Thursday, May 30, 2013

Talking About the Uniqueness of YOU

Good morning darling!

Goodness what sort of flow of thought and purpose is with us this morning, hmm!

I was going to talk about my greenhouse (yay!) but then that paled, PALED, I tell you, in the wonder of you, of God's creation in you.  I am.....awed.

I touched on something in the previous post regarding your uniqueness.  Your specialness.

Now wait, before you say "I am not special!" let me stop you, dear one :).  Yes.  You are.

On a human level, I have observed that we all, myself included, tend to measure ourselves against others.  Many of us see someone who is {prettier, smarter, more organized, richer, more popular, more talented, more, more more} than us and think "Well, that's it.  I am not as much as they are, so I am just sort of average, nothing special".

Do you think that way?  Do you sort of consider yourself just another drop of water in the sea of humanity?

Let me tell you to stop!  Right now!  And I will tell you why that is not true :)

Yes, there is always someone prettier, more talented in one thing or another, smarter, more capable, whatever. 

However...

That is the COMPLETELY wrong way to look at it.  That is the human way, the competitive way, the pitifully small way to see you.

Let's say that you are a piano composer. Is it wise to say "Well, I'm no Bach, so I am just nothing special"? NO! Only Bach was Bach.  The Piano Guys are not Bach, but Bach was not the Piano Guys.  Each have their own niche, their own purpose, their own time.  He makes EVERYTHING, even us :)  beautiful in its own time. :)

You see, everyone has a specific set of personality traits and talents and abilities.  Would you compare, say, a rainbow and a sunset and say "Well, the rainbow has more colors, so the sunset is just another common, unspecial thing...."  NO!  How many sunsets have you spent with a loved one in a perfect moment of quietness (or of fun and enjoyment!)?  Yes, the sunset has fewer colors, but a rainbow would not quite be the same way to close the day on the beach of a long awaited vacation, right?

But a sunset would not quite right for the Lord's promise to Noah, and for prisms, and to elicit the delighted squeals of children seeing their first rainbow, then their first DOUBLE rainbow!  Lisa Frank stickers would not look nearly as eye candy-y if they were only in shades of gold :)


It is not one trait that we must look at, but the fact that we are a wonderful, complex, diverse set of traits that were made ON PURPOSE by God for a REASON.  There is not one person who does not have a purpose that is unique and only for them.  Your purpose is unique to YOU.  I cannot fulfill your purpose.  Bach cannot fill YOUR purpose.  That gal in the apartment two floors up who always looks put together and throws the best parties cannot fulfill YOUR purpose.

Think about that.  Understand that the Lord has a path that is just for you.  He has specific jobs just for YOU to do and fill, and He made you, on purpose, to have just the right amount of this talent, a little less of that one, a little more of this other one so that you fit perfectly into the purpose and life He has for you.  He made you "to will and to do for His good pleasure".  He made YOU  to WANT to do His plan for you and to DO His plan for you.  He knit you, my friend, on purpose while your mom was still pregnant with you.  Perhaps in the first month He gave you a talent for, say, music--not "Next American Idol" talent, but a strong affinity for music.  Maybe in the second month He decided not to give you so much ability to spell.  Maybe in the third month He made you an introvert.  Maybe in the fourth month He gave you incredible manual dexterity.  Maybe in the fifth month He gave you kind of half of talent for math--you don't do math super well (especially that one trig class--ouch!) BUT you DO have an incredible ability to find patterns.  Maybe in the sixth month He gave you the ability to overcome your introvertedness when you teach.  Maybe in the seventh month He gave you a deep and abiding raw heart for the elderly.  Maybe in the eighth month He gave you the ability to not work from a recipe, but just cook from instinct.  Maybe in the ninth month He gave you a normal IQ.

See?  On and on, He did a little bit of this, a LOT of that, none of the other.

And what could you become with that brief list I just made?   Your ability to see patterns helps you break down music you hear and register it in your mind, subconsciously, so that you can make patterns when you write.  You do not spell well, but you do not need to--that is what spell check is for ;).  The Lord arranged, before you were born, that sometime you would meet up with someone who was starting a therapy program for stroke victims to help them regain motor skills by playing the piano, and He arranged for you to accidentally meet them in the veggie aisle of the grocery store.  You had been looking at jicama and wondering what the heck you do with it, but it looked entirely too good to pass up, so what the heck? You will figure it out what to do with it and you buy a couple.  The occupational therapist sees you buy the jicama and asks you what you are cooking with it.  You sort of chuckle in a way that is endearing and you say "I have no idea.  But it looks good", and the OT is charmed by your daring and is emboldened to talk to you more.  You do not know it, but three months from now, that OT will bring you on board to work with her, answering a prayer for a part time job in your home that uses what talents you have to help others.  Your introverted nature, plus your ability to see patterns AND your ability to improvise (which you developed while cooking stuff like jicama) makes you have great joy as you are an active participant in the healing of stroke victims--see, you have to pay attention to what struggles the stroke victims have, see the patterns, then compose small, progressively difficult, pieces of music for the patient to practice.  You dig into the challenge and are deliberate, thoughtful, and calming when working with them.

So...perhaps your time gets away from you.  Yeah, you will continue to struggle with that until the Lord comes, but your husband is a good man who gets a chuckle out of your "Chicken Breasts with Jicama-Lime Whip" that you thought might sound good.  It actually works out wonderfully (much better than the "Mango Tango Meatloaf" you tried the other day...but that was a rare stone in your usual basket of improvised culinary diamonds :) ).  Your husband is a good, hard working man.  Your IQ's are very similar, so you find that discussion comes easily and makes for a good marriage.

While your introverted nature sometimes makes you weary of too many people at a time, you see that He gives you some incredible ability to be able to play in an old folk's home.  You know that comes from Him because you would normally avoid crowds.  But one of your stroke patients has a wife who volunteers in the old folk's home and the person who was supposed to play for the Christmas celebration got the flu.  You do not REALLY want to go out in public and play, but the Lord moves your heart and, with a bit of a clenched jaw ;), you say yes.  You are astounded by how NOT awful it was to be with the forgotten, precious elderly, and you observe that your music made them tap their toes.  There was one gentleman there who, obviously very ill and seemingly not aware--alzheimers, perhaps?-- turned his head and lifted one finger slightly (God also gave you incredible skills of observation....let's say that happened in the 2nd month of your gestation :) ).  You come home and, full of heart and weary of body, you dissolve into tears and know that you will be playing there often.

Your compositions never become top 40 hits, though when you were younger, that was the dream you had for yourself.  You never move out of the town you were born in.  You sometimes wonder if you ever really DID anything.  But when you die and the Lord talks to you about your life, you realize that, in that sea of humanity, your drop of water was the exact right drop of water to quench the thirst of the mind, body, or spirit of the people the Lord brought into your sphere.  He arranged your life.  He gave you some talents and opportunities He wanted for you, and He WITHHELD the talents and opportunities that would have kept you from being where He wanted you.  You had asked Him to open and shut doors for you, and He did just that.  You walked in the path that He chose for you, and you did good, unsung, but VITAL work.  Your sphere of influence was not huge, but it was brilliant and and good.

"Well done, My good and faithful child!" You hear as He wipes your tears and hugs you.



Now, I did not go through EVERY possible talent and personality trait--that would take forever for me on the blog, but He does. He goes through EVERY possible EVERYthing and decides how much of each YOU got to be the perfect one to do the work that He gave you.  He knows everything, keeps track of everything, works everything out for your good if you love Him.  He has a purpose for you, and a reason you were not the beauty queen (or were!) and a reason you were not the smartest in your science class (or were!) and a reason you married an extrovert as an introvert (or vice versa...or both introverts, etc).

When we peel away comparisons to other people, and just do the work that He has placed in front of us, walking in His will and being diligent in His gifts and the way He made us, and are diligent not to eat the bread of idleness and deliberate to remove as much sin as we possibly can that might misdirect us away from His will, then we will not suffer from insecurity or feeling useless or one of a nameless crowd.  We will not need to overcompensate or be judgmental or gossip or feel jealous.  We will not suffer from pride or shame.  We will understand that our work, big or small, is HIS work in us and that we do not need to stress.


So ask the Lord to reveal what He made in you, what He put in you.  Be honest.  Understand, too, that He may choose to reveal talents later in your life (I did not know I had a talent in archery until my 30's).  Do not wait for your life to start, it has already started.  He has arranged you and your life, specifically, on purpose. 

Isn't that the most amazing thought?  You.  Specifically.  On purpose.

Amen!

 



A Momentous Day...Scratch that. Let's talk about YOU.

Good morning my unique and wonderfully created friend!

This might sound a bit overwrought, but I am, truly, overwhelmed at this moment by the uniqueness of YOU.  You were made specifically, deliberately, on purpose by God.  Just think about that....doesn't that overwhelm the senses?  You.  On purpose.  By God.  Every quirk, every talent (yes, you have talents!  We all do!  And we each have our OWN mix of talents.....)

You know what?  I was going to talk about my greenhouse, but honestly I want to talk about YOU right now.  I want to talk about how the Lord loves YOU, specifically. Not part of "God loves all y'all", but that God.  Loves.  You.  Specifically.

I think sometimes we get the idea that we are "just average" or "just like everyone else" or "too messed up and not as good as others", etc, etc, etc.

Darling, let me stop you right there, if you think that way.  Truly that is not from the Lord.  He delights in YOU. 

Think about that!  He DELIGHTS in you.  He SMILES at you.  He SINGS over you.  Like, actual singing.  Actual delight.  More than that little rush of pride and joy you get over your child or spouse or pet dog or cat or bird or friend.  Think about that little rush and magnify it to a point that God would feel something (much more than we do) and that is how He feels about you.

Do we mess up?  Yep.  All the time.  And He knew that before we were even born.  He knows EVERYTHING about you.  He wants to heal and soothe and restore you.  Nothing you can do can drive Him from loving you.  All you can do is turn your back on Him....but why would you do that?  That is just silly! :)  We would not turn our backs on lotteries or good health or a great dessert or anything else we could have for free, right?  This is every good thing for free--the love of God.

He loved murderers.  He loved adulterers.  He loved His enemies.  There is nothing you have done that you cannot come to Him and say "I am sorry, please forgive me".  I promise He will treat you with a feast in your soul, just like the prodigal son (you DO realize that parable was for you!).  He won't be mad, He will be HAPPY that you came to Him.  He already knows the burden of sin you carry, you aren't actually hiding anything from Him.  All He wants is for you to come to Him so that He can heal you and love you.  Don't let your human view of guilt and punishment keep you from the One who has perfect love and forgiveness.


We cannot sin bigger than Him.  Truly.  There is nothing bigger than He is, even our sins.  Even our REPEATED sins.  All we have to do is ask Him to cleanse us, and He will be tender and gentle and restore us with love and forgiveness, and our sins will be forgotten.  FORGOTTEN.  As in, "like it never even happened".

Think of the worst thing you have done and then think "Like that never even happened.  He will forget my sin completely.  It has already been paid for, all I have to do is take the receipt.".  The debts of sin that weigh down your soul....already paid for and gone.  Just take the receipt for it, Jesus, and there will be no condemnation for you from anyone.  Ever.

Amen.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Catfish and Gentleness

Good Morning my dear friend!  How are you?

I am doing well :)  I have not written in a day or two and I thought I might catch up :)

We had our Pro Bass Tourney ;) that turned into a Pro Catfish Tourney.  I will post some pics from that in a bit...my computer is acting glitchy.  Suffice to say that we caught and filleted 84 catfish--it was a long day!

I also was working on a post about gentleness.  The Lord admonishes us to be gentle--in fact, it is listed among the rest of the "biggies" like love, faith, and self control.  But we never really talk about it in church much or on facebook or in Christian growth books.  The more I tried to write my post, the more I bogged down in "What does it really mean?  How do I actually do it?".    I know it does not mean to be weak, however, what is "weak" in our society is different from what is "weak" in the Lord.  What is strong in our society is different than what is strong in the Lord.  Both weak and strong are two ways we can put gentleness into a paradigm, but I will be honest, I am not sure, yet, how.

I know this--I love a gentle life.  I think that is part of my Pinterest love is that the photos I choose all seem to lean toward gentleness in life (and geeky stuff, but that is a different conversation :) ).  There is something life affirming and heart warming about quiet and stilled souls, about soft voices and delighted laughter, about feeling safe from cynicism or sarcasm or scorn (either your own or someone else's).  There is just something about nights by the fire in winter and days in the sun in summer.  There is something about the kindness of a stranger, forebearance from a friend, forgiveness from a loved one.

There is safety in gentleness, I think, for the heart and soul.  A person might be strong enough to protect someone else from a bear or an attacker, but might have a gentle disposition to soothe and protect the heart from discouragement and defensiveness.  I think it does not mean being weak in right and wrong, but being gentle with the wounds of the heart and spirit.

Or maybe it is allowing wrongs to be done to you, and showing kindness in return, to "heap burning coals upon the head" of the one who battles you.  Perhaps it is being a rock on the shoreline, beaten and pulled and pushed by the waves, but remaining still and smooth and steady.  Perhaps that is what brings people to repentance?  Or perhaps that is a different virtue and gentleness is about soothing and succor?

This is what I think, right now, as I try to puzzle it out, but I could be wrong.  What do you think?  Are you gentle?  If so, what does it look like in you (and do not be modest if the Lord has enabled you to get a grasp on this- we really need to know!)?  If you are not gentle, how do you KNOW you are not gentle?  What is it about gentleness that is hardest to grasp?

I think it is important we figure it out--the Lord has admonished us to it often in His Word!

I would love to hear from you.  Your thoughts are important to me!  Tell me, dear one, what does gentleness mean to you?  What about it is important to you?


Sunday, May 26, 2013

One Huge Watermelon

Hello my friend!!  I am so glad you are here to chat with!

Today we have planned to have what I call our "Pro Bass Tourney".  Basically we are going to use today to get a bunch of catfish and bass out of the pond.  I will be manning the filleting table and putting up the fish, while everyone else fishes :)  I hope to get a lot of catfish in the freezer!

Whilst waiting for the boy to wake up for our fishing day, I decided to cut up some watermelon we had.   I do not like to waste what seems to be something useful, so I cut up the good main part of the melon with an ice cream scoop and put it in a big bowl for snacking.  It will look so cute to have a "scoop" of melon in a teacup!  It was hard to get to the rind with the ice cream scoop, but that is not a problem because then I sliced the watermelon rind into small sections.  I took off the rest of the pink flesh and whatever part of the rind that came with it and put that on a cookie sheet to freeze.  These will be chunks that I will put into smoothies.  Since I usually add other juices, cream, etc to smoothies, the sort of watered down taste of the fruit by the rind will not be a problem at all.  It will give a nice body and some fiber to our smoothies--much better than just using ice cubes!

Then I cut the green off of what was left of the rind.  I put the tough green outside part for the trash, and the inner rind I cut into chunks to make watermelon pickles or preserves.  All this gave me lots of time to warm up my knife skills for the filleting today

During this process I kept pouring off the juice.  At the end, those went into popcicle molds in case we need a little melon popcicle :)

Need to run go get fishing!  Talk to you soon! :)

Mudbug Traps Part Deux

Good Morning Sweet friend!  It always makes me happy when you stop by :)

That might seem odd....how would I know if you stopped by?  But in fact, you reading this makes me happy.  I might not know when you read it, but if you are here, that gives me great joy indeed :)

Are you wondering what happened to the crawfish trap I made?  Let me show you

Sooper and I rowing out to set the trap.  We baited it with a can of cat food that I had punched multiple holes in.
 
Carefully lowering the trap in the water.  We tied cord to it and towed the end of the cord to Precious.

 
And now we wait.....
 
The next morning.  I was so excited, I could hardly wait til the kids were ready to go with me to see!
 
Drawing the trap in and....
 
Fish.


No worries!  I rebaited the trap with the fish and the cat food and toted the trap to the upper pond.
 
Got a bit of a snarl.  Since this pond is much smaller, I just towed the trap kitty-corner across the pond to get it past the reeds.

Closing the end of the trap with the heavy paper clip.
 
 
Then the next morning....
 
YAY!  Three crawdads!  Now, these are not big enough to eat, however, it lets me know that a)my trap is sound :) and b)the upper pond anyway will support crawdads.  Now I need to see if these are as big as they get, or if I need to stock a different type.  I think there is less predation in the upper pond as there are no bass and catfish.

 
Don't make me go all Cajun on you, cher! :)
 

Mudbug (crawfish) Traps

Good Morning, hon!!!

I am glad to be awake this morning, how about you?  I had a very fine rest with lots of adventurous dreams, so I am glad to be awake in the cool quiet morning and spend a nice peaceful.

I wanted to show you the crawfish trap I built!!  I used this website:

http://in-this-life-like-weeds.blogspot.com/2008/10/diy-how-to-make-crawfish-trap.html

I wanted to build a crawfish trap for several reasons:  to stay in touch with my heritage, as a possible income source (crawfish), to see if I could, and as a survival skill.

It is prudent, I think, to learn skills as often as may be.  First of all, it keeps your wits sharp and provides an excellent example for your children.  Even if you fail at something, that just provides a nice opportunity for a chuckle (I fully expect that, when I try to learn cast netting, I will be posting photos of me hopelessly tangled up in the net).  I have found that the more skills I learn, the more gumption I have, and that is what I want to pass down to my children.

Here is what I did...
These are the supplies I used:  small gauge fencing, wire cutters, pliers, wire, and the internet :)


I rolled out the fencing and made it as flat as possible.


With the wire cutters, I cut across the bottom edge.  I did not use precise measurements--no need.  I just used the wire as wide as it was (36 inches) and cut off about a 4 foot piece.  Watch out, those little edges are SHARP!

I tried to cut long lengths of the wire to "sew" the long edges (or the selvage edges for the sewers out there) together, but the wire I was using was too stiff, so instead I decided to "twist tie" the edges together.  Much easier.
 
This is a twist tie I cut.  It is about the size of a hair pin.  The sharp bend in it helps to make it be tighter when twisted together.
 

In order to make the cone, I had to find out how wide the trap was.  I did not need a measurement, just a length, if that makes sense (it will in the following photo :) ).  I tied a string to a pen, then just stretched a string across to the other side to "measure".

Then I drew a semi circle onto a piece of newspaper to make a template and cut it out.

Then I traced the outline of what I cut out of the newspaper.

 
Then I cut out the semi circle.  I cut out two, but only ended up using one.  Cutting the wire is much easier if you hold the wire like a ski pole instead of like scissors. 

I carefully (!) trimmed off the pointy ends and made sure that I collected each one.  These would be really bad if someone stepped on one or if a child or pet ate one!

I formed the cone by making a fold in the middle of the STRAIGHT edge of the semi-circle then bringing the straight edges together.  I then twist tied the straight edges ALMOST all the way to the top.  Stop at about 2 inches from the top or so because you will be.....
 
Cutting off the tip of the cone.  This is where the crawdads enter.  I folded the edge back to make a smoother, larger opening.

I then fitted the cone into the trap and then twist tying them together.  As you can see, I had a much bigger cone than the trap needed, but that actually worked out wonderfully because then I knew my cone would not be too small AND because I was able to fold down that sharp edge so it would not snag me as I carried it. 

And there you have it!  One REALLY large trap (you can make it shorter, but I would not make it smaller in diameter).  Instead of putting a cone on the other end, I just folded it over and used one of those large clips that you use to hold lots of papers together.  This makes it easy for me to open and dump my catch out :).


I will add a part two--baiting and setting the traps--soon :)


Saturday, May 25, 2013

Quite the To Do List!

Good Morning darling!!

I am wondering where to start on my to do list for the day!

I want to do some large scale cooking, replant hostas and some honeyberries and some seeds, have our big fish-out for the pond and put up some catfish, I need to do loads of laundry and change all the sheets, I need to weed the beds and get in the back and pull poison ivy.  I need to make a few notes and lists for TWS, sweep and mop the floors, and a few other things I know I am forgetting! 

I think a nice breakfast is in order!

:)

Well Building In Pictures

Good Morning sweetie!!

I had been talking about the well/irrigation for a few weeks now, and it is finally (mostly) done!

To recap:  we have a well that was sunk by the Dept of Ag (or one of those types) several years ago under the previous owner.  It is a deep (for here) well that was a test but has never been utilized as far as I know.  It is in a great position for us to water the orchard, coop, garden, greenhouse, etc, BUT it was just a pipe in the ground.  We had to see if it could refill quickly enough and had enough water to use.

TWS rented a pump to time how many gallons per min we could get out of the well and how quickly the well pipe refilled from the aquifer.  The well is 100+ feet down.  Found out that it could bear the load admirably, so we started building our irrigation system.



TWS laid down the concrete pad for the well and surprised me by putting our initials in it <3

 
This is was a family affair to get the well pump and 100 feet of pvc pipe down the well. 

 
 
 
 
We had to put the well pipe down in 10 ft sections.  Each section needed to be primed and glued on both ends.  The process was:  prime everything (as demonstrated by Precious below).  Glue a 10 ft section of pipe, carefully avoiding stepping in the surrounding poison ivy, onto the section that was already in the well (thank the LORD we did not drop any down the well!), then wait for that to dry.  Drop the new section almost all the way down the well, glue the next piece on top of that, wait for that to dry, etc, etc

 
This process involved a lot of waiting on dry time.
 
A LOT of waiting on dry time.

 
Yay!!!  The well head!  Almost done with this part!
 
Then came digging the trenches 3 ft down to the barn, garden, the greenhouse site, coop site, beside the strawberry/asparagus bed, and by the shed site.
 
 
Digging....
(You can see the water in the trench....we got a ton of rain and we might have hit a spring...there was a lot of seepage.  We ended up buying a pump to move massive quantities of water out of the trench as we worked.  The trench would fill back up in probably an hour or two.)

 
Digging.....

 
 
Digging.....

 
Digging.....

 
Digging.....
 
Ooo!  This is new!  Water pipe!!  After all the digging and pumping, we laid water pipes in all the trenches. This one will T off to the right to go to the orchard.
 
We also installed frost proof spigots.  They go down three feet into the trench.  TWS secured them to boards to hold them upright, then he threaded left over cheap buckets that the trees came in on the bottom.  When the faucet was placed in the trench, we filled the buckets with rocks and yard cloth to keep the heavy clay from preventing draining at the bottom of the faucet when we drained the lines for winter.  The buckets (and the wood you see) also helped hold the faucets in place when we backfilled around them (by hand).
 
Here is a closer view of the faucet, the bucket, and the braces. 
 
 
By this time of the project, TWS and I were bone weary.  The clay was wet and impossibly heavy and thick.  We had to backfill around all 6 (or was it 7?) faucets because the tractor bucket could not get in close enough to the faucet pipe.

 
Here is a photo of the well house with the tanks installed.  The well that you saw us dropping pipe into is on the far right of the house.
 
And then the mercy of the Lord....water from the ground!  We will be able to water our chickens, gardens, orchards.  The Lord is helping us establish our farm by carefully and deliberately putting that pocket of water below the ground, tucking it away in the rock and soil.  He arranged for a huge test well to be placed there for us to use.  He is altogether kind.
I was thinking, as we were testing the pipes and faucets, how incredible the blessing is of fresh water from the dirt.  It reminds me of nursing a baby--bringing food from what was once a dry bosom to nourish a living human.  It is also like redeeming the lost--laying down the Word in the innermost part of man, then the Living Water can flow through them, heal them, bring new growth to them and those around them.  What a miraculous thing...water from the ground.