Author: marettej

I paddled across the lake with the realization that I did not bring an anchor. The wind was seemingly subtle but the waves were anything but. If the boat got sideways we spun quickly around if I quit paddling and tried to fish. Eventually I settled in against the reeds and shoreline to fish. I finally landed a fish; both the word landed and fish used loosely. It was an evening on the lake filled with memories. On the way up north we got the news Mr Jim Gillespie had passed. They had become dear friends when the kids were younger and we loved them both. Memories of picnics at our place, walking each morning in the mall them McDonald’s for coffee. Not to forget the many times Jim would bring his canoe out to store it over the winter at the farm and tell us he didn’t get it in the water. One spring when he called to say he was coming out to pick it up, we quickly put it in the swimming pool so he could at least say it had been in water that season. Eventually he let us buy it and bring it to the cabin. I always think of him when I look at the green scanoe and we watch a bunch of people take off in the water and it goes gliding across the lake.

Last night I caught the fish. A little fish in a big lake. That’s us in life. If you figure the lake is 150 acres, 10-12 feet deep in some places, 4-6′ deep everywhere that little fish is pretty insignificant in life. And yet, that fish is important. Either that fish will grow to become a beautiful bass of which someone will catch later or it will be food for another fish to live and grow. That fish although insignificant has a part that needs to be lived out. Big lake, little fish; still important in the scheme of life. I think often that I am just a little fish in a big world. We listened to stories of aunt Shirley and it reminded me that she made every inch of use of her little fish life in this big world. Her neighbors, her friends, church people and family gained from her simply being content to be a little fish in a big lake. She didn’t want to be a big fish, just the kind of fish God made her. We all seem to think that we could be something else better than what we are. I can imagine that little fish wanted to be a northern, or a sunny or a crappie; who wants to be a minnow that’s small and chased by everyone? I would love to be taller, thinner, smarter, richer, have more friends or be in a different lake. Yet, God put me, a little fish in my lake to be the best little fish I could be for as long as He needs me to be that little fish. I can’t think about what others do, I need to remove myself from the comparison game and be content with the lake and the job of my day to day world. Mr. Jim was that way. He was the best Mr Jim he could be while he was here in our lives. Aunt Shirley was all in, in the lake God put her in for as long as he gave her life.

So wherever your lake is and whatever size fish God has made you to be, just be it really well. I will come back in a week or so and take the green boat out and laugh at the many memories of Jim and Joan Gillespie and be so thankful God put them swimming in my lake so I could be blessed with friendship and a pretty nice green scanoe!

I love highlighters. They jump out of the drawer and right into my hand. I have lots of yellow and a few green and blue and a pink one. I highlight a lot. Highlighting something intends for it to jump off the page and grab you. So if and when I highlight something it needs to be a wow factor! Sometimes I look back at what I have highlight and I wonder how sleep deprived I was at the time. And then other times when I open my Bible the highlighted text is just what I needed. Today, I opened my Bible to where I am reading in the New Testament and all I could see through very tired eyes was “You’re the message.”

There are lots of other words on the page but that jumps out right off the page with yellow neon highlighter. It’s been a long month of May. It’s been hospital time for most of the month. It started with grandpa May 1 and ended with aunt Shirley passing May 25. I was there. Seems like the highlighter spend a lot of time on the page. We are what people are. We are the message. Lots of things went on the back burner this month but the obvious message was family matters. That’s was the message it sent. Shirley has no children; never married but the nurses that helped care for her were amazed at the amount of people coming and going. It sent a message. Perhaps it was the fun we had, the laughter, the dedication, the picture on the white board; all of it sent a message. I had the honor of being there with her when she passed. It sent a message. There were many places I could have been but I changed plans to help was her home. Many others made the trek to see her, left their normal lives and their being there night and day left a message. Loving someone trumps other plans.

Our actions send messages. Sometimes the message isn’t one we wanted sent. Other times it’s the flat out simple truth that isn’t missed by others. 1 Thess. 1 reminds us that we are sending a message about what God has done in our lives… it’s going out; be sure it’s the one you are intending to send. And for goodness sake go buy highlighters. They are so much fun!

It’s that time of year when the apple blossoms come shooting out of the trees. At first they seem to be still and quietly ignore spring and then two days ago they shot out of the tips of the branches like fireworks at the lake on the 4th of July.

I mowed by them last week and it seemed the tree was still dormant. Yesterday I drove under them and took in a deep breath of unexplainable joy. There is something about apple blossoms and lilacs that just make you smile from the inside out. And yet, today wasn’t really a day with much to smile about. I stood at the grave once again as my friends loved husband was laid to rest. We celebrated his life in the cold chill of February. Today we gave him the proper military salute and said once again, “Chuck we will meet you on the other side.” And if that wasn’t enough, an aunt is in ICU with traumatic brain injury from a fall. Just doesn’t seem like today is a day to giggle and shout. It’s days like today we need to find the apple blossoms and breath deeply. We need to find a lilac tree and bury our face (making sure there are NO bees or wasps hiding) and just forget life. Lilacs have a way of making me smell God. I guess maybe you have never smelled God. Think about the smell of cinnamon rolls, a baby after their bath, the fresh mown grass (sorry allergy folks), hay freshly baled, chocolate chip cookies coming out of the oven or wisteria blooming in the hedge.

There are days you have to just walk away from the things that strangle your heart and go find somewhere to smell God. Apple tree blossoms are a really good place to start.

It’s one of the three trees that I wait for to turn. They are beautiful flowering crab apple trees. Two are pink and the other white. For just a moment in time they are breathtaking. The rest of the summer they are pretty but I never forget those breathtaking, world changing breaths of sweet smell and beautiful blossoms.

There are days when I have to go back and remember those times in life. Right now it’s just not there, but there was a time when it was breathtaking and brilliant. God gives us memories so we’ll have roses in December. I love that saying more because if you know what December is like in Minnesota there isn’t much but brown or white everywhere.

Memories and remembrances are Gods way of reminding us hat he has blessed us. And if he blessed us once he will do it again. I look out my window and I know those trees will burst forth with color. They do every May… and I am waiting and hoping it doesn’t rain and knock off the blooms before we have time to take in their smell and their beauty.

At first it was leaving Salt Lake City that I began to marvel. Perhaps because the other flight I was in a middle seat and could not see what was below. I watched the world slowly become small images and then nothing but bland brown, circles or green which probably meant irrigation and large cliffs, dunes and miles of seemingly flat nothing. But nothing prepares you for being amazed as much as the boring. If we see amazing every minute we are pulled into its spectacular intensity but when you have boring, boring, Boeing and then wham… it stays with you a bit longer and stronger. Hence, from Boring to Mt Hood. From brown to white. From dirt to snow. From rainy cloudy Minnesota to sunny Oregon.

Life has the ability to slowly amaze us or like fireworks during the finale, each blast woes and teases us that more is coming and they will be even better….

I have a feeling those who live in the shadow of the amazing perhaps are Dulled to its wow ability. Then again maybe not. I never want to get to where I feel God move and sense his leading and don’t go wow. I want to feel the pit of my stomach churn, my heart rate accelerate and my face go face first to where I sense God might be. I want to feel it over and over again… I want to be amazed over and over and over again.