Hitchiker Adventures #6: She isn’t lacking in love

Recently, upon finding out that I don’t feel the same way about the Hitchhiker as I do about my own kids, someone in my life has taken to praying for the Hitchhiker, “that she will know she is loved”. Not that she will know she is loved by God, but by her family and by ours. Now I might not put much thought into this, except for the fact that it’s the same person who thought since I liked the Hunger Games, I must not like children very much. This person also continually asks how I will “give up the baby” and when I say it’s not going to be a problem, they respond with “I could never do that”. So the implication I get from this prayer is that, perhaps the Hitchhiker is not feeling loved, since she is residing in my belly, since I don’t think of her like I thought of my own kids, and I don’t want to keep her. This person even made up their own name for the Hitchhiker, because they seemed to think that Hitchhiker was sweet enough. When my basketball sized uterus feels really heavy, this makes me angry, but when I am sitting here with this squirming little girl inside me just enjoying her temporary presence, it just makes me laugh. Really?!? This baby is one of the most loved babies ever, and she is teaching us so much about what love means.

look at that, that’s love!

First off, let’s establish, that this baby would not be in my belly were it not for love. Love more than anything else motivated me to go on this crazy adventure in the first place. Following Jesus command to love one another, and to serve led me to this. Anytime I had an objection to doing this, like my body was going to get wrecked, always in the back of my mind was the question, “is that a reason not to love someone?”When people told me it would be harder because I was 38 and not 28 like when I had my last baby, again the question was, “but is that a reason not to love someone”. (and by the way, it isn’t any harder, it’s the same hard!). Love for his kids, made my husband decide we could do this. Love for a family they had just met, made my kids excited to do this. Love from her parents led them to put their trust in a stranger, and give her to us for 9 months. They loved her so much, they took this huge scary, complicated step. Her whole existence right now is rooted in love, and each day she grows love grows right along with her.

We are learning so much about how fun love is, through this process. We have seen how messy and hard and awkward it can be, as I went through so many procedures, and we endured the death of the first Hitchhiker. We have also learned though how crazy fun love can be, when you just do love, as Bob Goff says in his book Love Does. We are having fun with this baby. We have a whole new part to our family now, with her family. That is fun. We get to relive the experiences we had when our kids were born, through their eyes, and share in their excitement. I love that! I love sharing the things that excite me with others, whether it’s mission trips to places I have been before, or new friends, and this pregnancy takes that to a whole other level. We get to have fun on this adventure with them, and my kids are old enough to remember and understand it all too. They feel the baby move, they marvel at how huge I am getting, they think about what it means that she can hear us. Plus everyone gets to make jokes about how I am pregnant but it’s not Valentine’s. She is not experiencing a depressing, lonely, joyless existence. Love is all kinds of fun and she is along for that ride!

Love makes it fun to surprise people with her story too. It’s fun to educate them about surrogacy, but it’s also fun to explain why we would do something so nutty. People aren’t used to hearing about love like this, and when they really hear it, they often well up. They are encouraged by it, they enjoy it, they all of a sudden get to be in on the fun, and the miracle of it all. She hears recordings of her family reading her stories too, so all you psych experts can be assured she will have in utero attachments to them as well, it’s not just our love she is getting now. I am sure at some point in her angsty teenage years, she will feel a bit awkward about her origin story, but what kid doesn’t? I’m still cringing over the Super Bowl baby commercials. Her story is a unique love story, but a fun one.

Love endures space and time too. Just because she won’t be with us, doesn’t mean we won’t love her still. Our family has had the privilege of loving so many people over the years who aren’t a daily part of our lives right now. They are still very much a part of us. We can’t hold all the youth group kids we have loved hostage with us, they grow up and leave. Friends live far away. We don’t give them up ever, we just love them from afar. It may not be as intimate as the love we have in our family of four, but it is love still. We still think about them, and keep up with them when we can, and we enjoy having people to love all over the world. We are still as present with love for them as we can be, and will be for her too. She will always have a connection to us and she will always be loved by us.

I can’t imagine that will all of that, this baby would ever not feel loved, because gestated in my belly. Just because I am not planning for her babyhood, or weeping because she won’t be with us in a couple more months doesn’t mean she won’t know love. This is  a once in a lifetime adventure unlike any other we have been on, and I know that is because it is all about love. She is right smack in the middle of it all, hearing the joy, feeling the love.  So no one needs to pray that she will know she is loved. She is a little physical representation of love and how hard, scary, vulnerable, but more so, how beautiful, awesome and fun it is!

I am not awesome, I am angry

My husband gave a speech today at Toastmasters. He talked about his wife convincing the family to do surrogacy, and how he was against it at first, but then he came around. He came around because my generosity inspired him, and his love for his kids challenged him to make that possible for someone else. He gave a speech today about how awesome this has been for our family, and how amazing I am.

Today, amazing me, worried and fretted, and pleaded with God and second guessed and basically just freaked out. Today generous me, wondered why the hell I decided to do this in the first place. Today I thought maybe God was punishing me.

I thought all those things as I waited for the blood to start flowing, like it did last Saturday, in a sudden, scary gush. It was nothing like the bleeding I experienced with both of my own children. That was alarming, this was terrifying. Thankfully within a couple of hours it stopped. Those hours were awful. When you call the reproductive specialists and report bleeding, they basically tell you to get off your feet and wait. You wait, and wait to see if this is just a something, or if this is the worst.

Wednesday we found out it was just a something, but a something that could turn into the worst. It’s a hemorrhage common with IVF, in fact as many as half of all IVF patients run into this complication to various degrees. They kind of gloss over these kinds of things when you sign on for this. “You could have complications as IVF has a higher complication rate, but everything looks really good on your end, so I don’t think we have anything to worry about” they say after physically evaluating you. With the first Hitchhiker, I had one of these hemorrhages, but it was small and resolved before it ever showed up anywhere but the ultrasound, it really was no big deal. This one though is big, bigger than the baby’s entire life containing sac, and it sits right next to him. It’s blood vessels trying to bring more blood to the uterus, but too much or it’s part of the lining tearing away. Whichever it is, it’s a growing clot of blood,and if it grows too much it will kill the baby. “It’s a pretty sizeable one” the doctor said in a sober voice. Then he went on to tell me not to have sex or exercise until we saw improvement, but “that’s really just so you don’t feel like you have caused anything bad to happen”. In reality, there is nothing I can do to stop it, or make it worse. Nothing.

No, I just have to wait. I have to wait for more bleeding. A) a sign that it is emptying out and shrinking B) a sign it’s gotten worse and my body wants to keep bleeding or C) the beginning of a miscarriage because the clot has gotten the best of the baby. That is crap. Such crap. The percentages are in our favor, but still, seriously, I am waiting to bleed and then waiting to see if the bleeding is too much.

Next week if the worst hasn’t happened I will walk into another ultrasound appointment, with two desperate parents by my side, and we will wait to see. Will there still be a heartbeat, or just one giant clot of blood?

Seeing the heartbeat this week was supposed to be a big sigh of relief, the numbers were stronger, the symptoms stronger this pregnancy. We weren’t going to have to say that dreadful word miscarriage. But here we are saying it again, and talking about blood and how much is too much.

And in the midst of this, photos are all over Facebook of a woman’s “beautiful" 8 week old miscarried fetus. Those pictures aren’t beautiful to me. They are my nightmare. After another 3 months of medications, my hips so swollen with injected oil they burn and are covered in stretch marks, after losing one hitchhiker, I don’t want to see a beautiful 8 week old fetus anywhere but on an ultrasound with a flashing heartbeat. Because damn it, I have worked hard for this.

And there you go, awesome, generous me, is worried about all the work I have put in, and I want the experience I signed my family up for.  I want to hand over a full term baby to a happy couple. I’m pretty selfish at this point and I am anything but awesome. I am frustrated, I am angry, I am a nervous wreck.

I know it could be worse, so much worse. Women far more awesome than me have experienced far worse. I have two amazing kids tucked into their beds right now, in my home, far from danger. My life is pretty great actually. Which makes this worry, and anger, and frustration so much harder to bare.

Not wanting to see God in times of darkness, and how bears are scarier than Goliaths

Two weeks ago, I gave this sermon at our church. I hadn’t posted it, because I already posted a lot of these sentiments on the blog already but I saw a video of  couple announcing their miscarriage on Youtube this morning, and it really struck a nerve with me. They had JUST experienced a miscarriage, and they were praising God and thanking him for the opportunity to  minister to others through the experience, and were happy that God would work through it. Now, I think that is awesome that they were able to do that, to so quickly find God and fid the good, but not all of us can, and I couldn’t. I was so mad at God in the immediate days following the  miscarriage, I didn’t want to think about my faith, I didn’t want to pray, I wanted nothing to do with it, as the immediate pain washed over me, and that is part of the message I gave two weeks ago, when I shared with the church the story that had been playing out in my life with the Hitchhiker’s death, and how far I felt from God. I learned a lot as I processed those things this summer and studied David’s life for VBS and Alaska. So I decided to share this message on the blog today, for those of us that aren’t ready to immediately thank God and praise him in the darkest of circumstances.

When we hear the names, David and Goliath a lot of images come to mind, possibly from a children’s story book when we were little, but pretty typical we see and underwhelming little guy going up against and overwhelming big guy. There is so much more here than meets the eye.

When we get to this point in David’s story, he has already been portrayed as the kid that no one thinks much of. Samuel the priest was told by God to go to David’s house, the house of his father, Jesse and anoint the new king. When Jesse presents his sons, no one even thinks to go get David. David is the scrawny little shepherd kid. The other sons are the big brawny guys that can get things done. God sees to the heart though, and he has Saul anoint David as the future king, much to his family’s surprise. You would think that this would set David up to get more credit at home. You would hope, but no, when we get to this story, he is once again, the scrawny kid of the fields. No one believes in him. That is a horrible place to be, to be discounted and disrespected and treated as if you aren’t capable. David though, doesn’t let it flap him. He comes right at them, and says God got me through the times I had to fight off lions and bears in the field so he will get me through this.

Lets think about that for a second, this scrawny shepherd boy wasn’t just watching sheep in a field, he was protecting sheep in a wilderness that included lions and bears. Not little ones either, big lions and bears, the bear in question isn’t a berry eating black bear, no it’s a grizzly kind of bear that roamed the wilderness in those days in that place. These were big scary animals, and David was literally getting between them and their food on a regular basis.

A few years ago in Alaska we were working near an area known for it’s grizzlies, so we went to the river early one morning to see them. Pretty quickly we found a large grizzly in the middle of the river on a higher portion eating a salmon. It was a good distance out, so we ventured out of the van and near the river, so we could get a better view, where some other people were watching the bears. After we had watched it for a bit, the bear sniffed the air and noticed all of us, and seemed to decide that it did not want us near it’s food, so it headed into the water and toward the river bank. We very quickly got back in the van, but one of the other bear watchers stayed on the bank. We watched as the bear got closer and I started to panic. I had a van full of youth group kids and my own children and I didn’t want them to witness a bear mauling, and I had no idea how we could stop said bear mauling. The guy stood there for a while, and finally the bear got pretty close and slammed the ground with it’s front paws, a few times, and finally the guy took the warning and left. The bear did not want that guy near his food, and it was scary watching him protect it.

I cannot imagine what David went through regularly with the lions and bears that wanted his sheep. I have so many questions about this, like why did his dad send him out there, as a scrawny kid to defend sheep against lions and bears? Did he still get scared when they approached? How many times did he miss one when he was using his sling to make them go away, and how close did they really get? Our friends in Alaska run into bears often. One man from the church in Skagway, walks the tracks everyday of the train, and checks them. He has had a lot of bear encounters, and I asked him, if they no longer intimidate him, since he has seen them so much, and by the way the ones he sees are not grizzlies, but the smaller, less aggressive black bears. He told me that of course they are still intimidating, they can still kill you quickly if they wanted to, and especially if you are between them and their babies, or them and their food. David was regularly fighting off lions and bears to defend his sheep with nothing but his sling and his bare hands.

If we really look at this story, this whole Goliath thing from David’s perspective, wasn’t that big of a deal. In his Ted Talk, journalist and author, Malcom Gladwell really breaks down this story in detail and shows that with the cultural and historical context of war fare and the health and skills of these two warriors, it was really Goliath that was at the disadvantage hear, not the scrawny little shepherd. David couldn’t be an infantry soldier, as Goliath was, he couldn’t wear armor, he wasn’t big enough. He was a sling fighter, something they actually had for armies then. He would have been in the sling fighting company once he reached age to be an official part of the army. This battle between the Israelites and the Philistines was at a stand still, so the Philistines sent their biggest infantry soldier for combat, expecting that the isrealites would send someone similar in. David was not what they were expecting. Goliath himself, appeared huge and indefeatable, but if you look closely at the scripture Gladwell says, there are some pretty big indicators that he probably suffered from the same disease that many people of unusually large size do, making their vision very poor and making them vulnerable because of weaknesses in their brain structure and their arteries. So David was incredibly gifted with this sling, this sling that could turn rocks into bullets basically, from a distance and he was not going to be close, like hand to hand combat close to Goliath, making David’s skills even more powerful, and Goliath was vulnerable to this kind of attack. Really David had the advantage in this particular situation. He had the upper hand.

It wasn’t a huge miracle that day, it was something God had set up for years, every time David encountered a challenge with a lion and a bear, and some brothers that didn’t care. It was something that was born out of a lot of struggles that he had already, that made him ready for this giant one. I wonder though which was harder for David to get through, that encounter with Goliath or all of those other challenges before?

With Goliath, David knew exactly what he was getting into, he wasn’t going to be surprised like he was by the animals. He knew right where Goliath was and he was choosing to face him. As he made that choice he could reflect on all that God had brought him through and have confidence. I think the harder challenge is getting through the day to day struggles and those curve balls that come at us. It’s hard in those moments sometimes to see God and know that he is with us. It’s hard to have the faith that tells us though something isn’t easy, it is possible.

Recently I faced off with my own Goliath. I struggle with how much to share with you about it, but I stood in front of the congregation in December and told you about this challenge in December, and since then I haven’t really shared with you publicly what happened, I haven’t told you all the rest of the story.

We underwent the process for me to be a gestational carrier, to carry a baby that was not mine for a couple that couldn’t. It was a huge thing, but I felt confident that God had prepared me with so many other things in life to do this. I had that same attitude as David. God brought me through that other hard stuff, we got this, he will get me through.  It was a big adventure in loving my neighbor and following Jesus example to lay our life down for others. It was hard, there were lots of hoops and lots of medications, and injections, but it was all good, because Jesus had my back on this one, and all the evaluators agreed I had a good support system and was very physically and emotionally capable.  I had a few responses similar to David’s family and Saul when as we told people what we were doing, people doubted me, or doubted the sanity of doing such a thing, but it didn’t stop me. We transferred an embryo in January.  A few weeks and many positive pregnancy blood tests later, we got to see this baby, we had worked so hard for, and I watched as his parents were filled with joy to see his little tiny, still had a yolk attached self on the ultrasound machine. Three weeks later we went in for the second ultrasound, this time the baby was bigger, and there was no yolk sac, but there was no heartbeat either. He had stopped developing and died.

I wish I could say that in that moment I looked up to the heavens and said “The Lord gives and he takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” I didn’t, I couldn’t. I couldn’t wrap my head around this happening. I wish I could tell you I had faith in that moment that everything was going to be fine, but it wasn’t.  I didn’t have miscarriages, my body was super well prepared for this, my uterus was beautiful. I was following God’s call to serve others. This was not part of that, this couldn’t be part of that. I didn’t want to talk to God. I didn’t want to read scripture. I had the presence of mind to ask for prayer, because I knew we needed prayer for our two families at the time, but I couldn’t do it myself. I was hurt and confused and so horribly sad. As a youth leader I was living out one of my biggest nightmares, a child under my care had died. I love all my youth group kids as my own, but I am always very mindful that someone loves them and worries for them far more than I can, and here I was carrying someone else’s baby and it had died under my watch.  Why would God let this happen? I didn’t want to know, I didn’t want to know what positive things might come out of this in the future. At the hospital a week later as I was waiting to have the surgery to remove the baby, the chaplain came in, and wanted to help us remember and recognize the life of this baby, as if we could forget him. As I was laying there in nothing but a paper surgery gown she described tombstones, that we could have his name carved into, but he wasn’t ours to name. She went on and on, but I wasn’t even wearing underwear, I couldn’t process how to memorialize a baby that was currently dead inside of me, but wasn’t mine, without underwear on. It was cruel in that moment to even ask such a thing of me. Then she asked if she could pray with me, and I was so hurt I said no. Why would God send his representative in at a time like that with words like that for me? If God knew me and loved me, he would know

Thankfully even if we don’t want God, God still wants us. God pursued David, at times in his life when David was ignoring God. We can see in the Bible that God rescued David, even when David ran away. God came to David even when David rejected Gods ways. David amassed tons of wives, but he still had to have Bathsheba, another man’s wife, something that was definitely not okay with God. David had the Ten Commandments, he knew that was wrong, but he let his own desires take over his desire for God.  Even then God still pursued him, even then God loved him, even then God helped him get through. Yes there were still consequences to his actions, but God did not abandon him, even in David abandoned his desire to follow God. There is so much more to David’s story than the battle with Goliath. He is called the man after God’s own heart, yet he is far from perfect. He didn’t have to be perfect, because he served a perfect God, whose love was so perfect

Life was hard for David, the everyday things seemed to get in his way a lot, not just the big tragedies. The power of being a king would get to be too much for him. His own lust would prove to be too much for him. Parenting proved way too much for him, if you want to read some messed up Bible stories just take a look at the ones about David’s kids. At times he was confident, but we can see in the Psalms that he wrote, other times when he was afraid and felt that God had left him alone and helpless.  We can see by looking at his story though, that God never left him, we can see from his Psalms that though he had times of fear and doubt, David was always reminded again of God’s love, mercy and protection. God brought him through it all and wrote a story of his love through David’s life, but it wasn’t easy, Goliath, was the easiest part of the story it seems.

God is so willing to stand by us, like he stood by David, that even if we reject him, he is willing to continue pursuing us. Jesus sacrificed himself, so that we could be made right with God no matter what we do, we can be forgiven, no matter what we do, we can be friends with God. No matter what when we choose to follow God, he is with us.

I forget sometimes like David did, that God is with me. I forget that even when bad things are happening, he is in my corner, working things out in ways I might never see. I forget that he has worked some pretty big things out for me, and instead like David did, I hide in a cave of fear and doubt and depression. That is what I was doing after the baby died. Maybe you do that too. Maybe sometimes things overwhelm you and cause you to turn away from your faith and miss out on seeing the amazing, protecting and providing presence of God in your life. Thankfully though, God is willing to help pull us out of that, and he has also surrounded us in the church with people that are willing to be with us through hard times as a physical representation of God’s love.

God pulled me out of that darkness, very gently through the people he has placed in my life. He surrounded me with a family that loved me through it, and let me rest and heal. He surrounded me with friends that told me it was okay to be sad for a baby that wasn’t mine, and gave me permission to worry more about my feelings for a while than the baby’s parents’ feelings. He surrounded me with friends that reminded me that God mourned with me, and didn’t try and get me to put a positive spiritual spin on it as it was all so fresh and raw. He gave me two great friends in our pastor in Alaska and a local youth pastor, that gently reminded me that God was with me, but didn’t try and make me talk to him. He surrounded us with friends who quite literally fed us through that time, dropping food off at our door without even asking. When I felt so empty and do worthless, God literally wrapped me in love, through the presence of our giant great dane, who everyday would wrap his giant body around me on the couch for a while. The death of the baby was an unexpected bear attack and I panicked for a bit, but I wasn’t alone, God got me through, and slowly I was able to see that, and slowly make my way back to understanding his presence. What has he gotten you through? Or are you having trouble finding him at all?

A few months ago, we got the all clear to try again, and I along with the family of the baby were very excited and hopeful. Until I got the dates for the medications to start and the transfer itself. I had to start meds the week of Vacation Bible School and increase the doseages over the course of the Alaska Mission. I immediately started to panic. Originally with the first transfer I was supposed to be in that sweet spot of pregnancy where normally you had a lot of energy and felt pretty good considering you were growing a human. I was supposed to have a big baby belly to take pictures with in front of the Welcome to Alaska sign and put in a book of our adventures with the baby.  I wasn’t supposed to have an empty belly and be on meds that made me overly tired, cranky and nauseous.  So I prayed a lot, I would exhale prayers of Jesus help me, I prayed so much I probably more than made up for the days I didn’t want to talk to God, although I am pretty sure God doesn’t keep track of those things so it doesn’t really matter. I had to rely on God for everything, for the strength to get out of bed some mornings to the strength to stay awake long enough at night.

God came through. We had one of the most successful weeks of Vacation Bible School ever, thanks in very large part to the many incredible volunteers. I am still hearing from parents about the impact it has had on their kids, even their little kids, and the conversations that are now taking place around their homes about Jesus. I was weak, but he was strong and he provided so many willing volunteers who were much stronger than I.

Then Alaska rolled around a few days later, and I was really nervous about how I would be able to lead the team well. Again God provided. We had a drama free team of students, that all meshed well together despite being from two different churches. They worked hard and they really reached out to the community of Skagway.  We had a dream team of leaders with us that helped to make sure everything ran and were proactive in jumping in and getting things done. These things equipped me for the battle of a youth mission trip.

We were absolutely welcomed back to Alaska with open arms, and even so much sunshine we got sun burnt. Everywhere we went on our first full day there, we heard, “Portland is back! Welcome back Portland” and we were greeted with lots of hugs, smiling faces and excited anticipation for the week ahead. I saw one of our old Kayak guides, who had taken us kayaking on the lake and even he recognized us, and was glad we were back to work with the kids of Skagway. It was so encouraging to see that God had made our presence known in such a good way in that town, and that by doing so he was making himself known. Our faithfulness in going back, showed his faithfulness, our joy brought his joy, and our love showed his love. That is such a powerful thing. Every night people of the town made sure we had dinner, and it was always amazing. They even opened their businesses to us once again, and gave us free rides on the train, free kayaking and a free zip lining tour. We poured out God’s love and they flooded us right back with it. That was incredibly empowering and energizing to me.

Our programs were flooded with kids again. We had lots of little ones in Vacation Bible School so many that we had to add a third group the schedule. We had kids were at the age that they could come to both VBS and youth group at night, and they eagerly came. At youth group we saw all the old familiar face and were blasted with a bunch of new ones and new names to learn and it was fantastic.

One of the things that we had planned to do this year, that we had never done before, was have a lock in, which is our term for an overnight event at the church, only there are no locks on that church, so we just called it an overnight event. We wanted the students from Portland and Skagway to have more time together before we left, to form deeper relationships and share more experiences, because we really feel that it’s through those things that Jesus love is communicated the best. Several people told me this was a crazy idea, that we would already be exhausted and then to throw this in at the end of the week would be the end of us. We did it anyway, and it was amazing. This picture was taken that night,and my heart just bursts when I see how many kids were there, and all the old faces and the new ones, and all three groups of kids having so much fun together that you don’t know which one is from which group.

That night I had to take an extra injection of meds, because the doseages were increasing. I worried that it would tire me out, and I wouldn’t be able to make it through the night. There was a pause in the action, where the kids were entertaining themselves, so I decided to go in and take my meds, and when I came out, a mom from Skagway that had been helping with youth group all week was waiting for me. She had seen me getting all my supplies, and heard me talking to Spencer, so she asked if I was going through the invitro fertilization process. When I told her yes, she proceeded to tell me her story of invitro and multiple miscarriages, and I knew the ending to this story, because her twin daughters are two huge parts of our youth group up in Skagway and I absolutely adore them. I can’t tell you how encouraging that was, to hear her story, and to see those girls there having a blast with their Portland friends. It gave me the boost I needed to finish out an exhausting week. God provided, as I saw his faithfulnees to that mom, and how he helped her overcome the lion of infertility.  

Now I am staring down another bear. On Wednesday I go in for another embryo transfer. Last time it was so exciting. This time it’s not. I didn’t slay the giant last time, I didn’t make it to the end of a healthy pregnancy and hand over a healthy baby. The giant of this whole thing is looming over me and it looks bigger than ever. So I have to draw on all those bears God helped me slay in the past. I have to see that God got me through those so he will get me through this.  I have to look at this photo of us on the mission trip, in front of the Alaska sign. We didn’t stop on the way in to Alaska this year as we normally do, instead we stopped on the way out. Which was a huge blessing to me personally to not be confronted with that sign and the lack of a baby belly with which to take a picture. Instead we took this as we were leaving after a great week of seeing God work through us and through the people of Skagway, and I was able to stand there with a smile on my face.

What bears has God brought you through? What giants is he having you face down now? Are you able to see him at work in your life, or are you missing out because you are stuck in fear and doubt, or even shame about who you are or the circumstances of your life. God is there for you, God is supporting you, God is helping you slay those bears, you just have to look around and see him. You just have to choose to want to see him, and allow him to lead you. And if you feel like you can’t see him, like he isn’t there, or you don’t want him there, that is ok too, God won’t leave you, and someday, he will gently remind you of his love and his presence, and hopefully in the mean time you can be encouraged by the people around you, who are able to see God but mourn with you too. 

#RealizeI’mBlessed

I really don’t like #blessed. I think it’s used all wrong, for things that aren’t truly blessings. I also wonder if it touches, for some, on the Old Testament concept of your are blessed if things go right, and if they go wrong you are out of favor with God, like because I have this I am blessed, but if I don’t or you don’t, you aren’t. I think the better hashtag, is I Realize I'm Blessed. That is probably the sentiment behind #blessed, but I think it says it better. It’s like, I finally get it, in this moment, I understand I am blessed. We forget in the everyday mundane and in the bigger struggles, how blessed we are. We forget that just the adventure of life and the people on that adventure with us are a huge blessing.

I have learned that lesson over and over again, and yet still sometimes I forget. Thankfully I have been reminded. I have been reminded through this latest struggle that no matter what I may lose, I have so very much. I have incredible friends. I have amazing parents, and even though they live far away, they cannot wait to hug me and love me and care for me and my family tomorrow. I have a husband who struggles with so much but is still able to be strong enough to support me. I realize that no matter what I go through I am blessed.

I get these words of Jesus so much more now, the Beatitudes.

3 “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

4 “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

5 “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.

6 “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.

7 “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.

8 “You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.

9 “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.

10 “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.

11-12 “Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble. Matthew 5:3-12 (MSG)

I have had so many adventures, more than I ever thought possible and I have been and continue to be grateful for them. It was out of that and out of my desire to follow Jesus, that I wanted to be a part of other people’s adventures. I wanted to make the dreams of others come true. I wanted my family and another family to experience big dream coming true things. So I was so “care-full”, with everything I could give to the experience of surrogacy. And it may have come crashing down, but in that crash I understood, how cared for I was and am. So many people cared for me during this past few weeks, and I am so incredibly grateful. While I felt a great deal of despair, now I am feeling a lot of joy. It still hurts, when I see a pregnant person, and stings, when a surrogacy storyline comes up in something I am watching, but I am reveling in the understanding of the love and care I am surrounded with. 

I  want to be clear, I don’t see God as the architect of this miscarriage, but I see him as the amazing restoration company transforming this disaster and making my life livable and better than ever. I don’t think he made this baby die to teach me or anyone else something. That little life was precious to him too. I do think though that he is helping me to see how blessed I have always been. He is opening my eyes to a whole new world and letting me walk for a bit in the shoes of others. I have walked through a piece of infertility. I have walked through grief and loss. I have walked through the depression that my husband and so many others suffer with, and even if it’s only for a little bit, I will be able to connect with others to walk with them in their pain a little bit better now. This has been a huge mess, but God is helping me clean it up and things are looking better than they did before. There are still some dust bunnies lurking in the corners, a ring that won’t come off the bathtub, dried on paint in the sink, but I can look at it all and see it as more beautiful than before. 

I’m coming to terms with the idea that we may not get to try again. This tragic pregnancy may be my last, this dream may not come true, this adventure halted. At least I tried. I gave it my all. I lived life to the fullest. I loved my neighbor as fully as I could, and it may not ended the way we wanted, but there was love. It may not have gone the way we wanted it to, but at least I did it, and in doing so, I received so much more than I gave. We lost someone so dear and I have been embraced by the one who is most dear. Friends have quite literally fed me with their love. He is putting my world right and I can see that so clearly now. I was at the end of my rope, I may be at the end of this adventure, but God is here with me. 

The ends don’t justify the means of this experience, but they make it more livable and they help me realize again that I am blessed. 

just two of my many many undeserved blessings

Elephant Gestation a Big Black Dog and the Stifling Grief of Getting Back to Normal

Today I am supposed to be getting back to normal. I am still supposed to watch my activity level and check in with the still rawness of a freshly scraped womb, but I am supposed to start getting back to normal. I was for a while. I tried to start yesterday, I dressed up and held my head high as I walked into church and went back to work. I tried last night as I led a meeting for our Alaska team. I tried to talk even when the pain of being on my feet for a long time and playing youth group games took some of my breath away. I tried as I realized that I would no longer be carrying a big baby filled belly to Alaska with me. I tried this morning as I tackled the laundry that has piled up in the last couple of weeks. But I soon found myself on the couch covered in my dog and my tears, like some awful country song. It’s probably the hormone fluctuations but I think there is more too it than that. Instead of normal, today I found grief and defeat as I am sure that those who have walked through miscarriage, fertility treatments, and so many other losses have before me. 

I wanted so desperately to bring more of God’s joy and love and redemption into the lives around me. This adventure with surrogacy was supposed to do that. I knew it would be taxing and stressful, but it was the kind of stress that came with promise and hope, instead of more bills and more heartbreak. We had enough of those icky kinds of stress. Little thing after little thing with some pretty big things sprinkled in one after another for years, made me long for something different, something new. I thought we had found some of that in surrogacy. It was something cool we could do to help others, to bring life and beauty to the world, and even if pain came with it, at least it would end with joy overflowing and not a debt of yuck. It seemed to do that for a while, it brought excitement, encouragement and hope to a lot of people around us and to our two families. 

Yet here we are in the yuck. I thought once the surgery was over, and my body took a few days off to recover, my mind would be in a better place. It was for a bit, maybe just distracted with trying to will my body to strength and my life to normal. Now though, as I try to get back to routine, the grief of it all is hitting full force. The loss of that little life, the end of the adventure. Returning to normal means it really is over.

We knew this was a possibility, but it was tucked way back in our brains. It had to be, for us to try this really. We all were prepared for the embryo not to implant. I think if at the six week ultrasound we had seen no heartbeat, we would have been disappointed, but not surprised, and we would have been able to move on sooner. This though, was much harder to take, much more complicated to deal with, and delays the whole process a lot more. It wasn’t something we really took into account, and I am sure that is for the best.

Many have asked if and when we will try again, this is perhaps one of the most painful parts of the infertility process. That is out of our hands at this point. We could decide not to, but none of us want to do that. To proceed, though, my body has to be evaluated again. The parents have to be willing to wait for me to recover, everything has to sit on hold for months as we wait on my body. Suddenly the adventure that began last winter, may not end until next winter. Now it seems as if we are on an elephants gestational time table. If we do try again my body will be riding hormonal waves for a very long time to come.

Sometimes it’s easier for me to turn to music, than scripture. I know as someone who works in ministry, I am not supposed to admit that, but it’s true. Often thankfully scripture is woven into and inspires the music that makes it so much easier to digest the messages of God’s love, hope and joy in the midst of defeat. So I am clinging to this Rend Collective song today as I cling to the huge black dog that sits with me in grief. He and I take a break from getting back to normal and just sit for a bit. He puts his head up close to mine, when he sees the tears pooling in the corners of my eyes, and he helps me to find some joy, he reminds me of the message of this song, the message of Jesus, that there is redemption, that life can spring from death.

I will wait for that light of my soul to warm up this cold shadow of grief. I have been so blessed over the last two weeks to have my family and my friends remind me of those things too. Through meals and cookies, calls, texts, messages and prayers, there have been little bursts of light, there have been moments of joy and for that I will always be grateful. If we do go through with this elephant pregnancy, it’s those things that will give me the courage to continue and to embrace the rest of this adventure. So I will try to choose celebration. I will work on celebrating the amazing family and friends I have, instead of grieving so much for the little life, and opportunity we lost. I will sit in the arms of this crazy dog and try to understand that I am in the arms of Jesus himself.

Adding injury to the insult of carrying or “miss”carrying death

I share so you will get a glimpse, you will hear a note, maybe you will understand a fraction of how cruel fetal demise, miscarriage and what follows it are, because carrying death is awful. I know my story is a little bit different. I didn’t carry this baby as long as some have. I didn’t have to scoop it’s remains out of a toilet, as some have. I didn’t have to give birth, knowing after all the work there would be no reward of cries, or breath in it’s lungs. I didn’t have to decide whether or not to terminate the terminal. Women have had to do some absolutely horrible things in the wake of their baby’s death. In many ways I am lucky in other ways though, my story is the same as the women who have bravely walked this road before me. It’s filled with a pain and vulnerability all of it’s own.

The chaplain of the Catholic hospital intruded on the morning that I was trying to face without grief. I had sat with death for a week and a day, and I just wanted it to be over and it would be, at least in part, the big part. It would conclude with a Dilation and Curettage, the same procedure used for abortion. My body held on to that lifeless baby for two weeks, thankfully I was only aware of the one. My body still nauseous and tender and tired, didn’t realize that the life it was making itself sick to support was gone. My brain did though, and it was freaked out. I spent the whole week trying not to think about it, but it would always creep in, and the tears were never far behind. I was carrying death. Once it was a sweet little life, so full or promise and redemption, but now that life was gone and it was sitting in my gut like a stone. Yesterday though, I didn’t want to dwell on it, I didn’t want to cry that morning. I didn’t want to get in touch with my emotions, a room full of people were about to get in touch with my private parts.  I just wanted to suffer through the indignities of the hospital,the indignities of this procedure and go home.

But there I was laying on the stretcher with only a paper gown, some socks and a hairnet talking about baby memorial services, and carving the baby’s name on a special tombstone. Once again in this process, I was nearly naked in front of strangers, discussing a baby that wasn’t mine. I just wanted to shout at the chaplain, “What name could I give him, I’m not his freaking mother!”. But I didn’t I was polite and courteous, and just tried to get the conversation over with as fast as possible. I was offered a small blanket, which I rejected. I didn’t want to talk about the baby. I didn’t want to think about the family whose job it was to name this baby, and whose grief I was carrying too. I didn’t want to explain why I was crazy enough to try and do this for a stranger, I didn’t want to deal with the assumptions, the presumption of judgement, the embarrassment. Maybe if he was mine, I would feel different, but I doubt it. In that moment, he was in my body and he was lifeless, and I didn’t need a tombstone or a memorial service to tell me he was significant or valued, or God’s child. I knew those things all too well, but I couldn’t talk about them in hospital socks and a paper gown. I needed to at least be wearing underwear to talk about them, to think about them. I needed to at least have him physically not with me anymore before I could process him being gone.

She kept talking of the necessity of sharing your feelings, and talking to someone, but again, in that moment, I was sharing more than I cared too. My height, my weight, my medical history, my vagina were all on display or would be shortly. In that moment I just needed to focus on getting through, because truth be told I was scared and miserable, and so very naked. I was scared of anesthesia, my hand hurt from the IV. I had to stumble through the hallway to get to the bathroom in that stupid paper gown while managing an IV. I was about to literally have my insides scooped out with the surgical equivalent of a spoon and a vacuum!!! I didn’t want to cry, I didn’t want to grieve in that moment I just wanted it to be over, and she was dragging it out. She offered to pray, but even that I couldn’t take. I did not know her, she didn’t know me, it felt intrusive. I know she was there to offer comfort, but she only brought grief and the ugly feelings of vulnerability that played a part in this whole surrogate process. It brought out the indignity of it all, it made me feel like I did “lose” the baby, like I did “miscarry” it, because this all seemed like a horrible punishment.

The chaplain had offered to come after the surgery, but that seemed worse, and I am so glad she didn’t. After I was wearing underwear, someone else put on me while I was asleep. After I found sensors on different parts of my body, that I didn’t place there. After people were talking more to my husband than to me, because presumably I wasn’t coherent enough to take it all in. The surgery was described to him, the instructions given to him. Yet again in this surrogacy process, I felt like my body was not my own, like someone else was in control, like other’s were discussing me as if I wasn’t even there. After I was tired, after I was empty, after I was supposed to move forward.

It’s hard to move forward, to grieve for a baby that wasn’t mine to name, or to bury. How could I hold onto a blanket for a baby that I would only have held briefly? It just seems wrong. Not only was I carrying death, I was carrying the weight of knowing another family is grieving, another family is carrying this as well, and that breaks me. I can only imagine how hard it is to grieve for your own child. For some I am sure the blanket is comforting but to me it just added to the shame I had already piled up on myself for putting everyone through this ordeal. Even if it was not my fault, it felt like it. I imagine there are similar feelings for anyone going through this, surrogate or not. How do you grieve for someone you hoped and dreamed about but never got to know?

Being wheeled out of the hospital with a new baby is such a great high worth of commercials and movie scenes,but being wheeled out with empty arms and a womb freshly scraped is it’s own cruel torture. I just wanted to get back to life as normal to move forward, but I am not allowed. I have to sit and rest. I can’t distract myself with work or routine, because even changing clothes causes pain and makes me break out in a sweat. I was warned that even if I start feeling okay in these immediate days following the surgery, the pain will rebound in bigger ways if I try to go about my normal day. I may not be carrying death anymore but my body still carries the lingering effects of having carried a life and then having that life removed. There is still so much left to feel, even if the process is over, and perhaps that is the worst part. It’s cruel how our bodies betray our wishes to put everything behind us and move forward. It adds injury to the insult of it all.

What's too uncomfortable, too hard when it comes to helping others?

What is a good reason to not do something to help someone else? I mean really, what makes something not do-able. What risk is too big, what discomfort is too much, what fear to insurmountable?

Hundreds of thousands have been willing to dump ice cold water over their heads and post it online to help with ALS. Whether or not it is raising a ton of money or people are actually looking up what ALS is and learning, I like it. I like it because it's forcing people out of their comfort zones to help someone else. Comfort can be stifling. It can make us forget about those around us, and it can make us desire more comfort to continue to be comfortable. So this is great.

I haven't had a chance to respond to my challenge yet, because for the past few days we have been preparing for, and processing, a big step in helping others as a family. We are exploring those questions about what is too much to risk for our own comfort as a family a lot lately, as we get closer and closer to entering into a surrogacy contract. If things continue to work as they have, I will be a gestational carrier for a couple unable to medically carry their own child. In the winter, I will be implanted with an embryo, that is someone else's genetic material and of no relation to us as a family. This will involve a lot of medical appointments, medications, procedures and nine months of all the stuff that goes along with pregnancy. Add to that a birth, the healing after the birth, and the biggest thing, a long term relationship with a family, previously unknown to us. It is something my whole family will be a part of, even if it's happening in my body.

We have thought of and heard a lot of reasons not to do this.

· there is a risk to me

· I could end up on bed rest

· this will make me tired and grumpy thus stressing my family

· my kids will have to deal with pregnant me

· it will be harder this time because I am older

· my body won't come back the way it did before

· it will be hard to let go of the baby

Those are just a few of the reasons that have come from us and well-meaning friends. They are valid points. Those things will happen.

But are they reasons not to do this? Should those things stop us from helping a family's dreams come true? Should we refuse to bring a person into the world that will be loved, and raised by great people to hopefully become a loving person, because I am worried I will get fat, or have stretch marks, or be grumpy?

Maybe they are, but maybe they aren't. Maybe it's time for us to get uncomfortable, to put our fears, and my vanity on the line for someone else. Maybe it's time to get to know a whole new family and through awkward first dates in doctors’ offices, get to know each other and allow our lives to be connected in a very intimate way. Maybe...

I should say it's not without reward. We will get some compensation for our pain and suffering. But I have never been part of helping someone, when there wasn't reward, even if it was just a knowing you helped. There is always some kind of reward, and there is always some kind of sacrifice.

Right now we sit in discomfort, wondering if after meeting us, this family will choose our family to do this for them. Are you good enough, can they trust us enough to carry this precious life, and care for it, before they can? Will we experience rejection in the next few days, will we not be chosen? It's uncomfortable, it's a risk, and it’s awkward and could be painful. Again, though was that reason enough not to try, not to but ourselves out there, not to make ourselves available?

I don't know. And maybe I am horribly naive to think this way, caught up in the emotions and possibilities of it all. I just can't turn off the voice that says we should try. That prompting from my studies of scripture and Jesus that says if you can do for someone, you should, even if it means giving up part of yourself.

the last time my body housed a baby, the outcome was pretty awesome!

Sermon: Lighthouses- Some things will suck but God will get us through, and through us get others through too.

Lighthouses, especially in today’s times when they are mostly obsolete, are still a source of much inspiration and beauty. There is so much technology for boats to find shore and safety these days, as lighthouses were originally meant to do, the technology even allows us to find fish, and steer away from hazards. Yet we love lighthouses don’t we. You can find inspirational lighthouse pictures in any store, we love to visit them. I am not a morning person at all, but I got up very early on a dozen occasions to go to one of my favorite lighthouses in Santa Cruz and photograph it in the sunrise. And then I have to admit, I turned those photos into matted pictures with Bible verses underneath. There is just something so encouraging and inspiring about lighthouses, standing strong along the coastline, ready to help people find port, or steer them away from danger. Their strength, their potential even if no longer in commission stirs something in us.  Maybe it’s that need for security that we all have.

You know we started this summer talking about Moses, and in Vacation Bible School and the Alaska mission we just returned from, we explored the story of the Israelites. Moses was this guy that lived through these crazy life events, because God got him through them, and then after murdering a cruel Egyptian and running away, God called him in his loneliness in his darkness and asked him to lead the Israelites out of Pharaoh’s enslavement. Moses felt inadequate and under-qualified, but God called him anyway. God equipped him. Moses may not have found much security in safety, in God’s call for him to come home, but God helped Moses do amazing things, to show God’s own power, and love for the Israelites. So in the Old Testament reading from today we see Moses leading the Israelites into the wilderness.

The Lord went ahead of them. He guided them during the day with a pillar of cloud, and he provided light at night with a pillar of fire. This allowed them to travel by day or by night. Exodus 13:21  

The Israelites have just seen God do all these crazy things to get Pharaoh to back off, plagues of all kinds, rivers turning to blood, invasions of insect and amphibians. Perhaps the most shocking, was the killing of the firstborn, but God spared the lives of the Israelites. God has made it pretty plain that he is with them, he wants to free them, but as they start walking the Israelites start freaking out, they start doubting God, and what he wants to do with them. They can’t see God right in front of them. They start asking to go back to slavery. So God helps them out, he gives them a cloud and a pillar of fire to guide them. It is literally in front of them. His presence is right there, showing them the way to go. It is scary and the journey is hard, but there is hope, there is a huge tower of fire, guiding them through the darkness. It’s a mobile lighthouse; it’s showing them the way to the Promised Land.

God promised land, he didn’t promise an easy journey. He promised freedom and provision, he didn’t promise first class accommodations. Yet if we follow that story to its conclusion, he kept his promises and got them there, or their children there at least, and guided them all the way. When they lost sight of God, they got themselves into trouble; they added a lot of years to their journey, which is why some didn’t make it. God always bailed them out again and got them back on track, called them back to himself, back to his safety and love.

God stepped into the dark situation of the Israelites and brought them to freedom, and he steps into our own darkness as well. He literally stepped into humanity in the person of Jesus. He left heaven and dwelt among us in a fragile human form.  He did so, so that he could be a sacrifice for our sins, for our mistakes, for the darkness that is in all of us. He walked through the darkness of a horrible death and hell itself, but because he was God, he was able to bring light and life, as he resurrected. He brought grace to us in his forgiveness, love, amazing mercy.

We see the image of God as light over and over again in scripture in Jesus and in other places, in Psalms we see him as the light going before us to guide our steps, just like the Israelites wandering in the desert. We see the image of him again going before and guiding us through. We are not given a promise from God that things are going to be easy, ever. Instead we are given a promise that we won’t be alone, that he will be with us, that he won’t ever leave us. We are promised that all things will work together for the good of those who love God. Like the Israelites, we will find ourselves in hard situations, with hard things to overcome. We will have things in our life, that seem like they will never be overcome, challenges, health problems, family members that never change, friends that leave, relationships that crumble. Some of those things will never get better. Some of the Israelites never made it to the Promised Land, Moses didn’t, their kids did, but they didn’t. They didn’t make it there, but they were free, and they were protected, they had food from heaven. It might not have been their favorite thing, it was mana after all, it means what is it. But it was food. Their clothes and shoes never wore out. They wandered and they struggled but as a people they made it through. God didn’t leave them alone, he helped them conquer enemies, and he helped them figure out how to survive this wandering life in the wilderness. He does the same for us. He gets us through. Some things won’t get better until we get to heaven, and that is hard, but we aren’t left alone to deal with those things. We have hope that there is more to life than the darkness, that Jesus’ love is there for us, that he is caring in the midst, and that he can shine through our weakness and the brokenness of the world.God gives us his word to help us get through, there are sixty six books that show his love for us, and his power to work in our lives, just as he worked through the crazy life of Moses.  And while they may be old books, unlike lighthouses, they aren’t obsolete; there is power there, for more than just an inspirational quote.

There is a lot of darkness in our world today. Gosh, four boys were playing on a beach in Gaza and were killed, a plane with nearly three hundred people was shot out of the sky, and those were just two of the things that happened this week. This week!! The world needs more light. People need to know that God is there, that he is ready to help them, to bring them through the worst of the worst, to show them love and forgiveness. They need to see the love of Jesus, and guess what, God isn’t the only lighthouse. He gave us the job to be his lighthouses in the world. He gave us the responsibility to be light bearers. We see that in the New Testament reading today.

“You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father. Matthew 5:14-16

We are the light in that lighthouse that is supposed to show the way to everyone. We are supposed to help people see through the darkness of the world, and understand who God is and how much he loves them. We are supposed to provide that light, that hope for each other that God showed us. We are supposed to allow God to work through us to bring heaven to earth. It says people will see our deeds. In the Message it says, we will show people the God colors, and they will open up to us and then open up to God himself. When the world thinks that God and his word are obsolete and technology is such that we no longer need him and his word, we are supposed to inspire them with his love, through us.

We aren’t supposed to bicker over things and get political, stand around waving signs of condemnation, or use God’s own words against each other. We are supposed to show people Jesus, reflect his light to the world. We are supposed to be a source of his light. Jesus showed us how to be a light. He spent time with people, getting to know them, showing them love, showing them a different way to live, with love and compassion, and he told us very specifically that the most important thing we could do was love others. We are supposed to get out in the world and show God’s love to others.

We are great as a church at showing love to each other. I know that, I have benefited from the amazing light filled love of the people in this church. A few years ago we had one piece of loss and misfortune after another. It started with the death of one of our students, which was awful, but so many rallied around our youth group family, and you helped us get through Vacation Bible School just a few days later. Then other things happened, my mom got diagnosed with cancer, and Barb and Nancy helped me to get through that and understand that as they shared their own cancer experiences. Our dog died tragically, and other pet lovers reached out to us in the church with compassion and love. Then our son flooded our house and Jeff helped put it together. I got into an accident in our only car, and Courtney and Dave loaned us one while ours was fixed. So many things happened all at once, and even though some were minor, we could have easily been consumed by darkness, but so many in this church showed us kindness and grace that we were surrounded by light. God was with us working through all of you, and we were able to see him through you in those tough days. And we continue to have challenges, things still go wrong in our lives, my husband battles mental illness, our house breaks without my son flooding it, we lose friends, people get ill. Things are going to happen. Life is going to be hard. But we have hope, that things can be good in the midst of that. We can find safety, we can make it to shore, because God’s light is leading us through, as we see it in the people around us.

It’s our job to be lighthouses, not just to each other, but to everyone around us. We should be a beacon of light to our neighborhood, so that people know they can find God on our campus, they can find people that will love them, a place where they can understand who God is, and grow in their faith. It says that people will see God when they see us helping and being a light.

That is our mission at the Open Door, our youth building. We want kids to know they can find love, and explore what it means to know Jesus and follow him. We want them to be open to him. We want them to see God through the welcoming atmosphere there, and through us as leaders. We want to be known as a place where it’s safe to do that and be yourself. So we let the kids be goofy, and we encourage fun, and we try to be a light, speaking encouragement into the dark and crazy time of adolescence. We want to be known for that. So we let the kids post silly pictures on Instagram from youth group and share the light of the open door with their friends. They aren’t just seeing crazy pictures of shaving cream covered faces in a game, they are seeing God. The groups are growing. 

We want to be that light to their parents and school communities too, so we are working on school partnerships with one of the junior highs and with our main high school. I volunteered in the high school office for the previous school year, at the suggestion of the team of youth leaders. We did it not to increase our  numbers, but so that we could be a light, a helping hand to ease the burden of their workload, and to be the hands and feet of Jesus there. Hopefully they saw more than just me sitting in there each week, I hope they saw Jesus. They must have seen Jesus, they asked us back, they want me there this school year, and I almost broke the laminator on the first day. We have more opportunity to be a lighthouse. I hope we can get involved in projects at the middle school too, where most of our group comes from, investing in the school community, so the parents and teachers see us, but more importantly see Jesus through us. We helped with a talent show there, and fed the stage crew pizza, just a small thing, but they noticed, and they knew it was a youth leader sponsored

thing, and we got one more student to come try youth group. One more kid, got to hear that she was loved. One more person got to hear about Jesus. It was a light bearing moment, and who knows what God will do with it.It's our job to just be there, and serve others, and let him be glorified through that. 

We just got back from Alaska. I have to be honest, knowing it was our fifth year of working with that church in that tiny community, I wondered if things would start to fizzle out, if we were still having an impact. We sent another church up last year, so we could do a youth mission here in Portland and include some of our Alaskan kids. So I was unsure, if the town would remember us, if we had made any lasting difference. I thought we had, I thought we had seen God at work, and they had seen him through us, but like the Israelites, I had my doubts. God shined a light on the trip this year through you guys once again, as you funded us through the mission auction, and we had a team so excited to go. On August third, you will get to hear more about the trip, from our students. But let me just tell you now. You all were a far-reaching lighthouse, all the way from Portland to Skagway Alaska. You shined God’s light by sending us up there. We were greeted so warmly and with such excitement, by a church that has grown, doubled even in attendance. The Sunday school rooms that we used to stay in with just a few children’s names written on the attendance charts, had lots and lots of names of kids that had come to our previous VBS programs. The youth group was overflowing with some of our VBS kids that had aged out and into the youth group and they couldn’t wait for the programming we came to do. The people of the town were excited to send their kids and their grandkids to us each day, they were so glad we were back. And the people of the church itself, would bring us dinner every night, and thank us for giving them the motivation, the shot in the arm they needed to reach out to their community. They would thank us for giving them the excuse to invite people in for real times of connection. That church is open 24/7 to the public, it isn’t ever locked, they are open to the community, but they don’t always invite the community, and reach out to them and make connections. Over the years though, God has used our mission teams to help them do that, to remind them to be the lighthouse. We called people into the church, by showing them, that a group in Portland cares about their kids and God will call them to his shore, to his safety of love and grace. They are more open to God now, and what he can do in their lives.

So how can we make more connections in our community? How can we bring the light out of our building and into the homes and neighborhoods around us? How can we be the light in the darkness, that tells a hurting world, there is hope? We have mission trips, we support great organizations in the metro area like Door to Grace, and Portland Rescue, we work with Slavin Court, but what can we do with our own neighbors and friends to help them see our church as a light?

This is a great step, being out in the park, the trees on our church campus kind of hide us sometimes. And we will get out to the Hops game in a few weeks, something we can invite people too, and to the Multnomah Days parade. But maybe there are other ways too, maybe we can host Alpha in our homes, or at a pub or pizza place. Maybe we can have more sports teams, like our softball league we were a part of. More concerts, more fun things like lip sync nights, more days of service in the community like faith in action. All of those things, are ways people not only see us, but see God, see something worth checking out, see a light in the darkness. Those deeds, as insignificant as some of them might seem, all glorify God. As we open up the church, we help people open up to God.

We can’t hide his light. It’s too dark out there. Southwest Portland needs to see the love of Jesus. He is our light bringing us through the trials of life, and we need to reflect that for others. In our homes, in our workplaces, at school, and as a church. We need to look to him and see where he is leading us. In a couple of weeks our pastors will be back from sabbatical, well rested and renewed we hope. So let’s greet them with excitement too, and be ready to follow their lead and sessions lead into the community, to be light so that everyone can see the goodness of God through us, so that he is known in Portland and we are known for showing his goodness.