Hope

Christmas is upon us, and every piece of decoration and light we own is hanging on trees inside and out, or festooned around surfaces that were previously bare. Nativity scenes and snow covered villages speckle our home ready for little hands to play, and our Christmas tree has gifts nestled under its boughs with large name tags for young readers to identify their names so shaking and guessing contents can ensue.  I unfortunately had to decorate our tree twice this year as yet another tree falling incident occurred, breaking so many precious memories. And to be quite honest, and this might surprise people who know me, the tediousness of tree decorating has never been high on my list. Love the look, just don’t like the process.

It seems year after year our family’s Christmas’s have been a bit harder because a loved one has been very sick or has passed away.  This year is no exception as we are mourn the passing of my sister and her father just a few short months ago. Also, a dear couple I love are having serious marriage problems and their young children’s futures would seem to hold a much changed and saddened course.  Even my own church is bleeding with needs, the list goes on and my heart, and so many others, are torn in grief.

Enter hope. “The Message” Study Bible says in 1 Peter 1:3-5, “What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead we’ve been given a brand new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all, life healed and whole.”

“Life healed and whole”, sounds pretty wonderful to me! Because we were given hope in the form of a small child, Jesus, whose birth we celebrate this Christmas season, our entire world is offered the hope of new life, and peace beyond anything we could fathom. Now that is something to celebrate!

 

 

 

 

Letting Go and Digging Deeper

 

Out our den’s window the fall winds are whisking the leaves right off the trees and bushes, and their brilliant offerings are being tossed through the air like confetti at a party.  In fact, I just saw a small tomato, the last of the harvest, wiggle off its soggy stem and messily plop to the ground from its raised bed. Times are changing! We had such a deliciously warm and wonderful summer with day after day of sunshine and the interruption of this trend has almost seemed like an abrupt, if not a shocking reminder that we do indeed live in the Northwest.

The landscaping crews seem to daily blow leaves off the roads and gather them into their big black buckets.  I wish they weren’t so efficient.  I’d like a chance to really savor and enjoy a carpet of my favorite colors glowing together in striking harmony on the roadways before they are hustled so hurriedly away.  I love how a dozen or so leaves rise up to dance after a car passes over the tops of them.  It’s like a private little performance that only the people following the car gets to see.  

Fall used to be my favorite season, however, as I get older I find myself spending more time outdoors in my garden and it becomes more and more difficult to cut back my perennials as the cold weather and rain arrive, then say goodbye to my flowers.  After their beautiful leaves are clipped to nubs against the ground, I cover them up with their microbial rich blanket of dark monochromatic compost then start my dreaming.  My creative self continues to cling to the need of a broader spectrum of color, my skin for the warmth of the sun, my ears to the songs of sparrows, and my eyes and heart to the cacophony of designs in the leaves and petals that are so prolific in long summer days. Letting go is hard.

 

It seems in the late fall and winter I have to dig a bit deeper to see the beauty of the natural world around me.  Sadly, my praises to our Creator are less frequent and I find myself flexing my thankfulness muscles almost willfully and maybe even with a tinge of sarcasm at times. “Yes God, I saw your beautiful creation today in the gradient shades of what color is that? Oh yeah, more gray, in the dark clouds overhead”.   But, that very decision to look for beauty is what sparks my creative juices and propels me through the cold and wet upcoming months. It’s like when we are almost out of groceries and I need to make something for dinner. It feels like a game, a challenge on what delectable combination I can come up with from the bottom of the freezer and the very back of the pantry. “Ah hah, taste that!”  I boastfully challenge my husband when I serve up a lip-smacking meal out of four previously neglected ingredients and some fresh herbs from my garden. Finding beauty in our day during a long wet season is like finding elements of joy then mixing them up into a wonderful offering that can be reaped not only by God, but for ourselves and others as well.

I Thessalonians 5:16, “Be joyful always, pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” May your eyes and spirit be overflowing with joy-filled beauty as you go about your day this season of change.

 

Treasure Hunting

The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches.  Patience and faith.  One should lay empty, open, choice-less as a beach – waiting for a gift from the sea.”  - Anne Morrow Lindberg

Every year or two, my husband and I go visit our timeshare in Kauai.  Snorkeling is the big highlight for me, and I’ve been on an elusive search for a sea turtle for years. However, they’re playing a pretty good game of hide and seek, because I’ve swam beside hundreds of spectacular fish, but not one single turtle. One day, while just sitting on the beach, a giant sea turtle crawled out of the ocean and beached himself about 10 feet from me. The lifeguards soon cordoned off the area where it sunbathed, and I sat amazed at this furrowed, beguiling beauty, as well as my good fortune. I had searched with the focus of finding a turtle, and the turtle rewarded me with grace, and plunked himself right beside me.  He came to me, not in the way I had expected, but I sure couldn’t deny his presence! He had tagged me, I was “IT”!

Patience, oh how that word makes me…well…impatient! It involves letting go, and I’m as tenacious as they come when I focus on something. I do have some patience; in fact I look at the word as a bit relative.  I have patience with children, but not with myself.  I have patience with gardening, admiring each minute change, but not with sitting still or pacing my strength. I want to be thin, but the daily resolve needed to achieve the goal is tiresome. God has his hands very full teaching me discipline, and the process of letting go and releasing worries to Him is not often fully realized. He is my sea, and I am swimming through his beautiful kingdom impatiently digging for quick treasures while mired down in a kelp forest (which, I must say, though restrictive, can also be quite lovely).

Almost two years ago two of my grandsons, and their parents, moved from out of state to just down the road from me. Oh, the adventures the boys and I have!  We hunt and identify insects and birds, go on space adventures; create beautiful pieces of art and culinary masterpieces. We play together, swim together, laugh together, learn from each other, and love each other deeply. In fact here is an example of a treasure I received yesterday when six year old Ethan came to my house after school.  He was at the kitchen table and said excitedly, “Oh Grandma, I need to tell you what I learned in school today.” “If I just put the number six in my head and count all my fingers, I can count all the way to 16 without running out of fingers!” He walked out of the kitchen shaking his head and saying with amazed confidence, “I know everything”.  I can only imagine how wonderful it would be to have ALL my grandchildren living around me, like my grandparents did. To have grandchildren is a blessing beyond words, but to actually have them in your daily life, for me, is a piece of heaven.

My mother warned me when they came, “Lisa, remember they are not your children”.  She was right to warn me, because they do feel like mine, and I am as protective as a mama bear with them. 

There is a chance they may be moving to another state again, and I am in a tailspin.  My greedy arms want to grab them and hold them hostage, and yet…they are not mine. And even though they are their loving parent’s responsibilities, they are not truly theirs either.  They are God’s children, and He promises to take good care of them.  Living near my grandsons has been my biggest treasure, and I am having the hardest time relinquishing them to their creator. God whispers in my ear that He will not leave or forsake them when, (or, if) they are gone from this state, and He will watch over my grandsons and their development. I will mourn and ache for the daily treasures their lives have brought me, but I pray God will open up new opportunities for me as the busyness of their little lives potentially are moved on.

"God give me patience and faith.  Help me to have peace with my choice-less-ness.  Let your will be done with my grandchildren. Help me to learn a new rhythm. You have sought me and found me Lord, but YOU are “IT”."

 

Insect explorations

Ethan's Dragonfly. He learned the hard way to release after capture. He called me crying that his dragonfly died and the ants were eating it. Tough, tough, lesson.



Making Christmas decorations.

Remy loves to bake, and he can crack an egg decisively without any shells going into the bowl!

The boys are watching their cookies bake.  Wolf is with them, of course.  Wolf is a story doll that turns into Little Red Riding Hood, and her Grandma. The boys love Wolf best and he goes on a lot of adventures with us.

One of our many space adventures. We have to all wear something white and wear strainers on our heads for our spacesuits. My bed is the spaceship, then we get out and go to various planets around the house.  My dark walk-in closet is "The Scary Black Hole", that we inadvertently get sucked into each trip.

 

 

Changes

Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassion's never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3: 22-23

It has been almost a year since I last wrote. A very tough year. A year where I have felt so dry of words my heart couldn't string a line of them together that felt in the least bit interesting, let alone uplifting. Less than one year after my father died, my mother fought and lost her battle with cancer.

Mom moved near me in Washington when my kids were in grade school and junior high. We shared a deep love of nature and gardening and our homes reflected it. Having spent several years in Japan before her husband retired from the Navy, she was influenced by their art and design. Together we formed her little back yard overlooking a wooded area of a golf course, into a small Japanese inspired garden. Her modest garden was deeply filtered by huge Douglas fir trees and we gave up the lawn to accept and then encourage the moss that preferred to grow there and created a pathway of pavers through the soft green earth. The camellia bush we planted when only a foot tall, bloomed brightly each year, and this dark green bush soon towered over seven feet, it's glossy dark leaves reflecting small glints of light. The nandina, ferns, hostas, hellebores, and Japanese skimmia, added diverse shades of green to her light dappled retreat.

White and pink blossoms from astilbe adding the gentle break of cadence from the garden's green chorus. Mom disliked variegated leaves, so nandina leaves were only tolerated because they maintained muted gradations of wine and green, and not the dreaded striped and speckled leaves she thought garish and harsh in other plant varieties that enjoyed or tolerated the shade. One year I gave her a coral barked maple, hoping its bright bark would be a light source in the winter's long wet and often gloomy days. She loved it, and although it never grew very large, it was one of her most prized specimen's, and she often commented wistfully, "I can't believe I have a coral barked maple".  As all gardeners do, she understood why my gifts of bags of manure and compost felt as good as receiving diamonds and riches.

 Through the years we giggled at the way we each groaned when our arthritic knees were forced to bend and straighten.  We both limped with both legs, and we poked fun at ourselves as we waddled back and forth, side by side. She short, me tall, making shadows like waving grass.

After mom left us, I decided to finally do something about my own knees.  They each had advanced arthritis and were grinding bone to bone, making my life so much smaller with their limitations. So, six months ago at the age of 55, I underwent bi-lateral knee replacements. More than one person have commented, "I can't decide whether you were incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid to have them both done at the same time."

 I don't know what I'll think a few years down the road, but right now, I'm under the feeling I was very stupid. Having both knees replaced at one time is more pain than I think we humans should ever have to endure. I'm also a scar former, inside and out, and the affects of surgery on my body felt like more than I could bare much of the time. I hurt, I miss my mom and dad, and I was scared (still am) what my future mobility would be like.

God is faithful. George Bernard Shaw wrote, "The best place to seek God is your garden, you can dig for Him there," and although the old atheist may not have meant his words to resonate with those who see God's fingerprint in nature, they have called my twitching shovel foot into action. I am digging again. My stiff newly-minted knees have been bending down to weed, and my right foot has been pushing down my dented iron shovel deep into the earth, moving plants, and removing the snares that seek to overtake new life. God is responding as He promised in Jeremiah 29:13, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you." I will continue to dig.

All His Wonders!

My grandsons have arrived and my world is spinning at break neck speed! However, I must add it is also more vibrant, full and beautiful. A couple of years ago I bought a giant book on insects hoping for the day when my grandchildren would come and we could explore together. That book was meant for our home. Ethan (5), and Remington (3), who have recently moved to Olympia from San Diego, have taken hold of that book with such excitement and curiosity, I can barely keep up with their hunger to learn. As we explored outside for examples of the insects featured in the book, I quickly realized we needed lab supplies.  We now have a lab that includes specimen jars with magnifying lids, hand held magnifying glasses, a cool microscope that allows viewing from above and underneath, a butterfly net, tweezers, and my lap top for identification of mystery insects.

My grandson Devin in the lab, as he made the big trip to Grandma's on my birthday.

As we find specimens the boys are learning to check for similarities from the book's featured insects, counting legs, observing colors and body parts, and classifying accordingly. We have caught dragonflies, damselflies, various beetles, butterflies, moths, bees, worms, ants, and spiders. We are learning about camouflage, life cycles, feeding, mouth parts, and insect communication.

One day we even took our investigation to another level and made an ant brownie.  We made sure all the major body parts were there, counting, and checking for accuracy. The boys did a little communicating in ant talk as well.

When they arrive to our home Ethan will often want to read a bit more on an insect he has been thinking about.  He loves to sit beside me and read about them together and I love to share. In Psalm 8:1 it says, "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" "You have set your glory above the heavens." "From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise." What a wonderful way to celebrate and praise our creator by learning more about his wonders.  Children are wired to wonder about God's creation and what a pleasure it is to share in that wonder.  Psalm 9:1 says, "I will praise, O Lord with all my heart; I will tell of your wonders." "I will be glad and rejoice in you."  "I will praise to your name, O Most High." We are exploring and telling of God's wonders and we are impressed!

Remington is excited about his female cabbage butterfly.

Ethan's much loved dragonfly. He is painfully learning that releasing after investigating is the better choice.

This cute little Garden Sprite named Dylan was found on my birthday.