Hello from Virginia

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Hi friends!

I know it has been a long time since I've written.  I'm spending my days teaching piano lessons, cooking, unpacking, and exploring in my new home state of Virginia.  It's wonderful.  But I'm not technologically set up at my home yet, and my moments at my husband's office computer are limited.

His select high school choir sang in church last Sabbath.  The Lord blessed, and used their voiced to draw people into the worship service.

We received our diplomas in the mail yesterday.  I was going to share a picture, but like I said, technology isn't a huge part of our home life yet.  Those two pieces of paper sure represent a lot of prayer, hard work, study, and all the lovely graduate school experiences that came along with them!

So.  About teaching piano lessons.  I love it.  I need a lot of help from the Master Teacher every day, but I have great students, each with their own talents and struggles and personalities.  I love the process of befriending them and helping them realize the dreams and joys of learning an instrument.

I bought peaches to freeze the first day we were in town here.  It was the last day they were selling, so I didn't take my chances to find another orchard after getting settled in the house.  I froze them in the school's guest apartment and was grateful that there was a freezer in its kitchen (which I didn't know the moment I wrote the check for those fifty pounds of tasty beauty).

I can't wait to be visited by lots of relatives.  Our new house has plenty of space for all of them.  And the big garden space in the back will have so many wonderful things growing in it by this time next  year.  I can't wait--except I don't want the time to pass too quickly now, because I like what I'm doing.

May God's sweetest graces fill your hearts and lives.

Love you all muchly,
Heidi

P.S. More soon, Lord willing.

Farewell

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It welcomed us to Michigan almost two years ago, brake-less and fearless.  It has entertained children and frightened mothers ever since.  But we'll be saying goodbye to it and all its lovely people soon, Lord willing.  And we'll miss them, the bike without brakes included.

Sometimes the Sun Comes Out Sooner than You Think

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 Sometimes after we get caught by storms, dropped off in the parking lot, changed into dry clothes, the sun comes out.  Right then.  And really, I'm not kidding.  It's beautiful, warm, hot, enticing.  But instead of going back out to the water, we go to the mansion next door.  And first notice God's little house, just across the way from the mansion built for groups of people to occupy at one time.

 We enjoy the water made beautiful by blue dye, and reflect that we like to drink only the clear water of life.  We can't wait to see that pure river of water of life proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

 We read the sign, and find that the mansion really was more like a glorified dorm for religious adults, and then later a prison.  Or was that the other building down the hill?  Either way, it didn't seem quite so dreamy after that.  Like some of those things we think are really amazingly wonderful that turn out to be amazingly not-so-wonderful.

 Still, it was beautiful, and we were glad they planted flowers to grow next to the pond.

 And made a cute little gate that even when it was shut made us want to enter in.  And I wonder, since I like this little gate so much, how I will like the big, grand gates made of one pearl each instead of humble wrought iron.  Can you even imagine them?  Don't you want to see them?

 Wouldn't it be worth traveling a straight and narrow path, rather than this curvy, adorable one, just to see those pearly gates?

 Here on this earth, even mansions of luxury have places of humble use.  Places that look pleasant on the outside, with their cheerful red paint, but that probably really stink on the inside.  I hope my heart isn't like that.  But if it is, my prayer is "Fix me, Jesus."

 When you visit mansions, sometimes there's a moment that tells you how classy your mother really is, and how skilled is her eye for beauty.  This time, that was when I saw their potted flowers, planted just like my mother likes to plant hers.  With the spikey things in the middle.

 If I lived in a mansion, I might just choose a cozy little corner to call my own, like this nook at the top, overlooking the grounds.  And then I would just hope the rest of the mansion was filled with people I love.

 I'm glad they made the windows big.  Big enough to see outside, and to let in the light.  I pray my heart is also big and open enough to let in the light from the Word of God, which is the Lamp for my feet, and the Light to my path.

Something tells me these turkeys were just as happy living out in the grassy field as they would have been living in the mansion.  I hope I'm content where I'm placed, too, strengthened by Christ.

Grandpa

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This morning, my sister-in-law sent me a video, one with a bit about the family history, the pioneer days in Alaska.  It features Grandpa, and you'll see the farm, the butte, the mountains where the little white dots (goats and sheep) live.  It'll take you about eight minutes, and it starts about two minutes into the video.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

We'll Miss This

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The lake.  The dunes.  The friends. 

When I think of the friends we'll miss, I get tears in my eyes.

And it seems like only yesterday that we arrived, knowing no one.
(Or maybe like five.)
Like yesterday, but really like ten years ago, we know the friends that well.
When it has actually been just shy of two.

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When I see these flowers up agains a white wall, I think, How beautifl.  How striking.  How lovely to have a tiny, tall flower garden.

But I've read recently how much Adam and Eve grieved to see the first leaf die on this earth, and marvel how much we've become accustomed to this leaf-death.  I look at the flowers again, and see the brown this time.  Not just the green, the red, the vibrant black centers. 

I see the fallen red, the red on the ground.  The dead red. 
The dead red that should have been living.

And I think of living green.  Fields of it. 
In heaven, where even the plucked flowers will never fade.  I long to be there.

I've been reading a lot these last few weeks about being ready for heaven, ready to enjoy that living green that far exceeds any spring green we've witnessed on our waxing-old earth.  About learning here to speak Canaan's languae.  I've read how out of place the Christian is in this world, how nobly peculiar we each will be as we follow our Jesus, taking up our crosses.

Isn't any sacrifice worth heaven?  Isn't it always worth dwelling, for example, on the true, the noble, the right, the pure...?  Isn't it worth seeming a little strange to our friends sometimes, strange because we are so ardently seeking our God that we stand out, even dangerously so?

Daniel thought it was worth everything.  His very life.  If he hadn't, he would not have, as a prisoner of the conquering king, requested a different diet from the rest.  He wouldn't have prayed three times every day in front of an open window, knowing full well it was against the law to do so.

And lately, we've been singing--memorizing--songs about heaven.  Songs about how life on this earth is exile from home, but Jesus is coming soon.  And the songs go through my mind all day, and bring my heart more in tune with the longing for home.  The real home.

The New Best Hot Weather Idea

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We've been trying to save money on air conditioning, but let's just say studying when it's hot is, well, hard.  So we've made a wading pool.  It's also known as a bathtub.  We just fill the tub ankle-deep with cold water, set a folded up towel outside to step on when we're leaving the wading pool, and that's it.  We've been amazed at how long the water stays cool (or at least feels cool to our feet), and it will get us through another hot one today.