Memorial Box Monday: The House

I haven't done a Memorial Box Monday in a long time. But the way God has provided for our housing needs has to be a MBM!! So, bear with me as I process.

As some of you know/remember/have endured... our housing situation has driven me nuts. We have a beautiful 3 bedroom home that is great, except that my children are at hard ages to share. So we have tried over the last few years to buy various houses. We have had our house listed for what feels like a million times. But nothing works. In fact, a little over a year ago, we had a buyer, moved out and it all fell apart, so we moved back in a few months later. We've talked about adding on, changing things... just about anything to try to make this house work. In the end, it doesn't work and it is very frustrating.

Moving forward, to early September, my parents asked us if we would be interested in purchasing their 4 bedroom house. We said yes, then not a week later my mom's dad had a stroke and died the following week. We put everything on hold. Then we found out from the bank that things would be much more difficult than we had imagined as Doug is now self-employed and this requires lots more paperwork for mortgages. So we took a step back. We considered other much more expensive, yet easier options working with a local builder that takes trade-in houses. No realtor, no listings, no showings....

We talked a lot about what we wanted in a house, what we needed and who we wanted to be. In the end, we really only had one true requirement on the house... 4 bedrooms. Lots of wishes, and some of those would be met with my parent's house. And the mortgage for my parent's house would be pretty close to what we were already paying, so it wouldn't stretch us. Those were all winners.

So we listed our house. Our realtor is doing a great job promoting it. It's been shown a number of times. No buyers yet... But I know that God will provide at the right time.

We closed on my parent's house (now our house) last Friday. We haven't moved yet. Hopefully we will the day after Christmas. Crazy timing. I haven't packed a box yet.

But I know that it will work out, because God provides for our crazy adventurous God-inspired spirits, and that can only be the label you would put on my parents.

In their retirement they have decided to give up the "easy" and do the "hard" stuff... like remodel houses and serve communities. My mom is still working at her church serving as their women's minister, but my dad is going to  use these "available years" as he calls them, to flip houses and serve others (as if his entire life has not been defined by serving others..) They have started a blog... Not Too Old For A New Adventure and their first house is a disaster.!

Thank goodness our house hasn't sold and they can move here for a few weeks while they make their new house habitable!!

And their you have it. God is providing my family with a house that we need and in doing so, providing my parent's with a way to finance their new adventure in serving Him. Crazy stuff.. God stuff. Good stuff.

Memorial Box Monday: From Sorrow to Joy

I have been wrestling about posting this story for quite some time.  I’ve started it and deleted it, I’ve thought about what to include and what to leave out.  So many reasons for not writing, but in the end, I am writing this Memorial Box Monday story because someone needs to read it.

One of last week’s MBM stories was written for me.  I am sure of that. The timing, the subject, the context... the whole thing.  So I am going to trust that God has a reason for making sure that at 1:30am I finally got his instruction after months of my saying not yet.

My Memorial Box Monday story is about God’s incredible gift of joy that comes after sorrow.  It is also about God’s grace and mercy.  It is also about trusting God’s plan when you can’t see it for yourself.

To begin, let me take you back to the spring of 1999.  Doug and I had been married for about six months and knew that God had called him back into a full-time pastorate.  Doug had spent the last year teaching at the same high school where I was teaching,  (He had to do that so he could meet me and marry me!)  but teaching was not Doug’s passion. So we started looking at churches.

The first Sunday of May 1999 found us at a little church in the middle of North Carolina.  Doug preached and we decided that it was a good fit. We sold our home in Texas and moved the first weekend of June.

Fast forward to May 4, 2000. Maddie was born.  All was good, but we were a young family all on our own and needed to be closer to family.  We began to consider moving back to Texas.   Over the next couple of months we found out that Doug was a good commodity.  We had lots of churches interested in us. However, there was one that stood out.

That church was in Weimar, Texas.  When Doug told me the story of the church, I groaned and said, that’s where we are going. And we did go there.  And it was wonderful and difficult all at that same time.

For you see, on the first weekend of May of 1999, the pastor of the church in Weimar, Skip and his wife Karen, were found murdered in the parsonage next door to the church.  They were victims of serial killer Rafael Resendez-Ramirez, the Railroad Killer. This tiny town was devastated.  While Doug was preaching for the first time in North Carolina, our future friends were finding their beloved pastor murdered.

We didn’t know about it at the time.

One the first anniversary of Skip and Karen’s death, Maddie was born.

As Doug began talking with the church it was clear to us that this just might be our next pastorate.  It was hard to imagine moving and beginning a ministry with a group of people so grief stricken, but we chose to.  God chose us.

We began our ministry in Weimar the first Sunday of 2001. It was a difficult time, but very hopeful as well.  Maddie was just beginning to walk and having her with us built a bridge between the sorrow and the joy. 

Yes, we lived in the parsonage.

Maddie turned one on the second anniversary of Skip and Karen’s death.  We invited the church to celebrate her 1st birthday with us.  Doug grilled hotdogs and we had about 50 people come over to our backyard party.  As I look back at pictures, I am once again amazed that the very men who found the bodies of Skip and Karen just two years before where there celebrating Maddie’s birthday.  Joy from Sorrow.  Sorrow to Joy.

In the end, we stayed in Weimar just under two years.  Maddie made a life-long connection with an older couple in the church and we were able to walk a difficult stretch of the road with a wonderful group of people.  I wish we could have stayed in  longer, but we left because Doug’s dad was in bad health and I would not trade Maddie’s short time with her Grandpa for anything. 

As we saw lived out by the people of Weimar, to everything there is a season.  And from Sorrow there can be Joy.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
¹ There is a time for everything,
       and a season for every activity under heaven:

² a time to be born and a time to die,
       a time to plant and a time to uproot,

³ a time to kill and a time to heal,
       a time to tear down and a time to build,

⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh,
       a time to mourn and a time to dance,

⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
       a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

⁶ a time to search and a time to give up,
       a time to keep and a time to throw away,

⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend,
       a time to be silent and a time to speak,

⁸ a time to love and a time to hate, 
       a time for war and a time for peace.

Memorial Box Monday: The Misfit

Life is about interpretation and our interpretation of life depends on personality and experience. Real or not, my interpretation of life has led me to feel like the misfit of my family. It’s hard to express in words, but for whatever reason, God has placed it on my heart to share my story.

To begin, I have a wonderful family. I thank God that I don’t have horror stories of childhood and that I have not experienced the ugly side of humanity. Nonetheless, years ago, Satan found a stronghold in my life. That was the feeling that I didn’t fit in. And to be honest, it was easy to allow those negative thoughts to continue and fester.

Simple differences compounded make me feel out of place. Not unwanted, but not included. For example:

• My beautiful and talented three sisters are model thin. If you add up all of their clothing sizes together you MIGHT get mine.. maybe.

• Everyone in my family attends the same kind of church... but me. My husband and children attend a totally different style of church. I love both, but feel more at home where Doug and I attend.

• Politically I am at the other end of the spectrum from all of my family. My life experiences have led me to different conclusions and a different place politically than my parents and sisters.

As you can imagine, I feel different and out of place. A misfit.

So how is this a Memorial Box Monday? How is this an example of God’s divine goodness? Well, last week was hard. For no other reason being that I’m tired, it’s the end of the school year and I have three kids. In the midst of the craziness, I have missed out on a couple of things the rest of my family has been able to do. So once again, I’ve felt left out.

But guess what. A couple of days ago my sister wrote a story about me. Not about how different I am, but how I work with differently-abled students. How fun is that!

Then this morning, while reading the Bible I was reminded that God didn’t make me out of leftovers. I am the person that God created me to be.

Yes, I maybe the misfit in the family. But that’s okay. Everyone of us has been called to serve God with our whole beings, our whole selves. My story is not the story of my sisters. And their stories are not mine. Because of our differences, our collective voice is much stronger. Because of our differences, we able to show the grace of God to more people.