The Gift of Vision
- Bethlehem Revisited, Life on the Farm, The Gift of Community, The Gift of People, The Gift of Vision, The Presence of God
Bethlehem Revisited
Ah, life feels more typical these days! Last Sunday, a menagerie of people from young to elderly filled our living /dining area. All of them with vital roles in the planning and execution of Bethlehem Revisited. Shut down for a year; once again, we are planning our annual Christmas event. Bethlehem Revisited is central to much that goes on here at the farm. Our grandchildren have grown up living through all of the stages: planning meetings, workdays, the days of the event, which usually begin early in the day with preparation for that day and into the late hours of closing down for each day, and the final clean-up afterward.…
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“Here All the Time.”
There are two ways to reach the rocky road that leads to the pasture. One is through the barnyard which usually means going through several gates; the other is around the top of the barn, past the double sliding doors, along the roof of the old stable, through a wooded area, and upward to the open pasture. I had been busy and was stuck in the mundane existence of daily life. My world had become smaller, duller, and ordinary. No great inspiration compelled me to do my daily prayer walk or even expect my regular quiet time to inspire me. I was experiencing a gray world, one of those times…
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Re-Collecting in the Pasture
Today I needed to walk the old familiar trail in the pasture again.The thoughts and feelings swirling in my mind and heart were and are disconcerting. Thirty-eight years ago, this pasture was new to me. My body was younger. I was filled with anticipation of what could be, Things in the world were . . . just different. Yes, we were on a down-swing in our culture, but there was hope of changing it. Yesterday we were young, God was with us, we could carry out the vision under God’s direction. We were a community with one heart. Today, we are not so young. Our community living here is of…
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Longing
1 Corinthians 2:9 But, as it is written, “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— In our daily life on the farm we have been faced with the mundane: a ritual of tasks and chores, mopping up muddy boot tracks across the kitchen floor, pulling off ticks and trying to remember to use bug spray in spring and early summer, dying pets and farm animals, more work to do on buildings that need constant repair. And yet, we continue to search for the sacred in the midst of this mundane existence. We long for the presence of…
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Crazy or Inspired?
Recently, Teri, my writing partner, and I spent one of our writing sessions walking around the farm and visiting some of the buildings that have been a big part of the ministry of Wellspring. One of those spots was in the secluded hard wood forests north-west of the farm-house. Visiting that spot brought back warm memories of past years. I could almost see the faces and hear the voices of those young men so many years ago as they erected this unusual building dubbed “The Prayer Chapel.” Although it is in dire need of repair today, through the years it has been a place of dedication, tears, lamentations, heart-cries to…
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Painting by the Number (continued)
One evening we gathered in the living room of our little home with people seated on chairs, couch and floor. We had worked together and eaten together. Now we were relaxed and spending some time in worship, song, and sharing. Dennis led us, playing a few of our favorite choruses. Judd and John co-led as we jumped into one of our favorite topics. The discussion was one that had become familiar, but this time Kathy recorded what we said. What was the next step? Better yet, what was the big picture that God was painting? Jane began the discussion in her calm, level voice. “Perhaps, when you look at the gifts…
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Painting by the Number
Whenever God rejects a “wish dream” it is not out of His disdain for our wishes, but it is always that He has something better. In rejecting my wish dreams, God did not hold back His blessing from the farm, its ministry, and its supporters. He had a better plan. Looking back now I can see that what happened over the years was God’s plan painted in pictures that we could only uncover as we lived under His leadership. His plan was like the old-fashioned paint-by-the number pictures I had done in my childhood. The pictures came to life when I followed the numbers carefully, choosing the right colors to fill…
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Visions and “Wish Dreams” (continued)
Now I was facing a dilemma. My faith was being tested. My vision, my dream, was deteriorating. I knew that God had the power to change Judd’s mind, and He had not. And I knew that since He owned the cattle on a thousand hill, He could have provided the financial resources we needed. I also knew that I needed to support my husband and submit to something that he felt was right. Now it was time to step out in faith, believing that God is sovereign and I must walk a path that seemed so wrong to me. So I began to look for jobs. I had been…
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Vision and “Wish Dreams”
I do believe that God plants into our souls an expectation of His miraculous presence in our world, and He is pleased when we do not simply submit to the mundane, to the ho-hum life of mediocrity, but press for the life that is “above and beyond all that we ask or think.” Perhaps, the verse “I would have fainted if I had not seen the hand of the Lord in the land of the living,” was the impetus to my vision, my dreams. I seemed to be blessed with vision; my dear mother accused me of wearing “rose colored glasses” in my early years. Maybe it was good that…
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Authenticity: The “Real I” and the “Real Thou”
At fourteen, a few days before I turned fifteen, I had a crash-bang encounter with the Real Thou…and He spoke directly to the Real I. Having been chosen at the last moment to replace someone on our Youth For Christ Bible quiz team, I had crammed for a week, trying to memorize scripture that we would cover in quizzes against other teams from our North Atlantic District. We were going to represent our group at a large convention in Ocean City, New Jersey. This was a big deal…and I was scared. By the time we got to Ocean City, I was not feeling well. I got worse as the…