Garden Raspberries 2022

Early in 2022, the raspberries had no leaves, and they were all in their original bed.

As the spring progressed, the leaves exploded (as they do each year) and I built the PVC support structure around them.

We had a huge harvest! We had to have friends come help pick and eat them.

They got taller and taller.

And they migrated into the adjoining garden bed. I put weed cloth in the path, or else they would have taken over the path as well.

And then, in the fall, the leaves turned yellow and a large branch fell down, dismantling the PVC pipes. The yellow leaves would then fall off, the plants would hibernate, and get ready to bloom again in 2023. :)

Family on Earth, Family in Heaven

When Uri was 13 months old, we went to California to visit family. My Nana was sick with cancer, but when I scheduled the trip a few months in advance I had no idea how quickly her health would decline. As it turned out, she was hospitalized a few days before we came, and then settled home in hospice care the day we arrived. Nearing the end of life is a time of grief, and there is something sacred about those last days together. It was meaningful to have my Nana, Uri's great-grandmother, lay hands on him and bless him one last time before she passed. It was special to pray together and to have quality time with her. The first couple days she was home on hospice she was alert and communicative, but very soon she didn't even have the strength to sit up, open her eyes, or speak anymore. 

I have experience with hospice care and I have training as a "home care aid", to assist with people who are bedridden or otherwise in need of special care. I was able to help care for my Nana while I was there, as well as passing on knowledge and confidence to my mom and sister who were among Nana's primary caregivers. It felt like such a divine appointment that the timing of my trip landed on the very day hospice care started. 

I believe Uri and I were there for about 7 days. When I said goodbye to Nana, she was able to draw on her reserves of strength to whisper a blessing and a farewell. She passed away a few days later.

Of course we didn't know that Uri would be joining her in heaven only 9 months later. Seeing this picture of them together on earth has a sacredness to it, yet it is marred by the presence of sickness and the condition of the fallen world. It is a joy to imagine them together in heaven. Nana is whole and well and playing with Uri with such joy. It is such a beautiful reality, and I look forward with great anticipation the day that I can join them there. Jacob and I walk out this life as a holy duty, but we look ever with yearning towards the day we will be reunited with our loved ones who have gone before, and when we will no longer see through a glass darkly. Praise the Lord that day will come.

Watercolor Art

I painted this picture and I really like it. :)

 

Snippets of True Education

Fitting a sphere onto a flat surface is always challenging, made worse when space is limited. But it's okay. Life isn't about perfection, and I'm pleased with how the maps turned out on the walls of my nanny-kid's playroom. Perhaps we should have at least cut Antarctica into strips to spread out along the bottom. Perhaps we should have double checked before we accidentally colored half of Russia red and the other half brown. Perhaps I could have gotten the sizing scale better if I'd printed everything all at once, instead of in segments. But it's all okay! Perfection isn't the goal. And education happens by degrees, it is never an exact science, and the goal should always be to be a life-long learner. 

My nanny-kid had some commentary while we were coloring and labeling countries.

"Oh I know about France, that's where that big tower is."

"Ah, Bolivia, that's where the piraña is from in my comic book!"

"Philippines... that's where the Abuela is from in Blue's Clues."

"My old nanny was from Brazil."

I haven't tracked down a picture of the Abuela from Blue's Clues or his old nanny yet, but the Eiffel Tower and the piraña weren't that hard to get printed and pinned to the appropriate country. 

Knowledge is pleasurable. Cramming for a test is not. Knowing a list of facts is dull. But encountering our world and beginning to understand our place and the place of other things and people within the framework of our globe is heartening. Ever since I was old enough to understand educational philosophies, I have always had a huge heart for living education; both for myself and for others. I marveled with Uri at all the life discoveries he was making as a toddler, and I wish I could be doing these types of projects with him. And the time will come when I'll do these sorts of things with Ocean. But in the meanwhile, I'm glad my nanny-kid and I were able to do this project together, and I hope it inspires some of my readers here as well. I believe even snippets of true education are far more interesting, memorable, and valuable than any compulsory rote memorization. 

Garden Fall 2022

In the Autumn, it was clear our garden was in decline. The turn of the season, time to begin hunkering down to prepare for the process of wintering.

Sadly our corn didn't do very well! But that's okay. We had so many raspberries in the summer, and sooo many sugar snap peas. Yum, yum! And we had cherry tomatoes and cucumbers and strawberries. And so many flowers. It was lovely. We'll try again for corn this year and see if we can do better.

Such a harvest of morning glory seeds! This picture isn't even the half of it. Jacob and I spent many nights during Bible Study over the winter popping open the seed packets and sorting out the chaff. There are plenty of seeds to plant for Spring!

We got some snow, and the top of our pond froze over. Still in the Fall, not even in the Winter yet.

And such a windstorm we had one night! It blew a large branch down right on top of our raspberries, dismantling the PVC pipe frame.

Everything has its seasons, both metaphorically in life and literally in the great outdoors. Eagerly do I anticipate Summer 2023, both for the magnificent beauty that Uri's garden will be, and for other reasons as well. In the Summer or in the Fall of 2023... watch for an update on Baby Ocean's debut. :)
 

Baby Bump Growth

As always, a great big thank you to Leah for carrying precious Baby Ocean! Look at the difference in these baby bump pictures from 20 weeks to 29 weeks! Ocean is definitely getting bigger!

 

The Healing of Wounds

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” - Matthew 19:26

God heals all wounds for those who will surrender themselves fully unto Him. This is truth. But how much of this healing comes in the here and now, vs. when we are made fully whole in heaven? A deep question which each wounded individual must take before the throne and wrestle out with God. All humans know wounding of one sort or another, and to one degree or another. I could delve into the theology of humankind's triune nature: body, soul, and spirit, and the greek word sozo which describes how we simultaneously are saved, are being saved, and will in future be saved. But I'm not in the mood to delve into the facts and the speculations of such deep theological considerations. 

I do want to comment, though, on the healing of the here and now. I am pensive after reading a friend's post about healing, and how healing will always come, the wound will heal, whatever that wound may be. Do I agree with this assertion? Well yes, yes I do. In light of eternity, all children of God will be made whole in the hereafter. But what about here, and now? Do I think all wounds will be healed? 

As I say, I am pensive. On the one hand, there's the sad reality that we don't have the reliable track record of physical healings they were seeing in the book of Acts. This is worthy of grief, and perhaps of fasting and prayer and generally contending for, if God gives grace for it. On the other hand, I do believe we see emotional healings happening pretty reliably in this day and age, just as much as they were in the book of Acts. It just takes more work now-a-days... or so it seems. There was probably a lot of "the renewing of the mind" and whatnot that happened behind the scenes in the New Testament. 

Don't get me wrong, I see loads of people going about their lives lacking the emotional healing that I know is available to them if they would fully surrender to God AND walk through the process of making God their highest priority, going through deliverance, and renewing of the mind, and cutting off old baggage, and all that good stuff. If I get a good pulse on a person's spiritual and emotional values, it's not hard to see the trajectory their journey of healing is on. 

And what right have I to speak of such things? Am I not an individual in great pain myself? Yes, yes I am. And yet I would point to a whole host of soul ailments a younger Jamie grappled with as being a very different sort of pain. As a 20-ish-year old, I gained victory over: Depression. Anxiety. Fear. Shame. Insecurity. Self-Rejection. Self-Hatred. Mental Torment. Loneliness. The blood of the lamb is a powerful tool, the Authority of Christ is powerful and effective and truly practical!!!

Having walked through the process necessary to co-labor with Christ and enforce the victory He won on the cross, I can now enjoy sweet rest in my soul free of all these ailments. I rest secure in my identity as a daughter of Christ, made in the image of God and loved unconditionally. I am a woman of peace. I take joy in the little things. I am clean and holy. I am secure and loved. I am loved by God, by others, and by myself. I am a woman of peace. I am a human and I have a whole variety of human emotions, but no negative emotion has a grip on me, as they once did in my youth. I am free. I am healed.

This doesn't mean that life doesn't still hurt. Tragedy hurts, and the little things of life can hurt. People let you down, and it hurts. Things don't work out, and it hurts. Long tedious days happen sometimes, and it hurts. Limbs get amputated and the wound heals, but life is forever different, and it hurts. Pieces of one's heart are severed off and not always restored, the wound must be cauterized and healed without the missing piece; the wound is healed, but life is different, and it hurts. Healing doesn't mean we lose the ability to feel pain.

But healing does open us up to feel joy and pleasure and peace. Birds sing in the pre-dawn darkness as one is bustling off to a long day at work, and the music is beautiful. The warm embrace of a loved one fills the love cup. A nourishing meal is satisfying to body and soul. A good book can be absorbed with pleasure. There's nothing quite like a hot bath after a long day. Dirt under one's fingernails in the garden is wholesome. Choosing to look forward to little things doubles the delight. Living life with an awareness of the manifest presence of God and constantly seeking Him and his richness that may flood one's soul at any moment with utter perfection and rest... there's nothing like it.

God is our healer. He calls us to co-labor with Him to enforce the victories He won on the cross. The ability to feel pain is part of being human, but there's no need to live life plagued by the grip of chronic soul ailments. He has come to impart abundant life.

Blessings to you all.