Category Archives: Transitions

Faithfulness, Family, Inspired, Lessons Learned, Life Skills, Lives Full of God, Loneliness, Mom and Dad, Remembering, Thanksgiving or Gratefulness, Transitions, Writing

Love Notes – A Family Tradition – Started by Our Mom

February 10, 2015 admindeb 6 Comments

Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing. – 1 Thessalonians 5:11

Encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. – Hebrews 3:13

Our family has never lived close to the grandparents. This was never easy…for any of us. Before I married, I did live close to home, and my mom was my best friend. She died several years ago, and I often say to people who knew her that “when I grow up, I want to be just like her.” Still working on that.

Mom and I shared a weakness for words…they are probably excessively important to us, delivering both positive and (sometimes) negative weight. She was an amazing encourager. She rarely missed an opportunity to lift another’s spirit or to speak loving truth to someone desperate for God’s touch.

When I moved away to take a teaching job, she and my dad helped me move. New Haven, Connecticut was a 2-day drive from Georgia. It’s the farthest I had ever wandered from home. She stayed a week to help me settle in. While there, she was such great company. We explored the city together and laughed over a new culture and cried at the missing that was ahead for us.

She filled my freezer with her baking, and, while I was at work, she wrote notes. Then she hid them everywhere. After she flew home, I began finding them. In my coffee mug. Under my pillow. In the pocket of my coat. Among my reference books. Behind my music on the piano. She was with me in the love notes she left, and it made the distance between us…less.

My mom and I also had a weakness for bits of paper. I kept every one of her notes. These from that move over 30 years ago are fading…red ink on pink paper. There are a lifetime of notes between my mom and me. The tradition she started on that first move has become a life-long tradition for our family. Our visits back and forth, across the US and then the globe, have been papered by these little notes.

Our children, from the time they could write, entered into this tradition much to the joy of their grandparents. Before we would leave again, these three young ones would write of their affection for their grandparents and hide them all over their houses. I delighted in their cooperation in this conspiracy of love.

Mom always wrote notes…not just to us but to so many. She and her Sunday School Class ladies would send cards every week to the sick ones or the sad ones. She had a special burden for the elderly, for widows (including functional widows, deserted by husbands) and for fatherless children (again including those “orphaned” by still-living fathers). She inspired me by her humble ambition .

Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. – James 1:27

I am so thankful for my mom’s bits of paper…for her love…and for her perseverance in encouraging and serving others. Her generation is aging, and it is for us to pick up these traditions and pass them on somehow to the next generations…Maybe there won’t be bits of paper or love notes like in the past. I do hope we still take the time to write. Definitely, the call to serve and to encourage is as current as today. My life continues to be rich with those, young and old, who reach out to those around them with words of affirmation and kindness. Written or not, they are love notes to my heart.

Thanks, Mom. Thank God for you.

The 59 “One Anothers” of the New Testament

Alzheimer's Disease, Babies & Children, Faithfulness, Family, Grace, Home, Inspired, Life Skills, Mom and Dad, Remembering, Seasons, Thanksgiving or Gratefulness, Transitions

A Different Season of Life – Dad & Alzheimer’s

January 31, 2015 admindeb 11 Comments

I sometimes wonder- when we’re out and about – what people think of this cute old guy , shuffling along holding my hand. Just this past week, we were in an antique mall together, just looking and giving him opportunity to walk some. One of the clerks made all over him. He smiled, looking almost shy, and responded brightly and humorously to her questions and comments. For ever how many minutes he would remember that encounter, it was a sweet experience for him…and the clerk…and for me.

My Dad is 92 years young and he has Alzheimer’s. His memory has taken a toll from this disease, but his personality is as fun and sunny as it’s ever been. He’s a jokester – loves to tease and engage others, especially children, and I don’t think he’s ever met a stranger. He has been a great story-teller, but this skill is passing into the twilight of his memory loss. Still, he is still so surprising, just this week popping out a joke I’d never heard [“I heard that there was this lady who was great at keeping house. Every time she got a divorce, she kept the house.”].

Mom died over 10 years ago, so Dad has been the one to teach me so much about growing old. I had an aunt who had Alzheimer’s years ago. In fact, my parents cared for her in their home for as long as they could. Her experience with Alzheimer’s made us all sad at the diminishing effects of it on her life. So far, Dad’s bout with this disease has not left him without his joy in life and his family. At 92, his friends are few, but his memories are so many and so rich that he still has some.

Toward the end of the Great Depression, Dad had to drop out of school to help his father with their farm. He worked alongside his little sister and marveled how she seemed to always pick more cotton than he did in a day. A mischief was born in my dad in those days that continues today. When he and his sister talk about these lean years growing up, they both have such a joy in them remembering those days. This sweet aunt also has Alzheimer’s, and although her memory, like Dad’s, has worsened, her personality continues to be untouched, again like Dad’s. It’s such a joy for me to see her face light up when Dad remembers a story that she also remembers.

Dad only finished 6th grade, but he schooled himself in life, learning farming from his dad, and then in the years since, carpentry, plumbing, electrical work. To me, he could always do anything.

As a teen, he went with the Civilian Conservation Corps and worked on various road and park projects with other young men. Then he joined the Army during World War II. He fought in the Hedgerow (or Hedge Grove) Battles of Normandy with the 315th Infantry. He was a machine gunner and worked with a rocket launcher team. When we were younger, Dad wouldn’t talk about the war, but in his elder years, and until Alzheimer’s dulled his memory of details, he would tell us about those days. He even once had a brief conversation with General George Patton. His stories sent me searching for details about those battles. Amazing stories.

He married very young and has 5 children from his first marriage. Some years later, when he married my mom, he also took on 4 more children of hers. He’s the only dad I’ve ever known. I’m so grateful for his love, and work ethic, and determination in life. He and mom made a good team. The years of growing up with them married were the years that I learned about Jesus and became a Christ-follower.

Dad always had a servant heart. If he wasn’t out on a service truck somewhere helping someone, he was on the phone, talking someone through how to fix something. Like I said, he loved to work, and never minded calls from family, friends, neighbors who needed him.

He and my mom would do a lot of serving together. They were very active in their church and also had a special heart for widows and the elderly. Their home was always open to people who needed a good meal or an encouraging word. Mom and Dad cared for an uncle and aunt, as well as an elderly friend. Two grandchildren also lived with them for awhile, along with their father during a difficult time of his own.They also traveled overseas together to see other grandchildren (that would be our children) while we were living in Egypt and then in Tunisia. Then Mom was diagnosed with cancer and for the three years she endured that disease, Dad was right there for her. We were home the last year, and as hard as it was for all of us having to say goodbye to Mom, we were so touched by the sweet love they had through all of it. Dad would come twice more to see us, while we lived in Morocco, before he put his passport away.

Dad has always been a character. Until his health started flagging (having had two cancers and severe cardiac issues), he was remarkably strong for his age. He says it’s from all the hard work he did all his life, and I believe him. He loves the Atlanta Braves (especially the years of Chipper Jones) and Southern Gospel music (the Gaither’s, in particular). I have never beat him in checkers. In fact, the only one who I knew could beat him was Mom. We don’t play checkers any more because when his memory started dimming, I didn’t want to take the chance that I might win. It would be so wrong.

He LOVES his grandchildren and great-grands. Full stop.

Before his eyesight worsened, he read the Bible most days (studied his Sunday School lesson) and the newspaper every day. He loved to go out an eat – fried fish, okra, chicken livers (emphasis on fried) and hot dogs at The Varsity. He had coffee every morning and loved whatever anyone set before him (his favorite being a sausage egg biscuit from Martin’s). The servers all knew him at his favorite local restaurants, and it was fun just sitting across from him, as they came around to wait our table and just to talk. He preferred Ford pickup trucks and always wanted a red one (which would be his last vehicle but it wasn’t a Ford – I guess it was a great deal). He had a poster of a red Ford truck on his bedroom wall for as long as I can remember.

I wanted to write about Dad today because next week, he enters an assisted living facility. It’s a beautiful place, and I know he’ll enjoy the activities and extra company he will have there. Still it’s another season of this incredible life of his, and I want to mark this transition.

Would I rather him live with me? Absolutely. It wasn’t my call, but I know it’s a good call. All the family, his pastor, and friends will make it a good transition for him. He will make a place for himself there, and we will all come see him and tell the stories back to him that he’s told us all these long years.

I have a little of Dad’s mischief in me because one of the things I do that annoys my family is to take pictures of them when they’re napping. Just like we love to watch children sweetly sleeping, that’s what moves me to capture these images. There in the middle of all his loud family gathered happily for his 90th birthday, Dad nods off. Maybe because of all the cake he put away (did I mention his sweet tooth?)…but more so, I think he sleeps safe in the sweet company of those who love him.

Finally, I love his hands. He used to have rough, work-worn hands. Strong and capable. Now, they are soft…and not so strong. That doesn’t matter. They are still beautiful…and now we hold his hands, like he once held ours. How thankful we all are that he’s still with us…in this different season of life.

Should you see Dad one day, and you see this little, shuffling hard-of-hearing man who struggles with balance and memory and pain “somewhere or other, all the time”, don’t miss him. He’s had a large life…and is still living it.

Understanding Alzheimer’s in 3 Minutes (video)

Alzheimer’s Disease – Caregiver Advice by Marie Marley, Author of Come Back Early Today: A Memoir of Love, Alzheimer’s and Joy

5 Tips for Talking with a Person who has Alzheimer’s

Website for The Best Friends Approach to Alzheimer’s Care by Virginia Bell & David Troxell

Facebook Page for Best Friends Approach

The 36-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for People Who Have Alzheimer Disease, Related Dementias, and Memory Loss by Nancy Mace & Peter Rabins

Family, Friendship, Go, Home, Lessons Learned, Marriage, Thanksgiving or Gratefulness, Transitions, Travel, Workplace or Marketplace

Traveling Man – Somewhere Between Here, There, & Home

November 7, 2014 admindeb 3 Comments

He traveled again today…half the world away. How many times have I watched him smile and then turn to go? I watch his back as he walks through the sliding glass doors of another airport. This time he will fly for work, connecting with another flight, and another, and another, taking him eventually 12 timezones from home.

My husband is a traveling man. It is not the life he would naturally choose. He likes being home. Yet it has been part of his life…part of our life…for nearly 20 years. Sometimes, we’ve traveled with him – for two weeks or two years at a time. Our lives have been altered both by our travel and by his.

Our children have grown up across four countries. There were more hellos and goodbyes than we would have preferred – but looking back, we wouldn’t have given up any one of those places. Those places represent people. Those people remain forever in our hearts.

We are settled in the US for now and our children are grown (and amazingly live in the same city as we do). One of us still boards planes and crosses time zones, and it’s not me. I am the one who would love to be the traveler, but it’s not meant to be me at this time of our lives. This traveling man at our house is the one who endures missing connections, jet lag and tummy issues. This downside of traveling is a small price to pay for the great blessing of reconnecting with friends and colleagues scattered all around the world.

So many, these days, travel for adventure and there is much to be had around this glorious globe. This man has adventure thrust upon him sometimes, but he travels for only two reasons – the people and the purpose (work, support, training). In a way, these are our people – people who understand us and whom we understand…people who received us into their lives with the smallest possibility of benefit. We will always be grateful for such friendships…across worlds and cultures.

The many moves we’ve made as a family have caused us to be a bit irregular, it seems. We don’t have all the history and cultural savvy of those who have planted their lives in one place, with one people. I envy that sometimes – folks with life-long friends and extended family nearby. It must be challenging to be deeply in the lives these same friends and family and to also draw a circle that takes in such nomads as us. I am forever grateful again for friends like you.

There are days, because of all our relocations, that it seems our friends are far away. Then, there are other days when my pity party-of-one pitches the idea that I have no friends. [Seriously…still contending with this as a full-fledged adult]. This is not one of those days. My best friend in the world is somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. He will visit with people we love half a world away. I will visit people we love here. Thankful to God that traveling is a very good thing…it moves us toward people (not just away from people).

This man and I have a parting ritual. He runs through the “in case something happens” list [let me know if you want particulars of that – it is helpful to know]. Then, we do sort of a “Thanks for marrying me” farewell…and finally that wonderful, “If I don’t see you here, I’ll see you THERE.”

Hope that wasn’t too morbid for you…it actually always leaves me comforted, as those sliding doors close around him on his way.

*Edwin Markham quote

Culture & Religion, Lessons Learned, Transitions, Travel, Words

Platitudes – Filling the Air But Not the Heart

November 2, 2014 admindeb 3 Comments

“Your platitudes are proverbs of ashes, Your defenses are defenses of clay. 13 “Hold your peace with me, and let me speak, Then let come on me what may! 14 Why do I take my flesh in my teeth, And put my life in my hands? 15 Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” – Job 13:12-15

Platitude – “a flat, dull, or trite remark, especially one uttered as if it were fresh or profound”

We’ve all spoken them – out in the air, toward some stressed individual, with little thought of their effect. Just wanting to help. To pull that person back from the edge. Or to alter the charged atmosphere of the moment. We mean well.

Yesterday we had one of those travel days that leave you exhausted and glad just to be safely home. One of the flight crew of our first flight overslept, and then circumstances tumbled out such that we would miss our connecting flight. It didn’t have to be that way, because the first crew, once we were in the air, did all they could to make up for lost time. Then, it was RUN TO THE GATE. The plane for our connecting flight was still on the ground, and, like in the movies, the door was just then closed. If you travel, you know that mercy stops at the close of that door.

As we stood in line at the airline’s service counter to make other flight arrangements, we fumed. This is the confession. We joined many others who would have to make different plans because this one didn’t work out. All around us people were on their phones with varying levels of disappointment.

A young man in front of us, who had the same situation as ours, decidedly took a high road. Over-hearing us whining (seriously – part of the confession), he cheerily acknowledged his similar dilemma, smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “Well, it’s not the end of the world.” In my flesh (continuing to expose my wretched heart), I wanted to punch him. Of course, I would never…still, it came to mind.

He was trying to be helpful. How many times have I done the same thing? As we got back on our way, and eventually arrived home later in the day, this situation continued to resonate in my heart and mind. We want to help…and have no words… Is there a reason we have no words?

Platitudes sometimes tumble out of our mouths before we even think through how they will sound to the stressed or grieving hearer. They are usually well-intended (except for the times they are meant to shame – that is a whole other thing). As I get older, I am learning to listen longer before speaking. That is not to say that I don’t still trip over myself all the time, trying to be helpful with words that don’t cost me anything.

We live in a day when communication is reduced to text messages, Facebook posts, and 140 character Tweets. Words still matter. Hopefully we will continue to train our hearts and minds to listen more than we speak. Then when we speak, it is truth in love (or at least compassion). Real and genuine word-food that nourishes the heart long after the encounter…those kinds of words can help us.

It wasn’t “the end of the world”, in that long line at the service counter yesterday. Whether he was being kind or shaming me in his higher perspective of the situation, it doesn’t matter. His words did stay with me, and they did make me wrestle with my attitude. Still…

What are some of the sayings or platitudes that come your way that make you a little crazy or totally missed the mark for you at that time? You share yours, and I’ll then share mine.

A List of Platitudes

Scott Berkun’s Most Annoying Platitudes

YouTube Video – Geico Words Commercial 2014

A Generous List of Proverbs (Not the Same Thing as Platitudes)

Wisdom Proverbs from the Bible

Culture & Religion, God, Inspired, Jesus, Lessons Learned, Transitions, Wednesday Worship

Worship Wednesday – There is No One Else For Me – None But Jesus*

October 15, 2014 admindeb 1 Comment

Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” – John 6:67-69

I love the pink glow of the sky at sunrise…for me, it’s the reward of the early morning wake-up. Getting up before the birds begin their singing, and it’s still dark. That quiet, with my first cup of coffee, and only God and my thoughts. This morning it gave me pause to remember last night’s late conversation with a friend.

We were lamenting, brooding even, about the larger-than-life influence of college professors (on our children) and the sometimes narrow arrogance of higher education. How extraordinary that in a liberal arts education supposedly training the thinkers of the next tomorrow, the example of the life and leadership of Jesus is so often minimized, as to not even exist in history.

There was a time earlier in my life, during college actually, that I stepped away from my faith. If you knew me then, you might not have noticed. I was involved in church, more or less, and the goodness of God was still imprinted on many of my life choices…but not all, for sure. I stepped away…desiring the approval of my intellectual agnostic classmates (and colleagues, later) and the acceptance of my Friday night Happy Hour crowd. That was the peer group that drew me in like a child gazing up at a department store window filled with Christmas toys.

The problem with that is the toys break and they’re never quite enough fun. The search for more toys always follows. We are never satisfied.

During an amazing time in the life of Jesus, after He demonstrated Himself to have such power that He could only be God, even then, He had disciples to walk away from him…never to return. It was at that time He asked one of His closest disciples, Peter, if he would leave. Peter answered in a way that I would now, having regained my senses after my post-college wanderings.

“To whom would [I] go?” There is “none but Jesus.”

I have my own advanced degree, and decades of keeping company with highly educated, extraordinarily competent and accomplished people. We talk about all sorts of issues and we work to make a better world. When all is said and done, if I bring anything at all to the table, it’s because of knowing Jesus. He has changed me, my thinking and way of living, in profound and deeply satisfying ways.

What a great deceit and injustice to society that our culture has been swayed to disregard the wisdom, goodness, justice, mercy, and love of God as displayed through His Son. May we see the day that this turns…may we be part of the turning.

Worship with me…None But Jesus*

In the quiet, in the stillness
I know that You are God
In the secret of Your presence
I know there I am restored

When You call I won’t refuse
Each new day again I’ll choose

[Chorus] There is no one else for me
None but Jesus
Crucified to set me free
Now I live to bring Him praise

In the chaos, in confusion
I know You’re Sovereign still
In the moment of my weakness
You give me grace to do Your will

When You call I won’t delay
This my song through all my days

[Chorus]

I am Yours and You are Mine (x4)

All my delight is in You Lord
All of my hope, all of my strength
All my delight is in You Lord Forevermore (x2)

[Chorus]**

*YouTube Video of None But Jesus with Lyrics – Sung by composer Brooke Fraser

**Lyrics to None But Jesus

YouTube Video of None But Jesus – worship led by Hillsong

Brooke Fraser website

Chart of Religious Views of Jesus – Jesus is so much more than religion.

I Will Follow Him – Andre Rieu – Under the Stars, Maastricht V, the Netherlands – just for fun and the joy of thinking of Jesus while watching/singing with it

Photo Credit – Alicia Bowman

Bookmarked Summer, Books, Culture & Religion, Family, God, Home, Inspired, Jesus, Lessons Learned, Life Skills, Lives Full of God, Marriage, Parenting, Pray, Transitions, Walk with God

Surprised by Motherhood – Lisa-Jo Baker’s Must-Read for All Women and the Bravest of Men

September 9, 2014 admindeb 3 Comments

I just finished re-reading Surprised by Motherhood, because I wanted to write about it, When I first heard about this book, this Spring, it wasn’t a title that would have captivated me. My children are grown now. Yet, I am surrounded by mothers and see them doing battle to raise their children up to know God and to be honoring in their relationships and responsibilities. I also see the battle fatigue in parenting, in mothering. Lisa-Jo Baker wrote this book for you, Dear Ones. Surprised by Motherhood is not a “how to” book; it is a “go through” book – a story of life and family and God in the midst. You will find it full of shared experience; wrestling with what’s important; discovering joy in the chaos; laughing and crying and resting in Him.

Lisa-Jo Baker is a real woman – bright, funny, intuitive, and capable. I also envision, from her writing and the images on her blog, that she struggles with our same messy stuff of life that comes with little ones. Sticky table-tops, full laundry baskets, and very public, sometimes embarrassing displays of emotion by our kiddos. Yet, as you read, she speaks grace on herself, and on you.

I like her. We both are third-culture adults (people whose hearts are knit to two continents, at least). We both see God in the craziness of our lives…and have grown closer to Him as moms. We both have two sons and a daughter, and our passionate second-born sons have taught us both the most about ourselves. We both had children in our later 30’s. Our hearts have also been broken by the terrible problem of human trafficking in the world, and we want to change that. We have both spent much of our lives without our moms, her more years than me, but I resonate with that heart-ache of missing them. Her mom-in-law and I are both Debbies and we both pray for our children. I’m glad Lisa-Jo has such a woman in her life.

If you’re not a mom, or if you’re a man who has actually read thus far, I hope you’ll consider this book as well. There is so much to gain from her story. I leave you with just a taste in her own words:

About her mom: “She made room for people, so I never noticed how the house looked or what food she was serving. I saw how they all wanted to be with her. People stayed. The kids swam. Watermelons were split for dessert.” (p.23)

About church: “When I was growing up, church was a consistent, resilient heartbeat for our family…Church was a love language that spoke peace and comfort and home over my childhood.” (p. 32-33)

About a friend who entered their grief at the death of her mom: “Alex blew into the kitchen where we were trying to decide if we were hungry. The world felt like it was underwater, and it was hard to stand up, impossible to make decisions…We sat around that old pine table…as he cut hunks of bread, spread out meats and cheeses and tomato slices, and fed our empty parts. I didn’t know I was hungry until he arrived.” (p. 48-49)

About her 2y/o Micah who clung to her at church (and most all the time): “I rocked him and sang praise for his Maker…And suddenly, all those great and powerful phrases like ‘sacrifice’ and ‘loves like a hurricane’ and ‘blessed be the name of the Lord’ took on Technicolor meaning. With this boy wrapped in my arms, clinging to me, I understood what the God parent feels for me. To die for this love – yes, it made sense…In the music, in the rocking of the baby who was becoming a boy, I poured out my gratitude. And my arms – how they ached with the weight of it.” (p. 128-9)

On lessons learned in parenting – “I didn’t know I was selfish until I had kids…But I believe God loves us too much to leave us flailing in our self-centered universes, so He delivers these tiny reflections of ourselves into our homes with earthquake effectiveness…Oh God, how I need You.” (p. 187-188)

There is so much love in this book. So much acceptance. So much real. I hope you pick up a copy and read the story of Lisa-Jo’s journey into motherhood, and through motherhood to a deeper walk with God and a sweet healing place for herself and her family…that is available to all of us Surprised by Motherhood…or just life itself.

Meet Lisa-Jo Baker – your cheerleader, friend, sister

Surprised by Motherhood Book Club – First 3 Chapters Free

(In)courage – “A bit like a beach house – a place where women could feel welcome without pretense, valued just the way they are. A place where we could put our sandy, dirty feet up on the coffee table and tell our real, hard stories. A place where people would listen. A place where women were brave enough to be vulnerable.”

Mighty – Mother’s Day Video by JourneyBox Media

Family, Lessons Learned, Lives Full of God, Music, Parenting, Pray, Transitions, Walk with God

On the Eve of a 25th Birthday – A Charge, a Quote, & a Rhyme

September 4, 2014 admindeb 3 Comments

How can it be that you’re 25 years old tomorrow? I really don’t have the words…and you’re probably glad. Over the years, you have single-handedly taken me to my knees more often than you realize – praying to be the parent God would have me be for you; appealing to God for all the moves (overseas and stateside) to not be too hard for you; asking for comfort when situations were sometimes hard anyway; and thanking Him for all He did for you – the friendships, the opportunities, and His relationship with you from forever.

So many memories. “Let’s go kill buffalo!” Following your sister around for play ideas. Grandparent visits. Family vacations at the Chesapeake Bay. Carpool buddies. Gameboy. Drawing cartoons. Computer games. Getaways to the Red Sea. Dreamcast. Baptism back home in Tennessee. Roadtrips to the Sahara. Soccer. Cousins. Airports. Basketball. Grumpy when hungry – feed the boy. High School Rock Band. Great friendships. Game Nights. Sleep-Overs. PlayStation. Laughter. Working out. Classical Guitar. VCU. Aletheia Praise Band. Sharing a house with your brother, sister, and then Duy. Met and married beautiful Bekkah. Grad school at East Carolina. Now back to Virginia, working and making a home…grown.

Settled for now in the U.S. after so many stamps in your passport. Settled in our hearts forever. You make us laugh, and you make us think. Your grown-up heart is so worth the childhood/teen year battles. And your music…what a gift to us. Whether you’re on electric, acoustic, or classical guitar. Your music goes right to the heart. Thank you for honing the gift God gave you.

As you round the bend on this first quarter-century, I leave you with God’s word to Joshua, Oswald Sanders’ word to leaders, and a poem often quoted by our friend Tom Elliff.

Happy birthday, Son. I’ll love you forever.

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” – Joshua 1:9

“When a person is really marked out for leadership, God will see that that person receives the necessary disciplines for effective service.” – J. Oswald Sanders, Spiritual Leadership

When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man,
And skill a man.
When God wants to mould a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall praise –
Watch His method, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects;
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which only God understands
While his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends, but never breaks,
When his good He undertakes. . . .
How He uses whom He chooses
And with every purpose fuses him,
By every art induces him
To try his splendor out –
God knows what He’s about. – Anon.

Nathan Mills Guitar

J. Oswald Sanders’ Spiritual Leadership

Part of Joni Eareckson Tada’s Testimony – Poem Drill a Man

Book Favorite I’ll Love You Forever Before Helicopter Parenting Became a Cultural Issue

Bookmarked Summer, Books, Culture & Religion, Family, Food & Drink, Home, Inspired, Lessons Learned, Parenting, Transitions, Travel

Quotes from Between Worlds – Essays on Culture and Belonging – by Marilyn R. Gardner

September 4, 2014 admindeb 1 Comment

In this bookmarked summer of mine, Between Worlds brought a refreshing wash of memories for me of living cross-culturally. I miss the years we spent as a family in North Africa. Marilyn Gardner writes in colorful strokes of her third culture kid (TCK) experience of growing up in Pakistan. She also described vividly what it was like as an adult raising children (her own TCKs) back overseas. Read Between Worlds and you are transported to the places she lived as a child and again as an adult. She speaks of her family’s years in Cairo, Egypt, and I am also taken back to one of my favorite cities in the whole world. The smells, sights, and sounds are there…you will be enchanted.

Marilyn also shares with clarity and vulnerability that experience of living essentially between worlds. Of living among peoples not your own and yet you feel they are. Of returning to the US and appearing to be like all around you, and yet you are an “invisible alien”…not fully of this world either. Her stories are marked with lessons of deep living cross-culturally. We can all gain from these lessons – whether we’ve lived a third culture life or not.

Her stories I will leave for you to read in your own personal places…but some of her wisdom I share with you through these quotes from Between Worlds.

“Home is where our story begins.” For a third culture kid who questions the definition of home, this is both reassuring and sad. If home is where our story begins, what happens when we cannot go back?” (p. 4)

“I read in Psalm 84: ‘Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage…They go from strength to strength until each appears before God in Zion.’ In my journey, this Psalm makes ‘Home is where your suitcase is’ a spiritual reality.” (p. 8)

“I was raised on chai…It was not just the taste; it was the full experience of comfort that nourished body and soul.” (p. 21)

“There can be strength in remembering…Perhaps writing helps keep some of the bricks intact, because memories are precious and if used properly give strength to the present.” (p. 26)

“Turns out identity isn’t about a place you live at – but a Person you live in.” (p. 44)

“Those childhood wounds that brand us, that tell us lies about who we are and what we’ll become, are not strong when they come up against the Image of the God who made us.” (p. 55)

“Pieces of childhood are important foundations to building adults…in the pieces of childhood there is grace and a Father God who delights in putting together the pieces.” (p. 71)

“When I finally stopped grasping at success, at confidence, at belonging, I inexplicably found it.” (p. 87)

“If you don’t start kids on the road or plane when they are young then too soon they, and you, will move into a place and state of mind that sees all the obstacles instead of the benefits.” (p. 102)

“It is amazing how much waiting there is in a life of movement…Above all, we wait for God. We move forward in faith, only to be stopped in transit. So we wait. It’s not time. We sit tight. There are dozens of ways that God moves in and orchestrates our plans, our movements…For waiting is nothing new in the work of God.” (p. 109)

“Behind every third culture kid is a parent – a parent who wishes, hopes, and prays that they are doing the right thing.” (p. 120)

“God chooses ‘place’ to reveal himself to people, to show who He is, to remind them of his love, his care, his sovereignty, to call them to himself.” (p.138)

“Cultural humility gives up the role of expert, instead seeing ourselves as students of our host culture. I puts us on our knees, the best posture possible for learning.” (p. 193)

“May I forever hurt with the goodbyes that I say. May I forever remember the strength of the words ‘God Be With You.'” (p. 202)

Whether you’re a chai or coffee drinker – you will want a cup of one or the other, as you savor this book of life Between Worlds.

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Back to School – Teachers on My Mind

September 2, 2014 admindeb 1 Comment

Back to School! Must be September…with all that comes with it. I have always loved the smell of newly sharpened pencils and notebooks just opened. Put me in a room full of books and I can occupy myself for hours. “Back to school” can mean delight for some and dread for others. I actually never cared for school – growing up or sending my children off to school. I liked being home, as a child, and I loved having our children home. Yet, there comes a day that vacation is over, and the work of children begins again in earnest…at school.

The Tuesday after Labor Day marks the beginning of the public school year here in Virginia, and my mind is busy with images of kids of all ages in the latest coolest outfit with all the appropriate age-specific accessories (backpack, lunchbox, cell phone, etc.). More than even the kids, I think of the parents who entrust their loves to teachers and staff, some of whom they may not even know really…except for maybe the rushed Open House introductions.

More even than the parents, it’s those teachers, I want to focus on. How do they prepare for the onslaught of the first day of school? To receive 20-25 little strangers into their classroom. How do they begin to build order and community among these little strangers? These , coming from different home cultures, some not native English speakers. How do they sort out who needs what to help them learn best? It’s all a great mystery to me.

Then there are those first day tears…or first day fears that are harder to recognize. These teachers just seem to know, and they work to settle these young ones and to stoke confidence in their hearts.

I have always admired the giftings of teachers – adults able to enter the world of their students and render opportunities to learn and inspire in just such a way these young ones can grasp. Not just to master content but to learn how to be good citizens in their particular community (be it 3rd grade or 10th). It’s a shame when teachers stay so long – or too long tired – in the classroom such that they lose their passion for teaching (or is it for learning?). They still have impact, and hopefully for good. Hopefully. I don’t know any teachers like that right now, and today could be a fresh start.

Right now, I am well-acquainted with some wonderful teachers who are greeting their new class of students today, and I want to say to them, “Thank you.” Thank you for thinking of these students through the summer, although they did not as yet have names or faces…yet you were already planning for a good year for them.

Thank you for preparing your classroom to be a bright and colorful place that will delight their imaginations. Thank you for filling their space with books, and floor pillows, and games, and art, and math manipulatives, and computer programming – to touch the hearts and minds of each of your students with their unique learning strengths and weaknesses. Thanks for not taking yourself too seriously or them too lightly. Thanks for your understanding of which students need to be drawn out and which other ones need to be settled down. Beginnings are important, and your students have so much to learn from you about starting well.

And then finishing strong. Thanks for determining to stick with them through the year. For not giving up on the ones who seem to have just too much going against them to be successful. We never know, do we? And for those students who just seem to have everything going for them, thank you for challenging them to serve others, to think critically, and to lead in ways that go deeper than popularity.

Thank you for applying all your “super powers” for their benefit – be they little ones or the almost grown ones – including seeing their parents (or grandparents or other guardians) as some of your best resources. It means more work for you, but it could make all the difference…not just for that student, but for their adults as well.

So thanks, teachers…it’s a new year. And you’re ready.

3 Free Tools for a Productive September [September 1st is the New January 1st] – Ann Voskamp

Recipe for Pecan Pie Bars – to go with those Pumpkin Spice Lattes that Appear Magically in September Along with School

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On Leaving – Post by Rachel Pieh Jones – So Resonant of the Goodbyes & Hellos of Life on Two Continents

August 30, 2014 admindeb Leave a comment

Rachel Pieh Jones and Family

Open road stretches out before me, cornfields and forests swirl into blurry greens and yellows. The windows are down and my hair tickles my nose, the sun warms my thighs and my elbow is getting sunburned but I don’t mind, I’ll peel and the dried skin will remind of me this day, this place, this slippery moment. The radio plays U2, Beautiful Day, and I’m singing loud.

What does leaving feel like?

It feels like that drive down the freeway. Like everything is right and the world is beautiful and maybe I’m wrong, maybe nothing is right because why does it hurt? I’m heading somewhere I want to go and leaving somewhere I want to stay and I want to be in both places and so I try to force the in between to linger. Tears stream down and blow off my cheeks, stolen by wind.

My toenails were hennaed black when we evacuated from Somalia and I remember watching the black grow out with my nail. When I clipped the last sliver of nail with black swath across the narrow tip. When my body released that last vestige, no longer stamped with a reminder of where I had been. I remember it feeling like, with that one snip, we were evacuating all over again, like something had been irrevocably removed.

Does anyone else see green grass and feel dizzy? The green blades like sea snakes swaying in the summer breezes. Does anyone else notice the way leaves filter sunlight and cast glittery shadows, orbs of golden light reflected off rivers in diamonds? Is there a way to hold it? To paint it on my toenails so I can carry it until I am ready to let go?

During leaving days every interaction is intensified, every color made more brilliant. Do you know I’m going back to Africa, to Djibouti, on Thursday? [Note: Flights delayed and a lay-over so when you read this, they hopefully will have arrived.]

You’ll want to finish reading the rest of this post at this link.