Need a Laugh?

Need a Laugh??

This may help...

Gulliver in her bird-watching window this past winter - caught sniffing at a camera with a slow shutter speed, and...

... Reginald looking a bit affected by the wide-angle lens

Enforced "Rest"

The couch I shared with Elsa

Two years ago Elsa and I ended up on the couch - hardly able even to sit up to eat for the first while.

Well meaning people would tell us to "just rest" - as if it was a privilege. I even wondered wryly if this was God's way of giving the "sabbatical" I had wished for in prior years.

But I wasn't remembering Matthew 7:9-11:

"Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!"

One good gift came in the form of a package from a friend containing two books by Amy Carmichael. How encouraging it was to read of this strong woman of God going through a similar trial. Maybe today she can encourage you too?

"One day, after weeks of nights when, in spite of all that was done to induce sleep, it refused to come, except in brief distracted snatches, the mail brought a letter which discoursed with what sounded almost like pleasure on this 'enforced rest,' and the silly phrase rankled like a thorn. I was far too tired to laugh it off as one can laugh off things when one is well. 

"So this was supposed to be rest? and was the Father breaking, crushing, 'forcing,' by weight of sheer physical misery, a child who only longed to obey His lightest wish? This word had what I now know was an absurd power to distress. It held such an unkind, such a false conception of our Father. 

"... I had no peace till I had heard deep within me soft and soothing words such as a mother uses: 'Let not your heart be troubled; do I not understand? What do such words matter to Me or to thee?' And I knew that the Father understood His child, and the child her Father, and all was peace again. ...

"It was then that the thought of the many to whom unrecorded little pangs must be daily commonplaces came with a new compassion, born of a new understanding. And I wanted to share my crumb of comfort at once, and tell them not to weigh flying words, or let their peace be in the mouths of men, or allow the ignorant stock phrases of the well to the ill to penetrate their shield. 'For no man can tell what in that combat attends us but he that hath been in the battle himself'; so how can they, the unwounded, know anything about the matter?

"But the Lord our Creator knows (and all who have ever suffered know) that pain and helplessness are not rest, and never can be; nor is the weakness that follows acute pain, nor the tiredness that is so tired of being tired that it is poles apart from rest. 

He knows that rest is found in that sense of well-being one has after a gallop on horseback, or a plunge in a forest pool or the glorious sea - in physical and in mental fitness, in power to be and do. He knows it. He created us so, and does the Creator forget? If He remembers, what does it matter that others forget?"

Amy Carmichael, Rose from Brier 

And so God can keep His children soft amid that which threatens to make us hard and bitter.

When we could walk so far, another "couch" was a blanket on the grass.

Popcorn Plant

When you think of a popcorn plant, you doubtless picture a corn stalk with ears of the special kernels which, when heated, explode into delicious puffs.

Ahhh! I can smell it now. Freshly popped corn...

Or wait, I'm just smelling this unusual plant!

Popcorn Cassia plant

If you rub the leaves of the popcorn cassia plant, it smells exactly like popped corn. No kidding! And the blossoms are pretty quirky too. :-)

That is just one of the amazing plants at Maren and Jason's greenhouse this year. The banana plant is pretty imposing too. Then I love feeling the different textures of grasses: silky, brushy, spiky, squirrely...

And some of my favorite colors are among the many varieties of begonias. Here are just a couple of the vibrant shades.

At the Lake

Elsa and I had the gift of part of an afternoon and evening at the lake for our first time of the year. Plus I was able to use my renewed eye/brain abilities to drive us there. 

Another huge gift and answer to prayer!

We spent time on the dock enjoying sunshine on our faces, rain clouds rolling across the lake, sprinkles on our arms...

... loons swimming nearby and calling in the distance, breezes tossing cat's paws across the calm water... 

... our shadows lying on the lake bed, light playing across the miniature mountain-ranges of sand and reeds washed up in the shallows...

 ... and some time of knitting, reading, and writing. Plus a bit of a nap. ;-) 

So many gifts in one day. Thank You, Father!

"Every good and perfect gift is from above,

coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,

who does not change like shifting shadows."

James 1:17

Who am I?

"One of the enemy's sneakiest tactics... today is to get us distracted with self-analysis. 

The question 'Who am I?' is one of the top concerns on our minds. We take elaborate personality tests, go to career counselors, cultivate special hobbies, build up our personal Pinterest boards, and imbibe self-help books in an effort to discover and express who we are.

But we have become preoccupied with the wrong question.

As [children] of the King, we are no longer to concern ourselves with who we are. Instead, our focus should be centered around a completely different question: 

who is He?

When we know who Jesus is and we understand what it means to be found in Him, the question "Who am I?" is automatically solved. 

He is the vine, we are the branches - and without Him, or lives will amount to nothing (see John 15:5)." - Leslie Ludy

Sun shining through young leaves on grape vine

A whole neighborhood of bird's nests have gathered in our grape arbor.

New leaves show which branches remained connected to the vine and root through winter.

Fruit (concord grapes) already beginning to form

Exerpt from Leslie Ludy's article, "The Destiny Question," in issue No. 3 of setapartgirl magazine: setapartgirl.com

Empty Bowls

Looking for my bowl

It was good to get back to our local "Empty Bowls" event last month.

For a donation, you pick your own bowl from hundreds handmade by local artists and pottery students. Then you get a scoop of soup and piece of bread to enjoy before taking your bowl home. 

(Or, if you are Elsa or me, you bring your own less-allergenic foods to eat in your empty bowl.)

The best part is that all the donations go to the local Salvation Army. Each year we get to talk to our local lieutenant and are so impressed by the work they are doing and the lives that are being touched with God's love and truth.

Back at home, Elsa's bowl works great along with chopsticks for "egg-roll-in-a-bowl."

Spring Blossoms

 Bleeding hearts have long been a favorite spring blossom for me.

 Our plant has gotten so large that now we can enjoy picking in some of the cascades of delicate pink bangles without making a dent in the flowerbed.

Lilacs are even more of a favorite - both for sight and scent. But their strong perfume is causing problems for Elsa and me this year.  This one little branch sat in the next room for only an evening before causing enough trouble to have to be enjoyed only outdoors - and from a distance - for the rest of the season. We will continue our allergy treatments and hope for the year when we can once again enjoy more of the facets of springtime.

An old quilt from Grandpa and Grandma's house also made a large spring "blossom" as it aired out on the deck railing.

Waiting to Fly

Some days you just have to sit and rest a while before you can fly again.

Poor little brown bird huddled on the damp deck to regather its strength and wits after running into our glass doors

"Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in [wait upon] the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint."
Isaiah 40:30-31

A Trip to the Vet

Our dog, Reginald, needed a check-up this spring, and both he and Gulliver needed their immunizations. Thankfully Dad was available to help me with the "zoo!"

Regi wanted to see the view out pickup windows.

Gully cowered and yowled in her carrier below his feet.

Regi showed much excitement in the exam room, 
though he didn't like the blood-draw.

Gully cowered with much fear in the exam room,
though she did great with the vet!

Gully is glad she gets to stay home while Regi has to go back in today for a booster shot for his Lyme vaccinations. 

Amazingly his antibodies show no trace of tick-borne illness now since he was treated for Lyme in 2014, but we may as well do what we can to protect him for the future.

Now, why are there no such things as Lyme vaccinations for humans...?  The veterinary doctor shakes his head at all the MDs who don't think Lyme and co-infections are even an issue in our area.

A Sign of His Goodness, 2

(Continued from the previous post)

There is a scar on my neck that doesn't want to heal as quickly and fully as those I see on friends. Though one year old today, I still catch people staring at it. But last summer my soon-to-be brother-in-law encouraged me that it was actually a sign of God's goodness on my body. (Yes, thinking back, I do believe those were nearly his words!)

This sounds like a strange and hard answer to my prayer on 3.22.2015 to:

"Give me a sign of your goodness" 

Yet, after a year I can truly go on to say with David, 

"...for You, O LORD, have helped me and comforted me." (Psalm 86:17)

 Back to my journal:

April 2nd, 2015

"Still not recovered by any means from yesterday's trauma and living in suspense as the results were supposed to have come back last evening... I remember basically daring God that He could not love me and let the call be any more bad news.

Oh, how thankful I am for His mercy and understanding. As Elizabeth Eliot said, God can "handle it" - all our hard words and questions, our pain and doubt. A good example of this is when Martha and Mary basically blamed Jesus for not being there when they thought they needed Him - not there to keep their brother from dying. Jesus didn't rebuke them. He wept with them. And then He went on to do something way better than just healing Lazarus from his illness. (Read John 11 for more)

Though I didn't notice it until much later, my dark day was lined with "signs of God's goodness" to me.

- My last piano student of the day cancelled, letting me finish at the perfect time.

- I had not been strong enough to drive even the 3 miles to teach that day, so I already had Dad lined up to drive me home.

 - A friend was visiting that afternoon - the absolutely perfect friend to be with us at this time.

 "Near the end of my last lesson for the day, my cell phone rang. I apologized to my student and answered. It was the doctor. My brain went dull. I think I slightly realized the doctor himself shouldn't have had to call with the results.

"By the time I got into the next room, he said so apologetically the hideous word - 'CANCER.' I responded dully - in a dream, asked a couple questions in a flat voice, barely registered what he said was to come next, thanked him, took a deep breath, and walked back in to my student whom I shakily asked to be praying for me [knowing she and her dear family would certainly do that.] 

"Right then it struck me. Back in December when my Lyme doctor first found the nodule (an amazing gift from God so perfectly timed to catch it with her ultra-sensitive fingers much earlier than anyone else would have), my first thought - from outside my brain, I'm sure - was:

 "'God, bring Yourself glory through this [nodule].'

"And then my flesh instantly recoiled, and I thought, 'NO! That can only mean it will have to be hard. And I can't stand any more hard! Let me just be normal, and who cares about anything more. I don't want You to use me anymore!'

Well, God didn't take me up on that. And I'm glad! I certainly don't know all the ways He can use this in my life, but I know He is - and will - turn it into something beautiful. Even if my scar never fades.

I don't have the strength to share now of how I can look back and see His goodness through the dark months following surgery - which itself was much harder than I expected. The days of deep hypothyroidism, radiation, and long struggles to replace my thyroid with the right medication. Maybe another time.

But I had a beautiful sign of His ongoing healing yesterday! My pedometer (worn rather to help make sure I don't walk too much for my energy reserves in a day) reached a new record.

I walked a "whopping" 3,632 steps!! My first time to top one mile in over two years. And double my average from just a month or two ago.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

A Sign of His Goodness

For some years now I have kept a bookmark in the Psalms. No matter how fast or slowly it moves ahead, when I reach the end, I go back to begin again.

Today brought me back up to Psalm 86. A penciled star by the title shows how much this prayer of David has meant to me through the years. But it was the marking at the end that stopped me in my tracks today.  

On March 22nd of last year I marked verse 17 as I prayed David's words for myself: "Give me a sign of your goodness..." It had been over a year since chronic Lyme disease had sent me to the couch. I badly needed a sign - as my journal shows just a week later.

March 29 - Sunday 

"Some days I get desperate for God to send some sign that He is actually in this thing with me, that He actually cares, that He's still in control, and that He's not just being a tyrant... Today was one of those days...

"I cried out to God inside, 'You don't even love me as well as a human parent,' along with more incoherent thoughts of agony and pain - not anger. Then I forced myself to remember that this was a lie, and I gasped for the truth, though I couldn't articulate it. 

"Within an hour, [a dear friend and prayer-warrior] called to pray with me. Mom told her I couldn't really talk as I was too weak from having gotten to church in the morning. Our friend - [dealing with even more chronic illness and pain than I, and for many more years] said I get a 'star' for that anyway. :-) She hadn't made it to church due to cluster headaches today.

"Yet she prayed and praised God all through the day and called and prayed for me until her horrible asthma-cough stopped her from talking.

"She prayed truth into my ears and mind and heart. Can you believe - she said, 'We know, God, that You love Hannah so much. More than even her parents can love her." Wow...

"Yep. God still speaks directly to our deepest needs. He answers His child's cries!" 

That was certainly a "sign," but it alone was not enough to get me through the year ahead.

---------------------------

Before reading Psalm 83 this morning, today's date - May 14th - had already brought back waves of memories. Tough, painful memories. 

One year ago as I sit here typing, I was in surgery. Cancer had to be cut out of my body before it spread.

But along with the months of painful memories surrounding this date, I chose to remember the quiet ways God worked through the past year. I look back and see the signs of His goodness.

This is why the date in my Bible caught me off guard this morning. Eleven days after I asked to really see God's goodness in my life, my world got even darker. 

God had granted a few days of peace leading up to the April 1st ultrasound of a nodule on my thyroid. Even as I lay on the table, gentle music in the dimly lit room contained a few bars that harmonically/melodically exactly matched Sara Groves' beautiful song, "He's Always Been Faithful." And as I lay there and prayed for wisdom, really not wanting to go through with it, God led the doctors to the right decision of going ahead with a biopsy even though my nodule didn't really fit the specifications.

Just before the procedure, my endocrinologist reassured me, "You're in good hands." He was speaking of the lovely doctor who had been doing these biopsies for 9 years, but I also understood that I was in God's good hands. 

But then, God disappeared. Though I didn't feel like it through a "technically difficult" biopsy, the doctor reported that "the patient handled it well." I held myself together as I staggered out to the waiting room, Maren wheeled me down to the van Dad brought to the door, and we drove the hour home. My journal remembers more clearly:

"Then, and for the rest of the day I was in emotional agony...

 "But the worst pain was not physical. It was that I felt like God had left me when the needle stabbed the first time. And I couldn't shake that agony.

"Why did He 'leave me' to be consumed with tension and attacked by fears?... I was praying hard, gasping and crying for Him. Reaching in the dark. But I lost all sense of His presence and care. (At least it seemed that way. I would never want to experience that actuality.)

"It hurt so badly to have yet another thing in my life go 'worse than usual.' To have yet another example of people's fervent prayers answered with a 'No.' Prayers that a biopsy would not be needed; that my appointments would go well; that I would know God's peace and love..."

 I share this only because I know many of you have your own experiences of darkness, and some of you are going through them right now. And yet, there are more signs to come for you - as there are in my story.

But this is getting long. I'll save the rest for another post.

Helping at the Greenhouses

It is a treat to get to help Maren and Jason and his parents with their huge job of tending and selling plants this time of year.

Mom stocked and sorted calibrachoa

Maren started water-fights... ;-) No, just kidding!

Elsa and I did much better with the bits of hauling and sorting we tried this year than last year.  But it still takes a lot of recovery.

 

Dad did most of the cart-pushing as we brought perennials out into the sunshine.

And Dort took a nap in the cosy-warm sales greenhouse.

The Father's Love

Before I got out of bed this morning, I realized a song was playing in my head. I love it how my Father gives me songs "out of the blue" - whether to start my day or to redirect it later.

This morning's song was:

How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure,
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure.
How great the pain of searing loss -
The Father turns His face away,
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory.

Behold the man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders;
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers.
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished;
His dying breath has brought me life -
I know that it is finished.

I will not boast in anything,
No gifts, no power, no wisdom;
But I will boast in Jesus Christ,
His death and resurrection.
Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer;
But this I know with all my heart -
His wounds have paid my ransom.

by Stuart Townend

At this Link is a beautiful rendition by the group Selah.

Spring Blossoms

Our Plum Tree:

a delight to the senses of sight and smell

An unknown blossoming bush that is gracing the edges of our woods.

Spring Moving

Our geranium moved outdoors for its third summer.

And the cold crop veggies we bought from Maren and Jason have already moved into the gardens. Cabbage and kale... yum!

Planting Seeds

Back in January Elsa sorted the seeds in Maren and Jason's fridge.

                

Then in April we got to see some of what came from those tiny seeds!

Bulbs and Budding Branches

These brightened our home before the outdoors had yet begun to get green.

When lilac leaf-buds begin to swell, it is fun to pick a few in and get a preview of spring.