Not Forgotten

In The Lego Movie there is a moment when they are trying to describe the main character, Emmet. The police are hunting him and looking for a defining characteristic to hunt him down. They keep looking for something that sets him apart and come up blank.  They finally conclude he is just so normal he doesn't stand out.

I get that.  I've spent most of my life trying to slide under the radar of being noticed.  I've lived the picture of a normal life.  My redemption story isn't big or amazing. Along my path my problems have been potholes where others have gaping craters.

With this normal, seemingly unremarkable life, I easily fell into the thought pattern that my story didn't matter, it was just too normal, too common, too forgettable. I didn't need to tell my story, because, really, there was no story to tell.  No one needed to hear about my normal life.  My story was forgettable, therefore I too, was forgettable.

I attended the first ever Splendid Retreat in October.  During the retreat, we spend some time listening to what God has to say to us.  Loud and clear, God told me "You are not forgotten".  The verse that was prayed over us before the weekend was Zephaniah 3:17 "A mighty one is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing." God reminded me, through his Word and through 38 other women who surrounded me that weekend that my story, is, in fact, a story that should be told.  God's work in my life is powerful not because of me or because of what my life has been, but because of God and what He can do in all situations, even the seemingly mundane.

So, I'm living into sharing my story, the story of how God has been at work in my life.  The story of how God can be found in simple, everyday living.  The story of how God sometimes doesn't talk in burning bushes, but instead in the everyday living of the life He has called me to live.

The attendees of The Splendid Retreat 2015

Pretend Friends and Real Life

Some of my best friends are confined to the pages of a book. I think about them and I dream about them. I wonder what their lives would be like if they were my neighbors.Harry, Hermione, Jonas, Katniss. These are my friends.


I also have friends that live only on my television screen. Pretend families like the Gilmores or Bravermans.

When I think about Embracing Rest, reading is high on my list. A comfortable spot, a cup of coffee and a good book is quite possibly the most perfect scene I could imagine. Replacing that book with a screen to watch a favorite show ranks a close second.





Our family has been in the process of thinking about what rest looks like for about a year now. I was really struck when I realized God wants us to rest. We were created and the very next day we rested. We don't work so we can rest, we rest so we can do our work. Rest is essential to our daily life.


Rest isn't just retreating from my work, it is allowing myself the moments I need to sit and listen to what God might be trying to tell me.


Harry, Jonas, and Katniss have all taught me something about God. When I have an imaginary conversation with one of them, it helps me to flesh out my thoughts about what God wants my real life to look like. When I retreat to Stars Hollow with the Gilmore Girls or to Berkeley with the Braverman clan, I think about my neighbors and how I can love them. I remember that my real life world needs love and care.

But God calls me not just to rest, but to work. I leave this time of respite, whether in the halls of Hogwarts or the streets of Stars Hallow, refreshed and ready for a new day, or week. A day where my pretend conversation with a pretend friend turns into a real conversation with my neighbor. A day where the task at hand is easier because I've been reminded that God is with me in the daily tasks I face and in the choices I make. A day where God has used my pretend friends to remind me to see the real life that is around me.

Celebrate Lavishly

One way MOPS encourages us to "Fiercely Flourish" is to Celebrate Lavishly. This is one way we lavishly celebrate life in our home:

Dad on his 50th birthday, 1997

“It’s three layer cake day!” my son happily announced as he sat down for breakfast.

Indeed it was. It was May 16. Every year on that day we have German chocolate cake and celebrate a man my children have never met.

In our house, birthday celebrations are a big deal. In fact, if we’re not celebrating something, we’re usually counting down to our next celebration. We’ve counted months, days, and hours until our next birthday. Each birthday celebrant gets to pick out the dinner and cake, which I’m glad to make. Sometimes they’re creative. Sometimes they’re TV dinners. Sometimes we’ll have odd combinations like steak and pancakes and eggs. And for dessert, I’ve made chocolate cake, cheesecake, strawberry upside down cake and cake pops.

As my kids started talking, they wanted to know everyone’s birthday. They love hearing stories about how my husband and I celebrated birthdays past. They asked about aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. It was in the midst of all these questions that we decided that we should celebrate one more birthday in our house: May 16th. That was my dad’s birthday.

My dad died in 2001, five years before my oldest child was born. Once we decided to celebrate, I  knew right away the cake I would make.  My dad had German chocolate cake every year for his birthday.  A few conversations with my mom and siblings confirmed that we all could narrow down his favorite meals to two: biscuits and gravy or pork chops.

So now, every year on May 16th, we have one of those meals, sing Happy Birthday, blow out the candles, eat German chocolate cake, and talk about Grandpa Hasty.  We talk about what he liked, the traits my kids have that remind me of him, and what he would have loved to do with each of them.  We look at pictures of him.  We laugh and sometimes cry.  

Celebrating Grandpa Hasty's 68th Birthday this year.

It isn’t always easy to celebrate. It brings up memories and emotions that are both wonderful and hard.  I’m sad for all the things he is missing. I’m sad because I miss him.

This year, after blowing out the candles on his cake, my oldest looked at me and said “Mom, is it possible to miss someone you’ve never met?”

I looked up, through the tears forming, and said “Yes, sweetheart, It is.”

Flourish

We’ve lived in California for ten years and our current Bay Area location for a little over seven years.  I should feel like I’m living the dream. I can be in Napa or San Francisco in an hour. People vacation where I live.  It is seriously a great location.

Even in the midst of this great location and even greater people, I’ve never really felt settled. I miss being within driving distance from my family.  Kansas is really, really far away.  I crave dinner with my siblings, watching my nephew play football or having sleepovers at Nana’s house.

Recently, this restlessness has been hard.  I’ve felt like it is time to move.  I was ready for something new and different  We’ve had several instances recently where I could realistically allow myself to think about moving back to the Midwest, but none of the possibilities came to fruition.

I was allowing myself to wallow in the frustrated feelings of staying put.  I decided to distract myself a little by studying the MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) theme for this year, “A Fierce Flourishing”.  I decided to start my study by looking up the words fierce and flourish.  

Fierce means "showing a heartfelt and powerful intensity". I am fierce about quite a few things. I fiercely love my family. I am fierce about books I love, literacy education, good coffee, discipleship and MOPS.

Reading the definition for flourish is when God smacked me on the head.  The definition read “to grow or develop in a healthy way, especially as a result of  a particularly favorable environment.”

As I read that definition again, God started talking to me. He said, “What if I’m keeping you in this place not because I’m not listening to your desires and needs, but because I’ve given you a favorable environment to flourish is and you don’t see it?”

That stopped me dead in my tracks and has made me think a lot. What if this staying isn't because God isn't showing love to me but what if it is because He IS showing love to me and I don't want to see it?

So, right now, instead of having my own private pity party about being where I am, I’m choosing to embrace all that is good and joyful and amazing and fun and wonderful about where I live. I am choosing to be open to what God wants to show me about how, where and when I will flourish here, in this place and at this time. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure what or how that looks right now, but I know it will turn out to be just what I need.