A Tribute to 25 years

Today I was reading a magazine article about the entitledness of my generation. In it the author gave some practical advice to people in their 20’s trying to make good impressions on their employers: “work hard. Don’t complain about things being “beneath” you. Just do what your boss tells you to do and do it well and you will be recognized for it.” Wow, earth shattering advice. You mean I have to work hard for something? You mean no one is going to just give me what I want? When I read this, I laughed at its sheer ridiculousness. But as I began to think about what the article said it reminded me of where I learned these principles: my parents.

Today is my parent’s 25^th wedding anniversary and this is my tribute to them as individuals, as a couple, but most importantly as my parents. My parents taught me the principle the author was trying to instill in her readers: work hard.  My parents are the some of the hardest workers I know yet the phrase, “they’ve worked hard for what they have” does not apply in the typical way. Let me explain.

By the worlds standards my parents don’t have much. They don’t own a house. They only have one car (and isn’t very new). They don’t have vacation property or a large retirement account. They live without cable (horrible, I know) and neither one shops very much. Looking at the amount of “stuff” they’ve accumulated you would assume that either a) they didn’t work hard enough or b) if they did work hard enough, where they heck did everything they work for go?

But my parents do work hard and they have gained much. See my parents are missionaries. For 19 years of their 25 year marriage they have been engaged in full time ministry. Ministry doesn’t pay well in dollar form but for 19 years my parents have worked hard to bring hurting young people to healing in Jesus Christ. But their legacy is more than the hundreds of people they have mentored. Their legacy is that in everything they do they point people to Christ. 

My mom, Laurie, is one of those people you can count on to get things done. She has the amazing gift of being able to visualize what something should be or could be and then immediately following through to make it happen. This is true not only in her ministry but in our home growing up. If she decided that the homeschool curriculum she was using wasn’t meeting our needs, she would effortlessly throw together a new one she created from several different curriculums.  If the functionality of room wasn’t work she could rearrange our whole home to better serve what our family needed from each room. She was faithful in the little things as well as the small. She made sure every bill was paid on time, that there was food on the table promptly at 5pm (even though she hated to cook), and there wasn’t a speck of dirt anywhere. She did all this while still serving in ministry and mentoring several young women. While all this contributes to my mom’s legacy, these things are not what I will remember her for.

I will remember how she pointed to Christ in all she did. As a teenager, I saw my mother as legalistic but as I began to mature in my faith I realized that there was nothing further from the truth. My mom chose not to listen to secular music, chose not to watch violent or sexual films, and chose not to engage in gossip or speaking ill of people. She chose not to do these things not out of some fear that God wouldn’t love if she did them, but rather out of love and respect for her heavenly father.  She chose to be kind to all she met, chose to fill her mind with the things of God and not of this world, chose to respect my father, and chose to work hard in her ministry and in our home. She chose to do these things not out of obligation but because she wanted to please and show her love for her Lord. It was because of her decisions to engage not in the things of this world, but of God’s kingdom that she pointed to Christ in all she did. And this is her legacy.

My father, Jim, well he’s a special sort of person that can’t be really summed up in a sentence, but maybe a few paragraphs will suffice. My dad works hard at all he does, like, really hard. Maybe even too hard. He’s also a very passionate person which can lead him to be too intense for some people. But I like it. Everything is do or die with him. He always told me, “If something’s worth doing, than it’s worth doing right the first time.” And he was right. As hard as he can work – he can relax hard too. And he can be a lot of fun. He thinks he is hilarious and sometimes I do too, but we don’t tell him that because it would go straight to his head. But a lot of people find him funny and he loves to tell dumb jokes and do bad magic tricks. The Mansion is the perfect place for him because he constantly has new people to use his joke and tricks on.

My dad is a man of the soil. He loves digging around in the earth and watching things grow. He’s always covered in something brown. He has taught me so many things about God by using gardening analogies. He even wrote a book on the topic: Ponderings from the Pumpkin Patch. My dad is also extremely accepting of all peoples. He is so quick to embrace anyone of any culture with no thought of how it might look to others. And while I love all these things about my father, this is not where his legacy lies.

His legacy will be in how he pointed to Christ. He pointed to Christ when he taught me, as a child, about Grace and Grace alone. He points to Christ when he works along aside a resident and informally mentors them as they work. He points to Christ as he is faithful to my mom.  He points to Christ as he chooses to lay down his own comforts as he labors without salary. He points to Christ as he loves all people of all cultures without discrimination.  He points to Christ as he lives in the world but not of it and as he chooses not to embrace the pop culture that rebels so much against our God.  This is his legacy.

My parents have taught me many things about life and God. But the most important thing they taught me is to live out my faith. My faith is not to be something to be reserved for Sunday mornings, but my love for God should permeate EVERY thing I do. This includes my work ethic, how I treat people around me (friends and strangers), how I drive, how I spend my money, what types of media I allow into my life, how I speak, what I speak about. Everything.  My parents don’t always agree on everything, but they always agree on this, “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”.  I learned this from watching their individual lives as well as their lives as couple.

 My parents have been married 25 years. In a society where divorce is normal and marriage has lost its sacredness, they have persevered. I know things have not always been easy but they trusted God and remained committed to each other even when society told them it was ok if that wanted to give up. Even in this they pointed to Christ and his plan for marriage.  

So Mom and Dad, thanks. Thanks for the example you’ve been in my life and the example you’ve been to the hundreds if not thousands of people who have come through His Mansion’s doors as well as others who have crossed paths with you. Congratulations on 25 years together! 25 years on serving each other but ultimately serving God together. Thank you for the godly example you have been for my marriage and for my life. Thank you for the legacies you have and that you will leave behind. May God bless you both with another 25 years of marriage and may they be even better than the past 25. I love you both very much! Congratulations!

“Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.” 1 Thessalonians 3:11-12

Change is hard...

Change is hard for me. Some people love change. Some people hate it. I have a love/hate relationship with it, but mostly it’s just hard.

Growing up I lived in the most perfect little homeostatic environment. Not that things didn’t ever changed just if they did, it was so gradual you almost wouldn’t notice. It was perfect. Then I turned 15. Bam! Everything in my world changed: my friends, my church, my family dynamics, and even me. Everything. It was awful. But then I started to acclimate. Then I tuned 17. Bam! And it all changed again: new state, new home, new friends, new church, (really) new family dynamics, and once again, I felt myself change.

Since that time my life has been a revolving door. When people in college asked me where I was from, I never could answer. “Where am I from? Well, I was born in Chicago, raised in New Hampshire, just moved here from northern Illinois, but my parents live in Ohio (but my younger brother lives in Wisconsin), and I live here in Deerfield, but my grandpa lives in Des Plaines so I go there on the weekend. But oh my boyfriend still lives in northern Illinois – so that’s kinda home too.” People looked at me like I was crazy. But more than that, I felt crazy. (In the six years I have had my driver’s license I have had four different licenses’ due to the constant moving.)  Where was I from? Who was I? Wasn’t your home supposed to help you establish you identity. If so, who was I?

After 3 or 4 years of being unsure of where home really was, my parents eventually moved back to New Hampshire and I felt some sort of normalcy return. I could finally say “I’m from New Hampshire but now I live in Des Plaines.” (I was literally giddy when I realized that now simple answer to the question, “where are you from?” One doesn’t think about these things until they are all of the sudden very complicated.) But then things changed again.

This time really big changes. I got married. So I now I had another new home, new state, new church, and most of all a new husband and a new role as a wife. This change I like. A lot. Except for the new state part.

Now things are about to change again. I’m finally moving home. To Des Plaines, close to the greatest city in the world. And I am excited, but change is still hard.

People say home is where the heart is. I believe that. Unfortunately, I have left pieces of my heart all over this great country. Des Plaines and New Hampshire have the biggest chunks, Deerfield and Berlin Heights, Ohio also have pieces. Harvard, Illinois/Lake Geneva, Wisconsin have a small piece. And with each place I left, I knew I had less of my heart to give to the next place. So when we moved here to Salem, WI. I never imagined I’d leave a piece of my heart here. But I can already tell I am going to.

 As I begin to dismantle our apartment, the same old melancholy of change sets in. This has been my home for a year and half (the longest I’ve lived anywhere since I was 17.) For the first time, this little apartment was mine. Not my parents but mine. I paid the rent and the electric and the cable and the insurance on it. It was mine. Well mine and Zack’s. It was also the first place Zack and I lived as husband and wife. This is where he brought me after our wedding. This is our home. And now a piece of me is staying here too.

And this is why change is hard. Because every time change happens (no matter how excited I am for where we are going) I have to leave. And I hate to leave. I hate to leave because I know a piece of me will stay here long after I have left.

But isn’t this what makes who we are? Are we not the sum of our experiences? If I left without leaving a piece of me here would I remember the growth and insight I gained here? This is why change is hard. It forces me to leave part of myself behind so that I may enter in to person it had helped me become. And this is hard.

Change is hard. But needed.  I have a love/hate relationship with it. But still: change is hard…