Author: marettej

There it was. Kind of hidden, almost unseen, but still there. I had almost missed it in my quiet time sitting on the deck. It’s a quiet morning. Chores done, trash burning and the dogs are eating. I am home alone, a rarity, but sweet one. The gator is sitting waiting for me to jump on and check horses one more time. Still in sweats and sweatshirt from doing chores and hay still hanging on the edge of my pant legs. My cereal is now rather smushy from sitting in the milk too long but it doesn’t really seem to matter. For today, I have blossoms on my peace lily. I pulled the short end of the straw and ended up with plants after mother’s funeral. I don’t do plants. I kill them. I felt guilty this spring because I hadn’t paid any attention to them and put them on the deck and figured they would finish croaking and I would be relieved of my duties. Last week I cast a glance in their direction and noticed several of them were much taller. Well, with all the rain and heat we have had, God has pretty much made southern Minnesota a greenhouse. But I wasn’t prepared for yesterday which led to today. That’s usually how it goes but let me explain. In the past 2 years I have had people steal my peace. I know some of you will say we have control of our choice of having peace or being in strife, and as much as we have within us to live at peace, but there are people who have gone out of their way to put enmity and strife in my way. It’s hard to drive around barricades when Christians are the ones slashing your tires and draining your gas tank. Outwardly I have held most of it like sand in my fingers but inwardly, well, peace has been a constant beckoning from God. Yesterday I did not cry. Yesterday’s was a day of music and laughter. Yesterday was a quiet day with friends, music and Chinese leftovers. I walked the perimeter of the farm and thanked God for the day of peace.. I sat was on the deck and laughed at the dogs. I lay in the hammock and listened to the wind. I watched the Vikings lose and marveled that such things could happen; the Packers losing helped.

Peace… God came to give us peace but it seems people exist to steal it. Christ lived a peaceful life and when we try to emulate him we are tossed under the bus and have tire marks all over our faces. What is there about peace that seems to evade our outstretched hand? And then there are days when God simply reminds us that He is peace regardless of what others do to us. We can have peace even when darts are flying our way and tomatoes they are throwing are rotten. And then when we have tossed all our hopes on the deck to be pummeled by life, God puts a bloom in our hearts. Our peace Lilly blooms amid the chaos and heat. And just when we thought there was no hope with winter coming on. I am glad God speaks in little things in life because it seems that’s where I hear him the loudest. If that peace lily can survive and bloom on the deck in the midst of this summer, then perhaps I will bring it in and try it for one more year just to remind me that God isn’t done with me or flowers I seem to relish killing…. and by the way, not one bloom but two… God delights in making it obvious he knows how to grow what he created…and he created my life also…better work on raising the trust-o-meter arrow a bit higher…

I am at a horse show… the arena has people who help out the events by assisting the judge. Basically, they pick up poles. If there are 20 kids in a class, more than half knock the poles down. It seems that all this lady did was pick up poles and line them up…. just to have the next rider knock them down again.

I feel like that some days, and if I were honest maybe more than some days. When the kids were little it seemed all I did was change diapers, wash clothes, make food, clean the food off the faces, floors and cupboard doors. But, that was my job. To raise children one spends time doing stuff over and over and over again.

As a Christian I probably make God feel like the lady in the arena. I knock over poles, crush barrels and flip the jump figure 8 pole and the jump. God just walks over and puts them back up. He doesn’t say anything, just calmly does what he does best; picks up what I tip over… a good father does stuff like that….

I have one. I have more than one. I have several. I have my grandmothers, with her writings still in the margins and papers still flapping when I turn the pages. I underline, highlight, circle, copy and color code. I have it on my phone, in my car, by my bed and in the living room on the bookshelf. There is a blue one, one with no cover and several black leather bound ones. I have one from my grandmother when I was quite young and it’s a big print New Testament. It’s about time in my life when I need to use it to read the print.

I go to it when I am angry. I know the chapters that I read when my friend died. I keep it near me when I am working on studies I am writing. Now days I can google it and push a button and I listen as I drive.

We sing songs about it, put tunes to the passages and write more songs and poems about its meaning. There are moments it bothers me because it convicts me. There are moments it frustrates me as it seems like God is answering the promises in others lives and not my own. There are moments when something happens and a verse from it’s chapters leaps into my heart. There are moments when someone starts reciting a passage and I can finish it without even thinking . As hard as it is to memorize as I am older, it quickly comes back the verses I learned as a child.

The Bible. I can’t imagine not having it in my life and yet in the early days of the church they had nothing but what we call the creeds. They learned what they believed and recited it. They couldn’t have bible drills or memorize or underline their favorite passage. If they had a copy of the early scriptures they would be much coveted. Bibles in the early churches were chained and guarded as they were so rare…. I can’t imagine being without it…. would my faith be more defined if it were not as easily accessible? Would I anxiously wait for Sunday just to hear a passage read? Would I sit quietly in uncomfortable chairs quietly as it was read, almost afraid to breath?

I wish we read the scripture more in worship. I wish we would stop what we were doing more often and just read to each other….not Dr Suess, not Shel Silverstein but God. Just God who made me, who created the atom and molecules and babies and puppies and apple trees. The one who spoke the world into being but took a special moment to breath human life. And made us in his image…read about that God….

The B I B L E. Yes that’s the book for me

I stand alone on the word of God

The B I B L E

So….. it sounded good. The reviews on line were great. Grandmas chicken recipe, fried chicken and duck tenders; what could be better? Well, most anything would have been better. Somewhere we missed the no air conditioner, must spend $6 per person, $3 extra for sharing a meal, and food not served at the same time. Jim’s fries were fried hard and cold, chicken had no taste, my baked potato and green beans were good but $8 was a bit spendy…they had very little food that wasn’t fried. I don’t do greasy fried foods much of at all. There were 14 of us and 11 of us would give it a thumbs down… haven’t talked to the other 3 since then…

So who do we believe? When something is rated highly, well recommended and you are up for an adventure sometimes you have those times where you slightly regret what you chose. However on the bright side, we laughed a lot, had a great tome as sweat was running down every part of our body. You can always find something to redeem the moment. If you look you can spot a ray of sun on. Rainy day, even if it means the rain will stop tomorrow.

And that brings up our responsibility as one who recommends and rates something highly. Do we really recommend the experience to someone else or are we just being nice? I wouldn’t eat there again and if someone in Peoria ask me for a cool place to eat, it would not be that place… would one truthful? Would I be kind and truthful? Would I be objective and not worry about people liking me or not liking me based on my experience and recommendation? Would I go on the web site and write a negative post to counter the raving reviews which weren’t really accurate in our circumstances?

There is a time to speak the truth and then there are times to just walk away. Don’t rant and rave over something that doesn’t deserve the accolades and don’t trash something just because your experience wasn’t like another’s. We just all went away saying, well we had a lot of fun. Army men fights, spilled water and laughter…. sometimes that’s the nicest review to give.

Helplessness. How does one handle the feeling of helplessness? How does one hold the heart of a friend in ones hands and have nothing to offer but love? I can’t find it, put a band-aid on it, turn back time or see the future. I can’t offer anything but love and it feels so helpless. Why do we as people want to fix things? Because they are broken. It’s not the why did the chicken cross the road question, it’s very simply the fact that I want to stop hurt and plug the hole and then patch and dry wall and paint it. When I cannot do that, I feel helpless. And yet in our helpless condition we start looking at life. Life that is full of frustration, hurt, accidents and broken legs. Why? Why not? Helpless? Because there are moments God wants us to look at our humanness and see Him. When I am doing something I begin to think I did it. Well, of course I did it, but without God my “did it” moments are pretty measly. I am helpless. I am not without help. My help comes from God who made the heavens. That psalm gives me hope and help. I can hug and love. I can pray and praise. I can sing and share. I can cry because there is nothing else to do and there are times crying is on the menu. And when I think it can’t get any worse, and it does, I can simply say “seek to find abiding presence in God, not answers ” and somehow my helplessness doesn’t seem to deep and the mountain of doubt and fear so high. If I seek to abide in the presence of God, I don’t need as many answers as I think I need. So easy to write; so hard to do…