Aronia Berries

Perhaps you have never heard of aronia berries.  They were new to me a couple of years ago when a lady in our church introduced me to them.  Her daughter and son-in-law had started growing them organically in Montana, and she shared with me the health benefits packed into these little berries, which look similar to blueberries, but have a very different taste.  Also called "chokeberries" (different from the chokecherries we are familiar with in our area) they are more tart, and have a drying affect on your mouth if eaten alone.  Because of this, it is suggested they be added to other food sources.

After reading about the health benefits, I decided to add them into my diet, and most often sprinkle a handful of them on my breakfast cereal.  They come to me frozen, and so far straight from the freezer is the only way I have eaten them, although my friend who sells them says they are great in smoothies or added to muffins, too.

I searched out a good website to tell you about the berries, and found this one, which also lists the trusted sources they pulled their information from.  If you'd like to research them further, follow this link:

Information on Aronia Berries

A quick summary, should you not want the full information, is they are a great source of fiber, vitamin C, manganese, and very high in antioxidants.  They have potential in being anti-cancer, can be beneficial to your heart and liver, and give your immune system a boost.  Although I am not crediting aronia berries as a solution to fighting the COVID-19 virus, my body did fight it off in May without me experiencing any of the usual symptoms of fever, aches, and loss of taste and smell.  A simple blood test in July assured me I indeed did have a good supply of antibodies to prove it.  Supplementation of Vitamin D has also been important to keeping my immune system healthy, as well as eating right, exercising, and getting the proper amount of sleep.

If you would be interested in trying some of these berries, stop by for a visit.  I can provide you with a sample, and then point you to my friend who sells them.  If you are not interested, I'm okay with that, too, but would say you are passing up a great "super fruit"! 

   

Monday Moments

Last night, as I was visiting my Aunt Sue, I expressed there was nothing on my "to-do" list for my Monday this week.  It was a busy week-end, and I was thankful to have a day with no special obligations.  As I left from the visit, she told me I should "sleep until noon" to rest up, and it was accomplished.  I did wake up earlier, and got out of bed to take my morning Thyroid pill, plus drink my usual 2 glasses of water to start the day, one without lemon juice added, and one with.  But the bed still looked inviting, so I returned, and was awakened by our "noon whistle".  It was good to feel rested!

After a breakfast/lunch of Rice Krispies with banana slices and aronia berries [more on these in a later blog!] I munched on watermelon slices while my hubby had his noon sandwich.  Then I filled my three hummingbird feeders with the sugar water I had boiled up last night.  I had been told to simple use 1 part sugar to 4 parts water, and avoid the red syrups you can buy.  Turns out it is healthier for the busy little creatures.  They usually show up in our community around the end of July, and I had yet to see one.  Looking out the window, I spotted my first one. . .not on the feeders, but on the flowers below.  Will be watching for more in the days ahead!

Laundry needed tending, as it always is a never ending chore.  Sorting, I ended up with four piles, which will be tackled throughout the day.  It is such a blessing to now have my very own cheery laundry room, which came after 40 years of having my washer/dryer tucked in a closet in the bathroom.  I am so thankful for my husband and son who have been working on a remodel project over the past several years, which not only gave me a laundry room, but a larger bedroom, a sunroom, and a yet to be designed office space.

Sometimes it is the little things which stir my heart to a prayer of thanksgiving.  My son showed up while I was fixing the bed, asking if I could help tie his shoes.  He can do a lot one handed after his accident, but shoe tying is not on the list.  Somehow, as I did the simple task, it transported my mind back in time to when he was a little boy in need of assistance.  I was thankful to still be available when he needed me, all these years later.  A noise outside the window alerted me to look, and I saw my husband and his cousin moving some vehicles and a trailer.  I was thankful for this helper while his usual "right hand man" is out of commission for a time.

Seeing some songbooks in need of tucking away, I decided to sit down and plunk out a few tunes.  It brought me back to my best friend's house, an old piano, and times of playing songs together and singing from the "Reader's Digest Family Songbook".  This song in particular also brought me back to times of cruising Main Street Crosby in a little white Oldsmobile she drove!

A buzz from the dryer alerts me to the fact there is laundry to fold.  What other moments will fill the rest of my day?  Time will tell, but it is good to know we have a God who is with us in each one of them!

"Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid or terrified. . .for the LORD your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you". ~Deuteronomy 31:6

 

The Lord Knows the Way

A week ago, we received a late night phone call from our son, who had been working on building frames at his dad's woodworking shop.  His interest in framing stems back to his fraternal grandfather who, for a time, used the business name, "Frames By James".  Since our son's middle name is after this grandfather, he decided earlier this year to start his own business called, "Frames By Ryan James".

Back to the phone call, my husband was the one to take the call, only to have our son tell him we needed to bring him to the hospital.  His left middle finger had been injured while using the router table, and we weren't sure how bad the injury was.  Picking him up, his first words were, "It's just dangling there!" but my husband calmly reassured him it would be okay.  [When our son was little, my husband had his own run-in with a different type of tool, and now is missing the tip of one finger.]

As it turned out, the injury was not as bad as he had initially perceived, as the cut had only barely nicked the bone.  Still, because it was a router, it was not a clean cut.  They did an X-ray, and consulted a hand specialist in a city 2 hours from us.  The local doctor was instructed to stitch it up as best he could, and then make an appointment to see him in the new week.

Monday, after having some difficulty with the phone lines, we finally received an appointment for Tuesday.  I was unable to go with, but father and son did the two hour drive, only to have a very disappointing visit with the specialist.  For more reasons than one, we opted to try for a second opinion in our Capitol city of Bismarck.  

Lots of prayers were going up to heaven on behalf of our son, and we had been given several possible names to pursue for the next appointment.  As I was saying my prayers, a song popped into my head I hadn't thought of in years.  It was a little Sunday School song, and the lyrics are as follows:

             The Lord knows the way through the wilderness, all I have to do is follow. The Lord knows the way through the wilderness, all I have to do is follow. Strength for today, is mine all the way, and all that I need for tomorrow. The Lord knows the way through the wilderness, all I have to do is follow.

Something about the song was reassuring to my heart, and our son set off for the clinic to see what he could do about scheduling the next appointment.  To our amazement, he was able to get in to see a doctor our niece had recommended the next day.  In the evening, as I washed some dishes, my eyes landed on a "to do" list I had posted during the challenging days of COVID in 2020.  Hanging next to it were the dried roses from my mother-in-law's funeral.  It was like another encouraging message from above.

Early Thursday morning, the three of us got ready for the four hour drive.  As I dressed for the day, the socks I grabbed out of the drawer gave me the message, “I am Optimistic”.  Was it a good sign?  I could only hope it was!  

The appointment was scheduled for 11:40am, and the first step was some paperwork at the reception desk, followed by a repeat X-ray.  After a bit of a wait, we were escorted to an exam room, where a nurse took down a few more details, and told us the doctor would be in shortly.

From the start, I liked this doctor.  He was friendly, thorough in explaining what was wrong with the finger, and also in letting us know what the options were.  Basically, we could let it heal as it was, and end up with a drooping finger, or we could have him do a surgery to repair.  Oh, and by the way, he felt he could work us into the afternoon schedule that day!  Not exactly what we had planned for the day, but it would save us another trip to Bismarck.  It was indeed a blessing and answer to prayer!

Our son was a bit nervous, to say the least.  In his nearly 40 years of life, I can only think of a couple times he has ever been in a doctor's office, let alone had surgery.  He has simply been blessed with a healthy life.  So the next two hours were a long waiting game for him, and for us, too.  But once again God provided up with a couple of "signs" that eased our mind.

The first was a bouquet of big yellow roses on the nurses station just outside the little room he was waiting in.  Yellow roses always remind me of my dad, who passed away in 1987, and seeing this bouquet was like a hug from him!  

Then, on the floor in front of the nurses station was a unique design in the floor's tiling.  To me it looked like a large picture frame built into the design of the floor.  It seemed the Lord did know the way for us to go, and gave us lots of signs to assure us we were in the right place.

Surgery itself lasted only about 40 minutes, and the doctor was pleased to find one tendon intact, and the other he was able to piece together.  He inserted a pin to hold the finger straight during the healing process, wrapped his hand, and in another hour or so we were on our way home!  God is good!

Our son still has to face the long road of recovery, but was assured he should have full use of his hand in about ten weeks.  We continue to pray for a problem free recovery, with complete healing of the skin, and no infections.  One thing, however, we are certain of.  Whatever awaits us down the road, the Lord has already planned the way, and will guide us through to an outcome He has designed to bring good out of a not so pleasant situation.  One of my "life verses" is Romans 8:28, and it was one I used to bring comfort to my soul, and hopefully my son's, too.  May it also help you through whatever you are currently facing in your own life!

                               For we know that all things work together for good  to those who love God and are called according to His purposes.

Tending the Wrong Fruit

It all started early this summer when I was preparing to plant my flowers.  Gerber daisies are traditionally added to an old washtub.  As I started adding some new soil to the leftover dirt from last year, I spotted a small starter plant with leaves similar in shape to the Gerber daisies.  Could it be a small plant sprouted from last year's seed?  Not knowing for sure, I dug it out and placed it in a separate pot of its own to watch.

As the plant grew, I could tell it probably wasn't a Gerber daisy.  The color wasn't quite the same, and the leaves weren't getting big enough.  But what was it?  A friend had an app on her phone that would identify plants by simply taking a picture of them.  According to the results, I had some kind of tomato plant on my hands. . .it even started producing little round fruit, and I was leaning towards it perhaps being a cherry tomato plant.  I transplanted it into a bigger pot, and continued to faithfully tend it, making sure it had both sunshine and water to help it grow.  It still puzzled me how a tomato seed had turned up in my flowers, since I have never grown tomatoes in the past.

Then something interesting happened.  I was weeding my watermelon patch, and came across the same type of plant.  Something told me there was perhaps a weed with similarity to a tomato plant, and to Google I went.  It turns out there is something called a Solanum carolinense.  According to Wikipedia, it also goes by other more common names, such as radical weed, sand brier, bull nettle, devil's tomato and wild tomato.  It also informed me all parts of the plant, including the fruit, are poisonous to varying degrees.  Effects of ingesting the plant include fever, headache scratchy throat, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.  Had I continued to tend those cute little fruits it was producing, eating them could cause abdominal pain, circulatory and respiratory depression, or even death.  Sure enough, I had been nurturing a weed!

Now, as I look at this carefully tended plant, I shake my head and wonder why I didn't recognize it as a weed.  Perhaps it is because satan is very crafty in his deceitful ways, and even in plant life has invaded our world with things to lead us astray.  As I pondered this, my thoughts went to a passage in Ephesians 5.  Verses 22 and 23 is a very familiar list of spiritual fruit:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  The verses following tell us those who belong to Christ Jesus have gotten rid of their sinful nature, and have replaced it with this new fruit of the Spirit.

So, what is the sinful nature comprised of?  Backing up to verse 19, there is another list with a different kind of so-called "fruit" which gets displayed by someone acting under the control of their sinful nature.  The list consists of sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies "and the like".  It seems this list is longer, and filled with some unpleasant things.  The worst is, verse 21 ends by saying those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Your challenge this week is to make an honest evaluation of your life.  Which list best describes the way you are living?  Or, in the analogy of my careful attention to the wrong type of plant, are you producing good fruit, or simply tending weeds?  As you ask God to help you, work on cultivating the good things listed as fruit of the Spirit, and work on eliminating the weeds of the sinful nature.  Our world will be made better as you do!

 

“Happy Birthday, Dad!”

Each year, as July 3 rolls around, I find myself thinking of my Dad.  He was a hard working farmer, who also liked to fly, so aerial spraying was added to his summer duties.  Growing up on a farm was a great childhood, but unlike my siblings, I was not able to ride in the tractors and combines.  Multiple allergies and a battle with asthma kept me away.  I do remember riding along in the small space behind the pilot seat of the spray plane as we went back and forth over the fields.  Perhaps it was Dad’s way of compensating for the fact I couldn’t be a part of the farming action.

Today my devotions were from 2 Peter 1:16-21.  Peter is reminiscing about the time Jesus took him, as well as James and John, up on a mountain where they were eye witnesses of the majesty of their Messiah. Matthew also recorded this event (Matthew 17:1-13), and called it the “Transfiguration” of Jesus, as His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as light.  It was then they were joined by Moses and Elijah, prophets from many years past, and a bright cloud enveloped them.  A voice spoke from the cloud:

“This is My Son, whom I love, with Him I am well pleased.

Listen to Him.”

It was the voice of the Heavenly Father giving affirmation to His Son, Jesus, who had left heaven on an earthly assignment to save the people of the world.  Yes, Jesus was doing a good job, and even today things go best when we listen to Him.

Somehow, to me, it seemed fitting on my dad’s birthday to have a lesson about the relationship between a father and his child.  Dad wasn’t one to verbalize his love for me.  It simply wasn’t a part of his stoic German culture to do so.  And yet, his faithfulness to work hard and provide for our family assured me of his love.  

God called him home when He was 71, and I was only 30.  I was still very caught up in my own world of being a wife and mother of two young kids, as well as having a job outside the home at our local bank.  Now, looking back, there are so many things I would have liked to ask him.  I am thankful for pictures that give me a glimpse into his growing up years, his time in the army, and our life on the farm.  I realized too late the importance of communication between a parent and child, but look forward to eternity with him to fill in the blanks.

As I contemplate where life has brought me since my father’s death, I wonder, what would he say about me now, if he had the opportunity to do so?  Would he say, “This is my daughter, whom I love, with her I am well pleased.”?  Somehow, I would like to think so, and every time I hear an airplane flying overhead, it is as if he is stopping by to say, “Hello!”

The Heavenly Father told Peter to listen to Jesus.  Having spent time with Jesus, Peter tells us in 2 Peter 1:19 to pay attention to the voices of the prophets, which were made more certain as Jesus fulfilled their words.  Through the years, these words made their way through history and impacted the life of my dad, so he, in turn, could impact mine.  For this I am thankful.  “Happy Birthday, Dad!”

Who Are You Seeking?

This evening at our church we had an interesting service led by our interim pastor, who just happens to be my brother-in-law.  He entitled our time together simply, "Seeking God".  Since this was a new type of service for all of us, I really didn't know what to expect.  Afterwards, the importance of the lessons we learned have been resonating in my heart, and this seemed like a good place to share them.

Living in a farming community, most of us can relate to the concept of "sowing" and "reaping".  You plant (sow) seeds into prepared ground, and after a few months you reap a harvest.  Our introduction to the seeking service was found in Hosea 10:12.

    Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love,

and break up your unplowed ground;

for it is time to seek the Lord, until He comes

and showers righteousness on you.

When is it time to seek the Lord?  I would say there is no set time to start, but in God's timetable "now" would fit any set of circumstances.  It was stressed we should not make it a matter of intellectual analysis, but rather a seeking that is both spirit and soul dominant.  This type of seeking will result in a deep and meaningful transformation of our lives.

The word "seek" can be found 244 times in the Bible.  We took time to look at 17 of these verses, with everyone being assigned a verse or set of verses to read.  I am not going to take the time to write out all of these verses, but hopefully you can find some time in your week to look them up.  Not all have the same perspective, so I will add a little something we learned after hearing each of them read.

• Matthew 6:33 - Seeking as a priority
• Hebrews 11:6 - Seeking is a requirement
• 1 Chronicles 16:11 - Seeking results in rejoicing
• Proverbs 8:17 - God loves a seeker
• Jeremiah 29:13 - Seek with all your heart
• Deuteronomy 4:29 - Seek with all your heart AND soul
• Matthew 7:7-8 - In the original Greek, "seek" in these verses is in the present progressive tense, which means it is not a one time thing, but rather a command to "seek and keep on seeking"
• Psalm 14:2 - God is looking for seekers
• Psalm 34:10 - A promise for those who seek
• Isaiah 55:6-7 - An invitation to seek
• Lamentations 3:25-26 - The Lord is good to those who seek Him, but it requires waiting quietly.
• Psalm 105:4 - Seek always
• Amos 5:4 - Seek and live!
• Zephaniah 2:3 - Seeking gives us protection
• Psalm 34:4 - Seeking delivers us from fear
• James 4:8 - Seeking involves drawing near to God
• 1 Chronicles 22:19 - Devote your heart and soul to seeking 

At one point, our interim pastor used the "glow in the dark" concept to help us understand the importance of seeking.  If you have an item that is said to "glow in the dark", you must first place it in a source of light before it will shine in the darkness.  Seeking God brings us close the One who is the ultimate light source.  After time spent with Him, we can venture into a dark world and have a "glow" about us people see and are attracted to. 

Between 2005 and 2013, my practice was to look back on my week and find a "God Lesson" from my everyday world as a bank teller.  Looking back, I question if I was seeking the lesson more than the "Lesson Giver".  After tonight, I have a broader perspective, and desire to seek more consistently, not just for lessons, but for the One who gives them.

The good thing is we don't have to go searching for God in the seeking process.  He is already here, every moment of every day, no matter where you are.  We simply need to awaken to the reality of His Presence.  

We ended our time together listening to a number of songs with a seeking theme.  Music has a way of touching our spirit through the soul, preparing us to enter into a seeking mode.  You can search for any of these songs on YouTube, and be blessed:

• The More I Seek You (Kari Jobe)
• Seek Ye First (Maranatha Music)
• You Are My All in All
• I Will Sing (Don Moen)
• O Lord, We Seek Your Face (Worship Central)

Should you be challenged to pursue a deeper time of seeking God, we will be gathering again next Sunday evening at 6pm.  Join us if you so wish.  You are always welcome at Crosby Assembly of God! 

The Question of the Day

How many times in the past week have you been asked, “Did you get your shot(s) yet?”  For me, it seems to be in the topic of discussion more times than not.  For those of you who have already decided and followed through with action, know that I respect your decision.  For many reasons, I am remaining on the “not yet” side of things.

Today I was given a video to watch from someone who is also cautiously waiting.  My intent to share the video was met with a notice it was against YouTube's terms of service.  At any rate, I have multiple allergies, compromised kidneys, and a liver that often needs help.  According to the doctor in the video, common adverse effects often attack both kidneys and liver.  

I have managed to survive a year without knowingly contracting the virus.  I try to do all I can to support the natural immune system God gave me.  I fully trust God has, according to Psalm 139:16 and Acts 17:26-27, a beginning and end date for my time here on earth.  Therefore, my answer to the question of the day is “No, I haven’t.  Please respect my choice.  Blessings to all on both sides of the fence!

[Since this post was written, my husband did contract COVID, and I lived in close proximity to him, caring for him for five days before he was eventually admitted to the hospital.  I was tested at that point and the results came back negative.  I experienced none of the symptoms he did, although the stress did put me into a bipolar depression, which lasted longer than normal.  My bipolar doctor suspected I perhaps did contract COVID, was asymptomatic, and it affected my bipolar.  The only way to know would be to check for antibodies, which I have not yet done.  Taking things one day at a time!]