Encore

The pumpkin/motorcycle guy?  He was right.

Autumn is in full swing, and you sure can't beat our view.

Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness;

and Thy paths drop fatness.

 They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness:

and the little hills rejoice on every side.

 The pastures are clothed with flocks;

the valleys also are covered over with corn;

they shout for joy...

 they also sing.

Psalm 65:11-13

pumpkins

So the guy who drove down to look at the bike [I said it, remember?  We're learning about priorities.  Both bikes - the good bike and the would-be-project bike - are for sale.] couldn't get over two things: our view and the pumpkins.

The pumpkins?

He said Hurricane Irene washed away whole fields of pumpkins and that there'll be a lot of kids without a jack-o-lantern this Halloween.

And us?

We've got pumpkins piled in the wagon, heaped on the cistern, climbing up the front steps.

Isn't it funny how we can be so preoccupied with what we don't have...


with what others do have...

that we miss the gifts right here, gracing each step.

For B.J.

Eight years ago today, I sang For You.  Just the words of a love song...

My sister Erin said it not that long ago:  It is a good thing we don't know what the future holds.


Yet as I sit here this morning, looking back and looking forward, I know this: the best of my life - our life - is yet to come.  "But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day."  Proverbs 4:18  


Happy Anniversary.  I love you.

Ah-ha!

           

        I am a lover of “simple” living. 

Perhaps it began when I was young, roused from sleep on winter mornings by the creak of the wood burning stove.  My interest in natural, frugal living intensified when Leah was born – B.J. was a full-time college student, I quit working outside the home, and we discovered that Leah was allergic to everything from laundry detergent to peanut butter.  We eat lentils in order to keep the grocery bill down, diaper our babies with cloth diapers, and drink milk raw from the goat that grazes the lawn.  We don’t own a cell phone, nor are we on Facebook.  It is my husband, not my dad, who now starts the woodstove on chilly mornings.  I wash our clothes with soap nuts and follow blogs that promote soaking your grains and using coconut oil for everything from cooking to conditioning your hair. 

But in our endeavors to live a simpler life, I am troubled by my own tendency to elevate methods above principles.  If my goal is to simply live a healthy, frugal life, haven’t I missed the point?

That’s why, as I’m reading Randy Alcorn’s Money, Possessions, and Eternity, this passage jumps out at me.  I read it, and re-read it.  I copy it in my journal as the kids nibble their breakfast:

        During World War II when fuel was precious, billboards routinely asked motorists, “Is this trip necessary?”  Every resource used for individual convenience was one less resource available for the nation’s central concern: winning the war.  Today we’re engaged in a great spiritual battle that requires great resources [“Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.  For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”  Ephesians 6:11-12]  Spending money [time, talents, etc.] on our own private concerns leaves less for the kingdom’s central concern.  We should ask, “Is this thing necessary? Does it contribute to my purpose in being here on this earth?  Is this item an asset or liability to me as a soldier of Christ?”

        The American church, taking its cue from our culture, has adopted a peacetime mentality.  Consequently we live a peacetime lifestyle.  But Scripture says we’re at war.  We should make sacrifices commensurate to this crisis, that we may win the war.  We might call it a “strategic” lifestyle.  If I’m devoted to “simple living,” I might reject a computer because it’s modern and nonessential.  But if I live a wartime or strategic lifestyle, the computer may serve as a tool for kingdom purpose.  Simple living may be self-centered.  Strategic living is kingdom-centered.

Ah-ha!  I am called not to love the simple life but to live a strategic life!

So we’re re-evaluating our strategy.  Instead of providing our children with an idyllic homestead life, we want to live in such a way that they know that serving the King is our priority.  My devotional life has been lacking lately, so I’m getting up even earlier to ensure that I spend adequate time in God’s Word.  B.J. is eliminating potential projects from his schedule.  We spent all Saturday splitting wood, but the goats are headed to a new home. 

You are involved in a great spiritual battle.  Are you more involved in critiquing the methods of your fellow soldiers than you are in fighting the war?

Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your strategy.

When we've been married 62 years....

I want us to be like this:
(two videos I discovered via the Generous Wife).


(No, B.J. and I can't play the piano like that...)

Blindspots

I am mulling over this excellent article this morning.  It is addressed to parents that homeschool, but it is full of wisdom for all parents...

Wild and windy day Tuesday.

Wild and windy.

But it ended with me in the quiet, chiseling at the manure packed down hard on the chicken coop floor.

I caught this on my way in:

Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss

for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord:

 for whom I have suffered the loss of all things,

and do count them but dung,

that I may win Christ, and be found in Him,

not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law,

but that which is through the faith of Christ,
the righteousness which is of God by faith...

Philippians 3:8

Encore.

Things that go bump in the night

It's even posted on the bulletin board at school (she is the Star Student of the Month).  Your favorite thing to do:  Projects with Willem and Marie.  So she gets home and all they want to do is play school.  I never have to wonder what the kindergarten class is up to - we've got our own copycat kindergarten right here.


When her folder came home yesterday, inside were two letters, one for Will and one for Marie.  She told me she wrote them before the school day began and planned to set them by their places at the table in the middle of the night so that we would all be surprised.  


You who are mamas of little ones know how it is: uninterrupted sleep is a rare commodity.  At fourteen months with only four teeth, Nathan occasionally still orders a dry diaper and a drink with Ora-Jel on top.  Then there's Marie, who can't stand storms, and Will and Leah, who don't understand that it's not necessary to report to me every minor thirst or urge to use the facilities.


So when I heard something go "bump" last night, in the middle of the night, with no ensuing report, I let it be.  Drifted right back off.  Congratulated myself on finally getting it through: if it's not an emergency, let Mama sleep.


When I stumbled out this morning, there, waiting at Willem and Marie's places, were their letters, complete with crazy bands, a braided friendship bracelet, and a beaded necklace that cousin Jenna made for Leah.  

She tells me she was up at 2:00 am.

Hey Allen

So Allen came late Saturday afternoon, slipped in with his cowboy boots and his North Carolina drawl, right into this messy house with the kids talking way too loud and dirty dishes crawling over the counter and crayons wriggling on the floor.


He finds a chair at the table where my sewing mess is heaped high. 
We eat rice and kima from More with Less and bathe the kids and read to them and rock them, and Allen just gently mingles with all this madness.  Inside, we all slow down, and we talk about hard things.  When we talk about the weather, it's a hurricane.  We talk about the church and the Church, houses and Home, why I said I want to move to El Salvador, and Nicaragua and the Farmer to Farmer program, which is what brings him back to this area, near the campus where we first met. 


The kids climb all over him, and each year when he comes we remember when Leah had the flu and was sick all over him.  

When the house is still B.J. makes tea and we talk as the clock dongs hour after hour.  

It is nearly midnight when he leaves, and I rest my weary head on B.J.'s shoulder and fight back tears, longing for more of the sweet whatever it was that filled the last few hours.


But then I realize it...we've got forever.

In the land of forgetfulness...

Now for the conclusion of my previous post.  The climatic, riveting, grand finale to our ugly, ugly, ugly day...


Well, I'll be honest.  It's a difficult ending to write exactly because it is none of those things.  That's why I didn't finish the story the other day (that, and the three hungry children in the room, all of whom recognize me as their immediate food source.)  Not only is the ending anti-climatic, not at all riveting, and far from grand, but as I sit here at my computer tonight, I know the story is far from finished...


But there was a tired Mama, lonely and lying on her bed at 3 AM, asking God why He gives four children and then doesn't give the grace to be a Godly mama.  Asking Him why He gives dreams of great things, and again and again I fail in the small things.  Still whiny, petulant prayers.


There was morning and Psalm 88 at breakfast. "Shall Thy loving kindness be known in the dark? and Thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?"  And a prick in my heart: how quickly I forget, how readily I dismiss God's goodness to me.  And Sunday morning, and the pastor on the radio who spoke about Jonah, and me, standing in the bathroom, curling iron in hand, realizing I am Jonah, that prophet I have always so despised, so discontent with the work God gives to me, my selfishness like a measly gourd that takes precedence over souls.  Doest thou well to be angry, Sarah?  Yes, yes yes!  I do well to be angry.  


Like I said, the story's still being written.


Daily I need to be reminded how clouds reveal His glory, how they prove He walks this dusty road with me...


And did you see the sky this morning?  

Clouds...all aflame with grace.

F-

Note: I am belated in posting this.  I fumed this out in the wee hours of Saturday, September 3. 
   
Bad day yesterday.  Bad day.  Ugly, ugly, ugly.  For those of you who have read Loving the Little Years, it was an F-.  Not even 11%.


     The morning started out fairly well.  I haven't taken the time to get my hair cut since April, so I scheduled a trim for myself mid-morning and decided to run three additional errands while we were out and about: canning lids from the grocery store (so I could tackle the salsa that's been waiting in the refrigerator for two days when we got home), black Sunday shoes for Willem and Marie for fall/winter, and jeans for Mama, those last three items from one of the three thrift stores in town.  Very do-able.  I was even to the salon early, a notable achievement for me.  (Nevermind that I had intended to run the other three errands before getting a haircut.)


     Things started going down hill already there.  I ended up waiting for my turn for a while, and by the time I hopped in the chair my kids had pretty well exhausted the toys in the play corner and were starting to speak to each other in raised voices.  It was after I had twice gracefully left the chair (green cape and all), once to deposit a shrieking Marie on a nearby seat ("You will sit there until Mama is done, Marie.") and once to rescue a bawling Nathan with a stinky diaper from crawling through the hair on the floor (he remained on my lap for the duration) that I remembered why I haven't had my hair trimmed since April.


     First thing when we got to the van was a messy diaper change.  Then gas, an errand I hadn't planned on, but one that proved necessary.  $60.  Ouch.  Then shoes.  Predictably, Willem was the first one out of the van, and he went tearing down the sidewalk to the front door of the store, Marie hustling along behind him.  It was after I had freed Nathan from his seat and was turning to shut the van door that I saw Marie stumble and dive headfirst into the pavement.  Her face hit the concrete and bounced back like a rubber ball.  It was one of those slow-motion moments, if you know what I mean.  This is going to be bad, I thought.  Ugly, ugly, ugly.  And I was right.  Within seconds Marie's top lip was three times it's normal size.


     I should have packed them all up right then and headed home.  They have shoes they can wear to church for a while, and I own several belts.  I could have grabbed canning lids while they waited in the van for 20 seconds.  But instead of I thought about the $60 worth of gas and decided to get the other errands done.  


     Partial success at store #1.  Shoes for Marie: check.  But Nathan had a melt-down while I was paying for them, and I made a comment to the woman behind me (who was calmly shopping with her mother and a neatly swaddled baby) that it was time for us to go home.


     Too bad I didn't heed my own advice.  I decided to detour from clothes shopping to get the canning lids and a snack for the kids (lunchtime being dangerously close and Marie's incessant whimpering about her swollen lip getting on my nerves).  They were all delighted with the pudding-filled long john we shared on the way to store #2.  


     Potty break at the public restrooms next to store #2.  No success at store #2.


     Store #3.  It is noon, and Friday, the day everyone with a day job around here goes out for lunch, and there's no place for me to park except across the street.  I am a farm girl.  I hate crossing the street, with a bazillion eyes on me, and now with three kids in tow, one who's lip is three times it's normal size.  We wait for the green light, wait for the cars turning right.  Head across.  And wouldn't you know it, the light turns yellow when we are only halfway across.  And the guy first in line at the light has his left hand holding his cellphone, blocking his peripheral, and he starts moving forward.  His wife hollers and he brakes, and there I stand, with my three kids, the swollen lip, and my heart about ready to pound of my chest.  I could reach out and give the hood of that van a nice little pat, it's so close.  Or sock it real hard.  Or give it a kick.  Instead, I glare at the cell phone guy - really glare, I mean, the whites of my eyes are bulging - and tremble the rest of the way across.  


     You have to climb 63 steps to get to the second floor of Store #3, on which the children's shoes are located.  O.K., so I didn't count, but it is a huge, old building with very tall ceilings and a lot of steps.  I huffed the whole way up those 63 stairs about whatever individual had made the decision to put the children's clothes in the highest, farthest corner of the store. In spite of my huffing, we did find shoes for Willem.  Check.  Then back down.


     Last item of business: jeans for Mama.  I grabbed half a dozen pairs in various sizes off the rack, accompanied by Willem's unhelpful comments that I should choose one of the "cool" pairs with the holes in the legs.  And how old is this child?  Then to the dressing rooms, which unfortunately do not have doors that shut (and lock), but bed sheets that hang from shower rods as a barrier.  You've seen what kids do with laundry hanging on a clothesline, right?  So I have no way to contain my children (at this point, Willem - fueled by the long john - is bouncing off the walls, and Marie is still whining about bouncing off the pavement) and they now have curtains through they which they all run (or in Nathan's case, crawl).  And I am on one side of the curtain trying on blue jeans, and the rest of the general public is on the other side.  


     Surprise, surprise...I did not decide on a pair of jeans.  I fumed my way to the line at the checkout counter, where I ordered Willem to hang onto one leg and Marie to hang on to another while I hung on to Nathan and waited my turn.   They immediately began to play peek-a-boo around me and I immediately remembered that I was shopping for jeans because the ones that I was wearing were too big and were quickly inching their way down, aided by the hands of my giggling children.  And I start huffing about whose fault it is, anyway, that I wear umpteen sizes every year...


     It was after the clerk had rung up Will's shoes that I realized my wallet was in the van with the canning lids.  Back out of the store.  Wait for the green light.  Cross the street.  Strap them in.  Crack the windows.  Threaten Willem if he even thinks about touching the lock...  Grab the wallet.  Wait for the green light.  Cross the street.  There, sitting, on the bench outside Store #3 is the Grandma from Store #1 with the neatly swaddled baby, still neatly swaddled, and she is giving me a curious look, wondering, I suspect, why this frazzled woman has not gone home like she said should and considering reporting me to the authorities for daring to leave my children in the van on such a warm day.


     Go inside.  Pay for the shoes.  Wait for the green light.  Cross the street.  Drive home.  I fume (aloud now) the  first half of the way, until Will cries and says he is sorry.  Pray (aloud still) the second half of the way home, whiny prayers like "Lord, I can't do this.  Lord, you've given me more than I can handle.  Lord, what have I done to deserve this?"  And so on and so forth.  Hideous, whiny prayers.  


     I fume my way through leftovers for lunch, put the kids down for a nap, feel sorry for myself and waste 30 minutes cruising the Internet and e-mailing my husband about my horrible day.


     Willem doesn't nap, of course.  He bounces around his bed like he bounced around the stores.  So I put him to work helping me tidy, wash dishes, make supper.  B.J. comes home late, so supper has been on the table for over half an hour by the time we sit down to eat.  And throughout the meal he makes unhelpful comments about was I disciplining when the children disobeyed, etc. - and these are comments, believe it or not, that he makes by not saying anything, and I sit there and pout partly because he is not being sympathetic about my ugly, ugly, ugly day and partly because - Rachel is right - I know who needs a spanking, and it's me.  


     Bed-time.  And at 3 A.M. when Nathan wakes me up with sore gums and a wet diaper I am so still worked up that I can't fall asleep for over an hour.  






...to be continued....

Because He lives

               It is my favorite of the stories that I have heard Ravi tell over the radio.  It is a testimony to the saving power of God’s Word and His grace to believers and their children.  It is a story that encourages me to pray for my children.

              Ravi grew up in India.  At the age of 17, despairing of any meaning in life, he attempted suicide.  While recovering following that experience, Ravi was given a Bible by a man who stopped by his hospital room.   Ravi’s mother, though she was not a Christian, read to him from the gospel of John as she kept faithful vigil by his bedside.  It is John 14:19 that Ravi credits as the verse that first planted Hope within his heart:  “Because I live, you will live also.”

Later, Ravi’s mother was also converted to Christianity.  Still later, when she passed on to Life, Ravi had inscribed on her gravestone the verse that she had first read to him: “Because I live, you will live also.”

There is more to the story.  Many years prior to Ravi’s birth, Christian missionaries had witnessed to his grandparents, and Ravi’s grandmother was a believer in Jesus Christ.  Though he had never met her, it is her burial place that Ravi determines to find when he returns to India years after his mother’s death.  The keeper of the cemetery where his grandmother is buried locates her plot on a plot map and accompanies Ravi and his wife Margie to the site.  The stone is covered with years of dust and debris, and the groundskeeper stoops to clear it.  As his grandmother’s name becomes visible, Margie grabs Ravi’s arm, and Ravi’s breath catches in his throat.  There, engraved beneath her name, are these words: “Because I live, you will live also” John 14:19.

Do you worry about what the future holds for your children?  I do.  Are you concerned that you are unable to provide them all that they need physically or spiritually?  Me, too.  I do not doubt that Ravi’s grandmother also wondered those things.  And rightly so, because we are unable to provide them those things.  But we can be comforted with the knowledge that we, and our children – just like she and her children – belong to the God who is sovereign over all and faithful to His promises.

Way back in A.D. 390, preacher John Chrysostom gave this advice to parents, “If you wish to leave much wealth to your children, leave them in God’s care.”

Because He lives, you see, all who are His children will live also. 

Red Man

Five years ago yesterday, Willem arrived, fast and furious.  We called him the Little Red Man already in the delivery room.  His skin, all rosy;  his hair, carrot color.  After all that mad rush, I remember how he laid in our arms, sweet and still, eyes wide open.

He lives in the same manner that he was born.  Fast and furious.  And I couldn’t help but think yesterday that with Willem, there is still much red.  A red fire engine birthday cake.  Red food coloring on the counter.  Two frantic cats And how did these animals get in the door without me noticing? all soaped up and wet in the bathroom sink, and a Mama that sees red. “But these cats love baths, Mom!”  Later, more noises in the bathroom, another sink full of soapy water, and a swarm of grasshoppers slipping and sliding down the wet mirror in an attempt to escape their “bath.”  More red.

 

The fast and furious red man needs little sleep.  This wears on his Mama sometimes, when it’s late afternoon and the mess is piled high and her nerves are all frazzled and all she would like is a little break from the fast and the furious.  Today she does not have him help with the dishes.  “It’s your birthday, you may do what you like for a bit.”  So he’s outside in the pasture with a Sunbutter jar (more grasshoppers), and I watch him while I clean up the frosting and rub at that red spot.  Neighbor Don drives up in his tractor to rake the hay lying flat ‘round the barn.  I watch my son corner him, who’s going on 80: “Did you know it’s my birthday today?  I’m five!”  And once Don figures out that his name is not William but Willem he sings “Happy Birthday,” swaying and waving, his seed corn cap coming off with a flourish. 

The birthday gift, too, is red.  A too-big red bike, not new, but new to Will. I cringe about the tear in the seat, but he doesn’t even notice.  Instead, he climbs on, and my Little Red Man pedals fast and furious, his Daddy hurrying behind.


I remember: "The mother is the hub of the home, holding all the spokes in place. Without her being at her post, the family spins out of control and falls apart.”

And I watch him, furiously pedaling away from me, standing here, all this spinning…

Hey Joni

My favorite shots of this lovely young lady.

(Thanks to my sister Valen for all her help.)

Enough (Proverbs 30:7-9)

Click here, and scroll to the bottom of the post (which is well worth reading, by the way) to hear the song.


(Now let me apply it.  I had Leah back in at the doctor yesterday, and she's not all better yet.  Low oxygen levels, a lung that's still partially collapsed.  Add to that Marie, who's now being treated for reactive airways, too.  And all of this medical care is great, a real blessing, but it costs a small fortune.  And all in the middle of our extreme intense plan to pay off the remaining thousands of dollars of student loans by May.  So I'm coming home to tell B.J. about how much these new prescriptions cost and Leah still not being all better and needing more x-rays and September's grocery envelope is empty.  And it's only the 8th of the month.


Now stop with me at the mailbox and find an anonymous check that will help us with all of this, and suddenly I'm able to work it through.  With a lump in my throat, but a reassured heart.  That God does provide for us each day, our daily bread.  And whoever you are, you maybe read this blog, I don't know.  You're making me bawl again right now.  You just wait.  We're going to live II Corinthians 8:13-15 back at someone else when it's our turn.  You wait and see.


Rain more than this day's bread,
And I may say I'm God instead...
God, I ask only for
Enough...just enough.)

Encore

I see it as I lug buckets of fat tomatoes up the front steps,
a sphinx
beating furiously its wings,
reaching long for life-sustaining sap.

Below, a fat toad hobbles beneath the shrubs.
I turn to call my son, crouched on the lawn,
eyes on some unsuspecting grasshopper
and catch the azure sky
cradling corn kissed golden by crisp mornings,
all these millions of stalks standing and swaying and rustling together,
pause there on the steps,
reach hard for life-sustaining Grace,


join in
with all this


applauding.

Oh...

for the life

of  a

toad.

A glance in the mirror

     This question bothers me: why do I blog?  ("Blog" is a verb now, is it not?)
     I discovered at least part of the answer last Saturday, when I happened across my college diary.  Below is the quotation I jotted in the front cover back then.  It rings true for me yet:


     "I find myself astonished at mankind's persistent yet vain attempts to escape the certainty of oblivion; expressed in nothing less than the ancient pyramids and by nothing more than a stick in a child's hand, etching a name into a freshly poured sidewalk.  To leave our mark in the unset concrete of time - something to say we existed.
     Perhaps this is what drives our species to diaries, that some unborn generation may know we once loved, hated, worried, and laughed.  And what is there to this?  Maybe nothing more than poetic gesture, for diaries die with their authors - or so I once believed.  I have learned there is more to the exercise.  For as we chronicle our lives and the circumstances that surround them, our perspectives and stretching rationales, what lies before us is our own reflection.
      It is the glance in the mirror that is of value.
     These are my words on the matter and I leave it at this - if we write but one book in our life, let it be our autobiography."


     ~ Richard Paul Evans, Timepiece