Spring and Lilacs

I love spring in the north country. We're so happy we survived another winter. And the color green seems to revitalize us up here and make us happy and full of energy.

Liz and I went to a friends farm last week. Their sheep had just three sets of twins. You can see one sheep nursing both twins at once.



The youngest caught one of the older twins in the barn so we could pet it.



Are these in my future at 44?



The flowering crabapples are gorgeous in the spring. All the trees are bursting with the most lovely shades of pinks, reds and whites.




We moved here from Pennsylvania 23 years ago. We had bought 42 and with it came a whole row of mature lilac bushes. Lilacs have always been one of my favorite bushes. Their scent is intoxicating. Rob moved to 42 in May and the children and I joined him at the end of June. He flew home to Pa one weekend with one whole suitcase full of lilacs. So sweet and it gave me something to really look forward to, especially in the spring. I think the north country is the perfect place to grow lilacs.

Kitchens

The kitchen in 44 is almost done. The dropped ceiling, raised, sheet rocked and painted with additional lights installed; the walls repaired and painted and the appliances returned to their proper place.

And it's waiting to have life brought to it. People, aprons, tables, coffee makers, dishes, crystal, pots and pans and love.

Kitchens are the greatest!

They're not just a room, or just a room to prepare food in.

They're life, they're memories, they're teaching, they're comfort.

We were in two kitchens in Wisconsin this past weekend. We all, that means five of us in one kitchen, prepared the Saturday night dinner. I was given the great responsibility of "coddling the rissoto into existence", as Maja describes the process. And did I ever "coddle"! Add liquid and stir for 10 minutes, no guessing, a timer was set, times three! Matt had expertly pounded the chicken and Liz applied the pesto, all under the expert guidance of chef Kay. And we enjoyed another delicious dinner around the "kitchen" table.

Sunday, after a lunch with twelve including our adoptive brother from Colton, we again stood around a warm, inviting, "Bon Apetit" kitchen in Kenosha. I learned about browned butter and chives, a new grilled chicken marinade, theater productions, church involments and thrift store purchases and the fact that I had made the recipe book from this precious family. My classic beef stew will grace the pages of the Brown family recipe book, now being formulated. I wonder if they have Ruth's sour cream pound cake or her Vanilla Christmas cookie recipe?

Kitchens are not just prep stations. They're family, they're instruction, they're life, they're love.

They're where we learn to eat with our mouths closed and how to sit up straight. They are where we learn manners. They're where we learn to be polite. They are orange carpet on the kitchen floor in the 70's and my mom making the best apple pies. I can see my grandmother of 90 peeling potatoes while looking at the movie camera. I guess she was a "ham". It's a vision of my dad carving the meat, ham, turkey, roast beef or tongue. Yuk!. It's the room that we polish silver in and the room we organize parties and menus.

The kitchen is where a young blond pigtailed girl of eight learned to bake and every Saturday after that was baking treats for her family, much to her brothers delight. Then she learned to prepare the whole meal. Kitchens are places where we can be adventurous and try new culinary experiments, or where we conduct chemistry experiments.

It's where Math books are brought to, waiting for Dad to come home and explain complicated equations that Mom couldn't get. It's where friends gather to study the Bible or neighbors come to have a cup of tea. It's where a library of cookbooks find their home and weekly menus are developed and family reunions are planned.

Kitchen's are where we learn new tastes, new foods, new friendships. We learn to set a table. We learn to listen to what has happened in someone else's day. We learn tolerance and patience. Families discuss politics in the kitchen and all about the latest episode of Lost.

We experience the smells associated with home. Onion and garlic sauteing in glistening olive oil. A dinner. The smell of vanilla, the anticipation of a wonderful dessert. The distinctive smell of homemade bread rising and baking.

Kitchen tables are places that friends sit around and develop ideas and plans for Desert Night. Kitchen tables are places for the "kids", when the dining room table has more than 14. They serve as buffet stations, as prep stations for large outdoor fund raising luncheons, as game tables for canasta or Mexican train game. Kitchen tables have chairs, benches, high chairs, leafs, table clothes, placemats, vases and so many varieties of china.

Kitchens are fun and happy, disappointing when the recipe fails, smokey when the meat burns, inviting when the hungry family returns at the end of the day. It's the place where six big college guys gather to decorate Christmas cookies and the place where a pastor and his wife sit receiving calls from Italy.

Kitchens are memories, love, family, food and life.

I wonder what the kitchen in 44 has in store for us?

Ruler of All Things

"You are ruler of all things,
In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all"
I Chronicles 29:12

That is true, God is ruler of all things. And we believe that by His hands He gives strength to us.

Especially as we go through things. Hard things, trying things, ultimate things.

Our greatest trials are what make us and shape us. They give us character and courage. They teach us kindness and compassion, humility and gentleness. We hopefully emerge with wisdom and discernment. And we gain relationships that are strong, and lasting.

And yet we long for God's immediate show of power. His intervention in our lives, now.

God's power always gains immediate praise and glory, but His wisdom is seen over time.

That's hard.

Abiding

Abiding, that's my part.

That's our part.

Attaching ourselves to the vine, and having faith that the strong Vine will hold, through anything, the feeble branch.

Real things are not simple. And we need to cling to the vine. There are difficult and terrible things in life and faith is hard.

Reality is not simple, it's not neat and obvious. It's not what we expect or what we want and it's not easy.

It's hard and confusing and I pray for the family and a friend as I sit next to her in the hospital.

Listening. Believing. Hoping. Trusting His Word. And His love for her.

Big Men Do Cry

I saw it myself.

Big men. Men who work with their hands, who hunt and fish, who fell trees and split wood. Men who have physical jobs, who are strong. Men who have strenuous lives.

These men do cry.

They cry for a joyful 14 year old lad who died tragically in a fire on Monday. They cry for themselves but mostly for his mom, his dad and his family he left behind.

And I saw pastors whose voices crack, who have to clear their throats to go on, who struggle to maintain composure because they are the ones with the message. They have been here before, too many times now. But they still ache. Different families but the same agony.

And I'm so glad that I know that "mortality is swallowed up in life",

We believe, but we still hurt.

Joshua

No, not again.

Unending tears. Embraces without words, embraces with tears.

A family torn apart with grief, anguish, questions, fears, and tears. Always tears. They can not be staid.

He was 14 and this was not his destiny. But this is their reality, now and until they meet again in a much better life.

But for now, we do the next thing. We go to their house, we hold them close, we tell them we love them and we confirm that God has not lost them and they have not lost Him or him.

"For He himself is our peace..."

By Life or By Death

I cried.

I received a message that another faithful giant of the faith won't be needing his body for much longer.

I was a freshman in college. While I was away that first year, my folks came to a saving knowledge of Christ. They found a small church in a nearby community where a wonderful man, his wife and three young boys were preaching the gospel. It is where I met my Savior, my husband, and lifelong friends.

Rob's family had been instrumental in the establishment of Hillside Church in the village of Armonk. They had been meeting in the basement of the pastor who had come to start the work. And one Sunday evening, as the few people who gathered each week worshiped, four young Norwegian men came to the house, asking if this was where they were worshiping the Lord. Boy, did every one's eyes light up.

They came, these Norwegians, by themselves but they represented families. Strong families, who were committed to the Lord, to church, to each other, to hard work, to honesty and integrity. They showed me what men can be and how they can serve the Lord without compromise. They were all builders and as their businesses grew, because of the quality of work and their dependability, they were all soon building multi million dollars houses in Westchester. But more importantly I saw them devote themselves to the church. They built Hillside Church. Saturdays were work days. They were the general contractors and the construction workers. Rob and his dad were the electricians, along with others who worked in the electrical industry. And their wives, all young mothers, taught Sunday School. There were individual grades, just like school, a vibrant high school Sunday School, and Rob's dad taught the adults, while my dad and the pastors wife taught the college and career group.

And now, along with my dad and Rob's dad, John will be leaving his battle scarred body for a better place. His daughter asked us to pray that John would die as well as he lived. And she hoped that his victory over death because of his trust in Christ would be a powerful testimony of what God can do when we give our lives to Him.

But I don't want to let him go. Those big strong Norwegian men, my heroes; not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. They imparted a strength to me. I remember our families standing together, worshiping, singing, praying, living, eating and playing, and working together. And they are all powerful memories of wonderful times together.

Death is an enemy, but a defeated one, and our tears will be wiped away someday. because, "what is mortal is about to be swallowed up not by death, but by life" 2 Corinthians 5:4

So I pray for him and for myself someday that:
"I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death". Philipians 1:20