Month: February 2025

Well, we made it!

The deep cold is over, the sun is out and almost all our snow is melted. I am accepting practically every subbing job coming my way, even if I struggle with a particular age group or subject. God provides.

I get to visit the laundromat now, which is always interesting to me. What a slice of society I meet.

My friends are praying for me, for solutions to my house repairs, for wisdom and guidance. I need wise counsel because I have NOT A CLUE about mound systems/septic systems.

I know God sees. He provides. He will help.

In my international Bible Study (Chinese) there is a gentleman who has had contacts with construction folk and he indicated he would try to link me with reputable help. See? God is working. We will see what is next.

I just don’t want to be “taken to the cleaners.”

Though I do visit the laundromat willingly 😉

Cherie and I did lose Gandalf last week. He went downhill pretty fast last Thursday, and we were (thankfully) able to get an appointment in Buffalo to have him put down. He was sweet to the last minute.

We wept our way home. Burial will follow, as the ground is still frozen. He will join Lacey, Blackberry, Misty, and Kiwi. My heart aches as I think of these precious pets! I like to think of them playing with Brian, Sera, and Jean up in heaven.

Sera and Jean are our two little ones that didn’t make it.

I fully expect to meet them in heaven.

But here on earth we wait. I never pray for patience. You know what happens when you do? Lessons are learned. I’m waiting for enough already.

I pray for strength and wisdom and help for each day.

I chose to take a day off to get some errands and financial stuff done today. I’m thankful, because I woke up feeling under the weather. Stress, probably.

I’ll try to zip around town and get everything done— tomorrow I’m doing a double job subbing; Second Grade in the morning and Middle School art in the afternoon.

This is my colorful and varied life.

I wouldn’t trade it!

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It took five years to feel confident about living alone and facing life single.

I never dreamed I’d be alone in my senior years. I always pictured us growing old together, having a blast camping and traveling, enjoying our music and our reading, discussing politics and theology.

It took five years to become rather selfish and content with living life alone! I don’t feel the need to remarry anymore. I felt so incompetent for so long. I hadn’t done so many things for 30 years! Finances, bills, repairs, car stuff, house stuff, —-all that hadn’t been my thing. Brian did it all.

Now it’s mine. With fear and trembling I took it all on again, and now, five years later I survived.

How selfish of me! I make my own decisions (with prayer, of course!) and live life by myself. Being single is really a selfish thing.

I am more and more of an advocate of early marriage as I see trends around me and in myself.

Being married is an incubator for selflessness.

It’s really difficult for people who are set in their ways to submit wholeheartedly to someone else.

The benefits of marriage seem pretty slim to anyone selfish.

Having been married for 30 years, and single now for awhile I stand in some authority to have an opinion!

Marriage is a wonderful thing! Children are glorious gifts from God!

Marriage is hard, though, and one MUST surrender wholly to its demands. It is the perfect lesson in submission.

I am so glad I was married, for quite some time. I know the demands and the benefits and I actually miss being married!

I see my selfish decisions these days and I am embarrassed! It’s weird to just decide what I want and do it.

Like I said, I’m getting used to it after five years, and it would be hard to go back to being selfless in many ways.

Our pastor has spent two weeks talking about marriage. He used Ephesians 4:31-32 as his text. Kindness and forgiveness must characterize a marriage.

When those two things are the constant a marriage will be blissful.

When malice is absent in marriage it will be the easiest relationship to maintain.

We are fallen humans, though, so forgiveness must be practiced. Constantly.

Boundaries in marriage, accountability to God, consequences of organic problems are all realities. Kindness and forgiveness can only be positive forces in this most important covenant relationship on earth. It was an excellent series. Short and truly sweet.

Widowhood has its deep sorrow, difficulties, darkness, and pain. But selfishness is also a part of it.

Because I recognized this pitfall especially this past year I chose “service, purpose, and faith” as my words to characterize 2025. I want to be of service. I want to have God’s purposes in my life. I want my spiritual antennae to grow again after trauma took them out. Faith must characterize my life.

I will die if Jesus isn’t my central focus. I must live for Him. This must cancel out my selfishness.

Yet I still make decisions, little and big.

What a responsibility!

So today I do stuff. Stuff we all do. I am drinking coffee by the fire this morning as I write. Yukichan is at my feet. Corwyn is grunting at squirrel activity outside the front window.

This morning I heard the chickadee singing a spring call. I expect robins will turn up soon. It’s still a gray world out there. No green. Sunshine is plentiful and gentle air encourages the creatures to begin anew.

I am also encouraged.

MARANATHA!

I am plagued by worry these days.

I know that Christ commands us to Not Worry. I read a hint that praying for others can be a remedy for worry. I do pray for others. I pray through my “snatch list” in the morning, and as people cross my path during the day I pray for them—sometimes over and over.

My cousin is sick. I pray for her to get better every time she comes to mind, which is often.

I pray for my children and my grandchildren.

Something else that combats worry is counting blessings. It may be way below zero in temperatures this week, but today the sun is shining and after this bitterly cold week we may be seeing warmer days. I see pictures of spring on social media. Blossoms in Japan, sunny beaches in the Mediterranean, green grass in the south! It’s not even close to being spring this week here.

But it is sunny.

Gandalf is fading away. Our hearts are broken. Cherie and I cry. We just don’t want to bring him in to be put to sleep. We want to hope that he can win this game against liver malfunction. Our vet diagnosed liver disease, but he told us that it would be extremely difficult to figure out why Gandalf has it, and costly, and there would be little chance of recovery even with a diagnosis.

But miracles. We still can pray for miracles.

I’m complaining more than counting here, today.

Someone told me that my septic mound system may need complete replacement. They only last about 30 years, and that is how old my system is.

Remember that I’ve just waterproofed the basement, rerouted the drainage, replaced the pipe under the house—–I’ve trouble-shot so many things already.

And yet I just love to live here in this beautiful “hollow,” nestled under the highest point in Hennepin County.

It is worth it to repair and make this place habitable. When I am gone it will be sold, and whenever sold it must be in good condition.

For now my cozy fireplace is on, the sun is streaming in, and I am thankful for being warm. I’m thankful for my sweet Corgi, my Rat Terrier, my cats. All lend warmth and comfort.

I’m thankful for music! I’m thankful for my church. I’m thankful for books and art supplies and yarn and needles to knit!

I’m thankful for the lakes and fields and forests that I love to see and walk through, swim in.

I’m thankful for health. I love to be mobile, to swim, to breathe deeply and move around freely.

I’m thankful for God’s provision! Jehovah Jirah, the LORD provides! He has never let me down.

I’m thankful for friends, family, my mom, my kids, my grandkids. How lovely they all are, how blessed I am.

I’m thankful for safety and peace, knowing full well that God’s plan is unfolding steadily, day by day, with His people in positions of leadership and service for Good and for Evil.

I am thankful for Jesus. I couldn’t live without Him.

Come quickly, Lord! MARANATHA!

In this world you will have trouble. That’s a truth universally known. Jesus tells us to take heart, though, and we must obey.

It’s a week of hearts. Valentine’s Day is Friday, and the kids at school are primed for the parties. I’m subbing in music and there are some cute songs modified to celebrate the holiday. Third grade is performing them, and they really enjoy singing them.

I’ve had trouble, though. Could use your prayers.

My septic system froze this past weekend, ahead of the really sub zero temps we are having right now, for an extended time.

I was told I will probably have to wait until late spring/summer for the system to thaw out. Ya.

Until then I can periodically pump out the tanks. Very costly. The gray water gets hauled away instead of flowing into the mound.

We are scrimping around here. It’s like camping, sort of: paper plates, short showers, careful usage of water that is draining into the system. It’s just a “pain-in-the-neck.”

I’m so thankful for a furnace that can combat these arctic temperatures. This house is needing a complete overhaul, apparently.

The new little room under the front step of the house (the one that was completely not accessible before the basement waterproofing people came) is just part of my ongoing “adventure” in home repair and upkeep. “Little surprises” are becoming normal.

Life is hard.

But in acceptance lies peace.

I learned that many years ago when I lost my fourth child to miscarriage, when another tragedy struck simultaneously. I recall being paralyzed with pain and horror, sadness.

In acceptance lies peace.

I learned that from a book by Hannah Hurnard. She wrote a pair of books, “Hinds Feet on High Places,” and “Mountains of Spices.” I love those books. I grew up reading them several times. I should probably revisit them soon.

God is good all the time. It may seem like things are falling apart. God holds the master strings, the tape, the glue, the screws and bolts, nails and fasteners. Perhaps I cannot see which things He is using at a given time, but I trust I will see a bigger picture when I am with Him someday.

It’s Valentine’s Day —-week.

I made a chocolate cake. I had some and froze the rest of it. Do you ever get hungry for chocolate cake? Brian used to love it with a glass of cold fresh milk.

I’m spending my Valentine Week with some sweet memories.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

MARANATHA!