Cultivating Thankfulness

When I came home from hospital I was under doctor's orders to take it easy and rest, so I finally got round to ordering some of the books I've been considering buying on my Kindle. One of them was the highly recommended "One Thousand Gifts - A Dare To Live Fully Right Where You Are" by Ann Voskamp. I'm so glad I did, because God really used this book to speak to me right in my situation of recovering physically and emotionally from a miscarriage and a traumatic stay in hospital. The fact that it begins by talking about the tragic and needless death of a young child (and later two small babies) of course grabbed my attention (and released a well-full of tears), so I was ready to soak up any wisdom and advice the author had to offer.

Ann's writing style is beautifully poetic and philosophical. It all starts with a dare to make a list of one thousand things to be thankful for, and through this experience Ann comes to understand that the "holy grail in the center of Christianity" is thanksgiving. Counting our blessings. Acknowledging God's grace even in seemingly dark situations. I think she may be onto something, so I also, along with many others who have read this book, started my own list of 'One Thousand Gifts'. Here are my first few entries, written in those first few days after coming home from the hospital:

1. Being alive.
2. My wonderful, caring, competent husband.
3. Three healthy, happy children.
4. Soft cushions and blankets.
5. Hot showers that wash away grime and heaviness.
6. Caring, loving friends.
7. Purple pens and new notebooks.
8. Books that encourage, entertain and inspire.
9. Time to plan and dream and hope for better.
10. Hot, tasty meals cooked by someone else.
11. Wild flowers picked by little hands to brighten my day.
12. The welcome promise of sleep at the end of a weary day.

I encourage you all to read the book, if you haven't already, and begin your own list of one thousand gifts.

Abide in Him!

Photo credit: freedigitalphotos.net/digitalart

Sharing Pain

God, in His sovereignty, saw it right to put us through a time of testing. We were just coming to terms with a surprise pregnancy, eleven weeks in. Just beginning to get over the panic of adding an extra little one to our already chaotic home, just beginning to dream and plan and think of baby names and slings, just beginning to borrow maternity clothes....when the bleeding started. I'm thankful we had time to have an ultrasound, to figure out what might have gone wrong. No, it wasn't the exercise video I'd done that morning; no it wasn't Nathaniel jumping on my stomach a couple of days ago with his innocent, oblivious, childish enthusiasm. Our little baby had died already four weeks earlier.


We tried to breathe, tried to hold back the tears, tried to be strong while we figured out what to do. You see, living as we do in a remote part of Russia, any medical emergency brings with it a whole other set of fears and stresses. We made plans, bought tickets to Moscow, booked into a Western-standard hospital, sent the girls off to stay with friends.....and yet still in all of this God, in His sovereignty, had other plans for us.


When the bleeding started coming more heavily I was glad it was at home rather than on the plane the next morning. But more and more poured out of me. Life oozing away. The baby's, mine...I started to feel dizzy. We had no choice. We called an ambulance, and thus it was that I let go of any last ounce of control I felt in the situation and submitted myself fully into the hands of the local medical system, and ultimately into God's hands.

God sent some angels to watch over us. A neighbour already in the same ward. Doctors and nurses that genuinely wanted to help and to heal. But this was to be a lesson in faith, trust and strength of character. An operating room looking more like a torture chamber in a James Bond film, made all the more unsettling when I was told I couldn't have anaesthetic. Then my blood pressure dropping so low they couldn't get a bottom reading. Flurry of activity, concerned faces, needles, drips..... God's grace. I regained my colour and life pumped through my veins more strongly once more.

And then over the next few days came more trials. So many drips I lost count; a painful catheter in place for six uncomfortable hours; sparse conditions with no privacy; a toilet with no seat, no toilet paper, no soap, and an open bucket full of unmentionable things; another operation, this time with drugs that sent me off into some strange world where I could hear and see but make no sense of it all; and perhaps hardest of all not being able to see my husband for more than ten minutes a day and my children not at all because it wasn't 'appropriate'.

But more angels came. Local friends (women) bringing food, plates, mugs, towels, magazines and more importantly love, understanding, sympathy, a hand to hold and tissues to weep into. A group of friends strangely more united, drawn closer through sharing pain together. My Russian friends said I was 'one of them' now, and I felt strangely proud.

And so, here I am, back at home, so grateful to have all that behind me, and yet still to have the processing of what happened ahead of me. Why? Why go through all that pain? What was the purpose? I know it will take a while to find even the beginning of any answers to those questions. Perhaps the greater question now is: How will this change me? Will it harden me, make me more bitter and angry? Will it soften me so much that I become scared, helpless, useless? Or will it change me in a way that will eventually bear fruit and spread a pleasing aroma? I pray the latter.

Abide in Him!


drip: freedigitalphotos.net / janoon028

Outdoor Hour Challenge No. 7

Nathaniel in the Park

I'm still hoping to keep up with the Outdoor Hour challenges from the Handbook of Nature Study blog, although no doubt it'll continue to be a bit sporadic over the summer. One day I'll be able to keep to my weekly schedule!

We have been spending lots of time outdoors, though, even if it hasn't been purposefully focused on Nature Study. Nathaniel and I spend a lot of time in the park while the girls are at their preschool group in town. I'm sure that's one of the reasons he's such a peaceful child!

Wild Flowers from our Neighbourhood

Even though our focus has been trees, we still love looking out for and indentifying the wild flowers we come across. The girls love picking posies too! Here's a collection of wild flowers we picked on a 20 minute walk around our neighbourhood with some local children. We found pineapple weed, and they loved crushing it between their fingers to smell the pineapple scent. We also had fun with the catkins from the walnut trees, which looked just like bit green caterpillars all over the floor.

So, off we go with Outdoor Hour Challenge No. 7. While I love the idea of the field guides, I think I'd like to wait a year or so until the children are able to fill in some of the details themselves. I'm very aware that I tend to be doing most of the input into the family nature diary at the moment! Anyway, I picked a new tree focus and dutifully read up about Apple Trees in the Handbook of Nature Study. Here's my blog post for what I learned.

Studying one of our Apple Trees

Armed with lots of information, I settled the girls outside in our garden next to one of our apple trees, and we had a really good time examining various parts of the tree.  We looked at the blossom and talked about how the apples would grow. We examined a couple of apples (from the supermarket) and could see where the calyx-cup used to be. I then cut open one apple length-wise and the other cross-wise, and the girls loved seeing the star shape in the latter.

Sophie's Drawing of Apple Blossom

We then had a go at drawing. Charis drew a picture of a girl holding an apple, and Sophie drew a picture of the apple blossom to put in our family nature diary, complete with bee coming to get the pollen.

All in all it was a really lovely nature lesson. We all learned a lot, and the girls seemed to enjoy it, so that's encouraging.

Apple Trees

One of our apple trees

Since we have 10 apple trees in our garden I thought that might be a good place to start up again with our tree focus for our nature study. Here’s what I learned about apple trees from the Handbook of Nature Study:

-         The trunk is generally short and stocky

-         The bark is a soft grey colour and quite flaky.

-         The wood is very fine-grained and heavy, and it is great for wood-carving or for fuel.

-         The leaves are oval, with toothed edges and long petioles

We usually get a good harvest of apples from our trees, but since we don’t spray them at all there’s usually a worm lurking inside each apple! We do try to prune occasionally, so I was interested to know what the Handbook said about pruning:

-         Every child should know that

o       Pruning the root cuts down the amount of moisture which the tree is able to get from the soil.

o       But Pruning of the top throws the food into the branches that are left and makes them more vigorous.

-         If the buds at the tips of the twigs are pruned off, the food is forced into the side buds and into the fruit, which make greater growth.

-         Thinning the branches allows more light to reach into the tree.

-         A limb should be pruned off smoothly where it joins the larger limb, without leaving a stump projecting, and the wound should be painted so as not to allow fungus spores to enter.

Apple Blossom - picture taken by Sophie

How an apple grows

-         On the tip of each twig is a cluster of blossoms, surrounded by pale, soft, downy leaves.

-         The oval petals (pink on the outside and white on the inside) are set between the lobes of the calyx, which appears as a beautiful, pale green, five-pointed star at the bottom of the flower.

-         A cluster of greenish white stamens of different lengths, attached to the rim of the calyx-cup, stand up like a column at the centre of the flower. They are tipped with pale, yellow anthers.

-         The pistils all unite at their bases making a five-lobed, compound ovary, the upper part of which may be seen.

-         The calyx-cup develops into the pulp of the apple, and each of the pistils becomes one of the five cells in the apple core.

-         If one of the stigmas does not receive pollen its ovary will develop no seed, which often makes the apple lopsided.

-         There may be many blossoms developing from one winter bud, but usually only two of these blossoms develop into fruit, and the fruit is much better when only one blossom produces an apple. 

-     If a tree bears too many apples it cannot perfect them.

Spring Nature Study

A patch of dog-violets in the park

It's taking a while for Spring to get going here. Only last week we still had some snow, and the daffodils haven't quite bloomed yet. However, we're starting to see some spring flowers in the park, and thanks to our nature diary, which we started this time last year, it's much easier to identify them. So far we've seen dog violets, speedwells, celandines, chickweed and cowslips.

Dahlia seedlings

At home we're starting to think about this year's gardening projects. We've got some seed trays on our windowsill. The dahlias did really well last year, so I'd like to try some again. We've also planted sunflower seeds and lobelia in the hanging basket.  We'll have to wait a bit longer to plant the vegetable seeds in the vegetable patch. I'm keeping an eye on the neighbours, to spot when they start planting outside, and they haven't yet, so perhaps it's not quite warm enough. In the meantime I've started pruning the blackberry and raspberry bushes.

Ant world, with cowslips we picked in the park

Charlotte Mason recommends keeping ants as a good nature study project for young children, so when I saw this 'ant world' kit in the shop last year I snapped it up. Last week I noticed loads of ants had found the lunchbox in Sophie's rucksack, which I'd forgotten to unpack and still had a bit of food in it. I thought that was a good opportunity to get the ant world up and running, since it said we needed 20 to 30 black ants. It didn't take them long to start making tunnels, and the girls have been very interested. Unfortunately I think some of the ants have escaped out of the bottom - I don't think I pressed the sides down firmly enough!

Handicrafts

"Again we know that the human hand hand is a wonderful and exquisite instrument to be used in a hundred movements exacting delicacy, direction and force; every such movement is a cause of joy as it leads to the pleasure of execution and the triumph of success. We begin to understand this and make some efforts to train the young in the deft handling of tools and the practice of handicrafts. Some day perhaps, we shall see apprenticeship to trades revived and good and beautiful work enforced." Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 Philosophy of Education, p. 328.

Having three little ones six and under, I've discovered a creative side to me I never knew I had. When I planned and organised our new schoolroom I had great fun sorting out all the craft materials into labelled boxes for easy access in our new 'craft cupboard'. Being a perfectionist, my great temptation is to take over too much to make sure that our creations look brilliant with minimal drips and spills and stains. Anyway, I thought I'd share some of the the things we've been doing recently......

Caterpillar Craft

It's great to have a few craft books on hand with ideas of some fun projects to do with preschoolers. Sophie and Charis had fun making these caterpillars. They especially love gluing shiny, sparkly things onto their pictures.

Valentine's Day cards

OK, so I know Valentine's Day was a while ago, but here are the cards we made for each other. The girls love making cards to give to other people, and I try to get them to make the birthday and Christmas cards we send to our family too. It saves money, is more fun, and hopefully is more interesting to receive!

Cake Making

Charis loves to help me in the kitchen. I'm getting better at stepping back a bit and allowing the inevitable mess and imperfection that ensues, since I know the process is more important than the end result. Sophie is not so keen, but does enjoy licking the bowl at the end. I usually use vegan recipes so there are no raw eggs in the mixture.

Painting

The girls love to draw pictures and to paint, but in the interests of encouraging handicrafts I was on the look out for some different kinds of painting projects when I came across these Russian dolls. They came in sets of 3 blank dolls ready for the child to paint their own.

Weaving Loom

I got this basic weaving loom for Sophie. It's a bit tricky for her, and she needs a little help, but she's surprisingly motivated to add one new colour each time and is looking forward to having a little homemade rug for her dollies. I like that it's introducing her to the process of how actual rugs and carpets are made.

Cross-Stitch

Finally, I felt that I should be setting a good example, so I took up a new handicraft myself. I started my first cross-stitch project (which I've now finished and framed). It was a lot of fun, and very relaxing to sit and do something with my hands in the evenings or in our 'quiet hour'. The girls were interested to see how it developed.

Learning from those who've gone before us

I've just finished reading a book by Noel Piper called 'Faithful Women and their Extraordinary God', which looks at the lives of five amazing women from different centuries and countries, with very different callings, from whom we can learn so much. I used to read loads of missionary biographies, which I always found so inspiring, and this book re-ignited a small flame inside me that had died out a while ago. I was encouraged to read about Sarah Edwards, who made such an impact when in the eyes of the world today she was 'just a stay-at-home mum'. Lilias Trotter, who gave up a potentially wonderful career as a talented and respected artist so that she could go to Africa as a missionary despite her poor health, really inspired me to look beyond earthly rewards and human wisdom and to make sure that I'm being obedient to God's call, however strange or 'second best' it may seem. Gladys Aylward's story was one of courage and determination, and I was challenged by her desire to really become one with the people she was working amongst. I'd not heard of Esther Ahn Kim, but her story reminded me that we are not called a life of ease, but rather we should be prepared to suffer as followers of Jesus. Finally, the story of Helen Roseveare really resonated with me because I recognised a lot of myself in her upbringing, spiritual struggles and focus in life. I loved the part where she loses her temper in the hospital ward and has to be gently rebuked by her African colleague that “I don’t think the Lord Jesus would have spoken like that.” I need to be reminded of that on a daily basis when I ‘lose it’ with my kids :-) In another place her local Pastor suggests that “Self is the great enemy….Helen… the trouble with you is that we can see so much Helen that we cannot see Jesus.” I was really struck by that thought. I waste so much time and energy trying to be the best ‘Catherine’ I can be, when really I ought to be seeking to cross out my ‘I’ so that ‘Christ in me’ can be more visible. With that in mind, I love words of this hymn that Noel quotes at the end of this chapter: Not I, But Christ, by A.B.Simpson Not I, but Christ, be honored, loved, exalted, Not I, but Christ, be seen, be known, be heard, Not I, but Christ, in every look and action, Not I, but Christ, in every thought and word. Not I, but Christ, to gently soothe in sorrow, Not I, but Christ, to wipe the falling tear, Not I, but Christ, to lift the weary burden, Not I, but Christ, to hush away all fear. Not I, but Christ, no idle word e’er falling, Christ, only Christ, no needless bustling sound, Christ, only Christ, no self-important bearing, Christ, only Christ, no trace of “I” be found. Not I, but Christ, my every need supplying, Not I, but Christ, my strength and health to be; Christ, only Christ, for body, soul, and spirit, Christ, only Christ, live then Thy life in me. Christ, only Christ, ere long will fill my vision; Glory excelling soon, full soon I’ll see Christ, only Christ, my every wish fulfilling — Christ, only Christ, my all in all to be.