Tick Tock, You Just Can't Stop The Clock

I saw this quote a couple days back and while it's a bit of a mind bender, it's true. Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash of lightning, at once exists and expires. ~Charles Caleb Colton.

I've had a lot of thoughts about time in my head lately. I've been organizing pictures trying to make order of them. So many memories contained in a little square I can hold in my hand.

The change of the seasons reminds me of the tick-tock of time. The last time I had a conversation with my dad was May 21, spring was well on its way. Then he told me about his cancer diagnosis on the phone the first part of June and June 18, he suffered the blood clots, just as we were starting summer. He passed away on July 1 with the funeral on July 6, the 4th of July holiday sandwiched in between - the height of the summer season. Now it's fall, the weather is starting to feel different, football season is well on its way. Sometimes I want to put my hands over my ears and scream "CAN IT ALL STOP FOR JUST A MINUTE?" Each season change feels like it takes me one more step away from my life with my dad.

Last Sunday, we started a new theme in church about time, which just makes me smile because so often I have something in my head and then God gives me more opportunities to gain new insights into something.

As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord's love is with those who fear him and his righteousness with their children's children. (Psalm 103:14-6) (Once again lessons from the hillside. The wildflowers flourish for a time, but soon they will be gone.)

One of Jay's points was "Delight shows up in time usage." I like that. He also said "There are more negative journeys than positive ones." Postive choices are intentional. So it has to be my goal to make live a certain way of life, who can I bless today? My time can be spent finding delight in God.

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or site in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. (Psalm 1:1-3)

In "Fiddler on the Roof" as Tevye is thinking about his daughters' desire to marry men they have chosen, he sees them from a distance and sort of fuzzy. So still looking back over my shoulder to look at my dad, it feels like he is standing still while time keeps me moving forward. No, I can't stop time, fall will turn to winter, and winter once again to spring, but like my dad, my desire is to intentially spend my time living "The God Way of Life."

Love God, Love Others,

More Lessons From The Hillside

I love Isaiah 40:11: "He tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart, he gently leads those that have young."

Through His Word, we have God's promise that when we experience something painful, he will take care of us, He will provide comfort and I love it that we don't always know the form that comfort will take. I have written about my wildflower hillside before and that is where I received my comfort this summer. I didn't even care for gardening and knew next to nothing about plants until about a year and a half ago. Then suddenly the business of landscaping became something I wanted to learn more about and, oh, boy, but I have learned a lot. My wildflower hillside started out as sort of a fun project and it became my place of peace and joy, rest and contentment; all the things God promises when our world is shaken. And God continues to teach me almost every time I am out there. These are the things He taught me yesterday as I was weeding and watering:

1. Patience. In May, when the world around me was turning green, there was not much happening on the hillside. At the time, I didn't know that wildflowers bloom from July to October. So in May and June, when I saw very little activity out there, I decided to "jump start" things. I went to the greenhouses and bought a bunch of plants and put them out on the hillside; I got cuts from friends that immediately went out there. Then as the wildflower seeds began to grow and bloom, they were practically on top of the things that I had planted. So now I probably should go out there and dig up some things and put them in a new garden I have planned which is more work for me and probably stress on the plants. It's the same way with us and God. Too often we want to "jump start" God's plans. Jeremiah 29:11 says "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." What a promise, plans to give us hope and a future. I spent days in the hospital waiting for things to get better for my dad, but instead God gave me hope and the reassurance that I will see my dad again in the future.

2. Protection. I have been bitten by bugs from head to toe this summer and the thing is, I don't feel anything biting me until the next day when I am covered with itchy welts. And they do not discriminate on where they bite you. I have a bottle of "OFF" right on my deck, but I'm always in such a hurry to get out to the hillside I forget to give myself a good spray and then suffer the consequences. In life, the Bible and prayer are my protection. They are my weapons against things seen and unseen. Ephesians 6:13-18 tells us about the full armor of God. "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. (Eph. 6:10).

3. Getting to the root of the issue. That crown vetch we had out there is some tough stuff. Part of the problem is because it has rhizomes, which isn't something I knew much about before this summer. Rhizomes are root systems that spread all over the place. It sort of reminds me of a subway, tunnels going all over the place and you don't even realize it's going on right underneath you. Because of the rhizomes, it's very hard to get the entire root system out. Dandelions aren't rhizomes, but they have very long roots and rarely can I pull the whole thing out. It has to be very muddy to have much success at all. I can see the plants where I was unable to remove the entire root system. There is about half a plant, they still have a little bit of green leaf and they are most definitely alive, but they don't look like a normal plant. Ephesians 4:26-27: "In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold." In other words, don't sweep things under the rug. If there's a problem with someone get to the root of the problem and do your best to work it out. When we have issues going on, we can still live, we can still have a more or less normal-looking life, but it isn't whole, parts are missing.

4. Identification. I have a lot of this plant on my hillside. I waited and waited for it to do something, get some sort of flower buds and it never did. So I cut off a leaf and brought it to an expert and learned, that, yes, it is a weed and I have to remove it. While I don't think it's a hideous looking plant, it's not what belongs out there and it's getting in the way of other plants being able to flourish and be all they can be. It's like my life, there are things that I do that aren't bad, I'm not hurting anyone, I'm not breaking any laws, but are they the best use of my time or are they getting in the way of letting me grow to be all I can be? Could I make better use of the time I spend on those activities? I believe it's important to identify those things in my life that keep me from growing, from learning, from being the person God intended for me to be. 2 Thessalonians 1:11: With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith." Summer is coming to a close, my hillside will no longer require my attention; I am right now trying to identify ways to continue to be as teachable as I am out there.

I am so grateful for the lessons I've learned this summer; I'm so grateful for the peace and comfort God provided in a way I never would have guessed. My prayer for me, and all who read this, is that we would all be open to God's lessons, to have patience with His plans for us, to build up the body of Christ through our relationships and to do all we can to bring Him Glory.

Don't. Stop. Believin' .....

Let's Take a Closer Look

As I looked at the pictures of my hillside, I realized I was not really doing it justice so I took my little camera out there with me tonight and got a little closer to see a little better what I actually have out there. So let's get up close and personal.


















I found these little beauties hiding under a much bigger plant.

I did learn tonight that some of the pests I have been seeing will just have to stay there, no pesticides. The first frost probably isn't too far away and that will be the end of those little guys.

And good riddance I say,

My Project

Well, here are some pictures of the place I have spent many, many hours this summer. It really is hard to capture how it looks in a picture, but maybe this gives a glimpse In the picture on the top, I am standing right on the hillside looking towards the northwest and in the second one, I'm on top of the hillside. I am noticing things starting to die back the last few days and last night I spent the evening cutting off dead blooms and cutting plants back and continuing to pull out crown vetch. When I look around though, I am seeing fewer and fewer weeds so I believe I may be winning the battle. I have noticed a new problem, however. On several of the plants are little pest-like creatures. Being so new at this, I don't know if they are just a natural part of the whole prairie project or if they are destroyers. The plants they are on do not look like having those little pest guys on them is healthy. So despite my reading on not using pesticides in a garden attempting to attract butterflies, I did sprinkle some Sevin on one of the plants where I noted an abundance of little worm-like creatures on gray leaves. It just didn't look like they were doing the plant any sort of good at all. I think the answer to this problem is to get more birds in the garden as I believe they help control all that naturally. At the beginning of the summer, there were many birds in the yard, lately I have not seen as many. Whether that is because of the season or because I couldn't keep up with filling the bird feeders this summer and they found other food sources, I don't know. However, the next plan is to start working on some bird feeding stations, probably get that started already this fall and winter. It will be fun tromping out there through the snow and battling the winds that can make your face hurt. Perhaps we will even have a blizzard where I have to attach a rope to the house so as not to lose my way back. I think that would be very fun. Yet, even as I start thinking about the seasons changing and see some plants dying down for the winter, there are still many plants with new blooms still waiting to pop open so I would say we are about a month away from mowing it all down.

Mark is also building me a for-real clothesline with poles and cement in the ground and I'm pretty excited about that. I'm starting to feel like I'm living "Little House on the Prairie and couldn't feel more joy and contentment with that.

Planting and Weeding, Weeding and Planting,

Sometimes God Whispers, Sometimes He Shouts

Dena and I met for prayer last night after a summer of sporadically meeting. Our prayer time has become such a comfortable, easy, blessed time of assurance that the pressure of "needing" to meet every single week is no longer an issue. We know we will pick it up as soon as we are both available and God is already there waiting for us.

Last night as we were catching up with each other's lives for the past few weeks, we agreed that this summer we had both experienced life altering events. Dena compared these events to the first time you get glasses or after you've had glasses for a while and you get new ones. Suddenly the world has a little sharper focus, colors are brighter, you can see bark on the trees. That's how our life altering events have been and now we can see the hand of God a little more clearly. Dena's event involved birth, mine involved death. Which may seem unfair or sad for me, but if we have placed our trust in God, then our response to these events has to be I will continue to trust You and "thy will be done."

Dena and Greg have their first grandchild, Ash. Dena sees the miracle of life, of birth, how each person is created by God. Their family has changed, they have a new normal with the joyous addition of Ash. To say that Dena is entralled, completely enraptured, head over heels over Ash doesn't really give justice to how much she loves this baby. Love oozes out of her as she talks about him and about her daughter, Emily.

I lost my dad. I see how precious life is, how fragile life can be. Our family has changed too, we have a new normal with the loss of my dad, but this change will never feel normal. However, I have been shown how a person can live a quiet life and watch for opportunities to make a difference in someone's life and make use of that opportunity. My mom and dad had the privilege of getting to know a family who are very good friends with Barb. Their daughter got married a few weeks ago and my mom, along with Nicki, went up to Minneapolis for the wedding. The young bride and her husband mentioned in their wedding program, the memory of people who had passed away who had meaning in their life and they included my dad. My mom was so honored that they did this. They, in turn, took the opportunity to return the blessings my mom and dad had given them. It encourages me to watch for those chances. I can be the rock that gets thrown in the water and causes the ripples. I don't have to be famous or have a whole bunch of money to cause a ripple.

I am reminded to take the life altering events God sends me and learn from them and be thankful for the lessons. The ones that bring joy and the ones that bring sorrow.

Continuing to Praise,

My Sanctuary

In the back of our house is a hillside that is a too steep to mow so when we moved here we planted something called crown vetch. It's a fast growing plant (that I now call a nasty weed) that covered the hillside. And then for the next many years, we faithfully ignored it. More and more weeds made their home on my hillside such that a little more than a year ago, I was calling it my weedside and decided a change needed to be made.

I had read in the paper that the plants that used to cover Iowa were hardly able to be found anymore and I thought it would be a good idea to plant Iowa natives and wildflowers on my hillside. I asked around at nearly every greenhouse I visited, I contacted the County Conservation people, I researched on where to find these plants and surprisingly it was difficult to find anyone with a lot of knowledge about this. Finally, I was talking to the greenhouse lady at the Woodsmith Store and she told me about someone who could perhaps help me and where he worked. I contacted him and truthfully he wasn't a whole lot of help either, but I hit the jackpot with the place he worked. Des Moines Forage and Turf is where I found the answer to my hillside. They told me they don't usually work with inviduals, they do more work for corporations, farmers, golf courses, much bigger places than my hillside, but they had bags of seed called "Color Iowa Wild" that they would sell me. These are not like the little packs of seeds you buy at the home improvement stores or even the greenhouses. Those have about 2% seeds and 98% filler. Read the label, it's true. The seeds I got from Des Moines Forage and Turf were pure seed. Since we were a little late in the season for this, I got one bag and after mowing and Round Upping, we planted last September. Then this spring, we planted another bag. I didn't know what to expect. I thought maybe we would have a couple flowers, but it turned out to be fantastic. The Round Up didn't work as well as we had hoped on the vetch so I'm weeding that and some other nasty stuff, but there is more out there than I imagined for our first year. While there is a lot of beauty out there, there are still quite a number of weeds and it's been a lot of work; I spend anywhere from 1-3 hours out there every day that I'm home. I have such plans for that hillside. I want to add bird feeders, bird houses and bird baths. I even learned how to make a butterfly bath with a dish, sand and stones. I want it to be a haven for winged creatures. I see bees out there and I enthusiastically exhort them to go forth and pollinate. While my hillside has been a lot of work, it's also been my sanctuary this summer.

This is where I go to pray, to think, to reflect, to ponder, to remember, to praise. As I weed, I see so much evidence of God's handiwork in nature. Little bitty toads are quite common and one morning one hopped on my foot. I thought it was a chunk of dirt until it hopped away. There was also the night, just as day was ending and the sun about to set, that I saw a deer about 1oo yards away from me. He watched me for a while and I watched him, then I went to the house and he jumped over the fence and away he went. Mark tells me there are probably snakes out there, but so far I have not seen a single one and I'm very thankful for that. Toads are reptilian enough, snakes would make it a bit less of a sanctuary.

The hillside is where God gave me the words for my dad's service long before I even knew he would get sick, which at the time was a bit puzzling and sort of uncomfortable, but now I understand why those came. I needed time to be prepared. As I was pulling weeds, after learning about my dad's probable cancer, the thought came that this could all go fast. A few hours later he went into the hospital with massive lung clots and a few hours after that suffered the stroke. I wish now I had left the hillside at that moment and gone in the house and called my dad. But, while I thought "fast", I expected weeks or months, not hours. A reminder to write that letter, make that phone call or send that e-mail immediately, don't wait. Fast can be faster than we think.

I was out on my hillside the morning Mark came to tell me that while we were in Ohio, Capi's brother had called and left a message saying Capi had lost her battle with cancer and her suffering was over. Shortly after Mark left, a hummingbird came and hovered next to me for a few seconds before flying off. I love hummingbirds and hadn't seen very many of them this year.

Over a year ago in the spring and summer when I started thinking about what to do with my hillside I didn't know I would need a sanctuary. I just wanted to improve my landscaping. But God knew I would need a place where I would see Him, where I could talk with Him and know He heard me. I believe the thoughts, the hummingbird, the deer, the toads, the success and beauty of the wildflowers are all gifts from Him. We took 2 bags of pretty plain looking seeds, spread them on a weedy hillside and with that, God created a miracle.

Still Grateful

It's been a tough summer. On July 1, my dad passed away. He was so precious and dear to me and truthfully, I just want him back. Then about two weeks after my dad left us, a friend from college who had battled breast cancer for six years, also went to her eternal home. So it's time to write that God is still good and my thankful heart.

I am thankful for God's hedge of protection as I traveled back and forth to Wisconsin this summer. I am thankful for the example my dad was to me on how to live a faith-filled life. I'm thankful that my dad's service was filled with hope and reassurance. I'm thankful for the sound of Katie's voice as she gives Noah his trumpet lesson. I am thankful that Jeff could fix my speedometer and take care of my car at a fraction of the cost I would have had to pay otherwise. I am thankful for the outpouring of support from the people in the Sheboygan Falls/Oostburg/Himgham/ Cedar Grove area. I'm thankful for Barb's gift of playing the piano and how she poured herself into her music at the service for my dad. I'm thankful for my wildflower hillside project, a place to think, pray and reflect. I'm thankful for the little hummingbird who stopped next to me for a few seconds shortly after Mark told me that Capi had lost her battle with breast cancer. I'm thankful for a day browsing in the fun little shops of Cedarburg with my mom. I'm thankful for Caan's and Culver's greenhouses. I'm thankful that I discovered journals by Marva Sheriff. I'm thankful for the Christian marriage of Zach and Christina. I'm thankful that while life ends for some, we have new life to look forward to with the birth of Ruth Vinson and waiting for the birth of Emily, Sarah and Jennifer's babies. I'm thankful for Rachel G's writing and her heart. I'm thankful dad was able to be at home for the last days of his life. I'm thankful for the support of friends who drive to Wisconsin from Iowa and for the support of friends who stayed in Iowa and took care of our cats and dog and mail. I'm thankful for family summer birthday parties. I'm thankful for time with Cindy, although never enough time. I'm thankful for pictures from Tara. I'm thankful for wonderful spaghetti from Maggiono's. I'm thankful for the mother-daughter banquet in Sheboygan Falls last May when, although I did not know it at the time, gave me one more opportunity to see my dad. I'm thankful for Tyler's summer in Sicily and the work he is doing there. I am thankful for Rachel's summer in Mississippi and the work she did there. I am thankful that Carissa was home this summer and she was able to find jobs. I'm thankful for a fun day shopping with her in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. I'm thankful for safety for Carson as he flew to NYC and back. I'm thankful for fun weekend in Ohio and I'm even thankful for roller coasters. I'm thankful for family and friends. I'm thankful for hope. I'm thankful that I have been redeemed.