Pressed Down and Running Over

Musings on Life and Beauty



There is a verse from the Book of Luke which has been running through my mind for months now.  It’s found in the sixth chapter.  Jesus has called his disciples and healed a multitude.   He then began teaching his disciples, sharing teachings that are difficult for the best of us to observe… things like “love your enemies” and “be ye therefore merciful” and “judge not, and ye shall not be judged… forgive and ye shall be forgiven.”

And then comes this little verse stuck in there after all the counsel:

“Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom.  For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.”  (Luke 6:38, KJV) These are the words that I can’t get out of my head.  Good measure.  Pressed down.  Shaken together.  Running over.  They’re always marching with imagery and feeling that really grabs me.  And while I’ve been working on being more forgiving, less judgmental, and more merciful (with some success I feel good about), the words have taken on sort of a life of their own in my heart.


I feel like they describe my life.

In the book of Malachi we read about the law of tithing, where the Lord promises a blessing to those who pay it.  He says, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” (Malachi 3:10) Great images here as well.  The windows of heaven open, blessings being poured out, not enough room to receive them.

I guess I feel like the recipient of open windows right now, and the blessing being poured out in such abundance that there isn’t room to receive it is simply this:  life.  Experience.  And although my efforts to give are so small and halting, life’s experiences seem to be tumbling down upon me, the good and the bad, but they’re coming with “good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over.”  Truly, God seems to be sending more to teach me and try me and touch my heart at a rate that leaves me breathless and exhausted.  There is just so much of LIFE being lived in our house right now.  I realize it’s partly a result of numbers, but it’s taken on a quality even more intense in recent days, weeks and months.


This feeling represents a paradigm shift of sorts.  I have wondered sometimes about the windows of heaven, about blessings so tremendous we can’t fully absorb them.  I can imagine all kinds of blessings I’d love to receive even in small doses, and there are other matters about which I have wearied the Lord for years.

The other day under our cherry tree, as I was laughing to myself about our cherries, I was also pondering my husband’s recent injury,  the new violin I need to purchase, repairs that need to be made, and things that will now be delayed for health reasons.  I looked up at that tree and recognized that we had more cherries than we knew what to do with, which reminded me of the windows of heaven.  I laughed as I thought of all the forms I’d like our blessings to come in, yet there we were.

It was raining cherries.
So I smiled and opened my heart up wide to receive so great a blessing.

I’m learning some good things.  I’m learning how to plant my feet on solid rock and open my arms up wide to what is ahead of me.  Firm at the feet and open at the arms.  I want to live that way.


Tonight I feel like I get it.  It’s raining life at my house.  I’m trying to leave the umbrella in the closet and look up at the rain.  Surely the Lord knows he’s overwhelming me, which perhaps means I’ll be forgiven for missing some parts of the downpour while I’m learning to smile at others.  We can’t watch every raindrop’s race down the window but we can do our best to benefit from the moisture.  The rain feeds our flowers as  well as our weeds and I’m doing my best.  It’s coming faster than I can process, faster than I can write about it, faster, almost, than I can feel.   Yet having relief and disappointment so close together, the blessings and the trials linking arms, gives me the feeling that it’s all being tumbled together for our good.  That’s what I mean by pressed down and shaken together and running over.

And so my heart is running over too.  Running over with countless different feelings which, when pressed down and shaken together, take on the form of gratitude.

And it’s still raining.  How blessed I am!

Jennifer

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Joy, week 25

JOY in 2012



Week 25.  That sounds big.   As in, half way there.  Scary.  And as for the picture, I know I need a new one, I have since I took this one, but I have no idea when I’ll get around to it.  Like so many things in my life.

Well, it was another busy week.  The biggest news of the week is that I was right.  My husband needs surgery on his knee.  An MRI confirmed that he tore his ACL, his meniscus, and chipped the femur.  All kinds of things going on in there, with all kinds of pain for him.  The surgery will be this week, so he just misses the 2 month anniversary since our son’s surgery on his ankle.  I’m hoping we don’t keep moving up the leg with joint injuries.  I’ll be thrilled if this is our last for a while.  It’s been hard for me to watch him but nice to try to take care of him as he forces himself to bend and straighten his leg so it won’t be too stiff, and even harder to watch him emotionally grapple with what this means for all his favorite sports.  It will be a long break.  I worry and hope he’ll be ok.

But life goes on, even when you’re going from office to office for this x-ray and that appointment.  So we had soccer three days a week for both of our girls (I think they both got something like a 5 day break), piano lessons, violin lesson, a campout, a Scout outing to the Great Salt Lake, movie nights, swimming, friends, and so forth.  Lots of good stuff to keep us busy!  Add my incredibly busy two year old to the mix and there is never a dull moment.

My daughter made a goal to cook dinner for the whole family for a week.  It’s been quite funny to turn to her in the afternoon and ask what’s for dinner.  Seriously, this was no small project considering we have ten people to feed every day.  She has spent hours in the kitchen and tackled some of my more difficult/time consuming recipes.  Her younger sister joined in many times and it’s been a source of happiness for all of us.  I’m very pleased with her efforts, and also with her sense of humor.  Perhaps I should let her keep going since the cherry tart I made for dessert tonight ended up all over the floor.

That dessert reminds me of something.  I had a conversation with my husband this week about my totally ridiculous coping skills.  I was marveling at my ability to quickly find good things to focus on when we have something big happen, but when something little happens I snap.  So silly.  What you can infer from that is that I took all the knee problems in stride with grace and was completely ticked off about my dessert.  The reason I mentioned it to my husband was to jokingly reassure him that I’m not going to get hurt since the Lord knows that all he needs to push me to my limit is to have something little go wrong.  I guess I store up all this stress over the big things and then when something small, which I counted on, goes wrong, all the stress oozes out the corners of my eyes.  I need to work on that.

Let’s see.  My entire focus so far this summer has been on getting my kids in a good habit of working hard around the house.  I feel like I’ve done pretty well with this effort, although we haven’t perfected it yet, especially on those mornings when there’s driving to do.  Still, I’m liking what’s happening.  The biggest challenge is that when I focus on getting the big kids to be detail oriented and work hard, the little ones escape, and when I focus on the little ones it seems that the big ones get off easy.  Perhaps I should just go to an every other day schedule, planning to focus on each age group in alternating fashion.   Overall we’re making strides.

Yesterday I did some weeding of my favorite flowerbed in 95 degree weather.  It’s nice to reclaim that area and I enjoyed getting reacquainted with my plants.  Many of my plans for the yard will be postponed due to the knee surgery.  I’m just not sure we’ll get to them this year, and that’s ok.  The lavender is in full bloom, and I’ve got to get outside and harvest it quickly or I’ll miss it.  Our vegetable gardens aren’t what I wish they were, but once again, it’s ok.  These are busy years, and I’m really raising children.

I finished a book this week.   I had a great talk or two with my parents this week.   We got some good news.  Most of the things on my list weren’t touched, but we had some fairly urgent LIFE tasks to take care of.

So we prep for a surgery this week, and hope for the best!
Life is great.

Jennifer

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Cherry Picking

Musings on Life and Beauty



Our family spent a dreamy summer afternoon recently picking cherries together, all ten of us.


After some disappointing harvests our tree was covered with fruit this year.
Thousands of cherries just waiting for us.


There was work enough for all of us, and plenty of cherry stained shirts, faces and hands before we were done.


As we filled bucket after bucket, which filled an entire refrigerator with plenty left over, I kept laughing aloud at the wonder of it all.


I told the children that someday they will tell their children about the joy of picking cherries in our backyard in the summer, of eating cherries until we’re full, of sharing with friends and neighbors.  Year after year of doing this will combine in their memories to form a golden thread in the tapestry of family life which they will someday look back on and share with their children.


We talked about how people have been picking cherries for centuries, while most of the “fun” people have today is relatively new.  I love having activities in our lives that connect us with generations long departed.  It gives me a sense of continuity, reverence and deep gratitude.  I want my children to value memories such as this.  It was work, but it was the best kind of work:  outdoors, together, a warm summer afternoon, the shade of the tree, total harmony and cooperation among the children, a bit of adventure for the older kids perched oh-so-high up in the tree, a seeming never-ending supply of fruit, and a full fridge to show for it!


I wish I could wave a magic wand and send a basket directly to the kitchen counter of everyone I love.

We made cherry milkshakes to celebrate.  Yum!

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