"I can't believe this is happening"

This is Bill's most oft quoted phrase these days, given what is currently going on in our lives. My most oft quoted phrase is "This is so weird". We keep saying these phrases over and over again because we are on the verge of a change. A pretty big change for all of us.

It can all be blamed on this poem, really...

Disturb us, Lord, when


We are too pleased with ourselves,


When our dreams have come true


Because we dreamed too little,


When we arrived safely


Because we sailed too close to the shore.



Disturb us, Lord, when


With the abundance of things we possess


We have lost our thirst


For the waters of life;


Having fallen in love with life,


We have ceased to dream of eternity


And in our efforts to build a new earth,


We have allowed our vision


Of the new Heaven to dim.



Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,


To venture on wilder seas


Where storms will show Your mastery;


Where losing sight of land,


We shall find the stars.



We ask you to push back


The horizons of our hopes;


And to push back the future


In strength, courage, hope, and love.



This we ask in the name of our Captain,


Who is Jesus Christ.

Sir Francis Drake

These words captured our hearts and, not surprisingly, disturbed us. And so God is giving us new dreams. We are moving on from a life, location and ministry that we love with all of our hearts to follow what we believe with certainty is the voice of the Lord. What a beautiful process it has been to surrender all, to hear God's voice and to have the privilege of following Him. There are plenty of fears about moving to a different part of the country where we will no longer encounter snow, but will indeed encounter reptiles and bugs of all sorts. Ew. So many unknowns. So many losses.

We know what role we will be filling, but honestly we don't know a lot what that will look like from day to day. The cadence of our daily, weekly, monthly and yearly lives will be changing. We leave the state of my youth, the campus where we met and the home of our beloved Cornhuskers. We leave family, friends, and a church we love. We are leaving a home that has not only housed our physical bodies for 9 years, but it has been the stage for our memories to be played out on. We leave a home that we have loved and where we have loved for a home we don't yet know. But in all this, we have been consciously aware that this is not our home.

All of this "disturbing" has been a glorious unsettling that has left my heart feeling, strangely, settled in Him.

home.

Home is the most popular, and will be the most enduring of all earthly establishments.

Channing Pollock

Tate was in Chicago on his first ever mission trip...

(far left in the hat)

Bill was in Panama City, Florida on his umpteenth mission trip with our students...

(Far right in the orange shirt. For a 45 year old,

I think he blends in amazingly well with all those young uns)

My mission was survival. After having my other half gone for a week,

I felt a little bit like this...

It would have helped if i would NOT have watched seasons 3-5 of Friday Night Lights until 3am three nights in a row. At 41, I still don't quite have that responsibility thing down yet.

Now we are all reunited...

and it feels so good.

big prayers, little people

An excerpt from Lulu's recent bedtime prayer:

"Thank you for my Mommy. And for my blankie. And for putting all this stuff in my room. And for putting the sky up. I love my Mommy. I love my Daddy. And my Grandma. And students. And Tate. He is definitely on a trip. And Emma. And Dickens and Ruby."

Right or wrong, I felt the need to interrupt her prayer to remind her something was missing so I whispered "What about Jack?"

"I love him, I told you." Then continuing on she said "And I love downstairs. And upstairs. And my clothes..." I can't remember any of the rest. But it was filled with thankfulness and requests. It was long. So long that I actually said "Okay, wrap it up" at one point. Which shows how much I have to learn about prayer from my sweet little girl. She may be little, but these are some big prayers. She just pours out her heart while I listen and learn.

Maybe little people have the biggest prayers. Little people who know they have needs. Little people who see all of life as a wonder. I want to be little like that so that I too can pray big.

unplugged.

i hate it when this happens...

i much prefer plugging in to spring...

in case of emergency...

don't call me.

Saturday Lulu was christened into the "facial wound club". Tate had 3 stitches in his eyebrow at age 3. Emmie had 9 stitches for a gaping wound in her forehead at age 2. Both from the same coffee table. Jack had 3 stitches in his neck, and 3 staples in his head, from a dog bite at age 4 (a 90 pound dog no less). So I guess it was Lulu's turn...

Just 2 stitches in her chinny-chin-chin from smacking the end of a slide that she was going down on her tummy, feet first. And so we were off, first to Urgent Care then to the ER.

Lulu was a trooper. Meanwhile, I was nauseous. My niece caitie was the sunshine. And my sister Georgie was the rock. The whole stitching up experience played more like an SNL skit than anything. I was trying to comfort Lulu but hopelessly distraught by how distraught she was. While I tried to calm Lulu by whispering in her ear, Georgie was whispering in my ear to try to calm me. Simultaneously Caitie was desperately trying to come up with the words to songs from "Tangled" and making promises of ice cream and ponies or something that might possibly help Lulu be okay with a man sewing wire into her chin while being held down.

In none of the aforementioned minor crises did I remain calm. I'm just not a "calm under pressure" kind of person. But this was probably my best effort yet. Nauseous, yes but not hysterical. Again with the progress. But I had a pretty good teacher...

And thankfully, a really good stain remover too, 'cause I really like that shirt.

on progress

i cleaned out my closet this weekend. it was much needed since it had just become a "throw and go" location. it felt good to make progress...

i was sitting in my closet admiring it when jack came in. he said, "mom, serious question: would you rather have a trashed closet and a clean room or a clean closet and a trashed room?" maybe he asked that "serious" question because after the closet cleaning project, my bedroom now looks like this...

trashed. i can see why he might have been confused. the answer to jack's question is, of course, that i would like to have both a clean room and a clean clean closet, and i think i am getting there. the fact is that progress doesn't always look the way i want it to. in my room or in my life.

He really does write the songs that make the whole world sing

Never have I felt so young and in shape as I did at the Barry Manilow concert. His fans are not the youngest and most hip, but they are pretty faithful. I mean, he's been alive forever and he wrote the very first song.

I laughed through the first two songs. My sister asked "Are you going to giggle through the whole thing?"

I explained, "It's just so cheesy."

To which she replied, "You're just now figuring that out?!"

But then the third song came along which was Daybreak. Such a feel good song! Suddenly I remembered that cheesy isn't necessarily bad. Cheesy can be really fun (not to mention delicious). And this tentative fan was swaying with her hands in the air singing at the top of her lungs. The skeptic melted away and the Fanilow in me was unleashed. As Barry said predicted, every song had a key change and a big finish because that's the way he likes it. Funny guy as well as a gifted composer, musician, and performer. He may be old and stretched pretty thin with plastic surgery, but the guy is still amazing. And we had an amazing time...

I just wish Gunga could have been with us. She would have loved it!