When All You Can Do Is Look Up

Yesterday on my way to the mailbox, I thought about Jesus telling about the things that were to come in the end times, and telling us, "When ye see these things about to come to pass, then look up, for your redemption draweth nigh!"

And right there, on my way to the mailbox, I was looking up--up beyond the blue Colorado sky,

to God, from Whom comes our redemption.

Today I learned about Afghani Christians martyred yesterday by the T-ban. 

Should I have been burdened more for them yesterday than I was?

But why?

Their redemption had drawn nigh!

Who knows? While I was standing there looking up, perhaps the heavens opened in that moment for praying, singing believers. 

Why should I wonder about looking up instead of down?

It is precisely what Jesus said to do.

So I look up. 

Today we learned from Jonathan's parents that Jonathan's former boss, Steve Speidel, went to be with the Lord. Jonathan had driven by Steve's house today--and prayed that the Lord would be kind to him and take him quickly, before Steve had to suffer more. 

And the Lord granted that petition. 

Hours later, Steve was taken gently away.

So although we mourn with the family in their loss, we also look up.

We look up, because Steve's redemption drew near, and he is forever gone from this world of sorrow and care. 

As for me, it is easy to look behind.

I have regrets and so many things I wish I could do over. So many places where I just stumbled and fumbled through, where I spoke before I thought, or acted out of place. 

My heart aches where I wish I could fix some things, but I can't. 

I just can't.

I tried, and every time I tried, it got worse. I live with those regrets on a regular basis.

I don't deserve the least of God's mercies.

 But He said, when bad things happen, look up. When you are between a rock and a hard place, there is only one thing to do. Look up! He didn't say to look behind us, or to look around us. He said to look up! So in the middle of my heartaches about the mistakes and sins and uncertainties of the past, in the middle of the concern for my suffering brothers and sisters around the world who are awaiting their martyrdom,  I do what He said to do.

Out under the blue sky of Colorado, I look up!

When Headlines Make You Afraid--Don't Fear!

It seems like all the headlines, even in Christian organizations, are capitalizing on fear right now.

We are all tempted to go that direction--especially me.

If you want to meet someone who panics easily and thinks of the worst possible scenarios and imagines the most horrible things imaginable (and maybe worse) it is I. 

There can be the most beautiful moonlight shining through the clouds, but what do the headlines focus on?

The blackness, darkness, fear, clouds, and fear. 

And did I say FEAR?

Jesus told us everything He thought we needed to know about the last days, and then He said, 

"When you see all these things coming to pass, make sure your hearts are fearful and very afraid! Make sure you run around in a panic, scaring everybody around you, and then huddle in helpless fright in front of the newest terrible news on your screen so that you can make yourself and everybody around you even more afraid."

Right?

If Jesus had wanted us to focus on fear, He would have told us all the grisly details (and they can be grisly) of everything that would happen to everybody everywhere. And our hearts would fail us.

I can't imagine how we would be able to go about our work if Jesus had said all the awful things that we are reading right now in the news.

 Instead, He told us just enough to prepare us, and then He said, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

 "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." 

So because He has overcome the world, we can say amen after our many and oft prayers, and go on with our work. 

We can bake granola, put away laundry, plan menus, get ready for company, and make appointments at the vet.

"Fear and faith cannot exist within my heart at the same time," a courageous believer told VOM director during an interview, we read in family worship last night in the book When Faith Is Forbidden. "When we live by faith, trusting in the Lord moment by moment, fear has no room in the heart."

That sounded like Corrie ten Boom, but it was another saint, just like her, who refused to cave to fear.

When the headlines make you afraid, refuse to fear!

Translated into Spanish!

I'm thrilled at how my first book Pioneers in the Mountains of Mexico has been translated into Spanish now by a Mexican friend of my sister-in-law, and the first batch printed!

My brother Fain and his wife were just in Mexico for part of a camp meeting and were able to sell some of the books there.

 

When You Have to Make Your Own Headlines

The headlines have been so unnerving lately that we have decided to make our own!

 Recently I read about an older man who seemed to be peaceful in the midst of stories of evil and chaos in the world. When asked for his secret, he said, "I make my own headlines."

Wow! I loved that!

And so we got busy doing just that!

'Family Picks Apples With Friends'
These friends had literally never picked apples off a tree before, except maybe a few from a scrabbly old tree in their back yard, a tree they cut down.

"Children Pick Apples for First Time"

"Teenage Boys Volunteer Time to Help Aging Grandparents"

"Young Girls Slice Apples for Grandmother With Arthritis"

"While the World Crumbles, Grandfather Washes Apples in Back Yard"

"Early Transparent Apples Feed Several Families"

"Family Makes Winter's Supply of  Applesauce"

"Brothers and Sister Work Together All Afternoon Without Fighting Each Other"

"Young Girl Learns to Make Lattice Pie Crusts Over Apple Pies"

"Mom Reads Aloud Fascinating, Hair-Raising Story About Abandoned Children in an Alaska Fish Camp--

Even Dad Has to Listen to the Part About the Black Bear!"

"Youth Remember to Clean Up After Big Apple Project--Great Ingenuity!"

Here's the challenge: Today and tomorrow and the next day,

make your own headlines!

Roses and Jewels--Sweet Daughters and Nieces

 Exactly one month before the awful news about the 9/11 attacks on our country, a beautiful rose came to live in our home! 

Hurry, hurry before the candles all melt! 

Watch out! This rose can blow a wind clear to the Pacific Ocean!

Twenty years after that memorable August, she is still blooming  in the same house, wearing a birthday gift, an apron her cousin Candace sewed  from fabric I bought in Alaska.

 

That is me looking at fabric in a little Alaskan fabric shop.

I was thinking about birthdays coming up.

We celebrated her birthday a little early just before Crystal had to move to Missouri, so that Crystal could be here, too, and cousin Candace who was driving back to Missouri with Crystal.

Candace brightened our home in a beautiful way. She is one of the most helpful, thoughtful, unselfish girls I have ever met. She is a jewel--like her mother!

                The girls put up the tomatoes and cucumbers we brought home from Missouri.

Some of the tomatoes were green heirlooms, 

which we turned into a sort of green tomato sauce that we plan to use for enchiladas.

The girls and Grandma Morley are making sure that I don't leave my youngest daughter in the dust, but make sure she learns to cook and can just like the others had to learn.

Doing it together with such a wonderful cousin and niece makes it FUN instead of just work!

Lots of work!

We did up various styles of pickles.

And when the canning was done, it was time for horse rides with neighbors' horses which they are happy to share because the horses need to be ridden.

One of the girls got these photos.

What fun!

And when the horse rides are over,

it's time to practice for the program at the Calhan elderly community.

 

Why, When the World is in Chaos, We Need to Keep Tending Our Flowers

Who isn't wakening with a heavy heart after hearing all the news this week about what is happening in Afghanistan?

 If we care at all about the desperation people are facing there, it can be paralyzing. 

It can feel like it's no use to even pray.

(Let's hope we are all praying!)
Is God hearing? Word from Afghanistan is that people are feeling forsaken.

"God has grace for others, but not for us," one despairing person said.

It is tempting to give up anything that we are doing toward the future and just throw up our hands.

To decide that the world as we know it is coming to an end, and we may as well stop now

doing anything about it, and just hide away and hope for the best while expecting the worst.

That is when it is helpful to go out into one's yard and pull weeds and tend the flowers. 

The flowers didn't stop blooming because someone in Afghanistan clung to an army jet and fell from the landing gear.

They didn't stop blooming when journalists in  Afghanistan decided to stay home and wait for death.

They didn't stop blooming when Mr. Biden left Afghanistan to the T a l i ban and went to Camp David to eat ice cream and play golf.

The flowers couldn't do anything about the awful things on the other side of the globe, and so they just kept their faces open to the sunshine, and kept blooming just the same as yesterday.

This doesn't mean that my heart is a flower. I have a mind and a soul, and I have a heart that cares. I have the ability to know God, to know that He is grieved and angry at the atrocities happening, and He is soon going to judge them all. I have the ability to pray, and that I do. All day long. If I heard the news from Afghanistan and chose to forget, to ignore, to refuse to pray because prayer for those in pain creates pain in my own heart, it would be a dereliction of duty. I would not be worthy to walk in white with those who have come out of great tribulation, washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. So I care and I pray.

I also have the ability to write letters to my senators and representative, and letters to the editor.

But then I have to keep going--cleaning the kitchen sink and stove, hanging curtains, pulling weeds in the yard,

                                                                      putting up corn,

editing the next book, taking care of husband and children, ordering school books, blogging.

When we want to go hide in a cave with barrels of water and stacks of survival food, we need to go outside and keep tending our flowers.

I often think of a friar who was asked, while tending his garden, what he would be doing if he knew that he were to die that day.

His response: "I would go on tending my garden."

So when I want to curl up in pain and despair, I go outside and quietly enjoy the flowers, watering, weeding, drinking in the same sunshine that shines on the evil as well as the good.

But, oh God, as I tend my flowers, hear my humble prayer!