On the 7th day of Christmas we say good-bye to 2008.
I am pondering: if I could change one thing about this past year, what would I want to change? And the only thing I can think of that was unbearable, I couldn’t change or I’d never have learned from God what I needed to in that thing – which will keep me from having to face it again in 2009. Hallelujah!
So then, is my answer: nothing – not one thing could or should be changed?
Peace to you, my friends, my readers. Peace and joy to you as we pass from one calendar year to another. Blessings to you in all you do. I wish you wholeness and healing in 2009. I wish you repair in the broken places and hope for the future. I wish you a double portion of any love you have ever given, the reward for every sacrifice you have made to bless another.
Remember, though this year is at its end and this season is passed-your story isn’t yet. He is your Author and He is your Finisher…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF:It has all, every little thing, been worth it to know You tonight like this. Dang, some of it hurt, but wow-You are so faithful, mighty God! You are so loving. I am amazed.
“…I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the works of the LORD…” Pslam 77.10b-11a NKJV
The first time I ever remember crying over simple words strung together in a book was as I was reading a selection aloud to Dave from Max Lucado’s God Came Down back in the 80’s. I think I was reading the chapter written as Mary, the mother of Jesus, sort of pondering and praying in her heart about her newborn son, and, being a young mother myself, was impacted deeply.
Parts of “Mary’s Prayer” by Max Lucado
GOD. O infant-God. Heaven’s fairest child. Conceived by the union of divine grace with
our disgrace. Sleep well…
Rest well, tiny hands. For though you belong to a king, you will touch no satin, own no gold. You will grasp no pen, guide no brush. No, your tiny hands are reserved for works more precious:
to touch a leper’s open wound,
to wipe a widow’s weary tear,
to claw the ground of Gethsemane.
Your hands, so tiny, so white-clutched tonight in an infant’s fist. They aren’t destined to hold a scepter nor wave from a palace balcony. They are reserved instead for a Roman spike that will staple them to a Roman cross…
O eyes that will see hell’s darkest pit and witness her ugly prince . . . sleep, please sleep; sleep while you can.
Lie still, tiny mouth. Lie still, mouth from which eternity will speak.
Tiny tongue that will soon summon the dead, that will define grace, that will silence our foolishness.
Rosebud lips-upon which ride a starborn kiss of forgiveness to those who believe you, and of death to those who deny you-lie still…
That Max has a way with words (www.maxlucado.com) and you can access a special, downloadable selection of Christmas writings put together as “It Began in a Manger” right here. It is a 15-page gathering of writings he has done in various books with 6 short, but thought-provoking and inspirational “chapters” including “The Arrival, ” the above-mentioned “Mary’s Prayer” and “Gabriel’s Questions.”
I love to read this every year as I “prepare Him room”…again. Check it out! Enjoy “my” (Max’s) FREE giftto you on this first day of December!
He came as a baby to save me, even me! I’ll be contemplating that and celebrating my deliverance from the law of sin and death for the next 24+ days!…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: God loves to see us celebrate and rejoice. Spread the word! JOY! To the whole world! Repeat as needed!
Can I just say the sooner the leftovers are gone, the better (except for Stormie’s pumpkin pies)? But all delish.
We did a “thankful” tree on Thanksgiving, everyone filling out little “leaves” and hanging them with things for which we are grateful written.
Thumbnails (click for larger image):
The Thankful Tree
Wrex, whose medium was colored pencils, wanted his art on the “family art wall.” The picture was drawn by Amy Jo Becker and includes the lyrics to a little turkey ditty (Five Fat Turkeys are We) to the tune of a song from The Mikado.
Turkey-bread by Stefane (who, as a devoted Texan, also introduced us to “Armadillo Eggs”-which are fabulous!)
Fake Thanksgiving-food cupcakes by Tredessa and Stormie for Jovan, who does not like one thing –not one Thanksgiving-related food (not turkey, not dressing, not mashed potatoes, nor gravy…not green bean casserole, not cranberries, not even pumpkin pie!)! So the girls made cupcakes (which she loves) that LOOKED like Thanksgiving food using icing, white chocolate, Starburst candies and melted caramel.
The Flu.
In the middle of the night following Thanksgiving, I got hit with a full-on, horrid stomach flu, complete with fever, chills, and wrenching. I won’t say more. If it hadn’t been for the entire Kelley family having contracted and suffered through it just before Thanksgiving (Gavin does go to public school now – germ breeding grounds!), I’d have been thinking food poisoning. But no, just a very untimely stomach bug! So I spent Friday, while my husband and daughters were all shopping madly, in bed – when I wasn’t running to the bathroom. Truly a “Black Friday” for me!
I wish the google image above really did reflect my 3 a.m. view Friday morning!
Snow at Last.
At about 11 o’clock last night, we looked outside to see the most beautiful snow. My nephew Zach from Montana, living with us while he completes a ministerial internship here, had just asked 2 days ago, “Yeah-so when do you guys get snow here?” I am not a huge fan, but since it has so politely remained largely at bay this year so far, it was a welcome sight. This morning the grass is almost covered and every branch has a puffy white coating and it is lovely and makes you want to watch Christmas movies and wrap presents.
This is the snow-on-the-branches view out the back door this morning at 7:15 a.m., just after the bunny rabbit, who’d been looking in at me, hopped away.
Blogoversary.
Teena from Toronto left me a “Happy Blogoversary” message this morning and I realized that, yes, it is indeed my “blogoversary.” How did she know that?
Two years ago today, I started blogging. The kids found and bequeathed the image that adorns my blog banner to get me started. They all said she looks just like me, and I am happy they understand the inner me, for surely that is what they see.
To blog was both exhilerating and trepidatious for me. I was so afraid to hit the “post” button back in those days, fearful of what my words would reveal of me, but also needing a place to tell some truth and speak some words I was struggling to communicate, especially to my children. I was so cautious and agonized over how much to say, carefully wondering how much I could really tell truthfully, lest my truth hurt some one else. You can read my very first blog here. (from 11.29.06)
Now I blather on with both spiritual epiphanies as they come (they are for me, anyway) and the torrid, word-filled minutia of my life (like telling you about my stomach flu, for crying out loud!!). This is my 398th post and I have 30 drafts in the folder waiting for me to finish off and publish – there is no end in sight, people! And I always wonder about when I am gone – if my offspring should really ever begin to read this stuff, investigating it as they look for meaning and understanding of their past and their own lives – how really weird will they think I was?
It all remains to be seen…from the ever-graphomaniacal Jeanie
NOTE TO FAMILY: To all the Rhoadeses in every direction-hope Thanksgiving was warm and wonderful for you. To the whole Moslander bunch, far and wide, always think of you and miss you on these days. 1991 was our last everyone-together Thanksgiving, and that does not seem right!
For 28 Christmases now, he has worked hard, planned, created, wrapped, shopped, baked, played, decorated and done whatever else is necessary to create a magical, love-filled, memory-made Christmas for our family. Christmas mornings at our house are legendary feasts of extravagant indulgence and convivial love banquets of gifts and good smells and laughter and mountains of giftwrap and the music of Christmas and the love of the most incredible husband-father-grandfather. It isn’t about the money spent, for often there has been precious-little of that, but it’s the thoughtful generosity of spirit, gifts that remind the recipient: you are loved, cherished and appreciated-this is my token of that. But – wrap all of that in a huge Christmas bow and you have the gift of the season that my husband puts much great effort in to.
You are the original Clark Griswold, honey. You are George Bailey and Father O’Malley ringing the bells of Christmas. You are my handsome Jefferson Jones, my lover by tree-light. You are Kris Kringle and Santa Claus. You are the man described in “Holiday Inn” in the exchange between Jim Hardy and Miss Linda Mason (Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds).
Linda: You’re a lot like my father – just a man with a family. Never amounted to much, never really cared. But as long as he was alive, we had food to eat and clothes to keep us warm.
Jim: Were you happy?
Linda: Very.
Jim: Well, then your father was a successful man. I hope I can do as well.
Yes, baby, you are Mr. Christmas. I love that you are. I love that you are ever-committed to making merry for all. I am smiling at how excited you are to be organizing the decorations – getting ready to haul them out in mere days. You know where everything is and you’re planning, with a twinkle in your eye, to give us yet another wonderful Christmas.
As the Carpenters once sang: Merry Christmas, Darling…Jeanie
From Dickens’ A Christmas Carol~
“…and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that truly be said of us, all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, ‘God bless us, Every One!'”
NOTE TO SELF: Love the Christmas keeper.
characters above from some of our favorite Christmas movies, including: Christmas Vacation, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Bells of Saint Mary’s, Christmas in Connecticut, Miracle on 34th Street, Holiday Inn
pictured: sweet daughter, Stormie did the graphic for me, from a photo of Dave and a Bing Crosby album.
I have 8 nephews and 2 nieces among my siblings. For the most part, we’ve never lived in the same city, so they are just these far-off adorables you get to see growing up through Christmas card photos and the every-other-year family gatherings. They are a pretty likeable bunch!
Until March, we have never lived closer than 13-20 hours from my sweet niece, Elise, the firstborn to my brother Joe and his wife, Robin. But then she moved here following 2 years of leading missions trips with YWAM and what extra joy she has brought!
She turned 22 on the 22nd and it is fitting for she is at least 22 times happier and excited about life than most anyone else on the planet. She has made us laugh at least 2200 times since she got here and she has been a happy encourager to all of us no less than 222 times.
We have a video of Elise when she was 9 years old, very happily describing the pretty outfit she has just purchased for church, just bubbling in anticipation of the moment she’ll be able to don it and model it for us all. The very weekend she moved to Denver this year, on a Saturday afternoon, she bounded into the kitchen sharing excitedly, Look at this cute outfit I got for church today!! and drew us all into the excitement of how cute she would be. She never fails to pull us in by her exhuberance for living, where even small feats are opportunities to celebrate.
Happy Birthday, sweet Elise Rachelle Moslander! You are color and light and a world traveller with a big heart. You have become the beautiful young woman I always knew you would be, but have surprised me by being such an amazing woman of faith and trust in God! You are a faith woman, for sure!
May all your blessings come times 2 this year!…Aunt Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Take good care of my sweet niece, Elise!
About once a year I dream of my childhood home – at least one of them. We moved quite a bit, so there were many “homes.” But there is “the one.” It is the one I lived in from the summer of 1965 through early September 1970. It was my parent’s first home purchase so it was a big deal. It is the one that was only 4 blocks from Wallace Elementary, where I attended school from Kindergarten through 4th grades. It was just 4 blocks from Grandma’s house and a couple of blocks from my cousin Diana, who would drop by and “pick me up” on her way to school.
I loved that house. There is no explanation for the value I place on it except maybe: It was green grass and having a best friend just across the alley and lilacs and long summer days. It was a rusty old swingset on which I spent hours singing my heart out to the heavens. It was neighbors who paid us nickels and quarters for rocks and shells we took door-to-door, us thinking we were giving them a real bargain, kind people knowingly supporting our adventure, divining we really just needed some penny candy money for the corner grocer 5 blocks away. It was neighborhood relays with homemade ribbons and paper drives and screen doors that slammed musically to the cricket’s songs as we ran to capture lightening bugs for jewelry. It was innocence and family, it was friends and church. It was my mom on the piano teaching us to sing gospel for all we were worth. It was the safe place.
Several times over the years I have been moved to send Christmas greetings to the current inhabitants of the house at 1723 York Street in Des Moines, Iowa wishing them all the joy and love and peace I experienced there. They have never replied and for all I know there are restraining orders on file concerning me.
So, occasionally I dream about it and have googled the address from time to time. Last week I did so and was overwhelmed and delighted to see that “my house,” my place of nostalgic extravagance, was up for sale. My parents bought it for $12,000 in ’65 and sold it for $17,000 in ’70. It is listed at $110,000 now, which seems an amazing bargain for such a magical childhood palace.
There it was. My 1723 York Street house! I have actually always daydreamed about owning it now. And there it was on a real estate site – with pictures! And even though the colors are different (the woodwork is painted now), it has not changed much at all. It seems smaller. It’s old (built in 1913). The old-fashioned 3-car garage with swing-open doors is long gone, replaced by a nice new 2 car version with an overhead like everyone else. But it is my house, my home, my street. That is my grass and enclosed side porch (lots of Barbie time there). My trees are gone, as is the sidewalk that once went straight from the front stairs to the public walkway. But it is my house, my home, my street.
The other day, I went “thrifting” with the girls and made 2 totally fruitless purchases, except that they gave me something tangible to remember those years there. I got an over-sized, burnt-orange Haeger pottery ash tray just like my grandma used to have in her house (there are slots for at least 9 cigarettes!). So 1960s! And, I got an old black, rotary, wall phone by Bell – one exactly like the one that hung in our kitchen at 1723 York Street when my phone number was 266-7121. These are worthless artifacts except to look at and recall a time and place and the innocent girl who skipped and romped through it.
I am somewhat war-damaged now. Time has taken it’s toll on the body. Circumstances have wreaked havoc on the heart. The innocence has been lost and lost again, but finds repair and healing in the heart of the Father. I can’t help but believe that my address in heaven will be 1723 York Street, for I am that same girl yet, beneath this outer crust, but there, I will never grow old.
Forgive my indulgent reminiscing…Jeanie
NOTE TO READERS: Two days after I “found” it, the listing (www.dsmhomes.com) seems to have been removed, which I can only assume means it sold. I think finding it was a gift from God to help me update my dreams…
pictured: the house at 1723 York Street in Des Moines as it currently looks and the dining room; a couple of shots of the kitchen at the York Street house; the York Street living room – it’s windows are it’s true glory; the old Bell phone and Haeger ashtray I just got while “thrifting” with the girls; the girls in Olde Town Arvada; a cute bakery sign in Olde Town.
Life’s Grace Notes: Unexpected moments of perfection, the tiniest shimmer of beauty piercing your heart. The I-was-made-for-this minute; the unscheduled, fleeting, almost-unnoticeable events that make the life you have more valuable than you can imagine or could ever have hoped or asked for.
Grace note: Daughter, Tara, sitting in the chair in the family room, singing the new song she has just written to the Lord. The song is breathtakingly beautiful, outshone only by the clarity of her voice, striking and true.
Grace note: Rocky & Jovan drawing us all into a game of murder and angelic rescue and accusations called “Mafia.” We laugh and turn on each other like there is no tomorrow, in the spirit of friendly, family competition. Laughing our heads off, we wonder why we don’t play games more?
Grace note: Stormie and Tredessa coming home from Venezuela after almost two weeks. When Steph and the kids show up to see them, an impromtu weekday afternoon pool party ensues on a sunny, summer day.
Grace note: Tredessa deciding to hang out here at our house for a few days following the trip. Regular life gets placed aside because of our special “house guest,” and that is sweet.
Grace note: Stormie, frustrated that the new card trick she keeps trying on everyone isn’t really that good. The odds, which are supposed to be in her favor, keep landing in ours. Fun for us.
Grace Note: Gavin’s hair carefully self-styled – with gel, no less, for his Back-to-School night, which is really his first-ever night at school.
Grace note: A God-appointed few hours with Stephanie, just the two of us and me so enjoying our conversation, I don’t notice that just one side of my face is getting burnt to a crisp, just one side.
Grace note: Dave studying for a class he’ll be teaching…in the pool. He is getting paid for it. *smile…
Grace note: Hunter pondering the Home of Refuge Orphange in Venezuela. When I tell him, “They don’t have a mommy and daddy like you do.” He tells me wisely, “God is their daddy now.”
Nothing earth-shattering. Nothing you’d necessarily plan for or schedule in, but sweet and harmonious, the very sound of heaven, “the music of living.” Extra notes and embellishments make the song all the sweeter. I hum along.
It is unmerited, I assure you. Are you hearing yours?…Jeanie
NOTE FO SELF: Listen for the moments.
pictured: Stormie and Tredessa with the orphans; Gavin smelling a dinnerplate Dahlia; Hunter in his jammies, making me laugh as the sun was setting one evening; Dave on the clock.
When I grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, hollyhocks grew like weeds in the alleys and my friends and I used toothpicks and hollyhocks to create dolls now and again. One toothpick was inserted into an unblossomed bud and then connected to an upside down bloom. The second toothpick was poked through “the body” horizontally for “arms”. Sometimes we held the toothpick between our finger and thumb under the “gown” and made our little dolls dance and twirl.
Guini and I made one a couple of days ago in between splashing pool times. She is my “flower girl,” loving all the flowers and their names.
I love the flower girl…J
NOTE TO SELF: Disperse the numerous hollyhock seedlings round the yard for more fun next year.
