Wood Fires Ablazing

This morning as usual I am racing with the furnace to get the house toasty warm so the heat won't come on. You can learn wonderful life lessons while you become proficient at fire building. One is to be thankful for matches and starter bricks. We are all getting good at doing without the starter brick by chopping them into very small portions until finally the last few days using none a all.

Grandma, on Bob's side, who grew up with a wood burning stove in Newfoundland, would shake her head and say, "I don't know why I do this," but she'd regularly tear papers and cartons and boxes into small pieces before trashing them. Now we do the same, except we put them into a box by the wood burning stove. It was such an ingrained life skill with Grandma, conserving paper and cardboard for family warmth, and cooking, and clothes drying, and water boiling.

I recall my mother's father, Grandpa G., stoking the fire in his huge fireplace at 888. He was almost always seated there, peacefully tending it, when I'd dropped by on a winter's day. Now, mental pictures of him are teaching me patience, not to rush things with a fire.

The bellows are a temptation to me. I once watched Rob put glowing papers to blaze by vigorous fanning, but I do not have the strength to do it. That is a guy job. I should not try to copy guy jobs. And then, once the papers are flaming, my fanning too vigorously only puts the fire out, and leaves me with a disappointing, smokey pile of embers. Better to gently, gently puff at the paper blaze until the wood chips, splinters and sticks have caught. Then the fire can establish itself, and go on to the bigger logs.

Once all is ablaze, I can push the damper in halfway and go fetch some more cold logs from the garage to have warming up by the stove side. The fun thing is later returning to check the fire. My eyes always open eyes wide in wonder at the intense glow of those amazing, red, crispy chunks. Then I get to poke and arrange and add another log.

Crazy

James looked at me in the eye this morning and said, "The people here talk crazy, Mom. They speak so fast, they need to repeat everything."

He is right. We have moved up north, and it is cold and you need to talk fast, drive fast, work fast, plan fast, chat fast, glance at you watch fast, and turn and scoot down the hallway or sidewalk fast. You even relax fast. You pack in as much work and as many intricate, important details into your day. Then you take your vitamins and begin running.

Yep, we are Up North. Praise the Lord. When you are overwhelmed, you praise God and thank God you are up north, because He lives here too. I wonder if He laughs at how slow we were in the South and how fast we are in the North. All I know is He lives here too, and it's good.

Outdoorsy Stuff

For sisters perhaps, who may be interested in what brothers are up to, the boys are busy and good. Besides school, this is it. Last evening Rob's comment about his new job was, "If you like operating machinery, you'd like this job. They want me to ride around on mowers and tractors and things, and pay me to do it."

There is a fair bit of landscaping at the Willow Creek Driving Range and Miniature Golf place. Once cold weather comes and he needs a new job, we may look at the ice arena. Then he'd get to do one of his favorite things - skate.

James came down this morning in a shirt and tie. This is one of the dignities imposed upon football players on games days. Today's is only a scrimmage, but they will travel a couple hours to play it. He will need to learn to play wearing a visor to protect his good eye. I hope the scouts won't mind that when they are looking for NFL players!

Peter has taken the initiative and is happily carving out a little life for himself by riding his bike wherever he wants to go. Yesterday it was several miles home from school only to change out of his uniform and ride into town to study at the library. He has joined the Bible quizzing team at the church five minutes away so he can get there too. Once winter comes he may need cross country skis for all this outdoorsy stuff. First he will be running cross country. There is a wonderful interesting track at the school.

God is steering these guys into the way they should go, and I think they are happy with it. I am, though I am nervous about it too and how I will continue to be there for them and support them in what is a busy schedule. God never promised us a rose garden. Only that he'd be there day by day. What he wants more than anything from us is that we trust him, and more than anything I am not so good at it.

Lord increase my faith. Wherefore do I doubt? Seriously, wherefore do I doubt? "Happy is the man that trusteth in Him."

Ruining the Devil's Day

At church tonight a couple people nodded knowingly, when I said I had one of those days where I listened to negative thoughts all day long. I had barely pulled myself through the day, an invisible ball and chain attached to my leg. Every discouraging notion old Slewfoot knows works with me, he used, and almost beat me to a pulp.

it wasn't until I was driving to James' practice game that I came to myself. "You stinker, devil!" I said out loud. "You ruined my day. Now I'll ruin yours," and I began to pray. I thanked God for everything I could think of and began looking for Life. I also asked Him if I could meet up with two particular ladies at the game.

So... God being the way he is, when I arrived, the two ladies were sitting in folding chairs talking to each other.

"Do you two know each other?" I asked in surprise.

"No," they answered. "We just met."

Now wouldn't you know it? God arrived there before me, and out of the 200 folks at the game fellowship, he matched those two up for me. "Here," said one. "Sit on this quilt and we'll talk."

God is so nice... Now could He please teach me football so I can congratulate James on how well he did.

Grab Life

I popped a pen and 3x5 card into my pocket, but within a minute, I pulled it back out because things started happened that fast.

I decided to watch for Life. Whenever I spotted Life I would notice it, grab hold of it, and tuck it into my heart. Then just so I could remind myself later, I would write it down on my card. As I was thinking about this, the first Life experience happened. I felt God touch my back ever so lightly, but I thought, Aha, God likes this and I smiled. Quick write it down.

Next was a happy, happy email from Stephie telling about a conference they'd attended. Write it down. Yay!

Next was a letter from Annie saying I had encouraged her. Then came Peter into the room with a goofy, sheepish grin on his face. "I am sorry," he said.

Then James tried on his new football jersey, which they are now making stretchy tight so other players can't yank on them and get that nasty finger twist-and-pull injury. We laughed to see him struggle to pull the shirt over his head and get stuck in it. Then without the pads it had puffy short sleeves. We laughed again. Write it down.

Tonight Bob and I went on our first in a long time date night, and I told him how Heather Anne had considered naming little Roly a Puritan name. One she found meant "But for the grace of God thou wouldst be d----d." For short they called the fellow D----d!

Once home, I called Susan, a new mom at school who God sent my way fresh from Kentucky two weeks ago. "I bought two packages of chocolate chip batter," I said. "So don't make any. I will bring both for us to the football kickoff, because you are still up to your neck in boxes." Boy, do I know how that feels. We talked some more, and I lost count of the times she told me of family incidents and said, "I had to laugh when ..."

My kinda girl. More to laugh at. More Life. Write it down.

God is so good....and happy too, don't you think? He made Life, so He must really enjoy this game of noticing and grabbing Life and writing it down.

Sabbath

I sometimes think of going to Messianic services as a little, happy taste of the future Millennial reign when Israel's Messiah Yeshua will take up His throne in Jerusalem. On Saturday morning at Shema Ysrael I felt that usual sweet surge of joy.

Except for "Shema Israel, Adonai, Elohenu," the readings were mostly in English - beautiful scriptures and declarations. We were on our feet for a long time just as the people of Israel used to stand in the presence of the reading of Torah. And the music was, well, Messianic. When you sing, "O, Lord God of Israel," and you are standing among Jews, you become very aware of how Jewish the Lord God of Israel and His Son are!

Mercy

I just heard this and thought it was good. When we are inclined to beat ourselves for things we did wrong in the past, do this:

Leave the past to God's mercy,
Leave the future to His providence and
Leave the present to His love.

Good, eh?