Tag Archives: God

Advent | The Hope Candle

Posted on by under Writing

Yesterday marked the first Sunday of the Advent season. Christians across the globe and through the years have observed this period of time leading up to Christmas, and I love joining together with them to prepare my heart for a proper celebration of the coming of the Baby Jesus two thousand years ago in a stable in a little-known town called Bethlehem.

I love Advent. When I was a child and a teenager, my family enjoyed observing Advent with various family devotions, the lighting of the candles, Advent calendars, and a series of family devotional books by Arnold Ytreeide, beginning with Jotham’s Journey, and over the years reading Tabitha’s Travels, and Bartholomew’s Passage. Far from being meaningless, or silly, or frivolous, the yearly observance touched my heart and drew us closer as a family to each other and to our Savior.

Last Christmas, Brad and I read an Advent book together in December, and this year we are continuing our tradition as husband and wife. Brad made me a beautiful and simple – just what I love – candle holder out of a length of weathered lumber from when the power company replaced the power lines. It is a section of one of the square-cut cross pieces, and is the same wood my father-in-law used to build the cross that served as the backdrop for our wedding. Yesterday evening, we lit the first candle – the Hope Candle.

Hope.

What a misunderstood word.

What a beautiful word.

Hope is something everyone could use right now.

“I sure hope so.” We’ve all heard someone growl those words almost as a veiled sort of threat, or maybe we’ve uttered them that way ourselves. We’ve heard those words spoken wistfully, or with ironic hopelessness. Looking around at the culture, at so many people I know, at the job field I used to work in, I see a world rife with hopelessness.

People need hope. I need hope.

I look around and see war, death, pain, suffering. I see a culture that has turned its back on God and His Law, I see rampant immorality and acceptance of things that would have been considered wrong even just a few years ago. I see illnesses that even the most elite scientists can’t figure out how to cure. I see the butchering of children in the womb, the desecrating of the beauty of marriage, the destruction of countless innocent lives for the greedy schemes of the very people who should be the protectors, the guardians. People running to drugs, alcohol, sex, pornography, anything that can numb the pain of meaninglessness. Because without Biblical hope…life truly is meaningless.

Over the years, I’ve heard pastors talk about how Biblical hope is so contrary to how we so often use the word. Biblical hope is not an “I hope so” sort of hope. It is a confident expectation.

Which immediately begs the question…Where does our hope come from and for what are we hoping?

Hope without something or Someone to hope in is meaningless.

The Psalms are full to bursting with verses reminding us of where our hope is found, and in Whom we can have that confident expectation.

Lamentations 3: 24-25 reads:

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,     “therefore I will hope in him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for him,     to the soul who seeks him.

And 1 Peter 1: 3-4 rejoices:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope though the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in Heaven for you.

We hope in God. We confidently look to Jesus’s perfect life and death as the means to being forgiven, justified before God. We look forward to an eternal easing of suffering, we confidently wait for the day when the difficulties of this life will be comforted. We hope in our Savior, the God-Man Christ Jesus. The Jews waited for His coming, hoped in the promises of a faithful Heavenly Father, fulfilled two thousand years ago, and we remember that coming and now we wait for His Second Coming, when “[God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)

And it just gets better. Revelation 22 reads:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.  No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.  They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.  And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

And he said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place. And behold, I am coming soon.”

That, friends, is our hope. Jesus is coming soon. We enjoy this Advent seasons, reveling in God’s plan brought about in the person of Christ, born as a Baby in a manger in Bethlehem, but without the future hope, that living hope, that hope of something more, this season is meaningless. The Baby Jesus means nothing without the hope that comes from Jesus’s death and resurrection. And His death and resurrection mean nothing to us if there isn’t the hope of a future resurrection.

Hope. What a beautiful word.

When You Can’t Find the Words

Posted on by under Writing

Oh my goodness. Where to even start. I baked pies this week for Rainbow Bible Ranch’s pie auction last night, and of course was thinking back to the pies I baked last year for the same pie auction. So then of course I was thinking about just how much can change in a year. I have so many different thoughts I wanted to express today rattling around inside my little mind, thoughts of thankfulness, thankfulness for the blessings I’m reveling in, reflections on this season, reflections on the coming holidays, reflections on beauty and contentment and industriousness and home. But sometimes the words don’t come like I want them to and I muddle and puzzle and end up not saying anything at all. So sometimes it really is just necessary to write and see what happens.

A year ago, I graduated from the fire academy at Rapid City Fire Department. Like always, I got up early and then drove to Rapid City Fire Department Station 1, where I and the rest of the recruits did our graduation run in the morning, and then had an hour or two to get cleaned up and dressed for the graduation ceremony at the Civic Center. Brad and my folks attended, and Brad pinned my badge on me.

It was a weird feeling, going through all of that for a job I knew in my heart would be short lived if Brad and I were to get married. We were not yet engaged (he asked my dad’s permission Thanksgiving Day last year and asked me to marry him a week later!), and I was exhausted from academy and rather dreading going back to my regular shift, up to my ears in a job I realized was 100% incompatible with being a wife, or at least being the kind of Biblically-patterned wife I desired to be. I was wrung out and worn out. But I also knew that God was doing something, and although I wasn’t sure of His timing, I knew I could trust in His goodness. And I knew His hand was in Brad’s and my relationship.

I don’t have a feminist bone in my body. I had nothing to prove when I got on the fire department. I had no agenda. As a single gal at the time, it was a good job, in many ways a fun job, and was very compatible with my single life. But there is a reason certain jobs have a higher percentage of men than women, and no, it isn’t because men have it out for women. It is because it is much harder for women than men to successfully do certain jobs, whether it is for physical or emotional/mental reasons. And that isn’t anything for women to be ashamed of. It didn’t take long dating that tall, lean rancher to realize that not only was firefighter-paramedic not a job I saw as compatible with being a wife, but I had absolutely no desire to try to “make it work,” living this weird split existence as a tough paramedic one day dealing with drunks and drug addicts and mangled bodies and people trying to kill themselves and each other (too often successfully), and then the next being the kind of nurturing, gentle, home-oriented wife I so desired (and still desire) to be. God’s design is beautiful, and I didn’t want something as meaningless as a career to damage or warp that design.

After the graduation, Brad and I went back to his house and baked a couple of pies for the yearly pie auction at Rainbow Bible Ranch. Two peach raspberry pies. The auction was delightful and that recipe has become a favorite of mine.

Last night, we attended again, this time as husband and wife. How much can change in the short span of one year.

A year ago I was tired and struggling. This year, I am busier than I’ve ever been, and yet still I feel rested, and healthy, and whole. God has given me a life I dreamed of in my heart of hearts, married to the man I never thought I’d find, surrounded by so many things that bring me so much joy and give life so much meaning. My husband, my family, his family, meaningful work as a wife supporting my husband in his endeavors (which make them our endeavors!), projects galore, ten piano students, photography clients, and all the little things that come up that just keep things interesting. My cats and my chickens never fail to bring a smile to my face, and I love having abundance to share with others, whether it is eggs, or produce from the garden, or meat from our own cow herd, or a home-cooked meal. Or pies for a pie auction.

This wasn’t the streamlined, well-thought-out post I would have liked to have shared. But I wanted to share it. Because I am thankful. I have seen and lived how God provides what we need when we need it, and how He ordains and allows those circumstances that grow us, even if all those circumstances do is grow us in our trust of Him. I can look back just a year and see that, plain as plain.

God is good. And even when I can’t find all the words I want, at least I can say that.

November Graces

Posted on by under country life, Writing

Birthdays for me used to come and go with something of a sense of regret. Not that I wasn’t thankful for yet another year, or for the people around me, or for the life God has given me. But birthdays were a bittersweet affair, usually a little more bitter than sweet, with a sense of regret at having not accomplished more in the past year. A sense of loneliness, I’m sure. A sense of uncertainty looking into the next year, and the vulnerability that came with being a single woman in my late twenties and then early thirties. A sense of there being something missing, but not really sure what it was.

A year ago today, I would have headed to work around 6 am, stopped for coffee with Brad at the end of his driveway, and spent the day in the thick of fire academy, doing burpees and running miles and dragging hose and bailing out of windows. I would have joined Brad for supper at the end of a very long day, exhausted in more ways than one. He surprised me with our first candle light meal and a space heater for my bedroom. That might not seem like a very romantic gift, but I can’t tell you the difference it made in my sleep! It was a delightful evening, and when I looked at the man sitting next to me, I knew exactly who I wanted to be. I knew I had found my missing puzzle piece, in the form of a good man to love and by whom to be loved. I just didn’t know when, and the job that had provided a level of satisfaction, the challenge that I desired, and the camaraderie of the fire service was becoming a lead weight in my heart.

This year, this day, couldn’t be any more different than last year. It really seems that all the years of waiting, of growing in my trust of God and my contentment in life, all have culminated in the blessings that God has just showered on me in this last year, and which are just flooding to mind today. What a year it has been! The uncertainty I felt a year ago, the sense of being misplaced every time I went to work, the anxiousness I fought, all have melted away as God has answered prayer after prayer over this last year. I told Brad yesterday that I’ve never felt so at peace or such a sense of belonging. I firmly believe this is exactly where God wants me to be. What a joy!

And what a picture perfect day. Waking up to my best friend is one of life’s simplest, sweetest joys, and then he brought me breakfast in bed and we spent the morning gathering cows in some beautiful country. I enjoyed my cats and my chickens, a long walk in one of the last of our 70-something degree days, birthday wishes from so many people God has blessed me with, and a steak supper. It really doesn’t get much better than this.

So as I embark on my 33rd year, I’m just so thankful for God’s faithfulness, and the ways it has been demonstrated so incredibly over the last year. What a beautiful, wonderful year. What a beautiful day.

Today’s Trouble, Today’s Joy

Posted on by under country life, Writing

Since getting married and leaving my fulltime job as a paramedic and becoming a fulltime wife, I have found my days to be fuller than they ever used to be, busier, richer, and amazingly productive. It is a largely unplanned sort of busyness. Oftentimes it is a busyness brought about by what to other people might be considered inconveniences. It isn’t the kind of productive that puts dollars in the bank, but rather the kind of productive that leads to a happy marriage, healthy relationships, a clean and welcoming and beautified home, a vibrant church and community life, a productive little homestead, and plenty to share with family and friends. It is the kind of productive that leads to life, truly living and experiencing and feeling and tasting and cultivating and nurturing and creating and being.

One of the most beautiful passages of the New Testament is from Matthew 6:25-34, in which Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount spells out the cure for worry. He admonishes His listeners against the futility of worrying. What does worry accomplish for you? You work yourself to death trying to secure your future, but can you really change tomorrow? Do you trust God to provide? Can you make your life longer by worrying? Can you even add an hour to your existence? He reminds His hearers of God’s provision. God clothes the lilies and God feeds the birds. They don’t toil, and yet He provides. It really is a beautiful passage. Jesus concludes this admonition with this well-known statement: “Sufficient for the day is its own troubles.”

How true that is! But I would also say that sufficient for the day are its own joys. In fact, I would actually say that those troubles are often its joy. Trouble and joy are twins.

I think people miss out on a lot of joy because they are trying to stave off trouble (think inconvenience, nuisance, discomfort, changes in plans, something unwanted happening, etc.), or they are trying to manipulate their way into joy without any associated “trouble”. It strikes me that those “troubles” which to a self-occupied or career-centric person would be a nuisance or would be impossible demands to meet (such as one’s day getting turned topsy-turvy by someone else’s needs), those “troubles,” to a person whose life is shaped by spouse, family, and community, are also that person’s joys.

We wake up in the morning and make a plan, and give our attention to what is required of us today. Not tomorrow, not next week, but today. Obviously we have things on our schedule, weeks in advance, but the real question isn’t how best to use my time tomorrow, but how best to use my time today. Who or what needs my attention today? What joy there is in being able to live with an emphasis on those daily tasks that give life shape and meaning, allowing for the flexibility to meet spontaneous demands on my time, building those ties with my spouse, my family, and my community. Maybe it is going with my husband to find those cows that crawled into a neighbor’s pasture. Maybe it is helping with errands or being available to help with babysitting. It might be a spur of the moment picking fruit with my father-in-law, or canning tomatoes. Or jumping into our little fire rig and going to a grassfire across the highway with my husband. Or helping a neighbor work cows. Or a walk with my mom. Or helping shuttle my husband from the stack yards out in the hayfield up to the house after a load of hay was delivered. Or spontaneous coffee with my mother-in-law when taking her a couple dozen eggs on my way into town. Or doctoring an injured or sick animal, a process that always takes longer than anticipated.

We run into trouble when we spend so much time focusing on tomorrow’s troubles and trying to manipulate tomorrow’s joys that we don’t or can’t even experience what is right in front of us.

So I thank God for today’s troubles, and all of its joys.

This Crazy, Wonderful Life

Posted on by under country life, the homestead, Writing

As of yesterday, Brad and I have been married for three months. Wonderful months. In some ways, it hardly seems possible that we’ve been married for that long, and on the other hand it feels as if we’ve always been married. What a blessing and a gift, and how unexpectedly beautiful it has been!

For three months we have looked forward to “when things slow down.” Things will slow down in July, we said. Things will slow down in August, we said. With one thing and another, they surely didn’t slow down, and we’re now in the midst of the whirlwind of fall cow work. Between being a wife, keeping chickens, cultivating a garden, and working alongside my husband, I can safely say I have never been busier! It has been a joy to start getting involved in this community, helping with the county fair, cultivating church relationships, continuing to volunteer with the fire department.

So I’ve been well-occupied. And I can also honestly say I’ve never been happier. Yet in those busy times, it can be easy to do too much looking ahead, and not take the time to sit back and marvel at God’s blessings and how He sustains and provides. Day to day, minute to minute, this life is a blessing, and is amazingly unguaranteed in an earthly sense, but beautifully guaranteed in a Heavenly one. Don’t ever take a minute of this life for granted.

One week I’m bemoaning grasshopper damage in my garden, the next week I’m reaping bounty. One day I’m celebrating the simple joy of a half a dozen eggs, the next day I’m praying my way to the ER with my husband, after a terrifying shop accident. A rough day for any wife (but especially a new one) ended in the sweetness of relief that the ER outcome was stitches and no more, and listening to the music of rain on our roof. One day ended with tears of exhausted relief and the next day began with the sweetness of waking up next to my favorite person and finding 2 inches of rain in our rain guage. So many prayers answered and so much of God’s faithfulness from one sunrise to the next!

One week we’re praying desperately for rain while watching the dams go dry, the next we’re celebrating water in the dams. One day we’re working cows with neighbors, enjoying the camaraderie of the ranching community, the next we’re gathering up my father-in-law from an ATV wreck in a distant pasture and getting him to a waiting ambulance. That same community we enjoyed the day before dropped their whole evening when they heard about the ATV accident, helping at the wreck and then after, shuttling dogs back home, even rounding up my chickens and putting them away. What a wonderful community we live and work in, and how comforting to see the ways in which God provides the right people at the right time to accomplish His plans.

One week we’re feeling the summer slump with less to keep us busy (yet somehow still with plenty to keep us busy), the next week we’re methodically working our way through the ranch, strategizing accomplishing everything while being down a person, and getting ready for a weekend of cow work.

As I’ve mulled over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been struck by the way in which God will bring a significant trial, or a series of them, but wrap them around with His goodness. The last two weeks have been exhausting, emotional, frustrating, uncertain. Yet they have been brim-full of the simplest of pleasures. The purest of joys. The love of a husband, a family and community. What a crazy, wonderful life this is. What a wonderful God we serve.

And it is a glorious thing, to find where you belong, and to be where God wants you to be.

Thankfulness, Like the Rain

Posted on by under country life, Writing

We were sitting down for supper last night after a busy Sunday, listening to the sound of rain on our roof. Our weekend was a blur of county fair busyness, fire department busyness, hot weather, and lots of people we don’t get to see very often.

It was a hard week. Not a bad week, just long, hot, and dry. We could gripe about a lot of things. We could gripe about the hot and dry weather we’ve been having. The pastures that are so sparse they almost look grazed out even though they haven’t been grazed yet. Dry dams. Politics. Sturgis rally traffic. Or any other number of things we humans are great at coming up with to complain about.

Or we could find something to be joyful about and thankful for. Thankfulness breeds thankfulness, and once you start finding things to thank God for, it really just keeps going.

Like the rain.

Like a repreive from the heat.

Like that first full dozen eggs I got from my chickens.

Like all of our crazy, loveable critters.

Like getting the chickens moved into their new coop.

Like a weekend full of those once-a-year county fair festivities that wear a person out, but also fill a person up.

Like the community we are so blessed to live and work and worship with.

Like faithful neighbors.

Like a loving, God-provided spouse.

Like a wonderful Sunday evening supper of homegrown steak, zucchini, and dill cucumber salad, a meal entirely harvested from this ranch.

Like a million other things.

So we sat listening to the music of rain on our roof, watching the downpour so heavy we lost the horizon, thanking the good Lord for a much needed wetting-down of this parched piece of earth, thanking God for friends and neighbors and cows and chickens and thanking God for each other.

What a good end to a hard week.