Write a Good Story

Dear Jacob,

Today is your cousin, Noel's, birthday.  She's ten today. I'm certain she had a big birthday party over the weekend with two different kinds of cake and balloons and craft stations and all kinds of Pinteresty things that her mom is so good at doing.  Some people really love doing that kind of thing, to throw parties that are whimsical and decorated and full of thoughtful details. But that kind of thing actually makes me dizzy and feverish and prevents me from making complete sentences. For the record, I threw you an awesome third birthday with a Thomas the Tank Engine cake and a bean bag toss game I painted on a cardboard box. It was just you and I and Grandma Lou and your baby brother in attendance until your dad got home.  That's about as fancy as it's ever gotten for you. Sorry about that, kiddo.  It's just the mom you got.

Noel's birthday is such a celebration because it's a crazy miracle that she's even here at all. Her mother had a very difficult time carrying her to term; bedrest and hospitalization and pre-term labor and early delivery and everything, just everything, that could go wrong did.  We were all so glad to see that little girl when she came into the world. She fits so nicely in the gap in our family, right after Ben and before Sam, the gap where Dad and I didn't have another child because things in life weren't so good at that time.  In our little family line, she's surrounded by boys but she fills in her space with all the pink and piano and leggings and lipgloss that boys just don't represent.

Noel is actually your cousin's middle name.  Her first name is Kalena and she is named after her sister. Twelve years ago, Trinity Kalena Lane came too early into the world and it was the saddest time. The hospital gave her a little dress and did little footprints and her mom and dad had to say good-bye right when they said hello.  If you ask your aunt, she'll tell you she has two daughters. But asking her will make her sad so be delicate and loving if you ever do.

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The day you were born, I went to work at the church where I managed the office.  My good friend, Denise, came to have lunch with me because we'd do that every week. Sometimes we went out to lunch and took way longer than an hour because friends talk a lot.  But on this day we were brown bagging it at my office and talking about your baby shower that had been over the weekend. I was having those fake contractions they call Braxton Hicks all day long.  They're "fake" because they aren't actually staring the process of labor.

Except that these were.  This was a Thursday, a full month before you were due to arrive.  After work I went to school to take a weekend seminary class. And my cute professor made a comment to me about how pregnant I was looking and how far along was I now.  I reassured her by saying I was still a month out and not to worry.  And then I freaked her a little when I said I wouldn't have the baby in her class as long as these contractions stopped. She stared at me for a second and I smiled.

We took a break and I paced the halls because walking was supposed to make fake contractions stop.  Nothing.  After the break I gave a little group presentation which I don't really remember. When I was done, I sat down and listened to the next guy give his and he said something funny which made me giggle.  Which made me pee myself. Only it wasn't pee. It was gushing fluid that wouldn't stop and as I sat there in my comfy upholstered chair (sorry, Golden Gate) hearing it all drip onto the carpet, feeling it run down my legs I had to make a plan.  Except that I couldn't think of one.  So I waited until that guy's presentation was done and then I whispered to my classmate that I needed to leave to go have a baby and I sloshed out to my car and stood there and tried to think of what to do.

My professor came running out yelling, "Did your water break?!"  And I yelled back, "I think so." And she sent out another classmate, Patricia, who was a nurse who was going to drive me to the hospital.  She gave me a towel to sit on and asked me questions and laid out for me how this whole giving birth process was going to go down and I was sitting there trying to adjust to the fact that I was, pretty quickly, going to be someone's mom.

Grandma had come to town from Virginia and she was still at my apartment being really helpful.  She was actually going home in a couple days, but she and Dad went out to eat that night. This was the age before cell phones so dad had this archaic thing called a pager. When I got to the hospital they got me all checked in and paged Dad who drove like crazy with poor Grandma to get there. And so began the process of you being born.

Here was the best part: when my contractions were getting pretty painful and I didn't want the epidural (which is where they stick a needle into your spinal column and that just makes me all squirmy) they gave me a drug, Nubane, in my iv line. And it knocked me out cold.  I don't think it was supposed to do that, but drugs usually work overtime in my system.   I slept through the hardest part of labor and I think your dad went and got something to eat.  I don't know.  Ask him.  I was sleeping.

You arrived on the scene early the next morning and all was well and we took you home the next day.  Then the following day was Mother's Day and so I got you dressed and took you to church and got my first Mother's Day carnation with my two-day-old baby boy.

Birth stories are the beginning of something big.  You can't read too much into them; unless they go horribly wrong they don't determine the course of your life or personality, (like you obviously aren't always early to everything now) but they do ground you in your life.  One day you started, so let's just keep this train running, k?

At one point a couple years ago, it occurred to your dad that he didn't have a birth story because he was adopted and his mom wasn't actually there for his birth. One day, while he was at the coffee shop, it was suddenly important for him to know it. So he asked her and found out that his story wasn't exactly the story he'd always thought.  This affected him in a big way.

I think it's important for you to know your story.  Story keeps us from floating aimlessly across the horizon. It demonstrates for us that we aren't alone.  Our lives aren't a man-versus-nature story like that poor chap in London's To Build a Fire  or like The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway, which I give you permission to never read because Hemingway equals boredom.  Our stories are more often man-versus-man or man-versus-society and when they really get good they're man-versus-self.

In order to have any kind of story at all, our characters interact. When you hear your story what you really hear is that you are a part of something bigger in the world, that your beginning impacted me and Dad but also Grandma and Patricia and Denise and my poor seminary professor and the other frazzled girl who had to start filling in for me at work the next day, totally unprepared because I was supposed to be there for another month.  From the very beginning, you were one in a line of adventurers exploring life and love and hope.

I was a big part in the beginning of your story, but you get to take over the reigns and keep it going. I don't make any claims for the outcome of your story at all.  It's yours. I just get to read it. You decide what characters to add and sometimes, to keep the story interesting, they'll be a little unsavory and you'll learn things from them.  You decide how many conflicts it will have and how many resolutions you'll strive to make. You get to write the hyperboles and the truth. If you want to throw yourself big birthday parties one day, that's totally fine with me and I won't be offended thinking that you're making up for some deficiency from your childhood.

You have a co-author, you know, and his name is God. He's got a pretty good idea of the best plot line for your story, but you're going to have to ask him for it, because he doesn't give that to mothers when their babies are born.  I made a pact with the tooth fairy, but I never got to make that pact with God.  He can help you determine who the antagonists are in your story, how to be a round character not a flat one, and to be dynamic and not static.  God can give you some hints about how the climaxes of each chapter will go and if you stick with him he'll ride with you clear through your denoument. (And, yes you should say that like the French).  Writing equals living, so get writing.  Write what you know.  And give me a little cameo.

Love,
Mom

Pray the Extraordinary

Dear Jacob,

When I was in fifth grade my mother left us for about a week to go to Southern California to be with Mema for her first heart surgery. This meant that my dad was in charge.  While Grandpa was a wonderfully, loving man who could grow a garden and ride a motorcycle he was no chef.

The nightly dinner preparation fell to me. Grandma was very careful to have everything prepped and ready before she left:  the food was in the fridge, directions were taped to the front, and because I helped her frequently enough I already knew my way around our kitchen. I was ten so I didn't know everything.  I had no idea how to julienne a carrot or braise a chicken, my knife skills were pretty primal and I explicitly did not know how to put out a grease fire.

Near mid-week we had hamburgers.  I fried the patties in a cast iron skillet on the stove top and baked some french fries in the oven.  It was simple enough and since I was cooking it was my brother's job to do the dishes all week long.  It wasn't a bad arrangement. Our dinners were happening without a hitch and I was getting nightly words of affirmation from Grandpa which made me feel pretty good about myself.

The next day we were going to have spaghetti. I put water in a pot and turned on the burner to get it boiling. Grandpa was on his way home with Uncle Scott and we'd be ready to eat when they arrived.  As I prepped the other parts of the meal, my back to the stove, I heard a loud pouff!  Turning to look, I was horrified to see that the pan we'd used for hamburgers the night before was engulfed in flames.  I'd turned on the wrong burner for the water!

I didn't know what to do.

I did the first thing that came to my head. I took the pot of water and poured some if it into the grease fire. You've probably learned this, but water was not going to make that fire go out.  For grease fires you can pop the lid on the pan, or throw some flour or baking soda all over the fire to smother it and soak up the grease.  Naturally, at ten, I didn't know this.  I thought only water put out fires.

When the flames only licked higher around the oven hood I panicked. I watched the backsplash turn a thick black and the sooted smoke curled around the kitchen ceiling.  I was home alone and what I was doing wasn't working.  I don't remember if I turned the burner off. I just remember that I sat down on the couch next to the counter and cried while the fire continued to roar on the stovetop.

I prayed to God to make it stop and to keep our house from burning down.  I didn't want to lose everything and to fail Grandma at making dinner.  And as suddenly as that fire popped up, it suddenly went out.

I was stunned. I think I said a "Thank you, Jesus" and I got to work cleaning the soot off the walls because I didn't want Grandpa to come home and see it. However, you can't hide a fire just like that and the house would actually smell like burnt hamburgers for a few days.  When Grandpa came home in what seemed like just a few moments, he wasn't angry at me and he sort of rubbed my back a little as he heard my story and looked at the mess in the kitchen and then he took Uncle Scott and I to Burger King for dinner.

I remember Grandma telling me on the phone later that God was really watching out for us that day.  And it hit me that he really had.  I had only made the grease fire worse and created an impossible situation for him, but he took care of it anyway. It could have destroyed our house and me along with it if I was just going to sit there and cry and inhale all that smoke.  I was in a desperate situation and he saw the whole thing and showed up in a real way that established my faith in him for all my days to come.

God hears the cries of broken fifth grade girls who don't know the right step to take to get out of danger.  He doesn't just hear and say, "Oh, what a pity." He actually moves things, changes chemistry, and gives us miracles that are rightly attributed to him.  He doesn't always do that and believe me, I wish he'd swoop in more often to save me from situations.  What he does do is listen and really what we all want is to be heard.

Prayer is a way to be heard. It's a way to communicate with a personal and yet infinite God. It's a practice, which means that it doesn't come naturally; we have to exercise to get a feel for it. With anything that we learn to do, and prayer is something that we can learn, we have to learn the science before we can learn the art. At this point in my life, my prayers have moved into the artful realm.  I really just hold silent ideas before God: people that are hurting, dreams I have for you guys, situations that need some resolution, changes that I need to see in my heart or my words or my attitude.

But prayer can begin for you wherever you want to begin.  Sometimes it's really helpful to find a scripture verse and pray that back to God.  That's essentially what the Lord's Prayer is -- us saying his own words back to him.  And when we do that, and we practice it, he begins to change our hearts and to reveal to us just what his words mean.  Prayers aren't just for desperate times either.  They're for everyday times, for happy times, for thinking about the future and trying to forget the past.  Prayer is this amazing connection that you have to a God who hears and who loves you.

I don't know when I've ever seen God do something so dramatic and so immediate as he did that day in the kitchen.  It was truly a miracle and his miracles are his way of getting our attention, of showing us glimpses of what it's like when heaven and earth meet. A miracle is his sign that he's making all things new, making the ordinary extraordinary and transforming the mundane into the marvelous.

This was my first miracle story.  You were my second one; completely extraordinary and marvelous.

Love,
Mom

Don't Say No for People

Dear Jacob,

When you guys were four and almost two we drove to Santa Cruz from Grass Valley once a week; two hundred miles and three hours each way. We'd pack pbjs to eat for dinner and pull off at a playground when we finally reached town. In the evenings you'd go to child care and Dad and I attended leadership training for everyone who wanted to be involved in helping launch Vintage Faith Church. There was something that pulled us there. Something we had to pay close attention to. This was our next step and we felt compelled to take it.

After the meeting one night, Dan sat down with us to talk. We talked about our unmistakable sense of calling, about looking for work anywhere in order to follow it and about the rental we'd just found to move into. Dan told us that he felt the weight of our decisions, that as our pastor he had us 'under his wing' and was praying and hoping God would show us our next steps. But he also said he lost a little sleep over it. The church plant was at God's mercy and our story of commitment made him acutely aware of the gravity of his promises. He couldn't make us promises of a staff position (we weren't looking for one) and he didn't tell us we were being stupid.  He just said that this was the kind of stuff that kept pastor's awake at night. He saw our faith and recognized that this was our story to live and he didn't tell us no.

As you know, five months later, just two months after the phenomenal launch of VFC, we had to pack everything into a storage unit and leave.  Dan was ready to invite Dad to help with the school of theology when we broke the news to him and he said, "Maybe this time was a gift to you to be with your kids for a little while."  He seemed to suffer with us while we traveled north. He called us when we landed.  He had the heart of a pastor who cares for his people even when the journey didn't keep them in his care.

The thing is that everyone's life path is different and while we can't determine what that path is for them, we can only respond with love and grace and be a helper to them while they figure it out.  Had we not gone to Vintage Faith, we wouldn't be here right now. The path would have taken a totally different turn that would have produced an equally complex story.  How can we ever know if that would have been a better one? Life's not a Choose Your Own Adventure Book where you can flip the pages back and see how it would have transpired. In one sense, the direction of our lives just is what it is hanging on the grace of God, but in another sense it involves choice.  When we follow the terms Jesus lays out, one of whole-life sacrifice for his kingdom, we at least know the end goal where our path is headed and we can make choices toward life and renewal.

For the past few years we've been in Dan's shoes leading and guiding others as they make their life choices and lean into God's grace.  During the course of it we've learned that there's another nuance to this lesson: when you're in a position of inviting others to join you -- on a project, an adventure, even a mission -- you're in a position of power.  And when you extend invitations you transfer that power to others.  Even if they don't accept that invitation, they are moved in a direction that makes them at least consider change and this seems to open a door to all kinds of new possibilities and priorities.

We've learned that the lesson really is not to say no for people.  When Dad and I are making a list of people to invite -- to a dinner, into a Bible study, a discipleship group, a church plant, a mission trip -- we need to invite whoever we think could benefit from being there.  We can't say, "Oh, they're too busy." or "She just had a baby" or "They won't leave where they're at." or "They live too far away and couldn't make it work."  We have to let them wrestle with their circumstances and with their standing in life and make their own call.  Then if they say no to our invitation, it's an empowered no and they have a better grasp of what they're actually saying yes to in life.

Dad invited this guy, Aaron, to go to Israel with him last summer. He wrestled with this decision because Aaron was unemployed at the time and the trip was several thousand dollars. Dad evaluated Aaron's situation in life and, at first, thought that maybe Israel wasn't a good idea at that time.  But that desire to invite him just wouldn't go away.  So Dad followed through and there was this sacred moment where he just left it in Aaron's hands to decide.

It turned out that Aaron had been invited by another person as well and he was hearing all of these invitations and wondering what faith would have him do.  The invitations were giving him the power to choose.  He decided to say yes and it turned out that that other person who invited him, just a friend at the time, is going to become his wife in a couple weeks. Their life together began in Israel. Had Dad not followed through would they have become engaged some other way?  Perhaps, but the invitation placed him in a place of openness to see what God wanted and into that place stepped Wendy.

On the flip side, there was an opportunity for several leaders at our last church to invite a lot of people into groups where they could help each other grow to be more like Jesus. But they couldn't invite everyone.  And as word got out that there were these groups happening and very few people had been invited into them it was blatantly obvious that the lack of invitation had power too. When we don't invite, the power stays with us and doesn't get transferred to those who are needing the power (courage, impetus, opportunity) to move into a new place in life. When you're uninvited, someone is saying no for you.  And this general sense of distrust and deception grows up and fractures relationships.

Teenagers either feel powerful or powerless.  And when you live in either of those places you become arrogant and bullying or you become rejected and despondent. But there is a third way. You can feel like an inviter. You're in a position to extend invitations to others.  When you work in groups, you can invite partners. When you form a talent show act, you can invite friends to help you.  When you write a script you can invite cast members. Do you default to the friends you know best?  Or do you pause for a moment and consider the gifts or even the weaknesses of the people around you and consider how they might benefit from that experience?  How that experience just might be the thing that pushes them out of that place of rejection and give them something to say yes to?  It's amazing what the power of an invitation can do.

When we issue invitations to others we don't hang on to the power, we relinquish it and let someone else exercise it. When we don't invite, we say no for others and keep the power all to ourselves.  Which is the complete opposite of the way Jesus was. He was constantly inviting people into conversations and experiences that pushed them into more decisions and experiences and ultimately changed the world. Jesus still invites today.

Today we're going to meet with our core group of friends that are going to launch a new church with us soon.  Every single one of them responded to our invitation with a yes (by the way, three friends did tell us no).  Every single one had to evaluate for themselves what it would mean to their time, their relationships, their finances, their priorities and families to accept the invitation. They show up every Sunday and every other Wednesday with a level of commitment that astounds me.  I feel the weight of their commitment because it feels very familiar to me -- like they're driving 200 miles, looking for rental houses and living off pbjs in order to be a part of something where there's really no promises, only the grace of God.

I understand why Dan lost sleep over us. When we extend invitations we hand the power over to someone else and the changes that occur are not up to us.  Dan wasn't in charge of our changing, he just walked with us while we began it.

Who are you walking with?  Who are you inviting? Who needs to say yes to something new and life-giving?  You have the power to invite.  Use it wisely.

Love,
Mom

Expect the (Hard) Unexpected

Dear Jacob,

These are some things in my life that I've never fully adjusted to:

1. Having a son in high school.  
2. Causing an accident that could have killed your brothers.
3. Lying to my boss once.
4. Getting kicked out of my church.
5. Having a husband without two toes.

I know I haven't adjusted because when I think of them all I get a little short of breath and I feel some remorse or some fear. Any one of them would be a good story to tell you and maybe I'll use that list for future reference.

(As if I need a list; these things are locked in my memory, Buddy.)

None of them are things I wanted.  Except that son in high school part. I actually love that you're in high school because I always thought I'd be a better mother to teenagers than I was to toddlers.  Don't get me wrong, I was just looking at pictures of you guys when you were little and it made me smile, big and silly, while working in the library today.  But before, and just after, you were born we'd always worked with youth groups so I thought I'd be a natural at parenting someone who might attend a youth group. (And you can just let me keep thinking that, okay?)  The part that I never wanted was for you to be gone one day and we both know that high school is really just this slick funnel that spits you out into college so that's the thing that makes me short of breath.  And a little sweaty.

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The day Dad lost his toes, I was six months pregnant with Sam, wearing a pink maternity shirt and some tan capri pants. My outfit is lodged. in. my. brain. I was busy at work in the bonus room where I was putting away and sorting through all of the school supplies and curriculum we'd used that year. We were done for the summer and I had my head down, focused and intent on rectifying that mess. Dad was out back mowing the lawn, which was not very big but it was prolific as is all grass in the Pacific Northwest.

I remember what Dad was wearing too: thick, leather boots to start and a hospital gown to finish. When he yelled for me he had to do it a few times because 1. I was upstairs facing the front of the house.  2. I was focused. 3. I'm a little deaf.  But when I heard him, I instantly knew what was up because Dad doesn't usually yell for me. He comes and finds me. I love that about your dad.  My body knew what was up and that means that Sam's body was clued in too. Maybe that extra adrenaline rush I had that third day of June is what makes him so chill today; that boy experienced fear before he even came out.

Outside, Dad hopped over to the deck while grasping his booted foot, sat and looked at it and he, the bleeding man, gave me instructions. "Grab a towel. Grab my phone. We need to go to the hospital.  I can't fix this at home." We left you boys with Grandma Lou, terribly confused and, Ben in particular, very afraid, and left.

As I drove I had to figure out exactly where I was going.  I knew how to get to the hospital (pregnant ladies memorize that route), but how bad was Dad's foot?  I had to ask him, while he sat breathing deeply next to me with a death grip on his foot, and I decided that blood and gore was probably emergency room worthy.

When Dad let go, he swooned and was promptly pumped full of pain meds. He was in this condition when the ER doctor laid out the options and when, in the end, Dad had to say, "Ok. Let's cut them off."

How do you do that?  How do you make the instant choice to permanently remove a part of your body that won't ever return? Your dad is amazing, but I knew he wanted to cry. And this whole time, I was just in an emotional buzz because of what was charging through my body and I was sort of sitting outside myself staring down at the ridiculousness of the situation. Other people might cut their toes off in a lawn mower, but your Dad was -- and is -- pretty astute and orderly and conscientious. I was sitting in that crazy place of the now and the not yet, that place just before you know many, many things will change before you could see them coming.

When they wheeled Dad into surgery, they handed me what they call 'incidentals.'  It's a big plastic bag of all the things a patient walks into the hospital with but can't have again until they're ready to go home. Wedding rings and everything. I had a bag like this once before in my hands, the day of Mema's heart surgery.  So you can probably guess that when Dad's gurney was gone through those double doors I completely lost it.

As I walked down a hallway-that-would-never-end to the post-op waiting room I cried over Dad's toes.  I'd married him with those toes, hiked mountains with those toes, went to the beach with those toes and made footprints in the sand. I cried for you guys who'd have a father forever altered and now with wickedly bad balance (I assumed).  I cried for me because I had to care for him and I couldn't lift him because the baby was enough to strain my groin. And I cried a little for Mema too on account of that bag.  When I got to the waiting room the T.V. was on and the movie showing was Jaws.  Ridiculous.

You know how it ended up.  Dad's pretty fine and he has balance after all. We had friends around us who gave him new nicknames right away in the waiting room and showed up at our house with dinner and chocolate chip cookies.  We inducted Dad into an Evergreen (our church) Amputee's Club, along with Tom the woodworker who is missing several fingertips and Tarver who elected to cut off his leg years after he met up with an some supercharged power lines. Tarver was president, because just a few weeks later Dad was going to get to walk on both legs again.

There's so much of this story that I never wanted.  I never wanted to be six months pregnant with Sam and sent into an emotionally charged situation that would alter your dad forever.  I never wanted to be afraid to touch his feet.  I never wanted to brace my heart every time he groans after kicking his bare toe-stubs on the stairs. And I never wanted to have to console you guys on my own when I left him overnight and came home alone.

You guys responded so differently.  Ben's tearful question was, "Why did Daddy do that?!"  Your angry statement was "I'm so mad at Dad for doing that!"  Ben needed reassurance.  You needed facts:  how it happened step-by-step. And I had to adjust to each of you and let you feel what you needed to feel and be as complete as I could be in the moment.

What was difficult for you, and I think is difficult in other situations even now, is that you couldn't expect the unexpected. You are orderly and precise like your dad, all except your room -- in that respect you're more like me -- and you thrive on structure and knowing what's next.  I wish I could tell you what will happen for you.  But all I can say is, "Maybe."  Maybe you'll have a great Junior and Senior year and get a full ride scholarship to college.   Maybe you'll go to Colorado Film School after a fifth year of high school.  Maybe you'll drive one day. Maybe not. Maybe you'll have a beater first car and a sweet first girlfriend.  Maybe you'll work during the summer and earn money for said car and girlfriend.  Maybe.

Or maybe you'll get really sick and have to go through a lot of medical treatments.  Maybe you'll get in an accident and hurt your brain.  Maybe you'll make some bad choices like trying drugs, or watching porn or cheating on tests in school.  Maybe you'll be the victim of some crime I'm not even going to try to imagine.  Or maybe one day you'll get lost and we'll never find you.  Anything can happen. And this is the stuff Mom's fear.  Right there.  All of it.

When you were born I sat up in the hospital bed with all six pounds eleven ounces of you + blanket in my arms, and I told God, "As cute as he is, as much as I want to be the best Mom I can be for him, I know he belongs to you, not me. And I promise you I'll do my best to be the Mom he needs me to be so that one day he'll know without a doubt that he's safer in your arms than he is in mine."

And you know what?  You are. But that doesn't mean that unexpected things won't surprise and change us. There's probably some very un-fun things in the future and we have to expect that life will, in fact, be hard. If it's easy, we are just blessed.  But if we keep waking up, we need to do the best waking up we can do.  And we need to do our best to help others wake up too.  Because if the hard things don't happen to us, they'll happen to someone else.  And there but by the grace of God, go I.

Love,
Mom