mystery flower

Can anyone identify this flower? They are small, maybe an inch and a half in diameter, about half the size of a daisy. There are several in a bouguet that my husband brought home for me the other day (awww ), and I just think they are the cutest little flowers ever. I would love to grow them if I can find out what they are. Some variety of sunflower, maybe??

what does God have to say to mothers?

When I began to study mothers, I was surprised, challenged and humbled by the things I read. The first thing that struck me was that, when the home is functioning properly, a mother should be happy  with her place in life.

He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Psalm 113:9

So many mothers are discontented, frustrated, and angry. What is it that has happened to rob mothers of the joy that is supposed to come so naturally? I mean, just turn on the news for five minutes and you’ll hear some story about a mother who has abused, neglected, or murdered her own children. So many first time moms are struck with depression because motherhood isn’t all they thought it would be. People regularly visit this blog after googling the phrase “I wish I never had kids.”

I’ll come back to that question of happiness in a minute. First, I want to look at another scripture:

No widow may be put on the list of widows unless she is over sixty, has been faithful to her husband, and is well known for her good deeds, such as bringing up children, showing hospitality, washing the feet of the saints, helping those in trouble, and devoting herself to all kinds of good deeds.          1 Timothy 5:9-10

Did you catch that? Raising children is considered a good deed. Why would what is basically a function of nature be considered a good deed? Because bringing up children is more than having babies. Raising children requires sacrifice, hard work, and effort. It means that, for a time, your life does not belong to you. We are all familiar with the seemingly unattainable model of a wife and mother from Proverbs 31. I have scoffed at that chapter so many times, feeling that the woman described in those verses puts me to shame. Have you ever read through that description and thought that guy’s expectations of his wife are ridiculous? Take a look at verse 1:

The sayings of King Lemuel – an oracle his mother taught him…

That’s right. Proverbs 31 is the advice from a mother to her son about the kind of wife he should choose. I’m guessing that Lemuel’s mom lived a life pretty close to that ideal. I mean, we all want our sons to find a wife just like us, right? So, why then, would she advocate that kind of life if it made her miserable?

The joy in motherhood comes from the sacrifice. It comes from knowing that every day you are working toward building a person that will one day enter the world and make it better. In this modern world, we have become so focused on ourselves, so preoccupied with finding happiness, that we miss out on the true happiness that comes from sacrificing your life for your child.

 For more about this study on the Biblical family, see part 1 and part 2. Parts 4 and 5 coming soon.

the scourge…the pestilence…the beetles

What blog about gardens would be complete be without a discussion on pests? Japanese beetles are to me the cockroaches of the gardening world. They eat, they breed, they produce thousands of grubs as babies that eat your lawn and emerge the following year as adults that will eat and breed. They invade your happy little garden in June, about the same time that the crape myrtles begin to flower, like an army devouring everything in sight. They have a particular affinity for ornamental trees, roses, flowering shrubs and vines. We first discovered them on our river birch and crape myrtle a few years ago, skeletonizing the foliage from top to bottom.

When we asked around, there were two opinions about how to combat them. One was to use beetle traps, and the other was to hose them every 3 weeks with Sevin (carbaryl). The reviews on the beetle traps were mixed, with many people suggesting that they would actually attract more beetles to the yard than they would kill. So, we went with option two. The result was disastrous for our crape myrtle. The Sevin did a fair job of eliminating the japanese beetles for a while, but it simultaneously eliminated all the ladybugs. As the beetle season was coming to a close, the tree became infested with aphids (since there were no ladybugs to control them). The aphids produce a sticky liquid known as honeydew (sounds much nicer than it really is) that in turn caused the tree to become completely covered in a black mold. It was awful.

As I was contemplating cutting down the tree, my mom suggested we try a systemic, an annual treatment that basically makes the plant poisonous to the insects that would eat it. So the following spring we applied Bayer Advanced Tree & Shrub to all of the plants that had been affected by the beetles. Then we waited. June came and so did the beetles. At first the trees seemed to be covered in the beetles, but after a while it was obvious that they weren’t doing much damage. Sure enough, at the base of my crape myrtle I discovered hundreds of dead Japanese beetles. The lady bugs were alive and well because they don’t eat plants. And as an added bonus, any aphids that the lady bugs didn’t eat were also eliminated by the systemic.

wednesday’s wisdom - June 25th, 2008

Beginning today, I will be posting one of my favorite Proverbs each Wednesday. Today’s verse is Proverbs 25:21-22:

If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.

 

the lumber yard in my eye

Over the last several months, I’ve had the great privilege of being involved in some excellent Bible studies. I just started a new one that I can already tell is going to be fantastic - No Other Gods, by Kelly Minter. It is a study on modern day idols, and it isn’t taking any time at all to draw me in. I was intrigued from day one. She quotes a definition of an idol by Richard Keyes:

Idolatry may not involve explicit denials of God’s existence or character. It may well come in the form of an overattachment to something that is, in itself, perfectly good…

keep em’ separated - part two

So, what do you do when you have leftover egg yolks? Make Creme Brulee, of course! Actually, I would never have thought of trying to make Creme Brulee at home if my brother hadn’t given me one of those handy kitchen blowtorches for my birthday. As it turns out, it is deceptively simple…

I think I’m in trouble

My boys just finished up their soccer season. The younger one is really into sports. He loves to play and he really seems to grasp what soccer is about. When he gets the ball, he immediately drives it to the goal. If the coach tells him to run a lap, he runs two, just for fun.  My oldest, well, he’s more of a science buff. He could care less about sports. He doesn’t like the strenuous physical activity and he’s smaller than most of the kids on his team. This is his second year, and his interest is even less this year than the first. So I figured we would just give up on the soccer idea for him. But, he insists that he wants to play again next year. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why… 

what does God have to say to fathers?

There is a reason God chose to be known as our Father. I am not sure whether God’s plan was to use something that we know to give us an understanding of his love, or if it was the other way around, to give us a picture of how we are to love each other. Most likely it was both. But what I do know for certain is that the parallel is no accident. So when searching for a picture of God’s idea of what it means to be a father, you need look no further than the character of God himself.

keep ‘em separated - part one

I don’t really like eggs, as a rule. I don’t like them scrambled at all. I really don’t care for omelets. I tolerate them fried or hard boiled. But a whole world of possiblities opens up when you separate eggs into their parts - whites and yolks.

happy father’s day

In honor of Father’s Day, I’d like to post the words to a song that I listened to a lot when I was little. It has grown to mean so much more to me since our boys were born.  It is probably familiar to some of you, Watercolor Ponies, by Wayne Watson.