A Porch Portrait I'd Like to See

Happy Friday! I recorded the Facebook Live video devotional for our church this morning - we pastors take turns doing it about every 3 weeks. Today was my turn and to change it up (and escape the baby noise inside) I took it outside. Unfortunately there was a terrible wifi signal and the video is a little glitchy. But here it is.

And here's what I said.

Taking family Porch Portraits have become a popular activity during the pandemic. But do we really want who we really are during this time immortalized for all time?

I am finding that this time of having external trappings stripped away is really challenging - it is showing me who I really am. And I don't always like seeing who I am in these moments. But what this brutal honesty does is show me my own need of God. So today let's spend time with Jesus meditating on who he made us to be, and the mercy, grace and forgiveness.

Start by breathing in and out slowly. As you breathe in, pray, "Jesus." As you breathe out, pray, "Here I am."

Read carefully through this scripture. Read it through a few times. Consider God's mercy and forgiveness. Ask him for it. Thank him for it.

Ephesians 1:2-9
³ Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Through Christ, God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing that heaven has to offer. ⁴ Before the creation of the world, he chose us through Christ to be holy and perfect in his presence. ⁵ Because of his love he had already decided to adopt us through Jesus Christ. He freely chose to do this ⁶ so that the kindness^[c] he had given us in his dear Son would be praised and given glory.
⁷ Through the blood of his Son, we are set free from our sins. God forgives our failures because of his overflowing kindness. ⁸ He poured out his kindness by giving us every kind of wisdom and insight ⁹ when he revealed the mystery of his plan to us. He had decided to do this through Christ.

Share Your Hope

Today's devotion is from our Senior High pastor Chris Herning. I found it really helpful and encouraging, check it out!

Be happy, patient and pray!

There's a ton of good stuff in these instructions from the Apostle Paul to the church in Rome. What is God saying to you today through these words?

Romans 12:1-12 GOD’S WORD Translation

Dedicate Your Lives to God

12 Brothers and sisters, in view of all we have just shared about God’s compassion, I encourage you to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, dedicated to God and pleasing to him. This kind of worship is appropriate for you. ² Don’t become like the people of this world. Instead, change the way you think. Then you will always be able to determine what God really wants—what is good, pleasing, and perfect.

³ Because of the kindness^[a] that God has shown me, I ask you not to think of yourselves more highly than you should. Instead, your thoughts should lead you to use good judgment based on what God has given each of you as believers. ⁴ Our bodies have many parts, but these parts don’t all do the same thing. ⁵ In the same way, even though we are many individuals, Christ makes us one body and individuals who are connected to each other. ⁶ God in his kindness gave each of us different gifts. If your gift is speaking what God has revealed, make sure what you say agrees with the Christian faith. ⁷ If your gift is serving, then devote yourself to serving. If it is teaching, devote yourself to teaching. ⁸ If it is encouraging others, devote yourself to giving encouragement. If it is sharing, be generous. If it is leadership, lead enthusiastically. If it is helping people in need, help them cheerfully.
⁹ Love sincerely. Hate evil. Hold on to what is good. ¹⁰ Be devoted to each other like a loving family. Excel in showing respect for each other. ¹¹ Don’t be lazy in showing your devotion. Use your energy to serve the Lord. ¹² Be happy in your confidence, be patient in trouble, and pray continually.

What are you growing?

Hey there! What are you doing to cultivate your relationship with God? What do I mean by cultivate? Here's the dictionary definition.

Cultivate

: to foster the growth of cultivate vegetables (cultivate coffee)

: to improve by labor, care, or study : cultivate the mind

 

God loves us. He'd do anything to be with us, in fact he already did do everything by coming to earth for us, showing us how to live, and then dying to bear the punishment for our sins. He did it all. God is not some far off king on a throne, watching from a distance as we live our lives. He wants to be right here with us now, as Jesus was with his best friends. God can do that, be with us and be close to us all the time, through the work of the Holy Spirit who enables God to live in us.

 

But, here's the big but, it's our job to cultivate the relationship with God. If our thoughts and heart are totally consumed by other things, even other good things, we push God out. There's no room for him. And so we need to make an effort to get to know God, through prayer and studying the Bible, and learning to listen to the Holy Spirit.

This app can help you A LOT. It's a daily devotional that was created just for teens by a youth pastor in the Vineyard denomination. You can download it for free on either iTunes or Google Play. Follow the links to learn more! Happy cultivating :)

Shortest Video Ever

Watch this!

The Hugeness of God

What do you need from God today? I asked Him that question this evening, and He reminded me how big He is - but also that He’s here now with you and me, anyone who follows Him, not even right next to us but within us!!!

Spend some time meditating on Psalm 139 and Isaiah 40, and on how the Biblical prophet poets described God’s power and size. Then remember Paul’s words from the New Testament, that through the gift of the Holy Spirit, that vastness chooses to take up residence in us! That’s worth spending a few minutes remembering and talking to God about.

Make It! The Creation Challenge

With all this extra time at home, why not work on learning a new skill or even perfecting an old one? It could be anything: cooking (like in my video), art, music, building stuff, knitting, writing or something else with your hands, inventing a board game - whatever!

When we create something beautiful, we are participating in God's holy work of creation. We are creators, much like the Creator who made us all! That's part of our job, to continue God's important work of creation, whether it's a scarf or a piece of music, or a great Lego skyscraper, an app ... whatever!

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:10

As I explain in the video, I've been trying to perfect homemade pizza for several months now. Above is the result of what I show cooking in the oven while filming. Tonight I came very close to getting it just right! It was delicious - all four of us ate it, even the baby, and it was gone in about 15 minutes :) Tonight's toppings were pepperoni, yellow pepper, mushroom and kalamata olives. As promised, here is my recipe if you want to give homemade pizza a try.

Pizza Crust
Making the crust is actually pretty easy. I double the crust recipe since I have a stand mixer that can handle that amount of dough. Then once the dough has risen, I divide it into four portions and freeze two of them: it only takes a little while for frozen pizza crust dough to thaw and start rising again, and then you can roll it out and top it.
Basic pizza crust recipe and cooking instructions from the Joy of Cooking

Pizza toppings
I keep these ingredients on hand so we can make pizza whenever we want
-jars of premade marinara or traditional pasta sauce in the cupboard
-blocks or grated bags of mozzarella cheese in the back of the fridge
-pepperoni slices that you can keep in the cupboard until you open the bag
-cans of pineapple chunks (yes! We love pepperoni and pineapple pizza, don't judge) in the cupboard
-vegetables that I dice and quickly sautee on the stovetop to soften before putting on the pizza
-Italian seasoning herb mix that I dash sprinkle over the toppings right before putting the pizza in the oven

You can also get creative with toppings. Here are some of the combinations we've tried:
Cauliflower or chicken marinated in Buffalo sauce with blue cheese crumbles
Red onion, sausage and goat cheese
BBQ chicken and red onion
Anything goes! The sky is the limit

Holy Wednesday - lavishing love on Jesus

 Hey folks! I did the devotion for the church website this morning on Facebook Live, watch it here

Holy Wednesday - Jesus prepares for the Last Supper

And here's a bonus video - this is an Imaginative Prayer exercise about the woman who anoints Jesus with oil at a party (which I talk about in the church devotion). As always, this devotional is from the book Imaginative Prayer for Youth Ministry by Jeannie Oestricher and Larry Warner

Enjoy!

We Shine - a musical devotion

Today's devotion is a musical one!

Enjoy the lyric video to this awesome new song (written and performed by my extremely talented sister-in-law Kat Regester, for Vineyard Worship UK & Ireland). You can listen a few times if you want, reading the lyrics, learning the melody or just letting the song wash over you.

Worship God by appreciating the beauty of the songwriting, the melody and track, and the vocals. Read through the questions and either answer them aloud with a family member, journal them, or just think about your answers. Spend time meditating on the included scripture verses, too. What does God want to say to you through the song, the questions, and/or the Bible verses?

As you listen, here are some questions to consider:

1. What does it mean for God to clean the "debris and dust" off of you? Where does this debris and dust come from?
2. Who is it that makes us shine? Who puts the treasure in us?
3. What's our role in learning to shine? How much do we do and how much does God do?
4. Do you need to ask God to come and make you clean again, to shine you up, so to speak?
5. The opening verse talks about standing in the chaos and calm. How would you describe your life right now? Is it more chaos or more calm? How can you shine in your circumstances?

Here's what Jesus said about letting your light shine: 
“You are light for the world. A city cannot be hidden when it is located on a hill. ¹⁵ No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket. Instead, everyone who lights a lamp puts it on a lamp stand. Then its light shines on everyone in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way let your light shine in front of people. Then they will see the good that you do and praise your Father in heaven.  Matthew 5:14-16

And the Apostle Paul said this:
^"Do everything without complaining or arguing. ¹⁵ Then you will be blameless and innocent. You will be God’s children without any faults among people who are crooked and corrupt. You will shine like stars among them in the world ¹⁶ as you hold firmly to the word of life. Philippians 2:14-16

Attitude Check

My friend shared this meme and it made me laugh a lot. It also challenged me to choose gratitude. How's your attitude today?

I admit mine hasn't always been so great. It's too easy to focus on the parts of life that are extra challenging right now, or the things that I am missing.

But the Apostle Paul gives us some encouragement about the kind of attitude we can have. He says this, in 1 Corinthians 10:31:

'³¹ So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything to the glory of God. 

This means we're supposed to do everything - eating, drinking, sleeping in, e-learning, playing video games, eating again, hanging out with our families, walking the dog, eating some more (cuz it's always snack time in quarantine life, right?), brushing our teeth, picking up our room - to the glory of God.

Huh? How do we do that? How do we do all of these everyday activities to the glory of God, especially when we can't go to church?

I'm not pretending to have all the answers here. I'm in the same boat as you, trying to figure this out everyday, how my life that has been so drastically altered and has big demands can be lived to the glory of God.

But here is what I do know. God made us so he could love us. He made us to have relationship with us. And he made us to show his love to others. We show his love to others by spending time trying to become like Jesus, and then acting towards other people - even our parents and annoying little siblings - the way Jesus would act towards them.

If our goal is to bring glory to God, we start by remembering who God made us to be (loved by him, "gardeners" who show his love to others), and then we live our life with that in mind. Sometimes it takes a major attitude shift, especially during these seemingly endless days of shelter-in-place. Here is a prayer you can pray at the start of each day, or when you feel your attitude starting to shift into self-pity, or anxiety, or anger, or even depression or despair. Try choosing a different attitude. Remember that God made you, that he loves you and that he has great things ahead for you today.

Here's the prayer:
"Lord, thank you for making me and for taking care of me. Now, God, make me a blessing to someone today."

Try it and tell us what happens!

Another boring day at home

How many of you woke up today with a sense of sadness? Our losses are so small compared to what those around the world (and, indeed, the ill in my own city) are experiencing. But to wake and think, “Oooh Saturday!” and then realize my little family can’t go to a nature center, garden or museum, to visit friends, or on a family cake and coffee date to Starbucks. Depending on the weather, we may not even be able to go for a long walk. So we’re facing yet another stir-crazy day in the apartment. And yet, maybe God wants us to meet him in the apartment. He wants us to meet him in the deprivation of normal activities, the ways we feed our thirst for adventure, for connection, for fun. Maybe, just maybe, he’s rooting something solid and sweet down in the dark soil of our altered lives right now. And as his work takes root, we’ll begin to see him more clearly than ever before.

From the devotional (it also has art and music, click on the link to see it):
“Perhaps we find ascetic practices so hard because we only notice what we lose and fail to comprehend all that we gain. You see, in casting other things aside through ascetic practices, we are brought to a place of simplicity, a place where we can finally focus on the one thing that is all that really matters – God Himself.

The presence of God is, like Judith Harris’ beetle, hidden in plain sight. We find Him not by diligent struggle but through the clarity of vision that simplicity gives. He is seen through a glass dimly, but the light can indeed be seen, especially when all other lights – those things that compete for our attention – are extinguished.

Simplicity also helps us to number our days and forces us to confront the illusions of self-importance that we are so prone to erect. When we, like the Queens of Soweto, cease trying to be someone of note, we are then positioned to live a meaningful life. We discover that choosing to live quietly and to work faithfully is what leads to contentment and pleases God. And this is what makes life truly meaningful.

In the process, we discover in this upside-down Kingdom of God that the ones God sees as great are those whom the world so readily dismisses as unimportant. Again, like the beetle, greatness in God’s kingdom is hidden in plain sight. It is found in simplicity, godly contentment, and a heart that treasures Him above all else.

Ascetic practices do not earn us favor with God. They transform us so that we may see the God who is always with us with greater clarity than ever before.”

http://ccca.biola.edu/lent/2020/#day-mar-28

Evening Meditation - Psalm 46

Imaginative Prayer - The Lord's Prayer

Today I lead a written meditation on The Lord's Prayer from one of our favorite books in Limitless, Imaginative Prayer for Youth Ministry by Jeannie Oestreicher & Larry Warner.

So sit back, relax, listen and connect with God during this time!

An Outside Adventure

The challenge - Look for something beautiful outside today.

The questions - What does this tell you about God? What is God saying to you through the thing you saw outside?

The feedback - Leave a comment here about what you saw and what God said! Or about what you learned. Or just to say hi.

Video Devo - Redefining Lent

Hey everyone!

How are you all doing? I posted a Facebook Live video this morning on our church's Facebook page - I don't know if this link will work if you don't have a Facebook account, maybe you can check it from one of your parents' pages? It is a 14-minute video that has some thoughts from me about celebrating Lent while under quarantine, and includes a meditation on Philippians 2:1-11. I hope you can get to the video and that God uses it to speak to you. Click on the link below.


Redefining Lent in times of pandemic

Welcome from Stephanie

Here's a little intro to what I hope to do on this blog (Web + log + blog, circa early 2000s) to keep us all growing in our relationship with God and even one another through these uncertain times.

Bible study: The Messiah - Jesus crushes the snake

1. Watch the video
2. Do the Bible study, either on your own or with someone in your family. This uses the Discovery Bible Study method. (True story - this is what we were going to do at church last Sunday before the world as we knew it suddenly changed!)

Bible passages to read:
Isaiah 9:1-7 & Isaiah 11:1-10
These passages might seem a little strange, or harder to follow than we normally use. We often study Bible writings that are history or other narrative, but these verses are actually prophecy. The prophet Isaiah was writing sometime around 700 BC. God called him to speak to the people of Israel and Judah (by this time, the great land of Israel that King David established had split into two nations, due to civil war started by David's grandsons). God called Isaiah to warn the people that if they didn't worship him as the one true God of Israel, their nation would fall apart and they would be taken into exile by foreign kings. That's exactly what did happen. However, Isaiah's prophecy was not only about events that were going to occur relatively soon (like capture and exile) but also foretold the coming kingdom of God. It's in Isaiah that we find possibly the most powerful descriptions of Jesus and the kingdom he will bring one day when he returns. Remember, we live in this funny time between the ages that we often call the Now and the Not Yet. Jesus came to earth, he showed us how to live, and he defeated death - for himself. He broke the power of the curse of death that Satan put on all people when we rebelled against God. It's because of what Jesus did that we can come close to a holy God, and have our sins forgiven. It's because of what Jesus did that we sometimes see miracles, as God's power breaks through Satan's hold on this world and triumphs here now. But Satan still has power in this world, for now, causing all kinds of death and famine and war and corruption - and coronavirus! So we have hope as we look ahead to the time when Jesus returns, when he ushers in the new kingdom for all that Isaiah talks about here. As you go through the Bible study, ask God what hope he wants to put in your heart during this time.

READ
Read the Scripture aloud. I've provided two selections from the book of Isaiah.

RETELL
If you're doing this study with someone else, quickly tell them in a couple of sentences what the reading is about.

DISCOVER
What does this passage say about God?
What does this passage say about humans in general?
What does this passage say to us sitting here today?

LIVE IT OUT
Since this is the Word of God, God uses it to change our lives. As you read this passage, what is Jesus saying to you through the Holy Spirit? What action will you take this week to obey Him?

How in the next week can you be obedient or responsive to what you received? Be specific.

PRAY

Saying Yes

The moment is stuck on eternal pause in my memory.

I was 23 and a new master’s candidate at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, and I’d headed to a young adult conference with friends from my new church. The speaker had just told us how, after finishing seven years of graduate school, he had received his doctorate.

“And then,” he said, “God told me to lay it all down and start a church instead. So I did.”

My response was a shudder and instant prayer. “God, thank you for calling me into a field of study where you can use me. At least I’ll never have to do that!”

It’s become increasingly clear over the 14 years since that this was my own Laughing Sarah moment, the one God’s used time and again to remind me of his sense of humor.

I think of that moment sometimes when I am standing before a crowd of 80 middle school students, exhorting them to follow God’s plan for their lives. I thought of it over the years I gathered with other believers at the Robin Hood statue in Nottingham (yes, that Nottingham), then strapped a on backpack filled with sandwiches and packets of crisps and headed out to Old Market Square in search of the city’s modern poor. I even had some awareness of it at my magical wedding six years ago, when the guests gathered from around the country and across the pond at a picnic site on the edge of the Grand Canyon, and my English groom and I celebrated our improbable but perfect pairing and the life of ministry together we had ahead of us.

For implicit in that long-ago conference speaker’s story was a challenge. Was I, an ambitious, career-driven young woman with big dreams of changing the world through journalism, ready to give up on my own plans and accept instead whatever God might have in store for me?

No way.

I had been nervous about taking on the large student loan debt that came with accepting my place at Medill, however it seemed clear that this was the right path for me. My affinity with words had always been accompanied by a love for people and an inner drive to somehow bring justice to the world through their stories. So I stepped out in faith and moved from Phoenix to Chicago.

I quickly fell in love with the bustling, can-do spirit of Chicago, revealed not just through architecture tours and Mayor Daley’s press conferences, but also through my assigned beat of covering the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), which really meant writing about the busy city’s poor and marginalized. The first time I took a bus to the South Side to attend a CHA residents’ meeting I realized what it was like to be a racial minority - I was the only white person on the bus, in the nearby supermarket and at the meeting. In my articles I tried hard to represent the uncertainty and vulnerability of the residents who were being moved out of soon-to-be-demolished CHA buildings, many with no place to go.

I moved on to the arts beat, and then did my quarter of reporting from Capitol Hill in Washington, writing about politics and people for as a bureau correspondent for a large Mississippi newspaper. It was a heady time, and as my journalism skills grew, so did my faith, thanks to the strong community of Christian friends from the local church I’d discovered just after moving to Chicago.

And then I graduated, and it was time to search for a job. I’d become so involved in serving and learning at my church that I wanted to stay in Chicago so I moved into a church family’s spare bedroom and began the job search.

I’d barely begun applying for newspaper jobs, though, when I felt a jarring in my soul. My emotions began to swing back and forth, and it seemed I couldn’t put enough words on the pages of my prayer journal to capture their intensity.

On one hand I was raring to get out into the world, to do the thing I’d been preparing for a decade to do. At 24 I had achieved degrees, interned, worked many part-time jobs, traveled and studied abroad, volunteered and generally sucked the marrow out of life, doing all those things bright young people are supposed to do to prepare themselves for the professional world.

Yet on the other hand, I became increasingly discontent. I cried out to God, asking him what I was made for. It seemed that journalism was the perfect fit for my passions and talents and, indeed, I’d been asking God to direct my path since junior high. The very decision to attend Medill had been prompted by God speaking to me in many ways through many people. But something felt off.

“See God,” I reminded him. “You called me to Chicago, you wanted me to be a journalist. This is your idea, and now I have this student loan debt. You’ve promised to take care of me. So what’s the deal? What’s wrong?”

I began to hear a very big question forming in my mind. It emerged bit by bit in my journal, and it scared me. The question was, “Will you let go? Will you give up on your own dreams and plans for your life, and accept the ones I have for you?

I didn’t want to confront it, let alone answer it. Yet I tried, as much as I could. “Yes, God, I’ll follow your plans for my life. Yes, I’ll do what you want, even if it turns out it’s not journalism.” I tried to convince my reluctant self to let go, to lay down the work and the sacrifice and dreams, and be ready to do something else instead. But part of me still held back.

Then I reread the story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. It suddenly hit me just how ridiculous this request of God’s was. God had promised Abraham that he’d have as many descendants as there are stars in the sky, and yet he was asking him to kill his son, his miracle child? How would that work? And suddenly I knew that, for me, anyway, there was only one way to really lay down my dreams before the Lord. It was to make them impossible. So I stopped applying for jobs.

I knew how stupid this decision was in the eyes of the world, and my family was understandably concerned. But I’d done it. I’d laid down ambition and self-advancement and God had filled that empty space with his incredible peace. I wept, and then I remembered my arrogant, narrow-minded response to the conference speaker’s surrender story: I’d congratulated myself on choosing a field where God could use me, so I’d never have to give it up. I laughed through my tears. How much I’d learned in only one year.

A few temp jobs kept me going while I waited for God to reveal the next step for me, and somehow I always had just enough, thanks mainly to the kind family I was boarding with. I knew I’d made the right decision, because the peace stayed, and they agreed with me. Now my life and career were really and truly in God’s hands.

About a month after I stopped applying for jobs, I got a call. I’d interviewed unsuccessfully with a large local newspaper chain awhile back, however an editor had called to say they were posting a job listing for a brand-new position the next day. ““We thought of you right away when you interviewed for us before, but it’s taken awhile for this posting to come together,” he explained. “It’s for a full-time lifestyle features reporter.”

Features reporting was my dream job! But first I checked with God. Was it OK to go for this job? I hadn’t applied, in fact they had called me. I felt nothing but peace. So I interviewed, was offered the position and started two weeks later. On my first day of work I knew that this was what God had had for me all along, and that he’d used the waiting period to teach me true surrender. “I’ve got it!” I thought. “Now I can be a journalist. What a great end to this story!”

But that wasn’t the end of the story, of course. I loved my new job and I flourished, growing personally and professionally as I strove to faithfully and compassionately retell the stories of the hundreds of fascinating people I interviewed. I began to collect local and national reporting awards, but when God started to tug at my heart again, this time I knew how to listen.

Just three and a half years later, at age 28, I handed in my resignation, sold my car and my bed and got on a plane to England. I’d heard about a large, vibrant church in Nottingham that had an 11-month discipleship training program for young people, mostly new college grads, who wanted to take a year out of their lives and simply serve. I didn’t know why God might be asking me to leave my career and go to another country to help in a church office, clean toilets and hand out sandwiches to the homeless, but after 18 months of praying and exploring it was clear this was what God had next for me.

I was a little sad to leave my newspaper job but mostly excited about this next step, and my wonderful colleagues cheered me on. When the editor-in-chief loomed over my desk, my resignation form in hand, and demanded, “Are you sure you want me to sign this? Think about it? Are you sure?",  I didn’t hesitate. “Yes,” I said. Surrender.

Somehow it wasn’t a huge surprise when my year in England turned into two, so I could do a leadership training course. I continued to support myself by freelancing, savings and with the help of a generous community. Two years turned into three when I accepted an internship to train in large-church children’s ministry, and three into four and five, after I married a fellow children’s pastor.

I suspect that God laughs, just like I do, when I remember that long-ago conference moment. You see, the end to this particular story is that I am now back in Chicago, back at that same church I found in grad school in 2002. But I am not a journalist.

While in England I heard that my old Chicago church was advertising for a children’s pastor and, with prompting from my British husband, I applied, only to be offered instead the newly created role of middle school pastor. Although my gut reaction was, “Youth pastor? I’m not a youth pastor! 7th & 8th graders terrify me!”, it took only a few hours, and some nudging from my adventure-eager husband, to know that this was the next thing God was asking me to say yes to. I did, and four years ago we flew over the Atlantic Ocean, destination Chicago. Life as a large-church youth pastor is challenging and requires all the skills and experience I’ve garnered so far, yet I know 100 percent that I am doing what I’m made for, at least what I am made for right now.

I frequently pass the journalism buildings at Northwestern, and sometimes I wonder about the path God started me on then. I still don’t know how everything fits together in the end but I do know one thing. I’ve learned how to say yes, and I’ve never been sorry.

Of Job, Refugees and Tea Bags

I was making my evening cup of tea, in preparation for curling up with a novel after a day of work and chores, when I decided that I needed to separate the tea bags.

We brought a giant bag of Typhoo tea bags back from England last month, you see, and Typhoo’s “Rainforest Alliance Certified” teabags come joined together by twos, Siamese tea twins, if you will. When I filled up our tea canister with Typhoo the other day I briefly considered separating each pair then dismissed it as far too faffy a task.

But tonight, after spending spending an extra 10 minutes in the kitchen carefully cleaning and seasoning our new cast iron skillet, I decided I simply had to separate the tea bags. As I stood there methodically tugging them apart, I remembered standing in that same spot a few months earlier. Andrew and I had been debating a major topic, a question I’d been wrangling with for a long time, and I found myself unable to even discuss it without tears.

“Wait,” I’d said, springing forward to the IKEA cart where we keep our drinks things. “Let me tidy up this Sweet ’n Low ramekin.”

My bemused husband watched and snickered as I carefully took the jumble of Sweet ’n Low packets out and vertically stacked them inside the ramekin. After sorting out the ramekin, I took a deep breath and said, “Now I can talk.”

“What WAS that?” Andrew asked me. “If anyone around here is a perfectionist then it’s me, not you.”

“I know,” I said. “It’s just that, well, everything in life is such a mess. And apparently my psyche thinks if I can just sort out one little tangled jumble then I’ll have a tiny little modicum of control over life. And I know it’s weird, but if I look at the tidy ramekin and take deep breaths I feel like I can face this conversation.”

Andrew is right. I’m not a perfectionist. I like to do my best in everything but, honestly, I am OK with quitting when it’s hometime and so forth. Perfectionism really isn’t my modus operandi.

So tonight, as I stood there pulling apart the twinned tea bags, and remembering how I'd felt compelled that day to reorganize my shelves and filing cabinets, I said aloud (to the dog) “I must really feel out of control.”

And I do. We’ve been living with sustained stress and a rising and falling current of loss for many years now, and apparently it is really starting to sink in that I really, truly am not in control.

This piece isn’t meant to be a sob story, so I won’t dwell on the hard stuff. Suffice to say that since we moved to America three years ago (an extremely stressful period in itself), we’ve dealt with loss from culture shock, from financial loss and the loss of Andrew’s thriving Nottingham career. We’ve known the grief of being far from our English family and friends and, most especially, have become unwilling bedfellows to the pain of ongoing infertility, which began before we left the UK but through the years has strengthened into a major thread of our life story.

Of course wonderful things can happen when you invite God in to let fiery trials do their work and mold you into something new, and we’ve experienced the fruit of God refining us again and again over the last three years. We are each better people, and our marriage shines more for it, because of beauty wrought in suffering. And this is not to say we've spent the last three years crying. Daily life has been, for the most part, quite good. We've had amazing experiences and made lifelong friends, and we know God has used us mightily in our own spheres, too. I love my work, challenging though it is, and Andrew daily makes children laugh and feel loved through the extracurricular programs he runs while getting his master's in elementary education. We made the right decision to move here. But that big stuff: family, home, stability, constant wearing stress, the nudging reminders of grief, that stuff has been hard.

“Beloved,” the Apostle Peter reminds me in 1 Peter 4:12-13—and I do love that word ‘Beloved’ because I know that although Peter is doing the writing God is doing the speaking— “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”

Yes, there is comfort in knowing that I am not the first to suffer, and that good can come out of it. But lately I am well aware of suffering in the world, suffering that makes my own loss pale in comparison.

Tonight as I worked on that cast iron pan I listened to the World Service, and to the sound of Middle Eastern refugees panicking at the Croatian border, which had been closed to them. I heard a woman crying, “My baby! My baby! How long do we wait? I need food for my baby!” and I wanted to weep, too, for them and their plight, even for my own desire to have a baby to cry for.

“How long, oh God?” my heart cries out as I stand at the sink. “How long do your people suffer? How long do the women whose homes have been destroyed, who have fled for their lives, wait to see their children eat? How long do we wait for our own child? How long do we wait for the foster license, which seems as if it will never come? What about the extra bills and the car repairs and the 101 difficult things?”

These questions, and the heartache behind them, certainly aren’t new. Lately I’ve been studying the book of Job, and last night a J.I Packer article reminded me that Job teaches us how to suffer. All day, then I’ve been ruminating on that question: How did Job suffer?

After his indescribable losses of wealth, family, home, dignity, relationship and health, Job was shocked, he wept, he railed, he questioned. Ultimately, though, he was silent. Because God spoke to him “out of the storm” (Job 38:1) and asked him a question: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?” (38:2).

Job realized that, really, as much as he wanted answers and as much as he knew it was OK to ask God those questions, God made it very clear that, in this instance, Job was not in control. God was. Job’s response was to place his hand over his mouth and accept that he was not the one in charge.

I do not discount the role of the evil one in this world. Satan has great power, as is evidenced by wars sweeping across nations, children drowning, wombs inexplicably closed, and chancy real estate markets crushing one’s stability. Job’s story would not be were it not for the presence of Satan in it.

However, I also do not discount the power of God and, mainly, the power of his kingdom advancing through those who love him and seek him. As I constantly tell my middle school students, the kingdom of God is the place where God has his rule and reign. And I envision God’s people this way: as an army of light advancing into the darkness, destroying Satan’s rule and ushering in the joy, justice, peace and prosperity of the Risen Lord Jesus.

But that doesn’t mean advancing God’s kingdom is easy.

Car repairs are minor things, comparatively speaking, and so are bills. We will sort them out, we will find a way. We always do. Even our foster conversion license (which allows us to foster and then adopt a child from the system), which we’ve spent nearly two years pursuing, will arrive sometime. And I do believe, deep down, that we will have a biological child one day. Maybe it will be through medical intervention, maybe it will be a surprise.

I know that God hasn't forgotten us. I know that the Creator of the universe, the very One who laid earth’s foundations, loves me with a special, unique, tender and inescapable love. I know He hears my cries, He knows my pain and that He weeps with me. And I know that He smiles when he surprises us with a check at just the right moment or a particularly sweet moment of unity in our marriage, or a special cuddle from one of our friends’ children.

I know all of this, and still I long for more control. I don’t just want the tea bags to be separated, I want to know when the bills will be paid and when the child’s room will be filled and when the husband’s career will be returned one hundredfold. I want to be Job at the end of the story.

But for now, I bow to the strange, comforting peace that I am not in charge. The King is. He’s fighting the enemy yes, but, in the end, He wins. And I place my hand over my mouth.

Recommended Reading: The most helpful book I've read on suffering, other than the Bible: "A Sacred Sorrow: Reaching Out to God in the Lost Language of Lament" by Michael Card

As this the first time I've written publicly about infertility, may I respectfully suggest folks refrain from giving us unsolicited advice? I fully understand how wonderful it was when your Third Cousin Myrtle conceived after dancing naked under the light of a harvest moon while eating pumpkin seeds, drinking herbal teas and, of course, getting acupuncture, adopting a child and "just relaxing" (now why didn't I think of that?!?!) at the grand old age of 43, but I don't think that particular story will help me. Thank you!

Before Facebook

I was having fun trawling through some of my old posts on "Across the Pond", the blog I kept for several years in England for the Chicago Sun-Times, and enjoying being transported to the Stephanie from 5 years ago.

But then I discovered that on this very blog I can access archives from its earliest days, going back all the way to 2005. 2005! That Stephanie was only 26 years old! I was amazed to discover I'd posted 35 entries in 2005 and wondered what on earth I'd found of enough import to post so frequently. It seems that, these days, I am only tempted to post on here if I have the energy to write a literary essay and the appropriately themed subject matter that is vulnerable but not too vulnerable for public display.

So I eagerly click on 2005 to see what exciting topics consumed the Stephanie of 9 years ago. And I find entries about the new Harry Potter novel ("The Half-Blood Prince", to be precise), an update on my visit to the allergist after my anaphyactic scare, a picture of wedding dress to be worn in my brother's upcoming wedding, an annoyed entry about wanting to watch "The Thin Man" but having no access to the DVD player in my apartment. In short, they were mundane, somewhat entertaining entries about not much at all. It's extremely rewarding for me to get a glimpse of my daily life from my 20s, in the years when I was a journalist and before all of the life changes that came with a move to England. But they're not exactly earth shattering.

In 2006 I had 70 entries. 2007 started off well, with 47 and then they simply drop off. The big death knell to my personal blogging life (my professional blogging life carried on for years with "Across the Pond") was Facebook. Yes, in May 2007 I joined Facebook, which hadn't been open long to the general public. I remember being dubious about it but being talked into it by my dear friend Sus Montgomery, now Susanna March, back when she was the yin to my yang and we spent most of our free time together (in the days before husbands!)

It's hard to remember a life before Facebook. A friend and I were reminiscing the other day how the early years of Facebook seemed to be all about apps (did we call them apps? I feel like apps is a new-fangled word) where you could install a fish tank on your page, for instance, and your friends would all buy you fish for it. Then there was the Scrabulous craze. Then the Notes. Remember when we all wrote Facebook Notes, because the status update tool only let you use 100 characters?

I remember when our moms and grandmas started joining Facebook, and being relieved at how much easier it was to keep in touch with everyone with this new tool after moving abroad. And I remember when Twitter started, being appalled at the idea that each tweet had to be 40 characters or less (I'm still a little appalled, actually. I have a Twitter account but there is a conspicuous lack of tweets from me).

Nine years ago, when I first started this blog, I don't think the term social media even existed. Now it determines our lives. I, and many others, have benefited from tools like LeechBlock, which help to curtail time spent on social media and other time-wasting sites. Social media has become such a part of our lives that a Dutch college student recently faked a monthlong trip to Thailand in order to prove that what we put online can be absolutely contrived (reminiscent of one my very favorite episodes of Miranda, I must admit. Trouser press, anyone?)

I love social media. I am inspired by it, I connect with it, I use it very often for work and I keep in touch with interesting people and much loved family members and friends through it. But it's worthwhile to step back every so often and to try to remember a world without it. A world where a frustrated writer, say, a former features journalist who is very happy in her current job but who still misses the world of the printed word, can write about the mundane things of life on her very own, very old fashioned but very trusty blog.