The family of muskoxen...

This Family…

Laughs & learns

Prays & protects

Apologizes & appreciates

Works & worships

Fights & forgives

Teases & trusts

Gives & grows

Believes & belongs

Loves & lasts… Forever

One of my closest friends became a gramma this week when her sweet son & his beautiful wife had their first baby. I was completely swept away by their news & all of the adorable pictures of their little one.

It also made me very conscious about how much my own little family is changing. Our oldest son will be marrying the precious girl he met on his Florida internship in just a few short months... We are so excited about her officially becoming part of our family & starting this new chapter of life together. 

Recently, I think partly because we are now living in a tiny apartment, people have been asking us some interesting questions about how our family functions. I guess in some ways it does seem weird that our boys don’t mind sleeping on the sofa bed when they come home & none of us really minds being contained in one room. 

We’ve always been a close family. 

I think that to some extent this may be because in our early years, Chuck’s military service moved us around quite a bit… or maybe that, like it or not, his current work in the ministry puts us in a somewhat unique & sometimes lonely position. As a mama, what I’d really like to believe is that we have become this way because when we started our family, we were intentional about what we built it on. It has always been really important to us that our kids know that they are our priority. We are committed to them. We are committed to always pick up the phone when they call (even if it’s 2:40 in the morning & they are only calling to sing happy birthday) & committed to soaking up every bit of quality time we can get with them. No matter where they are or what they do, we want them to know that we are here to encourage, support & love them. Now don’t get me wrong, we are far from perfect. Sometimes we are moody, crabby, insensitive & sometimes… GASP… we are annoying.  

When Chuck & I were talking about this last week over lunch, he likened us to muskoxen. I had no idea what he was talking about so when we got home I researched the muskoxen online. Almost immediately I fell in love with them. 

The musk ox live in Alaska. They survive the harsh conditions of the arctic tundra because their long hair & woolly undercoat ward off frost & provide insulation. They are shaggy & social & have a sturdy build. 

Hmmm… I almost laughed out loud.  

What was my husband trying to tell me?

& then I saw it: 

Muskoxen live in small herds & have a distinctive defensive behavior: when the herd is threatened, the bulls & cows will face outward to form a stationary ring or semicircle around the calves. The bulls are usually the front line for defense against predators with the cows and juveniles gathering close to them. 

That cinched it. We ARE the muskoxen. 

As Chuck & I continued to reminisce about our family, I began to wonder… should this be any different for the way we feel about or treat our spiritual family?

We really are a small herd… making a life journey across the cold tundra, searching along the way for companionship, food to keep us strong, shelter from the wind & safety from our predators. God has designed us to live in community together. We need each other.

‘If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— 

then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. 

Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. 

Put yourself aside, & help others get ahead. 

Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. 

Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.’ 

–Philippians 2:1-4

For love of… the Frye Boot

“We should be astonished at the goodness of God, 
stunned that He should bother to call us by name, 
our mouths wide open at His love, 
bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.” 

- Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

I am in love…

Actually, I’m more in lust…

With a pair of Frye boots. 

My current boots, that I’ve worn almost every fall-winter-spring Minnesota day for going on six years, are in really bad shape. The treads are gone, the heels are worn down to next to nothing, they are dinged & scuffed & are quite frankly… embarrassing.  This might seem reason for some to toss them out but fortunately for me, I don’t really mind them… too much. But recently, they have begun to leak & that is a problem. Even for me.

DRAT!

So I began to research purchasing a new pair. I know this may sound a little strange & maybe a little extreme but this is what my librarian mind does. I just want to get the best quality for the best price because I want to be wearing these new boots for the next ten years or until the soles falls off.  After all, it took me six months of researching, test-driving some twenty-five different types of vehicles & finally Chuck’s truck completely dying before I purchased my Subaru.

It was while doing this extensive research that I found Frye.

Everything about this company appeals to me…

“On March 10th, 1863, John A. Frye opened the doors of a small shop on Elm Street in Marlboro, Massachusetts.  The shoes he made weren’t icons of fashion or fanciful in style. They served a simple purpose: to ease the daily working lives of the hundreds of factory workers in that small New England town. 

The individuals who wore the first Frye shoes were just like us: people who valiantly labored, honing skill and craft, supporting their families and community. When homesteading sparked adventurous New England families to head west in the mid and late 1800s, many of those pioneers wore Frye boots along the journey. 

In time, John Frye’s family would grow and, along with it, The Frye Company would expand. Each generation of Frye men dedicated themselves to the art and craft of shoemaking, creating new patterns, discovering new materials, and even inventing shoe-making machinery. Their fervor for the process of crafting footwear as durable as it is beautiful has been our company’s benchmark, ever since. And this dedication has helped us craft footwear with a long and illustrious history.” –The Frye Company Website. 

Mmmmmmmm…. Can you feel the love? 

The trouble is, they are expensive. Um… they are more than expensive. They are ridiculous expensive. & while I do have the money to purchase them & my husband gave me the green light to buy them for my birthday, I just couldn’t. I mean, didn’t I just walk through eighteen months of down-sizing, experience a life change & have a complete over haul of the heart? As much as I wanted them, I just couldn’t reconcile the price with what I felt God continuing to ask me to do in regards to our finances. 

Double DRAT! 

So I expanded my search to second-hand sites, consignment shops & the ever elusive ‘sale’, hoping to find just what I want with a price I can reconcile with my heart. 

I became completely obsessed with the search & with my love… er… lust for Frye… 

Then Saturday night it happened. I found them. On sale. On the company website. No matter that it was two in the morning, & I was up on the prowl because I couldn’t sleep & my brain wasn’t at its researching finest. I had finally found the thing that my heart truly longed for… at 40% off.  EEEEEK! 

So I threw caution to the wind & did something I rarely do. I jumped into a purchase without reading the fine print. Instead, I found myself gleefully clapping my hands together & doing the dance of joy at my kitchen table in my jammies before running for my wallet & ordering my very own pair of Veronica Slouch Boots, with the extended calf. Size 8. In black. I could almost feel their buttery soft leather against my legs, their superbly built in arch support under my feet. It was fabulous! I tucked myself into bed with visions of tucking my skinny jeans into them & taking my fashionable self to work & church without a hint of embarrassment. 

I rode that high right until after church Sunday morning when I realized that I didn’t get a confirmation email of my purchase. So I called the company directly, & I found that the website where I had placed my order was a fraud. Yes it looked like Frye. It had slick pictures & icons taken from the ‘real’ Frye site. It even posted the proper telephone number to call if I had any questions. But it was a scam. Apparently, Frye doesn’t have sales. Their boots are so great, they don’t have to. So there was no great deal. No fabulous boots coming my way. 

Instead I spent Monday morning on the phone with my bank, alerting them to stop any kind of suspicious charges to our account, cancelling out my debit card, admitting to my husband what I had done & trying to salvage any shred of pride I had left. Fortunately for me, the fraudulent company hadn’t tried to charge our account yet & I don’t have a pair of pleather boots that I spent a half-an-arm & a half-a-leg on, that I can’t get rid of. 

I confess all of this today because as I was trying to reconcile my total lapse of judgment, it hit me that this is very often how we treat love. We obsess over it, we chase after it, & we choose to accept the counterfeit version while doing the dance of joy in our jammies at two in the morning. & when it invariably doesn’t live up to the ‘real deal’, we dream of what ‘could have been’, while stroking it ‘one last time’ before we grudgingly begin to grieve it.  & then & only then do we allow God to pry it from our cold, clammy fingers. 

Seriously? 

God’s love is authentic...  there is no counterfeit for it. It is unfailing, undeserved, & unconditional. It is pure, perfect, & it is holy. It is deep & wide & high & low & it will envelope us completely if we let it.  

As for me today… Not only am I convinced I’ve gotta let the boots go, I’m finding that the last eighteen months was just the tip of the iceberg of God’s work in me. 

God, investigate my life;
    get all the facts firsthand.
I’m an open book to you;
    even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
    I’m never out of your sight.
You know everything I’m going to say
    before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you’re there,
    then up ahead and you’re there, too—
    your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful—
    I can’t take it all in!

-Psalm 139: 1-6

I could need a little more Jesus… & a little bit less of me.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kiLH0iyisw