A Dozen Years With Luke

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.

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.

 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.

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. 

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 29^th, 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.