Springtime in Wyoming

I went for a walk around our property early this morning. It was drizzly and overcast, and I had a hard time finding the motivation to get out of my nice warm bed and put on my jeans and walking shoes. If it weren't for having to take Hannah into town for track practise at 6:30 I don't think that I would have chosen fresh air and exercise over staying in bed. I'm so glad that I did though! It was beautiful; cool but not real cold, and the air was still for a change with none of the wild Wyoming wind that we are getting so tired of. Things are really starting to green up and show signs of new life. I started out my walk with my Ipod, but soon had to turn it off so that I could listen to the song of the Meadowlark (although I do have to say that Ian Tyson's "Big Horns" is the perfect thing to listen to as I walk the hills of Wyoming!)

I realize that I can't say that Springtime is my favorite time of year, because I say the same thing when the lazy warm days of Summer hit, and then again when the weather turns cool and crisp & the colors start to change in the Fall, and I love it when the snow starts to fly and I have cross country skiing and sledding to look forward to! In other words, I love the change of seasons, and that makes me feel extremely blessed to live in Wyoming where we do have different seasons. I couldn't live where the weather was the same all year long (although a week in Hawaii is pretty wonderful too!).

Now Springtime in Wyoming changes from one day to the next. One day it's beautiful and clear and a balmy 60 degrees. The next day (or by that night) the wind can pick up out of the north making me feel like it's going to bring our house to the ground; and if that wind carries snow with it, look out! Three years ago at the end of March we were stuck in our house for three days with no electricity or heat or visibility further than a foot in front of us! The drifts of snow that we had to dig out of were amazing. Snow is never out of the question even into the middle of June. We never know what we're going to get from one day to the next, and I must confess that this is one of the things that I love about Spring!

This morning I felt like I was in Ireland, with the green of the hillsides making a beautiful contrast against the red of the scoria rock that is so prevalent in this area where I live. It was drizzly with a fine mist hanging over and around the hills. As I made my way to the backside of our place I was amazed with how big this country is that I live in. It goes on for miles with no signs of a road or a dwelling place or any other human being. Only the cows and horses and various wildlife to keep me company. I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude that God saw fit to create this amazing world that we live in, & that He made it so beautiful in it's diversity. He could have created the Universe with one big rubber stamp, with every corner of it exactly the same as the next; He didn't have to bless us with breathtaking scenery and smells and textures that delight our senses, we don't need it to survive. And yet everything that He has made does have the ability to bring us delight if we take the time to take it all in. "You care for the land and water it; You enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with Your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the desert overflow; the hills are covered with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing." Psalm 65:9-13. Its apparent to me as I walk these hills that God was intentional in all that He created. I have a hard time understanding how anyone can believe that this was all a beautiful accident. More like a beautiful creation!

I'd love to hear comments about why you love Springtime in the area where you live. I'm partial to Springtime in the Rockies, but I've also been blessed with Springtime in Washington D.C. when the cherry blossoms are in bloom, and I have come to love the Sandhills of Nebraska this time of the year. I've also experienced Springtime in New York City if you can believe it, and the beauty of Central Park was a wonderful surprise to this country bumpkin! So please share with me what Spring is like where you reside!

And here's a special treat, especially for my mother!!

"My Bangs Look Good & Other Lies I Tell Myself" Book Review

I just finished a really good book. Now this comes as no surprise to those of you who know me, this happens on a daily basis. I am an avid reader, and for anyone who has been to my house you will find that I have 2 to 4 books by my reading chair that I am reading - all at once! But this book is different, this book is special, this book made me put away all of my other books until I was finished. It takes a really good book for me put all other books aside! The title of the book is "My Bangs Look Good & Other Lies I Tell Myself" by Susanna Foth Aughtmon. Now one of the reasons this book is so special is because the Author is so special to me; Sue is a very dear friend of mine whom I met while living in Arlington, Virginia. We worked together at a specialty Coffee Shop (this is where my addiction for coffee began!). Sue and her family were a big part of my life during this adventure (ranch girl experiences city life). Seeing Jesus alive and active in their lives made me hunger to know Him better. And what I remember best about Sue is that she is funny, very, very funny! Knowing and loving the author is what made me want to read the book, but what I read inside the cover, that's what had me hooked!

This book resonated with me for a couple of reasons; first of all, I like to cut my bangs, and I do an awful job of it, and I have lied to myself on multiple occasions, telling myself and anyone who gave me that odd look with their head tilted to the side, that they weren't that bad. But most of all I love the Truth that Sue shares with the reader, that there is a Liar out there, and He is our enemy! "The Liar is going to try to take you out with his slick words and wormy lies, but you have a secret weapon. That weapon is that you are not alone. You never have been and you never will be. And you can be certain that if the Liar is trying to take you down with his slippery words, Jesus will be shouting out the truth. More than anything else, Jesus wants you to know the truth. And he is on your side."

So many of the lies that Sue spoke about in this book are lies that I have told myself at one point or another: that God is disappointed in me, that God doesn't have a plan for my life, that God can't use me, that God doesn't hear me...... There are so many, but Sue uses wisdom, wit and most importantly the Word of God to assure the reader that these are lies and that God is Truth. So if you need a good dose of truth and you feel like telling Satan that he is a stinky liar, then this book is for you! You can find it at Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/goodbangs

And if you are anxious to read more of Susanna’s take on life, Jesus, raising kids, what it means to be a tired supergirl and chocolate, you can visit her blog at tiredsupergirl.blogspot.com

Also, to all of my Buffalo MOPs Moms out there, don’t forget to leave a comment about why you would like to read a book about bangs and lies here on my blog, or email me at fraley@wbaccess.net for a chance to win a copy of Sue’s two books: “My Bangs Look Good & Other Lies I Tell Myself” and “All I Need Is Jesus & A Good Pair of Jeans”.

As for me, I think I’m going to go call my beautician right now before I decide to cut my bangs!!!

Available now at your favorite bookseller from Revel, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Today is Easter. I love Easter, but like all other holidays, my expectations are too high. Let me tell you what my plans for this weekend were: I expected that Friday my family and I were going to be well on our way to Nebraska. I expected to be in our pick-up, loaded down with two kids, two dogs, our luggage, Easter goodies, and a bunch of straw in the back of the pick-up in preparation to bring home 4-H pigs. I was looking forward to cooking with my mom, and joking around with my “little” brother, and visiting with my sister-in-law about raising busy little boys and sweet little girls, and early morning coffee with my dad where we would discuss weather and calving and such. I couldn’t wait to see the baby calves and the new litter of Borgi puppies that my mom’s dog, Maddy, just delivered. I was expecting to have a wonderful Easter with my family. I anticipated Sunday morning Easter services at the little cowboy church that my family attends.

What I did not expect is that a spring snow- storm would hit Buffalo, or that Kade would throw up all over me the night before we were to leave. I didn’t expect that on Friday I would be cleaning up and disinfecting from the flu bug that he brought home from daycare and not driving to Nebraska. Or that Mike would be so overwhelmed with work and we wouldn’t be able to make the pig sale that we were planning on going to on our way to Grandpa and Grandma’s.

The thing about expectations is that they often lead to disappointment. I struggle with high expectations, having a picture in my mind of the way that things should go, and then being disappointed when they don’t turn out that way. I know that I’m not alone in this struggle. I’m sure that there are plenty of Courageous Mommies out there who have those unrealistic expectations that their kids are going to behave beautifully in the grocery store or the restaurant and not throw tantrums. Or how about the expectation that we can leave for a weekend away with the girls and come back to a clean and peaceful home? And then there’s the high expectation of our husbands walking through the door with a bouquet of flowers, kissing us passionately, telling us that they have called a baby sitter and are taking us out to dinner. Yep, we have a load of high expectations that are bound to lead to a pile of disappointment if we allow it to.

During my quiet time the other day I spent some time really pondering the Crucifixion and what exactly it meant, to Jesus, to his disciples, to his enemies, and to me. Calvary is never a comfortable place for me to go to. My ponderings first took me to Palm Sunday, and the “triumphal entry” of Jesus into Jerusalem. The expectations of the disciples at this time were high. I can just imagine the feeling that was in the air as Jesus rode down the streets of Jerusalem; the crowd that day was huge because it was the Passover. There were hundreds of people crowding the streets just trying to catch a glimpse of the healer/teacher that they had heard so much about. The praising, the waving of the palm branches, the fact that the people along the street were throwing their cloaks on the ground in front of the donkey Jesus was riding in honor of “their King”. The expectation was that Jesus was going to take his rightful place as their National leader and He was going to restore the people of Israel to their former glory.

And then later on in the week they meet in an upper room for the Passover supper, what we now know was Jesus’ last supper with the disciples. I believe that these men were expecting a celebration where Jesus would reveal His plans for His kingdom. I think that they had one focus and one focus only, who was going to be standing right beside Jesus and gaining the most glory. They had an argument amongst each other over who was going to be Jesus’ right hand man in this new government. What they didn’t expect was that Jesus would speak of betrayal and denial and death. They didn’t expect Jesus to get down on His knees to wash their feet, He was to be their King for crying out loud, and here He was acting like one of the servants.

Later that night Jesus takes a couple of them to the Garden of Gethsemane, He is overwrought at what is before Him. He needs His friends to stand beside Him, not for words of encouragement, but just for the comfort of their presence, to know that He wasn’t alone yet. They didn’t expect that Jesus would need them that much, that He would agonize to the point of sweating blood, so they fell asleep. And then when the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, they expected a fight. Swords were drawn, blood was drawn and what did Jesus do? He told them to put their weapons away and he healed the enemy. That was unexpected.

They didn’t expect their leader to be arrested, tried and sentenced to death by crucifixion, the death of a rebel or a slave, not of a king. All the while Jesus never once defended Himself. They didn’t expect the torture or the mocking. They didn’t expect that at the end they would desert him, leaving another to help Jesus carry His cross. No, none of this was what they had expected when they began following Jesus, they expected a leader, a warrior, someone who would fight fiercely to free them from the rule of Rome. Jesus did none of this. No, Jesus died on that cross; and along with His death the disciples felt that all of their hopes and dreams had died as well. Their expectations were destroyed and nothing would ever be the same. They were so right.

Because then comes the tomb. Talk about not meeting expectations! By now the followers of Jesus had no expectations at all, in fact they were as low as they had probably ever been. Their expectation was that the enemy had won, Jesus was dead and whatever it was that they thought they had been working towards was finished. The future looked bleak and hopeless. That first Easter morning, when those two women went to Jesus' grave they did not expect to see the stone rolled away and the tomb empty, they didn't expect to hear the news that Jesus was not dead but alive. Alive!! This exceeded any and all of their expectations. And what had seemed like the bleakest and darkest of days, soon turned into the most glorious of days!

This is how He works in my life too. He exceeds my expectations in more ways than I can even begin to describe. I never expected to be so overwhelmed in my love for Jesus and His love for me that it would take my breath away at times. I never expected to know a peace and a joy that goes far beyond whatever the World might offer me. I never expected to be so addicted to His Word that some mornings I wake up at 4:00 so that I can be immersed in it, wanting to know more and more about this Man who gave everything for me. I never expected to feel so deeply for the hurting and the lost that God has put in my path. I never expected redemption in my own life. I never expected Jesus to give everything for me. But He did, and because of this, all of the other expectations that I have are nothing. The thing that I have realized is that my expectations don’t come anywhere close to what it is that the Lord has in mind for my life. I don’t ever want to forfeit what He wants for me because of what my own plans are. Because of Him I am able to put aside all of these expectations and just be. Just be available for whatever adventure it is that God has for me.

This weekend my adventure included taking care of a sick little boy, dying Easter eggs with my family, making the decision that Hannah is going to show market lambs & a heifer instead of pigs this year, and an Easter Church service with my church family that was out of this world! High expectations can lead to so many disappointments, but Jesus never ever disappoints.

Happy Easter Everyone!!