No, I didn’t have a meltdown….nor did Larry.  “Meltdown” is the name of the middle school/jr. high retreat this weekend.  A handful of counselors are coming back laden with their snow gear, sleeping bags, and Bibles ready to play hard and talk about things that matter.    Students from all over have signed up, many who are from the area and many who would never find themselves in a church.  One guy was recently at camp with his school and thought it was fun so decided to sign up for the weekend—-yay!  Please pray for the students that fill this place, for the counselors, for those who spend long days in the cold—-and for the hearts of each, that we may each know and experience deeper aspects of God.  Bring on the meltdown!

we are all dedicated to a project of self-salvation. What am I talking about?!  So, every week the winter staff guys come over for dinner and while we recount the week of campers, we also have been reading The Prodigal God by: Timothy Keller. (Add it to the top of your reading list—seriously!) We have been unpacking the parable of what many refer to as “the prodigal son.”  In revisiting this weekly, I’m finding that it is not so much about one lost son, but two.  Both wrong.  Both loved.

“Jesus does not divide the world into the moral good guys and the immoral bad guys.  He shows us that everyone is dedicated to a project of self salvation, to using God and others in order to get power and control for themselves.  We are just going about it in different ways.  Even though both sons are wrong, the father cares for them and invited them both back into his love and feast….”

“This means that Jesus’ message, which is ‘the gospel’ is a completely different spirituality.  The gospel of Jesus is not religion or irreligion, morality or immorality, moralism or relativism, conservatism or liberalism.  Nor is it something halfway along a spectrum between two poles—it is something else all together.  The gospel is distinct from the two other approaches:  In its view everyone is wrong, everyone is loved, and everyone is called to recognize this and change”.....“the prerequisite for receiving the Grace of God is to know you need it.”   (T. Keller 44, 45)

...but so often it becomes all too difficult to conjure up an accurate response:  “How are you?”  There’s the trite I-don’t-really-want-to answer-answer: “fine” or “good.”  There’s the wanting to portray positivity answer: “We are truly doing great…so many great things in life!”  There’s the I’ve-had-a-toilet-bowl-day-answer: “not so hot” or “I gotta say, I’m tired.”  But somewhere there is the hey, if-someone-really-cares-to-honestly-ask, I-don’t-even-know-how-to-begin-to-honestly-answer answer.  We all have had these split second responses in attempts to evaluate just HOW we are truly doing.

We took a bit of a break this weekend to do just that together.  Well, kind of.  It may seem cheesy, but we just needed to stop to evaluate just how we are doing….in life—at camp, in our marriage, on our journey with God, with others, in our fiances, our goals, dreams, desires, evaluating past, present, and future.  We prayerfully desire to be intentional with our days and to care for one another through each day.  Ah, it was as sweet as dark chocolate gram-crackers with a very small kick of that oh so slight bitterness that makes you want to take another bite.  (If you’ve ever had one, you’d know what I mean…)

It is good to ask how are we?!?  Ah, what a work in progress we each are…....Hmmmmm…......
What areas in life we need to simplify and how?
What ways will will try (by God’s grace) to make different from last year?
What is the single most important thing we could do to improve the quality of our marriage in this season?
What do we need to restructure financially?
How can we care for and be good stewards of what has been entrusted to us—-people, home, responsibilities, God’s word? 

So, how are we?  We’re doing okay…....   

Last week on our day off we drove up to Whitecap mountain and had a fund day of skiing.  There was 6 inches of fresh powder and nobody was really there, so it felt like we had the entire place to ourselves.  I (Larry) tried going off of some boxes emphasis on the word TRY that day, it was some peoples first time skiing in powder, and Laura broke her pole halfway through the day.  Overall it was a fun time on the slopes and a great day off.  Check out some pictures.

We look forward to WWC (Wisconsin Wilderness Campus) coming each year for their retreat to camp.  I (Larry) attended this school my freshmen year and my good friend Seth and his wife and there two kids are on staff at the college.  They live 2 hours from us and it is a joy to be able to see each other periodically.  They just had a little girl Sadie and she is so adorable.  It was great to have them over on Laura’s birthday and simply spend time with them.  We played broomball, cross-country skied, and ate lots of good food.  Here are some pictures of the little ones.

This is a shout out to my aunt and uncle and cousins who came to visit last weekend.  Boy, we played hard together!  They loaded up the family van for the weekend to visit us and to experience a bit of winter fun at camp.  It was so sweet to simply hang out together as extended family festivities have become mostly limited to once a year holidays when trying to combine differing schedules.  They got to see a small bit of our world.  We stayed up late playing plenty of games, at grilled pizza in the winter, taught the entire family how to ski, tubed, played broomball, and even got crushed in games of carpet ball.  I’ll let the pictures below speak for themselves!