He Hears Even Now

 THIS, my friends.  THIS. 

Yesterday whipped me- Mom went from making progress to the ICU to having blood clots on her lungs and being put on a ventilator and life-flighted to a different, larger hospital all in a single day.  

It was the darkest of days for me and left me feeling very defeated.   

And then the Lord gave this message to me and I needed it SO BAD. 

(I've listened to it twice since then too.)

Maybe you need to hear it too?   

Thank you to all those who have commented here and who are praying on my Mom's behalf.   Your comments and prayers mean so much to me...I cannot thank you enough.

What Do You Do When Your Heart Is Breaking

Moses made this bouquet all by himself (except for the additional of a few extra marigolds) while saying "Nonny.  Nonny."

You make flower bouquets.   And pray.  And get lost in your thoughts.  And are utterly incapable of keeping your mind from going back to those dark places of fear.

My Mom is currently fighting for her life in a hospital due to complications from C0vid and she is doing so utterly alone.  She has been in for almost a whole week with no visitors allowed until yesterday and is getting progressively worse.  Communication is hard for her so we are all left with a few short texts every now and again...and a whole lot of blank space to fill with worry and fear.

Unable to go to her in body, I determined to fill up her hospital room with flowers.  Will the orange and red zinnias remind her of Oma?  Will the smell of lemon verbena bring life to a dreadful day?  Will the pineapple sage mask the smell of the hospital?  Will the marigolds brighten her spirits- she has always loved marigolds.  Is she so sick it won't matter?   It was for me too... a tangible thing to do when praying is constant but fingers itch to do some outworking. 

I delivered them to the hospital and turned around and left a Mother I couldn't see.  

I could tell you about giants and how God can overcome them.  That His plans are to do good to us and not harm.  I tell myself this every moment.

I could tell you that God is faithful to His people and hears and answers prayers,  I remind myself of this too.

I could wax poetic about how our God is the God who shuts lions' mouths and saves people from fiery furnaces...nothing is impossible with God.  I know this is true.

But as I say these truths on repeat to myself throughout the day and into each fitful night, the next moment I remember that sometimes God answers prayers with NO.  That 'our good' may mean in this case for Mom to go to Heaven to be with Him.  And that His mercies may not include longer life here on a pain and sin-riddled world, but to leave it for something far greater.

I am trying to get to the place where I can pray "Thy will be done" without the extra "but please Lord, let thy will be HEALING!"

I haven't gotten there yet.  

Any prayers you would join me in praying would be so appreciated!

Enduring Summer

Kudos to Adele' who took this lovely shot

Summer Bible Reading Challenge is done-
I started a few weeks late which goes to show you- you don't need to worry about being behind. The mantra is... if you read today, you are NOT behind. 

I love that.

If you want to be on the same page, reading the Word with many thousands of other Christians, I invite you to partcipate in the To The Word bible reading challenge!  I am going to read only the Old Testament readings for this challenge as the summer reading program is all New Testament readings.  Both Old and New Testament at once is a bit too intensive and time consuming for me.  But, with both summer and fall/winter readings completed, I still read the entire Bible in a year.  And that makes me happy.

Cats have no respect for art.

Like father, like son

Can you see the difference between the red potatoes and the dusty potatoes in the large bushel basket?  That is the difference between planting potatoes in dirt or in hay.  Hay grown potatoes are SO CLEAN and pretty!  I hope we can do all our potatoes in hay next year.

We have yet to start homeschooling which is not terribly unusual since I am usually canning like a crazy woman right now, but with the absence of abundant crops, I don't have that excuse.  Frankly, I think that my head is just not in the game.  I don't feel ready to begin.  I haven't done all (any) of the necessary preliminary work that is required before starting a new school year (at least one in which I feel somewhat prepared).  

Instead, I have had an overwhelming need to reorganize and restructure my life totally outside the realm of schooling.   Each day I find some thing to organize that has just gotten out of control.  The sad part is that these are all things that no one notices... the bookshelves.  The school shelves.  The filing cabinet.  The toybox.  The cubby at the top of the stairs.  The places that you just close the door on or drop the lid on when you are done and the transformation from pandemonium to pristine is totally unnoticed by everyone other than myself.  Basically, zero satisfaction or WOW factor.    

I am working each day...and yet, things don't really look any different on the surface.  I wonder what Matt thinks I do all day. Now that I went through all the school books and old papers from last year and the house seems less overwhelmingly disheveled in all the hidden places, I am hopeful that I can put my time and attention on the new school year.  Meanwhile, I hear no children complaining.  ;-)

The corn is dead and brown in the garden waiting to be gathered for porch decorations, there is a certain crispness in the air, pumpkins are piled up in roadside stands and among mottled leaves in our yard, leaves are beginning to dance and blush and everyone seems to be getting in the spirit of things.

 Except me.

I will embrace fall with all that I am and have once the frost kills everything dead.  Give me candles and cornstalks and pumpkins and browns and golds and oranges then.

But as long as I have colorful zinnias swaying in the garden,  it is still very much summer.

Surreal

It is a surreal feeling, to be taking senior pictures of my baby girl.  

But here I am doing it!

She is confident, she is smart, she is wise, she is good.  She is clever, she is witty, she is kind.

An all around beauty.

I won't think about how quickly these last 18 years have gone.  

I won't think about how old I am to have a graduate on my hands.  

I won't think about all I have to do for her graduation party this weekend.  

I won't think about how fast the days of her being at home will slip through my fingers...

I won't think about anything except how proud I am of who she is and how grateful I am that God gave her to us.

One of the things I love most...

She can be elegant.  She can be artsy.

She can be good 'ole country girl and also a little bit ghetto.

One thing she can't be...is put in a box.