Coffee in the Flower Garden

It was time for a break in a full, check-list sort of day.

So I brewed coffee, splashed in whole milk, and headed out to the garden.

Delphinium are getting lovely, lilies are starting late, and so many more flowers are getting ready to enjoy the summer sunshine!

I also took time to sit on the swing while finishing my coffee, enjoying Annabelle hydrangeas turning white and a pink thunbergia climbing a trellis. Restful minutes!

Come, "Be Still"

Do you ever take time to simply "Be Still" during your days? It may sound impossible in light of your to-do list or all the work you see piling up around...

Yet I can't emphasize enough how healing it can be to just stop and Be Still... for even 3 minutes! (Yes, we do have three spare minutes. Think of all the 3-minute blocks of time that are wasted each day!)

Have you noticed how our culture is increasingly wired against this concept? Next time you are in a line or waiting room, just look around and see how many others are buried in their smart-phones.

And do you find, as I do, that when more tired or stressed, we are even more tempted to turn to our phones for "mindless" scrolling? (Unfortunately, this does affect our minds anyway. But that's another topic...)

When we actually stop and unplug long enough, we may actually start to think! And I've been thinking more and more about how all the noise and images, sensational news and pointless games are no accident.

Instead they are often a real temptation...
• A distraction from the real life we were meant to live
• A replacement to the truth we were meant to ponder
• A poor substitute for the beauty and wonder of the world God has given us
• An opening to subtle (or blatant!) lies
• An "immunization" against what should shock and sicken us
• And a false sense of accomplishment and worth
... among other concerns!

Don't get me wrong! I am also grateful for the ways technology allows us to keep up with loved ones or run a business - especially when chronic illness keeps one at home for years. And I could still think myself into a hole on some less-than-optimal days if I didn't have a good audiobook, audio-Bible or podcast playing through earbuds.

But even then I need to be careful not to let the "perpetual motion" of life keep me from the following reality-check:

"Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!" ~ Psalm 46:10



Oh, how a few minutes of stillness with a verse or two of Truth can reset the mind... and even the body! Let me know if you try it today and how it goes for you!

📖 A few other Bible verses to ponder in light of all this are:
▪︎ Philippians 4:8
▪︎ Romans 12:2
▪︎ Colossians 3:1-2
▪︎ Isaiah 26:3

~ Hannah

Sabbath Rest

Do you take a Sabbath rest each week (or attempt to)?

Or does it feel like a waste to you? Maybe you just don't think you have time to slow down and rest every week.

It wasn't all that long ago that nearly all businesses were "Closed on Sunday." Has our culture really progressed in this area - or is it mainly adding to the stress levels and chronic illness pervading recent generations?

Where does this practice come from anyway? Well, it's not just some man-made tradition. In fact it was instituted at the very beginning of human existence!

I started reading the book of Genesis again this week (one of my favorites!), and that is where we get the blueprint for resting one day out of seven. (Genesis 2:2-3) The One who created us and knows exactly what we need is the One who also set us this example of the rhythm of rest!

And this is not merely an example that we can choose to follow (or not), but this principle is reiterated in the 10 Commandments God gave His people. (Exodus 20:10)

Of course legalism can set in and mess up anything God meant for our good. But Jesus dealt with that when He was teaching on earth. (See the four gospels at the beginning of the New Testament.)

On the physical side, many of us can feel the effects if we don't get a change of pace and extra rest one day a week. But even if you don't notice that yet, are you ready to try taking some small steps toward a Sabbath Rest this week? It may be a learning process and look different in various seasons of life. But ask God to give you His rest, and see how He leads you!

~ Hannah

Bouquets from 6.9.23

The Dilemma of Balance

Today's post is all excerpted from 
Waiting for a Miracle: Devotions for Those Who Are Physically Weak by Jan Markell

"Being ill is a full-time job without vacations or other fringe benefits. And it's a balancing act of the greatest magnitude! Balancing activity and anticipation with a daily routine of needed rest and quiet is not an easy assignment. 

Balance is also needed in interpersonal relationships. We wonder if we should keep our dilemma private, or speak too often about it and risk the flight of loved ones. Should we ask for help and risk being a burden, or should we maintain some independence which can bring on isolation and other problems? Should we push ourselves socially in the interest of our mental health, or should we play it safe and virtually vegetate, thus allowing rest therapy a better chance of bringing recovery from our affliction?

Keeping a good balance thus involves a "pick and choose" mind-set. We must keep ourselves maintained for that is our priority. Everything else must be assigned a lower priority and some things just have to be let go for a time. Letting go is one of the most difficult assignments, for it is not just the act of letting go, but embracing the mind-set of acceptance at the same time.

Living among healthy people who have no restrictions offers us overwhelming temptation to depart from a strict recovery program that includes a needed balance. Well people will want us to make commitments, which can be a double-edged sword. With commitment there is anticipation; however, there is also the dread of not being able to follow through with that commitment. Then anticipation turns to stress, stress to anxiety, and anxiety to even poorer health.

Even good stress needs balance. Good stress is an event or opportunity that involves fun, activity, and people we love. It involves fellowship, caring, sharing, and love. But it also may involve too many people, too much talking, and too much activity. Then we're back to square one.

To arrive at a proper level of balance amidst affliction takes the help of Holy Spirit discernment. At the start of each new day, we need to seek God's guidance for the hours before us. We don't want to squander them; rather, we should make every minute count, not just for God, but for our recovery process.

Finding balance in an unbalanced world with the complication of affliction can only be accomplished by surrendering our day to the will of God. He will redeem it and make it count, even if in our eyes it seems but a wasteland. God does all things well, and he specializes in turning ugliness into beauty and wastelands into gardens."

For Further Meditation

Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD (Psalm 31:24).

But now, LORD, what do I look for? My hope is in you (Ps. 39:7).

Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God (Ps. 42:5).

But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more (Ps. 71:14).

You were wearied by all your ways, but you would not say, "It is hopeless." You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint (Isaiah 57:10).

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23).

Posts with further excerpts from Jan Markell's book:

Delayed Response 

Acceptance and Celebrations

In Every Season

Waiting Tests Faith

In Quietness

Does anyone else need this reminder today?

In returning and rest you shall be saved; 

in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.

Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you,
and therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you.
For the LORD is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for Him.

• Isaiah 40:15,18

(Photos of a prairie sunrise last week)

The Exercise of Being Still

"All I can dare to recommend, is patience and self-control. Don't fret and agitate yourself about what you can't do, but do your best to do calmly what you can. It will be made up, depend upon it."

"But how am I to keep from thinking, Maurice? The weaker I am, the more I think."

"Ah! Albinia, you want to learn, as poor Queen Anne of Austria did, that docility in illness may be self-resignation into higher Hands. 

"Perhaps you despise it, but it is no mean exercise of strength and resolution to be still."

- from The Young Stepmother by Charlotte Mary Yonge

Both this portrait and the photograph above are of British author Charlotte Mary Yonge (1823-1901). The few of her works which I have read so far show a depth of understanding of a wide variety of characters and life situations. (Could her extensive knowledge of history, from ancient times on, have aided this?)

While I did not enjoy this book half as much as other Yonge works such as The Daisy Chain, The Trial and The Dove in the Eagle's Nest, this little conversation between a brother and sister contains so much good advice for those of us with chronic illness that I thought it worth sharing. 

Sharpening My Axe

"One man challenged another to an all-day wood chopping contest.

The challenger worked very hard, stopping only for a brief lunch break. The other man had a leisurely lunch and took several breaks during the day. At the end of the day, the challenger was surprised and annoyed to find that the other fellow had chopped substantially more wood than he had. 

'I don't get it,' he said. 'Every time I checked, you were taking a rest, yet you chopped more wood than I did.'

'But you didn't notice,' said the winning woodsman, 'that I was sharpening my axe when I sat down to rest.'"

- Author Unknown

Cultivating a Hobby

I've just started sharing quotes from a book I enjoyed reading a year ago: God and Churchill written by Churchill's great-grandson, Jonathan Sandys. Here's another excerpt that caught my eye - even though I then had no idea I would be picking up painting just months later.

Did you know that Winston Churchill "lived to the ripe old age of ninety"?

"One of his secrets was understanding the importance of rest. ...Mary Soames describes her father resting during a 1942 visit to President Franklin Roosevelt's home at Hyde Park, New York.

"'Papa presented a charming sight... flat on his back in a patch of sun. ... I lay near him and we gazed up at the very blue sky & the green leaves dancing against it - flecked with sun.'

Begonias

"Such relaxation eased Churchill's much-burdened mind, and he began to muse about the colors he would use if he were painting the scene: '[He] commented on the wisdom of God in having made the sky blue and the trees green. "It wouldn't have been nearly so good the other way round."'

Pansies

"Churchill believed that cultivating 'a hobby and new forms of interest is ... a policy of first importance to a public man.' He discovered such a hobby at the age of forty in his love for painting. 'Painting came to my rescue in a most trying time.' he said."

Trying wax-resist for hydrangeas

Hope in Chronic Pain and Isolation

Did you know...

A person can get so accustomed to isolation
(by God's grace) that they hardly notice a month of "staying at home" after living that way for six-plus years? Yes, the losses and loneliness hit hard when chronic illness first takes over a life. In the early months when friends are thinking of you and checking in, it doesn't fully sink in. Plus you don't expect life to stay that hard for too long.

But when months turn into years and when most of your friends move on with their lives and accidentally leave you behind, there comes a new season of struggle, of learning to let go and adjust and trust God in the dark.

So the "stay at home" orders have hardly made a noticeable change for my sister Elsa and me. Isolation became "normal" long ago.

But chronic pain is another story...

You may think you're used to living and working through constant pain after years of no other option. But when it ramps up again so that it's hard to breathe or think, and not even knitting and audiobooks can mask it, you remember again how desperately you need a solid foundation for your hope and reason to get up each day.

It was on one of those days this week when I could hardly take the next breath that God gave a whole string of gifts at just the right time.

A cold and then allergenic spring had kept us shut indoors so far, but I suddenly knew I had to get outside - no matter the temps. On with the down coat, wool scarf, and yak-down hat and mitts over the alpaca poncho, wool socks, long underwear and slippers (and more!) which I already was wearing indoors. Out to a camping chair on the deck wrapped in a blanket.

And on with the Psalms. (ESV audio-Bible, courtesy of SonicBiblia.org)

After a few beautiful chapters, one grabbed me in a new way, and I had to listen and read it over and over to slowly absorb the truth into my weak brain.

David often talks about his enemies, and the introduction to Psalm 56 points out exactly which enemies he meant this time. But we can be attacked by different kinds of foes these days which are no less real. So I began to read it this way:

"Be gracious to me, O God, for [illness] tramples on me; all day long [pain] oppresses me...

When I am afraid [or every nerve is frayed], I put my trust in You. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh [...even this body] do to me?

"You have kept count of my tossings [during sleepless night hours and pain-filled days];

put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?

"This I know, that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise, in the LORD, whose word I praise, in God I trust... For You have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life."

While still feeding on the hope found in this truth, I found myself absorbing a rare, new gift -- SUNSHINE! Off with the down, the alpaca, the yak, and the wool. On with the shady hat given by a friend last year.

The next few hours were a time of rest and healing and a nice visit with our first socially-distanced visitor - an aunt. 
.
Elsa had joined me in the sun where we knit to a chorus of birdsong and the rich testimonies of God's faithfulness through the long (and sometimes very painful) life of Corrie Ten Boom. I highly recommend her book "In My Father's House" if you haven't read it yet!
.
Even more, I recommend reading or listening to the Psalms to realign your focus and feed your hope as you face your own challenges while you stay at home.
.
"We wait in hope for the LORD; He is our help and our shield. In Him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in His holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you." ~ Psalm 33:20-22

Music (and Marvel) in a Rest

When carrying a load of laundry out to the sunny clothesline, what should I spy but a dragonfly peering down at me?! Before disturbing its rest, I went back to the house for a camera. 

"There is no music in a rest, but there is the making of music in it.  Our life's melody is broken off here and there by 'rests,' and we foolishly think we have come to the end of the tune. God writes the music of our lives, and the rests are not to be slurred over, lest we destroy the melody. If we say to ourselves, 'There is no music in a rest,' let us not forget that music can never be complete without the rests."

- Author Unknown

A closer view made me laugh at the grotesque face even as I stopped to marvel at this sample of our Creator's handiwork.

Be Still Again

If one began reading my blog in the past couple of years, they may wonder what it has to do with "being still." Yes, we are growing stronger and filling our days more than when I began to blog, though Elsa aptly summarized our days as still falling into the categories of "sick" and "sicker" when I was having trouble dragging this body through a day last week.

We thankfully came home from another week of travels for 6-month doctor appointments  recently with no new diagnoses (for the second time in a row!) But the strain of that trip combined with many other triggers for our bodies this spring have set us back.

Of course there are the simply "sick" days when we are so much stronger than we used to be that it is a thrill to tackle some house cleaning or gardening. 

I finally got our table-grapes freed from
several years' accumulation of dead canes. 

Then follows a night with four or less hours of sleep due to adrenal fatigue and a "sicker" day when we go into survival mode with knitting and audiobooks. (C. S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" have been great for re-listening together.)

And when the "sicker" days pile up for a variety of reasons, we once again reach the "sickest" days when there isn't even enough strength to knit and no appetite to eat. Then I am reminded that I have been pushing too hard again and forgetting to "be still" enough. These are the times to take naps both before and after breakfast,

...quietly look at the beauties with which God has surrounded me,

...and review the truths memorised on stronger days.

By the way, we have been greatly blessed in this area by a free, new app designed in part by a friend of ours. See SonicBiblia.org for a great way to memorise and meditate on God's word! This web app even includes an audio Bible for listening to whole chapters at a time.

Walk in the Good Way

Thus says the LORD:
"Stand by the roads, and look,
and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is; and walk in it,
and find rest for your souls."
- Jeremiah 6:16

Everyone wants to find the "good way" to live, right?

The problem is that we humans usually look for it in the wrong place. We read the latest self-help books, try every fad diet that comes along, saturate ourselves in popular blogs, podcasts and online summits, keep up with the fashions, cook and brew like the pros on TV, remodel our homes ad infinitum, and maybe emulate our favorite celebrity as far as possible. We run ourselves ragged, and for what?

When asked, those who look like they "have it all" usually admit that they are still empty. Still chasing the wind... or worse yet, giving up and chosing to end their life.

So where do we find the good way? In the ancient paths of God's word. It takes standing still long enough to look and soak in the truth, asking God to lead the way. But the result is worth it... finding "rest for your souls."

Only, beware! To find this rest, we can't just see the truth and go our own way as in the remainder of the verse: "But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'"

We are told to stand, look, ask... and walk in it.

An Easy Yoke

Photo: Wikimedia Commons*

"My Yoke is Easy"

** The following quotations are from the devotional Quiet Moments on the Way Home

by H.E. Wisloff.

Take my yoke upon you (Matthew 11:29)

“The Christian's life is compared to a walk toward the goal.  But this walk is a walk under the yoke.

“Some see in this truth only darkness.  It reveals how heavy the Christian life must be, they say.  For the natural man, the yoke is truly a burden.”

Artwork: public domain

Have you viewed this yoke that Jesus offers as more of a burden than a relief? Despite His assurances in the surrounding verses, I long a sort of revulsion against the thought of being under a yoke. (There may have even been a vague picture in my mind of being locked in the pillory or stocks as a common criminal.)

In fact most examples of the word “yoke” in the Bible are negative. Out of about 60 uses of the Hebrew word “ol” in the English Standard Version (ESV) most are in the Old Testament, and those typically have connotations of restraint, subjection, slavery, and stooping under a heavy load. [Gen. 27:40, Lev. 26:13, 1Kings 12:4] Even oxen which had worked under a yoke could not qualify for sacrifices and religious purposes. [Num. 19:2, Deut. 21:3, 1 Sam. 6:7]

At times God uses circumstances as a yoke to discipline wayward people. [Isa. 47:6, Jer. 27-28, Hos. 10:10-11] Lamentations 3:27-28 goes so far as to say “It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. Let him sit alone in silence, for the LORD has laid it on him.” As encouraging as are the surrounding verses in Lamentations 3, this yoke can still sound rather oppressive to me.

In the New Testament we see the yokes of physical slavery/servanthood [1 Tim. 6:1] and the unbearable load of manmade rules and pharisaical laws [Acts 15:10 & Gal. 5:1].

And yet, shining through the gloom is this one recorded instance where Jesus turns standard associations on their head and tells us about His yoke:

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  Matthew 11:28-30 (ESV)

**“What is the yoke?

“It is that which unites.  The yoke makes me one with my yoke-mate.  To take up the yoke means to be in partnership with God.  His joys become my joys, His sorrows become mine, His tasks mine, and I am privileged to share His concern for souls.  

“Therefore yoke-bearing is to have part in the power of Christ, His peace and His joy.  No one can live more richly and blessedly.  The yoke is grace, because it gives rest.  "My yoke is easy," He whispers to the tired who accept the yoke along with Him.”

Obviously I should take Christ at His word and believe that His yoke would ease my burden and give me the rest I long for. But instead I too often resist His yoke, with the result that I am left helplessly trying to pull my own load.

In her delightful book, Farmer Boy, Laura Ingalls Wilder tells stories from her husband’s childhood in rural New York in the 1860s. Before he was allowed to own horses, Almanzo was given two young oxen and directed by his father how to train them. To do that, he had to custom-build a small, light yoke – meticulously shaping and smoothing the wood to perfectly fit his charges.

Think of that! If even faulty humans know how to make a yoke that will be perfectly suited to their dumb beasts, how much more does our loving God know how to craft our yokes to fit each of our lives?

When little Almanzo began driving his team, there were plenty of troubles. They wouldn’t work together! That resulted in some tangled messes in the ditch. The yoke would only work if the team faced the same direction and pulled together. As they listened and obeyed, they learned to turn in unison upon command. Then the work could go smoothly and pleasantly for boy and beasts.

This example and the devotional excerpts quoted above are completely changing the way I view Jesus’ yoke. When I keep this in mind, I can be at peace knowing that every circumstance He sends my way is perfectly shaped for me. But not if I try to meet them in my strength alone.

Not being a trained biblical scholar, I cannot say if this is a completely accurate interpretation… but I am greatly encouraged at picturing Jesus sharing His yoke with me by pulling together, side by side with me in the same yoke. No wonder every burden is lightened when I let Him share the weight! And when I am tempted to worry about the future, I can remember Who is beside me. He knows the way. I must just keep in step, follow when He turns, and wait patiently when He has me stop.

“And you will find rest for your souls.” 

* Photo: By Jvn1989 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48572653
** Quiet Moments on the Way Home, devotional for October 26 by H.E. Wisloff.

Trim My Sails

Some more sailing thoughts...
from George MacDonald's Diary of an Old Soul:

Doubt swells and surges, with swelling doubt behind!

My soul in storm is but a tattered sail,

Streaming its ribbons on the torrent gale;

In calm, 'tis but a limp and flapping thing:

Oh, swell it with thy breath; make it a wing,

To sweep through thee the ocean, with thee the wind

Nor rest until in thee its haven it shall find.

'Tis--shall thy will be done for me--or mine,

And I be made a thing not after thine--

My own, and dear in paltriest details?

Shall I be born of God, or of mere man?

Be made like Christ, or on some other plan?

I let all run--set thou and trim my sails;

Home then my course, let blow whatever gales.

- entries from January 12th and February 21st

Don't Wait Till You Break Your Neck!

After four years of illness and treatments, Elsa and I are still sharing the couch off and on throughout the day. And we are still learning what Joni Tada testifies to so beautifully:

"And somewhere in the ensuing years, I discovered that the weakness of those claustrophobic hours was the key to God's peace and power. My enforced stillness was God's way of conforming the inside to what had happened on the outside.

"Now, many years later, my bed is an altar of praise. It's the one spot on this harried planet where I always meet God in relaxed stillness. In fact, as soon as I wheel into my bedroom and see the bed covers pulled back my mind immediately responds, It's time to be still and know more about God. It's time to pray.

"It can be the same for you. When you find yourself in forced stillness--waiting in line, sitting by a hospital bed, or stuck in traffic--instead of fidgeting and fuming, use such moments to practice stillness before God.

"It's a crazy world and life speeds by at a blur, yet God is right in the middle of the craziness. And anywhere, at anytime, we may turn to Him, hear His voice, feel His hand, and catch the fragrance of heaven.

"You can be still and know that He is God. And you don't have to break your neck to find out."

Joni Eareckson Tada, from Holiness in Hidden Places

I may be tall... but not THAT tall! This is one way Elsa and I share the couch.

Mother's Day 2017

As already mentioned (here), Mother's Day weekend turned out to be rather different for us. But we did celebrate a bit that evening with a hot-dog roast.

I didn't get a photo of Dad resting by the fire in the middle of his heart-attack. Nor of Elsa next to me on a picnic blanket. And this is the only one I got of Mom on Mother's Day.

"Why are you taking my picture again?!" Dorothy's wonders.

Regi loves our company outdoors!

After Mom and Dad made s'mores, we all sang a few favorite songs - doing our best at the 5-part "Body of Christ" song without Maren here to be the "arm."