37/365

and on a day when absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happened...
go figure.
:-)

36/365

I came clean.
I made sure that I had cash in hand.
I went straight to the desk.
I handed over my card.
I paid the fines in full.

And now I can check out books again.

"Just the knowledge that a good book is waiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier."
-Kathleen Norris (1880-1966), American Novelist

35/365

"The grace for endurance... is looking forward to the next moment's and next month's arrival of the power of Christ to do for us what we absolutely despair of doing ourselves."
- John Piper, Future Grace

"My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
- 2 Corinthians 12:9

(which has nothing to do with today's picture, but everything to do with how I started the day.)

34/365

what might end up with the chips and dip when little boys come to your Super Bowl gathering...

33/365

The kind of day where a lot happens and enough gets done and you spend time with neat people, both kids and adults and in the US and in Mexico and in English and in Spanish, and you learn something new about your husband and he learns something new about you, and you go to bed ready for worship in the morning...
THAT kind of day.

(and yes, he made the lay-up) :-)

32/365

Sweet Ginger.
Look what happens when two ladies get distracted and the kids with a brand new box of chalk start to color nearly everything in their path...
:-)

31/365

At a tour of the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sector station, I watched a dozen monitors as cameras panned locations across the Valley, river or fence always in view. I forgot to write down how many thousands of tons of illegal drugs were seized, but it was more than I can really conceive. I stood in the weapons room and took aim through the holographic sight of a fully automatic rifle. In the complete dark, I squinted through the lens of a night vision scope and through the viewfinder of thermal imaging goggles. I learned more than 200,000 "undocumented subjects" were apprehended in the 2012 calendar year, that just in our area. Many of those were the same people, counted multiple times.

And then I saw the faces. The real faces of those undocumented people who had been apprehended in our area the last 24 hours or so. Agents bring them in and transport them out around the clock. Those being held are divided into four groups, kept in cinder block rooms with cement benches- women and children, juveniles, men from Mexico, and men from everywhere else. Some of their faces appeared blank, tired and dazed. Some appeared resigned, just waiting for whatever was to come next. A few, mostly young men, looked straight ahead, almost defiant, seemingly unafraid. A older Cuban woman, most likely someone's grandma, sat to be interviewed, her face downcast and worn. She was detained earlier in the day at the airport, her visa expired. Through thick-paned glass, we looked at them, and they looked at us.

Eventually, most likely, most of those faces would be deported. Most everyone deported from our area gets flown to California, and escorted across the border, in an effort to discourage them from returning to the eastern side of the US/Mexico border. But, agents acknowledged that many DO return, some in as few as 3 days.

I respect the job these Border Patrol agents do, working long hours, often under-funded and under-manned, in difficult and frequently dangerous circumstances. I'm thankful for the work that they do to prevent terrorists and weapons and drugs from entering our country. And yet, I left sad. I know that there are no easy answers to immigration issues and I know that significant reform is necessary. But in all that debate, just as it was in the tour, it will be the faces that come to my mind. It will be the faces because I have known the undocumented personally and it is their stories that make the issue more than text of news stories and the rule of law for me.

It is the faces that cause me to remember, as Paul tells us in Ephesians 2, that Jesus "came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father." Because of the Gospel, those trusting in Christ "are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God." That is the story that I want to tell here in my part of the Rio Grande sector.

30/365

Lemonade Girl Scout Cookie.

((happy contented smile and sigh))

29/365

Turns out that our poem for the day was really quite appropriate...

Who Has Seen the Wind?

BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

  Who has seen the wind?

  Neither I nor you:

  But when the leaves hang trembling,

  The wind is passing through.
  
  Who has seen the wind?

  Neither you nor I:

  But when the trees bow down their heads,

  The wind is passing by.

28/365

Some days I feel like finishing at the grocery store is akin to winning a battle.

Honestly, isn't that lame?

27/365

Highlight of the hymn sing-
when someone else requested Wonderful Grace of Jesus right when I was thinking about it but didn't want to speak up. The request was made almost apologetically, acknowledging that is a heckuva a lot of notes for the piano accompanist to play.
But the refrain, oh how I love singing that refrain!

(and oh how I smiled at the looks exchanged between those two old and most dear friends, the looks that only the most old and dear of friends can exchange. Isn't that kind of history a gift, a wonderful grace for certain.)

26/365

Today was one event after another, complete with a trip down the highway to pick up my basketball player girl and then a u-turn right back home again.

25/365

Ain't that the truth?
I can barely begin to describe how thankful I am for my friends,
near and far,
for sweet fellowship,
for timely notes,
for encouragement and exhortation,
for trusted confidences,
for time over early morning coffee and mid-afternoon tea,
for the prayer of like-minded sisters...,
all one of the sweetest joys of life,
truly.

24/365

No frigid temperatures, no "wintry mix," no boots or gloves or scarves. Not here. Just flip-flops and a soccer game in the backyard with Dillon.

Which is pretty good for January, I think...

23/365

I have just a couple of things that were my grandparents, and I treasure them. The desk, where I sit almost every morning and read and study and pray, that was my grandma's. I don't remember not knowing that desk. It was my favorite place in her house when I was growing up. I hid Bic felt tip pens and gumball machine treats in the secret pull-out boxes. I wrote notes on my grandma's bridge pads. The doors of the bookshelves on the desk still rattle every morning when I really get to scribbling in my notebook, a sound that transports me to the same rattle when my sister and I would run across the living room or slam the front screen door too hard.

I also have one painting that came from my grandparents. Today it hangs in my bedroom. I don't remember it from childhood at all. It surfaced as an dusty unframed canvas discovered after my grandpa died. I was the only one interested in keeping it, so by default, it came to my house. The artist signed his name down in the right hand corner, Bambrook.

Walter Bambrook was a friend of my grandparents. I think my grandpa met him when they both set type at the Albuquerque Journal in the mid-1900's. My grandparents had other paintings of Mr. Bambrook in the house.We would see Mr. Bambrook at the New Mexico State Fair Fine Arts Gallery. He would take us over to his paintings on display and show us how he hid animals in the aspen scenes. I had no idea that he was a fine artist- I only knew that he painted the landscapes that were my backyard, the Sandia mountains, the adobes, the changing fall colors.

I'm guessing that this painting was from rather early in Walter Bambrook's career, and not nearly as valuable or appreciated as his later works. That does not diminish its worth in my eyes one bit.

22/365

Favorite things about traveling by air-
a window seat next to my husband;
seeing my bag being loaded on the plane;
getting home.

21/365

I wish that I could commute to McAllen via ferry boat...

(go ahead, laugh! I know how completely ridiculous that idea is!)

20/365

Now doesn't THAT figure?
In that brief time when the sun, in all of its shining splendor, came out on the Kitsap Peninsula, when the white-capped Olympic Mountains peaked proudly in the distance, when the water glistened in the bright of the afternoon light, that was the time when I didn't have my camera with me.
So I snapped the trees with my phone as we drove by...

But, even still, what a glorious day!
We spent the weekend at Liberty Bay Presbyterian Church, with that body of believers so dear to my heart, those folks that kept me afloat during those years my husband was underwater (literally), and the same folks that so generously and faithfully support the ministry at the US/Mexico border now.

They asked us to share about the work down here, and they asked us the prayers of our heart. They listened earnestly and prayed fervently and encouraged us greatly. It blessed us to see old friends and it blessed us to meet new ones, too. Not to mention, they showed us generous and gracious hospitality and fed us well besides!

In addition, we had the opportunity to spend a few hours with other dear friends, sharing our stories and catching up on a few of theirs, seamlessly taking up where we last left off. Certainly, isn't one of the sweetest times this side of heaven just sitting and spending time and enjoying fellowship with one another? Indeed, I leave refreshed, and still, longing for that time when there will be no more goodbyes.

A big thanks to all of our friends on the Kitsap Peninsula. You all are precious to us!

19/365

They are so good with animals, this family we love so much. Every time I'm with them, I think "We could have bunnies!" and "We should have birds!"

HA!

Who am I fooling?! 

18/365

We flew up to the Pacific Northwest, and changed planes in Las Vegas. I thought the slot machine was appropriately named. I always feel like I am in the Twilight Zone when I spend time in Las Vegas- it is so different than my everyday world. This time was no different.