For the first time ever, Michael and I went away for Easter. We would have liked to go someplace for two nights, but even though we were only able to work things out so one night was possible, we were still very much looking forward to getting away. When I asked Michael where he wanted to go, I was expecting him to name an old favorite place like “Up the north shore” or “Grand Marais,” or even “The Twin Cities,” but instead he surprised me by promptly answering, “Brainerd.”

Brainerd? It seemed like an unlikely choice to me, since the Brainerd Lakes area of Minnesota has so many lakes and in my mind is regarded more as a summer destination. But what do I know, since I’ve only been to Brainerd once in my life? Michael was firm on this destination so I set about trying to find the kind of place we like, that is, not a hotel with one room, and not a high-end cabin that costs more than a week’s worth of groceries. It took a while, but because we were booking on such short notice and we’d be staying on Easter weekend, I found a resort who gave us a nice cottage on Roy Lake for half price.

Roy Lake is one of the unlabeled lakes you see below in the little town of Nisswa, which is very close to Brainerd. And even though the Brainerd Lakes region of our state is stunningly beautiful and draws visitors from all over, I have a tiny problem with the name. I think it sounds like a merging of the word brain (you think?) and innard. So in my mind it becomes a dubious destination before I even strap on my seatbelt. BRAY-nerd? It’s even a stretch to say with an excited lilt in the voice, “Hey, we’re going to BRAY-nerd for our weekend away! Doesn’t that sound lovely?”

This weirdness about certain words runs in our family. Someday scientists will still be mapping human genes, and after all the important ones are identified, they’ll move on to the lesser ones, and the gene that causes the female members of some families to have a negative visceral reaction to certain words will be isolated and named. We already know our family has this gene. Sharon had a very difficult time early in her marriage when she learned that their first apartment (a very nice place in Northern California) was situated on a street called Guardino (gwar-DEE-no). Her Icky Word Gene waved a red flag and hissed to every fiber of her being, “No! No! You can’t possibly live on a street called Guardino! Icky!” Needless to say, Sharon’s husband Chris was at a loss to understand all of this. But I understood. They did move into the nice place but I’m pretty sure Sharon said the word Guardino as infrequently as possible.

And Carolyn hates the word moist. She sort of wrinkles her nose when she says it. Sara doesn’t like the word cubic. And there are a few other words the females in our family can’t abide, but they’re escaping me now. And this post is about sixty-five per cent and I like cows, so I must move on.

Michael and I like an unhurried road trip, and the weather was beautiful for this time of year. You would never know it’s spring by all the bare trees and the snow still on the ground, but the longer days and temperatures in the high thirties and low forties make such a difference in our outlooks after such a long winter. As we headed toward the center of our state, we passed by many small farms with cows standing placidly around in their pens.

I thought about how much I’ve always liked cows and never really talked about it to anyone. It’s not like I was keeping this big cow secret or anything. I think I would have made a good owner of one or two cows. I would have been like the farm wife of yesteryear who named her milk cows and talked to them and found milking a therapeutic routine. I would have made cheese and yogurt and butter, and worn a matronly, flowered house dress and wound my gray hair up in bobby pins each morning. Have any of you ever milked a cow? I haven’t, but I’ve milked a goat, and thought it was something I could get used to. Alas, cow ownership is something I don’t think is in my future, but I have been considering cow art lately. Take a look at this painting and tell me it wouldn’t look good some place in our house.  🙂

When we arrived at our cabin we were so pleased with it. Here’s the living room, which is just a few feet from the lake. Our view through these windows was wintry of course, and the lake was white and completely frozen over.

We rested. We ate Twizzlers, which I’m pretty sure cause cancer, but hey it’s once a year. We enjoyed the fireplace. We drove in to Brainerd and saw a movie (Olympus Has Fallen) which was terribly stressful and a nail biter and full of seven hundred forty-six uses of a word I hate (there’s that Icky Word Gene making my flesh crawl again), and once back in our cabin we soaked in the restorative quiet and the beauty.

On Easter morning we read, did not go to church for the first Easter I can remember in my life, played some Easter music and talked about all that Jesus has done for us, and then we napped. I could feel myself winding down and it was wonderful. We had to leave, though, because it was just this one night, so we went to the main lodge to check out, which was built in 1919 and looks like this inside. We had reservations for their very popular Easter brunch, and our meals were delicious. It was the first time I’ve ever had Walleye Chowder and of course that was heaven for Michael the fisherman. We lingered over our brunch and once we left Nisswa and Brainerd we decided to take a slow way home. We drove back roads that passed through little bergs like Ossipee, Crosslake, Fifty Lakes, Emily (the home town of my dear friend Pat), MacGregor and Cloquet (rhymes with okay). We saw dozens of lakes and several more farms with lovely cows.

Since conversation is such a challenge for Michael because Parkinson’s has affected his voice, we mostly listened to CDs and the radio as we went, and at one point this song came on. I love this song because it reminds me of Michael, and whenever I hear it I sing it and point at him while smiling and acting goofy. He loves it. Of course I couldn’t take my eyes from the road for very long, but I did sing all the words that I knew by heart, lovingly elbowed him at certain phrases, and he grinned and we made a memory. As I sang out the line that says, “We’re still havin’ fun and you’re still the one” I thought to myself, well I don’t know how much fun we’re having these days, but he’s definitely still the one. Because Parkinson’s Disease is not fun, in case anyone was wondering. Not for the patient, not for the caregiver.

A few minutes later (is anyone still here? hello?), this song came on the radio, and I was tickled when Michael decided it was his turn to sing (sort of) to me. At the part of the song that says, “You are the woman that I’ve always dreamed of, I knew it from the start” — and you really should click on these links to get the full effect of the songs — Michael reached over and put his hand on my leg to show me that I was the woman he had always dreamed of and he knew it from the start. It was a moment, people. I felt so happy and grateful inside and I knew we were making another memory I would cherish forever.

But then I had to throw the teeniest little monkey wrench into the whole deal by saying, “Oh, I know I haven’t turned out to be the woman you have always dreamed of, Michael. I know I’ve been a high maintenance wife at times.” Wasn’t that a meek and humble thing for me to say? Ha.

Michael answered with a nice smile, “Yes, you’ve been wonderful most of the time.” I should have left it at that, don’t you think? But nooooo. I said, “Most of the time?” and I was thinking well, maybe about 90 per cent of the time, and by the end of that thought Michael replied, “I’d say about sixty-five per cent of the time.”

Oh.

Now we were really making a memory that would be carved into my mind forever. Some of you know Michael well. There isn’t a mean bone in his body. We’re studying Ephesians in CBS right now and today’s lesson was on the gifts that God gives to His people. As I wrote down many of them, Michael came to mind. The ones that best describe my husband’s giftings are acts of service, giving generously and acts of mercy. He is a man without guile and I knew he had no idea that my hearing the words sixty-five per cent come out of his mouth would be painful to me. But I sort of felt like I’d been sucker-punched. The tears instantly welled up but the music was still on and we were looking at the road and I tried hard to not cry. I was thinking: sixty-five per cent is a failing grade. We have been married almost thirty-two years and I should be improving by now. He has a terrible illness and my heart’s desire is to help him forget he has it as much as possible because I love and serve him so well. My heart seemed to say to me, Ahem.

But here’s how I know I’m growing. After a minute or two, I put it out of my mind and we enjoyed the rest of our drive home. And I prayed about it. That is progress.

The next day Michael and I were in our bedroom and I was sitting on the side of the bed putting on my socks. He came over and sat next to me to show me his fingernails needed cutting and I opened the drawer in my nightstand where I keep the clippers, to do that for him. I sensed an opportune time, and I asked him, “Michael, I would like to be a good wife more than sixty-five per cent of the time. Will you tell me what I can do to improve?” Even typing that out makes me aware that this conversation might seem (in print) like I was groveling — I wasn’t. It might appear like Michael keeps tabs on my wife-ing and lords it over me in some way — he does not. I must be honest and admit that his gentle answer went straight to my heart and I knew it was needed truth. He put his arm around me and whispered, “A little more humility.”

*Long inward sigh.*

My kind of pride isn’t necessarily the kind that’s all puffed up about how grand and accomplished I am. That would be a joke. My kind of pride isn’t the vain kind that primps and puckers in the mirror and cares more about my appearance than anything else. That would be an even bigger joke. My kind of pride is a self-pitying, martyr-like pride. The kind of pride that whispers thoughts about how I’m giving up things that are meaningful to me in order to care for others, that my own life is fading and getting smaller, more silent and lonely, and isn’t it a shame I have to say no to so much in order to cook and clean and fold laundry and administer meds and ask Michael to repeat himself forty-three times a day and hope that his festinating (rapid shuffling) doesn’t get so bad he starts falling and absolutely no one is leaping about trying to serve me and meet my needs?

And while I don’t speak these things out loud, the attitude behind them escapes out into the open now and then in the form of impatient or martyr-like sighs, raised eyebrows that say you’re kidding me, right? and an attempt to control things because so much is happening that I can’t control.

When Michael gave me that answer, I put my head on his shoulder and he put his arms around me. I cried a little and asked him to forgive me. I asked him to pray for me and he did, which made me cry harder because there’s no one on the earth I’d rather have pray for me than Michael.

He said kindly, “I didn’t really mean sixty-five per cent. I meant about eighty per cent,” and I laughed through my tears, because this could have been true. He often tries to say one thing and ends up saying another these days. It’s part of the damage Parkinson’s is doing to his brain.

But sixty-five per cent or eighty per cent…it doesn’t matter.

We went away to Brainerd, the icky sounding beautiful place. We sang songs to each other in the car on the way home. The Lord spoke a needed word to my heart through the most gracious mouthpiece in the world.

And I came home with the very settled and satisfying realization that I really like cows.

“But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon.

G.K. Chesterton

*           *           *           *           *           *           *

Hello friends and family…

I hope your Easter was nice in some way. Or in many ways — that would be the best. I hope you had a bite of palatable food, a smile from a loved one, a note from a friend, a song to sing along with, a few good winks of sleep, and a grateful heart that Jesus paid the price we owe and couldn’t pay ourselves. I had all of those, and thank God for such riches.

I have some future posts I’m pondering on. If I were truly a proper writer I would have said I have some future posts on which I’m pondering. In a day or two I’ll try to publish one of the several I’m considering:

*Sixty-five Per Cent, or I Like Cows       

*Angel in Atlanta?

*Be So Proud!

*Your Constant Source of Stability

*Send in the Clowns

*Organ Lessons

*My Milestones

*Some Helpful Links

*Pride Cometh…

If anyone has an opinion on the one or two or three they’d like to see first, I would welcome the nudge.

Today was a laundry, company, dentist, chauffeuring, child care, suitcase-unpacking, report-writing, cooking, tax document-gathering, bill paying sort of day. I’m hoping tonight is a hot bath, tacos, All Creatures Great and Small, smiling people sort of night.

Thank you for reading…

“If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said;  if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.”  — Tim Keller

When Michael and I were raising the girls many moons ago, we listened to a lot of contemporary Christian music. Does anyone remember Farrell and Farrell, Randy Stonehill, Petra, Leslie Phillips, Michele Pillar, Keith Green? One of Michael’s favorite artists was Don Francisco, and we had all his albums.

One of Don’s most powerful songs was about the arrest, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, from Peter’s perspective. The song starts out quietly and builds in suspense, and ends in an exultant chorus that Michael used to sing along to every Easter morning. We would all get up and have breakfast before getting ready to go to church, and this song would be playing as loud as we could stand it.

Michael used to walk around the house booming out the words, often with tears in his eyes.

We don’t have record albums anymore, but I do have a CD of Don Francisco’s greatest hits, and “He’s Alive” is on it. I will pull it out on Easter Sunday and play it loud, and I can just see Michael’s response now. He may not be able to boom out the song anymore, but he will sing it with all his might, and I’m fairly certain there will be tears of gratitude still.

Thank you my kind friends for making time in your life to stop by here. I pray that no matter what life looks like to you right now, there will be joy for you this Easter.

He is risen!

Many of you might have already seen this, since it was posted on Ann Voskamp’s blog recently. It touched me so deeply I found it on youtube so I can share it here.

Like this mama, we are all still learning how to live, and how to give thanks to God, no matter what our lives are like….

These favorites of mine have nothing to do with Friday, especially since today is Monday. I like these things every day of the week, or at least almost every day of the week. It’s just that I rarely pass up a chance to employ a little alliteration, so Friday Favorites it is. Even though, as I said, today is Monday.

I know. Don’t ask.

I’ve said this before but it might be worth repeating — Honeycrisp apples are my favorite apple. They’re pricey right now since the season is over, but I buy them anyway. Crisp, juicy, and tart-sweet, I eat one of these every day, sometimes paired with a slice of Swiss cheese, or a dollop of peanut butter. What is your favorite apple?

I’m always on the lookout for a brand of pen I can latch onto and call my own. I need a pen with a large point — fine point pens don’t glide smoothly or quickly enough for me. This pen by Bic is called Velocity and it’s my current choice. It does leave the occasional blob of ink because the point is so large, and I’m not crazy about that. If I find another one that writes this well and is blobless, I’ll make the switch. Do pens make a difference to you? If so, what pen do you prefer?

This is my favorite peanut butter, and I eat some every day. Sometimes I just put some Smucker’s on my Honeycrisp apple slices, other times I spread a little peanut butter on toast. This is the kind that comes separated, and you have to stir and stir the oil and the ground peanuts together very well before you can use it. My OCD method is this: stir carefully and deeply over and over with a butter knife, making sure you don’t displace any oil so it runs down the side of the jar. I hate that. After you stir and fold and stir and fold, then you replace the lid snugly and store it upside down in the refrigerator overnight. Then the next day you can turn the jar back over and you’re good to go. Do you like peanut butter? What kind do you buy?

I’m not much of a makeup person. I do wear it when I’m going out someplace fancy, but even then I don’t wear nearly as much as I did when I was young. A lot for me these days would be concealer, a touch of eye shadow, soft liner, eyebrow pencil, mascara and lip gloss. That much would make me feel a bit clownish, even though I’m sparing when I apply it. Most days I just use eyebrow pencil (because looking like a Caucasian Whoopi Goldberg is not something I aspire to in my old age), lip gloss and Estee Lauder finishing powder. It’s translucent, and it softens the ruddiness that has crept into my fair skin after a dozen or two blistering sunburns when I was a teen. This finishing powder is hardly noticeable, but I notice a difference when I wear it. Do you wear makeup every day or just occasionally? Or not at all? If you do wear cosmetics, what two or three products do you wear most often?

About eight years ago my optometrist did a little test on my eyes to see how my tear production was going. I figured the ducts were just fine since shedding tears could be an almost daily thing for me. Open my Bible, cry. Read a greeting card, cry. See the below zero temperatures outside, cry. Walk on my wonky right knee, cry. See my husband declining, cry. Think of God’s many blessings, cry. Read a loving text from a friend, cry. (In fact, our family had a little joke about my mother’s propensity for crying about happy and sad things, and we used to sing this song from Sesame Street to her and it would make us all crack up. Now I think the song could apply to me.) Anyway, my eye doctor said my eyes were not making an adequate amount of tears and asked me if I’d experienced dry eyes of late. It made me ponder, and it hit me that when I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and my eyelids are stuck to my gritty eyeballs, that could be a tear production problem. So now I use Systane, and it’s a Godsend. I especially need it at night, and have learned to put a drop in each eye if I wake up to go potty, or to tell Michael he’s only dreaming, or to move Mildred away from behind my knees.

I’ve been using Norwex Antibacterial cleaning cloths for about six weeks now and am totally sold. They actually kill bacteria because they have silver in them, rarely have to be washed, and enable the user to clean household surfaces with only hot water and no chemicals. If you don’t know about Norwex (and I don’t sell the products), try watching a couple of demonstration videos on youtube — they’re easy to find.

This is my favorite lip gloss. Or I guess it’s lip balm by C.O. Bigelow. I’ve used a lot of lip glosses over the years (I remember the first I was ever allowed to use when I was about 12 — it was called Yardley Pot o’ Gloss — anyone remember that?) This one is not too thick and sticky, not too liquidy. Do you use lip gloss? If you do, what’s your favorite?

And this is one of my favorite things to do….to get away for a weekend with my husband to a cabin on one of Minnesota’s 30,000 lakes. These cabins below are where Michael and I are going very soon, just for a short break. They’ll look a little different than they do in the photo…there will be snow on the roofs and the lake will be frozen over, but we plan on mostly staying inside anyway. We’ll enjoy the fireplace, the quiet beauty all around us, sleeping in past 5:50 a.m., and maybe I’ll take a book. Ha. No maybe about it.  🙂

And lastly, this is my favorite baby. Her name is Louisa and she’s my eighth grandchild. Can you believe that sweet grin of hers? Do you have a favorite baby in your life? I’d love to know about him/her!

And now, to my favorite blog readers, I wish you a joyful week full of some of your favorite things!

We have lived in our new house for ten months now. Are you tired of me talking about how many months and days we’ve lived in our new house? I don’t know why I keep mentioning that. We’ve done a few decorating things, but nothing major. A little red and cream toile wallpaper here, a little asymmetrical plate hanging there, but overall I just decided to be content with the modern/Swedish vibe of our home.

Now that we’ve settled in, I realize that I’m missing a place in our home for words. I have always liked having words on the walls in my homes. If you’re new here and you’ve never seen the words on the walls of our old house, you can click here to see the words in the kitchen, and here to see the words on my old office walls.

Not long ago, I happened upon a photo online where the people painted their walls with black chalkboard paint, so they could write on their walls. Before you say blech and wonder why anyone would do something dumb like that, click here. (Once there, be sure to click the right arrows that say “next” so you can see the several different photos of how people used chalkboard paint in brilliant ways in their homes.) I’ll wait while you look, and tell you what I’m up to when you come back here.

Did you see the unique ideas? Did you see the old door painted black and placed behind a bathtub? Did you see how even in a Victorian home they used chalkboard paint above rich oak paneling?

Now take a look at this picture below:

This is the photo I found online that made me stop and say, “Oh my gosh, I want that in my house!” I want a small piece of wall, perhaps a corner even, painted with black chalkboard paint, so we can write words on it. Like Bible verses I’m trying to memorize. Or grocery lists. Or the evening’s menu when we have company. Or birthday wishes. Or a heartfelt prayer. Or drawings, like the birch trees in the home above, or of our Edith and Mildred the Schnauzers. Whatever. I’m just a gal who likes to have words on her walls.

So here’s the wall I’m going to paint. It’s in the dining room, and you can see this wall when you’re standing in the kitchen and looking toward the living room. To the left of this wall are three very tall windows/French doors that let in a lot of light, and look out over Lake Superior.

My daughter Carolyn taped off the area for me with green frog tape, and it’s all ready to paint. Can you envision how the black chalkboard paint will be on the wall where the clock is, and then will be wrapped around to the right where that little piece of wall is, above the shoes? (Click to enlarge the photo if you like.) The bird clock was hung there on the day we moved in because there was a nail there — I need to find a new place for the clock. The old, oak deacon’s bench is a place to store pillows that I don’t like anyplace else, and also the savage, heavy-duty anti-bark collars we must put on our delicate and innocent little Schnauzers each and every time they go outside. Oh! You don’t know that heart-rending story? It’s called A Sad Day In Schnauzerville, and if all this chalkboard paint talk is boring you, you can click here to read about the neighbors who left us an unfriendly note. (I never know who is new here and might not have read some of these scintillating posts.)

I’ll post a picture when I’m done painting our little space with black chalkboard paint.  (I would like to thank Jessica Colvin so much for allowing me to post her photo above — she was so gracious when I asked her permission. Please visit Jessica’s very creative blog here.)

If you have words on your walls, what do they say? And feel free to link to a photo if you have one!

If you were going to put words on your walls, what would they be?

Learn to like what does not cost much.

Learn to like reading, conversation, music.

Learn to like plain food, plain service, plain cooking.

Learn to like people, even those who may be very different from you.

Learn to shelter your family with love, comfort, and peace.

Learn to keep your wants simple. Refuse to be owned and anchored by things and opinions of others.

Learn to like the sunrise and the sunset, the beating of rain on the roof and windows, the gentle fall of snow in the winter.

Learn to hold heaven near and dear.

Learn to love God, for He surely loves you.

~~Anonymous

*           *           *           *           *           *           *

I know a couple who have given their whole lives to ministering to God’s people. When one of their sons fell into meth addiction many years ago, they continued to selflessly minister to their flock, encouraging and believing for other peoples’ children, when their own was lost to them for over ten years. When this couple’s prayers were finally answered and their son returned to the Lord and finished his prison sentence, their joy knew no bounds. After five years of being clean, their son returned to the world of meth, and this couple are again praying for his deliverance while they continue to minister to many other hurting people.

I know a Christian woman whose Christian daughter won’t speak to her, even though this woman has humbled herself and begged for forgiveness many times. Her daughter will not allow her to see her grandchildren even though they live in the same town.

I know a Christian couple who are probably two of the most patient, skilled, loving, steadfast parents I’ve ever known, and their adult son has dominated their lives with his anger since he was a baby. And continues to do so.

I have a Christian friend who has prayed every day for over twenty years for her two children to pay a bit of attention to the Lord and the solid spiritual upbringing they received, and my friend has not seen the answer yet.

I know a man with a terrible disease that is slowly taking over his body, and his friends and family and pastor have prayed for his healing, anointed him with oil and prayed prayers of faith and praise for years, and healing has not come.

I have a relative who is the kindest, most generous, loving woman, but her former daughter-in-law hates her faith in Christ and has not allowed her two daughters to see or speak to their grandmother for years. Now they’re grown up and have taken on their mother’s contempt of their grandmother’s love of Jesus, and will not see her, but she prays every day that God will change their hearts.

I know someone who is a woman of prayer. She and her husband raised their three children to love the Lord, and gave them a stable home with a happy marriage for a model. One of the children is openly disdainful toward a God who makes what he sees as unfair rules and judgments, and he does not believe. This woman continues to pray, but has not seen the answers she’s asking for.

I know a young woman whose heart is soft and tender and who loves Jesus with everything she’s got. She has a father who claims to follow Christ but who is full of destructive pride and rage, and has been cruel and hateful to her and her mother for much of her life. She has believed the Bible’s promises about how prayer changes things, but has not yet seen the answer to her cries for her daddy.

I know a believing couple who want God to bless them with a child. Their brothers and sisters have had babies, but they have not conceived, and as she prays each month that a new life will form, she tries not to lose hope and to believe that God hears the cry of her heart.

I know a woman who has a strong, child-like faith in the Lord, and married a man who ended up being an alcoholic. She prayed for years that God would get a hold of her husband, and at times it seemed like He did, but most of the time it seemed like He didn’t. They finally divorced.

I’ll bet you know some people like this too.

Or maybe you have also been praying for something or someone for years and years, and are still waiting for God to move.

The older I get the more I realize how little I know about God. I know that He is good and He is faithful and He is great, but I don’t think I understand His timing and His ways sometimes.

Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever said, “How much longer before you answer this cry of my heart, O Lord?”

It gives me comfort to know that others have prayed that way too.

Like King David….

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

This is what is speaking to me today. Isaiah 58 from The Message Bible: