An RV, a yurt, a moldy house, a tree house... and our eternal home.

(May 2015 excerpts from my journal, with some additional thoughts.)

My husband and I have been married for two years.  In those two years of marriage, we and our little family have moved six times.  (Depending on your definition of a "move...")

This "always in limbo, never settled" living situation has so many Heavenly parallels for the believer.  It feels familiar to me, because it is... As Christians we are, as the Bible has put it, sojourners; strangers in a strange land;  aliens.  Joey and I have not really had a place to call our own, yet.

And that's good.  I so love this very tangible, present reminder that these are the true circumstances of every believer:  Not home yet.  Not settled yet.  Not fully at peace or at home.  Only on the journey.

Our little family doesn't have "a place" for our belongings, really.  They're strewn, hither and yon, between different locations.  One place is the small house originally on our property... the one we intended to fix up before discovering that its foundation was completely shot, among other  issues that would have made it a financial black hole to invest in.  It was foreclosed due to severe mold issues (so we call it our "moldy house" to differentiate it from our tree house, our RV, "our" Neenah winter residence, and our future abode).

People involved in a realty scam broke into it twice after we bought the property but before we moved onto it.

All of that strikes a chord, as I am reminded of Matthew 6:19:
"Do not collect for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal."

Sometimes we chuckle to ourselves, amused that the majority of our belongings actually consist of the building materials collected for our eventual home.  And I'm reminded of another parallel.
"Collect for yourselves treasures in Heaven..."

What treasures do we have?  We have lots of convenient things.  A few sentimental things.  But if we lost everything in one big fire, I can't say I would be particularly sad to see most of it go.  I am glad for that.  That's not to say I don't truly appreciate our material belongings, but I like to think my heart isn't tied to them.  I think it's healthy to feel that way.  God's gracious hand has seen to it that the things I treasure most, in which I have thus far invested the greatest percentage of my life, are all things I get to "take with me" when I die.

Not having grown up with "treasures," at least not the way this world defines them (materialistically), I didn't develop a taste for them.  It can make me feel awkward and out of sync with humanity at times.  Sometimes I feel as if I have nothing to contribute to certain conversations.  (I've actually caught myself chiming in to complain about things I really don't mind at all, just for the sake of solidarity or fitting in, probably. I know: it's easy to recognize as completely stupid when I say it out loud.)  But, really, when I think about it, I should be alright with not caring about "things" or not always being able to engage in lively conversation about them very well.
"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

I want my Savior Himself to always, always be my treasure and my heart.  Not just mostly.  Not just a little more than the other things in my life, like my husband and my children.  I want Him to be very clearly the greatest and highest of anything I value.

A pastor once told me directly that it is foolish to talk about aching for Heaven or about just wanting to be with Jesus.  His reasoning?  Because Jesus gave us this world to enjoy, after all.

I can see the train of thought there.  But I also read my Bible.  And up against the perspective it offers, I see how teeny tiny, short, and insignificant all of human history will be in comparison to forever.  How much tinier, then, is my one life on the grand scale of eternity?!

Tell me something:  Why should I spend all of my time, energy, emotions, and resources garnering the applause of this world-- making myself successful or liked in the eyes of people, whose days are numbered, rather than making myself successful and faithful in the eyes of Jesus?  He's the One I will stand before one day, yearning to hear the words, "Well done......"

You might be proud of yourself for your credentials, your career, your life experiences, your "been theres..."  And I fully understand that temptation myself.  Right there with you.  Maybe you're a "do-gooder."  Maybe your life is wrapped up in public "ministry."  Maybe you consider yourself an intellectual.  Maybe you know everything there is to know about anything.  Maybe you're frankly just the most epic person in your circle of friends.  :P  Let's say you're a brain surgeon, a celebrity, a professional athlete, a United States ambassador, a military academy graduate, or an FBI agent.  [*insert your most-admired profession here*]

Cool.  But this earth and the entire system that gave you those experiences is going to burn.

What really matters?

You and I would be fools and borderline mental to treat this life like it's the one that matters most.  The only actions that matter in this life are the ones which have ramifications in eternity.

(And, no: In eternity, it's not going to matter that your husband made you late for church or that the kids spilled milk on the couch.  But how your heart responded in those circumstances will matter.)

It can be tempting to look back on one's life and think of how much more successful you could have been, or how much more "fulfilling" your life would be, had you made different decisions.  Certainly I was no exception.  Years back, when most of my friends were either in the military or well on their way to a four-year degree, I frequently thought of the opportunity I had to attend the Air Force Academy. I second-guessed the decisions I made regarding many other prestigious doors that had swung wide open to me.  Then Jesus altered my perspective.

And that's what makes all the difference in life.  He always does that when He touches a person's heart.  That's the turning point in so many events recorded all over the Bible, isn't it?  "...But God....."  Suddenly, a non-accredited Bible college with an emphasis on world missions and classes solely on the Word of God looked to me like one of the smartest investments possible.

Let me put it another way: I've heard people regret having married so young-- that they could have pursued their talents, had they put off starting a family.  Wives are bitter about their husbands "holding them back" from developing a career of their own, or parents lament their child having a medical condition that prevents them from ever following their dreams.  I've had my own relatives downplay to my face God's emphasis on taking the Gospel to other countries, because it simply didn't hold the same value as the comforts of home that they chose to pursue in life.

If you believe this life is all there is and all that matters, it makes sense to think that way.  If you genuinely believe God and what He says about eternity, it absolutely does not.

Are we living in light of eternity, today?  Do we do the simple, daily things for the glory of God?  Or have we "settled" into the short ride of this life, Church?

I am cherishing this "unsettled" feeling.  All my life, and especially as of late, I am constantly reminding myself, "This is just a small taste of how it feels to live free.  Live with a focus on Jesus and Heaven.  This is good.  Stay unattached to the things of this world, my soul.  Be forever clinging tightly to those things which will last: Jesus, His Word, and the eternal state of people's hearts."

I love traveling and living out of a suitcase... always have.  What we have now, however, is neither settled nor travel.  Isn't that what the Christian life looks like, too, though?  Sinking very shallow roots, living only temporarily, in circumstances that we know are not as ideal as they will be one day?

When the early church was persecuted and scattered, Peter addressed his letter to them this way:  "To the temporary residents of the Dispersion."  I love that.

Later, he essentially says, "If you call yourself a Christian, act like one."  But he puts it this way:  "If you address as Father the One who judges impartially based on each one's work, you are to conduct yourselves in reverence during this time of temporary residence." 

Isn't that exactly what a Christian is... a temporary resident?  Temporariness is all over the Bible.

Oh, this bittersweet tension between the already and the not yet!  Yes, we do have a house.  No, we cannot live there right now.  But we sure spend a lot of time and energy preparing to live there, and thinking about what life there will look like.

To be clear, I have absolutely loved living in this RV over the past couple of years.  In many ways, I will will miss it dearly.  But on "rougher" days when it's raining and my toddler has a 2-foot by 8-foot space to run around in, or I could really use a washing machine here, or I run out of gas for our camp stove in the middle of cooking (when we're having other people over for dinner), or I'm making instant rice in a coffee pot (hey, it works!), or a shower seems like paradise itself-- I remember many things.

One thing I think about is that we truly live in luxury compared to a huge part of the world.  Another is that I grew up under much more simple conditions, and it was good.  Yet another is this: the reality of what will be.  There will be a crib in that new house, for sleeping babies.  There will be the fire, and a couch, where Joey and I can curl up together at the end of a long day and be us.

Do we all do that, Heavenly-speaking?  When this life becomes difficult, do we always derive endurance and joy from looking to and really thinking about Jesus coming back and our forever-future?  Do we remind ourselves that we truly have a hope that most in this world do not have?  Do we remember that this is not nearly "as bad as it gets?"  Do we dwell on how unfathomingly beautiful eternity with Jesus will be?

Just ask my husband, who has had to expend a mind-numbing amount of thought and an exhausting amount of work on this project, and he'll tell you that this whole yurt-house-building saga has been proof that it is possible for your mind, energy, and focus to be wrapped up in someplace you don't even live.  (It's a fact that we've lamented because we want to be so much more eternally-minded, but it's a fact nonetheless.)  So let's do that with our someday-home, people.

That's how Paul says to weather this life.  In 1 Thessalonians 4 he describes Jesus' second-coming and how we will all be together with the Lord, and he concludes this way: "Therefore encourage one another with these words."  These words... Not words about how we should actually really be loving this life; not words which give a false hope that things here will get better.  This beautiful picture of what is coming... That is where we are to find encouragement.

People who consistently live with Heaven in view do not get bent out of shape by the little, circumstantial things.  They do not freak out when plans change and things go wrong.  People who take hard times in stride because they know hard times do not damage the sureness of their future... those people exude hope.  And hope is something for which this world is desperately searching.

Yes, I am cherishing this unsettled feeling and the reminder that it brings.  I am cherishing the sehnsucht... cherishing the longing.

But when we have our own "home," it still will not be home.  Our brand new abode, in all spiritual reality, will not be home any more than the moldy house or the RV could be considered "home" right now.

Always, always, always, I want to remember that.

"All I know is, I'm not home yet.
This is not where I belong."

10 Things My Dad Taught Us

I'm one of eleven crazy children raised by my parents. The indisputably most important thing they have imparted to us has been a knowledge of God and His Word. And from that knowledge of God were derived other principles, these primarily from my dad. Most of these he taught explicitly; others, in not remotely so many words, but by his own actions. I share them as a tribute to him. While admittedly far from exemplifying many of these currently, I definitely find that I nonetheless still tend to see them as what ought to be the norm for myself.



1.)     Do the hard thing…

…On purpose. Be uncomfortable. Do not even have a comfort zone – if you do, go outside of it, obliterate it, and then never go back. Do the awkward thing, the difficult thing, the sweaty thing, the distasteful thing, the miserable thing. Soon, one finds there are few actually disliked things left. “To built character,” he would say, “a person needs to do two things, at the very least, that they strongly dislike… each day.” Oh, we regularly surpassed that number... [Is it any wonder that the majority of marriages fail, in a time when difficulty is reason enough to quit?]

He summed it up something like this: “Comforts and luxury are to be enjoyed and appreciated when you have them. But don’t go looking for them.”

Perk: Everything seems relatively easy when you regularly seek out the difficult stuff.

2.)       Pain is your friend.

When you embrace pain, it doesn’t hurt as much, if at all. Make friends with it, and you won’t be fighting it anymore. The resulting relief and the freedom is almost palpable.

I first began to understand this in reality while marathon training. Running mile after mile can be both painful and boring. Originally, my approach was to grit my teeth and “gut it out.” That, however, produced a vicious inward battle: me fighting against the misery. I found that when I surrendered and accepted it—“This is going to hurt for the next three hours, and that’s okay”—that suddenly all was well. It wasn’t so hard. Nothing had changed except my attitude.

3.)       Overcome your fears.

No one should live with debilitating fear. I did not know until later how rare it is to grow up sans ordinary phobias. Spiders, heights, snakes, small spaces, germs, lightning, flying, the dark, shots? Noooope. [There is one, but it doesn’t stop me... if you know me, you know what it is! Haha.]

When I was 9 years old and we were farming with horses, I fell and my little frame ended up underneath an implement. (This particular farm accident was no one’s fault.) A metal disc sliced deep into my tiny leg, taking it and me out of action for quite awhile.

The very next morning, early, my dad carried me lovingly out to where the horses were hitched, set me up on the seat, and had me take them for a few more passes on the field I had been working the day before. I didn’t understand why at the time, nor did I ask; I assumed he knew what he was doing, and he did. My dad didn’t want his daughter to grow up with a fear of horses or a fear of disking a field.

He took the principle of “Get back up” or “Get back on” to a whole new level, and his children were the undoubted beneficiaries in every other area of life. Love isn't always accommodating.

4.)       Target your own weaknesses.

Personal growth and self-discipline are not too popular today. The message of the time is, “BE YOU.” Period. If it’s not comfortable, don’t force yourself. 

My dad, on the other hand, saw it as normal and necessary to address areas of inability or lack of natural talent. He recognized that everyone has their own God-given gifts, areas of expertise and personal strengths, but that “I’m just not good at that” or “That’s not my thing” should never be an excuse. I never remember us once calling a mechanic, a plumber, an electrician, construction workers, even a vet. He, my sister and I built our barn, for goodness’ sake. His method was simple: If he didn’t know how to do something, he whipped out a manual and studied it. He talked to people and asked questions. He made observations.

No wonder it seemed like my dad could do absolutely everything—he basically could. He is a true James Bond-esque jack-of-all-trades. Not by birth, but through sheer hard work and intentional character development.

5.)       American culture is not your authority.

In fact, it’s a crock of junk. (To love America and her freedom is not the same as being characterized by her lazy, immoral, entertainment-centric lifestyle.) “My children will not be Americanized,” my father was fond of saying, frequently.

Years later, it was strange and gratifying to hear that line of his quoted with a gleeful chuckle, and a thick Arabic accent, by an old Egyptian doctor I worked with in the Middle East. Doctor “E” LOVED it. He had seen the proof of that principle as it played out in life there.

It was not difficult for me to live completely removed from American culture. American culture, after all, was not my home. 

6.)       Check how you react to “No.”

“We don’t always get what we want.” He said it so many times that I can hear it almost audibly in my mind now. He and Mama drummed into us the manner of thought that understands two simple things: Often in life, we do not get our way – and that’s okay. Sometimes we do, but not right away – and that’s okay, too.

In a time and culture that probably couldn’t even define the concept of delayed gratification, my dad instituted in our home and on his calendar something he called “’No’ Days.” On those particular days, anything my siblings and I requested was denied. (Within reason… we still had our three square meals and every other facet of a normal day.) Our job was to respond cheerfully. It was not hard. Our parents loved us like crazy; when they said “No,” it was never vindictive and we knew it was for our own good. 

Turns out that we never understood the concept of “begging,” and to see a spoiled child screaming his head off in the grocery store was sheer trauma.

7.)       Give everything you’ve got.

Hold nothing back. “Leave nothing on the table,” as it were. If it’s worth doing, do it all the way; put all of yourself into everything you have weighed and deemed worthy of pursuit. Be all there. Do not get in the habit of being a half-hearted creature.

Because of how we were expected to work this out in other areas of life, we understood the concept of giving all of oneself, unreservedly, to something/someone. It’s pretty darn helpful in jobs, relationships, marriage. It propelled my success in search and rescue. It was the only way I knew when I gave myself to God. And I thank Him eternally for my earthly father’s wisdom.

8.)       You can always “make do” with what you have.

We rarely had the luxury of simply going out and buying the tool or ingredient we needed. It was not even an option, really. For the longest time, we didn't have a wheelbarrow, and God knows we could have used it. Find something, invent something, make it work. That was the idea.

Also, nothing ever has to be “just so.” “Only a poor runner blames his shoes.” If circumstances have to be just right and certain conditions have to be met in order to perform – in whatever area – you are handicapping yourself. Leave yourself no excuses; get in the habit of doing what “cannot” be done.

If you do not have the money, well, you spend nothing (in our earlier days, anyway). The reason so many people’s lifestyles do not match their income is because they are unwilling to live within their means—i.e., “make do.”

9.)       Learn from others’ mistakes.

It was a rare evening indeed, if my dad’s dinnertime spiel did not include an exhortation on why or why not to do as so-and-so did. Sometimes it was a news story he shared with the family. Sometimes, it was an unfortunate incident suffered by the farmer down the road.

As watchman for the family, he took it upon himself to warn us and make us aware of reality for our future survival. The big world out there was not all that up-close and personal in rural Wisconsin. Tales of another abduction of a teenage girl, someone gored by their own bull, a neighbor with health problems, or a friend’s divorce were common such topics. They never drove us to paranoia, but to think, be smart, and try to make wise decisions in life. He taught us to use the brains God gave us. Why repeat a mistake you’ve seen someone else make if you can learn from them instead?

It couldn’t make us immune, but it helped to make us more aware.

10.)   Treat people well: Listen to them, value them, put them first.

I cannot remember hearing him say anything remotely like this, but he screamed it through his actions with others. He gave his full, genuinely interested attention in conversation. He did not demand his own way or squawk for his “rights,” even when he could have. He despised that sort of thing and rose above it.

He always bought the most inexpensive thing possible, but never tried to cheat or even talk his way out of a price unless it was ridiculous. He wanted to be fair. He often gave people things he could have sold them instead. The person was more important than the price. Even with money, he treated others as he wanted to be treated.

This is the distinct notion I got from watching my dad deal with other people, including complete strangers: They, their thoughts, feelings and needs mattered more than his.

11.)   The people you love need to hear it, often.

You need to show them, and you need to verbally tell them. There is no reason to be content with just one or the other. I don’t know that my dad believed in particular love languages so much as all of them. Whether they came naturally or not was a side issue. I really think that sometimes we cripple ourselves by categorizing ourselves.

Looking at this list, one might get the notion that my dad was harsh and unfeeling with his kids. We would laugh at such a preposterous notion. The discipline never felt unfair because he was so obvious in his expressions of love. The love truly felt limitless.

Would you say something at your loved one’s funeral, from the heart, that they were unaware you felt for them while they were here on this earth? Tell them. 

Also, “Love” is spelled T-I-M-E, not M-O-N-E-Y. Especially as a father. We rarely had the one. We always had the other.