Needs Repair

As I opened the old cardboard box covered in Christmas stickers, the kids crowded around trying to be the first to glimpse the ornaments lovingly stored inside.  Even though decorating the tree can be stressful, and this year was proving especially interesting as I worked with Darcy, Aidan and two other children who refused to respond to names other than ‘Spider-Man’ and ‘Buzz Lightyear’; pulling out the ornaments and putting them up is one of my favorite things in the world.  We, all six of us, end up standing in this area of a few feet and looking through all that has been while thinking about what is yet to come.

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There are the Sunday school ornaments from when I was Darcy’s age and the kids laugh at the thought of me as a little girl, writing my name in glitter. There are the ‘Baby’s First Christmas’ globes with a date I won’t print on this page and someone asks if running water had been invented by the 1980s while Bob laughs. And then the kids go through their own ornaments, like rediscovered treasures. with a new one marked for each year, and they laugh at some of their earlier choices and greet others like long-lost friends.

Christmas 2013 was the year Darcy chose a Cinderella ornament and all three boys picked small green and yellow John Deere tractor ornaments.  Those were hard days to keep the tiny metal tractors on the tree and tamp down the temptation to take them off and play with them every day, but mostly they succeeded.  

However, in the course of only a few years and the packing, unpacking and rehanging, Chase’s tractor had succumbed to the wear. It was missing it’s front wheels and steering wheel and I’d totally forgotten about it until I reached into the sticker-covered cardboard box. Chase pressed close and as I pulled out the small box for the tractor, I saw the bright pink post-it with my mom’s neat handwriting from last year: “Needs repair” so I quickly tucked it back into the box. This wasn’t the moment to fix it and I knew if Chase saw it, he’d want it, so I gave him his ‘Baby’s First Christmas’ ornament instead and we hung it with care.  But as I’d moved away from my place in front of the box, Aidan took it, pulling out the damaged tractor’s box once again, holding it high over his head, and yelling “Whose is this?”

The second Chase saw it, he jumped, screaming “Mine! It’s mine! Give it to me, Aidy!” And ripping the box open, he saw the truth of the words he could not read and immediately stilled. “Oh. Mom, this is broken. We need to fix it.”

I held out my hands for the box and the broken ornament.  “I know, sweet boy, and we’ll fix it, but for now, why don’t you give it to me? This isn’t the right time. We’re decorating the tree. We’ll get it all set up and then you can hang it another time, okay?”

His head dropped low and I waited for the storm, but it never came. His voice stayed quiet. “But it’s my ornament. I remember it. Can I please hang it up even though it’s broken? I love it.”

Isn’t this the breathtaking wonder of Jesus coming to this world? The purpose in the story of this season? He came as one of us, grabbed for the broken and damaged, the things we’d rather hide away, fix before acknowledging, find another time to deal with, and He lovingly says: “I remembered you. You’re mine. I love you in your brokenness and I’m making all things new.”

Moment by moment.

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The Story of 2014

Once there was a family of six: a handsome father, a redhead mother, a sole princess girl, and three little wrestling and running boys.

The handsome father, he worked in two places – one a large company, the other a church.  In both places, he worked with numbers… lots and lots of numbers.  In the free moments, you would find him completing a half marathon, quiet with a book, or very lately, working in his new garage.

The redhead mother spent the days holding the pieces together… pieces of laundry and food and school and sometimes, yes sometimes, even silence.

The sole princess girl, just a second ago a babe in arms, was suddenly eight and tall, and already a fast runner.  She was never so happy as when she was running… just like her father.

The oldest of the wrestling boys was five, nearly six, and started wearing glasses to see, which made him look wise.  He began the school journey and stretched his legs at running to try and beat his sister, and if he could, would choose to be buried under a gigantic mound of Legos forever.

The middle boy, with his lightning scar and white head, also began his school journey, but with special help and the fulfillment of his special wish… to ride a bus.  He continued, at every turn, to live up to his name and found his way through life in a never-stopping, never-settling way.

The baby boy, a baby no more, stood nearly as tall as the middle boy, with wide shoulders and stance that spoke of having older brothers and being ready and willing to throw the first punch.  And yet, he would sit quietly with a book for the longest time and everywhere he went, he looked for horses.

This family of six were wanderers.  They left their tiny space when the word “cancer” was first spoken and lived with grandparents for help as two years came and went.  They decided to sell their tiny space and pray for more room close to everything held dear, and the tiny space almost sold three times and they prayed for wisdom to know… and then the tiny space, their first little home, sold and they were led to the perfect little blue house near everything held dear and so, wanderers no more, they moved and settled in the early Fall as the leaves began to change.

And in the first hours of owning the little blue house, the call came that something was growing again under the lightning scar in the white head… and the family stopped and prayed for moment-by-moment grace to find the joy in the every day as they waited six weeks and checked again, and then six more and again.

And by the time this story rests in your hands, another check will have come and gone and a course of action will stand in front of the family.  But they put aside the fear and in grace, choose faith and yes, even joy for their family and their boy, and the root of it is found in this season and in another little boy, born thousands of years earlier.  This stable-born boy would grow to be the Savior and Lord and, bloodied arms stretched wide, would triumph over sin forever and ever, and make a way for death to have no victory or sting, and in this boy-turned-forever-King, there was and is hope and joy, and in this the family of six, in their little blue house, rests secure.  They hope and pray the same for you.

[This is the text of the Ewoldt Family Christmas letter that was mailed in early December, 2014 – Thank you for walking this year with us…moment by moment.]

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2012: In Our Own Words…

Christmas 2012

Looking back at all that has happened this last year, I asked everyone in my family to do a little summing up – Here is my family in their own words on 2012…

Karsten (1): [grunted and walked away]

Chase (3) [thinking he’s writing an e-mail to his hospital, which he’s never done and is unlikely to do anytime soon]: “The cancer is still running away from me because it wants to hurt me, but I am very brave. (breaks into song) God is near me, God is near me, all the time, all the time!”

Aidan (4): “I like when Christmas comes…and I like Uncle Trevor…and I get sad when Chasey hits me…but then we make it right and that makes me happy again…and Mom, when are you going to get out of my room?”

Darcy (6): “Some days I really want to go to my home and be back with my family when Mommy and Daddy don’t have to go to the hospital anymore and be on the phone with doctors all the time, but I’m very happy that I can be off school this week and that we can be together as a family.”

Bob: “If I could use one word to sum up this year, it would be ‘DIFFERENT‘. In many ways, I worked, traveled, wrote and read as in other years, yet this year was profoundly different with the cancer diagnosis. It’s ironic how the normal and the very abnormal go hand in hand.”

Ellie: I think if I also had to find one word, I’d choose ‘BLESSED‘. Never have I been so aware of all that I have and all the amazing people around me.

On that same subject, I’d like to take a moment to say thanks.  The simplicity of these words can’t possibly encompass what we feel, but on behalf of Chase and our entire family: thank you.  Some of you I know personally and some of you I may never meet, but I so wish that I could have the chance to sit down with each of you face-to-face and tell you how much all of the prayers, encouragement, gifts and service have meant to us. We are so blessed by you in ways you cannot even imagine. THANK YOU.

Truly He taught us to love one another; His law is love and His gospel is peace; chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother, and in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name;
Christ is the Lord, Oh, praise His name forever!
His powr and glory evermore proclaim!

Knowing The One who heals all and frees all is our true and constant comfort in this season and always.

Moment by moment…

Another Stone, Another Memory

“…When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them …” Joshua 4:6

“…When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them …” Joshua 4:6 

Never tell God what you are and are not willing to do.

In the Christmas season of 2008, I told God that I (in no uncertain terms) would be happy to birth the baby boy I carried ANY day except for Sunday, December 7th. My husband had a rather large Christmas concert scheduled for that day and was taking a rather large portion in it (conducting, soloing, etc, etc) … ie: the kind of thing at which he might be missed if he happened to be at the hospital instead.

December 7, 2008
12:07 AM: I looked at the glowing digits on my clock beside the bed. Really? Only midnight? Sighing, I decided that now was as good as any time to get up for one of what would undoubtedly be a hundred or so runs to the bathroom this night.  As I stood up, I felt the now familiar tightening. Labor?! Are you kidding me, God? We talked about this!  Maybe it’s false labor, early labor … something other than having-my-baby-today labor!

3:00 PM: Apparently this labor wasn’t false. However, it was slow, and knowing that there was much to do for the concert that night, I dressed in my holiday finest, and went to the church.

Sometime after 8:00 PM: Okay, now labor wasn’t quite so slow. The sounds of Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” wafted faintly into the library from the sanctuary – the final piece to this concert … It was done and it had been good. Thank you, God.

8:45 PM: Begging my husband to both drive faster and NOT hit every bump in the road.  

9:00 PM: The charge nurse’s face in my vision: “Honey, if I sit you up to give you the epidural, the baby’s going to come out! You can do it! Just don’t push yet! The doctor is on his way.”

9:24 PM: A son is born. He is beautiful.   

Dear Son, This is just one of many crazy and beautiful stories of God’s love for us/you that we will rehearse with you as you age. 
Happy Second Birthday!  Love, Mom