My relationship with dad has been on a journey since he passed away— oddly, without him actually being here.

God has been bringing to light my *interpretations* of things my dad said/didn’t say and did/didn’t do over the years we had together.

In the mix of all of these things, the wrestling, the tears, the laughter and the questions, this is what God gave me as I lingered by the graveside:

Go, Steph, go.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about how your dad feels about you— how he feels about the fact that you are his daughter?

How has it influenced how you think God feels about you?

Seasons of trial are often accompanied by feelings of uncertainty, especially when we’ve never faced a certain type of situation before. My wise mom once said to me, “Be thankful because God is developing something in you that you currently lack. If you’ve never been in this situation before, it’s a good thing because God is bringing you one step closer to maturity.”

I think it’s safe to say we’ve never been in a situation like this before— a worldwide pandemic, social distancing, isolation, an entire world shut down, many unknowns and a wait-and-see approach when trying to answer how long this is going to last.

Perhaps you’ve had many moments of feeling overwhelmed and afraid. In trying to stay positive, sometimes we miss giving ourselves permission to grieve what has been lost. While there is much to be grateful for, much has been lost. Grief and gratitude can be companions. There’s a place for both.

In this unprecedented time in history, we also have an unprecedented opportunity to seek the Lord for more wisdom and to count this tough time as joy.

But how?

“He failed.”

This was my daughter’s response when our cardboard creation fell flat as I expected it would with only 1/4 of the legs mounted to stabilize it.

“Do you think falling is the same as failing?” I asked her.

Her silence confirmed why she has been deeply frustrated by some of the challenges she’s faced lately. To her, falling was failing.

I pondered my answer. After a few moments of silence, I told her what I want all of us to hear: “Falling is NOT failing; falling is part of fearless learning.” In learning to follow Jesus, we will certainly fall in every stage of the game. Whether or not you see it as failure, will determine how quickly you get back up.

How hard can it be to start a fire? 

This was my thought the other night as I planned to enjoy a quiet fire in our backyard pit. The garden hose was close by in the event it became too excited.

My pile of dead lilac branches and my few crumpled pieces of paper seemed full of promise as I took the lighter to them. The paper went out as quickly as quickly as my confidence without a single branch catching the flames. Apparently, sparks come easy, but starting and sustaining an actual fire is an entirely different story. 

Determined, I marched back inside and rummaged around until I found plenty more paper and several chunks of cardboard. Back outside, I placed them underneath the twigs and branches providing ample opportunity to ignite.

This time, the spark was sustained, and I enjoyed being captivated by what fires do: consume. 

As I sat, my thoughts wandered to spiritual fire. Experiences with God seem to spark fires of faith, but after the weekend retreat, the end of the blog post, the conclusion of the conference, the last chapter of the Bible study, or the closing song of the worship service, why are they not easily sustained?  

"You want to learn drums, right?"

I eyed my youth leader wondering what question might be lurking behind this question. It was a regular old Sunday morning in my early teen years and I was wandering around waiting for the church service to start.

I nodded hesitantly.

"How about today?"

The service was starting in approximately ten minutes. He lead me over to the drum set that had been vacated by whichever more talented and experienced drummer had been scheduled to play that day. He proceeded to show me the basic four counts of a rock beat I was to play on repeat, and assured me I would be fine. 

He took his place behind the mic, guitar in hand to begin the service and I wide-eyed with intense focus behind the drums. I assume there were other musicians but I don't really remember. All I remember was trying not to look and sound like it was my first rodeo and somewhat stay in sync with the rest of the instruments. 

I knew nothing of technique, fills, counting in, specific rhythmns in different songs or how to end a song. I knew only my newly acquired basic beat that I pounded out with the rigidness of the sticks I held. And, I knew the one who held out the sticks to me had more confidence in me than I had myself. 

That Sunday is set apart from a thousand other Sunday's in my memory simply because it was the day I said yes. I was no star, but it was the start.

The summer after we moved into our first home, we built a fence to enclose our yard. The majority of our fence faced west and our windy city was no stranger to 100km/hr winds which often blew furiously from that direction.

To combat this frequent force, we knew we'd have to build something solid.  Nine foot steel posts were secured with concrete into three-foot deep holes. The fence boards were screwed onto three beams that ran horizontally across the top, middle and bottom of the posts and were secured by 3 more horizontal beams on top. It was solid. It probably could've withstood my car ramming into it but I didn't test my hypothesis.

Shortly after we had finished most of the fence, we had one of those terribly windy days. It howled so loudly I feared if I stepped outside it might have carried me to Saskatchewan.

It came with little warning. The day before it was like summer and then... BAM. The biting wind made summer seem like a distant memory. 

I was thankful that the majority of the fence was done. I tried to imagine how crazy it would have been to be screwing in fence boards on a day like that.  I can imagine what our neighbor would have said if (when she approached us about starting our fence in the summer) we had said, "Actually, we're waiting until the wind is blowing 100km/hr. We won't really need the shelter until then." She probably would've put her house up for sale. No one wants to live next door to crazies.

It would be foolish to wait for a storm to start building.