From My Front Porch

Life's stories connect lives

Welcome! Come on in.

Tonight I have company… a LOT of company, and I’m in heaven. No, my house is not ready, but the potatoes are in the oven for the potluck potato bar, and I spent the morning baking and decorating a strawberry cake. I ditched the piped roses and headed on over to YouTube for a tutorial on carving roses out of fresh strawberries. Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart. Thanks to Jiffy Mix, I’ll even make some semi-homemade cornbread.

I love cooking for people–cleanup, not so much–because I get the chance to think about them all day. I like to pace the work through the day between the regularly scheduled activities, but as I work, I ponder about the needs of those coming and pray over them. In case you haven’t guessed, my spiritual gift is hospitality, but that doesn’t make me a superwoman who loves to vacuum and dust. Yes, I want my house prepared for my guests, but ultimately, I want my heart prepared, already sensitive to the needs they may have and ready to set aside the busyness of kitchen work to listen.

You see, my other spiritual gift is service, and boy can I ever serve. I can run circles around other people also trying to serve or even those trying so hard to spend quality time with me, trying to share their hearts with a crazy lady overly consumed with cleaning as she goes. Oh how I look back and wonder how many opportunities I’ve missed to speak life into another woman’s heart or to have her speak life into mine.

Over the years, I’ve learned to change how I think about having guests over. It’s no longer an affront to me if they help me in the kitchen. They wouldn’t ask if they didn’t want to, and for most people, if they hang out with me in my kitchen, they want to spend time with me. I’ve asked God to slow me down and help me listen.

So come on over, pull up a chair in the kitchen, or grab a dish cloth; I won’t stop you.

…and that’s the view from My Front Porch.

Unclogging Arteries

“Are you talking to me? Todd often asks from the other room when I’ve thought of something random he simply must know. I just forget that something is blocking our conversation. Fortunately, for us, it’s just a physical wall or two.

Strong relationships demand clear communication. Often, daily frustrations come between parties and keep them from enjoying the freedom from misunderstanding. Sometimes simple things like bills or tight schedules get in the way, and we experience relief when that struggle passes. [Read more…]

Laundry Lesson

I enjoy doing laundry. There. I said it.

I’m not sure why I find that task most dread so relaxing, but I do. I don’t always get it all put away, but I do eventually get it all folded, hung, and delivered to the right general locations in the house. That makes me feel accomplished.

Twenty years ago, Todd and I came to Michigan to a small bible school to train as missionaries, and we sold most of what we owned before coming. The school has a laundry facility, but we ladies had assigned times to access the space to keep everyone’s day rolling smoothly. I had the slot just before my friend Muffy.

By the time Muffy arrived, my washers neared the end of their cycles, and I had time to watch her meticulously attack her youngest’s baseball uniform. Muffy took her laundry seriously, and we chatted while I watched her impressive skill with a brush and pre-soak. She could get stains out of anything.

I remember one day when her husband Everett dropped off their laundry early, and it sat there waiting for Muffy’s arrival. I had finished mine ahead of schedule and already had my laundry in the dryer, so I thought I’d give Muffy a hand. I carefully followed her methods and was pretty proud of myself when she arrived to find her laundry, sorted and prepared exactly as she would have done it. She taught me a lot.

Her face showed the shock, and I told her not to worry, that I had done it exactly the way I had seen her do it. She simply said, “I wish you hadn’t.” She wasn’t rude, just matter of fact, and I knew never to touch Muffy’s laundry again.

All these years later, as I do my little grandson’s laundry, I realize what I took from Muffy that day. You see, laundry marks growth in our children’s lives. That’s where a mama sees the dings and injuries of her children’s lives as she removes the stains incurred as life knocks them around a bit. She watches as brand new clothes come in for the first time and all too quickly make their way to the donation pile, outgrown by the rapidly expanding waistlines and leg lengths.

Now I know the most important lesson I learned came from her son Tom’s baseball pants, almost always caked with mud and grass stains. That mama was telling her Tom, “Play hard, Son. The one who loves you will handle the stains.”

…and that’s the view from My Front Porch

Hope is a Thing with Petals

“The themes of the short story “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier include poverty, maturity and the relationship between innocence and compassion. These themes are realized through the main character, Lizabeth, and her relationship with an old woman, Ms. Lottie. The story is set in rural Maryland during the Great Depression” (“Marigolds”).

Mostly though, the story is about hope and the nerve of Ms. Lottie to hope in the midst of so much hopelessness. [Read more…]

Till her trophies at last she lay down…

“So I’ll cherish the old rugged Cross
Till my trophies at last I lay down…”

Margaret, a sweet, tiny lady in her mid-nineties, bears no hint today of the athlete she once was. [Read more…]