Monthly Archives: May 2016

Sweet Conviction

life, , , , ,

I’m here!

The kitchen is a mess.  Stewed rhubarb is on the stove, cookies are cooling and cake is waiting to be iced.  The fridge is almost overflowing and I may have had to use a little extra effort to close the door.  The rain has paused for a few minutes although if They are to be believed, it won’t be for long.

Honest to Goodness Gracious if I’m not having a bit of a time this morning.  Has your heart ever overflowed with joy to the point where you just want to cry?  I’m not talking Happy or Good Vibes.  No.  It’s a God thing.  A mountain top, bringing my face to the ground.    I have some stuff going on and for all of us there are days when there is tough stuff going on.  Today though, here at my house, God has come, in a special kind of way.

Matt Redmond is singing to God and I get to listen.  The album is called  Unbroken Praise.  I just know God is smiling at the words His boy, Matt is saying and I think He’s looking at me too.  I’m sure of it.   I know it because He has reached down and put His hand on my head and taken hold of my heart this morning.

Unbroken praise be Yours, God, forever
All my praise be Yours, God, forever
Lord, take this life
Let it become Your throne
Unbroken praise be Yours

No, this is not Happy.  This is, I am so awed by your Glory Lord.  By Your Greatness God.  It’s these moments I pray for.  I ask for.  Rain raining, gloom all over the sky and God here, with me, in my kitchen.  He is love and He is Great and I won’t forget today, that He is Strong.  He is God and not to be pushed aside.

God You can tell the waves be still
Tell the ocean roar to pass
Lord until it does
I’ll wait here

God You can part the raging sea
Bring the miracle I need
Lord until it comes
I’ll wait here

CHORUS
And I will sing
Songs in the night
Praise in the storm
You’re God in it all
And I will stand
I’ll be still and know
Whatever may come
You’re God in it all

VERSE
And so when I am in the storm
Lord the storm is not in me
You will be my peace
I’ll wait here
I’ll wait here

BRIDGE
Your love
Your love
Won’t leave me in the shadows
Oh Your love
Your love
Forever by my side
I will not be afraid
You are my song in the night


He has it, people.  He has all of it.  The whole World.  The good and bad and in the moments we aren’t thinking about taking time to come into His presence, He comes into ours.

He came into mine.

Yesterday out of the blue, people said nice things about me.  I was so very blessed and thankful for the kind words.  It was on social media but I felt pretty good and even thankful and then I said something that keeps replaying and then when I woke up I heard a quiet reminder, deep, say,

you are wrong and I know I am and I was.  I said something about my self esteem and being thankful for the kind words because it makes me feel good

about me and I was wrong and that, dear friends, is the difference between guilt and conviction.  The Spirit of God convicts us because He loves us and wants to teach us.  It isn’t to bully us or make us feel inferior or guilty or bad.  It’s all for Love.  He teaches through conviction so we can learn and carry on to do the good He’s is working

in us.

through us.

Our job is to hear what He’s saying and make the wrong right and carry on to be who He’s making us into.

All For Love!

I am living to be who He has called me to be and any good in me is not me and that’s for sure.

It’s God in me.

It’s God IN me

I tell you.

I was a broken mess of a vessel that has been put back together because of Jesus

blood shed and death on the cross

and His work IN ME

Yesterday I sat across the table, twice, with people and talked and you KNOW how I love sitting across the table from people.  Not texting.  Not emailing.  We actually looked at each other and said words that were good and any good in me

Is because of HIM

And today He Blessed me because

well

because

because He looked at me and said

I will bless you today because I will♥

I am worshiping Him right now, right here because the good in me is Him.

“Your Love won’t leave me in the shadows.

I will not be afraid

you are my song in the night”

And now I’m going back to the sink to peel some things and He is here and is there too,

with You.

Praise Him in the clouds and the gloom and open your curtains and look out.

He is The mighty, Holy, Worthy, Good, Powerful, Kind, Gentle, Gracious,

Present

God

Happy Saturday, Friends.  Let God Bless someone through you today.

 

 

Just Do It

life, , , , ,

I learned quite a lot from Nano but one thing I picked up loud and clear was that doing stuff in the kitchen should not be considered drudgery.  She spent much of her time Doing for people and when she wasn’t Doing in the kitchen she was Doing at her sewing machine and when she wasn’t Doing there, she was finding other places to Do. Well, as it turns out  I picked up on her ease in the kitchen and I kind of went berserk. Sort of rogue and free spirited (if you will).

I can’t draw to save my life and I sure can’t play piano or grow dahlias, but give me a stove and a cupboard full of this and that and a fridge with a few basics and I’ll cook ya up some tasty vittles.

I woke this morning intending to get some things done around here. I vacuumed a couple of closets and piled the boots by the basement stairs since I’m hoping like crazy that we won’t need them again until, oh, December?
I rearranged some drawers and emptied the fridge so I could do away with a few jar fulls that needed getting rid of.
I debated going for a walk but couldn’t face the chill in the air. Okay, excuses.
Just about noon time I decided to do some baking. We’re having a bit of a due this weekend. We’re expecting thirty something twenty somethings and I think we’ll need quite a menu.
I decided to make some jam jams and some buns.
It was mid mess that realization set in.  I was recreating some Nano specialties.

When Nano and Papa were at their first pastorate in Meadow Lake Saskatchewan, Nano didn’t know a whole lot about sewing and cooking but she jumped in and boy was she a quick lerner. It was 1949 and there was no running water and they had to break the ice in the water barrel in the winter before they could drink water or wash or cook and they had to stay close to the little coal stove to keep from freezing to death. Look on a map. Meadow Lake is Up there!
That’s when they really, together, had to start trusting God for
every little thing. They had no money and they prayed and God answered. He sent people who brought with them a coat or a dozen eggs or even a word of encouragement.
I always assumed Nano had been born knowing how to get things done, but she actually learned it and most of her learning happened after she married Papa.
In their first church and then in their second church there were people who loved God and thought nothing of taking the young preacher’s wife under their wing and helping to nurture and train her.
I have a friend who is Mennonite and she often tells me I don’t have Mennonite blood running through my veins but my heart beats Mennonite. The places God sent papa were mostly Mennonite and boy can those people get things done around the house.

So one of Nano’s stories was about her friend Mrs. Andres in Meadow Lake. She lived in the country and I can’t remember how many children she had. I’m sure my jaw dropped to the floor when Nano told me that the Andres Homestead was a poor one but Mrs. Andres, daily, swept the dirt floor in their cabin and that place was Spic.And.Span. Say WHAT? Mrs. Andres could make a mean pan of buns before you could say “My but your dirt floor looks fresh today”. She was one of many who spent their days cooking so that the men folk would have enough to eat so they would have enough energy to work the fields and milk the cows and fix the tractors and
life was awfully hard but
Nano spoke of those days with joy in her voice and a shine in her eyes.  Maybe you haven’t noticed that needing to trust God because there’s no hope otherwise, brings Joy.

Jump thirty five years ahead and Nano and Papa moved to another Mennonite community. It’s in the Valley, as it’s called. The Valley is just outside and to the East and across a couple of bridges from Vancouver. They moved to a house next to an apartment building and would you believe that in that apartment building, lived an aging Mrs. Andres. I am just not sure what her first name was. Nano always called her Mrs. Andres. Well those two reconnected and Mrs. Andres continued where she had left off.

When I was a wee little lamb, I had a big heavy wool quilt. Of course someone somewhere had made it for us. Once Nano and Mrs. Andres met again, they worked together to take that quilt apart and sort through the wool and clean it all. Then they made the pieces into two quilts and the Staley boys used those quilts for years, on their beds. Those precious quilts are packed away in my closet.  Maybe we’ll use them again some day.

Mrs. Andres also reminded Nano about
Jam Jams.

jam jams

They are cookies that you fill with whatever you like. Nano loved Jam Jams.
Today I made jam jams. I’m not sure who in the World will eat them since my family really doesn’t eat much sweet stuff.
While I was making jam jams I made buns.
I grew up on buns. So often I would come home from school and there would be warm buns to eat. Nano did that on purpose, made the buns so they would be just out of the oven when we walked in the door. We ate them with butter dripping off.
After Papa went to be with Jesus, Nano came to visit us for a month at a time. The very day after she arrived she would get to making buns.
The Staley children still call them
Nano Buns.
So today I made Nano buns.
Oh I’m okay. Don’t worry. The sun is shining in my windows, Matt Redmond is belting out
Love that will Not Ever Let Me Go
and this place is topsy turvy and I have fresh buns and jam jams on the counter.  I am having fun remembering and I even sat down with a warm fresh bun and let the butter drip off.

There are two coming in the door very soon and I better get the barbecue going. It’s that kind of sunny and lovely, leaf budding day.

I’ll be putting the recipe for jam jams on the blog shortly, but just wanted to get this little bit off my chest. I hope you enjoy this evening and spend a little time giving of yourself to make or help recall a memory for someone you love.

XO

On Mother’s Day I Write

life

It’s almost over!
My already irregular heartbeat has done a few extra flips and blips today.  A few people have asked, cautiously, how it’s going,
Mother’s Day this year.
My response has been
“Good. I’m Good. Yes, I’m doing well.
Thanks for asking.”
Then a few minutes ago
she came up from down,
from, as she calls it, her “basement wing”.
“I meant to ask you mom, how are you doing today?   I mean, since it’s Mother’s Day and it’s the first one”.
“Good, I’m Good. Yes, I’m doing well.
Thanks for asking.”
I smiled sort of and then
shoot, if all of my resolve and healthy acceptance didn’t start to crumble. I was
determined though and made it through with only a few tears and we talked about it, how I’m doing,
a couple of sentences worth
and then
a hug and that was that.

Really, I could start listing right here and now, friends whose mothers and fathers are gone.
Friends who are orphans just like me.
Friends who struggled too, today.  My heart is no more sad than
maybe,
yours.
So this story isn’t about my first Mother’s Day without a mother, being bigger or worse or sadder or more reminiscent or more lonely or more nostalgic
than
yours.
It’s about me letting you in.  It’s about us sharing a moment together
here.
We know,
you and me,
how it feels to say good bye for the last time, to the one who took the best care
of us.  We know how it feels to need to talk to her.  She brought us along, under her wing and maybe didn’t consider herself a teacher but she was that.  We watched and a lot of what we do now is because of what she did then.  The non teaching we do or have done with our own girls and boys, we do or have done because she did the same.
I’ve told you before that I would not wish her back. No way on Earth. She is worshiping Jesus and enjoying her new home in Glory.   You better believe I believe it and I’m happy she’s there.
I just miss her.
I mean, 94 years is a long time to live on this Earth and considering she was born in 1921, I am amazed at all the changes and adjustments and good and bad times she lived through. She learned to be strong and maybe at the beginning she wasn’t, but after moving from here to there and then over yonder and from there, beyond, she learned to adapt and adjust and grow and learn and I learned good things watching her.
I would just like to talk to her sometimes.
Today, I would like to talk to her.
All three of my little ones wished me a Happy Mother’s Day and even my newest girl, my son’s wife, sent me a text on her way to see her own mama, to tell me thank you for raising “the best boy in the whole world” (I realize some of you, friends, might disagree with that part, since of course your own boy is the best boy in the World) and tell me she loves me. I got hugs from the other two and even got to sit in church with those two and
I can tell you and I am pretty sure you will agree
that I didn’t need flowers, or brunch, or presents. To see their faces and hear their voices was all.  Just. All.
Thirty two years ago, on the second Sunday of May, I was at church. The very church I was at today and people were giving me pathetic, sympathetic looks and saying
“Oh my dear, are you still here”? My first born was slow in arriving, or so I thought. I officially became a mother just about two weeks later.
Thirty years ago, on the second Sunday of May, I had an almost two year old and a one month old and I loved those two boys.
Twenty eight years ago, on the second Sunday in May, I had an almost four year old, a just turned two year old, my father had just been buried, my mother, three thousand miles away, was mourning the loss of her dearest one of all and I was waiting, once again, for another Staley babe. This one arrived, just as her brother had done four years earlier, approximately two weeks after Mother’s day and I loved those three little people.
As an aside, someone suggested that perhaps my husband and I should live in different provinces for the duration of the month of August.   Agreed!

And here we are and I’m the mother around this place and you and I know there isn’t a harder job on the planet and there are so many days when having three very little ones in one house is three too many and they all need caring for and they cry and we cry and they laugh and we laugh and we cook and we clean and we sing and we rub backs at bed time and we go for walks and wipe noses and put bandaids on scraped knees and kiss elbows that have landed on the pavement and we change diapers and wipe up spills and we won’t talk about vomit, not here,now, and they stamp their feet and we sit them in time out and some of us even spanked little bottoms and we gave hugs and received hugs and bathed and fought over what they were going to wear and not going to wear and reviewed spelling lists on the way to school and listened to their memory verses or poetry or speeches and we were frustrated when they didn’t listen and we spoke sternly when they fought and they argued and they said mean things and we prayed with them and took them to church and brought them home from church and some of us even took them to McDonalds more than every once in a while and we forgot sometimes that being a mother meant that we were also the tooth fairy and there were more tears and we were sad when they were sad and we are still sad when they are sad even though they are all grown up and we still pray with them because they need us to do it and we still pray for them when we aren’t with them because they need us to do it and it’s such a huge responsibility to be a mother and when they are little we don’t think so much about the responsibility of it and we just want to survive and do the best we can and we want them to survive and be the best they can be and
sometimes there just wasn’t time to eat and then we ate the leftovers on their plates because it was good food and why would we throw it away and we wonder if they have any idea
really
how much
we Love them.
But really
it’s okay if they don’t because we do.
We know how much we love them and we know how thankful we are that we get to love them and even though they hurt us sometimes we still love them
more than.

My mom, Nano, loved me. She loved us. She’s gone now and I would love to hear her voice again just like you would love to hear the voice of your mom.  For as long as God lets me remember things, I will remember her and I’m going to try to remember to thank Him for giving me to her and her to me for a while, a long while. And when I finish thanking God, the creator of everything there is, for a loving mother, I’m going to remember to thank Him for these three, the little ones who aren’t little at all any more, but whose mother I get to be.