"Fruit of the Spirit" Kabobs

This was one of the happiest Easters ever!

We had started the night before, reading and talking about Jesus' final seven words [statements] on the cross,

and how He was buried in a garden tomb. We had sung, and prayed around the circle, thanking God 

for the gift of His death for us.

And then, after all the evening cleanup and getting meat and vegetables ready for Easter dinner,

and me giving two little boys haircuts,

we set the table for a special breakfast.

I propped the package of dinner plates up for breakfast decoration, and 

no, the little spring plates leftover from a birthday didn't match the napkins, 

but that's the way it is around here.

I can't even start to keep up with Heather Dickinson.

If you want to get ideas for how to do creative decorations and desserts and have everything match,

visit her blog. 

I enjoy her blog a lot. 

Mine is not a competition.

Mine just shows what a country bumpkin family does when they don't have it altogether!

We had "Fruit of the Spirit" kabobs again.

I loved these plates that I found at Family Christian Store a couple summers back on clearance.

We cut up pineapple, banana slices, and kiwi, and had green grapes and huge red grapes, and strung them on skewer

sticks with strawberries.

Each child did his own.

It was a cheerful way to celebrate the joy of Easter.

Hannah's kabob!

I hope to add more later. 

But I couldn't resist taking this picture of the blooming daffodils by our church bell.

We are so thankful for our church family!

Several were missing, including the Gaults. They had spent many long weeks during the last few months, 

caring for Sis. Gault's sister, Dorcas, in Ohio. 

She had finally gone to be with the Lord just two days before Easter. Our prayers were with the Gaults and their family back there.

We were also missing Sis. Carole, who is now under hospice care. 

Three weeks earlier had been her last time in church, and during that special service, it was like a shaft of heavenly glory shone down on her face.

We wondered if God was not only encouraging her own heart, 

but also giving us below a glimpse of the glory she will soon be experiencing. 

It was very, very special and sacred.

On the Cross--He Thought About His Mother

This evening was Easter Eve. 

I had spent half the afternoon making two trips to Falcon with Sam to get an oil filter and auto body clips for our van--and then to go back and get the right kind to replace the mistake. 

Sam is learning. He drove, he looked in the auto parts book, he found the oil filter, he found the clips.

He turned back around after getting home, and went back to town to fix his mistake without any todo.

I had to go along since he doesn't have his driver's license yet.

He came back and finished changing the oil.

He opened the door of the store for his mother when she went in with him, 

and he opened the car door for her when she came back out.

No stars, flags, or whistles--

just simple, thoughtful gestures that made his mother's heart warm.

He's learning.

He's learning to not only fix vehicles and find what he needs in auto parts stores,

but to be kind and thoughtful to his mother.

And yeah, maybe his teeth aren't quite perfect, but he's trying to follow the footsteps

of the One Who looked down from where He was dying there on the cross,

hanging in agony between heaven and earth.

Maybe His teeth were crooked, too, but the only thing that ever came from between them

were words of truth and grace.

He Who hung on the cross could have said, "Pity me! 

Oh pity poor me!"

Instead, He spoke to the mother He had always cared about, and said, 

"Woman, behold Your son!"

And then to John, "Behold, your mother!"

And from that time John took Mary, Jesus' mother, to his own home. 

We read about that this evening as we worshipped around the table this eve before Easter.

We sang, "What Wondrous Love Is This, O My Soul!"

And then we read how Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took Jesus' body from the cross and laid it in a tomb.

Jonathan had asked me to read, to I was the one reading when I came to where it said,

"There was a garden."

And that's the second place in the reading where I broke down. 

Don't ask me why. 

It just touched me that even our Lord, divine as He was, chose to be buried in a garden.

There's something about a garden--something sacred, something that seems close to the heart of God.

Perhaps that's why I miss having a garden so much.

Is it significant that God chose a garden to be the place where He would first reveal Himself to 

the weeping Mary?

Is it significant that where two angels once sat at the gate to the garden of Eden,

after the first sin,

barring entrance with flaming swords,

now, 4000 years later, two angels sat in an empty tomb, welcoming sinners to 

"Come and see the place where the Lord lay!"

Sin, with its icy grip, had clenched the world in its hopeless fist.

But "Then Came the Morning," as the song says that our church "choir" is practicing to sing tomorrow.

The spear that had pierced our Savior's side

and the thorns that had scratched His brow

and all the sins and griefs that had broken His heart when He died

were triumphed over. 

 Now all our brokenness could be healed.

All the sinful bent could be straightened.

All our stripes could be healed.

"Man of Sorrows, What a name 

For the Son of God Who came,

Ruined sinners to reclaim,

Hallelujah! What a Savior!"

He "suffered without the camp,"

out where the refuse was,

like the piles of horse manure over at our neighbor's,

those piled heaps of dung and trash and ashes and sins and despair. 

And there, there with the cross and the spear and the thorns

redemption happened!

Three days later, hope blossomed anew,

like fresh dandelions near the thorny locust tree in our pasture. 

And God cupped in His hands the sorrowing and despairing mother,

Mary Magdalene, the broken-hearted women who had faithfully followed him and ministered to Him and His disciples,

and all the frightened and troubled disciples.

In those dark days of waiting,

He cupped them in His hands. 

Byron and Melissa Manners from Taiwan

Last Sunday our church had HIM missionaries Byron and Melissa Manners for a service.  It was one of the most fascinating missionary services we've ever been in. 

They told about everything from snakes and roaches to rice paddies and the burnings of mirrors and other special furnishings that are believed to scare evil spirits away.  

Then we had Manners to our place Tuesday evening for dinner.

We had a wonderful time!

 Melissa and I had been at Allegheny Wesleyan College together about 24 years ago.

Sis. Durfee had said of Melissa, "If she marries Byron, she'll go places!"

She did--clear to Taiwan!

And all over America now in deputation services--where silly little giggly children sit on piano benches and try to make the adults laugh for the photo!

 Our three youngest children had a ball teasing Byron, who practically rolled around on the floor with them, teasing and tickling back. He reminded us a lot of  our former pastor Marvin Mosley 

who would get down on the children's level and have a ball with them.

And Danny came out dressed in hair bows.

What a case!

Byron said that the orchid we had on the table, still blooming beautifully six weeks after Valentines Day, was probably from a certain place there in Taiwan that grows many or most of the world's orchids.

Melissa slipped me a little box just before going out the door--with this wall hanging rolled up inside. Only the day before, I had taken down a very old Chinese wall hanging that Jonathan had bought in China about 21 years ago, that was now tearing apart.

So in its place I hung this beautiful new one. 

I think a little part of our heart is still in China--and now in Taiwan.

Everywhere there are people to share the gospel with and to lift from their sin and need,

isn't that where our heart ought to be?

 It was so refreshing to have this cheerful couple come visit our home. They wanted to see everything they've read about on my blog!!! 

And it was so refreshing to listen to people who think, people who are articulate in how they express their beliefs.

One of their heroes had been Albert Barr before he died. 

It was just good to have a break from 

schooling,

 cleaning, laundry,

 sewing,

chasing runaway pigs like this one that got out the next day,

 and just all the mundane and storm-ridden times of life, when the latest dirt devil blew our sliding board off the swing set and about a hundred feet away out in the pasture.

 Just a time to sit and chat with friends and catch up on where people are that I used to know. 

It was such a comfort to discuss the students in my graduating class

and in the other classes

who are still following the Lord in a conservative way. 

One who graduated with me, Jill Riddle, has gone to be with the Lord, succumbing several years ago to ovarian cancer, leaving behind two little girls.

Her husband has remarried, to Byron Manners' cousin. I'm so thankful their family is happy again with a new mother and new babies already. 

There's Andy and Shirleen Troyer, whose family of six children, Melissa said, is outstanding there at the college at AWC. 

Beverly Ewing married Neal Weaver, whose family of seven children worked together with Jonathan last year in Florida.

Beth Hamilton married and her entire family of six children perished in a terrible house fire a few years ago, but they are safely home in heaven. 

Beth Ann Johnstone married Tom Bennett, who just died of cancer recently but left a good testimony at NIBS, and six children.

I am grateful for the wonderful class and college I was part of, and for how so many are either in heaven already or are still serving the Lord.

Only God knows how the pieces of our lives are going to all fall together.

 Lovingly, He stitches pieces together,

weaves the threads of black and gray together with brighter gold and scarlet

to make something beautiful, something good. 

And all the glory belongs to Him!

When Dust Devils Blow Dirt in Your Eyes

It's a good thing we have a heavenly Father's big, safe, eternal hand 

to rest in.

 Because you can be going along rather peacefully through life--

even having picnics on trampolines every once in a while--

 and all of a sudden, an unexpected storm comes up and hits you broadside. 

It could be a cyclone like the one that blew the roof off of Rev. Kalo's home and destroyed his church in Vanuatu a couple weeks ago.

Sometimes you expect those big storms and can hunker down in underground bunkers like they did. 

But then there's the unexpected.

And there's the daily, small, irritating storms that are more like the dust devil that just roared by our house half an hour ago.

 Timmy and Danny had just been out selling a few chicks to a customer, 

and I had been cutting out more pieces for an Easter dress for Hannah

when all of a sudden, there was this unexpected roar.

Before I could even think what was going on, the boys were dashing up the front porch steps, a swirl of dirt blowing into their eyes. They grabbed the storm door which flew out of their hands and blew wide open.

Boys and dirt came flying into the house, slamming the front door behind them.

Big round wads of tumbleweeds were flying around and around with the dust, fifty to a hundred feet

up in the air as the dust devil spun toward the bluffs.

 Dirt and weeds had blown inside, leaving these piles on the tile by the front door.

 And it's true, it really wasn't as big a deal to sweep up that mess and rub the dirt out of one's eyes

as it is to clean up in the aftermath of a devastating tornado or cyclone.

But it's the surprise of it. 

The irritation of it. 

The indignity of it. 

Because if you lost your house to a cyclone, it would be all over Facebook and you'd sort of be the town hero. 

Everyone would feel sorry for you and take up offerings for you and you'd be famous.

But when you just get dust blown in your face by silly dirt devils--

you're just expected to get over it.

There's all that incidental indignity but

you're supposed to be focusing on bluebirds and tulips and nice, sweet things like that. 

Cyclones and hurricanes and tornadoes might be a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence for most of us--if ever. 

But we all have experienced those irritating and undignifying dirt devils--

the scorns and reproaches, inconveniences, irritations, and disappointments of life. 

The times when accusations have been blown unexpectedly into our faces, leaving us gasping for an acceptable response,

and dirt has been blown around in our faces and behind our backs, leaving our eyes and hearts stinging and our spirits crumbling.

The times when it's blown in our faces about how we're supposed to exercise the fruits of the Spirit...

 blown in our faces by the very people who have tromped the hardest with wooden cowboy boots and spurs

on the tender and weak spots of our hearts.

 Sometimes it's the dust devils that get to us the most--if we let them.

But really, isn't the healthiest thing to do, just get over it like we're supposed to?

Why don't we just quit whining about it all? Quit grouching and sulking. 

Wipe the dirt out of our eyes. 

Sweep the straw and dust up from the floor. (It's only so much dirt and straw.)

If we cannot forgive the petty irritations and the foolish accusations that are hurled at us,

if we cannot let go of the dirt thrown behind our backs, 

if we cannot sweep it all up and throw it in some kind of waste basket,

we "burn the bridge that we ourselves must pass."

Some days we, too, need to be forgiven.

Go ahead and watch the mini tornado head for the bluffs 

blowing those crazy tumbleweeds every which way.

(They're only dry old tumbleweeds, after all.) 

And then notice that bluebird all over again--

 that bluebird sitting perched on a low branch of the poor, scraggly old pine tree in the front yard. 

The best place to be--on some low branch of all the scraggles of life.

Perching, resting, singing--

 because "the eternal God" is our "refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."

When the Bluebird--and Hope--Arrive Again

A bluebird landed on a fence post the other day.

Right in the middle of news of deaths of loved ones,

and airplane crashes,

and political and economic unrest

and cyclones, and beheadings--

the bluebirds are landing in the branches of our straggly pine tree 

and checking out our birdhouse. 

And a little boy planted a morning glory in a pot indoors

and it is already blooming!

Little splashes of cheerful blue

in the gray of life,

little splashes of purple and white beauty of morning glory

opening to the sunlight.

And a mom finds the courage to go on with life-

to do with daughter number four what she's done with the three before her--let the little one turn the wheel on the sewing machine and press the pedal and 

lift the presser foot--and help sew a dress for herself.

Because the hope that we have is Christ--

but the hope is Christ experienced and known in the next generation, and not just ours.

And we can't give up when things look bleak. 

We pray for, love and support the martyrs, and all the real victims,

but may God save us from a victim mindset.

Some crazy co-pilot crashed a plane, and some crazy cyclone devastated Pastor Kalo's home and church in Vanuatu, and crazy terrorists ran blood into the ocean--

but on all of those days when all of those things happened,

thousands of people around the world were turning to Christ. 

Millions of Christians were worshipping and obeying and blessing God and witnessing for Him.

And God was providing daily bread for billions of families.

Hundreds of relief organizations were working around the clock,

and millions of people were being touched with love and compassion and hope again.

While the devil was pounding viciously in every way he could,

God was trying to pound into our thick skulls that

what the enemy tries to work for evil, He works for good.

And while some choose to be victims and live with bitterness and rage and self-pity because of all the evil craziness,

others choose to be crazy enough to hope and rejoice and love and forgive.

They have chosen to forgive the ones who beheaded their loved ones.

They have chosen to forgive the one who crashed the plane. 

They cry, and they hurt, and they pray--

and no one says it's easy or that they just instantly and peacefully forgive, 

but they forgive.

They suffer, but they forgive.

They suffer, they grieve, they weep, they are angry--but they let go of their anger. 

They let go of it--place it in God's hand.

And God turns their anger inside out into peace.

There are times to protect oneself, obviously, but really, do we have to protect ourselves so badly from every petty irritation and inconvenience

while Christians in Egypt gather to decide that what really matters

is staying true to Christ and sharing the gospel with those who have beheaded their loved ones?

I wonder which ones are blessed with the

peace of God?

I wonder which ones' faces shine with joy instead of being screwed up like a pickle,

and which ones' lives are a testimony of the grace of God instead of blasting out the most recent complaints and gripes against some recent inconvenience or some person we feel insecure around

or some person who has insulted someone we care about?

I wonder whose faces are radiant like a morning glory opening to the sun?