+++ Welcome to the Week of Gratitude +++

I was challenged last Sunday (in church, of all places!). It's a rare thing to hear a message that penetrates the heart, and a visiting preacher at a small white church in Firth, NE managed to do it quite nicely. As a response to his challenge, I welcome you to my Week of Gratitude.

Everyday I will post something that I am thankful to God for ~ be it small, "normal" or something significant in the past year of life. At the end of the week, I hope to have gained a good start on thinking of the past in the proper light - gratitude.

DAY ONE  

Good friends, though far away. These are the kind of friends that say, "If there isn't enough snow, we'll BE the snowman!!"    

You drive hundreds of miles to see them ... and still believe firmly that it's worth it.  

When you start quoting your favorite poem, they finish it with a smile. 

If you think the best way to spend a day is visiting Mount Vernon, they'll gladly join you.

They even love you enough to put you in a silly satin dress for their wedding - and then drag you onto the dance floor. 

If you're on a NYC Cruise and you need a date, they oblige. 

What would I do without them??

THANKS be to GOD for them!

Noelle on {have a cute day}!

I am delighted to be on today's post over at {have a cute day} !!! I've been reading their cute little blog for a few months now, and truly appreciate their effort to encourage other ladies across the country to dress like LADIES - to have a cute day!

The picture is one of me in my cute-day apparel on Thanksgiving. Jeans under the dress made it easy to go from Thanksgiving dinner to skeet shooting in the back forty afterwards. I think you all should know that I do that - skeet shooting - and love it. What can I say? I'm a country girl at heart...

.<.Re-purpose.>.

An old Scottish tweed blazer becomes a stylish shoulder bag. Scraps of wool become a topiary of cute little roses. A pillowcase becomes a 10-minute apron or a sundress for a little girl. You can even take ugly sheets and make yourself a tank-top! Aren't we clever? In the name of green, we've figured out ways to turn everything old into something new.  It's called "Re-purpose."

While sifting aimlessly through clever and crafty blogs, it struck me: What if we thought about ideas and consequences the same way? What if we spent the idle hours pondering how to re-purpose old hurts and scars (not simply cutting them up, making a few stitches, and then disguising them)?

What do you intend to do with those old things you're keeping? What goal do they help you to achieve? Where do they take you? Could they be re-made, re-purposed, redeemed? What prevents you from submitting them to a radical make-over?

When the past comes knock-knock-knocking at my door, I'm always surprised. But what part of it is really unexpected? Or is it just that I desperately want an escape? I'm on the run... confident that I've turned enough corners that the little black bandit called history can't find me. Ha. Outsmarted him again, I think to myself. And then he pops up underneath the bed; sitting next to me on a window seat in a sunny hallway; peering at me from the corners of the Capitol. It is I who play the fool when I can't see him behind me, following. "Wait your turn!" I want to say in a scolding tone. But it's only the running that keeps me busy. It's the present that I've chosen to pause, under the clever disguise (a black cloak) of "moving on."

It's time to re-purpose. I scan the black cloak that he's wearing and note that it would make a lovely shoulder bag. Even better, a shroud for all the dreams of the past year that have died. They must have a proper burial so that new ones can be born. It's my turn to chase HIM.

Tearing the cape off of his back, suddenly, he melts away. Looking all about me, suspecting that he's still watching, I look here and there. Nothing. He's gone again. Clutching the cape, I start cutting, trimming, stitching, shaping... his disguise has become a lovely little black pocket for keeping things where they ought to be kept - in a little grave at the foot of an old wooden cross.

Like John Bunyan's Pilgrim, I must approach the cross, kneel, and let the weight fall off my back. The sin and pains must be let go of - so they can become something new: forgiveness, peace and redemption. It's time to re-purpose.

What are you waiting for?

"And the joke, or tragedy, of it all is that these golden moments in the past, which are so tormenting if we erect them into a norm, are entirely nourishing, wholesome, and enchanting if we are content to accept them for what they are, for memories. Properly bedded down in a past which we do not miserably try to conjure back, they will send up exquisite growths. Leave the bulbs alone, and the new flowers will come up. Grub them up and hope, by fondling and sniffing, to get last year's blooms, and you will get nothing.

"Unless a seed die..."   {"Letters to Malcom, Chiefly on Prayer," by C.S. Lewis, Pg. 27}

    Walking through fields of memories, I can't help but hope for yesterday's blooms. The sticks are dead, brown, lying on the ground in a trampled mess. How I miss the fragrant blooms of yesterday... blowing in the breeze, waving at me as though the flowers and leaves were saying hello after a long absence. "I'm back!" I want to shout. "Where are you?" The cold winds of winter are my only answer. After the chill, the snow comes gently falling, falling, dancing to the ground in an unsung melody. The tears gather up in my eyes and start to spill over and run down my cheeks. The snow is covering my once beautiful flowers. There's no hope of revival, is there? I'm watching the white flurries cover them like a slow, gradual burial. They are dead and gone.

    Is the death the real tragedy? Or is the real affliction my hopes of conjuring up the past again? I wish for better times... the winds of Summer, the warmth and green of Spring, the newness of everything that blooms when all the frost is gone. Don't the best things happen when you're walking through fields of flowers? When all the world is coming up roses? I'd even settle for cut roses in an ugly vase. Any reminder will do. Any little bridge to the past will suffice. Any sort of escape to "the good old days," will please me.

    The thorns never stay amidst the memories of a rosy past. The prick and poke sharply enough in the present, but memory has a way of cutting them clear off the stems. All that's left for a grieving heart is the beauty and fragrance of the rose. Nothing more, nothing less. "What's the danger in that?" I question. Don't you wonder, too?

    Wishing for nothing more than the glory days of the past is the cunning, deft little thief that has stolen many good hours from me. Good hours, full of potential in the present. Here, NOW. The door to the flowers, sunshine and glories of 2010 stands open to me, and I can do nothing but lie at the door of 2008 and weep. The tears have blinded my eyes. The memories have dominated everything that lies before me. It's time to move.

  
     "Return to your rest, O my soul, For the LORD has dealt bountifully with you. For You have rescued my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.
            I shall walk before the LORD in the land of the living."      {Psalm 116:7-9}

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas tree ...

How lovely are thy branches! Even more lovely, the lights they string around your furry arms, and the ornaments that make you stick out in all your seasonal splendor. The rotunda is much more interesting with you there to fill the halls with the fragrance of pine, and sparkle with light when the sun goes down. I can't help but think of excuses for walking by to drink up your magnificent presence... and wonder at the journey you took to get here.

.read the story of the Capitol Christmas tree here.


The Christmas Tree is an ancient and wonderful tradition here in America. That wasn't always the case... it took Hessian Soldiers, war, and Queen Victoria to turn the branches of the evergreen into an American staple. Even Martin Luther had a hand in perpetuating our modern tradition.

Legend has it, late one winter evening, Martin marveled at the beauty of the stars sparkling through the trees on his walk home. Excited about the beauty of God's unique creation, he went home and placed candles on the Christmas tree to recreate what he saw for his young children. The flickering flames danced like the stars in the sky on the end of each evergreen branch.

What began as nothing more than a Druid superstition ( Who used holly and mistletoe as symbols of eternal life, and placed evergreen branches over doors to keep away evil spirits.) became St. Boniface's tool for teaching the Trinity, and then Martin Luther's canvas for re-painting the beauty of the night sky. I can't help but think that when Luther lit up the tree, he was thinking of that one, great star. The star that lit up the way to the Christ child, born in a manger.

Now, it is for Him that we light the tree, give gifts (even as the magi did), and sing heralds of His birth. He is the Messiah ~ Emmanuel, God with us.

Merry Christmas.

>Snowflakes<

Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
 ~ H.W. Longfellow

This is in honor of the snow dump that we received this past week ~ 10-12" in Lincoln, Nebraska! The drifts are nearly 6' high, and the egress windows are storing the surplus snow below the ground. Yesterday as I peeked out the frosty window, a bright red Cardinal perched on a nearby birch tree.

What could be more lovely?

What could be a more perfect way to welcome Winter and all the cheer of Christmas?

--- Recent Cake-Bakery ---

Things have been hectic lately... but I did manage to cook up some delightful birthday cakes. Isn't it great that those family magazines have free online ideas? Here is a visual feast for you...

The skateboard was for my brother Preston's 18th birthday. Between the aesthetics and the sugar content, it was a success. (He graciously ignored the lacy cardboard base... it was the right tool for the right job... I guess.) The wheels are a combination of pretzel rods and mini chocolate-covered doughnuts. The skateboard is up-side down because the interesting stuff is always on the under-side.

 

The second was baked for my friend Jordan ... who deserves more than a cake for all of the Saturdays he's spent helping us chainsaw and split cords and cords of wood. Now that the snow is falling, the wood-burning stove is my favorite place to curl up with a good book. Ah, Winter, and the good friends that make it better.

The "logs" are pound-cake covered with chocolate (and coconut) frosting. I had fun making the flames from colored fruit roll-ups.. and the doughnut holes serve as "coals." You should've seen it on fire... er, I mean, with the candles lit. It was amazing. 

Philosophical and otherwise intellectual posts are forthcoming. First, let them eat cake. :D

~ Noelle