Are any of you gifted in dream interpretation, as Joseph, wrongly imprisoned in Egypt was?  I don’t often remember my dreams anymore, but this is what I dreamed right before I woke up this morning:

A former pastor of ours decided to start up a church again. In the midst of all the preparation he and his friends were involved in, he wrote a message to me on one piece of paper (I haven’t seen him in years and didn’t know him well, personally). He put it in an envelope and wrote on the outside of it: “A Scotsman Can’t Hurt a Scotsman”. A woman I am only just acquainted with delivered the envelope with the note inside to me. But the letter had been sealed in a thick plastic container similar to what you get electronics in these days – those molded, impossible-to-open packages that require a small chainsaw to cut through them. As I was trying to open this molded package with the letter inside, there were about fifty crickets scrambling around inside too. I kept pressing down on the crickets with my thumb (through the hard plastic), hoping to crush them all before I opened the package to get to the letter that had “A Scotsman Can’t Hurt a Scotsman” written by my former pastor on the outside. The crushed crickets made quite a juicy mess all over my envelope. When I finally got the package open and pulled the letter out, it was black and wet with cricket corpses. I opened the envelope and held the single sheet of paper by the corner and instantly dipped it in a liquid solution in a tray, similar to what a person in a darkroom developing a photograph does, and most of the cricket crunch washed off, but the ink of the message was running off too, due to the strength of the solution, I think. I quickly tried to open the folded note, and before I could read it, the acquaintance who delivered it to me announced that she already knew what it said. She casually remarked that the note inside the envelope that said “A Scotsman Can’t Hurt a Scotsman”, basically confirmed that I was so deeply flawed that no one knew what was wrong with me, and it was generally agreed that I couldn’t be fixed.

And that was the end of the dream. I got up, let the Schnauzers out, and started fixing breakfasts.

Now I know dreams often reveal what we’re internalizing, but I just don’t buy that I can’t be fixed. I happen to think I’m fixable. I know it’s a hard job and would take an expert, but I know Someone who can do it, and I’m sticking pretty close to Him these days.  🙂

“I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” 

                                                                                                         Jeremiah 32:27

I have to say, I’m loving Blogland. This little blog has turned out to be something that’s a creative outlet of sorts for me. Maybe posting a recipe for granola or a photo of a fall-colored maple tree aren’t exactly the most creative things you’ll ever encounter, but I’m enjoying myself. On WordPress, the program that this blog is written on and powered by, I can type up a rough draft of a future post and save it, returning to it later when I have more time or inspiration. I might come back to it weeks later when more ideas come to mind, and then end up publishing the post long after it has sat in the “saved drafts” section of my blog. Here are some saved drafts I’m working on, things I hope to write about and post on the blog as the months roll by:

The Quest for Beauty.  My Man Part 2.  Slaying the Dragon of Selfishness.  Words Pack a Wallop.  The SAGs.  Once Upon a Toile.  A High-Maintenance Wife.  The Applause of Trees.  My Favorite Books.  The Writing on the Wall.  Oh, Opel! And of course I have posts begun about more cherished friends, and all my sweet grandchildren. I have many photos waiting for just the right post to appear in.

But today I’m introducing a weekly feature, and I hope it will be a blessing in more ways than one. It’s called Thankful Thursday.

On Thursdays, I will publish a post on something I’m thankful for, and invite you to share as well. I might say one word on Thankful Thursdays, or I might elaborate in a paragraph or two.

Many of you may remember this old song we’ve sung in church since we were small:

Count your blessings
Name them one by one
Count your blessings
See what God has done

When upon life’s billows
You are tempest tossed
When you are discouraged
Thinking all is lost

Count your blessings
Name them one by one
Count your many blessings
See what God has done

Are you ever burdened
With a load of care
Does the cross seem heavy
You are called to bear

Count your many blessings
Every doubt will fly
And you will be singing
As the days go by

Count your blessings
Name them one by one
Count your many blessings
See what God has done

When you look at others
With their lands and gold
Think that Christ has promised
You His wealth untold

Count your many blessings
Money cannot buy
Your reward in heaven
Nor your home on high

Count your blessings
Name them one by one
Count your blessings
See what God has done

So, amid the conflict
Whether great or small
Do not be discouraged
God is over all

Count your many blessings
Angels will attend
Help and comfort give you
To your journey’s end

Count your blessings
Name them one by one
Count your blessings
See what God has done

Count your blessings
Name them one by one
Count your many blessings
See what God has done

Words by Johnson Oatman, 1897

The melody and the words to this song can make its truths seem sweet and childish, almost irrelevant in the face of the problems most of us walk through today.  We might say, “Yes, yes, I know I should be thankful, and I am…but -” and then fill in your particular blank or blanks.

Well, I struggle with melancholy and almost always see things in a much darker light than is healthy for me. Not long ago I saw something as I was reading my Bible, and it was an epiphany of sorts. This is from Romans, chapter 1:

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.    22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools…

I saw a progression here, in five parts. Keep looking at the above verses as you consider the five following points:

First, people can be believers, and know their wonderful God.

Second, for whatever reason, they can decide to not look to Him and continually thank Him for all He has done for them and all that He is.

Third, when living in this completely ungrateful manner, their thoughts become futile and destructive.

Fourth, taking this path, the believer’s foolish choices cause things in his/her life to start looking really bleak. And dark. Confusion and hopelessness would abound.

Fifth, the end result is that they don’t rely on the goodness, wisdom and power of God, but on their own foolish ways, which always means trouble. Sometimes serious trouble.

So, if you’ve followed this with me, choosing not to purposefully thank God can lead to a dark and dangerous place. Giving thanks can flow from a full and happy heart, and sometimes it can be a difficult discipline, the last thing we want to do.

So join me in sincerely giving thanks to God today, for at least one thing in your life. And don’t be afraid to actually make a comment on Thankful Thursdays to share with other readers what it is you’re giving thanks for!  Maybe someone else needs to read your words. Nothing is too trivial. One word is enough. Or you might want to elaborate in paragraphs.

It might seem trite, but if we look at those verses in the first chapter of Romans, we might see that deliberately remembering God and giving thanks protects us in ways we may have never previously considered.

Today I am thankful to God for the blessing of my seven grandchildren.  Their love is priceless to me.

Sometimes old habits die hard. I have a habit of beginning to play Christmas carols in October each year. And it all started like this…

In October of 1978 I was twenty-one years old, married to a man in the United States Air Force, and we had an eighteen-month old little girl and another one due in January. We had just moved to Germany (then known as West Germany), and we lived in a little village called Damflos, not far from the Luxembourg border.

My husband worked twelve hour shifts in a top secret underground bunker about forty minutes away from our village home. Our household goods had been loaded onto a ship in Long Beach, California weeks before, but weren’t due to dock at the northern German port of Bremerhaven for six more weeks.

We rented this wonderful German house from the town butcher (the Metzger) and his wife. I even found a photo online – click here and you can see part of the house just to the left of the church. The Air Force had put an old couch, two upholstered chairs, a dinette set, some beds and dressers in our little house, to keep us functioning until our personal things arrived. We had only the clothes we had packed in our suitcases. The Air Force housing office was out of cribs at the time, so they provided a playpen for our daughter Sharon to sleep in, which of course she didn’t. (She liked our bed better. I didn’t sleep through the night until she was almost two years old, but that’s another story.)

We had no television, no books, no nearby friends, no car (our 1978 Volkswagen Rabbit was also being shipped from the states, down through the Panama Canal and across the Atlantic Ocean to Bremerhaven), and I didn’t speak any German yet. And because we lived in such a small village, no one there spoke English. I take that back. Our kind landlord, Herr Diel, could say, in a typical thick, guttural German accent, “Hall-ooo Yimmy Carter!” And then he would smile and nod, as if he had uttered something profound.

So for hours each day, my little daughter Sharon and I would walk the quaint village streets of Damflos, stroll to the outlying forests surrounding the area, visit with Herr und Frau Diel, watch Herr Diel butcher pigs and make myriad assortments of wursts, and wait for Daddy to get home. After a week or two, my husband decided we needed some music, so he got a ride to the Base Exchange an hour away and came home with a nice stereo system. I borrowed some books and toys and games from friends, so Sharon and I had something to do during the day. By playing with old fashioned wooden blocks with letters on them, she learned to read simple words by the time she was two. I also studied German a little, and practiced conversing with our landlords, who lived behind us. They were patient and encouraging, and within about two months we could have simple conversations with them.

Finally we received word that our car and furniture had arrived, and having our own things again felt familiar and good. But my husband still worked twelve hour days, and the television stations were naturally all in German, and we had no phone. Our good friends the Zobels lived an hour away. As I went through some boxes that had been delivered, I found all our LPs (long-playing vinyl record albums), and for some reason I didn’t want to play albums by Chicago, Bread, or The Tubes in Germany. The Tubes in Germany just weren’t right. (The Tubes anywhere on planet earth still aren’t a good idea, if you want my opinion). 

Things had become simpler in a few short weeks and I was enjoying the quiet and the soothing rhythms of life in the village. Germany was beautiful, quaint, picturesque, and for me, very much like the fairy-tale illustrations from the books of my youth. As I unpacked that carton of LPs, I realized that I wanted to hear Christmas carols, even though it was October. I guess being surrounded by gingerbready houses, castles and ancient forests just put me in the mood. So I played Christmas carols day in and day out. Glen Campbell sang Over the River and Through the Woods. Dinah Shore warbled Silent Night. And Julie Andrews was my favorite – her rendition of I Saw Three Ships was enough to set me to daydreaming and yearning for hours. I still love that song.

Ever since that time, it’s like an internal chime in my head goes off when October arrives, and it keeps sounding softly until I put away the Modernaires, Fernando Ortega and Sara Groves, and bring out the huge pile of Christmas CDs. Thankfully no one in our busy household seems to mind.

So today, October 15th, 2008, these are the CDs cycling through my stereo, which goes through our house intercom and into each room.

A Scottish Christmas. What is it about ancient European places that makes me pine and yearn? I would drop everything in about six seconds to spend Christmas in this Highland castle. Maybe someday.

Ring the Bells by Travis Cottrell. This is a brand new CD and very rich sounding. The London Symphony Orchestra accompanies him, and Travis can really belt out the tunes.

The Christmas Collection by Amy Grant. What is Christmas without one of Amy’s sixty-four Christmas CDs? 

And one of my favorites – the sound track to the movie Little Women – I loved this book, loved the movie, and can’t wait to play this CD every year. Beginning in October.

So today I’ll be doing laundry, writing out bills, making a huge pot of spaghetti sauce, and working on my paperwork Alps. Oops – see how I slipped something European into even my mundane daily duties?  Why not “piles” of paperwork?  Because maybe I’ll want to actually attend to them if they remind me of the Alps.

Tomorrow I might play Perry Como or Windham Hill. The next day it could be Debby Boone or Jo Stafford. Or Rosemary Clooney.

What is your favorite Christmas CD? Or your favorite Christmas song?

This little maple in our front yard is trying with all his might to get noticed. I thought I’d reward him for his efforts this morning by posting this picture.

And while I was out there, I took this shot of the the ivy creeping up our chimney. I rip it all down to the ground at the end of autumn, and this is just five months’ growth, from about late April until now.

Does your week include baking, hiking, fall-color drives?  Laundry, errands, naps?  I’ll send a (nice!) gift to the sixth person who posts a comment anywhere on the blog this week.

Growing up in Southern California always provided me with many opportunities to swim. Many of our neighbors had built-in swimming pools in their back yards, and of course we had hundreds of miles of Pacific coastline to choose from as well. Surrounded by so much water, my parents made sure I had swimming lessons at an early age. By the time I received my certificate of completion when I was five, I was hooked. Pretty much all I cared about for the next ten years was swimming. And books. Books and water competed for my affections, but water usually won out and it animated my young life. Until we moved to a house with a pool during my sixteenth year, I spent a lot of my childhood fervently hoping my friends with pools would take pity and invite me over to swim.

I also loved the beach. Sometimes my parents would take a drive to Huntington Beach and I could hardly wait to get my feet in the water. It didn’t matter if it was a 90 degree summer day or a 50 degree winter evening. As long as I can remember, I have been irresistibly drawn to water. I learned to body surf and enjoyed catching and riding the waves in to shore, but for some reason what I always wanted to do most was swim as far out into the ocean as I could.

My father would sit on the sand and watch me swim. I used to tell him, “Daddy, wave your hand up high when you think I’m out a mile!” I would swim way out past the breakers, and then stop to tread water and turn to see if Dad had his arm up. He never did, that first turn.

I would swim farther out, sometimes brushing my feet and legs against the rubbery, floating kelp beds as I kicked, and I always got the creeps thinking that those thick, slippery vines and leaves were trying to grab on to me. Then I would turn and look toward the beach again and see that the form of my father had gotten a bit smaller, but he usually didn’t have his arm up the second time either.

So I’d put my face back in the cold water and swim so far out that the people on the beach looked like colorful dots. I could distinguish my father from others only because he was a large man and usually wore a white short-sleeved sport shirt and was sitting close to the water.

Many times I would stop to float so I could rest and catch my breath; swimming was hard work. Before I started out again, I would deeply breathe in and out, in and out, then fill my lungs with as much air as they could hold, and dive down, down, down as far as I could, trying to touch the bottom. I tried not to open my eyes as I always did in chlorine pools, because the salt water burned so intensely. When I swam out so far that I couldn’t touch the ocean bottom when I dove, I always knew I was pretty far out. I would tread water again and look back to the shore to find my father’s white shirt, and could just barely see his upraised arm waving back and forth at me. Then I would start swimming back to him.

Never once did the thought of an ominous dorsal fin gliding silently across the surface of the water enter our minds. This was before the movie Jaws came out and before the days when shark attacks became so commonly reported. You might ask, “What on earth was her father thinking, letting his little girl swim out so far into the ocean?” And here’s my answer: I don’t know. There is no way I would have allowed one of my children to do what I did. Had they tried, I would have been the first mom running into the water with her clothes on, yelling, “Get back here! Don’t go so far out!” In those days fear didn’t seem to reign as it does now. Maybe there were just as many shark attacks and kidnappings imperiling our children, but we didn’t hear about them as much as we do today. Perhaps he wasn’t cautious enough, but my father was not afraid that I was going so far out of his reach that he couldn’t save me. And I certainly wasn’t afraid. I have never had an iota of fear when it comes to water.

I realize now that my father didn’t really let me swim an entire mile out to sea before he gave me the come-back signal. But at ten years old I didn’t know that. I don’t know why I wanted to swim out into the deep water. I just did.

Something has always drawn me to the deep things in life. I like movies and books that have hidden messages beneath the scenes or the words on the surface. I like deep conversation. I like in-depth Bible study. I like to try to figure out the meaning of things. I like deeper, darker colors. I like mystery.

But for all that, I sometimes feel like I’m stuck in the shallows. Because to go deep with the Lord requires surrender. To fully experience the depths of His unfathomable riches, I know I have to give up control. I kinda sorta want to do that, at least that’s what my head tells me. Why would I hold anything back from my Heavenly Father who has proven Himself faithful to me again and again? I don’t have an answer to that. But I find myself still dallying around sometimes, sitting at the water’s edge and putting my feet in, splashing the water on my face, but not throwing caution to the wind and diving into the deep, where it’s way over my head. And I’m not sure why. I hate to admit it, but I think fear has something to do with it.

I’ve memorized these verses (with a friend) and as I meditate on them, I’m asking God to reveal more to me.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Ephesians 3:17-19

I wonder how we can possibly have the power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Jesus is for us?  Yet these verses say that with God’s enabling, it is possible.

Maybe I need to go back to my old childhood ways. I remember how exhilarating it was to run into the pounding Pacific surf and swim out past the huge waves to deep water. I think God is calling me deeper with Him, and I might be afraid to go.

There’s a passage from one of my favorite C.S. Lewis books, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, that I draw comfort and courage from. The Pevensie children are in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, and they’re hearing about Aslan the Lion, King of Narnia, for the first time.

“Is he a man?” asked Lucy.

“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the Great Lion.”

“Ooh!” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

“I’m longing to see him,” said Peter, “even if I do feel frightened when it comes to the point.”

I think I can long to see something or Someone, yet still feel a bit frightened at the prospect. I’d like to swim out to the deep water of the ocean again. And each time I stand on the shore of Lake Superior and look wistfully to its horizon, I think the same thing – not “oh how beautiful, look how huge” like others might think at the same view, but I want to jump in and swim out far. It’s too cold and dangerous for that, but the longing is still there.

I sense the beckoning of the Lord to go deeper with Him too. I don’t know why, but I hang back on the shore. Maybe because all my old ways and selfishness won’t be safe if I do jump in over my head. Maybe I want the safe rather than the exhilarating these days. I honestly don’t know.

But I can still hear that call, and with His help I will jump in and swim out past the breakers.  Out to the deep.  Hopefully soon, because I live in a dry and thirsty land.

I just read this list of questions on a blog I tune into occasionally, and I thought it was time I shared a little about my husband Michael.

1.  He’s sitting in front of the television – what is on the screen?  Sports, M*A*S*H, the History Channel, National Geographic stuff or an old John Wayne movie.

2.  You’re out to eat – what main dish will he have (or wish he was having), and what kind of dressing will he order for his salad?  Chorizo Burrito or a walleye fillet, and like me, blue cheese dressing on the salad.

3.  What’s one food he doesn’t like?  He hates even the smell of cucumbers from across a room.  (He just corrected me – he says he despises cucumbers).

4.  You go out to a bar, what kind of drink does he order?  A bar? What bar? He’s pretty much a teetotaler.

5.  Where did he go to high school? Proctor High School, Proctor, Minnesota.

6.  What size shoe does he wear? 10 1/2 or 11.

7.  If he were to collect anything, what would it be?  He does collect coins and agates, and would probably add to his collection of boy-toys (four-wheeler, snowmobile, boat, canoes, etc.) if we had room to store them.

8.  What’s his favorite type of sandwich? Anything with a Fred Flintstone-sized slab of meat on it.

9.  What would he eat every day if he could? Pork, beef, sausage, bratwurst, steak, salmon, walleye, trout.

10. What is his favorite cereal?  The kind that tastes like sausage, fried eggs and hash browns.

11. What would he never wear?  Gold chains around his neck, speedos, fedoras and capes.

12. What is his favorite sports team?  The Minnesota Twins.

13. Who will he vote for?  Hmmm. Probably not Ron Paul. Or Oprah’s guy.

14. Who is his best friend?  He would say first that it is Jesus, then probably about four or five men friends he fishes with.

15. What is something you do that he wishes you wouldn’t do?  Get bossy and abrupt when I’m under stress (we call it Witchinson’s around here).

16. How many states has he lived in? Minnesota and Florida by choice, California and North Carolina as a United States Marine.

17. What is his heritage? Scottish, Polish, French and Norwegian.

18. What kind of cake does he want you to bake for his birthday? Dark chocolate cake with Virginia’s Peanut Butter and Chocolate Frosting.

19. Did he play sports in high school? Baseball and Cross Country.

20. What could he spend hours doing?  Fishing, walking in the woods, sitting in a deer stand, house projects.

My Man, Part 2 coming soon.

I know there is a big difference between happiness and joy. Like anyone else I yearn to be happy, but I’m also aware that happiness is rather shallow and fleeting compared to deep and abiding joy. The harder life gets, the more I am jealous for joy.

I used to have this drawn into the inside cover of my Bible when I was a teen:

J esus

O thers

Y ou

I know that some of what I write might be easily misconstrued – I certainly don’t mean to imply that we shouldn’t take care of ourselves and should instead run ourselves ragged tending to others’ needs and not to the needs of our own families. I am just beginning to more firmly believe that there is rest and joy in the prescription Jesus gave us in Matthew 6:33.

I know we are seeing the me-first, me-wonderful, me-deserve-it, me-want-it-now generation, but I can speak from experience that self-focus and getting everything you want doesn’t bring true joy. Walking with Christ brings joy. Trusting His purposes brings joy. Hearing Him speak directly to your heart through His Word brings joy.

I don’t experience as much joy as I would like. I do all sorts of things that rob my life of joy (worry being one), but I’m learning. It’s a tall order for a control freak to let go and surrender, but the more I know of Him, the easier it is to relinquish my life and loves to Him.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes on joy.

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world. Helen Keller

Joy is an inward singing that cannot be silenced by outward negative circumstances.  Yes, even when life is seemingly falling apart. Robert D. Foster

Joy is the standard that flies on the battlements of the heart when the King is in residence. R. Leonard Small

Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy; they will sing before the LORD, for He comes, He comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in His truth. Psalm 96:11 – 13

These are some trees in our backyard forest that have recently begun to sing for joy:

And here is the the Hallelujah Chorus warming up right outside our kitchen window:

I believe one day we’ll see that most of God’s creation speaks to Him and of Him at all times. Today as I think on how much I want joy to be the undercurrent of my life, our trees remind me to rejoice.

If trees can sing for joy, so can I.