Finishing Strong

Winter is over. Lent is over. Spring break is over. My trip is over. Easter is over.

And thinking about this the other day, I proceeded to FREAK OUT for just a few minutes.

Why? Because regarding all the many things which must be done and figured out for this whole "move across the country for seminary" thing, I am in exactly the same place as just after Christmas. Or so it feels.

Yeah, we have the house on the market (but few lookers and no sign of offers). We applied for financial aid. And I just suckered my parents into agreeing to take our pets, unless of course one of you wants them.

Other than that? I haven't sorted and packed much of anything. I haven't done Anna's readoption. I don't have any money saved. I don't have a clue how we're going to find, let alone afford, health insurance. I don't have a job or lucrative new freelance leads. I don't know if we need one car or two. I don't know how we're moving all our stuff (and car--or are we selling it?). I don't know how to rent out our house or when to decide if that's what we have to do or if I'd better hurry up and refinance it while Aaron has a job. We don't have a pastor to make leaving seem okay. And I don't know how to say goodbye.

Nine weeks of school. A few more weeks of wrap-up. Boxes, a truck, a plane, a townhouse . . . and what? What am I doing with myself over there in Michigan anyway?

I don't actually have a clue, and I'm kind of freaked out when I think about it. But I don't want that to be the defining feature of my home stretch in this place. I don't want to rob our youth group and Young Life kids by being so infected with my own form of senioritis that I fail to be present as they wrestle with theirs. I don't want to be so obsessive about research and details for the future that the present morning's gone, and then the week, before I've let my daughter go outside and blow bubbles. I don't want to stop caring what happens next to our church. I don't want to stop loving this place.

I want to reach the finish line. I want to run through the tape. I want to finish strong.

But sometimes--like today when we got really disappointing news--I feel like the road is way longer and rockier than it's supposed to be and I wish there was a shortcut, but there isn't. I feel like just sitting down on the curb and saying I quit.

I really need to believe the phrase that sometimes runs through my head: Now is the time to be brave. I really need those marching orders: Walk on. I really need that Easter message: "Do not be afraid."

Crazy/brilliant satirical/thoughtful Steve Taylor wrote a song in the '90s called "The Finish Line" that is clanging around in my head and heart right now. The lyrics alone don't capture the emotional power the song carries, but here is the climax--my prayer for our kids and our church, my hope for me:

Off in the distance, bloodied but wise
As you squint with the light
Of the truth in your eyes

And I saw you, both hands were raised
And I saw your lips move in praise
And I saw you steady your gaze
For the finish line

Every idol like dust
A word scattered them all
And I rose to my feet
When you scaled the last wall

And I gasped
When I saw you fall
In his arms
At the finish line

Deep breath. Squint. Walk on. Finish strong.

Here goes.

• Lyrics and background for "The Finish Line" at the Taylor tribute site SockHeaven.net
• Crappy bootleg live performance from Cornerstone 1994 on YouTube. Pretty sure we saw this show--memorable because I have never seen anyone so hyper onstage (here he is relatively mellow)--though at that point my husband was still just my stalker since this is where we met. Awww.

Burning Question

Shouldn't seminary financial aid worksheets have a line in the budget for tithing?

Or are we off the hook on that for three years?

Just wonderin'.

Take That, To-Do List!

Accomplished this week:

• had new carpet installed in A's room, touched up paint
  
• bought paint to transform dining/living wall from banged-up to fashionable accent wall
• swept and thoroughly mopped wood floors for the first time in...never mind
• washed rugs
• dusted and changed lightbulbs in crazy-high ceiling fans
  
• removed paint spatters on outside of crazy-high window
• changed look of high ceiling corners and high window from Haunted Mansion to non-embarrassing
• scraped half-inch dust coating from top of kitchen cupboards
• took down glassware that was stashed up high and boxed up rarely-used glassware
• moved seasonal and storage boxes out of closet
• taped up boxes ready to store and put them in garage
• wrote deposit check to Western Theological Seminary

Holy crap. I think we are actually moving and going to seminary.

Aaaaaaiiiiiiiih!

The Transition Team Announces: Change.Wetzel

Ducks are in rows. Wheels are in motion. Proposals have been accepted. Tiny adolescent hearts have been broken. And the transition team of Change.Wetzel wishes to announce:

Aaron will be starting studies at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, in fall 2009.

Your first reaction to this news probably depends greatly on where you live. For our friends and family in Michigan, there is much rejoicing. Here in Oregon, well . . . there is great support, great understanding, and great love, but there is also great sadness at the thought of parting from the place and the people which have very much become home and family. (So no gloating, please, Michigan folk.)

Aaron has been accepted to WTS to study for his M.Div degree and become an ordained pastor. It’s a three-year program. This is something he’s always thought about doing someday, and over the last couple years he’s had more opportunities to preach and lead in different ways and received more encouragement that made him more able to see himself doing it. He’s just ready.

And I’m pleased to be able to fulfill the prophecy laid out by my best friend back in high school, that I will be a pastor’s wife. (I also recall something about the organ and a “pastor’s wife’s butt,” whatever that means, but let’s let that part go.)

I should have declared a moratorium on mascara last week, because it was terribly emotional. A few people—basically the church elders—knew our plans but we wanted to tell a few more in person before the whole congregation found out. But we didn’t want it to get out to the kids; we needed to tell them ourselves, all at once, so they didn’t hear any misinformation or feel slighted that some were told and some weren’t. Sunday morning the church was told (not gonna lie, I cried through church and then avoided talking to people) and Sunday night Aaron told the kids at Frontline. The girls, the grownups, and Aaron bawled.

We’ll be here and Aaron will keep working for the church through the school year. We hope we can help the church and our friend from the Foursquare church who has been partnering with Aaron on Frontline this year be able to keep a ministry to kids going strong into the future. We really hope our church has a pastor by summer too. It’s such a strange and difficult time to be breaking this news and bringing more change upon our church, but we hope the long notice will actually help smooth the transition.

Besides, we couldn't wait any longer to tell—do you know how much stuff we have to figure out before summer? We have to get our house ready to sell, try to sell our house in this lovely market, look for a job in the lovely Michigan job market, find health insurance on the open not-for-sick-people market, figure out finances and financial aid, figure out what to do with our pets (boo hoo), figure out how to move across the country, get rid of everything we don’t want to move . . . and oh yeah, do it all while proceeding through our regularly scheduled life with a toddler underfoot.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Help! Will you be my transition team?

I hope to step up my blogging since I have a thousand rampant thoughts clamoring to finally get out of my head. Let me know if you have questions I can answer.