My First Video Attempt

Well, I haven't tried this video posting thing yet, so here goes!

This is a video taken last year, when I was raking hay...I've talked a bit about haying on the blog here so I thought maybe you'd like more of an idea of what it's like...though the pictures sure don't do it justice. :) They can't capture the satisfaction of organizing a whole field into neat rows, the unique sound of swishing hay as it whirls around under the rake, the wonderful scents coaxed by the hot sun into the warm breeze, the pure satisfaction of being part of a team to get the hay in before sunset.

Wordless Beauty

This is Grammy. She has dementia. Little by little, her brain is betraying her, forgetting how to live life. Words are becoming a mystery, tasks which she used to do so efficiently and easily are now frustrating puzzles.

But there are some things, the meaning of which she remembers. A hug, a kiss, a smile, a mug of hot cocoa, all are things that touch her emotions and make her happy. And beauty. She has a remarkable eye for beauty. Not just the beauty that most of us see, in well-kept gardens and hot-house flowers. No, she sees beauty in grasses, and dandelions, and pieces of foliage, and brings them indoors for us to enjoy by the kitchen window. Below are pictures of some of her bouquets.

In a Hurry

The last several days I’ve been privileged to be part of a large gospel effort, focusing largely on door-to-door visiting. The responses have been varied, as usual. Most are polite, many seem disinterested, others are rude, and some are friendly and glad to see us.

“In a hurry,” one man told me when I asked if I could show him a verse from the Bible. He wasn’t the only one; it was a response we had heard several times. It made me think of the hymn,

“Sunk in ruin, sin, and misery,
Bound by Satan’s captive chain,
Guided by his artful treachery,
Hurrying on to endless pain;
My Redeemer, my Redeemer,
Plucked me as a brand from hell.”

Yes, hurrying on, hurtling toward an infinity of suffering and regret, with no time for eternity. The lost are indeed in a hurry.

Is God in a hurry? “The Lord is not slow about His promise…but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) God is in no hurry to bring judgment upon sinners. Rather, we read, “Thou art a God ready to pardon.” (Neh. 9:17). It has been said that the only time that the Bible depicts God the Father as being in a hurry, is when the father of the prodigal son ran to meet his repentant boy. So yes, God is eager—perhaps we may even say reverently that He is in a hurry—to forgive.

The lost are hurrying to a Christless eternity of agony. God is hurrying to intercept them with His forgiveness. Have we who call ourselves Christians got any urgency at all about their souls?

At long last!

Well, I feel like it's been a long time since my last post...hopefully a bunch of pictures at once will make up for it. :)

The Bean Teepee (which is a word I never learned to spell)

Queen of the mountain!

As Seen Through the Iris

"Come Lord Jesus"

The color only God could invent...

Pruning

This spring my uncle gave me my first lesson in pruning fruit trees. While I am nowhere close to proficient, the experience gave me a new understanding of Christ’s words, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser…every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.” (John 15:1,2)

The first lesson I learned is that the one pruning is a visionary; he does not see the twigs that are there, but the branches that they will become. Based on that, he decides what growth to leave, and what to prune out. When the Lord looks at the various parts of our life and our character, He sees how they will develop down the road.

On an apple tree, the desirable boughs are those which grow out horizontally, within easy reach for picking the fruit and into a space where they will receive enough sunlight. The goal of pruning is to maximize the amount of nourishment and sunlight that these branches will receive.

The easiest part of pruning is removing the dead branches; it is very clear that they need to be gone in order to avoid shading the living branches. It is easy to understand why the Lord prunes out certain parts of our lives which He shows us to be sinful, dead works.

But once the dead branches are removed, it becomes a lot harder for me to know what to prune. There are some healthy, vibrant boughs that need to be taken out, because they grow straight up, where their fruit will be out of reach and of no use to anyone. They will only shade the lower branches. Therefore, they are pruned out, though it might seem like a shame. There are things in our lives that might not be bad, just useless, and they take energy that could be put into more profitable things. When our desire is to bear fruit for the Lord, He loves us too well to let us be comfortably distracted into wasting our lives.

It’s even harder to understand why some branches must be removed that grow in the right direction, and seem full of promise for good fruit. But they need to be pruned out because they will crowd out the other fruitful boughs. Our lives can only support a finite number of occupations, even useful ones. Our Husbandman sometimes has to help us focus on the good works that He has given us to do (Eph. 2:10), not all the good things that need to be done.

Yet just as there is a limit to how many fruitful branches a tree can sustain, there is a limit to how many of the undesirable branches can be removed at one time. How wise the Father is, knowing just how much to prune us at a given time. I’m so glad that He is the one who holds the clippers, and that I can trust His all-wise, all-loving hand to make my life more fruitful.

Daybreak

The other night when I was working, I took my break around 4:30 in the morning. As I sat down in my in my usual spot, I looked out the window and was startled to see the horizon brightening. It was that unique blue-green color that is so hard to describe, still very pale and bordered by clouds, but it was bright enough to outline the silhouettes of some giant pine tree tops.


Suddenly there came to my mind the words of H. Suso's beautiful poem, a poem that expresses the way I want to feel about my Savior.

The Night Watch

Oh when shall the fair day break, and the hour of gladness come,

When I to my heart's Beloved, to Thee, O my Lord, go home?

O Lord, the ages are long, and weary my heart for Thee,

For Thee, O my one Beloved, whose Voice shall call for me.

I would see Thee face to face, Thou Light of my weary eyes,

I wait and I watch till morning shall open the gate of the skies;

The morn when I rise aloft, to my one, my only bliss,

To know the smile of Thy welcome, the mystery of Thy kiss.

For here hath my foot no rest, and mine eye sees all things fair

As a dream of a land enchanted, for my heart's love is not there;

And amidst the thronging of men I am lonelier than alone,

For my eye seeketh One I find not, my heart craveth only One.

I lay down for a rest, and when I woke up, the day had come. Just like that morning will come one day. And I won't sleep through it's arrival!

Just 'cause

A couple more pictures that I liked...

Home Sweet Home :)