Bricks to Throw or Firewood to Glow?

Today Jonathan read that po lice in Ke no sha, WI, are finding pallets of bricks that are mysteriously appearing in the streets.

It doesn't even take very much brain in one's head to figure out what is about to happen there

if some American citizens don't quietly get busy and see that the bricks are suddenly found to have disappeared just as mysteriously as they appeared.  

(Where are the brave men and women of our day who could come up with some leadership ability to creatively thwart evil by simply causing some bricks to disappear before the wrong people come along to throw them at windows if the jury decides something about Ky le Rit ten house that they don't like?)

 

Well, I am not in Keno sha, and neither are my children. 

My teenage boy has been busy splitting and stacking firewood (not bricks) to sell.

 In the absence of his bigger brother ( who is, incidentally, the same age as nationally known Kyle Rit ten house) Danny's big sister Rose has run the chain saw to cut the logs and then Danny splits and stacks the wood.

They sold a cord of wood this evening. 

They also found out about four rabbit hutches someone was about to throw in the trash. 

They went yesterday and got them, and today sold them.

g

I watched Rose taking care of chickens and rabbits and selling a couple hens that aren't laying well, 

while I gathered eggs and checked school work and ironed and addressed envelopes and wrote a thank you letter.  

I watched her riding her horse and then leaving with a sister this evening to do chores morning and evening for an elderly couple who is gone to England until Sunday.My family is too busy to join the rioters stacking bricks on streets. But if we hear it is happening in a town near us, we might just lay aside our firewood splitters and horses and axes and rabbit hutches and ironing boards and other things and find how we might help piles of bricks to disappear mysteriously before anyone has a chance to throw them.

Elk Hunting Ruined by Noise

Two weeks ago or so, the children traveled down to their hunting spot in the San Juan Mountains right down near the border of New Mexico, to hunt elk.

Three friends went along and so did Jonathan, who got his elk just three minutes after hunting season opened! 

 

At 6:57 it became legal to shoot, and at 7:00, he was pulling the trigger!

Once again God supplied us with a good cow elk that gave us over 200 pounds of meat. 

But despite staying up there and hunting for days, the children and their friends didn't get a thing.

Other campers who appeared to be ignorant of effective hunting methods, were driving up the mountain road in the middle of the night, camping right in the middle of the elk meadow, and circling around the meadow during the day, talking, coughing, sneezing, and in general making so much noise and commotion that what elk would dare to come out that day?

It was impossible for the children to effectively hunt because of all the careless people, noise, and ignorance.

Granted, they had a blast anyway, hiking, hunting, and cooking on the wood stove in the big hunting tent. But an elk they could not get.

The only elk we got was Jonathan's early in the morning on the very first day of that particular elk season. Before all the distractions began. 

And I wonder, Lord, how many times we miss out on getting something from You because we are just too distracted, too noisy, too ignorant of effective communication with You?

How often do we live our busy lives putting anything and everything ahead of You? Not that mothers should always get up an hour before the family to pray(I've actually read that, as if mothers are supposed to be even more superhuman than fathers), but are there times and ways that we forget to quiet our hearts? To wait quietly before the Lord?

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Lord, I admit I too often am distracted. 

Sometimes I am even so busy praying over a prayer list that I don't really communicate with You as a friend. 

Help us today to make time to quiet our hearts and wait upon You,

for You, Lord, are our help and our Shield. 

Sunday Prayer Drive--Where People Need the Lord

 Last Sunday afternoon, Jonathan and I did something we've never done before. The day before, after working together near Truckton, we stopped to say hello to some friends who have a little ranch on the prairie. Another couple was there who were friends of theirs, and we got acquainted. The man, Dave, has felt the Lord laying on his heart to begin a prayer ministry of prayer drives over every road in eastern Colorado. He hopes to recruit others to help him, until every road--paved or dirt--has been driven over and prayed on.

Since the children were all gone that weekend, I suggested going out with this couple on a one-hour prayer drive Sunday afternoon. The plan was formulated, and our friend Luellen decided to come along, too. So there were five of us. We went from four o'clock to five, and we began in a little development near Ellicott. 

We just drove up and down all the roads in that development, taking turns praying one or more sentence prayers out loud for the different homes or people that we passed. 

We prayed for God speak to hearts, to waken sinners, to mend broken marriages and hearts, to help families, to stop abuse, to bring joy and peace to the neighborhood, to send someone to tell them of Jesus. And my heart was convicted. Was the Lord calling me to answer my own prayer?

Then we drove to a run-down mobile home park, and we drove slowly along the lanes there praying for the homes and the people, including someone who lives there that we know.

By the time that hour was over, my heart was broken for all the people in all those homes.

I had never experienced anything like it.

I had never looked at those homes and those developments and people that way.

I wanted to get away from people.
Until, with friends, we prayed for them.

Neither Luellen nor I had ever seen that mobile home park, and she didn't even know it existed. 

We just drove slowly through, grieving at the poverty and mess and sin,

and praying.

One hour of prayer.

It wasn't much, but it was an amazing experience,

five of us out on the open prairie far from the city and the mountains,

out where people live and work, out in the mess of a poor mobile home park,

where people need the Lord.  

Just praying.

That's all.

Truckton--Out on the Wide, Empty Prairie

Last Saturday I accompanied Jonathan to a new job starting out near Truckton, about 45 minutes from here far out on the open prairie.

He was needing to measure some distances on the lots

 and pound in stakes with address numbers on them.

It was the day after his mother's funeral,

and it just seemed like we needed to go together to work.

I enjoyed the trip in the truck and helping hold the measuring stick while we measured hundreds of feet of measurements out there.  

Out where the prairie dogs disappeared inside their holes as soon as our truck showed up.

Out where the cow path trailed along the fence.

Where, on this side of the road, there was next to nothing except weeds and thistles,

and tumbleweed and cowpies.

And us out under the blue sky.

And God.

There is always God. 

The evening after the funeral when we came home after spending part of the evening with extended family sharing and reading cards to family, the world had suddenly seemed strangely empty without Mama.

Her spot was not little. 

It loomed.

And it was empty. 

Empty and cold.

Death of a close loved one leaves you feeling strangely vulnerable.

The sense was almost frightening, and I had to get hold of myself and remember that God was still here.

We were reminded of this again this week when fresh flowers were delivered to our doorstep from

A Ladybug Floral--a gorgeous arrangement from Mission Helps.

 "When my mother...forsake(s) me, then the Lord will take care of me."

It's amazing how flowers help to fill that spot-letting us know we are not alone, 

letting us know how many friends we have,

how many care. 

That even when a mother is taken away, friends and family are still here, and life goes on--

 

because God is already there!

 

 

The Light Above Mama's Casket

 Some people would view the dazzling rays just above Mama Lucas's casket as merely a reflection of the sun on a windshield in the background as the pall bearers arrived an hour early to take the casket into the church for the funeral. 

That's the earthly explanation.

But when I noticed those rays as I was trying to pick out the best picture, they stood out to me.

Maybe because it was so unintentional; I was just trying to get a good picture of the pallbearers and casket. 

Maybe because it was practically exact center of the picture.

Maybe it was because of what Jonathan's dad had said to us a few days before,

"The light has gone out of my life."

Or maybe it was because of the last line in the obituary, "Helen was the light that lit the Lucas home."

Either way, as I looked and looked at that gem-shaped reflection of light with rainbow colored rays going every which way, it just had me in awe. Had God allowed that special reflection to just happen to be in my photo, just to send, at least to me, a little message?

Perhaps the message that despite Mama being gone, light is still with us?

A special light sent from heaven?

The light of her memories;

her example;

her Savior?

Light fell all around the casket and the flowers that day.

It was such a beautiful sunny day!

Light was there when Jonathan's father looked at the face of his dear one for the last time while dear Brother Donald Lefever played hymns on the organ.

While grandchildren and friends found seats--including Lloyd Bley who traveled all the way from Nebraska. And many others who came in after this picture was taken.

Light shone while family gathered in the vestibule for prayer before the family processional.

Light glimmered while Rev. Kearney opened the service and led singing; Rev. Stearns read the obituary; Bro. Gault read the Scriptures; 

Robert Lefever read the many memories;

and Rev. and Sis. Hunt sang "In the Garden," and Rev. Hunt gave the message.

And once again, light shone above the casket as the sons and grandsons carried out their loved mother and grandma--like the light that God has promised to all those who walk with Him. There is no need to walk in darkness, for we have the Light of life! And even after the light of a mother and grandmother has flickered out, that Light is still with us!