Christmas/New Years Letter 2013

 Welcome to the Johnson Family Christmas/New Years or sometime thereafter year-in-review!!!  Time seems to accelerate with each passing year.  Sigh.  I suppose it can’t be helped.  At least we spent the majority of the last year without a dull moment to record.

January was waaaay more action packed than normal!  First of all, we ended our four months of living with 2 extra kiddos AND we got to go to Vegas!!  Jeremy’s band bleedingkeys got the incredible opportunity to open for North Mississippi All-Stars at the Hard Rock Hotel.  For the night… we all pretended to be rock stars; and I a rock stars' wife. Ha!

Although I had a mini melt down about Vegas because I thought I’d definitely die before visiting that city, I had to admit it was a ton of fun and seeing my man perform so well was icing on the cake!

February was more notable than normal because Jeremy and I ended up taking on one of the toughest decisions yet.  In January (actually IN Vegas) he found out that the job he’s never wanted was being relocated to Denver.  We really didn’t have to scratch our heads too hard about NOT taking this “opportunity”.  So, after almost four slightly miserable years in a cubicle, Jeremy was done working at Arrow Electronics.  Hey, we can’t be too hard on that cubicle, without it songs like Bleedingkeys and Poison Gold would never had come into existence!

Throughout February and into March, we wrestled with what to do, and I blogged here and here as we pondered.  I was fully enjoying the chance to re-write our lives and actually THINK about what we wanted to do next instead of feeling like we had to do something we didn’t want to do.  We were both willing to shift things around so that Jeremy could pursue more avenues with music, but we weren’t sure how we’d be able to replace his income entirely.  Then came an option that God threw in totally unexpected…

Safe Families is the organization we stumbled upon last year when we found ourselves at the end of someone else’s rope.  I had no idea our story would pique the interest of the state’s executive director and I’d be offered a job with this organization—but that’s what happened.  The part-time job offer came on the tails of Jeremy’s lay-off, so we decided to give it a whirl.  This option also allowed Jeremy to continue to focus on music, which is what we both wanted but felt like it was impossible to be to do.  So between part-time work at Safe Families, side jobs, music, the YMCA and my Shaklee biz…. We’ve been able to scrape by. 

Heading up a chapter of Safe Families in Madison County has been exhausting but glorious work that is right up my ally.  Everything from working with the parents, to getting to know the kids, to recruiting the host families is work I’m incredibly passionate about.  God has done INCREDIBLE things in the lives of both parents and kids through this movement and I am continually in awe of God’s careful plan to bring me to this place. 

Along the way I’ve also been busy with a small gymnastics program at our local YMCA.  It’s been such a great fit for me, as I love teaching kids the sport of gymnastics and always have.  The YMCA allows us to bring in more kids at a lower cost and keeps things more laid back and fun.  The only challenge is keeping things in check with my increasingly wise and witty daughter, who has found herself in my class along with two of her best buds.  Addi is still tiny as ever and well fashioned for the sport of gymnastics…however she doesn’t seem to care about it too much! 

 Addi has continued to be our biggest challenge in life.  I’ve listened to two new books this year on strong willed children.   I know these kids are wired to be incredible people, however raising one is a challenge!  Quite frankly I’m not up for it every day of the week and frequently become exhausted of the mental energy it takes to stay on my game with her.  My prayer most days is that I don’t entirely screw her up.

I wrote a post about her on her 8^th birthday this year that really only skims the surface of our life together.  Her mind is always one step ahead of mine, and always has been.  Just a few weeks ago Addi said to me, “Mom?  We aren’t supposed to be sad in heaven right?  We’re only supposed to be happy.”  Me: “Well..yeah”  Her:  “Well if I was in heaven and God came up to me and told me that one of my friends was in hell, wouldn’t I be sad about that?”

I feel like most days we live a version of a Katy Perry song, “Your wrong when it’s right, it’s black and it’s white, we fight we break up, we kiss we make up…”  It’s exhausting and sometimes tear jerking being her mother.  Some days my only goal in life is to NOT become a stumbling block to her being fully known by God.  My only consolation at times is that He’s ultimately the one who created her and gave her to us…and there’s got to be a reason for it all. 

The best story of the year when it comes to Addi has to do with baby skunks, a concerned officer from the correctional facility and a visit from the police.   I scarce have room to tell the tale, but I must.  The kids found genuine baby skunks in our backyard one afternoon, and my husband with his Oregonian upbringing wasted no time in handling them after they landed in the neighbors’ raccoon trap.  We thought them to be abandoned babies in need of care.  The neighbor rushed out for baby kitten bottles and milk and we spent the afternoon feeding and cuddling 2 baby skunks.

Addi could hardly bare to part with them and I had to all but pry her out of the neighbors house at the end of the day.  We had found a friend who was picking them up the next day and taking them to an animal rescue location.  Addi of course wanted to visit with them again before they left, and I promised we would.  The next day I woke up at 7:15am to a knock at my front door.  I opened it to find a correctional facility officer and my daughter in her nightgown…looking a little guilty I might add. 

Confused, I began to ask what had happened.

Turns out Addi woke up at 7:00 am and wanted to visit with the skunks again.  She thought she’d just walk on over to the neighbors, go in her back door (since it was so early and all) and just check on the baby skunks.  The back door—of course—was locked.  Addi thought that perhaps the house key for her Grandma’s house would open the door to our neighbors house.  So she took off down the street to Grandma’s house. 

Seeing a young girl running down the sidewalk barefoot in her nightgown at around 7:00 am looked a little funny to the correctional facility officer headed to work.  She stopped and asked if she was lost.  Addi of course said she wasn’t, but complied when she was prompted to be taken home.

Enter the knock on the door at 7:15.  Maybe my breath was worse than I thought because the officer that brought her home made a police report despite the fact that I actually thanked her for helping to teach my determined daughter that she can’t go wherever she wants whenever she wants.  Regardless, 20 minutes later I got another visit from the police to check on our well being.  I chuckled when I told them my position with Safe Families… they thought it was a little comical in the end too.   All in all I was glad Addi got to experience some real life consquences!

One of the most tragic things that happened this year was the loss of Addi’s sweet guinea pig Ferdie in late September.  The thought of this day still brings tears to my eyes.  Ferdie was definitely as close to Addi’s heart as any child to her parent, and the day we came home to find him suddenly expired was heartbreaking.  We all sat together and cried until we could cry no more, then we buried him in the back yard and wrote notes of our favorite memories.  Addi handled the stress of losing him fairly well, and found comfort in telling the story of his last day to those who knew him best.  She sent text messages and emails from my phone to family and friends.  To her art teacher she composed an email (from me of course) that simply stated, “Ferdie died.”  Her teacher was kind hearted enough to fully understand this, and made her a card sharing her condolences. 

Sam turned 6 this year and besides defending himself against the onslaught of verbal attacks from his sister, he has thoroughly enjoyed his 2^nd year of Kindergarten and become quite the sports star.   He routinely finds any reason he can to race himself and never tires of the “let’s-see-how-long-it-takes-you-to-go-get-your-jammies-on” routine.   In fact one day I realized Sam was opening the refrigerator door and running away.  I asked Addi what was up: “Oh, he’s trying to see if he can open the fridge, run in the living room, flip on the couch and come back before it closes.”

This year Jeremy and I finally put him in organized sports since his energy level has always hovered right at 9 out of 10.  He tried his hand at baseball in the Spring, soccer in the Fall and wrestling in the Winter.  He's proven to be pretty decent at all three sports, but seems to love wrestling the best.  It helps that he’s been practicing his craft since age 3 with his older cousin Blaine on the trampoline.  It’s incredible to see how boys’ tend to show their affection by kicking the crap out of each other.

We had a close call with our dear dog Tok this year too.  Tok has been with us for almost a decade now!!  It seems like just yesterday we bought him as a pup in Alaska and smuggled him into our “no pets allowed” apartment.  Much to no one’s surprise, Tok was hit by a car last spring.  Somehow he pulled off some kind of tuck-n-roll and managed to limp himself home where he laid down and didn’t get up again until we took him to the vet the next day. 

We feared internal injuries, but found that he acted much better for the vet who was handing out treats, and after limping around in her office, he was given pain meds and sent home.  Tok wasted no time in picking up right where he left off with chasing squirrels and annoying the neighbors.

Tok’s close call was hard on Sam.  He’s more of a feeler than his rational-minded sister.  Sam cried for hours over Tok the night of his accident.  In an effort to console him, Jeremy shared a story about his childhood pet that went missing one night and was found drown in a pond the next day.  I’m not quite sure how this was supposed to make him feel better, but nevertheless, Jeremy was identifying with his pain.  After Tok made a recovery, Sam was more bothered by the story about Jeremy’s childhood pet than Tok’s accident.

About a month later, I heard Sam sniffling in the back seat of the car.  He said (as he had many times before) “I just keep thinking about how Dad’s dog died!  It’s soooooo sad!!!”  Addi of course shot back quickly, “Sam… if Dad’s dog didn’t die then, he’d be dead now.  So either way, he’s dead!”

The highlight of our year was of course our drive and month long trip to Oregon.  Jeremy’s sister got married in June, so we decided to drive out for the wedding and stay for a while!  Jeremy was able to pick up work from his brother-in-law so we managed to have enough cash to fix our car and get ourselves back home again.  Spending almost 4 weeks in Oregon was fantastic, especially since Jeremy’s parents threw in a trip to Disneyland for all the grandkids.

These days both Jeremy and I feel like we are working in the areas of our God given gifts and talents.  As rewarding as this is… it is a constant struggle.  Not taking a career-type job as a 33 year old man definitely raises some eyebrows.  We have gone over our decision again and again…and again.  It still feels right.  So we’re gonna keep doing it.   Besides Vegas, bleedingkeys has had the opportunity to play sidestage at Maroon 5, and for a room full of cheering Klipsh employees upon occasion. 

Every now and then our vocations have overlapped (music + Safe Families) and become something beautiful.  Tying in our life with Jeremy's music and this organization is something that could only be orchestrated by the hand of God.  We have had a few opportunities to present in front of a church, or at a small group setting.  God has opened major doors in one way or another each time and we look forward to more opportunities to share our lives through stories and song.   

Keep following the blog for more updates as we press on and see what God has in store for the Johnson Family Adventure 2014!

Following the Eternal

At the end of the 2013, it seems appropriate to recount our Adventure, although I struggle to define exactly where we are.

The journey started last January when Jeremy lost his job and I encouraged him not to take another but to leave space for playing more music.  At the same time I was offered a part-time job from God.  We took the job from God (and the unemployment) and have been pursuing that which gives us life over that which gives us money ever since. 

I call it The Johnson Family Adventure… but I could rename it the Johnson Family in Wonderland.  More times than not I find myself catching glimpses of incredible things… beautiful, life-giving moments… and I think it all means something.  I chase the white rabbit for a spell before it inevitably evades me, and I go back to wondering around waiting for the next moment to come along. 

Despite the life-giving moments, there have been moments of struggle that have been so intense they have nearly derailed us entirely.  Doing what you love is great but barely scraping by wares on you.  Multiple times we have chided ourselves for not praying through our struggles and not trusting God enough.   We have fought hard to refuse the thinking that God is as boring and status quo as the rest of the world.  It's tempting to think that He too wants us to conform and spend our lives stuck in a lifeless routine for a meaningless paycheck that represents the promise of safety and security...but I know better.

The majority of the decisions I have made in my life have had nothing to do with a paycheck, but more with purpose in mind.  On the outside it looks like I could have made a few senseless choices here and there…traveling to Seattle for college at a private school (we’ll be making minimum payments on my loans for the next 20 years)…choosing to say yes to a business venture in Alaska (at least we broke even on this one!)…choosing to become a mom before I even graduated from college (thus we’ve always lived on a single income)…and here I am again, encouraging my husband to invest in his musical talents and to not worry about getting a full-time job at the moment. 

Though we have always struggled to get our heads above water and be able to provide for more than just the bare minimum, we have found such adventure in our lives.  Managing the only gas station in a largely red-neck town in Alaska is chock-full of stories.  Choosing to have children in the midst of this business venture was an interesting choice and one that I later had to admit was bad timing.  God turned this business venture into a catalyst that would wreck us as people and threaten to end our marriage.  Our four years in Alaska were like a pressure cooker where all of our impurities were painfully brought to the surface.  God didn’t hide our eyes from them and in fact seemed to force us to look at them.  It’s so much easier to see the flaws in your spouse than it is to see the flaws in yourself.  God can be quite relentless in his desire to refine his children.  After four years and two kids in Alaska, we entered what I call our “recovery mode” in Indiana.  For over 2 years God whittled away at our souls by means of an incredible church with counseling and programs.  We were both being torn apart as people and it was such a painful process…but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.  God used every shred of our pain and discomfort to change us at the core.  He was absolutely relentless with us… and the ends certainly justified the means. 

Out of that phase came music…songs that still make me flinch when I hear them, like Growing Old at Home because they are so laced with the emotions of that time.   Jeremy began writing Loves Like Holding Guns and The Only Cure, and then left them undone for months.  He was literally painting the picture of our current life, and there was no conclusion for a while.  I was just hoping the songs wouldn’t end proclaiming our ultimate defeat. 

I learned through our struggles and personal train wreck that God is so much more out-of-the-box that I ever thought.  There is much more grace and freedom within Him than rules and expectations.  I realized that it was me who was the one always putting expectations on others and myself… God didn’t ask me to act fake on the outside while I was dying on the inside.  I was the one who put myself up to that insurmountable task. 

The past year as we have explored the “The Johnson Family Adventure” it’s been a challenge to embrace the plow we have put our hand to.  It looks kind of unstable from the outside…me working between 20 and 40 hours a week for a non-profit, my homebased business and the YMCA, and Jeremy making ends meet though side jobs and music. 

As unstable as it may seem, there’s a large amount of ripe fruit that ebb and flow in between Safe Families and music.  Some days I play the roles of social worker by day, groupie by night.   There is nothing like being unraveled by the complexities others face in their daily life.   I am always recognizing the fact that we as people have all been dealt a bad hand in life in one way or another, and that God…regardless of where we have been and what we might be facing, always gives us a path out of our mess if we want it.  I love that Jeremy’s music reflects our own struggles with life and sends a message that matters.  I am one that feels rich when I get to live these moments that hold something eternal in them.  

My hope is that we will continue to catch a glimpse of our white rabbit and find moments where life fully exists and eternal matters are at hand….and that we might allow ourselves to be fully seen and refined by the One who knows us better than ourselves…and that we might have the courage to follow the Eternal, wherever it may find us.  

May the Adventure continue in 2014!