A Story of Friendship and Kentucky Blue

It is March.  That means March Madness.  My team is doing pretty well.  I am happy.  Today I am actually wearing my Kentucky sweatshirt.  That used to just make me think of my beloved Wildcats team.  Lately, though, I think more of my friends when I where this.  There is a lovely story.  I'll share it with you.

Back in the early fall of 2014 I woke from one of those mesmerizing dreams that leave you wishing you could go back to sleep.  I dreamt that it was my birthday and all I wanted was hot fudge sundaes and time to pray with a group of eight specific women.  So I promptly emailed all eight of them and told them about my wacky, beautiful dream.  They did not all know each other and we all live in far away places, so getting together is impossible.  But I wanted each of them to know how fun my dream was and how someday in heaven we would have hot fudge sundaes together and plenty of time to pray!

Fast forward to my actual birthday.  Wouldn't you know it, but one of those women is a beautiful instigator!  And she worked her tail off to plan a way for all of those wonderful women to secretly come to my house - everyone made it except one who needed to stay home (but she was so very missed!).  The funny thing is that I was actually cleaning my garage when they showed up!  Steve had taken me out to birthday dinner and then I had asked if we could spend some time working on our colossal disaster of a garage!  (Yes, I know, I know.  Not very cool.   But "acts of service" is my love language!)  I teased him later that he could have said, "Yes, dear.  But you may want to put on a cute shirt to do so!"  He did not.  So I was scrubbing mud off of the back door while wearing my big, well worn, very unflattering Kentucky sweatshirt when my first friend walked in!

In comes  beautiful friend #1 with ice cream.  She said she wanted to give me a hot fudge sundae for my birthday.  Hooray for me!  Nothing too unusual.  Then two more beautiful friends showed up.  I should have been suspicious when I noticed my Arkansas friend wearing a UK shirt.  However,  I was so excited I didn't really process that.  Then my most cherished, lovely Kansas City friend strolled in and I could start crying even now when thinking of how elated I was to see her!  We proceeded to make our sundaes.  Then... they kept on coming!  One at a time!  My beautiful friend from Wisconsin.  Oh, the tears!  And as soon as I stopped crying in walked my lovely friend from Memphis!   More sobbing and hugging!  Then, my lovely friend from Florida waltzed in and I was a weeping fountain of tears!  Y'all - there is video.  I am not joking.  But I will refrain from sharing that... you are welcome!  It was so sweet, yet heart wrenching, to hear that my dear, dear beautiful friend from St. Louis had been
unable to join us for reasons outside her control!    (But boy did we pray for her!)

Bonus - they were all wearing Kentucky blue!!

Oh everyone... have you ever been overwhelmed with how loved you are?  I am so rarely overwhelmed (except maybe by fear!).  But they did it.  I am told that I ate a hot fudge sundae - but I truly don't remember it.  And it was the sweetest time of prayer that I have EVER experienced.  Sadly, at the end of the evening - well, in the early morning, everyone had to go back to their homes and families.  It was truly like a dream.

What a story of friendship and sacrifice.  It was hard to leave families and responsibilities and drive for hours (one friend with a broken tailbone even! and one friend hopping several different flights)!  But I am grateful.  They are such a picture of the sacrificial love of Jesus to me.  Every day.  They love me well by praying and pointing me back to Jesus.  Makes me think of the verse in Hebrews 10:26  "Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works."

It is difficult to write a post like this - for I have so, so many good friends.  I cannot tell you where I would be without my Trailhead Church friends and family.  They love me day in and day out and I love them right back!  Truly.  And my husband and parents and sisters and my children!  But these ladies made a dream come true.  Literally.  :)  And I am thankful.

Twenty Five Years with You, Stevie

How do we celebrate twenty five years of marriage, Steve?  Words just can't do it.  At least not mine - you are the one who is good with words.  So - how about a little walk down memory lane with twenty five songs?  Twenty five songs for twenty five years
of marriage!

1989 - We got married!!  Two Hearts Beat As One - U2  Do you remember that thunderstorm in Louisville on our honeymoon?  One of my Very. Best. Moments. Ever.
1990 - Dancing with you in our first Missouri apartment - Soul Cages - Sting
1991 - We got to see U2 at Busch Stadium.  I was pregnant with Victoria.  It was SO loud.  We saw Bono interview someone from Sarajevo and call President Bush.  Such a good memory.  Mysterious Ways - U2.
1992 - Victoria is born!   Your first words to her were "You are so beautiful.  She's so beautiful.  She's so beautiful!"  We had sung "You are my Sunshine" for months waiting for her arrival.  We had no idea how Baby Sunshine would change everything.  She did.  She still does.  Listen to Johnny Cash sing it and celebrate the enthusiastic, brilliant, driven, beautiful woman she has grown into!  As she says, she is 100% you and 100% me crammed into one body!  You Are My Sunshine - Johnny Cash
1993 - I Would Walk 500 Miles - The Proclaimers
1994 - We first heard Dave Matthews Band on David Letterman.  One listen and we were hooked.  One of our best dates was Dave Matthews at Riverport.  Yay for babysitters!  Under the Table and Dreaming - DMB
1995 - In May God gave us the blessing of Esther.  She was born so alert and pink and beautiful.  She stole our hearts.  And little did we know just how many shark facts we would learn or how many shark movies we would watch! The tiny shark loving girl has grown to be a shark-obsessed woman!  Listen to the theme song from Jaws and celebrate the beautiful, independent, creative, gifted woman she has become.  The Theme From Jaws
1996 - This life is crazy!!  No sleep for us.  Stay Up Late - Talking Heads
1997 - Remember that time we LOVED hearing Jakob Dylan and the Wallflowers but we walked out on Counting Crows?  Another great date night on a hot August evening.  "Laughing Out Loud" with you.
1998 - Isaac is born!  He has made us laugh from the beginning.  Little smiley boy Steve called him.  Little boy blue.  He is growing to be big and strong like his dad and to love Jesus with his whole heart.  Yet he is different from you in so many ways.  Listen to one of his favorite songs, Beautiful Day, and celebrate the joy that he brings, the hugs that he gives, and the smart, thoughtful, caring, handsome man he has become.  Beautiful Day - U2
1999 - Ten years of marriage!   California Stars - Billy Bragg
2000 - New House!  Ringing in the new century! And bluegrass makes a comeback.  :)  I'll Fly Away - Allison Krauss 
2001 - The most healing, spiritual concert after 9/11 was U2.  Such a painful thing.  But a beautiful song.  One - U2
2002  How many times do you think we have sung Man Of Sorrows by now?  Every night for TEN years!  Man of Sorrows - anybody!
2003 - Oh, Norah Jones.  Come Away with Me - Norah Jones
2004 - We found our way to a new church and it changed everything.  From the psalms... a new song! U2 - 40
2005 - For the first time ever we left the kiddos and travelled to CA alone.  I will never forget that week.  The ocean and the hiking and the clam chowder and the rain and light houses and the sleeping to the sound of the waves again.  Do you want to be my "One and Only" love?  One and Only Love - Teitur
2006 - This year life changes forever.  You go to work for the Journey and our next adventure begins.  I will follow you anywhere.   Rocco Delucca - Colorful
2007  - Sometimes you hear a song and know that it will forever be in your brain - because it expresses so much of what is in your heart.  "All of these lines upon my face tell you the story of who i am... so many stories of where i been and how i got to where i am... I was made for you.  Story by Brandie Carlisle
2008 - I turned 40.  We celebrated our 19th anniversary.  We started a church!  AND in the same month we traveled to Ireland and Northern Ireland.  We realized that Snow Patrol was from Belfast.  "Crack the Shutters Open Wide" was released the month we were there.
2009 - Twenty years of marriage.  It went by so quickly.  And still...  "All I Want is You" - Jars of Clay version may even be better than the real thing.  :)
2009/2010 - Mumford and Sons  "Awake My Soul"
2011 - Trailhead begins!  Jesus of the Scars - Jake Gehret
2012 -Trailhead's first birthday!!  Beautiful Things - Gungor
2013 -  God is so good to us.  Approach My Soul the Mercy Seat - Jon Yerby
2014 - Three years at Trailhead and twenty five years of marriage.  Teach Me To Know - Lone Bellow 

Honorable Mentions!
Rain in the Summertime - The Alarm
War Child/Where The Streets Have No Name - Elbow
Joel Lindsey - What Is Love?
Unchained Melody - Willie Nelson

I have been thinking about these songs and these memories for a while now.  Each song evokes so much emotion.   We have had such a good life, Stevie.  I am so very thankful for it.  I know that what we have is a gift - nothing we have earned and deserved or created.  God gives good gifts.

Here are the lyrics to The Story by Brandi Carlile.  

All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am

But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true, I was made for you

I climbed across the mountaintops
swam all across the ocean blue
I crossed all the lines and I broke all the rules
But baby I broke them all for you

Oh because even when I was flat broke
You made me feel like a million bucks
You do, I was made for you

You see the smile that's on my mouth
It's hiding the words that don't come out
And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed

They don't know my head is a mess

No they don't know who I really am
And they don't know what I've been through
Like you do, and I was made for you

All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am

Oh but these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true, I was made for you
Oh yeah, well it's true that I was made for you

Ha!  I just wrote a whole blog without a Wendell Berry reference!  Haha!  Proud of me?

I Love You

For as long as I can remember I have been looking for a new word for love.  We use that word so flippantly anymore. I love lots of things.  (Funny - Steve talked about love in his message on Sunday!) I love Steve.  I love my children.  I love the ocean.  I love hay bales.  I love my dogs.  Those are all different, right?  So why don't we have different words?

I have been bugging Steve to invent a word that describes how I love him.  One that conveys just what I mean when I say "I love you".   He's Mr. English Major.  He should be able to come up with one.  But he's got nothin'.

What's a girl to do?  There's my favorite word - fidelity.  But that's not a verb.  There's adore and cherish and value... Nope, not it.

So how's this for a solution?  I have chosen places that are important to me.  Each of these words speaks a different idea of love to my heart and soul.

I KENTUCKY you.  We have history.  We belong.  We have a common place and community and work.  Love.

I NORTHERN IRELAND you.  We have adventures together.  We have a future together.  We look forward to what's next.  Love.

I CALIFORNIA you.  We have beauty and fun and family together.  We have the ocean and relatives and sunshine.  Love.

I ANZA BORREGO you.  I will go anywhere with you - even there.  Love.

I YOSEMITE you.  You take my breath away.  Love.

They may sound funny, but these words work.  They convey exactly what I want to say.  After 23 years of marriage we have lots of those words!   I am sure you have some, too.  Try one out on the one you love.

Favorite Valentine Thought from Hafiz

The Beautiful One whom I adore

Has pitched His royal tent inside of you,

So I will always lean my heart

As close to your soul

As I can.   

Hafiz is one of my favorite poets.  From the poem "The Woman I Love", as collected in the book "The Subject Tonight Is Love" (Translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

Thoughts on Fidelity

In August Steve and I celebrated our 23rd year of marriage.  Never could I have fathomed 23 years!  Never could I have imagined how much better marriage would be now.  It didn't make sense in my brain - to be old and to be in love sounded boring. Oh, how wrong I was...  The safety and peace of knowing and being known is overwhelming in such a beautiful way.  As we look ahead at our kiddos all being out of the house (still four years away!) I can actually have joyful anticipation.  Who would have thought?  As always, Wendell Berry puts words to my swirling thoughts...  

The Blue Robe
How joyful to be together, alone
as when we first were joined
in our little house by the river
long ago, except that now we know

each other, as we did not then;
and now instead of two stories fumbling
to meet, we belong to one story
that the two, joining, made. And now

we touch each other with the tenderness
of mortals, who know themselves:
how joyful to feel the heart quake

at the sight of a grandmother,
old friend in the morning light,
beautiful in her blue robe!


I don't often talk about the idea of being beautiful.  This is never a word I use when speaking of myself.  But thankfully my husband does!  What a miracle of God! :)  That Steve would think of me as beautiful - that he would consider me his standard of beauty.  It is a more valued gift than any other he has given me.  How does this happen?  It is a developed gift - not an instantaneous feeling.  Of course when you are young there is that attraction of beauty.  But I am older now, different than I was then.  But my amazing husband has kept his eyes only on me.  He has cherished the gift of me.  He does not compare me.  I do not ask him to.  We do not talk of the beauty of other women or men.  We work hard to avoid that pit of "Do you think I'm as pretty as...?" or "Who is more beautiful?  Handsome?"  He honors me and, though I don't deserve it, he loves me.  God has honored this covenant with fidelity.  I love that old fashioned word.  It means the quality or state of being faithful.  It's what makes the grandmother in the blue robe beautiful.  It is what makes the man with the stoop and the cane handsome.  Look at how thesaurus.com defines it:

Part of speech:  adjective
Definition:  loyal, reliable
Synonyms:  affectionate, allegiant, ardent, attached, confiding, conscientious, constant, dependable, devoted, dutiful, enduring, fast, firm, genuine, honest, honorable, incorruptible, loving, on the level, resolute, sincere, staunch, steadfast, steady, straight, sure, tried, tried and true, true-blue, trustworthy, trusty, truthful, unchanging, unswerving, unwavering, upright.

What a picture of Christ.  He is all of those things.  He is true and trustworthy and unchanging.  I am grateful to Steve for his fidelity - he is not perfect, but he is a reminder of Christ to me.  He seeks to love me as Christ loves the Church.  I am thankful.

Those of you who know us personally know that we are far from perfect.  We have lots of issues!  But, that's the beauty of it.  Fidelity can be found in our imperfection.  I don't write to brag on us, but to encourage you:   what I thought was impossible isn't. 

Abounding in Love

Okay - I am addicted to Twitter. I like it much better than Facebook. If you haven't tried it you most definitely should. All day every day there are people posting quotes. Some are hilarious and others are serious. This quote came across my phone a few days ago and I have been thinking about it ever since: "Always abounding in the work of the Lord" (1 Cor 15:58) Abounding. The opposite of foot-dragging. ~Ray Ortlund. Let's talk about that for a minute!

I have been having an ongoing conversation with a dear friend about loving our husbands. We both admit to struggling with this. There are days it is easy to be supportive and loving and kind and patient and the voice of affirmation. But there are seasons when this is very difficult... Our husbands require love and affirmation and respect even when we don't feel loved and affirmed and respected ourselves (the reverse is also true - but we aren't talking about us right now!). And in those times it feels like we just have to give and give and give. Here is how my friend puts it: "Marriage is not give and take. It is give. And give... I am not called to give my hubby affirmation and speak words of truth that he needs when I am receiving what makes me feel loved. I am called to do it. Period. Because Jesus gave and gave and gave. And still gives more. The same Spirit that was with Jesus has been sent to dwell in me and will give me strength and joy." This is where we come to abounding.

"Always abounding in the work of the Lord" (1 Cor 15:58) Abounding. The opposite of foot-dragging. I have perfected the art of serving my husband with a bad attitude and serious foot dragging. This is what happens when I work out of my own strength. I personally am seriously lacking in strength and seriously not lacking in self-pity and self-indulgance and even self-preservation. But God has called me to this work - the work of loving my husband. And the only way I can abound in this work is through the power of the Holy Spirit! Do you see the relief in that, friends? We can't love our husbands in our own strength. Period. We can only love - and give - out of the strength of the God of this Universe!! I don't have to muster up strength each morning to cook again or speak words of affirmation or serve patiently or be a joyful wife!! I just need to PRAY!! God will give me abounding strength. And He will cause me to be more dependent on Him daily. He will develop in me more love and more compassion and more strength to serve.

Just a footnote: Please don't hear me say that loving my husband (or you loving your husband) is ALWAYS work. It most definitely isn't. There is so much joy in this that my heart bursts just thinking about it. But we cannot deny as wives and even mothers that there are days when... well, when we don't have the mental, emotional, or physical strength to love our families. I hope you haven't experienced those days yet. But if, like me, you have - please know that you are not alone and that you can ABOUND in this work - NEVER through your own strength, but in the Strength of the One who has died in your place and who has given you His Spirit!

Love and Friendship

This week has had a running theme: love. Not romantic love, although I love romance, but the love of the Father and love of friends - community, again.

I am SO very grateful for my friends. I have found true community here in this little town and in this church. I am surrounded by women who make me feel safe, loved, and cared for. Many women go through life without this - and that is not the plan God has for true community in your life. To have a group of women who continually want more than you can give or who make life unsafe for you can be debilitating. Run from those women. But run to women who will speak truth to you, who will push you to be what God created you to be, who are not afraid to love you well. Don't be a user, though, seek to return the favor. Be authentic with your wants, needs, and struggles. This is good for your soul.

After a conversation with a friend this week, I am reminded of how God loves us. It is not because of who we are and what we do - but because HE CHOOSES TO LOVE US. Period. It has nothing to do with us. It has everything to do with Him. We see this played out in our relationships as well. I have three kiddos. They are good kids - but they are also bad kids (don't tell them that I said this!). I do not love them because of their actions. I love them because they are mine. I choose to love them. And hopefully, they choose to love me in the same way. My actions as a mother and a wife are not always deserving of love. But my family loves me despite those actions. We choose to love. Then we pray for God to increase that love. And we seek to have a home that encourages/enhances/invites that love to grow.

This is, hopefully, true of my deepest friendships. I love these women, not because of who they are (although that is probably how we became friends - she or I did something that invited friendship), but because they are the community God has given and I CHOOSE to love them. Unconditionally. This is something God does in my heart. He cultivates community in us. This love is not based on me and my friends, but on the love of God. And I am grateful for that. That takes the pressure off of me to perform (to keep my friendships) and them to work to earn my love.

Now there is still tension here. I have God's love for these women (and they have it for me), but I don't have this same love for everyone. It is a group of women who have given me freedom to be me... no strings attached. And they call out something in me that I know God wants called out. It is a community that He has miraculously placed me in. IF you do not have this, pray for God to send it. This will require vulnerability on your part - you have to seek like minded women that call out God in you. But when you find it, you will know. This is not affinity for me - it is community. Are you looking for affinity - people in your current life stage? That may not be the right place for you to look. Maybe you need to find people in the same spiritual life stage as you. Start there! Start spiritual conversations and see who you connect with. I am grateful that I did.