I Do

still love this man!!!

9,857++ yesterdays ago, (27 years) we stood before God and family and friends and promised to love each other forever. No matter what.  I hope we have at least that many tomorrows.

It all started the summer after 6th Grade. This kid with wavy blonde hair and a reckless sparkle in his green eyes wooed me across the churchyard lawn at vacation Bible school when he yelled "Red Rover, Red Rover! Send Tina right over!" I ran toward him. I know there were others holding hands tightly in that line, but I didn't see them. I fell across his arm and it held. I wonder if all the angels in heaven smiled knowingly at that moment, as if everything was going according to some divine plan.

Our first date was a little over a year later. (I know, so young!) I wasn't quite fourteen. Neither of us was old enough to drive so we had to double date with someone who could. It happens that Hubby's good older friend asked my cousin out, so we all went together. My dad was not at all happy about this arrangement. When my first date came nervously into the front entry that September evening,  he slammed the bedroom door so hard that all the pictures fell off the wall. Yikes.

The four of us rode together in Terry's tan/brown '68 Chevy pickup to a small local bowling alley. My cousin and I wore fresh curls in our permed hair and probably some extra-shiny lip gloss. I remember that my date smelled of Irish Spring soap and a heavy cologne,  wore his hair parted down the middle and white carpenter pants. It was 1980.

I had never been bowling in my life. My first date bowled on a league. I remember being so nervous. I think he was nervous, too. He confidently stepped out on the wooden alley floor, propped the bowling ball in his hands, and with his eye on the pins, swung the ball behind him. As he brought the ball forward, his foot slid over the line and a loud buzzer rang, the ball stuck momentarily to his thumb, went straight up in the air and landed with a loud thud. Whew. So that's how you do it! :o) My cousin had  nearly the same experience as she took her turn. When she brought the ball back, it fell from her hand and rolled backwards. My first attempt sent the ball straight to the gutter. I threw a gutter ball in every frame but two. That score sheet holds the first page of a scrapbook, titled "first date". My score was 31 and his was 102.  I don't remember a whole lot more about the rest of that first date, but I knew I was in love!!

A few years later when this hunky blonde got his driver's license, he bought a black Ranchero from my dad who owned a used car lot in town at the time. It didn't matter if we kept the windows up or down when driving  those country gravel roads because it was so rusted behind the seat that the dust rolled fiercely in behind us and filled the car anyway. My dad was beginning to like him now.

Young love comes with it's trials and heartaches, but my junior year of high school, I proudly wore his class ring wrapped in dark blue yarn and never took it off. When he left for tech school the fall of my senior year, he promised me we would be together and gave me a promise ring to remind me.

 Oh, most people said we were too young. We didn't listen. We were engaged at Christmas.

I graduated in May and we were married in August. My mom told me I better be good to him because if we ever divorced she would have a hard time choosing sides.

She won't have to. 

So married life is good. Our dates have changed. We don't have to worry about a driver but we do have to make arrangements with a babysitter. We don't go bowling as often but I still throw a good gutter-ball. I've lost the shiny lip gloss and Hubby lost his wavy locks.

We've been through our own ups and downs. Sunshine and rain. Skinny clothes and fat clothes.Sports cars and mini-vans. Old houses and new houses. That reckless sparkle isn't quite as reckless as it once was, but I do catch a glimpse now and then.

Happy Anniversary to my Hubby.
Happy Anniversary, Hon.

Pinch Me

You've heard it said when something seems too good to be true...
This is Sam.

Sam-I-Am.

That's what I call him.

And now he's five.
Already.

My Little-Hunter-Man-Samuel.

 He makes me smile.

Samuel was not always a part of our family plan. He came to us as a surprise package.  :o) 
I was just 40 and, well, being pregnant right then wasn't even on my radar.
But he was an answered prayer.
After Joshua, I really wanted to have more children. I didn't want Josh to be a lonely "caboose". I prayed hard for more, but, long story short is that the answer was "no". At least that's what I thought.

When the + sign that says "yes" appeared, our family life was a bit frayed. We were letting go of a lot of things.  But Samuel came, and he was something to hold on to. And I held him a lot. He was one of those babies that needed to be held all the time. And I was one of those mamas needing something to hold onto. So we held on to each other. I held him and he held me. Literally.
(Funny how right now as I am plucking out this little story, I hear Samuel singing as he goes down the stairs: "Our God is an awesome God, He reigns from Heaven above, with wisdom, power, and might. Our God is an awesome God" . How fitting.)

I would hold this little snuggle-bundle and while he was little and nursing, he would find my skin and roll it between his tiny chubby fingers. And squeeze. And pinch. And roll some more. Always holding on.
When we were not nursing anymore, he found my neck. His little hands would reach up and squeeze the skin on my neck. Roll and pinch.

And now, my little man, my Sam-I-Am, is five.
F I V E.

He's the present. He's the gift.
And I think he's too good to be true!!
And guess what? I don't even have to say "Pinch me", because he still does.
He brushes my hair away from my neck and finds me. Holds me.
Such a reminder every day of God's goodness. His faithfulness. His sovereignty.

So I will say it.
Pinch me.

So good and so true.

Just as He Said

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene

and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down

from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.  His

appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.
The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know
that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; He has risen,
just as he said."
Matthew 28:1-6a

"The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders,
chief priests and teachers of the law, and He
must be killed and on the third day
be raised to life."
Luke 9:22

"Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted."
Matthew 5:4

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son,
that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."
John 3:16

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy.
Matthew 28:8

He Is Risen!
Have a blessed Easter!

On a Friday

"But He was pierced for our transgressions,

He was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him,

and by His wounds we are healed."

Isaiah 53:5

The Promise of a Little Bit of Quiet

So lately, this brick-faced house that stands on the wide open, snow-dusted piece of ground that we call home, is full.

Full of little boys and a medium sized boy and a big boy and us two girls. So there is lots of play and chatter and up and down the stairs and in and out the door and clothes on and clothes off and snacks and sippy cups and books and plastic swords and toy cars and we are almost double at the table and all the beds are slept in and the dog is never in short supply for crumbs that fall. It's loud. And that's okay with me.

But sometimes, a little piece of quiet can be really okay too.



So tonight, I'll drive to a not-so-distant town to meet up with the Hubby. We'll eat good Mexican food, take in a movie, and I'll help him set up for the class he'll be teaching tomorrow. And instead of him in a hotel room and me upstairs at home for the night, we'll be together. And it will be quiet. A little piece of quiet.

Then, in the early morning, I will drive back those miles to that brick-faced house that stands in the wide open. Back to a day of  the little boys and the medium sized boy and to us two girls. There will be the toys and the books. There will be snacks and sippy cups. There will be clothes on and off again.  And it will surely be loud. But after a bit of quiet, that's okay with me. 

This Treasure: Her New Life Story

It was Sunday. The same Sunday I was driving home under the morning stars and the sleepy moon. That very day that I had remembered God in His place and me in mine.  His ways and His thoughts so far above my own. Him creating and breathing life into existence from nothing other than Himself. And I wonder if He smiled, laughed aloud at the wonderful secret. Shook His head knowingly.

The lesson of our worship service that Sunday morning was from the 23rd Psalm. God leading us in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Walking through low valleys under the shadows of death and You are with me. And from Matthew 6:19-21. Where are my treasures? I knew these words. I had heard them spoken and read them many times. But this day, I remember my brain filling and swirling with new and familiar thoughts. Wishing Hubby was in the chair next to me instead of between airports. I wanted to spill it all out, all of this "Yes" I was feeling.

It was on this Sunday in January. She was driving under nighttime stars after work, going home. She called to say she wanted to stop in if that was okay. All the boys were just tucked in bed and her sister and I were visiting quietly in the kitchen. So yes.

She came in out of the cold and dark and left her Pilot running in the driveway. She and her sister leaned in,  resting elbows and turning in stools at the counter. We talked of our day. Church. Words spoken to our hearts. And she remembered the text of the lesson she heard while she sat with her husband and young children in a worship service during the same hour but in a different town. It was in Matthew. Where was her treasure?

And she shared a conversation that took place only just earlier at work and how they scoffed at the notion of a God who would require change. And it spoke to her heart. Where was her treasure?

That wasn't all. She said she had been wrestling with all she had been given and was she just being so selfish, and how her husband doesn't get real emotional and how he was the day the judge said he was officially and legally Savannah's Dad, and the recent deaths of young people and she wondered where she would go if that young person had been her. And she asked when was her dad going to be home? Because, she said it so quiet, "I want to be baptized".

And in that moment my world tilted and tears spilled and there was this rush of all those prayers becoming this moment of thanksgiving. And this mama and her daughters were in the kitchen hugging and smiling and crying all at the same time. This treasure.

And then there was later. She and her sister continued in conversation after all of this. After she had gone home and I had gone to my bed under a star-filled window, her sister was going to text her the link from Bible Gateway to a passage in Romans, and there it was on the home page, the verse for the day, Sunday, January 8th, 2012 : Matthew 6:19-21 ...lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven...

So, all these hours from the morning stars to the evening stars, from the beginning of time until this very moment, this God and His plan, He knew. He knew as I looked up this morning and this night, and all the many mornings and nights before when her dad and I breathed prayers that reached past the heavens...I am awed and overwhelmed. 

And this God of the universe, the One who breathed the stars across the heavens and calls them by name (Psalm 147:4), He knit her together(Psalm 139:13), breathed life into her body (Genesis 2:7), and called her by name (Isaiah 43:1).  She has heard her name, spoken and called. And she answered "yes".  Yes to the treasure that is only in Jesus.



Buried and Raised. Born Again. January 18, 2012

  (Her husband and children there, her brothers, her dad in the water with her, Scott to pray.
There is video of these moments, if only I knew how to transfer it from my camera to this page!!)

Sum Times: Numbering the Days

Teach us, O Lord, to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90:12

On December 31st, I read back through the pages of 2011- the days and the moments,  the thoughts and the prayers I had penned. There were things I had already forgotten, and was glad I had a chance to visit there again. Not that some of those things were anything super- spectacular, but maybe that's just it. If they had been super-spectacular, I probably would not have forgotten. At least not for a while. But I am prone to forget.

I want to remember.

All throughout my life, I have tried at different times to keep a journal. It has never lasted long. I've been  plagued with  indecision - what I should or shouldn't write. How often? Everything in one place or separated topically? My thoughts and feelings or just the facts? Prayers--specific or general? What if someone should read this? What if no one ever does? What does it matter? I would become frustrated at my random attempts to record whatever it was I thought I should be recording at the time, and always ended up giving up. Those pages are gone forever.

Nearly two years ago now, I was again overcome with a strong desire to record this "stuff"--how and what I didn't know, just that I needed to be putting "it" down in some fashion. I began to look on the internet for ideas, and found this.   I clicked and trailed through every link; I loved what I saw and had fresh vision. And so, in late February of 2010, I began to journal. A little bit of everything. The facts. My thoughts and feelings. Some prayers. Some dreams and ideas. It's not organized into topics and I don't have a regular time or day for this recording. When I look back through the pages, there are strings of days all put together, and then there are big gaps of time, even whole seasons, gone missing.  Still, this is the longest I have kept up a "habit" of journaling.

I pull out the magazines I have saved appropriate for the season, and I find my favorites. Big open windows, wildflowers and birds, bright orange leaves and sun-drenched wooden floors, antique furniture and crammed bookshelves and quiet bedrooms. I tear them out, glue them to the page. Now, the page is inviting me in.  I often sit with a cup of strong coffee or Bengal Spice Tea, and begin to share my day or my thoughts or my ideas. It is still a work in progress.  I have decided it would be nice to have a calendar spread, squares to write a note for the day when I haven't the time to sit and write long. A place to record an appointment, an unexpected phone call, the first robin's return in the spring.  At times, this has worked well, and other times not, but I like the added flexibility it brings and so I am including it in my journal pages again this year.

And because I am learning to keep my eyes open to all the graces, the gifts of this life,  I also try to keep a gratitude journal. I was fairly diligent when I had tried to name 1000 gifts, but once I did, it sort of fell by the way. I have recommitted myself to thanksgiving, naming 1000 gifts again this year,  but am rethinking how to record it in such I way that I will do it with more consistancy.

And a nature journal. I've never kept one, but in recent years have thought I would like to. Beauty is all around us out here. It is the quiet backdrop to our days. I have snapped many frames of the ever-changing strokes of color in the sky, the cheerful petals of flowers, the golden grasses blowing.  This year, from my mom, I received just such a journal for my birthday.

The pages have quotes and sketches of nature, and spaces for your own sketches, written entry, or photos.

This, it makes one slow the pace to look. Amazing. Worth numbering.

And so this new year, it brings all these moments brand new, and my thoughts are all about capturing them. Remembering them. Living them.

Proclaiming them.

One generation shall praise Your works to another,...They shall utter the memory

 of Your great goodness.    Psalm 145:4,7

I saw the Whole Thing and it Got Me to Thinkin'

This morning I was standing in the kitchen, measuring out flour to dump in the pan for the bread that will be traveling to Ivy's house, and there I watched, saw the whole thing.



There's been a hairy woodpecker visiting the birdfeeder near the kitchen window regularly for several weeks now, and he was making his routine visit there this morning. While I was measuring and watching, a little downy woodpecker flew over, but Mr. Hairy wouldn't let him land. This went on for about a minute I suppose. Mr. Downy would fly in, about to land, and Mr. Hairy would chase him off. I was thinking that maybe Mr. Downy should just fly around the corner to the other feeder where he could easily have some breakfast without all the hassle. But no. This was a battle of the wills. Mr. Downy certainly was a persistant little thing, give him credit for that! But Mr. Hairy soon got tired of the chase and decided enough was enough. He would just sit ON the food rather than NEAR the food. Take that Mr. Downy, you little pest.

Mr. Downy didn't get his breakfast. At least not at this feeder. And Mr. Hairy?

He was quite satisfied. He didn't eat. Didn't peck. Just clung to his little treasure, daring any other hungry little feathered foe to try him. No one did. So he flew away.

And this is what it got me to thinkin':  Some of the best gifts I've ever gotten are right here in my kitchen. (I know. My brain just tracks that way sometimes. Seems to take a hard left to something seemingly unrelated. ) It's a short list, and I'm sure if I spent some serious time thinking it over, the list would be quite a bit longer. Each one has memories and a story that could rightfully be a post all by itself.  But I have cookies to bake, so I'll try to be quick.

It was a Mother's Day in the school house when Hubby and the girls got me these. I had just begun to take an interest in all the little chirpies that flitted about the yard there.

They've held a prominent place near a window in the three houses since then. Here, they hang on a nail near a kitchen window and I ( we) use them often.  To go along with the binoculars, my family got me these:

Hmmm. Normally the book on the right sits on an open shelf in the kitchen, near the binoculars and my camera. I had to go looking, and found it in the school room. I'll have to take it back to its rightful perch!

Also in the kitchen is this:

My mom and dad got this for me at Christmas the first year we were married. I still love it. The cover is not the original, and is a gift in itself. Years ago I ran a daycare. I had taken the plunger out then and put it away because the kids were always messing with it. One day, a child stood on the churn to reach the light switch, the cover slipped and the whole thing, child and all, crashed to the floor and the lid was broken into many pieces. It was lidless all these years until 5 years ago when we lived in Underwood. Hubby's uncle Craig was doing some construction work for us, and without mentioning to me that he had taken notice of the poor thing, showed up one morning with a lid for it!  How wonderful is that? 

The whole-again churn sits right next to this:

A pine hutch, built with his own hands, as a gift for me from my dad  while we were living in our first house in Wadena. It is well loved. This piece has been in every kitchen we've lived in since, and I'm sure would have quite the stories to tell if it could speak! 

Behind the glass doors of the  hutch are these:

Dishes that belonged to my Great- Grandma, Inga Augustson, given to me years ago from my mom. I remember the tiny apartment above an eye doctor's office in Fergus Falls where she and my (step) Great- Grandpa, Hjalmer, lived. She served us coffee in saucers so that it would cool, and sugar cookies. She wore dresses, hose, and thick-heeled black shoes and had the softest hands. We use these dishes every year at Thanksgiving.

And in the drawer, in a box, are these:

A beautiful, heart-shaped opal (my birthstone) given to me on my 4oth birthday from my Hubby. The gold band was broken in half by the weight of a heavy box I was trying to carry out of the house to be moved from Bertha to Underwood. And my Mother's ring with a stone missing, given to me the year that Joshua turned one.

Also in the kitchen, you would find this:

A glimpse of who we are, the Hubby and me, 25 years after saying "I do"! A gift of photos taken and given to us for our 25th anniversary from Hannah. She captures life in frames, too.

And last, but not the least in my kitchen, are these:

Christmas came a little early this year. (Smile)  Although I had no way to take a full picture of my camera, which is always right here in the kitchen, I have this. Hubby, my good man, knows the way to this woman's heart!! This year, a zoom lens, because he knows I like to see the stuff life is made of up close. And music, always in the kitchen because when we bought this house he put a speaker right here where we always are. So we can sing!

 And already I have zoomed in on the beauty around me and sung loud to every song on this cd. These are a few of my favorite gifts from the kitchen.

What are some of your favorite gifts?

When Blessings Come Priority Mail

One afternoon in late May, I loaded the boys into the car for a trip to town and an appointment to have highlights added to my hair. Knowing we would be there for a while, I made sure the boys "packed a bag"---books, paper, markers, and whatever else they wanted that would be quiet and entertaining for them. And they did. Not only did they have all of the above, but also small scissors and tape.

We arrived just early enough to get them  settled into their chairs and my stylist, Laura, called me to "come on back".

We hadn't been there long when I could hear that Josh had taken up a conversation with someone. I kinda half laughed and said, "I hope he's not talking someone's ear off !"  It would be possible. Laura assured me that the someone Josh was conversing with was a "good guy" and thoroughly enjoying himself.

During that whole appointment, I don't recall the boys coming back to check on me at all. Unusual. Laura looked in on them to assure me that all was well. She told me they were spread out on the floor and making paper airplanes.  Oh.

If you know Joshua at all, you know that he doesn't make a typical paper airplane. No. He rolls paper and folds paper and cuts paper and then tapes the paper and then draws designs on paper to make paper airplanes. I was imagining quite a littering of scraps to clean up.

 Right now, as was true last spring and has been true for about two years now,  airplanes are his "thing".  More specifically, military aircraft. And it turns out that on this particular May afternoon, God would have it that in a little hair salon, Josh would meet up with a retired military pilot. Amazing. And I'm pretty sure they talked airplanes. And I know for certain that while I was sitting in a chair flipping through some celebrity magazine, Josh made this retired military pilot one of his special airplanes. And they struck up a sort of friendship. And it was just one of those nice sort of days, when all the world seemed to be smiling down on Joshua.

Well, who can know what would seem to be a chance meeting may turn in to. Of course, nothing really is just chance. And all of these moments woven into a story.

On an afternoon months later in September, Joshua receives a box in the mail. At first, I wouldn't even let him open it because I didn't know the name of the person in the return address and I thought maybe it had been delivered to us by mistake. But curiosity did get the best of us and so I agreed that he should open the box.

Inside were two model airplanes and a note to Joshua from the retired military pilot.

Wow. There was a little excitment at our house that afternoon. I even called the hair salon just to confirm that this was indeed the same person. I never met him that day because his wife was done before I was and they left before I had a chance to come out and say "hello".

  Doesn't it make you wonder what God is weaving together in all of this? I do.
So with a little help from the Hubby, Josh got his model airplanes put together, and when they were complete we snapped a picture and Josh wrote out a little thank-you to send with it.

But then TODAY...
The mailman brought us another surprise package for Joshua!!
TWO MORE AIRPLANE MODELS and a NOTE explaining the reasons for choosing these two models.  The one, this airforce pilot had trained in, and the other he flew his missions in. And Joshua's connection to his dream of being an airforce pilot himself suddenly seems more real. And he wonders as we drive past the little airport on the way to Tae Kwon Do if he'd be able to work as an airplane mechanic there to get some training until he's old enough to go to college and the military. I don't know. But I do wonder. And I sent up a little thank- you prayer for God being the Giver of Dreams to my favorite ten-year-old boy.

Again, how God weaves meetings and moments together. And such surprises, like little love notes.
Priority Mail.