Anniversaries Rock

This past week SurferDude & I celebrated our 2nd anniversary by taking his first vacation day since we arrived here. We left Sunday evening after a 10 hour day at church and drove over to the coast to an amazing bed and breakfast at Ocean Shores. It was right on the beach, and was incredible. We will definitely be going back! In spite of the rain we experienced we had a great time driving around, exploring beaches (including driving on the beach, which you can do here, which I'd never done!), enjoying some delicious food, and just escaping life in the city. SurferDude bought his new wet suit, with the thickness that will allow him to be in the frigid Washington water, and we tried really hard to find him some good waves to ride, but the tides and weather weren't very cooperative. But at least he's prepared for next time!
Here are some photos from our adventure.

Our evening picnic--spinach dip, cheese, crackers, and chocolate chip cookies--yum!SUCH a beautiful place!He made some friends!Anniversary dinner Salmon baked on cedar over sauteed apples and onions--oh my word. Amazing.

7 Quick Takes Friday

A look back over the past week...

**Saturday**
Garage Sale day 2! We spent another FULL day at the church working the garage sale, and when the sale closed down at 2 we experienced probably the most amazing part of it all...the clean up process. About 50 people were there helping and the ENTIRE church was cleaned and put back to normal in 2 hours. All the left over stuff was packed up, loaded onto good will trucks, tables and chairs were taken down, vacuums were run over all the floors, Sunday School furniture was put back, it truly was a sight to be seen! Gotta be honest though...not sad Garage Sale is over. It's about a 7 week process that began Charles' first week here, so we don't know West Side without the sale in our schedules. It will be nice to see what life is like without it taking up SO much time!

**Sunday**
Another LONG day at church. Charles taught high school Sunday School, worship lasted almost 2 hours, then we had a meeting with students who are interested in forming a praise band, then we raced home for my small group meeting with friends, then I had to run back to church for a 2 hour training session for the Alpha program that I'm helping with. Heading up to a contemplative worship service (Compline) at St. Mark's Cathedral at 9:30 that night was a much needed space of rest!

**Monday**
The final day of Chap's Family Ministry class, which means I now have exams and final projects to grade, but it also means we really do get Mondays off now, without me having to be in class every Monday for 3 hours. Monday night was probably the highlight of our week--we had dinner with the interim associate pastor and his wife at their lovely home. Words cannot even begin to express how grateful we are that they are part of this church staff, that they have a similar vision for ministry, and that they have promised to be a safe space for us to process. The gift of that brings tears to my eyes, we know we can trust them, we know they have a ton of experience, and we think they are an incredible couple.

**Tuesday**
So we might have been at dinner the night before until midnight...which means Tuesday I felt a little like a zombie. Charles took the Confirmation class to the Seattle Presbytery meeting, which was an eye opening experience for all of them I think! It was a big night for Presbytery, they were voting on whether or not to allow the ordination standards to be changed in our Book of Order to allow individuals who are practicing homosexuals to be ordained. The Seattle Presbytery voted to leave the Book of Order as it is now, although the vote was pretty close. We'll see what happens on the national level, my gut tells me it might pass, meaning the standards will be changed, but we won't know until June (I think General Assembly meets in June at least!)

**Wednesday**
I spent most of Wednesday in the church office helping get Charles' email database organized and put together, and then began work on the Good Friday service the youth are leading for their families. Wednesday night also began Alpha at West Side, and I'll be serving as a table host this spring for this 10 week program where people can come and explore the basics of the Christian faith.

**Thursday**
Back in the office all day! I finally finished up his database and kept working on our Good Friday service, in addition to having a great coffee conversation with a woman from the church who has been such a blessing to us!

**Friday**
I think today will find me at Costco getting side dishes for youth group tonight...it's Steak and Action Movie night! Bring your own meet to grill out and we'll be watching some type of action movie (hey we're trying to get high school boy's interested!). Tomorrow we get to play with friends, and after a long day at church Sunday (again probably til 6 PM) we're heading out of town! Woo hoo! We'll be over on the Washington Coast for our 2nd anniversary and we cannot WAIT to be away for a few days! Happy Friday everyone!

Disconnecting in order to Reconnect

It's been a full week now of being "signed off" from Facebook, and I've started thinking through what this past week has been like without it. I've been pondering what's been different without that familiar blue and white log in screen readily available to me. I have to be honest, while there are a couple things I miss about Facebook, this past week has been SO much more focused and productive, it truly is unreal how much of a difference signing off has made for me. It hasn't been 100% easy, or without temptation, but it truly has been a fantastic break. A friend of mine told me she gave up Facebook a few years ago for Lent and said, "oh you'll love it, it will change your life for the better," and she's kind of right. I do miss seeing what some folks are up to. I miss commenting on the GPC high school girl's pages and photos, I miss seeing my sister's status updates which usually have something cute to do with Lily, and my 13 year old niece just got her own Facebook page so I'm bummed to not get to interact with her a bit more on there, but on the whole, I am amazed at the space it has opened up in my life. I am getting so much more done--when I sit down to answer an email, pay our bills, grade papers, or work on something for Charles in the office, I am finding myself actually doing that task! I know, what a concept, right?? I'm reading a lot more, since my main source of internet time is no longer available to me, I'm getting our housework done a lot more efficiently and am able to be at the church more to help my husband. I'm actually starting my day reading scripture and journaling my prayers instead of clicking around seeing what 700 people did the previous night. I had no idea randomly clicking around various people's pages was really sucking up so much of my time, but this past week has shown me that this was in fact the case. I did sign on last Sunday (Sundays are "feast days" during Lent, so you are allowed to partake of whatever you are fasting from) and honestly my initial reaction was a feeling of being overwhelmed. Way too much information was in front of me about way too many different people and I found I didn't really know where to start. Apparently when you don't check Facebook every couple hours the posts and photos and updates accumulate to an overwhelming quantity.

I'm really not trying to knock social networking, I think there are some amazing aspects to it and it has been wonderful to be able to remain in contact with some folks who are far away. However, if anyone is feeling like they might need to sign off for a little while, I want to encourage you to give it a try, even if it's just for a day or two. There's nothing magical about Lent--just because you may not have begun a fast on Ash Wednesday does not mean it is too late to enter into something for part of the remaining 5 weeks. Lent is about creating space for Jesus, and during this season of transition, change, and a lot of ups and downs, I've needed that space. It feels safer sometimes, to simply hide behind technology when we're feeling less than our best, but I'm slowly discovering that even though the risk is greater, when we give Jesus that extra space to speak, some pretty amazing things can happen. Some pretty desperate prayers can be answered, and we slowly find ourselves a bit more connected...to ourselves, those we share our home with, our friends, and the One who is waiting for us to give Him space to speak.

Love Wins

If you follow the Christian blogosphere, you have undoubtedly heard of the controversy surrounding Rob Bell's new book, "Love Wins." There's a promo video out there in which Rob sounds as if he's leaning a bit towards universalism in this new book, and all kinds of folks have been spouting opinions, trashing his reputation, accusing him of having unorthodox theology, and basically being awfully judgmental before even having the opportunity to give him the benefit of the doubt and actually READ his book! I've always loved his work, I think his theology is solid, and I love the creativity he uses to communicate things, creativity that often causes us to take a second look at something we thought we fully understood. It would be silly for me to jump on the band wagon and offer an opinion on a book I haven't purchased yet (it doesn't hit shelves til the 20th). But I will say I read Fuller's President's latest blog post today and immediately thought "thank you Dr Mouw!" I love what he has to say about heaven, hell, Rob, and a generous theology of salvation. Check his article out here.

7 Quick Takes Friday

I'm in the church office this morning killing a little bit of time and thought I'd post this week's highlights.

**1**

Why am I at the church all day you might ask? Because it's time for the world's largest garage sale! Seriously, it's huge. For the past 6 weeks people have been dropping their "treasures" off here and church folks have been sorting them, cleaning them up, making sure they work etc. This past week the entire church has been taken over during set up, and this morning when the doors opened at 9 AM there was a line of people half way down the block. The event raises money for summer youth trips, and has kind of consumed our lives since we started this job. I'm not gonna lie, I'll be excited for it to be Saturday night, if for no other reason than I haven't had a meal with my husband in a week! Here are a few photos from the set up around here:

Some of our students setting up the DVD/movie area

Random kitchen appliance anyone?

Knick Knacks....random random stuff--much of it we didn't know what it was

The book room--I might have bought a few of these

The linen room

Clothes anyone?

Toy room

Accessories--hats, scarves, shoes, purses and ties

If you're like me, and hate clutter and random knick knacks, this event is kind of your worst nightmare. I finally had to take a job cashiering for the pre-sales instead of sorting the craft/holiday room--I was getting too twitchy and overwhelmed! The book room is pretty fun though :)

**2**

I think it was a good decision to give up facebook for Lent. My book pile is growing like crazy--some are on my list I made to read this year, and many more have been added thanks to the garage sale and impulse buying. I picked up Jodi Picoult's new one, Sing You Home at Costco yesterday, and my attempt is to read it before my coffee date with my best friend in about 2 weeks because she's already finished it and wants to talk about it. I'm about 1/4 of the way through Uncle Tom's Cabin which I am starting to really enjoy. I bought One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp and hope to read through that during Lent as part of my desire to find gratitude and joy in the moments in life. Then I browsed the garage sale book room and came home with a biography on Michelle Obama that I'm excited to read, along with 4 random fiction books: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, The Abortionist's Daughter, the Friday Night Knitting Club, and Saving CeeCee Honeycutt. Anyone read any of these?

**3**

My experiment with freezer cooking turned out AWESOME! I am hooked. For instance, last night, we got home at 9, hadn't eaten dinner, and didn't want to go out to spend money. Never fear! In 15 minutes I had defrosted a tupperware of delicious minestrone soup, tossed some sweet potato fries in the oven, and voila! Dinner! This Minestrone soup is amazing, if you need a good recipe, try it!

**4**

I've received several emails this morning asking if our family who lives in Japan was in any way affected by the devastating earthquake and tsunami that happened last night. We got an email this morning from Charles' sister saying they are all just fine. The quake was in the north and they live in southern Japan. They definitely felt a lot of shaking, but there was no damage near them, praise God! We're thinking and praying for those families who have suffered loss of home, land, and life in this past 24 hours.

**5**

Now it's 8 hours after I started this post. I ended up on my feet all day working the garage sale. I'm wiped...but need to go buy food for the boy's lock in they are doing tonight to "guard the garage sale stuff" overnight. Thus, I only have the brainpower for these 5 "quick takes." More next week when we've recovered!

Unplugging

I have always celebrated Lent by letting go of something in order to create space for other things--usually practices or activities that help me connect more with Jesus or people, and every year I am always glad I've chosen whatever it was. One year was TV for my roommate and I--we spent the end of winter reading, hosting dinner parties, knitting while listening to great music, and walking around the neighborhoods in the evening. My freshman year of college I was fully addicted to AOL Instant Messaging. I would often have 4 conversations going at once with various people while attempting to study at the same time. I decided that wasn't all that healthy, and signed off for 6 weeks, focusing instead on my schoolwork and on connecting with people in person. It was a fantastic experience.

For quite awhile now, I have been realizing something has grabbed hold of my life in a way that I am not super proud of--sucking a ridiculous amount of my time and attention away from other, more meaningful things. Yup, confession time, I'm afraid I've become a little addicted to facebook. I honestly can't tell you how many times a day I check it. I don't even realize my fingers are moving the mouse towards the Facebook link in my bookmarks list. I've realized how inundated I've become with information about people I literally haven't seen since childhood--not that I don't care about them, but these are people I literally don't have a relationship with. It's actually sucking time away from me doing things that I truly value--caring for my home, my husband, my soul mate friends, being fully present with people, reading amazing books, hand writing letters etc. I'll have a free 1/2 hour and instead of picking up a book from my growing pile on the bedside table, I surf facebook until it's time to fall asleep. I don't dislike Facebook, I dislike the way I've let it consume so much of my energy. So yesterday, I posted that I'd be signing off for Lent. It's been pretty obvious to me for several weeks now that God's been nudging me this direction, and I can't ignore that any longer. In these next 6 weeks I hope to read a few books. I hope to bake more and give away that which I create. My husband and I are in the midst of talking through some big life choices and transitions, and I'm hoping to spend more time journaling and praying about these changes. I hope to write more on here, give myself space to think more deeply about things that matter to me. Most importantly, I hope to learn to immerse myself in scripture. I'll share more about what that is going to look like in a later post, but a conversation with our associate pastor yesterday reminded me how absolutely essential it is to let scripture fill us.

I'm actually surprised at the number of people who pushed back when I mentioned I was signing off Facebook (and a few others I know who are making this commitment experienced the same thing). I'm not saying Facebook is inherently bad. I'm not saying I love denying myself. I'm not making this choice because it sounds like a "good challenge." I'm signing off because it was so clear as I was praying about what had a strong hold in my life that this was it. This was what God was asking of me because He does want me to live more intentionally with my time. The tradition in Lent is to break one's fast on Sundays--even in the midst of the darkness of Lent, Sundays are still set aside as "mini Resurrection days." One is allowed to celebrate life by partaking of whatever one is fasting from. So yes, I'll still be checking up on some folks Sunday afternoon. I'll be "awwing" over any new photos of any of my nieces that have been posted. I'll be checking for friend's wedding photos or baby photos that I know are coming up. Maybe I will share some thoughts about the things I've been doing with my time since backing away from the computer. I will probably post links to things I've written over the past week and comment on a few youth group kid's pages because those are things I love about Facebook. But then, I'll sign off again, because between now and Easter I hope to come to a place where I re-discover the joy of living life away from a screen.

Preparing for the Shadows

Ash Wednesday is in two days. Many of you are part of traditions that don't celebrate this day, and that's okay, but for me it's an important day--a holy day that is essential in the rhythm of my spiritual life. I don't think I have ever missed attending church on Ash Wednesday, so 29 times I've heard someone proclaim the solemn words over me, "Sarah, remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return." It's these words that usher me into a season that always feels different than the rest of the year. These 40 days leading up to Easter have been intentionally set aside by the historical church to allow people the space to examine our lives. What is it in our lives that have taken a strong hold? Is there anything in our lives that we've allowed to become a god or an idol? As the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years, and as Jesus wandered in the wilderness for 40 days, so we too wander through the shadowy Lenten season waiting for Easter with hope and expectation. And while we wander and wait, we hopefully slow down a bit. We let go of something that is taking our time and attention away from the One who so rightly commands it. We find joy in the midst of the Lenten shadows too, as we extract ourselves from the things that entangle us and discover the freedom Christ promises as we trust and obey His leading. Last year I had the opportunity to speak at our church's Ash Wednesday service, and I posted my 5 minute reflection here in case you want to read more and want to ponder more the other time in our lives we find ourselves marked with the shape of a cross upon our foreheads.

I've talked a lot lately with individuals about the idea of "giving something up" for Lent, and I just wanted to share a couple thoughts about that, hopefully to encourage us all to think a little broader about this ancient practice. The typical things to give up are chocolate, caffeine, sugar, or meat, and all these things can be really good options for a person to let go of, especially if these things have become intense crutches or cravings for a person. However, I have many friends who have thought really creatively about what to do to celebrate the Lenten season, things that they choose intentionally to draw them closer to the cross instead of simply giving up sugar because that's what everyone else does. These are just a list of a few things that people I know personally have done, but let these ideas jump start a conversation in your family about what we can creatively do during this season as individuals, families, or communities. Remember, it's not just about giving something up, it's also about putting something healthier in it's place--giving God space to fill the place the item we let go of for awhile has left in our lives.

**Give up going out to eat lunch at work or for the daily latte, instead take a sack lunch and calculate what you normally would spend in 6 weeks of eating lunch out. Donate that money to a local organization working to end hunger in your community.
**One friend gave up text messaging, instead she disciplined herself to actually call and have a real conversation with anyone she needed to get in touch with.
**Disconnect from Facebook or social networking for the season, and use the time you would have spent connecting with people on computer screens to read the daily lectionary (scripture readings), or connect with a person on the phone or in person.
**One friend from seminary felt like he loved reading theology too much, it was becoming a source of pride for him, so he actually gave up reading theological books for Lent, instead forcing himself to read stories, poetry and fiction. This was tough for him, but he loved that he did this.
**One friend of mine is practicing the discipline of giving away one brown bag of her possessions each week throughout Lent while at the same time is keeping a gratitude journal to count her blessings that are not material.
**Another friend of mine loves movies, and watches several a week. He gave up movies for the season and attempted to spend more time with people in conversation or reading great books.
**One friend realized he enjoyed spending hours just aimlessly surfing the net, so he disciplined himself to set his cell phone alarm and gave himself 15 minutes a day.
**Another friend decided to give up being critical of herself for Lent. She recognized she spends a lot of time in front of the mirror analyzing and critiquing her appearance. She started practicing the discipline of saying "I am beautifully and wonderfully made" as she smoothed lotion on her skin in the mornings, put her make up on, or styled her hair. It became her mantra and at the end of the 40 days she actually believed it.

The possibilities are endless, and there are so many ways we can experience this season with our families or small groups or communities. I think it's also important to remember though that practicing a spiritual discipline during Lent is not done to earn God's favor or impress God in any way. God loves us immeasurably more than we can ever imagine, we participate in a Lenten practice to free up space in our chaotic, crowded, and sometimes sin-entangled lives to free ourselves up to more fully experience that love and the grace God has already given us.

May you more fully embrace and experience the mysterious joy that can come as we wander through the shadows on the way to Good Friday.

The Maiden Voyage into Freezer Cooking!

We've been struggling lately to figure out what meals will look like now that we have this new work schedule which is VERY different than a student schedule! I've been reading a lot about the concept of Once a Month Cooking, or Freezer Cooking, and know there are a ton of families that swear by this method, but I hadn't ever ventured into this world. But I figured since planning on cooking nightly just isn't realistic any longer (neither is sitting down and eating together at least 4 nights of the week), I needed to try something new. We need food that is still healthy, but easy to grab and go, can be reheated at the church for the nights we end up eating on the floor of my husband's office etc. So I began researching. There are a ton of methods to this process, and everyone seems to have something that works well for them. If you're interested, here's what I learned and what I made. If you're not, well you can stop reading now :)

I learned that just about anything can be made for the freezer, you don't have to eat just casseroles or stews. So I decided to try some variety since really, who wants to eat the same dish all month? I chose 4 dinner recipes to start with (there are only 2 of us, and really, this won't last all month, this was just a first step) and a batch of cookie dough. Here's what I made (click on each recipe for the link to where I found it).

"The Best" Lasagna (I haven't tried it to confirm that it is the best, but it looks good!) I made two smaller ones instead of one big one.
Jamie's Minestrone Soup (I don't know Jamie, but my friend Sara makes this for her freezer and loves it)
Sara's Hidden Vegetable Marinara Sauce (this made a TON--2 crockpots full!) Part of the sauce is going to be in the lasagna, the rest will be frozen for spaghetti, pizza sauce etc)
Sloppy Joe mixture (I can't seem to find the recipe)
A big batch of Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate chip cookie dough (Sara has a great post here about how simple it is to freeze cookie dough ahead of time so you're always ready to bring a treat to an event. As a youth director's wife I am already realizing how often this happens in the church!)

Next, I went through all the recipes and made one big grocery list. It actually wasn't that huge, I had a lot of things on hand already and headed to the store.

Then I did what everyone online suggested...I went through all the recipes to figure out exactly what needed to be done before you can assemble the meal. So how many cups of onions total were going to need to be chopped? How many carrots (which were in two different recipes) would I need to peel and slice? I wrote everything down on one list to I could simply look at that instead of flipping through all 5 recipes constantly.

Yes it was a LOT of chopping, but I just stuck an episode of Glee on my computer and chopped veggies for an hour while rocking out to the Glee cast!

Once all the prep work is done you can start assembling each recipe, I was able to do 2 at a time, but I wouldn't try more than that at once! It was a few things to keep straight! I did the sloppy joe mixture and the minestrone soup first, then let those cool in the fridge before transferring them to freezer containers (apparently this cuts way down on freezer burn).

Then I put together the ingredients for the marinara sauce in the crock pots and cooked those on low over night. I'll assemble the lasagnas and cookie dough this morning (I didn't start cooking day til 5 yesterday, there was no way I was going to get everything done in just a couple hours, so I'll finish up this morning--besides I needed the marinara to cook so I had sauce for my lasagna!)

Do any of you do freezer cooking? I'd love some tried and true recipes if you have any favorites!

I'm Sorry

One of the things I'm learning about human nature is that we've somehow been taught it is not okay to not be okay. We've been taught that even if we do admit something is wrong we're immediately supposed to brush it off and tell people "oh well, I'll be fine, it'll be okay." If we do go into detail about why things are hard, and somehow take up the entire conversation with someone, many of us feel guilty about that. We "should" have just said we'll be okay and then asked them how they were doing. That's what we should be doing. Has anyone else ever felt like this? I know I have. I ran into this all the time as a hospital chaplain, people would tell me that life actually was not okay for them right now, and when I would say "I am sorry" they would brush me off "oh it's okay, I'll be fine." I run into this all the time with the teenagers I've loved over the years. Somehow we have created a culture where the socially acceptable mantra is "It's okay." It's okay that my boyfriend dumped me. It's okay that my parents fight all the time. It's okay that my teachers don't take me seriously. It's okay that adults in my life don't take the time to really listen to me. It's okay that I have cancer, I'll be fine.

You know what, it's actually not okay. And in my opinion, it's okay to say it's not okay. Many people can't say this for themselves, so I've learned that one of the most important things we can do for a person who is struggling or suffering is to say it for them. I've done this a lot, and the response is always amazing. It usually invites deeper conversation. Sometimes it will bring to the surface those tears that have been threatening to spill over--the tears the individual is desperately trying to stuff down in effort to prove that she really is "okay." A student I know well actually wrote a blog post on her own blog about the time I did this with her. These words that she wrote have meant the world to me, because it shows me how simple, yet essential it is to give people to space to not be okay. Here's what she has to say, in her own words:

so tonight when i was at church we were given the opportunity to talk to the person next to us and share about a time when God has gotten us through a rough time. I got the chance to talk to Sarah, which I am so happy i did because she taught me something tonight that i will for sure keep with me for the rest of my life. when she asked me to share i told her that the rough time is now and thats really true. like right now my life is just…. haha let’s just say there have been a lot of tears in the last month and i’m really surprised i havent run out of them yet. and when she asked me if i felt betrayed (I had a sense as to what she was going through, I didn't just randomly guess the feeling "betrayed"), i said yes and she responded by saying “im sorry”, and after hearing that phrase so much i just automatically said “its okay”. but then she said something to me that no one had ever said before. she told me “no, its not okay. it sucks. its okay to say it sucks” and for the first time i realized that is right. its crazy to think that there are so many times people have offered me sorrys and i’ve just kind of turned them down by saying “its okay”. i guess its because i’ve heard “i’m sorry” so many times in my life that it stopped meaning something to me… and then later another leader came up to me and asked me how i was on a scale from 0-10 and i told her -5, and of course she replied with “i’m sorry” and once again i said “its okay” and she looked me straight in the eye and said “no, its not okay. its okay to say ‘yeah it sucks’”. words cannot describe how much what those two said to me tonight meant to me. cause it does suck right now, and because of them i’m not afraid to say it does anymore. so, for anyone reading this, if someone says “im sorry” to you when you’re feeling as crappy as i am right now, don’t be afraid to say “yeah, it sucks” because they mean their sorry…. they really do care even though it might seem like they don’t because others don’t. alright, thats it.

She's right. Validating someone's feelings, reminding them that it's okay to not be okay, letting them feel whatever it is they are feeling, these things aren't difficult. But they give a person so much freedom to truly feel, and I have come to believe that it is only when we truly allow ourselves to feel, to fully experience the emotions we're dealing with, only then can we begin to experience healing. As Jerry Sittser writes in his amazing book on grief, A Grace Disguised, "the quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise.”