Family

So This Is What It Feels Like

2 CommentsNovember 29, 2011

I’m at Cracker Barrel this morning. The other worship leaders from Fellowship and I meet here every Tuesday at 730am to talk about life and Church. I’m an hour early this morning to write and have a couple minutes alone. The coffee is good here and the fire is cozy and Willie Nelson is singing Jingle Bells. The kids begged me to turn on football last night at about seven o’clock and it wasn’t on yet so we ended up watching America’s Funniest Home Videos. I fell asleep about halfway through the show and never really woke up after that, so at five-thirty this morning I was wide-awake. While I was in the bathroom taking the handful of pills I take for MS and the related symptoms, Sadie-Claire came in fully dressed in her ballet outfit ready for a recital. I put her in bed with Jennifer and showered and left.

I’m tired from the drive home yesterday from St. Louis, where we spent the Thanksgiving weekend at Jennifer’s family farm. Our DVD player in the car stopped working so we had to talk to each the whole seven hours. Jennifer’s whole family was at the farm for the Holiday and it was a nice time, except for Sadie’s few injuries. She and her cousin Joshua collided while dancing around the shopping mall on Friday morning, busting her lip. Then, later that same afternoon, she and Joshua were playing baseball with a stick and a pretty big rock and she was hit in the face by the first pitch on the same lip. It was pretty swollen for a while. This all happened while Jennifer and her two sisters were out finding Black Fridays sales. This is them picking out hats…

While I was sleeping last evening, Jennifer was busy on her laptop trying to find the perfect advent calendars for Hutch and Sadie. I’ve been pushing hard for us to celebrate the whole Advent Season this month instead of just focusing on Christmas morning. The dictionary definition of Advent is “the arrival of something awaited (especially of something momentous)”. We’re trying our best this year to remember and celebrate the longing the Jews had for their most-awaited Messiah and his arrival. I want us to join in that some longing in some way.

When I was young I didn’t long for Jesus to come back at all. There was too much life to be lived and my sketchy images of Heaven didn’t seem very appealing. I remember older people talking about how they wished for Jesus to come back and not understanding the hurry. I wanted Him to wait at least until Jennifer and I were married and we’d had sex. Then, after we were married, I wanted Him to hold off till we’d had kids. Now, at thirty-seven, I think I’m beginning to understand. The realization that life is broken, I am broken, has settled in and has produced the flicker of longing for the suffering to end. So this is what that feels like.

Our friends, Jon and Alli, who you probably know from our concerts (Big Jon is our guitar player), emailed again last night with more hard news. After loosing Alli’s dad a few weeks ago to a sudden heart attack, they had to say goodbye to Alli’s aunt yesterday. It was her dad’s only sibling. The hole in their family this holiday season will be even bigger than they thought, especially with the absence of the baby they lost a year ago. They understand the longing.

Jesus probably won’t come back to make everything right in the world between now and December 25th. He’ll can still come to us though, each of us, as we stop long enough to see our brokenness and long for Him to enter it. He may not fix the brokenness the way we’d ask Him to, but He can give us something else in the middle of it while we wait. It’s both now and not yet.

We celebrate the now but not yet during the Advent. Jesus came to us, He comes to us, and He’s going to come again to us.

Peace and Rest,
Jeromy

Ps. I’m going to be sending you a few emails over the next few days about ways to get the free music I want to give you. Like I told you a while ago, I’m not going to use this blog to sell you stuff. This is no-strings-attached.

Jeromy Deibler (FFH)

Categories: BlogPosted Under: Family, Kids, Thanksgiving@3:35 pm

So This Is What It Feels Like

3 CommentsNovember 18, 2011

My Sadie-Claire turned four years old this week. She wanted to have a dance party and Jennifer threw her one that she will always remember. I left the house at four o-clock that afternoon to take Sadie out to get her nails painted and kill time so Jennifer could set up, and when we got back home an hour later the house had become a dance club. Purple streamers and balloons were hung everywhere and twinkling lights refracting off the disco ball circled the room in soft bubble shapes of blue. Sadie was impressed. Later she told us that it was exactly what she wanted.
The kids all danced and beat each other up with balloons until it was time for pizza, then more dancing, then cake and presents. A little later Sadie did something that she’d never done before and we’ll never forget. She told Jennifer that she wanted everyone to sit and watch her do a special ballet dance in her new black ballet outfit. So we put on a slow song and watched in amazement as she danced around gracefully like no one else was in the room. It was like watching time-lapsed photography of a flower coming out from the ground and bending towards the sun. Jennifer and I had seen this Sadie, but no one else had. It was the first time we’d ever seen her come out of herself in front of anyone and really enjoy others enjoying her. I videoed the whole thing on my phone, peeking over the lens several times to see all of our friends watching and videoing and enjoying Sadie as well. I was so proud. I looked hard at Jennifer to see if she was crying. She was holding it together. I was struggling. I just kept thinking of the day she dances one last dance with me and then spins away with her new husband. I hate him already.

As I replayed the video before bed I realized that I’d crossed over into a new life, a life in which I’m not nearly as concerned about my own success as I am of my kid’s, a life that is consumed with pride in my kids and their achievements instead of my own. It’s happened so gradually over the past eight years that I didn’t even notice. But now I see it – I must become less and they must become more. It’s the way it’s supposed to be.
I’ve seen our parents show this kind of pride in us, they still beam when they come to one of our concerts the way I do when Hutch does something amazing on his bike and I notice others watching. I’d noticed it, but I didn’t understand it like I do now. So this is what that feels like.

Jennifer and the kids are helping her sister Jannell with her garage sale this morning and Sadie is there in that same black tutu trying to stay warm. She hasn’t taken if off since the party on Wednesday night. She argued with us about wearing it until we just caved in and put clothes on her over the ballet suit. Jennifer was there only minutes until she was down to just the tutu again. She has her mother’s will.

May you live fully awake and alive today, Jeromy

SO THIS IS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE is the newest blog series from Jeromy Deibler. To receive all posts and free music please click “subscribe” at www.ffh.net.

Jeromy Deibler (FFH)

Categories: BlogPosted Under: Family, Future, Kids@2:37 pm

Merridee’s Monday

1 CommentNovember 15, 2011

Hoosier Edition

I was planning to write this letter yesterday, but by the time afternoon came and I was alone I couldn’t muster up the energy to do it. We (FFH) spent this past weekend on tour in Indiana and it was more tiring than normal. The concerts were a lot of fun, but the weekend was grueling. Hutch and Sadie-Claire were with us this time along with the other guys in the band, our tour manager Ally, and my mom, who came to help with the kids. We were nine in all. Jennifer and I decided several years ago to take the kids along with us when we’re going to be gone for more than one night. They usually roll with it pretty well, but for whatever reason, they were more high maintenance this time than in the past. As I type I’m taking long breaks to think about them and what’s made parenting such a labor lately. A couple of my friends are feeling the same way. I guess it’s normal. I’ll brood on these thoughts and then all of a sudden Sadie will come dancing through the kitchen in her ballet outfit twirling like she’s on stage in front of thousands, or I’ll hear Hutch playing quietly in his room pretending to blow something up, and the heaviness will lift and I’ll remember to be thankful. Forgive me Father for loosing perspective.

As I spin the wedding band around on my finger I ponder the road we’ve walked to get here. It doesn’t feel like sixteen years since Jennifer and I were married. So much has happened that we’d have never expected. All of life is like that, that’s probably why Jesus told us to only consider today. Even our best laid plans for tomorrow can be thwarted in a heartbeat, or the absence of one…

Our shows this past Thursday and Friday were promoted by our friend Tom Roberts and his family. We first met them many years ago when we played at his church in Anderson IN. We remember it well because of the bright blue wall-to-wall carpet that blanketed the sanctuary. Tom later moved on from that church and booked us for concerts in other places. This past weekend he was joining FFH with CSI (Christian Services International) to bring awareness to the Bell family and their work with unseen children in Kenya. What most people didn’t know was that Tom and his family we’re dealing with unseen hurt of their own. This past summer, their son Jeff went to bed feeling a little sick and didn’t wake up. His brother discovered him in the morning and the family’s world was turned upside down. Things went from normal to tragic literally overnight. After the concert on Friday I spent a couple of minutes with the Roberts’ listening as they recounted what happened. The hurt was still fresh, still very near the surface. They remembered Jeff with joy though, and told me of miraculous things that happened as a result of Jeff’s passing. I marveled at their sprit and their faith as they laughed and cried at the same time. It’s amazing how joy and sorrow can fill up the same teardrop.

(As I’m getting ready to post and send this letter I receive an email from Tom…)

“Jeromy, I felt you really struggling with the loss of our son, Jeff. Believe me, it was a CRISIS of Faith! I was at a crossroads of Belief. Did I truly believe what God’s Word says? We have had many people come to us and say that they have never seen anyone with a faith as strong as ours going through something like this. This is what I know….it has nothing to do with us. Jesus is carrying us through this time. We would not make it otherwise. Nothing, absolutely nothing, has to do with our strength. Left to ourselves, we would have been a total wreck. One day I was talking with God about this so called strong “Faith”. He just reminded me of the story about Doubting Thomas… Remember this was after the resurrection of Jesus

(John 20:24-2924) Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” 26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” 28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

So God says to me, these small little trinkets of treasure that I have shown you the last few months to comfort you and to show you just a very small part of how I am using Jeff’s passing for my Glory….remind you of something Thomas? It is the one ………who never sees any fruit……..any sign that He is using a situation for His Glory……and still continues to hold on to the Faith……that is a strong Faith. Pause…………….He was right again as always. Tom

Have a peaceful week, one day at a time-
Jeromy

Jeromy Deibler (FFH)

Categories: BlogPosted Under: Family, Kids, Marriage, Travel@2:26 pm

Merridee’s Monday – Halloween Edition

CommentOctober 31, 2011

Merridee’s Monday 2011.10.31

The bakery is quiet this morning, a stark contrast from this weekend when the line was around the building. Our little town’s streets swell up by an estimated 40,000 people this same weekend every year for Franklin’s annual Pumpkin Festival. We rode our bikes into town for the festivities but decided after a few minutes that we like the “normal” Franklin better. Star Wars costumes were hot this year. I think most of the Empire’s young forces came to Franklin for the festivities.

I mentioned on Facebook last night we aren’t a Halloween family. I certainly don’t judge those who participate, I certainly did when I was younger (I remember going to the Church Halloween party as Dracula) But Halloween scares my kids, and for that reason we just ignore it as best we can. As I was leaving this morning Hutch was making himself a Clone costume to wear when his friends come over tonight for a sleep over, so it’s trickling into the family slowly anyways.

Jennifer’s friend Karen called yesterday and asked if our kids could come over and play so that we could have a date night. We gladly accepted and dropped our kids off at dinnertime and went to our favorite restaurant for our favorite carrot cake. While we were there we talked family business, like where we’d spend Thanksgiving and what we’d do for our anniversary, and how we need to stay out of Target because we spend too much money when we go there. When we left we had some time to kill so we went to Target. Again we spent too money on things we didn’t know we really needed. It was nice though. The Halloween decorations were all but gone and Christmas was being hung all over the store. That, coupled with the chill in the air got me in the Christmas spirit. I can hardly believe Christmas is only eight weeks away. I feel like summer is just now ending. The older I get the faster it seems to get and I sound more and more like my parents did when they talked like this.

It’s been fun getting your Christmas memories and stories in the mail (email). Please send more of them to www.FFH.net. We’ll pick a couple to share with the whole group just to keep getting us ready for the holidays. This story comes from Tanya Davis, one of our subscribers. I wish we had pictures of this!…

When I was a teenager, we lived in South East Texas. My dad would take vacation at Christmastime and we would chase the snow. One Christmas in particular, we used a family friend’s tiny miners cabin in Lake City, Colorado. We loaded down the car and headed to the mountains. We stopped in New Mexico to fill up the car, which was a diesel. The station owner assured my dad that his fuel was safe for high altitudes. The diesel jelled right at the crest of Monarch Pass in Colorado. The parts to fix the car had to be ordered and a blizzard in the forecast. We spent the first few days of vacation in the middle of one of the worst blizzards in a dirty little mobile home next to the gas station/mechanic shop. Due to the blizzard, there was nowhere else to stay. We ate Hershey bars, beef jerky, and scrambled eggs. There were people stranded everywhere. Several 18-wheelers had gone off the side of the mountain and so we were thankful we had a place to stay with a heater and Mom’s ever present can of Lysol spray. When we ran out of our meager supply of food, my mother and the station owner’s wife locked a bread/snack truck driver in the back of his truck. He was delivering a load to the resort at the crest of the pass. They refused to let him out until he agreed to sell them enough supplies to last a couple of days. We finally made it to the cabin to find the water frozen and no heat. The waterbed in the master bedroom was frozen solid. You would think we would have just given up and gone home. Instead we trekked up the mountain and cut a Christmas tree and a couple of men from the town delivered propane and thawed out the cabin. Their wives brought us supper. Throughout the rest of our stay, the neighbor’s sons took us up on the mountain in snow mobiles, we learned to cross country ski, ice skate, and was invited to spend Christmas Eve at the towns potluck at a small church. We spent 2 weeks there and went though 85 pairs of sock. My mother believed in being prepared. There were only about 45 residents that year in the whole town. We took a sleigh ride on Christmas Eve. It was snowing and the lights were twinkling all over town. When we got back to the cabin that night, we watched ”The Christmas Gift” starring John Denver for the first time. It has become a family tradition. It is just not Christmas until we watch that movie. We even have a backup copy. Before bedtime, Dad read the about the birth of Christ from the Bible and we read How the Grinch Stole Christmas and we all took turns reciting The Night Before Christmas. At some point, Dad slipped out and rang the same bells under the window that he rang every Christmas Eve to signal it was time to go to bed because Santa was flying over in his sleigh.

Things have changed through the years. My dad is in Heaven now. He died from colon cancer in 2002. Mom reads the story of the Christ child now on Christmas Eve and the grandkids like to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas but we still take turned reciting The Night Before Christmas. My sister’s husband and my brother ring the bells outside now and it is still as mysterious to the little ones as it was for us when we were young. The Christmas before my dad died, he bought me a book of a collection of Christmas stories because it contained “Yes, Virginia There is a Santa Claus”. It is a treasured possession.

Memories of that Christmas in Lake City still linger. For us it was the best Christmas ever. We laugh about mom “hijacking” the bread man and my brother taking a flying leap to jump on the bed and landing on a solid block of ice. Yet, when the jingle bells tinkle outside on Christmas Eve, we are taken back to the sleigh ride through the snow and the quiet calm of a Christmas Eve in a beautiful mountain town that will linger forever in our hearts.

Jeromy Deibler (FFH)

Categories: BlogPosted Under: Family, Halloween, Merridee's Monday@11:43 am

Merridee’s Monday

3 CommentsFebruary 7, 2011

I didn’t make it in to the bakery this morning. It’s twenty past nine and I’m still in my PJs. I decided to go ahead and write my letter to you from home. Jennifer is trying to get back into the groove of homeschool after being iced-in St Louis last week. I’ve not been sleeping well and had a long weekend leading music at Church so this week is getting of to a very slow start. Plus, it’s another freezing day outside and we’ve had it up to here with the winter. Hutch is saying that he is sad but doesn’t know why. Jennifer is trying to read the first lesson and Sadie-Claire keeps interrupting her. I’m trying to not get aggravated. I don’t know how she does this like she does. The kids just ate and they are already asking for a snack. I get annoyed and Jennifer tells me to chill.
I hope you guys have a great week. If you live in a warm spot pray for those of us less-fortunate souls who do not. Here’s a hello from us at the homeschool table…

Jeromy Deibler (FFH)

Categories: BlogPosted Under: Family, Homeschool, Kids, Meridee's Monday@12:21 pm

Meridee’s Monday

CommentJanuary 24, 2011

I’m getting late start this morning. Hutch was awake with the stomach flu last night so Jennifer was awake with him while he got sick, all seven times. She let me sleep through most of it so I tried to give her a couple hours this morning. The kids were loud though so she’s probably still pretty tired. I had a list of things to accomplish and was ready to hit the ground running when she got up and got going. (This weekend was restful but I’ve got a lot to do this week before we go out of town on Friday) Right before I was ready to head out the door, Sadie-Claire asked me to help her get dressed. She hung on to me like a tree frog as I carried her upstairs and when I laid her down on her bed she wouldn’t let go. We hugged for a while and in those seconds my heart changed. I didn’t want to go get things done anymore. I just wanted to stay and cuddle and hug and help Jennifer with the kids and spend another day in my PJs. I let Sadie pick out an outfit that probably doesn’t match and said goodbye to my peeps and headed out the door.

The life of an artist is unusual in so many ways. There are so few guidelines and boundaries and even fewer rules. This, what I’m doing right here, writing my blog, is “work”. Meetings and coffees and worship planning sessions are “work”. Rehearsals and writing sessions and recording session are all “work”. Even listening to music, for me, is sometimes required “work”. Tomorrow night, for “work”, I’ll play music on TV. To someone with a normal job this may seem completely unrealistic, but it’s been my life ever since I quit college eighteen years ago. In God’s kindness this has been the only “real” job I’ve ever had. But on days like today it is hard. If I had a boss or an office or a board meeting I’d have to go to work. But I don’t, so I battle with balance and what to do. When Jennifer and the kids are home doing things that seem so much more important like home-school or taking care of one another I feel silly leaving. But I have to.

I meet with seven guys on Wednesday mornings. They are all recently out of college and are beginning life as artists and professional musicians. They worry about money and motivation. Three of them are just married and they watch their wives go off to work and battle to find their normal while trying to play any gig to contribute. I tell them that they can’t look at life like other working guys, the ones who get a check every week. Those guys can go to the bank and deposit money for something they did or built or a service they provided that week. We can’t, it’s not our normal. We are like farmers. Our work comes in seasons and our income usually does to. We begin songs or play music as a farmer sows his seeds, and then we work the soil as we wait. Like the sower in the Bible, we spread seed on all kinds of soil. Some of it falls on the rocks or among weeds and we never see anything in return. Sometimes it falls on fertile soil and we get to see some returns, or in our case royalties. Either way we keep creating, playing gigs, writing songs, having coffee, spreading seed and working the soil. And hopefully, in God’s kindness, he lets us reap enough to keep planting. If not we get real jobs.

Jeromy Deibler

Categories: BlogPosted Under: Artists, Career, Family@2:35 pm

Merridees Monday

CommentSeptember 22, 2010

Good morning. I hope this letter finds you well and rested. (That would at least make one of us) It’s been over a month since my last blog post and I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to complete my thoughts right now but I’m at Merridee’s with Hutch for lunch and he’s consumed with the LEGO website so I figured I’d at least write to say hello. I also want to say thanks for your prayers over the past few weeks. The adjustment to apartment living has been rough but we’re making it work. There’s still been no forward motion in the mold removal from our house because of legal red tape, which as it turns out is a special reddish duct tape kind of stuff that is inpenetrable with out a lawyer. And even then, cutting through it takes time and patience and a special knife that only a few lawyers know how to use. (in God’s grace it seems like we have one of those) Meanwhile, Jennifer has begun homeshooling Hutch in our living room / dining room and I’m doing what I can to help out. I have to admit, she’s been amazing through this whole thing. She went to the trouble of decorating one whole wall of the apartment with a chalkboard and special artwork and neat school stuff so Hutch would have an inspiring environment to work in. I complained most of the time she was getting it ready because I couldn’t see the sense in spending the money for stuff that would be temporary. She was right though and I’m so proud of her. She doesn’t have time to read my blogs so she won’t know how I’m bragging to you about her but I just can’t believe how the Lord is using her in our kids’ lives.

Sadie-Claire will be three in November and she is plannning to begin dance class right away. She dances most of the time she is on her feet. She is consumed with shoes and sparkles. Hutch is in his third week of Hip Hop dance class so he is popping and locking every times he hears music. We are a family of constant motion and Jennifer and I are in a constant state of overwhelmed-ness. When the kids go to bed we usually sit together in a trance. Then we go to bed.

Living in our apartment does have an upside. We’re situated right in the middle of Cool Springs where all the good restaurants and stores are. We can ride our bikes to Borders and Starbucks and dozens of other places. McDougals Chicken is my new addiction. Not their chicken but their soda. Their ice is just a tad bigger than Sonic’s and their diet coke is really burny. Plus, they have free soft serve. When you combine the three everything is right with the world. I’m averaging two diet-coke-ice-floats a day.

This morning I was reading Jesus’ story about the two men who built houses, one on rock and one on sand. I noticed how the exact same weather came to both. I also looked up “house” in my Strongs and found that it can also mean “family” or “household”. I started to question where I’d built my (our) “house”. I’m praying we’ll stay anchored to God and each other during this and we’ll realize just how firm and dependable the rock really is.

I hope you have a great week full of revelations of God and His Greatness.

Peace and Rest,
Jeromy

Jeromy Deibler (FFH)

Categories: BlogPosted Under: Family, Meridee's Monday@2:54 pm

2 CommentsAugust 26, 2010

Friends, we’ve been talking this week about our families, specifically our grandparents. Our first Travelers IRL post was on the subject of honoring and cherishing our older generations and we’ve gotten several really neat responses. Here are a couple videos of my grandparents. One of the videos is my Ma Maw (Leah) showing us around the Lancaster (PA) Central Market. The other is a conversation Jennifer recorded of my Pa Paw and I a few weeks ago. Please forgive me, but I couldn’t bring myself to editing it.

Jeromy Deibler

Categories: Blog, Travelers IRLPosted Under: Family, Grandparents, Travelers IRL, Videos@11:04 am

Merridees Monday

2 CommentsJuly 26, 2010

If you drive five miles west on BB Highway out of Hillsboro MO you will cross through the old Els farm. The property is nestled on the western slope of one of the many foothills in eastern Missouri, just south of St Louis about ten miles west of the Mississippi river. Jennifer’s grandpa, John Els, bought the entire three hundred and twenty acres when he and Pearl moved out from the city in the late 1930s. He built the farmhouse house and the barns with his own hands, brick by brick and board by board. Pearl gave birth to five boys, four of them at home on the farm. Jennifer’s Dad, Ken, is the middle of the five. He grew up on the farm, milking cows, keeping chickens, and mending fences. He remembers fondly the days of dirt floors and outhouses.
Over time, Grandpa John began to do less farming and more commercial construction. Ken’s oldest brother, Gene, who now owns much of the land on top of the hill, eventually took over Els Construction and developed and sub-divided some of the original homestead. When Ken graduated high school he joined the Navy. Upon his return home he went into construction as well. He soon married Kathy and a few years later he built his own house just up the hill from John and Pearl. That’s where Jennifer grew up and where we’ve spent most of this summer while our house is being repaired. From their back porch you can see the three story white barn, the old chicken houses, the cabin in the woods, and the hollowed out mobile homes John used to keep the antique Ford automobiles he restored after he retired. All of his tools, thousands of them, are still in his shop and Ken and the grandkids still put them to good use.
I never knew John and Pearl like I’d have liked to. I’ve heard of their adventures, many of them in a converted school bus that John gutted and turned into a hunting cabin on wheels. I’ve seen the pictures and the antlers that prove that the Els family life was anything but boring. (One picture in particular is of Ken standing inside of the ribcage of an Elk that he had killed and gutted on a hunting trip with his brothers)
When I met Jennifer’s grandparents in 1994, Parkinson’s disease had crippled Pearl, preventing her from doing much of what she was known for. She has mostly homebound by this time, but she was always up for a game of Kismet around the kitchen table if you had some time to stay and visit. John was still able to get around but he spent most of his time at home with Pearl. By 2003 both of them needed constant care and Ken and Kathy spent most of their time making sure his parents were safe and comfortable. Towards the end they started taking turns sleeping over so someone would be near if something unexpected were to happen the middle of the night. Ken has always been the most loyal of the boys and he and Kathy lived out this loyalty at great personal expense during those last few years.
Grandma Pearl was the first to go. At her memorial service in August of 2006 people shared things about her that even Jennifer didn’t know. Jennifer told me how she wished she’d have known those things. She’s got memories of Pearl but she didn’t know her like she wished she had. After Pearl died, John’s heart began to fail and he was resigned to spend days in a wheelchair staring out the window at the land he once cultivated, but his mind was still sharp and his attitude still intact. He spent many of those days sitting at his kitchen table eating and visiting with people who stopped by. The visits were loud. You had to nearly scream for him to be able to hear what you said. John kept a rifle by his chair so he could shoot rodents out the window. In 2007, about a year before his death, I challenged him to a shooting contest. We drew targets on paper plates and hung them on a fence across the yard. Then we sat inside and took turns trying to outshoot each other from the kitchen table. After a couple of minutes the targets were retrieved and the plates revealed that I’d won, but just barely. Grandpa called me a “smart ass” under his breath. I took it as a compliment. Despite his many visitors, John was lonely without Pearl. He died of congestive heart failure in April of 2008. He was more sentimental about Pearl in those last few years and never really forgave himself for some of the things he’d done early on in their marriage.

The Els boys have made an unmistakable mark on the community and the people with whom they lived and worked and played. Most of the folks I’ve met in the times I’ve spent here in Hillsboro have multiple stories about Ken and his dad and brothers. The longer I stay here the more I understand the deep family history of this place and that of the people who live here.

When I traveled to South Africa for a week and a half in March of 2006 I got a taste of African culture, I experienced it as a visitor. Then, that following October, we moved there and bought a car and rented a house. We unpacked and settled our family down for a while. We made friends and began a work and established a routine. Only then did we begin to live Africa, to become part of it’s history. That’s what we are experiencing here in Missouri, only this time it is unplanned and unexpected. It’s a bit strange to wake up day after day in the same house where Jennifer grew up and where she and her sisters spent their days playing and swimming and talking about boys. Jennifer’s mom is cooking meals for everyone just like she did back then and my kids are doing the things Jennifer did when she was little. History is repeating itself. The longer I’m here the more of that history I feel seeping into my being. This isn’t just a visit anymore. Friends and family have gone back to their normal lives and we are beginning to lock into the rhythm of this house. We’ve even made a couple of new friends and Jennifer has reconnected with some old ones. I’m resisting it a bit because I know it isn’t our home, it’s not our rhythm, and we’ll be breaking away soon enough, but it’s been nice in many ways to be part of something larger, something not so temporary.

If I get up early enough I like to sit at the kitchen table alone and read my bible and look through the sliding glass door that proves a view-from-above of the farm and the barn and the garden that I helped plant this spring. Vegetables are popping up everywhere, the tomato plants are yielding buckets of fruit everyday, the trellis that supports the bean vines is buckling under the weight, and the sunflowers at the south end of the garden are over ten feet tall. Across the valley through the cedar trees I can see the top of Jennifer’s sister’s house, about a five-minute walk from here. She and her husband Cameron bought the property from Grandpa John about ten years ago and build the house by hand. At the base of the valley where the creek divides the property is the old milkhouse. Jennifer’s dad converted the milkhouse when Jennifer was a kid so she had a place to board her ponies and horses. As a teenager, Jennifer spent most of her free time in the pasture adjacent to the milk house riding horses. Her most trusted companion was a quarter horse named Merchant. We went down to the milkhouse the other day and Jennifer told me how the stalls still smell like they did then. I can tell she misses those quiet days. She mourns the innocence lost with growing up.

In an odd way, Jennifer and her Dad have a uniquely similar childhood, one that was filled with quiet and animals and dirt. Whenever Jennifer daydreams about her “perfect place” it is a wide-open space with animals and land and a huge family table piled high with fresh organic produce and homegrown vegetables. She loves the sounds of cicadas in the cedar trees and screen doors clapping shut and kids playing in the yard. I wonder why God took Jennifer from this place, one of such relaxed solitude, and put her into a life that doesn’t have so many of the things she has always loved and longed for.

This morning I didn’t get out of bed until 6:45. Hutch was already awake and playing with his birthday toys. I sat in what has become my usual chair overlooking the farm and tried to read and pray while he and Iron Man battled under my feet. My prayer book’s theme for this week is “communion” and included in the selected readings is an excerpt from Henry Nouwen’s “The Life of The Beloved”. In the opening section Nouwen writes, “I would like to talk a little about how to live the life of the beloved. There are four words that I want to use, words that come from the gospels, words that are used in the story of the multiplication of bread, words that are used at the Last Supper, words that are used at Emmaus, and words that are used constantly when the community of faith comes together. Those words are: He took, He blessed, He broke, and He gave.”

Nouwen goes on to explain that all of us who choose to follow Jesus walk with Him in the perpetual process of being taken, blessed, broken, and given. As I look back on the past few years I can see how Jesus has taken me out of situations at times when I lest expect it and how he has been leading me into brokenness and blessing me with experiences that are changing me and somehow blessing others. None of it is my doing or a result of anything good I’ve done. I’m just bread. (Today I’m grumpy tired bread) I’m sure it was God’s best for Jennifer to be taken from her home as well, but when we’re here I can’t help but wonder how.

I wonder what in the world God is up to with us. Why did He choose to have us leave our home at this time, just as we were finally settling down? We were so excited to be in Franklin this summer, to be “Normal”. Why were we taken now? What is it he wants me to learn here? Last week I wrote about God’s “Grace in the Wilderness”, and I’m no less aware or appreciative God’s blessing but I’ve got more questions. My heart is not settled. I feel that our story, my story, is getting buried in someone else’s. That’s the breaking that I can’t find reason for. And I can’t help but be a little nervous about where the giving is going to take place. The last time a major change like this happened in our family we ended up in South Africa and I ended up with MS and Jennifer ended up pregnant. All of it has been God’s best and we’re so much better off now than we were then. I wouldn’t trade the past five years for anything, but I’m still “me of little faith” and I get nervous when I can’t see what’s coming.

I’m looking forward to heading back to Franklin later this week to lead worship at Fellowship and do some songwriting with some friends. I’m also going to spend some time looking for temporary housing for us to live in while our house is being restored. I can’t help but feel a small twitch that tells me we may never move back into that house. It may just be a fleeting notion, I get those a lot. I remember when Jennifer and I were dating being sure that I was going to die before we got married. So I’ve learned to not pay too much attention to the whims of my heart, but still, something is going on. Something is being put to rest, being allowed to wither and die, and something new is coming to life. I’ve been inspired while I’ve been here in Missouri. Inspired to write, to read, to get dirty, and to get off of some of my medicine. But I grieve not having my own space, and time alone with Jennifer and the kids, and my sleep number bed. I miss my Jeep and Merridee’s, and I’m tired of wearing the same clothes over and over again. I’m growing weary of being a visitor.

Even as I sit here complaining I’m reminded of my own words to audiences this year. I’ve been urging people to follow God into the unknown, telling them not to be afraid to go wherever Yahweh leads them, even if it seems extreme. I’ve been imploring people to go “away” with God, to be still, to be quiet, to be “different”. I guess if that’s going to be my message than I’ve got to be that guy: The traveler. The sojourner. Like John the Baptist, who lived his life in the wilderness. I’ve been telling people how great the wilderness is because Jesus is there and He is uniquely close to us when we go there with Him. Why should I be surprised that Jesus is again taking us through the unknown? Maybe our experience will become bread that will be given to others through this. I guess I just need to own it, to settle into it, to realize that this is our story, our adventure, unique to us. That this is who we are and who we are going to be, for now anyway.

Jennifer keeps her books on the floor beside the bed. (She’s right-handed and sleeps on the right, I’m left-handed and sleep on the left. We tried to switch once. It lasted one night.) This morning I noticed she’s reading a book about “The Valley”. She must be feeling the same way I do. We’ve been together a lot but not really alone for long enough to talk about deep stuff. I’m sure being here for this length of time is stirring up feelings and emotions in her heart that have been asleep under the surface for a while. Plus, her Dad, (we all call him Pop Pop now) isn’t doing well. The inflammatory disease that he’s battling is causing blood flow to his legs to be stifled. His legs are getting weak and he’s walking less and sleeping more. This has to be on Jennifer’s mind. Plus, Pop Pop has been a lot more sentimental lately, which lets us know that he’s probably feeling worse than he even lets on. We’re all hopeful that this is just a temporary relapse and not a sign of things to come.

Jennifer doesn’t complain that I don’t have a plan past next week. She’s never really pressured me to have the long-term figured out. I’m so thankful for that. This morning she recognized that I was in a rough spot and has giving me all day to think and process things. This is how we live now: day to day, hour to hour. Our counselor told us to try to live in the moment, to think about the next ten minutes. It’s hard, especially when the system we live in tells us that we need to have our ducks in a row. Sometimes Jennifer and me talk about this and she reminds me that there’s not a retirement plan anywhere in the Bible. She’s right. She usually is. Don’t tell her I said that.

Jeromy Deibler (FFH)

Categories: BlogPosted Under: Family@5:41 pm

Meridee’s Monday

6 CommentsJuly 6, 2010

You may or may not have caught my posting on Facebook this week asking for help with some mold questions. I was a little nondescript in the posting because we weren’t exactly sure what we were dealing with. We know a little more now. I’d like to share it with you and then tell you what this past weekend was like. To bring you up to speed, here is an email I sent to some of my church friends at the end of last week describing what is going on with our home…

For the past several years Jennifer and I have been patching and re-patching an annoying roof leak around our chimney. During the flood things got really messy and bucketfuls of water leaked into our bonus room. We were away at the time and our AC was off. When yet another contractor opened it up to find the source of the leak he discovered mold. When the mold “specialist” came to remove it last week he took a sample to have it tested. Turns out it’s a very toxic strain of black mold called Stachybotrys. It’s nasty stuff, causing all kinds of health problems with prolonged exposure.

Three nationally recognized and trusted mold experts told Jennifer and I yesterday that we CAN NOT go back home until the entire house is tested and every room containing traces of the mold is cleaned with a bio agent. Anything in that room will have to be either thrown away or bio-cleaned, whatever that means. Best-Case Scenario: it’s all contained in the bonus room and we can move back in as soon as the things from the bonus room are either throw away or deemed safe and the rest of the house is proven to be mold free. (The furniture and kids toys are being thrown away today) Worst-Case Scenario: The mold has traveled through the HVAC and has infected the whole house in which case we lose most everything. Chances are we will land somewhere between the two extremes. Either way, we can’t go home until we get the process going which Jennifer is beginning today with a Consumer Advocate mold specialist in Atlanta. He will be coming up to Franklin to head up the project.

Right now we are in St Louis at Jennifer’s family farm. This was a planned visit. I’m driving back down to Nashville tomorrow to get Fritz and lead worship at Fellowship for the weekend. I’ll stay at Brian and Jannell’s and will likely drive back up here and we will commute to our shows and to Nashville from St Louis at least for the next three weeks. Our Consumer Advocate told us that as soon as the house is assessed and tests are completed and results come back we will know the next step. It may mean renting a place in Nashville for a couple of months while we get this all sorted.

WISDOM is what we are asking you to pray for us to receive. WISDOM and PATIENCE to walk in step with Jesus as he opens and closes doors for us, and to not get ahead of ourselves but take it an hour at a time, reminding ourselves that “it’s just a house”, we’re safe, kids are healthy, etc.

Thanks for listening and thanks for caring.

The ten or so people I sent to message to were kind and generous in their responses, several offering their homes to me for the weekend while I traveled back to Franklin to lead worship. I was able to stay at Jennifer’s sisters place but the additional invitations were nice nonetheless.

It was strange to come home and not be able to really go home. Our mold adviser strongly discouraged us from even entering the house briefly so I just stopped over to get the dog and a few things from the garage and left. Fritz had been being let out by a friend for about a week and was so happy to see me that he peed. He and I went over to Jannell and Brian’s and got settled and then went to Merridee’s for a salad and then up Main Street to Starbucks.

Under normal circumstances this would be a night I’d look forward to, even if I were by myself. I was at my favorite bakery, having my favorite sandwich, walking to my coffee shop having my favorite drink. (Grande – Decaf – Mocha – Frappachino Light – With Extra Ice – In a Venti Cup – With Whip) But it wasn’t fun at all. It was depressing. I saw some friends and walked the other way. The whole weekend was like this. Same town, same car, same dog, but no Jennifer, no kids, no house. Everything was turned on it’s head. I know it’s “just a house” but it’s what happens there that is special. It’s where our life happens and I felt like an outsider not being able to go back.

The only time I felt normal all weekend was at Fellowship. The Body of Jesus really is a family and I felt at home when I was there. I only know a handful of people at Fellowship really well. Most are loose acquaintances and lots more I’ve never even met. None of that mattered. I was with family, I could tell in my spirit, and it felt good. Again God used something hard to show me something new.

Have a restful week. If you have any black mold experience we’d definitely appreciate hearing about it. Be safe –

Jeromy

Jeromy Deibler (FFH)