There’s a Mouse in the House!

Posted on April 2, 2014 by Lynn

We have a mouse in the house!  Again.

I know he’s around, I think I can hear it, and I see evidence of the little rodent, but I haven’t been able to spot the little varmint, who is busily making his nest somewhere inside my wallsMouse and nibbling on the insulation and wiring in there.  My hope is that he might electrocute himself, but then not only would I hear the thing, I would then likely smell him too!  Ack!

I told the kids when we moved onto our acreage that we would likely experience wild life.  Sure enough, we have had our share of gophers (who look at my garden as a salad bar).  My son has weeded the population down considerably over the years becoming quite a marksman with his .22 in the process.  I’m okay with that.  We have a family of deer that enjoy hanging out by the fence.  My dog barks at them from the confines of the house but they are smart enough to know that our “watch dog” is more a nuisance than a threat to them.  We have coyotes that like to yip and yowl in the middle of the night and especially like to camp out in the evenings to see if we will ever let our little “watch dog” off his rope so they can make an easy meal of him.  They’ve snacked on two of our pets over the years, so we don’t let Samson out of our sight…especially at night.  We have a fox family nearby; we’ve had moose in our yard, a badger, and even a cougar but it seems the animal that gets the most of our negative attention is when we have a mouse in the house.

My “brave” son Brett, has an aversion to mice.  If he knows there is one in the house he is ready to jump up on a chair to make sure the mouse doesn’t suddenly leap out at him and start nibbling on his toes. He’s afraid of mice. He blames me. He said that the phobia started when I caught another mouse guest several years ago and not having the heart to murder the little animal, I instead trapped him in a tupperware jar and asked my son to do the catch and release thing outside. Unfortunately, the mouse decided at the opportune time to make good on his escape as soon as the lid was lifted, but rather than dropping to the ground, he decided to do a burn out on Brett’s hand first and then high tail it off.  This caused considerable shrieking and scurrying (not by the mouse), but by my son, who from that day on has had an elephantine fear of the little critters….and he blames me…of course.

I’ll admit I am not fond of mice. I would rather they made their homes outside and not inside my home, but I don’t lie awake listening for them, or worrying that I will find one sleeping snuggly beside me in my bed like my daughter Carmen does.  She will be moving home in a few weeks after her year in school and if she knows we have a squeaky house guest she will likely sleep with worry that the mouse will somehow creep into her room and play mousey games in there. It’s the logical choice for a mouse really…bypass a kitchen full of cookie crumbs and dry cereal to go play upstairs in my daughter’s bedroom…makes sense to Carmen at least.

Anyway, if this mouse hasn’t been dispatched long before she moves home, I’ll start to go a little looney myself.  He is somewhere in the house, but where he is exactly I can’t say, or where he’ll turn up I can’t guess but I just know he’s in the house and it’s freaking me out.

I am on a mission to get rid of that mouse…

It’s like sin in our lives. We know it’s there, the evidence is there, we know we have to deal with it eventually or it will pester us and pester us until we can’t stand it. We may try to do the catch and release thing but eventually it will creep into our lives again unless we do something…drastic.

The only way to get rid of sin is to let God deal with it…once and for all. It’s the only way.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

We can’t deny that sin is not there, that is to deny the obvious, but we have a Savior and He died so that we might be free from sin.

I should be as bound and determined to rid myself of sin in my life as I am in catching that mouse!  Something to think about…

As I bait another trap!

 

 

 

 

 

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Tulips and Snowdrifts

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Lynn

We’ve been buried under yet another spring snowfall in as many weeks.  Especially last week when our friends in the southern states were sending me pictures of their flower beds and cherry trees in full bloom, I had to admit I was more than a little depressed looking at the icy stalactites dangling off our eavestroughs and my dog getting lost in snow drifts.  If I seem a little bitter, well, it’s because I am.  We’ve had a  couple of snow-eating Chinooks but for the most part we’ve been buried under the white stuff.  It prompted me this morning to write a poem:

Go Snow Go!

Snow, Snow, go away,
Come again on a December day.
I’m tired of seeing you on the ground,
when Spring’s supposed to be rolling ’round.
I want to see some daffodils,
not white and more white on the hills.
I want to wear my new flip-flops,
not winter boots and mitts and scarfs.
I don’t like frost and ice,
and negative temps – that really bites!
My toes are froze as is my nose,
oh, this weather really blows!
So if I ask you nice today?…
Snow, Snow PLEASE GO AWAY!
– original poem by Lynn Dove (taking credit for despising snow since 1979.)

 

A friend of mine from Texas, asked how I was doing the other day and when I told her my weather woes she said, “How can your tulips bloom in the snow?”  I didn’t want to tell her that I haven’t seen a tulip peek its head up in my garden in many years.  In fact, with our short growing season here in southern Alberta, I have contemplated foregoing the usual trip to the “Anything Grows” garden shop for annuals, to go to Wal-Mart and invest in the silk ones and plant them instead.  I’ve done it before…yes, it’s true.

My friend continued to encourage me…and I finally responded with, “You have to bloom where you are planted…even in the snow.”  Yes, I said it, but I didn’t really mean it.  I mean, I’m a west coast girl at heart.  I grew up in Victoria, on Vancouver Island and counted, along with everyone else, all the daffodils that seemed to grow like weeds from February on.  The “flower count” the islanders call it, I call it “rubbing it in all the Albertans’ faces that they still have snow on the ground while Victoria is flower counting.”  How unfair!

I have another friend from the southern states who has happily “transplanted” herself here in Alberta.  She absolutely,My "Spring" Garden unequivocably LOVES snow!  Having never grown up with snow, now she can’t seem to get enough of it.  While I lament it, she praises it!  To me it’s white mush…to her it’s life-sustaining.  She keeps telling me that a late season snowfall is God’s gift to us in Alberta.  It is that prayed-for moisture that is essential to farming here.  Without it, Alberta would face drought conditions, wild grass fires would burn out of control, not to mention our forests would be tinder dry too.  She sees the necessity as well as the beauty of snow.

I’m still not convinced.

I cry out to the Father.  “I do so want to bloom and not wilt, Lord!  I’m really trying (forcing myself) to have a more positive attitude about this weather, but seriously?  Last week there was a three-foot snow drift in my driveway and another friend just Facebooked me telling me she’s going for her morning walk there in Carolina in 80 degree weather!  It’s so hard not to be envious.”

My morning devotion challenges me: “The saying “bloom where you are planted” has the sense that we are to let God use us and seek to be fruitful wherever we are.  Sometimes we may find ourselves providentially planted where we would rather not be. A true test of character is whether we wilt or bloom in these places.”

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty; but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.  You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.  Instead of the thorn-bush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.  This will be for the Lord’s renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed.”  Isaiah 55: 10-13

I think I just saw a tulip peek up through the snow.

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The Parable of the Teacup

Posted on March 29, 2014 by Lynn

My husband’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when Charles was a teenager.  She underwent a radical mastectomy that affected the nerves in her arm and hand and she lost sensation and mobility enough that she was always afraid of using or handling the fine china and crystal stemware she had collected from the time she was a young bride for fear she would break them.  When I met her in the late 70’s, one of her only regrets in life was the fact that she had not utilized her fine dishes more.

Today, I began my feeble attempt of spring cleaning (as I do every year), and one of my dreaded chores is pulling all my fine china out of my display cabinet to dust them.  Unfortunately I have not taken the advice she gave me those many years ago to use the dishes.  “Don’t worry if you break a piece!” she said.  “You can replace it, just use them all, because one day when you really might like to have tea in one of those beautiful cups, you won’t be able to…like me.”

After my father-in-law’s passing last year, a few of Laura’s china teacups were passed on to me and as I lovingly but carefully dusted them, I thought about how amazingly durable these “fragile” cups actually were.  They had survived numerous trips across Canada.  My father-in-law was in the air force so the family had moved many times before settling in Comox.  My husband and his brother were known for their rough-housing and that china cabinet had on more than one occasion been bumped into and dishes rattled from boys at play.  They had survived yet another move last year, jostled and jolted in the back of a trailer through the Rockies to our home here in Cochrane.  Even as I was pondering on that, one of the cups slipped from my hand and bumped on the table.  Gasping, I feared the worst, but surprisingly the delicate cup was intact.

It reminded me of my young friend who got a very interesting tattoo many years ago.  Not that I’m a fan of tattoos in general, but as she explained why she got a small teacup tattooed onto her hip, I couldn’t help but be intrigued.  “The teacup,” she said, “symbolizes “womanhood”…delicate and fragile but also strong and durable.”  She wanted to remember throughout her lifetime that she not only wanted to be treated with respect and sensitivity because of her natural feminine nature, but to remember that she had strength and durability to overcome any trials and hardship that may come her way.

My mother-in-law, Laura was the epitome of that analogy.  A Proverbs 31 woman in every aspect,  she had a delicate nature, yet she had outstanding strength and durability to battle cancer bravely.  She led many people to the Lord right up until her passing in 1981.  She left a Godly legacy to each one of her three children and her Godly influence continues to impact our family today.

So I am taking a little break right now doing something I have not done in years.  I am brewing a pot of tea and I’m using one of Laura’s teacups.  It’s about time.

I Peter 5:7  “Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you.”

He is the Potter, I am the clay.

“The Parable of the Teacup“.

There was a couple who used to go to shop in beautiful antique stores.  One day the woman saw a beautiful china teacup.  She picked it up to admire it and was startled when the teacup suddenly spoke to her.

“I see that you admire my fine china quality and rich design.”  Notice the intricacy of my pattern, the gentle curve of my handle.  I am indeed a treasure but you may not fully understand how I came to be this beautiful teacup.”  It said.  “I wasn’t always a teacup, in fact there was a time when I was just a red clay ball.  My master took me and rolled me and patted me over and over and I yelled out, ‘Let me alone.’  But he only smiled, ‘Not yet.’

“Then I was placed on a spinning wheel,” the teacup said, “and suddenly I was spun around and around and around.  ‘Stop it!  I’m getting dizzy!’  I screamed.  But the master only nodded and said, ‘Not yet.’

“Then he put me in the oven.  I’d never felt such heat!  I wondered why he wanted to burn me.  I yelled!  I knocked at the door!  I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips as he shook his head, ‘Not yet.’

“Finally the door opened, and he put me on the shelf and I began to cool.  ‘Ahhh, that’s better,’ I said.  Then he brushed me and painted me all over.  The fumes were horrible.  I thought I would gag.  ‘Stop it!  Stop it!’ I cried.  He only nodded, ‘Not yet.’

“Then suddenly he put me back into the oven, not like the first one.  This was twice as hot and I knew I would suffocate.  I begged.  I pleaded.  I screamed.  I cried.  All the time I could see him through the opening saying, ‘Not yet’.

“Then when I thought I knew there wasn’t any hope.  I thought I would never make it.  I was ready to give up, the door opened and he took me out and placed me on the shelf.  One hour later, he held me in his strong hand and he smiled as he handed me a mirror and said, ‘Look at yourself!’ and I did, and I said, ‘That’s not me, that couldn’t be me!  It’s beautiful.  I’m beautiful!”

“My master held me delicately as he explained, “I know it hurt you to be rolled and patted, but if I just left you as a red clay ball you would have dried up.  I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled.  I know it hurt you and it was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn’t put you there, you would have cracked.  I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn’t done that, you never would have hardened.  You would not have had any colour in your life, and if I hadn’t put you back in that second oven you would not have survived for very long because the hardness would not have held.  Now you are a finished product.  You are what I had in mind when I first began with you.”

“Then the master heated a cup of boiling water and put some tea leaves in me, and as he poured boiling water into me, the splendid aroma wafted up to him and he smiled, and I could tell he was well pleased with me.”

 

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