I will boast only in the LORD;

Let all who are discouraged take heart.

Come let us tell of the LORD’s greatness;

Let us exalt His name together.

Psalm 34:2,3

NLT

Bekah was born to us on a wild November night I can never erase from my mind. Too early and too fast, she came rushing into our world like a hurricane on the loose. Instead of pink and lovely, her skin held the colors of a storm—dark and grey.

Doctors whisked her away while a nurse stayed behind to explain: “Her lungs are filled with fluid and she hasn’t been able to take a breathe… we’re taking her to the resuscitation room and calling in a Neonatologist.”

From that moment, her fragile life was bathed in prayer.

We prayed, our family prayed, friends prayed, our church prayed… that little struggling baby was placed so firmly in the Healer’s Hands that I can’t help but believe that He had a purpose to draw from the terror of that time.

For, ever since that inauspicious beginning, I have treasured my girl.

A bundle of joy-filled possibilities, Bekah brought sparkle and laughter into our way-too-intense Comer home. She kept her neat-freak older brother messed up just enough to lighten up, begging with those big brown eyes to enter his world of army men and mud.

I insisted on bows in her ponytails, though they seemed to slip out of their own volition. I ironed wrinkles out of dresses, and wiped all those muddy streaks off her delight-filled face. Sometimes I’d hear that whispered warning from her Father not to wash away His unique flair in her life. As if He was letting me in on a secret: She’s just the way I want her.

As she struggled into womanhood, she demanded the freedom to be different than me. Then she charmed us all by creating a kind of beauty that could be stamped all her own.

There were tense times when my worry collided with her crying need to be unique, to craft her own version of femininity. Yet somehow in all those years we developed a sort of mutual “I really like the way you are” mentality towards each other.

I want to be like her— with all her openness and vivacity and quick intelligence and remarkable insight.

I study the way she breaks from man-made molds and makes her own way of loveliness.

I watch to see why she has so many friends, and I learn as she leans into other’s lives and gives all she has without restriction. She loves her not-quite-right-in-the-head neighbor, thinks the Satanists who live in her building are “really nice”, is fascinated by everyone and lets them know it.

And for reasons that I cannot quite understand, she wants to be like me.

No, no, not the conservative, let’s-not-rock-the-boat, people-might-be-looking me. But the me who’s changing and growing and emerging while holding tightly to my Father’s hand. The one who traded the silver civic for a vintage red Mercedes, ventured out of my safe shell and learned to dance, Haitian style.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every mother who holds a baby to her breast could catch just the barest glimpse of the person that child is to become?

How would it change the way we love— the way we discipline and correct and decide when to say yes and when to hold the line?

If I had known my son would emerge as a leader to his generation, would I have taken heart when he challenged my cherished-but-not-quite-biblical notions of right and wrong?

If I had known my daughter would flourish in a world of creative go-getters, would I have given her more freedom to explore the edges of my safe world?

I don’t know… and my story is full of “I wish I hads”, but I’d love to pass on to every woman a few things I do know, a few tidbits of wisdom I’ve learned along this journey of loving…

• Every child is a uniquely crafted individual made in the image of God. We know this, but find it so hard to believe. Our culture insists on sameness, on rigid boundaries that keep beauty confined. While behavior must be carefully kept in check, creativity and personality and giftedness should be fully explored and encouraged to thrive.

• Mothers who intentionally set out to discover their child’s uniqueness will be like kids at Christmas. Instead of rolling their eyes at the embarrassing antics of out-of-control children, there are mothers who are so fully present that they are molding their child’s life, polishing the jewels so they sparkle and shine. These moms are having a blast! Instead of whining and complaining and criticizing their kids, they’re delighting in those few short years in which they have a chance to make a difference.

• There will always be critics. Always! Having the wherewithal to graciously ignore them is a sign of emotional maturity in a woman. It’s not my job to defend my children or to explain away their idiosyncrasies. I never set out to raise perfect people— my hope and my prayer and my aim was always to raise men and women who love God with passion and have the heart to love people on purpose. The fact that they stumble a little in the process is just the way of humanity.

• Heap approval on your children… even when they’re no longer kids. Be generous with encouragement. Make your mom space a safe place within which your children can revel in the limelight. Coax from them the accolades and accomplishments that would sound like boasting anywhere else. There’s no such thing as bragging to mom. Tell them what you like about them. Admire them.  Respect your sons and lavish love on your daughters. Keep doing this as long as you’re alive.

• When they’re really little be really tough… so that when they get older you can be really gentle. The mistake too many moms make is that they do just the opposite. We overlook those irritating habits in the early years: temper tantrums and rudeness and bad attitudes. Then when all that ugliness grows up, we try to stomp it out of them! What if instead, we were to diligently discipline during those exhaustingly intense younger years? What if we denied out own pleasures long enough to do what needs doing in order to present our children as well behaved, self-controlled young adults? Might that not change everything?

• Remember your goal. It’s not to raise super stars, nor to insist on perfection. Your child will not be The Best at much of anything, no matter how hard you push.  He needn’t be exposed to every sport or every “opportunity”. You are not obligated to remove all obstacles in her path, nor must you absorb your life in developing every potential. As followers of Jesus, our goal is the same as His, that our children would “…love the LORD your God with all your heart,all your soul, and all your mind…” Only God can make that happen, but you’re the primary tool He has to create that kind of passion in your child’s heart.

• Saturate your child in prayer. Prayer is the most powerful weapon in a mother’s arsenal. To leave it locked in the gun case when the enemy is prowling around, taking shots at your child’s soul is ludicrous! To think that we can worry our way through every problem is ridiculous!  James 1:5 holds God’s irrevocable promise to parents: “If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives generously…” We have the wisdom of God at our fingertips! Just by asking and     waiting with faith-filled anticipation for His answer, we are promised what no book, or seminar, or parenting magazine can hope to offer— wisdom from God.

• Get over yourself. I know it sounds a little harsh, but remembering that this whole mothering thing is not about me is imperative. My children are not supposed to fulfill me. I am not supposed to need them. They are not meant to be a reflection of my worth. Instead, they are unique individuals made in the image of God and I have the honor to nurture that image in different ways for as long as I live.

Not needing my son is the greatest gift this mom can give a man who is needed by so many.

Not needing my daughter allows her to thrive and soar and develop as a woman and as a mother in her own right.

Not needing my son who is in college gives him freedom to figure out who he is and what he wants.

Not needing my daughter who lives far away allows her to fully embrace her husband’s vision for a different kind of       life— a life far from my safe suburbanite world.

They need to know and be assured that I don’t need them to make me happy. I am happy.

• Do not fear failure. When you are praying that your children will love God with all their hearts, minds, souls, and strength, and that they will follow hard after Christ, you are almost guaranteeing some missteps. I have never in my life met a passionate Jesus follower who has not been humbled into dependence by personal failure. Failure can be terrifying for a mother, but it is often the gateway into that intimate, grateful relationship that makes a man truly godly. Instead of fearing failure, we ought to lead our children to the Redeemer, whose specialty is picking us up out of that miry pit we dig ourselves into, and setting our feet on the Solid Rock. Could David ever have become a “man after God’s own heart” without the humiliation of discovery? Wasn’t it Elizabeth’s barrenness that caused her to raise a son willing to stand against the tide? Could Peter have written the words that encourage and inspire us had he not failed so miserably? For your son or daughter to follow in the footsteps of the heroes of our faith, they must meet God in their own brokenness.

That little girl who rushed into my arms with so much drama is a woman now. She is beautiful and smart and creative and overflowing with love.

She and her husband inhabit a culture alien to me. They have purposed to bring the Redeemer into that world, to present Jesus to a people who are searching for meaning and worth.

God’s plan for Bekah is different than His use of me. I get the distinct feeling that He’s having fun with her! That He delights in our differences, that He needs us to be different.

And so, with all of you, I wish my daughter a Happy Birthday.

I will celebrate this date for as long as I live. I am so grateful that God chose to shake up my world on that November day so long ago, so incredibly honored to have your life in mine.

Rebekah Ruth (Comer) Opperman, I am thrilled with the woman you are and excited to see the woman you will become.

I love you, Bekah!

Mom

When I was asked to share my love story with all of you, I had to chuckle, because ours is not a typical one.

I'd always asked God for a crazy story with my husband, one that could not be explained any other way except that it was orchestrated by God. Well, that's just what we got. Thank you Lord!

I met Nick on January 22nd, 2008. He was a fairly new member of the Christian rock band Kutless, and had recently been frequenting Portland for band rehearsals and studio time. I had been friends with Dave, their bass player, and his wife Megan for a few years and that night they decided to invite me over. There were a few people in addition to the four of us, and throughout that night my attraction for Nick started to develop. He was tall, blonde and handsome (my rendition of the cliche phrase), and absolutely hilarious.

This draw to him mattered very little, as I found out later that Nick was already taken by a girl in California, and had been for over 4 years. His visit went on and we had evening after evening of group activities. Something was different with this guy. We connected like I hadn't with anyone before, but there was that road block- a girlfriend back home. I allowed myself to be attracted to someone who wasn't available.  Towards the end of his visit however, I found out that Nick had been praying about his relationship and was days away from breaking things off.

I patiently waited for things to take place, and slowly but surely I was being pursued by this handsome man from California. We dated for about 2 1/2 months, with a couple visits from sunny California to rainy Portland, OR. April came around and things just didn't feel right. We took a day to pray, and ended up deciding that this just wasn't working. There was no particular reason, it just didn't feel "right."

Over the course of the next year and a half Nick and I stayed friends, with an occasional text or email, but that was about it. At least on my end. In October of 2009 I received an email from him saying that he had been thinking about me and he couldn't shake the thought of me. He so sweetly asked if it would be ok if we got to know each other again, even if it was just as friends. Basically, he'd take what he could get. I definitely took the email with flattery, but immediately got weirded out and anxious about the whole thing, which could only lead to one thing, avoidance. Poor guy. I never really revisited the idea, and even avoided coffee dates with him that next week when he was in town.

After some hurt feelings (I'm such a jerk), life went on, and thoughts of each other lingered off and on, but no real feelings on my end were surfacing. Until March 2010. I had recently been getting involved with Solid Rock's high school youth group, and was on a Spring Break retreat in Sunriver. One of the leaders, Jake Fisher, pulled me aside one day and said he had a song for me to listen to. It was Nick's new song that he'd posted on his website as a free download. It was called, "Love Can Change Your Mind." Admittedly, I had stuffed Nick way into the back of my mind, and hadn't allowed myself to think about him for a LONG time. I sat listening and wondered, "this couldn't possibly be about me, could it?" This song about some ghost of the past that was haunting him. A chorus that said "why can't you just believe? You know we're just wasting time! You can say that everything we had was blind, but love can change your mind." Then the bridge line played and it hit me... it was indeed about me. He sang... "From sunny California, headed north to Portland grey, said 'I'll be waitin' for ya,' but there's nothin' left to say."

He was waiting for me? He still cared about me? Wow. I had a lot to think about.

I went to dinner with my best friend and roommate Chloe later that week, and we spent most of the time analyzing what all of this meant. I didn't think I liked Nick anymore. I thought that was a memory of the past, but then she asked me a question that ended up changing my mind and opening the door again. "So ... why not Nick?" I actually had no clue. Not a single answer to that question. There was no reason why Nick wasn't the guy.

And so the story began. I wrote an email, he wrote back, I wrote back, calls were made, and finally we were dating again.

We spent 10 months dating between Portland and Nashville. This included around 24 roundtrips, and an approximate total of $8,000 spent on airfare.

After all of the travel, and many days spent apart, we were so blessed to be engaged on February 22nd, 2011, married on June 10th, and moved to Nashville, TN on June 23rd. Life is sweet!

Getting to know each other in marriage has by far been my favorite season of our relationship. It is not a cake walk. It has not been easy moving across the country, away from my family, but goodness gracious it has been WONDERFUL.

I married a man who waited for me, who pursued me, and continues to pursue me as his wife. Nick is a godly man who's learning every day what it means to lead me and lay down his life, and he's doing a great job. I have never met such a hard working man. He has been so gracious as he's learned my flaws. I'm pretty sure he's learned a new flaw of mine everyday, and with every single thing learned, he covers me.

For those of you waiting for Mr. Right, please don't settle for anything less than this. These godly husbands DO exist, and they are worth every day spent single. I pinch myself sometimes as I look over at Nick and wonder how I became so blessed. My only answer for that question is God. That's what I asked for from the beginning.

Thank you God for writing my love story.

Thank you for reading.

Allison

If you get a chance, take a listen to the love song that Nick wrote for me that got me hooked for good!

LOVE CAN CHANGE YOUR MIND

The clear blue California sky mocked me as I fumbled to close the doctor’s office door behind me. How could the sun shine cheerfully on such a day as this? How dare the people bustling past me smile and laugh? How cruel a joke that life goes on—for mine stopped with the doctor’s one word: deafness.

“Young lady, you are going deaf.”

Deaf… deaf…deaf…

He was wrong… had to be wrong! A 26 year-old mother does not go deaf. That is for wrinkled old men, not a vibrant young woman with a family and a future.

I hadn’t wanted to go to the doctor in the first place. There was nothing wrong with my ears. The problem was, people mumbled so much. Telephones weren’t as clear as they used to be. And with the noise level in a house with a preschooler and a toddler and a new baby… well, who could hear above all that?

I had almost talked myself out of going but forged ahead to please my husband and family who had been urging me to see a specialist for some time. Confident that the doctor would just give me a pill and make this all go away, I left my newborn nursing baby at home with her dad and kept my appointment. Several hours and countless tests later I drove numbly home, the doctor’s grim diagnosis ringing in my failing ears.

“Diane, you have a severe hearing loss in both ears. We’ll do some tests, but my guess is that it is a neural sensorial hearing loss, probably progressive. It will get worse. You need hearing aids now… deaf later.”

I was stunned. It had never entered my mind that I might be going deaf. Fluid in the ears maybe, perhaps a virus. I had had a mild case of pneumonia a few months before and thought a simple medication would clear up the subtle muffling. But deafness? I was utterly unprepared and absolutely terrified.

I went home, told my husband and family, held my children, and wept. Looking at them, knowing I would not be able to hear them as they grew up, I was engulfed in grief. How can a mother not hear?

Too soon, I dried my tears, stuffed the bewilderment deep down inside and plastered a smile on my face. The doctor had to be wrong.

Life was good. God had blessed me. Everything would be just fine.

And it was. My life was good. It always had been. I’d grown up in a wonderfully loving family, married the man of my dreams—a pastor, a spiritual giant. I had three healthy, happy children and countless friends in a great church. Yes, life was good and God was blessing me. After all, I followed the rules didn’t I? Wasn’t that the way life was supposed to work? I do my part by being very, very good and disciplined and as perfect-as-possible. Then God would do His part. All those promises about His blessing me and taking care of me. It was a done deal. Deafness was most certainly not a part of the package.

Yet despite all that goodness in my life, a nagging emptiness had started me longing for something more. I couldn’t put my finger on it, couldn’t articulate what was amiss, but all that goodness just didn’t seem to be enough. I had everything I’d ever dreamed of having, was doing exactly what I wanted to be doing, yet faced each day with a sort of empty dread.

Try as I might, I couldn’t feel anything but weary from the work of it all.

Ever since I had given my life to Christ as a young teenager, I had tried to emulate certain wise and godly women. If I could just copy their lives, I thought, then someday I’d be a super Christian too. One of these women was Muriel Cook. She was beautiful in every way. Meeting with me every week for a year, she dished out wisdom on a silver platter. With her Bible open, she’d mix the Scriptures with real life while I scrambled to write it all down.

One afternoon she came to our meeting with tears streaking down her carefully made-up face. She had been weeping over her own sinfulness. I was shocked into silence. This woman seemed to me the epitome of perfection. If she was such a sinner, what did that say of me?

Another women stood next to me in the choir. She was a simple woman, not attractive by any means. Her grey streaked hair pulled back in a ponytail did nothing to soften the deep lines on her face. Yet whenever we sang a song about the Cross, or the Savior, or of His washing of our sins, her face transformed into a glowing beauty, the crevices flowing with streams of grateful tears.

Why? What was it that moved her heart while mine was left cold? I had always known that Jesus had died for me. Yet His death did not tear at my heart. Why could I not weep at the Cross?

I began, tentatively at first, to pray about this emptiness. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was praying for. I just knew that I wanted what these women had. I wanted to know God like that, to experience Him intimately. Over time my longing intensified. Whatever it was, whatever it took, I wanted it.

As the months passed after my initial diagnosis, the dullness of my hearing became more and more evident. Each time it reared its ugly head I pushed it down, plastered my smile in place and went on. Tests were ordered. MRI’s, CAT scans, blood tests, bone tests. I switched doctors. I tried harder. Yet all the facts led to one inevitable, inescapable conclusion. I was losing my hearing… and fast.

It is difficult to describe what it is like to lose one’s hearing.

At first it was the little things. I couldn’t hear the kitchen telephone ringing from down the hall and when I finally heard it, I couldn’t tell who was on the other line. All voices sounded about the same to me. I could not tell the difference between Lynn and Kim and the gym. Once I carried on a full fifteen minutes with Stacey only to discover I was talking to Lucy!

Being hearing impaired involves an enormous amount of frustration. I can hear, I just cannot always understand what I hear. It is frustrating to want to talk to someone, to want to get to know someone, but be afraid to enter into a conversation that I will not understand. Sometimes I work so hard to wring out every intelligible bit of sound from the roar that meets my ears that I go home completely wrung out from the effort.

It is frustrating to have a well-meaning person say, “But you do so well, nobody would ever know!” What they don’t realize is how much I miss, how often I bluff, how tense I get in a conversation when I hope I am nodding my head the right way. Or how stupid I feel when I see that dread look in their eyes that means I have just blundered badly.

But it was at home that the pain was the greatest.

When my baby cried in the night and I didn’t hear.

When my little girl wrapped her dimpled arms around my neck and whispered sweet secrets—that I couldn’t hear.

Or when my son told me all about his first stay away at camp, chattering excitedly on our way home about nicknames and new friends and fun games… and I knew I was missing all the but the main parts.

Oh the pain! I didn’t mind as much not hearing birds or crickets or alarm clocks or buzzers. Let the cookies burn in the oven for all I care! But those lovely, intimate, important words—I wanted to hear. I longed to hear. The thought of being cut off, isolated and alone in my silent world terrified me.

I began to sink into a deep depression. I had never experienced such sadness before. Me, the middle child, steady-eddie, never too high, never very low, just cheer up and everything will be fine. But not now. This was darkness. I couldn’t just cheer up. I was overwhelmed with fear, with anger, and most of all with self-pity. My God had turned His back on me. How could He? Why would He? I felt unloved, rejected, abandoned. I had absolutely no doubt that He was able to heal me. My faith in His ability never wavered. The fact that He did not heal me despite my desperate pleadings shook my faith in His goodness to its very foundations.

God was supposed to bless me for obeying Him, for following the rules.

Isn’t that how it works? I do the right thing. He does the right thing. I fulfill the condition. He fulfills the promise.

I was a proper pastor’s wife. I sacrificed so much for Him. How dare He do this to me?

My fear turned to anger. Deep within my heart I railed against God. I thought Him unfair, uncaring, cold—even mean.

I prayed and felt silence.

I read my Bible and saw only the Jesus of righteous wrath.

I went to church and wept.

My family reached out in tender love but I rejected every effort. My husband tried to help me in that exuberant way of his, saying all the wrong things as he watched me crumble within myself. At least it isn’t cancer. There isn’t pain. Ah, come on, its not so bad.

Every word grated against soul as I sank ever deeper.

I wrapped myself in a cloak of self-pity and firmly shut everyone out.

For the first time in my charmed life I faced something truly difficult and I failed miserably. My tidy world collapsed. I was reduced to a self-pitying, sniveling mess.

But does the Father ever turn His back on us? Does He ever throw up His mighty hands in disgust?

No! Never!

No sin is so bad, no thought so wicked, no person so vile as to turn Him away. This Savior who hung on the Cross for us did it not while we were flawlessly following the rules. He suffered there while we were sinners. Seeing the black bottom of our hearts He pursues us, relentlessly loving us with a love that will never let us go.

On a blustery Sunday evening in February, I reluctantly asked the elders of my church to pray for me. I was embarrassed by my need. Ashamed to say that God had not answered my pleadings for healing. Would He listen better to theirs? These men were friends, colleagues of my husband. Could I admit my simmering rage? Would they see the blackness that plagued my soul?

In a chilly room with cinderblock walls and windows obscured by ambered glass, I sat on a plastic chair surrounded by these elders. They were a motley assortment of men. One was a retired bank executive, another a construction worker. One man coached the high school wrestling team; another had risen to vice-president of a gas company. Each and every one of them loved God with passion and integrity.

Oh how these men prayed! These dignified, conservative men beseeched the Father on my behalf. They anointed my head with oil and prayed for healing. They laughed and they wept and they praised God together for over an hour as I soaked my blouse with my tears.

And as they prayed, the darkness began to lift. Like a darkened sky on a stormy day when the sun suddenly and unexpectedly breaks through with a stream of brilliant light, so my heart was flooded with light. The coldness of the room and of my soul warmed and filled until I abandoned myself to the beauty of that light. Everything else faded from my mind; the voices of the elders as they prayed, my own embarrassed fidgeting, my intense discomfort at the honesty of the moment—all were forgotten as I was enveloped by the warmth of what I knew was God.

And in that moment I heard His Voice.

“It’s okay, Diane. It’s okay.”

Over and over again like a song soothing my spirit I heard His words as clear as if He was speaking into my ear. “It’s okay”.

I knew exactly what He was saying to me in that suspended moment in time. He wasn’t going to heal me. My ears would fail. Deafness would define my future. And somehow, in some way I could never fathom, He had made it okay. Not just bearable, but really, honestly okay and right.

And suddenly it was! With my heart dancing and face glowing I wiped my tears and fled that room as fast as I could. What had happened in there? Dare I tell anyone? How in the world could I possibly describe what I had just seen and heard? And what did it mean?

Filled with wonder and a fair amount of fear, I went home, tucked my kids into bed and collapsed in exhaustion. The next morning found me wide awake before anyone else stirred. I had to sort this out. Needed to fit it in somewhere to my conservative theology that didn’t welcome supernatural experiences as a legitimate means to truth.

That’s when I heard that Voice again. Just as clear as the night before, but now with a hint of that firm tone I had infrequently heard as a girl with my dad.

“Alright Diane, this is where the rubber meets the road. You’ve listened to the best preachers, been to fabulous seminars, read great books. Will you entrust your deafness to Me?”

And in that early quiet, He turned me to Psalm 40, which has become the song of my heart,

“I waited patiently

and He inclined to me, and heard my cry.

He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay;

And he set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.

And He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to God;

Many will see and fear,

And will trust in the LORD.”

Psalm 40:1-3

I left that encounter with God a changed woman. For the first time in my life, I had heard from God. Actually heard! His no left me filled with more peace and joy than I had ever experienced in my life.

In those months that followed the doctor’s first mention of the “D-word”, I had struggled with the issue of faith. Well-meaning people exhorted me to “have faith”. God would surely heal me and put my life back to what I wanted it to be if I only had enough faith. I searched the Scriptures to see if it was true and came away seeing that God is a god who heals—sometimes. It took absolutely no stretch of faith for me to believe that God could heal. What shook me to the core was that He didn’t .

Paul asked God to heal him of his ailment three times? Like Paul, I begged, pleaded and demanded healing, but I pleaded hundreds of times. Somehow, it seemed, if I could just drum up enough of this emotion called faith, then God would be obligated to grant me healing.

I had no idea how wrong I was.

God is not a Father who demands pitiful begging. He cherishes His children. In fact, the Bible paints a picture of a Father who longs to heap good gifts on His kids.

Faith, real faith came for me the moment I believed that God is a good God who purposely allowed this affliction to be a part of my reality. His lovingkindness has actually allowed my hearing to fail. Like David, who exclaimed with wonder in his voice, that “It was good for me that I was afflicted.” (Psalm 119:71), I began to see this as His premium plan for my life—really. This is His plan for my joy. Faith began to grow when, confronted by His holiness, I fell on my face and surrendered my deepest dread to Him.

My own faith failed the test—completely. I fell flat on my spiritual face. The truth is that He picked me up out of the pit of destruction I was digging myself into, cleaned all the mud and muck off my heart, and placed me firmly back where I belonged—on the solid rock of His faithfulness.

And then, wonder of wonders, He put a new song in my mouth. This song is all about Him. My own goodness is not enough to weather the storms and turbulence of real life, but His is! And I will sing and speak and write about His faithfulness everyday for the rest of my life.

Now, more than two decades later, I am completely deaf. Only the faintest rumble of sound penetrates the wall of silence. Relationships are hard; social gatherings painful.

This journey towards deafness has been long and difficult. Isolation, loneliness, separation, and misunderstanding have been my constant companions.

It hurts not to hear.

Yet the Father continually heaps great spoonfuls of grace on my heart. He speaks and I listen as never before. His comfort is palatable. His peace beyond figuring out. I would not trade this precious intimacy He has offered me for the best hearing in the world. God is good, though the path to His heart is oft-times strewn with pain.

Everyday as I struggle and strain to hear through my deafness, I learn a little bit more about listening to Him.

In my silent world God speaks.

I hear Him now. His voice is beautiful, rich, powerful and kind.

His words convict me in a way that makes me feel clean again and sometimes His words bring me to my knees.

His words fill me with joy and hope, for I know that…

He speaks in the silence.

From my heart,

Diane

I love this time of year! It’s my favorite time in the kitchen and Thanksgiving Dinner is by far my favorite meal to fix. Pouring over foodie magazines, pulling out dog-eared favorites, combining new recipes with dishes we have every year…

And knowing that we’ll have all day to enjoy each other and all weekend to enjoy the meal…

And that I get to use my grandmother’s beautiful china…

And that the guys do the clean up…

What more could I ask?

Several years ago I taught a series for moms about the spiritual training of our children (to listen, click here and listen to the hearts on fire series). In one of the teachings I used my Thanksgiving turkey recipe as an illustration of the way we “brine” or soak our children in the Word of God, which then permeates their lives.

I’m not sure how well the metaphor struck home, but I’ve sure gotten a lot of requests for the recipe! And since I’m still getting requests, my daughter, Elizabeth, urged me to post it here… I think the fact that she’s been begging me to finally write down the recipe and I’ve been putting it off might have influenced her urging!

So, dear daughter-of-mine, here it is:

Thanksgiving Turkey Recipe

My pies have left a little to be desired. The crust caves in, juice spills over, and the whole thing looks nothing like Martha Stewart's cover photo. The solution? An apple crisp. Its easy, tastes better than pie (all the crunchy sweet topping!) and everyone loves it. Elizabeth has perfected this recipe which she's bringing this year...

Maple Apple Crisp

Another must-have recipe we use year after year is this one for the best and least healthy bread you’ll ever eat. For all my attempts to go low fat, low salt, organic, chemical free… this bread throws all that out the window!

My daughter, Rebekah, called one year from L.A. to ask for this recipe. On Thanksgiving morning she put it all together and popped it in the oven before she jumped in the shower.

When she got out, she found her tiny apartment filled with smoke and heard insistent pounding on her door.

It was the fire department!

I guess all that delicious butter overflowed into her hot oven and set off alarms throughout the building… we’re still teasing her about her first foray into Thanksgiving dinner.

So here’s to Bekah and the Long Beach firemen who rescued her bread…

Best Bread Ever

May your Thanksgiving be blessed with the love and riches we’ve inherited from the Father who adopted us,

All my love,

Diane

Click here to read the post about these recipes: Thanksgiving Turkey:

Brine

16 quarts water

1 ½ c kosher salt

1 ½ c pure maple syrup

4 T black peppercorns

16 garlic cloves, crushed

2 lemons, thinly sliced

Spice rub

4 T minced fresh thyme

2 T dried rubbed sage

2 T poultry seasoning

1 t black pepper

8 garlic cloves, chopped

4 onions, quartered (I use red onions mostly because they turn a burgundy color)

Cola Syrup

2 C cola (not sugar free! I use the stuff from Trader Joe’s, as it’s not so full of unpronounceable additives)

1 C pure maple syrup

Boil cola and syrup in a small saucepan for one minute or so until it thickens up a bit.

1. To prepare the brine, combine all ingredients in a large stockpot, stirring until the salt dissolves.

2. To prepare the turkey, remove giblets and neck from the turkey. Rinse turkey with cold water; pat dry, trim excess fat.

3. To brine the turkey, I place it in a plastic garbage sack, which I then put in a large ice chest. Then I carefully pour the brine over the turkey until it is well covered. Tie it up tight and the leakage is minimal. Surround the bag with ice and close it up.

If you have a large enough pot, it would be easier to put the whole thing in the fridge to brine. But who has a pot big enough for a 24-pound turkey?

Allow at least 24 hours for the turkey to soak in the brine.

4. On Thanksgiving morning, remove the turkey from the brine; pat dry. Starting at the neck cavity, loosen the skin from breast and drumsticks by inserting fingers, gently pushing between skin and meat. Rub thyme mixture under loosened skin, sprinkle inside body cavity.

5. At this point, I put some of my sausage stuffing into the cavities of the turkey. The stuffing will be somewhat sweet. Do not over fill the cavity. I put the rest of my stuffing into the crock-pot and add plenty of broth so it doesn’t dry out.

6. Roast the turkey as per directions on the wrapping. After about an hour, start to baste it with the cola/syrup mixture every so often.

7. I love to use the drippings to make gravy with- but its sweet, so I also usually buy good gravy at Trader Joe’s for those who prefer a more traditional gravy on their turkey and mashed potatoes.

Cream Gravy

2 (14 ½ oz) cans fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth

2 C whole milk

4 T cornstarch

1 t salt

½ t black pepper

I usually ½ this recipe since we do not use much gravy for left overs.

Place broiler pan with turkey drippings on top of the stove. (be sure to use a separator to skim the fat off the top or you’ll have a greasy gravy), add broth. Combine milk and cornstarch in a small bowl, stirring well with a whisk; add to pan. Bring to a boil, cook 1 minute or so, stirring constantly.

That’s it! Hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Maple Apple Crisp:

What You Will Need:

4-5 granny smith apples, pealed and chopped into small chunks

1 tsp lemon juice

¼ cup real maple syrup

2 T cane sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

¾ cup oat flour (whole wheat flour works too)

¾ cup slow cooking oats

¾ cup brown sugar

¼ cup sugar

4-5 T earth balance butter (or real butter)

Mix apples, lemon juice, maple syrup, sugar and cinnamon all together and place in a medium or large baking pan.

Combine flour, oats, brown sugar and sugar and cut in the butter using a pastry knife until butter is all in small chunks and ingredients are combined. If the mixture seems to be too dry… you can always add more butter!

Pour topping over apple mixture and bake at 350 for 45 min. Check it at that point and see if the top is starting to brown, it may need a bit more time.

Enjoy with vanilla ice cream, coconut milk ice cream or pumpkin ice cream!

Other variations:

-       You can use a pie crust (I think the store bought ones are the best!) on the bottom and then follow the same instructions if you want it to be more pie like

-       It is also delicious with real caramel syrup drizzled on top!

-       If you like lots of topping… just add ¼ cup more flour, oats, and sugar and a bit more butter.

Best Bread Ever:

½ C butter

¼ t garlic powder

2 (10 oz.) cans Hungry Jack Refrigerated Flaky Biscuits

½ C chopped green onions

½ C shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Heat oven to 350. Grease bread pan. In small saucepan, melt butter; stir in garlic. Separate dough into 20 biscuits, dip biscuits into butter mixture. Stand biscuits on edge in prepared pan, forming 4 rows crosswise of 5 biscuits each.

In small bowl, combine onions and cheese. Place 1 T cheese mixture between each pair of biscuits. (Do not place cheese on outside of biscuits)

Drizzle with any remaining butter.

Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes or until deep golden brown and cooked in the middle.

Cool 5 minutes; loose edges; remove from pan. Serve warm or re-warm right before the meal.

Turn off all smoke alarms!

Q: First off I wanted to begin by saying how much I love reading the blog, it has been so encouraging on many different occasions. While reading the new blog I had a few questions come to mind that I have been attempting to work through, so I decided to try to form my thoughts in my head into at least semi clear statements, but I apologize if it is kind of all over the place.

One thing that I have struggled with, while attending multiple weddings without a date, is what does it look to like to desire to have a relationship and live out a love story, and not just any but one that is written by our Father, but to be patient and content while waiting to meet my future husband? Or, if I am desiring to have a relationship, does that mean I actually am not content?

I have had many people tell me how it was in the times when they felt "content" about not being in a relationship that they met their now spouse, so I have thought that in order to be in the right place to meet someone I need to not have a desire to meet someone, but struggle with that when I feel like I'm being left behind as all my friends begin to get married and start their new lives. I think the hardest part for me, is that in wanting a God centered relationship with a person He has set aside for us, there is nothing we can do in the here and now but wait, and so I guess what I am asking is what does it look like to be patient and wait on the Lord for such a big thing as desiring a husband to serve along side and live life with, but in the mean time to be content in where the Lord has you, and can desiring something we do not have and being content in where we are even go hand-in-hand?

I'm sorry my "question" is kind of all over the place and has taken form in many small questions, but thank you for giving girls like me the opportunity to ask questions we have been struggling with and working through, it is truly a blessing.

A: Dear Friend,

I love your question!

I hear your heart to step into the role of counterpart/helper/completer for a man with a vision to follow hard after God. And I sense your “let me at ‘em” impatience to jump in and get to work.

Like you, I relished the idea of pouring my life into a husband and family. Yes, I made plans for a career (thinking I’d be a teacher on the mission field), but my deepest longing was to get behind the vision of someone I could respect.

I just cannot imagine that God is asking you to deny your heart’s longing when it is so beautifully in line with the way He created you. Yet at the same time, He knows that marriage and a husband and family will not satisfy you. The great danger in your desire is that you would expect a man … or children, or your role as wife and mother, to fulfill you. The Father knows that until you find that place of rest and fulfillment and completeness in your relationship with Him, you will be destined to destroy any other people you attempt to put in that place.

That sounds harsh, I know. But for many years I tried to find my fulfillment in my godly husband and beautiful children. And they weren’t nearly enough! Sometimes I would wake up and wonder what was wrong with me. I had everything I’d ever wanted and my heart ached for more… but I didn’t have a clue what more I wanted.

It took some serious failure on my part to realize that my role as wife and mother was my assigned task in the Kingdom, my way of gratefully serving the Master—not my path to fulfillment.

That said, your job at this stage of your life is to pour yourself into knowing God intimately. At the same time, asking Him to help you to know yourself so that you can serve Him according to the way He created you.

And there is something so alluring about a woman whose focus is on knowing God! While a woman who is “out to get” a man seems to give off an aura of desperation, a woman who is out to know and serve the Savior gives off a fragrance of beauty.

When wise women urge you to be content without a man, they do not mean that to desire a husband is wrong. Its just that experiential knowing that no man, no matter how wonderful, will fill that empty place inside.

So my advice to you…

• Pour all that passion into knowing Christ intimately. Establish an intensive and consistent habit of studying the Scriptures in order to store up wisdom for the future.

• Begin to form a picture of who you sense God wanting for you to become. Study women you admire. Surround yourself with seekers of wisdom.

• Practice beauty in every area of your life. Be the kind of woman who leaves every relationship, every job, every person in your life (even the irritating ones) with a whiff of loveliness.

• Craft your speech to be encouraging and uplifting so that someday you’ll be comfortable dishing out those loving words to your husband and family.

• Learn to forgive quickly, to be gracious when your friends and family hurt your feelings, to be easy to live with.

• Learn to work hard and cheerfully when you don’t feel like it. Much of your “career” as a mom will entail tasks you won’t want to engage in. Being present with your children day in and day out takes an enormous amount of determination and discipline. Caring requires a dying to all that SELF that gets in the way of maturity.

Preparing for your dream of being a wife to a godly man of vision is no less important than preparing for any other career. And I haven’t even mentioned the skills you’ll need to accumulate— cooking, managing a home, balancing a budget, caring for clothing (I ruined most of our clothes during the first year of marriage!), all the arts of creating a home that is a welcoming place where your family will thrive.

So, you see, you have work to do right now. Lots of work!

From my heart,

Diane

I’m back from Haiti— safe and sound and forever changed.

I’ve scrubbed the layers of Deet off my skin, sudsed the sweat and smoke from my hair, and disinfected everything touched by the filthy fumes that engulf that ravaged land.

Before I move on and embrace my lists and goals and responsibilities for the next season, I’m longing to share with you some lessons learned in this adventure.

I’ve confessed my life-long battle with fear on these pages. I’ve opened the not-so-noble realities of my heart to you and let you in to catch a glimpse of my wobbly faith.

And you’ve responded by loving me anyway, by cheering me on, by reassuring me that my God is bigger then my fears, able to break me from the chains that have held me captive and limited my freedom.

And so many of you have been embolden to embark on your own quest to slay the dragons that stalk you.

We’re warriors together, brave-hearted weaklings who’ve been recruited by the Strong One to do the impossible.

And so I want to tell you one last story about my own battle to overcome life-limiting fear. It happened on day two of our Haiti trip, in the moments before I walked down the ramp into the plane, which would carry us from the safe and predictable into a decidedly unsafe place. Here’s what I wrote in my journal…

Do not be afraid or discouraged.

For the LORD is with you wherever you go.

Joshua 1:9

As we lined up to board the final flight to Haiti just moments ago, I first felt a welling up of exhilaration.

We’re finally going!

After months of planning and dreaming and making it happen— it is!

Sometimes dreams seem like just that— fantasies from which we’ll eventually awake… but will never come to be.

But then, just as I stepped onto the ramp that would lead to the airplane, the excitement gave way to overwhelming fear. Panic. Like I’d hit an invisible wall that impeded every step. My breath came in gasps, my knees threatened to give way.

Is this what a panic attack feels like? I wondered. We’re going to Haiti! A land so foreign surrounded by a people I neither know nor understand. Out of my safe and knowable world into… well, into a world that is at best unpredictable and at worse, dangerous.

Fear. Palatable and pulsing.

Do I have to?

Just as that sense of dread threatened to drown me, these words appeared in bold typeface, marching across my mind:

SO NOT BE AFRAID!

A choice.

My emotions are real but they don’t rule me. With my will I wrestle all those feelings into submission. Tie them up and settle them down.

I choose courage.

Strangely, my feelings follow quickly. As if that sudden surge was like a feisty toddler testing his mom to see if she really means it. Sort of a “I dare you to contradict me” bluff.

God’s words, given days before I needed them, serve as boundaries to all those unruly feelings.

And so my soul rests. Not quite at ease, but not really fearful either. A sort of peace that is held in place by that “belt of truth” Paul described in Ephesians, chapter 6.

I’ll need to tighten that belt from time to time when I sense myself slipping.

Courage, Di.

I think that like many things, practice makes perfect. I practice courage every time I dare do something I don’t want to do. Every time I poke my head out of my safe turtle shell to do the hard thing.

Like picking up the phone and making that intimidating call.

Like walking across the street to meet my new neighbor.

Like going someplace alone because I need to and ought to even though I don’t want to.

That sort of stuff.

And I get stronger each time I do it. My faith grows. A history develops. I’ve seen God come through, I’ve put my hand in His and He’s seen me through. Again and again.

Courage is not the absence of fear. It’s the choice to lasso that fear into compliance with my will. To go for it regardless of fear. To be strong when I feel weak.

And of course, the only real way for that to work in a fear-prone woman like me is to run into the Shelter of the Almighty and hide there. To rest where I’m really safe. To trust His overwhelming love for me— and to pour a little bit of that love back by being willing to be unsafe for His sake.

Some of you will never understand what I’m saying. You step with confidence into every adventure, fearlessly flinging yourself into the thrill of the unknowable.

But lots of us aren’t like that, and so we march forward resolutely, one step at a time. We don’t fling, we choose.

And since God’s Book is full of heroes who had to do the same, we know that He somehow delights in coming through for people like us. He even leads us to lead.

People like Joshua, Moses, Timothy, David, Esther, Hannah… and countless others who chose to forge forward at great cost to themselves.

Here is Paul’s challenge to a people facing their fears:

“A final word: Be strong with the Lord’s mighty power.

Put on all God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all the strategies and tricks of the Devil. For we do not fight against people made of flesh and blood, but against those mighty powers of darkness

who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms.

Use every piece of God’s armor to resist the enemy in the time of evil,

so that after the battle you will still be standing firm.”

Ephesians 6:10-13

Those words, scribbled with shaking hand into my journal on that last flight into Haiti, proved prophetic.

For the next seven days I never once felt afraid.

Not when I saw the bloody corpse beside our bus on the drive through Port-O-Prince. Not when I stood in front of almost 200 hundred pastor’s wives and leaders to begin my message, knowing that what I had laboriously prepared would be entirely wrong for this culture of women. Not when our bus driver played chicken with a Mac truck on the highway. Not even when a I saw a giant cockroach scurry across the bathroom in the middle of the night!

My limbs trembled a little bit when I heard Bishop call “Pastor Diane Carole Comer” to the platform to address the church- but I think that had to do more with the sweat dripping down my body and my uncertainty about what I was actually expected to do, than fear.

And I’m not naïve enough to think that the battle to overcome my sin is locked up tight.  But I can never again go back to the coward I once was.

I know His power now. I know that He is a BIG God. I know that obedience leads to life.

And I relish my widened world. There’s room to breath here. Room to learn to dance, to sing at the top of my lungs, to feel the exhilarating beat of joy.

Here in this place of obedience, God put me in the middle of the most courageous women I have ever met. Their faces lined with the grief of deep pain, these women poured their love all over us. They took us in, kissed our cheeks, laughed at my fumbling attempts to sway my hips in that graceful sway of theirs.  They wrote me songs and taught me jumping dance steps… and they showed me what a courageous women looks like.

Beautiful.

They are my sisters and I’ll be back to dance with them again…

May I just encourage each of you to face what terrifies you? Whether it is bugs or bad people, earthquakes or financial uncertainty, the risk of rejection, or the fear of failure… will you step out of the shadows into this place of light and joy?

Will you dance with the women of Haiti?

From a heart full of more love than I can contain,

Pastor Diane Carole Comer (aka, me!)

Dave and I had been hearing about each other for about six months from a mutual friend at our church in San Jose.  Neither of us were eager to be “set up” but finally we could no longer avoid the schemes of our well meaning friend.  She literally grabbed us both during an evening service and stood right by us as we introduced ourselves to each other.  We were both 24, recently graduated from college and working at our first career type jobs.  Dave left for a missions trip to the Philippines (with Phil Comer) and when he got back we started dating.  We had a few false starts and one separation due to Dave’s cold feet but we married almost exactly one year from the date of when we first met.

Our love story is so different from Fallon and Alex and from Anna and Matt.  Dave and I started marriage as very young Christians, full of selfish desires and unrealistic expectations.

Neither of us grew up in homes where we had great models of a strong, vibrant marriage, so we packed our bags full of wrong thinking, worldly ways of dealing with conflict, pride and completely self-centered motives and started our life together.  Our first few years were full of arguments and frustration.

We realized that we had shown each other who we wanted to be while we dated but neither of us truly knew the other one when we got married.  I was very much the woman in the second half of Proverbs 14:1 “The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.” I was so busy trying to manipulate Dave to become who I wanted him to be and trying so hard to change him that he never felt honored or respected by me.  As a result it was difficult for him to really know me and learn to love me.  If we hadn’t believed so strongly in God’s Word and known that God hates divorce, we would have been very tempted to take the easy way out and give up.

So the best part of our love story really begins later down the road as a result of trial and heart break. We finally realized that we had absolutely no tools to work with to build a strong foundation for our marriage. We began to pursue resources like marriage conferences, good books and especially couples with good marriages that we could learn from to begin to learn what it meant to be married the way God meant it to be.

Slowly over time we started to understand how selfish we were and worked hard to make changes.  Not being able to have children at first, was excruciatingly painful for us. We tried for years to get pregnant but were not able to have children.  The Lord led us to adoption and blessed us with Ashley.  God used that experience to shape us and change our focus to HIm.

Later God allowed us to have Jordan and then Rachel who has Down Syndrome.  We walked through cancer with her and now Crohn ‘s Disease and dementia.  Over the years, watching Dave lovingly guide our children and gently care for Rachel, makes me fall in love with him more every day.

God uses those hard times to bring us closer to HIm and closer to each other.

Now I would say our love story is better than it has ever been. We truly are one, I love and respect Dave more than anyone I know and he unselfishly loves me like I had always dreamed of years ago.  I’m so grateful for God’s grace to bring us together in the first place, but even more to keep us together long enough to really find the joy and fulfillment that is possible in marriage.  If we had given up and not persevered we would have missed the best part of our lives and the amazing joy that we now have in our family and in serving Him together.

Vickie

It was a rough afternoon for the missionaries. We spent it on a pristine beach about an hour from Port-au-Prince—snorkeling, swimming, and jumping off the pier. We left much rested after such an intense, life-changing week. Church started at six today—6 a.m. And it went for more than four hours. We had the unique privilege of going to church Haitian style. We thought Pastor Alex was going to speak, but they ran out of time for his message. Pastor Diane Carol Comer, however, brought a short (and unexpected) message from Solid Rock. She left the Haitians with Joshua 1:9 - “Have I not commanded you?  Be strong and courageous.  Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.“

(Bishop Jeune)

(Diane with Madam Jeune interpreting)

(Amanda Jones)

Kathleen Joffer has blessed our team this week by leading morning devotions. The Haitians told us story after story of God speaking to them through visions and dreams.  Kathleen challenged us to not put God in an American box and be open to all the ways He speaks – even in the silence of our dreams.  Zebby Wheelock has blessed us with her fervent prayers, both for us and the women at the Widow’s Home.

We’ve spent days enjoying the beauty of the Haitian people, and today we enjoyed the beauty of the Haitian countryside as well. Ocean Breeze Beach was beautiful as was our trip through the mountain countryside.  Wild goats, donkeys, and cows roamed the rugged farmland dotted with plantain trees.  We drove through small ocean towns and got stuck in downtown Port-au-Prince’s heavy evening traffic.

It was truly an adventure!

There’s no water tonight for showers. We are hot, sweaty, and will probably stink tomorrow when some of you pick us up from the airport, but we’ve had the time of our life.

A huge thank you to Elizabeth Mosser for posting the blog so late for us every night. Thank you to the many of you who have prayed fervently for us at home and for all your notes that spurred us on. We can’t wait to see many of you tomorrow night.

Many of you have already been to Haiti, but if you haven’t, we hope you have the opportunity to come soon.

Thank you for helping us bring His Name to Haiti.

Ore voi’ –

Madam Curt and Madam Jon  (Jodi and Melanie)

*The Love Stories series will resume tomorrow morning so check back then!

I’m writing tonight under the stars. The ocean breeze is sweeping over the rooftop of the hospital as our team reflects on our amazing week. Most of us have been sleeping on cots up here because it’s much cooler than inside.  Falling asleep as we search for constellations in the stars and waking to a brilliant sunrise are not bad benefits though. This morning’s sunrise did not disappoint.  Rays of light filtered through the clouds illuminating the sky in oranges, reds, pinks, and finally blue.  We watched this brilliant display as we read our Bibles and prepared for our epic day.

(the "mom's" on the team enjoying the sunrise)

From sunrise to long after sunset, we bounced from one place to another.  Each outing we took could be its own blog post.  At 6 a.m., Scott Campbell, a former personal trainer, took some of our teammates and five security guards on an exercise excursion.  We ran down the streets of Haiti to the Caribbean Sea, less than a half mile from Grace Village, and into a gated community park.  We ran the stairs of a partially finished pavilion that faced the sea and around the sidewalk that circled the park.  Four handsome teenage boys battle rapped – a combination of rap and acting – on the edge of the sidewalk.  Fishermen worked the sea from their boats and pulled their nets in from the shore.  We ran past wild chickens, goats, and a big bull cow grazing in what would have been a grassy area in an American park. Who gets to do stuff like this?

(the workout crew)

After breakfast we toured the tent village beside the hospital.  At its maximum capacity, 25,000 people lived in tents on twelve acres of land. Residents have slowly been finding permanent shelter and Grace Village has begun to reclaim their land.  A garden grows where tents once were.  The walkways, once so narrow you could barely pass through, are now wide and easy to traverse. Noticeable change is happening and the people have hope for their future.

(Ann and Melanie in the tent village)

Next we drove to the Lambi site to see the homes that past Solid Rock teams have built, and we have great admiration for the “Road Warriors” who cleaned the knee-deep refuge from their canal. The Lambi women there take such pride in their new homes, hanging delicate lace curtains over windows and around beds. We had the opportunity to enter several of the homes and pray over the families, praising God for being El Roi, the God who sees, and praying for provision for their needs.  Diane was blessed to see the house her Dad built, pray for that family, and give her scarf to the vibrant little girl who so proudly showed Diane around.

(Diane with the family that lives in the house her dad helped build)

When we asked the ladies at the widows’ home to tell us their story, they each told us about their bodies and the healing that they need. So we prayed for just that: healing for a limb paralyzed by a stroke, healing for legs injured during a fall. Whitney also led us in song, and they sang right along with us.

Today was Liz Eischen and Amanda Jones’ turn to shine with the kids.  At the boys’ home, we used the supplies and toys they compiled to blow bubbles, color pictures, jump rope and sing songs. Our visit ended in a rowdy game with rubber balls being kicked and thrown in every direction. These kind, joy-filled boys are a true testament to the work the Juenes are doing to care for the orphan and the widow.

(Amanda and Liz at Lambi)

We also went to the Girls Home to meet some of Madam and Bishop’s fifty-five girls.  We played the same games that we did with the boys and also made jewelry.  While we played, these children stole our hearts.

(Jodi at the girls home)

Madam Jeune gave us the honor of sharing her story and asked us to photograph the older girls.  She wants to use these photos to help share these graceful girls’ stories.   Stay tuned for more information on how you can sponsor the boys and girls Bishop and Madam have welcomed into their home.  These precious children need sponsors. When you see their faces and hear their stories, you’ll want to help.

Orlena Ballard led a hard-working crew from our team help the Haitians in the Lord’s Kitchen.  They sorted beans and cooked huge bowls of rice and beans to serve the children in the tent village.  While they cooked, they used an interpreter to hear the women’s stories.

(Ann, Kathleen, Whitney and Zebby posing as chickens by the chicken coops)

These women are just like us. They are eager to share their story with anyone who will genuinely listen.  They love beautiful things and light up when you pay them a compliment.  They like to see their photo after it’s been taken and are quick to give and receive love.  They are truly lovely.

We closed our day with a Dude Devotional.  Alex gave us a preview of his sermon for tomorrow.  Jeff Hartley, our incredible Forward Edge Haiti Field Coordinator who has fearlessly led and served our team all week, shared his story of how he came to faith in Christ.   It’s an incredible story – ask him sometime.  He also revealed he has three sisters which explains why he’s been comfortable around so many women all week!

(the "Dudes")

The week would not have been the same without all the moms on the team.  Beth Viducich, Ann Menke, Julie Kohl and Mary Kay Taylor have mothered and loved on our team. Penny Stady, Kay Moore and Jodi Hughes have kept us on track and made sure we knew what to expect and that we were properly equipped.  It has truly been a team effort and one that God perfectly orchestrated.

Thank you for your prayers and all your comments on the blogs. We have been invigorated by the love you’re sending across the miles.

With a grateful heart,

Madam Curt, Madam Jon, and Madam Josh

P.S. Jon and Curt—have fun at the Lord of the Rings marathon/sleepover. Remember, you have SIX children upstairs. (hugs to Grant, Katie, Karly, Alli, Kiki, and Paigey)

P.P.S. – To Scott, Beth, Josh, Jake, Savannah, and Zoey – love you guys.  God has been so good and this trip has been amazing.  Spent the day with my kitchen ladies – what a blessing!  I also got to see Wetzel and took a picture with him.  I know you guys are missing me as much as I’m missing you.  Promise to bake cookies when I get home.  Love- Orlena

P.P.P.S. – Husband! (John Joffer) – The things I’ve seen and the stories I’ve heard “are not even normal in my consciousness” and I can’t wait to share them with you.  I miss and love you. See you soon!

We can hardly believe it! Today was the last day of the conference.  Like the previous two days, God showed up in a powerful way.  The pastor’s wives, who seemed almost indifferent to us and to each other in the first hours of the conference, were changed women when they left today.

I (Jodi Stilp) got to share my personal testimony of how Jesus has been the Light of the World in my life.  I reminded the women that He is holding out His hand –offering to be the Light of the World to them as well as they serve Him in a very dark place.  When I finished speaking, Whitney Baucom led the women in song. Haitian voices joined ours, and we worshipped together as sisters in English and Creole.

Light of the World you stepped down into darkness.

Opened my eyes, let me see.

Beauty that makes this heart adore you.

Hope of a life spent with you.

Whitney then shared her story of a life transformed. El Roi – the God Who Sees – sought her in her darkest moment and instead of seeing a sinner, He saw a godly woman.  A Worshipper.  A Leader.  He redeemed her life from the pit and set her feet on the Solid Rock.  She reminded the women that God sees them too and to pray for their rebellious loved ones. No one is too far away that God doesn’t see them. There is always hope.

And so Diane and Vicki Marshman spent the next portion teaching the women how to raise godly children who would passionately follow Jesus. When Vicki finished giving them practical tips, the women peppered Diane, Vicki, Jenna Silva, and Kay Moore with questions. The pastor’s wives promised to take everything they learned home to share with the women they serve every day.

Before we closed our time together, Madam Juene called our team to the front.  The women thanked us for coming and then gave us gifts.  These women who have so little gave us Haitian flags and bracelets so we would “never forget them and remember to pray.” They gave Diane a painting and a beautiful vase.  Then they prayed for us.  And I don’t mean a proper America-style prayer.  These women stormed the front of the room, enveloping us with their hands and their hearts, and raised their voices to God in a beautiful symphony of praise.

The Haitians love titles.  Every nametag was at least four names long and each name was important to them.  They labeled our conference as seminary, called us missionaries, and received an official signed certificate from Pastor Diane Carol Comer.  Are you giggling like we are?

When all the ladies received their certificates, we celebrated with a Haitian feast complete with six five-gallon buckets of ice cream – a luxury in Haiti.  The ladies kept coming through the line, again and again, some of them eight times!  What a joy to give them an opportunity to indulge in such a fun treat.

These Haitian ladies arrived at the conference empty and feeling alone.  They left filled with the power of God and an army of new friends who can relate to a life of ministry.  The pastor’s wives from small villages and big towns, from Pentecostal, Methodist, and Baptist denominations, exchanged phone numbers and addresses and embraced each other in long hugs as they said their goodbyes. They asked to get together again next year.

The four men who served the ice cream, the men who’ve been traveling with us all week to provide protection and support, have blessed us and these Haitian women in mighty ways. We’ve kept Mike Varadi, Alex Salzwedel, Scott Campell, and Tim Durkee busy with some really important jobs.  When they’re not beating up bad guys (their latest claim is 90 with one hand tied behind their backs), they’ve served our team by filling water bottles, restocking snacks, schlepping those big red duffle bags, and unclogging the one toilet our entire team shared.  More importantly, they’ve prayed fervently for us while we served the women here.

Tonight they set up Flicks on the Bricks (a rooftop movie) and are sacrificing Captain America to watch Letters From Juliet.  We’re currently having volume issues so they’re taking turns narrating the subtitles in girly voices. A huge shout out to Abby, Cynthia, Janet, Tracy, and Kate for loaning your men to us for the week.  We think they’re pretty great.  By the way, Pastor Alex (gotta love the title) is preaching in church on Sunday.

We’re heading to bed tonight with full hearts and a huge sense of relief.  God planted the seed for this conference in Madam Jeune’s heart.  He grew it by giving Diane and Jodi Hughes the vision, and He birthed it this week. I’m so glad I got to be a part of it.

With a grateful heart,

Jodi

P.S.  To my awesome husband Curt and my five beautiful children – Sarah, Grant, Katie, Alli and Paige – I love you!  I’ll be home soon and can’t wait to squeeze you. Grant – we sang Light of the World, just not in opera.

P.P. S. Jenna says, “Congratulations Grace and Andrew.  Hearing I’m getting a niece in a few months was the best news of the trip!”

As we end our third day in Haiti — and our second day of the women’s conference — it’s hard to know where to begin. The work of the Spirit is the direct result of your prayers. In spite of our inadequacies, God worked in a mighty way. We are women truly blessed. The only request we received yesterday from the pastor’s wives was for more—more teaching, more stories, and more of us pouring into her dear sisters. When we woke up this morning — many of us on the roof to relish the nighttime breeze—we prepared ourselves to speak even more.

So we told stories. We prayed with the ladies and worshipped with them. A woman sitting next to Mary Kay Taylor refused to smile until we began praising the Lord. Then her joy poured out. With her arms waving in praise and her voice loud with song, she turned to Mary Kay and taught her how to worship in Creole. Mary Kay waved her arms with this woman and she sang with joy. Together they rejoiced in a language that Mary Kay didn’t understand.

Madam Jeune asked that we give one dress to each of the pastor’s wives today so we began laying out all the beautiful dresses that you so lovingly picked for them, dresses of all shapes and sizes, in every color.

Ashley Krause, we missed you today! Thank you for all your hard work and love for these ladies. They rejoiced when they received these beautiful gifts. Some put them on right away to wear for the afternoon. Others made sure their dresses matched the handmade bags that Chris Akenson and so many of you sewed for them.

The remaining dresses will go to other ladies who lost their church attire in the earthquake. It will be a blessing to each of them.

Jenna Silva shared her heart this morning for people who don’t know God and told of how God can give them joy amidst oppression. Vicki Marshman spoke about her search for answers to life’s questions. Caryn Ogle began to share her story, and in the midst of it, Madam Juene asked her to sing. The Haitian ladies joined in the song of On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand, and God’s power flowed through the room. Melanie Dobson told the story of the friend she lost in the Haiti earthquake. And then Diane told of how God used suffering to transform her into a passionate follower, completely in love with Jesus.

As we went into our small groups, we could all feel the Spirit moving. On the first day, we had to draw women out, but today they were coming to us, eager to share their testimonies. “To tell you all the things God has done in my life,” many of them said. The women in each group — American and Haitian women alike — gathered around each woman and prayed a choir of Haitian and English words over her.

All of a sudden, the women in Ann Menke’s group were on their feet, singing and dancing, and in minutes all the groups across the sanctuary joined in the song. The women wrapped their arms around us as we danced together.

Diane told the women that they needed to come to the United States to teach us how to dance. And so they taught us how to dance for the Lord. One woman—Yanick Toussaint—even wrote a song and choreographed a dance. Just for Diane.

And the beautiful thing was….

Diane danced along.

What a wonderful life.

Who made it?

Jesus did it.

With what sewing machine?

His blood.

What thread?

The Holy Spirit.

Then turn around that I can see.

Here I am.

Turn around one more time

Let’s strike applause.

If I did not have Jesus,

I would not be alive.

Jesus has given all of us life. We are rejoicing with Yanick and all the other ladies.

Please join us in the dance.

With joy,

Allie and Melanie

Thank each of you for your notes! It was such a joy to return from day one of the conference this afternoon and read those. We told the Haitian ladies that you were praying for them this week, and your prayers have deeply blessed us and the women we met today. The beginning of the conference was both overwhelming and amazing. To compress the past ten hours is almost impossible, because we are still processing all that has happened. The Spirit moved today in a powerful way, and we are humbled and incredibly grateful for it.

As we walked into the open air sanctuary this morning, it was our privilege to hug the beautiful women dressed in their Sunday best. Outside the sanctuary were palm trees and mountains and people singing below. Inside were pink and white balloons and two giant fans working hard to cool almost two hundred ladies and a host of translators.

When Diane began speaking, the connection between her and these ladies was immediate and clearly inspired by God. Through the translation of Madam Jeune, Diane thanked the ladies for pouring their lives out for so many. And she explained that it was our turn to pour into them.

(Ann and the women)

“You and I are an essential part of God’s kingdom,” Diane told them. “God calls each of us by name.”

(Jodi and the women)

Amens resounded around the room as she began to encourage them through the story of God meeting Moses at the burning bush.  Each lady received a packet of the names of God as Diane spoke, each Bible verse written in both French and Creole. Then they all received one name—a name that has been prayed over for months. A name we hoped would speak specifically to them.

The ladies began to share the names of God they received along with their stories.

A lady with diabetes received the name Physician.

The lady who received Child lost her children during the earthquake.

Almighty was given to the woman whose son had been kidnapped, held for ransom, and then returned six days later to the glory of God.

A lady who had a dream about the Prince of Peace before the conference received a card with that name.

God With Us was given to a woman whose twelve children had been rescued from the earthquake.

A young woman, heartbroken that her three-year-old daughter is not yet talking, received The God Who Sees Me.

And the stories about the Lord’s names continued as we broke into small groups and shared together.

Jenna Silva spoke to the ladies next about El Roi—The God Who Sees Me. She shared her story of growing up as the daughter of a pastor, of her rebellion and then of her reconciliation with God and her family. The ladies were overwhelmed with emotion. Perhaps some of them have children who have walked away from God. Others may even be drifting away from God themselves. We may never know all of these ladies’ stories, but Jenna’s words met them in a deep place that crossed cultural boundaries and spoke to the heart of their struggles and joys and the desire for their families to know God.

(Diane and Jenna)

We have many more stories to share in the days and even weeks to come.  Please don’t stop praying for us and our new Haitian friends. We desperately need the Spirit to carry us through this week.

(Beth holding a baby at the conference)

Diane’s father inspired her to go on this incredible journey to Haiti. We miss having you with us, Jack, but you are part of the team in our hearts. Blessings to you.

With Joy,

Melanie

P.S. Kelle Belle—Your sweet mama gives a shout out back to you. She loves you and misses you.

P.P.S. So far there have been no spider sightings in Carrefour. Don’t tell Diane, but Ann M. has a little surprise, just for her.

We’re here! After eight months of praying and preparing, twenty-three of us and our giant red duffle bags filled with dresses and supplies arrived in Port-au-Prince early this morning. And we’re all positively giddy to be here.

A big blue bus met us at the airport along with the warm sunshine. Our luggage and two of the men rode on top, and as we bumped along the massive potholes on the city roads, we saw things we’ve never seen before. Rubble still piled along the streets, almost two years after the earthquake. Goats climbed on mounds of trash. Tent cities lined up with magnificent coastline on one side and lush mountain views on the other. Horns honked and we could reach out the windows and touch the passing trucks.

And yet, in the middle of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, right in the midst of the devastation, there was in incredible resilience in the faces of the people.

I expected to see sadness in the eyes of the Haitian people, but instead I found joy in many of their eyes.  We waved to the children, and they waved back, smiles wide across their face. Most of the women were busy transporting baskets filled with bananas or barrels of water on their heads, but some smiled at us as well.

An earthquake devastated Haiti, and yet her people continue to live their lives. They are shining their shoes, shaving sugar cane to sell on the streets, and carrying clean water to their tent houses. Women are washing dishes and cooking food on the cracked sidewalks. Men are selling tires and furniture.

An hour or so later (we lost track of time), gates opened in front of us and we drove onto the property of Grace Village. Madam Jeune greeted us with hugs, praising Jesus for all He has done and will do this week.

Most of the Haitian women coming to the conference tomorrow have begun their journeys. They’ve been personally invited by Madam, and some will travel twelve hours by all sorts of modes of transportation. More than two hundred women from across denominations in Haiti will gather together to worship God and encourage each other.  This is the first time Haitian women from different denominations have gathered together to fellowship.

Thank you for praying for our trip. God was clearly with us in every leg of the journey.

Thank you for sending dresses (hundreds of them!). As I write, ladies are sorting the clothing and putting together gift bags for the women. The Haitian pastor’s wives will distribute the dresses long after we’re gone.

And thank you, most of all, for praying for the women who are coming to the conference tomorrow, that they will be revived, renewed and encouraged by His many names before they return to love and care for the people in their communities.

This blog will be our only communication with friends and family at home during this week so please send as many messages and notes as you want as comments. Jodi Stilp, Allie Rice, and I will pass the notes on to the ladies (and four men) on our team.

Diane sends her love!

With Joy,

Melanie Dobson

P.S. Note from Vicki to Steve—Remember that Coco gets two cans of dog food (and she loves you too!).

“Is – is he a man?” asked Lucy.

“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the great Lion.”

“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe?  I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver, “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

I was in high school when I first read this disconcerting description of the God I had recently committed my life to.  Rich in vivid imagery and richer still with sound theology, the stories in the Chronicles of Narnia captured my whole heart.

But an unsafe God?

I wanted a god who would offer guarantees of a good life, a protected future. And so for the next many years I set about constructing a personal theology that safed God up a bit.

I memorized all the “promises” for protection, camping out on what sounded to me like iron clad can’t-get-out-of-it contractual agreements.

I collected quotes like this one: “There’s no place safer than right in the center of God’s will.” Ooh yeah, that sounds right to me.

But is God safe? Are we, as His followers, promised a safe life?

Ask Peter, or James, or John. Hounded by religious lawmen, they lost everything. Peter and James died violent, decidedly unsafe deaths. John was dipped into a cauldron of hot oil, then banished to an island all-alone.

No, God is not safe.

But He is good.

And so 20 women embark today on a journey into a world that is not safe.

Following in the footsteps of hundreds of others from our church, and tens of thousands of Jesus followers around the world, we chose to leave our safe, insurance protected homes to travel half a world away to bring the love of Christ to a people who need Him desperately.

A people whose world is anything but safe.

Why do we go? Because God is good.

And though every woman amongst this team living in safe suburbia is sure to lock their doors at night… and we wouldn’t think of not wearing seatbelts… and we disinfect our hands and cutting boards and doorknobs… and warn our kids against all sorts of random accidental possibilities…

We all know that it is this decidedly unsafe God who is leading us to Haiti.

The sense of His presence is palatable. Not in a packaged, marketable sense of nothing-bad-can-possibly-come-to-you kind of way. We just know that He’s leading and we’re following and He’s going to do something amazing in us and through us and with us in unsafe Haiti.

And we’re almost giddy with anticipation.

I wonder if the real danger for most of us Jesus followers has nothing to do with disease and disaster.

Maybe the real danger has more to do with our refusal to risk. To do what isn’t safe. To dare.

And I’m not just wondering about malaria carrying mosquitoes and crazed kidnappers…

Dare we risk relationships by telling the truth?

Dare we risk our financial security by giving scandalously?

Dare I risk my reputation by listening to that Voice which promises to whisper directions in my ear?

Dare I risk my comfortable Sunday routine by signing up to take care of kids? Is a harried mother who needs to hear the Gospel again, and again, and again worth it?

I don’t know what kind of daring adventure you’re contemplating right now. But I’ll bet there is some challenge lurking somewhere deep down where nobody knows.

Let me pass on the words our unsafe-but-relentlessly-good God has spoken to my scaredy-cat heart:

“I command you— be strong and courageous!

Do not be afraid

or

discouraged.

For the LORD your God is with you

wherever you go.”

Joshua 1:9

In other words…

Just do it!

From all our hearts,

Diane and…

Jodi Hughes, Kathleen Joffer, Zebby Wheelock, Caryn Ogle, Jenna Silva, Allison Rice, Ann Menke, Melanie Dobson, Liz Eischen, Julie Kohl, Jodi Stilp, Orlena Ballard, Whitney Baucom, Beth Viducich, Amanda Jones, Vickie Marshman, Mary Kay Taylor, Penny Stady, and Kay Moore

And…

Scott Campbell, Alex Salzwedel, Tim Durkee, and Mike Varadi

(our big, brave, we’ll-do-everything-to-keep-you-safe guards!)

Watch and wait and pray for us!  We’ll be posting every day this week from Haiti if the electricity and Internet hold up…

So, you want to date my daughter?

Dad endured my dating years with a lot of teasing and feigned disinterest. He wasn’t one to invade my private world and I wasn’t much for opening up my heart to all his engineer logic.

Boys were definitely not a topic of frequent discussion when Dad was around- those midnight talks were reserved for Mom’s understanding ears. Dad was just too logical for things like boy-crushes and romance. Not exactly my go-to guy when it came to dating advice.

That was an era in girl-history when we actually dated. As in going on dates.

Usually by Monday or Tuesday night a guy would call a girl on the phone (no texting!), hum and ha and make awkward conversation, and eventually get around to asking her out on a date for Friday night. And girls were pretty much obligated to say yes- unless the guy was a creep of course, in which case we made up excuses and hoped he’d turn to greener pastures.

I dated a lot- we all did. We didn’t “hang out” back then, we dated. Friends dated. We went bowling or miniature golfing or to a movie or out to dinner.

And there were rules for all this dating, unwritten rules that everyone knew. For instance, no girl with any sort of self-respect would kiss a guy on the first date. That would have labeled her as easy. A guy had to earn the right for that peck at the front door.

Another rule had to do with all this dating of friends. If you didn’t like a guy “that way”, you absolutely could not “lead him on” by going out with him more than 3 times. Three dates was the absolute limit.

Poor guys, that was a lot of out of pocket expense to figure out she wasn’t about to fall in love with him.

Of course, like all girls of every generation, we wanted more than anything for a guy to declare himself right up front and let us either fall into his open arms or tell him to take a hike.

But I never, ever discussed these things with Dad.

Of course not, that would have been embarrassing.

And my dad was particularly embarrassing. He had these requirements, you see, that none of my friends’ dads had.

When a guy came to pick me up, he had to come in and meet my dad. Not at the front step or in the entryway—nope, all the way in.

I remember many a poor guy sitting on the edge of the green plaid couch, nervously answering questions about education and jobs and what-are-you-doing-with-your-life topics most 17 year olds are pretty much clueless to answer.

Dad seemed to relish their discomfort.

With me darting him dirty looks, Dad would eventually stand up and escort us to the front door, asking what this poor sweaty guy’s plans for the evening entailed. Then he’d pause, do some engineer-like calculations in his head, and tell the by now thoroughly intimidated fellow what time he expected him to bring me home.

I was sure Dad was wrecking my chances of anyone ever falling in love with me. Word had to be getting around about the Great Inquisition from Diane’s ferocious father.

But all my whining didn’t faze Dad. He wouldn’t even argue with me— and neither would he budge.

Looking back now I see that Dad was protecting me. Naïve and vulnerable and sometimes just plain stupid, I had no idea what was going on in those guy’s minds. I was clueless about hormones and sweat glands and what boys talked about in the locker room.

But Dad wasn’t, and he wasn’t about to let his little girl be pawed in the back seat of a car.  Dad was protecting me, radiating a message that every one of those guys understood fully. DON’T MESS WITH MY DAUGHTER!

And they didn’t. They didn’t dare.

Because of Dad.

When eventually the man I would one day marry asked me out, it was a whole different scenario.

Phil wanted to meet my dad. He stepped right into our cozy family room, settled himself on that same plaid couch, and launched in to his own inquisition.

Where do you work? (G.E.) What do you do? (Nuclear engineer) Where did you go to school for that? (Oregon State) On and on the questions rolled until I was sure Phil would rather stay right there and talk to Dad all night.

Eventually we all walked to the front door, where Dad let us both know in no uncertain terms that 11 o’clock would give us plenty of time to get to know each other.

That date opened a whole new world to me.

Instead of having to carry the conversation and squirming in the silent stretches, I was carried along into the back and forth of two people with something to say. This guy knew how to talk!  For the first time ever I began to contemplate the idea of the rest of my life.

All too soon Dad’s curfew was approaching and we were still talking. We’d stopped at a restaurant for some dessert and the clock was inching towards eleven. I started getting nervous. Real nervous. This was a man I was talking to, not one of the sweet boys I spent most of my time with. How would it look if I had to call home to appeal to my daddy to stay out later?

I was sure I would die from the embarrassment of it!

Before I had a chance to figure it out, Phil glanced at his watch and asked if I ought to call home. Of course Dad said, Yes, finish your dessert, and of course we did.

And I didn’t die right on the spot, in fact, less than a year later my dad proudly walked me down the aisle and gave me to that man. And he gave me some advice that day too… but that’s another story for another day.

Dad and I never really did talk about all my angst over his rules for dating. He never explained to me why… or how he felt about it… or tried to get me to agree. We didn’t talk about stuff like that and I didn’t have any choice in the matter anyway.

Dad was dad and I was expected to do what he said. Period.

But now I think I know— Dad was protecting me.

Protecting his simple hearted daughter from dangers he was well aware of. Dangers that could have ruined my happiness, my wholeness, my future. Dangers that could have dashed every dream and left me wounded and weak.

Dad wasn’t about to let that happen on his watch.

Sometimes young women ask me if my dad and I were close… and I look at them and wonder what in the world they mean.

Close? To Dad? Close to the guard at the door? Close to the man who set curfews and left the porch light on and never told me why?

Yes. We were very close. Connected down deep.

But not in the way they mean, that idea just doesn’t jive with my picture of my dad. We never talked for hours on end, I never told him who I liked or what I hoped. We were close because Dad stood guard over me until he knew I was safe.

And then he let me go.

From my heart,

Diane

Five things dad did right:

1. He protected me
2. He was invulnerable to emotional drama
3. He didn’t try to be my best friend
4. he guarded my purity
5. He stood his ground even at the risk of my feelings towards him

Dear Diane, Will I ever find someone to share my life with?

I am getting older and I feel like I will never find "the one", I'm not even dating... Is there something wrong with me?  Why do I have the desire in my heart to marry and start a family?

I have been trying to be patient and I pray about it a lot, but I feel like my life is going nowhere.  Don't get me wrong I love where I am in life (lots of friends, finally finding the right church, two good jobs, love for missions and travel which I get to do every year) but I feel like something is missing.

I love reading your blog, you inspire me.

Thanks for sharing your life.

Dear friend,

I love your questions and the passion I hear emanating from your words!  Yet at the same time there seem to be some underlying misunderstandings that I’d love to help you address. Let’s start at the top.

Will I ever find someone to share my life with?

It is my firm belief that it is a mistake for a woman to spend her learning, growing, independent years “finding” a husband. Instead, this is an invaluable season to find your own self!

Who are you? What do you love? What fills you with energy? What/Who drains you? How are you best suited to serve the Savior?

These are years of growing into the beauty for which God created you. Years for becoming lovely in every way.

The Bible tells the story of God presenting Eve to Adam as the perfect counterpart to make up for his lack. Adam responded to God’s gift of beauty and Eve responded to Adam’s response.

No one was finding or frantically searching or fretting about their impossible list of idealistic expectations. Adam was doing his job of identifying creation and Eve was simply being her beautiful self.

Take some time to read Isaac and Rebekah’s love story in Genesis chapter 24. Rebekah was doing her job— drawing water from the village well. Isaac’s emissary (remember this was an arranged marriage) prayed specifically for a quality he knew would be essential for Isaac’s success— enthusiastic helpfulness.

Isaac needed a woman to come alongside him and serve wholeheartedly and energetically. Rebekah met those criteria. Notice how often in the text it is noted that Rebekah responded “quickly”. She “ran” to the well to get more water. She volunteered to help without being asked. She enthusiastically invited the man home to meet her family. Rebekah was a woman ready and eager and willing and full of life!

She had the remarkable confidence to hop on the back of a camel and venture off to marry a man she had only heard about.

Now, I am not advocating whirlwind, cross-country romances by any means! Theirs was a different day entirely. But learn from Rebekah’s readiness. Admire her confidence. Emulate her energetic working for the good of others.

And don’t overlook Genesis 24:16. “…and the girl was very beautiful.”

Now, before anyone get all in a dither about outward appearance not mattering and men shouldn’t be so focused on what a woman looks like, etc, etc, etc, let me explain something I’ve observed.

Men are attracted to beauty. They always have been, they always will be. It is unrealistic for a woman to ignore a man’s desire for a beautiful wife. What is unrealistic is our culture’s insistence on a narrow definition of what beauty is.

God made every woman with a unique beauty. It is our responsibility to take care of what He made, to cultivate our beauty. By stewarding our bodies well (aka eating healthy, exercising, staying reasonably fit, smelling fresh, etc.) and developing healthy relationships, and by creating beauty everywhere we go, and growing more and more intimate with the Savior, we take on the beauty He intended for us.

All those qualities are apparent in Rebekah’s story.

So my advice to you is simple: be beautiful.

In God’s time, He may bring someone across your daily path who delights in your beauty, someone who needs what you have to offer, someone who will move heaven and earth to make sure he’s up for the challenge of loving you the way God intended you to be loved.

And that, my friends, is worth waiting for!

From my heart,

Diane

P.S. I’ll be addressing the whole idea of “the one” in a coming post…

We are God’s masterpiece.

He has created us anew in Christ Jesus,

so that we can do the good things He has planned for us long ago.

Ephesians 2:10

NLT

In just a few days I am going to Haiti.

My clothes are sprayed, dehydration salts packed, malaria pills sitting on the counter, ridiculously huge water bottle ready. I still haven’t quite figured out how to cram all that gear into one carry-on bag, though leaving all my girly goodies behind will certainly free up space.

For one entire week I’ll be sans make-up and curling irons, nail polish and all those everyday things I hide behind. Instead of a luxurious bubble bath at night before I climb under my down comforter, I’ll be showering in a moldy concrete shower and thanking God if I have enough contaminated water to rinse off.

The weather forecast is predicting 97 degree days, and we’re traveling at the tail end of hurricane season. And let’s not even talk about the potential for earthquakes…

This is me! Princess of the Prissy Girls.

Now I know what you’re thinking: What possessed Diane to venture off to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere? Why didn’t she just write a check and send someone else, someone suitable, someone of Amazon strength and the courage of a warrior?

And since we all know I’m neither strong nor courageous, let me tell you the story that is compelling me to go…

I grew up privileged. Not rich exactly, but with more than most.

My dad, on the other hand, grew up impoverished. Dirt poor. By the age of thirteen he was paying his own way, not because his parents neglected him, but because they simply couldn’t work hard enough or long enough to put food on the table for their family of six.

That poverty drove my father to work his way through school and then up the ladder of his career to a position of respectable success.

And I enjoyed all the bells and whistles of Dad’s drive for security.

So when I embraced the Gospel in my teenage years I was faced with a dilemma: Dare I surrender all? What if the unthinkable happened and God sent me to Africa?

You see I’d been there. When my family vacationed in Uganda and Tanzania we stayed in five star resorts and “roughed it” in Land Rovers as we posed our way on a camera safari across the Serengeti Plain.

Yet even that trip unnerved me. Cockroaches the size of my fist, spiders engulfing a tree, a lizard left over from the dinosaur age. Freaky stuff for a seventh grade girl.

What if God made me go back?

Silly as it may sound, that decision to surrender was agonizing.

Could I live the rest of my life in a jungle hut eating grubs over an open fire? I remembered my parents giving me huge doses of Dramamine so I could calm down enough to sleep the one time we stayed in a grass-roofed structure near a famous watering hole. While others oohed and aahed at the elephants and giraffes as they ambled down for a drink, I was having an adolescent melt down over geckos on the walls.

Dare I trust God for bugs and bats and creepy crawlies?

After weeks of agony, I finally did. Full surrender… even if He sent me to Africa.

That was 37 years ago, and in all that time the closest I’ve come to cooking over an open fire has been camping at Lake Tahoe. Apparently, God didn’t need me to don my safari gear to minister to the natives. Or maybe He was protecting His people from the disaster of my meltdown…

So when I sat across the dinner table with Madame and Bishop Jeune and heard about the needs of the women in Haiti, I couldn’t comprehend the sense of urgency pounding through my veins. Nor could I believe the words that escaped from my mouth when Madame Jeune invited me to come to Haiti to speak at a conference for women in leadership.

But what has amazed me the most is that I want to go! Still, after hearing about the spiders the size of a dinner plate, and the bat that patrols the dorms we’ll be staying in, and the filth and poverty and disease…

I can hardly wait to get there.

When I asked my always-honest husband if he thought I ought to go, he was silent for a long stretch.

“Well…” he mumbled with uncharacteristic hesitancy, “I think only the LORD could have put this on your heart. No way could you have come up with this one on your own.”

A less than enthusiastic endorsement.

But He has put this on my heart. Achingly so.

I wake with their faces in front of me. Rich mahogany eyes, weary from carrying the weight of the grief of their world. Women whose hearts beat like mine but whose lives don’t include bubble baths after a long day of pouring into hurting people.

I see them. They call to me… won’t you come and give us courage to go on?

Courage? From me?

On Monday morning, October 24^th, I’ll be boarding a flight across the world to meet these women whose eyes haunt my sleep.

I won’t be going alone. A team of warm-hearted, wise women is coming with me. Each has been carefully chosen to love on the Haitian leaders, to pour into them the overwhelming love of Christ— to bring hope.

We’ll be staying in the Grace Village compound and traveling in the back of a truck to a large facility nearby each day for the meetings. Women from all over the country will be making their way to this conference, some by bus, others on their own two feet.

They’ll be poor by our standards. Yet I have no doubt that we’ll sense our own poverty as we worship alongside these women who pay such a high price to serve in the Kingdom.

Will you pray for us? For the Haitian women who come? For me?

Will you pray that the same Spirit who has poured so much of His love and grace and mercy into my less-than-worthy life will splash all over these women as we gather together to lift up His Name in Haiti?

Will you pray that I will have courage to give?

From a heart amazed by His grace,

Diane

“Have I not commanded you?

Be strong and courageous!

Do not tremble or be dismayed,

For the LORD your God is with you

Wherever you go.”

Joshua 1:9

Hello! My name is Anna Norman (used to be a “Wright”). I married the most beautiful/handsome/wise/godly man I know over 15 months ago on July 24^th, 2010 and I am so honored to share our story with you!

I love our story; not in a “look at me" sort of way but in a “look at Him" sort of way. It is one of those stories that you look back on and just wonder how God writes things so perfectly and so far outside of our comprehension (and imaginations).

Here it goes...

Matt Norman was that guy. The one that was known as the bachelor throughout Solid Rock for quite a few years. He was always serving, had turned his life to the LORD at 23 and really had an amazing walk with God . He was the one that caught my eyes in 2007...but nothing happened for about 2.5 years.

We met, as he recalls, for the first time at the Way in 2007 (the SR group for those 18-28...I used to fall into that group). To be honest, I had heard quite a bit about him as John Mark was one of his friends and also thought he was the greatest catch for us ladies. And did I mention he was ridiculously handsome (and becomes moreso everyday)? However, one small thing, Matt was not a “dater.”

He really was that guy-the guy that you wanted to know in the smallest of ways; the silent type that you knew had a world of mysteries hidden behind his eyes, and someone who you knew answered to God and not to man.

I actually remember first meeting him officially in the summer of 2008. He led a house church in Lake Oswego that I said I would never go to (only because there were a lot of ladies at it and I didn't want to be one of "those girls"-not that any of them were but you know?). I ended up there one day because my sis and and a girlfriend had gone out to lunch and didn't have time to take me back to my car before they went. This was the first time I remember actually conversing with him.

Let me share a bit of the background on my heart at that time: I was never a dater. My longest relationship was three months-in my 28 years. I rarely was asked out-very rarely. Which was likely a good thing because I don't know if I would have said “no” when I was supposed to. What we think of as rejection I truly believe God sees as His protection and grace.

God did put two things on my heart since a young age that I felt my future spouse had to be: 1) Someone who answered to God and not to man and 2) someone I could listen to for the rest of my life. I also said I would never go out on a date with someone who asked me out via text message (more to come on that one). My amazing parents always prayed for a man like this.

Back to the story: After this house church meeting I started hearing from MANY people things such as: "Do you know Matt Norman?", "Would you ever date Matt Norman?" And yes, people did refer to him with the first and last name-all the time. This is not an exaggeration, I probably over the course of two years heard around 100 different people ask me about him. They also asked my sister about him and I, sent me emails saying they were praying we would get together (I thought it was weird but apparently they were on to something), I had people come up and say they knew who I was going to marry, we had the Kiselys pull both of us aside in the fall of 2008 and ask us about each other, and many constantly tried to get us at the same place together.  Example: Miss Barbara invited my parents over to their home for dinner, along with me, my sis...and Matt. Interesting.

Nothing happened. Nothing. I mean ladies-there was NO REASON for me to think that he would ever be interested in me. My friends often said he looked at me in a different way but I didn't see it-at all. However, there was something I just knew. This next part might sound weird but the definition of faith is "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." I truly have many, many journal entries from my prayer journal asking why Matt was put into my life. Why was he always wherever I was? Why was I so attracted to him? Why I thought he would never ask anyone out...let alone me. But I KNEW that God had said to "wait for that man."

Throughout the two years we had many awkward and great conversations. Never on the phone but once for many weeks during Christmas break 2009 via facebook chat and often face to face since we were usually at the same church functions. He made me so nervous and few things are able to do that. He doesn't remember any of the awkward moments-I guess that is why He made us male and female. The "wait" was for about 1.5 years even after I knew the LORD's promise.

In August of 2009 there was a week where he said he was going out of town with his family. I felt that I needed to pray for him as a man, not him in relation to me (which I had often done and realized that was not the right heart), for that entire week. He got back on a Sunday and on Tuesday I got a TEXT! Please refer to the standards I listed above if you are wondering why that is in caps. He asked if I wanted to go out to dinner. I, of course, went against my creed and said yes!

Our first date was August 17th, 2009. You might think that it was history from there but that just wouldn't make our story perfect. We talked for four hours straight over dinner and dessert and when I went home I told my roommates that I would wait another 50 years to go out on another date like that...it was so pure, so perfect.

The next two months were interesting. We had an amazing family invite just Matt and I along with all of them for a Labor Day weekend retreat at their ranch. We had some odd conversations over the four days and I left there not really knowing what would happen.

(Matt and I on the Labor Day retreat)

You see, when Matt asked me out, he didn't know for certain that I was “the one.” He was trying to process through things and make sure that he was listening to the LORD in everything. This often means that men need that dreaded word to many women, time. He had never taken any large risks in life and this was likely the largest. We went on many dates during these two months where he was the perfect gentleman: barely even sidehugs to end the dates. And I still felt the LORD urging me to trust and wait for this man...

September 21^st, 2009 (literally, written in my journal)- while on the Labor Day trip I remember sitting out on the dock reading from the book of Ruth. This story always fascinated me and it got me thinking of what a woman in waiting looks like. On September 21st, on my usual running path, I was just praying and asking what I was to do about Matt and trying to wait.  I felt the LORD sweetly say, "You are Ruth. You wait."  Great! More waiting!

The funny thing is what happened within ten minutes of that. I was listening to the Loveology podcast from the Way while running.  John Mark was trying to give an example of a good dating situation and here was the kicker; he said "It would be like Matt Norman dating Ruth."  I teared up. Immediately.

Really? Really? Does the Maker of the universe care that much about our hearts? Is He that involved in our small stories?

It gets better. I went home after the run and we had a meeting at our house that night regarding a Zimbabwe mission trip.  The group asked each of us to pick up one of the pictures that were all over the house and write to that orphan.  All of the kids had Zimbabwean names and their birth dates on each sheet.  Except for the one I picked up: it said "Ruth-new girl." That was it. Her picture is still on our fridge now...

(Ruth from Zimbabwe)

In the book of Ruth, Naomi, Ruth's mother-in-law (although her husband had died), told her to start working in the field of a man named Boaz who was very kind to her and cared for her since she was a widower.  There is a verse that says, "Wait for the man, for he will not rest until the matter is settled." That is why I waited...that is why the LORD called me “Ruth.”

It wasn't until the last week in October of 2009 that things changed. I had been patient (by God's grace...most of the time) in just letting things go as they were.  I was willing to wait for him to KNOW for sure but this week was the time that I felt peace to ask what he was thinking regarding us.  He spoke for about 30 minutes straight on how he wasn't quite sure and didn't like taking huge risks and quite a few other long sentences...it ended like this: I said, "I trust you."

Matt and I started dating that next Thursday after we had that conversation.  That was October 24^th, 2009.  I went to Bali/Thailand over Thanksgiving with a group of friends from the church and he wrote me a letter for everyday I was gone with a verse that reminded him of me. We got engaged on April 24th and married on July 24th...

(our wedding)

The verse on our wedding invites was Ephesians 3:21.  "Now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly beyond all that we think or ask."

Amen.

*We are also six months pregnant as I write this! The funny thing about the Ruth part of our story is that I actually promised God if I got to marry Matt, that we would name a daughter Ruth. We aren't finding out what we are having but if it is a little lady, you know her name!

Ladies: please wait on the LORD and relish every minute of it. I LOVED my life before dating Matt. I loved where the LORD used me, what He taught me, how He pursued me when I walked away, and looking back, how He was preparing my heart and my character to be a wife. Cherish the waiting...it is His time to make things more beautiful than you had ever imagined.

PS: here is the best way to describe how I love my husband (from a journal entry while dating)-

"He is the last line in "Anne of Green Gables," "I don't want diamond sunbursts, or marble halls, I just want you." That is my husband to me.

“And be kind to one another, tenderhearted,

forgiving each other,

just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”

Ephesians 4:32

This whole forgiving thing is really hard. Impossible even. Sometimes I don’t feel like forgiving. I can think of a million reasons not to forgive- I mean, after all, won’t that person just get away with it if I let him off the hook? And won’t he do it again if I don’t get in his face and wag my pointy finger?

Yes, yes, and yes!

That’s why forgiving is a heroic act of faith. Ultimately I forgive simply because I have been forgiven so much.

It doesn’t honestly make a lot of sense. But then, neither do a lot of things in the Kingdom.

We could wax long on all the why’s and wherefore’s but you and I know that at some point we have to reach into that half-tamed will of ours and just do it.

Here’s how:

#1 Name the sin.

That’s right, no covering it up or excusing it or stuffing it deep down. Someone genuinely wronged you and its time to figure out exactly what all those roiling emotions are pointing at. Name it.

He stole from you, she lied, he committed adultery, she gossiped.

Find the real, biblical name and use it. Forget all the psychobabble at this point and utilize the raw language of Scripture to recognize the wrong.

Remember that Jesus knew exactly what sins He was dying for as He hung on that Cross.

(2 Corinthians 5:21)

#2 Count the cost.

Authentic, bone deep forgiveness is costly. That free gift offered each one of us by God’s son cost Him his life. Every single drop of blood, every breath, every bit of Him.

Forgiveness hurts deep. It can be agonizing. The cost is incredibly high. And that’s why so many of us harbor stinking, festering garbage cans full of unforgiveness.

We hurt already by the wrong done against us and now we’ve got to forgive?

Yet it’s not impossible. We’ve already been given everything pertaining to life and godliness- even the strength to forgive. (2 Peter 1:2-8)

#3 Pour it on.

There is no such thing as stingy forgiveness. That’s fakery at its most self-righteous.  To forgive someone while withholding love from him or her is not forgiveness at all. Jesus paid the price for one reason only: to bring us close to God. (I Peter 3:18)

If we are to be His imitators, we’re going to have to move beyond how we feel and reach out to love that person who wronged us, and hurt us, and sinned against us.

#4 Entrust yourself to God.

No one really ever gets away with anything. Remember that when any of us sin, we first and foremost sin against God.

He’s waiting and He’s working and He’s wooing people to Himself.

We serve a God who watches over us jealously even while He’s actively involved in utilizing man’s evil to create something good and perfect and beautiful in each of us.  When we forgive out of sheer obedience, He is able to step in and do what He wishes in our hearts.

#5 Listen to wisdom.

Sin always has consequences, (Galatians 6:6,7) and in some cases, that means a loss of intimate relationship. While many, even most, sins can be forgiven in such a way as to restore closeness, sometimes wisdom dictates otherwise. If a person is perpetually unrepentant and refuses to cease the cycle of sin and abuse, then some sort of carefully scripted protection must take place.

Put yourself under the accountability of someone wiser than yourself (like a pastor or a godly husband or someone who offers biblical counsel) in order to love from a distance while God does His work in that person’s life.

#5 Choose.

Remember that forgiveness is a choice of the will, not, as some people espouse, a process. According to everything Jesus taught on forgiveness, we must forgive.

Now, you might not feel all warm and fuzzy all of a sudden. In fact, you may not feel any different at all. How you feel is beside the point because how we feel always follows how we think, not the other way around. Choose with your will to forgive, and eventually, over time, the feelings will follow.

It might take a while- that’s the process part. When all those awful feelings come back to try to choke the life out of you, you’ll have to remind yourself before God that you’ve forgiven that sin.

It’s a choice you make. (Ephesians 4:32, Matthew 18: 21-35)

As hard as all this is, you are not alone. Jesus knows just how you feel, in fact; He’s suffered every single thing that you have. Everything. And He’s waiting in the wings to help you the moment you step into the ferocious battle to forgive.

From my heart,

Diane

(repost)