Category Archives: peace

who helps you bury the body: a post on friendship

Posted on by March 31, 2025

Snow was lightly falling. We drove home, talking about places we might move to, and this conversation occurred in the Stagecoach as we went down the highway:

“Remember when Wendy was here and we were talking about that one neighborhood?” Chamberlain asked.

who helps you bury the body: a post on friendship from Copperlight Wood

I stopped at a red light. “What? No, when was that?”

“When we were talking about that one place?”

“Huh? No, I don’t remember that.” The light turned green and I pressed the gas.

“When they came over last time.”

“Last time? What did we do the last time they came over?” The snow, the traffic, the chatter – I was drawing a total blank as I turned off the highway.

“Mo-om, you know – when she came over to get the beer!”

The beer. Oh, yes. It all came back to me as I tried not to veer into the ditch.

Let me explain. After Christmas, an extremely generous coworker of Vince’s gave him a bunch of draft beer. It had a three-day lifespan before it went flat, and we couldn’t possibly finish it. And by “a bunch,” I mean two growlers from a local brewery for two adults who barely drink alcohol.

This friend doesn’t know us well. Yep, it was a little awkward. Almost as awkward as my six-year-old yelling about beer.

I could only think of one way to use it up that fast, but since using beer as a sedative for children at bedtime would be frowned upon (ahem) we called friends for assistance. Wendy, who does know us well, came over. And that was what Chamberlain was talking about – we chatted about real estate, moving, and neighborhoods while I poured stout and hard cider into mason jars for Wendy to take home, so she could tranquilize her children share accordingly.

You do what you have to do. As Vin said, good friends lift you up in prayer; great friends also help you finish the growler. Or, bury the body. Whatever.

(This might be a good time to refer you to why our kids also know about vodka.)

IMG_5674

We’ve made some pretty incredible friendships during our marriage. We’ve done normal friend stuff with a lot of people – hiking, movies, small groups, coffee, dinners, and such – but the couples we are closest to are the ones we’ve buried bodies with.

We’ve met in the emergency room when one of us was still on a gurney. We’ve taken turns responding to middle-of-the-night prayer requests and family crises. We’ve walked through grief and recovery together.

We know the messes from each other’s past and present, and the wild, crazy hopes for the future. These are friends who help us bury the body of our past – our failures and doubts, mistakes and inadequacies – and continually point us back to His truth.

IMG_0219

Of course, we share fun things in common, too. A few weekends ago we went to someone else’s house, and while us girls settled in the living room with tea, the guys were in the kitchen where her husband had just pulled a cast iron skillet full of fresh cornbread out of the oven. And, true story – my husband said to her husband, “Wow. Nice pan.” Because we both totally scored in the marriage department with husbands who cook.

(In related news, there was recent drama here when we moved some appliances I never use to the garage. We relegated the Kitchenaid next to the chainsaw, but in the process lost the dough hook for about a week. Vince was in a state of grief until I found it in the pantry.)

For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.

– Romans 6:4, NLT

We have to bury the body to be the body – and these friends help us do that because they know us well. They know where we’ve been and where we are going. We become less to become more, stretching roots deep with our dearest so we can grow wide in our communities.

Our closest friends help us bury the body so we can rise.

These are the friendships that nurture, that press you closer to Him and who He’s designed you to be. You know each other’s individual daily struggles and share some of them in common. Some of them have walked a journey of grief that reflects your own, and you speak the same language.

These are the deep friendships, where you are free to be yourself, your most vulnerable you. The messy kitchen, the kids and coffee and books everywhere; hoodies draped over chairs, the reality of diaper changes when a cat wants to help, and the kids’ discarded stray socks everywhere.

diaper changing cat

IMG_3250

That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

– 1 John 1:3, ESV

These are the friendships that don’t stop contending for you in prayer when you are this close to breakthrough, even after you’ve pretty much given up and just don’t want to talk about it anymore. These friendships fight for those things that feel like impossibles, because sometimes it’s easier to pray and believe for a friend than for yourself. We can do that for each other.

We have to bury the body to be the body – and these friends help us do that because they know us well. They know where we’ve been and where we are going. These friends help us bury the past so we can rise.

_____

This is an excerpt from Work That God Sees.

an accidental feast

Posted on by June 16, 2023

The almost-ten-year-old: Afton’s looking at the largest baking bowl we own, full of flour and some other white ingredient…which, from the look on his face, is probably called “regret.”

I ask him what it is. He says it’s four cups flour, and four teaspoons – or was it tablespoons? – of baking powder. Uh oh.

an accidental feast: how we rise when we think we've made a flop

“What are you trying to make?”

He points to the cookbook. “Jalapeño cheesebread, but it’s a double batch.” And that sounds awesome, but he’s using a cornbread recipe and he’s actually quadrupled it. I try to explain that he’ll have to switch recipes and make the cornbread instead, and it’s okay, because I can help figure out the ratios and such…but, no, he says. It’s not okay. Panic is setting in, and he starts speaking desperately, without punctuation:

“I needed four cups but I was using the half-cup scoop so I did eight scoops but I don’t want any cornmeal and do I really have to make cornbread because I want it to be like French bread but I don’t want to have to wait for it to rise!”

The rising thing always gets me, too. But no, I tell him, you can’t make French bread, cheesy or otherwise, with baking powder. It needs yeast; it has to rise.

There is a quiet, tense pause. Then he says:

“I think I can separate the flour from the baking powder with static electricity.”

And this, my friends, is why people are afraid to homeschool. They say it’s because they can’t teach high school math, but the truth is they’re terrified their nine-year-old is going to blow up the kitchen by separating flour from baking powder using static electricity.

(That night during dinner cleanup, we asked him where he heard about that. He shrugged and said it was from a science book. I turned to Vin and said, “That does it. No more science.”)

But four batches of cornbread later (perfect, cheesy, drool-worthy, jalapeño cornbread…), he learned a lesson that we all get eventually: things don’t always work out the way we expect, and we don’t always end up where we planned.

We’ve lived here for eight years, but we never expected to end up in Wasilla. Initially, we resisted moving at all and justified it with reasons that sounded good – but it turned out that what we were staying for in Anchorage was exactly what God was trying to get us away from. He had something so much better for us, if we’d trust Him enough to let go.

IMG_6386

IMG_6397

And we did let go. But we thought we were supposed to move to Eagle River, and when we started looking, there was nothing available there. We searched and prayed and eventually went with plan B: we found land in Palmer. We made plans and a million phone calls, and hired subcontractors to build a house, and ten days before we were supposed to break ground, our bank went under…so that didn’t work out, either.

Sometimes when things don’t work out, fear starts to take root: What if this is the beginning of a pattern, and the next bend in the road is even worse? What if we think He told us to do this, but we heard wrong? What if we’re just waiting for the next shoe to drop?

But…what if none of those scenarios are the case at all?

What if the things in our lives that aren’t working out only seem that way because they’re not finished yet?

What if we are judging the end product by the messy middle phase? Like cake or cornbread that needs to bake for an hour, but we pulled it out of the oven when it’s still doughy and unset – we followed the recipe, used all the right ingredients, but we checked its progress too early. It’s not done yet because there’s no shortcut to waiting for it to rise.

IMG_6385

I still don’t know why He didn’t just tell us right out to move to Wasilla nine years ago. Maybe He knew it was too far off our radar and we had to warm up to the idea; maybe there were timing issues; maybe He knew we were stubborn (no way) and wanted to test our obedience. Maybe it was a million different things.

Maybe He wanted to teach us that even when life doesn’t go the way we plan, it still works out. He knew we would need to remember that in the years ahead.

The end product might not look at all what we signed up for. It might not be what we wanted at all  — no one plans ahead anticipating disease, disaster, divorce, or other heartbreak. That’s fair; He doesn’t want those things either and He grieves with us. But He is the master at taking the most screwed up recipes — all of our accidents, failures, and near-misses — and even when it feels like we’re having hot water for dinner, He’s redeeming it all into a gourmet feast.

Life needs yeast in order to rise.

And sometimes, things are hard simply because that’s the nature of expanding our comfort zone, living and learning deep and wide. It’s not because we are failing; it’s because we are not those who shrink back…even from homeschool.

That same kid, a few days later, is right back at it — and this time he has a project he wants to tackle with the sewing machine. The fabric is stretchy, the machine is unfamiliar, and he looks up at me.

“I prayed first,” he says, and hits the pedal.

______

This is an excerpt from Work That God Sees. :)

the year of deep and wide

Posted on by October 12, 2016

The little brown library is right in downtown Wasilla, and Finnegan was tucked in the babywrap while we wandered the aisles, just us. We have some kiddos at home who have been testing the limits of my sanity lately and any chance to get some time away is cold water to the thirsty. I ended up in the same section I always do – and nope, it wasn’t parenting, self-help, psychology, or substance abuse.

It’s literature. The classics, the poetry and essays, the biographies of authors and their collections in an aisle four feet wide and full of rest; and I stood in the middle of it, swaying Finn to sleep as the old floor creaked under my left foot.

the year of deep and wide: making 2016 about the call to pray, educate, and change the atmosphere through worship

I was among friends here: Twain, Dickens, Alcott, Wilder. Even without reading all of their histories, I know the people by their works and we are kindred. They have stared down blank sheets of paper without having all the answers, and won.

Their biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs were right in front of me. I wondered how hard it must be to come up with a title for these — what phrase sums up a person’s life? What few words do you choose?

And He started speaking to me about 2016, this blank sheet right in front of us. It is a decisive year for our family, our church, and our community. It’s also a pivotal year for our nation.

What am I doing as a mom to influence the Kingdom? What is our mission as parents? As adoptive and special needs parents? We can’t make choices for our kids, determine their course, or ensure that they will follow Jesus, change the world, thrive in life, or even brush their teeth. These are all choices they have to make.

P1020888

But our reach is deep and wide. We have the great leverage of influence, both at home and in our culture. We educate ourselves and our children. We create the atmosphere of our homes and communities, and sometimes, we have to fight to maintain that atmosphere against sabotage. And we intercede as though every prayer is water to the thirsty, filling an ever-broadening lake for the lost and wandering.

What phrase sums up a person’s life? What few words do you choose?

In fact, because Christ said we could only get into His world by being like children, many Christians have the idea that, provided you are “good,” it does not matter being a fool. But that is a misunderstanding….Christ never meant that we were to remain children in intelligence: on the contrary, He told us to be not only “as harmless as doves,” but also “as wise as serpents.” He wants a child’s heart, but a grown up’s head. He wants us to be simple, single-minded, affectionate, and teachable, as good children are; but He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job, and in first-class fighting trim.

– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

This is the year of deep and wide for us: stretching further down and reaching further out than we’re used to, submitting to expansion and trusting for big things.

This is the year we fill the blank sheet in front of us with three focused objectives in a greater measure than ever before: The calling to pray, educate ourselves, and change the atmosphere around us through worship.

By wisdom a house is built,
and by understanding it is established;
by knowledge the rooms are filled
with all precious and pleasant riches.
A wise man is full of strength,
and a man of knowledge enhances his might,
for by wise guidance you can wage your war,
and in abundance of counselors there is victory.

– Proverbs 24:3-6, ESV

P1020951

They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people understood what was being read.

Nehemiah 8:8, NIV

What if this is the year that shows that no election or ruling, no circumstance or special need, no loss or persecution separates us from the One who made us more than conquerors? What if this is the year that takes the deeps and shallows of our history, and shows us how He flips them for His glory? Because the nails went deep and the arms stretched wide, and the shredded body that the enemy thought was defeated actually brought life, redemption, and power. Dunamis.

This is the year that trains us to dig deep and wide into His presence, conveying the atmosphere of heaven to earth, because we are not overpowered by the blankness. We are bringing life to it.