The Shovel and the Sword

“Those who built on the wall, and those who carried burdens, loaded themselves so that with one hand they worked at construction, and with the other held a weapon.”  Nehemiah 4:17

One of the things that I often pray over my family is Nehemiah 4:17 - that we would be aware and on guard, protecting our family in prayer even as we do the daily work of life.

For months I’ve been praying for families. I’ve been asking God to restore broken and hurting families, to restore Godly leadership at home. To draw fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, back to Himself and teach them how to lead and live in a way that glorifies Him and heals this hurting world. I know that He does these things because I’ve watched Him restore my own, little by little, year by year since cancer snatched us right to the bottom of a deep, dark pit. 

I’ve been reading Nehemiah this week because that just happens to be where I am in my current trek through the Bible, and I cannot help but see some parallels with what is happening in the world right now. Nehemiah, a Jewish man and the cupbearer for King Artaxerxes, went to work sad one day because some of the Israelites who had returned to Jerusalem from captivity were in distress. The city walls had been torn down and burned so there was no protection for them. After talking to God about it, Nehemiah shared his worry with the king and the king sent him to Jerusalem to repair the wall. 

When construction started, their enemies began to harass and threaten them and the workers became afraid that they would be attacked. Nehemiah did two things: he reminded them that God had sanctioned the work and would protect them and he stationed armed guards around the work. His response was both faithful (“Remember the Lord, great and awesome...” v. 14) and practical (he set a guard v. 16). When the walls were finished, more Jewish people returned from their captivity. All the people gathered to celebrate the completion of the wall, and Ezra, the priest, read the book of the Law. The people  stood up, recognizing the importance of the reading of God’s word in their holy city after their return from exile. 

Now, it wasn’t all easy-peasy after that; the people had spent years in captivity in a pagan culture and developed some practices that went against all of God’s plans for them. Nehemiah had a big job of reinstituting the Jewish culture, retraining God’s chosen people to be holy before God, but he kept up the work, hard conversation by hard conversation. 

While I read and think on this story, I can’t help but reflect on this forced return to our homes, the cancellation of extra-curicullar activities that keep us busy and separate from our families. I’m not knocking the extra things we do to make our lives full - the Lord knows we spend 4 nights a week out of the house during soccer season and I firmly believe sports are good for my kids. 

But y’all, we’ve been given a chance to rebuild the walls around our families, to shore up the weak spots and rehang the gates, to protect them from a world that never stops trying to kill, steal, and destroy. We have an opportunity to retrain ourselves to be a holy people, to seek and trust God. Will you? Will you do the work, with a shovel in one hand and the Sword of the Spirit in the other?

Can you tell us what it means?

"Can you tell us what it means?"

I knew when I heard her sweet voice asking that question through the phone that God wanted me to pay attention. Something about it resonated in my spirit and I made a mental note to think about it again later. That's how I often hear God's voice - like an echo of what I hear or read or even think deep in me. It's hard to describe with words but I can almost physically feel it. I'll go ahead and acknowledge that this probably makes me sound crazy, but I don't care. I spent a long time trying to figure out how to hear God, and I will tell it because I know plenty of people who are still working on that.

Anyway.

I have been in Missouri for the week at a training class for my new job. I have a new job; Dave has a new job. We don't work at the King's Home anymore so I've been again asking God to show me my purpose since I am no longer in full-time ministry. Our schedules have worked so that I was able to participate in our daily devotion via phone every morning and this morning after Luke read the Bible passage, Ella asked, "Can you tell us what it means?" I went through it verse by verse so I could explain it to them, and here I am 12 hours later, thinking about it again.

There are so many things I want to teach them:

- work is good

- it's okay to do hard things

- drinking water makes you feel better

- you don't have to be like everyone else

- what others say about you isn't your business

- reading makes you smart

- do things just because they're fun, even when you're grown

- don't take yourself too seriously

- you can learn anything

- kindness is so much more important than achievement

Basically, I just want them to know all the things it took me 37 years to figure out, and I want them to know it right.now. Completely realistic expectations. No pressure at all. See bullet number 8 above.

What I think I want to teach them most of all is how to have their own relationships with God.

"Can you tell us what it means?"

Just the asking of the question tells me that she is primed to learn. She could have skimmed over it or rushed through it so they could leave for school, but she genuinely wanted to know. The way the question stuck deep inside me tells me that this is my purpose right now - that it's okay that there are only two of them and that they have always been mine. I'm supposed to do my part to prepare them for whatever their purposes may be.

The Man-Cub didn't ask any questions today, but he asks plenty and he soaks up the stories and spouts them back at us at the most random times. On the drive to church Sunday morning we were discussing why we have appetizers when guests come for dinner and I explained that they are to hold us over when we are hungry until the meal is ready. He chimed in, "Yeah, like when you are starving and you are praying to God to send the ravens to bring the bread because you are too hungry - that's when you need appetizers." That's a reference to God hiding and providing for Elijah after he proclaims  the drought in 1 Kings 17 plus a little dinner ettiquette. Biblically accurate with life application, just the way we like it.

Thorns

This morning, Tasha, our three-legged-dog, decided to do her own thing instead of following me home from dropping the kids off at school. I waited for her and called her a few times, but she went the opposite direction so I left her and walked laps around the lake. As I approached the footpath to school, I could hear her yelping - not the rude, impatient high-pitched bark she does to go outside, but consistent yelping that reminded me of the kid in A Christmas Story yelling "Don't leave me, come back!" Clearly, she was in trouble, so I slowed down and searched the brush beside the road for her. When I found her, she was chest deep in a thorn thicket on the downward slope of the hill. Stuck. If she had four legs, she might have been able to get out, but she was stuck.

I thought about leaving her because it was her own fault she was stuck in a thicket. If she had followed me home like she normally does, she wouldn't have been stuck. Those thorns were thick, and there were little ones like razor blades and inch long ones that looked ready to rip me to shreds. She just kept whimpering at me with sad eyes, so I stomped into the thorns to get her out. I was bared-legged and bare-armed and the bushes were thigh high, so the best I could do was stand on them so she could go over them. She slowly made her way up and over the thorns and then waited on the other side to make sure I came out. I don't know what she thought she would do to help me if I got stuck, but at least she waited. I came out bloody and impaled with splinters. She went to the lake for a recovery swim.

As I walked home, I thought about how I often go my own way and find myself stuck in a mess, needing rescuing. How God could look at me and say, "You should have followed me, get your own self out of the thorns" but He didn't. He comes to my rescue every time. Jesus literally wore thorns for me. I am just as handicapped by my sin as my dog is by her missing leg, and I need rescuing when I go astray but I have a God who will stomp into the thicket and make a way out for me.

I was humbled this morning by a dog, some thorns, and Jesus.

Why We Do What We Do

I shared this at the King's Home Hear the Hope banquet last night - modified slightly for reading instead of hearing.

The role of the father at King’s Home is vital because so many young people in our world have never had a healthy father in their lives. Psalm 68:5-6 tells us that God is a “father to the fatherless” and he “sets the lonely in families” – and that’s what the King’s Home youth program does. As much as possible, we provide a home and family, a place where at-risk teenagers can rest and grow to become better versions of themselves.

I am Amanda Roper and this is my husband, Dave. We are house parents in one of the girls’ home, and we currently have 7 girls, ages 13 to 17, and two biological children, ages 6 and 8. When we were asked to speak about what King’s Home has meant to us, I meant for Dave to do the talking but God just wouldn’t stop pouring words into my mind.

King’s Home has meant a complete life change – Dave had a successful law practice and I was ten years into a career in IT when we packed up our children and moved into a house with teenage girls. Dave and I used to spend approximately 60 hours a week apart and now we are together most of the time. We’ve had to learn how to work side-by-side and communicate well, and we can appreciate each other’s gifts now that we see how we use them day in and day out. We live where we work now, so my commute went from two hours a day to 30 seconds. I used to sit at desk for nine hours a day, and now I hardly sit down for 16. One morning not long after we started this job, I walked out of my apartment at 6:30 am to relieve my boss’s boss who had covered the overnight shift. I had traveled with my boss, and with his boss, but I had never greeted either of them in my living room in the morning. This work is a strange hybrid of full-time office job and stay at home parenting wrapped up with an administrative team who supports us and tells us how to fix it when we’re wrong.

It has given us an opportunity to show our children a life of service – as James says, to “be doers of the word.” It’s about teaching – how to shop on a budget, how to be appreciative, and how to serve. It’s about how to cook, and be considerate, and how to tell the truth in a kind way. Sometimes it’s about teaching them how to receive the truth so that they can the people that God wants them to be.

We celebrate with them when they make good grades or get good news, and we hold them accountable when the NEVER have any homework and their grades show it. We take them to the doctor and we attend their school meetings. I’ve been to so many wisdom teeth extractions that the nurse in our oral surgeon’s office greets me with a hug and calls me by name.

This work is about making sure they have the things they need and some of the things they want. It’s about figuring out how to squeeze $800 worth of groceries into a Volkswagon Passat in the Sam’s Club parking lot, and about teaching them Bible. I love it when I’m teaching our devotion time and they ask me question after question. Most of the time they are hungry for the Word; sometimes they reject it, but we do our best to teach it anyway, trusting God’s promise that His Word never returns void. We take them to church and we spend countless hours praying over them.

The job is hard, the hours are long, and the exhaustion is real, but having a front row seat in their lives as God chips away at their frozen hearts, smooths out their rough edges, and fills their broken places is worth it. And, there is the bonus of reliving our own youth, too. We go skating, shopping, bowling, and tailgating. Last year we took them to church camp, the beach, and to an indoor water park in Ohio – and if you haven’t been to youth camp as an adult, you’re missing out. We joke that is our retirement job because some days it’s hard to believe we get paid to have this much fun.

We are officially called Family Teaching Parents because our job is to teach, but we do a lot of learning, too. We learn the latest slang, the latest makeup trends, and the latest music. I’ve taken a crash course in Type 1 Diabetes and I’ve learned how to cope when 10 children are calling my name and asking all the questions until I fantasize about living on a deserted island. That usually just means I need a nap. We are learning how to love them even when they try to prove to us that they are unlovable. They are not unlovable, despite what their past tells them. I am learning patience and how to respond gently, how to listen without fixing and how to remove weepy mascara stains from my clothes. Sometimes they really just need a hug and a good cry.

We love them to the best of our ability, acting as stand-in parents while they are with us, and then we let them go. Some stay three weeks, some six months, and some much longer. Some of them never wanted to be at King’s Home, and some aren’t ready to leave when they go – and we are learning to say goodbye in both circumstances.  I sometimes feel anxious at the thought of one of them leaving, worried that I haven’t done all that I’m supposed to do for her, but I’m learning to trust God with the timing. Their presence in our home is never an accident, so while we have them, we do our best to fill them with good things – medical care, education, social skills, God’s word – we pour and pour and pour into their lives. Then, we give them space to decide for themselves what do with it – much like you probably do for your own children. At the end of the day, only God can change the heart and we know that He does and that He is actively changing hearts at King’s Home – the teenagers and our own. 

Sweet Georgia Brown

We said goodbye today. Twelve years is a very long time to love an animal. 

We knew she was sick when we went to bed last night, but we hoped it was just a stomach thing and she'd feel better today. Friday morning she had walked three laps and behaved like her normal happy self. 

This morning, I woke up to find Dave sitting in the bathroom floor with her. Her breathing was very labored and she refused to get up. I think we both just knew this was it for her, but we decided to take her to the emergency vet just to make sure it wasn't some freak illness and we'd done everything we could. Dave had to carry her to and from the car. I've never seen a 70 lb dog look so small. 

We got to the vet in time for her to assure us that she was dying and that there was nothing else we could have done to help her. She said she likely had a tumor on her spleen that burst, and that she sees that so often in old Labs. The staff there were awesome. They gave us space to love on her in the busy ER and made an impression of her paw for us to take home. 

We will miss her, but she had a long and healthy life, and you just can't ask for more than that. 

Godspeed, Georgia. You were the very best. 

Just Fishes

In our house, the birthday kid gets to choose the menu for their birthday supper. We've basically always done it that way, now we just do it more often. Luke chose fish tacos, green bean casserole, and cookie cake for his birthday supper last month.

Fish tacos, people. He loves them. The only other time I've made them while we've lived here, it was at his request and I cleaned out the freezer supply of Tilapia. I was preparing my grocery list and I decided to check the food room before going shopping, just in case.

Because I'm kinda thrifty and I don't like to pay for things I can get for free.

What's this food room, you say?

The Food Room looks like the stock room of a grocery store and it's full of donated food and stuff. Like, we hardly ever buy meat because we use what we find there. I've become a master at making a meal out of what I find. It's a personal challenge for me. How much free food can I feed them?

I regularly go there with a list of things I know we need in my head and I regularly find those exact things. And weird stuff, like children's multivitamins or tylenol, probiotics, school snacks for the littles, the exact number of cans of Rotel I was about to go buy, a specific kind of hair conditioner that one kid needs. Really, it's mind blowing. Dave and the kids, all of them, are probably sick of hearing my fascination with the food room. It's always what I name as my best part of the day at supper that night.

So, we went to the food room and we collected a really nice haul, cereal, Pop-Tarts, hygiene products, Italian bread crumbs(!), but the meat freezers were looking pretty sparse. I knew the chances of me actually finding Tilapia for fish tacos were slim because I've only ever seen pre-breaded Tilapia there and that was months ago. Just as we were preparing to leave and I had resigned to buy the fish, the man who picks up the donations started unloading his van.

He had 5 lbs of Tilapia.

Do you know how much I need to feed 12 people fish tacos?

5 lbs.

As my pastor would say, I nearly had a spell.

And now Dave really thinks I'm with obsessed with the food room. He said, "It's the best part of your day again, isn't it?" Yes!

But I told him, it's God's most consistent way that He shows me that He hears me. I talk to Him all the time and He answers me all the time but it is never more clear than by provision. And a consistent pattern of providing wierd and trivial things just about does me in. I get so giddy about how much God must love me to send me a bottle of evening primrose oil and five pounds of fish.

When I think about the process that happens to stock our food room, He blows my mind again. It might seem magical when five pounds of fish shows up right when I need it, but it doesn't happen by magic. People make the donations that stock the food room. People bring meals to families when there is illness. People pay the bill to keep a neighbor's power on when he needs help. Obedient people are the hands and feet of God's provison. 

"If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,' but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?" James 2:15-17

So I go to the food room and I take my fish and my vitamins and my weird hair products and I vow again to be so obedient that someone else will see God's work in their own life.

Broken

This happened.

It was my favorite coffee cup.

Dave and The Littles gave it to me for Christmas and I loved it so much for how it fit in my hand and for how it reminded me to chill out.

One of them broke it while putting it away in the cabinet.

The heartache that followed was disproportionate to the actual event. She was devastated because she knew I really loved it and she had let it crash to the floor. She cried like she had been hurt. I thought she might have cut herself badly on one of the pieces, but she hadn't. It was just her heart.

When she came running out of the apartment with tears streaming down her face, all I could do was scoop her into my arms and hug her - my heart hurting because hers was.

It was then that I realized we had gathered an audience. Four teenage girls stood around us to make sure she was okay, but also to see what I would do. The Holy Spirit whispered to me, "They are watching to see if you are mad at her. They are waiting to see if you will be angry."

I wasn't.

I turned her face to mine and said, "A coffee cup is just a thing. Did you step on it?" She shook her head and continued to cry as I went into our apartment to clean up the broken pieces. The girls gathered around her to comfort her, repeating my message, "It's okay...  we can get another one,,, at least you weren't hurt..."

I don't believe in coincidence, so I saved that broken cup so I could think about it later. She saw it sitting on the stove at bedtime and started crying all over again, and so I told her what God had whispered to me. I told her she was forgiven before the cup had even hit the floor and I reminded her of her job here: to show others how to be a kid in a family where there is grace and forgiveness, where what you learn is more important than the mistakes you make, where people matter more than things. I told her that she didn't mean to let the cup fall out of the cabinet, but that it was no accident that it had because someone standing in that hallway needed to see that scene play out that night. I reminded her that we work here, and that sometimes that work is work-work, but sometimes it's just showing someone else a different kind of family.

God is constantly showing me that our reaction to the broken speaks volumes.

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart - these, O God, you will not despise." Psalm 51:17

He wants the broken ones - and thank goodness because, aren't we all?

Aging and Eight Year-Olds

Ella will turn 8 at the end of this month. Eight. Eight years feels like a lifetime ago. Time is so tricky that way. I remember things from before we had kids and think "Oh, that was just a couple of years ago" and then I remember that my first born is about to be 8. It really is true that time passes more quickly as you get older. How does it do that?

I turned 35 in December and I'm finding it very weird. I know 35 is the new 25 or whatever, but I feel strangely suspended between old and young. I'm not really either, but kind of both at the same time. Am I young enough to wear shorts with a 3.5 inch inseam? Probably not. (I do it anyway. It's hot, yo, and my husband likes them.). Am I old enough to be this intolerant of nonsense? Probably not. (The directness of my manner just gets more direct with age. I might be downright unbearable if I make it to 80.) Maybe 35 is the midlife version the pre-teen years.

Whatevs, man. I'm old/young and my daughter is venturing into 'tweendom - depending on whichever made up source you read that defines life stages. Don't even get me started on the whole Millenial/Gen X/Gen Y nonsense. I think "tween" replaces "pre-teen" now but with a few extra years on the front side? I don't know why we need a new term for a perfectly good one. See "intolerant of nonsense" and "direct manner" above. Also, I may be turning into my father. 

She is an amazing kid. I say that with complete humility. I don't know how she got that way. I don't really consider that a credit to myself or my superb parenting skills. She has been a challenge to me since she looked directly into my eyes and sized me up minutes after she was born. I was still lying half-naked on the operating table being put back together and she was bundled like a burrito and had just been screaming her head off until they put her in my arms. I just stared into those knowing eyes until the nurse told me to kiss her. I mean, is that normal? I know the wide open, wise, old eyes in a newborn aren't but does the maternity nurse usually have to tell a mother to kiss her newborn? We're strange birds, she and I. 

No, her amazing-ness is more a testament to God and all the prayers I've said/cried/screamed over her. I would have jacked it up royally without Him. Parenting is hard. It shines a light into all your broken places and makes you do something about them. Eight years in and I still wonder every day if I'm screwing up. I still pray what I prayed when she was 4 days old, incessantly screaming in the middle of the night while I cried in desperation, "Please God, don't let me screw her up." 

At almost-8, she reads voraciously, devouring 300 page books in a few days, and she always has a book. I love it so much. She has taken piano for two years, and though I often have to harass her into practicing, she says she loves it. She still plays soccer, and watching her transform into a beast on the field satisfies some kind of animal instinct in me. Though she is often prickly at home, she is kind and considerate of others. She keeps her room a hot mess, but she is also very creative and creativity usually doesn't have time for organization. I'm hoping it learns, but hey only another decade and she'll be keeping her messy space somewhere else. 

Only another decade. We have a lot of ground to cover in a decade. Tricky, tricky time. 

Please God, don't let me screw it up.

A Tale of Two Picnic Tables

In early Spring, I hosted a tour of our house for a local church group and they asked about our current needs. We can always use small things like toiletries, cleaning products, and towels/bedding, but this day was warm and beautiful and we were really missing our deck furniture. Ours was damaged in the fall and we had to get rid of all but a few chairs and cushions. I told them we would really like to have a table with enough room to seat 14 people for supper. I explained that with the change of season, we like to open our doors and extend our living space to deck and that we often eat supper outside on nice evenings. I also explained that it is sometimes hard to root teenagers out of the house and into the fresh air and sunshine, and that a welcoming deck space encourages them to wander out of doors. They really seemed to like the idea and asked a few questions to get ideas about what I wanted.

Fast forward a couple of months later and Dave started getting antsy. He priced patio furniture that would meet our need for durability and decided we couldn't spend that much money. He looked at designs for picnic tables and estimated what it would cost to build them himself. We talked about it a few times, and each time I reminded him that patio furniture was the only thing I said we needed when that group toured our house and I encouraged him to wait. One day he went to the store to buy lumber to make the tables and realized he could buy them for less. He came home and we talked about it again, and again I encouraged him to wait. Several days after that, we went back to the store and bought two picnic tables - enough space to seat 12. He drove one of them home in his truck and planned to come back for the other one two days later. 

As he was unloading the table and planning who to call to help him haul it up our back stairs, I received a call from our administrative office. The men who had toured our house were there to deliver two picnic tables and benches, which they had custom built to seat 14. 

I laughed. 

The men brought the tables to our house and Dave helped them move them onto our deck. He also confessed his impatience and shared with them the impromptu lesson God had just taught him about waiting. 

Picnic tables are a very simple, tangible example of things for which we have asked and waited, but it shows us clearly that waiting is hard. Waiting without worrying and planning for all possible scenarios is even harder; I think that's called patience. For me, it's an unnatural state of calm where I have to continuously shut down the worry and planning and empty my head about whatever I'm waiting on. I've had good opportunities to practice over the last few years, but I still struggle. Waiting on God to answer prayer is even harder. Sometimes the answer comes immediately, and sometimes I have to wait and wait. God always answers, but sometimes I end up explaining why I have four picnic tables instead of two.  

"Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." Psalm 27:14

Career Week

"What do you think I should be when I grow up?" he asked me. 

"I don't know. That's up to you. What do you want to be?"

"I don't know," he answered, worriedly. 

"You have time to decide," I told him, "but whatever you do, do it for God. Do it so that people know you love Jesus and so you can teach people about Him."

He nodded, seriously, "Okay."

That was our conversation this week as Luke dressed in his soccer uniform for Career Week. Three days later, still pondering, "Mom, dogs and cats don't really do much." 

"What do you mean?" I asked him. 

"For Jesus," he said seriously. 

He knows we believe God called our entire family for this work - little kids and pets included. "God uses animals, too," I told him. "Sometimes animals help people calm down when they are scared or mad." 

He's still thinking about how to work for Jesus and I think he'll get it figured out. 

Ella easily chose to be a lawyer for her dress up day, and it fits her. 

I still have a list of things I want to be when I grow up, but for them I pray that whatever they decide to do, they do it for the Lord. 

"And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men. . ." Colossians 3:23

Who knew?

Who is this person who studies the Bible and then makes a plan and then teaches what she has learned?

She's more than I thought she was, this person who has always said "Dave has the gift of teaching, not me." (He does, though. He thinks and plans and relays information in a way that is astounding and exciting, and I have always enjoyed his teaching as much as any of his students. He sets a high standard because he really is gifted by God with the ability to teach anything.)

The thought of teaching the Bible used to paralyze me. What do I say? What do I do? What if they don't ask questions? What if they ask questions I can't answer? I needed a least a week of lead time to prepare myself. I freaked out every time and sometimes Dave would jump in and save me.

But, as I spend more time reading the book, I find that I want to spend more time talking about it. As I get to know these teenagers better, I want to tell them all the things I know about God, about Jesus, about the history of the Hebrew nation and the early church. I want them to KNOW HIM. I want to tell them all the things. I've annoyed Dave with, "You need to teach about __________" enough.

So, I'm learning to teach.

I don't know if I'm especially good at it because my daily standard of comparison still blows it out of the water every time he teaches, but I kind of love it. And? At some point I realized that I've actually been teaching for years, not the Bible, but software. That's what so much of client support is about - teaching the client how to use the software, demonstrating how it works, organizing information to answer their questions. It was the part of my job that I loved - learning and then sharing what I learned in a way that others could understand.

I don't teach like Dave does, but I've been teaching all along. If I could know software so intimately that I could stand in front of a room full of adults and answer questions on the fly, why can't I know the Bible and share it like that? The answer is, there's no reason at all that I can't. Who knew?

And that makes me wonder what else I can do.

A Different Winter

I'm sitting on the couch in the "big living room" as we call the common area of the house we now live in - the part that we share with the girls - doing paperwork with the doors open and the breeze blowing through the room. I know it's fake springtime because it's going to storm tonight and get cold again, but I can't help but marvel at how different this winter has been compared to other winters. I'm not talking about weather.

Winter has always left me feeling like I'm hanging on to my soul with jagged fingernails, just waiting for God to rescue me with daylight and daffodils, but this year has been different. 

Is it because I'm not chained to a desk in a cube farm now and I actually get to experience daylight? I seriously think not sitting in a desk chair for 9 hours a day might have saved my life. 

Is it because life and work are so combined now that I wasn't filled with dread about the turn of the year and the return to work? 

Is it because I see my children more than I leave them now? I didn't realize how much I actually missed them while I was working an office job until I got to be with them all the time. Apparently, I was more stay-at-home-mom material than I realized. 

Is it because the black depression that hovered over my household for so long is finally gone? I could write pages on that alone. 

 

Is it because I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing and I have peace in my soul now? 

It's probably because of all those things and more that I don't recognize. What I know is, I'll take it. I like this peace, this happy.

Transformation, indeed.

It's been almost a year since I wrote a blog post. I started a post back in May about why I haven't been blogging anymore, but I never felt compelled to finish it. I just looked at that draft and found this bit that is still so relevant.

"I blogged all the way through cancer and chemo and the year after, but the year after that just wouldn't come out. Little known fact, peeps - the recovery from cancer is much longer, deeper, and darker than the treatment of cancer. My household has been in a state of transformation for three years, and while part of that is my story to share, it's intimately woven with three other stories that aren't mine. Two of them are little but growing, and the older they get, the more cautious I become about sharing their lives and their stories. They get to decide if they want to tell their own story one day."

Transformation, indeed.

For a year before I wrote those words last May, I was using the word "transformation" to describe our family. It started with cancer, it grew as my heart changed while I read the Bible from cover to cover, clarity began when we went on a mission trip with our youth group. Then, out of the blue, last Thanksgiving break there was a fateful day in our kitchen where Dave said the often said statement that maybe we should just go to Africa, and this time, for the first time, I said, "Yeah, I think you're right." Africa!

Peeps, I started praying ten years ago for God to prepare me for ministry because I knew then that there was a call on Dave's life and I also knew that I would be a horrible preacher's wife. Like, really horrible.

Ya'll, God will do what he says he will do.

Dave isn't a preacher, and I'm not a preacher's wife, but we've been prepared for ministry. We are still being prepared. We haven't made it to Africa, but in May, we made a decision to leave our lives to obey God and care for and share Jesus with at-risk teenagers in our area. We moved across the county to live with 8 teenage girls in a group home.

It sounds crazy. It is crazy. It takes crazy, wild abandonment to walk away from what the world says we should have and want, and do what the Word says we should do.

It's way harder than we expected it to be - and we were told how hard it would be. It's exhausting and heartbreaking and joyous and transforming. See, I mistakenly thought we were coming here to do God's work, and I was so ready. I had it all together. I'd read the whole book, and I'd received confirmation from God in so many ways, and I was going to save souls and love teenagers.

Ahem.

I'm the one who has been saved here. I trust that God is doing work through me to reach these girls, because I know He will do what He says he will do, but He had plans for me that I never saw. He had plans to transform me, to break me and remake me, to flush out the world and fill me with things I didn't know I needed. He had plans to show me myself in a way I've never seen me, and He has plans to make me fully, desperately rely on Him.

Africa may still be in the future. Preaching may be in the future. I have no idea because right now I can't see past this place I'm in. I can't even see tomorrow, but I know that He has gone before me and He has plans to prosper me, so when I get there, He'll be there, too. I know the joy of living in the dead center of His will, of not having the plan laid out but knowing it's a good one.

For a recovering control freak, that is transformation, indeed.

Merry Christmas, ya'll!

This year, Christmas cards have gone the way of this blog. That is to say, there won't be any. 

Instead, enjoy these sweet digital pictures of my children in (rarely) coordinating dress clothes (and in a rare, cooperative, tolerant mood). 

"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." Mark 10:14

Time + Remission

I was doing some homework for preschool the other night, making a scrap book page of Luke's family for his class photo album. As I was flipping through stacks of pictures I ventured into the During Chemo months. Dave and I both had to take a few minutes to study those pictures of him. I was like the paparazzi during that time, so his progression through treatment is well-documented.

It was amazing. And quieting. And strengthening. To see how sick he was from the chemo, to see how God carried us right through it without us even realizing how hard it was on him.

Oh, it was hard, and we knew it was hard. You knew it was hard. But we didn't know it was a hard as those pictures make it look.

Thank God. I thank Him for the shelter and the strength and the peace that surpasses understanding. And I thank Him for the reminder of During Chemo. Sometimes it's good to think about it and remember the focus we put on every day as important, and the attention we paid to the things that matter. Life is distracting; sometimes we need to be reminded to focus on important things.

As time passes and life goes on, we don't mark the time like we did then. We did remember the anniversary of the last round of chemo - it was somehow more memorable than the official remission date anyway. But after sorting through that stack of pictures the other night, I realized we had passed right by his second cancerversary without even a mention of it. He probably remembered, but I didn't.

He's had normal PET scans and blood work. He changed oncologists because his is retiring. He has regained his old habit of putting hot sauce on his chicken fingers, so I know spicy stuff doesn't bother him anymore.

Time and remission have done a lot of healing.

Praise the Lord.

Traveling with Kids

Every evening after supper.

We try to take a vacation every year, usually in the summer except for The Year of Cancer. This summer we made two trips with the kids and I realized something: traveling with kids is so much easier than traveling with babies and toddlers.

I didn't pack a single diaper. Not one.

No one cried because riding in the car sucks.

I actually got to face forward in my seat for the majority of the ride.

There was still vomit, but since we've learned some things over the years, we were so prepared that we didn't even have to stop the car.

They like our music now. Maybe a little too much.

We stayed in a hotel for our big vacation and with the Foley grands for a weekend, and they acted like small people instead of a pack of howler monkeys. Mostly.

Dessert for 4.

They have the stamina to stay up later while also keeping themselves together. Mostly. That meant no naps and late nights of playing mini-golf and then eating ridiculous amounts of dessert right before bed. There was the one melt down at 4:30 in the afternoon at the side of the wave pool on the 4th day of vacation, which resulted in me holding Man Cub in my arms, rocking, and singing our time-tested lullaby until he passed out. At which point I continued to hold him for an hour and 15 minutes while he slept. It was okay with me. It might have been the last time I'll ever rock him to sleep. I don't remember the last time before that. The fact that it happened while lounging in a low chair with my feet in the water just makes it sweeter. Lord knows I used to hold them on the beach like that.

All of our stuff fit in our car with space left over. I just knew we wouldn't have room based on the amount of crap I've had to pack in the past and the fact that we downsized my Honda Pilot to a CR-V. I was wrong.

Ear buds because our music was too loud.

They can use an iPad 99% of the time with zero adult assistance. That one is a bit ironic seeing as how we dramatically reduced the amount of technology we use at home this summer, and then we bought an iPad. Within 12 hours of the kids first touching it, we were saying things like, "If you ask to play with the iPad again, I'm taking it back." Rules were established, but it did make the driving more peaceful.

It's so liberating to be able to just throw clothes in a bag and go. To not have to plan for diaper changing and feeding outside of normal meal times. To not have to take bags of toys to entertain them in the down time (they packed one backpack each and were very content with what they brought). I feel like we've passed some kind of parenting milestone where vacationing with the kids has finally become more fun than work. It was lovely.


I can't wait to plan our next trip.

Four

From this...

...to this...

...in just four short years. The first few years of life are truly astonishing.

By the way, that last picture was taken just a few days ago. In August. He wasn't cold; he just has no time for things like weather when creating a character. 

Luke is four today. He has grown exponentially over the summer. Nearly every stitch of clothing I bought for him in April is too little. We had to replace his entire warm weather wardrobe, down to the socks, before school started. I suppose all that growing is a direct result of all the eating he's been doing, or vice versa. At any rate, he's been starving all summer no matter what we feed him.

Recently he has learned to swim, discovered The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (circa 1995), and started playing with his "guys" (his superhero toys) with the kind of focus that I've only seen him give to puzzles. He still acts out his favorite movies, and he's still stubborn and easily distracted from the task at hand, but he has finally quit throwing himself into the floor in a fit of rage when he doesn't like our answers to his requests. Now, he just asks repeatedly, hoping I'll change my answer, until I lose my cool. I've had to re-employ the, "I've already answered that question, please don't ask me again" response. It's more effective than yelling. 

Speaking of yelling, he has a most annoying habit of yelling "Mamaaaaa! Mamaaa!" all through the house, over and over again until I'm half nuts. Alot of the time I adopt the "If I can't see you, I can't hear you" policy. Other times I just yell back. I did start to feel a little better about this when I heard him bellow for his Sunday school teacher across the party room during a church party at Pump it Up. It was incredibly rude, but so refreshing to hear someone else's name coming out of his loud mouth. 

Occasional rudeness aside, he has a sweet spirit and a vivid imagination that makes parenting him a daily adventure. I can't believe he's already four. 

Last First Day of Preschool

This is a mer-man.

It's Luke's last first day of preschool, and OUR last first day of preschool. Next year he'll go to kindergarten.

His rapid physical growth, athletic development, and increasingly logical arguments have already hinted at the big kid he is becoming, but this first day of school marks the beginning of the end of a season in our lives. We're going to live it.

He was also ready for school to start. There's only so much swimming a kid can do in one summer, and he did it. We told him at the beginning that his Puddle Jumper will not fit him next year (because he's just 2 lbs. shy of the weight limit now and I had to work to get his arms in it), so he had to learn to swim this year. He took us seriously. By July, when his actual swim lessons started, he was already mostly swimming by himself (thanks to Gigi's coaching). By the end of swim lessons, he was jumping off the diving board and swimming to the side by himself. Oh, and he had taught himself to do underwater forward and back flips like it's no thing. He just rolls and rolls and rolls under the water until he needs to take a breath. This summer's pool progress was amazing.

First day of 4K.

Now we're looking forward to a time when he counts to 20 and actually includes 15 and 16 together, in order.

He has been telling me for the last couple of weeks that he doesn't want to go to school. I knew it wasn't true. As usual, when we met his teacher last night, we had to drag him out of there when we were ready to leave. He got up at six this morning and gave no resistance to dressing himself and brushing his teeth. Those are pretty big school morning milestones.

And, if that wasn't enough to convince me, "I can't wait to play with those Legos!" did.

Summer's Over

Did you hear that this is the first day of school? Probably not.

First day of 1st grade.

We summered all the way until 9:15 last night. None of that going to bed early and getting back on schedule a week before school business for The Ropers. Ain't nobody got time for that. 

(In truth, they never really get off schedule because I have to go to work all summer even if they don't, so they get up at the same time every day. And, usually before the alarm because apparently ain't nobody got time for sleeping when the sun is up, either. Except me, but I don't count.)

See those snazzy new shoes she's wearing? She earned them by learning to tie them herself this summer. Praise the Lord. Ya'll know how I hate little shoes. Hers aren't little anymore, so it was high time she tied them herself. We gave her a choice: Learn to tie your shoes and you can pick out the craziest, sparkling, pink ones you can find, or don't and we will make you wear gray velcro shoes. It worked like a charm.

I was surprised that she wanted us to walk her in.

She got the teacher she really wanted, the one she met and loved at reading camp this summer. She has been ready for school to start since camp ended two weeks ago. She even put away her Palace Pets and broke out her classroom supplies to teach her dolls yesterday. I haven't seen her teach in a long time. Now she can read the names of the states on her map and the days of the week on the calendar, so it was pretty neat to listen to her class while I worked. 

She's going to be exhausted when I pick her up today. For as much as she protests napping when we make her do it (Yes, we still make her nap often. I will milk that for as long as possible.), she has been sleeping long and hard most afternoons. That's one schedule adjustment I probably should have made before school started, but I didn't because sleep improves us. She'll adjust and we'll make up the naps on the weekend. Oh, yes we will.

Little brother starts his last year of preschool next week, but that's another post. 

Six

This stubborn, kind-hearted, smart little weirdo is six today. 

It's hard to believe it's been six years since I held her for the first time. That tiny baby is a half-grown kid now - in the middle place where I still catch glimpses of her babyhood and other times I get a peek at the young woman she will be one day. 

She loves to swim, read and be read to, play soccer, paint, and construct entire make believe worlds for her Barbies, Princesess, and Palace Pets. On good days, she's full of wisdom and understanding for her younger sibling , and on bad ones, he awakens the beast in her, but there is no doubt they are tight friends. 

Watching her grow just gets better every year.