Our Michigan cottage is on the edge if a forest. There are advantages to this, such as a lush view and the privacy that comes with heavy foliage. A disadvantage is  forest critters ( bugs, mice and chipmunks) who want to be part of our household. After all, they were here first.

For the most part we’re winning over the animals, but the trees of their forest have won over our yard, keeping all sunshine at bay. Because of that, the property is covered with wild English ivy that seems to grow well in the shade. The ivy has taken over flower beds and planters, doing so a long time before we arrived. It’s also crawled over the small lawn. Our sidewalk and patio would be ivy-green, too, if left untrimmed.

But there’s a nice advantage to all that ivy. I don’t need a lawn mower and never have to pull a weed, a delightful change from our old house and its half-acre lot, where  summertime demanded hundreds of gardening hours.

Because the tall forest trees are just now getting their leaves, we do get some spring sunshine, making it possible to grow early-blooming bulb flowers. I haven’t planted any, but this week, standing on the front porch, I noticed something unusual. Daffodils!

They were growing in clusters, paper-white with yellow centers, all over one section of the yard. Where had they come from? I had no answer.

Daffodils don’t appear of their own accord, and they’re not wild flowers. They have to be purchased and planted, usually during the weeks of autumn in order to get blossoms the following spring. Did someone secretly plant those bulbs last fall while our family was buried beneath the woes of pancreatic cancer? Were they thinking that after the harsh winter months it might be nice to have this dramatic spring encouragement?

I’ve asked a number of people if they were the landscaping conspirators but haven’t yet come up with any identities. Whoever sunk those bulbs must have privately enjoyed that secret all winter. And their plan worked. When I look out the window and see that multitude of daffodils waving in the breeze, I feel very loved.

Whoever you are, I thank you!
”Sow with a view to righteousness. Reap in accordance with kindness.” (Hosea 10:12a)

God did something beyond all human understanding when he talked our world into existence. Just words. That’s all. Talk about power!

What did those sentences sound like? Were they booming and loud? Maybe he spoke quietly or even whispered. In all cases, the power to bring an entire cosmos into being sprang from those words… because of who spoke them.

Logic tells us God is still very much in charge of nature. And just in case we need proof, Jesus included an incident in Scripture during which he aborted a wild storm with three words: “Silence! Be still!” His friends noticed and were stunned by the storm’s obedience to this extraordinary someone.

Here in Michigan, our little corner of the world had run amuck in recent years. The wide, soft-sand beach I visited every summer as a child and where I’ve walked every day since moving here has always had a gentle creek flowing from nearby woods into Lake Michigan. Its path has meandered around the wide beach on its route, offering a safe play-place for children with its clean, shallow water.

Every winter the creek has reinvented itself, carving a different path in the sand. At the beginning of each childhood summer, we’d race to the beach to see what creative turns it had made since we’d said goodbye the previous fall.

In recent years, the creek continued to change its route as usual but had traveled so far down the sand it nearly ran through the beach “next door.” It had also quadrupled in width which left a mucky residue when hot weather dried up all but a trickle. Additionally, the dunes at the back of the beach had begun to erode as a result of the creek’s wild behavior. Trying to cross it to find a dry spot for a beach chair had become risky business, involving a slippery wade through knee-deep, swamp water.

Then several children got sick after playing in the creek that had always offered harmless fun. Our association had two choices: tame the wild creek or close it. Studies were done, votes were tallied, money was budgeted and this week action was taken. The goal? To reroute the creek with a straight path to the lake, rearranging the sand to cover the slime and sledge of its old course.

From atop the dune, Jack and I watched a massive earth mover attack the problem. After it dug the desired creek route, the old dark water raced toward the shoreline exactly as planned, running straight from the woods to the lake.

As the day progressed, the powerful machine worked its magic on the swampy old creek bed, transforming the now-spacious beach into a flat, pristine expanse where towels will be unfurled with new delight this summer.

God just might be chuckling, though. Mankind’s former attempts to tame this natural phenomenon have never succeeded.

Despite sunny skies, my mind clouded over with two questions: (1) Why has the creek never been happy flowing in a straight line? and (2) Does God really want this creek tamed?

One night while all of us beach-lovers are asleep, the Lord might just appear on the sand and whisper a few nature-controlling words over his creek: “Go ahead and flow wherever you want.”

And in the morning, when we see a new winding water-path, we’ll all know who was there during the night.

“Jesus… rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Silence! Be still!’ Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. ‘Who is this?’ said his disciples. ‘ Even the wind and the waves obey him’!” (Mark 4:39, 41)

Today another family member died of cancer, our brown tabby Valerie. Since we’ve owned her from birth (her mother was also our cat), deciding to put her down was agonizing.

Although we’ve never had more than one dog at a time, the cat population was another story. Catherine, Kennedy, Patch and Val got along well and shared the litter for many years. By the time we moved from our old farmhouse last year, only Val was left.

Returning from Florida two weeks ago, we noticed Val looking unusually thin. Her shoulder and hip bones protruded, and she seemed weak and wobbly. Yesterday the girls took her to a vet in Illinois to see what was wrong and called me in Michigan as they were receiving the unexpected news of terminal kidney cancer with a mass pressing on her intestines, blocking most of it.

All of us were stunned. Despite Val’s continual purring and rubbing up against anything and everything, the vet suggested our best decision would be to put her down, offering to do it that very hour. “Acute pain will soon come,” she said.

But we needed more time to absorb what we’d been told, so the girls took Val home to lavish attention on her and wrestle with the life or death decision. We figured it’d be easier to know what to do, after sleeping on it.

The vet had told us Val was most likely nauseated and feeling uncomfortable. Her vomiting had already begun, and its pinkish hue indicated she was probably bleeding. We knew what had to be done. This morning, however, there were second thoughts. She’d been playful overnight and had eaten a bit of food. When I arrived at the apartment, she climbed on my shoulder and tried to burrow into my hair just as she’d always done.

Wondering whether or not to keep our appointment for Val’s euthanasia, I prayed and asked the Lord for his decision. We got his opinion by way of a timely email from our Michigan next-door-neighbors who detailed the story of a cat they’d waited too long to put down. He’d had to endure a difficult death as a result, and they vowed never to wait that long again.

The girls and I quickly agreed to go ahead with putting Val to sleep, although they declined to accompany me. Mary met me at the vet’s, and Val’s purr-motor quieted quickly as she fell asleep with the sedative. She never even noticed the lethal injection. While I cried having to face death again, in three minutes Val’s heart was still.

All of us couldn’t help but be reminded of Nate’s terminal cancer and his rapid weight loss, the first discovery of a mass in his abdomen, and the discomfort that led to his acute pain. Val’s parallel situation opened those barely-healing wounds all over again, and I wondered why her death had to come now, in this way.

The vet gave us a white box, placing a curled-up Val inside with her head “burrowed” as she loved to do in life. She looked lovely with peace written all over her pretty face. We buried her in the family pet cemetery behind Mary and Bervin’s house, putting a cement marker over the grave.

Looking at her birth and death dates there, I thought about how insignificant the numbers were compared to the gap between them. She lived her life in that gap, and we are thankful for Val’s unconditional love, lavished on everybody… except, of course, Jack. After all, she wasn’t stupid.

”God made… all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:25)