From the Archives of Alaska...

This blog is a Memoir I wrote for an English class a few years ago.  It speaks of both the dysfunction and adventure that comprised our first years of marriage.  I hope you are more inclined to relate than to judge; relationships can be difficult.  Enjoy.

I can’t approach him.  I can’t even look him in the eye.  He’s so mad there are tears in his eyes.  He picks up the jack and the remnants of the blown tire.  The kids are calm by now; I nurse Sam and get Addi settled back in her car seat.  Our dog, Tok, runs up out of nowhere and jumps back in the truck.   I squeak out a shameful, “I’m sorry.”  I know my presence is not welcome yet, so I turn and get back in the car and wait.

When we had exited the restaurant two hours previously, I was livid. “I’m riding with my Dad.  You can drive the kids by yourself.  Sam’s been fed, and Addi needs a nap.”  Not waiting for his response, I close the passenger side door to our truck and get in the car with my Dad.  He is driving my Isuzu Rodeo down the Alaska Highway for me.  We are moving from Alaska back to the Lower 48. 

We had stopped for lunch about 300 miles north of Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory.  We would spend the night in Whitehorse, and that day was supposed to be our easiest day of driving.  The Alaska Highway, on that stretch, would be at sea level; winding and beautiful, devoid of snow and ice.  In late October, this was the only stretch of the Highway where we would be driving on bare cement.  We had spent the majority of our lunch break arguing in our car in the parking lot.  Mostly I cried, while my husband stared at me with a hardened, unsympathetic look on his face. 

We used to love each other.  On our way to up Alaska, four years ago, we loved each other.  In a few days we would arrive at Cache Creek, British Columbia, where we spent the first night of our trip in early October 2003.  I remember we had driven about 18 hours that day and arrived at our hotel room exhausted and travel weary.  Back then we could laugh about the ways in which we failed each other.  That evening at the hotel, Jeremy had discovered that the entirety of his rear-end felt slimy to the touch for some odd reason.  I remembered, and then confessed, that I had sprinkled detergent on a load of clothes and neglected to start the washing machine earlier that day.  I gently folded the dirty clothes and placed them back into our bags, as though no one would notice.  My unsuspecting husband then chose the detergent-soaked boxers to wear the morning of our trip.  He had laughed about sliding around on the toilet seat at a rest stop; I laughed too.

I get in my Rodeo with my Dad.  I let him drive.  We take off and my eyes continually glance in the side-view mirror at the white GMC pick-up that is carrying everything that really matters in my life, one husband and two children ages 2 1/2 years and 5 months, and dragging behind it a small U-Haul trailer with everything we owned. 

Our time in Alaska, aside from making a few close friends, had been mostly a disaster.  We moved there straight out of college to embark on a business venture spurred by my husband’s business-savvy family members. My husband’s dad, grandpa and great-uncle wanted to put Jeremy’s brand new business management degree to use and wondered if we would be willing to move to Alaska for five years to run a gas station/convenient store.  We could manage it together, so they thought, be part owners with them, and in five years sell it and go home with cash in our pockets and a step up in life.  Phrases like “put your time in early” and “work hard now, relax later” were thrown around.  Without much debate, we said yes: Jeremy in an attempt to prove to his dad he wasn’t a failure, and me because I was pretending to be submissive.  So with a chip on my shoulder and a weight on my husband’s back, we moved to Wasilla, Alaska.  We had been married for one year.

The Superstore, as it was called, contained many surprises in and of itself.  Within the first week of owning it, there was a false attempted armed robbery.  False because the guy was using a paint ball gun.  It only took two weeks for me to realize that there would be no “working together”… not if we were planning on staying married.  My husband’s surely talented and a very hard worker, but he has his own way of doing things.  One day, he decided it was time to start remodeling the kitchen.  He ripped out the counter tops and sink all in one afternoon, chucking the old hardware on the front porch, where it stayed for the next 4+ weeks.  We then found out the new sink and counter tops were on back order, 3 weeks out at least.  So for the remainder of the time I washed all of our dishes in the bathtub when showering, and made meals on top of open drawers, while toting around my first very large pregnant belly.

So we made an agreement in regards to running the business:  I would help out by doing the “deposits”.  I counted the revenue from the Big Lake Superstore every day, and deposited it at the bank.  Some days, I couldn’t do the deposits, like on the days I was giving birth.  On this day, Jeremy brought the deposits to the hospital and counted thousands of dollars on the small coffee table in our birthing room, while I sat adjacent to him, rocking and moaning in pain, preparing to give birth to our second child.  It was comical and awkward and I think the nurses thought he was a drug-dealer.  

My husband worked practically around the clock.  With seven employees, the superstore wasn’t large enough to warrant hiring an assistant manager.  So he filled the role of owner, manager, human resources personnel, payroll/bookkeeper, and handyman.   His job was exhausting and his ears became attune to the sound of the phone ringing late at night.  Sometimes he’d work a full day and then end up working the night shift when an employee would call in last minute.  He had to fire two employees for stealing money out of the vault, and another for stealing food.  He also had to come home to a wife who was unsympathetic to his work schedule, frustrated when he came home late for dinner and angry when he didn’t answer his phone, or help out enough with the kids.

I talked him into starting our family mostly for spite, but also out of sheer boredom.  A few weeks before this conversation, my mother-in-law had come up for a visit.  She heard us talking about having kids and strongly suggested that we wait, since we were running the store and all.  I thought she was giving unwelcome advice.  Soon after that visit we got pregnant. 

Turns out my mother-in-law knew what she was talking about.  It is not wise to have children when you’re running a brand new business and your husband isn’t entirely ready.  He even said as much when I asked him about having a baby: “No, I like our time together.  I want to wait.”  My naïve response was: “We’ll still have time together!  Plus, a baby will make our love for each other grow!”

It didn’t help that pregnancy for me was a cry for help.  I had wild fantasies of my husband running to open doors for me and swooping large bags of groceries out of my hands.  Those fantasies never materialized and nine months later we had a tiny colicky baby girl with a will that was stronger than mine.  She screamed at me when I didn’t feed her quick enough, woke up wailing at least three times every night for the first year of her life, spit up buckets of baby barf around the clock, and would be pacified by nothing besides pure exhaustion.  She ate up all the goodness in me in no time.

Things had declined quickly for us, and now we were five years, 2 kids, and 1 dog deep into marriage, having months earlier gone through the worst turmoil of our married life thus far.  Things got bad enough that we finally called a marital counselor.  He told my husband he fit the ADD profile like a glove.  A common diagnosis nowadays, but to us, it was surprising to hear.  In a way, it was really handy having an un-medicated ADD husband around.  He was a super easy target.
 

For example, I usually showed up to my Bible study late.  Not like 10 minutes late, but like 45 minutes late.  This, you see, could easily be blamed on Jeremy.  He would have done something like leave for work later that I expected, and return to the house two more times for his wallet and phone before actually leaving.  Therefore Addi’s breakfast and my shower were delayed, therefore I couldn’t find my pants, therefore I was late to Bible study and it was all his fault.  Same thing with yoga class.  Didn’t matter what time it started, I was always late and it was always his fault. 

There wasn’t much, really, that anyone could prove was my fault.  I had an imaginary neat and tidy file, you see, completely organized with my good deeds alphabetized from front to back.  Bible read today? Check!  Homemade dinner most evenings? Check! House picked up and kids cared for? Check! Smile on Sunday morning? Check! Volunteer at church? Check!  I was keeping track, just in case anything ever went wrong; just in case God or anyone was wondering where to point the finger when things fell apart.

Obviously, this time, as we sat in the car and argued, it wasn’t my fault either.  He hated me again for not being sympathetic.  I hated him again for being weak.  Once I’m riding with my Dad, I try to talk to him about our marital troubles, try to explain the type of personality my husband has: smart, definitely talented, but backwards, teetering on the edge of laziness but always getting his work done on his own time, forgetful, late.  

I could've counted on two hands the number of times Jeremy had gotten a phone call from the Superstore on Tuesday morning that went something like this: “Um, Jeremy?  Yeah, this is Mary.  We was just wondering if you were gonna pay us today.  This my only day off and I got to get to the grocery.”  Jeremy: “Oh crap, is it Tuesday already?  Sorry Mary, I’ll be down in a few.”  

My dad is trying to understand as I explain things to him, the forgetfulness and the unpreparedness for life in general.  Thank God Jeremy had me around, to hold all the loose ends together. 

We are speeding along, enjoying the crystal clear Yukon sky and dry pavement.  I look again in the side view mirror for the headlights of the white pick-up.  Jeremy and the kids have fallen behind, but how far?  When was the last time we saw him behind us?  Was it 10 minutes ago or 30?  We don’t remember.  We drive on, but slower, expecting his headlights to come up from behind.

They don’t come. 

We pull over and wait another 10 minutes.  Still nothing.  Did he pass us?  Could he be in Whitehorse already?  Or is he behind us?  Or did something happen?  We look at the clock and realize it has been at least 35 minutes since we saw him last.  Suddenly I am nervous and feeling embarrassed about the subject of our conversation.  I know that Sam will be getting hungry soon.  Still we don’t know: is he ahead or behind?  Our cell phones have zero reception. 

We decide to flag down a passing car to ask if he has seen a white truck and trailer.  Nope, nothing.  In a few minutes, we flag the next passing car.  He doesn’t stop.  We decide to try one more.  He stops.  Yes, a white truck and trailer, pulled over on the side of the road, about 30 minutes back.  We say thank you and drive 90 mph I the opposite direction.
                                                         

I find my sweet, beloved husband.  He has just finished changing the busted tire on our trailer.   It had blown over an hour ago.  When the tire blew it popped so loud it woke my sleeping children and they start to cry.  Addi is consoled by her daddy; he has let her out of the car to help him change the flat on the side of the Alaska Highway somewhere in the Yukon Territory.  Sam cries for me, no screams.  Our dog, Tok, gets out to roam.  He doesn’t come back.  The jack we have doesn’t fit the trailer.  Jeremy has to take our two year old into the woods and find a stick to leverage the trailer up high enough so the jack will fit.  Sam is in the car, hysterical for me.  Our dog still doesn’t come back and Jeremy sees a wolf in the road ½ mile down.  There are no other cars.  He puts on the spare, Addi is helping, Sam is screaming, and our Schnauzer has heard the Call of the Wild.  I am not there.  I did not notice he was missing.  I am too busy telling my dad about my husband’s forgetfulness and ADD.  

Our home in Wasilla

Our sassy daughter and brand new son, both born in AK

Me and almost Sam in our finished kitchen!

Enjoying a day hike with Addi and the incredible beauty of Alaska

Why I didn't want to post that picture...

I sit here. I'm at "History on Tap" at Conner Prairie.   Watching him, my husband, sing songs that make hearts happy.  They build the giddy emotion the swells in the air. I sip a raspberry beer and watch him from my own lonely table.  I snap a picture and consider posting it via Instagram. But I don't. I can't. It would make things look too happy, more content than they actually are.

I cried 4 times today and the truest part of me doesn't want to paint the picture rosier than it is in reality.  Today we signed our kids up for public school and mourned the reality that we can't afford to keep them in their sweet homeschool-school. I love this place dearly, the teachers love my kids and when Addi lost her guinea pig this year, she tells me, "Mrs Tuttle (Sam's teacher) really understands. She prayed for me."  But we have to let that go because we can't afford the tuition, nor can we afford the brazen pre-pubescent attitude our miniature 9 year old is exhibiting these days. I'm approaching a year at East Elementary as if it'll be a year at Military School.

Nevermind the fact that NOT homeschooling works against any travel-music plans we'd like to hatch.  Hence the 2nd reason I cried today. He (the one I watch singing) actually made mention of traveling without us. It might have been a short mention and he might have back tracked after we sat down and really talked about it but still he said it and that was enough to bring the tears.  We also discussed the fact that we had zero dollars and zero cents in our bank account and our gas light was on and that didn't help things either.

Then I got an email and that was the 3rd time I cried and it was only 1:00. Safe Families is my life and breath right now. It's taking all of me to invest in the families, the children, the host families, outreach to other organizations and churches...and then there's fundraising. If I ever want to be more than a 1 man show here I'm gonna have to raise enough money to hire someone.  So when I got an email saying that we had been denied even making the top 3 spots vying for a $10,000 Grant, I obviously cried for the third time.

Even though the success of fundraising is at a low right now, there are bigger successes I see with this work. Successes that could easily be missed by untrained heart and despite this disappointment the work is worth the effort. I have a mom right now who works from 3pm until 11pm 7 days a week. Safe Families keeps her kids on the weekends so she can work overtime.  She picks them up at midnight at a 24 hour daycare and takes them home attempting to get 5 kids back to bed at 1 am. She doesn't complain a bit and although these kids have been through trauma in the past they are receiving love and stability with our host families. Their mom calls these families who are helping her get on her feet a "gift from heaven" because she knows that without them she'd have lost her job already.  They love the kids AND her and it's making a difference.

 A few weeks ago this mom texted me after she got a flat tire on the interstate. It was pouring down rain and an intern and I went to her rescue, picked up the kids and drove them into daycare. The mom wanted to stay with the car until the tow truck came, "he should be here in an hour.  I already called him and my friends' getting me after work."  I left her in the car, in the rain, on the side of 69 hoping she was right.

Eight hours later she was still there. Her friend didn't answer and the tow truck never made it. I pulled up at 9:30 pm and her ordeal had begun at 1:00. The tow truck finally came at the same time I did.

I can't imagine being stuck on the side of the road for 8 hours. When I get myself in a jam, I have my gracious mom who let's my kids come over anytime our schedules don't match up exactly right, or invites us over to for dinner if our day was too crammed to make anything. I have a husband who would never let me sit on the side of the road alone for 8 hours. The loneliness of some people's lives' makes me sad.

When you look at it this way, it makes it more difficult to judge them for spending too much money on a pair of name brand shoes for their kids, or blowing too much money at McDonald's or Walmart. You'd kind of have to give yourself a break every now and then when you know your never going to get to go on vacation and when you don't have a mom that will invite your family over to eat on a day and you planned poorly.

Which brings me to my next meltdown of the day. My parents house is no longer my parents house. The house we moved into when I was in 7th grade and the house my kids have walked to almost everyday for a push pop or to play in the yard or the sand box for the past 5 years now belongs to someone else. This one isn't going to be easy for us and that's why I cried for the 4th time, but I know I'll cry about that one more than once over this one.  

Having them and that house nearby is the only way we were all able to pitch in and help "our" mom with 4 kids when she reached out to me practically out of the blue. Our communal meals were eaten at the table, and over the years we've had countless family BBQ's, birthday parties and the occasional overnights just because.

All I know is that it STINKS to be the one left behind. I'm sure there will be some positive things that come from it on down the road but today it just makes the day that much more bitter.

So posting that picture just feels like a stretch right now.  

 Jeremy and I are at the end of our fingertips.  We have invested heavily in things we believe in; Safe Families, his music, homeschooling our kids, even my Shaklee business is a part of our bigger plan.  We have scraped by for over a year but are becoming exhausted and realizing that another year of scraping is going to be too much. God is going to have to show us what's next because today, I'm having a hard time with all the closed doors.

Two World's Collide

Today was just like any other day.  I take myself from the land of the living into the land of the struggling.

I sat in my car arranging and warming myself before taking off for another day of visiting with children, parents, and their safe families.  I paused as I watched a somewhat large SUV pull up in front on my neighbor’s house.   A mother probably about my age hopped out of the vehicle and gently pulled her young son out of the back, carefully holding his hand as they walked over the ice.   Their world seemed so … together and appropriate.  The way it should be. 

This woman could have been me any day.  I love my kids with an unconditional love and I don’t want them to fall on the ice either. 

I finish situating myself and start my drive.  I text the young Mom I’m meeting, because I’ll be late… again. 

I try to play music from my ipod, but in the process I accidently find K-Love.  A song is playing,

“Give me your eyes for just one second.  Give me your eyes so I can see.  Everything that I keep missing, give me your love for humanity.  Give me your arms for the broken hearted.  Those that are far beyond my reach.  Give me your heart for the one’s forgotten, Give me your eyes so I can see.”

It makes me tear up as I’m trying to finish up my mascara before pulling into the young moms drive way. 

But I’m not sure where the tears come from.

Maybe because I know so many of us live in the land of safety and security never realizing the world of struggle happening right down the street.

Or maybe that’s not really it.  Maybe the picture of the mom holding her son’s hand as they walked carefully over the ice sat in stark contrast to the mom I was about to pick up.  She too held her son’s hand as he trudged through the snow.  One mom walks to her friend’s house; warm and full of life, for a play date perhaps.  Another mom walks out of her house that has no heat and puts her two year old in the back of my car with a heavy heart.   We’re going to meet the family that will keep her son for a month while she job hunts and tries to find daycare for her boys.

I ask about her family.  They don’t help her.  They won’t babysit for her boys.  The dad is out of the picture.  She can’t work without daycare or putting her boys in the hands of people she doesn’t trust.

Same ol’ story really.  But it’s a sad one.  Simply put:  she has no one.

       ***********************************************

When we sign paperwork for placing children in Safe Families, the biological parent has to choose a person to release their child to in the event that something would happen to them during placement.  A close family member, a parent, an aunt, etc. 

Do you know how many blank looks I get when they come to this part?  They hover the pen above the line.  They look up and scratch their chin.  They put the pen down.  They say, “um, I’m gonna come back to that one.”

They don’t have anyone. 

I tell them they have to choose someone. 

They write down a neighbor.  An estranged relative.

It always breaks my heart.

Sometimes I try and talk myself through it.  I tell myself that maybe it’s their fault they don’t have anyone.  Maybe they’ve made bad choices and pushed people away, and maybe I don’t need to feel bad for them.

My next thought reminds me that maybe I’ve made bad choices and pushed people away.   I was a hard working selfish athlete in High School.  I took diet pills and punched my Mom in the arm one day.  I judged people who didn’t look presentable and stayed away from them.  I sometimes told lies to my parents and made bad choices and pushed people away.

But those people still love me, they still care for me, and they still help me when I need it.  

      ********************************************************* 

There’s a dad who’s placed his kids’ with Safe Families, and I’ve grown particularly fond of him.  He’s changing the trajectory of his life and his kids’ lives, because he doesn’t want them to grow up the way he did.

 “My parent’s really didn’t seem to care about what I did.   If I would have had someone pointing me in the right direction, or telling me that I shouldn’t do certain things, I mean… I would have listened.”

I wondered if this was true but he went on.

“I ran cross country, and I was good.  I loved running and I’d run for miles.  My dad came to one meet.  One.  I was best in the county and he came to one meet.  I was a different person during cross-country season.  But then when it was over, I just went back to being, ya know, greasy or whatever.”

My heart sinks.  This is sad.  I picture him crossing a finish line and no one is there to see it.  I marvel to myself that not one person in his school or life outside took the opportunity to pour into him.  My head nods slightly, and I keep listening.

“Sometimes, even when it wasn’t season, I just used to take off running.  I’d run for miles and miles and miles, and I didn’t even know why.  And then when I’d stop, I’d just start crying.  Because nobody knew and nobody cared.”

In my head, I see a skinny kid in high school running like Forrest Gump.  As incomplete as that moment seems in my head, I think, someone did see him.  I think Someone saw him, and Someone remembered him.

There’s a reason he’s in my car.  There’s also a reason his kids landed in top-notch safe family homes.  The type that were willing to pay for his son’s optometrist appointment out of pocket if they had to.  The type that agree to continue to keep the kids when a 30 day placement becomes 3 months.  The type that picked him up on Christmas Day and made sure he had a chance to give presents to his kids, and they type that go out of their way to take him to church on Sunday.  

 The Almighty God saw him when he thought no one was looking, and now, through people, he’s receiving a selfless love from others that's every bit of divine.

But maybe God is parting the waters for him now because he’s done with his crooked life and because God is laying down a straight path from him to follow.  Maybe God is about redeeming and restoring people after all, and maybe he likes to use people to show His love.  

Maybe the song on K-Love made me tear up because…sometimes I get this odd sensation that I get to see things from a certain vantage point that others don’t, and maybe I’m supposed to share their stories, so we can all get to know each other a little better.  Since we’re neighbors living world’s apart.

These worlds.  They collide and they run straight into mine.  I feel, I should give others the opportunity to see what I see more often.

January 29, 2014

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!

The Boy That Changed Our Lives

Posted by: wearehome in We Are Madison County: Community & Family June 13, 2013 0 371 Views

Has your heart ever been torn to shreds after reading a tragic news story about a child who suffered because there weren’t enough people who cared? Have you ever wished there was something you could do about it?

Here at We Are Madison County, we’re all about stories. I’m going to tell you a story about how a tragic story broke our hearts in such a way that it would change our actions.

Quite a few years back, when my husband still had a desk job, he managed to pass the hours by keeping up on current news stories. My husband has a bit of a bleeding heart, and many times he would come home and share a particularly difficult story that would cause us both to lower our eyes in despair because there was simply nothing to say. There was one story in particular about a boy named Robert that left a mark on both of our hearts.

The story was tragic. Robert, 7, had been court mandated to have visitation with his mother, although his father had fought hard for full custody. On one of his mandatory weekend visits, he was so severely beaten by his mother’s boyfriend that Robert died. My husband read about his kind disposition and how he was known to be a sweet child who always gave his teachers lots of hugs. His little face even reminded him of our own son.

This story broke my husband in a way I hadn’t seen before; it was the icing on the cake for him. We had struggled through quite a few other tragedies in our life, but for some reason this little boy did him in. I could see the depression sink in as he struggled to reconcile the tragic reality of our world with his faith.

This little boy left a spot on our souls. His story left us with the feeling that living this life for the pursuit of the almighty dollar or even for just ourselves wasn’t enough. Something in us changed.

A few years passed by. Last summer I offered to let my neighbor’s daughter come over to hang with us while her dad worked. She liked our house so I let my neighbor know she was always welcome. Eventually the little girl started coming over with her cousin. I could tell things weren’t very stable with the little girl’s cousin and she would say things like, “I think my house is a hotel…” I didn’t ask many questions, but let my neighbor know the girls were welcome anytime for as long as they needed to stay.

The girls would spend the night and even stay for 2 or 3 days at a time. My husband—remarkably—was ok with this. He was patient with these girls, loving and kind. We happened to be in the middle of a huge bathroom tear-out and when the cousin became curious, following him around the house as he worked hard on completing our bathroom project, I was blown away by his patience and willingness to even allow her to help him. He didn’t know what her life was like at home, why she was living in a hotel, or if she had a daddy or not. But he showed kindness to the young strangers in our home that summer.

Little did we know that allowing a few neighbor girls to spend time with us was laying the foundation for something bigger to happen. We were being prepared for the moment when the mother of our neighbor’s cousin would call us because she was at the end of her rope and thought perhaps we could be of some help. We were being prepared for becoming a Safe Family so that we could provide a temporary home for the little girl (and her younger brother), who had been living in a hotel while their mother worked hard to get back on her feet. It was our opportunity to act, to do something about all those tragic news stories.

Right now, in Madison County, there are kids who are on the brink of abuse and neglect because their parents are in crisis. Maybe their parents can’t find work. Maybe they were evicted. Maybe there is no one they can depend on.

Safe Families for Children helps families that are in crisis. This incredibly unique program actually allows the parents to voluntarily place their children in the home of a “safe family” while they work to get back on their feet without falling into the hands of the system.

Here in Madison County we have a handful of incredible host families. They are some of the most gracious and kind people I have ever met… and we need more. Many of our placements are short term but life changing. Additionally, we will receive funding from the Department of Child Services for each family processed in June. If there has been a knock on the door of you heart, please consider stepping up to assist a child in need.

You never know how your life might be changed when we choose to open our hearts and our homes to a child who is in need.

For more information go to INsafefamilies.org or email Emma at ejohnson@safe-families.org