Aids conference

Miles health teacher had an opportunity to bring a few students to the World aids conference in Detroit this week. She only had room for five girls and one boy and wanted to bring her best behaved students for the 5 hour round trip drive.

Miles was a little hesitant to accept the invitation since he tends to faint at the word blood. He even fainted once during  history class  merely hearing  the word  "bloodlines". He decided to go anyways. Luckily for him, the topic didn't delve too much into aids.  If you're wondering  how a world aids conference wasn't so heavy on the topic of aids, let me explain:

As Miles explained, the first person to get up and tell their story was the head of the African American transgender society. She told the kids that aids wasn't her biggest burden since she was both African American and transgender, her biggest obstacles in life had to do with her skin color and gender choice; her aids took a backseat to all that. She was more a victim of racism and regressive  bigotry than she was a victim of aids.  She moved from that into a tirade about governor Rick Snyder and our education system telling an audience of 600 high school students that governor Rick Snyder  doesn't care about education. Then someone in the back laughed which set her  off on another five minute tirade about them not listening to her. All this as teachers sat alongside their high school students taking it all in.

I asked Miles, "did you get ANYTHING out of going to this aids conference?"

His response was priceless  "Yea, I got a big bag full  of condoms, some of them are flavored. I have mint condoms, coke flavored condoms, oral sex condoms, vagina condoms, I even got a condom holder...we all got big bags stuffed full of condoms".

He went to his room and came back with this massive bag of condoms, like hundreds of them.
I have never laughed so hard in my life.
Did I mention, he's a 10th grader?

Miles isn't big on pursuing the ladies quite yet, he seems more interested  in where the Dow is closing these days and what value his IRA is holding. We  recently  told him we would  pay for his car insurance on one condition...... as he nervously awaited what condition that would be. When Jeff told him, "no sex before marriage", he was so relieved. "That's it?!, That's all I have to do for you to cover my insurance?! No problem!!" Another gal chosen for the Aids conference  trip is looking forward to going to a Christian university to study worship music. It occurred to me that this might not have been the best audience to receive giant bags
of flavored condoms.

So I almost lost it the next day when a friend of mine who counsels at the high school sent me this picture that was tweeted out to the entire high school about the field trip...yes thats Miles holding up a condom.........Oh Miles.....

My Foolish Notion

Getting ready for school today Miles told me that his school plays part of a song everyday during announcements...each day its a different song. He decided he would put in a request: George Michael's "faith".

It instantly brought back a memory of my childhood, as songs often do for me. (I'm so grateful there was a lot of music in my childhood, my most vivid memories are made possible by their attachment to songs ) It was early winter of 1987 and I was 11 years old. This song was a number one hit on Casey Kasems Top 40 so naturally every kid my age in the nation was singing it. I was in my grandmothers living room with my cousin Tracy who is only a year older than me. We were likely there to celebrate  Hanukkah that mid December of 1987  with our small family which was always the same crowd. Grandparents, my aunt Linda and two cousins, my mom, sister and I. My mom, aunt, sister and other cousin were probably still sitting in the dining room talking and laughing  or playing a card game after a meal that most certainly would have included matzoh ball soup and Gefilte fish and my grandparents were probably watching something on tv in the den adjacent to the living room Tracy and I were in. The cousins and I had passed the age of being entertained by spinning dradles and barbie dolls, and top 40 hits would have consumed our thoughts by this stage of development.

Now, we loved this song and would take turns singing it so we could rate each other on  singing abilities which neither off us were frankly blessed with. How sad for a family who loves music so much to come into this world with impaired vocal chords....such is life. I remember Tracy complimenting me on one particular high note I could really nail in that song..."my foolish notion", somehow there was a break in my vocal chord disparity and i could hit that particular chord with divine falsetto ability....and she noticed. My confidence ascending in that moment  with my new talent, my cousins flattering compliments on my capacity to sing "my foolish notion" resulted in us singing the same song over and over to give me the chance to display my miraculous new and short lived ability while it lasted. It was the only time I can remember in my life where i knew I could sing well...even if it only was  on three words of a single song. 

So on this morning as my 16 year old son was singing "Faith" in the kitchen before school commencing with  "well I guess it would be nice" and then murmuring through the next few lines once he realized the awkwardness of singing those dreaded lyrics in front of his own mother, suddenly  "If i could touch your body" sounded more like "mmhmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm". When I pointed it out we both had a good laugh.

For the rest of the morning I started to ponder like I often do the lyric itself that set me apart from the singing capability of the rest of my family for that brief moment in time..."My foolish notion" curiosity led me to look up the textbook definition of course of each word:

Notion: an individual's conception or impression of something known, experienced, or imagined,

an inclusive general concept a theory or belief held by a person or group; a personal inclination

Foolish: having or showing a lack of good sense or judgment

As a first generation and souled out believer of the Jewish Messiah raised in a secular Jewish family who does not believe of seek our Messiah spoken about in the scriptures, it is fair assessment to say my family would call my piety a "foolish notion". Fool is a term I've actually become quite endeared to as a believer knowing that as Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." I often will quip that "once I was a fool, and am now only and gladly a fool for Christ.

Ive attempted over the last nearly decade to have intellectual conversations with family members over the probabilities of Jesus being the Messiah;  citing current events and our own Jewish scriptures as a foundation. But they would prefer if I would never discuss Jesus ever..period. No one wants to think about it or discuss it and it causes great distress and anger not only if I would speak about Jesus to them, but just knowing that I speak about Jesus in general in my own life.  I once learned when my cousin Lisa declared at a recent bagel and pastry gathering around the grandparents table what really offended her was me talking about Jesus, citing my public social media thoughts on the topic which I wasn't even aware she ever looked at...my social media that she has never engaged in about Jesus  actually was offensive to  her. My own grandmother whom I love can confidently declare with zero research or reading of the Jewish scriptures that "Jesus was a nice Jewish boy and that's all he ever was". So "my foolish notion" pretty much eloquently sums up the divide I have with the family I love so much.

Then it occurred to me that I was probably overthinking the whole thing, there wasn't any symbolism at all and I was likely "reaching". I have a knack to ponder and wonder and philosophize about even the simplest things in life. The reason precisely why my husband jokingly calls me "the wondering Jew" a play on words of course from the infamous idiom "wandering Jew". As I started to shake off  what initially seemed a profound insight as nothing more than mere coincidence, the next thought I had was...what was the name of that song again? and it hit me: "Faith"

Believe it or not I still shrugged it off after more doubting and decided that instead of writing a blog post about it which i was strongly convicted to do, Id just run through my usual post kids school sendoff morning routine of catching up on both the daily mainstream and social media news of the day. I wasn't five minutes into my Facebook scrolling trying to shake off the nagging conviction to write down my trivial ponderings of the morning when I came across a post from Stevie wonder that told me to "Check out Stevie's new song "faith" featuring Ariana Grande from the upcoming movie "sing""(posted November 7, 2016). So Thanks Stevie For your timely song and advertisement that inspired me to write today.

a letter to my post election apocalyptic friends

Today is November 11th...day 3 after America voted Donald J. Trump to be the 45th president of the United States of America.

1/2 of America seems to be imploding right before our eyes. There are riots in the streets, calls to arm yourself, people so angry they want to break ties with friends and family members who disagree with their Presidential choice.

I asked a girl who said she was "afraid"..., the phrase Ive heard repeatedly these last three days to take me down the rabbit hole terrain of her brain....what exactly was her fear of? What was her #1 concern?

This was her response that I believe is the sentiment of many who feel defeated post election:

"My fear is we will go back to a time when people were hung because of the color of their skin. People will be called derogatory names because of their skin color, gender, sexual preference, weight, etc. My fears are human rights and what will happen to them.

She believes that white people will want to hang other people not white. Now what led her to believe that? What did Donald Trump say that would lead her to come to that conclusion? I know he has said some awfully dumb and cringeworthy things, but never have I been led to the conclusion that lynching was in our countries future as a result of his rhetoric.

So here's what I want to say to you, my liberal friends who I love and value....and all liberal ideological US citizens  who  come in a display of different skin tones, gender, "sexual preferences", weight...etc: I am for you. Ideologically my worldview is fundamentally based on the life and Word of God which guides and instructs me to proclaim healing,  wholeness &  soulful peace for every single one of you. What is fundamentally clear to me during an election season and what what creates multiple fractures in our nation is what the prescription for our healing and wholeness is. With a general stroke, democratic leadership means progress an peace in your world.  To a Republican conservative, Republican leadership means progress and peace in our world. To a christian, neither leadership equates to peace because the believer understands that all leaders are fallen and sinful humans in Adam. We already have a King and leader and no flawed earthly party leadership can steal our peace.  I am equally abhorred by  derogatory comments about others as you are. And I believe you may be blind to your own hypocrisy when you approve of hateful rhetoric as long as its aimed towards the "other side".

 My faith and foundation on truth allows me to see every single human being as valuable; made in the image of God...even when their character doesn't reflect that...I know there is a redeemable image bearer beneath the flawed surface. I don't agree with Hillary Clinton when she says Trump supporters are irredeemable deplorables. I'm well aware  we all have a capacity to be deplorable, yet I have hope and knowledge that we are in fact redeemable.  Every single person is broken and in need of healing....every.single.one. This brokenness is caused by a life lived in Adam with the torch being passed through the ages by our own sinful desires and life lived sharing a planet with other sinners.  I am for restoration of you...I want you to do well...to grow in character and strength...to persevere, to win...to have hope.

Here's the good news: I am not alone. There are more redeemed ex-deplorables like me who are for you...and they also voted for the Republican party. Does I mean to conclude that the republican party is without blemish? absolutely not..does it mean I believe all republican voters are not deplorable racists who are capable of ugliness? Not at all. I am not oblivious to the reality that people are awful, say awful things, do awful things. But I know a lot of Republicans...and none of them are like this...in fact they are the opposite of this. It might help you to be reminded that the abolition of slavery was started by white christian men...and that the republican party was the party to abolish  slavery., while in fact the Democratic party oposed it.

We are not your enemy, we are for you...even if we don't agree on almost every ideological argument and policy...we see caving in to fleshly desires as enabling and unhealthy for everyone, especially you... and hurting our nation we share with you as a whole. So please don't take everything so personally. The majority of the "right" does not want to lynch you....in fact in my nine years of conversing regularly with multitudes of conservative ideologists, this has never been a topic ...never, not once.

My husband a few years ago was out with some friends and a guy he was acquainted with (not a believer)  said a derogatory name to describe black people. My husband pulled him aside and said "Im honestly really shocked and surprised to hear you say something so awful, I think you're better than that". He had a long conversation with this man who eventually confessed he was embarrassed  and ashamed at what he'd said...my husband held him accountable for his words....and he knew he was wrong. This is what we are called to do...to speak to each other in love and truth. To provide rebuke to those we love to bring them to wholeness. When I disagree ith you on the validity of gay marriage and transgender topics, i am doing the same for the LGBTQ community that I am doing for a fellow conservative who says something racist...I rebuke. And its not because I hate them, its because I care enough to tell you the truth to bring healing and wholeness to your life.

The level of fear and anxiety I've watched unfold over an elected official in an American government designed brilliantly with checks and balances drives me more to understand why God tells us to not worship idols. We have made idols of our leaders, putting too much faith and trust and hope in them.

A new wave

This summer during a Sunday sermon I heard this term "a new wave" and I thought in my heart..."I want a new wave from the Lord"! I haven't experienced a major crisis where I've had to lean heavily on the Lord in over a year now! A few days later I started thinking about waves...on the shores of Lake Michigan typically waves precede the storm that follows...when this dawned on me...I said "never mind Lord!! I'm good with calm waters, cancel that weekend prayer!" But it was too late, the wheels were in motion.  In the two month season, I threw my back out, suffered a month long "chiggers" ankle infestation I picked up in Gatlinburg that no physician could diagnose or stop, went through a cancer scare that ended with neck surgery, and scheduled a root canal . Here's a  stack of ten separate medical bills we get to pay as a result....NEVER pray for waves from the Lord!! Lol. Learning to be content in the calm waters....just as content as Ive learned to be in the storms.  I know in the big scheme of things this was an easy trial, and pales in great comparison what some of you are currently going through. My piddly trial take away gave me greater compassion for YOU . Praying today for YOU, the one in a huge storm right now (going through real cancer, real betrayal, feeling rejected and alone) YOU who are leaning on the Lord in this season ( or trying to go at it alone😞)..YOU are NOT alone...and the Storm will not last forever, you will come out stronger, tested, more faithful and better than you ever could have imagined! Believe.

Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump

It's 2016, US presidential election season once again. In my 20 years of voting, I'm now witnessing the two worst candidates in history as party nominees for both the republican and democratic party. In the last eight years under the Obama administration, the country has shifted ideologically and become more focused on usurping Christ  values than ever before in US history.

In the last eight years we've watched a judicial ruling redefine marriage, we've seen a Christian  clerk jailed for her unwillingness to approve of a same sex marriage, we've seen bakers and wedding specialists fined out of  their income generating businesses, we've seen government officials lose their jobs for their faith, a mandate to allow boys to use girls bathrooms/locker rooms and vice versa, riots erupting from dangerous clashes between police and citizens...people burning down their own cities. We're seeing the world become more lawless and its spinning out of control before our very eyes.

We expect our government officials to provide stability and order to this chaos, but instead they seem to approve of it and add fuel to the already consuming fire of destruction. There's so much going on, I've barely mentioned half of it...Islamic Radical Islam is on the rise and we have government officials working to move unknown Syrian refugees to our neighborhoods where isis promises to infiltrate and murder more of us. We've watched it happen in European countries these last eight years with an increasing volume of incidents every single week . We've seen in in our own country, people getting slaughtered and beheaded while someone is shouting "allahu akbar". And when we talk about it, we're called bigots and Nazi's for our concern of inviting more of this ideology into our own country.

While we're distracted by all these things, Iran is given clearance to generate nuclear technologies under our Obama administration, secret deals are made between Obama and Iran regarding nuclear activities, and billions of dollar's are funneled to this country who has repeatedly vowed to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and whose own leaders chant "death to America". We released five Jihadi terrorists for one US military serviceman (Bowe Bergdahl) who planned for weeks to desert his unit and aid the enemy and became sympathetic to the Taliban cause prior to his five years of his claimed captivity. His father grew his beard to sympathize with the same terrorists and tweeted his commitment to releasing all terrorists held at Guantameno bay.  Then there was the secret payment to Iran for more hostages, only made known to the public by one of the hostages, Sayeed Abedini retelling of the story that included one of his captors telling him they weren't allowed to leave until a second  plane came carrying their ransom money in the middle of the night. When this news came to light, Obama claimed it was only $400 million tied to a separate legal claim. But Sayeed insists the hostages were forced to stay until 10 am until the money arrived.

Darkness is sweeping over the world  in a blanket of murky confusion and unashamed arrogance. The world on a mass scale has lost sight of our own creator and we're unknowingly shaking our fists at Him, our minds have become depraved and we have become our own gods; following the lead and voices of others who are lost and separated from the  Lord. Its painful to watch...when the Lord says "wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction" He wasn't kidding. We are in the midst of a country that has turned its heart away from God...we're replacing His laws with our own man made morality.....  and we're living out the consequences of it. But in the midst of even this, God is drawing sinners to repentance  and He is saving His people who who chose as "vessels of mercy".

This election started with two serious democratic candidates and seventeen Republicans. Conservatives watched a brash, egotistical, ill controlled name calling child steamroll over 16 other candidates, many who had a testimony that walked and talked with the Living and saving God. These men could masterfully articulate  the sanctity of life, the absurdity of our current condition and provided hope and inspiration towards a better and more secure future for out country. But they never had the chance, they were knocked out one by one by the only person who has since proved he has no ability to do any of those things.

The democrats had two serious candidates; a socialist Bernie Sanders proclaiming "free" stuff for the masses who all the young liberal minded college aged kids loved despite our current 20 trillion dollar deficit weve seen doubled under Obama.  Second,  Hillary Clinton who has a solid thirty years of on air lying and corruption. She is a well documented and known liar, yet she had the favor of both the DNC, the white house and Obamas justice department( or as some call the "Just us" department).

To those of us horrified by most liberal stances....namely  the legality of abortion, the direction we are headed, and the complete chaos happening in our country; her corruption is easy to see. But for those who support those ideas opposed to God...there is a shroud of deceit that completely blinds them from her corruption.  As  secretary of state subpoenaed for emails after Benghazi caught in lie after lie after lie, destroying evidence, havinf her ex President husband meeting with the head of the  Justice department on a private plane days before the fbi conclusion of her investigation, offering perks for cover-ups to he fbi , offering positions for donations to her own foundation. Taking massive donations from countries linked to terrorism, persecutionm and genital mutilation of women and homosexuals. Training and paying the mentally ill and homeless to act as agitators at trump rallys to make cnn news headlines using a contractor through the DNC so that connections can't be traced back to them, even though the contractor himself is caught in an undercover investigation explaining the entire scheme! It just goes on and on this absurdity.

There's something in my spirit that says..."leave it...MY will is being done...this country has turned from me and now I am turning from her." Yes God will save those who call on His name...yes yes yes, but as a country, He has handed  us over to the enemy like He has done to nations that  forget him time and time again. His will is being done, we are headed straight into the finals chapters of History, prepare your hearts, humble yourselves and ask God to save you...the short persecution of His followers will increase and casualties will be taken including believers and those with no faith...but the end is near and God has won this battle.

When I was first called a troll

     For anyone who knows me, you know that before I was a believer in Jesus I was a lot of other things...my mindset was strongly liberal, pro abortion and I was pro gay marriage before Hillary Rodham Clinton was finally on record for supporting "gay marriage". I became a believer in the real Jesus, accepting his sacrifice for my sin in the fall of 2007. Many things changed overnight, notably being healed from unforgiveness that I harbored for 20 years...that was the first thing. I still held on to my political stances and began the debate process defending why God would choose to be "prochoice" and pro gay marriage.  An election cycle was just beginning, Gods perfect timing, to elect the 44th president of the United states. I was a democrat and an Obama supporter. It was easy, and made easier when Sarah Palin joined the republican ticket as a running mate to John McCain...she was an easier target than McCain who was the most liberal of Republicans.

     A friend invited me to join a Facebook group called "Intelligent women against Palin", I eagerly joined. It was during that period of my wrestling with God and His working to imprint upon my heart and mind the sanctity of life and the value of human life made in His image. Sarah Palin had a young son with downs syndrome. Even though I thought she wasn't very intelligent and disagreed with her politics I started to garner respect that she chose to not abort her child with downs syndrome, she actually followed through with her faith. I still led the charge in  mocking  her along with my fellow ideological liberal gangs for the embarrassing comments she made during that election season.

     During that season of life I'd gone to a wedding, during the reception I was speaking with a couple who also had a young child with Down Syndrome, they were believers as well. They told me about the high percentage  of woman who chose to abort their children after learning the likelihood of their child having down syndrome in the womb. They volunteered for an organization that sought adoptive homes for children with down syndrome. They valued life. I had tremendous respect for that.

      At some point I found myself on the Facebook group page reading comments mocking her as we often did...then there was mocking her son, that he should have been aborted...many agreed. I wonder if I would have agreed as well had not God started His work in me?  I started to defend and honor her on this group page for keeping him...then the attacks came. I was for the first time in my liberal minded life...accused of being a troll. It was incredible...for over a decade I had mocked and laughed and made fun of conservative Christians with the rest of them. I became one of those people you would want on your side if you'd been arguing with a "crazy conservative"  because I could easily shame the other side with my knowledge of politics and policies. I'm a naturally curious person so I'm relentless when I get behind something and I like to have all the details before I present an argument. I do my homework. But then God started to teach me, and I started to listen...That's what really began my change of heart and mind  from liberalism into what our nation refers to as "conservatism" or "crazy conservative Christianity". God shook me to my core, he humbled me and he changed my heart and mind to conform to His own. I've been called and accused of many things since that day...and I count it all as joy only because Jesus proclaims that He chose me out of this world......

John 15:18-19

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Things my kids say

"He was drinking the drugs"- Darby Zins 2016

"I wont go away to a college, I'll just go to college close by and come home at night. If i go away to college I'll end up with Junky friends who will leave messes everywhere and there will be long lines to use the bathroom" Cooper Zins 2016

"I'll go the college where you went to college....is that a good school?" Darby 2016

"We need to go to the middle east and visit the Britannica, but we need to protect ourselves from terrorism so we'll get a knife when we get off the plane so were safe"

If Trump wins, kiss your tacos goodbye, he's gonna ban taco's- Darby Zins  Septemeber 2016

Born Hated

I met my friend Precious at a bible study. It was a group of girls I didn't meet with regularly but somehow I was invited to this gal Danny's house and so I showed up, a little late. By the time I walked in the door they were already immersed in greetings and catching up and just diving into some worship. We were in a little 1950's ranch house , Michigan,  late February...snow still on the icy ground, but enough winter to just make everything look a little dirty and cold outside. The house filled with gals who love Jesus sitting on couches and chairs pulled in from the small dining area, all over an old wooden floor with toddler toys tucked away in the corners. There was one open seat on a big upholstered chair, it was seated next to a wooden dining room table chair where Precious sat.
A quick introduction was made. "Jen, this is Precious....we just met her yesterday while having coffee at a supermarket" Precious seemed a bit shy and uncomfortable in this setting. Who wouldn't?...a room full of singing and laughing Jesus freak white girls  you met just the day before. Precious was from an entirely different world...a 22 year old black gal from Muskegon heights who has stories that most of us can't even comprehend. Her world consisted of parents who hated her, blamed her, gang life, drugs, gaming the system, growing up with unspeakable horrors, and violence. Her life  was changed when she met a white woman, Natalie,  at the rescue mission who eventually adopted her as a late teenager and told her about Jesus. So she was open to white girls and Jesus, just not quite comfortable in such a scene.

Right away I noticed Precious sounded like she was having trouble breathing and I asked if she had a cold. The other gals piped up on her behalf. "So, Precious is allergic to dogs and Danny has a dog, but we took care of it...that's why the windows are opened (and its freezing in here!) We're trying to let the room air out. Precious seemed to go along with this plan, I was like "okay, sure, sounds like its under control."

So Danny starts strumming her acoustic and the girls start singing worship songs...a few minutes in...I just notice.....
 Man,  this girl is just laboring hard to breath, it seemed to be getting worse and worse. She sounded like a fish out of water. So I piped up: "Stop the Jesus music...Danny, do you have Benadryl in the house? This open window, lets air the place out business isn't working".  "Yea that's a good idea" someone said and everyone seemed to agree given Precious' obvious deteriorating condition. Danny scurried to the kitchen a few steps away and we could hear her rifling  through the cabinets but she came up empty handed. Again, they said "well the windows are open so it should get better." What I would later find out is that opening a window in a house with animals only makes things worse. The dog hairs and allergen causing animal particles just get stirred up by the moving air now moving about the room.

"I'm taking her to the store to get some Benadryl, lets go Precious"...Precious looked relieved, she could barely talk.  The girls started praying for healing for her and wanted to lay hands on her. I so appreciate prayer and believe wholly in the power of Gods responding to our petitions...but in the moment it seemed absurd. Here this gal didn't need us calling out to Jesus or us  laying  hands on her to breath again, she needed to get out of that house with animal particles floating around that she was allergic to!...the common sense nature of the situation seemed to escape everyone there.

We left and headed to the  closest store, a Meijer's maybe four  miles away, a decent 12 minute drive. Precious couldn't even talk she was laboring so hard to get breath. We got to Meijer's, we got her the Benadryl and she started recovering. When she could speak again....she thanked me for getting her out of there...she said "Man, if I had been in that house for five minutes longer, I would have passed out dead on the floor". I asked "Why didn't you say something?!". I'll never forget her response: " I didn't want to interrupt their bible study, I don't really know those girls". I said "Precious...if you DIE at their bible study, that's a major interruption!!" Needless to say, I liked Precious right away....cause who the hell is going to just die at a bible study to not interrupt a bunch of white girls, she clearly was crazy...and that's my kind of friend:)

I don't know how much time passed between Precious' near death experience at Danny's bible study and my next visit to Jericho road where she was going with some of those gals but eventually I was there, and I saw the only person Gods ever given me an opportunity to save from dying. I invited her to Panera after church. We sat down and talked about all kinds of things. This girl started to tell me her unbelievable and uncomprehendable story...its a testimony unfolding.

Precious was "born hated" (she would later describe it to me in those words). Her parents young when they had her, maybe 16 & 20 years old and she had asthma, she was born premature weighing only 2 1/2 pounds. In 1987, living in Muskegon heights, the doctors told her parents she would have a lifetime of disabilities. She had frequent breathing problems and ended up in the doctors office and hospital often. She had to wear a breathing machine. Her young parents were mortified and embarrassed by her. They argued about who would go to doctor visits and who would be seen in public with her and that breathing machine. They likely would have given her away but were told at some point if they kept her, they would receive a decent social security check for her disabilities every month. Both parents did drugs and drank, her dad barely worked and her mom would do "tricks" for extra money...bringing young Precious along so her dad wouldn't be suspicious. The burden of Precious became valuable like a commodity, a way to earn money. She was quarantined to her bedroom in the back of the house and the parents went on to have three more "normal" children in the subsequent years.
Because of her social security check and claim by the medical professionals that Precious would never be normal...she was always treated as such. She was later diagnosed as adhd, her parents frequently called her dumb and slow, and Precious believed this lie. When things escalated between her parents, her mother frequently stepping out with other men on her dad...her dad eventually turned to Precious for his sexual gratification...she was only 4 years old. Her dad used the typical threats of violence child molesters use  telling her he's kill her and drown her in the lake if she ever told anyone.
precious got quiet.

The family might have had their suspicions, that's debatable, but the parents would claim she was just slow and mildly retarded. This continued for years through the public school system. Precious stayed in special education classes where other students would mock her and she was embarrassed.
Knowing Precious now...today she is 28 years old...she's a beautiful, creative, bigger than life personality gal who God called out as his own. Its miraculous that she can sit and tell me this story in her right mind with her history of parental abuse.

The rape went on until she was 14 years old and ran away to a neighbors house shaking with fear and screaming for help finally breaking her silence to her horrified neighbors down the street. "My dad raped me and beat me and I just ran away!. A few seconds later her mother was pounding on the door to drag her back home to her father, which she did. Her dad tried to bribe her into not telling anyone, he promised to give her anything she wanted, but it was too late...the police were pounding on the door and her dad was arrested. The police found 2 notebooks that precious had kept detailing her life of abuse at the hands of her father. It was 200 pages of evidence used in court to convict her father of a 14 year sentence. He gets out next year.

Her mother blamed her for wrecking her marriage...a month later her mom had a new man in her house  and they moved away so Precious  wouldn't wreck her new relationship too. To give you a glimpse of the awfulness of it all...when her mom stumbled upon her journal she couldn't read well but she could read enough  and the revelation of abuse was made known...precious' dad had been ill with a fever. Her mom took her aside and asked  "I need to know if this real (what) you wrote" Precious head fell down and she played with her hands not knowing what to say because she knew whatever she said that what her dad was doing to her was wrong....."He did fuck you, he touch you" her mother said when Precious' silence was deafening and her silence answered her mothers worst fears.

Today, the rest of the family still rejects Precious, her siblings who didn't suffer the physical and sexual abuse of their father had more love and affection given to them and were clueless of the hell Precious lived. Even with her father being sentenced, the family and mother still blame Precious. With his release comin up, they actually tease her about it jokingly  "Hes gonna be out soon, what you gonna do"?

Twins fears

My twins are hilarious...I wish I'd recorded over the years all the hilarity that e from them...whether its intentional or not.

My twins are super scared of many things, the dark, stuffed animals looking at them, butterflies (Darby), being alone in a room, being alone on the floor of the house. They just have a real heightened sensitivity to fears. 

In Gatlinburg, it was butterflies for Darby....the water snake that made its way into our whitewater raft while the boys were sitting on the floor of said raft was no problem and they defended its right to remain a passenger with us...but the beautiful black and blue monarchs on the trails that day were cause to run and stay away from certain areas. Cooper didn't mind the butterflies and found a sort of monarch haven in one spot filled with 100's of butterflies that surrounded him...Darby looked on from 100 feet away with disgust. But down the same trail a mile or so later Darby didn't hesitate to snatch the snake off the ground, even as it was biting at him...he fiercely held on. It makes no sense!

The bug fear made selling boy scout popcorn door to door really hard. I would drive along in the caravan with the hatch popped open in the back while the boys ran door to door and Id creep along with the supplies. Unfortunately spider season parallels popcorn selling season so half the houses Darby or Cooper would walk up to and run away tears streaming down their face because they'd seen a spider, or the house looked spooky. One house had a rocking chair inside they could see through the window that somehow made them think the house was haunted! I'm so glad we dropped out of Scouts this year.

They sleep with the hallway light on every night and will throw a fit if one has to go upstairs to do something when no one else in on the second floor. Earlier this year they were both upstairs brushing their teeth while Jeff and i were downstairs watching an episode of the Sopranos. All of a sudden, they started shrieking like a murderer was trying to kill them...I mean shrieking...both screaming in sheer horror. So Jeff and I RUN upstairs to see what happened and they are both just frozen terrified standing in front of the mirrors crying and screaming. Evidently they heard the music from the Soprano's episode playing downstairs and didn't know where it came from and it just spooked them...so when one got spooked the other back me equally spooked. We were beside ourselves when we figured out that it was nothing. 

Now that incident was probably a year ago...Jeff and I have had enough of the fear. Darby makes us turn all his stuffed animals and robot toys around s none of them are looking at him while he sleeps. If there's a book with a cover they deem scary, it cant be in their rooms...they're serious about this stuff. So we're trying to tackle this fear with them. 

Jeff was in Chicago for the eagles game this weekend and I said it "its time to face these fears, the fears are irrational and we cant let them control us" I even picked up a couple pamphlets on the topic of fear from church Sunday to help them and a book...."Big God, small me". 

Unfortunately, I had gone into Darby's room that day with new sheets and to cutify the whole place. I moved his stuffed dog from the dresser to the bed...eyes peering straight ahead. When Darby when upstairs to brush his teeth...alone, in an effort face his fear, he walked into his bedroom and saw the dog was moved AND staring right at him!! Sheer terror followed my running and screaming like an ax murderer was at his heels! It took him a little while to calm down but I explained I had moved it and he seemed to get over it. 

When he went to bed, he asked me to close his closet doors...because closets are of course scary too. Well, i had opened up the windows all over the house that day and the pressure from the moving air caused one of the door to pop open a few minutes later which sparked the fear, initiated the terror screaming and crying which is a domino effect on twins so Coopers fear in the room next door is sparked and they're both again screaming and crying and running to safety downstairs. 

Oh Lord bless these boys with a spirit of courage, erase irrational fear from their hearts and fill the void with your confidence...my God ONLY you can do this!

James Macdonald told me I was going to die

In mid July, A week before my wedding reception, I was washing my face to get ready for bed. I noticed a knot on the front of my neck. I was a little concerned but I had the reception coming up which I already had a ton of anxiety over. I didn't have too much time to do anything about my neck issue which I figured would go away on its own. Since I'd also had a cold around the time of the reception, i thought maybe Id just had a swollen lymph node from being sick. Plus I'm cheap, and doctor visits are expensive. We pay the first $4k every year on our health plan and I'd just dished out alot of cash on the wedding reception. I was also chewing tobacco for a few weeks, since my neighbors husband gifted me a tin of grizzly chewing tobacco for my 40th birthday, I thought it was likely that may have caused some lymph nodes to swell up.

August 10th rolled around and  the knot was still there. I could only feel it when I touched my neck. It wasn't so much that it was painful, it didn't hurt at all, its existence just caused mild concern having just turned 40 years old during the summer. I called my doctors office and they got me in right away. I met with a new PA named Monica Lyons. She ordered an ultrasound and some thyroid tests. She thought the nodule was likely a swollen thyroid. It wasn't , the thyroid tests came back normal. I put off the ultrasound thinking the knot might go away on its own, but it didn't. On our way back from Gatlinburg in early September it seemed to have grown larger and was more noticeable. It almost felt like someone had their hand against my throat and was choking me. So I scheduled the ultrasound when I got home.

The day of my ultrasound, I played pickleball to keep my wandering mind off things. I was driving home from Pickleball to change my clothes before heading to the ultrasound. I put my hand up to my neck to feel the knot on my neck once more, you know to make sure it was still there. I had the radio on and was listening to James McDonald's Walk in the Word sermon on moody radio. I had literally JUST put my hand up to my neck and was feeling this thing when James said in that moment these words:

"If you have a lump on your breast or your neck and you're headed to the doctor to find out what the prognosis is...here it is: you're going to die."

Word for word, from James MacDonalds Walk in the word series thats what he said...at exactly.that.moment. So that scared the hell out of me, I was sure my end was near.

I headed to the ultrasound place and soon enough that sucker was up on the monitor in full view , a centimeter sized "nodule" or "neckmass" on the front of my neck, almost like 2 nodules that were fused together. I left in a complete daze considering the implications of this thing being cancerous and the possibility of me dying a slow horrific cancerous death at the tender age of forty. Maybe it was the strange experience of having James Macdonald announce my prognosis at such an untimely moment, or the very fresh experience of having a technician confirm a strange mass growing on my neck only two months after my 40th birthday and wedding reception. I rolled into my forties looking and feeling great. I even took a selfie to show my facebook world how hot I still was approaching my mid life crisis. Then I got lumpy. My kids would now grow up wearing dirty underwear forever and never brushing their teeth enough and my husband would have to find a new wife on the internet She'd for sure be better looking than me, and I'd turn into a fading memory of naggery, burnt casseroles and terrible singing. I bet his new wife will sing like am angel. I hadn't even written my book yet!!

I had to stop at Home Depot on my way home...so there I was in a fog of despair walking through the Home Depot....and I'm not even kidding... this actually happened next...a life size Grim Reaper took a swipe at me with his grim reaper blade. A motion censored Halloween display Grim reaper. Yes that dark hooded and robed personified force that represents death...that Grim reaper. You could purchase him at Home depot for $159, this death symbol came at me out of nowhere because it sensed my motion, it probably sensed my cancerous neck mass!!

Now, if I wasn't already convinced when James Macdonald told me I would die, I was absolutely 100% on board at this point that God was telling me my end was near. And I'm thinking "Lord, Am I seriously about to die, or do you just have a REALLY horrific sense of humor?"

The MRI was scheduled for the following week, it came back benign...that was a great call that led to a renewed sense of gratitude for life, and a reason to drink two bass beers at the Irish festival that night to celebrate life. It took everything I had to not tell every single person I saw smoking a cigarette to quit right then and there , that life was too precious to smoke and give cancer an inch. Jeff was happy I didn't.
 I was referred to an ENT who diagnosed my neck mass as a Thyroglossal Duct cyst. He's removing it October 4; they'll send it in and look at it under a microscope to make sure sure there's no cancer there. The good news is only 1-2% of these things are cancerous, i like those odds. And I'll have a cool neck scar that will make everyone think I tired to kill myself. I'll blame it on Jeff, or the election, or Isis, there are so many rumors to make up with a nice neck slice scar.

Update: no cancer, scar healing and life goes on...thank you Jesus for keeping me here a bit longer to testify of your greatness!! xoxoxox
now on to that book I'm supposed to write! Jeffs new angelic singing wife will have to wait until theyre both old and wrinkled to marry him.

Driving Miles

Miles finally got his drivers license. His persistence paid off, he nudged us about taking drivers training which he started before his 15th birthday. He turned out to be a decent driver, a bit slower and more cautious than I thought he might be which proved to be irritating for an aggressive driver like me....but a relief for a mom longterm...what mom doesn't want their teenage son driving like an old man?
When we came back from Vero beach this year , 15 hours into the trip in Louisville Kentucky we pulled up to the hotel we reserved exhausted from driving and spending the previous day at Disney, the hotel clerk told us he had JUST given our room away....we called every hotel/motel in Louisville and everything was booked, we called every place en route for the next two hours to no avail. So I sucked it up and hit a Mcdonalds to get a large latte, but the Latte machine was broken, the second Mcdonalds was closed and the third one had just shut their coffee machine down. So after wasting another 40 minutes on a latte hunt, I had no choice but to  just kept driving home, only 7 hours to go. It was Miles who offered to drive when I pulled over at a cold sparsley snowing truck stop at 3 am. we were close to the Michigan/Indiana border and I was crying from exhaustion.

Either it was the thought that he'd been able to sleep along the way the previous 18 hours, or the mental exhaustion I was experiencing, or the fact that I didn't want to sit in my car in 30 degrees temperatures with the twins at a truck stop overnight over a few hours from home...so I decided to let a very excited and eager Miles drive. I told him to run in and buy either coffee or mountain dew, or something heavily caffeinated. So here I am in the car waiting and Miles is inside, he runs to the window with his selection for me to approve: Rootbeer. I'm like "are you kidding me?" Caffeine!!" He runs back and grabs a Gatorade and comes back for approval. I just shake my head and I realize he doesn't have a clue that the junk-food drinks Ive allowed them to drink growing up are never caffeinated. So I go in and school him on how to properly pump yourself full of caffeine in a moment like this. He ends up with two Mountain Dews and  3 hours later at 6:30 a.m. we were home. Hallelujah. Was I GLAD to see my husband, and my bed.

He saved money from working at Mulligans Hollow during the winter and saved more working at Culvers this summer. Ive never seen a kid so excited to work at a fast food restaurant. He opened up his own IRA account with Jeffs help and started putting 20% of his paycheck into retirement...the rest goes to car savings. He ended up saving $4,000. Pretty good for a minimum wage worker. He gets so excited about Culvers, the people who work there, the brand itself. He read in Forbes that Culvers was the #1 chain in the country, so he takes this exciting news into work with him and shares it with his manager...his managers response? "That's great, can you go change the trash now?" Priceless! This is a great kid.

He nudged us again to start looking for cars in July. We had one of my facebook friends, Will Nalu talk to Miles and give him the do's and don's when shopping for a used car. Super valuable information even for me! Even so, I almost jumped on buying him a beautiful jaguar the neighbor had for sale. It was in perfect shape, a 2006 with low miles and only $4,000 but everyone said run because of the ridiculous cost to repair Jags. I was on my way to the bank to buy this car when I called a mechanic who heavily enlightened me. Miles definitely smarter than me in that moment, so we passed on the car.
We ended up at Draegers lot in Spring Lake and bough at $4,500 2005 green subaru forrester with 136,000 miles. It came home and dripped fluids all over the driveway...we seem to have taken care of that now but we also found out subarus are notrious for blowing head gaskets and burning oil so we'll see. God willing, the kid gets 4 years out of this car. Maybe we should have purchased the Jaguar instead.

Our neighbor Calvin gave Miles a Trump Pence bumper sticker, Miles said people honk and swear at him all the time.....a family with kids in the car gave him the finger and a few curse words. He backs his car in when he parks and he's the guy who parks farthest away from any building...backed in....no joke, he's THAT guy. Probably not a bad idea considering he's got a political sticker on his car in the worst and most divided election season I've ever experienced in my lifetime.

Zoe- breath of God

Hi Zoe,

I've been meaning to write this letter for awhile...sometimes letters help us express ourselves better because there's no immediate reaction to a message , you can read, meditate and  later reread a letter to understand where the writer is coming from without the harsh and emotional back and forth that sometimes comes out of a conversation. Sometimes in a conversation, people miss the heart of the matter. So for this reason, letters are ideal.

I'll start off  by saying this: #1 I love you.
And I, more than most everyone in this world, want your life to be full of meaning and  joy, and for you to have an  ability to overcome struggles.

In life, there are struggles....its a seemingly unfortunate reality of our humanity. Some people face struggles early on in life, some later. But the great secret is this: These struggles can make us into some seriously awesome people...struggles build character, perseverance, humility, strength...an ability to endure. Struggles in life in essence , and if you allow them, build up your character as an individual in this world. This isn't always the case for everyone though. Some people struggle and live as perpetual victims of life's trials...and the weariness from that battle is evident in their life. I believe the choice is ours in how we choose to respond to struggles. we can either buckle under them until they press us to death...or we can head into them face first knowing that when we emerge on the other side...we'll be more refined and better than we were going into the storm. A struggle in life is a blessing in disguise. It's provides a way to refine you from a lump of black coal into a brilliant and tested gem.

In my life, my struggles came early and lasted for several years. I, very much like you, suffered from social anxiety and a lack of confidence. Primarily, this was an effect of being raised in an unstable environment with a busy single mother and an absent father. Families are inherently designed to build healthy emotionally stable children. This doesn't always happen obviously as you can see. But, generally a home with a stable mother and father working together  produces the most advantageous results for children in terms of emotional stability and confidence. Now obviously in a broken world, there are always other factors at play that can disrupt this...but in general this is the case.

So as you can imagine, I missed that critical foundation as a child between the ages of  birth and 18 just as you have. In my life, the outcome manifested itself in a variety of ways. Very low confidence or "self esteem"...I did not understand my worth. Social anxiety, feeling awkward and terrified while with other people, especially in peer groups or later in work situations. Eating disorders including bulimia and anorexia, and major depression that went from the age of 12 until 30. Some of those symptoms led me into further disorders. The social anxiety I combatted with drug use and drinking...I felt a need to prove myself.  This began by just participating with the other people in recreational drug use because it was fun...funny things would happen...we would all laugh and it quieted my anxiety. In a sense, it was relief from my anxiety....although it was still there...not quite "cured" but suppressed at times. So I did MORE drugs, and became MORE extreme and wild. I was given confidence... my identity being molded as a free spirit who didn't conform to the same boring rules everyone else did. The wild and fun things we did were a great distraction from the depression I'd felt. Although again, my exploits may have distracted me from my underlying problems...they never exactly cured them...they were still there lurking in me waiting to rear their ugly heads when life quieted down. I made sure it never quieted down. Intermittently during this time when I would try and quiet down and live "normally"...like in my first year away at college....things were okay for awhile, but then reality kicked in and I crashed...all my hidden & suppressed problems welling up to the surface. I ended up trying to commit suicide when I was 19.

When I failed at that, and I still had no cure...I went right back to what did work...I went on an east coast road trip with a friend. It was one of the most fun and memorable times of my life. That trip ended when my second year of college began, I started selling drugs, I had a problem stealing that snowballed and got me into more trouble. I ended up drinking in the local bar and doing cocaine with my professors more than I was studying and going to classes. My friends were fascinated by my crazy stories...but my life was a train derailed. I finished the year as a cokehead who walked around campus with a backpack full of mushrooms, ecstasy, sheets of acid and bags  of cocaine. I decided I would go on Phish tour and drop out of school. That's the summer I met your dad.

More craziness carried on for the next few years...the stuff that people generally write books about. My mom wanted me to come back to Detroit and drive a bus...there was no way in hell I was ever coming back to Detroit to  drive a bus! lol. I honestly in my creative and adventurous mind thought I would end up on a vegan papaya farm in Hawaii at the end of my journey. That didn't happen. I ended up more of an emotional and unstable mess than I had ever been. I was pregnant at 20 and had an abortion. I was very "pro- choice" when I had the abortion and everyone I knew had abortions. At the time I didn't think there was anything wrong abortion...it was legal and I bought the lie that if you didn't have the means to provide you were better off killing your child!.I wasn't really prepared for the emotional scarring that choice would have in my life in the months that followed. If I wasn't messed up enough already, that was nearly the nail in the coffin for me.

A few months later, I was pregnant again...with you...."Zoe" which means "breath of God" in Greek. In some ways, I imagine subconsciously I wanted to be pregnant again to reverse the thing that I couldn't live with...the fact that I ended a life. I had a desire that welled up inside me to make a beautiful life for you...completely different than the one I'd had. I was only 21 years old when you were born...I barely had a nickel to my name and I didn't have the first clue how to raise a child! But I had a desire to take care of the precious life that was given to me. I read books on babies, took classes...some of that prepares you a little...but what prepares you the most is the love that God pours into a new mom for her children. Its an amazing thing that's truly indescribable.
I think I spent your first 6 months life just staring at you in awe of you! You were and are such an amazing human! You were truly my best friend who I wanted to share the world with. I still didn't have a clue, but what a time of Grace and love I had with you those first few years.

Struggles were there and increased in nature as you know. By the time I was 25, Miles was a baby and I was a divorced single mom with 2 amazing little ones, no local  family, no college education, no money but a desire still to make life beautiful for us. I worked 2 jobs to pay rent. I went though the hard trials like you experience today with people at your work. Certain people just not liking you, judging you, getting fired...all that hard stuff that makes you just want to go home and cry yourself to sleep. I still had depression, it was never cured and it just manifested into something greater and bigger than I ever imagined it could. It was debilitating. Had I not had you and Miles depending on me, I probably would have just ended my life.

I was, in my mind,....a perpetual victim. Life was so hard...Internally, I blamed my mom and absent dad for not giving me the stability I needed as a child and really just felt sorry for myself. I looked around and saw happy people and happy families and just felt sorry for us that we didn't have that.  I was so broken.There was a day I was so heartbroken and depressed and feeling sorry for myself I was just saying to myself "why me! why is MY life SO hard...I feel like I'm being picked on" I felt like I had been dealt an unfair hand in life. I was driving in my car on my way to work when this happened...for the first time in my life I "heard" God speak..its hard to describe but its like an audible voice that speaks through your heart. He actually answered my question "why me"...He said "Because I love You" that made no sense to me as you might understand...in my confusion to His answer he continued "I love you and I'm making you into a warrior" That was it...that's all he said. But that profoundly changed me and the way I looked at my suffering.   Sometimes I would go to church and listen...I think I visited every church in Grand haven, but I honestly just felt too broken and dirty to be there...so it never stuck. I'd read a lot of the bible but didn't really get It, even tough in my mind I understood it better than the people who went to church!  I thought Christians were judgmental hypocrites and they didn't really know Jesus. I barely knew Jesus myself but this didn't stop my from judging the church. I became pretty prideful in my opposition to Christians proudly proclaiming myself as a universalist and agnostic. I became good friends  with Ian Lawton who was the antichristian leader of c3 in spring Lake.

Like I said, I tackled my suffering ...I went back to college and my confidence stated to build. It was built in myself...I was prideful for what I accomplished in such tough circumstances. I still had depression and a host of issues but I could suppress them with pride in self..at least publicly. Inside I still missed the building blocks that makes a person whole.

When I was 31 and pregnant with Darby & Cooper, I was in charge of my life! And it was still a mess! Although I thought I had done well..I finished college, I found a job, I found a husband, I saved enough money to buy a house...Notice a theme? I, I, I, I. What a terrible leader I was.That's when God sent Jen Wagenmaker  to me...to humble my ass, lol. I thought she was an unintelligent bible thumper. She believed Jesus was the ONLY way. Well, obviously I was more enlightened than she was and not so narrow minded. My God she liked sarah palin after all!  I had no idea I was in the midst of a miracle completely orchestrated by my true father...who had tracked me for many years...even in my foolishness and hostility against the church that he loved. In that year, he truly got a hold of my heart and STARTED healing me from the inside out. It started with humility. I knew I had been leading my life and doing a terrible job...I decided to give Him the reigns.Not that I haven't wrestled with Him to get them back over the last 8 years...I surely do that still!  What choice did I have then? My marriage was ugly, my parenting skills were atrocious, my twins were showing signs of  autism...I was wrecked .  He has changed my life into something I never imagined was even possible. I never imagined I could have so much freedom from anxiety, depression and poverty. I never imagined he could take a girl like me with no healthy foundation in childhood...a true Hot mess and turn me into a champion who knows her value and worth. For me...that value doesn't come from me proving myself to anybody. Its not based on what I've done. Its based on God...what He has done and who He says I am.

I can assure you I am still far from perfect...and I well recognize that more than you think. And I realize you are angry that I have not been an ideal parent ...and that you feel I don't give you what you need or needed all these years  to feel "whole" and healed. You do need healing Zoe...nobody knows this more than me because I also needed healing. I know I will never live up to what you need from me. The best thing I could ever give to you is my testimony that I know the source of healing, because I've experienced it for myself! I know firsthand that no amount of money, relationships, education, travel, wild experiences, antidepressants, careers, or intellectualism will heal you...as hard as you try to prove yourself...those anxieties, depressions in your life ...they may be suppressed...but they're never really cured. And I know firsthand that the LAST place you ever want to go for healing happens to also be the ONLY place that  gives TRUE healing. Its the lamest  and most unpopular place where the hypocrites hang out...ugh...it is the LAST place on earth you want to be...I know that. But for me..at the foot of the cross is where I laid in a gurney having open heart surgery by a God who was the Physician...the Mighty Counselor as scripture calls him both! Its all I know...and that's why its the answer to every question you ask me! I know that is exceeding annoying! I completely realize that. But I also know that NO other answer will ever compare...so it will always be my answer. And for me, the healing and work God does in me is not complete...He is still working on me, I am TOTALLY under construction still. There is great progress, but its an ongoing process. So I will likely continue to fail you and fall short of what you want me to be. And I hope you can also be gracious and forgiving of me as I walk through life.

I won't have all the answers in life...no one ever does. God does...that's it.

Finally, I hope you can forgive me...and God for choosing me as your mom. You are right! I have been a FAR from perfect parent, and you and Miles have not had an ideal childhood. Primarily because of my sin and foolishness in life. I tried, I failed, I tried again...and still try and fail  today. I need forgiveness specifically for how I treated you when I was stressed and depressed  and my own life was falling apart...I demanded too much from you when you were suffering yourself. Frustrated that I created such havoc in our environment, I expected too much from you...and you unraveled yourself. Its quite understandable that you would rebel in the way you did.

 If I could change anything, it would be this: I would have believed and trusted God before you were born...I would have had more wisdom in how to raise kids and in life in general. But that didn't happen, and I can't change that. But I don't have to because God is bigger than all of it and with His help we can all overcome the worst of circumstances. He brings people back from the dead, nothing is too hard or out of reach for him, NOT.ONE.THING. As Jesus himself said "With God, ALL things are possible"

You are loved, you are valuable, you are more precious than you know....if you gain nothing else from this...at least digest that truth!

Tribulation pride

My husband called me out a month ago on my tribulation pride. He thought I had pride about what i'd been through and overcome, diminishing other peoples problems because they didn't stack up to what id been through....I may be guilty of this...just shrugging off other peoples problems as what today's culture would call "white girl problems"...even though I'm an actual white girl.

A few years ago when we were considering moving to the east coast, I was looking around online for churches in Delaware where he lived. I came upon a website for a church that looked gospel oriented and fresh. There was one testimonial video on the site. it looked intriguing. Dramatic scene opens up of a white girl in a hoodie drawn over hr eyes walking to an abandoned building late at night in the cover of darkness holding a bucket of paint...she begins to throw paint all over the side of this dilapidated building...her anguish was palpable. Scene cuts to her...Caitlyn was her name...sitting on an over-sized cushioney chair in the middle of an empty dark room with one solo light over her head...I knew this testimony would be good.

Caitlyn starts ...it goes something like this:

I was raised in a Christian home, always going to church, attending Christian schools. When I was in high school, I stated to get so bored during the sermons, sometimes I would do Suduko puzzles instead of paying attention. It got worse, she would at times get so bored sitting there she confessed how she would intentionally volunteer in childrens ministry just to get out of sitting through the sermon. She broke down, the guilt was unbearable....then she was born again when she came to this new church and wasn't so bored and enjoyed the message...she enjoyed it so much she didn't have to volunteer or do Sudoku puzzles. It sounds like Im kidding, but this was the testimony...the one testimony on this church's website. I couldn't contain my shock. Are you kidding me? Shes guilty for Sudoku puzzles and volunteer work?! Jeff and I both just dyed laughing and had fun with the story the entire week. But it was her story, and it was important to her growth. I know this is a severe example of a tame testimony, but it just led me to exalt my own experiences over hers.

Another time I was camping at the Christian campgrounds in West Olive with my kids...I'd never been there. As a matter of fact I didn't  even know it existed until a mentor and friend told me about it. It was only a 15 minute drive from where Id lived for 14 years! Its beautiful there, right on the shores of Lake Michigan, with a crazy gorgeous beach access with clean bathrooms. Its reasonably priced, there's tennis courts, a swimming pool and a hot tub. This amazing tree house in the center of a huge sandy playground for the kids. An ice cream counter  with real ice cream cones (the hard serve) for $1, I'm not kidding...$1 (this was music to my frugal single mom Jewish ears!), and a cheap sit down family restaurant with food if you didn't want to grill. They had activities for all the kids, a no drive policy during the week so the kids could ride their bikes freely without fear of getting run over,  and every Sunday a preacher would come and give a sermon. If that wasn't enough all the campers loved God, so our neighbors were this awesome family from Indiana...like 7 kids, all home schooled...and we talked and talked for a few days over the campfire about our awesome God and our experiences. It was a slice of heaven. Just me and the kids. I'd never experienced a campground quite like it. the campgrounds I was used to had drunks and lewdness, swag beer, lots of profanity, expensive vending machines, dirty bathrooms, surrounding by a backdrop of awesome natural settings. I'm not saying I never partook in any of these "other" campground activities, I'm just saying I never realized this alternative reality existed.

Anyways, the kids were swimming and I decided to pop in the hot tub with the other adults. We started talking and I'm sure my excitement about the whole place was evident. I'm sure I mentioned how new I was to all this being a born again christian for only a few years by this point. The woman I was talking to asked me how i came to believe in Jesus...so I gave her the quick but pointed version as best I could. When i was done, I asked her how she came to saving Grace. She almost got defensive with me. I felt like I put her on the spot and this wasn't my intention at all. She said she had just been raised a christian and she didn't have some crazy story where she was a crackhead and that she didn't need to. Nor did i expect her to...we all have different stories and we're all part of His-story! Anyways, it was a little awkward and i tried to sort of smooth out the awkwardness the best i could. Had it not been for people like her and her family standing firm on Gods Truth, there would be no church to run to for people like me when my world was crumbling. She was important!

Jeff feels this way too sometimes which is why he brought it up to me. I always thought it was a problem he had, or she had. After he mentioned my "tribulation pride" to me , it must have been the very next day if not the day after that....I was in Meijers shopping alone in the house goods section, by bathroom stuff moving leisurely around. I passed a couple speaking to a woman and I overheard the conversation. This was all I heard: The single woman said to the couple "yea it was so hard, I didn't sleep for like 2 days!, it was so hard". In my head I thought "2 days? really?! When I had the twins I didn't sleep for like 3 years!" And there it was, Jeff was right...and it took that moment for me to realize I do  have tribulation pride!  I believe my own story is more special or unique because of the tough circumstances God brought me through...and that somehow other peoples stories are trivial to mine...and for that I had to repent. So I told Jeff he was right, that was step one. I told him about my Meijers experience and thanked him for bringing it up to me over the years even though I never agreed with him until this point. I hope this repentance in this area of my life bears fruit in the form of MORE compassion and an ability to empathize with others no matter what they're going through.

 If you know me and I do this to you, please call me out on it...I don't want to be that person anymore. God is good, and His grace on my life and on my family and me is good enough. Here's the thing, many people have actually had serious traumatic situations in their life, loss of family members, children. Severe sexual abuse by family members, debilitating illness's and disabilities, drug addictions that ruin lives, accidents that forever  change lives, horrible horrible traumas that  I don't comprehend and hope never to have to. Yet God picks each of us, lets the trials unfold on us and gives us strength to overcome...he makes each of us warriors if we allow Him . From Caitlyn, to me, to my friend in the hot tub, to my awesome husband, to those sitting in hospitals or cancer treatment centers today, to kids living in impoverished third world countries wondering if they'll get enough to eat that day...to the girls held as sex slaves by Islamic terrorists, to the men and women stealing  and degrading themselves for a warm shot of liquid to inject in their arms, to the generations of families living in a landfills in South anerica....God has got this, we are all part of His-story....let Him make you an overcomer.

Romans 8:37
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us

1 John 4:4
Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world

1 John 5:4
For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith

Matthew 5:3
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

Believer

It took me at least a year, closer to two years to refer to myself as a Christian. I had such a negative connotation with that name because I was so antichristian for so long. That's why I typically still say "believers". Even the name " Jesus" was hard for me to use...I almost preferred using something more exotic like Yeshua. I'm okay with these terms now...8 years later. I know many people call themselves "Christian" and don't know what that even means, but I've come to terms with it. Sometimes I'm a hypocritical Christian myself. Am I a fulfilled Jew? A Messianic Jew? A Christian? A believer? A person of the way? An evangelical? I'm all of the above. How many names does God have? I think we oughta have mtiple names too :)

We just finished up a 2 day marriage conference at our awesome church.....never would I have believed 10...even 15 years ago that I would be sitting in a marriage conference next to the most amazing husband who is humble, loving, forgiving...and EXCITED and having the time of his life at a Marriage conference!! Lol. I almost felt guilty sitting there next to him. Never lose hope...God can do anything!! Yes, be obedient to His Word and trust in Him always even if things don't turn out the way you imagine they will.....God will bless you smile emoticon, walk with Him. And thankyou Mary Anne Hester-stuppy andGeorge Stuppy for raising such an awesome son, instilling patience, discipline, and modeling love and respect in marriage. Still smitten in the mitten smile emoticon

You look like someones mom

Late winter 2015 in the middle of a sunny and cold Michigan March day, I was standing in line at McDonalds waiting for a latte. I struck up a conversation with a heavy set black man (probably close to my age) who was the only other person waiting. I don't even remember how this happened but somehow he starts talking about how hard it is for him to have a girlfriend...he's working SO hard trying to make a living and most the women he works with are lesbians..he says "I'm sorry I don't mean to offend you if you're one of those lesbians" I said "I'm not, and I'm married, but I hear you...it's a broken world and we're so far from God right now" he goes on about how he was homeless, he'd pulled himself out of that situation and was now working at a job and getting his life back together...and about his love for God who was his savior. He couldn't have found a better person to resonate with his story that day. I listened on and wanted to encourage him...by now I had my latte and he had his food and we sidelined by the exit door. I said " I've been there, It was a long time ago but I lived in a van for like a year selling nitrous oxide  and drugs all over the country. His expression of shock was great "what?!!....you...you look like someones mom!!", he shouts. I said "I am someones mom, God IS good, even to the broken and foolish like me, He restores us.....keep trusting Him".

Cooper....the author

Coopers wants to be a writer, I told him "good writers are good storytellers so tell me a story, lets see if you're any good". So far every "story" sounds like an instruction manual, lol. So he's writing his book now "how to play with a cat" he's on point 4. "Jump out of nowhere and scare your cat"

Okay, it took him a whole 8 minutes but he's finally done. It's a 2 pager (including cover) he's asking $5.99...there's an advertisement on the back of book for five nights at Freddy's game, lol.

Here's the author lol

God opposes the proud and gives grace tto the humble- proverbs 3:34

If you're anything like me,  you guilt over the way God has blessed you despite you. Let me explain.... in 2011,  I was in my fourth year of my  2nd marriage and things weren't going very well, I was in a marriage filled with conflict, baggage, emotional manipulation,  deception, hidden sin, two  sinners in a marriage  built on a foundation void of Christ. Lets go a little farther back now.  It's 2006...  I'm about to turn 30 and  I had a plan...I would be completing... finally... my bachelors degree in finance, I'd  buy a house, have a professional career, and  get married creating a perfect family for my kids.  All my years of dysfunction, poverty,  and poor choices would be solved by my ability to pull myself up "by the bootstaps" as they say.  I would do everything in MY  power to create a "normal" life and live happily ever after...like "normal" people did.

 I didn't have a steady boyfriend, but I certainly had MY solid  blueprints for happiness and a handful of dating websites to choose from. I met a young man my age. He had blue eyes and dark hair (check) , college graduate (check),  steady and good job (check),  and he let me talk ALOT...I dominated most of our conversations. It actually took me about three weeks to even discover he had a strong stutter...if that gives you any clue into how important it was for me to feel known without really ever getting to know him, question him, understand his values and goals. My plans were set in motion as thirty was fast approaching.

He had similar plans about getting married;  His father had always urged him to marry a rich girl (he thought I seemed motivated to earn money and that was sufficient enough  to honor his dads advice). He moved into the apartment I had with Zoe and Miles after six  months of knowing me...and I not only  allowed it....I encouraged it! We were engaged two  months later. On we went to the jewelry store together so I  could pick out my OWN engagement ring.  He put it on credit which I eventually paid off.  Two months later we took a hefty chunk out of my savings account for a down  payment on a house he really loved. By April 2006 we were living in a house we owned together. Some problems started surfacing.

The first domino... he wasn't a supervisor at his job,  he was a line worker, which isn't a terrible job, its just not what he told me. Domino #2- He didn't have a college degree. What he did have however was over $30k in outstanding school loans for going to several colleges, switching majors, taking loans out for living expenses, and never graduating. Domino #3- he started talking and saying what was truly in his heart and not what I wanted to hear to win me over.  We started arguing initially over house stuff...we both had our own ideas of what we wanted, we couldn't even agree on paint colors. He ended up draining the last of what I deemed "my" savings account to finish the unfinished basement with a bar and stereo room. I had saved and planned for a playroom finally for Zoe and Miles who'd grown up so far in small spaces, he wasn't having any of that. He became  consumed with the basement, it was an instant source of conflict for us, a true battle of wills.

I wanted a family for Zoe and Miles. Up until this point they had lived  their life with me as a single parent in a small two bedroom apartment. I  worked,  very often two jobs to make ends meet  and going to college while they spent hours and hours in daycare. They got pushed to the side so I could get us out of poverty. I wanted them to have a playroom.

The playroom didn't happen. Over the next two years, I watched my remaining savings I'd built up as a single parent go to turning an unfinished basement into a bar and stereo room.  I was working full time at my first professional job. I was pregnant with the twins by the fall of 2006.  The relationship cement had dried, and it wasn't settled very well...fighting, resentment, bitterness. A new family with  two step kids, new stepdad  and another two babies on the way!

 8 1/2 months later on my lunch break from work...dreary from the twin pregnancy, working full time,  and the conflict in my new relationship;   seeing that my own blueprints had led me to disaster... I was two weeks away from having the twins and I weighed 220 pounds. I was  wearing leggings and mens button up work shirts (the only thing long enough to cover my belly)  and red crocs on my feet ....Mike and I  met at a courthouse in Grand haven  and swapped some generic prewritten vows given to us  by a government clerk.  I knew we didn't have a chance...but with both of our names on the mortgage and both of our dna imprints on the twins about to be born any day and with no other family around to support us, there was no way I was doing this alone.  I would make it work for until the twins were old enough for us to separate.

 He became  jealous of me. Not FOR me, but OF me, Any success I had at work, anything I did with the kids.  I was so unhappy with him I dug in to criticizing his failings.  I was really good at telling him everything that was wrong with him and his family. I learned more about him to fuel the fire, the racism and anti-Semitism in his family, his attraction to the Nazi ideology which didn't settle well with me coming from a Jewish family. His severe addiction to online pornography that caused him to easily get bored with whatever women he was in a relationship with. So intimacy was out after the first year. I knew I'd be divorced as soon as I could actually afford to be on my own again.

I hit a snag in my plans to eventually divorce when I became a born again believer in the late fall of 2007. I was completely changed and "on fire" for God and just in awe of what I was learning and what God was showing me. My whole world was jolted. God did this radical change in  everything I had believed and held on to. For the first time, I knew despite the toxicity of the marriage that God could restore us both and change everything. Mike wasn't really on board. If anything it made him more jealous of me. Not only did I seem to  have the reigns financially supporting the family as he eventually would quit his job. He now saw me as having the  spiritual reigns and knowledge to lead the family towards Christ. He hated it, he just didn't understand it at all. I'd read through the entire Bible and studied Gods Word with intensity, and I  was being healed in the process. He responded by making fun of me.
Some rare nights we would talk about all these things and I would do what I could to describe the awesomeness of the Gospel, the way it was changing me and healing me. Sometimes he'd listen, usually he'd make fun of me. I knew his responses stemmed from his own jealousy and insecurity so it never bothered me much. I was so strong in my belief from the day I was changed, I knew I  would never go back to that former life and way of thinking. I knew my life was bigger than me and my plans.   If anything it gave me more compassion and pity for him....I knew he could be changed if I could be changed. So, I was determined. Soon other problems surfaced that caused me to have less pity for him; the kids needed help.

The twins were showing signs of autism. This wreaked havoc on the lives of everyone including Zoe and Miles who were basically left on their own. I devoted myself to figuring out what we needed to do to help them...doctors continually telling us how important early intervention was. I spent almost every Sunday in church either in daycare with the twins  or too broken to sit through a sermon without crying. I'd end up in one of the  empty corner rooms of the church alone, my face to the floor, crying my guts out to God to heal my boys. I was that cliche woman you'd see at church every week with my kids in tow and no husband.

Mike dealt with the boys autism a little differently. His response was   denial. He worked a 2nd shift job, I worked a day job. We hired a nanny for the 2-5:30 period when he left and before I came home. I would burn with anger when therapists would call me to say they'd come to the house for their appointments, and knocked for several minutes to no answer and see the boys through the window  rocking in their bouncy seats back and forth in front of the television. I'd come home on a lunch break to check in on them to the same; the boys in soaked diapers in a soaked bouncy seat in front of the television playing a twelve hour baby Einstein loop he had created for them so he could sleep during the day. I would be infuriated. At one point, one of the twins fell down our laundry chute on his watch and could have died. The relationship with the kids eroded away any compassion I had for him as a new believer.

He did agree at one point to come to Hope church and get help  from a marriage counselor after I started mentioning divorce. After six weeks of counseling, the therapist asked to  talk to me one day when Mike didn't show up . The marriage counselor told me I had to make a decision. He wasn't allowed to directly tell me I should get a divorce, but it was implied. I ignored his direction, confused that a Christian counselor would ever imply such a thing. S, we quit going to that counselor and I  signed up for a "Stephens ministry" counselor instead, but on my own.  That's where I met Bern Lewis. She was an older woman not trained as a counselor but voluntarily stepped into my life as a mentor in the faith and prayer warrior over my marriage and children.

For three  years we would meet weekly, we prayed for the kids, for my husband, for our marriage. I shared the dark stuff going on in the house. She eventually  told me that I needed to think seriously about divorce. I started to sense that was where God was calling me, but I was terrified. I didn't know how I'd handle it on my own. I had no family.  I had fear for my future again as a single parent with four children, two struggling with autism. I retreated into reaching out to an old  flame on a social media site. I know, I know how cliché right??  I  had an affair for a few months with this old boyfriend I'd broken up with that I knew was wrecked over me marrying Mike years earlier. 

 Right before this affair, I was well aware I was vulnerable to this sin, I'd actually signed up for a bible study at my church titled "When Godly people sin"...I knew I was headed straight for it, but this time as a proclaimed "follower of Christ" . I justified the sin by reminding myself that I was planning to divorce, telling myself I  wasn't technically cheating since I hadn't been intimate with my own husband for more than two years due to his pornography addiction. So I lied, I hid, and I sinned.

I ended that affair and planned on filing for divorce the next summer  when a new controller was hired where I worked. I knew it would be difficult when I filed, Mike had threatened to end his life if I ever divorced him to emotionally manipulate me into staying.  At the time I was the interim controller until they hired another person. I  was working 50-60 hour weeks....thats when I  met Jeff in person. My company actually flew him in from Delaware to help me handle a perfect storm of a year end inventory count, year end close and fiscal audit with me at the helm as the sole accountant. It was August 2011.  I was beyond frazzled, so frazzled from work, home, and life I actually started chewing tobacco.

 Jeff was calm and centered and likable right from the beginning. We spent time navigating through the impossible work situation. We spent time discussing small snippets of life on lunch breaks. He had broken off a five  year relationship earlier in the year. I finally gave him some small details into what was happening in my home life. We had an instant connection with eachother as friends that grew into a full blown crush. We eventually kissed after a chartered fishing trip the company arranged during the work day for one of our auditors.  Jeff knew I was filing for divorce but he really didn't think anything would come of it. He lived in Delaware and I was 14 hours away in Michigan. I had four kids, he had none. I was still married and living with Mike in an extremely volatile situation. Our odds of a successful relationship, given the circumstances, weren't great.

Yet,  Here we are.... years later, married and in love. I am so so grateful to God for Jeff in my life.  He has been such a ridiculous undeserved blessing for us..all of us. I just look at the way we met, who I  was...what I did..., what we did....and I think "How God could you ever bless me, bless US,  given our actions??" I've mulled this over for nearly five years. This Sunday at church our pastor pointed out a verse "God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble- proverbs 3:34. Thats exactly where we are, in Gods grace, despite us, He put His favor on us. The only thing we can both openly admit in our messy situation is our humility in it. We have nothing to boast about, but Gods grace alone on us. What a good good Father you are God!

When Mike first found out about Jeff, he told every single person I knew about it, including my pastor at Hope church I'd gone to for three years that he visited a handful of times with me.  He refused to move out of the house for two months after I'd filed for divorce. He would call people on the phone and loudly proclaim what a whore I was.  One night, he was on the phone with a friend proclaiming my whoredom and he forced the phone to my ear and said "tell him Jen, tell him what a whore you are." What could I do? I put my hand up to the receiver and said, " its true...I'm a whore". Satan ,during that time whispered in my ear ...it sounded like this..."You are shameful, you should just walk away from the church altogether, how could you ever show your face there?, everyone knows what a hypocrite,  liar and whore you are". You're not good enough to show your face.

 I could literally feel myself walking away in shame just as I had been doing when I first felt fear control me instead of the calling of God to leave my marriage a year prior.  I was like the disciples in the boat in a massive storm with sea water washing over the sides...did I call on Jesus and have faith for him to save me? No. I pulled out a gun and shot a bigger hole in the base of the boat...I made a horrible situation worse. Yet God still rescued me...not because of my faith, but because of His faith. I put y palm up to Satans face, I turned around and walked humbly back to church.... and still walk openly and humbly confessing my sins to the church and to God, have mercy on me! a sinner!