Coming To Terms

I was a vegetarian for a short period of time during my college years. Instead of thinking I had gone off the deep end, my sweet mother experimented with tofu and veggies and we still make some of the dishes discovered in those days.

Then I met Travis, and well...let's just say it never would have worked for him to have married a vegetarian. I willingly began to eat meat again, but I had come to terms with the fact that an animal has to die for me to gain that nourishment.

That was an important step for me. The Lord knew I would be bearing many sons who,like their father, would embrace the outdoor world in all its capacities: hunting, fishing, trapping, crabbing...Imagine if I had never come to terms with what has to happen when I choose to eat a hamburger!

It's interesting how the same people who will sit and eat a steak will think it's wrong to hunt. An animal still has to die to provide that steak...and I have accepted that.

Coming to terms with raising my own animals for food has taken that acceptance to a whole new level. Chestnut, Penny's calf, was born a year and a half ago. I knew when he was born that we would be raising him for food. But I still found myself thinking that I would not be able to eat the meat that his life afforded.

Even a week ago, as I drove to pick up hundreds of pounds of beef to fill our freezer, I didn't think I would be able to eat that meat. Then Oliver said something to me that changed my whole perception. "Mom," he said, "The people who say we shouldn't eat meat aren't thinkning right, because God provided animals for us to feed us and give us protein. It says that right in the Bible."

Gulp. yes....God did do that. Suddenly I realized that I needed to be filled with thanksgiving, not hesitation, for what God has generously provided for us! I am not making a statement against vegetarianism; rather I am reaffirming the rightness and goodness of allowing God to provide for my family.

There is a profound thanks and appreciation that comes from nurturing and sustaining that which God provides. Whether it is the tomato swelling ripe in the garden, or the calf nursing in the pasture,it is evident that God has given us a share in his Dominion (ref Genesis 1:26), a part in his creative process.

Not all of us can raise our own animals (or would want to), and many of us can't even have our own gardens. However, we can still acknowledge God as the provider of all and thank Him for allowing us to take part in nourishing the very food that sustains our existence.

What Mama Decided

Naked toes curl in the ooze of mud, fists clench berries all dripping with ripeness and swell a little boy's head with notions of a steaming pie....

Another boy is a hunter; he is serious. He will feed the family with the new skill he is acquiring, and young girls are intent on cramming baskets with Summer's bounty....

A mama walks behind, slow...and thoughtfully taking it all in, drinking mirth and delight of childhood..heart filled with the meanderings of her own mind...

And this time...This time she's thinking about labels...
How labels are good for cans, and appropriate for tags on clothes, and perfect for identifying animals and plants and such...
Yes, labels identify; they tell us exactly what we're getting. I know that when I open a can labeled "dog food," I will not find tomatoes inside (hopefully!)
I know that when I order a size "small" dress in the mail, I will not get a size "extra large."
So labels can be a good thing....for things.
Labels are not helpful for people.

He's lazy. She's dumb. They are ignorant. I'm fat. He's a troublemaker. On and on it goes...until we stuff people in cans, like a bunch of sardines, and slap a sticker on them. We all do it. It's part of human nature to want to define and categorize others by appearances or even actions:

"But the LORD said to Samuel, 'Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.' " (Samuel 16:7)

Isn't it good to know that God doesn't label us? And if He doesn't label us, why do we insist on labeling others? When we label others, we cannot see the richness and depth of who they truly are; we do not see them with dignity, as beloved creatures made in the image and likeness of God. When we label others, we are actually refusing to see others as God does...with eyes of love.

I've had it with labels...
It's time to stop using them for people and keep them on cans and dress tags....where they belong!!!



That's what the mama decided on that walk...
and that thought made her heart happy.

Rain





Rain comes down relentless, and it's raining inside too. It is early morning, and I am already feeling overwhelmed.
"Lord," I pray "Help me make it through this day..."

I am retreating in my room, and I fumble for words as I stare blankly at the rain coming down. Just flowing and emptying out.
The prayer doesn't come. I am mesmerized by water sheeting across fields.

"Lord, please hear my unformed prayer. You know just what I need."
It is a simple prayer, but one that resonates. He fashions and shapes all; He can take the unformed prayer and form it to perfection.

I keep watching the rain. It is belting, billowing, weeping wildly a deluge. As I keep this rain vigil, the water begins to take shape.  I start to see individual raindrops as they make their way to the earth. Each little droplet has to fall separately from the sky, making its way in unison with all the other single droplets plunging.

"That's what it's like some days," I think. "There are days when I feel every drop of rain hitting individually. Every disappointment, every failing- another drop stinging as it hits my face. And all the drops pool and puddle until they spill over."

I gaze longer, still ruminating.

"But it's the rain that renews the earth, the rain that causes life to flourish. God sends the rain to replenish. And the rain is made up of single drops. All the hardships and frustrations I experience in my life are the droplets bringing life, carrying me closer to God."

It seems that the shapeless prayer of a helpless child has been heard, bearing encouragement and consolation. I leave my room, back to the battle ground. Later in the day I read the fitting words from a devotional:

"Passionate attachment to Jesus, in spite of our human failings, is what pleases the Father most. Whether or not we do the right things, whether or not we keep our promises, is not as important as our attitudes and our willingness to turn to God for forgiveness each time we sin. We may see only our unbelief and failings, but Jesus sees the desires of our hearts."

Let us have faith, then,  that the rain of life will renew our souls as we seek to find God in heavenly showers.

Just A Year Ago

A little boy creates, and I give thanks for curled toes tucked under legs.

It was one year ago that Oliver was slipping from us. His body was shutting down, for no apparent reason, and no-one knew what was happening. A vibrant mischievous boy was convulsing so hard, he was induced into a coma and airlifted to a hospital  miles away. He spent three weeks in the ICU, and when he was finally healed, the doctors still didn't know what exactly happened.  A virus? An undiagnosed disease? A mystery.

When Oliver first woke up from his induced coma, he was a different child. He was angry and belligerent, which is not the Oliver we know and love. His memory was foggy and I was scared. My math wizard, my inquisitive boy, could no longer even write or hold a pencil. I was assured that it was all normal, but it wasn't normal for me. To see his sweet face and hug his precious body was amazing, but to not feel his spirit, his life-  was terrifying. What if he doesn't come back. Where is he? Will he ever be the same?

We didn't have time to entertain worries. We were still fighting for his survival. His blood pressure started skyrocketing for no apparent reason, and medicine was not controlling it. At first his kidneys were not functioning, but then he started developing a strange rash. Questionable findings on his brain showed up on the MRIs. Everyday brought new and frightening developments.

Miraculously, and I do credit the multitude of prayers and heavenly mercy, Oliver was healed. He took high doses of steroids for months, which posed their own problems, but a year later...he is back to our Oliver.

Praise God!

He gets thrilled over a drawing kit that comes in the mail, like I've given him a hundred dollars to spend how he pleases. He dives in right away and draws an impressive still life.

Just Yesterday he had gone to the woods by himself to plant a pine sapling "to use for a bookend in my room." Then he decided that it needed more sun than his room could afford and brought it to the dining room.

I am filled with gratitude for his healing in body and spirit. When he was sick I promised that if he ever got well, I would never take his sweet spirit for granted. A promise made by a scared mama, desperate for his life and thinking that my ingratitude had something to do with it all.

The reality is that such a promise can't be kept. I can remind myself of how grateful I need to be,and  I know how Oliver truly blesses us with his presence. But gratitude doesn't operate in a vacum.

Nerves fray, children annoy, life grates, and living isn't all peace and love because we are human. We  think if we're not one hundred percent grateful, then we are not thankful people. The fact is, it is precisely the niggling of life that makes way for gratitude. We give thanks in the midst of all the mess- the spiritual mess we stew in day after day.

I would like to be able to say that after Oliver got well I never felt annoyed with him again. I do have a greater apprecitaion for not taking my children for granted, but it is shameful how easily I slip into old habits- my spiritual slippers, worn out and floppy.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts. She does such a lovely job of showing how to give thanks in the most seemingly mundane aspects of life. And this thanks, gratitude for the smallest graces, is life transforming.

I Have kept a "gratitude journal" for years and years now, but Ann's book has taught me how it is important to record even the smallest thanks in our lives. For example, yesterday I was stuck behind a school bus dropping off a load of children. A father was waiting expectantly at the bus stop for his children to get off of the bus. The children descended from the bus and ran to embrace their father. That incident went into my journal.

Ann has shown me how gratitude journals aren't about just what we experience and what happens to me individually. All instances of God's grace and beauty are cause for rejoicing.

Life isn't always beautiful, but a thankful attitude towards life, towards the smallest mercies unfolded can make life beautiful in a way that heals and restores our souls.

What It Really Means To Be Free

I was tempted to start another blog yesterday, but I didn't give in to the urge. I've gone that route before, and it's too hard to try and compartmentalize my life, when what is on this blog should represent a whole, all of me. Lately I have been "foraging" for greens and such to accompany our meals. I thought I would start a blog about forage finds, but then I decided that I would just make a foraging label on this blog!

Anyhow, I went out to the stubble of last year's garden and was pleasantly surprised to find some Arugula poking up through the brush. There wasn't much, but enough to make a small salad....in February, no less!

Earlier I had ground some wheat kernels to make our daily bread, and I had the venison from Autumn's hunt, thawing in a bowl. I was inspired to take a picture of this bountiful trio. I find there is so much beauty, so much art in the daily living of life.

A little later I was making tea from the mint gathered in Summer's ebb. How generous is a God that lavishes us with herbs and spices to perfume our days.

Isn't that what life needs to be? We need to find the green in winter's bleak, know the mirth of starkness and vulnerability.

I mentioned in a previous post that I was reading  Lysa TerKeurst's book, Made To Crave. One of the Bible verses Lysa mentions throughout the book is this:

 " 'Everything is permissible for me' "--but not everything is beneficial. " 'Everything is permissible for me' "--but I will not be mastered by anything. (1Corinthians 6:12)


I have thought a lot about that verse lately, and I experienced the weight, the empowerment, the freedom of it - this morning. I was preparing pancakes for the children, and I was just dying to have one. OK, two..maybe three? Small ones? I thought- "I'll just have them without the syrup...it's fine. They're so warm and fluffy- and cooked in bacon grease to boot."

Now I like pancakes, but I don't die for them; I mean they're good, but they're not GOOD! But isn't it funny how the moment we feel deprived of something, we long for it- pine for it!?

I found this in our computer's photo library...fits the post, huh? Emily took it one day when she and mary Margaret were having a "photo shoot."

 I wanted those pancakes in the worst way! I have been praying for God to help me make better food choices, and in the midst of pancakes and syrup I had a grace moment. I thought of the verse mentioned above, and it suddenly dawned on me :  I am not being deprived of these pancakes. I am making the choice to forgo pancakes and make a healthier breakfast choice to benefit and sustain my body until the next meal.

Making choices is not about deprivation. Making choices is empowerment. God has given us free will to make decisions that will fortify and edify our souls.

Can a simple act of choosing whether or not to have pancakes for breakfast be a spiritual decision? As Lysa explains so eloquently in her book...YES!!!

Every moment is made of choices, Every hour is made of moments, Every day is made of hours, every year is made of days, every life is made of years.....Every lifetime is built upon the choices we make, moment to moment.

I have wondered " How in the world did these pounds creep up on me the last ten years?" Creep is the right word. Think about it: If you only gained three pounds a year, ten years later you would be thirty pounds heavier. Three pounds a year averages out to only be 1/4 pound a month, but ten years later you're thirty pounds heavier. This scares me! But what it tells me is that gaining weight doesn't happen all at once; it's an accumulation of moment to moment poor choices and bad habits over a long period of time. Conversely, losing weight will be a matter of making good choices over and over, moment to moment- for a long period of time, for a lifetime!



Sam's Leggo creation


Jean- Pierre De Caussade, in his book, Abandonment To Divine Providence, writes:

"Take away from the senses what they worship and they will weep like deserted children, but faith must triumph, for nothing can destroy the will of God. When the senses are really attacked, starved and stripped they collapse, and faith becomes stronger and more alive than ever." (p41)

Isn't that so true? Our senses, our cravings, plead sometimes to be satisfied. It may be wanting to buy something, or physical lust, or unsatiated appetites for food. Even more serious addicitons: alcohol, drugs, pornography-  all have the same root. All these temptations and addictions are attractive to us because they promise to fill a longing deep within our souls. The sadness, the irony, is that none will.

The only way to satisfy our souls is to drink from the living well, to satiate with God.

Caussade writes:

"Neither reason nor the senses are ever satisfied, for they never see the sufficiency of grace. To hallow the name of God is, according to the scriptures, to recognize his holiness and to love and adore it in all things which proceed like words from the mouth of God. For what God creates each moment is a divine thought which is expressed by a thing, and so all these things are so many names and words through which He makes known His wishes." (p.51)

It's not that choosing whether or not to eat pancakes determines a person's spirituality. But if God cares about our lives (which He does!), and our lives are made up of moments, and moments are made up of choices, then God must care about the smallest choices, the most seemingly inconsequential decisions we make every moment!

We could be overwhelmed by the weight of having to make good choices all the time- but that would be missing the point. The beauty of having small count, is that every moment is anew. Every poor choice is passing, and there is a good choice right now, in the present moment. Every moment you are given the freedom to choose God.

Freedom.

One of our priests was speaking about freedom (in his wonderful Scottish accent), and he gave us a life illustration to explain how God's commands, His boundaries actually give us freedom. He said:

There were two men going to a football game in different cars. Neither of the men knew the way to the stadium. One of the men was given directions on how to get to the stadium. The other man was given no directions to the stadium, but he could drive around wherever he wanted.. Which of the men was more free to choose whether or not to go to the game?

Obviously, the man who knew the way was more free to choose whether or not he would go. In the same way, God's boundaries, His will for us enables us to have unsurpassed freedom and joy in our lives.

God's will for us is to live in freedom:
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." (Galations 5:1)

 
"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." (2 Corinthains 3:17)
 
 
"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:32)
 

"In him [Christ] and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. "
(Ephesians 3:12)

My prayer for you today, my prayer for all of us, is that through the difficult choices we must make each moment we sense God's abundant grace leading us to freedom and life in Christ.

"Our only satisfaction must be to live in the present moment as if there were nothing to expect beyond it."
(Jean-Pierre De Caussade)

Her Pink Shoes

"Everyone needs to get in the car NOW!!" I am screaming once again from the kitchen. Always in a hurry, always running late, the bustle and hustle of a frenzied family- trying to do lessons, exercise, go to practices-all these luxuries that fill and overflow our days, sometimes to the point of breaking.

"Does Anna have socks and shoes on, Emily?"
"Um...yes. She has socks and shoes on..."
"Well, please bring her out to the car, then!"

I get a quick glimpse of Anna and I am jolted-yes jolted out of this fumbling moment. Little girl, stands so proud in her shorts, arms stuffed with clothes, pink shoes and bold socks speak confidence. What makes me grab my camera in a moment that might have normally set me fussing again?

In that moment, I see what most of us adults lack: self confidence. The ability to me who I am in the face of all that is not me. Every day, in so many ways, I know why the Lord tells us to become like children!

He tells us :

"And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." (Romans 12:2)

The droplets of water, settling on a limb, they seek to conform...but in pulling forth, in moving on, in not conforming, they become beautiful.

Why is it that we teach our children to conform in so many damaging ways, and then we're surprised that they do not think on their own, express their feelings, come up with new ideas?

I walked on this icy morning, and I thought about Conformity. There is a healthy and helpful conformity that binds people together. We cannot just all go about doing and saying whatever we want. That is not the conformity that Paul speaks of. He is speaking against the dangerous conformity that lures our hearts and minds away from the will of God.

So if not conform, then what?

"Be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

We need to renew...RE-NEW, make new over and over, our minds- every day, every moment. We must take time to read God's word, pray, meditate, keep still and quiet..and feel our minds being transformed.

And this transformation? Why? So that we can:

"prove what the will of God is."

By NOT conforming to this world, by renewing our minds and hearts, we become A testimony to others of WHO GOD IS.

When we say "No!" to the world, when we choose not to conform in ways that are harmful to the dignity of life, when we make the choice to do the right thing at the cost of rejection, we become an instrument of God.

It's so difficult, and I fail in so many ways, every day, but that's why we have to continually be renewed...for the strength to make good choices.

I think one of the reasons I find nature so healing, is because of what it teaches me about God.

All nature conforms perfectly with the will of God precisely through its nonconformity. All nature speaks of the symmetry and perfection of a loving creator who molded each droplet, chiseled every crystal, curled each leaf into a manifesto of exquisite nonconformity.

All the details of a landscape, their differences orchestrated into one grand masterpiece, reveal that nonconformity, in the hands of a loving father, conforms to perfection.

And we, in our nonconformity, and through the renewing of our minds, can be brought to perfection in Christ who has deemed us His greatest masterpiece.

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.

~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I come home from my walk, mind renewed, to a small girl shivering, wanting Mama. I see pink boots on huddled legs, and hope that one day I can be like that little girl.