Nothin’ more fun on dirt

Posted on August 9, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

“150 pounds of cowboy, 2000 pounds of hulking, stock-bucking bull.” And with that, the bucking shoot bursts open and out cracks the bull like a bolt of greased lightning, the lean cowboy clinging to its back by one rosin-gloved hand.

Bull-riding–Some couple dozen cowboys from South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado gathered at the Custer County Fairgrounds this evening to give their best at riding 2000 pounds of sheer strength for a mere eight seconds. Sound easy? Not so much. Sarah and I joined a crowd of cowboy-hat-wearing, freedom-loving, patriotic Americans for an evening of a dangerous sport, the most dangerous eight seconds in rodeo, and an amazing thing to watch. Those are some crazy cowboys. The excitement, the patriotism, the love of country, the community, the upholding of manliness in an increasingly emasculated society, the daring of the bull riders, the sportsmanship, the bravery of the bull fighters, the physical strength of the bulls. If you want some clean, country fun, go to a rodeo.

And in spite of increasing pressure against Christians, a rodeo announcer will still offer an unapologetic prayer to our Heavenly Father. I’m sure there were some there who didn’t appreciate that, but no one walked out.

Nothing has ever interested me about sports–The normal sports, that is. Baseball, basketball, football…golf. I understand that it takes skill, physical strength, stamina, precision, etc., to participate in those sports and to do it professionally. But at the end of the day, who cares if the ball went through the basket? What good does it do the players that the ball made it to the end zone? Why does it matter that the athlete made a home run? Does it change anything?

But then there’s rodeo. I also understand that some may have the same opinion of saddle bronc riding, steer wrestling, and bull riding, but there is an innate practicality about those events for the cowboys participating. Those events are a display of skills that those individuals use on a day to day basis (except maybe not during haying). That cowboy who can sit the bronc or wrestle that steer–no, the cowboy who will sit the bronc or wrestle the steer. In case you were wondering, natural self-preservation doesn’t lead a man to hurtle himself from a running horse onto the head of a rangy steer. Or sit himself down on the back of a bull bred to buck, for that matter. But the man who does? He’s a tough man, a tough man to beat. Maybe crazy, but tough as nails.

“There’s nothin’ more American than riding bulls in South Dakota,” the arena announcer claimed. “Nothin’ more fun on dirt.”

I think I just might agree with him.

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July | In Hindsight

Posted on August 1, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Penstemon glaber – Sawsepal penstemon

So we have come to the end of our fifth month in our new home. In some ways, things are still getting settled into place, and in others, we’ve found a routine. God continues to amaze me with His goodness and His love and His providence. He has provided a church home, friends and community, work for all of us (shout-out to my Dad–He went on a radon testing trip to Chadron yesterday! Getting things going!), blossoming family relationships, good health and safety, and the blessing of living where we’ve always wanted to be. God is good. So good.

Over the past month or so, we did the membership class at church and are soon to be welcomed officially into this church. The meetings were encouraging, insightful, and spiritually awakening. The past few years were hard on my spiritual well-being. Not hard on my faith–If anything, the last few years have drastically strengthened my faith in God and His love for His children. But I found myself spiritually exhausted. A lot of things contributed to it, I know, but my prayer has been that God would re-awaken my heart for Him. And He has–And I couldn’t be more glad.

Mariposa lily

I’ve done some more thinking about the next few months and next year, and what I can be doing now to be making myself more home-based. I’ve realized, particularly over the past month, that I am as much a homebody as ever, and that I really (really, really, really) don’t like town, even a small town like Hill City. A full week of working in town is exhausting, even when I am not doing strenuous work, while a day of sweat and dirt and gasoline and chaff leaves me feeling mentally alive. Even when I’m wheezing from the dust and my arms are itching from my allergy to spruce trees. Time to make myself more home-based, or at least rurally-based. We’ll see how that progresses.

July was a busy month! We spent time with friends, went hiking, worked like crazy, saw rattlesnakes, hunted wildflowers, celebrated my Grandma’s 92nd birthday, house-sat for my uncle and his family, we had hail storms and thunder storms and our first stretch of 90 degree weather, I’ve learned about push rods and drive belts and greasing up a lawnmower, we visited with Dad’s college roommate and his wife from eastern South Dakota, Sarah and I drove Spearfish Canyon and saw the waterfalls, and we completed a membership class at our new church. It was a good month.

What will August hold, I wonder?

Sweet, sweet fellowship

Posted on July 27, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Sunday is my favorite day of the week. Hands down, it is my favorite day. What better way to spend a day than in fellowship with my brothers and sisters in Christ as we revel in our relationship with God and in the joy of companionship with His followers? What a privilege!

As we got closer to the moving date last year and early this year, I feared that we’d move out here into the middle of our 800 family acres and suddenly be lost from fellowship and friendship. What a petty and faithless fear! I read a quote recently that said “Worry is the worship of circumstance.” How profound. For a Christian to give in to worry is for a Christian to momentarily believe that a circumstance is stronger than God Himself. What a pathetic witness and a waste and misuse of energy. But worry I did. Yet God was gracious, and as I learned to trust Him more, He has provided against that fear in so many ways.

He has provided us with a wonderful church home, a welcoming body of Believers who are a living example of the sweetness of the Saints, and He has provided us with friends with whom my sisters and I can share meaningful friendships. Leaving Illinois and the friendships we’d developed over the years was hard–It is hard to leave friends behind, friends who have invested in your life and whose life you have invested in. Separation hurts. But God knows. He knows and He provides.

In church for the past few months, we’ve been studying through the Olivet Discourse, the last group of teachings of Christ before His crucifixion. The passage we studied today was Matthew 25: 31-46, in which Jesus talks about love among Believers, ministering to the “least of these”, and we talked about what genuine love looks like. Genuine love for one another is a direct result, a fruit, of our love for Jesus Christ. Then, as our love for Jesus grows, our love for the Saints will also grow. And as our love for the Saints and our love for Christ grows, we become easier to love. A dynamic, thriving church is a church where love for Christ is causing radical, otherwordly love for one another, a love that spans class differences, racial differences, cultural differences, temperament, personality, interests, education…A love that defies everything that “pop culture” calls love. What a life-changing, culture-changing, overwhelming thought. We get to experience here a little piece of Heaven, a glimpse, a mere glimpse of what perfect fellowship will look like on the other side of death.

All that is to say, God has provided wonderfully for us in our new life here in the Black Hills. I wish I could personally share some of these adventures and experiences with friends back in Illinois–You are missed, and greatly. But I am in awe (why should I be surprised when an awesome God does wonderful things?) of how He has provided. Today after church, a bunch of us were going to go hiking. It ended up just being me and Sarah, and two of our friends, Hannah and Jacob, but we enjoyed a wonderful afternoon in God’s creation, a hike up to Lover’s Leap, and a lovely view of the Black Hills. We reveled in a fellowship that only our mutual love of Christ could make as sweet as it is. What a sweet, sweet fellowship. What a great, great God.