Love in Black and White Part 2

Posted on June 18, 2022 by Margaret

Yesterday I shared half of a tribute Nelson’s cousin Andrew sent to Nelson through his wife Kim’s writing abilities. Here’s the rest:

Ann Sophie laughed and agreed that her husband was pretty special. Somehow, though, it was a pretty quick jump to things we didn’t think they could do. I was imitating Andrew looking for the hamper as our husbands were coming closer with the rest of the firewood.

Our voices dropped to a whisper as I leaned closer to Ann Sophie. “Do you think Nelson could hem a curtain?”

Hearing his name, Nelson’s head popped up, and he looked over at us. Ann Sophie just scrunched her nose a little, shook her head slightly, and softly said, “Details.” We both laughed.

When we first heard of Nelson’s diagnosis, Andrew’s immediate reaction was that he wanted to go to Minnesota to see him. Then he considered that although that’s what he wanted, it might not be what Nelson wanted. It’s difficult to have company when you are tired and sick, especially from people who admire you and can’t imagine you weak or caving to pain.

My dad once told me he imagines we all have this invisible jar of marbles that we get when we are born. Every person has their own number of marbles, and only God knows how many each person gets. When you do something with risk and reward, you take a marble out.

Get on a plane, take out a marble. Go for a swim, take out a marble. Red meat three nights in a row, lick your fingers and take that marble out. We imagined a fishbowl of marbles dwindling down, the older a person gets, or the more daring a life they lived. He said one day you’d wake up and only have one marble left.

I think about my own jar of marbles and the decisions about where I put them and those of the people that I love. I imagine Nelson’s—a faithful servant to the Lord who has not wavered in faith when the doctors said, “Hey, we think your jar is looking a little low.”

He knows that we serve the Master of details, the giver of marbles and that the end is not the bottom of the jar, because there is abundance on the other side.

We are praying for Nelson to get a refill of marbles so that he can one day learn to hem a curtain and show his dear cousin Andrew what a hamper looks like. But we say this prayer with the same courage and faith that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had when they were thrown into the fire and said, “The God we serve can save us, and even if he does not save us, we will still worship him.”

“Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.” (Isaiah 12:2)

Sneak Peek #14

Posted on September 13, 2019 by Margaret

Excerpt from THRIVE AND SURVIVE, ZERO TO FIVE

Though it’s true a mother’s work is never done, that shouldn’t be the banner superimposed over your calling as a mom. Knowing where you fit in the grand scheme of things can revolutionize every minute of every day. Mothering the specific children sent to you by God can then become one of life’s greatest pleasures . . . even when changing your thousandth diaper.

It’s easy to feel sorry for ourselves, especially when we’re stretched to the limit. And it doesn’t help that today’s mothers are not lifted up and encouraged by society as they were in generations past. Moms who forfeit careers to stay home with their children are especially snubbed, but they ought never to base their opinion of themselves on what the culture says.

Followers of Christ find their identity in Him, the One who doesn’t change through the generations. Every Christian mother ought to define her value as Scripture defines it, which is to take her worth from what the Lord says. After He made the first man and woman, His assessment of all He created went from good to very good (Genesis 1:31).

He’s made each of us—including you—with the same great care and ascribes the same great value to every one of us, since we’re all made in His image. He breathed an eternal soul into you, and by Christ’s death, has made a way to save that soul. He’s offered to live within you to guide, encourage, help, and affirm you as needed. In other words, He wants to be your God on a personal level, one-on-one. Knowing all this should give you the strong confidence that you are of great worth.

And there’s something else. He’s given you children to raise, specific work to do in specific ways, and He daily offers to equip you for the task. The Lord highly esteems children, which is why raising them is important work. Though today’s world might demean the role of mothering, God doesn’t ever want you to feel demeaned as you do it.

SIDEBAR:

SCRIPTURAL ENCOURAGEMENT FOR YOU:

Jeremiah 29:11
Proverbs 3:5–6
Joshua 1:9
Psalm 116:1–2
Jeremiah 33:3
Psalm 68:19
Romans 8:38–39
Philippians 4:19
2 Corinthians 9:8
Psalm 145:18–19
Romans 8:28
Jeremiah 31:3
John 15:26–27
Hebrews 12:1–3

Big Evidence of Little Children

Posted on November 16, 2018 by Margaret

Although I raised 7 children and was “in the thick of it” years ago, the hectic nature of those days has faded. But as all grandparents know, when our grands visit, we’re quickly reminded of those busy (and sometimes peculiar) days.

My 12 grands range in age from 1 to 10 with #13 due in January. It’s a joy to know we’ll still have babies in the family for a while longer, though I’m looking forward to the time when 9 of these first grands will be teenagers at the same time.

Grandkids keep us oldsters from getting stodgy. And they definitely keep us laughing. For instance, one day this summer when all of us were mobilizing for a trip to the beach, 5-year-old Andrew was looking for several water-maze toys that were missing.

We hunted everywhere without success – until the command was given for all the children to go potty before the beach.

That’s when we found the missing toys…. along with a floating slice of orange. The guilty party, 18-month-old Jonathan, had been washing the toys, along with his snack.

Later, someone reported that a treasured collection of beach stones was missing. We found those in the extra microwave in the basement.

With toys disappearing right and left, the older kids began hiding their favorites so the little ones wouldn’t run off with them. And two months later, I’m still finding things (like this neatly parked car on a shelf behind a chair).

As delightful as it was having my little gang of grands with me, their visit did require some energetic elbow grease after they’d gone. Woodwork paint had been picked-at by some clever child who had discovered yellow paint beneath the white. She had notched spots around a door frame, giving it a new polka-dot look.

The freshly-covered dining room chairs had experienced a baptism by fire…. or I should say by food…. and would need some intense TLC.

Pudgy hand-prints had been “painted” on the windows by an artist who’d used peanut butter as his medium. And the toy bins labeled “CARS,” “DOLLS,” “DRESS-UP,” etc. had been reorganized so they could have all been labeled “MISCELLANEOUS.”

As Mom used to say, though, “The mess children leave is a happy mess.” So after our wistful goodbyes, I dove in with gusto. The house was sadly quiet, but finding evidence of my grands in every room soothed my missing them.

As for the dining room chairs? They came clean as a whistle. Mess or no mess, I can’t wait till my young relatives return.