As I was driving to work on this momentous day (ha ha ha) I was thinking about what I want for my birthday. Or more accurately, what I want for this 32nd year of my life. Needless to say there are a lot of things that I want to see happen this year - get out of debt, loose ten pounds, run another race, etc. However, my mind kept going back to one thing: my brother.

A few months ago I wrote about how my mom and dad met and how he died very unexpectedly when I was two years old. What I didn’t mention was that I am not the only child he left behind. I have an older half brother and half sister. My sister has been a part of my life since I can remember - she has always been there for me and even though we only share one parent (dad), she is wholly my sister. My brother is a different story, I remember bits and pieces of him up until I was around 4 or 5 and then he just disappeared. I arranged to see him about 5 years ago and it was a brief dinner, uncomfortable and over quickly.

My brother was not in a good place when our father died. Wayne Jr. was his father’s namesake and was knowingly disappointing his dad prior to his death. Needless to say, the bad behavior only increased after our father passed. My brother was 19, an addict and directionless. He resented my mother for reasons I don’t fully comprehend and little Jenn was just another reminder that his father had moved on with life after his divorce to Wayne Jr’s mother.

Fast forward to last night. I received a call from my sister and she explained that our brother had run away to Belize and abandoned his wife. He was in a crazy drunken state, escaped from rehab and on a very destructive course. My sister called to tell me she was basically disowning him and couldn’t take his behavior any longer. Wayne Jr. is smart, wicked smart. He is a physician’s assistant, a medical school graduate but a residency drop out. However, in South America, he has enough schooling to be considered a full fledged doctor. So he escaped there to write his own prescriptions and pretend that he is the medical professional he wishes to be. He escaped there to be someone different than he is here.

My brother is one of only two links to my biological father. I have no other connections to this side of my family. I have longed for years to know more about my father’s family but sadly, no one related to my father (other than my siblings) is still alive. I have fantasized about sitting down with my brother and asking him to tell me stories about our father. I would give anything to have a meaningful conversation with the man who so resembles my father and had more many more years with him than I. Yet, that is truly a fantasy because Wayne Jr is a shell of man and his memories are probably very jaded by now.

This morning on my drive I realized Belize is the perfect place for Wayne, it is removed, it is different. It is the perfect place for him to hit bottom and find Jesus. I know that sounds cliche but let me explain. As many of my church going friends know, Saul met Jesus on the road to Damascus and was forever changed. Saul was busy persecuting and killing Christians, until he met Jesus. It was at that time that he became known as Paul and he eventually was the catalyst for the spread of Christianity. You can’t really meet Jesus and not be changed, Paul being the best example of this. I believe that God is still meeting people “on the road to Damascus” and he is still changing them entirely. He changed me and he can change my brother. No matter how hopeless Wayne Jr’s situation is, God is hopeful.

I decided that this year I will pray every day for my brother, for a missionary or believer in Belize to meet Wayne and offer him something no drug could ever promise: hope. I know there is someone in Belize that God will put in Wayne’s path - God never stops offering a chance, not until every opportunity has been exhausted. Maybe a missionary will stumble into the clinic where Wayne is working and he will see with new eyes.

Join me, will you, in praying for Wayne to find what his heart really needs. Pray for that person who will deliver the message of love and hope to him, that they will be blessed beyond measure. I want to celebrate on my 33rd birthday the gift of a brother reborn in this life.

So much of our lives are composed of times of waiting. Waiting for events, doctors, mail, jobs, babies, etc. We wait mostly because we don’t have control over all things. We can’t control others schedules or mother natures’ plans or God’s timing.

I haven’t exactly been known to be a patient person. When I see something I want, I want it now. When I set a goal, I want to achieve it right away. I struggle infinitely with patience, as I am sure many do. None however, struggle greater with the “waiting” in life than children. Kids don’t grasp that doctors have other patients or candy before dinner isn’t a good idea. They don’t understand why Friday playdates have to be so far away. Most of these times of waiting, which seem endless to a child, are just good learning for what life is really like. Sometimes the “wait” has purpose and sometimes it is just, well,  because.

Yesterday, Kevin promised Isaac that we would roast marshmallows. He got in his mind that we were going to do it right away upon returning from the beach. However, it was 4pm and we needed to eat dinner, take showers and clean up before a fire could be started and the roasting could begin. Isaac must have asked 60 times between 4pm and 6pm when we were going to roast the marshmallows. Every time, our answer was the same, after dinner and after Joshua goes to bed (Joshie and fire are not a good mix, let alone showing him how to stick something INTO the fire).

Isaac grew increasingly impatient with the wait and disappeared into the kitchen. Just as Kevin was getting the fire going and as we were mere minutes away from roasting, Isaac returned with a snack bag of cookies. He asked if he could have the cookies instead of the marshmallows. He had waited, with great anticipation for marshmallow roasting and now when the event was only 5 minutes away, he wanted something else.

I asked him why he wanted the cookies instead and his answer was priceless. He simply looked at me and said: “If I have these, I don’t have to wait anymore and it will be almost as good.”

As he walked away with his cookies, I was thinking about the profound nature of his statement and how unknowingly he had truly summarized a good portion of American culture.  

How often in life do we get right to the edge of something great and give it up for something good, just so we don’t have to wait anymore? Waiting is so hard, it makes us feel as though we aren’t in control of our destiny. Sometimes I catch myself changing my plans in the middle of a long journey just so I can feel a sense of control over the direction.

Obviously, we are all called to times of waiting. I just wonder what, if given more patience, we could really derive from the time of waiting. Maybe the end result is the yummy roasted marshmallow or maybe the waiting itself ends up being the thing you needed but did not know you wanted.

Being in a new town necessitates some decision making; where to get your clothes dry cleaned, where to grocery shop, where to find swimming lessons, friends and a good babysitter. Let’s just say I am sick of all of the decisions.

I don’t really miss Turlock. I just miss the familiarity of the town, the proximity to family and such. I knew where to get things, who to call when I couldn’t find something, who the good babysitters were, etc. Here, I am constantly adjusting to the “new”. I like it, just some days I wish I could be like Evie from Out of this World and put my index fingers together, freeze time and get everything all figured out. Although I am not sure that I want my Dad’s voice to come out of some possessed, glowing cube. (if you watched this show you know what I’m talking about…)

One of the big decisions ahead of us is where to go to church. I love being involved in a church and meeting new people. I just hate the whole deciding which one to attend. Every church has it’s merritts. This one has good worship, this one is very welcoming, this one has a great pastor. I want a place that is inviting to non-believers and has great teaching. I want a church where there are lots of young families so I can make friends. I guess I am asking a lot of a church.

The big question for me is, which criterion is most important? I want a church that is “seeker” friendly but yet I want to feel biblically fed on Sundays. What, I guess I should be asking, does God want? Considering I believe He shows up at just about every church, does He have a preference? Does He like one more than the other? Does He care about worship style or small groups or programs?

So friends, how (if at all) do you chose a church? What do you base it on? Last Sunday I went to Shoreline Community Church and I really liked it. Is gut feeling what you go by?

I can find a grocery store and a dry cleaners by myself but I really want some insight in picking a church. A church is the place where I am supposed to grow spiritually - which when compared to choosing a place for a good shirt starching, seems significant.

So, the Move, she has caused quite a bit of stress. (note: move has been personified, call Dr. increase meds).

I have always been a dreamer. I had crazy night terrors as a child that kept me awake at night. As an adult, I have to watch what I look at on tv, the internet, etc. because I have a sensitive psyche. For example, after watching the movie The Sixth Sense years ago I had bad dreams about a girl with a mouth full of vomit for weeks (hi Mischa!).

My dreams are not always nightmare oriented but they are always very full and busy, leaving me feeling unrested in the morning often times. I usually don’t talk about my dreams with anyone because I hate it when people do that. You can almost be sure I will roll my eyes and start to walk away from any conversation that begins with: “I had this crazy dream last night!” Don’t know why, I just want to scream - “It didn’t really happen, why are you talking about it!” (again, call doctor, increase meds)

Okay, so all of that said I am going to break my own rule of not talking about my dreams because THE CRAZIEST THING HAPPENED TO ME! Last night I dreamt that I lost all of  my teeth. It was odd, they just kept falling out and in their place was stumpy little teeth or no teeth at all. I kept trying to pick them up and put them back in but they wouldn’t stay.

My mom called this morning to talk about some plans we are making for this weekend and I told her about my dream because I was so disturbed by it. She assured me this is a very common dream and I should look it up on the web. I hung up the phone and went about my business, forgetting to look up the dream.

Then a co-worker came in my office and asked how I was doing. Because I am nothing, if not brutally honest, I explained that I was having a really hard time with the move and feeling like we were doing the right thing. He, being a man of the Christian faith, said that I just needed to trust that God has a plan and stop trying to make sense of all of it. He rightly pointed out that all of the details have come together seamlessly and that I should be encouraged by that fact. I lamented that it seemed so crazy to be leaving my  job and that I was sick of people asking me “are you nuts? What are you doing leaving such a great job!” He again encouraged me that sometimes our decisions don’t make sense in the eyes of many, but if we believe in what we are doing then that is all that matters. Basically, your life is between you and God, not others and what they think.

After he left I started thinking about the dream again and I looked it up. Here is what I found………………

A scriptural interpretation for bad or falling teeth indicate that you are putting your faith, trust, and beliefs in what man thinks rather than in the word of God. The bible says that God speaks once, yea twice in a dream or a vision in order to hide pride from us, to keep us back from the pit, to open our ears (spiritually) and to instruct and correct us.

Holy crap! I have been totally challenged lately about faith and then I have this dream and I find this interpretation of it. Could God have been trying to tell me to have more faith, that He is in control?

Maybe it is all just a coincidence but…I think not.

So Internet, for lack of better judgement, what dreams have you had that ended up being a message about your life?

Do tell….