to leone...

my grandma leone passed away last night. after about a year and a half of dementia induced suffering, a fall in the middle of last night turned into a brain hemmorhage. she went to be with jesus. she suffers no more. the evil that surrounded her tender aging brain and that overtook her is now reconciled to the One who called her home. the prolongued grief that my mother and her two sisters endured as they watched their mother slip away is finally over. the actual grief now begins as we embrace each other and embrace her memory...

sorrow is never easy, even when you know the person's soul is at rest with our Savior.

"when all around is flailing
and nothing seems to last
when each day is filled with sorrow
still i know with all my heart

He's got the whole world in His hands
i fear no evil for You are with me
strong to deliver, mighty to save
He's got the whole world in His hands

when i walk thru fire
i will not be burned
when the waves come crashing 'round me
still i know with all my heart

He's got the whole world in His hands
i fear no evil for You are with me
strong to deliver, mighty to save
He's got the whole world in His hands

i know that He's got the whole world in His hands
i believe, i believe...
the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night
He's got the whole world in His hands
he will watch over your coming and your going
because i know He's got the whole world in His hands
strength for today, bright hope for tomorrow
He's got the whole world in His hands" - t.h.

help me not forget

"when the air comes in at night
it almost seems to call out Your Name
when it's dark out, when it's light
the seasons change but Your Love remains

there's a blue sky, it's got Your Name on it
when the sun shines, it's got Your Name on it
even this heart of mine, it's got Your Name on it
so i never will forget You

when the leaves fall past my knees
reminds me that i can't live without You
something You are
changes me into something I want to be

never could remember names
always seem to forget a face
but if my memory of You should fade
all i have to do is look up, up...

there's a blue sky, it's got Your Name on it
when the sun shines, it's got Your Name on it
even this heart of mine, it's got Your Name on it
so i never will forget You"

the work of church

working at a church can be confusing. it can rip you apart. it pries you open and forces you to ask the question "am i really following Jesus in this meeting, or in this strategic plan, or in this restructuring..." you hope against all reality that you are, and that you are looking more like Him in your everyday-ness of life. but sometimes the hope of that seems bleaker than the reality of days filled with meetings and formulas.

yet i feel called to be here. and i know i have fight in me. a joan of arc. a warrior daughter. a deborah walking into the tent, sword drawn, piercing the unknown until what remains is the luminescent face of my King, illuminating me to shine forth His truth. His bride is beautiful and worth fighting for.

so i look for some help and hope elsewhere. i look in a hymnal. ahh, there it is...

"o Love that will not let me go
i rest my weary soul in Thee
i give back to You this life I have
that in the roar of Your waterfall
it's flow may ever fuller be

o Light that illumines all my way
i yield my fainting torch to Thee
my heart resigns its borrowed ray
that in the blaze of Your Sonlight
it's flame may brighter be

o Joy that seeks after me through pain
i cannot close my heart to Thee
i trace the suns rays thru the clouds
i know Your promise is not vain
that the morn shall tearless be

o Thy Cross that lifts up my head
i dare not ask to fly from Thee
i lay in dust, life's glory dead
and from the ground there blossoms
a life birthed from hope in Thee"

a daughter of the church, what jan bros will leave in me...

"i think it is the next revival - or re-formation - of the church. it is like a stream of water gathering momentum from the ancient soils of the past, moving, gaining energy and volume as it pushes to the sea. it is the beginning of an answer to john 17, a whisper of possibility.

i have been reading a lot of church history lately. god is leading me backwards to again discover how he has worked throughout the ages. there are patterns of movement throughout time we can learn from. god is always calling his church forward, clothing it, readying it for himself. it is all interconnected because christ is the center of his church.

my hope and prayer is that we can contine to hear and follow god at this time... that fear and arrogance will not keep us from the next thing.

open door as we know it grew because of a violent turnover of an old regine. i pray we can make a way that gently carves a path for the new to come.

i believe we are in a seaon of gestation, secret and quiet, waiting for the 'babe' to be born. as in the natural, care for the 'mom' is important. good food, excercise, hopeful preparation and expectation is the call of the day.

time will tell what is gestating among us. prayerful attentiveness is of utmost importance. watch and wait. god is moving. his ways are not our ways.

passing the hope on..."

-a foreshadowing of sorts, written by jan bros in the fall of '04.

jan, may you find your voice in the stream of living water that you have chosen, and may your voice resonate profoundly in the hearts of young leaders looking for a reason to hope. may you follow the voices of the ancients to lead the way towards the future. may all that you have planted here grow in strength and anxious anticipation. and may we never forget all that you birthed and loved here.

like the godfather says "go to the mattresses"

i need to take a poll, and i need your help.

i am full of knots in my upper shoulders and lower back. and my neck is so stiff that i have to turn my whole upper body to look out my car windows in order to pass anyone on the highway. this is, as of late (past two years) typically the case for me. being a woman i carry a majority of 'stress' in my upper back and shoulders. and since the lord blessed me with favorably sized frontal cantelopes, it doesn't make the matter any better.

usually andy stella (read: chiropractor with angels wings which he hides under his ralph lauren polo) comes to my aid. however, with fundage being at an all time low in the malette household and insurance not covering any of my chiropractic problems, my visits to him are infrequent.

now, whilst in the boundary waters, i carried a 40 lb. pack, sometimes a 55 lb. pack, paddled hard against wind, and slept on bumpy ground... all things that involve my upper back and neck. and guess what, no pain. my neck was flexible as a wet worm on a pavement after the rain. my upper back was knot-free, as knot-free as a piece of floured-and-pressed pizza dough.

so, who do we blame now for my miserable state of affairs? my love affair with wheat? (andy stella has a theory that wheat products may be causing my pains. i, for one, don't buy it... mostly because i'm not ready to relinquish my affair with carbohydrates). so could it be stress? i don't think so, because i have always lived a stressed life, even in college. i never had neck or upper back quandries back then.

that leads me to believe that it is our effing mattress. i believe we paid $89 for it our first year of marriage. it is a 'pioneer' (i know, i've never heard of that brand either), and we do not have a box spring. but supposedly, our IKEA bed frame does not require a box spring. i no longer buy that theory. or any other theory for that matter.

so, my plan is to start a pay-pal proram on my blog and all ya'll can contribute some money towards the buy-the-malette's-a-new-effing-mattress fund.

don't mess with gunflint lake

i am back. back from where? you might ask. back from our four day boundary waters excursion.. our route was classified by cliff jacobson (self-proclaimed boundary waters 'expert') as an easy four-day route, with peaceful meanderings along the granite river, which opens to some beautiful lakes and lovely portage trails around scenic waterfalls.

our first day, we spent a lofty four hours just trying to get TO our entry point of magnetic lake by paddling across gunflint lake. paddling across gunflint in the waves that day proved to be quite eventful and unsafe. after a capsized canoe and a few verbal fist fights, we decided to take the more scenic shore route around the lake shore. longer, but safer. we finally entered magnetic lake expecting some peace on a smaller body of water, only to encounter more effing wind, and more effing waves. we finally made it across magnetic lake and entered the granite river. and yes, it was peaceful meandering for a good few hours. everything was going well until we got lost at a place where the river split into three channels. our effing map, which turned out to not be for "navigational use" did not tell us which of the three channels to take. after trying all three narrow and shallow channels, we finally found the hard-to-see 45 rod portage and did the portage only to discover at the end that every campsite on that lake was taken. my panic starts to set in, as the sun is setting and we're all getting increasingly tired and hungry and hot. so we paddle on, and we portage on, and we paddle on, and we portage on, 110 rods, to clove lake and find a campsite. all is well. we enjoy a dinner of chicken, stuffing and gravy, and a good nights rest.

friday was beautiful. we packed up camp and headed north on the granite river. that afternoon found us at the most beautiful campsite god ever made, on a portion of the river called 'devils elbow'. the site was up on the high rock bluff, with very deep water for marvelous jumping. the fire pit faced westward over the lake, perfect for sunset gazing. we stayed up late that night laughing, talking, smoldering, and injesting northern lights.

saturday, we were spoiled again with marvelous weather. we paddled north thru horsetail rapids to saganaga falls where we swam in the falls and ate a lunch of jerky, cheese, bread and peanut butter. thinking the rest of our 2nd to last day would be easy, we lazily paddled north. once we turned west onto big saganaga lake, we got slapped in the face with 25 mph winds and 2-foot white caps. needless to say, more verbal fist fights ensued, but all were triumphant. i had a brief stint of heat-induced confusion (where am i? and why am i holding this paddle?), followed by much hydration and a swim. our final campsite proved to be what one might call the 'mall of america' for squirrels. they were quite active that night! so active, that they t.p.'d our latrine. i didn't know squirrels were capable of such things.

oh, and one other thing. the wilderness caught on fire one lake west of us. yeah.

all in all, we enjoyed a marvelous backwoods kitchen, we had many laughs around the campfires, we marvelled at the northern lights. it was a glorious trip. thanks for tuning in.