Sowing Seeds

 

 

I watched as my daughter dropped the corn seeds into the dirt.   A dried up kernel.  Buried.  I thought how amazing it is that this small yellow bit of nothing would, if given time and the necessary things of life, grow into a large stalk and would bear many, many kernels.   But this one kernel first must be covered with dirt.

We spent the day sowing seeds, the kids and I.  We buried, hoping for growth.  Believing that one would turn into many…

I thought this evening about how God gives us so much.  That He takes the little we offer, the one dried up seed, and grows it so tall.  I thought how we must be buried, we must die.

I think this post from A Holy Experience says it well…

Boy, I needed that….

 

Vacation that is….I took my four youngest children to Florence, KY for a mini vacation.   We had a wonderful time!

We visited the Creation Museum, Newport Aquarium and the Cincinnati Zoo.   All in all it was a lovely time and a fabulous rest from the treadmill.

Waiting for me when I got home was this wonderful swap package!  (notice the Golding spindle?  my first!)

I also got my order from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab (I have a thing for these perfumes)

And finally since the first day of TDF is today I spent an hour spinning camel on my drop spindle :)

Remember me…

 

Today is the 5 year anniversary of the day we lost our son and were forced to live the rest of our lives without him. I hope you will take a moment to read the following excerpt of his journal, which we found after his death.

The War
How I see it.....
Todd Louis Peck II, February 2005
My intention in this journal is to record as best as possible the spiritual warfare surrounding my recent relapse of cancer so that I may later remember the lessons learned and perhaps share them with others. In fact, sharing the lessons is actually the bigger of my two reasons. My greatest hope is that through my fight and this record of it, others will be equipped and encouraged to take the fight to the Enemy. I believe that all of life is a war fought over the souls of each individual and everything that happens in life somehow fits into this war, whether we know it or not. So when hardships and trials come they ought to be viewed as Enemy attacks and dealt with accordingly.
In war, the purpose of any attack is, of course, to gain some sort of advantage that will in some way bring you nearer ultimate victory. Rather, that sought after advantage is the destruction of some threat which the other has or the gaining of a position that leaves you a better position to threaten the other. The point is always to somehow harm the other's overall position in the great scheme of things.
Thus, this relapse of cancer that God allowed was and is inteneded by the Enemy to somehow gain him something. That something, in this case, is porobably to neutralize what the Enemy's high command perceives as a danger to their war efforts.
That threat may or may not be me (thought I like ot flatter myself that it is) but the fact is that, for whatever reason, I seem to have been chosen as the main point of attack. I therefore, as a soldier in the King's Army, have responsibility to stand and fight to make sure that the Enemy gains not an inch. For it is my (and every soldier's) duty to even turn this attack to the advantage of the Cause and the glory of the King.
This whole thing reasches far beyond me, however. It reaches into my family and into my church and community. I am just on fect of what is a large and complex battle being fought in this small theater of operation called West Michigan. The full extent of this larger fight I will not ever be able to fully comprehend this side of Heaven. Nor will I likely ever understand the extent to which my own standing or falling will influence the larger picture but I will stand!
Indeed, I am resolved to not just stand, but advance! I may be a small part of a huge batle but I will press my influence to its limits for the sake of the Cause.
Lord, have mercy if I should be cut down (i.e. if I allow the Enemy to get the better of me) fo rthe greater the effort, the greater the defeat in the case of failure. But by the grace of God, I shall not fail! As He wills, so may it be. Amen.

Listening

 

I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem;  they shall never hold their peace day or night.  You who make mention of the Lord, do not keep silent, and give HIM no rest until HE establishes and until HE make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.  Is. 62:6-7

last night marked week 18 of Near.  each week God has been faithful to listen, each week God has been faithful to speak.

there has been answered prayer for tangible things….a new washing machine

there has been answered prayer for the unseen….a wounded heart beginning the healing process

each week He seemed to work on a theme:

help me to love You….

help me to wait on You….

Micah 7:7 but as for me I will watch expectantly for the Lord, I will wait for the God of my Salvation.  my God will hear me.

help me to walk in freedom….

Is. 52:2 shake yourself from the dust o captive jerusalem.  loose yourself from the chains around your neck, o captive daughter of zion

help me to trust you….

Jer. 1:19  they will fight against you but they will not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you declares the Lord

let me know You….

teach me to die…

2 Cor. 4:7 for the love of God controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died. 

last night Is. 62:6-7 spoke to my husband and I in a profound way…

Lord teach us to pray.

Mr. Scientist You Can Keep Your Test Tubes

 

did you hear?   they can now create life in a test tube.   yeah, that’s what they say.   they also say that there is no longer any mystery in the creation of life, it’s just a matter of lining the dna up in the right order.   apparently they don’t need God.   at least that seems to be what they are saying... 

i say the miracle of life can not be contained in a test tube.   i say that when God knit us together He meant just that.   as a knitter myself I know that means he touched Every Stitch.  no part of His creation is without His touch, His breath.

i say the greater mystery is not just that He created us but that He called us.   that He has endured with patient love so long those who have scorned His words, turned their back on His love.  that despite all my worthless attempts at saving myself and all my filthy rags He still calls me His Child.   i say the mysteries of God are more than cells.  they are living moving beings… carrying in these earthly vessels the Spirit of God.   try to put that in your test tubes.

Picking Favorites

 

Sunday was shearing day at the farm.  As the shearer did the necessary job of removing the year’s wool from each my sheep.  I found myself looking at each one and thinking how much I cared for them.

As each one came in the barn for his or her turn I often found myself thinking “there’s so and so, she’s my favorite” and then “no, this one is my favorite”.  After a while of trying to decide which animal was my favorite it occurred to me that each one was my favorite for different reasons.   Kara is my favorite because she is such a good mom.  She once took in a lamb that was rejected by her mom and cared for her as her own.

Pebbles is my favorite because she was once so wild but now she comes right up to me for a rub.  Grace is my favorite because my husband saved her from a dog attack.

You know, I really think that is how God looks at us. 

“Oh yeah, she’s My favorite…she always takes time to talk to Me….”

“See him?  He is my favorite!  He is really has a heart for My word….”

“She’s My favorite for sure!  She may stumble but she gets right back up.  I love how she doesn’t give up.

Sterile Love

 

When I am at my most honest, I realize I know nothing about Love.  

What does love look like?  It’s a question I’ve been pondering.

God has been teaching me about Love.  His love.  Real Love.   Love that moves past barriers.  Love that forgets self.   Love that brought a Savior.

If all of life comes down to love then tell me…what does love look like?

I have been asking God to teach me to Love Him. As I ask I realize that Loving Him can not be separated from loving others.

Then I saw Him there, hanging on tree looking at me.

And as I attempt to Love others I realize how truly inept I am at Loving Him, at Loving at all.

He had arms wide open, heart exposed.  Arms wide open….He was bleeding, bleeding.

I spent some time meditating on the deep Love of God this Wednesday.   If you have been following this blog you realize it is new thing to me- this understanding that God loves me.   I am realizing that the Love of God is a wild thing.   It is not a tame, sterile love that lives only in the hallowed halls of stain glass windows.  It is a crazy thing, beating on the doors of convention, causing me to question all that I once believed.   Crushing me while at the same time it heals me.

That evening my husband and I traveled with our children to Grand Rapids to listen to my brother in law preach at the Love Feast.  As we sat at our meal of french toast and sausage with the homeless, the drunks, the lost…a woman walked in.  It was obvious that she had wet her pants and to my shame I must admit to you that I lost my appetite.  I sat convicted as I watched one of the Stockbridge Interns embrace her without a moments hesitation.  And as I watched the Love of God work itself out in flesh I thought of all the work that must be done so that I may learn this Love.  It is with a broken and humble heart that I recount that moment…knowing that in my arrogance I believed that I was somehow more clean than her…forgetting the sin that cost a Savior so much.

You shall love Me….with arms wide open, heart exposed…bleeding, sometimes bleeding

And with a gentle voice that is so like God, healing even as He wounds, God reminds me of the Love that reached into the gutter and dwelt among the filth to save me.

And the King will answer and say to them, Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to me.

Matt. 25:40

 

Words in italics are from the song Arms Wide Open by Misty Edwards.