Content with Such Things as Ye Have--But Does That Mean Lentils?

 Several weeks ago the house looked like this. 

Then the drywallers came while we were gone to Colorado.

 Now it looks like this, but I'm still living (mostly) in the RV, but a lot of stuff is up in the house garage or attic. And there is a deep gulley between the house and RV, so whenever I forget something, it's a major deal because I can't just go to the next room or around the corner. I have almost cried more than once, and I really have cried sometimes. Like today. 

I was just so tired of so much going wrong or not being able to remember all the things I needed to remember.

Yesterday when I stopped by a new friend's home up the road who had asked me to stop by so she could give me some of her extra swiss chard from her garden, I had to ask God to help me not be envious and covetous of her cozy little home, so cool and homey inside. 

A home that was built long ago surrounded by trees, bushes, grass, and the most beautiful garden I've ever seen.  

I am squeezed into an RV for months at a time, cooking for whoever is here working, hauling water, hauling laundry, treating chigger bites, fighting cancer, hunting for lost stuff, dealing with setback after setback. 

If the puppies don't strew things everywhere, the wind and storm knocks the table upside down outside and blows chairs all over and rolls water jugs all over creation. 

 

We planted a garden just after Mother's Day. Rabbits ate most of the green beans. Potato bugs are attacking the potatoes. I have to pick potato bugs every couple days or so. There are about four corn stalks. If the goats don't eat my flowers, the rabbits do, or the chickens. I can't have flowers outside.

"Help me not to be envious!" I ask the Lord as I admire this lady's garden and her little flower garden out back that she told me she calls her "prayer garden."

And God helps me. 

I remember people who don't have RV's, or a roof over their head. People who are watching their children starve in Afghanistan and people who've lost loved ones in the war in Ukraine.

I have food coming out my ears in my cluttered RV.

A few weeks ago I had taken my lunch along on a trip to Pierre with Jonathan. We passed an icecream shop with a big sign. I wanted ice cream so bad! But I had to eat lentils. I should say I got to eat lentils. It's all about perspective. I was tempted to feel sorry for myself as Jonathan and I came out of the grocery store, and I thought about the rest of the lentils I was going to eat.  And how I could never eat ice cream again for the rest of my life.

 I wanted ice cream! I didn't know what God had up His sleeve, how He would whisper to my daughter Crystal who came shortly after that, to make her mom some icecream sweetened with stevia--that I could actually eat!

 

 In the heat, I wanted ice cream so bad. But if I remembered the sufferers in the world, I could be thankful for lentils. They were delicious. They weren't bad at all with carrots, onions, salt and herbs in them.

I have so much to be thankful and content about. 

It's true that days like today were hard, but then I get a flyer in the mail about families in Afghanistan starving, and Christian Aid Ministries reaching out to them.

They'd give anything for a goat that gives two or three quarts of milk a day, even if she does keep getting out of the fence and being a total pest!

Just this morning I was stopped by the verse I opened up to in Hebrews, "And be content with such things as you have...for He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you." 

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 Before our move to SD, I found several gluten-free mixes marked down in a grocery store. Three boxes were gluten-free, sugar-free brownie mixes! Sweetened with stevia, made with rice flour, etc. Something I can actually be allowed to eat! I baked two of them, cut them in pieces and froze them to eat a piece whenever I need a sweet treat.

And little happy surprises happen in the middle of all the hard work. 

Like a big yellow envelope in the mail with a story I'd written and sent in to a Sunday School paper years ago being only now published! They sent me two complimentary copies, along with exactly $4 payment! Wow! I'm soon gonna be rich at that rate! 

Content with such things as I have.

Gulp.

Even lentils.   

Mulberry Missionaries

Coming out from an errand at the courthouse in White River Tuesday, Hannah and I recognized two people crossing the street ahead of us--the new friends we have been taking to church at times with us. As we chatted a bit, the man asked, "Are you the one with cancer?"

 When I told him yes, he said, "We have those mulberries at home. They are full of antioxidants! They would be good for cancer, and they are just falling on the ground!"

I remembered discussing mulberries one Sunday as we picked up the ladies in the family. They had two or three trees of them, and they were ripening at that time.

Not about to lose an opportunity to reach out to these folks again as well as pick some good berries for ourselves, I told him I'd go home for pails and ladders and be right over. 

And we were!

As I picked, I invited the man to come along with the ladies to church next Sunday.
"There will be music this Sunday!" I said. 

At which the man admitted that he'd gone away from church.

"I went astray," he plainly confessed. 

"You can come back!" I said to him. "God welcomes you to come back to Him anytime!"

 

No frills or fancies or flourishes. I kept on picking mulberries. 

The best preaching is brief and to the point, and then let the Holy Spirit do the rest. 

And the man went inside to wheel his mother out in her wheel chair--a dear lady that I have come to love. She sat enjoying the sunshine while Hannah and I moved our ladders to the tree in the front yard by the trellis where a pretty yellow butterfly wind chime hung. 

We picked and picked--the little mulberry missionary and her daughter, making sure we didn't bump the tomato or pepper plants planted by the sidewalk. 

Talking cheerily to the grandma who can't walk and who was enjoying the outdoors with us. 

Trusting God to work in all our lives even as the mulberries hung there slowly ripening.

"They are full of antioxidants," the man had said. For my cancer.

 

For my cancer. 

How often God is using my cancer to open doors to touch people's hearts!

I made three berry banana cream pies the next day, layering cream cheese/cool whip, bananas, and berries. One was for us and the guys mudding our drywall this week, one for our neighbor up the hill for her birthday, and one for the family who so generously let me pick their berries. 

My cancer is a gift right now!

But it's amazing who the Lord nudges to reach out to me, too, and He used these dear people who didn't have much to offer except mulberries dropping on the ground from their trees. 

A man smelling of alcohol, who with his sister had met me in the middle of the street in White River and reached out to the little missionary lady.

And God right in the middle of the whole scene.

I'm not sure just who was reaching out to whom!

Land Flowing with Milk, Eggs, Lettuce and--Drywall!

God keeps providing fresh milk for us! It walks right up to our RV doorstep, maa-ing to be milked!

It only takes Danny about two minutes to milk 2 quarts of milk, and then it starts over the next morning.  

I made French toast one morning, (garnished with yucca flower) and another morning I made crepes.  

When I sent the children out for some yucca flowers for me, Danny simply cut off a stalk and brought me the whole stalk!

Another morning I made eggs, mushrooms and asparagus. 

And one lunch when Dan Troyer was here to help, I made omelets with ham and cheese!

And guess what the Lord supplied a couple days ago? Fresh lettuce from this lady's garden. 

Her son had just recently died from brain cancer, but she and I struck up a friendship right away. She knows a lot about gardening.

So thus I keep my hard-working men fed who are finishing up the drywalling of our house. A crew of three men came and worked several days to hang most of the drywall, and then two of those men came back for one day and finished a week ago.  

Jonathan and Danny hurried to finish some details before the taping and mudding are to be done.  Then we found out that the crew scheduled to come tape and mud the seams was not going to come after all! They are too busy there in Sioux Falls and can't come all the way out here. What were we going to do?

Jonathan didn't tell me at first, because I was sick with a stomach bug that all four of us eventually got. But word got around back in Colorado, and a man who used to work for Jonathan told another man who used to work for Jonathan. Long story short, this young man called Jonathan and is leaving in the morning tomorrow from where he now lives in Oregon, to come tape and mud the drywall. And he flew his father up from a southern state to join him in traveling and working to help us! Jonathan plans to pay them what he would have paid the other crew, but we couldn't get over how when one thing after another is falling out from under us, God comes through and makes a way!

Hidden Garden

I'm not sure why this little nook at Glen Eyrie that we visited two weeks ago was called "Hidden Garden," but I loved it.

For me it's just a dream to have a garden like that, a quiet place in which to worship and pray. There is very little privacy in my life right now, 

and to be honest, the place and way that I pray right now is anything but a garden nook. 

I pray during cancer treatments, and that's my garden. 

I don't care for the treatments, but the Lord has been very near me.

No roses to  smell or tea to drink.

Just a hidden garden of quiet times and place and circumstance where I can be alone for a while, 

and I have taken advantage of it to make a "hidden garden."

My time with the Lord is precious there. 

 As the song says that was played last night at the church in Mission during the prelude, 

"And He walks with me, and He talks with me,

And He tells me I am His own.

 

 And the joys we share as we tarry there, 

None other has ever known."

I wouldn't have dreamed how precious those times would be. 

One Idyllic Day--Glen Eyrie Castle

  Our first month in South Dakota had flown by on eagles' wings--in more than one way.

We watched eagles soaring overhead, and at times felt borne by wings.

It's really all I can explain, because I didn't really have it in me to get through all that we did with cancer, too.

Somehow I made it, and even traveled with the family back down to Colorado for a few days two weeks ago when the rest of the family went over to youth camp at Ranch Haven. Jonathan was to be maintenance guy and one of the mission speakers.

But I just wasn't able to do anymore than crash first at Sam's place, where I  was up late that first night in Colorado, rushing to do a couple loads of laundry and get a long-needed shower before dropping into that comfortable bed at Sam's. 

The next morning Jonathan and I moved on to Carrie's and Rose's cabin where I dropped some of my things. And then to Colorado Springs where Jonathan dropped me at the clinic where I was to get my high dose Vitamin C IV. 

That's where I crashed even further, already so exhausted I was having trouble carrying my bags into the clinic. I hadn't drunk enough and was not having lunch on time, and nurse told me I looked pale,

which caused me to panic. 

Nurse wanted blood tests, so we scheduled the tests for a couple days later, and I somehow managed to get out to Carrie's car. But I called Jonathan who was about to leave town for youth camp. He was going to be gone four days. 

I was in pieces and scared. 

Long story short, since he was scheduled to speak the next morning, he decided to go for that and come back earlier than he had planned. At first he planned to come back the very next day, but by then, I was doing better and wanted him to stay another day.  

I got something to eat, and browsed slowly with Carrie through a pro-life Christian thrift shop, wondering, "Is this the last time I'm going to browse through a thrift shop with my daughter?"

I made myself stop thinking thoughts like that. 

After all, I'd wondered that the last time I'd browsed through a thrift shop with my daughters, and guess what? I was in a thrift shop with Carrie all over again!

Maybe I was just weak and hungry and tired, in the aftermath of a dose of intravenous Vit. C hitting my cancer like fury.

Turns out that was the case. But life is a roller coaster like that right now. 

I just doubt that I'd be out shopping with my daughter after a chemo treatment, had I chosen that route. 

And things got better day by day from there on out--at  least for now.

Two days later, Jonathan returned to the Springs, having been given a gift of money from friends to  "do something special with your wife."

Would I like to spend a night and day at Navigators Glen Eyrie Castle? Jonathan wondered.

(Pictured above from a perch high up on a walk the next day)

With money specially designated, it was an easy yes!

A room wasn't available in the castle itself at first--till Jonathan called back and was told some rooms had been freed up, and we could have a castle room! I just love that old castle.

After supper at Jonathan's dad's place, we returned to the castle upon the tail end of a rain shower.

And guess what I saw when I got out of the truck!

Jonathan asked me to go out on the bridge while he snapped this photo.  

There was even part of a double rainbow!

We stood there in awe as the rainbow soon faded. 

"Just for us!" I breathed, as we stood, arms around each other.

"This morning in service," Jonathan said quietly, "the man in charge had me come up and everyone prayed for healing for you." Tears were in his eyes. "God's presence was there! I think God is going to heal you!"

I thought so, too.

It seemed to us the rainbow had been sent just for us.

Although I often have lived in less than ideal circumstances, (such as now where I am living month after month in an RV and we're having to haul all our water!) there is something inside me that loves class and beauty and things like castles and elegant china dishes. 

The next morning, we had the most delightful breakfast outdoors on the castle veranda.

where a lady came by and said, "You two look so good!"  

So when she disappeared, we stole looks at each other, to see what had looked so good, (I think it must have just been that we must have looked like we loved each other) and even got in a quick kiss!

People do notice if you seem to love each other--sit close, talk to each other, smile, enjoy something together.  And we were enjoying Glen Eyrie and the breakfast and each other immensely. They even had stevia to sweeten the herb tea--and tender beet greens to garnish the sausage patty I chose, along with the scrambled eggs and fried potatoes and melon and tea.

Jonathan enjoyed one or two pastries as well.

After that, I went around admiring and snapping photos of the beautiful yellow columbines, aspen...

ivy trailing up the castle walls, 

 and the blue flowers in the shade.

Jonathan and I sat on a bench near these iris, 

and I thought of how iris was the favorite flower of my Grandma Morgan, and a favorite of my mom's as well.  

Although we had to check out of our room by 11, we were allowed until 5 that evening to stay on the grounds. We meandered through the gardens, noting a hummingbird perching on the top of this light post. 

It whirred around the purple flowers.

Later Jonathan and I went for a couple short hikes on trails above the castle, but we didn't make it very far. I would have been spent. But Jonathan had lived here in this town for around 50 plus years of his life and never hiked some of these trails!

It was one of those idyllic days. I wondered if God was allowing it in between some very rough times, but I tried not to allow the concern about a future storm to ruin the joy of this day. 

Perhaps God was allowing us a foretaste of heaven!

And what if the next few days would actually all be wonderful (as they in fact were?)

Then that evening, we were blessed to have Sam take us out to eat with another young man whom he's been friends with for a while, Robert. Robert loves the Lord and missions, and has an amazing story of grace in his life, beginning clear back as a baby when he was blind because of a detached retina.

Different people prayed for his healing, but one day, after a simple prayer of a simple man,

baby Robert's eyes were healed!

He and Sam like to work together and four-wheel and hike together.