The week at home has been nice, if not challenging at times. The first few days home from the hospital were spent managing the pain and finding the right schedule for sleeping, getting a little nourishment in, and managing the overall stress and recovery following the bilateral mastectomy. I was helped by a couple of divine women, our mothers Jo Anna and Sandra, to get through the first 4 nights. They each stayed for 2 days a piece, helping me with keeping the house clean, getting Stacy medications or food, and just generally helping us feel ok in the midst of it all. I don’t know where we would be without them, or the many other people who’ve stopped by to offer a little support, a smile, and a little help when we’ve needed it.

The past few days, Stacy has felt up to moving around quite a bit more, watching lots of “How I Met Your Mother” on TV, eating Haggen Daas’ Dulce de Leche, and relaxing. She had an appointment today with one of the surgeons and he remarked on how well she’s been healing up and how great it was to see her smiling face. She’s been smiling a lot more the last few days and has felt a lot more like herself. She’s healing very well and will hopefully be able to ditch the bandages altogether this weekend. Yay!

With joy and healing, there still are concerns and prayers to be had. Tomorrow and Friday, we meet with a couple of different doctors to begin discussing the follow up treatment and the results of the pathology done on the tissue removed during last week’s procedure. While all reports have come back very, very positive in her favor so far, there is still a lot that is unknown at this point as far as how much treatment she’ll have to receive as follow up. Words like chemotherapy are scary and we are hoping for all the best in the next few days.

As I’ve mentioned, we’ve really appreciated all the support and prayers we have (and continue) to receive from our families and friends. The meals from friends and church members have helped a lot. Those who’ve stopped by to say hello or who have sent a note, your words and smiles and presence has been a great part in helping Stacy heal and feel better. Some have asked how they can continue to help, as this will obviously continue with us for a while. We’d love to keep seeing you all and, as Stacy’s health permits, to get out of the house to play a bit and pretend like it’s a normal summer. Meals are great and we’d love to see you. And, we ask that you keep praying for her speedy recovery and for continued good news.

I’ve found asking for and living in earnest prayer has been a challenging and beautiful thing these past few weeks. I don’t presume to understand how God works in regards to answering our prayers. I don’t know why some things we ask God for are not answered or why some are. I’m not sure that’s the point in all of this anyways. God is faithful to us, all of us. All, I am learning, that I can do, is reciprocate that faithfulness, through whatever comes, and hope to grow closer to knowing God and being known in return. At times, it seems God is distant and certainly could not hear our deep cries. At other times, God is so close. I don’t know why that is, but I’m hoping, as we weather this storm, to remain faithful to the one who has thus far, close or far away, stayed faithful as well.

Blessings to you all. We’ll keep you posted on what we hear these next few days.

Seth & Stacy

Posted via email from Seth’s posterous

Also, it sounds like things are moving forward towards getting a surgery date set for Stacy. We would love to get her in as soon as possible, just to keep moving along in this process, and it looks like she might have a date set for the last week of June. We’d love it to be sooner, but it helps to at least have some idea of a date in mind, and along with these hopeful test results, this brings some relief.

We both greatly appreciate the prayer and support Stacy has received over the past couple weeks as well. Without our family and friends, it would feel so isolated and alone in all of this. I’m continually surprised at the ways people have reached out and offer help, prayer, and advice.

Finally, God is faithful. God remains very present in our moments of stress and fear, as well as present in our few glimpses of joy.

Things to pray for:

• A surgery date, very soon
• Rest: We’re still not sleeping great and Stacy needs to stay healthy, so a good night’s sleep would greatly help that.
• Continued good results: There are a couple of tests still out, so we’re hoping those come back with good results as well, continuing to ease this situation.

Part of the larger community of skeptical, reluctant and questioning faithful, Nick’s stories share deep conviction. I really appreciate his honesty about not buying all the packaged, “arranged-marriage” Christianity of the culture. Instead, his journey takes him around the world and through a complete (quite literal) yard sale of faith to another side, where he can be honest about doubts and open about what he sees as faithful truth.

I’ve taken a liking in the Nick and Josh Podcast as of late, where I heard about this book and the stories of Nick’s travels. It’s refreshing to find people who are willing to ask honest questions, not simply for the sake of asking them, or because they’re trying to tear down the system, but because of an honest, earnest desire to know truth and to see God more fully. Some might question these stories or call them heretical. I would call them faithful and honoring to a tradition of hopeful skepticism that drives many, myself hopefully/humbly included.

While I know that many people I meet day-to-day don’t share these doubts or this willingness to gain the wider-lens perspective spoken about in this book, I know there are many who feel they have no place to do just this. This book might be a good beginning for someone who’s tired of “business as usual” but who isn’t ready to throw it all away, knowing that the faith they question is the faith they are deeply bound to and hopeful for. I would encourage any one who is willing to take stock of their religion and find Christ at the center, not pushed to the sidelines, to pick up this book and enjoy the humor, stories, and faithfulness that fill the pages.

Thanks to Nick for writing this and sharing it. Keep it up.

So, I’ll start here: I’ve still got a lot of questions. Good questions. Questions about why I am working in ministry. Questions about what I am supposed to do to serve students every day. Questions about how I’m supposed to live out my own faith in the midst of leading others. And plenty more.

They’re honest questions that come from honest moments of seeing faith lived out in mine and others’ lives (Honest, being the key word, doesn’t always mind “tastes good” or “feels nice”. Sometimes, it means “uncomfortable”, “hard to swallow”, and maybe even “true”). One of the coolest things about the work I get to participate in at the INN each day is simply being someone who listens and watches people work out what they believe about God. I get to meet with students who are struggling with where they’ll go after school’s over. Or new students, excited and eager to know what the whole college experience will be like and, for some, asking things like “where will God be in all of this?”

I asked that question myself as I began my time at Western Washington University, about 8 years ago. One of the biggest fears and insecurities I faced as I left home for school was wondering whether or not I would be the only person looking for God in Bellingham. Not like I had this unreasonable expectation that no one believed or followed Christ, but rather, a question of whether I would actually find anyone I could share in my own journey with. I wondered if I would have anyone to talk to. Anyone to experience the good and bad of faith with.

I see the same look in many of the faces of people I meet on Tuesday nights or around our offices or at programs throughout the week. I see a desire to know and be known by other people. And I think it’s not simply in the way we all desire to have friends and find connections with other people. I think there’s a real thirst to know and experience life with people who you can ask the tough questions with. To be known on that level with a community of like and unlike minded people. To not be surrounded by peers and classmates and yet be alone in what is the ongoing journey of faith.

And so, as I continue confront questions of faith and direction, I am comforted to know those people who come along in my life to offer dialog and support. And as I look at the questions I’m asking, I’m also comforted to know that I work with others who ask similar questions and who are similarly passionate in providing a space for students, who like me, 8 years ago, needed a place to air them out.

It was recorded, so I hope to have something to put up on the blog in the near future, for the viewing pleasure of those interested. That’s pretty fitting for a talk focusing on our iLife, right?

1. Tonight, my Dad is getting officially sworn in as the new City of Mukilteo Fire Marshal. We’re heading down tonight to watch the ceremony. I’m very excited and very proud of him. He’s been in the position for about 6 months and he’s great at it.

2. I’m speaking at the INN. Tomorrow night’s my first chance to speak on a regular-year Tuesday night. I’ll be speaking on how Christ is Lord of our iLife – our internet, blog, Facebook, cellphone world. Should be fun. It’s weird to be working on a talk about a topic that students really are experts on. I’m focusing on putting some of it in perspective in relation to our “actual” lives out from behind the computer screen. Should be interesting…

3. The beer brewing has begun. This week I’m finishing up my very first batch of home brew that I made on my own. It’s a Belgian Abbey ale. And, I’ve got a second batch planned to be brewed this coming weekend.

Obviously, there’s more going on. the INN is very busy this time of year. Stacy’s still plugging away at her master’s program and still keeping those kids in line in 4th grade. I’m doing little web design pieces here and there, looking forward to the summer when I plan to do more of that. Life up in Bellingham is good.

That’s what’s going on. As I work on my talk, I check myself with each and every web interaction I engage in, so as not to be hypocritical and to remember how Christ is Lord of all I do.

I think the blizzard and isolation have been adding to a feeling of being “outside” of all the Christmas hub-bub this year. Maybe it’s been coupled with being a little more attentive (at least at the beginning) to the season of Advent, spending more time reflecting on the impending “coming” of Christ, rather than simply jumping into celebration mode come December 1 Thanksgiving Halloween. We did a pretty good job of getting the shopping and decorating over with early this year, so as to enjoy it (“savor the season”, as one friend puts it).

But something has felt different this year. In a good way. Kind of like I’m outside of Christmas. Outside of the hectic. Outside of the lights. Being holed up in the house for the past 5 days hasn’t hurt either. We’re pretty disconnected. The computer’s been off much more than normal. A lot more reading, movie watching, huddling in blankets, sipping of chai is taking place.

Maybe it’s healthy to be pushed out of the contemporary celebration of Christmas. Maybe it’s healthy to step outside of Christmas, as an act of expectation, but also as an act of denial. Denial, until the proper time. Refusal or shutting out to some of it. With a precarious balance being struck, finding a place to remember and expect in a proper way, without as many distractions. I hope someday that I can really honor the Advent season for all its depth, for all its significance, for Christ’s sake (literally).

As the snow gets softer outside, with hopes of getting out into the world more and more possible by the hour, this hermit is happy. Hopeful for Christ’s coming, only a few days off. Hopeful for a refreshed perspective on a holiday of such great significance. Time to love others and be loved. Time to remember the love we’ve all received. And a time to remember that Christ himself is truly outside of Christmas as well, coming again, yet not to a manger, but to a Kingdom.

Check out the new pictures on the right side from my sister Lora’s graduation this last weekend. What a happy family!