Arrayed in Fine Linen, Clean and Bright!

 Revelation 19:6-10:  

        
    "And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, "Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready." And to her it was granted (given) to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.  Then he said to me, "Write: 'Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!'" And he said me, "These are the true sayings of God."  And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, "See that you do not do that!  I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

God has given us the fine linen that's clean and bright!  Yes, we do "acts" of righteousness as we work out our faith through our obedience to Christ, our love to others, our kindness, faithfulness, enduring hardship, living lives that are set apart or holy to the Lord in gratitude for what He has done for us.  We cannot even get into the feast without Christ's sacrifice on our behalf.  Even with whatever righteous acts we have done, it is not enough to enter into the presence of a holy God.

My words of "thank you" pale in comparison to the gift I have received.  I don't fully comprehend what you have done, but I know it's better than I can ever imagine- to be fully clean, fully righteous and that's why I get to come to Your table Lord.  I cannot even fathom what that feels like, to live life without sin dogging me down.  The beggar in the street longingly looking into the window, wanting to come but knows she's not had a shower in weeks, disheveled, torn and dirty clothes.  Hair unkempt and yet You, Jesus, say "Come in Kim, you are washed and clean because of MY sacrifice.  Here are your clean and bright, clothes.  Your fine linen.  Come!  Come, feast at MY table.  The marriage supper of the Lamb.  The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  The Lamb who took away every, single, solitary sin that you did... those mean words?  Gone!  That yelling at your kids?  Gone!  That proud comment!  Gone! That disrespectful tone and attitude?  Gone!  It has ALL been washed away because I died, I wanted you, Kim to have life and life even more abundantly than you could ever ask or imagine!  I am the God that heals you Kim!  When are you going to take in the grace, the full Truth, My love for  you and live truly free?" 

        "Come to ME, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take MY yoke             upon you and learn from ME, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your             souls. For MY yoke is easy and MY burden is light."  Matthew 11:28

I'm thinking now of the Prodigal Son... squandered everything that His father had given him on riotous living.  Drinking, carousing, sleeping around, wasting everything that was given to him...who knows the level he went to when he had his father's money?  

        "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your         son.  Make me like one of your hired servants."  Luke 15:21

He came to the end of himself.  He had been at the pinnacle point, so he thought, of enjoying life.  He realized there was no fulfillment in it all.  He decided to go back to his father.  "My father is never going to forgive me for all that I've done and how I wasted his money on nothing good." 

        "But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on         his neck and kissed him.  And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your         sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.'  "But the father said to his servants, 'Bring            out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.  And bring            the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive            again; he was lost and is found.' And they began to be merry."  Luke 15:20-24

Wow!  Even when he was far off!  His father saw him and had compassion.  He ran and fell on his neck and kissed him!  After all he'd done?  His son had not even had a chance to apologize yet.  While his son is trying to tell him how sorry he was, meanwhile his father is calling to his servants, "Bring out the best robe, get a ring and new sandals for my son, kill that calf that we've been saving for a special occasion!"  Unbelievable!  He barely heard the apology, his father was already getting things ready for a huge party to celebrate him coming home!  

A picture of our heavenly father!!  We too have run off, done our own thing.  We haven't listened to the things He has told us to do for our good.  We haven't truly believed or received the fact that he truly loves us and only wants what is best for us.  We need to take in this message of His overwhelming love for us "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  We weren't washed up, clean, dressed in our finest.  We were covered in dirt and shame, living in our slop.  Full of sin...pride, arrogance, boastful, unkind, ungracious, full of anger, hateful...all the things.  

        "But he was angry and would not go in.  Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him.  So             he answered and said to his father, 'Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never                        transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never game me a young goat, that I                 might make merry with my friends.  But as soon as this son yours came, who has devoured your             livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.'  Luke 15:28-30

So, his other son got angry because he was doing the right thing while his brother was living a riotous life while he was faithful to his father, working and doing the right thing.  I've been there too...feeling angry and jealous that someone else seems to be loved and chosen while I feel like I've been doing all the right things and left in the dust.  I understand why his dad did what he did (I'm a parent who loves her sons and would probably celebrate if they came back from the dead, so to speak too.)  There are two sides to every story, in this case, three.  As many people as there are, is how many different perspectives there would be.  

The heart of God is for all of us, wherever we find ourselves, whatever we are struggling with.  He loves each of us.  He knows what we've been through and what has shaped us.  He has grace for each of us no matter.  

I Think You Might Know Now...

I am trying to figure out how I feel right now...numbness?  Overwhelming sadness?  Despair?  My feelings are, as usual a confusing thing.  Mom died on New Year's Day, I can't really comprehend that she is really gone, for good.  I am glad for her...no more pain or stress or crazy life to bear.  As I posted that day, not long after I found out...my heart is breaking in a million tiny pieces as it has so many times before regarding mom, but now they are broken and smashed, not able to be repaired until that day.  What day?  The day I get to run to Jesus, to her, to my grandmother, to my sister and all will be made right.  Is it possible?  Is it really possible that we can look into each other's eyes and see love there instead of judgement?  To not guard my every word, every thought, every gesture?  To have peace instead of never ending conflict due to misunderstanding after misunderstanding?  I feel lost, kind of helpless, bereft really...

I've needed my mom for a very long time!  A family member posted how she missed mom and I didn't know what to comment...so I commented nothing.  I wanted to scream!! Nothing really meant everything.  I have been grieving her loss in my life for so very long.  I have felt so alone for a very long time.  The one silver lining is that it is finished, I cannot do anything else to repair this relationship...it is now for me to make peace...

Three years ago she said to me, "I never wanted you to leave"...my mind felt like it was going to explode.  I wanted to scream, "Why didn't I get that memo?"  "Are you kidding me?"  The ironies that niggle at my mind all the time not just since she died but for years of unanswered questions.  "Why didn't I know?"  I remember back in 1993, after I had finished my DTS and SOW at YWAM...I was pondering the question of returning home or staying where I was.  I wanted to go home, but didn't feel any hope that things between Mom and I would change and it hurt too much so I didn't go home.  If I had gone home would the outcome have been any different?  Every time I went home, it was painful, tense and stressful.  How can one know?  The question still lingers now.  How I had wished that someday we could make peace.  I fantasized that it would happen someday...but I also wondered if this day might come as well, when one of us would die and all these questions and all this angst would remain...

Dear Mom...

i think you might know all this now but here goes...

The words i wish i could've said

or maybe did...but you just couldn't hear...

i know how hard it is to live with a broken heart

a senseless silence

an overwhelming sadness and angst

thinking death would be a welcome relief

i just can't figure out what went wrong-

i loved you so much but maybe

i was destined to fail from the start-

if only you could know my heart

(maybe you know now)

though definitely not perfect

'cause i'm far from that

 add hurts and all of it

gets very messy

on your side

and mine

but...through  it all i loved you deeply

i wanted so much for you to like me

to accept me...

to love me...

for us to talk...

share...

laugh...

together

maybe you already know all this now-

maybe you know i tried to see you 

before it was too late

maybe you know and because of your humanness

your heartaches, just couldn't

pick up that phone...

the message of us singing happy birthday

rings on that answering machine in my ears...from last May, 

eight months ago

now, i'll never know why until

heaven meets earth

when all will be made right-

maybe then you and i

and your Mom and Jackie too

can have peace inside ourselves

and with each other

maybe there are reasons you just couldn't explain-

"I wish you had never left"

no sadder words could have 

rung and rattled in my mind

and soul

and heart

why couldn't you tell me sooner?

Nothing but whys are left now

no answers

now dad with dementia

and all tightly kept

and tossed into the sea

my heart already damaged and ravaged

and the loss keeps coming

seemingly no end

but who cares anymore?

i will have you and so much more

someday, in heaven

when i too go home

until then Mom, i love you, always have,

never stopped

but...

i think you might know that now

Summer 2018

It's summer and what a beautiful summer it has been this year, 2018.  It is now August and I know this month is going to fly by like a race car's streaks.  I don't want it to end.  Camping, swimming, relaxing...complete with blue skies and sunshine aplenty.  But, unfortunately, it is a season and these long days of warmth will morph into cooler and cooler evenings alerting the trees and wildlife and us that fall is indeed on its way...

We have gotten to go swimming at a friend's condo pool once a week all summer, Elias has come a long way to not being afraid of the water, getting his face wet and jumping in with Mom "catching" him.  We went to a cabin in Coeur d'Alene with friends and swam, paddle boarded, even got to go on a speed boat that belonged to the neighbor's.  They too had a boy about Josiah's age.  We got to go to the town named Harrison and had ice cream.  Shortly after Kent's mom and dad and sister and brother-in-law came and we went to GNP at least three times getting to go to Many Glacier, which we hardly ever go to.  We were reminded that we need to get out there and camp there!  Lots of pictures were taken of the beauty.  I went huckleberry picking with the boys on Big Mountain and got a little less than a quart of berries.  No bear encounters, but boy was it hot.  Josiah wanted to go up to the top, I had no idea how far we needed to go, but it was a long, long way especially with a 35-pound boy on my back!  Josiah did great though and both the boys did very little complaining, for which I was grateful!  We were blessed with a ticket to go on the ski lift down and I was ecstatic to not have to hike back down after that grueling trip up!  Josiah said, "This is the best day ever!"  We were given another pass so we took another round trip on the ski lift!  We were all beat after we got down, that is for sure!  Our neighbor left town and let me pick raspberries, so I have lots in the freezer, again so grateful!

With fall, comes school...we are homeschooling again this year only this time we are branching out on our own for the first time ever.  It is a little nerve-wracking and yet liberating all at the same time.  We were part of a local cooperative school that met once a week on Mondays for two years and it was great (mostly), but the tuition went up drastically and we would like a little more financial freedom to do other things...

Lord help us as we embark on schooling our children to your glory!

Now, it is fire season in the mountains, which means smoke for us down in the valley...no vistas to behold, just an ominous perpetual gray...living elsewhere has never been more enticing!  Fire restrictions, level 2; not sure if we will go camping now....there will be no let up except for when the snow flies...

Musings of an older Mom...

I started writing this post right after we came home from finalizing the adoption of our youngest son, who was seven months old...what a blessing he is in our lives!  We waited for a long time for this little guy, five years almost to the day.  To think we almost gave up, not because we didn't want to wait anymore although that may be just a smidgen of it but mostly because we are not young parents.  We started our married life and now our parenting life very late...

I am thankful for the opportunity to be a mom; better late than never they say; but there are many days I wish I was younger for many, many reasons...

One of them is that I feel like I am not on the same wave length as so many other moms and maybe it's all my own perception that is coloring the situation, but I feel very insecure around all these young moms and feel like we can't connect...maybe a feeling more like I am being judged, but is it really me judging me?  I will never really know the answer to this and is it really that important that I do?  Sometimes it is better to not know the truth!  My problem is that I also feel lonely in this endeavor...some of my friends are older than me and are done with kids...sure, they love their grandkids, but they are not in a place where they want our kids around or at least that is the feeling I get.  Again, is it just my feelings that I am reading into everything?  Then I feel guilty because I am the one that signed up for this adventure so why am I in a place of discontent?  It is so weird!  I wonder if there are other older moms that find themselves sitting with these conflicted feelings as a result of not feeling like they fit anywhere or maybe this is just a holdover of how I have always struggled to fit in...

Also, I never knew that with mothering comes all this other stuff that I didn't really know I was signing up for...like dealing with all the other mothers and their opinions and having to be a part of this larger community for the sake of my sons.  Sometimes I just want to go back into being a hermit and not dealing with all the drama, judgment and silliness that goes with this territory.

God knows.  God knows that this is what I would be facing and that I would need to call out to Him for help because I can't run away from it all as my son wants relationship with these other kids whose moms are twenty years my junior...right now he thinks we are pretty cool, but that may change when he sees how old we are compared to his friends mom's.

This is way more than I bargained for.  Lord help  me in my weakness and insecurity!

Some days...

Some days feel like they are never going to end...screaming kids, cranky husband, irritable self complete with lack of connection; a middle of January sort of day in the northwest...gray and all you want to do is zone or sleep.  But, sleep is not to come for these weary eyes until much, much later.

I'm sure I am not the first to call out, "When is this day going to end"?  "That's it, I'm done!"  But done we are not and this day will end before we know it.  Sometimes just hanging on by our fingernails is all we can do, though painful, it will end at some point.  God is the keeper of our days and our years...and He is good even when life gets hard because of our brokenness and the brokenness of others as well as the sinful world in which we live. 

I was pondering that thought the other day...how us sinful and broken parents are trying to raise up Godly, respectful children who are also broken from birth and how that brings great challenge right from the get go.  It is so easy to worry about the future sometimes, hoping and praying that our boys will love Jesus with all their hearts and not turn away from His ways; but they will fail.  To think that in God's perfectness his first two children, Adam and Eve who were born into a world without sin, sinned not too long after they were created when presented with a choice...not too encouraging!  They chose to listen to the evil serpent putting doubts into their heads and were led down a path of doubting their good Father and as a result rushed headlong into great destruction not only for themselves but for us all. 

Although not a very happy thought, God is a Father who loves and redemption is what He is in the business of doing!  So...I will do what I can do, mostly pray and try to listen to the Holy Spirit and blunder my way through parenthood, and He will do what He will do with the hearts of my boys...drawing and wooing them as only He can in and through their failures and mine!

You Look Like....

What would he/she would've looked like?  Would she look like me?  Would he be like me? Questions that all came to my mind the other morning while making our bed for some reason, right out of the blue.  We have two beautiful adopted sons and we are grateful for the chance to be parents although being older parents sometimes poses unique challenges that one doesn't think about until there.  I don't think too much about the what if's, probably an exercise in futility, but it was an interesting as well as a sort of haunting thought.  I think I thought of this because I had been looking at pictures of one of our sons siblings and birth mother and was trying to figure out who he resembled.  Might we have had a girl I already know what her name was going to be..."Bella Faith", and that makes me sad.  My grandmother's name was Bella and I always wanted to honor her and my mom for her loss and my loss of not having her in my life.  But that is not the plan God had for me.  I wistfully think of that often actually and grieve over the loss of what apparently can never be...

One of our sons looks a lot like us, people often tell us that and no one would know that he was adopted.  The other son is another ethnicity so there are never comments about how he looks so much like us.  It may seem like a small thing, but it is a thing nonetheless.  I don't think about that part very much at all, but there are fleeting moments when it crosses my mind and I am sure as they get older it will cross their minds as well.

God knows what He is up to and it is up to  me to trust that His plans are good and there is where I will leave this lingering thought....

Mind Meanderings...

I am tired tonight...often I feel quite good throughout the day as I tackle homeschooling our nearly seven-year-old son and cleaning up the mini messes and not so mini disasters of our nearly two-year-old.  Then today, I look up toward the ceiling in the kitchen for whatever reason and there I find a newfound leak bubbling into the shape of a water balloon longing to burst.  So a call to hubby to alert him, change my plans for finishing science, trying to get homemade pizzas somewhat pre-made as we also have an appointment and a couple of errands to do before coming home for dinner.  You know how it goes...one thing after another, some days it seems like nothing can be easy.  I was just talking to God the other day about that...in the midst of great frustration after one small thing after another turned into a trying test of patience I blurted right out loud to him, "Why can't anything ever be easy Lord"?  Some days are just like that...

Anyway, my son and hubby were watching a kid's show and after I began to notice my legs aching, I decided to take a hot bath to relax and draw out the kinks.  As I soaked, a family member came to mind...prayers for mercy, for healing, for hope poured out like the water gushing out of the faucet.  I was convicted of my own wrongdoing and wondered for the billionth time why and what and where to go from here...so many questions and so many haunting unanswerables...

My mind wandered to the Scripture my son and I have revisited again to memorize..."Love is patient, love is kind, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love NEVER fails.  (1 Corinthians 13:4-8.  Like NEVER EVER.  God is love, without him, we cannot hope to love like that.  We fail over and over again, daily, hourly...I have failed to love this person well, but am at a loss as to how to to do that.  I prayed for wisdom in the situation.  I prayed for forgiveness for my part once again and for the strength to love well.  To not keep record of wrongs done, to be patient.  But, my heart remains sad...a daily sadness that hovers over me sometimes like a light spring jacket and other times like a heavy wet wool...

We live in a world of sin and horrible brokenness.  Just look at the news at any hour of every day and you and I will be reminded of this tragic fact...accidents, murders, sex trafficking, missing children, lying, cheating and stealing abounds and it can leave a soul parched for something...sometimes we walk around so thirsty, we can barely get through a day due to dehydration.  A lack of encouragement, a lack of Living Water for our desperate souls.  God knows the pain of the earth.  He sees our struggle day after day.  I bet there are times he longs to scoop up those who love him and take away all the angst, but instead comforts us with his words of peace, of love and of our home that awaits just beyond the clouds.  Oh, some days, those imaginations of what heaven will be like light my fire, get me through another hard thing and help me to stay the course that I am on.

We press on for the high calling...we keep going knowing that this present tribulation is not to be compared with the joy that will come (my paraphrase).  To press on indicates there will be struggle and God's Word does say, "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world".  Pressing means you have to exert yourself, there will be resistance.  But we press on with God's strength each and every day.  And on this Word I will continue to hope!