Broken Leg Road--and Attaining Sainthood

 Since I happened to be driving by myself today, I could stop and take a picture of this road sign that just seemed to personify the world we live in.

There is so much brokenness in the world that even road names reflect that. 

This morning during my prayer drive, since I was arriving early to Sunday School in St. Francis, this statue of a beautiful young native lady near the purple cathedral caught my attention.

 I looked up the name that was inscribed at the base of the statue--Kateri Tekakwitha. Born in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon, near present-day Auriesville, NY, Kateri was baptized by the Catholics as Catherine, and was known as Lily of the Mohawks. Unfortunately, her entire family died during a smallpox epidemic, and Kateri's face remained scarred from the disease. She died at the early age of 24. In 2012, she was canonized by the Catholic Church as North America's first female Indigenous saint. 

 

I'm not sure how Catholics determine who gets to become saints and who doesn't.  

But "saints" and sinners alike are scarred by sin and brokenness--Kateri by smallpox and an early death, and all of us by sins and sorrows of one sort or another. 

One thinks over and over of the verse that says, "There is none that doeth good, no not one." For "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."

But "there's not a Friend like the lowly Jesus, no, not one," either,

and if we turn from our own sins and sorrows to Him, He will transform our lives, our hearts, and even our sorrows, and make us more and more like Him.   

With my friend Kathleen Stevenson's permission, her poem posted a couple days ago on Facebook captures these thoughts so well.  

What If?

 

 What if my trial molds me into His character?

 What if my pain is His plan to refine?

 What if in breaking, He restores to His image

 What shall I say, if it’s His plan divine?

 

 Why should I fret when He molds me and shapes me?

 Why should I murmur while He fashions the clay?

 Why fear the storm when the Savior is with me?

 Why fear the darkness —it’s coming the Day?

 

 Where is my trust when the burden is heavy?

 Where is my confidence as blows the storm?

 Where do I turn when the mountains are crumbling?

 Where is my safety—I trust His strong arm?

 

 When, oh my soul, do you look to the Savior?

 When do you search for His hand in the rain?

 When do you call for His great tender mercy?

 When do you praise Him—again and again?

 

 There in the flicker of Light in the darkness

 There the reflection of Him in the gold

 There when you know He is walking beside you

 There, in eternity’s glory behold.

 

 KS 8-15-25

The Purple Church--and a Happy Christian

Today our South Dakota Lucas family was split no less than three different directions--Crystal, who had driven a van load of Amish was in Missouri unexpectedly running into missionary guest speaker Katie Saylor at the church Crystal used to attend when she was teaching at Mt. Zion; Jonathan, Danny, and Hannah to Lakota Chapel; and me to St. Francis Holiness Chapel where I was to tell the children's story for the day.  When I found myself arriving twenty minutes early, I decided to keep driving slowly down a few streets of St. Francis to pray for the community. 

My first turn was into the parking lot of this huge purple church, St. Francis Mission. Little did I know that only an hour and a half later after service at our own church, my husband would be sitting down with an elderly couple, hearing their stories, including ones from the wife who attended school at this very purple church-related mission when she was a girl. 

Her memories were not happy ones, for at that time, indigenous children were harshly treated even by church people. The Catholic teachers yelled at the students for not speaking English even though their native language was Lakota, made them hold out both hands and hit them with rulers until the children cried, and various other cruel practices. 

I drove slowly around, praying for the community, the homes, the schools, and the children. 

And back at Lakota Chapel, Jonathan listened to the man tell how he, who himself was from Honduras with the native language of Spanish, married this lady, whose original language was Lakota, but who had learned Spanish and English. Later he became a Christian, but his wife had been so wounded by the religious school at this purple church that she was not the least interested in God, the Bible or religion. For seven years, he fasted and prayed that she would also come to know the Lord. 

Finally one day he spoke to his wife once again about the Bible. Arguing that it wasn't true, his wife turned away from him as usual. But when she did, a strange thing happened. She heard a voice saying, "What if it is? You've never read it!"

 

The unnerving thing about the voice was that the words were in English, and the husband at that time only spoke to her in Spanish! The wife knew the voice was God.

There had been power in that voice, and the wife began to read God's Word. Soon she, too, became a believer. Her husband wanted to be a pastor, and she couldn't see herself being a pastor's wife, but today the two are pastoring a church in Sioux Falls. 

 

The couple had other stories, too, such as how earlier in their marriage, the wife did not like to wear seat belts and the husband hated to nag her. Then came the day when a truck pulled out in front of them and they hit it. The wife catapaulted through the windshield and hit a tree--and died!

Someone ran to the nearest house to dial 911, and EMTs revived her. She was flown by helicopter to a hospital and has lived ever since--most likely careful to wear seatbelts after that!

They are in the area for this coming weekend where they are making Indian frybread and other edibles at a Rosebud Reservation Fair.   

Coming up to a street crossing in St. Francis this morning, I noticed this upside down stop sign, and thought how it reflected the broken and upside down condition of much of the native people, just like the condition that wife was in before God saved her. Help us pray that the powerful voice of God would continue to speak even today to lost men and women, boys and girls. 

 

 My story today for about 27 children was about a little lost kitten named Secret, a true story that I experienced as an eight-year-old girl when my family lived in Keystone, SD.  After hunting for three days for the lost kitten, we found that she had somehow climbed to the roof and explored the chimney, falling down into it and finally being rescued when we heard her mewing somewhere and Dad took down the chimney pipe to the woodstove to find it! I told the children how if they feel lost and lonely and sad and sinful, God is looking for them just like we looked for that lost kitten until we found her; that if they need to be found, to cry to God and pray just like that kitten mewed for help, and that God will help them.  

Sweeping Discovery

Long days ago, I lost my prayer list. I had scoured the house for it--looking all through my Bible where it belonged, in my journal, on my dresser, in my going-to-town bag, in my go-to-the-hospital bag, and probably other bags, and all over the place. 

No prayer list was to be found.  

 

Prayer lists are not my badge of spirituality, though they may be for someone else. They are just a little crutch I use to help my poor praying ability, so that I remember more people than just a few, and so that I pray regularly for people who are important to me.

Well, yesterday I was feeling well enough after surgery to actually clean my bathroom and sweep the kitchen floor. And that is when I found it--my prayer list. 

It had fallen back behind the bench against the wall under the table. 

Which clearly describes to my readers how long it has been since I swept under the bench against the wall under the table. But if you won't tell about this, I won't tell how long it's been since you swept some part of your house, either.  

But anyway, as I pulled that prayer list out, it occurred to me, that had I not been doing the simple, mundane task of sweeping my kitchen floor with a broom, I would not have found my prayer list. 

I could have tried to pray a long time or read several chapters of my Bible and never found it. 

But in the middle of a lowly task, I found something I needed.  

To me, it was such a good example of how God uses the simple, ordinary things of our human lives to accomplish His plan.  I see more and more what a mistake it is to think we have to be super spiritual to please God, to think that sweeping a floor or hanging laundry is somehow less important to God than sitting in a devout rocker pondering Galatians or Ephesians. 

I have heard story after story of people like Praying Hyde who hid in a hollow log for three days praying until God lifted the burden and revival came to his current situation;

or like Watchman Nee, who was a super spiritual Christian evangelist in China; or an old friend, Anita Brechbill who would rise at 4 every morning to spend two hours praying. And I would feel like I must be a pretty poor Christian to need to sleep until 7 in the morning because of being up till 11 at night, and having to spend all of my waking hours tending little children and babies. 

 

It did not feel spiritual, but it was, as I minded them from the time they awoke to the time they went to bed. I made sure my family had breakfast and lunch and supper, followed a structured time frame for home school, and during summer, would fill the family's time with finding produce, cucumbers for pickles, apples for pies and sauce, and pumpkins for pies and cows. I kept the children busy and happy and watched over almost constantly. 

 

It did not feel like I got much alone time with God; it felt like maybe He was behind the curtain somewhere a lot of the time. But when I needed help and called upon Him, He was there; over and over He comforted me that simply doing His will in the stress of raising a family was what pleased Him.  That the simple prayers we prayed together as a family were worth as much to Him as hours on my knees alone in a closet somewhere.

Sometimes I need closet prayers, I really do; and my prayer list helps with that. But it was not until I did the simple task of sweeping the kitchen floor with my little old broom that I found that list. And the lesson it taught me was a good one.  

 

"You Will Have to Feed Your Own Soul"

 "If you come here to minister," Mrs. Ambrose remembered an old pastor at Pine Ridge telling her and her husband when they moved there, "you will have to feed your own soul."

Sitting in a recliner recuperating after my surgery, I listened to our pastor's wife telling story after story, and this little anecdote stood out to me. 

Her stories feed my soul--such as the one about Kate Kindle, a Pine Ridge Christian whose dad, when she was young, accidentally killed her mother while he was drunk. He never did go to jail for it, as the prosecution got him off, Mrs. Ambrose said. 

Later in life Kate's dad was saved from his sin, and despite a metal plate in his leg after an axe accident, he would walk through the winter cold three miles every Sunday morning to start the fire at the church.

That kind of story feeds my soul. 

It teaches overcoming and endurance.

 

Our churches here on the reservatins are small and don't have many established Christians in them. Our ministry is outreach. If we want something out of the services, we have to put something into them. 

So we must feed our own soul--as the pretty photo my sister Dorcas sent so well illustrates--with God's Word, and with God's love, and with other wholesome and good things.

I listen online to Beavertown God's Missionary Church every Sunday. The morning and evening music this last Sunday really ministered to me, with singers from Pennsylvania to Crooked Tree, Belize, and colors from ivory white to ebony black,

and instruments from piano to guitar. 

One way I feed my soul is to simply look for beauty in what God has placed around me. 

Saturday was just an amazingly beautiful day with a gorgeous sunrise that we could enjoy from our deck. 

I go out and stand still and think about God, and revel in Him and His wondrous works.

I read books for a couple hours a day in the afternoon when I make myself go rest after surgery--books like Yours Till Heaven, the beautiful story of Charles and Susanna Spurgeon's love, marriage, and intertwined ministry (she helped him with most of his sermons!);

Indigenous Faith, required reading by SIM;

The Despicable Missionary, a story of a Christian girl in Pakistan;

Heart Bridge, about the CAM-run Nathaneal Orphanage in Romania;

The Last Rescue, about an injured Navy Seal;

and Mother Mason, a book my sister Kezia sent me, an adorably relatable, old fashioned story for light reading when I just need some laughs.

We feed our souls with work in the gardens and helping one another and praying constantly--every day and every night.

Nights like this, I am awake long into the wee hours of the morning, wide awake, and I lift to God so many needs, holding loved ones up to Him as I lie in bed with wide open eyes, wondering why I can't sleep after being on my feet all day till 5 in the evening--picking beans, doing laundry, freezing beans, making two batches of goat cheese.

I was so tired I nearly fell asleep before supper, but made myself stay awake so I could sleep tonight--and then didn't. I was fighting some symptoms that kept me wakeful, and I prayed. I drank a lot and took several things to help.

Jesus, I need Your touch!

And He touched me. 

I go out to look at the clouds scudding across the moon, (my daughter Crystal who is away on a trip driving Amish messaged to look at the moon!) and I lift my prayer where no ceiling hinders it--though prayers have a wonderful way of rising straight through the highest and toughest ceiling. Prayers have no boundaries unless there is sin in our lives, and even then, humble prayer is the answer. 

Earlier this evening, I sat down at the piano and chose a song to play, "He Is Lord," with the verses as well as the chorus we all know. 

"Emptied of His glory, God became a man,

To walk on earth in ridicule and shame.

A Ruler, yet a Servant; a Shepherd, yet a Lamb;

A Man of Sorrows, agony and pain.

He is Lord!"

I worship.

Earlier today, another hymn was going through my mind--feeding my soul.

Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways.

Reclothe us in our rightful minds, 

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.

Breathe through the heats of our desire Thy coolness and Thy balm;

Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire,

Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire

O still, small voice of calm!

 I feed my soul

--with music--

good books--

prayer--

God's Word--

 sunsets--

 flowers--

 and God's love and grace!

And my soul is fed.

Every Home Should Have a Hen

Every home should have a hen.

A flock of hens for eggs is wonderful, but a broody hen that sits on some hidden nest of eggs for three weeks, hatches out chicks, and then strolls around the property with them clucking with her special, protective, comforting, mothery clucks is even better.

I discovered this one yesterday when I took a basket of laundry out to hang. It was the first time since my surgery that I was able to hang laundry on the lines outside, since I'd been warned not to lift my arm above my shoulder for four weeks. 

It was wonderful to be outside in the South Dakota sunshine again in the morning, before the afternoon heat sizzled in too terribly. So there I was right next to the garden and the fresh morning glories, fitting Jonathan's work shirts onto hangars, when I heard the gentle little clucks.

They were coming from inside the garden. The gate had been left a little ajar, and the mama hen and her chicks were in the garden.

I found them in the corn where there were not so many scritchy, creeping, cluttering squash or pumpkin or melon vines and leaves, 

clucking and cheeping. 

As soon as I arrived looking for them, (and discovering a few zucchini and yellow squash to pick as well,) the hen decided to come say hi. 

I talked to her, and she came up close, unafraid. Her head cocked this way and that. 

Finishing hanging the first load of laundry, I returned to the garden with a bucket to pick green and yellow string beans. I must have picked a bushel, while the mama hen scritched and scratched and looked for bugs and grasshoppers somewhere nearby.

Although my mind kept going to a loved one in distress and to an acquaintance who was nearing death, the sister of Pastor Solomon Shaffer of Beavertown God's Missionary Church, 

the mother hen brought me comfort. 

She gave me the words for fresh prayers for those I love who are passing through shadowed valleys.

"As a mother comforts, Lord, comfort those who are suffering, who are very literally dying,

and those who only wish they could die.

Jesus, You Yourself said, 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings!'

Gather, O Hen of Heaven, Your suffering chicks under Your wings!"

And let us be safe there.

Couch Through the Window

"There's more than one way to do things!" Tim and Rose messaged last week when Rose, Tom, baby Ellie, Sam, and Caitlyn went to western Colorado to spend the weekend with Tim who had a birthday recently. 

The couch in the house Tim purchased recently wouldn't fit through the inside doorways to be moved up to the main floor from the basement, so the guys figured out how to take the window panes out and get the couch in through the main floor window! Where there's a will, there's a way! Tim has improved the house so much already, as well as the lawn which he seeded and watered, 

 Of course I always enjoy photos the children send, for I miss my children, and baby Ellie becomes more dear by the day!

Her little boot!

 

"Little Women" Going Away Party

Today down in Missouri, my sister Joella hosted a unique Going Away party for her daughter Charity who is heading off with her brother Ethan to Penn View Bible Institute next week, and for her cousin who is heading back to Pennsylvania to teach again at a little Christian school. 

 

My sister's family has gotten creative lately and used classic literature themes for a couple recent parties. The first one was a Jane Austin theme for a birthday party, and this one was a Little Women theme. 

 Even Susanna's husband Daniel contributed to the party by bringing their horse and a wagon! 

I didn't get to go, although I was invited, but I sure loved the photos that were sent to me. Of course, Jo and her sisters in Little Women loved picnics and playing dress-up, so that is what the girls and ladies did in this party, too.  

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This outfit was one of my favorites!

Delectable treats that make your mouth water.  

Looks like my mom was in on the fun--just like Marmee in Little Women was in the middle of everything--well, nearly everything! Here in this game,  this team of three is trying to figure out which person at the party best fits the personalities of the characters in Little Women, names which are listed on the paper. 

There was also a Little Women trivia game put together by the two high school girls. Makes me want to go read that book again! In an age where reading has become almost obsolete, it is good to inspire young people to read good, wholesome literature and the timeless old classics. 

It's also good to choose joy when we could choose to be griping about politics or worried about the news or thinking about ourselves and our problems. I am posting these bright pictures hoping maybe one or more of this blog's readers might be inspired to choose a classic book theme for a birthday party or other event. 

I enjoy posting cheerful things on my blog!