Dirty Woman Creek

Don't ask me where the creek on the way to Mt. Hermon got this name, 

but it got named Dirty Woman Creek, and so this park that the creek flows through got named Dirty Woman Park.

Life happens and even lilies and roses get dirty at times.

Dirty women.

Dirty men.

Dirty children.

Dirty families.

It's why we need grace--and not just one or two experiences of it way back when.

 I loved this plaque that the girls and I saw in a gift shop while waiting for Jonathan to get gas in the van the day we climbed Mt. Hermon.

"In our home we do second chances.

We do grace.

We do mistakes.

We do REAL.

We  do I'm sorry. 

We do FUNNY.

We do LOUD really well.

We do HUGS.

We do Family.

We do Love."

I loved that plaque and this one, too. 

"Today I wish you a day of ordinary miracles."

Grace is an ordinary miracle. 

It's when God says "No," about an extraordinary miracle that would take away the problem,

the burden, 

     the pain,

             the cross,

 and just says, "My grace is sufficient for you."

 Like this embroidered towel says, 

"A Good day at the Cabin Begins with Sunrise

and ends with a Smile."

That's grace kicking in, because sometimes at the day's end

you do not really feel like smiling.

 'Cause the front porch you'd tried to keep neat and spruced up might be crammed with a table saw

and a pile of fresh sawdust (some of which is now all over your pretty flowers).

 It's from the supers that your hubby is helping your boys make for future bees,

and we won't talk about the cluttered driveway and the (how shall we describe it?)garage

and flooded yards.

 But your sons are learning woodworking skills with their dad's tools--and you remember the tool you ran across in another blog recently,

"Instead of ranting, make a request."

So you make a request that the tools be put away and the sawdust swept up immediately after the project is finished.

 And you make a request that the new supers be stored somewhere besides the middle of the livingroom.

 And you take a few moments to pause near the beehives

buzzing ferociously with life.

 Last week we got together with other families in the back yard of a grandmother whose life was almost snatched away through carbon monoxide poisoning 

when, probably due to her poor hearing, she accidentally left her car running in the garage

 and then went to bed in her little house--and almost died.

Now her daughter and family are spending most of their days helping care for her as she very slowly recovers.

The children played in her back yard so the moms could visit together in the grandma's livingroom.

 Our friends' goats had both had kids.

 They were so darling.

 The one goat had triplets--all does!

 Carrie had made these meat and cabbage filled rolls the night before, 

and we took leftovers with us to add to the snack we all had. 

On the way home from there, we ran into a heavy rain and hail storm.

 We tried to salvage what was left over after the hailstorm hit.

 We also tried to save what we could before the next storm hit.

We had warnings of one thunderstorm after another, with heavy rains and hail,

so the girls went out and tried to save our raised beds they'd tended so carefully.

 Old blankets, old quilts, whatever we could find we used.

 And the thunderstorms came.

Thunder, lightning, heavy rain, hail, and then that moved on and another storm came through.

 This is what our flower beds in front of the house looked like for a couple days while we didn't dare uncover them.

Potted plants we just set back indoors to keep them safe.

The roses I bought at Home Depot are blooming so beautifully--

while they wait to be placed outdoors again.

And sometimes we are hidden away for a while; sometimes weakness keeps us from serving as much as we'd like;  sometimes we just aren't able to be out in the storm and stay in one piece. 

And so God hides us under His hand for a while.

 "Not so in haste, my heart!" says this one of my favorite hymns.

"Have faith in God and wait.

Although He lingers long, 

He never comes too late."

 And sometimes, day after day while the storm pounds, you sit at the piano for a few moments,

weary of other storms, too,

and try to let music and the words of comforting hymns refresh your wilted spirit.

 Because grace is about singing in the middle of the storm,

and choosing to put in His hands what you'd like to but cannot control.

 We read in a newsletter about a precious Christian sister in a South American country whose husband was recently martyred while taking Bibles to a dangerous place. When she was given opportunity to face the killers, and to help decide justice, she said later that she wanted to kill them, but when she opened her mouth, the Holy Spirit gave her words of forgiveness and love. 

"The Lord will avenge, and not me," she said.

  "In the immediate aftermath," she shared, "I still dealt with loneliness, feeling vulnerable and so hurt that I could not hear the voice of God."

Hurt can do that.

You can be so traumatized that you can't hear God's voice.
But that doesn't mean He isn't there. 
 This precious widow has been given hope and grace. and American Christians are coming alongside to provide relief to her family and supplies of Bibles so she can carry on her husband's work and vision of spreading the gospel to unreached people.

Thus does the grace of God wash the dirt off of us vulnerable women

and give us grace and love when in the flesh we'd like to seek our own revenge. 

"Dirty Woman Creek-" a wonderful creek of God's grace where the dirt and dust and grime,

the unfairness and injustice and cruelty of life

can be washed away and we can come out of it blooming like a rose.