December 2007

"Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy."  -Luke 1:58

This has been a year of wonder and promises fulfilled. A husband restored, a little boy flourishing, a business blessed, and a baby anticipated. It has been a very full year.

Each Advent as I read the Christmas story, there is usually someone with whom I feel a certain kinship, someone whose experience of anticipation and nativity has connection to my own life in this season of Christmas. Elizabeth and Zechariah were given a promise - an impossible promise. In their old age - and her barrenness - they were going to have a child. Zechariah's doubt, even in the face of an angel herald, was "rewarded" with the gift of silence. What better way  to contemplate the promise of God?

Our gifts this year have seemed no less miraculous.

I have watched in wonder as my husband, damaged so badly in a car-bike collision just over a year ago, has healed, returned to work, gotten back on his bike, won races, scooped up his son, and looked down into my eyes and held me close.

We have watched Karsten turn two, learn to run and dance, experience camping for the first time, and make new friends. We have listened to him speak with his amazing vocabulary, heard him singing, recite his favorite books, and make up stories of his own.

I have been overwhelmed with interesting work and enjoyable clients, so much so that Karsten's naptime became office hours for much of this fall. Thank God for my job that allows me to multitask from home.

And we too have been given a child. We found out in October that Karsten will have a little sibling come summer. Her name is Annika Noel, which means "full of grace" and "song of Christ's birth", words which we claim in anticipation.

What must Zechariah have thought and felt as he watched his wife grow over those amazing nine months? How hard it must have been to be silent in his joy and amazement!

I wonder whether he penned any psalms of praise. He certainly sang one when his boy was born. And no only that, but his hymn was prophetic of the coming Messiah and role his son would play in our rescue.

So what does the future hold for Annika? For Karsten? For each of us? I know that God does not promise to prevent hardship; the last two years are evidence of that. But He has promised that He has "plans to give us hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11).  We have seen God transform pain and fear and despair into endurance and hope and trust. We have lived in the center of God's mercy and know that He can and will see us through.

Gabriel's words hold true for us too: "Do no be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard." (Luke 1:13) He is listening. He is present. He is Immanuel, "God with us."

Merry Christmas.

December 2006

In the midst of Advent, I find an Easter verse reverberating in my heart. "A man of sorrows, familiar with suffering" (Isaiah 53:3).

This has been a year of sadness and suffering for our family. On July 2, on a late morning training ride, Daniel was hit by a car. Impact with the pavement shattered his L2 vertebra. Twentyfour hours later, he was in surgery to rebuild the vertebra that had been crushed to 50-percent of its height.

In the weeks that followed, I watched my strong, athletic husband shake with pain, his face turn pale and gaunt, his movements become guarded and cautious, trying to avoid exacerbating his injury. I saw the ache in him when his son reached up to be held, and when the days slipped away to fall, his summer lost.

Daniel's pain was literal, mine was heartache. But in the midst of suffering, I felt joy. My husband was alive! My Daniel could walk. And more than that, his surgeon anticipated a full recovery. Daniel would return to work and to racing mountain bikes.

Isaiah calls Christ "Immanuel", which means "God with us". God was present at that intersection; He protected Daniel from far worse injuries. God was with me as I drove to the hospital. God provided the best surgeon in Spokane and guided his hands. God made my husband strong. God gave me reserved of energy I had no idea I possessed as I cared for both Daniel and Karsten. And God provided the financial resources that our foresight did not. (The young woman who hit Daniel did not have insurance and our uninsured motorist insurance was woefully inadequate to cover our expenses.)

I admit to being something of a worrier. But the God of all comfort lifted that weight. I trusted Him to see us through, to heal Daniel, to give me the strength to be our strength, to provide the work I needed and the money we required to pay our bills. I put that panicky little bird of worry in His hands each time its wings beat against the bars and clawed at my heart. And I learned to wait on Him. To trust more deeply than I ever had before.

I have seen Christ in my husband. In his pain. In his quiet strength. In his righteous indignation. In his love for his little boy and for me. I have seen Christ in Karsten, in his adoration of and delight in his Daddy. And I have seen the Holy Spirit - the Comforter - comfort Daniel through me.

Daniel is back at work on light duty. And he is back on his mountain bike. (We no longer ride the roads in Spokane.) Perhaps most importantly, Daniel can scoop up his son again. The healing continues.

Joy and suffering are not opposites. In Christ, they are companions. As we celebrate the birth of the Christ child, we are grateful for Christ, the man, and his willingness to come into our world and suffer for us that we might know joy.

With grateful hearts,

-Kyrsten

PS  We found out not long ago that Daniel's fusion is complete. The surgeon said he has never seen anyone grow bone as quickly as Daniel has. We know your prayers and God's grace have everything to do with it.

December 2005

"...Mary pondered all these things in her heart." -Luke 2:19

Over the past five months, I have felt a deep affinity with Mary. Our son, Karsten Daniel, was born on June 27th, a surprising two weeks early. And that meant we weren't quite ready. No crib was set up and waiting when we got home (thought there was a cradle by our bed). No stockpile of diapers. No last minute cleaning. Just a sweet, needy baby and two very weary parents.

But God provided. My Tante Beth and my mother-in-law made the essential Target and grocery runs. Family and friends brought us food. Dan's sister Colleen and her husband Doug put up blinds in the nursery and helped us move in Karsten's furniture. Cousin Jesse let in the carpet installer (and kept our menagerie out of the the way).

Daniel was able to stay home with us for most of two weeks. He watched the baby while I rested. He made sure I ate enough. While I struggled with new-mom panic, he calmly changed diapers, spoke soothing words to me, and participated in all the elements of newborn care. Daniel is my solid ground.

Tante Beth was our birthing coach and my ongoing mommy mentor. She graced our arrival home with long-stemmed roses and a beautiful photo album of our first days with Karsten. She brought us dinner that evening. She came over and watched Karsten while I tried to get some sleep. She answered my frequent phone calls and numerous questions. She prayed for us constantly. To her family too we owe a debt of gratitude for sharing her with us so much and so graciously.

My mom came and stayed with us for five weeks over the course of the summer. She held my boy, fed him in the middle of the night, made sure I ate enough, bought us groceries, cooked dinner and was wonderful company. Mom helped hold us together during those first two months. This summer was precious to me in large part because of her presence. She helped lighten the load so that I could enjoy my son.

There were many others who also carried us. Susan, my step-mom, who came and stayed for a week-and-a-half, who walked the park with me almost daily, who fed Karsten when I was too tired to do so, who helped around the house and put meals together, who was good company. And there were the wonderful women who came and spent the night caring for Karsten so that we could get some sleep - Daniel's mom, Beth, Colleen and Kathy (Dan's sisters), Lydia and Laurie (two of my dear friends), and Abbie (my cousin who took care of our boy by candlelight during a power outage). Many people also brought us meals - Gra'mom and Grandad, our Garland small group, Dawn, my sister-in-law, Colleen and Dan's mom. My dad came for a long weekend and treated us to lots of takeout and napped with Karsten whenever possible.

So where was the pondering? In the midst of it all. After the fact. Now, this very moment. In anticipation of Advent.

Unlike Mary, I had a sanitary hospital in which to birth my son. My husband had family, nurses and a doctor to help with the birth itself. We had our very own home to take Karsten to. Our animals were fewer in number - 4 cats and a dog - though not by much. We had no concerns about enough food to eat.

But there were things Mary and I shared. The anticipation of holding a son. The newness of motherhood. The pain of childbirth. The soul-deep love for a child. The intimacy of breastfeeding. Attentive husbands. Animals. Lots of visitors (though I knew all of ours). God's amazing, breathtaking provision, often in unexpected forms. The profound weight of responsibility for a new life. A deeper awareness of God. The quiet moments of watchful love, where each new sound and expression is a wonder. Awe that God would entrust this little life to our keeping.

And I am beginning to understand what it is to love without reservation. I think I know now what Mary meant when she said, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said." I want to have a heart willing to trust, willing to sacrifice, willing to serve, willing to love with one's entire being. God has a heart like that. He proved it long ago. He reminded me again this summer.

Pondering His many gifts with you,
-Kyrsten

I Don't Know

The person who has best taught me how to say “I don’t know” is my grandfather, my mom’s dad. This despite the fact that I thought he knew everything when I was a child.

Grandad was one of my college professors. He taught Biology. Spring of my freshman year at Whitworth, I took Human Biology from him. The final paper was to be a for-or-against argument, one I wasn’t yet ready to write. So I wrote Grandad a letter, which was not the assignment. I explained the inner turmoil I was experiencing from what I had learned in class.

He wrote me a letter back. Here is part of it…

“We must all learn to live with dissonance. There is so much we don’t know. I firmly believe there are some things that are beyond knowing. I also believe that God intended that because he wants us to trust Him. Kyrsty, you must know that I believe without apology that the only acceptable explanation for the human phenomenon, biology included, is that God did it.

“As for the resurrection of the body, I don’t find that possibility any more miraculous than God having created us with all of our complexity and material uniqueness in the first place…

“I anticipate that both your wonder and awe of our God and the wondrous creation of His that is Life will increase as you continue to contemplate how ‘marvelously and wonderfully we are made’. I wonder why He went to all that effort just to erase it in eternity. What do you think?”

Grandad stretched us, taught us detailed and expansive information, shared his worldview and faith, and asked us to come to our own conclusions. My faith became my own after I took that class. And I learned to say, “I don’t know.” A sentence my children hear quite often.

I Will Wait

I walk in the wilderness
knowing you led me here

I will wait for the rain
You said you would supply

You are the Lord of the wind and the rain
the Ruler of earth and sky
I will trust in your plan to lead me home
even when sand blinds my eyes

The Flood

Standing below the dam
the river's pulse in my bones' marrow

Once before I stood here
-- full of hope, brimful in confidence

Now
I stand a world apart

another love at my side, but far from him
a river between us
a past life I cannot share with him
     a future neither one can see
                                                 beyond the bend

Even to look at it is to be blinded by brilliance
bewildered by its shadows

And though the river
                                roars
                                      unceasing

In the distance it flows -- living water across soft-worn rocks

Anguish is a river
violent
          and calm
                       steady --
                                   determined to follow its own course

Foolishly
we dam it up
control it
turn it into something tame

But who can tame the heart--or teach love silence?

 
.

I Have Loved You

I have loved you all my life.

As a little girl, I imagined us a family
     whole and happy.

Then mine broke
my world became fragments
the dream, an illusion
and I stopped imagining you

I grew and I began to long for love
I looked for you
     but found cheap and costly imitations

I joined the charade
Mourning as, bit by bit,
     I gave away the rubble of my heart
Soon there were only pebbles left
     Not even enough to build a wall

I have loved you all my life.

From the ruins
     one small winged creature wakened when you called
Her heart beats with a tender fierceness
      and I am changed forever

Sojourn

the Spirit led Yeshua into the wilderness

now you too must go

I stand on the rim of the desert
praying rain for your thirst
shade for your head

I have walked my desert road
but I cannot travel with you

though I would set aside my work
my craft
to be helpmate

that is not what you need

at the oasis' shore
I look for you in the distance
a wavering form against the tawny harshness

but it is not you
not yet

There Is a Girl Who Wants to Fly

There is a girl who wants to fly

On the playground, she swings so high
all she can see is blue
She closes her eyes and the earth vanishes
only clouds and stars remain

In her bedroom, she looks out the window
as gray thunderheads roll above the trees
She jumps through the frame
to chase the thunder and lightning across the sky

The Road to Tshimakain Creek

Choral susurration of the brook

            antiphony of songbirds

The lingering green of summer’s end

            turning to autumnal vestments of gold, russet and brown

                        woven of nature’s homespun

The cathedral vault stretches overhead in unblemished blue

            no doves, but snow white butterflies

The fierce glory of the sun upon my shoulders

            I lift my face for His holy kiss

The old tree raises crooked, silvered arms in praise

            stripped of all finery

                        leaves and bark, a fine interlacing of new growth

Its long perished abundance reduced

            except in its many-fingered expression of adoration to the sun above

Alone of its kind, like the humble sinner among the saints

            The pine spires rise above him in unassuming dignity

They too remain when the worshipper – and the oblivious – pass on

The road through the cloistered hills

            that leads me back into the world