A Melodious Sonnet

The Card Between the Endpapers

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It’s 10:27 am, and I’m sitting at my computer desk with my planner in front of me, telling me I need to write a blog post today. The only thing I can think of that was really noteworthy this week was something I discovered a couple of days ago—a little card stuck into a book I was given, and subsequently forgotten.

That became a special gift this week. When we took our family trip in December/January, we got to meet a sweet older couple whom we had heard about, but never had the chance to make the acquaintance of. The day after we visited them, we met up again with them in church, and she handed me a devotional, wrapped in paper, with a card on top.

It was a special gesture—one that I will treasure. The devotional was New Morning Mercies by Paul David Tripp, and earlier that month I’d had the blessing of reading some of his advent devotionals—so I was especially excited to get to read this one.

Since I was in the middle of another book at the time, though, I didn’t pick this one up right away. Just this week, I finished that other one (finally!), so I got to start reading this.

And opening that front cover, I saw the card she’d given me—lying forgotten between the red endpapers.

In the joy of the gift, of the unexpected friendship, I hadn’t taken a lot of time to study the card. But now, it was a gift.

End Papers

Their lives had been turned somewhat upside down by a family member getting very sick, but one thing I noticed when we visited them at their home was all the verses of hope and life that they had around—framed on the walls, on bits of paper underneath the clear plastic tablecloth—it was unmistakably a house of HOPE! And now, she’d slipped a little bit of that hope—that joy of theirs, even in the middle of a fight for life—into this book for me.

For this time? Perhaps. Or perhaps it was such sustenance to them that she thought it would be an encouragement to me, too. I don’t know.

But I do know this—she’s an inspiration. Her giving spirit was a blessing—we’ve only met that one time, but she gave me (and my family) gifts she thought would be helpful to us as we continued our travels. I doubt I’ll ever forget that.

Through this experience, I can only pray that the Lord will help me to be more open-handed, to be ready and willing to be a blessing however I can to those I meet. And I also pray that I can learn to focus on the blessings and promises of the Lord, no matter what earthly circumstances I face—as she and her family did during that rough time. The result is truly beautiful.

And, once again, I’m struck by the blessing of the wider Christian family . . . what a beautiful thing the Lord has created for us to enjoy!

How has someone else blessed you recently?

Website Rebuilding

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These last weeks have been full, although not the kind of “full” I’ve had other times.

Finally, after four or five years of dreaming about redoing my book reviews website, I’ve been able to start making that dream come to a reality! It feels surreal in many ways. Different little things were done for the rebuild—coming up with a name, letting a tagline find its place, buying domain space, finding the theme I wanted . . . little things. But the big tasks—actually getting the book reviews ready to go—were still waiting.

It’s strange to finally be working on it—to see tangible change every single day on this project, after so many years of wishing I could figure out how to do it, developing systems for it, gaining experience, and praying and hoping I’d be able to work it all out someday.

Now, someday is finally here, and sometimes I wonder how that happened. How I managed to find the time to finally do it (actually, I don’t think I did—I think the Lord gave it to me). Other times, I feel incredibly blessed—so many years of dreaming, thinking, planning, preparing, and now I can finally take action on it. See things move. Look forward to actually crossing the finish line one day. Because that feels almost within my grasp now.

I’m grateful. Very grateful. And I can’t wait to share the finished product with you.

But for now, I’d like to encourage you—whether your dreams were born yesterday or years ago, keep dreaming about them. Because one day, once you figure out the hows and wherefores, you’ll be able to see them come to fruition too.

Family Trip Day 5: Mackenzie Basin, Moeraki Boulders, and Dunedin

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Here’s the next installment of our family trip posts, from the 11-day trip we took in late December 2020 and early January 2021. If you need to catch up, here are the previous posts: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4.

Our fifth day was New Year’s Day, so we had a very relaxed morning and enjoyed talking and playing games with the friends we were staying with. Just before lunch, we finally took off, and headed for Dunedin, our next stop!

The area around Twizel, the Mackenzie Basin, is so dry. I loved seeing the contrasts there with the mountains in the background!

But despite being dry, there are a number of rivers and creeks that flow through the area—coming from the Southern Alps. Some of these have been diverted into canals, and after driving for a while, we came across a lake and dam, so we stopped to have a look.

The dam was impressive—one of the largest ones I’ve seen in person, I think. There were only two turbines going—we must not need as much electricity in the summer?

The part I found most interesting was the fish race, and the artificial 1 km-long creek they’ve created for trout to spawn in. That was something I don’t remember seeing before. Unfortunately, it looks like I didn’t manage to get a picture of that specifically. The concrete structure that some of my brothers are climbing on, below, is one of the entrances to the race.

Then we went on, out through mountainous country, heading down to Dunedin. Again, a beautiful drive, full of contrasts as we got out of the drier middle part of the island and back closer to the east coast where they get more rain and things are green.

We got to the coast, and had to drive along there for a while, but we did make one stop—the Moeraki Boulders. The tide was coming in, and it was raining, but they were still fascinating to see! Something I’d love to stop to see again, if we happen to be going past with fine weather and a low tide.

I found the lines in the rocks where they are joined together especially interesting. It was also interesting to see the ones that had broken apart!

We arrived in Dunedin Friday evening, and stayed with friends there until Sunday afternoon. I didn’t get any pictures those two days, because it rained (more like bucketed down!) nearly the entire time, and we just enjoyed time together, playing games and talking.

I did get one picture—of my sisters and me in the matching dresses I was able to finish just before we left on the trip. What fun! I’m so thankful God chose to give me sisters, after many years thinking His answer was “no”!

After we left on Sunday, we headed south to the Catlins, where some other friends of ours live. We hadn’t ever visited them at their home, despite almost getting there one other time and knowing each other for years. On the way, we hit a cloudburst and nearly had to stop driving for a few minutes—it was really coming down! The river next to us was full and then overflowing, but thankfully the water level didn’t make it up to the road.

Here’s a video I took of the flooding.

Stay tuned. More pictures coming up soon (hopefully!). 🙂

Family Trip Day 4: Mount Cook

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Well, the last major thing on my to-do list for today is to get a blog post up. I have this on my list every week, several days each week, and generally it doesn’t happen—my time fills up with other things before I get there. But perhaps today I can cross it off; we’ll see!

Our fourth day started a little slow, but soon we were on the road to Mount Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand. We’d been up there as a family two other times, but since we were in the area again, everyone was keen to have another look around.

I love the views of Mount Cook as you drive up the valley toward the Mount Cook Village!

At one of the places we stopped to get a picture of the mountain, we also were able to get a family picture—one goal of our trip crossed off the list!

We drove around to Tasman Glacier first, had lunch, and headed up to the Tasman Glacier lookout. It’s a beautiful climb through tussock land. This time, there weren’t as many icebergs on the glacial lake as we’ve seen other times; apparently, the other times had extraordinarily large amounts, so I wasn’t too sad about that. As always, what little we could see of the glacier was impressive, although I think my favorite time of the year to see it is in winter, when snow covers the gravel on top of the glacier.

Little sister and I got a picture together. I was really starting to feel the effects of two days in the sunshine, but that didn’t dim the enjoyment of the day. 🙂

Looking down the valley toward lake Pukaki, I’ve always been impressed by the greens and browns and purples. Just gorgeous!

After enjoying our time at the Tasman Glacier, we went around to Hooker Valley, which is probably my favorite walk up in the Mount Cook area (seeing as I’ve only ever done the two!). It’s a beautiful cross-country tramp, about an hour or hour and a half long if you take it at a leisurely pace, and you see two different glacial lakes on the way.

First is the lake from the Mueller Glacier, which I didn’t realize until this trip is actually fed by the glacier—I saw the upper reaches of the glacier on the walk back this time. The lake flows into a river, which joins the Hooker River, and you cross it via a swingbridge—always a highlight to my brothers, of course.

The day was not super hot, but it was mostly sunny. A perfect tramping day!

The mountain views were just gorgeous. This is Mount Cook presiding over the Hooker River.

I stayed with my brothers all the way up there, and generally was just a few steps behind. They walk faster than I’m used to, but I was still able to enjoy the scenery! It’s all rocks, bushes, water in all forms of presentation (frozen, waterfalls, rivers, creeks, etc), and mountains. Lots of mountains. The walk is supposed to be three hours round trip, but we were in a bit of a hurry and made it in two.

The lake itself isn’t quite as gorgeous as some of the other water around—the sedimentation in the water gives it a murky color, but off in the distance, we could see the Hooker Glacier and a few small icebergs, and with the mountains behind it was just gorgeous!

And the sunshine on the peaks as we were going back…now that was something worth soaking in! Goodbye, Mount Cook:

In all, that was probably the second most spectacular scenery we saw on the trip. The most spectacular came much later on, which, hopefully, I can share with you soon. We’ll see!

The Path of Singleness

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I got some wonderful news this week—that a friend just got engaged! I’m very excited for her; that’s been a long time coming, and I’m glad they finally made that decision.

It’s also interesting, as a single woman, to hear news like that. Though I have had several other acquaintances or friends—some younger than me—get married in the last few years, none in my “close” friend group have tied the knot yet.

And though I’m reminded that perhaps, with several relationships in the past few years, it could have been me giving out the joyful news, that’s not where I am now. I’ve seen other single young women really struggling with this, but I feel curiously detached from such feelings—perhaps I’m not old enough to really mourn it? Surely my life isn’t more full, more busy, than theirs?

It isn’t that I don’t sometimes feel a little sad that things didn’t turn out the way I hoped. After all, I wanted to get married at 18 and probably have two or three children by now! (I’m thankful God didn’t fulfill that wish, by the way.)

Whatever the case may be, I’m thankful to be in the season I’m in.

I’m thankful I don’t have a husband and family and all the responsibilities that come with that—thankful, because of that, to have the ability to step into other people’s lives and walk alongside them for a time as needed.

I’m thankful to have this time with my family—after this past year of being away almost more than I was here (maybe not always physically, but emotionally), that is extra-special. There’s a 21-year age gap between my youngest sister and me, and that feels pretty big. I’m glad I get this time to watch her grow up.

Even though I’m thankful—grateful—to be in this season, yes, it sometimes is hard to think of others getting to live the life I’d love to live. Hard to see others looking forward to having their own homes, starting their own families, having that special relationship blossom and grow with year after year of patient tending.

It’s hard to think about the people getting to hold and love on their own babies when I don’t have one yet.

Maybe I’m not as detached about it as I thought at first. Maybe I do care more.

But this—this I do know, and I keep learning about more and still haven’t found the bottom of yet: God’s love toward me is even greater.

His plans for me are even wider.

His direction in my life is even higher and more complicated than I ever thought possible.

And—He has directed my past. I’ve seen His fingerprints in my life over, and over, and over, guiding, directing, leading, and placing the next steppingstone there just when I need it the most.

He is trustworthy. And if He can provide the small answers to my problems now, He can and will provide the bigger answers to my relationships when the time is right.

So yes, today, I rejoice with my friend who announces her engagement. I rejoice with other friends who are eagerly anticipating their wedding in just a month’s time. And I rejoice with my Father, knowing that He has my life firmly in His capable hands.

What truths are you telling your soul right now? Is this something you’ve struggled with? What conclusions have you come to?