finding the sacred in the ordinary: Living my word for the year...and remembering Wenatchee

Eight years ago today I was sweeping out the rental house where I brought both Jed and Abby home as infants. Long orange shaggy carpet. A ceiling stained. But a house I made a home bright with rugs and paint and dance parties.

We closed the ABF truck in Wenatchee, WA with all our belongings except a duffle bag for each of us in the van for the road trip ahead and life in my parents furnished cabin deep in the woods in NC. Little did we know it would be 9 months before we opened that ABF truck in front of another rental house behind the post office in a little town I visited as a teenager...Brevard, NC.

We sat on the porch and said goodbye to a life we had come to love...more importantly a people we had come to love.

And today it is still those people that I carry in my heart...Karin, Kristen, Allison, Shia, Carissa, Nicole, Megan to name a few...

To say that I miss you is an understatement. Yes, life has gone on and new friends have entered the picture but the life we shared, the way you carried me for months on bed rest, the people we served together, the dinners we shared, the ideas we lingered over, the play dates...

I am thankful for that chapter in the Walters story and many days I wish it had more chapters.

It was a place that stretched us and enlarged us.

3 years of young adult ministry for my husband in a church that loves large and loud and true. A place of healing and hope and laughter that we miss.

And I am thankful we had the courage to jump when we heard the whispers of change. When the sleepless nights came and the compass pointed in a different direction. Its not easy really.

We set off into the evening sun that first day of spring 2007, exhaling with teary eyes. No job on the horizon. Setting off into the unknown. Yet, knowing our ministry would be life together.

Josh was 5, Jed was 2 and Abby was 9 months old. Lydia was not in the picture yet. Folks thought we were crazy for choosing to drive 3,000 miles home with 3 small children.

But we knew better.

We knew we needed a slow, long road trip to fully feel the weight of what we were leaving, to grieve and to grow into expectation of what was ahead.

We drove most the mornings, ate P, B & J and fruit for lunch then I tucked everyone in their carseats with a favorite love for naps and read a story and sang. They slept. And I crept to the front of the van.

I pulled out a chocolate stash from the glove compartment & James and I held hands and enjoyed a little 'date.' Towering mountains. Moving music.

We were alive.

We were so young.

It was on that trip he decided to go from Jamie to James. And I from Mandy to Amanda.

Abba whispered courage to us the whole way home. He whispered hope and joy into our hearts.

And here I sit 8 years later hungering for an adventure. A next. A stripping of this American life of consuming and liking and comparing.

But my word for the year is PLUNGE. So I choose to dive more into my life in this world, in this town, in this family.

I choose to dive into God's big sea of mercy...and float there.

to go deeper into silence and stillness in this season of lent...
to face the yuck of my flesh, the demons in my head

...to throw myself into being the beloved of the God who made the zest of the pink sunrise this morning, the God who made the forest that smells of fresh greens and oaks, the God who made coffee beans (glory be!) and chicken enchiladas.

I choose to plunge into sadness for the heartbreak of cancer that took my sweet friend Kristen last year and is staring down six dear souls in my little town right now...2 of them being children. I sit with candles lit for each of them and pray groans in the silence where words fail...

I plunge into saying "no" to my phone, to many things.

And I say "yes" to true north...

...to tickle fights with my boys
...to reading a Charlotte's Web with my 5 year old even tho my to-do list is hovering
...to fighting for time to workout...to maintain my own health & sanity

I plunge into serving knowing the way up is really the way down...

Far too long have I merely dipped my toes...

Here is a poem from a book I just read that just HAPPENED to have my word for the year in it. The book is called Dancing Standing Still 'Healing the World from a Place of Prayer' by Richard Rohr.

The Perfect Medicine

You see, I want a lot.

Maybe I want it all:

the darkness of each endless fall,

the shimmering light of each ascent.

So many are alive who don't seem to care.

Casual, easy, they move in the world

as though untouched.

But you take pleasure in the faces

of those who know they thirst.

You cherish those

who grip you for survival.