On Election 2016

There was once a kind, well-meaning young man who asked me out on a date during my high school years.  I knew it was not meant to be when he couldn't find our driveway.  Now, many people had a hard time locating our driveway, but most eventually found it.  Not him.  He decided to just park at the mailbox and walk across the bridge over our irrigation canal.

This was my route to the bus, but not to a car.  So when he took me that way to his car and then took me to the local diner filled with smoke, where the server vacuumed near us all evening, I knew it was a no go.  Not on your life.  God bless you and keep you and don't call again.

I wish all things were that clear.  Today I find myself really struggling with our country and its choices both nationally and locally, and no articulate way to vocalize my deep concerns.

Right now I am that young man, trying to find the driveway, not sure where to park or where to go to eat.  But I won't settle for easy.  I'll keep looking till I find what's best.  It may take awhile, but there are many of us searching.  We will find each other and try again.  Or start something new.

It is a good country, and I am thankful to be an American.

2015 Before I Forget

 

Three things that define my 2015.

1.  I learned to like grapefruit.  

There is something really fun about finding a new food to savor.  That's why I waited so long, apparantly!

2.  I grew lemon verbena.

It's the sound of the name, the smell of the leaves, the sight of the delicate, viney plant with little white flowers.  I've been wanting to grow it for quite some time, and 2015 was the year.

Mount Auburn Cemetary, Cambridge

3.  I went to Boston with my husband.

Honestly, I still can't believe it even though I have pictures and memories and it's in writing.  But we did go.  We toured the city, the historical sites, Harvard Yard, the famous cemeteries.  We stayed at a cheap-ish B&B in Little Italy on the 5th floor and ate amazing Italian and seafood.  We walked almost everywhere and stopped into real Italian grocery stores and ate real cannoli at quaint Italian bakeries.  We basked in history and culture, which was deeply life-giving.

With thanks to our church family for providing funds for airfare and my parents for staying with the kids and putting us up with food and lodging.  I hope one of my kids goes to college there.  I'd like to visit and experience more.  Actually, living there for a year would be a dream come true!

other huge highlights;

PRAY48

A friend brought this idea to bear at our church, having someone praying for specific things for a string of 48 hours combined.

The evening of culmination, where many of us gathered to pray together, was overwhelming for me.  I sat at a table with 7 others, some of them my own sons, their friends, their siblings, parents.  That night I wept, wept for pure unworthiness, that I could bear witness to these precious souls praying together for over an hour, begging God to act in His goodness and power in our lives and the places we inhabit.


Even more highlights:  Conner playing his first full piano recital, getting a baby grand piano, having an amazing housemate, an extremely blessed trip to Washington State and Glacier National Park, getting back in shape and enjoying new work out friends, having coffee with many amazing women and talking about Jesus, being a part of a cool engagement story, working with a super cool KidsMinistry staff at church, having friends and family come visit, and I could just keep on going.  It is good to review.  It is good to not get so bogged down in the difficult that I lose sight of the tremendous gifts.

Petersen Parade for my brother and sister-in-law

Housemate Becca

Washington coast

Conner and Beth his piano teacher

Counting God's gifts.  Remembering.  'Tis healthy for the soul.

How to Hang your Goals

Every once in a while I get smacked in the face with a reminder that I should think about how to bless my husband.

I think about how to school my kids, how to train my kids, how to inspire my kids, how to feed my kids,what to read to my kids, whether I should help with this or that opportunity, or contact this or that person about such and such.

But blessing my husband gets left behind.

Right when I was thinking about this he said something about really wishing we could get the Core Values Banners of our church hanging back up in the sanctuary since he was going to begin a series through those values again.

The problem was that last time they were up they kept collapsing in on themselves.

I thought, "That's what I'll do to bless my husband!"

I started by finding the banners.  They were up in the attic.  Then I unrolled the banners only to find out they were sticky and there were fold creases every six inches where the previous people rolled them around a light weight board.

I took them home.  I got really busy and they sat behind my couch for awhile.  Someone stopped in and told me about cleaning products for the stickiness.

Our housemate at the time and I brainstormed how to get the creases out.  We rolled them the other way and I put them back behind the couch.  Then I got busy again.

Week 2 (or was it 3?) of the Spiritual Value Series was coming up.  My friend from Washington was coming to stay and I still had this guilt about still not blessing my husband.

The Saturday afternoon she was here we took a couple of hours to work on the banners.  We started by engineering them so they would NOT collapse in on themselves again.

The idea of rolling-them-the-other-way-to-get-the-creases-out had not worked.  We tried idea number 2.  Towels and irons.  Here my dear friend traveled all this long way to see me and I had her ironing plastic banners on the church floor.  In futility.

We put them away until later.  Hanging them would be yet another challenge as they would be about 20 feet in the air.

I began to wonder if the banners would ever hang again.

Later that week, deep into a Thursday night, (for we had to wait for worship practice to end) a young, wonderful couple met me at the church and we began to hang the still sticky, creased banners.

I borrowed a large ladder from our neighbor who is building a house next door to the church.  I blew the dust off the other large ladder from the church shed.  I carried them in with my strong arms.

Since I've been working out somewhat consistently, the amount of push-ups I can do has escalated tremendously.  Why would I be doing all these push-ups if not to carry large, heavy ladders around the neighborhood and into the church?  So when kind, thoughtful men look at me and ask, "do you want some help?" I honestly want to reply, "do you know how many push-ups I can do?"

Once again I've lost the idea of blessing my husband and now am only thinking about how cool it is that I can carry ladders around.

The young couple would not allow me to climb the ladders and work on the banners.  I am elderly at thirty-eight compared to their twenty-six years.  Which is fine, for even with all my push-ups and planks and squats, I'm still pretty clumsy.

After lots of duct tape and fishing wire and trial and error and re-dos and up and down ladders and "now that side is too high," we finally called it done.  Josh carried the ladder in the dark back to the neighbors.

My husband came over and we sat in the sanctuary, the four of us, looking at the Spiritual Values banners and sharing and praying.

The goal was reached:  By week 4 of the 5 week series, the banners were hanging!

They are not perfect.  The process was nearing ridiculous.  I look at them on Sunday and I see all the work it was to get them up.  I see the faces of the many people who helped.  I see the danger of precarious ladders and hot irons.  I see willingness and a common goal.  And a desire to bless.

I see the good values I can cling to this year; every year:

Gathered Worship
Communal Formation
Spiritually Nourished Children
Word Driven Devotion
Missional Presence

Looking into 2016, remembering the episode of "hanging the banners", I can count on this as I create new goals:

Every worthy goal will take determination, and in the reaching it, will come with struggle and story.

Even upping my push-up count.

A Mother's Garden

As a girl I watched my mom haul buckets of water through the pasture all summer after they planted those lilacs.  I fell in love with them then.  Her hard work showed me the importance of beauty, fragrance, life.

Just recently she tells me about her gardening day with her mother.  They worked out in the driveway island planting dahlias and my grandma shares a memory of her mother planting dahlias.

There's May Day, still rich in my mind, my little body trying to hide after placing flowers on my grandparent's steps, knocking, and running to shelter.  My mom taught me that, too.

Now she has a rock garden down at the orchard and a beautiful entry garden in the driveway of her home.  Her life works life, fragrance, and beauty. 

They got their ears pierced together!

I plant sweet peas.  My neighbor comes over and tells me of his mother and how she always planted sweet peas.  We give him bouquets all summer, reminders of his mother's life.

My mother-in-law, she teaches us much about flowers, gardening, planning.  She grows her own sweet peas, rhodies, lilacs, fuchsias, geraniums, tulips, daffodils and so much more.  Her life gives fragrance and beauty.  She tells of her grandmother's influence in her love for gardening.  

Now she takes her grandchildren to buy packets of seeds and starts and pours over seed catalogs with them.  

I take my own children to the lilac gardens.  They won't let me miss a year. Each has his or her own lilac bush to tend and watch grow.  

They make their own May Day vases for the neighbors, running and hiding.  They dream of plants and gardens and birds and bugs.

Because beautiful mothers bred a love of beauty, life, and fragrance.  

Thank you, Mom and Connie...you are indeed gardeners of the soil and of the soul.

Birth

She labored thirty-four years ago today.  'Twas the first day my skin felt air, lungs breathed it too.  Freed from womb darkness light became bright and assumed.

And I've been thinking about how many births I've experienced since then.  Five from my own womb.  Just yesterday four butterflies hatched and we observed a turtle sending her eggs into the ground to grow full.

Friendships birthed, too.  Six years ago today I started walking with a dear friend nearly every Monday.  Six years of Mondays fills the heart in different ways than air fills the lungs.  But those Mondays have filled good.

Marriage, mothering, ministering....all birthed in my life through the years of living.  Filling these years and making them something.

I don't pretend to comprehend what that something is.  Only observe that it's happening.

Mostly, though, the birth of the Spirit in me, at what age I'm not rightly sure, keeps actively growing.

This body, breathing air as from birth, is slowly deteriorating.  But this Spirit, born a bit later, builds in me stronger and surer.

And though there's much more work to do in me than I care to consider, I rest in the promise that the Spirit of God in me will continue to do His work until the day of Jesus Christ.

To Him be all glory.

photos: trips to a local garden

Unity

It's something I started praying for when my second child was still in the womb.  And since then I've continued to pray for it on and off. 

Especially in those harder times.

I've prayed for unity.  I've prayed they would find friends in the bed right next to them, in the person that ate the last brownie, used their toothbrush presumably on accident.

There are those days when the bickering begins in the morning and by noon I really believe I've lost my mind to all the crazy conflict running rampant in the ranks.

And then there are those moments--peaceful, joyful moments when I sigh a perfect sigh of relief...all is at peace.

There are seven of us, each one with a unique personality, will, and preference.  Not to mention sin nature.  We get to practice peace-making more than I would ever choose. 

So when peace comes, I truly believe I understand at least in part, the psalmist's breath-words in Psalm 131:

How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!



It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard,

running down Aaron's beard,

down upon the collar of his robes.

It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion.

For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life evermore.

This verse is challenging me, pushing me further, to pray for my children as they grow.

Five children living in unity and peace over a lifetime of blessings and challenges will not be easy.  I'd venture to say it's basically impossible.

But I know my God a little...and I can bank on the fact that He is the God of the Miraculous.

Pour out Your peace on us, O Lord.  May we walk so closely with you that we dwell in unity with each other all our days.



Gratitiude list #157-170

~Beautiful children

~New fall clothing for said children

~Healing TuckerGeorge

~Fun opportunities to learn

~Boys working--shoveling and dumping beauty bark

~Quieting my soul that gets too busy

~Words of Truth--like a weaned child is my soul within me

~Friends who say the truth to me

~A table with food and joy

~Dancing ballerinas

~A friends' beautiful babes

~Hope for tomorrow

~Husband's quiet help

~Children who want to learn

~A great Costco find...2 40oz. hand soap bottles for a total of $4.00--this was such an exciting purchase...for us who share one bathroom and go through at least a bottle a week (many are in training on how much to use and go overboard but I just don't have time to monitor every hand-washing session)

~Preying Mantis' entertainment, "Oh, there's one flying through the kitchen, Mom"

~Melted pink crayon all over the working dehydrator, now I'll always smile when I make pear leather, aren't you supposed to shove crayons in any hole you see?

~Dried herbs for the winter to come

~Freshly cut grass, probably the last for a long while

~Large, ornamental cabbages

~New life in my cousin's little Eva Jean!!!

~The conclusion of life for two men, Leon and Eldon, whom I've watched from afar and respected for their gentle ways and kind smiles

~Our Kitty-Angel Margaret

photos: R &N in unity, text all of Psalm 131, NIV

Giver of Life

Late summer means the preying mantis's are out.  (You know you're living with a houseful of boys when mantis season is annually anticipated.)

The boys have several already, and the other night we watched one saw off a large, brown grasshopper's head; devouring it.  Brian calls them the T-Rex's of the insect world.

These cute insects suck life from the living.

It's not their fault, though.  That's what mantis's are made to do.

Not so with human kind.  God has made us to be life-givers.  Why?  Because we're made in His image, and He's the ultimate Giver of Life!

"I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but have the light of life." 8.12

"I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.  He will come in and go out, and find pasture." 10.9

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." 10.10

"I am the good shepherd;  I know my sheep and my sheep know me--just as the Father knows me and I know the Father--and I lay down my life for the sheep." 10.14

"I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?" 11.25,26

"I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me." 14.6

"I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit;  apart from me you can do nothing." 15.5

Oh, Lord. You are full of life, true life.  And You offer it to us.  Fully.  Completely.  Forever.  Keep us attached to You so we can be Life-Givers to those around us.

photos: late summer on the farm
text: life passages taken from John NIV