Fount of Every Blessing

A few weeks ago while we were sitting in church, our pastor made an announcement about the all-church baptism event coming up on August 14th. I love all-church events, especially since we became a multi-site church. They are the only time when we all gather together in one place and I get to see folks who worship at a different location. Dan and I have worshipped at each of our three campuses at one time or another, where we have made friends and enjoyed special fellowship. So it's almost like a reunion when we are all gathered together in His name. And I knew this event was going to be held in the backyard of a member's beautiful home on a picturesque lake in South Barrington.

I quickly decided I wanted to attend.

The pastor invited those interested in being baptized to sign up. He reminded us that baptism is one of only two ordinances Jesus commanded us to do (the other being communion) which makes it an act of obedience. It is also an act of identification. Being baptized means you identify yourself with Christ. His death. His life.

Few events in my life have touched me more deeply than hearing those who were lost share their testimonies of how Christ found them and worked a miracle in their lives. The stories vary a great deal, but they all celebrate the same amazing truth that we sinners are washed clean by the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

So there were plenty of reasons for me to rejoice in this day and occasion.

Then God gave me two more.

My husband Dan and my oldest daughter Caitlin decided it was time they made the same proclamation...that they are disciples of Jesus Christ.

Today skies that began cloudy and gray turned brilliantly blue. The sun shone warm and strong over the hillside lawn and lake where hundreds of brothers and sisters in Christ of every age, race and color gathered together in worship.

While sweet, familiar hymns and songs of praise served to remind us we are saved; by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, I watched two more members of my family declare their life in Christ.

"You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:26-28

Vacation Mode

As summer winds down and the start of school looms I am happily stuck in vacation mode. Backpack sales abound, and school supplies hit the shelves before the 4th of July this year, but it didn't phase me one bit. We've been back from our family vacation for almost a week, and it feels like I was there yesterday. The calendar says football practice and band camp and orientation but it's all a little unreal to me yet.

It helps that my boss has been on vacation for two weeks and my work load has been lighter. It helps that my sister is visiting from Colorado and we do more "vacation-y" type things when she's here. It helps that the pool water is warm and it's still light out until late.

But I honestly don't know why reality hasn't hit me more.

We didn't think we were going to be able to take a summer vacation this year but God provided through the generosity of wonderful friends and we were able to spend several days in Lake Geneva at their home. We had access to a huge community pool and lots of space to lay around and relax. The weather was supposed to be awful but it hardly rained at all. We were able to rent a boat and take the kids tubing for the first time. Well, Caitlin tubed. Maggie took a nosedive in .6 seconds and promptly called it quits. Ryan made up his mind then and there it wasn't worth trying. But it was still a great experience and a lot of fun. Maggie and I went horseback riding and even trotted (her first time) which was an added bonus. I don't know why, but two of the most relaxing places I can think of to be are on a horse or on water (as long as I'm not doing the tubing).

I'm sure within a week or so I'll adjust to the reality of my situation, but until then I'm basking in vacation mode.

Beautiful Days

I've been walking around the past four or five days saying "God is good all the time.." to which my children reply "and all the time God is good!" Well, He has been exceptionally good to me this weekend. In fact He gave me a series of Beautiful Days.

Last Thursday night Ryan's baseball team won second place in their division losing to an undefeated team twice their size. While they were disappointed not to win, they quickly forgot it when the parents started pelting them with water balloons during Coach Dan's "I'm proud of you" speech. After that all was fun and games again and we were thrilled to be #2.

Friday night we had a fire pit and made Smores with the kids. We've been really struggling with the fact that for the first time since the kids were born (and in fact much longer for Dan and me) we will not be going to our beloved Arcadia for our annual summer vacation. Finances are tight now and we made the tough decision to skip it this year. So we've been trying to think of things we normally do there that we can still do here. One was a campfire which was made all the more sweet when we found the laminated lyrics sheet with the Praise and Worship songs they sing at Camp RKD. We sang a capella around our own backyard fire. It felt like my heart was singing.

Unlike my mouth, my heart sings on key.

Saturday night we had a new family from church over. We ate a lot of dessert and all our kids played in our pool together while we got to know each other better. I am so grateful that God keeps giving us new opportunities for friendship and fellowship.

Sunday after church we lazed around for awhile and then went to Dan's brothers house and hung out with his family and Dan's parents. We ate a wonderful dinner, swam in their big person pool and watched a private display of fireworks that had to rival most small towns. It was lovely.

Monday we went to our favorite 4th of July parade just blocks from my parents house. It starts at 11:30 am, so it's really the only parade we ever attend being late risers. My Mom and one of my good friends went with (whose birthday was the next day so we had a wonderful lunch afterward).

Independence Day has long been my favorite holiday for lots of reasons, including summer weather, BBQ's, parades and fireworks. But more importantly I love it because we celebrate freedom and those who gave it to us. With Dan having been in the Army for 22 years we feel our patriotism deeply and are grateful to all the men and women who gave their lives so we can live in a country of freedoms. Our most treasured freedom is the right to freely worship God. We also celebrate Jesus and the freedom He gave us by defeating sin's power.

Late that night we walked to a hill by our house with the kids and watched the fireworks light up the sky.

Tuesday I took Maggie to see a genuine PG movie. No violence, no swearing, very little sexual material at all, other than a few kisses. It was very refreshing. I happily abstained from popcorn since she got her braces on six weeks ago and can't have any. At night Dan and I went to the U2 concert at Soldier Field. That experience is a whole other blog post. Bono sang Beautiful Day, Rejoice and One Tree Hill among many, many other songs. Suffice it to say I cried tears of joy twice.

Today we slept in and spent the whole day just hanging out with the kids. Dan played Risk with them on the living room floor, we went swimming in our little pool together and I took them to the library late in the day.

The sun has been shining for five days straight in Chicago and the Son has been shining every minute of those days on my life.

It's been a bunch of Beautiful Days.

Double Fours

Today I turned 44.

Not sure how that happened as I'm pretty sure about two years ago I was 32.

Today, God in His grace gave me a beautiful day.

It started with my three kids standing over my bed at 7:15 am with coffee and a toasted English Muffin. I thanked them sincerely and promptly went back to sleep.

When I woke again two hours later I read their homemade cards.

Ryan's said, "The greatest day in history was Jesus' birthday - but your birthday is a close second."

Maggie's said I was the best Mom ever and included a coupon book for free chores, hugs, and back rubs!

Caitlin's gave me credit for taking care of everyone and having a close relationship with God while still looking good.

Dan's card came later, but I'm keeping that one to myself.

Best. Cards. Ever.

Both Dan and I took vacation days and we had perfect weather. We took the kids to Top Golf (I highly recommend it ). It was today's Groupon Now. I love that my daughter Maggie has access to this app on her itouch - which has been replaced for free after she dropped it because it was still under warranty - so I also LOVE Apple's Customer service, but I digress...

So between the twins getting free student memberships for a year through the school's reading program, it being my birthday and having this groupon, four of us played two golf games for $9 and had credit left!

We spent a couple of hours chillin' on the back patio (twins in pool) and then Dan and I got a dinner date alone at Bahama Breeze (another highly recommended place to visit) while my in-laws watched the kids. We sat in their open air section which they play island music and everything seems to slow down to a very relaxing pace. It felt like we were in the tropics for a night.

On the way to the restaurant I had this flashback and remembered 12 years ago when the twins were three weeks old, I had three kids under three and I thought I'd never be alone with my husband again.

Time flies.

I know this is all so temporary. What astonishes me most is that these near perfect days are just the smallest foretaste of heaven.

I am blessed beyond measure.

Even 44 feels good.

No Limits

I was on the internet today when an ad popped up for Sprint. Their new sales slogan is "Unlimited."

As in unlimited everything - talk, text, internet, whatever the phone can do, do it all the live-long day. 24/7. 52 weeks a year. No black out dates.

Unlimited as a concept.

And I'm thinking...are you mad?!

No limits?!

What is it about our culture that believes we should be establishing habits that lack all self-control...and that it is somehow a good thing?

Funny, but a complete lack of restraint just doesn't sound like something I want to sign a two year contract for.

My mind flooded with Scriptures that speak to this subject. Galatians Five tells us Self-Control is a fruit of the Spirit. Proverbs 25:28 warns, "Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control."

Then there's Titus...

"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ." Titus 2:11-12

And 2 Timothy gets really serious about it...

"But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power." 2 Timothy 3:1-4.

I read this and I think, we are in the last days. This is our culture, right now, to a great extent. But verse five really hits it home...

"Have nothing to do with them."

So I think I'll pass on Sprint's latest offer

New Beginnings

Within 48 hours last week, my babies turned twelve and my oldest graduated 8th grade. It was a busy couple of days and so I hadn't thought about it much until I got a call from my son at school asking me to drive his yearbook over so he could get autographs. He had forgotten it at home. No big deal, it was my day off and we're less than three minutes away so I drove it over and brought it into the office.

It had been ten years since my first visit to that room for kindergarten registration for Caitlin and it suddenly occurred to me I may never set foot in the building again.

I sort of lost it.

Contrary to popular opinion amongst my siblings, I am not an overly emotional person. But I cried a little in the midst of those 48 hours while I realized I am now the mother of two junior high students and a high schooler. Everyone starts new in the fall. Actually Caitlin starts new on Wednesday - she's enrolled in a summer school class.

Starting new can be scary. Maybe that's why we don't choose to do it all that often.

I think of myself as someone who adapts fairly easily to change - I'm not a very structured person by nature. As Julia Roberts said in Pretty Woman - "I wouldn't say I'm a planner, I'm more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-kinda-gal - moment-to-moment." I wonder who I've been comparing myself to getting that impression of myself, because when I stopped to think about it, not much has changed in the past couple of decades. Or four.

I've been married to the same man for 21 years. I've had the same hairdresser my entire married life. We've been worshipping at the same church for 22 years. I only switched doctors because mine died. I've subscribed to the U2 fan magazine/website for 28 years and vacationed in Arcadia, Michigan every summer for 32 years. Aside from six months in Alabama in 1992, I have lived under an O'Hare flight path every day of my life. I have always used Crest toothpaste.

Apparently, I don't begin a lot of new things.

That could be why I was blindsided by an emotional outburst over all three of my children starting new schools.

It's easy to understand why they are nervous and not all that excited about these new beginnings. They aren't ready to leave all that is comfortable and familiar. They don't know what to expect.

We were reading in Genesis together the other day about Noah's Ark. Ryan had lots of questions about why God flooded the whole earth and wiped everything and everyone (except for Noah, his family and two of every animal species) off the face of it. We talked about the wickedness of the people and the incredible holiness of God and how grieved He must have been that all of humanity had been so evil except this one man. We also talked about the kind of faith Noah must have had to spend 100 years building an ark to the exact specifications of a God no one else honored.

While he was made fun of.

While there was no sign of rain.

When he had no instructions about what to do after the flood.

God gave Noah a new beginning.

At church right now they are preaching through the book of Ruth. It's only four chapters, but man are they chock full. Naomi left the land of Judah with her husband and two sons and relocated in a foreign land. Her sons married women who weren't of their faith or heritage. Then all three men died. Naomi, which means pleasant, asked to be called "Mara," which means bitter, because she felt the Lord had abandoned her. But she returned to her people and amazingly her daughter-in-law Ruth went with her. Not reluctantly, or even resentfully, rather Ruth clung to Naomi and traveled with her to a foreign land that worshipped a God she didn't know.

And God in His kindness provided for these women. Boaz, a relative of Naomi's, gave them food and eventually married Ruth, literally redeeming her in the process. The Hebrew word used to describe Boaz was "goel" which means "kinsman-redeemer." It's the same word used to describe Jesus Christ. Gone are the days of famine and heartache for Ruth and Naomi. They know who will take care of them and that Boaz is faithful to do it.

Jesus, the most faithful and worthiest of all men, redeems His people from all their sins, past, present and future. He delivers us from death. But to do this, he has to take us out of our old nature. He removes us from everything we know and transports us to a new place. He takes our hearts of stone and gives us hearts of flesh. He gives new life.

That's a new beginning I hope everyone makes.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

My father is a lifelong White Sox fan. I'm not sure why. He isn't a Southsider, but claims that's always been his team.

All four of his children are Cubs fans.

Blame it on WGN and all those day games. We would come home from school and turn on the game. My oldest sister Lin isn't really a Cubs fan, but she is a fan of Wrigley Field and well remembers the days when you could walk up the day of a game and buy bleacher seats for $4. She is morally opposed to the lights at Wrigley and until today managed to escape their shine (overcast skies brought down her streak). She's in town for awhile and it was her birthday this week so we were really happy when my brother and I were both fortunate enough to score tickets for two consecutive days worth of games.

Yesterday we actually had 12 seats - five in the bleachers that my sister had gotten through a fundraiser and another seven behind home plate where we were on TV for the majority of the game. I have to say, I rather enjoyed those seats. We were blessed with decent weather and the wonderful added bonus of fighter jet flyovers after the National Anthem because of Memorial Day weekend. What a rush! My daughter Caitlin came with for the first time in awhile. She usually has her fix met somewhere around the 4th inning, so I'm proud of her for sticking it out till the 8th - especially because the Cubs put forth zero offense. Unfortunately, we left before the Cubs scored their only two runs in the bottom of the ninth.

Sigh.

My brother had Ryan out in the bleacher seats with a couple of friends so my sister, aunt and cousin's son all got the good seats with Caitlin. It's funny how often those beer guys come by the "money seats" - they were coming in for landings more frequently than the 30 second intervals at O'Hare.

Today Lin went back down with my cousin who wasn't able to make it yesterday and got there early with the hopes of allowing Ryan to watch batting practice. It's the only time you're guaranteed to see the Cubs hit home runs. Not only did she get him down there on time but she sweet talked an Ambassador and got him ON THE FIELD to watch the whole practice! He high-fived Darwin Barney and got a baseball signed by Ryan Dempster.

Peanuts and hot dogs and rooting for the Cubbies is a wonderful way to spend an afternoon on a holiday weekend in Chicago. The ivy and the organ and the old fashioned scoreboard (still updated by hand) are just some of the charms that make Wrigley so special. It's a ballpark haven that somehow makes you feel like you're on top of the world.

Even when your team loses.