wocket in my pocket

Today I had a chance to ride with a friend to an old fashioned Mennonite hymn singing. There was one song especially that clutched me by the heart, and when my friend showed me a short story about its origins, I decided to look it up and pass it on to you.

Carolina (Lina) Sandell wrote this hymn in 1865. This was just a few years after a deeply personal tragedy, where she had witnessed the drowning death of her father. The number is not exact, but it is believed that she wrote around 2000 hymns in her lifetime, among them the equally beloved “Children of the Heavenly Father.”

I have been listening to “Day by Day” again, letting those truths soak into my being.

This post is about believing that the things we do today matter. Really. Nobody wants to come to the end of their lives and look back only to see that they invested in vanity and what is left will burn up like a pile of dry leaves.

(I received some advice recently, to choose an audience and not try to be politically correct for everybody who might read my stuff,  which is something I tend to do. I take a stand on my housewifely platform with pride and hope you all are kind enough to understand… teeters off… continues writing…)

We need courage when life crowds in with so much ordinary that feels pointless.  Ever have a sick day or two where you couldn’t stir to keep house?  I mean, “keep” does not mean “to hold” in this context, although we often act like it should mean that. “I can’t believe how dirty this floor is again,” we mutter to ourselves. “Why does nobody else seem to notice that the trash can is overflowing? and didn’t I just clean that window yesterday?? and while I am talking anyway, who left their crayons on the floor???”

If we look at “keep” as “to keep the children happy,” or “to maintain with care and labor” or even simply “to keep in usable condition” if helps relieve that feeling that the floor is doomed, no matter how often we mop it. We tend to resent the life-on-a-loop responsibilities that are inevitable when we choose homemaking as a career. It doesn’t seem like a big deal and it would be nice to feel important for a change. Well. Just for a minute imagine that every person in the world who does anything mundane in their life goes on strike for a day. Just for 24 hours they refuse to do anything except glittery stuff. Do you suppose there might be glory missing from the world? That’s right. Glory. 

I did a bit of paraphrasing from Hebrews 12 to infuse some courage into our housewifely hearts. This is a big deal and we should lift our heads and tackle it life the challenge of a lifetime. Because it is. This is what the passage in Hebrews 12 speaks to me, and maybe to you too.

Whether you know it or not, there is a huge cloud of people surrounding you, watching your life of faith. They are your cheering section, and they have already lived through the same stuff you are slogging through. Listen to them. They are saying, “You can make it! Look up! Chuck off the weights and RUN! It takes a lot of endurance in this marathon, a lot of dishes, a lot of drinks of water, and a whole ton of kindnesses that nobody really seems to notice unless you quit doing them. You will make it to the end, but you can’t pity yourself and quit.”

When you lift your eyes up from stray toys and dirty boots littered on your path, and do what they say, look to Jesus, you notice something incredible. He endured this race on earth too! He got tired too! There is no shame in weariness. Jesus himself had to dig deep to keep running. The joy at the finish line will be yours because that little spark of faith He gave you?.. He will keep it glowing and strengthen you.

It matters. What you do for your husband, your children, your friends, even for your enemies, matters. Believe it. Feel the relief that it may be a slogging run sometimes, but it is His work and He knows exactly the way that the race is on. The stump around the bend that you are supposed to leap over? It is not a surprise to Him. In fact, if you must know, He put it there.

Don’t be unmanned by hurdles or by His discipline. This just means you are a beloved child and He is training you for the stamina that is required for the long haul. Lift your drooping hands and strengthen your feeble knees by daily exercise. Don’t quit because it is hard! You are nearer than you know and His grace is making you stronger than you have any idea.

See? You are within sight of Mt Zion, the city of God and all those angels in festal gathering, just waiting to welcome you. You are one of the righteous made perfect through a rigorous regimen of daily ordinary training in faithfulness.

You represent a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Keep moving forward!

Ever notice how you can hear things through your own filter that others may not notice through theirs? Your husband can remark, “The door is open,” and the child standing right there on the mat thinks he is commenting about a normal occurrence; the oldest child across the room is sure he is issuing a command to the one on the mat; you figure he is thinking about the heating bill and quickly go shut the door before you help the child on the mat take off her boots.

I have heard God speak to me in a church service, and later when I try to recount what it was, I realize that it isn’t even really what the preacher said, and yet it was exactly what I needed at the moment, even though nobody else may have heard that.

This morning my mind grasped onto a phrase in the old-fashioned hymn “Marching to Zion” that I have sung many times. “We’re marching through Immanuel’s ground…” I wondered what the author meant. Considering that “Immanuel” means “God with us”, it blessed me to remember that the ground I walk is ground He already walked and He is there ahead of me.

In the Sunday school lesson we read the story in Luke where the servant does what his master expects and it is simply his duty, even when it is thankless tasks. It’s a picture that messes with our Western sensibilities of fairness, and I thought about how full of myself I am sometimes, feeling that I am doing God such favors.

The message was on Hope, that power that propels us forward through the mess and darkness we live in. This was especially heartening after the powerpoint presentation of the world so full of refugees and hopelessness.

The friends I visited with after the service described the exact same feelings I get of being stagnant in my house and desperately needing inspiration for freshness.

It all downloaded seamlessly to where I am right now, even though I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you are scratching your heads, going “Huh?”. (I have embraced the typical spaghetti brain of the female, and lucky me, my husband is an awesome listener. 😀 )

When Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled,” He gave us just one simple criteria for being blessed. Be hungry and thirsty. He can do the filling in all sorts of ways, through songs or sermons or panoramic views or words from your own little children. He called His Spirit the Comforter for a reason.

It’s my opinion that getting out of bed on Sunday, getting dressed, and going to a place where other Christ-followers have gathered is a very tangible way of saying, “Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.”

(pexel free photo)

What did you hear today?

Last summer I grew a new variety of corn for grinding into meal. It’s an heirloom variety called Bloody Butcher dent corn; the stalks were amazing, about 11 feet tall and the cobs were dark red. Only recently we shelled the corncobs that we managed to salvage from the squirrels. The kernals looked so pretty in their glass jar in storage, but they were decorative until I ground them into meal. Today for lunch we fried cornmeal mush to eat with eggs, and it tasted amazingly fresh, nourishing. (Buttery too. All THM folks may need to look away for a bit because it was a glorious mix of E and S.)

In my head I sometimes wish that the daily grind would be just pleasant aromas of coffee. I thought about this when I cooked that cornmeal. It wasn’t so pretty anymore, greyish with sprinkles of red, but it was in a form that has the potential to grow sturdy children and strengthen starving people anywhere in the world. That’s why we grew corn.

I would rather have life-giving qualities than pointless shelf life in a pretty jar, wouldn’t you? There are some relevant quotes that I copied a long time ago. Both were written by George Mueller. I think he knew what he was talking about.

“Self-denial…

      not so much an impoverishment

      as a postponement:

We make a sacrifice of a present good

      for the sake of a future and greater good.

Whatever be done…

      in the way of giving up, 

      or self-denial,

      or deadness to the world,

      should result from the joy we have in God.”

This second quote has ministered to me when I felt like I was pouring love and training and mercy into a child, yet the need wasn’t going away and the results were not instant like I wished. Why weren’t the prayers working, like they seem to for other people?

“One of the great secrets

in connection to successful service for the Lord

it to work as if everything depended

upon our diligence,

and yet not to rest in the least

upon our exertions,

but upon the blessing of the Lord.”

I need that restful place to live and work. No, I don’t get to quit my job and “just let God do it”. He expects me to keep on, to endure to the end. But He is really doing the work, and that is where the JOY comes in.

How my measly few kernals get ground into powder and turned into a source of life for others is His business, not mine.

All I have to do is submit myself to the grinding.

I looked at my list of the events of yesterday long and hard before I posted them. It was all true. The events actually happened, and they even looked neatly compartmentalized. So why, I asked myself, do my days feel so chaotic so often? Why don’t I feel like the dance is elegant? What was missing in the listing?

Ah, the feelings. Yes, the days are event-full. It’s one thing after another, “Just do the next thing“, which is the probably the most valuable lesson Elisabeth Elliot ever taught me. The thing that poses the challenge, though, is the feelings. Faithfulness does not depend on them, thank God! Neither does effectiveness. Actually, they don’t really matter all that much in the grand scheme of things.

Think about the people Jesus commended for living their faith in Matthew 25. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

1. For I was hungry and you gave me food,
2. I was thirsty and you gave me drink,
3. I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
4. I was naked and you clothed me,
5. I was sick and you visited me,
6. I was in prison and you came to me.’

 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?  And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

This sounds so simplistic, but it has helped me a lot to deal with the repetition of life as a homemaker/mother to settle in my heart that my feelings are not what matters. It isn’t about me at all. Oooh, ouch.

Yesterday I woke up and felt hurried because it was later than usual. I felt kind of bothered until we had breakfast over. I got interrupted by questions about 15 times during the course of the school day. The pencils dropped on the floor with annoying predictability. Olivia and the dictionary were not getting along amiably at all, and her frustration seeped over me. I dislike ironing and mending when I stop to think about it. When it was time to go for a guitar lesson, my son was in the barn and couldn’t hear me calling him. A few people at the supper table smelled like goats.

I felt good things too. Gregory’s poem, the perfect cursive “D”, the feeling that algebra is connecting in our heads, gratefulness to have my husband home in the middle of the week, the quiet hour of chatting with a dear friend, the scent of clean laundry, the symmetry of rows of brown eggs in boxes, sharing a love of reading aloud.

It all mashes together in an ordinary day, and I no longer gauge the success or failure of a day by how I feel at the end of it. Well, sometimes I do. I am not that far above the tumult yet,  🙂 but I take heart in offering it all to Jesus.

“This is my worship, Jesus. This meal, maybe just this cold cereal… I offer it to my people because I love them and I love you. If a pack of flashcards and the timer can bring you glory, then here they are. This squabble I settle because I value peace and You love peace. Please, redeem this mess that I made with my impatience. Forgive my stinging words and give me humility to apologize to my children. Help me to move on in grace.

This day with its imperfect beauty is for You, Jesus. I will give it everything I have, and depend on You when I don’t reach around and I simply don’t feel it. Please, will you accept my homely gifts?”

He has never told me that it’s not enough.

(source)