Grateful Acres

This morning I felt some things stir in my heart that I hope to carefully articulate, with honor and honesty. This year our life took a sudden left turn. With a whisper of the Lord's leading, we uprooted and painfully left behind years of kingdom investment. We left the ground we had sown and tended, just as the harvest seemed to be near. We surrendered big dreams and big plans to the Lord, and He gave them away. As I'm writing, I have my favorite album from my favorite artist blasting... Brave New World by Amanda Cook. Fitting, right? She writes about the character of this enormous God. Her lyrics weave the waves of His mercy, His steadiness, His goodness. She wanders through tides of revelation after revelation of His magnificence. Her lyrics are surrender and rising as one. This album is important to me for so many reasons, but today's reason is just that- surrender and rising. Surrender AND rising. With the Lord, surrender is not defeat. When we find ours...

Part of me has always been drawn to old things. My mom and I like to go antiquing together. Family heirlooms capture my attention, particularly items from a ranch house belonging to generations past; a real ranch house, with cows and butter-churns and the like. My great grandparents were Wyoming ranchers, and as a child I remember marveling at the worn, weathered items that survived those hard, rich years. I still have a leather suitcase that my Great Grandpa strapped to the top of a stage coach when he traveled across the wild west. His name is ascribed inside in real ink and poorman's cursive. I've been on a bit of a symbolic heart-and-house purge for a good long season now, longing for a simple, almost old-fashioned life. The simple, hard-working life, less clutter, less busy-ness, more things that stand the test of time. I think about what my kids' memories will be... will they remember Mama stressed and bustling, will they remember being rushed out the door, ...

   One of my grandmas was raised on a ranch in Wyoming. She was taught to work hard and live smart, and she absolutely has. As a child she saved her pennies and bought herself a huge, beautiful piano from a preacher's wife. It's a full sized upright, with magnificent carvings, a beautiful stain, and the richest sound I've heard. This piano traveled the states to rest in my childhood home. I spent many, many hours pouring my heart into the keys as a child and into my twenties. I loved to take the front panels off, and let the vibrations of the strings surround me as I played. It felt like swimming in music. I wrote my first melodies sitting on that little swivel stool. When my beloved and I got married, we moved into a tiny, adorable little house. It was freshly remodeled and sitting behind a white picket fence on a corner lot, and we were very happy! We soon filled the house with a baby and another on the way, and decided to relocate for more room. The piano...

Will I  allow the Lord to work slowly? Do I really believe He cares more for me than the lilies of the field, and will not forget a single care of my heart? When I wait, do I wait in fear? Do I fill gaps, or allow Him? There must be longevity to prove He is faithful. Times of contrast reveal He is good. In the open space He crafts tapestries deeper than my imagination. His slow, steady works are filled with grace, transformation, and more grace. I need grace. I need transformation. I want a life filled with His faithfulness, I want to be neck-deep in His goodness. I want to be weaved in His tapestry. The bending and twisting of each color and texture is the art and beauty expressed by the Artist. I want to learn to see bending and twisting as a holy tapestry. I want to be His art, part of His masterpiece.

She was outside playing with the big boys. She loves them with all her heart, and they love her, and sometimes they don't know their strength. I patted the baby's bottom, rocking and swaying and spying out the window at them all. They had been buddies all day, which is unusual, and resulted in way more mess than usual. The big boys are on the verge of bits of "man" showing through, and I feel a mix of sadness and pride. Roo is beginning to find her voice and her confidence, and they let her tag along. Their voices were high and their shoulders sweaty. All their little (and big) hands gripped the same rope, and their imaginary world had mostly taken over. I could see the potential for a wild and unintentional injury. It's almost always the smaller ones that get hurt. But everyone must learn their strength, their limits, and to think for themselves and look out for others. Sure enough... they came parading in- blood and tears and "I DIDN'T MEAN TO!...

I discovered it one day while washing her hands after playing in the dirt. Daddy noticed too, and we made note to show it to the doctor at our next appointment. A few months went by, and it grew. A wart began to rear it's ugly head right at the base of her sweet, painted nail. It was the kind that grows outward with columns that arrogantly boast their appearance, and she began to shield it. We tried a few things to discourage it's growth, but grow it did. It often caught on things, so we bought Frozen bandaids, and she felt a little safer with it covered. The bandaid had to be just-so, and she developed little habits and preferences to protect her hurt finger. Our doctor suggested squeezing lemon juice on it (who woulda thunk??), and that started to work. It began to shrink and come a little loose. She came crying into the kitchen a few times with it bleeding because it had caught and torn as she was playing. She had gotten so used to having a little owie to protect ...

My baby who always sleeps well, did not sleep well. His round, sweet little body wanted to be squished up next to mine. The night was short, my dear husband worked early, and the troops have more energy than their commander. I wanted to sink into the couch, even before coffee, and sail away to slumber for the morning. That's not practical or worth it, on a Thursday morning. The troops sense I'm dragging and they speed up. There's mess from all the fun we've had, and it brings me anxiety that threatens to overshadow the memories. I can't find my favorite nursing cover, and the beautiful baby settles in for a nap. The troops want to swim, and my head swims too- its hot already and my brain is foggy like the summer smoke that rolled in last night. I'm supervising a dip in our cold hot tub, but my heart is pining over a school year unfinished and a home that refuses to meet my unrealistic standards of tidiness. My heart thinks an impossible move to the count...

It feels appropriate to re-awaken the blogger in me with an excerpt from my history, and some honor for the roots I grew from. I have a lot of memories of my Daddy sitting in his armchair with a tattered leather Bible on his lap. I remember him reading his, and when his Dad passed to eternity, he held my Grandpa's in it's place. He's a teacher, and a Bible teacher, and crawls deep into the word, looking for the Lord. My grandpa was a worshiper with every part of his being. I sat with him on the tall, wooden organ bench, feeling the grand and glorious rumble of sound from within.  He played with his hands and his feet, and his eyes smiled out of his long, english face. He hummed hymns while he walked, and longed for heaven not with the sorrow of this life, but foreshadowed joy for the next. My Momma gave me a little blue book when I was eight. She told me to write my heart out to the Lord. She told me to tell him all the woes of my childish worldview, and sent ...