They do as we do.

If you’re a mom or dad…

Your little ones are watching, listening, learning.

My daughters are beautiful, and they look just like me. Every once in a while, I catch myself picking apart my looks in the mirror, and then I notice a gorgeous little four-year-old watching me. Confused. She usually asks, “Mommy, what are you doing?”

And then I snap out of it, see her beauty, and say, “Just being silly.”

I turn away from that mirror. Just as I hope she will do. Cause she’s the most beautiful thing in the world. And I know, I know that if I waste too much time disparaging my looks, that one day, one day, God forbid, she will connect the dots.

Truth is, we’re all a work of art. Each second well spent, blood pulsing, hearts pumping, brains thinking, nerve-endings firing, hearts feeling so much, bodies capable of everything.

If I ever doubted the existence of a loving God, all I have to is turn my eyes to my daughters. Heaven help me, but for God to have created such beauty in them, HE MUST BE AMAZING TO BEHOLD.

If you are a mom or dad,

click here.

 

the area God roped off

There are a lot of things that scare me. Black widows, the I-5 Ashland summit during the winter, the dark…

But there are a few things that terrify me. The worst is my fear of buoys. Yes, you read that correctly. Those big floaty things in the ocean terrify me. It’s not the way they look, or move, but rather the thought of having to be near one. It makes me sick to my stomach. The other phobia I’m sure I have is of glory holes.

It’s basically a big drain in a lake. This particular one is in Whiskeytown Lake in Redding.  If you look behind the glory hole in the picture, you’ll see a line of buoys and ropes, sectioning off this area as “prohibited”.

Prohibited. Hmmmm…. That word does all sorts of different things to different people.

If you don’t think about it, it sure seems like the Bible is full of a lot of rules. Sure seems like there’s a lot of “dont’s.” And to a lot of people, those “dont’s” seem to be the things that they want to do the most.

But if you really think about it…

In the Bible, everytime God says “no” it’s because He’s protecting someone from something.  Some rules like that are contextual, like God telling them not to eat certain types of meat for health reasons.

Others are timeless.

Like when God says not to be sexually immoral. God’s not against sex. Truth is, He invented it, and there’s a whole book of the Bible dedicated to the most beautiful display of physical love, the Song of Solomon. But God explicitly says not to do it before marriage. He ropes it off. And He can do that cause He made it. He knows what it’s for, the purpose, the power, the magnitude. Inside the confines of marriage, it can do wonders. When partnered with unconditional love, commitment, pursuit of Godliness, it’s nothing short of a miracle. But outside marriage, it’s a dangerous weapon. Just look around. Look at the fatherless children, the broken hearts, the anger, the bitterness, the destruction that comes from one physical act. It’s just sex, right?

Or is it.

There’s another book in the Bible called Ruth. It’s a short book about a woman that marries into a Israelite family. The Israelites had been rescued from slavery, and were no longer nomads, but had been given their promised land. God had fulfilled His promise, above and beyond.

But there was a famine and Ruth’s family decided to move away from the promised land and into the enemy territory where they could find food. “Here they stood on the precipice of a sticky decision- to stay in the arid land of God’s choosing or to flee to the bountiful one God has roped off?” What happened next was devastating. Ruth’s family moved to enemy territory and all the men died of sickness. The father, the husband, the brother. The three women were left alone in enemy territory with nothing and no one to help them.

“Escaping to easier terrain is all too tempting when we are weary in hardship.”

But… I wonder… once in that “roped off” area, will we will be glad we went there? That we didn’t trust God enough to make our way? That we went into enemy territory cause we were hungry?

Ruth’s story is one of redemption though. It didn’t end there. One woman stays behind, but Ruth and her mother-in-law return to God’s promised land, penniless and homeless. It doesn’t happen overnight, and I suggest you read it for yourself, but it’s full of hope. Ruth marries again and is blessed beyond her imagination. She even becomes apart of the lineage through which Christ was born.

But in order to receive healing, restoration, and blessing she had to get out of that roped off area and back to where she was supposed to be. The deaths could never be reversed though, that pain always in her heart. But God’s love was so great that He gave her something else.

Whatever that roped off area is that you’re staring down… turn and run. Don’t reason with yourself as to why you should go there. If God said “NO!” then He had a very good reason for it. And you’re in for nothing but the death of something. Death of a marriage, death of a relationship, or the death of something else you didn’t even consider…

And I’d say that “run” would be good advice if you’re already in that area you weren’t supposed to be, standing on the ledge of that hole you once deemed glorious. Run. Run. Run. Back into the arms of the ONE that never failed you.

(The two quoted sentences were by Kelly Minter, from her book “Ruth”)

 

 

 

 

Story time with Mama Ristow.

This is how it began…

I had read the stories, said the prayers, and sang the songs. I was tucking my four year old into bed when she blurted out something about how Daddy had done a trick with the car while I was inside the store. I asked if she was telling on him and she answered, “No,” through a sweet little giggle. And then she elaborated about how monkeys had stolen the car and driven it around Medford.

I told her I had an even better story. “And it’s a true story…” I explained.

“My mom used to have meetings at the house when I was little. One evening, she sent me outside to play while she talked with the adults. Well, I was feeling a little feisty. I went into the backyard, grabbed the wheelbarrow, and filled it up with a bunch of our white chickens. Then I pushed the wheelbarrow up and around to the front door and rang the doorbell. When mom answered the door, I pushed the wheelbarrow full of chickens past her and into the house. Up and down the hall I went, past all the people, and then out the back door before mom could catch me.”

Izzy laughed so hard that she buried her face in her pillow. Then she looked up with a huge smile and said, “Now I have a story. You wont believe me but it’s true.”

For those of you reading this on facebook, you’ll know what followed. It was an amazing tale about snow monkeys and kangaroos on the roof. When she finished, I said, “Izzy that was a great story. But, you know that mommy’s story was really really true, don’t you?”

“Yes! Mine was true too. You wont believe me, but it’s true.”

Back and forth we went. Sharing stories. Each and every one of mine absolutely true. But I suppose to a four year old raised in the city limits, she had no point of reference other than that we must have been playing a game. Her stories kept getting bigger and better, both of us laughing. Even Eva had scooted to the edge of her crib to listen, legs hanging through the slats, sleepy eyes drooping. And then I would take my turn, sharing something even bigger and better. All of it true.

You should have seen her face when I told her about my pony with one eye.

Me, mom, and some puppies.

 

The story of us. Part 2.

This post is  inspired by my friend Lindsay MchPhail over at Earth Monkey Moms, and I am completely stealing her idea. But it was so good. You can read her post here.

I met Nick during a snowball fight outside of my dorm room in 2001 and the rest is history. You can read part 1 of our story here.

We had a huge wedding. 450 guests in attendance. The reception was so loud that I remember not being able to hear the music while we were dancing. It’s all a blur to me, except for meeting some new family, who, upon hearing that there was no alcohol at the reception, stopped at a gas station and bought some vodka. One of them gave me the best advice I’d ever been given, over and over again. I didn’t know who he was at the time, but he kept taking my arm and saying, “Just make sure you love him . . .” I also remember seeing a cousin that hadn’t been invited and thinking, Isn’t he supposed to be in prison?

Nick shoved cake in my face, I shoved cake in his. While I was in the bathroom cleaning up, my dad and all the other “dads” in my life tackled Nick and shoved cake into just about every orifice.

 

Don't worry! The cake really isn't symbolic of anything. It's just cake.

It was a crazy, fast day, that whirled by without sense. We grabbed the card box from the gift table and left in a flurry, en route to the Sacramento airport. That morning I had woken up with $9 in my account, and Nick didn’t have much more. But by the time we arrived at our hotel, I had opened up every card and had a lap full of $3000.

We hadn’t even know how we were going to afford the gas to our honeymoon. And yet, there we were suddenly rich, thanks to our friends and family. $3000 may not seem like much to some of you, but to us it was a fortune.

I didn’t know it then, but that was a sign of what was to come in our marriage. But I’ll get to that later.

The next morning we flew to LA, boarded our cruise ship, and started the first adventure of our married life by getting seasick. We requested some non-drowsy Dramamine, but whatever it was knocked us out for two days. We finally came out our fog just in time to sign up for some excursions, you know, those off-the-boat adventures that cost hundreds of dollars each. Well, just turned out that we finally had extra money.

Our first excursion was called a “unimog.” It was an open jeep that carried about ten people through the Mexican jungles where Predator had been filmed. Looking back it was fun. But at the time I was terrified, picturing it going up and down sheer cliffs. Our tour guide had brought nothing to drink but homemade margarita, and so in the humid heat of South America, just about everyone else in our group was drunk. The tour guide caught Nick dumping tequila out of the jeep and gave him a lecture about how that was the same thing as “pissing on the American flag” or some other such nonsense.

Halfway through, I was stung by a black hornet. But when I showed the bug to the tour guide, he drunkenly laughed, “Nah, that didn’t get ya. If it did, you’d be dead.” We explored the jungles, had dinner on the beach, and watched an impromptu show as all the tour guides got trashed in the bar by themselves. When we made it back, all the men were stumbling off the unimog and my arm was swollen. It continued to swell and I spent the next few nights with a horrific headache that made me feel like my brain was going to explode out of my temples.

But during the day I felt fine, and so we went on two more adventures. The next one was a shopping trip in Mazatlan, which I do NOT recommend. We escaped from the market after too many men tried to grab me, and made our way to the beach. We observed this woman in an itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini roll around in the surf until she lost her top. And then found ourselves shoved into a taxi cab right next to the same woman and her husband.

They asked us if we “blade”, which I thought meant rollerblade. I lied and told them yes. To which Nick freaked. Turns out they had asked if we “blaze”, which is a drug reference. That car ride couldn’t be over soon enough.

And then next day we had the best time kayaking in Cabo San Lucas and attempting to snorkel. I had no idea that Gulf of California is renown for giant squid.

On the ship, we were involved in a newlyweds game show. At one point, the thousand audience members and game show host laughed when we tried to tell them that we had waited to have sex until we were married. We were mocked throughout, and never quite believed, but we ended up winning the game.

We had made friends with an older Russian couple that loved the Lord and loved alcohol. Every time they saw us, the husband would grab Nick, buy a couple shots, and toast to our marriage. As nice as they were, we got to the point where we would hide if we saw them.

There were other awkward and fun moments, but it was finally over and before long we were headed back to real life. The next week we started school and work again and had no idea what was was coming our way.

People said we were too young. And we were. But it didn’t matter. We had the Lord, we had faith, and we were committed to our commitment. And that was enough. We came home to our one-bedroom apartment, filled to the brim with presents, and unwrapped our way back in. We were given too much, far beyond our needs, but yet again, it was a sign of things to come.

To be continued…

 

 

 

Heaven is in her heart.

I was 28 years old before I felt a literal pull towards heaven. I always knew that was where my heart was supposed to call home. But I have been so blessed on this earth, in every aspect, through it all so touched by the divine in this earthly place that I could not understand heaven. Perhaps it’s because the Kingdom of heaven has always felt very real to me right here where I’m at. I think that’s how it’s supposed to be. With the anticipation of something more. Maybe… I don’t know.

But having my mom there makes it very real. Knowing that she is somewhere outside of time and dimension worshiping in the fullness of what she could never be on earth is a thought that always lingers in the back of my mind. Wondering, curiosity, a little tug towards the ultimate divine. A piece of myself is with Jesus, right now…

No walls. No barriers. Just the Savior Himself glowing with the light of a thousand suns, radiating colors my mind’s eye cannot imagine, speaking with a voice like the sound of rushing waters, a love so all-consuming that it envelops all that once was and bathes it in white. Gold. Ultimate healing.

My little Izzy talks about grandma a lot. It will be a sad day for me when she stops missing her. When she doesn’t remember. I’ll do my best to remind her. But heaven is in her heart.

Standing in Grandma Icrecream's house.

She talks about Grandma Icecream a lot. She talks about heaven. She wants to know when we will go there and then she struggles with having to leave her home and toys. And it’s all very normal. Cause I struggle with the same things. Even though I know it will be better than I can even imagine…

And so heaven is also in our home. We talk about it often, questions coming from the mind of a four year old that echo the questions I have in my own mind. She doesn’t ever doubt that it’s a real place or that Jesus is close to her at all times. She just doesn’t understand it, and that mis-understanding doesn’t scare her away. She accepts that that’s how it is. That she can trust mommy and daddy. That she can talk it out and question and talk it out some more and question… all the while sitting safely in faith.

Of course she doesn’t know it’s faith. Cause it’s just how it is. It’s not compartmentalized. There’s not a part of her that believes in Jesus and another part of her that chases things that break His heart. She doesn’t go to church and act like she’s something she’s not and then run around being a hypocrite all the other days of the week.

She just is who she is. Learning still. Asking questions. Safely cocooned in love. Living in faith.

All she really knows is that Jesus is real, heaven is real, and that Grandma Icrecream is there. And little by little, she’ll figure the rest of it out. And just as I hope that she’ll never forget grandma, I pray that she will never get scared of her questions or of the unknown. That as she seeks out the truths of God, she will also revel in the missing pieces of the mystery of who God is.

 

Sloppy, wet kiss.

He is jealous for me. Loves like a hurricane and I am a tree. Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy. When all of the sudden I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory, and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great Your affections are for me…

This song has haunted me. It has caused controversy and question, yet drawing most hearers in with words that speak right to the craving in our souls. About a love that is so powerful and all-consuming that it cannot be pushed away.

Oh how He loves us so, oh how He loves us, how He loves us so…

I first heard this song years ago in my living room. Independent artist John Mark Macmillan had come through Redding and led worship at a church, selling his first compilation in the foyer. My friend brought the music over for me to listen to. I learned the song, and led it it a few times. A year and a half later, John Mark was signed and released the CD. The song became a hit and was covered by several other Christian artists.

And the words were changed.

There’s a line in the song that talks about a sloppy, wet kiss. And even though kissing and romance was created by the God of the universe and the lover of our souls, there was a collective cringe in the believing community. Is it okay to sing about this? It feels too intimate, too dirty, too messy, blah blah blah. I was not above a small reaction of just wondering if that line was okay. But then I thought about it.

I remembered how messy my children’s expressions of love can be. They’re slobbery, banana covered faces wanting to kiss my cheeks. Their chalk and marker covered hands wanting to hold mine as they show me their works of art. And then… the song made sense. But I knew there was more to it. And so I found a video of John Mark himself explaining the meaning behind the song that he wrote and the messy kiss described there.

You can find it on youtube. It’s a heart- wrenching story about tragedy and bad things happening to good people, and the questions we all ask God at one point of our lives. Why? And sometimes, when God enters the heartache and mess of our most difficult moments, it’s not sweet and romantic and wooing. It’s messy and painful because it’s divine comfort meeting our most traumatic pains.

I had my own messy moment with this song.

My mom loved this song. She first heard it in Mexico, when a lovely girl named Ashley Boban sang it for worship. And from that moment on, it was forever the melody on my mom’s lips. While washing the dishes, or folding laundry, or walking in her garden, she would sing this song. She didn’t know all the words, and so she would repeat what she knew, over and over and over again. And because it was the favorite song of the entire family, someone would always join in, mumbling the song along with her while we went about whatever chore it was.

 

Mom in Mexico, 2009

That was the summer before she was diagnosed. The last summer of her life. I moved away that summer, and only visited once before cancer came into our lives. After that cancer filled every moment, every phone call, every conversation. Her downfall followed all the patterns. Like a text book. And so, on her last day, we all knew. The signs were in every breath. We waited. Taking turns by her bed, and when darkness fell, my sisters went to a friend’s house, and the rest of the family gathered at mom’s side. It was an evening so full of emotion that it was hard to express any.

It took every bit of strength to start singing to her. I sat up near the head of her hospital bed, with my grandma (her mom) at my side and I sang. I sang the only song that would come to mind. I tried to sing others because my mom’s family was there and this song had some strange words that I was afraid they would think were weird. But I couldn’t remember anything else.

And so over and over again I sang. Every part of the song. And that night, heaven met earth like a sloppy, wet kiss. Like an expression of love that was so messy, my instinct was to wipe it away. But it wouldn’t go away. I couldn’t chase the end from the room. But I knew He was there. I knew Jesus was there. Taking mom. His caress hurt because we knew what it meant, but we didn’t want him to stop comforting.

In the half light of my mother’s bedroom, surrounded by family, I put one hand on her hair and one hand on her arm because I wanted to memorize how she felt. I wanted to memorize her scent. I stored it all away knowing I would need it to last a lifetime, and I sang…

We are His portion and He is our prize, drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes. If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking. So heaven meets earth like a sloppy, wet kiss, and my heart turns violently inside of my chest cause I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way…

He loves us, oh how He loves us, oh how He loves us, oh how He loves…

A thousand people showed up to her memorial service. And I led worship. It was an honor to praise God for the mother He gave me. After a three-hour service, I took to the stage one last time, and I sang this song once more. And with my eyes open, I witnessed  the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

A large church full of people with their hands raised, eyes streaming with tears, testifying to the love of Christ. Voices as loud as my amplified one. A collection of sound and words rising to heaven as incense and a comforting balm upon those of us that were hurting… reminding us that, even though none of this made sense and it was awful and didn’t seem right… that He loved us. That we couldn’t escape from this moment, but that He would also stay in it with us.

Heaven meeting earth like a sloppy, wet kiss.

 

This is all I have to say about this right now.

I have to trust God that the work of His hand will not be halted by the asinine comments of others. That the insensitive comments made by Christians will not not undo what my mother worked and prayed so hard for, even up until her very last breath.

I beg of my friends in Redding and beyond to speak in gentleness and humility as they walk among the broken hearts of those of us who lost something valuable last May. I beg of you not to stomp through it all in the name of Christ. Because HE gets down in the gutter with us in our brokenness and helps us to rise from the ashes. Oh Jesus, forgive us for what we have done!

I caution you before you post on facebook your opinions, to guard your heart and mind and tongue and fingers. Is what you are about to say hurtful? Could it potentially make the pain worse for someone? God is not hurtful. God is gentle. He is humble. He is also an avenger.

And He cautions us all to beware should we lead someone astray.

This is not a statement for or against any certain situation, not to one person in particular (but rather several). This comes from a broken heart as I read through comments made on a social media sight. Comments made by people who were not in my mother’s home the night she died. Comments made by people who did not hold her hand and shed tears over her body and hand her over to Jesus. Comments made by people who did not then have to prepare her body and cope with the awful things that followed. There are, however, family members on facebook that WERE there. Family members who held her hand and cried and prepared her body and had to cope with what followed. Family members that are now reading very insensitive comments on facebook.

Remember all of the others that knew her. A mother that raised her. A brother that has been apart of her entire life. Who helped raise her children. A sister-in-law who came into my mother’s life while still in her teens and loved her to her last moment. A neice who helped brush my mom’s hair and made her look peaceful even after her spirit had departed. And so many others.

These are the people many of you are combating on facebook. You didn’t know it was them, of course, or you probably wouldn’t have said the things you said. Remember the friends, the family, the co-horts in ministry. Remember the daughter that knew her for 28 years. The last person to look into her mother’s open eyes. The person that was there in her very last moment.

Remember. And ask… how would Jesus want me to respond? As you celebrate, do not forget those that are healing at a perfectly normal pace. Sometimes celebration can happen quietly. It does not need to be shouted among the hurting and healing. Sometimes silence truly is golden. There is a time and a place for the shouting and party that comes with new beginnings. I am not saying that facebook is that place… and I’m not saying it’s not.

I hope this will be the last thing I post publicly about this certain situation. And do not argue with me on this post or publicly on facebook. I just do not have it in me right now. You may message me privately if you’d like with questions, but I may or may not answer you. Instead… just walk in the gentleness of Christ. The Savior that walked right up to the lepper, put His hands on the open sores and healed them! This is the God we serve! Oh Jesus… make me more like you!