Instant Replay

I think you can discover a lot about the temperature of a soul based on the books one reads and the music one listens too. I know we've talked a lot about how books have influenced my life, but music doesn't just influence my life, it taps the rudder of my life's direction. Music heals, rejuvenates, ministers to, humbles, excites, soothes, restores, expresses, when spoken words seem to fail. At the conference, we spent an entire session just singing.... singing. It was like a balm. I think heaven will be more singing than sermonizing.

All this to say, I've got these songs on instant replay on my phone. Over and over again they fill the orchestra of my day. They are speaking to my heart during a time when musical notes are easier to understand than bullet points of theology.

All my worship leader peeps, get these songs on the repertoire. Everyone else go buy them on Itunes.
Here are the top 3.

Behold Your God, Sovereign Grace
Behold our God seated on His throne
Come, let us adore Him
Behold our King, nothing can compare
Come, let us adore Him

All I Have Is Christ, Sovereign Grace
And if you had not loved me first, 
I would refuse you still
Now, all I know is grace
Oh Father, use this ransomed life in any way you choose

Oceans, Hillsong
Your grace abounds in deepest waters
Your Sovereign hand will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You've never failed, and you won't start now

Music has carried me this last year. In the presence of my great Comforter, I bring lyrics to the throne room and just point at them, while I lay prostrate on the ground. There is a reason that great music is written during great suffering.

I hope you hear them, really hear them!
~Sara

You Are Not Alone

Well, hello there!!

Glad to be back here in the writing world.

Over the weekend Mark and I attended our favorite-EST conference, put on by CCEF. This conference is primarily for professional counselors and people in full time ministry. Mark and I are neither, (however we like to debunk the whole "full time ministry idea" because we feel like EVERYONE is called to full time ministry, no matter your vocation) Anyway, we love it!! For so many different reasons. The words, the worship, the work shops, etc...etc.. It's AMAZING. We think everyone should attend.

When Jesus took Peter and James to the mountain top and transfigured Himself before them in this truly  unreal experience; Peter begged of Jesus to just permanently pitch some tents and remain there forever. I love Peter's humanness here, because that's kind of what I was telling God about our experience in Frisco, Texas. "Please Lord, why can't Mark and I just stay here with our dearest friends, living this totally unrealistic life, keeping this ridiculous schedule, and riding this wave of highness?! " Pretty sure God laughed.

I could spend endless blogs telling you what we learned at this last conference, but I understand that is like trying to explain the thrill of a roller coaster ride to someone who has never ridden a roller coaster. NOT. POSSIBLE. So, I'll spare you :)

So, with as few words, and with as many meaty words as possible, (counselors like meaty words like; "pregnant experience", "cultivating hope of redemption", and "the arousal of the Holy Spirit!" I LOVE COUNSELORS) I will recap our "take away" moments.

Here are a couple books you should immediately stop and go order off of Amazon ASAP..

1.Give Them Grace, Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus by Elyse Fitzpatrick
Small sound bite~ Making our kids "good" is merely an extension of the Old Testament Law- a set of standards that is not only unable to save our children, but also powerless to change them. No, rules are not the answer. What they need is GRACE!

2.Extravagant Grace, God's Glory Displayed In Our Weakness by Barbara R. Duguid.
Small sound bite~ What if growing in grace is more about humility, dependence, and exalting Christ than it is about defeating sin?

Elyse Fitspatrick, lead the second general session and rocked our faces off by walking us through the incarnation of Christ. The most profound thing I digested this weekend was this: by the age of twelve, Jesus Christ knew who He was, what His calling was, exactly why He was here on earth, what was coming, and the last chapter of the book. Yet, YET, He spent the next EIGHTEEN years doing the mundane things in life, so that WE WOULD NOT BE ALONE in the mundane. For eighteen years, He measured wood, sawed pieces of wood, and swept up saw dust off the floor... So that we would not be alone! He perfectly loved His neighbors, showed patience and unfailing love in His everyday life, in His everyday relationships, so that we would not be alone. He provided food for His family's table, and ensured His mother had a roof over her head, so that we would not be alone. He balanced the budget, cleaned dishes, helped with laundry, ran a small business, so that we would not be alone.

I literally could not stop crying after she touched on this subject. It has been ruminating in my heart and I cannot let it go.

What a gentle, compassionate, sensitive, selfless, God we serve. He chose the mundane for 18 years. He picked it out. He lived it out. He absorbed it, SO THAT WE WOULD NOT BE ALONE!!!

I mean.

Can a girl get an AMEN??!!!

And literally, that was one small sound bite, from a weekend of drinking out of a fire hose.

It is good to be changed. It is good to be challenged. It is good to walk on the high places of the mountain top experiences, and really it is good to come back to earth and live it out in the mundane!!

Happy Mundan~ING!
~Sara

It's My Party and I Can Cry If I Want To

Secret.

Grieving people all have a list of days inside of their heads that are deemed as potentially weepy days. Days that we plan for, mentally and emotionally prep for, days we all would rather skip.

Since Mom went to Jesus, those days in my head have included; Christmas, Valentine's Day, her birthday, Mother's Day, the day she was admitted to St. Mary's, etc.. etc.. But no where on my list did I have "days leading up to my birthday". That's the tricky thing about grief, it's unpredictable. Totally. Unpredictable. I started crying on Tuesday about having my first birthday (today) without my mom. It threw me for an unexpected down spiral of sadness...

When I reflect on it, I realize how natural it would have been for me to have forecasted this day as "possibly gloomy with chance of sobbing!"  I mean, it was my MOTHER who birthed me on this day 32 years ago. And it was her that I exchanged a unique set of love and thoughts with everyday, on this day, for 31 straight years. And all of the sudden, today, that exchange did not take place, and it hurt.

The last few days I have felt empty. Off. Sad. Incomplete. Fragment like. Fragile.

And if I have learned anything in the last 10 months, I have learned to roll with it. Don't fight the sadness. Don't sweep over the incompleteness in your heart. Don't bury and use red ink to circle the fragments. And sometimes, it's ok to shatter into a few pieces and cry on your birthday...

In the Odd Life of Timothy Green, there is this fantastic scene when they are sending their son off for the first day of school and the dad says, "Have a great day!" The mom says, "No, no, no that's too much pressure." To which the dad rephrases and yells back, "Have the day your're going to have!"

That was today. Just the day I was going to have.

Thanks for giving birth to me, Mama.
Thanks for pouring yourself into raising me.
Thanks for thinking that my character, life, and future was worth the endless sacrifices you made.

This day one year ago.

Please Find Me

I just spent the last 30 minutes with this clown playing Cut the Rope on my phone (who also apparently takes pictures of himself when I'm not looking)...

We giggled, we squealed, we cuddled. Somewhere in the back of my mind, where the guilt chambers hold me hostage, something said, "You should be working on alphabet flash cards!" Sometimes, every once in a while, I have the ability break free of my guilt hostage and run free. Please do not hear what I am NOT saying; educating our kids is a huge part in their lives, but today, Cut the Rope trumped the Abeka flashcards :)

As he was getting ready to go take a nap, he asked for a drink of milk. While he was drinking his milk he informed me that I was "uninvited" to boys night tonight. Thursday nights all the sisters are at Pioneer Girls, so it's just the 3 of us. AJ refers to it as "Boys Night" even though I, a girl, am still around. To which I replied, "Oh, you cannot un-invite me or I'll eat your ears off and and blow up your nose!" Well, he lost it and started laughing so hard he spit his milk across the entire kitchen and all over me. We were both crawling around on the floor with tea towels mopping up the mess and howling.

It was at that moment I thought, "Oh, dear God, in ten years let us still be doing this exact same thing!"

In ten years, I know he won't be wearing these stinking cute super hero underwear, and he probably will be opposed to me pinching his booty cheeks 24/7. It is possible in ten years, he'll stand taller than me and believe he is faster and stronger than me. But I pray with this fervent yearning in my heart, that I will find him ten years from now. Find his heart, find his soul, find the things that make him laugh so hard he spits milk all over the kitchen. I pray that we (Mark and I), will fight the plague of the upcoming stages and willingly wade through the years of heavy sludge to earnestly seek out our children.

As parents, we often get tangled up and slowed down by the logistical decisions we have to make for our kids like; meals, clothing, schools, health, education, extracurricular activities, spirituality, friends, and everything else that pertains to keeping them going; that we lose them. Or maybe, we never took the time to find them.

When I see young moms at the grocery store with kids crawling all over them, and one child inevitably screaming for the newest candy that the devil-isle-placer-peoples intentionally put on children's eye level, I want to grab her and say, "find them, find them, FIND THEM!" Strip away all the melt downs, all the temper tantrums, all the moments you swear you are going to die in the mundane of toddlerhood-ville, and FIND THEM! You have to dig beyond the external behavior and get to their core. What makes them tick, scream, laugh, light up, resist you, resist others, embrace you, embrace others...really do you know who your children are?!

One of the greatest joys of my entire life has been finding my children. Finding each of them in a unique and intimate way. Each child is not to be discovered with the same techniques, or in the same time frame, or in the same manner, but each of them is begging, "PLEASE FIND ME!"

Here is to finding your children!
~Sara

Just Give Me the Dirt (Day 37)

Well, here we are 8 weeks into school, and I am all, "Sweet baby Jesus, we survived to tell about it!"

I am happy to report that this family is finding their public school groove, and let me tell you, it didn't happen over night. The biggest change? (Besides the sweet bliss I feel when I am staring out the window sipping coffee in silence? :) Most definitely mastering the 3-8 pm hours. I think I've told some of you this, when Anderson and I go and get the girls from school, the walk home feels like I am running a triage unit, attending to the child who is bleeding out the most. It's like learning to speed read, I am listening for key statements and phrases to cue me in on the pulse of their days,

"Mom, I bombed my spelling test!"
ME: Ok baby, we will work harder this week. Mama always struggled with spelling too, I still do :)

"Mom, the lunch you sent was delicious!"
ME: Happy Dance!

"Mom, the lunch you sent was disgusting!"
ME: Carrots are not disgusting...

"Mom, all the kids at school say I have the softest skin!"
ME: Tell 'em it's the coconut oil.

"Mom, today at school the boys chased the girls at recess!"
ME: Boys have been chasing girls at recess since Adam and Eve. Run faster.

"Mom, what's for dinner?"
ME: A big bowl of boogers.
MMMMMOOOOOOMMMMMM!!
ME: Just kidding :)

Typically, I can quickly find out, what, when, and how about their day. The beauty of chatty girls. Sometimes I can detect a discouraged spirit, a tired spirit, an overwhelmed spirit, an excited spirit, a proud (the good kind) of spirit, within seconds of seeing them.

But I have to tell you, one moment that still gets me a little choked up is when I am sending them off for the day. More often than not, I try and address each of them individually and send them off with a promise and a challenge.

"Katie, I LOVE YOU! You are going to rock that math test! Be sensitive to hurting kids today."

"Julia, how do you spell whiskers? I LOVE YOU! Look for someone who needs extra love today."

"Lucy, did you remember your lunch? Be a BIG helper today! Be brave, no tears! I LOVE YOU!

"Did I mention that I LOVE YOU?!!!"

~Mama

A Val Hall Kind of Weekend

If you happened to be under a rock last weekend, you would have missed the millions of pictures entitled #hallfamilyvacation clogging up FB.

In case you missed it....

We took a #hallfamilyvacation. In my almost 32 years of life, this was our second family vacation. Our first was to Colorado in 1991. Don't get me wrong, we have taken LOTS of family get-a-ways to the lake of the Ozarks to stay in my Uncle's cabin. Every year Mom and Dad would take tons of youth to Branson for Young Christians Weekend. Currently, we take advantage of every holiday and turn it into some type of family gathering, even if it's just to celebrate the first day of spring.  Where there is a will there is a party. :)

For as long as I can remember, the biggest joy of vacations, get-a-ways, or holidays is the simple high we all get just being together. Deep down, we love being together. Really, it doesn't matter where or when. This is a HUGE compliment to my parents and the hard work they poured out in raising us to enjoy one another. Raising siblings who genuinely love each other comes from a place of intentional parenting. From my own experience of being a sibling and now raising siblings, you don't just naturally love the people you dwell with day after day after day. It's a lot of work. I know mom and dad broke up endless squabbles and fist fights. They put a stop to many arguments, and made rotation lists regarding who got shot gun to and from school. But at the end of the day, it was 100% unacceptable to be ugly, unkind, and unloving to one another. Some of the harshest discipline I received as a little girl was the direct consequence of breaking this cardinal Hall rule.

Many years later there is a deep, deep, loyalty and love we feel toward one another. We will fight to the death for each other, (unless you're really being dumb, then we sidestep and let someone kick the snot out of you :)

Last weekend was the first time we had all been back together since our heavy November. For weeks leading up to our #hallfamilyvacation we texted like giddy school children. Again, the fact that we were pumped to see each other is a stand alone victory :)!

Dad picked Branson for the setting because we have endless memories there as a family, and really because Mama loved Branson.

It was such a sweet weekend! It went by far to fast and no one wanted to leave. We go-carted, we shopped, we conquered Silver Dollar City and rode rides until we were sick, we ate deliciousness, and we did what we always do best; we were together.

The weekend was not without some sucker punches. While the six grands hopped onto the tram, with smiles as big as Christmas on their faces, I caught myself choking up and thinking, "She would have loved this." While the train conductor teased the kids while we waited for the train to return to the station, I caught my breath, "She would have thought this was just perfect!" And while we splashed and hollered in the pool and hot tub, I could see her sitting among us soaking up every second of this precious moment!

Mom was a good soaker-upper. She didn't let moments pass by without saying, "Clint, where's the camera, take a picture of this!" She wanted to hold onto 'moments' as often as she could. Not only was she a great soaker-upper, she was an excellent architect in creating memories.

That's why we went to Branson, because as hard as it was to sense the magnified hole of her absence, we went because it's time to create more memories. We went because that's exactly what she would have us doing; soaking up each other. Mom is apart of every memory we make together, even if she can't be with us. She gave us an eternal gift; the gift of really loving each other.

We missed you last weekend Mama.
We miss you every day Mama.

It was definitely a Val Hall, kind of weekend,
~Sara

Send the Crowd Away!

I often find myself giggling at the twelve disciples, or the "twelve dudes who did" as the Littlejohns refer to them.

Today, I was rereading the story of the when Jesus fed the five thousand (15,000 when you count women and children). Jesus had spent the entire day surrounded by thousands of people. Mark 9 verse 11, tells us that Jesus welcomed them, healed them, cured them, and taught them. As the sun begins to set and the disciples stomachs begin to growl, I imagine they panic a little in regards to how in the heck they are going to get some good grub with all these people in their way. Maybe they were done with the whole "you are healed" stuff, and were ready to put the day in the books.

This is the verse that tripped me up, "Now the day was ending, and the twelve came and said to Him, 'Send the crowd away'.... "

Hi.Lar.I.Ous.

Or maybe not.

I see myself in this verse. I can relate to these dudes. When I am faced with an onslaught of undone, broken, helpless, situations; where needs and wants are far beyond my capabilities, sometimes, a lot of times, I try and persuade Jesus, "let's just send that crowd away! Let's disregard it. Can we just press the delete button and move on? The faith, energy, hurting, and sacrifice this particular situation might require of me is far too overwhelming."

Like the disciples, "Uh, Jesus we do not have the means to feed these people, let's send them to the local towns and villages to see if they can scrape up some food for 15,000 (because Chickfila's were everywhere in Bethsaida in 30 A.D. :)...

Here are the disciples standing in the presence of God Almighty, who created the world by pressing His lips together to form words, and the disciples are a mess because they are hungry and seem to be lacking in some problem solving skills. Again, I get the disciples issues. When I am hungry the problem solving part of my brain shuts down. KA-PUT! And I am not very "others" focused, (i.e. CRANKPOT!)

But this is what I love about my Jesus, His response, "Have them sit down to eat in groups of about fifty each!" Oh my stars, be still my administrative beating heart. The detail, the control, the calmness in His tone.
For all we know, next Jesus lead them in a camp song as they waited for the miracle. Don't ever doubt that our God is a God of details. He is in them, He uses them, He asks us sometimes to be about them.

"Have them sit down to EAT!" Before He even touches the scraps He is offered, there is HOPE! He announces what is about to happen to the disciples. And there is not an ounce of doubt in the King's mind; He is going to feed these people.

Can you see the confusion on the disciples faces? "Small problem here JC, we are in the middle of no where and all we have are two fish and five loaves of bread." But they did what faithful followers do; they obeyed, they asked the people to sit even though it made zero sense in their minds. They obeyed, despite the lack of understanding and knowing what was going to happen next. They obeyed, regardless of the fact they saw no logical solution before them; they obeyed.

Right when the disciples wanted to put the day behind them, right when they were begging Jesus to, "send the crowds away" God provided for one of the most basic needs humans have; food. Not only did He provide with such abundance, verse 17 tells us, "they were satisfied!" Ah, such sweet nectar to the hungry belly. I am fully convinced He satisfied not only their physical need of hunger that day, He satisfied their souls. He satisfied their doubts. He satisfied wavering, quivering, spirits. He satisfied. And you know what? He still SATISFIES.

Satisfied with Jesus, I am satisfied with Him! (*thank you Ruth Ward*)

~Sara