Ode to My Minivan

(for Alexis)

Your kid-friendly features called me like an afternoon nap,

Window shades, automatic doors, I fell prey to your trap.

For eight years and three kids, we rolled around just fine,

To the beach and the mountains, we rocked the double yellow line, 

Then one day I awoke to find I hadn’t showered in days, 

I binge-watched Downton Abbey and was eating Chick-fil-a,

You were pushing 150k miles, it was time for something new,

And then it hit me, an epiphany, there was just one thing to do, 

So we sold you to another family with babies and a dog,

But I wanted to properly thank you for your service on my blog:

In your cupholder, I once found a congealed delight,

Made from last week’s goldfish and spilled over Sprite,

Your tires were never rotated and unevenly bare,

Your bumper was shopping-carted, and I didn’t even care,

My daughter's projectile wretch resided deep in your pocket,
No fear of theft, I never felt the urge to lock it, 

Half the time your doors jammed and closed back on my child,

The scent of your leather was putrid, yet mild,

The orange that rolled out of my grocery sack,

Was found a month later, green rotted mold in the back,

Your DVD player we swore to only use on trips (LOL),

Was like medicine for this momma, for my kids it was the drip,

Dried vomit and diaper leakage crusted between your seats,

Baby Einstein and Barney were your only sick beats,

Princess stickers melted on your back windows, all I could do was sigh,
Your steel mobile prison is where former glory goes to die.

To the extreme we rocked parenthood like a vandal,

But to keep driving you would be worse than a scandal,

It’s mommy graduation, they’re almost all in school,

I’m not wearing a jean jumper yet, I can still be cool,

I’m truly grateful for any wheels with my family by my side,

But I finally got my swag back in my NEW. DOPE. RIDE. 

SUV= Stay-at-home-mom Upgraded Victory,

And that is the happy ending to this mommy story.

(special thanks to the hubs, Marcus, who funded said new ride)

Left Behind

It's interesting the things that mean the most when someone is gone. I remember when my mom asked me if I wanted any of his clothes. A little taken back, I said "no."

Was it morbid? Not really. It was uncomfortable and strange. It was the business of burying the dead, as you know all too well when you have lost someone. There are practicalities that seem cruel, unnatural, and awkward, but things that must be done nevertheless.

I'm so thankful she saved for me one of his old Georgia t-shirts. It is red, and an XXL, with the painted word "Georgia" on the chest cracking and peeling off in places. It is perfectly flawed, much like the man himself.

I have struggled at times to make sense of my dad, in an unbiased way. I'm afraid I have failed miserably. I just simply can't see him as anything other than what he was to a little girl turned grown up: larger than life, a lover of people, a seasoned laugher, a generous giver, an unpretentious country boy, a grace giver, a life speaker, an incredible encourager, my hero.

Do I know his flaws? Yes, of course I do, but they have always paled in comparison to his strengths. For the good things in him were so much more staggeringly great than in the average man. They could never be overlooked in the interest of his imperfections.

Mom also saved me one of the Hawaiian shirts he wore when he went on speaking engagements. Thank you, Kim, for not cutting it up and making me an apron out of it. Seems an improper use to make ruffles and ties or anything fashionable out of a shirt belonging to the most unfrivolous man on the planet.

That one stays wrapped in plastic in my closet. I have never taken it out. He is wearing it in many of the pictures I have of him in recent years. It is shades of blue and white with palm leaves, with buttons all the way up the front ending in a collar in the middle, and has a big pocket on the left breast. If you knew him, you know the one.

In the pocket he never failed to keep a pen and a notepad-- the kind with white paper lined with blue and a metal spiral across the top. The weight of it pulled at the pocket so that it hung at an angle drooping away from his body.

He often scribbled in it at inopportune times. We teased him about it. He wrote notes about things he needed to do, funny things he heard or noticed, kept a list of people to write letters to, dreams and ideas he had.

It seemed prematurely old man-ish to me when he began to carry it in his forties. Maybe even embarrassing when I was younger and still trying to be cool. So did the reading glasses he kept around his neck on a string that he got when he turned forty and for the first time in his life couldn't read the paper without holding it 12 inches away.

He was not technologically savvy and the carrying of those items- the pen and paper and the glasses- was a writer's insurance, so to speak.

Now I totally get it.

I wish I had more of his shirts, but I'm not sure why. Maybe the American way- that more is better. When we all know deep down it is not.

Maybe it is because I feel small when I wear them. Like a child again. Wrapped in him, or something of his. It is a poor substitute, a counterfeit really, for the real thing.

I also carry one of his handkerchiefs in my purse. After two and a half years, it is now peppered with pen marks and crumbs of various child's snacks smashed into its fibers-- much like the lining of every one of my purses. I would never offer it to anyone in its present condition. It's more of a momento of the memory of him, of the many times he offered this hanky to me.

Like the handkerchief, he is still scattered about my everyday, his likeness appearing in the art of my children, his love of food present in their snacks. Parts of him are still tucked away in the lining. It is a little faded and scarred, but present with me everywhere I go.

Like me, it carries many tears inside of it, filled with sorrows yet not overcome by its scars.  I have no plans to restore it to its former glory. It's not my job or within my skill set.

For when it is finally cleaned, unblemished, and washed and pressed, there will be no evidence of the pain it once contained. Every tear will have already been wiped away. Its former use will be no more. The vessel of sorrow will become a beacon of glory.

There will be only joy and completeness and the memory of what once was broken and hurting.
Like going to sleep on a pile of bricks and awakening atop a shining castle.

I was thinking today, because the busyness of Thanksgiving kept me from really reflecting until now, about what Jesus left behind. What did he want us to hold onto two thousand years after he was gone to remember him by?

And two precious things come to mind. His Word, the Bible. And His Spirit.

He also left us the practice of meeting together in fellowship and community of the church. He left us the practice of taking the Lord's Supper-- to proclaim his death until He comes. And a bunch of other things.

But the Bible and the Spirit are overwhelmingly the tangibles/ intangibles that come to my mind.

And unlike my Dad's shirt, both of those are not just "things" that remind us of him. They actually ARE Him, or a part of who God is.

John 1:1-2 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God."

Jesus IS the Word.
Jesus IS God. The Spirit IS God, too. 

When I sit and try to wrap my mind around those three sentences, I can't. They are too deep, too rich, to sacred for me to understand fully.

But I do know this. What Jesus left behind for me gives me way more comfort, way more hope, than a Georgia shirt, a Hawaiian shirt, and an old hanky ever could.

Jesus sent another form of God, the Spirit, as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come, and He gave the Word as the roadmap to help us find the Way. To find more of Him.

What Jesus left simultaneously gives contentment and discontentment, satisfaction and longing, comfort and discomfort, because one taste of Jesus only leaves us longing for more. And the more we get of Jesus the less we want of this world.

I thought about my dad yesterday, feasting with the King of kings, and that, deep down, is what I am most thankful for...

That those in my extended and immediate family, my husband, my children, my mom, my brother, and his family, will be there, too.

I'm thankful for hope in the middle of hard things. I'm thankful that Jesus didn't just leave us a stained shroud or a crown of thorns or a stick he used to draw in the sand. Or a Georgia t-shirt (no doubt He has one).

He left us more of Himself. More of God. No counterfeit. No remnant. No marred possession.
The Spirit. His Word. Living and active.

God with us. The pinnacle of our gratitude rests on everything that is fulfilled in Jesus. He is in all and through all. He is the most we could ever have to be thankful for. I pray He is with you today and in the life everlasting. 

I pray that you see all your blessings today as given to you by the hand of a loving Father. He has already given us His very best. We need only have faith to believe it. 

Women's Rights Activists, You're Whiffing the Ball

Women’s rights activists, where are you? Frankly, I am disappointed. You have a high hanging ball right over the plate, and you are whiffing. It’s embarrassing. 

Does a woman’s right to choose only extend to an abortion procedure or does a woman also have the right to choose (or have knowledge of) what happens to said “fetal tissue” after the procedure? Does she have the right to the knowledge of its sale for illegal profiteering? Does she have the right to consent of such use? 

Does it violate a woman’s rights for a women’s health organization to illegally sell her donated "fetal tissue” for profit?

Planned Parenthood’s mission is “to provide comprehensive reproductive and complementary health care services in settings which preserve and protect the essential privacy and rights of each individual.” The great champion of a woman’s rights and her right to choose has effectually denied her exactly that. The hypocrisy is palpable. 

If I am a women’s rights activist, I am angry. Angry that an organization I have put so much energy behind and held up as the great defender of women’s rights has jeopardized it all over illegal activity while simultaneously violating women’s rights. 

If you are going to be about women’s rights, then be about women’s rights. If women are consenting for research that follows federal law and then that consent is being abused by illegal activity, then women are being victimized. They should be able to choose whether they want someone to profit from the sale of their baby. They should also have the confidence that their procedure is being done in the standardized way-- not illegally altered for the sake of profit.

I wonder how many women have watched the video of the baby parts in the petri dish and wondered…is that mine? Is that my boy? There may be thousands of women out there wondering if the baby donated from their womb was chopped up and sold for profit or maybe even sold “fully intact” (not all women who get abortions believe it is merely fetal tissue). Sadly, they may never know. 

The question is, do they have a right to know? This is a separate issue altogether from whether the "tissue" should have been extracted in the first place. This is not just a pro-life battle. 

If Planned Parenthood’s self-imposed conundrum was not so closely related to the abortion issue, feminists and women’s rights activists everywhere would be crying, "foul!" Instead, they are standing by Planned Parenthood, illegal activity and all, while losing ground for women they fought so hard to gain. The extreme left would love nothing better than to spread the misinformation that Planned Parenthood’s illegal sale of fetal tissue is another pro-life/ pro-choice war. That is a war they believe they can win. 

Is the pro-life issue a part of it? Sure it is. Depending on which side you are on, it’s a huge part of it. But while pro-lifers are reeling in horror at inhumane feticide, at the very least pro-choicers should be outraged by the empty promises of an organization which claims to stand for women's rights yet profits by illegally taking advantage of them. Aside from the moral issue, there is the looming legal one. And that one transcends party lines. 

We corporately laud these same ethics requiring a financial institution that fraudulently misuses our money to be held legally responsible and punished accordingly. Why have we lost our gusto on this one? What supporters of Planned Parenthood are effectually saying is: We give women rights up to a certain point as long as we can keep them ignorant. As long as they don’t really know what we are doing. 

It’s like the civil rights movement saying— hey, we are fine with equal rights in practice as long as we don’t have to become intellectual equals. Let us use the same restrooms and sit where we want on the same buses, but you don’t have to give us equality in education. Heck, we don’t even need to vote. It’s beyond absurd. 

If you are selling women’s rights, shouldn’t those transcend the physical practice of what she does with her body? Shouldn’t she be allowed to know? Shouldn’t she be consulted? 

Planned Parenthood is happy to keep her in the dark. Give her rights…but not enough freedom to interfere or to have a say about what monster her donations are feeding. And apparently, the majority U.S. Senate and President Obama support her oppression.  

Don’t for one second make this only about the moral issue of abortion. Whichever side you are on, make Planned Parenthood accountable for the legal boundaries they have crossed here. Stand up for the women whose rights are being trampled under the false banner of protection.

And choke up on the bat already.


(And if you don’t believe this is factual, go watch the series of videos put out by the Center for Medical Progress. Hear it from the mouth of Planned Parenthood’s Mary Gatter haggling over the price of aborted baby parts because she wants a Lamborghini, haha. This isn't about covering the cost of research, friends. The cost for research plus travel expenses is a fixed cost, not one to haggle over). 

Would You Rather

Years ago, I was playing a game of “would you rather” with a friend. It goes like this- Would you rather…live in California or New York? Would you rather…have a dog or a cat? And so on. 

My friend asked the question, “If you were forced to choose, would you rather lose your hearing or your sight?” I had to pause for a while, unsure of my answer (obviously, I would not choose either one, but for the sake of the game, I thought about it). I finally concluded that, if I had to choose, I would rather lose my hearing. I would only have the memory of music and voices, but I could still see the faces of the ones I love. 

My friend responded that he would rather lose his sight. His reasoning was that so much sin is rooted in our sight- covetousness, gluttony, lust, jealousy, idolatry, greed, vanity, pride…Even without sight, our flesh could still desire these sins, but without sight, they may be easier to overcome in some ways. 

Our heart follows our gaze, doesn’t it? 

Are we gazing at earth or are we fixed on heaven? 

I have these two friends. Both carry heavy loads. They endure the back-breaking burden of a family member who is completely dependent on them and who is mentally and emotionally stunted. One family member had a brain injury. One child has a rare disease. 

If given the option of would you rather…they would likely choose a different path. 

It’s love that carries them. Even when my friends are poured out, disgusted, angry, devastated, and exhausted, it is an other-worldly love that drives these friends of mine. 

They are captive in a life of service they did not choose. There was no “would you rather…” option. They are living out vows and responsibilities they never dreamed would come to pass. 

And yet, faithfully, day by day, they serve those who are largely unaware of the sacrifices, of the choice to love them, of the daily dying to self that is invisible to the world— the days of dirty diapers, angry words, tantrums, the death of dreams, and just plain hurt. 

When the present circumstances feel cruel and ugly, sometimes only then do we look longingly at the beauty of Jesus. We cannot be people of faith if we look only to what we can see. We must stay our gaze on what is eternal. 

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” Hebrews 11:1. 

My two friends try to walk by faith, not by sight, because the reality they see can quickly disappoint.

It is not glamorous. There is no red carpet for caregivers- no award for the one who gives her life away in secret, in the wee hours, when she feels alone and spent and hunched low from the weight. When the evil one hisses in her ear, “Just give up, just run away. This is too much for you to handle. God doesn’t love you. He is mocking you.”

I don’t know if my friends ask God why. I have not asked God why about my own suffering, but I do on their behalf. In the quiet of my room when I lie down at night, I watch my fan blades slice the dark air and I utter the words with hot tears, “Why, God?” 

My friend Rachel posted this quote from Elisabeth Elliot last week after her death, and it reminds me why:

"Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. The cross was the proof of His love – that He gave that Son, that He let Him go to Calvary’s cross, though ‘legions of angels’ might have rescued Him. He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.”

Perhaps the better question for the believer is— would you rather… have sight or have vision?

Our vision is so limited. So very limited, friends. 

Without Jesus, our sight doesn’t get past our clothing, our families, our cars, our houses, our suffering, our very own reflections. We miss the forest for the trees in our nearsighted chase for earthly comfort and our own glory. We are like greyhounds chasing the fake rabbit around the track, all the while forgetting that we are running a race. We become enslaved to our sight. 

We can’t understand a love that is not opposed to tragedy, so we see God as an American genie of health, wealth, and the pursuit of happiness. We forget that He loves us so much that He will do what He must to fix our gaze on Him. He is relentless in His pursuit of us. Our happiness was never his aim, only our eternal joy in Him.  

My friends know that God is no stranger to tragedies- the Bible is full of them! They know that crippled things, broken things, hurting things make the best canvases for Him to paint His glory. We must be emptied of ourselves and available to be filled with Him. 

Sometimes God does not give us the choice of “would you rather…” oftentimes, He just gives it. And the question becomes, “Would you rather face this with God’s help by faith OR would you rather face it alone without hope?”

This is really a thank you letter to my friends for being faithful to the tasks before them— for just doing the next thing,as Elisabeth Elliot called it, especially when that next thing is only seen by God. 

I know you do not do it perfectly, but thank you for not stunting your gaze on the things of this world. Thank you for the vision to choose eternal hope in the midst of despair. 

Thank you for pointing me to Jesus and helping me to see a faint trace of His scars on your palms. One day the thorns on your brow will rot away and you will don heavy crowns of untarnished jeweled gold. With newfound strength and eternal joy, you will lift them up and set them down at His feet. 

Would I rather have sight or have vision? 

With my heart I have envisioned what my eyes could never see: His imperishable glory shining through your broken vessel of a soul.

And it is beautiful. 

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” Helen Keller

“For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

2 Corinthians 4:17-18

They Stood Still

I was in the place I love most in the world, surrounded by the people I hold dearest, in the moment I never wished to be. We found ourselves in a perfect circle, the Georgia June sun warming our foreheads and our feet resting on the beautiful ground where he walked only two weeks earlier. 

The barn was on the hill behind us, and beyond it, the rolling pasture full of knee-high grass waved shalom in the warm breeze. Bass as big as Labradors churned on the surface of the fishing pond and an elusive beaver chiseled away at hardwoods. But in those many minutes that followed, my friends stood still and silent. 

It was a holy huddle. Our heavy tears hit the hot red clay and mingled near the garden he planted. I thought of the jar in heaven the psalmist writes about where God keeps our tears. Surely mine was spilling over.  

The compassionate faces of my dearest friends were like a roadmap of my life from the time I was two until I was nearly 35. In the lines on their beautiful faces were the tracks of immense shared joy and laughter. 

And now we stood, my heart broken and them absorbing each sob, captive in the wreckage of my grief. That day, their faces were solemn, focused on my every word, stricken with the same shock running through my body. They were shrouded in a still and silent love. 

As I was reading Job recently, I was deeply moved by Job’s friends. His three buddies did a lot of things wrong, but they did one thing really right. 

“Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, they came each one from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and comfort him. When they lifted up their eyes at a distance and did not recognize him, they raised their voices and wept. And each of them tore his robe and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky. Then they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.”

Job 2:11-13

In a moment of deepest loss and unthinkable grief, they came from far away and they sat with him. FOR SEVEN DAYS AND SEVEN NIGHTS. I can’t even fathom sitting in one place for that long. Then add in the dirt and heat. And the desert factor. And the no talking. It sounds impossible. Completely miserable. And yet this is what they did to share in his pain.

They created a space for him to weep and mourn, they tore their own robes and put dirt on their heads. They entered into his grief with silence and they carried his burden with their presence. For a whole week. I can only imagine how much they must have prayed. 

What we do for each other in an hour of need mirrors what God does for us. We draw near, just as He does. Because we are powerless to change loss, we draw near— to God and to each other. My friends did this for me. As believers, we share the pain, we shoulder the loss, and we pray to the omnipotent One. 

In the South, we also bring casseroles. Those are good, too.

I think of the people who laid down their lives- there are countless ones engraved on my heart who served, fed, cleaned, and cried.

There were those who came from Florida and New Jersey, California and Idaho. They dropped it all, even if it was a day trip from another state. For the believer, it must go deeper than “paying respects.” They came and resided in our grief.

Many of my friends were able to be there in the circle that day. The ones who couldn’t be there had my house cleaned, brought me a meal, kept my children, or wrote me a card. 

They (probably reluctantly at times) read this blog and willingly let the pain singe them. Most importantly (and less glamorously), they prayed, in the middle of the night or driving down the road, they brought my grief before Almighty God. 

More commonly, Job’s friends get criticized (rightly) for the things they said to Job. God’s wrath kindled against Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, not because of what they did but because of the words they spoke to Job regarding God that were untrue (Job 42:7). God relented and did not deal with them according to their sin, and thankfully if we are in Christ, He doesn’t deal with us according to ours. 

I think back on things people said and did that might have hurt me or my family, the things that were not correct about God. I remember the well-meaning things that felt uncaring and self-centered. Thankfully, God gives added grace to forgive in such trying times. Friends should accept each other’s presence as an offering of love, and have abounding grace for each other. 

I have been that someone. I have failed to respond appropriately for my friends in their hour of need, and I undoubtedly will be that person again. I am ashamed of things I have said trying to ease their grief and stop their suffering. How searing my words might have been, how callous. So I don’t blame other people nor do I harbor resentment for things said to me. How could I?

I have, however, changed how I hope to respond when my friends enter times of loss. 

I hope to say less. I hope to listen more. And if needed, I hope I will sit, present for the sobbing, breathing in the deep pain and loss, for as long as it may take to carry the burden as much as I am able. 

And I hope I will pray fervently.

I also hope I won’t ask, “What can I do?” or say, “Let me know if you need something.” Not that these are wrong things- they are great things. But I hope I will more likely just do something or anticipate a need. 

While love often speaks, I think more often in times of suffering, love just does. 

Even if the “doing” is standing still and silent.