Life by Grace Alone

I've only given the reader a small snapshot of my life. I don't want to presume that my entire life is all that fascinating but it does seem that my life like everyone's has been marked by undeserved kindness coming from God's hands. Sometimes that kindness is very obvious and praising God for it comes easily. Other times that kindness does not seem at all kind. For those moments only the gift of time can reveal the blessing God has given. Steve was in seminary when we realized starting a family was not going to be easy for us. We did not have much money and so we only did the budget fertility workup. Seminary was full of young families with many babies and toddlers. Many times I was painfully aware that we didn't fit in as the young moms would chatter about their children and I would have nothing to add. Regularly someone would feel the need to question me about our lack of children. I would either tell them my whole history or cut them off with a brief prepared ...

Every man who has had a pregnant wife knows what it's like to deal with a difficult woman. Steve endured more than the average man. The days he was gone at school I saved all my complaining and whining and gave him a double dose when he returned home. I demanded a vast amount of stroking and felt incapable of giving him much in return. One Sunday evening he was at a preaching engagement. I fixed my children dinner and then for once remembered to fix Steve the lunch he would need for the next day. 5:00 a.m. Monday would come all too early when Steve would begin his 3 day stint away from us. This was also the week he would begin working two nights 6p.m.-2a.m. as a security guard at a nursing home. Impulsively as I finished packing his food, I reached for some writing paper. This would be a good way to tell him how much I cared, and how much I marveled as he continued to give no matter how little I encouraged him. I slipped the note inside his bag. The next three days had ...

My husband graduated from seminary in 1976 and by July 4 we were settling into life in California. Steve was to be working with a retired pastor who had begun a church in Oxnard. The poor man was so tired he welcomed help. It was soon obvious he saw this as a great opportunity to focus his life on his wife at the retirement home in Santa Barbara. Soon it was very apparent that Steve with his great seminary training and almost no experience would lead this church with only the long distance oversight of a session. Oxnard was the place where we owned our first house and started our family. It was home and yet even in the best of times there was a certain loneliness being so far away from people and places that had shaped our history individually and together. And so after 5 years and the adoption of our 2 children it was time to move east. Much to our surprise we discovered that God had chosen to doubly bless our family and I said goodbye to California knowing I was 3 months pregnan...

I was married at the age of 23. I think my husband Steve knew I was very leery about turning 30 and no longer being young. He wrote me a beautiful poem that reveals me as someone who has been richly blessed by the grace of God. 31 years later I still wonder how he saw those things in me. We were living in California. We had dealt with infertility and we were waiting for the arrival of our baby daughter we were adopting from Korea. At the age of 40 I remember walking through the house saying repeatedly "I am 40. I am 40." I didn't want to be someone who modeled disregard for God's grace in front of my children. My husband arranged a conference call involving a number of my friends whose lives I had touched as they had touched mine. That was part of my birthday gift. We were living in Nebraska. We had adopted 2 children from Korea, and much to my surprise I had given birth to 2 children. When I turned 50, almost 5 years had passed since I had undergone treatment fo...