Monday, February 20, 2017

Monday Rain in February

 The rain has been forecasted for over a week. We were all hoping that "they" would be wrong again. It's a month too early for spring breakup for the loggers. The "Birke"  (annual world class ski race) is scheduled for this coming weekend. Will the snow be all rained away? Will the loggers be cast upon spring breakup rations for ten weeks instead of the usual six?
    So as the rain pours down today, it smells like spring outside. The snow is melting quickly under the 50 degree onslaught of the downpour. 
   Ruger is unhappy and has finally decided to take cover in his doghouse. For unknown doggy brain reasons; he despises his shelter even though we have cushioned it and located it close to our own front door. Today after the rain had soaked through his dirty, long, winter coat he got down off his high horse and went in. Elv says he needs a bath. Yes, following his stand off under that deluge it is not a bath that he needs so much as a good dose of common sense.
    This family is rather grateful for our hearth today. We are all "suffering" with a bad cold thing. Sore throats and coughing and "general malaise" are agents to our suffering. 
   I find "general malaise" an interesting term. Looking up the definition of malaise makes me smile. "a general feeling of discomfort, illness, or uneasiness whose exact cause is difficult to identify." Mom taught me that what you can't specifically identify, you can safely deny. "Get to work and you'll feel better!" Such wisdom you won't find easily in today's preoccupation with self diagnosis, despite the vast amount of "information" online.
   
Sixteen inch walls make for an unusual place to do group pictures, but these children with their mutually fertile imaginations had no trouble finding it. I had just enough time to catch this photo before the dads ordered them off the window well with warnings about kicking the screen out and falling down outside.
   I knew better anyway. The screen is custom built for the window so it is made with metal screening and real one inch lumber. Don't try this at home is good advise but here at the stonehouse?  Well, as long as Grandpa or Marmee are  in on it, we can get by with a few special stunts now and again. Some of those opportunities will happen only once or twice because everybody grows up very quickly. I know this, too.

These two couples are our new ministry team for Grace Bible Church. They are already well loved and respected. We're thanking God for His goodness in affirming them and us with His definite call on their lives to this work, even before we commenced the process of choosing and ordaining.

   I have been reading Debbie MaComber's book called Knit Together. She says: Unfocused lives are complicated lives. We spend all of our time putting out fires we don't want instead of building the ones we do.
   I have done a lot of this and am working on making changes to simply work on the fire I want to be building today. I want to live our dreams today and continue to dream for the future.
     I asked the married children this past weekend what they expect to be doing twenty years from now. One of them offered the quick and true answer that what we are doing today is deciding for us what it is we will be doing in twenty years. Here's what she said later.
   
I've been thinking about mom's question about what I want to be doing twenty years from now. I do have some hopes and dreams. But it occurred to me that what we are doing right now and the choices we make today and tomorrow are what really determine what I will be doing twenty years from now.
So, what can I be doing today? Love my children and my husband. Support my church and pray for it. Make my home pretty and welcoming. Educate my children and teach them to love books and music and learning. Take better care of my bookwork and spending money. Enjoy my friends and family.
And many more things, but those are a few I thought of. Only God knows what the next twenty years hold!
  -Jenny Burkey
   
   Here's another one of the girls' later answer to my question.

I think I have more of a ten-year dream than a twenty-year dream at this point. In twenty years I could very likely be an empty nester. It's really hard to imagine life with the kiddos grown and gone, especially after a Monday morning of meltdowns. And there's a lot of variables in life as well. Who knows what's going to happen with employment, church, health, nation, etc. But I want a happy family serving Jesus in whatever capacity that may be, both in ten and twenty years.
                                                                                               -Charlotte Graber

1 comment:

  1. Twenty years from now. I don't know where I will be not what kind of health I'll have. But in 20 years I know that I hope to look back with wisdom and calm in my soul. And lots of joy. Because you see, growing children and growing pains in me can produce these things. If I choose right on the way there. Someone told me this weekend that we don't know joy umyil we know pain. I think that's true.

    ReplyDelete

This blog has moved!

Please click here to see the latest from Stone House Scribblings.