35th Anniversary

So, now we are on year 36.  There’s a certain comfort in staying married that feels good.  Our wedding was on Dave’s parents’ 37th anniversary.  Their 35th had included a huge party at the farm, complete with roasted pig, of course.  I missed that, since Dave and I met in February of their 37th year and got married in August of the same, but I have seen the photos and heard the stories and managed to get in on a few other farm events.  We even had a pig roasted for Luke and Ani’s wedding feast.

I went to Colorado and saw the mountains and rode the horses with Dave for our 35th celebration.  (Actually, I rode horses once with Dave and once with others….strangers…..and I think Dave owes me for that one!  He probably doesn’t, though.)  We took a long walk up a mountain and sat in the steambath and and planned and considered and weighed options.  After three days, we settled in on plan.  Now, Dave is free to enjoy the mountains and the horses without distraction from opportunities.

Recently, a new friend quizzed me a bit about Dave.  Out here in PA, no one knows Dave and just have to take my word that I have a husband.  It was nice to have someone ask questions about my husband and our relationship.  Sitting on the deck with roasted chicken and a glass of wine, it was good to consider how I would describe our marriage to someone who told me she “doesn’t know much about evangelical Christianity.” 

Dave and I are comfortable with one another.  We have deep respect and trust for one another.  We are truly connected and going forward together to a future that is full of hope…and reality.  I like having someone know me so well that when I describe something that happens to me, Dave puts it into a perspective that knows what else I have experienced.  Though we are able to be apart right now, we miss each other.  Though no one should describe our relationship as romantic, we love each other.  Though we have weathered much challenge and disappointment in the past 35 years, we are committed to one another and our marriage and are happy to be together.

Sticking together is the point.  My mother-in-law, Aletha, used to write us letters and describe evenings when she and Paul would sit by the fire with their cat, Big Sur, in their laps.  No one in the family really believed her, since no one had ever seen her sit still for more than 5 minutes.  I don’t ever remember seeing her and Paul being affectionate with one another.  But, I understand that with kids out of the house, with farm responsibilties lessened, and with many years of sticking together, they had a familiarity that afforded some nice nights in front of the fire.

I’m glad to have gone to Colorado, even though it was expensive and I don’t really get that Rocky Mountain high from the mountains like my husband does.  I’m glad to have been a good sport and to have worked hard and gotten dusty participating in my husband’s cowboy job.  I’m glad we have stuck together and have another who knows all the experiences of the past 35 years so that we can go together strong into the 36th.

Postscript:  I don’t have photos of the trip.  Just like on our backpacking honeymoon to the mountains, Dave takes pictures of mountains, not people. 

Going to the Mountains

I have the flight reservation.  I didn’t get the “name your own price” on the rental car (yet), but I’m working on it.  I am lining up resources for Joel while I’m gone.  I have rearranged commitments in my job.  I’m going to Colorado for a long weekend.  Amazing…not that I am going to stay in a cabin with no plumbing or electricity very near the site of our honeymoon backpacking trip, but amazing that 35 years has gone by and now is as good, maybe better, than it has ever been.

I was not sure I was going to go to Colorado.  It is a long trip.  Four hours on a plane and then at least two hours in a rental car.  I mentioned the conveniences that will be missing.  If I was concerned about the expense before, now that I planned it only two weeks in advance, the cost is even more.  I am in a relatively new position and taking a long weekend away could seem frivolous.  And, most important, while Joel is more than willing to have me go, I have to be concerned about leaving him alone in a new place.  But, bottom line, this is a way to express to my husband of many years that he is still the most important human relationship I have. 

I feel like I have less time in Pennsylvania than I had in Illinois.  I keep the same basic schedule, but it feels like less.  I think I feel like I have less time because I have to do more stuff.  There is no shared burden here….I pay the bills, I hang the pictures, I install the blinds and choose the drapes, I take the garbage out, I do the laundry, I fill the car up, I manage the bank accounts, I do the paperwork for Joel’s benefits, I replace the lightbulbs, in the house and for the headlight of my car, I shop for groceries and prepare meals….There are a lot of menial tasks that I am used to sharing and now, for them to get done, I do them.  I have been aware, in the past, of Dave’s love language of “acts of service.”  He does a lot when he is around.  I will appreciate them more when he returns.  It’s nice to miss my husband in terms of ways he shows love in a daily, practical way. 

Sharing life is what marriage is all about.  Whether it is sharing the work load or sharing experiences, sharing responsibility or sharing our bed, giving and receiving is the crux.  Dave is going to be here in October to share my new life.  He will learn to find his way to lower Bucks on Swamp Road, just like I have.  He will meet the people I have met.  He will come to the shore and try water ice and ride the train to Shea and see the Cubs play at Citizens Bank Park and take Joel to eat at the Other Side and work out at the same YMCA I do. 

I should go and share Dave’s beautiful mountain morning sunrises and horse rides into the Sangres.  I look forward to experiencing West Cliffe’s western flavor and hearing the story one more time of the cowboy on horseback who road into town looking for a shot of whiskey.  I want to share the sadness of the exact spot of the lightening storm and I want to meet the people who wrangle horses and guide packing trips with him.  It is important that Dave get to share his mountains and his cowboy life with me.  I’m going to the mountains next week.

Ponderings

If it is really true that 90% of our success is mindset. 

And, if it is really true that we are wired to have personality and behavioral tendencies from conception.

And, if it is really true that God is in control and loves us and gives us exactly the experiences and circumstances that He knows are best for us to be able to bring Him glory with our lives.

Then, there is an amazing internal and eternal work going on in the lives of Dave and Debbie Hensleigh.

I reminds me of a time back in 1977, when we had just confirmed that Luke was in utero and I was understanding spiritual growth in a new and transforming way.  I am very aware of a work of the Spirit in the deepest recesses of my heart.  I look the same on the outside, but on the inside, I am different. 

I think differently.  I know myself in a more defined and clear way.  I see freshly that God has made me and claimed me and designed me for His own specific reasons.  On purpose for a purpose.  Just as I have believed and known up to this point–now I am growing more convinced daily.

From my distant and removed perspective, I see the same happening with Dave.  

Tonight, after interactions at work, watching Lifechurch’s first movie message, and watching my very first Beth Moore Bible study, several things are crystal clear to me.  Mostly, that God is not done with us.  This time is good for us to see and consider and clarify.  He is in control.  He has the plan.  We want no other.

Pondering is good for the soul.  These are good days of pondering.  Tonight, this is what has floated to the surface of my pondering….”If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.”

Even though I miss my husband

Three day weekends are awesome!  Yesterday was like a Saturday, tomorrow will be Sunday, so today, the day after July 4th and an “extra” day, is like an unexpected gift.  Even though I miss Dave and wish he were here to go with Joel and me to a Phillies/Mets game tonight, it is a good day.

This morning, since I have these extra hours that are wonderful and quiet, I have been online.  I usually just use the internet for basic, quick information.  I’m good with googling words (like frass) that are new to me (carpenter ants at my office).  I have learned to prefer Googlemaps over Mapquest for directions (even in Bucks county).  Finding my way to wordpress and my husband’s blogs and looking up the value of the a house Isaac is looking at in Phoenix on zillow (not really a reliable source of actual value, by the way) are second nature.  This morning with extra time, I have learned that I was probably right last night at a new friends’ garden in my diagnosis of deer eating the tops off their tomato plants (and if the whole family will go out and pee in the yard, it is a good, organic way to ward off the culprits).  

But, with extra time today, I found a friend’s blog I didn’t know existed.  That led me to a podcast by Patrick Lencioni on Catalyst, which I will find more about later.  I’m reading “Death by Meeting”  right now, so was completely interested in the very organic and personal interview.  Lencioni has a new book out and I will read it.  But his sidebar discussion on the Law of Thirds  was succinct and practical….in fact, will be very practical for me to use this next week.  Lencioni’s unbiased perspective on the scariness of the lack of leadership in all (Hillary was included) of the Presidential candidates was chilling.   I have no idea at this point of how to link that podcast with this post (the next time I have surprise extra time, maybe that will be my learning of the day), but you can probably find it.  Try googling “Catalyst” and search for Lencioni?  Let me know if that works!  (thanks, bill for the convenient link at your site.)

So, the thoughts from that podcast and the reading I am doing and the introspection resulting from my post last Sunday have me in a very sound place, mentally, this morning.  I have a purpose, I have goals, I have gifts and skills and a unique ability that I am understanding and defining.  I am in an environment that I am beginning to trust enough to shed insecurities that in the past have held me back from contributing all that I have to offer.  This week has brought offers of relationship, inquiries for service, ideas for contribution to others’ success, opportunities to invest in the eternal nature of people around me.  Mindset is pretty much everything.  Circumstances are thin.  Time passes.  Things change. 

A solid base for world view and reason to live is all I need to make a huge difference right where I am….even though I miss my husband.

Face-to-Face

I have an address and a driver’s license in Pennsylvania, now.  Our house in Illinois is sold.  All of the boxes that I am going to unpack pre-remodel are done.  I’ve found a church, the grocery store I prefer, the Y for early a.m. workouts.  I really lack for nothing at this point.  Even Dave’s phone situation is better than we thought and we can talk almost daily (almost as regularly as Zac and Anne when he was in Iraq). 

What I miss is face-to-face conversation.  I talk to people all day long in my job.  Joel is here when I am at home.  I can talk to Dave, as well as our kids and Bunny and Tamara and Sharon and Sara and others on my phone.  But I have had almost no “let-me-get-to-know-you” conversations here.  I can count them….dinner with one of the men I work for and his wife right after I got here, a meeting with the pastor in his office, coffee with a woman on staff at the church who was responding to my offer to volunteer, one of my coaching appointments where the client (destined to become a friend, I think) asked me direct and interested questions about myself, a good connection with someone at a dinner party.  All this, in two months.

I am a willing and able participant in relationships.  I bring much to the table.  I am interested in learning and growing from hearing others’ journey experiences.  I love to have others learn and grow from knowing me.  I am a generous and kind (and, granted, opinionated) woman with much to offer.  Yet, no one seems to be interested in me as a new potential relationship.  This seems very strange to me. 

Dave and I have always been others-oriented.  Maybe that has, occasionally, held us back in our own personal lives and ambitions, but generously giving other people time and money and a place to be when they need it is a life style we have embraced.  We were trained in hospitality early in our marriage (I could give you lists of books and Bible studies and read to you from years of journals).  Now, I am shocked to find that I feel alone in my quest to know and add value to other people’s lives. 

I have not labeled myself as a <recovering> pastor’s wife here.  I do wonder if I did how things would change?  For some, one way- for others, another maybe.  I’m not interested in finding out.  I’m not hiding it and certainly not ashamed of it.  I told the one person who asked about my husband past “where is he?”  I am just simply interested in being a value to others because they find me to be engaging and encouraging, interested and interesting.  

Patience, I suppose.  People are busy.  People have friends and family already.  But we have been made, created, to be relational.  Not dependent, but interdependent, offering and receiving from one another.  Face-to-face with a bit of time invested.  As I wait for the connections here, I’ll stay thankful for the ease of cell phones and I will keep reading–right now, Steve Brown, John Maxwell, Ken Blanchard, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Seth Godin, Elizabeth Eliot, a good novel now and then–to be sure I will be interesting and have something to contribute when the time comes.

Narnia, change, “stuff”, and home

Now, life has really begun in PA.  Joel is here with me, we are learning to call our condo “home,” I have not gotten lost once in the past week, and I am still on the same tank of gas that I bought 8 days ago (which means I have found my way without lots of u-turns and back tracks).

Joel’s adjustment to our move is a concern, so on Tuesday, I interrupted my manic approach to unpacking the houseful of stuff the movers brought on Sunday to take him to see the new Narnia movie, “Prince Caspian.”  Even Joel remembers me reading the Narnia books “a lot.”  In fact, what Joel wouldn’t remember is that the very first time I read those books aloud, it was to Dave.  The winter we worked at Keystone Ski Resort, I read the entire series to him as we drove from Lubbock to Austin (Christmas with my family), from Austin to Kansas (Christmas with his family), Kansas to Lubbock (pack up and move), then, Lubbock to Keystone (west of Denver).  I wonder what we did with all our stuff then?  Maybe I remember that we left it in the spare room at the farm?  We certainly didn’t have as much accumulated at that time as we do now! 

My five weeks of solitude and a relatively minimalistic approach to life did not prepare me well for the arrival of our belongings.  The movers just kept bringing and kept bringing.  The good news is that we have gotten rid of a lot.  The bad news is that we are still way over the “necessary” amount.  There are lots of boxes stacked in the dining room here that there is no place for until we remodel the kitchen.  I could live without it all.  There are boxes under our bed (you can buy bed lifters so you can store things you don’t need under it) that I wonder if we need.  I can’t for the life of me figure out how to set up the DVD player and speakers (maybe there is a young man at church who I can hire to do that for me?), but we really don’t need that at all, either.  It is really amazing what we don’t need that we cart around.

At the very first of Prince Caspian movie, Peter expresses the difficulty he has had adjusting back to life as a boy in England after being the High King (the Magnificent) and an adult in Narnia.  Later, after they have arrived back in Narnia, Susan tells Lucy that she isn’t all that thrilled to be there because she was just getting used to being a girl in England again.  Change is not hard.  It’s the adjustment to a new reality that is hard.  Learning to be joyful with an eternal perspective, no matter what the conditions of our surroundings, is a spiritual exercise.  I think I prefer the minimalist approach.  But, there are things in boxes here that will mean something to one of our kids one day.  Our lives are so connected through memories and shared experiences.  Those are pieces of the puzzle of God at work….not to be discarded too lightly, I think.

I have not found this change or the adjustment difficult.  Dave packed up our house on Woodland Glen after I moved to PA.  I just packed up my immediate needs and went away–sort of like a business trip.  I didn’t walk out of an empty house or deal with leaving Sheena behind or drive out on highway 74 one last time.  When Dave is finally here, I think we will share different experiences of leaving and adjusting to a new home.  When he was here to paint and oversee carpet, he said it felt like coming home…..he will be glad to get here in the fall.  I will be glad to have him here.

Joel, after walking to the Water Ice place last night (mango is his current favorite flavor) and into Doylestown’s quaint and friendly downtown, told me as we neared our condo that he thinks he can almost call our condo “home.”  He is going to be okay.  He is fully experiencing where he is and looking forward.

This Wife’s Prayer

Less than five months after Dave’s decision to leave his position at Grace, Dave is settling into his cowboy job in Colorado and I have a whole ton of coaching clients in Pennsylvania.   Joel and I will move into our PA condo next week and my life of solitude comes to a close.  We have a pending contract on our house in Illinois so those chapters of our life are coming to an end.  I am making a list of things to do together when Dave comes to PA in the fall.  Washington’s Crossing, the Jersey shore, Pearl Buck’s house, the train into Philly, the bus to NYC for Wednesday half-price Broadway shows, jazz in local bars, a long hike along the Delaware River, dinner with Bunny’s aunt and uncle, a long weekend in the upper northeast in the fall, and definitely the Cubs vs the Philly’s next year.  Maybe we will become hockey fans and cheer for the Flyer’s. Dave is making a list of things to show me when I make a trip to Bear Basin Ranch to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary.  He assures me there is a horse that I will not mind too much. 

As I sat in my new PCA church home this a.m., listening to a fine message of truth, I missed the creativity my husband brings to a church service.  Dave has a gift that he must not stifle.  He has worked hard to develop that gift into a honed and remarkable skill that has resulted in immeasureable eternal benefit.  He is a thinker and an artist.  He has become a speaker and a presenter.  It is this wife’s prayer that God will place my husband in an environment where his deep convictions and unique abilities will be lived out fully expressed to the glory of God, the edification of the church, and the drawing of many to follow Christ.  This adventure is not ending….no way.  It is only beginning.

Grace and Goose Poop

So, after two weeks of being in Bucks County all alone, I am still thriving.  Though I do admit to a bit of loneliness last Friday and Saturday.  Maybe a bit of Mother’s Day musing, a bit of sadness over having to give up our good dog, Sheena (who is the only dog I have ever really bonded with), and also a number of challenges with giving up and letting go as we finalize severing the relationships with our possessions and loved ones in Champaign.  Dave has worked hard getting our house in Champaign ready to sell and our home ready to move.  We talk alot.  I miss Dave and will miss him even more next week when his cell phone coverage is limited.

Being alone takes some discipline and focus.  In a message from LifeChurch, Craig made the observation that we can either fear failure or regret.  I am intent on not regretting how I spend these five weeks of being alone.  I look forward to having Joel here and having our own place and, eventually, sharing Bucks County and the fun places I am discovering with Dave, but in the meantime, every day matters and I want to have something to show for the gift of solitude I have been given.  Focus and intention and discipline is what I am learning.

One life lesson from staying on Pidcock Creek Road and the multi-millon dollar estate….There is a long, winding lane that is lovely….past a pond and over a stone bridge, past the house to my parking spot under a blooming dogwood tree and facing the gardens.  The flowering plums and crabapples are just about past.  But the peonies and iris and clematis are just about to burst open.  I find myself slowing down whenever I enter the property.  It would be wrong, somehow, to drive fast past all the natural beauty.  Yesterday, I took a walk around the grounds and saw lots of common birds like robins and sparrows and cardinals as well as a hawk.  I also glimpsed a groundhog and watched a little mouse.  One morning, early, I watched a doe and her very small fawn explore the immaculately groomed lawn (in spite of the deer fence).  Yet, amidst all the beauty and natural wonder, there are geese–and goose poop.  Lots and lots of goose poop.  All over the lane and the lawn around the pond.  Just like with Willow Creek Community Church in Barrington, and in our Home Owners Association in Champaign, and anywhere else that there is a pond or lake–geese poop.  And no matter how you feel about geese, their poop is a nuisance.  So, the life lesson is that no matter where you are living, there will always be poop to contend with.  The goal is to contend and deal with it all (disappointment, loneliness, manure) with grace and truth.