Changes

It has been three weeks since my last blog post. Life just keeps marching on. The days pass quickly. In those three weeks school ended for the year, soccer season concluded, soccer tryouts for next year took place and all the regular stuff happened–work, school, church, etc.

Summer brings a welcome relief from school for Sabin. He has a busy summer ahead however. He starts off with a goalkeeper camp the last week of June. I will pick him up from that and we will pack the car for our trip to WI. We will spend up to two weeks in WI. When we return home we have a baseball game to attend. The next day Sabin has to check in for his second soccer camp of the summer. The next week is Bible camp at Pleasant Valley Bible Camp. After all that we will have a week to breathe before we head to Columbus to watch a Columbus Crew soccer game and spend some time with Ben’s brother and his family.

We made it through Father’s Day. That was tough. It was nice to celebrate my dad and what he has meant to us. But so very tough to not have Ben here to celebrate him. He was the best dad for Callie and Sabin. Facebook was flooded with so many people posting about how their husband or dad was the best in the world and how grateful each person was for their dad. I am grateful for the dad our children had but can’t help wishing that he was still here on earth.

I am currently reading a book by Laura Story titled “When God Doesn’t Fix It”. It is packed full of great wisdom from someone that has walked a very difficult path. There is so much good stuff in it that I think I will read it again while we are in WI. So many of the things that the author has in the book pair perfectly with the messages I have been hearing at church on Sundays. God has a way of doing that for us. He will use songs, messages, cards, books, other people, all different things with similar messages to really speak to our hearts and lives. I have experienced that many times over the years. It reminds me of Romans 8:28. I like how The New Living Translation renders that verse, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”. God will use the Sunday morning message together with a message on the radio or a song or a book to bring us the message we need at that time.

I recently posted a couple of pictures that we had taken at church (one of which is above). About six months before Ben went in the hospital, we started attending a different church. It is not an easy decision to leave a church that you have attended for over 30 years. It is even harder when you have been so involved in that church over those years. But COVID has changed a lot of things in the world. We didn’t attend anywhere for close to a year. And honestly, I didn’t watch any services online during that time. Ben was the first to have the desire to return to church. He started attending a church in Ionia. He chose there because a guy he played basketball with was doing pulpit supply while the church looked for a new pastor. Sabin and I attended with him two or three times. It was refreshing to be back in church on Sundays. Though I enjoyed being back in church, I wasn’t sure that we would settle at that church.

After having attended the church in Ionia for a few weeks, I decided to watch a service from another local church. When Ben got home that day, I suggested that we should go up to that church and visit it. So the next Sunday we headed there and have been attending there ever since. Prior to COVID, church had become routine. It was what we did on Sundays. We always went to church. But there wasn’t that hunger to go and excitement for being with God’s people and hearing the message prepared for the congregation. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be there but it had become somewhat of a routine. A change of venue has reignited that fire to be in church.

We had only been attending there about six months when Ben went into the hospital. We didn’t know very many people there yet. Sabin had attended a few youth group meetings and events. We were able to attend a couples event in August and met other married couples. We had fun eating ice cream and playing some games together. In the months since Ben’s death, Sabin has gotten plugged into the youth group. They even gave him a part in their Christmas program last year. This summer he was made an honorary high schooler and invited to the events that are for those in high school. Funny thing is that I have had several people think that he is already in high school despite the fact that he is still only 12 and just finished 7th grade. As we were driving to the last youth group before summer break, I told Sabin to make sure they knew that he would still be in middle school next year. Afterwards he told me that he was invited to the events this summer since he was already part of the group. The youth director told me that Sabin has fit into the group and it seems like he has been there forever. I am glad that he has integrated with them and the other kids like having him there. Finding a church where Sabin could get plugged in was very important for us.

God is using the messages on Sundays to grow me. He is using Ben’s death to grow me and change me as well. One message that is clear to me is that I need to be willing to let God use me to help others. I don’t know what that will look like down the road. If I look back and ask why all the time, expecting answers, I will miss opportunities to be used in other’s lives. Instead I need to ask God “How” I can be used for the kingdom.