Zack's baptism...

What an incredible night we had a church last night! Wow! Just WOW!!!

Zack has been asking to get baptized for several weeks, and we were waiting for the "upcoming baptism weekend" announcement. We thought it might be next weekend, so on our "to do" list was contact the kid's ministry peeps and find out what we needed to do.

Then last night as we pulled up to church, we saw the baptism counseling tents. Zack about climbed out of his skin. At first Jimmy spoke to the kid's ministry coordinator and she gave us directions for next week. But during the sermon, JD talked about baptism being a step of obedience. Zack prayed to receive Christ when he was younger, but we delayed the baptism until we were certain he knew what it meant. It had been weighing on his heart that he hadn't been baptized. We had been praying the Lord would show us when the time was right.

During the service, I wrote Jimmy a note and asked it he thought Zack could be baptized tonight. He whispered to Zack, "Bud, do you want to see if you can be baptized tonight instead of next week." I thought the boy would leap out of his seat. He wrote in the little notebook he carries to church: "Baptism date: April 7, 2012."

The Lord has been working in his heart recently. Some of the things he's said have blown us away. He takes notes on the sermons and then comes home and talks about them in ways that leave us astounded. Wow again. Just WOW! That's not us, y'all. That's the Holy Spirit working in his life, by the grace of God.

I got just the main part of his baptism on video with my cell phone, but it was incredible.

The song we were singing was "It is Finished," one of our family favorites.

The line we were singing when Zack went under was, "Jesus went down in the cold of the grave."

The line we were singing when he came up: "Defeated the darkness when He overcame."

The lines we were singing as Zack climbed out of the water... "The keys of the Kingdom were placed into hands/ Of children and priests and of fishers of men."

[You can see the whole "It is Finished" video here.]


Wow. Just WOW!

Happy Easter, everybody! We love you all!

Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered—

to receive power and riches

and wisdom and strength

and honor and glory and blessing.

Revelation 5:12

Seasons change...

Obviously, for me the blogging season has changed. There is so much to do interacting with real life that I have precious little time to blog anymore. And to be honest, much of my blogging was for my dad, who used this blog to keep up with the dailyness of our family. That doesn't mean I won't ever blog anymore... goodness, it's in my blood to express myself in writing, but there are so many other outlets that this has fallen by the wayside for the time being... in case either of you have noticed. :)

Our seasons are changing, and here's how:

1. Kelsey is heading to Chapel Hill in a few months to begin living the dream she seized hold of back when she was in middle school.  She has a dorm and a roommate already. Yay! I am so proud of her; she has worked tirelessly, tackling countless hours of AP courses and volunteer opportunities. She has turned into an amazing young woman of God. I am in awe.

2. No prama this year. Kelsey and her boyfriend broke up in September. (His mom is still one of my best friends on the planet. No teen season of love/breakups will change that.) Blessedly this time, in one of those scheduling debacles that plagued our entire time at our old church and Kelsey's current school, the Joy Prom is the same night as the Junior/Senior. It took her about 1/2 a minute to decide she was going to the Joy Prom instead. So, no prama posts for 2012 either.

3. Zane has successfully transitioned into the neighborhood school from the Christian school. As we wrestled with what to do for next year when registration time rolled by, he asked to stay where he is now. He has friends. He has a starting position on the highly successful varsity football team. He has a leadership role in FCA. He has opportunities to share the gospel with people who don't know yet.  So, he's staying.

4. Zane is also plugging-in to student ministry at our new church. It's pretty cool how old friends from different places have welcomed him. I have never seen such caring and compassion come from a group of guys. Usually it's a trial-by-fire type of friendship among teenage boys, but here there is genuine encouragement and accountability. It is an answer to prayer after many months of suffering and solitude.

5. Zack is staying right where he is in school for next year. He hates change. Hate may be an understatement. With Zane leaving their school last year and Kelsey leaving school and home to go to college next year, we decided after much prayer that Zack needs to stay right where he is, even though it is very challenging for him academically.

6. Jimmy's found himself in the position of many in the business world over the past few years. As the company makes cut-backs through attrition, his hours working are steadily increasing. His territory is doing great, though. We are blessed. (But we are busy. Who isn't?)

7. Our transition to a new church family is pretty well complete. We don't know how to "sorta" do anything, so we dove head-first into the deep end. After three months of visiting the church and two months of being in a small group, we joined. Thing is, our small group is growing huge, and we find even more people asking to visit. With a void of small groups in our immediate area and several interested families, Jimmy and I felt called to be part of the core team of families planting a new small group, closer to our part of town. We're busy training and learning, and we're totally excited about having the opportunity to participate in our church's gospel mission.

8. In light of college for Kelsey next year and college for Zane two years after that, I am pursuing a full-time job. Last time I crashed and burned on the schedule, but prayerfully, that won't be the case this time. The way positions work now, things are much more streamlined. We'll see. Haven't heard anything yet.

9. Although she has up days and down days, my mom (Miss Daisy) continues to recover well from the fall last September that landed her in the hospital/rehab for several weeks. She is looking into new things to do and does better and better the busier she stays during her retirement. In this season, we help her with groceries and lawn care and housework. She's pretty feisty though, so our roles even in those areas are decreasing. I'm proud of her "fight."

10. Summer Bible study has always, always, always been my favorite activity of the year.  For so many years, I have wished for SBS fellowship to last all year. This year, through our small group at church, I have been blessed to connect with a group of women who are committed to fellowship, prayer, and Bible study on a regular basis year-round. I believe "doing life together" is the current term for such relationships. Jon Acuff would be so proud of us. We "love on" each other too! SCL fans will know exactly what I'm talking about. I dearly love my old SBS friends. Dearly. Yet, I am so very grateful that those types of relationships can be year-round and not confined to just June-July.

11. After nearly two months of searching, we finally found my dad's will, which named me executrix. It didn't go so well. I tried, but living such a full life over two hours away from where everything needs to happen made it difficult to carry out my duties. That and the fact that my brother and I hold very different values systems made it clear that the conflict wasn't worth going to court. So, I resigned the position, after a time of prayer and seeking godly counsel.

12. So far one of the things that hasn't changed is where we live, but who knows what will happen there either. Our "yes" is on the table, as we say at church, so we're waiting to see where the Lord will lead in lots of areas.

Thanks for stopping by. I love and miss so many of you who used to drop by here on a regular basis. I pray the Lord is shining His glory through you each day!

What a day...

Today was a big, big day. We watched some new and dear friends get baptized. We were commissioned as covenant members at our new church, we had lunch and then dinner (broken up by an afternoon of car repairs) with our small group. We celebrated salvation and resurrection and community. It was awesome!

Moving to a new church was a huge deal for us. It came after approximately five years of prayer that started with "There's got to be something more," wandered through "Wait," and ended up with "Now's the time to go." We absolutely love the people at our old church, and we are thankful that the body of Christ is one. Otherwise, we never could have gone.

So why did we leave? Vision. Our new church has a decidedly "missional" view of ministry. The gospel is central. Jesus is THE most important thing of all. The Great Commission defines our role in the world in theory and practice. It's pretty simple.

We are part of a small group that meets on Sundays around 11:30. We have lunch together, kids play all over the place, the adults and sometime some of the teens sit around the table after lunch, eating dessert and sharing thoughts on the sermon. Then we pray for each other. It's discipleship in the most real, relational form I've ever experienced. It's full of love. It's family.

Then during the rest of the week we walk in the world where the Lord has planted us, we go to Bible study together, we text, we talk on the phone, we have coffee, we go to dinner, and we serve in community missions together.  We pray for lost friends and family, and when they visit our group, we love on them huge. Our two newest small group members visited the second week we were in the group. Within a month, both prayed to receive Christ. They were the ones baptized today. Amazing.

So at the end of this day, I sit here, simply grateful. God is so good.

On a lighter note...

You know you're from the South when one of the first things your brother has to do to get your dad's farmhouse ready for post-funeral visitors is to get rid of the machine gun parts (non-working, don't worry) and moonshine (unfortunately we fear that may have been working just fine) sitting on the kitchen counter.

I love my family. And I love my l'il bro for handling the details.

I Peter

I suppose this has been quite the season for suffering in our house. It started last spring with some issues with one of our kids. Then it went into summer with some wrestling about our church. Then work was...different. And my mom fell. And my daddy passed away. It's been a long haul.

Everyone goes through seasons of suffering. As much as I wanted to avoid the pain, I have learned in all this to ask the Lord, if there must be suffering, that I will suffer well.

Last summer, the Sunday school class we worked with studied I Peter, so I began to read I Peter in my quiet time. This fall, the women's Bible study I go to is studying I Peter. And in October, our pastor began preaching a sermon series on I Peter: "I Am An Alien." I'm beginning to think the Lord has something for me to learn in I Peter. And I think that I've found at least one of the bigger lessons.

The passage speaking the loudest to me right now is this one:

Since Jesus went through everything you're going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you'll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want. 
                                                                                                                I Peter 4:1-2 (The Message)


I am learning that what I go through is lovingly designed to make me more in the image of my Savior. Do I want to stay in the fire of suffering? Absolutely not. But am I resting in Him through the trial. Absolutely.


So, in case you have 45:00-ish minutes to spare and want to check out what we've been learning at church, below is the last sermon our lead pastor preached in the series. Skip on over to the 9:20 mark for the sermon. The first few minutes are "family business" announcements and prayer. If you do get to see it, I hope it blesses you big. 



The Mysterious Witness of Submission and Suffering from The Summit Church Sermons on Vimeo.

I'll talk to you later, Daddy. I love you...

On Wednesday morning, November 9th, I was walking through the halls, stalking my principal so that I could talk to her about an article one of our students had written for journalism. I had gone all over the school and was walking down the hall in front of the Fine Arts Center when my friend Karen came jogging towards me, waving her hand in the air. I could see a post-it note stuck to her finger.

"You have to call your uncle right now. It's urgent," she said. I looked at the paper and saw my Uncle Wayne's name. His cell number. And the word URGENT.

I didn't know what had happened, but if Uncle Wayne was calling me at school, I knew it wasn't good. He's one of those guys who is relaxed about everything.

I hurried to the elevator and pushed 2. I walked quickly to my room, unlocked the door, grabbed my cell phone, and walked to the outside landing at the end of my hall. Hands shaking, I dialed Uncle Wayne's number.

"Hello."
"Uncle Wayne! What's up? This is Norma."
"Hey. Uh. I'm here at the farm. Uh. Your dad had some problems this morning. Uh. And I'm sorry, Norma, but he didn't make it."

So many thoughts all at once. The top two were: 1) He was so stubborn. Why didn't he listen to the doctors? Why was he trying to treat his own heart failure? And 2) I never called him back.

I realized Karen was coming out the door behind me. My uncle said the paramedic needed to talk to me. I saw my principal come out the door behind Karen. A million thoughts clogged my brain. More than anything I wanted to be practical.

"Had anyone called Robbie?" I asked Uncle Wayne when he got back on the phone.
"No, I don't think so."
"I will call him."
"OK. Norma, the paramedics need to know where to take your dad."
"What do you mean?"
"They need to call someone at a funeral home. Where do you want to take him?"
"I don't know. I don't know what to do. I am so lost. Who did Grandma's funeral? Take him there."
"OK. I'll make some calls and find out. I'll call you back."

I looked at Karen and Mary and told them Daddy died. He was in congestive heart failure. He had been to the doctor several times, but he wasn't getting better. He didn't like the medicines they gave him. He'd decided to treat himself using information he learned on the internet. "He was SO stubborn!" I said.

It was an odd thing to say. But it was the only thing I could muster that summed up the health saga that began over five years ago and ended that morning.

And then I said, "He called Saturday, but I was late for a meeting, so I talked to him only 10 minutes or so. I told him I'd call him back, but he said, 'No need. I'm fine," and I meant to call him back, but between the stuff I was doing for my Mom and trying to catch up with our house and trying to get all my lesson plans done and papers graded and kids to events and other stuff done, I didn't call him back."

Karen and Mary both said I couldn't think about that. My dad knew I loved him. It was fine that I was taking care of the things I had to take care of. That's what Dad would have wanted me to do.

I could have wallowed in guilt, but at that moment, I decided not to. Both Karen and Mary have lost their dads since I've known them. I trusted their counsel.

In the days that followed, I remembered several conversations I'd had with my dad over the past month or so. My mom had fallen, and I was left having to make lots of decisions and handle lots of things that totally overwhelmed me. I called Dad, my go-to guy for when I had to make lots of tough practical decisions. He always helped me figure things out. He and I talked more in those weeks than we had in the past three or so months. I'm still peeling back the layers of all those conversations, but they are treasures now because we talked about many things that in hindsight are a huge comfort to me right now.

I still think about that last time I talked to him, though. He called to tell me that he had found information on the internet about CoQ10 being a treatment for heart failure. He said the doctors were treating the symptoms, but he'd found something to repair his heart. He heard a gunshot in the woods and said he knew Benie had just gotten him a deer and there'd be fresh venison coming. He asked about the kids and our week. I asked about how he was feeling. He insisted that he was just fine. Great, even. He was thrilled to have found the recommended dosage of CoQ10 to heal failing hearts. I told him I was late for a meeting, but I'd call him back. That's when he said there was no need. He just wanted to call to tell me his good news. He was positively giddy. Happier than I'd heard him in months.

He said, "I love you, and tell the everybody there I love them too."

And I said, "OK, Daddy. I'll talk to you later. I love you. Bye."

One thing...