Not an Hair of Your Head Shall Perish

A lot of hair fell off of my boys' heads last weekend as a result of long overdue haircuts!

I was reminiscing that I had bought this child's hair clippers about 10 years ago, when Danny was still a wee boy. It still works on his fine hair, though I have to use regular clippers for the other men in the family.

A lot of patches of hair piled up on the floor around the chair, which I swept up and threw away.

We don't pay too much attention to our lost hairs. They aren't worth a whole lot--

especially when they are no longer attached to our head!

Or when you find one in your bite of mulberry peach cobbler like I did tonight when I got up from bed and had a (shhh!)  midnight snack complete with a hair that I pulled out of one bite.

 We had company this evening, Tim and Candy, Jonathan's parents, and the Frenches.

We figure if we are going to have company, we might as well have three sets of them at once.

That way, Danny announced at the table, "we only have to clean up once!"

Why do little boys have to say things like that in front of company???

Don't they know our house is always in perfect order at all times???

 It's okay! This batch of friends feel at home where things aren't quite perfect.

We sat at table talking and listening to everything from talk of the dollar value being in trouble

to how this mass shooter in Texas used to live in a trailer park right here in Colorado Springs only blocks from Foothills Missionary Church.

Then conversation switched to stories about the deep underground salt mines in Kansas, stories about how Tim helped come to the rescue years ago when his oil drilling crew in Montana was pulling a pipe from the ground and ended up with boiling hot water from underground spouting yards high into the air,

to talk of my nephew's 100% grade on a history test in college class causing problems about simply curving the grade!

There was discussion about GMO foods and how American farmers spray routinely with Roundup, and how the honeybee population is being destroyed and American people are being fed very unhealthy, genetically modified, pesticide-laced, refined foods devoid of the trace minerals that used to be in food our grandparents ate.

So we are grateful for the  wild elk meat we had in meatballs tonight, and the grass-feed beef we have in our freezer, and the milk from a goat.

Our Timmy has been raising honeybees and was sad to see that the wind had blown a hive over and the cover off another just a few days ago.

Here Rose is holding a big board as windbreak while Timmy tries to rescue as many bees as he can,

getting stung in the process this time.

We also shared some jokes tonight, because laughter is good medicine.

And lots of hugs.

Because hugs are medicine, too.

"Those hugs mean a lot today," said one of our company as she headed out the door

after bundling her little dog into its sweater!

"Have another one!" I said, giving a second hug.
Sometimes hugs are all that keep a person going when they must bundle up against the cold of the world.

 And when hugs are scarce--real, true-blue hugs that aren't just shallow and formal--
you have to reach out to God for His.

Jonathan and I snuggled up close in bed tonight after all the excitement was over and the house calmed down and the children were in bed.

We realized what a blessing it was to have each other.

To have each other in the middle of the world's bleak cold, with the dollar devaluing and mass shooters on the rampage over and over,

and relationships all around us crumbling.

We need the warmth of each other's love, and the assurance of our Father's faithfulness.

All these things will happen, Jesus told us long ago, so that we would not be surprised. 

And "you shall be hated of all men for my name's sake."

"But not an hair of your head shall perish."

So even though we may face hardship and trials, our heavenly Father has a beautiful warmth

that we can huddle up into, like the cozy blaze of our woodstove on cold November nights.

"Don't be afraid," He told us. 

"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you.

Not as the world gives give I unto you.

Let not your heart be troubled; neither let it be afraid."

Popcorn Happiness!

One song after another keeps coming to me lately, and I'm thankful!
The last couple days it's been, the children's chorus with "popcorn cheerfulness."

It was such a blessing to spend a few days where it was less hectic for me, and I could take time 

to even make several batches of popcorn!

Popcorn drizzled with melted butter and lots of salt!

Last night I made some and poured it into in a Safeway bag (for lack of ziploc bags!) to eat on the way home.

I also made enough to share with the HVAC guy who Jonathan had up at the cabin working all day

installing new duct work and stovepipe, etc.
For lack of a ziploc bag, I washed and dried the bag for the grapes, and we gave him buttery, salted popcorn in it to keep him awake, too. 

This man had arrived in time for breakfast, and enjoyed the scrambled eggs, herbed goat cheese and toasted bagel I fixed. 

"It's been a long time since I've had goat cheese," he told us appreciatively.

He is originally from an east Asian country.

At the lunch table, he appreciated the bowl of leftover chili with slices of melted sub sandwich that I had gotten at Safeway half off the day before.
He said his son-in-law always throws leftovers away, but he thinks leftovers are better leftover!

He told us about his lonely life, that his already divorced daughter no longer has anything to do with him now that she is grown up.

He himself is divorced, too.  He is awake till 1 o'clock at night and wakes up again at 5 a.m. It's difficult to sleep, and he said he doesn't eat all day.

We sat there with homemade cherry pie and boughten $6.99 doughnuts marked down to 99 cents staring us in the face.

Jonathan and I had met in the kitchen more than once that day and shared a kiss. 

I had told Jonathan how I loved being with him and watching him work!
And his kisses and warm hugs for me were full of love.

We had gathered around the table to eat, and Jonathan had asked the blessing.

"Thank you!" was the gruffly appreciative murmur from the man from east Asia.
We ate supper together, too.
It wasn't much. I had just toasted slices of the second sub sandwich but the smell went all the way through the hole in the ceiling to the rooftop where Jonathan and the HVAC man were working on the chimney pipe.
They nearly went bonkers they said, smelling this delicious smell!

 Boy, were they surprised to find out it was just sub sandwich slices toasted in a skillet in butter!
They were expecting something more majestic, though they had no idea what it was!
We had thought we might be on our way home by supper time, so I just had the sub to eat.
But toasted it was delightful and warm!
The men had fought with ductwork in dark, dismal, high and narrow spaces all day,
and the man's language had been a bit peppery.
But a text came to Jonathan's phone about 8:30 when we were on our way home:
"Thank your wife for breakfast, lunch, and supper,
and for this wonderful popcorn!"

We hadn't preached the gospel that day in words, just in warm food and kindness and popcorn!
We hadn't been foreign "missionaries," just family.
We had just shared life with a man from a foreign country, shared laughter and warm leftover chili and toasted marked down sub sandwiches.
Shared love and warmth and work and and salty, buttery popcorn.
And he was grateful.
Thank You, Lord, for "popcorn cheerfulness" enough to spread around to people who need not only warm food and love, but You!
Thank You for Gospel Popcorn!

Wind Down the Chimney on Halloween

"Wind down the chimney!" Jonathan exclaimed drily as we crawled into bed that dark night in the cabin when the electricity was off upstairs because of the electrical work Jonathan was doing.

"How appropriate for Halloween night!"

How dark it was, and what a noise whooshing eerily not far above our heads!

Part of the wall had been torn out that day, and the new wall had not been built yet,

 so there was nothing between us and the noise of the whipping mountain air--

with that enormous black spider and grinning jack-o-lanterns right across the road! 

I lay there, knowing that I was not afraid, but with the off and on wind carrying on, I could not get to sleep.

It was not frightening, just annoying.

 Sometimes there are things in life that aren't exactly frightening, but they sure are annoying!

Huge spiders of worry creep up on us, and jack-o-lanterns of unresolved problems grin mockingly at us at every turn. 

Those things disturb our peace--like wind down the chimney on Halloween night!

Not spooky, just miserable.

With our poor little human flashlights, we look inside our chimneys to try to figure out our problems,

what BTU is this problem?

How human we are, in that our peace of mind is often disturbed by the roars and whistles through broken or exposed places, right down into our lives and homes!

We can try ever so hard to mend the problem or the situation, matching BTU's to stovepipe and ductwork, matching solutions to problems, but the wind continues to whoosh.

What about matching promises to our problems?

That night, I climbed out of bed and went downstairs to get my Bible.

I copied verse after verse of special promises the Lord had given me a few days earlier.

(This picture is actually me checking school work, but we'll pretend I'm writing promises in my journal since no one was up to take pictures!)

"How can any good come of this matter?" I had thought with a heavy heart. "Yet You said, 'All things work together for good.'"

Then I saw it, just above my entry of promises--a heavy-hearted note of thoughts I had written in my journal just after Jonathan and most of the children had gone hunting two weeks earlier, while I was feeling suddenly left behind, alone except for Hannah and Crystal who would be working most of the time, and struggling with the "same old, same old," when I would have liked to go to the mountains, too,

where there were trees and crackly leaves underfoot and sunny meadows and adventure.

"Same old, same old," I had written, and that is where I got interrupted.

I looked at that note of loneliness from just a few days earlier, when I knew I couldn't take the cold and the long hours and the crowded tent,

that desire for time in the mountains at a cozy cabin, and I looked around me.

Guess where I was?

At a cozy cabin in the mountains!

True, it was a work project, and the cozy cabin had become half a wreck before too long, 
but a picture of a sparrow was sitting right there on the fireplace mantel.

And God was watching over His little brown sparrow!

Or was it a robin?

When He watches over us, it matters not whether we are sparrow or robin or peacock!

His care is all that matters!

 True, the only antlered creature I saw was this moosehead on the cabin wall,
and I was still having to teach school and make three meals a day and help Jonathan all we could,

but every afternoon, the children and I went on little excursions--just like I had dreamed about!

 After meals were done and dishes washed and put away, after Jonathan had been helped all we could,

after school lessons were all done, sometimes around 2 or 2:30,

the children and I would explore a nearby trail for an hour or two.

Then we'd come back to make a healthy snack and start supper and move into the evening.

It was so perfect--enough work to do to fill up most of the day, but enough time to enjoy some new scenes and spend time with the children and get to watch Jonathan work,
making him three good meals a day,
and stealing kisses every once in a while!

God had heard that little desire of this little mother who misses trees and gets overwhelmed with the hectic life and racket and many animals, etc.
And He gave her what she needed!
Won't He keep His promises for the more important things that weigh us down, too?

Ladders to Climb in the Mountains--One Step at a Time

Yesterday afternoon after the children's schoolwork was done and we weren't needed at the moment to help Jonathan at the remodeling job at the cabin, the three children and I found a trail nearby.

It had various exercise gismos and nature information posts along the way, and there was this Playland Vertical Ladder for children to climb.

I got a kick out of the directions given on the sign near it, as if no child could possibly figure out what to do with that ladder.

"Vertical Ladder," it read."Firmly grasp the ladder rungs, and climb using your hands and feet."

Yet as children of the King, do we not sometimes get in a stew or confused about what to do with something along the path of life?

And really, we just need to do the obvious thing, 

"firmly grasp" the next rung and "climb using your hands and feet."

Yesterday morning while the snow was melting out on the cabin deck,

the children and I (in between school and break times) climbed up and down the logs stairs in the cabin, carrying tools and building materials up and demolished stuff down.

Today again the children carried up lumber and other things for Jonathan.

They were a big help!

 It's amazing the different view from up on top of things in the loft

than from down at the bottom.

 We don't always see what will happen when we take the next step.

Will it lead to a cozy loft?

or to a mountain of work?

To fellowship with others at a full church at a music recital...

or to fellowship with a small ministry in an inner city mission?

We may end up building bathrooms

  instead of bowing to audiences,

and sitting beside burping boys in Kids Club
and working across from mega-size spiders and grinning Jack-o-lanterns

when we would rather be blessed and surrounded by all kinds of people who want us to feel good about ourselves.

Jesus, You never promised an easy road, or a ladder of only one or two rungs.
"But God has promised strength for the day,

 rest for the labor, light for the way.

Grace for each trial, help from above.

 Unfailing kindness, undying love."

Sometimes we find that the words of songs and hymns are the greatest help to us as we 

climb our ladders, build our bathroom walls,

and deal with the aftermath of difficult decisions

when the next rung of the ladder has not always been obvious, yet we have felt obligated to take the next step. 

Even then, on those rungs hidden by clouds and fog, by darkness and uncertainty,

His grace is sufficient, and His promises hold true.