In Honor of My Mom's 76th Birthday--Keepers at Home and Kitchen Spirituality

Today, January 27th,  is my dear mother's 76th birthday--

and guess what?

I forgot to send her a card!

Can someone help look inside my brain to see what is there?

Or what isn't  there?
(And don't ask me who took that picture, but it was on my camera and it worked for this lapse of memory!)

So while my card awaits getting sent, I will finish this post that I've been working on the last few days in honor of my mother

who just moved with my dad in December to this lovely spot in Missouri.

(Obviously this is a summer photo, one taken a few months before they bought this place

near my sister Joella's family's home about a half mile away.

My mom exampled to us five daughters what it meant to be a keeper at home as the Bible teaches.

In a day when a woman's worth is often calculated by her career

or by the dollar amount she can earn alongside her husband,

it is not quite so popular to literally choose to forego the extra income and remain at home with all the children and the work at home and the schooling and myriad other humble tasks that are usually taken for granted simply because Mom does them and they happen at home and they are often considered pure drudgery and not exciting at all.

I read recently that Brother Lawrence, a 17th Century monk "felt the presence of God as strongly in the monastery kitchen as he did while kneeling at the altar." We can find in "Brother Lawrence's 'kitchen spirituality' the gentle touch of God in the ordinary dimensions of daily life."

 "Sharing even the most humble meal can be a sacred act," wrote the author of Souls in the Hands of a Tender God.

And that doesn't just stand for when you are serving at the homeless shelter or rescue mission

or cooking a fine meal for company or for somebody you are trying to reach out to.

Inviting someone for a meal is a great work, but being faithful in the daily grind of preparing menus and meals three times a day (not including snacks!) for just your own family is sacred, too.

So is washing the curtains and washing the dirty windows on the summer day in the middle of winter.

And washing the aphids off the indoor rose bushes on that same warm winter day.

And changing the tire which you discover is shredded after arriving at the butcher's
with your steer--bound for the freezer.

And taking care of the sink drain clogged by too much grease from all the home grown meat 

you've been scrubbing behind.

And teaching school and checking lessons and figuring grades for this quarter
and filling out report cards.

And don't feel like it isn't sacred

when you get out of bed a little before midnight--just because you are hungry and feeling high strung--

and you have to go fry a couple eggs and make some toast--
just a little early for breakfast!

Taking care of yourself is a sacred duty, too.

It's just when you are taking care of yourself in the middle of the night that you remember the ten fresh pineapples your husband bought for 98 cents each that day,

and they are still out in the back of his truck when the temperature is way below freezing!

Yes, putting on boots and scarf and gloves and a winter coat over your bathrobe

and climbing into the back of your husband's truck at 11:30 at night

is also a sacred duty.
(If only someone could have been out there taking a picture of the behind of a pink bathrobe crawling
into the back of Jonathan's truck topper in the middle of the night!)

You come in and eat fried eggs with toast and drink something hot, and climb back in bed, 

and yes, everything lived with God in mind,

committing all to Him,

 is sacred.

When God's "No" Just Means a-NO-ther Opportunity

Just when God has said "no" to another prayer 

or hope

or dream

or desire,

He lets you know that His "NO" just means a-NO-ther opportunity.

Maybe you wanted another friendship to work out, but God brings a different family or person
or relationship along
and asks you to be a friend--and then not only are you being the friend,
but you discover yourself befriended as well--and it's so exciting!
 
And maybe you'd rather write books or be a secretary in a clean office
or a teacher in a neat schoolroom or a housecleaner in an already clean house,
or a preacher behind a pulpit or a missionary in an exotic place,
and instead you end up with your boys helping other boys muck out your new friend's horse stall.
You decide that the next time you fill in your occupation for forms you have to fill out
that you will write, "Professional Pooper Scooper."

Even the littlest boy wanted to help!

You are the grand supervisor of boys who need work to do and exercise in the fresh air,
whose step-mother and daddy want them to learn how to live in the country
right on the edge of town.

 Your boy shows them how to shovel the stuff up and make a run for the ramp that leads onto the little trailer, so he can dump it for them to spread in the field or garden later.

There's nothing like some country air (even if it's a bit stinky and dusty)
for youngsters to breathe in
instead of sitting and playing with electronics.

And then the oldest boy walks home from the nearby school, and it's his turn to do the scoopin'.
We raked for the boys to scoop and shovel and dump.

 And then when the one horse stall was done, we called it quits for the evening and the children took off up the hill to explore the edges of their new rented property.

It was a great outing on that late afternoon after school!
Such a happy time--even if it was just scoopin' out a horse stall.
And just when you are again laying at God's feet your shredded dreams of being a foreign missionary,

He brings a foreigner to your back yard and right into your extended family

and asks you to be the one to make arrangements for them to come to church each Sunday
and find ways for them to be made at home and welcome and included--
such as at the home school gathering this week.

We had a ball with the home school families and several of the grandparents gathered for presentation night.

There are four other little girls around Hannah's age in this group
besides older children, of course!

We gathered in the home of the one family who had set up a lot of chairs in the living area.

Each family contributed to the generous amount of refreshments in the kitchen.

Jonathan and I had invited Jonathan's parents and Uncle George and Aunt Irina, who seemed to enjoy themselves very  much.

Here most of us are, above, with a few still out in the other rooms.

Below, Timmy, Danny and Hannah are the first on the program,

sharing some facts they'd researched and learned about brown bears, grizzlies, and pandas.

Then Carrie joined them to present a skit about Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

 Here is Goldilocks, eating Little Bear's porridge all up.

These two little sisters sang "I Am So Glad That Jesus Loves Me," with their big sister on the piano.

These other two little sisters played two charming duets on the piano.

Totally amazing!

Hannah took up our freshly sprouted oyster mushroom for Show-and-Tell.

Her daddy helped tell about how we had bought the box of organic matter and spores from Natural Grocer and were growing mushrooms in our own kitchen.

Another family's children had a skit about a boy's magic gloves.

Those invisible gloves helped him play his piano lessons better,

but when he lost them, he found that he could still play, 

because he had been practicing faithfully with his gloves, and practice paid off!

 Rose presented a report she had written about how our months got their names.

 Carrie played an arrangement of "He Hideth My Soul" on the piano.

 Amanda played a song on her harp.

Finally our boys each shared a book report on books Grandma Morley had sent us

by Jesse Stuart, which I had read out loud to them for bedtime stories.

Jesse Stuart has some outstanding children's stories. These were Old Ben, a story about a pet black snake,

and Andy Finds a Way, a story about how a young boy saved the new calf he loved from getting turned into veal, learning lessons in honesty along the way.

Another boy had a Show-and-Tell about this model of the ship Queen Anne.

He read us many interesting facts he had found about this ship.

After the presentations, we enjoyed all the delicious refreshments, from homemade sausage to fresh pineapples to homemade cookies.

I enjoyed getting acquainted with my friend's sister from California, a mother of five herself.

There was quite the hubbub!

Roses in January--and Treasure out of the Junk Yard

Roses in January are not very common.

I didn't dream I'd have roses blooming inside our sliding glass doors this January--
the first one blooming on New Years Day.
Up with the dawn, this is the beautiful morning scene out our sliding door.

And then this is the zoomed in scene at sunset out the door on the other side of the house.

And I'm sure there are people who wonder why I get homesick for Pennsylvania
when I get to enjoy sunrises and sunsets like these!
I'm blessed to have a happy, loving family...

wonderful friends,

and even pumpkin pies many times a year!

I was blessed this week to have a friend take me out to a Chinese restaurant.
It's great to have a friend with such a friendly, laid back, positive attitude.

And the Chinese decor took me back to my experiences on my Bible trip I took to China
back before I got married.

I ordered chicken and snow peas and egg drop soup. 

And in the middle of a relaxing hour away from usual duties, I told her about a book I found at the library called "Souls in the Hands of a Tender God."

Just the title caught my eye, my attention, and my heart.

We've all heard about Jonathan Edwards' sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
And God used that sermon, at the heels of much prayer, to fuel an amazing revival in America.
But sometimes there are people who need something different--
such as people who have grown up hearing about an angry God all the time
and hardly know the tender side of Him--
and people who are struggling in different ways and whose hearts need tenderness and gentleness.
I read this book, and as I read, I cried, as the author told tender story after tender story of his reaching out to rejects of society, mental cases with bipolar disorder or manic depression, and other people.

He himself had experienced a period of terrible depression in his third year of college.
There was no rhyme or reason, just a terrible depression that caused him to leave college, go home, find himself crying in his parents' living room, and go driving down the road with the concrete supports of a bridge beckoning his car.
He did not know what was the matter with him or what he was doing. 
Had he chosen to smash into the bridge and end his life could  he have been accountable for it
when he literally did not know what he was doing?
Mercifully he drove on by, found an exit and a little road and a little lane that ended in an abandoned spot where some potter had been working with clay.
Something about the scene sparked the author's curiosity--and gave him a reason to live again.
Little by little he improved and got back to his old self.
But he always had a place in his heart for people whose brain was malfunctioning in ways
that brought on depression or worse disorders.

It doesn't take much to cause different levels of issues with a person's mental attitudes and functions.
Our brains are intricately made, and if one intricacy fails, there are problems.
And what if many intricacies fail?
Later, he spent much of his life ministering to people on the street who were rejects of society. He saw one after another restored--
because someone cared about them and helped them get the help they needed.
He would walk beside them, cautiously and gently, till they would trust him,
and then he could start gently suggesting help and contacts, havens and doctors.

This book was a little slice of another aspect of reaching out to hurting humanity.

"God is where people are hurting," said one of the people to whom the author ministered, "not in a courtroom somewhere, waiting to pass judgment."

Christ "welcomed those whom others reviled. He affirmed the worth and dignity of the lowly."

"Time and time again, the Scriptures call upon us to love one another, and to love especially those most at risk among us: the ill and frail, the widow, the orphan, the infant, the poor, the oppressed. In the end, this is every one of us. We are all in some way wounded, stumbling, lame, uncertain, insecure, and in need of tenderness. We may armor ourselves emotionally, move about in motorcades, put our hands to the levers of power, live in pomp and ostentation, and bask in the light of prominence among our fellow humans. 

We may see ourselves as first and best.

But in the actual count, we stand side by side with our most troubled neighbor, neither better nor worse, but fully equal as humans."