Memorial Day thoughts

Updated blog: May 23, 2015

May 2010: We were "off island" celebrating with family last week, and while at a shopping center received a poppy for remembrance of our veterans. So celebration of life and the freedom given through veterans' work and death  has been on my mind.

Instead of poppies, here is a rose in our garden 2010

  Rosa Altissimo climber
 ( we formerly misnamed Paul's Scarlet) 

The Flanders poppies, our former garden signature, are no longer; but the roses are in full bloom for Memorial Day weekend.   The heart shaped petals  remind me to be thankful for those who fought and died for our country's freedom, our safety and all that we take advantage of every day. I pray you, as well, might be grateful and realize your God given freedom in more ways than one.

Rose petal fallen to the ground

"God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (to set us free) Romans 5:8 NIV

Bitter root Judgment

We called the well guy out last week. There were some problems he needed to resolve. For one, the water was extremely hard since he came last and shut off one of the wells into the system. My hair was dry and frizzy, my skin and lips were flaking and I was getting irritated. The water was also a little bitter.

Buddy from Coldsprings pump lifts the root from the tank (plum tree in the way)

When he opened the cover to the holding tank for the well, roots were swimming in it. So he drained it and had his helper climb inside to clean it out. The huge 6 foot root system perhaps from a fir tree 100 yards away had entered into a very small space below ground between the cover and tank. It searched out water.

Fir root after drying out

There are roots that take over our lives as well. We can’t always understand or see them, but feel the effects. Often it is a result of some harm done to you in early childhood which seems to repeat itself in differing ways causing continuing increasing trauma to you. It is often extremely hard to forgive those who have done great harm to you but it is necessary to ask the Lord to help you to forgive. The bitterness that sets in because of lack of forgiveness affects not only you but those around you who are being defiled because of your actions. Any trauma that feels like the original sends the response that was never aimed at the original perpetrator and soon people around you are judged when they had no intention of hurting you. So you perpetuate the situation and end up defiling others unintentionally as well.
Is there any solution?

Call Jesus to the well. He is the living water. Ask Him to show you the root of the problems you may be having. Where do you have anxiety, pain and no forgiveness? Ask for help to forgive the original perpetrator and others and bring your unforgiveness to the foot of His cross. He came to set you free.

Leave it there. Ask Him to put in you a new and right spirit. He is faithful and will make all things new including you and release you from the pain and suffering and cycle of trauma. Trust in Him to clean out the roots and its residue and put in new wonderful tasting water that calms and gives peace and renewal.

(derived from some teachings of John and Paula Sanford)

Hebrews12:15 “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;” NKJV

Galatians 5:1“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a ‘yoke of bondage.’” NKJV

"He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." John 7:38 NKJV

Where do you need renewal?

How uniformity, efficiency and tidiness can stifle

A very quick drawing from memory of the hedge

The juniper “hedges” caught my attention last week as we pushed the girls in their stroller through a 50 year old stable neighborhood in California. They caught my attention first because they were the primary landscape structure in our first purchase 60’s house.

I can see that these owners, who could no longer garden as they once did, hired a “neighborhood gardener” who did not understand the habits of plants but just wanted to make everything trim. There were many undulating, squared edged long hedge-like shapes that once contained separate plants. In the center of one of the undulations, was a bright pink blossom, the bare remains of an engulfed suffocated azalea. The shocking scene was there for the sake of uniformity, efficiency and tidiness.


• Uniformity: In a garden and culture, it is easier to control through sameness. Beauty and life in both areas, however, achieves its fullness from diversity and freedom, which if we are not watching closely can disappear slowly and unnoticeably for the sake of control.

• Efficiency: It provides the space for creativity to happen but creativity does not happen because of it. In the garden mentioned above efficiency took away the space rather than enhancing creativity. (unless you might call this “hedge” creative)

• Tidiness: Clearing out all the dead matter and distractions that are not useful to the vision is beneficial in most ways. But when tidiness becomes the end not the means, creativity and diversity are as lost as the vision.

What is engulfing you so that you lose your identity, freedom and creativity? How can you get it back?

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” Galatians 5:1                         
 Lord set us free to be all that you have created us to be, by your grace.

Does this make sense?

Freedom

Mouse trapped in bucket for awhile can't figure freedom out

(click blue link to watch video)

A few days ago when we returned from town, I went into the greenhouse to water some plants. In the attached shed, I picked up some gloves to get rid of thistles and I heard a noise coming from the bucket that I use for weeding, - a trapped mouse. We have found them before when they fell in and couldn't get out, but usually they were already dead. Finishing my tasks, I came back to put away the gloves. I knew I could not let it be, even though I set lots of traps in the house. Somehow the shed was fair game. So I carried the bucket to the end of the field and tipped it on its side. The mouse tried to climb up the rim like it had been used to doing in the bucket, going around in circles even though now freedom was less than an inch away.

The autumn of the year reminds me it is time for a change. Most years northwest autumns come gradually until one day you discover the leaves turning color, the crisper night air and lower sun of the days. Autumn seems to me to be the time to reorganize my life, make living more manageable and meaningful.

I get in a rut making it harder to change the way I do things and manage my life. Yet the ruts, the normal way of doing things in my daily life, even though ineffective, feels like the only way. Some of the ways I do things have outlived their usefulness. I go around in circles a lot, not accomplishing as much as I could. I'm stuck lately too. Instead of trying to avoid change, I want to face this change head on with a meaningful solution. Maybe I, too, need to be taken to a different place (in my mind) and put in a place where a different perspective is visible. So I ask, "Lord open my eyes to see your way to my internal freedom and give me the courage to follow."

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." Galatians 5:1