a table called faithful.

on my way to the feed store, i delightfully stumbled upon a garage sale. a real one! not one of those antique stores mascaraing as a garage sale, chuck full of overpriced sentimentality. but a real nickel and dime garage sale. with beautiful, old smelly books and boxes of aged wonders.

she said it was all her dad's old stuff, from a time long before hers. most of it from his old barn. it didn't suit her house anymore, she was going for more of a nautical theme.

i bought a dresser, an apple box, seven baskets, a whole box of salt and pepper shakers, a trunk, three pictures, an old window, a framed barn shingle, an antique hand warmer and an ink well for, wait for it... $80! i had overestimated the amount of car space my unexpected visit had demanded but squeezed every last trinket in with barely enough room to shift. and then i saw something i couldn't forget. not even after i pulled out of the driveway, not while i shopped at walmart and picked up the feed.

and so, i was forced to go back, with my fingers crossed that it hadn't been sold. and there it was, sitting at the back of their garage with a piece of green painters tape with $100 written on it. way out of our imaginary garage sale budget and against my garage sale code of ethics of never spending more than $50 on any piece for sale in someone's driveway. but it was absolutely extraordinary. it was nicked and dented, coffee cup stained and paint splattered, burn marks and a HUGE hole right in the middle. it was a table. a table that hadn't been manufactured or artificially distressed. it was purely a product of a long, unlavished life. i couldn't make a table like that any other way.

i bought it. i had to make an extra trip to pick it up, with seriously lacking space from my first visit. and on my way home from picking up my prized treasure, i was trying to justify the cost in my head to steve. and i was going over how you can't buy this kind of aged perfection in a store. think of all the things this table has seen and lived through. it's not a fake. it's just so real. and then it came to me. i'll name it faithful. a table called faithful.

because even through all the bumps and banging of life, it stayed together. it just reminded me so much of God's faithfulness. just an ever present unyielding. it never disintegrated. it's legs stood solid. it has a huge hole in them middle but never mind that. more than that... it's absolutely, exquisitely beautiful and completely unreproducible. that table holds a story that only that table lived. a product of time tested over and over again.

and so this table has become a remembrance alter to the Lord's faithfulness. He is and has and ever will be faithful, ever true. ol' faithful now sits in our entry way and everyone notices it. a living piece testifying, reminding, proving.

may the story of the Father's faithfulness to me be written on every door posts we have.  

the power of a smile.

i grew up in a small, countryside high school. only 84 students. most of whom had evolved together since the kinder years.

somewhere between the kinder years and my high school years, i lost my smile. i can't remember the exact moment i misplaced it. i don't even remember knowing it was missing for so many of those years until our little, intimate high school got a new principal. mr. tim taylor was his name.

he was different. he noticed me.  he saw me and he peeled me out of the wallpaper.

he won me with a smile was all. i remember the day. i had to hand in a form in the office. i shuffled it across the secretary's desk, avoiding all eye contact and turning quickly to disappear. but he looked right at me and said, 'where's your smile? the world's not all that bad, is it?" i awkwardly forced a half-hearted smirk and left. he had no idea the weight of world i was carrying but somehow he made it just a little bit lighter, even if it was awkward.

the next time i passed him in the hall, he stopped me and asked me where that smile had gone again. i smiled a little bigger this time. and a very strange feeling began on the inside. like warm camomile tea welling up from deep down. i can't really describe it, even all these years later. maybe it was relief. maybe it was hope, that the world wasn't all that bad after all? hope invincible. hope undeterred. i let it rise up from some indestructible force inside and my countenance changes. i let it radiate out my eyes and i am saved all over again.

i still get that feeling. whenever things get really bad, and my soul dips low. when i'm feeling blackened and bruised inside from ugly confrontations or perceived rejection, i'll find myself in some public place, at the gas station or grocery store, i swallow my need to wallow and instead put on the biggest smile i can find. i smile so big that it's almost inappropriate, not at all paying homage to whatever carnage i've just come from. i joke with the cashier about something or am eager to help someone with kindness. and they look me in the eye and smile back big. it's then i find my smile muscles haven't atrophied and as long as i can still find that light hearted, humour-filled smile, then i'm going to be ok. and my face assures my soul, i'm going to make it after all. :)

that mr. taylor, who i will never get the chance to properly thank, made me a cope-er. a heels dug in, roots down deep hope-er. he helped me find my smile and that smile, has saved me over and over again. he helped me turn my insular world outward. helped me focus on something other than myself. and for that, i am ever grateful. ever cheerful.

"a cheerful look brings joy to the heart." 

{proverbs 15:30}

"be joyful in hope, patient in affliction." 

{romans 12:12}

guardian dog & guardian gates

indiana joan is our new livestock guardian. i guess, more like potential livestock guardian as she is only six-weeks old. that might seem a little young to be leaving mama yet, but that's what is typically suggested for working dogs to bond with their protectorate.

her upbringing will be so very different than any other dogs we've own before. she is a working dog.  her primary purpose is to fiercely guard both the property, our family & all of our livestock ranging from the tiniest chick to our two-thousand pound horse.  she is nocturnal and will take down anything from a rat to a bear to a person with bad intentions. as such we have to treat her differently right from the start. she never comes into the house & will never leave the property. she is not my running partner & will not be joining us on long horse back rides. we have to teach her where home is and what the boundaries look like so we don't encourage wandering but rather a very loyal homebody. from day one, she sleeps out with the livestock not her friends. any posturing, pestering or playing with us or the livestock is strictly discouraged. she is to ignore the livestock completely. she can never become too over familiar with what she is protecting, or she will end up killing it.

as i have been studying this new world of bringing up a world class guardian, it has got me thinking about my guardianship. little things that i have let within my boundaries. postured and played with negativity & selfish indulgence, gotten way too familiar with complaining and bitter diatribes. i've let little mice & seemingly small vermin scamper in, simply because no alarm was raised about them being in my garden. maybe because those little rascals have burrowed deep down into lots of gardens & didn't seem that out of place. in fact, they're commonplace & they've opened the gate to bigger uglier pretators without me even noticing.

in order to be a good guardian, indie has to know what belongs to us & what does not. what she's responsible for & what animals are intruders. she primarily learns this by exposure to what belongs to the farm, the spirit & the smell of it. she has to know what she's for, before she can know what she's against.

i know i have fought hard for my revelation of faith & confession but i suddenly find myself having become too over familiar with such prize processions, not valued their guardian qualities as i should have. gotten lazy about my borders and my mouth has become like an unguarded, overflowing gate. and i can feel it. after a not so uplifting conversation or after i've allowed my mind to wander negatively into something, i feel all slimy. like i was promised one thing & then was robbed when i wasn't looking. all those negative thoughts, promising to make me feel better. promising justice & then stealing my peace. my faith. my joy.

big paws to grow into

i want to take my guardianship seriously. know my gates & borders well. not leaving my post or becoming relaxed no matter the context. no sleeping on the job. for i'm sure we all know how hard we've fought for the gems we now hold and not worth sacrificing to old-run-of-the-mill apathy of in the time of peace.

indie's paws are huge even though she is currently quite small. but she will grow into them & her working role & so will i.      

the gospel mean and wild.

"it is by warfare the soul makes progress." 

{abba john the dwarf}

"it is the essence of the sin of the garden to re-imagine God as the mythical tolerant god." 

{dean waldt}

the more my kids develop as individuals, the less useful i find gospel presentation. those cute little Bible board books & flannel graphs, although have their place, have become increasingly limited in their redeeming power as my kids age. more and more i find my fingers scrambling for tools of gospel application. time for them to meet the real person. the real power and truth. Jesus.

"it is a spiritual gift from God for man to perceive his sin."

{st. isaac of syria}

with a constant tornado of evolving carnality needing to be diffused, i find myself ill equipped in really digging to the eye of the storm or the root of the problem. they were born in a clump. and their issues seem to clump and interweave and feed each other so you don't know when one ends and the other starts. sibling grappling, truth spinning, boisterously brilliant self-expression, they keep me on my toes. instead of the clear communication of "no" to their brother, they catapult their message from the banisher high dive landing their feelings in a graceful bellyflop on top of their unsuspecting sibling. instead of coming clean right away with the truth that they had indeed pinched their sister's bottom to get a reaction, they spin an elaborate story about how their fingers, possessed with injustice, took it upon themselves to sheriff the situation and how they really had no control at all in making them stop.  they have creatively re-invented discipline into discipleship for me. taken the words punishment & penalty from me and inserted equipping but costly consequential life, learning. i am not raising mindless lemmings and my goal is not obedience.  it's to know Jesus. uncut, unedited and in full. Jesus redeemer & rule breaker. Jesus, the untamable God.  

" on the whole, i do not find christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so blithely invoke? or, as i suspect, does no one believe a word of it?" 

{anne dillard}

"woe to the person who smoothly, flirtatiously, commandingly, convincingly preaches some soft, sweet something which is supposed to be christianity!"

 {soren kierkegaard}

i don't just want to keep my kids in line or keep them from making mistakes & spilling milk. kid's are professional mistake makers and this is how they learn. i want to be more about the motivation and less about the don'ts. more about that complicated but tremendous muscle, the heart. less about the surface observation of improper behaviour. but this is a tall, tall task, one with no match to it's intensity. until i realized, Jesus is not some passive meek person. He was kind and good but He was also dangerous & unpredictable. our christian culture has emasculated Him. watered Him down to some trickling brook not the earth trembling, tsunami that He is.

"at first i thought, it's ok. nothing bad is going to happen. a few seconds later the wave hit the road, and i thought, now i die." 

{tiina seppanen, tsunami survivor}

maybe it is just the beginning of summer transition. maybe it is just their combined ages, i'll never know.  but i have found myself upping the anti around here. instead of a sweet, sensible talk about lying being unkind, i find myself intensely describing that lying is like playing for the other team. satan's team. it's dressing in clothes that are not God's and it's helping the other team score a goal. so which jersey are you going to wear, which team are you playing for? or instead of a repeated discussion about the choices we have been making, the story of one of the wilkins' infamous uncles who could not abide within the parameters of the reasonable law & always had to have it his way, and decided he just did not want to get along with anybody and he now spends his days a small cage called prison, with no friends or fellowship, gross food and no choices left to make because they had all been taken away from him. do you want to follow him? and when i look into their saucer-sized eyes, i can see it. i can see the gospel being worked into their consciousness & growing into conviction. and although this may seem a bit much to an outsider looking in, it is the yeast getting worked into the dough. it is the kingdom becoming beautiful revelation to them.

"we are fonder of consolations than we are the cross."

 {teresa of avila}

and sometimes the kingdom does come with the whisper of a prayer or the cuddle of comforting psalm but sometimes it also comes with a crashing confronting force. you cannot have one without the other. He is not a cuddly, soft blanket anymore than He is a raging wild fire here to consume it all. He is equipping just as much as He is demanding. He is more than our fluffy board books. more than our sing-songs. more than we can imagine. and i don't want to forget that, as parent or as their sister in Christ, who is only two tiny steps ahead of them on this journey of sanctification.

this is the beginning of the good news of Jesus.
this is the gospel mean and wild.

the blind will see, the lost is found {part 3}

it is true that everything always looks better in the morning. especially once one realizes they haven't permanently lost their sight. God took pity on me and the blister had disappeared but so had the goat. for good it seemed.

not a footprint. not a broken branch. no indication of where she had roamed off to, steve canvased the neighbourhood by four-wheeler. all. day. long. one neighbourly farmer, in particular snickering at my dedicated husband's perseverance.
"she's gone for good i tell ya! she's dead! there's no way she made it through the night!" he taunted only to be followed up a few hours later by an inquisitive text asking if we had found her yet.

and then we got our lucky break. as dusk was quickly settling on the open miles upon miles of back fields, steve's eye caught sight of that sorry goat's rump foraging in the far back corner of a corn field, on the very edge of a trepadacious wilderness. we flew at his beckon to help corral her. he had her backed against an old cedar rail fence that separated the farmer's field from the deep & impending ravine. thickets of fierce shrubbery & prickly vines swelled & swayed against the fence, surely discouraging anyone's passage through. i silently climbed the fence further down, parting the wilderness with my hands, to block the back way out just as insurance to her capture.

mom & steve slowly inched towards the now shaking fugitive, talking sweetly so as not to alarm her. we had found her, we all smiled. we could see her with our very eyes and were inches from touching her. suddenly, she took flight over the fence & the thick shrubbery swallowed her up as she came crashing through other side of the bush towards me. i fought hard to swim through the raspberry thicket that entrapped me, missing her completely as she bounded down the ravine, cannonballing into a swamp ditch with a enormous splash.

my heart now thudding in my chest, i knew i could trap her in there. the ravine turned into more of a deep, steep ditch that streamed slowly out to the main road. i could hear steve now position the car on the road waiting for the moment she would emerge if i could push her forward. the steep banks and bramble hid my hovering presence as i followed the wet jingle of her bell closer and closer to the road until i tripped on a rock and fell with a thud and she stopped dead. i had given myself away. i cautiously peaked over the bank and she looked straight at me and i knew in that very moment i was going to have to pull off that move from swiss family robinson where they wrestle the snake in the river. i poised and catapulted my body hard over the bank, belly flopping flat out in green swamp just inches from that dreadful goat. i scrambled and she scrambled up the other bank, getting snagged & cut by every kind of branch and bramble imaginable. she momentarily snagged her collar on a low hanging cedar and i desperately clawed through the mud & vines, grabbing her by her back leg just as she cut herself free from the cedar and bounded over the fence and far away, her bell angrily jingling all the way off into the maze of corn fields. it was dark now and the mosquitos were thick and swarming. i dared open my mouth, although my legs had become an open feasting ground. wild celery stalks grew taller than my head, flapping in my face as i scampered fast enough to not lose the sound of that bell. i tried not to think of the consequences.

i ran hard and fast, starting to panic that i was alone now in the deep darkness and wouldn't be able to find my way back until i stumbled into the neighbours cow field. their three teenage sons had now joined the search party with their four-wheelers ripping it up which rightfully frightened the cattle who would stampede from one end of the field to the other without warning. i felt like i was living some impossible video game, except without the superpowers. soon i had lost the sound of her bell and i felt sick to my stomach again at the thought that our farmer friend might be right.

just as i was losing hope, i stumbled across a fresh trail where the wet dewyness of the grass had clearly been disturbed. all those episodes of mantracker came fresh to my memory. i followed the trail sprinting with renewed spirit, zig zagging this way and that. i was so focussed on following the trail that i forgot to look up and ran straight into the butt end of the most enormous, very white tailed deer. the deer bounced off indignitly and i, in complete & utter shock, clutched my chest and fell to the ground crying uncontrollably, letting the mosquitos have their way.

nothing but the sound of coyote howls, calling for her, filled the moon-lit cold air.
we were never going to find her and i knew it. i briefly weighed up the horrid pros and cons of shooting her. and decided against it. and picked myself up off the ground and started to make my long trek back.

as irate as i was at that goat, the nothingness of having lost something so beautiful and so treasured filled my chest with tightness. i would never have another like her. and the fear in her brown bulging eyes bothered me. i had chased her right into the wild wilderness that would take her life & i would never see her again.

once i made it back to our neighbours house, now lit up like a fortress, i realized how close she had come to home. what a dark tragedy, i thought to myself. to come so close to home and paralysed with fear, turn the other way, walking straight into the mouth of her real enemy.

i couldn't give up on her. my heart just had to have hope that she would come back to us by some miraculous circumstance. i couldn't bare surrender to the alternative. with the teenage boys still ripping around on their machines, their parents assured us that they were having so much fun, although their skill & technique in goat herding was questionable, we said goodnight and with our head hanging low went home to bed.

'Father, is there any way to get her back?,' i prayed as i closed my eyes. i know she's just a goat but He reminded me of a song i used to sing to our kids. it goes a little something like this...

Say you had a hundred sheep 
and one little lamb got lost 
in the dark, in the cold, far away from the fold 
What would you do? 
What would you do? 

You’d say go get the lost one 
And leave the ninety-nine 
That little lamb is lost 
And that little lamb is mine 
Bring it home on your shoulders 
And call up all your friends 

Rejoice with me, I’ve got my little lamb again. 
Rejoice with me, I’ve got my little lamb again. 

Say you had ten silver coins 
And one silver coin got lost 
Your treasure, your wealth 
In the cracks, in the filth 
What would you do? 
What would you do? 

You’d say go get the lost one 
Turn the house upside down 
That silver coin was lost 
And that silver coin is found 
Light the lamp, sweep the ground 
Then call up all your friends 
Rejoice with me, I’ve got my silver coin again. 
Rejoice with me, I’ve got my silver coin again. 

If God had a child 
Who wandered far astray 
Who was sad, broken hearted, whose guilt kept him away 
What would He do? 
What would He do? 

He’d say, go get the lost one 
He’s who I came to see. 
He thought he was an orphan 
But he’s coming home with me. 
The angels are rejoicing. 
The sinner is my friend. 
Rejoice with me, my child is coming home again. 
The angels are rejoicing. 
The sinner is my friend. 
Rejoice with me, my child is coming home again.

how beautiful a picture of God's love for us. that He would give it all up to find His treasure, His beloved, you and me. to come and find us in the cold, in the cracks, in the filth. to save us from the jaws of death that we so eagerly toddle towards. He snatched us out of a life full of frightened frailty, wandering through the wilderness, belonging to no one and nothing & He washes our shame & guilt far away, soothes our wounds from the wild and embraces us with arms open wide as His very own child. that, my friends, is Love. that an orphan would be called a beloved daughter.

soon after i fell asleep, with the grips of hope still clutched tight in my hand, we were awoken my a late night phone call that the boys had safely captured her and had carried her back to their barn on their shoulders. they had bedded her down and other than exhaustion, she was absolutely fine & we could come and get her in the morning.

and i leapt out of a dead sleep, in those last few minutes before midnight, and danced in delirious delight on our bed! my body torn and tired, i slipped into a deep sleep that night with my hand on my heart in gratitude.

the lost is finally found.

when you reach the bottom of the gyre

"turning and turning in the widening gyre

the falcon cannot hear the falconer;

things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

mere anarchy is loosed upon the world"

{w.b. yeats, the second coming}

ever since reading w.b. yeats' poem 'the second coming' long ago in university, i've had a fascination with gyres. they are probably to intrinsically complex a concept to explore in just one short blog post... but i'm gonna try. :)

the gyre being the image of a simultaneously widening & tightening spiral. ( also an oceanography term referring to large systems of rotating ocean currents, particularly those involved with large wind movements...which is another blog for another time).  an allegorical/iconic image for the seasons of life.

i have all to well found myself relating to the turning & tightening gyre or that falcon lost in the upper stratosphere straining to hear the falconer or the times where we feel life has lost it's rules & 'mere anarchy' has sprouted in the place of righteousness. in so many ways it's hard to tell when the gyre starts & when it ends. this is because it is an ever-extending pattern. it's the rhythm of life. some gyre's peaks are gentle, rolling bunny hills & others have a peak akin to mount everest. but the rhythm, if respected & embraced gets weaved into a beautiful melody, despite the sometimes violent heights & plummets.

"Secrets of the Supernatural Life" by Shawn Gabie

it's in those vice-grip type places in life that we find ourselves emerging differently at the other end of the spiral, even if it's just the start of another spiral. and that is what i remind myself of when i feel like i'm being squeezed to the bottom, that it's at the tightest point that the gyre gives way to widening. it's the intense compression of the spiral that causes it to expand once again, like heaving lungs finally filling with breath.

challenge & trial & testing is never meant to hurt me. it's meant to make me. and for that i am thankful & choose to embrace the process not just the promise & anchor my faith in the wise Father & His plans for me & my family. i do find comfort & encouragement in a weird way that the longer, steeper the process, the bigger the promise usually.

so here's to big promises & steep processes that take us deep into His plans & draw us closer to His heart. :)

"the whole point of a trial is to give you something, not to take anything away from you. it is to advance you. it is to add something to you. that is why you should be joyful because God allows it in His wisdom what He could easily prevent by His power" 

{graham cooke, the art of thinking brilliantly}

i don't hear the ducks whining

i meant to finish this post a few weeks ago but i think it applies to my life even more so now.  ;)

-----------------------------

it has been cold. like bitter, frozen, unpleasant cold for some months. and it has taken it's toll on the general morale around here.

this morning was one said cold morning & i was miserable. the kids all slipped on their way to the van. and our snowman had a smug little grimmace on his icy face. even our happy-go-lucky dogs had had enough, lifting their little paws to avoid being frozen to the ground forever. everyone was miserable. the people walking to work, the cashier behind the checkout, the nurses at the doctors. the city seemed like just one big cluster of miserable.

i actually caught myself on several occasions throwing a huge livi-style temper tantrums threatening to leave this darn country if this stupid weather doesn't let up! i'm not really sure who exactly i was threatening. i may have started to go a touch of crazy... but i was in good company as everyone grumbled along through the long cold days & nights. ;) i might have even panickedly entertained the thought but what if this is the year that spring actually never arrives!

and then i saw a great cluster of ducks out on the frozen river, all huddled together. and i thought, from my warm van, i don't hear the ducks whining.

and i wondered how much my general attitude/unhappiness at life's "uncertainties" is due to the fact that i didn't chose it or i don't have control over it . and thus, how much control is actually a luxury.

our house has been for sale for what feels like forever. with like 20+ different open houses & showing, i have been severely lacking in gratitude. i constantly complain. about the house & the amount of work required. about what i can't control.

the third world doesn't have such luxuries. the luxuries of complaining about circumstances. because in

the third world they are more concerned with surviving. and surviving doesn't work if you catch yourself a bad attitude along the way.  i've seen many a person survive an awful set of circumstances but never recover from the terrible attitude & thought life they contracted amidst the terrible circumstances. and then i've watched that attitude infect everything they do & live & are for the rest of their lives.

the ducks don't complain because they know regardless of how they feel about it they are still going to endure the cold. so they stop fighting what they cannot control & chose to make something out of it. i may be giving the ducks too much credit. but i just felt the Lord highlight my general attitude through those frozen, huddling ducks all sticking together & working their circumstance out.

it's like when i have to ask my kids to do something not so pleasant like clean up the colossal sized mess they've been building in the basement. there are usually a few that throw themselves down on the ground in screaming protest or pretend they are experiencing paralysis in one or all of their limbs. but then there is usually one who just tromps off like a champ & gets on with it, un-phased by the size of the task. the kid who completely crumbles into a thousand pieces makes the task a hundred times more difficult for themselves in every way. despite their wiggling & jiggling all over the floor, they still are going to have to do what is asked. the kid who just takes on the task joyfully, well lets not go that far, just decides to get 'er done, quickly realizes the task is within their ability to accomplish & is finished in a fraction of time seeing instant progress. the others generally find themselves entirely overwhelmed by just the anticipation of the work & cannot get past their down-in-the-dumps attitude until disciplinary intervention is initiated.

i don't want to be the kid that sits there completely overwhelmed by the idea of my work, dwelling on the whole discouragement of the situation, tallying up what is too much for me. it's time for me to adjust to the new work load the Lord has given me, regardless of how much i don't like it initially. to be quite honest, my biggest challenge isn't the amount of work ahead of me but rather my own summations of how hard or impossible the work is.  because in the end, there are some real consequences if i get myself into an overwhelmed place allowing myself to wallow around in my own self-made misery. and so i stop telling myself self-pity stories, take the words 'i can't' out of my vocabulary & just get on with it. and i will eventually see progress. and in the midst of it, with the finish line still far away, the Lord has always afforded me coping tactics & grace to cover the super intense moments. they still ain't feel good moments but they're moment that i make it through to the other side with an awareness of the difference between God-strength & human strength.

 and so all that to say, God bless those huddling, coping ducks. for they too will make it spring.

p.s. rachel jankovic has been a real mentor to me in all this mothering crazy stuff. her books have been irreplaceable graces to my life. checkout 'loving the little years' or 'fit to burst' for some of the greatest mothering wisdom i have ever had the privilege of being exposed to.

stand. {rehoboth farm}

as you may already know, we are just about to move to our dream farm... whilst at the same time desperately trying to sell our house. this has not been a pleasant experience with two dogs, four kids & a schedule in overtime. in fact, i would probably say it has been unnecessarily, above & beyond our expectation of what this unpleasant experience probably should have been. it has been an experience akin to the fire swamp in 'the princess bride' or the ten plagues in the old testament. in fact, you probably would think we were grossly exaggerating the shenanigans 'blighting our land' as of late.

with pestilence ranging from several cycles of a species of flu akin to black death, our house punching me in the face, a variety of our household appliances simultaneously going on strike including both our vehicles for weeks at a time (which ended fatally for our toaster, blender, coffee press, coffee grinder & all our phone charging devices), a dog gone wild, my husband's overactive travelling schedule hitting it into high gear, entering the 7th circle of house showing hell (which i'm sure one day very far from now will become favourite funny stories)...and that's not to mention the last little bag of tricks that has been thrown our way just as we prepare to close on monday. it would be considered a victory if we could avoid catastrophe two days in a row not to mention actually make it to the farm.

and yet from a place of everything-that-could-go-wrong-has-gone-wrong, i look at others stories like "12 years a slave" kinda stories & my problems are humbled to insignificance. 

it could all be in my head but it does feels like we are under attack. it is ironic that there has been such contention over this place as one of the names steve & i had been throwing around for the farm was 'rehoboth'. 'rehoboth' means 'broad place', and it refers to the land of inheritance that only God can give & that the enemy cannot steal from you. 'rehoboth' meaning a place of enlargement & flourishing. it was the name isaac gave his un-contended well.

"so when they dug the third well and there were no quarrels isaac named it rehoboth saying 'now the Lord has given us room and we well flourish in the land.'"

{gen 26:22}

this experience has taken a pretty detailed account of our weaknesses & short comings. where our faith & attitudes have failed, God has met us with His fullness & His faithfulness. any earthy hope has been replaced by the Promise found in Himself.  

in responding to some of these multi-fauceted, fast-paced challenges, it's been hard to not get shaken up & i haven't always known what exactly to do. and sometimes there isn't anything to do.  i love how ephesians 6:13 puts it...

"finally, be strong in the Lord & in His mighty power. put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes...therefore, put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. stand firm..."  

when you've done all to stand, stand. i can stand because i've done all to stand and then God partners with me & stands with me. and i stand. feet firm. vision locked. belt tightened.

and so i stand. my feet firm on the contended soon to be un-contended, flourishing broad ground of 'rehoboth farm'.

thanks to all those who have been so faithfully contending for us in prayer. :)

pride

it's amazing what comes to the surface when you're under a little pressure. feeling a little bit convicted recently as my own pride surfaces in different areas...

my name is Pride. i am a cheater.
i cheat you of your God-given destiny...because you demand your own way.
i cheat you of contentment...because you "deserve better than this".
i cheat you of knowledge...because you already know it all.
i cheat you of healing...because you're too full of me to forgive.
i cheat you of holiness...because you refuse to admit when you're wrong.
i cheat you of vision...because you'd rather look in the mirror than out a window.
i cheat you of genuine friendship...because nobody's going to know the real you.
i cheat you of love...because real romance demands sacrifice.
i cheat you of greatness in heaven...because i convince you to seek your own.
my name is Pride. i am a cheater.
you like me because you think i'm always looking out for you. untrue.
i'm looking to make a fool of you.
God has so much for you, i admit, but don't worry... if you stick with me you'll never know.
{beth moore, praying God's word: breaking free from spiritual strongholds}

the God of arms & legs

i love westerns. it is one of my secret guilty pleasures.

the other day while watching one said western, there was this really dubious scene in which the reverend of the small dusty town goes inevitably crazy, overtaken by the overwhelming darkness & wickedness that's grown so familiar around him.  one of the lost settlers stumbles into the reverend's tent & confesses that he wants to turn from his wicked ways & repent & asks what he should do to be saved. and the reverend, looks up & in this infamous speech says...

"do you really want to believe in this god? let me tell you a story. way back when, the devil [tied] god's arms & legs. and then plucked his eyes out & [gaged] him. but god could still hear us. he couldn't do anything to help us out of our misery but he could still hear us writhe & scream to the heavens. and so that is why we pray. because although god has no arms or legs for which to reach us, no eyes to see us or voice to speak to us, he has ears to hear our immense misery. now, do you really want to believe in this god?"

it was quite a shocking scene really. needless to say, that poor lost settler did not get saved that night. but i just couldn't get that monologue out of my head. i think because its sometimes the temptation i face in the midst of challenges. i can see Him as someone stationary, indifferent to my plight. or if i see Him as benevolent & loving, He certainly isn't passionate enough to move on my behalf in tangible ways. that because He isn't ending all suffering everywhere, He isn't interested in ending mine. and although i have some thoughts on suffering & the goodness of God that i've gleaned along the way, i don't think any thing could quite change our minds more than God standing up for Himself. we talk every Sunday about God's arms & legs & voice but until you've tangibly seen & touched His hands, looked into those eyes burning for you... we'll that's a completely different, undeniable experience.

so if you find yourself in a lonely place, surrounded by the darkness of circumstance, i dare you to invite the God of mighty arms & legs of bronze & thunderous voice & passionate gaze into your situation.

because it's either meeting the all powerful, fully functioning, eternally passionate God or being content with a god who only has ears to hear our futility. and i think we can both agree that the former is were the heart longs to believe.

catastrophizing & open vents

it was another ordinary morning. the kids came bounding down the stairs at 6:17am, eagerly climbing their stools & enthusiastically awaiting their breakfast. it was an ordinary morning until...

...we noticed something a little bit different.
"what's that?" asked dav with a scrunched up nose, pointing to the vent.
stuck in the vent was a wooden spoon with a bunch of bananas hanging off the end.
"i don't know" i said puzzled.
and we puzzed & puzzed until our puzzlers were tired. dav was sure it was an alien invasion. eva thought it was the mice that frequent our kitchen trying to get our attention. kai just cried. it was too weird for him. livi babbled on about some kinda crazy and i was genuinely freaked out. i just could not think of why anyone would come into our house & set that up. we had had the mckinnons over the night before. could it have been them, continuing in their pranking tradition? no, this was too weird. there had to be a perfectly reasonable explanation but i sure was getting worked up into a jitter thinking of the worst possible conclusions.

and so, we just left it there. i made sure no one touched it & tried my very best to resist the burning temptation to bound up the stairs & shake steve awake, who was soundly slumbering, and shout "something's gone CRAZY in the kitchen!!!"

it is upon reflection that i realize i might have the inherited the knack for 'catastrophizing'. 

catastrophizing: the habit of automatically assuming a "worst case scenario" and inappropriately characterizing minor or moderate problems or issues as catastrophic events.

others have described it as shutting yourself in your own "emotional panic room". this does not only happen when i find kitchen spoons & bananas hanging out of vents but often when facing any kind of routine challenge. if one of our kids behaves poorly while out in public i automatically jump to the conclusion that they will become a menace to society if not stopped. if i make a poor parenting decision or lose my cool, i'm a terrible mother not worthy of her children. i know we all have our moments of jumping to conclusions now & then, but for me, this has been an unhealthy habit which needs to change.

it turns out that steve had rigged the banana-spoon lever system to keep the vent open. we had recently replaced the vents with some antique ones we had bought at a garage sale & the flappy thing kept closing, which was messing with our heat in the kitchen. no aliens. no creepy stalker message. no attention starved mice. catastrophizing, indeed.

but i felt the Lord speak to me through it. that in the moment of intense pressure or anxiety, if i can just remember to keep the vent open & let Him into my little "emotional panic room", i would find my footing in peace faster & surer. it's the first step when getting carried away by my own thinking. and this has given me a great confidence. especially since, the next morning i found our bread box flung out the front door, laundry piled high barricading entry to the laundry room & the dog collar remote in our bed. but that's a story for another time. :)

Dear friend, guard Clear Thinking and Common Sense with your life; 
don’t for a minute lose sight of them.
They’ll keep your soul alive and well, 
they’ll keep you fit and attractive.
You’ll travel safely,
 you’ll neither tire nor trip.
You’ll take afternoon naps without a worry, you’ll enjoy a good night’s sleep.
 No need to panic over alarms or surprises,
 or predictions that doomsday is just around the corner, 
because God will be right there with you; he’ll keep you safe and sound.

Proverbs 3:24-26 The Message

someone's gotta die

forgiveness has been a subversive issue in my life. and when i stumble over something continuously i like to study it. read it. research it. understand everything there is to know about it until i have conquered it. so needless to say, you may be reading a lot about forgiveness on the ol blog over the next few months.

one of the most powerful things i have discovered about forgiveness is that someone's gotta die. someone's gotta give in, give up & let go.

the best model of this is Christ hanging in all His innocence on the horrible, despicable, humiliating cross for all the wickedness of the world. and then He said, with sheer pain coursing through His veins, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do". and then He gave over His life, gave up His rights, & died.  but as we know, He didn't stay dead. He was resurrected & is enthroned in the highest of heaven now.

it's a perfect picture of what happens when we choose the hard road of forgiveness. no wonder my flesh screams at the thought of forgiveness. we die to ourselves. die to our outraged emotions. to our own right to be right. we lay down our own power & control in the situation. and we die.
and yet i cannot say that i have experienced anything so liberating in my life than to truly forgive. never have i felt so uplifted. so strong. so empowered to give up my power. to lay myself, my pride, my own dignity down & then to be raised up with Him. there are no words for the beauty of this emotion.

it's a strange juxtaposition. a strange exchange that's difficult to articulate.
but more soon.

where i come from {save the scraps}

"i never tell the enemy, i've been on the cover of time magazine, i've gone around the world.  i don't use none of that stuff up there. i reach back into my history.  your power is not in where you are, your power is in where you've been.  for Jesus said, 'I am the same yesterday, today & forevermore.  and if I brought you through that, still I am.'" 

{t.d. jakes}

i come from a long, twisted heritage that reaches back into the darkest corners of the netherlands. i have heard of stories of where i come from & i cringe. that was the heritage i heard of.  the heritage i experienced was different.  my beginnings were wrapped in love & fresh air & everything beautiful.  the woods were where i remember chiseling out my first remembrances of home.  those deep woods full of long wonderings & wild imagination.  i lived in the trees, those whispering pines always singing their lullabies.  and in the springs, when the waters would flood & pool, there i found truest joy in my black rubber boots.  and my twirling fields, my grass covered mountaintops for seeing & thinking.  and that long, graveled road where i would collect my pebbles & dreams.  i came from there until the world began to impinge on my beautiful beginnings.  it crept in like a thief in the night.  it took my deep woods & my climbing trees, my innocent fields & lullabies and replaced them with fear & brokenness, rejection & confusion.  and that is where i was born.  that is when i began pushing & digging & fighting. from places of uncertainty, places of self-deprecation.  unwanted places, too soon places, not enough places. the woods got darker, the clouds temporarily covered my sun, the locusts ate my twirling fields & the trees towered in intimidation.  

"{and the Lord says} you know a whole lot about now, but you forgot about then.  there is no way you would have made it to this present danger if I hadn't done what I did yesterday.  you wouldn't be blessed to have the problems that you have right now."

{t.d. jakes}

but He took my not-enough places & He broke what was not enough & He multiplied them & healed my land.  He restored all that the locusts had eaten.  He filled those spring pools to overflowing and i sit here now, from that restored place.  from the place of plenty.  i have lived in the light for so long i had forgotten the dark in between.  victory had had an anesthetizing effect.  the flourishing, fulfillment place had forgotten the fight, the battle places.

He wastes nothing that good God of ours. nothing. not even the scraps. 

"until we can be thankful for what is not enough, what is not enough can't be multiplied into more than enough.  the blessing is in the breaking. that which refuses to be broken, refuses to be blessed. the breaking of life produces the blessing of life." 

{t.d. jakes}

esau moments & soul adrenaline

i have always been intrigued by pioneers. i fell in love with laura ingalls wilder when i was in grade four. those who forge their way into the unknown, the unconquered. with nothing but the faith that they can & will make a way for themselves & their family to live better.

i know i'm called to be a pioneer in many ways. blazing the way for kingdom come here on earth.  but the funny thing about pioneering is that you forget, that no matter how long you've pioneered for, you are never the first. there are those that have gone before me. ancestors. great clouds of ancestors.

"we have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless- the world didn't deserve them! - making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world.
none of these people, even though their lives were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.
do you see what this means - all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans, cheering us on? it means we'd better get on with it. strip down, start running - and never quit! no extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began & finished this race we're in. study how He did it. because He never lost sight of where he was headed-that exhilarating finish in & with God- He could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. and now He's there, in the place of honour, right alongside God. when you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility He plowed through. that will shoot adrenaline into your souls!" {hebrews 11-12:1-3, the message} 

every so often i have an esau moment, where i try to trade God's lifelong gift, my calling, my birthright, to satisfy a short-term appetite. where in mid stride, i just decide it's too hard & i want to give-up for temporary relief.

pioneering ain't for the faint of heart. it can be just downright scary heading out into the great unknown. it takes a lot of brow sweat & a lot of faithful faith & trusty trust, if you know what i mean. but not everyone is called to pioneer. a great amount of people think the way steve & i have structured our lives is downright crazy & outlandish. and although we may find comfort & empathy in the stories & journeys of others like-minded, it's important to remember that only He will truly understand. and only He is the knower of the unknown.

it's like the good book says, look at Jesus, study Him, spend time with Him, look into His eyes..."that will shoot adrenaline into your souls!" {hebrews 12:3} not to mention, the privilege of joining & completing the heroic faith of the pioneers who have gone before like abraham or john the baptist {it's just so cool!}. 

we are in good company in this race. though it be hard. though it be ugly & impossible at times. and though we may feel like it at times, we are never alone. 

never lose sight. 

plough on pioneers, plough on!

be aggressive.

it was steve's birthday recently and as such we celebrated by going to see one of his favourite artists/friends, craig cardiff at the legendary black sheep inn.

we love the black sheep with lucy the miserable pug meandering in & around people's feet at her own whimsy (i think i may one day write a children's book about her called 'poo-tail the pug who no one would hug' but that's a story for another time).

and we love craig. and not just because he snuck us last-minute-folk into the sold out show. i love his writing candour & his witty sense of humour. his unique take on life & often moving perspectives all wrap up in melody & beat.

one of the trademarks of his shows is that he likes to get the audience's participation. he gives us our part of the chorus to sing along with him & cues us in at the right time. he usually gives us a few parts in a few songs along the way but the first song is usually lacking in audience enthusiasm, marked by the self-conscious whisperings of the small crowd following along. but craig is a seasoned artist who knows well how to ride a crowd out. and at this particular point on saturday, he stopped mid-chorus & said..."do you think we could be a little more aggressive with that... like i mean, long line to the bathroom aggressive... like hey, i-was-here-first-it's-my-turn kind of aggressive?" and the audience giggled & then belted out all choruses from that point on with a new charged kind of enthusiasm.

but it spoke to me. about worship. about praise. and my own dwindled enthusiasm at times. we've all heard of prayer warriors before but what about praise warriors? those who take ground in worship? what of those like david, in the bible, who ran to the battle line even in his own private worship with the Lord? who aggressively poured himself out before the Almighty King. i know i can make all kinds of excuses in my public worship to explain away my reserved-ness. but even if those excuses were acceptable for my lack of "i-was-here-first-its-my-turn" in public, there is not much of an excuse for it privately. i know there are times for quiet, somber worship. but for me, the aggressive kind of worship is something i've not really experienced. i know it's not for the faint of heart. or the self-conscious. only the crazy in love. the truly free. the consumed ones.

king solomon, david's son, had it right i think. he once gathered 20,000 bulls as his sacrifice on the alter. it's a sacrifice that is so embarrassing, it makes you kinda blush. and the Lord consumed them all, all 20,000. kinda leaves me breathless. imagine, watching those 20,000 bulls, fields & fields of livestock, being completely consumed by hot, raging, favoured fire from heaven, an expression of the intensity of His love towards us. king solomon's sacrifice was prepared externally, consumed externally. Jesus changed all that & made it internal. and then i imagine what would happen if i offered me like that? wholly, completely, aggressively to Him & what would that internal experience be like? to be consumed? to stare straight into the eyes that burn with such intense love for me & walk out with skin radiating presence. breathless.

over, the mountains, over the sea...
here you come running... my lover to me.
song of solomon