Igloo

So on to the second blog post where I attempt to fight Ana back by recognizing the ways that I still see Jesus at work in my life and in the world around me.

My igloo

Yes…I have finally returned. It’s been close to a year since I last was able to sit out here and soak up summer. Anxiety ceases. Butterflies flutter around me. Birds chirp madly away. And there is one obnoxious rooster next to me that will not stop his cock a doodle dooing. I sit under a sun that is shining warmly on me from a bright blue sky with a few fluffy white clouds in it. But the rest is green…vast arrays of green fields that kind of make you just want to run and dance in them with bare feet. And the great thing is that I could and no one would know because there is not another sole around.

"Don't remember the day, she started to fade
The ground felt a chill as she gave it away
A whisper - a sigh, for the time that she passed
But this winter won't last
As she falls I try to catch her
For one last touch of warmth from summer
As one thing leaves to becomes another again
I remember when
Oh to be with summer again"

Those are the lyrics to a song by The Afters called Summer Again….one of my favorites. How I have longed so many times this past year to “be with summer again.” And when I think of summer the first thing that always comes to my mind is my igloo. (For those of you who have not heard me reference my igloo before…for me it is not a building made out if ice that is reserved for people who live in Buffalo! It is actually maybe three feet high and it is metal with chipped white paint all over it. My dad found it on the side of the road a long time ago and because my dad is a pack rat and can see potential in anything... he picked it up in his truck and it has sat behind our barn for years doing absolutely nothing. That’s why I like it. No one has any expectations for it but it has become my cathedral.)

Ooo Chris Rice song comes to mind (Have I mentioned how much I am in love with this guy?)

My Cathedral

Sweetest days of childhood,
Playing in the deep woods,
Stomping through the creek
and feeling oh-so-much alive.

We're camping in the forest,
We join the cricket chorus,
Hum our songs of gratitude
around a crackling fire.

Out here in the stillness,
I found my house of worship
with column trees and canopy of stars,
Here in my cathedral.

It was beneath the blue skies,
I ran down to be baptized,
I felt the river wash me clean
and dried beneath the sun.

To this day believing
I'm wide awake or dreaming,
Scan the ancient sky
and understand where I belong.

Cause out here in the stillness,
I find my house of worship
with column trees and canopy of stars,
Here in my cathedral.

This is where I find my soul,
Out where holy men of old
first knelt in soil
and thanked You for the rain.

Wrote the songs that filled the air,
Harold angels sang their prayer,
out beneath
your darling constellations.

Let me off and wander,
Robin song and thunder,
Surrounding me with stained glass leaves
that change with every breeze.

Out here in the stillness,
I find my house of worship
with column trees and canopy of stars,
Here in my cathedral.

I sit here thinking about all that has happened in the past year since I last perched myself here. And all I have to say is that God is good. I don’t necessarily “feel it”. There are rarely those warm fuzzy feelings around me. But somewhere deep within me I know Jesus is there and he is giving me a new heart. I am majorly confused about the rest of life and most of the time I don’t have a clue what I believe or why I believe it. But I know Jesus is there. And that gives me enough hope to know that this will be defeated some day.

I shall end with some more pictures because many of these just say what I can't express in words

The North Pole :) (surrounded by a whole lot of other junk but that is ok)


Somehow a chipmunk ran into the turkey pen


My back yard :) :) :)

Roger the rooster who makes WAY too much noise (I have threatened to end my vegetarianism just for him!)
Oh and have I mentioned how we are actually seeing sun here? It is amazing