1000 gifts: my "babies" start kindergarten

Continuing my list of gifts, blessings that I write down to remember all the wonderful things that God gives me along life's journey. I write these down on my calendar, and when I get a chance I add them here to my blog. These are all blessings are from September, 2012.

512. My "babies" start kindergarten

It seems like just yesterday the twins were born, Starlet 5 pounds and Serious 4 pounds, tiny little things nestled together in the same bassinet. Now they are 5 1/2 years old and starting kindergarten! I took them to school and introduced them to their teachers (I decided to put them in separate classes)... tearing up several times during the process. 

513. Why she likes kindergarten now

Starlet didn't like the first day of kindergarten, but the second day she says she likes it now, because she won a pair of socks (!) for singing the alphabet and also, this happened: "There's a cute boy at school who loves me. He plays a game, he follows me. His eyes are hazel and he has black hair. My eyes are green-hazel. My teacher told me." (oh boy am I in trouble, Starlet is a flirt already, what will she be like as a teenager?!)

514.Walkie talkies saving the day

My mom and the girls and I always take a fall road trip together, this year to Rocky Mountain National Park. While waiting for a shuttle bus to take us up to a trailhead in the park, Mom helped me make some sandwiches out of the cooler in the back of my car. When we finished, I looked around and realized the 5 year old twins, Starlet and Serious, were missing. We looked in visitor center; we walked around the grounds; I started to feel an awful panicky feeling. Then a park ranger stops me and asks if I'm missing two little blonde girls; they apparently jumped on another shuttle bus along with another large family and they were already halfway up the mountain! Thanks to their walkie-talkies, the rangers and bus drivers were able to coordinate a spot for our bus to meet with the bus carrying the twins and transfer them back into my car in less than 10 minutes. I still can't believe the girls got on a bus without me or their big sisters!

515. Alberta Falls

I'm a waterfall junkie - anywhere we travel, if there's a waterfall nearby, I have to go see it. The hike to Alberta Falls was just the perfect distance for the little kids - and my mom - and bonus, it had one of the most beautiful aspen forests I've ever seen along the way, too.

516. Big Thompson Canyon
As we were driving through this canyon on the way to Rocky Mountain National Park, I had to turn the DVD player off in the back of the car so the kids would take the time to look out there windows. "Isn't this canyon cool?" I asked them. It's narrow and twisty and the rock walls are so high and steep sometimes they almost feel like they are going to fall in on top of you. What a shame the kids would rather watch a movie than admire the dramatic scenery! But Dreamer did at least say this, "It is so cool, I'm just not showing it."

517. Bugling elk outside our window
We stayed at the YMCA of the Rockies, which is adjacent to Rocky Mountain National Park, and is over-run by elk. Two young bulls were busy eating up the flower beds right outside the main lodge.

Later in the day we saw this giant bull strutting his stuff in front of his herd of cows, and bugling whenever he saw one of the younger bulls. In the morning, he and his cows were right outside the window of our room! No movie could distract the girls when this big guy was around and they definitely all agreed the elk were very cool.

518. I'm the smallest

When the twins were wandering around a gas station convienence store on our trip, the cashier said "You guys are so cute."  Starlet said, "I know I am because I'm the smallest."

519. Streets of gold and confetti trees

B. couldn't go with us on our Rocky Mountain National Park trip, but the next weekend he was free, and it was peak aspen color so we went on a fall color drive along the Flattops Wilderness south of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Stretches of this road were completely covered in gold leaves, and the occasional dark pine tree stood out in stark contrast to all the golden aspen, sometimes their dark branches covered with aspen leaf confetti. So beautiful.

520. Escaramuzas

One of our neighbors asked if they could ride their horses in our round pen, and we were all fascinated when she showed up in a Mexican side saddle (I've seen English side saddles, but never this kind). She explained the type of team riding these saddles are used for, an Escaramuza, which means "skirmish" in Spanish. Eight ladies ride together in patterns with fancy spins and passes, and they are all dressed in beautiful Mexican dresses and spangled sombreros. The girls and I watched some videos of Escamuzas on Youtube.

521. Mashed potato addict
I'm pretty sure my stepdaughter is a mashed potato addict. This is the only food she will prepare (she does NOT like cooking) and she will go through stretches where she eats mashed potatoes every night. Several times I've discovered her making mashed potatoes past midnight (she's also a night owl). And then she confessed when she goes out to eat with her friends she "saves money" by just ordering a side of - yup, mashed potatoes.

522.  Towell trolls
This is what I call my girls after they take a bath. They hunch up underneath their towels  while they wait their turn for me to rub them down and dry their hair.

523. Kitty rubs

Pulling weeds in the garden with a kitty rubbing against you demanding to be petted

524. Spooky toots
B. has traded for another young horse, Rio, which he's been training to resell. Part of the training is to take him on long trail rides, which B. says Rio does really well at, the only thing he spooks at is when B. passes gas. Yeah, I just had  to share that one!

525. Interstellar Banks
You know you're a SF/fantasy geek when you get a check and you misread the issuing bank as The First Interstellar Bank instead of First Interstate Bank. (N. loved that when I shared it with her. She's a SF geek too).

526. Tia on trailrides
We always go on lots of trail rides in September to enjoy the changing colors. We sold three of our well-broke horses this year (Jewel, Folly and Sam), leaving only Ally and Spring as "dependables" for the kids or guests to ride - which means B. and I have to ride the green horses, Rio and Tia. I was thrilled to discover that Tia, who has only been ridden a few times, is a wonderful trail horse and doesn't spook at anything (not even toots). I rode her on a long ride up Sheep Mountain with N. and B.  and B. (N's husband is also a B.) Even when the guys took off at a gallop, she followed along without a fuss. Here's a picture of Blaze riding Tia. We're really happy she's a "keeper" because B.'s mom raised her from a baby.

527.  Walking away from a bad accident
A motorcyclist hit my stepdaughter's car when she was driving 65 mph (long story - still don't know why he tried to cross a highway, but the police determined she wasn't at fault). So thankful she was able to walk away from the accident with only a few minor scratches. Praying for the motorcyclist  who was hospitalized along with his passenger.  Makes you realize how little control we have over our lives; our life could be over in a moment and we find ourselves standing before God.

Surrendering my will, surrendering cravings

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. ~2 Corinthians 12:9

Starting with a verse helps, but there is no other graceful way to start this. It's a common story: I've been trying to lose weight for years, but it's gotten especially hard since I turned forty. A couple years ago I tried Weight Watchers, it worked for a couple months but then I got a bad attitude. I kept hearing the same old stuff at the meetings. They kept talking about what to eat. Well, I know what I should be eating; I know all about nutrition and healthy foods and lifestyle. But no one was talking about will power. Where do you get the will power to eat right or to exercise? I used to have it, if I concentrated really hard, if I kept my focus.

These days I can't keep my focus for more than a couple hours, before I get distracted, or stressed, or hormonal, or tired, or emotional...

I've been praying about it. Why, God, is my will power in this area gone? And why is it now starting to affect my will power in other areas, too?

At some point this spring I felt God give me a direction. He told me, "find some others who are struggling like this too."

So I did a little fishing around with my friends at church - and came up empty. I connect with my other Christian friends and acquaintances on various struggles with marriage, raising children, attitudes, juggling everything that needs to get done... but when I mentioned my compulsive eating problems, there wasn't a connection. In fact, my church has a significantly high proportion of thin women!

But God kept prompting me so I looked online and found an organization called Overeaters Anonymous. There was no local group in my town, but there was a group in Cheyenne, 45 minutes away, that met weekly. Even with gas as expensive as it is these days, a weekly drive to Cheyenne would still be cheaper than starting Weight Watchers again, which hadn't worked for me anyway... so why not try a different type of support group?

So, I tried it. And I've finally found some other ladies (and one of them is a follower of Jesus AND a writer, too!!!) that have the same problem I do. I could totally relate to what they shared, and I could finally share my own struggles without feeling shame. What a relief. How glorious it is to find understanding and acceptance!!!!

I read some of the O.A. literature, and it  pinpointed my compulsive eating exactly. "Our true insanity could be seen in the fact that we kept right on trying to find comfort in excess food, long after it began to cause us misery." And it also leads to other areas of losing control. For instance, I got chills of recognition when I read this: "More self-examination revealed many areas in which our lives were out of balance. We had to admit that we had not acted sanely when we responded to our children's needs for attention by yelling at them, or when we were jealously possessive of our mates" [or their time/other pursuits in my case].

O.A. uses the same Twelve Steps as Alcoholics Anonymous. I was surprised at how the Twelve Steps are a spiritual method of recovery, and remarkably Biblical in their concepts (confession, forgiveness, repentance):

Step One: We admitted we were powerless over food, and our lives had become unmanageable.

Step Two:  Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Though that last part, God "as we understand Him" basically allows people to come up with any definition of God or a higher power that they want. This is the only part of O.A. that troubles me; it would be wonderful to have a support group that was based completely and forthrightly upon the Bible.

The Twelve Steps don't just address the area of addiction, but require you to take a very deep moral inventory in all areas of life, admitting the same powerlessness over our other character defects as with food, surrendering these to God and asking Him to remove these as well. In my case, so far I've identified my insecurity (fear of not being accepted) as a huge problem that affects all areas of my life.

So I went to my first meeting in mid-August and now it's the end of September and I've been to 6 meetings now. It would be awesome to say I've lost weight, but I haven't (I lost 3 pounds, then gained it back). But for the first time in... well, years, I have finally have hope again in this particular area.  I have new friends with a level of understanding that makes me thrilled and humbled at the same time. And I can say that there has been less binging and overeating; I'm making huge steps in identifying emotional triggers for eating as well as other problem areas, such as right after church, "Pizza Night", and whenever I travel or eat out.

At one meeting I said, "how do I survive Pizza Night? My kids love Pizza Night; I can't turn them down, but I just don't have will-power when it comes to pizza."

One of the ladies, C., said, "Make a plan. Determine to eat one slice of pizza, and tell yourself that the rest of the pizza is for your family."

I groaned. I maybe even rolled my eyes. "Sure, fine, but where do I get the will power to do that?"

Then she said something that opened my eyes. "You don't have will power. None of us do. That's part of this disease of overeating."

Huh??

She  continued. "You admit to God that you don't have will power. That you know His will is for you to eat a healthy amount and no more,  and you ask for the strength to do His will. Not your own."

This is like living out 2 Corinthians 12:9. By admitting I am weak and powerless, then Christ's power rests on me. This is such a mystery; and yet it works! I admit I am powerless over pizza; and suddenly I can walk away from it after one slice.

From the O.A. Promises: "We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves."

From the O.A. Twelve Step book:

As we become aware of what our eating guidelines should be, we ask for the willingness and the ability to live within them each day. We ask and we receive, first the willingness, and then the ability. We can count on this without fail. 

What's different here? I've been praying to God FOR YEARS to be saved from this weakness I have for overeating. Take away my desire for food, please! Then I tried a different approach with my theme for this year, "Seek Him" - instead of just asking for Him to take away the cravings, I've been asking, seeking for Him to make Himself so primary in my life that that He replaces the cravings.

I think that was a big leap in my understanding; and then O.A. provided another link in figuring this out, the need to ask first for willingness to abstain from overeating. Not just wondering where my will power went but realizing I HAVE NO WILL POWER. But He does. Replacing my will with His.

That's exactly what happened to me. In the beginning of September, I went 14 days without overeating, God doing for me what I could not do myself - every day I woke up in amazement.

Then I slipped back into old habits. I got busy; God lost priority. I also got frustrated because after having been "good" for 14 days I had only lost 3 pounds (back in my 20's that would easily have been 6 or more pounds. But I'm not in my twenties anymore; 3 pounds in 14 days is actually right on track). I have to stop equating weight loss with victory: just the fact that I hadn't binged in 14 days was a sweet victory in itself.

But mostly I just letting old habits sneak back up on me. I stopped seeking Him; I skipped reading the Word in the morning; I stopped praying. When I was stressed, tired, angry or hurt, or even just upset with myself for not accomplishing things I wanted to get done (like writing), I turned to food again for instant comfort. I realized what I was doing. I realized something even scarier, that once I had forfeited that sweet freedom of God for my own will, it was going to be even harder to give up my will again and go back to living in God's will.

Hard, but never impossible. Nothing is impossible with God. I gladly surrender my will to Him, again.


"The more total our surrender, the more fully realized our freedom from food obsession."

Update 12/10/12: I have lost 10 pounds! Still going to Overeaters Anon. meetings regularly, also using Sparkpeople.com to track what I'm eating and how much I'm exercising and to journal, helps to identify what situations cause temptation.

Nuggets from "Jesus Calling"

Sarah Young's "Jesus Calling" devotional and journal has been such a blessing and has really helped me to remember my theme for this year, "Seeking Him."

Here's a few nuggets I wanted to share:

July 5
Instead of striving for a predictable, safe lifestyle, seek to know Me in greater depth and breadth. I long ot makeyour life a glorious adventure, but you must stop clinging to old ways. I am always doing something new within my beloved ones. Be on the lookout for what I have prepared for you. I wrote: What are you doing in me that's new? Open my eyes to see it. In hindsight, I think He was preparing my heart to take the big step to try out Overeaters Anonymous which turned out not only to address the my overeating but several other root problems, including insecurity and escapism.

July 20
Seek My face and you will find all that you have longed for. The deepest yearnings of your heart are for intimacy with Me. I know, because I designed you to desire Me. Do not feel guilty about taking time to be still in My presence. You are simply responding to the tugs of divinity within you. I made you in My image, and I hid heaven in your heart. Your yearning for Me is a form of homesickness: longing for your true home in heaven. I wrote: make me more homesick for you. 

August  1
Most of mankind's misery stems from feeling unloved. In the midst of adverse circumstances, people tend to feel that love has been withdrawn and they have been forsaken. This feeling of abandonment is often worse than the adversity itself. But I will never leave you nor forsake you... I have engraved you on the palms of My hands. Isaiah 49:15-16. I wrote: This is so true! And I haven't even been in truly adverse circumstances and yet I wallow in insecurity. 

August 7
Understanding will never bring you peace. That's why I have instructed you to trust in Me, not in your understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6). Human beings have a voracious appetite for trying to figure thing out, in order to gain a sense of mastery over their lives.... The wisest of all men, Solomon, could never think his way through to peace. His vast understanding result in feelings of futility, rather than fulfillment. I wrote: I am coming to learn that I can't "figure out" a solution to certain problems, especially relationship problems with my husband, or with my teenage stepdaughter, sometimes even my own little kids. Learning to entrust the problems to you, to let them go. Then, somehow a few days later I realize they've ceased to be problems!

August 11
Come to Me, come to Me, come to Me. This is My continual invitation to you, proclaimed in holy whispers. When your heart and mind are quiet, you can hear Me inviting you to draw near. Coming close to me requires no great effort on your part; it is more like ceasing to resist the magnetic pull of my love. I wrote: this is true. When I think God is far away or silent, it's my unquiet mind that is making it impossible for me to hear Him.

September 2
Living in dependence on Me is a glorious adventure. When you depend on Me continually, your whole perspective changes. You see miracles happening all around, while others see only natural occurrences and coincidences. You begin each day with joyful expectation, waching to see what I will do. You accept weakness as a gift from Me, knowing that My power plugs in most readily when we see our own weakness [and need for God's strength] (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). I wrote: wrote this verse today on my hand: Ezekiel 34:26 He will break the bars of your yoke. Starting to apply to the 12 steps, which means admitting I am powerless, and asking God to do what I cannot do on my own.Writing verses on my hand helps me remember them and seek God throughout the day.

September 3
Like the spinning wheels of a car trapped in the mud, the cogs of your brain spin impotently when you focus on problems. As soon as you start communicating with Me about the matter, your thoughts gain traction and you can move on to more important things. Below this I wrote: B. and I prayed this morning over many things - his mom's cancer, his desperation to know your will in regards to our finances and his desires to continue competitive roping even though it's so expensive. I hope he felt the same peace after praying that I did, the freedom of giving everything over to You.

September 16
Though I may lead you along paths that feel alien to you, trust that I know what I am doing. If you follow Me wholeheartedly, you will discover facets of yourself that were previously hidden. I know you intimately - far better than you know yourself. Didn't write anything here, but I put a star next to this, to come back to it later. Excited to discover parts of myself that are still hidden in God - realize that it will probably be trials that reveal them - but I'm willing. It's a promise that there is more to me than I can yet realize!

This last nugget is from a different source, The Hourglass of Life, by John Fischer
Picture life as an hour glass with the cross at the center. All my pre-conversion experiences narrowed me toward a personal encounter with Christ; but once through, He leads me back out into the world where the lines now instead of converging open up into an ever-widening reality... Jesus never closes a mind; He opens it. Jesus is never threatened by a question; He welcomes it. He knows all questions will lead back to Him. I love dwelling on this picture of life as an hour glass, except I see the grains flowing upward instead of down, and the top of the hourglass is not the same size as the bottom, but so much larger - expanding into infinity as we reach the end of our earthly lives. The thought thrills me - makes me look forward to the future - even growing old - with anticipation.

1000 gifts: my daughter's baptism

Continuing my list of gifts, blessings that I write down to remember all the wonderful things that God gives me along life's journey. I write these down on my calendar, and when I get a chance I add them here to my blog. These are all blessings are from August, 2012.

501. My daughter getting baptized

Blaze got saved  when she was nine (March 2010), and since then we've been talking about baptism on and off, usually when she sees someone else get baptized at our church. We explained about how important it is to tell her story of how Jesus saved her and how God has been working in her life, what a blessing it is for other believers to hear that story, and to witness her "being buried in the likeness of Jesus' death, and raised in the likeness of his resurrection." For a long time she wasn't sure about how to tell her story, and she was  scared to stand up in front of a bunch of people and share it out loud. 

But when she found out that our Pastor was doing several other baptisms on August 5th, which is her birthday, she decided she really wanted to get baptized on her birthday. So for several days she practiced sharing her testimony with me, and then with our pastor, and finally in front of everyone! - before getting dunked in the Laramie River.

502. Books for her birthday

Blaze also made me so proud when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she asked for books! Not video games or an iPod or a phone or any of a dozen other "cool things" I'd think an eleven year old would ask for. She's fallen in love with the Horse Diaries series and wanted to add some more books to her collection.

503. Singing out of the Bible

One of my twins, Serious (5 years old) made me smile when I  saw her sitting with a children's bible in her lap, slowly turning the pages and making up a song to go with the pictures on each page.

504. Moose calls. In the car.

I signed Blaze and Dreamer up for a 4 week summer school session this summer because it was going to include lots of field trips up into the mountains with a special focus on learning about wild animals that live in Wyoming, especially antelope, elk and moose. They learned a lot, perhaps most memorably how to imitate a moose call. Which they then proceeded to practice almost every time we drove anywhere in the car - and they got the twins practicing moose calls too. 

505. And then seeing a real moose up close. 

Not sure if all the moose calls paid off, but the weekend we went camping up in the Snowy Range, we got to get a pretty up-close viewing of a big bull moose. B. thinks the moose was curious about our horses, because he hung around our trailer for quite a while. (More people are injured by moose than any other wild animal in Wyoming, including bears, so I was a little nervous about our visitor).

506. Riding the horses in the lake

Another highlight of our camping trip was all four girls taking turns riding Rebel and Spring into the lake. Our camping spot was right on the edge of Rob Roy reservoir, with practically our own private stretch of beach. Here's Dreamer riding Rebel, with Serious trying to "pull" him out further into the water. (He wasn't having any of that).

507. Fresh fish for dinner
We went camping with several other families, friends of ours from church, and one of the families brought along a fishing boat, so in exchange for pony rides, the girls got to go out on the boat and fish, too. Blaze caught two decent-sized trout and our friends cooked the fish for us on the campfire, yum. The girls all tried a bite but no one liked the fish except for me and Starlet.

508. The London Olympics
The girls were fascinated by the gymnastics portion of the Olympics, especially the artistic gymnastics with the ribbons. So then I had to find ribbons for all of them and tie them onto sticks so they could dance with the ribbons swirling around them. I loved it because I remember doing the exact same thing when I was a little girl watching the Olympics back in the 70's and 80's! (And now Dreamer has asked if she can take gymnastics when school starts).

509.  Baby blanket love
Of my four girls, Serious is the only one who got really attached to her baby blanket and even now at five years, she still makes a fuss about having her blankie at bedtime. This can be an  issue because she also likes to carry around with her, so it's often missing come bedtime. I finally told her that if she kept losing her blankie she was just going to have sleep without it. Her solution: to tie the blankie around her waist so she could have it with her all day and not lose it. She even put a belt around it to keep it securely around her waist.

510. Cats on the fence
I love to lean on the fence and see what horses come up to get their noses scratched and to beg for a treat; this is one of the wonderful things about having horses in our backyard. I also love how our barn cats will jump up on the fence and walk their way along the rails over to me to get some loving, too.

511. A wonderful milestone gift idea

I want to remember to do this for my girls: 

When our daughter turned 18 and moved away to attend school, my husband gave her a Bible. It wasn’t a new Bible. It was the Bible that had been given to him when he became a Christian at the age of 20.
This leather-bound volume was nearly 25 years old.
Pages highlighted.
Gold edges tattered.
Notes and thoughts scribbled in the margins.
Many who may glance at it will see an old book. My daughter instead sees a treasure.
Kenna carries this Bible with her to church on Sundays. She curls up and reads it during the week in her times alone with God, seeking Him on the pages of His word. And she now highlights and marks and makes notes herself.
Sometimes, she will snap a picture of a page and send it to me; something her dad wrote in the margin that also spoke to her. She loves seeing his insights jotted down in his very own handwriting.
If you don’t have a Bible to give your son or daughter that you have personally used and loved over the years, you can still give them a meaningful gift. Simply purchase a new Bible a year before their milestone event—perhaps their 16th birthday or high school graduation. Then, take a year to read through it with a Bible reading plan making notations in the margin written specifically to your child.
Make comments about the verse’s special significance. Mention how you’ve seen a truth of scripture lived out in their life. Warn them of pitfalls. Encourage them with favorite verses underlined.
Then, on their big day, wrap it up and give it to them as a gift. It will become a treasured heirloom they too can pass on one day.
The gift of God’s word. There is nothing better!
Blessings, Karen Ehman

1000 gifts: reaching my 500th blessing

Continuing my list of gifts, blessings that I write down to remember all the wonderful things that God gives me along life's journey. I write these down on my calendar, and when I get a chance I add them here to my blog. These are all blessings are from July, 2012.

488. A husband who can fix anything
I forgot what I asked B to fix, but afterwards I said "it's so neat you are able to fix anything. Well, maybe not computers."  His response: "Whaddya mean? I can fix computers!" (pretends to slam a laptop down on the ground and stomp on it)

489. Rock giants
We took the kids to Vedauwoo (a nearby park) when their cousins Robby and Kyle were here for a visit; the park is full of amazing formations of giant rocks, so much fun to climb and scramble around on them. Dreamer said "the rocks are giants that come alive at night." (Can't wait for when she reads the Hobbit).

490. "Just to make all the ladies feel good about themselves"
Barrel racing is a ladies' rodeo sport, but B. has raced his horse Ally around the barrels  a few times for practice, because she's really good at it, and he hopes Blaze will get interested in racing her. When we went to the ranch rodeo for the 4th of July, Blaze opted to stay in town with my parents to visit the 4th of July party in the park. So B. decided to barrel race Ally himself at the ranch rodeo "just to make all the ladies feel good about themselves" (a couple women got faster times than him, but he still did pretty darn good, if you ask me)

491. Trail ride with my five-year old
My favorite part about the ranch rodeo is that I can go on a trail ride anywhere on that beautiful ranch, in the magnificent foothills of the mountains right on the border of Colorado and Wyoming. Serious, one of the twins, has gotten so good at riding my old horse Rebel that I let her come on the trail ride with me. She did great! Later her and Starlet had a lot of fun riding Rebel in and out of a stream.

492. Flag flying at the front of our house
I love the 4th of July for many reasons, a major one being that it's our anniversary (13 years), but also because I'm very patriotic and I love hanging our flag by our front door. In fact, I love it so much I left it up for a whole week. 

493. The smell of sage after rain
We've had a large forest fire just 30 miles from Laramie, near Woods Landing. It burned for about a week, thousands of acres, but finally, we got two days of rain that put it out (the first rain ALL SUMMER). I love going for a walk after a rain, everything is so fresh and sweet-smelling; rain-washed sagebrush is a Western perfume I love as much as the scent of roses.

494. Alis volat propriis
This is a Latin quote, "she flies with her own wings" that I found in a new book this summer, "For Darkness Shows the Stars", by Diana Peterfreund, a retelling of Jane Austen's wonderful love story, Persuasion,  with a little science fiction twist.

495. An original dragon story
Dragons are one of my favorite mythical creatures, and I can't resist a story with dragons in it. Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman,  is another great book I read this summer, I think the most original dragon story I've ever read!

496. Summer camp
Blaze's 4th year and Dreamer's 2nd year Table in the Wilderness summer camp. They love this so much! - especially the zip line, but also the rafting and other adventures they get to go on. And I love it because it's a Christian camp, and they brought home a notebook they'd filled with favorite verses and other things they learned.

497. My stepdaughter calling our home, her home
Stars (17 years old) has been staying with us now for almost a year. But when she went back to visit her mom and her other siblings this summer, B and I wondered if she would decide to stay with them. After a couple weeks she was back with us and happy "to be home." One neat thing while visiting her mom this summer, she said she went to church a lot with her nanny, and she really liked that church. She hasn't been happy about going to church with us for a while now, so this was encouraging to hear.

498. Understanding the Bible's "plot"
As a great reader and writer of fiction, I thought it was neat to see "the plot" of the Bible described in this quote from Frederick Buechner:

For all its vast diversity and unevenness the Bible is a book with a plot and a plot that can be readily stated. God makes the world in love. For one reason or another the world chooses reject God. God will not reject the world but continues his mysterious and relentless pursuit of it to the end of time.

That is what he is doing by choosing Israel to be his  special people. That is what he is doing through all the passion and poetry and invective of the prophets. That is why history plays such a crucial part in the Old Testament - all those kings and renegades and battles and invasions and apostasies - because it was precisely through people like that and events like those that God was at work, as later, in the New Testament, he was supremely at work in the person and even of Jesus Christ.

Only "is at work" would be the more accurate way of putting it because ... his work goes on still, and at one and the same time the Biblical past not only illumines the present but becomes itself part of that present, part of our own individual pasts.

Until you can read the story of Adam and Eve, of Abraham and Sarah, of David and Bathsheba, as your own story... you have not really understood it. The Bible... is a book finally about ourselves, our own apostasies, our own battles and blessings. 

499.  Light multiplied a million times
I made this connection while studying 2 Peter this summer with my friend N. In 2 Peter 1:19 it says the Word is a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises  in your hearts. God gives us glimpses of His light, as guiding light along the path of our life, and also sometimes small glimpses of the light of His glory. But on that day when we see Jesus face to face there will be a light rising in our hearts as the light of a star! Compare a lamp to a star! We will experience again, the same wonder of our salvation, but multiplied by a million times...

500. Jesus Friend of Sinners by Casting Crowns
Well here it is, my 500th listed gift (two and half years since I started), half way to the goal of 1000 gifts. I plan to keep adding to this list for the rest of my life, so if God wills for me a long life, I'm excited to see this list not only reach 1000, but maybe 5,000, or 10,000 -- who know??? Whatever number I reach, it is nothing compared to the God who numbers all the stars and every grain of sand and every hair on our head.

This summer I have fallen in love with this song!

Jesus Friend of sinners we have strayed so far away
We cut down people in your name but the sword was never ours to
swing

Jesus friend of sinners the truth's become so hard to see
The world is on their way to You but they're tripping over me
Always looking around but never looking up I'm so double minded
A plank eyed saint with dirty hands and a heart divided

Oh Jesus friend of sinners
Open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers
Let our hearts be led by mercy
Help us reach with open hearts and open doors
Oh Jesus friend of sinners break our hearts for what breaks yours

Jesus friend of sinners the one who's writing in the sand
Make the righteous turn away and the stones fall from their hands
Help us to remember we are all the least of thieves
Let the memory of Your mercy bring your people to their knees

Nobody knows what we're for only what we're against when we judge the wounded
What if we put down our signs crossed over the lines and love like You did

Oh Jesus friend of sinners
Open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers
Let our hearts be led by mercy
Help us reach with open hearts and open doors
Oh Jesus friend of sinners break our hearts for what breaks yours

You love every lost cause; you reach for the outcast
For the leper and the lame; they're the reason that You came
Lord I was that lost cause and I was the outcast
But you died for sinners just like me a grateful leper at Your feet

'Cause You are good, You are good And Your love endures forever
You are good, You are good and Your love endures forever
You are good, You are good and Your love endures forever
You are good, You are good and Your love endures forever

Oh Jesus friend of sinners
Open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers
Let our hearts be led by mercy
Help us reach with open hearts and open doors
Oh Jesus friend of sinners break our hearts for what breaks Yours

And I was the lost cause and I was the outcast
You died for sinners just like me, a grateful leper at Your feet

The best 10 moments of my life

A couple weeks ago my stepdaughter and I drove over to Cheyenne to go shopping (much better shops over there than in Laramie). On our way back, I don't know what prompted this, but I mentioned how I took a road trip with my friend after college and it was one of what I called "the top ten things in my life."

One of the less memorable moments of our road trip, when Gracie the Jeep broke down

Stars was curious and asked, what are some other things on your top ten list?

I shared a few more things with her, and she shared a few of hers - her top one being when she got her own horse (Callie) and how wonderful it was to cross the road and see her anytime, and just jump up bareback and take off. I could totally relate because my first horse also made my top ten list.

When we got home, and for several days later, I kept thinking, what else is on this supposed top ten list of mine?  I started trying to list them in order, but I really couldn't. So I've just listed them randomly, with the next numbers on my 1000 gifts list. (Which is kind of fitting, because while these are the most memorable gifts God has given me, they are still just a few of many, many, many more - so many I will never remember them all).

478. Holding the twins together for the very first time. 

They were born 2 months early, and for almost a whole week I wasn't allowed to hold them, as they had to stay in isolettes (it was too early even for kangaroo care). So when I was finally allowed to hold them - together - oh my, I have no words for that moment! I have never felt such joy and contentment and wonder as in that moment. I was 36 years old.

My expression here just doesn't do it justice

479. Getting my own horse

This was a dream of mine since I was 8 years old. My parents could afford to get me riding lessons, but never my own horse (we lived in a large city). I was 22 when circumstances finally worked out that I could buy a horse and afford to keep him. Actually, the most incredible moment wasn't when I found Rebel, or when he was delivered to our barn, or even the first time I rode him. It was the day after he was "moved in" - that morning I woke up and my first thought was, "there's a horse in the barn! My own horse!" and I raced down to the barn in my jammies and peered inside and yes, there he was!

A picture of my mom riding Rebel on a S.C. beach - a dream of both of ours, to ride in the ocean!

480. Snorkeling in the Caribbean

This one made my list because it was so surprising. Based on my experience as a kid, I thought snorkeling was pretty lame. You can't see very well and you're always getting water down your pipes. There's not much to see anyway (I snorkeled murky lakes). So when B and I had our honeymoon and went snorkeling for the first time on a deserted (and pristine) reef off St Croix, I was blown away. It was like entering another world. The water was so clear, the coral was so close, and seething with a rainbow of life. I had thought you could only see this sort of thing scuba diving, not just sticking your head underwater! The rest of the day I was in a daze from all the beauty. I was 30 years old.

481. When B asked me to marry him

I forgot what we did that day, but I do remember the date, February 19 1999. We were in my apartment, late at night, and B was talking about how hurt he'd been by his ex, how he'd thought he'd never trust again. But his growing faith in the Lord had shown him it was possible to trust again. Then he looked me straight in the eyes and asked, "will you marry me?"

482. Writing the last words of my first novel 

This is an interesting one, because it happened twice. I'd been working on this novel since 12 or 13 years old but very "on again, off again, let's start over again" kind of thing. I finally finished in 2000, and it was a surreal feeling to have it all printed off and complete (so long it required two large binders). I shared it with my writing buddy N.L., and she told me it needed "a lot of work" (which I pretty much knew already, it was way too long). But still, it was  incredible to have finally finished it, after, um, 17 or 18 years (no, I'm not at all ashamed at how it takes me to write). I began the process of revising to pare it down, and ended up completely re-writing it over the next 9 years. Amazingly, when I finished it the second time, the feeling was just as powerful. I think I cried as I wrote the last words.

483. Walking down the aisle

I had a wonderful wedding, which I completely attribute to my mom and dad, since they did 80-90% of all the planning and details, so I could sit back and relax. (I highly recommend this method. Micro-planning your wedding may end up wearing you out so you barely have strength left to enjoy it). But as it turns out, the wedding and reception, wonderful as they were, didn't make my top ten list. What did make the list was walking down the aisle on my father's arm and seeing the expression on B's face when he saw me.

484. Seeing my first child for the first time. And the second child.

Oh, the anticipation! What will he/she look like? Is this really happening? And then it finally does happen, and you see your baby for the very first time. It's such a miracle. Again, B's expression on his face as he put Blaze (her screen-name) into my arms is another thing I'll never forget. I was 31 years old. Another truly amazing miracle is you get the same feeling with your second child - and the third, and the fourth. Even though you think you know what to expect, you still don't. The miracle is still just as unique as the first time.

485. Hiking in Canyonlands and afterward calling a friend I hadn't talked to in years

My whole post-college road trip was memorable, but this was the highlight of the whole trip. I had never been west of the Mississippi River before in my life, and the further west we went into the vast mountains and deserts, the more awed I became. One particular hike, in Canyonlands National Park, left me so awed that my spirit was humbled. The earth was so huge and grand, so wildly varied, I was blown away. We were so far into the Utah wilderness that there was no phone access, but a few days later when we got back into civilization, I called my friend M.C., whom I had not talked to in 2 or 3 years, due to a bad falling out. After being so humbled and awed, I just had to share my experience with her and start rebuilding our friendship, admitting where I had gone wrong and asking forgiveness. I was 22 years old.We are still close friends, 20 years later.

486.  Realizing God is real.

About a year and a half after that experience in Canyonlands where my spirit felt that mixture of awe and humility, and several more humbling experiences God used to draw me (without me yet understanding anything about him, or even really believing in him), I reached the point where I challenged him to prove Himself to me. Which He did, immediately, just a few hours later as I read the Bible for the first time in years.  He did not speak out loud but I have no doubt that He spoke to me through a very specific word-image in the Bible. I was stunned and at the same time serene, if that makes any sense. It felt like  searching for a needle in a haystack, doubting you'd ever find it. But then suddenly, there it is, so unexpected, and a thousand times more beautiful than what you had ever imagined.

This last of my top ten moments in life didn't come to me right away (not until today, in fact). I found it interesting that the things that were most important and memorable to me did not include my parents at all, or any friends (except for one, indirectly). It did not include anything from my childhood or school years or college years. (I really wished I had thought to put together a top ten list earlier in my life - I wonder what would have been on it back then? It's impossible to reconstruct now with the bias of age).

I kept coming back to my parents. I have the most wonderful parents in the world; I have no bad memories of them. Sure we had some fights and I had some spankings but really, I can't even say those were bad memories because they didn't scar me in anyway, rather they helped me grow. I could think of many wonderful moments with my parents, but nothing compared to the powerful moments with my husband or with my own kids, even my horse! (insert a huff of disgust toward myself). Which really saddened me. I felt like I had lost something. And it was also sad to realize my own kids will someday find their best memories may not include me! But that is exactly when it hit me:

487. When my parents held my first child for the first time.

I have a hard time describing this. For my mom, she barely looked at me when she came into my hospital room. When she picked up my baby, she made some soft noises of wonder, but other than that she was speechless (which is so rare for my mom).  It was the same way with my father, a while later. When he saw her (I have the hardest  time not writing her real name here!), he had to sit down first, and then asked me to hand him the baby. I handed her over all bundled up. He slowly unwrapped her blanket and just sat there staring at her for a long time, speechless, dabbing at tears. My father does not cry easily. 

I am not sure if we truly ever appreciate our parents, or love them so much as we do the moment we become parents ourselves and see them with our own children.

When God drops an idea out of the sky

I haven't done a writing progress post in forever! I almost need to shorten my blog's subtitle by removing "the continuing saga of writing a novel..." to just "the continuing saga of attempting to raise four children, stay happily married and stay focused on God." 

But, while I haven't mentioned it often here on the blog, writing continues to occupy a large part of my thoughts. I started a new novel last November and I've been working on it on and off this winter and spring (more "off" than "on", I'm afraid. Reading finished novels is such a temptation instead the hard work of polishing my own writing to good quality).

Magical things in books (this will make more sense at the end of this post)

Anyhoo....I had to start a new novel because the last one (a historical fantasy) ran into a big problem. 

Last summer I completely stopped working on the historical fantasy, because I got uneasy about writing about demons. Dangerous territory, that.

 My original premise was: "what if instead of finding a genie in a lamp, you discover a relic with two genies in it - who are mortal enemies and can't stand each other?"   I LOVED that idea, but with the novel three quarters written, I couldn't write the last quarter, the last 50-75 pages or so. One of the genies was good, one was evil - a demon, in fact. And when I reached the part in the book where the demon started playing a larger role, I couldn't write anymore. I think (in fact, I'm sure), God stopped me - but with the assurance that another even BETTER idea would come along.

So last month, the idea finally came. Here's a few lines from the ECSTATIC email I sent N., my writing buddy of many years, when the idea I'd been waiting for almost a year finally came:

It just hit me out of the blue! (and you get hit too since you are the only good friend who will probably understand this) 

So, remember last summer I gave up working on this book because God convicted me about writing about demons? But I just loved my two spirits trapped together idea? I have been waiting for him to show me the solution. 

Well it just came and its so OBVIOUS I can't believe I didn't see it all along. 

So they are still enemies but not because one is good, one is evil [which led me to write her as a demon]. They had a misunderstanding long ago and they don't understand each other and even a bit jealous of each other and the goal is now to get them to work together despite their bad history. 

DUHHHH!!!!!! I should have seen that YEARS ago. Why didn't I see that??? 

But how cool now that I do! This is going to be so much more FUN!!!! 

Sorry for splatting exclamation marks all over you. Here are a few more to help you clean up!!!!!!!!

 So, my ever perceptive friend wrote back, if your "bad genie" isn't a demon anymore, what is she?

Um, good question. The idea from the blue had given me the source of a conflict to replace the old good vs. evil conflict, but it hadn't clarified the question of, what exactly are these creatures going to be, in my novel?

Mythical creatures like genies, dragons, elves and fairies (to name only a few) are a particular conundrum for bible-believing Christians. 

The only mythical creatures the Bible mentions are the behemoth (with a tail like a cedar tree!) and leviathan ("flames stream from its mouth" - sounds dragonish to me) and the unicorn, in modern translations called a wild ox but the original Hebrew is re'em, which translates to the Greek monokeros ("one-horned").  "Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?" (Job 39:9-10 KJV).

The Bible says these are God's creations, and he describes them to Job (chapters 39-41) to illustrate His awesome power - as He is the only one who can control them.  They are not evil creatures, not like demons. Their incredible power and ferocity - or the fact they can't be tamed - actually points toward God's strength and glory.

Could it be that mythical creatures from other cultures might also have pointed to God, symbols of His awesome strength or His mysterious ways? Or is there a dangerous side to mythical and magical creatures, in that they actually led people astray and into false worship? 

When God finished creating all the creatures on the sixth day (which included the behemoth and the leviathan, and may have included other creatures we now call mythical) "He saw that it was good."

But then sin entered the world, and much that was good became dangerous and twisted by sin. Romans 8:21 implies creation was brought into "bondage to decay."  So I think the answer is "yes" to both of my questions above. Mythical creatures do point us toward God in their strength and mysterious ways. But they are also subject to the Fall and the effects of sin and have been corrupted from their original purpose in creation.

I've been fascinated by how C.S. Lewis tries to explain ancient myths in light of Christianity, addressed in his essay, "Myth Become Fact". 

The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens — at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle.

Or, summed very well from this article by Mark Lowery:

1. All the myths of mankind's primitive religions were expressions of a deep yearning — the deepest yearning — in mankind's consciousness, namely that the mysterious transcendent God would come into intimate contact with mankind, and do so in such a way that He would repair the damages made by mankind's sinfulness, and would grant to mankind a safety that would last forever.
   
   
2. Christianity, rather than being one myth alongside many others, is thus the fulfillment of all previous mythological religions. It is a myth, like the others, but this time a myth that is also a fact. 

So after mulling all this over, after the New Idea that hit me last month,  this is where I'm at now, as far as my story idea:

Instead of being about angels and demons, my story is about a clash of ancient mythologies as the new Christianity starts to spread across the world. This works well since I set the story in the mid 300's, A.D., during the early spread of Christianity. Old mythologies are being pushed out by the new religion. My main character finds two mythical creatures trapped together in a stone, one a genie from Arabia, the other a naiad from Greece. They are enemies because they come from different mythologies, but are forced to work together to serve whoever has possession of the magical jewel they are trapped in. 

As the story progresses they acknowledge that despite their differences, they are both created by God. The genie chooses to serve God (and thus points Sidain, the main character, to God). The naiad just wants to be free and allowed to return to her own life. At the end when Sidain overcomes her own issues and sets them free, they both realize that if they stay in the mortal realm their powers will continue to be a temptation for mankind to try to trap them and use them... and distract them from the real purpose of myths - which is to point us to God as all the myths are fulfilled in Christianity. Thus the magical creature fade from reality into myth, that the one myth which offers true fulfillment may take precedence.   ("He must become greater, I must become less").

 I may find myself stopped again when I re-write the story according to this new path - but that's okay. God can stop me as many times as He wishes, until I get it His way: His way is far better than mine.

As I was looking on the web for more information on C.S. Lewis' views on myth, I came across this fascinating poem by J.R.R. Tolkien, Mythopoeia, which he wrote in response to a discussion with C.S. Lewis in 1931, where Lewis said that myths were "lies breathed through silver". 

Apparently, Lewis' views on myths changed in the years after, as captured in "Myth Become Fact" (1944) and in these little quotes from Lewis, along with several more interesting ones found on Don King's literature web page (Montreat College).

from "On Three Ways of Writing for Children" (1952)

[When a little boy reads of an enchanted wood] it stirs and troubles him. . . with the dim sense of something beyond his reach and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted. 
 

from a letter of September 22, 1956

. . . a good myth (i.e. a story out of which ever varying meanings will grow for different readers and in different ages) is a higher thing than an allegory (into which one meaning has been put). Into an allegory a man can put only what he already knows; in a myth he puts what he does not yet know and cannot come by in any other way.

The first affirms my belief that the myths and fairytales I read as a child played a role - perhaps even a very large role - in preparing me to receive and marvel in the truth of Christ  - and so have instilled me a great desire to write children's stories and fairytales.

And both statements brought to mind  1 Corinthians 13:9-12: 

For we know in part and we prophesy in part,  but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.