Grace and Glory

Musings from the Threshold

Refining Thoughts

There are some desponding, morbid, murmuring, ungrateful souls who find reasons for complaining everywhere, but a man of David’s spirit, on the contrary, sucks honey out of every flower and praises God in connection with everything. –Spurgeon

But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.
Job 23:10

“In whatever trial we face, we can be strong and courageous because it’s not over…there is more to the story…The end is always that THIS – whatever “this” is – will result in our good and His glory.”
source unknown

I don’t know the writer of this chorus, but as we drove home late last night, it was the prayer of my heart and lips:
Living God, consuming fire
Burn the sin from my life
Make Your will my desire
Take my life in Your hands
Purify me with Your blood
Till I shine far brighter than purest gold
In Your eyes.

While googling for the author of the above lyrics, I found a post of my own from Feb. 2007 that included those words, as well as the below passage from Hind’s Feet on High Places that has been on my mind again lately:

Last of all he took her up the stairway to the highest floor. There they found a room with a furnace in which gold was being smelted and refined of all its dross. Also in the furnace were rough pieces of stone and rock containing crystals. There were put in the great heat of the oven and left for a time. On being taken out, behold, they were glorious jewels, flashing as though they had reeived the fire into their very hearts. As Much-Afraid stood beside the Shepard, loving shrinkingly into the fire, he said the loveliest thing of all.

“O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay they foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones” (Isa. 54:11). Then he added, “My rarest and choicest jewels and my finest gold are those who have been refined in the furnace of Egypt,” and he sang one verse of a little song:

I’ll turn my hand upon thy heart,
And purge away thy dross,
I will refine thee in my fire
Remake thee at my cross.

Yes, Lord! Refine and purify us. Make us choice jewels and finest gold, not for our glory, but for Your own!

Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!
Psalm 115.1

Step by Step

I’m sitting in the living room at Dad and Mom Smith’s house, processing, praying, reading, focusing my heart and mind. Jonathan is with the group of believers who have been our church family for the last seven years, saying goodbye. I couldn’t bear to go this morning… I didn’t want to dissolve into a puddle of tears and make an already difficult situation even harder.

I don’t know how much to say or not say about our situation. Jonathan and I have been disturbed for quite some time about the leadership structure at our chapel. Jonathan has been a deacon and his dad an elder for a couple years, and they have been trying to affect some changes toward a more biblical model of leadership. Their efforts have not been successful and they have each come to the conclusion that it is time to depart.

Our chapel family is so dear to us. They have been “hands and feet” to us in many ways through the years. We have no feelings of anger or bitterness, just love and sadness. We don’t want to cause division with our departure; we simply believe that our time of being a benefit to this body has passed, and we are unable to remain under a leadership structure that we believe is unbiblical.

I’ve been reading Hebrews 11 this morning, and feel some kinship with Abraham, who “went out, not knowing where he was going.” I just pray that we will be faithful as Abraham was faithful, that God might be glorified through us, and that many may be blessed as the Lord works through us. We want to follow where HE leads.

Sometimes I think of Abraham
How one star he saw had been lit for me
He was a stranger in this land
And I am that, no less than he
And on this road to righteousness
Sometimes the climb can be so steep
I may falter in my steps
But never beyond Your reach

Oh God, You are my God
And I will ever praise You
Oh God, You are my God
And I will ever praise You
I will seek You in the morning
And I will learn to walk in Your ways
And step by step You’ll lead me
And I will follow You all of my days

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O70TPDyFmkc&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

One of my favorite memories of Rich Mullins involved this second song. He closed out a concert with it, and used it to direct our focus to the Lord. Hearts full of worship for our Lord, we suddenly looked up and Rich was gone. And it was okay, because he had led us to the Person who was most important. It’s a memory that to me epitomizes Rich’s life. And that’s what I want my life to be… may I direct the focus of those around me to my Creator, that they might see Him and not me.

Gratitude

Choosing gratitude…

11. Changes that make my heart ache, but that stem from my loving Father at work

12. Heartfelt prayer with my husband

13. Cleansing tears

14. Seven years of sweet fellowship with a precious group of believers

15. Countless meals delivered the arrival of babies and in times of sickness

16. The opportunity (and challenge) to teach our Blessings by example in a difficult situation

17. Hugs

18. The blessing of a trek through sunshine and snow this morning

19. The son who came back to hold my hand and help me on the last stretch of the snowy trek

20. “He has brought me here when I did not want to come for His own purpose. I too, will look up into His face and say, ‘Behold me! I am Thy little handmaiden Acceptance-with-Joy.’ ” Hind’s Feet on High Places

The Clean Up Project

In mid-December, amidst the joys and busy-ness of the Advent season, a nice gentleman showed up at our door. Unfortunately, he was the J. County Solid Waste Division Field Inspector. Near the beginning of November, someone had called in a complaint about the state of our property. (Isn’t the response time impressive??)

The short of the Inspector’s visit was that we had some cleaning up to do.
Two major projects were our direct responsibility:

1) Cleanup of the pile of lumber that we brought over when we moved from our old house. Good lumber that the boys and Jonathan had been working on getting de-nailed and stacked neatly. The progress was slow, and the sprawl resulting from sorting through boards was unsightly.
Here the boys are working on de-nailing-

2) Cleanup and disposal of various appliances and such that Jonathan had taken out of folks’ homes when doing installs of new stuff. We had several working appliances that we just hadn’t gotten to their new homes yet, as well as plenty of “stuff” from work that needed to be cleaned up.
No, I don’t have before pictures of this part. It was always an embarrassment to me, and I purposely avoided taking any pictures of the appliance mess.

Another major project didn’t have anything to do with us or our friends/landlords, but needed to be taken care of anyway. The folks who had lived here before the Duchene’s bought the house had indulged in the common rural habit of dumping old appliances, furniture, trash, tires, etc., in an “inconspicuous” place.

Inconspicuous? Not so much, if you walk around by the creek…

Jonathan getting started:

We had extremely cold weather here in December and January which followed a lot of rain. So the junk in the dump was solidly frozen into the mud. It was very tough work! At one point, Jonathan’s dad pulled his van around and they tried using it with a tow strap to try and pull out one of the washing machines. The tow strap broke. Twice.

Nonetheless, there was a great deal that they managed to get out. Here are a couple shots a few days later of some of the stuff that was hauled out of the “dump”:


We passed inspection and they closed the complaint against us, but as you can guess from the following picture, we’ll be continuing to work on cleaning up the area. Hundreds of trash bags, the contents of which have long since disintegrated, were pulled to the surface of the dump as the guys pulled out the larger items. There are also some things that were still too frozen to move.

Come warmer weather, we plan to work more on getting this area cleaned up. It actually could be a lovely usable space.

This and That

I haven’t been very wordy here lately, but I have been updating my photo blog semi-regularly, so if you want to see what we’re up to, that’s a blog to add to your reader/follow list/etc.

Had a great prenatal with my lovely midwife today. Unfortunately, she didn’t get to stay for supper as we had planned, but it was good to see her and get an update on the baby. FHTs 144 today, Fundal Height 25cm, various and sundry body fluids are fine. BP a bit high today, but hopefully it’s just a fluke.

Visited with an OB last week who is willing to be our backup in case of transport. We don’t anticipate needing to transport to the hospital, but being able to have an OB who is familiar with the mom is a wonderful thing about having legal midwives. It makes continuity and quality of care much better in the rare cases that the mom needs to transfer to the hospital from a planned home birth. We’re excited about having a doc who is willing to work with us.

I have a post to write about our recent yard-cleanup efforts, but I think it will wait for another day.

This Friday, we’re doing a progressive dinner with several of the families that live close to us. We’ll be having appetizers here, salad at the K’s, main dish at the W’s, and dessert at the T’s. Should be a great time, and I’ll try to remember to take plenty of pictures.

So… there you have it… this, that, and the other!

Book Covers Tutorial

Making book covers is something that my family did a lot of through Eric’s and my Jr. High and High School years. We attended a small Christian school where textbooks were used over and over, and the students were required to have covers on their books to help them last longer. Most of the covers I remember from school were either made from paper bags or from heavy duty paper the school sold for that purpose.

Today I made covers for the Bibles our children got for Christmas. No paper sacks this time! I recently acquired several discarded books of wallpaper samples, and one of the projects I had in mind when I requested them was making book covers. If you’d like to acquire some wallpaper sample books, just visit the home decor department of your favorite home improvement store and ask for them to save some for you when they next get new books.

On to the cover making! If you’re nervous about cutting into pretty paper on the first try, you can always use a brown paper bag for your first try. Or you can do them all with brown paper – it has it’s own charm and I’m not knockin’ it.

Measure the height of the book and add 4-6 inches.
Measure the width of the book (both covers and spine) and add 4-6 inches.

Due to the width of the Bibles I was covering and the width of the wallpaper, I opted for adding 4 inches, 2 inches overlap on each side. If I had larger paper or smaller books, I would have chosen to have 3 inches overlap. But the 2 inches looks like it will be sturdy enough.

Cut the paper according to your measurements.

Center the book on the paper, pull the paper snug and fold over the sides.

Mark the top and bottom of the book, a smidge away from the book itself, and going up the side just a bit (click to see a larger picture if the mark is too hard to see in this one).

Now you’ll have your sides folded in and the top and bottom marked.

The step I don’t show here that I highly recommend is to go ahead and unfold the sides and use your mark to fold the top and bottom edges all the way across, being sure you fold evenly (it should square up on the sides). This will give you a helpful guide for later.

Unfold the top and bottom again and cut up to your mark at an angle.

Fold over your isoceles trapezoid (yes, I had to look that up) at the top and bottom.

Place your book back on the paper, wrap the sides over, and check to be sure you’ve measured, cut and folded correctly. The folded edge should come to just below and above the spine of the book.

The next few steps are easiest if you have a helper hold the opposite cover and the pages upright while you work on one cover at a time.

To reduce bulk, trim off a triangle from the side fold-over.

Fold over the corner as if you were wrapping a present. Note that there is space for the existing cover; this may vary according to the thickness of your book’s cover.

Now fold the flap over and tape or glue. The fold should line up with the folded-down piece on the spine. This is where folding the top and bottom all the way across helps, because you already have a crease.

Repeat this for the other corner on that side.

Repeat for the other side and you’re done!

Here are the covers I made this afternoon. I didn’t think to time it, but was a pretty quick project.

Stephen-isms

~ ~ The cutest word in our house right now, in my opinion, is “cupchup.” Stephen loves cupchup, especially when he can dip his food in it.

~ ~ He is enjoying reading about and playing with all sorts of “amimals.”

~ ~ It is becoming increasingly important to the little man to be a part of the conversation, so he will often repeat comments that others have said. This is particularly amusing when he obviously has no idea what he’s talking about.

~ ~ A few days ago, Stephen saw me with the camera and very sweetly asked, “Will you please take a smile of me?” As if I could refuse … even with a runny nose!

~ ~ In the kitchen this morning, Stephen shrieked (in delight and laughter, not in distress) and hollered, “Mine tie went under mine shoe!” I laughed and said, “That crazy tie. Why don’t you see if Bubba Bear will re-tie it for you?”

So Stephen headed for the living room where Bubba Bear was, shrieking in delight with almost every step and hollering repeatedly… “Mine tie went under mine shoe! … Crazy tie!… Mine tie… crazy tie!” etc. I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes and was snort-laughing.

What a joy he is!

Sometimes It Causes Me to Tremble

I was thoroughly enjoying listening to my Randy Travis Glory Train CD while I puttered around in the kitchen this afternoon. It’s full of wonderful songs, and there’s just something about Randy Travis’s voice (for those of us who love country music, that is).

I posted lyrics to one of my favorites in my Facebook status this afternoon. So rich and true:
He never promised that the cross would not get heavy
and the hill would not be hard to climb
He never offered victory without fighting
but He said help would always come in time.
Just remember when you’re standing
in the valley of decision and the adversary says give in
Just hold on, our Lord will show up and He will take you through the fire again

Another one that has become a favorite is “Where You There (when they crucified my Lord)?” I’ve heard this song many times throughout my life, and I have to admit, I never “got” it. Just seemed a bit non sequitur to me… of course I wasn’t there!

But this past August (August 11th, while I was out for a walk/run, to be precise), the beauty and message of this song finally touched my heart. It became not about whether or not I was there, but caused me to ponder all of these events, and somehow they became more real to me:
when they crucified my Lord
when they nailed Him to the tree
when they pierced Him in the side
when they laid Him in the tomb
And glory hallelujah – when He rose up from the grave!

It truly caused me to tremble. And to literally hit my knees with my face to the ground, again surrendering, as I was shaken to the core with the magnitude of my Savior’s sacrifice and love for me. It still causes me to tremble, and I can rarely hear the song without tears.

I couldn’t find the Randy Travis version to share with you, but here is a great rendition from Johnny Cash (with the Tennessee Three, the Statler Brothers, Carl Perkins and the Carter Family).

I pray it causes you to tremble.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7u6eRrxuKU&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1]