Re-run of Valentines Day about Nine Years Ago

 I was searching for some illustrations for a Love message for tomorrow at church, and ran across this old post.

It's not every day that your sweetheart brings you a luscious bouquet home!

 A bouquet with a gorgeous red rose right in the heart of it!

And it's not every day that God gives you special tokens of His love,

His redemption, His salvation, His sanctification, His wisdom,

or His favor.

 It's not every day that you feel like you are God's special child,

sitting on His lap 

or being patted on the back

or crooned over with love songs.

Recently I was in a home where the husband kept saying from time to time to his wife or child,

"I love you!"

and then before long, was turning around and saying, "Do you love me?"

like he wasn't certain and needed to be reassured over and over again.

 Do we treat God the same way?

Do we have to keep asking Him if He loves us,

if His blood is still applied to our hearts,

if we are still in His favor and keeping?

 Am I really more valuable than the sparrows--

or was that just wishful thinking?

Can God trust us to live by faith?

Because as days go by and we are inundated with the drudgery of life,

the cooking and cleaning and schooling and laundry and organizing and managing and office work

and training children and overseeing a large household,

the excitement of our salvation can wane.

 The warm, fuzzy feelings quickly evaporate when you are constantly on call to provide work and play and responsibilities and adventure and fun for your kids,

guide them through myriad household chores and tasks while doing your own,

 

manage several school children needing help all at once,

work through the constant squabbles between kids whose totally opposite personalities drive each other batty, 

oversee scheduling of violin lessons and working for neighbors and youth groups and pizza parties

and having people to your home,

while shoveling snow, seeing that hay is bought and put away, and maybe some shopping fit in somewhere with Valentines Day coming up and your Sunday coat looking rather shabby. 

No, you don't constantly experience the amazing joy you felt the day you were first saved,

or the afternoon or evening when you consecrated your complete obedience to the Lord

and asked for the Holy Spirit and found Him suddenly real to you. 

No, sometimes you sense that you are in the furnace of testing,

or under the rod of chastening,

or just in a place of being expected to live by faith alone

with no feelings attached.

You may often feel crushed by griefs or pain or circumstances beyond your control

or the regrets of having made mistakes under pressure and in confusion,

or the struggles of getting through different seasons of life without totally losing your sense of dignity and worth.

Can God trust you to live by faith alone

when you have gone to your prayer closet or trysting place or bedroom

to read your Bible and pray

and haven't felt a thing for a long time?

Felt nothing except that you must be cracked, and broken, and mangled. 

 But "the just shall live by faith," Habakkuk wrote, (2:4) and Paul reiterated (Romans 1:17).

And sometimes, that faith does result in feeling.

Feelings that are all the more precious because of the lack of them so often.

Feelings like what I felt last Sunday evening when my littlest daughter came to my bedside where I was reading my Bible and praying.

She whimpered that she could not sleep because she kept thinking about ghosts and nightmares..

And I was annoyed by the interruption. 

After all, I wanted to seek God's face--and this almost always happens when I do.

But I asked her if she'd like me to come sit by her, and I went to her room and sat down nearby in the darkness, and she cuddled up peacefully under her covers.

And right there in her room, in the darkness,

 in the middle of this interruption,

I felt some feelings I hadn't felt in a long time. 

Feelings of warmth and peace.

 Feelings of assurance.

Just between me and Him.

Having brought everything once again to His blood that keeps haunting and weighing on me
along with my confusions and burdens,

and also others and what they have done to contribute to all the pain,

bringing those to His blood, too.

Because sometimes it is others and their attitudes (at least our perception of them) who hinder us.

Sometimes we have to bring those, too, to His blood, 

releasing those people from our own judgments about them and the situations,

like Job who had to pray for his condemning friends who were so sure they were right and he was wrong

before God released him from his suffering. 

Yes, the just shall live by faith.

But we rejoice for those times when we discern a sense of joy, peace, assurance

and hope,

something the world can neither give nor take away,
something they cannot know,

but what God's children--howsoever imperfect we may be--

 know and have beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Exhaling Angst, Inhaling Peace

When more than one difficult piece of news came our way in a matter of weeks, one thing after another, I was finding myself having a hard time going to sleep, and then waking up in the morning with my adrenaline rushing before I could even think thoughts in words or pray prayers or claim promises.

Our subconscious is a crazy thing. 

And more than once I found certain "tools" useful that I have been taught at different times in my life--breathing exercises to help a person release tension.

It helps to practice breathing out anxiety and breathing in peace.

Exhale angst, inhale calm.

 It's not a spiritual exercise exactly, but it helps us physically and emotionally let go of stress.

So here I am, for a few moments a day, 

practicing purposeful breaths.

"Let everything that hath breath," the Psalmist wrote, use that breath to "praise the Lord."

There is no room for anxiety in praise,

no room for angst in peace.

Our words and actions and even thoughts are important.

So are the breaths we breathe.

We can breathe in great gulps of muddy water that drown us in despair and doubt, or we can breathe out all the mud and inhale fresh, clear, mountain air of hope and trust in God.

"Breathe through the heat of our desire Thy coolness, and Thy balm," one of my favorite hymn writers, John Greenleaf Whittier wrote. "Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;

Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire

O still, small voice of calm!"

Whittier writes, 

"Dear Lord, and Father of mankind, 

Forgive our foolish ways; 

Reclothe us in our rightful mind, 

In purer lives Thy service find,

In deeper reverence, praise.

 

Drop Thy still dews of quietness

Till all our strivings cease;

Take from our souls the strain and stress, 

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace."

Sam Is Engaged!

Two nights ago, I woke up in the middle of the night, and about 1 o'clock, there was a ding on the phone--a signal notification. 

"Who in the world would be sending a signal message this time of night?" I sleepily wondered, going back to sleep. 

In the morning, Jonathan was the one to read it first. At midnight his time in Colorado, our oldest son Sam had sent three words to his mom and dad. 

"She said yes!" 

If you know me, you know I got just a little dramatic. Heart emojis, congratulations, bell and music notes, and other mushy stuff became the order of the day. As soon as we made sure Sam had told his siblings himself, the family chat blew up. 

Rose demanded a picture "or it didn't happen!" she said, after which she said her baby in utero promptly kicked her HARD in the kidney, leaving her going around like this--emoji of old lady limping around with a purse and cane.

After giving Sam time to make his announcement to whoever he wanted to first, I put the announcement on my siblings chat and made plans to call my sister Dorcas. 

Sam asked me what date was being set for his cousin Esther Barth's wedding as he and Caitlyn needed to make sure their wedding wasn't on the same day!

And I was on the phone later with Sam, eagerly asking about any details he was willing to share about their engagement evening. 

I feel so blessed to have my son calling me every week and just chatting about life--which often involves "Cait" now, as he calls her.  

"The more I get to know her family," he told me, "the more I found out how similar they are to our own."

I am grateful, and hope we can soon meet Caitlyn's family.

I am so grateful for this beautiful young lady God brought into our son's life--and now into our own!

Congratulations, Sam and Caitlyn!

Liquor Store Transformed to Life Center!

Yesterday afternoon I had to call my daughter Carrie and discovered that she was in the middle of shopping at a brand new Life Network thrift shop that has opened two weeks ago in Falcon, Colorado, where we used to live. Amazingly, the thrift shop, along with a pregnancy center, is in that big old brick building where a liquor and gun store used to be on old Meridian Road. I am so thrilled about this development there! A liquor store transformed into a Life Network center! Cheers! A lady from Carrie and Rose's church works there now as a patient advocate for the moms. Here is a photo of the new store with a grand opening sign. YAY!

When I asked Carrie about her own work of volunteering for Reclaiming Hope, she told me that she was involved last week in a Donation Drive which was filmed by Fox News 21.  She wasn't in the film, but she was there out of sight. Below is a link if you'd like to watch a 2 to 4  min. video.

https://www.fox21news.com/fox21-news-and-reclaiming-hope-team-up-for-donation-drive/

 

Right now Hannah is sewing patches together for one more baby quilt top for a quilt to be given to a pregnancy center. She and Crystal both made posters last week, planning to go to Pierre to take part in the Pro-Life events Sunday, but because of a death in our church, that got put on hold till another time.

 Praise God for what is happening despite all the that the devil does to destroy and kill, God is around to  give life and that more abundantly. Therefore, "choose life," and live it abundantly, doing what we can to see souls rescued and lives transformed and healed by the power of the gospel.

The Holy--Packed in a Lunchbox

This morning lunches for my guys (plus an extra worker we make lunches for) had to go into two separate lunchboxes because Jonathan was going one direction to Pierre and Danny the other direction to Mission.

I hadn't gotten homemade buns made yesterday, so I had to make do with Walmart French bread slices and homemade barbecued beef to make sandwiches. Wednesday's apple cake and Tuesday's chocolate cookies had disappeared almost as fast as they were made, and last night we had Ukrainian borsch and cornbread with most of the last of the apple cake. So Friday I'm scrounging through cupboards finding nuts and granola bars and peanut butter cups instead of homemade dessert. 

I hadn't even had time to read my Bible, though Jonathan and I had prayed together as we try to do each day. I don't feel very holy first thing in the morning when I drag myself, shivering, out of bed (especially if I've had a short night of sleep due to some pretty severe stresses lately) and go to the kitchen to take the first of my drinks and pills and start in on making lunches for three very hungry men. In between, I'm clearing the dishwasher and dish drainer, putting away this and that from counter or table, listening to plans for the day, and finding a padded envelope for Jonathan to use for a return item he has to mail today.

Another return item I packaged yesterday sits, waiting for Crystal to mail, on the counter underneath a purple envelope with a filled-in annual questionnaire required by Samaritan Ministries.

 

I can't find paper or foam bowls to send in Danny's lunch, so I have to run to the basement to find the extra ones down there, and then later I run downstairs again because I can't find a large size jar ring for the jar of leftover borsch I'm sending with Danny for him to share with his coworker along with their sandwiches at noon.

(Unless it's at 11, as it was yesterday when Danny's hungry coworker was already digging into the lunch pail.)

Somewhere after 8 o'clock, the guys are disappearing to their separate destinations and I am scrambling eggs for my breakfast since the others eat theirs earlier. Still in my bathrobe, I finish too-many-to-count capsules and pills and head to my room. I push odd clothing items aside to sit in my rocking chair in the finally-showing sunshine to read Psalm 146. (If I had gotten up in time, which hasn't happened yet this week, I listen to Jonathan's audio Bible chapter in 1 Corinthians with him, but this week, I've been too exhausted to get up at 6:30 when he does so faithfully.) So there I am, with my Bible on my lap, finally feeling holy.

 

At least that is the temptation--to not feel that the morning work of packing lunches, making breakfasts, packaging returns, and starting the day's home school studies is as holy as reading our Bibles and praying.

And yet--it is. 

God Himself, Who is All-Holy, is sincerely interested in providing food for every living thing. 

 

"The eyes of all look expectantly to You," the Psalmist wrote, "and You give them their food in due season (not late or skipping meals). 

"You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing."

"As we pine for angels and the other-worldly, there is the danger of missing a precious aspect of Christianity. We are incarnational people. The Word was made flesh in our midst," wrote Wiederkehr in A Tree Full of Angels: Seeing the Holy in the Ordinary (a book I picked up at a library book sale in Rapid City recently). 

And being flesh means we get hungry, and our husbands and children get hungry--really fast, like two hours after a meal--

and if we really want to become like God, and be holy as He is holy, 

as a wife and mother, I need to look at preparing and serving nourishing meals as part of becoming like Jesus--holy and gracious and faithful in the way He provides always, every day, what we need to fill our longings.

 "The fast pace of our lives makes it difficult for us to find grace in the present moment, and when the simple gifts at our fingertips cease to nourish us, we have a tendency to crave the sensational."

When the Smith family lost their son, I wanted so badly to do something to help. The tragedy was on so many minds. I wanted to make a meal, but the family had immediately traveled far, far away where the search for Jeremiah was going on. Making a meal for my own family didn't feel nearly as exciting. I do that (or oversee it) every day, often three times a day, thank you. 

How exciting!

I managed to make, along with a large apple cake for our family of five plus Danny's coworker, a single small apple cake to take to the couple who is managing the Smiths' chores while they are gone, along with a few other things, to bless them for the weeks of work they are doing for the Smith family I cannot help. In the freezing cold wind, the lady helped transfer the cake and other items to her vehicle, and we said goodbye, her afraid that the bug she's been fighting might transfer to me in my chemo-weakened state, and I got my shivering self back into my car and drove back home--

how sensational! 

The same day, my son Danny was called to help fight a fire east of Mission. At least three structures burned, and Danny ended up tired, dehydrated, and with a headache. He stayed for hours, helping "mop up," as they call it, not quite such an exciting job as hosing down a fire, which, by the way, they could not do because there was no water on the property. He discovered smoke coming from another structure and was able to stop the smoldering fire before it destroyed another building. Danny came home late that evening with black all around his eyes and face. And I realized I had someone to care about right under my nose, in my own home. 

"Are you hungry?" I asked. And yes, he was. My volunteer fireman who left a paying job to spend about 7 or 8 hours fighting a fire and mopping up afterward, for no pay, was exhausted and hungry and glad to be out of his heavy fireman uniform. 

"Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary," I read in the same book mentioned above. "There are burning bushes all around you...Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb."

In every crumb of homemade bread for my guys' lunches, in every crumb of apple cake taken to someone who is just helping another, and in every crumb of loving duty that I do for my very own husband, son, daughter, family, and neighbor is a burning bush of holiness--a holiness just like God's.

Snow Smiles

 One day when it had snowed here, I discovered that one of my children (probably my son) had done some snow art.

A snow smile on Crystal's car!

Here is Crystal, having collected some items from her stash of bulletin board supplies from her school years, ready to head up to church to redecorate the big bulletin board in the basement of the church, and to change it from Christmas to winter.  

It was something to do as she tries to figure out the puzzle of her life right now, quietly piecing one piece after another together of the thousand pieces of this puzzle that Hope Family Chapel had given us and that she had begun in early January and finally finished a few weeks later. 

And a poster ("Take my Hand, Not my Life") that she made for a Right to Life gathering at the South Dakota capitol in Pierre last Sunday--except that the death of our neighbor made some changes in plans and the children never did go to Pierre.

But the bulletin board in the church basement speaks each Sunday.

"Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."

It was one of the verses I read and prayed in my bedroom at twelve years of age in Custer, South Dakota, way back in the Dark Ages when my family was living our last summer there.

It was the verse along with the promise in Isaiah 1:18 that became real to me that July evening as I prayed to be saved. 

"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, and though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

And that night 46 years ago, my heart was washed whiter than the snow.

Oh, my Father, keep my heart pure and white always--with a snow smile drawn in it--for the heart You have made white will be joyful and happy in You!

 

Huge Hospital Debt--Forgiven!

 Last week Jonathan was on the phone with my cancer care center about the tens of thousands of dollars of hospital bills that were adding up--at the same time I was messaging back and forth with my sisters about my niece's baby coming two and a half weeks early and the anxieties as he was in the NICU trying to breathe with not-quite-developed lungs. We were also in the Honda driving to Winner to help our coworkers, the Shermans, butcher two pigs, and had seen updates about our other coworkers who had lost their son a few days earlier, and search crews were still searching that day at the Allegheny River in PA.

So when Jonathan announced to me that the financial advocate had just let him know that our bills at the cancer care center had been wiped out to zero, I was in such a muddle that I hardly knew how to feel.

But feelings or not, we bowed our heads, Jonathan took off his hat, and we thanked God for this miracle! It was a little hard to believe until we accessed my account that evening online and discovered that sure enough, the balance was--$0.00!

My whole huge hospital bill had been forgiven!

My slate had been wiped clean!

 

 I couldn't help thinking of the way God forgives us--just like that. Every one of us owes God a huge debt. We have all sinned; our transgressions have stacked higher and higher. 

But when we confess our sins and turn to the Advocate, Jesus Christ, we find that He takes our case and looks at our huge debt and asks the Father to wipe it clean.

And He does. 

He says it's all wiped off the chalkboard--that whole list--with His rag of forgiveness and heavenly forgetfulness.

Then I thought about the lists of ways that people have hurt me at times in my life--whole lists, mind you. 

These people did not deserve to be forgiven. Some of them never even asked to be forgiven. But there were lists--some short, some long. 

And I had a choice to make. Do I forgive these people who have hurt me as God has forgiven me, or do I hold onto my grudges and resentments and forfeit God's forgiveness that was so outstanding to me?

Sunday morning in church service, our neighbor who lost her mom the Sunday before, shared about an incident in her mom's life. A neighbor had called and was raking her mother over the coals about issues with the fences, and right in the middle of the tirade, her mom remembered, "I need to forgive this person right now!" And she did. She never did hold a grudge about the tirade the person put over on her, but treated her as nicely as ever. And that person quickly got over the incident, and also treated the mom nicely afterward.

"It was easy for mom to forgive," our neighbor said. "I wish I had gotten those genes. But I didn't."

Our neighbor shared how one time she was involved in a camp where ladies paired off to meet somewhere and pray together. She ended up with a lady in a room where they could ask each other questions. 

Feeling timid, she didn't think she needed much prayer. She wasn't having this problem or that one that the other lady asked her about. Wasn't she fine? Until the lady asked her, "What about forgiveness?"

And just like that, our neighbor knew.

She knew right away that she was carrying unforgiveness toward a person in her life who had deeply wounded, disappointed, and abandoned her.

"That lady prayed with me that day, and there was a change in my life," our neighbor freely testified. 

Forgiveness wasn't natural to her, or as easy as it seemed to be for her mother. But it was a choice that she made that freed her to love that person who had hurt her. Her relationship totally changed with that person. Forgiveness had wiped the slate clean.

Lord, You forgave a list of a gazillion sins that I have committed.

Help me to forgive the things I have against others--and not to keep lists...

but perhaps, if I must make a list, to then wipe it clean, or bury it, or shred it into the waste basket 

where all resentments and hatred and bitterness belong--

in the oblivion of Your tender mercies and grace.