Dave-the-husband/lover and youngest daughter, Stormie Dae have been in Honduras all week with Compassion International, where they play afternoon soccer games and are hanging with other really cool people from Colorado (the guys who started Desperation Conferences, the people who run the Grand Junction NightVision Festival, and etc).
I scheduled meetings all day and all night to keep busy and not feel lonely and I totally stressed Sandy out by not coming home until 11:30 last night. How do I know she was flipped out about being in the house so many hours alone? Please do not ask!
I am SUPER mad at my iPhone because I plugged it in to grab the CUTEST photos ever off of it (Gemma, Averi and Amelie) and when I looked up, it was re-setting my phone and I lost them all. Can I get them back? EVER? Somebody please help me!!!??
I lost my camera. I lost my $69.99 Black-Friday Target special that I have had for 2 1/2 years (longer??) – the one I take all my pictures on. I am now a camera-less Nonna. Where o where is it? I humbly offer a $10 reward for its’ return.
Ryan and Tredessa are coming over to make me dinner. Are they sweet or what?
My front door was unlocked this morning when I came down. What the heck??? I am not that brave.
I am jealous of everyone riding motorcycles on my way to and from the office. I mean – it would be riidiculous of me to take it up at my age, but they get to ride free in the wind. I miss the convertible, too. *sniff sniff* But Ryan just told me he might get a bike!!!
The peonies are blooming beautifully.
Tomorrow I am TAKING some time to dig in the dirt and garden a bit.
There are still balloons hanging in my dining room and family room from the party last weekend. Kind of like my happy welcome home, even though it is so quiet here.
Picnik.com is gone foever, yes, but at least temporarily, I have discovered PicMonkey.com. I can deal until they start charging, which I know is their devious, evil plan (get me hooked and then “That’ll be 1892 dollars and 63 cents, please“). Uh-huh. I know their game, but I can play…for now.
I have prayed for God to send me help from the sanctuary. A lot. And I am watching Him do it. And wow, I am humbled.
I was looking at really old photos of family members who are dead and gone and realizing that we are just passing through, a temporary part of the the earth’s atmosphere. But we represent all who came before and we leave our mark on those who will remain.
And I just wonder if, besides wanting to leave a powerful legacy, I have given enough honor to those who paved my way, enough homage to real people whose lives made mine possible?
It feels like, sometimes, we write them off as unsophisticated, or as people whose lives didn’t matter quite as much. We are so intent on “bettering” everything. Just like they were, I suppose.
My Grandpa Baker in the mid-1940s….
I wonder what I have yet to learn as I contemplate the people who made me?
Proverbs 22.28 NIV, “Do not move an ancient boundary stone
My earliest memories, in the apartment on Washington Street in Des Moines, Iowa, include my mom’s horse collection. She’d collected wooden ones, ceramic ones, and glass ones as a girl and young teenager. They were displayed on the plate rail around the dining room and on shelves and even my dad’s desk. I was fascinated by them and occasionally, she’s get one down for me to hold.
At some point, I guess as her “collection” of children grew, she just got rid of them all.
But I always knew she was horse woman. A little bit cowgirl. A little bit Dale Evans and Roy Rogers, she grew up wearing jeans and chaps and walking around her town roping things.
Fitting then, that there is a horse named for her, Norma’s Angel.
My mama the horse whisperer
My mom devoted, in every sense of that word, her whole life to God, her husband, her children and her church family. I would like to challenge anyone to find an enemy to her. Just is not possible. She loved anyone who had an issue with her until they could no longer resist her affection and became, instead, raving fans. Her love is deep and wide.
When my dad took a church in Ohio and she was 55, I believe, she became a professional horse photographer. It was just thrilling to see her blossom, like a reward from God for all the years of her dedicated service. They lived in a rural location and her hobby of snapping pictures turned in to assignments for an Ohio horse publication, where her work was featured on the cover many times.
I have always said that both my mom and my sister can speak to the animals. And the horses especially responded to her my mom’s gentleness and respect by posing sweetly.
This photo
So a few years ago when they were pastoring in Richmond, Indiana, some members of their church who were horse breeders and racers had a foal who was not doing too well at all. The small horse was very sick and it touched my mom’s heart, of course. She drove out to their place and told them she was going to pray for their little horse. She did. She recalls the little horse nuzzling her while she’d speak gently to it and stroke its’ mane.
She prayed and prayed for that little horse and it got better. When they filed the paperwork, they called that horse, “Norma’s Angel.”
It got so strong it began racing. They sent my mom a horseshoe from its’ first 1st-place win, a treasure to her.
This past week she got to stop by and see her namesake horse and they shared some tender moments, captured by another photographer. I happened across it on Facebook this morning and it has to be one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.
Regal. Strong. Powerful. Gentle. Beautiful. The horse yes, but my little mama, too.
Our family-all-time favorite worship leader (the leader on our first ever Hosanna’s! Integrity cassette worship tape: He is Exalted), has a video blog!!!
Kent Henry: Great voice. Spirit-led. Full of wisdom and grace. Passing it all on to the next generations. He played at Heaven Fest 2009 and it was awesome!
AND, on this one, he is teaching from my favorite book of the Bble: Ephesians!
“The times of refreshing come from His presence because of the power of redemption…(references the song “The God of the Redeemed”from Brian and Jenn Johnson at Jesus Culture).
“Don’t let the devil ever stop you because you’ve fallen in sin…keep using your gift. This is a secret I learned years ago, this is from the heart of God to yours. The devil will try to condemn you and confound you to the place: no more prayer, no more playing the guitar, piano, whatever you are doing in your church, teaching, but do not stop. Don’t let him stop what’s going on in you in terms of redemption. Use your giftedness as God is perfecting His holiness on the inside of you.”
Now-what is cool/weird is, perplexingly…I went to bed singing an old hymn from my childhood that I honestly cannot remember singing for the past 30 years. Maybe I have, but it isn’t like a favorite song or anything. It is vcoming together…Today must be for exploring redemption….by the blood of Jesus…
It’s Monday. There is this festival coming up really soon. Gotta work.
But the sun shines and the breeze causes those fluttering leaves that tend to distract me and a little red-headed girl needs a drink. Then a snack. Then another drink. And then a craft to do. And then Is it time for lunch yet ?? (which gets repeated a lot of times throughout the day). Then some cuddle time. Then coloring time. Then Can I watch some Netflix, Nonna? Then finally lunch actually arrives.
The anticipation of Tuppy-the-Puppy joining us today from the kennel where she’s been visiting starts to make life seem super exciting. Nonna works at the table. So Gemma brings her work to the table. Paper, crayons, glue sticks and scissors dot my professional landscape. When the workload gets too heavy the little girl brings me her hairbrush. Nonna takes a break to brush spun-gold into soft waves and bebe almost falls asleep as I brush. She has inherited this love of hair-playing from me. Is there some one I can pay to brush my hair when I need a break??
We bought Gemma the “je t’aime” shirt as a greeting to her mommy and daddy while they were in Paris. All week, we have been singing “Freres Jacques” and “Alouette.”
The kids get home from school. The puppy bounds in and a scene from The Brady Bunch ensues as Sandy tries to catch up with this tiny dog running the house in circles to the squeals of three exuberant children. The doors slide open and closed about 487 times and there is candy, lots of candy.
I keep plugging away at the task list. Kind of.
Now it is time to do fractions and 3rd grade spelling lists. *Binary *Monologue *Triads. I did not use these words in 3rd grade. Yowzers. More math problems, Reading. Racing to the swing-set. When is dinner? When is dinner? When is dinner? Because each of three needs to know.
Task list loses. Life is a little upside down. As bedtime approaches and the pj-donning, teeth brushing and potty-going begins, I feel a pang of separation anxiety. Because in a few days they will go home. I can jump back into work. And the silence (and order and accomplishment) will be deafening and I shall miss the chaos of delight it has all been.
Wayne Jacobsen thinks we have missed the point in our Sunday School story. He suggests that we have called it The Story of the Prodigal Son and maybe missed really seeing what an incredibly loving father, representing the Father, is actually so central.
I won’t retell the story here, but you know it. You know about the son who saw his father as the money-man, Give me what I want so I can do what I want to do, and the older son who saw his father as the task-master, I have to do all the work to earn what I need…
But what did the father really want?
This father wanted an intimate relationship with both of his children. He wanted them to know how deeply they were loved and to experience their love in return. He didn’t want his sons’ obedience, but their hearts. Knowing this would happen only when the son truly understood who his father was, he risked it all by letting the son have what he wanted. Only by coming to the end by himself would the son recognize what had been important to the father all along.
“As a parent of adult children I understand that. There’s nothing I prize more with my children than those moments when we share the honesty and intimacy of friendship. When they know I love them, and they respond the same way to me, there’s nothing better.
“That’s the point of Jesus’ story. The father was not manipulating the son by anything he did. He was only loving the son at the deepest possible level. That love explains why the father let him go in the first place and why he rushed so hard to embrace him. He knew his son’s sins had been punishment enough. He ran because he didn’t want his son to hurt one second longer than was absolutely necessary. His pain had brought him home. Nothing else mattered.
“God feels the same way about you. He’s not interested in your service or sacrifice. He only wants you to know how much you are loved, hoping you will choose to love him in return. Understand that, and everything else in your life will fall into place; miss that, and nothing else will make any difference.” Wayne Jacobsen, He Loves Me, Learning to Live in the Father’s Affection
Later in the chapter the author says that everything in our lives {everything?!?!} hinges on this one simple question:
Do you know how loved you really are?
He loves me, He loves me lots…He love me, He loves me lots…
Me: On a quest to understand the Father’s love, His heart towards even me…made me remember this old song (1981) by Benny Hester, “When God Ran”
And now, my prayer for my own battered-performance-driven heart and for all the people I love and for 40,000 who will come to Heaven Fest 2012 where we are building a platform to communicate the Father heart of God to this generation…
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” EPH 3.17-19 NIV
“Grandpa, I need you to pick up 5 bottles of glue and some Borax.”
Said by Guini, who is planning to whip up a sizeable batch of Goop, apparently. That is Stephanie’s daughter!
Meanwhile –
Gavin is compiling a long list of Home Depot items he wants (metal pipes, wood, green paint) to make a large skate park on our front sidewalk. He estimated his costs at $74,000.
Gemma grabbed her notebook and said, “O-I need to make my list for the store: t-o-y spells toy. How do you spell…no, just toy. That is all I need.”
