Cowan Family Update March 2010

It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged, mostly because we’ve been really busy and when we have a free minute, I’ve been using it to veg, rather than blog. Work is really busy for me. I am working on our Global Strategy team now, no longer our Marketing & Category strategy team, so I have been really busy helping drive development of the company’s 2011-2013 global strategy.

Things at home have been such a joy lately. The girls’ language skills have really exploded and S is fully mobile. He pretty much walks wherever he wants to go now, although it is also common for him to take 15-20 steps and then sit down and crawl the rest of the way. He gets tired! But he can start, stop, turn, squat down, etc. It’s very cute. He looks so little to be walking. He hasn’t learned to stand up in the middle of the room (without something to pull up on) yet, but he is pretty close. He can get up on both knees and then puts one foot flat on the floor, but this is a pretty hard way to learn to stand without support because it requires a lot of balance.

Anyway, there have been a lot of funny things said by the little ladies lately, and other funny happenings:

• When I get home lately, K has been running up to me with that big grin of hers for a hug... she yells, “Daddy!”, puts her hands on the side of my face and says “Daddy you my best fwiend!” G will interrupt her to say “No, Daddy my best fwiend!” So sweet. They are convinced both that being someone’s best friend is something exclusive, and also that every member of the family is best friends with every other member.

• Last night when I was putting the girls to bed, I went over to snuggle with K and I told her what a fun day I had had with her. She said “Daddy, I don’t want you to go to work tomorrow.” I told her I had to go to work so that I could earn some money and take care of the family. This morning when she got up we were downstairs and she said “Daddy, you have to go to work to buy some money.” I said, yeah.

• Both girls love to help me go get S up when he wakes up. They run in and stand on the side of his crib and giggle. He loves it and stands up to see them. I think it makes his day.

• Little G continues to be so good at playing by herself. She is great with K too, but she is very easy-going when alone and doesn’t require a lot of outside input. This was how I was when I was a kid too (so my Mom says). The other night I was cleaning up toys after they had gone to bed and decided to leave an amazing little set-up I found on the coffee table where G had been. It was about 12 little stuffed animals organized into types of animals and by size, all around a table with a cake on it, and sitting in chairs. There were two tigers together, Two bears, two lambs, etc. Very cute and smart.

• The girls are making some pretty good progress on potty-training. We’ve decided to just take a relaxed approach and let them practice and practice until they’re ready at their own pace. Some weeks K has a great week and some weeks G has a great week. Maybe this is too much info, but for us it’s a huge thing: K has gone number 2 in the toilet every day for about 5 days now. She hasn’t asked us, but we’ve been asking her if she’s interested and she is and does. Meaning, we haven’t changed a K dirty diaper in almost a week. Pretty cool stuff (all you parents will understand!).

• One other cool thing, I told K to buckle herself into her carseat yesterday and to my surprise, she did. Usually she can get the top plastic buckle and that is it. Yesterday she buckled the top, pressed the two metal connects fully into the bottom connect until they clicked and then pulled the strap to pull it tight. I had to tighten it up some more of course, but I was sort of shocked. I have seen some adults struggle with our car seats so this is no small accomplishment for a not-yet-three year old. Haha!

• In addition to walking, S is learning to do some other things: He eats babyfood like a champ, he loves cheerios, he love to swirl his hands across a tray of cheerios and knock them onto the floor, etc. This morning he came over to grab my electric razor while I was sitting on the floor with them and shaving. I wouldn’t let him have it so he rolled onto his stomach, yelled, straightened his body into a little U and threw a tantrum. It sort of caught me off guard because we haven’t seen a lot of his depravity yet, but it was sort of cute too (for the first time, anyway). Yesterday he was carrying K’s lamby, she noticed and took it from him, he turned around and gave her two swift open-hand smacks to the back. Kelly and I were sort of shocked and I had to sit him down and have a talk with him about it.

• S has learned to do a war-cry type “oh oh oh oh” thing (what else do you call this?) by hitting his open palm to his mouth while yelling. Kelly taught him this randomly last week when he was crying and she was trying to distract him. He learned it immediately and now does it to himself and to others at will.
  

• He has also learned to turn the water on in our bathtub. This is a big no-no in our book because while there’s no way he could get in there, I still worry that somehow he could get the water on, get in the tub and stop up the water. It’s probably an impossible thing to worry about, but I still do. So, when he touches the hot/cold water handles, I say no touch and do the baby-sign symbol. If he touches it again, I will give a little smack to his hand while it’s on the handle until he moves his hand. This morning he was looking at the handles (wanting so badly to touch them), touching his fingers to his thumb (the baby sign) and yelling “Na Da! Na Da!” which sure sounds a lot like No Touch to me, but who knows!

• K and G both really love to go to church and always ask if we can “sing songs” (we bring them in to worship after their Sunday school). K goes running for Buzz Lightyear when she gets there, which explains why she wants to have a Buzz party for her pending b-day. For some reason she also has been talking about having a “red” birthday, so we’ll see what we can come up with for that.

Other than the kid stuff, which has been a constant joy, Kelly and I have been keeping busy with our Tuesday night community group, a Thursday morning group I’m in and a Friday group Kelly is in, and we’ve been getting more involved with mentoring and counseling a few Mars Hill folks.

Additionally, we just started a “Love and Respect” training taught by a Godly older couple at our church, and will be doing that on Friday nights for about 2 months with about 10 other couples, about half of whom we know and really like and respect. Should be fun.

We have also been really blessed to have Pastor John Piper teach at Mars Hill twice in the last couple of weeks (all on one weekend), a tremendous joy to us. And we are really looking forward to getting some vacation time in April and May. I have only taken a couple of days of vacation since we were in Charlotte last September, and the days I took were in October, so we are overdue. We are going to Palm Desert for some warm weather and family time in April, and then will be in Charlotte/Wild Dunes in May. While I’m updating, one other thing I’ve been up to is kicking around a business idea with my friend Tyler. We’re excited to see if something cool could come together for us to do in our voluminous free time :).

So, that’s the update!

My Love

I’ll never forget the day I first met her. It was after church, I was out with a huge group of friends and this beauty was sitting at another table with a good friend. I was more outgoing that I am now. Now I am settled, the king of my small dominion, less need to be out bouncing around. But that day I bounced over to a number of different tables, if only to keep from looking like I was bouncing to only one table. But focus on that table I did.

Those killer blue eyes and straight brown hair not quite to her shoulders. This was one to write home about. And there hadn’t been many of those. I was never the dating-around type. I was then what I am now – focused, intentional and goal-oriented. I didn’t date around because I knew what I wanted and I hadn’t found it yet. Oh that I could burn that perspective into my children, that they would not waste their time and heart, but be intentional or move on to God’s best.

But back to my love. I talked to her off and on that night (as much on as I could!), hopped a curb in front of her in my brand new truck to be a show-off. Oh twenty-two looks so different from thirty-four, I hope. And then flirted with her (and she with me) as we drove back to the church. Once there, I told her she was gorgeous and that I wanted to get to know her. She smiled, told me she’d be around, and that was that. My heart was sold, gone, finished for that girl. I never loved anyone else again. Never.

A couple of weeks later I wrote her and told her I felt like God had freed me, even encouraged me to pursue her. She wrote me back in that classic blunt style she is famous for and told me that if she and I worshipped the same God, how could He be telling her something so different? She was currently “it’s complicated” with some other guy, and it would remain that way for the next few years. We agreed to just be friends, although when I had the occasional opportunity to spend time with her, it was like a knife in my back if she wasn’t as flipped over me as I was her (which she rarely was).

I felt God asking me to be patient with her heart, to pursue her in friendship ways, but not to smother her. Give her space. We built our friendship a little bit. I heard a lot about her from my high-schoolers who knew and loved her. Near my second to last summer in Charlotte, I heard she was thinking about marrying that other guy. He was even at our youth group beach trip that second-to-last summer. I knew I was going to have to tell her that he wasn’t the guy to marry and that I was. I wasn’t going to be able to let it go. I was preparing to make my Custer’s-last-stand, even if it meant I carried my heart back home in a bag full of arrows.

Soon after, things ended with them. My heart had a huge flare of excitement and hope, but it wasn’t time for me to chase her down yet. She hadn’t said yes to my efforts. I knew men should be intentional and I wasn’t afraid of doing that, but I had started it off that way three years earlier (however immaturely) and she had never yet said yes to my efforts. She had tried to set me up with friends. She always spoke well of me. But her heart wasn’t yet open to a me-and-her.

I did ask her to go on a double-date with me and a friend though. I didn’t want to scare her, so I called it a just-friends thing. In fact, in my weakness, I asked her over voice-mail. She spent hours analyzing my tone and what I meant when I said “just friends.” We went out with the other couple and then spent hours talking over dessert.

And then a switch flicked in her. This person that never called me, never emailed, never responded with an open heart was calling and emailing. Her car broke down at midnight when I was out of town at Thanksgiving and she called me thinking I could help her out. I would have if I’d been in town. Next time I saw her she was stunning. She always looked nice, but why so stunning tonight? Was it for me?

That same night she confronted me and asked if my heart was still interested. Could we try a her-and-me? I had to stifle a grin, a shout, a wild crazy drunk-on-love dance around the parking lot. This lovely girl was opening her heart to me.

And thus began a wild love affair that saw us engaged six months later and married three months after that. And now we’ve been married for 8 years, 26 weeks and 3 days. Sweet love of mine.

My Kelly is so good for me. So perfectly suited. Don’t get me wrong – we can fight with the best of them. We can argue till the sun goes down. We can pick and fight and annoy and hurt like there ain’t no tomorrow.

But at the end of the day there is no one like her for me. We are perfectly suited. Both fiercely passionate and strong. She would crush, absolutely demolish, a lot of men. And I would ruin a lot of women. But God has matched our strengths together for a purpose. For who He wants the two of to grow into and what He wants us to do with our lives. And He has matched our weaknesses together to help us change. To help us become different than these despicable Jesus-forgetting people we are so much of the time.

I’m thirty-four now. I was twenty-two when I first laid eyes on that beauty with the not-quite-shoulder-length brown hair and crazy beautiful big blue eyes. Our lives have changed in immeasurable ways. We lived in Charlotte then and have been gone from there almost a decade now. We were just babies then. And now we’ve had four babies, lost one, are growing and loving and just absolutely crazy in love with the other three. I was cocky and full of myself then. I still am now, but God has humbled me in so many ways that all I have left is to see that any good in me is Him. She was wild and strong and passionate then. And she still is now, but God has tempered it with a beautiful and graceful intentional spirit that is so wise and mature. She is one of the wisest, most intentional, faith-filled, passionate, God- and people-loving women that I have ever known or likely will ever know. God has given her so many gifts that I stand humbled by the daily strength required to lead her into using them effectively and for His purposes.

But mostly, I am still passionately in love with that beauty. My heart is for her. And I am thankful, oh so thankful, that God saw fit to let me be in her life, to let me be her husband, to give me the chance to be her leader and pastor.

Thank you Jesus for my Kelly. She’s a treasure I make a daily promise to shepherd with love, concern, passion and care. I love you sweet darling Kelly.

Kids and Prayer

Prayer seems like it can be a very simple thing, and it should be. But it also seems like something you can work hard to cultivate in your children. We are doing that work with ours. I’ve said this on my blog before, but I very intentionally pray for each of them before I leave in the morning, and they know to pause what they are doing to come over and have me pray for them (OK, S doesn’t know yet :), but he will).

More lately, I have been trying to pray over little things with them if they have a problem. Last night K woke up in the middle of the night and was rubbing her eyes. She acted like they were bothering her, so I put my hands on them and asked God to help them feel better. Things like that.

We have also taken great joy lately in praying for others. We used to use prayer exclusively as a way to thank Jesus for various blessings during the day, and for people we love. But it has been nice that God has given us opportunities to pray for various people we know have needs, like Kate McRae or Pastor Matt. K saw me looking at Kate’s Caringbridge page the other day and looked at various pictures of her with me as I explained that she is sick. I could see the compassion in little K’s eyes as she tried to process why this little girl had lost her hair. And she and G both very quickly say “Kate and Matt” when I ask them now at night who they want to pray for.

Last night I was trying to explain prayer to them and articulated that when we pray, we are talking to God up in heaven, and that God’s heart loves us – that when we pray He listens and answers our prayer. And that God loves Matt and Kate and can help them feel better. K said “God’s heart wants help Matt and Kate feel better.” I said yes. Exactly.

It is lovely to see God and His heart springing up in their little hearts. It brings incredible joy to my spirit and to Kelly’s.

Christmas Traditions

It is with the beautiful and encouraging writings of my wife, my friends and my pastor still fresh in my mind that I lay out a word about our Christmas traditions. Kelly did such a great job of outlining our heart behind our traditions, and I just thought I might add to it a bit and flesh it out with descriptions of some of the practical activities. As the leader of our household, I really connect with Pastor Mark’s description of Dad’s role in all of the activities and I cherish that responsibility.

Cutting a tree. We generally go cut our tree the day after Thanksgiving. We were going to a local Home Depot or Lowes in the past, but this year kicked off the wonderful (and now annual) tradition of going to a local tree farm. We found this great farm in North Bend that was literally in a small valley with Mt. Si looming over us. The owners were Christians (a rarity around here), which made it all the more special. It felt great to cut down a tree that’s been growing in our backyard for 10+ years and Kelly and I and the kids had a great time. Nani and Poppi came too. The girls’ favorite trees were the small ones that were their height.

Getting the house ready. We spent a good chunk of time that weekend getting out the Christmas decorations, putting them up, trimming the tree and putting the lights up outside. The girls had a ton of fun helping Kelly unwrap all of the ornaments and helped me put some of them on the low branches of the tree. The girls also have a small artificial tree that they decorate and redecorate throughout the month. S mostly crawls around and creates mayhem. We have what I consider to be a nice but not obscene number of white lights on outside. They are on timers so I don’t have to think about them again the rest of the season. And we put ornaments on a Christmas-tree-like tree out front. I have been challenged by something I read on Desiring God to ask myself how the external part of our house reflects our love for Jesus. Maybe we need a lit nativity? Or a lit Cross (I think I could make one for way cheaper)? That would be cool. I also intentionally do not do too many lights because I don’t want to get into a competition with some of my more ambitious and competitive neighbors.

Christmas Music. One of my secret vices (along with Diet beverages) is Christmas music. We have about 500 Christmas songs on our iPods. That doesn’t sound like that many until you think about it being roughly 50 albums and 50 hours of Christmas music playing without a stop. That’s a lot! We also often start in early November. I love Christmas music though – it always lends that Christmasy spirit to the season for me.

Various activities in the house with the kids. Kelly has her list of things she does with them during the week. I have a couple of things I like to do too, including building and decorating a Gingerbread house with them, watching Christmas movies (Polar Express, the Rudolph movie, others), cooking and decorating Christmas cookies, and reading Christmas books focused on the birth of Jesus.

Various activities outside the house with the kids. We have several other traditions or new traditions that we don’t necessarily do every year, but are part of the repertoire when we are looking for activities to enjoy the Christmas season. Some of these include going downtown to see the Gingerbread house display at the Sheraton, going to see the CRISTA Nativity displays (haven’t done this yet, actually), seeing the light display at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens, or the light display at Warm Beach (kind of a long drive). We also go to Bellevue Square as a family and let the kids (and me and Kelly too of course!) pick out an ornament for the year. I love Kelly’s idea of recording who’s is who’s and saving them to have as their “starter” set when they have their own tree some day.

Advent We have been excited to learn about and implement a real Advent study this year, including lighting five candles (one for each of the four Sundays before Christmas and the fifth on Christmas day) in additive progression as we approach Christmas. It’s been really interesting to learn about Advent’s meaning (“coming”) and its application as 1) remembering that Jesus came, 2) looking to the ways that His coming, and His having left His Holy Spirit with us, effects us and grows us today and 3) looking to His coming again in glory. I love the picture of the light growing (adding lit candles each Advent Sunday)as the true light comes and arrives and we’ll look forward to practicing this with greater wisdom every year (this year seems like we’re just taking baby steps!).

The Christmas story We have tried to be really faithful to read and know the true redemptive depth of the Christmas story. We have read it again and again to the girls, we have read parts of it during the Advent candle lighting, and we’re even going to try to memorize “Matthew’s Begats” (the rich genealogy of Jesus) with the kids in future years – Andrew Peterson has a really catchy and fun version that is full of life and meaning.

Thoughtful consideration of others God has put it on our hearts to grow in the area of generosity at Christmas (and other times). I in particular need to grow in this area. Someone reminded me recently of Oskar Schindler’s broken realization – despite having saved over 1,000 Jews from concentration camps during World War II – that he could have done more. We live such rich lives and even giving in a small sacrificial way can bless someone else and help us keep an attitude of distance from a love and pursuit of money and wealth. A few things we have been oriented towards this year: Helping our community group take care of a family in need, “Christmas bags” for the homeless (Kelly put new socks, cookies and some Scripture in a little gift bag and has been handing them out when she sees a homeless person on a street corner, in safe parts of town), and sending a care package to an orphan who is in our life. In past years, we have bought presents off of the World Vision Gift Catalog.

Christmas Movie date nights for me and Kelly Kelly and I have a bunch of Christmas movies we like to watch during this season, including Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, The Polar Express, Elf, It’s a Wonderful Life, and a few others. In the future, I’d like to check out The Nativity to see if it’s a good one to watch this time of year. We also started a new tradition of watching the Andrew Peterson Behold the Lamb of God Christmas concert DVD, which is a cool narrative of the Christmas story from Old Testament through New Testament.

Kelly Christmas Date Kelly and I always do a Christmas date in December. This year we got dressed up, had a great dinner at Daniel’s Broiler and then went to see The Rockettes Christmas Spectacular at the Paramount Theater. We really enjoyed the show – the first three quarters were pretty secular, dancing Santa Claus, Nutcracker scenes, the Rocketettes, 50’s style Christmas dancers, etc. But it finished with a very surprising bang: a living Nativity (real sheep, real camels, etc.), including the Wise Men and their train of people/animals. They read scripture from Isaiah and finished by reading “One Solitary Life,” about the influence and historical centrality of Jesus. Pretty amazing finish.

Dates and Buddy Time I do a special Christmas date (or buddy-time in S’s case) with the kids during this time of year. The girls each get to buy a special Christmas dress, I will take them out to eat and to do something special. I do this at other times of the year too, but we try to make this one extra special. S and I are going to start having a Christmas “buddy-time” too. This year I think we might do some last minute Christmas shopping (classic man-time, huh?), but in future years I’d love to take him go-kart racing and stuff like that. We will also be having S take his Mommy on a date during Christmas time so that he can learn how to treat his future wife really well and honor and respect her.

Hospitality We haven’t had a ton of opportunities for this over the years, but we’re trying to develop a heart of hospitality during the Christmas season (and other times, too, of course). Last year we were blessed to get to spend part of our Christmas day with the Connelly’s. This year we invited another friend who might not have been home with family. In general we want our home to be one of hospitality and “family” for those who might not be near it at this time of year.

Extended Family Kelly and I trade years that we spend time with our respective extended families. For example, this year is a “Jason’s family” year and next year is a “Kelly’s family” year. Of course, both of our families are both of our families, but you know what I mean. When we can make it work, we have tentatively scheduled to be in Charlotte for Christmas every fourth year. So, for example, we would be with my family on Christmas Day on year one, we would be here in town but have Kelly’s family in town on year two, we would be with my family again on year three, and in Charlotte with Kelly’s family on year four.

We always get to see each of our families somewhere near Christmas, even if we’re not there on the actual day (for example, we were blessed to have Leta and Andy in town last week and celebrated with them then). We’re excited to be in our own home at least three out of four years, though, as we feel like it’s important for the kids to have their own traditions and to build them in their home.

Speaking of extended family, we’ve been really blessed to get to do a big dinner at Canlis for the last eight or nine years, and we hope this tradition will continue either at Canlis or somewhere else equally special.

Christmas Eve We usually try to go to our Christmas Eve service (if Mars Hill is doing one), or sometimes to another family member’s church service. We usually finish the night setting up toys, wrapping presents and watching The Polar Express. I have made this a Christmas tradition and I love it. I have also begun watching the Catholic Christmas mass (“Christ-mass”) at midnight on Christmas morning, which is pretty cool.

Christmas Day Christmas Day starts with the kids and going downstairs to see the tree and anything Mommy and Daddy might have put in the stockings. We usually try to do something yummy for breakfast before opening presents. Our Christmas morning traditions are still developing since our kids are so young, but we hope to celebrate the 5^th Advent candle and reading the account of the birth of Jesus before opening presents. In general, though, our heart is that we would keep Jesus and family-relationship-building central to the day.

So, that’s it! I know, it’s a long list. If you’ve made it this far, I hope you enjoyed it and that you got some ideas from us. If not, then it was mostly a journal account for me anyway, so that I can take a look at what we’re doing and assess areas to grow and change and mature.

Merry Christmas!

Baby, It's Cold Outside

I have for years thought of Christmas in the traditional and common way that it is often thought of today: a secular holiday with a very real and spiritual foundation, the birth of the Christ child Jesus. I have reveled in the holiday spirit, the silver bells, the dreams of wintery snow scenes, holly scented greenery and jingle-themed music. Old-school crooners like Dean Martin and Bing Crosby not replaced but supplemented by new-school crooners like Michael Buble and Josh Groban.

I have treasured these feelings and memories for their connections in my heart to the care-free days of my childhood when life was pretty easy, low on responsibility, and spiritual, but not heavy. The Christ child was relevant to me, but mostly in a passive way that gave a nod to the tradition of Jesus, but allowed me to continue in the revelry of the day and my active love for the Christmas holiday itself.

To think of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” brought instant connection in my heart to that full and rich and joyful and warm Christmasy feeling, and meant a celebration of that wintery warm-by-the-fire’s-glow feeling and that hot cup of chocolate.

And to be honest with you I have looked for that feeling in my heart for the last five to ten years. It hasn’t been there as fully or with as much life as it used to carry. I have looked for that “Baby It’s Cold Outside” feeling, trying to restore that Christmas cheer and pine-needle aroma.

And today, while thinking about that feeling and my search for it, I actually reached outside of the doorframe of my mind and found that it was in fact cold outside. I was surprised to find that the warm glow of my Christmas expectations wasn’t outshining the cold. The Christmas aroma was not overpowering the more pungent smell of sadness that I and so many others breathe this year. I realized it was a cold that chills me past my skin, past my bones and way down into my soul.

This week one of my brother’s best friends died. He was 26 and succumbed to the swine flu. Two weeks ago we heard that one of our favorite pastors had had a seizure, that doctors had discovered a fist-sized tumor in his head and yesterday we heard that the tumor was malignant and fighting for ownership of his brain tissue. This week we watched as two young men and a young lady who loved Jesus and served him fought for their lives on the side of a mountain I have climbed. I know exactly where they walked. This month we have watched a number of couples in our lives battle for their marriages, sometimes winning and sometimes failing. We watched an Acts 29 church family suffer as its pastor took his own life. The list goes on and on.

And at one point today, I thought, this is a sad Christmas. It’s hard to walk with a happy heart and dream of sugarplums dancing, laugh with Frosty the Snowman and strain to hear silver bells ringing when so many people are suffering so completely. It feels so heavy and pointless and sad.

Baby, it is cold outside. Very cold.

But as my heart reveled in and gave itself over a bit to the sadness alive in this season this year, God washed over me with a voice like a strong current. This is the meaning of Christmas. This is why He came. This is our redemption.

Because it is cold outside. Because of loss and sorrow and tears. Because of death and dying and sickness and sadness. The Christ child came to redeem these. And they are His. That little boy so poor and needy in that manager hay grew into a toddler and a youth and a man. And lived a sinless life so that He could lay it on the altar as a sacrifice for our sins. And He did.

And so today, you and I can walk in that, setting sadness aside, knowing that He has a plan that doesn’t check in with ours, but defines ours and writes ours. His ways are not our ways, but we know that His ways are good ways, and that He loves us. And that is why the God of the universe humbled Himself as He did, to become part of the creation.

To bring a warmth to us and to redeem the cold. That we might have perfect communion and connection with the God who before that Christ-child was untouchable by us because of our sin.

Baby, it’s cold outside, but there is a Savior. The Christ. Jesus.

So I am going to wallow in that memory this Christmas, and will know deeply in my heart that Christmas is to celebrate our Savior who came to bring us life and life eternal. And He will be my answer to the cold outside.

"O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new."

Santa - Jesus Theology

OK, I stole this concept from Matt Chandler, but I still want to elaborate on it for a minute: I think a lot of Christians are into the whole Santa Claus thing because Santa theology is so much like their own Jesus theology:

Santa theology:

He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake!

Translation: Santa is omniscient like God. And, if you do good things, you get presents. If you do bad things, you get coal.

That all sounds so good until you have kids and you realize, wow, If I was really keeping track like that and playing the good Santa Claus, I could never give my kids presents because dang it they are bent and cruel at their core!

Many Christians (self-included at times) hold Santa-Jesus theology:

Jesus gives me good gifts when I am good and withholds his love when I am bad. Christians get these ideas 1) from their own moral code (and American pull-yourself-up-by-your-boot straps ethos) that says I can get myself out of anything, 2) from a desire to feel in control (if my behavior can control outcomes than I am in control and not God), and 3) from pastors who don’t understand their Bible.

The small (wink, wink) problems with this kind of theology are 1) the reality of life and 2) what God’s Word says:

1) The truth is that even people who – by the world’s standards – are good (they love people, love their kids, are generous, and give their money and time away) sometimes suffer. Take Matt Chandler as a case in point – he is a faithful man and “obedient” in many regards, but God has seen it fit to allow him to have a brain tumor about the size of a fist that needed removing. Or how about the man and woman who love Jesus and give their lives away, but lose a baby? Or the missionary that sells all he has and moves to India and is set on fire with his family? In these cases, good works do not equal good gifts in return. Nevermind the truth that plenty of “bad” or disobedient people live blessed lives. We can see from practical living that this kind of theology is a farce.

2) The Bible reminds us that none of us are good and therefore none of us worthy of either the common grace we get every day (the beautiful weather, the amazing planet God has given us, another day of life, etc.) nor the fullness of God’s forgiveness of sin. It comes only by grace (unmerited favor).

"There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes. (Romans 3:10-18)

Likewise, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)

Thankfully, there is grace, both for our kids on Christmas day (we can love them and share gifts with them gracefully) and for those who know Jesus every day and on Judgment day: “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:5-6)

“But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” (Romans 3: 21-25)

The Stinsons

I got ready for work and came downstairs to say goodbye to the Stinsons yesterday. They were leaving later in the day but I wouldn’t be around. Kelly and the girls said their teary goodbyes around noon when Kelly took Shawn, Kal and P to the airport.

It was a bittersweet day. So much excitement for them and their return to Charlotte and family and friends who love them so much. And so much anticipation and hope for Redemption Church and their desire to bring some of the Seattle-meets-Acts Biblical culture back to Charlotte. And yet of course it was hard for those of us here who love the Stinsons and have seen them become such an integral part of our lives over the last two years. Some band-aids come off easy, some come off with a lot of pain because of all of the glue involved. There’s a lot of glue on the Stinson band-aid:

The Stinsons lived in our home for three of the twenty-three months they were in Seattle, not even mentioning all of the Tuesday night Idol nights, camping trips, weekend get-togethers, or the occasional times they spent the night in our guest bedroom.

Our kids ask to pray for them every night before bed (including them in the list of Mimis, Pops, Nanis, Poppis, Uncles, Mommys and Daddys).

When you ask G to say the Cowan names she says Daddy Cowan, Mommy Cowan, "K" Cowan, "G" Cowan, "S" Cowan, Shawn Cowan, Kalle Cowan, "P" Cowan. Hilarious.

They were in our house enough that in the last month I expanded my before-bed routine of coming out onto the upstairs landing and praying over the house and the neighborhood and each occupied room to pray not just for our room, and K and G’s room, and S’s room, but added prayer over P’s room and Shawn and Kalle’s room.

They spent almost every significant holiday with us and our extended family – Easter, a Mother’s Day here and there, both Thanksgivings, both 4^ths of July.

They got to know and love my parents and felt really comfortable in their home and in their care. My parents love them as children and friends with the incredible gracious love my parents always give.

Even my sister and her family came to know and love them (my sister cried when they said their last “see you later”).

The Stinsons were counselors to us through some difficult times, including a painful family situation.

We walked through a period of deep grief with the Stinsons that rooted our hearts together forever.

Kelly and I both built on our friendship with Kalle. Kelly has been in Kalle’s life since she was about ten years old, and I’ve known her since she was fourteen. We’ve watched her grow up to be this amazing godly Mommy and wife and it’s been a great joy.

Kelly and I also both built on our friendship with Shawn. While we knew him as Kalle’s husband and had a friendship with him, I was able to build a solid and close friendship with this mature, solid, Jesus-loving Daddy and husband that I very much value.

And lastly, we fell in love with that little P-diddy and his sweet gentle spirit. He has the biggest smile and the saddest sad face ever seen!

We are very thankful for the Stinsons and for the depth of relationship that God gave us while they were here. I think both couples learned from each other and I know he rooted our hearts together and showed us what true community looks like. It will be hard to replicate, in part because the opportunity to “live together” and do life together in such a close and intentional way is so rare in our American and Christian culture. But we will pray to Jesus for more of it.

Likewise, we will continue our close relationship with the Stinsons. We’ll have to be even more intentional, but they’re important people to us, so it will be a natural intentionality.

Thank you Jesus for good friends! Thank you for these two great years with the Stinsons!

Spurgeon on Winter and Suffering

I am reposting something Lauren Chandler posted on her blog this morning – it is particularly relevant for them as they struggle through this difficult news of Matt’s tumor, discovered when he had a seizure and fell in his home on Thanksgiving day.

But it is relevant for all of us as we struggle through various seasons of pain, loss, frustration. Sometimes it is a death in our extended or close family. Perhaps it is frustration with a job search or with career growth. Or other issues.

This was encouraging to me, and I hope will be to you at all. Spurgeon seems to be saying that God uses these winter seasons not only to kill off disease or germs in our own life (to further refine and grow us in a later season), that God is sovereign and not out of control, but also that God is a present and living presence that we can count on as we go through difficult times and seasons.

Morning + Evening by C.H. Spurgeon--December 1, Morning:

"Thou hast made summer and winter."
--Psalm 74:17

My soul begin this wintry month with thy God. The cold snows and the piercing winds all remind thee that He keeps His covenant with day and night, and tend to assure thee that He will also keep that glorious covenant which He has made with thee in the person of Christ Jesus. He who is true to His Word in the revolutions of the seasons of this poor sin-polluted world, will not prove unfaithful in His dealings with His own well-beloved Son.

Winter in the soul is by no means a comfortable season, and if it be upon thee just now it will be very painful to thee: but there is this comfort, namely, that the Lord makes it. He sends the sharp blasts of adversity to nip the buds of expectation: He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes over the once verdant meadows of our joy: He casteth forth His ice like morsels freezing the streams of our delight. He does it all, He is the great Winter King, and rules in the realms of frost, and therefore thou canst not murmur. Losses, crosses, heaviness, sickness, poverty, and a thousand other ills, are of the Lord's sending, and come to us with wise design. Frosts kill noxious insects, and put a bound to raging diseases; they break up the clods, and sweeten the soul. O that such good results would always follow our winters of affliction!

How we prize the fire just now! how pleasant is its cheerful glow! Let us in the same manner prize our Lord, who is the constant source of warmth and comfort in every time of trouble. Let us draw nigh to Him, and in Him find joy and peace in believing. Let us wrap ourselves in the warm garments of His promises, and go forth to labours which befit the season, for it were ill to be as the sluggard who will not plough by reason of the cold; for he shall beg in summer and have nothing.

Fascinating Marriage quote

From Piper's Blog:

Here's an unusual wake up call about the wonders of marriage.

To complain that I could only be married once was like complaining that I had only been born once. It was incommensurate with the terrible excitement of which one was talking. It showed not an exaggerated sensibility to sex but a curious insensibility to it. A man is a fool who complains that he cannot enter Eden by five gates at once. Polygamy is a lack of the realization of sex; it's like a man plucking five pears in mere absence of mind. (G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 103)

Noel Piper on Adoption

As I have said before, Kelly and I have a developing heart for adoption. We don’t know exactly when (although it will certainly be several years before we even start the process) or from where (we have a heart for Asia), but we feel like it’s a burden God has given us.

Somehow I stumbled on Noel Piper’s blog (she is pastor John Piper’s wife) and she has been documenting their adoption story in honor of Orphan Sunday, which apparently was 11/8. You can read her story from start to finish starting here, but I wanted to show you a letter she wrote to John when they were considering adoption. She had a very strong heart for it, and he was in consideration phase. She was trusting the final decision to him. I found this really interesting, and got a real chuckle out of the last set of points (“Being radical and taking risks”)! I also love how she calls him "Johnny".

You can find the original blog here:

-------------------

Johnny writes papers when he wants to explain his view or make a point. So during the days we were deciding whether to adopt, I tried to speak to him in his own language. I wrote what I hoped would be a persuasive paper.

Johnny,

I want to assure you that, in no way, do I think our ministry will be crippled if we go on as we are. It is rich. But I do believe that by adopting a daugher, God will add richness and depth and understanding and credibility in many areas of our personal and public lives.

Random Thoughts

• In general, I expect that having 1 child at home will seem very easy after all our years of 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, etc.
• Having a young aunt here will be extra fun for the grandchildren that will start to visit, maybe before many years.
• Having a child again at this stage in our life will keep us from moving as quickly into older stages. It will shove us back a generation.

Pro-Life Ministry

• The very act of adopting is a renewal and revitalization of our efforts against abortion and for life -- in a very new and powerful way.
• Adopting would add tremendous credibility, and confirm our seriousness in the effort for life.
• A person who is as vocal and visible as you about life will be very visible as a supporter of mothers, as a protector of children who would otherwise be unwanted and perhaps in danger, as living out the implications and responsibilities that follow in the wake of stopping an abortion.
• You have a powerful voice. Even if your writing/speaking isn’t directly about Life and adoption, it will be there, because what’s happening in your life IS there in your writing. And you will be an influence to many for the good of children who need homes.

Racial Reconciliation

• Our efforts toward racial reconciliation would have tangible credibility.
• We would have personal experience with family-level racial diversity.
• We would open ourselves to personal experience of how an African-American person and a mixed-race family is treated differently from the way to which we are accustomed.

Biblical Masculinity and Femininity

• You will gain new understanding and clarity when your Biblical understanding is applied to the life of a daughter. I expect you to have strong confirmation of what you’ve understood and taught all along.
• It will be a good thing for your promotion of these Biblical truths to actually experience and learn how to raise a girl to be a godly woman in a society that expects something else.
• Maybe there are practicalities that you haven’t even thought of, that you would see when raising a daughter, and these things would expand your understanding and teaching.
• Your speaking and writing and persuasion in this area will have new credibility, when you have a daughter.

Evangelism and Missions

• To add another child to our family becomes the most personal kind of evangelism toward adding members to the Kingdom.
• And considering our attitude toward missions, it may also be mission recruitment for the sake of the Kingdom!

Your Writing and Speaking Ministry

• Your public ministry will be deeper and richer because we know that everything God puts into our lives comes through into your writing and speaking as a clearer, more pointed explanation of God and his ways.
• We know there are angles of God’s face and aspects of his personality to be discovered in new situations he puts us into. We will experience more of God as we live with a daughter. And that deeper experience of God will make your public ministry so much richer.
• For instance, if we adopted a child, and raised her, we would understand God’s adoption in a much fuller way -- what it means to adopt a person who is not part of your family and make that person fully a partaker and inheritor of your own life and family.

Being Radical and Taking Risks

• I think it would not be fair to quote yourself to you to try to make a point. But I must say that very often over the years you have made statements about taking risks and trusting God and doing unexpected and radical things -- and I often hear those statements in the light of the radical thing I want to do, and therefore want you to do with me.
• To adopt -- at our age and when it would certainly not be expected of us and when it is not financially easy and when it might make other ministries more difficult -- would be more than a token. It would say that you are serious about radical faith.