Category Archives: inspirational

This.

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One month ago, today, my mama stopped breathing.

And never started up again.

She moved from this world into eternity.

She slipped her mortal coil.

Why are all those phrases easier to say than the actual word?  All those poetic euphemisms to avoid the stark reality. I guess because even thinking the actual word makes me cry.

She moved on. She gained her heavenly reward. She went to be with Jesus.

It happened early in the afternoon of Christmas day. (“It happened”…still avoiding the word.) We’re two hours ahead of my family on the West Coast, so we were done unwrapping gifts, done snacking (temporarily), and the kids had even moved their loot into their respective rooms. My husband, Colin, was on his ipad, doing whatever it is that he does on his ipad, and I was sitting in the middle of the mess, reading a beautiful book that a friend had given me, a book full of kindness and wisdom and love. I was feeling sentimental. Cozy. Thankful.

Colin’s phone rang. I could tell by his voice that it was family. I expected a, “Yes, she’s right here,” but instead there came, “Ah. Uh huh. Okay.”

Colin hung up and turned to me.

“They’re giving your mom CPR.” He said it gently. But really, there’s no way to gentle those words. No euphemism for breathing air into your mother’s congested lungs.

I looked back down at my book, automatically, as if to make sure that the world still looked the same as it had before this monumental shift. But the words before me blurred. The whole room, really, faded away to be replaced with a distorted mind’s view of my sister’s living room, gifts unopened, children’s excitement turned to confusion, my medically-trained sister and brother-in-law doing all they could, my dad…oh, dear, Lord, my dad.

Colin told the kids, who wandered, empty-handed, full-hearted, to sit, awkwardly, in the living room again, wrapping paper still strewn about, stockings unhung by the chimney with care. Somehow I stood, moved to the mudroom for something, I have no idea why, talking of I know not what. Colin joined me, let me finish my words, stepped to me and took me into his arms.

“Your mom’s gone,” he whispered. “Patrick texted.”

Gone. Another euphemism. Another way to gentle the concept that the world as I knew it had ended.

I don’t blame Patrick for texting. Words are easier to write than to say. I’m thankful he’d called to give the first news.

It all happened so quickly. Ten minutes? I don’t even know. Fast. Gone. Such short words that say so much.

Our son read some Scripture. I made tea, because that’s what Mom would have done. We hugged and cried and made more tea. Mom’s parents were Scottish, and tea cures all.

Only it couldn’t cure this.

This.

This = death.

There. I said it.

I’ll say more, later, but for now I leave you with this…

This = hope:

“’Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
1 Corinthians 15:55-57

No, tea can’t cure death.

But that’s okay. Because Jesus already did.

Let’s Talk about “Essential”

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What? I’m actually posting? Yes! Here I am!

I feel as if I ought to apologize. I have been absent from the “blog-waves” (is that a thing?) for weeks now and I said I’d be here weekly. I feel both bad about that and defensive about that. Bad because I said I’d do it. Defensive because, by golly, life is hard right now and some things have had to be set aside in the interests of mental health and that just has to be okay.

Honesty is good, yes?

I wrote a whole paragraph about the stress of living during a pandemic and then I erased it. You all know about that stress. I’ll just leave it at that and say that I hope you don’t mind that I won’t appear here every week because I just can’t handle it every week. 

‘Nuff said.

So…on to more theology and less dishevelment, how about?

I recently looked a little bit at the story of Dorcas in the Bible. Remember her? In Acts chapter nine we read that Dorcas, aka Tabitha, had died and a lot of people were very upset about it. Apparently she had been a great servant for the Lord, especially known for making “robes and other clothing”. 

Shortly after she passed away, Dorcas’ friends asked Peter to stop by to see if he could help. I guess they held out hope that they’d witness a miracle and turns out they weren’t disappointed. Peter “got down on his knees and prayed” for Dorcas and then said, “Tabitha, get up.”

And she got up. She was dead, washed and ready for burial, and she sat up.

People die all the time. We mourn them and we grieve for them and we wish that God would work a miracle to bring them back to life but for all of the millions of times that has been wished, it has only occurred a small handful of times that we know of from the Bible. 

Dorcas, for some reason, was deemed indispensable. Perhaps her sewing skills or something else we don’t know about made God put her on the short list of “the dead raised to life”. Her absence created a hole that no one else could fill. 

God decided she was an essential worker.

Kinda rings a bell, doesn’t it? 

We have heard plenty about “Essential Workers” during this pandemic. But what about poor Dorcas? Here she was, dead and in the presence of God, and she’s brought back to life for reasons we don’t know, put on hold from her heavenly reward, only to come back and sew a few more “robes and other clothing”. 

I kinda think that she’d much rather have been deemed “unessential” at that point and been allowed to remain in the presence of God. Yet God had His reasons. We don’t know them. But we can trust that they were made with far better wisdom than our reasoning can understand. 

That’s the thing about God. We don’t always understand His ways. Let’s face it, we often don’t understand His ways! But we always can trust that His ways are best. 

“As for God, His way is perfect;” says 2 Samuel 22:31 (NKJV) “The word of the LORD is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.” Or, in a different version (NIV) and a different reference (Psalm 18:30) it says, “As for God, His way is perfect: The LORD’s word is flawless; He shields all who take refuge in Him.”

So if we believe that God is who He says He is, and if we believe His word, then we believe that His plans are perfect, tested, true and flawless, and that He protects us when we run to Him. 

And that means that we can trust Him. We may not always like where He leads us, but we know that anywhere He takes us, He is right there with us, protecting and shielding those who trust in Him.

And that, my friends, is essential.

I’ve been having fun on Canva

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My head is tired. Tired of planning when I can’t plan because who knows what will happen in the world in a week? Tired of thinking deeply. Tired of trying to organize my thoughts into coherent words that people can read and be inspired by. Can you tell I’m tired? I even ended my sentence with a preposition.

Since I feel incapable of thought, I decided to have fun instead. I hopped onto Canva and began messing around with Bible verses and old photos. So, for the next few weeks, this is what you’re getting: verses and pretty pictures. 🙂

I took this photo several years ago. It’s of beach glass that my sister and I collected over years of beachcombing. This photo makes me happy and this verse is comforting in these difficult days.



Barn Blessing

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The Apple Barn

I’m a sucker for old barns. The kind that are barely standing, just waiting for a massive gust of wind to smack them down. The kind where the wood is gray with age and the last re-roofing took place in the Carter Administration. The kind where skunks are more liable to live than horses or cows.

I’m fairly sure that I know the origin of my love of barns. My dad, a semi-professional photographer when I was growing up, had the same obsession. If a barn on Orcas Island was picturesque, screaming for a photo shoot, he was there to oblige.

Several of those barns remain in my mind and, thankfully, in his files. There is one – most people called it the Apple Barn – which sits (yes, it’s still standing) in a small, often misty valley, not too far from my sister’s house.

We pass the Apple Barn on the way to and from the ferry landing whenever we visit. When we pass it upon arrival, I feel like I’m really there, back in Washington State. Home. When we pass it upon leaving, I feel like it waves goodbye. Like the benevolent apple-scented spirt of the barn ushers me off of the island and wishes me farewell wherever I fare.

We round the corner, and the barn disappears, and always, always, the loss that settled down upon me like a cloak as we braked down the hill from my sister’s house, releases like a wheezing balloon and for the rest of the drive to the ferry dock the tears I fight back are tears of joy. Joy that I grew up in this place. Joy that I have sisters and parents and family to love. Joy that God has given me this visit, this moment, this island to come home to.

 “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:6,7 NIV

Wildflower inspiration

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Last week I posted a photo of me as a wee girl in a field of daisies. I have always loved that photo (is it vain to love a photo of oneself?!)  and always loved daisies – perhaps this photo is the reason why!

Daisies are, I suppose, wildflowers. Or, as my husband calls them, “weeds”. I refuse to call them weeds because they are too beautiful! I admit that they are rather hard to get rid of if you don’t want them in the particular area that they planted themselves. Tough roots. Strong stems. But that doesn’t stop me admiring them for their simple beauty. Yellow and white. Long petals, solid center. A child’s idea of a classic flower.

Ok, I know this isn’t a daisy. I love it anyway.

Another thing I like about daisies is that they are benign. Every summer I fight against Deadly Nightshade, another rather pretty weed/wildflower/vine that grows like…well…a weed around here. And while it may be pretty with its purple and yellow blooms, it is, as its name suggests, not something that you want to mess with as it is, as you may have guessed, extremely toxic.

I prefer flowers that are pretty and won’t poison you.

Daisies are also better than many other wildflowers in that you can cut them and bring them into the house and they won’t die immediately. My youngest daughter has brought me several wildflower bouquets recently, and virtually all of them – with the noted exception of the horsetail reed – have died within hours. They just can’t adjust to life when cut off from their roots.

Think about that a moment.

Wildflowers can’t thrive when cut off from their roots. They wither. They die.

A lot like people, when they’re cut off from each other.

I’ve thought often of Hebrews 10:24 & 25 in recent days.

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Ok, for all of you true theologians out there, I know that the context of this verse is about growing in our faith. That’s not where I’m going with this today. Today it just makes me think about our relationships with each other, rather than our relationship with God.

This is a weird, difficult, stressful time in the history of the world. Now don’t get me wrong. I do not mean to be political about this issue. I am not saying that isolating ourselves to protect each other is either right or wrong. What I am saying that as we continue to socially distance ourselves – to whatever degree our particular state or country says we must – we also must remember to reach out to those in isolation because to be alone, to be cut off from our roots, is to wither and die.

I remember, just a couple of weeks into one state’s Stay at Home order, a friend from college posted that his neighbor had killed herself because she couldn’t take the isolation. She didn’t want to face weeks – and as it turns out, months – of living all by herself in fear.

Again, I am not politicizing this. What I am saying is that people need each other.

Apparently this is the day for pictures of bees on wildflowers. 🙂

I have loved seeing how organizations, camps, churches, etc. are thinking of creative ways to reach out. For example, Lakeside Church here in Worthington, MN, dropped off crafts kits this week to those who requested it. Totally free. Totally to encourage.

How can you encourage others in this unique era? How can you spur people on toward love and good deeds? How can you “meet together” in safety? How can you reach out to those who are particularly isolated?

These are things I think we must all consider thoughtfully and then act upon our ideas.

Because no one wants to be a wildflower, cut off from its roots, withering away.

Please share some ideas in the comments of how you have reached out, or how you have seen others reach out to encourage one another in this COVID-era. Thank you in advance for your thoughts!

“Let the little children…”

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Yep. That’s me. Age about 4. I’m in the empty field next door to the house I grew up in. Dad told me to pick some daisies and so I did but there was a bee on one that I reached for and that is the shot that Dad liked best. Me, a little tentative, holding my Bouquet for Mommy.

That’s what Dad titled the photo: Bouquet for Mommy. He enlarged it in his mysterious and malodorous darkroom and it lived on our living room wall for so many years that it faded to a pale shadow of its former self, leaving a rectangular mark on the wall the day we moved away.

“Let the little children come to me,” Jesus said. Let them pick flowers from my fields. Let them enjoy bugs. Let them find the wild strawberries just over to the left, close by the gate — just out of the shot of the camera — where blackberry brambles grow fiercely along the edge of the cliff and the eagles rest in the old fir tree.

Let them come. Let them learn to know me as they learn to know my creation. Let them fall in love with my world and let them fall in love with me. Do not hinder them. Do not call them in too soon.

Let them make mud pies and walk along the beach and skin their knees and wade in the water. Let them climb the rocks and climb into my lap and reach up to touch my face, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

Let them come, and they will keep coming when they grow older. When they question who I am and when they need reassurance. And when, after they run away and rebel and call out to me in the reaches of the night, they will remember. They will see that I am the same God they found in the fields, the same God of the mountains and the daisies and the bumblebees, and they will climb again, into my lap. They will reach their hands, tentatively, needfully, desperately, to touch my face, and they will remember.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this first of the occasional photo-centered posts. I have hundreds and hundreds of photos of my dad’s that I am excited to share with you. I have a few decent ones of my own, too! So, from time to time, I’ll focus on a photo!

Enjoy your week, my friends.

Summerband and the living is easy…

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I was supposed to do something tomorrow, June 24th 2020, that I’ve never done before. I like doing new things and I think that I would have liked doing this.

I was asked, back before COVID controlled the world, back when we thought that summer would find us doing our usual things, to be the Master of Ceremonies at an Amazing Worthington City Band concert at historic Chautauqua Park on the banks of Lake Okabena here in Worthington, Minnesota.

Kinda makes me think of Harold Hill and The Music Man, though actually I wouldn’t have been directing – heaven help the band – I’d just be introducing the songs, talking a little, giving the band time to pull up their music for the next song.

Sadly, all of the band concerts have been cancelled for June, but happily the ones scheduled for July are still on! Summer band concerts have been a big part of our lives, given that two of our kids have played in the band for several years now and we’ve attended concerts since we moved to Worthington in 1997. (It helped that we lived across the street from the park for 8 years!)

(I don’t know why this video looks sideways, but it will play just fine!)

I truly have missed the concerts these past few weeks. Something in the air one evening last week – a scent or a sound, I’m not sure which – made me suddenly think of the band and I felt a little bit sad and a little bit nostalgic and a little bit cross with this COVID world, all at once.

Which is a lot of emotions to handle in 5 seconds!

Another aspect of the weekly (for June and July) concerts is that it’s a great time to hang out with friends, see people you don’t see very often, and meet new people – or at least identify them from afar.

Example: “Oh, the MC is so-and-so tonight. I’ve never realized that’s who that is!”

Or this:

Me: “Oh, I see that the intermission entertainment is Rolly Polly and his Dancing Dogs! I hope the dogs don’t leap into the audience and bite anyone this time like that did that other time.”

Friend: “Oh, I kinda hope they do. That was entertaining!”

(Just kidding. That never happened. But the microphone did misbehave badly once or twice, causing one or two headaches for the friendly neighborhood sound guy.)

One particularly cool thing about the band is that it is 127 years old! It began in 1893 and the bandshell itself, built from 1941-1942, is on the National Register of Historic Places. To top off the coolness, Chautauqua Park is so named because the Reverend Billy Sunday, professional baseball player of the 1880’s turned itinerant evangelist, preached there in his heyday, a fact which made this seminary graduate smile as suddenly her Church History class actually intersected with her real life.

I like it when that happens. When the things I learned in Seminary or in Sunday School or from sermons interconnect with reality. When the Bible applies to everyday life.

Which, of course, it does all the time. I just don’t always realize it.

That’s kind of my Disheveled Theologian mantra, actually. Or, rather, my prayer. That by telling my stories of everyday life, and showing how God and His Word applies in each of those situations, people will see God more in their own lives. In other words, I pray that when I open my eyes to see God in my life, you too, will open your eyes to see Him in yours.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3 NIV

P.S.: In light of the fact that I’m pining away for summer band concerts, I dug up a couple videos to entertain you! The first one (above) is a band classic, a patriotic tune we can all enjoy. The second (below) is a fun one that clearly entertained the audience!


Again, why this looks sideways I don’t know. I am no expert. I’m certain that someone can tell me rather easily, but I don’t know exactly who that someone is. I’m just glad that it will play correctly for you! 🙂

Destination

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It’s windy. So windy. And has been for days. Sustained winds of 20mph and gusts of 35 or more. 24/7. Literally. I love to sleep with the windows open, but the noise of the wind and the blowing of the drapes defies my desires.

On many an evening recently, from our vantage point on the lake, we’ve watched novice kayakers struggle against the waves, their lack of experience clear as the wind pushes them further and further west. “Go west, young man,” they used to say. Only these guys’ destination was east.

This past weekend was supposed to have been the Windsurfing Regatta, held here annually on Lake Okabena. The second weekend in June was chosen as the ideal date to hold the event, when the winds and the weather averaged perfectly to present sailors and spectators both with idyllic sailing and viewing conditions. This year would have challenged the heartiest of participants, I think, but, like so many other events in this weird COVID world, the event had to be cancelled. “Postponed”, they said actually, for a year, with all the participants rescheduling for 2021. But “cancelled” is what it amounts to in the short-term. Another destination missed.

Sometimes we aim for something – an event, a location – and we hit it smack-dab. Front and center. Bulls eye. Other times we take aim but end up – whether by our own fault or by things beyond our control – missing the mark entirely.

My mom flew into Edinburgh, Scotland, many years ago, intending to meet up with her sister for a long weekend. Their parents grew up in Scotland, so this was going to be fun. A reunion not just with each other but with their roots.

Mom’s flight was delayed out of Germany. She missed her connection, arrived hours late. Her sister was nowhere to be found. Mom, having left all of the planning to her, had no idea where to meet her. In a series of near misses that would have been funny in a movie but weren’t at all in real life, Mom spent the entire weekend alone. There were no cell phones. Phone messages left back home went unheard as no one was there to receive them. Her destination was reached…but it wasn’t the destination she’d hoped for at all.

Point of fact: sometimes the wind blows us off course.

Point of mind: sometimes we get where we’re going but it’s not at all what we wanted it to be.

So what do we do then? What do we do when, despite our best efforts, we wind up at the wrong end of the lake? What do we do when, despite our success, we find that our reached goals aren’t all that we expected them to be?

What do we do, in short, when life doesn’t turn out the way we thought it would? When we planned, and maybe even prayed, yet still we beat against the wind? Do we panic? Do we pray all the more? Do we give up, throw in the towel, hop on the next flight home?

I suppose the answers to those questions are innumerable. But here’s what I witnessed out on the lake:

Those poor people – I don’t know their age or their gender or anything about them – when they found themselves out in the middle of the lake, being shoved by the wind in the opposite direction that they wanted to go, tried, ineffectually, to paddle. They waved their paddles about in a frantic “X” motion for a while until they realized that nothing they were doing was working. Then, finally, they sat back, reevaluated the direction of their boat in relation to the waves, rethought their paddling methods, worked out the kinks, and got back on course despite the wind working against them. They came safely into harbor, sorer and wiser than they were before they got themselves into that boat. Were they scared out there in the middle of the lake? Probably. Were they off schedule and out of sorts? Possibly. But they got themselves to safety.

Or, you can be like my mom in Scotland, all alone, all those years ago. She explored. She did a little shopping. She bought herself a kilt in the Fraser family tartan. She made the most of it. She did not want to be there by herself and she did not enjoy her trip as she thought she would, but she did not waste her time sitting alone in a hotel room, feeling sorry for herself. She got back on the plane at the end of the weekend wiser than she was three days before. Was she scared being there alone? Probably. (I can guarantee you that she did a lot of praying.) Was she disappointed and out of sorts? Possibly. But she chose to go out and see the city and it remains the only time she’s ever been able to visit the land of her ancestors.


Our family Fraser tartan.

Life leads us on a merry chase sometimes. We can panic when it leads us into danger. We can throw a fit when it leads us into disappointment. Or we can sit back. Evaluate. Experiment. Explore.

And, in all of that, in all our decisions and promotions and set-backs, we keep on praying.

“My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you peace and prosperity. Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
Proverbs 3:1-6 NIV

Even a twisted path can lead us straight to God.

Taken for granted

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You might not think that getting one’s Wisdom Teeth pulled would be a terribly significant moment in one’s life but, like learning to ride a bike and high school graduation ceremonies, it’s kind of one of those things that everyone has done.

Or at least they did, pre-COVID19. Now many things that we took for granted have become giant hassles; but judging from the photo at the top of this post, we’ve proven that graduation ceremonies can be flexible!

Just as with commencement, it’s even possible to get Wisdom Teeth removed in this new era, though it is a bit more of an adventure including having temperatures taken and waiting out in the parking lot in 95 degrees instead of in the nicely air-conditioned waiting room.

Our middle child, Katie, had her Wisdom Teeth removed last week. Yep, a week after the rite of passage of graduation, she experienced the rite of passage of Wisdom Tooth removal. Four others of her friends, as it turns out, either got theirs pulled last week or will this week or next.

It’s the thing all the cool kids are doing right now.

Katie’s recovery has gone well and all of the ice cream, pudding, Jello and applesauce that she bought (note to self: give your kid a budget next time you send them out ((the day before their surgery)) for post-Wisdom-Tooth grocery shopping) has proven itself useful. In fact, I think that all of us have partaken of at least a pudding or two.

The last time that Katie had any sort of tooth situation, she’d fallen off of her bike, age 9, and chipped not just one but both of her permanent front teeth. The drama of this current dental situation was much lower – though also much more expensive – than that one. This drama was limited to the drive home afterwards and the wait in the pharmacy parking lot, when she asked us, “Why did they put a cardboard box in my mouth?” and then asked, “Isn’t it over? Why can’t I take it out now?”

She also was quite concerned about her spit.

“When do I get my spit back?” she asked. “My spit’s playing hide and seek. Did they replace it with glue? That’s super mean. I want my old spit back, please. Did they charge you extra for the glue spit?”

There was no break in this conversation. Just one thought after the next. And then, when I told her I wasn’t sure about the charge for the glue spit, she replied, “Let’s ask Dad. Oh, here he comes,” she said then, seeing him outside the car window as he approached from the pharmacy. “Maybe he has my spit injections.”

Her spit injections came in the form of a bottle of water – yay, Dad the hero! She dutifully took her medicine, tipped back in the passenger seat, and fell asleep for the hour-long drive home.

“Cardboard-box-mouth” notwithstanding, she came through the surgery well, and it was a relief to get home, relinquish the couch to Katie, and know that we’ll only have to go through this one more time with her little sister.

I remember when I had my Wisdom Teeth removed, in tenth grade. My doctor’s name was Dr. Shock. That’s a hard name to forget, for a doctor. My husband had his out a couple of years after we got married. Our son had his out three years ago. Like I said, it’s just a thing you do. A thing you take for granted.

But in this COVID19 world, nothing can be taken for granted any longer and that brings me to my point. Our church is opening this week. After three months, we can go to church! We’ll socially distance ourselves, we’ll bring masks, we won’t being singing, but we’ll be there. Together.

It is true that the church is not a building. It is God’s people. And I will be happy, indeed, to see those people again.

I pray that I won’t, in six months, or six years, take the opportunity to attend church for granted. I probably will. But I hope that I won’t. I hope that I will appreciate all that going to church gives me. And that, when I walk in its doors this Sunday morning, I will thank God, as never before, for the gift of my church family.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20,21 NIV

 

Unexpected Blessings

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On a chilly morning early one spring, seconds after I waved good-bye to my husband and kids on their way to work and school, I received a text from my son.

“Pls get pics of moon! Dad says good camera not phone.”

“Oh, that’s right,” I thought, glancing out the window, “There’s an eclipse. And a blood moon to boot, whatever that means.”

Before I had time to remember what, exactly, that did mean, I received another text.

“Hurry! Setting.”

“Okay, okay,” I muttered – and texted – my reply. So while the moon proceeded on its downward course, I shoved on my shoes, decided I didn’t need a coat as it didn’t seem too cold, grabbed the good camera (decided to bring my phone along too), opened the door – ran back upstairs for the tripod – and then, slamming the door behind me, trotted over to the west side of the yard.

For several seconds I struggled to attach the camera to the tripod, but it was dark and I couldn’t get it. I finally gave up as the moon wasn’t stopping to wait for me, hopped for a steady hand, and began shooting pictures.

They turned out okay. Mostly it was neat just seeing the tail end of the eclipse in person without a viewfinder in the way.

Finally, feeling a little chilly and in need of some coffee, I picked up my gear and headed back to the front door. I turned the doorknob.

And discovered that the door was locked.

In the nine years of living in this house, this had never happened before. Optimistically, I tried all the doors – knowing full-well that they were locked too. Finally I sat down on the kitty house – the only dry spot on the deck owing to a light rain in the night – and sent a text to my husband.

After that I looked around the deck and felt the chill of the morning begin to sink in. I gazed longingly through the sliding glass door at the news, blaring away to an empty and warm house so close…and yet unreachable.

Seeing that only made me feel colder.

I checked my phone weather app. It was 39 degrees. I shivered and gazed around in growing despair. I had a moment right then. I could sit there and find things to complain about…or I could enjoy myself.

For a few moments I couldn’t decide which direction to choose – the way of self-pity or the way of hope. I looked around for the cats, feeling like their warmth might help me decide.

“Why do they always turn up underfoot when you don’t need them and when you do want a warm cat on your lap they’re nowhere to be seen?” I think I actually said this out loud.

Finally, I decided that cats or no cats, misery was dumb.

Then Colin texted that he’d be there as soon as he could. Okay. Awesome. I can do this.

I stood up and began walking around, snapping photos of frost on the grass and listening to the early-morning sounds. Cows in the field. Twittering birds. A Pheasant. Then a whole flock of ducks flew overhead, the sound of the wind through their wings filling the air.

I looked around my yard, across the street to the fields of corn, up at the blue, blue, sky. And I began to pray.

“Thanks that it’s not windy, God. That would have made this time pretty unbearable. As it is, it’s not so bad. Thanks that I grabbed my phone on my way out the door. Thanks for technology that can bring Colin back to rescue me without my having to walk a quarter mile to my neighbors in my pajamas. Thanks that Colin is not out of town like he was supposed to be this week. Thanks for the sounds, and scents, and beauty of this morning.”

I heard a car approach, heard it slow down. The garage door opened. One of the cats appeared.

I was saved.

But, really, I had been blessed already.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”