This has definitely challenged the development of an inordinately or exaggeratedly favorable impression of myself!

Parenting may have ruined my self-esteem, but it has taught me to listen, be slow to speak or offer advice. It has taught me to me a lifelong learner. 

I would not change a thing. I am glad for my children. I am glad for these lessons.