Shedding New Light on Home Sale

The current plan is to move sometime in the coming year. We’ve learned to hold that plan rather lightly with the housing market and economy being what it is and all. The original plan was to move upon getting married. That was 2009 and, well, we all know that wasn’t exactly the best time to sell or buy.

So, in the meantime, we find some inconvenience in stuffing Tupperware into minimal cupboard space, reaching around one another in a single-sink bathroom and putting up with a stinky commute. In the grand scheme of life, these are rather minor challenges. There’s really no reason why two people can’t survive in a 1,300 square foot space. For Pete sake, Brent survived in a hut for two years!

Also in the meantime, we’re working on ways to make our place more sell-able. Everything we read and watch on HGTV (my favorite channel) seems to indicate that updated lighting is key. No doubt about it, ours needed a spruce up from the 90s.

The fan with a gazillion parts!

So the trick was to find something that might have broad appeal without spending a wad of cash that we’d never get back out of the sale.

No more brass fixtures!

I suppose if we were looking for lighting we’d want to live with long-term, we’d have searched for weeks for just the right thing. Hmmm. Let me re-phrase that. I’d have searched for weeks. Brent, being a man and all, is cut more from the “go to store, pick out something and purchase” cloth. Let’s just say I’ve learned to make selections much more quickly. (He even got me to pick out my latest purse in a matter of 10 minutes. Ladies, I know, your eyes are bulging in disbelief. But it’s true, I love the purse, and that’s another story.)

We picked up five new lighting fixtures at Home Depot and got them installed a few weeks ago. The good thing is that we get to enjoy them now until we move…whenever that might be. Next we consider paint samples. And then there’s the staging process which will involve packing up a good share of what we own. Having done this all just two years ago with my previous town home, we’re no strangers to packing and storage units. Hopefully the next time it’ll be a lot longer than two to three years between moves!

We’ve got our eyes peeled for any other great selling/buying ideas. Whaddaya got?

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How God Spoke to Me Through U2

If you think back to some of the deepest transformational seasons in your life, what were the contributing factors? What books, people, music or other influences informed and shaped those pivotal times?

U2 Fanzine-Early 80s

It was my later college years that were extremely pivotal for me. I felt as though I were perched on the edge of a diving board, contemplating the miry waters below, teetering and not quite convinced to take the plunge. While I wasn’t terribly committed in my faith, I did have numerous conversations with God at the time. In the midst of this, I felt drawn to change schools and direction in my junior year. That decision turned out to be a major turning point for me.

One of the backdrops to this time period was my deep love of music. My roommate and I spent hours keeping up on the latest songs and bands, and stories that went with them. Our dorm room had one of the few cable connections, so it became the gathering place when music videos debuted. I followed a number of bands, but U2 unquestionably topped the list.

1981 U2 Fanzine

This group from Northern Ireland seemed to provide a safe place to express and embrace my wobbly spiritual life. We’re talking concerts, posters and joining the U2 fan club in 1981. For a small fee, I got occasional mailings that were likely plunked out on a manual typewriter and cut and pasted into a rough newsletter with the latest concert schedule, news about the band, photocopied pictures and some song lyrics.

The lyrics from “40” became a sort of anthem for what I later recognized to be God’s most profound work in my life. Back then, I was so unfamiliar with the Bible that I didn’t actually realize “40” referred to Psalm 40 and was essentially taken right from this passage of Scripture!

U2 Fanzine

I waited patiently for the Lord
He inclined and heard my cry
He brought me up out of the pit
Out of the miry clay … I will sing a new song

I don’t know if my waiting was quite as “patient” as the Psalmist’s, but I did experience the unmistakable inclination of God hearing my cry and lifting me up. You’ll either highly relate, find it a sacrilege or think I’m goofy, but singing “40” a cappella with thousands of other concert-goers as we exited into the streets was nothing short of a spiritual experience for me. As unlikely a stage for spiritual transformation as a rock concert might be, God seems ready to use just about anything to speak to us.

I imagine some of my current theological and political views might clash a tiny bit with Bono, but I continue to admire his passion and heart and I’m thankful that God even used a rock band to draw me closer to him. An old Star Tribune clipping I’ve held on to since their ’85 tour described U2 as “a band that radiates faith.” Can’t think of a much greater honor to hold than that.

What have been the unlikely influencers in your life?

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Godliness, Contentment and SuperBowl XLV©

Ok. Long post here. But it’s been a week and I’ve been working on this one since the SuperBowl.

This fall and winter, the Lord has been providing instruction on contentment. Are you familiar with this verse from 1 Timothy 6?

⁶ “But godliness with contentment is great gain. ⁷ For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. ⁸ But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. ⁹ Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. ¹⁰ For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”

God’s instruction began in August when co-workers invited me to participate in the annual football pool. This annual football pool is where you throw-away….I mean throw in $20 for the season and then each week for 17 weeks, you have to pick a winner for each game and rank your picks, putting 1 point on the team you’re least sure about and the highest point value on the team you’re most confident will win. You score the point value you place on the team if that team wins the game.

Anyway, the person with the most points for the week earns some money back from the total pool and the person with the most points overall at the end of the season wins a bunch of money. I’ve played this game in the past, never placing in the top 3 for the season. Well, starting in week 2 of the season back in September, I took an early lead. At week 7 I was still in the lead, up by 2o points and I started to think I could win this thing. However, the excitement about maintaining my lead gave way to pressure and it started giving me headaches. Each week while Lisa and I were out enjoying biking and the fall weather, I was keen on logging onto my phone and getting caught up on the scores. It became a distraction. It took away from the real enjoyment of spending time with Lisa and enjoying my favorite season of the year in Minnesota. I became obsessed with the outcome of every game and every weekly point total. And each week that I maintained my lead over the top 5 people in the pool I would breathe a slight sigh of relief only to begin sweating how to make picks for the next week. And the cycle would begin again.

Lisa asked me if the stress and rise in my already high blood pressure was worth it. I said, “No hon, it’s not. I love football and I’ll always root for the Vikings, but this isn’t as fun as I thought it would be.” She gently asked if I would consider not doing this again. She was right to ask me. But even more than that, I had to admit that the prospect of winning the money was a temptation. “Think about what we could do with that money if I won!” I said. Lisa just looked back at me and said, “Yeah, but is it worth what you’re going through now? I think it’s shortening your life and you don’t even know it.”

I paused on that. True enough, my heart raced on close games and I was experiencing migraine headaches. It seems I had pierced myself with many griefs over the prospect of more money. And we didn’t need the money. In August I joined the pool figuring $20 ÷ 17 weeks = $1.18 per week wagered and the prospect of winning $10 would make all the games more interesting and exciting. But it wasn’t interesting nor exciting, it was nerve-wracking.

I wondered, as I prayed to God, “what could be done about this?” I apologized to Lisa and to God and wondered what good could come from this experience? I asked God to help me keep my mind and heart open to hearing from him. Scripture is a good place to hear his voice and the reminder of this verse from 1 Timothy 6 had my attention.

The answer to my question came from an unusual place. Let me explain. Lisa and I have been reading a book by June Volk, The God Who Answers by Fire – A Jewish Saga that we purchased from the author on Yom Kippur last fall. Keep in mind that Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, was on September 18th – which was week 2 of the NFL regular season, and that was the weekend I took the lead in the football pool and from there led the entire season.

[As an aside, I wrote about our bike trip that weekend in an earlier post. We planned that adventure with some Jewish friends as a way to celebrate together and enjoy a great meal after the fast. It was because we’d worshipped on Shabbat which freed up our Sunday afternoon with our friends so we could spend time together and learn about Yom Kippur. I didn’t realize that God was going to take me on a learning adventure that would last for 17 weeks.]

Now, returning back to June’s book; we met June when we attended Shabbat service at the Seed of Abraham which is one of the Messianic Jewish congregations in the Twin Cities. Rabbi Rothman had arranged a special Shabbat with June in attendance. (For more on June and her book, check out this YouTube.) June has a chapter in her book where God helps June find contentment with God’s provision. One of the verses in the chapter is Luke 16:10a, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much,…”

Lisa and I have been reading chapters from June’s book as our daily devotional and when Lisa read this verse out loud it stuck with me. Now I want to say that the following conversation with the Lord took place in my mind. I didn’t hear a literal voice. Rather it happened as a sense, as urgings, and gentle prompts. I have been working to practice paying attention to this and seek confirmation as I believe a conversational intimacy with God is entirely possible and quite normal. We can talk about that in a separate post.

As I considered June’s story and the verse, I thought about Luke 16 and felt kind of bad because betting the $20 on the football season didn’t seem like a representation of responsibility with a little of the provision that God has given me and Lisa. Especially considering we’d made the decision just a week before to learning about Yom Kippur.

Over the course of time the senses, the urgings and prompting with the Lord went something like this:

[Me thinking about the verse in Luke 16] “Trust? Didn’t I just prove the opposite about myself?” I wondered . “It seems I can’t be trusted with $20.”

God’s prompting resulted in, “It’s not for you.”

[Me: thinking about that revelation] “The football pool money?”

[God’s prompting me again] “Right.”

“Ok. Who’s it for?”, I asked.

[God] “You’ll know”, was the sensation I had.

“What will Lisa think of this?” [Me wondering if Lisa is going to think I’m crackers.]

So about week 14 into the NFL season, the picks were getting tough, and I was still in the lead. Unbelievable. I had actually picked poorly a couple weeks in a row and the lead could’ve changed, but it didn’t. I was ahead by 10 points. That is the outcome of just one game with the wrong points on it; and there were 3 weeks to go. But by this time I had committed to giving the winnings away. So the pressure wasn’t as intense. But I still felt a slight amount of pressure. So I prayed and asked God, “Why do I still feel some anxiety about this?”

I sensed him saying, “Do you trust me?”

[Me] “Oh oh. Is this a trust issue too? Yes God I do.”

[God’s Spirit prompting me] “Put some skin in the game.”

That was the thought. Pony-up. The Day of Atonement was here. Repentance was demonstrating that not only did I not need to win the bet, but that I could go to Lisa and and tell her that I needed to put some of our own money down as a way of acknowledging God’s provision for all that he has provided for us.

So I agreed to put in 10x the amount of the single week that I’d won along the way.

NFL Week 15 arrived: I went up by 20 points!

NFL Week 16: maintained lead by 21 points!

Final NFL Week 17: I won the season by 14 points. God had come through because honestly, I don’t know a thing about betting on sports – which is probably a very good thing. From one week to another, I have no idea what’s going on around the league. I like football, but I don’t study teams or play Fantasy Football or scour injury reports.

Lisa and I prayed together before bed at the end of the season. I said I’m thinking I know what to do with the football pool money, but I need confirmation that it’s the right choice. I asked her to pray about it too and to tell me if anybody came to mind. She did. Later, I told her who I thought the Lord wanted to bless and she looked at me and and smiled. God had promised that I’d know. And now I did.

The beauty in the whole thing was not only how I learned to be faithful with a little, and that I was also to be trusted with much. But the real beauty was that Lisa and I got to be the broken vessels by which he blessed someone else. The recipients of the blessing were surprised and delighted. They thanked us and that’s okay. But I want all our readers to know that God was the one who orchestrated the entire thing. He provided the blessings to our friends, he redeemed my thinking and my attitude. He cured my headaches. He proved he is to be trusted. He did all those things and he allowed Lisa and I to experience the delight and surprise of our friends. We just trusted and obeyed. He did the work. We experienced all the benefits.

Does this sound like a miracle to you? Has God ever turned your thinking around? Has he redeemed one of your poor choices and demonstrated his love to you? Tell us your story in the comments. We’d love to hear it!

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Celebrating with God, Sinatra and Bono

Man and Wife!

Our anniversary celebration began with jazz on the way to Jax Café. How fitting that the radio station was airing a special on Frank Sinatra, but even more fun was the fact that just as we were to get out of the car, we recognized the first few notes of  “The Best is Yet to Come.” You see, this was the recessional that led us back down the aisle moments after being pronounced man and wife two years ago. We sang along and thought, “How clever of God to start the evening off with our song!” It felt like he was joining us for the celebration.

Jax has become our special spot since getting married there. We love the nostalgia of the place, the memories it holds and we love the food. I could do a review of Jax, but that somehow seems rather redundant. This northeast Minneapolis piece of history has been around for over 75 years – with good reason. The atmosphere is like stepping back into the 40s. The décor, the music and the attentiveness of the staff all speak of another era. In a nutshell, you’re likely to hear Dean Martin, Sinatra or Bennett as you walk in the door, you’ll be greeted like you’re a regular, and then you may want to order the best steak in town.

Just to whet your appetite: Brent and I enjoyed the calamari appetizer, he had the prime rib, I had rib eye and we shared the Bailey’s banana cake. Absolutely marvelous is all I can say, but then again we’ve never been disappointed in anything at Jax. Every detail of our wedding had been handled above expectation and every event we’ve celebrated there since has been no different.

Photographer? I think not.

Oh … perhaps you’re wondering how Bono fits into the evening? Well he probably doesn’t, or does he? As we were leaving Jax, I shot a photo of Brent in the entryway. He looked so cute and appropriately stylish in his fedora. Just then someone who looked amazingly like Bono reached out, graciously offering to take our photo. It actually startled me and I told him so. He said people often mistake him for the rock star. He claimed he was a photographer, not Bono, but if you take a look at the photo he shot you’ll highly question that. Wouldn’t it be just like Bono to offer to take our photo? Hmmmmm….

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Our other wedding tunes:
• All I Need is the Girl, Frank Sinatra
• Holy Spirit Come, Rita Springer
• You & I, Michael Bublé
• A Page is Turned, Bebo Norman

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