A mouthful of a day

Today started off, off, and has continued that way.

The husband stayed home sick.  The kids were informed last night right before bed that the announcement by dad that there would be no school today was really just an April Fool's trick.  This produced tears in one childand I decided we probably overdid the April Fool's stuff this year even though we all do like a good practical joke.  This morning I decided to take the boys out for a breakfast sandwich as a peace offering for yesterday's shenanigans.   A bacon-Gouda sandwich can make lots of things better.

When I got home, the husband was still passed out sick and so I set about daily tasks.  Stepping for a cup from the cupboard I plummeted through the floor in the place where there was (yesterday) a vent cover.  After a brief assessment- nothings broken, laceration butterfly-fixable- I realized I may have just pushed my leg through not only the vent but also the ceiling to the bedroom below my kitchen floor. What had begun last night, before the husband's sickness hit him, as a simple install of floor vents with one minor glitch in needing to adjust the size of the vent in the kitchen, was now going to be an enormous home-repair project.

I'm very thankful for my man's handyman-ness.  He can do many home repair and construction projects very well.  He can also be the least happy person to be around during such repairs.  I knew I had the dreaded task of informing my stuffy-head, sore-throat, headache, just-crawling-out-of-bed husband that there was a hole through the floor... through the HVAC system, because I had stepped into the vent space.  Not my favorite thing to do.

He was gracious, "Not your fault..." followed by sighs and pacing outside, followed by hours of banging, pulling, a couple fist poundings on the floor, some choice words and lots of time online doing wife-damaged-the-HVAC research.  I offered to help, but, yeah, "No thanks..."

So, trying to salvage what was left of my hope for making it a good day, I did a workout outside, some laundry, made lunch and checked in one more time to make sure there was nothing I could do.  Still nothing.

As I was sitting down to eat lunch I noticed my momma goat, Darla, outside flopping all over the ground with her tongue sticking out.  (I'm not making this up).  I just about choked on my fish taco and ran outside yelling at my husband to call the vet.  He, being the calm detective that he is, sauntered to the patio and said, "She's probably got something stuck in her mouth she'll be fine."  I, on the other hand, was in CODE BLUE mode as I approached my 2 week postpartum doe with her grey (should be pink) tongue hanging out of her mouth.  I picked her up with strength I didn't think I had and the force of my grab must have acted like a Heimlich Maneuver because she coughed a couple times, shook her head, licked her chops and nibbled at her grain like nothing ever happened.

I'm worn out by now as I sit in the Starbucks parking lot processing the day's events waiting to pick up my kiddos from school.  We'll make a trip to Barnes and Noble so the kids can browse at books while I try to return to what I began doing this morning:  chewing my cud.  I should clarify: meditating on God's word.

My world is being parable-ized by my goats.  This morning, before all the stuff hit the fan, or the floor vent as it were, I was outside in the cool air feeding my goats, talking to the little kids and watching as my buck was processing the morning's feed.  You can tell they are chewing their cud (regurgitating what's in their rumen) because their cheeks suddenly puff out a bit and their jaw starts grinding away at their mouthful.

The word for meditating in the Bible has a similar meaning.  It means to chew on God's word, to mull it over.  Think about it. Toss it around.  Think about it some more.  Pray about it. Recite it. Gather application from it. Glean more of the vista God is from it. Learn more of Christ.

It hit me this morning that I haven't been doing that much lately. I'm sort of in a rehab place spiritually. I'm doing exercises necessary to regain some strength so I can do some real heavy lifting but I've been going light on the repetition.  I need to take a verse or two and chew on it awhile.

Here's one I heard today that caught my attention:

Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! -Psalm 126:5

I've read it before, but as I brought it for more digestion today I tasted something new.

Sowing in tears is inevitable.  We Christians are on a road of sanctification.  We are being formed into the image of Christ.  Did I think the process of being formed into the image of Christ was going to be chocolate and roses?  Did I think I was greater than the Master who suffered to purchase the grace that is making me more like Him?

Grumpy husbands, broken HVAC systems, a goat-choking scare... just a minor sanding in the daily grind of shaping me to be Christlike.

I'm gonna keep chewing on this one.

 Quieted,

Sheila

Goats and Highways

Having goats is great entertainment.  I'd take a few hours out here with my goats over T.V. any day.  They're so goofy and clumsy and fun.

The momma goat, Darla, is doing a fine job for a first time mom.  She leads her kids out of the pen twice a day and runs around with them for a little exercise.  She baaas at them and they baaa back.  She sniffs their tails and nudges them in the butt when she wants them to move.  And she's very protective of them!  She's head butted Bailey, our 10 year old female Lab twice for getting a little too close.

The papa goat, aw, he's a buck.  He could care less.  He sniffs the kids a bit through the pen (we keep them and the dam together but separate from the buck) but then he sniffs just about everything.  He's a big show off chauvinist and I think he's great.  He's got himself a go tee now and stands with his head at my shoulders (I'm 5' 11").  He's a pretty tall guy.  He often stands on his back hoofs and raises his face as high up in the air as he can as though to announce that he's, "The man!"  When he does that he towers over me about a foot.  He loves to "wrestle" with the boys, including the 41 year old boy in the house.  They put their heads together and chase each other.  Duke, the buck, swings his head and knocks over a Dougal man and then the Dougal man pushes Duke and they chase each other some more.

When you've got goats, at minimum, you've got some good entertainment.

Are there highways in your heart?  I was reading Psalm 84 this morning.  Verse 5 really struck me:

O the happiness of a man whose strength is in Thee, Highways [are] in their heart. - Young's Literal Translation

There are highways in my heart.  They were pioneered by Christ.  He's gone before me and I follow His trail with the Holy Spirit as my guide.  It's not the well-worn highway of the world.  It's not a broad road either.  It's high though.  It's not the way I would naturally choose.  On this highway, that ends face to face with my living Lord, there are steep and narrow paths.  Some areas are thorny.  Many areas are dry and barren and I thirst.  And there are long valleys of weeping.  In those long, dry, hot stretches,  I remember He's gone before me.

It's a highway of the heart.  It's a pilgrimage of the inner man.  The inner me is journeying home, even though I'm sitting in Surprise, Arizona.  It's a highway of faith in Christ.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. -Hebrews 12:1-2

Where's your life going?  Is there a highway in your heart?  Or are you just adrift?  A dead fish going with the current downstream?

Quieted,

Sheila

Darla, Daylight and Daisy

I'm a goat momma! Getting to be there to watch my doe Nubian, Darla, give birth to her twin does, Daylight and Daisy, was one of my top ten life experiences for sure.

For the last couple days I've been thinking it was "the day."  By my dates she was due on March 11th.  Monday she started pawing at the ground, loosing lots of mucous (I won't go any further for queazy stomached folks) and generally acting different.  But last night I noticed one of her teats was shiny and more full than before and was pointed outward.  From what I'd read, an outward pointed teat may mean delivery is imminent.  So I slept on the couch and woke up at 1:30 to check on her.  Nothing.

When I got the boys up for school at 5:45 she was still just laying down in her pen.  But at 7am I saw her squat twice and when I went out to check on her I witnessed the breaking of a goat's amniotic sac.     I was so excited!  I ran all the way back to the house like a first time dad running for car keys when his wife says, "It's time!"

I let the boys stay home from school, partly because there was no way I was leaving my momma goat at that point to do the hour drive to get them to school and back, and partly because they really wanted to stay home and watch her give birth.  Ryland made it. He watched the whole thing quietly.  Connor saw the fluid pouring out of Darla's back end and said, "No thank you.  I'll be in the house."  But he came out right after the first doe was born and did stick around to witness the second one coming into the world.

It was just plain cool.  The whole experience.

"Daisy"

"Daylight"

Ruins of glory

We live among ruins.

More than 12 years ago, James and I went on a cruise. One of the places we visited out of Cancun, Mexico was some Mayan ruins... can't remember what it was called. When you visit a site of ruins there is intrigue and interest in what the ruins speak of. The old rock formations tell of a people and a time long gone. There was life there once...

I often find myself thinking, "We live among ruins. And glorious ruins at that." If we could just hear what the ruins of this life speak of. I think we're too enamored with the beauty and pleasures to be found in the ruins to see that they're just old rock formations, lifeless, compared to the living glory they at one time displayed, and one day, will once again display.

Today I took my boys to attend the funeral of fallen Phoenix Police Detective John Hobbs.  I didn't know Detective Hobbs or his family.  But,  because I am the wife of a detective his age, with kids his kids' age, I felt very compelled to go honor the man and support his family.

It's amazing how close we can get to truth and yet float right on past it.  I heard John Piper recently say we're like a rocket in space that comes oh so close to landing on the planet of truth in Christ yet we never actually enter the atmosphere and drift right on by.

Detective Hobbs was apparently a very honorable man and excellent police officer.  He had a reputation as a man who put his family first and apparently he also openly confessed his trust in Christ as his savior.  The pastor of his church said that Hobbs was a man who was turned off by overly "spiritual" people who professed to be Christians yet didn't walk the walk.   I think that's probably true of most honest, hard-working men in general.  They want to see the proof in the life not just the church-speak and thus are often resistant to the shallow, club-like American Christianity they are surrounded by.

The pastor also used the opportunity of a funeral to point the audience to Christ.   He mentioned that even as good of a man as Detective Hobbs was, he was still a man who needed a Savior.  He compared what Detective Hobbs did in sacrificing his own life to save the lives of his fellow officers that day, along with protecting the public, to what Christ has done for us.  He said, "Christ came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.  He said, 'Greater love has no one than this,  than to lay down one's life for his friends."

I looked around the audience at a room full of mostly men in police uniforms and prayed, "Oh Lord, don't let us come so close to the truth of our need for Christ, even looking at ruins of an example of your sacrifice to save us in the death of this officer, and leave here without landing our hearts on our need for Christ too!"

Detective Hobbs life and death was a ruin of glory.  He was a man created in the image of God yet fallen; a man with a God-ordained authority and job that speaks through the ruins of his fallen life of the God-Man who has all authority and who laid down His life to save those who trust in Him.

Quieted,

Sheila

Honestly, I'm drooping

Nine years ago I started keeping a journal which I only write in at the end of the year. The word "faith" is on the cover. It's where I write reflections on the year and my prayers and longings for the year to come.

I read through the previous years' entries. As I look back there's been an increasing intensity in my entries. They've gone from excitement in testing to discouragement, yet pressing on to look up.

In 2009 I wrote that if in the past I had felt like I was on a mountaintop "transfiguration" experience in my walk of faith in Christ, that year felt like I was walking through the valley of the shadow of death. In 2010, 11 and 12 if I had one word to describe my entries: refinement. In 2011 I wrote I felt my faith was being crushed into powder. This year, as I look back and look ahead at the race God has set before me, I hear Hebrews 12:1-17 very strongly, especially verse 12-14:

Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

I definitely feel like, spiritually, I'm drooping and weak. I feel like my feet are at a cross in the path where striving for peace runs perpendicular to striving for holiness.

I was reminded today that one of the greatest evidences in my life that something is amiss spiritually is my lack of joy. If my eyes were fixed on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of my faith, if my eyes were fixed on what He has done and what He promises to do, I would be rejoicing despite the sorrow that comes with the struggles here.

So I cry out to the One who can help me lift my drooping hands and doesn't break bent reeds. I call on the One who can restore my weak knees and doesn't put out a barely flickering flame. I seek direction from the One who would not compromise holiness or peace and therefore was stretched out at that cross in the road and died. For me.

Quieted,

Sheila