He Anointeth My Head with--Mayonnaise!

It was one of those days when I was trying to get rid of something that we didn't need

under the bathroom sink. 

It was a little canister of some kind of tea tree hair-growing gel that had been under the sink for years instead of growing hair on Jonathan's head.

When I asked him about throwing it away, he thought he should use it instead.

So--much to our dismay later--I began to apply the gel.

I said gel, but it was more like goo, a really, really, really sticky, greasy goo--

probably rather old, after sitting under our bathroom sink for several years.

We thought maybe the more I rubbed it into his warm head, the better it would be, 

but in fact, it got worse.

It was so bad that we could not get it rinsed out at all, even after shampooing, and decided that now that we had it all through his hair, he may as well sleep with it.

Maybe some hair would grow by morning!!!!

I covered his pillow case with a thick towel and an old pillow case.

Unfortunately, by  morning we did not notice any new hair, but we certainly noticed that his old hair looked atrocious! 

Since his one hand was still not completely healed, I scrubbed his hair out myself with shampoo. No better.

We were afraid to try GoJo or GooGone. 

So I scrubbed it out with DISH SOAP.  

A second time with DISH SOAP.

What a mess!

It was still awful!

 Hopelessly, he ate his breakfast and went to work with that thick, hopeless grease still in his hair.

Duck eggs from the neighbor made a great breakfast, greasy hair and all.

Lord Jesus, sometimes my mind feels stuck up just like that, with a bunch of goo in my brain.

I can't just scrub it out with shampoo or conditioner or even dish soap.

It's just one awful, mysterious mess.

I wish I understood some things better, about You, about other people's hearts, about myself.

Like Bro. James Plank said last weekend, he used to have to try to have everything figured out.

Now he just doesn't even try.

Sounds like good counsel from someone older and wiser, for us poor people whose petals aren't all there anymore. 

My mom used to say she had a "mystery bag" that she put things into when she couldn't understand.

She called it "God's mystery bag."

It was a help to her to place things in it that she could not understand.

I needed a mystery bag tonight when I could not sleep.

We can't always understand His ways, and because we are human we don't even always understand each others' ways--or even our own.

We need a mystery bag sometimes.

And we need mayonnaise!

Finally one morning, in desperation, I remembered that I have successfully scrubbed black grease out of jeans--with oil.
Could I scrub that goo out of Jonathan's hair with oil?

Well, all I had for oil was expensive olive oil, so I got the bright idea to use mayonnaise, which was cheaper.

And wacko or not, it WORKED!

Two applications of mayonnaise cleaned that goo right out of his hair!
The first one got most of it, and the second one did the final trick.

So, Lord, go ahead and anoint my gooey head with oil--

even if it has to be in the form of mayonnaise! 

Scrub all the goo into Your Great Mystery Bag

and just let me rest in You.

James Plank and IHC Come to Colorado--And the Mother Who Is No Longer a Missionary

James Plank and I were in classes together at Penn View--and then we haven't seen much of each other for the last 30 years except recently at InterChurch Holiness Conventions.

Here he is at the right with fellow preacher Ron Stevens and family(at left), and the Michael Maley family who were singers at the convention at our church last weekend.

How we appreciated the West Virginia hill-billy Maleys down-to-earth, simple, but from-the-heart singing!

Also Ron Stevens' amazing life story of being saved from a life of drug abuse and prison sentences 

to being now a preacher of the gospel for about 20 years.

It's usually hard for me to handle really noisy preachers, but Ron Stevens has a smile that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific- and an energy that keeps you awake even on Sunday afternoon!

He preached about waiting for Christ's coming like Rahab waited for the children of Israel to come, 

and kept her scarlet cord hanging from her window while she gathered her family into the safety of her home. It was one of the most energetic, positive and uplifting messages about waiting for the second coming I have ever heard. Most scare me or leave me worried. This one left me wanting to be busy serving God and making sure all is under the blood of Christ!

And here above are all the preachers and wives who were in Sunday evening service.

James Plank preached boldly, and some of what he said was especially personally encouraging to me.

  A lot has happened in those 30 years since we were in classes together.

I'm not a James Plank, pastor of a church of 400,

thundering out messages with authority and power, and leading convention after convention from Dayton (attendance in the thousands) to Papua New Guinea where 10,000 attended.

Just a couple days before convention, I spent some time in my kitchen on the bear rug, surrendering all my ambitions, all my dreams to be up front ministering like the singing Maleys were doing and like I was trained for years to do, all my hopes to be a blessing and an influence, and just lay it all at Christ's feet.  

Because for a long time it feels like I've been just warming a church pew, (something that was as bad as backsliding) and there is the temptation to want to be up front like I used to be for many years.

Plus there was that call to be a missionary.

I wasn't a missionary Sunday...

We just picked up a lady for Sunday School who has come out of drug and smoking habits, 

and welcomed an uncle and aunt who have been attending church ever since their wedding when we invited them.

We just took the young people and children of the convention for a walk in Garden of the Gods nearby after the Sunday afternoon service,

letting them climb a few rocks and get some exercise and energy worn off before the evening service. 

We just invited another young couple along who have three little children and expecting their fourth,

helping carry the two littlest ones and talking about raising our children for the Lord.

Nothing up front on platforms--just walking on dirt paths giving tired children a reason to smile and a lift to a young mother and father.

I wasn't on the platform Friday night like James was.

Before service, I was just taking shopping the uncle and aunt who can't drive anymore since their third accident,

bringing them to Hannah's birthday party, which we had to fly through in order for everyone invited to get to church on time.

Hannah had made the cupcakes herself [with help from her mom who was supposed to be a missionary].

 She decorated them, too, with the help of Rose.

 This is as cute as any cake!

 Grandma and pa were the kind hosts for Hannah's picnic in their backyard.

 And Saturday, after attending the morning service and prayer time, I wasn't on the platform that evening--or even in the pew.

I certainly was not on the mission field.

I was just hosting another little informal party for Hannah, having invited, on the spur of the moment the day before, her friends the two neighbor children who have started loving coming over to our place to play with our children.

We are wanting to invite them to church, and did already, but it did not work out yet.

I had a little birthday gift hunt outside.

Here Hannah is finding one gift in a feed bin in a shed.

 Here she is looking in a tree...

 and finding another gift!

 And earlier in the week, we hosted another birthday party for Carrie, who turned 18!

That day we had a family from Kazakstan. The mother asked us pointed questions about our conservative beliefs, and about who we hoped our children would marry.

 Carrie is being a witness in the restaurant.

Her Hindu employer asked her for prayer for her marriage, and wants to bring her little girl out to our place to have some time in the country with a loving family.

Nothing up front--nothing on the platform--

just doing what we can to love others and bring them to Christ...

and surrendering the platform and all the rest to the Lord

after the children have gone to bed,

a mother who is not a missionary walking alone in a quiet kitchen,

while tears fall

above a bear rug on the kitchen floor. 

Stuck Keys and Defining Moments--When All You Can Do Is Sit

I read yesterday in a devotional book that perhaps the greatest thing David ever did was not slaying Goliath or honoring his enemy Saul,
but responding in quiet submission when God let him know, through Nathan the prophet, that he was not to build the temple.

'There are times when our grand human plans to do something for God are seen, after a night of prayer, to be a huge human distraction from what God is doing for us.'.

David could have gotten stuck right there, like the key stuck on our piano.

It drives Carrie crazy.

She and I tried and tried to figure out what the problem was.

Even Jonathan tried--to no avail.

We will have to wait for a master piano tuner or technician to fix the problem.

"As a highly successful king, David wanted to do something big for God.
When Nathan brought him the jarring news that he shouldn't do it, how did he react?

He sat before the Lord.

The author wrote that this story in David's life tells us something about handling critics and disappointments, when our minds are churning with unpleasant reactions.
I thought how it also relates to ambition, however good. 
These are times for "greater understanding and spiritual growth...
times to sit before the Lord."

Sitting before the Lord "wasn't passivity." It was "entering into the presence of God...and trading in our plans for God's plans."
Lord, when I want to be a good thing or do good things,
and You do not permit it,
may I wait humbly on You, and if necessary, let another take my place to do what I would have wanted to do.
May I get behind them and give them all I've got, even as David prepared gold, silver, timber and stones to build the house of the Lord.
Because the whole thing is not about me, or the temple or shrine to Your glory that I want to build,
or the project I want to do,
or the person I want to be,
but it's about obedience to Your will in my life.

My birthday--and Years of Habits

This is a rustic yard decoration the children got me for my birthday.

I loved it!

 It's hard to believe Jonathan turned 50 this year and I am a year older!

Below is a book that is quickly becoming one of my favorites, that I also got for my birthday.

(Literally! I bought some books at a half price sale at a thrift shop on my way home from taking Crystal to the airport, and gave them to the kids to wait for my birthday. I figured if I was going to have any birthday gifts, I  might have to buy  my own! :)

I could hardly stop reading this book Sunday, and read more of it late at night when I couldn't sleep. This book is about a Scandinavian pastor's wife who had seven children and pastored Scandinavian congregations from New York to Canada to  Chicago. She was such an amazing woman, skilled in grace and humility. But one thing that encouraged me was that she always had everyone take a nap in the afternoon after lunch! Even she lay down for 30 minutes and her husband went to his study.
Then she got up and that was her Bible and prayer time.

And then she put on coffee to perk, which signaled to everyone that they could get up and meet the second half of their day!
Maybe you always have your devotions without fail first thing in the morning, and certainly we've heard this preached. But I've discovered more and more mothers of large families who could not find time for devotions except in the afternoon or other times of day besides morning.
Reading this lifted a huge load off my back.
I feel so unable to meet all the demands, and having my devotions often feels like just another demand--especially if I end up being just a second rate Christian for having my devotions in the afternoon or evening instead of morning!

I hope the following thoughts from DesiringGod.org along this line of habits and being realistic will be an encouragement to any mother or real person reading this:

  "Habits Are Not One-Size-Fits-All"

"Perseverance in the Christian life is dynamic. It looks different based on your personal experience and wiring and proclivities, your season of life and era in history, and your current community.

It should be freeing to know that you’re not called to live someone else’s spiritual routines. You’re not called to persevere by precisely the same on-the-ground habits as your heroes. Habits are person-specific, and God gives us flexibility in how the timeless, unchanging principles of his means of grace intersect with our timely, changing, personalized habits in life.

One way to say it is we don’t have to wear Saul’s armor...You know the story in 1 Samuel 17, when David stepped forward to fight Goliath...

How will you fight the giant who wants to keep you from persevering in the faith? You don’t have to wear another man’s armor, but you do have to find your way to wield the weapon of the Spirit."

"Good habits protect what’s most important. They keep us on the track of perseverance even when we don’t feel like persevering. They help us access the channels of God’s ongoing grace in the times we need it most (often when we don’t feel like it), and so preserve and keep our souls. Good spiritual habits keep us in God’s word, and in prayer, and among God’s people, even as we ride the emotional ups and downs of life."

Calf Stuck in Snowdrift

Sunday morning the weather became worse by the hour, till it was like a blizzard, blowing snow into heaps at gusts up to 50 mph.

Saturday morning the boys had gone out....

to romp with the dogs before chores and breakfast...

but Sunday morning was a different story. 

And then our neighbor, who happened to be far away in Dallas, TX, texted us to ask for help with getting his cows and calf into his barn and out of the weather. 

The lady who was house sitting for their family couldn't get the cows to cooperate.

When the boys went over, they discovered a second calf, evidently just a day old! 

The neighbor had no idea his second cow had just had a calf, too, although he had hoped for a calf earlier. The lady at the house had pulled the poor newborn calf out of a snowdrift that morning,

covered with ice clear over its eyes!

The boys tried hard to get the cows and calf in, to no avail. They were very cautious with the mama cow, because from experience we know not to tangle with some mama cows.

Finally Rose dressed up warmly and went over, too. 

Finally Sam picked the poor calf up bodily (probably about 60 or 70 pounds)

and carried it most of the way to the barn, and after a bit the mama came, too.

Timmy got a bale of our straw to make the shivering calf a nice dry bed in the barn, and now a few days later it is so great to see the calf healthy and flourishing. 

Our rooster thought he was king of the mountain later that day after the storm cleared away.

Inside was cozy as we listened to an outstanding testimony by Dave Roever,  a Vietnam War vet who lived through having half his face blown away and burns over most of his upper body. He has an amazing sense of humor, which he has learned to use well. He has spent much of his post-war life sharing his testimony to injured soldiers, in hospitals and schools, and elsewhere. We sat screeching with laughter or wiping shameless tears.

In the evening, we had a home "youth service" with Sam in charge, Rose leading singing, Carrie accompanying the four hymns on the piano, and everyone participating in quoting Scripture and having a sword drill using verses that all had the word "dog" in them.

That was an interesting study--finding a number of Scriptures and what they had to say about dogs.

To keep our new flooring from getting scratched with the multiple chairs scratching across it, Jonathan bought this cozy area rug (above) with a bear and lodge theme. 

Yeah, I never wanted a rug under the kitchen table (someone spilled a bunch of cider this very afternoon!) but the floor is getting scratched already sooo---

Even though it means I'll have to do a bit of redecorating, I just loved how soft it feels.

 I was walking the floor praying one evening after the children went to bed, and I just enjoyed the softness of that new rug under my feet so much!!

One night after Jonathan's right hand was injured, he was helping me with dishes, and I got such a kick out of how he "built" a stack of pans and bowls and dishes--

just like the builder that he is!!

 

Yesterday, one of our neighbors with whom we have been sharing extra goat milk came over with her empty jars which I refilled, and she brought two dozen duck eggs! Their ten ducks she said are giving them 70 eggs a week!

I made these scrambled duck eggs for breakfast. 

That was a sweet blessing!

Homemade, Hand-churned Icecream--"To Give Them Food in Due Season"

Late this evening when everyone else was sleeping, I got up and found some quiet time to read my Bible.

I read from Matthew 24 about the signs of the end times, and Jesus' admonition to watch and be ready. 

 Then I read this interesting verse, and I couldn't help relating it to my job as a mom of a large family.

"Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season?

Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing." v. 45-46.

It sounds to me like the instructions are fairly simple:

Give My household food in due season.

That is something I have to oversee every day--seeing that my household gets food in due season,

so I can understand that.

Jesus is asking us to be faithful in simple obedience in simple areas.

We can spiritualize this verse and say Jesus wants us to feed people the gospel and be missionaries and so on, and that may be true, based on other texts in this very chapter. 

But as a mom, those verses were illumined to me this evening.

Jesus wants me to be a faithful servant to Him by faithfully serving my family in the humble and lowly tasks (that so often feel like drudgery) of each day.  

The making of menus, the scrubbing or peeling of potatoes and carrots, the sauteing of veggies for a husband who is trying to lose weight (and being successful)

 the thinking ahead to pull meat out of the freezer, 

setting, clearing, and wiping the table,

washing and putting away dishes,

cleaning the sink and counters,

shopping for bargains, 

 mixing cookies or hand churning icecream like the girls wanted to do the other day in the hand icecream mixer that they had bought while I was in PNG last summer,

to say nothing of everything else that moms do.

Much of what we do regards giving our household food in due season. 

Even as an American, our lives are pretty full of just trying to get three square meals on the table and clean up afterward, only to have to start over in a couple hours.

May we be faithful to what God wants of each of us personally, rather than beat up on our fellow servants out of personal frustration and weariness, 

or loaf or gluttonize while our fellow servants suffer. 

Lord, remember our fellow mothers in situations of distress and starvation.

May we not forget them even though they may be out of sight or across the world. 

May we not selfishly hoard or spend our money and time to only make life easier and more luxurious for ourselves,

but may we be willing to share so that other households, too, can have food and necessities.