Matthew 6:25,33

25 Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?

33 But seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

This verse is easy to quote when someone else has lost their job, had a pay cut or faced more month than money…but perspective changes when it’s personal.

Our one income is looking at a pay cut. Since we are out of debt except for our house, this isn’t as big a deal for us as some, but it’s still a handy thing to worry about.

 I like this verse promise. It tells us what to do first: look up…pray…thank God for what you do have and then walk on.  Do what you can do– remember your four walls and don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty.

Life might take your stuff and your money, but don’t let it take the best part of you ~ your spirit. Get up, look up and walk on.

Just talking to myself.

Simply,

Sis

are better left alone. Yes sir, this is one of my favorite verses ever. It’s so real life and funny. Today I feel yucky. I hate flu. I hate it when the kids are sick and I am too. I just want to go to bed and be left alone. No surprise the Bible has a verse for that.

Proverbs 21:9

Better to live on a corner of the roof 
than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.

In other words…run, Ben.

Blessings!

Sis

He, our youngest son Barney, was laying on the kitchen floor, in the way, with a plastic chicken (of the barnyard type) singing.

Boc-boc-booooc-boc-boc-boc-boc-boc…boc-boc-boooooc-boc-boc-boc-boc.

(I know…this is the sorriest game of name that tune you’ve ever played. Please, bear with me.)

The tune sounded familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. So I kept listening…

…boc…boc…boc…

I giggled when I recognized it.

“Do you know that song, Grams?” I asked my mom. She’s not so good at this game.

“No,” she stated flatly, smiling.

“Hey Barney, what’s that yer singing?” I asked.

“It’s the song that a chicken sings,” he answered, continuing to scratch and peck around with his barnyard buddies.

“It’s Where He Leads Me I Will Follow, that old hymn,” I said, breaking into song.

I can hear my Savior calling. I can hear my Savior calling. I can hear my Savior calling. Take your cross and follow me.

Grams giggled and said, “He’s probably right, more that we know.”

I kept singing.

Where he leads me I will follow. Where he leads me I will follow. Where he leads me I will follow. I’ll go with Him, with Him, all the way.

Have you ever had a crisis of belief? Where you’ve been asked to do something that just might be your undoing, but just might be what God is nudging you to do? I have.

I got a phone call a few months back asking if I might speak at a women’s salad supper. Their topic this spring was “Keep It Simple, Sister” and since I have a blog named Reclaim Simplicity, I must know something about keeping life simple. Ha.What she didn’t know at the time was that blog name has little to do with what I know and everything to do with my prayers. I pray to reclaim simplicity in my life daily. Anyway. I had a passing moment of confidence and said yes.

By now, I’ve said all I had to say, the chickens are roosting, I’m almost fully recovered from hellish stage fright and am left to ponder. Why is it affirmation comes after a promise fulfilled and not before? If the phone ever rings again with someone calling for another speaker (using the definition lightly), will I sing the song that chickens sing or just chicken-out?

Simply,

Sis

I’ve sent my tea bags in quiet protest. I’ve cheered for the rallies that common, tax paying Americans have put together across this once great country. I’ve cried for the Seals and other military who protect us and get punished for it. When I see the elected officials going against what we the people want, then making us out to be liars and violent protesters that is the last straw. I’m done cryin’– I’m pissed. I’m calling in the BIG guns, which in my world is simple, like everything else… I’m going to love.

I love this country. I love my neighbors. I love the Constitution. I love our military. I love freedom. I love Israel.

The Bible says God is love, so I’m gonna tell God on them.  I’m gonna pray. So there. In Phillip Yancey’s book Soul Survivor he talks about the effectiveness of love and truth through the eyes of Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King  and others, a great, thought-provoking read.

Throughout history protests aren’t won through violence, they are won through love. Protests should be done decently, in order and with persistants. Revenge isn’t ours to repay, it’s God’s. It is mine to avenge says the Lord. I will repay.

Ben is always reminding me you can get more with honey than you can with vinegar. I hope you’ll join me on your knees for real sweet change.

Simply,

Sis

a simple piece of paper, with scrawls of crayon from a child’s hand. I found it after church one day. The pews were empty and I was alone with my thoughts. I asked my boys if it was theirs but neither claimed it. I couldn’t bear the thought of mindlessly throwing it away, so I stuck it in my purse.

Weeks later I found it and put it in my Bible, as a reminder to myself from the mouth of some babe, that I’m special to God. I am a child of The King. I am an undeserving lowly heir to an eternal inheritance.

A gentle reminder that even though I age a little every day…I’m still weak and vulnerable and nothing without Him. And even on my greatest day in my best penmanship, my words probably wouldn’t be as eloquent or readable as these. So I keep it.

I don’t know where you are today or what you wear to church or how you explain the unexplainable, but I hope you know that there is still goodness. Lots of it, free for the taking if we take the time to seek Him and trust Him through the hand of a child.

Blessings my friends!

Sis

Sleigh bells ring. Are ya list’nen?

I’m not.

In the lane, snow is gliss’nen…

Snow. What snow. I’m looking out the window at my wheat field and wondering, is it really time for the tree? It’s 60 degrees for heaven’s sake. 

A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight… (well some of us are.)

W is almost ten and is wondering is Santa for true. Barney is frustrated with him for not believing. I just wink and say, “You’ve gotta believe, Love. You just gotta believe.”

Truthfully as I say this, I wonder if I still do. Or. Am I caught up in the trivial things of life? How do you keep the wonder of Christmas alive in a meaningful simple way?

Author Jason F. Wright has a wonderful suggestion. Christmas jars. He wrote this book about taking a jar and filling it with change. Maybe adding a  buck here and there, maybe even a twenty or fifty or hundred. Then the week before Christmas get the family and go walk through the winter wonderland and leave the jar and a copy of the book on some one’s door step, to be discovered later. Maybe at a home where someone has lost a job, or where someone is sick, or where someone simply needs a hand up.

A simple gift.  A blessing to a stranger. Just like the first Christmas. One star. One promise. One Savior. One gift. A small gift that absolutely changed the world, one person at a time. One family at a time.

If we just believe…

and fill one jar.

We could too.

Join me.

Love,

Sis

It was eight o’clock Halloween night, 2002. I was nine months pregnant with Deputy Barney and W was three then, singing and splashing around in his bath when the phone rang. I closed the door to the bathroom when I went to answer it.

“Hello…”

“B, it’s your mother.” She was crying. I knew that Dad’s battle with sclerosis of the liver had ended.

“What happened, Mom?”

“It’s…it’s not your Dad…It…it’s Jay. He’s dead.”

Jay was my older brother.

“Oh no, Mom. What happened?”

“A car wreck….”

I was absolutely devastated. I felt like there was an gigantic elephant standing on my chest and if I were to let my breath out, I would never be able to draw another one. Why Jay? Why not Dad, he was the one suffering. Why now? Wasn’t a job transfer, selling a house, having a baby and a sick Dad enough for one family to deal with? My relationship with God was an infant at most, at that point. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know if it would survive my anger with this loss.

I got off the phone and put in a quick call to Ben to tell him, then got busy getting W out of the tub and into some jammies for a midnight drive to Nebraska. I was trying not to cry and just kept saying over and over to myself, “Oh, God, I don’t know if I can do this…”

“Mo Mo (Elmo) slippers, please,” W said around his finger he was sucking.

He loved his Elmo slippers. He couldn’t put them on by himself, no matter how long he tried, but regardless he loved them. The phone rang again and I said, “W, you’ll have to try to get the slippers on all by yourself. You can do it.” He started crying and saying “I can’t.” I left the room, closing the door again to answer the phone.

It was Ben telling me he could have all the time off we needed and that he would be home soon to drive us to Nebraska.

When I got back into W’s room. The Mo Mo slippers were on. W sat happily bouncing his foot and sucking his finger.

“Oh, Babe, you got them on all by yourself. Good for you…”

“Yeah, Uncle Jaybird helped me.”

“What?” I said, gasping for air and looking around at the empty room.

“Uncle Jaybird helped me, cause I couldn’t do it myself.”

“He did?”

“Yeah,” he said softly, totally content.

“Where is Uncle Jaybird now?”

W giggled, pulled his wet finger from his mouth to point beside me and said, “He’s right there, Monnie.”

“How does he look?” I whispered.

“Fine.”

“Does–does he look broken?” I choked.

“No, he looks whole.” W said.

He looks whole. The exact words I needed to hear right then. I couldn’t imagine my vivacious brother, being thrown from a vehicle and broken beyond belief by the impact of landing a long ways from his car. Whole, I thought. I wish I were whole. I’ll never be whole again.

“Is he still here?” I asked, wanting to throw my arms around the air and hug tightly, never to let go.

“Yes, W said giggling again. Can’t you see him?”

“No. What’s he doing?”

“Smiling.”

It was right at that moment I knew I was going to make it. Even though I was beyond sad and on the verge of total collapse, death was no boundary for God.

Two Bible verses popped into my mind. Verses I had hidden away in my heart as a child, then forgotten.

“You shall mount up on the wings of eagles…you shall run and not grow weary…For the LORD, your God, is with you.” and “My grace is sufficient for you…for MY power is my great in your weakness.” (My paraphrase.)

That was just God telling me: neither death nor life, angels or demons, past, present, or future could keep me, Jay or anyone for that matter, from his love. And whatever box, in all my humanness, I had built around Him, was no bounds for His greatness.

That was seven years ago.

I still miss my brother. Some days I feel cheated that my kids and grand kids will never know his humor and love for life. I don’t know why some people’s days are shorter than others. I don’t know why bad things sometimes happen to good people. I don’t understand why there are so many people who have babies they don’t want, when there’s so many who want babies they can never have. I don’t know why.

I have come to know God’s perspective is way different that mine. The Bible says ‘My ways are not your ways…’ Duh! That statement isn’t enough for me some days. I still want to know why. I try to read the Bible everyday. Some days that leaves me with peace but no answers. After I read the fiction book ”The Shack” (I reviewed it here) I gained understanding. Through the words of that book, I now understand that God is three persons, in one. I know, as humans, we are limited to the three dimensions of this life, but someday we will see and understand the perpetual dimensions of eternity. I’ve come to know, this side of heaven, this human won’t have all the answers. At best, this sinner, will have a relationship with a compassionate God who sheds his love and grace on me when I most need His mercy. And, as promised, has never given more than I can handle.

That faith, in these truths, my friends, is simply enough!

Sis

PS ~ I don’t collect much stuff. The one thing I do collect is stories, like this one. If you have one PLEASE share it with me. Write it down in an email and send it to me sis(at)reclaimsimplicity.com. In the process I hope you find God’s peace.

God has been good to me. I have more in my life now that I ever dreamed I would have when I was young.

When I spent time dreaming of my knight, I didn’t know He was going surpass what I had dreamed. I didn’t know then that relationships morph and are far from static. What started out as a few thirst quenching drops changed into a nice pool with trickles and tickles. Then, for a while,  a rocky dry river bed. Today, the pool I share with Ben is wider than ever. The words still waters run deep would certainly fit. But I want more.

Through this we have been blessed with a couple of boys, who are healthier and more beautiful that I could have ever imagined. I can’t really get enough of them. Some days it panics me to think I have to let them fly and morph into what God has for them. But I want more.

Our farm home is over hundred years old. It’s quirky and weird like me, housing everything from fits and fantasies to secrets. It gives me projects. I love it. But I want more.

From health to happiness to friends and family, I have more than I have ever dreamed. But I want more.

Why? Why do I want more? Why am I not content some days?

I think it’s because some days most days I look to myself for strength, instead of looking to Him.

In Psalms it says…”And I– in righteousness I will see your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.”  

Will I? Or will I want God and…

And. There’s a fifty-cent word. It leaves me wondering… How much is enough?

I asked God to give me a great husband AND some great children AND a wonderful house AND…

He said, “I AM.”

I forget sometimes HE is everything.

And everything is enough.

Trying to remember to look up!

Sis

Have you ever answer one of your children’s questions and end up with a better understanding yourself? That’s what happened to me this week.

We were on our way to the pool and the kids wanted to know the difference between God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (or Ghost.)

I explained it like this.

It’s like H2O.

“What’s that?”

[Long explanation.]

I think of God like water. The wellspring of life.

“What’s a wellspring?” [Another long explanation.]

Jesus, God’s Son, (fully God and fully human) is who came to earth. I think of Him like ice, we could finally touch God. He is still H2O, just in a different form.

After Jesus died on the cross, to pay for our bad choices, he rose on the third day. He told His disciples He was going away to prepare for us a place. BUT, He would send a helper or counselor, the H0ly Spirit. That’s the part of God that lives in His believers. Steam. Again, still H2O, just in a different airy form.

I don’t know if the kids understand it any better than they did, but I sure do.

Whether you trek off to church somewhere or enjoy some peace in quiet in His creation…I hope you have wonderful Sunday and know that God (in whatever form) is crazy about you and loves to chat. Whenever you’re ready.

Blessings.

Sis

You’ll remember our trip to Merle Fest, and how we chased smoke, met some folks who played nice in the sandbox and got to use some darn nice out houses.

On that trip we also got to see “The Steel Drivers“, my new favorite bluegrass band.

I’m totally smitten with them. They have their own bluesy, bluegrass, twang that just about does me in. Not only that. The words to their songs are absolutely poetry set to music. Stunning, leaving me to ponder life. I love it. So I had to get a t-shirt to help me remember the moment.

As you know. I’m a tightwad and buy most of my clothes used or drastically on sale and would never buy myself a $25 t-shirt, much less a $20 one. But, I didn’t say SINthia (my evil twin) wouldn’t.

I asked the gal selling the t-shirts if they had any left. She said one–large.

“Is that it there?” I asked pointing a squinting. (I didn’t have my glasses on.)

“Yep.”

I’ll take it.

Just about that time the fiddle player and back-up singer walked up behind me and said, “If you buy that shirt, you’re guaranteed to work harder and not sweat.”

SOLD.

Then I turned it over.

My shoulder’s drooped and said, “Oh, well, I guess I’ll take it. Uh, I guess I can wear it to church.”

The sales lady answered in the sweetest most southern voice you’ve ever heard said…

“Honey, you just do that. You wear it to church. Then you’ll fit in great with the rest of us sinners.”

And that’s what I like about the south. They understand grace.

Simply,

SINthia

PS ~ SINthia is my evil twin. She says what I’m thinking. And does…God only knows what. Well, just see for yourself….Cheap date ideas from SINthia. ~ SINthia springs Russell from jail. ~ How she thinks she is the Red Baron. ~ Or how she aspires to be a Kung Fu Fighter.

Yeah, I’ll be over here, sucking my thumb if you need me.