When Even Cows Get Pumpkin Pie!

When my sister Iva's family came up to have an early Thanksgiving dinner with us since we could not get together over Thanksgiving,

even the steers got pumpkin pie!

Here is Kenny carrying out to them their treat for the afternoon.

 Indoors, the ladies are putting the luscious but simple meal together.

I never thought to put cranberries out just like that like Iva did--tart and simple.

Every one of them got eaten up.

 While the steers tussled over who got the most pumpkin...

 the children finish morning school, and Hannah crumbles up cornbread for stuffing the turkey.

And Elisa stuffs it.

 And Iva gets ready to make gravy.

 And Hannah rinses blackberries from a sale at Sprouts...

 for blackberry cream puffs that Iva brought.

 I asked her to please bring a low-sugar dessert, and she was so gracious to come up with these luscious cream puffs.

 Here we are ready for the simple feast.

 We share Thanksgiving riddles and brain teasers.

And the steer shares in the pumpkin pie!

When You Need to Make Peace With Yourself

There are times, after a difficult situation or relationship issue, when the only thing left that you can do is to make peace with yourself.

You can do the best that you know to do, and then when it blows up in your face, you can try to fix it by making one apology after another,

eating one piece of humble pie after another, asking forgiveness for everything you can think of,

and trying to win back people's trust and approval. 

But when it comes right down to it,

no one else's approval can give you peace.

 There is a sense where the only person who can control whether you live in peace or not

is you.

 You can hang yourself upside down trying to repent low enough,

and apologize humbly enough,

and explain yourself clearly enough, 

and defend yourself strongly enough,

and figure everything out well enough,

and drink humble tea to the very dregs.

 But there will always be that last piece still missing in the puzzle if you do not realize that you 

really need to make peace with yourself.

 Because there will always be someone who will be very sure that your puzzle is still missing quite a few pieces, and you need to either get sanctified (really, really sanctified, since you already were, but apparently you weren't sanctified well enough or deep enough or long enough, or else you lost it and need to get it back again--because no one who is really sanctified ever has any problems anymore) or else you need to go to counseling to really get things fixed, or else you need to apologize lower and better and deeper since your apologies didn't fix the mess. 

There will always be people who will be very sure that everything is your fault.

And that is why you need to make peace with yourself.

 You have to come to grips with the fact that you did the best you knew to do, with the knowledge that you had, and with the burdens you were carrying, and with the best interests of those you love at heart--and you did some hard things because you thought it was the right thing to do.

And maybe you didn't do everything or say everything in just the wisest or best way, but you did the best you could do.

And just because things didn't turn out the way you hoped, does not necessarily mean you did the wrong thing--if you did the best you knew to do.

That is one thing you have to make peace with--that you did the best you knew to do at that time.

You were not going against your conscience, but with your conscience.

And sometimes you have to let the chips fall where they will.  Because chips will fall anytime you take any kind of action when there is a problem.
You do the best you know, because you are a human being who does not know all things like God does.
You don't always know what is going to happen as a result of your choices.

It's true that hindsight is better than foresight.
It's true that if you had known what was going to happen, and if you had the knowledge back there that you have now, you may have done something different.

But you did not have this knowledge back then. 

So you have to make peace with yourself.

Today I read an article in an old Reader's Digest from Jonathan's mom, about a couple who had to make a difficult decision when the young mother of ten children, ages 1 to 14, was diagnosed with cancer that would take her life a few months later. 

The dad was in constant pain with arthritis and could not always work or provide well.

So they made the heart-breaking decision to give away all their children to adoptive parents by the time the mother died.
They screened all the prospective parents to make sure there would be love in the home, there would be religious training, the children would be educated, and they would stay in touch with each other.

For years, that dad suffered under the heartbreak of it all, and added to his burden was the scorn of those around him who felt that he should have instead tried to keep the family together.

 He had promised his wife and the adoptive parents that he would not contact the children, so that the children could be in unrivaled relationship with their new parents. 

He and his wife had simply wanted their children to be happy and loved and taken care of. 

The scorn of others and his own arthritic pain and heartaches piled in.

But he kept his promise to his wife--he would not contact his children.

(Talk about a tear-jerker of a story!)

But years later, one child after another began to contact their father, and little by little, as he saw how happy and fulfilled and successful their lives had become,

he was able to make peace with himself.

When I read that final line, how he had finally made peace with himself, something clicked.

I related instantly. No, I probably would not make the decision that couple made. But I related to doing the best I knew to do, and then suffering for it. 

I related to the scorn and disapproval being piled on till you felt like you had most certainly done the wrong thing.

Making peace with oneself,

was the missing puzzle piece that I had been struggling to find for myself in my own situation.

 

And I have to admit, that my heart almost skipped a beat a few minutes ago, when Danny came hurrying to me saying, "We found the missing piece to the puzzle!"

I couldn't believe him at first.

We had searched and searched different times, but could never find it, 

till today when they were putting the puzzle away--

and I was in the middle of writing this blog post about a missing puzzle piece that I had finally found.
The children said the piece was just on the floor...where it hadn't seemed to be any other time we looked.
It was there, right under our nose, apparently, and we just didn't see it.  

I had to stop and take a picture of that puzzle piece, so I could show my blog readers.

It was like God was adding His blessing to the peace that had come to my heart.
[later-I'm editing, because I realized the piece I took a picture of wasn't actually the piece pictured above as missing--I'm not sure whether the kids didn't give me the right piece, or if they just found a piece that dropped as they put it away--anyway, I didn't really care. God still encouraged me when the kids announced they had found the missing piece!]

 Usually, we hear that the answer to all our problems is to know God and to know His peace.

And that is true. 

But sometimes, it goes the other way. 

Sometimes, you feel at peace with God, but there is something still wrong inside.

And that is where you have to make peace with yourself.

Maybe you are saying, well, I really did do the wrong thing and I knew it. I should have known better.  I should have been stronger. I gave in to temptation. I did wrong.
It really is my fault that relationships are in the pits, or that my life is a mess.

But if you have done what you could--if you have humbled yourself the best you knew before God and the ones in your life that you wronged,
just because others won't make peace with you or won't approve of you doesn't mean you can't be at peace with yourself.

It's not something humanistic--it's just part of being a successful human being.
It's one of the secrets to living in peace. 

And He Who remembers that we are dust, wants us to remember it, too.

He Remembers That We Are Dust; Do We?

There are times you feel on top of the world,

and then the rest of the time you are just somewhere inside that pile of pumpkins

where there are about three moldy ones that really need to be taken out to the pigs.

 And every once in a while, you remember the Psalmist's prayer,

"Oh, that I had wings of a dove,

 for then would I wander far off and remain in the wilderness."

 You really would like to fly away when Saturday morning comes, complete with its duties of vacuuming, cleaning, scrubbing, cleaning at least some of the refrigerator, trimming plants, sorting winter gear in two closets, and last but not least--dusting.

 It's true the dust does pile up around here, especially with Crystal gone, who usually does the dusting. 

And it's a good thing you can't see the dust on the office desk in front of me.

(Honestly, I'll try to dust as soon as I'm done. Even while I'm uploading pictures, I often am busy sorting receipts, filing papers, opening mail, checking lessons or running around supervising.)

And the dust reminds me of how this verse spoke to me a few days ago,

"For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust."

 God made us from dust, and to dust we will return, and in between, we are all just

a poor little pile of dust, despite how intricately God has made us.

 It doesn't take much, just a flick, and the dust is gone. 

And doesn't God know, that it doesn't take much, just a flick,

and the dusty frame of our humanity is in pieces with things that others say and do,

or that we say and do, 

mistakes we make or physical frailties or accidents or spills or falls or upsets of one sort or another.

He remembers.

Do we?

 Do we remember that while it is good to maintain order and neatness in our home, 

and while it is good to mop the floor and vacuum and sweep and dust and scrub regularly,

we also have a spirit that needs to be maintained?

In a large family, there are always meals to cook, and floors to clean and rooms to straighten,

schoolwork to keep up with, clothes to wash and hang and put away, 

and cornmeal muffins to bake.

 But what about a little bit of lovin'--

not just the rituals at bedtime and when Daddy leaves for work in the morning,

but the spontaneous moments just every once in a while?

What about taking a few moments to join the little ones in the making of an autumn puzzle--

just for a little break?

 Who said it was a sin to take time to put a few more puzzle pieces in?

 He remembers that we are dust--and that for every puzzle we make, there is always a piece missing.

And He still looks after us, the people with all the missing pieces,

and tends and nourishes us and guards us and loves us. 

And so--

do we remember, too, that we are just dust, 

and to take time to breathe,

to love,

to experience the joy of the moment,

and to take time to rest and nourish our spirits?

Sometimes You Need to Let the Sun Shine In!

There are times when the best thing you can do for yourself

is to take a moment away from your daily duties, and just go to a sunny window

and let the sunshine pour into your heart.

 Sometimes if you are feeling low, you need to just pour yourself a cup of tea,

and sit down beside a beautiful flower,

 as much as beside your Bible.

 There are times when you are in the middle of your daily duties,

and suddenly you are in the middle of a bunch of pain that belongs to the past. 

And it is suddenly too heavy for you.

You know you need to go lay it at the feet of Christ.

You bow your head, but it's too heavy for you. So you get up and go to your room and close the door.

And everything inside you is wanting to fall on your face and cry out to God--

But you remember how far that gets you. 

How often hasn't the icy grip of the devil's thumb made the weight only heavier as you

bow in your heartache and tears spill over?

Somehow things just seem to turn around for you far more quickly when you just step over to your sunny window and pause in the warmth of the sunshine, 

and wait in the warm, silent presence of God,

and then lift up your head and look for the birds.

 Something seems to happen when you let the sun shine in. 

Because there are always going to be those moldy pumpkins that the boys carved faces in, and then left on their dresser till they almost melted into a puddle. 

And then pieces of the rotten pumpkin got left on your floor under the ironing board,

and yellow stains are on your carpet.

 How many times have messes been left on your floor or in your car or in your back yard or at your back door that 

did not belong to you?

Muddy boot prints that did not belong to you.

Slimy old banana skins that certainly did not belong to you.

 And all those things that don't belong to you 

just somehow anyway leave you deep, deep down 

in the black pool of depression or discouragement.

 But there is always the possibility of joy.

 The same ice that was in the grip of the enemy

can make a beautiful pattern on the glass--especially when exposed to the sunshine.

 There will always be those days when toilets need fixing,

 and when you are on your hands and knees looking for the new little kitty's toilet,

that kitty that you tried to insist had to stay out of the house,

searching behind the freezer, behind the washer, and behind the dryer,

and trying to figure out where in the laundry room the stink is coming from.

 There are some things you can clean up and some things you just can't--

because they don't belong to you.

But you can always choose the possibility of joy.

You can choose to remain under the slimy dripping of Yellowstone National Park's Devil's Thumb,

or bloom in the sunshine.

It's you who choose about the guilt trips and the black holes.

                                        

Choose to linger a little longer in the sunshine,

and let the warmth of God's love quiet your spirit.