Letter from a 2-year-old

Mom was going through her old things and gave me this letter from K, sent many years ago. I thought it was worth sharing...

Dear Gma,

Thank you for the letter. The first thing I noticed was the train stamp. Mom showed me the envelope and showed me my name, then I, very excitedly, showed HER the train. I liked the stickers too, but was a little disappointed at first that they were "stuck!" Mom and I went to the bank and I read my letter the whole way. When we got to the drive-up window, I showed it to the teller and told her all about it, but when she answered, I got shy and turned away. Mom said she smiled real big and said I was "so cute". (How does everybody know my other name?)

When we got home, I helped Mom make a cake. She even let me pick three eggs out of the refrigerator. I stood on a chair and watched as Mom cracked them open. I licked the beater and watched the cake bake in the oven. Then, after dinner, I ate it!

I'm very busy being two and a half. I'm talking lots--well, I always have, but now Mom and Dad are hearing better. Today, when Mom and I got home, we parked outside Laura's room. I lookd at her window and said, " 'Ts gone, da cat!" Well, the LAST time we came home, Annie was in the window, but this time she wasn't. I'm enjoying watching Cinderella (over and over). Mom found the book last night and I read it to her. We read lots of books--mostly, I read and Mom tries to only turn one page at a time. (She's no speed reader.)

I'm practicing lots of words with Gracie. She is getting BIG. She and I are both learning manners--don't pounce, don't bite, get down, be gentle. Mostly, I say to Gracie, "Let go!" and she says to me, "Yipe!", which, loosely translated, means "Get off!"

Well, it's bedtime now. I love you and am saving a hug for you (and a smile). K

In the Olden Days

We were watching "The Gods Must Be Crazy" today and K was trying to figure out what the "evil thing" was that was dropped from the airplane. We told him it was a Coke bottle and he said, "I thought so, but it looks like it is made out of glass!"

Yes, honey, in the olden days they used to make pop bottles out of glass.

We used to dial telephones (not push buttons), roll car windows up and down (not push buttons), send letters in the mail (not email), get ice from trays in the freezer (not push a button on the front). And, believe it or no, a phone was connected by a wire in the house. You could not play games on it, send text messages on it, take pictures with it, or connect to the internet--in fact, there was no internet!

Living with Fear (and without it)

I refuse to be ashamed of my fear of snakes. After all, I come by it honestly!

So the Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this,
Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers;
He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

I often think to myself, there isn't all that much I'm afraid of. My biggest "fear", I suppose, is that something bad would happen to my children--particularly K--that he would disappear and I not know what happened to him. This is the stuff of nightmares. And of course, there is that innate fear of snakes, which I am consciously trying to get over. But last night, at our women's meeting, I learned that I'm really "afraid" of so much more!

I remember as a teenager--those naive, idealistic years--wondering why the gospel had not spread further. I wondered about missions, why people would have to go to a foreign land to preach the gospel; because, if it were true and real, would it not spread from neighbor to neighbor, like a virulent flu, and within a very short time spread around the world? Why hasn't it? I would have expected the gospel to have spread throughout the world within one generation, possibly two; but it has been two millenia!! And often it does not even go from one generation to the next! Why not?

At our women's group last night, one woman spoke about her neighbors, how they were so different from her in values, in habits, in lifestyle, in temperment, in attitudes and habits, and how all these things annoyed her to the point that she wanted to sell her house and move. She pointed out how we don't really "see" our neighbors. We don't know our neighbors for the most part, let alone have any kind of relationship with them. She talked about how, as she prayed about these things and asked God to remove her from all this irritation, He answered, "You are exactly where I want you to be." (This was a wake-up call to me, because, as I have groaned to God these past years about this and that in my life, He has said the very thing to me.) She started praying for her neighbors and started caring about them as people that God cherished, seeing them through God's eyes--not from a "holier-than-thou" perspective or even with an eye to change all that was irritating to her about them, but from a perspective of, "These people really need to know the love of God, and come into a relationship with Him, and be healed." And things started changing.

I started thinking about my own neighbors and why it was so hard to share the Lord with them. I realized that, while I don't criticize myself about some things, others probably do. And who knows my faults better than my family and my neighbors? And when I get honest about it, I am afraid of what they will think of me and how I represent God to them. I'm afraid that I will just be another one of those people--'Oh, she's a Christian? I sure don't want to be one then, because I sure don't want to be like her!" Deep down, I feel inadequate, on just about every level, to represent God at all.

I'm pretty sure this "fear" is why the gospel has not gone from person to person, neighbor to neighbor, parent to child. We think we have to be perfect, we are afraid of what people will think, we are afraid we are not good enough, we are afraid people will think we are nuts. We don't show our 'bad' sides, so when people finally get a glimpse of them, they think we are hypocrites. Or maybe, in some areas, we are hypocrites, because we have not yielded that area of our lives to God's sovereignty.

But the truth is, "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us". He doesn't just call the "religious", the upright, the perfect homemakers, the white-collar workers. He wants us all. And if we truly have God's heart, then we also will want all people to come into a relationship with God. That includes all our neighbors, not just the "tolerable" ones.

I'm afraid they won't like me. I'm afraid they will reject me--or worse, that they will reject Christ because of me. But Jesus said, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. "

The Truth is that it really only matters what God thinks of me. I just have to do my best, submit all things to Him as I am made aware of them, be open to His leading, and be as honest as I can in all areas; and then just let Him take care of the rest.

If I find a snake in my house, God is still God. If I go hungry, God is still God. If I lose my home, God is still God. If I lose my health, God is still God. If I lose a loved one, God is still God. If, God forbid, I lose my mind, God is still God.

Romans 8: 35-39 "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long: we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than canquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Psalm 139:7-10 "Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from you presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast."

On Judgment Day, the only voice that will have any weight will be God's. The only thing I should fear is God.

Truly, I can't control what people say or think about me. I can't control any aspect of the economy or the weather or wars around the world. I'm relatively powerless over anything beyond my little acre, my sphere of responsibility. Dorcus Smucker wrote, in her book "Ordinary Days", about the fear and sense of powerlessness that came with September 11, 2001. "And when I honestly acknowledge my own helplessness, I find that I am least afraid of the future."

Smiles and Hisses

Did you ever notice that when God confused men's language, in the days of the Tower of Babel, that He left us a smile (and most facial expressions), which means the same in all languages (as far as I know)? A baby's smile is one of the most delightful things in all the earth. A mother delights in her baby's first smile. Who can resist smiling at a baby in church---or anywhere else, for that matter?

Similarly, in the animal kingdom, I have noticed that a hiss means the same thing across all species (as far as I know). I remember walking out my back door one dark night and hearing a loud hiss, only to see that I had surprised an opossum. Cats hiss, snakes hiss. Not all animals hiss--I don't recall ever hearing a dog hiss--but I'm pretty sure that all animals understand what a hiss means.

Last night, on my way to bed, one of our 4-month-old kittens was behind the piano. It seeemed that she was stuck there, so I pulled out the card table we store back there, thinking perhaps that would free her, and called her, but she opted to go out the other end and come to me around the front. I noted that they had knocked down a string or hair ribbon or something. I reached for the card table to put it back, but the ribbon was moving toward me. It was dark, I was on my way to bed, and there was a snake behind my piano.

When I thought about it later, I realized that snake had been in my house all day! Joe Kitty, our 4-year-old indoor cat, had been batting at balloons earlier in the day--at least I thought it was balloons. And on the off chance that she had been playing with a mouse, I picked up some debris that had fallen on the floor near where she was, but seeing no mouse concluded she was playing with shrinking, leftover birthday balloons. Before bed, the cats were making a ruckus behind the couch, and I just assumed they were playing...but now I recognize that the snake had moved along the wall, under the couch (eeek) and then gone along--or behind--the bookshelves along that wall and then behind the piano. Now, you have to realize that it is one foot from the end of the piano to my bedroom door, which has more than ample room for a snake to crawl under. I had no choice but to catch it, if I wanted to be able to sleep....with the light off. (I once found a large snake skin on a shelf six feet off the floor in my shed. I know snakes can climb!)

When it saw me, it stopped. But it was between a rock and a hard place, me on one end, and cats everywhere else, because at this point there were four felines helping me herd this snake. Gary grabbed an old piece of trim, which worked much better than the little dowel I had grabbed for holding the snake in place while I tried to grab it; but I had only been able to find a left-handed glove in my haste and this snake was striking viciously, even biting himself and the board that was pinning him to the floor. I'm sure his life flashed before his eyes, but i did not feel dexterous enough with my left hand to grab him close enough behind the head to not get bitten (not that he could have bitten through my glove, as my husband pointed out, but hey, HE was not picking up this snake, or even offering to!). Finally, I grabbed him by the tail end to transport him outside, and he was striking at my arm the whole way.

What a contrast to the snake our cat brought in the other day, who just played 'possum. We were able to pet him and hold him and transport him to safety without fear.

I am reminded of that scripture, Isaiah 11:8. "The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand in the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."

If that snake last night had known that I would not hurt him, would not eat him, would not kill him, he would have gladly let me pick him up to take him outside instead of striking at the hand that was trying to save him. There will come a day when "the lion will eat straw like the ox" (Isaiah 11:7), when there will no longer be enmity between serpent and man, when fear will be no more, because the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, and His perfect love casts out all fear. I wonder if in that day the animals will talk, as they do in Narnia, as apparently they did in Eden.

I look forward to that day. Lord, bring it on!!

My Old Pear Tree

Back in 1988, shortly after we married, G and I decided we wanted to build a house. So we started looking for some land. One day, about a year later, when L and I were out for a walk, we noticed a "for sale" sign on a horse pasture we had walked by hundreds of times in our four years of living in our little town. So we checked into it straightaway. It was a little over an acre (85 feet wide and two blocks deep) and the sellers were asking $16,500 for it. We had looked at single lots for nearly $20,000 and this was a whole acre for less than that! We jumped on it. You know the story Jesus tells of the man who finds a treasure buried in a field and he goes out and sells all he has and buys the field? That was us. We spent all we had and a lot we didn't have to make the downpayment for the land. The sellers had offered it to the neighbor first, and the story goes that he said, "Why would I spend 16 thousand dollars for a horse pasture?" --Oh what happy words for us!! (I'm pretty sure he can answer his own question now--"So you don't have neighbors in your back yard!")

Long ago, this property and most of the adjoining properties were probably all part of the same donation land claim, and most were orchards; apple, pear and cherry trees still remain. But the trees are ancient and are in their sunset years. After we had owned this land for 12 years, about 7 years ago, the pear tree had cumulatively produced about 12 pears. Yup, one or two each year, if that. A friend of mine came out one spring and helped me prune the ancient apple and pear trees and that year I had a dozen pears. The following year I had double that. And every year since it has outdone itself. Of course, for the past 3 years it has been pruned by the horses, and we have picked as many pears as we could, often with a manure fork! And they have been much enjoyed and appreciated by both human and equine.

I am reminded of Jesus' talk to his disciples in John 15. (Thank you, Dr. Root, for requiring us to memorize this, decades ago, it is still with me!!) "I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, so that it will be even more fruitful." Either way, bearing fruit or not, we are gonna get shaped...either cut off completely or trimmed back! He continues, "You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. "

That pear tree was just a tree--barely a shade producer--but now that it bears fruit, it is treasured by me, and it's fruit enjoyed by my family and my horses. I want to be more than just a shade tree.

Where is Beauty?

Gracie is our dalmatian. She came to us the year we had lost two of our beloved dogs to cars on the road--Kara, our beloved beagle, and Cami, our best beloved aussie/lab mix. Two of the best dogs God ever created. We had to have Cami put down the day after Christmas, after a month-long effort at recovery. Our remaining dog, Rosie, was rather psychotic without her two buddies, and we needed another dog too.

We had always wanted a dalmatian, so we bought Gracie from a local pet store. Two days later, when she was clearly not well, with bloody diarrhea and vomiting everything--even water, then no appetite at all, and the pet store assuring us that it was just "adjusting", we took her to the vet only to have the diagnosis of parvo. We were devastated. The rational thing to do would have been to have her put down, or allow the store to replace her with another dog. But having lost two dogs in the last 9 months, we were not rational. We decided to keep her and treat her. She lived in a kennel at the vet's for a while, fed by IVs and treated with whatever they treat parvo with, but she still was anorexic. There was nothing more they could do.

We force fed her nutritious mash, one thing after another, trying to find something she would like, trying to find something she would keep down. Every three or four hours we fed her. This on top of working full time and having a toddler and a teenager. At three months, she still only weighed six pounds (as much as a small cat) and she was skin draped over skeleton.

Finally, as a last resort, after a month of round-the-clock force feedings (which took two people), the vet had us try one more last-ditch effort, barium. We force fed her a huge syringeful of barium. The next day her poop was white. The next day, she ate fried chicken we were having for dinner, and there was no shortage of happy people volunteering to share their meal with her. The next day she ate pork, and for a while, we bought and cooked pork steak just for her, as that was all she would eat.

Eventually, she began to eat a normal diet...and then everything. She got to be a fat, over-60-pound dalmatian. And she was very attached to the family, so much so that we feared for other people when she was with us. We could not walk her on a leash as she would hang from her collar, and she was so afraid of and aggressive towards strangers, that we hated taking her out.

About a year ago, she suddenly started to lose weight. The dianosis: diabetes. So she gets shots twice a day, whcih she takes like a trooper. But her vision is very bad. One day K was swinging in the back yard and Gracie barked at him, ran a few feet closer, barked at him some more, ran a few feet closer, etc. Finally, when she was about six feet from him, she recognized him and all was well. I have seen her do the same with our cats, who won't run from her.

Laura told us about a contraption called a "gentle leader" and it has made walks with Gracie possible again, but still I worry about her around other dogs and people. Recently, we have had a friend's dog staying with us and there have been a few horrid fights, of which Gracie comes out the worse, and so she has scars on various limbs and her face. She is dirty from all the mud lately, and she is skinny. She is also quite black--for a dalmatian.

Today, K and I took Gracie for a walk. K wanted to look at some construction going on in town, and we love to be with Gracie. But there were dogs and people everywhere. At one point a dog came running over to her and I covered her as best as I could with my body, not so much to protect her, but to protect the other dog, as Gracie might fight. The owners assured me their dog was friendly.....and I'm sure it looked to them like I was protecting Gracie (not their dog).

But everywhere we went, people commented on what a beautiful dog she was. I of course would say "thank you", but I wondered what they were seeing? She is very skinny, her eyes are cloudy with cataracts, even though she is fairly young, and her head is practically all brown where it should be white from rolling in the mud and playing outside....What did they see?

I'm thinking they probably were seeing with their hearts. Perhaps it shows that Gracie is a very loved dog. Can they see that she was fed for a month against her will as a puppy? Can they see that she gets shots twice a day for her diabetes? Probably not. Do they see the happiness in her eyes that she is out with her people? Her whole body expresses her delight when she is with us. She adores us. It's probably her happiness and enthusiasm that make her beautiful despite her physical appearance.

We have a wall of pictures in our office and we realized that Mom and Dad aren't represented. In choosing a picture of them to print, I picked one where they were both smiling really big and I told G that I chose that one because whenever I see Dad, he is smiling like that at me. And to be honest, Gracie always smiles at me too, if a dog can smile...with a wag of the tail and a dance of the feet and a lift of the head and perk of the ears.

Yes, I think that is where beauty is after all.





"Who? Us? We weren't doing nuthing, honest!!"

Wishes Granted

When I was an elementary student, I used to spend my summers in Hazel Dell, which at that time consisted of a general store and post office on the corner, but otherwise was just farms and country houses on small acreages (think Apine, Oregon). --That description of Hazel Dell should date me, for anyone who has been there recently!!

Anyway, while the younger kids were having naps, I would often be sent to the post office for the mail, which consisted of walking down the steep gravel driveway and then down the gravel road, which was maybe a quarter of a mile long. I remember walking back one day, barefoot, choosing that strip of greenery down the center of the lane, seeing all the wildflowers (Queen Anne's lace, chicory, dandelions, buttercups) that were growing along the side of the road, apple orchard on one side, pasture on the other, and thinking, "When I grow up, I want to live down a gravel road just like this."

A few years ago, as I was walking back up my driveway, from getting the mail, choosing the softer strip down the middle to walk on, I noticed the Chicory and Queen Anne's lace, chest high, lining both sides of my driveway, and I realized that God had granted that wish, made decades earlier by a 9-year-old enjoying the freedom and rest and beauty of a summer day. I had almost forgotten that wish, but God never did.