The Crash

We got to O'Haver Lake late Friday night, so we took two good rides with our four-wheelers on Saturday. Sunday morning we packed a lunch and prepared to take a long ride. Before we left, I led a little five-minute devotional on Psalm 121, one of my favorites. After camping and riding around in the mountains, I thought it was appropriate.

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?

2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

We'd gone over a pass and were working our way back when we came to a mountain road that was hilly, wide and smooth. I was riding my dad's Arctic Cat with Laurel on the seat behind me. At the bottom of a hill was a washed-out culvert. I decided to go to the edge of the road where it wasn't washed out as bad, but was going too fast and swerved off the road.
The mountain wasn't super-steep at this point, but it still was a decline. The left front of the Arctic cat smashed into a tree.
I was launched forward, but my foot got entangled with Laurel's and the handlebars. I hit my head on the ground/vegetation at the right of the four-wheeler. Laurel pretty much remained on the four-wheeler.
When we came to a complete stop I remember hearing Laurel from up above me saying, "Mom, are you OK?" I couldn't see her because of my position, and I think I may have blacked out for a second, but I was so thankful to hear her voice.
"I think I'm OK, but my leg really hurts," I told her.
We got our legs untangled from under the handlebars. I thought mine might be broken, but realized it wasn't.
Laurel, 9, was amazingly calm in this crisis. She climbed back up to the road to look for help. I climbed up a little later too, and we were sitting by the road when the guys came back looking for us.
I'd run over a fallen log right before hitting the tree, so the quad had to be lifted up over that and raised about five feet to get back up to the road. Dave enlisted the help of a couple guys who passed by, so they and Caleb and Harrison lifted while Dave used his quad with a tow strap attached to pull it back up to the road. And it worked!
We tried starting the quad. And it worked! The left front headlight was dangling, the plastic smashed, and the rack bent and broken, but mechanically it seems fine.
We were still a good ways from camp, so I drove it back. I had a little trouble shifting with my hurt leg, so Laurel rode with Dave.
The next verse of the Psalm is

3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;

My foot getting entangled with the handlebars probably saved me from a massive head injury. I am grateful.

Reading Aloud

Harrison made my day. He asked me what book I was going to read to them on vacation.

I've always loved reading to my kids. When we were camping six years ago I started reading "Where the Red Fern Grows" by Wilson Rawls to them. On the way home, they wanted me to keep reading. We eventually had to find a flashlight when it got dark so I could see the page. I ended up reading for six hours straight.

During the sad ending (I won't tell you what happens, in case you haven't read it yet) I was choking back tears. However, I was in good company--I could hear sobbing from the back seat. I finished shortly before we pulled into Wichita.


Last year I read them one of my favorites, "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee (or Tequila Mockingbird, as Harrison calls it). They listened, but it didn't seem to grab them the way I'd hoped.


So I was pleased that Harrison seems willing to give me another chance. I told him I'll read "Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain.


"Is that even a good book?" he asked.


Oh Harrison, just you wait.

At the top of Starvation Creek road, somewhere in Colorado, 2004. This was the last time we camped at O'Haver Lake and rode our quads on the old mining roads. This year the boys will ride their own quads, of course. Laurel and I will double up on quad in the picture, Grandpa's Arctic Cat.

Shoe Girls

I received a compliment on my new shoes after church yesterday (thanks, Jennifer) but I really can't take the credit.

I was shopping for a new dress. My daughter, Laurel, checked out the shoe section. She returned teetering on brown wedges, begging for me to buy them for her.

"Laurel, you're only nine, you can't wear shoes that high," I told her. I looked at them again, noticing the cute jute-covered heel and fun ruffles down the front. "You can't wear them . . . but I can."

She wasn't happy with me when I found the coveted shoes in my size, paid for them and walked out with the box under my arm. But I've promised she can wear them when they fit her, and she's only a size or two away.

Last summer I was wanting a pair of basic black sandals. I took Laurel shopping with me and ended up with snakeskin sandals, also with a wedge heel. I love those too. And every time I wear them I think, "That's what happens when I go shoe shopping with Laurel!"

God Speaks

Our pastor often says, "God speaks to us, we just don't always hear well."
Sometimes God's voice comes as a gentle nudge to do something, other times a disquieted feeling of conviction that's I've messed up and need to make something right. Often, it's a little uncertain. It's an, "As best as I can tell, I think God wants me to do this" sort of thing.
However, like the Children of Israel who would always point to the parting of the Red Sea as the unmistakable display of God's power and protection, I have two unusual instances in my life that I point to as God speaking directly to me.

The first occurred when Dave and I had been married for over four years and were wanting to start a family. We'd been trying for a few months with no luck, and the difficulties my mom had getting pregnant made me concerned I might have trouble as well.
Dave and I had been mentoring a boy through Youth Horizons, and he was in the process of getting out of foster care and becoming available for adoption. Was it God's plan for us to adopt him?
I had started reading through the Bible that year, and came to Abraham's story in Genesis. Childless, he was asking God if his servant Eliezer would be the one to inherit his estate. God's answer to him came straight to me:
"This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." Gen. 15:4.
I copied the verse on the dated page in my planner.
The boy was adopted by another family.
A couple of months later I'd worked my way to the book of Numbers. Moses sent 12 spies to check out Canaan, the promised land. When they returned, only two, Joshua and Caleb, expressed confidence that God would fight for them and give them the land. The Lord's anger burned against the 10 spies who were afraid, and He declared that none of them would ever see the promised land. 
Numbers 14:24 leaped out at me. "But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it."
When I went to Colombia in 1988, one of the missionary couples had a cute little baby named Caleb. I'd liked the name ever since. "Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a boy named Caleb who follows God wholeheartedly?" I thought with longing.
A few weeks later I learned I was pregnant, and already had been when I'd read the verse. We named him Caleb. My prayer has always been that he would follow God wholeheartedly.

The second instance I point to happened in the fall of 2005. Laurel, my baby, had entered kindergarten. With all three of my kids in school, I planned to focus my efforts on my writing. I'd been editing our church newsletter for over five years, but I started including a more in-depth feature-style narrative in each issue. For one of these, I'd interviewed Danny, a former truck driver who, through a series of chance events, got a job working alongside a man from our church who befriended him and eventually led him to the Lord.

Over the summer I'd contacted a writer I'd been acquainted with for a few years whom I'd hoped would mentor me, but had recently realized that wouldn't work. Then I ran into a former professor of mine who is also a writer. She mentioned she was moving from her duplex to an apartment, so I arranged to help her one morning, hoping I'd have a chance to talk to her about mentoring me. Since my newsletter with Danny's article in it had just been printed, I brought it along and showed it to her when we took a break. She looked at it briefly, handed it back and said "Why don't you keep it for someone who can appreciate it more?"
Even at the time, I knew she was overwhelmed from moving, downsizing. I knew she was in a "I need to get rid of all this stuff" mode, and I had handed her one more piece of paper to deal with.
But that didn't make it hurt any less. I'd handed her my soul, and she'd stomped all over it.
I lost it.
She had no idea why I was crying, and I couldn't tell her for a few long, awkward minutes.
Eventually I explained, she apologized, and even agreed to mentor me.
Still, I had a lingering, deep ache the rest of the day.
After coming home late from my kids' school rollerskating party, I had a message on our home phone.
It was from Danny. He'd had a rough day, then arrived home to find the Current in his mailbox. He said he was so encouraged to read his story, and to remember again how God had worked in his life. He affirmed my gift of writing, and thanked me for telling his story well.
After I'd replayed the message for the fourth time, my daughter Laurel put her hand on my leg, looked up into my face and asked, "Mommy, why are you crying?"
Through my tears, I told her that God had left me a message.

On Sunday, I thanked Danny for the call.
He told me he had felt really funny making the call, and even more foolish leaving the message, but he'd had a strong direction from the Holy Spirit that he should.
"I know," I told him.

Going for it

Our son, Caleb, will be a freshman at North High next year. He wants to play football, so he's been going to summer conditioning. In fact, he actually did this last year too, as an 8th grader. I have been amazed that he is getting up at 7 a.m. or earlier so he can ride his bicycle the 2 miles to North and be on time. No one is waking him up, he's doing it all on his own.

His friend, who I'll call Joe, doesn't have that same kind of drive. He's had a hard time getting up for conditioning. The two have played football together a number of years, and I think Joe wants to make the team. He's not a morning person. Caleb has tried giving him a wake-up call, but he sleeps through it. Joe's mom goes to work early, so she's not available. He's made it to conditioning when he's had a friend sleep over and they've gone together. Except the time that Caleb stayed the night. Then they both overslept and missed it.

I told Caleb that Joe's idea of enlisting his friends to help him get to conditioning is a good one. If he's having trouble, he needs to figure out ways that will help him succeed. However, there comes a point where he is going to have to find the motivation internally and make it happen.

And I thought of myself. In my writing, I have resembled Joe much more than Caleb. I've let myself get sidetracked, off focus. I've enlisted friends to help, mainly my small group sisters and my running buddy, Kristen. But they can't make me choose to stay at the computer when I feel like running upstairs for a snack. They can't make me stop checking email and facebook when I'm stuck on a story. They can't make me keep working when I decide to take a break and go to the pool for the the rest of the afternoon.

At some point, the motivation is going to have to come from within. Right now, I'm working on a special edition of the Current for our church's 20th anniversary, a project that I lobbied for last fall. I've gotten the go-ahead to use color, and eight pages instead of the usual four. I had the idea for the feature article over a year ago. I interviewed my subjects, and let my notes sit for over two weeks. I forced myself to write the story last week. The rough draft's done, but I have yet to re-visit it. The whole issue needs to be finished in early August. We have swim team championships, a rafting trip, a four-wheeling trip to Colorado, and a synchronized swimming show scheduled before then.

Maybe I need to talk to Caleb and see how I can make this happen.

My Kathmandu

For a couple of years, I volunteered at WSU with their international students' conversation class. Meeting new students every week was fascinating, I loved hearing about their home countries, families, and culture. I remember one gal I met had very good English so we had a great conversation. I don't remember where she was from, because she didn't want to talk about her home. The summer before, she had been to Kathmandu (in Nepal), and she was planning to return as soon as possible. She glowingly told me of her favorite hangouts, the music, the art, the culture. She'd fallen in love with it. (And maybe a handsome local, I guessed).

After my freshman year in college, I spent a summer in Colombia with a missions team. We visited Bogota, Medellin, and the Choco (jungle), but our home base (and my favorite city) was Cali.

The statue of Christo Rey with outstretched arms overlooked the city in the valley. Downtown, street musicians filled the air with a tropicales or reggae beat. I loved the artisan fair, Tostadas Con Todo, and Mimo's chocolate-covered ice cream cones.

The weather was perfect. A missionaries' house even had a permanently open 8-foot square skylight covered with iron bars, because there would never be a time when you wouldn't want a nice fresh breeze, and it would never be too hot or too cold. The skylight was over a tiled area with a drain, so the rain would only water the plants they kept there, and then wash away.

Even people who lived in the poorer sections of the city, in the houses stacked on the sides of the foothills, managed to emerge from their concrete shacks in perfectly clean and pressed clothing. So many men were short, dark, and handsome.

We had a problem with our passports, and got turned away before stepping onto our plane at the airport. Riding with my teammates and our luggage back to the missionaries' home in the back of a pickup, I didn't care. So what if we were stuck in the country for a few more days? I hadn't been ready to leave anyway.

"I know what you mean," I told my conversation partner. "Cali, Colombia was my Kathmandu."

Pickin'

I just bought a couple of canteloupes at the grocery store, which reminded me of when Dave and I were first married. I was in the produce section selecting a canteloupe, and someone asked me how to make sure it was ripe. I said, "I always first look for one with a good-looking belly button, and then I smell it."
My husband added, "That's how she picked me!"