Into the Whimsical World of Anne

I am reading the book, Anne of Ingleside, for the first time. In the Anne of Green Gables series, it is the 6th book in the series and shares the escapades and mischievous shenanigans of Anne and Gilbert’s children. For some reason, I never got around to reading the entire 8 book series growing up. I just started and stopped with the first book. Actually, I’ll share the reason, and for me it is a story of kindness and rediscovery. As a young girl, I was gifted the first book in the wonderful world of the orphan, Anne Shirley. However, I was swimming delightedly in an ocean of music, and so my literary adventures would blossom later, even though I loved reading short and inspirational chapter books.

In our church, the young girls were paired with an older woman who would pray for the girl they were matched with, send a card on her birthday, and little encouragement notes every once in a while. A kind and generous woman (so very lovely and godly; I think of her with such gratitude) gave me a brand new copy of Anne of Green Gables. I didn’t know the story, except that it was about an orphan girl on PEI and that it was made into a movie featuring Megan Follows in the 1980’s, of which I watched at some point in my growing up years and really enjoyed it! Oh how I loved watching television shows of that time in history: Road to Avonlea, Dr Quinn Medicine Woman, Pollyanna. These shows fascinated me, and I imagined what it would be like to live in Avonlea with pinafores and horse drawn carriages and oil lanterns. However, the book would have to wait.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I had obsessive-compulsive disorder which hugely affected my reading capacity. I would read sentences and then ruminate over the words, getting stuck on words and staring at them as the minutes ticked by. Perhaps that is why I chose short books, ones that were about hope in God, overcoming trials, and horses, of course. Reading Anne was very difficult for me because the words she used were very long and sometimes foreign to my level of vocabulary. I stopped reading after trying very hard to tackle this large tome, and that’s okay. I wasn’t ready for it. At some point, eventually, I picked it up to finish it… another OCD reason because at that time, I felt that I had to finish books I started to feel a sense of completeness. It was a challenge the Lord ordained for me.

Many years later, when I finally met my beloved husband and we got married and started a family, my music world was diminishing for a season, and it was time for my literary world to awaken. What a wonderful Savior to bring about these seasons in his perfect timing. He knows oh so much more about ourselves than we could imagine. When my daughter was elementary age, we started a tradition of reading my beloved Mandie books to her. This was a precious time of the day. As she grew older, I decided it was time for the Anne books… for her AND for me! I found a beautiful set of the books with cover illustrations by the Canadian artist, Elly Mackay, published by Tundra Books. We began reading these books together, her and me, on our mommy dates, at times laughing out loud at the ridiculous adventures of Anne and her friends, and at other times, just delighting in the word craft of L.M. Montgomery. We loved the first 3 books, skipped Windy Poplars, and then I took up reading Anne’s House of Dreams and now Anne of Ingleside on my own. I think my daughter might rejoin me for the final installment in the series, Rilla of Ingleside!

And so I read and enter the worlds of beautiful descriptions of landscape and scenery, of seasons and sunsets all taking place on the magical Prince Edward Island in Canada. Sadly, the work of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne books was not noticed on the world stage during her lifetime, but in God’s timing, the stories she crafted with her impeccable imagination and grasp of the English language was a ministry of joy and virtue that still builds up young girls to this day. Reading together has created wonderful memories for me and my children, and the books and characters we’ve met through the years have taught us all meaningful lessons for life, virtue, and character. I pray my children will take these books with them into their marriages and families one day.

Its been as an adult that I’ve rediscovered Anne and the beauty of LM Montgomery’s words all these years later from the challenging reading days of my middle school years with undiagnosed OCD. But finding beauty is hard won in this broken world, and even LM Montgomery, the writer of some of the most beautiful verses in Canadian literature lived with incredible pain and suffering that her readers never knew as news articles have revealed in recent years.  I am convinced that joy and beauty are hard won, sought after through endurance and perseverance, and sometimes born out of severe circumstances, like the formation of the rarest and most precious gems. I leave you with a few quotes from this beloved author:

“In imagination she sailed over storied seas that wash the distant shining shores of “faëry lands forlorn,” where lost Atlantis and Elysium lie, with the evening star for pilot, to the land of Heart’s Desire.”
”

— L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

And this blessed quote that speaks so dearly to my season of life and motherhood right now! How precious are these years:

A family hike through sunflower fields

“They were all growing so fast. In just a few short years they would be all young men and women... youth tiptoe...expectant...a-star with its sweet wild dreams...little ships sailing out of safe harbor to unknown ports...
But they would be still hers for a few years yet... hers to love and guide... to sing the songs that so many mothers had sung...
The night was cool; soon the sharper, cooler nights of autumn would come; then the deep snow... There would be the magic of firelight in gracious rooms...hadn’t Gilbert spoken not long ago of apple logs he was getting to burn in the fireplace? They would glorify the grey days that were bound to come. What would matter drifted snow and biting wind when love burned clear and bright, with spring beyond? And all the little sweetnesses of life sprinkling the road...
”What a family!” Anne repeated exultantly.”

— L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Ingleside

My brave sunflower, shining with beauty and just loving the fact that she was created!

Gathering Gardens of Words in Summertime

Our family was gifted a trip to our beloved St Louis, MO this summer where we spent three years at seminary. The Missouri Botanical Gardens was one of my favorite places to visit and still is!

““I cannot think of a single thing in my life that doesn’t bear the touch of others. I’m guessing you can’t either. Of course we wish some of those chisel marks never happened—the ones that draw from us a plea for mercy, the ones that kindle a hunger for the renewal of all things. But other marks have been necessary to give us eyes to behold goodness, truth, and beauty we would not have known otherwise. Living with limits is one of the ways we enter into beauty we would not have otherwise seen, good work we would not have chosen, and relationships we would not have treasured. For the Christian, accepting our limits is one of the ways we are shaped to fit together as living stones into the body of Christ. As much as our strengths are a gift to the church, so are our limitations.” ”

— Russ Ramsey, Rembrandt is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith

Our summer has been full, and what I imagined would be a summer of leisurely writing and more focused work on the crafting of words has ended up being quite sparse… like my apple tree this year. Nestled within the foliage of my tree there are apples growing, but not nearly as many as last year. I draw a correlation to my writing in this season. I can’t get there right now. Even my desire to write has languished this summer. Ah, limits. That’s right, I’m human. Though I want to get from point A to point B instantaneously, my legs can only carry my embodied soul there one little size 8 foot step at a time. So I enter into “the beauty we would not have known otherwise,” had my every wish and dream and accomplishment come true this summer!

Though there’s been a stillness here in my writing, our summer has not been still! So I will share some life-giving moments that have adorned our very full summer, including quotes from great books I’ve been reading.

Planting, replanting, repotting, and propagating have been a dusty, dirty, sweaty summer project these past few months. Our living room faces east and receives the sunlight into its embrace through several enormous windows. This is our plant room. I was never a great plant mama until we moved to this house. Now we have an abundance of natural light. We have mini monstera vines, a large monstera, two fiddle-leaf plants, of which one is a successful result of a propagation experiment, aloe, philodendron, pothos, and others. I may try fern this Fall. I grew up in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia where ferns grow profusely. I have cherished childhood memories spent amidst ferns, sitting beside green shadowed creeks where filtered light allowed one to see to the pebbled streambed through frigid clear mountain water. I distinctly remember turning over fern blades beside my elementary school to look for the miniscule spores, hid mysteriously from sight. Every hiking path was bordered by these luxurious plants. Even our home featured a hanging fern in our family room. I loved “helping my mom” by tending the fern, removing the dead leaves, and taking a scissors to it when I felt like it needed a haircut. Looking back, I’m not sure I was really helping! I have not had good success with growing a fern at our home in the high desert dry climate due to the intense heat of summer and constant need for moisture and shade outdoors. But I am determined to try raising a fern indoors in the Fangorn Forest that is becoming our living room.

This fiddle-leaf is a successful propagation from our mother plant.

Limitations are found everywhere, whether in our schedules, our projects and plans, or our weather and climate. I think the above quote is profoundly refreshing if one reads it with contentment and a deeper gaze into its meaning. Our limitations are a gift God has given to us, and it orients us to our Creator on whom we daily depend. We can find much rest and purpose in accepting our limitations if we can see the loving intention of the One who created us to be who we are designed to be.

This is another successful propagation from a mini monstera vine. The mother vine got pruned this summer, but in its glory, she grew round and round a chalkboard sign I had in our dining room, and then around a painting I found at the thrift shop. It always reminds me of the fantastical novel by Christine Cohen, The Sinking City, where the magician’s house is filled with magical vines.

I’ll be 47 this year. It boggles my mind that I can be this old already, but the signs are all there: the silver linings are growing deeper into a full-headed “crown of glory” as Psalm 16 reminds me, and I’m choosing to keep those gray hairs. Others choose differently, but I want to experience the natural way. There is a joy in that for me. My 20/20 vision of which I have so long been blessed with has been noticeably changing, so I picked up a pair of reading glasses one day from the dollar store, and was amazed, simply amazed by how much better I could see! Clearly things are changing, and that’s okay. Contentment is a form of beauty and when we can be quietly content, there is a peacefulness that no spa experience can manufacture. There is a peace that comes from being content in God’s presence. That peace cannot be purchased, it can only be received, and it only comes from Jesus who offers it freely. In all the changes that come with getting older, I can rest in Christ and trust the process. I can depend on Him. I’m enjoying reading this book mentioned next by John Andrew Bryant. It speaks to those who suffer in ways that Christians have a hard time talking about. So I’m thankful for his voice into these hard things, and the hope it gives.

“There may come a day when we cannot be sane or capable, when we cannot be stable. But there will never come a day when we cannot be a Christian. Because a Christian is someone who depends on Christ, who can be quietly changed by depending on Him. We are assured that to depend on Christ is to be given Christ, utterly and completely. If we can depend on Christ with every horrible thing, then in the midst of every horrible thing Christ will give Himself to us, and by giving Himself to us, give us back to ourselves. In this way, even anguish and distress have been a transfiguration. In this way, every moment can be a transfiguration.””

— John Andrew Bryant, A Quiet Mind to Suffer With

Art by Lilias Trotter

As I’ve been reading throughout this summer a variety of books (Rembrandt is in the Wind to my tweens and teens, Phantastes by George MacDonald, The Way of the Sevenfold Secret by Lilias Trotter, Anne of Ingleside, Evidence Not Seen) I’ve also been mentoring some ladies through the book Life-Giving Leadership by Karen Hodge and Susan Hunt. This is the second time I’m reading through it, and goodness me, it is so marked up already, highlighted, underlined, notated, with coffee mug stains and creases, that I might as well just highlight the entire book. I’ve never read a leadership book so saturated with the good news of Christ’s work accomplished and how that affects our leading of others and our covenant community life with our local church body.

“So, with the prayers, guidance and help of that leadership team, we developed a biblical apologetic of womanhood and of woman’s place in the church with an emphasis on Titus 2 discipleship. This women’s ministry narrative flows out of the sound doctrine that God is our reference point, His Word is our authority, and His glory is our purpose.””

— Susan Hunt, Life-Giving Leadership

This book is a fountain of mentorship for those willing to learn and grow from its wisdom. I will just share one more quote here and maybe write more later. But for now…

“Life-giving leaders know they are nothing more than a tiny grain of wheat, called to a unique place of dirt where they are to die. We die to our fears. Perhaps it means dying to our reputation, or comfort or convenience. Maybe it’s dying to our plans, dreams, and agendas. Life-giving leadership is sacrificial. It’s costly and it’s daily. It’s glorious and it’s significant. It’s life-giving because it abides in Christ and bears gospel fruit.”

— Karen Hodge & Susan Hunt, Life-Giving Leadership

That is all I have time for today! Perhaps this Fall season, words will come more easily and I may be more present here. But alas, the bread must be baked, books must be read, and a dog must be walked! ;) Ah, but it is so good and life-giving to write a few thoughts down here too!

Blessings and may you walk with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit today!

My Night Sky Petunias! When you look at them, it’s like you’re looking into the night sky!

Homemaking ~ The Ministry of the Laundry

Laundresses at Eragny, Camille Pissarro, c. 1901

The mountain rises every day, not just in its elevation, but in its girth. It is a mountain of socks with holes, t-shirts and sports shorts, of faded school uniforms, denim jeans too small, and kids’ shirts now too tight, mixed in with bedsheets, pillow cases, and tablecloths. We sort through the piles of laundered items to separate the items that fit from the items that are ready to be bagged up and ushered forth into the wonderful world of The Thrift Shop. The socks who’ve lost their matching pair are tossed into the lone sock drawer in the laundry room. One day, I’m sure I’ll go through that drawer and find all the pairs have been reunited in there over the years. Different seasons have called for different methods of managing the vast amount of laundry our family has used.

The baby years called for inordinate amounts of stain remover as I tried to rescue onesies from their unavoidable destiny of blowouts. (This is why new babies need a large supply of onesies for the first several months.) The toddler years saw my efforts for putting away folded clothes thwarted as my little ones loved pulling clohtes out of dresser drawers as soon as they could pull themselves up! During our seminary years, we were so busy with our four little ones and my husband in classes, that the laundry pile went onto the floor during the night, and back onto our bed during the day. The clothes always got washed and dried, but they didn’t always make it into neat and tidy folded stacks, and very rarely got put back into dresser drawers.

As our children grew and acquired more responsibilities, I would have them go through the clean laundry bins and pull out their own clothes and put them away (folded or unfolded, it didn’t matter, as long as they were in their drawers). They now regularly wash, fold, and put away their clothes properly… almost. I think we have finished training our children in laundry management.

Can there be beauty in washing the laundry? I would argue, yes, and I will state my case plainly. First, have you ever wondered where this clothing comes from? Which fabrics they are made from? How those fabrics got produced in the first place? And what plants or worms were the source of those fabrics? If you are like me, it is all so very fascinating and worth a good think! I want to look at fabrics with the intelligence of a worker who knows which plants these fibers have been culled from, and how to work with these fibers to make them last as long as possible. The fabrics that clothe my family are worth getting to know. It makes a difference to understand fabric and how to preserve and protect them for longevity. Its a type of stewardship, and yet not entirely a naturally enjoyable task, as any monotonous type of work creates this challenge. May I refer to the thorns and thistles of Genesis 3:18 & 19? Can we see beauty in something so tedious and mundane? Something I have loved to do in the last few years is to find beautiful works of art to inspire and enhance my domestic duties, to make it more of a creative act of beauty, than just a mundane task on my to-do list each week. If you’ve read this far, you are hooked! Hooray! A like-minded soul! Carry on!

One of the artists that best captures the beauty in the ordinary is artist, Camille Pissarro. I discovered one of his works one day while rummaging through the art and empty frames section of our local thrift shop. A sense of wonderment overtook me, almost an adrenaline. The name in cursive letters below the print was C. Pissarro. The painting I found was his piece titled, “The Hermitage at Pontoise” which portrays a quaint little village scene in the town of Pontoise, France. This painting is now reframed in our living room, prominently placed beside the piano.

Camille Pissarro was an impressionist painter who saw beauty in the ordinary tasks of the men, women, and children of his time, so much so that he sought to capture the experience of ordinary moments of daily living with the brushstrokes of his genius. Ordinary became art. Duty became beauty. Passing moments became opportunities to create with light and color. Not only are his works wall worthy, but they give me joy in the beauty of a hidden and quiet life.

“Known as the ‘Father of Impressionism’, Pissarro painted rural and urban French life, particularly landscapes in and around Pontoise, as well as scenes from Montmartre. His mature work displays an empathy for peasants and laborers,” -https://www.camille-pissarro.org/biography.html

In 1 Thessalonians 4:11, Paul urges the believers in Thessalonica to “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we instructed you…” (NASB).

Although I still prefer to do other things than fold the laundry, it’s also something that must be done. Nowadays, I fold laundry while listening to an audiobook or podcast so that my mind is engaged as well as my hands. I’ve found pieces of art that inspire me to do the work, enjoy the work, and watch as beauty is unfurled as a result of the work. Below are some of my favorite creative works that inspire me to do the duties the Lord has called me to and to find beauty in the mundane work that must be done. Other artists and musicians have found the glory in the mundane and have written songs about it. I find in these creative expressions, voices that articulate the worth of these domestic duties and puts their glory on display. Even the German poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe believed these sentiments when he wrote the famous line, “Cease endlessly striving to do what you want to do and learn to love what must be done.”

Since today is a day of much laundry: clothing, towels, bedsheets, and preparations for a guest, it seemed like the perfect timing to share this little message. I hope you enjoy and find beautiful ways to adorn your necessary everyday tasks of this life God has given you to steward.

Art

Woman Hanging Up the Laundry, Camille Pissarro

Painting by Lilias Trotter

Ruth Chou Simons - Van Goethe print “…learn to love what must be done”

Hermosa Print Co. - Vintage Watercolor of Young Woman Relaxing in Field

Podcast & Music

Christy Nockles - podcast: Glorious in the Mundane & album Into the Glorious

Leslie Jordan - Your Work is Happening Here

Dreamers Dreaming Greatly

“Before us all dawned, I think a new horizon – of the glory of the task to which God has called us – a glory in its every hardness & in the sense that we are working for the future & its coming day.  ‘We were dreamers dreaming greatly.'”  Lilias Trotter, Missionary to Algeria, 23 October 1911

A couple times this year, I was asked if we’ve experienced anything difficult in church planting. Church planting is hard. Its a daily dying and offering up of yourself to do work that is counter cultural, brings criticism, sits with people in their pain and suffering, counsels people to overcome sin in their lives, and intercedes in prayer for the building of a body of believers to stand against the powers of hell through the power of the Holy Spirit. It has been incredibly hard. Church planting has brought us to our knees in prayer many times. Throughout each trial that God ordained, He has strengthened us with a willingness to bear these things for the Kingdom of God, cocooning us in His love, defending us with His shield, becoming to us the Refuge to which we run. . We know our struggle is not against flesh and blood.

It made me think, have we not shared enough about our struggles? Have we only shared about the victories? I am a “glass half full” kind of person and so I try to see all the ways God is at work in a situation and then rejoice to bring Him all the glory, no matter how small the victory. I live to express my worship to God and praise Him for being the Wonderful One, and so that joy comes forth like a waterfall. But that joy is hard won. That joy was purchased for me on a bloody Roman cross by the Perfect One, the Lord Jesus. That joy was poured out through his electing will and through the indwelling of His Spirit. That joy was worked and reworked inside me as I went through years of formation during the dark years of depression and obsessive compulsive disorder, years of medication, counseling, and prayers for healing. Those dark times drove me to my Lord Jesus to depend on Him in ways I wouldn’t have, had everything been okay in my life. It was not okay for a very long time and at various times.

So I hide myself in the Lord Jesus where I find His protection and safety and security in His presence. I feed on His Word to sustain me and solidify my hope. He trains my hands for war, and that is what church planting is - it is war and a declaration of the victory of Christ claiming more souls with His torrent of love and forgiveness and grace.

As our fifth summer of church planting begins here in central Washington State, we see the beauty of summer unfolding in gardens, orchards, vineyards, in hiking trails and vacation time begins with visits to the woods, our favorite book shop, the new bake shop and of course the little garden shop where I just recently found the moonlight petunias I had been longing for. The reality of life is that life overlaps, with the good and the bad, the holy and the profane. As sun and heat bring vigor to our bones, it also brings local fires where people lose homes and animals and we watch the sky fill with smoke as friends send text notifications of evacuation. While our church continues to joyfully welcome new members, we also find freshly sprayed graffiti messages at the front entrance of our building. We step over these words as we enter to worship our Lord. Life overlaps.

Church planting is hard, but its very hardness is what makes it meaningful. The Lord works through those hardships to form us and to equip us. Nothing is wasted in the economy of the Lord’s work. And now we get to walk alongside others who are planting churches too, and encourage, pray, and support their work! We see God forming potential church plants in two areas near us. Our networks of friendships are planting churches in places around the country, and even more with those overseas planting gospel seeds for the beginnings of redeemed communities, gardens of God’s people being transformed by His wonderful Word, by the Word. The Holy Spirit hovers over His people, His gardens, and brings forth full and abundant life by His breath. We are dreamers dreaming greatly.

Wait on You

Photo by Wojciech Święch on Unsplash

I stood still beside the window looking out on a misty morning, darkness fading as day came with conquering light, slowly yet confidently bathing the fields with exposure to beauty and knowledge. I didn’t know this new land. I had only driven through, spent little time in this city that we have now lived in for 7 cumulative years, having moved away and back again. Yet that first morning I awoke in this place was beautiful. It was filled with wonder and a holy fear. Where is this road taking us?

We were staying in a guest suite and I was having early labor pains. We had been to the hospital the morning before to make sure it was alright to travel across the mountains to the Yakima valley. It was too early to go into labor, I was not even 30 weeks along and yet the contractions were regular and constant. The doctor at the hospital monitored the baby and gave me some medicine to slow the contractions. Thankfully, it worked. My baby was safe.

We packed up our two toddlers and made the trek across the mountain pass. We were scheduled to meet with a church for my husband to candidate for the worship pastor job. I had mapped out every hospital along the route just in case the rumblings turned into full on labor.

On that morning of awaking to a blue pink misty field, I didn’t know how I felt about this place of unknowns. The gentle mist rising in an unknown land, a place and people that was foreign to me, and the question of whether we would raise our precious ones here. Would I trust the Lord with His shepherding love? Would I trust that the Lord would hold our family the way I was holding my pregnant belly, protecting the beloved  child growing inside?

Fast forward to this summer…

I’m always looking for new music, a new soundtrack to add to my personal life collection. I was telling some ladies recently, that while growing up, I was heavily into the CCM music scene. I knew every song by all the big name Christian artists and bands. There were few artists that I admit I didn’t know, but the ones I did, I listened to their music on repeat. Their song lyrics filled my days, and I memorized every lilt and stylistic overtone. I studied the cassette tape and cd jackets, enjoyed every photo and design element, and even took note of who played which instrument, who wrote the songs, who sang BGV’s, which instruments were used, and where the recording studio was located. These were important details, and I studied them like a kid studies baseball cards.

But not so today. Life is full and priorities have changed over the decades. Although, when I notice that an artist I appreciate has teamed up with an artist I’ve never heard of, I take notice of that. That is how I discovered Hillside Recording. I was listening to Tenielle Neda’s rendition of Yet Not I But Through Christ in Me, and saw that she had partnered with another band. Curious, I clicked over to their music and discovered new music to enjoy.

The cover art for the song, Wait on You, is a photograph of a field at dawn. I am drawn into this peaceful scene of a misty morning in the country, awaking to birdsong, and absolute quiet, a picture of serenity and peace, of the hope of a new day and new mercies from the Lord, of entering a day seemingly untouched by the brokeness of the world.

This photograph and song led me into two memories of awaking to a misty morning. The second memory is as a teenager at summer camp serving as a camp counselor at a Christian ranch in British Columbia. At early morning before dawn, I dressed and stepped outside of the cabin. Taking the road, I walked toward the fence with every crunch of gravel under my hiking boots. A baby calf stood nearby in the dew drenched grass, a fog covering everything, and a silence so peaceful. I longed to know Jesus more, to experience his presence and wait for him. Perhaps that is why a morning alone and in quiet is so precious to me. I want to sit at the feet of Jesus and wait on him with wonder and a holy fear, with a trust in the One who said, “Be still and know that I am God.”

I hope you too enjoy this song and learn to wait in expectation of the One who does more than we can ask or imagine.

In the stillness before dawn breaks
Steady my heart and mind as long as it takes
My God I've never seen far
Just keep my eyes on places You are
In every season I will wait
I will lean into Your strength
You will fight my battles I need only to be still

Wait on You, Song by Diana Trout and Hillside Recording

His Yea, My Amen

Painting by Lucy Bacon

““All little miniature beginnings but all ‘beautiful in their time’, like the dark green August oranges in the court below. The fact that they have got thus far into being is more than a promise. Like all the promises of God they are (given the conditions) an accomplishment begun. His ‘Yea’ only waits our ‘Amen.’” ”

— Lilias Trotter, 11 August 1906

Ten years ago, I shared with my husband how I longed to write a blog again. I had been out of the practice for a few years, and once our fourth baby was beginning to toddle around our apartment and master every barrier we tried to use to contain him in manageable areas of the home (he was very determined to catch up with his sister and brothers), we were preparing for a move across the country to attend seminary and pursue further ministry. One thing I had put on the shelf for a while was writing, but I was sensing a need to practice this refreshing and creative work once again. I wasn’t ready to write publicly, but my husband encouraged me to start a blog and just write for myself and him until I was ready to share my words with others. So I did. I began Every Morning New Mercies.

On this 10 year anniversary of my writing home, we have now moved geographically twice more, planted a church, and dwell in a land that I compare to Frodo’s Shire, with Rivendell not too far away. In celebration of the gift this blog has been to me from my Lord Jesus, and the joy of so many words written, I have decided to: first, start a Substack; second, tell people about it(!), third, pray and dream and consider what the Lord would have me write.

What you can expect monthly…

In a busy season of raising teens and tweens, church planting, and beginning a piano studio at home, you can expect two monthly pieces posted on Substack and here on the blog: one where I write a brief essay on a topic I am passionate about, and one post sharing quotes from the reading I have done that month combined with beautiful images I find.

Subscribe to Every Morning New Mercies
on Substack @everymorningnewmercies

Nothing will change here. I have never had a subscribe button because I haven’t been able to figure it out (!) or wanted to pay the fee for one, however, one of the perks of a Substack is not only the community it brings to my writing, but it also provides me with a subscribe button (for those who have the Substack app). But if you are a reader who prefers to just pop on here whenever it suits you best, and you’d rather not be notified, I totally get it, and I welcome you here. With the addition of a Substack, I am folded into a community of like-minded writers, authors, readers, and artists (all of whom love Narnia & Middle Earth, so I’m in good company)!

With all that said, I think a Substack and a subscribe button will help my writing get out to more people, Lord willing, to bless them.

As always, thank you for reading. I hope it is a blessing.

Gathering Gardens of Words in April & May

It is the first day of May, but let’s pretend its still April for a moment! I am just going to tuck this little garden of words into April’s archive before we get too far into May! It has been a wondrous month of welcoming four new babies into our little church family through baby showers, baptism, meal trains, and the anticipation of another sweet one next month. We are rejoicing that God is bringing so much life into our community. In the meantime, I have been finding pages to savor in a variety of books, and I would love to share some quotes here to cultivate thought and hope.

Photo from Unsplash

“One hears of the light chasing the darkness - but I never saw it done before. It was literally hunted and driven down due west in the sunrise into this great bay of sky between the Matterhorn and the Obere Gabelhorn. When I went to keep watch in the front of the house at quarter to five, the sky was still soft lavender blue. Then came from the zenith a flush of violet, sweeping the blue down to the snow of the skyline and that was chased down by mauve, and the mauve by dim rose colour, and the rose by apricot. Then the peak of the Matterhorn flamed up in brilliant rose and madder - and the day has come.” -Lilias Trotter, from the book A Blossom in the Desert: Reflections of Faith in the Art and Writings of Lilias Trotter, collected by Miriam Huffman Rockness

Art by I. Lilias Trotter

I greatly appreciate detailed descriptions of beauty in creation. I find that Lilias Trotter is among my most loved writers of descriptions of the natural world. Glory upon glory revealed through language in a way that we can vividly recreate in our imagination. It is like drinking endlessly from a mountain stream, and if you read these authors regularly, the well never seems to run dry. What a gift Lilias had to be able to communicate through language, the vision beholden in her eyes and translated through words into the mind of another. Her works of art, some just sketches, or incomplete paintings, give us a glimpse into her life and travels serving the Lord amidst a foreign culture. Unfinished art seems to me to be more realistic, giving us a vision of the artist’s life in process, perhaps being interrupted by a conversation, or lunch time, or changes in weather from where the art is being made. Perhaps the child she was painting came up to her and asked her to play a game with sticks and stones, and maybe she put her tools down to give attention to this little one… just a thought.

Woman Playing a Harp (Lavinia Banks?)
National Gallery of Art

“Oh! Is it not to the eternal praise of a covenant-keeping God that poor pilgrims - wandering through a wilderness and having to wage constant war with the world, the flesh, and the devil - should yet be enabled to sing gloriously as they put their enemies to flight and overcome by the blood of the Lamb? It is the overcoming ones who learn to praise. The fingers which can most adroitly use the sword are the most skillful in touching the harp. Each time God gives us the victory over sin, we learn a new song with which to laud and bless His holy name. Does it not make your heart leap to know that your Lord takes pleasure in your praise?” - Susannah Spurgeon, A Basket of Summer Fruit

and…

“How well the wee chicks know this! When the least thing alarms them, or the drops of rain come pattering down, then fly quickly to their mother’s wings for shelter and safety, and you can see nothing of them but a collection of legs, tiptoeing in their eagerness to press very close to the warm breast which covers them! …my faith nestled up, as it were, to the loving heart which brooded over me and found such a glow of everlasting love there that all outside ills and evils were as if they were not. …But if any timid, afflicted souls read these few lines, let me whisper to them to run at once to their God… The hen effectually conceals her brood from any passing enemy- but God is an impenetrable hiding-place for His people. Surely this is the meaning of the psalmist when he says, “I will trust in the covert of Your wings,” (Psalm 61:4). Is it not a sad wonder that, sometimes, we willfully stay out in the rain and the storm, facing unknown dangers-when all the while, so gracious a shelter is provided and accessible?”

-Susannah Spurgeon, A Basket of Summer Fruit

These two quotes have spoken such gratitude and remembrance to me. At a recent baby shower, I read these words of Susannah Spurgeon to speak of our gratitude to the Lord of the joyful gift of new life to this family, and also to remind us in the uncertainties and unknowns, to flee to our God who shelters us and our little ones and hides us under His wings of refuge in the beautiful and hard work of motherhood.

The End of Woman, by Dr Carrie Gress

The following collection of quotes is not quite a garden of botanical beauty, but more a collection of aloe vera pups, prickly, but meant to aid in the healing of the world…

“Feminism’s failure, at root, is its misdiagnosis of what ails women. Feminists have worked hard to mitigate women’s suffering, but by trying to eliminate our vulnerability, by making us cheap imitations of men, and by ignoring our womanhood. Setting off in the wrong direction, the prescribed fix can’t really fix anything. Instead, it has erased women one slow step at a time. As those slow steps get faster and faster, women find themselves at risk of being erased from the movement that once purported to liberate them, finding themselves undefined in an increasily progressive world.” -Dr Carrie Gress, The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us

This morning, I went to my mammogram appointment. When filling out the paperwork at the clinic, a question was posed as to what my sex designated at birth was and then I was asked a second question: which gender do I identify with? What happened to the simple question: which sex are you? Male or female? This book answers the question of what happened, and it goes far deeper into history than readers may be ready for. It is disturbing. There were times I almost had to close the book because of the evils described within. But truth is always brought into the light. I deeply respect the courage of Carrie Gress for this historical overview and her scholarly research on this topic.

“Feminism has been deeply influenced by the occult, going back to its earliest stages. The source, in part, is connect to Mary Wollstonecraft’s kin and legacy, particularly in the work of her daughter… Mary Godwin Shelley, author of Frankenstein… (Percy) Shelley viewed the diabolical passions as the opposite side of the typically masculine characteristics of order, reason, law, hierarchy, obedience, and authority. God, he believed, was the source of order and all that is male, while Satan, represented by the serpent, was the source of passion and creativity. Men and women, in his view, were not meant to be children of God, but rather opposing forces… He used the devil and myths to create new narratives in the minds of readers, taking the place of earlier religious ideas. The Romantics knew that, in order to reshape culture, one had to go back to the beginning of culture and rewrite it… With Cythna, Shelley created a new female archetype, the embodiment of the human creature that Mary Wollstonecraft idealized: the woman as an individual without any connection to motherhood, husbands, or children… Cythna became the ideal individual, not connected to any kind of family, the model of womanhood. Her only real personal connection was with Satan. Shelley presciently saw that sex differences, what he called “detestable distinctions,” would “surely be abolished in the future state of being.” -Dr. Carrie Gress, The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us

Though I disagree with Carrie Gress on many of her theological leanings described in other books (I am not Roman Catholic, I am a Christian in the Reformed tradition), I think this book is one of the most important historical overviews of the feminist movement of our time. It’s a beginning at least, to expose the deception that has cost the lives of so many, one million babies killed in the United States in 2020 alone. When society has been burned to the ground, which in this case, it has, we have the greatest opportunity in the world to rebuild with truth, beauty, and goodness with the resources of the One who is Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, Jesus, the Son of God.

Something to Watch… Eve in Exile… let’s build.

“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

-2 Corinthians 4:3-6 ESV

Spring Morning, Cloudy, Eragny, 1900, Camille Pissarro