Due to some difficulties in formatting, I’m moving my blog to a new address http://quartland.blogspot.com/ 

If you stop by, you will see that I transfered all the documents from here to there. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Matt. 7:24-27    ²⁴ “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: ²⁵ and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
²⁶ “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: ²⁷ and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

 Luke 6:46-49     ⁴⁶ “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say? ⁴⁷ Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: ⁴⁸ He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock.⁴⁹ But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell.^[And the ruin of that house was great.”

 Truth: Sand is weathered and eroded rock. You can’t build something that will last on brokenness. Everything will be time-tested.

My Observation:  I read this passage and think- It should be obvious that it makes more sense to build on rock than sand. When I stood at Pike’s Peak I didn’t wonder if I’d mistaken it for the beach and when I stood on the shore, I didn’t wonder if it might be a mountain. But sand, as I have discovered, is sneaky; It used to be rock. Maybe it’s harder to tell the difference than we think. Maybe the line between wisdom and foolishness is very fine. Maybe we are building lives on sandstone, but it’s almost as fickle as sand. Also, in the scriptures above it is clear the destruction is no respecter of persons between the wise and foolish man. Regardless of where we build, we still get beat up on every side. Rains come down. Floods come up. Winds beat and blow. If we are still standing at the end, then we built on the good stuff- the solid foundation.

 Some Other Building Ideas:

Psalm 127:1 – Unless the Lord builds the house, the workers labor in vain.

Psalm 118:22, Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17, 1 Peter 2:7- The stone the builders rejected has become the corner stone.

Acts 4:11- The stone which you builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

Proverbs 14:1- The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.

 1 Cor. 3:10-14- ¹⁰ According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. ¹¹ For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, ¹³ each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. ¹⁴ If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward.

  It’s pretty, but I wouldn’t build on it.

An Architectural plan

 My observation- This is the only plan. We are always building something. Weather isn’t the only thing that can tear down our house, we can tear it down in our foolishness.

 Extra Thoughts on Brokenness:

It’s hard to look at sand and not see other brokenness attracted to it i.e. shells.  A shell is formed from the bottom up and grows to accommodate the animal (snails, mussels, etc)  that makes it. It is made for an animal that doesn’t have a backbone.  The shell is sometimes called a test. (Maybe I need a shell, since sometimes I don’t seem to have a backbone.)

 Truth- Matthew 21:42-44 ⁴²Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
   ” ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?  ⁴³“Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. ⁴⁴He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.”

If we fall on the cornerstone rather than build with it, we will find ourselves in pieces like the shells on the sand

 My  observations on Shells:

-          The plain and small ones make it to the beach in one piece whole more often than the colorful/elaborate shells.

Maybe this is what God means when he spends time talking about vanity and adorning ourselves. Perhaps he is suggesting we are more likely to end up whole if we give thought to our inner structure strength.

-          The ones that arrived whole passed through the same rocks and tide that the broken ones did.

We can’t blame our brokenness on the circumstances. Everyone is facing difficulties. God promises that in this world we will have troubles.

-          At first we are attracted to even the big pieces, but eventually we want something to be whole. We celebrate wholeness.

We will chase the celebrated/coolness factor/attractive/ etc, but it is fleeting.  It might attract us, but it won’t keep us. It isn’t something we necessarily want to take home. We can look at it and tell it is lacking something.

-          Once a shell’s animal leaves them, there is no chance for the shell to grow again.

We must stay connected to God in order to grow beyond our fragility and brokenness. We are shell and he is creator. Once we disconnect from the creator, our ability to grow ceases. We are just for observation or a hobby collectors item for the church.

I grew up with teacher parents. Specifically, my mom was a kindergarten and first grade teacher. This meant that, whether I liked it or not, I was going to be one of those kids who could read before they went to school. Although there were a series of rectangular golden paper books (the kinds with staples in the binding) that are an early memory, one of the first series I read for myself were First-Start Easy Readers. Tree House Fun. Stop That Rabbit. Home for a Puppy. I can recall a summer afternoon out by our pool when I finished reading Tree House Fun aloud and thinking, “Wow, I can read.” I had just turned five and was heading to Kindergarten in less than a month.

My mom was diligent about teaching me reading skills. I believe I spent my entire second grade year reading The Box Car Children aloud to her as she got ready in the morning. There was a little wooden blue bench in our bathroom. I read while she put on make-up. There were things I observed about my family during this time. My dad always keep a book in the back pocket of his early 80′s polyester pants. When he drove the school bus every morning, he would pull the book from his pocket after he pulled up to a kid’s driveway. (Note: We grew up in the country and some of the driveways are more like lanes. You could read 1-2 pages while a kid slung a backpack towards the bus.) My brother, seven years older than me, struggled for a little while with what to read. He hated it at first. But my mom said, “Matt, you haven’t found what you like to read yet. Just keep looking.” She was right, too, because he found science fiction soon after and hasn’t stopped reading since. There were times when my allowance for the week was two packs of Upper Deck Baseball cards and a new book from Walden. As I picked out the latest Nancy Drew book, my mom would say, “When I was a little girl, my daddy told me there was always money for books and art supplies.”

We used the book mobile because there wasn’t a library within 20 minutes of our house. On special occasions, like before vacation, we drove to downtown Paducah to the big library. We always took a tote bag in with us because we weren’t the kind of folks who checked out a book. We checked out books, plural. These were planned as long visits, and there was plenty of time to be selective. The summer we went on a long vacation to see D.C and Gettysburg and american heritage stuff, my mom and dad based our vacation money on how many books we read. We earned so much money per book. I believe I read a hundred books that year to the complaints of my brother, because his books were larger than mine and took longer to read. I helped earn pizza parties for my class at Pizza Inn with the Read-A-Thon, which I enjoyed much more than the St. Jude Math-A-Thon. Reading was a way of life. Our punishment was bedtime. Even though my mom encouraged books, she also thought we should get some sleep. What she didn’t know then was I read by flashlight well beyond bedtime. When I confessed this to her as an adult, she said she did the same thing to her parents. Sneaky book reading runs in the family.

The beach was and is my favorite place to read. My mom, brother and I sit on the beach and read from roughly 8-5, stopping only for sunscreen and peanut butter crackers. (My dad reads in the condo; he’s not a sand fan.) I suppose in these moments it would look like we are antisocial to anyone else, but we aren’t. We are just interacting with characters instead of each other. I’m not alone because my nose is in a book; I’m with a host of people who you can’t see. Just this week, I read eight books at the beach and forced two trips to Barnes and Noble to restock my supple. (Just a quick endorsement for the Nook. You can see it in direct sunlight as well as any book page. I was completely satisfied, although I will never give up the printed word.) I read fantasy tales of fallen angels, immoral girls and boys, spooks, people in search for a way out of Ember, a forest with zombie-like unconsecrated folks with a taste for humanity, and so on. Word after word, page after page. And sadness that comes when there are no more pages to turn. (If you’ve read Harry Potter or some other long series, you understand. These characters feel like friends, and you want to beg the author for “One more story” the way a child might ask for another bedtime read.)

This recent trip to the beach made me reflect on who I’ve become over the years because of books. You see, I was traveling with my husband and his parents who appreciate reading, but perhaps not at the same degree as my family. I’m a self-proclaimed introvert; and they are all wonderful extroverts. (My book reading was and is a bit freakish, if you aren’t from my family or one like it.) My husband joked with me once as I finished one book and started another, “Have you ever considered just sitting here in front of the ocean and looking at it?” The thing is I’m a multi-tasker. I’m looking at the ocean and reading a book and being changed by different worlds that invade my world. All that makes sense to me and does to you too, if you’re a reader. It’s far better to read and be in another world than to watch CNN or Fox News. (Volcanos, Adoptions gone wrong, children lost in the Everglades, the end of space flight, etc.)  Most of my reading world gets better in 4-5 hundred pages.

As I was reflecting, I considered that all of this started with the love of that first book. And then I realized, it didn’t just start for me with a book, it started for everyone. There is this scripture in John that says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

Now that resonates with my reading soul.

In the beginning there was a book. That book came to life. A world was made from that book. That book is the creative life force for me.

That’s a story I can read; it all started with a book.

Which translates to my community as:

a day off from school, the first day of Spring Break, more people on Campbell Lane, fifty thousand people at Walmart buying easter basket items or sunscreen and beach junk, Tenebrae services at the big stone churches, one of the last days before chocolate, soft drinks, meat, and other Lenten fast items are returned to daily routines, the last-minute purchases of Easter hats, dresses and new ties, egg hunts on a glorious sunny southern day, etc.

Let me say it again: It’s Good Friday.

How can I and other observe so many things around the topic of Easter and hardly make note of:

a savior who stepped off a throne and into a cave that smelled like a barn, a savior who built things from the very trees he created with his own words, a savior who maintained that man would make him a good friend, a savior who need not be king on earth but rather pulled a towel around his waist and started washing, a savior that understood the terminal condition of man and the cost of freedom, a savior who kept his mouth shut when he could have called 10,000 angels, a savior that served a meal to his best friends of which he was the main course,  a savior who cleansed, healed, believed, pardoned, fed, taught, multiplied, and gave to the people who wavered between waving palm branches and hammering nails, a savior who conquered death by dying, a savior who rolled his own death stone away, a savior who died to live that we might live to die daily with our own cross, a savior who will come back and carry not a cross but a sword, a savior I travel with, a savior.

It’s Good Friday.

I noticed. I noticed as I crafted a novel, as I talked to store clerk, as I drove my car through town, as I hid glow in the dark easter eggs for a lock-in, as I passed fields of luscious green and flowers the color of sunshine, as I answered my phone, as I googled, as I texted my mom, as I shopped at Walmart, as I petted my puppy dog, as I kissed my husband good morning. As I lived, I remember the dying savior.

It’s Good Friday.

Now, I can’t force you, but I’m posting a link to that same talk I heard from 2006 in hopes that you will take time to hear this podcast. Why? Because Matt was right. It was something I needed to hear and I’m wondering if you might need to hear it too.

You are looking for a button in the middle of the page that says, Listen to Podcast of Article.  The actual panel doesn’t start until 7:30  into the production. Just let it load and then browse over to that time mark (You are only skipping advertisements.)

http://www.dragonpage.com/2006/09/11/cover-to-cover-234/

Rebecca starts with a statement about how to know whether or not you are a writer. Very prolific. Writers write.  From that time forward, I stopped trying to talk creatively and started putting words on the page. May you find the courage to do the same.

When we meet little Harry Potter we realize two things: 1)His birth parents are dead and 2)He has been displaced. His aunt, uncle and cousin have no sympathy for his situation due to their own pride.  His concept of family is skewed by the Dursley’s. How can we not feel terrible for a boy that sleeps in ‘the closet under the stairs’, or has never received a single birthday gift when Dudley receives thirty-seven?  Basically, he is a house elf in the muggle world.

 But, he finds what most of us find to be true. Family is not necessarily a bloodline. Time and time again, Ron and Hermione create a family around Harry. They don’t leave him alone at Hogwarts over the Christmas breaks. If one of them is in the hospital wing, the others are at their side. They abandon education, a myriad of school rules, popularity, safety, even respect, in the name of their friend family. Of course, this is something the Weasley’s do as well. Mollie says “He’s as good as (a son)” quite often and includes Harry in Christmas sweaters, gifts, chores around the home, wedding plans, etc. Of course, that is a beautiful foreshadowing, because someday Harry will be her son by marriage. The epilogue leaves us satisfied that this once lonely boy has become a man who will never be lonely again. This is inspiring because we cannot help the circumstances in which we were born into but can create new ones that will change our lives forever.

 2-      Love is under your nose

I don’t know very many people who don’t at some point want to fall in love. But they all seem to have the same Hollywood issues that keep them from it. They want some movie star romance with great looks, witty banter, sex without commitment and a “feeling” (You know the one- the magical one.) Unfortunately, most love doesn’t work that way and so people often decide they are not in love and they flitter away into a ton of relationships.

 In Harry Potter, we see Harry struggle with only two relationships. The first is Cho Chang, who offers a first heart pounding kiss, the struggle of asking a girl out, the disappointment of seeing her go with someone else, the ridiculous way boys and girls interact as teenagers (the tea room), and the ending of a first infatuation. She is the typical. Ginny is anything but typical and the concept of her sneaks up on Harry. She should have been off limits, as she is Ron’s younger sister. I love it that we see her progress from a blushing girl into a confident woman who stands back to back with Harry to fight against Voldemort. He doesn’t figure out she’s beautiful until he stands back and really looks.

 Then of course there is the Ron and Hermione angle. It’s Ron who doesn’t want her around in book one, but give that dense boy time and he comes to appreciate her mind. . .then her cunning. . .then her loyalty. . .then her passion. . .finally her beauty and unfailing love for him. Neither of these boys, in book one would have chosen who they ended up with book seven. But that’s love. Our vision of the person we love is always changing and quite often the boy/girl we overlooked is the one who is standing beside us.

 3-      Be Careful with Assumptions

There are two assumptions that carry through the book until the last pages.

1-      Snape  assumes that Harry will act like his father. (But in reality, he is just as much his mother)

2-      Harry assumes that Snape is his enemy. (But in reality, Snape is one of his great assets.)

 While these assumptions drive the narrative experience, they are the types of assumptions we often make in life. We take a greasy haired, bad tempered Snape and chalk his character up to his image. Likewise, we take a semi-popular , notable person like Harry and see the popular person from our high school who was all too good to socialize with us. (If you don’t know that person- You were probably in the popular crowd.) Creating these assumptions decreases the potential for positive relationship. Had Harry and Snape discussed their issues, they might have understood and perhaps appreciated each other more. (Although that would have made for a boring plot.) Take a look at the acquaintances in your life and ask if you have made assumptions about them. Are your assumptions based on fact or on emotion?

 4-      Use Your Talents to Make a Difference

There are so many people out there sitting on a pot-o-gold of talent who leave it dormant in their soul. This is sad.  I’ve met people over the number of continents and countries and I’ve never met someone with absolutely no talent (although some people seem to have a talent to frustrate me and I’m not sure if that should be considered or not). Talent is out there and everywhere, but the ability to believe it is usable is in decline.

 Several of the characters in Harry Potter seem to fight through this same internal talent war. I believe by the end of the books, Harry has used his talents for teaching, flying and persevering to the best of his ability. Hermione has used “books and cleverness” to wage a thousand successful wars, although I believe she also has a peacemaking gene and keen seen of rationale that should be added to her talent list. Ron uses weapons of laughter, love and friendship to cut through the evils the characters deal with book by book.

 Are you overlooking your own talents? Are you looking at Olympians, musicians and actors and comparing yourself on a woefully unusual scale? I’m certainly not saying those folks are talented, I’m just suggesting that talent should not be measured against the exception, instead of the rule. Perhaps you are a good student, a great friend, a thoughtful family member, a wielder of encouraging words, a leader, a hospitable person, a believer of hope, etc. Those are talents of gold in settings of silver. Own them.

 5-      Help Will Come to Those Who Ask

I’ve met a number of students over the last few years that are carting around heavy burdens. They walk around like emotional hobos, shouldering pain from broken friendships and homes, broken hearts and expectations, broken minds and circumstances. They think their pain and anguish is invisible and to some people, it is. To me, it sets them apart. More than anything, I want them to ask for help. Ask for help to carry the load; ask for help to lay their burden down. I long for a conversation that goes something like this.

 Said student: “I can’t do this by myself anymore.”

Me: “You don’t have to.”

At Hogwarts, Dumbledore says, “Help will always come to those who ask.” What a powerful message to give to young people. They need to know adults are on their side and will enable their dreams and join them on the battle lines of their lives. While Harry carry a burden, he shares it. It reminds me of something God taught me many years ago. God’s burden is easy and his yoke is light, not because it’s not heavy, but because there are enough of us to carry it. Burdens are meant to be divided. Divide yours today. Help will always come to those who ask for it.

This is a t-shirt I designed for my youth group after they started playing Quidditch at all of our retreats.

10 Lessons from Harry Potter – Part One   

I am a Harry Potter fan. I have been from the moment I watched the first movie and proceeded to listen to Jim Dale’s audio book presentation of all seven Harry Potter books to midnight showings of the latest movies. Not too long ago, I even drove fourteen hours in one day to visit Harry Potter: The Exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

  Now you might ask why a youth minister, like me, might find such delight from a set of books about magic.  It’s an easy answer for me. They aren’t about magic any more than Lord of Rings (which I also love) or the Chronicles of Narnia (which I truly enjoy). Instead, there are these absolutely brilliant, God honoring themes that captivate the reader from page one of book one to page 759 in Deathly Hallows. I thoroughly love the Harry Potter books and I admire J.K. Rowling in more ways than I can currently ascribe.  The goal of this blog is to discuss ten themes (although I admit there could be a great many more). Due to length, this will be done in two parts.

1-      Friendship

For me, friendship is perhaps the strongest cord that stretches through all seven novels. Anchored by the core relationship shared by Harry, Ron and Hermione, the books celebrate the fact that friendship strengthens and shapes our hearts and minds.

 Anyone with a friend, a true friend, understands how valuable, how precious, how enabling friendship is for the human soul. We can face terrible circumstances (like the death of a parent, godparent or friend.) We can face a difficult prognosis (like this could cost me my life.) We can face challenges (like a bully or a teacher who has an agenda against us.) We can face family trials (like living with someone who don’t value us.) We can face difficult decisions (like whether to continue on a course of action or abandon them.) We can face shame and unpopularity (like when people make untrue assumptions and judgments about our character or values.) We can face these things with hope and dignity because there is someone at our side. Someone who loves us past, present and future. There is nothing more valuable than being loved in spite of the fact that locked into our life is both failure and success.

 2-      Sacrifice

There is no end to the amount of sacrificial love that is shown through the Harry Potter novels. The entire premise of Harry’s power and position is given to him, not because of who he is or what he can do, but because his mother loved him enough to die for him. Because sacrifice has been modeled to Harry, it is a banner he wears in Chamber as he goes after Ginny, Azkaban when he stays with Serious as the Dementors descend, Goblet when he shares the cup with Cedric and remains in the lake to save all the victims of the Merpeople, Order when he goes to the Ministry of Magic, Half-Blood in accepting his role and the blood that earned them passage into the cave, and Deathly Hollows when Harry walks into the Forbidden Forest during the battle of Hogwarts. “Greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends.”- John 15:13.

3-      Redemption

I think one of my favorite redemption stories within the Harry Potter pages is the story of Severus Snape.  He is the quintessential antagonist of fiction; you can’t help but loath him and his greasy hair. The reader is well aware that not only does Snape despise Harry, but that his history has crossed the path of Lord Voldemort and the death eaters. The tattoo on his forearm declares his previous allegiance and Harry remains convinced for seven novels that Snape is an enemy. Rowling tells us quite clearly in the first novel that it is Snape that kept Harry alive while Professor Quirrell cursed his broom during Quidditch.  

 It is not until Snape is death as he shares his memories with Harry, does Harry understand the death of Dumbledore , Snape’s undying love for Lilly Potter, and the dangerous role Snape has played in order to enable Harry to defeat Voldemort. In the end, Snape loves Harry, (much the way Lilly did), enough to die for him. As Rowling says, Snape is the “anti hero.” This sharing of memories combined with the Harry’s comments to his young son, Albus in the epilogue of Deathly Hallows, shows the true redemptive nature of Severus Snape.

 And so this amazing character cries out to us who are woefully corruptible, that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Our story is still being written; our character is forever changing and hopefully improving. Who we were is not who we will be. Our own redemption is possible.  

 4-      Good defeats Evil

Every single book in the Harry Potter series shows a mismatched unprepared, incapable good versus a powerful, invincible evil and yet, against all odds- Good always wins. An eleven year old Harry takes down Professor Quirrell. A twelve year old Harry defeats Tom Riddle in the chamber. A thirteen year old Harry discovers the truth of Peter Pettigrew (servant of Voldemort) and saves Serious Black from the dementors. A fourteen year old Harry survives the rebirth and killing curse of Voldemort in the grave yard. A fifteen year old Harry faces off with Voldemort using love in the Ministry. A sixteen year old Harry starts the journey of destroying Horcruxes and finally a seventeen year faces and obliterates Tom Riddle forever.

 Good always seems to pick an unlikely candidate. A carpenter’s son (Jesus). A preacher’s son (Martin Luther King, Jr.) A merchant’s daughter (Mother Theresa). The least likely of persons to complete the great tasks of change and positive rebellion is most often the one chosen.  Why does that work, I wonder, and yet I know the answer. That part of the story has already been written. Just as Rowling tell us that she knew the end of Harry Potter at the beginning, the book of Revelation tells us, promises us, that Good will ultimately win and that God has empowered his people through the blood of Christ to be change agents until the final war is waged and the banner is raised for eternity while banner of evil is burned.

 5-      Death is a part of life

There is no exemption plan for death. It happens. It affects us. It cannot be avoided. Harry finds this to be oh so true. This story begins with the death of Harry’s parents and the cord of death snakes it way through the series as Cedric, Sirius, Dumbledore, Snape, and Fred Weasley (and many more)all die untimely deaths. From the time the prophecy is read, Harry even must face his own death.

 And yet, in spite of these circumstances, in spite of each loss, there is still a great bit of joy that exists in Harry’s life. He finds he cannot die right along with someone (even though he has his Kubler-Ross stages of grief). The great joys of his life: friendship, success, quidditch, fun, and love, are all experienced regardless of his current pain and loss. May this be unto us as well. As death claims those we love, may we also keep on living.

The picture on the right has a story. A redemptive one.

Come to think about it there are so many items with stories in my life I can barely recount them all. For instance, I have a little square of denim with a painted white fish on it in my hope chest. Once upon a time it was a pair of jeans I was working in at the garage. Adam knew they were ripped so he just decided to have a little painting session. We had conversations that day that I didn’t want to forget, so I cut out the fish and kept it as a reminder.

I could go on all day about the little things I’ve kept over the years that are tokens of memories. But back to my new checkerboard.

When I was a little girl, I spent hours at my grandparent’s house. They had a tree that made me a lover of trees. It had a white rope on it that permanently altered the bone structure of my toes I climbed it so many times. That rope changed to a backyard tree when I was ten or eleven. It’s new home was better than the old one. There were branches made for swinging and perfect little root alcoves that my G.I. Joes used as home base (That is when they weren’t in my doll house compound.) I climbed, read, and just sat with my imagination flaming. This was between the ages of Atari and Nintendo when kids actually played outside. It’s people like me who identify with Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree because that tree was one of my friends. Might sound lame to some, but a country girl can survive.

Eighteen or so years later, that tree became part of my grandparent’s fears. It was too close to the house to be safe and the verdict was it needed to come down. When you are young you never consider such things. I suppose recent ice storms and summer whirlwinds are to blame, but either way my tree was getting the axe. Everyone was concerned about my emotions over the event, a tribute to them actually understanding that they were removing a classic, iconic piece of my childhood. (It wasn’t quite the same as when my mom turned my room into a guest bedroom, but close.)

As such, they allowed me to take final pictures and one long last swing (which just about broke my toes) and say “Goodbye Tree.” When all was said and down and lumbered up, my grandparents gave me the section of the tree that had a piece of the rope wrapped around it. They also gave to my husband Adam a good sized limb and told him to make me something special someday.

Well someday has come.

As anyone who actually visits these pages knows, my granddad passed away mid-November and he was many things to me. Among them, a checker player, who spent countless hours asking anyone, who had the pleasure of losing to him, to “King Me.”  This was where the Christmas idea began. My husband had finally found what to make of my precious tree limb. The perfect thing to honor the memory of Granddad. He spent countless hours in his workshop crafting this beautiful checkerboard from my favorite tree. Needless to say, I love it.

I have a saying that has been the statement of this past decade of my life. “Everything has redemptive possibilities.” I live my life according to this statement, as I see redemptive possibilities everywhere I look. I see it in an old wedding dress, in a person struggling with identity, in a hateful selfish decision made by people who don’t understand, in a pillow made of the remnants of a quilt, in a relationship that once seemed like an improbability, a gazillion other things, and of course in my checkerboard. Something new is always being made of something old.

I think this gives value to our pasts. It stretches them like clay and reshapes them into something new and better. When I think about the passing of this year, I can see all the things that have been made new in my life and all the things I hope to see redeemed as the earth keeps spinning. Don’t lose sight of the change, my friends, as it is what keeps us sane. Stop comparing things to the way they used to be and enjoy them for what they are today. I will never throw a rope around my checkerboard and go for a swing. Its got a new purpose now and I must let go of the old. I must see the redemptive purpose and I do. (In fact, I plan to beat my husband in a game of checkers- just like my Granddad taught me- as soon as he gets back from Costa Rica. Thank you, new purpose.)

My advice for 2010, stop trying to swing from the checkerboards in your life. Embrace the new and redeem and the old. As it has been in my life, may it also be in yours.