Many conversations with Mike in our current season of life are like ground beef: practical and necessary, but not the most exciting. Do you want to bathe the kids or do the dishes? Can you pick up milk on the way home? What’s this week looking like?
These kinds of conversations must be had, but they don’t really get anyone going. Don’t get me wrong – I love ground beef. Its low cost and flexibility make it a staple in my kitchen.
But after a while, I long for something different. I want more.
The conference was like a fine steak in a ground beef season. The content and speakers were great, but they alone weren’t what made the weekend so wonderful. Neither were the conversations we had as a couple.
It was the combination: truth, time, and the chance to talk about it.
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Have you ever ordered the White Chocolate Brownie on Moxie’s dessert menu?
Picture an immense, warm white chocolate brownie hidden beneath two generous scoops of creamy vanilla ice cream, covered by swirls of whipped cream and trails of chocolate sauce. It’s as decadent as it sounds.
When you’re enjoying this dessert with friends, it’s fantastic. Multiple spoons divide and conquer, leaving your whetted appetite wanting more.
On your own, it’s a different story. The first few bites are delightful, but as your stomach runs out of room, the melting mound staring back at you becomes overwhelming. Maybe you’re the type to push past reason and down the thing because you’re no quitter. Or maybe you’re on the other end, and you surrender your spoon after only a few bites, and think no point.
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My yard has been home to several columnar aspen trees that unfortunately haven't weathered the storms– some nature and some lack of nurture. I was relieved that we were able to replace them for free, initially thinking, no harm done. But then I noticed my neighbor's same trees, planted around the same time as our first failed attempt. Only her trees were taller, fuller, and stronger because of the years the roots had been getting established. Replacing the trees didn't mean reproducing the growth that only happens over time. I'm thrilled to introduce you to my friend Jessie Taillon to share a bit of everyday truth about what she's learned from trees about what we can do through life's storms.
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"You want to learn drums, right?"
I eyed my youth leader wondering what question might be lurking behind this question. It was a regular old Sunday morning in my early teen years and I was wandering around waiting for the church service to start.
I nodded hesitantly.
"How about today?"
The service was starting in approximately ten minutes. He lead me over to the drum set that had been vacated by whichever more talented and experienced drummer had been scheduled to play that day. He proceeded to show me the basic four counts of a rock beat I was to play on repeat, and assured me I would be fine.
He took his place behind the mic, guitar in hand to begin the service and I wide-eyed with intense focus behind the drums. I assume there were other musicians but I don't really remember. All I remember was trying not to look and sound like it was my first rodeo and somewhat stay in sync with the rest of the instruments.
I knew nothing of technique, fills, counting in, specific rhythmns in different songs or how to end a song. I knew only my newly acquired basic beat that I pounded out with the rigidness of the sticks I held. And, I knew the one who held out the sticks to me had more confidence in me than I had myself.
That Sunday is set apart from a thousand other Sunday's in my memory simply because it was the day I said yes. I was no star, but it was the start.
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The summer after we moved into our first home, we built a fence to enclose our yard. The majority of our fence faced west and our windy city was no stranger to 100km/hr winds which often blew furiously from that direction.
To combat this frequent force, we knew we'd have to build something solid. Nine foot steel posts were secured with concrete into three-foot deep holes. The fence boards were screwed onto three beams that ran horizontally across the top, middle and bottom of the posts and were secured by 3 more horizontal beams on top. It was solid. It probably could've withstood my car ramming into it but I didn't test my hypothesis.
Shortly after we had finished most of the fence, we had one of those terribly windy days. It howled so loudly I feared if I stepped outside it might have carried me to Saskatchewan.
It came with little warning. The day before it was like summer and then... BAM. The biting wind made summer seem like a distant memory.
I was thankful that the majority of the fence was done. I tried to imagine how crazy it would have been to be screwing in fence boards on a day like that. I can imagine what our neighbor would have said if (when she approached us about starting our fence in the summer) we had said, "Actually, we're waiting until the wind is blowing 100km/hr. We won't really need the shelter until then." She probably would've put her house up for sale. No one wants to live next door to crazies.
It would be foolish to wait for a storm to start building.
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