Dear Daughters,
Here in Michigan, we have just finished up the annual Tulip Time Festival in Holland. Every year there are about six million tulips just waiting to be adored by the thousands of spectators from around the world.
Everything Dutch is on display, tulip bulbs for sale, stroopwafels, banket, cheese, Dutch dancing and street washing, wooden shoes and windmills.
But one amazing fact about the Dutch that I didn’t know about is the reason why they have been building windmills and dikes for centuries.
Have you ever built a barrier in order to protect your sandcastle from high tide when you are enjoying the beach? That’s basically what the Dutch have learned to do in order to grow their country.
There is an old proverb that states:
God created the world, but the Dutch created the Netherlands.
In all practicality, The Netherlands as it is today, should not even exist. A full 26% of The Netherlands is below sea level – which means when the storms come the land is often drowned with water. Just as Hurricane Katrina brought devastation to New Orleans and vicinity during 2005, The Netherlands have historically been flooded enough that the Dutch knew they needed to do something about it if they wanted more farm land and living space.
Around the year 1100, West-Friesland (a province of The Netherlands) built an enclosure dike. At the same time, the Frisians established a “dike peace” or strongly enforced consensus that whenever a dike was endangered, family feuds must cease so that all available manpower could be mobilized to reinforce the dikes. (I think calling for family feuds to cease is a brilliant idea for anyone who wants to get some work done for the common good.) For centuries the water had been continually flowing over the boundaries, so the dikes created boundaries that couldn’t be breached.
In the year 1282, a Dutch carpenter built the first water pumping windmill in order to keep the water away from the land. Three hundred years later, a windmill with a rotatable top was invented so that which ever direction the wind was coming from – which in NW Europe could come in any direction – the windmill could continue to do its important work.
The Dutch have reclaimed – and redeemed – more land than any country in the world, utilizing its dikes, electric pumps and windmills. Reclaiming marshland for agriculture has added 640 square miles to the little country of The Netherlands just in the 20th century, so they are able to bring in a much more abundant and fruitful harvest.
As I was reading about the windmills, dikes, and other interesting facts about the Netherlands I was considering how my life – and maybe yours – was at one time feeling as if I were under water, stuck in a bog. And just as the Dutch redeemed the land from the sea, so Jesus has redeemed our lives from the bogs, and together He and I have built dikes (boundaries) around my mind, transforming us into new creations in Christ.
Stand tall,
Put the winds of life to work draining the bogs,
And the result will be a vibrant crop,
An abundant harvest!
There was a time in my life when my body was always fatigued, I felt such a heaviness – which was partly physical and somewhat to do with the bitterness and unforgiveness against people in my life who had caused me pain. But as the winds of hardship, disappointment with God and yet sitting with Him and believing His promises of a life abundant, He has brought me a harvest of love, joy, peace, patience and all the other beautiful fruit of the Spirit.
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world,
but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.
Then you will learn to know God’s will for you,
which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Romans 12:2
Jesus is always pursuing you, always reaching out to you, never leaving or forsaking you – even if you give Him push back because He’s not doing what you expect Him to do. Expectations are always killers because they are bound to disappoint. Instead of telling God what you expect from Him, give thanks simply because He has redeemed you from the bog, He loves you and desires your companionship. Give thanks because He has a good plan for your life and is just waiting for you to seek Him for that plan.
Love, Mom
Recent Comments