We visited a local church other than our home church this Sunday.

It was their youth Sunday. So many of these young people have been campers and staff at the remote Bible camp where my husband (Scruffy) and I live and work. We wanted to support them on their big day. The youth led a variety of lovely Christmas carols but then finished with a duet by two young ladies.

As I listened, letting the music fill the room and pour over me, filling my eyes with tears, I noticed an elderly couple in front of us.

It was a modern song, not the type of melody one would expect to transition well between generations.

However, standing beside his wife, was an older gentleman. He had the look of a lifelong worker. Perhaps a truck driver, mechanic, or one of the many retired orchardists who fill our rural community. Simple clothes, shirt untucked, Gnarled hands raised to heaven as he listened to the clear voices of the girls worshiping on the stage.

He worshipped with them, letting the years between them fall away as the presence of our Savior filled the room.

I wept anew at the picture this painted.

Young and old, standing together, one before the God who loves.

In a different moment he might think those young women drive too fast, don’t wear dresses enough, and gracious did they park on his grass again!

On a different day these girls might sigh at his stories, wonder why everything takes so long, and get frustrated that he’s surprised they want to study science at college.

But not on that Sunday.

It was December, the darkest month of the year, set aside to remember the light, and they did.

They sang. They listened. They felt the joy of being God’s and being together as children of God.

Young and old, together, worshipping, strong.

May we be the same.

May the years between us fall away as we worship.

The post May the Years Between Us Fall Away as we Worship appeared first on KristenJoyWilks.com.

I Kings 19:11-13

“The Lord said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by. Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.”

“I’m not fond of cats.” This was always my husband’s (Scruffy) typical answer when anyone asked why we didn’t have a cat, had never had a cat, not even once during our 23-year-marriage. This was an incredible understatement.

But Scruff didn’t really hate cats.

What he hated was a childhood filled with cigarette smoke, tension, cutting manipulation, and the pervasive scent of cat urine. What he hated was going to school where there was the chance of kindness, a smile, maybe friendship … only to have a kid wrinkle their nose at how he smelled. It doesn’t matter how carefully you launder your clothes if the house is full of smoke and cats.

Over the years, as God brought healing and joy and new life, Scruff has softened a bit toward cats, until everything changed on a frosty morning in November.

Someone dumped a half-grown kitten on the mountain meadow where we live. Our neighbor was getting the mail (yes, our mailbox is two miles away from our house and so is theirs) and saw a wet, skinny, orange tabby shivering underneath a hunter’s pickup truck. The hunter said he had no idea where she’d come from and he didn’t want her.

Now, anyone who has approached a stray cat knows that they are a skittish bunch.

Our neighbor didn’t have time to chase a hissing, scratching creature around the forest. “I’ll just try once,” he told himself as he bent and peered into her hiding place. She came right to him.

We lost our beloved Newfoundland dog this year, Princess Leia Freyja, and are on a list for a puppy. So when our neighbor texted, asking if anyone had lost a female tabby, I was shocked at my husband’s reply.

“Let us know if you need help homing it. We’ve been considering getting one.”

What? Was this really my husband? We had not been considering getting one. What had been happening was that every single cat lover in our lives had been sending Scruff photos of adorable kittens in need for the past twenty years and he’d been consistently telling them, “Absolutely not!”

Long story short, we now have a cat.

I wanted to name her Persnickety, because it is the ideal cat name. Scruff wanted to name her Whisper, because despite her harsh start in life, alone and wet on a frosty morning huddled under a stranger’s truck, she is an incredibly gentle cat with the softest voice. A gentle whisper.

Like how God appears to us as we press on through a life that can be so incredibly hard. He doesn’t come like a blast of dynamite, a tornado of power, a world-shattering earthquake (although He can and occasionally, He has). More often, He steps into the darkness of our world with a quiet whisper that changes everything.

And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

Whisper was unloved, unwanted, abandoned on a lonely morning to the cold of a forest full of predators. Have you ever lived that moment? I have. The quiet despair of a strange place, the biting cold of abandonment, the danger, the vast loneliness.

She is clearly not a feral cat. Whisper doesn’t have the harsh independence of those tough and cagy felines that make their own way in the world.

Whisper Persnickety rushes to join me whenever I get out of bed to use the bathroom. She follows me around the house with a quiet mew and bumps against my legs to cuddle and trip me up. When I settle into my little loft office to write, she curls up against my feet and snoozes until I put the final word to the page. When I read in front of the fire, she curls up on my lap and dozes. At night, as soon as Scruff crawls into bed she hops up with a soft meow and curls herself against his side.

“I can’t believe someone didn’t want this cat,” Scruffy told me last night.

The man who felt the heartache of an unhappy childhood every time he saw a cat. This is the man who said that. She has been such a gift as we grieve the loss of our Leia, as we wait on that puppy list, as we miss the presence of a warm fuzzy in our lives. As we missed something we’d never had, a warm cat curled up next to us in bed, purring softly.

Whisper is a gentle, loving cat with good manners and a peaceful presence.

Someone didn’t want her.

If you feel unwanted, today, I want you to stop a moment and listen closely.

Is our Whisper any less valuable because someone didn’t want her? Is she less gentle, less loving, less beautiful because she was found abandoned at the end of a road? Is she less a gift because she was unexpected? Isn’t she the whisper of God’s voice come into our lives when we were hurting? Yes, yes she is and you can be, too.

You are valuable.

You are a gift.

You can be the gentle whisper of a powerful God into the lives of hurting people.

Are you unwanted?

It doesn’t matter.

You are a whisper of hope.

God has surprised and blessed me in ways that I barely dared to hope. Just one example of this: a shortened version of Whisper’s story is now a children’s tract, sharing God’s love with little ones in a parable based on the lost sheep but using our own Whisper Persnickety! Check it out here: A Whisper of Hope.

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The amazing thing about wildflowers is that they come amidst all of the ugly forest rubble of early spring.

Up through decaying leaf litter, scattered twigs, and crusty snow-tamped ground they spring to life and bloom.

A bit of hope for those of us who wonder why God doesn’t step in more often.

Why doesn’t He clear the way for His people, pick up the sticks, the fallen logs, move a few pine cones out of the way.

Why must we bloom smack in the center of so much hurt and darkness?

Then again, I have walked through cultivated gardens.

Somehow, I prefer a forest path and those determined wildflowers to all the carefully guarded blooms.

Last year we got eleven inches of snow right on top of our first glacier lilies and spring beauties.

My town friends saw all of the flowers in their yards die.

However, a couple days later when the hot spring sun melted the snow,

the glacier lilies and spring beauties straightened bent leaves, stretched tall, and bloomed in their full splendor.

They survived something that a hot house blossom never could.

Perhaps the Lord needs us to be this kind of flower, the one that can bloom in the darkest, ugliest places.

Matthew 5:16–“In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

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Along with an incredible amount of stress, worry, and weighty ministry work … I have just experienced a string of baffling and unexpected miracles.

You probably don’t know this, but I have been so discouraged. I’ve gone way past the stage where people who started writing when I did are getting amazing contracts and winning awards. I’m sitting through keynote addresses by folks who started writing seriously AFTER I did. This is not an anomaly. It’s happened several times. In fact, I’m now sitting through lectures by people who started writing after me who are so successful that they are not allowed to enter contests anymore. The more this happens, the more I wonder if perhaps this twenty-two year experiment was in fact a giant waste of time.

However, there is a conference I have wanted to attend for about a decade. It is too expensive, but I have been lurking on their website a long time. Entering contests (and finaling … but not winning) that granted free attendance. Hoping for a “someday” moment. Then the conference was cancelled. Someone tried to start it up again and failed. Then someone else tried and succeeded. Yay! However, it was still too expensive.

In a fit of optimism, I applied for a scholarship this year.

I got two.

It wasn’t enough and so I stuffed my hopes one more time and declined the scholarships.

Then I pulled a CD I’d been saving for decades (yes, you get $ from the government when you lose a parent as a child) so that we can fix the roof on our house. Scruffy (my husband) pulled me aside. “That can’t just go to house repairs. We’re gonna make sure you get to your dream conference.”

I told him, “Maybe next year.”

The conference was already full, we hadn’t fixed the roof yet, my risk-averse nature just couldn’t handle living the dream quite yet.

The next day, I got an email from the conference director. A spot had opened up as well as another scholarship. An even bigger scholarship. I waffled, still scared. Should I? Dare I?

“Go for it!” Scruff insisted.

And so I did, but with much prayer and uncertainty lurking beneath my excitement. “Lord, I need to know if I should keep trying. I need direction, new ideas, a bit of hope. Could You send me just a little bit of hope?”

Most of the deadlines for the conference had come and gone, but with a few days left, I managed to enter their writing contest about courage.

I found a flight that was one third of the expected cost and I even got the last seat in another attendee’s rental car from the airport to the conference!

Did I mention they have flowers in California. Flowers. I walked away from two feet of snow and into a flowerstorm.

Through getting lost in the parking garage and other hijinks, I made four new friends in the women I shared a car with. Then on the very first day, I ran into a good writer friend I hadn’t seen in a year. Laughter, tears, so many good things.

Then somehow, the key note speakers all spoke about the pain of writing, the uncertainty, the hopeless times, wanting to give up. The lament of writing, the uncertainty. After twenty-two years of hard work with little fruit, I soaked up their words and let them settle on all the dry places I hadn’t dared look too hard at for such a long time.

This year just happened to be the first time in years that they had a major morning track devoted to children’s writing. During the first morning of children’s teaching, I had an idea, a new idea. Then I had another and another.

I met with editors. People I had planned to talk with and people who were surprises. Someone whose house had rejected seven of my manuscripts told me, “I love your writing,” and one more little seed of hope stretched through the soil. Agents gave me fresh ideas and encouragement. Then, Sunday service was about what to do when God doesn’t give you a guarantee.

It was as though God had pulled back the curtain around my dutiful little heart and saw the truth. As I slogged forward, keeping on keeping on for just one more grueling step, my Lord saw me and He brought teaching, talks, conversations, and even a sermon that spoke directly to me. To someone who had been persevering for too long. Too long to actually keep hoping.

The sermon was by the agent of one of my good friends. Bob Hostetler spoke on three times that famous Bible people hoped without a guarantee. When Jonathan son of Saul said “Perhaps the Lord …” and attacked the Philistines just him and his armor bearer. When David said, “Maybe the Lord …” and stopped his men from lopping off the head of a man cursing him. And of course when the three Hebrew slaves told the king of the world they would not bow. That God was able to save them, “But if not …”

God hasn’t given me a guarantee that my words will find a home. However, He absolutely does miracles. I see them all the time about other things. If Jonathan was willing to risk his life for “Perhaps the Lord …” who am I to stop writing after honing my craft for a couple of decades?

Ten years ago, I knelt during worship at the ACFW conference some dear friends paid for me to attend. After ignoring the call to write a camp blog, I gave God my book dreams with tears streaming down my cheeks and told Him yes, I would write the camp blog. Whenever I hear that song, I remember my promise. I remember my call.

Our little blog was a decade old in December and He has worked in it and through it.

There was never a question of quitting the blog. But what about the fact that I’ve spent over twenty years learning my craft, have brought my writing up to a high level, and it hasn’t been enough?

What about those twenty-six unpublished children’s book manuscripts sitting on my computer? Wasn’t it about time to give up on them?

Honestly, I don’t know.

However, on our last day of worship, with tears streaming down my cheeks, I knelt again.

I gave all those stories to Him, one more time. Victory or defeat, they were His. I let myself hurt and let myself hope and rested in the pounding beauty of the song as it filled the chapel.

The next day we enjoyed our final classes and then zipped back to the chapel to wrap things up.

So many new friends.

So much knowledge and encouragement.

It was just so much.

Then the conference director gave out a few awards and shushed me for laughing too loudly. Yes, I always sit in the front. She said that we had made it really hard on her this year as she tried to judge the writing contest about courage. That 50% of attendees had entered. That the entries were all so so good.

Then she said my name.

She called me up and said that they had picked mine.

I still don’t know God’s plan for my writing beyond the camp blog.

But I know that despite the last twenty-two years of stumbling on, I will press on just a little bit more.

I’m not sure that I could have written this piece about courage if my heart hadn’t been so shattered and raw.

Even that, my friend. He uses even that.

Psalm 34:18–“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

Boo Boo

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I’ve lived off-grid since before the term off-grid was coined. Now, what most people think of when they hear this is the beautiful views we enjoy. Rightly so, it is absolutely lovely. Here is our mountain meadow early in the morning when the trees were coated in frost. Perfect peace, indeed.

However, in order to live at and run a remote Bible camp, we have to do so many things for ourselves. We plow our own roads, pump our own water, and produce our own electricity. Pictured above is the small generator I inherited from my 104-year-old grandfather. It is supposed to run power to our home and charge up a bank of batteries that should then give us enough subsequent power for several good hours of work on the computer for Scruffy (my camp director husband), writing and cooking for me, and homework and computer gaming for our three teenage sons. And vacuuming, don’t forget the joys of vacuuming. You laugh, but have you ever spent a week without power and been unable to vacuum? Yeah, gives it a whole new angle doesn’t it? So, that is what is supposed to happen, when the system is working.

We had just faced an incredibly exhausting week. Too many crazy things to list, but Scruff, Bomber, and I talked. We absolutely had to have a day off that week. To recover and revive. To keep insanity at bay. The rental camp would leave on Sunday and so we chose Monday. No matter what, we were taking a day off on Monday.

On Sunday night, the power at our house completely died. Though our generator had stopped working, the camp generator was running and should have been charging our batteries, we had nothing but complete darkness. Scruff ran out to the generator shed to see what had happened. He was met by a cloud of toxic fumes. Coughing, he tried to press forward. However, the voice of reason was shouting and thank the Lord, Scruff listened. He backed out, warned our youngest son away and waited for the fumes to clear. Later, he went to investigate and our batteries were the issue. No power. A failed system. But as a woman who lost her dad to carbon monoxide poisoning when he was working on our family’s power system, I was so so thankful to still have my husband. Bomber (our maintenance gal) looked it up. Those fumes would have killed him if he’d stayed too long.

So clearly, the system needed a professional to take a peek. I used a phone book and our ancient phone that still plugs directly into the wall to start calling electricians. No one would come all the way up to where we live. The only off-grid mechanic in the area gently informed me that he was retiring and not taking any more clients. He gave me the name of a guy at the PUD to call for recommendations. They didn’t have any.

All was well and truly lost in the power department. Yes, I was SO thrilled to still have my husband and sons alive and well. However, as I transferred all of our food outside into coolers and hiked to Bomber’s house to use the internet for all of our school and work tasks with no end in sight, I admit despair crept across my heart. I’d tried everything. Absolutely, everything.

So we prayed. Again.

Desperately. Again.

We asked the camp board to pray for us. My mother asked the camp prayer team to pray for someone who knew what they were doing to appear and help.

I stared at these written prayers and I told the Lord, “Welp, You are just going to have to make this magical electrician appear out of the floorboards because I’ve tried everything.”

Despair continued it’s slow march.

Scruff tried to work, using neighboring power, and one of the things on his list was talking with rental directors for upcoming camps. One of them was running a men’s retreat and his group wanted to help out with some work projects. They made plans to help us with the 50+ trees that have fallen this winter and then Scruff mentioned the impossible. “What we really need, is an off-grid electrician.” An impossible request.

The impossible appeared.

A navy-trained electrician went to their church. Navy, as in, he’d worked on electrical systems on ships … ships that are off-grid!!!

He came up the next day. All of our connections on the batteries were corroding. Yes, our batteries are failing and we will need to get new ones. However, he got the system up and running again so that when the camp generator is on, we have power! We even have a few hours of battery power after that generator gets turned off.

God still surprises me. His power. His grace for this tired doubter. His love. His terrible, beautiful, impossible love for us.

Thank you Lord for stepping down into our trouble, one more time and doing Your thing.

Even though we never did get that day off.

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What is youth ministry really like?

What is camp ministry like?

There is a cold hard truth about youth ministry that they don’t tell you ahead of time.

Imagine that you have an unending to do list that has five things added every day. You can only finish one thing a day. Then imagine that one of those five things is a desperate blazing necessity. The power died, the water stopped running, your camp speaker is sick and you have three hours to find another one, one of your lead counselors got a concussion or ran full tilt into a tree in the forest and can’t walk, a teen you love is in crisis, an adult you love is in crisis, someone you love has died and somehow you are standing up front at their memorial service, a child you love tried to end their life and called you at 2:00AM, and of course the plow truck broke the day after that 2:00AM call.

Now, how many of those five things a day do you think you will get done as the crises mount?

This is camp ministry. This is any ministry for teens, for children, for people. You will deeply love too many souls to keep track of. You will love too many people to take care of. Because you have given your heart to so many, someone you love will be in crisis, always.

If you do ministry right, your heart will break every single day for the rest of your life. If you do it right, they will come to you at the lowest point in their lives because you loved them well … once upon a time. Somehow, they trust that you are still sane enough to keep on loving and not give up even when giving up is the only thing that makes sense.

But you don’t give up … because God loved you well, too. And He taught you through the fires of this earthly Hell and the glories of this earthly Heaven to try your very best to love in the same sacred and terrible way.

Welcome to youth ministry, my friend.

I’m so sorry, but yes, you walk on sacred ground.

Christ Himself must have called you here, like he called me (kicking and screaming) and my husband (blissfully naïve), otherwise you would not have chosen such exquisite joy and pain. You would have headed elsewhere with those happy, mentally sound individuals whose hearts are whole and whose spirits are light, unfettered by the impossible burdens of generations of children. If you struggle along long enough, dear one, you will be blessed to carry the burdens of their children, too.

Hold on, broken vessel. Hold fast, jars of clay.

For the words of life are not yours. They come freely to all, from the one who gave us life, with His life. Somehow this is enough to continue pouring ourselves out, day after day, in this great and terrible battle they call “youth ministry.”

2 Corinthians 4:7-12

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.

So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.”

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For the last three months, I’ve been photographing the cottonwood tree at the top of the hill. November, December, and January. Same tree, different days; weather; and lighting.

From bare branches surrounded by the brightly-colored tamarack to that first coating of snow, autumn brought many changes to the old tree.

Then the icy glory of winter took hold.

A winter fog crept through the forest.

Simple snowy beauty came that makes one want to curl up by the fire with a good book.

Weather came and went, but the old cottonwood stood through it all, even though some branches break and fall as conditions changed.

Those silent moments right before sunrise, The Blue Hour, when the world is painted a dark and stunning hue.

The simple gray days of winter, between snowstorms and after a freezing rain. The old cottonwood was not its best here. The weather was dreary, the road icy, and the lighting was definitely subpar. Yet, the cottonwood continued.

Some days are like that. Gray, slippery, and oh so long. Yet, I cling to something that I learned from walking with my Lord, from paying attention to His creation on the dreary days as well as those filled with sunshine and surprises. There is beauty here, maybe the lighting isn’t quite right to see it now, but soon some slight thing will change and God’s glory will come shining through.

Endure just a little longer, Dear Friend. Your value is the same, wait a moment, and trust in the Father to bring your beauty to the surface at just the right time. Linger, grow stronger, rest in your Lord. You will shine, He promised, He will accomplish it in His time.

… and provide for those who grieve in Zion– to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor.”

Isaiah 61:3

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God has given me specific instructions only a handful of times. But when He urged Scruffy and I to work at Camas Meadows Bible Camp, It was very clear. He seems to leave a lot of decisions up to us, expecting us to use the good brains He gave us. But this huge life choice, living and working off-grid on a mountain meadow in order to provide an amazing camp experience for the children who are campers here, this was something He asked of us specifically.

However, as most worthy things are, living and working here has not proved to be an easy task.

Right before Christmas, December 22nd to be precise, every vital mechanical item at the camp was in good working order. Well, every item except our house generator which had recently quit charging the batteries at our home. But since the camp generator will charge our batteries when it is running, we could wait until after Christmas to get it fixed. Bomber, our camp maintenance person, breathed a sigh of relief as she prepared to travel off the hill and visit family for Christmas. Was everything ready for the camp coming the day after Christmas? It appeared to be. With her car packed, she rushed over to the generator which provides our power. A check engine light? Quickly, she shot Scruffy a text about it before jumping into her car lest she be late for their family Christmas celebration.

That warning light soon evolved into a baffling oil leak on our brand-new generator. Scruffy battled the oil leak and eventually saw victory, only to have a hydraulic hose break on the plow on the camp truck. This happened in Bomber’s driveway and to prevent her from thinking a murder had occurred in front of her house, Scruff texted her these photos … with no explanation. Which totally didn’t make her think he’d been horribly maimed on the job or anything.

Yes, Scruffy does have a history of experiencing a wide variety of injuries. From falling through a doorway on a ladder to blinding himself with a paint gun full of tinted log oil, his maintenance experiences have been exciting.

After sternly demanding a status update from Scruff about whether that was indeed blood, Bomber then went on to enjoy Christmas … and get a terrible week-long flu. Scruff fixed the snow plow on Christmas Eve. Then Scruffy and I enjoyed a delightful Christmas day where Scruff took the entire day off to be home with our boys. However, on the day after Christmas he went into the lodge to discover that a good portion of the dinning room was full of water! A pipe had broken during our very cold stretch (the neighbors recorded a low of twenty-two degrees below zero) and then began to leak when it warmed up. That, combined with freezing rain and the passes being closed led us to postpone Summer Staff Winter Retreat until December 27th.

Somewhere during that time, there was also a leak in the lodge roof from when the sliding ice pulled up a segment of the tin near the kitchen chimney. This caused water to leak into the kitchen and one of our camp ovens.

And so, with the mountain passes newly opened and the roads slick but passable, we began Summer Staff Winter Retreat!

As the campers arrived, Ragnar began preparing meals only to discover that both the classic oven and the convection oven were acting wonky. The pilot kept going out in the classic oven and the convection oven simply would not heat properly. After wrestling with the pilot, Ragnar finally kept it lit and the campers and staff enjoyed delicious meals and fellowship around the table. Apparently, the remnants of the roof leak were making the pilot light struggle, but once everything was dry, that oven at least, worked well.

Bomber returned, but was terribly ill and had to confine herself to quarters since no one else wanted to become terribly ill. Also, we are not sure that she was able to even move if she had wanted to. Even her cats had trouble rousing her from her illness-induced slumber.

Then, part way through the camp, the power down at our house quit. The next day, as the campers were leaving, the power at the camp quit. Still exhausted from having been so ill, Bomber crept out of her house to investigate. As the day wore on, she sorted through mechanical and electrical thingamabobs (this is the proper term for maintenance things I do not understand) looking for the problem.

Scruff tried to contact diesel mechanics and electricians willing to venture into the mountains, they are few and far between and none could be found who would arrive before the next weekend’s camp.

Finally, at about the point where I knew stuff in our freezer at home was in danger of being ruined, Bomber discovered a melted wire. Even though it was late, it wasn’t so late that the hardware store had closed. So she jumped into her care and headed down the hill in search of the electrical items needed for a fix.

That night, the power was back on and all was well … until something happened to the camp well!

Making all … not well, especially the well.

Water pressure was getting low, but when they hiked up the hill to run the small generator which would run the pump to fill up the holding tank and give us water, well … the pump didn’t work. Thus, after the thrill of finally having power again, we all experienced the plummeting feeling of realizing that there was no water.

Princess Leia Freyja was especially perturbed by a lack of water as she loves her fresh drinks (in a people mug only) and hates having slobbery water. We were using gallons of store bought water and pitchers of water we filled before it all ran out to drink, cook, water the dog, and flush the toilets. The boys missed their before school showers for two days and all of us were starting to feel pretty desperate. Without water, we were on the threshold of having to cancel the rental group that was scheduled to arrive that weekend.

Bomber spent all day Wednesday researching pump issues, making calls, staring at strange wires, and perhaps pulling out her hair. Finally, late in the evening, she got a promising phone call and headed back up the hill to the pump. At 10:30 that night, a gurgle sounded in one of our faucets causing me to dare to hope. Then Bomber marched through our doorway, a gleam of triumph in her eye. The pump was working! Later the next day she figured out the issue with the convection oven. It had been having problems at the same time as the power system. With a new wire installed, the convection oven started working again as well!

Madness, those two weeks were utter madness. With eight mechanical crises, that averages out to a crisis every other day. And yet, as we welcomed campers into the lodge during Summer Staff Winter Retreat it just felt so right. This was exactly what we were called to do. God’s plan, it was good. So good to see teens laughing, searching the scriptures, praying together, making friends, learning to trust God just a little bit more. And then as Scruffy welcomed the rental group into camp, helping them get their cars out of the ditch and showing them where to put their things, the rightness of this “simple” act of hospitality outshone the wrongness of the broken water pump, generators, snow plow, roof, pipe, and all of the many things that we must battle in order to live and work on this lovely mountain meadow.

So, are we called to a life of insanity? Yes, yes we are. That’s OK, because we are right where God wants us. We are in the front row, ready to see His glory up close and personal as He walks with us while things break and fixes seem impossible and campers lives are grown and changed all the same.

2 Corinthians 4:8-9

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

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We lost my grandfather this spring at the age of 104. Grandma Autumn had already passed four years before. In the middle of grieving and trying to adjust to the new hole in our lives that Grandpa Del had filled for so many years as the founder of the camp where my husband and I work … we had to walk through the legal business of having a loved one die.

And so the process began. While things were packed up, given away, set aside as cherished mementos, or thrown out … I got a packet in the mail.

I’d never realized how sobering it is to hold the pile of papers that represents the wishes of your lost loved one.

I opened it up and read thirty years worth of changes. Property went here and then there. Carefully laid plans were made impossible by changing laws. Ideas were tried and scrapped until the final version was printed and signed. I grieved again as I saw the year that Grandpa became the only one who could make legal decisions due to Grandma’s Alzheimer’s. I wondered how hard it must have been for them to decide what to do. How many prayers were sent to heaven as they tried to guess who might be willing to live off-grid, plow their own roads, fell trees for heat, and shepherd the camp they had worked so hard to establish. They had talked with us about this, I knew what to expect. Unless their plans had changed again, their cherished home would go to Scruffy and I … or maybe just to Scruff. My grandparents were old fashioned folk after all. You kind of have to be to reach 104.

What was written on that stack of important papers with the lawyer’s letterhead?

My name.

Kristen Joy Wilks

My grandparents had chosen me to be their heir.

I cannot fully express how this made me feel. To be chosen. Though I was not a son, or even a grandson, I was chosen to care for the home they had loved. To make it live and breath again after the emptiness and sorrow of loss. To fill it with our three rowdy sons and 100lb dog, with the random people who stop by to play a boardgame, with good food, laughter, hugs, joy, and snarky comments.

As I blinked away tears, overcome by their trust, I realized that I had seriously underestimated a certain Bible verse.

Romans 8:17

“Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”

NIV

Yes, there is that exciting bit about sharing in Christ’s suffering at the end. But that was not the part I was missing as I read this verse. Sadly, my eye jumped right to the suffering. Suffering I can understand, it is the joy that takes time to sink in sometimes. It is the joy that baffles and amazes. I was seriously underestimating the joy of being chosen as an heir of God as a co-heir with Christ Himself!

But then I held those papers in my hands. The ones that showed that my grandparents had trusted me with their dreams. Trusted that I would care for what was important to them. Trusted me to be their heir. At that moment I was struck by the boldness of what God has done.

Not the surprising human boldness of choosing a granddaughter to inherit a home.

Something so much crazier than that.

God Himself chose people, broken, fallen, hurting and barely healing people to represent His love and power in this world.

You are His heir.

Let that sink in for a moment. Feel the joy and the fear, the responsibility and the trust.

You are His heir.

Live in the delight of that my friend. Let it overwhelm you. Let it give you new strength. Let it change you and settle you into who He says that you are.

You are His heir.

As our family carefully places our own Christmas decorations in my grandparents home this year, we will try our very best to honor their trust.

Remember the trust that has been placed in you, my friend. Rejoice in it this Christmas. Your messiah came into this world to seek and to save those who were lost. Us.

Then God Himself chose you, his heir, to continue to live in this world, to represent Him here.

How crazy is that?

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Grandpa Del built Grandma Autumn’s dream house just for her. He and many many volunteers felled trees, skinned logs, and constructed the home that Autumn would fill with her warm presence and incredible hospitality for my entire childhood and well into my adult years. However, while they were big of heart, they were not big of stature. Scruffy, the boys, various visitors who topped 5’7″ were constantly bashing their heads into this walkway roof.

As the first snowflakes began to fly, Scruff wildly worked on raising that problematic roof before it acquired a blanket of snow. Princess Leia Freyja supervised. Inside, I worked on logging 1,667 words a day for NaNoWriMo … but received numerous phone calls from Scruff saying that he had dropped a drill bit or piece of wood and that Leia failed to pick up. Handing these items up to him was my contribution.

It was late at night before he finished, but we can now welcome non-concussed visitors to our home! Unless you are taller than Scruffy, of course.

As our first snowstorm darkened the sky and sent us scrambling to put another log on the fire, I was reminded of the only time I was lost outside.

Those who know me may remark that I am often lost when driving city streets, but this was different. I was on foot, visiting a park in Colorado Springs. We had just gotten of the plane with our three young sons and they were so rowdy from having been cooped up that my aunt and uncle directed us to a local park. Now, if you have never been to Colorado Springs, one of its interesting qualities is that the weather can go from hot summer temps to snowfall in a single afternoon. This was just such an afternoon. We wore t-shirts to the park and pulled off our shoes to enjoy the green grass and sunny skies. My kindergartener had an accident and so I left first to take him back to my aunt and uncles for dry clothes. My husband was with our other two sons as they continued to play. I went down the wrong side of the hill and as we walked barefoot up and down the sidewalks, the sky began to spit snowflakes.

We put our shoes on and continued to search. I walked the streets in a grid, examining each home. None were correct. There were no police officers to ask for help, I didn’t own a cell phone (well, I still don’t, ha!), and all of the houses were dark and unwelcoming. I have never felt so alone. I didn’t realize how much I counted on having a safe place. A place to get a drink of water. We were so thirsty. Somewhere warm where we could sit down or get a blanket if we wanted. A place with food and family. A bathroom. Somewhere safe to take my son. We wandered for at least an hour and a half, maybe two hours. Finally, I stopped looking for the right house and started looking for a business where I could use their phone. I had the address of my aunt and uncle’s place and their phone #. We finally came out of the residential area and into the business district. I walked into a pizza joint. They would not let me use their phone. However, they had a map that they reluctantly allowed me to look at. I found the address. We had to hike all the way back up the hill and exit the park on the other side. When we finally knocked on the door, my aunt’s mother (Abuela) cried out when she saw us at the door. This woman I didn’t really know pulled me into her arms with tears, and suddenly, we were safe again. I was able to give my freezing son a warm bath, warm clothes, and some food. I could get a drink and use the bathroom. I was in a place where I belonged.

I will never look at home the same again. This beautiful log house that was my grandmother’s dream and the work of my grandfather’s hands is more than a house. Our family lived with them for three years, before we had a home of our own. Seeing photos of this house in a snowstorm reminds me of countless afternoons spent building snow forts and snow men and having snowball fights with my brother and cousins and friends. When the sky would darken, we would stumble in from the cold. Grandma Autumn would greet us with cups of her special cocoa and sometimes Griffith Toast. As we miss them, grieve that they are not with us and rejoice that they are with their Lord, I am so overwhelmed with the knowledge that their home was passed on to us. As the snow piles up, I want to not only raise the walkway roof so we have fewer bumped heads, but learn to welcome people like my grandparents did. Like Abuela did when she pulled me inside and into her arms with tears and a shout of praise to the Lord in Spanish. We all need safety, warmth, a place to belong. Scruff and I are sometimes overwhelmed by all of the projects that home ownership means. But there is an even bigger weight that we must not forget to lift to our Lord. We pray for God’s grace as we try to continue Grandma and Grandpa’s legacy. May we learn to love like Grandpa with a hammer in hand and Grandma with a mug of cocoa. Perhaps with a few changes, though. More boardgames and less concussions wouldn’t hurt.

As you enter this chilly but lovely season, may the Lord give you a place to love and the share with others as well. He has truly blessed us beyond what we had hoped for as this winter whistles through the trees around us.

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