A Love Letter

My dear church family,

I love you.  This is a love letter to you.  Does that sound strange?  I suppose it does.

For over 20 years, we have been a part of your family.  As I sit in worship each Sunday, I often gaze at the faces that surround me, overwhelmed with love for the people with which we have been blessed to serve.  People we have known for all twenty years, or maybe just a month or two, and every time period in between.  People we have laughed with, cried with, grieved with and grown with.  People who have loved us through hard times and good.

For twenty years we have worshiped in this place.  For twenty years, you have been our family.  Through thick and thin, good times and bad, you have traveled with us.  We have shared your joys and sorrows too -- you have let us into your lives.  We have watched you mourn the losses of your loved ones, and we have mourned with you.  You have cried tears of joy and we have been privileged to cry with you.  And when our family has had hard times, you stood next to us, supporting us. 

We have raised our family here.  Your children are friends with our children; your lives have been intricately entwined with our family's.  We've navigated each new parenting challenge with you by our sides.  And we've launched our first child, with so much love for her from all of you. 

Every Sunday, I watch our Eucharistic ministers bow as they ascend the altar steps, and I marvel at them.  Fathers, husbands, young men.. .all full of love for you and a desire to serve you by taking on the most holy task of feeding God's people God Himself.  I watch you model what it means to love Christ and serve Him.  And my heart overflows.

I watch you young moms and dads teach your children the importance of worshiping each Sunday, though I know how hard it is (oh how I know!) to struggle so often in the pew.  Yet you keep coming back, because you know how important it is.  Your dedication fills me up.  There is nothing more sacred than bringing your children to the foot of the cross each week.

And families with older children, a group I now belong to, I see you bring your preteens and teenagers each week, sometimes unwilling though they might be, because you know that just the same as when they were little, this is the most important thing you can do for them -- far greater than any other activity they engage in.  It's not always easy, but you persevere, and it is inspiring.

And older people, oh how I love you!  Seeing your faithful example to all of us brings such joy to my heart.  You, the seasoned saints, who share such wisdom with us all, often just by your quiet lives.  I adore seeing you, talking with you, and introducing my children to you.  Your experience shapes our congregation.

Today we sang that we are gracefully broken.  Oh, indeed we all are.  And as I looked out at your beautiful faces, I was so incredibly thankful to be gracefully broken with you, here, in this place.  The love and shared experiences we have had, culminating each week with Eucharist,  these past many years is a blessing I can't put into words.  Thank you.  Thank you for sharing your lives with us, and for welcoming our lives into your fold.  My heart overflows with love for you.

In Christ's love,
S

Change of Address

I recently bought my daughter a gift:  an address book.  A what? you might say (if you're a Gen Z'er anyway).  An address book! Yes, yes, I know it's antiquated and outdated.  That's what the contacts section is for in our phones, lady!  I know, I know. But still.  There's something about a physical book full of friends and family's information.  I filled in several addresses for her. . .family and close friends, so she can write everyone lots of letters like I did in college - ha!  But seriously, I thought she might like to have the addresses to send thank you notes or birthday cards every now and then.

I chose one I thought might be timeless, because the address book I still use is from early college.  It's ugly - a plastic green cover with some ridiculous design, battered with years of use.  But looking through my address book is like taking a walk down memory lane (which, as you might guess, dear reader, is one of my favorite things to do! :).

5 or 10 years out of college I received an address book as a gift.  It was lovely and I sat down to transfer my addresses out of the old one and into the new one.  But. . . I couldn't do it.  Some addresses were for people I didn't keep in touch with anymore, but I couldn't bear to erase them from my postal history.  A few things you might find if you thumbed through the worn pages of my almost 30-year-old address book:

Scribbles and crossed out entires:  As people moved over time, especially so many of my young friends, I would cross out their name and address, and write a new entry for them at the end of their section.  As a result, I have a timeline of so many friends' geographical history.

New married names:  So many of my friends and family were getting married in those early years, and new married names were popping up all over my book.  It's fun to look back to the first entries of each section to see my friends' maiden names, listed under their parents' addresses.

Sainted friends and family:  As people passed away over the years, I took to drawing a cross over their names and leaving their entry otherwise undisturbed.  When I glance back over each section, I am reminded of people I have loved over the years.  It makes me so happy to see their names and addresses and remember our shared history.

Inexplicable entries:  There are several entries that I have no memory of making or ever needing. . .for example the California Office of Tourism (remember before the internet how we had to plan vacations?  Maybe I was hoping for a California trip that never materialized). . .the Dominoes near my college campus (I don't recall ever getting Dominoes!). . .our college Round Robin Telephone list (I don't remember ever needing to use this, but it was our friend group's telephone tree list in case an urgent need arose while not at school - remember youngins - this was before the world was at our fingertips!). . .Southwest Airlines Reservations. . .my grandma's real estate office number 💗. . .the Chicago weather phone number. . .and several entries for people I don't even remember (I'm thinking they were for people I babysat for in college and not good friends I've somehow forgotten!).

The entrance of my new husband:  After a few entries on each page, you might see my husband's handwriting amidst mine, after we got married adding his college friends to our expanding list of contacts.  He wrote in college-man-speak, listing his friends by their college nicknames, and not concerned with addresses, just phone numbers.

Love:  As I flipped through my old book to determine which addresses my daughter may need, I felt an overwhelming sense of love and gratefulness.  I am grateful for all these people whose lives have intersected mine.  Thankful for the part they played (and still play) in shaping who I am now.  Each of those entries (aside from some of the whackadoodle ones listed above) was written down in a desire to keep in touch with someone.  Though much time has passed, those people still bring a smile to my face, and the memories we shared resurface.

I know the address book I am sending my daughter will probably not be as well used as mine has been (and still is).  Times are changing and her phone will indeed probably be her go to for contact information.  But maybe this book will house a few of her loved ones, and someday she might flip through and reflect on the people God has placed in her path, as I have had the privilege to do.

Table for Seven

Earlier today, I walked through the dining room to notice that whichever child had been assigned to wipe down the dining room table last night had either a) completely skipped the chore, or b)wiped it down with a blindfold on.  Sighing, I grabbed the kitchen washcloth and leaned over the table to give it a scrub.  And as I was washing it, I noticed a mark I couldn't get off.  I scrubbed it for a few moments and realized it was probably permanent, like many other marks on that table.  And as I am wont to do, I inadvertently stumbled down memory lane, dining room table style.

We bought our dining room set shortly after we had moved into our house, while I was still working and before we had children.  We were saving all of my paycheck, and putting some of it into our furniture fund.  We had moved into our house in January of 1999 and had very little to move into it.  By the summer of 1999, we had enough saved for an Amish made, custom dining room set.  We traveled around the Amish countryside, searching for the right craftsman.  The man we found worked out of his garage in his yard, with his many children playing in the yard.  I recall finding the whole scene delightful.  We chose our simple Shaker style set, complete with buffet/china cabinet, mullioned mirror to match our house's windows, and 2 leaves and 8 chairs for the table -- in anticipation of the many children we were hoping to one day have.  It felt so fancy and grown up and new when it was set up in our dining room.  The whole house smelled wonderfully of wood, and every time I walked by I inhaled its scent and admired its beauty.

It's been a few years since that dining room set arrived in our house, and a few things have changed around here.  As we've added children and events and life, I realized many of our memories have taken place at that very table.  If those dining room walls could talk, they might tell of:

• Our first major family dinner, Easter of 2000, for our daughter's baptism.  We had both leaves in and the table had to be at an angle to fit in the room.   We had only two children in our extended family then, and though it was tight, we could all eat together in one room.
• Christmas dinner 2004, with our third child, aged 6 months (to the day!) in a bouncy chair on the table, crying through most of our little family's dinner.
• Discovering the multitude of old science fair projects behind the buffet when we pulled it away last year to paint.
• Helping a child through many a homework assignment at the table, listening to cries of anguish that "I will never get this!" and "When will I EVER use this in real life?"
• Filling the buffet up with our wedding crystal and dishes, and later my husband's grandmother's glassware.
• Feeling a little pang when my eldest daughter left for college and I had to set the table for only six.
• Finding permanent marker on the table after someone who shall remain nameless used the marker on thin paper.
• Folding thousands of pieces of laundry on the table and wrapping hundreds of presents.
• Serving birthday party buffets, and baptism and confirmation and graduation party buffets from the table.
• Finding, this past Halloween, a rotted mini pumpkin my daughter had made at our school's fall festival, sitting on the buffet.  When we moved it (YUCK!), we saw that her permanent-markered-name had been transferred to the buffet, ever to remain written backwards as a reminder of the incident.
• Going around the table at countless birthday dinners, each of us honoring the birthday boy or girl by saying what we love about him/her (sometimes these are funny, sometimes these are poignant, and sometimes it's like pulling teeth!).
• The table full of friends and family we've hosted, laughing and crying together over our shared experiences.
• Family devotions, full of singing, reverence, pondering, silliness and laugher, but always full of grace.

This dining room has been the foundation of so many of our family's memories.  When we bought it so long ago, we planned to never buy another set.  We wanted this one to be timeless and classic and to last our entire family years and marriage.  We couldn't foresee all that was to happen around that table and in that room.  The laughter, the decisions made, the conversations shared and mostly the memories made.  

I am thankful to the Amish man who crafted it for us.  Thankful for his skill to build something so well-made that has stood the test of time (and children!).  Mostly I am thankful for the family who surrounds the table each day as we come together to share a meal and share our lives.  

Overheard, Over Here

Child:  handing up a tissue pack from the back of the suburban "Can you put these back in the constellation?"

Parent: "Do you mean console?"

#Potatopotahto

Parent:  "Which hymn do you want to sing for devotions?"

Child:  announces hymn number, then while parent is looking the other way mouthes to sibling: "I chose it because it only has three verses"

Sigh.  Apparently singing hymns is not this child's favorite devotional discipline.

Parent:  "Out of all the boys in the world, how did we get the best ones?"

Boy:  "Don't you mean the best one?"

#brotherlylove

Child:  playing Extreme Makeover:Home Edition with playmobil figures  "And then Ty is going to kill them all!"

Parent:  "What did you say?"

Child:  "I took a turn away from the show!"

Thankfully, the child took another turn and all the participants and stars instead lived happily ever after.

Child:  "When is the rental student going back to his country?"

Parent:  "Do you mean exchange student?"

Yes/No

A friend of mine gave me a cool gift awhile ago. It's a picture frame with the phrase,"I love you because. . .".  She included a dry erase pen which attaches to the back.  My husband and I write notes to each other when we are so moved.  The board has been a cool way for us to think of all the things we appreciate about each other.

For the last several weeks, my husband has been teaching and preaching about marriage and family.  One of the things he said in class was that when you get married and say "yes" to your spouse, you are simultaneously saying "no" to everyone else.  Obviously. . . but I don't often think of it that way.  So when I got home from bible class, I wrote the following on our picture frame:  "I love you because. . . you said "no" to all the other girls and said "yes" to me. 💗"

My husband read it, but a few days later, the sign took a slightly different turn.  One of my boys (I have my suspicions) made two little changes, and it cracked us up.

We left it up and laughed every time we passed by it.  And then -- not to be outdone by her brothers, this version appeared:

My husband and I said "no" to everyone else, and "yes" to each other.  And apparently that net was cast further once we had children, to include video games and unicorns. I'm okay with that. 😊