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| First thing I did Friday morning was to open the back door, go out on the deck, and begin sweeping! It had been windy Thursday and little, dried "seed helicopters" from the Maple trees around our house came down and COVERED the ground. It was like snow! Except instead of looking good and clean it looked trashed and cluttered. My husband mowed the grass Thursday night and that cleaned them off the lawn, but the deck (especially!), the front walk, and the porch were covered. The driveway was littered with them, too. So I swept them into piles and dust-panned them into a bag. I filled an entire bag with the crunchy, light-like-cornflakes seed helicopters!
While sweeping and scooping up I thought, "Well, I know why Maple trees aren't on the endangered list!" With all those seeds blanketing every surface, there's no way that Maples could be extinct! And even though I was trying to gather up as many of them as I could, I knew I couldn't get all of them. In a few weeks I will surely find little Maples popping up beside the flowers and in the grass.
Jesus talked about seeds. He compared them to God's good news in Matthew 13. And He has given us the job of spreading the seeds of the news of His love. They won't all make it: some will be taken away by God's enemy (yikes--my clean-up pictures God's enemy's work??), some will spring up in shallow soil but not have roots enough to keep growing, some will begin growing only to be chocked out by other plants, and some will thrive.
Considering the odds against the seeds, the volume of helicopter-pods the Maple produces is necessary. And the same is true for sharing God's good news. We have to act and speak God's love as liberally as the Maple spreads seeds.
 As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields thirty, sixty or a hundredfold. -- Matthew 13: 23
Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season.-- 2 Tomothy 4:2
You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. -- Deuteronomy 6:7 | | |
| Looking at old photos started it. The pictures showed our friends sitting on our deck with beautiful flowers and lush ferns in the background. I had forgotten how nice those ferns were by the end of summer, forgotten about having those red flowers on the little outdoor table. I couldn't wait for it to look like that again!
So a few weeks ago I stopped by the Flower Wagon after work and bought a fern and some impatiens to hang above the porch and by the fence. I knew I was taking a risk because it was early in year, but the weather had been beautiful for days. I realized the purchase was outside of our learned-by-experience family guideline of "buy-no-summer-flowers-before-May-1st," but it was so warm that I was sure it wouldn't get really cold again. But it did! So cold, in fact, that we had one more night with frost. I had heard someone at work mention the possibility of frost, but after work I forgot all about it. In the busy-ness of the evening, I never gave a thought to protecting the fern or the impatiens. In the morning I saw that though the porch had protected the fern, my pretty red impatiens looked like wilted lettuce. The financial loss was only about $10, but still...I was upset. Why hadn't I just carried the impatiens into the kitchen? I could have easily put them on a garbage bag on the floor and kept them safe. It wasn't like I had a million plants and there wasn't time or room to protect them! I just wasn't focused enough to think of it. How annoying to realize my own carelessness; how frustrating to have known, but done nothing! It's been May for over a week and now -- time to buy the rest of my summer flowers. Looking at those wilted impatiens again as I counted the number of plants I wanted to purchase, I was reminded of another thing it's easy to forget to protect: my heart. God says, "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it" (Proverbs 4:23 NIV). Hearts that are not protected can be a bit like my impatiens plants. Exposed to harsh conditions they are not made to take, they can wilt. It can take a long time for them to recover--if they do. The Bible makes it clear that sin has come into God's world, and that we need to realistically deal with that sin. Purchased by Christ, we have the cover we need. When we come in to him, we live.
Now I have 4 new little impatiens plants in the hanging pot that held the wilted ones. It's not as full, as thriving as the original one was -- yet; but it will be. This time I'm determined to be careful, to stay aware of weather conditions. The danger of frost is probably past, but I'll have to keep an eye on the amount of sun and water they get. And I'll give them plant food now and again.
With every glimpse of the new small, cheery blooms, I'm reminded that wise living requires me to be conscious and careful, to stay aware, and to protect my heart from sin: "Keep your heart more than anything that is guarded, for out of it are the issues of life" (Proverbs 4:23 DARBY).  | | |
| Some of my best summer memories are of family vacations when we switched houses with friends. One of my favorite swaps took us from our house in the French countryside of St Albain to an apartment 500 miles away in the city of Barcelona, Spain. We all enjoyed trying out city living, and we loved being close to the beach! The friends who owned the apartment we stayed in loved Bill Cosby's humor. They had an entire collection of his tapes (those were pre-CD, pre-ipod days)! We listened to them together in the evenings, and laughed till we cried, especially enjoying Cosby's analysis of family dynamics. The comedy routine I remember best was about his mother's use of the expression "sick & tired." Those old Bill Cosby routines came to mind early this week when I found myself suffering from a bad case of the sick-&-tireds. I was grumpy about everything: I was sick of cleaning, tired of running to the grocery store, sick of trying to decide what to make for supper, tired of meetings, and sick of wondering what to wear to work. I knew it was getting serious when I found myself feeling tired of standing and talking to a friend; my eyes literally wanted to drift shut!
Cosby managed to turn being sick and tired into a great comedy routine, but in real life it doesn't get many laughs. Feeling exhausted and noticing the beginnings of a sore throat and earache, I stopped to think about how much sleep I get. And don't get!
I realized that my nights have been getting shorter over the past few years. I now routinely cut off an hour or two from the recommended 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Somehow it always seems so important to get one more thing done before turning in, and I love to read into the wee hours. But those extra wakeful hours may have a high cost. When I went on line to see if there really is a link between sick and tired, I found that the connection between sleep deprivation and an unhealthy state of mind was documented in 2007 in a study from the Harvard Medical School and the University of California at Berkeley. The study revealed (using MRI scans) that sleep deprivation causes the brain to become incapable of putting an emotional event into the proper perspective and incapable of making a controlled, suitable response to the event. Other websites concur that sleep affects learning, alertness, and mood; that the relationship between our sleep and our quality of work, thoughts, and interactions is genuine -- and substantial.
And a poor state of mind isn't the only kind of sick that comes with tired. In the September 22, 2009 issue of the New York Times reporter Anahad O’Connor explored the link between lack of sleep and the common cold. You guessed it--lack of sleep increases the risk of catching a cold. And makes fighting off that cold take longer. The Mayo Clinic's site explains why: During sleep, your immune system releases proteins called cytokines. These substances increase in the presence of an infection, inflammation and stress. Increased cytokines are necessary in fighting infection and regulating deeper sleep. In addition, other infection-fighting cells are reduced during periods of sleep deprivation. So, your body needs sleep to fight infectious diseases. Harvard's healthy sleep website states that a lack of sleep—especially on a regular basis—is associated with many long-term health consequences, including medical conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease; it mentions studies associating lack of sleep with overeating; it documents fatigue as a factor in increased accidents, both in the workplace and on highways.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, my sleep habits are in the mainstream. Their website posts a study examining the sleep duration from time diaries (records of sleep time and awake time) of full time workers from 1975 to 2006 which found a significant increase in the number of individuals who were sleeping less than 6 hours per night.
But mainstream-ing isn't automatically right and the norm isn't necessarily wise. The Bible talks about both sleep and rest (biblegateway showed 77 verses for sleep and 521 for rest -- though not all references to sleep and rest meant refreshed), and God both took and commanded a Sabbath, a day of rest. What to do? Well, for starters I went to bed early enough to get 8 hours of sleep last night. I'm happy to report that the sick & tireds have gone away. I'm mulling over the possibility that more tasks in a day may be less productive overall in life, and thinking about these few verses:
Psalm 4:8 In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.
Psalm 127:2 It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.
Hebrews 4:10 for whoever has entered God's rest
has also rested from his works as God did from his. | | |
| It started with a simple invitation. I opened the envelope and there were my sister and her new husband -- in 1962! I stared at their photo; I tried to remember my eight-year-old self on the day that picture was taken. I remembered being very impressed by my big sister's wedding. And now she and her husband had been married 50 years! Time to celebrate! My daughter and granddaughters were going to the celebration too, so my husband and I traveled with them. A three-hour drive with 3 young children (ages 4, 2, and 10 months) requires a bit of planning, but my daughter thought of everything: food, drink, wipes, toys, coloring books and DVDs. Since the party started at 1PM and didn't mention food, we allowed 4 hours for the trip so that we could stop for lunch. And the timing worked out well -- we arrived just 2 minutes after 1! The party was held in the large fellowship hall of my sister's church. The food was delightful, the atmosphere relaxed, and there was plenty of room for the kids to run around. Getting lots of attention and eating cake and little purple M&Ms were a few of the high lights of their afternoon -- and not having to take afternoon naps! After the celebration wound down we loaded three tired girls into the van and headed back home. My two youngest granddaughters were soon sleeping in their car seats, but the oldest one, at 4, thought she was too old to sleep. She talked and sang to stay awake, but could feel she was losing the battle. So she began to state loudly that she wanted to be home now. And then she began to cry. No amount of talking helped. We agreed that we all wanted to be home, but explained to her that there was no other way than to cover the distance to get there. We cajoled her and tried to play games; we warned her that she would wake the other girls and we'd have to stop, which would make the trip take longer. Nothing made a bit of difference. She continued crying. And so her sisters did wake up, and we did have to stop. Grandpa carried her on his shoulders until the wind and sunshine dried her tears. Her just-woken-up sisters settled down after being outside, too, and when everyone was calm we got back on the road. After only one more stop we finally made it home. Those Saturday tears got me to thinking. What do I do when I don't like my circumstances? I wish I could say that I simply remind myself that God is taking me to the right place; that I settle down, stop whining, and decide to enjoy the journey. But instead, God usually has to remind me that "keeping on" is the only way to get there; that "getting out" may feel better, but actually lengthens the time of confinement; that, yes, we are going home and He knows the way.
But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you;
or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this?
In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.
With God are wisdom and might; he has counsel and understanding. --Job 12:7-10, 13
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|  I pleaded, I cried. Then, using the lament Psalms in the Bible for a pattern, I wrote to God, begging him to put his hand on my son.
I wrote down the ache in my heart in 2005; I’ve reread my cry to God many times since then. In fact, several years ago I posted some of my prayer/psalm here on my blog (Feb 6, 2008).
And guess what! In the last several months I realized God has been answering my prayer! In fact, he has been at work a long time; he has been doing things I knew nothing about! Now my heart is filled with another prayer -- this time following the praise psalms of the Bible!
In admiration I come to you, my God,
associating benefit with your name,
as I will forever.
Daily I credit you; I can't stop praising your name!
You, Lord, are exceptional, and deserving of soaring praise.
Your talent, power, and faithfulness are beyond measure. One generation commends your works to another;
adults tell children of your amazing feats,
we acquaint each other with the mighty ways in which you touch lives. In times past my children heard of your greatness and awesome deeds,
but now I declare your power in bringing sons to godliness to my grandchildren.
Your works in our lives pour forth in recognition of your abundant goodness; they sing out your righteousness. You, Lord, are gracious and merciful; slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
You offer grace to everyone, and your mercy is over all you have made.
All your works will honor you, O Lord; all of us rescued by you will bless you out loud!
We'll publish your mighty deeds, your compassion, and your glorious splendor.
We’ll stand amazed by the way your overriding love runs through generations.
You, Lord, are faithful in all your words and kind in all your works.
The Lord holds up sons who are falling
and lifts mothers who are bowed down.
Our eyes looked to you,
and you provided in due season.
You opened your hand;
you satisfied our desire.
The Lord is righteous in all his ways
and kind in all his works.
The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
He is filling the hearts of those who fear him;
hearing their cries, he is saving them.
The Lord preserves all who love and trust him,
and brings sons in destruction to mercy. My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord;
Oh bless his holy name with me forever! I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in truth. 3 John 1:4 | | |
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