Pure joy [Trials of various kinds]

 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5)

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith* produces steadfastness (James 1:2-3)

 *And what is faith? This faith that is spoken of is so far beyond the "I know that Jesus died for my sins" kind of thing, but is rather something much more foundational. See what it says in Hebrews:

...Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ... And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. ...For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one... (Hebrews 11:1, 6, 10:34)

Look at that part in the middle - without faith it's impossible to please him. And there are two facets of that called out in the words following: first, that you've got to believe that God is actually real - that he exists, as it says above, and then secondly, that he's got good things in store for those who are looking for him. (And we know from Jeremiah 29:13 and Deuteronomy 4:29, etc, that whole-hearted seeking results in finding him! So it doesn't just end with the looking/seeking...)

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18)

There's the reward again - something glorious is coming.

And I think, too, that on an even more basic level, faith means simply believing what he says. Okay, so that sounds kind of trivial and redundant when I type it, but if you really think about it, it's necessary, isn't it? You can't really believe that God is (God) if you don't really believe what he says. And look at what he says to us here through Paul.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.(Romans 8:28)

Do you believe that? "All things" either really means all things, or it doesn't. Either we believe him, or we don't. And if we believe him, then it really means that all things are for our good! All things! Easy things, hard things, boring things, exciting things, "bad" things, "good" things - everything!!

And then this is where it's really been hitting me lately. Check these out, if you are one who believes what he says to you:

...give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.(1 Thessalonians 5:18)

Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving...[and later in the chapter] ... giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father ... (Ephesians 5:4, 20a)

Giving thanks for what? For everything, and in all circumstances.

We've had some circumstances lately, I can tell you. Well, I won't actually tell you because some of these things do not fall under the purview of this blog, but the actual details don't matter as much as what our response to them ought to be. I can tell you this - they are included in the everything and all that are listed above. It's not easy. I'm finding, as God has made this more evident to me, that I am aware of how often, "Oh, bummer," or the likes finds its way across my lips. Does that sound like thanks-giving to you? Nope. Not to me, either. And in those words, I'm hearing from inside of me a lack of faith! On some instinctual level, I am NOT believing that all things are working out for my good, because if I believe that to the core, then Not A Single Thing in my life can be described as a bummer.

So I've been practicing this for the last few days, and man is it hard, and on the flip side, wow is it powerful. I'm in the basement switching laundry, and find there's a load already dry in the dryer, and I have no empty basket to carry it upstairs because there are already four baskets full of laundry waiting to be folded in the middle of the living room.  

Blog posts are better with pictures, right? Well, enjoy.

And what was my immediate response? Oh bummer. Oh. Wait. NO. This, too, is for my good. How? I don't have a clue. But if I choose to stand firm with the shield of faith protecting me and truth surrounding me, I have found that those moments are turned into awe and worship. Really, God? This, too - even this simple laundry basket situation - is something you are working out for my good?? Well, I can't wait to hear how that one plays out. You're pretty incredible.

Two more days until surgery. Bobbi has said that she's not nervous at all about the surgery...but she is nervous about the six weeks in a cast. I tend to agree with her. We are fully expecting the whole range of teenage emotions to come into play over the next six weeks, and are bracing ourselves for the impact. I have no doubt that there's a reason the last two weeks or so have been ones where God has brought these things from his word to my mind, through my own reading, through our small Bible study group. That, too, is no accident.

I don't have any guarantee that I will succeed, and certainly not at all times (as the laundry incident and countless others from even just the last few days will attest), but these are the marching orders from my Lord/commanding officer, and I have the chance to choose to count it all joy in the days ahead when my faith is going to be tested in this way. And what to do if (when!) I fall? Well, here's a snippet from the first music album I ever owned:

Lately I've been winning battles left and right
But even winners can get wounded in the fight
People say that I'm amazing
Strong beyond my years
But they don't see inside of me
I'm hiding all the tears

They don't know that I go running home when I fall down
They don't know who picks me up when no one is around
I drop my sword and cry for just a while
'Cause deep inside this armor
The warrior is a child (Twila Paris - The Warrior is a Child)

When I fall, I have Someone to pick me up and put me back on the path. I'm all over the place tonight. Look at this line from Psalm 23: He guides me in paths of righteousness. I don't have to find them myself. He puts me there, and I just have to walk in it.

Onward.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39)

[For those of you readers who are praying for us, this is how we are asking you to direct your prayers in the weeks ahead. Thank you!]

senior photo preview

With Bobbi a senior this year, we get another first - senior pictures! The architect Matt works with on a contract basis also does photography, so was a natural choice for someone to do her photos. We looked through some of his examples to see what she was most interested in, and she was always attracted to the outdoor shots. Matt found this park just a few miles from our house, and it ended up being a fantastic backdrop for some neat shots!

We'll get to see the "real" photos at the end of the week, but in the meantime, here are some shots Matt took on his phone of the photo session!

Yes, that's a new haircut.

 And, the really cool part is that Michael's going to do one of his composite shots, inserting Bobbi as a character in a Harry Potter-esque setting, so she picked out some clothes that give a nod to the Hogwarts uniforms (one of Daddy's dress shirts, an old tie of Matt's Dad's, and then we went out shopping for the black sweater vest, and the new black hoodie was a spur of the moment clearance item that I think she'll end up wearing every day!) The composite won't be done until November, but we're pretty excited to see what he comes up with!

The rest of the hole

I've got to share these photos Matt has on his phone to follow up on this post and the end of this post.

Look! A hole big enough to walk through! And, while my parents were here, also big enough to get a bathtub and shower pan through. 😉

From the existing bathroom looking into the new one...

...and out in the addition looking in through the existing bathroom. Very exciting.

wrestling with the orange snakes

We had a great boost on the bathroom this week with my parents coming up for a few days. Of the three full working days, one of those was shot with medical appointments, but the other two my Dad and Matt spent the entire day working and working and working. Some jobs just require two sets of hands, and, equally often, two brains. Since my hands and my brain are only ever available in time segments measured in minutes, for Matt to have my dad able to stick with him all day long was a tremendous benefit.

Soooo.....the end result is that all of the drain lines are run AND all of the tubing for the in-floor heat is run, not only for the bathroom, but also under Bobbi's bedroom - she's in the second coldest bedroom in the house - and we're hoping this will help her stay a little warmer in there this winter!

Our friend Chad "fondly" remembers wresting with these tubes when he helped Matt get our system laid out for the large addition before Krassi came home.

Under Bobbi's room

Also in the existing house - quite a puzzle getting it all threaded through everything else that's up in those joists!

In the crawl space under the new bathroom

And, because I don't think I've ever posted a photo of the view from here, this is how we access the new crawl space. Do you like the built-in "step stool" (aka "toilet") that we use to get in? It works.

In addition, they were able to get the supply line for the radiant heat tubes hooked up to the existing system in the mechanical room of the 2013 addition. This was particularly significant to me because I remember vividly the many nights of thinking that Matt and I put into getting the first system working. Having Dad be the brains on the other end of Matt's meant that one solid day of work (and five trips to Menards) was all it took to get it hooked up! We're not running yet, but I *think* the idea is that once we do turn on the boiler, we'll be set to go!

Overall, a very productive three days.

Two years ago today

Today marks two years since Matt, Gloria, and I walked into that group home in a small town in northern Bulgaria and saw our oldest daughter in real life for the first time.

 And a few hours later pushed through trepidation while walking up those familiar stairs and met our second-oldest daughter!!

And that's all I'll take the time to say tonight, but I didn't want the day to go by without remembering!

That which is crooked

And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.

~Luke 12:12

It's not an uncommon question - the one about how someone can believe in a good, all-powerful God when bad things happen. We've had this conversation quite a number of times with our oldest daughter, and the other night it came up again, and I'm still marveling at the response I was given in that moment to give to her. (And, as is often the case, the response was as much for me as it was for her, I believe!)

So, why does God allow/make bad things happen???

Here's how I answered that question last week.

God lets bad things happen to people because he uses those things to change us and make us into the kind of people he wants us to become. (Yeah, yeah - that sounds like some sort of pat answer...and then this came to me...) Think about your upcoming surgery. You really like Dr. H. and you trust him. Well, in a few weeks, we're going to see Dr. H. and he's going to do some really rough stuff to you - he's going to break your bones! Not just once, but multiple times in multiple places, and he's going to cut and reattach tendons and muscles. It's going to hurt!! It's going to stink! (Literally - six weeks in a cast??? Pew!!!) And when the casts come off, you're going to be weaker than you are now, and nothing's going to be the way it used to be. But why are we going to let him break you? Why do you want him to break you? Because we know that he has a vision for what you can be, and you, and the rest of us, are all excited about that vision. There is a purpose in the pain he is going to cause you, and we all know that if there were any less painful, less damaging way to get to that purpose, he would do it. But this is the gentlest way there is to get you from here to there. He wants to take what is crooked in you and break you so that he can make it straight.

Ooof. So many analogies break down rather quickly, but the more I mull on this one, the more direct it becomes. Jesus is our great physician. And, like Dr. H, when the "bad" things happen to us - the painful, hard, truly bone-breaking things, there is great comfort in knowing that not only does our physician bind up the brokenness, but he's also the one causing the brokenness. I am much more comfortable with an orthopedic surgeon that wants to do the bone breaking himself before realigning than with one who wants to just send me out and allow some thugs to break my bones, and then see what he can do to put them back together. Sorry. I want the doctor who does the breaking on his own because then I know the breaking, the pain, is all happening precisely as it ought.

I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things. ~Isaiah 45:7

We've talked a few times in our conversations about the beginning of the book of Job, and the great comfort there is in knowing that Satan does nothing without the permission of God, and anything he does do is completely within the boundaries that are set by God. ("Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand," and so Satan both does and doesn't just as he's instructed. And later, "Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life," and again, that line can not be crossed.) There are enough challenges in my life that I need to know that not a single one of them is outside of God's plan.

Back up to the doctor analogy, even the words that came into my mind that night to describe what Dr. H is going to do to her legs is scarily relevant - he wants to take what is crooked, and break it so it can be made straight! Oh, how many ways I am crooked! And it seems that the further along I get, the more crookedness I can see. It permeates everything. And how I long to be made perfect! (See Hebrews 10:14) So, in the midst of a more-than-typically challenging last two months, I've been given this picture of how my surgeon is breaking me in just the right ways to be able to correct that which is crooked in me. Knowing that doesn't make the current challenges (which are physical, spiritual, mental - you name it!) any easier, but it does help me to redirect my focus. We don't really know what the end result is going to look like for Bobbi. We have good reason to hope that she will be able to do some real-life all-by-herself walking when she's made a full recovery, but we don't really know what that will look like. I, likewise, don't know exactly what I am being prepared for, but I know that I can trust the One who's doing the surgery.

~~~

[Bathroom update]

Matt, when he gets the chance, is a much more productive worker than I am. After my feeble attempt at cleaning off the shelf, he came in the next day, and now this is what that north wall of the existing bathroom (which is the south wall of the new one), looks like:

First - the shelf. It's gone.

Gloria on the stool by the existing toilet looking through the opening where the window used to be - plastic is up getting ready to knock out the rest of the wall!

And this is what it looks like now. The blue rigid insulation at the bottom keeps the cats out until we're ready. (Part of the myriad of challenges we're dealing with right now includes one of our three cats dying - she's 19 - and another one deciding that she's going to now urinate wherever she pleases around the house, which in turn is prompting our boy cat to do the same, a problem he's had on and off since we put the original addition on five years ago. Yes, these are very benign in the whole scheme of things, but they just add one more layer to the story of the last few weeks, and mean that there are No Cats Allowed in that bathroom addition until it's tiled!!) The curtain above means that if Dad gets a few minutes to work out there, the rest of us can still use the toilet in a semi-private fashion!