Our boy Luke turned twelve today. Wanna see a cute baby picture of that guy? I figured.
That was him on his first birthday. This was him this morning:
Definitely the same kid. Right? Let me brag a bit on this boy because it's his birthday, I'm his mom, and this is my blog. ;-)
Luke is a delight to us. He is so intelligent and knowledgable while also being personable and fun-loving. He unloads the dishwasher without complaint and gives his mom hugs without being asked. He plays piano with a level of sensitivity and precision that awes his parents as well as his piano teacher. He is soft-hearted toward people younger than him. Multiple moms of toddlers have commented about how much they love the way Luke interacts with their kids. I love it, too. When he does funny things (i.e. repeatedly rolling off the couch in slow motion) to entertain a visiting two-year old, I can see the man he is becoming, and he reminds me of his father. A very good thing, people.
A quick word about the nearly teenage-ness of my son. I am not afraid. I am excited. (Maybe a little nervous, too, but mostly excited.) I believe the concept of teenager is a social construct. I know Luke is moving toward adulthood, but that does not mean he has to rebel or be surly. It means he has to intentionally seek out his place in this crazy world, try things on, suffer failure, and go back to the drawing board. We will love, support, continue to train, and guide him while he does this. We will also be intentional about finding ways to help Luke gain independence. Yes, this process hurts a little, but it doesn't have to be miserable. In fact, I think it is going to be epic.
End sermon.
Wanna see the rest of the pictures from the day's celebrations? Sure you do.
Getting the third in the Harry Potter series from us this morning. He was pretty excited.
But he also likes toys. And we like that about him. He's still a kid! This is a new light saber set that he had been eyeing recently. I love that we found it on clearance. The Lord is so good.
The next picture was taken at breakfast where Grandma and Grandpa gave Luke a new watch, a nice watch, a fancy watch, a watch that he can program to help him remember things like taking ADD meds and accomplishing other important tasks. He was pretty jazzed. So were we.
Luke had requested Chick-Fil-A for lunch on his birthday. We invited some friends along to make it even more fun. They are almost all looking at the camera in this picture. We tried.
The birthday party was a standard Bangsund affair, with a Star Wars theme and a movie shown. Here is the cake. It's a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake. It was super yummy.
I couldn't find twelve candles that were all the same. The individual plugging his ears is doing so because our rendition of "Happy Birthday" was loud enough to be heard in the street. For real. Loud and proud, people. That's us.
Then it was time for the movie! "The Return of the Jedi" is a good one. And the crowd enjoyed it. Eleven kids, two dads and one grandma watched while three moms drank sparkling water in the living room upstairs. Lovely.
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Sunday, July 16, 2017
A decade with Paul
Paul turned ten today. That is crazy. In my mind, this is Paul:
See. Amazingly adorable little man who has always made great funny faces. Nope. This was him this morning after building his birthday train:
Oh, my heart. So, let me take a few minutes to brag to the world in general about the sweet, awesomeness that is our Paul. Paul is our creative, brilliant, musical, tender-hearted youngest son. He loves to draw and create. He reads voraciously and loves to listen to audio books. He plays piano better than any second year piano student I know. And he can scat. I'm not kidding. It's not a public thing yet, but maybe later in life. He struggles with his temper because he is passionate and sensitive like his mama. And he can find clever solutions to problems by thinking outside the box like his daddy. He will sit and draw a picture of dragons during the sermon at church, appearing like he isn't really listening, but then join in the dinner table conversation with spiritual truths he gleaned. And he is quick to forgive. Me, mostly but also his brother and dad. Do you know how beautiful that is? My prayer for Paul is that he would be quicker to forgive himself. We all need that, right?
Here are a few other pics from our celebratory business.
This picture really says it all. He's ten, people. And he's fun and awesome. Clearly.
See. Amazingly adorable little man who has always made great funny faces. Nope. This was him this morning after building his birthday train:
Oh, my heart. So, let me take a few minutes to brag to the world in general about the sweet, awesomeness that is our Paul. Paul is our creative, brilliant, musical, tender-hearted youngest son. He loves to draw and create. He reads voraciously and loves to listen to audio books. He plays piano better than any second year piano student I know. And he can scat. I'm not kidding. It's not a public thing yet, but maybe later in life. He struggles with his temper because he is passionate and sensitive like his mama. And he can find clever solutions to problems by thinking outside the box like his daddy. He will sit and draw a picture of dragons during the sermon at church, appearing like he isn't really listening, but then join in the dinner table conversation with spiritual truths he gleaned. And he is quick to forgive. Me, mostly but also his brother and dad. Do you know how beautiful that is? My prayer for Paul is that he would be quicker to forgive himself. We all need that, right?
Here are a few other pics from our celebratory business.
One hundred and eight gel pens from Oma!
These two both helped prepare our house for Paul's party on Saturday. We hung this banner last and they celebrated. Perfect.
Party time! We watched Despicable Me 2 with a great group of people that included church friends, CC friends, and BSF friends.
It's an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. It was his one request and I was SO happy to grant it.
We got Paul this plush Stitch. (We only just recently watched Lilo and Stitch for the first time with the boys.) He rode with us to Denny's this morning for birthday breakfast. They buckled him in on their own. Adorableness.
Grandma and Grandpa gave Paul cool glasses for biking. Paul leaves on his overnight bike trip with Grandpa tomorrow! These have a mirror that clips onto them, allowing Paul to have a rear view mirror of sorts while he rides. So. Cool.
This picture really says it all. He's ten, people. And he's fun and awesome. Clearly.
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
Tithing
I want to apologize in advance for the crassness of this
post. I am going to name actual
amounts of money given and received.
If that is too offensive to you, I’m sorry. But not really.
Get over it!
Erik and I have always given to our church. Sometimes it’s been ten percent. Sometimes it’s been more. I usually write that check. And it hasn’t ever been a thing I was
resentful about or afraid to do.
In fact, it has always given me joy. I am not claiming to be some Super Christian. In fact, I suck in a lot of other
ways. But this is one area where
the Lord has granted me an obedient heart. I am able to joyfully give money to my church. Woot!
So, Erik got laid off about six weeks ago. His former company, as part of the
severance package, agreed to continue to pay him every two weeks for a period
of 8 weeks. I immediately
restructured our budget to plow as much of those paychecks into savings as
possible, not knowing how long our season of unemployment would last. But I didn’t change the tithe
amount. Not one cent. We made the money. We would give some of the money.
However we were out of town the first Sunday I would have
written a tithe check. So, two
paychecks worth had accumulated when it came time to write that puppy. True confessions: For the first time ever, it stung a
little. So, I prayed. And it wasn’t some holy, awesome
prayer, people. It went a lot like
this, “Lord, this stings! And I’m
scared! Help!” I was about to give away $600, an
amount that could feed our family and fill our gas tanks for a month and a
half. Giving was suddenly more
sacrificial than ever before.
Well, I didn’t hear an audible voice in answer, but I knew I
needed to write the check and give the check. So, I did. And
I didn’t give it any thought afterward.
I had peace.
(Sidenote: it helps that we
go to an amazing church filled with folks who love us unconditionally and
remind us of the goodness of the Gospel ALL the time.)
Fast forward a week and a half. Erik had his final sharing night for Bible Study Fellowship
last night. If you don’t know what
that means, think of around 150 men singing a hymn together and then taking
turns sharing with each other about all the amazing things God has done in
their lives over the course of the current year’s study. Since February, Erik has been teaching
this band of brothers from the book of John. Every Monday night, he stood before them and gave them
truths from God’s Word to encourage them, to convict them, and to draw them
closer to their loving Savior, Jesus Christ. It has definitely been a sacrifice of time and energy for
Erik. But he has done it SO
joyfully. I am fairly
certain that it hasn’t stung at all.
In fact, it has been a huge blessing. Because sometimes tithing isn’t just about money. It’s about time. Right? The four hours of lecture preparation each weekend. The two hours on Saturday morning to
lead and train the leaders. The
two hours on Monday night to teach and serve the class members. Joyfully given and abundantly blessed!
Here’s where this story gets incredible to me. At the end of the night last night,
Erik was handed a card from a person who wished to remain anonymous. When he opened it, he found a SUPER
encouraging note and $1400 cash. I
burst into tears and blubbered for a good five minutes when he told me. People, God provides. And tithing is important. I wrote the check for $600 thinking
about groceries and gas money. God
gave us twice that amount and then some.
Wanna know what the “then some” is for? It’s for giving back to Him.
The lessons I learned from this experience: When giving stings, pray. Trust the Lord. And give even when you think it is
going to hurt. Jesus did. He died an excruciatingly painful
death. He gave His life. And it was so worth it. He rose again, conquering sin and
death!
When we give sacrificially we get to experience in a very small way the
sting of dying to self and the joy of being raised to new life. It is the Gospel all over again.
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Here I Raise My Ebenezer
A few weeks ago one of the pastors at my church asked if I would write something to share in an all worship gathering this past Sunday. So, I did. Here it is.
I am a worshipper.
That probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise to those of you who sit
anywhere on this side of the room.
But I also have a secret, quiet, sometimes silent way of worshiping
Jesus that I will be sharing with you today. I love to write.
Producing pages of oft times painfully crafted paragraphs feeds my
soul. Crazy, huh? But because I love it, because God
created me with this passion, I use it to worship Him, to praise Him, to honor
Him. And today He asks me to share
that with you.
Ebenezer. It’s
a weird word. I know I’m not the
only one who immediately thinks of a Christmas story with a crabby old guy.
And I could write a literary essay about his transformation, but I
won’t! I DO need to talk about
this word though because it has more meaning to me in my current season of life. I’ll get there. But first, the weird word.
Ebenezer comes from the Hebrew for stone of help. It was coined by Samuel after God had
helped the Israelites subdue the Philistines at Mizpah. It’s okay if you don’t remember that
time. Just know that the
Philistines were big, scary enemies of God’s people and God had taken care of
that business miraculously. Samuel
wanted the people to remember the place and time when God intervened and saved
them. God had worked in a powerful
way on behalf of His people. And
so a rock, a stone of help, an Ebenezer was set up to remind the people of what
God had done. Okay. I’m going to jump to present day
Portland, OR, but try to keep the Ancient Israelite Ebenezer or Stone of Help
in your head. I’ll get back around
to it.
On March 29th, Erik received an email saying that
the following day 480 folks in his company would be laid off. That’s 38 percent of the workforce. We immediately reached out to our Roots
Family and other believers in our lives, asking for prayer, trusting God to
accomplish His plan for our lives.
The next morning at 7am Erik received the call from his manager letting
him know that he was among those who were no longer employed. And we again immediately texted our
praying friends, letting them know that Erik had indeed been let go by his
company, but not by our gracious, loving God. (That was Erik’s awesome, Holy Spirit-inspired verbiage,
which I immediately stole)
So, after eleven years, his job was just over. He didn’t put on a tie. He didn’t gather his detail bag. He didn’t load up his car. So. Weird.
I won’t lie. We
were a little stunned. Not because
we thought we were immune to such things.
More because we hadn’t really processed all that was involved. Our loss loomed over us like the proverbial
cloud of grief. It wasn’t really
the lack of income that concerned us those first few days. We mourned the job that Erik had loved,
the job the Lord had given to him.
We grieved that the career that brought us to Portland and re-defined
Erik’s professional journey was over.
It was a good job. We would
miss it.
Those first few days really are blurry, filled with that
foggy-headed existence that accompanies grief. Our lives certainly did NOT slow down, but things happened
without our awareness, daily events rolling on, one into the next.
And in the midst of all this, the Body of Christ became so
very real to us.
Two meat packs were purchased by members of our Gospel
Community, their hearts touched by my recent sharing about a Christmas from my
childhood. Nuttelmans and Steeles
– thank you for overflowing our freezer with meat. Every time we sit down to
dinner, we give glory to God and thank Jesus for you.
Our kids were invited to play for long afternoons, allowing
Erik and I to go through the severance package and restructure our budget
without distractions and with as many tears as necessary. Thank you Kemples, Smiths, and Vices
for loving our boys like they are family.
Invitations to dinner were extended and immediately
accepted. Thank you Gleasons and
Smiths. The fellowship alone
blessed our souls but the steak and Swedish meatballs certainly didn’t hurt!
Meals and toilet paper and cereal and snack food arrived at
our home. And when I went to Winco
and only had to spend $40 to feed my family for the week, it was easy for me to
help the young mom in front of me who was going to put back her whole grain
bread and organic yogurt because her WIC benefits hadn’t rolled for the
month. Thank you Smiths, Vices,
and Abarias. You sponsored that
moment at Winco with your generosity and sacrifice.
The Body of Christ is an amazing thing, friends. Up until this moment in our lives we have
always felt loved by our Roots Family.
But this has been the event that has allowed our Roots Family to
physically and financially be the hands, feet, and wallet of Christ to us. (Is it irreverent to say the wallet of
Christ? Too late, I already
did.) And there is something
beautiful about receiving help from the hands of brothers and sisters who love
you unconditionally. We have often
been on the giving end of this equation.
It has been humbling, glorious, horrifying, encouraging, difficult, and
SO, SO good to be on the receiving end of sacrificial giving. A lot like our salvation. I look at the Cross of Christ and
think, “That was too expensive. He
should not have done that. That
price was too high.” And then I
get on my knees and am inexpressibly grateful that He did. I guess what I’m trying to say, Roots,
is that I see a very small, not yet complete but still incredibly beautiful
picture of Jesus Christ in you.
So, now I need to remind you of the weird word. Where does an Ebenezer come into all of
this? Needless to say we began to
see God’s hand of provision and help in almost everything. While on a walk around the block during
that first week, a neighbor and fellow follower of Jesus engaged us in
conversation, challenging us to write down all the Lord had done so far. I totally agreed, knowing that I WANTED to write it all down,
but that I also NEEDED a visual representation, a remembrance and
acknowledgement for our entire family and anyone who entered our home.
God inspired Samuel to place that stone of help so that the
people would remember what He had done.
I wanted to place stones so we would remember, too. I created an Ebenezer wall in our
dining room.
Let me be clear: I am NOT a crafty person. Ask anyone who knows me well about my
gifts and crafty will NOT be on any of their lists. But this did not need to be pinterest worthy. And while creating it that first
Saturday, I knew it was exactly what the Lord wanted. Each stone has a single
act of love and/or provision. Most
of them are from folks with whom we share life, but a few are from strangers
who had no idea how the Lord used them to bless us. He can do that.
He is God.
And the dining room is the perfect place for it. Every time we sit down to eat food we
didn’t purchase or a meal we didn’t prepare, we remember the Lord and all He
has done. Our gratitude to our
loving God overflows, friends.
We are in the midst of a fairly uncertain time. But we are unable to forget God’s great
love for us seen in the person of Jesus Christ and experienced more than ever
through our brothers and sisters in Him.
It is not a road I would have picked, but I am glad He brought us to it
if for no other reason than it has set me here in this place, a place of our
weakness and His strength, our privation and His provision, our want and His
willingness. This is where I stand
and this is where I give Him glory.
This is where I worship.
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