Nature's Generous Reprieve

Late last fall, when I should have been diligently cleaning out the garden, we were busy with Stephen and Becca's move.  Not to mention by that time in the gardening year I have totally lost my ambition and it's easy to put the whole issue off until spring.  Some early snows and freezing temps put the nail in the coffin of my resolve to leave the garden tidy for the winter.  

But some very mild temperatures and lovely sunshine (plus the arrival of the first seed catalogs of the year) got my gardener's blood stirring once again.  It really bugged me to look out the sunroom windows and see the messiness in the garden.  So today I went out and cleaned out the dead vegetation from the rest of the garden boxes, cut down all the dried tomato vines still tied to the trellises and swept out the paths between the boxes.  Pete came and helped with a rake for the heavy stuff.  Two trips with the wagon to the burn pile and things are tidy out there again.  Mother Nature doesn't often give us second chances to right our wrongs but I'm very thankful we were able to finish the job!

As always, My Hero.

The field north of the barn is tidy and resting, too.

Now when I look out the sunroom window I see the garden peacefully sleeping instead of reproaching me for not finishing the job.  The sun is very low and even at noon the shadows are long.  

We had a lovely and quiet Christmas.  It was special to have this little guy with us this year.

When you are worn out from opening presents and playing with toys, there's no place like Opa's lap in a comfy chair.

Oma's lap is also a pretty good place, especially at church when there are lots of people around.

We Need a Little Christmas

My kids think I don't like to decorate for Christmas.  There is an evolution to this idea.  When they were small Pete's approach to decorating was to drag every box into the house and let the three kids unpack everything and spread it all over.  I'm not the world's tidiest person but that amount of chaos just did me in.  Pete and the kids, however, had a wonderfully happy riot and I usually absented myself to the kitchen to do something like make Christmas cookies until the dust settled and I could start cleaning up and rearranging (just a little).  I can't excuse such Scrooge-like behavior but in my defense I will say I was a working-full-time-outside-the-home mother.  My capacity was stretched.  

So this year when Pete told one of the girls that I actually wanted to put the tree up BEFORE Thanksgiving she was astonished.  In fact, I do enjoy decorating.  Just slowly and quietly.  I enjoy it when someone helps me, too.  Just don't rush or overwhelm me with the stuff.  One small area at a time.

I usually have a big nativity display but I'm still struggling to find the right place for it in this house.  Otherwise I think I'm done decorating for the year and we'll just enjoy the lights and colors as we reflect on the Light of the World coming into the world to save us.  And as we look forward eagerly to His second coming.

Whit thinks this small tree is just for him.  He's been sleeping by it all afternoon.  Occasionally he'll get up and play with the ribbon or rip a couple ornaments off it.

Hey - who turned off my lights?

Side note:  there is almost always something drying on the wood stove.  Tonight it's onion skins.  Great for dying wool or adding color and depth to broth.

Advent wreath.  An old tradition from our years in Germany.  
"Advent, Advent, ein Lichtlein brennt..."

One Tough Parkie

Anne and Kenji gave Pete a couple of early Christmas gifts this week and he broke them in this morning at the gym.

Cool new shirt!

New boxing gloves with the Rock Steady motto:  FIGHT BACK against Parkinson's!

Pete's journey with Parkinson's disease has been such an adventure.  When he was diagnosed almost 6 years ago we thought we were facing a rapid downward progression.  What has actually happened, by God's grace and sovereign guidance, has been nothing short of miraculous.  

The first "coincidence" that started changing our lives was meeting a woman at a party who has PD and who said we should come to this amazing support group that met in a church not far from our house.  That support group opened the door to us in so many ways, especially in informing us about how critical exercise is for PD patients.  Exercise has been shown to be more effective than any of the current drug therapies.  We got on the band wagon and started exercising religiously by doing 4 mile run/walks three or four times a week.  This gave us the mindset that we CAN change the progression of this disease if we are willing to be aggressive in working against it.

Another "coincidence" was a YouTube link someone sent me showing an interview with a PD patient who was doing Rock Steady Boxing therapy.  I sent the link to my daughter and son-in-law.  Kenji was uniquely positioned through decades of boxing and martial arts experience to understand this concept.  He immediately embraced the idea, was able to take the Rock Steady certification training and by the time we moved back to the farm he was ready to take on his first Parkie.  We arrived home on a Sunday afternoon and Monday morning Anne and Kenji had us out in the garage, teaching us the basics of boxing and starting us on circuit training.

A third "coincidence" was a neighbor stopping in to drop something off but who ended up telling us about a gym in Minooka that had closed down and was available.  God opened the door for Anne and Kenji to rent the space and (after much investment of time and effort), K-Fit Minooka was opened for business.  In the almost two years it's been open it has been changing lives through the Rock Steady program but also through boxing classes for men and women who have never boxed or never been to a gym.  The classes have become invaluable support groups for so many people who thought they could never get fit.  

A fourth "coincidence" was a video link someone sent me that eventually started us down the path (well, actually, "catapulted us" would be more accurate) to switching to a totally whole foods plant-based diet.  Anne and Kenji joined us and we've never looked back, feeling better than we've felt in decades.  

These "coincidences" have clearly been the hand of God, graciously moving people like chess pieces into our lives at critical moments to supply our needs and give direction.  If I were making a movie of this PD journey I'd have to have some fancy special effects or music to signal LIFE CHANGING MOMENT AHEAD!!!! at certain of these junctures.  It's really fun to look back, reflect on how seemingly random things happened that caused a significant change in direction.  God is so creative in His ways and means and it's SUCH an adventure to be on the journey with Him.

An angel named "Dave"

Spoiler alert! Dave is actually a contractor, not an angel - but the point of this blog is that God used him to meet a need I had even before I had any idea that I needed it.

Yesterday morning about 10am Becky and I went to Menard's in Morris and bought some tile for a kitchen backsplash. I paid for it, put the credit card into my billfold, and my billfold into my coat pocket with my gloves. We walked to the car, loaded the tile in and then headed for home.

A little after noon yesterday I saw a pickup pull into our driveway. Now, in the country we generally recognize people by the vehicle they drive (which for guys is usualy a pickup). But I didn't recognize this pickup - so off to the backdoor to greet whomever ... "What can I do for you?"

The fellow smiled, held up a billfold and said, "Today's your lucky day!" And he was right - it wasn't just someone's billfold. It was my billfold. "I'll bet you don't even know where you lost it." I told him I suspected it was when I was going out of Menard's. I asked him what his name was and he said "Dave". Just Dave, nothing else. He said he found the address on my driver's license but no phone number. So, he decided to drive out here on his lunch break and see if I was home. I told him thanks several times, but I think I was kind of stunned by God's intervention on my behalf before I even knew the billfold was missing.

Becky, Anne and I talked over at home last night and decided that a nice gift card to Amazon would be appropriate. This morning I printed one out and went to Menard's to find Dave and thank him again. I found the manager at the front and explained I was looking for the employee named Dave who had found my billfold yesterday and returned it to me. She looked puzzled - and then explained that there wasn't any Dave who worked there that fit my description. She confirmed that with another of the employees. And suddenly finding Dave had become a lot more difficult.

I drove back home, thinking about what I should do next. I decided that waiting would only make finding Dave more difficult. I would do the only thing I could think of: drive around the north end of Morris for a couple hours, looking for a pickup like Dave had been driving ... and ask God to help me find him.

I spent 20 minutes checking out parking lots north of I80 without seeing anything like Dave's pickup. So I decided to begin going through parking lots south of I80. As I was going past Morris Diner I saw a pickup toward the back that reminded me of the one Dave had been driving. I went around the block, came back and pulled into the Diner's parking lot. Sure enough, it was a contractor's vehicle - I could tell from the tools inside. So what's next - I guess I go in and have a look around the restaurant - staring at each of the patrons and seeing if any match my increasingly fuzzy memory of the previous day.

This is WAAAAYYYY out of my comfort zone!

I went in and the manager was at the cash register inside the front door. I explained to him that I was looking for the guy who had returned my billfold the day before and I had seen a pickup outside that was similar to the one he had been driving. Would it be okay for me to look through his patrons? Somehow the manager really got into it. He had me look through those on the north first. I looked at one fellow and said, "Dave?", but he shook his head. A cursory glance into the south half wasn't promising, but the manager said I should go right in and take a good look at the people eating there.

Among the patrons in the south half of the restaurant were six contractors gathered around two tables - clearly they had come in together. The one furthest from me looked kind of like the guy I had seen yesterday, so I walked toward him and asked if his name was Dave. "No," he said, "that's my dad". Then from behind me I heard a voice say, "Peter?!"

Yup, that was Dave. "How did you find me?" I explained that I had asked God to help me find him, so I could say thanks appropriately and I gave him the Amazon gift card containing the gift certificate. I don't think Dave had told the others about the billfold, because he explained what had happened and how he happened to find me.

It was good Dave found it and not someone else. He saw it lying on the ground in the Menard's parking lot. There was a fellow getting into a car near it and he said to him, "Excuse me, I think you've dropped your wallet. " The guy felt his pocket and said, "No, I've got mine." Then seeing the billfold on the ground he said, "... but I think it's my wife's." However, before that fellow could respond, Dave stooped down and picked up the wallet, which was very cold - a sure sign that it had been there for some time and was certainly not "the wife's" wallet.

Later Dave looked through he billfold for a phone number he could call, but found none. Online searches only offered phone number results for money. Checking the address he discovered it was only 10 minutes away, so he decided to take his lunch break to drive out to our farm and return the wallet to a stunned Peter Meyer.

Why in the world did God orchestrate this whole adventure? I have no doubt that I'm getting increasingly clumsy and a little dense in my old age, so it's not as if this kind of behavior on my part is novel. But why would God arrange to have it brought back and then honor Himself by helping me find Dave? I don't know. But as I was getting ready to leave Dave and his coworkers to finish their lunch, he said to me, "You have no way of knowing how much this means to me."

Angels are literally "messengers of God". So in that sense, Dave was an angel. But it also seems like God not only blessed me through this angel, but blessed the angel as well.