Mom’s in Town!

Carolyn
Dinner at my mom’s new place with my in-laws — she’s already cooking for a (small) crowd!

I’ve referenced it in some earlier posts last week, but my mom has moved to town! It’s been very exciting for us and a lot of fun. We awaited her arrival with great expectation. I can only hope she is enjoying her time here so far. She’s come at a time when all programs are ending like Bible studies and such, but I’m sure she’ll make friends as she moves along.

We haven’t lived in the same city in most of the last 20 years, so this is a treat, and we are thankful to the Lord for His provision to provide a wonderful place for her to live and bring her here!

One thing my mom encouraged my sister and me to do when we were young was to read a chapter of Proverbs a day through a month. So on the first day of the month, you would read Proverbs 1, and by the last day of the month, you would be at Proverbs 31. I decided to pick up on this for the rest of May, and this morning was encouraged by considering the blessings of wisdom in Proverbs 8. After reading it, I took a nice walk around our neighborhood and reflected on those words.

“The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil (8:13a); riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold (8:18-19a); I walk in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justice, granting an inheritance to those who love me, and filling their treasuries (8:20-21).

Then it talked about the LORD possessing wisdom at the beginning of his work; wisdom was set up before the beginning of the earth. That was an interesting section to read. I hadn’t thought about it before.

It ends with, “For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD, but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death” (Prov. 8:35-36).
I’m reminded today to seek wisdom and thankful that we can ask God for wisdom in faith, and He will give it to us (James 1:5-8).

Working Mom

Carolyn
Some flowers I was sent for speaking at Bible Study

My friend Shelly recently published a post entitled “To Work or Not to Work.” I thought what she shared was insightful.

I am not a big planner. I just tend to go through life as it comes, not having lots of dreams about what I want or how it should happen. Growing up, I never thought too much about the kind of man I wanted to marry; I never planned out the kind of wedding I would want; I didn’t give too much thought to my major in college or the kind of career I might want; I didn’t think about the number of children I should have or the kind of decorating I would want in a house. I would just arrive at each next step, and things just seemed to fall into place.

Through the years, I’ve found that God’s plans were so much better than mine could have been anyway.

I stayed at home with my children when they were little, and I honestly had no thought that I would ever work again. I enjoyed being a stay at home mom and was grateful I could do it.

Once my children got to school age, though, I remember sitting on the side of my bed, aware that I would not likely have any more children, and wondering what in the world I was going to do with myself now that they would be in school. I realized they had been my almost singular purpose for the 7 or so years prior, and I didn’t know what my identity was apart from mothering.

When a classical school was starting in our area, we were interested, and as we tried to figure out how we might afford it, it became obvious that I could work at the school to earn the tuition. The Lord had worked out a new stage, another plan for my life. I discovered that not only was work something I was doing to meet a need (earning tuition), but it was actually something I enjoyed. I enjoyed sharing about the school to prospective parents and guiding them through the admissions process. I enjoyed coordinating testing for incoming students and administering the math (taking advantage of my degree in elementary education with a specialization in math). I liked the numerous administrative tasks like collecting tuition, enrolling students, helping with events, submitting reports to the state, helping oversee standardized testing, etc. I was glad to be working, and even though it had started as a means to an end, it became a place of ministry for me, as well. I loved the families I interacted with each day. I saw firsthand and through prayer God working and moving in that little school.

I thought I would be there forever. It seemed the perfect use of my elementary education degree and my administrative work background as a legal assistant.

And yet, God again had other plans. Last year, I began a new job at our church. I have seen His hand of preparation through past work experiences. And I’ve seen how my work isn’t just to earn the tuition money. These jobs have come with specific callings, using the gifts God has given me. I have come to see that if we took our children out of private schools, I would still work because the work is no longer about the tuition; it’s a calling of its own — unless He were to call me to something else unexpected!

So I resonate with Shelly. We do what God calls us to do and know that our stories are all unique, and there’s not one size fits all. My family is, of course, an obvious calling; I am a wife and mother! But because I don’t do much more than spend time with my family and work part-time, it all seems to balance out well.

While some of my friends work, many of them don’t, but are just as involved outside the home as I am through volunteer work at church or their children’s schools or in the community. They face the same challenges of balance that I do and have to make the same decisions about what they will spend their time doing. Thankfully, we can seek the Lord and trust that He will lead us to what is best.

Sabbatical

Carolyn
Easter Sunday

It’s been an interesting semester for us. My husband took his first sabbatical since arriving at Moody ten years ago. Though eligible after seven years, he was in the middle of writing fiction and wanted to use a sabbatical for academic work. So having completed the trilogy, now was the time.

He always dreamed of doing sabbatical work somewhere overseas where we could take the kids out of school and travel Europe while he wrote and worked. The reality, though, of my working — and particularly beginning a new job last year — really precluded any trip like that. Somehow, writing from home while regular life routines go on didn’t seem as glamorous!

When we moved here from Virginia in 2002, we went from having my husband around all the time (because we lived near campus and he could come and go quite easily) to him being gone early in the day and coming home later in the evening to make the hour long commute to Moody. At that time, I wondered how in the world we would make it with him being gone so far and for such long days. My children were four and two years old, and we had always pictured him working at a campus that would be nearby our home where we could all be around and experience his world. But such is not the case when you work in the big city and live in the suburbs. Thankfully, his family was around, and we could all be available for one another when we needed support. And we gradually became used to this new normal and the times that he would then be around.

Now, ten years later, with sabbatical beginning, I wondered how in the world we would adjust to having him around more — such as in the middle of our morning routine of getting ready and out the door for school and work! As it turns out, we have enjoyed it a lot. He has been able to accomplish a lot of writing and get one piece published in an academic journal JETS, while working on his next academic book which will include translations he has been working on. But it’s also provided time for him to do more drop off and pick up at school and just be around with us more.

One week while I was preparing for a talk at church, he made dinner 2 or 3 nights! Not just hot dogs, but he went to Southern Living and found out how to make chicken lettuce wraps like you get at PF Changs! They were delicious, and I was impressed!

His sabbatical, though, has been filled with the unexpected as well. Who knew he would lose his close friend in February and we would travel to his funeral? And this is the time God provided for my mom to move to Wheaton, so he has gladly worked to help make that happen — she arrived Tuesday — and will complete the full move when her house sells.

The thing I’ve seen in him is that though sabbbatical wasn’t what he would have dreamed of — hanging out in our home writing while helping me, grieving the loss of a close friend, and moving a mother-in-law to town (which we have all loved, by the way!), he has done so with joy, with gladness, without complaint. My husband is a very driven and active person who can accomplish a lot in a little time because he manages his time well, so to slow down and participate more fully in our home has been a blessing for us, even if it’s been challenging for him — though he’d never say it was!

He said the other day, “Sabbatical is over, I think,” as he prepares to be involved in Moody’s graduation Saturday, start teaching summer school, and travel on his annual Europe trip leading students on tours. It will be good for him to get back in the swing of his routine, but at the end of it, we’re grateful and glad he had the break and the time to be in ours a little more!

God’s Provision for the Needy

Carolyn

I was so blessed yesterday being a witness to God’s love and care for someone in need.

There’s an elderly woman in her eighties that I met years ago, but I didn’t have much contact with her. In the last year or so, I ran into her at the grocery store 2 or 3 times. I introduced myself again, tried to help her, but we spoke little. Then I ran into her at church one night this past winter. We talked longer; I asked more questions. I found out that when it snows, she shovels the snow away from her car all by herself! I asked her how she could do that, particularly when we had a huge blizzard like the one the winter before. She just said she does a little, then takes a break, then does a little more.

I gave her my phone number and told her to please call me if she needed anything. I told her if it snowed, we would call her as my son or husband would help. Well, it didn’t snow much this winter, but one day about 3 weeks ago, I ran into her at the grocery store again. Her car had broken down, and she had called a service to come and help her. I told her I would wait with her, and he was able to get her car running, though we weren’t sure if it was the battery or something else. I again gave her my phone numbers and insisted again that she call me if she needed help.

Fast forward then to Wednesday morning, I was at work when the receptionist rang me to come downstairs. My elderly friend had come to find me because her car was dead in the parking lot nearby. We got a couple of the men at church to help her, and she was off and running again. But that evening, once home, I got a call from the lady who had been on the reception desk earlier in the day. She said a woman had just come to the church to tell us that my elderly friend’s car was broken down on Main Street in rush hour traffic. When this kind lady had offered to help, she declined as she was afraid to go anywhere with her, but she asked her to go to the church and ask for help. So I got the call, and my husband and I immediately left the house to find her and jump her car off.

By the time we reached Main Street, two police cars were there with flashing lights, and they had called a tow truck since her car was stuck in the middle of rush hour traffic. My sweet elderly friend was behind the wheel looking a little shaken by all this activity. We got her out, and I waited with her while my husband and the police got the car moved out of the way, then towed to a local garage. After things settled, I drove her to a dinner she had been on her way to, then later picked her up and took her home.

On Friday, she called me when the car was ready, and we went to get it. I asked her if she would need any help paying for this (knowing the tow alone was over $150), and she said it would be all right. When we arrived at the garage, the man walked out to us, handed her the keys to her car and the invoice and told her she was all set. He said you don’t need to come in and pay; it’s all taken care of, but someone has sworn me to secrecy. Her mouth fell open; she was stunned, and it was an obvious blessing. She tried to follow him back, and he said, “Now I walked out here, so you wouldn’t have to come in, so you can just go, you’re all set.”

She looked at me and said she would pray the Lord would bless this person as he or she had blessed her. “Wow,” I said, “The Lord has provided!” and she said, “Yes!” As I started to pull away, she came walking down toward my car, so I pulled back in. She said, “Look, I want you to see this!” And she showed me the bill which was over $1000! She was so obviously humbled, felt such mercy, and it was just a tremendous need met. We both were in awe of God’s provision.

My kids had been in the back seat of the car, and as we pulled away, I told them, “We were just blessed because we got to witness firsthand God’s care for her.” My son couldn’t wait to get home to call his grandmother and tell her what had happened. It had so obviously affected us all.

The Lord reminded me earlier this year that He wants me to be faithful to those He has put in my path. I haven’t been called to go around the world or be a missionary or personally adopt — but I’ve been called to be faithful in the ministries and places God has put me. I pray I will be and keep my eyes open for how best to reach out to those in my path.

I don’t know who was responsible for caring for this precious woman, but I pray they are blessed, and I know that they will be. Generous giving and living, what an amazing thing to see! I suspect this generous giver knows the generous gifts he or she has been given by the Lord and is glad to have them overflow to those in need. And God’s glory shone for us all to behold!

His Strength, My Weakness

Carolyn

This is a banner that hangs in the stairwell at work. I see it every day on my way up to my office. It is a favorite verse of mine and a good reminder each day that I live my life not in my own strength, but in God’s and in the power of His Spirit.This verse is a big part of my testimony as God used it to remind me that His grace is sufficient for me, and His strength is made perfect in weakness. I praise Him for tangible reminders and encouragements in my life of this truth.