An old man, a young girl, and their Brother

Heinz Otto Bleinagel was born into a north Prussian farm family in 1918. He shared hard physical labor with his father, mother, four brothers, and three sisters. He was hard of hearing in one ear. He didn't like corn because pigs ate it. He was a Lutheran.

Near the end of World War II, Heinz fought for Germany on the eastern front. Russians took him prisoner. When the war ended, the Russians told him and the other prisoners to walk over a hill, toward freedom. When the prisoners started moving in that direction, the Russians started shooting at them. Heinz escaped and walked all the way home, from western Russia to northern Germany.

While Heinz was escaping and then walking, his brother Oscar was in Milwaukee, wondering if he was still alive. He sent money for Heinz's passage to America. When Heinz got home, he left again, for good, for a new home in Wisconsin.

In Milwaukee, Heinz met Betty. Betty was a Catholic. They got engaged, and Heinz found himself taken into a room with Betty's aunt, a nun. Heinz told Sister, "I'm staying Lutheran, and that's that." They emerged, and the aunt told her brother, John, Betty's father, "He's okay." John then approved of Heinz and Betty's marriage.

Heinz and Betty's first child was Linda. Two sisters, Lee Ann and Lori, later joined the family. On Sundays after church, the Bleinagels would get together with Oscar and his family, eat ham and hard rolls, and play Sheep's Head for hours.

Heinz worked in manufacturing, worked with his hands. In his spare time, he smoked a pipe and carved animals and people out of wood in his basement shop that was filled with tools. He liked to fish and play more Sheep's Head with friends and relatives, including his grandson Jon, at Carl Schurz Park on Moose Lake. He had a sense of humor and enjoyed telling stories. His bright blue eyes would twinkle and his hands would gesture.

Heinz rarely talked about the war.

On Sunday, March 2, Heinz passed away.

Many, many years after Heinz was born, a little girl named Jordyn was born in the north central United States. She spent a lot of time in farm country.  She rode her bike while she wore her favorite skirts, and she giggled with delight. She loved her dog and kitties, her big sister and little brother, her mom and dad and grandpas and grandmas. She loved many people in her life, and they loved her. She was a Lutheran.

Jordyn was diagnosed with cancer when she was seven months old. She fought it for six years.

On Thursday, March 20, Jordyn passed away.

Heinz was our grandpa, grandpa-in-law, and great-grandpa. Jordyn was our neighbor, the great-granddaughter of friends.

In these days of ever more deliberate rhetorical choices to downplay death, Heinz was just another old man whose time had finally come. He nearly made it to his ninety-sixth birthday. The last few months--okay, years and even decades--were hard. But still, he'd had a long life. Okay, maybe that long life wasn't totally great and wonderful, but what more could anyone ask for?

In these days of ever more impressive efforts to show sick kids how special they are, Jordyn was just another young girl who tragically suffered. She didn't even make it to her eighth birthday. The last few weeks--okay, months and years--were hard. But still, people sure made great efforts to show how much they cared for her. Okay, maybe those efforts weren't as impressive as they could have been, but what more could anyone ask for?

My rhetorical questions are glib, even snide. They certainly belittle the very real pain Heinz's and Jordyn's relatives and friends felt, still feel, and will continue to feel. They especially undercut the lives, the precious lives, of Heinz and Jordyn. What little we remember about Heinz and what little we remember about Jordyn is nowhere near to what God the Father, who designed and created every hair on their heads, remembers about them.

The truth is, no matter how long human lives might last, no matter how much effort loved ones can love, the only end any of us really want for Heinz and Jordyn and ourselves is that there isn't one. No, we don't want them to suffer, and we certainly don't want to suffer in this life that is full of it. But death is no rosy, easy substitute for the slow debilitating decay of a body long used or for the terrible marks of cancer treatments on a young one. No, death merely reiterates to us how wrong it is to say goodbye to a grandfather or father, to a sister or daughter or great-granddaughter. Death is not natural. Returning to dust is not natural. Twinkling eyes and giggling laughter in dear ones that suddenly and forever end is not natural. Mortality in life made immortal is not natural. It is horrifically wrong, terrifyingly real, and hopelessly inevitable.

Heinz did things in his life that he wasn't proud of. I'd venture a guess that he regretted some of the choices he made up until his last breath. And Jordyn, sweet girl that she was, broke commandments. They both did. We all do. They just suffered the ultimate bodily consequences of sin before we did.

This week we remember Jesus, who rode on a beast of burden to His death. Who sacrificed Himself and feeds His own body and blood to our failing flesh. Who drowns us so that we will breathe in perfect bodies, forever.

Who took our putrid, stinking mortality and gave us His perfect, spotless, immortal righteousness instead.

Who remembers Heinz and Jordyn and all His saints even now.

Who made the hopelessly inevitable impossibly hopeful.

But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

For now, I remember these words from a Holy Week hymn:

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered 

Was all for sinners' gain;

Mine, mine was the transgression,

But Thine the deadly pain.

Lo, here I fall, my Savior! 

'Tis I deserve Thy place;

Look on me with Thy favor,

And grant to me Thy grace.

~O Sacred Head, Now Wounded, v.2

Marriage is a Love-ly Gift -- Valentine's Day Edition

Papa and I are nearing our the nine-and-a-half-year mark of our marriage. How do I know this?

Because our half anniversary falls on Valentine's Day. Pretty nifty, huh? (For those of you doing the math, that puts our anniversary date on August 14. Nope, we didn't pick it so the half-date would fall on the day typically thought of as one for lovers, but it gave it a certain romantic cachet. And that way I could finish undergrad and Papa could be between things in his seminary schedule.)

Our first Valentine's Day as a married couple found us hosting a visiting pastor to Papa's vicarage congregation. He was nice, and we liked (and still like) hosting, but...it was Valentine's Day. And we were six months into our marriage. I think you can fill in the blanks.

Look at those newlywed goo-goo eyes! And Papa's hair!
...and that dress I'll never fit into again.

Well, we survived. And other Valentine's Days found us alternately working, studying, dealing with pregnancy symptoms, wiping up baby spit, dealing with pastoral care concerns, washing dishes, sorting laundry, and generally looking significantly less attractive than we did during our dating and engagement days (well, probably just me. Papa rarely looks anything less than handsome. But I suppose I'm a little biased). In other words, the day found us dealing with Life generally. We've also exchanged sappy cards, enjoyed candlelit dinners, and received beautiful bouquets (okay, just me on that one). One time I found a post-it love note from Papa. And honestly, both the mundane and romantic ways of marking Valentine's Day are good. Really! So you, like any other normal person, ask "What do you mean, Emommy?" (Go ahead; say it. You know you want to.)

Well, let's consider a little history. Valentine, an early Christian martyr, supposedly left an encouraging note for his jailer's child before he was killed. This note became the inspiration for those mass-produced cards sold by the boatload this time of year. But Valentine's gesture hardly fits our image of a day for lovey-dovey chocolate-swapping goo-goo-eyed lovers. Rather, it reminds us that love is a gift, one steeped in selflessness. No one, not even an outwardly good man, can truly love a man who's responsible for leading him to (or imprisoning him until) his death--unless that man has been given the ability to love his neighbor out of the incredible sacrificial love His Savior has first shown to him.

Love is Christ. Christ, who died for us and suffered for us, who totally renounced Himself so that we might live. This gift manifests a ripple-effect throughout our lives, sometimes in glorious moments, like weddings. But it also comes in everyday moments, like finding post-its and ironing shirts and scrubbing toilets (yes, you read that right).

So with this in mind, I appreciate this day mostly because it reminds me of what a gift Papa and I have been given in our marriage. God has used the vehicle of marriage to deliver us a measure of His regard for us. And we, then, are able to love each other, and the children we have been given, day in and day out. As the years pass, I am more and more grateful for Papa, and for our marriage, as a source of love that is pure gift. I don't receive love because I've been especially lovable (and usually, I am far away from lovable. Just try talking to me before I've had coffee in the morning. I mean that rhetorically, of course. Don't actually try it.). I don't receive love because people owe it to me (they don't). Yet I get it anyway. And marriage--this wonderful, mysterious relationship that God created and Christ blessed--is a major way that I receive it. And wouldn't you know? With every day and month and year that passes, love grows between us. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer so aptly put it, "It is not your love that sustains your marriage, but ... your marriage that sustains your love."

I thank God for our marriage that sustains our love.

Because love lasts ALL year. Even on holidays when we dress like fictional characters.
Well, Cardinals players and National Park Rangers are real. 

Thankful for His times given

Today, I give thanks for many things.

Mostly, I give thanks for my family--my messy, loud, amazing, ever-changing family. 

God knows the worth of what He gives far more than I ever could. 

So, take and use Thy work, 

Amend what flaws may lurk, 

What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! 

My times be in Thy hand! 

Perfect the cup as planned! 

Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

~From "Rabbi Ben Ezra" by Robert Browning

Running the Neatness Marathon: The Help

...who make life's work possible.
BTW, read this book.

Last year I blogged about beginning my years-long dream to declutter. Here we are, thirteen months later, one more baby later, and what do I have to show for it?

To be honest, I'm not finished with the project yet. But however slowly, decluttering has happened in bursts, small jumps, and after long interruptions of illness, travel, and life in general. Ultimately, I've learned that some of the biggest forward-moving parts of this process have involved the help of other people. And I don't mean "help" in a weasel word kind of way; I mean it in a "we couldn't do any of this stuff without the time, physical labor, and generosity of these people" way. We can't maintain God's gifts to us without help from our neighbors. Ooooooh! I'm sensing a wider lesson in all of this. Can you smell, too? (Go ahead. You can grin at my silliness.)

I'll give more details about the Olson family decluttering project later. I think you'll understand, though, if I first give credit where credit is due. So without further ado:

• Let me strike that "I" for a "we." If Papa wasn't on board for this long project, then progress would be infinitesimal at best and, um, negative at worst. What's negative progress, you ask? That would be moving backwards into a dung heap of squalor. It would be decline of the one-step-forward, twelve-steps-back variety. Without him, our floors would remain dirty because he would ignore the mop and vacuum or our children so I could clean. But to his awesome credit, he wields mop, vacuum, OR kid duty. Plus, he jumps in with gusto to our heavy duty declutter projects (i.e. he does most if not all of the heavy-duty physical labor). He initiated the steam-cleaning project, in fact. All this on top of his normal yard/garden/outdoor work--he's hauling leaves right now as I type and feed Small Dude. One word for this amazing husband: swoon!
• Another huge contributor to our project, though she doesn't know it, is my mom. She's visited a couple times this year, always at times where we desperately needed full-time assistance (i.e. after Papa's emergency surgery and after Small Dude was born). While she didn't sit and sort old papers or move furniture or tag items for the yard sale, she did wash dishes, clothes, kids, floors and generally keep our house spic-and-span so that once she was gone we didn't have to recover our house and so we could do other purging projects later. This is one of those small-but-huge gifts. If you get the inherent paradox.
• Then there's Dan, who moved furniture with Papa out of our house for our yard sale and a few things back in, all for a measly plate of sweet treats. I don't know about you, but people who move furniture without major rewards are self-givers of the heroic kind. 
• As are people who gift us their time and energy to watch our children! My friend Devina deserves a shout-out here. She, in her great conscientiousness, heard and remembered my lament last spring on my stalled cleanliness project and in her great kindness offered to take the three older kids (I was still pregnant) for an entire day so I we could clean. Then, when she had to reschedule the original date, she showed up an extra day and took all the kids--including her four--to the park! 
• In that category also there's also Gary and Carmen, who took Little Professor and Superman overnight and for a whole day so that Papa and I could steam-clean the carpets, move furniture, hang pictures on walls that have been bare for years. The same day, the uber-awesome Terri watched Pearly Girl, even when she and Joel had a relative coming to visit. Because of that one night and full day, Papa and I got stuff done that can only happen without little ones around (even hanging frames without pictures in them because if it's going to survive long in this house, as all parents of little tykes know, it cannot. be. on. the. floor. Or anywhere remotely accessible. Which means if Papa and I don't see it, it don't get done). So thanks to these awesome folks' help, we were kidless on that productive day. I mean, except for Small Dude, who was blessedly quiet and only needed feeding when I really, really needed to sit down anyway.

Such help like this is humbling because it reminds me of my inadequacy to do everything myself. Yes, "smart" as I might be, I actually fool myself into thinking far too often that I can actually accomplish everything on my list single-handedly. Which is ridiculously impossible. And so I give thanks for all of these people and their time and efforts, who--whether they knew it or not--were giving us the ability to run the neatness marathon in front of us.

Fruitfulness, Round Four

Last week, post-yard-sale and some back labor excitement, Papa picked tomatoes from the garden. This is what the counter looked like after I'd cleaned half of the take from three five-gallon buckets.

As they say up here: Uff-da.

Suffice it to say, we've had a bumper garden harvest this year. Since early August, I've been freezing green beans, sweet corn (not from our garden but from three different church members--sweet corn had a good year here, too), preparing eggplant and squash and cucumbers, and this month we've been tackling the pepper and tomato haul. Yes, it's been a lot of work. We're also very thankful the garden has borne such bounty, especially considering the late spring and the fact that we were gone for four weeks after Papa planted. So Nancy, if you're reading this and still at all concerned that your watering efforts in July went to waste, please, PLEASE fret no more. God used your efforts to great success. In fact, our tomato load last week was the fourth round of our tomato haul. The first resulted in twelve pints of hot salsa and seven quarts of tomatoes in their own juice. The second begat twelve pints of mild salsa and multiple quarts of peeled, frozen tomatoes. The third produced over twelve gallons of frozen tomatoes (see how my energy with each round diminished?). The fourth round, by sheer size alone, demanded extra effort.

So last week when I decided to make tomato sauce with all two-thirds of Papa's latest picking, I had a lot of time to think about garden harvests and familial blessings. Sitting in the kitchen, destemming and slicing up countless tomatoes for what turned out to be over ten quarts of sauce (which, if you've done this before, means roughly sixty pounds of tomatoes were involved), and wincing every time Baby decided to make his presence known (the guy's running out of room!), I pondered the mysteries of fruitfulness.

Papa's planted a garden every summer we've been here, and we've had some good years. He's rotated placement, Miracle-Gro-ed, swapped out different varieties of produce, tried different spacing. He's tried onions and radishes with little success. This year, he tweaked again, but not enough to account for the haul. Our backyard neighbors planted a few tomato plants scarcely twenty feet from our garden and didn't get a single tomato for their work. Yet we planted and basically left the little green squirts alone and now find ourselves inundated.

It's not fair, in the whole scheme of things. I'm ten months pregnant. Why all this work at this particular time? But what a silly response. I could dwell on the effort such bounty requires to preserve and sustain, but that seems beyond ungrateful. It doesn't even make sense. Gardens by their very nature are supposed to produce. And when they do, we give thanks. On the flip side, our bounty seems unfair to all the gardeners who spend this month wondering what went wrong. It would seem judicious if everyone got at least a little something for all of their gardening efforts, but sometimes it just doesn't happen. Sometimes the rabbits and birds wreak havoc. Sometimes the weather soaks or scorches. Sometimes seeds and seedlings just don't take due to soil or weeds or for causes we can never determine. Experts have spent and still spend countless hours attempting to explain why things grow and why they don't. But even finding reasons why things don't grow can't suddenly make them grow. Even having all kinds of scientific answers as to how and why life can happen can't actually create and sustain life itself.

Gardens are one thing; families and children quite another. I think of my friends and others whose arms and hearts ache with emptiness, from children desired and children taken to Jesus. Like agricultural scientists and researchers and farmers, doctors and specialists can only explain so much. This is not to diminish their God-given expertise and aid in any way. It is only to say that they are not God, and they cannot act as Life-creater. Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking they can be, that technology or drugs or some combination of scientific theory and practice in the hands of certain people can do what only God can do. But we also see too much suffering and tragedy to believe such a lie. Seemingly healthy children die young. Healthy women are infertile. And children who should not statistically survive do. My sister and I are such exceptions. We were born over thirty years ago at  twenty-eight weeks gestation. We were given less than a ten percent chance of survival at birth, but we both did. And only God knows why. We can speculate, of course. But the truth is that we don't know. And we can only trust that God's ways are best, even when we don't know His reasons for life or for death, for fruitfulness or for barrenness.

Such may sound glib or callous, an easy write-off for unanswerable burdens that provides no comfort. Instead, it is a life-saving trust in a sea of loss and suffering. We pray a meal prayer sometimes that begins with verses from Psalm 145: The eyes of all look to You, O Lord, and You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand; You satisfy the desire of every living thing (14-15). We give thanks for the nutrients God provides us for our bodies. We acknowledge that only He can give us what we need, when we need it, be it food or health or children or any number of gifts. And ultimately, whether we like it or not, we bow to the inevitable scarcity or abundance that He provides, as He sees fit. We don't like this, because it means our efforts mean, well, nothing in the face of whether God withholds or blesses.

But we also know that His gifts are always good. His good gifts always satisfy our greatest need--that we need Him, that we are, in fact, completely helpless apart from Him. And He provides for us in multiple ways, too, just not always in the forms we desire or expect. Neighbors bring extra asparagus and apples (or get five-gallon buckets of tomatoes). Some years are corn-heavy and tomato-light. Some arms hold one child or two or many, biological or adopted, and others hold nieces or nephews or godchildren or congregational children. Regardless, we receive. And--this is a hard truth--if God ordains that we should bodily starve or bear the cross of barrenness or loss, we trust that His ways are not our ways, His care not ours. This is a terrible truth, but one on which our very lives depend. Abraham wielded a knife over his only son. Mary watched hers be pierced and nailed and suffocate and die. Both wept and ached and suffered. But none more so than He who made them to begin with, Who bore and bled and died and rose to give us life that would never end, that would never stop giving.

Our family waits and prays in these days for God to bless us with another child, who is our fourth living one. This baby has grown unseen and mostly unknown, though we cherish our time with his kicks and his hiccups, even his sunny-side up turn. God knows the days He has prepared for this little one, and we trust in His promises for us and for our child, that He will never leave us or foresake us, though we all will pass someday from this veil of tears. And so we give thanks for His mysterious bounty, in all of its forms. Bless us, O Lord, and these Your gifts, which we receive from Your bountiful goodness. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Broken Bones and Celestial Skydiving

What the last few months of our lives have contained.

Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy

blot out my transgressions.

² 

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

    and cleanse me from my sin!

Throughout Lenten services this year, a dear friend and I sang Kenneth Kosche's lovely setting of Psalm 51. The words have rattled about in my brain and in my heart; they have settled in my bones and in my stomach and even in my womb. Miracle of miracles, God's Word worked the way He says it will. It does what it says.

 

For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is ever before me.

Against you, you only, have I sinned

    and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you may be justified in your words

    and blameless in your judgment.

⁵ 

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,

    and in sin did my mother conceive me.

⁶ 

Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,

    and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

During one of the last pre-Lenten weeks, I suspected that we were pregnant. Ecstatic and apprehensive, I took the test, mostly because Papa told me I should (I think my unknowing, near-constant speculation might have motivated, however slightly, his insistence er, encouragement). Filling the dishwasher as I waited on the results, my hope for a child suddenly vanished, literally struck with worry--worry about costs, worry about the baby's health, worry about our family's adjustment, worry about my varicose veins in pregnancy. Yes, even that. And I felt terribly guilty. I was, too. Here my sinful heart had already rejected even the possibility of a good gift because it turned selfishly, twistedly inward. In my terrible blindness, I could not even accept a gift without suspicion or grudging.

And then the test was positive. As I fought my conflicted feelings, Papa's face lit up and the boys squealed with excitement, especially our eldest, the Little Professor. When we told him the pregnancy test was positive, we asked him if he knew what that meant. "Yes," he said without hesitation. "It means Mommy can go skydiving."

After we laughed in surprise and perplexity, he explained that Mrs. Duggar had been pregnant, and she had gone skydiving, so naturally one was connected to the other. Actually, in that old episode of 19 Kids and Counting he'd just happened to watch a few days before, she hadn't gone skydiving because she suspected she might be pregnant. But no matter. Little Professor was more right than he knew.

 

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness;

    let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

A week or so later, on Sunday, February 10, during a snowy storm day, Papa and the snow blower belt tussled, and the belt won. Papa had to have emergency surgery on two broken, mangled fingers of his left hand that night, which went well. The anesthesia won that round, too. But thankfully, we expect him to make a full (if somewhat ugly and scarred for a time) recovery.

I teased Papa after surgery that he'd have a great topic for an Ash Wednesday sermon: that we all return to dust, sometimes one little piece at a time. He smiled (what a nice guy to take my pathetic humor at such a time).  But then said, "No, I think it'll be about pride."

And, of course, he was right. We all fear our physical death, our bodily decomposition as every hour and year passes. But we also fear our spiritual death--that we mean nothing, that we will disappear into a dark, endless, terrible void when our earthly lives are over. Dust is bad in all forms, from mangled fingers to decomposed flesh to meaningless lives. Snow can appear so clean--that day, I had marveled at its cleansing power on a dead, wintry landscape. But snow only magnified spilt blood. It highlighted brokenness. Papa needed far more than snow to cover his injury. And so we need far more than a surface covering to heal our spiritual death.

As we stumbled, narcotics-laden, pain-filled, nausea-and-fatigue burdened, in the first weeks of Lent, the Psalmist's words kept coming back to me. "Let the bones that You have broken rejoice." Who would? Well, we did. We were so thankful for the excellent medical care Papa received, for the surgeon's knowledge and skill, for all the friends and relatives who supported and cared for us. In our weakness we were reminded of our complete helplessness. Christ sent people to care for us physically and emotionally. He blessed the prayers of those who prayed for us. Yet only One could bear our spiritual helplessness. It was a difficult experience for me to see my husband suffer. I know he will not live on this earth forever, and neither will I. Neither will our children. We cannot prevent their suffering or ours. But even so, joy and gladness exist. We hear it and anticipate it. And this is a mystery.

 

Hide your face from my sins,

and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

    and renew a right spirit within me.

¹¹ 

Cast me not away from your presence,

    and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

¹² 

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

    and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
    and sinners will return to you.

Through Lent, our circumstances kept reminding us of our true state. I could not force away the debilitating fog of early pregnancy, its physical or spiritual manifestations. My condition was light compared to many others--including Papa's!--but often I could only think of my own burdens. At one point, I naively thought, "Okay. If Jesus could fast in the desert for forty days and endure direct temptation from the devil, then I can handle another day of this." But I couldn't. I realized, again and again, my complete and utter helplessness and my utter worthlessness in the sight of God.

Thank God in His Son, Christ Jesus, Who suffered physical pain and spiritual torture for our sakes, and Who knows exactly what our sufferings are like. While we can feel chagrined or silly or downright dumb for mistakes or choices we make, feel guilty and damned for rejecting good gifts and even hating them, our fatal flaws that no doctor or midwife can ever fix plague us still more. Despair and guilt bury us, for we know we are ill with an illness that ends in the grave. But we do not suffer without any hope. For we can rest in the knowledge that Christ heals all things--from fingers to selfishness to pride to sinners--through His suffering, death, and resurrection.

Why do people skydive? For exhilaration, for excitement, I suppose. But people who do it implicitly communicate trust--trust that they will be safe, that the parachute or diver to which they're affixed will keep them from harm. And Christ, in rising from the dead, has affixed us not to a descending fate but to an ascending one. We will all suffer in this life and die, unless He first comes again. But we trust that He will uphold us, that He will not cast us away. He who has made Himself our Brother and His Father our Father names us in baptism and cleanses us. He has already won all things--for Papa (and even unto his fingers), for me, for every one of our children, even the littlest. And even as we live in uncertain, unknown worldly days, in his scarred, resurrected hands we leap, and we rest. Happy Easter.

My Awesome Brother

He's pretty great, that guy. Growing up, I always wanted an older brother, but now that I'm grown, I realize that my brother has the qualities I wanted in my imaginary male sib (and my younger brother has an awesome wife, too!): thoughtfulness, humor, protectiveness (he's got an adorable baby girl now!), steadfastness, faith, imagination, vision. I'm uber-proud of him. And just wanted you all to know it.

And P still remembers the important stuff, like he told me tonight: "Uncle C likes sardines."

Cousins!

Over Labor Day weekend, we were thrilled to meet our lovely, awesome niece! Her mother promptly posted a pic of the four kiddos together and I'm just getting to it, but I one-hundred-percent agree: we can't wait to see these cousins grow up together!

Girl cousins! Don't worry, little A; C won't have you under her foot for long.

P just LOVES his cousin! S and C, well...

Cheese!

Quick! Everybody look a different direction!

...and S really LOVES C!

Amilia Getting Married

Last weekend, my "baby" twin sister--hey, forty-five seconds of seniority counts big!--got married to Chris, a quiet, laid-back, witty man who is a definite kindred spirit to Amilia. We all like him, and it was wonderful to meet his awesome family and share their joy as our loved ones were united in Christ!

Mil and Chris at the Rehearsal Dinner - they already look happy!

Amid some down time, including P's first major league baseball game with Papa--the Cards at home, beating the Dodgers--we had a great experience with extended family and friends, eating, visiting, laughing, and (not surprisingly) crying. And per usual, we got a handful of pictures, but I'll post (or at the very least, link) more later because our small repertoire doesn't nearly do the weekend justice.

What do you get when you take good food...

...good company (AND good coffee!)...

...and a little saintliness? A great family weekend, that's what.

It was a lovely time, one that we will remember always. To best articulate my feelings about the whole gala event, read my matron of honor speech. You'll have to imagine the laughter and the tears yourselves, though.

Here comes the bride!

I love you, Mil! Vivid flowers, blue skies, sparkly dresses, chocolate-chip cookies, men even better than Gene Kelly (hey, his name is a requirement here!), and forever two made for each other.

***

Great afternoon everyone! It’s wonderful to have so many family and friends here—from near and from far!—to celebrate Chris and Amilia’s wedding today. As they head into their future life together, I’d like to especially thank you, Mil, for asking me to be your matron of honor. I’m so pleased to “stand up” next to you as you marry the man you love. AND I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to roast you today.

(Pause)

What? What, Jon? Oh, I’m sorry. I meant toast. Yeah, toast. 

Sisters on a big day.

In thinking about what I wanted to say on this festive occasion, I spent a lot of time thinking about dresses. Yes, Mil, DRESSES. You know—the long, trippy, frilly frocks you spent the first decade of your life detesting. From our earliest days, you clearly expressed an aversion to anything remotely smelling of femininity. When we’d play house, Charles would be the dad, I’d be the mom, and Amilia would be the boy. Yes, the boy. While I’d be running for lace! Sequins! Bows!, you’d be begging to wear t-shirts and pants…AGAIN. Overall, you put up a pretty good fight whenever you had to wear girly-looking attire.  

And speaking of a good fight, you put up pretty good ones generally whenever you were upset. At Christmas, we’d get these little report cards from Santa, and inevitably Charles would be told not to aggravate (or “avregate”), I’d be told not to be so bossy (shocking, I know!), and you, Mil, would be told not to “pitch fits.” You were—and still are—an opinionated person, and when you got your mind set on something, you’d passionately fight for it. (Remember at the Mock U.N. when you got a little carried away, and the moderator recognized you by saying, “The chair now recognizes the hysterical delegate from Israel?”) But I admit, sometimes we got a little too much fun out of ticking you off on purpose—hoarding toys or books that you wanted, for instance. Of course, that all ended YEARS ago. We wouldn’t DREAM of teasing you or egging you on now that we’re mature adults. :)

A-MAZ-ING flowers!

You used to get especially incensed when we’d tell you what kind of guy you’d eventually marry. You beautifully set up years of torment by insisting, at the ripe old age of twelve, that you’d never get married. And it wasn’t enough to declare it with all the authority you could muster as a sixth-grader. You had to go on shake on it with Dad, who bet you ten dollars that you were wrong. (And by the way, Dad, you owe me five bucks after the dollar dance for that shout-out. :))

Nope, you had no idea what I was going to say just a few hours later. So enjoy the girl-glam!

So needless to say, Mil, you’ve changed a bit from the little girl who disliked dresses and swore off marriage. Here you are, looking lovely as you don a gorgeous dress to marry Chris. And you’ve not only bridged your aversions to frocks and matrimony; you’ve actually learned that dresses can be fun and marriage is a gift, a wonderful gift.

You’ve learned that change can be hard (or at the very least fought tooth and nail), but thank goodness—as days like today remind us—it can also be awesome (and a reason for a little teasing, for old time’s sake)! 

Mil, though sometimes I want to "wrang your neck" (and I know, the feeling’s mutual!), it’s a privilege and a joy to be your sister, and I’m so happy for you. (And Chris, the same goes for you, too. :)) So, in celebration with our libations, let us all raise our glasses—to happy change and a lifetime of joy for Amilia and Chris! 


***

Our family. Before messiness descended. Good thing Papa's got strong arms!

C and our great friend, "Aunt" Marianne, who came and was beyond awesome to take care of our little ones--and us--so we could enjoy the weekend.

Kristi, Jamie, and Jonathan - some other terrific people we visited with!

Girls are Sugar and Spice and Special!

In honor of a few special girls in our lives, here's a special shout-out. As my mom likes to say, "You go, girl!"

We are so blessed to have a very special girl come over to our house about once a week. K plays with the boys, helps me around the house, and especially likes to cuddle with C. K even helps change diapers and rock C to sleep (one of K--and C's--favorite things). They're good pals! K gives C some girl time that she just doesn't get in a house full of boys!

Of course, our little seven-month-old C gets a big mention here. Here's some recent-ish pictures of her that you'll enjoy. Please note that she's going after her brothers' toys (watch those cars, guys!) now that she's eating baby food two to three times a day, "talking" to us by saying "Ba-ba" or "Ma-ma," and crawling. Talking about go-ing, Girl!

 

Our last little-but-BIG-news! girl we have to mention is our beautiful niece, little lady A, who arrived just last Friday. So our little ones have a COUSIN! And C, especially, will love having a girl cousin to commiserate with! We are so excited to meet her and hold her and give her kisses! Because girls are just so sweet, aren't they?

What a doll! The preciousness cannot be contained!

So go and give the girls in your life a special squeeze!

Anticipation

We're T + one and two days, respectively, of the due dates of a dear friend and a sister. While the hours can seem long to us, hopefully waiting for a text or a call that "It's TIME!," these hours are much longer to the women who wait with fatigue and restlessness and ready-to-be-born infants in their swollen bellies. It's nice to think that willing birth to happen can actually, um, happen, but we've learned here in the Olson house that birth comes when God says. So we wait, and pray, and hope, and get giddy with excitement, to hear about the birth of two precious ones that will become God's children very soon after their earthly birth. And what anticipation must our Heavenly Father and the whole host of heaven wait for that second birth! So please keep Monica and Rachel and their families, especially their little ones, in your prayers, particularly that God would bring His wee children to the waters of Holy Baptism safely and healthily.

You can't see 'em, but there are angels dancing around the font!

On Joplin and Holes

I'm currently sitting in my parents' loft condo in downtown Joplin, Missouri, listening to the quiet hum of the AC and watching the traffic lights change over empty streets down Fourth Street. Being here with the kids for the last almost-week has been lovely--great casual, hanging out time; lots of eating (particularly many variations of chocolate); walks with strollers; shopping for things that Grandma and Grandpa like to spoil their grandkids with (thank you, Thomas the Tank Engine and Co.).

This is the one time this year we--we meaning us Olsons minus Papa, unfortunately--could make it down here. And this is the one time this year I think we most needed to be here. Yes, there's a lot of big, happy family events coming up this summer, and it's nice to have no particular reason to get together. But this is also just a few weeks shy of the one year anniversary of the tornado that destroyed about one-third of Joplin.

On May 22, 2011, at 5:41 p.m., an E-5 tornado touched down here and blew a hole roughly six miles long and one mile wide out of a residential and commercial district. It's hard to articulate what this looked like; you can look on my parents' immediate experiences with this here and Papa's thoughts after visiting Joplin here.

One of the first days we were here, Mom and I and the kids went over to Cunningham Park. It includes a neat-o playground modeled after Joplin in its early years, a pond with a zillion tadpoles in it, a memorial to the volunteers who have helped after the tornado (a big ring with "the miracle of the human spirit" showcases that part), and a memorial to those who lost their lives in the tornado. It's poignant and special, and not just because of what's in the park itself. The park is also in the tornado zone, so surrounding it are streets, new construction, a lot of bare space, a few homes still not torn down after the storm, and no mature trees. About a quarter of a mile from the park sits the ravaged hulk of St. John's, the hospital that sustained a direct hit from the storm. Its glassless windows, with curtains still swaying in the breeze, look out to a gaping hole where thousands lived and worked. It's eerie and taxing to look around and see so much nothing, and to still see such a gaping wound such as St. John's, for even though people are slowly coming back to the zone to live and work--even a temporary hospital in trailers sits near the vacant building as a new hospital is completed a few miles away--no amount of time or replacement can bring back what was lost here.

One of the many things we've done in the last month or so since I've blogged was attend the annual Vine and Branches conference in Lakefield. This year, we heard from a panel of experts about what suffering means to God's people. Where is God in the midst of suffering? How do we deal with suffering as humans? As Christians? What should we say to those who are or have suffered? A few ideas that stood out for me dealt with how we help those who suffer. One way is not to say anything, because too often, we compound others' suffering by thoughtless, foolish comments, much like Job's "friends." Basically, people need to know that we're here for them, over and over again, in ways small and concrete, like in hugs and pies. They don't need to hear our stupid explanations of why particular tragedies happen--a pointless exercise known in theological circles as theodicy, or our attempts to explain how God and bad stuff exist together. They don't need to hear us tell them how to "get over" their suffering or how to speed grieving along. They don't need us to write off their experiences so we can get back to our fast, "normal" lives. They need our presence to reassure them that they are still here, and that God is still here, after the holes have left their vacant, terrible ruptures on their bodies, hearts, lives.

As humans, we shudder when we encounter real suffering that defies easy description: the abuse of children, the physical pain of terminal illness, the wreckage of one home next door to one unscathed. How can God possibly love us when He brings "all the evil" upon Job (42:11)--and, in truth, upon us? What kind of a God would spare one child only to take another? When we see real suffering, we look upon the darkest, most difficult realities of our existence, and we in turn question our existence: who am I? Who is God? Will I survive this? Which is really another way of saying How do I even exist in the midst of such overwhelming suffering that God--yes, even God who has created me--has heaped upon me?

And we have no concrete answer, but another hole--actually three.

As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. (Luke 24:36-40)

Why did Jesus show his disciples his hands and his feet? Why not His elbow? Why, for Pete's sake, wasn't seeing His face enough to convince them that He was who they thought He was? Because the disciples knew Jesus had been crucified, that He had died. They had to see the holes to know that He who lived was actually He who had died.

We live an uneasy peace most times in our lives, busy and distracted by the mundane so that we do not have to think every second of every day about the fate that awaits us, the death that constantly draws nearer. Tragedy and deep suffering, like what the people of Joplin and so many others bear, remind us of this in ways we do not like to contemplate. Job bore the weight of God's hand in his suffering--"Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!" he wails, telling them about the terrible burden God brought upon him (for the Devil could do nothing to Job without God's involvement).
But we who have been drowned in baptismal waters in order to live do not have to fear the reminders or even the suffering itself. We see the holes, and we remember Who lives despite them, He who lives and who promises us life eternal after the holes, He who heals our holes with His own. 

I think on this, after another train has passed nearby, its long wail the only punctuation in an otherwise still night. More trials will come here to Joplin, because trials in this life await us all. But all the holes that we have and will have, bear and do bear, rest in Christ's holes, too. And in this we trust, and wait, and know we are not alone, and never will be.