The Goodness of God

The song The Goodness of God has been my heart off and on in the last year or two and now  particularly through the last few weeks. The writers of this song are apparently controversial in modern churches, but to me their words are still valuable even if their lives are not perfect. There’s so much that resonates. There’s so much that brings tears. As of this week I’m trying to desensitize myself to it so I don’t weep buckets when I hear it sung beautifully at my little  bro’s wedding in a few weeks. 

I love You, Lord

Oh, Your mercy never failed me. 

This is easy enough to say. 

And all my days, I've been held in Your hands

This line makes me cry. The safety it invokes in the middle of trauma and chaos is infinitely comforting. It reminds me to keep believing this, that I am never alone. 

I love Your voice. 

You have led me through the fire. 

He has led me through the fire and I’ve been afraid of a voice that leads through fire. This 

 reminds me of another song.  Thy best, thy heavenly Friend, through thorny ways, leads to a joyful end. (Song: Be Still my Soul ) I know from past experience that the fire or thorny ways, though they may go on much longer or more intensely than I anticipated, have joy on the other side of them in life and from faith that they will have an even more joyful end later in heaven. 

I've known You as a Father

I've known You as a Friend

I know God differently in different seasons. This season I’ve needed a Father to comfort and guide me. 

I have lived in the goodness of God.

I have lived in the goodness of God. When I doubt this, my Bible is full of notes and highlighted parts that witness to this truth throughout my life so far. I have lived in the goodness of God. God’s goodness isn’t sporadic; it exists at all times in all situations. 

Your goodness is running after, it's running after me

I haven’t been sure what these words were referring to until I felt them in my own life. The days that I feel empty, completely empty, void of any emotion and so tired, those days I feel Your goodness …running after me. When I don’t have the energy or will power to seek out God’s goodness, it still finds me. In the small saving routines of daily life. In the beautiful expansive winter outside my door. In a tiny newborn niece to snuggle through multiple hours and multiple bouts of screaming. In the sparkle in LittleB’s eye. In the rough frequent hugs from my overgrown brother-in-law Teddy. 

With my life laid down, I'm surrendered now

I give You everything

In the middle of grief there are days it feels like I have nothing left to give, not even to God. In those moments of utter dejection grief gives me the cynical perspective that nothing is worth holding onto very tightly because anything else could be taken away at any moment. This isn’t laying down my life, it’s not surrender. It’s self preservation, self pity, just plain selfishness. 

All my life You have been faithful

All my life You have been so, so good

He has been. He is. God is so, so good even when life is not. 

With every 

breath that I am able

I will sing of the goodness of God.  

It is Well

They sang one of my long time favourite songs at church last Sunday . When Peace Like a River Attendeth my Way.  And through this last week as I’ve thought about it a little, it’s brought me back 15 years to the first time I remember loving this song. 

I was a 14 year old hanging out with Karilee at her house in Zomba, Malawi. I don’t remember the specifics -did we sing it with her family once when I stayed with them -or maybe it was during workers meeting when we were bored and paging through a Christian Hymnal? What I do remember was that one of us said, “I love this song!” and the rest of us all agreed. But like maybe that wasn’t strictly true. Maybe we hardly even knew the song because we were growing up in Africa and weren’t used to singing English Christian Hymnal songs. Maybe it just resonated because it was something that reminded us all of our little kid days back in various parts of America, a bit of a history we all had in common (and in many ways we didn’t have a lot of commonality, our motley crew of teenagers from various parts of North America growing up in various parts of Africa.). One thing I know for certain sure is that the lyrics weren’t real to us at that point. Because what do a 14 year olds know. Oh they thought they knew. But they didn’t. 

However trite, that day was a small beginning for me, regarding this song. Many times throughout the coming years when we sang this song in my church in Canada I was reminded of this tiny anecdote, but slowly the memory has faded to the point where I’ve lost many of the details and is replaced by newer memories attached to this song. At nearly every crossroads or change in my life, these lyrics have resonated, “Whatever my lot … It is well !”  

Sometimes this has been easy. As a carefree teenager doing all the carefree teenager things, the happy times of so many baby sisters, when we sang this song at our wedding, when my son was born. In  these times when life was easy and happy it’s been easy to say it is well. 

Other times I’ve felt the “sorrows like sea billows roll[ing].” The times that left gaping holes of losing whole sisters to the system, or the times that threw long heavy shadows with years of family dramas and traumas, the hard times. This beautiful and horrible fall when we had to put our perfect and precious teeny tiny baby boy in the ground. 

These hard times are the ones the song refers to in this phrase : 

Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Learning, particularly learning acceptance, learning to say the words it is well even when it doesn’t feel like it is really that well, doesn’t often come in the easy happy times. It can, it does, I desperately wish it would more. But most of the deepest, stay-with-me-for-a-lifetime lessons are the ones learned in a bit of darkness, right in the middle of the sorrows like sea billows. And that’s where I’ve been this last month, deep deep in the sea billows. And there really is nothing more to say than this, it is well with my soul. 

Here is the song in full. Written by Mr. Horatio Spafford. Google the story behind the song sometime when you think your life is hard. 

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, 
It is well, it is well with my soul.

It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
-My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

Oh Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

March So Far

March So Far.

It’s only been 5 days, but they’ve been full days. (Note that I didn’t use th B*sy word. I Wouldn’t want to trigger anyone with that word.) 

March so far:

So much butter chicken. Thanks, @Tieghan @halfbakedharvest.com You are a Mennonite woman’s best friend. 

Watching a late afternoon post-violence arrest. There was blood involved and inebriation. Just another day on the tow truck. Because of witnessing this situation and obviously overhearing discussions of myriad other situations we deal with my 2.89 year old regularly uses the word alcohol in conversation (not correctly, however. It’s mostly used as a silly word / name.). 

The sky is magnificent, and it’s finally warm enough outside to pause for a minute and soak in the beauty. 

Eating Cadbury mini eggs with my kid.  I recently told someone I didn’t buy my kid (or myself) candy, So obviously I had to make myself a liar. I’m blaming it on Breannah because I saw them in her cart and then decided I had to have them too. But tell me, who can resist mini eggs ? Can you ? 

A Skating and fire-supper party and socializing with a sample of every age group, including some people I don’t hang out with a lot. 

I lost at Cover Your Assets yet again. Can it be spring now so game season can be done ? I’m tired of losing.

Green bean casserole for Sunday dinner at our friends’ house. It made me think of being 13 years old eating supper at Uncle Kevs and discovering green bean casserole for the first time. Apparently that was a pivotal moment of my life ? 

Bye, March 1-5. I’m on to better things, like March 6, etc. 

An Ode to the Things in My House

         The last time I tried to write a blog post it ended up being an incriminating story about dairy products. I couldn’t post it. Hoping today’s post fairs better. 

You know those instagram accounts (Pinterest, TikTok, whatever) full of the best parts of someone’s house. Well this is mine, but words only. Mostly just some of the nostalgic sentimental parts. Apparently there are a lot of those, which is strange for someone who has been labeled unsentimental. Pretty much everything in our house is either second hand, inherited, or something we built ourselves. That’s not a flex my 20year old self would’ve thought I would be proud of. It’s wild how different 30 is from 20. 

An Ode to  Things in My House:

Secretary: There’s a conversation starter hanging out between our dining room and living room in a somewhat inconvenient place. It’s part China cupboard, part desk, part storage. Apparently it’s called a secretary or a Plautdietsch word Grandma Laura uses but I can’t pronounce.  It’s old wood finished in a dark reddy colour, not something i would’ve chosen particularly. However it’s one of my favourite things I own because It’s full of family history that I know nothing about and must be over 100 years old. It once belonged to one of my great grand fathers from dad’s family. Grandma Laura says she remembers Grandpa Levi’s dad often sitting there doing his books. He was a meticulous bookkeeper, she says. 

Beautiful old Desk with finish wearing off: this one I have had for years. basically half my life. It also belonged to my great grand father, this one in my mother’s family. This history of this desk isn’t as distant as the one above; mums and aunties may correct me, but they remember Great Grandpa Noah using this desk. 

Assorted baskets. I own both too many baskets and not enough. One or two come from Africa from when I lived there a life time ago. Some come from friends. Some from my granny. Many I’ve thrifted or picked up free somewhere along the way (my local thrift shop sometimes has piles of them for free!). I have a basket to fit almost anything i own except maybe my car. I once did not remain true to myself and bought a basket off Amazon. I don’t even regret it. 

Glass 🐻 Peanut Butter Jar from my mils awesome pantry. 

Play tent in B’s room, cheap score from small local charity / thrift shop. 

Wooden boxes that do double duty as end table and plant stands that we’ve found around the homestead. 

A little ceramic house with a light inside that I stole from my mother. 

Dresser and beautiful Wooden rocker from my grandma 

Set of bent tin measuring cups that belonged to Brent’s grandma that I use every day.

Massive piece of blue glass from my papa and granny that is an epic conversation starter and fits the boho vibe that may or may not be my personality even though it’s probably out of fashion. 

Milk glass vase from my grandma (I think) that holds a rotation of wild flowers all summer long and dried wild flowers all winter long. 

 An epic red couch / chair set that Big B owned before I was in the picture. He’s like me; of course he didn’t buy them new but off a local insurance’s smoke damage page. 

And here we come the abrupt ending. One can’t edit infinitely.