Stone Hill Homestead

“Get small with God,” Wendy told us years ago. So we did. Us and a tiny group of friends. It was healing, hopeful, and life giving. But while we love each other and there was no nasty parting of the ways, we needed to move from that season of life, all of us for our own reasons. Now we are small, Dru and I. Some days it’s fine. Others it is very not.

So I wash eggs and admire the colors. And thank God for this happy.

We look for community for our kids and hang onto it where we find it. Jube went to a youth event the other night and enjoyed it. Havilah is headed to nationals with Bible Quizzing. We talked about Birchwood School for the kids as Dru works there anyway. But my soul rebelled. Let me have my kids. They’re all growing up too fast. Let us have our school mornings in the sunshine on my bed. Why should I share them with strangers? They are mine. Dru says for the first time in our marriage I seem to be saying the homeschool tropes. Fine.

Okay, I’ll show this. Closing a church building is bittersweet. Emptying the bins of things that don’t need to be stored or passed on. That building and its everlasting mice and ladybugs. Foot washing towels we never used but lived in the closet. How the mice got into that bin is a mystery. Happy memories and sad ones all mingled. I won’t miss vacuuming the ladybugs. I’ll forever treasure the Refuge years.

On a scale of one to ten how sacrilegious is it to reclaim the mouse eaten towel for a milking rag? This mundane makes me smile.

I brought these home. It was time to update my dishes situation. It was a cluttered two days while I reorganized, but the kitchen makes more sense now. This mundane gives me joy.

He hates pastels. He knows cuz he had to do this yesterday. I find the frustration of a male 16 year old to be slightly alarming. But he doesn’t throw things or use bad language so there’s that. He hates this art course but it’s fun to watch anyway. He is learning in spite of himself. This mundane is also one of my joys.

This man says, “I don’t know about you, Lisl, but I still need to go to church on Sunday morning.” So we still try to go. Only today we host a Bible study and because of our poor time management over daylight savings time, did not make it to church this morning. Last Sunday we went to church with his Mom. The Sunday before that we were at Dayspring.

This man taught me that often when the Bible talks about having faith in God, the better word is allegiance. This fits the feels better. Faith feelings aren’t very trumped up right now. But I do have allegiance to a God who I don’t know what he is doing right now. This understanding of faith is, somehow, a mundane grace I hold onto right now too.

My mom told me the verse that came to her in light of our situation was, “He makes all things beautiful in its time.” She prays more about the situation than I do I’m sure. This grace is not so mundane and I’m ever so thankful for it.

As always, I’m thankful for this little farm. This mundane joy means more to me than it should I suppose. Freyja is due in a month and I’m ready for it.