In The Refiner's Fire

Last evening after Worship we had Bible Study and talked about Jeremiah 20:7-13.  This is a passage where Jeremiah alternately rails at God and praises God regarding the reception, or lack thereof, for his ministry and his work as a prophet.  My Bible titles this passage "Jeremiah's Unpopular Ministry".  I think that's a rather weak title for this.  Another version titles it "Jeremiah Rails at God".  That might be more appropriate. We talked about anger and how being angry at God is something that we as Christians tend to dismiss as inappropriate.  We tend to think that we shouldn't be angry at God no matter what happens - that we as Christians should be joyful and happy and praise God no matter what. Um, have you read the Bible? The list of people who are angry at God and rail against him is long and spans both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.  Some of these people include:  Moses, Noah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Job, Daniel, David...

This hymn reduced me to a blubbery mess at Ash Wednesday worship last week - it hit such a cord with me as we head into Internship (Vicarage) this summer.  Some of you know that I struggle with fear  - lately a lot.  And, quite honestly, I'm pretty much terrified of what will happen once we start Internship - in so many different areas of my (and our family's) life, not just financial or physical.  After we got home, my purse half-filled with damp tissues, I had to look it up and copy it down so I could hang it on the wall in a frame.   Don't we all need the reminder that God wants us to move past where we are - the fear, the worry, the anxiety, stares, the lack of familiarity, the concern of turning off others with our faith, the hiding in the shadows - and show HIS love, and care, and hope to the world? Will You Come and Follow Me (The Summons) Text by John L. Bell Tune: Scottish Traditional   "Will you come and follow me if I but call ...

The more I travel down my faith walk, the more I've realized something:  as Christian women we have a little "problem". The problem of living as a Christian in the world is that we see things that the world never sees.  We see sin, we see pain, we see places where we can grow and change and mature into better people, better Christians, than we are too. The problem isn't necessarily seeing these. The problem comes when we start to measure ourselves by what we see as inadequacies in ourselves based on the sins and the problems we see in our own lives.  We start comparing our inner selves to the outsides of others and our inner selves to the ideal inner self we'd like to have.  And this is where we begin to beat ourselves up and hold ourselves to a higher standard than we can possibly obtain in our lifetime. We uphold the woman in Proverbs 31 or Titus 2 or we uphold our Pastor's wife or other "godly" women as something we need to do or be in g...

One of the biggest things we need to work on with ourselves as women, wives, mothers and human beings is giving ourselves grace!  It is so important in every aspect of our lives, but often, we are our own worst enemies - treating ourselves worse than we would people we don't like. This Week's Habit:  Give Yourself Grace Giving ourselves grace is often one of the hardest things.  If we mess up or don't meet our own expectations, we can beat ourselves up for weeks, months or even years. What kind of Mom am I to take the time out of my day to exercise when I should be doing something with my children instead? What kind of wife am I if I make my husband cook dinner (clean the house, watch the kids) so I can exercise (take a nap, take a shower, get my hair cut)? What kind of person am I if my house isn't spotless (don't cook from scratch, eat all organic, have a high-power career, am overweight, don't know how to dress "sharp")? We do this again...

One of the things that I realized this month was how much of my time I spend living in fear. Buddy was growing for two solid weeks - and I had to trade in all of his "new" pants from the uniform swap for new ones.  Fortunately the school was very understanding (the Secretary just laughed when I came in with a pile of pants and unlocked the cupboard for me with a big smile).  When he's growing that means night terrors along with the physical growing pains. Watching him struggle with night terrors, I realized I have been living a lot of my life lately in terror of what is to come.  Maybe not terror, but at least fear. I have some anxiety problems - usually related to a specific event that had some traumatic effect on me, but some that are related to stress, hormones or my underlying chronic illnesses. Driving for me is the worst - and it's purely situational. The only car accident I have been involved in was quite serious (my car's engine block was complete...

This past year I have been reminded time and again at how much we as a family, and me in particular, rely on our own worldly things, abilities, friendships, people and "stuff" to be able to function on a day-to-day basis. One of the things that has really struck me is that I spend too much time worrying.  I have a sneaking suspicion that it's at least partially a product of being chronically ill. I worry about what will happen if I don't meet my obligations to my work. I worry about what will happen if I don't meet my obligations to my family. I worry about what will happen if I can't cook dinner on a particular night. I worry about what will happen if I don't get the laundry or the ironing done this week. I worry about what will happen if I become so ill that I need 24-hour care. I worry about burdening my husband and my children with taking care of me. I worry about burdening my husband and my children with things that "should" be m...

Well, it's been quite the week... and I totally did not mean to leave you all hanging for over a week! My week (and slightly more) in a nutshell: * My computer completely bit the dust. * I managed to do something that locked a rather important muscle in my right thigh. * I somehow managed to develop sciatica (directly related to the locked muscle). * Our daycare lady had to have a cyst removed from her foot and then be off of it for an entire week. * It rained for 5 straight days. * John strained his hamstring to the point where it swelled up like a softball. * A local Pastor had a family emergency and John had to fill in at the last minute for two services.  While we were so thankful we could help, there went our one "free" weekend all summer! * Our clothes washer decided to over-fill itself, spilling water everywhere (fortunately the laundry room isn't finished and has a floor drain). On the up side: * A physical therapist friend helped me unlo...

One of the most interesting things (in my opinion) about John being a part-time Seminary student is that he spends much more time eligible for Pulpit Supply before ordination than the average candidate does. For the last 3 years we've had the privilege and blessing of going "up North" to my cousin's little country church on the Iron Range and leading worship.  We've had the privilege of him preaching at several churches here in the metro area during that same time frame - usually during summer when the regular Pastor wants time off and many of the retired clergy in the area (and there are a ton of those!) are also on vacation.  There are also several "seminary friendly" congregations that ask seminary students to come in and lead worship or preach from time to time to let them have practice, so to speak.  And as part of the preaching and worship classes at the seminary they are required to do a certain amount of Pulpit Supply. For classes they are ty...

Wow! I really went AWOL there for a while didn't I?  I really didn't mean to. It's been busy - both last week and this week we have something every single day plus we were at my in-laws all weekend, which was lovely but it involved 8 hours total in the car, lots of time with a ton of people, and sleeping in a really wretched hotel bed for 3 nights.  I'm still trying to catch up on sleep! LOL!!  May is always hectic with the end of school for all of us, the children's dance recital, and usually a trip to my in-laws.  This year seems to be worse for some reason. Maybe because I feel like we've been running at full speed for so very long now and I'm ready to slow down. Anyway, it's been fun and wild and I'm very excited to look at June and see a whole lot of, well, nothing . Blank, empty squares and open space on that calendar page is something I'm really looking forward to!  We're still doing piano lessons, swimming lessons and church ...

So my husband is going through this little journey called Seminary.  As in, "I want to be a Pastor when I grow up" Seminary. In our church denomination this is usually a 2 year full-time student plus 1 year full-time internship plus another 1/2 year full-time student journey - so 3 1/2 years total.  In our family it has been a 5 year journey so far because he's only going part-time and working full-time while doing so (and yes, he does sleep occasionally!).  We have one more year of classes until he does his internship.  We have everything set up so that we don't have to come back as a student after that unless he's really lacking something (which we hope he isn't!).  He'll be quitting his job to do the internship, which is both scary and exciting and we're (okay,  I'M ) very nervous about how all of that is going to work out. Recently John met with a Pastor of a church to talk about summer Pulpit Supply for their congregation over the summer. ...

 I have to say that Holy Week - Palm Sunday to Easter with Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday is one of my favorite times of the year.   I spent part of the week with my parents, giving my Mom a break from chemo care and loving on my Dad.  I loved it!   A few years ago they took a trip to the Holy Land and my Dad had put together a photo slide show of  Holy Week with actual pictures of the locations of the events that happened.  We spent Palm Sunday looking at that slide show and reading scripture together since his white count was too low to attend worship (Mom went by herself that day).  I loved that time spent with my Dad.   He is actually doing very well, though tired and weak.  I loved that too. Wednesday we had a Seder Meal as part of the learning before First Communion.   The children were very attentive and Missy, being the youngest one there, even had a reading part!  We decided to make that par...

I had a bit of a revelation as I battled pneumonia over Christmas this year. We went into Christmas with my Dad being diagnosed with colon cancer a week and a half before Christmas and having surgery exactly one week before.   We had all just had the flu at our house - in fact, I had a fever of 104F the day my mom called to tell me the diagnosis for my Dad.  I had just barely managed to drive my also ill son and myself home from school too - John literally caught me as I fell through the front door. That was Friday afternoon - my mom called Friday night. Sunday morning I woke up without a fever and my husband was just getting one.  The children were all better by that time (of course) and were enjoying endless junk food and videos while Mom and Dad were too ill to care what they did or ate.  I remember pounding the pillow with all my meager strength and shouting at John "You can NOT get sick! You can NOT get sick!"  Because, of course, that works. :) Two...

Sometimes I'm just amazed at how God manages to get our attention. Sunday evening I got a call from my Mom.  They had gone out to brunch after church with some friends after church.  When Dad got up to pay the bill, he passed out - and ended up going to the hospital. It turns out he is bleeding internally (quite a bit) and they don't really know why.  It's not the usual culprits, so he has to have tests, tests and more tests. Thankfully he's home now - supposedly resting and taking it easy - but he has to go in daily to monitor his blood pressure and blood volume.  After 3 days in the hospital, he's very thankful to be home.  We're very grateful that his heart and brain "look fabulous for someone 80 years old" and in the case of his brain, better than 92% of most Americans as the doctor put it (where he pulled that statistic from, I have no idea).  We just have to find the cause of the bleeding. On top of that both the kids and I had the flu ...

A while back I wrote about having to decide what to do about our "home" congregation and our involvement there.  You can read that post here: Decisions . For the last several months - almost a full year even now by this time - we've been praying for an answer for what to do. A couple of weeks ago when John had his Endorsement Hearing we received our answer. It is very common to pass Endorsement with conditions. One that almost everyone receives is the completion of the Master of Divinity (MDiv) from one of several accredited institutions. Occasionally someone comes into the Ordination process already having the MDiv degree - it is a Master's Degree after all, so those who want to do certain types of pastoral counseling or work in certain non-ordained positions in the church have the degree too. One of John's cohort members needed to work public speaking skills. Another needed to take an additional class in a particular area. Many needed to work on th...

John was endorsed yesterday! Praise the Lord! It was a long, exhausting day but at 430pm Tuesday 10/16 he was endorsed to continue his journey to Ordination. We are so very thankful. Now, hopefully, we can take a deep breath and have things get back to something with a bit more routine. Thanks for your prayers - we definitely appreciate them! Lea Soli Deo Gloria. Always.

We've been busy here!  Why, you ask? John has his Candidacy Interview tomorrow (Tuesday) at 10am. What is that? It's an interview process where the Bishop's Office, the Seminary and the Ordination Council look at John's call story, his personal theology statement, his formal and informal education and his understanding of Lutheran Doctrine and decides whether he can continue on to Ordination with our national church body, the ELCA. If you feel lead, will you please say an extra prayer or two for him (and the rest of us) as he heads into this milestone?  We would SO appreciate it! Thank You I'm hoping to be back to a more regular blogging schedule later this week. God Bless, Lea Soli Deo Gloria. Always.

This season of life seems to be one of waiting for us. Waiting to be done with my PhD. Waiting to be done with John's Seminary time. Waiting to find out if his endorsement for ordination will be met and made and celebrated. Waiting to find out which district our call will be in. Waiting to find out where friends will be placed. Waiting to find out if our home congregation is going to stay intact or completely shred itself to pieces. The last one is the hardest for me right now. We have decisions to make about that congregation. To stay there or transfer to the one where John has been working.  To re-integrate back into the ministries at that congregation on a limited basis that we can at this point. To have John continue to help lead or not. To have our children become part of the children's ministry there again or not. Right now, the only reason we're still there is because of the new staff member I had talked about briefly before.  He's wonderfu...

The lovely chancel at one of the churches my husband has been privileged to lead worship at this summer. This summer has left me weary. Very weary. Why? I thought this summer would be a summer of rest. A summer of time to cross t's and dot i's and put "done" on a few things - the things that needed to get done around the house, this darn dissertation, my growing pile of mending, and craft and sewing projects I've started but haven't finished. A summer to play with the children in the back yard, and go to the library and make things together and have picnics and make faces in the clouds on a lazy afternoon. A summer to leisurely put together my new class for this fall - to spend time exploring new ideas, and new practices, and carefully and thoughtfully put some things together. Instead this summer has been one of running. A summer when to-do lists seem to have gotten longer rather than shorter. A to do list with lots of things part way done b...

I've written before how difficult this past year has been.  I'm just now realizing what it really was that made this past year so difficult. Betrayal. Lies. Anger. Hurt. And it's the hurt most of all. Last fall we found out that a now former senior staff member at our church lied about us. Repeatedly. Blatantly. To people who have known us for 10+ years.  Those people believed that staff person. And didn't even ask us about the lies. We found out when that staff person left (one of several to leave over the last few years).   And a very dear friends started having 2+2 not equal 4. And that friend came to us with some very serious questions. We chose not to confront the now former staff member - though we could very easily do that.  We know that this behavior is part of a pattern that chased him from congregation to congregation to congregation and will continue to do so.  If anyone asks us about it, we will tell the truth as we ...

One of the things that I've struggled with my whole adult (and probably teen) life is contentment. I always thought I would "arrive" somewhere, with something (or things) and be perfectly content and happy. I guess that's the professional equivalent of riding off into the sunset with prince charming and living happily ever after. I married my prince charming at 23 and we've been married for 13 1/2 years.  I've spent much of that time lamenting that my life wasn't what I wanted it to be.  Earlier completion of my PhD, an MD for my husband, a big, fancy house, a full handful of children, exotic vacations.  All of those things were on the "want" list.  I wanted to be superwoman and show my children that they could be too. My life certainly isn't that. I took 6 years off school - and worked instead - after my Master's Degree instead of perusing that PhD. And went back for it at the age of 32. My husband was rejected from medical sc...