Lightning Right Under the Rainbow!

Today was a good Lord's Day right on the heels of yesterday's extraordinary evening after receiving emergency phone alerts with a tornado warning for our area. "Tennis ball size hail," news was saying.

 

While bringing in all the flower boxes and hanging baskets, I hoped and prayed our gardens wouldn't be severely damaged by hail.  We and a visiting family stood out on our deck for a long time watching storm clouds and lightning that gave 4th of July fireworks a run for their money.  

 Jonathan had just installed the flower box gizmos that hold the boxes on the rails of our deck. He and Danny amaze me with their good work on our deck, including the extras of putting up flower boxes just for the wife, mom, and daughters. 

You can just lift the red flower boxes off the gizmos and take them inside in the event of a storm, and then put them back out again. They have so brightened our deck.  

 

Rain started pouring after a while, and about nine o'clock, we were smelling smoke. I immediately suspected a lightning strike somewhere, but Jonathan downplayed my worries.  

 

A few minutes later, a rainbow formed in the clouds, with lightning flashing in the distance underneath the rainbow! I had never in my life seen such a phenomenon! 

Lightning strike after lightning strike zigzagged under the rainbow, like a devilish fiend striking out in hatred at our beautiful and unrelentingly powerful Lord. 

No matter how the dark clouds lit up with lightning under the rainbow, it remained there,

arched serenely and securely against the stormy sky. 

Just like our Lord!

No matter how His enemies howl and scorn Him, He is forever Maker of the universe, Master of every storm, and Matchless King. 

By 9:30, sure enough the White River sirens were wailing and Crystal and I rushed to the hall to shout for Danny who is on the fire department now and who was in his bedroom. He plummeted down the stairs to pull on boots and hurry off, with Hannah opening and closing the gate behind him. 

 

A few minutes later, we saw flashing lights going up the hill on the road the other side of the river and assumed it might be Danny. It was. A grass fire, apparently sparked by lightning, had caught hay bales on fire, and Danny was not home again until midnight. Two other fires were happening at the same time not far from there, and Danny later told us a neighboring fire district called for help, so several of White River district went to help. While it had poured rain here for a bit, it had not rained at all in those spots. Lightning had started fires.

By morning, we were seeing photo after photo on Facebook of some of the most obvious tornado funnels you've ever seen, especially from Gary, SD, area, (photos above are screenshots Jonathan got) which is actually a few hours from us to the east. But there was also a tornado about 1 hour away, destroying structures, etc., near Kadoka, where friends of ours live. Jonathan was up several times in the night with the wind doing weird things and causing strange noises. 

 

Paint Job--and then Go Fish!

It was a very old camp tabernacle built in the 1940s, so old that the wood siding was rotten, Jonathan said, and only held together by the paint. 

But some people wanted it repainted with the thought in mind to get the camp up and running again, and they were willing to pay a crew.

 

And Jonathan, needing work for his crew at the moment, took them the many miles to do the work. This is what it looked like after it was done.  

 Jonathan learned that back in the 40s, a rancher gave part of his land for this camp, and several churches nearby, including a Presbyterian church, went together to build the camp for evangelism. 

 In the 1970s, my family attended services at this camp more than once. My sister has more memories of it than I do, and when I sent pictures, she was quite fascinated. Jonathan says a raccoon was living inside the pulpit, and making quite a mess on the platform.  

Here is the crew for those two days who did the painting, with Brother John Bush, in the white hair, a Lakota Christian. 

Danny finds adventure even in the middle of a work trip. He found a big turtle the first day. 

The second day, the back door of the truck topper flew open and the lunch cooler fell out, spreading half the men's lunch all over Highway 83, but the guys had enough else along to eat that they made it through the work day and still went fishing that evening.  

Sometimes the most God-oriented thing a man can do with his son is go fishing with him.  

Father and son caught three splendid catfish.  

Danny, covered in white paint, exhibits his prize! 

And at home, his mom is having too much fun making a song visual for VBS next month. 

Whether painting, fishing, or writing and printing songs for VBS, 

God is in the middle of it. 

Keep our religion simple, Lord, and infuse everything we do, Jesus, with Your love.  

 

God in the Garden

Our friend Mrs. Mathel Ambrose has one of the most beautiful gardens around, and since she couldn't tend to it all anymore, she lets us use part of it up there in White River. I planted some garden up there, afraid the goats would accidentally get into ours here.

 But actually ours has stayed safe so far, and here it was a few weeks ago. 

Mathel's garden is peaceful and quiet, visited by robins, even if it is right beside Highway 83. Occasionally truck drivers will beep their horns as they see Grandma Mathel and us out tending the garden. 

She shares rhubarb with me which I turn into a dessert for Sunday potluck after church.

Hannah was doing such a good job with our own garden, and I helped as I could. I did the mulching after this picture happened. Mathel tells me that when she is complimented for her amazing garden and how much work she must do in it, she says, "I don't work hard; I work smart."

(Top secret: She works hard, too! Beautiful gardens are hard work, no matter how you split it.)

A friend brings grass clippings and leaves that she mulches her entire garden with each year, feeding nutrients to the roots of her plants, protecting the ground from the hot sun, and keeping moisture underneath the layer of mulch. Hannah and I did nearly all the mulching for her this year since she'd had recent surgery and a back injury. Then Mathel shared the leftover mulch and let us take many huge trash bags full of it home to our own garden.

I missed the robins, though, that kept coming to her garden as we worked. No robins in my garden. 

Until the last few days! 

All of a sudden, the robins seemed to discover that another garden existed down the hill. 

So while the dad and son in the family work at various construction projects such as pouring the foundation for this job out near Winner last week, I cook, do the laundry, gather eggs, make goat cheese, write and edit stories, work on VBS plans, garden--and pick lettuces, chard, and radishes from our own garden! 

We could have gone to a camp meeting an hour away and indeed considered and hoped to go. But with it being open to the elements with no air conditioning at 107 degrees the days we thought to go, I just couldn't manage that.

I felt more than once, that while others met God in camp meetings, I met God in my garden. 

There was a peace there that was different than the wars and the pressures of the world. 

"Stop reading the news," I read yesterday. "God did not mean for you to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders."

I really think that God intended for His people to grow gardens--or at least to tend the one He planted to start with. 

Now, thanks to sin's curse, we must plant and weed and tend and sweat--moms as well as dads, girls as well as boys. 

But to dispense with gardens just so we can spend summer attending various camps--I don't think it's healthy. Gardens do "tie a person down," but that builds character as we learn responsibility and actually grow what we eat instead of expecting cooks to feed us palate-pleasing food while we sit and fan ourselves at camp after camp. We need garden work in the dirt and greens, out with the robins and sparrows and marigolds. Children need to learn to eat garden lettuce, radishes, and chard instead of turning up their noses and expecting mom and dad to provide pizza, potato chips, and ice cream. 

Gardening is truly spiritual and not just secular work, just as spiritual as early morning prayer meeting at church.

I suggest more of us meet God in the morning in a garden rather than in a man-made building, and see what God might say to us through a peaceful, cheerful, and hard-working robin 

and from the glowing flowers and blossoming peas.

Our children need to know from experience where onions and lettuce and carrots come from--not just the store shelves. Gardens are not popular around here, and milk goats are a novelty. The government provides a check every month with which to go to the store and purchase potato chips, pasta, and candy. Over and over this family or that one is coming to watch us milk our goats. They look at our garden and we share our garden lettuce and chard on Sunday. Suddenly children are learning where milk comes from, not just from cows, and that eggs (at least healthy, homey ones) are laid by chickens in a nest box--or in a nest in the straw on the floor!

"Do chickens lay eggs every day?" asks a father who must be at least 40 or 50 years old. He does not know, so we tell him. Yes, depending on the season and feed, they typically lay at least one egg a day--until molting season or they grow older. 

Jesus came to a barn.

And Adam was given a garden.

We can meet God there, too!

Adrenaline--and Geranium

This morning I woke up with my adrenaline going about a mile a minute. I had to purposely try not to think about the scheduled surgery in less than 3 weeks, and all the appointments, MRI, etc. ahead of it. 

It helps to just get up and get out of bed and get busy. 

(I just noticed how many "gets" were in that sentence--our crazy American language of the day, I guess.

But to say, "It helps to rise and climb out of bed and busy oneself about the matters of the day" would sound a bit stilted, wouldn't it?)

It also helps to look out the window at the beautiful sunshine, blue sky, green grass, and later at the gloriously pink geranium in the window of the mudroom, overlooking the garden with the sprinkler going a mile a minute to give my adrenaline a run for its money. 

Also happily, the yard is mowed at last,  as of last week when Jonathan brought home a borrowed mower from a friend who is fixing the other mower and offered that we could use his while he was repairing the other.

Danny mowed and weedwhacked, just in time for multiple people who showed up--two guys who went kayaking and canoeing with Danny--ending up wet and with all their phones well baptized as well. 

(What a story!)

Also in time for relatives of our pastor to come watch us milk the goat Sunday evening just before we left for evening service.

And now a friend who came into my life at the cancer center and befriended me because she was volunteering at the gift shop there and going through cancer treatment herself

arrived to stay overnight with her husband because they are helping a daughter up here in town for a couple weeks and had no place to stay.

I kind of  stuck my neck out and invited their whole clan for supper--since I was already planning to make a huge batch of bread and rolls, had just purchased some good sales yesterday, and wanted to reach out to a struggling family. 

(I didn't realize the clan was bigger than I thought, and more than I thought will be here, but I will just put more potatoes in the oven to bake rather than "just adding more water to the soup," as grandmas used to say. 

So when I am feeling like I bit off too much to chew, I plop down at the keyboard and type thoughts and upload photos that help me to remember that whether I am (as last week) wondering if I am being of any use or sure (as I am this week) that I took on way too much, God is there to calm my adrenaline, 

give me something to do for Him,

and hopefully bless with His multiplying and Spirit-infusing power

 the little gift of loaves and fishes given on the spur of the moment

like the little boy on the banks of Galilee. 

Sparrows Visit--Navigating Medical Appointments

 Yesterday I kept noticing sparrows as I navigated four medical appointments including bloodwork, visit with the oncologist, fresh herceptin/perjeta dose, and another visit with the breast surgeon, followed by hours of driving around with Jonathan to do the necessary shopping and picking up of materials for Building Hope Enterprise.

One sparrow seemed particularly persistent near my van door just after my blood work and before the doctor visit.

I hadn't felt much when I first noticed it. But its persistence paid. I felt like the Lord had sent it once again.

"His eye is on the sparrow," I felt in my heart, suddenly, "and He watches over me."

The heaviness I had been feeling lifted.

Two months ago I had been completely unable to face an inevitable mastectomy; now I felt more resigned, just hoped it isn't too late. 

Yet I can't second guess the timing, because the surgeon agreed that last month, when the mastectomy was first scheduled, they couldn't have done it anyway because I had spent the week before the scheduled surgery terribly ill. They would not have done the surgery on account of the illness, she said. So all is yet in God's timing.

Yesterday I had not been doing too well emotionally. The surgeon who had looked at my PET scan two months ago had told us I was NED, so why am I experiencing pain and other symptoms all over again?

The MRI had lit up some, the surgeon said. Why nothing showed up on the PET is a mystery.

The surgeon wants another MRI before the surgery date in mid-July.

 I had just had a loading dose of herceptin/perjeta four weeks ago, which left me in pretty bad shape, and now I was to get another dose today--which will certainly be followed by various uncomfortable side effects.  

And I've been so weak. Too weak to be able to tend to work needing done outdoors. And the mower isn't working, and the weed whacker was out of twine, and the place became overgrown in a matter of weeks during these longest days of the year accompanied by rain. So when our pastor and his wife came to pray with us before we left last night for Rapid City, I was struggling with shame over our unmowed yard. Work is being done for mission, church, and Building Hope Enterprise; the garden is doing well, weeded and growing well; our stack of newsletters was sent out that very morning, with at least 20 personal thank yous written by me; but the yard! The YARD! I could have croaked.

At 80 years old, the pastor and his wife keep after their yard and garden. 

But mine?

The garage was also a mess all over again after having to unload more than one vehicle into it before the trip to Colorado for the wedding, and also after myriad packages and boxes delivered for the mission, business, and personal. And we have a family coming in next week for a whole 8 or 9 days, because the dad is going to be working on missionaries' vehicles, but the family of four children will be staying in our basement apartment, and need things to do. 

So yes, I was a bit of a mess emotionally. All I could think about was things that weren't working and what wasn't getting taken care of. And how ashamed I am, yet how I cannot tend to it all. 

And how I have to spend a whole day and overnight dealing with medical appointments that are leading up to weeks of being incapacitated with a surgery that is turning into something more complicated than usual because of how skinny I am. 

You would think that being skinny would be less of a problem. Instead, the plastic surgeon has to be in on the surgery in case plastic surgery is needed. 

But I sat in the oncologist's office yesterday where a colored nurse with lots of braided strands of hair was taking my vitals and asking me the usual symptom questions. 

When she asked about the state of my emotions, I told her not real great. 

Depression? Yes.

But, I went on, then I was noticing a sparrow hopping outside the van and I remembered that God's eye is on the sparrow, and I know...

She nodded with a huge smile. 

"He knows!" she said emphatically. "We want to know, don't we?"

"Yes," I admitted. 

I wanted to know the way, for sure the next step. I wanted to know I was doing the right thing.

But what if we just have to take steps in the dark?

"We want to know, but He knows!" the nurse nodded vigorously. 

The sparrow had connected two women of faith.

I sat in my recliner in the hospital yesterday, with drugs dripping into my port and veins. I had picked up an April-may edition of Guideposts magazine and found nearly all the articles fascinating--especially this one of Hezekiah's Tunnel, and the man with claustrophobia and other phobias who had overcome those phobias to walk through it there in Israel, there where conflict has escalated in the last five days.

(Is anyone hiding down in this tunnel right now, I wonder?)

It was a tunnel that was only four feet high in some spots, and so narrow in others places that some people had to turn sideways. And it was at least a third of a mile long.

And then when the man thought he was nearly through, based on his counting footsteps, a lady in his group called out, "Here's a plaque that says halfway!"

He nearly died.

It was a joke that wasn't funny at all for him. 

But he made it! That was the point. He overcame his fears. 

But I couldn't help thinking how this article kind of described my own fears, and the tunnel of surgery that I am about to face.

Conventional cancer treatment is something I have feared with a passion, vowing to make whatever sacrifice necessary to do alternative treatments and avoid it.

Super strict diet (we're talking virtually no fun desserts with few exceptions for nearly three years straight, to say nothing of the grueling treatments I went through in Arizona and dozens of supplements and other home treatments)

And now, step by step, treatment after treatment, I am forced to walk through that tunnel of conventional treatment and surgery, probably followed in future by radiation, another bad word. 

If you are noticing the photos above are sideways, they are. My phone is doing that. But that is how life is right now for me, if not totally upside down. 

And so enter Mr. Sparrow. Unless it is Mrs. Sparrow.

It came hopping near again while I sat at Menards waiting for Jonathan who has to bring a trailer with us every time we go to medical appointments so he had purchase myriad materials for BHE.

Why do sparrows hop around vehicles in parking lots, I wonder?

All I could think of was crumbs. 

They must be looking for crumbs, because if other people are anything like us, they eat snacks and lunches while traveling, and when they hop out of vehicles, they brush crumbs off their laps. 

(Maybe you don't do things like that; never eat while traveling; never slop. In that case, move on to another perfectly ordered, shiny silver blog and read something more your style.)

But there those sparrows were, hopping around, looking for bits of McDonalds buns and corn chips and popcorn and pizza crust bits, I suppose. 

And there they were, twittering, flying in from all over to meet under a car somewhere, because God their heavenly Father had been feeding them and taking care of them and watching over them. 

"Father," I pray, "I'm just another of Your sparrows, looking for crumbs.

Do You have a crumb for me?"

Yesterday the crumb was the sense of assurance--that no matter what step I take in the dark, 

God will be there with me. 

For are not you and I (about to face some phobic tunnel the thought of which makes us sweat or get sick or lose sleep over) of more value than many sparrows?

Strawberries and Flowers in the Middle of Uncertain Days

This evening news popped up from various sources particularly speculating about what is going to happen in the Middle East in the very near future. It has been said that people in Tehran have been told to leave the city. We watched news coverage of Israeli sirens wailing and Iranian missiles being intercepted in Tel Aviv, Israel, and saw photos of Russia's missile hits in Kiev, with a toll of no less than 14 lives and counting, besides maybe 50 or 60 injured. We used to live in that city. I always wonder if we passed the buildings I see damaged. Will one of our friends be hit next? 

 

 

But do we live with frantic fear and worry? I believe there are those who are facing this in Israel, Ukraine, and many other places. While we ate fresh, home-grown strawberries a friend gave us today and homemade ice cream Jonathan froze after he and I arrived home late from my four medical appointments today, others wonder what tomorrow may bring, if tomorrow ever comes. 

(Not that I am also not wondering the same things with pain and symptoms returning.) 

 

But I was blessed to hear the voices of Crystal on the phone with several others on a conference call discussing plans for a mission trip to Mexico in July. 

Hannah was out on the deck transplanting a few more flowers to make our front deck beautiful.

I  made half a gallon of yogurt--at least I hope it will become yogurt, if the milk wasn't too hot when I poured in the starter. 

I also pulled out of the Menards bag a squishy rat that I purchased for a friend's July VBS with a theme of not falling into sin's traps.  

Jonathan read news and worked on business-related red tape and paper work and texts.

"Occupy until I come," Jesus said. 

May He find us watching, praying, resting in Him, and busy for Him.  

Jesus, come soon and end all the mess! But help us to be faithful until You do come. 

Amen.  

Fathers Day Blessings

Church this morning on Fathers Day was wonderful and profoundly meaningful with several hymns about our heavenly Father including "Dear Lord, and Father of Mankind." 

 

While roses bloomed blissfully near the church, we had rushed as usual to get everything together for church, including my autoharp, readings, food, and water bottles. 

Now we could worship and remember to be quiet before the Lord.  

"Breathe through the heats of our desire Thy coolness and Thy balm;

Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire, speak through the earthquake, wind and fire

O still small voice of calm." 

 

 Danny, Crystal, Hannah and I each read different stories or anecdotes from Corrie ten Boom's book about her father, called Father ten Boom--God's Man. What a man of God, beloved watchmaker and grandfather in Haarlem, Holland!

 

I had been able to find some appropriate readings to copy from this book my mom had given me years ago, knowing how much I loved Corrie ten Boom's simple yet profound writings.  

Our family also sang.  

Yesterday in the middle of printing off this month's newsletter and stamping envelopes, I had copied the hymn "Children of the Heavenly Father" for our family to sing today.  

 

And Crystal had made a batch of peanut butter cookies to make plates of cookies for fathers. 

Downstairs after service, fellowship was genuine around rhubarb dessert, spaghetti, green beans, and my homemade bread. (I forgot the yeast till the dough was all mixed, but I mixed yeast with a little warm water and a bit of sugar, and kneaded it in until the dough was thoroughly mixed again, and the dough turned out just as beautiful as ever!

I'm adding in a photo of Jonathan with his dad the Sunday after Sam's wedding.  

And of the roses blooming in time for Fathers Day, Flag Day, or whatever the case may be.   

This evening was a lively and good service as well, with Will Luxon sharing a "word of wisdom" and Zach Jackson, a young man working with SIM for a few weeks, speaking, sharing his testimony and thoughts about Father's Day and God's charactheristics as our heavenly Father.