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Beauty of the ordinary

1/31/2017

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It’s been a bumper wheat crop this year. Not only are the silos full, but ginormous piles of wheat have popped up around the landscape waiting for trucks to come and ship out the abundance. 
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Farmers are rejoicing. For some, despite all their hard work, the harvests over the last few years have been extremely poor, so this year is a real blessing. Its something we city folk don’t get to think about too often when we grab a loaf of bread from the supermarket shelf. 

A tiny grain of wheat can seem so insignificant and yet imagine a world without wheat … bread has been a staple food for civilisation since antiquity. Some early comers to Australia came here for stealing a loaf of bread to feed their starving families … for those living in poverty there was often no more than bread.
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And Jesus took an ordinary, everyday, commonplace loaf of bread, broke it with his disciples and said, “Do this in remembrance of me”.
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He’s still in the habit of using the ordinary and often least significant to achieve his purposes. He takes our faltering faith, our best efforts to love, and our desire to give our all, even when strength fails us, and uses them for his glory and purpose.
 
It’s in the small things that he gives us the opportunity to be his hands and feet.
 
That came home to me this week as I read news from Dr Mardi Steere and her husband Andy, missionaries working at Kijarbe Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya.  

Kijabe Hospital is faith-based, providing compassionate health care, excellent medical training and spiritual ministry in Christ. But right now the hospital is overwhelmed as doctors and medical personnel throughout Kenya have been on strike since early December. So many in need of urgent medical care are turning to Kijabe for help.

How do you cope when there are more patients than beds and staff to care for them and more babies who need ventilators than there are ventilators?
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Mardi sits quietly beside a tiny newborn who can’t breathe alone and becomes a ‘human ventilator’ … squeeze, release, squeeze, release , squeeze, release … for as long as it takes.

Please pray for strength for Mardi and the many other dedicated personnel at Kijabe Hospital, for whom being a 'human ventilator' for hours on end is one small example of sharing the love  of Jesus among the suffering.
 
Oh the beauty of the ordinary.  The wild, crazy, wonder of God in taking the ordinariness of our everyday lives and transforming it into a healing, saving, nourishing work, for his glory, our good and the blessing of others.


"Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. " John 12: 24
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The 1970 Nobel Peace Prize was a relatively obscure agronomist by the name of Norman E. Borlaug. During the 60s Dr. Borlaug had developed high-yield, disease-resistant strains of wheat that he brought to the farms of India and Pakistan. The result was a green revolution. Both countries sextupled their grain production by the end of the decade, saving millions of lives in the process. ​ Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.
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The old button box

1/24/2017

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Beneath the light layer of rust you can still read the inscription, Carma Caramels ... delightful caramels, rich with buttercream.

Perhaps it was a Christmas gift or a thank you present, I’ll never know, but someone enjoyed those caramels and the empty tin became my mother’s button “box”.

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It fascinated me as a child, playing in my mother’s sewing room and it still does. But I treasure it today because for me it’s my mother’s memoirs, written in buttons and buckles and beads.
 
From the age of four, my mother developed a passion for needlework that would largely shape her life. Unable to lay her hands on a needle, she began to sew with cotton tied around the head of a pin, and within a few years was creating fashion statements for her dolls on a small, hand-operated sewing machine her parents had given her. As childhood gave way to teenage years, so doll’s clothes gave way to skirts and blouses, dresses and nightgowns for herself and her mother.
 
At fifteen years of age she was apprenticed to one of Sydney’s leading fashion couturier, Miss Lillian Dowe, where she learnt, not just the fundamentals, but the details and the intricacies of fashion design of the era.  It was the extravagant era of the 20s and what more exciting time to work in fashion. Her extraordinary talent was quickly recognised and in time she became chief cutter and eventually head of the workroom, being left in charge on a number of occasions when her boss travelled overseas.
 
Her fine needlework skills assured that she was in high demand for the favoured clientele, those who wanted that “something special”. Her hands were those of a master craftsman. With lightening speed her deft fingers darted back and forth across the cloth and in their wake evolved beaded designs, the finest piping and tucking.

​She painted with thread.
 
She married and became a mother.  Her skills turned to baby clothes and children’s wear. She went on to specialise in wedding clothes and evening wear and eventually had the joy of sewing for her grandchildren.

For years she taught dressmaking at evening college and many women became passionate and competent sewers under her tutelage.  
 
It’s all there in the button box.  Buttons of every colour size and shape … fragments of decades of fashion … reminders of the seasons of her life … memories for me of a loving mother who used her extraordinary skills to bring joy to so many people, but especially to me.
 
As I delve into that timeworn tin I can’t help but wonder what remnants of my life will remain as a testimony to the life I’ve lived?  What legacy will live on for the people in my life?

​Do you have a treasure that reminds you of someone special? Leave a comment and share.


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Pondering on Old sheds

1/17/2017

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Every old shed has a story … a unique story. Someone built it; someone lived and worked within its walls. Someone sheltered beneath that now-rust-covered roof.
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If you listen carefully you might hear the drone of the shears and the banter of the shearers as they work through the heat of the day … or the voices of children playing amongst the scattered wool when the men are long gone and the shadows lengthen.
 
Or maybe it's the hammer on the anvil, the sound of saw-teeth ripping through timber or the lowing of cows coming home for milking. Perhaps you’ll hear a mother calling her family for the evening meal.
 
Sheds have seen it all, the good times and the lean ones too. They’ve heard words of despair in times of drought, been a shelter for a farmer when, head in hands, he felt like giving up … stood solid through it all.
 
Been there when a new day dawned.
 
Now they lie abandoned.  But for me there’s beauty in peeling paint and rusting iron. Weathering has brought its own loveliness  … mellow and inviting … a sense of mystery as I imagine their story.  Someone said that age is a work of art and that’s just what old sheds are for me.

 
They stand as a reminder of the past … monuments to those courageous and determined souls who worked the land providing  a life for their families and prosperity for this country.
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The first shed (image) on this blog was once a thriving shearing shed which had fallen into disrepair. It has now been rebuilt from the original materials and given a new chapter of its life (the image above).

It reminds me of Robert De Niro in The Intern. He's a 70 year old retiree who takes on the role of senior intern to Anne Hathaway who runs an online fashion house. It's a delightful story of a man who gets to share the wisdom, knowledge and experience of a lifetime, in a whole new unexpected chapter of his life. He becomes an asset to the company and eventually a good friend and right hand man to his young female boss. He brings insight, graciousness and patience to a frenetic workplace and 'surprisingly' the young workforce discovers that age has a great deal to offer. 

That's the beauty of age, you have the opportunity to invest the knowledge and skills learnt along the way through life to inspire and encourage others. Last week I had the thrill of helping my granddaughter establish a veggie garden. I was able to share what I've learnt from a lifetime of gardening experience and lots of trial and error. 
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If ageing is a work of art, then each of us is being sculptured by the experiences of life. More often than not it's the times of 'drought' or 'flood' that stretch us to be more than we thought possible.

But the universal truth is that we are all ageing and our stories are shaping us ... the decisions we make, our reactions and responses, our thoughts and the motivations of our heart. Our stories are unique and so are the circumstances that make us who we are becoming.

I hope that the lines and wrinkles, the sags and fading are just the 'peeling paint' and 'rusting roof' of life's weathering and that the real beauty God is developing in my life is a more gentle, kind, grateful, generous and compassionate soul.
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This shed looks like it might have a new chapter of its life. I wonder what that will be?
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The secret to living life to the hilt

1/10/2017

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She occupied the bed opposite my mother in Calvary hospital. Her life was coming to its end and yet this small, frail lady radiated joy unimaginable. Her visitors were many, and each one spoke of the blessing they received from having spent time with her. This ninety-something gentle soul had learned the secret of contentment and shone with an inner peace. The staff loved her grateful heart and acceptance of whatever needed to be done. The ward was a happier place because she was in it.
 
I learnt that she had been in the hospital for many months. My mother had been there for just a week and every time I visited she begged me to take her home. The contrast was powerful.
 
One day as I chatted to a social worker, she summed it up in a word, “homesickness”. For most people home is a physical place, a structure of some sort that provides, not only a place to store treasures and memories, but a familiar place, a place which provides a feeling of security and safety. To be separated from that place for any length of time can lead to homesickness, a feeling of loss, insecurity and anxiety.
 
For other people, home is wherever they are. They have learnt to be content in any and all circumstances … to enjoy life wherever they find themselves. They are not attached to things or places. They don’t know the pain of homesickness, only the joy of contentment.
 
I’m encouraged by the apostle Paul’s confession that he’d had to learn to be content. It wasn’t in his DNA … it didn’t come naturally to him … he learnt it through the hard experiences of life. Through sickness, persecution, shipwreck and even imprisonment he proved he could do anything through Christ who gave him strength. 

He learnt that whatever he had was enough and he could be content no matter what situation he found himself in.  

This ninety-something lady had learnt that lesson too. I wonder how many of her 90+ years it had taken her to learn the beauty of contentment?

"I long to live each day to the full  - to squeeze from each moment every drop of joy, gladness, beauty, wonder, bewilderment, learning, even suffering if that is what the moment holds, but I can never live to the hilt without learning to be content with the now."  Carol Mayhall


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Investments

1/3/2017

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I've never been one for making New Year resolutions. I prefer spending time reflecting on the year gone by.
 
I like to think back on the people who have invested in my life … those who’ve encouraged me, supported me, inspired and challenged me. Those rare souls who don’t try to fix me, but just listen and try to understand.  
 
Those people who have been willing to be vulnerable in sharing their lives with me. And those who quietly and consistently cheer me on from the sidelines … always dependable and always there in the background.
 
It’s a good time to stop and recognise the value they add to my life and to be grateful. Time to let them know they are appreciated and to say thank you.
 
In the busyness of life it’s easy to take people for granted, children, parents, siblings, friends, coach, pastor, hairdresser, doctor, teacher  …
 
For a number of years I had a massage therapist who not only released the tension in my neck and shoulders and helped keep me physically fit, but she was one of those people you discover once in a while who was always present in the moment. Our conversations were often deep and encouraging and I always went away richer for having spent time with her.
 
She was just one of many people who blessed my life. The beginning of the year seems the perfect time to let them know that their investment in my life hasn't gone unnoticed. Sometimes it’s a phone call but more often a card or letter to put into words what I feel in my heart.

What about you - who has invested in your life in the year just lived?

My sincere thanks to YOU for reading my blog ... you have been an encouragement to me. I began with great hesitation but have enjoyed sharing my thoughts and images and hope they have inspired you in some small way. Without you to read and share my blog posts they would remain nothing more than words on a "page".
 
I hope the year ahead holds enough challenges to extend you, enough laughter and tears to keep you tender, enough fun to keep you childlike and endless opportunities to love and be compassionate, open-hearted and open-handed.

​Happy New Year!  
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    Author

    Glenyss Barnham
    ​I'm a mother and grandmother who loves  discovering beauty in unexpected places.

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