Author Archives: Cassandra

About Cassandra

Writing's a bit like cutting off a slice of your heart, setting it on your prettiest napkin then laying it out on the kitchen table for the world to dissect. And I can't imagine ever not doing it. I love Jesus, my big strong husband, the four kids God gave us, the people He puts in our path and the critters on this crazy little farm. It's my heart's delight and drive to write down the days as I journey with them all.

Painting Toenails, Washing Feet

4 Replies

Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. John 13:14

So I was kinda mean last week.

Actually, truth be told, I was really mean.

Stomping around the house, throwing things in the trash, grumping on my husband no matter what he said kinda mean.

He saw the angry side of me.

Not that he hasn’t before.

If we’re being honest here, he’s seen it more times than I care to admit.

He ‘s told me more than once that one of the things he loved most about me when we were dating was my spunkiness and firey temper.

I’m not sure if all these twenty-some years later he’d say the same.

I’m used to loud arguing and getting over it. He hates that. Quiet talking and peaceful resolve are more his style. All these twenty years, I’ve had to smother my anger and learn how to live without it.

Put it in the grave and nurture the tree called gentleness that’s planted in the dark dirt near the headstone.

Angry wants to rise up sometimes.

Claw her ugly way out and dance on the grave and mock the gentle tree that grows taller each year but still shows it’s fragility on those days when it’s not facing the Son.

It makes him crooked when we argue, he tells me.

It twists his heart up and he can’t think of life being right and he’d do anything in his power to fix it.

He wants unity between us.

Peace.

But it’s not peaceful when I’m cranky and ornery and being mean.

It tears up our household. It tears up him.

And it tears up me.

I don’t like being mean. I don’t like feeling mean and I certainly don’t enjoy the cranky feeling that overtakes an overwhelmed mama when there’s so much do that she can’t see the light of day and no one else can seem to see things the way she does and she’s just carrying it all ON HER OWN.

Being mean is feeling like the lonely girl who’s pouting as she sits in the car alone because she threw a fit on the way home and now no one wants to be around her so they left her just sitting there in the cold car parked in the driveway.

Isolated.

Angry.

Left with her ugliness.

But too stubborn about protecting it to get out of the car.

Deep down though, she’s lonely and crying.

So when we ignore the advice of the sweet elderly couple at our wedding reception…those ones long gone now…that pair who’d weathered life and loss and decades and death…that precious woman who lifted her sweet little wrinkled gnarled finger to the two of us standing there in ivory and said

“This is the secret. Don’t be mad when you go to sleep. You fight, you work it out. Before you go to sleep. Over fifty years. That’s the secret.”

But when we’re sitting in the car alone we forget her face and forget what she said.

So the next morning I sat with my Bible and my coffee, and even though we’re told to leave the altar and reconcile our differences, I tried to read anyway because angry people need Him and somehow just having that Book there in my lap with words red and history true, well, just that alone will start a gal on the path to reconciliation…then in walks my husband, just waking up and with a peacemaker’s smile…

…he washed my feet.

The kids still quiet in bed and the house still sleeping, he went to the bathroom and he got the nail polish fixings and he came back and he put my feet on the footstool and he started painting my toenails.

His big hands held the little glass bottle and I sat there quietly, my Bible and my coffee still in my lap, while he prettied my toes with my favorite red.

And when he accidentally knocked over the nail polish remover and it spilled a wood-eating mess of chemical all over our dark wood floor, he quietly and patiently got up and went to the kitchen and came back with a wad of paper towels. He gently and silently mopped up the spill and went back to work on my toes.

My Bible held me still and quiet, anchored to my seat and not breathing one word about the mess.

This was bigger than the mess and bigger than the fight and bigger than the pride and the little issues that I’d allowed to be too big the day before.

I wasn’t lonely in the car anymore.

I wasn’t sitting in the driveway feeling left and abandoned and prideful in protecting my heart with those swords that want to scratch their way up from the dirt and the depths and cut those closest to me..

I was loved.

I was accepted.

And I was forgiven.

There was a mess but it didn’t matter.

Because life is messy and sometimes it gets ugly messy and while we wouldn’t want the finish to be stripped away, when we look at the dull spot, that one that doesn’t shine quite as bright as the rest of the story…

…that spot right there is one to be remembered.

That spot right there is where something important happened and it was important enough to leave its mark.

That spot is where a knot formed and that tree just went on growing right around it.

That spot right there says “There! Right there! THAT happened to help us remember.”

That spot right there is where love grew.

And it won’t ever be perfect.

But in its imperfectness, it has a purpose.

It will be used.

It will serve.

And it will be strong.

In your anger do not sin…Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. Ephesians 4:26

Chapter One, Annie Spruce

2 Replies

1 ~ BO

“When the Man waked up he said, ‘What is Wild Dog doing here?’ And the Woman said, ‘His name is not Wild Dog any more, but the First Friend, because he will be our friend for always and always and always.'” ~Rudyard Kipling

I told the kids to put their hands on him every single time they passed him.

“Your hands can heal.”

“Mama are you crying?” Their big eyes searched mine.

I’d found him emaciated and barely able to hold his head up when I returned home after a weekend women’s retreat. Irritated at my husband, I asked him if he’d only remembered to feed the kids.

Irritated only until he told me Bo wouldn’t eat. Worried then.

I dug out the syringe from the first aid kit, opened up the golden goodness in the jar of chicken broth I’d been saving since a friend gave us a case of it for helping her family butcher their flock that fall.

He sniffed at the handful of nutrients I offered him, licked at it, then, after three or four syringes of water, finally found the energy to eat a cup or so of good, strengthening protein.

“Good boy Bo.”

It had been almost exactly nine years since I’d brought him home from work. He was a gift. A present from the officers and dispatchers on night shift. They’d held him aside, kept him from going to the pound, given him to me at morning shift-change.

When I called Matt to tell him we had a new little buddy he told me no. Give it back. We already have two dogs.

I can’t give back a birthday present!

“Yes you can.”

Fostering him wasn’t exactly keeping him, but it wasn’t giving him back so that’s what I called it when I cut my shift short and brought the pup home to get him a good meal and a long rest.

And as soon as Matt pulled in the driveway and saw me standing there with that fat yellow pup under my arm, there was never any more talk of giving him back. Bo belonged to us.

If it was his parathyroid as the vet suspected, a simple surgery would fix him, most likely put him on the path to several more happy years as our family’s watch dog. Mascot. Faithful friend.

So we had blood work done and waited on the results. The lab was out of state, so we had to wait a long time. While we waited, he wasted. Natural remedies kept him alive. I hand fed him pure coconut oil, depleted our supply of organic chicken meat, and syringed him kelp broths and as much water as I could get him to take. The kids and I researched online and checked the feed store for things that would help him hold on until we had a diagnosis.

His comfort took priority. Had there been just a smaller chance of a full recovery, we would’ve put him down, he was that weak.

But there was hope. Strong hope.

So the kids would lay down next to him on his bed, make sure his blanket was on straight and use their hands to heal. Daily calls to the vet to check on lab reports became the news of the day. No results.

We prayed for him every single night.

Hang in there Bo.

When we brought the first baby home, he was like a big awkward teenager. Not quite sure where to stand, what to say, how to act. So he just wagged his tail and sniffed. Stood in the corner and looked at the new thing.

By the time the third baby came there were two toddlers in the house and his big buddy died. His big buddy had been boss dog.

When his big boss was loaded up in the truck and never came home, Bo sat in the front yard for a whole afternoon looking up the driveway.

The next day he became the big boss. He had a lot of things to take care of.

When the kids went outside, Bo went outside. When the kids came in, he came in. If a moose came into the yard, he chased it off. When a car pulled in the driveway, he sniffed it out before anyone came to the door. He made sure the kids had a sidekick. He sat patiently while they saddled him and tied him to doorknob hitching posts.

When the fourth baby came home, he was an expert. It was just another thing to take care of.

The vet called on a Thursday night after their office had closed. They’d received a late afternoon package. The lab results confirmed yes, it was his parathyroid. Bring Bo first thing in the morning for surgery they told me.

I strapped everyone in their car seats, watched the sunrise as we crossed the bridge over the river, Bo curled up on the floor behind my seat, right beneath the dangling feet of his kids.

“What if BoBo dies Mama?” My oldest has always been my worrier.

I choke back tears and tell him no matter what happens, they have been blessed in a way that many people will never be. To have been loved by a dog so loyal, so faithful, even if we don’t get to bring this yellow dog home, even if this was the last ride in our truck that he’d ever take, our life was made more beautiful because God put this dog in it. And that was what we thought of when we left him at the vet’s office.

And I cried all the way home.

We picked him up the next day at lunch time. The tumor was the size of a walnut. It’d been clinging to his parathyroid, an organ the size of a grain of rice.

He was a new dog right out of the office. He felt so good we took him to the beach. I borrowed a little red hoodie from my son and put it on Bo to keep off the chill.

As soon as it was zipped up across his furry chest, Bo went splashing in the ocean. He was alive again.

We had a good few days with him until the morning he urinated blood. Then began the every other day calcium checks. After a disease like this, the body may not remember how to make and regulate calcium and vitamins the vet said.

Steroids, Vitamin D, antibiotics…he had his own pharmacy. I turned to the coconut oil again, and started boiling chicken, shredding kale and carrots. I fed him well.

But still he deteriorated. If he could just get over the hump. If we could just get his kidneys to kick back in gear. Each lab test showed he was at a standstill.

On a Wednesday, after two weeks of running him in for lab checks, Matt and I decided it was time. He wasn’t improving. I knew if I could keep his system strong he’d have a fighting chance. But all the system strengthening wasn’t working. He could barely hold his body up to pee. If he didn’t make a significant turn-around by Saturday, we were going to take him in and let our beloved Dr. Tabby put him to rest.

We never had to decide. He left us on Thursday morning. He died with his big yellow head in my lap, right here in the home he watched over and loved.

When Matt carried him outside, wrapped tenderly in one of our best sheets, we gently set his body down and let each of the children say goodbye, pet the velvet ears of the sweet animal that’d been part of every single day of their childhood. Then we put our old friend in the ground.

We wept as we prayed around his grave. With tears rolling down our chins, we filled in the hole, tamped down the earth, and thanked God for the life of our yellow dog. Then, with the sun sending sprays of light through the spruce trees, we wiped our eyes and we went inside and had pancakes.

Bo’s last photo on his last trip to the ocean.

{{Excerpt and photo, © Cassandra Rankin, from Annie Spruce, The Dog that Didn’t Die}}

***

From the pain of losing our Bo, to the joy of finding our Annie Spruce, our family has learned so much about love and friendship and the surprise of God’s care. Join our family, and find your heart warmed by this sweet little story that is both good…and true.

Purchase your copy of Annie Spruce for Kindle here, or a soft cover version at www.cassandrarankin.net

In the woods of Alaska, an unexpected and bloody surprise awaits a family at a rural pull-off. Little did they know, the mess they stumbled upon would soon build the faith of a small girl, her family, and a homeless man. Their story is a tender display of how, by answering the smallest of prayers, God shows us the bigness of Him.

Annie Spruce is the true account of an extraordinary dog who reminds us that amidst the messes of this life, there is joy and there is love. The story of Annie Spruce brings a message of family and friendship, and evokes a sense of delicate care that will delight all ages for generations to come.

“This book HAD to be written, and it’s AMAZING. A story too miraculous to be true. Yet it happened.” G. Litzen

“Your talents give you the ability to place the reader in the midst of the story, feeling the heartbreak and jubilation as each tender moment develops. The message is clear, God hears our prayers, great and small – our faith in Him brings life to those prayers. Annie Spruce sits right in that spot of your soul where it reaches out and plays your heartstrings like a well tuned fiddle. I give it a standing ovation!” ~S.Wafer

“I loved this book. Beautifully written and very heartwarming. One of the best books I’ve read in a long time. Highly recommended for dog lovers.” ~Nicole (Amazon)

“I love this book! I love this dog! I love this family and their incredible story of faith, compassion, and strength. This book cannot help but touch the very core of your heart. God bless you Rankin family!!!” ~C.J. Rhoads

Muskrat Mornin

Leave a reply

We’re always having a little something fall into the window wells of our basement. Usually a shrew or a vole will plummet the heights of three-ish feet, and most times, we’ll end up finding it, all of us squealing at its cuteness and inviting it in to breakfast.

Well, not really, but there was the one time we thought the mouse looked scared and hungry so we fed it a small plate of scrambled eggs before we sent him back on his way.

All of the critters that have come to visit our basement from on high have lived, unless you count poor little Tippy, who we think must’ve suffered a terrible spinal injury in the fall and could only walk in a herky jerky circular motion once we freed him. Sorrowfully, we thought it best to end his little life as he’d have no chance in the wild, and my son did what strong men do and quickly and mercifully sent Tippy into eternity with the help of his Red Rider BB gun. {{Things sometimes get sad round here…}}

Minus Tippy though, every time something has been “discovered” in one of the window wells, we’ve captured it, released it, and sent it back into the wilds of our property, where they can roam free and wild, or get tortured and eaten by our barn cats.

Our dogs somehow have this keen sense of knowing when something has fallen DOWN THERE. They have a special “THERE’S SOMETHING DOWN THERE” bark and will pick up the yipping in unison and force us to come investigate. The household stops, we ooh and ahh over the cute fuzzy creature that has come to visit us by unconventional means, we strategize a plan of capture, and we delight in its release.

So much for a morning routine.

Never a dull moment as they say right?

So the other morning, the THERE’S SOMETHING DOWN THERE bark commenced right after clearing the breakfast table and the kids all muttered as they put on their jackets…sounds like somthin in the window well.

And sure enough…

MAY 2015 018

Except sweet little fuzzy little vole wasn’t what greeted us. I’d been tempted to fry up another egg and bring it to whatever mousy friend awaited us when I heard the yipping start up. But what greeted us was NOT a guest I’d want at the breakfast table.

It’s a MONSTER right?!

Okay okay, so it’s only a muskrat. But those sharp rabid teeth! That long creepy black tail! I had the urge to push my children back like a bouncer at a rock concert and get them out of the way of danger.

Ewww.

Then one of those babies, my man-child, he got right to work fashioning a noose out of paracord attached to a BBQ skewer (he said it was the only long thing he could find but I think maybe those sharp little teeth got to him too) and he and Annie went on recognizance.

Then Annie had to go in the house because of course she wanted to eat it…

So little sister joined in the rodeo.

And it soon became obvious that while my son has excellent noose skills, this muskrat knew how to slip a knot too.

It became time to break out the big guns.

That’s right.

The manure rake.

After a fun little ride on the manure rake, and then hopping off to skip across the yard and enjoy a relaxing visit with our barn cat Joe while they both rested under our canoe, (our Joe is a lover not a fighter) the muskrat took us on a wild goose chase when we decided we should’ve put him in a bucket and relocated him to the pond up the road.

A half hour later, panting and defeated, bucket empty, we decided we’d have to concede to Mr. Muskrat and let him run free.

We learned a few things.

When you capture a wild critter, put him in the bucket FIRST before you do anything else.

We knew this but our barn cats confirmed it. Watch your animals. They will speak to you by their body language. Both our barn cats told us which tree root the muskrat had gone under when they went rigid and their tails started twitching.

Flip flops are not a good option for wildlife chasin.

And I learned again what I already knew…

…that it’s true.

With kids…and dogs…and farm animals…and muskrats…

…there really is never a dull moment.

Epilogue: My friend up the road texted me later in the afternoon to tell me she’d seen a muskrat scurrying quickly through her yard and out of our neighborhood.

All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all.

Dancing With an Indie Publisher

2 Replies

I stink terribly at this book selling gig.

I think I just wanna go back to WRITING the books and let the seller person take care of selling them.

Oh wait.

Right.

I AM the seller person.

How depressing when you want to just do a sale and start giving some books away for FREEE and you get to see all kinds of new names from a drawing who are going to get FREEE books and you dance and dance in circles and decide you’re going to get your Kindle side in on the fun and your hair spins around and your dress floops out in a flowy circle as your outstretched arms gracefully release rose petals and free books…things that will beautify the WHOLE WIDE WORLD.

And then FWAP…it all comes to a screeching halt when you misstep and trip and the rose petals fall to the ground and one of those books comes flying back and hits you upside the head and you remember…

Oh yeah.

It ain’t like that is it?

So today my wee little dream of my wee little sale was like that book fwapping when Amazon told me I WASN’T ALLOWED to have a sale on MY book because I just had one and I had to WAIT until MAY.

Bossy huh?

How’s a gal supposed to get her Julie Andrews on with THAT kind of noise??

Talk about a writer’s straight jacket. Geez.

So I have to wait.

BUT.

I am SO excited that I get to mail copies of Annie Spruce to ten happy winners from nine different states! Those ten were out of 606 that entered the Goodreads giveaway.

See why I just want to let my sweet books fly into the arms of my readers? Six HUNDRED people y’all! They wanted to read about my little girl’s prayer and our sweetie pie dog. How SWEEEET is that??

So, I guess you probably get the idea that I like people to have our book. So there’ll be a sale. As in, a FREE sale. SOON. As soon as Amazon LETS me. Gosh we love em but these rules..these rules….

And this Goodreads giveaway has been so much fun…don’t be surprised if I soon don my twirling skirt and my rose petals. I’ll be ready for another go round.

Minus the fwapping of course.

🙂

Not Quite But It’ll Do. For Now.

3 Replies

It was Fairbanks for poems then Juneau for horses and all I did in those quiet moments between busy when I wasn’t writing…

…was think about writing.

So much to write about.

The beauty.

The fun.

The growing.

The goodness.

But laundry calls and the animals are hungry and the sun is shining…

…and the chores they just won’t wait.

If I start writing today I just might not stop.

So it’s not quite writing these ten minutes of being here.

No, not quite.

But almost.

It’ll do.

But only for now.

One Hour and a Glass of Red – 100 Word Challenge

Leave a reply

Mine followed the hoard running toward the hotel pool, super soakers cocked, walls waiting for water blasts.

Late check-in, the pool’s soon closing.

Husband takes his once-ever turn at watching them splash; my body says no swimming tonight.

Five minutes after we split ways, a text.

“Lord of the Flies up in here.”

I smile. Him hating the pool, wet humidness, kids screaming.

Almost a year ago, another hotel pool ushered in cancer news.

Music played loud and happy in the car that day too.

Family weekend ahead, he gives me this hour.

I embrace it.

Embrace them.

And indulge.

This post was part of the 100 Word Challenge for this week on http://www.velvetverbosity.com

Twenty-Three Aprils Ago

Leave a reply

And just like that….

I looked at the calendar this morning and the date melted me a little.

It was 23 years ago today that I went on my very first date with a new friend who was happy-go-lucky, generous, the life of the party, a sweet boy who loved his mama, and the kindest man I ever met.

Pals was all we were.

Hangin out.

Dancing.

Drinking Bell Ringers.

He made sure I got home safely every time.

And when he asked me out on a DATE date, I laughed in his face. And I then went on to tell him how he was so not my type and I would never marry someone like him.

But I went on the date anyway because deep down I knew I WOULD marry someone like him.

He’s still sweet and so generous and he adores his mama.

He’s given me four children that fill this house he chose so carefully for us.

He endures this crazy little farm and all its crazy little critters.

He’s a hard worker and a family man to the fiber.

He prays for me daily.

He’s still my best pal and the kindest person I know.

And everyday, he still makes me laugh.

Twenty-three years…

I thought we were still just kids.

I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine…Song of Songs 6:3

Chicks on the Farm {{Cuuute-nesss Ovvvverload}}

Leave a reply

The goslings came early yesterday and filled our house with cuteness.

Technically they’re for market.

But I’ve already decided we’re keeping one.

My husband just doesn’t know it yet.

I.cannot.EVEN.

Cuteness overload round the ranch this week yawl.

And THEN…

It was like the “IT’S TIME” call in the middle of the night.

The phone rang when it was still dark.

THE CHICKS ARE HERE, I announced to my kid who has so anxiously awaited their arrival.

Normally one to moan the arrival of get-up time, he SPRANG out of bed to make the still-nightlike run in to town with his dad to fetch the wee little pheasant babies sent all the way from Iowa.

They all survived the trip and they were waiting for him in the peeping box in the back room of our post office.

They are the tiniest little birds I’ve ever seen.

Phew. That was a long trip. Gosh I’m tired.

{{{Happy weekend from our little farm to yours!}}}

It’s Influenza, Now HOLD ME!

2 Replies

I almost died last week.

I’m talkin real-life, not-sure-I’m-gonna-pull-through-this-one, kids, mama-might-go-meet-Jesus-today almost died.

That’s right.

Influenza will do that to a gal.

{{I’ll wait while you grimace and shake your head in sympathy and awe that I’m still here to tell about it.}}

And if you’re not grimacing and shaking your head in awe, I should tell you, I had a husband and four kids almost die with me.

You’re grimacing now aren’t you?

Especially at the husband part huh?

Although MY husband, who, after staying home only ONE wee little day from work, went right back to it shortly after I suggested maybe he was being a little wuss-like since **I** wasn’t falling NEARLY as hard as HE seemed to be.

And yeah, those were probably the last words I said to him before he went out that morning, coughing stoickly and leaving me behind in a house that wasn’t yet a sick house.

He didn’t do the typical sick-husband, stop-the-household-Daddy’s-sick bit.

So those WERE the last words that rang through my ears when, just hours after his departure, I found myself sitting in shell shock on the couch, a glass of ice water on the end table, a blanket over my lap, and razor blades in my throat.

My eyes glazed I’m sure at the kids when they asked “Mama? Are you okay?” My husband may or may not have reminded me of my ~~cheap shot~~ lack of confidence in him when he heard how sick I was later that day.

“Mama’s fine kids. However, today might be the day that Mama goes to meet Jesus.”

Their awkward silence filled the room.

“Uhhh…geez Mom. Don’t do THAT okay?”

I’m sure I heard another one mumble “Yeah..who’ll feed us??” but instead of asking them to repeat, I used all my remaining muscles to feebly shape my mouth into a smile and shriek a silent, just-kidding laugh through the butcher knives that had taken up residence in my tonsils.

Yeah, it was that bad.

Somehow, my big strong husband who was sick but still worked his twelve hour shift that day and every day since, well he managed to swing in somewhere and bought some sort of food product and the kids ate it for dinner while I practiced my skills of staying still.

I moved only to breathe. If I could’ve gotten out of doing that, I would’ve. Something had happened to my ribs and my backbone and moving/breathing/sitting/laying/talking/standing/living hurt like a fresh bruise. My knees and ankles felt the same but I didn’t have to breathe out of them so they just laid there still and obedient on the footstool and under the blanket.

For three days my routine was to wake up mid-morning after not sleeping all night. I’d stand before the household, think of something to tell my children to make for breakfast and they’d slip into their chef roles to take care of chow time while I settled my dying self on the couch-turned-command center. Somewhere round mid-afternoon, we’d all lay down and take a solid nap where I went unconscious for no less than two hours and would wake feeling like maybe the fever had subsided at least enough to not toast my cerebellum.

My guilt was terrible, and on the phone with my hard-workin husband one day (who was still coughing stoickly by the way) I told him I was so thankful for his hard-workin self and that I felt terrible for calling him a wussy.

He assuaged my guilt and reminded me that as a dad, when he’s home with sick kids he lets the crowd go Lord of the Flies and just throws the conch shell out in the middle of the room and tells em to go at it.

I didn’t remind him that I wasn’t doing much more, because frankly, just hearing him say he thought I was doing anything made me feel a wee bit better. Since there was no conch shell involved, maybe by just being Mom I was doing SOMETHING.

I should note that by date 2 of this abrubtly imposed quarantine routine, one of my children came to me feverish and schlumpy, complaining of a sore throat, and a second cherub was showing signs of a cough that rivaled a barking seal. They joined me at Command Central and the three of us, pajama-clad and glassy-eyed, practiced our staying-still skills together.

In and out of naps I dreamt of conch shells and face paint.

My big boy was running the show.

Barnyard chores? BOOM. The teenager took care of them.

Lunchtime? BAM. Not a thing that kid can’t cook.

Phone ringing? Don’t worry Mama, I got it.

Jehovah’s Witness coming up the drive? “Please go away today. My mom is sick.”

What did I do when I got sick and they were all little?

Oh that’s right. It didn’t happen.

Us moms of littles have no time for luxuries such as influenza when there are diapers to change.

On Day 4, I got up and never took a nap that day.

On Day 5, I sat at the table instead of on the couch.

On Day 6, I felt like maybe Jesus wasn’t ready for me to come Home just yet after all and on Day 7 my body was so strong and my love so big, with the faithful help of my big boy and my Bosch mixer, I was able to whip up 20 loaves of bread to send in for our church family’s Wednesday night dinner and I didn’t even break a sweat or have to sit down.

We were ALIIIIIIIVE.

Well, most of us.

I still had two in the tail ends of the satanic flu claw, one who’d come to me that morning with a pink face and a scratchy voice, but then, there was my big boy, the lone hold-out who woke each morning and gave me the voice test and had, each day, passed with flying colors.

We cleared our calendar for the week.

We made a few phone calls and people said “Whoah. Yeahhhh….good idea, stay home.”

We learned that this nasty had taken out MANY folks, some of them twice.

So we enjoyed our home.

We ignored its messes and its laundry that overflowed and its refridgerator that heaped up kid-packed bowls of leftovers and bottles of katsup piled on the shelves instead of in the door compartments.

We watched Netflix. Goodness did we watch Netflix.

We worked some on 4-H assignments and we cleared the table when we could no longer see the top and we swept the floor when we lost a dog in the tufts.

We were home.

And then, when it was time to go back out….

…I heard angels singing.

I crawled out of the cave of my home like a mole who one day comes to the bright surface of the planet and the light OH DID IT SHINE and I even put my make up on that day because it’d been at LEAST a year since I’d seen another living soul and I was ALIIIIIIVE as I crawled up into my old creaky Ford and flashed a brilliant smile to my babies in the rearview.

Our trip found us at the department store (a step up from Walmart) because somehow, we’d neglected to have ENOUGH laundry done to provide nice clothes for my littlest’s violin recital.

The stress of the trip about took us out at the knees, and sweaty and shaky, we all left after two trips to the fitting room, some mindless throwing of clothes into the cart and a few Cadbury eggs for strengthening.

We doubled up on cough drops to silence the sound we’d come to call The Traveling Hospital and all six of us managed to smile and clap our way through the recital to the very end.

And then today….back to church.

We weren’t gone long. Just two Wednesdays and one Sunday.

But something about being back to church after having almost died….

…everyone looks a little different, a little softer around the edges.

It’s a big church, so it’d probably take us quite a while of being gone before too many people missed us…

But boy, seeing the familiar faces after a couple weeks of not…

…it made me realize how much we’d miss THEM.

The cozy little cliques that always tend to gather together and chatter and giggle and smile about the small comforts and pretty things.

The sweet little elderly couples that wrote the book for us on marriage and sit shoulder-to-shoulder week in and week out and link fingers on the thighs of church slacks as they share through their pinkies and minds the hurt and love and joy and wonder of falling in love and raising a family and watching the body of their best friend grow older and feebler and one day closer to leaving this earth and meeting the One they have served together all these years.

The ones that, like us, have been gone for a short time.

The ones that have been gone for a long time.

The ones that look to our family for hugs.

The ones that don’t quite know how to hug yet.

The ones that sing so beautifully you just want to close your eyes and let their voice carry you straight to the angels because you know one day it is going to sound just…like…that.

And you just want to say HOLD ME.

I almost died but now I’m here and I missed you and I need you so HOLD ME!

And if it wouldn’t embarrass your kids who love too but who love quiet, you’d go around and hug everyone and say let’s just not worry about not looking put together and healthy because we’re ALL sick and we all need each other and I miss you when we’re apart so hold me.

You’d hold everybody’s hand who came close enough to touch and if they didn’t come close enough you’d just go on and touch them anyway even though there are germs involved because maybe they’re saying HOLD ME too but just a little quieter than you.

That preacher who missed us while we missed him, he talked about worship and how every single time we’re in church we can be worshipping but especially when we’re not at church.

We need to hold people.

The ones who reminded us of the psalms that were a part of this day so long ago, they sang and said Behold! and made us all feel like we walked Jerusalem too.

We need holding on the walk.

And my body can be an act of worship and I can use these hands to hold and these arms to hug and the smile on my face can build and the words my mind thinks can travel out my mouth to encourage and when I do that…

I’m holding you.

Because really, aren’t we’re all dying?

I might not be the cool kid, and you might not dress fashionably, and each one of us is a little awkward, but most days we all read the news and on the smell of the newsprint we can see that while we’re all busy trying to look healthy and strong and part of the in crowd, we’re all dying and this world needs holding.

And in that need there are kids who’d love to share our messy home, any home.

There are mamas who lose their fight to cancer and cross into glory leaving their best friends and children behind.

There are families uncertain about the future and how to best train up their child as they watch more and more of their freedoms disappear.

There are countries that are eating themselves alive from the inside out.

There are armies fighting an imaginary war and killing their enemies whose only offense is carrying the light of the world.

And during it all He lives and He says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” {Psalm 46:10}

Be held.

As sick ones sit tender in their illness and practice their stillness skills, He says “I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

He is alive.

So we are too.

The flu isn’t going to kill me.

It’ll slow me down for a bit and it’ll still me and it’ll remind me of where my strength comes from.

But it won’t kill me.

One day this body will eventually give out due to illness or age if He doesn’t return for us first but before it does, He gave me you.

He gave me the ones that share my walls.

He gave me the people who come to church now, and the ones who will come later.

He gave me the ones that don’t yet know Him.

He gave them to me and to you and He gave us the reminder that He holds us and He sustains us and He tells us that He made these arms and that He strengthens them too.

And today, when I was feeble, He reminded me.

These people are brothers and they are sisters and though we are dying, we are strong.

That sometimes we are to be still. But that even in our stillness we are serving.

And in my stillness and in my strengthening and in my serving, today, I realize it.

In my holding, they hold me.

Because we are alive, -because we are dying- they need me.

And for all the same reasons…

…I need them too.

God sets the lonely in families; He leads out the prisoners with singing…Psalm 68:6

Influenza and the Spring Sale

Leave a reply

Oooh I’ve missed my little blog round here…

So many moments this week I’ve been writing in my head…before I remembered that I was simpering quietly on the couch waiting in silent stillness for either a) my death to come or b) to breathe again.

Influenza.

It took us out one by one this week and I can honestly say, I’ve never been so sick in all my life. My kids fared it with much better vim and cuteness than I, and In my lucid moments, I’ve been writing about the whole snotty miserable ordeal in my head. Something witty and snappy and funny and lighthearted about how all six of us barely survived the week.

I’ll save that piece for a few more days though.

I need to let the PTSD symptoms subside.

🙂

In the meantime….

Regrouping as we go and remembered that my time frame with Amazon is at a point where they’ll allow me to have a sale on the Kindle book! Yayy for spring sales!

So.. 3/26 through 3/31….BIG sale on Annie Spruce for Kindle! Price on the sale start date (tomorrow): just 99 cents! Amazon will increase the price a little each day as the week goes on, so if you’ve been thinking of getting the eBook, get your copy tomorrow!

Get Annie Spruce for Kindle here

Our favorite verse this week:

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Psalm 48:1

About Cassandra

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: