Mother's Day Photos and Sis. Carole's Funeral

My sister Dorcas sent us Mother's Day photos of herself with her daughters and then with her sons, which gave me the idea for these snaps of my daughters and me near our church.

It's easy to think everyone else has their acts together when we don't. 

Like when we're trying to get four girls and a mom in one piece for a photo.

And the boys are a whole different story.

Like when  we end up getting to church late, with one kid kicking off his shoes and showing a hole so big in his socks that not just one but two toes are sticking through, to say nothing of a second hole with a heel showing through.

And he's holding his foot high in the air in the middle of the service without any compunction.

When are you boys going to cooperate?

There's always got to be one not quite showing up.

And there's lots of nice smiles till it's the actual picture.

But oh, well, it's a little interlude in between posts about funerals!!!

This week we attended the funeral of our sweet friend, Carole VanWagenen, who finally made it safely across the river. 

The night before she died, having been mostly unresponsive and unmoving for days, 

while the pastor and his wife and the Frenches were singing for her,

she had suddenly sat up and tried to say something. It was a little miracle!

Here are the Frenches singing at her funeral.

Our former pastor, Bro. Derald Hunt, sharing a eulogy using an acrostic using Carole's name:

C--Caring

A--Always there

R--Real

O--Others oriented

L--Loving

E--Everyone included

Our pastor, Bro. Steve Kearney, shared a refreshing message and presented the gospel to any present who did not know the Lord.

Jonathan Finch, who had been one of Carole's caregivers, and Robert Lefever played a trumpet solo:

"When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder."

The pall bearers were (from back left clockwise) Ward French, Michael Clark, Jonathan Finch, Derald Hunt, Tim Rhoades (Naomi French's brother) and Ben Reynolds.

Sis. Carole's final resting place was in Evergreen Cemetery, one of the most beautiful cemeteries I've ever been in. Sammy heard someone say that fourteen years ago this cemetery already had 75,000 people buried in it. 

In the distance, the mountains near Pikes Peak are visible.

Our pastor led in singing "Amazing Grace," and told us that this casket was just a "hope chest!"

It was one of the most joyful and hopeful funerals I've ever been to.

We knew beyond a shadow of doubt Sis. Carole was in heaven.

And since her husband had gone on before and she had no children, there were no immediate family left to grieve. 

Just friends to rejoice for her complete healing and victorious home going.

Back at the parsonage funeral reception there was a new little one to rejoice over.

Crystal is holding Priscilla [Lefever] Carrol's little baby boy.

Priscilla is washing dishes.

Grandma Fern Lefever just loves her first grandbaby.

He's so pretty everyone thinks he is a girl, she says, no matter how much blue you dress him in!

And Grandpa Robert wouldn't be bursting his buttons or anything like that.

And when Carrie remarked about how this funeral bouquet was her favorite, 

it got sent home with her!

It still looks beautiful in the morning sunlight.
 And on Sunday morning when a little time was set aside in the morning service for thoughts of Sis. Carole, Jonathan read this poem that I had been inspired to write shortly after hearing about her crossing over.
*********
  Sis. Carole's New Address

What was it like, Sis. Carole,
  When the angels lifted you,
From that weary bed and took you instead
  To a home beyond the blue?


What was it like when they set you down
  Upon those streets of gold
And with hand held tight, you stood upright
  Till without a hand to hold

You stood all strong and suddenly found
 That you could walk and skip?
That when you had a chance you could run and dance
  And do a cartwheel flip?

What was it like to reach your arm
   And find you were embraced?
To sense a tug and feel a hug
   And look into Christ's face?

What was it like to hear His voice
   And hear that "Child, well done!"
To leave this stark old earth's thick dark
   For the land of eternal Sun?

What was it like to leave your poor
   Weak body far below?
To walk flowery fields now strong and healed
  With Christ Who loves you so?

Send us a note, Sis. Carole,
   To answer these thoughts on our mind.
With fingers so agile that once lay so fragile,
   Write us a note undersigned,

Signed by one "Carole Van Wagenen,
   Redeemed by God's marvelous grace."
Resting in Christ, whose blood has sufficed
  To merit you see His face.

Send us a note, Sister Carole,
   From your heavenly home addressed.
Touched with perfumes from heavenly blooms,
  From your home of eternal rest.
 

Goodbye, goodbye, Sis. Carole,
  But the end of our own road is not far.
Pass your baton! We are following on
  With our wagons hitched to your Star!

    ---lovingly penned by her friend,
            Anna Lucas

Stuck in the Muck

Last week, Sam got our van stuck in the waterlogged pasture as he tried to hitch up the trailer to load our pigs. 

So Jonathan had to pull the van out with his truck, and then he tried to back up his truck to hitch the trailer to it--and he sank it to the axles in the mud.

The more he tried to get out, the deeper he sank--

and how many words do I need to use to say, "Does that sound familiar?"

You might even ask other people for help in seeing things from a different perspective,

to help give you a push out of your stuck place. 

Other people might help, or they might hinder.

Often, if they aren't wise, they just muddy things up even worse.

Most people aren't that great a help in digging you out.

Just like you aren't usually that great a help when someone else is stuck.

You can dig around in the dirt (which usually just makes a pile of mud and doesn't get to the root of the problem anyhow)

and push like crazy 

but sometimes things just won't improve.

You have to just step back, lean on your shovel, look the other way for a while

where the geese are calmly swimming freely in the pond,

and "Be still and know that I am God."

There are times when the only One Who can deliver us and help us

is Somebody Bigger Than You and I.

And He has to come from a standpoint of the solid ground of Truth,

and not from the shifting sands and waterlogged mud of human opinions. 

How good it is to have a neighbor who "happened" to be using a backhoe in the next property over, who saw our helplessness and came to see if he could help.

And how near the Lord is if we'd only call on Him!

"He's only a prayer away,"

as close as a breath, like a neighbor just the next property over.

"God shall help her, and that right early."

He has the greatest backhoe in the world,

and all the equipment necessary to pull us out of the deep miry clay of sin, of discouragement,

of confusion, or of unhealed hurt.

Sometimes the deliverance happens suddenly, sometimes in increments.

The backhoe shovel would pull the truck a few feet, and then our neighbor would have to back up and reposition and start over.

And finally the truck came free!

We whooped and cheered!

It was the second time in just five days that one of our vehicles had gotten stuck. 

Snow was pelting on our way home Friday from Carrie's violin rehearsal, and Jonathan said it was the worst possible kind of snow. He was way back in town delivering a new pump to a home with a water issue while I was driving our van home--and started fishtailing.

Mercifully, I managed to pull off the road onto a pull-off, 

and the driver behind me gave me a thumbs-up. 

But I could not see, and as I tried to back out into the road again, I instead backed right into the ditch!

(Where was the guy with the thumbs up?)

There I sat--helplessly stuck!

 "You could have tried to park us less sideways!"

the girls teased, as they tried to keep from sliding down their seats.

 We were in for a long wait as Jonathan said on the phone that he'd have to first stop and buy a tow chain or rope.

I was so thankful that despite being almost sideways in the ditch (well, not quite)

we were at least well off that slushy, slippery road.

After about half an hour, Hannah was getting restless, and I suggested we sing.

And it was just then that a rancher in a big truck with a long horse trailer on behind

pulled up by my window and asked if he could help.

 I couldn't help noticing that it was just after we'd decided to sing--

instead of to complain--

that help suddenly appeared. 

Would thankfulness and praise bring victories to us sooner if only we would be that simple?

 I took him up on his offer, and he backed up and pulled over by my van, fishtailing in the snow with his huge trailer loaded with at least three curious horses. 

He pulled out a big chain and connected it to my van.

Despite hearing him use a swear word, I thought he might as well have been an angel.

"Let me do the work!" he advised. 

"Just give me a little help!"

And in our helpless, stuck situations, we really don't have any choice but to rely on a Stronger One to pull us out.

"Just let Me do the work!" He's reminding us. (We can't do the work anyway, stuck in the muck like that!)

"Just give Me a little help!" He adds.

There was something about feeling that ranch truck's tug.

And we will all recognize the tug of the Holy Spirit when He is getting ready to pull us out of a stuck spot. 

He can't do it without our cooperation. 

We need to respond.

When we sense that tug that comes after we've surrendered a situation completely into His hands and taken our hands off the wheel,

we need to be willing to "step on it,"

take that step--just whatever little step the Lord wants us to do.

One small step, with Him at the wheel and His power in control, may be all it will take to get the situation out of the muck. 

That may be all it will take before the rainbow of hope appears again.

One small step may be all it will take to be able to look up to the sunshine again.

Tu-Lips to Praise

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote,

"Let us resolve: First to attain the grace of silence;

second, to deem all fault-finding that does no good a sin;

third, to practice the grace and virtue of praise."

Sammy graciously stopped the van so I could take a picture of these tulips before pulling out of the street where we had dropped Carrie for her violin lesson.
Her teacher's apple tree was in bloom.

And more tulips were blooming at Faith Covenant Bible Church in the Springs where we attended several convention services a couple weeks ago.

It's easy to praise God for tulips and hyacinths and pretty little girls.

It's not always easy to praise Him for mud and musty smells and little girls who bug the daylights out of her bigger brothers, for vehicle problems and computer crashes and misunderstandings and wounded spirits.

But part of living a Spirit-filled life is to give thanks in everything. 

Jonathan and I put that into practice last week as we discussed some issues we were dealing with--and how I'd read that praise can make the difference.

Together we bowed and submitted to the command to give thanks in everything.

We thanked God for all the hurt in the situation--believing that He was working it for good.

It was not easy--and tears choked me up.

It did not seem smart. It seemed silly and stupid to say, "Thank You for all this hurt."

But God did not want us to be smart. He just wanted us to be simple. 

He didn't want us to be perfect. He just wanted us to obey.

And we are watching His transforming power at work!

Again the next morning something hurtful that someone had said long ago came back to me.
I did the hard thing--I said, "Thank You, God, that they said that!"

It seemed stupid. Maybe I could have worded my thanks so it sounded smarter.
But I was just trying out this idea of actually thanking God for the difficult thing. 

I just obeyed what I had read about, and what I discovered a little later was that choosing to give thanks for the accusation enabled me to give it to the Lord--and I promptly forgot about it instead of having it gnawing at me.

I'm not saying I always do this. I don't. Something else came up that I struggled with for a while.

But I just know that there were a couple incidents in the last couple days where giving thanks worked for me. So I am sharing that and plan to share more.

Carrie celebrated her "Sweet Sixteenth" birthday.

She made a "Grandma's Cake" that had pineapple and banana in it.

Her friends Emily and Joanna came to spend overnight with her. They had a ball!

Carrie is getting ready to open a couple of her gifts.

Carrie's violin teacher gave her a bouquet of flowers from a funeral

(we had to forget the funeral part)

and we stuck a fresh sprig of lilacs from Grandma Lucas in with it.

Floods Upon the Dry Ground

Sometimes we feel as parched as a thirsty prairie,

and as burnt out as the heating element in our water heater which Jonathan had to replace a week ago.

 After years of drought or near drought conditions,

it has been refreshing to experience heavy rains--even though the rains bring their own set of problems!

Like I read recently from "Murphy's Laws,"

"Every solution breeds its own problems!"

 But we get to choose to focus on the problems or on the answer to prayer--

God sent rain!

After helping one afternoon when our church basement had flooded, we ran an errand for Jonathan that took us over this bridge over raging Cheyenne Creek in town.

 At home we all celebrated the rain by going out to our pasture to see how much water had accumulated in our seasonal pond and gully.

 We stood there and thanked God for every little bit of water in this pond,

but little did we know how much more God was going to send!

 Of course, the Jersey loves to be curious.

 He also loves his face scratched.

 The next evening we celebrated Hannah's sixth birthday.

 Hard to believe my littlest girlie is six.

 She had a lot of fun helping the girls and me decorate the yummy chocolate chip cupcakes

with pastel icing and sprinkles and real violas.

 I had gotten this cupcake stand on clearance at Safeway for Carrie's birthday.

 Grandma and Grandpa came out to help celebrate.

 And that weekend the rains just poured and the snow pelted.

And even the dams the boys and Jonathan built to try to keep the water under control

weren't able to contain the floodwaters.

 Once again, we visited the pond

and you can see how much it had swollen.

 Even though the rain's side effects left our basement soggy in places and window wells filling up,

we were so grateful for this wonderful answer to 

specific and fervent prayer that God would please fill up our pond!

 Here is what it looked like from our house.

 And the God who knew how starved a Pennsylvania girl was for streams and splashing water

sent not just one but two streams of water gushing through our pasture on Sunday.

Thus does our God pour water on him who is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground.

Last week in the convention at Faith Covenant Bible Church in town,

God poured water on thirsty hearts.

It was a blessing to us to have two more of our children stand up to testify for the first time.

How good God is!