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.

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.

June | In Hindsight

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Cynoglossum officinale – Houndstongue, Hound’s Tongue, Gypsyflower

June was a month of flying days, crazy calendars, and a frantic sense of not quite keeping up. I’m actually kind of glad it is over. The hecticness that has characterized the last four or six weeks is part of the reason that I’m a week and a half into July before getting to my reflection on June! Oh, well.

In a bit of a rush, I took a second job at the very beginning of June, so I’ve been working four days a week in Hill City, leaving at 9:00 in the morning to open the Mercantile at 10:00 and getting home at 9:00 at night after closing Farmer’s Daughter at 8:00 or 8:15. On the days I don’t go to Hill City, I’ve been working one or both of those days in Hermosa for Jack. In other words, I’ve been busy!

It has taught me a few things about myself, however, which is always a good thing. 1) I really don’t like tourists enough to sustain this schedule long-term. 2) I really love being at home. Working in Hill City leaves me drained, and sure brings out the homebody in me. So it sort of kindles that fire to get my own business set up, so I’m not having to leave home quite as often, or for such a long time each day.

We also enjoyed some unique weather and golf-ball sized hail, which amazingly did not destroy the garden! Rather miraculous.

Starting the second week of June, I was taking an online class in doll clothes design, which turned out to be a great crash course in a lot of things I think I already instinctively did in my sewing, which was great. Doing things instinctively can be nice, but to actually realize what you’re doing and why is even better. Then you can consciously focus on them, and focus on honing those skills. So I now have the beginnings of a lovely design inspiration book, and am gearing up for the pattern drafting class in October! Very excited.

Towards the end of June, we also got to meet and visit with some dear family from Texas. Mom’s cousin, Russel, whom she hadn’t seen in 25 years, brought his wife and three daughters up to South Dakota for vacation. They parked their camper outside our cabin, and we had breakfasts together, dinners together, and really enjoyed a sweet time of fellowship and companionship. It was a blessing to meet them. I’ve never had many girl cousins in my own age bracket, so it was fun to have three more who fit that category! We did some hiking, exploring of ghost-towns, picture taking, and enjoyed some great conversation.

June was a good month. I’m glad the craziness of it is over (it kind of has stuck with me in July, but a month of it is past!), and I’m looking forward to getting my life more balanced, but I guess that is part of getting settled in to a new home. Lots of changes still happening. It may feel like home, but June is kind of a reminder that we’re still figuring things out with our new life here.

Gotta love the journey.

Blooming June

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

The Black Hills are dressed in their best and most glorious finery. Wildflowers are sprinkled, sometimes lavishly, on hillsides and in valleys, the creeks are full to overflowing, and everything is green and lush and fragrant. It is always fun to see the Black Hills through the eyes of a visitor. Even though I’ve only lived here for four months, this has always been our home away from home, and consequently seeing it sometimes becomes, well, daily life. There is nothing like a new pair of eyes to renew my own love of this region.

Mom’s cousin Russel, his wife, and their three daughters have been staying with us since Sunday. I’d never met any of them, so it was fun to get to know my second-cousins from Texas! We all went down to the Mountain Lion Cave last night (or as close as we could get without crossing Battle Creek), and this morning my second cousin Julie and I headed out on an excursion. The rest of her family and Anna were going to Reptile Gardens and, as fascinating as I am sure it is, neither of us was particularly interested in spending hours there.

So out we went to Spokane and haunted the ghost town for a few hours, drove Iron Mountain Road, and visited Little Falls. The flowers were beautiful, and any little hollows or depressions were full of water, frogs, and mosquitoes. The thistles were becoming the prize-winning sort, and mushrooms were in abundance.

Violet and creeping wood sorrels flashed little glints of color in the shorter grass, their heart-shaped leaves green and moist and plentiful. Wild roses and geranium, blue-eyed grass and purple clover, asters and dandelions, all were tucked under trees and nestled into hillsides, along paths, thriving. The flowers and berries were peeking daintily from the Solomon’s Seal, and the lichen was thick on fallen branches and damp wood.

While on first glance not much had changed (it is a ghost town, after all…), when I looked closer there were dozens of new forms of botanical life, flowers that hadn’t been in bloom on our first visit, overgrown and flooded paths, and new clusters of mushrooms growing in the rich layer of decaying leaves and pine needles.

The house looked pretty much the same as before–the broken windows, rusted hinges, rotted floorboards, and the swallow’s nest in the stovepipe–but when on the hunt for details, I suddenly noticed many things that had escaped my eye before, such as the remnants of wallpaper in the house, or the lichen-encrusted nails on the windowsill, or the broken blue Mason jar and the scrap of blue and white wallpaper. The nest had a swallow in it this time, and little plants were growing in the moist earth where floorboards were missing. I noticed “love notices”, where boys and girls had written their names together on the walls. What an old-fashioned and romantic little spot.

Outside one of the windows, there was a layer of shattered glass. My camera is a bit finicky, and after taking one properly-focused picture, it suddenly stopped focusing on the glass. Instead, it was focusing on the reflections of the trees in the glass. The effect was enchanting!

Beauty may be subtle and well-hidden, even when in plain sight. It is hard to see beauty in the mundane when one is only looking for the mundane, or when one is overburdened with the world. A certain optimism is required for seeing exquisite beauty in the drabness of rotting wood or broken glass. Optimism is not my natural state, but I find it exceedingly difficult to be pessimistic when I am surrounded by God’s beauty, and his little gifts. I passionately think we should nourish the vision to see those beautiful details. The world is a bleak place, but there are so many tiny joys and gifts given to us each day by a loving Creator, if we have the eyes to see them.

Signed, sealed, and delivered

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

This lovely surprise was waiting on the cabin porch when I got home from Rapid today. I had just started wondering if it would ever come, if I would ever manage to be an official college graduate, and it finally arrived! A second surprise was waiting–Instead of cum laude written on the diploma, magna cum laude was inscribed there, an exciting flourish with which to end my undergraduate career.

It is good to actually be finished. College is hard for everyone, or for everyone who takes college seriously. For different reasons, too, no doubt. Mine was difficult because my transfer to EIU came at a particularly challenging time in my life, shortly after which my family decided to move to South Dakota. To be confronted with that answer to prayer and fulfillment of dreams but still to have a minimum of two years left in school made it difficult to focus or to put my creative energies where they needed to be. Not to mention, such a radical change of life direction also changed my feelings towards having a college degree, or this particular college degree. I began to peel back layer upon layer of priority and started to realize that, in spite of my love of music and the performing arts, there was a deeper hunger and desire that had been necessarily quieted because of where I was in life. Little notes I found in old journals and schoolwork, like “When I grow up, I want to have horses and live in South Dakota,” started to resonate with so much more meaning. That was 9-year-old Laura talking, and the part of me that had dreamt that as a little girl began to wake up again. Imagine what a challenge it was, then, to be so close to something so dear, but two years away! Or perhaps you can imagine it, and you wonder what the big deal is. Fair enough.

But then the college work itself–After failing a recital preview, struggling with vocal technique, and failing a skills test over a single mistake, I began to wonder if it was possible for me to even finish, or if I’d have to change my degree. After successfully finishing my junior recital, I felt better about graduating, but then right in the middle of a fantastic last semester and one month before my senior recital preview, I found out I needed surgery. In some ways, I recovered quickly, but my stamina was completely sapped. All the comfort I’d felt with my literature was suddenly gone, and I struggled just to get through a phrase of music.

We were supposed to move out here to the Black Hills in December, but my recital wasn’t finished–There were some annoying acrobatics to accomplish related to scheduling the recital, but it was eventually scheduled–Just as it was looking impossible, my review was passed. Recital was given. Degree complete. God is good.

God is faithful. That is one of the biggest things I’ve learned through my whole college experience. He allowed me to go to college, to earn my degree, and to finish up without a cent of debt. What a blessing! I can’t even begin to describe how free I feel, or how grateful I am to God for helping me to do that. Even being directed into music, even some of the dissatisfaction I felt while working towards my bachelors degree, I can see now how God used those things to prepare me for this major transition in life, moving to South Dakota. If I had been completely in love with my music at EIU, the same way I was at Parkland College, I would have been tragically torn over this move to South Dakota. In fact, I might never have made it at all. My intent was graduate school, but that changed pretty quickly when we decided to move. If I had found all the creative fulfillment I craved pursuing my music, my love of writing might not have been rekindled. My love of textile work might not have been rekindled. And my dreaming self might have been content to simply ride one wave after another of creative satisfaction in music. But I think God obviously had/has other plans. Music will be a part of those plans, somehow, somewhere, sometime, but it won’t be the pursuit I imagined it would be, five years ago.

God allowed me to work alongside some fascinating and wonderful musicians. Working alongside them, both the professors and the students, I realized that I didn’t have the drive or determination or do-or-die mentality they had in relation to music. Music is a brutal field. You need all of those things to survive in it. You must have a conviction that that is where you belong to survive in it. Or you must have a love for music that can’t be tarnished by judgement, criticism, exhaustion, or fear. I lacked a number of those things, at least in relation to my music. I find that they are present in other areas of my life and interactions, but often lacking in my musical life. I realized that my colleagues got excited about music in ways that often didn’t move me. Taking some non-music classes, I realized I was fascinated in other ways and by other things: research, history, and…pirates, to name a few.

Yet, many of those fears, fears of judgement or criticism, fear of failure, many of those things confronted me head-on at EIU, and I think I grew a lot in those areas. Some of it was simply by letting go of my identity as a “musician.” This is something I’m still working on, but my ultimate identity should always be “Child of God,” not “musician” or “seamstress” or whatever other title I can give myself. As human beings, I think each of us has a desire to be known for our accomplishments, to be something, to have significance, to be known, or known as something in particular. That something in particular will be what is most central to our life, and that thing most central to our life should always be our faith. Sadly, it isn’t always. Our love of God is overshadowed by worldly pursuits, by the cares of the world, by busyness and exhaustion and stress. But when we do let something else become our identity, we need to ask God for forgiveness and acknowledge and affirm that he is our King, our Head, and our Identity. Anything less is idolatry.

Anyway, I’m an official college graduate, and I just praise God that he brought me through to where I am now! Thanks to so many people at EIU who supported me, from Jerry Daniels, my voice teacher, to Jerri Hinton, a dear friend in the music department, to people outside of the department who blessed me in so many ways: April Lee, who mentored me, Dan Hagen, who taught me to love journalism, and Charles Foy, who fascinated me with pirates. Thanks to all my classmates and friends who inspired me and gave color to my college career. And of course, much, much love to my family, who was always there for me, putting up with my emotional swings, frustrations, and exuberances, and to whom I could always come home at the end of the day.