Back But Changed
My Amazon order history tells me that on July 10, 2021, I bought a bear bedspread for our guest bed. A few days earlier, I decided to get the guest bed out of the garage because it had been in there long enough. I’m a ‘use it or get rid of it’ kinda girl when it comes to storing clutter. (We initially moved said bed to the garage in March 2020 when Jeff unexpectedly became office buddies with me.)
Since we were cleaning the garage a little bit, Jeff also bought a shelving unit to make things a little tidier. I love that guy.
July 23 rolled around, we hosted a coffee-tasting shindig at our house, and a Gen Z-er asked if we knew of any rooms to rent.
We invited her to rent a room from us that weekend.
A majority of the stuff in the guest room closet fit on that nice new shelving unit. We took the doors off of our bedroom closet, we moved our dresser into that formerly-a-closet-now-a-nook space, we moved my desk to our bedroom, we rearranged books on our bookshelf so it’d look nicer on video calls, and within two hours, we were ready.
She moved in on Monday July 26. The bear bedspread didn’t make it two weeks.
Let me just say, without Holy Spirit empowerment, rooms don’t just get ready in two hours. Hearts don’t just get ready over a weekend.
Ten months have passed. Our Gen Z housemate moved out a few days before Memorial Day. Last weekend, we put everything back. I have my house back. I have my office back. The vacuum is back in its proper spot. The bear bedspread is back. Everything is back.
It’s all back, but at the same time, I know it’s not the same. Because I’ve changed.
Ministry has a knack for doing that. I remember coming back home after working at Indian Hills Camp over the summers as a teenager and while my routine was back to normal, I wasn’t living the same-ol’-same-ol’ life. How I viewed the world changed. How I processed my relationships changed. How I viewed heartache changed. How I viewed selflessness changed. How I cleaned toilets, and for whom I cleaned them, changed. How I viewed my leaders changed. How I viewed God’s love changed. How I wanted to be used by God changed. How I wanted to hear from Him, or my desperation to hear from Him rather, changed.
In the past ten months, I have had to hold fast to Hebrews 13:1-2a, “Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.”
Hospitality to strangers is easy to neglect. Why? Because it’s sacrificial. It’s inconvenient. It’s picking up extra chores. It’s praying for the tender heart of the Father to be a reality in your heart and expressed in your words. It’s a faith filled risk. It’s an act of obedience to serve King Jesus. It’s singing the lyrics to ‘I Surrender All’ when it’s easy, and then singing them again and again when you’re tired.
And yes, dear reader, it’s heartache.
And yet I’m so very grateful for that heartache. As Dr. Rob Reimer has put it,
“[T]hose seasons shaped me, changed me, and developed me in ways I never could have grown without the pain. But it wouldn’t have happened without persistence…One of the hardest, most important lessons I have learned is not to quit before God releases.”[1]
And so, we enter into this next season, back, but not looking back.
“Brothers, I do not consider myself to have laid hold of it. But I do one thing, forgetting the things behind and straining toward the things ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 3:13-14
Back. Changed. Onward.
Dr. Rob Reimer. https://www.instagram.com/p/CeZewFDsnGU/
We sat on cold metal chairs in a white room, leaning against a cold metal examining table...waiting. Our beautiful dog Sabrina had been hurried to the back of the emergency clinic without us. She was in danger and distress.
It’s been a minute.
I love that phrase. I probably overuse it. And my repetitious use of it probably annoys those in my listening (or instant messaging) range.
Why did the tomato blush? He saw the salad dressing! Thank you for laughing. I appreciate it.
When you gotta go, you gotta go.
Our friends returned to the mission field last week. They had to go.
Lakes are pretty cool places. One might say that they're refreshing.
Months ago, we taught Silas how to count to twenty. Recently, he has been skipping six. Poor six.
I’m a huge fan of Os Guinness (and his ministry The Trinity Forum.) If you haven’t heard of him, go look him up on your favorite podcast app or on YouTube because he is a gazillion times more articulate than I am.
In the past ten months, I have had to hold fast to Hebrews 13:1-2a, “Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.”
Hospitality to strangers is easy to neglect.
What do you think of when you hear, “when strivings cease?”
“When the burden is too much for you to bear, you do not need stronger shoulders, you need weaker knees.”
Dr. Mitch Kim
What do you do when life is rough? If you’re a follower of Christ, what do you do when your pursuit of Christian maturity keeps calling you onward and upward, to terrain that is steeper and more challenging?
What do you do when life is rough? If you’re a follower of Christ, what do you do when your pursuit of Christian maturity keeps calling you onward and upward, to terrain that is steeper and more challenging?
Our cool-factor here at SBCA has been notched up tenfold the past month. Why you may ask? Great question!
Yesterday was Palm Sunday. We had a lovely time at church.
And while no Dickensian Ghost-of-Palm-Sunday-Past visited me, I found myself reminiscing. Holidays and rituals are meant for such a thing, I suppose.
We attended a Christmas party last December and within two minutes of our arrival, Silas (age 2) showed me a toy he had just found. We were outside, in the dark, and on time (meaning not many people were there yet.) Looking around, I asked him, “where did you find this tractor?”
I nerded out this weekend at a ‘Faith and Science’ conference held here in San Diego. Praise the Lord for paid time off and for a grandma who is willing to watch the kid.
In the summer of 2007, in the sticks of San Diego county, Jeff and I met at Indian Hills Camp.
Oh Indian Hills Camp. So dusty. So Wild West-y. So can’t-ever-forget-that-camp-song-y.
No, this isn’t about Eutychus (Acts 20:9.) This is about the first Sunday of March in 2019 when someone suddenly died at the church we were serving at.
It’s early March and the evenings are still too chilly for me, even in San Diego. Since I’ve committed to staying inside in the evening until the weather warms up, it seems like a good time to start spring cleaning.
I am a terrible movie watcher. I don’t cope well with plot holes. Everyone else will talk about the scenes they loved, the parts that captured their imaginations. I, however, will talk about plot holes and major oversights.
During a short vacation to the mountains last summer, I had the time to read a few books
A few Sundays ago, we were singing ‘Be Still My Soul’ at church and my not-so-still two-year-old ran up on stage. Uggh.
Which of the four did I pay attention to (or do I plan to pay attention to) this weekend: the Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day, my mom’s birthday, or an anniversary?
This Wednesday is the first anniversary of Cat Lawyer! I love Cat Lawyer so much that I felt it appropriate to give him an homage via blog.
I’m an institutionalist. I believe we’re stronger as a team - that’s dedicated to the mission - than we are siloed off.
Two years ago while preparing material for our homegroup leaders, I came across a word study that shifted my thinking, or at least readjusted my focus: “Created for good works…so that we would walk in them”, (Eph.2:10). The word “walk” in the Greek does not imply the simple straight line from point A to point B, but has a more spherical quality.
I live in suburban America. Here in suburbia, we have companies that come to our houses on a weekly basis and take our trash away. It’s wonderful. Until the week before Christmas, when the magic stopped. The garbage workers went on strike. Womp womp.
Last night, we ditched our Sunday night prayer meeting, packed up Silas, and drove 98 miles to see a commissioning service at Celebration Church. One of their pastors and his wife will be returning to Cambodia to share the good news of Jesus with the people of Cambodia who have not yet heard His name.
Why start a blog? Here is a list of questions that I asked myself before starting this.
Kylene Lopo
Kylene Lopo is a pastor’s wife, a BI Reports Developer, and is the mother of Silas (age 4) and Hosanna (age 0.) She has a masters in Biblical Literature from Alliance Theological Seminary and is an official worker with the C&MA in the South Pacific District.