Going Home

 

March 8, 1970 – April 5, 2015

Brenda Marie Langlie went home to Jesus April 5, 2015, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

In September 2012, Brenda would accept a call to serve in her "dream job" as the Children's Ministry Director at her church to coordinate all those children's programs that she had actively served in. Just four months in service, she would be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Following that diagnosis, she would begin a journey looking for and finding God's grace and provision in the hardest and ugliest of times of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.

Brenda would spend the following months until February 2015, joyfully serving in ministry at home and church, while accepting her growing cancer as God's story for her life. All those who came in contact with Brenda, would be forever touched by her inviting, joyful personality, and her love for and trust in Jesus. It would be her kindness to all, faithfulness in ministry, and smiling face that would attract people to her and to Christ. She never hesitated in trust and faith in the author of her life's story.

As the cancer spread, Brenda courageously embraced it, with the goal of "not wasting it." It was in her trusting that she found grace. She believed in the sovereignty of God and that suffering was not an absence of grace, but an opportunity to go deeper into a relationship with the Lord and the family of God. While doing treatment and continuing to serve full time in ministry at Skyline, Brenda would receive an additional call to serve in the women's ministry. A handful of women would accept an invitation to become a part of the dreaded 6:30 a.m. study group. To their surprise, their study group would connect them through the study of sound doctrine of suffering bathed in the sovereignty of almighty God. The group became the highlight of her week and theirs. She didn't waste her cancer in solitude, but instead invested in deeper relationships, and living her journey in public to honor Christ. Brenda believed that her cancer was designed by and a gift from God. Cherishing and witnessing to the truth and glory of Christ was more important than beating the cancer.

Happy Easter!

New Camera!

I have a new camera. Perhaps, this will help me to become a reformed blogger... Perhaps...

(Mary and her friend, Moriah)

(Anna and her friend, Lindsay)

The One Thing

A sweet reader sent me an email asking what the One Thing in my "about me" is. My reply follows:

The One Thing is Jesus. Everything else pales in comparison to the importance of knowing Him, serving Him, following Him... being His. My responsibilities as wife, mother, friend, sister, employee, all need to be secondary to my love for Him. I have an older friend who says, "Don't sweat the small stuff... and it's ALL small stuff!" Everything but Jesus is temporary. Who I become in Him is eternal.

Such a good reminder for ME!!
Thank you for asking.

His,
Brenda

I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His suffering, becoming like Him in His death...
~Philippians 4:10

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
~I Corinthians 2:2

High Desert Museum

Over the Christmas holidays, we made a trip to the High Desert Museum, one of our favorite places. I took some pictures inside the Spirit of the West exhibit, where it's really dimly lit. So the pictures are not great, but the memories are bright and shiny!








See how I did that? Just blogged? I'll try to fill in some of the many things that happened in the months I was absent from this venue, but I'm mostly hoping to get back into the habit of sharing our "everydays."


Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. ~Psalm 145:2

Hello!

Hello, Bloggity World!
I have neglected you so...
forgive me?

Perhaps I can pop in here more often.
There is surely plenty to share!

Love,
Me

Family Camp

Our annual church Family Camp last weekend was the best ever for our family! We finally managed to last for two nights of camping and fun. It was great.

I'm amazed at how much our family is changing as the children get older. It's so much easier now to do things like camping than it has been for us in about ten years! I can see all kinds of new adventures opening up before us.

This year, we opted to let the big boys sleep in their own tent, next to ours, and the girlies were invited to share a tent with a couple of their best friends in the campsite next to ours. That left only Roger, Andrew, Micah and me in the big tent.

It was wonderful! We slept much better. Well... we slept... which was much better!

Roger was also kind enough to agree to keeping our menu super-simple, which allowed me to enjoy camping much more, rather than cooking and doing dishes all weekend. It worked out great!

We also joined forces with another family. My friend, Jeanine, who was in my high school youth group 25 years ago, and her son, Ike, camped near us and we shared food and fellowship. She is the BEST. I have never seen so many hot dogs and marshmallows in one place, outside a grocery store, before! We had a blast sitting by the fire together in the morning as everyone else slept. And SHE built the fires before I got up!

I really did have a wonderful, relaxing weekend.

I should have taken more pictures. I realized when I looked at them that I only really got one picture of Mary, for some reason. And it looks like this:

Which is, in fact, how the icy cold swimming hole made her feel. But it's a terrible picture! So I included these for her benefit:

Another terrible picture, but at least she's smiling, which she did almost the whole weekend! Here, she is chatting with friends while waiting for the evening service to start.

And this one:
Which is of the back of her cute, little head, while listening in the evening service... I guess I owe her a good photo shoot some time soon!


Noah is a master marshmallow roaster. And he usually shares the best ones with me! He's an amazing kid! He was able to enjoy LOTS of freedom at camp to go and hang out with his friends, but he stuck pretty close for the most part, because he's such a great kid!

The swimming proved to be too chilly for my swimming pool lovers. At least they played on the beach and they all gave it a try to some degree.
Micah LOVES playing in the water, but even he didn't get very wet in the river.
He did enjoy his buddy, Nathan, though. The family we camped next to has five adorable children. With us and with Jeanine and Ike, we made quite a conglomeration of little people!
This is NOT a great picture of Jeanine, and I blinded her terribly when I took it with a flash as we were sitting around the campfire in the dark. But I had to capture her snuggling my little one off to sleep as we were singing worship songs around the campfire on Saturday. Too sweet!
Daniel was the only one remotely brave enough to swim in the chilly water. We actually bribed him to swim across the river and jump off this old concrete foundation. I think he really enjoyed it... although he wouldn't have done it without "incentive."
Anna had a great time with her friends!
They made sand sculptures at the beach.
Andrew was born to camp. He LOVES playing outside and being dirty and eating junk food. He also managed to sleep until 10:00 both mornings, laying in a sleeping bag on the concrete pad where we pitched our tent. And he never once mentioned anything about it being uncomfortable. Ah, to be five again!
He also loved the swimming hole, although he shivered the entire time we were there, in spite of it being like 90 degrees outside.
None of this family fun would have been possible without my amazing man. Roger and I have loved camping together since the beginning. We are doing it very differently now than we did when it was just the two of us, but we are finding that we are entering a new phase of our family, in which camping may again become one of our favorite things to do.
I can't wait for next summer!!


..the LORD your God went ahead of you on your journey... to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go. ~Deuteronomy 1:32-33