Ever Seen a Hummingbird Sip at a Stream?

It's difficult to spy there in the middle of the photo, but that is a ruby-throated hummingbird that was perched on a branch by the stream I waded in last week on our way through Colorado to Arizona.

 So there I was, taking off my dusty black sandals and stepping on the smooth rock, "grounding" as they say--something I hear more and more about, and read about in my cancer research. 

Going barefoot on the ground is a way to ground oneself, they say, rid oneself of unhealthy electrical charges that we sort of collect as we trot around on our rubber soles--

just one more little thing to do in a journey toward better health.

And then there was the cold water. 

I remembered how I have read that native Americans and others interested in good health would go for a cold dip every day in a nearby stream or river. 

And Rose has been learning about the benefits to one's health of having a cold shower!

It sort of shocks one's body into "resetting," she has learned. 

When she discovered her brother taking baby steps because of a back that had been hurting for a month, she suggested a cold shower, and within two days, he was back to normal!

(Don't assume that will work for you or me, but who knows??)

Would sticking one's feet into a cold mountain stream have good benefits, then?

Well, whether or not, I went wading!

Whee! 

This was what it looked like upstream, a spot near Ouray called Baby Bathtubs, 

so called because of how the boulders in the stream create little pools like baby bathtubs!

It was right near the road, and since I didn't have the strength to hike, I simply walked, waded, and sat on a rock, enraptured with the bliss of the beauty and rest God was allowing to me on my way for cancer treatment. 

Like Jonathan's truck radiator thirsty for fresh water or antifreeze because of a slow leak, my thirsty soul was drinking up the beauty of the mountain stream, and basking in the knowledge that it was my God Who was the Creator of all this beauty.

 And then the hummingbird came, flitting back and forth, humming around in the branches. 

It flew down to the water and sipped as Jonathan and I both watched in wonder and amazement.

We had never seen a hummingbird sip from a stream before. 

Such a small bird at such a small stream.

 

There were big streams elsewhere, even rivers.

 Like the one up at Yankee Boy Basin. 

But this little stream was just my size--small and gurgling, having a few little pools still enough for a wee hummingbird to sip from.

 

Remembering Him Who promised to care for even the little sparrow

(and I'm sure the littler hummingbird)

I sat quietly by the gurgling brook. 

While there are enormous mountains and great trees and roaring waterfalls in other places,

I am entranced by little thngs--

this little lady by a small stream watching a small hummingbird sip at a small pool!

"There's No Water Down There"--So What Was That Splash in the Bottom of the Well?

About a week ago, the well drilling rig arrived.

 Unfortunately, there wasn't good news at first. The first hole turned out to be dry. That was the one in a location that was pretty handy to the house and barn both. 

But it was dry.

So the driller went up the hill about 300 feet and tried again. 

This time he got water, but what seemed to be only about one gallon a minute.

 Now I am certain that with a cistern we could live on one gallon a minute, because if you do your math, that's over 1400 gallons a day!

I could live on much less than that if we didn't irrigate. But the concern is whether the well would easily dry up in dry years.

Anyway, the driller tried drilling in two more places--down by the prairie dog holes and then up on the hill on the other side of the house.

We didn't know what to make of the beautiful promise from Isaiah 12 thatg God had dropped into Jonathan's lap the very morning that the well drilling rig arrived. 

"Therefore with joy shall you draw water from the wells of salvation!"  

We had hoped the timing was meaningful. 

But we also had to understand that the promise, in its truth, was talking not about an earthly well, but about Jesus. 

And that even if all four wells that were drilled turned out to be dry, we could still draw water from God's well of salvation!

While the driller dug and worked in the hot sunshine, I went for daily walks and jogs up the driveway and all the way up the hill to the mailbox. I so enjoy seeing the wildflowers. 

When I was disappointed that something ate all the morning glories that Rose planted around our garden (unless they just died because we forgot to water them!) I remembered that God had thousands of these wild morning glories I could enjoy!

But back to the well. 

After days of trying this and that, drilling on down to 200 feet through the shale, and then coming back up to 100 feet, waiting to bring foam from Rapid City to try to clean out the sides of the well, and working through complication, the driller is optimistic that we do have water, even if it is just one or two gallons a minute. 

That remains to be seen. 

"There isn't any water down there," the man at the courthouse told me flatly when Hannah and I were there last week on some business.  No water down the hill there by the river.

And I had tried not to panic. 

There was no water in three of the holes, it's true.

But all we needed was one hole with water--and God provided it! 

And then today God provided a cistern when we traveled to Rapid City. Pierre didn't have any in stock and Jonathan was afraid we'd have to special order one and that it would take weeks. But many people in the Black Hills don't have water either and haul water in to their cisterns, so Rapid City stocks cisterns.

But the verse Jonathan shared with me the morning of the well driller's arrival stuck with me.

Even if the well runs dry, or the cistern begins leaking like this poor old one (that Sam is sitting on after a day of helping us this holiday weekend) that we'd used last year here until the extremes of heat and cold left it cracked and useless,

the well of salvation ever flows.

We were blessed to be invited to the baptism of the young son of a family we've made friends with. This little boy, along with two other young children and a mother were baptized just up the hill from our home Sunday morning. 

This boy and the others were drinking from the well of salvation! 

Well or no well, we felt so blessed to be part of this very special occasion in the life of new friends in South Dakota!

And then we had the privilege of taking a grandma and three grandchildren to church again Sunday evening to our church in Mission. 

The church was almost packed out with a special service of music. Our family, together with two Hagerty boys who came up this holiday weekend, contributed two songs. It was an inspiring service, with some patriotic pieces and songs about freedom. 

 

Content with Such Things as Ye Have--But Does That Mean Lentils?

 Several weeks ago the house looked like this. 

Then the drywallers came while we were gone to Colorado.

 Now it looks like this, but I'm still living (mostly) in the RV, but a lot of stuff is up in the house garage or attic. And there is a deep gulley between the house and RV, so whenever I forget something, it's a major deal because I can't just go to the next room or around the corner. I have almost cried more than once, and I really have cried sometimes. Like today. 

I was just so tired of so much going wrong or not being able to remember all the things I needed to remember.

Yesterday when I stopped by a new friend's home up the road who had asked me to stop by so she could give me some of her extra swiss chard from her garden, I had to ask God to help me not be envious and covetous of her cozy little home, so cool and homey inside. 

A home that was built long ago surrounded by trees, bushes, grass, and the most beautiful garden I've ever seen.  

I am squeezed into an RV for months at a time, cooking for whoever is here working, hauling water, hauling laundry, treating chigger bites, fighting cancer, hunting for lost stuff, dealing with setback after setback. 

If the puppies don't strew things everywhere, the wind and storm knocks the table upside down outside and blows chairs all over and rolls water jugs all over creation. 

 

We planted a garden just after Mother's Day. Rabbits ate most of the green beans. Potato bugs are attacking the potatoes. I have to pick potato bugs every couple days or so. There are about four corn stalks. If the goats don't eat my flowers, the rabbits do, or the chickens. I can't have flowers outside.

"Help me not to be envious!" I ask the Lord as I admire this lady's garden and her little flower garden out back that she told me she calls her "prayer garden."

And God helps me. 

I remember people who don't have RV's, or a roof over their head. People who are watching their children starve in Afghanistan and people who've lost loved ones in the war in Ukraine.

I have food coming out my ears in my cluttered RV.

A few weeks ago I had taken my lunch along on a trip to Pierre with Jonathan. We passed an icecream shop with a big sign. I wanted ice cream so bad! But I had to eat lentils. I should say I got to eat lentils. It's all about perspective. I was tempted to feel sorry for myself as Jonathan and I came out of the grocery store, and I thought about the rest of the lentils I was going to eat.  And how I could never eat ice cream again for the rest of my life.

 I wanted ice cream! I didn't know what God had up His sleeve, how He would whisper to my daughter Crystal who came shortly after that, to make her mom some icecream sweetened with stevia--that I could actually eat!

 

 In the heat, I wanted ice cream so bad. But if I remembered the sufferers in the world, I could be thankful for lentils. They were delicious. They weren't bad at all with carrots, onions, salt and herbs in them.

I have so much to be thankful and content about. 

It's true that days like today were hard, but then I get a flyer in the mail about families in Afghanistan starving, and Christian Aid Ministries reaching out to them.

They'd give anything for a goat that gives two or three quarts of milk a day, even if she does keep getting out of the fence and being a total pest!

Just this morning I was stopped by the verse I opened up to in Hebrews, "And be content with such things as you have...for He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you." 

d

 Before our move to SD, I found several gluten-free mixes marked down in a grocery store. Three boxes were gluten-free, sugar-free brownie mixes! Sweetened with stevia, made with rice flour, etc. Something I can actually be allowed to eat! I baked two of them, cut them in pieces and froze them to eat a piece whenever I need a sweet treat.

And little happy surprises happen in the middle of all the hard work. 

Like a big yellow envelope in the mail with a story I'd written and sent in to a Sunday School paper years ago being only now published! They sent me two complimentary copies, along with exactly $4 payment! Wow! I'm soon gonna be rich at that rate! 

Content with such things as I have.

Gulp.

Even lentils.   

Mulberry Missionaries

Coming out from an errand at the courthouse in White River Tuesday, Hannah and I recognized two people crossing the street ahead of us--the new friends we have been taking to church at times with us. As we chatted a bit, the man asked, "Are you the one with cancer?"

 When I told him yes, he said, "We have those mulberries at home. They are full of antioxidants! They would be good for cancer, and they are just falling on the ground!"

I remembered discussing mulberries one Sunday as we picked up the ladies in the family. They had two or three trees of them, and they were ripening at that time.

Not about to lose an opportunity to reach out to these folks again as well as pick some good berries for ourselves, I told him I'd go home for pails and ladders and be right over. 

And we were!

As I picked, I invited the man to come along with the ladies to church next Sunday.
"There will be music this Sunday!" I said. 

At which the man admitted that he'd gone away from church.

"I went astray," he plainly confessed. 

"You can come back!" I said to him. "God welcomes you to come back to Him anytime!"

 

No frills or fancies or flourishes. I kept on picking mulberries. 

The best preaching is brief and to the point, and then let the Holy Spirit do the rest. 

And the man went inside to wheel his mother out in her wheel chair--a dear lady that I have come to love. She sat enjoying the sunshine while Hannah and I moved our ladders to the tree in the front yard by the trellis where a pretty yellow butterfly wind chime hung. 

We picked and picked--the little mulberry missionary and her daughter, making sure we didn't bump the tomato or pepper plants planted by the sidewalk. 

Talking cheerily to the grandma who can't walk and who was enjoying the outdoors with us. 

Trusting God to work in all our lives even as the mulberries hung there slowly ripening.

"They are full of antioxidants," the man had said. For my cancer.

 

For my cancer. 

How often God is using my cancer to open doors to touch people's hearts!

I made three berry banana cream pies the next day, layering cream cheese/cool whip, bananas, and berries. One was for us and the guys mudding our drywall this week, one for our neighbor up the hill for her birthday, and one for the family who so generously let me pick their berries. 

My cancer is a gift right now!

But it's amazing who the Lord nudges to reach out to me, too, and He used these dear people who didn't have much to offer except mulberries dropping on the ground from their trees. 

A man smelling of alcohol, who with his sister had met me in the middle of the street in White River and reached out to the little missionary lady.

And God right in the middle of the whole scene.

I'm not sure just who was reaching out to whom!

Land Flowing with Milk, Eggs, Lettuce and--Drywall!

God keeps providing fresh milk for us! It walks right up to our RV doorstep, maa-ing to be milked!

It only takes Danny about two minutes to milk 2 quarts of milk, and then it starts over the next morning.  

I made French toast one morning, (garnished with yucca flower) and another morning I made crepes.  

When I sent the children out for some yucca flowers for me, Danny simply cut off a stalk and brought me the whole stalk!

Another morning I made eggs, mushrooms and asparagus. 

And one lunch when Dan Troyer was here to help, I made omelets with ham and cheese!

And guess what the Lord supplied a couple days ago? Fresh lettuce from this lady's garden. 

Her son had just recently died from brain cancer, but she and I struck up a friendship right away. She knows a lot about gardening.

So thus I keep my hard-working men fed who are finishing up the drywalling of our house. A crew of three men came and worked several days to hang most of the drywall, and then two of those men came back for one day and finished a week ago.  

Jonathan and Danny hurried to finish some details before the taping and mudding are to be done.  Then we found out that the crew scheduled to come tape and mud the seams was not going to come after all! They are too busy there in Sioux Falls and can't come all the way out here. What were we going to do?

Jonathan didn't tell me at first, because I was sick with a stomach bug that all four of us eventually got. But word got around back in Colorado, and a man who used to work for Jonathan told another man who used to work for Jonathan. Long story short, this young man called Jonathan and is leaving in the morning tomorrow from where he now lives in Oregon, to come tape and mud the drywall. And he flew his father up from a southern state to join him in traveling and working to help us! Jonathan plans to pay them what he would have paid the other crew, but we couldn't get over how when one thing after another is falling out from under us, God comes through and makes a way!

Hidden Garden

I'm not sure why this little nook at Glen Eyrie that we visited two weeks ago was called "Hidden Garden," but I loved it.

For me it's just a dream to have a garden like that, a quiet place in which to worship and pray. There is very little privacy in my life right now, 

and to be honest, the place and way that I pray right now is anything but a garden nook. 

I pray during cancer treatments, and that's my garden. 

I don't care for the treatments, but the Lord has been very near me.

No roses to  smell or tea to drink.

Just a hidden garden of quiet times and place and circumstance where I can be alone for a while, 

and I have taken advantage of it to make a "hidden garden."

My time with the Lord is precious there. 

 As the song says that was played last night at the church in Mission during the prelude, 

"And He walks with me, and He talks with me,

And He tells me I am His own.

 

 And the joys we share as we tarry there, 

None other has ever known."

I wouldn't have dreamed how precious those times would be.