A Safe Haven

R and I have had many surprising visitors to our backyard feeders.  In the spring we have a big influx of many different birds headed for their northern breeding grounds.  This summer we enjoyed repeat visits from two hen turkeys and their large brood of young.  It was fun to mark their growth week by week, but sad to find their numbers dwindling.  The wilderness is not a safe place for most wildlife.  In the fall, migrating species pass this way and stop for a few days, eating and resting before moving on south. 

On a beautiful mild fall day R and I were sitting on the swing in the breezeway admiring the colors of the tree line across the field when a female ring-necked pheasant darted into the tall weeds that edge our backyard.  Since the field has been planted with corn, that edge of weeds isn't very deep and I didn't know where she'd go from there.  We were really surprised to find that she had an eye on our bird feeder on the back patio!  She cautiously worked her way across the open yard to the feeder while R and I very quietly and carefully, moved to a better vantage point. 

Once at the feeder, she seemed more at ease.  It's close to the house and out of the sun -- maybe she felt hidden there?  She spent about 20 minutes pecking sunflower seeds up out of the tall grass (it hasn't been cut in a while).  She was beautifully camouflaged for life in weedy fields.  Her coloring reminded me of a tortoise shell and she had such large, dark eyes.  I was thrilled when she finished eating because she stepped right up onto the patio and over to my makeshift birdbath for a long drink!  It's nothing but a large plastic plant saucer with a rock island in the middle of the water (for smaller birds), but it has drawn lots of attention during this hot, dry summer.

The pheasant tried to escape through my herb garden, but realized that wasn't very deep cover.  She was faced with a long run across the open yard!  I could see her steeling her resolve, take a long running start and mount on wings for a desperate flight to the weeds at the back of the yard.  She disappeared into the safety of blooming goldenrod and our drainage ditch.

The whole time I watched her, I thought, how sad that she doesn't realize that the seed and water have been put out just for her and any other birds who want it!  I pose no threat to her and have done all I can to protect and provide for her kind.  And how thrilled I am when they come and use what I've provided.

We are so much like that with all the blessings God has provided for us!  He has provided a safe haven in Christ with many good things laid out for us!  What better time to remember these than at harvest time?  But we come skulking and sneaking out of the world, afraid that He will punish us for making use of what He's intended for us all along!  His stores are not depleted one bit by our hunger and thirst!  Is He thrilled, like I am, when someone comes near to take advantage of His blessings?  Does His heart swell with joy to think that He has given rest and refreshment to some small, weary soul?  How long does it take us to learn that He has only our good at heart; that

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows.”  (James 1:17)?

Our pheasant visitor learned her lesson quickly, returning again to feed with all the little birds that discovered long ago this yard is a haven for them.  I pray that we might all recognize that about our Heavenly Father and step boldly forward to feed on the good things He has for us!

Love as always,  Elaine (scattering more seed)

The Cat's Meow

In the 41 years Rich and I have been married, we’ve had the privilege of sharing the lives of eight cats.  Just like people, they all looked different and each had distinct and differing personalities.  We enjoyed every one of them for their unique attributes and related to them in different ways. 

Muggles and Stinker, our first pair, were like Laurel and Hardy.  Their comical antics and accidents brought laughter to our work days but exasperation as we cleaned up their messes.  Dusty was the aloof and grumpy boarder we inherited from R’s parents.  Our boys were small and lively so she watched them suspiciously as she perched atop the tallest furniture she could leap onto.  DeeDee was the first cat our boys’ picked as their own.  An independent farm cat, DeeDee brought us “offerings” of every description; some of them still alive! 

Snuggles never lived up to her name.  She didn’t like being handled and was the dumbest animal we had experienced.  She obviously needed people to take care of her!  Chester moved into our hearts and into Snuggles’ nightmares to become the King of Cats.  He lived the longest of our pets and Rich and I hated to let him go, even when he became very ill.  Festus was the perfect solution to our wildlife problems.  A ferocious hunter, he was rough with humans and defended his territory with the courage of a tiger!  But he was so independent that we lost him way too soon.  Farah has the sweetest temperament of all -- devoted to her human “pride” and extremely dependent upon us, she follows us everywhere and cries when we leave the house.

I found myself thinking about my relationship with God while cleaning up one of Farah’s frequent messes.  I hope I’m not being irreverent when I imagine that He sees us as His “pets”.  We rarely admit it but, like housecats, we are completely dependent upon Him.  When we spend all our time in worldly pursuits does He wish we’d stop playing in the ‘litter box’ and just stick to our “business” out there?

2 Cor. 6:17 – 7:1  " ‘Therefore come out from them and be separate’, says the Lord.  ‘Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.  I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters’, says the Lord Almighty.  Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.”

Is He exasperated with us when we consume strange debris from the world and end up spiritually sick?  In His Word He provides the perfect food for us to grow as we ought –

 “…like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation”  1Peter 2:2   

 

When we run from Him and hide during the storms of our life, does He long to embrace and comfort us – to keep us close, knowing we’ll be safe with Him?

“The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms”, Deut. 33:27.

 

Just like our pets, we need to learn to keep ourselves clean as we mature in Christ.  Maybe we can become God’s favorites, too?  I want my Heavenly Father to be as proud of me as He was of the saints of old,

“God is not ashamed to be called their God…”  Hebrews 11:16.

Love as always,  Elaine  (Time to bathe the cat, again!)

Trash or Treasure

Life is such fun here at the edge of civilization.  Even garbage brings us laughter at times.  Sometimes, though, getting rid of garbage can be a challenge.  Someone from the church family gave us a very old reconditioned lawn mower several summers ago.  Richard would use it to cut around all our trees and bushes, making it easier for the folks to mow with their giant lawn tractors.  It was good outdoor exercise for him, too.  But this past summer, we couldn't get the machine to start at all.  Our lawn mower "expert" pronounced it a lost cause and we moved it out by the pole at roadside.  Often folks will stop by and pick up such items.  We got rid of our old washing machine, gas grill and wheelbarrow that way.  I had visions of them parked in someone's front yard filled with flowers – but, alas, no one stopped to salvage our rusty old mower.

  The heavy snows of winter buried the "body" out front until the town front loader came along to push the snow back in our parking area.  The mower got caught in the bucket, twisted, crushed and tossed ten feet up to the top of the pile.  It was a pretty depressing lawn ornament, to my way of thinking!  Once the snow melted, the mower slid back to the ground in a crumpled heap.

  One morning hope appeared as a pickup truck stopped out front.  A man came to the door and asked if he could have the mower!  He needed some parts from it, so...off it went in his truck!  Richard and I laughed a long time after he'd left with his "find".  The saying is truer here than anywhere else, "One man's trash is another man's treasure!"

  I was reminded of what Paul wrote about his ministry in I Cor. 4:13:

"Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world." 

From a worldly standpoint, he and the apostles who preached the Gospel were useless.  But God had quite a different view of them, didn't He?  The Hebrew writer lists God's faithful witnesses throughout Bible history in Hebrews 11.  In his summary, he writes:

"They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY OF THEM." (vs. 37,38) 

God considered these outcasts in the eyes of the world to be too good for the world!  Earlier in vs. 11 of the same chapter of Hebrews it is written of these same faithful;

"Instead, they were longing for a better country— a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."

  I long to be so faithful to God that He is "not ashamed to be called" my God!  This "great cloud of witnesses" that surrounds us urges us on to greater service.  Through their encouragement we can disregard the disdain of the world and look ahead to that better country - a heavenly one - which they traveled towards.  Our labor here is not worthless or vain if it is in service to the King of Kings!

Love as always,  Elaine

God's Almanac

Isn't it exciting?  Sun and rain, longer days and the melodious calling of returning birds mean spring is serious about the change of seasons.  Canadian geese sound overhead, returning to their summer breeding grounds.  They're probably grateful we had so much corn planted around here last fall -- a veritable banquet awaits them!  A large mixed flock of red-winged blackbirds, starlings, grackles and brown-headed cowbirds moved back into our yard enjoying the scattered seed.  It's so wonderful to hear the sound of birds again!  Yesterday a lone robin watched the feeding frenzy from his post high in our birch tree.  I wonder if he's the same robin who built a nest in our spruce last spring?  Daffodils, then tulips blaze in the breeze!  Even though the round of seasons is the same each year, isn't it a thrill to see those familiar signs?

That's the same way I feel about the Bible.  I read straight through God's Word, cover to cover every year.  Ever since Dec. 8, 1978, when I was baptized into Christ and began this new life (according to Romans 6:3-6), I've been reading the same book.  But every January, the account of the six days of Creation increases my anticipation for the inspired story just beginning.   As with the unfolding of each new season, I am drawn into the excitement of what's ahead.  There's such drama in the ups and downs of man's history and God's involvement in His Creation.  It doesn't matter that I know every twist and turn of the plot, I dive into each tragedy and triumph just as eagerly as I dig up my gardens each spring.  There are the full harvest "seasons" of Joshua, Ruth and Esther; the "winters" of Job, the Kings and Old Testament prophets; new life in the spring renewal of the Gospels and Genesis itself.  Acts and the epistles are the summertime of Christ's brand new bride, the Church.  The more I read the Bible, the more precious it becomes to me!  I am appalled by colorless, watered down, paraphrases.  Who would want the condensed version of "Gone With the Wind"?  I want all the spring green of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount -- all of winter's bitter blast in Job -- the fiery conviction of Stephen's dying defense in Acts!

As a readaholic, I go through a variety of devotional reading each day.  At present I'm reading through five different study books.  But each night, as I go to bed, I pull out my reading Bible with great anticipation for the next installment of "Man Meets God"!  I can drift off to sleep with the assurance that God cares about us and is involved in every aspect of our lives. 

"On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.  Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings."  Psalm 63:6,7

May you sing in the promise of His spring!

Love as always,  Elaine (dancing in the mud)

Risky Travels

International travel is always an adventure even when all goes perfectly.  Our recent trip to Spain included many hours waiting in airports.  This gave us plenty of time to worry about which gate we should be waiting at, if our luggage would follow us or if our flight would arrive on time.  No, our flight was late getting into Jerez where our son was waiting for us.  Yes, all our luggage arrived with us.  No, we had no idea which gate we needed to wait at but no one speaks English in Madrid!

In times of disaster, extended travel can become a nightmare for travelers and their families left behind.  We were not the only parents horrified by the natural disasters in Japan on March 11.  Our other son was riding a subway in Tokyo when the city began to quake!   Suddenly we are forced to wonder if the ground beneath us is solid?  3/11/11 gave us a resounding “NO!” to that question.  The Bible testifies to that truth in Romans 8:19-22:

The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.  We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Nothing in this world is really “safe”.  In Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Rings, Bilbo Baggins advises his nephew, Frodo, “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.  You step onto the road and, if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

We take so much for granted, assuming our immediate environs will remain static.

ie: There will always be electricity when we flip the switch:

Fresh water will run from the tap each time we turn the faucet:

Even such mundane assumptions as our luggage always being on the plane we are riding in!  God gives us fair warning in Hebrews 12:25-29:

See to it that you do not refuse Him Who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused Him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from Him who warns us from heaven?  At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, "Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens."  The words "once more" indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.  Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our "God is a consuming fire."

I take great comfort in a verse from an old hymn:

When darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace;

In every high and stormy gale, My anchor holds within the veil.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand,

All other ground is sinking sand.

Love as always,  Elaine (standing on the Solid Rock)

The Unexpected Victory

Although it doesn’t look very spring-like today and the cold wind is blowing snow across the fields, the birds aren’t fooled.  They are determined it’s their time to be here and are bravely pecking through the snow for their daily sustenance.  This reminds me of Rich’s Palm Sunday sermon last year.  He noted that the “Triumphal Entry” wasn’t really one of triumph for Jesus.  The people mistook the signs and prophecies, molding them into their own vision for freedom.  But God had a different plan in mind:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. 

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”   Isaiah 55:8-9

 Jesus came to Jerusalem for a final confrontation with the Jewish leaders and to complete His Father’s plans.  What the common people viewed as the beginning of a new era for their nation was actually the beginning of the end.  In this final week, Jesus wrapped up all the loose ends of His ministry.  Separating the wheat from the chaff, His teachings were confrontational and pointed.  Warnings of judgment to come, the cleansing of the Temple, denouncement of the priests and scribes; all pointed to His authority as God’s chosen Son.  The establishment of the LORD’s Supper and His prayerful preparation of His disciples were His final arrangements made before the fulfillment of all the prophecies concerning Messiah.  Later that week, when Hope hung dead on a Roman cross, the darkness closed in over mankind.  But, wait!  What appeared to His followers as defeat and despair was actually victory!  Jesus Christ conquered sin and death, rising from the grave, never to die again! 

"Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

  1 Cor. 15:55-57

Love as always,  Elaine

Icebergs Ahead!

I wrote the following seven years ago when I was more mobile than I am now.  But, as you can see from our current photos, these truths still hold true.  And God is ever true to His Word!

  Let's see now, it's late in March, north of Syracuse and east of Lake Ontario -- Yep!  That would be lake effect snow!  Some of you have been complaining that spring is dragging its bright green feet about arriving.  Here in the north country, we don't expect to see anything green until mid-April and even that's optimistic!  The past week brought us about 8 new inches of snow but we’ve had some glimpses of the warmer weather to come.  The snow pile in front of our house is down to only three feet (or was before today's snow!)  A small group of horned larks has been scuffing around the church house parking lot for at least a week now.  I have no idea what they're finding to eat over there but they flutter up in front of me every time I drive up to the building.  When I take my walks, I stop to enjoy the rushing stream that crosses under the road.  It's so nice to hear running water again and the snow melt swells the stream between icy banks.  The little marsh I pass is showing green moss in the hollows where a secret spring feeds the swamp even in the driest season.

  Only ten days ago I went walking at Selkirk State Park.  I couldn't wait to see the beach caught in winter ice.  I had to leave the car at the Ranger's station and go in on foot, using the cross country ski trails.  It was hard walking because the snow was getting soft and often gave way to my weight.  Snow shoes would have been nice!  But it was such a nice day (almost 40 degrees) and it was a short detour from my Pulaski grocery run.  The beach was eerie and foreign piled with pack ice.  The lake was still and flat and I could see a distant band of ice way out at the horizon.  Nearer to shore, large icebergs made it look like Antarctica.  After studying the shoreline for a while, I could discern familiar landmarks disguised by icy cloaks.  There was the rocky break-water out beyond the sandy beach.  In a few months sun bathers would be spread out on the shore soaking up the summer sun.  Hard to believe in such a frozen moonscape!

  The promises of God are sometimes like that.  We stand on a shoreline changed by the storms of life and, like the Psalmist in Psalm 119:82, we cry out,

 "My eyes fail, looking for your promise; I say, "When will you comfort me?"

  

Little do we know that God has not moved or changed at all.  No matter how forbidding the icebergs of our daily trials, we can always count on God.

 

"There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, Who rides on the heavens to help you and on the clouds in His majesty.  The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."   Deut. 33:26,27 

 Underneath all the turmoil of life on earth are God's everlasting arms.  The sunshine of His love and blessing can melt down all the obstacles that look so overwhelming just now.

  I find it amazing that spring will finally melt away all these piles of snow collected over a long winter.  And where do they go?  Do they take up space anywhere else?  Do they move off to trouble other travelers?  No, they simply melt down into the earth to help replenish it.  They make the green of spring all the greener and nourish growth even through the dry seasons. 

  That's the way our troubles are.  They don't move off to trouble others but God melts them down so they will nourish our own character.

 "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."  James 1:2-4 

  God can melt down those ominous icebergs that trouble you so.  Not only will you be lifted up by His everlasting arms, but you'll find growth and strengthening through what you've endured!  Take heart -- spring IS coming!

Love as always,  Elaine