Happy Heavenly Birthday Dad!

July 31, 2014July 31, 2021 / Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 4 Comments

My Father, George Redman Beyer, passed away last year on July 31. In honor of him, I would like to post here the words I spoke at his memorial service.

All you who knew George, whether it was for 5 minutes or fifty years, knew that he was very kind, calm, patient, slow, methodical, and very intelligent.

He loved history and could remember facts and figures with an almost photographic memory. Most of those official blue and yellow signs you see around the state of PA were written by my Dad. When I was little I couldn’t remember the name of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, so I just told people that my Dad was a Historical Marker Maker. They gave me funny looks.

I got even stranger reactions when I told them that we were Quakers and went to Meeting instead of Church. Dad was always a man of peace. I almost never heard him criticize other people and I almost never saw him get angry.

In recent years, he had to bear with my five wild boys running around the house with nerf guns, squirt guns, and cap guns. Still he was very patient with them. He spent hour after hour after hour reading to all the grandchildren, snuggling on the sofa.

He answered question after question, read book after book. He rejoiced at the birth of every new grandchild and enjoyed them immensely.

This was an intense week for our family. Dad was sent to the emergency room on Monday with blood clots in his lungs. He stopped breathing and received CPR three times. When I saw him that evening, he was unconscious and the hospital was still trying to stabilize him. That night I prayed those deep, desperate prayers. I love it how God draws so near to me in times like these. I felt like He said to me, “This will end in death, but it is OK.” Then I saw a picture in my mind. I saw my dad as a young boy, running in the summer twilight.

He had perfect shalom, “perfect peace, nothing broken, and nothing missing.” He was running into the arms of God the Father. They both had such joy and excitement about being together.

On Tuesday the hospital thought they might be able to stabilize Dad and wake him up. Then we received a call that he had taken a turn for the worse, and we better get in there as soon as we could. Again I began praying in the car, and I was desperate with God. I said, “You can’t let him die if he’s not ready, if it is not his time. I haven’t done enough. I haven’t told him enough about you. I haven’t shown him enough love.” Again the sweet presence of God surrounded me and said, “It is already done. I have already done it all. All that is left is to trust me.”

So as we sat in Dad’s room watching him peacefully pass away, I again thought of him running into the arms of his Father. I heard the Father God say to him, “George, it doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do in your lifetime. I want you! You are my reward; You are my pearl of great price.”

Mom told me that Dad had recently attended a conference at Life Center and loved the song, “Abba” which means Daddy. (Click here to listen to the wonderful song.) We sang that song in Worship tonight. This confirmed to me that he had a longing in his heart to know God as his Daddy, and now his heart’s desire is fulfilled. He feels for the first time the full strength of the unconditional, all consuming love of the Father. Dad had loving parents and a loving family. Loving relationships are the joy of this life. But they are just the first morning rays of sunlight peaking over the horizon. Now he is standing in the brightness of noonday, and I am so happy for him!

I love how God gives us signs to explain what is happening in the unseen realm. He gave me a sign. My mom had transplanted a lot of flowers from her yard to into my yard. The irises and hyacinths have been blooming for many years now, but I have never seen the resurrection lily. I just thought it had died, and I had forgotten about it. But the day after my Dad died, I looked out my window and I saw it blooming!

I love you Dad!

The Liebster Award

July 26, 2014July 26, 2014 / Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 4 Comments

Thank you, Rachael Boley of Three Boys and A Mom, for nominating me for the Liebster Award. When I started blogging last month, I thought I would just be practicing my writing on the computer. But I have discovered such a lovely community of bloggers who are sweet, encouraging, and courageous. You all have really blessed my life! It is fun to discover the love of life and writing together!

The Official Rules Of The Liebster Award

If you have been nominated for The Liebster Award AND YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT, write a blog post about the Liebster award in which you:

1. thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog.

2. display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”. (Note that the best way to do this is to save the image to your own computer and then upload it to your blog post.)

3. answer 11 questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.

4. provide 11 random facts about yourself.

5. nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have a less than 1000 followers. (Note that you can always ask the blog owner this since not all blogs display a widget that lets the readers know this information!)

6. create a new list of questions for the blogger to answer.

7. list these rules in your post (You can copy and paste from here.) Once you have written and published it, you then have to:

8. Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it!)

Here are 11 random facts about me!

1. I used to wish I had bright red hair.

2. Now I just wish I didn’t have any grey hair.

3. I am obsessed with oral hygiene.

4. I don’t eat any sugar and almost no fruit or grains. Some people feel bad for me when dessert time comes and I don’t eat any. They may even comment, “What is life without dessert?” I really don’t miss it because I feel so incredibly good and healthy without it and so very bad with it.

5. I grew up as a Quaker, sitting through silent meetings in a meeting house.

6. Before I became a Christian, I was obsessed with unicorns and all things new age. I thought I might possibly be descended from aliens who had infiltrated the human race.

7. I never day dreamed about my wedding or cut out pictures of wedding dresses or wedding cakes as a young girl, yet I was the first of my friends to get married. My wedding was fun and virtually stress-free (at least for me…other people did appear a bit stressed).

8. Growing up I didn’t think much about being a mom. I was on the college/ career track. Now pretty much all my waking thoughts and all my dreams at night revolve around motherhood.

9. I want to have a baby in my 40s.

10. I have been trained in Craniosacral Facial Therapy and would love to someday have a practice treating pregnant women and newborns.

11. Someday I want to live on a farmette and have a huge garden and chickens.

Here are the questions that Rachael had for me:

1. Where would you live if you could live anywhere in the world, and why? Right here in Central Pennsylvania, because it is the land of my inheritance!

2. What do you consider to be your best quality? Faith in God

3. What was your favorite toy as a child? A unicorn stuffed animal that I slept with. I gave it to my best friend when she moved away …or maybe it was when I moved away.

4. If you won a million dollars, what would you do with it? Give a bunch to my church and missionary friends, invest into our business, buy our dream home.

5. Who has influenced your life the most, and in what way? Jesus; all the words he has spoke to me through the Bible, through the still, small voice in my heart, and through other people. He always changes the way I think and the way I see situations, myself, and the world.

6. What is your favorite season and why? Spring! I love to see the trees and flowers blooming.

7. What inspired the beginning of your blogging journey? A desire to become a writer someday and reconnecting with that desire through memories of my Dad after he passed away last year. He was an excellent writer and had a wonderful reading voice. It was so fun for me and then for my children to sit with him and listen to stories.

8. What is your biggest fear? Falling short of the high calling that God has for me. To get to heaven and have what I have done in my lifetime be burned like chaff because it wasn’t truely done in love to serve Him.

9. Name 5 things on your bucket list. Taking my children to Disney World, taking the entire family on a missions trip, having a book published, taking the family to Colorado to see where we used to live, taking the family to Wisconsin to visit relatives and see where I used to vacation every summer of my childhood.

10. If you could hang out with any celebrity for the day, who would it be and why? Patrick Stewart because he represented Grace in a dream I once had which you can read about in Why is Grace My Superhero? He works on behalf of domestic violence victims and something he said in a presentation has stuck with me. He was hugging a woman who had suffered abuse and he said to her, “You are safe now. You never have to go through that again.” That is what Grace says to us as soon as we fall into His protective arms.

11. What would you consider to be your dream job? Being a writer and getting paid for it!!!!

I would like to nominate these wonderful bloggers for the Liebster Award!

Laure Covert at Bluebirds Always Fly

Maia at Days With Maia

Gelene Keever at Who Sees? You See!

Jennifer Garrido at In the Wide Open Spaces

Rebekah at Barren to Beautiful

Sasha at Mom Life Now

Here are your 11 questions!

1.What was the best piece of advice you ever received?

2. Did you follow it?

3. What was the best piece of advice you ever gave?

4. Did the other person follow it?

5. What is your favorite scripture right now?

6. Why is it your favorite right now?

7. What is your definition of a successful life?

8. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

9. What would you do there?

10. What is your best talent?

11. What is your favorite book right now (other than the Bible which is always a favorite, I know).

Blue, White and Yellow = The Goodness of God

July 25, 2014July 25, 2014 / Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 2 Comments

It all started in my parents’ basement; the part of the basement that was used for storage of boxes of old stuff, stacks of newspapers, flowerpots with dirt still in them, tomato stakes, and odds and ends.

I found this lovely example of blue and white china down there, and I claimed them as my own. I placed them in my room among my eclectic collection of all things I considered pretty as a young girl. It was one of the only decorations I took with me when I got married and moved into my first apartment. It took an honored place on my grandfather Beyer’s old bookshelf, one of the only actual pieces of furniture we owned in those early years.

Somehow that piece of china took hold in my mind as a representative of a happy home. I developed a picture of my dream home over the course the next few years. It was a big farm-house with a wrap around porch, a happy place for our happy family. The most important rooms of the house (the kitchen and dinning rooms) were painted a warm, sunny yellow and adorned with white trim and white shelves. And what graced those white shelves? Blue and white china!

We lived many years in rentals or in a home we thought we would soon sell. I lived with the Realtor beige and white, still seeing those yellow walls in my mind. In 2007 we purchased a nice home in Pennsylvania. It wasn’t a farm-house, but it was big with a porch in front. I didn’t have “THE dream home” or the yellow walls…or the white shelves, but I started to collect the china. My in-laws purchased my next few plates at an antique store for my birthday. I had nowhere to display them, so I carefully packed them away. I started picking up pieces here and there, at thrift stores or yard sales. A tea-cup with delicate blue flowers, a plate with a cozy cottage and a bridge, a pitcher with an unusual design of blue triangles. A dollar here, fifty cents there. Each one a treasure, each one unique, each one a representative of God’s goodness to me. He has the entire universe to run, yet I felt Him share my joy with each special find.

Some friends had a china cabinet in their basement that they didn’t use, and they offered it to us. I was overjoyed! I had a place to store my treasures where I could see them each day.

It was my birthday in February of 2010. That was the glorious year that IT happened! My husband bought me bright yellow paint! I could hardly believe my good fortune! Our weird sage/aqua walls in the kitchen and dinning room were going to be transformed to yellow! We still had many young children, so we had to prep and paint after they went to bed. We continued to paint until 3 o’clock in the morning. Chris was a trooper. I was high on excitement and hardly felt tired. I was getting my yellow walls!

It was quite a shock at first. It wondered if I had picked the correct yellow color. But the sun was shinning inside my home 24 hours a day, seven days a week! “Daffodil” yellow grew on me until I couldn’t keep from saying, “I just love this!” It is amazing how small things can make such a dramatic different. Slowly I acquired some white shelves and more blue and white china. Now I am surrounded by beauty everyday, and it has improved the quality of my life.

Some days I marvel at the fact that we are still dwelling here, in this beautiful home. We were close to foreclosure during the hard times. While we were living through those difficult months, we thought back to the miracle that this home was. We knew that God had given it to us, and we knew that He could take it away. Chris was walking on our porch one night, feeling the heartbreak of loss, when God spoke to him.

“This is YOUR home, and you will sell it when YOU want to.”

When Chris told me that, I was so touched by the loving heart of my Father. He owned everything, everywhere. He had bought our very lives with the blood of His son. He did the miracle to get us this house. Yet He said that it was ours, and that we could choose when we wanted to sell it!

God was true to His word and worked out the details so we could continue to own this house, our dream home! He has done many more miracles to enable us to put food on the table day after day, pay all our bills month after month, and go shopping for blue and white china year after year.

Each piece reminds me of His incredible concern for every small detail of my life. Here I am, living my dream! My husband doesn’t care a thing about blue and white china; but to me, it symbolizes the amazing, unending goodness of God.

Interior Decorating According to Children

July 23, 2014 / Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 5 Comments

I don’t think my children understand what “interior decorating” means.

I love to daydream about rooms in my house that I will remake into works of art. I enjoy looking at pictures in magazines and collecting ideas from TV shows and friends houses. I dream about getting yards and yards of inexpensive fabric at the PA Fabric Outlet for future curtains. I create floor plans in my mind, full of colors and patterns. When I think about decorating my bedroom, I think about fresh, light blue paint on the walls and a beautiful blue and white quilt for the bed.

I used to have daydreams for my children’s rooms as well. Areli’s room was going have purple bedding and yellow walls featuring lovely framed photos of Anne Geddes baby butterflies. Twelve years have passed since those dreams, and Areli no longer wants purple and butterflies.

Cooper and Calvin share a bright red bunk bed which matches nicely with their area rug of bright red, blues, and greens. Their walls still sport the pastel yellow, mint, and pink colors that were painted by the previous owner for their little girl. It doesn’t bother me too much because in my mind, their walls are the perfect shade of blue. At least we removed the sparkly chandelier.

Nine months ago we created a fifth bedroom in our home for the baby, and I have filled up a file cabinet in my brain with ideas for his room consisting of a many shades of orange and a lot of lions. The walls of his room are still stark and messy white, all patched with putty, waiting to be sanded and painted a warm yellowish, orangey, brown/tan color. The actual official color has yet to be researched and determined. Something like Sherwin Williams’ “Delicious Melon.”

Will my interior decorating dreams ever come to pass? I am still hopeful, although I have not yet been able to do any of the children’s rooms in my 15 years of being a mom. Just for fun and so I could more accurately daydream about decorating their rooms, I posed the question to each child.

“What if you had your own room and you could decorate it any way you wanted to?”

The answers amazed and inspired me, but I realized that they don’t think about decorating in the same way I do. Not by a long shot! The answers ranged from:

“Camouflage loft bed with green walls and a huge closet that locks so no one can touch my stuff.”

“A wall covered with books shelves and books, my own laptop with editing software, new and better cameras.”

“Entertainment center with flat screen TV and game system that flips around to become a dresser with all my clothes inside, blue walls, black ceiling with lights shaped like stars.”

I explained that none of their bedrooms would ever contain a TV or a game system as long as they lived with me, but that did not deter them.

“Flat screen TV, many game systems, and a slide that goes out my window. It will be a water slide but I can shut the water off, and then it will just be a regular slide…Oh, and I want a pool in my room.”

“A bed that comes out of the wall by itself and a pool and a hot tub and a slide and…” This answer was given by Calvin, my talkative 5-year old.

He continued to expound on the details of his dream room for the next 20 minutes. I must admit that my mind kept wandering in and out of the conversation. I caught fragments of his chattering.

“…the toilet will flush by itself….the lava wont hurt me…there will be crazy glue but I wont die…there will be extra feet to put on if you want to be taller…” and on and on it went.

Although I could not make sense of it all, one thing became abundantly clear to me. My definition of “interior decorating” had become much too narrow. What had happened to my big, hairy, audacious dreams? Children seem to be able to tell you exactly what they want, whether or not it is realistic …or even real. And they are not deterred by restrictions and rules. They think out of the box. Or perhaps their boxes are much more vast and exciting than my box. Those boxes become smaller and smaller as the child gets older, I have noticed. But isn’t it impossible, child-like faith that has given birth to solutions and inventions never previously considered?

I pray we can all grab onto that child-like hoping and imagining. Even if it never comes to pass the way we envision it, it sure is a lot of fun! And I pray that my children can hold on to their interior decorating dreams. I would love a house with slides and toilets that flush by themselves!

This is My Mercy

July 21, 2014 / Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / Leave a comment

It was New Year’s Eve. Chris and I had just moved back to our hometown after living in Colorado for 8 years. We had the chance to celebrate the holiday with long time friends, friends we hadn’t celebrated with in ages. We were so excited about the opportunity to get out! We had left our five children with two babysitters, sisters who had agreed to spend the night with our little angels since we might be out very late. I was going to take the baby along, but at the last minute, I decided that he didn’t need to nurse anymore that night, and he could stay home and sleep with the others.

It was already very dark when our minivan drove up the onramp to the highway. Chris, in his typical impatient fashion, maneuvered quickly to the left of a slow merging vehicle. He swiftly crossed the right lane and went directly into the left lane, leaving the slower vehicle still chugging up the on ramp.

“You are not supposed to do that,” I thought to myself. “I know that I would never do that.” I am a more cautious driver.

In a split second, Chris was slamming on the brakes. A dark shape came into view right in front of us, and Chris screeched to a halt to avoid hitting it. I reached out my arm to brace myself. We came to a dead stop in the middle of the highway, a dark car parked in the left lane just inches in front of us. It had no lights on and had been totally hidden by the shadows of the bridge overhead.

BAM! SMASH! CRASH!

We were hit violently from behind and pushed forward into the abandoned car. We were sandwiched between two vehicles, our hearts beating fast and our minds trying to unravel what had just happened. We exited the vehicle, stunned to see that it was smashed up pretty good. A young teenager emerged from the car that had stuck us. She was visibly shaken. A man who had pulled off to the side of the road was yelling at us to get off the highway. Thank God for that man! I was so shocked over what had happened that I was standing still, surveying the wreckage, in the very blind spot that had swallowed an entire car. All of us could have been mowed down by a speeding tractor trailer.

We quickly ran to the shoulder and assessed the situation. Several cars now sat in the highway, smashed and inoperable. We were afraid to run back out to try and move them. We were afraid that other vehicles would pile into them and create a much bigger mess. Thankfully, the emergency vehicles arrived on the scene very quickly, and traffic was prevented from traveling that stretch of highway. It seemed that every police car, ambulance, and fire truck that was close by had come to the scene.

I stood staring into those red flashing lights cutting into the cold, dark night. I was trembling. This was supposed to be a holiday, a special night for celebrating with friends. Instead we were stranded on the side of the highway. Why had this happened? I was sure that if Chris hadn’t been in such a hurry, we could have avoided the abandoned vehicle. It must have been his fault, mustn’t it? Why had he done that? Why were we in the wrong place at the wrong time? Were we doing sometime wrong? Perhaps we should have never gone out driving on New Year’s Eve. Perhaps we had allowed some sin to muddy our thoughts, and we had strayed off the perfect path for our lives. All these thought were whirling around in my mind, thoughts that had become the byproduct of our years in Colorado.

We had been apart of an abusive church, a community of “Christians” who would look at any misfortune in your life and find a reason to blame you for it. Bad things weren’t supposed to happen to good people, were they? So if something bad happened to you, you must have done something to deserve it. You must have sowed bad seed and were now reaping the equally bad harvest.

“This is my mercy”

The still small voice broke into my thoughts.

“What? How can this be mercy?” I thought as I viewed our totaled van and a highway shut down because of us. Then my thoughts began to unwind and straighten out and become more like God’s thoughts. Accidents happen. That doesn’t make it our fault. No one was hurt. Every single person in every vehicle walked away with no injuries. The ambulances drove away empty. The fire trucks had no fires to put out. We were safe!

“Oh my goodness! I was going to bring the baby!”

I remembered that my sweet, little four-month old was sleeping peacefully at home. He had not been in the accident. He was safe! This was God’s mercy! He had not been punishing us for something. He had saved us and our infant son from something that could have been much, much worse. He was not waiting to bring retribution; He was guarding us and protecting us at all times!

It turns out that the van could not be repaired, and the insurance company paid us for it. We were able to take that payment and combine it with Chris’ pick-up truck and get a new van with no monthly payments. That was something we had been specifically praying for. We each also received $5,000 in free chiropractic care, something else we had been praying for. God used this destructive accident to bless us!

So the next time you are looking at a mangled mess that disrupts that flow and peace of your life, God could be saying…

This is my mercy!

The Power of Praising Through Pain

July 19, 2014July 21, 2014 / Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 6 Comments

I attended the memorial service for the mother of a dear friend of mine. This friend is my age, and we have known each other since junior high school. It was much too soon for her to have to say goodbye to her mom. I was deeply touched by everyone who shared memories and thoughts and prayers. I marveled at the joy and pain mingling together as we sang songs of worship. Our pastor stood up to share. He began to talk about how we each encounter situations in life that don’t make sense, that seem too difficult to be God’s best for us. We all ask God the question, “Why?” He listed the many famous men of the Bible who asked why. Then he made a statement that cut to the core of my being.

“There was one ‘why’ that swallowed up all the other ‘whys’,” he said, and I instantly knew what he was talking about.

Jesus, hanging on the cross, became sin and cried out from the anguish of his soul, “My God, WHY have you forsaken me?”

Jesus knows how we feel as we navigate through this journey called being human. We all suffer pain, heartbreak, sickness, and loss. We all have our faith shaken and our knowledge stripped and our understanding emptied until all we can say is, “Why?” Jesus was at the very same place Himself, and He put himself in that place on purpose so that we didn’t have to be there alone. He is always right there with us, whispering, “I understand…and someday you will too.”

And love’s voice answers from a cross:

“I bear it all with you;

I share with you in all your loss, I will make all things new.

None suffer in their sin alone,

I made – I bear – and I atone.” – Hannah Hurnard

God made us for Eden which means “delight” and “pleasure.” We were made to live in perfect shalom; peace, nothing broken, nothing missing. But our world was plunged into darkness and put under a curse because of sin. The effects of that gloom always seem so wrong and unfair and foreign to us. That is because they are. We were created for something better, something perfect.

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” – C.S. Lewis

While we are here in the Shadowlands, we have a unique and very short-lived opportunity that we will never have again once we have crossed over into glorious eternity. We have the privilege to have faith in something we can’t see. Faith in a good and amazing God. Faith that all things will be redeemed and restored. We have the chance to touch our Father’s heart as we praise Him through our pain.

Rick Joyner received a vision from God in which this was shown to him in a marvelous way.

“I saw the Father. Millions and millions were attending Him. His glory was so great and the power of His presence so awesome that I felt the whole earth would not have even measured as a grain of sand before Him…His robe was composed of millions and millions of stars which were alive…I knew I could dwell before Him forever and never cease to marvel; there was no higher purpose in the universe than to worship Him…

“Then I was in a different place, beholding a worship service in a little church building…Everyone in the battered little room…were experiencing severe trials in their lives, but they were not even thinking of them here. They were not praying about their needs. They were all trying to compose songs of thanksgiving to the Lord. They were happy and their joy was sincere.

“I saw heaven, and all of heaven was weeping. I then saw the Father again and knew why heaven was weeping. They were weeping because of the tears in the eyes of the Father. This little group of seemingly beaten down, struggling people had moved God so deeply that He wept. They were not tears of pain, but of joy…

“Jesus turned to me and said, “When you worship without seeing His glory, in the midst of your trials, this is worship in Spirit and truth…Do not waste your trials. Worship the Father – not for what you will get, but to bring Him joy. You will never be stronger than when you bring Him joy, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

One Sunday at church I was inspired by a testimony of a woman who had been miraculously healed of cancer. I love it when God’s power is so visibly demonstrated here on the imperfect earth among broken humanity. I clapped and cheered for this one soul who had received a death sentence and then had that terrible pronouncement revoked.

But I was deeply touched and moved and undone by something else. A man who had recently lost his wife to cancer was raising his hands to praise God for the healing of another. I felt my heart deepen and stretch to try to contain the grandeur of that one small act. I thought I heard heaven weeping because this man had so touched the Father’s heart with his praise. The greatest victories of the Christian life occur when we suffer crushing earthly loss and still praise God! The “Whys” get swallowed up by such praise and we get catch a glimpse of the world we were really created for.

I am my Daddy’s Favorite

July 17, 2014 / Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 4 Comments

Have you ever felt like you were trying hard to do everything right but at every turn your efforts were being thwarted? Instead of open doors to the people, jobs, opportunities, resources you were hoping for, all you encounter are brick walls. Funny thing about brick walls; they do not step aside and they show no compassion! For years Chris and I felt like that. We would try and try to break through into the prosperity that we knew God had for us. Chris would try to get the right job and then work hard. We would attempt to do all the right things and pray the right prayers. Yet one heart breaking setback after another would hold us back. We almost felt as though we were cursed rather than blessed. But we knew that God wanted to bless us…so what was the problem?

For years we were undoing the natural consequences of bad decisions we had made…really bad decisions. So the consequences provided for us an excellent education that we are so thankful for!

After that, we began to step into new territory; making good decisions based upon what would please God the most. Surely this would bring His favor. Yet the years continued to go by, and we were still living paycheck to paycheck. Discouragement would try to tell us that God didn’t like us very much, that He didn’t pay attention to our prayers or our needs. But truth keep telling us that just the opposite was true. He loved us like a Father. In fact, we were our Daddy’s favorites. His plans for us were to give us a future and a hope.

Whenever you enter new territory, such as when the Israelites entered their promised land, there are always battles. The current residents will not willingly give up their territory. Yet eventually, they must, because God said so. Just because we have to battle for something, just because it is not easy, does not mean it is not God’s will!

I was reading the book of Esther and marveling at the divine reversal that occurred. In one glorious day, the tables were turned. The Jews went from teetering on the precipice of annihilation to triumphing over all their enemies. They went from being hated and despised to being honored and feared. Esther and her uncle gained great influence over the king and they had won his favor. Everything started to work for their benefit and promotion, and best of all, they would not be slaughtered! How I longed to experience what a divine reversal felt like; to go from having everything go wrong to having everything go right. To feel God’s special affection for me wherever I went.

So I prayed that God would make that principle a reality in my life; that I could walk in the favor that Esther had. I opened up my devotional that morning and read, “The Lord will bless you and watch over you. The Lord will smile on you and be kind to you. The Lord will look on you with favor and give your peace!” Numbers 6:24-25. It was as though God was saying to me, “I heard you and my answer to your prayer is yes!”

Lance Wallnau defines favor as “the special affection of God toward you that releases an influence on you so others are inclined to like you or to cooperate with you” and “the charisma of Christ that makes you appealing.” What does he say we should do to obtain this favor? Love God, seek His face, become like him, and ask him for His favor. Decree His favor over every area of our lives and believe that He hears us. We also need to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and love ourselves. After all, how can we accept God’s amazing affection if we don’t agree with it? Basically, that would be telling God that he was wrong about us, and we really don’t want His favor after all.

Last Sunday at church, God gave me a perfect illustration of what his favor looks like. My littlest son is now 16 months old. He was supposed to have moved out of the nursery awhile ago, but it is just easier to place him in the care of familiar faces in familiar surroundings. Well, last Sunday, I decided to try him in the older room. I entered to find only one teacher present; a sweet, young girl with a pregnant belly. She already had four children in the room, one of whom was crying quite loudly in a rocking chair. I was hesitant to put my little Courage in that room and add a fifth child. I wouldn’t want to take care of 5 non-verbal toddlers by myself if I were pregnant. I stayed with him in the room for a while, wondering what I should do. I finally decided to leave and enter the adult service. Just as I was walking out the door, the woman from the younger nursery came in.

“There’s Courage! We were wondering where he was! He is our favorite, you know. I think I need to steal him back!”

“OH! How many babies do you have in your room?” I asked.

“None have come yet, and there are two of us in there, just waiting to make Courage happy.”

“Oh yes, please do! I didn’t realize that your class was empty!”

So the sweet woman whisked Courage away. He was specifically chosen and sought out to receive the exclusive attentions of two adoring teachers simply because he was their FAVORITE! THAT is what FAVOR looks like!

I have been praying for God’s favor on my life. Favor for the traffic on the highway to be sparse and fast moving whenever I need to travel. Favor for my line in the grocery store to be the fastest. Favor for our business, that it would catch the positive attention of every person and business in our town that needs a sign. Favor for my children that they would get the best care from every teacher, babysitter, nurse, and doctor we ever meet. Favor in the eyes of every person I come in contact with. This may seem rather selfish. After all, why should I get special treatment? Because I am His favorite, that’s why! God loves every person, no matter how twisted, grumpy, evil, or unlovable they are. He wills the best and the highest for each one of them, but that doesn’t mean He likes them. Favor is when God really, really likes you! The reason God really, really likes you is because you are like His beloved son here in the earth; loving God and loving people, doing everything with the highest best of God in mind. So when people cooperate with me because I have the favor of God, they are actually cooperating with God. And when they are cooperating with God, they are actually cooperating with a force that intends to bring about the very best for them. So they are doing themselves a favor when they extend favor to me!

My faith in His favor is increasing as I see Him work out surprising and incredible circumstances on my behalf…after all, I am my Daddy’s favorite.

I Love My Tribe

July 14, 2014 / Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 4 Comments

The music washes over me. It is not just melody and rhythm…it is the very atmosphere of heaven. The lights are bright, the stage is full of musicians, and I am surrounded by my tribe. Almost every Sunday morning I find myself here, in the sanctuary of Life Center and saturated with the swirling presence of God and humanity. There are so many worship leaders that share the stage, so many musicians that rotate from week to week. They are full of talent and resurrection life, and I love them all! They have birthed an abundance of CDs out of the overflow of their lives of praise.

I watch the senior pastors in the front row, boppin’ to the rockin’ music. They are in their sixties, but they enjoy the youthful expression and energy as much as anyone. They actually lead the rest of us in radical, “out of the box” thinking! They have served this church for over twenty years, and I love them! I see one of the younger worship leaders, passionately singing a song that he wrote; and I think about how I used to babysit him when he was a boy. I look over and see his parents in the front row, beloved pastors who raised me in the youth group; still loving, still serving, still standing for all that is true.

Some folks are out of their seats, dancing. Some are swaying to the music. Others are sitting with their eyes closed. Others are kneeling on the floor. My teenage daughter is up front, worshipping with her friends. I observe many gray heads in the crowd, faces lined with wisdom and love. I see parents holding their little ones. I see children twirling scarves and prancing on bare feet. Life is always bursting forth at Life Center. There are more pregnant women than I can keep track of, and I love them all! I long to be able to tell each one of them how gorgeous they are and how precious they are to God, carrying His little children of promise!

I notice women running to each other in joyful reunions, laughing and hugging. I see people spontaneously begin to pray for the person next to them, passion and concern on their faces. I see others exchanging gifts or notes.

It is time for the offering and one of the “newer” pastors takes the microphone. He and his family have become so precious to me. Every time I see him take the stage, I am alert with anticipation. I know that some stunning revelation will spill from his lips that will rock the way I see the world.

The music subsides and there are announcements of births and deaths; family business that herald joy and tears all at the same time. How we each know that thrill and that pain, and how we each long to share those with our brothers and sisters. I walk to the back of the sanctuary during the meet and greet time, and I am enveloped in a warm and healing hug by a beautiful black mama.

“Look at you! You’re beautiful! Just beautiful!” she always says to me with her eyes shining and her amazing, white smile blazing. She is the beauty! I wish I could describe the indescribable, how dark and lovely she is…but her beauty is so deep and so true, I am at a loss for words.

It is time for the message and another pastor comes up. He and his wife are treasures to me, having led countless youth events, missions trips and prayer times that I was apart of. We have even lived with them a couple of times. Some folks in the crowd are a little confused because he talks too fast, as though he has 4 hours worth of revelation to impart in 45 minutes. Chris and I are fluent in “speed talk” since we grew up under his tutelage, and we just chuckle to ourselves. In his message, he talks about a mission trip that he led 20 years ago. I was part of that trip, and how I cherish those memories!

After the service, I hug my dear and longtime friends. I greet friends I grew up with and friends who were in my wedding. I talk with my children’s pastor, who I went to school with. I see more recent friends, who have quickly taken residence in my heart. I identify new acquaintances as well. I notice many fresh faces and hope to call them my friends someday too. So many personalities, so many gifts, so many stories, so many ways that God reveals Himself to me; represented by these precious people.

“I love my tribe!” I always think to myself on a Sunday morning. The love wells up within me, along with pride. I love my tribe! There are children of God all over this earth, in different denominations, different countries, varying cultures and traditions. But I am so glad that my boundary lines have fallen here, at Life Center. I started coming to this church in 1989, when it was meeting in the old casket factory. My husband Chris started coming earlier than that, in 1985. We left for a time and moved to Colorado Springs. In the eight years we were there, we couldn’t put our roots down, no matter how hard we tried. Now we are back in our promised land, surrounded by family. How good it feels to watch our family tree grow tall and strong with a wide trunk and thick bark, an oak of righteousness, a planting for the display of His splendor.

How glorious it feels to let our roots descend into the rich and fertile soil of Central Pennsylvania! How refreshing to drink the deep, deep waters. How thirsty we had been for those waters!

There are wonderful people of God all over the world, but this family is mine…my clan…my tribe. I am so glad! How I love my tribe!

Oh, the Love of a Sibling!

July 12, 2014 / Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 6 Comments

It is such a gift to have siblings…lots of them! My firstborn was a girl, Areli. When she was 18 months, our second child, Cole, arrived. Areli took to him right away. She couldn’t say, “baby” but she could say “boo-boo.” Boo-Boo became his name for the next two years. Areli and Cole cannot remember life without each other or “our chuthers” as they used to say. They were always best friends, like peas and carrots. They still are.

Two years after Cole, Cadin came along. They were a happy trio, getting into trouble and playing pretend. Cadin was always his own person, however, having different tastes than his older brother.

Ashlyn was born 18 months later. Her development was very delayed because of a chromosomal abnormality. She didn’t crawl for a long time and didn’t sit up until she was almost two years old. She didn’t begin to stand and walk until she was nine. Her world until that time was on the floor. God provided three little boys to take turns sharing the floor with her. Chai was born when she was 18 months, Cooper two years later, and Calvin two years after that. Oh the fun fellowship they shared, exploring every inch of the space underneath things and “cleaning up” any crumbs that fell there.

Cooper and Calvin have a special bond because they share a room and a bunk bed. They are now 7 and 5, and they are hyper, little balls of energy. We call them C&C Music Factory. If I want a peaceful outing to the store, I must only take one of them along.

My children love each other! They never lack a friend to play with. It is true that sometimes they express hatred rather than love, hurting the other just for the sheer enjoyment of it and denying that they are related at all. But I know that when the immaturity of this season passes, they will be deep and earnest friends for the whole of their lives.

Each new baby was welcomed with such excitement and enthusiasm that we had to protect the vulnerable little thing from being loved on too much. It was so sweet to see a normally wild boy get quiet and still when it was his turn to hold the baby.

Areli was always a natural mother. She got to be present at the birth of four of her little brothers. She was enchanted with it all. Childbirth can be intense at times, but witnessing it only seemed to increase her love for babies and her desire to be a mom someday. When Calvin outgrew the newborn, eat every few hours at night stage, he slept in a crib in Areli’s room. She was so happy to have him there. She would change him and clothe him and snuggle with him. She would even comfort him if he cried during the night and she wouldn’t tell me about it until the morning. A sister like that is worth more that her weight in gold!

Calvin turned two, and no new baby arrived. Cooper, age 4 at this time, began talking to me about the fact that we really needed a baby. I told him to pray about it. He did! After a few more months had pasted, Cooper came to me exasperated.

“I prayed for a baby, but I don’t think God heard me! We don’t have a baby yet!”

I encouraged him to keep praying and that God knows the perfect time for everything. More prayer seemed to increase Cooper’s vision. Soon he was reporting to me that God had 10 babies for us, 5 boys and 5 girls! They were up in heaven, just waiting for God to send them down.

This seemed rather far fetched, so Daddy told him, “Perhaps you are talking about the children that you will have someday when you get married!” Cooper didn’t seem so sure.

Not long after that, Chris and I announced to the children that I indeed had another baby in my belly. Cheers erupted! They all wanted another baby to hold and snuggle and change and dress. They were all so excited, none more than Cooper.

“I hope it’s a boy!” he announced.

Since we already had 5 boys, the rest of us thought a girl would be nice. An ultrasound revealed that the baby was indeed….another boy! Cooper was overjoyed!

“Now we only need four more boys, and 5 more girls!”

I have always encouraged my children to pray to God and listen to His voice. Cooper had always been great at this, possessing that child-like faith in great measure. I didn’t want to tell him that he was not hearing God’s voice, because how did I know? In my own walk with God, His words were usually somewhat surprising to me when they came, interrupting my own thought with an altogether different message. I have found that His thoughts are truly not like our thoughts; that His ways are not like our ways. He is constantly trying to get us out of that box (or cage), encouraging us to jump off of that cliff, and teaching us to fly with Him above the logical and obvious.

So Cooper’s ambitious vision for brothers and sisters does seem like impossibility, considering my diminishing fertile years. We had seriously looked into adoption a few years back, but right now, that seems impossible as well. How do I feel about the fact that Cooper thinks I should give birth 9 more times, or have triplets 3 times, or have two more babies and adopt seven, or any number of other scenarios?

I know that God knows what He is doing and His ways are mysterious beyond my comprehension but far better than what I could ever imagine!

So I just say, “Keep praying Cooper…keep praying! You never know what God might do…for the love of a sibling!”

It is Truly Delightful to Have a House Full of Boys

July 10, 2014 / Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 9 Comments

Little boys give the BEST hugs, squeezing your neck so hard with their little chubby arms that you feel like you will burst with the sheer joy of it!

You get to observe how your husband must have looked like as a baby, toddler, and little boy, and it is an adorable sight to behold!

You have the opportunity to learn strange and bizarre facts about many topics including but not limited to exotic animals, superheroes, guns, the world of Redwall, policemen, comic books, history, wars, and heroes.

You are inspired by the intelligent engineering and creative design of the structures that rise and fall, both outside and inside your home.

You are happy that those pesky squirrels have to run for their lives when your boys show up with their home-made bows and arrows.

Boys are enthusiastic eaters! The messier they are, the more they enjoyed it.

Boys love to pick flowers for their moms. “Picking” is a term used loosely to mean stomped on, whacked down, crushed, pulled up by the roots, and then presented with pride to the object of their affection.

Moms, YOU are that object of affection! What could be better than that!

Boys love to follow their Dad around, learning everything that Dad knows.

Boys can lift some of the burden off of Dad as they take over jobs that they enjoy and take pride in, such as yard work and maintenance of the house and cars.

Boys grow into teenagers who are bigger and stronger than you are. They can help in a myriad of ways from carrying the groceries to building your dream home. I have not yet received a dream home from my boys, but I have read a story of a mother of 13 boys who did!

You get to experience all the joys of each stage of their development as described in Wild Things: the Art of Nurturing Boys.

The Explorer (age 2-4) active, aggressive, curious, self-determined

The Lover (age 5-8) tender, obedient, attached to dad, competitive

The Individual (ages 9-12) searching, evolving, experimenting, criticizing

The Wanderer (ages 13-17) when a boy becomes the worst version of himself. Ok, that part isn’t so great, but just wait until you read the next one.

The Warrior (ages 18-22) going from boy to man, finishing, reflective, searching, romantic

We get to watch the little boy grow into the strong and courageous warrior. That warrior will stand up for what is right and defend the weak. That warrior will be motivated by love in everything he does with an authority that comes from knowing his identity in God. A vision of that Warrior, no matter how distant he might be from your reality, will keep you saying, “It is truly delightful and wonderful to raise a houseful of boys!