the four or so inches of snow that fell on auburn last night had us huddled around the telly, waiting (kansas seriously hoping) to find out if school would be in session today. it turned out that he trudged to the bus stop in boots, mittens, scarf, and hat - but he does have a preplanned four day weekend starting tomorrow :). it reminded me of so many michigan winter mornings, my sis and i huddled by the radio listening to the long monotonous list of school closings due to an overnight snowstorm...as soon as we heard "all livonia public schools" we would shriek with joy and race to cram down something for breakfast while struggling into warm socks, coats, snowpants, gloves, hats, boots, and scarves. then out the door to neighbor friends yards for snow angels, snowball fights, and hot chocolate, or to the neighborhood park for sledding and more snowball fights. if we were lucky, we could get someone's mom or our campus life leader to drive us out to kensington state park for tobogganing down the big hills, ice skating on the lake, and more hot chocolate at the lodge. red cheeked and breathless, laughing and yelling, white snow weighing down branches of evergreen trees, shovels by the side door for clearing our wide sloping driveway - a job we never complained about - sleds and snow forts and the cold silver blades of skates...these are my childhood winter memories.

it doesn't snow like that in kansas, and michigan doesn't even get the amounts it used to...and with the rise of kids on computers, in front of playstations, vcr's, and cable t.v.'s they're just not out playing in it they way we used to, my dad reports. but my recollections are fine ones that always make me smile, and with them I feel the warmth in my stomach not unlike a cup of hot chocolate complete with floating marshmallows in my cold hands after hours of romping in the snow.
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a day at kensington a couple of weeks ago - my sis gina, brother in law mark, stepmom janet, me, kansas, caleb, joshua, jesse, and lucy.

reading through some old 'light 99' posts from the time right after rich mullins died, and came across this quote from carolyn arends.."he was what one writer has called a "living mystery" - he lived in such a way that his life would not make sense if God did not exist."

any stragglers need a quick new years resolution? myself, i'm just floored at the very idea, the beauty of the statement, the possibility that a life could be all that. wow...

i have so much to do today that it's all a blur, as usual...but church was such a warm encouragement yesterday, and God is so noticeably, amazingly faithful that I'm able - today at least - to just do what I can and leave what I can't. which is a major accomplishment for me.

i hate having to deal with html and such. ah well...

i broke my toe a couple of days ago - jammed it up against a lego box that had no room to give between it and the chair it was up against. within the hour after i initially broke the thing, jesse accidentally stepped directly on it, whereupon i let out the second screeching howl of the day. now, though, every time i look at the green blue purple swollen appendage or feel the twinge of pain from it, i think of my friend angie from mops, who over the christmas holidays broke just about every bone on her right side in a freak sleigh riding accident. she was with family, and the horses just spooked and bolted, and she happened to be on the side that was smashed into a tree. not realizing how badly she was hurt, she got up and ran back to the sleigh in total fear that her four year old son had been killed...he was fine, thank God. she has a long recovery ahead, and she is currently in nursing school, so she has half an idea what she'll have to go through to get well. my toe seems a minor inconvienience compared.

ho hmmm...

ok, toying with a new comment system that ultimately made me change my whole template...still trying...

ladeda

hmmm...

chad and i have had quite a year and a half or so struggling with each other...lots of downs and middle ground, but few ups to speak of. we had been homeschooling kansas up until the end of last september, when for reasons mostly of butting heads all around, we enrolled him in public school. i was far more at rest with the decision than chad, who has been pointing out ever since then the myriad of ways that school is corrupting our son. i had an encouraging talk with a neighbor a few weeks ago who drives a bus to the school kansas attends, and knows a few of the ins and outs of what goes on there - she is a catholic who tells us often what a great job we are doing raising our children. she said on this particular day that even though we may be discouraged with the negative impact school might be having on him, he is having a really positive influence on a lot of the kids there. she noted especially the exclusively spanish speaking boy who started school even later than kansas and was placed in his class. kansas had talked to us about him, and we knew that he had made a special effort to welcome and befriend this boy. but it was nice to hear about it from someone else...

today kansas came home from school with the news that he had been able to pray with two kids, one at recess and one on the bus - to recieve Christ. he was so excited. chad took him to the Christian bookstore for new testaments and tracts, and kansas is at this moment inscribing one of the bibles for one of the boys - "to nicholas from your friend kansas, january 7th 2003 - clad in light may you walk through darkness." ("mom, what does clad mean?")... he told me at dinner that it was sort of like he was the school missionary.

inside i am biting my nails, i am pleading with the sky, for i know that with the heart my son possesses will come pain, and what parent does not want to spare their child agony of any degree? inside i am also beaming, brimming with thankfulness for that same heart, reveling in the answer to a prayer uttered many times over, for him to have a heart like david's, a heart after God's own. the thought of my slight boy, by all observable accounts alone in the sea of secular influences (but standing always in the unseen shadow of his mighty guardian angel; of Jesus, staff in hand, aware of the wolves prowling around Kansas' ankles and daring them to even think of taking a lunge, a nip, a sniff) - yet having the sense that there are those around him drowning, who just may grab onto the raft he is paddling in. i am humbled at the workings of our God, i am taught by my seven year old.

please pray for him, for his brother and sister, and for us as we continue in this great and scary task of raising kids. and dance with your hands up high with us in this moment today of God's obvious hand in this family.

it took 16 hours to drive from akron, ohio to our humble abode yesterday...more on our last two weeks when i recover.

staying up too late...i really have been better about this lately. chad and kansas went to see a friend of ours play at world cup tonight(where i will be working tomorrow night as some band i've never heard of plays), so chad's inspired, of course, and playing guitar on the futon next to me at the moment.

we leave in a week for michigan...i have so much to do, i'm almost paralyzed; deer in the headlights sort of thing. moving five people to another state for two weeks is such an undertaking. but it's for love and festivity, friends and some real snow, so it's all worth it i guess. at least i don't have to contend with major jet lag like my sis and her family, arriving from the netherlands tonight. i like to go home, i like to be where things are familiar even from my earliest memories. and then i like to come back to my current home where things are familiar now.

they probably don't make band aids for the soul because where exactly would you stick one? drugs are unwise, drink only numbs for awhile, media intake actually can make it a lot worse as far as perspective goes...prayer is the right thing but then you still have the waiting...sometimes life just hurts. (this written while jesse is making sensational hot wheel car accidents all down the stairs behind me and lucy is chanting "mom, more apple juice please" next to my leg. i wish i had time to deal with the hurts life is throwing my way right now, but then again, it's probably better this way. it would probably end up looking like an extravagant pity party for one if i had any free time, and wallowing is so unproductive. *SIGH.*)

i'm getting a head start on one of my usually unfulfilled new years resolutions - partly because a brand spanking new ymca has recently been constructed twenty minutes from my house, and partly to head off the rush of newbies come january second. they set you up in the computer system that keeps track of how much energy you're exerting and such, they're open all sorts of odd hours, they have a NURSERY, and when the weather outside is frightful, i can sit in the big white tiled hot tub...lovely. i can't take it all too seriously, though...today i gave swimming laps my best shot, and when it was over i went to log it into Fitlinxx, where i was informed that i had just burned eighty calories. great! after which i went out to my car, threw my bag on the passenger seat, and took a granola bar our of the glove box...and looked at the label. 230 calories. i decided right then and there to never (not this decade anyway) become an obsessive calorie counter, scale frequenter, or workout queen. if it's not fun, to me, there's just no point.

i put up a mass of christmas lights this year. lights in the kitchen, lights in the kids room, seven or eight long strands of lights wound around the christmas tree alone...and no ornaments yet. it shines like a new yellow moon at night, twinkles like a prickly green sky replete with glitter stars during the day. i put the old creche up, the one i stared at for what now seems hours when i was small...the rough italian made figures still giving me a warm feeling as i placed the sheep behind the shepherds, the wise men in a line approaching, the babe who turned out to be God under the wonderous gazes of his unworthy earthly parents. the simple wooden stable, the angels balancing atop, the wrinkled brown donkey that reminds us of what an uncomfortable ride a very pregnant mary endured to get to that unwelcome inn. the art deco stained glass angel was set on the top shelf of the bookcase to watch over us for this season, hands welded together in prayer for our well being...or something. a basket of cinnamon and pinecones, a red bowl of silver bells, the christmas books and music brought out into the open to be enjoyed another year. the things i bought on clearance after the holidays last year and packed right away opened like new gifts. i love the familial warmth, traditional securities, browns and reds and forest greens of Christmas...i love the sermons that weave into our imaginations what it was really like for the players in the great cosmic drama that night so long ago...and how close that same saviour from then can be to us here and now. enjoy this time, relax in it. give what you can, whenever you can; remembering that the giving God did has opened our eyes at least enough to see need, to want to cover the cold out there with a soothing warm glow. run into the arms of light and love this season, let your little light shine, and watch the flicker of flame in your own life spread like wildfire so that your joy becomes complete and your cup runs over.

merry advent, happy first week of Christmas to you.

mmm...long holiday weekend. i plan to do a lot of cooking, puzzle working, and general lounging. i love this time of year.

so saturday night i was working at world cup...it was a nice mellow evening - abby and i had a slow start to the night, so we sat playing rummy with some of her friends for a good hour. i remember thinking "they are so happy and innocent...fifteen years old. life hasn't bitten them on the heels quite yet, it's refreshing to be around them..."

after awhile two college guys came in and told us that their neighbors were complaining about their guitar playing - would we mind if they played in the shop? "you're not going to plug them in, right?" i asked with a grin...they grinned back, and said no...and commenced to sit across from each other and play soft soothing familiar tunes almost until closing time...

at ten minutes to eleven, i went off to clean the bathrooms - part of closing chores (a small price to pay for the great people i get to spend time with at this job). i took maybe seven minutes to swipe everything with some bleach handy wipe thingys, and refill what needed refilling. when i stepped out and looked around, i noticed that everyone was standing very still, and looking quite shell shocked. i went behind the counter and asked the closest person what had happened, and was informed that we had just been robbed at gunpoint, specifically, that abby had been robbed at gunpoint. she was in the backroom sobbing with her two friends (who had been standing there when it happened), and the police were there within minutes. strange, surreal. i hugged the fifteen year olds (now not quite as innocent and unbitten as they had been earlier in the day), talked in low tones with patrons, started and abandoned other closing duties, felt odd. we all ended up going home leaving the place a mess, a little shaky and a lot thankful. it could've been so much worse...some money was lost, but noone was hurt.

life goes along smoothly for awhile, but then we are jolted by events out of our control, and it wakes us up in ways we hadn't known we were sleeping.

jesse is five today...amazing how fast he's grown. amazing that it's been five years - half a decade - since i looked into his newborn face with awe and wonder...he's a full fledged preschooler now. and tomorrow - well, i'm just going to enjoy today, the flying future scares me a little.

what a couple of weeks...i feel like we've been running with very few pit stops to call home and check the messages. two waterdeep shows in one week, working at world cup, friends over - sometimes overnight, getting a jump on christmas shopping (i was in the checkout at toys r us and marveled at the stark difference between this midweek evening with the store being virtually empty, and what this same stretch of retail would look like a mere one month from now), church, home group, kids being sick, and the death of one of chad's grandpas on sunday morning. i leave that for last because that's really the only thing on the list i'd want to tell you about right now...

chad enjoyed and respected his grandpa as much as he could, in his own way - i'll say that first. but this being the rough and rowdy part of that side of the family, it's been hard to know how to handle the sympathy that's been poured out on us. his grandpa didn't want a service, didn't want any ceremony other than to have his ashes scattered over the farm up north. the last few times we'd seen him he was in a hospital bed in chad's uncle's girlfriend's house, deteriorating since the major stroke he suffered a couple of years ago. he loved to see our kids, especially lucy ("she's an ANGEL, just an angel..."), but was still managing to let us know who he was remembering to dislike from years long past and why.

we got a call early sunday morning that if chad wanted to see him one last time, he better get moving - ther doctors were speaking in terms of hours left to live, and by the time chad was ready to walk aout the door, he had passed away. chad went on up anyway, taking kansas with him, and i went on to church with the little ones.

family is hard, and wonderful; secure and scary sometimes. relationships between sinners are always tricky in spots, and Jesus' example can be hard to live up to. the one thing we can say for sure despite falling out's and friendships forged is that our family is OURS, and the one we marry into becomes our very own as well. so we go through the processes of life together in one way or another with (or at least thinking of) each other, living, learning, coping, remembering, heaving heavy sighs.

been...reading anne lamott novels, working a bit more at the coffeeshop, watching kansas get on the bus at eight twenty every morning, saving for our christmas trip to chicago and michigan, missing certain friends but forgetting to touch base with maddening consistency, praying, birthday shopping for jesse, relaxing with tea and thoughts, and loving all the cloudiness and rain around here. ahhh, fall...