new blog!!!

Here it is:

http://eskimomomma.blogspot.com/

Called: Now & Then, Here & Now, This & That

I hope you visit me there!

New Blog

I have resolved to start a new blog. I like some, well most, of what I've written in this blog but it just doesn't seem to cover everything I want to say. I want to talk about how my hands suddenly look like my moms. I want to share cute things Grace has said and how the whole way home from church yesterday she sang me a made up song about loving me forever and sang 'mommy' in as many different ways as she could think of. I want to note the times I love my taller-than-me 13 year old son so much I could burst. He's very funny and takes great pleasure in making us laugh as he accidentally crosses the line of funny to over-the-top annoying, from loving big brother to exasperated sibling. I have been reading some blogs by other moms, other Christ followers, other wives and they have such a great mix of what I want to write bout my life. OK, so it would be different, but you get what I mean.

So, I'm thinking of a title and when I come up with it I will post it here.

Until then, here's a gem Grace said last Thursday while riding with Micheal and I:

G: Some people don't like to take their Christmas lights down for a long time -
We're some of those people!

M, laughing: Grace, you are awesome!

G: No I'm not awesome! I'm cool... in the pool.

It's all about the rhyme lately...

'those people' are back

Yesterday, 'on the 36th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, a man smashed his SUV into the entrance of the Planned Parenthood office in St. Paul this morning' (Star Tribune). A few days before that there were 'Street Preachers' at the bus hub at UMD all day telling students to 'stop sinning and repent!' and then the pro-life sign-holders came, taking posts across the street with horrifying signs. Tuesday Barak Obama took office as the President of the United States, let the status wars begin on facebook (...is crying tears of joy! ...we're all doomed! Doomed I say! ....)

I was sad to see these things on the news, at my work, on facebook, on blogs. I do think life is sacred. I do think every baby deserves to live and have a loving home. I think people should stop sinning and repent. I also think you can be a democrat or a republican and still love Jesus. I know, I'm a heretic. Or I just love Jesus. I love Jesus. I. love. Jesus!

Everyone has their 'pet project;' republicans have democrats and vice versa, pro-lifers have the pro-choice, street preachers have... everyone who walks down their street. And I have all of them. So... I started this post thinking how they have it all wrong, every one of them and I just learned I am one of them because I feel this way about them. Nice. I guess I'm still working on this love stuff.

Rock Candy

I have saturation on my mind again. Strange, I know. I believe, with all that is in me, that God communicates with us in ways that often only make sense to each person individually. I have always learned well from object lessons... and so saturation leads me to rock candy and the experiments I vividly remember in Mr. Jensen's 7th grade Earth Sciences class. So I'm remembering and trying to process what God is doing.

Rock candy is easy to make. It's even easy to understand how it works. It is a fairly uncomplicated yet amazing process and the results are beautiful and delicious. Basically, sugar is dissolved into water until it can't dissolve even one more tiny crystal. Then you hang a string in the liquid and wait for the water to evaporate causing the sugar to reform as large crystals on the string. Viola! Lovely Rock Candy. Sounds simple, but like everything else in life, there are a few tricks to getting this to work and actually get the end result you want.

First, the water. You can use regular water, just the water that comes right out of your kitchen faucet. BUT, you must put it in a pan and begin heating it. You then add as much sugar as will dissolve in the pan and keep heating until it reaches a rolling boil, all the while stirring and adding sugar. The average ratio is about 4 cups of sugar to about 2 cups of water. This process is called 'super-saturation' and it's actually unstable in that it contains more solute (sugar) than can stay in liquid form, so it must change. This is also a dangerous process and one we were warned to do only under adult supervision at home. Boiling water burns briefly when you get a drop on your skin and can cause a painful burn if spilled. Sugar water becomes a syrup that can burn and sticks to your skin as it continues to burn. You must have this unstable and dangerous concoction to make rock candy. A couple drops of flavoring extract and/or food coloring may be added at this point to flavor and color the final result.


Next this liquid is transferred to a clear glass jar. A cotton string is dipped in the sugar water and then laid out to dry. As the water evaporates from the string, tiny 'seed crystals' will form and provide the starting point for larger crystals. After the string is dry (about 2 days) you can then drop the string back into the water, securing the end with a pencil or dowel across the top, and covering lightly with plastic wrap. The jar should be placed in a cool place, out of direct
light. And then you wait.

As the water evaporates, the sugar in the solution will solidify, ideally on the string with the seed crystals, creating large sugar crystals (monoclinic hemihedral crystalline structures) which are amazingly the exact crystal shape of the tiny sugar crystals the whole process started with. Within a few days to a week, the string can be removed and you have delicious, beautiful rock candy.

So... what, besides a fun science project, have I learned? At the very least:

* Life, in the most basic sense, is normal or common like water, and it is only by making judicious additions to it that it becomes something else, something more. What am I adding to my life? What do I choose to be saturated with?

* Rock candy cannot be made until the water is super-saturated, not just water with a sprinkling of sugar, but must have the heat and must have a high content of the final product.

* The seed crystals are important - imagine if a toxic substance were used to begin the crystal growth? It would taste good and look beautiful - Oh so easy to be deceived! Also, the crystals, so tiny to begin with, are the ultimate result, yet BIGGER and BETTER and more LOVELY than a few cups full of granulated sugar...

* Oh - and if the process doesn't work the first time, the best way to fix this is to pour the whole works back into a saucepan and reboil it, starting over in a clear jar - who among us hasn't felt the fire of having to be 'reboiled' as we tried to work our own magic? Uncomfortable, to say the least.

* Ultimately, what kind of crystals and I growing? Am I growing any at all? What flavor and color am I? Or do I look like a lukewarm glass of water with dust floating on top? And most importantly, what am I saturated with? What do people see? I hope they see God moving in my life. I hope they feel Jesus loving them. I hope they feel the indescribable Holy Spirit touching them. I want to be saturated, I want to be supersaturated so God can create something beautiful.

I would love to hear your story of saturation.

Laboring

A few friends and acquaintances have had babies recently. I've watched these ladies from their pregnancy announcement, usually disclosed with great excitement and fanfare, through the morning sickness of the first trimester. I've watched their tummies grow along with their energy in their second trimester. And I've sympathized as their energy flags in the last trimester as they have trouble doing normal activities like washing dishes and getting wet clothes out of a washing machine, even getting out of a chair. And then they labor. And I, I am thankful! So thankful it's not me. Thankful to avoid the responsibility of one more thing in my life. Thankful my post labor, post C-section healing is done. So thankful that when I see an obviously pregnant woman I pause and thank God it's not me. And because God is never really silent, He's been talking to me about labor.

In His quiet, patient way, God has been reminding me how He is working in me. He is creating something in me, something wonderfully unique and just for me, but because of this I must labor. He has reminded me that I must nurture what He has created and placed in me. I must labor, daily. As the labor progresses, as my mind and spirit strain to accommodate this miracle, all the ideas and preconceived notions I have about God must stretch. My bones, the very tenets I claim through my limited ideas of faith about who God really is and what He wants, must move. These very bones that support this body and keep it upright must move. This body will never be the same again. Inevitably, I must give birth to His creation. As I grudgingly acknowledge this truth, He reminds me that I'm not alone, everything is going according to His plan, He is my labor coach, and I do not labor in vain.

18 Years

Today is a birthday or anniversary of sorts. 18 years ago, at about 11pm in a tiny room on the 11th floor of a dorm at Bemidji State University, I placed my trust in Jesus. I spent over an hour asking a very patient Campus Crusade for Christ student leader exactly what I would have to give up if I made this huge decision, really not concerned with what I would gain and definitely not grasping the infinite value of the gift offered to me. Finally, I tearfully gave up my will, my plans, and my heart in exchange for this new life in Christ and we knocked on the doors of some friends, waking them up to share the Good News. While this isn't a day I usually mark with more than cursory notice, I've been thinking about the pendulum swing of my faith over these 18 years.

I definitely had an 'Us & Them' mentality when I first became a Christian. I was now 'in' and everyone else was 'out.' I was excited to have a group of people that I could call friends who I had the most important thing in common with. The relationship with my boyfriend of 3 years came to a screeching halt with my new faith. He had heard the salvation message before and just wasn't interested, and I was convicted that our relationship couldn't go backwards and be pure again. God definitely had His hand on me when he led me to a Bible camp for the summer - a different one than I had applied to - a camp aligned with my new beliefs. At this camp I learned that Christians shouldn't dance, so we had a band come play and called it a concert (where everyone danced). And the only music that was allowed on the campgrounds was music on a Christian label, resulting in the first time I trashed all my 'nasty secular music'. I probably would have gotten rid of all my Iron Maiden cassettes anyway. I went back to Bemidji for another year in the fall of 1990, with a promise ring on my finger. I had met Micheal at camp and two years later we were married.

I remember times we threw out more secular music (not selling it because then someone else might be corrupted by it) and other decisions we made based on what we thought a Christian ought to do. We choose our church family by listening to rumors and stereotypes of certain denominations. We knew we couldn't be mainline, that's where I came from and I never heard the Gospel. Sure I could have quoted different creeds and the ten commandments and I knew enough to get confirmed, but I didn't know about relationship. We didn't want to be made to speak in tongues or anything else that seemed too strange.

Now I find myself re-evaluating again. I know there are definite right & wrongs, but I think the should & shouldn't areas are grayer that I ever realized. What is okay for me may not be okay for someone else. Is something making you sin? Get rid of it. Has it become an idol? Throw it out. Do you use it to comfort yourself? Is it temporary? What does God think about it? How does it apply to your life? Does it impede or enhance your relationship with Jesus? All this & more to consider.... Here's to 18 more years!

In my dreams

Now He's in my dreams.

On Monday night I had a dream...Wait! I should provide some background first...

Micheal and I have had a long hard year. Between the terrible twos, unemployment, hormones, tween-stuff... It's just been hard, and long, and hard... I've been convinced that we are in this time for a purpose and once in a while I even get a glimpse of what is being accomplished through these daily struggles. One glimpse was seeing Micheal step up and take responsibility for something going on in his life, and repent. Through hard work, prayer, accountability, and lots of God, he feels he's been healed of an issue that was hanging around for over 25 years! What's really to the point of this story, and getting back to the dream, is that I've been growing & learning, too. This stuff with Micheal was hard for me, and 'us', and I took it pretty personally, even though it pre-dated our marriage by years. Somehow I made it about me, when it wasn't. It felt like an intellectual affair, with his time & energy going to something else, something not me. But he's been healed and God's hand is evident in his life, our lives. But I had an unswept

corner in my heart....

So, I had a dream on Monday night. And in the way in which dreams always are, it was strange with more symbols than I can process. The high points are: I was in an arena with my family and many people we know and extended family, many of them ice skating and snacking on concessions. Suddenly, in the way dreams move you from place to place, I was without my family on the arena floor with many people in the seats all around. And there was a man who kissed me. And I kissed him back. In front of all these people I know, while I know I'm married, and they all know I'm married, and my family is there somewhere. Abruptly, I'm no longer on the arena floor, but somewhere else in the arena trying to come up with an explanation for Micheal and I'm mentally ticking through the all possible excuses, 'It didn't mean anything... I don't know how it happened... it was an accident... I won't do it again... it's not a problem... ...!!!' That's it - that's the dream. What set it apart, besides the part where I kiss someone other than Micheal, is the vivid impression it left with me. I can remember every detail clearly, particularly how it felt and what I thought.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning, I'm rushing to work. No time to think or pray about this - that would require setting aside time that I never have, or can't seem to make, in the morning. Driving to work, I think about this dream and try to think about what it could possible mean. I can't think of anyone 'the man' could represent. Did I eat something strange before bed? Am I afraid to stand in front of crowds? Am I contemplating an illicit affair? No - no - no. Must be something else so, as a last resort before dismissing it, I asked God, "What was that about? I'd never have an affair!" Before I even finished the thought my mind flooded with, 'you have affairs all the time.' I almost pulled the car over as I loudly exclaimed, "WHAT?!? I do not!" And, as if someone were directly in front of me, I heard, 'anytime you put something in front of me, or in front of Micheal, it's an affair,' and I clearly see examples I would rather keep hidden.

Conviction. So gently, God showed me how I had compartmentalized what I do from what everyone else does. Somehow, Micheal's issues had become awful (in my head and in my heart), I had taken it personally and made it about me when it never was. My affairs were 'just the way I deal with things.' When I avoid more important things by hiding in a book, or sleeping, or eating, or general business, and not putting first things first, I'm dealing with life in an unhealthy way. When I put my personal comfort in front of God, husband & family, it's an affair - I'm putting my needs and wants in first place. Whenever I allow my will to lead, it's the equivalent of an affair. Busted.

God talked to me - to me!!! I know he does this daily in ways I usually don't recognize, but this time I knew it right as it was happening. Strange, if Micheal or a friend pointed out one of my shortcomings it would feel like criticism and I would be defensive, but when God speaks it into my heart it feels like love. Love me more, God - there is no one like you!