Micah Baby

Our youngest grandson is usually referred to as "Micah Baby". He is a special guy. Nancy spent the summer picking out his name. It felt like Nancy waited to "pass her baton" to him before heading home August 30.

The hope of his life will often co mingle with the tears we all shed the day they met. And yet. And yet. HE will not let us linger in sorrow forever. After all Micah has a lifetime to live.

Today he was baptised. The service concluded with the song, "Blessed Be the Name," a song we sang at Nancy's funeral. Walking with my grand kids takes me on a road beyond grief. That road includes memories of HIS faithful care in the past, even as we press on toward the higher calling.

Join me in praying that Micah always walks with the One his Amma loved so well.

Graduation Time

Helping a friend prepare to host her daughter's high school graduation party triggered lots of memories. It took me back to leaving Rossville High in 1971. What anticipation, what hope, what fear. The world was about to open up. Where was the journey headed? Who would I walk with? That night I had no idea.

A few weeks ago I graduated from the valley of grief. A new journey has begun. Many new possibilities exist. Many new roads await exploration. Traveling companions are in place. Still, it is thrilling,exhilarating frightening and fun to take these steps. My ultimate comfort is that Jesus still walks with me. The One who is before all things, and in whom all things hold together sets the pace. And He remains the same: yesterday, today and forever. Let's set sail!

waiting in the wings

In less than an hour, we will dispatch seven young people off to their WHM internships, having spent the day preparing them for this adventure. Who knows where they are headed?? I can't say for sure, but I do know that, thirty two years in to this radical journey, the road will be glorious.

So, today I pass the baton to them. Still, I am mindful there are more races to run!

The Glory Road

David wrote the following words when he was pursued by King Saul:

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,

for in you my soul takes refuge;

in the shadow of your wings

I will take refuge

until the destroying storms pass

Psalm 57:1

There have been moments of living out these words during our journey. Sometimes we just had to rest in HIM while the storm raged. In such a stormy season we found that HE was always merciful. That mercy kept HIS purposes for us intact. It included taking care of us for our good.

There has always been a deeper purpose accomplished through HIS rescue and reconciliation. That purpose led David to cry out:

"Be exalted, O God, above the the heavens.

Let your glory be over all the earth."

(verse 11)

Our journey was always meant to bring HIM fame. As hard as it was Nancy and I believed that HIS fame was spreading to others as the storm raged on.

Now I prepare to walk in a more pleasant plain. I walk with others. It is good to walk this smooth path just now. Nevertheless, I/we will walk for HIS glory whether through blue skies or stormy weather.

Dreaming the Journey Onward

Our WHM work day included setting our house in order to receive the first group of interns headed overseas. This summer we will deploy 20 young adults on six of our fields. Our prayer is that some of these folks will become infected with a desire to take the gospel into hard places all over the world.

Who knows where those budding dreams will lead? Thirty-two years ago a desire to visit Europe took this farm kid to Dublin on a summer mission trip. Now I dare to dream radical dreams on behalf of the next generation. Yes, the journey continues by putting others on the road to who knows where.

Jack Extends Our Journey

Our staff prayer meeting was enlivened by a bouncy 18 month old. Jack Foster joined his parents JJ and Susan to give us a report on their life as WHM staff serving in Spain. We appreciated hearing from Mom and Dad, but Jack stole the show as he moved around our conference room running from one person to the next. We were all caught in the peace and joy that this youngster showed in roaming about the place.

Jack is a wonder child. His mom became pregnant with him only weeks after asking a number of WHM folks to pray that she could conceive and carry a child to full term. That meeting was the last time Nancy and I were with JJ and Susan. Once more I am reminded that, while our chapter has closed, the story continues in the simple play of a little boy.

Hope and Sorrow Foreshadow Joy

This past Saturday I drove to Richmond to celebrate one of the fastest trips home anyone ever took. Baby Gabrielle Ruth Shaffer passed through this earth on May 20, returning to the Father the same day she visited this earth.

God's Word filled this service. I was most struck by this promise from Isaiah 65:

They will not toil in vain

or bear children doomed to misfortune

for they will be a people blessed by the LORD,

they and their descendants with them.

Before they call I will answer;

while they are still speaking I will hear.

We will always know sorrow along this earthy road. But that sadness is tinged with hope for those who know Him. Someday the sorrow will give way to unrestrained eternal joy when his people all arrive Home.

Death of Beauty/Birth of Beauty

Nine months ago today I woke up to blue sky and chirping birds. Nine months ago today I woke up in a room with Nancy for the last time. That day included the sad beauty of our last few hours together. Then she went Home.

This morning began beautifully. Sunlight flooded my room. Birds sang nearby. (Yes, even on Easton Road.) HE has created a new day. HE has opened up new paths to walk. Old friends walk along those paths with me. Important new ones as well. Nine months. They have given birth to a new life.

Speculations at Dusk

It's Thursday night. My sinuses are throbbing. Teddie and I are hanging out alone. And I start speculating about a different kind of life.

• What it would be like to live a life without suffering?
• What would it be like not to fear?
• Never to be alone?
• Never to have to say goodbye to someone you love?
• Never to have to wait to realize a dream?
• Never to worry?
• Never to fail?
• Never to know sickness?

Yeah, then I return to reality. To the knowledge that each of these discomforts have driven me to seek HIS face with passion and urgency. And I reluctantly thank HIM for this hard path.

And ask HIM to come. Soon. But not 'til I learn to rejoice in all circumstances.

Family Solidarity

The journey out of the valley is never a solo trek. My kids and I walk this road together. This weekend they took some huge risks in affirming me as I move forward. In turn, I like to think that their bravery will help them travel forward without their mom. I know this: their quiet valor encourages me to press on, even while I make sure that we remain connected.

Risk/Reward Analysis

What if some of the efforts to stay out of the valley don't suceed? What if I stumble and fall along the way? After all, remaining in the valley was somehow safe because it didn't risk failure.

On the other hand, failing to try is failing. Some of my efforts to climb have led me to stumble and fall. Sometimes I crash into someone close by me on the road.Years ago a friend gave us a postcard with these words from Roy Hession:

"Jesus is not shocked at human failure;

rather He is at home in it, drawn by it,

knowing what do do about it,

for He in Himself and in His blood

is the answer to it all."

We often find the healing presence of Jesus in the shape of those He sends. Friends and my kids have been amazing. They have hung, wept with me, prayed for me, and listened to me. They have not left me alone. Together we have found Jesus who is whole and strong in the moments we feel most broken and weak. I am confident that HE will continue to walk beside me toward the future.

Pack up the Moving Van

I shall always remember the valley of tears, the road of mourning and sorrow. That place was my address for months.

Somehow, in mid winter, I began visiting other locations. There were hours spent in the plains of hope, even moments atop the mountains of joy and laughter. You see, when I transversed the valley of Bacca HE made it a place of springs(Ps. 84:6). Then, as I drank from those springs, I gained the strength to pursue new and hopeful paths again. Over time, sitting alone and weeping gave way to smelling the flowers and gazing at the stars.

My journey is now one of hope and opportunity. I am definitely living for the future again. Don't get me wrong; the shadow of the past looms large. I will always miss the friend of my youth. A piece of me has been lost somewhere along that bumpy avenue. But I don't live there any more.

Now I am pursuing a new address. I may even find the street soon. Then I will begin looking at house numbers. What will it look like to go "back to the future?" Who knows, but I am convinced the best is yet to come.

It's about HIS Fame

This morning a young woman within the WHM family is facing a procedure after the premature end of her pregnancy. The fact that she was not carrying a viable baby makes the outcome no less painful, no less stark, no less outrageous.

As we were praying for Katie this morning, I was suddenly struck with how timid most of my prayers seem. I pray for health and comfort and happiness for our family around the world. All that is good stuff. After all, we have a loving Heavenly Father who delights to hand out good gifts to his kids. So, I should ask away. Still, there is a deeper level of asking, a richer vein of ore to be mined. I found myself asking HIM to bring glory to Himself through our family, that we would make Him famous in sickness or in health, in happiness or in sorrow, in success or in failure.

You would think that I would just naturally go there in my petitions for myself and others. After 35 years of walking behind HIM. After the adventures of the last 18 months. As a friend and I try to climb out of the valley only to find ourselves covered in spider webs with no quick end in sight. You would think I would just surrender my agenda and run to HIM for marching orders. But that is just not the default setting of this selfish heart.

Still, the Spirit gently prompts me to "recalculate." And I remember to join Paul in praying that HE be exalted in my body whether by life or death. And I leave it to HIM to determine the highway of exaltation that I am to drive.

Finding Second Gear

The transmission of my soul has never had a "middle gear." I can remain in neutral, putter along in first, or go flat out.

When I see the road that is opening in front of me, I want to go 75 miles per hour. Since this part of the journey involves a course full of bumps, curves and uncharted terrain, I have to "proceed with prudence." In other words, I should find a middle gear.

Some days that feels tough. But a Tim Keller sermon recently reminded me that joy is found in yielding control to HIM. Thus, I must follow his directions at His time toward His future. But, O Lord, I so want to set my own course and speed. Hold me in check, for my good and Your Glory!

A Pioneer Ponders

Years ago I heard a special song while driving to a supporting church. "Pioneer" describes both the loneliness and the joy I find in being at the spearhead of ministry. It explains what it was like to lay the foundation for the work in Ireland. It captures my calling in returning to the WHM office when we were creating the infrastructure for sustainable overseas missions. It sings of the essence of what I have done in building new teams and launching missionaries toward the field.

Pioneer, pioneer

Keep pressing onward, beyond your fears

Only the Father goes before you

To your own frontier

You're a pioneer

You travel light, you travel alone

And when you arrive, nobody knows

But the Father in heaven, He's glad you can go

For those who come after you, will need the road.

What you have done others will do

Bigger and better and faster than you

But you can't look back

No, you gotta keep pressing through

There's a wilderness pathway

and it's calling you

So keep pressing onward--you can't stay here

Only the Father goes before you

to your own frontier--you're a pioneer

Nancy Honeytree

What does it now mean to be a 55 year old pioneer who has watched "my homestead" leveled this past year? A widower nine months into a new leg of the journey?? A guy who has never been that enlivened by routine who now contemplates vital new partnerships and intriguing possibilities??? Where does this old frontier scout go??

Only the Father goes before me to my own frontier--I'm a pioneer. Pray for me. I will keep you posted as the journey moves from the valley to the frontier.

Resting in HIs Love

Rebuilding this life sometimes seems overwhelming. It's been like walking into your garage and finding out that the engine in your car has been removed, disassembled and left on the work bench. Where do you start?

I still wonder what part of life I need to really "master" first. Work? Church? New Relationships? Old friendships? Family? Of course the answer to all of the above is "YES." That's why it's complicated.

But then there are moments of great clarity. When it's no more work than laying outside looking at the stars on a mild spring night. And I realize that the real answer comes in the moment when I rest in HIS love--however it is found.

Savage Joy Born From Sorrow

Tonight I joined brother elders in praying for a pilgrim headed home. Lacy appears to be nearing the final stretches of a long battle with cancer. She asked us to come to her home and pray and anoint her with oil.

I was honored to do so as she was part of a group of women who had come around Nancy once she was diagnosed with cancer. Now it was time to acknowledge the strange and special partnership that suffering yields.

Yes, it was challenging to walk into the valley once more. Watching Lacy squirm in pain brought me back to places of pain I would rather avoid. This is not what HE intended when HE spoke creation. I shouldn't have to watch this again. No one should have to experience this again.

Still, you go because there was never a place so dark that HE avoided. But there is more than stoic endurance to be found here. Somehow when HE shows up among suffering HIS peace flows over the pain. A mysterious "healing" happens. And there is fierce joy in the expectation that another weary traveller is about to find her race completed.

And you hear the crowded stadium resound again with cheers: "C'mon sister stay the course. You are almost there!!!"

Two Portraits of Love

At Calvary I encounter
My Creator
Mounting a Cross
Welcoming me.

A picture of sacrifice
Sketched in sorrow

Yesterday I hear
My KJ
Rising before dawn
Working a Breast Cancer walk.

A picture of sacrifice
Sketched in sorrow

Each embraces pain
On behalf of another
To show me how to love

Mother's Day Rembrance

Mother's Day

Thousands walk to remember those torn away from loved ones through the scourge of breast cancer. And for the first year someone walks in memory of Nancy. Today I rejoice that her race is run. Meanwhile, we walk on without her.

A Gentle Advance

A warm Friday night
The showers hang back

At the ballpark
With new friends

Great bbq from Bull
Fine adult beverages.

Cole Hamels is dealing.
Our boys are hitting
Another step is taken

Tonight the valley
Is more memory
Than it is reality.

Thanks Phillies and friends.