My Sister Joella's Family With Us

Our last weekend in Colorado we were blessed to have my sister Joella's family staying with us.

They were finishing a concert tour throughout native ministries in Arizona and New Mexico. 

Sunday morning they sang and played at our friends the Johnsons' church in Lakewood, CO, and in the evening they were at Faith Covenant Bible Church in Colorado Springs. 

I can't begin to describe how stunning and beautiful their concerts are.

Ladies song 

Instrumental

Charity on the violin--"Amazing Grace"

Susanna on the harp 

 Bell song

 At the end of the service, the ladies played my favorite song, "His Eye Is on the Sparrow." Impromptu

That was so very special.

They brought me a birthday gift!

Thanks to my beautiful sister, Joella, born in Custer, SD, right near where we were this morning in Rapid City. 

I was ten when she was born.

We nearly lost my Mom that night, but thanks to a blood transfusion from Rapid City, SD, my mom made it.  

Between my son Sam, my husband, and a friend or two, look at the birthday bouquets!

I felt so very, very blessed!

Right in the middle of a harried and busy move, there were so many blessings!

 

Danny's graduation party--and the Cross in the Sky

As if we didn't have enough going on during the week and a half before our big move, we had four birthdays and an early graduation party for Danny!

 

We wanted to celebrate with the home school family friends we've had in his life the last several years before moving. Several families and friends joined us up at the park.

We didn't have any formalities except to ask Craig and Joella's family (who stayed that weekend on their music tour) to sing a couple songs. And Craig shared an impromptu word of encouragement and exhortation to the graduate and all of us.

Our dear friend Gordon, the best bass in the church choir and also a fellow Stage 4 cancer fighter (he's beaten it now for about 7 years) came. We got a picture of him and Danny together. 

And suddenly I noticed what was behind them. 

Up in the sky.  

Plain as day in the middle of the evening.

Others might have just seen chemical trails behind airplanes. 

I saw a cross. 

 Was it significant? Perhaps so, perhaps not. 

But the next morning in church, our last Sunday to attend before moving, one of the songs was "Lead On, O King Eternal." 

And this is what stood out to me . 

"Thy cross is lifted o'er us.

We journey in its light.

The crown awaits the conquest, 

Lead on O God of might."

 And while the young folks gathered to play games in the ball field that Saturday evening after the graduation party, this mom stood there, wondering and contemplating, and knowing that once again she must trust the life of her graduating son

and his future, and her own,

into the loving hands of a God Who knows all things,

and Who doeth all things well. 

"His cross," not a thing of beauty or comfort, but a thing of challenge and self-denial,

"is lifted o'er us," 

But while the cross may create a shadow in our lives, 

it sheds a glorious light to journey in.

A light to guide us exactly where God wants us to go. 

His crown awaits the conquest--and that means war.

Spiritual warfare--against the powers of darkness.

Jesus, we aren't strong enough for the warfare ahead of us; be our shield, our sword, and our great reward. Keep us, O Lord, and our sons and daughters, in Your holy care. 

So prays the mother standing under the fading chemical trails

crossing the sky above the ball field

while the dusk falls in the bluffs of the prairies of Colorado. 

Balmy Arrival in South Dakota!

 After hours of travel, family and beasties alike were only too glad to unload at our place in South Dakota!

 The heifer and goats literally did not know what to do with themselves with all that fresh, green grass! And the weather could hardly have been more perfectly warm and balmy--just before dusk.

We family hardly knew what to do with ourselves, either.

Suddenly, the fields around the 5th wheel was our new home.

It was so lush and green coming up from dry, brown Colorado! 

(Although we hear that three inches of rain dumped two nights ago on the area where the girls live.)

 

The chickens survived, although they had not laid any eggs but two,

 quite understandably.

The next day though, having been provided a temporary coop and nests, they rewarded us with about ten!

The goats were very happy for a bucket of water.  And we stand there contemplating that now not only do we have to carry water for ourselves, we must also carry enough for our animals!

Kitty wants to share the blessing! 

Puppies have their own kind of blessing! 

                                                       Goats checking out everything!

By the next day, a temporary trough has been discovered! 

And the hens are happily scratching about under the leaves in the draw. 

A carpet of lush green which the heifer discovered. She was on her knees eating lush green grass!

And at the same time as I am sharing how the animals are being so richly provided for here in South dakota, I must add how God provided for me. Before coming up here, I literally didn't know if I was going to find what I needed to keep up with my cancer diet and regimen. I was running out of Bob's Red Mill baking soda which is made without chemicals, and which I use every morning mixed in with my lemon juice drink two alkalize my body. I had not been able to find it again after buying it recently at one of the grocery stores in town. I checked two different stores in Colorado Springs and it was nowhere and I had no idea where I could find it in South Dakota. 

But on our way moving up, we stopped at the IGA store in Valentine, Nebraska. I had been told this store carried organic produce and other good things. And there on the shelf between two Arm & Hammer sodas was a bag of Bob's Red Mill baking soda, exactly what I needed before I even got to South Dakota! It was like a special token from the Lord, a promise that where He guides, He provides! A promise that if we will obey Him He will see to it that we are taken care of.

That if we trust Him when we cannot see, He will be faithful to us!

Moving Mercies

Well, so as not to leave you hanging about us being homeless for a night, let me hasten to go on to the next blog post, (while I presently sit in the parking lot of Lowes in Rapid City, SD, waiting for Jonathan to pick up some supplies.

 The Lord did not leave us without home or bed that first night out of our old home,

and neither did our children! 

First, we managed to all get together to celebrate our house closing and being debt free, and for a final supper together at Golden Corral. It was National Day of Prayer, and after a lovely meal, since our section of the restaurant was empty, we read a Scripture and had a time of prayer as a family, 

praying for ourselves, our future, and our nation.

Sam, who had just obtained a queen size bed from his granddad, due to Grandpa changing it out for the bedroom suite of his new wife, offered that we could stay at his place for the night.

And Rose and Carrie, who had just celebrated her birthday during the week of our move,

(complete with a yummy dessert!)

let Tim and Hannah stay with them at the cabin they are renting together.

  

It's a renovated log cabin originally built about a century ago, renovated by a Christian couple who offered that the two sisters could rent it from them, since Carrie has done chores for this couple numerous times. It's the most charming cabin I've ever seen!

We went to see it one Sunday pictured above.

It was such a mercy to know that our girls will be living near another Christian couple where the girls can keep their dogs, chickens, chicks, cow, and horse. 

With suddenly no roof to call our own in Colorado, upon arriving at our son's place with Jonathan's truck and trailer,  I found Sam's little mobile home unusually cozy. I slept quite well on the comfortable bed just brought in from Jonathan's dad, though Jonathan had a rough night with the tight chest and diaphragm spasms which his doctor insisted that he have checked out by EKG at the Urgent Care the day before.

The EKG came back as momentarily normal, and we believe it's stress symptoms.

But morning was bright with sunshine, and as we prepared to leave with our huge trailer, 

borrowed from a mechanic friend who'd offered it for our use,

and which Jonathan dubbed "Big Yellow" (pictured above)

I noticed crab apple blossoms and forsythia nearby while mourning doves crooned.  

Jonathan was hit with terrible stomach pain just as we left Sam's place, and felt like the "loppin' devil" had just clobbered him a good one.

I wasn't surprised.

But I also insisted we stop in Limon and purchase him some breakfast, however pricey. 

Sure enough, part of the problem was that he just needed something to eat.

Meanwhile, Sam, Rose, Tim, Hannah, and Danny were back at our old house loading up the animals into the horse trailer. Sam drove the moving truck with our furniture and pulled the horse trailer with all our animals (goats, kid, chickens, and heifer with myriad feed sacks and animal paraphernalia loaded into the tack room of the trailer). 

Rose pulled the flatbed with the van, which contained personal luggage and the elk head.

The flatbed carried rabbit hutches, lumber and other farm odds and ends. 

Tim or Danny drove Tim's little car, from which I took the picture above, as our caravan was driving through the sand hills of Nebraska. 

The above picture is where we met up together in North Platte, counting our blessings that we were thus far on our way safe and sound, with many mercies accompanying us

Debt-free--and Homeless!

The day we were moving out of our home in Colorado dawned dark with clouds, unusual for Colorado.

I had suffered through some sleepless hours the night before--just great to have such a short night behind me on such a big day, right?

Closing had actually happened, by some miracle it seemed, the day before. 

Jonathan and I had stopped to pull up the For Sale signs at the end of Sweet Road.

And friends (our real friends came out of the woodwork those last few weeks, as they came out to help or to say goodbye or to invite us for a meal) took Jonathan and me out to Guadalajara Mexican restaurant one evening while all their children and ours got together at the friends' home.

And Jonathan ordered a "Loco" entre, perfect, he said, for the ending to our crazy days trying to get ready to move!

It seemed too surreal to be true. The house we'd lived in for 21 years, 

 

the house four of our children were born in, the house all our children have known as "home" now for all their growing up years,

now belonged to someone else. 

 

We were debt free at last!

But where on earth were we to lay our heads the next night? We weren't going to be able to start the trip for South Dakota so late in the afternoon. We were to turn over the key to the new buyer at 3 p.m. that afternoon, and be out of there.  

And then what? Jonathan and I were so concentrated on getting our stuff out of the house and barn and sheds that we hadn't made a plan yet.

"Foxes have holes," our Lord said once, "and the birds of the air have nests."

But where will the Lucas family lay their heads?

I was tempted to be very, very, very grumpy that night I couldn't sleep for a while. 

What on earth had we gotten ourselves into?

Not to speak of what we were going to be involved in up in South Dakota--if we could get there.

But morning light usually brings a brighter atmosphere. The sun was trying to peek through, and the tulips a friend had given me were blooming on the window sill.

And I couldn't help thinking of the song, "Behind every dark cloud shines the smiling face of Jesus."

That was one bouquet I chose to take with me to South Dakota.

The others I shared out to my daughters and a friend who came to help clean. 

One of those friends who came to help was Katherine Gafford, who cleaned nearly every last kitchen cupboard for me a couple days before we moved. What a blessing she was! It was so fun having her! And she even brought a pasta casserole and brownies. 

Of course, when you are supposed to leave working appliances after selling, those appliances start giving you troubles! The fridge quit working three times.

Finally Jonathan figured out the problem was a loose wire! He'd ordered a part which we didn't need and could return.

The washer, which we actually were to take with us and which had worked without fail for many years, was showing an "Error" reading.

Then the stove had a burner that only worked on high and burnt our food! Jonathan ordered a part which turned out to be the wrong one from the factory. We couldn't get the right part in time to close on the house, but the part was on the way.

Thankfully the buyer of the house said they actually were buying a new stove and not to worry about it! 

Rose and Tommy trying to figure out something...  

And there I was the morning of the move, writing out checks to pay off debts--and rushing to pack my personal belongings so I could leave after lunch to get my final Vitamin C IV treatment at the clinic in town. 

I would have to leave the last minute packing and cleaning for others. Jonathan's dad and new wife Ruth brought delicious Papa Murphy's pizzas and salad for us.  And Mary and Elizabeth Hagerty came to help clean the fridge. 

The dog seemed to understand something was just plain going on!  

 Because why on earth was the elk head that used to hang on the livingroom wall going out into the van?

 

And the garage, where the dogs hung out, hadn't been this empty or clean since we moved in 21 years ago! 

 All the stuff was gotten rid of or packed into the trailer! 

And the last night before moving out, our friends the Hagertys invited us for supper to their place. Just after we arrived, a little shower of rain brought with it a beautiful rainbow!

For Jonathan and me, still not knowing where we were going to sleep the next night,

or how I was going to take care of my cancer diet in the boondocks of South Dakota,

or how on earth we were supposed to chew all that we had bitten off,

it was another token of God's promises.

Promises that never fail--even when we don't know what the next day holds.

Promises of His presence,

His mercies,

and His blessings!  

Especially when we were debt-free--and suddenly homeless!