Sourdough Bread--Learning to Accept the Bitter

Back in November, my sister-in-law Regina brought me both sourdough bread and sourdough starter.

Last week I finally worked up the courage to try my own hand at making a batch of sourdough bread--

four loaves.

And they turned out fairly nice! I need to add more flour next time, as these loaves were a little too light and crumbly, but for the first time in years I could eat a piece of bread fresh from the oven without immediately blowing up with pain. 

The taste was more sour than my usual bread, and the rising time had taken nearly 24 hours altogether, but there was zero yeast in the breast and my digestive system was able to handle it.  The gluten had been predigested by the sourdough starter working.

Despite its bit of sour taste, like some of the sour things we end up tasting and facing in life, it was good bread!

 The mixture of tough things along with the flour of life builds our character. 

And that takes time.

 Not all hard things go away fast. Just as time is required for the sourdough to work, we must endure trials and difficulties with patience--and hopefully grace, letting patience have her perfect work, that we may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing.

I need more of Your grace, Lord! 

Out of Nothing a Way Will Be Made

  A sweet friend sent me this card recently, and because it meant so much to me, I hung it on the fridge.

"Faith reminds us that out of nothing, a way will be made."

The message helps when I sit down to make phone calls to ask medical providers for self-pay discounts and then pay the bills. 

The message helps with other things, too, knowing that with God, a way will be made.

It may not be our way.

It may not be a comfortable way.

But it will be a way made through the storm, 

the valley,

the darkness,

the pain,

the stuck places,

the dead ends and closed doors.

Lord, for all those needing a way made through hopeless stuck places and problems, 

make that way.

Look Who Appeared Out of Nowhere!

Last Saturday we had a huge surprise! Danny was waiting for someone to arrive who buys antlers when we saw a strange pickup with a goose neck arriving down below and stopping. 

"He doesn't know where to turn around," Danny guessed, running down with his tub of antlers he's collected.

He came up to the man in the truck and stopped and stared.

"You're not the antler man!" he gasped.

Up at the house, I was on the phone with an old acquaintance when I turned around and saw these two familiar faces appearing from the hall behind the coffee bar. They stood there looking at me while it dawned on me who they were.

Then there I was, screaming while on the phone, telling my friend she got in on my daughter surprising us, and letting her know I had to let her go now so I could greet Rose and Tom!

It couldn't have been a more perfect time! All five of us happened to be home that day, and had even had a late lunch, so we were all at the house. Tom's employer had purchased a new forklift somewhere near North Platte and needed someone to pick it up. Knowing Rose's parents lived in South Dakota, he asked if Tom and Rose wanted to go to South Dakota! He had them drive his truck and trailer, paid all their gas, and paid Tom for the hours to and from North Platte!

And we got to enjoy their company for the weekend! One night Rose asked if her daddy could read one of our family stories that I used to write years ago for Christmas gifts for Jonathan to read to the children--stories about them, of course, but maybe with different names to make it like it wasn't about them--but they loved it!

Stories like "The Pig That Would Not Die," "Great Jumping Jehoshaphat," "Mrs. Wow," and "The Scream on the Mountainside."

Rose and Hannah had fun playing strings together, and even played a Christmas special at church for both Sunday morning and evening services. 

And when we came home, Danny dressed up Aspen in his Sunday coat!

She was not impressed. 

A fun family evening Sunday night after church.  

Rose and Tom opened Christmas gifts early since they won't be able to be here this Christmas. They are taking turns spending Christmas with Tom's folks this year since they were here last Christmas.  

Look at the beautiful homemade gifts Hannah knitted or sewed for her big sister! 

 

Tom enjoying opening his gift. 

What a beautiful gift Tom's employer gave us in making a way for Tom and Rose to come surprise us and spend a day and a half with us!

When the Call Drops--Again!

When we lost the second call to Dakota Imaging while driving across I-90 home from Rapid City last week, it was very frustrating. 

You know the routine. You call a medical provider's number. First you listen to any number of options and choose one. Maybe or maybe not you'll get conencted then to a real person. The purpose of my call was to ask if the nearly $1,200 bill for a chest CT scan could be discounted due to our being self-pay rather than having insurance. Each time, I got a different person answering (sounding like maybe they worked from another country and had learned English as a second language).  Both times the speaker put me on hold while they went to check on what the discount might be for a self-pay patient.

And then the call would drop. After it happened twice I gave up calling the billing number. Instead, Jonathan decided to call straight through to Dakota Imaging. Perhaps by chance someone at that number would be able to help us.

A real person answered. Within a minute or two, in fact, after Jonathan explained our bill and our self-pay situation and how some providers will give us a steep discount for self-pay, she said she would only charge us the "Medicaid rate."

Jonathan didn't bother asking what that meant, assuming it was a decent discount. She said to wait for a new bill.  

And we looked at each other in amazement. Had God allowed those dropped calls for a reason?

This week I received my new bill. 

To my amazement, the lady had snipped the bill down by about 75%.

Had the first two calls not dropped, I don't know what sort of bill we would still be staring at, but thanks to God making two calls drop along Highway 90, we now have a bill that we are better able to pay. 

More and more, I am learning to make the best of things that seem to go wrong.
There may be a really good reason for it.
God may be orchestrating something so much better for us than we hoped.

Locking Horns with Antibiotics--and Other Unwanted Things

It seems there's been no end of medical rigamarole lately. If it's not traveling hours into Rapid City for medical appointments and chemo, it's fielding one phone call after another today to one pharmacy after another to find one that has the prescribed antibiotic in stock in time to start this weekend.

I feel like I'm locking horns with antibiotics, like one of the bighorn rams locking horns last week on the hillside above the highway we were driving after chemo and before finding Christmas trees.  

Suddenly we came upon this flock of bighorn sheep just up from the road, so we turned around to come back and take pictures. 

Now I'm having immediate infection issues after chemo, and another round of that horrible antibiotic is prescribed. First it was such a huge pill that my throat, already swollen from chemo, could hardly swallow it. Then the pill was un-coated and powdery, leaving residue in my throat the whole painful way down. 

And then my throat would be so irritated I could hardly breathe, esp. at night. 

I called to find out if the doctor could prescribe a different version of the same antibiotic, maybe in capsule form?
He did!

But the dose was so high that the concerned pharmacist had to call the doctor to double check the dosage. 

My brain is spinning, and I remember I only have to take one day at a time, releasing antibiotics and all other unwanted things, into the hands of God.

For today, I can wait while the family is at staff Christmas party and shopping--and picking up my antibiotic. I can be grateful I am feeling better than yesterday, and able to cook one turkey breast after another in my instapot (thanks to a big box of frozen turkey breasts donated to the mission), then cooling, taking meat off bones, packaging to refreeze, and--the best part--giving the bones and skin and scraps to the dog, especially mama-to-be Aspen, who seems ravenous as her due date approaches for having puppies. 

I can enjoy the sunshine outside, and the Christmas decorations the girls put up so tastefully, even if none of them except one was bought this year.

Oh, except for Christmas tree lights that Hannah bought because she didn't like the old ones.

  

And I can jar molasses from a gallon jug, so we can bake gingerbread and molasses cookies, and maybe make popcorn balls with something besides sugar that gives my kids sore throats almost right away. There are so many Cristmas junk foods, desserts, and cookies. But this year, we must try to use more molasses and less sugar--to stay as well as possible.

So even if I have to take awful antibiotics still, I am blessed. I could lock horns about it and stew and fret. Or I can accept what can't be helped and find ways to make life meaningful for myself in others, with Christ always at the helm. 

The days are too short for fretting.

"There is a place of full release--near to the heart of God." 

Amish Customs--and God's Custom of Mercy

This morning in my Bible reading in Psalm 119, I read about a custom God has.

 

And I thought about this picture Crystal sent a couple weeks ago when she had been hired to drive a van load of Amish from near Gregory, SD, about ten hours away to an Amish funeral in Wisconsin. In this photo she is waiting outside an Amish farmhouse, along with how many other vans or small busses, waiting for the meal to be over and the people to come back to the van to return to their place of abode for the night. 

Amish have interesting customs that inspire respect, or at least curiosity. 

 

So do every other culture on earth,  such as Russia and Ukraine which are at war with each other--and possibly soon with America. There are Christmas customs, and other holiday customs. But this morning I read about a custom God has. 

"Look upon me, and be merciful to me, as Your custom is toward those who love Your name." (Psalm 119:132)

As Jonathan and I prayed together, we spoke these words back to the Lord that He has given to us, "It is Your custom, Lord, to be merciful to us who love Your name.

Thank You!"

In the middle of a cancer journey, I can trust a God whose custom is mercy.

 When I must stay home because of chemo side effects while my family heads to Rapid City for the SIM staff Christmas party and Crystal is off for a day of babysitting, I can be excited that I get to spend all day alone with a God Who is merciful!

 My children can trust His mercy.

We can share that mercy with others, even ones who don't deserve it, like people who may or may not spend wisely the money they earn working for Building Hope Enterprises under SIM.  Or someone who just lost a significant other yesterday after many years of living together outside the parameters that God intended. We can still carry a dish of food, drop in, and reach out--extending the best we can an emblem of the mercy of God reaching out to anyone who will respond with humility.

Mercy isn't about deserving it.

It's about the beautiful heart of God. 

He cannot countenance sin, and no one who chooses to love their sin rather than love God will obtain eternal mercy. 

"Direct my steps by Your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me," the very next verse in Psalm 119 says. 

This is the prayer we pray as we reach out to ones around us who have shut themselves away from the heart of God.

"Let their sin no longer have dominion, but You, Lord, become Lord of their lives."

May God's merciful Spirit hover over empty and miserable homes and hearts on our reservations this Christmas season,

because of God's custom--MERCY. 

Cats, Crossword Puzzles, and Christmas Cantatas

Couldn't resist this scene.

With wars and rumors of wars, it just seems comforting to see a kitty curled up under the Christmas tree.

It's day 8 after chemo, and I'm still struggling to make it through the day. This morning for the first time ever, I sat at the breakfast table doing a crossword puzzle just to distract myself from how I was feeling. 

I just don't do crossword puzzles at the breakfast table.

 There are too many jobs to do, but today I just crashed and let the girls finish the men's lunches and clean up and move on with school or work for the day.  Thankfully I was able to spend a couple hours or so helping Hannah with her algebra and coming up with semester grades for Bible, American history, and spelling/vocabulary, leaving other subjects for later.

I could bore you with a list of stuff I'm having to hurdle like cracked and bleeding lips and fingers, a very dry throat, nausea moments, random pains here and there, and all sorts of other things.

Instead, here are some bits of Christmas cheer that truly do keep me cheered.

My family coming home from singing in the community Christmas cantata Sunday afternoon. Usually it has been held in the local school, but for some reason this did not work out this year, so it was held in a local church.

 

It was a wonderful experience of getting "out of the salt shaker and into the world." The organizer wrote our family a note saying she wasn't sure the cantata would have come together if our three hadn't taken part. They helped carry the parts, with Crystal and Hannah helping out with the alto and Jonathan helping with bass. Jonathan felt it was a wonderful time of connecting with local people that he doesn't see very often. 

What better thing to do together than simply sing Christmas music to honor and glorify our Savior?

 Hannah likes to play her guitar nearly every day, even in the middle of the Christmas decor muddle!

And Crystal tries to practice every day for the upcoming half hour she is supposed to play Monday evening at the state capitol at 6:30, where the same White River community cantata is to sing at 7 p.m.

And the cat curls up under the Christmas tree on the fallen tree skirt--reminding us that in the middle of a fallen and sin-cursed world, "there is a place of quite rest--near to the heart of God."