God is my Strong Clothespin--a Housewife's Psalm

This morning I woke to one of the fiercest gales that I have heard since we moved here. Wind tore around our house, whipping tree branches, and blowing hither and yon anything not battened down.

Outside, a few damp towels and washcloths still clung to the lines from which yesterday I had taken down most of the laundry. But where were the towels now? One was still hanging, whipped in the wind, by one clothespin; the others were out of sight. And before long, the last towel had disappeared, too. Only a few washcloths still hung on desperately, clipped securely by my simple, old fashioned, effective clothespins. 

After seeing my guys off to work and trying to pull my discombobulated self into some sort of useful condition, I managed to dress up in coat and scarf and head outside to take garbage to the chickens (hoping I wouldn't get blown off the footbridge between house and barn) and to take off the clothesline the last few washcloths that were still bravely hanging despite the wind.

And that is when I got the inspiration for a housewife's Psalm. May it bless you as well--at least if you are not too modern to know anything about old fashioned clothespins! :)

God is my strongest clothespin!

What storm have I to fear?

In wind and snow and thunder,

He holds me close and dear.

Upon the shaking clothesline,

When rattled in despair,

I only need look upward, 

For my Clothespin is there!

Though days may twist and fling me,

I feel the Clothespin tight.

Though darkness seep around me,

I feel God's tender might. 

In sunshine or in cloudburst,

I hang by God's own Word,

For whether joy or sorrow,

He says my voice is heard.

Oh, God is my strong Clothespin,

What wind have I to fear?

He holds me safe and tender,

A housewife's anchor near!

When You Are Wanted

Last week I weighed whether to use my straggling energy to go visit in the care center or not. I was not feeling well at all and I wasn't sure how much the ladies there cared if I came or not. I had excuses if I decided not to go.

But then Crystal came home from her work there (she is a driver for nurses needing rides and for patients for dialysis, etc.) and she told me about a lady there who said, "I want your mom to come!"

 That did it. Excuses or no, I would head to the care center. In the photo above that Crystal took one evening last week when she arrived at the care center to the tune of a black cat and a gold cat chasing each other up the tree in the front lawn--until they got too high for comfort--the lights of the home look inviting. 

It felt good to be wanted. 

And I went.

I read Scriptures to Bonnie and Stella and prayed with each of them. I miss Beaver, but now I read and pray with others.

Knowing I am wanted is an open door--one that I need to walk through with joy. 

Those Baby Eyes Full of Wonder--and "Eye Hath Not Seen"

Today I looked and looked at this dear picture of baby Ellie Rose--eyes full of wonder at those gorgeous mums!

To me it was a small picture of the wonder with which we will gaze upon the beauties and joys God has prepared for those of us who love Him--especially the beauty of His matchless face!

"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard," I remembered, and in another version, 

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him."

1 Corinthians 2:9

This is a quote from Isaiah 64:4, "For since the beginning of the world men have not heard 

nor perceived by the ear,

nor has the eye seen any God besides You,

Who acts for the one who waits for him.

"You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness, who remembers You in Your ways."

Help us, Lord, to remember You and Your ways,

to look with eyes of faith to see the things that are not seen,

and to wait for the joys and beauties You have laid up for those who love You!

Who-oo is Trapped in Church?

Tomorrow is the Lord's Day. I love God's house, especially the quiet sanctuary...

...and even the basement where Crystal and I try to keep the bulletin board done at Lakota Chapel. 

Crystal had done up the bulletin board during the week, but Sunday morning after we had dropped our food items in the basement, we noticed a discrepancy in the bulletin board!! Who-oo had mixed up some letters? Was it the scamp named Danny?

Two Sundays ago, we had traveled to Martin Lakota Chapel, which is without a pastor right now and where we'd been invited by John Bush to share about our time in Ukraine. We told stories of people there who overcame poverty, abuse, and addictions to serve the Lord with contentment and joy. That was a precious service with the younger people in the congregation asking good questions at the end.

But the most interesting church scene last week was this one! Danny happened to be in the church at Winner while working there and discovered a baby owl flying about the dark sanctuary!

There it was, perched on the pulpit! Danny and Aiden Sherman both worked to try to capture the bird and actually succeeded. They helped it outside and watched it fly away. 

Worshipers belong in the church, but not owls!

Isn't it About Time for Some Good News?

After our bedtime prayer tonight, I told Jonathan that I do not remember ever hearing about so many deaths and bad news  as we have in the last few weeks--everything from four different people literally dropping dead, 

to others being severely injured or killed in accidents,

 to local funerals,

to watching a local friend struggle with a mental breakdown,

 to news about a former missionary coworker, Steve Gibson, being diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

And another friend, Nathan Bryant, a pastor and cook along with his wife Amy at many camp meetings and men's retreats, was just given only two weeks by the doctor, after a battle with cancer. His wife Amy and I used to attend the same church when we were teenagers--Zion Wesleyan Methodist Church in Pennsylvania. 

The only thing Jonathan and I know to do is to turn over the burdens of the world to our heavenly Father and keep working at the tasks we have to do. Today it was cutting firewood and chipping branches with a friend's chipper.

Earlier this week the BHE crew worked at Martin, helping the crew blowing insulation into the church hall walls. 

The utility trailer holding all the insulation equipment caught on fire that day, but one of the crew was out there and saw it happen, grabbed a fire extinguisher, and put out the fire, saving almost everything. That was good news!

Yesterday BHE guys worked right up in White River transforming a window into a sliding door. 

And I had the crew in for a hot lunch for once--chili, cornmeal muffins, apple salad, and chocolate cookies. Then that evening I invited four girls (all from one family) who had played basketball with their school in White River to also come to our place for supper and games. That was a hoot personified! I hadn't seen or heard so much drama in a LONG time.

"They were girls!" my girls reminded me. 

Oh, that's right!

"And we were just as noisy growing up!" someone added tonight. 

I didn't think so, but then my memory may be going bad. 

At least everyone was alive and had not been recently diagnosed with cancer or brain injury or diabetes. 

And then Rose sends pictures of dear baby Ellie--in this picture having a blast with the two dogs in the family.  It looks like maybe the little black and white one is jealous of the gold getting to be the one next to baby Ellie!

Isn't it about time for some good news for once? That's what babies are for, I think!

And music--good music is always good news. Today as a friend who is struggling sat in our living room, Crystal played a Christmas song on the piano. 

"Thank you!" the lady murmured.

And then the next morning, which was Sunday morning, the Scripture was from 2 Corinthians 3:8-17..

"We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.

...That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever." 

Battle-Scarred Buck with an Extra Antler

Last week Jonathan got a buck on the first night of deer season.

This was not a good night for me to have to process venison when I was already beat. But venison waits for no man--or should I say, no woman. Life with its venison marches on in the garage and kitchen whether Mom feels like it or not. 

Here came the happy hunters home with their prize. This was an unusual one, though. It had one antler mostly intact, one antler almost completely broken, and--you won't believe this--the appearance of the stub of a third antler right in the middle of its forehead (if that's what you call the front of a deer's head)!

No wonder it looked better to hang onto the deer this way! 

We only did what had to be processed that night, calling it off well after ten o'clock, but a couple days later, we gals cut the scrap meat into chunks for Jonathan to help us grind with our trusty meat grinder that Carrie got one year in Denver for just $50 bucks (pun may or may not be intended). 

Crystal washed the meat while Hannah and I cut it up for grinding--all that meat from the buck deer with the extra antler. That buck must have been in a lot of battles. Perhaps, with that extra antler stub, it had been created especially for battle. Now, like it or not, it had fought its last battle.

What would the meat taste like? I was not at all sure.

But we added sausage spices into one batch of ground meat and fried a few little sausages to taste. 

Let's just say--that meat was scrumptious! 

For venison, and a buck at that, it deserved five stars!

If we feel at times that we have been created with an ugly old extra antler just for battle,

or with an extra chromosome,

or an extra heavy weight of baggage or bondage,

let's just determine that, however our battles turn out with our poor antlers,

our meat shall be tender and delicious!

Projects, Patterns, Practice

 Last Saturday it was good to get some work done around our own home 

such as screwing onto the minisplit its cover that had been cluttering the living room. 

And putting carpet into the sides of the staircase, a project that has been waiting a couple years due to more important things coming first. Maybe we'll even be able to soon have the rail up.

Jonathan and Danny figured out a pattern for cutting the carpet to shape. 

Jonathan fit the carpet in and stapled it... 

...while Danny cut out each next piece. That was after we butchered two of our roosters that are eating us out of house and barn. My sister Iva gave us tips that made it possible to defeather the chickens indoors without stinking up the house. Water in a huge pot only needs to be heated to about 158 degrees rather than boiling.

 After dipping the roosters in (after they are dead of course, for anyone who has no idea how that works) and letting them sit in the hot water about 45 seconds or so, the feathers came out beautifully and without the terrible smell I was used to when we did it the boiling method. I plucked one and Hannah plucked the other, and between two or three of us, we gutted them. It's been so long since we butchered chickens that we had to look online what to do first. And we froze them for future chicken soups.

When we mentioned about butchering roosters, someone at Sunday meal told about a time years ago when Penn View students were experiencing Jungle Camp, a 2-3-day course in roughing it for Mission major students. One of the things done was butchering a chicken--something that happens a lot on many mission fields. One girl could not stand watching the butchering and was standing with her back to the scene when the chicken--now dead but still fluttering--somehow "flew" straight into the back of that girl!

It could not have been a better shot had the chicken been alive. 

One may as well watch and learn and bravely accept realities face forward, for reality will hit you in the back with a thud if you don't! :)

Anna's Afro--When Our Hopes Are Disheveled

I never would have believed that one day, first thing in the morning, I would look in my mirror and see this sight--Anna with an Afro!

What would my mother think of me?

Thankfully, my dear mother understands! She is just glad I have any hair at all right now! But that hair looks a bit like my heart feels right now--after the radiation doctor called this morning.

The skin lesion biopsy result came back--malignant. He said it's a reoccurrence of the same breast cancer. I had been worried about it for months, but every doctor brushed it off, including the oncologist, surgeon, and others. I kept showing and asking about it as it spread.

Maybe it was fungus. Maybe it was staph. Maybe it was a granuloma something or other. Finally this radiation doctor took it seriously and referred me to the dermatologist who took a biopsy. 

I was home alone when the doctor called. Jonathan was 80 miles away in Martin, Danny was 50 miles away the other direction in Winner, and both girls were working at the hotel and wouldn't get back until four in the afternoon. When I drove up to the pastor's home, no one answered the door.

I knelt at my chair in my room, giving everything to God, willing to turn my fears and my worries and the future over to Him. And I went to the wall plaque that said, "Give Thanks," and I took it off the wall and held it in my hands up to God. By my window I stood, in this small and silent way giving God thanks for something I did not want--not trying to be super spiritual, just trying to be obedient. 

The doctor said he's ordering a PET scan as soon as possible. If the cancer is only in the lesion, superficial radiation will be the next step. If it is elsewhere, too, drugs may be necessary. That means chemo again.

I went outside to pick up this and that, putting away propane bottles, shovels, and bits of trash, taking out garbage and gathering eggs. And petting the dog. 

At least the dog was home with me. I needed someone...the dog would have to do!

"God wants you to understand that it's a life of faith, not emotional enjoyment of His blessings," I read recently. 

As Thanksgiving season arrives, it may need to be filled with more faith and less emotional enjoyment of His blessings--though I still plan to look for those and experience those by God's grace. 

God's door will never be closed to me; He will always be here with me; and for that I give thanks. 

Baby Cheer--in Case You Need a Lift!

It's about time for some baby cheer after way too many funerals lately! 

Rose and Tom are so good to keep us updated with baby photos. To pine because we don't get to watch our first grandbaby grow up in person is a place I try to just not go. 

So this grandma, whose hair is growing back the second time faster than baby Ellie's is the first time, watches eagerly for any new pictures of her. 

Rose even let Ellie "talk" to me on the phone one day.

And if this one isn't just the charmingest! (Who cares if that is not the proper English superlative?)

Unless this one is charminger. 

Rose and baby were along for a few days on a job Tom did. 

All this about babies and young people reminds me of when Jonathan and I came through Custer, SD, last week where we passed this sawmill. I was sure this old sawmill was the one there 50 years ago when our family lived in Custer. I remember going to talk to the sawmill manager about ordering a load of slab wood for the barrel heater we heated our home with. And my sister Dorcas, when I shared the photo and memory, remembers sitting in the vehicle there with her feet freezing. My feet froze all the time, it seems. I lived with chilblains in the winters growing up. But that is not my topic today.

That home in Custer was at the top of this lane called Bear Rock Road. We stopped to take a picture because Bear Rock is a historic site now. There used to be a pioneer locating station for mining claims in a small cabin in front of this rock back in 1876, exactly 100 years before I lived up this lane. I had to take a picture of the Historic Site plaque. Lots of happy memories there in Custer actually, back when we children had lots of playtime outdoors. We would go "exploring" often up in the piney woods and rocks behind our place, sledding in the winter and gathering pine cones to help start fires in our barrel heater.

But enough reminiscing...We're in the now, with a grandbaby in Colorado who keeps my heart cheered when I have a hard time keeping cheered. 

Can hardly wait to see her in a couple weeks!