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Six month update

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Six months ago our pocket of the the country was blanketed in smoke from ravaged wildfires.  We were milking our pool membership to the very last day we could swim outside.  The children were sporting new backpacks beginning new adventures in second, fourth, and seventh grade.  And our sabbatical was over.  Rob was trying to get re-established in his work and ministry again. First day of school! I was carrying my phone around as if it were a pager waiting to hear about a placement for the job I was offered last spring.  Until this fall, I had not worked outside the home since the year Rob and I lived in northwest Indiana back in 2005.  This was before we had children.  It took several years including a brief stint of taking veterinary education classes before I figured out what career I wanted.  As much as I love dogs and cats, God made it evident over a period of several years that I was to take a job in early childhood education.  I still do youth ministry as a volunteer so I
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Last Blog Post: Patience and Trust

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12 years ago I was sitting around our apartment in Calvin seminary housing dividing my time between reading newspaper articles about the Hurricane Katrina aftermath and talking to friends on AOL Instant Messenger.  I was 9+ months pregnant and barely sleeping more than a few hours a night.  My job officially ended Labor Day weekend and my husband began his last rigorous year of seminary.  He also was in the process of looking for a part time job allowing us some sort of income that final year.  Because I was pregnant with our first, I did not have any other kids to care for.  So I found myself in this constant state of "waiting."  I woke in the morning thinking, "Maybe I will go into labor today."  Then the sun would set and I would try to fall asleep to the eleven 'o clock news...only to wake up and enter into another day trapped in a holding pattern. This was the baby God blessed us with in mid September.  She turned twelve years old two weeks ago.  Once
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Cleared to Land: Transitioning Back to Work

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The moment that marks the end of a journey -- at least for me -- is the moment that the plane's wheels touch down on the runway. Prior to that, you are still in the air, still traveling, still "away." As soon as the wheels touch down and the plane rolls out, you are back in your home city and everything after that -- deplaning, claiming your luggage, driving from the airport home -- feels like a postscript. If you think about it, that few seconds when an airplane touches the ground is a dramatic moment. Hundreds of tons of aluminum, and people, and luggage which has travelled at hundreds of miles per hour in a sort of weightlessness, sometimes around the entire globe, is suddenly reunited with the laws of gravity. The jolt that yo u feel is the wheels of the airplane suddenly gripping the runway, accelerating to match the speed of the plane of the plane (over 150 MPH), and then just as quickly, decelerating from over to almost zero in a little more than a mile.
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What I've Learned about Rest Part II

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Yesterday, I shared a bit about what I learned about rest. I suggested that rest is mandatory, and that rest happens properly upon appropriate completion of work. It sounds simple enough -- but why do most of us -- myself included -- find this so difficult to implement? Rest is Incredibly Difficult:  I thought my first day of my Sabbatical would be light-hearted, easy-going, and carefree. It wasn't. I found myself somewhat anxious and uneasy. It didn't quite feel right not to be working. I suspect that is the case for many of us. It feels, well, wrong to take a day off, maybe even lazy or immoral to stop our work, and choose to play instead. Probe that a bit in your mind -- especially if you struggle to rest. What I found is a lurking temptation that I have to build my identity on what I do. So often, we convince ourselves that doing = being.  I want to justify myself by being successful, by accomplishing a lot, or by making sure that my children accomplish a lot.  Pastors ca
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What I've Learned About Rest

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The kids started school this week, and the thermometer is dipping (some rain even fell yesterday). Yesterday, Amy and I walked through Minto Brown Park, here in south Salem, we had to tread over a carpet of yellow leaves. Fall is here in spirit, if not yet fully in reality. And our Sabbatical is winding down. I have two more days before beginning work again on Monday. Truth be told, I'm eager to get back into the groove. One can only rest for so long before the desire to work again grows. Sunday will be my last day out of the pulpit for awhile. We'll worship with our Sunnyslope church family, we'll enjoy lunch with some friends, and we may make one last appearance at the local pool where we've enjoyed a summer membership. I'll make nachos for dinner, and we'll raise a glass to the end of three wonderful months of rest. On Monday morning, I'll wake up early, and probably head for the gym. Breakfast will be rushed in that sort of way of getting three kids ou
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A Summer To Tri...And Tri Again...

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One of my goals this summer was to complete an Olympic Distance triathlon.  Which I will not be competing in anytime soon. However, if you do not meet a goal, it does not mean you have to throw it out and start over. It gives you a good reason to try again someday. It was not one of these "get gung ho about training for something and then lose motivation only to be found not exercising and eating junk."  I have been in that situation many times over the years...I was there last summer after my sprint triathlon.  It is hard to bounce back from that.  But that isn't me right now. I spent twenty nine nights this summer sleeping in other places.  Compiled together, a whole month of my summer was not spent in my hometown.  Training elsewhere is not always easy.  When traveling with the family, it requires getting up earlier, using hotel treadmills, running in unfamiliar places, taking time away from the family, and feeling burdened by a strict training schedule.  It is d
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Summer Reading

I read twenty five books in 2017 as of today--twelve this summer.  Rob has me beat as he read seventeen.  However I am finding he can breeze through a non-fiction in a couple days whereas it might take me a week and a half...or longer. I pushed myself to read more fiction than nonfiction.  I naturally gravitate towards nonfiction.  I started a Book Club last December.  This has helped me read books I might normally bypass. My older two have competed in the Oregon Battle of the Books competitions in March.  Last year they both made it to the quarter finals with their team members.  I told them I would try to read as many of the OBOB books as I can...so far I am only at three. But I do have seven more months. When it comes to non-fiction my "geeky interests" are the city of Chicago...the Chicago Housing Authority and racial segregation and reconciliation in particular.  I also enjoy reading about The Vietnam War in both nonfiction memoirs and fiction books based on facts
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