I guess the storms this week have messed with my sleep patterns as I was up earlier this morning than I had planned to be.  The workday part of page 176 began with cleaning bathrooms and taking out trash as part of the freshening up the building from last night’s VBS session and preparing it for tonight’s.  Between the weather and taking a day to pray at the camp each week, I was not able to split the mowing into two partial days this week so I was out early for a day full of mowing.  Even when it doesn’t look like the grass has grown much, a freshly mown lawn has a nice look to it.  By keeping at it, with an occasional Dr Pepper break, I was able to get the entire property mowed by mid-afternoon which meant it was time to call it a day and get some lunch.  

After I finished lunch, I went home and then Susan and I headed to the riverwalk to do some walking and take some pictures.  As I look back, it is funny how God connected some of my thoughts while walking with the results of a photo I took along the way — but I didn’t realize it until I got home and began looking at the photos.  Anyhow, we’ll get back to that later in the page. 🙂  As we walk, I’m pushing Susan in a wheelchair and periodically I’ll hear a bell or horn being sounded by a bicycle rider.  Some of them are simply a courtesy to let us know they are approaching  and will be coming around us.  Others act like they are more of a warning, sometimes followed by a vocal call to “make way”, as if the sidewalk belongs to them and I need to run Susan off of the sidewalk so they don’t have to slow down and show any consideration for other users of the park.  Granted, coming from behind they may not notice I am pushing a wheelchair, but that really shouldn’t matter as I have as much right to be there as they do.  Just something that bugs me, I guess.  

Part of the riverwalk runs between the river and a road that has several stop signs along it.  You can probably make a pretty close guess as to how many cars stop at those stop signs — very few.  Something else that bugs me, I guess.  While my mind was thinking about that, I realized that I have a tendency to let a lot of things bug me.  And most of them, like ringing bells on bicycles and cars rolling through stop signs, I can do nothing about.  Somehow I think there is an application I need to apply that is found in the midst of the teaching of Jesus not to worry about tomorrow for each day has enough trouble of its own.  Perhaps my application paraphrase should say, “Don’t be bugged by things which you have no control over for there are enough things that you can do something about that you should be bugged over.”  Reminded me of a saying that one of the ladies would often say during a prayer journey in Ireland I participated in years ago: “If I was in charge I might be worried about that.  But since I’m not, I’m not.”  It is difficult for me to not worry, or not be bugged, about things that I know aren’t right even if I know I’m not in a position to do anything about it.  

And now the “fun” part.  I didn’t take a lot of pictures during the walk today but did get a few of some of the flowers blooming and a couple ducks.  I did find the ducks funny as they were playing in the water and I was reminded of the phrase, “Like water off a duck’s back.”  I guess that was reminder number one not to be so bugged by things that are not my concern.  But even more remarkable to me was what I saw when I got home and began going through the pictures I had taken.  Perhaps you’re ahead of me and have already noticed what’s in the picture on today’s page.  If not, look at the center of today’s photo and you will see a “bug” on the lily blossom I photographed!  I was using a long telephoto lens so I was zoomed in from maybe 30 feet or more away and in the small viewfinder of my camera saw nothing but the beauty of the lily.  I think God was trying to remind me that sometimes things bug me for a purpose and sometimes they are a distraction.  It is imperative that I learn through time spent with God in prayer and His Word what response, or lack of response, is appropriate for each thing that tries to bug me.

I pray that you and I would continually grow in our understanding of the responsibilities God has given us.  I pray that we would be diligent about taking care of the things that are ours to deal with and that we would be just as diligent about not being bugged by the things that are not ours to deal with.  I pray that we would pay attention to the lessons God puts before us each day that we live.

Page 175 followed another stormy night which meant sleep was in a somewhat shorter supply than usual.  It was also a reminder of how quickly time passes as we celebrated our daughter’s 27th birthday today!  There must be something wrong with the calendar math because her 27th birthday would mean I might be starting to get old and that can’t be right. 😉  I spent a little time before work going through photos of Susan to choose some to post as we celebrate her birthday.  As I traveled back in time through photographs, a short poem entered my mind that I shared with the photos.  In honor of Susan, I add it to today’s page:

Happy Birthday Susan!

Today is the day
that we celebrate.
The birthday of one
who really is great!
Down through the years
we’ve had lots of fun.
With this sweet, grown-up girl
who shines like the sun!

Page 173 began as a continuation of the previous day’s power outage.  I woke up around 2 AM to the sounds of various appliances restarting, signifying that the electric power had been restored.  Once I was awake, sleep seemed to evade me so I spent the early morning hours writing yesterday’s page.  When I had it written and published, I went to bed and got a few hours of sleep before heading into work this morning.  With Vacation Bible School at church this week, I began the day checking bathrooms, flushing toilets, and freshening things up.  My morning was spent taking care of some of the record-keeping and correspondence for the church’s missions ministry.  With yesterday’s power fluctuations at the church building, some of the A/C controls were still cycling through a reset, so I spent time checking on each of them to make sure they would be running for tonight’s VBS session.  By the end of the workday, my lack of sleep last night was catching up with me so I headed home with rest and relaxation on my mind.  

I did rest for a little while and then while MJ went to church for VBS, I put some chicken on the pellet grill then Susan and I headed to Mishawaka and spent some time walking the riverwalk while the chicken cooked.  It was a beautiful evening for a walk and plenty of photo opportunities throughout our stroll.  One of the evening’s photos was of a lily that as I framed it up in my viewfinder, made me think of a title, “What was, what is, and what is to come.”  The lily stem contains a dead blossom that was, a current blossom that is, and some buds that are blossoms yet to come.  While the photo made me think of the description of Jesus who was and who is and who is to come, it also made me think of my relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  My relationship with God was in existence as part of His creation from the time I was born.  My relationship with God is growing now because of the redeeming work of Christ.  My relationship with God is to come when I arrive home and dwell in His presence for eternity.

I pray that you and I would not only value where our relationship with God currently stands, but we would look forward to that relationship growing as we mature in Christ.  I pray that we would help others grow in their relationship with God as we represent Jesus Christ in everything we do.  I pray that we would make the most of our current situations even as we anticipate a glorious future as we approach the day of Christ’s return.

Page 172 began in the normal Monday fashion but the last third of it was spent without electricity at home.  I was awake early, so I went in to work and started the day doing a little cleaning and taking out trash from the receptacles in the bathrooms and foyer.  While it is not a huge task, taking out the trash first thing Monday morning has a huge benefit.  Removing the trash in a timely fashion not only helps an area look better, it helps prevent bad smells and bugs that come looking for food.  The same is true about the trash that accumulates in our life.  The more diligent we are about recognizing it and removing it in a timely fashion, the better our life looks and we are able to give off a fragrant aroma of Christ rather than the stench of garbage and the evil that seeks to feed on it.

Once I had made the rounds through the building, I settled into my Monday morning task of writing a prayer guide for next week.  Some weeks I go in to the office with a good idea of what the topic will be and other weeks I find myself trying to be still before God as I spend time in prayer trying to know what He would have me write.  Today was one of those that I was having a difficult time hearing.  Eventually I settled on the topic of “Words” and once that was clear, the daily prayer points about how we choose and use our words flowed rather freely.  When next week’s prayer guide was complete, I spent some time working on my current book project.  Sometimes writing these devotional journals that God has had me doing recently end up taking longer than I anticipate because I find myself drawn into many of the daily topics.  The most recent topic that is taking longer than I expected is about heaven being a home with living bread — the life-giving bread of Jesus.  As I spent time with God coming up with devotional questions and thoughts for that topic, I was drawn into a time of worship as I realized just how much the presence of Jesus in my life sustains me each day.

With an early start to the day, by mid-afternoon it was time to get some lunch and call it an end to the workday.  It was rather hot and muggy outside so I picked up a sandwich and headed down to Potato Creek to sit along the lake for a little while, hoping to catch the bald eagle out doing some late-afternoon fishing.  By the time I got there, the sky begun to get very dark to the north and soon descended on the park.  The eagle never made an appearance, but I was able to spend some time sitting on the dock watching the clouds roll in before the rain finally arrived and sent me packing.  As I left the park and headed home, I drove through the brunt of the storm with a torrential downpour that made visibility difficult and left standing water on many of the roads.  As I was nearing my house I got a message that the lights had flickered off a few times at the church but the electricity remained on but we were without power at home.  Since I was out, I stopped by the church to check on things and then headed home.

Since our electric was out at home, I pulled out the gas grill and cooked hamburgers for supper.  By this time, the storm was well past us and the sky had cleared with the brightness of the sun shining through the few remaining clouds.  Standing at my grill, I was at just the right spot that the sun was “topping” the large pine tree on our property.  So inside I went to grab my camera and play with the settings in an attempt to capture what my eye was seeing — the photo on today’s page is the best I could do.  As I thought about this scene, and the beautiful sunset that would follow a few hours later, I thought about how God carries us through the storms of life and brings us into the peace and calm of His presence.  Yes, the storms will come and there will be times we find ourselves right in the middle of what seems like the worst of it.  But God tells us that the storms — the things that cause us to weep — are temporary.  Weeping may last for a night, but the joy we have in Christ comes in the morning!

As the sun set in a neighborhood with no electricity, I could hear the steady hum of a few generators as attempted to get some sleep.  The sun had been out long enough after the rain that the air had become warm and humid so the open windows didn’t seem to help much in creating a comfortable atmosphere to sleep in.  I finally ended up on a couch in the basement, but even then it was more tossing and turning than sleeping.  Finally, sometime around 2 AM I began to hear the sound dehumidifier coming to life with a series of beeps and realized the electricity had been restored.  I made the mistake of turning on the computer to check email and here I am two hours later finishing up the writing of page 172. 🙂

I pray that you and I would daily spend time with God and allow the conviction of His Spirit to lead us in “taking out the trash” from our mind and life.  I pray that we would live a cleansed life that offers a pleasing aroma of worship to God.  I pray that we would not be dismayed when the storms of life come against us but that we would trust God to carry us through to the peace we have with Him after the storm passes.  I pray that our confidence in the peace that is coming would give us a spirit of peace even during the storm.

Page 171 was a Sunday but it actually began as a continuation of page 170 when I went in to work late Saturday night for a “quick” freshening up of the building for the Sunday morning worship gathering.  Sometime after I had restocked the bathrooms and did the initial cleaning so I wouldn’t need to spend much time taking care of it Saturday night, someone decided they needed many of the rolls of toilet paper out of the bathrooms.  These were complete rolls missing — no cardboard cores left on the dispenser rollers and none to be found in any of the trash.  While it added to the late night time I needed to spend, I was thankful that I decided to freshen up the bathrooms even though I had already prepped them for the weekend — it’s not a good thing for people to discover there is no toilet paper when they are in the restroom.  🙂

Anyhow, that part of page 171 didn’t take long and I was in bed and trying to sleep by 1 AM.  For some reason I had a difficult time falling asleep but after I eventually did, I didn’t make it up in time to make it back to the church building for Sunday School.  We did make it for the morning worship gathering to praise and worship our heavenly Father for His goodness and mercy in calling us to Himself.  The morning message was shared by one of our elders, Carl Evans, and during the sermon a poem I had previously written came to mind with the idea that I should share it.  When I’m in town I generally do the closing prayer time for the service so I knew I would have opportunity if I could find the poem by then.  I pulled out my phone and after a quick search of my writing website I found the poem I was looking for, “My Dad”.  It is a poem that God put in my mind to write two years ago on the eve of Father’s day 2014.

After the worship service we went out for lunch then I rested for a little bit at home before heading to my mom and dad’s farm to wish dad a happy Father’s Day.  As we drove up the farm lane, I noticed one of the glads had begun to blossom, so after we had visited for a while I headed out to photograph some of the flowers mom and dad grow.  While it is a little early in the season for many of the flowers and because the grow the fields of flowers to sell plants and cut flowers, it can be a difficult thing to actually find a lot of blossoms.  I did manage to find a variety of lilies in bloom, a few hollyhocks, some daisies and early blooming flowers, and one glad stem with open blossoms.  Glads are one of my favorite flowers and the rows in today’s photo are just a small sample of the work that goes into the flower fields that mom and dad grow.  As these flowers start to open, they will be cut and brought up to the Farmers Market in South Bend to sell.  The fields of flowers that are not only grown, but are kept cultivated, weeded, and watered before being picked are a testament to the work ethic of my parents.

While this “Father’s Day” page may be a little different than many of the pages I write, I know there are many lessons represented in what I’ve written because I have learned so many lessons from my parents.  I think of the photo I’ve included on the page and recognize the need to keep the weeds from taking root in my life.  Years ago I tried to grow sweet corn and other vegetables to sell but it was at a time in my life when I didn’t have the energy to really take care of it and most of my field had weeds taller than the sweet corn.  Needless to say, while the weeds prospered, the sweet corn did not.  For my life to fully prosper in the way God designed it to, I must carefully guard my mind and thoughts against the weeds that try to take root and grow.  Any weed that I allow to remain in my life will eventually draw the strength and nourishment I need away from my spiritual growth.  As I spend time with God in prayer and His Word, I allow His Spirit to cultivate and purify the soil of my heart and mind.

I pray that you and I would always give honor where honor is due.  I pray that we would find ways to honor our parents as we live in obedience to God’s command to do so.  I pray that we would examine the condition of the soil of our heart and mind as we seek the best conditions for God’s Word to grow and produce fruit in our life.  

Page 170 was a summer Saturday which means it was a dad/daughter morning, grilled hamburgers for lunch, and a family afternoon.  Sometimes predictability can be a good thing. 🙂  As Susan and I headed to the zoo, she had one thing on her mind — a lion!  She had down-sized her stuffed animal just before we went on vacation to something that would be manageable on the plane.  Since arriving home, and beginning to realize her birthday was fast approaching, she has been increasingly restless about finding a new animal.  In keeping with her child-like faith and innocence, what she really wanted was to bring one of the actual lions home from the zoo!  I was able to convince her that the zoo was where the lions lived and they needed to stay at their home to visit with the people who come to see them.  After we had made it around to see the animals we stopped by the gift shop where Susan found a lion that she fell in love with that was much smaller and less live than the one she originally preferred — though to her, just as real.  I bought it for her birthday and Susan was beaming and waving to everyone as we left the zoo.

We stopped and picked up a few groceries on the way home, then fired up the pellet grill to make some mushroom bacon cheeseburgers for lunch.  After relaxing for a while in the afternoon, we headed to Goshen for a family walk along the millrace . . . and to get ice cream.  While a little warm, it was a beautiful evening for a walk with so much beauty to see while being serenaded along the walk by an assortment of song birds.  Also along the walk was a large patch of black raspberry vines containing the first ripe raspberries I’ve seen this season.  After our walk we made a stop at Sam’s Club before heading home where I sat down to write today’s page before heading to work for a while to make sure the bathrooms are clean and the building is ready for tomorrow.  Praying that when I get there I keep my mind focused and don’t create an all-night job for myself like I did last week.

As I thought about the day, Susan’s lion and the raspberries were reminders of waiting, of patience, of seasons, of life itself.  When Jesus says that we must become like little children or we will never see the kingdom of heaven, I immediately think of Susan.  She has a clear view of heaven and is always excited about taking whatever animal she attaches herself to with her to heaven to see Jesus.  Susan has always attached herself to a stuffed animal for a season of time that brings her joy and comfort.  Eventually that season ends and she starts to get restless and begins the process of deciding what will be the right companion to keep her company for the next season.  As a person who doesn’t handle change well, seasons are difficult for me.  Seasons of weather or seasons of life each bring their own assortment of changes — some easier to appreciate than others.  There is a season when raspberries bloom, a season when the ripen, and a season when they are dormant.  Most people only appreciate the ripening season, but all of the seasons are necessary in order to have berries to enjoy.  

I pray that you and I would understand the changing seasons that we experience in life.  I pray that we would have a child-like faith that longs for heaven and desires to take others with us.  I pray that we would make the most of the days we have with the friends and family that God has put in our lives.