My granddaughter Vivienne (age 3 1/2) spent the night recently and we had a great time. We read books, sang songs, and played make-believe doggy. Depending on the day, Vivie says she is a little doggy named either Scratchy, Boney or Shorty.
She came to sit in my lap and snuggled against me. Soon she sniffed the air (she didn’t know I had put on a spritz of “Beautiful” by Estee Lauder a few minutes before), looked puzzled, and then asked me, “Grandma, why does it smell like appley-glump?”
I wonder if I should write to the Lauder Corporation.
Autumn is making itself known now in our little part of the world. Even though the first day of fall isn’t officially until the end of September, when you live this far north, the earth apparently doesn’t consult the huge wall calendar I bought at Office Max to time its autumnal behaviors. The earth just does what it wants. And at the almost-47th latitude, the earth mostly wants to chill out.
The sun’s arc doesn’t reach as high as it travels across the sky now, and the light coming in the windows each day is different, more golden, than it was last week. I could stand in my kitchen, not knowing the date, and tell by the lower sunlight that summer is dying.
Here, summer usually awakens the birds around 4:30 a.m., and the cardinals, robins and chickadees are in their full Mormon Tabernacle Choir mode by 5:15 a.m., which I have always thought is one of the loveliest things in life. Now, things are pretty quiet in the mornings. Some of the birds may have already migrated south, and I’m not sure what the ones who stay for the Minnesota winter are doing. Maybe putting caulk on their windows and otherwise battening down the hatches to prepare for possibly nine months of cold.
When I got up this morning and came downstairs, I didn’t open windows and breathe in the comfortable fresh air like I did last week. I considered turning on the furnace, and then thought better of it. It is August, I reminded myself. But the house is chilly.
Michael and I took a walk yesterday and there are a few leaves beginning to turn color on the trees already. Here’s a photo taken by my good friend Bob King that was in our local paper recently.
Many people in northern Minnesota live a pretty hectic summer. Our summers are so short, maybe people feel they must fit all the warm-weather activities they can into the three warm months out of the year. Picnics, camping, hiking, barbecues, biking, house projects, cabin trips, gardening, fishing…are all squeezed into three months of living because Minnesotans know that by late October it will be dark and cold, and for most people, life will slow down.
There are the hardy ones who go camping and ice fishing in the winter of course. And many have decided to make the best of a long cold winter by learning to ski, snow-shoe and roar through the forests on snowmobiles.
But for me, the changing of a leaf’s color on the maple in our front yard doesn’t mean snowmobiles or sitting on a frozen lake dangling a line into a small hole in the ice. For me, the arrival of autumn means removing our lightweight toile quilt from the bed and pulling out the heavy down-filled toile comforter. It means wearing sweaters instead of t-shirts, and the comfort of SmartWool socks under my Birkenstocks (Carolyn, I’m going to buy you some Birkies and thick wool socks this Christmas to complete your Drama Mom look), and it means pulling out thick and pretty scarves to keep my neck warm in the chill air.
And, the shortening of days stimulates a mostly dormant and atrophied portion of my brain called the cookothalmus that suddenly makes me want to bake loaves of crusty bread, simmer hearty soups on the stove, and stir up pans of spicy apple crisp. Summer’s waning makes me want to take long meandering walks. It makes me want to hunker down with books and sit with friends in front of a fire.
And for some reason I don’t understand, the change in season makes me want to pray. And write in my journal. And sit in my plaid chair, looking over one or two verses and meditating on them until the riches rise to the surface and I sit astonished at the depth and layers of God’s Word. I surely need that.
The change from summer to fall and fall to winter has always stirred up something in me that I can’t put good words to. I only know that it it makes me aware of fleeting life and inevitable death in a more acute way, and it brings on a wistful, yearning feeling that reminds me how quickly my days will pass from this earth, how in no time at all my grandbabies will be adults with children and grandchildren of their own.
Why does this thought make the tears run down my face? I don’t know. It’s a wonderful, terrible sort of ache that comes with the passage of time.
Oh, Mothers of young children, I bow before you in reverence. Your work is most holy. You are fashioning the destinies of immortal souls. The powers folded up in the little ones that you hushed to sleep in your bosoms last night, are powers that shall exist forever. You are preparing them for their immortal destiny and influence. Be faithful. Take up your sacred burden reverently. Be sure that your life is sweet and clean.
My husband encouraged me today. I don’t know how he does it, but with very few words he usually manages, with his smile, his mercy and his (deceived) high opinion of me, to lift my mood. Not always, mind you. He’s not a miracle worker. Jesus is my miracle worker. But the couple of things Michael said to me today made me reflect again on how important it is to encourage someone. Anyone. I want to get better at encouraging those I love.
In June and July nine of my favorite women crowded into our den each Tuesday morning for our annual summer Bible study, and as most of you know, we did Mary Kassian’s Conversation Peace. If you clicked on the link, do not be deceived by the whimsical, cartoonish member book. The study was brutal. And glorious. And for me, one of the most needed studies I’ve ever done.
On page 96 of my member book, I wrote myself a little note with an arrow pointing to a paragraph that impacted me: put on blog, I scribbled. Along with learning to hold my tongue, listen more, not exaggerate, and seventy-three other almost impossible tasks related to godly speech, I learned a lot about encouragement from this study.
With credit and admiration to Mary Kassian, here’s a little story quoted from Week Five of Conversation Peace:
His mother was not home, but the young boy wanted to draw, so he got out the bottles of ink and enlisted his sister as a model. The young artist made an inky mess of his hands, clothes, table, and floor. Just as he was finishing his work, his mother returned. For a moment, she stood in the door and silently took in the scene. Then, instead of scolding him, she picked up the portrait and declared, “What a beautiful picture of your sister!” and kissed him. Later in life, the great artist Benjamin West recounted, “With that kiss, I became a painter!”
Benjamin West was a prolific American painter who was born in Pennsylvania in 1738 and died in 1820. Here’s one of my favorite paintings of his, called, “The Incredulity of St. Thomas.”
From John, chapter 20:
Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”
A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
In this amazing painting, without even being able to see Thomas’s face, we can tell what he was thinking, how suddenly everything had changed for him.
I can’t help but think about Benjamin West’s mother when I see his paintings, and the power her words had on her son.
I want so much to be a better encourager, and today I’m thankful for the opportunity to try.
It’s sort of a joke in our family about what bad dog owners we are. We love our two Schnauzers Edith and Mildred more than they deserve, and they’re a bit spoiled, but they are not well-trained, and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Schnauzers are rodent-hunters by instinct. In Germany, their land of origin, people kept them as “ratters,” just as some people who live on farms in my area keep barn cats today – for mouse control. Schnauzers are alert and curious, friendly and loyal, and so hyper-vigilant that they never seem to stop barking. Good owners take their Schnauzers to twelve weeks of dog training classes to teach their pooches how to walk nicely on a leash, how to stop barking with one dark look from the owner, and how to do a variety of commands, like sit!, stay!, down!, and don’t even look at me right now because I’m sick of your incessant barking!
But as The Dog Whisperer so regularly reminds us, we are really not good dog owners. Our Schnauzers would stay perched at our den window all their waking hours, if allowed, to be ready to bark at the slightest movement from down the street. If a person jogs by, if the mail-woman parks her truck six doors down, if a squirrel darts by, we are alerted to it no matter where we might be in the house. Edith and Millie have shrieking barks that hurt the ears and make the adrenaline flow.
Anyway, on to the rabbits. Our city is overrun by rabbits. In the past few years there have even been newspaper articles about our burgeoning rabbit population, and we’ve certainly had more than our share of bunnies in the yard. I wrote about our bunny experiences here. Rabbits are large rodents, and Edith and Millie are instinctive bunny haters, so any rabbit who crosses our property line will be chased within an inch of its life.
We have an electric fence, so our dogs remarkably never, ever go beyond the boundaries of our fairly large yard. We’re pretty certain that all the rabbits in our neighborhood have learned that those two yipping and hysterical gray dogs with the mustaches can’t come past this pine and that apple tree, because the rabbits have taken to sitting calmly just beyond the dogs’ reach, and tormenting them. “NYAH-na-na-BOO-boo!” we think they’re saying to Edith and Millie. And it’s driving the Schnauzers crazy.
And maybe our neighbors aren’t enjoying it very much either. So when we hear The Rabbit Shriek Duet, we run to the backdoor and say authoritatively and ineffectively, “GET in here! STOP that barking right now! KNOCK it off you two!” and they come slinking in, but they are never rehabilitated. They never stop it, and we’re not sure they can, because they are Schnauzers and this is what Schnauzers do. At least that’s the excuse I’m holding to so I don’t have to add “Take Edith and Millie to Twelve Weeks of Dog Training” to my already piled up to-do list plate.
Here’s a photo of Millie, stopped just at the electric border in our back yard near the house, shrieking her diligent best, at a calm rabbit several feet away who’s doing the nyah-na-na-boo-boo thing right back at her. You can see Sara and Michael in our hammock, turning to see what all the commotion is about.
I want to be a courteous neighbor so whenever I hear The Schnauzer Shriek I’m quick to bring them in and give them long lectures about being better citizens. They seem to understand what I’m saying at the time, but then the next time I let them out it’s all forgotten when they spot a chipmunk or a fawn or another dog two back yards away.
I haven’t decided yet if successfully getting Edith and Millie to instantly stop barking at a simple command is possible or not. It seems like it would go against every cell in their stout little German bodies. I know that the road to better dog behavior starts with the owners. But the thought of taking them to classes every week and then spending time daily practicing with them makes me want to take a nap. I don’t know where I could fit it in.
I guess I won’t think about that today. I’ll think about that tomorrow. Or the next day. Or maybe the next.
There’s always the chance that a rodent-only virus will mutate and arrive in Minnesota next week, killing off the entire population of critters that torment our dooginses.
That would certainly save me a lot of trouble. And our neighbors’ ears. Would someone please get on this?
My husband and I are a very romantic couple, and by that I mean that we take moonlight strolls by the stream at the back of our property, listen to Etta James as we gaze longingly into each other’s eyes each night before we climb into our big, tall bed, hold surprise scavenger hunts for each other with trinkets and love notes hidden all over the house, enjoy large red boxes of waxy chocolates and have a hefty bubble bath bill each month.
Actually, only one of the last six statements is true. We haven’t taken any moonlight walks On the Banks of Birdinal Creek yet, because when the moon rises I’m usually yawning or already in bed, and Michael is watching Walker, Texas Ranger. We don’t hold scavenger hunts for creative ways to show our love, because we’re already tired of searching high and low for small, hidden things and are lately trying to give that up – we frequently have harried romantic hunts for keys, cell phones, and checks that need to be deposited. And eating chocolate (hopefully coupled with peanut butter) is something we both firmly believe should be a daily chore practiced with moderation and discipline, so we eschew big red boxes of random shiny candies.
Michael and I usually go out to dinner once a week, but the last time we went out for Valentine’s Day was several years ago. We did the unthinkable, which was drive to one of our favorite restaurants expecting to be seated within one hour. Once we saw the crowd and were told how long the wait was, we left and drove to one of our second favorite restaurants, and were surprised to find no place to park and standing room only inside. Then we drove to our favorite little sandwich joint and were greeted by the same. We decided that from then on we would go out to dinner for Valentine’s Day on either February 13th or 15th. No more of this February 14th business.
Well. Life has a way of changing things. Michael and I would probably never be chosen for the reality show America’s Most Romantic Couple. But we have some things that are so precious to me I don’t exactly know how to put words to it all.
He wanted to marry me before we ever met, after writing many letters and talking dozens of hours on the phone. He wanted to stay married to me after reality set in, which is even more amazing than wanting to get married before meeting. He helps keep me sane when I feel like craziness is maniacally tapping on the windows of my mind to be let in. He has taught me what faithfulness means and what a priceless, solid foundation it is for a marriage. He has built my confidence day after day, year after year. He has never disrespected me by an outright or a sideways glance at another woman in my presence. He sits with me on the couch when we have a rare few minutes, takes my feet in his lap and scratches the ridges left in my ankles by my SmartWool socks. He comes up behind me in the mornings when my mood is low and my hair is on end, puts his arms around me and tells me lies like “You look so beautiful this morning” and “I’m one lucky man.” He struggles with a terrible illness, but rarely with selfishness. He gets up every morning and makes me feel like I have a life partner who will always cherish me and work side by side with me, and believe the best about me. He often says in the middle of the day when there is finally quiet, “Let’s go upstairs and read together,” and we take tea and shortbread on a tray up to the sitting area of our bedroom, and soak in the power, truth and help from the Bible that we need for each day. He recently told me that when he saw me pull into the driveway after I’d been out running errands that his heart did a little flip and he felt “twitterpated.” He dug his heels in years ago when my immaturity allowed me to talk of leaving each time things got rough, and he said, “I will never leave, I will always love you.” He has worked his body into the ground for our family, sometimes in winter temperatures so far below freezing that he came home with tiny icicles on his mustache. He cries when I read touching stories out loud. He frequently directs me to take out the checkbook when someone is in need. He has never nagged, harped or driven home an important lesson to me. He has never withheld forgiveness for a time, so I would learn my lesson. He wrote “Happy Birthday Honey! I love you!” in giant spray-painted letters on a 4′ x 8′ piece of plywood tied to the side of the ladder rack on his truck, and drove it through town and to our house, honking the horn so I’d come out and see it. Over the years he has gently Q-tipped my face for hours, which must be quite the boring and confining prospect for a manly man who would rather be hunting or fishing outdoors. He has leaned over and kissed me while waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store. In front of people. Even when we were in our fifties. He has assured me in the darkest of times, “God is faithful. He will do a miracle. He will answer our prayers.” He smiles like no one I’ve ever known. He has knelt with me and laid his arm over my shoulders in prayer as we have wept and snotted into our couch, crying out for our children and the people God puts on our hearts. Quite literally, he has helped me live. He has reminded me to praise God, many times when I was resentful and didn’t want to. He has shown me what it looks like to humbly trust God and to rejoice in Him no matter what. He lives the same way today as he did when we had seventy-six cents to our name. In twenty-eight years he has never touched another, and I am so thankful for the freedom and peace this has brought to our marriage. He has made me feel like I’m a gift from God to him, which at times is laughable because I can be a high-maintenance wife. Stated simply and profoundly, Michael has loved me.
So we may not be sipping champagne by candlelight and sitting in bubbles in our whirlpool tub on any future Valentine’s Days, but I’ll take our form of romance any day. My husband Michael has done for me what no other man could do, and for that I will thank him and my Lord until I no longer have breath.
As I write all these things today, I’m reminded of some verses from 1 Corinthians 13:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
Why Jesus chose to bless me with a husband like this, I don’t know. It’s certainly not because I deserve him. I think it might be because my heavenly Father wants me to have a clearer picture of His grace.
I’ve said before that while growing up, my favorite thing in the whole world was to swim. I grew up in Southern California, and many families there had built-in swimming pools in their back yards, but my family didn’t have one until I was a teen. During the early years of my life I had to wait to be invited to a friend’s house to swim.
One hot summer day when I was about ten years old, a neighborhood friend named Jackie invited me and my good friend Christy over to enjoy her pool. We did back dives and front flips off the diving board, we turned pale and wrinkled from the chlorinated water, we coughed from the mixture of smog in the air and bleach in our lungs, but I didn’t care – to me it was all a magical concoction of what made a perfect day.
After a couple of hours of fun, I noticed Jackie whispering to Christy, and later found out that she had invited Christy to spend the night at her house, excluding me. I was hurt, but I went home thankful I had been able to swim. Several days later when I was invited to Jackie’s house again, I decided to be bold and ask her why she had asked Christy to spend the night and not me too. Jackie wasn’t an unkind girl, but she was serious and rather forthright for her age. I saw her wince as she considered what to answer me, and these were the words she spoke: “Julie, you’re dull.”
If ever a word packed a wallop, that one did. Deep inside I thought it might be true – I knew I wasn’t one of those exciting little girls who had swarms of people around her all the time – but I had never heard someone describe me as dull, and as that word reverberated in my head, I began to think of ways to liven myself up, ways to become more exciting or entertaining. I thought I was going to have to tap dance, juggle or tightrope walk in order to keep people from thinking I was dull.
But somehow over the years God kept me from truly attempting to change my personality. He brought other people into my life who liked me the ho-hum way that I was. Nevertheless, that word packed a wallop in my young heart and soul and occasionally I fought the thought that I had to entertain people in order to interest them. When I had matured a bit I was able to let go of that false way of thinking. Lucky for all of my friends that each time we’re together they haven’t been subjected to waving pompoms, trick roller skating, or quickly constructed balloon animals. When I began to understand more about who I am in Christ, the word “dull” gradually lost its power and I could look upon that memory of Jackie with a smile.
Proverbs 18:21 says: “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”
This is a strong verse, but I have seen firsthand how my own words have walloped others, and I have cried bitter tears over careless things that have slipped out of my mouth. I am sick and tired of bringing death with my words, and want to bring life. Even when a negative report is called for, I know it can be brought with words of life.
I read that the average person spends one-fifth of his or her life talking. Are you 50 years old? Quite possibly, you’ve spent ten years talking. If all our words were put into print, the result would be this: a single day’s words would fill a 50-page book, while in a year’s time the average person’s words would fill 132 books of 200 pages each. Among all those words there are bound to be some spoken in anger, carelessness, or haste, just the very situations Proverbs cautions us against. Someone wrote, “Speak when you are angry, and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”
James 3:2-6: We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.
When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal.
Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go.
Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.
The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
A contemporary example of the tongue being a destroying fire and a deadly poison, is Adolf Hitler. I read that for every word in Hitler’s book Mein Kampf, (which means “My Struggle”) 125 people died during World War II. One hundred twenty-five deaths for every one word. Speech can be a matter of life and death.
In my family during my youth, I saw and experienced the damage that an untamed tongue can inflict on people. There were also many kind, encouraging and life-giving words spoken in our home, but somehow the negative words always seem to pack the biggest wallops, don’t they?
My friend Jackie uttered those walloping words to me over 40 years ago, and I still remember them, but they no longer have any power over me and don’t hurt a bit. In fact, I’m inclined to agree with her. But I don’t feel that need to be someone other than who the Lord created me to be. If I’m not the most sparkling, sanguine person in the room, I’m okay with that. Fuddy-dud works for me. I honestly don’t feel the need to juggle or tap dance or liven myself up anymore.
These days I’m learning to hearken to the powerful words of Someone Else, and He’s not telling me that I’m dull. (Okay, He’s not telling me I’m scintillating either). His words do pack a great wallop, but for my good and for His glory.
He is telling me that I’m loved with an everlasting love. He’s telling me I’m worth dying for. He’s telling me I need His discipline in my life. He’s telling me I can find all I need at His feet, and that I will never find a friend like Him. He’s telling me that my careless words and many other sins give me a desperate need for a Savior. He’s telling me that He is that Savior.
Could you believe that He’s telling you the very same things?
Truly one of the hardest things in life for me, is to not blurt out a complaint, a worry, or an observation that might be too harsh for the hearer. But I am thankful for opportunities to change.
This morning I woke to find my heart still beating and my lungs drawing breath. That must mean there’s still hope. Like David did, I’m asking the Lord to daily create a clean heart in me, so that the words that are produced there are life-giving words. I want my words to bring warmth and life to my husband, to my children and grandchildren, to my friends, and even to the stranger who crosses my path. I want to speak words that flow out and bring to others encouragement and truth, light and hope. Words that pack a wonderful wallop, and are remembered for years afterward, because they brought life…
Once upon a time there was a family who lived in the woods. They were the Buehler family. Herr Buehler was a woodsman, and he worked hard from sunup until sundown cutting down trees in the thick forest and then lovingly and painstakingly fashioning the lumber into beautiful pieces of furniture for the village people to buy.
Frau Buehler liked to be at home, and she kept busy baking bread for her family and knitting wool mittens and socks to sell, to help keep broth and bread on the table. Herr Buehler was responsible for keeping meat on the table – sometimes while working in the woods he would shoot a large buck and thank God for the provision to feed his family.
The Buehlers had three sons: Wilhelm, Dietmar and Jakob. Frau Buehler taught her sons how to read, and when winter came to the forest many nights found the family sitting in front of the blazing hearth reading books aloud, including the Good Book. Wilhelm grew into a tall young man, married a village girl and they started a family of their own in a city three days’ journey from their home in the woods. Dietmar loved music and had spent many hours yodeling to the sky as he did his chores and dreamed of singing in the Munich opera. Young Jakob had a tender heart and loved to stay close to his mother’s apron as she baked and knitted and read aloud. Jakob also loved animals and happily tended the Buehlers’ two sheep, milk cow and dog, whom he considered his dearest friends. He often confided in them after his brothers had grown up and moved away.
Years passed, and all the sons grew up and lived their own lives away from the cottage in the woods. Herr and Frau Buehler were content, but lonesome for their children. They did see their young men and their families once or twice a year, but they both longed for the days when things had been simpler and all five of them had lived under one roof.
No longer vigorous and spry, the Buehlers spent quiet times reading by the fire, lifting their sons in prayer before the Author of the Good Book, and watching the life and beauty of the woods outside their windows. Herr Buehler spent less time in the woods and began whittling to keep Frau Buehler company as she knitted.
Frau Buehler began to see that the worries of the world were pressing down upon her beloved children, and her times of knitting were often spent talking to the Author of the Good Book, asking for His help and blessing on her sons. Sometimes she could feel the weight of the oppression on her children so deeply she would sit by the parlor window, looking out on the snowy woods, and weep for her sons. Jakob, in particular, was on Frau Buehler’s heart. Jakob had experienced deep pain and disappointment in his young life and the guardedness and suspicion Frau Buehler saw on his face deeply troubled her soul. Jakob had been a sensitive and trusting little boy, but now the big city and the snares of the enemy had changed him. He had a dark and sad look to his eyes, and he often moved and spoke as if all hope had departed from him.
Sometimes at night as Herr Buehler snored under the coverlet beside her, Frau Buehler would look out of the window from her down-filled pillow, and count the stars. She was reminded how immense the Maker of those stars must be in order to hold them in the palm of His hand, and when she would cry out to Him, her heart would be calmed.
But sometimes peace and calm wouldn’t come to Frau Buehler’s soul. She didn’t understand why this was. She would sit by the parlor window and knit. She and Herr Buehler would look deep into each others’ eyes and know what the other was thinking. She could almost hear her dear husband say through that gaze, “Ahh, mein Greta, look to your Maker – He will help you to know that all will be well. The One who spoke and named the stars also made our sons.” She took comfort from her husband’s strength.
One clear morning Frau Buehler timidly asked the Maker of her sons for a sign. She wanted Him to reassure her that Herr Buehler was right, that all would someday be well with her sons Wilhelm, Dietmar, and especially Jakob. Jakob had wandered far from the path his parents had set for him. She felt foolish asking for such a thing, but after thinking a long while about what kind of a sign to ask for, Frau Buehler asked the Creator of the woods and wildlife to send a bright red cardinal to her, to let her know that He was at work in her children. In all the years the Buehlers had lived in the Black Forest, they had seen many forms of wildlife and dozens of different feathered creatures, but never had they seen a cardinal. She humbly bowed her head and said, “Good Father in heaven, bring a cardinal to my window as I’m knitting here, to show me all will be well with my Jakob. And I will thank you for caring for us and our boys.”
Day after day Frau Buehler knitted away, tending to her home, baking their bread, mending their clothes, writing letters to her sons, happily chasing her grandbabies when they came for their occasional visits. Day after day she would look out of her parlor window at the trees outside, at the snowy ground or the soft green needle-packed floor of the forest, and she would watch. Many birds came, as they always did, but never a cardinal. Orioles, chickadees, sparrows, came. Wrens, juncos, and even crows. Herr Buehler enjoyed the birds himself, and would sit at the close of a day and whittle as Frau Buehler’s knitting needles clicked and the fire crackled. Frau Buehler had told no one of her prayer to the Creator for a cardinal. Not even her good husband.
Many months after she made her request, Frau Buehler looked up one day to see her husband outside the parlor window, hanging something on one of the low-hanging branches of the huge, ancient pines outside their forest cottage. When he stepped away from the tree, she saw it was a wooden bird-feeder he had made himself. Her heart beat a little faster. “Why is my Peter hanging a bird-feeder outside our parlor window?” She knew it must have been the Author of the Good Book speaking to her husband’s heart, even though he wasn’t aware of the prayer his wife had prayed. Frau Buehler’s eyes filled with tears and she whispered, “O Good Father – you are moving the hands and feet of my husband and he is not even aware. But I am, and I thank you.”
Time passed, and the Buehlers enjoyed their quiet life in the woods, and day by day their bodies grew slower and their movements more intentional. One snowy afternoon as Frau Buehler sat knitting by the window, a brilliant blue jay swooped down to the feeder. She watched delightedly as it cocked its head and jerkily ate the seed that Herr Buehler placed there each time the feeder needed replenishing. “That is a beautiful little fellow, Good Father, but he is the wrong color! I’m waiting for my red cardinal.”
A few months later Frau Buehler turned from the stove after stirring the soup and her eye caught movement outside the parlor window. There was her dear husband again, this time hanging another bird-feeder in the lower branches of a massive pine next to the tree from which the first feeder still hung. Two bird-feeders now, and Frau Buehler still hadn’t told anyone of her unusual request to the Creator. When Herr Buehler came inside, stomping the snow from his boots, she asked him “Peter, why have you hung another bird-feeder outside our parlor window?” Herr Buehler shrugged and answered, “I so enjoy these little feathered creatures, Greta”. And that was that.
Once again Frau Buehler thought to herself, “Heavenly Father, I do not know if you will ever bring a cardinal to my window, but I can see that you do move in the hearts of men. Help me to trust you with my Jakob.”
It is not certain how much time passed, but it was a good long time. Perhaps it was even years. Day after day many varieties of birds visited those two bird-feeders outside the parlor window of the Buehler cottage in the Black Forest of Bavaria. Blue, black, brown, yellow, orange, and grey birds. But so far never a red bird.
One morning when the sun was not completely up and the light from the sky was still a deep periwinkle, Frau Buehler got out of bed and went to the window, still in her nightdress. She sighed and lowered herself into her chair, and a tiny flash of red caught her eye. As she gazed out of the window with her knitting in her lap, she saw him. A bright, cheerful, red cardinal, all alone, perched on one of the bird-feeders, cocking his head this way and that. Frau Buehler didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, or fall down on her knees. She kept very still, and watched the cardinal, the first cardinal ever to come to their woods, much less to their home. Mr. Cardinal lightly dropped to the ground and ate some of the fallen seed there. He bounced along, sampling the black seeds Herr Buehler had faithfully placed there for years, not knowing he was being moved upon by the Author of the Good Book and the Creator of all life to do so. The little bird then flew to the low branches of another tree, and seemed to watch Frau Buehler as she sat very still in the parlor window. He was in full view for about five minutes, and then with one look over his little bird shoulder he chirped his friendly cardinal song and flew off into the forest.
Frau Buehler sat still in her rocking chair for quite some time, hands motionless on her yarn and needles. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she thanked the Good Father for the gift of the cardinal, and pondered what a kind and compassionate God He must be to cause a little red bird to fly from unknown parts of the forest to her parlor window, just to encourage her heart and give her hope.
She thought of Jakob, and somehow knew that this gift from the Good Father didn’t necessarily mean that all of Jakob’s troubles would be over in a moment, but Frau Buehler felt calmly reassured that the Lord of Life would keep His strong, tender, reliable right hand on her son, to draw him to Himself and bring him through whatever would come in the future.
When she heard the bed creak and knew her dear husband would soon be joining her for their morning coffee at the window, she prepared her words for the story she would tell Peter about the prayer she had prayed, and the cardinal that was the answer to that prayer. She knew her tender-hearted husband would cry when he heard it, not because he too had been filled with care and tossed by worry, but because he trusted the Good Father and was always overwhelmed and thankful when he witnessed others learning to trust Him too.
Many people in northern Minnesota live a pretty hectic summer. Our summers are so short, maybe people feel they must fit all the warm-weather activities they can into the three warm months out of the year. Picnics, camping, hiking, barbecues, biking, house projects, cabin trips, gardening, fishing…are all squeezed into three months of living because Minnesotans know that by late October it will be dark and cold, and for most people, life will slow down.
