Bubble, Bubble....Bubble!

The other night I walked into Dyson's dimly lit room. It was bedtime and he was all snuggled in with his blankie. I looked at him wondering when the day would come that being soft and sensitive was no longer "cool."  I hoped never. But I also hoped soon before he gets the crap beat out of him on the playground. :)  Anyway, at the time he had propped up on his knees the large printed Children's Bible where he was intently looking at a picture of heaven.  These pictures were painted beautifully. Not cartoony.

"Mom, I want to go. When can we go, Mom? I want to go so bad." He was saying it as if he was whining. I hate whining. But this time I loved it. I gave him the biggest hug I could give and prayed, "Jesus, come quickly. We're all so ready to go."

But then my weary mind was filled with people who would suffer for eternity if my prayer was answered. The ones choosing to live lives on their own. Without him. Not to mention, the ones who have never even heard yet.

From my human perspective, gosh. What a hard decision God has. When does He bring his children home? Does his heart just churn at the very thought? Does He wrestle with this decision wanting no one to perish? (2 Peter 3:9). Yet, he is so crazy in love with his children that he just wants us home.

Anyway, regardless, all I know is that today I love, love my life. And I hate it all at the same time.
It is such an adventure. There are many days I want to blog about my heartache, pain and confusion. About frustration with God's calling for us. About the fact that he never seems to have "financial abundance" in his plan and sometimes it feels embarrassing and we wonder if people get annoyed by us.

There are days that I want to vent anger with having to reopen old wounds and discover wounds we didn't even realize we had. Having to till up old weathered soil to prepare for a new harvest. A new fruit. A new season. Yet, it feels like we're put on hold.  Much like the farmers around here, wanting to get into the fields, but outside circumstances like snow and freezing rain had put them on hold.

In the same way, God is saying to me, "Patience, my dear. Patience."

I want to blog about my insecurity of knowing Jer will be unemployed December 1st (he's an intern). With Christmas, it feels like such wonderful timing doesn't it? Yet, isn't that statement sad?  "Knowing" Jer is going to be unemployed?  Ya, maybe by his current company, but the truth is I don't know anything when it comes to God and his dealings with us.

I want to blog about my friends Liza and Mark and ask God why. Why did He allow their baby to have strokes and siezures and bleeding on the brain? I want to blog about the random precious sons here in Brandon, who have died... Luke, Asher, Caleb, Michael, Tim.  I want to blog about trafficking and poverty and addictions and affairs and messy desperate parenting and feeling as if the American Church isn't doing enough.

We all have our stories of heartache and brokenness. But today, in the midst of my own very deep season of hardship, I am just bubbling over with excitement (maybe over stupid stuff, really). The joy I feel living this adventurous life with God is so fun. He is just so fun...even with the unnecessary selfish things. Perhaps it's not even about the things that get me excited, as much as about the One providing these things.  Yeah, I think that's it.  I'll explain in a moment, but first...

I often cringe at email chains passed along regarding irritation toward the low-income community or cultures. The writings will read,"You're on Medicare, yet we see all your bling, name brand clothes and flatscreen TV's." O.k. I'm sure there is truth in that. I'm sure it's taken advantage of. But what about those who have stories you might not know about? I think of my pastor who shared, "If you're going to error, error on the side of grace...not judgment".  He continued, "You don't want to be facing Jesus someday when he brings up you're opinion of "so and so" only to find you were completely wrong."

This really resignated with me in many areas of my "judgemental jerk for Jesus way of living" in which God used Jeremy to smack that crap right out of me. It also brought to my mind those wonderfully crabby emails toward certain minority cultures in America.  Living in a "low-income" housing complex myself and having in the past been on medicare, these Facebook posts are sometimes hard for me to read.

Jer and I are not "proud" to have to ask others for help. It's very humbling. As you can imagine for a hardworking Iowa farm boy, the thought of living in a financed apartment, receiving medicare, scholarships, etc. is just not acceptable and down right makes him feel like a failure. 

But, talking specifically about our situation, it could be incredibly easy for anyone to misjudge our circumstances. There are days I want to get really crabby, as I mentioned earlier. But we choose to live this way, so I can't. I could put my kids in school like normal people do and get a job.  Except, that's just it. God has never called me to be normal. Ever. 

So instead of writing a crabby blog today, I'm going to write about how cool he is in the midst of our "financially humbling" life. It's one of those days that I feel so grateful and overcome with joy in His blessings. In the midst of the life that He has called us to live, God is still allowing us to enjoy it in ways that aren't needed... but just fun.

Bubbling With Blessing #1:
In the summertime, you might see us driving around and watch me nearly sink to the floor of my passenger seat hoping no one who knows me will notice. Why? Because behind our truck we are pulling this:

That's some nice bling, right? Truth: It's not our boat. But we certainly get to use it a lot! Bubble, bubble....bubble!

We shouldn't be able to have the opportunity to camp and boat and wakeboard like we do. Such a spendy hobby! But we do, and these days when it starts to warm up I find myself bubbling over with excitement to get on the water and watch our little buddy learn to wakeboard. With those thoughts comes even more bubbling of appreciation toward God, for we certainly don't deserve such a thing.

Bubbling With Blessing #2: 
A few weeks back, when I walked into my living room and found this:

Holy Crap. That is a freakishly large TV. 36 inch? 42?  I don't even know. Who cares. Yup, this would really fly with those people who are irritated about our government funded housing, I thought.

Truth? It was free.

The funny part: The family prayed about it and God told them to give it to us. I still laugh at that. I don't understand why God would lay our names on the hearts of someone giving away an enormous TV. We don't have cable and we don't watch sports. I'm sure it will all make sense someday.  Max and Ruby sure looks awesome though.

Bubbling With Blessing #3: 
My daughter has always been a girly girl. Not real into sports.  I played sports. I played volleyball, basketball, softball and even ran (if you could call it that) track.  Kasiah, she doesn't walk to the bathroom. She dances.  She doesn't sit on the couch, she does a front walkover onto it.  She doesn't come to supper, she cartwheels to supper.  And not to mention horses. Oh geez, that's another story that begins at the age of 2 when she screamed "No! Me do it!" because she wanted to ride the full-grown horse all by herself.  And she did. 

Yup, she did.

Dancing, gymnastics, and horses. Super affordable, right? Ha ha. If you keep up with my blog, you can see why I'm so overjoyed with God and his ways with us.  Bubbling.....  

First, she is blessed with a Grandma who loves horses and even has one...and soon two. She has also been blessed with scholarship opportunities to attend horse camp in Baltic, SD. Which is aaaamazing.

Second, in an earlier writing I explained how Kasiah wanted to be on dance team. I said, "I'm sorry sweetie, we can't afford it." Period. Sometime later a lady pulled me aside and said she wants to help fund Kasiah to be on team.  I starred at her speechless as tears streamed down my face. Totally unexpected. 

Several months later it's "dance picture" day. I order the bare minimum.  I receive the the full maximum. Included was a note. "I heard about God's work in your life and am inspired by your faith.... consider this a small token of thanks for touching my life."  I just stared, shocked.  Even in the unimportant things of nice photography, compared to world hunger, God shows up and says, "Ya, you didn't need these. But I found joy in giving them anyway."

So when I talk with people and they hear about Kasiah going to horse camp... or being on dance team, sometimes the response is, "Oh, my daughter would love that, but we certainly couldn't afford it."  (Insert a moment of stuttering). I simply don't even know how to respond.  The words of God's blessings for us try to pour out but just bubble over in a confusing mess. So I simply respond with something stupid that doesn't make any sense. And the blessings continue! 

Bubbling With Blessing #4:
Kasiah had her recital this past weekend and my horrible camera did exactly what it's great at. It took horrible pictures (user error I'm sure). Knowing I don't print pictures or scrapbook, but do everything digitally I thought to myself,"Wish I could get some great pictures for her album".  

Apparently God heard it as a prayer. Today I log onto Facebook and see this:

This was just one. There were more.

Seriously? 

Come to find out this professional photographer swore she was going to come, sit back and relax and watch her daughters dance.... but just couldn't help but shoot.  She wrote, "For some reason I ended up with several of Kasiah."

Bubble, bubble....BUBBLE!

Bubbling With Blessing #5:
Not a day goes by that I don't thank God for my life. I love my life.  I love that he called me to homeschool. I can list a million reasons why.  One being on a hot fall day, when all the kids are in class, and my son is done with his work, we have moments like these:

When the pools are closed for the year, the sprinkler park stays opened.  Yes, we take full advantage of it. Bubble, bubble...bubble.  Not to mention the ways God has blessed Dyson to do things he loves, like Taekwondo, when a normal family in our situation wouldn't be able to.

I could go on and on writing about the blessings of our family, our friends, our church, our community. They just continue to flow.  I mentioned blessings of unnecessary material things. But even though I am watching the blessings pour out all around me, the truth is the pain and suffering within me is the greatest blessing of all.

Like my good friend once told me, sometimes God might be holding your hand while walking alongside you in the journey.  Other times he might pick you up and hug you.  Desire the hugs, but know that the hand holding is what truly teaches you how to walk. 

Not sure if I'm walking or if I'm crawling. Regardless, I'm growing...and for what? You can't have the heart of Christ without having a broken heart. A broken heart is a thirsty heart. A thirsty heart is a moldable heart. A moldable heart...a new heart.

A heart that beats for the matters of the heart of Christ over the heart of flesh.

The afflicted. 

The wounded. 

The abused and the oppressed.  

Reaching these people with the hope of Christ so that they too can find blessings in their brokenness is truly God's desire for our lives. Matthew 25:31-46.

Finally, if there is one last thing God has taught me in the last several years it is this: Don't be critical of another.  We don't know their story.  At best, our perspective is probably.....wrong.

"I will lead the blind by a way they do not know. In paths they do not know I will guide them. I will make darkness into light before them.  And rugged places into plains. These are the things I will do... and I will not leave them undone."  

Isaiah 42:16