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.

Little Emily the Three Dollar Chick

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It wasn’t the dying baby chicken that pushed the tears on out and sent them spilling –on again, off again- all morning.

Or maybe it was.

I’d never had a chicken of my own before.

They stink, really.

But in the big cardboard box, there she wobbled, one third the size of the other five, and my heart went out to her.

I named her Emily.

Silly, they told me. To name a chicken.

She was one of our meat chickens.

Raised for the auction.

Headed for the fair.

Destined for the freezer.

I knew all that.

Still, I named her anyway.

And when she seemed a little cold I wrapped her up and put her on my chest as we watched a movie.

They laughed and called her Edible Emily and said I couldn’t keep a meat chicken for a pet. Told me to claim one of the layers out in the coop.

I can too keep a chicken if I want.

And after that, she was just Emily, Mom’s chicken.

Isn’t there a little fragile in all of us…a fragile that needs to be held close to a big and strong warm chest?

She was so small the other chicks would trample her so we put up a divider in the pen and don’t we sometimes get trampled most by our own?

The ones that look like us, talk like us, do the same things we do…aren’t they the ones that sometimes forget to look where they’re walking and in doing so, they sometimes walk straight on over us?

My friend with family that’s breaking her heart…

…the quiet person at church who’s attended for years but still leaves feeling lonely and outside the happening group…

…the mama who feels unappreciated and invisible in her own home…

…can’t we sometimes feel crushed by those we share this life with?

So when I greeted the day and the strong legs were replaced by a wobbly heart, sad over the weight of it all, -the weight that crept on over winter and made the clothes tight, the weight of a too-short summer filled to Fall with farm work needing done, the weight of yearning for a day…a break…some time…some attention- it was easy to let weighty tears slip on out when I saw my chicken was hurting and I asked my husband if he wouldn’t please end little Emily’s suffering.

One little three dollar chick, dozens just like her at the feed store, one of forty-two critters here on our farm…and the snot is running like I’m saying good bye to an old friend.

Just a silly chicken.

But don’t our red letters say not even a little bird falls without our Father in Heaven knowing it?

So when my men folk take my weak bird and tenderly and mercifully send her into eternity, somewhere my heart stirs and I know that my Father knows I’m wobbly today like my chicken.

As they bring me to her grave and I look at the cross in the ground constructed by my son in honor of my chicken, -two sticks and some duct tape- I’m reminded that one day the burdens that crush on the days that we’re weak will be no more…and I’ll be in my eternal home.

I’m reminded that, on hard days, days like today, I don’t have to carry the weight.

He carries it all.

I’m reminded that because He carries it, my legs can stand up and walk strong.

That I may be just one of a huge flock, but He knows me.

He knows you.

He sees.

We are not invisible.

We are growing strong.

And someday soon…

…we’ll fly.

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. ~Jesus

Luke 12:6-8

Thank you for the lessons sweet Emily, Mom’s chicken.

June 5 – June 19, 2014

More posts about the small critters round here:

Patrick Hugo the Craziest of All

Meet the Critters

Fountains and Drains and Project Renovation

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So today was day two of Project Room Renovation, which meant it was Ceiling Day. I lined my little work crew of four out on their various chores and set myself to the task of making our ceiling pretty.

As I cut in the edge of the ceiling with my perfect Apple Core white and my fancy new angled brush, out of nowhere it hit me. Like it was right there in my ear, I heard the criticism she gave of my last painting job, years ago telling me what a mess I’d made of it, how unevenly my paint was at the line where the wall met the ceiling.

I’d worked hard on that paint.

I had a toddler and a baby in the house when I’d painted that wall and it was my favorite wall in the house.

Until she said that.

I know she loved me and she probably had no idea how her words would affect me, but after hearing her say that my eyes wanted to always drift to the sloppy lines that I’d just learned had ruined the whole job.

And today my mind started to do the same.

My hand shook as I tried to make the edging perfect.

There were drips.

There were smudges.

And pretty soon it started to look sloppy and pretty soon my heart did too and then there I was…a wrought out mama up on my son’s wobbly little red step-stool remembering all the criticism, all the words negative, said from this friend over the years who didn’t even get it how her saying these things “in love” hurt, and I know it shouldn’t bother me…and I know I should focus on all the positive things she said instead…and I know we’re supposed to take every thought captive…

…but don’t words sometimes just stick to a soul?

So when I took a little break today and stumbled across some wisdom right there on a good friend’s Facebook page, it stuck to my soul too.

She said “Be a fountain not a drain.”

There it was.

Right there was the reason I’d been standing on the stool agonizing over the crispness of the paint on my ceiling.

I’d allowed the words of another to be a drain on my self-image and in doing so, it was a drain on my heart.

By allowing the draining words from one friend be so big, I’d made the fountain words of another friend small.

The fountain friend who always had kind words and got watery loving eyes when she’d come visit and sit and rest with me and make me forget the piles of dishes and the topply bookcases and the soccer ball-sized tufts of dog hair and the unmatched anything.

I’d forgotten how she always made me feel that it wasn’t the furniture in a home, or the messes in a home, but the people in a home that made a house a home.

I’d forgotten how much she loved it here and by loving it here she helped me love it like I should.

In the busy of raising babies and toddlers, in my thirst for a perfect home, she’d come, and with her words over our coffees, she’d turn on a sweet fountain and before I knew it, I’d be refreshed and reminded that the perfect home I longed for was the one right where I lived.

Who am I a fountain for?

Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. (Proverbs 16:24)

My words can point others to God, and toward the best that He has for them, or they can do just the opposite.

Who, even without meaning to, have I hurt, or made feel less than worthy, with my words?

On Day One of Project Room Renovation, I’d taken on a duty usually reserved for my husband. Trying to complete PRR while he’s at work has been tricky, especially so when it came time to do the job he always loves to do: clean brushes.

We clean brushes in the tub. And after three brushes, a couple rollers and several trays (my work crew LOVES to paint!) I found myself trying to wash tools in a milky white bath of paint water.

The drain was plugged.

So I did what any brave and courageous wife would do.

I decided to save the nasty for my husband to fix when he got home from work.

And then I remembered how hard he’d been working all week and that my goal was to not bother him with any aspect of this project, so I did what any REALLY brave and courageous wife would do.

I unclogged the drain.

I’m able to speak about it now, but yesterday, as I dug through the things of nightmares, -things stuck to hair that could only have been shed from a sort of septic monster- I was sure that the only speaking I’d be able to conjure would be to apologize to my poor husband who has so bravely attended to this macabre duty for twenty years and has never once thrown up, cried in self-pity, or screamed in horror.

I’m a tough ol’ broad who can weather a LOT of gross stuff in life, (I’m a mama to four AND we live on a farm) but dealing with that drain took a lot out of me.

My words can keep someone stuck. Or my words can help someone grow.

I can love someone all I want but if my words don’t build, if my words don’t refresh, if my words don’t tell them YOU ARE PRECIOUS and YOU ARE IMPORTANT and YOU ARE GOOD and YOU ARE ENOUGH and JESUS LOVES YOU…

…even the strongest of us will be weakened by a drain.

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. (Ephesians 4:29)

I have the power to build with my words.

You have the power to build, to be a fountain.

Our mouth, our words, they have the power of life and death. (Prov. 18:21) How are we using them?

How many I Love You’s does it take to unclog a drain?

How careless can we be, especially with those we know well, those we love the most? Yes, we all need to be able to take some harsh words now and then. But does that give us a license to just open up and let loose with our mouth the first things that come to our minds?

That kind of showering is a drain.

And drains get stuffed up. Drains stick. Drains are an ugly, stinky mess to unclog. The backflow of a drain can cause a quagmire.

And quagmires can be hard on a soul.

But the other kind of showering?

The tender kind and the encouragement kind and the yeah, it’s a mess but I love you and you’re more important than any old mess anyway and it’s gonna be okay kind?

That kind of showering will shower right on over a soul and speak life. Those kinds of words will fountain up and make us want to take our not-even-close-to-perfect lines and go on and use the water from one fountain to water another…with our strengthening …with our positive…with our gentle…

…with our love.

I want to be that kind of friend.

I want to be that kind of fountain.

~Your words have supported those who stumbled; you have strengthened faltering knees.~ Job 4:4

Father may we speak words of life to others. May we be a fountain for hearts everywhere. And may we forgive others when they are not. Help us remember that you are the one who really sees us, knows us and loves us and that until we are with you, we will sometimes fail, and others will fail us too, and we won’t always build with our words. But help us Lord, to keep trying always. Help us to be builders. Help us to be like you.

In Christ’s Name, Amen.

The Shed

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For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. Hebrews 3:4

The shed fell and my heart fell too.

One long season of building a structure.

But really…

…building a marriage too.

The house, a stake in the ground, a foundation of love.

This is where we stay. We’re not moving anymore. We’re not going away from here. Or away from us. We’re not leaving.

The shed, that first monument. Our sign on the door. The first wall up. An I’ll build this greenhouse side for you and I’ll build this shed side for me and together we’ll build it and it’s ours and it’s us.

That’s what the shed was.

One side for him, for man things, the tools, the work side.

The ‘I’ll take care of things and we’ll keep our stuff in here and sometimes it will be messy and cluttered and sometimes things will hang from the roof and sometimes I won’t know exactly where those things are because I am just a man after all but it will all be here for the finding and when we need it’ side.

It’ll be there, right here at our fingertips. The things you need will be right here. Right here because I’m.not.going.anywhere.

And one side for me. A smaller side, a softer side, a side drawn right out of his own mind, his own love idea and right onto that paper in black and white, a part of the plan and it belongs right there, has to be right there, attached and joined to his half. Clear walls and full of light and fun and this is where we’ll grow things.

The side just for me that he draws in and in drawing it he says it. ‘You’ll be able to create, I know you love to. You are sometimes messy and a lot of the times start things you don’t want to or know how to finish but you need a spot to grow beauty and I want you to be able to in this place. For you. For me. For us. This is a place I know you’d want to be and while we need my side, a practical side, I know you need a creative side too and I want that for you.’

My side says this shed is different and this shed is love and this shed gives hope.

Hope drawn into the plan, hope right next to your side and being side by side makes us one and joined and attached and I’m.not.going.anywhere.

Strong hands drew up that plan, a custom, one-of-a-kind, fearfully and wonderfully made plan…no one else has a shed like it kind of plan.

And strong hands chose lumber and strong hands hauled and hammered and cut.

And then strong hands rebuilt a marriage.

Built a shelter, and though just a shed, it was somehow still a place out of the storm for her, for him, from the rain that’d been falling and falling…

…and soaking them in their own darkness over a year.

He hammered and cut, and sometimes they hammered and hauled together and when it was done…oh..when it was done…

…it was theirs.

Proudly it stood, side by side, for that first winter, and the next winter after and for years and years, reminding them of what they built.

What he built when they’d both said we’re not going anywhere.

And the shed they built became the shed they really needed and with each baby came more need …

…and the boats and the tools …the shed became a shed.

A full shed, a cute shed…a shed full of memories…a shed full of things.

The monument, the stake in the ground, now a statue covered in moss. Showing years and altogether beautiful…

…patina showing its age.

Its age and use and love.

And when the foundation moved…the foundation of the marriage, well, when that happened, the foundation of the shed shifted too.

The sinkhole they didn’t know was there shifted the shed downward.

But the foundation on the Rock that they were learning IS there, it shifted the marriage upward.

Toward strength. Toward oneness. Toward forever. Toward light after the dark and rainbows after the storm and no more need for fixing or for shed building.

Toward the One with even stronger hands. Hands that took the nails and made all things whole again.

So after the earthquake hit,- the biggest one they’d known- and the shed was rattled, left ragged and tippy, looking at them tiredly for weeks as the last aftershocks rolled through…

…looking at them like this might just be the last sink this old shed can take…there wasn’t much surprise when the oldest boy came to say, very matter of factly…

“Mama? Our shed is no more.“

The roof, flat and near level with the ground, held that wet heavy snow while it all pushed and pushed down on the frame of that shed, built with so much love…so much hope back then…

…until the boards just couldn’t take the weight…

…and it all caved in.

And the practical side, the man side, with all the tools and the tires, lay right next to the light side, the pretty side, the place he built for her to grow things.

Yes, the shed fell flat.

But the foundation?

The foundation is now firm.

And for that…

…the shed has faithfully served its purpose.

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Corinthians 5:1

New Face in a Hotel Room

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We commandeered the lobby level pool.

I imagined him quiet upstairs, tired, ready for bed…and shaving.

I didn’t worry about him, but knew when we returned…

…he would look different.

Smooth.

What had been part of him, part of us, -rugged and soft and grizzly- for so long now…

…would soon be gone.

It needed to come out. Bad tumor filled his face and it was a week until we learned cancer cells built nests, but that night, before it came out…

…I thought of him as always.

With his beard.

But then bare, there he was…

…strong.

And love.

Spring Break – 100 Words

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It was time.

Too much work, too many appointments, too long running.

We homeschool. I can do this. Time out. Week-long break.

Spring at last.

My babies needed down time. Desperately, so did their Mama.

Cancelled outside commitments, made a project list.

We cleared brush. We picked trash. We raked flat the snow piles littering the lawn, stubbornly refusing to break it off with winter’s frozen ground, even after hours of sunlit heat.

My big boy, whole year older, he wore the man’s boots and started the first campfire of the year.

And I inhaled the scent of this family.

{{Entered in 100 Words at Velvet Verbosity, http://www.velvetverbosity.com/100-words/}}

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Strong Men

The Trophy

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My girl…

Tends toward the awkward

and things break in her hands.

And when she first learned how to talk

she told me she had wobbly legs.

My girl…

Pink hurts her eyes

and dresses are her enemy.

And when she has to be fancy

she lets me help her pick out nice pants.

My girl…

Hates to give kisses

and only likes hugs from her parents.

And her back involuntarily stiffens

if anyone else tries.

My girl…

Coon skin cap always on,

she can body slam her big brother.

And will probably carry a choice husband home

over her shoulder one day.

My girl…

Yanks out her own teeth,

and barely feels a hurt when she flips and breaks a bone.

And she pops her knuckles like a fighter

before asking her daddy to pop her toes too.

My girl…

Who can take a tender moment and

goof it

spill it

crash it

smash it…

…will take the next

and love on her little brother like no one else on this earth

because really, deep down, in her heart…

he’s her baby.

And then she’ll take the next one

and fold her ten year old hands

to ask God if He would protect her heart…

from ever doubting Him.

And then in the next moment after that,

she’ll scoop up a baby she just met and hold it and love it and teach it

about this whole big world around us –right there in her lap…

attentive mama hen with a brand-new chick.

And then when she’s all done with that moment she’ll go and surprise you again with the next.

My girl…

She’ll take that trophy she just won,

that shiny sparkly unexpected joy,

the one she worked so hard for…

and she’ll offer it up, selflessly want to give it away to the one girl on the team…

who didn’t win anything.

That’s my girl.

My awkward

bumbling

clumsy

girl.

I wish my legs were wobbly like hers.

Twenty Year Song in the Dressing Room

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Several weeks ago I was in Fred Meyer shopping with my bffs for a new shirt to wear to Ladies Night at the gun store. Yeah, we know a wild and crazy Thursday night when we see one. We did duck face pictures with movie star sunglasses and acted like giggly freshmen girls.

Cuz we’re like that when we’re out on the town and forget we’re in our forties and that between the three of us we’ve got eleven kids.

Then the sweetest most precious song came on over the speakers and had me near slobbering tears while I picked out the perfect black shirt. It was so beautiful right there under the fluorescents, I swore to myself I would remember the lyrics and download the song as soon as I was outside. I threw an iTunes card on the belt, paid for my goods and set out to search for my new favorite song from the back seat of my girlfriend’s mini van.

I couldn’t find it.

I searched every single word I thought I’d heard over the tinny loudspeakers. But they got all jangly in my head like the bracelets we had been trying on and before I knew it, my results window was bringing me back to bebop 50’s music and then some Bruno Mars.

I was so sad.

Because you see, in just seven months, if I am still on the earth, I will be celebrating twenty years of marriage to a man I thought I’d never marry. I told him so, in fact, about twenty-two years ago. Sat right down on his lap at a party and told him he was so NOT my type I’d NEVER marry him. He was too nice to me, too good to me, too sweet of a man for me to ever consider marrying. Some date I was huh?

And then, when I DID marry him, I’m sure there were folks who thought we’d never make it much past a few years together. Heck, there were times when WE thought we wouldn’t make it much past a few years together.

We didn’t know what forever was…back before we understood what forever meant.

The sweet song said “I love you more today than you will ever know, how sweet this life, I’ll never let you go….”

And it reminded me of all these years and all these miles and all these tears and all these laughs and all these sad times and all these babies and all these flaws revealed and all these forgivens granted and all these late nights and all these whispered prayers and all these gifts given and all these joys and all these dark times and all these light times and all this time…

…all this time together.

It made me think of all these near twenty years and right there in the dressing room I was reminded that yes, this life IS sweet. Marriage is sweet. This man is sweet.

And together, we’re sweet.

And while every single moment hasn’t been sweet, every single year of these twenty has been.

But I couldn’t find the song. I didn’t forget about it, but after coming up empty in my intense search to find it, I quit looking.

Until today.

When, almost a month after the trip with my girlfriends, I dragged my kids through the shoe department of the same store for our annual new-shoe extravaganza. I happened to be standing underneath a speaker in the sneaker aisle three or four minutes after we started shopping and there, right there in my ears, popped a sweet little melody.

I strained to listen while the sweetness of the song started to stir my heart just like the first time I’d heard it. Unbelieving, my chest jumped as I scanned the ceiling to see where the speaker was located. Could it really be the same exact song?? In the same store?? Did they play this stuff on some sort of loop? But now? RIGHT now, THIS second, THAT song just happens to be playing??

I found the speaker and strode urgently over to it, leaving my kids standing in front of the tennis shoes and hissing to them, “shhhhhht” when they loudly asked my back…

“Mama? What are you doing??”

Those sweet words. There it was. I never thought I’d find our dressing-room, twenty-year song and there it was. Right out of the blue it had come to me while I was helping my girl find a pair of Chuck Taylors.

“And dreams are worth the chasing…Love is for the making…and I’ll love you more than you will ever know…How sweet this life…I’ll never let you go…Nothing compares to holding on to you…I’ll love you more this I confess to you…

…I confess to you.”

There it was.

I pulled my iPhone right out of my purse and googled up the lyrics and tapped out the name of the song and the artist in my note pad. I would not lose it again.

There it was. Right there in a song piped out of the dingy ceiling at the department store.

This Life.

When our Creator says for this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh…He meant it. What a gift.

And I confess to you:

Marriage has hard times and marriage can have dark times. But marriage is sweet and marriage is precious and nothing…nothing compares to holding on to the one you chose to spend your forever with. When you told God, when you told your spouse, that you were in it until death, you confessed too. You said I’ll never let you go. You clasped hands and claimed dreams are worth the chasing…love is for the making…how sweet this life.

You said it.

Live it.

All the days of your life. If you have that person with you, that is your sweet life.

Hold them close…they may not always be with you.

For as long as you have them, never let them go.

I’ll never let you go.

This life.

That’s my twenty year song.

That’s my forever song.

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

Click the YouTube link to play Ryan Huston’s, This Life

P is for Poetry and Flags

If Love was a House

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If love was a house,
where would it live?

Would it settle in the kitchen?
Listening and bowing…
food washed tender and chopped with time, nourishment brought from afar…
board games and laughter and milk spilled and cookies baked…
round the table and a family at each meal?

Would it stake claim in the living room?
Cozy and warm…
snuggles on the couches and stories in forts…
foot rubs and late night movies and popcorn…
lips to hot foreheads and hands bringing ginger ale?

Would it dwell in the playroom?
Loud and giggling…
other worlds being built and workshops noisy…
messes and kingdoms and broken pieces…
creativity and growing in action?

Or maybe it would choose the big bedroom?
Quiet hush…
stately with moonlight and quilts warm and soft…
romance and laughter, breast milk, jambly stacks of books, throw up and icy little feet…
beauty and refreshment, life and rest?

Or would it pick the front porch?
Sunny spot…
collection site for trash out and loved ones in…
where home meets the world, the going to love those outside…
the coming to gather up the air of here?

Would love settle in the learning rooms?
Pencil places…
where reports get written and bills get paid…
the mundane details that are done by heart…
that keep the train on its tracks?

Or maybe the bathroom?
Clean and refreshing…
bodies scrubbed and toes counted and teeth tidied…
and parents hide for small vacations and isn’t a toilet scrubbed…
all in a day’s work?

Or would love forsake the rooms and instead choose the walls?
Fingerprints rub…
photos hang, and calendar pages stand sentry waiting to be flipped while masterpieces are scrawled with glee in crayon. Food sticks and holes happen and memories ooze…
…and clinging to the foundation they breathe out and seem to whisper

right here.

Love lives right here.

Cassandra Rankin

Life is Messy and Things Aren't Always Little on this Crazy Little Farm

Author Archives: Cassandra

About Cassandra

Little Emily the Three Dollar Chick

Fountains and Drains and Project Renovation

The Shed

New Face in a Hotel Room

Spring Break – 100 Words

Strong Men

The Trophy

Twenty Year Song in the Dressing Room

P is for Poetry and Flags

If Love was a House

About Cassandra

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