A Girls’ Gathering (which included Mom, Di, Kristin, Kristin, AJ, Julia, ShillVester and myself) converged upon the ‘half-way point’ (in general) between Minnesota and Ohio.  Julia was gracious enough to come up from Arkansas.  We ‘surprised’ Mom for her birthday.  (She said she knew that something was up because I am her daughter.  What kind of statement is that?! )  It was a WONDERFUL weekend.  And God decided to choose that time and that place to bring together the many bits and pieces that He had been working on in my life regarding time.

This isn’t going to be a recounting of every part of that process–this is just one snippet that has come home to roost this weekend, in particular.  At AJ’s church, the pastor was preaching from his series on Disciplines of Grace.  I could write ten posts on that and on how God’s used that in my life.  But that is not this post, either.  This post is something that the pastor said in his sermon that has stuck in my craw (such an elegant phrase, I know) ever since…literally, something about which I’ve thought nearly every day from October 25th, onward.

I have all the time there is to have.

Did you read it?  Read it again.  I have all the time there is to have.  Don’t ask me why it took 32 years, 11 months and four days to realize it.  I don’t have the answer to that.  But there it is:  I have all the time there is to have.  I have the same amount of hours in my days as does Donald Trump, Bill Gates and the President of the United States.  I have the same number of minutes between dawn and dusk as did Moses and Jesus and Paul and George Washington and Jim Elliott and Uncle Ed.  Samuel Clemens?  Margaret Mitchell?  Laura Ingalls Wilder?  Yup–twenty four hours to a day.  With the exception of those alive during the time of Joshua and Hezekiah, no human being has ever had any more time than I have right now.  When I understand that, the question immediately shifts from, “But where am I going to find the time?” to “How am I spending the time God has given me?”

As I mentioned, this has come home to roost more pointedly this weekend.  I had my wisdom teeth out on Friday.  Yes, I am ‘old’ to be having my wisdom teeth out (thanks to a dentist eleven years ago that saw no need for them to be removed).  According to the ladies at the dentist’s office, I ‘look like I’m in college’ so since I look younger, I should have no trouble. *wry grin*  I’m quite sure looks have nothing to do with it, but praise to the Father, aside from a slight freaking out when I still had no feeling in my bottom lip or chin ten hours later, and aside from the fact that I am still rather swollen, it hasn’t been problematic at all–I’ve only had to take some Excedrin and attempt to get sleep when the pain in my head will let me.

What does having my wisdom teeth out have to do with all this yammering about time?  Well, one thing to which I was slightly looking forward with having the procedure done was some purposeful down-time; and, I’ve really needed it.  The surgery took a lot more ‘out of me’ than I had thought it would–yesterday, I had a baby shower, a move and a third activity planned.  I didn’t end up doing any of them, and actually never even moved down to the couch yesterday.  But it was how I spent my ‘day in bed’ that stuck in my mind.  I think I played fifteen games of spider solitaire.  I slept for awhile.  I watched Pride and Prejudice.  I traded out bags of frozen peas for bags of ice cubes.  I watched the bonus features to Pride and Prejudice.  I spent several hours on Facebook.  I kept busy calling, texting and emailing back and forth between here and Minnesota as KMEG spent all the time from Thursday at 7 ’til just before midnight last night in labor at the hospital, only to go home with the baby still tucked safely inside.

And in between times, I lamented all that I ‘wanted to be writing’ and that I ‘wasn’t getting down on paper’ (or megabyte, as the case may be).  And that’s when it struck me:  Margaret Mitchell began GWTW when she had to be laid up for several months due to illness and had nothing else with which to occupy her time.  I went with Annette to hear a (very well-known, modern) author speak several years ago and he had the same tale to tell.

God has been busy, ever since October, letting me realize the truth that He has given me all the time I need to live my life for Him.  That includes everything–from teaching, to the house, to my family, to my friends, to ministry, to creativity, to my responsibilities, to my downtime.  That means if He has given me stories to tell, then He has given me time to tell them.  That means that if He has given me studies to write, He has given me the time to write them.  That means that if He has given me ministry to do, people to love, His Word to tell, fun to have, rest to get…all of it, He has given me the time to do it.

So what’s the problem?  I far-too-often take the time He has given me for His purposes and squander it elsewhere.  Other than during the Olympics, TV, thankfully, is not my weakness.  The computer/internet, however, is.  I think, beyond any other single entity, I struggle more with time spent on this machine, than on any one thing else.  I realized yesterday that Gone With The Wind would probably never had been written, had Miss Mitchell been able to ‘travel the world ’round’ from her own couch.  I realized yesterday that multi-million dollar movies might possibly never have been made had a certain modern-author spent his laid-up time surfing the web instead of pounding out the stories for which he’s so famous.  It came home in a very vivid way to me that any greatness God may want to pull out of my life could far too easily get lost in just one more game of maj-jong or spider solitaire.

How tragic!  What a waste of precious minutes…minutes that can never be returned.  Speaking of great authors, it reminds me of one of Laura’s quotings of another in Little Town on the Prairie, “Lost:  Yesterday, between Sunrise and Sunset, one Golden Hour set with sixty Diamond Minutes.  No reward is offered for it can never be found.”  No, I don’t think that any of these things, from the computer, to puzzle games to good movies, to school work to even facebook are inherently evil.  Things are things.  And yet…as Jodi copied from Piper in her post, “Oh, how many lives are wasted by people who believe that the Christian life means simply avoiding badness and providing for the family.  So there is no adultery, no stealing, no killing, no embezzlement, no fraud – just lots of hard work during the day, and lots of TV and PG-13 videos in the evening (during quality family time), and lots of fun stuff on the weekend – woven around church (mostly).  This life for millions of people.  Wasted life.  We were created for more, far more.”

That and other things in her post have often made me think about Heaven–will I really want to sit around chatting with David and Joshua and Enoch and Noah and Deborah and Abigail and Daniel and Asaph and listen to them talk and then pipe up with, “You know, that’s incredible how our Great God did that in your life!  Now, let me tell you about this Smallville episode I saw… …um… …nevermind.”

I’m not talking about extremes.  I’m not talking about freaking out and not being able to relax and enjoy oneself with a good movie or a fun puzzle game after a long week.  I’m not saying that it’s wrong to keep in contact with various people around the world on Facebook, or on blogs or things of that nature.  I am saying, however, that I see myself far too easily tempted to spend so much time on things of that nature that I ‘don’t have time’ for other things; important things; valuable things; things of long-lasting quality.  And God has brought me to the point where that needs to change.

I’ll be honest:  I’m struggling with it.  I use the computer and the internet so much, for so many valid things (work, school, research, Bible study, ministry) (and let’s not miss the irony of using both the computer and the internet to write out my thoughts here) that it can be difficult for me to distinguish between necessary time, time well used, and time wasted.  And yet, pleasing God with the minutes He’s given me is something that He wants me to do.  So why wouldn’t He help me to honor Him in this way?  Of course He will.  So what does that look like?  I’m still working on it.  Listening to the Holy Spirit is a big part–one of His roles is to convict me of sin.  I will say this–when you start dreaming about puzzle games…you’re probably spending too much time on them.

How thankful I am that God is not finished with me yet–that He keeps on keeping on sanctifying me…and won’t stop until He finishes His work in my life and takes me Home to be with Him.  I pray that the words of Scripture and the words of the song will be true in my life.

“Therefore, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” I Corinthians 15:58

“Therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” I Corinthians 10:31

“So until the day the trumpet rings in my ear, bid me to come and I will follow.”

I’ll keep you posted…

Hitchens:  I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.

This morning, my text-ding, at first, didn’t really register–it was in my dreams.  I think, however, it penetrated just deep enough into my subconscious to percolate for a few minutes because I awakened very shortly thereafter thinking, “What was that noise?”  Awakening at 7:25 or so, I decided to get up and have gotten to spend a happy two hours sipping cups of tea, eating breakfast, watching a gorgeous red daddy cardinal munching on the honeysuckle seeds outside the window while hints of snow flurries swirl about, catching up on what’s been happening out in the world and listening to school closings, good music and some programming on the radio.  Which brings me to my thoughts…

Yesterday, Shill and I enjoyed a yummy lunch at Chipotle with a not-feeling-well-but-still-working-on-being-in-a-good-mood Little Mister.  They went home, afterwards, so that Zechariah could get a good nap in his own bed, and then he arrived shortly before four to spend some fun time with Aunt Deb-o-rah while Mommy got a massage.  He still wasn’t feeling well, although the nap had given him quite a bit more stamina, both emotionally and energetically, than at lunchtime.

We enjoyed book reading, cat chasing, drum banging, circle-around-the-ottoman running, bird watching, rocking, cuddling, singing, clementine eating, banana pronouncing and banana munching and a host of other fun things while Mommy enjoyed the gift of a free massage.  It was wonderful.  When Mommy returned, we ate some chicken before they headed back out into the cold for the return trip home.

And I was so glad that Zechariah had been there and I was glad to have some quiet for the evening and I was both sorrowful and glad that I should feel that way.

Growing up with six people in 860 square feet, I used to close myself in the bathroom and sit wrapped in a blanket with my feet on the heater vent that came up in there to get some warmth, peace and quiet.  And of course, I could still hear everything else going on in the rest of the house.  I moved from that place into Fletcher Dorm, which, of course, was never quiet.  There were things going on there all hours of the day or night.

When I moved in with Grandma after college, I nearly went nuts with all the quiet.  I wanted my own six children by the time I was 30.  It was all but a goal.  And God, clearly, has different plans than do I for my life.   It’s gotten to the point that now, presently roommate-less, I orient my life (sound-wise, at least) either around quiet, Odysseys, Radio Theatre, or the radio, at least, when being by myself in the house.

And yet…the love of people and noise and the joys of life being lived was woven into the very fabric of my life for so long that in some ways, it makes me literally weep to think of how far I’ve strayed from that enjoyment…to even the point that sometimes when I’ve been around my nephews & niece, I am merely exhausted (happily, but exhausted, none-the-less) and glad for quiet.  Two years ago in Minnesota, I was an absolute mess of tears over that fact, hating that it was so, and thinking that there was no way I could ever have children of my own if my own dear nephews and niece left me an exhausted heap.  With it being so quiet, so much of the time, and with definitive desire for a family, I would think that I would welcome any and all diversions, especially ones as lovely as extended progeny.  Having a sense of gladness at the conclusion of that time has weighed heavily on a sore spot on my heart.

On the other hand, one of the things that I feel God has done dramatically for me is to have provided contentment, enjoyment and even joy in this not-where-I’d-planned-but-where-He’s-clearly-led place in my life.  The fact that He has enabled me to be thankful, to feel thankful and to take pleasure in the gifts He’s given me as a single girl, is dwelling in a place that I would never have believed possible ten years ago, aside from the parting of the Red Sea or something.   And from that perspective, I’m very glad, even downright, out-loud happy that it’s not all sorrow when I’m in my quiet home by my quiet self, especially on lovely snow days, where it truly is quiet, sounds muffled by the weight of snow, people not forcing themselves out to rush around, and lots of time to think, pray, read, research, rest, accomplish and just be busy about this home that God has given me.

I suppose, like anything, my response is already laid out for me in God’s Word….“In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” I Thessalonians 5:18.  I know that peace and quiet are things for which people long, often, like they long for little else.  I do NOT want to be ‘that person’ that can’t just shut up be and be grateful for her blessings, who can’t see that they have that which so many people deeply desire and who doesn’t know how good she has it.  People in that state drive me nuts and I have a strong antipathy of joining their ranks.

I would also like to go on record as stating how thankful I am for the peace and quiet God has given me and how much I do enjoy it.  It is a blessing of abounding proportions and exactly what my Father knows I need, especially at this point in my life.  It is out-and-out wrong for me to feel any absurd guilt about enjoying a gift-wrapped present from God.  If I have sore spots in my heart, the Great Physician is also my loving Father, and I need only to take them to Him and to bask in the soothing balm of His Word and His presence.  If I have blessings, even popping up in unexpected places, I needn’t find something problematic about them–I need only to enjoy them with thanksgiving and to see with whom I can share them.

God’s faithfulness to me is something far, far greater than I can imagine and His graciousness truly does abound far above all I could even think to ask.  Fidelicharis House.  There really isn’t any confusion regarding the matter.  Conflicting emotions?  Sometimes.  But that’s life on this planet before Jesus comes to set things right.  Praise be to the Father Who has given us an unfailingly accurate star by which to steer, through His Word…a fixed point that never moves, never changes, and whose truths are truly a rock that cannot be shaken.

Thank you for letting me ‘think out loud’ (on paper, ha! in a quiet house, hahaha!) and figure out my thoughts.  Another benefit (at least to me!) to blogging.

I pray that thankful awareness of God’s rich blessings permeates your life as well and that you, too, find Him and His Word as trustworthy, steadfast navigators each and every day.

Had things gone slightly differently, this blog might be titled something along the titled line of thinking.  Fidelicharis House is the name of my house.  Fidelis being the Latin for “faithful” and Charis the Greek for “grace”, I knew there was *no* way I’d ever be able to own a house with the very faithful grace of God to provide for my needs.  However, back in the day when I was still living with my other Grandma (not the one in the article below…I don’t write this Grandma’s last name, it being the same as mine and making this blog more ‘findable’ than I’d prefer it to be), I was making plans, big plans towards home ownership.

Home ownership has always been something in my mind–a place to rest, to set down and to feel slightly settled, a place where others can come and feel welcome, a place of respite and contentedness for all who enter–and while living out of a front bedroom at Grandma’s house at the ripe old age of twenty three, I had big plans towards having a place to call home.

For quite some time, those plans included a large old (1831) farmhouse on ten acres east of town that had seven bedrooms and was just perfect for all my dreams of making my home a cozy B&B for all weary travelers.  I think the fact that the house had once been a stop on a stagecoach line, and possibly had connections to the Underground Railroad fed those ideas.

For some reason, I had it in my head that my big farmhouse and barn would be called (something along the theme and variation of) Four Seasons.  I know I’ve waxed lengthily in previous posts on here regarding my deep and abiding love for Summer…and it, of course, remains.  But I have always had a love and a thankfulness for the satisfying eternality of living in a place that has four distinct, beautiful seasons, and so it was that I was determined that my farm should be named Four Seasons.

Tonight is one of those February nights that comes straight out of a storybook.  Snow is literally raining down and has been since about noon.  We’re supposed to get between 10 and 14 inches by tomorrow afternoon.  For once, we are right smack in the middle of the heaviest bands of snow and it is *just*gorgeous*.  The temperature has been hovering between 29 and 32 degrees, as well, so as long as one is not directly in strong wind, it doesn’t feel too badly out there.  After walking in the winter wonderland over to Erica’s house for an oh-so-tasty dinner of homemade beef vegetable stew and organic spelt bread (unbe*liev*ably scrumptious!), I arrived back home around ten ’til ten.  I then became inspired to love my neighbors, spend a little more time outside and burn some calories all at once and for the next 70 minutes, I shoveled out the sidewalk on my side of the street.  According to various websites, I burned anywhere from 400 to 1300 calories.  That’s pretty cool.   I came in, got a shower, fixed some hot cocoa and climbed into bed with the cats and the laptop while the Great Silence of Snow blankets the house and the far-off hint of the radio on low to ‘Sounds of Majesty’ gives yet another piece of evidence to the fact that it is Friday night and that I can sleep in tomorrow morning.  My Facebook status was updated to read, “Deborah…the walks are shoveled, the cocoa is warm, the bed is soft.  Thank You, God!”

On Facebook, I went to a site that I check as many times as I turn on my computer throughout the day.  Penny Miller (now Hoffman) was my boss for several years at BBC and she was great at it.  I’d venture a guess that she is approximately five years older than I, and I really enjoyed working for her.  She was one of four siblings, a Columbus girl, older, single, and while being real about her desire for marriage, she had a good sense of humor and contentment in God and His character that spoke volumes to the really-wanting-to-be-married-but-wasn’t-willing-to-admit-it-because-she-didn’t-want-to-look-desperate-Sophomore who worked for her.

I reconnected with her on Facebook awhile ago and was *thrilled* to learn that at the age of 31, God had allowed her to marry the love of her life and in the next five years or so, they were blessed with four children.  Last January, she was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of cervical cancer and has fought it valiantly for the past year.

As so many of us who love her have prayed for her over these months, I have to admit that I found it difficult to watch how she had waited so long to be blessed with a husband and children, and now, all-of-a-sudden, had to face this enormous threat to herself and her family.  Penny, being Penny, has responded to each facet of every challenge with grace, trust and hope in her Father Who loves her.

Over the past several days, the news that her family and friends have posted to keep those who love her and her family updated has not been hopeful…Penny is at her home now, being given medicine for pain, but the cancer is raging in her body and unless God decides otherwise, she will be leaving her husband, four kiddos, three siblings, parents and a whole host of friends and family to head to Heaven sooner than we would have liked to see her go.

I was praying for Penny while I was out shoveling.  And thinking of how thankful I am that I have the ability to be out in the beauty of a white February night.  And thinking of how incredibly amazing it is to know that you’re going to see Jesus soon.  And thinking of how hard it would be to leave so many people I love, especially at that point in my life.

And I’ve wept as I’ve read updates from her sister such as, “Had some nice sibling time this afternoon.  J, P & I got to sit in the room with Penny looking at old albums and sharing memories of days long ago.  It seems this is the way it should be forever…”  and, “OK-So I just witnessed a moment I will never forget. After helping Penny to the restroom to “take out her contacts eight times”, Tim and Dustin [her husband] were helping her get back to bed. Dustin and Penny’s hands were interlaced, so Dustin said, “One last dance?” She didn’t reply, but simply slipped her other arm around his waist. They stood in a motionless dance for about a minute, but it will live in my heart forever. I love you Penny!” from her other sister.

And yet, as I was thinking about the beauty of the night, and how deeply I *love* the four, distinct seasons, and how I enjoy being able to do physical work again and thinking about Heaven and what it will be like there and wondering if there will be any snow there, and praying for Penny, I think God was putting it all together in my brain, so that when I came inside, and got comfy and sat down and read about this family, and specifically, this couple who have been blessed abundantly with a deep, deep love for one another and who have had seven lovely years of marriage (their anniversary was Monday) and who are facing such hurt with an honesty of the pain that is inextricably blended with the reality of love for one another, a pure trust in God and a factual hope for the future, I was overwhelmed with that whole element of the eternal that reaches into everyday life and leaves one practically gasping for breath with the sweet, intense pain of it all–that whole concept of God placing eternity in our hearts, this immortal mortal, the tug-of-war between the tangible and the intangible, between the limits of time and space and the call of Eternity that I Peter sums up so aptly as ‘joy, inexpressible‘.

Or, as my favorite, in The Last Battle, when Jewell the unicorn says, “I have come home at last!  This is my real country!  I belong here.  This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.”

What does all this have to do with Seasons and Houses and Snow and February and Friends and Sorrow and Hope?  Well, my idea for my Farm House to be named the Four Seasons came from Genesis 8:22:
“As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest
cold and heat
summer and winter
day and night
shall never cease.”

And that’s one of the main reasons why I love the four seasons God has given us–a promise, made post Flood to His children that He would never destroy all living creatures, that until the day He called us Home, His earth would continue to experience seedtime, harvest, cold, heat, summer, winter, day and night–the Eternal One speaking to the created.  That’s why experiencing the beauty of even this fallen created world is enough to make me sometimes catch my breath with the sharpness of pain–a pain directly forged from a longing so intense that I could not really put it into words if I tried for a thousand pages or years.  That’s why I will burst into tears reading of the deep, abiding love of siblings for their sister, a husband for his sweet wife, achingly glad for the joy they share with the sorrow they face and yet be inexplicably jealous of her imminent approach to Home.

Words really do fail me.  Better to go with that Word, Who above all earthly powers (no thanks to them) abideth.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

The last time I saw my Grandma Yardlay on this earth, I stopped by their house in July of 2006.  If I recall correctly, I had been out at Meijers that morning and decided to swing by their place for just a few minutes on my way home.  Grandpa was out mowing the yard and Grandma was making sure he kept mowing the yard.   He stopped once to change into shorts and stopped another time to get a drink, but he kept at it, and she kept busy outside to give him incentive to keep at it.

I wasn’t planning to be at their house long…I had things I needed to take care of at home–you know, things.  Things that schoolteachers need to take care of in the middle of a July day.  While we were sitting, chatting on her swing, she reached over with the sunscreen that she had just squirted into her hands, slapped her hands on my thighs and proceeded to slather it all over my legs.  I was mad.  I did not want sunscreen on my legs.  I was only going to be at her house for fifteen minutes, twenty at most, and I needed some sun on my legs and that was the perfect length of time to give them some sun, but to keep them from burning and I was wearing the perfect shorts to keep me from having a bad tan line.  I was not a happy camper.

For some reason (for which I will be eternally grateful) God kept my mouth shut.  I still remember some of my thought processes of that moment: of irritation, definitively; of wanting to tell her to stop, but feeling the pointlessness of that, as my legs were already covered and anything other than a smooth, even spreading of the sunscreen would result in abject blotchiness; of finally resigning myself to realizing that since there was nothing left to do, I may as well keep my mouth shut and be thankful that I had a Grandma, even if she did drive me nuts slapping sunscreen on my undesiring-of-sunscreen legs.  And so I did.

And the conversation went on without missing a beat (I think she was mid-sentence on something entirely different when she put the sunscreen on).  And she went on to tell me that she had a crazy idea to go surprise David, Kristin, Jack and new baby Maxwell when Mom and Dad went to Minnesota to visit them.  And we talked for fifteen minutes, and then twenty, and then forty-five, and then well over an hour, while Grandpa finished mowing the yard and we then moved off of the swing and on over to her flowers and her vegetables and drank iced tea and chatted.  And by the time I left, I was glad that I *hadn’t* said anything about her putting the sunscreen on my legs, because they would have been burnt to a crisp, after an hour and a half in the sun.  And I had really enjoyed seeing her and Grandpa and I was glad that I stopped, and also glad I’d stayed longer than I’d intended to stay.

And then she and Mom and Dad and Grandpa took off for Minnesota and surprised David, Kristin, Jack and Max.  And Julia, Walter and I took off for the trip of a lifetime to Arkansas.  And Grandma went Home with Jesus on the last night of our stay in Arkansas on the 31st.  And I have been forever grateful to God that He granted me wisdom that on that day was nine parts silence and one part love, that kept me from marring the last earthly time I got to spend with Grandma and Grandpa.

I can think of many times that I’ve regretted what I said.  Aside from times that I wish I would have shared the Gospel with people, I can think of few, if any times that I’ve regretted keeping quiet.  I can think of many, many things for which I’m thankful about my Grandma Yardlay.  Thanks be to God for continuing to work in the hearts and mouths of His children!