Musings on Marriage

Month: November 2015

The Wonder of Rain

Dear Daughters,

Last week it rained for 3 days straight…a rarity in Idaho.  We live in what is called high desert which translates to about 11 inches of rain per year.  During this three-day rainy season we received 1.75 inches and many people were rejoicing because it meant several feet of snow in the surrounding mountains which means more melt in the springtime to fill the reservoirs and aquafers.  Can you tell I’m a farmer’s daughter and not a skier?

The gently falling rain brought to mind an article I had read a few years ago by John Piper about an interesting verse in Job:

He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted.

 He bestows rain on the earth; He sends water upon the countryside.  Job 5:9-10Rain

Rain?  Really?  I had never before considered that rain was a wonder and a miracle.

In the past I had experienced rain, especially when we lived in Michigan, to be too much of a good thing.  Because I grew up in the much drier West, it was wonderful not having to water the lawn in the summer time, but rain often hindered planned activities like weddings, open houses, and picnics.

While we lived in Kansas we learned to measure rain not by inches or tenths, but by hundredths.  Most people dry farmed there so rain was the only moisture available for the crops and every hundredth was celebrated.

Anyway…have you ever considered rain to be a wonder and a miracle?  If not, read on……

Think of how it was in the time of Job in the Middle East.  There were no irrigation pipes or pivots, plus the people were far from any lake or stream.  If the crops were to grow and the family to be fed, water would have to come from the sky.

So, how does water come out of the clear blue sky?  It would have to be carried from the Mediterranean Sea over several hundred miles and be poured onto the field.  So how heavy is rain?  If one inch of rain falls over one square mile of farmland we are talking 206,300,160 gallons, which equates to 1,650,401,280 pounds of water (that’s over one billion pounds of water.)

Now how does more than 200 million gallons of water get up into the air to be transported?  Evaporation – when water quits being water for a while and rises up into clouds so it can come down as rain.

So it goes up, now how does it get down?  Condensation happens when the water starts becoming water again by gathering around little dust particles between .00001 and .0001 centimeters wide.  That’s really small.

Also, if you remember, the Mediterranean Sea is salt water, which would ruin the crops if it came down as salt rain.  So somehow the salt comes out of the evaporated water during that 300 mile journey where it gets dumped on the farm.

Now what would happen if a billion pounds of water just dumped onto the square mile farm?  All the wheat would be crushed and ruined.  So the rain comes down in tiny droplets.  The drops need to be big enough not to evaporate as they fall the mile or so from the clouds, but small enough to keep from crushing the wheat.

Wow.

Now I understood why Job wrote that rain is a wonder and a miracle.

If our amazing God has made such a seemingly ordinary happening as rain to be an amazing miracle, what love and creativity has he visited upon human beings – those He has fearfully and wonderfully fashioned in His image?  And if we as human beings are so complex and intricately created, how He must tenderly value marriage, relationships and the keeping of vows between a man and a woman for life?  Fall (11)

For several years I have been keeping a gratitude journal (thank you Ann Voskamp) but in the past few months I have neglected it.  As Thanksgiving season is coming around and I pondered the wonder of rain, I pulled the journal out again to keep on recording those everyday miracles that happen every minute of the day.

The howling wind outside the window

The dazzling  starry night as I take my walk down the darkened laneTopmatoes

The aroma of dehydrating tomatoes

The delight of chatting with my neighbor Ruth, and her precious son, Jacob

Visitors for afternoon tea

The playful antics of our kitten

Sweet, sweet sleep

A sliver of a moon

Jacob bringing me flowers from his garden

Piano students, even when they haven’t practiced

The indescribable longsuffering of Jesus

A beautiful rose

Freshly mown hayRose (6)

I have learned that if I don’t give thanks for the little things in my life, I will criticize.

If I don’t focus on what God has given, I will ponder upon what He has not given.

If I don’t go out every day and take a walk, searching for the beauty and wonder around me, I will find my husband deficient, and my stay at home job mundane.

Jim Elliot (the missionary who was killed in Ecuador in 1956 at age 28) wrote with such wisdom:

A wife, if she is very generous, may allow that her husband lives up to perhaps eighty percent of her expectations.  There is always the other twenty percent that she would like to change, and she may chip away at it for the whole of their married life without reducing it by very much.  She may, on the other hand, simply decide to enjoy the eighty percent, and both of them will be happy.  Accept positively and actively, what is given.  Let thanksgiving be the habit of your life.

I encourage you, my daughters, to keep on giving thanks for the little things, the minute everyday gifts in your life.  Lift your eyes to the beauty all around you, and consider the goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ and His immense compassion and artistry.  Give thanks, even in the hard to give thanks times, trusting that He will work out all things for your benefit.

Love, MomFall (13)

 

Pruning

Dear Daughters,

            When Dad and I arrived in Idaho last November, Grandpa’s garden plot was empty, the rose bushes covered with burlap bags. All the trees, raspberry, blackberry and grape vines were pruned and looked like nothing but dead stumps.

Prune (10)

The garden reflected my heart.  Our third move in six years, I was weary, weak, lonely and sad.  We had just said good-bye to all of you a few weeks earlier, tears shed, gifts given, farewells still echoing in my mind.  It was not my choice to leave Michigan, which had been home for more than 20 years, but we are not always given a choice in life.

I felt like a burned up, chopped off stump.Fire (3)

During those two decades in Michigan, God’s hand had led us from place to place, and at each home we had made friends, discovering more and more the wonder of people and the grace of God.

I had given thanks, often with tears, simply because I know that Jesus is honored by gratitude – especially when it seems there is little to be grateful for.  As Saint John of Avila wrote over 500 years ago:

One act of thanksgiving , when things go wrong with us,

is worth a thousand thanks when things are agreeable to our inclinations.

            So I reluctantly gave thanks as we drove the 1600 miles west, not feeling especially thankful, but simply as an exercise in trust.  Trusting that God had not made an error and now this was Plan B, but knowing that Idaho is where he wanted us for the next chapter of our lives, we had accepted the invitation to come and care for Grandpa and Grandma as their bodies and minds were becoming frail.

Yellow (6)

Spring finally came to the garden, green shoots pushing up through the dark soil.  Tulips appeared, leaves started growing on the trailing grapevines, life came to this previously desolate, barren garden.  As Dad and I slowly learned our roles in caretaking, I started coming to life as well.  During these past 12 months of living in Idaho I have found joy in serving – no, not every minute of the day – but there is a quiet peace of knowing that I am in the center of God’s will.

Jesus gave his disciples a lesson in pruning the night before he was killed.  He said that we are all going to be pruned.  The reason for the pruning is that he wants us to bear more fruit, just like a gardener wants the most fruit possible from his trees and vines.

The only way a gardener can get lots of good fruit is to prune his garden.  Pruning seems heartless, uncaring, even brutal when you watch him lop off all those beautiful branches and vines.  But it’s really the most loving, compassionate act he can do for his plants.

As Jesus told his disciples in John 15:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

            Basically you will be pruned if you are not bearing fruit and you’ll be pruned if you are bearing fruit.  So, I guess we should simply expect to be pruned.  It hurts, it is not pleasant at the time, and it’s certainly not something that we ever ask for.  But the results of pruning are so beautiful – lots and lots of scrumptious, delicious fruit.Plums (2)

And what is this fruit He talks about?  It’s the fruit of the Holy Spirit that is spoken of in Galatians: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

I know that I need to mature in each of those character traits, and of course the only way we can grow is by being pruned – going through difficult times.  It certainly doesn’t happen when everything is going our way.Picking berries

Right now you may be looking at the fence line of your life, feeling branches being hacked off, battered by circumstances in your life, feeling anger toward God for what is happening.  Maybe your husband isn’t doing what you would like him to do (or not to do).  Your job may be frustrating and constricting to you.  Perhaps your body isn’t working as well as you’d like.  Friends may have abandoned you when you needed them the most.  Your children are not always loving and respectful to you.

I know I’ve said it many times before, but God truly loves you and is tending your life, leading you into the path He wants you to go.  He is the Master Gardener, the true lover of your heart and his goal is to make you beautiful.

Last week Dad and I were at Mesa Falls, an hour south of Yellowstone Park.  Mesa3It is a magnificent waterfall, carved into the lava over thousands of years, and now simply breathtaking to observe.  Near the scenic viewing area stands a brief history of the falls along with this quote:

The beauty of Mesa Falls was born of a tumultuous past.Mesa

            When I read that statement I thought, That’s how people become beautiful as well. We, as well as the splendor in God’s creation, only become beautiful when we have had a difficult past and have come through it, stronger, braver, more compassionate and loving.  If we trust Jesus during the pruning times in our lives, knowing He is the Master Gardener, we can learn to be grateful and patiently wait for His good work to be done in us.

            When you are in a dark winter place, it seems sometimes as though you are forgotten, unloved and overlooked; but it simply isn’t true. Keep on persevering in your marriage, your friendships, and your children, and you will bear fruit – lots of good fruit.Grapes (6)

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. – Jesus

            Love, Mom

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