Reflection on a Year

I'm contemplating time tonight. I have been trapped in a Facebook black hole for part of this evening, digging up memories that I had buried for the past year. A year. I can't believe how long a year can feel. The past year for me has felt like the longest one of my life. Last summer, on July 19, Alex had not yet been fired (I believe it came the next day..), we had a whole different group of friends that has since scattered, I was half way done with my pregnancy, and we didn't have even an inkling of what our lives would look like merely a month later.

That bump!

Prepping a house to sell is a lot of work!

When I think about my life now, my friends, our church, my son...I am overwhelmed. Last summer I did not even know that life could be this sweet. That I would have friendships with people, with women, who I admire so deeply, trust so innately, relate to so immediately. I didn't know Alex would find work at a place where we feel accepted, appreciated, loved and where we feel so much respect for the leadership. I didn't know I would live in the most beautiful, small town with a tight knit community, that is a couple hours from my family. I didn't know how magical motherhood was, how much Emmett would change everything. I didn't know how special it would be to see my parents become grandparents. To see Alex become a dad.

I have never been as fulfilled with a deep sense of joy as I am at this stage of life. I want to remember this. I want this post to be a record of this time, because I know it won't last forever. I know I'm on a mountain right now, and that the valley will come. I want to look back at this when life feels like it's crumbling, when I go through a hard time, and remember how much God loves me and provides for every need, even ones I am unaware of.

A year ago, life crumbled. It was only because of that crumbling that God rebuilt my life and blessed me with a peace that seemed impossible in the midst of the destruction. I lost so many things that at the time seemed good, just to discover that God had great waiting. God had a place for us where we fit. Not where we had to pretend to be something else, or hide our beliefs or force ourselves to connect with certain people. He gave us a place where we are not alone. We are surrounded by friends who inspire us and help us grow and embrace us and share in our beliefs. Our son is loved by these wonderful people who we've only known for a handful of months. We are loved.

This is a thank you. It's a thank God. I am so undeserving and He gives us so much. I am unworthy and He has filled me up.

Time is doing that pesky thing where it speeds by and crawls at the same time. This year has been so full of change, it has felt so long, simply because everything about my life seems to be different than a year ago. But, of course, it also feels like it passed in the blink of an eye. I remember sitting in my empty house in Kansas about 11 months ago, sobbing a guttural cry because of everything that we had lost. I cried so deeply I would lose my voice. I felt so betrayed, so unloved, so hurt by people we had invested in for over a year. I felt this huge weight of injustice. I felt like I never wanted to go back to a church, like I couldn't trust anyone, like I didn't want to. I remember being so scared of passing the stress of my life to Emmett, growing in me. I remember hating the people that treated us like we were disposable. I felt devastated that we were having to "regress" in our adult lives. Live off of the charity of my family, enter into parenthood with uncertainties.

How could I, in one year, go from this valley to this summit? Only God. I am in awe of the change. Of the opportunities he presented us with. The friends, the jobs, the beauty of Big Bear. This place is healing and He brought us here, just like He does with so many of the people who end up in this small forest town. Last year I lived in a holler, and now I'm on a mountain and that is no coincidence. All I can do is praise.

|| Posted by Kate ||

Life as a Pastor's Wife...Again

A few weeks ago, Alex was hired as the Youth Pastor at Community Church of Big Bear. With that comes so much joy and excitement, and also reminders of our life before. Before we were so hurt by a church that I didn't know how I would step foot in one again. Before we lost our home, our friends, our security, our dreams. It is bittersweet to be so reminded of the ministry we had in Kansas. This new life in Big Bear has taken the sting and pain that we've been living with since last summer, and even before, and transforming it. God is taking our story of pain and proving to us that He was in it, and that He has so much more than that for us. Our dreams there were small, and He wanted bigger. Our idea of joy was paltry compared to what we are now experiencing, and this new joy is nothing compared to what He has in store for us.

The past 6 months have been so full of change and uncertainty. And that hasn't completely gone away, but I have been seeing God answer prayers that I didn't even have the words to pray. We are being healed at this church in Big Bear. Alex is experiencing affirmation that is so new and foreign to him that he almost can't believe it. We have already been embraced into new friendships with people who are genuine and transparent, the kind of people that I hope I am. We have met an amazing group of youth kids who in so many ways remind us of the kids in Kansas that we loved and still love, but who are also fiercely unique and lovable.

DIY Glitter Letter Canvases

When we left Kansas, I was highly encouraged (read: forced) to cut back on my possessions. We had to fit everything in a crate to be shipped, after all! When we arrived in California, I quickly realized that we had a lot more wall-space for frames and art and photos than we had before, and I had just recently trimmed back my wall-art collection. (Not by much, we still had multiple boxes full of frames, but I just love my wall collages!) Our bathroom upstairs had an especially large empty wall, so I rifled through my craft supplies in the garage to see what I could come up with for that space. The result was the following. A super easy, super quick craft that adds just the right feel to our "vintage" (1970's) bathroom, and moderns it up just a bit. 

I started with two large, blank, white canvases. 

I used painter's tape to block out stripes horizontally. I eye'd these and tried to separate each length of tape the same width as the tape, as to create even lines. It's not as hard as you'd think to make these straight. If you start with one end of the canvas, using the edge as a guide, you've got your straight line. And with painter's tape, I would just remove and re-set every time it looked a little off.

I did two canvases, but this project could be done with one or more, and of any size, depending on the space needing to be filled!

Christmas Decorating at the Lumberjackson Lodge - Big Bear Edition

A year ago, I posted photos of the first Lumberjackson Christmas! It was our first year of marriage, our first Christmas, our first home. So much has changed since then! Our first home is currently on the market, we've moved back to California and are living in Big Bear. We have a baby on the way, who is supposed to arrive on December 8th, our sweet dogs are in Missouri until sometime early next year, and we are spending the entire Christmas season in Long Beach waiting for our little Lumberjackson to arrive! With all of that, it doesn't seem practical to do a bunch of Christmas decorating... 

And yet, I thought it would be special to put up at least SOME decorations! It's a little early, but as Alex wrote about recently, our season of Advent has been extended this year. I also thought this would be a good opportunity to photograph a clean house and give a little tour of the lodge! So without further ado...

The kitchen! I love the size of this space and the nearly unused 70's appliances and the fact that our dining table fits in the middle of the room. I love eat-in kitchens. They feel so homey to me.

My parents re-painted the cabinets before we moved in here, they used to be a pretty awful wood (I normally love everything wood, but these just did not age well) and now they are bright and beautiful, and I especially love the pop of red on those lower cabinets on the right.

I've put up this little village ever since I lived in a dorm. It's evolved over the years with trees and better lights and glittery cotton for snow. It just has to go up every year!

Big Bear Living - In Pictures

After almost two whole months in California, I'm finally getting around to posting some Fall photos that we got the chance to take in Big Bear this season! It has been so breathtakingly beautiful up here in the mountains. Watching the seasons change is remarkable and something I am so grateful to witness.

How I Got Here pt. 3- “It Ends How it Begins”

**Author’s Note: This is the last part of the “How I Got Here” series, and it ends how it begins. If I boiled the answer down to it’s simplest form, it would be “I was called.” How did I get here? I was called. I’m sure the Memento-style blog posting will come to an end, and hopefully we’ll go back to a regular chronology for future posts. If you’re confused, it may be nice to read this in reverse order, starting with this one. Thanks again for reading!**

Sometimes I imagine God like a childhood friend tapping on my window. It’s cracked open just a bit, and I can hear him saying “hey. Hey Alex! You sleepin’?” It’s this soft whisper that’s packed with all sorts of adventure. It’s dark out. I should be sleeping, but how can I?

Vocatio, the Latin word, or kaleō, the Greek. They mean calling. Our lives are wrapped up in our callings. Where do we go, and why? Our calling is the source of so many of our choices, and our choices are the only proof of our convictions. A man who has the conviction to help children understand the joy in the world may have the job of a puppeteer. If you saw this same man working at the IRS offices you’d likely think “hmmm… maybe he didn’t really care about kids that much.” This is what I mean when I say our choices are the only proof of our convictions.

People take tests about vocation. They see counselors, they talk to certified vocation professionals. My wife says that some even take quizzes on “Kickinitteenstyle.com” (Unlike her, I don’t watch The Middle). But I see it differently, or maybe I should say I hear it differently.

“Have you been half asleep, and have you heard voices? I hear them calling my name. Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailor, the voice may be one in the same.”

It may not seem like the best way to make big life choices, but when I hear a voice calling me in the night, I go. Like Calvin hearing Hobbes knocking at the window, adventure awaits.

How I Got Here pt. 2 or "Goodness, gracious! How did you lose your job?”

I have to admit, this is hard for me to write. I put it off for a number of weeks in the hope that getting some distance from the issue may help me put words to all of it. I struggled with feeling that I should simply let sleeping dogs lie, and that if the dust had settled on this issue, what was the point in stirring it up again?

But the dust never truly settled. I still find the occasional speck falling in my eye, causing irritation and affecting my vision. Often, in order to clean a room of all that has built up overtime, our task is to kick up the dust once more, and hope it falls elsewhere… like in the trashcan, or under the rug.

How I Got Here pt. 1, or With the Faith of a Mustard Seed you can Move to the Mountains

Maybe it’s just a mistranslation, like a jot or tittle got erased somewhere along the way and we’ve been thinking of this whole thing wrong for years.


Maybe it’s “with the faith of a mustard seed, you can move to the mountains.”


That makes a lot of sense for me at least.


See, I want to tell you the story. I want to tell you about how I ended up in a completely different place, looking at unfamiliar ceilings, and fighting with God a lot. But as I try to find the beginning of the story, it seems like it is always eluding me. The puzzle still seems incomplete no matter how many pieces I add. So, I’m going to start at the end, and like the years of BC we’ll just keep counting up while going backwards until maybe we find where this whole thing started.


Let’s start with how I got to the mountains.

This Sucks.

This sucks.


There was this student at the church I worked at who was passionate about service. We had just finished a conference where we focused on the power of God’s grace and how it should encourage us to serve all people, no matter what their background or current situation was. The last day of the conference was on Sunday, so we had some students share stories in the main service about what happened. He stood up in front of the whole church and said something that would completely rock my world.


“Without grace, we would be screwed.”


That’s true, isn’t it?


Is there anyway to live this life without grace? Without forgiveness? And if there is a way to live without those things, is that a life worth living?


The need for grace, and the recognition of that need are the basis of the Christian faith. Grace should change the world, and knowing that we need it, that without it we would be screwed… well that’s something that should turn your whole life upside down.


So I wasn’t surprised to hear that people were upset about what he said. I was just surprised at what specifically upset them.


“screwed.”


It’s lewd language. It’s crass. It’s immature. It’s sexual, and aggressive, and it’s just wrong. So we don’t say it in church, and if we do we need to learn better, and grow out of our childishness and become true Christians.