Our friends in Haiti are waiting for adoption papers. I meet people at work every week who are waiting on housing or to get their kids back from social services. Some of us are waiting to hear from God after what feels like years of silence. The Jews waited for centuries on the Messiah. CENTURIES of blood sacrifice and trying to obey the Law. (I’m reading Leviticus.) Our son is waiting for the perfect puppy. We wait and pray for God to work in the hearts of those we love. Or for them to respond to His work. When His followers said goodbye to Jesus, a lot of them thought they’d have to wait till the resurrection of all people to see Him again.
I’m not a patient waiter. I want to talk things out, figure out solutions, and get problems behind me. Dan has taught me a lot about waiting and sometimes it drives me to tears that I have to wait yet again on an answer or clarity or the assurance that we should move forward.
And the hardest part of all? Waiting when you know there will be no answers this side of heaven.
My prayer is that we could live in joyful and peaceful expectation, willing to move, but also willing to wait. Ugh it’s hard.
This is a light and momentary wait… But one thing I’m so excited about is a new body. Straight white teeth. Thick, gorgeous curls. No need for medication or supplements or gruelling exercise. No aching shoulders. No heel blisters from boots that aren’t quite right.
And I can’t wait for “justice to roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
Or to see Jesus’s face and the scars that saved the world.
I’ve been kind of a noisy blogger the last while. I’m not sure what this is due to, but I’m sure life will slow down and I’ll get quiet again.
This past weekend Dan and I made a quick trip to Francis Lake, in the mountain and lake country of British Columbia. There is a little church there that he spoke for on Sunday morning.
We stayed in Sherwin and Linda Martin’s gorgeous guest home. I really can’t describe the beauty of it. But here are a few pictures.
This was my morning diary, entry, recounting yesterday, March 17.
“It was a lovely morning at Francis Lake guesthouse with the sun hitting the mountains, espresso with cream, yogurt parfaits, and just hanging out with Dan while he studied for his sermon.
Church was nice too. Lovely ladies in springy dresses, cute baby girls, a good Sunday school discussion. Dan preached on “Forward With a Vision” for a little church group facing an ordination in two weeks.
We’d practiced singing ‘Lord, You Have Come to the Lakeshore’ in the morning at the guest house and it was going okay. Nothing spectacular. But it went with Dan’s sermon. (The girls at our church sang it a few Sundays ago and Lindsay sang a solo that nearly moved me to tears. She recently made a choice to follow Jesus and it was so meaningful.)
But yesterday when I joined Dan up front to sing, my voice simply gave out on certain notes. And what did come out sounded horridly off key. We struggled through anyhow.
It was the weirdest thing. I wasn’t really nervous, and the audience faces were smiling and accepting and hopeful. Also, I had prayed that the little song we offered would draw attention to the Lord Jesus and not us. And it felt like my voice not obeying what I willed it to do did exactly the opposite. And there was Jony Dyck’s phone, right on the podium in front of us, recording every sad note. Ugh. U.G.H.
The only lesson I could figure out from the experience was learning humility. Once again. I seem to need that lesson over and over.
They had coffee and scones after church and we went to lunch at the cutest couple’s house, where they served us meatballs and potato casserole and corn chip salad and rolls and peanut butter bars.
Then we headed home. We talked of many things through the mountain wilderness, took pictures of the sky, and ate apples.”
1 Lord, you have come to the lakeshore looking neither for wealthy nor wise ones; you only asked me to follow humbly.
Chorus O Lord, with your eyes you have searched me, and while smiling have spoken my name; now my boat’s left on the shoreline behind me; by your side I will seek other seas.
2 You know so well my possessions; my boat carries no gold and no weapons; you will find there my nets and labor.
3 You need my hands, full of caring through my labors to give others rest, and constant love that keeps on loving.
4 You, who have fished other oceans, ever longed for by souls who are waiting, my loving friend, as thus you call me.
Once in a while you score with a bouquet and the roses fade so beautifully you just can’t throw them away for a while. I feel like there’s a lesson here about how I want to age. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what kind of person I’ll be as an older-yet-woman and also the legacy I want to leave when I die. Heavy stuff, but also so good to think about. I’m reading Exodus right now and I actually really want to be like Moses. Not leading people out of Egypt literally (horrors)… but meek, an interceder, wise, hearing from God. He’s one of my favourites. The juxtaposition of this wish and my penchant for shoes and sweaters and bickering, struggle with comparison and competitiveness, weaknesses when it comes to wasting time, and people pleasing tendencies make me think again about how I will actually be remembered.
Goodness, that’s a lot to think about on this Saturday morning with pink wisps in the western sky we can see from our living room window, a pickup to vacuum, mud and sawdust to clean up, and a weekend preaching trip to take with Dan to Francis Lake, BC.
Guess I’ll go comb my grey hair and get on with it.
and posed with another Lucy Martin in a picturesque church in Baden.
We told stories, laughed, and cried with the ladies at Oasis Mennonite Church at a little day retreat,
drank fancy coffees made by pretty girls who looked like they were 25, but had children at home,
ate pretty cupcakes,
and took pictures of buggies.
We ate corn salad and sausages and played Apples to Apples with the Jantzis.
My kind and generous hostess Danette took me to a beautiful little Mennonite cafe with a good breakfast bowl and friendly veiled waitresses.
Later we tramped through a maple forest to a quaint cabin and traded boots when we got blisters.
I had coffee in the sweetest shop in Stratford with the warm and smiley Brenda, walked with her beside the Avon River,
and ate delicious Indian food with the nicest Connie you can imagine.
Then we got Starbucks and boarded a plane.
Not pictured: me talking Danette and her husband Ken’s ears off because they asked such good questions and listened so well, speaking jitters, post speaking angst, Oasis church on a Sunday morning, driving a strange van in a snowstorm, visiting the apple retail store on Martin’s Apple farm, with everything from apple lip balm to apple mugs, more tea, conversation, and friendship than any woman could ask for, little Old Order Mennonite children at recess time, “in east” versus “out west” discussions, and prayers prayed. Thank you, God. And thank you, Waterloo. You were such a treat.
I planned to spend it in reflection and time with God and preparing for an assignment I have coming up, which I will tell you about later.
Instead, I frittered it away, scratching out some words, scrolling through social media, taking a very short walk in the bitter wind, taking a nap, drinking tea.
The one accomplishment of the day was cleaning the plant room better than I do some weeks, plucking away many dead leaves, and just sprucing things up in general.
A difficult thing this time of year is that the geraniums are putting out long, gangly vines with big, beautiful blossoms on the ends, and I need to keep them snipped back so they’re happy and bushy when I put them out in the spring. When you are used to long winters, it goes against everything in you to remove blossoms from plants.
But I got brave and hardhearted and snipped them off, then made a quick bouquet.
Dan made beef ribs for supper and I struggled with the gristliness of them. The flavour of the spices he used and the Montana’s barbecue sauce were very good, though.
We had our friend Lorne for supper and the guys talked about drywalling tools (Alec is around) and looked at maps on their phones of places that only guys know about back in the remote bushland where the loggers make their living.
I did more scrolling when I should have read my book and got just plain discouraged by reading the instagram site of a Christian woman in ministry who has a beautiful face and bleached hair and a pretty voice and knockout smile and a husband who twirls her around for reels and kids who make tools from scratch and a fabulous house and successful ministry.
Usually I just don’t go there and I’m fine. But having just written in my journal that I was feeling ugly, unspiritual, unmotivated, and uninspired, I of course I had to rub hot sauce into my spiritual eyes and feel even worse.
Then I went to prepare the coffee pot for tomorrow morning and the coffee can lid wasn’t closed tightly, so I spilled coffee grounds in the high cupboard above the stove, down onto the microwave below it, down beside the microwave onto the salt and pepper shakers. Down, down, into the propane burners on the stove.
I almost looked the other way and left the mess till tomorrow, but my mom’s face peered over my shoulder and I got the vacuum cleaner out and cleaned up the mess.
Praise the Lord, I don’t have to face it tomorrow morning.
I made some Sleepytime tea in my “Courage Dear Heart” mug and had a bath and thought about how I kind of want to write and kind of don’t.
Now I’m typing this out on my phone and my reading glasses really need cleaned. I’m not picky about a lot of things, but I Cannot Stand smudgy glasses.
Now I sound like a whiner, which is what the blonde instagram ministry lady with the husband who twirls her probably never is.
I’ve been thinking about how I’ve chosen to live my life with an (albeit relatively small compared to the twirly husband lady) audience because I write a lot of things. And I wonder why and if I’m doing it for the glory of God.
I want to. I want to more than anything. I want to be that good and faithful servant and enter into the joy of my Lord.
But sometimes I’m just tired and unproductive and so selfish. And instead of dreamy lighting I work under harsh fluorescent lights at a not very fancy thrift store, with and for people like myself who aren’t fancy at all.
And I think about a quote I’ve been liking that says, “I recover out loud so that people who suffer in silence can see the threads of hope woven among those of pain.”
Not to equate coffee grounds and smudgy glasses with true pain. And the instagram lady of dreamy lighting has pain too. We all do.
But I guess if you’re feeling inadequate and unattractive, I’m just saying, “Take courage, dear heart.”
Now it’s time for me to get my almost 50 year old bones to bed.
My friend Cristy and her husband have their first anniversary today and I nabbed this picture from her instagram story today with her permission because I love it.
It really doesn’t fit this post, but I’ll just add in incongruous to my list of journal words.
Just sitting here remembering new puppies and zinnias at golden hour and thanking God for a husband who orders seeds in time for the early discount, researches recipes and roasts the best beef, and loves all people, plants, and animals.
I’m thankful for children who empty the dishwasher, call home often, and love me even though I never call them by their right name the first time.
I’m thankful for sisters who are my best friends.
I’m thankful for friends who forgive my faults and inconsistencies, believe in me, and read my blog.
I love Valentine’s Day, but not just because of romantic love. Awesome as it is, it is never an end in itself.
Love for God and the whole broken world transcend it immeasurably in width and depth and height. They last into forever.
The grocery haul in the last post came to $254.56. Faith Yoder, yours was the closest guess at $250. You win the cards.
I know we all bemoan how expensive groceries are. (And it does feel ridiculous some days.) But I always tell my mom when she worries about how much we have to spend that we make more than we used to and that is how inflation works.
I’m curious if a lot of you are struggling because of high grocery costs. This might not be the place to say it if you don’t want to, but I do wonder.
On a different note, we love this plaque that was donated to Networks and we won’t be getting rid of it anytime soon. Note my note in the bottom right hand corner. It totally fits the fun and good natured joking that happens at work.
I got some brussel sprouts that were given out at work today.
What is your favourite way to eat brussel sprouts?
Today I documented a lot of the things I did on instagram stories. Except for the people and jobs at Networks Ministries, which was actually the bulk of my day. If such things interest you, stick with me for a few photos and commentary.
Here I will insert: from the first 8 of you who comment on the blog with a guess at what these groceries cost, I will send two hand painted cards to the person who is closest to the amount I paid for these groceries. Just for fun. 😊 Reminder: the comment must be on the blog, not Facebook.
This morning, February 3: I had a large cup of coffee from the Keurig And looked over notes for a testimony I’m sharing. I read a lot about how prophecy is superior to tongues in 1 Corinthians And struggled through writing a short bio about myself. (How to not be dull and predictable, how not to sound stuck on myself, how to convey the essence of one’s being in a few words, few words not being my talent.) I think it would be a good exercise for all of us. In fact, I’m giving it to you right now. Answer the question “Who Am I, Really?” in under 100 words. Share it here or write it in your journal or email it to me at dugoutwillow@gmail.com. Or don’t do it at all and miss the introspection, which is what most of you will choose. And I don’t blame you. I ain’t no teacher and you don’t owe me nothin’. I’ve been thinking about how annoying it must be for me to ask for feedback on a lot of my posts. Sometimes you just Are Not in the mood for responding to someone. So I hope you never sigh and feel obligated.
There are a lot of squashes in the sunroom that need to be used and there’s a butternut one on the table to remind me that I should bake it this evening. There’s a snake plant that needs to be divided and potted so it can be shared with a friend. There’s a book to read and one to listen to. There’s dried mud to vacuum from porch mats and meatball chowder to make for a fellowship meal tomorrow. There’s a walk to take in the sunshine and a bouquet to throw out, Kids to listen to, feed, and guide in meaningful work, And a nice husband to vacuum sawdust for. My life feels narrow and easy and happy compared to what some of you are facing today. May I pray for you while I clean?
three green doors 