Sermon: Why Go to Church?

Greatest Fear [ ] Wildest Dreams

I like to think of myself as a pretty intelligent person. Not mathematical genius status like Mary there, but intelligent none the less. I make wise and logical choices for myself and my family. I can give advice to others that is practical and can help them reach their goals.

Knowledge is a funny thing though. It can only get us so far. Too often in life, we can believe with our whole hearts that we are doing the right thing. That our words and our actions are the best they can be. We can obey, follow the rules, and never upset the status quo. We work well with clear boundaries sometimes. Yet, as Christians, those who are seeking to LIVE Christ-centered lives, our lives should look a lot less “right” in the world’s eyes, because we are learning to live by faith.

Jesus broke down barriers, he crossed lines, disregarded tradition, threw away most conventional thinking about God and, as a result, change lives like no one else. They were not prepared for Him, and sometimes we aren’t either.

Because living a life of Faith is living in that that sliver of space between our greatest fears and our wildest dreams. Between living in regret and living beyond anything you could have imagined for ourselves. Between hiding and authenticity.

Our greatest fears…Our wildest dreams….. We are to live right here…in a life of faith.

Scripture, long before Jesus was even known on the earth, told us that this was what God intended.

61 The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
    to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and release to the prisoners;
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
    to comfort all who mourn;
3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
    to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    the planting of the Lord, to display his glory. 

Isaiah 61: 1-3

In our prayer statement, we say the words “Learning to live Christ-centered lives.” Learning is the key word here.  As I talk about living a life of faith, we have to be careful that we aren’t just jumping off cliffs and asking God to catch us. Living a life of faith does require getting to know the character of God and being in tune to those ideas that are faithful versus the ideas that are just plain dumb. At Hope Church, our small groups are where that learning happens. Through theological thought and conversation, we gain a deeper understanding of what being faithful can look like, and if theological thought and conversation sounds too complicated. It’s getting together with a group of people and sharing life. and As we share life, we end up witnessing the faith of others, which can be the very best teacher. Anyone can tell you how to live a life of faith, can tell you the rules of life as they see them. but what makes a difference is when you see someone live it out.

In my faith life, as I strive to be more Christ-centered each day, I find myself not driven towards the logical and practical, but towards choices that make me, and those around me a little less comfortable. Choices that require faith. Choices that cause logic... everything in me to say, "Get as far away from this pain as possible. Run." Faith says, "Draw near. Get in the sliver of faith and see what God is doing here." It's not an accident that these choices have been put in my path, that these choices have entered my life. 

Coming out, quitting a job, adopting, moving in, moving on, speaking out, taking the next step requires some part of us to believe that we will not only survive, but that things may actually be better, freer, more hopeful on the other side.

Remaining hidden…Living in absolute authenticity. That takes faith to cross over from fear to hope.

Sharing the story of your deepest rejection or pain, making yourself vulnerable in order to educate another or encourage them. It doesn’t make sense. It requires faith.

Placing our hearts in front of others not knowing if they will remain intact or be broken…. finding your experience is an inspiration that saves another’s life. That takes faith.

Adopting a child from across town or around the world makes no sense. Taking a child into your home with someone else’s DNA and raising them as your flesh and blood requires faith. It disrupts your entire life, your entire family. It’s not logical. Your heart can be broken…. or you can change the trajectory of a human being’s life. We must live in that sliver of faith.

Interrupting our lives to help others, whether that means postponing your yard work to be available to a friend, being late to a lunch date to help someone change a tire, or even just stopping briefly to see if you can help a stranger on the street who looks lost or in distress.

The choices that we make out of faith are often the riskiest, most wonderful choices we will ever make. They make us second-guess ourselves. They require our whole hearts, and in the end, they turn out to be some of the choices that make our lives worth living. And if you haven’t gotten there yet, if you haven’t yet gotten to the hope and the joy…your wildest dreams, then it isn’t the end. Keep going.

Living a life of faith, whether that comes from a Messiah named Jesus or not, allows us to go beyond practicality and venture into the realm of the impossible. If we make our faith about facts and rules and requirements, we’ve missed the point. I venture to say that anyone who tells you they have it all figured out, or they know the one and only way, or that you have gone so far out of the boundaries that you are no longer acceptable, lovable or correct. They have missed what is incredible about faith. A life of faith is about hope, joy and possibility. It’s trusting that it might all just work out.

In Gifted, 7 year-old Mary is being raised by Uncle Frank in a dirty little cottage by the beach where he fixes boats for a living. We later find out that Frank gave up a career in academia in order to raise this little girl as he thought his sister would have wanted her raised. Now he may not have called his choice faithful, but in order to make that choice, he had to have some inkling that it might turn out alright. It might even be what is actually the best. That there was some possibility that his illogical choices may actually be correct.

There was opposition for sure. That is the part that makes us second-guess ourselves.  

To Mary’s wealthy grandmother, this simple life on the beach is a waste of little Mary’s life. To be fair, Mary is technically a genius, a mathematical prodigy, as is her wealthy grandmother, as was her mother. While her grandmother was unable to make history by solving one of the seven unsolved “Millennium Prize Problems” in her lifetime, she was sure that Mary, if trained properly, had what it took and should live a life devoted to mathematics. The grandmother sought to live her dream through this little girl, whereas Uncle Frank was willing to give up his own dreams in order to help Mary live into her own wildest dreams.

Heart-break causes us to second guess ourselves. Rejection by family, failed adoptions, being told we are wrong can all make us want to crawl back into the security of the lives that we are used to, the lives of logic and practicality, but what about our wildest dreams? What about our greatest hopes?

Intellect was big currency in little Mary’s family. Frank decided to give up everything comfortable and even risk his relationship with his family in order to change the currency to one of love and faith. He didn’t do this by teaching, he did this by living.

In the end, he finds a beautiful balance for Mary where her mathematical gifts continue to be developed while at the same time she is available to make crafts and play at the park with her girl scout troop after school. This balance, this well-rounded life that both honors Mary’s incredible gifts and yet assures her that life is about so much more than simply her gifts, is only found by being willing to venture into that sliver of faith between our greatest fears and our wildest dreams.

May the currency in our lives, the priorities, the values, reflect a life of love and hope that we might live into our wildest dreams. 

Sermon: Fear of Rejection

My incredibly precious husband was so eager to hear me share the message, that he forgot to begin the video right away. You only missed a little bit. The full text is below. 

What a gift it is to be called to share words of grace and hope with the world. I am honored.

Cara

March 26, 2017

We are in the middle of a sermon series called, “Name Your Fears,” where we have been exploring common fears. Regardless of what the topic has been each week, (fear of failure, fear of being alone, fear of church, fear of money) we have consistently discovered that there is power in acknowledging our fears and calling them out. While our tendencies may be to avoid thinking about the things we fear, we are empowered in the process of identifying and overcoming the fears that hold us back from peace and wholeness.

There is a quote that I remind myself of often, and it says, “Of the things we choose to worry about half never happen, and the other half we can handle.” 

As I was searching for the original author of this line, I came to find out that many wise folk have said similar things. 

In fact, five hundred years ago, Michel de Montaigne said, “My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.” 

There has even been a research study done that looked into how many of our imagined calamities never materialize. In this study, subjects were asked to write down their worries over an extended period of time and then identify which of their imagined misfortunes did not actually occur.

Sounds like an interesting practice to me. Imagine if we began identifying our fears, writing them down when they come to mind, and then look back on our list in hind-sight.

It turned out that in the study, 85 percent of what people worried about never happened, and with the 15 percent that did happen, almost all of the subjects discovered either they could handle the difficulty better than expected, or the difficulty taught them a lesson worth learning. This means that 97 percent of what you worry over is not much more than a fearful mind punishing you with exaggerations and misconceptions.

So, there is perspective in that, I believe. We are capable of much more than we give ourselves credit for. 

Though our fears aren’t based on anything concrete, they can affect us physically. Each time a fear crosses our mind, our heart may race, our awareness is heightened and our defense mechanisms are activated. Fight, Flight or Freeze…our bodies are ready. 

So, this week, the Fear of Rejection. Most of us have been rejected at some point in our lives. There is no way around it. Relationships end, you are turned down for the job, you are judged unfairly by someone else. You’re picked last for the kickball game, you’re not in the club. It happens. 

And just like our other fears, we worry about being rejected more than we are actually rejected, and in those cases of being rejected, it typically turns out that we do make it through the heart-ache better than we expected.

Sometimes, rejection can even end up being a motivator for us. If we disagree with the other person’s assessment of us, we can go out of our way to work harder and prove them wrong. There are countless success stories which follow that exact story line. A simple Google search turns up “35 Famous People Who Were Painfully Rejected Before Making it Big,” including Walt Disney, Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Seinfeld, JK Rowling, Madonna….the list goes on. 

Too often, though, we simply agree with the person’s evaluation of us and we go on with life carrying a feeling of inferiority or of being "damaged goods.”

Even when we know on a cognitive level that that they are wrong, we allow their rejection to confirm our worst fear — perhaps that we ARE unlovable, that we ARE destined to be alone, or that we are not worthy of goodness and success in life. 

At the core of rejection is a spiritual issue. And the spiritual issue is that until you are right with God, until you understand that you are loved apart from anything of this earth, you will always maintain your fear. Because if people who are supposed to love us can reject us, then what is stopping God from doing the same? 

The answer to that question is “grace.” In the Methodist Church, we believe in God’s prevenient grace, a grace the “goes before.” A forgiveness, an acceptance, an unconditional love that is freely given to you before you do a single thing. It’s a grace that goes before anything you have ever done. It’s a grace that goes before anything that has ever been done to you. It’s a grace that goes before any of the hurtful, demeaning words that have ever been said to you or about you.

What stops God from rejecting us? It’s God’s grace.

Romans 5 “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ….

And how are we justified? How are we made right to have that peace? While we were weak, while we were yet sinners, when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready...at the right time, Christ died for us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

What about the times when we are the rejecters? When we reject the things that are happening to us in life. We fight with all that is in us to control our circumstances, to change the things that, if we are honest, we have no control over. 

Again, we’re faced with a spiritual issue. Until we can view our lives through the eyes of God, we are only able to see that which is right in front of us. We are looking at a single puzzle piece, when God can see the entire picture. We judge the parts that we see as good or bad, and when the bad outweighs the good, we reject it. We reject the day, we reject the year, we throw it all out as bad. 

How many people do you see do this at the end of each year? “Oh, 2016, that was an awful year. I can’t wait for 2017.” As if on January 1st, something is going to magically change, or as if no good actually occurred in 2016. Life is made up of both. 

Anyone here watch the show, “This is Us?” Oh, love that show. That’s a good thing that happened in 2016. On the after show, Chris Sullivan, the actor who plays Toby was talking about relationships, and he said, “You share the joy…and the pain. The only way to true connection is through the second part. There’s not much to learn from pure joy, you just experience it.”

I want to share with you a story about a man who was able to see more than the single puzzle piece that was his life.

There once was a wise man who won an expensive car in a lottery. His family and his friends were very happy for him and came to celebrate. “Isn’t it great!” they said. “You are so lucky.” The man smiled and said, “Maybe.” For a few weeks he enjoyed driving the car. Then one day a drunken driver crashed into his new car at an intersection and he ended up in the hospital, with multiple injuries. His family and friends came to see him and said, “That was really unfortunate.” Again, the man smiled and said, “Maybe.” While he was still in the hospital, one night there was a landslide and his house fell into the sea. Again his friends came the next day and said, “Weren’t you lucky to have been here in the hospital?” Again he said, “Maybe.” (A New Earth, By Eckhart Tolle)

This man could have won the car and been ecstatic, viewing his life as good. But if it weren’t for winning that car, he could have avoided the devastating accident that left him injured and viewing his circumstances as bad. Of course, if he hadn’t been in the hospital, he would have suffered a much worse fate when his house fell to the sea. 

He was able to live into the events of his life, not embracing them or rejecting them as they came, but simply experiencing them and accepting each without judgement.

We know the joy in life, we appreciate the joy, because we have experienced pain. We resist discomfort with all our might, but we also learn and grow from it. 

I have a friend who prays deep, incredible prayers. Being with her in prayer makes you feel God’s presence in an incredible way, and I want to pray like her. I want to feel God in that way when I speak to him. Then, I consider her life. I reflect on the events that gave her the opportunities to cry out to God with no filter and bare her soul to God because she had no other choice. She let God have it as she fought against events in her life, and it was only on the other side of that raging against God, that she found herself still safe, in the loving embrace of God’s grace, that she was able to talk so personally to her Creator. 

How can we possibly accept the parts of our lives that devastate us? 

As we learn to live Christ-centered lives, we hurt, we grieve, we take it out on God, and at the right time, we move forward in hope. 

I don’t want to step over the process of grief, here. It is not spiritual or admirable to pretend that all is well. It is not healthy to hide or try to fight despair. Just as we can’t stop tragedy from entering our lives, we cannot stop the natural process of grieving from take place. We must allow it to have its time. We give grief the time to sit in our lives as long as is needed. And when we are ready, we move towards healing, with hope.

Romans 5:3-5 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

God’s hope does not disappoint us. 

Let us pray.

A Look Back on Uganda Message

June 28, 2015
Two months after returning form our year in Uganda, I was able to share with our church family a little of what that time was like and how God did incredible work in each of our family member's lives.
Have a listen.

One Day Message at Hope Church

For the past several weeks we have been in a sermon series called, “One Day.” Members of our church have reflected on stories in the Bible where profound things seemed to occur after the phrase “one day”. It’s been such a gift to hear, in each story shared, how it’s also in our present-day lives that God can do profound things with just a single day.

Unfortunately, I am going to break the rules today. I tried, I really did. I tried to come up with just one day, but I couldn’t.

I don’t have one specific day when God spoke to me. I don’t have one day when I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I don’t have one day when things had been one way, and the next day they were different…end of story.

My life has been a series of “One Days", and your's probably has been, too.

A journey of being carried by God before I would have ever given God credit, of being given gifts from God that I surely didn’t deserve, and of seeking God with all of my heart.

So, I won’t exactly follow the rules, but at least I will start out the right way…

One Day, I boarded an airplane at O’Hare International Airport that would take me to Brussels, and then to Uganda, Africa to live for one year with my husband and 6 children. I have never had a heart for travel, and still don’t, but one day, about five years prior to boarding that plane, I was reading about missionaries, and my heart began doing strange things. As I read about people who gave up so much to move to places that were unfamiliar and do great things, the voice in my head kept saying that I could be one of those people, too. No matter how much I argued with myself, my heart kept assuring me that everyone one of those people were just regular-ole people who were willing to live out their faith for real. There was an inkling in my heart that God was up to something, but I had yet to learn how to listen.

You see, one day, about eight years prior to reading about missionaries, when I was finishing up my elementary education degree at ISU, I was required to observe for 4 weeks in a classroom. I requested an early education classroom just as I had dreamt of teaching my whole life, and I expected to get just that. There was no thought in my mind of God having a plan for my life, let alone a plan different from mine. I had my own goals and my own plans, and I honestly thought that if I could just work hard enough and make the right choices, that all would go my way. (Thank God I am COMPLETELY over that. ;-) ) You can imagine then, my frustration as I walked into the first day of that observation, not assigned to the kindergarten or 1^st grade classroom that I wanted, but to a SIXTH GRADE CLASSROOM…have you met any sixth graders lately?!?...and they were all going to be taller than me!?! I couldn’t believe it.

And as if that weren’t bad enough, the teacher of that classroom was this absolutely ridiculous guy. It was awful. There wasn’t a chance that I was going to learn anything about teaching from these 4 weeks. Or so I thought. I had no idea that God was giving me one of the greatest gifts of my life before I ever would have even thought to give Him credit for it.

Dave:

Little did I know, the one day that I was assigned an ISU student to observe in my 6^th grade classroom for 4 weeks, was the day that I met the woman who would become my wife. Not only did she end up loving the 6^th graders, despite the fact that they were taller than her, but she eventually ended up liking me, too. When Cara and I began dating, she told me that she was going to change the world, and that if I wasn’t up for the adventure, then we probably shouldn’t bother even dating. I had no idea what she really meant by that, but it sounded fun, and I thought she was cute, so I agreed. In our first year of marriage, we bought a house, moved, and brought our first child home from the hospital. We also racked up thousands of dollars’ worth of debt. There was no thought of listening for God’s plan or asking for God’s input. We were doing this crazy-life-thing just fine on our own.

We were going to church, and we considered ourselves Christians, but what did that even mean? We just had to be good, right? We were nice people, and we did good deeds, so we were in.

There was no talk at this time of God being present in our daily lives. We knew God loved us and we thought that was great, but I had a plan, and it was full speed ahead.

We brought our first child home from the hospital two days before our first anniversary, had our second 20 months later, and our third just a short time after that.

We bought into the lie that everyone lived in debt, so even though there were more bills than money, we saw no reason to stop buying things. After all, we weren’t buying bad things. We were buying things that we deserved, right, for all the hard work and good things we were doing.

Dave was teaching full-time, I was running a home daycare, we were raising 3 little ones, leading vacation Bible School, teaching Sunday school, volunteering on committees…we were involved and we were busy. Because being busy with good things seemed honorable, we never hesitated, or thought to consult God on any of our choices.

 A friend of ours became a foster mom, and we thought, “Hey, that sounds like fun!” So we also began the process to become foster parents.  That friend of ours was a young, single woman, and as it became clear that the children she was caring for would need a forever family, Dave and I told her we were interested, and we began preparing our lives for the addition of 3 more kids. Full speed ahead.

Our “one days” in that season were all a big blur. They were great in a million ways, but my heart jumped back and forth between excitement over all of the big decisions and absolute terror about how we could possibly keep all of this on track. Even when things were going smoothly, I was white-knuckling it, knowing at any moment it could all fall apart.

Then came the season when I thought it was.

The children who we had been transitioning into life at our house, could no longer be adopted by us. It didn’t matter that their bedrooms were all set up at our house. It didn’t matter that they were registered for school or had gone on trips already with our extended family. These children, who in my heart were already mine, wouldn’t never truly be.

I was beside myself. Not my finest moments. I was broken and mad. I had absolutely no way of knowing how God was actually carrying me through this season. I had no idea how God would redeem our family. I was just broken.

But, life had to go on, right, so I did what I knew how to do best, I busied myself with other things. As long as I was moving at full-speed, there was no time to process those feelings.

Except that I was in a small group at the time, and these people didn’t let me get away with anything less that authenticity. Each week, as we met, they spoke truth to me…truth that I often didn’t want to hear. They told me I was doing too much. They told me that I didn’t seem as happy and I wanted everyone to think that I was.

One Day, my dear small group friend asked me some questions, and answering them honestly made my whole life stop moving.

“How would God feel about you if you didn’t do anything other than sit at His feet and love Him?      

 If you couldn’t do a single thing for God, would you be worth loving?”

I knew the right answer. I knew God would love me no matter what, but doing nothing was so foreign. My purpose and my identity were all wrapped up in what I did. I knew it would take time to live into the truth of the answers, so I began practicing.

Instead of squeezing as many of my own ideas into my prayers, I simply sat. In the brief moments when all of my daycare kids were napping, I took that time to listen to that feeling in my heart, that voice in my head. Once I took the time to listen, I came to understand that sometimes that feeling was me, and my own ideas, but other times, it was God. God would place a persistent feeling on my heart, and I couldn’t make it go away. God would encourage me and bring truths to my mind exactly when I needed them, and, in my human-ness, I would roll my eyes and disagree. I felt this battle occurring within myself, but as much as I wanted to, I didn’t fully understand it.

One of those crazy truths that came to mind and wouldn’t go away, was that we needed to make some major life changes. We needed to clear our schedule, focus on our immediate family, and get in a healthy place before we could do any good in the world for God or for anyone else. If I wanted to change the world, even just my own little corner of it, as I told Dave when we were dating, I needed to find my identity in something bigger than just being busy.

It sounded torturous. This truth wouldn’t go away though, so I mentioned the idea to Dave. “What if we stepped down from every commitment besides our family and our jobs? What if we just quit everything and focused on our family?”

I don’t know how, but Dave didn’t think I was crazy…that’s the other bizarre thing about God’s ideas, God makes other people think they’re good, too!

After some discussion, we decided to give God one year. God had one year, and not a day more, for us to sit at His feet, to love Him, to study His word, and to listen to Him. We would call it “The Year of No Crazy.” 

Yes, it had a name.

The rules were:

No big life decisions

No large purchases

No kids’ activities

No evening commitments

More time growing our faith

More time focusing on making our own family the best we could possibly be together.

It was probably about a day or two into this year-long commitment that I ran to one of my small group friends with a list of things that I was absolutely certain that God wanted me to do…to busy myself with. She simply shook her head at me and said, “If you have given God this year, then God will honor that. Trust that God will honor this time.”

She challenged me to write down all of the things that I was certain God was calling me to do during our year, and if it truly was from God, then I could do them when the year was over.

This led me to a season of learning to discern my own thoughts and ideas from God’s voice. It took work to try to tell them apart, and I had to know God better in order to be able to tell if something was truly coming from Him. So, I kept plugging along in my year. I read my Bible all the way through for the first time in my life, listened to Christian radio, and read Christian books to gain a better understanding of who the Bible says God is, and how the life experiences of others have shaped their view of who God is.

Some of those books were about mission work that was being done in Africa. The word missionary always sounded so professional to me, but these stories were really just about regular people who couldn’t shake the feeling that God had something for them to do in another country, so they listened. They didn’t dedicate their lives to mission as a personal choice, but because they couldn’t live out their faith authentically without obeying this call.

Then, One Day, 2 months before our Year of No Crazy was over, I received a call from the foster care agency. A family we didn’t know was going on vacation, and they needed someone to watch their 3 foster children for one week. Could we possibly take them just for that week?

It was just a week. It wasn’t a major life decision. They were 3, 4, and 5 years-old, just about the same ages as our biological kids, so it wouldn’t be a hassle. Dave and I had grown so much in the 10 months of no crazy. We talked about whether it would be good for us to watch these children, and we prayed. We asked God for His input on the decision. We took it slow.

Everything in us felt that it was right to do, so we agreed.

We had a cookout with the family so the kids would know us prior to spending a week with us, and although I had always taken the lead in our foster care journey to this point, Dave knew instantly upon meeting the 4 year-old girl, Halie, that she was meant to be his daughter. He couldn’t shake the feeling. I was so glad that we had made room in our lives to listen for God.

The week was wonderful with the children, and with that persistent feeling in Dave’s heart, we inquired about the children’s situation. Wouldn’t you know it, the kids were about to be eligible for adoption, and they were most likely going to be split up because there wasn’t a home open for all 3 of them.

More discussion. More conversations with our small group friends. More prayer.

One month shy of the end of The Year of No Crazy, Brice, Halie and Jasmine moved into their forever home. A year later, they would officially become McMorrises.

Should we have waited until that year was over? Would God have honored that time if we waited to move forward. Yes. I believe whole-heartedly that He would have.

But I also had come to know how deep God’s understanding of my heart was. I had been in conversation enough with God to discern His voice from distractions. I knew in my heart that God was saying, “Go for it. These are your children.”

We ended our year of no crazy with 3 additional children, a deeper understanding of our God, and the gift of a blank slate on which to build a life not filled with good things, but a life filled only with the great things that God has planned for us.

If you had all day, I could go on and on about the adventure that our life since the Year of No Crazy has been. I would assure you that God’s plans for our lives are so much cooler than even my best plans.

I would also warn you that you can’t go back. Once you have trained yourself to listen for God’s voice, you can’t ignore Him when he says things like…

That money that you are spending is mine. Being in Debt is not where I call you to be. You can do better with what I have given you. When we heard that, we learned to live more simply, and in less than 2 years, paid off over $50,000 worth of debt.

Then, in a crazy set of circumstances that we would have ignored for sure had we not been tuned in to the voice of God, we shared some sack lunches with strangers around town and were led to a community of people who lived in tents. That day of sharing sandwiches led to a 2 year focus on deep, authentic relationships with a rag-tag group of people who were homeless. It led to the greatest Thanksgiving dinners that were ever shared around our table, and the fullest house as we opened presents with our kids on Christmas mornings.

In the midst of that, God placed Uganda, Africa on my heart. I have never had a heart for travel, and still don’t, but God said that He had some things for do there, and we knew well enough to obey.

So, One Day, I boarded an airplane at O’Hare International Airport that would take me to Brussels, and then to Uganda, Africa to live for one year with my husband and 6 children.

But those are stories for another…One Day.

My Life As Clay

I am just as guilty as the next guy, of asking kids incessantly, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” While I have spent my 35 3/4 years on earth searching for a clear understanding of the one thing that I am to be, I am realizing how misleading that question truly is. For there is not one thing to be, but many things that God may call us to do, often with different titles. 

Instead of being a created once from a slab of clay into a single vessel with a single purpose, I have reached a point where I am coming to understand that I haven’t so much been made, as I am continually being made and re-shaped by God. 

I am a continuing creation. I am squishy clay in my Father’s hands, more than a solid, permanent vessel. In my squishiness, I am able to give my life freely to Him and allow Him to shape it for His many purposes for my life, all of which are His divine calling for me. So, although my vocational titles have changed throughout my life, my purpose has not. I am to allow God to create me and my life.

In my younger years, I was what you might call a "quitter". I begged to be in dance class, and then complained and quit after a few weeks. I joined band, but never saw a concert. (Unless that epic jam session on my friend Crystal's back porch the day we got our clarinet and flute counts.) If you combined the time that I spent in volleyball and track, then it might add up to a complete season. I could go on and on.

Thankfully, I had a mom who either a) saw my deep wisdom in trying many things in order to find my gifts, or b) knew it was pointless to argue with her passionate, emotional, vocal, headstrong daughter and prayed I'd turn out alright. Whichever it was, my mom had the wisdom to accept this part of me. Even as a I went through boyfriends quicker than I care to admit, my mom would always says, "It's good. You are just figuring out what you want in life." I pray for this type of wisdom in parenting my own children.

There is a distinct moment in my life as a high-school student when I stood next to my mother in worship singing the song, “Here I am Lord”. For the first time in my life, that song became the prayer of my heart rather than simply lyrics that I echoed. I had heard God calling me to surrender my life. I had felt God and seen evidence in my life of how He had rescued me and carried me through tough situations, protecting me all the while. In high school, as I explored my own personal faith, and as I grew to understand more of the character of God, I always knew it was Him who was calling me and carrying me.

So, as I stood and sang those words, “I will  go, Lord. Where you lead me,” my life was different. My purpose was to follow, to be led. I didn’t have a picture of my future, I didn’t know what lay ahead, but I knew that  the safest place to be was in the center of God’s will for my life. So, I followed.

First, I followed to Illinois State University, where I earned a degree that enabled me to become an elementary school teacher. I had always felt that I was born to be a teacher, that God had molded me to be just that. I had been so inspired by teachers in my life, and I felt a call to pour into the lives of others. I recognized the passion and gift that I had been given to work with children, and it all made perfect sense. 

God made me to be a teacher.

Until there wasn’t a position for me my second year of teaching and I was in a position to figure out my next step in life. With my husband and 9-year old step-daughter, we decided it was time to begin growing our family, and God led me beautifully into a career as home daycare provider. Not only could I be home to raise my own children, but I was able to teach pre-school to the other children in my care and pour into their families. It was an occupation and a ministry, and once again, I felt that I had arrived at my life’s purpose. I was created, molded, made to be a teacher, but for pre-school children and in my own home.

God made me to be a daycare provider.

And then, after 10 years in that profession, 2 more biological children, several foster children, and eventually 3 adopted children, God began calling my heart again, and this time He was met with some questions. I felt like I was back at step one, squishy, unformed clay rather than a purposefully formed vessel.

God, have I been hearing you wrong?

Why am I not staying where I feel you call me?

What did you make me to be?

Living in those questions, I sought hard after God. I studied, I read, I listened. I took classes and joined in discussions. I thought if I just knew Him better, I would finally figure out my calling.

Within that time, God began placing bread crumbs in my reading and studying that led me to explore the possibility of missional life, including life in a third-world country. This call could not have felt more out of place, but once again, I knew I must follow where He led me. Talk about being squishy clay in the Potter’s hand! We had no clue how this would happen or what it would look like logistically, but following step-by-step led to an incredible journey where God used us, stretched us and changed us. In that setting our purpose was clear as we served and lived.

God made me to be a missionary. 

Well, that is, until it was clear that our time would be limited to one year.

I returned home, once again unsure of my purpose, feeling like I had been wrong all along. As friends neared the 15 year mark in their steady careers, I was moving on once again.

Once again, there I sat, squishy clay; unformed, unmade, wondering what God was creating and begging Him to get it done with already.

That was almost a year ago, and now, as God has placed seminary on my heart, I have had even more questions for Him. I don’t yet know where this journey will lead me vocationally, or what it will look like to be a student as well as a wife and mother, but I know it will be used.

God doesn't waste a thing. He has used every single part of my journey to grow me and prepare me for the next thing. He has used it all to bless me, to give me perspective, and to show me my deep need for Him.

As I look around from where I stand now, I realize though, that I am not simply a squishy ball of clay. What has looked and felt disjointed to me, has been my calling all along. To follow, to learn, to grow, and to be ready to follow God wherever it is that He calls me next.

I may never celebrate more than 10 years in a single career, but I pray to have the same faith and wisdom that my mom had with me as a child.

Settling in

One more week of summer left, and what a summer it has been!

In the past year, we have had some of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. We had no idea that coming home would be more emotional and unsettling than moving to Uganda, but we are continuing to survive and grow through this season of life.

April and May were a blur as we quickly came back, stayed at friends' homes for several weeks, and let the kids be a part of the last month of school here. Going back to school was a wonderful chance for them to reconnect with friends and have a sense of routine during an huge transition phase of our lives, but it was also tricky. While we were in Uganda, Chloe missed 6th grade, her first year of junior high. It was a big year for all of her friends, and although I keep reassuring her that she grew in ways that are so different from her friends, she feels left behind. This makes our preparation for 7th grade that much harder. She keeps saying that since she felt so unprepared last time, she wants to be over-prepared going into this year. I don't know how to help her understand that nothing ever goes as planned, and we always need to be ready for the unexpected. I don't know how to help her because this is also a lesson that God is continually trying to teach me. He is in control and I am not.

The other kids are doing great and cannot wait to get back to seeing all of their friends every day. Although we are still more emotional than usual, we are seeing less and less tears every day. Just last week, Brice came running in from playing outside and sobbing, said, "Mom, can you get me a picture of Oreo? I miss him and want to see a picture." I hugged him and said, "Of course we can!" Then, after he calmed down, I had to ask, "Who the heck is Oreo?" Evidently, one of our many chickens in Uganda was special to Brice and received a name. I had no idea. We did find a picture though and all is well in Brice's world. These are the kinds of things that there is simply no preparation for.

 After searching through thousands of pictures, I am now fully aware that THIS is Oreo. Both as a baby and all grown up. Brice is wearing the same shirt in both pictures, but look how much longer his hair is in the second! Too funny!

June and July were spent moving all of our possession back into our house, replacing our 10 year old, daycare and child stained carpet, and painting. It was a gift to have a fresh, new look to start this next season of life, but moving back in was harder than we expected. There were simply more decisions that needed to be made than I was capable of making. Things that should have been simple, felt so hard. It's like we had forgotten how to do life here in this house, this house that used to represent all things comfortable and familiar to us. Dave and I had our fair share of heated discussions over important things like, "In which cabinet or drawer do we keep the ziploc bags?" and "Do the pots go under the oven on in a cabinet?" Everything was harder than it should have been and our emotions, fears, and insecurities were all so close to the surface.

The best thing that we did for those month was see a marriage counselor. Although he didn't necessarily have any brilliant advice or solutions, the counselor did provide accountability that we desperately needed. If I was nasty and impatient and lashed out at Dave on Monday, I knew I would have to admit that and ask forgiveness on Wednesday. Nothing was going to be brushed under the rug. It caused us to be more intentional in our communication and to not feel the need to fight until we had a solution. We knew we could talk things out in counseling with a mediator. It gave us time to set issues aside and not feel rushed into finding a solution.

People who have been married a long time always say that they have their ups and downs, and our marriage hasn't been perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we have never had a season in our marriage that was as low as it was this summer. It was terrifying. We had gone from a couple who loved each other and were best of friends to people who didn't feel like we liked each other at all. We were both unhappy, and it was a very dark time.

I am thankful for the strength of our commitment and the bold faith that allows us to know God brought us together for His purpose, and that He is the one who carries us through the dark times. Knowing this enabled us to see it as a temporary problem and trust that peace would be restored eventually, no matter how far-fetched that seemed at the time. God wasn't absent during this, just like he wasn't absent when we had our struggles in Uganda. He was allowing us to cling to Him and trust in His plan above our own.

I am over-joyed to say that we are out of that place. Dave and I are back to a good place in our marriage. We love each other so much, and we even like each other every day, which sometimes is harder. We were given each other as a gift. We were brought together for a purpose. We will never deny that God knew what He was doing, nor will we stop trusting that He has more for us to accomplish and experience together in this life.

So, now, with a new school year upon us, we are all looking forward to the routine and purposefulness of doing mission work here, in our everyday American lives. Through the good and the bad, we have been changed, and we pray that our lives reflect that. We pray that we will give God the control over all of our days and that we use them to bring glory to Him in all that we say and do.

Our current mission fields include:

• Our home and family as we learn to be as holy at home and with each other as we try to be out in the world
• Our friends and family, in the U.S. and in Uganda, may we be open and available to love and serve them as God leads
• Cara's new pre-school in our home 3 mornings per week
• Parkside Junior High and all who Chloe will impact during her 7th grade year as well as Dave's 6th grade classroom and the 90+ students on his team
• Prairieland and Carter's 5th grade class, Halie and Brice's 4th grade classes, Wren's 3rd grade class, and Jasmine's 2nd grade class.