Emily Cook's Blog, page 19

Gathering Acorns: Remembering and Looking Forward

First, let me just say I have no problem with Halloween.  (I like this article on the topic.  On the other hand, this kind of thing seems completely ridiculous to me.)

However, there is something more important to me this week:  All Saint's Day.

I think it has something to do with getting older, and knowing more and more people who count as "saints."  It is a time to think of those who have already finished the race, those who are done with sadness and trials and now live a life of joy in presence of God.

It is the time of year for remembering, and for looking-forward. 
I have an "All Saints" scrapbook, and I make sure that the children and I look through it together at least once a year.  Of course, life being what it is, we tend to look at it a bit more often... every time we add a beloved family or church member to the book.  (In October, there were four. Lord have mercy.)

Don't assume that this is something I am actually comfortable with.  It is definitely not, but I do it anyway.

Why a scrapbook?I started it for myself at first.  At first, I did not want to share it with the kids.  Yet, I was sure I would have to, and I thought I would have to do it soon, which is why I started the scrapbook in the first place.

I was pretty sure that my dear Aggie was going to die.

I knew that if her eyes closed one last time, I would have four other sets of  little eyes, staring at me with questions.

And what if Aggie knew?  What if there came time for Hospice and preparing and Aggie's own questions?  What would I say to her?  How in the world would I be able to say anything, or do anything at all, other than try to merely function under the weight of my own grief?

I did not trust myself.  I had to prepare. I had to organize the Truth and have it at hand, sitting there in black and white, ready to strengthen weak faith and heavy hearts...  just in case.

So I started a scrapbook.  Like a squirrel gathering acorns, I gathered promises.  I stored away Words of hope and truth.

I read those Words, I cut them out, and I clung to them.  I put them in a scrapbook right next to pictures of those who have gone before, and I imagined those promises fulfilled.

I am a terrible scrapbooker. I do not own a pair of those scissors with fancy edges, nor do I know how to mat and place things so they look pretty. I can't even cut a straight edge (seriously, it drives my husband and one son crazy.)  For this reason, you will see few photos of my book. It is definitely not pinterest worthy!
Dearest Christian friends, I encourage you to take time this week to gather promises.  Grab an old photobook, or even a three ring binder, and make for yourself a place to store those precious words and promises of God that encourage you in the valley of the shadow of death.
Remember, rejoice, and look forward with me.

baby me, and grandma, and grandpa

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This week I am sharing pieces of my All Saints Scrapbook.
Why not make your own?



It can be as simple as this:


Need help getting started?
For a text file of my favorite Scriptures, quotes and articles click here.
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Who are you remembering this week?Share a photo and (if you like) some words with me (via facebook or email) and I'll publish them all on Saturday. Then, I'll randomly choose one of you to win a free copy of my newest book, Between Seasons.
------------------------- If you liked this article, you may enjoy Emily’s newly released book: Between Seasons: Devotions for those who wait for Spring.  
It is available for purchase on Amazon, along with her other books: Tend to Me: Devotions for Mothers, and Weak and Loved: A Mother-Daughter Love Story.


Emily Cook is a tree-climber, child chaser, author and blogger.  She is a woman growing backward, a mother-child, messy with sin, but rejoicing in the constant love of her Heavenly Father. She lives with her husband and their six children in the arms of the church where he is a pastor.  
photo credit modern prepper

Just Come

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry,and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.  All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 
For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.  And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.  
For my Father’s will is that everyone  who looks to the Son and believes in him  shall have eternal life,  and I will raise them up at the last day.” John 6:35-40


What does God require of me?
COME.
Not behave, then come.
Not fix my heart, not sort it all out. Not buck up. Not be strong.

Just. Come.

And He says "whoever comes I will never drive away."

Think on this with me today. Read the verse again slowly.

Don't skim.

It is God's will that whoever comes to Him
(Me! You!)
shall NOT be lost,

It is God's will that we come,
and
It is God's will that we are cared-for,
kept safe in him,
redeemed and restored and healed and helped,
and finally, raised up on the last day.

We are in His hands. We only need "come" and He will do the rest.

Let's rest in that today.


Father,You invite me to come to You, through Your Son. Melt my stubborn heart, and teach me to come to you as your child. Grant me a heart that repents, trusts, and clings to You in all things.  Keep me safe in Your grace, that I may know Your peace. Amen.


(reposted from 9/12)
Coming this week: a celebration of all the saints!

-----------------------------------------
Who are you remembering this week?Share a photo and (if you like) some words with me (via facebook or email) and I'll publish them all on Saturday. Then, I'll randomly choose one of you to win a free copy of my newest book, Between Seasons.

------------------------- If you liked this article, you may enjoy Emily’s newly released book: Between Seasons: Devotions for those who wait for Spring.  
It is available for purchase on Amazon, along with her other books: Tend to Me: Devotions for Mothers, and Weak and Loved: A Mother-Daughter Love Story.


Emily Cook is a tree-climber, child chaser, author and blogger.  She is a woman growing backward, a mother-child, messy with sin, but rejoicing in the constant love of her Heavenly Father. She lives with her husband and their six children in the arms of the church where he is a pastor.  

Dare: Five minute friday

Five minute friday- the word: Dare



My online life is about to change, and it's all because of a dare. I take it as a dare, that is; this challenge to write a novel in November.  I have not started writing, only thinking, and already I feel tremendously stretched.

To write fiction I must dare to live in a world with every possible option, and then choose just one.

I must dare to imagine characters, dare to make them alive even if that makes them familiar.
I must dare to explore topics that scare me,
dare to be daunted by the blank page,
dare to sit in the silence and not give in to the easy (so easy) temptation of internet distration!

I will dare to turn off the wifi entirely until I plunk out so many words;
dare to write junk, so long as it means I am writing.

I must dare to daydream, and to dwell on those dreams long enough to make them feel like real experiences that I can turn into words.

I must dare to take the risk of sounding corny, of attracting eyerolls,
or bored kids afraid to tell me so.

I must dare to write and let it set,
edit later,
share even later,
rather than seeking constant feedback.

I am taking up the challeng of NaNoWriMo in November.
I am accepting the dare.

I am daring to start, knowing that I may fail (or be called to put my attention elsewhere!)

For now, I'm stretching my fingers and my brain, taking deep breaths, and slowly weaning myself away from the mental habit of constant distraction....

Dare you to join me.



-----
STOP
This post is linked to others at katemotaung.com; five minute friday, when we write like we used to run, for the sheer joy of it.

For more info about NaNoWriMo, visit http://nanowrimo.org/

No Mere Idea

I am not equipped for this-- for this month of marches to the cemetery. I do not have the words to soothe my children when grief and fear strikes in the night. I cannot explain “why,” not to them, and not to myself. I can only hold them close, and it doesn’t seem like enough.

Yes, daddy is with one of the sad families again. Ask me your question. Wait, never mind, don’t ask, because I don't know. Let's crawl under blankets together instead.Life in this broken world often seems like a war of ideas. And circumstances conspire, and speak loud words into our hearts, and we hear “God is not good. He doesn't care. He's not in control.”


We fight back, of course. We soak up God's Word; we breathe in His grace and promises.
A child sings his memory verse: “The Lord your God is with you wherever you go,” and I wonder if the words will inoculate him from all the attacks on his faith. It feels a little bit like feeding him a salad and hoping that it will keep him healthy for the rest of his life.
Our efforts would be futile if this were a mere war of ideas. But Jesus is not an idea, He’s a person.
This is the only reason I dare hope for my children, for myself.
We dare not hope in our righteousness, because we have seen it fail time and again. We dare not hope in our circumstances, or our intelligence, because these things are as fragile as our health. I cannot even guarantee that my arms will be there to embrace them in the night when the fears strike. I am not enough.


But Jesus is not an idea, He is a Person, and He is enough. I cannot be their Jesus, but with the help of God I can point them to Him. I carried each of my children to their Baptismal waters, and there, God adopted them, and gave them new life with Him. He nurtures that life through His Word and in His church. Parents and children alike are invited to come and drink and live; to seek and find and be found.


Christianity is not an idea. Christ is a Person, a God-man who has died and risen and overcome death and the grave. The promise is for us and our children.


Let us take the hands of our friends and our children who suffer, and let us go to together to meet Him in His Word and Sacraments. Let us go together to Him, who binds up the brokenhearted, who heals our wounds, and who renews our hope.

Christ holy vine, Christ living tree
be praise for this blessed mystery
that word and water thus revive
and join us to your tree of life.
(LBS 595)

waiting, here

And one more makes five.Five saints from our church called home in the past month. One more to rest with the others, here, near the bright fall trees, and under the shadow of the cross.

Please pray for our grieving church family-
that together we may cling tightly to God and His promises, and that we may care for each other in this dark season of grief while we wait together for the day when all darkness is scattered forever.

And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoeverhates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; andwhere I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 


“The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”
And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me.And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. ForI have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”




(John 12:23-25, 27-28, 35-36, 44-50)

recommended reads

Ann and Katie Davis
Doing small things with great love.

See Someone Today 
What a gift we have to give.

A Mother's Day Sermon by Pastor Peterson
One of the most memorable sermons I've ever heard.

I Can't Breathe
on Depression

The three words that saved my son's life.
What a story.

Scattering gifts
you don't have to use them all at once!

Please don't say these six things at my funeral!
please don't!

God doesn't look for the right kind of people to believe
Thank God.

When your child doubts God's love
What would you say? Would you point to something Solid?

Unplugging
and connecting

Teach your child not to interrupt in one simple step 
(And it's not to knee them in the gut when they come running up to you, either.)

To the pain: wake up. repeat
abuse. pain. healing. hope.

Judge me...
please do.

The Good Soil
Tend to me, Jesus, our good gardener.

Reality Check
Good thoughts on hospitality.
"What People Are Craving Isn't Perfection. People Aren't Longing To Be Impressed; They're Longing To Feel Like They're Home. If You Create A Space Full Of Love And Character And Creativity And Soul, They'll Take Off Their Shoes And Curl Up With Gratitude And Rest, No Matter How Small, No Matter How Undone, No Matter How Odd." ---  Shauna Niequist Quit pointing your avocado at me
Do you ever feel like other mothers are doing their mothering AT YOU?

the glorious hugeness of the task

“Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren't. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. 

Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world. 

But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. 

But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes. and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. 

How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? 

No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”

G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World


http://annailonamussmann.blogspot.com...

The sweetness of coming-home (Bilbo's song)

Nerds we may be, but my husband and I greatly enjoyed listening to the unabridged story of the Hobbit as we drove through the magical mountains and made our way south.  The end of the novel- the beautiful descripting of coming-home- rings in my heart today.
Roads go ever ever on,Over rock and under tree,By caves where never sun has shone,By streams that never find the sea;Over snow by winter sown,And through the merry flowers of June,Over grass and over stone,And under mountains in the moon.
Roads go ever ever onUnder cloud and under star,Yet feet that wandering have goneTurn at last to home afar.Eyes that fire and sword have seenAnd horror in the halls of stoneLook at last on meadows greenAnd trees and hills they long have known.
(Bilbo's song, The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien)

small in the mountains

After an epic month of sadness and trial, we went on vacation.  As fun as that may sound in theory, as I packed I felt like I was doing one last chore, running up one last hill so that I could finally, finally curl up in the fetal position and just cry.
I'm sure we are not the only ones who have been in that place. 
So we went from that place to this place, a campground in Kentucky.  We camped in tents, and my mother-in-law did the cooking for all of us. 
The world and God conspired to give us a space to rest, to heal. 
The mountains are good for the soul. My little adventurers trudged along for mile after mile of hiking trails, panting but not complaining.  Our eyes were too full of wonder to worry about our tired legs. 
"Mommy, I feel so small here," said one.
Grammy and Peter, age 4, who is NOT a baby.
Yes, child, we are small, so small. 
We can climb and explore and stand beside waterfalls, but here we are cured of the notion that we are in charge of any of this. We are freed from the burden of believing our shoulders were meant to bear the weight of it all.  These mountains have been here for ages; these trees have grown since before any of us were born, and they continued their stretch heavenward even while we were at home near the cornfields, burying our dead. 

Psalm 90 English Standard Version (ESV)A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.Lord, you have been our dwelling place    in all generations.Before the mountains were brought forth,    or ever you had formed the earth and the world,    from everlasting to everlasting you are God.You return man to dust    and say, “Return, O children of man!”For a thousand years in your sight    are but as yesterday when it is past,    or as a watch in the night.You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream,    like grass that is renewed in the morning:in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;    in the evening it fades and withers.For we are brought to an end by your anger;    by your wrath we are dismayed.You have set our iniquities before you,    our secret sins in the light of your presence.For all our days pass away under your wrath;    we bring our years to an end like a sigh.The years of our life are seventy,    or even by reason of strength eighty;yet their span is but toil and trouble;    they are soon gone, and we fly away.Who considers the power of your anger,    and your wrath according to the fear of you?So teach us to number our days    that we may get a heart of wisdom.Return, O Lord! How long?    Have pity on your servants!Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,    that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,    and for as many years as we have seen evil.Let your work be shown to your servants,    and your glorious power to their children.Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,    and establish the work of our hands upon us;    yes, establish the work of our hands!
He is our dwelling place, and we are his small-but dearly loved- children. 
As we travel through valleys of sorrow and up moutains of joy, again and again, He will prove to us His faithfulness, and He will give us rest.
Confirm the work of your hands, Lord.Amen.

rest

Thou that hast given so much to me,Give one thing more, a grateful heart...



Not thankful, when it pleaseth me;As if thy blessings had spare days:But such a heart, whose pulse may beThy praise.
from George Herbert's "Gratefulness"

I'm taking a break from blogging,to breathe in, look up,and rest in green pastures.





May you too find rest in God alone.