the sky

oh the moon these nights and in this picture, the morning.

I look for beauty in the sky as the world around turns brown and the darkness settles in…..

Fall, Autumn, the Season following Summer, preceding Winter

I am slightly envious of the many people who applaud the coming of Autumn or Fall as I seem to label it.  I wrote a post a few years ago bemoaning Fall with all the falling leaves and temperature.  But so many people love this time of year.  The colours, the cooler days and ????  Excuse me but what else is there.  And I am not all that excited about orange and brown or about being cold or even chilly.  Give me a good old sweat any day over shivering and having to layer until the bit of body shape I may have had is now one massive covering of woollies.

Truthfully, for this pessimist, the dread starts June 21, knowing the days are starting to get shorter.  I get over that for 6 weeks or so as I continue to enjoy the sunshine, the flowers, the grass, family times.  Then mid-August the feeling begins, a heaviness, a sadness.  By the beginning of September it is full-blown!  This year was somewhat improved over past Labour day weekends because the JD Salesman and I did an overnighter, checking out Writing-on-Stone provincial park.  But Labour day always reminds me of the treks across Saskatchewan, on into Manitoba to leave our friends, our becoming adult kids at college.  It broke our hearts every time we made that journey.  The memory of that dread still overwhelms me at times.

Then there is the leaving of the sun.  I have another memory of coming out the back door of the junior high building at Delburne.  The angle of the sun in the southern noon-hour sky is still vivid in my mind.  Fall was on the way.  Even then the heaviness started to settle in on me.

Okay, after all that whining and negativity you might think I may as well dig a cave and stay there until spring.  (never thought of that before!).  I don't like fall but I love life, the life we have here, the life with the bestest JD Salesman ever.  Well, I don't really care about the sales part but this Man is the Bestest!  We have three fantastic kids with their amazing spouses and now nine grandkids who all love us too.  So life is great.

And I have learned to cope.  My intake of vitamin D increases, I attempt to connect with people regularly, and the quilting projects take shape.  If I am in need of a 'fix' I drag out the pile of quilting books or the piles of fabric.  Sometimes that is as far as I get but often the piles of fabric become piles of strips, squares and rectangles.  And then, then the fun of sewing can begin.  The darker evenings are conducive to a cup of coffee and a good story in my favourite chair.

So, I shall more than survive another Fall.  I will be okay but I still envy those who enjoy this season of the year…...

It has been so long.  I don't know if I  remember how to blog.

I have been thinking, 'why did I quit?'  And I am really not sure.  Was it partly the busyness of last summer?  I got out of the habit?  I don't think anyone reads blogs anymore? ( but I read blogs!)

I know I stumbled upon a link of 'someone' who was checking out my blog.  I was not very happy of what I found and it probably frightened me.  This whole internet thing is a little creepy I guess!

Recently a couple of people asked if I still blogged and one especially encouraged me to continue.  So, I shall try again to share a little of what I am learning and some of what I am experiencing.  My life is ordinary but hey, most of us live ordinary lives don't we!

The photo was taken earlier in the summer on an evening when smoke filled the horizon.  A little eery and quite beautiful at the same time…..

the valley

Somewhere along the way I have come to look on Psalm 23 as scripture to be read at a funeral.  It is often printed on the back of a brochure, often read as the scripture.  For that reason I have come to think of the one who has died as the one walking through 'the valley of the shadow of death', the one who has found comfort in this Psalm.

While this is true, while many people find comfort in the knowledge of God being with them in that valley, I am seeing a different 'view' of the valley these days.

Over the last months, years, I have watched as family, friends, acquaintances grieve for their family, friends or acquaintances.  I watch as they walk deep into the 'valley of the shadow of death'.  They walk into that valley suddenly without any warning.  Or they may walk slowly with someone who slowly is overtaken in the valley.  But for the ones left here the valley goes on and on and on.....  It seems to have no end, it seems to become deeper, darker, more lonely as the days go by.

I watch from the upper bank.  I so want to throw down a rope, a ladder, build an elevator, do something to bring these ones I care about out of the valley.  I feel helpless, guilty for watching and not 'doing' anything, carrying on with my normal living.  I call out once in awhile trying to bring hope and encouragement.  I love them..... but what can I do.....

The Psalm continues: '...I will fear no evil for You are with me.  Your rod and your staff they comfort me...."

Ah.... they are not alone down there.  God IS with them.  And the rod and staff? not instruments of pain or rebuke but gentle, kind instruments for guiding, for pointing the right way, for hedging in and around all the valley's rocks and pitfalls.

One day, one day..... these friends will find a little more light penetrating the dark.  One day they will find the walls of the valley are not quite as high.  One day they will venture into a different pasture where there is green grass, where the waters are still, they will find a new normal.

In the meantime.... I ache for them, I ask God for them, I struggle to find words or ways to love them. I wait with them......

prenuptial agreement, cowboy style, old-time cowboy style!

These were the three conditions presented to the one he wanted to marry:

1.  I believe in tithing.  We have to agree to tithe what we know is God's.

2.  I can't be trusted with much money so I know we will never have a lot.  Our needs will be met but there won't be much extra.

3.  Don't try to talk me out of horses.

She didn't seem to have any problem with these conditions!  So, she agreed to marry this handsome cowboy from Youngstown.  That was well over 60 years ago.  I know they kept tithing.  (I only know because if that is what they said they would do they did it!).  It appears they never had a lot of money but they always had enough.  She never talked him out of the horse issue but after a tangle with a particularly ornery one he settled for quieter involvement that did not include having to break them.

When it became clear they would not be able to have their own children they began caring for others who did not have parents who could.  And now, these adult kids are there to help the parents who provided for them.

At one point when health issues started to arise, the doctor asked is he had ever had any serious injuries.  "No", was the reply.  "But I was dragged across the prairie behind a wagon one time.  Then there was the time a horse........  But no, nothing serious."  Yeah. Right.

Uncle and Auntie still live in their own home, home care helps as needed.  Auntie bakes bread and buns, makes all the meals, sews drapes and bags from leftover drape fabric.  (anyone who visits will probably take one home!)  Uncle loves a phone call once a week from the JD Salesman and also the company that stops from time to time.

Thanks for the example of commitment!  We love you!

from the JD salesman

My JD Salesman was asked to 'give a tribute to Jesus' at the Good Friday service.   Here it is:

"I feel I need to give a bit of an introduction so you will understand where I am coming from.  I was raised in a solid christian home with God fearing parents.  If the church was open, we were there.  I learned of God's love, protection and provision.  I thought I understood God fairly well but my God was pretty defined, predictable and therefore in a pretty small box.  I believed in heaven and hell and that salvation was through Christ's shed blood and His resurrection and my admission that I was a sinner and needed to accept Jesus as my Saviour and sin-forgiver.  I knew that God was in total control and that He designed everything both good and bad.

For the past dozen or so years God has been showing me how He was and is much bigger than my original concept of Him.  Just a couple of weeks ago we buried the daughter of very close friends, mother of a 2, 5 and 8 year old, loving wife to a young husband.  I was wrestling with how a loving God could either design her death or even allow her death.  On top of being very sad, I was troubled and somewhat confused, searching for answers, searching for truth.

 In our small group study that week we were studying in Luke, just happened to be on the Lord's prayer.  The phrase 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven..' was heavy.  Did God really will that Danielle die or did He just allow it?  The Lord showed me, through the comments of one of our  group, that either way the outcome was the same.  Danielle had died.  Did God design it or allow it,  it didn't really make any difference.  Karin often says that God is God and God is good.  I had been keeping God in a box, a much bigger box than before but still confined to what I could understand.  I am thankful that Jesus, through the Holy Spirit it showing me that God, our God, is bigger than any boundaries I could imagine.  He is limitless, huge and I am slowly realizing that God is God and God is good.  I don't need to understand the whys of the tough situations of life. and there is so much true freedom for me in that.

Isaiah 55: 8&9 'For my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways declares the Lord.  As the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.' "

and life goes on.....

As the 'unlikely group of people' met a week ago there was good discussion which came out of Luke 11, the "Lord's Prayer".  What does God allow, what does God plan or design for our lives. ( I was not all that pleased to realize how I hold on to my own 'ideas'!)

But near the end one quiet, gentle lady who has gone through sorrow, the like of which I know nothing about, spoke truth into the situation.  I write what I 'heard'.  It is not a direct quote!

She said that whatever we might believe about 'thy will be done', does God allow or design the situations we find in life does not change the outcome.  People get sick, they die, they have accidents.  But what we do with the outcome of these things in life is what will affect the remainder  of OUR lives.  She spoke of the 'size' of God and again I realized how small I see God to be.  I said in my last post that God is God and God is good but I don't think I really know what that means, I don't comprehend God. My God is too small, again.....

The encouragement that comes to me is the reality of God's love,  He does not condemn me for my lacking of understanding.  He loves me and shows me once again His goodness.  He knows I am frail but continues to gently teach me.  Such a safe place, this God of love and grace.

And when I doubt and wonder and question I come back to the reality of what God has done inside of me.  I am often blind to His involvement in the situations of life but I know the change He has made and continues to make inside me.  Then I come back again to trust and faith in a God who is good.

For Danielle's family life must find a new normal.  And we ask God for grace and strength for them  to do life well as they grieve and live.