Posted in Living this Life

That old car

Posted on by Sara

I was just running errands.

I was on my way from Walmart to Taco Bell, to be precise. My Taco Bell lunch order was set, the boys were waiting at home, and I just needed to swing through the drive through, pick up their grilled cheese burritos and be on my way.

But my boys never got their grilled cheese burriots. I never made it to Taco Bell. I ended up screeching over the sidewalk and coming face to face with our Scooter’s sign instead. I didn’t expect my day to go this way when that guy turned into my vehicle as I was just cruising on down main street. I was unhurt – and the Scooter sign was unharmed as well. All in all – it could have been much worse.

But the car … that old car that has carried us more miles than I can count. That old car was not fine. This story isn’t really about someone hitting me while I was on my way to Taco Bell. This story is about that old car.

That 23 year old car with 265,000 miles on it. When we got the call from the insurance company that they were totalling the vehicle, we weren’t surprised.

A couple days later, as we went to clean it out so they could haul it away, I found myself unexpectedly tearful. We grew up in that car – our life as a family was built in that car … and it may just be earth-stuff, but it held alot of memories.

In those heart palpitating moments following the discovery that I was carrying our first child … we realized we needed a “family car”- one that would be safe, dependable, and have room for all the gear that comes with children. A “grown up” car. This was it – and we were elated when we found it.

Each of our 3 children came home from the hospital in this car when they were born. I think of that holy space – filled with such awe, wonder, terror, curiosity, insecurity… and all the times God came through in their lives (and ours).

While cleaning out the car one last time, I found this petrified chicken nugget under a seat and chuckled as I thought of all those drives throughout this country and the rich memories, sibling squabbles, loud music, Veggietale videos, and answered prayers that we experienced while fueled by chicken nuggets and coffee.

There’s the armrest my restless son peeled away on one of those drives that would never end..

There’s our 2015 parking pass for our favorite amusement park – a place that has been a thread of continuity in our lives since before we were married..

There’s the spot under our car that got ripped up by a stray “rez dog” when we lived in Arizona – his nick name “Butcher the meat eater” fit him well, and one day he decided to see what “meat” he could find tucked in that space under our car. (it may have had something to do with a bird we hit earlier that day … I can’t blame him that much, after all)

Then I see this – the sticker that has marked our family for decades: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”… and I marvel at the over-arching banner of the goodness of God.

Because the whole time I’m going through this beautiful old car, the song on repeat in my head declares this truth: “all my life you have been faithful. All my life you have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God”.

Let’s be honest – not everything feels good. In the midst of all the beautiful memories also came the flood of those tearful, fearful moments. There was the drive home from the doctor’s visit where we were told that our baby (in utero) had “anomolies” and they didn’t have answers for his future (or ours).

There was the day after he was born when we were told he would need surgery at 3 days old – and we had decisons to make that we didn’t know how to make. We retreated to the only safe and familiar space we knew – this car – and we sat and cried out to God for help.

There was the late night race to the hospital while holding my son years later while he was in respiratory distress and having a seizure… crying out again to God for his life.

There were long drives in painful silence – so filled with anxiety and confusion and discouragement that we didn’t even know how to talk to each other. Looking back, I see how God was there in the middle, holding each of us together – even when we couldn’t see it at the time.

As I write the words, the memories keep flooding, piling up on each other like a torrent. I won’t take you down every trail with me, as I think we all have more to do with our day than just camp in my memories. But my eyes fill with tears as I sit here in wonder.

Yesterday I read these words in God’s Book:

“In a desert land He found him,
    in a barren and howling waste.
He shielded him and cared for him;
    He guarded him as the apple of His eye,
like an eagle that stirs up its nest
    and hovers over its young,
that spreads its wings to catch them
    and carries them aloft.
The Lord alone led him…” Deuteronomy 32:10-12

I was sad to say goodbye to this old car – but more than that, I was overwhelmed by the story it told.

It is a story of God’s faithfulness in the joyful, victorious times, and in the darkest and discouraging days. As I walked through the memories and all the changing seasons of our life as a family, I found myself in that moment seeing and savoring the truth that our God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

It’s just an old car. It may just be earth-stuff. But it held alot of memories. And those memories matter. They are our “stones of remembrance” on which God writes His story in our lives. In his final address to the people of Israel, Moses entreats them to “be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.” (Deuteronmy 4:9)

Maybe today is the day to walk down memory lane a bit. Rejoice and laugh over the beautiful, the silly, the unexpected … and even in the sorrows and the tears, remember how your God has walked with you. How He has found you in the wilderness, and guarded you as the apple of His eye.

And I return to the song as I head into the rest of this day: “All my life you have been faithful. All my life you have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able – I will sing of the goodness of God”

Posted in Living this Life

What the Locusts Have Stolen

Posted on by Sara

We all lost things back in those days. Not just things … we lost people we love, memories we hoped to make, pieces of our lives just seem to have been taken away – outside of our control.

Those were the days the word “Covid” sent shock waves through our country. We all listened, glued to the news of the newest outbreak, unsure of what it would all mean for us. It was 6 years ago – do you remember? Sometimes I don’t want to – the memories can feel pretty raw. But leave it to facebook to keep reminding me …

6 years ago, I wrote this post – it was a necessary grieving that involved more than just a place. It felt like loss of dreams – loss of hope, even. Now, as I read it, I can only hear this verse on repeat in the back of my mind: ““I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten…and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you (Joel 2:25-26)

Because … this!

This place – that meant so much to me… this place – that I grieved the loss of … well, do you see the light shining from the window? It re-opened last week, and I have been watching this from the other side of the ocen with a tinge of awe and wonder.

They didn’t just pause and re-open 6 years older. They refocused and renovated. They rebuilt what was into something better. That loss I had grieved 6 years ago has come back to life in a new way. That light shining from the windows? It makes me think of resurrection.

There’s a reason God tends to look back every time He looks forward. There is a beautiful tension in the hope that is drawn from that, and I don’t want to miss that. Pause for a minute … and trace His hand in the long waiting … in the gestation of our dreams into reality. Sometimes we don’t recognize them because they look different than we anticipated. Sometimes we give up because the waiting is too painful. Sometimes He changes us, and with it our dreams.

But my friend! Don’t give up on the God who restores. Who sits with us in the waiting, who weaps with us in the loss, and who also repays us for the years the locusts have stolen. I don’t have many words right now – just a look back and a breathless prayer of thanksgiving to my God who makes all things new. (Revelations 21:5)

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Posted in Living this Life

Lightning

Posted on by Sara

How do you capture lightning in a bottle? And yet here I am trying to do that with something more fragile – elusive words that seem to hold little of the substance filling my soul right now.

Sometimes life is like that … bringing you moments that weigh so much, and as soon as you try to grab ahold of it, you find the moment has passed and you’re left grasping for words.

But in essence, it never slips away. The impacts linger and the ripple effects can go through generations.

Lightning in a bottle.

The story starts 30 years ago. As a sophomore at Wheaton College – with my major sorted out and my plans in place – I spent a summer in Amsterdam, and encountered God in a whole new way.

I knew I would never be the same … I had seen and tasted a life spent communicating the beauty of walking with Jesus to those who were seeking… and I knew this was what God had created me for. I couldn’t go back to the person I had been just a month before, and somehow my major and plans didn’t make much sense anymore… when I returned to campus that fall, I felt a bit lost in it all.

“It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed” Deuteronomy 31:8

Do you believe the promises in Scripture, my friend? Do you believe that they hold the power of life or death? Sometimes a moment in time shows you how undeniably real these promises are…

But I get ahead of myself.

That year … returning to school and feeling a bit lost … I wandered into a class on C.S. Lewis. I thought it might be an interesting way to earn a few credits. That was the year I walked into Dr. Jerry Root’s classroom – and this part of my story begins.

  • I learned about the “F” ring of Saturn – and that it happens to be braided! I have never lost the wonder of that fact … and I have never stopped wanting to learn more about my God who scatters the stars in the universe, braids the rings around planets, and calls me by name.
  • I heard stories – stories of vulnerable intersections of humanity. Stories of relentlessly holding the Hope of Jesus out to all – boldly and selflessly. And the moments that may have felt like failures are the ones I carried with me all these years, because I learned that there is no “perfect” or “right” formula –  that I’m just one beggar showing another where to find Bread. I needed these stories … and I still do.
  • I learned to love the world  captured inside of a book. Not just to read it for information, but to enter into the wonder of what that particular book held for me. And to read it again and again simply to live in that world for another minute of time. My imagination was validated and enriched – and it has widened the borders of my world ever since.
  • I learned to wander through life with a sense of wonder, seeking God’s grandeur in the simple and to “look along” the beams of His glory to find His fingerprints in the world all around me.1

How do you capture with words the sum of a new perspective on life? You can only try.

How do you capture lightning in a bottle? You can’t.

But you can stand by with awe as you watch it strike again. Awe – and maybe a few tears.

Last week, after 30 years, Jerry Root walked into my life, again. “But as for God, His way is perfect” (Ps 18:30) We may know that, say it as if we believe it, but sometimes we need lightning to strike the same spot again. And that is what happened last week.

Sometimes life crowds out the wonder. Sometimes we forget to hear the bird singing its worship in the morning and we rush past all the glory blossoming in brilliant red and yellow and purple around us. Sometimes doing things for God stands in the way of us seeing God. Sometimes our hearts grow weary and our spirits grow heavy and the weight of glory becomes more than we can carry well.

So lightning strikes again … and reminds us.

I keep asking myself why my eyes grow wet whenever I think of that week. Jerry Root is a great man – a man who doesn’t brag about being one of the world’s leading experts on C.S. Lewis, rather he simply speaks as a man who walks with God, with conviction and humility. But this is not why my eyes grow misty whenever I look at these pictures.

30 years ago, I walked into a classroom, not knowing my life would be changed.

Last week, he walked into my classroom – the classroom of young Native leaders who I get to spend my time with – and helped me remember. And once again left me changed. Re-stoking longings to see God in clarity and wonder. To listen to His promptings and immerse myself in His story. To pick up those books that I keep putting off. In the beautiful symmetry of time, I got to see other’s hearts awaken to the wonders that impacted me 30 years ago, to see my own children grow excited about learning, to have my 15 year old ask me to take him to the used bookstore in town … When lightning strikes again, we pay attention.

And God has my attention.

I wonder – how is He getting your attention? Where is the lightning striking in your life right now? Pay attention, my friend. Sometimes He speaks in a still, small voice, and sometimes He speaks through the thunder and lightning. (Ex. 19)

Pause for a minute. Lean in and really listen. How is He speaking to you right now? In the silence, in the chaos, in the symmetry, in the lightning – do you hear Him? “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known” (Jeremiah 33:3)

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him…” – (Revelation 3:20)

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1“All of God’s creation becomes a beam to be “looked along” or a sound to be “heard along” or a fragrance to be “smelled along” or a flavor to be “tasted along” or a touch to be “felt along”.  All our senses become partners with the eyes of the heart in perceiving the glory of God through the physical world”  – John Piper