It's the country life!

As I was waiting for the water trough to fill for the horses this morning, I spent some time walking across the pasture and just looking all around. Most of my life I've spent dreaming of something better. More of this, less of that. But really, as I looked around, I don't think it gets better than this! Rich green grass, a bright blue sky with some fluffy white clouds for accents, a cool, refreshing breeze, warm but not hot... a hay field just over the fence, freshly cut and baled and safely stored away. Acres of fields and woods for the kids to play in. A huge, mostly level yard perfect for ball games and picnics. Relatively quiet country roads. Horses and cows contentedly munching the grass. Roosters crowing in the background. And glorious sunshine pouring in over it all.

And as I reflect, I feel tears starting to well. I'm so, so grateful. Last night, to be honest, I cried myself to sleep. I felt like such an incredible failure. The kids have done nothing but bicker and fight the last couple of days. The oldest has been resisting taking responsibility for himself. I've been doing a lot of cleaning, unpacking, decluttering, and basically moving in after 2 years of existing in this house, but it seems like dirt and clutter just gravitate back to the same old spots. It feels like an endless losing battle. School is starting very soon, and I need to finish getting everything organized and together. I'm not spending the time with the kids they want, doing fun things together over this summer break. The garden has weeds in it, and the green beans should have been picked but weren't. Several projects I was determined to get done this summer are still unfinished. I'm just not enough. I don't reach around. The demands on my time and energy are bigger than the resources at my command, and the pressure to perform it ALL is crushing.

But in it all, I still find gratefulness to overwhelm my reflective moments. More and more thanksgiving is replacing my old habits of doubt, worry, fear, and keeping up appearances. All the sermons I've heard and books I've read encouraging, even demanding, thankfulness meant nothing to me except one more thing I was doing wrong. One more failure. More discouragement piled on top of the already unbearable load.

So, where was the grateful heart hiding all these many years? 

It was hiding under the pile of condemnation. The feeling that I had to have all my ducks in a neat, smiling little row, and if I didn't, well, I wasn't a very good Christian. Obvious, right? 

Well, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Sincerely trying to do my best to look the way I was taught Christians look, to do what good Christians are supposed to do, was a slap in the face of the One I claimed to serve. My heart was distressed, sad, broken. I chased that elusive dream of perfection so hard, and never caught up. All the while believing God was disappointed, even upset, that I wasn't fully glorifying His name. Until I couldn't run anymore, and crashed. Then I was right where God wanted me. You see, He had a plan. He wanted me broken. He wanted me to see that nothing I could do was good enough. That my attempted righteousness was like filthy rags. Oh, He had saved me and cleansed me, no doubt about that! If I had died on the operating table the day Treasure was taken from us, I had full assurance and peace that I would be going Home to see Him. But life is a journey, and we aren't finished yet. The journey that I am walking had to bring me to a place to see just how little I could do to meet the demands I had been taught all my life were "Christianity". When that was stripped from me, I saw I had been chasing a mirage that did nothing to give life. And I gave up. I chose to face, and embrace, my failures, my brokenness, my hurts, my pain. He chose to cut the chains and give life. 

He is enough. His blood is enough. His love is enough. I don't need to do anything. Even resting in His arms... He is holding me. And then the thankfulness brings tears to my eyes. He doesn't need me to be perfect. He needs me to be broken. My failures and weaknesses are no stumbling block to Him.  They are a portal for His glory. 

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

My tears and failures so far this week are part of redemption's story. Part of reminding me the cracks remain. An answer to my prayer that I would not be filled with my self, my own importance, what I'm doing right, and the few accolades of men that have threatened to puff me up recently. How well I know it is the work of God, and God alone! He is the light shining through the broken places of this vessel of clay. Plus, I'm still learning how to put the expectations of others behind me and to set aside demands that look good on the outside but leave me empty and unable to do what is most important for myself and my family. Like I said, it's a journey. There's a lot of learning still ahead.

There is oh so much more to the story, believe me! The story of my journey so far has many facets. I will be exploring more in upcoming blogs, so if you want to get the freshest news you can sign up to have the blogs emailed to you after every new release, on the upper right hand corner I believe.

Missing from the action...

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since my last post. And I just haven't been able to keep up.

SOOOO, biggest news first, to explain! There's another little Hege planning to join the clan the end of July! I've been fairly sick so far, so that's part of the reason I haven't been saying much. I don't feel much like writing, taking pictures, or fooling with getting pictures loaded onto the computer. Or doing anything else, for that matter. The children are very, very, very excited about a new brother or sister, though they're all voting "sister" at this point. We have to continually remind them that we can't choose--that's God's job!--and we'll be happy for whatever he/she happens to be. Please pray for a healthy baby!

Let's see... our puppies were all sold and are gone. Whew! Whisper has been removed from our family since it seemed like she had a vicious tendency, and had it out for any cats we tried to have around. However since then our other dogs got in a fight with the neighbor's dog, on the neighbor's land, and so it looks like we're going to have to get rid of the other two as well. Which we're very sad about, as we like our dogs a lot. But, such is life.

Little Miss with the last puppy waiting for it's owner to come pick it up.

The first two eggs from Jaron's chickens. He was SO excited!

A "normal"crazy at our house--all three kiddos decided to try their hands at combing Mommy's hair. Hmmm, good thing my head is tough!

November 4 was Treasure's "Angel birthday". Jere had flowers delivered--3 red ones for our children with feet, and one white for the baby with wings. He's such a SWEET man!

Little Miss had a birthday, which we celebrated with a little friend of hers who is only a couple of hours younger. They are just too cute together!

From there, life was kind of a blur of nausea until Christmas, when my family came for a visit. They came loaded with food and fun, and didn't let me do much of anything except give directions on where to find this or that. It was so nice, and the first time we were all together since Jaron was a baby! Unhappily some sickness came along too, so a few people were rather out of it during our time together, but we had a good time together otherwise.

Making lefse. A Hendrickson family must-have for the holidays!

All together!

 Now for some random shots.

Jere came in one evening to find us all asleep in one bed! Guess everyone was tired...

The upstairs bathroom mostly ready for paint.

Jere's been working hard on our house. He had the basement bathroom pretty much done before our Christmas company, so that was nice to have two bathrooms with lots of people here. And it's VERY nice to have a bathtub again after more than a year without! After Christmas he tore into the upstairs bathroom and it's ready for a paint job now. Yippee! Only wish I was feeling up to doing it... At least now all the major tearing apart stuff is done in the house, so it just remains to finish getting things put back together. We'd like to push it pretty hard and be pretty much done by late April, but we'll see. Any volunteers to come help us?!!!

And the latest big happening was Eliott's birthday! Jere made the cake, from scratch (we did buy the icing, though...) and I was so proud of him! It ended up a pretty cute cake, I think. And Eliott is really, really happy to finally be 5, as now he doesn't have a scheduled afternoon nap. Li'l sis is taking that just a wee bit hard, but she'll adjust.

Not sure what else there is to say at this point. We're hoping my nausea will let up soon, but know it could be there for another couple of months. We have several activities on the radar, such as an EMS conference and another SALT trip to Haiti for Jere, but not real sure yet. I'll try to keep things posted a little better, but no guarantees! :-)

Just a couple pictures...

 I just had to share some shots of family life recently... A couple days ago I made a "picnic" for the children in the living room. It really didn't take THAT much more energy than normal, and they sure enjoyed it! The next day Eliott took it upon himself to vacuum the living room rug for me, and all I had to do was show him how to put a polarized plug into an outlet. :-) Nice.

Here's one of Leanna helping set the table. She had SO much fun! (Normally, that's the boys' job.)

 

 

And for those of you who haven't gone onto my other blog recently, here is the memory card I made for our precious little baby. It still brings on the tears for me....

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a happy, joyful, safe Thanksgiving day! :-) Ours was just a pretty much normal day. We'd planned on going to a friend's in the evening, but they got sick so we didn't go. I was pretty disappointed. Not because of the food, but because it gets very lonely and long for me these days. I don't have the strength to go out much at all, and I'm missing church and fellowshipping with church friends. We were also invited to Jere's folks for lunch, but the invitation came as we were fixing a VERY late breakfast and it just didn't work. Instead, we did school (horrors I know, but we got behind over the time of my surgery so we're working hard to catch up) and the little ones got nice naps. Jere took Jaron hunting in the afternoon, and then Jere's parents came for a little visit in the evening. So it was a nice, quiet day.

I was very thankful to find my strength returning some! I actually made pancakes for breakfast as a special treat, and still had strength enough to sit up to the table and eat with the rest of the family. And then I spent some time working at getting my violin in working order again. Our new piano is just out of tune enough that I can't quite get the violin tuned right to play it, but at least now the pegs don't get so stuck that I'm afraid of breaking a string every time I try! One of these days I'll try dragging out the keyboard and see if I can't get it right then. It's been years since I played my violin... By the way, anyone know of a luthier in the area here? It needs a bit of a touch up to a few areas that are starting to crack, and I don't want to stress it out too much and ruin it. And one of these days we need to get a piano tuner up here to get the piano sounding right. And, since Jere JUST found my camera, I should be able to post pictures of it pretty soon!

Things are feeling more and more like home around here now. Not that it's really looking any homier inside yet, but we're starting to make memories in it. It helps that we're still living on the same property so that already feels like home. Jere got the lights in the basement hooked up today--hooray! Now we don't have to use the big, too bright work lights anymore! He also got some outside lights working, so that will be nice too once it gets dark out again. Now that the wiring is about done in the basement, he's going to finish the insulating on the exposed basement wall so that should help things not be quite so cold in our "bedroom". Even the little bits of progress are exciting!

I think about the best news yet is that it looks like we've sold our mobile home! Someone came to look at it today, and offered us a decent price for us. Now they need to go to the bank to finish applying for the money to buy it, or something like that. So, we're cautiously optimistic that it's sold, and hoping and praying they come back with money in hand and trucker in tow. :-) We have a LOT of memories wrapped up in that little house--two of our children were born in it, and we brought the other home to it from the hospital. I walked out of the house pregnant with Treasure, and have never been back into it since he was lost. We've laughed and cried and argued and played games and enjoyed raising our family in it. So, it will be a little sad to say goodbye once it takes the journey out of our yard...

And we look forward to life in our new house! Even though we're not even heating the upstairs yet, we have so much more living space. The children love being able to run about, playing hide and seek or tag. I think it eased their transition into it because they were thoroughly familiar with it before we actually moved in. We've had a few interesting times since they are all sharing the one bedroom, and naps have been cut short because of one thing or another. Oh well. I'm just hoping not too many more months go by before we can get the upstairs livable and all have real bedrooms again! But come to think of it, that means I have a lot to look forward to, doesn't it? Real bedrooms, a working bathtub, doors on my kitchen cabinets, a utility tub in the back entry... oooh, I can hardly wait!

We're moved!!!

Our hearts were rejoicing last night as we crawled into bed, very tired and weary though we were. Rejoicing greatly in the Lord, and His blessings to us. For the first time in over a week, the whole family was under one roof for the night! I have no words to say as to how good that made my mother-heart feel. After coming home from the hospital I have been living in the new house as I don't care to try climbing the 6-foot ladder to get into the other house. But things weren't ready for our beds and other furniture in the new house. Saturday night and into Sunday morning Jere varnished our living room floor, and Monday and Tuesday a friend was busily putting up the duct work. So, last night a number of dear friends came to help us. They cleaned the basement (quite an operation as it's been a workshop for the past months) and moved all of our beds down there. Our sofas, desk, and piano were set in place in the living room, and all the numerous odds and ends were packed into boxes and totes and stacked everywhere. Then the ladies present cleaned the trailer thoroughly, down to mopping floors. I'm quite amazed it all got done, and ever so thankful!

I was up and about some yesterday, feeling stronger than I have yet. I can't express the weary joy of making my way down the basement stairs to be able to direct my children getting ready for bed, then to walk only a few feet away to crawl into my own bed again. To have them be able to come running to us through the night with their worries. I felt like a mama again even though it wore me out completely. :-) God is so good to us. The blessings He has poured out on us are so much above what we deserve! As I look around at our much larger house that is on its way to being so nicely fixed up, God's blessings seem so real and abundant.

There are pangs, yes, as I think of the diaper changing area I had planned out that won't be needed now, at least for a long time to come, and thinking of the crib being packed away once Leanna's done with it. But God has brought peace to my heart that even this is in His hand, and because of His great love for us. Treasure is with Him, in a place where there is no pain and no tears. A love that would keep him in this world of troubles and cares would be a selfish love indeed! I do mourn over the little feet that will never patter over our floors and little lips that will never lisp out "Mama", but I joy that my child has been freed from this world of sin and if forever with the Lord.

There is still a mountain of work ahead of us. They tell me I probably won't be back to "normal" strength for about 3 months, so it looks like an awful lot to do in finishing our remodeling and moving in before spring! We have almost all the trimming yet to do on the main floor, tile to lay in the mudroom, and then the entire upstairs to remodel. Plus bookshelves to build and curtains to sew and a number of other odd things to do. One thing at a time, and I'm just so glad to get done what we do have done already!

Outside, there's sunshine melting snow. I'm glad to see the sun again after it was hiding for so long. Somehow it's easier to feel cheerful when the sun's out! God bless your day, as He has blessed mine!

We lost our baby...

God is good, all the time. Even when it's hard to believe. As in now, when I am in the hospital recovering from surgery after having a ruptured ectopic/tubal pregnancy. I was in a tremendous amount of pain that came suddenly Monday morning, and as our family doc was busy with another emergency and we had no idea what was really going on we waited until afternoon to go to the clinic. Once we were there they couldn't get a blood pressure or much of a pulse, and our friendly ambulance crew screamed us to the hospital. After an ultrasound that confirmed the thought on everyone's mind, I went into surgery to have the ruptured tube--and, obviously, the baby--removed. (As I was only 6 weeks along, the baby was about the size of a sesame seed and they wouldn't have been able to find it.) They suctioned out more than 2 liters of blood, which is about half of the normal adult's blood volume, and said I came fairly close to bleeding to death. Recovery had been difficult from losing that much blood and the abdominal pain I've been having. And obviously also the emotional struggle of losing a baby we were longing for. Though I can't cry, for I struggle to take deep breaths because of the pain. That will come, I'm sure, since I have many close friends and two sister-in-laws who are expecting and we have been desiring another baby for a long time.

So please pray for a rapid return to health during this very busy time in our lives. I will be in the hospital overnight and possibly through part/most of the day tomorrow. And that God would be glorified even in this.