Gathering In - Heart & Home

I’m sitting in my quiet reading corner in my bedroom, overlooking western hills dusted with freshly fallen snow. Welcome, snow. It will be a while before you reach our place, but to see you in the distance brings a smile, like the arrival of a faraway friend. We are gathering in and winterizing. The in-ground sprinklers have been blown out, the irrigation canals that bring life-giving water to our valley lie empty. The dahlia tuber I’m experimenting with has been dug up, washed and safely stored in peat moss for the winter. I do hope I did that correctly. I had a brief 6 weeks of working at a dahlia farm right before the COVID era lockdowns began in 2020 and mostly worked with post-February dahlia tubers. This is the first time I’ve dug up my own tuber to care for it over winter. The blueberry, strawberry, and raspberry starts are all so young and vulnerable, but they, too, are tucked in with peat moss for a long winter’s nap. I hope to have flourishing crops for my future grandchildren one day, so they can come over to pick the berries and read picture books and make raspberry jam and blueberry pies! Yes, I’m already dreaming of becoming a grandma one day. I must prepare early and begin praying for those precious ones now.

It’s the season of “gathering in”, and I see it now so clearly living in the country. Those who work the land to feed the nation with apples and other summer fruits, who raise the grapes and hops that will ferment and brew into festive wines and ale to adorn the feasting of holiday tables- they depend on the weather, the urgency to bring in the harvest before the cold winter months when all goes silent in the orchards and fields.

In our own home, it’s time to prepare the fireplaces, to button up the chicken coop, and to make sure the older hens are letting the younger hens into the coop on these cold nights. Twice I’ve had to go into their run to catch the younger ones and put them inside the henhouse at night. I’m not sure about this new arrangement! We have massive tree stumps that need to get chopped into firewood, the apple tree needs to have its annual pruning, and I’m delightedly making preparations for my piano studio’s Christmas recital. There is the welcoming of friends in your home, stocking the freezer with pie ingredients, soups, and the coffee corner with an assortment of teas and hot drinks. We gather the blankets, the old ones knitted by great-grandmothers now gone on to Glory, others acquired on missions trips, and the growing Pendleton collection. The slippers are brought out, and the blinds are drawn early as we gather at dusk.

Gathering in is a season when we prepare for the colder months outdoors & inside the home. But there’s also a sense of “gathering in” for our hearts, making preparations for spiritual nourishment, Biblical encouragement from God’s Word, the praying of ancient prayers to bring light in the darkness. We follow the liturgical calendar at home and at church, and we are so cognizant of the symbolism of the physical seasons and the way the ancients used those to put the gospel on display by living out the church year in a repetitive and meaningful way. These habits form us, and we want to be formed for goodness, truth, and beauty.

I want to share just a few resources that are encouraging me this Fall and are a sort of “gathering in” spiritually as I stock my home, my children’s imagination, and continue to seek to be faithful in the formation of their souls.

Kingdom & Culture podcast: My husband, Craig, and our friend and co-worker, David, have just started a podcast discussing the Kingdom of God and how we are to live in this time and place and develop the culture around us as Christians. I invite you to listen in as they have deep conversations with Os Guinness, Uri Brito, Nate Walker, Aaron M. Renn, and others who have a heart to see God’s Kingdom come into all the corners of our civilization and world.

The Daily Grace Co.: I have been continually impressed with the resources from The Daily Grace Co. both for my family and our church. This group of people are passionate about the study of God’s Word and provide tools and inspiration to help others dive into this as well. It is that “gathering in” season of looking forward to which Advent devotionals and readings we will be doing as a family, and their newest study, Just As He Promised, is beautiful. Not only do they include a study through this “lenten-like” season of waiting and preparation for Christmas, they also include their signature charts on the attributes of God, the timeline of redemptive history, historical context into the intertestamental period (the 400 “silent” years) that paved the way and set the stage for the incarnation of the Son of God. They also include a glossary of theological terms in the back, and space for notes, reflection, and prayers. I can’t wait to get into this study with my tweens and teens. (They also have beautiful discipleship resources for teenagers!)

The Daily Joy & Daily Strength Podcasts: This Fall, I have been fed and nourished by listening to the Daily Joy podcast for women. The long passages of Scripture narrated by Irish music artist, Kristyn Getty, sets my heart ablaze to hear from God in His life-giving and life-sustaining Word. The brief devotionals by various authors and read aloud by Lydia Brownbeck, add a short encouraging commentary to help us unpack the Scripture passages in our time. There is also one for men called Daily Strength. The podcasts are basically audio versions of the physical books produced by Crossway.

As you gather in this winter, may you attend to the gathering in of your home, but also of your heart and the hearts of others in your care.

Christ and His Beautiful Bride

Wedding Rehearsal

The string trio set their bows to the strings and began the prelude as a holy hush gathered in the sanctuary of the 98 year old presbyterian church building. Grandparents and parents were seated first, and then bridesmaids and groomsmen. Turning my head toward the back, I caught a glimpse of the bride, the music changed, the congregation stood in awed respect to honor the bride as her father escorted down the aisle and gave her away to the groom.

I have been to countless weddings through the decades, mostly because my dad was a pastor and as a family, my sisters and I were always eager to attend yet another glorious marriage ceremony as we daydreamed of what ours would be like one day. This afternoon, as our dear friend gracefully and gloriously walked down the aisle with her father, the thought that came to mind was how glorious and beautiful Christ sees His Bride, the Church.

His Church, the people the Father has given Him, through no merit or effort of their own, have been chosen by God, before the foundation of the world, before literally anything was created into existence. His Church past, present, future, contains millions and millions of redeemed sinners, saved by His own sacrifice, to make them whole, healed, forgiven, redeemed. He makes His Church beautiful by giving her His own goodness, not of their own doing, but by unmerited favor poured out upon them and in them through the outpouring of His Holy Spirit into them, as He regenerates their souls and makes them a new creation in Christ.

As a congregation, we sang the song, Yet Not I But Through Christ in Me. Entering into this song of worship took this group of people into a moment of musical praise to our Lord Jesus whose presence was honored and invited and felt. A wedding is a picture of Christ and His Bride, the consummation of the ages, the glorious end to which we travel in this world, and yet what lies beyond this is more than we could ask or imagine. It will truly be the beginning of endless days of praise, goodness we have so long waited for, truth that heals all the lies we have believed about ourselves and others, and beauty that shines from the face of Jesus Himself, a beauty that outshines all others.

Will the world learn this? Will they hear these truths and turn to Him who so longs for them to know Him? Now is the time to turn your heart to Jesus and look into His wonderful face. Look at your groom! He comes for you, dear Bride of Christ.

Listen to this beautiful hymn recorded by our sister church in Washington state, by dear friends of ours:

The Church’s One Foundation, by Christ Church Bellingham

Photo from Unsplash

Gathering Gardens of Words in Autumn

The teenager appetite is quite impressive! Not only is our family consuming 120 eggs a week in this season of life, but baking has also ramped up this Fall. With prices at the grocery store also increasing, our food budget is quite tight, especially in that last week of the month when we are nearing the red line and have to get extra creative with what’s in the pantry. This is when our family opens the fridge door and stares a while as we contemplate whether or not to heat up the leftovers, concoct something out of the random remains of other meals or ponder what kind of soup we could make with perhaps a fresh loaf of artisan bread, because even a meager “end of the month” soup tastes like a feast with a fresh loaf of bread! Ah, it is Fall, my reading friends! The smells of fresh baked Autumn Apple Pie and fresh baked chocolate chip cookies and pumpkin chocolate chip muffins fill our home and brings a smile of delight and sense of care after coming in from a long day of work and school.

Where we live, we have 300 days of sunshine and quite a dry climate, so we have been enjoying the beauties of the season all around us. The leaves that have shadowed protectively over us are turning all crimson and golden as they make their farewell tour. We thank them for their service to us and bless them as they make their way into the autumn decay where they will return to nourish the soil. Our sunflowers finally made their way into a blooming golden fiesta! Even my chickens have enjoyed a couple of sunflower stalks growing around their coop. The two newest chicks, Poppi and Daisy, are now big enough to join the rest of the flock and are doing just fine! I realized I needed to get them acclimated to the rest of the flock after seeing some frost on the ground in the early morning. So I took down the makeshift fence within the coop and now they are able to nestle together in the shared warmth of their body heat for the colder days of Fall.

Just like the western winds that blew down from the Cascades this past week ushering in evidence of seasonal changes, our September was a whirlwind of hoisting the sails of new schedules and routines for our family. With our eldest now driving, we are able to manage a fuller load of activities. Along with starting up the school year for our children at their little classical school, milestones are happening at our church with the launch of new ministries and discipleship opportunities. And in the midst of all the beginnings and activities, I had the joyful gift from Jesus to whisk my teenage daughter away on a mother-daughter trip. At one point on our getaway, as we were surrounded by women worshiping the Lord through song, I whispered in my heart to my Lord, “Thank you, Lord. This is perfect.” Gratitude to my Lord Jesus, Giver of good gifts.

I want to share a quote with you that is the theme of where I am at right now in this moment as I chair our church plant’s Women’s Ministry Team. Its from the booklet of the Made for More Conferences that have begun this Fall around the nation:

“If we keep talking and walking together, things are going to change! Not only will we be changed or transformed as we unpack the content of the gospel in the context of intergenerational community, but also, we believe, the intergenerational discipleship culture of our churches will change. We will begin building bridges and removing barriers across the generations. Women will begin to think biblically about all of life and live those truths out covenantally and relationally. And as we keep walking and talking together, we will become increasingly ready to share the gospel and our lives together! You, our friend, are made for more than this world can offer!” -Karen Hodge and Katie Flores, PCA CDM

This month, I am also participating in a book launch team for Sarah Clarkson’s newest offering, Reclaiming Quiet, Cultivating a Life of Holy Attention. As part of the launch team, I get to begin reading a digital version of it before it releases in November. In these beginning chapters, I am drawn into her story as she describes the events that led her into the realization of her need to desperately pursue a season of quiet. Again, like in her other writings, I can relate to so much of her experience. Reading her words is like sitting down with an old friend who understands so much of seasons I have also walked through, including the intentional battle to pursue and attend to quiet in a noisy and distracting modern world. She writes:

“Somewhere along the way, my mind became crowded with the images and thoughts of countless screens and headlines, my soul restless and on edge, and the way to quiet, even in solitude, was no longer plain to me. I watched myself become increasingly formed and driven by my inward distraction, my incapacity to be still, my unease with hush. I witnessed the holy quiet of those early years being swallowed by the buzz of a mind primed to turn to a screen for comfort, addicted to headlines. I felt chased by all I witnessed online and all I must accomplish, desperate both to keep up with and also attend to the myriad voices calling out in sorrow or anger or outrage in the words on my screen. I could no longer look away from them without a mighty inward wrestle, and even then, I was haunted by the echoes of their frenzy and fury… St Teresa discovered a palace within her soul. I found a kitchen table in mine…”

“I stepped back into a sense of God’s companionship.”

-Sarah Clarkson, Reclaiming Quiet

I look forward to this month of delving into her book, reflecting on seasons of quiet in my own life and how God has so dearly met me there in the past, and what He will teach me this month as I wrestle with how “quiet” looks for me in my season and stage of life. I hope you will pick up a copy of her book too! It might just be a discipleship message others need to wrestle with as well.

My little pumpkin, a late bloomer, but happy to be here and growing quietly, sheltered by a blue spruce in a part of our yard that doesn’t usually get water… well, some water found the seed one day, and in late August, the plant sprouted up and began to grow. Its been a welcome surprise of life adorning our chicken coop and making me chuckle every time I pass by it.

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.

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