Whether Parkland, Florida or Pensacola

There was a pall over the car rider drop off line this morning at the school, settled like a fog, forcing us parents to see what was right in front of our faces.  To our right in the passenger seats, and straining over our right shoulders to steal a quick glance at our lifebloods in car seats and boosters, we realized this morning that we didn't want to let them go, for what will happen when the fog lifts?

I drove home slowly, and the idiot passing me didn't even have his headlights on.  Is his faith that strong? 

I turn down my own street and see the high school boy that walks every morning, and I always have to do a double-take because he looks just like Daniel.  Is it Daniel?  No, but it will be him in just a few short years, if I'm lucky -- if I'm blessed with the few months it takes for him to shoot up two more feet, or few years to go to college, a few more to marry the love of his life, and feel the incredible gift of fatherhood that teaches beyond anything else the love our Father has for us.



These young kids dying makes me think about the kind of parent I am.  What am I teaching my boys as they grow?  I'm teaching them to be another Peter Wang, who held a door open in the school for other children to escape.  "Hold the door, boys.  Let others go in first.  Move over so a lady can pass, and then don't expect a thank you.  It's what you should do."  Give your lives for others, and say goodbye to your mother.   I'm raising them to be everyday heroes.  To do the things some don't.  To do the things most won't.  Mrs. Wang, are you proud in your grief??



A close friend of mine asked me if I talked to my sons yet about the tragedy.  And I haven't.  Because I don't know yet what I want to say.  My first inclination is to say, Run and hide and don't make a sound.  Find your own hiding place so that no one else can draw attention to you.  But is that what I would do?  No.  I would run to the ones needing help.  I would give my life to end the life of the possessed man taking all of the innocent lives. I would gather and protect like a shephard does his flock of sheep, protecting them from the wolf who seeks to devour them. 


My mother warrior spirit, the bear in me, weeps in a chair at a computer desk in a safe neighborhood where a multitude of birds sing, and fat little squirrels chatter and play.


But we can add to it all that the teaching profession can be added to the list of dangerous occupations. The lives of a few good men have also been taken, when already we are in short supply, and I grieve for their families, their only consolation for living the rest of their lives without their strong lovers, steady husbands, larger than life fathers...is that they died heroes -- heroes in the example of our God, who is our hero, and did a whole lot more than hold open a door.


Our Father God that was with me in the most intimate embrace, that saw the evil surround the cross that was this school and these children and brave men and women, has also created a place for evil to dwell when all is said and done, where fear now belongs locked in a cage with no possible escape. 

Since fear belongs there, good parents, mentors, and examples, we can make the heroes and the caretakers.  We can raise and influence the walkers on the coals, and the spiritual trapeze artists that have overcome the fear of any kind of fall, the mothers that are the distractors so the others can escape, the leaders who act as human shields, the brave hearts that run headlong into the evil fire to save lives. 





Valentine's Day lived during the tragedy because though evil tried to kill all the love, it could not.  It never will.


Our fights are now, tiring fights that leave us breathless and worn, but they cannot leave us hopeless.  We still have air in our lungs.  We still live, and love, with an endless supply of rest and strength when we turn to the right One.  And no matter how much fear tries to cover us in fog, we can still open our car doors and usher the little children outside to live, and breathe, and fight the good fight by simply doing the right things.


^{John 4:34-38
34} “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. ³⁵ Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. ³⁶ Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. ³⁷ Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. ³⁸ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”


Our hope is that our flesh and our spirits will not always be one, that the flesh will decay, the nerves give one last spark, the eyes close, the heart stop beating, and the spirit lift upward ushered into heaven by Almighty God.  Though He allows a physical death, He gifts lift to the spirit higher than the clouds, held down by no fog.  So we can float.

John 4:46-50
And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. ⁴⁷ When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.
⁴⁸ “Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”
⁴⁹ The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
⁵⁰ “Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.”

 

Matthew 25:40"The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.' 


And so our hearts are for the children left standing.

Followers of the North Star

We began because a man was called, and that man answered.  The eldest to the youngest all followed.







And we learned how to work side by side for a common purpose.

We covered over each other with faith, fellowship, and grace...

And it brought the ultimate joy to our lives, joy that we could not contain.

Though it sometimes it felt like it was hit or miss, we did it all together.

Two and half years can form unbreakable bonds between brothers and sisters of the same Father.

And just two and half years can change some lives forever.

Wherever we go from here, be it together, or apart (hopefully together!!!)...I know we will continue to follow the North Star.

This is dedicated to all of the men and women, past and present, who served at Northstar Pensacola Campus.  I am blessed to call you my brothers and sisters in Christ.

We are victorious. 

Criss-Cross

Our lincoln log cross hangs on the wall in the living room on this Good Friday.  My three boys and I didn't have one, and it's the one thing I wanted for my own place for as long as I can remember... ever since I was a little girl.  The kicker?  My son, Daniel, who was just four-years-old at the time, made the decision that would resonate with me every time I saw it on the wall. 

     "Hey, Mama??  Let's use lincoln logs to make our cross, and you can make a guitar string rope to hold it together."











The only thing holding it to the wall is the balance between the nail and the groove. 



And the only time it has ever fallen down was when it was knocked down by the Christmas tree we were trying to erect, and when I put it back on the wall I realized I didn't want another cross.  We didn't need another cross. 





So it is bound through it's center in a criss-cross with a silk-inlay Austrian guitar string.  The silk inside is the difference in these particular strings.... the softest fiber gives the highly flexible steel core the ability to ring and resonate unlike any other... just like our hearts.  Our strength can never be accomplished by hardening, but by being worked over by our Savior, by only becoming like the silkiest, softest, most open, bendable accommodators through the center of ourselves. 








The only way to keep from getting lost is to wrap ourselves around the cross.





When we are young and haughty, independent and headstrong, we are unfired steel, unable to see beyond even our own edges.  But this life we live, this God-given life, has a way of firing us down, does it not?  The hell-fire we go through, the pain, melts us into willingness to admit we don't have all the answers...forces us to puddle on the floor and rebuild from the inside out.  His death, His traumatizing death, forever in our minds is really the only act of love strong enough to ever get our attention... to really get our attention.




Our food today is that the death of Jesus Christ was already overcome by His birth in the first place....the birth a promise, the death the actual delivery of the promise, and... in the resurrection: the basis for everything we believe, that good will never be overcome by evil.  What greater thought exists?  Love will always win.  And as we reach for the Cross we reach for the greatest power... Compassion, Love.




Lord, we give you our attention today, like we should every moment.  You've got it.  Let the temple curtains tear.  Let the stormy skies rain down.  Your glory and Your fall and Your Love for us is in the rain today.  And let us have forever in our hearts the passion:  the groove that hangs in balance by the nail.

Love Is A Shape

He was the boy whose eyes were downcast more often than not.  He was the boy who thought he had to be the man because there wasn't another one around.  He was the child who didn't have any friends, the boy with ADD, the boy who always felt like he wasn't good enough, that he was somehow different than everyone else, that he didn't have a hope or a prayer. 


But after a time he came to believe that he was good enough to get in the water and try it out just like everybody else.

 

He's not at that age yet where he doesn't care who's looking....

But he is at the age that he knows he wants to do it anyway.  So he got into the water and professed to everyone standing around just what he believes in, that anything is possible if you'd just take the time to wade in a little water, and that it doesn't matter about the shape of your muscles, or size of your chest, or anything else on the outside.  All that matters is that the size of your spirit is not measured by anyone else but Almighty God.

You see, I've messed up more times than I can count.  But on this day, all of my mistakes were washed away, just like his were.  My broken gifts to him were glued back together. 

We all put things together and just try to make them work.  We put in our resources, and our time, and our efforts, and they just aren't enough to do it justice.  But the glue of God's water is eternal.

So we accept the brokenness, because it hopes for greatness.  We accept the attempts, because ours are no better.  Even when we can plainly see where it has been broken, we can also see what a person tried to give...

 We take a long, hard look and find out that the shape of giving hands is love...even when all we have left to give is brokenness.



All Photos by: Mae Grace Eatmon, Eatmon Photography,

except "Heart" photo by:  LK

Find Your Teeth

He screeched to the front door with his two brothers, my youngest, and shoved the plastic container holding his first lost tooth right in my face.  "Mommy, I lost my tooth, I lost my tooth!"  "You did?" I asked excitedly. 

He had waited so long...watched his brothers each lose tooth after tooth after tooth, and he just wanted to be big like them.  I remember one day recently when his older brother had lost yet another tooth.  Jonah's bottom lip puckered out like he was about to cry.  "Don't worry," I said to him, "you're getting bigger every day, and the day is coming when you will start losing your teeth, too."

And oh, I wished this day would never come.  It seems the early years are so hard, but since the youngest turned five all I've wanted to do is stop the clock.  Not yet, Lord, not yet.  I'm not ready for them to leave me.

I watch them grow bigger and stronger knowing that one day they will leave my nest, and I will miss them so much.  But also I can't wait to see how they end up helping others with these many precious gifts of character God has given them.  My boys are turning into young men every day right before my eyes.  The Father overwhelms me.

But see, Jonah had lost that same tooth twice....at school when it came out of the socket, and later that evening when he dropped it while watching TV.  You've never seen a bottom lip pucker like this, or eyes well up so full...  "Don't worry, baby, we'll find it.  We'll find it."



I went to a homeless shelter this week.  You know, there are only supposed to be adult drug addicts at homeless shelters.  But that's not what I saw.

I saw the physically disabled who's luck ran out, stuck between a rock and a hard place, but at least with a temporary roof.  I saw a young boy whose mama just trusted the wrong man again. And he sat in this strange place, watching TV, just trying to look like he wasn't afraid as 40 people he didn't know shuffled back and forth along the hall.  I saw a room full whose only hope was the next right step, who slept hard from exhaustion reaped from a day full of the stress of survival...

...Those that have lost way more than just their teeth, those that have lost way more than they could ever be proud of.  I looked into eyes that just wanted to turn back time.  They just wanted their clothes clean and their hair washed for their second chance.


I pulled my own boys' clean underwear out of the dryer and I thought of that boy.  See, that's all his mama had asked for, was a pair of clean underwear for her boy, and I didn't have it to give. The Father says to give to he who asks, and I didn't have it to give.  So instead I blessed my hallway carpet with a million tears and held that underwear to my chest.



I don't know how we can get so sidetracked worrying about who said what to whom, so cutthroat about our jobs, so snooty about our skills... intent on keeping people out, looking down our noses at lost causes.  For you see, these same people are closer to bare bones and the spiritual side of things than even you and I right now...you can't deny it save mere ignorance.  Us in all our luxury, them living hand to mouth from the mighty hand of God.  While one man's luxury is a five bedroom, 3 bath home in the woods, and mine is a two bedroom apartment in a duplex....tonight theirs is a dry roof over a cot not too far from the cold breeze that cuts under that bridge.

I encourage you to take 10 minutes out of your day tomorrow to call a local shelter to find out what its residents' needs are.  Maybe you can donate $10 to go towards supplies, like coffee cups, toothbrushes, and soap.  Maybe you can work a shift once a week, once a month.  Maybe you can be an ongoing supplier of gently used clothing. 

Maybe all you can provide is that one pack of underwear for that little boy who had to leave his home in the middle of the night.


Finding a life once again after falling so far and so hard takes time and a whole lot of determination and heart.  And I can tell you from experience that coming from a low place is made all the more bearable when someone doesn't reign judgement, but instead fills a need.  Those that catered to my needs in my low places helped my spirit shift from just surviving to just thriving.

I want to find my teeth, and grit down against the unpleasantries and inconveniences, and give the little that becomes so much to someone else in order to say, "Don't worry.  We'll find it.  We'll find it."



"We'll find it."

Driftwood Prayers & Christmas Khakis

They were there for me in a way no one else could be in that moment.  Angels from heaven may wear robes of white, but the Holy Spirit sometimes hides himself in khakis and polos, sometimes in humble threads on the corner asking for money, sometimes on the trailing notes of a song on the radio, and in gifts of money and McDonald's and fixed cars two weeks before Christmas.

And each Christmas in succession teaches me this:

From the success of the hidden birth of the mightiest King on Earth ever in existence we can deduce that the most helpless have an honored place in the kingdom of God.  And that though others would see dirty animals and straw, we know that there is peace and safety in the glory that shines upon the hay.





I work and create and drive and care and love just as hard as I possibly can, but find in the end I can be one of the most helpless.  And He says, "You don't have to be anything more than what I've made you to be.  Already you are my creation."

I have prayed and prayed and prayed for one thing for Christmas for my boys.  Many Christmases I have prayed.  These prayers seemed to move so slow, like... driftwood in a lazy river -- water getting into the holes and weighing down the dreams, to what seemed like, beyond hope, beyond finances, beyond my means -- slowing down to an eternity the wait for what I've wanted for so long.

But this year God answered my prayers in a way that could only be Him.  And though I'd only asked for one, He gave me two.

 

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I kneel down and praise the God that gives me the desires of my heart because I delight in Him.  His mightiness right now is in the tears that fall down my face.  He is reminding me, once again, that His purpose will come to fruition, and that He has entrusted to me three of His children for a reason.

 
Special thanks to Chris Alvarado of Driftwood Guitars for making our Christmas a most memorable one, and for being the worker in answer to my driftwood prayers.


Also, thank you to the many good people at the Worship on the Water Church at the Flora-Bama for helping me stay on the road, and for the many gifts that will help my boys' eyes light up this Christmas morning.


My love to all of you.  May God richly bless to your lives a hundred fold, and may your spirits Float this Christmas season. 

Merry Christmas.

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