Just A Car...

My husband and I had our first difficult conversation about my car when I took it in for a little work. The service person came out to talk with me about the check-up and let me know I needed about $7000 worth of work done! I called my husband crying. I wasn’t even sure why I was crying, but I knew $7000 wasn’t going into the car even if we had it. No repairs were urgently needed and as I headed home I began to examine my response to the idea I would be parted from this car. I was really shaken about my own response about a car and my husband teased me about that attachment.

That was probably around six years ago and for a long while now, my husband has been “encouraging” me pretty regularly to consider purchasing a newer vehicle. I’ve been dragging my feet about it. Having no car payment is really nice and there are a lot of factors to consider when looking at cars to purchase. It can be overwhelming to start looking.

I have a 2005 Honda Pilot. The air conditioning hasn’t worked for about 3 years now. Of course, summer is the only time I really notice it. Additionally, I’m guessing a chunk of yuck broke free from the cabin filter and now if the fan is running you can hardly hear yourself think for the racket it makes. The good thing about the air conditioner not working is that I only have to listen to the blower racket about 5 to 6 months out of the year when I need the heat running. Of course, in order to keep cool in summer, I just roll the windows down and that’s rather loud as well.

I had my Dad advising me closely when I bought the 2005 Honda Pilot...in 2005. He’s keen on technology, Dad is. Told me to make sure I got “that bluetooth” in any vehicle I purchased. Bluetooth was just becoming available in newer, standard model vehicles. In 2005, the only vehicle on the Honda line with bluetooth was Civic. I wasn’t buying a Civic for multiple 5 hour, one-way drives to my parents in the frozen northern tundra of Minnesota with 2 little girls. I wanted something sturdy with all-wheel or 4-wheel drive. I wasn’t going to try to pack future friends of my growing up girls into a Civic either. I passed on bluetooth. Really, speakerphone is just fine unless you have a blower running so loudly you can’t hear anyone and they can’t hear you. Or maybe the windows are rolled down so you can at least get some breeze over the sweat on your arms for relief from the heat. In either case you don’t really care to be talking with someone. You crank the radio loud and listen to some music. The 2005 Honda Pilot has a good enough sound system to do that.

Fixing the tire on a Montana backroad. So many adventures.

Right now, that Pilot has over 220,000 miles on it, but I know that it will go to 300,000 and I considered that carefully before I made the purchase. Let me tell you, it was a monumental decision and I agonized over making it a good one, but not for the reasons you might think.

When I left my first husband in October of 2004, I no longer had card access or passwords to any of our bank accounts. My name wasn’t on any assets and I didn’t have a credit card in my name. I had no credit.

Then he was gone.

I had to make choices for myself and my girls. Financing a vehicle wasn’t only a foundational decision for future financial health, it was the first major financial decision I’d made on my own in quite some time. Throughout the process I felt the weight of the responsibility and the determination to value the freedom of it. I weighed what was needed in a vehicle. Reliability was priority one. I remember calculating how long I would need to drive a brand new car to make the year-by-year cost reasonable. I thought about maintenance costs and mpg and what features I would really need to have for the life of the car. I made my decision and have found myself praying and praising behind the wheel often for that car and it’s reliability and God’s faithfulness to me in so many ways over the years since its purchase. It has taken us back and forth across the state for visits to grandparents and summer camps. It’s driven me and my bike and equipment out of the city for training rides and for triathlons. It’s taken our family on memory-making trips camping and adventuring.

My husband and I began to seriously look at newer vehicles in the last few months and I had to examine more deeply the growing hesitation I was experiencing. I knew driving that car as long as I did contributed to the financial health of our family. Was that it? Did I somehow believe that making that decision to purchase a newer, more reliable vehicle would ruin our financial health? It wouldn’t. No. We knew what we could afford and were in agreement about it. Could it be that I was really that emotionally attached to a car because it had been my first really big independent financial decision? I’m sure that might be part of it, but I wanted to step out of the past and had done that with so many things that I had a hard time believing it to be that entirely. I continued to pray that the Lord would show me what was left to let go.

My husband had begun looking for vehicles pretty much the second I said I thought we should start seriously looking. We talked about it for weeks. Teslas and Subarus and Toyotas and Hondas. Towing capacity, mileage and maintenance and repair costs. After all the discussion and number crunching, he arranged for a pre-owned Honda Pilot to be brought to our door for a test drive. Yep. Another Pilot. It ended up being exactly what we were looking for….and then some.

We were literally on our way to the dealership to sign papers the next day and I was still trying to sort out my feelings around all of it. As we talked about the anxious knot in my stomach, the tears began to flow as I recognized what that last tether was tying me to the 2005 Honda Pilot. The 2005 Honda Pilot was MINE. It was registered to me. The title was in my name. During the short time we had dated we discussed finances and our considerations about what would be healthy for our relationship. WE made financial decisions together. The paperwork and financing for this newer vehicle would list both of us. That was what had me all knotted up. How would he respond if I didn’t keep it as tidy as he would like? I already knew his view of how I run the gas gauge down to empty all the time before filling the tank on the 2005 Honda Pilot. (Not favorable.) What would the consequences be if he didn’t like how I adjusted things for my comfort and convenience? I began to share this with him. Mind you, we share things all the time! Really, even decadent desserts. I consider his preferences and he considers mine. It’s likely why he suggested another Honda Pilot! Even as we discussed it he offered to put the vehicle in my name out of his care for me.

I declined immediately.

I took a deep breath, wiped away the tears clinging to my cheeks and made a conscious choice to trust. Again. I take very much for granted this man’s kindness and tender care of me. God’s grace allowed me to step into a space that I haven’t needed to be in for a long time. It’s a difficult space to bring your baggage into. You must set it down in order to take full deep breaths, to embrace the abundance that the Holy Spirit bestows while you are there.

Then, before you know it, you are stepping forward and you’ve left the baggage behind while running toward the next adventure with the One that loves you best and most. An adventure that seems to include me finding myself praying and praising behind the wheel of a 2015 Honda Pilot.

This is Betty. Betty White.

That Dress Tells a Story...

Someone recently commented on how much they loved my wedding dress and it got me thinking...

That dress. There's a story there. There was a reason I HAD to have red on my wedding dress and it had nothing to do with fashion.

When Greg and I began to talk marriage my heart and mind began to process the story that God was telling in all of this.

There is always a story.

Every day, each sticky situation, delightful moment, beautiful sky, flash of anger or aggravation, restful breath, predicament of hilarity, gentle breeze and every Aweha moment are part of a larger story.

Approximately 2 years into my widowed/single momming life I took a trip, on my own, to the majestic mountains of Colorado for the Ransomed Heart Captivating Retreat. I was seeking some refreshment and renewal for my hungry, weary being and while God certainly granted me that, a zinger shot me straight through during one of the teaching sessions and left me a quite shaken. Loud and clearly, I'd received the message of just how sloppy, complicated, hard-headed, imperfect and ill-spoken I was. (Still am, really.)

And because I'd surrendered my life to Him...

He was gonna use it...

Use me.

*gulp*

It wasn't the first time I'd heard that, but for some reason it really hit me hard in that moment. I suddenly understood just how little this earthly journey had to do with me and all my own sinfulness, silliness and inadequacy and how much more it was about Him and what He had to say in the story He desired to tell with my life.

He's telling the story. I have a role to play in my daily living and breathing. It's the role of Redeemed.

This role doesn't call for a perfect body or a perfect face. It allows me to be a regular girl with all my faults and beauty. I don't need to be someone important or to be known by many or to accomplish herculean things. I'm free to encourage or be encouraged by a coffee chat or morning walk and to invite others into my messy home to do life with me. I'm free to be a hard worker at a regular job where I love on the people around me as God allows because He's the biggest boss of all. I can move in and out of opportunities to serve as God calls me and don't need to worry that I don't know my defined purpose or path beyond the dirt my feet are on right now. I can step away from the press of "I should..." and into the freedom of "I'm called to..." without care for what others think. I can ask questions without needing an answer and I can offer an answer when asked "why?" about my experience in this role and the story I'm in, but I also don't need to have every single answer.

And He uses me all the time. When I misspeak and misstep. When I have to apologize for either of those. When I'm less than thrilled about it. And when I'm undeniably inspired and led by the Spirit.

And that wedding dress tells the story beyond the wedding day and the marriage, the children and life's challenges.

The story of an average girl that desperately searched for HER purpose in life. A broken girl that was tossed about by the usual challenges of growing into womanhood in a broken world. A goody-two-shoes, rule-following girl that couldn't follow the rules well enough to make her life go as she wanted it to go and then began to accept that it wouldn't even if she could!  A girl that loved the idea of Jesus but didn't understand just who and how much He was until she gave all of her plans and efforts to Him.

The story of continuing second chances at becoming who I was called to be. Free. Abandoned, abundant, alive.

The Story brought me to that wedding celebration and that's the story the dress tells. That's the story my life tells, I hope. The Story of Redemption.

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly."

John 10:10

Beauty Being Born

    I've visited some beautiful places. Avalanche Lake at Montana's Glacier National Park and Alaska's Denali National Park when it was clear and sunny enough to see the mountain! Minnesota's Itasca, birthplace of the Mississippi River. I've wondered at aged fountains and cathedrals across Italy, viewed the Nepali Coast of Kawaii from the water, trekked a living volcano in Guatemala (some of it on a horse that wanted to bolt), and studied Mexico's sandy beaches and sparkling, ocean water. Those glimpses of breathtaking beauty and the vibrant stories they tell speak to deep spaces in my humanness as one fashioned by the same creator. They call deeply enough to cast off any duty or still any abiding restlessness and proclaim who I am. Free. Redeemed. The beauty calls to an aliveness in my soul. Beauty calls to beauty, I've heard.

    By contrast, I've journeyed some really ugly places as well. 

    I was belittled repeatedly throughout my first year of school by my kindergarten teacher. (Evidently there is a proper way to color the apple red and it is not "roundly"...and don't get me started on the fact that she made me throw out the Leprechaun with moving arms and legs because I did not follow directions and color him green. He seemed happy and green alone just wasn't happy enough in my mind. Yes, I did not see my kindergarten report card until I was an adult because she wrote on it that I was SLOW...as in mentally.)

    Wrestling through the teen years was hard work. The mixed messages from adults about where I should be in my spiritual walk and how it should look. Numerous "unrequited loves". My inability to shake my splendid averageness. Body image *shudder*. I was a serious teen and even now am a somewhat serious adult. Come to find out that most of my peers thought my serious, shy demeanor was actually stuck-upness!

    Then I moved into young adulthood more at loose ends than ever. I did not understand how a relationship with God was supposed to work. What was the "right path" for me. Didn't want to be on the wrong one. I'd been raised in church, but all of the dos and don'ts did not seem very practical to the deeper things I was trying to sort through in life. Wasn't mature enough to manage finances. Couldn't figure out how to get traction into college or career or meaningful relationships. Did I mention body image? Well, it was still a thing in young adulthood. Then I thought that enlightenment and adulthood would arrive with the decision to have sex. *Insert eye roll here* It didn't.

    Lots of joy and fun happened over those many growing up years too, but the fun and happy wasn't what drove me to my faith and to redemption and the very greatest beauty there is to be found on this earth.

    Anguish did.

    Pain in a strained marriage and my own inability to make it better did. Trying repeatedly without success to make life and relationships"right" did. The harsh judgement and thoughtless words of others while I was treading stormy waters did. Grief over my first husband's suicide, all that preceded it and the agony of raising 2 precious girls as a single mamma did. 

    The brokenness of the world inflicted on me and by me did.

    I just wanted God to make life different. Make it easier, more peaceful, less grueling and conflicted. No matter what I did or how I said things or planned carefully my actions I couldn't get it right.

     I was exhausted.

    And that spiritual and emotional exhaustion, that brought surrender. After surrender and over seasons, a new life dawned. A life that isn't all on me. A life cradled in the grace and mercy and love of my Heavenly Father. I can trust the heavy lifting to Him. Living a life of abundance and knowing it's abundant even when the waves are crashing over the side of the boat. Even when the lightning strikes and splits the mast in two!

    In the last handful of years, however, I found myself in a familiar conversation with the Lord as I watched the carefully curated lives of both of my daughters twist and sway in ways that I was not prepared for and did not want to face.  None of the prayer was new, but I poured it all out before him at once. I had been a good mom, hadn't I? I prayed with and for the girls and had deep, authentic, difficult conversations with them. I invited them into faith, didn't force it on them and trusted God's leading in decisions for how we invested our time. I was intentional and devoted to equipping them for adulthood, but they were headed for hurting and I was desperate to keep them from that. Spare them, please spare them. I can't, you can. Please smooth the way. 

And then, when I ran out of words, I was still and listened...

"Jesaca, do you trust me?"

"Yes, Lord, you know me."

"What do you desire for these girls?"

Silence. The tears began to come. "To know you. To know Beauty and Abundance." My spirit shouted because my mouth couldn't.

"How did you come to beauty? Was the way smooth? Do you think I desire any less for them?"

"No. I know you don't."

"Rest. Trust me. They must walk their own walk with me and nothing you do can spare them from the pain or the beauty. All of it comes from me."

    I had become spiritually and emotionally exhausted again with playing the part of rescuer and trying to smooth their way. Now I rest. Well, I pray and rest. He's shifted my focus back to Him and to walking as He calls me to walk and stepping into spaces where the gifts He's given me can minister for Him.

And there are moments when I get a peek at beauty being born.