Message from Grandma's Funeral

This is the text of my message from my Grandma's funeral.

••••••••••

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Jesus said that. It’s one of the beatitudes, that beautiful set of thoughts with which he began his Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

As you mourn today, you may not feel much of a blessing. We have lost someone very dear to us. My Grandpa has lost his wife. My dad has lost his mother. I have lost my Grandma. She was a part of us, an important part of us, and now she is gone. Many of us are experiencing an internal emptiness that is hard to explain. It’s an emptiness, a deep sense of loss, that you can only understand if you’ve gone through it yourself.

And so we mourn. We mourn for the one we loved. We mourn for ourselves, and the life we must live without her. And it’s good to mourn. It’s okay to cry. It’s not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of your humanity. Grandma impacted us all, and one of the ways that we honor her today, is to mourn, to grieve, that she is gone.

Miriam Holt has left us a legacy that is worthy of honor. She devoted herself to Jesus. As a teenager, she wrote this in her journal:

“I, Miriam Muir do solemnly swear that I will keep the following resolution to the best of my ability, made on this day, January 1st, 1943. Since I have consecrated my life to my Savior, I must act accordingly. This includes daily reading and communications, witnessing, etc… that He may live through me and I trust Him completely. And give Him back his tenth, and more. This seems to cover everything,… I had thought of others, but they seem so insignificant now, as if they are all taken care of in the above.”

Grandma kept that New Year’s resolution for nearly 70 years. The legacy of commitment to Christ predates even her, though. The story is told of how her mother, Mary Muir, passed by a bedroom doorway as a child and saw her grandmother praying, with arms raised, for God’s blessing on her family and the generations that would descend from them. That prayer was offered over 100 years ago by either Susanah Funk or Elizabeth Maurer, both of which are my great-great-great-grandmothers. Five generations later, and now even to six generations, we can testify that that prayer has been answered with a “Yes.”

Grandma loved to travel. She took me to Israel after I graduated high school. We visited all the sites in the holy land together. In Jerusalem we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and then to the Garden Tomb. Both sites claim to be the place where Jesus was crucified and buried. We prayed at the wailing wall, where I had to don a paper yamaka to get in. We spent a night at a kibbutz on the border of Lebanon. We went to Bethlehem and into the cave where Jesus was born. We travelled out onto the Sea of Galilee, saw the Jesus boat, then down the Jordan river to the Dead Sea. We climbed up Masada, and saw where the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered in the desert. It was a wonderful trip, a great time spent with Grandma.

When we were kids, Grandma always had the kids over for a weekend, or even for a full week. We loved to make cookie dough. I’m sure we eventually baked the cookies, but the real prize was the cookie dough. We would climb onto that kitchen table peninsula as she got out the mixer. The real prize was to lick the mixers clean.

In the summer we would go to White Star Quarry, which had been turned into a beautiful beach. We loved swimming at White Star, going past the buoys to where the big kids jumped off the rafts, and, when we got a little older, jumping off the really tall high dive.

Grandma loved to sew, and she always making something. My favorite was the swim trunks she made us. You have to remember that this was way back in the early ‘90s, and so for bathing suits what the boys wanted was black biker shorts with a big neon stripe up the side. They were awesome. Thankfully, we were too skinny for them to be as tight as regular biker shorts.

Grandma also became a convenient alibi whenever my mom served me a dinner I wasn’t interested in eating. “I don’t like this,” I would say. “How do you know,” she’d reply, indignant, “you’ve never had it before.” “Yuh-huh. At Grandma’s.”

But what I remember most about Grandma, and what had a lasting impact on me, was her love and commitment to Jesus. She faithfully read the Scriptures, incorporated herself into the life of her church, prayed, and strove to live a life that was pleasing to God. She was a woman of godly character and integrity. There is nothing about her that we have to conveniently forget, no element of her life or character that we must gloss over in order to honor her memory. She lived well, and so we remember her well. Here commitment to Jesus has yielded fruit down through the generations.

And so we gather today to mourn, but we also receive comfort. We receive comfort in knowing that, not only is she with Jesus in heaven today, but one day she will rise from the dead and live forever. Because of her faith in Jesus, death will not have the final word for Grandma.

We are comforted when we mourn because we know that Jesus rose from the dead, conquering death. We know that, through faith in him, we too will rise from the dead to everlasting life. Death is not the final word for those who call on the name of Jesus in this life. We mourn her passing, but we are comforted by the hope we have in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This hope is available to all. Sometimes we feel as though we’re not worthy to have this hope, to receive the forgiveness of sins, or to be saved. We feel as though it’s too late for us. But that’s not true. The resurrection of Jesus Christ has already happened. You can no more earn the resurrection of Jesus than you can the American Revolution. It’s a past event. God has already sent his Son to die for you. The hope of the resurrection of Jesus has been available to you for nearly 2,000 years. It’s not a matter of being worthy, it’s a matter of embracing the reality of the historical fact of Jesus’s death and resurrection.

Grandma embraced this fact. She embraced Jesus. And now her hope has been realized. And while we mourn, she longs for us to be comforted with the comfort she has in her Savior, Jesus Christ.

The Nakedness of Faith

Wednesday night I was out with my 2-year-old son Zeke trying to take care of some work-related stuff. I love this little guy! He's curious, relentless, and fearless. He also has a speech delay, as well as some other developmental delays, that have prevented him from talking and doing other age-appropriate activities. On top of that, he's started having seizures in the past few months, which means he's been diagnosed with epilepsy. It's a terrifying thing to watch your young child seize up, lose control of his body, and struggle to take breaths. Zeke disappears deep into himself during his seizures. I look into his eyes and I don't see anyone there.

Before Wednesday night, he'd had four seizures, two of which I have seen in person. As we were walking into the store together, I noticed that he wasn't acting like himself. He was quiet, tired, and cranky. He seemed to have trouble focusing, like his head kept moving, involuntarily, over his left shoulder. His left eye began to twitch, and I saw the emptiness in those big brown eyes. This was a seizure, mild in comparison to his other ones, but the first one without mommy around.

For the third time in ten days, we wound up in the ER at Children's Hospital. The seizure had ended by the time we arrived, and his energy and vitality slowly came back to him. He was himself again in about an hour.

Zeke, after destroying his yogurt.

I don't know why this seizure happened. He had his regular dose of medication. It started in a familiar environment - our van. I have no explanation, which means, I guess, that a seizure could grip him at any time. This reality fills me, as it would any parent, with deep anxiety. What if it happens again and no one's around to help him? Why didn't the medicine work? Are the seizures related to his developmental delays? Will he ever be "typical"?

On the other hand, as Breena and I were driving Zeke home from the ER that night, we were both filled with tremendous faith. Despite the seizure, we both were seeing signs of progress with his speech and overall development. We believe that God will heal Zeke. We believe that God is healing Zeke. We don't know when this healing process will be done. We don't know how it's all going to shake out. But we hope and believe that God is working, and will continue to work, a miracle in Zeke's life.

Believing this, and saying it publicly, fills me with a sense of vulnerability. I can't control whether or not Zeke has another seizure. There is no surgical procedure, that I know of, that will fix his developmental delay. He's either going to grow out of it, or he's not. God will either heal him in this life, or we'll all have to wait, as so many people do, for the resurrection. Obviously, my wife and I are believing God for the former.

Zeke and Mommy.

This kind of faith makes me feel exposed, like in those dreams when I show up to school naked. (Yes, I still have those dreams, it's just that the context is different now.) To trust God for something, whether it's your son's healing or your own salvation, requires you to take a stand. This faith demands that you forsake all other avenues of rescue, and lean solely into the object of your faith - to believe, as it were, without the aid of a safety net.

The nakedness of faith is that we put everything on the line for Jesus and let him decide how he'll come through for us in the end. Faith demands that we let go of control, that we throw ourselves onto the person of Jesus Christ in complete desperation of soul. It's him, and nothing else. (Of course we're still giving Zeke his medicine, but we understand that the medicine isn't actually healing his brain or aiding the developmental process, it's just keeping his seizures at bay. Sometimes.)

I can't control whether or not Zeke has another seizure or choose the day he'll start speaking clearly. Neither can I manipulate God into making his seizures and developmental delays go away. All I can do is trust that Jesus is King, and that no matter what happens, he loves me, he loves Zeke, and in the end we're going to be a part of his eternal and infinite reign. This has a strange way of making me feel both vulnerable and secure. I have nowhere to hide, and yet I can hide myself in Christ. I have no other clothes to wear, and yet I can put on faith like a garment. I believe, and I believe nakedly.

Telling the Truth

My wife wrote a post on her blog yesterday about a conversation we had with our kids at breakfast. The kids were talking about living to be 100 years old, and Breena told them that she would be dead when they were 100. That kind of freaked them out, so she reassured them that we would all be together in heaven if we love Jesus. Then she turned to me and asked, "Is that right?"

One of the things we value in our family is telling our kids the truth. That's why we don't do Santa Claus in our house at Christmas. Sure, he's a fun story, but he's portrayed as though he's real, and he most certainly overshadows Jesus during the Christmas season. It's not that we're opposed to fiction or fun stories, it's that we're opposed to fiction portrayed as truth to the point that the real truth is suppressed beneath the fiction. So what does that have to do with going to heaven?

I believe that the truth about heaven gets obscured by the fiction. The popular image is that we become angels when we die, playing harps on clouds and looking out for our loved ones who are still alive on the earth. This is not the biblical image.

So when Breena asked me, "Is that right?", I said, "Well, actually Jesus is going to come back here and reign on the earth." Of course, my little ones don't know what the word reign means, so Breena had me explain it.

"That means Jesus is going to come back and be the king over all the earth. And do you know what else, we are all going to be kings and queens with him!"

I have never seen my kids eyes light up so bright in my life. They could not have been more excited about becoming kings and queens with Jesus. This led into a much longer conversation about how we live on earth, but it was that spark in their eyes and voices that hit me with this epiphany: The truth is life-giving. We tell our kids the truth, not simply because it's the right thing to do, but because it breathes life into their souls. The truth is always better than fiction.

Jesus is better than Santa Claus.

Reigning with Jesus is better than the popular, saccharin picture of heaven.

The truth is better than fiction. Trust your kids. Tell them the truth. They can understand more than you probably realize.

Secret Blessings

After dinner last night Breena got a call from a Restricted number. She normally would not pick up the phone, but she did this time, and it was someone wishing her a Merry Christmas! This person also told her that there were some presents for us behind the van in our driveway. What?! So I went outside to take a look and, sure enough, there they were! And not just little bitty, "oh how sweet" presents. These were massive, "holy crap!" presents.

In typical Holt fashion, we opened them immediately. Bexley got diapers--they're her favorite. Zeke got a big Mater toy. Eisley got a Barbie doll. Cyrus got a massive Cars 2 play set. And Mom & Dad got a gift card to one of their favorite restaurants. Check out the video of the aftermath.

To whoever gave us these secret blessings, Thank you so much! Their value to us far exceeds their material worth. That you thought of us and wanted to bless us without recognition speaks volumes to us. You have truly blessed us. Thank you!

The Glorious Appearance of Bexley

Last week Breena and I welcomed our fourth child into the world. Bexley came at 5:13pm on October 10th, the first of our four children to come without the aid of an epidural. Bexley was also the biggest of our babies, by almost a full pound. (And we have big babies.)

We had been waiting a long time for her to arrive. Three weeks earlier we were in the hospital, expecting to deliver that night. But we were sent home, hoping that we would be back in just a few hours. Well, a few hours turned into a few days, and then a few days turned into a few weeks. We thought she'd never get here! We were hoping that everything would happen naturally, but we wound up scheduling her delivery on Monday the 10th.

We got to the hospital at 10am and waited...and waited...and waited. Our induction had been pushed back because of an emergency. I don't know what it was or who was involved, but there was a couple that came in right after us, and the mother-to-be looked very distressed, and not pregnant enough to deliver. I prayed that everyone would be okay, and didn't mind waiting anymore. We were about to deliver our fourth healthy baby in four tries. We are so blessed.

Finally, we were escorted back to our room and began preparations for Bexley. Breena decided to forgo the petosin, hoping instead that her body would go into labor naturally, which it did. She did a great job of breathing through all of her contractions, and she never even thought about getting any drugs to take the edge off, much less getting that epidural. I could see on the digital chart that every other woman on the floor giving birth that day had gotten an epidural. My wife is tough.

The labor grew very intense for about 15 minutes, but then there was Bexley! The doctor's first words were, "Whoa! I think you've got your ten pound baby!" The nurses could barely lift her to clean her up and give her to Breena. They weren't used to such big babies, I guess.

When I saw her, I cried. I cried for joy at the birth of another healthy child. I cried for pide in my wife going totally natural, like she had hoped to do. I cried because this is the last time we'll do this, and Bexley is the last Holt baby we'll add to our family.

As you can see, she's beautiful. And she's very greatly loved. I love you, Bexley Holt.

Ember Monday

Yesterday was our first ever Family Worship Weekend at Ember Church. Our kids are very important to us...and we have a lot of them, so I was very interested to see how this would go. I can tell you, as both the pastor and a dad to three of those kids, I thought it was a smashing success!

We wanted to do some special things for the kids, to make them feel like a part of the service. The incomparable Charlie Vidourek led them in a rousing rendition of Father Abraham. It. Was. Awesome!

Father Abraham from Ember Church on Vimeo.

After Father Abraham I gave my first ever children's sermon. It was not quite as exciting as the song with hand motions, but we still had a lot of great interaction with the kids. They were super cute, and I was very impressed by how much they knew! It was so fantastic; I can't wait to do it again!

When I finished the sermon, we invited the band to come back up and sing Jesus Loves Me. Our hope was that that song would calm the kids down a bit...and it did! What a sweet time of all-family worship we had at Ember. This may not be something we do every week, but it will certainly be an integral part of our life as a church.

Happy 5th Birthday Cyrus!!!

Today is Cyrus's 5th birthday! He's such an incredible kid, and Breena and I are so blessed to have him in our family. He's been with us through thick and thin these past 5 years. We love you Cyrus!

Happy birthday buddy! I love you and I'm so very proud of you. You're a fantastic big brother. You're so incredibly smart. You have a way of flooring me with your insights and thoughts. I'll always be your dad, and you'll always be my dudeman.

Morning Devotions

Like every morning for the past who-knows-how-long, we were awakened by the sounds of a crying baby well before 6:00 am today. For whatever reason, Zeke's body clock has decided that anywhere between 5:00 and 5:15am is wake-up time, and there shall be no other wake-up time. There are, obviously, many things not to like about this situation, but there is one thing that I do enjoy about it: more time with the family in the morning.

This morning, Breena was reading the Bible before breakfast (honestly, it could have been after; it's all a blur) and set it down on the couch. Sometime later, Cyrus came over, picked it up and started reading it. After a couple minutes of this my brain kicked in and said, "Record this!" So, here's a cute little video of Cyrus and Eisley reading the Bible.

Snowball Fight!

It's been a really cold winter here in central Ohio. My wife and I have been wanting to get the kids out into the snow, but it's just been too bitter for them to stay out for any extended period of time, and most of the snow we've gotten has been accompanied by a very large amount of ice. But today the weather is nice, and we've got a shade more than a dusting of snow on the ground, so I took the older two out for a snowball fight after lunch.

They especially enjoyed throwing snowballs at the house...and daddy. I told them daddy was off limits once I got the camera out.

We had a lot of fun, and the snow was perfect for making snowballs. If only we had gotten a few more inches of snow, we could have made the greatest snow fort ever!

Check out this video I shot of Cyrus terrorizing his sister. (Don't worry, Eisley got in plenty of good hits of her own.)

Snowball Fight from Andy Holt on Vimeo.

It's Eisley!

Today is a very special day in the Holt household: Our daughter Eisley turns 3! She is such a sweet little girl, and if you've ever met her, you understand why I've called her "honey bear" her whole life. She's loving, cuddly, and absolutely hilarious. I love you, my little princess!

26 For Your 26th!

Today is my wife's birthday! She's 26 today, and to honor her, I want to write 26 things that I love about her. So Breena, this is for you.

1. You love Jesus very, very much.
2. You love each of our kids with a ferocious agape love, and you don't show any favoritism between them.
3. You love me very much, and I can never doubt this.
4. You teach our kids about how much God loves them.
5. You have a compassionate heart for people who are going through hard times.
6. You're generous with your time and money.
7. You work very hard at making your 31 business very successful.
8. You are unconditionally supportive of what God has called me to do.
9. You prioritize our family and desperately want to raise our kids well.
10. You speak life into the hearts of others.
11. You have an amazing sense of humor and make me laugh at the most random times.
12. You yield to God and learn what he wants to teach you in any given circumstance.
13. You respect the authority of God's Word.
14. You're freaking smoking hot!
15. You laugh at the same things I laugh at, though sometimes you don't like to admit it.
16. You are fiercely committed to our marriage.
17. You love your friends and don't give up on people quickly.
18. You're a great cook.
19. You're a servant leader.
20. You are so relational--sometimes I just stand back amazed at how much people love and trust you.
21. You figured out how to drive in Boston. (No small feat.)
22. You press through your issues and seek the healing of God's presence in your deep heart.
23. You're a helluva lot smarter than you've ever been given credit for.
24. You work hard at being kind to me when I'm sick, even though I'm a difficult patient.
25. You lay down your life for your family and friends.
26. You make me want to grow in character, integrity, humility, and love.

You made this list very easy to write. I love you, Breena. Happy 26th birthday!

Black Friday

Today is Black Friday, and every year before this one I spent this "national holiday" sitting comfortably at home, smugly congratulating myself on not being one of those exhausted consumers scratching and clawing their way through the stampeding masses on safari for the latest toy, television, or gadget. Every year I scoffed at the idea of waking up at 3am to stand in line in the cold November air, waiting to rush madly into the local superstore in a vain attempt to quell my own (and now, my children's) materialistic desires. Every year I refused to participate in this cavalcade of consumerism--every year, that is, until this one.

My wife is very much not like me. I hate crowds. She thrives on the chaos of a packed parking lot and the buzz of a crowded mall. I hate shopping. It breathes life into her soul. But I love my wife very much, and because I love her very much, I found myself at a WalMart teeming with shoppers at 12 midnight on Black Friday.

We all stood idly by large pallets covered in wrapping paper, waiting for the signal to come over the intercom that the clock had struck 12:01 and the free for all could begin. My pallet contained Lego sets of 405 pieces for a scant $15. Cyrus loves Legos. This is a great value. I can purchase his happiness at Christmas and pass on the savings to Eisley and Ezekiel. These were the thoughts running through my head when an unintelligible voice cackled over the intercom and my fellow consumers began tearing through the wrapping paper. There was a rush from behind me as arms came flailing through every available opening grabbing at the blue boxes (the green ones were Duplo--lame) full of Junior's happiness. I grabbed my box and moved away as quickly as I could, searching out a part of the store less populated by overly motivated parents.

When all was said and done, Breena and I managed to get what we came for (and a little bit extra, of course--that's how they get you!) without doing too much damage to our bodies, our bank account, and possibly our souls. This is not something I would ever do by myself or for myself. I participated in Black Friday because I love my wife and I wanted to spend time with her in her world. And because of that, it was fun.

Black Friday isn't for me. Maybe it's for you. It's certainly a smart consumer choice if you're willing to sacrifice some sleep and physical comfort. You can get your Christmas shopping done and spend less money doing it. But, for me, Black Friday isn't about savings, it's about love. I love you Breena!

Heaven

While putting Eisley and Cyrus to bed tonight, I asked them if they were glad that I was back from Charlotte. "Yeah!" they shouted.

"Did you miss me?"

"Yeah, we missed you." Then Cyrus asked, "Daddy, why were you in Charlotte?"

"I had to go to Charlotte because my Uncle David died," I replied.

"Why did he die?" Cyrus asked.

"Well," I stalled, searching for an explanation that would satisfy a 4-year-old. "He got old and sick, and then he died."

"Did he get sick because he ate lots of junk food?" he asked. Mommy is clearly brainwashing him.

"No," I said, "sometimes we just get old and sick, and our bodies can't live anymore."

"Why did he get old and sick?" Eisley asked.

Not wanting to scare her about death or say something stupid like, "Oh Eisley, we all get old and sick and then we die, even Mommy and Daddy"--that would not have gone over well--I searched for an answer but couldn't think of one. So, instead, I said, "Oh, honey, sometimes people just get old and sick."

Then Cyrus asked the clincher. "Did he have Jesus in his heart when he got sick?" What do you say to that?

"Yes he did," I said. But to be honest, I'm not very confident of that.

"Will Jesus heal his body?" Cyrus asked.

"Someday he will," I told him.

"I want to go to heaven with Jesus and God and everyone!" Cyrus said, excitedly.

"I want to go to heaven because Jesus loves everybody!" Eisley shouted.

So then we all prayed; Eisley first, then Cyrus, then Daddy. We thanked God for our friend Sophia, for almond butter sandwiches, and for bringing Daddy safely home from Charlotte. And they asked me to sing "Jesus Loves Me", which of course I did; and for the first time I can ever remember, they both joined in. And we sat there in the dark, singing about how much Jesus loves us. I choked back tears as I thought about Heaven, and how this moment was a little, priceless taste of eternal life.

Charlotte

I'm in Charlotte, NC, today. My uncle David died last week and the funeral is tomorrow. He was a great guy, although I only got to see him about once a year. He was always ready with a joke and I can only remember him laughing and smiling. His health took a turn for the worse about five years ago, and he finally succumbed last Thursday. He will be missed.

Rasslin' With the Kiddos

Fall is here, and that means a new ministry year has begun, and my work schedule has kicked into overdrive. It seems like everyday I come home exhausted, ready to lay down on the couch or just go to bed. I hate that feeling. I hate not having energy for Breena and the kids.

Today was probably the most exhausted I've been in a while. Ezekiel was up at about 4:30 last night, and then Eisley woke up at 6:20, afraid that the rain would bring thunder. We also went to bed super late because we stayed up watching a movie. Ah, the price you pay for some quality time as a married couple with kids.

But I was able to do something I haven't done in a long time--wrestle with the kids. Cyrus and Eisley are at that really fun age when you can pick them up and throw them on the couch. I call this Ba-Dooming them. Tonight the three of us were down in the basement for a solid half hour, wrestling, tickling, and having a great time. Eisley wanted me to throw her softly on the couch, which I did in slow motion. Then Cyrus said, "Throw me hard", so I picked him up high and threw him down on the old, raggedy sofa. They both screamed with laughter.

I thank God for moments like these--unorchestrated, unplanned moments of wrestling and fun. I love what I do, but I love spending time with my kids even more. Nothing heals my soul or revives my spirit quite like their laughter and delight.

Bedtime Stories

One of the best things I do with my kids (Cyrus & Eisley, at least) is tell them a bedtime story. I started doing this after watching that Adam Sandler movie, hoping that everything in the story would come true in real life. Didn't happen.

So I stopped telling Cyrus the bedtime story where a million dollars just magically appears on our doorstep and I started telling him more adventurous tales, like one where he kills a dragon. But when Eisley started sharing a room with him, we had to change the story up a bit because scary dragons totally freaked her out. So the sinister dragon became a friendly dragon. Here's the story I tell my kids every night.

•••••

Once upon a time, there was a great big castle made out of bricks that were painted pink and purple (for Eisley) and red and brown (for Cyrus). In the castle there lived a beautiful princess, and her name was Princess Eisley! There was also a strong prince named Prince Cyrus! And they had a courageous brother named Prince Ezekiel. They also had a daddy and mommy, who were the King and Queen of the castle.

One day the whole family was playing out in the courtyard, when...all of a sudden...from out of nowhere, came a BIG, SCARY DRAGON!!!! And he swooped down out of the sky and grabbed mommy and daddy in his clutches, and flew back to the top of the mountain!

"Nooooooooooooooooo!" screamed Princess Eisley. "What are we going to do?"

"We have to go rescue them," said Prince Cyrus. So they mounted their horses and rode to the top of the mountain. [Insert horse trotting sound effects from Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail.]

Finally they got to the top of the mountain. "Dragon," they said, "you let our mommy and daddy go!"

"Muhahahahaha!" laughed the dragon [in a very deep voice with a slight British accent]. "There must be some mistake. I am a friendly dragon, and I am a very close associate of your mommy and daddy. I brought them here so that they could select gifts for you children from my treasuries of gold and silver. Muhahahaha!"

Then they all shared a good laugh. And they climbed onto the back of the dragon and flew down to the castle, where they all enjoyed a wonderful dinner of mashed potatoes and roast.

The end.

•••••

That's the story my kids get every night. They've memorized it by now. They know when to finish my sentences and when to scream. Eisley knows that, even though the dragon sounds scary at first, he's really friendly every time.

Good night!

Five Years

On this day, five years ago, I married the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth. The day is and always has been a blur to me, but I know that she remembers every detail. All I can remember is that it was raining in the early morning hours, but by the time the wedding started the sun had come out and a gorgeous day was breaking upon us.

I wept as she came down the aisle. That, of course, I remember. Before the ceremony I wondered if that would happen, assuming that it probably wouldn’t. But it did, and I made the ugly cry face as she glided down the walkway, radiating beauty for a thousand miles all around.

Since the day we swore to our friends, family, each other, and to God that we will always love one another, our life has been a whirlwind. We’ve averaged a move every 12 months, and a baby every 20. There have been sweet days, bitter days, and a whole lot of days that were a mixture of both. But through it all our bond of love has only grown stronger. I love her now far more than I did the day she made me cry exactly five years ago.

Breena has been everything I could have hoped for in a wife, and more. I’ve seen her at her best and her worst, and she’s certainly seen me at mine. We’ve walked many a path together. She has been with me as I’ve walked the path of vocational frustration and despair. She has always been my biggest fan and supporter. Her trust and belief in me has never waned or faltered. Even when I doubted myself and God’s call on my life, she did not. She never gave up hope in God’s plan for me and our family. And for that I am grateful beyond words.

I have walked with her along her paths of loneliness, which are especially hard for someone so extroverted. I’ve seen her despair of ever making friends, and I have seen her heart come alive as she plays hostess to wonderful companions in our home, friends far more amazing than we could have ever dreamed of having. We have walked healing paths together, and I have seen God’s hand at work in the awakening of her soul. We have walked patient paths together, reminding one another that it is God who leads us, not us who lead God. We may have run ahead, but he has waited for us. We have called out to him, and he has answered us.

The story of the first five years of our marriage is one of trial and error, of glory and chaos, of realized hope and hope deferred. We have learned when to talk and when to be silent. We have learned how to fight and how to forgive. We have learned that living with another human being to whom you are totally committed isn’t easy, but it’s well worth fighting for. Our story is a tale of exhausted joy and overwhelmed bliss. Every day there is a new lesson to learn, and an old one to relearn. We are not bored. We are very greatly loved.

Blessings come in many shapes and sizes. Ours have names. Cyrus. Eisley. Ezekiel. What wonderful children God has given us! Parenting is the ultimate humiliation, but I pray that these three beauties would find their place in our life and in this world, and that we can someday send them out with confidence that we have raised young men and a woman who know their names and the name of their God.

In some ways our life has been incredibly easy. Our children are healthy. We haven’t known infertility. In other ways our life has been very difficult, like one long trial full of wandering and waiting. But, just as the rain can be both a trial and a refreshment, I believe the early morning of our marriage is passing, and the sun is coming out from behind the gray clouds. I don’t know what lies in either the near or distant future, but I know that we will always walk these roads together. The journey, after all, is the destination, because the one with whom I travel is the one who feels most like home. Wherever God takes us we will always be at home with each other. I love you Breena Ra’cee. Here’s to a glorious mid morning!