Twelve Years Ago, Today...

… we made a choice.

Sitting in a little house on the EMD campgrounds, Phil and I looked at each other and asked (and answered) a question, “Are we going to sit around talking about it forever, or are we going to do it?”  And then we jumped in, with both feet, and started on a journey that lasted for a dozen years and changed us, forever.

Today, we pulled a moving van into the driveway at a little house on the EMD campgrounds.  And just as the decision all those years ago was an answer to the call of God on our lives to leave home; this day was an answer to the call of God on our lives to return.

It’s been one of those days that you just couldn’t dream up, even if you tried…

From the sounds of Caedmon’s Call’s “Coming Home” blaring on the radio, at sunrise, as I crossed the Michigan border…

To the welcome we received from friends, old and new, for the unloading of the truck (and I have to note here, that two of those sets of friends had also greeted us, in Colorado Springs, when we first began this journey – simply amazing)…

To watching the kids run across a field to a playground to play with kids they knew in what seems like a former life... and they don't even realize it... but I do...

To the worship with Olivet’s “The Narrow” that seemed to hit on every era of our adventure, leaving me in tears for most of the night… happy tears… astounded tears…

To the way this house even smells and feels like that first little house...

I am, perhaps, a little floored at the way God works things out. 

“How many years did you plan this moment here just to show me that you love me?” (Britt Nicole, Seeing for the First Time).  I am so thankful, and I wouldn't change a thing...

L.

Would You Believe...

… that it’s still Saturday.

Funny, I think I said something similar on Monday.

So I started off the day by welcoming my friend, Ang, who was willing to wake up at an unreasonable hour on Saturday morning and haul her toddler and preschooler over to my house to watch Caleb, Ian, and Miah for a few hours until another friend, Brandi, could arrive.  I think these people must be saints, because Ang send me a text, thanking me for asking her to watch the kids, and she sent me a couple of wonderful messages about the fun they had, as well.  She wouldn’t take anything for watching them.  Then… the deal with Brandi (& Lawrence, too) was that they would watch our kids for pretty much the rest of the day, and then we would hang out this evening, and we would buy them pizza.  After putting up with our munchkins for a little over seven hours, we arrived on the scene only to find that they had ordered pizza for us.  Who has friends like this?  I am blessed.

As many of you know, today was our last quiz on NEI.  It was a really good day.  Seth struggled in early rounds but managed to quiz out in the last three rounds in the morning, finishing 13th, overall.  And he was sick.  I’ll take that.  Grace had a perfect day, averaging 90 with no errors… clearly 1^st place.  I’ll take that, too.  As a team, they were undefeated in the morning and pulled off a first place finish in the tournament!  

Bon Voyage, Illuminate Peru:

This is not a great picture.  The lighting is terrible, and it’s a little bit blurry.  Whatever.  This picture represents my favorite moment of the day, and you might be surprised to learn that it’s not because of what was in front of the lens… not really.  It was, instead, what was happening behind me.  They had already been announced as the top team.  Everyone had clapped.  The “official” picture had been taken.  But I quickly stepped up and said, “Stay there,” because I wanted to take this shot.  And you know what?  Somebody started clapping again.  And it rose just a little bit louder and lasted just a little bit longer than it needed to, and quite honestly it got me all choked up, because I just love it when people show love to my kids.  And that’s exactly what that was.

This picture, I kinda like:

L.

Some Things...

… just don’t work out.  And it’s OK. 

This intersection is, perhaps, the best reminder of that, for me:

As I sat down to write, it suddenly occurred to me that I don’t really want to re-hash the story.  I thought I would.  But I don’t.

I hope Phil doesn’t mind that I made him turn around to get this picture for such a short post!

L.

There Are Things I Should Say…

… but I’m finding that I can’t seem to get the words out.  If you know me, that’s saying something in and of itself!

Mostly, I am overwhelmed.  I am overwhelmed at God’s goodness.  For anyone who does not yet know, Phil accepted an associate pastor position, this past weekend, and we are headed “home”.   

Almost 12 years ago, we knelt at an altar with Seth (age 1) and Grace (age 2 weeks) and were sent out from our home church on an incredible journey that has led us many places and allowed us to meet many people.  I don’t regret one moment of it.  On Sunday morning, we knelt at an altar with Seth and Grace (Caleb, Ian, and Miah had already headed to children’s church) and were welcomed in to our new church family, and we are ready to start the next adventure.

For the temporary, foreseeable future, we are even going to be living back “home” at the campgrounds where Phil and I met… were called to ministry… were engaged… bought our first home… and brought our first two babies home from the hospital.  I am really capable of crying (happy tears) like a baby, myself, over this.  I know this, because it just might have happened…

Adequate words…  I just can’t seem to form them, but let me share this.  Grace and I wrote a song, together, this summer.  The lyrics are mine, but she brought it to life with music.  This is about as close as I can get to what I really want to say:

This is Grace:

There is nothing I would rather be than yours

Filled with passion

Speaking only truth

Yet I’ve run scared

So unprepared

And the journey

Sometimes it’s just too much for me

Perplexed I cannot see

It’s easy to get distracted

In the wind, in the rain, in the fire, the storm

And often I’ve over-reacted

This life lived so loudly the whisper you’ve formed

Has been lost - in the noise

I’m getting what I don’t deserve

Your mercy’s clear at every turn

It’s something I could never earn

This is grace

Oh, your grace is amazing

Going back the way I came seems so unclear

But I know you

And I trust in you

I won’t be scared

You are prepared

And the journey

Sometimes it’s just too much for me

But it’s never too much for you

Mystified I cannot see

But you can always see

And you lead me

It’s easy to get distracted

In the wind, in the rain, in the fire, the storm

And often I’ve over-reacted

This life lived so loudly the whisper you’ve formed

Has been lost - in the noise

I’m getting what I don’t deserve

Your mercy’s clear at every turn

It’s something I could never earn

This is grace

Oh, your grace is amazing

© Lisa and Grace Michaels 2013

L.

Famous Last Words...

For years I have picked on Phil.  This is how it started.  Early in our marriage, we made not one, but two, moves across the country to Idaho… and back.  There are a variety of stories I could share, and they’d all be good, and they’d all be true, but for the purposes of this post, I will share only one…

It was a simpler time in life…  a time where we were young and ready to take on the world.  I can remember on at least one of those trips, I was reading the Anne of Green Gables series for the first time.  And I was sort of caught up in that picture perfect, fictitious world when we drove through Iowa.  In the back of my mind, I could see us building a little house, nestled in the hills along the highway… raising a family there… being very happy.  It was beautiful!  At some point, I must have made mention of this to Phil – not in detail, but something like, “I would like to live in Iowa someday”.  This was met with immediate resistance, because, as it turned out, Phil would never, ever like to live in Iowa… ever.  But every time we drove through Iowa, I loved it.  And nothing changed for him.  He thought I was certifiably crazy…

I can’t begin to tell you how many times in my life I’ve heard someone talk about how they were willing to go anywhere… anywhere… except “that one place”, but that’s exactly where God sent them.  When we landed in Iowa a few years later… and loved it… both of us… we started making silly comments like that, as well. 

Through the years, when we would sense another move coming, we would actually say things, in jest, like, “I never, ever want to go to Jamaica!”  Very funny… I know…  Funnier than you might realize, actually…

And I’m not superstitious or anything like that… and I legitimately don’t think God is sitting somewhere, unattached from our present reality, just hoping to send us somewhere we honestly don’t want to go.  But I started making a concerted effort to not say things like, “I never want to live in Lincoln, Nebraska”.  Oh my goodness… did I just say that out loud?

I’m a different person than I was all those years ago.  The truth is; I have come to terms with the fact that anywhere can be home if you’ll let it be.  And I was ready to go anywhere… almost.   

Somewhere, in the back of my mind, there has always been this one place I would prefer not to go.  I mean, more seriously than Lincoln.  And we had an interview last week.  And I kid you not, 11 minutes down the express way I found myself sitting in the most dangerous city in the United States… several years running… the city in which I will buy my groceries if we go there.  The only words that really came to mind were, “It serves me right”.  When I uttered these words, Phil got quizzical, and I just burst out laughing.  I mean, I was never, ever going there… ever.

It’s probably a little too late in the process, at this point, to start singing, “Please don’t send us to Africa,” or anything like that…

But who knows?  Maybe we have been prepared for such a time as this…

L.