Mom and me on my wedding day!

I hope my Mom is taking a really long, extended lunch break right now.  It is her birthday, after all!  Today, my mom claims to be turning 39.  If you looked at her, you might believe her too. She also claims she’ll be 39 forever.  Ok, ya’ll.  Don’t buy it!  Let’s just say, next year is going to be the big F-I-V-E  -O-!  But we can keep that a secret.

My mom should take heart.  Every year, I just seem to love her more and more.  Which means she has to keep getting older, so my love for her can keep increasing.  With each new life stage I go through, saturated with her deep care for me, it becomes more and more apparent the gift of grace God has given to me through my mom.  Let’s just say my children will probably beg me to “go to grandma’s” once they spend one day with this uplifting and sweet person- My mom!  I’ll get to say, sorry kids, but she’s MY mom.  I’ll be like, “I’M going to grandma’s for a margarita (her drink of choice!) , while you stay home and clean the house and eat your vegetables, while dad trains you how to be tech-savvy.” It will always be like a cherry on top for me to get together with my mom!

Enough talk about my non-existent children and grandma days.  Let’s talk about the here and now.  Right now, I love my mom.  I am overwhelmed at her persistent love and care in my life.  There is no one who has known me in the unique way that she has.  Some people you meet at special times in your life, and they are wonderful friends.  But there is a unique rarity to the relationship of a mother with her daughter.  I don’t know if many women called their mom their “best friend” in seventh grade.  Yep, I did.  I was a weird one.  While most kids try to remove the existence of their own mother once they hit puberty, I was busy writing poems about her and publishing them in my seventh grade poetry collection book.  Like I said, I was a weird one.

For some reason, hanging out with my mom growing up was like the BIGGEST treat!  Anytime my mom asked me to do anything with her (and still now), it was like someone turned on the Christmas tree lights in a dark room.  Even if it consisted of taking commands at the grocery store to go to the cereal aisle, I got to be with mom!  Doing anything with my mom was and is one of life’s highest honors for me.  Let me recall some of my favorite things about my mom.

Peeing my pants from laughing so hard with her.  I don’t know if many people have that memory with their own mom- but I do! What I LOVE about my mom is that when we get together, I get to act however I want!  She’s my mom, which seems to give me some invisible rights.  I can cry.  I can laugh.  I can be frustrated.  I can be completely out of line.  I can be annoying.  I can be tired.  I can be goofy.  I can be hungry.  I can need a back-rub.  Heck, I can poop my pants if I want.

I can be alone if I need to be.  My room can be messy.  I can sing at the top of my lungs in front of her.  I can throw my keys across the car after sucking at driving with her freaking out in the passenger seat. I can be mean, and I know she will forgive me. I can share my heart with her, however it is on any day.  I can call her for no reason.  I can go anywhere, do anything, be successful, be a failure, and still- she will be my mom.  She will love me and encourage me, and at least TRY to understand me!  (I know I can be a tough cookie to understand sometimes.)

My mom brings a light-heartedness to my life, which is seriously something that I think I need.  I have one of those really serious, intense, reflective, always deeply thinking about everything personalities, which is a blessing and a curse.  When I get to spend time with my mom, I get to take off my shoes, let my hair down, and have fun.  Let the world subside and do silly things like raid her closet for cute shoes, purses and jeans.  Let’s just say I owe any sense of fashion that I have to the big mama “J” (actually she’s not big at all).  How could I be so blessed?

Ok, probably my all time FAVE past-time with Mom is this:
Driving in the car for hours, windows open, blasting Dixie chicks and singing at the top of our lungs.  My mom claims she is not a singer, but let me inform everyone that she IS!!!  No one can sing “Wide Open Spaces” like mom and me.  And she harmonizes like crazy in the car, too!  I get my songwriting passion from my dad, and my love for harmonizing from my mom.  She also breaks into tap dances in the kitchen for no apparent reason, which is pretty much hilarious.  I think that’s why I break into my own version of tap dancing once in a while.  I’ll spare you any further revelations of my dancing.

For some reason, singing “Wide Open Spaces” with my mom just seemed to fit.

Some lyrics from “Wide Open Spaces” are …

Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about?
Who’s never left home, whose never struck out?
To find a dream and a life of their own
A place in the clouds, a foundation of stone

Many precede and many will follow
A young girl’s dreams no longer hollow
It takes the shape of a place out west
But what it holds for her she hasn’t get guessed

She needs
Wide Open Spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the highest stakes

One of the funniest memories I have of my mom actually showcases how gracious she is.  I was in seventh grade, the year that all young teens, if allowed by mom and dad, experiment with various forms of face paint (a.k.a. makeup).  It’s the year you also get zits and want to conceal them.  Well, being the blondie that I was (and am), I entered into this phase of thinking that I should draw in my eyebrows.  After spending a good thirty minutes too long in the bathroom one afternoon with a dark brown eye-brow pencil, I casually entered the kitchen for dinner as if I hadn’t transformed at all from albino to having huge bushy brown eyebrows.  Dad said, “Woah!  What’s on your face?”  Mom said, “Oh honey, its ok.  She’s just experimenting.”  Mom always let me go through the various and awkward life stages in my own authentic way.   Even the stage where I drew in my eyebrows and it looked ridiculous!  I am glad to have outgrown that phase ☺

My mom seemed to have a keen awareness of a girl’s need to explore her own interests, to find herself in this lost world.  She was so encouraging to me in all of my passions.  She always encouraged me to “Sing my heart out!”  And I always did.  She gave me room to “make my big mistakes” and learn from them.  She was a voice of healing and a promise that someone is praying for me.  She even has the courage to talk about her life and mistakes with me too.  It teaches me that being perfect isn’t the goal in life.  Its walking through messes knowing that “God is never done with you.”  That advice has been profound for someone like me.

Something that my mom taught me significantly was how to help and care for other people.  I have pictures to prove it.  She has spent years training service dogs to be able to live with people with disabilities.  Sophie and Marley are two of those lucky pups.

This is Mom and Sophie, the first service dog she ever trained!

Now Sophie lives with this man, Tim. My mom had the courage to give up a dog that she absolutely fell in love with. After seeing Sophie bond with Tim, she said "Seeing the way Sophie loves and helps Tim is so much better than being able to keep her." I don't know how she did it!

Mom, Dad and Sophie in her very professional working vest. Dad was so supportive!

Service Dog #2! Meet Marley!

Did I mention my mom is a phenomenal cook? Seriously. You don't even know.

My mom just amazes me.  You know a blog post doesn’t do justice to how thankful I am for her in my life.  Now that I have been married for a little over a year, I am seeing how family relationships change and expand and deepen.  Seasons  come and go, and though we are always changing, my mom will always be my mom.  Today is such a day of celebration.  I would not be who I am with out her.  And I love her so much!!!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

It is one of my dearest friend’s 25th birthday today. Her name is Jen Jacobs. And let me tell ya’ll, this is a day to celebrate!!! When a friend’s birthday rolls around, I start to get really consumed with myself.  (Sad, right?  Like aren’t birthdays for celebrating OTHER people?  No, I’ve come to find out everyone else’s birthdays have become all about me.) For example, this is the conversation I had with my husband last night: “Nick!! It’s Jen’s birthday tomorrow. Actually, her GOLDEN birthday. What should I do? What would be the best? Coffee? Take her out to dinner? Wait, I want to make her something. No… let’s take her to one of her favorite desert places… Should I come surprise her at her school with flowers? Golden Balloons? NO I could bring cupcakes to her classroom!” And on and on I went proclaiming all of the things I could do for her. I imagine that’s how God’s love is towards us, so full of desire and affection to let us know how deeply he cares.   Nick reminded me, “It’s the thought that counts- just remembering someone’s birthday means a lot to them.”  I sighed.  “But?!!?”

I am usually consumed with “ME” when it comes to relationships.  I am consumed with how I can perform for my friends.  So celebrating birthdays becomes all about me and not about truly loving and celebrating life with that person, though somewhere in the cloud of my performance is genuine care and love in hopes to make my friend feel thought for and encouraged.  God is so merciful to me in my selfishness!  This is an area I am growing in, and the Lord is revealing more and more that He does not require anything of me in a human relationship but to love and share in the riches of Christ with that person.  I so often get consumed with what I can offer someone when I can look to what God has to offer someone.  He is required to be everything for my friends, not me.  So I can feel really free to celebrate and enjoy my friends when I am with them knowing that their ultimate happiness in life can be far greater met by God Himself.

But there are certain people who have given me so much that I would give them the whole world if I could! Jen is one of those people.  Instead of the whole world I am landing on something quite simple today. Instead of giving her a gift, I want to tell the world about a friend who changed my life.  And let her be encouraged that her laboring as a friend has been such a worthy effort and risk in my life and has overflowed into countless other’s lives.

This could be one long blog post because Jen has been through most of my life experiences up close through the past five years.  I got the joy and delight of being her roommate (of ALL people, God- you chose ME?! ) and the joy of sharing mostly all of my college classes with her.  You can bet we got to know each other pretty well.

In fact, when you get to know someone THIS well, chances are you’ll find out about each other’s weaknesses and realize that friendships take work and at some point giving up becomes an option. But relationships in Jesus Christ are so radically different.  Still full of the same imperfections as in all relationships, yet so full of forgiveness and hope, commitment and love.

Jen has always been an old soul.  Someone who is in this world, but not of this world.  When I met her, I remember thinking exactly that.  She was different. She was truly a light in a crooked generation to me.  A friend that loved and cared more deeply than anyone I had known at the time.

My journal in the fall of 2004 reads, “Dear God, I am so lonely.  Please send me one friend.”

I know, I sound like a sad case.  But I WAS!  I had just transferred to the U of M, with zero real friends and lost in a crowd of about 60,000 people.  Yikes!  I couldn’t think of anything but to ask God to give me what I didn’t have.

About two weeks later, I ran into Jen on the street.  We recognized each other because we actually attended half of eighth grade together at Wayzata Central Middle School- so it was like a six year reunion on Washington Avenue!  Six years had gone by since we had seen each other- and bam!  Our lives collide!  I use to think stuff like that was just “fate” or “random.”  But God would be robbed of so much glory if that were true.  His wisdom and planning are so deeply apart of His character.  Based on what God says about Himself in His word, I don’t believe that God is a random God at all.  I believe He is a wise God whose plans are very high.  The plan of my friendship with Jen began that fall, and my life has never been the same.  Only God could ordain something this far beyond my efforts to “win friends.”  This friend was not won.  It was mercifully handed to me from God.

Jen’s life was changed as a seventeen-year-old girl when she prayed to receive Christ into her heart and into her life.  I got the pleasure of meeting her two years later to hear about all of the amazing things that God had been doing in her since she first believed in him.  I saw something different in her.  There was a freedom, a joy, a sincere care for people, and what pierced me most was to see the deep intimacy that she had with her God.  She was a girl in love with what seemed to be a person, an actual being.  She carried real peace and real purpose in her life.

She embraced me into her life at such a weak and lonely time of mine, and it was just what I needed.  She has always been excellently hospitable to anyone, but she was especially hospitable to me.  She was the kind of friend that made me lunch, had me sleepover, went running with me, stayed at coffee shops too long with me, listened endlessly to me spill out the secrets of my life I had kept hidden for so long.  Truly a friend who stood beside me through anything that I went through.  The bravest thing she ever did for me was talk to me about who Jesus was.  And braver still, she bought me a bible.

She so gently and warmly leaned into my life.  There were times I wouldn’t want to have a friend that knew me so well.  I was afraid to be known for who I was, but once you meet Jen, you know she will welcome you no matter who you are in a heartbeat!  And I learned that I was welcomed just as I was, full of weaknesses, and she was such a gentle ear and forgiving voice to me.

The friendship with Jen ultimately led me to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.  Somewhere in my junior year of college, I truly believed that Jesus was God.  The bible was no longer some old, dusty, “historical” book.  It was God speaking to my heart!  It was God telling me of His love and mercy!

The next few years went by, and Jen introduced me to so many other women involved in Campus Outreach, a college ministry in Minneapolis, where I got plugged in and totally loved on by so many other students and women.  I got to also be friends with amazing women like Samm, Mary, Lydia, Kathy, Holly, Erin… so many others!! I got to watch Jen care about more than just her college education.  She had the courage to ask other women on the campus for coffee.  She loved telling me about the conversations she was having with girls who did not believe in Jesus.  A strange friend Jen was?  Yes, strange.  Christians are very strange.  You’re either drawn to the light of Jesus in them, or you’re not.  I could not resist the power and freedom that seemed to flow like living water through Jen’s life.  I could not go on living without having all the riches that she had found in this God she called Jesus Christ.

So here I am today, by God’s grace and His will- working in college ministry full time.  TOTALLY NOT my life plan!! Would I be walking into freshman dorms and sharing life and Jesus with other women if it weren’t for Jen?  Probably not.  If I had not seen someone consider souls to be such a precious thing as Jen did, I don’t think I would give one rip if people knew Jesus or not.  But it is deeper than a friend just showing me how to give my life away, it is the reality  that now lives deep within me- that I know Jesus for who He really is, the pleasures of His love and kindness He spills into my weaknesses, the love and affection that he has for me though I am so lowly and full of calamity.  I can no longer help this pulsing desire for other women to know this tender-hearted loving father.

This fall, I have been going into the dorms with two women who are seniors in college:  Justine (Jen’s sister) and Brittany .  Both women have been discipled by Jen and other women and have become believers in Jesus through God speaking through Jen.  It just hit me profoundly watching Justine and Brittany walking into the dorms one night.  I had this bird’s eye view of it all.  Four years ago, Justine and Brittany were not walking with Jesus.  Neither was I. Jen gently came alongside all of us at different times and mentored/discipled us. Now four years later, I see their lives radically changed AND filled with desire to give their lives away to other students on the campus.  God has breathed life into these women, and I believe many more women will get to share in this breath of life through Brittany and Justine, and by God’s grace, even through me. All the boasting belongs not to us, but to Jesus.

As I have spent time with Brittany in the dorms, we have both shared with other freshman about the work that God has done in our lives.  The conversations include the gift of Jen’s life to us every time. As my husband and I raise financial and prayer support to work in college ministry, the friendship of Jen is regular conversation.

Jen is now giving her life away as a teacher at Hope Academy, laboring to share the gospel and nurture these children of the city.  Her compassion runs deep because she draws it from the well of Jesus.  His compassion is deep.  Because He loves the children of the city, He has caused Jen to love them too.

Because He loves women who are in college, He has caused Jen to love women in college.  I believe that the gift of her life has radically changed the lives of four women: Me, Brittany, Justine, and Laura.  We will now go out and share our lives too.  And many will see and believe that Jesus is God.

God is relational to our human hearts.  He is close to us because he put on flesh to dwell among us in the person of Jesus.   I am so thankful for a friend as brave as Jen, who loved me enough to share Jesus with  me.  The depth of relationships through Christ is one of the most satisfying, challenging, and rewarding gifts the Lord gives.   It is a worthy risk to go deep in friendships, to work through sin, to be open and honest and let the light of Christ shine and cultivate life-changing bonds.

God blessed me (and still is!) through knowing Jen, and my life hasn’t been the same since!  The labor of Jen’s friendship in my life has not been labored in vain.  She has been the friend that has prepared me the most to work in college ministry by living out her life in front of me.  God showed me that there is a specific purpose and calling on my life too.  Like He would not spare Jen, He would not spare me. And there are many more to be spared.

May God get all the glory for His awesome work in and through this sweet friendship!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEN!

A lyrically excellent song.  Visit their Myspace page and have a listen!

Lyrics to Carried To The Table :

By Leeland

Wounded and forsaken
I was shattered by the fall
Broken and forgotten
Feeling lost and all alone
Summoned by the King
Into the Master’s courts
Lifted by the Savior
And cradled in His arms

I was carried to the table
Seated where I don’t belong
Carried to the table
Swept away by His love
And I don’t see my brokenness anymore
When I’m seated at the table of the Lord
I’m carried to the table
The table of the Lord

Fighting thoughts of fear
And wondering why He called my name
Am I good enough to share this cup
This world has left me lame
Even in my weakness
The Savior called my name
In His Holy presence
I’m healed and unashamed

You carried me, my God
You carried me

I am from sheets of music
Lying on the bed
Guitars propped up

I am from brothers’ clothes
The buttonhook on dad’s hand
In the backyard of summer

I am from bike jumps and bloody knees
Prayers and backrubs by my bedside
Dad’s surprise tickle attacks

I am from kleenexes
Tucked in a sleeve in case of tears
I am from a late night movie
On a school night

I am from cake rolls
Cinnamon gum in a purse
Crowds of people laughing
Cousins joking
Till stomachs hurt

I am from dirt paths
Cutting down Christmas trees
A small cabin overflowing
The clean plate club
Pink curlers and the boxcar children
Popcorn clouded skies
Endless with dreams

I am from sock fights on rainy days
Mochas and listening from blue eyes
The patience that taught me to drive
Taught me to live

I am from hands that let go
Freedom to become
Freedom to sing my own song
That love
Even so

I am from bike rides and road trips
Books on tape
Stories around a campfire
Guitars around a campfire

I am from cheers at soccer games
I am from cheering
At football
At basketball
At the Depot

I am from being amazed
At songs they write
At their humor
At their love
For a sister in tears
Or a sister on an amateur stage
Or at a project on beach
Or a sister in a fight
Even so
They love

I am from drums in the basement
Microphones and speakers
Crowds of boys in the house
I am from wanting to be cool
Like them

I am from the Christmas walk
Birthday Breakfast in bed
Cinnamon Rolls on Christmas
From homemade dinner
From buttons re-sewn
From fingers calming my back
Hot chocolate after
The snow jumps we made

I am from clothes on my back
And shoes on my feet
Dinner on the table
Every night
Lots of kids don’t have that

I am from fights and misunderstanding
And a powerful grace
Moments of re-creation
Redemption at work
A puzzle never-ending
Still being pieced

I am from a goofy face
Peering in the door crack
Holding a football blanket
Asking to sleepover
Night after night
Late night chats about mistakes
About redemption
Backrubs and peanut butter
Harmonizing to songs

I am from his hands
Showing me A, B, C, D
From power chords
And re-writing songs
His help, his intellect
His honesty
Another goofy face
Making me laugh
Making me think deep
Over coffee
Over a kid’s ice cream cone
Creative ideas
Made into real life

I am from the tree house
The boat, the music
I am from vanilla dipped in chocolate
At the drive through
Chocolate chip cookies
Baking

I am from their genuine songs
Ears and eyes
Gets louder, wiser
Freer
Over time

I have heard so many cute and hilarious (and heart-warming) comments from the kindergartners at Hope Academy that I just HAVE to post some of the things they say.

I hope it makes you smile!

“He’s not nice!”

“Look!  I drew the doorway to heaven!”

“Did you know that its easier to do a handstand in the water than in the air?”

(In the middle of a speaker at the nature center field trip…) “MRS.  STROMWALL!  MRS. STROMWALL!  Did you know they are building a WATER SLIDE for me at the YMCA!?!?!”

“Mrs. Stromwall, you look like Mrs.  Jacobs.  Except your hair is messier!”  (haha… white and blonde… I guess we stand out together.  And apparently my hair is messier!  haha.)

“Mrs.  Stromwall, you have a neclace, so you’re a mommy.”

“You smell like you took a bath today, Mrs. Stromwall.”  (lol!)

“Mrs. Stromwall, can you even drive?  You don’t look like you can drive.”

That’s all I got for now!  (And hey, I CAN drive thank you very much!)

I’m getting more and more into this. Blogging from remote locations in the moment when something captures me. I am watching small boats ripple through water like glass up at the rustic Stromwall cabin. So Many days are a fight to get up, but today God woke me up to His peace, His silence, His glory, His healing. And coffee. This is great breathing in this creation He allows us to dwell in.

Two large themes of my summer thus far have been healing and processing. These seasons come and go, and for the moment I am soaking in this slow and rejuvinating grace.

Thank you, Jesus, for being the healer of all of us who are suffering and for letting us come to you as we are.

Hey Friends! Happy Thursday! Here we are at the airport waiting to fly to Boston, MA for my sweet cousin Annie’s wedding. Sort of feels like I’m going to another country since I’ve basically been glued to the Midwest most of my life. We’ll see what this east coast business is all about!

Here’s how I feel about airplanes:

1. It is to me the most unatural human experience EVER! I mean we are sitting in chairs in the sky THATS weird.

2. It’s like a life or death experience… Although Nick keeps telling me that I’m more likely to crash in a car than a plane. I’m encouraged to have the hope of heaven… To believe that death secure in Christ is only gain… Thanks apostle Paul!

3. Yeah I cried on my first plane ride. I’ve moved past the crying and I’m facing my fear! Wow I’m such a risky person can’t u tell?

4. Aaas yes. The people watching. The chance to observe mankind… I feel like airports give you a glimpse into so many different backgrounds… Cool yo.

5. Fighting to be eternally minded and to see His purposes in each moment… And wondering what kind of conversatons I will have on the plane… always an interesting place to get to know someone! I have to fight not to be introverted and individual… Oh and the fact that a little boy just ran into me and my luggage is helping! Haha! I need more distractions like that!

Well, like I said above… We’ll see what this east coast business is all about!

Peace!

There’s no other way to say it.  I’m just so happy I could BURST ya’ll!  If you’re one of those peeps who knows me REALLY well, then you know its been a real fight to experience some solid joy over the past five months due to some circumstancial meltdowns in my life.  And that is REALLY a long story made short.  Perhaps the long story will make its way to the blog soon.   For now,  clap your hands with me and REJOICE in God’s faithfulness!  OH how GOOD he is!!

WANT TO KNOW WHY??

His mercy.  His steadfast love.  The way He does what is IMPOSSIBLE and CHANGES me!  Oh yea, AND He just created me to LOVE music and to be stirred to love Him more through it.  Amen!  I am doing something that stirs my affections for God more than any other thing in my life!  I have been writing so much music my apartment could explode with lyrics that NEVER could have been produced had the Lord not taken me through some of life’s greatest challenges I’ve yet experienced at this ripe age of twenty-four.  I am recording some songs that are undoubtedly the most raw, human, and soulful songs my heart has ever written.  Who would have imagined I’d have to fall on my face SO many times to write from such a raw, real and vulnerable place in me?  Seeing God carry me through so much askjkfjasdnfkasmfakmkaj…. thats just what it feels like to describe the past year of my life… is just unspeakably satisfying and amazing.  And it is SO worth singing about.

I bet my entire life on the belief that Jesus Christ offers the MOST freedom and joy that can be found above ANY other thing on the face of this earth.  The reality of how he holds me, loves me, and does not condemn me is just bouncing around in my soul.  I long for others to feel this total unabandoned love.

Tonight, I say to you, whoever you are, my dear reader, my fellow seeker of happiness in life, that Jesus Christ is worth surrendering to.  He is worth CRYING to and POURING OUT YOUR HEART TO.  No matter HOW old you are.  No matter WHAT you are going through. He doesn’t want a “better” you.  He just wants the REAL you.

Oh, my friend.  Do not lose heart.  Don’t give up.  Don’t worry about being better.  Just allow yourself to be honest and real, allow yourself to cry.  Allow yourself to be held and welcomed in the reality of Jesus.  Don’t lose another second of enjoying this MERCIFUL, GENTLE, PATIENT God!!  (no, I promise this isn’t a thirty second “sticker for Jesus” advertisement.)  This is the most sincere way I can think of loving you.  Its like sharing my lottery money with everyone I know.  But its better!  Its the real, true and alive God who is in a deeply intimate relationship with His beloved children.

I am going to figure out a way to post one of my songs to this blog in the near future…

I’ll let you have a listen soon.

Whatever you LOVE doing the most, seriously, take a day off of being an American who gets TOO many things done and then still has more to do and…  remember what that one lost passion is.  Just do what you LOVE doing more than anything else… chances are God has given YOU a passion that stirs your heart to love him more too… and chances are that He wants to USE this wisely designed gift of yours for His kingdom… you think?  I think God is a dreamer WAY more than we earthly folk are.

So what plans can you cancel in order to creatively worship God?

Or if your the planner type, what can you pencil in somewhere in the midst of it all to get some affections for God flowing?

Don’t be afraid to ask God to show you what you love.  But mostly, don’t be afraid to BE loved.  To fall and to be held.  This is where we begin to rise into the person that God has created us to be.  What if we could be what God intended us to be to the fullest?  Not in an obsessed with productivity way, but in an obsessed with BEING way… to just BE!  aaa… that sounds nice.

To rest in a deeply contented, satisfied identity in Christ.  Yes, God, make this real for me and for all who seek you!