gospel

Evenly 28

/ abby hummel / 2 Comments

“O God, from my youth you have taught me, and still I proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me.” Psalm 71:17-18

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You would not assume I have any perfectionist traits if you stopped by my home at any time, particularly right now, since I tried to finish taxes this morning without crating the dog. (The result? I have not finished submitting the taxes and there are bits and pieces of the cover to “Grace Based Parenting” all over the living room. Yes, this is hilariously ironic.) Despite my – hopefully improving – free-spirited tendencies with most details, I do have a teeny compulsive anxiety trait that has plagued me as long as I can remember: I have very particular need for numbers to be in order. I always add the numbers on license plates while I drive, and certain phone numbers or birthdates are more “pleasing” to my numerical senses. In middle school, if I worked on algebra assignments before bed, I had very strange mathematical dreams. When I look at a digital clock, I am doing math problems with the numbers much longer than I’m paying attention to what time it is. (Right now, it is 1:21, which is 11×11. You can also use addition so the ones on outsides to add up to the two in the middle.) This is weird. There is probably a name for this sort of thing. It doesn’t interrupt my life or relationships, so it’s not really a problem – just a quirk. I hope.

The birthdate of April 12, 1986 really works out for me because each number is even. I think birthdays in the Spring months should be on even-numbered dates and fall birthdays should be odd-numbered. (A few years ago, I was pregnant with a baby due in April and told Aaron I was nervous it would have an “odd” birthdate.) So now, in a strange way, I am breathing a little easier to be 28 and not 27 because it feels better to be an “even” age. (27 is slightly redeemed by being “Three-cubed,” or 3x3x3.)

Turning 28 on 4/12/2014 was almost a dream-come-true for my numerical neuroses, even if it is more reason for Aaron and I to joke that we are getting old and crotchety. On the way out for my birthday dinner, he said, “How can you be 28? I’m only, like, 25!” Even when we can’t keep track of the numbers, our life reflects a little more maturity (or boring-ness, take your pick.) We used to speak of camping more often; we now find that cooking over the backyard firepit and sleeping in our own bed is satisfying. “Requiring frequent walks” was a strong argument in favor of adopting Max. I get sick of having so many clothes in my closet. I don’t think I look old now, but pictures from college (or my wedding) do look young. It was a little strange to see that most of the athletes on Olympic podiums this year were younger than me. There is no denial in any of this that life is going forward and that means getting older! Maybe an obsession with that mathematically-pleasing birthdate is altering my senses a bit, but I can’t shake loving the secret I’ve whispered among friends: getting older is good, and it gets better every year.

Even when things don’t look like they were “supposed” to, every year there is more grace and growth, more unexpected gifts, more glory revealed. There is more joy (and less fear), more comfort in my own skin,  more beauty to discover and display, more delight in becoming just who I was created to be. So right now, the excitement of turning the corner into 28 feels like a drop in the bucket compared to whatever lies ahead.

“The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the Lord is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.” – Psalm 92

 

 

 

 

 

{formed & fallen} overlap

/ abby hummel / 9 Comments

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It is a very, very strange thing to be carrying a child who is exactly half-way gestated on the same day doctors would have said a different, older child should be completely at term. In the shocked, overwhelming beginning of this pregnancy, I felt like loving the baby we have was a way of betraying the one we had just lost. Sometimes now loving the other one seems like a betrayal of the one who -by some miracle I cannot yet wrap my mind around- grows right on schedule and has all the right body parts, frequently jabbing them into the walls of the home my own body provides. The other miscarriages were spaced far enough apart that the pregnancies would not have overlapped in any way, so this is a new sort of grieving. (I am not complaining – I think the bittersweet path that leads to a baby in your arms is far preferable to the one that just seems bitter, but it’s a little more intense.)

There was a day in July when I took three naps and developed a blister under my ring, and while I was sick of hoping for news of a baby coming… I knew it was happening. After the Wal-Mart test confirmed this, my college room-mate squealed on the phone with me even though she was in a library in Indiana, and I put a sign on the big blue chicken coop to tell Aaron he had someone even more important to take care of. We hugged and he hoped for a cute little girl like the one he had seen at lunchtime with little braids over her shoulders. I slept a lot – A LOT. I shared the anxious joy of close due-dates with someone dear who had a similar history to me and we prayed for two healthy babies to come this spring.

Just a few weeks later, I bossed my midwife’s new nurse around when the dread crept over me, demanding blood tests that proved I was right to be concerned. Arriving  home from the decisive ultrasound that showed a way-too-small baby who never even had a heartbeat, my computer was playing a song called, “God will take care of you.” To this day I have no idea how it ever got into my music library in the first place. I sat on the couch and sobbed while the friend who had squealed earlier read me Psalms over the phone.

Then I was relieved and guilty about how great it felt to not be sick anymore, and I thought making the announcement sign for the chicken coop -still folded on Aaron’s dresser as if to taunt me- was the dumbest thing I’d ever done. I sat around and it took hours to get anything accomplished. I painted my toenails. I begged Aaron for a puppy. I told him I hated our house, I didn’t want to have kids anymore, and I wanted to pretend like none of this even happened in the first place.

Summer trips were not cancelled, so I drove to Michigan alone and listened to the last Harry Potter audiobook, where Harry prepares for battle by internalizing the inscription on his parents’ graves: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” It had to be my rallying cry, too. My belly was swollen with death, and I made sure to sip wine conspicuously while giving a too-morbid toast at my sister’s wedding, praying that no one would make awkward baby comments to me because I just wasn’t ready to go there. (It felt very strange to hope I just looked chubby.) I hate that negativity seems so much stronger than truth, because the only thing I remember about finally breaking the news to friends and family was hearing that, “God just wants you to get settled after Aaron gets a job and THEN have a baby. You have too much going on to think about that right now!” That still hurts. I’m sure many people told us they loved us and they were sorry.

And while I spent the weeks after in a haze of confusing blood tests, there was so much love all around. I remember the beautiful postcard from the squealing psalm-reader, old friends who visited from afar with gourmet cheeses and Cabernet Sauvignons, and friends nearby who cleaned my closets and made me leave the house with them and brought us meals for weeks. Meals! For weeks! They made my life infinitely easier and cut our household spending that month by almost the exact amount of all the co-pays and lab fees associated with the whole debacle. I heard that song about God’s care ringing in my head every time I heated a meal, paid a bill, and wrote a thank-you note. Was I “over” it? No. Was I cared for? Yes.

Sometimes I still get really angry thinking it would have been better if I hadn’t even been pregnant, or wondering why we couldn’t have just had this baby then. Why mess with the heartache if we were going to get a healthy baby a few months later anyway? I marvel at the ironic mystery that God still said yes to some of the early prayers of anxious summer joy — two babies (healthy twins!) arrived last week for the people we shared our due date with. (I also got the puppy I asked for! hooray, hooray!) None of this makes any sense yet. It might always be like that. Sometimes not knowing is a gift, even when it doesn’t seem that way.

Today I know beyond any doubt that I was created for eternity, proved like C.S. Lewis says, by desires and love that cannot be satisfied by anything on earth. I dearly love two babies, each formed in the image of God, and the strange timing of these pregnancies does not diminish either of them. Both of their lives are worth celebrating, even if I’m not sure how to do it. And my current pregnancy with Li’l Kicker here does not remedy the real problem of any of my miscarriages. Any death happens because of the fall, and while it is very normal to especially long for a miraculous pregnancy, there is no promise that anyone will definitely have a baby, or that having a baby takes away the sting of death. A child always a gift, never a guarantee. I can’t expect this coming baby to answer these questions when I know I have never lacked the only promised child I have ever needed. The remedy for the consequences of the fall is the gospel, not having a baby.

“Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead… for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” – I Corinthians 15

“God so loved the world that He gave his one and only son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” – John 3:16

{Mary consoles Eve} by Sr. Grace Remington, OCSO

{Mary consoles Eve} by Sr. Grace Remington, OCSO … (yes, I know it is Jesus who crushes the serpent)

I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction; you have known the distress of my soul. – Psalm 31:7

 

 

restoring souls

/ abby hummel

“The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside still waters;
He restores my soul.”

For as difficult as moving and settling in a new place is, I’m starting to feel like we’re getting our systems down  Maybe just because I’ve been so frank with friends and family about some of these challenges, they are starting to seem less daunting. The life we’re building here will be different than the one in Iowa, and that’s okay. I have been seeing a new doctor and I like him. Max’s first vet appointment was yesterday. I can get to the dog park on the edge of town without using a GPS, and I even accurately navigated myself home from downtown St. Paul when my phone battery died last week. (Still no luck finding my favorite Chebe Pizza Crust. It must be out here somewhere.)

We’ve had some positive experiences with church hunting, but we had another crazy week that spurned lots of conversations about a bad sermon. We almost left 10 minutes into the service but decided to stick it out because it was so cold that we didn’t want to have to go right back to the car after we had parked so far away. The main gist of the message was that God wants you to have a full emotional tank, which you can’t have if you are stressed out, and that the 23rd Psalm gives you license to back out of anything you aren’t enjoying. You know, because God wants you to have a restored soul. I sat there thinking about what the last six months had brought us (huge family commitments all summer, losing another baby, deciding to move, selling our house, closing a business, moving to an unfamiliar town in a new state, buying a house, etc.), about some of the big things going on this month (Aaron’s commute and new job, setting up the new house, establishing a business when I don’t know anyone, no disposable income until I’m working, puppy, a little extended sickness, no friends yet, unending polar vortex, insurance/registration/licenses/paperwork, etc.), and all of unknowns in the next six months. You know what? I get a little overwhelmed just thinking about it all to write it down. But I don’t, for a minute, question that we might not be doing the right things.

And maybe the sermon came out wrong or I didn’t grasp what the guy was saying, but I think it totally missed the mark. While “stressful living” is not a competition and you shouldn’t seek it out, it is okay to be under lots of pressure. It is okay to be really stressed out. It does not necessarily mean you’re disobeying God or that you need to change something about your life. Sometimes being “stressed” happens because you are overly anxious or irresponsible… but sometimes it’s just the modern vernacular for acknowledging life is risky, which is always true even though it’s obvious at some times more than others. It hasn’t stopped feeling very risky for us in the past few months, and it will probably continue for a bit. (I took one of those online “stress tests” and determined that Aaron and I are both at a very high risk for developing all sorts of illnesses and maladies within the next year.)

“He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.”

If we’re walking in obedience, and I do think we are, then this life right now and every difficulty or blessing that comes with it is our path of righteousness. Even when so much right now feels rough and pretty scary — though I certainly wouldn’t call it valley-of-the-shadow-of-death — the solution is not using pleasure to cover up difficulty. (What does Ecclesiastes say? “‘I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.’ But behold, this also was vanity.”) Instead we have to take comfort in what God is doing, in his presence, in his rod and staff — you know, the things used to beat dumb sheep into getting where they need to go — and in the promises of our future feasting and home.

So, yes, it’s important to make sure we pursue restoration and enjoy life in the hustle right now. For us, this means we need to find good people to be friends with, we need our funny TV shows, and we need to delight in the ruckus that is Max. He won’t be a puppy forever – which is good and bad news, I tell you. We have both already had weekend trips to visit friends, and we’re looking forward to receiving visitors here soon, too. But those things don’t really solve the problem. Instead, stressful times just reveal how broken we are and how deeply we need restoration all the time. Stress has not created this need. When life is more settled, it’s easier to let everyday routines cover that up. Stress also doesn’t get to become the defining factor in our lives, even in seasons permeated by risk and difficulty.

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” – Psalm 23.

Would you believe that there may actually be some green pasture-like grasses underneath all these little drops of still, frozen water outside my front door? There is goodness and mercy in all this — even if it is obscured by the fact that the snow is almost as high as the mailbox.

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Minnesota beginnings

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

 

Twins… “psych!”

/ abby hummel / 11 Comments

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Twins has been a surprising word theme for this summer and fall.

Three times in these recent months we have had friends secretly share surprise joy with us – not one, but two little babies on an ultrasound screen – with no explanation but amazement at the rare gift of an extra baby that God tends to give about once in every hundred fruitful pregnancies. Three times we have rejoiced to the best of our ability. Sometimes I’m giddy with joy, but sometimes I just try to ignore the shriek in my soul asking what maniacal mystery it is that some people get two of them at the same time?!  It got to the point that we joked everyone must be having twins. The fresh awkwardness has worn off somewhat, and we grieve that these three twin pregnancies are only resulting in five expected babies now, after all.

Very often I have contemplated Jesus’ disciple Thomas, whose name means “the twin,” the apostle who had to see, with so many unknowns for the future. We were rapidly approaching Aaron’s graduation date without any clue about what the coming year beyond graduate school would bring, and not knowing how to dream for the future. Do I have to leave all my piano students? Will it ever feel okay to dream of good things for a life that doesn’t include having the baby this spring? Is it even worth thinking about having kids anymore? I like to know things and found a great challenge in wrapping up Aaron’s season of grad school with these big questions in such limbo. 

Very often, like Thomas, I have felt that war between the twins of belief and doubt inside myself.

And then sometime this fall, we sensed our original ideas about where to live and what to do falling apart. Time for some re-dreaming. We began talking and thinking very seriously about the Twin Cities in Minnesota, where Aaron was invited to complete more research after graduating in December. This was the sort of job he hadn’t looked into, in a location we hadn’t considered before, and an income level we were not initially drawn toward before. In short, it was not on the list of options I already gave God. But as the details came to light, we thought and prayed, and before long it was clear there would be peace in no other path.

For years we have anticipated moving forward, living closer to family, getting smart phones, maybe going on trips(!!!), first-hand clothes, a big house with plenty of room for children and guests, and staying put wherever we were. Instead, we are moving to Minnesota at Christmastime, which alone indicates we must be crazy, and we are only committed for three years. This act of assumed insanity also requires selling this little house we love to get one even further away from our families and figuring out how to embrace the possibility of a temporary location again, though smart phones and a real guest room are pretty much non-negotiables for the next stage. (So plan on visiting, please. We will have room for you to stay with us and fancy gadgets to assist our sight-seeing navigation.) 

Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more
See Lord at thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder, at the God thou art.

I am not like Thomas, wounds I cannot see,
But can plainly call thee Lord and God as he…
– St. Thomas Aquinas

This doesn’t offer a solution for everything I’m working through right now. There are still questions. I knew there would be. But for now, we’re walking (running!) bravely through the open door to a new adventure in Minnesota, and I get the impression God still hears questions there.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. – 1 Corinthians 13:12

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Of course, this surprising turn of events spurs many interesting conversations at home. (Aaron is very hilarious so it doesn’t take much to induce an interesting conversation, I suppose.)
Me: “We always pray and pray, and when we finally make plans, the total opposite thing happens. What do you feel like God is trying to say to us?”
Aaron:  “He’s totally got an animated look on His face, delightedly exclaiming, ‘PSYCH!'”

Oh, my.

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[image HERE]

too heavy

/ abby hummel / 7 Comments

In the aftershock of bad news, I seek out solo projects. I think it’s a good system. Working in the sun and accomplishing something seems to bring mental clarity to the cloudy thinking of grief, but you can’t really avoid feelings the way aimless web browsing or watching movies allows for.  We have been touching up the exterior of the house, so it was high time I got around to painting a second coat on my garage door.

garage doorMy big confession here is that it was three years between coats of paint. We’ve been doing a lot in the meantime, and Aaron and I are both notoriously bad at getting things half-way done, so we’re trying to do a lot of “finishing” this year. The big push that got me started painting this the first time was our first miscarriage, and so I was thinking about that during the second round of painting. I was remembering the shock of a loss after falling in love with a really cute heartbeat on an ultrasound screen, about missing a little baby I would never set on my lap, about the million questions I couldn’t help asking then. At that point I was pretty sure I could get through things if I just “knew.” If I could just know I would feel better someday, and that I would be ready and able to have a baby at a certain time, even if it wasn’t as soon as I wanted, I thought I would be satisfied. Or even if I knew I would not have a baby, I could at least start making peace with that and build dreams for that life, too.

I would not have been satisfied to know that not only would there be a three year gap for touching up the paint, but it would also occur fresh off a third consecutive loss, when the doctors stop saying it’s a sad fluke and you’ll have a new baby in no time as they do at first. I did not know yet, when I was 2 years out of college, that sometimes knowledge isn’t the gift that we want it to be.

[Father] turned to look at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing. At last he stood up, lifted his traveling case from the rack over our heads, and set it on the floor.
“Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?” he said.
I stood up and tugged at it. It was crammed with the watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning.
“It’s too heavy,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “And it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It’s the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you.”
– Corrie Ten Boom, “The Hiding Place.”

This doesn’t mean I’m not angry and asking, or that there aren’t going to be dark days with hard questions, but I want to keep these conversations with God and my doctors in perspective. God doesn’t owe me an explanation, and it might not be one that would make me happy anyway. The doctors owe me any information they have, but they can’t always figure things out or solve them. I am glad I didn’t always know the future in past difficulty, and that same troubling ignorance may be a blessing now, too. (And maybe if I preach it loud enough to myself today, it will be easier to believe when I stop wanting to.)

Paint Disaster

Beyond these lofty thoughts, there is other frustrating news cropping up in the painting project. We have just discovered, after four years, that our house is at least three different shades of brown. It seems that there has been a lot of color-matching-of-a-color-match for paint supplies under the previous owner’s care, which looks okay until we try to repair anything. All three of these areas have been repainted, and the paint that is right for the window trim is wrong in different ways for both of the top two pictured areas. Scraping and repainting the trouble spots has become very complicated.

{concerning marriage} entertainment

/ abby hummel / 6 Comments

{Yesterday I shared about the crazy process of planning for a wedding and life, and today I have some suggestions about the media’s vision of marriage. Be sure to check out the first post and watch for a few more coming!}

Several years ago I started watching Glee, which made sense because I’m a musician and lots of my friends watched it and wanted to talk about it. But I had to stop watching when the choir director was part of a subplot developing positive romantic tension with another teacher instead of his wife. My best friend was in the middle of getting divorced even though they were homeschooled, parentally-approved, rule-following, supposedly all set for life, bla-bla-bla. (Remember that planning thing? Not foolproof.) I knew that no matter how atrocious the original wife was portrayed, the show was selling a lie that marriage or divorce aren’t a big deal. The pain for a one-flesh-tearing-asunder that wasn’t even mine didn’t feel fun or entertaining, and the experience profoundly changed how I thought about TV and movies.

It’s not a surprise that Christian marriage is counter cultural.  A religiously-oriented life of permanent sacrifice and fidelity is perceived as an attack on freedom in a world that worships the profane trinity of me, myself, and I, and our entertainment reflects this. When you watch commercials, women are often caricatured with artificial physical beauty and men are mocked as idiots. This Discover commercial…? Rude! It would be really offensive if the genders were reversed. 

When you get back to the regular programming, romantic leads on a TV show “can’t get married” because it “ruins the tension” of the show. So unrealistic. Legitimate marriage has plenty of tension. Married or single, chances of building a good life are better if you avoid passively receiving the idea that marriage is a joke, or that a romantic high is the ultimate fulfillment of your existence. I’m not going to tell you what not to watch! But I think negativity about marriage and family slipping under the radar poses a greater danger of messing up a life than most straightforward steamy scenes or course joking. With that in mind, here are a few movies and TV shows I’ve found encouraging…

1. The Sound of Music. Watch how Maria and Georg transform through the story, growing as individuals and strengthening each other while caring for their family and living bravely in adversity.
2. The Harry Potter Series – Molly and Arthur Weasley, parents of Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny. This is a great couple who built a life of modest means overflowing with love and respect for each other.
3. The King’s Speech. So much appreciation and encouragement! And a story of personal growth that happens in the strength of their day-in-day-out marriage, not a fantasy relationship.
4. Julie & Julia. Apparently this all falls apart in her second book, but the movie is really sweet and shows two different married couples building each other up in love and encouraging each other to be their best self.
5. Shadowlands. Kind of corny, but this is a great look at love and loss from the life and writings of C.S. Lewis and his wife, Joy Davidman.
6. Father of the Bride I and II. Also corny in a different way, but hilarious and positive. There are lots of real-ish life fights and making up, and a commitment to a lifetime of love throughout.
7. Duck Dynasty. All the married couples here have lots of fun joking around and showing that marriage is worthwhile, exciting, and meaningful. (Also, if you ever think your husband is gross, this show will give you a good dose of perspective. Or maybe that’s just me.)
8. The Office – Jim and Pam Halpert. This couple has always been a favorite because their romance was based on friendship and personal connection, not an immediate physical fling. Especially in this last season, their heartfelt reconciliation after months (years?) of hurt feelings, which resulted in some marriage counseling and a conscious choice to live out 1 Corinthians 13, from a flashback of their wedding, with each other was beautiful. 


Is there plenty of trash on the show? Yes. (I totally watched all the seasons anyway. I’m not telling what to watch or not watch.) But how often do you see mainstream media showing the key to succeeding in marriage is to be patient, kind, forgiving, humble, hoping the best for each other, and not failing no matter how hard it is? How often do you see a “couple” saying they have worked together every day for 9 years (a Hollywood eternity)  and their family is the most important thing in their lives? That all happened on network television during the last season, and I think it’s encouraging.

Jim and Pam

A rare attitude coming from network TV!

I’m sure this list could be much longer! Are there any other ideas for refreshing and uplifting marriages in entertainment from you guys? I mean besides the most obvious suggestion, which would be a reality TV show of the two of us, of course. iowa movie

{concerning marriage} planning

/ abby hummel / 11 Comments

With our fifth anniversary and the family weddings this summer, I’ve been mulling over some ideas about marriage, and I’m sharing some thoughts from conversations with friends and sisters here. I know just enough to spout off a few things but I am basically a five-year-old telling a newborn baby what life is all about.

Everyone’s busy asking, “So how’s the planning going?” There is so much to talk about, to dream for, to plan on when you are getting married.  We even read a book about 100 things to talk about before engagement or marriage, encouraging discussion to ensure we prepared for an impossible number of topics. This is well-intentioned, but I think it can accidentally promote the lie that careful planning means you can control the outcome of your days. Is he planning to propose?  When is the wedding? Where are you going to live? How will you split the holidays with your families? When do you want to have children? Will one of you stay home with them? What about adoption? Are you going to homeschool? Do you want to travel? Go back to school? Start a business? Buy a house?

Of course, you need to talk about these things, and many others, but you should keep them in perspective. Is it wise to marry someone who doesn’t share your vision for life? No.  But it is not wise to marry someone based only on your shared vision for life, either. If circumstances (incomplete list of possibilities: test scores, lost jobs, surprise pregnancies, barrenness, illness, financial hardship, natural disasters, change of heart, governmental collapse, death in the family, End of Days) alter or disrupt that dream, you want to cheerfully weather uncertainty together.

Also, you want unity and agreement when starting life together, but a healthy marriage should spur your maturity, and this usually results in changing your mind about some things. This probably includes things you think are really important right now. It’s good to grow in surprising directions and to be ready for your spouse to do the same.

When I was engaged, I thought I was moving to California for a crazy few years that were supposed to include a shoebox apartment, working for a year, starting a family, and earning two Masters degrees between the two of us, and not necessarily in the order a reasonable person might think. We had done lots of careful planning, and after the deployment we felt like we had grown up quickly, anxious to get our external situation caught up with how we felt inside. Obviously, that’s not what happened. Who plans for hardship? Who plans for messed up military schedules that mean moving to a land of ice and cornfields instead of SoCal, or long PhD programs, church problems, war recovery, faith crises, depression, miscarriages, long years in bad jobs? No one. But that’s our real life. In the breakdown of the original dreams, there have been lots of good things we hadn’t expected, too. The gospel is crucial here: For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ (not in a prayerfully coordinated marriage!) shall all be made alive. There are problems in life – they’ll be there in marriage, no matter how carefully you select a spouse and plan your life, and they’d be there if you were single. If following all the “rules” or carefully planning meant anyone could avoid trouble, it would nullify what God says about humanity and salvation. So when things are messed up, it’s not because we didn’t prepare enough or should have anticipated better. When things work out well, it’s by God’s grace and not because we had our ducks in a row at any point. Either way, you just take it and go with it.

The surprising news: With the right attitude, all this planning is the kind of test that prepares for real life. I’ve found that persevering in marriage calls for lots of dreaming and re-dreaming. And the important part of the planning is not the plans themselves, but the teamwork and unity that grows in the process. In light of this, enjoy the planning and dreaming! Because getting married means you will probably be doing a lot of it for the rest of your life.

[Just for kicks, this was taken five years ago this week. We even look like babies to me.] honeymoon2

Only A Dry Tree?

/ abby hummel / 10 Comments

Only A Dry Tree? Loving the Have-Nots this Mother’s Day.

Ack. Mother’s Day is coming up. I don’t begrudge the celebration of motherhood overall – Aaron and I are both so much like Timothy, taught and prepared for ministry by his mom and grandma. We are overwhelmingly blessed with Moms (and Grandmas, Aunts, and others!) who love us and I can’t imagine what our lives would look like without the selfless care and godly influence of these women. (I can’t even find pictures of us to share because, let’s face it, Mom and Other Mom were always taking the pictures.)

Even though scripture teaches a lot about honoring parents, I think it’s okay to question the typical holiday celebration because the roots of our modern Mother’s Day come from a pacifist protest of the Civil War. Though parents should be deliberately honored, it’s probably worth rethinking some of the way we talk about Mother’s Day.

In an informal survey of my friends, I quickly discovered Mother’s Day is challenging not just for those who have lost babies (like me) and can’t figure out how to identify themselves, or struggled to become pregnant in the first place. It can be challenging for single women who would love to be married with children, women whose husbands are not open to children, and women who are not honored for their role as adoptive mothers, too. They find these celebrations very hurtful in the places they are already most tender. Fluffy Mother’s Day sentiments crowd  TV commercials, Hallmark displays, and even church. (Sometimes women from the church give testimonies about motherhood, mothers are asked to stand and receive applause or flowers, and sometimes the sermon misguidedly praises motherhood as the most noble spiritual calling for a woman!) I have had bad experiences and I’ve even stayed home from church a few times myself; I’ve been avoiding the card section at the grocery store all month, too. No fun, but I think there’s a solution here:

Let not any eunuch complain,  “I am only a dry tree.” For this is what the Lord says: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant — to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off. …These I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer.” Isaiah 56:3-7

In Jewish law and culture, eunuchs were excluded from fellowship and not allowed to worship in the temple. Obviously, a eunuch can’t reproduce, and this imperfect analogy works for modern baby-wanters who feel like something inside of them has been cut off – whether it’s the function of their bodies, hope of marriage, or ability to receive something good they really wanted – and they also feel isolated from their community on some level.

This command to the childless person is really important: Don’t buy the lie that God isn’t using you to produce life and growth if you don’t have children. I think there is a good lesson that, by extension, it’s important to praise the spiritual fruit of someone’s life even when it isn’t the pitter-patter-of-little-feet-variety, too. (I received a marvelous gift among my Christmas cards this year when a friend quickly commented, “We continue to pray for your family, but we praise God for the fruit and blessing he is producing in your marriage either way!”)

The encouraging news from Isaiah is the promise of a “name better than sons and daughters” for those who hold fast to God’s covenant. We know that name now: Child of God. And since God says it is more valuable to be “Child of God” than “Parent of so-and-so,” we should certainly emphasize this in our conversations about motherhood. From the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks: the only way to make your speech reflect this is, parent or not, keep the good thing (raising a child) in second place to the very, very best thing (salvation) in your heart. That’s the key to experiencing the promised “joy in the house of prayer,” too!

I hope these thoughts were uplifting if you’re feeling awkward about Mother’s Day, and inspiring if you have people in your life who could use a little extra love this weekend. If you want to do any further reading, I really like this blessing from “The Messy Middle,” which offers some helpful ways for churches to encourage those along the entire continuum of motherhood in their congregations. Seriously, send it to your pastor – or at least look for a way to encourage someone in your life who fits into one of the categories she mentions! I think Wendy Alsup hits the ball out of the park in “A Mother’s Day for All Women” when she says, “Motherhood is not the greatest good for the Christian woman. Whether you are a mom or not, don’t get caught up in sentimentalism that sets it up as some saintly role. The greatest good is being conformed to the image of the Christ to the glory of God.” That’s a timely reminder for the “haves” and the “have-nots” this Mother’s Day.

Some poor bird built a nest in my wreath; she spent two days divebombing the front door when I took it down. Mother's Day might be hard for her, too.

Some poor bird built a nest in my front door wreath; she spent two days dive-bombing the house when I took her little creation down. I know how she feels. Mother’s Day might be hard for her, too.

(I don’t think conforming to the image of Christ as a mom means you can’t graciously accept the honor of people who will make you cards, give you flowers, and feed you french toast or take you out to eat. So if you have that option, you should totally take advantage of it and enjoy a day with your loved ones. Really.)

Vander Port preparations!

/ abby hummel / 11 Comments

“I don’t think you should get your hopes up for this wedding dress trip, Mrs. Hummel, because I have two sisters just like you and I’ve gone shopping with them both before.  I don’t think there is anything fun about it. You’re probably going to be really disappointed.” – a nine-year-old boy in my piano studio.

My first Sabbath of Lent started off with a sudden burst of tears. While I scrambled eggs before church, Aaron showed me a meteorologist’s report indicating a big snowstorm for the end of the week, and said I should prepare myself to make a hard decision about my weekend plans: driving (solo) to Michigan for a special day of wedding dress shopping for my sister Bethany, who is getting married in July. I knew Midwestern road trips in February were never a sure thing when I put this on my calendar, but facing the reality of a predicted blizzard in an area not known for decent road conditions was entirely disheartening.

Almost everyone I know heard my tale of woe during the week, and many faithfully prayed this trip would work out for me. With three sibling weddings coming up this summer, extra time to visit and prepare for the big day(s) are a luxury, so it is likely this dress shopping trip would be my only time to celebrate with Beth before her nuptials. This was it! The trip HAD to happen! And then my prayers were mercifully answered with a very light snowstorm so I could travel safely. This probably came at the expense of children all over my county who hoped and prayed for a snow day from school. I hurried through the local library and grabbed some random audio CDs off the shelf to keep me company on the road.

I listened to Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua during my drive. I cried when she spoke of her sister’s cancer diagnosis, and it made me so glad I was going to spend this weekend with my own sisters. After I arrived and recovered from the car time, my mom and all three of us girls spent a long Saturday shopping for a wedding gown. We watched Beth start off nervous and quiet, (probably overwhelmed by thousands of yards of lace, satin, taffeta, ruffles, ruching, sparkles, and appliques)  transforming through the day into a confident, comfortable, well-spoken Bride – with the perfect dress to match! I wiped a few tears when she first wore it. Grandma had to stay home nursing an injured knee cap, so we took secret forbidden iPhone pictures for her.

After all this hoopla, we ended our Saturday with a party celebrating the engagement with both sides of the new family. Now that she’s engaged to Isaac, Beth is marrying into a family of our old home-school friends. (Aaron and I even went to college with the oldest brother and his wife.) During the past ten years of friendship we’ve all known we would somehow become related, since “they have boys and we have girls,” and we have called ourselves “The Vander Ports,” a combination of our last names, for years during our movie nights and beach parties. For a while it wasn’t clear where the romantic connection would eventually happen to bring brother-sister friendships into an official capacity, but Beth and Isaac are finally making good friends into a big extended family. We made plans for the wedding and swapped stories, laughing until we cried on more than one occasion.

vanderports

The Vander Ports (minus Caleb) — best wedding party ever! 

Then I cried a bit when I had to leave on Sunday morning. We chose to move forward with Aaron’s PhD knowing that this career was not ever going to bring us back to the same towns (or state, probably) as our families, but it’s really draining that the current distance requires such sacrifices to get back and forth. During that long trip back, I listened to A Mighty Heart by Mariane Pearl, and I sniffled along with her tale of love and sacrifice, losing her husband Danny at the hands of Islamic terrorists in Pakistan. My story isn’t the same as hers, but she hit me hard; I was very ready to be home and celebrate that my husband was alive. When I arrived, I found Aaron working on a project in the garage. He says it is an A-frame playhouse for our future kids. I think it looks suspiciously like a chicken coop, which he recently mentioned was legal in our neighborhood.

chicken coop Oh, my!

(It seems like there was altogether WAY too much crying over such a great weekend, no?)