Blessings--There are Always Blessings!

One of my favorite blogs is "A Holy Experience," by Ann Voskamp, author of One Thousand Gifts.

Her book and blog have greatly impacted my life--constantly encouraging women like me to give thanks in everything--even the hard things,

because giving thanks always precedes the blessing!

Mud-for moms-is a hard thing. 

But my children could always give thanks for mud!

Here we were wading in mud at Blue Mesa Reservoir last August...

getting lots of minerals soaked in!

What fun!

Did you know that plastering a bit of mud on a bee sting will take the pain away in minutes? It works!

Rose knows. A yellow jacket stung her lip one day on a picnic, and having nothing else,

I frantically scooped up a bit of black mud from under the picnic table. 

In ten minutes, she would hardly have known she got stung. 

Can we give thanks when our dreams melt like this vinyl fence we saw recently when we drove through the burn area in Black Forest?

In the middle of the ashes, 

in the middle of charred ambitions and hopes and wishes of our lives which may have ended up upside-down, twisted, burnt, destroyed--

the figure of a cross is carved.

And can we find words?

Can we find words when the cross is our only glory?

Like this little nest of baby robins under our pastor's back porch,

may we remember that though the love of everything we counted dear is challenged, we are safe in Your care!

When I found the photo below that Jonathan had taken at a work site, it reminded me of one of Ann Voskamp's recent posts about women who compare themselves with each other. She wrote:

"If your life looks like a mess-to them--they whip out a measuring stick and feel confident of their own worthiness.

If your life looks like a monumet--to them--they whip out a measuring stick

and start cutting you down for their own empowerment. "

" The world isn't  a forest of measuring sticks.

The world is a forest of burning bushes.

Everything isn't a marker to make you feel behind or ahead; everything is a flame to make you see God is here. 

That God is working through this person's life; that God is redeeming that person's life...that God is present here in this mess, that God is using even this. 

Walk through life with a measuring stick--and your eyes get so small you never see God. ,.,

Pick up a yardstick to measure your life against anyone else's

and you've just picked up a stick and beaten up your own soul. 

Measuring sticks always become weapons. ..

Know how Dad always tells the boys when they're building something, 'Measure twice, cut once.'

Well, when you're building a life? Measure yourself once against anyone else--and you cut twice:

them and you.

"And I want to cup every beautiful woman who feels less than or more than, every beautiful woman who feels judged, every beautiful woman who feels like a failure, who feels tired with all the measuring people up that’s tearing her down. To cup her beautiful face and murmur what I know from touching my own scars:

Comparison is a thug that robs your joy. But it’s even more than that — Comparison makes you a thug who beats down somebody – or your soul.

Scales always lie. They don’t make a scale that ever told the truth about value, about worth, about significance.

And the thing about meausuring sticks, girl? Measuring sticks try to rank some people as big and some people as small — but we aren’t sizes. We are souls.  There are no better people or worse people — there are only God-made souls. There is no point trying to size people up, no point trying to compare – because souls defy measuring.

You can’t measure souls.

And the moment you try to measure souls — you try to usurp God. And ain’t nobody needs reminding of who it was that tried to usurp God. Measuring people is always devilish work – and carrying around a measuring stick is a bit like carrying around a pitchfork.

I whisper it ...like a heart’s battle cry, like it could rally a generation of daughters and women and sisters:

Girls rival each other. Women revive each other. 
Girls empale each other. Women empower each other. 
Girls compare each other. Women champion each other."

I cut and pasted the above from Ann's blog, as it was worth sharing!

A batch of miller moths on our front porch wall.

When you consider how the Bible says our lives are like a moth--

is there really time to waste comparing ourselves, our accomplishments (or lack thereof), our gifts, our goals, to those of another, and get all bent out of shape because someone is besting us?

Are they really besting us?

Aren't they supposed to just be doing the will of God for them, too,

like we are supposed to be doing His will for us personally?

Though we may be at every disadvantage, blindfolded, the wrong size, the wrong shape, not much in the way of finances or health or talent,

we can still hold that bat--

and swing at that pinata!

We can mean to do what we are doing!

We can be on purpose about life. 

No, maybe it isn't just like the other person. Maybe it's different than everybody around us.

Maybe our bat is different, and our pinata is different, and even the treats in the pinata are different for us than for others.

But we can be on purpose and accomplish exactly what God wants to do with us each day!

We Give Thanks

We Give Thanks--

a plaque I got Jonathan to take a picture of while he and I were strolling around Hobby Lobby last month, having a date while our oldest children were at youth night.

We give thanks for food--

this is what it looks like when we freeze corn to take to church carry-in dinner and to Grandma's

(and maybe some for us, too!)

 Cutting it off the cob

We give thanks for friends...

Baby dedication for little Charisse Mosley, when both sets of her grandparents were at our church a couple months ago. Bro. Ralph Gault officiated. 

Unexpected blessing of Brandon Byler and Heather Martin, two days before they became engaged in the foothills of Pikes Peak!

Jonathan and Sam going hunting with work guys--sorry no elk to tell stories about! All they had were bull licenses, or they might have had several cow elk
!

We give thanks for the love between us

Every once in a while, we'll find a decent DVD at the library, or one that teaches drawing lessons. 

And we'll gather round our little laptop in the livingroom. 

And of course, love even extends to little animals!

Rose enjoys feeding a little piglet that a friend brought to home school group.

So thankful for home school group and field trips!

Here we are very much enjoying a couple hours at the Denver Aquarium.

Ever stand so close to a shark?

I'd rather stand near the turtles!

More my style--feeding lettuce to turtles!

More beautiful fish of God's creation

Starfish!

Stingray!

Can you see the children inside the big bubble?

Beside water, under water, through water.

And did you ever feel like a lumpfish?

I just had to get a picture of this lumpfish.

Sometimes I think we all have those moments when we feel like--well, lumpfish!

We're certainly not made out to be the star of the show like starfish, 

or brazen brutes like sharks,

or beautiful fish like so many of the bright-colored ones we saw.

Just something a little less than the ordinary fish, even--

just a lumpy lumpfish.

But even if all we are is a lumpy lumpfish,

we can still give thanks--

that though we may not be beautiful in man's sight, we are created by God,

 though we may be scorned by others, we are loved by Him;

though we may be avoided by others, we are held in God's hand,

though we may be rejected by man, we are accepted by God.

And if there is nothing else to give thanks for, 

we can give thanks for these things!

Ever Feel Like Half a Person?

Well, here are half of persons!

 

The girls are creating scarecrows for the night of the hayride.

And sorry, we did not get a photo of the whole scarecrow. They were awfully cute, stuffed with straw, and topped with pumpkins for heads!

 

There they are, those girls with those half persons.

 



Will they tear them down--

or build them up?

When we tore down those scarecrows, all that was left was bits of straw.

But when the girls built them up, they became a whole person.

Whole pumpkin-head scarecrows

with a little bit of straw stuffing (don't we all have a bit of that?)

can at least scare away blackbirds and wear a jaunty straw hat and cheer up the yard somewhere

with their snaggle-toothed smiles!
(Got that last adjective from Bro. Harry Plank who preached revival two weeks ago at our church! LOVED, LOVED, LOVED his messages,

uproariously funny and incredibly heart-searching.

I'd never had so much fun attending revival in all my life.

You should have been there Sunday morning to see him stomp a wasp on the step to the platform--and then turn around,

arms crossed, nose in the air,

a look of triumph on his face, declaring,

"When you're good, you're good!"

Just loved his crazy, amazing sense of humor! (Did he think we needed it???)

Ever plan something and then have it rain?

How about a hay ride in the rain?

The young and young-at-heart didn't let it deter them. They rode under tarp and umbrella, and probably had the most memorable hayride ever!

(Most of the children are under that tarp! There were about 18 children.)



Jonathan and I couldn't help thinking and discussing with each other--

you have to learn to make the best of things--

and then something that even seems bad (like rain on the evening of the hayride)  becomes a good thing--maybe even the best!

Just out with the umbrellas and tarps, and in with coziness and laughter and abandon to fun!

 

Even when we feel like we are this snaggle-toothed pumpkin head being torn down by scarecrow-demolishers, we can hand the few bits of straw that are left of us to God and say,

"Lord, here are just these few bits of straw.

I have nothing else to offer--no overalls (everything has been exposed and shredded away)

no top (what's left of us is at the bottom)

no hat (or what is left is full of holes)

and not even a pumpkin head anymore!

But if You will take these bits of straw, if all you can do with them is make them into some sort of stuffing that will help someone stand stronger instead of weaker, then do that.

But if you choose to gather these bits of straw up and burn them,

if our lives, ambitions, dreams, plans, wishes and reputations are demolished,

that is okay, too.

In the last day, straw won't stand,

The only thing that will stand is pure gold.

So Lord, if you want to take away all our straw until none be left,

just let Your fire burn, let Your wind blow--till what is left is

not golden straw,

but straw-colored gold, pure gold, refined by fire!

Blow away our dross by Your wind, and leave us pure gold!

 

Even little people can make a lot of noise.

Danny trying out Daddy's baritone horn.

Art class with the home school group. They are sketching a bunch of grapes with leaves, and then shading them. 

Timmy proudly shows his sketch. They made round grapes by tracing quarters.

I miss leaves so much.

Soooo--we raked up leaves at a friend's house after helping him move, and brought them home for the goats. But then the boys decided instead to dump them in the front yard and have some fun.



Some days, don't you agree, you just want to go outside and throw leaves???

But you always have a choice.

You can just throw up your hands,

and scatter leaves,

or you can hold them out to receive--

and receive blessings and joys and comfort and love and grace from the hand of God.

We can let go of our fist full of leaves--let go of defensiveness and prejudice and selfishness and pettiness and people-pleasingness,

and hold out hands to God--

empty hands--

offering thanksgiving for whatever He gives or takes--

and I wonder what He will fill them with?

 

One thing God filled our hands with recently was friends!

Not only was it good to reconnect with Bro. and Sis. Harry Plank from back east, but right on their heels came Brandon Byler and Heather Martin--long-time friends of my family back east.

Brandon and Heather began courting in earnest recently, and I am sooo happy for them!





Just for my brothers who are reading this blog--you would have wanted to tease Brandon so much--

the way he hovers over Heather, giggling and laughing and

acting like the world could never be so sunny and joyful and wonderful!

He tried very, very hard to be as interested in the pictures of my family as Heather was...

she kept asking about one and another of my family and telling Brandon all about how she first met my family when she was five years old, and we were playing bells and...

you could tell Brandon was just so, so interested in my family.

I mean, he was TRYING to be interested,

but anyone could tell he was more interested in that beautiful, radiant young lady sitting there with her happy smile and memories of herself back there when he didn't have a clue this wonderful person existed...

Sammy kept taking pictures, and this one he made brown and white, but I love it anyway.

It was so fun to share about my siblings and just be with such a wonderful young couple--I just think it is tremendous that they are getting together. My sister Kezia graduated with Brandon, and then both Brandon and Heather were at Kezia's wedding in Illinois about 6 years ago. Heather's family has been close friends with our family for many years, and Brandon was a good friend of Kezia's in college. So we sort of feel like we are almost related and share in the joy of God bringing them into each other's lives! 

Our pastor had Brandon preach Sunday-- an incredible message about Jesus healing the woman who had been bent over for 18 years.

Brandon had been spending the week as an intern at Caring Heart Ministries in town, observing counseling sessions, and he shared some of what he has been learning.

He shared about how most churches do well at helping people spiritually, but they often forget about the emotional aspect, and how that often if people's emotional needs are met, and their emotional wounds healed, it clears the way for God to meet their needs spiritually, or for them to become the whole person God intended. I have never heard a message like that before in my life, and I appreciated it so much!

Well, so much for Brandon preaching messages and interning under counseling--

all it takes is getting around our lively little boys who led him on a very merry and very speedy chase,  racing all around the house (I hoped he went too fast through our please-don't-describe-it office, to notice all the mess!) and there was this hilarious wrestling match--and everybody on the floor!
I always love when our boys have a young man to wrestle with--
They need it!



It was just so funny when he suddenly caught himself, eyes wide looking a bit petrified,

"Are they allowed?" he gasped, wondering if I had some rule about behavior in the house.
I got such a kick out of it!

Well, we do have this no-running-in-the-house rule, you know,

but there are a few exceptions,

like when a young guy brings the girl he is courting

and just needs to let off some steam!

And you better believe that Heather was standing there taking pictures, too!
What a fun day!