We’ll Sing his Faithfulness

I haven’t written much here on the blog for a while. My feeling is that with all the content out there, unless it’s something I sincerely want to share, I’ll not add to the noise.  God knows who needs to read what at a given time, and He always directs those here who do.

I was almost asleep when Tom brought me my phone last night. It was  our son Will calling from Wheaton College. “I want to know what hymn you’d like  to be sung at the recital. I’m doing this for you. I have three in mind.” His senior recital is next Tuesday night, something he’s been preparing for since September. Needless to say, I was touched that he would include a hymn. He knows how much I love to hear them on organ with congregational singing. So I requested, Great is Thy Faithfulness. He said that had been one of his three picks.

When Will began college, it seemed like an insurmountable mountain for us to help him.  Four years later, I can say that God has been faithful, down to small details!  Will  is taking the next year off to work before graduate school, and he has a wonderful position at a church in Arlington Heights.

The LORD said, “I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27) “The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.” (Lamentations 3: 22-24)

The things that happen to us in life may not be good in themselves. Far from it. But truly, all things work TOGETHER for good, to those who love God. I have seen this. Our vision gets clouded by circumstances or the immediate pain or dismay of things, but God “plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm,” as the hymn puts it. It’s trusting and not losing hope in the middle of the waves that is our challenge.

I had to smile at the quote from the great organist and composer, Charles Marie Widor, as told to Albert Schweizer who interviewed him.

“Organ playing is the manifestation of a will filled with the vision of eternity.”

It’s also the manifestation of a Will (Schlueter)!  😉

 

 

Here’s a beautiful version of the hymn! Maybe you could use it today.

Grow Your OWN Garden!

Ideally, Tom and I needed a small yard without the need for much maintenance when we moved this last time. Instead, due to our desire to be near our daughter’s school,  we ended up buying a house last year with a large yard. Additionally, the home had been owned by a woman with a love for gardening. The fenced-in area had layers of flowers and plants that, when they were tended and cared for, must have been very beautiful.

Needless to say, we have not had the time or ability to maintain that. When we first moved here, I did not anticipate some health issues that prevented me this spring from getting out there and at the very least, pulling weeds. With a chronic pain condition, some days you feel capable, and other days, you simply can’t do what you would like.

So I grieved over the raggedy state of the back garden area, not to mention the front mound and highly visible side of the house that needed tending.  Tom had a busy schedule earlier this year and could not get to it as he would have liked.

But through this summer, gradually and belatedly, things began to come together, thanks to Tom’s patience and labor. He planted six trees (I originally wrote four, but remembered two lovely little pine trees he put in earlier on the side of the house), went on weed wars during the long summer evenings, pulled out some things that needed removing, and now, he planted the last tree and put field stones around it for a border. He is doing the same with our trimmed up Magnolia  – truly a beautiful and healthy tree that provides shade to the front of our home and the little porch where I like to sit with him evenings.

I had felt sad to the point of shedding a tear earlier this summer that the pretty back yard with all the lovely flowers had not been kept up like the previous owner. I don’t know why I thought we ever could. But today it struck me. The lady who lived here, Dolores was her name,  left her beautiful fingerprints behind in her yard. Tom will leave his. They definitely won’t look the same, and that’s OK. He takes care of things in his way, and he has his own thoughts. Already, when I drive into the subdivision, the yard and mound out front has a whole different character to it.

There’s despair when we compare ourselves to other people. We can admire the way they are and the work that they do, but we have our own ideas, our own gifts and style. We bring different things to the lives of others, and we “grow our own gardens” so to speak. What matters is that we are authentically us, and that the gifts God gives us are used to bless others, never to harm.

The tendency to compare ourselves with others is human nature. It’s taken me until this age (50 as of last Saturday) to really believe I had anything authentically mine to contribute—that I have my own voice and that God can use that, free and clear of anyone or anything else. That’s not egotism, it’s an awakening to the fact that God gives each of us gifts and value, no matter what others say to diminish or question that.

So grow your own garden, let your own light shine, whatever metaphor works for you. Nobody else can bring to life the distillation of experiences, compassion and love that you have. Never believe otherwise.  You can leave beautiful fingerprints on the lives of others. Uniquely YOUR fingerprints.

Here’s the neat backyard Tom has worked on. The front is close to being finished, just in time for autumn!

Beauty in June

My friend, Kim, is a talented gardener.  The photos of her garden are breathtaking. The poem and photo of one of her roses below are used with permission. Thank you, Kim, for posting such beauty for all of us to enjoy!

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there’s never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature’s palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o’errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, –
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

Now is the high tide of the year,
And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back, with a ripply cheer,
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,
We are happy now because God wills it;
No matter how barren the past may have been,
’T is enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;
The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions are blossoming near,
That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky,
That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For other couriers we should not lack,
We could guess it all by yon heifer’s lowing, –
And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing!

~ James Russell Lowell

“Where Have All the Beautiful Women Gone?”

This piece caught my eye in the blizzard of content that comes through social media. There’s so much competing for attention now that I almost didn’t click on it. I’m so glad I did. If you have a single son (and actually, even a married son, because this is so good), this article is worth every moment of reading it.

It’s written by attorney and writer, Joshua Rogers. It begins like this.

Whenever I write about the struggles of single adults, there’s one sure-fire way to enrage the men: Hint that they carry any blame for the growing number of unmarried women.

I can’t tell you how many single men have earnestly looked at me in frustration and explained that they simply haven’t felt the “spark” with anyone. But none of these guys can seem to articulate what the “spark” is. They just know it isn’t there, and they can’t imagine moving forward without it.

As I listen to these men and reflect on my own days as a single man, I think I know what they really want. They want a woman with inner beauty, sure; but they also want that beauty to be matched by her outward appearance…

Read the whole article here. 

Like Joshua Rogers said, “Desiring beauty isn’t the problem. It’s the inability to see it.”

A P.S. to this article: My adult son sent me this article a few minutes ago. He has a little girl, we have a little girl, and the reality of our porn-saturated culture is harming our girls. It’s no wonder boys and men can’t sit and value the beauty of a young woman by getting to observe and know her. This article here explains  the nightmarish culture our girls have to contend with in the form of porn-addicted  boys. 

There’s Still Music

Our son, Will, 19,  and assistant at Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas this last week warming up before the concert with the Wheaton College Men’s Glee Club. It’s an increasingly ugly culture, but these young people remind us that there is still music left.

 

First Snow Coming Tonight

P.S. And the snow arrived, right on schedule. Em was up early begging to go out. Remember when you were a kid and the first snow was so exciting?

 

 

When All the World is Crazy

This is especially for Grandma Jeanne who also loves these hymns.

That Time of Year

Shakespeare’s words about autumn  were chilly, rather than warm, but it’s the beautiful and warm part of fall that I like to write about. I’ve already made apple crisp, pumpkin pie and my annual autumn spice cake (recipe below), and if I don’t stop, I’ll add five pounds from my culinary salute to the autumnal equinox.

Emmy, our sole little chick still in the nest, is looking forward to a trip to the orchard for apple picking and pumpkin buying. My sister-in-law put all of our family photos from a Sterilite bin into 8, sorted photo boxes. Looking through them the other day, I saw multiple photos of various years’ trips to the orchard/pumpkin farm with our five other children. Now we will soon have three grandchildren to enjoy the same.The speed of the passage of time continues to amaze.

Sammy, Charlie and baby Will back in the fall of 1997 in Brookfield, Wisconsin.

Tom has planted two trees in our new yard. He chose birch trees, as he has at three other homes we have had. He always puts in a Schlueter tree. It’s a family tradition.

Speaking of tradition,  every autumn for years, I have put out my two Dollar Store acorn people. Last year, I looked all over, but couldn’t find them in their usual place. Sadly, they never made an appearance. I looked at the Dollar Store to find replacements, but there was nothing even similar to the little figurines I had. During our move this summer, I was happy to find my two little acorn people shoved back in our hutch in the dining room, and they are now back out on display along with my pumpkin spice candles.

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~ George Eliot

Emmy is now happily in first grade, and I am deeply thankful to have her in a Christian school close by, the primary reason for our move. I see her copy work for school come home with hymns and verses to write. The other night, she was writing out this hymn:

How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds
In a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.

It struck me again how wonderful it is to have a little academy where that name of Jesus, reviled spit upon all over the world, is still revered and loved.

I am loving the cool, crisp mornings and still warm afternoons, the fresh air, and the deep blue skies of a Wisconsin autumn. The world is in turmoil, the ground under our feet sometimes trembling, but this little blue planet still has beauty, because God, the Creator of all of it,  is in his heaven, and He holds all things in his hand.

I came across some beautiful fall barn photos in Country Living magazine online. If you’d like to see some breathtakingly colorful photos in the country, here you go at this link!

Also, I make an annual practice on this blog of posting the recipe to my autumn spice cake that I initially found in a cookbook from the First Baptist Church of Cook, Minnesota. Those Swedish ladies really knew their baking! So here it is, my favorite spice cake recipe, 2015!

Happy Autumn!

Little Mary and Sammy, back in 2001 at Nieman’s Orchard in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

One More Walk

“We need to take a last walk here before we leave,” Emmy said this morning. We’ve sold our current house, and the moving truck will be here in a few days to move our things to the new place.

It will be bittersweet walking with my little daughter on our old route one last time. We know about every tree and yard and house along the way from memory. Emily has grown up on that route, having accompanied me on the walk before she was even born. Then it was in the stroller, then running and playing the route as a preschooler, then a kindergartner and now, nearly a first grader on the brink of her sixth birthday.

I’ve watched the sunshine in her brown hair that has the gold highlights, seen her limbs get longer and longer and lose their chubbiness. I’ve listened to her questions about the world and God and flowers and birds along that route. Walks are great conversation times with children. You have the privilege of introducing them to the larger world. Those are precious memories to me that are locked away in the bank vault that all mothers have in their hearts.

We tentatively walked near our new house the other day. It will take a while to feel like it’s home. The houses and yards are unfamiliar, and there aren’t sidewalks like there are in our old neighborhood. There is the paved trail to the south of our house where people bike and walk. We’re going to have to explore that. Along the avenue before you turn into our new subdivision there is sidewalk that runs north for quite a ways. The nature preserve to the west of the avenue makes it feel like you are suddenly in the country. I liked that a lot when I drove past.

I met a walking neighbor in her late 70’s. She walks five miles a day. We have met several neighbors who are original home builders/owners in the neighborhood and had a wonderful chat with several the other evening after they approached us while we were working in our yard. New friends are already being made.

I was in the back by my flowers inside my picket fence the other evening when I suddenly heard a high piping voice of a child calling out in excitement.

“Grammy, Grammy!”

It was little Peter, my grandson, and his baby brother Max standing on the other side of my gate, waiting to be let in. Grammy and Grandpa’s new yard.

New adventures are calling, and there are new memories to be made!

“Time is like a river. You cannot touch the same water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again. Enjoy every moment in life.” ~ Unknown

P.S. Tom’s friend who has a big garden came over the other night and told us what we had in our new flower garden and front mound. The previous owner was an avid gardener who clearly knew much about flowers and bushes. He made suggestions about what to pull and what to leave, and with my sister-in-law and her husband’s help this week, the place looks wonderful. They removed some of the dying plants that had been neglected too long and did some pruning back of bushes and roses. Tom, Kris and Mike cut back the beautiful magnolia tree in the front so the light comes into the front of the house now. It’s all coming along, one step at a time.

Inside the Gate – Garden Notes

As work on the new house proceeds, occasional breaks are called for. Our yard is in two parts, a large stretch on the outside of the white picket fence, and the other, smaller part inside. The inside part with the flowers is my new sanctuary. I sat there the other night thinking how much work the previous owner, an older lady who passed away, had gone to to make such a beautiful place. It gives me pleasure to think I will take good care of it for her.

Emily and I were sitting on the patio in late afternoon when a little chipmunk came running under the fence with something in his mouth. He stopped and looked around sharply and seemed satisfied that all was well in his garden. He went under some low hanging leaves in the border and was scurrying around there for a while. He peeped out at us several times, his cheeks still bulging. We sat quietly and just watched him. We had invaded his space, but we wanted him to know we were friends.

A robin flew down from the towering pine tree in the neighbor’s yard and landed on the fence. There are baby birds in the birdhouse on the outside of the fence. Yellow finches dart around the flowers and back out again, a bright flash of color.

The beds are getting choked with weeds, and thistles are springing up all over. Outside in the front part of the yard there is a large mound with roses and peony bushes, and the thistles are taking over. I’m leaving shortly to get a start on the weeds. They have a way of taking over if not addressed promptly.Just like in human souls and minds, it occurs to me.

So many thoughts run through my mind walking around and looking at the new yard. Tom is taking a tree down in the front that effectively hides the front of the house. He has plans. Last night we were looking at things at the garden center, and he told me what he wants to do. It is going to look lovely when he’s done.

Tom bought me a fat little cherub for my new garden. Emily was concerned that the baby angel might be lonely after dark outside all by herself. I assured her that the little chipmunks and other small creatures would make sure the cherub would have company.

I hope to get a bird bath this week for the birds seem to want one as they fly over and stop on the top of my fence. They’ll hopefully soon have one, so they know that friends, big and small, are welcome in our little sanctuary.

Gardens are a lot of work. Tom is mildly amused at my zeal, but pleased at my new interest. He bought me garden gloves and a wide-brimmed hat for the sun. I’ll be the goofy garden lady with the straw hat in our new neighborhood.

One other blessing occurred yesterday that I am hugging to myself this morning. Emmy was zooming around our driveway on her pink scooter at the new house, and I was emptying our van out with some boxes, when I heard a voice. A neighbor couple on bikes were at the end of the driveway. With them was a little girl the very same age as Emily on her bike. We had a really nice introduction and conversation. They have already invited Emily over to play and to go raspberry picking with them. There are no words to describe what this means to me, as Emily has had a shortage (as in none) of neighborhood friends, siblings or cousins her age that she can play with on a regular basis. She is always alone. The mom explained that her daughter is in the same situation with only older siblings and no sisters. It sounds promising.

I’m headed off shortly to do battle with the thistles. The ornery things think they’re boss or something. My birds and the little cherub await, just beyond the fence, inside the gate.