Meandering thoughts for the new year

I always find it a rather melancholy thing to take down the Christmas decorations. Everything looks so bare. This is particularly so when the decorations are removed the day after all the children leave, and our home seems especially quiet. Somehow it seems like we have stripped everything bare, and loneliness has come to stay.

So, since today is a melancholy day, instead of coming up with self-centered resolutions, I am borrowing some resolutions and reminders from others, for my own benefit, and to share with you, Gentle Readers.

Here are 7 reasons to remember to say "Lord willing" when talking about future plans. This is a good reminder as we head into a new year full of plans.

Here are some excellent reminders on how to spend our time well, from one of my favorite theologians (Dr. R. C. Sproul).

Here are five reasons blogging improves your writing. You all will have to judge if it has helped me or not.

Here is an excellent reminder of what the object of our worship should be in the new year, and always. Pastor Currid always gives encouraging thoughts on this blog. Here is another regarding humility.

Geoff at Be Thou My Vision lists several of Jonathan Edwards' resolutions. I listed these in their entirety last year at this time. They are always excellent to review.

This weekend I am renewing my prayer notebook-- a three-ring binder where I keep prayer requests under various categories. I will get it up-to-date and resolve to be better organized in my prayer life yet again. (This is a yearly resolution, with no end in sight in this world...) And I will begin a two-year cycle of reading through the bible. I have a lovely notebook I will try to take notes in as I read.

What are your resolutions as we begin a new year? May we all draw closer to God this year, and may we see the further coming of His kingdom, free from melancholy and longing.

Some thoughts on marriage

My ddil, Nikki, called for a lovely long talk today-- the first since her marrying my son, Tim! That, combined with my other ddil, Elsa, sending a link to a great article made me decide to send you all some thoughts on marriage, "that dream within a dream..."

Elsa's excellent article can be found here, and is very fun!

Children are an important part of marriage. Here is a good post on discipling your children, and here is a great post on why children lie (and they all do sometime...)

Tim Challies has a thoughtful post on how children who are brought up in Christian homes can often neglect the Savior, and live on "borrowed grace."

OK, so maybe most of what I had saved up was more about children than marriage. But as a woman with two sons now married, can I help but start thinking about children again?

Wednesday Without Words

Babies that God named

Every year, about this time, I think about the two babies I’ll never meet this side of eternity. I think what brings them to mind is that there are two little boys in my church that would be about the same age as the second baby: this year they turned 9.

When I lost the first of those two babies, I had a lot to learn.

I had been praying that that the Lord would not bring a baby if we were going to have another return of my husband’s cancer. I miscarried that baby at about 10 weeks, and I grieved the loss of that little life. I grieved that I didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl, and didn’t know how to name him or her. Holding me as I cried one night, my dear Dave said, “We don’t have to name that baby: God has given that baby a name.”

Two months later, Dave’s cancer returned. So I also grieved that somehow I had prayed all wrong. If only my faith had been stronger, and I had prayed for the strength to have a baby AND deal with cancer, maybe God would have allowed that little one to live. But slowly, and increasingly, day-by-day, I came to realize that no matter how I said it, God knew what was best. My faulty prayer was not more powerful than my loving Lord. That baby, the tiny one with the full-sized soul, was God’s before he or she was ever mine. And God’s love was so deep and high and long and full for that baby and for me that this difficult death was best for that baby and for me, and was meant to bring glory to God, too. It was a hard comfort, a throbbing sort of help, and left me afraid for a time to pray for God’s will to be done. After all, he was not a tame God, but an almighty one. He was not predictable, but holy and powerful. Slowly, his perfection dawned upon my grief, and I learned to trust him again, in a deeper and higher and longer and fuller way.

By the time the second little one that God named came along nine years ago, I had been through that first loss, and had looked Dave’s cancer in the face, and walked with him and the Lord on a journey of faith that was dark and frightening. But again, as always, God was sufficient for our needs—and more than sufficient, his grace proved to be abundant and overflowing. This time, I experienced the physical pain of an ectopic pregnancy that left me for one long hospital-night wondering if I would, indeed, head for heaven. My faith was rattled and shaken in a whole new way, but I knew experientially that God would be sufficient. And he was. So as we grieved that second loss, we grieved, but not as those who had no hope.

Before either of those losses came along, God had placed two blessings in my arms: two wonderful sons. Having them in hand didn’t alleviate my grief, but oh, what joy God has brought me through them, and how difficult it was to become too self-focused in my grief when they were near. God knew I would need those boys.

So, this spring, as I thank God for my two boys on this side of eternity, who now have wives or fiancées and the hope of children of their own in the near future, I again, quietly, remember those two other babies that I hope to recognize in eternity. And my arms, so full now of God’s abundant blessings to me, ache just a little to hold them.

Wednesday Without Words

Weddings

Chris and Dave Finnegan, 1980

Jack and Shirley Hanson, 1959

George and Marilyn Finnegan, 1946

Joe and Marie Hanson

Rose and Ed Postel

Precious in his sight...

This morning a dear friend was called home into the presence of her Savior. She was called to lay down her suffering and put on glory; to leave behind her children and husband, and be ushered into the presence of Christ. A mutual friend, Lynne, has posted exactly what I thought I would post here, and she has done so beautifully, so there is no need for me to post it again.

I grieve for my friend Beth, for the sweet and encouraging notes I will never again receive from her, for her daughters who will finish high school and get married and have children without her, for her husband who has loved her and been her companion through many trials and joys-- but I do not grieve as one who has no hope.

Precious in the sight of the LORD
is the death of his saints.
~Psalm 116:15

Farewell, dear friend, until we meet in glory.

Wednesday Without Words

On fathers and husbands...especially mine

This morning Tim Bayly, my son Ben's pastor, has a thought-provoking post on our culture's hunger for fathers, and the theological implications of our hunger for our Father God.

My morning blog/news tour then turned to this amazing article in the Washington Post about a sacrificial love being played out as a devoted husband continues to care for his wife as she declines with a fatal neurological disease. (Thanks to T.C. for the link.)

Reading these this morning has made me so very thankful for my own dear husband. He has been a fabulous father, who sacrificed many things for his family. Because of his dedication to his boys, they did not grow up with a burning "father-hunger" that debilitated them, and they are both becoming adults who are taking their places as men who will be strong husbands and fathers. I know they will be good dads and husbands because of the example they had in their father, and the way he taught them about their Heavenly Father.

And I have no doubt that his commitment to me is an absolute one until one of us dies. I watch him serve me daily, and am shamed by the little things that irritate me about him. I know that if we were in the situation of the couple in the above article, Dave would serve me in the same way, because his serving of me is a reflection of his commitment to his God. And God has been so very good to give me such a man!

Thank you, Dave, for your steadfast love and bravery in serving your Lord by serving your family. I love you!

Miscellany

Ah, the joys of scrapbooking... I'm a novice, and not very good at it, but it is fun! Even if it is messy (see my table at left). I have some of those trays to organize things into; now I just need to do it. Last night I finished a some pages for a scrap book celebrating my Dad's 70th birthday. Belated birthday greetings, Pops!

Douglas Groothuis has an impassioned post about the evangelical loss of passion regarding abortion. He makes some excellent arguments, and urges Evangelicals to recover from the fetus-fatigue they've been suffering from.

We had a lovely spring snowstorm last night that left the world amazingly beautiful this morning. See a few photos below.

The Day after a Marathon

I found this on Dr. G's blog, and had to post it here for my running men...

A lazy, lovely Saturday morning

Today has been one of those rare, lovely, delicious Saturdays without a million things to do and places to go. After sleeping in (until after 7:00 A. M., which meant more snuggle time with dh!) we cooked a lovely breakfast of Finnish pancakes topped with cherries. I baked some muffins for church tomorrow, and proceeded to sit at my dining room table and quilt. The brightness and warmth of the sun coming through the sun room, the wonderful colors of the geraniums, and the beautiful sounds of music on the CD player (Nathan Clark George and Bebo Norman) all conspired to cheer me from my mid-winter doldrums, and caused me to praise God from whom, truly, all blessings flow!

And now I am heading out into the 60+-degree sunshine for a walk with dh. Can anyone argue that the weather in NM is the best? And that our God is good. I hope you are all having a sweet Saturday...

LAPD

This morning I enjoyed the following list of top 10 science based predictions that didn't come true. (Thanks to T.C. for posting a link!) Living in a science community as I do (the national laboratory town of Los Alamos, NM), surrounded by amazing scientists, I am constantly amazed myself at how our culture has imbued prophetic proportions to the predictions of men, even when they are proved wrong over and over again. I am not against scientific discovery and argument, which is often of necessity a trial-and-error method, and but against the presumptuous attitude that all knowledge must be scientific knowledge, or it is no knowledge at all, or it is at the least vastly inferior to scientific knowledge. Our culture has made idols of these things.

I really shouldn't place all the blame on our culture: some of the blame for this rests with the scientists themselves, of course. I am a happy member of a small, conservative church, where all 5 elders are PhD scientists in physics or chemistry or engineering. Hard to get more technically-bound than that! (Even the deacons are all scientists or engineers.) Each of these "doctors" went through a rigorous academic system that taught them to think carefully, analyze thoroughly, make sure conclusions, and defend them. Now, you want these guys on your side when the denomination is studying an issue like nuclear proliferation. But try getting ceiling fans installed by this group of men! Now, don't get me wrong: they are godly and humble fellows, and I love them one and all, but in order to install ceiling fans to move around the warm air in the summer, we had to calculate the max air flow rates in our space, determine the optimal amount of air flow that causes the sensation of cooling on a body, determine the size and noise-tolerance level needed, and then install one to experiment with the actual results. It took years. They have been trained to be skeptics and once they make a decision to stand by it. You can hardly expect them to leave this training aside in their every day lives.

I love this quirky town, and my quirky church. These men, my elders, many of them noted scientists in their fields, have learned to humble themselves before the creator of the universe, but they were built by that same God to be scientific sorts. Where else can you walk into a sanctuary after worship and find groups of men and children dispersed around the sanctuary doing an acoustics experiment, or overhear an actual conversation between two ruling elders over the barbecue grill about the difference in the mean density of hamburger versus steak, and how one would calculate the corresponding difference in cooking times? I have a friend here who describes these phenomena as "LAPD", which stands for "Los Alamos Personality Disorder." You can take the man out of the laboratory, but you can't take the scientist out of the man!

The Burpee Catalogue

True confession time. I just got my new Burpee catalogue. I love the Burpee Catalogue. Maybe it is the Iowa farmgirl in my genes, but when the new catalogue comes, I eye it for months. I marvel over the flowers, and imagine my backyard as an English garden full of cascades of color and contrast. I picture my tiny vegetable plot as a fruitful field with bush beans and towering tomatoes and sunflowers reaching heavenward. Even a girl in the high plains desert who is too lazy to actually accomplish such feats should be able to dream, right? In the end, I suspect I will order a couple of the seed packets that are on closeout, and then buy the cut-price tomato plants at Home Depot again. I will work hard getting things in, then poop out until harvest or the weeds or the drought get things, whichever happens first. But a girl can dream...

A Fall Apple Recipe

I just had to type up a recipe to send to my parents, and thought, why not share? Everyone needs a good apple recipe this time of year! Well, here is one we enjoy, and so do my parents!

Apple Bread

2 C peeled, cubed apples
1 egg
1 C sugar
1/4 C oil
1/4 t cinnamon
1 t baking soda (adjust to 3/4 for altitude)
1/2 t salt
1 C flour
nuts (optional- I never use them, though they would be good)

Put cubed apples into large bowl; stir in egg. Add sugar and oil and mix by hand. Add dry ingredients; stir. Add nuts if desired. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes in a lightly sprayed loaf pan, or 9" pie or cake rounds.

Spring sprang...

... as evidenced by the apple blossoms, tulips and pansies around our little homestead.

On the Last One Leaving (written in the Fall of 2003)

On the Last One Leaving

This morning, I drove with my youngest child the two-hours of highway through the desert of northern New Mexico to the airport at Albuquerque. It was the first step on his 1500 mile journey to college. In the back of my car were two large backpacks and three large suitcases filled with most of his worldly belongings. But the most precious assets of the boy beside me could not be found by rifling through the tee-shirts and jeans, books, posters and CDs.

This fledgling young man has been the object of my wrestling and rejoicing in prayer for more than 18 years. The Lord called his dad and me, first with his older brother, then with him, to leave what we knew behind us and trust God in their nurturing, admonition and education. That led us often to struggle with them, and in that struggle, we discovered that the real enemy was us: our sin, our failures, our selfishness. God used this young man, once a child, to make me what He wanted me to be—to lead me where He wanted me to go. And wonder of wonders, in the process this young man became my brother and my friend. He now bears the fruit of the journey we have been on with the Lord over the course of his life.

“You know to call when you get there,” I say.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he answers.

“And you will make daily time with the Lord a priority, and get involved with a good church right away?”

“Of course, Mom,” he says with a patient smile that reminds me he has heard this before.

Then he slips off to sleep beside me as he has done a hundred times before. That gives me a chance to thank God for him quietly, for the privilege of nurturing two young men who now begin their own journeys to stand for the cause of Christ in the world. Now I can let my heart overflow into tears without dampening the joy of his day. He is ready and excited. This is a day we have anticipated, prayed for, and dreamed of together. And yet how can it be that it has arrived, already, on this beautiful, clear morning with a brilliant sun beating upon us as it has so often done?

It can be a daunting thing to drive back to an empty home which has been full. And yet this is one more step on that journey from a place of familiarity to a place of trust. The struggle, sweetness and fullness of the journey behind us make the pain of leaving it more intense, but also make the promise of the journey to come more inviting. As I drive through the high plains desert back towards the Jemez Mountains, I rejoice in the God who has made all things well—the earth, and all those who dwell there—and who once sent out a Son of His own.