.Breaking the Silence.

I am sitting here in the early morning hours, feeling the sun stream through the windows, sipping my coffee, and trying to organize my thoughts and my heart into words that will make sense, my fingers are ready to fly, and I will loose them. For so often, I do not know my own thoughts, feelings, and heart until I read back the words that I have written. Writing tells me how I feel.

It has been a complicated three or so weeks for our family. I don't really know where to start, because so much has transpired while my blog stood here silently waiting for words to once again fill the empty spaces. We tried a week of living separate lives - with Jim and Habi down here living with his parents, so that Habi could attend school and Jim could work crazy hours at Sweet Frog, and with the littles and I back at home juggling therapies, homeschooling, and keeping the house show-ready. It didn't work. Jim and I have always functioned best together. I know military families all over this country are separated, and I know they make it work, but we just are not wired that way. We all need each other. I had crying babies on my end missing their daddy and big brother, and Jim had a sullen teenage boy on his end missing having his family, who he fought so long and hard to have, together. It just wasn't working. So we threw things in bags and laundry baskets, and Jim drove up to sweep us all down to be together. We thought it might be temporary, and that I would go home for a few days out of every week. But it became abundantly clear, that more than ever, we needed each other. So we are here, until God moves us on.

Meanwhile, in the midst of transitioning living down here with Jim's (very gracious and welcoming) parents, Jamesy snuck out of the house and ran away - again. He managed to escape a house with four adults, a teenager, and two children, and nobody saw him do it. He is sneaky and he is fast. As soon as we realized he was missing, we all took off on a wild race around the neighborhood. Thank God we found him a few houses down the street with a neighbor. Unfortunately, we did not find him before the police were called on us - again. So, as we sat down to dinner, still shaky from the events but thankful that Jamesy was safe with us, the doorbell rang, and a police officer entered to question us. I was immediately a puddle of tears, not believing that this was happening to us again (last summer, Jamesy snuck out of our house, and Jim and I were under a CPS investigation, which was eventually cleared, but which left us very nervous and jaded about the system). BUT GOD was in it all. The police officer ended up being a fellow believer who had just finished taking a special needs training course. He told Jim that prior to going to that course, he had not realized what a flight-risk children with Autism are. He understood what happened, and he was so kind and gracious, and we were thankfully not reported to CPS. We now have a deadbolt on the front door, and are even more vigilant than we were before. It is exhausting. I broke down to my mom-in-law that night and cried that I needed a break, and that I just cannot watch him 24/7. And I can't. BUT GOD is here in this. There is so much that exhausts me about our precious Jamesy, there are so many thoughts and words that never get put on this screen. Because he is my son, and I carry so, so much guilt....guilt that was nailed to the cross. But everyday I need Jesus to take it away. However, the amazing, wonderful thing about all of this, about us living here, about Jamesy running away, is that there are two more people in the world who understand what life with Jamesy is like. We have felt so alone and misunderstood for so long, and now Jim's parents get it, and we are finding solidarity in this journey, and that makes me weep. To be understood and known is what we all desire.

And if that was not enough, Jim lost his job. His new job. I think I need to choose my words carefully here, so as not to slander a fellow brother-in Christ - Jim's former boss. Things were rough from the beginning, but  the owner was building a brand new Sweet Frog store - his first, so we chocked it up to stress and Jim tolerated a lot. He worked long, hard hours. He trained hard, and he poured himself into learning how to manage the store and how to take care of the product - including how to manage the frozen yogurt, clean the machines, run the software, etc. He poured so much of himself into that job, that he began neglecting Mercy Branch - our new church plant. We whispered to each other in the night, knowing that God brought us here specifically for Mercy Branch, and yet it seemed we were only giving ourselves to the Sunday part of it - a far cry from what God had laid on our heart. We thought it would get better when the store was officially opened and Jim's hours were more set. However, soon it became clear that the verbal assaults and unrealistic expectations were not going to cease. Jim felt defeated and worn, and then last Friday he was let go. The owner was looking for someone who could give more hours and who had a restaurant management degree. In the end Jim was dealt with fairly in the leaving, but we are still in a tough spot - no insurance, little money, uncertainty about the future. I am struggling with bitterness. Jim, however, has more clarity and maturity. He believes that God gave him the Sweet Frog job as a security blanket to actually makes us leave our church in Norwich. We had talked and prayed about it for so, so long, but had not made any action step. We were nervous. God has changed so much of our lives these past three years, yet we still cling to certain securities and are only willing to risk certain things. {cringe} We are human - we fight our flesh just as much as the next person. We are so ordinary and frail. So God, knowing this, gave Jim Sweet Frog, setting it up to look like the perfect job to give us the security we needed to leave and allow us to plant the church of our dreams. And with that in our pocket we walked away from our church with stars in our eyes, ready for our new adventure. And then this - Jim loses that security. And now we realize what it truly was - just a bridge to get us to leave and move us to action. What this means for the future - we do not know. But we have eight weeks where Jim will be getting small paychecks to figure it out. So we are going to fast and pray and seek God's face in this.We are vacillating between a few options for income. Mercy Branch continues to flourish - slowly, steadily, and God is so inside of it. We now have more intentional time to invest into it, and that alone is a gift.

So this is where we sit today - waiting for our home to sell, jobless, no health insurance, and still in the honeymoon phase with our new church. And God sits here with us. We said from the very beginning that we knew without a doubt that God was asking us to move here and plant this church, but we also said that He did not give us the guarantee that this would work - only that we were to follow Him. Little did we know how quickly the job part of the equation would not work out. But we are together, life is already simpler - Habi walks home from school everyday, as we live about 3 blocks away now, Jamesy is speaking in phrases (our favorite that brings us all to giggles is "Hey, knock it off!") in just this short time here with less crazy busyness, and the children are happy - really happy . Jim and I have more time together than we have had in a few years, and we are having beautiful breakthroughs with Habi, and more time to enjoy each other as a family. We have taken more walks these past few weeks than we have taken in a year. Cadi and Scotty have made fast friends with the backyard neighbors and are often found in their yard during the afternoon. My heart is happy to hear their giggles.

Jim and I are pouring through the book of Luke, and we are learning so very much about the posture of our Jesus. He was such a renegade! As I read the stuff that He did, and how He was accused of being a drunk and a party animal and a friend of sinners, because of His lifestyle, I am so struck by how the churches I come from would react to Him today. A lot of the stuff I was taught before is being questioned as we read this book with fresh eyes. I am desperate to get rid of the Pharisaical practices that permeated so much of my church experiences. It is exciting. It is freeing. So here we are, together in this adventure, following Jesus, trusting Him inside of the chaos. And He is truly right here.

.I am Dreaming Again.

My little Jamesy woke up with a low grade fever this morning, so we are keeping it calm today and cancelling his therapies. I am just starting to feel better after an intense tummy bug, and since Habi can now commute with Jim most mornings and afternoons, my afternoon is open, so I can afford to have a gentle morning. I used to take these so for granted. Not anymore.

I was sitting here, being still and recounting the ways that God has mercifully sustained our family through the craziest year of our life. We thought we had known crazy before; we were so wrong. We have never been so busy, so tired, or so spent - emotionally, physically, spiritually. I did some calculations and realized that since September, we have spent approximately $7200 on GAS for our minivan for Habi's transportation for school. That money has been nowhere in our budget, and being transparent, there is no way we could budget it in a way to afford it ....but God can and did, and He provided. On top of that our family has had some burdening medical bills and have added in lawyer fees, with more on the horizon. We have spent approximately 420 hours in our van, on the road, (that is 2.5 weeks!) not to mention the hours of therapies, the hours of homeschooling, ministry, dreaming and planning our new church, and then the hours of "life" squeezed in between. Although to be honest, I have felt pretty lifeless, and as if I was just being dragged through these days. We have been stretched until there has been nothing left to give, and sadly some relationships have been severed, because at this point in our lives, we truly had nothing left to give. Jim and I both broke down about that many times this past year, just sobbing saying we had nothing left to pour out. It was all being poured out to survive one day at a time, there were no leftovers. I have learned that although we have signed on to this crazy, nobody else signed on with us, and they have the freedom to enter in or walk away. We have seen a lot of the latter, but it has been exactly what we have needed to see. Although, it did not always feel that way, it was a grace gift, and I am accepting it and moving forward with no bitterness. I think it will allow us to be more compassionate in the future about really entering inside the pain and crazy of others. We know what it is to walk it alone. It also brought us to the breaking point in knowing God was calling us to something new, and knowing us, if we had been any more comfortable, if we had had more people wrap around us, we may not have been willing to hear His calling. We may have stayed, when clearly we shouldn't.

I am finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. I am finally sleeping more than a few hours at a time again. And I can joyfully look back and see grace and mercy poured out on our family by the One Who never left our side, by the One who on many days dragged us over the finish line. We've known for a long time that something had to change, that this was not how God intended us to be living life - because truly we were not living.

I am dreaming again.

I am dreaming of the church of our dreams - as Jen Hatmaker, a fellow adoptive Mama and church-planting wife, encouraged us with recently, Build the church you're dreaming of, the one you would actually attend. It's the best thing I can tell you. Throw out someone else's model or matrix and dream up the church you're craving. 

And that's what we are doing - we are dreaming and building. We are dreaming of a simple church stripped down from programs. legalism, and traditions; a church that functions like family. A church as bare as the church in Acts. I am dreaming of finally finding and being surrounded by my people. It is something we all crave, because it is how we were created - to know and be known, and love and be loved, and accept and be accepted, and just be a part of a people. People that I can just be me with, and invest and be invested in in such a way that out of our overflow we are all able to invest in our city and our world. We all desire people to link arms with us and dive in the messiness of life with us. And Jim and I are finally to a point in our life, where we are willing to fight against culture for these relationships. We are stripping away so much of our life in order to make this possible, and I have never been more excited - yes, me - even as an introvert - needs this.

I am dreaming of a church that Jesus would attend. A church that extends mercy to the poor, the needy, the marginalized, as well as the polished, wealthy, and worldly. A church that goes to the least as well as extends an invitation to them. A church that is known by it's posture, because it has a posture like Jesus. A church that understands that part of the gospel is the incarnation of Jesus, and part of being a disciple of Jesus is incarnating like Jesus.

I am dreaming of a simpler life, knowing that does not mean that the road ahead will be easy, but it has to be simpler than this. And with that simplicity has come some sacrifices and some tears, and God has ripped down ideals I had specifically about schooling. He has opened my eyes, and shown me how tight-fisted and proudly certain I have been about our prior choices. He has shown us how those choices do not fit into the life God is leading us on any longer. How those choices do not fit into the mission he is laying out for our family. God is closing the door on a part of our life that at one time I found a part of my identity in, and in doing that it is also something that I built up to be an idol. It made me self-righteous, indignant and altogether merciless. Exactly who I do not want to be. So God is stripping away priorities we had in our life, in order to realign our life with His mission. It has taken me months to fully accept this and surrender, but I have. 

And now I am dreaming again. And it feels so beautiful and right.

If you want to understand more of what we are dreaming about, and how to better pray for us, please check out our Mercy Branch Church website. And if you are curious about our name, you can read about it here. This website is a work-in-progress, and so is our church - so are we. Please give us grace. We would love to have you follow us on twitter and facebook as well.

I am dreaming again about being more disciplined in my writing, so I hope to connect with so many of you again in my little corner of the web. Until then - what are you dreaming?

.When Jesus says "Follow Me".

For awhile now we have been restless, unsettled, and uncomfortable. It has taken unique circumstances in our life this year to understand what the remedy to this would be, and how Jesus is once again pursuing our hearts and inviting us into His beautiful story. It is with bittersweet excitement that this story is leading us to sell our home, for Jim to resign from his current pastorate, and for us to move our family an hour south and plant a church.

There were many things that pushed us in this direction. Jesus has been whispering hotly in our ears follow Me for some time now, and we prayed and we searched and we wrestled with where He was having us to follow. Our hearts and instincts immediately went to Ethiopia, and we were nearly giddy with expectation that this could be where He was leading. However, as we prayed and talked and prayed some more, it become blatantly clear that, for now, Ethiopia is not where we are to follow. The medical, physical, and cognitive needs of our Jamesy, at this time, just do not make Ethiopia a viable option for our family. When we stepped back, and took a deep breath, and removed our emotion from the picture, we could so easily see that God had very plainly and purposefully brought Jamesy and Habi out of Ethiopia for now. We wrestled through other options across our country - so many of them good, exciting options - like moving to Illinois -near some dear friends. And all the while we wrestled and prayed, our life grew more and more chaotic here as so much of our life was now being spent over an hour from our home and next to Habi's school.

As we began to see how our lives were physically shifting away from where we were living, and the tension and stress that it was bringing to our once, simple, comfortable life, God began to plant a new dream in our hearts. A dream for a new kind of church, a new kind of community. A dream of solidarity with the poor, the mistreated, the outcasts, the marginalized. A new understanding of the posture of Jesus and what it really means to follow Him and live like He lived. A realization that  a church that Jesus was leading would be socially active, and that the church is exactly who should be leading in caring for people in need. A knowledge that knowing and saying absolutely must be matched with doing. 

This passage began burrowing itself into our hearts, and we are crazy enough to believe that Jesus actually wants us to do what He asks.

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter,“Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”

“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”

The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.  Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”  Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him,“Follow me!”  (John 21:15-19 - emphasis mine)

This was a dream that we could no longer ignore. 

To say that this has been an easy decision would be a lie. Following Jesus is always costly, and this new journey is no different. When I wrap myself up in my own emotions and flesh, I am scared and sad. This is the city and the church that I have literally grown up in. It was a dream of mine to raise my babies here, in this small country city, a mile away from my parents. I remember when we moved into this home, our first home, just five years ago, feeling that we would raise our babies to adulthood and grow old in this home. But slowly and graciously God has been tearing down these things, which have honestly become idols in my life. I am gaining a new understanding that this is absolutely not my home, that this life is short, and that I want to make this one, short, beautiful life really count for the kingdom. I am done storing up treasures here on earth. I am done replacing God's best for my life with good things. Now when we look at homes to purchase, I am no longer envisioning the home as forever, now we are talking about things like Is this a house that we could easily sell in the future? Because I am understanding now, more than ever before, that at any time Jesus could whisper again follow Me

Jim resigned from our church this Sunday, and is currently employed as a manager of a Sweet Frog. We are dreaming and building a new community and church alongside some beautiful people, whom God literally dropped in our laps as confirmation that we were truly following Him. We are working on getting our house on the market and praying that God sells it quickly, and then we move. Right now we will be commuting a lot and living part time in our new city. We are excited and terrified about this new adventure and our new church plant. While we know with all of our being that this is what we are being called to, God has not revealed to us whether or not we will be successful in this journey  There is no guarantee. All we can do is free fall and follow - no looking back, that is what we have learned to do when Jesus says follow Me. 

Jesus replied, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." Luke 9:62