Five Minute Friday ~ Ember

Gypsy Mama is taking a break from Five Minute Friday for the month of December; since I'm on vacation the next several weeks, I've got a lot more time than usual to enjoy Five Minute Friday this month...

So, I didn't want to stop. I came up with a list of words that might be heard around Christmastime - and randomly select one for each Friday in December.

This Friday's word is...

Ember

Hot

Mesmerizing

Dangerous

Constant

Potential

Glowing

Bonfire in our front yard or fire in the fireplace... Niger or Michigan... Glowing embers of a fire are inevitably one of those lovely things about the Christmas season. 

Just the other night, for Jonathan's birthday, I made marshmallows and chocolate graham crackers, we invited a few other families with boys Jonathan's age to join us, and for a couple of hours we sat around those embers visiting, exchanging stories, roasting the marshmallows and using the graham crackers to make modified s'mores to munch, and sometimes just quietly soaking up the warmth while staring at those glowing chunks of wood.

Sometimes Jesus followers are compared to embers in a fire. Have you ever heard that metaphor before? 

Coal embers are most powerful, most potent, most probable capable to exert energy and to warm when they are gathered together. Long after the fire has died, those embers maintain the capacity to explode once again into flame for a much longer than expected time, but only if they have been nurtured by other coals.

I'm the same. I can keep on for a period of time when I'm on my own and there are seasons where that is unavoidable and necessary. But I must always, periodically, find my way back through the gate, into that circle of warm fellowship and companionship with others who are lit by the same infinite flame to reheat, recharge... 

Otherwise, all the potential buried within remains there, buried.

So basic, but so powerful... This lesson to gleaned from watching ember emanate, converting potential energy into powerful exhibitions of what God is able and willing do in and through one who is a member of His body.

Photo by Michel Filion

Five Minute Friday ~ Quiet

"Come and get your free write on in just 5 minutes!

Where a beautiful crowd spends five minutes all writing on the same topic and then sharing ‘em over here [@ Lisa Jo's]!

...Now, set your timer, clear your head, for five minutes of free writing without worrying about getting it right.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.

2. Link back here and invite others to join in.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

OK, are you ready? Please give us your best five minutes on..."

Quiet…

...GO

A relatively new tradition for our family... celebrating its two-and-one-half birthday soon...

At least one Saturday morning a month, I wake early and in the quiet of those last dark hours while listening to the bats beep, the call to prayer from the mosque over the hill and the soft gurgling of water running over the barrage,  I make doughnuts...

chocolate cream filled sprinkled with vanilla sugar

pumpkin cream filled sprinkled with pumpkin spiced sugar

Even though it means I don't sleep in on Saturday, in this most-of-the-time lively, noisy full-to-bursting with eight kids and their friends home, those few hours of nonstop motion in such relative quiet also measure sanity for Mama. I think about making doughnuts... boiling milk, sifting flour, proofing yeast, measuring spices, kneading dough, cutting holes, heating oil, dripping glaze... Ironic that I uncover such restfulness in a lack of sleep and quiet busyness? Perhaps, but these simple yet creative tasks gentle my spirit, distract me from pressing matters, give me something on which to focus my actions and coordinate my thoughts. Not Scripture, I'm still directed to thing on lovely, pure, noble, good things like serving my family, the smiles on their faces, the success of adapting a recipe or what I learned when it didn't work so well, how my Lord is standing in the kitchen, quietly visiting with me as I work.

pumpkin maple glazed yeast doughnuts

I discovered an archaic term for worry... I thought the word existed only in French, but inquiet was once used in English, too. It denotes anxiety, worry, lack of peace, striving, fighting, opposition...

The opposite of quiet ~ 

STOP!

early morning helpers glazing doughnut holes

while sneaking tastes of the glaze

fruit of the labor - lots of smiles and delighted taste buds

Day of Rest

"Rivers know this: there is no hurry.

We shall get there... some day."
~ Winnie the Pooh ~

Thursday is my favorite day of the week.

It is the one consistent day each week that I have made the time to get up early to just sit with the Lord, to slow down and relax, think, leisurely study, lesson plan, menu plan, spend chunks of time in prayer, drink tea (raspberry flavored, of course!) on the terrace, spend time with a friend, be still and know...

I love starting my morning early... watching the sunrise... as the river slips quietly by...

I'm learning as I do nothing but sit, sip, stare, hear the wind and water, listen to the world softly begin to stir,

observe fishermen start their work,

glimpse boatmen ferrying their passengers.

I'm understanding that sometimes the best stewardship of time the Lord has given is quiet stillness given back to Him.

He uses that time to prepare me for the adventures of the coming week... helping me to meet them with anticipation and joy, delighting in watching God's mighty hand work His designs and His plan.


Last-school-year-graduated boys... big boys my crew is missing... boys enjoying the sometimes gentle,
sometimes turbulent but always flowing, going, and eventually getting there Niger River.

Thinking thoughts... while kneading bread...

...which is, I guess, better than not thinking. Seriously though, I'm finding these early Friday morning bread baking times quite delightful as I pray, meditate and work. As I mentioned the other day, I had great hopes that I would be using my Kitchen Aid to knead all the whole wheat bread that this family likes to eat. It didn't take long to discover however, that my machine just wasn't big enough for our favorite bread recipe... and that rather than trying to divide the recipe into smaller batches, it would be more efficient to go ahead and knead it by hand. And as I've done so, God has encouraged my heart as we've spent time together...

There is something uniquely wonderful when you knead bread by hand!  It starts as a gooey, sticky, lumpy mess that mushes between your fingers, under your fingernails and if you forget to remove it, every knook and cranny of your wedding ring. But as you continue to work with the dough, it transforms from that beginning glob of gooeyness. It starts to smooth out, stick more to itself than your hands as you fold::push::turn::fold::push::turn... sometimes you need to add a bit more flour because it is too sticky, but there is this magical moment where the dough that had been hard, sticky and difficult to work suddenly feels satiny smooth and soft, elastic and pliable, gently bouncing back each time you push it down, for the yeast has started to do its job.

Now, it doesn't always work out this way - I've got to get the right proportions of all of the ingredients into the dough. Too much flour makes the dough stiff and hard and the resulting bread is dry and heavy. Too much water makes the dough sticky and difficult to work. Water too hot kills the yeast and the bread never rises. Too much yeast and the bread starts to smell like one of those breweries where the yeast was fermenting (our swim coach used to take the team to tour breweries when we were on our annual Trip Team) ...and so on.

While I was considering all of these things, the Holy Spirit brought to mind these words from Philippians 1: "I thank my God in all remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus."

I'm glad Paul is confident... because I don't always feel that way. I look at the mess of things that seems dumped into my life - and it is nothing but a sticky, gooey, goopy mess that no one would want to plunge their hands into. Yet God does... and in fact, He is the master baker who rolled up His sleeves, precisely measured exactly which ingredients He wanted into that bowl of my life and then begins folding::pushing::turning::folding::pushing::turning ...kneading and working until someday, some blessed moment I will become what He wants... elastic and pliable in His hands, smooth and gentle to touch, ready to rise. And we have the promise in His Word that the work He has begun He will continue to perfect.

It was also a fabulous reminder - it is easy to look at brothers and sisters in the Lord around me (or my children) and forget that the same Sovereign who is working and kneading my life is also working and kneading in their lives. I shouldn't be deeming their lives or situations as sticky, gooey, goopy messes or lumps of dough that should be tossed out since they could never rise... because the Heavenly Father has just as precisely measured out the ingredients of their circumstances and will continue to work and knead until they, too, are exactly where He wants them... because He cannot not be true to His promise.

Now that I've written all that out, I'm not sure if it will make sense to anyone else who reads this... but I've been so thankful to meditate on... and return to ruminate some more on... these thoughts, particularly as I spend time with the Lord and a rather large pile of leavened dough early Friday mornings.

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Photo by ceaserastudillo, on Flickr

Traveling Delights

I took the kids (only some of them, to be exact) out to pick blueberries recently... and snapped some pictures (a lot of them, of course).

"Peek-a-boo" through the bushes was a favorite pose of the kids!

Cousin Emily came along with us. She enjoyed snacking on the berries... 2 in the mouth, 1 in the bucket!

Anna was probably my best berry picker - maybe she likes blueberries better than all the others!

She indulged liberally... even leaving some very tell-tale signs. =D She and I agreed that it was best to take a handful at a time - that way the sweet berries mixed with the tart or sour ones - which was even better than either all by itself.

Jonathan, on the other hand, doesn't like blueberries... NOT.AT.ALL! Thus his bucket always filled rapidly, which he thought was great fun.

Here's Nadia and her first contribution.

However, the hands down favorite of all the kids was the lollypop bucket they got to dig through after all the berries were weighed (We picked 11 pounds in about an hour, just in case you wanted to know.).

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Our pastor has been preaching on heaven recently - encouraging sermons that both Tim and I have remarked to each other: "I've needed that." Yesterday, he used the phrase "joy in the journey," which reminded me of a song by that title to which I used to listen... a lot.

There is a joy in the journey

There's a light we can love on the way

There is a wonder and wildness to life

And freedom for those who obey

And all those who seek it shall find it

A pardon for all who believe

Hope for the hopeless and sight for the blind

To all who've been born in the Spirit

And who share incarnation with Him

Who belong to eternity stranded in time

And weary of struggling with sin

Forget not the hope that's before you

And never stop counting the cost

Remember the hopelessness when you were lost

There is a joy in the journey

There's a light we can love on the way

There is a wonder and wildness to life

And freedom for those who obey

It is good to be back in the States... but even with all its perks, life in the States still has its frustrations and discouragements. Still not having all our bags unpacked and put away is frustrating. Unexpected "bumps" in the road as well as ones that are bigger than we thought they'd be (like the amount of additional monthly support we need to raise in the next 11 months) make us wonder what God's plan for us might be. But we can't forget the joy that is before us, which allows us to find joy all throughout life's journey, regardless of season or circumstances... and right now, we aren't stoppin' to smell the flowers... we are tryin' to stop and pick all the berries we can find.

Thinking about Refreshment

Sometimes I absolutely love my life and wouldn't change anything about it... except maybe the excessive heat and frequent power cuts.

Other times I look at my life and wonder, "What in the world...?" or even worse, "Why do I bother...?" I feel like nothing is being accomplished, my heart is weary, I wonder if we are making any difference... even the things that I normally love to do (home schooling, Bible study preparation, stumbling through a mixed Zarma/French converstion with my friend, sipping ice tea at the pool with a friend and watching the kiddos play) seem like they require too much effort, so I just keep folding laundry (of which there is always an abundance) or continue packing up books we won't be using before we leave on furlough, looking to find a reead since new reads require, like all the rest, just.too.much.effort.

Lately, it seems like the latter has been the norm...

Today, I had a few minutes of unexpected time, so I decided to catch up on a few unread emails as well as some of the blogs I like to peruse; it was time well spent.

So, when you've got a few quiet minutes, go ahead and savor these reads:

~ "Drawing from a Dry Well" at Coffegirl Confessions

~ "Time-wise," by Gayle Francis, found at Peter's Wife

and

~ "Released from Worry..." at Holy Experience.

These, a time of prayer and a recent Bible study on Elizabeth that I've taken some time to revisit today (maybe I'll share about that another time) have helped refresh my perspective~~~

Keeping the Vigil...

Often in Niger, we find it difficult to get in the Christmas spirit... it just doesn't feel like Christmas... not cold enough, no snow, no Christmas carols played over sound systems in the stores, no lights decorating homes around town... even at church, while we may sing some Christmas hymns and carols - they sound different, especially in a different language and to the accompaniment of a drum... so many of the "trappings" that we identify with the Christmas season are not easily a part of our lives in Niger.

However even though back in the US and enjoying all of the above mentioned "trappings", I'm finding that it can be easy to miss out on the Christmas spirit here, too. Only here, it is not because of a lack, but because of too much - too much distraction and too much frivolous busyness to take the time to meditate on why we even have a Christmas.

Thus, I really appreciated the following read from what is probably my favorite blog to follow, Holy Experience, entitled "Finding Christmas." May we all search for Christ's presence this Christmas season, in spite of all the distractions or walking through the desert minues all the typical reminders, for if we seek Him, He promises we will find Him.

Wordless Wednesday - Super Sweet Sleepyheads...