Before my dad’s ranching days when he raised beef, he farmed and raised corn. One of my favorite activities in the spring was to follow behind the plow and pickup fish-worms. They were plentiful and plump in the rich, black soil of Pierce County, Nebraska. Our farm made for a self sufficient fishing operation…fish-worms out the front door and the Elkorn River out the back door.

If you’ve never smelled the aroma of fresh, overturned earth in the damp spring, you’ve missed out. It’s a special…well, earthy smell and to me it’s invigorating. As an adult, I often go to my vegetable garden to get my head straight. After hoeing the rows I leave in a better frame of mind than when I arrive. I thought it was the tranquility, sunshine, and completing a laborious task that had an uplifting effect on me. But now, I learn there is a hidden ingredient in our gardens and plowed fields that contributes to this feeling of well-being. You see, scientists have found that there is a micro-organism called myobacterium vacii that lives in soil, compost, and leaf mold. It is what causes the soil to have that earthy rich aroma and not only that – they have discovered it to be an anti-depressant. When the organism gives off that nice smell it triggers our brain’s neurotransmitters which then release serotonin – known as the happy hormone. Just one tablespoon of soil can contain 50 billion of these microbes. I now look at my potted geranium with a whole new respect! Studies with animals are showing that playing in the dirt may have the same effects as taking Prozac, but without the side effects.

Once my dad had plowed the field, I would watch him plant the corn. Within a couple of weeks, little green shoots would sprout up all across the field. Barring any hailstorms and enough rain, golden kernels of corn would be harvested in the fall.

The seed corn dealers made sure that Dad was given “good” seeds to plant that produced good stalks and good ears. Just as the persons preparing the seed sacks to sell sift the bad seeds from the good seeds, we must sift through the seeds that we plant in our souls. Satan loves nothing better than to scatter seeds of discouragement, doubt, shame, and guilt into our fertile souls. He has devious ways of accomplishing this – through the things we watch on TV or the Internet, the books we read, the friends we keep, the places we go. As Christians,we should choose wisely. Would you be embarrassed to invite Jesus to come in and watch what you’re watching on TV or to accompany you on your evening outing or to look over your shoulder at what you are reading? It can be tempting to start thinking it’s okay when society is moving in a direction away from what God’s Word tells us is true. “Everyone else is doing it.” We must think twice about buying into that kind of seed. Bad seed produces inferior crops. I encourage you to wrap your seeds in scripture, prayer, and Christian friendships that speak encouragement into your lives. These are things that produce good plants and good fruit.

No where will we find better encouragement than in 1 John: 4:4. The One who is living in you is far greater than the one who is in the world. Now that’s a truth to fertilize.

Until two weeks….keep on readin’ and I’ll keep on writin’.

I’m guessing mothers, as a collective group, share a unique time management technique. Tell me if I’m wrong. For instance… if someone asks me, “What year did you move to Wyoming?” I do some quick and simple math. Daniel started into kindergarten that fall at 5, he was born in 1979, add five and there you have it, 1984.” This works well unless you can’t remember the years your children were born and that’s not a typical mothering trait. We may on occasion forget to pick them up from school or forget to wash their gym clothes, or even forget they don’t like tuna anywhere close to their lunch bag, but we don’t forget the year of their birth.

Our lives are made up of all different types of measurements of time. We understand everything from seconds to centuries and all that’s in between. As we age, our perspective on these different dimensions of time change. As a child, a year seems to drag on like winter in Siberia. When one birthday passed, we knew it would take forever for the next one to come. But now….well, let’s just say they pass by faster than a horse headed for home.

There are times when we are going through a difficult season that we wonder how we are going to survive to the next week or the next month. But here’s the good news – we weren’t designed to take on the cares of a week or a month. All we have to do is make it through one day. ( Matthew 6:34) Author and Pastor Max Lucado says it this way, “Days are the bite-size portions of life, the God designed segments of life management.” That shines a new and welcoming light on things. It’s like conquering a page instead of the entire book.

I used to live a lot in the future. “What’s my life going to look like in a week or a month, or even years down the road.” But I try not to micro-manage these increments so much anymore. No matter what we try to micro-manage – if it doesn’t turn forth the results we wanted, it leaves us frustrated and feeling incompetent. It works much better for me to trust in the Father’s wisdom to manage what’s ahead. Proverbs 16:9 says, A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. Knowing that God, in His infinite wisdom, oversees any plans I make is comforting to me. I will embrace His direction to the best of my ability, for He not only knows the future, but holds it in His hands.

Until next month, keep on readin’ and I’ll keep on writin’.

The friendly, red and white stuffed bull with a black hat and nose, caught my eye. It sat on the shelf of the Stanosheck Hardware Store and Mortuary in Osmond, Nebraska. The clerk saw my young eyes staring at it. He reached to pull it down. “Let me show you what Ferdinand does,” he said. He tipped the bull backwards and then righted him again. He did just what you would expect any bull to do – he bellowed! I was hooked. I was already enamored with stuffed animals that lived on my full size bed, but they were all the silent type. And, a bull was unique. I’ve always gone for the different and here it was …the cutest smiling, bellowing bull I had ever seen. I must have swallowed the desire to have Ferdinand right then and there because I felt it ooze to the tips of my fingers and toes. From then on out, I reminded Dad of his need for nails, bolts, tools…whenever we went into town. I knew it was just a dream to have Ferdinand as my own, but I still wanted to see him every chance I got.

On July 20th I opened my eyes to a new morning. I wondered what was in store for this special day – my birthday. I rolled over in bed and shrieked with joy. There sitting on my dresser smiling at me was Ferdinand! I jumped out of bed, grabbed my new friend and hugged him tight. He answered back with a deep bellow. Fifty plus years later, while cleaning out Mom and Dad’s house, I found Ferdinand sitting on a shelf again – high in the closet of my old bedroom. I hugged him again and to my surprise he could still bellow.

The intense longing I had for Ferdinand dims in comparison to the desires of the rich man described in Luke 16. He sits in hell pleading to Abraham in heaven to let the beggar, Lazarus, bring him a drop of water to cool his parched tongue. What the rich man experiences is unimaginable desperation; my longing merely a want. Abraham denies the request, telling the rich man that a huge chasm that cannot be crossed lies between heaven and hell.

Most scholars agree that this parable was told by Jesus to teach two things: the dangers in ignoring those in need (as the rich man had when Lazarus sat at his gate hoping the rich man would give him a morsel of food from his table) and to give those in need hope. I get this, but the visual of where these two men live out their eternal lives (forever and ever) is what impacts me the most. It’s almost more than I can bear – to think of anyone I love spending every minute of every day – forever and ever – in torment. (Rev. 14:11)

But, I am also consoled by the truth that no one has to join the rich man if they choose not to. Ah…the golden word – choose. There is eternal security in heaven available for anyone that believes in Jesus Christ. (John 3:16) Not making a decision IS making a decision. You can’t follow Jesus without an affirmative choice to do so. I pray that each one of my readers will choose the best path and enjoy an eternity of blessings.

Until next month – Keep on readin’ and I’ll keep on writin’.

Christmas is nine days into our past. I’m curious – how many of my readers had oyster stew for Christmas Eve?

For as long as I can remember – so most of my life – I’ve had oyster stew for Christmas Eve. My mom wasn’t overly fond of it, but Dad liked it and I followed suit. I can honestly say that it is my favorite soup/stew to this day. And as an adult I got lucky that both my sons and husband liked it too. No fixing two different soups for Christmas Eve in this family! My boys were probably influenced by a subtle motto (of mine) around our house. Years later, my granddaughter couldn’t have put this same philosophy in any better words while serving us up mud pies. When Grandpa Stan was told we were getting chocolate pies and he told her he liked vanilla, with hands on her hips she adamantly replied, “Eat what you get, and don’t throw a fit!”

One of those Christmas Eves so long ago when I was about the age of my mud-pie making granddaughter, Mom opened up two cans of oysters and poured them in her copper bottom kettle. As she did so, a “ping” ricocheted off the bottom. That was odd; justifying a search among the cloudy juices and greenish gray globs. (I get it why some people don’t like oyster stew.) Mom poked her fork around and low and behold – pulled out a round pebble. Once she rinsed it, it became evident that it was no stone, but a pearl. She called us all together to witness the find. A special little unexpected treasure! I had no idea, at that age, how a pearl got into a can of oysters.

Dad explained. “A little bit of sand gets into the oyster shell and irritates the oyster – like getting a piece of gravel in your shoe. The animal senses the sand and coats it with layers and layers of a material that eventually becomes a pearl.”

That, I have learned is a rather simplistic explanation of pearl formation, but quite adequate for a six-year-old. (I had had plenty of sand and gravel in my shoes, living down a dirt lane.) As I have researched the actual process it’s quite amazing and leaves me in awe once again of God’s creativity. It’s not necessarily a piece of sand that starts it all. It can be a piece of misplaced food, a bacteria, or even a piece of the oyster’s own mantle that breaks off. Whatever is the culprit, the oyster senses the foreign object and begins to coat it with the same two substances that it uses to build its shell – aragonite and conchiolin. Once this irritant has made it’s home in the oyster it will take two – five years for the pearl to reach full size. Natural occurring pearls are rarely harvested as the oceans are vast and pearl formation is sporadic. This led to pearl farms where cultured pearls are produced by farmers surgically placing an irritant – usually a piece of mantle tissue from another oyster – into the chosen oyster.

As I thought about this process, I can certainly identify with those farmed oysters. I have often collected irritants in my life. Worry, fear, the ungrateful boss, the neighbors barking dog, the too small print on labels, the annoying ache, Covid mandates – all come to mind. But, when I’m willing to cover those irritations in layers of prayer, it tames them down and they don’t seem nearly as bothersome. Peace begins to overshadow angst, anxiety, and irritability. We serve a BIG GOD – bigger than any problem we have. Beth Moore says it this way. “We don’t have a need that exceeds His power.” That’s a good one to remember and to act upon.

Until next month, keep on readin’ and I’ll keep on writin’.

This one is just for fun and to reassure you that you are not the only one losing your mind.

Having my wake up shower in the morning is my thing.  It’s a byproduct of forty-five years of needing to get to work early and refreshed.  That meant clocking in anywhere from 6-8 am, depending on the nursing area I was in at the time.  

Now, I’m retired and have traded my scrubs in for leggings and baggy sweatshirts. Ahhh…the comfort!  I’m not one that thinks you have to wear a new outfit everyday, so brightly flowered leggings with a solid colored sweatshirt can do me for three days if I’m fortunate enough not to dribble lunch down the front. When I slip off my clothes at night, I like to lay them on the edge of my garden tub so that I’m ready to jump (a figure of speech, only) in the shower come morning.  All I’ll have to do is grab a pair of fresh undies from my drawer.

 Most mornings go off without a hitch –except this one morning when it didn’t.  I shower, dry off, and proceed to dress, but soon I discover that my panties have done a vanishing act. How can this be?  I’m a creature of habit and I always lay my undies on top of my other clothes since they are the first thing to go on. (As you can see, I’m quite organized so this was quite baffling.) They positively are not where I always put them. I know I’m not crazy; I can remember taking my only white pair out of the drawer.  I shake out each piece of clothing. I check the trash…just in case I might have had a brain freeze. I thrust my hand into the pockets of my robe I wore into the bathroom.  I peer into my brush drawer and then my towel cupboard. I remake my bed, then get down on all fours and peer under it. I take twice as long getting up as I did getting down. I check the clothes hamper, wondering if I tossed them in there by habit. Seriously…David Copperfield couldn’t have done a better job!  If only someone else were in the house, I’d know it was a practical joke, but I’m left with no one to blame.

Well…what the heck. It’s just a pair of underwear. With a deep sigh, I do the only logical thing and grab another pair from the drawer. I clutch them tightly to my chest as if they’re a bird squirming to take flight. Returning to the bathroom, I slip one leg in and then the other.  As I pull them up, they balk at my hips. What’s the deal, now?  Heaven knows I’ve had plenty of time to dry off – running around naked as I had. There should be no lingering damp friction to make them resist.

   I glance downward to check things out. “Oh, my gosh – you’ve got to be kidding!” There, rests my white pair of panties around my hips, right where they are supposed to be. I can’t believe it…heaven help me… I’ve just slipped over the line from forgetfulness to dementia; I know it.

 When I tell the story to a trusted friend I swear her to secrecy. Know what she says? “Oh, you’ll tell everyone – you won’t be able to keep that story to yourself.”  I hate it when she’s right.