Observing my Husband's Love for God's Creation by Sandra Rafuse

 

We were on our way to a winter holiday weekend in Winnipeg. It was a beautiful day. Bright sunshine bounced off the snow and the air was cold and crisp. We drove past fields littered with leftover sunflower stalks from the previous fall's harvest. Unexpectedly my husband, Bob, lifted his hand up to the front window and pointed outward. "Look at that snowy owl," he said. "It's a female." I did what any person in their right mind probably have done upon hearing that remark. I quickly bent forward and simultaneously lifted my arms up around my head to protect my face. Who wouldn't? At that time in my life, the only time I would see an owl through the front window of a moving car was if it was hitting the windshield! This pretty much sums up how much attention I gave to noticing wildlife or bird life of any kind in those days. But my husband, Bob, paid attention all the time. That owl was at least a mile down the road, sitting on the top bar of a telephone pole and he saw it right away. That didn't help me any as I had no idea where to even start looking to find it. It wasn't until we were driving past the pole it was sitting on that I recognized it, in the last place I'd expect to see an owl anyway.

When God created the heavens and the earth, He must have had Bob foremost in His mind. He must have known how Bob would love all of His creation, from the trees, the plants, the rivers and lakes, to the moon, the stars, the animals and the birds. I'm realizing that observing how my husband embraces God's creation opens my eyes and my mind to enjoy it more than I ever have before. So for me, right now, watching and listening to Bob is what has been filling my creative container.

The Number Two Highway comes toward Rockglen from the north and curves into town to head east. It turns south on Columbus Drive and as soon as it does, you can see the hills at the end of the highway heading past the local gas station. Almost every time we drive down this street (and it's often), Bob says, "Aren't the hills beautiful?" or "Isn't that a wonderful sight?" There are many hills all around the land down here and he is familiar with many of them. Several years ago Bob planted a few spruce trees and several yucca  plants on the sides of a couple of the hills.  The yucca plants lived all this time and only died off about four years ago. Four of the trees have survived and one looks very good. I've been thinking of buying a small metal plaque that says "Bob's Tree" and attaching it to its trunk.

I have come a long way in learning to identify the wildlife and birds my husband points out to me every time we are travelling in a vehicle together. It took years for me to be able to see them. To really see  them. . .to locate them within seconds of his mentioning them.  "See the deer?" he asks, and I do. I see two of them standing on the highway, looking straight at us. So I quickly look to the left and to the right sides of the road because I know there are probably other deer nearby that might step up onto the highway in front of us at any moment and they have to be watched out for, too. "See the coyote?" he says, and I do. My eyes catch him racing away at high speed, putting distance between us, seeking safety in the fields. "See the sharptails (sharp-tailed grouse) buried in the snow?" he questions, and I do. I spot the tops of their dark backs pushing up out of the snow cover as they huddle near each other for warmth. It pleases me that I have learned to spot the wildlife and birds Bob loves so much

The most exhilarating sighting of a bird I have ever seen of my own happenstance happened one summer afternoon at a lake in southern British Columbia. I was ambling along the beach, paying no particular attention to anyone or anything. I glanced up and saw, to my astonishment, an osprey hovering over a spot above the water that had his full attention. His feet were extended out in front of him, and his sharp, curved talons were spread out. I stared with wide open eyes. He was several feet above the heads of a few children playing in the water and not far from some adults on the beach. Without warning, he plunged into the water and disappeared from sight. Several jaw-dropping seconds later, the tops of his wings broke through the surface. Then the rest of each wing surged up and out, and with powerful strokes of his long, narrow wings, he rose up out of the water and started flying away from the area. I almost didn't notice the large fish he held tightly in his talons as he rose higher and higher until he drifted out of sight. And other than myself, no one, not one person, saw what had unfolded so close to them. I saw him when no one else did.

Photo at top: Osprey by Dennis Derringer on Unsplash

Sandra Rafuse lives in the small town of Rockglen, Saskatchewan, with her husband, Bob, a Gordon Setter named Sadie, and a Peregrine falcon named Pete. She is a retired teacher, an amateur writer, and is thoroughly enjoying being a member of InScribe Christian Writers' Fellowship.

Writing Naked by Brenda J Wood

 

I am writing naked right now. Oh, not that kind of naked!

What on earth are you thinking! No, not that kind of naked where I sit in front of the computer in my ancient, wrinkly body suit. No! NOT! The naked you mean is someone not covered with clothing or other protective layers. Does fat count? No.

The naked I mean is described as defenseless, unadorned, undressed, stripped and exposed, not adorned by artificial means, not covered with its usual covering. No concealing cover or even unarmed.

And at 5:00 a.m. this morning, coffee in cup and pen in hand, I write my naked truth for all the world to see. My failures, pretense and shame; my attitudes, pain and history; my experiences, self-destruction and memories.

Without this nakedness, my writing can only be described as boring. Without life experiences, we are nothing. We have nothing to share.

Think of a newborn babe who could tell you nothing at all about its experience on earth. But we? We gather stories every single day. Excuse me. Enough of that, it’s time for me to face the world and put on some clothes. It is awfully chilly to be exposed like this.

(Top Photo) By Moe Magners from Pexels.com

Brenda J Wood has authored more than fifty books. She is a seasoned motivational speaker, who declares the Word of God with wisdom, humour, and common sense.

What's In My Bucket? by Mary Folkerts

 

When asked how I fill my creative container, I think of my blue gardening bucket that I lug around my yard each summer from flowerbed to shrub border. In it is everything I think I might need to create a beautiful array of dahlias, snapdragons, cosmos, and rudbeckia.

Here’s the problem with my bucket. It has become a catch-all, with items lost on the bottom that never see the light of day. For that reason, I bought myself a new container this year, one that is shallow and will only carry the necessities.

I wrote a light-hearted poem about my blue bucket and its contents.

You might call us a Mötley Crüe
tossed in her gardening
bucket of blue.
Two left gloves
with holes in the thumb,
a spool of brown string,
pruners and some
odds and ends
she’s forgotten about,
a rusty old hammer,
a trowel,
and no doubt
torn, empty seed packets
strewn throughout—
and I.

It’s a bit of a game we like
to play—
who she will reach for first
in the day.
She, being the gardener
who makes things
grow,
trowel pipes up loud,
“It’s obvious you know.”
I help her plant, to dig up
the ground,
I’ll be the one
she’ll need around.
We all hold our breath
as she bends down low,
she makes her selection
And I'll have you know–
It’s not the first time
that trowel’s been
defeated,
for I am her favorite,
and have not been unseated.
She holds my shaft deftly
as she flicks off dried dirt,
she spits on my blade
and shines on her shirt.
She plunges me deep down,
to dig up the weed,
then I make furrows
for planting the seed.

With my long reach
I help scratch her back,
I prune off the dead stuff
and open the sacks,
of soils and mulches,
make holes for new flowers–
trowel can’t hold a candle
to all of my powers.

See, a gardener does more
than just plant the seed.
She cuts back and digs out
removing the weed.
That’s why she selects me
above all the rest,
I don’t like to brag
but I may be the best.

So at night when the waning
light sends her in,
she nestles me back
in the bucket with them.
And tomorrow we’ll do this
all over again.
I’ll let trowel think
that maybe she’ll win.
But what can I say
since I came into her life,
I’ve become her
favorite— her Hori knife!

I wonder if sometimes, that’s how we think of our writing. We can overstuff our containers with all the tools we think we’ll need for successful writing, but never use half of them. Maybe we just need a few favorite tools to help us stay motivated and avoid getting overwhelmed by everything out there.

Some tools I depend on for writing are–

- Grammarly Pro for sentence structure, spelling, and punctuation.
- I write a lot of quick notes as ideas come to me in my phone's notes app. I save them for future reference.
- I do most of my writing in Google Docs, where it is easy to find back.
- I’ve been writing my debut poetry book with Google Docs, using tabs to create chapters.
- Que Cards are wonderful to put ideas on, and then you can arrange them into a proper sequence.

For writing inspiration, the online community has been my lifeline. Without it, I don’t think I would have ever been able to share so much of my writing. What first really inspired my writing was becoming a member of Compel Pro Writers (with Proverbs 31 Ministries). Since then, I have also become a member of InScribe and The Way Back To Ourselves. These organizations (I’m sure there are many more) can all be found online. They are a place to practice your craft, but also a place for mutual encouragement along the way!

And always, God’s word inspires. This is where it begins and ends, for He has given the desire and ability to put thoughts into words, and He is the One who continues to light the fire within.

Mary Folkerts is mom to four kids and wife to a farmer, living on the southern prairies of Alberta, where the skies are large and the sunsets stunning. She is a member of Proverbs 31 Ministries' COMPEL Writers Training, involved in church ministries and music. Mary’s blog aims to encourage and inspire women and advocate for those with Down Syndrome, as their youngest child introduced them to this extraordinary new world. For more inspiration, check out Joy in the Small Things https://maryfolkerts.com/ or connect on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/maryfolkerts/

Hand Me That Wrench by Sharon Heagy

The 'farmer five.' I may have mentioned this phenomenon before. It is the time frame required when the farmer needs a hand. "Can you come and help me?" he says, "It will only take five minutes." Please understand that a 'farmer five' is very rarely or dare I say ever, five minutes long. Shut off the stove, turn off the coffee, grab the kids, pack a lunch. You may, by some miracle, be gone for five minutes but the reality is that you will probably be gone all morning, all afternoon, or all day. Could be sunrise to sunset, there is no real way of knowing.

If the farmer requires help with livestock, that requires one skill set, but if he needs help with machinery, it's important to know what tools may be required and how to identify them. It took this city girl awhile to grasp a basic understanding of the multitude of tools that are out there. Take wrenches for example. There are Open End wrenches, Box-End Wrenches, Crescent Wrenches, Torque Wrenches, Pipe Wrenches, Oil Filter Wrenches, Ratcheting Wrenches, and Allen Wrenches, which do not look like wrenches at all. And that's only a few! It's of utmost importance to know which one is required when the farmer says, "Hand me that wrench."

There are hammers - claw hammers, sledgehammers, ball-peen hammers, welding hammers. Screwdrivers - flat head, Phillips, Robertson, and Torx head with various sizes for all. There are over 15 types of pliers and over 18 types of saws. Nuts, bolts, sockets and ratchets, oh my! Some use hand power, others use electricity and still others are powered by air. Air!

The bolt size in relation to wrench size confused this 'nut' the most. "Bring me a 3/8 bolt and a 9/16 wrench." This sentence caused me to pause. Why would a 3/8 bolt need a 9/16 wrench? Shouldn't a 3/8 bolt need a 3/8 wrench? Not wanting to ask questions during a stressful farm fix, I kept my questions to myself. Took me a lot longer than necessary to figure out that a bolt and the head of the bolt are actually different sizes and it took me a very long time to commit to memory which size of wrench fit which bolt head or nut. I still struggle. Apparently, it is necessary to purchase an abundance of 9/16 wrenches. They were one of the most common sizes we used and often got lost in the dirt when fixing in the field. If they ever germinate our fields will be full of them and we will be able to recoup the loss.

Writing has a fantastic and expansive set of tools too. First there are the instruments; computers, typewriters, printers, notebooks, journals, page markers, labels and paper in a variety of quality and colour. There are multiple computer programs that boggle the minds of we who are less than tech savvy. Stationary stores are bulging with a plethora of different pens, pencils, markers, and highlighters. I LOVE stationary stores. I ooh and aah down the aisles and inhale the smell of fresh paper and swirl around in comfy unaffordable office chairs.

Our tools are put to good use when we fill our chosen brand of blank pages with words. Verbs, adverbs, adjectives, nouns, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners and interjections combine to make sentences and paragraph after paragraph. We can dangle our participles with the best of them. And don't get me started on punctuation! Now you've done it! Exclamation marks, periods, question marks, colons, semicolons, apostrophes, hyphens, dashes are a light offering of all that is available.

Next come genres, and sub genres. Fiction has romance, fantasy, mystery sci-fi and history in forms of novel, novella or short story. Poetry writers are not just writers of rhyme. There are writers of haikus, sonnets, odes, ballads and elegy. Non-fiction contains such entertainments as memoir, travelogues, devotionals, essays and journals. To write all the categories would take up this entire blog post.

Once you've written something worth reading, the next step is publishing; traditional, self-publishing, hybrid publishing, digital publishing, print on demand. What an abundance of things to learn. It can be incredibly overwhelming. It's all high tech now with no SASE. Now I only get bills and the occasional card in the mail instead of standard rejection letters. The world of publishing continues to change rapidly. Good thing there are wise people who keep up with it all. They are an invaluable asset to a writer's journey.

All of this information is causing me a little anxiety. How about you? Maybe you are experienced and know not to panic. (Sharon, don't panic.)

The writer's energy is fuelled by endless cups of tea or coffee and many a tank of water. It's important to stay both hydrated and awake but not shaky. Be sure to eat, take breaks and move around. Though our tools are powered by the brain and hands and even our voice, there is something much more important with which we need to engage. It's air.

Stop. Take a breath and let it out. Close your eyes. Pray. This is where the power of the writer begins. We need to allow the breath of the Holy Spirit to wrap around the synapses of our brains, and run down our nervous system to our hands to write or type. This Way is the beginning, middle and ending. Him. As the paraphrase of Proverbs 4:12 (NKJV) says "As thou goest, step by step, I will open up the way before thee." There is no need to grasp it all. No need to know all the steps. Just write. Pray, breathe and write and He will let us know what we need to know when we need to know it. Enjoy the process and don't get discouraged. Keep writing and may you be blessed each and every time you come to the blank page, or the partially finished book, or to the end of an article. Let Him be your air, your breath, your source of power and write.

 

Sharon Heagy writes from the wonderful town of Rockglen, Saskatchewan where she lives with her husband, a big dog and furry cats. She writes to bring hope and humour to a world that needs both. She can be reached at sharonheagy@gmail.com 

Thanks for taking the time to visit today. God bless.