Finding Balm in Gilead

The Blessings of Fall

One of my very favorite things about fall, besides the crispness of the air and the beautiful colors of the trees and the abyss of pumpkins to be found all over my porch, are the sounds of the crowds cheering, and the bands drumming, and the commentators commenting on the various and sundry football games playing out on our TV. Nary a Saturday or Sunday goes by in the fall without one of these games rumbling in the background of our lives.

And I love it....because it signifies that my husband is home and with us. He's home playing catch with his son or critiquing a style show put on by his daughter... all while yelling at Tech to grow up and catch the ball. And if it's Sunday, it is the same scene, only he's yelling at the Cowboys instead.

It's a musical blessing to my ears.

And I'll have you know, I am raising a future football player with his own cheering section:

 

That's a bucket he's using for a helmet, until he "gezz wun for 'is burfday." And the other bucket strapped to Gracie's back is her interpretation of a turtle.

A cheerleading turtle, if you will.

 

What did I do for fun before I had children?

Below are the pictures I took on the way home from Amarillo yesterday after running errands, purchasing a legion of Lightnin' McQueen underwear for my boy, and taking some corn stalks to the big city lab for testing. There's a little place along the road called Prayer Town (just the name blesses my soul as I drive by), and it has the prettiest grove of trees changing colors in the fall. These are my attempts to throw up the camera and snap a picture, hoping that I can capture the beauty I see while keeping my eyes on the road.

 
I'm not sure you can see the trees for all the CRACKS in my windshield.

And obviously, if you are reading from other parts of the country where there are an abundance of those things called trees, this photo probably looks depressing to you.

But it's delightful to me.

 

Again, this looks like a vast expanse of just brush to the non-native of the Panhandle,  but it was a beautiful sight of fall leaves coming over the hill. In the interest of safety, I just held the camera up and hoped for the best.

 
This is the view across the canyon "lake" in our little town. I did pull over to the side of the road for this one. But still, my lack of photo prowess prevents me from capturing what I see in person......the beauty and serenity of our little world up here in the Panhandle.

Oh Fall, you are a blessing.

Furthermore, outdoors we're enjoying the rapidly approaching cooler weather, while trying to pack in our last few weeks of bike-riding and sidewalk-chalking before that first freeze when - hallelujah - I can quit watering my geraniums.

The sun is in a different place in the sky, the mornings are darker, and the evenings come quicker as the smell of spice-scented candles waft through my house. Spice-scented candles bless me tremendously.

As I reported before, my desire to cook returns during the fall, with meals such as J's favorite chicken and dumplings - an entree' that can ONLY be made according to his great-grandmother's legendary recipe.

I found that out the hard way.

And then there's the blessing of the many trial runs of pumpkin pies and pecan pies and apple crisps to be made all throughout October in anticipation of Thanksgiving... which by that time, J says he's had his fill of all things pumpkin for years to come.

October around here also means the final packing up of the summer wardrobe and the grand entrance of the long-sleeved cardigans, the thicker pants, the turtlenecks, the tweeds, the wools, and of course, the boots.

Oh, those boots, y'all. What a blessing.

And so, while I brew my second pot of coffee and relish the fact that we will indeed turn off the air conditioner for good in a week or two...while I watch the leaves gather on my lawn and rejoice in the knowledge that even the weeds in my flower beds are no match for the coming winter......while I watch the harvest moon rise to its place in the sky and attend that last local high-school football game......I will glory in the blessings of the season.

Even my coffee tastes better this time of year.

Phase 2,3,4 etc.

Last week, we officially entered into the final phases of our leaky den remodel. Our internet and TV were down throughout most of the week, but I can say without hesitation that we have ourselves a VAST improvement in the state of our living arrangements back there.

Plus, it looks like we've narrowly avoided prolonged mold poisoning.

I'll be back later this week with pictures, and an account of the sad and sentimental departure of the bedsprings.

Furthermore, I feel a Wheat Germ Weekly post coming on dealing with the nature of clutter in our lives. There's nothing like having to move around a bunch of worn-out furniture, junky toys, and as my dear friend Shelly likes to say, "useless chatchke" to make you take a serious look at what EXACT SENTIMENT these things have in my life and are they adding any value or peace AT ALL???

So I'm on a mission. A mission to clear out, purge, throw away, and kick to the curb. And I'm not just talking about the material chatchke in my life. I'm also talking about the physical chatchke, the mental chatchke, and the spiritual chatchke that is clouding up my attempts at a vibrant and clear-headed existence on this earth.

Here's a teaser for you.......

 

Do we really need 7 boxes of bandaids?

Stay tuned.

Enjoying the Morning

I am on day two of a new morning schedule: a good friend is joining me at our local gym to workout at 5:30 IN THE A.M.

Holy Moly people....5:30 is pretty dang early.

But it helps to have some accountability, especially since I started the 30 Day Shred again two weeks ago, and have only done it three times in these two weeks.

I need accountability. Otherwise I opt out of exercise to go whip up a pan of brownies. Or blackberry cobbler. Or sour cream coffee cake. Or key lime pie.

And so the sad state of affairs that is my tummy.

So anyway, my point of all this nonsense is that though I despise getting up before the sun is up himself, I so enjoy coming home after the workout to a beautiful, bird chirping, windless morning. Here in the Panhandle, early morning is about the only guaranteed time that the wind isn't blowing you off the grid.

Granted, yesterday I got home from our crack of dawn exercise rendezvous and promptly laid down on the couch.....and conked out for the next two hours. So I didn't really get to enjoy the morning. However, today is a new day. I am not reeling AS MUCH from the shock of the early hour, I'm on my third cup of coffee, and the day is just beautiful. I love this time to myself.

And really, it's when I'm high on caffeine like this that I wonder why it is so hard to get up in the morning. Why do I insist on that extra hour or so of sleep when I can get up, sugar up my coffee and come in here to the front room and just pray and read the Bible and get my heart and mind ready for the day?

Oh my day goes so much better when I do this.

But, for some reason - and I guess we all do this to some extent - I have placed a high value on sleep. Don't get me wrong...we all need sleep and an ample amount of it. However, I've convinced myself that I need to take all the sleep I can get - especially now that I have little babes running all over the place - and I forfeit precious time with God and time to myself all in the name of that last hour or so of slumber.

And we all know that the last hour of sleep is, generally speaking, really not good deep sleep......probably because we're rationalizing all through that hour why, exactly, WE NEED that last hour. Thus, the ability to rationalize = not good sleep = should have got your behind out of bed an hour earlier.

So.

I'm up. I'm awake. I'm reveling in the sweetness of the morning. My kids are still in bed. I've had a good prayer time while in the Word. I'm writing this post. And I'm seriously considering another pot of coffee.

It's a glorious day.

( And believe me, I'm all too aware that I could be eating my words tomorrow at 5:30 in the A.M.)

You Gotta Know When To Hold 'Em

Friday's Celebration Day didn't go quite as I expected.

It was going to be a push anyway since I had almost no sleep due to the prior three nights of a certain coughing, moaning two-year old son.

The circumstances leading into Celebration Day were not ideal, but as I said in Friday's post.....this is really the whole point of having a Celebration Day - to choose to celebrate even when my hand of cards doesn't look too good.

People, my hand of cards on Friday was a bummer.

As planned, Cash and I made the two-block trek to the doctor that morning arounnd eleven to find out that his persistent cough wasn't just allergy related - it was full-blown strep throat.

Cue the amoxicillin.

I am not a fan of antibiotics. Even so, sometimes an antibiotic is obviously the best and only option. Fill up on that chemical pink stuff - with a chaser of acidolphilus - and get that bacteria on out of there.

So that's what we did. I filled our prescription, went home for lunch, gave Cash his first dose of the pink, and then we took a long nap together. Naptime is Celebration Day at its finest.

And then....AND THEN at precisely 3:15, Cash awoke to a nasty itching of all his extremities, and I realized that he was having an allergic reaction to the antibiotic. After a frantic call to the doctor, the receptionist gave me a terse directive to go to the emergency room since said doctor was already out of town for the weekend.... but not before I gave Cash a fast dose of benadryl from my fridge.

All I needed was a change in prescription since apparently my son is allergic to penicillin. It's a common allergy, so I hear. Yet, for some reason I'm still not sure about, we had to go to the emergency room....for TWO HOURS.

Anyway, by the time Cash and I got home at 6:00 with our new prescription, Celebration Day was shaping up to be somewhat of a disaster. I felt attacked from the enemy. But, by golly, though I was ticked about the day's events and had NO desire to cook up a celebration dinner and dessert, I was even more ticked to think that Satan might win this hand and completely destroy my day of believing for victory.

So, like ole' Kenny Rogers says, "You gotta know when to hold 'em."

("...Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run.") (Sorry.)

Cue the angel food cake. Cue the strawberries. People, cue the whipped cream.

J's ribs were already front and center on the table. I remembered BooMama's recently posted recipe for asparagus and threw some in the oven with a healthy dose of parmesan. I grabbed my beloved Duncan Hine's angel food cake mix, stirred it up and got it baking.

And those darling children of mine eagerly jumped on the bandwagon and "helped me" make the whipped cream.

Ya'll, those ribs were the best J has ever made. The asparagus was yummy. The strawberry shortcake - melt in your mouth. (Thank you Duncan Hines).

So, while the day was not perfect, and I struggled being intentional about praising God and standing in faith, the day WAS redeemed with a celebration dinner symbolic of what I'm believing God has already done in heaven.

God knows my heart. He knows I'm a broken woman. He knows that I know He's my only hope. 

And that, my friends, is why HE wins the hand.....every time.

The Wheat Germ Weekly, Celebration Day Edition II

That's right people. Today is Celebration Day. It's a day to celebrate the answered prayers of the past....AND THE FUTURE.

Today is a day to get down on your knees and speak into existence those prayers you are waiting to be answered on earth.

Today is the day to know that you know that you know  those same prayers that you are fighting for here on earth have already been answered in the heavenly realms - in a better way than you could ever dream.

I nearly didn't observe Celebration Day today because the last four nights have been spent doctoring my son who started out with what I thought was a harmless, typical allergy cough DUE TO THE BLASTED ELM TREES THAT ARE BUDDING. But the cough isn't going away - despite the major vitamins I've been giving him -  and it seems to be getting worse. We're headed to the doctor later this morning.

Frankly, I'm exhausted from lack of sleep, and my heart wasn't quite wanting to leap into celebration mode this morning......and that's precisely why I need to celebrate. I've been blah all week, had no exercise, and have consumed every bread product known to man in order to "keep up my energy."

Right.

What my soul needs right now is some celebration - regardless of my physical well-being. That's the whole point of this practice...to celebrate EVEN when the chips are down. When there is no miracle in sight. When you're too tired to care.

So....I'm dragging out my homemade celebration poster that I rescued from the Great Laundry Room Flood of January 2010, and I'm hanging it - crinkled edges and all - front and center over the kitchen island. J is cooking ribs for customers today, and he's grillin' extra for us tonight at home - glory be! So now, we just need a veggie or two and of course, we can't forget dessert. I might as well finish my week of carb consumption strong with something extra gooey and yummy.

Gracie gladly went to Ms. LuAnn's today - I'm sure to escape all the coughing and wailing that's going on around here - and so Cash and I are going to crank up the praise music, get our dancing shoes on, probably clean some bathrooms, and praise God for all that He has done and all that He will do.

I need this. I suspect perhaps that you do too. He's fighting the fight for us, people.

And He's already won. Glory Hallelujah.

Daily Redemption

About 10:30 every morning, Joyce Meyer comes on the Daystar network, and I listen to her as I run around the house playing with the kids and straightening up the house before lunch. Sometimes I get to listen to a good portion of her awesome messages,and other times her program is sort of background noise as the kids and I work on daily chores and activities.

However, at precisely 11 a.m., the Daystar network theme song starts playing, signaling the beginning of the live talk show featuring the founders of Daystar - Joni and Marcus Lamb. At this moment, any activity or chore the kids and I are involved in immediately stops as we all rush to the living room in time for the opening song by the Daystar Singers called "Celebrate!"

I wish you could see us all as we dance around, waving our hands in the air while singing at the top of our lungs:

"Celebrate, for the Lord is good...

Celebrate, His promises are sure 

Celebrate! Hallelujah!

For the things He has done and the things He will do

Celebrate! The LORD!!!!!"

No matter what kind of morning we've had, whether it's been riddled with sharing issues, obedience struggles, or general everyday "stuff", it all becomes a little bit better when we gather to sing "Celebrate!" at 11 o'clock sharp.

It's like the redemptive hour.

I took these pictures several months ago in the dead of winter of Gracie dancing to the opening credits of Daystar (I think you can see the top of Cash's head by his blue chair...at that time he would just plop on the floor and watch Gracie and me - now he's a wild dancer like us....):

 

 

These 11 a.m. worship moments are precious to me.

Who would've thought that a Christian tv network could have an impact even on toddlers?????

I'm telling you, the Spirit of the Lord can do ANYTHING.

That's good to know friends.

Spiritually Speaking

In my post Tuesday, I made mention of some spiritual thoughts I've had since our pseudo vacation to the mountains....and now is as good a time as any to just dive on in.

We love the mountains. The majestic beauty combined with the cooler temperatures makes for a great getaway from our hot, treeless area of Texas. I do love our home and our state and the great flat expanse of where we live, but at this time of year the mountains are calling.

This year we decided to go to a different place from where we usually end up in the mountains, and so we chose our final destination fully aware of the major amount of time it would take to get there with two toddlers...but so what? - we're on vacation and we've got DVD's.

And really, it was a perfectly nice place to be with gorgeous views, yummy food, and the coolest gondola transport service that mesmerized my gleeful little children.

But there was something that J and I couldn't quite put our finger on, and it had to do with the feel or spirit of the place. I don't know, but there was a heaviness upon us as we wandered about town, checking out the local businesses and restaurants. Keep in mind that we were towing two toddlers along as well, with one quite irritable because of the double ear infection he was developing. So, that could be part of the "heavy" problem.

In fact, several things probably contributed to our perspective of the feel of things: we had just learned of the tragic death of a friendly acquaintance as we were driving the ten hours up there, and we also came upon the scene of a fatal accident while on the gondola to our hotel. Both of these events caused J and I to reflect on many things -  including the fragility of life and the fact that our times are in the Lord's hands.

I know this post is starting to sound like a bummer, but hear me out first....

All this is to say that yes....our hearts were heavy anyway with tragic news and also worry over our son......

But you know, as we left, we drove an hour over to another mountain town to eat lunch, and the intense heaviness we felt before had subsided considerably. What do you make of that?

I know you could say, "Well, Amy, just making progress by getting on the road to see the doctor back home probably relieved some of your anxiety and heaviness."

True.

You could also say, "Furthermore Amy, witnessing the aftermath of a tragic accident doesn't do much for any vacation place, so you probably just needed to leave on account of that, too."

True.

But J and I both agreed...something just didn't feel right about our vacation spot.

The views were awesome, the food was excellent, our hotel was nice, and the mountain air was refreshing..... but strangely, none of this was refreshing to our souls.

Maybe if Cash hadn't become ill and we could have stayed a little longer....then certainly we would have been refreshed and renewed.

Or maybe not.

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spriitual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." - Ephesians 6:12

Spring of my Soul

    "To her, spring had always signaled the advent of new life. And it was nearly impossible to contemplate the rolling landscape before her without realizing anew how it altered so completely with the movement of the seasons....Time and nature were tied together somehow. She'd once read about the change from winter to spring...that the shift had the power to jumble up people's emotions." - from the new Beverly Lewis book The Secret  

My mom gave me this book for my birthday since she knew I have been craving a good fictional novel to read. I have never read Beverly Lewis's books about the Amish before, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one, having read it in three days. This required me to stay up way too late at night, and also to put off doing laundry during naptime for the last week; therefore, I can barely keep my eyes open today ....and we are out of clean underwear as of this morning.

The above quote particularly speaks to me because of the "jumble of emotions" I have been lately. Granted, I know that I could be a better steward of calling on the Holy Spirit to help me control my emotions better, and I also know that hormonal changes can affect me too.... but, as Spring struggles to make its entrance, I wonder if the random, crazy changes of weather up here in the Panhandle are more than coincidental to the random, crazy searchings of my heart lately?

And could it be, on a spiritual level, that just as Spring brings forth "the advent of new life",  my soul is straining to birth new life in me? And in this birthing process, is Satan also is trying to prevent this new life from taking root?

I think so.

As referenced in my post on Good Friday, I have had a lot on my mind lately. While this is a private issue between me and God, I can say that I have really had to think hard about my identity in Christ and who He created me to be in this world. Furthermore, having just celebrated my 36th birthday, these things are heavy on my mind as I contemplate the call God has on my life, and what I would like to improve in the character of my own soul.

In fact, it seems that I am all too aware that 40 is approaching, and though I know this life is a continual spiritual journey, I sure would like to get free in some areas of bondage that tend to confuse my identity in Christ and obscure the vision He has given me for my life.

If you were wanting some light blog reading today, this wasn't it.

Furthermore, I don't know why all of a sudden 40 is a magic number for me...I think I also had some soul-searching thoughts when I turned 29 and saw the big 30 looming in the not-so-distant future. Look for a post when I'm nearing 50 that deals with similar soul-searching material...provided I am still blogging.

Good grief, if you hang on that long, you might need to do some soul-searching yourself.

But, in all seriousness, I do feel like the time has come for a new birth of my soul, AND a once-and-for-all, sink-my-teeth-into, hold-on-for-dear-sweet-life, never-let-go, claiming of the identity that Christ died for me to have.

That's all I wanted to say. 

Now I'm going to go spread some weed-and-feed on our front lawn while the little ones are still napping.

I promise tomorrow I won't write a post dealing with the spiritual implications of "weeding and feeding" the soul.

You've endured enough already.

Friday

It is no coincidence to me that the very week we remember Jesus' final days before the cross, a series of events would cause me to face my own insecurities and unbelief concerning my identity in Christ.

It has been a humbling week, no doubt. Introspective, too.

Good Friday to you all, friends.

Sunday is coming.

My sin - oh, the bliss of this glorious thought:

My sin not in part, but the whole

Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

It is well....with my soul.

It is well, it is well with my soul.

 - hymn by Horatio G. Spafford, Philip P. Bliss

Talk to God.

Here is what I am thinking about today:

"Have you ever felt compelled to react more dramatically to a situation because certain people were watching?

The above question is from Beth Moore's most recent Bible study book on Esther. I am doing the study by myself, which I know isn't the most effective way; however, it's the only option for me right now. And I have to say it is an awesome, challenging, and thought-provoking  study. But all of her studies are awesome, challenging, and thought-provoking.

So anyway, I have been mulling over this question quite a bit over the last few days since some recent events in our extended family have illicited interesting reactions, myself included. And I have to wonder if I have taken part in the "reacting" because everyone else was "reacting".

Most of the reacting has just been good old-fashioned discussion - gossip is a better word - and I suppose one could reason that "it's good to talk about it in order to work through it and come to a peaceful conclusion."

Except we're still "working through it". Everyday. Talking. Reasoning. Theorizing. Gossiping.

I've been right in the middle of this gossip. I'm not just talking because everyone else is talking...I'm eagerly accepting the invitation to talk. I've even encouraged the talking - going as far as to bring it up when the conversation wasn't headed that way.

And so far, I haven't reached a single concrete conclusion.

It's even not really that juicy a topic, although by the amount of talking I've done, you'd think I had uncovered some international secret threatening my very way of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

My life is good. I have liberty. I am happy. Nothing is threatened at all.

But, I am still talking.

Sometimes you just have to quit talking.

Now that would be a peaceful conclusion.