From Genesis to Now: Husbandry

Dear Christa—

Nate loves to garden. One of his happiest days of the year is when his seeds arrive—in January no less. I’ve watched him crank up his rototiller and till up half his backyard. I’ve also canned tomatoes with him, ate his sweet corn, and been the recipient of his hot peppers. He may be a policeman by night, but he’s a farmer by day. He also loves animals. At the Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead in Kansas, I’ve watched him scratch a little calf’s nose, while holding tiny Elliott and encouraging her to do the same. It’s no wonder she loves animals the way she does. She spends most of her day hugging her dog.

And there’s something just natural and good about digging in the soil and tending animals. It’s so much related to humanity that in English we have a word for it, husbandry. Now, that’s a word we don’t hear much nowadays.

Cain and Abel were farmers back in a time when there was no doubt about who God is. Though they were fallen in nature, God talked right to them. And they brought God offerings—offerings that were both a blessing from God and the result of their hard work.

It’s much the same today, really. We should use our gifts, which are from God, to serve God. So often we just get busy working and using our gifts that it’s easy to forget that the things we do well are blessings from God. Everyone has things they love to do and are good at, even though mine don’t include growing a great garden. But, it’s important to remember to be grateful for the talents that we have and not to use them just for our own benefit.

And blessings from God should be developed through our hard work. As a teacher, nothing frustrates me more than a smart, lazy kid. Developing our talents to use to help others has a way of making us happy. It’s kind of funny. It seems like if we only do things for ourselves it would make us happy, but it doesn’t.

Nate enjoys working in his garden, and he really enjoys having the kids tag behind him and showing them how things grow. It’s a good thing to recognize blessings from God. Tragically, it was something Cain forgot.

From Genesis to Now: Change

Dear Christa—

With a baby that doesn’t sleep through the night and a toddler who’s kind of lost his schedule, Joy just refers to herself as “sleepless in Seattle.”

The Army packed up Joel’s stuff in December and sent him off to South Korea in January just when Kim was scheduled to do her student teaching.

Over a cup of coffee, Shane and Brian decided to close their business.

And, I’m looking into sophomore eyes and digging into books that I haven’t read for 11 years.

Life is somewhat like the weather in Colorado. We had a late start at school on Thursday, and I’m hanging clothes on the line this breezy Saturday afternoon. Life is full of changes. Some are expected and exciting. Some come at terrible times. And some we wish with all our hearts had never happened at all. But, they do. That is the way of time.

So, for the changes of this year, this moment, here are a few things to keep in mind:

Change demands adjustment. Adjustment takes time. 

I think just knowing that the adjustment will come by and by can give the encouragement to plod right along.

Feelings are fickle. Feelings can be controlled. 

We often don’t control our circumstances, but we can control the perspective we take on them. Sometimes God leads to places we don’t understand. It is so easy to get discouraged. Our pastor of years ago used to say, “Don’t doubt in the dark what God showed you in the light.” I’ve never forgotten that…even when it felt hard.

There’s a friend that “sticks closer than a brother.” Stick yourself to her. 

Change is always easier when we don’t do it alone. Everyone needs a little support now and then. Sometimes we give it. Sometimes we need it.

The one thing that doesn’t change is God.

As Eve lifted that fateful fruit to her lips, with one small swallow, all the world changed. It changed forever. The ground was cursed and they were driven away.

Yet, God did not change. He made a way for mankind. He’s the same today as when He walked in the cool of the evening with Adam and Eve, making a way to walk and commune with us both night and day.

Reaching Out

Dear Christa—

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed

in all their vast array (Gen. 2:1).

It was all done. The light, the plants, the birds and the fish of the sea, the animals everyone, and then there was man. We don’t know how long Adam lived in the garden in all its unimaginable beauty. I wonder. How long did it take him to get lonely?

It’s so easy to be lonely when there are people all around. I’ll have to admit that I treasure some alone time. Our children may be grown, yet I live in a people filled world of teenagers. And, I see a lot. And often I see lonely. I sometimes see lonely in heart.

In a Christian school with the gospel on walls and tee shirts, I can see lonely. Sometimes it makes me sad. Yet, I see reaching too. I see those who will reach out. At times I see lonely washed away like fresh falling snow on a dry cold ground. I spend a lot of time talking about writing and literature and getting beneath the surface to the heart of what is being said. But, I do a lot of watching too.

So, here near the beginning of Genesis, the Bible says, it was all completed in its vast array. Doesn’t that sound so cool?

It was awesome.

I can only look out at the snowcapped peaks from our back door and try to fathom the total reflection of God the untainted world captured.

Yet, even in all that, God said that it was not good for Adam to be alone.

It was not good.

It is not good to be alone. We need the people who fill our world. And the people who fill our world need us. I have a cousin who owns an ice cream shop. There are times she spends the hours alone, but when the shop fills—with lots or just a few—she ministers to them.

It was not good for Adam to be alone, so God created Eve. God created Eve knowing fully the outcome—the marring of all that unadulterated beauty, but He created her anyway. He created her because Adam needed her.

New Year Meditation: In the Beginning

Dear Christa—

On this very first day of the New Year, I sit by the window and look over our street—the same street we’ve lived on for over 25 years. Jeff and Renee’s blow up snow globe showers down fake snow over the Christmas scene inside. The blue windsock flutters at the corner of our drive—a creative attempt to mark the edge of the stones so we don’t drive over them. Other than the wind, all is quiet and sleepy this first day after last night’s celebrations.

As this year awakes before us, there is both dread and anticipation of what will be. So, on this day of new beginnings, thoughts turn to the first beginning—that beginning when God created.

Look at Gen. 1:1-2 today and let your mind wind back, deep, deep into a place of nothingness—

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now, the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters—

The Sprit of God—that aspect of God that is so easy to forget—to forget that the Spirit IS God, very God. He dwells within us. He hovers over our life.

What will He create in us this year?

I like to pause at the end of verse 2. Read it slowly and let it take you there. “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the water.”

Feel the anticipation.

Feel the deep darkness of all outer space

and the deep waters upon the dark, dark surface of the world.

And then. Then—

“Let there be light.”

Wow, wow. To see such a thing! And yet, how often has He worked miracles in our own lives? How many are the answered prayers.

The Spirit of God hovers over your life and mine.

I wonder what He’ll create this year.

Happy New Year, Christa.

A Christmas Eve Reflection

Dear Christa—

I’m glad that I’m married to a generous man. So was my mother. I remember her saying once that she was glad that she’d been married to a generous man even if he would bring home “any old drunk to sleep on the couch” in his younger days.

At Walmart on Christmas Eve, Callie and I were perusing the beads when a woman approached Jay about needing money. I don’t know what she said, but I heard Jay’s voice, “If you’re hungry, I’ll buy you a meal.” Then, off they headed toward the Subway near the front of the store with 5-year-old Elliott skipping next to him.

I think it’s easier to be generous these days than when we first began teaching in a Christian school with four little children of our own; although, I did hear once that the most generous people, compared to what they make, are the working poor. I don’t think we were that generous though.

Maybe it was because my mother paid the bills when I was growing up or it was a way to relieve Jay of one more thing to do during the years that he worked so many hours so that I could stay home with the babies, but I’ve always handled our finances, though “handling our finances” mostly has meant making sure the monthly bills get paid.

But, there was a time—many years back—that I began to think that I should not be quite so calculating when it came to special offerings. Jay always would say, “What do you think we can give?” and I would respond with an answer. So, instead, I began to respond with “whatever you think.” It has been interesting that most of the time he says exactly what I would have said, but on occasion, I’ve been a little taken aback, but I’ve always just written the check. Don’t get me wrong; it isn’t that we give away loads of money; we’re very much like everyone else. It was just a perspective shift.

I want to be a generous person. For me, I think being generous is tied into being grateful. We have so much more than what I ever thought we would. And, I’m glad that I’m married to a generous man.

As Elliott and I stood in line to purchase our beads, a box of Texas grapefruit, and various other things we’d tossed in the cart, I said to her: “Did you and grandpa buy that lady some food?” And she replied in her very dramatic Elliott way: “Yes, she was REALLY, REALLY hungry, so we just buy her some food…I’m really hungry too.”

Perception, or Not

Dear Christa—

I’ve been reading through the Minor Prophets in the Old Testament, and some of those books give fantastic accounts of otherworldly creatures busy about their business here on earth. Honestly, some of it I don’t get at all, but one thing is apparent: there’s a lot going on out there that we don’t see.

At times that’s kind of unsettling to me—that there are likely angelic beings inhabiting space that I’m in that I can’t perceive. Imagine an entire world dramatically alive yet silent to our ears.

And, at times in a way it can only seem like magic when that spiritual world intersects with ours and influences the very place we live.

So, it was just such a time when God, very God, stepped out of the invisible and planted himself in the tiny essence of life, cloaked in humanity’s frame. It’s amazing to think about. But, mostly it’s too easy to regard the incarnation as simply the birth of a baby and to miss the perception that this was not an ordinary child.

I wonder how Mary and Joseph gazed at him that night. New parents always inspect every little inch of that newborn, but surely they were looking for something more, something a little different. As they stared intently at the child, were they looking for…God? Were they looking for something that indicated He was who He is?

Did it surprise them that he simply looked like a baby? And since he just looked so normal, I guess they just swaddled him up and took care of him. And, as days and weeks of caring turned into years, perhaps at times it became hard to perceive that this person was not of this world at all.

And so too, I suppose, we look at a baby in a manger and all we see is a baby; sometimes we see with no perception at all.

Time Is a Gift

Dear Christa—

As we navigated through snow-packed roads and up the hill to deliver Carol’s first grade granddaughter (who, by the way, entertained us with her chatter all the way), we were certain of an online instruction day the next morning. At school we had even put up the assignments for each class, and all we had to do was open the link for students to see.  I’d dragged home a bulging bag of papers, grateful for a day to make some headway on them.

But, what came the day after that online instruction day was quite unexpected. Jay arose, checked the school website and saw that it was a real snow day. No school. No online instruction. An extra day, totally unplanned. He looked at me across the kitchen and commented, “Time is a gift.” And so it is.

In our crazy busy world, it seems that time becomes more and more valuable all the time. And a whole day lay before me. I made cute blue dresses for Flora and Helen’s American Girl dolls, drank a cup of hot chocolate nice and slow, and graded some more of the papers in that bulging bag, knowing that now Christmas break would be paper grading free. (And that is a gift!)

Most of my days are prescribed with little variation: go to work, come home from work, cook supper, grade some papers, go to bed, and start all over tomorrow. But, having an unexpected day had a way of reminding me that time really is a gift. It’s a gift whether I’m making doll clothes or teaching mythology. It’s easy to forget on those day-to-day days that all time is a gift.

So, I am grateful for this reminder on the brink of the busiest time of year that time itself is a gift. It’s the opportunity to find satisfaction and even enjoyment in the routines of life: the commute to work, the picking up toys, the grading of papers.

Time is life, and life is precious whether I’m engrossed in sewing, sunk deep in a Bible study, or cleaning the kitchen. Time is a gift.

Many thanks to my student Janessa who let me borrow her doll. :)