Sunshine and an Open Gate

By Brenda Black


They bolted like school children released for recess, with tails curled up and over their backs. Weaned calves in a lot out back of the house provided my afternoon entertainment.Through the newly opened gate they darted as if hearing the starting bell on a race track. I giggled at their athletic antics. One would tear across the pen like she was making a great escape, only to charge a matter of a few yards before meeting the metal rungs of the corral – face to fence. In one swift spin, she'd turn and run again, this time with the rest of the herd in hot pursuit.

For several minutes, their game of tag and turn and sprinting continued. When the running waned, they stood head to head and practiced butting. If calves could smile, I'm pretty sure they were grinning from fuzzy ear to fuzzy ear with great delight. The mild and sunny day in the middle of a cold January was most welcome to the weanlings and offered up a healthy dose of doldrum-ending exercise.

It didn't take much to alter their routine and find it delivered such great joy. Sometimes all one needs is a bit of sunshine and a little more room to roam. Take me for instance. I get a bit stir crazy post holidays. I begin to feel cramped for space and eager to purge. It's like spring cleaning in winter when the Christmas tree comes down.

I broke an all-time record this year of leaving the greenery up all too long. It was Jan. 13, by the time I got everything packed away! Never in my life have I gone past the single digit point of the first month on the calendar when it comes to dismantling the holiday cheer. But travels and work and plain weariness had me postponing the dreadful chore.

Now that the Christmas ambiance is headed to the attic, my house seems quite spacious. In fact, I have yet to return many of my non-seasonal knick knacks back to their standard locations. I'm just enjoying the sunshine and the open gate. I feel freer and lighter and less constrained by so much stuff. I'm thinking of spring garage sales and wondering if I should just leave a lot of my things boxed up ready to affix price tags.


Life gets cold and cluttered at times. Like calves stuck in a pen where it's been snowy and cramped, we can feel constrained by symbolic fences that seem to close in on us in our homes and in our hearts.

What I haven't told you is that as much as I would like to blame the Christmas clutter for my claustrophobic feelings, it has more to do with worries that I'm struggling to turn over to the Lord. Bare walls and shelves seems to help when I feel like I'm going to suffocate from fearful thoughts of things totally beyond my control. So, for a few more days, I'm planning on enjoying the space and I'm not going to rush to fill it back up again. And I also intend to soak up the Son a whole lot more in the days ahead. For at His feet and in His light, can be found my joy and the perfect gate to freedom.

The Tempting Smell of Rain

By Brenda Black

Like an epic Bible story, a fist-full of clouds began to assimilate into one long, dark wall of wet potential. We watched the developing front as if it were a cinematic production and wondered how the dramatic story would end. Would it come straight west and douse our crunchy yard? Would it hold together long enough to quench a thirsty earth spread for hundreds of miles? The steely streaks of precipitation had us captivated.

In order to determine just who was getting rain while we weren't, my son and I set out on a countrified storm chase. Instead of crazily speeding down a Kansas highway straight into a tornado, we piddled slowly along gravel roads, with the windows down. Our only high tech equipment to monitor the weather were limp hands dangling near the truck mirrors and the external temp reading on the pickup. We watched it gradually drop five degrees as we drew nearer the target. After a few miles, we realized it was farther away than we had estimated, so we stopped to take in the scene and the smell of rain expectations.

Fairly quickly, our view from a high hill verified the storm was drifting southwest. All we could do was hope that the front would widen or that winds would shift and moisture would float a little more north to reach us. As we watched the clearly delineated downpour drift more south, our hopes wandered away with it, but for a moment we caught the smell of showers of blessing while those in its direct path enjoyed the actual dampness.

I have to admit, I was a bit jealous of those fortunate folks. And tempted to begrudge them. I briefly entertained the thought of unfairness and why our prayers were going unanswered while others were having theirs met. The painstaking proof from testimonies the next day would confirm that the southerners enjoyed God's favor for three hours and a couple inches worth. Those stats stung like pelting rain in October rather than soothing soft showers in July.

The waterworks missed our yard, the garden, and the pastures. We still sit high and dry, baking and burning to a crisp while others this week are doing a happy dance. And I am happy for them.

What good would it do me to despise those who have no say in God's omnipotent ways. How can I hold it against others, who are just as desperate for a touch of relief, if they get blessed and we get overlooked. I think back a few years when our area was green all summer and every county around was envious. This time 'round, it appears to have flip-flopped.

Some will be wet and happy; others will remain dry and grumpy this summer. God rains on the just and the unjust and it really has little to do with county lines or religious rituals. The primary source that determines the weather pattern in the middle latitudes is the upper level flow pattern. Now, that's not to say we shouldn't pray. In fact, the more we realize how much we take for granted that God waters the world without our asking, the better we can appreciate His mighty power and acknowledge it through supplication. And when we grasp how gracious God is to us in plenty and in want, then we are refreshed.

Whenever I become tempted to feel forsaken or jealous of another's good fortune, then it's time for a heart-wrenching drenching. I am blessed no matter my circumstances! I choose to be thankful rather than disdainful. Rain or no rain – God is good and He knows best! To live with any other philosophy is to only invite bitterness. Often our struggles and disappointments are proof that a soul's dry and weary soul needs watering. And those who can offer the most encouragement are those who have suffered likewise. In the current drought choking our Midwest, we are upheld by Texas and Oklahoma neighbors still recovering from their own time of barrenness. We are reminded of those still fighting unrelenting fires and losing so much more than grass in the Northwest.

Dry seasons in life can bring regret or initiate productive reflection. Our choice may well define us. “As water reflects a face, so a man's heart reflects the man.” (Proverbs 27:19) I long to be growing and green in the Lord even if I'm living in a desert. Because I am now more cognizant of my dependency on God for moisture, as well as grace, I welcome that tempting smell of rain.

The More Excellent Way

By Brenda Black

Most of us will never aspire to be nuclear physicists. Only about 6,000 pursued the occupation in 2009 in the United States. Even fewer will paint their face and put on a polka-dot jumper and giant slippers to fill the role of a circus clown. Fewer than 300 of these slap-stick acrobats work in the United States. So which is the more specialized craft and which is more important – the one who splits atoms or the one who makes people laugh? Booker T. Washington may have known the answer before the question was asked when he said, “Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.” Based on that, scientists, clowns, engineers, doctors, dog-walkers, garbage men and custodians are each capable of mastery and worthy of honor in their given field.

Most of us will be employed somewhere between Bill Nye the Science Guy and Whizzo the Clown, but will we carry out our task with excellence? “If a man is called to be a street sweeper,” Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or as Beethoven composed music or as Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.'”

I don't know about you, but I am tired of mediocrity. Pride must be taken in whatever task we encounter, whether it is completing a school assignment or securing a multi-million dollar contract. And the collective whole needs to turn this rig around and start setting standards of excellence again in this country.

A friend shared a disheartening statistic this week that symbolizes the ugly contagion of apathy. Only 36% of the teachers at one high school would participate in nominating students so the students could be recognized for good behavior, good attitude and willingness to put forth extra effort at school. Seven turned in their reports late! Oh, the irony! And oh, the pitifully sad statement it makes about what we value, celebrate and perpetuate in ourselves and in others.

Even a clown knows attitude matters. Just ask, David Solove, a Ringling Bros. And Barnum & Baily Circus performer. Reporter Olivia Crosby did, and she discovered what kept Solove out on the road for seven years. “You have to have a great sense of humor and a big heart,” says David. “It’s hard work, but if you love it, it’s great!”

Aha! Hard work isn't the problem. Work ethic is a heart issue and the desire for excellence is a gift from God.

Paul instructed Titus to always do what is good and to have a pure heart in every task and he asked him to share such admonishment with others. “Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men.

“At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.” (Titus 3:1-8)

Profit isn't the reason we work. Our mission is to glorify God in our work and to operate out of love for our Lord. It is the more excellent way.