A tree for the season

On Friday, Dave, Tim and Nikki set out on the annual tree-hunting expedition. This was the first time Nikki has hunted for and cut down a mountain tree, and she was really excited to experience it!

There was freshly fallen snow in the Jemez, and the weather was brisk but beautiful!







Here are the intrepid adventurers with their find.









The guys lugged it through the woods.










They loaded it on the truck.









And returned through the lovely Southern Rockies to our home. Stay tuned for some photos of the decorating fun!

Thanksgiving fun

Yesterday morning, we met up with my brother-in-law Kirk, and Tim and Nikki, at a rainy and cold park in Albuquerque, where they all ran a race and I cheered them on. It was cold and soggy, but fun, and both Tim and Dave won their age categories.

After that we drove up to Edgewood in the East mountains, and enjoyed a feast at my sister Gwen's house. We played Wii and Yatzee, watched Miracle on 34th Street, and ate lots of delicious food. It was a great time with family!

And though there was threatening weather all around us, we made it home safely and enjoyed the late evening with Tim and Nikki. So even out Thanksgiving Day brought many things to be thankful for.

On the docket for today: Dave and the kids are up int he mountains hunting for a Christmas tree. Photos and updates on that soon!

Some things I'm thankful for

I am truly thankful for many things in this season. After about 6 months of treatment, I am currently without breast cancer. What an amazing God we serve! And here are just a few of the things I am most thankful for...

We have many good far-away friends, who have blessed us and made us so thankful. Here is a representative photo of our friends the Lawrences. They left us for Maryland, and the hole they leave can never be filled. But we long for the times we can spend together, and for the time in heaven when we are together before the throne of God forever! That's something to be thankful for!


And our local friends and church family are a continual source of blessing. Here we are with our friends Kendall and Kris Hollis, and Robert and Kelley Baer at a recent concert with our friend Jim (see more about Jim below.).



My parents are healthy and well, have quit smoking after decades, and are enjoying their retirement nearby. Here they pictured with our friend Jim Fielder (of former Blood, Sweat and Tears fame, who now plays with Neil Sedaka), who got them tickets to a recent concert he was performing in here. They are a joy and a blessing to have here.

This last year I have gained two wonderful daughters-in-law. This has been such a tremendous blessing to me! I will get to see Nikki for Thanksgiving, along with Tim and my parents and my sister Gwen and her family) which is a wonderful blessing, and Ben and Elsa will also join us for Christmas. As I was speaking to Elsa on the phone this week, and sharing our plans for Thanksgiving, she said, "Well, I'm jealous of Nikki because she gets to spend more time with you now that they are in Tucson." Can you imagine a daughter-in-law saying a sweeter or nicer thing? My cup is over-flowing! I am rich in God's blessings when it comes to my children and their spouses!


So, I am grateful to God for my husband and family, my church family, my friends, and mostly, my savior, Jesus. He continues to carry me, and make a way for me all the way to heaven. What's not to be thankful for?!

In the instant of waking

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."
~ Anne Bradstreet

At church on Sunday, no less than 5 different, dear friends asked if I felt well, since I looked so tired. Yes, I feel well, but I am very tired. I had somehow hoped it didn't show so much how very weary I still am. But it does, and who better to notice than my brothers and sisters in Christ?

I need to pull out my old friend Henry Scudder and review his pointers for starting the day with God. It seems that the mornings are toughest for me, and no matter how well the night has gone, I struggle not just to wake up, but to face the day without tears and feeling overwhelmed.

In the instant of awaking let your heart be lifted up to God with a thankful acknowledgment of his mercy to you. For it is he that giveth his beloved sleep, who keepeth you both in soul and body while you sleep, who reneweth his mercies every morning. For, while you sleep, you are, as it were, out of actual possession of yourself, and all things else. Now, it was God that kept you, and all that you had, and restored them again, with many new mercies when you awakened.
~Henry Scudder, The Christian's Daily Walk (Sprinkle Publications, 1984) p.29

So for this season, I guess I am preparing to welcome days of more energy ahead. But in the midst of this season, I need to discipline my thoughts and not allow them to run away with me and rob me of proper thankfulness to God for his mercies. So, starting again tomorrow, I will make my first thoughts of God, as the Spirit enables me.

Won't you join me?

Hope

I am not really feeling a lot better, but the last couple of days I have had the hope of feeling better, which is a decided improvement! God has been so gracious to give me rest and encouragement! Just today I had a wonderful phone call from my friend Jan who lives in France, and then found our friend Katie at my front door for an impromptu visit, watched Dave deliver a great chemistry class, and had a wonderful conversations with several friends and one of my daughter-in-laws. What a blessing these things were! I didn't get much rest in, however, so now I am tired, but tired in a hopeful, grateful way. I was reminded of the riches found in Romans Chapter 8, especially verses 22-24:

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Hope that is seen is no hope at all. So not seeing something has a hidden blessing attached: the hope that it will come. God is good to give us hope.

I rise again

I have said before here that this would seem to be a season of death and disease in our lives. And so it continues, with the death of my Uncle Joe yesterday, my father's only brother, and the death of one of his cousins the day before. So, I found it poignant to find that Kris had posted the following John Donne sonnet today:

Thou hast made me, and shall Thy work decay?
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste;
I run to death, and Death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday.
I dare not move my dim eyes any way;
Despair behind, and Death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh.
Only Thou art above, and when towards Thee
By Thy leave I can look, I rise again;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one hour myself I can sustain.
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art
And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.

~John Donne, 1635

Donne was so perceptive: I run towards death, it runs towards me, despair behind and death before and terror all around. This is a season when such sentiments ring true. And yet, Donne knew the importance of fixing his gaze on Christ:

Only Thou art above, and when towards Thee
By Thy leave I can look, I rise again

What a blessing of grace that God gives us leave to fix our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. He draws us like a magnet unto Himself, and in the light of that radiance, the darkness and terrors of death lose their strength. He sustains us.

Please pray that my uncle's wife, JoAnn, and his children and grandchildren and siblings, would be so sustained and visited by God's grace.

Slow progress

Last night a friend asked me if I was noticing any progress in my health. My immediate answer was, "No." But I don't think that is strictly speaking, true. Today, for instance, I went grocery shopping by myself for the first time in a month. I have simply not been able to face doing that before now. So that must indicate some progress, right?

Slow progress is hard to deal with because it requires patience. As a young Christian, foolhardy and naive, I prayed for quite a while for patience. Well, God has been good to answer that prayer, but the progress there has been slow, too, and the lessons hard for me to learn. God has been infinitely patient with me, however.

Another prayer from early on in my Christian walk had to do with the elderly saints at our first church in Maryland, some 28 years ago. These folks had walked with Jesus for so many years that you could see Him shining through their faces. Dave and I prayed and prayed that such a thing would happen to us: that we would shine with Jesus. That has been slow progress, too. I am still hopeful that one day it will be true.

One of the things I didn't know as I prayed those earnest, early prayers, was how things like patience and Christ-likeness come about. Usually it is through suffering. If I had realized that, it would likely have cut my prayers short. Thank God, that in His providence, I was young and enthusiastic and stupid on that score. Because I prayed those prayers for years, and now God is going about answering my prayers, as He does all prayers, in the way that is best for me and will bring Him glory.

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
~2 Peter 3: 8-9