Morning Milking

Not many girls I knew were lucky enough to grow up in the shadow of a big city and yet have a working dairy farm situated at the end of their road. I never really paid much attention to it until the day I spotted a cow giving birth in a pasture while my family was driving by. Thinking such a momentous event should not be happening unattended, I made my mom stop at the house, raced to and pounded on the door, telling the farmer who answered what I'd seen in breathless gasps that he was surely lucky to understand. He smiled kindly, nodded his head and thanked me, and said he'd take care of it. Then he closed the door and we were done! His response was a little underwhelming, to say the least, but thus began a friendship that lasted for several years.

Apparently I was just one of a number of local children he humored with trips about his farm, letting us tag along as he did his chores, scattering grain for the chickens, feeding the big bull in the barn, and to my great delight, hand-feeding the calves out of giant baby bottles that they sucked at so greedily they threatened to pull them out of my hands.

And always I visited the milking barn, passing the cows in the corral, patiently lined up and waiting their turn to be milked. While most were milked by machines attached to their udders while they fed on hay in the bin, there were some Mr. Peak milked by hand for some reason, sitting on the little three-legged stool and working the udders to produce a steady stream of milk in the waiting bucket below. He gave me a shot at it a couple of times and I remember the softness of the udder, the process of working the teat and my amazement when my efforts were successful. It was magical to a city girl, and I spent countless hours there on lazy summer afternoons.

The farm is long gone now. A Silicon Valley millionaire bought the property and built a mansion on that land of milk and memories. But I was suddenly transported back there recently in a conversation with my sister in which we discussed the importance of “milking joy” out of every moment this holiday season, especially in a year dominated by the worries and struggles produced by a global pandemic. Suddenly I was back on that milking stool, squeezing the nipple, delighting in the milk my actions produced.

God wants us to know we can have that joy in everything we experience, not just during the holidays, but every day in every circumstance we face, if we just take the time to work our situation to produce the blessing it contains. Time stops and joy deepens when we stop long enough to squeeze out all the magic of the moment, appreciating it fully and giving thanks for the wonder of it before releasing it, only to grab the next and repeat the process, again and again as we go through our days. Even the hard times have hidden blessings that are found only when we make the concerted effort to pull up a stool and release them.

Too often these days in our increasing rush to meet holiday deadlines, our joy is produced through artificial means, pumped out of the season in the familiarity of carols, heartwarming movies, eye-popping decorations and wallet-emptying purchases for ourselves or others. We get our spiritual sustenance in the same way, bottled and delivered by any number of outside means. One benefit of milking machines is the incredible amount of time they save on days when multi-tasking is by necessity the name of the game. But there is something special about setting aside some time every day to milk joy the old-fashioned way, spending the time to bond with the One who gives us all good things and finding our peace in the meditative process of seeking Him out.

Our day starts every morning like a cow standing before us with a full udder, ready to release it's joy. Don't let your bucket run dry.

“Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'Therefore I hope in Him!' The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.”

(Lamentations 3: 22-25 NKJV)

 

Kudos to Christmas Carols

Photo credit: Sonny Hurd

“The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.” 

 

Elf movie devotees will recognize that quote instantly. Who among us doesn't need a whole lot of Christmas cheer at the end of a pandemic-affected year?! All of us need all the happiness we can muster up. Perhaps that's why some people started listening to Christmas music while the Halloween ghosts and goblins were still running around gathering socially distanced- placed treats!

Not this girl, however. I sortof need a Christmas tree in my sights before my vocal chords loosen up and let fly with the holiday vibes. But the tree is now in place and working its magic. I find myself drawn to the piano in the corner behind it, pulling out the bench and squeezing between ornament-dangled branches for a quick songburst before heading to bed and letting visions of sugarplums fill my head.

I smile to realize I was raised that way.

Every night during the holiday season when I was a little girl, our family of five sat around the Christmas tree and the kids took turns banging out a carol on the piano while the rest of the family sang along. I think it was my mom's way of wrangling a few extra minutes of piano practice out of reluctant kids before the approaching Christmas recital at our teacher's house. Whatever the reason, we gathered and played and sang five songs, multiple verses, every... single... night.

How on earth did we manage it? It's all we can do to gather our families around the dinner table now, let alone around a Christmas tree at night. Of course this was long before the distractions of cell phones, video games and binge-watching favorite shows on Netflix. But haven't all generations simply had too much to do in December to make time for activities like this?! I know that in raising my own kids, December was a mad dash to get everything done by the 25^th day of the month...the shopping, baking, decorating, cards, wrapping... and it was only my husband's insistence that we adhere to certain traditions that kept the holy in the holiday even as we decked the halls.

 

I guess my parents knew it was important. It kept our hearts focused on the Reason of the season, even while allowing us the joy of gazing at the pretty lights and beautifully wrapped packages in front of us. And it worked. Surely it must have, for me to remember the wonder of it some six decades later, and to be drawn back to that piano bench once more. 

 

Our houses may be a little emptier by necessity this year than in days gone by, but our hearts don't have to be. If you're feeling a little down, fill your own cup of cheer by singing loudly for Jesus to hear. You don't even need a piano. He's all ears and eager for your nightly lullaby. Give it a try.

“O come, Thou Dayspring, from on high,

And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

And death's dark shadows put to flight.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.”

 

Slow the Flow

 

“So, Elaine, are you ready for Thanksgiving?” my coworker asked as we scanned and bagged a grocery order.

 

“Thanksgiving? It's mid-October! Listen, buddy, I'm old! Each day is a treasure! I can't be throwing them carelessly away!”

 

My friend looked a little startled at my vehement protestation. And I understand where he's coming from. He's young, less than half my age, and eagerly counting the days till his upcoming vacation and birthday celebration Thanksgiving week in the mountains of Tennessee. Who could blame him for mentally tossing away calendar pages as fast as he turns them over?

 

It's a matter of perspective, one gained over time. His lifetime hourglass is still very full; the hours seem to stream endlessly before him with no end in sight. I, on the other hand, am keenly aware that there are more grains of sand in the bottom half of mine than are waiting to drop from the top, so I am increasingly careful with what I do with each one. I don't have any to waste!

 

And really, why would we want to, no matter what stage of life we are currently in? Each day is a gift, a one-time-use twenty-four-hour offer of joy from God, available for pickup each morning and expiring come nightfall, never to return in exactly the same way ever again. Why would we pass that up?

 

Yet some of us do. We stumble through our daily routines just trying to make it through each one till we can fall exhausted in our beds at night for a few hours of rest before rising to do it all again. We count on holidays and weekends away to be bright spots of joy in increasingly pressure-packed schedules that vary little from season to season in intensity, but only in the activities we pursue. Meanwhile, the days of our lives are slipping through our fingers and there seems to be no way to slow the flow.

But that's not so.

Favorite author Ann Voskamp suggests that we can actually do so with gratitude. We hold a moment captive when we see the wonder it contains, fully experience its joy and express our thanks for the same before letting it pass away. Gratitude simply adds length to our days... and perhaps days to the length of our lives. Count me in!

And so I approach my days a little differently now. I rise in the morning to meet up with God, Who hands me the gift of the day before me, and then eagerly watches as I go through the hours that follow, gently unwrapping the tissue-packed minutes that are meant to surprise and delight me. His smile grows at my joy over each new discovery of His goodness, every token of His care, and every new revelation of His love for me. His ears rejoice as I voice my thanks. And at the end of the day I slip the wrappings away in a bedtime thank-you conversation with Him about the hours just past, a gift in return. Sleep then comes peacefully sweet till I rise to do it all over again the next day. Who would want to give any such days away?

So am I ready for thanks-giving? You bet! And I hope you are, too.

“This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.”

(Psalm 118:24 NKJV)

I Said "YES"

My marriage didn't make it to the 40-year mark. Cancer stole Jim away 281 days short of that impressive milestone. It may have taken the future we had ahead of us, but it couldn't touch the past; the memories made, the love shared, the laughter that filled those years. I still feel married to him; his ring remains on my finger. And so I decided to celebrate the day anyway, even to the point of buying myself a gift.

Traditionally, the 40^th anniversary is celebrated with the purchase of a ruby in some form. In recent weeks I have thought about buying a simple heart-shaped necklace with the red gemstone set inside. I did some online searches but didn't find anything that stole my breath away, so I put the idea aside to look into more on another day.

The last months of Jim's life were difficult ones for both of us in many ways. Of course there were the physical symptoms as the disease progressed and impacted Jim's body in more and more ways. But equally difficult was the spiritual battle we faced, as we tried to hold on to the hope that God would intervene in our situation with the healing we so desperately sought.

Our battle began months earlier when the results of the biopsy came back. Suddenly our enemy had a name, and Jim's doctor wanted to start an aggressive attack against it, one that carried risks Jim found he couldn't accept. He wanted to seek other treatment options; change his diet to minimize the growth of the tumor while pursuing healing in the spiritual realm. A choice unpopular with the world, he told only those who absolutely needed to know so that his faith in God would be supported rather than undermined with negative pronouncements. Together we agreed to leave no stone unturned in this spiritual journey; to that end we traveled to healing rooms and prayer rooms in distant locales, had our house anointed with oil, studied and began the daily practice of taking Communion, read books on healing, and filled our minds and our hearts with stories of miracles others had received that could be ours, as well. Firmly believing that healing was purchased for us on the Cross of Calvary, we believed it, claimed it, spoke it, prayed it.

The only thing we couldn't do was manifest it in our lives. As the summer months progressed, so did the disease, and soon it became obvious to me that God wasn't going to answer us in the way we were expecting. While still holding out hope for a midnight-hour miracle, I was losing my grip on my spiritual lifeline. I didn't understand why the truths I so firmly believed seemed to work for others, but not for me... why it felt like God didn't hear me... why for some reason He refused to intervene. While never losing my belief in the ultimate love and goodness of God, there was an increasing distance between Him and me, a growing loss of intimacy because of my confusion over what we were experiencing.

Jim's faith didn't waver. He held on to the belief that healing was his whether he could experience it in this life or not. At the very end, he said only that if he wasn't going to receive his miracle on this side of Heaven, then he was ready to go on Home. And so he did.

My faith crisis in those days didn't affect God's faithfulness to me. He showed up and carried me in the last week of Jim's life and in the weeks and months that followed in ways that were nothing short of miraculous, leading me to realize that my prayers for a miracle had been heard and answered, just not in the way I expected. My gratitude towards Him overflowed as He helped me do all that was necessary to carry on with life in Jim's absence.

Yet the distance between us remained, and it was agony for me. I couldn't bear to lose the love of my life and the Lover of my soul at the same time! But as in any love relationship, it's hard to get back to the intimacy you once experienced when you feel that the trust between you has been broken. I didn't know how to bridge that gap.

Some say we should have chosen the medical options in conjunction with the spiritual ones, regardless of the risk, rather than putting God to the test of producing a miracle at our request. The list of “what ifs” is long and leads only to regret and recrimination. I was ready to move forward if I could just find again some stable footing on which to place my feet.

In the end, it came down to a simple choice. God took me back to a time decades ago when our relationship was in this exact spot. While the stakes were much smaller in the earlier situation, the spiritual consequences were just as huge. I had believed God for something and it hadn't happened; as a new believer I was devastated and questioned whether I could carry on with a God who didn't seem to keep His promises. My confusion and pain made me miserable. I remember exactly where I was when God suddenly asked me if I could simply trust Him, even if I didn't understand the way He had handled the circumstances I was going through.

There is no way to convey how huge that moment was for me. I felt the weight of it; I knew I had come to a crossroads in my spiritual walk, even in its early stages, and that the course of my life would be very different depending on the choice I made. I could continue to walk with God, even without completely understanding everything that happened to me, or I could turn and journey on alone.

Could I trust Him? I said yes. And when the question came up again in these last few months, I ended up giving the same reply. Yes, I will believe in You. Yes, I will trust You. Yes, I will absolutely love You, no matter what happens, “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health...” I smile now at the familiarity of those words.

I did buy myself a necklace to celebrate my anniversary (www.theyesnecklace.com), and like the day I'm celebrating, it looks very different from what I thought it would.... still a "precious gem", just in a different form. Saying “yes” to Jim on this day gave me 40 years of love and joy; saying “yes” to God guarantees me an eternity of the same.

“Preserve me, O God, for in You I have put my trust...I have set the Lord always before me; Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope...You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

(Psalm 16:1,8-9,11 NKJV)

“If you want the peace that surpasses uderstandingyou have to give up your right to understand.”

• Bill Johnson