#lovedoesadventures

[melissafurniss]

Hello, Pacific Ocean. It’s really, really nice to meet you. #BucketList #LoveDoesAdventures #TheCalifornians (at Windansea Beach)

[melissafurniss]

Today we said goodbye to our first house. In the last four years, we went from crying over fertility treatments in the living room to squealing over positive pregnancy tests in the bathroom... to bathing our babies in the kitchen sink! We’ve lost jobs, we’ve gained jobs, we’ve binge-watched The Office at least 12 times (that’s GOD’S WORK right there). All the memories—both wonderful and heart-wrenching—could never be encapsulated in one little post. But I’ll say this: though I leave my house, I do not leave my home. I’d live in a dumpster with my merry band of Furniss men. And one day soon, I’ll snuggle up under the covers with my Abba in Paradise. We can’t hold onto anything in this life with clenched fists. So together, we walk with open hands towards whatever God has for us next. (Until then, you can find us in my parents’ guest room. 😂) #LoveDoesAdventures #TeamFurnForever

[melissafurniss]

These two nerds had their first kid-free AND dog-free weekend in months (maybe years?), so we spent the night at a local tiny house community! It was a weekend of hiking, reading, watching The Big Sick (so funny, btw), and remembering how to be husband and wife again, not just mama and daddy. It was incredibly refreshing to laugh together. To watch the sun rise. To remember that the stuff of life isn't actually "stuff"-- it's God and people. It's rooting for each other. Making time for things that matter eternally. Stewarding our treasures vs. allowing our treasures to rule us. More of that, please, Lord. Give us the simple life. #LoveDoesAdventures (at Lake Walk Tiny Home Community)

[melissafurniss]

here at this table

I sit here today at our new kitchen table in our new home.

In truth, the table is from Craigslist and the kitchen was built in 1989. And yet, everything about this little house is so brand new to me. The walls, the floors, the sound Ellie’s little paws make slipping and sliding across said floors. But mostly, the responsibility overwhelms me. The echoes of our realtor saying, “Let’s go sign your life away!” three weeks ago. The first mortgage payment we will make in the days to come. Suddenly, in place of gratefulness… all I feel is fear.

I walk through the virtually empty rooms, praying and crying a little and listening to “Oceans” over and over… “Spirit, lead me where my trust is without borders; let me walk upon the waters wherever you would call me. Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander and my faith will be made stronger in the presence of my Savior.”

I can sing those words by memory because I’ve prayed them so often over these past six months. The months that felt like lost time… like wasted space. Like wanting fireworks but holding a single, burnt-out match.

“Spirit, lead me where my trust is without borders…”

And so I sit here, at this new-ish table in this new-ish home, choosing to look out onto our pretty backyard and say, “This is the day that the Lord has made” and find hope in those simple words. I cut up some strawberries—the sweetest-smelling strawberries I’ve ever had the honor to smell—and enjoy eating them in a beautiful little anthro bowl. I pull out my Bible for the first time in a while, adding up the chapters I lost in ‘Eat This Book’, trying to find a bookmark big enough to hold all the pages I need to catch up on. (Lately, it’s seemed as if my relationship with God was like shouting at a brick wall. Now I’m wondering if I’ve been the brick wall.) But before the guilt sinks in, I feel the Spirit say, “Do not fear. Do not feel shame. You’re here now, Melie… and I’ve been waiting for you.” And then I read the Word of God—words that seem just as new to me as this Craigslist coffee table and this 1989 kitchen—and I submit.

In place of the fearful, Sweet Jesus, usher in the thankful. In place of worrying about coffee tables, back decks, landscaping, and office furniture, remind me of these sweet-smelling strawberries in this cute, little bowl. The little pup that makes me laugh as she slides into the wall for the 100th time. The sacrificial husband who finishes his Masters this week, yet still made time to take me on a special, Tuesday-night date. The Savior who paid the ultimate price so that I could sit here at this table, free from sin, free from death, free from fear. You are the kindest comfort… the One Thing that remains when all else seems blurry and broken. How could I be anything but thankful?

  Now, you may read this and think, “Wow, Mel’s going through a hard time.” And yeah, you may be right. But also, I think this is just another day walking with the Lord. Another opportunity to cast my cares upon Him because He cares for me. Another moment to recognize when the enemy takes something beautiful (like the blessing of a new home) and tries to pervert it through fear and unbelief. Another day to trust that the God of Angel Armies is always on our side.

Another day to strive for rest, for joy, for shalom through the Word and my good, gentle, almighty Savior.

It’s all part of the process. And as I eat out of this new bowl at our new table in our new house, He is making me new. He is leading me where my trust is without borders. He is turning these simple moments of difficult faith and sweet-smelling strawberries into fireworks.

  And so today, I choose to whisper through the halls of this home, “This is the day that the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.”

    Mel’s Writing Playlist for 8.14.2013:

It Is Well With My Soul – Daniel Martin Moore

Oh Love that Will Not Let Me Go – Ascend the Hill

Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) – Hillsong United

Love Never Fails – Brandon Heath

Waiting Here for You – Passion (Christy Nockels)

Whom Shall I Fear (God of Angel Armies) - Passion

[melissafurniss]

Love Does Adventures

So, I don’t know what came over me this past year. Well, to be honest I do… His name is Bob Goff and his book is Love Does. MAN OH MAN, how this book changed my life. I had truly forgotten how to dream. How to live with abandon.

How to love with abandon.

The worst thing about growing up is how quickly you become cynical and practical. Having a “childlike spirit” seems like sacrilege, because you’re supposed to be thinking about down payments, 10-year plans, and the “real job” you’re going to get after the one you just got hired to do.

Well against all odds, as I read this book, I felt something shift in my heart… like I was a new moon and God was getting ready to bring me into the light, little by little. I distinctly remember hearing Him whisper—in a way that only a sweet, protective, all-knowing Dad can, “We’re only just getting started, Melie. I’ve got big plans.”

So off God and I went, on the amazing adventure called 2012. The irony is only hitting me now that the world was supposed to end that year—because in the craziest ways, 2012 was when I shook hands with the world for the first time in my life. 

Better luck next time, John Cusack.

Now when I talk about adventures with the Lord, the phrasing alone seems magical and “happily ever after”-ish, as if I got sprinkled with fairy dust and before I knew it, was flying hand in hand with Jesus past the London Eye or the Eiffel Tower.

Umm… Not so much.

Before the book, our year started with my sweet Jasper in the hospital. His anxiety hit an all-time high, so much so that we found ourselves pulled over on the side of I-95 as he shook and convulsed on a patch of grass next to our car. Terrified, I googled the nearest emergency room and off we went.

Being a wife and a woman, two things ran through my head as the love of my life laid in the next room, getting treated by doctors I never met.

One was—He’s so going to die. I CAN'T BELIEVE he's going to die. This isn't supposed to happen yet... I’m going to be a widow. My life, as I know it, is totally over.

The second was—Dang it, I’m the worst wife ever! The first thing I think of while my husband is suffering in the hospital is how his funeral arrangements just aren’t jiving with the life plan I laid out for myself. No wonder he has anxiety… I’m the WORST.

(I’d like to throw in a disclaimer here that I got married really young, so these thoughts are also a side effect of being an insecure, super-selfish, still-pretty-new-to-this-whole-marriage-thing little girl sitting at the grown-ups’ table. However, I’m still holding on hope that there is at least one other woman out there who is saying, “Mel, I totally get you! I’d be mentally picking out what outfit to wear to the funeral!!”

Wherever you are, strange, morbid lady… Thank you for existing.)

Jasper turned out to be okay, physically at least. The doctors gave him no definitive answers or medication that day, but simply told him that he had an anxiety attack and should slow down. See a doctor at home. Breathe. Seriously? I’m so glad they charged us $2300 to tell my husband to breathe. We’re still paying off that bill.

The next four or five months were undoubtedly the hardest season in our marriage. Jasper’s struggles with anxiety, fear, depression and shame were greater and more intrusive than I’d ever seen them before. I woke up every day knowing that my husband—my leader, my partner in crime—was hurting in a way that I couldn’t repair. I couldn’t heal his heart or say the perfect words to make the worry dissipate. All I could do was be there. Show up, hold him, pray for him, and be there.

In some ways, it was really beautiful to be that helpless. We both were forced to die to ourselves. To deal with our sin. To desperately cling to the hem of His garment every single day. Looking back, I see why God took us both through that season. Without it, Jasper and I would have gone our whole lives with our struggles, strange predispositions, and numbing insecurities at a nice, easy 30%. But the Lord, in His gracious (and sometimes KILLER) sovereignty, decided to crank up the heat, shining painful, searing light on our weaknesses until we were forced to deal with them. 110%.

Yeah, it hurt. Sometimes it hurt so badly, I thought that we had lost. That our marriage was over. That we were too far gone to be restored. But God saw us. And He proved Himself faithful yet again. I learned how truly, disgustingly selfish I am—how I placed my identity so much in being insecure, that by thinking so little of myself, I was actually thinking only of myself. Jasper learned how pervasively his parents’ divorce affected his heart. He was so scared to open up to the real stuff in life because he was afraid of becoming just like them—of one of us running away. (I could go into the nuances of how these lessons changed and re-shaped our walk together as husband and wife, but maybe I’ll go into all that later.)

 Consequently, we had no choice—we had to repent, learn, and love harder than we ever had before. It was painful in every way… but equally glorious.

Shauna Niequist talks about how, as husband and wife, we assume we become family when we say the vows, sign the certificate, or cut the cake. But in all honesty, “family gets made when you decide to hold hands and sit shoulder to shoulder when it seems like the sky is falling. Family gets made when the world becomes strange and disorienting, and the only face you recognize is his. Family gets made when the future obscures itself like a solar eclipse, and in the intervening darkness, you decide that no matter what happens in the night, you’ll face it as one.”

In this crippling, beautiful season, Jasper became my family. And he will continue to become my family for as long as we both shall live.

It’s no fairy dust, but it’s pretty dang adventurous.