Category: gifts,giving,thankful,

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A Trip Around The Pasture

Walking in the pasture is a time for talking with God about my day, mulling over a scripture or song running around in my head, interceding for a loved one, or simply praising Him for who He is.

Yesterday was no exception.  As my eyes wandered around the pasture, I praised Him for His incredible gift of nature: this delightful landscape with its tall prairie grass waving in the soft breeze, the purple verbena,  the yellow primrose, the deep blue indigo, the tiny daisy-like flea-bane waving for my attention.

Walking in the pasture, I know I must closely attend to the path and my feet or I will stumble, and  I want to avoid the occasional sprawl I have made into the dust over the years. With my slow gait and focused attention on the path before me, I had time to ponder some of my daily reading. The focus had been on Jesus walking with His disciples on their way to Bethany,  and as I walked I couldn’t help but wonder what it might have been like to have walked with Jesus in His world.

I imagine they walked with purpose. Miles of purpose: to get from town to town, to a wedding.  to a friend’s house for dinner, to Jerusalem for the Passover. Sometimes the journey would have covered sixty to eighty miles to the final destination.

But they would not have been hurried.

Oh, how I would have loved to listen to those conversations. Probably very mundane at times, like, “Master, should we hurry a bit and try to catch up with Peter?” Or, “Master, I am sure you know where we will stay tonight.”

As I walked this Kansas trail, I watched my feet, listened to their shuffling through the low-cut grass, and I imagined Jesus was walking beside me, adjusting His gait to mine. Hesitantly, I talked. I talked a bit about my aches and pains, about the beautiful world He had created here; rambling talk about my world and my ponderings.

Finally, I was silent. And He was silent. But it was the kind of silence so comfortable I felt no more need to talk. It was the kind of silence that said, “Peace, I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives.”

I was content to walk, quiet in the strength of His presence and promises.

I thought of the world outside of Kitten Creek. The world comes crashing into our lives through the media and bombards us as we step outside of our safe world. That world that is contorted by the forces of evil waging war.

In no hurry to leave His companionship in the pasture, I slowly made my way down the gravel drive to the world below.   Leaving the peaceful pasture, my steps were slow and reluctant. But, I encouraged myself by the Truth of what He had been telling me:

I  carry this peace back into the troubled world because this presence of Christ surrounds me, covers me, and goes before me. I take Jesus with me, not just in my imagination, but in the very real dimension of spiritual grace and presence.

And I can walk with purpose, for I am walking my way to my Heavenly destination.

As I go, hopefully, I won’t rush. I won’t be impatient with the difficult path or cower from the frightening disruptions. And if I sprawl in the dust as I lose focus, He will be there to pick me up and set me back on course.  Halleluja!

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“Wokeness” on Kitten Creek

The weather in Kansas can be fickle. Countless times this year, we have watched the threatening clouds bear down on Kitten Creek and then watch in amazement as the storm circles left or to the right and totally misses us. Sooner or later, though, we get the storms. So we prepare.

Presently, we are watching the threatening thunderstorms forming in our larger, cultural surroundings. We are not naive. Inevitable cultural pressure is coming (and presently seeping) into the area that surrounds our community. We are preparing.

One of the storms forming around us is a “woke” culture, filled with judgment for anyone who is not “woke.”

What does a “woke culture”  look like on the farm on Kitten Creek? In spite of the influences of a very invasive culture, somehow, at least for now, we continue to be grounded, secure, and strong.

Time for Reflection Grounds Us  

In December, Dan T. built a 6-foot-long rustic bench for Sara”s Christmas present. That bench is now a welcome invitation for everyone who walks in the pasture. It beckons walkers to take time to rest and reflect as they view Wildcat Valley.

Reflection on what God has done in our past, what He is doing in the present, and what He is going to do grounds us.  We must not simply be “woke,” but we must be awake to the Truth that is found in pondering the mighty God who created and is sovereign over this fallen yet Spirit-filled world. He, the God of the universe, is alive and working through the storm clouds that swirl about us.

That truth grounds us.

Reinforcing Foundations Secures Us

New rock wall for the manger scene The old stable that encloses Baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph during Bethlehem Revisited was threatening to crumble and fall. During the summer of COVID, Dan T., along with the other boys and men on the farm, pulled down the unstable rocks and rebuilt a beautiful solid wall, replacing the same rocks, rock-by-rock. The stable will be safe and secure for years to come as visitors come and gather around that little manger to remember and worship the birth two thousand years ago.

As we build our foundation on the Holy Scriptures, stone by stone and line upon within our families, we are building a secure and safe foundation for generations to come. We do not re-invent, nor do we reinterpret Scripture to be more relevant.

“A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.”

Working Together in Community Equals Strength

This past summer, the Kitten Creek Gang (i.e., KCG or Troyer/Swihart cousins, ages 10-15) decided to upgrade their building skills from a treehouse to a real cabin. All five of them were involved in choosing the “secret spot,” drawing up plans, gathering supplies, and building together. Even the wheel-chair bound cousin was an integral part of the planning and building. Gifts emerged. Strengths developed.

Parents and grandparents revel in watching harmony and ingenuity develop in the young lads. The cabin is now equipped with a wood stove, hand-built beds, windows, and doors that lock.

Our children have learned the secret of community and hard work. They have discovered that we thrive as we share our gifts, time, and knowledge.

We are strong.

Together as a community (grandparents, parents, children, neighbors, and friends), we face the storm clouds that are stirring in our culture.

 

 

 

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I’ll take the ‘stay-at-home’ order . . . please

The order for the last few months has been, “For your safety and the safety of others, please stay at home.” COVID-19 has brought monumental challenges to this world and smaller challenges to my personal world.

My daily life right now consists of three basic postures: (1) facing-the-daily- grind kind of things, (2) trying to stay in tune to His voice, and (3) trying to trace His hand in the events that are taking place.

And I am content. It is not that life is easy, but I find I have interior-ized something that my Russian mentor, Catherine de Heuck Doherty, taught me. In her book, Poustinia, Catherine was teaching the Western culture about the Eastern view of a hermitage. Not able to live in a secluded cabin as the old hermits did, we have the presence of God (our private little cabin) within us. I have carried that image for many years: My home is in me, so, in reality, I am always at home.

I Am at home; He is at home in me (John 15:5). And this sovereign God who is at home in me has everything in HIs sovereignly control.

But . . . I am still faced with living out the daily grind of the (almost) house-bound existence.

Days get confusing. Ooops, this is Thursday. We forgot to put the trash out.

I order my groceries only to find out I must wait over a week for a pick-up time.

I am looking at the Brady-bunch style of Zooming with my friends when I would rather be welcoming them into my home with a warm hug.

I wave at my neighbors driving down Kitten Creek Road, but I really have no idea how they are doing during this difficult time.

I wander around the house in a fog at times, not motivated to mop the floor, dust the furniture, or wash the windows (even though they need it) because I can do it tomorrow or the next day or the next day or the next day and no one is coming anyway.

Yet, I love my house, and I am at Home. The Spirit of God ministers peace, contentment, and yes, even joy.

My second posture is to attempt to stay in tune with the voice of God. For me, that means getting up early in the morning when I can savor a time of solitude with the Word. I need to hear His voice to cancel out the noise of the media that shouts alarming and sometimes/constantly(?) untruthful messages.

My good-old Poustinia book speaks once again to me here:

Stand still, and allow the deadly restlessness of our tragic age to fall away like the worn-out, dusty cloak that it is. . . Stand still, and lifting your hearts and hands to God, pray that the mighty wind of his Holy Spirit may clear all the cobwebs of fears, selfishness, greed, and narrow-heartedness away from your soul. Pray that his tongues of flame may descend to give you the courage to begin again.   All this standing still can be done in the midst of the outward noise of daily living and the duties of state in life. For it will bring order in the soul, God’s order, and God’s order will bring tranquility (45).

The third posture that I take is to lean into the sovereignty of God. I am limited to a very mortal body. I cannot possibly address all of the pain in my world. However, with prayer, I can take that phone call from a heart-broken friend; I can encourage my friends who are suffering from low self-esteem, anxiety, fear with words of encouragement; I can practice patience and share love with my dear extroverted husband as we work through our house-boundedness together.

As I wait in the midst of it all, I can repeat, “I wonder what God is doing now?”

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Rain and Reign

RAIN! In the midst of a drought, we cherish the soft slapping of rain hitting the windows and the smell of the musty, damp earth after the rain.
This morning during a rare thunder storm, we watched as Caleb and Josh, bare-headed and coat-less, walked down the drive to check out what has been a dry creek bed all summer. On their way back, they stopped by the house, drenched to the skin. Dramatically pulling off their rain boots and dumping pints of water on the concrete porch, they gave us an extended “creek report.” Yes, there was water running over the bridge and the creek that had been bone-dry was running in torrents through the large tubes. A little. Their report was cut short by Mama Sara, worried because they had been gone so long, arriving from across the road in the Honda Pilot to usher them back to home school. This had been an extended recess for them.

Oh, the fickleness of man! We trust God for the rain, but we complain to Him about the drought. This morning in my time with Scripture, I was reminded that it is all at the Lord’s bidding or allowance.

And that gets me back into the see-saw of man’s responsibility vs. God’s sovereignty. Ultimately, I know that God has control of the seasons, the climate, and in all of that, our personal lives. As I walk across the dry parched land doing my chores, I plead with God for rain. When the rain finally comes, I thank God.

God is in control . . . oh, blessed thought. Even in our government!  I find encouragement in what Gamaliel said to the Council in Jerusalem who was threatened with the apostles preaching and wanted to kill them. “My advice is to let them alone.  If what they teach is of God, you will not be able to stop them, lest you find yourselves fighting even against God” (Acts 5:19)

I find comfort in God’s sovereignty: the rain that waters the earth and the reign of man.

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A Wedding in the Walnut Grove

A wedding! The third grandchild ( third child of Dan and Nancy) is now creating a new limb to our family tree. Lillian and Shiloh’s story goes back ten or eleven years ago when the Brock and Swihart family first met. Even then, it seems, there were sparks. But little did they express that interest until just a few months ago. What joy it was to celebrate their wedding with them. Lillian carried flowers that she had grown in her garden; we shared cherry pie that she and her friends had baked; and the couple drove off in a vehicle that Shiloh and his friends had  “constructed.” Creativity abounds in this couple.

Marriage. God’s plan.  The two become one. And the story grows.

Judd and I are celebrating our 50th this year. We were once the bride and groom creating a limb on the Noble Swihart tree. We had no idea those many years ago how our story would unfold. At this wedding in the walnut grove we held our two great-grandchildren.

Along with a new grand-daughter, Sophie (Derrick and Carrie’s first baby), the joys of babies  and marriage fill our hearts.

 

For the moment, God has wrapped us in a cocoon of contentment.

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It’s the Thought That Counts by Jan Coles

All kinds of thoughts can occur to me when I open a gift

How thoughtful!

That is so nice of her to think of me.

I think I already have one of these.

I think I told him I don’t like these.

What made him think I’d like this?

What was she thinking?

Among the gifts my husband and I received as wedding presents was a large, blue glass bowl from his Aunt Ellen. His artistic, eclectic Aunt Ellen. The bowl was, well, um, shall we say, unusual.

The depression of the bowl had a diameter of about eight inches and was about four inches deep. The flanges around the rim of the bowl doubled its overall size. Ridges that looked like mountain ranges protruded from the bottom. (You can see a picture of it here: http://www.blenkocollectors.com/specialtylinepages/blenkocollcolorbigsky.htm)

What was Aunt Ellen thinking?

The bowl was too big to fit in a cupboard. It was too fragile to put in a closet or under the bed. It was too big to set out as “decor,” since our dining table did double duty as a desk. We joked that it couldn’t even be used as a bed pan because of the ridges in the bottom of the bowl. In short, the bowl was useless. And to be honest, we thought it was ugly. So we did what newly-married college students do with a wedding gift they don’t want: return it and buy something else.

Our quest to return The Blue Bowl (yes, we did name the bowl), was not an easy one. It seemed that none of the stores we went to sold anything like The Blue Bowl. The reactions varied:

“No, we don’t sell anything like that.”

“Hmmm, I’m not sure what store that may have come from,” trying to appear helpful.

“You say you got this as a wedding gift?” attempting to hide a puzzled smile. 

“Um, I’ve never seen anything like that here,” stifling a giggle.

“What on earth is that?!” accompanied by peals of laughter.

After a few stores, the task of finding a place to return the bowl turned into a game. The more places we went to, the more incredulous looks and comments we received, the funnier the game. We laughed with the clerks as they tried to help us figure out which store we could try next.

So it was with smirks ready that we approached the clerk in the china department at Frederick & Nelsons. “Oh!” she gasped, “You want to return a Blenko Original?!”

“Well, yeah,” I began. “It’s pretty ug…,” Stepping slightly in front of me, Brian stopped me with a more gracious response: “It doesn’t really fit our decor.” Anything worth more than $15 didn’t fit in with our decor.

The astonished clerk finished the paperwork to return the bowl and we left with $35, about $75 in today’s money. “Not much for a Blenko Original,” I remarked to Brian as we left the china department.

Then a funny thing happened. I didn’t want to sell the bowl back to the store! We had so much fun trying to return the bowl that we actually enjoyed, in a twisted sort of way, owning the bowl. I wanted to run back and tell the clerk I’d changed my mind and wanted the bowl back. Suddenly I realized the bowl wasn’t worthless.

As kids we expectantly opened boxes adorned with bows and colored paper on Christmas and on our birthdays. Sometimes we were disappointed, like when my great aunt sent me slippers she had crocheted using pink, scratchy yarn. “It’s the thought that counts,” my dad said. “Your aunt made these for you because she loves you.” To which my eight-year-old mind responded, “If she loved me she would know I hate pink!”

But I’m beginning to wonder what it really means when we say, “It’s the thought that counts.” Certainly Aunt Ellen had thought about whether we would appreciate and enjoy The Blue Bowl. The problem was what we thought. We were too busy thinking about what we wanted. The Blue Bowl had little value to us when we looked at it with our own expectations and desires.

We hear a lot about God giving each of us special gifts: an ear for music, a great singing voice, insightful teaching, an ability to be an encourager, etc. I wish I had one of those special gifts. I want gifts that are useful to others, gifts that people can see. I think we all do.

Unfortunately, I often think any gifts he has given me aren’t the good ones. They’re gifts that don’t seem useful or special. They are undesirable because I have expectations about exactly what a special gift from God really is.

The real problem is that I fail to see these gifts as gifts born out of love. I don’t want them because they aren’t exciting or fun or obvious or what I deem useful. They’re like The Blue Bowl: ugly and unwanted. So I’m busy “taking them back to the store” to try to exchange them for something more exciting. Something that will capture my attention. Something that will attract others to me.

The reality is that not all gifts are obvious and exciting. To use an old expression, where would the blossom be without the stem? Whereas I’d much rather be the blossom, God’s given me the gift of being the stem. It’s not what I want, but it’s what is needed.

God’s not in the business of handing out gifts without thinking about the recipient. I’m convinced he thinks a lot about it. But the gifts he gives aren’t useful to us until we see the value of them. Until we think about them the way he thinks about them.

I think my dad was right. It is the thought that counts.