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.

Reflections on the Rainbow

Posted on July 18, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

An evening spent at Rainbow Bible Ranch is an evening well-spent. We picked Anna up from camp yesterday evening, and I was filled with so many fond remembrances of my summers at Rainbow, and the blessings I enjoyed through Larry and Robin Reinhold and their wonderful family. After the rodeo and dinner, we had a little rain and were blessed by the appearance of a rainbow. It got me to thinking.

Genesis 6 records the beginning of Noah’s story, and how God came to destroy the earth with a Flood. The earth had become wicked, and the people had turned away from God and were totally corrupt.

^{Genesis 6:5}The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ⁶And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. ⁷So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” ⁸But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord.

God was good enough and merciful enough to bless Noah and his family, and to preserve them as the seed by which God would re-populate the earth. After the Flood, God gave this promise to Noah and his family, the only people on the earth that were righteous in God’s sight:

^{Genesis 9:7}And you, be fruitful and multiply, teem on the earth and multiply in it.”

⁸Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, ⁹“Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, ¹⁰and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. ¹¹I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” ¹²And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: ¹³I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. ¹⁴When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, ¹⁵I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. ¹⁶When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” ¹⁷God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

God has gifted us with this sign, a sign and covenant that still remains, and a sign that we all – Christian and atheist alike – still marvel at. A beautiful rainbow stretching from horizon to horizon, a prism in the clouds, prompting ancient Greeks and Romans to associate it with the steps of a beautiful goddess, for others to associate it with a pot of gold and wishes granted. But in truth, it is a beautifully haunting and comforting reminder that there is a God in the heavens, still powerful over this world and triumphant over evil. When God makes a covenant, it lasts for all time.

It is fitting to remember that this is the true meaning of the rainbow. Whatever other meaning other groups may attempt to assign to the rainbow, we cannot escape the fact that the God of the Universe, the Creator of the rainbow, gifted this sign as a symbol of judgement and preservation. The rainbow represents God’s love for mankind, fulfilled in his son, Jesus Christ. The rainbow represents God’s justice, his righteous, wrathful justice, which we can escape through belief in Christ and his redemptive sacrifice upon the cross. The rainbow represents by extension, then, God choosing to adopt as his children those of a sinful, fallen race who have given their lives to Christ. The rainbow represents God’s mercy, in preserving a righteous family through which to re-populate the reborn world. The rainbow represents a promise to preserve a remnant.

According to His Word and to His covenant, God will not again destroy the earth by flood. But He will come, His Son will come again, not as a suffering servant but as a triumphant king, to judge all the world. Are you ready for His return?

Not just a silver lining

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

So sometimes you just have to find a silver lining. Like with this hail storm we had day before yesterday. I could whine and complain about the work we put into the garden that was wasted, I could complain about the beautiful tree we lost that fell on our beautiful Miner’s Cabin (the cabin is fine–One branch is going be fun getting down, though…), I could complain about the mess, the leaves everywhere, the matted lawn, the millions of sticks and branches, etc…

But I choose to find a silver lining. At least we have firewood! And guess what? It is hardwood, which means it will burn slower. Great. There’s a silver lining.

We also managed to salvage a bowl of radishes from our square-foot gardening frames. There’s a silver lining. The great thing about radishes is that the leaves can be destroyed, but the roots are fine! So now we have radishes.

But even when something is explained simply as being a silver lining, I believe that silver lining is a gift from God, sweetening an event that might be bitter otherwise.

He gives these little gifts, if we’re willing to see them as such. Whether it is a dew-spangled spiderweb on an early morning walk, or three piles of wood ready to be cut into firewood in the aftermath of a hail storm, God sends little gifts our way as a reminder, I believe, of his goodness. In this world, stuff happens. But God is there, an ever-present help in time of trouble, and an ever-present friend in times of plenty.

Sister date

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

I know the Fourth of July came and went almost two weeks ago, but I wanted to share some pictures from my family’s Independence Day. Mom and Dad were on their way back home from Illinois, unfortunately, and Anna had to work during the day, but Sarah and I took full advantage of our day off and drove through the beautiful Spearfish Canyon.

We’ve already started planning another drive sometime this fall, both to see the leaves change and to drive it when there are fewer tourists, but it was still a lovely trip. The wonder of God’s creation is truly amazing. And what is amazing is that God has not only left His fingerprints so clearly impressed in this world, but He has also allowed for there to be beauty in the results of something so devastating as a global flood. Not only did He give us the rainbow after the flood to remind us both of His judgement and His goodness in preserving a remnant, but He has left memories of the flood in places like the Black Hills, the Grand Canyon, and countless other places that were the result of the judgement of God on a wicked world. But I digress.

Sarah and I drove up to Spearfish, made a hasty stop at Walmart to get cold kombucha to drink (we were both getting drowsy–It was hot out!), and then drove down the canyon. We stopped here and there along the way to take pictures, and I added a few photographs to my growing botany portfolio.

Bridal Veil Falls was beautiful, but about fifty other people thought the same thing. Tourists. Bless their hearts. They stood around on the deck not even looking at the Falls, but just taking up space. Not many pictures happened this time around. So we’ll take another drive.

Roughlock Falls, however, was even more spectacular. It isn’t as tall as Bridal Veil, but it is tiered and simply gushes water. It is about a mile off the main road, plus a little walk to see the full beauty of the Falls, and it was well worth it. Fewer people were flocking Roughlock, since it was so far off the beaten path, and the walking paths were lined with wild roses, geranium, thimbleberry, violets, and countless other greenery. What a beautiful trail!

In the evening, we picked up Anna and headed to Custer to see the fireworks, and met a friend there. It was a quiet, simple Independence Day. Glad to spend it with friends and family.

The smell of work

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

I’m sweaty, covered in chaff and grass and bug bits and residual sunscreen. In spite of the sunscreen, I’m probably burned. I’m thistle-pricked and my eyes feel gritty. There’s dirt under my nails and motor oil on my jeans. I’m tired and I smell like work. And I feel refreshed and rested at a deep soul level.

The soul needs cleansing from the rush and maze of life, and after many consecutive days working in a little tourist town, I was simply aching for the outdoors! A few weeks ago, I took a second job in Hill City, so now I work morning and early afternoon at the Mercantile and at 3:00 I head over to the Farmer’s Daughter and work there until 7:00 or 8:00. Don’t get me wrong, I am very thankful for the work that God has provided so quickly in our new life here. But I am a dedicated introvert. Being around people that long drains me. And I mean drains me.

So yesterday, I was only scheduled at the Mercantile and made my plans accordingly. All day long, I looked forward to getting home, catching the horses and going out on a ride. So that is exactly what I did. In case you might think I’m just an out-and-out cowgirl now, I need to clarify–Horses are a fear I’m working on conquering. I love the animals. I love the feel of a good ride. The smell of horse, the sway and movement of the saddle, and the rush of energy while riding a working cow pony, when the animal gets eager and excited to be doing work. But horses are big. They are independently-thinking creatures who really have no good reason to let a human being climb on their back, must less to remain there. Maybe I just have a good appreciation for that fact right there–If this 1000 pound animal suddenly ceased wanting me on its back, it could remove me. And quickly, too.

However, yesterday I managed to make steps in conquering my trepidations and took Frosty out on a ride. Jimmy came, too–Can’t let his girlfriend leave without him! And I do believe the horses enjoyed it. And Frosty loves to run. I’m too cautious of a rider to just let her go full throttle…Not to mention, she has a stubborn streak and has tried to buck me off, once-upon-a-time. If she had really wanted to buck me, she could have, but she bucked hard enough to make me a little careful with her. But either way, there are just too many trees, holes, fences, rocks, even when in an open meadow, to let her go full tilt, but she got some of her energy out. And it was a beautiful afternoon for it. We weren’t out that long, maybe forty five minutes, but when I started hearing thunder I thought it wise to head back. There were other places I wanted to go, but Frosty is a tall horse and is a little hard to mount if she isn’t standing quite still. Which she usually is not. Too many fences to open and close. I decided to leave further exploring for another day. Anyway, it was a good way to end my afternoon.

A short photographic excursion followed the ride…It has been so wet lately, the cow pies are all sprouting mushrooms. And they are surprisingly pretty mushrooms, especially considering the mundane nature of their host…And it just keeps getting wetter–We had an inch of rain last night, some hail, and a marvelous thunder storm. Starting to wonder where all the water will go.

There is a shack out in the corrals that is mostly tumbled down now, but the remnants of a dirt-moving business are left piled inside. Old dynamite casings. I was actually able to get a good picture of them–In the last month or so, one of the walls fell in, so it is actually possible to climb in without bringing the whole shack tumbling down on top of you!

Finally, today I headed to Jack’s to mow. He’s got a big place, and the mowing took me a solid five hours, and I weeded for another hour or so. It was warm, but there was intermittent cloud cover and a gentle breeze. Not to mention, the breeze while riding a zero turn mower keeps a body pretty cool! Sometimes I still get a chuckle over my radical shift in direction. I never would have thought three years ago that I’d be graduated college and mowing for a local rancher. Just wouldn’t have occurred to me.

When I came home this afternoon from Jack’s, I passed a vehicle pulled off to the side of the road with the flashers on. I turned around and came back to see if they were having car problems. No car trouble. Just a photo shoot. They were apparently tourists getting pictures of the beautiful scenery. There was a little rush of delight when I realized it–This is the view they were enjoying, a view of the Adrian ranch. It brought back all the excitement of moving out here, the excitement that has almost become normal. It reminded me just how glad (it seems too drab a word to use) I am to be out here. It reminded me that God knows our hearts and, while he doesn’t answer every dream or prayer in the way we think he should, he does, I believe, give us desires for reasons, and I was struck once again by how amazing it is that a little girl’s dream of South Dakota should become a reality fifteen years later. God is good.

After five and a half years of college, five and a half years of working my brain, hard work feels good. The smell of work is sweet. And I’m realizing in many ways that my soul truly feels cleansed when I am surrounded by the beauty of God’s creation, exhausted by blessed hard work, sore and dirt-covered, and breathing the fresh air of wide open spaces.