His Ways Are Not Our Ways...

I've been reading this book:

On Tuesday evening, I'm going to be leading a discussion about overcoming fear and anxiety.

God has a sense of humor, doesn't he?

The lady that I partner with for our monthly meeting of homeschool moms is as steady and solid as any lady I've ever met...and I greatly admire her for that.  She suggested the book, and I assumed she would also lead the discussion.  After all...she is an excellent example of someone with dignity and grace...calmly pressing on...

Then, as we met and chatted in preparation for the meeting, it became apparent that things from the book were really resonating with me...and she suggested that I lead the discussion.

Me?

Yeah, I know it's weird.  But it's all part of the "beauty for ashes" concept because sometimes God uses our weakness and our brokenness to speak His grace to others.  And I'm praying that is exactly what He does next Tuesday.

It's crazy how God works.  With our fall ministries around the corner, our calendar is pretty overwhelming.

If everything went absolutely perfectly, we could maybe just maybe keep our heads above water.
But guess what?  Things are far from absolutely perfect.  As a matter of fact, it seems like very little is going according to plan.
I snapped a picture of our downstairs bathroom just a bit ago:

Why yes...our toilet is upside-down in our bathtub.  And no, that wasn't the plan.
I'm supposed to have my house full of homeschool moms next Tuesday night...and for all I know...that toilet might still be in the bathtub.  This does not sit well with me.
It's a worm.
Let me explain...
So, I've been reading that book and each chapter addresses an area of fear that we wrestle with.
Chapter 8 is called, "Appointed: Fear of God's Plan for My Life"
It uses the story of Jonah to illustrate trusting God when His plans don't line up with ours.
I'll share a couple of quotes because I thought they were so powerful:
"We alternate between feelings of helplessness and fury as we stare into the ground, his eyes, her youth, the empty cradle, the empty bed, and the face in the mirror, hollow with fear.  His ways are not our ways."
"I struggle to make sense of how a loving God could let a 3 year old child put a wreath of flowers on her mother's casket.  I also struggle with understanding how God watched them put a crown of thorns on His own Son."
"What a beautiful image we allow Him to paint when we trust Him in seasons of life that feel ugly."
These quotes were in this order, in the same chapter, but they weren't all together.  But I just love the progression.  I've been in that position where it's just so hard to make sense of tragedy.  The grief can be too much to bear, until we lift our eyes to the cross and we realize that we are delivered through tragedy...  God sees the whole picture as our lives are redeemed and fashioned and fitted for His purposes, not in spite of, but because of the dark places in our lives.
Remember the story of Jonah?  I won't retell it here, but remember how God "appointed" a fish to swallow him up?  That word, "appointed", can also be translated, "provided".
In the book, Angie says, "He provided the fish.  Not to harm Jonah, but to rescue him . . .  It is a constant dying of self that leads us into the place of trust, and sometimes it looks a whole lot like the guts of a fish."
Isn't that the truth?
In the story of Jonah, God provided a fish, a plant, a wind and a worm.
He orchestrated the circumstances of Jonah's life in order to bring about a change in his heart.
When Jonah sat in the belly of the whale, he praised the Lord.  But when the Lord sent a worm to devour the plant that provided shade for Jonah, he became angry and wished himself to die.  It wasn't the whale that devoured Jonah...it was the worm.
Have you ever felt like it was easier to live by faith in the big things than the little ones?
It seems we've been going through some "testing of faith" in our household lately... Nothing huge, thankfully. But it feels a lot like worms.
I wish I could tell you I've been quietly trusting in the Lord and praising Him through it all.  Not exactly.  I've worried a bit and snitted a little... (maybe more than a little.)  I've been unkind and impatient.  I want to do better.
Sometimes I feel like I should just sit on the sidelines until I am better.  But putting myself on the bench doesn't accomplish anything for eternity.  So, I have to accept the fact that I'm a work in progress and God's ways are not my ways.  I'm glad He's far more patient with me than I deserve.  And I'm glad that He chooses to use me in spite of my weaknesses...which are many.

Memories...

A box was given to us recently.
It was a box of Grandma's things.
Grandma had simplified a lot over the years, giving away the most special things to her loved ones while she was still living.  She was always very intentional about the things she gave to us.  Often times they came with special instructions or a note with some background information.
She gave this Bible to "Michael".   

She had given it to Richard, and it traveled with him when he was in the service during World War II.
The minister read from this Bible at Richard's funeral, and Michael read from it at Grandma's funeral.
She also gave us her spectacles from when she was a little girl.

We display these on the dresser in the guest room, next to the Bible, and resting on a kerchief that also belonged to Grandma.  It was given to us at her funeral, as we tearfully followed her coffin out the door to the graveside service.

So...back to the box.  We were given this box.  There was a very special dress with the box (which will have a blog entry of its own someday).  There was also some jewelry...some seasonal figurines...

There was a blanket...

...which, for now, still smells like Grandma.  It was one of her lap blankets that rested on her chair.  Grandma was always cold.

One of our guest rooms is completely furnished with antiques.  Each piece of furniture was given to us by someone in our family.  The dresser in that room is where we display and store our most precious family treasures.

It was special to go through the box and smile as we remembered again.  

There was also a book:

It was a book that we had given to Grandma, and now it has returned to me.  And this book, believe it or not, was the reason I started my blog.  Life was busy, and Grandma was always interested in hearing everything we'd been up to.  I created the blog primarily so we could print it off and give it to Grandma.  I don't know if there was ever a time when we visited that she didn't make mention of how often she paged through this book.  Her eyesight was failing in her last several months, and it was sad when she could no longer enjoy the pictures like she used to.

Funny the unexpected things that hit you hardest.  Everything in the box brought a smile, but for some reason this book brought stinging tears.  Still does.  

Nobody could ever care about the trivial details of our daily life like Grandma Hamlin did.

So, the purpose for which this blog was created has passed.

Once again, a new season.  There are a handful of people who care about our family vacations or our household projects, and I will still post about some of these.  And, I guess we shall see if the Lord has a new purpose for this blog in the months ahead.

Day 6: Mount Rainier Gondola

By Friday, we were beat.  We used it as a "recovery day" before our flight home. We slept in, and enjoyed breakfast at the hotel.  I'm not much for big breakfasts...but there were eggs, sausage, bacon, waffles...and a whole lot of other things to choose from.  Eating a big breakfast meant we needed snacks or less for lunch, so it was one way we could save a little money on this trip.    We decided to keep it simple, so we picked one fun thing to do just a couple hours away from our "home base" in Puyallup.
We visited the Mount Rainier Gondola at the Crystal Mountain Resort.
What a beautiful place!

I learned on this trip that pictures do a poor job of giving any perspective to the size of hills and mountains.  This was a steep ride.  We rode up the gondola with a lady who works at the resort.  She rides the gondola almost daily, but still won't ride on the side looking down.  :-)

We loved it!  It was such a smooth, quiet ride that the height didn't bother us a bit.  

You ride all the way up this steep bluff, and then just as you crest the top a majestic view of Mount Rainier appears.

A kind older gentleman offered to take our picture.  He was a little flustered by my big fancy camera.  He snapped a picture of us (and everybody else on the mountain).  But sure enough, we were in focus, so with a little cropping the picture was just fine:

Boo looks a little tentative about the cliff behind us.  It was steep!  But Mike, on the other hand, scoffed at it saying he had climbed worse on Monday.  ;-)

There were some hiking trails on the summit, but after a week on my feet, my ankles were blown up like balloons (this was a first for me).  So, I grabbed a lounge chair and enjoyed the view while they explored a bit.

The local critters kept me entertained as they ran under my chair and even out from under my skirt!

This guy came close enough to touch:

I wished I had a little something to offer them.  :-)

This was Mount Adams off in the distance:

And if you look really close, the dark shadow in the center of this picture is Mount St. Helens:

Just a gorgeous spot...we would highly recommend it!  If you like critters, bring a crust of bread and they'd probably take it from your hand.

It was yet another hot day, so this was a perfect choice as there was a cool breeze at the summit. Down we go... 

That parking lot was huge!  It looks so tiny in the picture... And this concludes the site seeing portion of our trip.   I can't believe how much we saw and did last week!  It really was an amazing vacation.  We were so thankful that the weather was favorable for site seeing (hot, but no rain!), and in spite of being tired and run-down, we were healthy. There's just so much to see and do in Washington...a week wasn't enough!  But, it feels so very good to be back home...where we can get anywhere we want to go in 15 minutes or less.  ;-)

Day 5: Seattle

Thursday was our Seattle day.  
We knew there was no way we could do justice to Seattle in one day...
We also knew that, given the choice, seeing the mountains and the countryside was better to us than seeing the city.
We met up with a sweet friend who happens to live near Seattle, and she helped us make the most of our one day there.  
This is a lady that we knew back in college.  I never had the opportunity to know her well, but we've been able to keep in touch a little over the long distance because of the blog world.  We decided that our girls had much in common, and that if we were ever close by, we needed to get them together.   This was our chance...

...and it was a good idea because these two ladies were fast friends.

The first landmark we got to see what the famous (or infamous?) gum wall:

Eeeeeew!!

Pike Place Market was next:

The girls enjoying fresh peaches on "the pig":

And oh my...those peaches...

...they were sweet, ripe, FRESH, juice-runnin'-down-your-chin kinda peaches...  Mmm.

We planned to just skip lunch that day and sample a few things from the market.  Everything we sampled was excellent.  

The fresh produce in Washington makes me turn my nose up at the Minnesota stuff now.  (I know...I really gotta get myself better acquainted with the farmer's market.)

And the flowers....

So gorgeous!  And so cheap!

Mike also came across some Turkish delight:

We've always been curious what made this treat sooo good that Edmund would sell his soul for it (Narnia).  I guess I forgot to ask Mike how he liked it, but it looked exactly like the stuff in the movie.  :-)

Here was an interesting feature:

It was a tribute to the Japanese Internment Camps during World War II.

We made our way up the loooong hill to the Monorail, and took a ride over to the Seattle Center where, again, I'm sure we could have spent an entire day.  

We had to go up the Space Needle:

We spent some time up top--had a snack and enjoyed the view.  Then, we headed down and began our journey back to the car.  We could have done more, but we wanted to beat the worst of Seattle's rush hour, and we wanted to give our girls some time to play that evening.  

Scott and Mindy graciously hosted us for dinner on their deck where we enjoyed sweet fellowship for hours.  Such a blessing to spend time with people who love the Lord and strive walk with Him...who delight in sharing what He is doing in their hearts and lives...and who teach us and challenge us to press on in our walk as well.  We miss that kind of "discipleship-fellowship"...that "iron-sharpens-iron" kind of fellowship that we so greatly appreciated during our time in Fargo.  Our life and ministries are a direct result of the legacy that was passed down to us by those who so faithfully invested in us all those years ago.  We are so thankful for their godly example.

One precious moment from the evening was when Mindy brought out her old prayer cards, and found Mike's name written there in the list of "single men".  She prayed for him back then--that he would find a wife.  It's very humbling to think that I'm the answer to those prayers.  God is gracious.

That evening was special, and it would have been nice to have a couple of pictures to remember it by.  But by that point in the day, I felt like we looked awful...and smelled awful (sorry Scott!)...  So, the memories will have to live on in our hearts instead of in pictures.  But I think it's safe to say that the "play date" for our girls turned into a blessing for all of us, and that evening was a "divine appointment" for which we are very grateful.

Day 4: Astoria, Oregon (Part 2)

After Fort Clatsop, we decided to check out the Astoria Column.

Planes are available for a dollar...

...and those who make it to the top can throw their little wood plane over the rail.  Cheap fun!

Unfortunately, there were some local kids (based on their license plate) who made it their mission to steal as many wood planes as possible and hide them in their truck before people could get back down from the tower to claim them.  And after we met their dad, we decided it was definitely not worth messing with him over a $1 plane.  Ha!  Disappointing, but at least we were able to reclaim one of our wood planes to keep for a souvenir.  

Next, we went over to briefly check out the Columbia River Maritime Museum.  Very interesting place...and yet another attraction that we normally would have spent an entire day investigating if we could have.

Knowing that we had a long drive ahead, we had to cut short our Astoria visit and make our way toward Puyallup (pronounced "Pew AL up" with a short a sound...finally mastered this by our last day there!)  We had one more thing to see on the way...
The Pacific Ocean:

It was a very hot day and we were short on time, so we found an ocean access near Cape Disappointment, and we ended up having the whole beach to ourselves which was really special.  This was Elizabeth's first time seeing the ocean, and it was my first time seeing the Pacific. 

She was very excited...

It was a windy day and the waves were wild:

There were all sorts of water birds along the beach:

The pelicans waddling around just made me giggle...

Very pretty spot...

...and a girl happy to see the ocean for the very first time: