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