Post Trauma-Treasures of Peace and Hope

After traumatic events--like the collision we had two Sunday evenings ago, or distressing phone calls that leave you reeling--

there is something comforting about the warmth and fragrance of the clothes coming out of the dryer.

Just pulling out the warmth and the fragrance,

 and keeping busy with your hands when your nerves have been traumatized and your heart has been heavy

is such a blessing.

I reminded myself yesterday that life goes on.
"This too shall pass."
Not every day is as traumatic as this one or that one.
The heart will be light again.
God will give peace.

I've often felt a deep gratitude for the simplicity of just hanging or folding laundry.
It's something to do with our hands regardless if our heart is light or heavy.

And going out to the chicken coop to gather eggs and give water to the chickens is comforting to me, too.

Timmy has quite an assortment of chickens!

And walking in prayer in the light of a lamp on the rustic bench table Timmy made for us
is also comforting.

 Jonathan brought me this bouquet a few days ago before he even knew I was having a rough day.
It was beautiful!

And then this morning as I was crumpling up newspaper to get the fire going again in the middle of the morning,
I saw this face smiling up at me!

Of all the pages of the many stacks of newspapers Jonathan's parents have passed on to us for fire starter,
this one from about ten months ago is the one I glanced at this morning before crumpling it!
Instead of crumpling, I cut it out, because it was the obituary I had never seen of my dear friend Audrey's sweet mother who had accepted me so lovingly every time our family got together with Audrey's at the home school meetings.
I felt that somehow there was a reason, that out of the thousands of pages of newspapers we've gotten, I would so accidentally find this one!

It reminded me that God sends His angels in one form or another to help us and minister to us in our times of need.
Perhaps God was just reminding me that we Christian mothers are surrounded even in these difficult days
by a "cloud of witnesses," other mothers who have lived their lives and raised their children
and gotten past their failures and kept true to Christ.

Now they are up there in heaven, looking down to earth perhaps, cheering us on.
Elizabeth Auer's smile wasn't relegated to the grave.
God let that smile cheer a mother's heart just today--from the forgotten pages of a newspaper!

Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend

We'd been embarrassed about our poor, dilapidated old van so long that we had no idea how bad we'd feel when we had to part with it.
But the insurance company sent a tow truck, and last night our poor, dear old van went bye-bye.

All of a sudden, it felt like we were losing an old friend. 

Crazy!

Paint had been peeling off the hood and front panels of the van for years (after our accident Sunday we discovered why! Apparently the van had been in an accident before we bought it, and had been puttied and painted, and that's why only the front paint was peeling.)

There were hail dents, scratches, and dings all over it. The windshield was cracked almost all the way across. 

The inside panel off one of the rear doors was off because after multiple tries of fixing it, the plastic screw things would never work.

Ceiling heat registers had finally fallen out one last time. 

The transmission was hesitating when we put it in gear. The key struggled to work. There was a dent on the hood from hitting an owl years ago.

Both headlight frames were broken from the deer Rose hit in Pennsylvania last year, and the one headlight was hanging in there sheerly by coincidence plus a little black tape. Or was it grey tape?

So why did we feel like we were losing an old friend?
Well, precisely because it had been faithful to us for a long time.
Old friends are people or possessions who have stood by you through thick and thin.
They may be old. They may be missing some paint and some parts and even some marbles!
But they have been faithful for a long time.
Not just a short time and you don't know if they will shrink into the woodwork as soon as you get into trouble or make a mistake.

This van had been faithful for a long time.
With the exception of sometimes when the battery was worn out or someone had left a door open and a light on,
it always started, even in the coldest weather. 
It may not have looked the greatest aesthetically, but I could trust that it would get me where I was going.
Friends help you get where you need to go.
They may confront you if you are going the wrong way, but they will help you turn around and then they will stick with you on the journey. And remember this, my heart. It is a true friend who speaks up to you if you are going wrong.
It's humiliating to be told you are going wrong, but it is part of true friendship.
The way you tell it is a true friend and not just someone out to pick at your faults and control your life so they can feel better about themselves
 is the method they use in how they confront you, and how they treat you afterward.
Do they speak, call or write to you personally about your mistake and allow for conversation and reconciliation, or do they refuse to talk or go behind your back about it?
Do they still speak to you after they've let you know your mistake or your sin?
Do they have enough wisdom to know when enough conversation about it is enough?
 Do they still treat you like you are a person of value,
or like you are just somebody in the way of their personal agenda?
A faithful friend is there to help you pick up the pieces, and to unselfishly include you still in their life.
They comfort you when you take a beating.

For ten years, this old van sat there waiting to take in this motley Lucas bunch and help us get where we needed to go.
  It has taken us to church every Sunday--sometimes 90 miles one way to Denver.

It has taken me grocery shopping and goodwill shopping and to the post office and library and the park and the airport.
It has taken us to umpteen homeschool get-togethers and has driven across country to missions and family and friends.

"Be sure to get a picture of it getting loaded onto the tow truck!" insisted Jonathan who happened to be in the shower at the precise moment when the tow truck arrived for the van.
So I did.
Old friends are to be treasured. They are precious. They are to be remembered and appreciated more often than at Christmas and New Years.
Their friendship is a great service and blessing to us.
"Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not," said the Good Book.
And "There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother."
We have had some faithful friends, friends from church, friends from the home school community, friends among business associates, friends among some of our own family and relatives, to name a few.

There were a few times our van let us down, and even your good old friends let you down.
The dear old van had parts that wore out and it would shake like crazy till we fixed them. We had to get new tires and fix a little of this and a little of that. We had to buy a new battery more than once.
Not all good friendships are perfect. Some wear out a bit, or mistakes are made. They say things and do things and they break your heart.
They neglect to say things and they neglect to do things and they wound you.
They unintentionally betray you.
I've sat like a stone when I heard how I'd been betrayed by someone who seemed to live very close to God and was a person of prayer and high-sounding blessings, and whom I thought I could trust to ask for help in prayer with some details of some struggles I was facing.
And I was betrayed.
I could have confronted. I wanted to so bad. I felt it was done in error and foolishness and unintentional, not knowing how the person they talked to would use it against us. 

Hate and bitterness are too heavy a load to carry.

My heart, choose forgiveness. 

After all, I have hurt others. I have said things and done foolish, hurtful things that should not have been done,

and I have neglected to say or do wise things that should have been done.

(I learned a bit more wisdom afterward, through the hard knocks of experience.) 

"To err is human. To forgive, divine."

My heart, don't let the foolish, human errors of others determine our attitude and destiny.

 Instead, be a friend today to someone in need.
We can't befriend everyone. Some aren't safe; some are not on the same page; some do not want to be friends with us because we refuse to cooperate with their agenda.
And we are human rather than divine.
Our van could not tote more than twelve people at any one time .
We have limits, too.
 Due to our lack of divinity, we can't be a close friend to more than a few people.
But we can be a friend to someone.

Goodbye, dear old van. It's been good to have known you. You taught us a lesson in faithfulness and dependability and  friendship.

Chocolate--Our Comfort Food, and Where Do You Find Comfort?

A week or so before Christmas, a package arrived in the mail.

It was a package of chocolates, eight of them heart-shaped, and I've never tasted any so delicious!

Perhaps it was the love behind them that gave them such a good taste!

Here we are all admiring them!

 My girls made a couple relatives a quart or pint of a layered hot cocoa mix at Christmas time, and it looked so good that I told them I hoped they would make a jar of that for me, too! So--they did!

And of course, there were chocolate cookies one day, too. 

I enjoy a little chocolate every once in a while--either chocolate candy, hot chocolate (made with lots of hot goat milk and just a little hot cocoa mix), and chocolate cake or cookies

If I eat too much chocolate, I can't sleep. Once in Ukraine, baby Sammy wouldn't go to sleep for hours one night, and I realized later I had eaten THREE chocolate  No-Bake Cookies, and that was the problem!
I had to learn to take it easy on the chocolate while nursing my babies!

Chocolate is some people's go-to when they get depressed.
Chocolate is a sort of comfort food, like coffee or tea or hot cocoa or chips or candy or pastries.
Just something that tastes good and comforts a person when they're down.
I found a chocolate in God's Word today--a delightful, heart-shaped chocolate.
It said, "Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed. Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness."

"The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,

to the soul who seeks Him.

It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord."

Lamentations 3:22-26

It was such a word of comfort after our collision of yesterday, and the government shutdown, and the nasty Women's March promptly following the beautiful March for Life in Washington, D.C., and all the awful things going on in our world today.

Here are a few related thoughts from the online DesringGod devotional Solid Joys:
Another version of the above verse:

“This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end.” (Lamentations 3:21–22)

"One of the great enemies of hope is forgetting God’s promises. Reminding is a great ministry. Peter and Paul both said that they wrote letters for this reason (2 Peter 1:13; Romans 15:15).
The main Helper in reminding us what we need to know is the Holy Spirit (John 14:26). But that doesn’t mean you should be passive. You are responsible only for your own ministry of reminding. And the first one in need of reminding by you is you.
The mind has this great power: It can talk to itself by way of reminder. The mind can 'call to mind,' as the text says: 'But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases'(Lamentations 3:21–22).
If we don’t 'call to mind' what God has said... we languish...Don’t wallow in the mire of godless messages in your own head. Messages like: “I can’t . . .” “She won’t . . .” “They never . . .” “It has never worked . . .”

"The point is not that these are true or false. Your mind will always find a way to make them true, unless you 'call to mind' something greater. God is the God of the impossible. Reasoning your way out of an impossible situation is not as effective as reminding yourself that God does impossible things."

Those were comforting and inspiring thoughts.

When we find ourselves feeling down, go ahead and take a chocolate out of the cupboard if you'ld like.

But better yet, open your Bible and look for a heart-shaped promise chock full of comfort!

Sunday Collision with Horses on Road

We had a traumatic evening last night. On our way to the Bible Missionary Church in Elizabeth, just a mile from home in the darkness, some of us thought there seemed to be something ahead in the darkness. Coming closer, we saw more, and started screaming to Jonathan to stop. Three dark brown horses were out in the middle of the road, and Jonathan didn't see them before it was too late. He braked wildly and swerved suddenly, but our 12-passenger van hit one of them, and while the horse merely rolled over and got back up and ran off, our van was basically totalled–smashed hood and bumper and engine damage. Don't ask me how a horse could just run off and be okay while the van is smashed!

 

 I had to crawl out another door as mine wouldn’t open all the way. As we were surveying the damages and worrying about the horses, another vehicle came flying from the other direction. We watched in helpless horror as, at full speed, it hit not just one but two horses! It was then we realized the car and driver were out of control and heading right toward us! We were screaming and scattering in every direction, some right into the snow-packed ditches. Within seconds, that careening car was screeching across the middle line and ended up about 9 feet behind our van, right in the lane where several of us had been standing. Two horses were down at the side of the road, and the third was galloping all over the road whinnying anxiously. The Mercedes was smashed up badly, windshield shattered, air bags had deployed, the horn had shorted and was blasting a continuous, eerie blast to add to the melee. Later the sheriff found out that apparently someone had purposely opened all three gates to the horses’ corral while the owners were in Denver at the Stock Show that evening. What an awful thing to do! We all did what we could to stop two or three cars coming from both directions before more accidents happened. Praise God for sparing our lives from both death and injury! The other driver was okay except for a sore wrist. Praise God for sending His angels!

We spent about an hour and a quarter there by the road with our wrecked van and the other guy and his wrecked vehicle. Both horses were lost. A kind man used a long string Rose managed to find to get the third horse in tow, and the neighbors across the road allowed them to put the horse in their corral. The poor thing was whinnying for its companions. Hannah was sobbing and I was trying to comfort her. Fire trucks arrived, and an ambulance and the sheriff. The owners of the horses had to be contacted, the horses had to be dragged off the road. Sam was sweeping debris off the road with a shop broom from the fire truck.  Other neighbors arrived on the scene and talked to me. It was a very sweet couple whom my girls met at the Peyton Street Fair last summer. They were so glad no one was injured.

After filling out paperwork for the sheriff, we called Crystal who had stayed home sick, and she came to pick up some of us. Jonathan got his truck to take back and tow our van home.

All at the same time that this seemed like a terrible thing to happen, we've been needing a newer van anyway! This one has been so dependable for 10 years, but had 200,000 miles on it, was starting to give us trouble with the transmission, and the paint has been peeling for years, and last but not least, we had just noticed that afternoon that one tire was losing air!
The insurance company is supposed to come Wednesday to take the van to assess it. 

 Jonathan and I realized after it happened that Jonathan had just gotten his ticket for a Missions Help trip to Guatemala, and we can almost always expect a counter attack from the devil when we go on mission trips. Here is a picture of the church that the Weaver brothers' crew just finished laying block for there in Guatemala a week or two ago. It had been shared on Facebook.

This is the Sunday morning service last Sunday--without a roof! This church is on a steaming but dormant volcano, about 9000 feet altitude.

The pastor had come to the States to attend Bible College at Hobe Sound, but felt urgently to return and just get a church started. Twice the villagers stoned him, and left him for dead the last time. After months of recuperation, he came back a third time determined to start the church. Again the villagers thought to stone him, but realized that the last time they did so, he had come back alive!

They left him alone and now he has a church group!

This work has an amazing story! Pray for it! God wants to do a mighty work there 

and Satan does not like it.

 We almost always sustain a major attack from the enemy every time we reach out to help missions such as this.. But Jesus is always Victor! 

We had such an enjoyable walk Sunday afternoon in between church services of the day. 

The children wanted to take the dogs with us, too, so we did. 
We had no idea what the evening would hold.
Isn't God good to enable us to experience so much joy when we trust the future into His keeping?
There is no use worrying over tomorrow and thus become unable to experience joy today!

We feel the freedom to take nature walks on Sunday, based on Christ's statement,
"It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."
We do not feel, as the Puritans of old did, that children must sit silently studying catchism for hours of the Sabbath  afternoon, while the parents snooze.

I cannot imagine that forcing children to do things they hate on Sunday afternoon,
or leaving them bored and unhappy and poised to rebel,
is "doing good."

 After hours of sitting traveling to church and sitting through services and then traveling back home, it just seems that for young people an hour or two of a pleasant walk in the prairie or woods somewhere is a perfect way to spend some time Sunday afternoon.

We walked up to one of our favorite spots up by the windmill at the top of the bluffs.

The children and dogs found a bank of snow where they had a lot of fun.

We also walked up to what the children call the "outlook," where you can see for miles and miles.

It was such a happy afternoon.
God was good to us!
The Bible clearly talks about finding our delight in God on the Sabbath Day, and I can't imagine a better way for us New Testament Christians to find delight in God on the Lord's Day than to spend time in His creation with the family God has given us.

And just because we had a traumatic experience that evening doesn't make God less good
or mean that we should have spent the afternoon worrying, 
or mean that we did something wrong and God needed to punish us. 

Maybe in fact, we were doing some things totally right.
I read today a quote that said along these lines:
"Great trials are not necessarily a sign that someone is in great sin.
Instead, great trials may mean that God wants to show His great grace."
So we submit to His providence in our lives and know that all things work together for good
to us because we love God!

Calves at the Front Door--and Who Else Is Knocking?

Hey! Who is at our front porch?

Some things come into our lives unasked for--like goats and calves that get out of pens and decide to visit!

Other things wait to be asked--like wisdom. 

You can get knowledge without asking.

Life's experiences will give you knowledge.

But wisdom is a different story.

We've been reading in the first few chapters of Proverbs for family worship.

God's Word tells us that wisdom is calling, knocking, wanting to enter,

wanting to be listened to. 

Wisdom calls, sometimes gently, sometimes loudly, but we have to respond to wisdom in order to learn wisdom.  

A friend shared this quote the other day:

"Don't expect wisdom to come into your life like great chunks of rock on a conveyor belt.

Wisdom comes privately from God as a byproduct of right decisions,

godly reaction,

and the application of spiritual principles to daily circumstances."

Charles Swindoll

Prairie Dogs, Dark Tunnels, and Door Mats

A week or two ago, I went to the post office to stock up on postage stamps.

(You did know, didn't you, that the cost for sending a birthday card to your friend is going to go up by five cents on January 27th, my mother's birthday?  It will be 55 cents from now on.)

Anyway, on the way, there is this spot on the prairie where there is a prairie dog town.

As we whizzed by, the prairie dogs stood by their holes and looked at us. But on the way back, when I slowed down to take a picture, they all scuttled away in a fright. 

Something seemed unusual to them about this vehicle slowing down near them.

Down they went, every last one of them nearby, into their dark and safe tunnels. 

Everywhere I looked, the prairie dogs had disappeared.

A verse from Job talks about trying to find God and feeling like He has disappeared.

I enjoyed seeing it recently in a different version:

"I go east, but He is not there.

I go west, but I cannot find Him.

I do not see Him in the north, for He is hidden.

I look to the south, but He is concealed.

But He knows where I am going.

And when He tests me, I will come out as pure as gold."

Job 23:8-10

I didn't know where those prairie dogs went, but I had to go on my own way--

down the road and back home--back to the testing ground of life.

When He has tried me, shall I come forth as gold?

Or do I just disappear myself into some dark tunnel that feels safe?

I've been going through one drawer, box, and pile after another this winter, 

sorting and filing and throwing away. 

One poem I found that I had saved from years ago spoke to my heart last night.

"That suffering had done a refining work on the poet is manifest in his beautiful poems, one of which is entitled, 'The Door Mat.'"  Here is the poem by Henry Suso.

The Door Mat

It was a winter morning in the days of old,

In his cell sat Father Henry, sorrowful and cold.

"O my Lord, I am weary," in his heart he spake,

"For my brethren scorn and hate me for Thy blessed sake.

"If I had but one to love me, that were joyful cheer--

One small work to make me sunshine through the darksome year!

But they mock me and despise me till my heart is stung--

Then my words are wild and bitter, tameless is my tongue."

Then the Lord said, "I am with thee; trust thyself to Me;

Open thou thy little casement; mark what thou shalt see."

Then a pitieous look and wistful Father Henry cast

Out into the dim, old cloister and the wintry blast.

Was it that a friend was coming by some angel led?

No! a great hound, wild and savage round the cloister sped,

Some old mat that lay forgotten seized he on his way--

Tore it, tossed it, dragged it wildly round the cloister gray.

"Lo, the hound is like thy brethren," spake the voice he knew.

"If thou art the mat, beloved, what hast thou to do?"

Meekly then went Father Henry and the mat he bear

To his little cell, to store it as jewel rare.

Many a winter and summer through those cloisters dim

Did he thenceforth walk rejoicing and the Lord with him.

And when bitter words would sting him, turned he to his cell, 

Took his mat and looked upon it saying, "All is well."

"He who is the least and lowest needs but low to lie;

Lord, I thank Thee and I praise Thee that the mat am I."

Then he wept, for in the stillness His beloved spake,

"Thus was I the least and lowest, gladly for thy sake.

Lo, My face to shame and spitting did I turn for thee;

If thou art the least and lowest, then remember Me."

Ever See a Bird This Big at Your Birdfeeder?

Several mornings ago, we got our laugh for the day when our horse decided that the birdfeeder on the other side of the fence was as much for her as for the birds!

She would lean as far as she could and reach as far as she could,

and she managed to get little bits of bird seed at a time!

It's a blessing, first thing in the morning, to appreciate some sparkle that God allows in your day!

I read a good quote recently,

"Seek to cultivate a buoyant, joyous sense of the crowded kindnesses of God in your daily life."

-Alexander MacLaren

I loved that. 

"The crowded kindnesses of God."

Not just the little blessings every once in a while, but so many kindnesses that they crowd around you.

The secret is looking for them.