The Antler Boiling Party

Recently we have gone from no one in relationships to three of our kids in relationships.  From the time they were newborns we prayed that each one would find themselves in a godly relationship with a godly spouse.  By faith I assumed those relationships would happen.  What I didn't expect was that sometimes, in the search for the right spouse, there can be some ups and downs.  I mean, of course I did, but I guess I didn't know that sometimes there has to be a break or at least a test of some kind to determine how strong the relationship truly is.  This has been the case more than once now.  There's been a test, even a break, and then the relationship has gone on and has been stronger for it.

As parents this has been truly unpleasant, navigating the path alongside our children.  We would have just rather gone to the spouse store, picked one and then given them the gift at the right time.  Oh....that's called an arranged marriage!  I forgot!  Yes!  That's what I would have wanted!  I am all for arranged marriages.  But, for some reason, our kids seem to want a say.  So weird.  In our lame wisdom we allowed this and it seems it is just not always easy when two imperfect people get together in this imperfect world.  However, by more faith, more prayer....so much prayer.....tears, long conversations.....and just trusting God for the outcome, we now have a very full house with lots of extra people over - I mean, socially- distanced outside, of course.

Recently, we held one of the funniest nights of our lives.  We call it the "Antler Boiling Party".  Have you ever had one of the those?  They are very fun.  Everyone should have one.\ It had been one of those times when there had been a break, a test or two in the relationships and now, on one strange night, everyone literally in the family and those connected to the family were all going to come together again.  After a time of distance, how do you suddenly get everyone back together without it being awkward?  You have an Antler Boiling Party OBVIOUSLY!!!  An Antler Boiling Party was not my idea.  It was actually my son's.  He and a buddy had picked up some antlers from some deer from work.  I didn't realize deer lose their antlers and regrow them every year, but apparently that is the case.  I personally don't want antlers hanging on my wall, but these two young guys did and in order to do that you have to boil them in boiling water for hours.  So my son had it all set up and invited his friend over for the Antler Boiling Party.  There was a fire, a huge barrel full of water for the antlers, and then all our kids.  The extra "friends" were invited, too, some of whom hadn't been around for a bit and it could have been strange and awkward, but really, how can it be when you have everyone standing around a metal barrel full of boiling water and antlers?  So hilarious.  It was also great to have so many young children hanging out by the fire, too.  They are oblivious to any potential tension and they certainly make for a lot of laughs.  The antler bros, i.e., my son and his friend, were also huge comic relief, as who boils antlers for fun except these two?  To be honest, they also were oblivious to any strangeness in the evening and really just cared about their antlers and that's where I think God comes in.  No one wanted a big deal.  No one wanted stress.  Everyone just wanted to peace and love and I think that's why the Antler Boiling Party was perfect and, dare I say, God's design.  It was a comical way to all be outside, standing around, laughing, communing, fellowshiping, and just relaxing, without a big "to-do". Friendships and relationships were re-established where there had been a pause and arms were socially-distanced, yet outstretched, to regroup and regather.

If you were to google "Antler Boiling Party" and how to hold one, I'm quite certain no information would come up.  That's how I kind of know God was in this.  I couldn't have come up with the idea in a million years.  If it had been up to us, we probably would have started building towers on our property, one for each one of our children, where each one could stay for the rest of their lives.  It would have been easier to put them all in their own individual tower, but that isn't what God wants.  He wants Antler Boiling Parties where people connect or reconnect, reach out, bridge distances.  He wants people in fellowship, in relationships, in families, and one day in their own families.  Not with any wisdom of our own, but with God's help, He used this funny way to calmly help our family where we had been uncertain how to move forward.

For now, all seems well.  As I said, three of our children, are involved in relationships.  I now have a more realistic perspective.  I actually am grateful for all that their relationships are teaching me.  We don't want to be white-washed walls or white painted cups that look only good on the outside.  We recognize the importance of washing the inside of the cup, recognizing none of us are perfect.  I don't want to pretend my kids, my family, their relationships, are perfect when that isn't true - we are all sinners needing a Saviour and we are imperfect parents.  They are imperfect children and relationships, even godly ones, can be messy and hard to navigate.  In the end The Antler Boiling Party was a great reminder though that God comes into our lives in such unique ways and helps us when we don't know how to help ourselves.  Hopefully we won't need any more Antler Boiling Parties, but if we do now I know how to do them and I can recommend how to set them up for anyone who is interested.

Social Media, Family Prayer and Young Adults

I am always in awe of how God provides for us.  We have always had the concord grapes at the bottom of our property and we've always enjoyed them.  We've picked them and made juice and jelly, even wine one year, but we've never taken full advantage of them the way we did this year.  That's where social media comes in....

I can't explain it really.  Perhaps I was overwhelmed with all that was on my plate, but navigating social media just felt like it was one more thing to deal with, so I just didn't.  I knew it would literally keep me from managing my home and taking care of the kids, so I chose to never use it...until this past summer.  Because I had the garden and produce to sell, including eggs and chicken, I finally bit the bullet one day and opened a Facebook account.  Then I was exposed to the world of Facebook marketplace.  It wasn't a huge success to be honest.  I sold a few eggs and a few harvest boxes, but it wasn't a crazy success.  That was fine, I didn't want to be too overwhelmed.  I sold enough to make a few dollars and to get my feet wet.  But then I thought I would list the grapes as a u-pick venture and oh my goodness, I was busy.  For a few weekends it was party central over here.  I was amazed.  People came with their young families, their senior parents, their carloads of grape pickers and they went nuts picking and picking and paying and paying.  I just couldn't believe it.  

I think I would have been even more successful if we hadn't had a mysterious amount of grapes go missing.  We actually think we were robbed from people as we've seen people take our grapes before when they don't think we're looking.  That was super disappointing, but God knows.  It made me wonder why I hadn't taken advantage of social media before in that way, but again, I just wasn't in that space.  It goes to show you that there can be a positive aspect to it when you use it for good.  I also wonder why our eyes weren't opened to this strange source of income before....all those years when I could have been selling grapes....seems like such a waste, but again, I can't live in regret.

I, once again, thank God for the Covid crisis as that got us down in the grapes pruning and making the trees.  If I hadn't pruned the entire vineyard, I'm quite certain the grapes wouldn't have been as amazing as they were this year.  It's amazing to see how God was in each step even during the lockdown.

It makes me wonder what other strange sources of income are right under our noses.  It has me praying about that all the time.

This year for our anniversary to commemorate the 25 years of our marriage, I bought a print I have wanted for years, probably 11 or 12 years now.  I have always wanted to buy it for RM for either his birthday, father's day or another anniversary, but I've never planned it far enough in advance.  I've never had enough foresight to get my act together.  This year I actually thought about it in time to find it and even to get it framed.  It is the painting of all paintings, by George Agnew called "Family Prayer".  It shows a family on their knees crying out to God.  You have no idea why they are praying, but you can tell their pleading with God for something.  The mother has her hand over her face in what appears to be desperation, holding on to her child lovingly by her side as they kneel with her.  The grandfather is also leaning on his cane with his face covered in reverent prayer.  Two more kids, perhaps not as engaged in prayer, kneel at a bench.  The father is at the center of it, looking to God through the window as the light shines on his face.  It seems to be a picture of hope as he looks to God for his strength.  The mother is turned away from the window...is she perhaps less hopeful, more discouraged?  It's hard to say.  All I know is that it epitomized our family so well I had to have it.  We picked it up after getting it framed that first week of September and then it sat on the table in the family room for weeks.  It was framed with barn board from our farm.  The framer had attached the barn board to another picture frame to make it more sturdy, but that also made it very heavy.  I typically hang anything on our wall with simply a nail or even a push pin.  This was going to require a heavy duty anchor that I wasn't sure how to do.  I was so afraid it would fall and break the frame.  But I asked RM to do this during a time that was the busiest farming time.  So it sat and sat and sat some more.  I really was a very patient wife!  I knew it would get hung eventually......

Yesterday we had the young adults from church over for a campfire and worship time.  It was a quieter day as the wine making is in a sit and wait season and there wasn't much to do around the farm, so I asked if it could be hung before everyone came over and to my great joy it got hung!  So here it is....I'm so thrilled.  It is in the hallway that everyone walks by every day a hundred times a day.  It's right at the height that everyone can see and literally stand and observe it as if it were in a museum.  I love it sooooo much.  More than anything it reminds me that life is hard and that there are other families besides our's, even in past generations, that have gone through struggles.  It reminds me that the only source of strength is God and that it is so important to cry out to Him as a family.  It reminds me, too, to stay on my knees, but perhaps to turn to the window and not stay in the shadow. 

It was actually a really beautiful night yesterday when the young adults came over.  Everyone is seeking fellowship during this coronavirus time, but knows they have to keep outside and social distanced, so properties where everyone can be outside are ideal.  Last night was warmer still, but windy, so everyone stayed out side by the fire as long as possible, but then they all moved inside to the barn where it was more protected by the wind.  It was such an amazing picture to me to see everyone on a hay bale or a chair, playing guitar and singing.  It smelled a little chickeny, but mostly like hay!  It just made me so happy to see the barn used in that way.  And again, thanks to corona virus, we have to choose to be a little more creative in order to connect with others, but it works!

And finally....the painting...now hanging in the hall:

Thanksgiving Reflections 2020

We don't mean to do things the hard way.  It just seems to be the way we do them.  This weekend was a great example of that....again.  We now jokingly call the winery we accidentally started, the "Bozo" winery.  One day, when our book comes out, people will see how we made the wine and it'll just make people laugh.  Everything so far has been done by hand.  The only reason that is funny is because "real" wineries have hired help or machines or automation!  Not us.  Nope.  But, remember, we do things without spending money and all those things cost a lot of money....not because we didn't always try to buy the machinery, however.  We did try, for little money, but, they don't always work when you don't spend a lot of money on them.  

For example, this weekend we had to take all the red grape skins and seeds out of the 3 giants vats we have full of thousands of liters of wine.  Normal wineries do this with a pump.  We bought a used pump on kijiji, but, like a lot of equipment on the farm, it was a Toys "R" Us pump, or so it seemed, and wouldn't do the job, so my husband and one or two of the children had to manually, pail by pail, scoop out all the wine, mixed with the skins and seeds, and then press it, manually again, into a fruit press (which normal wineries have machines do as well!) and then pour then into the waiting barrels.  My husband's hands were literally black, stained by the wine, and borderline injured, from all the scooping.  Because there was a timeline and an urgency to this, it wasn't something you could stop midway or the wine would be ruined, he and my daughter (who we joked is after the inheritance) stayed up until 1:30 in the morning.  It took a couple of long days like that, and lots of wine-stained hands, but it got done.  All the wine is now transferred and the second stage of fermentation will begin shortly.  It looks and tastes like real wine and if nothing goes wrong, which it can always go wrong, it looks like we'll have a good batch of both red and white.  I still can hardly believe I'm writing that.

We all looked back last night, almost as if it were New Year's Eve, and just reflected on what we are grateful for.  One of my kids said how they were grateful for the vineyard.  It really has been a family affair and one that has brought us together.  We certainly have more purpose for living right now.  It has added a certain amount of stress as we have new deadlines, all self-imposed, but it's all in the name of the greater good.  We used to have tower contracts which were insanely hard to get done, but after the short time of intensity the pay was good and we knew it would be hard for a few weeks and then there would be a time of quiet.  That's kind of what this has been like.  I'll look at my husband with eyes that say, "Are we nuts?"  and then he says, "It's a tower contract".  And, suddenly, it's true, the wine has already fermented, the skins and the seeds are out, the barrels are full, and now we just wait.

We also discovered that we truly overlooked our concord vineyard for years.  I had a source of good income under my nose for years and didn't realize it.  As we went around last night thanking God for things, we also thanked God for Covid.  This is related to the concords in that it was because of Covid that my husband lost a good chunk of his income.  If he hadn't lost his income we wouldn't have been forced to think of new ways to make money.  I wouldn't have been pushed to go down to the vines, to prune the branches to make the trees, (which I've mostly decided to keep because I love them so much even though I could have sold them!), but in all the pruning the grapes came back with a vengeance and when I saw them grow this summer, I realized I could sell them as well.  I ended up having lots of friends and family come to pick, but also had a lot of success with u-pick. We had two or three weekends when we had lots and lots of people come out.  I was in awe.  It was another source of income that blessed our family so much.  I didn't have to "go" to work outside of the home, it was literally a walk down to the field.  I used some of that money last week to buy winter coats and winter clothes that my kids needed.  Such a blessing.  I used it to pay a repair man to fix our dishwasher as well.  I used it to buy groceries.  It was amazing.  I regret that I didn't see what a gift was sitting under my nose all these years as many years went by when the grapes rotted on the vines.  However, I was quite overwhelmed by who-knows-what...kids, pregnancies, toddlers?  Don't know, but maybe God didn't open my eyes to it until now in His providence.  All I know is that my eyes are open now and I will definitely be the vine pruner, tree maker, and u-picker again this Spring, Lord willing....

And I think that is the moral of this Thanksgiving....it's been in the trials that we discovered new sources of income.  It was because of the loss of income, it was because of the birds eating our grapes, it was because of Covid that my eyes were opened to the concord grapes.....all of these things that seemed like disasters and unexpected and frustrating trials, that God used them for good in our life.  My home is now decorated in pretty vine trees and vine balls, we've now started a new venture in the world of wine making and hopefully selling, and we experienced an extra source of income from the grapes that we've never had before this year.  To me, it's the definitive experience that Ann Voskamp has known for years - giving thanks for everything and then the miracle is imminent.  It really is true.  We feel we're in the middle of a miracle fairly regularly around here.  I'm starting to truly see the pattern of thanksgiving, not just once a year, on the holiday, but in my daily living.

In My Tent of Meeting

This morning I purposely woke up early even though I didn't get a lot of sleep.  There's just so much going on in the lives of my children, I felt I needed to spend a significant amount of time praying.  I wanted to skip my Bible reading (that might sound funny), because I knew I was reading in, dare I say, a part of the Bible in Exodus that was about the building, designing of the tent of meeting.  I wanted to be reading something that would inspire me more today, like the Psalms, or something like that.  But where I ended up reading - Exodus 28 - which was the next chapter in my daily reading, was just perfect.  I should have known...every word is profitable, right?

Exodus 28 is all about the priests' garments.  So many times it talks about the specific skill required to make them and how God fills "all the skillful, whom I have filled with a spirit of skill" to make them in a very specific way.  I was immediately impacted by the fact that sewing is something God loves, "for glory and for beauty" it says.  I have a sewing daughter.  It is so amazing to watch how she makes things, just for fun and is getting better and better at it.  I'll remind her today of the importance of sewing and how God can use it in her life!  It also goes on to describe how the "names of the sons of Israel" will be engraved on the stones "in order of their birth" and how Aaron "shall bear their names before the Lord on his two shoulder for remembrance....to bring them to regular remembrance before the Lord.....regularly...."  I knew I was in the exact right passage today.

Last night I was up until 10 with my older children.  Each one is going through so many amazing things and some more challenging things.  We all talked and talked.  I actually really loved it.   But this is the thing, I feel like I'm at the center of each situation as I am the counsellor, the academic advisor, the love coach, the mentor, the discipliner......yikes.  How am I supposed to know what to do all the time?!  My oldest son and I sat for almost 3 hours last night looking over each aspect of his med school application.  We didn't want to miss a period, a comma, a blank space......I felt like his life was hinging on that form.  With barely two hours to spare, he got it in on time...now we wait.  Talk about the pressure!

Meanwhile, I have that same kind of involvement in just different forms with each one of the other children.  It all just seems so much!  I think I'm going to get some garments made with stones that I wear on my shoulders.  I'll get some engravers to engrave their names on them and then I'll go into the tent of meeting and regularly bring them before the Lord.  But then, I realize.  I don't have to get any garments made.  Or stones engraved.  I just need to sit here.  And pray, one by one....in their birth order and regularly bring them before the Lord.  It's literally all I can do.  I can't magically get my son into med school or help each one get the perfect spouse with a click of my fingers or help them finish college overnight or teach them better habits in areas where they struggle......I can ONLY regularly bring their names, which are on my heart day and night, to the only tent of meeting I know, my family room, looking at the sun rise, on my chair, and say name after name, issue after issue, asking/begging God for wisdom for each one.

I'm so glad I didn't skip to a more "inspiring" passage of Scripture.  That was the exact one I needed to read today.