Camp Assignment at Malibu!

Hello from Canada!  We are having a great time at The Malibu Club in British Columbia!

Here are a few of my observations so far about this particular Young Life camp assignment:

1. Traveling on a plane for two and half hours and then sleeping in the stairwell of a church, then traveling on a bus for two hours, a ferry for an hour and half, a bus for two more hours, and then a boat for another hour, over the course of two days is not that easy with three small children in tow.  But, the view when we got here was totally worth.  Totally worth it….and I’m not exaggerating.  That’s how awesome it is. 
2. Island time is one of my most brilliant parenting moves ever.  Island time = you need to be on your bed in your room and quiet and you may not get up for any reason (and I mean that, so go to the bathroom beforehand!).  Beyond that, I don’t care what you do.  Island time = reading, art projects galore, and “oops, I fell asleep because it was dark and quiet and warm in there.” (insert wicked laugh here)  
3. Loren is winsome.  (I love that word!) And I don’t mean that everyone likes him because he always says what people want to hear. In fact, Loren says a lot of things that people don’t want to hear.  But he is always hardest on himself, first.  He always proves to be a co-laborer instead of just a boss.  He is never selfish.  And he’s funny.  All of it makes people want to work for him.  Want to do a good job.  Want to love Jesus more. He’s winsome.  I know this about him but sometimes I forget until I see how immediately people are drawn to him or until three random people in a day tell me how great they think my husband is.  I’m so proud to be married to him.
4. Women in the Pacific Northwest do not wear make-up because their skin is beautiful.  Supple and infused with sea water.  Glowing and healthy and rosy in all the right places.  I feel beautiful here, and the sea water may have something to do with it, but it’s also partly because there is no real schedule, no demands other than those I have chosen for my life.  These children and this husband.  The pace agrees with me. More on this later....
5. It feels luxurious here.  All that rain, the going out and coming back in of the ocean, all the dark overcast skies.  It feels rich and thick and gives everything a warm, sunset type glow.  I’m sure you could get tired of that after a while. I’m sure people celebrate when the sun comes out.  But, I have always liked time spent in a cocoon and then rejoicing when the sky opens up again.  Life here feels a little like a cocoon as well. I am enjoying the walls being pulled tight in my world right now.  And I know I’ll be glad when they are pulled back to reveal the full beauty of my life. 
6. Ava is my most outgoing child.  She greeted everyone the first day with, “Hello, my name is Ava. I’m 2.”  She has made the most friends (well…at least friends with the big people.  We all know that friendships with people her own age are much harder for her.) and no one is immune to her charms.  She will likely take it the hardest when we leave and she isn’t spoiled rotten all the time anymore. 
7. Bella has people the most intrigued. Work crew kids, I mean.  She draws people in without really knowing why. They want to know her…because she is beautiful and shy and picky about whom she chooses to hang out with.  I really like that about her. She also seems older to me here.  She is old enough now to go with her big sister to club, without supervision, or to walk into camp to find her dad.  And that girl has developed some wicked dance moves this year.  Hope better watch out.  :)  
8. Hope is here to serve.  She has already jumped in with the work crew in the dining hall and in the snack bar and in the laundry and is always looking for opportunities to do more.  Unbeknownst to all of us, she came here to work. And she works hard. She’s so much like her dad in that.  And in other ways, too.  When she prays for campers at night, I know it’s from the heart. This year, more than any other year, she gets it. She gets why we’re here and it’s so exciting to see her want to be a part of the mission.

There is so much more, but I’ll save it for another day.  I can’t wait to post pictures when I get back.  There is not enough bandwidth (or some other fancy term) here to upload pictures so I’ll have to wait.  Cheers…and ahhh…yahhh…you betcha.  A little Canadian-speak for you. :)

Oh! That child!

Sometimes I look at Ava and I think, "How will she ever learn right from wrong?"  She is consistently in trouble.  But, she is also consistently good at making me laugh in the middle of that trouble.  And doesn't that kind of negate any kind of punishment that I am trying to dish out?

Luckily, these last two episodes have been on Loren's watch and he is far better than me at keeping a straight face.

The other night, while Loren's parents were here visiting, Ava was sleeping in our bed because hers was being used by my nephew.  Loren put her to bed and then put the other kids to bed and all was quiet in the house for most of an hour. At one point, we heard the pitter patter of little feet and realized they were coming from our room.  When Loren went to check it out, it turned out that Ava had not been asleep AT ALL.  In fact, she had methodically turned our room topsy turvy.  But, when Loren opened the door, she was standing in the middle of our bed with an afro wig on, which she slowly removed while she said, "Sorry, daddy." (um...yeah...we have lots of wigs because of Young Life.  And it was in our bedroom for a perfectly normal reason.  I promise!) He kept a straight face while he doled out consequences and then burst out laughing when he told us the story.

Then, tonight, Ava was put in time out for some reason or another.  (They all run together sometimes).  I should also mention here that she was basically naked, except for some underwear.  That is apparently going to be her summer uniform.  I promise that I dress her in the morning, but at some point after her nap, she gets undressed and we just never really get around to dressing her again. Don't judge, people.  I am doing less laundry and loving it! Anyway, when Loren went to get her, she sat straight up, all quick-like.  You know...with that look your children have whenever they are caught doing something they aren't supposed to.  When he looked, she had two round stickers, strategically placed right over her nipples. I think he just let that one go.

Oh that Ava!  It may take her a while to learn the difference between right and wrong, but she has already learned the difference between wrong and wrong, but funny.  And she is using that to her advantage.

Grace and Beauty and Raising Little Girls

This weekend, we spent about 6 hours total putting in this awesome hair-do.

These are yarn twists and Hope has been asking me for them for a few months now.  We finally did it and I think they turned out pretty cute.  She loves that she can throw them up in a ponytail or pigtails herself and that they whip around when she shakes her head.  I think these will be a fun little addition to our hair routine.

Then, on Saturday, we rushed out the door and got in the car, only a few minutes late for soccer.  Hope, sporting her new twists, pulled on shin guards and soccer socks and cleats as we drove away from the house.  My sporty girl.  And as she got all geared up she said, "Mom, do you wear make-up to make yourself prettier?"

Rarely do you get the opportunity to fully prepare for these important conversations. Oh, it's not that I don't think about how I will answer my girls' questions about faith or love or sex or beauty.  It's just that I am never quite able to articulate in my head exactly how I want that conversation to go. Exactly how I will phrase the important truths that I so desperately want them to know. Exactly what those most important truths are.

This weekend, I got to babysit my 6 month old niece for a few days. And I had forgotten how much I liked the rhythms of feeding and sleeping that babies have.  More than that, I forgot how much I liked being able to meet every need.  Babies are simple.  Feed, change, sleep.  Repeat.  You can feel like you've accomplished something at the end of a day with a baby.  Like you've met all of their needs.  8 year olds are different.  Their needs feel as numerous as the stars.  All the things you want them to know and believe and hold tight to come rushing at you sometimes, and you wonder if you've ever truly said them out loud.  Or if they've seen you live it out enough to believe it's true.  And it feels like time is slipping away.  That someday soon, they might believe what someone else says more than they believe you.

I wanted to lie to Hope and tell her that I only wear make up because it's fun.  That I felt beautiful with or without it.  But, it does make me feel prettier. And now I just feel bad about that. Do I have to be a no make-up wearing woman in order to convince my daughter that God created her beautifully? What I said to her was this, "Hope, I think I do wear make-up because sometimes it makes me feel prettier.  But I'm not sure that's right.  I think it should just be for fun.  And, I do feel like God made me pretty just the way I am. But I didn't always feel like that.  I feel like that now because God has shown me how he made me beautiful." I think it was an okay answer.

I worry all the time that I am getting it wrong.  That my wearing make-up or putting yarn twists in Hope's hair is sending a message that speaks louder than the truths I want her to believe.  But I also know that I am raising my girls in a state of grace.  That there is grace enough for me to figure these things out. And grace enough if I never do. I know that her yarn twists or my love of mascara will not be the end of God's pursuit of her and it won't be the end of all that I have to teach her about beauty.  Here's what I want her to know about beauty in the midst of a culture obsessed with pursuing it's own distorted version of it:  Pursue God, instead. It's the only way to see ourselves clearly.  And when we do, we get to see all the beauty in us that he sees. And we will believe that it's true, and feel a rush of pleasure at what he's created.

I hope that someday she knows that she is beautiful because God has made it so.  And that she will be prepared to fight for that truth in a world that would seek to tell her otherwise.  For now, I'll fight for her as best I know how.  I'll tell her often and emphatically that she is exquisite.  I'll point out the lies that our culture tells about beauty.  And I will open my hands as I pray, offering her up to God, and professing my belief in these things. "She is yours, Lord.  You take great delight in her.  You have made her beautiful." I'll believe it for her. And I'll keep asking God to show me how to teach it and how to live it out.  And I'll be grateful for grace.     

He is Risen!

May you find JOY and FREEDOM at the empty tomb today.

HE IS RISEN!

The Cup

Our family has been celebrating the Seder for the last five years during Holy Week. It is such a rich way to enter into the story of Jesus death and resurrection and I love knowing that I am observing Passover, just as Jesus did the night before he died.

In the Passover, there are four cups of wine that you drink during different parts of the meal and they each represent something different. The cup of sanctification, the cup of deliverance, the cup of redemption, and the cup of praise. The third cup takes place after the meal and it was during this cup of redemption that Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, told his disciples, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." (Matthew 26:28).

The image of this cup has stirred me up during this season of Lent. "This cup is the new covenant in my blood"...and then Jesus in the garden saying, "Father, take this cup from me. But, not my will but yours be done"

In Walter Wangerin's devotional, "Reliving the Passion" he talks about that first time Jesus is offered wine and myrrh on the cross, to dull the pain a bit. "He shakes his head. He will not drink from [that] cup. He will in no wise dull his sense or ease the pain. And so we know. What are the feelings? What has the spirit of Jesus been doing since Gethsemane? Why, suffering. With a pure and willful consciousness, terribly sensitive to every thorn and cut and scornful slur: suffering....Or what has the Lord been doing since Gethsemane? Drinking. Not from the narcotic cup, but from the cup the Father would not remove from him: drinking. Swallow by swallow, tasting all the hell therein, not tossing it down in a hurry: 'So that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.'"

May you be blessed this week to know that the cup of redemption was drained to the last drop, swallow by bitter swallow. And while He drank, he thought of you.