New Year's Eve, 2018 Edition

There's no denying it's been a very tough year. Winter seemed to carry on almost till the end of May; baby calves struggled in the plunging temperatures and vicious winds, and the orphans fared terribly despite the best meds and food and love they could receive.

Summer was far too short; and with not much rain came the anticipation of scarce feed and the resultant high prices of what was available. Of course, right then, the cattle prices dipped too …

On the house front, I had resolved to get rid of 40% of my personal "stuff" that I dragged with me when I moved out here, and that didn't happen.

Relationships seemed like so much work too. What used to come easy was now often a struggle. The nature of friendships changed in certain instances. I missed my family.

I couldn't even get into a proper rhythm with music or with reading. My personal quiet time with God fluctuated - I never once doubted that He was there for me; it was I who was unsettled and insecure and withdrawn.

And over it all, the hazy, barely visible veil of sadness and anxiety floated, ready to settle into the creases and crevasses of my heart and soul at any time. The intensity had abated somewhat from last year; the days when it was a struggle even to get out of bed were slightly fewer. During some days when my doctor was on maternity leave, I could barely breathe. When she came back, it was the best day of the year!

She and her nurse - like God - never left me or forsook me, despite my unreasonableness and lack of progress. They never made me feel what I often am, hopelessly incompetent and not worth the time and effort. They never told me to suck it up and think how fortunate I am compared with 98% of the world (I know, I know!). Before the ubiquitous hashtags, my doctor was already on the front lines, fighting, mitigating, reassuring. She proffers hope and I must trust her enough to accept that it can be so.

I kept as busy as I could, trying to fill the gap my Dad's passing had left in my life, maybe. But I never seemed to catch up with what needed to be done.

There were, of course, amazing days, wonderful people in my community whom I finally started getting to know a little bit. Friends came to visit, even from great distances. Everyone was so kind.

And now here it was, the day before New Year's Eve. Driving home from church I wondered what promise I would receive this year. I specifically asked God to show me what to do to make it through the upcoming year.

As I rounded the correction corner on the 855, I was greeted by this:

I continued up the road to the venerable old Lund house, and it too was graced with promise:

I was reassured that whatever promise I received would give me the key.

New Year's Eve we drove to a nephew's place - passing the holiday baton from one generation to the next has been remarkably easy as one hosted Christmas, another hosted new year and yet another supplied the entertainment!

Just before midnight we dimmed the lights of the house and pressed our faces to the window to see the annual fireworks display put on by nephew #3. For some reason, this was the first time I was ever witness to this part of the evening. As the lights shot up into the sky and came dancing back down to us, my heart soared.

And then. Midnight was almost upon us and we gathered for the single most beloved annual tradition in our family. The promises originally chosen and typed by my Dad are now produced from his lists, on his word processor, by my sister, much to the relief and gratitude of the rest of us!

Allan read the passage to close out the old year from one of Dad's favourite daily reading collections; we sang a couple of songs; Allan prayed, asking God to help each of us be directed to the special word each of us needs for the coming year; and then a sister offered the carefully arranged plate to the people in the room.

I was one of the last to select. I chose green. Again.

As soon as I read my promise, it was like I could hear God saying these words to me: "This is the answer to your question. You've gone about it all wrong this last year. Seek Me first. Make Me your first call. Everything will work out as it should."

And I thought about the fireworks we had enjoyed just a few minutes earlier. They didn't explode into showers of light and colour immediately after they were lit; they had to shoot single-mindedly up into the air to start with before their magical beauty and incandescence were released.

For me to find the solutions to my problems, to find beauty amid ashes, I need to get single-mindedly to the source of my strength. I need to seek Him first, not seek solutions from people or ideas or things that are by their very nature finite, imperfect, also struggling.

This isn't going to be an easy verse to take hold of this year. But if I can be guided by it, it will be so worth it!

Happy new year. To all of us.

The Beautiful Inn in the Prairie

Through times of both turbulence and tranquility, so many of my friends remain there for me.

One such couple are the Janzens, proprietors of the Rosebud Country Inn. We met when I had the tea house in Three Hills and since then I have known with rare certainty that these two are in my corner.

And so it proved again last week. I had to be in Rosebud for an Ag dinner; the next day I was scheduled to attend the matinee performance on Main Stage.

When BJ heard of this, she promptly invited me to stay the night and "get caught up."

I thought I would make her a peanut butter pie - but we were out of peanut butter. Who runs out of PNB?!

So instead, here is my birthday card to a woman of great integrity, kindness, courage, humour and heart.

Psalm 23, Rosebud paraphrased version

BJ and Ken are my hosts; I shall not want.

They make me to lie down in Room 7:

they lead me to a place of tranquility

They restore my soul.

They reveal to me a path of hopefulness

for love's sake.

 Yea, though I often walk through valleys and shadows,

and occasionally ponder death,

This morning I will fear no evil

for they are with me;

Their welcome and their kindness comfort me.

They prepare a table before me with the absence of any enemies;

they anoint my body with bath salts and balance

My cup runs over

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all this livelong day;

and I will return to stay in the Rosebud Country Inn

for as long as they allow me!

Happy birthday, and many more!!

Laying the Year to Rest

What a year 2017 was! With Joy and Sorrow in the balances, I submit that Sorrow tipped the scales.

So much loss: more of my friends than I can mention lost a beloved parent.

Others lost siblings.

Some, their life's partner.

A few, the unimaginable - a child.

Jobs, careers, businesses.

Homes.

Health.

People moving out of our lives who we thought would be with us for the long term. 

Friendships shifting into new shapes or slipping into shadows.

The closing of The Lilac Room.

And as New Year's Eve drew imminently close, I tried to shut my eyes to its looming emptiness, to still the pounding of my heart at the thought that the man who had shaped almost every new year's eve of my life would not be there.

The weather was almost too much to bear in Alberta for the past fortnight. Temperatures hovered between -29 and -35, and then we added on the wind chill factor to that. Extra bedding for the calves; machines all running slower in protest; water holes and stations having to be chopped with greater regularity; animals slipping on the icy slopes.

At 10:30 on Saturday evening - New Year's Eve's eve - the Good Rancher turned to me. "I am so sorry; I simply cannot make it to church tomorrow morning." The tractor would not cooperate, so feeding was going to take longer than ever.

The day more than any other this winter that I needed him - needed him to be by my side as I faced the closing of a year and the promise of the new one without my beloved Dad.

Still. Stiff upper lip and all that, hmmm?

I heard my Aunt Mabel's voice saying that Ironside girls don't cave. And so that night I typed out 60 bookmarks with a different promise from the Bible on each.

On New Year's Eve morning I got ready for church and drove myself in. Henry, my Ford truck, protested mightily and refused to get up to speed even after a prolonged warm-up session.

I drove down the 855 in silence, thinking about the season, thinking about the Baby we had celebrated last Sunday and about discarding the trappings of this difficult year.

As I rounded the second corner of the Correction Line, I saw it. The Star, beckoning to me in the East.

"Come and worship!" it seemed to urge.

In the midst of this -35 tundra, I thought of the magi, following their star, not knowing where, but with hope and assurance.

I at least knew this star - our own beautiful Sun - and I knew where I was going.

But what gifts could I offer on this cold day?

As I drove the stretch of highway near Huttons' I could see their poor tractor, a cloud of exhaust smoke streaming behind it like a bride's veil in the crystalline air. and I thought of the Good Rancher who was doing exactly the same thing. The gifts these two men were offering their cattle stretched beyond the actual feed. Here were two wise men who understood that as stewards of livestock they couldn't be off chasing a star, as perhaps they would like; their duty was first to the animals who depended solely on these men's vigilance and discipline for their very lives.

Chastened out of my self-pity, I passed the tractor and the star loomed even closer, it seemed.

"You too have gifts to bring," it reminded me. "You are bringing the gift of music to the worshipers at church, And you are passing on the gift of a promise for the New Year that your Dad so diligently passed on to you for over 50 years."

The bushes and trees on the side of the road sparkled more brightly than any lights I could have arranged on a Christmas tree - if I had put up a Christmas tree this year. Even that had fallen by the wayside.

But the star atop the shimmering trees bedecked for their own celebration spoke to me of the Light that shines in the darkness, and I felt some of the ice around my heart start to melt.

At the church foyer I was greeted by our pastor's beautiful wife, who whisked me and the promise sheets into the little church office. She cut and I arranged, all the promises face down, with a cut-glass jar holding light to anchor and illuminate the treasure beneath it.

She carried it to the front of the church and set it down carefully as I moved to the piano and began a prelude.

This New Year's Eve service was going to be a bit different, the pastor commented. There would be no formal sermon; we the congregants would provide the sermon. We were invited to share something that God had done in our lives this year; or to choose a favourite song for everyone to sing, and briefly tell why that particular song carried weight; or to request prayer for something that we were carrying into the year ahead.

But first a few songs chosen by the worship leader.

The Doxology opened the time of worship through singing: Praise God from Whom ALL blessings flow!

Then ... And Can It Be? ...  REALLY??? Could It Be?

She had chosen Dad's and my "Theology Song"!

The one song my Dad and I always joked about as being so perfect in every way except for one line in the second verse. He would shake his head. "Charles Wesley, HOW could you have written these words?" he would say, only half in jest.

Here are the words of the verse in question:

He left His Father's throne above

So free, so infinite His grace

*Emptied Himself of all but love*

and bled for Adam's helpless race.

"God did not 'empty Himself' of anything; He was and is and always will be God! What He did when He came to earth as the tiny baby Jesus is He 'took on the form of a servant'. He became man, but it did not make Him any less God - not for a moment!" Dad would state with conviction.

So whenever that song was sung in any church we were in, Dad and I would glance sidelong at each other and hum through the line, trying not to grin, our nerdy inside joke.

And THIS Sunday, of all Sundays, we were going to sing this song? 

Coincidence?! I think it was a little message from God reminding me of the words of comfort Dad's friend Tony Hansen said about Mum at her funeral and which we could apply to Dad and to anyone else we love who has trusted the Lord Jesus Christ to take away their sins and give them new life: that[Dad] is with God, and God is with us, so [Dad] was not very far away at this New Year's Eve service!

What if I hadn't come to church?!

At the end of the service Pastor Paul asked me to explain briefly the tradition of selecting a promise. I said that as I typed out the promises I prayed over each one, that God would guide the hand of the person who needed that particular verse for whatever reason in the coming year. Dad always prayed over the verses as he typed them and over and over again the verse someone drew sustained them through the year ahead.

Instead of writing it all out again, here's a link to a previous Reading the Leaves New Year's Eve musing from when Dad was still with us. How this one has come to fruition in 2017! 

Then Pastor Paul prayed that each person would receive a word from God, because that is what these promises are, straight from His Word. And at the conclusion of the prayer he invited each congregant to come up and select a bookmark as he held the tray.

Mine this year - I chose green, of course, in honour of Dad - spoke straight to the tremendous weight of fear, of anxiety, of depression that I try to hold at bay every single day.

As I go into 2018, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am not alone.

Happy New Year!

What One Day Brings

Sunday evening. It had been an exhausting week. By Sunday I had nothing left. I felt raw, exposed, spiralling down into despair.

I was compelled to drive to the Nest. As I approached, it appeared to be as empty as I was.

Then I noticed the black bird perched on the top of the tree, scolding away. And I heard the response at the same moment I saw the parent shooting into view.

I peered more closely; was that a slight movement?

The parent retreated to a nearby tree to keep an eye on the proceedings. How were the fledglings going to learn to look after themselves if she was there all the time?

 

As I took in the wings spread protectively over the nest, God reminded me of His promise in the 91st Psalm: "He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge." His unobtrusive presence would shield me from this wave of the internal storm.

I found I could breathe a little easier ...

Monday at noon. We were rushing into Red Deer, but we stopped for literally two minutes.

Where had the babies gone?! If it wasn't for the two fussbudget adults, I would have thought there had been a coup.

But look at the baby heads supported on the suddenly awkward adolescent bodies ...

Monday evening. Rushing back for chores. How could we not stop, just for a moment?

The blackbird with the red heart appeared fed up with yet another intrusion..

But who was this?

Just like the previous evening, the stronger baby was keeping watch over its frailer sibling.

It was time to go home.

Who Will Sing To Me?

I didn't expect it to hit me so hard, this first fatherless Father's Day. In looking through old Father's day posts I found one that spoke the words my Dad wrote me on my 50th birthday.

About a time he sang to me.

Who will sing to me this year to comfort my sad heart and tell me that "the counsel is established, ratified in Heaven and on earth" and therefore all will be well?

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On Father's Day, I want to share with you words my father wrote [in 2012]:


The morning began with laughter and chatter and then the little child ran off with Kirtan, the butler, to take Gumba and Nana [her grandparents] their morning tea. She led the way up the stairs to their room, Kirtan following with the tray loaded with cups and saucers, a pot of freshly brewed tea, a jug of scalding hot milk, a few small biscuits and some fresh fruit. This was their chota hawzri, little breakfast.

Near the top of the stairs she stumbled and fell backwards. Kirtan reached forward to stop her fall, and in the process the hot tea and boiling milk were spilt on her. 

A loud cry was heard.

Her mother and father ran upstairs and found her being held at arm's length by Gumba, her light night dress soaking wet. He did not know what to do. Her parents quickly removed her undergarments as they were sealing the heat to her skin.

Gumba and Nana were totally distraught that this should happen to their granddaughter and in their house. Kirtan was crushed as he felt that he was responsible.

The father carried her down to their room and laid her on the white sheets that the mother had just smoothed out for her. 

There she lay for a moment, in desperate shock and pain; then she said softly and yet so earnestly words that can never be forgotten: "Daddy, sing Jesus Loves Me." 

The father felt that his heart was being pulled out of his chest by invisible cords of longing and anguish. He then sang, the best he could, to this little girl who was in such great pain and shock:

Jesus loves me, this I know

For the Bible tells me so

Little ones to Him belong -

They are weak, but He is strong

She lay quietly on the bed.

Wonderfully, they had a large medicated bandage that was suitable for such a burn; and then off to the doctor. Many weeks transpired in the treatment of this injury, which was oft times painful, until it was finally healed. Of course, a scar remains.

Many years have transpired since then. Calendars have been hung on the wall and taken down, and a new one hangs in its place. There have been many mornings of laughter and chatter and running to show the way. There have been days with family and friends, tea, lots of tea. There have been books and music; there have been singing and travel; there have been the Bible and Church and prayer. 

There have been burdens lifted from shoulders and hearts bowed down with despair. There has been great joy in the gladness of another and there has been deep grief in the loss of those most dear to the heart. There have been lonely hours and silent nights. There has been unknown and often unexpressed shock and pain - not the pain of burning flesh but the tearing and twisting of a wounded spirit and a pummeled heart and mind. There have been times when the only adequate prayer that could be uttered from the depths of the soul was "Oh God ..."

But there is triumph! The clock does not stay forever at midnight. There is new purpose, new beginnings, fresh hope. There have been many times when this little girl, now a woman caring and strong, has needed to hear those words, Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so ... but they were not heard; the singer was silent!

But echoing from the mountains of God and distilling like falling dew upon the waiting heart comes the sure and sweet refrain, Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.

The daggers of doubt may shoot their arrows; the shadow of betrayal may cast its net; the poison of falsity may fill its vial. These and the ravaging hordes that follow them can never silence or change the eternal truth, settled in the eternal decree before the world and stars were hung in space, and sealed on Calvary's hill as the precious blood of the Lamb of God was spilt, that Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.

For fifty years it has been true for this one, and praise is offered. The curtain lifts; there is silence; and then a new scene comes before us. Whatever it may hold, the counsel is established, ratified in Heaven and on earth, assured by divine omnipotence:

Jesus loves me, this I know

For the Bible tells me so

Little ones to Him belong -

They are weak, but He is strong

Yes, Jesus loves me

Yes, Jesus loves me

Yes, Jesus loves me

The Bible tells me so

Allan T. Ironside

May 3, 2012

This was my father's love letter to me on my fiftieth birthday. You can glimpse the heart of this man, right from when I was an infant until this very day.

He is the person who has influenced me the most for good in my life.

No wonder Jesus Loves Me is my favourite song!

Thank you, Dad, for your great love - first for God, then for Mum, and then for your six children and now your grandchildren - which has proved to be the best teacher possible in communicating God's love for us.

                   ***********************************************************

Dad loved Johnny Cash; so here's the Man in Black singing the song: