Even the Swallow Has Found a Nest

 Sunday before New Years Day after morning service at the local Nazarene church where Jonathan had been asked to fill in, we had a half hour before joining Lakota church for the meal after service.

 

 So we took a little walk in the sunshine and fresh air somewhere down Power Dam Road where there used to be a dam and even some kind of water-powered facility. 

Some time way back in the who-knows-when.

Interestingly, we found this 1924 date inscribed on this old wall.

That was exactly 100 years ago.

(Until this year, at which time, it has been 101 years ago!)

We noticed these nifty steps made from old tires and filled with dirt. (Amazing what can be made from tires and dirt!)

Then Danny noticed something else made from dirt.

There he was, pointing at something he had just discovered. 

I hadn't gone down there with the rest of them, but I was taking a few random pictures. And there were the three of the family looking and looking at something.

On the concrete wall near the dam were perhaps hundreds of swallow nests made of mud! It was just unbelievable.

Completely vacant this time of year, we could tell that come spring and summer, this place is going to be alive with a colony of swallows having found a spot to build their nests--safe from predators such as the foxes, coyotes, and porcupines prowling on the ground or in trees and from hawks and eagles soaring through the air--

like the eagle this morning swooping just past our house. 

I thought immediately of the little bookmark from my Bible that had been on the window sill earlier that month. 

"Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young--even Your altars, O Lord God of hosts. Blessed are those who dwell in your house."

I looked at those simple, yet not-so-simple mud nests. 

Even the swallows last year had found homes and nests of refuge for their families.

And are not You, O God, a place of refuge for me and my family--and all the families and children of those who fear You?

In these days of uncertainty, wars and rumors of wars, disasters, and evil,

may we abide near your altars--and find our home in You!

With Castaway Denim, Make Quilts

  My heart was in my fingertips a while ago--ready to type.

About quilts--these darling quilts (made by Nebraska friends of SIM, from discarded denim jeans)--

and disappointments--

and what to do when one's hopes are in pieces like those discarded jeans.

It seemed like maybe it wasn't the right time to type, though--when my heart was hurting so much,

reading a happy announcement from a sister

while watching one of my own children navigating a big disappointment.

 Definitely one of those times when I need to remind myself that comparisons are not healthy.

It's just that you can't help comparing.

And that is why a mother has to slip away from the keyboard and go to her God by the window. 

"I must not work out my disappointment by typing," I told myself, "but by turning to my God alone."

And so there I stood by my bedroom window, willing myself to rely not on my own little ways of coping, 

but on God alone.   

And that is when a beautiful thing happened. 

 Just as my eyes closed in a quiet surrender, I felt something warm on my lash-less eyelids. 

The sun had just come out from behind a cloud!

The sun had been behind clouds most of the last several days, and it was at the moment of surrender to God alone

that it came out from behind the clouds and shone

on a simple little South Dakota missionary mom standing by a bedroom window.

God Himself was reaching out to me with the warmth of the sunshine on my face

as I gave to God alone

all the denim pieces of our hearts.

What We Take for Granted--Such as Eyelashes

 I would take a picture of my eyes and my lack of eyebrows and eyelashes now--except that it looks so gloriously inglorious that I won't pain you. At least not now. 

Right now I'm a bit of a tuck-head.

Maybe when I wax ingloriously more brave and macho, I will post a picture of my eyebrow-less eyebrows

and eyelash-less eyelids.

For now, my ducks--and my eyelashes--are (as I read to my amusement recently) not in a row,

and I'm quite sure some of them are pigeons! :) :)

I realize over and over how at times I certainly took my health and a fairly normal body for granted.

Last evening when an eyelash (or was it an eyebrow?) suddenly found its landing place in my eye for no apparent reason, and then this morning when a tiny hot splash from a sizzling BBQ sauce hit my eyeball,

I realized anew how important it is to have intact eyebrows and eyelashes.

They're all made by God with creative purpose.

Had I been the creator, I would have missed all sorts of body parts, including lashes and brows. Just imagine what each human being would look like--or how long each would survive--had you or I been the creator! 

"If it had not been the Lord--" I read in Psalm 125 recently. 

Yes, if the Creator had not been God,

if the Commander of the ten commandments had not been God--

if the Counselor had not been God--

what a mess we would all be! (The above photo, by the way is from a couple months ago when I still had a little hair.) 

Jonathan was trying to fix my new watchband which was a little too big around my wrist.  

But he couldn't get the miniscule staple into the teeny, tiny hole where it belonged to attach the expanding band parts together.  

He and I tried and tried and tried--and we just couldn't see well enough or get the tiny staple to cooperate.
So many tiny things in our lives that become huge because they can't seem to be fixed. 

But then Danny arrived on scene.

Now Danny is not God, but he has very good eyes and an amazing gift with being able to figure things out and fix things--

and in a whipstitch--voila! The staple inserted where it belonged, and I had a new watch with an expanding band that fit!

When we take a moment to stop taking our bodies, health, eyebrows, eyelashes, watchbands, and many other things in life for granted, we will find reasons to be amazed with our Creator,

to be humble before our Commander,

to love those around us whom he has created and put in our lives,

and to give thanks to our wonderful Counselor Who has the best eyes in the world and can fix the biggest and even the smallest issues that we have.

 

When a Mom Finds She is Still Useful to Her Boys

 My sons are growing up--or maybe they are already grown. And it's as difficult to wrap my mind around that as it is to tie a ribbon that's much too short around a Christmas gift.

 

Having risen long before the dawn, Tim sends photos occasionally of his mornings. He sent this one of logs being loaded onto his truck before heading down the snowy or muddy mountain roads--hairpin curves and all.

He tells me of close calls, and I am glad he waits until the weather is better before telling me about sliding 200 feet before coming to a stop on slippery roads--or of another time seeing the back end of his trailer start to tilt as he maneuvers a hairpin curve. A wheel had gone off the edge of the road!

"I sped up fast," he said matter-of-factly. "Had it been a few inches closer, the trailer may have tipped and twisted, and I might have been 50 feet down the cliff."

Yeah. 

So what. 

His cab and trailer end up being about 56 or more feet long, and he is taking this rig around hairpin curves without guard rails in the middle of winter!

And I am thinking, "That's my son doing that!" 

True, he chains up all the time when it's snowy, but still!

The only way I know how to handle my anxiety is to gulp a prayer every day--and promptly let go of my son into God's hands and forget about it--

 because God is lots more capable of helping my son down snowy roads in the middle of January than I am!

Three days into truck driver training, Tim's instructor recognized Tim had a knack for the job. He told him that if he took the test that very day, he'd pass, but that was not in the winter!

I never taught Tim to drive a logging truck in the winter and have no idea how to help except to pray and let go. 

However, when the boys are here for Christmas, and the leg of Sam's jeans is attacked by some sharp corner of some part of the frame of the seat in the Honda, 

I am gratified when he brings the jeans to me. 

"Can you fix this for me?" he asks. 

And although I cannot drive a logging truck in the middle of winter down snowy roads, 

this mom of grown sons feels useful again.

Patterns of Grace--Even in Ice

Winter finally arrived in South Dakota.

This morning, before leaving for Sunday morning service, Danny was out in the skid steer scraping snow the best he could off the drive.

It keeps him from being bored on a  Sunday morning! Our Lakota Chapel cancelled service because of the snow and deep cold, especially since Pastor is not doing too well, waiting for surgery, so we opted to join the worshipers who braved the cold to attend at the Nazarene church.

My sister in Missouri sent pictures of the sheet of ice over everything in their area. I doubt anyone in their area dared to go to church. 

 Miniature icicles hung from an axe somewhere there in Missouri! 

And up here in South Dakota, frost decorated our garage windows.  

Unbelievable patterns emerge in the frost!

 Inside the warm house, amaryllis blooms are gracing our kitchen table and windowsill, complete with green leaves, red petals, and velvety yellow stamens.

But even the frost looks like some kind of feathery plants complete with stems and leaves! I couldn't get over the intricate patterns! Frost is cold and miserable, yet full of amazing pattern.

 

 Even when the cold brush of cancer or grief or loss paints our windows, the brush of God's providence and allowing is full of pattern--

t

patterns of grace. 

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness."  

The deep red beauty of the summer days of happiness is no more symmetrical than the feathery white frost of winter's chill and challenge. 

 

May we both seek and find strange and wild symmetry and beauty even in the frost of afflictions.

Christmas Eve Butchering and Other Projects

When Tim and Carrie arrived on Christmas Eve, we were ready to start butchering the deer that Danny had gotten a few days earlier and that had been hanging in the barn. Not our favorite Christmas project, but one that had to be done, and certainly before Christmas Day itself!

We got busy butchering to the tune of Carrie and Crystal practicing Christmas music for the evening service way back behind the tree. Thankfully a deer doesn't take as long as an elk, and we could have the last of the meat packaged and stowed in a couple hours.

It was fun showing Sam my newest book and for Tim to show Dad something on his phone.

It was even more fun to see a gift being built on Christmas Day--shelves for the office!

Yay!

Christmas afternoon, we went on a hike to the mini Badlands, as we call them, just a few miles away. 

It was so fun just doing something simple like this together with all the family--

including myself who managed to take part--rejoicing silently that I was well enough to bundle up and walk, too, and watch our children enjoying themselves. 

Christmas Egg in Evergreen

  It's not every day that I discover an egg right in the middle of my Christmas decor on my kitchen window sill!

I don't know how it got there or where it came from--other than from a chicken, of course. 

But there it sat, rather out of place, right in front of the little aspen nameplate with the name of Christ--the One Who chose to arrive, so out of place it must have seemed, on this earth from glory, like that egg in evergreen.

On days when I was feeling too tired and terrible from chemo side effects to keep working all afternoon, I read Christmas story after story in a gem of a book I have called Guideposts Christmas Treasury.

In that book, the stories run the gamut from stories about poor people who miraculously got a Christmas tree and gifts

to a story of an immigrant girl whose employer's family had so much more than they could ever need or want that she didn't know what to give as a gift for Christmas, so she found her way to the poorest section of town and bought and gave a baby gift for a very poor family and then gave a card to her employers telling them she had given a gift to a poor family's baby in their name, and it melted their hearts. 

Then there was the story of the family who decided they'd had enough of the frustrating fuss at Christmas time, and they were going to simplify and have a "sensible" Christmas. They decided to not include the annoying old aunt and uncle, only spend $1 on each other for gifts, and go out to eat on Christmas Day instead of slave all day making a feast.

They did so, but by afternoon on Christmas, the sensibleness fell apart and everyone realized that no one was happy at all with what they had done--or more honestly, had not done.

In making Christmas "sensible" to the point of being selfish, the family had lost the mysterious quality of that beautiful celebration that was meant to be a time of love and giving and sharing and receiving and joy and generosity-- 

 

Everyone took the blame, and the next Christmas, they poured their whole hearts into everything--including welcoming the same stodgy uncle and aunt whom they used to sort of despise, but who seemed extra easy to handle this time and who made a special sacrifice to provide a loving gift each year, something the children had never appreciated before.

 

This Christmas we found ways to simplify yet ways to celebrate generously with much love with almost all the family in.

It was a beautiful Christmas--remembering the greatest Gift of all--

Jesus Who came from Glory and nestled, like an out-of-place egg in evergreen,

in a manger, a stable, a miserable world 

that desperately needed a Savior,

and love,

and joy.