love is in the air

some penguin origami made by Anna in your honor today.... 

XOXO! 

good lessons learned...

some good lessons to pass on...(just think what you all will be able to share in 10 months or 10 years!!) 

http://www.hopeheals.com/blog/2014/11/6/10-lessons-for-10-years

10 Lessons for 10 Years

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10 years of marriage have brought many sorrows and joys, many answers and questions. Yet we do know God uses all the little scraps we have the courage and humility to offer Him with our hands outstretched. He makes them beautiful, and nothing is wasted.
After 10 years, we are still working hard to open our hands, and He is still making it beautiful. You should too.  IT'S WORTH IT!

* Perhaps the best part of an anniversary is the chance to reflect. Here are 10 reflections on the messy-beautiful journey of marriage. We hope they make you think and maybe laugh and encourage you in your marriage today. We love you, friends.

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1) LOSE THE EXPECTATIONS: nothing kills joy in the moment faster than thoughts about "how it should be".  Forget that!  Taste and see that what you have is good!  Celebrate your spouse, cherish your spouse, champion your spouse--even if they are not what you thought they would be because NOTHING IS!  Forget what the Joneses are doing--THEY AREN'T REAL (and they're likely on the brink of divorce ((behind closed doors)) anyway). The reality is, our greatest expectations should be on God, not on our spouse. Expectations crush everyone but God who actually surpasses them all and does "more than we could ask or imagine".

2) BECOME A STUDENT OF YOUR SPOUSE: Question: why do people know more about their Fantasy Football team's stats or their "Instagram friend's" weekend plans than they do about the person they have committed their life to???? That's just crazy! Learn EVERYTHING ABOUT how your spouse receives and gives love, what their dreams are, what they value, and what their perspective is on absolutely everything. Like any subject worth studying, learning the depths of who your spouse is takes time, effort, and focus, but there are few better subjects to know inside and out. And FYI, there will be a quiz...
3) INTENTIONALLY SACRIFICE: Unique to our marriage is that one spouse is very handicapped. We have a layer of built-in sacrifice happening every minute of every day. Jay has to drive me everywhere, get me in and out of the bathtub, and push my wheelchair everywhere we go. Yet, on the inside, we're all pretty handicapped, wounded, and needy. The biggest enemy to marriage is self-focus, so the practice of repeatedly, intentionally sacrificing your neediness for the sake of your spouse takes the power from that enemy and deepens the bond of marriage, making it harder and harder to break.
4.) ENGAGE CHURCH TOGETHER:  In case you haven't heard, going to church is a thing of the past. To us, "Sunday Funday" always starts at our church, but many people no longer think church in the traditional sense is relevant to their lives or even necessary to enhance their walk with Jesus.  We have experienced the absolute opposite to be true.  We have found transformative value in being a part of a church community.  It has meant everything in our lives. We don’t mean just having church in nature or watching online or being in a Small Group or occasionally sitting on the back row on Sunday morning.  Now, we love Bible study groups, community groups, gender-specfic groups (we lead several of them right now) and online sermons and nature, but they are all bonus material.  Don’t miss the forest for the trees. Engaging the church in a real COMMITTED & SACRIFICIAL WAY (sound familiar?), where you are indispensable to it and it is indispensable to you, will change your life and even change how you view your marriage, after all the church is the bride of Christ...
5) EMBRACE THE GIFT OF MARRIED SEX:  In a world of glorified one-night stands, rampant STDs, walks of shame, and "test-driving the car before I buy it" mentalities, how amazing is it to know that you have ONE life-long sex partner in your spouse??? They know everything about your body, so there is no awkwardness, and no need to impress. Things like frequency, timing, and positions are all for the two of you to enjoy together. There is truly nothing more intimate and thus deeply satisfying than getting to be yourself to another person who is also getting to be themselves to you. It's like God planned it that way or something?!

6) RECOGNIZE THIS IS THE HARDEST WORK YOU WILL EVER DO:  Yes, I said it.  Marriage is tremendous WORK.  It is also the very best work. Why do we assume that any valuable thing will require much of us, except in regards to relationships--we think if it's not effortlessly easy then something is wrong with it! Though marriage is often-frustrating and always challenging, it can be deeply gratifying to know you've put your best efforts into something of such great value. Good marriage does not just happen. The best marriages, like ANYTHING WORTH ANYTHING, are ones where efforts are made and prices are paid, but the return always far exceeds the investment.

7) DIGITALLY SABBATH: In this growing age of digital connectivity, dependency, and even addiction, it is critical in our relationships and especially our marriages to create boundaries with work and technology. We decided about a year ago to consistently take Sundays off from our phones/computers.  We aren't legalistic about this, and we feel the freedom to check an important text message or take a call from James' grandparents in the South.  However, we literally keep each other in check to NOT have our phones with us that one day a week.  We let that awkward eye contact abound. We have conversations about what we're actually doing in real life! Amazingly, we don't feel behind on work or like we're missing out on our news feeds, we feel re-connected in the most simple but profound ways and come Monday, our grip on our phones has loosened just a bit more.

8) RE-NARRATE THE CULTURAL STORY OF MARRIAGE:  Media and culture weave a conflicting tale of marriage--that it's both the romanticized ideal that completes you and the 50/50 sinking ship that will rob you of your individual freedom and possibly end in divorce. This confounding messaging pervades even the marriages of those who are seeking to live like Jesus--His example of love for us is in fact the ideal our marriages seek to reflect! It's vital for us to re-narrate this story to ourselves, our children, and those who encounter our marriages. The potential for every marriage is SO MUCH GREATER AND SO MUCH MORE HOPEFUL than we think. I love this truth I learned several years ago!*** I keep telling everyone and their brother: MOST married couples who are educated through at least high school, who are not living in poverty, who marry after age 25, and who are from largely intact families will stay married--it is not the 50/50, fatalistic roll of the dice that it is portrayed to be.  You will not likely become a statistic.  Cultivate optimism about your marriage and it's future.  Believe the best for your spouse and your marriage because the best.

9) BECOME YOUR SPOUSE’S CHEERLEADER & #1 FAN: There is nothing better than knowing someone has “got your back”.  There is nothing more freeing than the deep support that only a spouse can give.  Approval or disapproval is a powerful tool between a couple.  Jay has a men’s bible study every Thursday at 6am.  I get up at 5am and  “clean" the kitchen (whether it is dirty or not).  I am really loud in there and stay for the full hour while making coffee for the guys and praying for them and Jay by name.  I can’t do much because I’ve only got one hand working here, but I know deep down that Jay likes it.  He knows I believe in what he is doing and that I will cheer on and get behind all his endeavors. An important distinction here--there's a big difference between being a CHEERLEADER & A CHANGE AGENT. We, as spouses, are the former, and God, THANKFULLY, is the latter. You cheer on who you know God is shaping your spouse to be and that makes all the difference.

10) SHARE YOUR LOVE STORY:  God-willing, there is still so much of our story to be written, yet the unknown future often requires a review of the past to move forward in trust. In the moment, it's so hard to see God at work, but after time has passed, we must get in the practice of looking back and seeing that He was at work all along. This fuels not only our gratitude for what has been, but our hope for what will be. Tell each other, tell your children, tell anyone who will listen the story of your love, and how God has woven it all together.  We must remind ourselves what we already know. Talk about the day you married and your life since then.  Look at old pictures, watch your wedding video. Talk about your ups and downs.  Be authentic and vulnerable in the telling of your story.  OWN IT and know there is so much more to come.

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+ PS -- I wanted to share this with you.  I hadn't read it in many years.  Now I need a tissue.  Jay has walked by me and made the moments of hell full of moments of joy.  How is that possible?  This is exactly what spouses should do for each other.  I love you Jay Wolf, III.

Run WITH Jens

I cannot think of a better way to celebrate December 18th than to get to walk at Radnor Lake with you two.... What a special place that has been over this past year to mark some pretty wonderful moments in your lives! 

Running WITH Jens! 

uncharted territory :) 

turkey trot 

the beavers carved out a heart for you! :) 

so excited to see you!

we are counting down the days (minutes) till we get to see you!! 

picture taken just for you at Candy Cane Lane in our neighborhood 

love maps

a post to share today.... 

XOXO to you all! 

Want Your Marriage To Last? Create a Love Map

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Duana C. Welch of http://www.lovefactually.co

“Have you seen this?”  Vic, my husband, had found something on the Internet, and he wanted to share it with me.  “Sorry, I can’t stop right now, hon; I’m writing an article on love maps,” I replied, continuing my work.
Oh, the irony.
Great Friendships Build Happy Marriages
If you’re like me, you might be tempted to believe that love makes the marital world go ‘round—that the happiest couples got that way by being the most in-love.  But according to the world’s foremost successful-marriage scientist, Dr. John M. Gottman, it’s friendship.  The thinking and the data go like this: Without friendship, love fades, but with friendship, love grows and grows.
Here’s a bit of what friendship looks like to scientists, and how we can all benefit.
Great Friends Keep Good Love Maps
If you’re partnered, think back to when you were first dating.  Half the fun was getting to know each other, right?  You probably asked one another a lot of questions about what you each enjoyed, liked, thought, believed, and dreamed.  It’s likely you wanted to know all about what your sweetie’s day held in store, and at the end of the day, you wanted to know how it had all gone.  Chances are, you knew their pet peeves, worries at school/work/parenting, and the names of their best and worst friends.
In short, if your mate were a map, you knew that map blindfolded.
Somewhere along the way, though, most of us begin assuming we know all this already; we don’t need to ask anymore.  And since all of us continue to change, grow and have new experiences through our lives, this means our maps become less and less accurate—much as cities are always adding and closing roads, so an old map is eventually useless.
Happy couples get it that friendship entails adding onto their love map continually.  Every day, they ask what’s in store for their partner; how the day went; how and what their mate thought and felt about events from the miniscule to the sublime.  They do less assuming and more asking.
The good news?  Anyone can learn to do this.  And science shows it takes about 5 minutes a day.
Great Friends Turn Towards Each Other
When Vic asked for my attention, I didn’t ignore him and I didn’t lash out at him~two behaviors science shows will kill marital love, done too often.
But I didn’t do what really great friends do, either.  I didn’t actively give him my attention, nor even do the next-best thing of promising him my attention in a few moments: “I need to concentrate on this sentence I’m writing, but can I come see it when I’m done?”
Life and love are made of little moments, and it’s in those little moments that our partners ask for our attention with a word, a look, a touch.  Science finds that we build or undermine our unions in these small moments.  We give our attention to what and whom we love, and choosing to attend to our mate becomes a choice towards friendship and a better marriage.
Plus, it’s tough to keep up with your love map if you’re not tuning in.
The good news?  Anyone can learn to do this.  And it takes about the same amount of time as ignoring or lashing out—while making life far, far more enjoyable.
Great Friends Get It Wrong Most Of The Time
Even though I spend most of my time writing about how to apply relationship science to finding and keeping great unions, I often forget about what I write.  I mess up…a lot.
Fortunately, I don’t have to be perfect, and you don’t either.  Gottman found that the happiest couples still make mistakes about 2/3 of the time, failing to tune in, turn towards, or build their love maps.
Instead, all we have to do is our imperfect, glorious best.  Like a strong batting average, getting things right even 1/3 of the time is more than good enough.
Upshot?  These simple steps work, they take very little time, and they don’t need to be done perfectly.
And that’s the best news of all.  It means great relationships aren’t just for the lucky and the few, or solely for couples with tons of time and two perfect people.  It means fabulousness isn’t just for the perfectly behaved—or even the mostly-perfectly-behaved.
It means we can all start making small steps in the right direction, today, and see positive results in our friendship.  And hence, in our love.
Does it work?  I’m going to go try it again right now.  How about you?
Duana C. Welch, Ph.D., is the author of Love Factually: 10 Proven Steps from I Wish to I Do, releasing on January 7, 2015.  You can get a free chapter and see more at http://www.lovefactually.co

unexpected gifts

Unexpected Gifts

As life becomes harder and more threatening, it also becomes richer, because the fewer expectations we have, the more the good things of life become unexpected gifts which we accept with gratitude. -Etty Hillesum 

the countdown begins....

Can I just say that this is the BEST mail we've gotten in a long time?!! 

we are so excited!!!!!

whoohoooo!! 

extremes

YIKES! It's cold outside today... 

and we even got SNOW last night!!!! 

(NOT NORMAL FOR SEATTLE THIS TIME OF YEAR!) 

Check out our front yard this morning 

(Anna with my parents before we took them to the airport today) 

As we've had some crazy extremes in temperature this week, it has been a reminder of the extremes you all are continuing to deal with.  I am praying for God to give you grace to continue to adjust accordingly, to learn to be patient with one another, to be as flexible as Gumby when needed and to keep on learning to love each other well... 

200 and counting...

just saw this and smiled that the miles4Jens continue... 

200 and counting. :) 

XOXOXO

sending you some Lego love...

from our home to yours.... 

Happy Thanksgiving- 

may you all make the best of it there in Pittsburgh

and may it be a cozy time with just the two of you! 

coffee and marriage

I read this post this week and thought you'd appreciate it...  XOXOXO 

"The other morning, my husband said, “I love you.” Well, actually, I just heard “I love you.” What he actually said was “here’s your coffee,” as he set down my favorite mug on our bedside table. Leaving me to nurse our daughter in the quiet bedroom, he walked out to begin the lively breakfast dance of frying potatoes while our three-year-old and five-year-old scampered around the kitchen–leaving an obstacle course of LEGO creations and Play-doh mines for the cook.

It may seem like a small gesture, but truly folks, handing a cup of coffee to a tired mother is like crafting a ballad of undying devotion.

Coffee, the love story, was woven into my ideas about love long before last week. I’ve been drinking coffee since I was too young to drink it (come to think of it, maybe that’s why I’m so short). It’s a ritual. A mood-lifter. A necessity. A life-long love affair.

When I woke up the morning after my wedding, I heard my groom tiptoe-ing out the door of the hotel room–returning a few minutes later with a cup of coffee for me. He brought a few packets of sugar and some half n’ half. He knew exactly how I drank my coffee–barely discernable through all the sugar and cream (don’t worry, I’ve since grown up and learned to drink it black).

He wasn’t a coffee drinker then, but he wasn’t thinking about himself. He knew that a good day for his new bride started with a cup of coffee.

I remember sitting up in bed on that May morning, trying to wrap my mind around the idea that the handsome guy I could see over the top of my coffee mug was my husband.

“So this is marriage,” I thought to myself.  And it was marriage. That tiny act of thoughtfulness was just as much marriage as the joy and laughter of our wedding celebration and our first passionate night together. These little sacrifices for each other that fill our days are highly underrated. It’s not the grand gestures, but the tiny ones that lay the foundation for an epic love story.

 We undervalue the daily grind of marriage. We fear the everydayness of it. We seek the passion and romance of love, but worry that it comes hand-in-hand with a rigid monotony as if the idea that facing day-to-day life with one person instead of having the freedom to move from one relationship to the next is a downside. A drudge. A bore. Day after day. Year after year of a mind-numbing rut to be stuck in forever.

Kind of like when I wake up to a new day and dread that monotonous cup of morning coffee. Such a chore to drink it–chained to the same old beverage day after day. Ugh. Coffee. AGAIN. If only I could switch things up with a morning chai latte. A cup of green tea. Some other caffeinated soda? Bring back SURGE, perhaps?

Oh, wait. That’s not what I think at all. And apparently I’m not alone since the majority of Americans are also daily drinkers of the heavenly stuff.

So is that critique of marriage really fair? Do we view other facets of life as oppressive merely because they are woven into each of our days?

I treasure my cup of coffee, not despite the fact that I drink it daily, but also because of it’s everydayness. I delight in the fact that this good thing, this cup of joy, is woven into my days. And I love my marriage for it’s everydayness, too. That this sacramental grace flows through the days and week and years.

This daily grind of marriage isn’t a downside. It’s a quotidian sacred liturgy of life together–and that doesn’t make it lifeless or boring. It’s the tiny, seemingly insignificant moments of grace that build upon each other and knit us together.

Waking up next to Daniel every morning for 3,000 days, eating at least 6,000 meals together, changing a million diapers, losing so many nights of sleep to the care of our three children, wiping down dirty kitchen counters countless times, does that make it any less magical and sacred, any less exciting? No. Doesn’t it become more beautiful over time that we said, ‘yes,’ to living one more day of this adventure together? Like Christmas morning–each year of marriage becomes a little more precious, a little more magical. Not in spite of the time together, but because of it.

Daniel drinks his coffee black. Yup, he didn’t last long avoiding coffee married to me. But then again, we’ve grown more alike over the past eight years. I eat oysters now. He drinks coffee. He makes a valiant effort to sound interested in the minutiae of blogging and I try to understand why running 100 mile ultra marathons is something a human being would want to do. We’ve grown together.

But that doesn’t mean it’s always easy. Sometimes the cup is bitter. We hurt each other. We fail each other. It stings. But as we remove each others masks, and commit to loving the person we married–flaws and pain and all, the daily graces of marriage build and grow. When I look at my husband over my cup of coffee, I see him differently than I did the morning after our wedding. I know him more deeply. I’m less naive, but more in love. I don’t trust the way a young bride does that he will never let me down. In fact I don’t believe that at all. He will let me down. I have and will let him down. We are human, we are sinful, we will fail each other. But after so many days on this adventure together, I don’t worry anymore about giving up somewhere along the road. Because the good thing about marriage is that it’s full of grace. Grace to cover our sin. Grace to hold us together. Grace to not give up on each other.

And sometimes that grace flows through a simple cup of coffee, given at the right moment, so that it speaks ‘I love you’ with each sip." 

http://www.carrotsformichaelmas.com/2014/11/10/what-my-love-affair-with-coffee-taught-me-about-marriage/

it all matters...

"In the thirty-first chapter of the rule, St. Benedict states something so remarkable that I keep coming back to it each night as I stack bowls and dry plates. He says, “All the utensils of the monastery and in fact everyting that belongs to the monastery should be cared for as though they were the sacred vessels of the altar.”

All the utensils.

I take the spnge and rinse the silver sink. Nothing in this skinny kitchen is all that special. And I’ve been living as if my task as a mom, those daily, mundane tasks- the brushing of my son’s teeth, the wiping of his bottom, the dressing of his body, the kissing of the scraped knees, the soothing of his wild terros—as if they were nothing significant, as if they were simply normal, what every mother does.

I’m mesmerized by St. Benedict’s words, that the monks should care for every toodl in the monastery, from garden hoe to the kitchen cleaver, as if they were the very chalice of the Eucharist, the tool that brings the blood of Christ to the lips of believers. 

I am undone.

I’m not sure why I’ve been waitin for this. I’m not sure why I needed someone to say it to me this way. But with Benedict’s words, I feel my world has been reborn holy. Suddenly my life, all these small daily instruments I am packing in my home, and the very sippy cup I fill with milk and raise to my boy’s lips, is an instrument of worship.

How did I miss it before? How was I so sure that God did not value my umimpressinve daily life?

I see my refelction in the dark night window. My short hair is bobby-pinned out of my face. My red sweatshirt hangs loose from my chest. And in the refelction of the glass pane, I see it.

I am a priest. I am a priest of the gospel, holding the chalice to the lips of my son. Carrying the plate of bread to the hungry. My life has value because God has touched every mundane moment with the glow of holiness. It matters. It all matters." 

–     ­Micha Boyett Found

As you all go about your day in your apartment today, as you plan for the wedding, as you organize medications and schedules, as you continue to heal... remember that it all matters... All that is before you can be instruments of worship. 

6 months....

celebrating 6 months with you all today!!! 

great quotes to ponder...

you know I love quotes so when I ran across these, I copied them down for you... Some are silly and some are profound...


Great Marriage Quotes... 

“To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.” — Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu “You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.” — Sam Keen “Sexiness wears thin after a while and beauty fades, but to be married to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah, now that’s a real treat.” — Joanne Woodward “Before you marry a person, you should first make them use a computer with slow Internet to see who they really are.” — Will Ferrell “I didn’t marry you because you were perfect. I didn’t even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn’t a house that protected them; and it wasn’t our love that protected them – it was that promise.” — Thornton Wilder “A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.” — Robert Quillen “Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up.” — Joseph Barth “There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.” — Martin Luther “Love seems the swiftest but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.” — Mark Twain “Many marriages would be better if the husband and the wife clearly understood that they are on the same side.” — Zig Ziglar “Marriage is a mosaic you build with your spouse. Millions of tiny moments that create your love story.” — Jennifer Smith “Nowadays it’s hip not to be married. I’m not interested in being hip.” — John Lennon “A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time.” — Anne Taylor Fleming “More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse.” — Doug Larson “One advantage of marriage is that, when you fall out of love with him or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall back in love again.” — Judith Viorst “Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.” — Oscar Wilde “As for his secret to staying married: ‘My wife tells me that if I ever decide to leave, she is coming with me.’” — Jon BonJovi “You come to love not by finding the right person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.” — Sam Keen “Love is not something you feel. It is something you do.” — David Wilkerson “The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together.” — Robert C Dodds “When a wife has a good husband it is easily seen in her face.” — Goethe “There is no remedy for love but to love more.” — Thoreau “What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.” — Leo Tolstoy “The great secret of successful marriage is to treat all disasters as incidents and none of the incidents as disasters.” — Sir Harold George Nicolson “A great marriage is not when the ‘perfect couple’ come together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.” — Dave Meure “Love at first sight is easy to understand; it’s when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.” — Sam Levenson “Happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love, and they blossom when we love the ones we marry.” — Tom Mullen “The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” — Theodore Hesburgh “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” — Mignon McLoughlin “I first learned the concept of non-violence in my marriage.” — Gandhi

just for fun

Anna got this card today from a friend and we both smiled thinking of you... 

XOXOXOXO 

photo shoot and final draft...

I went on Tuesday to Green Lake for a photo shoot with an elder from our church (UPC) for the article about running for Jens... (which made me laugh out loud that someone would take pictures of me running back and forth in front of the lake for a bit...) Anyway, these are the pictures that might  be used in the article. Also, here is the final draft of the article after lots of editing and tweaking. Praying that it will be an encouragement to whoever happens to come across this article... 

XOXOXOXO 

pictures that I submitted: 

When My Running Shoes Are On: Praying and Listening Across the Miles

Emily Huff

“Help me, help me, help me.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

I repeated these phrases over and over in my mind last summer as I ran in the 2014 Seattle marathon. I was praying these words to keep me going in a difficult race, and I was asking God to help my friends Abby and Jens, and thanking him for what he was doing in their lives. Author Anne Lamott says that “Help me” and “Thank you” are the two main prayers we need. This is true for me; they have been a mantra as I’ve journeyed in my faith, asking God to teach me to pray and to open my eyes and ears to his voice over the years. Through it all, one thing’s been clear: he’s been answering that prayer when my running shoes are on. 

Marathon training is intense and requires a significant chunk of time. With so many hours pounding the pavement, I’ve asked God to help me steward this time so that it would be more than just about setting a personal record or getting into shape. Over the last few years, I’ve felt nudges from the Spirit to use my training as prayer time for specific people and circumstances. And I’m pretty sure these nudges came because God knew that I could use some help in this area. Listening in prayer is a definite growth edge for me as I’m one of those people with a bunch of plates spinning simultaneously. In short, I don’t slow down very much, and yet, with running, I already have this training space carved out for me. God has been gracious to help me learn to make space for him through these times. 

When I signed up for the Seattle Marathon last spring, I could not get my friends Abby Butler and Jens Herman out of my mind. Abby was a student teacher I supervised at Vanderbilt University in 2007 who became a dear family friend over the years. Her fiancé, Jens, suffers from cystic fibrosis. Last spring Jens’ pulmonary function test (PFT) measured only sixteen percent, severely limiting his ability to breathe. He utilized an oxygen machine throughout the day and every night while sleeping, and he required a host of inhaled medicines and other breathing treatments each day. Missing a treatment was not an option.

With such severe symptoms, Jens was listed as a double lung transplant candidate. Meanwhile, it was clear to me that I could use my running time to pray for Jens and Abby and learn from the story God was unfolding in their life together. In this way, I could come alongside them across the miles as they ran a medical marathon on the other side of the country. 

As I trained for my own marathon, each run became a spiritual discipline of learning to listen to nudges, insights, lyrics, and scriptures that came to mind. My eyes and ears were open as I entered my training runs with a question and a prayer: “God, what do you have for Jens and Abby today?” As he spoke to me, I journaled reflections each day in a blog dedicated to my friends. 

God gave me windows into their world even though we were miles and miles apart. For example, I had heard that living with cystic fibrosis is like breathing through a straw. I could only imagine this kind of limitation, so I decided to try it myself on one of my shorter trail runs behind the University of Washington. My goal was to run four miles breathing in and out through a straw, but after the first five minutes I realized the oxygen deprivation would not allow me to finish my workout. Instead, I set some simple goals. I used the straw with ten breaths of running, then went to eleven, then to twelve, and so on until I got to twenty breaths in and out through the straw. After each interval, I took a deep breath and filled my lungs with air. 

That air had never felt so good. My run brought cystic fibrosis closer to home and made me realize how much I take for granted each time I take a breath. It made me pray hard for Jens to receive his new lungs. I wanted so badly for him to be able to breathe effortlessly—without breathing treatments and without being hooked up to a machine. I just wanted him to be able to fill his lungs with air, to take a simple, normal deep breath, and to live his life. This experience gave me even more purpose to my prayers and to my training. 

I dealt with some injuries in my marathon training—a way to feel even more connected to the aches and pains Jens and Abby were experiencing. As I rehabbed in physical therapy, I knew this was a time of strength training for them too. I was praying that this time of waiting for the transplant would be a time in which God gave them the strength for each step. After one run, I wrote to them: “God, give Abby and Jens strength when the road seems too long, give them flexibility and perseverance when the pain is acute, give them laughter when the rain is coming down in buckets and just won't seem to stop, give them just the right words for each other when discouragement is at their door, give them deep hope as they enter into this new chapter in Pittsburgh.  Strengthen them in areas that are weak, help them to love each other well . . . and teach me to pray and to listen and to love them well too through the miles.” 

I was getting up early to go for a twenty-mile training run on May 17 when I received the awaited text with the news that Jens had received a call from the hospital for the transplant. As I ran for the next three hours, I held Jens and Abby up to God’s light in prayer. It seemed fitting that I ran past an Episcopal church that had a labyrinth on the grounds, a perfect symbol as it represented the journey Jens and Abby had been on. In a reflection on the labyrinth, Caroline Adams writes: “. . . it is about change, growth, discovery, movement, transformation, continuously expanding your vision of what is possible, stretching your soul, learning to see clearly and deeply, listening to your intuition, taking courageous challenges at every step along the way. You are on the path . . . exactly where you are meant to be right now . . . and from here, you can only go forward, shaping your life story into a magnificent tale of triumph, of healing, of courage, of beauty, of wisdom, of power, of dignity, and of love.” 

Jens underwent a double lung transplant on May 18. Recovery and healing in the hospital began. He was discharged from the hospital on June 16. He continued to recover well at home; Abby even posted a video on Facebook of him running up the stairs to his apartment. Talk about inspiration! 

One hundred blog posts and 580 miles of training later, I stood poised to run the Seattle Marathon on June 21. As luck would have it, I got the flu a week before the race. While not fully recovered, I still ran the race. I had my fastest half-marathon time in the first half, but ran out of steam in the second—with no reserve from being sick the week before. My dear friend and running partner Elizabeth Hutchinson, who had come to cheer me on, jumped in and ran the second half of the marathon with me, helping me to the finish line. She kept her hand on my back going up hills and gave me the extra push I needed when my strength was failing. God showed up with his grace through my amazing friend. Anne Lamott says it well, “But grace can be the experience of a second wind, when even though what you want is clarity and resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on.” 

In the end, my marathon time did not matter. My reward had been the last sixteen weeks. As I crossed the finish line, I knew that the medal placed around my neck would fade away. What was crystal clear was the way the Lord had whispered his love for Jens and Abby over and over to me in my training space. That will never fade away. In some ways, my race that day seemed to fit the new reality Jens and Abby were now living. Things were not yet smooth sailing. As Jens was healing, the days were still long and grueling. In the same way, my marathon was yet another reminder for me to lean into dependence on God for strength—for the journey before me on this day and for Abby and Jens in the days ahead. 

After the race, I received a surprising gift from Abby and Jens in the mail, which has become one of my most prized treasures. Here is the note I received with their care package: 

Dear Emily: As I was going through the things we brought home from the hospital, I came upon the enclosed yellow stethoscope from Jens’ room. Because extra vigilance was needed to protect him from disease, this stethoscope stayed in the room and was used only for him. I am sending it to you as a gift. There cannot be a better symbol of your journey. Love, Abby 

On the front of the stethoscope Abby had written the following words: Come and Listen—Psalm 66:16 in permanent marker. I keep the stethoscope on my desk as a reminder that this is the greatest calling I have: to keep listening to God’s heartbeat for those with whom we share the Journey—those who have been given to us and to whom we have been given. I still need lots of coaching and training, but I’m thankful that God is teaching me and that he pursues me with his love so I can learn to hear, really hear, what he is saying. 

Bio: 

Emily Huff lives in the U-District where she loves to run, rain or shine. Her family includes husband Jason, children Anna and Taylor (12 and 9), and Poppy (bunny). 

She has served as the child sponsorship coordinator for Children of the Kingdom for children in India and in Kenya for the last two decades, and also is on faculty in the School of Education at Seattle Pacific University. Check out Emily’s blog for Jens at http://run4jens.blogspot.com/2014/03/first-steps-for-run4jens.html. Emily is happy to report that Jens’ pulmonary function test now stands at ninety-three percent, and that the Huff family will be cheering in the front row at Abby and Jens’ March 2015 wedding in Charleston, SC.  

a covering of hope...

"Hope is the little verb demanding our full attention to believe for what can't be seen. An intentional spraying of faith to cover the thing being built. If we hope for what we don't see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

Lather your day, your circumstances, your moments with a covering of hope today. His purpose will prevail, His goodness will be known, His presence will be real."  http://www.chopecaptured.com/blog/2014/10/a-covering-of-hope.html

praying for you all for a covering of HOPE.... 

Thinking of you...

I saw this advertisement yesterday and had to smile as it reminded me of you... 

Praying for you all this week for grit and strength and hope...