Minnesota beginnings

January 14, 2014January 13, 2014 / abby hummel / 3 Comments

When we decided to move to Minnesota, I didn’t have a lot to go on beyond vague notions of what it might be like. My college room-mate occasionally visited Minneapolis, and she always told me how cold it was. Because she was raised in Alabama and had one of those old-fashioned ear-flap bomber hats lined with real rabbit fur for Michigan weather, I didn’t take that warning very seriously. Ahem. Instead, the biggest frustration was that living in Minnesota would require even more driving to spend time with family in Michigan. The compensating consolation was the excellent water access, which was notably absent in Iowa. We often said, “It doesn’t have much of the Great Lakes, but it has a great number of lakes.”

Other than that, while Aaron got excited about researching Cassava and I started freaking out about moving for a temporary job and feeling so behind in life, I clung to the positive associations I had with Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion (because breaking into bluegrass songs and wry comedic sketches during regular life would be a dream come true for me), and Caribou Coffee. Now I admit I actually enjoy the specialty drinks at Starbucks better, but I appreciate the idea of Caribou’s celebration of pioneering and The Wild over Starbucks’ hip affluent consumer vibe. Folk music and antlers helped me get used to this idea, you could say.

Then, on a beautiful October afternoon, I waited in a coffee shop near St. Paul (neither Caribou nor Starbucks, and not particularly noteworthy either) while Aaron interviewed with his new team, and the sun beat warm through my window. After months of praying, with the “high” of recently selling the house fueling our sense of adventure, I wasn’t really waiting for a text from Aaron telling me how it went or if he had an answer. I knew moving was right even though it didn’t line up with any of the things I had wanted for years. We were doing it.

While I sat at that little coffee shop, God may or may not have spoken to me through an American Idol song. (When we get outside of scripture, I’m not really sure how that works always… It’s safer to avoid taking a firm stance.)

Settle down, it’ll all be clear
Please pay no mind to the demons – they fill you with fear
Trouble might drag you down
When you get lost, you can always be found
Just know you’re not alone
I’m gonna make this place your home. – Philip Philips, Home

These are things I want to remember, because if I thought this story started a few weeks ago when we moved here, I’d be wildly disappointed to find I had missed my chance to cash in on the big (only) thought that comes to mind:

(It’s so cold in Minnesota that someone beat me to the punch and already published a book about it!)

Little Max

January 9, 2014January 9, 2014 / abby hummel / 4 Comments

Little Max has been the most delightful (and naughty) addition to our life! We are sleeping less, getting drastically less done around the house, and housebreaking this close to the arctic circle is a bit more challenging than it may be in better weather, but the payoff of a great dog for the next decade+ is something we’ve been excited about for a long time. We’re already marveling at how big he is and learning some of his little quirks.

Name: Max, after the poor little dog in The Grinch and a sidekick to the villain in The Great Race. (It tells a lot about Aaron’s sense of humor that he wants his dog to feel like the sidekick to two different cinematic villains.)

True cinematic alter-ego: Chewbacca from Star Wars, because he is brown, furry, makes funny noises at all times, and has more than earned the nickname “Chewie.”

New tricks: running up and down the stairs; occasionally sitting on command; whining when we do not provide a treat for spontaneous sitting.

Likes: chewing fingers, socks, carpet, knit items, ANYTHING FLEECE, furniture, ANYTHING FORBIDDEN, pens, toggles on winter coats, paper; licking; treats; scratches; naps on laps; exploring outside for very limited periods of time; waiting for the chef to spill food while preparing meals; attempting to pit the grown-ups against each other; snooping on computer usage.

Dislikes: chewing on toys while there are more exciting things elsewhere in the house; being unable to fit on laps and under certain pieces of furniture when it worked last week; watching Deadliest Catch (he probably thinks Duck Dynasty would be more appropriate, being a bird dog himself); getting cold paws when we go outside.

And… his snout is already longer than it was in this picture!

(Yes, I suggested the name Dwight a few times before we got him.)

{concerning vocation} reading round-up (11.22.13)

November 22, 2013November 22, 2013 / abby hummel

A few links on dealing with difficult jobs to follow up with what I shared earlier this week… enjoy!
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The Gospel Coalition has written several articles I think are great here. Is Your Job Useless? tackles the idea of doing God’s work in your job, even if it doesn’t seem like purposeful or enjoyable work to you.

Five Ways to Find Joy in a Job You Don’t Love is particularly helpful with practical suggestions for difficult situations. I love the point about looking for what aspect of God’s character is exalted in your tasks, even if they don’t seem meaningful or fulfilling to you.

How to Humanize the Workplace is a great look at healing for brokenness in messy workplaces. This is probably most helpful or useful if you’re in management, but I would have had more productive discussions in my circumstances if I had been able to explain my perspective with the sorts of terms used in this article.

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Following up on that note, this article about investing in your work highlights some important things to think about for long-term career growth, especially that making significant sacrifices for a job where your bosses, managers, and coworkers do not make decisions that honor your dedication and position disrespects the dignity of the life and vocation God has given you.

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I actually haven’t read Tim Keller’s book Every Good Endeavor, but Aaron’s going through it with his men’s group and I have appreciated what he’s shared from it. It’s at the top of my list for Christmas vacation reading!

In Quitter, Jon Acuff tackles several practical aspects of getting from your day job to your dream job. His admonition that dreams are only worth chasing if you’re willing to chase them with all your spare time was the kick I needed to start teaching piano in the evenings, even though I was exhausted. Guess what? It ended up being not-that-exhausting… The mental and spiritual boost of working to get where I needed to go was immensely encouraging.
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Finally, a solid exhortation from Albert Einstein. (Or maybe just Pinterest. Be sure to read what Abraham Lincoln said about quotes on the internet.) My life improved dramatically when I stopped buying the lie that my challenges were the result of a bad attitude. I realized I needed to think outside the box to discern the opportunity in the difficulty.

{concerning vocation} toil and trouble

November 20, 2013November 19, 2013 / abby hummel / 8 Comments

I’ve had jobs on the brain a lot lately, because moving means leaving behind a successful piano studio and when I think about my future, that brain becomes a big jumbled mess of questions about music, self-employment, working, overall career/vocation, graduate school, and other things. I love being my own boss, but depending on what circumstances and connections come together in the future, I could be punching in and out on someone else’s watch again before long. I think I’ve learned a lot since my previous experiences as a full-time employee, which puts me in a position for a much more successful run at it, but I get a little nervous when I think about it.

Surviving a difficult job situation is a valley no one wants to go through. Work is messy because it’s one of those things that God designed for us and then it got all turned around with the Fall. I think the sort of jobs that feel like they are sucking out your soul are a major perversion of what God originally intended to be good, purposeful, and fulfilling. Despite these twists and turns, ultimately all (morally acceptable) work is spiritually profitable, and the mature response to vocational difficulty is to work as unto the Lord and not for man. In other words, pull it together and get the bills paid even if it doesn’t feel personally fulfilling.

While I was in that roughest stage of employment, which meant crying on the way to and from work five days a week, I had to watch several people close to me leave or lose their own “bad jobs,” then “take some time off” while their families covered their bills or welcomed them back home, and it was really demoralizing to feel like I was the only responsible person around. I committed to Aaron that I wasn’t going to quit without another job lined up, so after my (countless) applications elsewhere were rejected, I even cried when a bunch of people in my company got laid off and I wasn’t one of them. Seriously. (I also came home that day to another rejection letter in the mail. It was rough.) The first time I sipped morning coffee on my patio while emailing a new piano student’s mom instead of racing to work by 7:40? BEST DAY OF MY LIFE.

A few months back, a friend emailed me about her own difficult job situation and I felt serious sympathy pains for her distress. I felt bad for her, and I hated that I was not an anomaly. There are plenty of people who feel like their financial stability comes at the expense of their personal well-being. She said, “I know you had a job that was awful for you. Wherever you were a few years ago, I’m there now. I wrestle with having joy and feel so discouraged and disheartened. I hate it. I know those aren’t the feelings we are to have as Christians. How do you get through it?” (It’s totally fine for Christians to feel that way, but that’s another thing all together.)

Another person close to me has made tremendous personal sacrifices to satisfy her difficult bosses and benefit her employer at the start of her career. She sat in a meeting while her boss pointed her out to the entire office, saying, “This girl here doesn’t need a raise for two years, because I could post her job opening and have 100 people apply within two days to take her place.” Could you imagine the humiliation of the company leader telling everyone you work with that you are the most replaceable and worthless employee in the room? This job is how God has provided for her and she goes back every day. I think her courage and work ethic make her the most valuable member of her team! But jobs and offices are often backwards and messy, and the values of a Christian are not always rewarded immediately by a supervisor.

Since I’ve “been there” with the challenging job situation, I have a few practical coping tips here for those still in the trenches (and possibly myself in a little while, too!)… Because sometimes the advice to “make the best of it and try to get a different job” just doesn’t cut it when you are trying to thrive in a valley!

1) Create mental distractions for pointless tasks. I worked in a bank and often counted out huge bags of cash by hand. They have machines that can do this more accurately than people, which makes the task seem totally worthless to me. I would come up with little verses from the Bible or traditional prayers that were 25 words (or I would shove two or three words together), so I would say a word for each $20 bill I put in the stack of $500.
2) Pick something to be really happy about every day. I wish I could say my happy-thing was God’s love. It was usually my shoes. Some days thoughts like, “this person is being a total meany, but I have purple shoes on!!!! With a buckle!!!! I am awesome!!!!” carried me through until closing. I have a friend who left her desk Christmas tree up year round to keep her excited on bad days. Do what you have to do.
3) Make the most of your pre- and post-work hours. Use the drive to and from work to prepare or detox from your day and leave it there. Don’t let yourself whine about work in the evenings. I used to keep reminding myself, “Don’t let a sucky situation suck up your whole life.” I usually listened to teenybopper music (Kelly Clarkson and Lady Gaga) really loud during my drive into work. Silly? Yes. But it felt good to scream, “My life would suck without you” -yes, that is really a song- or some other power ballad on my way in. I had to pump myself up to be ready, and loud music was my ticket.
4) Make up your own reward system when you aren’t rewarded in meaningful ways by your boss. If I correctly filled out 10 reports without getting caught on anything in the checkback procedure, I would get a treat at Starbucks on the way home. If I made it through two days of boring meetings, I would treat myself with new yarn and a weekend craft project. Getting a latte or a skein of yarn wasn’t a really big deal, so I could have done either one any day, but I chose to reward myself for surviving work and succeeding in the tasks given to me.
5) Use your breaks productively. Take a walk outside, listen to an encouraging podcast, eat healthy food, read a book, plan a project you need to do at home, etc. Don’t let it become a pity-party. I wanted to journal during my break but it became an awful woe-is-me writing session so that had to stop. I usually listened to classical music and made lists of things I liked on my lunch breaks – anything that refreshes and refuels you is worth it! Surfing the internet and listening to talk radio are generally not sources of encouragement and invigoration. Be sure to restore yourself during this hour, not just indulge in laziness.
6) Make responding appropriately to others a priority. I dealt with a lot of very miserable, negative people in various aspects of my job and tried to respond with utter cheerfulness to anything they said. I did not feel cheerful about this, but my goal was responding cheerfully instead of absorbing or reacting to the poor attitude projected to me. This may not have actually improved my work atmosphere as a whole, because people noticed it and thought it was weird, but it was what I needed to do to consciously turn away from their misery. Proactivity was key for positively interacting with Aaron in the evenings, too, so by the time my car was in the driveway I was equipped with three things to ask him or bring up that were unrelated to my job. (How was your lunch conference? Did you know there was an article in the WSJ that said….?, etc.)
7) Define personal success by how you’re serving God in the evenings and weekends. I really struggled with self-worth as a college graduate working in an entry-level job and office politics were getting in the way of my chances at a promotion, so it helped to redefine success by what I was doing in the evenings (usually just getting food on the table) and weekends (projects around my house, church events), instead of focusing on being a little bit embarrassed by a non-prestigious job. My outlook significantly improved when Abby-plays-piano-after-dinner became a permanent part of our evening routine, too, because my free time was tapping into some of the things I loved doing. That became a pretty big key (ha) to successfully figuring out the next steps toward a better career.
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Is there anything else you would add to encourage someone in a difficult or overwhelming job situation? What encouraged you to rejoice while working in bad job? I have a few articles, book suggestions, and other links to share on Friday, too!

{concerning vocation} liberating society

November 18, 2013November 16, 2013 / abby hummel / 2 Comments

Wrapping up lessons with my piano students is one of the most sentimental parts of this season of endings. I’ve been overwhelmingly blessed with a career that uses my talents and training, and after three years of a job that definitely wasn’t like that, I have been especially grateful for every single day of this experience.

[image source here]

Maybe the most fulfilling part of this job is that it puts me in control of my success for a day of work. I don’t have to worry about choosing between making a customer or my boss happy. All I have to do is get along with this kid for this half-hour, and I really enjoy that I tailor my lesson plans based on what I know is best for each student because of our established relationship. I love that I am in control of studio members, so I can easily weed out students who don’t want to cooperate and parents who are manipulative or difficult. Most of the time those issues are probably just personality differences, but it’s a huge gift that I decide where I get to draw those lines.

Self-employment is an experience you can’t understand until you’ve done it yourself. I think it’s my best fit, and I’m excited that moving provides a great opportunity to make a few changes for better growth as a business owner… even though it does mean basically starting over with clients, too. This sets me apart a bit from others who don’t understand what it means to work for yourself, and I find the comments from people who don’t “get it” pretty laughable. Most people have been spared the hassle of billing, fees, bookkeeping, paying taxes that aren’t withheld by an employer, saving up for unpaid sick and vacation days, and selecting a single-payer private health-insurance plan for a woman in her mid-twenties, but those are just as much a part of my day-to-day business operations as sitting at the piano.

I learned a lot of lessons in my season of office work and I think that strengthens my perspective in many aspects of life. I’m still not at the point where I would say I’m glad I went through that. I wish I hadn’t believed the doubts and been brave enough to start moving towards this sooner. On the other hand, self-employment is not for the faint of heart, and I still think we were a little bit crazy to jump forward while Aaron was in grad school and we had a mortgage and wanted to have kids, but it has enriched our lives greatly. In the face of other significant heartbreak and waiting, it has been a special gift to be so fulfilled and delighted in my job.

I’m grateful the days I have worked are leaving more behind than a bunch of pay stubs. I’ve marched around my living room to the beat of a metronome to demonstrate that two eighth-notes fit in the same amount of time as a quarter note, watched hard work and discipline result in beautiful self-expression, and explained how JS Bach’s Crab Canon is like one giant math problem on a Moebius strip. I’ve helped kids prepare songs to play at their grandparents’ funerals, admonished unprepared students to develop a stronger work ethic, and taught them how to fairly evaluate their own improvements. The best part of a day is telling a child, “You worked hard and I am so proud of you!” Piano lessons? Sometimes it feels more like I’m teaching “Life Lessons.” I’m okay with that.

While I’ve been told I earn a “killing” (ha) to “stay home and sit around,” (ha) and have been told charging a fair rate is “greedy” (ha), none of that is true. I’m pretty sure I’ve been wildly blessed in this job and I’m grateful for that. How many people can say the cornerstone of their career is “rocking”? Not many. I’m in a happy minority.

Dr. Leaf Blower

November 11, 2013November 11, 2013 / abby hummel / 5 Comments

My friend had the following conversation with her children on the way over to our house this fall.

“You’re going to have so much fun at Mrs. Hummel’s house! Her husband is blowing their leaves into a pile so you can play in them.”
“What should we call Mrs. Hummel’s husband?” – 8 year old
“He’s Mrs. Hummel’s husband, so that would make him… what?”
“Umm… Mr. Leaf Blower?” – 4 year old

Well, that’s Dr. Leaf Blower to you now, kid. That’s right. There is a PhD in the house. We can cross this one off the 30-before-30 list. Aaron defended his dissertation so he’s officially all Philosophized, Doctorized, and formally recognized as being both outlandishly smart AND diligent.

I’m pretty smart, but Aaron is smart in things I can’t wrap my brain around. It took me a few months to memorize his job title. (“Working in a Plant Pathology lab as part of an inter-disciplinary Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology program,” is a mouth full, in my defense.) And when I think about this PhD and the hard work it took to get here, I’m so grateful for Aaron’s work ethic and his courage in risky situations. This man has been perpetually stressed for about 10 years. I know this man started off this adventure five years ago by putting overtime beyond overtime in to ensure that his presence was a blessing to his lab mates, aware that his work would communicate to others that Christianity is supposed to make you a better scientist, not the opposite. In the first part of grad school he was still in the military, and this man would spend four or five days almost without sleeping when he had Drill weekends, and then get to the lab even earlier as soon as he got home. This man sat on the couch and read papers instead of attending sports games. (Breaks were more frequent in hockey season after we had a TV, of course.) This man never complained about the inconveniences of our tightwad budget, like eating sandwiches and leftovers for lunch every day, and using an old cell phone that barely texts – forget 3G network access! This man was cheerful about the added financial risk of my self-employment so we could both live out the dreams God gave us. This man who loves the outdoors spent many a beautiful weekend day (sometimes both of them) working on his projects in the lab. He has spent most of the last five years in a white room without windows, and hasn’t really even had coworkers to share the days with for quite a while. This man dutifully tackled many of his highest pressure assignments in the seasons where I have been most grief-stricken and needy instead of the encourager I wanted him to have, because grad school doesn’t wonder what would be most convenient for your personal life when setting up experiment deadlines.This man has been diligent even when he was definitely thinking things like this:

[From #whatshouldwecallgradschool, which is not appropriate reading for minors or grandmothers, but is fall-on-the-floor hilarious to those who are in graduate school.]

I can’t say exactly where the credit goes for this successful presentation and defense of the dissertation. Was it the slave labor he has accomplished in the last five years at the laboratory bench? The good reputation of his peer-reviewed publications? The prayer warriors who have been lifting him up, especially during this last big push to wrap up everything? The decadent cheese trays I prepared as refreshments for his committee of judges? Some combination of all those, I bet.

After a great presentation and record-making short deliberations from his committee, we ate dinner out in a state of ecstasy before he came home and watched The Hobbit trailer several times over in a manner befitting his accomplishments.

Then the sense of romance and adventure wore off, and we got back into courageously tackling all the other risky situations in life, because that’s what diligent people do.

(And if you want some thoughts about this holiday of Veteran’s Day, here’s a link to some reflections on Veteran’s Day itself, and all posts related to the military.)

{concerning hospitality} ignored at church

October 28, 2013October 24, 2013 / abby hummel / 15 Comments

{Hospitality is on the brain — brace yourselves for a few different ideas coming up in the next little while!}

When we spent a recent weekend in Minnesota, our schedule didn’t allow for visiting the church we were most interested in. Honestly, if it was just vacation we probably would have read a Psalm over a cup of coffee and called it “good,” but since we had committed to moving there, we decided to jump in church-shopping right away. I mean, we could be a few hours away from meeting our new future best friends!

We perused the worship options listed on a search engine and picked one that looked okay based on the time the service started and lack of overt references to any creepy, extremely liberal, or dangerously isolationist teachings in their website. We arrived early (sort of by accident because we missed the Starbucks turn off on the way over) with our Bibles in hand, bought coffee from their snack stand, and spent the next 10 minutes smiling at people. It was a small, young church with a very “hip” feel. We walked in feeling exhilarated and happy, wanting to make friends — and in the entire morning, no one spoke to us. It was embarrassing and discouraging. We crawled back into the car feeling cranky and frustrated. I was wondering if we had just made a huge mistake in deciding to move. That experience was rough and it shouldn’t have happened, but when I checked with friends and family, I found out being ignored while visiting a church was really common.

[Every red dot in this picture represents a church… Aaron commented that we didn’t need to move up, because, he said, “The Christians are already here and they are organizing!”]

Because we spent all weekend chatting with people in Aaron’s new lab, music store employees, cafe workers, and even people sitting around the hotel hot-tub in the evenings, the drive back to Iowa was punctuated with incredulity and jokes about how the “Minnesota nice” hospitality stopped at church doors. It occurs to me that our response of laughing it off would have been very different if we were weary, wounded, lonely, hurting, or burned out, and it would be really hard to try visiting that (or any other) church again if we weren’t in good spirits going in to the morning. While we are pretty sure we won’t be back there again for other reasons, I kept thinking about what the Bible says about hospitality and greeting other Christians, and opted to send a quick e-mail to the pastor.

So let me say, first, that if you’re reading this and you’ve also been ignored at a church — I’m sorry. That isn’t supposed to happen. That isn’t how scripture tells Christians to greet others and because I’m sure I’ve ignored guests before, I’m just as guilty of this as everyone I observed in that church. But if you had this experience, I encourage you to prayerfully consider proactively contacting someone at the offending church so they can pray for you while you search and change their own behavior to accurately live out what the Bible says we should do.

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Hi Pastor,
My husband and I spent the weekend in the area, and since he accepted a job there that begins in January, we wanted to visit at least one church while we were in town. We ended up worshiping with you guys and I am checking in with you since we didn’t get a chance to chat while we were there.

We both really appreciated some of your thoughts about prayer and vision in the sermon, which were very encouraging with this upcoming move! Sometimes when visiting churches it’s hard to tell if the pastors actually like their jobs, but we could see a great deal of brotherly love and happiness in everyone who spoke.
Please know that we consider ourselves partners together in the gospel, so I wanted to speak with you briefly about something you may want to prayerfully address with your people… My husband and I arrived at your location 10 minutes early with our Bibles in hand, bought coffee from the snack table, and smiled at your congregants. We complimented moms on their cute babies, cracked a joke about my husband’s doughnut, and asked where we could find a bulletin and information about the church before entering the sanctuary and smiling at the people sitting in our row. Throughout the entire morning, not a single person said hello back, asked if we were visiting, or introduced themselves to us. It was pretty discouraging, and it was a sharp reminder of how rough church-shopping can be. I’m not trying to make you feel bad about this, but I want to be helpful and encourage you to consider how to implement what the Bible says about hospitality (Hebrews 13:2, 1 Peter 4:9 and 5:14, Romans 12:13 and 16:16, 1 Corinthians 16:20) within your congregation. As a fellow believer, I have failed often in this area, but I believe it should be a priority and I would really want to know if a visitor had a similar experience at my church!

We are praying you will be encouraged and spurred on to greater love and hospitality (not frustration or embarrassment!) as a congregation, and that your love for each other and visitors would abound more and more. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions – I would be happy to email further if you want, but it’s not necessary. I am praying for you and wish you all the best as you faithfully shepherd your church!

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Have you been ignored at church? Or had a great experience as a guest? What makes it work, or not? Have you ever thought about contacting a church you visited and chatting with the pastor afterwards, even if you knew you wouldn’t be back? Since there is more church-searching in my future, I’m thinking a lot about what visitors can do to make hospitality easy for the congregation, so I’d love to hear if you have suggestions for that, too!

sale pending!

October 24, 2013October 24, 2013 / abby hummel / 3 Comments

Well, well.
Getting things together, even to the point of potting mums for the front step, seems to have paid off. We’ve accepted an offer to buy our house.

After watching friends wait long stretches -sometimes years- to sell houses, we’re amazed at this blessing. We negotiated and signed everything just a few days after listing the house, and now that we’re hammering out inspection details, everything should be all set to hand over the keys in December. We’re feeling very grateful, very humbled, and very excited (sometimes overwhelmed…) about the hunt for a new house. Instead of focusing on the bittersweet feelings of leaving this place, I’m trying to make the most of the next seven weeks here. I think these evenings will have lots of bonfires.
Is this really happening!?

reading round-up (10.18.13)

October 18, 2013November 16, 2013 / abby hummel

A few read-worthy finds from this week’s browsing…
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Now that we’re house-hunting in earnest, these “Terrible Real Estate Agent Photos” are a perfect combination of hilarious and horrifying.
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Woah! Technology always demonstrates profound beauty and intelligence in nature. Behold, a chorus of crickets! (Hearing crickets always reminds me of my best friend from high school, because she hated them intensely.)
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In terms of my business and ministry objectives, I’m already feeling a lot of self-pressure to be “even more awesome” when we move to Minnesota -I know, seriously, pull yourself together, Abby– and I really appreciate the admonition, Stop Trying To Be Awesome. I have way too many interests and ideas about what the next season might hold for me, but I want to remember how “classical philosophy held that limits are the precondition of beauty,” and keep these obsessive thoughts about accomplishments in perspective. (Also, I sort of know the author from my home-school group growing up. She was always much smarter and more eloquent than me.)
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This girl grew up in the wilds of Africa. I wonder what those freaked-out ListServ parents who were concerned about the safety of mowing lawns would say about this…
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I loved how accurately the advice about conservatism from Louis Markos at The Imaginative Conservative nails a description of human nature, political philosophy, and community:
“I want to draw you to something deeper, a way of life that is grounded in essential truths about God, man, and society. The true conservatism I would steer you toward begins with a foundational truth that is revealed to us in the Bible but which has always struck me as the height of common sense: namely, that we were made in God’s image but are now fallen. The first part is the ground of all human dignity and intrinsic worth. Apart from it, we are nothing more than great apes with no ultimate claim to specialness. The second part is the reality check, the reason why we need laws and limits, checks and balances. …Never forget that you are both the glory and the scandal of the universe: neither beast nor angel but an incarnational mix of the two.”
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From “home” back to “house”

October 16, 2013October 15, 2013 / abby hummel / 3 Comments

“The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.” — Proverbs 14:1

We spent the first nine months of our marriage in a tiny apartment saving up –we slept on the floor on a bunch of blankets to avoid spending money on a bed– and dreaming about a house. I think the most “homey” touch we added to that apartment were a few pictures on the walls, but we never really settled. New to the area, we drove around and inspected different corners of the community, visiting new friends for the chance to snoop on houses in their neighborhoods as much as the fellowship. We spent those months eagerly waiting for our home.

There are fond memories from our time in “The Apt,” like warm evenings when Aaron fished in the pond stocked with baby blue gills and an energetic Weimaraner from the neighborhood ran out of his yard to join me on country runs. (With country dirt roads, a gym at the complex, and few friends to distract us, we exercised a lot despite the eau de piglette near the farms.) We connected with our next-door neighbor and a few other residents we’re still friends with today, and I swiped the pumpkin from the main office door on Halloween when it was inappropriately defaced. (We still laugh about it today – not suitable for blogging content though!) I certainly wouldn’t miss paying for laundry, living on the third floor, buzzing guests in and out, neighbors who smoke out of their sliding glass door, or paying rent into a financial abyss, but the boring box apartment was a rite-of-passage and I stress-cried a lot the week we moved out.

Buying a new house meant adding in Lowes as a line-item on our budget; painting and repainting (I was young, it was our first time picking colors, and this was in the days before Pinterest, people!); searching for just the right accessories at Goodwill; sewing curtains; and spending every spare moment dreaming about or working on projects to improve our charming -though dated- mid-century bungalow. I poured a lot of grief into these projects through the years and most of our family visits involved more demolition than relaxation. Sometimes the enormity of the project felt overwhelming, but it has been a very rewarding endeavor.

And now that we’ve agreed to sell it soon, there is a funny paradox of completion – other than the absence of a crib in the back room, all the dreams have been realized! It’s as beautiful as I knew it could be. And yet, we have to think of this season as stewardship in a new way. It’s not really my home anymore. I’m a steward of this place for a new buyer, and I completed so many nit-picky projects of care to present the best vision of the home to complete strangers who traipsed through to judge it in hopes that they would make a high offer to purchase from us.

I think selling the first house is a rite-of-passage on it’s own, especially when I know the turnaround on another house will likely be faster and not as dramatic. It is good to know these efforts in building up my home have been the fruit of wisdom, and that God will give us the strength we need to build up the next place (though, likely, with less remodeling) while eagerly awaiting the final home He is building up that is not temporal or changing.

In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” -John 14:2-3

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