How Covenant Keeps us going

I recently went to the wedding of a young friend I’ve known since she was a skinny eight-year-old. She is now 27. The wedding was beautiful in both its simplicity and its message....

You can read the rest of this post at Grace Church's website. 

Day Six: That's How We Roll

This will be a short write.

Today was filled with teaching, meetings, processing thoughts.  Tonight will be fellowship.

In the midst of it, I got a message from my husband telling me the excitement of the day in the remote location where he is working.

I'm just wondering how many other women out there have to send messages like this to their men:

"Please don't try to make friends with a bear."

Welcome to my world.

Day Five: This One's for You, Doc.

This post is in honor of "Doc"Alvin Warnick (sp?), whom I had the pleasure of meeting at the Cattle Reproduction Clinic the girls and I attended in early August.  At 94-years-old, he still suited and gloved up every morning and tutored us in the finer points of pregnancy palpation in cattle.  On real cows, mind you. During one conversation he told me, "I have an idea that I'd like to write a book.  You may have noticed I'm very interested in people.  Well, I would love to write a book about married couples that tells all the different stories about how people meet one another."  This one is for you, Doc!

Ask anyone who knows him, and they will tell you that I married one of the best men on the planet.   Frankly, I'm not really sure how we ever found each other, because you could not meet a more unlikely couple.  We are living proof of the maxim that opposites attract.

When we met--goodness--I was a Birkenstock-clad, free-spirit graduate student, and he was a redneck Marine.  He liked fishing, chewing Redman, and going mudding (or muddin' as they say in Florida). I liked reading books, watching foreign films, and napping.

One thing we both liked, fortunately, was dancing--two-step to be precise.

So, one night he and his friends came to the place where I was taking two-stepping lessons with my friend. It was sort of a yuppie-ish, urban-cowboy kind of place that they typically avoided (because they were the real thing).  For some reason they gave it a try that night.

I love the way Mike first told me of that encounter.  He said, "I saw you standing there with your friends, and your jeans were all torn and frayed at the bottom, and the soles were coming off your boots, and you were just laughing and having a good time, and  I said to myself, 'Now, there's a girl without a lot of money.'"

That's right.  He picked me because I looked happy and poor.  (I was, actually.)

I didn't notice him or his friends that night, but they came back a week later, and we danced.  Good old-fashioned country dancing.  Two-step, swing, and waltz. George Straight and Alan Jackson.  The real deal.

 I loved that he wore snap-button shirts, had an accent, and was so polite. (Not to mention the rather impressive biceps I could feel when I placed my hand on his arm to waltz.)  When I told him I was in graduate school and he asked me what I wanted to do with my degree, I responded, "What do I want to do?  I want to knit and bake cookies.  Unfortunately that doesn't pay."  Apparently that sealed the deal as far as he was concerned.

Our first date was to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C..

The night I first met him, we was wearing a striking black cowboy hat and looked like a cross between George Straight and Patrick Swayze.  When he came to pick me up for the date, he was wearing the lovely hat in the picture above.

It was a test.

I think he was trying to make sure I wasn't some prissy woman who would fuss at him about his clothes.  (I guess my crumbling boots weren't evidence enough.)  Anyway, I passed the test.  Nary a word about the dog hat.  (True confessions: I was actually thinking that as long as he was wearing that awful hat, I could pretty much have him--and his great arm muscles--to myself.)

After we were married and the hat mysteriously went missing, my single friends would often ask me how I managed to find such a great guy.

My response was and always will be, "You have to be willing to look past the hat."

I'm so glad I did!

Project 365: Day One

I’ve spent the last ten years giving assignments to other people; this assignment is for me.  I’m calling it "Project 365"--the goal is to get one year's worth of posts (365).  Even if it takes me five years. 

This is a completely arbitrary day to begin this project.  It’s not the first of the year. It’s not the first of the month. It’s not even a Monday.  Perhaps it’s a heart thing. Despite my classes starting on Tuesday, today was my last day of "mama" summer.  

Today the last of my two “Gators” moved back up to the university, marking the official, this-is-really-it-folks, end of summer.  The first to go back to school left on Wednesday. I am not actually this one’s mama, but I was for the summer, so the separation is just as hard.

For the most part, I am glowing with a rush of gratitude for the summer we had. It was a summer filled with lots of hard work, but also two blissful, relaxing and long-over due family vacations.  It was a blessed and slow-paced time of making things right, restoring broken places, and reveling with deep appreciation in the weirdness that is us.  

Now it’s over, and this year that feels particularly significant.

I am delighted with where each of my young people is at the start of this new year.  My oldest, Katie,  and our sweet Grace began the summer fragile, exhausted by adulthood, and anxious about life, but both returned to school with greater peace, direction, and confidence in themselves and their plans. I felt grateful and thrilled to see the work that this summer had done in them, and I am excited for their year ahead.   

Those who remained on the farm are moving forward just as much as the two who will have their own apartments. My free-spirit Hallie is working three jobs, going to college, and absolutely blowing my mind, because this is the girl who was content to stay at home, create beautiful things, and daydream. 

My baby, my almost man, is about to take college classes as a high school senior (pray for us) while beginning a new job and filling in as the stand-in man and lifter of heavy things when his Daddy’s away.  

 It’s a sweet place for a mama to be, standing on the sidelines cheering as her young-uns charge into the game with determination.  So, yeah, I am beyond grateful with where we are ending this summer. 

Still, I gotta say, the transition back to school feels especially momentous. This year I realize that--as of today--what Jen Hatmaker dubbed “The Family Years” are essentially over.  All my offspring are finding their own ways into the world brilliantly, but I'm acutely aware that those ways always lead eventually out of the nest--for good, if we've done our jobs right.   

We’ll always be family and always love and enjoy each other, and it will be good.  But we will never live all together in the same way again.  I realize this is a good thing; it was actually the end-goal of this whole clumsy child-rearing thing all along. 

For now, though, I’m sitting here blubbering (thank you, Christy Nockels for providing the accompaniment), and I feel the need to mourn—just for a minute. 

Because we Odells do FAMILY really well. 

I know the passing of this stage will lead us into a new one that is beautiful and rewarding in unimaginable ways, but—just for this evening—I’m going to lean into my happy-sad tears and take the time to say a proper goodbye.

Springtime Blessings

1900. Friends who will carry me to the Cross when I am too overwhelmed even to crawl there.

1906. Thursday morning class--my weekly blessing of enthusiasm.

1911. Trusty brown stapler: still going strong after 25 years and countless moves.

1935.  Ishaan's funny comments: "Mrs. Odell, I was telling my dad all about what you are like, and he said, 'That doesn't make any sense!'" (How I wish I could have heard his description!)

1940. Recipes the old-fashioned way--in the mail from my mom.

1946.  The innocent and compassionate heart of Jon C.

1950.  Fair Week and a Reserve Grand Champion pig!

1967. Tearful kids saying goodbye to their 4-H animals.

1968. My boy/man setting his sights on something and rallying others to achieve a goal.

1983. Tiny raccoon footprints scooting across the marsh.

1990. Twenty years with my Cowboy.

1995. The unconditional acceptance of farm dogs.

Five Minutes: Listen

GO:

I remember reading about a person—don't remember if it was a mom or a dad—whose child kept saying, “Listen! Listen to me!”

Finally, in exasperation the parent said, “I am listening!”

The child corrected...”I mean listen with your EYES.”

That small person realized at a young age what we too often miss in our busy lives...listening—REAL listening--involves more that just ears. It requires full attention: eyes locked, hands stilled, heart engaged, focused attention.

This idea has taken on new meaning for me recently, as my husband has taken a job that keeps him gone from seven to twenty-one days at a time. Far away in a remote location with no computer, all we have (and I'm grateful for it) is a phone call twice a day. I can't listen with my eyes when we are talking; I can't gaze into his eyes as he speaks.

However, I still have to think about listening with my eyes.

Because although I can't look at him, my eyes can keep me from listening when they draw my attention elsewhere. The computer. The stack of dishes left from dinner. The book I'm in the middle of.

Then, because my eyes have seen, my hands want to fix and fiddle, wander. Before I realize it, I'm asking, “What did you just say? I didn't hear.”

The truth is that my EARS heard what he said, but I didn't hear it because my mind and my heart were elsewhere.

So, I'm trying a new method of listening. Listening without my eyes. When the phone rings now, and I see it's my Cowboy, I leave the room I'm in, lie down still on my bed, and close my eyes so that my whole focus is on really listening.

That's how to stay heart-close even with the Gulf of Mexico between us.

STOP

Leave Your Gift...and Go

"....leave your gift there before the altar and go.  First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift."  Matthew 5:24

The words of Christ.

All of Scripture is God-breathed.

However, I give a bit extra consideration to the red-letter words because they were actually God-spoken:

First be reconciled to your brother....

Our God is a relational God.  That's why He allows us to call Him Father...

why we are to call fellow believers brother and sister.

With His death, He showed us the value He places on His relationship with us.

These words of His show me that He is also deeply concerned with our relationships with one another.

He doesn't even want our sacrifices if we are not right with other believers.  Even one other believer.

We are, after all, the Body of Christ.  If we are at odds, hurting one another or building up walls, we wound Him.

Instead of functioning as God intended, we inflict an autoimmune disease,

and just as a body with disease can't function properly, we can't really bring Him glory if the Body is attacking and weakening itself.

Because my relationships affect His glory in the world, they are a greater priority to Him than are my offerings.

That's pretty serious.

And yet how seriously do we take it?

I look around me (and within me) and all too often see brothers and sisters in Christ, husbands and wives, parents and children,

attempting to offer Him gifts

offering up every sacrifice

except their grudge.

Oh, but that grudge, that selfishness, that anger or hurt--they are the very first offerings He desires from us.

Reconciliation is the first fruits He wants from His followers--before any service or sacrifice.

And we try to offer Him everything else.

Under the New Covenant, because Christ offered Himself as the ultimate sacrifce, we are called to give different offerings than were those whom Jesus was addressing.

Paul instructs: "And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you.  Let them be a living and holy sacrifice--the kind He will find acceptable.  This is truly the way to worship Him."  Romans 12:1

How often do I attempt to apply the instructions of Paul, while ignoring the command of Christ?

I lay the willing parts of me before Him in offering: teaching, serving, mission trips, writing...

I offer and offer and offer these gifts at the altar

fooling myself that they have value to God, 

that they will make up for the walls I have built in my relationships, 

or the conflict I am avoiding that could lead to reconciliation,

but He says: "You are working so hard, but so pointlessly. I don't even want this if you can't honor me FIRST in your relationships.  Leave it.  First, go and be reconciled."

I can offer my body as a living and holy sacrifice, but it will not be the kind He will find acceptable if I do not obey His command to go and reconcile.

Whom do you need to get right with today?

For Better or Worse

"I will never regret making a commitment to love this woman....After fifty years, she still stirs me."---Norman Reed, of his wife Sharon.

On April 8, 1961 my parents took vows that both have honored for half a century.

I'm so grateful for their legacy.

It was not always an easy fifty years.


During those fifty years, they have walked through every bit of those vows.  They loved each other

better and worse 


richer and poorer


in sickness and in health


The beautiful message of their life together is not that their commitment allowed them to endure all those things.

No, the beauty of my father's words, "I made a commitment to LOVE this woman," is that he knew to what he was committing.

Not to merely endure,
         not to simply hang in there,
                 
                      but to LOVE
                                 regardless of the circumstances.

even when it was hard


even when things happened that would have torn a less committed couple apart.

My parents were not content to just persevere; they strove to LOVE.

Because of that commitment, fifty years later they still stir one another.

(Let me tell you, that was no geriatric kiss they shared after my father's speech.)

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how it's done.