Good Morning.

I got up about 4:00 am and used up the rest of my potato bread dough I had in the fridge. I had made up so much dough. About the size of half a bed pillow when it rose. I don’t use a recipe so sometimes I make a lot more than I think I am making.

One thing I made a few days ago is this. I took about two cups of the hamburger meat I had fried up. Remember … with the green peppers and onions? So I put into this a drained and rinsed can of sauerkraut and a can of pizza sauce. Stirred it up and made like a calzone filling. Then I put this in some of the rolled up bread dough. I let it rise with the mixture in it and then baked it. It was so delicious. I made a huge thing of it. After it was baked I put butter and Parmesan cheese on the top while it was hot from the oven. We shared some with our neighbors and they loved it, too. I still had some of the calzone left and I put it in the freezer.

This morning I finally used up the rest of my potato bread dough. I made cinnamon rolls. I made a special cinnamon bun for Baby, also, as she will come to visit today.

For dinner preparations today, I just took a frozen beef roast out of the freezer and put it in a pan with some onion, salt and pepper, and some water and will let it bake all morning. Jim has to work later this afternoon, so we will have our family meal at noon. In a few hours, I will take this meat out and slice it half done, as it will slice better that way. Then I will put it back in the oven and bake it until it is tender … a few more hours … a bit more water and the lid on the top. It’s about a four pound roast so this will last us for many meals. But ya have to slice it all up when it is half done … this way you get the nice even slices. Otherwise, if the meat gets stringy, then you can’t slice it.

Dear Pioneer Sisters,

Here are some ideas to start out with, when or if you were to move to a cabin in the woods. This is what I would do if I knew I had to eventually be totally self sufficient and I had a family to care for.

Ok. It’s spring, as it is now May 13th. And say I was to move in about a month. I would begin digging up some of my perennials in my yard here and bring them to my cabin to plant. I would make a small homestead garden there, too. Since it is my first year, I would plant just tomatoes and green peppers, cucumbers, some lettuce, and radishes, and a good crop of onions. For the first year, I wouldn’t plant a lot, as I would want to get chickens and a chicken house made before winter.

Around here, it is fairly easy to get potatoes cheap, and carrots. And you can buy fresh corn on the cob practically for a song. So I wouldn’t worry, my first spring, about plowing up a corn field or a potato field. Carrots are another fresh vegetable that I can buy cheap. Carrots will last practically forever in the fridge and they don’t need to be canned or frozen. Just keep a close eye on them and, if one gets rotten, throw it out before it rots them all. I would buy a few bushels of apples for the first year and store them in a cool place for the winter. But the first spring I would plant apple trees and other fruit trees on my land.

That first year, I wouldn’t worry over potatoes and carrots or corn, as they are easy around here to come by, and would be too much work for that first year. Also I wouldn’t plant a lot of beans to mess with the first year. I mean, enough beans to have for summer meals and peas, too. But going to the Homestead the first year, I would just buy the dried beans and split peas and lentils, etc. They are easily stored in jars and nothing to worry about. I mean, if one of the Sisters shares her garden beans, then Praise God and can them up for winter. But the first year is gonna be hard, and dried beans will get ya through.

I couldn’t live without my herbs and I would be haulin’ all of those to my cabin.

What I am tryin’ to say is that first year of planting will be a lot of work without overdoing it. Then, as you are established, then begin planting more in your garden the next spring.

Then I would get a goat and learn to milk her and care for her in the spring. Even if the family don’t drink it straight up, you can cook with it and make cheese and soap, maybe next year. But the main thing is knowledge and learning to care for a goat and milk her. I wouldn’t force the goat milk on my children if they didn’t like it. I would mix it half and half with store bought until they got used to it. If they are young, they will adapt pretty fast, but older children wouldn’t. Papa ain’t gonna drink no goat milk. I mean maybe in 20 years but I ain’t gonna hold my breath at that.

So in the spring and summer, the goat and the chickens will provide a lot of food. But when the cold weather comes, the chickens won’t lay eggs as much. But eggs are easily stored, too, in the fridge. I have seen directions for storing eggs and it all sounds very complicated to me. But eggs will last in the fridge for months on end. If an egg is good you will know it and if it ain’t, you will know that, too. Just break the egg open in a bowl before you cook it and you will know if it is good or not. My brother had chickens and kept eggs in the fridge for over 6 months and used them to feed his pregnant cats. And when he broke the eggs open, they were as good and fresh as ever. Cats won’t eat rotten eggs, believe me. You can get real complicated recipes for storing eggs in lime water or a bucket of lard … whatever. But to me they stay just as fresh in the fridge. I mean, providing you have electricity. And that first year, I would for sure have electricity until I got the hang of the other stuff.

Also, I would make certain I had a good mother cat about the farmstead. A female cat is a good mouser and I would have a lot of ‘em about the farm. Keep her away from the baby chicks and the chickens until they are grown up and can fend for themselves. And I would also have a good Lassie dog to chase wild animals away from my garden, at night especially. You may need two dogs. Well, they will surely earn their keep if they aren’t lazy. But most Lassie dogs are good with the children and will protect the garden, hopefully. I would have a house cat, too, as to keep the mice and other critters out of the house.

And, ya know, a homestead is a real woman killer? You take a wife and mother who homeschools and wants to do a good job of it and then she tries to live without electricity and all that first year? She will be dead as a door nail in the first 6 months. And long before your first year of homesteading, you need to get a lot of back to the land books and gather knowledge and wisdom first.

For some of you … you may not get to a homestead for a few years. Practice now for the time to come. Learn to plant herbs and use them for medicine and cooking. Start now and see what you can do this spring. Use the land you have now and see how many things you can grow and preserve for the winter. I mean, women think all this knowledge will come to them once they get to the homestead … and it won’t. The greatest preparation for the homestead life is knowledge.

For me, I have some land here and we own this house. This is my little homestead for now. I know how to make goat milk soap and cheese, as my milk man used to give me fresh goat milk when the children were young. He used to give me goose eggs, too, and I cooked with them. So I know all about goat milk but I have never raised a goat. In the old books, they call goats a poor man’s cow. I would rather have a cow, but I would start out with a goat.

And as you get into another year of homesteading, you could add more of a garden and learn to can and preserve all of your food. And then maybe, as the years go on, you may get off the grid altogether and learn to get along without electricity. You will have to dig a root cellar to keep things cool in the spring and summer. Or if you have a nearby cave, you can put food in there. I have read about using a window box for a fridge in the winter. Just open the kitchen window halfway and put a box in there with a door on the front. It would look like an air conditioner with a door on the front? Anyway, you could keep milk and butter and eggs in there if you were without a fridge. I mean, you could store it all outside in the winter in a small shed, but it would be easier or handier to have a window box in the kitchen.

I used to write to Wanda who was homesteading in Alaska. She would keep her gallons of milk in a cold stream by her cabin. A bear ate some of the milk, plastic gallon jug and all. Some of my letters fell in the river out of a plane one time. I lost track of Wanda years ago, as I started my email writing. I am gonna pray her back, though. God only knows I couldn’t find her, otherwise. She wouldn’t know which end of a computer to plug in, even if she had electricity. She could barely get her battery operated radio to work. She had seven children and worked like a dog. But she was my age and just had one child left at home. So she had a lot of knowledge and this kept her goin’. She couldn’t tie her dogs outside, as a wolf would eat them. Dang, if I didn’t lose track of Wanda. She could have told us some things, for sure. Please pray that I will find her again.

Ya know, as I write today, I feel the presence of angels. I feel that this writing may help someone along the way … maybe even many years from today.

I wonder often, when I see street people, “Could they have made it with knowledge?” My older children tell me they see whole families living on the streets of NYC.

HOMESTEAD MOTHERS

Ya know, a few days ago we were out garage saling. And we came to an area of huge new houses. Two income families with maybe one child. Then we passed new apartment buildings. No place for a garden or clothesline … no place to live or have a dog. I said, “Oh, Papa, these poor families are just existing and have so little. They aren’t learning anything.” These poor folks are paying for a lifestyle and not a life. They have run with the herd and bought the lie and will run off the cliff with the rest of the herd. And it’s got to be ok, as all of their friends are doing it.

How off the wall do you have to be to think our country is doing good, and all we need is better schools and education and the right president to put us back on target? I mean, I am no rocket scientist … just a poor housewife, really … but I can tell things ain’t goin’ all that good in my country. I don’t get this opinion just from watching Fox News (which ain’t all that good.) But I have folks in dire straits around me. Oh, I wish I didn’t.

And, ya know, Christian Joy has told me that, as she sees street kids, she tells them of her Dad and Mom who have made it on practically nothing and they can, too. It takes a pioneer spirit and, boy, we need to develop this in our souls. We need to grow some spines of steel and teach ourselves to just flat out make it, one way or the other.

Our nation’s homes were formed from the prayers and the tears of the Pioneer Mothers who came here with nothing. And if they made it, so can I. By golly … so can I. And you can too, dear Mothers.

I need to write more about buying things for your Homestead Pantry for that first year. But I will have to get to that maybe tomorrow.

Good Morning.

It got really cold last night here in Iowa. I bet it got to about 30 degrees. So I am glad I didn’t get my tomato plants in yet. This is unusual, to be this cold this late into May. It will warm up, though, hopefully soon, and I can’t wait to plant my tomatoes.

Jim plants the big garden way down in the back yard. Then I have a smaller kitchen garden right outside my dining room door. In this garden, I will just have things I can run out and pick for summer meals. But out of Jim’s garden, I will can tomatoes. For my kitchen garden, I will have green peppers and hot peppers. Then the beef steak tomatoes for slicing and a couple cucumber plants.

I will plant my basil in pots. But basil will not grow in cold weather. It will just sit and wait for warm weather. So I don’t have this planted yet. I have the lettuce leaf basil, the lemon and the purple basil to plant. Then I will be buying my favorite … the sweet basil. Now, the sweet basil you can get in the 10¢ seeds and they are the best seeds, I think. I plant my basil in pots … in case the weather gets bad, I can bring the pots in on the porch. And then, too, when fall comes, I bring all the basil in and use it until about Christmas and then it’s about done, or too scraggly to use anymore.

Well, I could never have a summer without basil. It’s my favorite herb. In the summer, I slice up my tomatoes on a plate and use the basil as a garnish. One salad I make goes like this. I just take a quart canning jar and fill it with chunks of tomatoes, onions and green peppers. Then I add basil, rosemary and chives. You could even add mint, too. Then I put in about a fourth cup of vinegar … about a fourth cup of sugar … and let it all set for a while in the fridge and it is so delicious. I add salt, also, and black pepper.

Also we plant zinnias everywhere and marigolds. I make many bouquets with my flowers and I add long stems of basil and other herbs.

I have a lot of dill. I let it grow everywhere, as I love it. And I often stick this in with my bouquet of flowers. I enjoy seeing the long stemmed herbs mixed with the flowers. I use my dill for cooking before it gets tall and dry. I don’t like using the seeds of it. I just use it when it first starts to grow … before the heads start to develop.

Also in my kitchen garden I have the Seven Sister Rose bush, and lots of comfrey and other herbs. Also horseradish.

I can hardly wait to get these tomatoes and peppers in.

Another favorite herb that I like to use fresh for my iced tea in the summer is the lemon balm. I just pick this and wad it up to bruise it as I wash it good in cold water. Then I just plop it in my iced tea. You don’t have to boil it … just pick a long stem and wad it up and throw it in your tea. So I run around all summer with weeds (Jim calls them) in my glass of tea. Jim always tells me “I want just plain iced tea.”

The Colonial Mothers called the herb teas Liberty Tea when they no longer bought their tea from England. “Honest Tea is the Best Policy.”

PLANT LIL GROCERY STORES

I don’t have the perfect garden. Land sakes, no! And the siding on our house is doin’ some serious falling off. And the roof leaks still like a sieve when it rains. We have had the hole in the kitchen ceiling fixed at least twenty times. It will be fixed for a few years and then it leaks again. And the foundation of our house is awful, too. But the Lord tells me, “Connie, you just make your garden and take care of Rose and don’t worry about it. Jim will take care of it.”

And ya know, this is how it used to be in the old days. Many times, a man would buy a piece of land he felt that he could work to feed his family on. The family would live off the land … then they wanted to have a cash crop, too. But the husband never looked at the house. He just looked at the land. The wife and mother was to make a home out of whatever house she got.

And Mama would get busy in the spring and plant tiger lilies around the foundation of the house to hide the crumbling foundation. She would scurry about in the spring and plant all kinds of flower gardens to make bouquets for the family table. In the winter she dried flowers upside down to give color to her little winter home. Then she was expected to plant things that come up each year. She called rhubarb plants, pie plants. She would trade seeds with the other country mothers. It was her job to plant the herb garden.As one mother was thinning out her raspberry plants, she would give the other country mothers some raspberry starts.

Mother was expected to make a house a home. To take control of her home and land and make it work. Usually the husband was too busy making a living to worry about the house fallin’ in on one side.

My friend Jill and her husband moved into an old farm house about ten years ago. The back side of the house was sinking so bad, they couldn’t close the back kitchen door. So they hoisted it up with rocks and then the back door closed.

The old time Mothers just made a home out of whatever they had to work with. The home wasn’t made perfectly for them? They had to make it. And the Mothers would plant many perennials … plants that come up each year. They would plant strawberries and horseradish and rhubarb and asparagus. They would start their grape arbor and plant as many fruit trees as they could. They would also plant walnut trees and other trees that bore nuts. All of these I just mentioned will come up each year.

Then, of course, they would plant their herb gardens. Herbs for cooking and for medicine. Mother planted ginger root to spice her ginger breads and cakes and to make ginger tea. She knew the names of all of the flowers and herbs and taught this to her own daughters.

Mother would forage in the woods to find wild lettuce, onions and other wild greens in the spring. See, our country used to be a lot different and the land produced many herbs and wild foods. Now, with the poisons put on our land to kill weeds, many of the wild herbs are dead. And it is not good to use this stuff, as it kills many of the health giving herbs and wild foods, like the little wild strawberries and other wild berry plants. Then the poisons sink into the ground and hurt your water supply.

We need to say the hell with the perfect yard and plant lil grocery stores in our yards. Yes, the mint will spread and take over the yard. Well, so what? Who wants grass? I would rather have a yard full of mint to mow. Think of how good it would smell to mow mint instead of grass. Mint and other herbs popping up in the grass is a good thing. It is medicine growing in your yards … don’t kill it.

During the 1930s many families lost their homes and were forced to live in the country in abandoned farm homes. Had the Mothers not known how to make a home out of nothing, the families would not have survived. In our present generation we mothers need to learn to work and prepare while the sun shines.

MAKING HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES

This spring Papa planted a cherry bush called “sugar cherry.” Also a dwarf peach tree. We have several dwarf apple trees and a plum tree. All of these plants come up each year. Then plants like tomatoes and peppers and other garden vegetables just last for the season. You have to plant them each year.

But ya know, dear Mothers, the old saying is “Make hay while the sun shines.” In other words, you can’t bale hay to store for the winter when it’s raining. Wet hay will rot and won’t store well. And we need to seriously consider our ways in these troubled times. Things are hard now but, Darlin’, they are gonna get harder yet. We need to put some of our money into buying fruit trees and food plants that will come up each year.

Many of you know nothing about the herbs or how to use them. Now is the time to go to the library and get books and store up knowledge. Go to book sales and buy books to have at home for a Mother’s Home Library. Books on gardening and herbs and home remedies. So many people are afraid of herbs but not of the harmful drugs from the doctor. The medical profession is in serious trouble. It’s time to break loose from them and find your own ways through the wisdom of God. If you need a certain herb, then learn to grow it and use it, if it is possible.

Gather canning jars this summer while the garage sales are plentiful. Buy some big pans with lids to do some serious home canning this fall.

Gather wisdom and confidence that you can make it. That if push comes to shove, you could make your own soap for laundry and baths.

The more knowledge you can store up and the more you can learn now, the better. If you have wisdom and know-how, then you don’t need to be afraid of the coming hard times. Dear hearts, build your confidence now. Learn the many survival skills of housewifery. Come back to the land now and learn all you can.

My yard isn’t huge but is big enough to have two gardens, four dwarf fruit trees, and many perennials. If you are in an apartment, you can store up knowledge through books for when you can move to where you have some land. You can start some tomato plants or green peppers in the big five gallon buckets. But do something to store up knowledge for the hard times that will surely come. Especially the families who plan to have many children. Of course Papa and I just have Rose now. But I want to be an example to my older children and their families. Our son Johnny (age 29 and married with our first grandson) told me while he was here visiting a few years ago, “Mom, your whole yard is a garden.”

Mothers, I would just encourage you to do what you can this spring and summer to learn what you can. Maybe you can only work on making a Mother’s Home Garden Library. But just do what you can and give some priority to storing knowledge and survival skills.

When the Lord gave me a new batch of children right after Jim was saved, I often spoke to others that I was abandoning myself unto the Lord. And ya know, I think it’s like this. Say we have a little boy named Johnny and it’s supper time. He is out playing and we call him in. He doesn’t want to come in, as he is all excited about playing with friends in his yard. We try to get his attention and he isn’t listening. And we take his little face and we look into his eyes and we say, “Johnny, look at me … look at me. It’s time for you to eat your supper.”

And I think there are times in our lives where we too need to come away from friends and listen to the Lord’s voice. He calls to us, “Look at Me. Forget the friends and the world and look at Me.” And sometimes we as families get into such dire straits and no one can help ya. And we need to understand that only Jesus has the answer and we need to look only unto Him. The world is so evil and will do anything to interrupt your time with the little ones in your charge.

Ya know, Jez is running after me, too, now that Jim and I are helping raise Baby Rose. Man, I thought those days, for the most part, were over. But when you are raising children, Jez is an automatic wicked voice that comes to give you the “Grand Hassle.” And, heck, I am almost 60 years old and Jez never stops, I guess. Of course, she can’t hurt steel, and I know all of her tricks now that I am old. But it is still a hassle, a fight of my faith. Good Grief!

I know the Lord never slumbers or sleeps and I guess the devil don’t, either. Jez yakity yaks all day and night. And yet we must be as Marys and hide ourselves in the Lord. One of the ways I hide unto the Lord when I have Rose is to let Jim answer the phone when he is home. This way, I know who called and no one will put me on the spot before I am ready. I can kinda pick up on what they wanted as Jim tells me who called and then I can call them back with a plan in mind.

I think, too, when you are in charge of little ones, you shouldn’t be overly friendly with the neighbors, either. My neighbor ladies are sorta cliquey and I am so glad that I am not real popular with them. I mean they like me and I like them and we visit when I am out with Baby. But I put Baby first and I don’t want to get too close to the neighbors that I will be embarrassed if I have to leave quickly.

And ya know, we are all Marys if we know the Lord and are having babies to raise for Jesus. The devil don’t like it. He is afraid of us as he was afraid of Mary and Jesus. We are the world’s only hope. We are not women of the world. We have been bought with a price to be used to glorify Jesus Christ. We are anointed women … dreamers and visionaries. We are called and anointed to raise our children to glorify Jesus Christ. It is a holy calling, Mothers, and we must be set apart unto Him to do the work of angels.

Monday, when I had to be gone to help my mom at the hospital, Rose’s mom had to leave her with someone we didn’t know. Papa and I worried all day and so did Tiff and David. Jim said yesterday that we will never do that again. We will work out a way that family will always have Rose. We are not going to put our treasure in charge of someone we don’t know. “Never again.”

The next day when I got Rose back, she was sorta upset and very tired … overly fussy. Now she can’t very well tell me what’s the matter with her. She is only 18 months old, and she shouldn’t have to tell us, either. But if I can’t watch her, then Tiff’s mom or sisters do, and they are all good sitters and love Rose. But Rose needs someone constant in her life and Papa has spoken on that one — “She won’t go again to someone we don’t know” — and I know that he will move heaven and earth for me to get to watch her as much as possible.

These children the Lord has given us to care for shouldn’t be treated like unwanted baggage. They should be treated as little prophets and handmaidens of God. And we must be as Hannah who refused to leave her Samuel before she had to give him back to God. But she didn’t give him to the babysitter because she wanted to work and get more finery for herself.

We have a purpose and a place as Mothers. God has chosen us to raise up children for His use. Today let us abandon ourselves unto Him for a greater purpose. We have a higher calling than what we know. Let’s be faithful with the Lord’s children and give them a true Christ centered home. And may His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The three most lovely words on earth. Heaven. Home. Mother.

Last evening, I got home late from the hospital. Jim was at work until 9:00 pm.

I decided to cook this roll of three pounds of frozen hamburger. It’s nice to have the cooked hamburger ahead for meals for the week. I just cooked it up in my big cast iron pot. I added onions and salt and pepper, garlic and other fresh herbs. A can of tomato sauce and tomatoes. If I have celery and green pepper, I would put this in, too. You could add any vegetable to this your family would eat. Such as carrots or spinach and many herbs like chives and parsley or basil.

When Jim got home, he had a sandwich with this hamburger mixture on bread and I made him some potatoes, too. But we don’t eat a lot of meat, so this meat mixture will last us a while. I will use about a half pound to make gravy. Also I use about a half pound for spaghetti or goulash. Also to put over fried potatoes and then cheese on the top.

I didn’t get it put in small packages for the freezer last night but will later on today. Just have it in a bag in the fridge now.

Also I had made up a big load of potato bread dough and I will use some of that today, too.

Papa told me just now that he loved those sandwiches I made for him last night. I may make Spanish rice with it today. Guess not … I am outta rice. I think I will just mix my hamburger mixture with macaroni and cheese. And maybe green beans.

Well, I am not dressed yet. I need to get about and get my long garden dress on and bandanna wrapped over my hair. A little Rose is coming to help Grandma garden today.

Good Morning.

Yesterday I had to be all day helping my Mother at the hospital. Baby had to go to a babysitter that her dad and mom didn’t know very well. I was very concerned … we all were. Baby’s mom, Tiff, called the sitter six times throughout the day to make sure all was well. I talked to Tiff last night on the phone and she said that Baby didn’t nap all day. I pray to God this never happens again. I don’t want her with strangers that we don’t know. I couldn’t take her with me to the hospital. But the next time, if this happens, I will take her, no matter what.

Well, thank the Lord, this morning her folks will bring her here for me to take care of. I have to work outside sometime today … maybe this morning. Ya know, the old time mothers used to take their babies outside to work in their gardens. I have read stories about Mother putting her little baby in a basket and setting her under a tree while she worked. Or they would lay the baby between the rows of the garden on a blanket as they worked from one row to the next. Often they had mosquito net that they put over the top of their “basket of baby.”

Today I have to cut up rhubarb to store and freeze. I have a big table outside that I can work on. I have a place for Baby to play and she is good about staying around Grandma outside. We have a sandbox for her and other toys to play with outside. I will just take out a big pan of water and my cutting board and cut rhubarb under the plum tree. My rhubarb patch is nearby and I can just pull it and bring it to the table pretty easy.

Baby will help me, I am sure. She will want Peggy Sue to come out, too, but I don’t need Peggy outside. Anyway, I have to plant tomatoes, too, in my kitchen garden. I wouldn’t think it will take me more than two hours. Then we will come in for lunch and naps.

But ya know it’s nice, if you have a lot of garden produce to chop up, if you can work outside. That way if the leaves and dirt fall on the ground, it isn’t like it’s falling on the floor. I try to always have a table to work on right outside my door here in the dining room. I have an old folding table out there now and I will just put a plastic cloth on it today to work on. Early morning is a good time to work outside in the summer. The bugs aren’t as awake then and they don’t bother ya as they would later in the day. Also it’s the cooler part of the day. The table gives the little ones sort of a station to pivot from … kind of a place to direct them to … a place to maybe lay a few of their toys. Of course, make sure you hide your knife so they won’t get to it.

I just pull my rhubarb out. I don’t cut it off at the roots. This way it will grow back.Then I just take my knife and whack off the big leaves. I save the leaves and spread them around the strawberry plants close by to use like a mulch. If I have a pan of flower seeds just planted, I will spread rhubarb leaves over the pot until the seeds sprout, then take the leaves off. (When I say a pan of flowers, I mean it. I find old cooking pots to use for flower pots. That’s the way the hillbillies do it, ya know.)

Anyway, I will just pull my rhubarb and bring it up to the table under the tree and cut it up in one-inch pieces and put it in my big pan of water. When I get all that done, then I will just bring the pan in the house. Later on I will just put the rhubarb in zip lock bags with sugar in it and store it in the freezer.

We love rhubarb pies and cobblers in the cold months of fall and winter. I pull my rhubarb in the early summer, then it grows back and I can use it in the middle of the summer. Then it will grow back again and I use it again in the fall, just before a freeze comes and winter sets in.

We eat rhubarb sauce just like applesauce, too. I have tried making rhubarb wine, too, but I don’t like the taste of it. I mix rhubarb with apples for pies and that way, not so much sugar.

Ya know sometimes when the Lord answers your prayers, it can be overwhelming. It’s like you prayed for rain and you got enough rain to flood the house with it? The rain comes in such abundance that it almost kills ya. It’s what the Bible calls the Joy you can’t contain? The Lord gives you exceedingly and abundantly more than you could ask or think?

This sounds like a joke but I have had this happen many times. Like when I asked for six children and got them and wow!!! I mean I got my six children and after I did, I was so overwhelmed. I used to say to the Lord, “Now why was it I wanted six children?”

I mean the Lord does promise to give us more than we can ask or think. And ya know, ya just have to deal with the flood. And it will calm down and level out.

My lil Baby Rose on Friday accidentally spilled almost a can of evaporated milk in a stream of about 10 feet. Then she tried to get her lil one-inch square sponge that Gram had made for her and clean it up. She scrubbed and scrubbed with her little baby hand. Only 18 months old and trying to clean up her own messes. It was down in the carpet, and then she walked in it in her second pair of clean socks. Then she added water to it from her dishwatered sponge. I told her it was ok and that Grandma would help her. What a Baby Doll and what a mess! She is very busy and tries so hard to help out. And by Friday evening I was so tired I thought I would die. But I wouldn’t trade Baby for all the money in Fort Knox. I will have three days of rest.

See, when I had my sixth baby (Mary who is 20 now) I hardly knew I had a baby in the house. The other children helped out with her. I hardly got to hold her myself. And I do feel that Baby Rose is the first of many and she will help me with the rest of the babies that the Lord will give me. It’s always good to get the first baby trained well. The older children can be taught to be good helpers.

One time, when my last three children were all little … well, I had them all in five years. But I was just exhausted from a full day of work and caring for them, I thought I would faint I was so tired. And they were so sweet and knew I wasn’t kidding them that I could barely stand up. I told them I was going in to take a bath and I had given them things to do. Well, David pretty soon knocked on the bathroom door and told me, “Mom, we just spilled mustard all over the carpet under the table.” It had shot from one end to the other — about 10 feet of mustard. They were fixing sandwiches. I asked them to please clean it up as I was so tired. And they did clean it up really well. The Lord knows how much we can take.

And Mary at three years old did the dishes. I would put a chair up to the sink and she would wash the dishes and put them in the drainer. I mean not the pans, etc. But the dishes and the silverware. And she often helped in the garden.

I needed their help and they knew I did. They knew I wasn’t just trying to teach them something but that I really needed them. And Baby Rose knows, too, that Gram needs her to be a good girl and help take care of naughty Peggy Sue, the cat.

I am going to write a story. It’s a story to give some of you wives hope for your families. And especially on Mothers Day.

As I prayed this morning, the Lord brought me back to the 1970’s. It was winter time, late in the evening. I told my children as I went out the front door, “Mama will be right back. I have to go mail a letter to Dad.” I wanted to get the letter mailed before the mail was picked up from the mailbox about six blocks away.
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Oh, what a blessed lovely morning. It is raining! I had been praying for the spring rain to come. The news kept predicting rain and it didn’t come. It was so dry here in our area of Iowa.

I just ran out and put my bucket under the drain spout to catch the water. I keep buckets here and there in the yard. I keep one hidden in the herb garden, too. This way, I have some water to pour on this and that plant when it gets dry and I am outside puttering around.
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Dear Mothers,

I am more rested today. Ya know, sometimes I think of way too many things to do and can’t keep up with myself. But, as always, our strength mostly comes from our Spirit. It is not our own might and power that causes us to be strong. It is His spiritual power in us that makes us strong. Yes, we live in this world in the flesh and the Holy Spirit needs a temple and it is our bodies. But our strength in this world is in Christ.

A few nights ago, as I prayed in the night, I got many messages from the Lord. Simple messages but so true.

The Lord told me that He never brings us to a battle that He doesn’t plan for us to win. We win every battle if He is leading us. We talk about how we are being refined in our trials and we are. But we don’t suffer only to suffer and to be refined. We battle … we fight the good fight of faith so that we will win the victory. In the Bible, God never set His children into a battle to only be refined. He set them to battle to win the Victory. And, oh yes, Victory is sweet. Get a few under your belt and you will know what I mean.

I love to tell the devil, “Devil, don’t forget who I am. You told me I had no hope and I proved you a liar many years ago.” Oh, yes, Victory is sweet.

And it ain’t the little battles that get me down. I am pretty able to handle those. But it’s those big ones now that make me want to roll over and play dead. But the Lord spoke to my heart, “Connie, if you don’t give up you, will see His glory.”

But we want to give up, we are tired, and sometimes we feel hopless and lost. But the Lord spoke, “Connie, be happy because you know, you win.” Yes, we can be happy now, as we know we win. We win because He is leading us and He don’t lead losers. He leads the Believer.

No, He has not led us to the wilderness to die. We cry out to God, “Lord, I feel so undone — so lost. I can’t see my way.”

But Jesus speaks to our hearts, “Worship Me in the wilderness.”

See, dear hearts, we are not of this world. We are just passing. Tippin’ our hats at the ones who live here. This world is not our home. We are strangers and pilgrims on our way to the Glory Land. We will all meet here soon down by the river over on the other side.

We are God’s visionaries and His dreamers. His gifted, anointed ones.

We are not bound by the laws of sin and death. As we have received the anointed Savior Jesus Christ, we have come into a new world, a new order of things. We have been crucified with Christ and yet we live. Christ lives in us.

We cannot live and do His will in “our strength.” God always asks us to do something that will take “His strength.” I mean, He feels sorry for these sorry unbelievers on this earth. And if anyone could have helped them, they would have been helped by now. But God calls us to help those who can’t help themselves. They have gotten into situations that only an unbeliever could get into, right? Well your big wisdom ain’t gonna help anyone. Unless you lean on Jesus and let Him guide your life, then you won’t have any more to offer the world than the rest of the world.

If we want to be anything for Jesus, then we can’t pivot from the world and we must pivot from the heart of God. Because we and “our wisdom” and strength ain’t gonna do it? And God never did one normal thing with anyone in the Bible. I mean normal as far as the world says “normal.” So if ya wanna see His glory, get ready to be laughed at and called abnormal. But if the world loves ya, then you should be ashamed of yourself as a believer.

So just decide today who you will serve, the Lord or the Devil. And many times, this is your soul problem … you don’t know whose side ya wanna be on.

The Lord our King doesn’t call us to confusion. If you want the Lord, then arm yourselves in His full armor and don’t give up and you will see His glory. You can be happy now because you know that you win. The Battle is yours … you win. Yet not without the good fight of faith.

At Home in the Flesh

And the devil loves to play cat and mouse games with us. He deals in the flesh? Hello? And he loves for you to get to lookin’ at how fat you are … how tired you are because of how fat you are. How unhealthy you are and how you can’t do this or that because you are not eating right and you are too tired.

Well, God don’t just call folks to do battle for Him who have had enough sleep or have remembered to exercise and take their vitamins. Jesus Christ don’t care if you have had your vitamin pill. If He needs ya for something, He wants you to go do it. Forget about how fat you are — just go do the Lord’s will in His strength. And if you do something right and are still fat, then he will take the pounds off for ya. I mean, if He thinks He can use ya for somthing besides being a vitamin expert, then he will make you meet for His use. He will give ya what ya need to do what He has called you to do.

I am fat myself. But after running after Baby Rose all week, I think I have lost 5 pounds. Papa will often say to me, when we are out some place, “Do you want me to go get the car and pick you up?”

And I will say, “What? And me have to walk and lose some weight?” Papa always gives me a curtesy laugh.

No, I will tell ya, since having Baby most of the time now,I am a lot healthier. But I didn’t set out to lose weight or to eat right. I set out to do the Lord’s will, and God knew I needed to lose some weight. And ya know? The Lord is giving me and Papa a new life, and I am so happy He is doing this. Praise the Lord.