Happy New Year 2013

(Originally, this was a letter we sent out early February 2013.)

WE MOVED December 27, 2012. On January 27th, we invited a group of friends over to our new home to dedicate it to God’s glory. Listen in to a few things that were shared that day.

A Brief History and Testimonial of God’s Miracle of 3420 Silver Lane.

In May 1983 we moved into the dream home we built on Golden Lake at 21% interest rate. Two years later Jim was unemployed for the second time and we thought we’d lose the house.

In 1997, Jim bought Roscoe sales agency from his partner Bob and Jim and I had a little business we had dreamed of owning. Through some business reversals we decided to move the office into the lower level of our Golden Lake home. We changed the name to Sales Team but kept struggling to keep it afloat.

Jim worked with a Life Coach for help in selling Sales Team. A creative idea emerged as Jim worked with Joe to merge Sales Team into Gift Street in 2006. I was hired to continue doing many of the same tasks I had done at Sales Team. The merger entailed Jim becoming the sales manager for Gift Street with a small commissioned sales territory. After two years Joe needed to downsize the business and Jim was no longer the sales manager but was given a larger sales territory. The debt just kept dogging Jim until he decided to declare bankruptcy in 2010.

I was laid off from Gift Street December 2008 three months after my open heart surgery. It took me two years to find my current job at Christos Center for Spiritual Formation. This was a great addition of finances for our situation. Friends, Dan and Judy, helped us find a good used car to replace the ailing Honda and I had reliable wheels once again.

I enjoyed developing the gardens at our Golden Lake home and never thought that I would leave there. I thought instead that I would hire help and continue to live there well past retirement. Two summers ago, I came in from working on the steep back hill with my body screaming at me to stop this nonsense. I cried out to God saying I can’t do this anymore. Immediately, I sensed God saying it was time to move. My response was a mixture of relief and a strong sense of fear that given our debt and the bankruptcy would make it impossible. We considered renting. Jim talked to our banker and determined that he could qualify for a mortgage despite bankruptcy.

We hired a realtor recommended by a neighbor. That was a godsend that got us in touch with a sharp mortgage broker who told Jim what mortgage amount we could qualify for and then we started looking at townhomes. We spent last year downsizing: filling the recycle bucket again and again; giving items away to charity or from the end of the driveway; hauling old electrical stuff to Best Buy’s free recycling program; selling items on Craigslist; tossing the junk. This spring we hope to hook up with anyone who wants to do a garage sale with all our leftover garden and yard tools.

As we looked at townhomes we began to realize that we needed a space larger than a typical bedroom to house Jim’s office equipment. Still when we kept coming back to the Silver Lane house, vacant, it seemed too large for us. In fact, I was led of God to pray a Prayer of Relinquishment over the house. I prayed that in earnest not knowing how God would bless us. I kept saying up to the day of closing that I will not believe it is mine until I have the key and garage door remote in my hand.

Despite those reservations I believed that God wanted us to move and I left the final address up to him. All the while we continued to sort, clean out, give away and pack up the Golden Lake home. One mortgage company denied us because the bankruptcy was too recent. We went through all the paperwork again for a second attempt. This whole process of applying for a mortgage was not an easy time emotionally for Jim. He had to slog back through all the bankruptcy mess and answer questions. We wanted to be done with that. We wanted God to redeem all of that mess.

Well friends, redemption is happening. Even with selling Golden Lake “as is” for the new owner to remodel how they want, we received a good price enabling us to pay off some debt, with money left over for our own remodeling dreams at 3420 Silver Lane. We will have less cash outlay each month. And Jim has a big room for his office; he is enjoying having everything close at hand so that he can continue to grow his business. We feel a sense of financial freedom for the first time in many, many years.

Deuteronomy 6:10-12 The Message (MSG) “When GOD, your God, ushers you into the land he promised through your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give you, you’re going to walk into large, bustling cities you didn’t build, well-furnished houses you didn’t buy, come upon wells you didn’t dig, vine-yards and olive orchards you didn’t plant. When you take it all in and settle down, pleased and content, make sure you don’t forget how you got there—GOD brought you out of slavery in Egypt.”

        After reading this scripture, Jim shared that we were enslaved to the debt.

Celebrate with us God’s faithfulness as we dedicate this home for God’s glory.

A friend read this blessing at our home dedication:

Blessing for a New Home

May this house shelter your life.

When you come in home here,

May all the weight of the world

Fall from your shoulders.

May your heart be tranquil here,

Blessed by peace the world cannot give.

May this home be a fortunate place,

Where the graces your life desires

Always find the pathway to your door.

May nothing destructive

Ever cross your threshold.

May this be a safe place

Full of understanding and acceptance,

Where you can be as you are,

Without the need of any mask

Of pretense or image.

May this home be a place of discovery,

Where the possibilities that sleep

In the clay of your soul can emerge

To deepen and refine your vision

For all that is yet to come to birth.

May it be a house of courage,

Where healing and growth are loved,

Where dignity and forgiveness prevail;

A home where patience of spirit is prized,

And the sight of the destination is never lost

Though the journey be difficult and slow.

May there be great delight around this hearth.

May it be a house of welcome

For the broken and diminished.

May you have the eyes to see

That no visitor arrives without a gift

And no guest leaves without a blessing.

        [Adapted from To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donohue]

It was a wonderful afternoon of celebrating God’s goodness with dear friends who have journeyed alongside us through all of the highs and lows. To God be the glory for the great things he has done! 
 

How have you experienced God’s blessing over the course of your life? Celebrate what God has done!

Photos from the Dedication:

 

Lost Looking for Home

(This was written in November 2012)

I recently got lost three times within two days. The first two times happened while following a Google map on the way to my Tending the Holy Silent Retreat at St. John’s Abbey. The third time happened during the Saturday morning break before lunch when I decided a nice long walk would be a good time to spend with God enjoying the brisk sunny fall day.

Sunday morning as I reflected on my retreat experience, I was a little disappointed that no “special” God moment had happened to me during the 40-hours of silence spent together with my class members and the facilitators. I came to this retreat with high expectations of encountering God in extraordinary ways because of past students testimonials that the Silent Retreat was the highlight of their two-year training program experience. They envied me going on this retreat.

As I looked over my pages of journal entries, it dawned on me that God had indeed showed up during my episodes of getting lost. This highlighted the importance of recording the little moments that happen during our ordinary days and then taking the time to reflect back over those notes. I found my special God-moment.

Google maps have never failed me until this time. I followed highway 610 exiting where Google told me to exit and saw the sign for highway 101 and I turned left. After driving for several minutes it was apparent that I was going the wrong way. I turned around and drove back to the spot I had turned and decided that I was supposed to drive straight. I drove through the country side past farms and small little villages trying to find a familiar name of a city I could recognize.

I did not panic thinking that I had plenty of time to arrive at retreat. I just kept driving. I did call my husband, Jim. He was unable to help me as he was not very familiar with the area. So, I just kept driving and eventually drove into Rogers. Jim knew there was an entrance to I94 in Rogers. I kept driving and eventually saw the sign to enter the freeway. I was on my way!

I continued to follow the Google map which told me to exit at Saint Joseph and take the first right. I drove right past that first right turn because I did not see the County 51 sign. I drove through farm country looking at each intersection for County 51. Eventually, I realized I was lost once again. I called out to God for help and turned around. As I traced the miles back to the freeway, I remembered being told that I should exit at the sign for St. John’s University and I would find the Abbey Guesthouse close to Abbey Church. As I got to the I94, I saw the sign for County 51 and it was the first right over the freeway. But, I decided not to waste any more time taking back roads. I soon arrived at my destination and was warmly welcomed by familiar faces and escorted to my room. I was home safe!

On Saturday mid-morning during a long break before lunch, I decided to take a walk on the many trails running through this sprawling college campus nestled between several lakes with lots of mature trees. I enjoyed the exercise and felt like God and I were on this adventure exploring the trail system as I walked through a carpet of leaves. After a while I found myself in the area, noted on my Abbey Trail Map, as the cross-country ski trails marked by a few red banners tied around some trees. The path was covered with leaves obscuring the trail. I looked at my watch feeling lost in the woods. I was not alone. God was with me encouraging me to keep on walking. I turned around and nothing was familiar. I did not panic realizing that I had plenty of time to make it back for lunch but also realized that if I missed lunch I would not starve. So I kept walking back towards the road I had crossed earlier. I sensed God pointing me to walk up a hill that I did not remember. I walked up that incline and saw the road. Relief!

I began to recognize landmarks and saw some familiar people in the distance. Again, I was home safe. I ate lunch and retired to my room for a period of rest before our next teaching session.

During my Sunday morning reflection it occurred to me that getting lost was my God moment. God stayed with me and helped me stay calm, to keep driving and to keep walking out of my sense of feeling lost. The message of this experience showed me that whenever I feel lost I can turn to God and keep moving ahead trusting that the path will eventually become clear leading me home.

This was poignant for me as Jim and I are in the midst of selling our home of thirty years. We feel lost in limbo land and wonder when we will find home. In the meantime we keep on walking through each day trusting that the fog of obscurity will lift revealing the true path home.

Reflection

Have you been lost? What did you do to find home? Did you sense God’s presence with you?

Sense of Home

[This reflection was written on December 22, 2012]

Sally Howell Johnson in Barefoot Zone writes a story about an older woman feeling a call to journey back to her home place on the farm where she grew up near the town of Bountiful. Sally asked, do we have a place that “calls” us to come “home” and where is that place? Is it our birthplace or the country of our ancestry? Is it a certain lake or mountain where we experience God?

Immediately I thought about Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior. We travel there often and always feel such a keen connection with God that we are drawn back again and again. The lake and the area represent peace and tranquility – so much of the character of God – that we find true refreshment for time spent there. Over the years we have stayed in many different places along the shore, enjoying some more than others. So it isn’t a structure that calls us to take the five-hour drive. It is the scenery and the ever changing moods of that huge Lake Superior. I find God there.

I thought about my Golden Lake home. We lived here nearly thirty years calling it home and it has been the place we have met God and grown in our faith through the various struggles and pain of life. I will miss this scenery but I can drive back to Golden Lake Park at any time and snap a few photos.

God is calling us to a new home for a fresh start; redeeming our life story and relieving our finances. I am already planning a fortieth anniversary celebration for April/May. Life goes on in a new place with new challenges and opportunities to grow.

My sense of home resides with God. That is why I think I can rent various houses on the North Shore and still feel at home because God is very present to us there. To me there are a lot of memories with this Golden Lake home but they evolve around God and his blessing that we have been able to share with many people over the years. Some friends have expressed great sorrow at the memories this place holds for them. They hate to see us move, while at the same time realizing that it is Jim and Donna that have made this house a home for many, many people. The same will be true for the new place and community.

God will not leave us homeless. He will provide us a place to call home however temporary it may be. Who knows how long God will bless us with 3420 Silver Lane? We will enjoy it and celebrate God’s blessing with many friends far and near along with some new ones.

God will eventually call us home to heaven to live with him forever. Until then we have many wonderful opportunities to experience a little taste of “home” this side of heaven through travel and through celebrations with friends.

 Where do you experience a “Sense of Home"?

Morning Has Broken on Lake Superior

 

Waiting

[This was penned after hearing this Lectio reading at Centering Prayer on December 18, 2013]

"In Advent, we affirm that God comes:  faithfully, surprisingly, assuredly.  God enters as we wait and hope, prepare and anticipate.  God breaks through our silence and enters our darkness, penetrates our hardness --in a Child, through a word with Good News.  Advent calls us to transformed lives, renewed hope, and visions of a future to be restored."  J. Howard Rhy

What an Advent of WAITING this has been for Jim and me. Waiting but still packing in anticipation of a move, to who knows where?

Yesterday we heard that the Elftmann closing had been approved and our file had been transferred to the closer. I’m trying to be excited but with much caution. After this roller-coaster of bumps and wild curves and stalls; it is a little hard to move into full-fledged joyfulness. My prayer of relinquishment is keeping me a little more cautious even as I awoke at three this morning thinking about the new house and how to arrange the remainder of our belongings.

This morning I roamed around the house feeling “lost” amidst the boxes, boxes, boxes everywhere. I had no desk available to set my Bible for some quiet with my God. Do I bother to set up a card table with 8 days remaining? With our Christmas entertaining finished, it feels like nothing. We need to get packing even more earnestly. What little decorations we have up need to come down so they can be packed.

 

Our Advent anticipation is looking for God to show up in our move with a mortgage approval in the face of huge odds. I believe God is FOR US and He will be faithful to full redemption of our story. I anticipate and envision a restored future with many more years to glorify God beginning in a new place.

-          God has indeed been in the darkness of waiting and wandering through listing prep, negotiations and the huge paper shuffle.

-          God has been with us in moments of excitement over finally listing and then over getting rid of more and more stuff.

-          God has prayed for us with groans beyond words when personal prayer became illusive.

-          God has grieved with us for this year of painful turmoil that remains to be healed.

-          God will lead us through healing in His grace and love.

 

 

How have you seen God in your times of waiting?

Was the waiting worth it?

 

Battery Empty!

[Written on our Labor Day vacation 2012 on Minnesota's North Shore near Lutsen, MN.]

I thought the “battery low” symbol on my camera would allow me several more photos. Suddenly in the middle of framing a new picture, all goes black replaced by the outline of a battery with the words:  BATTERY EMPTY. I had to shut down and let it recharge a little before I attempted anymore photos. A little later I made several more attempts only to snap one photo before I saw those ominous words once again and I had to shut down. The irony is that last evening I saw my charger sitting there and heard my head say, “Recharge the Battery, NOW”. I figured I had plenty of time to do it later.

I wonder how many times the Spirit has tried to get my attention telling me that my body’s battery is low and needs recharging. Yet, I keep going and doing all the work that needs to be done. I have an endless “Downsizing to Do List” at home. I have a “Fiscal New Year to Do List” at my office. I squeezed in a “Packing for Vacation to Do List” to get ourselves out-of-town for a week.

I also scheduled a doctor’s appointment to check my knee before doing more damage with hiking while on vacation. I was diagnosed with Patellofemoral Syndrome more commonly called Runner’s Knee. Apparently, I did too much on the treadmill and my body said:  STOP! I thought I was strengthening my body by learning to practice Interval Training under the guidance of my personal trainer at the YMCA. It will take weeks to finally heal from this latest setback while I find it painful to walk up and down stairs or even to get up from a chair.

Ironically, this diagnosis made me realize I had no margin left to deal with one more … anything! I had no patience or emotional stamina but I had to keep going as vacation was still ten days away. My battery was EMPTY!

Well, vacation is almost over. I am feeling like my calendar is overflowing and the To Do lists growing exponentially. I need to figure out how to recharge my battery while in the midst of living life. One doesn’t always have the luxury of stopping the unending treadmill of things that need doing. So how can I know what is needed to recharge my batteries when the To Do lists keep expanding?

As I sat on the rocky point with the water gently lapping ten feet below, I sensed the Spirit gently remind me of various ideas that help to recharge my battery. May these spark some ideas of your own?
-       Centering Prayer – basking in the silence as the Truth and Peace seep into my mind and soul
-          Knit/Crochet – the rhythm of this craft focuses my mind on something creative
-          Movies/Plays – entertainment is a great treat for a weary mind
-          Novels – reading favorite authors and finding new ones puts me in awe of God’s creativity
-          Poetry – slowly reading a poem – God’s creativity soothes through rhyme and rhythm
-          Napping – great way to refresh oneself during a busy week
-          Outdoors time – recharge with solar power on a walk or in a garden
-          Play more often

Play more often? How does one play? I could choose one of these ideas. Nevertheless, spontaneity has to be a part of play. How can I allow more spontaneity?

INVITATION:
Anyone want to join me at the park for a time on the swing set?

SIMPLIFY!

Written June 11, 2012

"I am the vine, and you are the branches. If any [person] remain in me and I remain in them, they produce much fruit. But without me they can do nothing.” John 15:5 (New Century Version)

How simple is that? I am in the process of downsizing my spacious home to be able to fit into a townhome. Recently, I reflected how “downsized” God’s truth is – straight and to the point:

“As long as I remain in Christ, I will continue to bear fruit.”

Grapevines can live to 200 years old and still produce grapes. These old vines do not produce as many grapes as younger ones, but the wine from these “mature” vines is the best.

The scripture does not say that I am to be attached to a particular church, just the Vine of Jesus Christ. As I explore the wider Christian community, it strikes me how the gospel message is pretty much the same from church to church, denomination to denomination.

Christ taught these words to a small group of disciples and he created each of us to live in community. Right now my community is expanding. I still have my closest friends and I connect with them regularly, but I am open to surrounding myself with other varietals of God’s Kingdom. 

My Tuesday morning Centering Prayer group is becoming precious to me as I sit in silence pondering God’s truth along with new friends: I recently prayed for 93-year-old Rollie’s impending back surgery and for his wife LeAnn to experience the peace of Christ.

This fall I will start Christos’ two-year Tending the Holy program, training to become a spiritual director. I anticipate connecting with a peer group of fellow learners with whom I will grow close as we progress together through our training. I consider myself fortunate to have these community pockets during this transitional time.

Earlier in my life the idea of living in a smaller home seemed way too confining. Now I’m ready to pare down, amazed at how many times I have filled our huge recycling bucket with 40 years of stuff. It’s time to sell, give away, recycle and toss the rest.

I never thought I would get to the point that I would be ready to leave my ever-evolving gardens. My aging body and physical limitations have brought me to a fresh sense of freedom – “I can let go of my beautiful yard”. I’m excited to realize more time and energy to pursue new interests. Already I sense the Spirit expanding my ministry in God’s Kingdom; He will enable me to produce the best “wine” as I continue to mature. Hallelujah!

REFLECTION

How have you learned to simplify in an area of your life? If downsizing is a negative:  let God help you see the positive.

The Last Time

No more scrubbing tiny carrots
No more planting a big garden
No more back-breaking weeding
No more constant watering.

No more digging
No more fencing
No more raking
No more shoveling.

No more pruning
No more picking
No more disappointment
No more abundance.

Freedom in releasing
Freedom to embrace the new
Freedom to share God's grace anew
Free at last!
_______________

Less time spent gardening
More time enjoying God's garden
Less time maintaining
More time sustaining grace.

Israel experienced the first Passover
The last night of slavery in Eqypt
The first Red Sea miracle
The last of Egyptian army.

The last time brings renewal
Anticipation
Excitement
Sweet release to first times.

Psalm 40:3
"He has given me a new song to sing,
   a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be astounded.
   They will put their trust in the Lord.

This was penned in the fall of 2011. That summer I had come in from spending a long day of gardening on the steep back hill on the lake side. My body was screaming and I cried out to God, "I can't do this any more." Almost immediately my soul sensed a response from the Holy Spirit: "Move to a smaller place." I responded, "All right! That sounds wonderful, but how can we make that happen what with bankruptcy in Jim's recent past." I sensed God asking me to move forward trusting His leadership and Sovereignty in our lives. God's assurance of this new pathway never left me during the many decisions and issues that confronted us at various points. Follow our journey and see what God has done.

Consider for yourself the spiritual significance about "last times". Do you see any connection between last times and first times?