Springtime!

This is an old picture of Cassandra and her bottle lamb Tiny.

Gotta use green for SPRINGTIME! It's spring! Now, we don't have the gorgeous flowers that my cousin Vanessa has in Arkansas. In fact, the trees are just budding out and we had snow just a couple weeks ago. But hey, it was 70 degrees today! The robins are taking over the world! Well, in my yard anyway. We have 3 new baby kitties in the calf hut outside, and a lot of really fat waddling mama cats to go. The other night nobody had brought in the mail, so about 8pm, after the rain had stopped, I walked out to the road to get it. The smell of fresh rain and nightcrawlers was definitely a Spring smell. Yesterday my husband started planting corn. He was one tired "pup" when he came in last night. He got rather out of shape over the winter and it is wearing him out carrying and emptying all those heavy bags of seed corn into the planter. They are talking more rain this weekend, so the rush is on to get the seed into the ground first.

Several years ago, I wrote a poem and called it Springtime In The Country. I'll share it with you.

Springtime In The Country by Linda Tiemessen

The sun is brightly shining,
The sky is blue and clear.
The birds are sweetly singing,
Butterflies flutter near.
A kite is soaring brightly
Dancing in the breeze.
Newborn lambs come skipping
To rub against my knees.
Mother duck quacks sharply
As her parade she guides.
Both the cow and mama cat
Have babies at their sides.
The new colt in the pasture
Kicks up its heels in joy.
The neighbors down the road
Have a brand new baby boy.
It's Springtime in the country;
The fields are newly sown.
I'm surrounded by more treasures
Than most have ever known.

Happy Easter!

Here are my Aunt Letha, Uncle Clarence, and Uncle Bob Schaffner on 4-12-09.


This year's Easter weekend was different than any I can remember in recent history. Usually, we get up, see what the Easter bunny left, get ready and go to our church and then go to my inlaws for dinner. But this year, my aunt and uncle had their 50th wedding anniversary on Easter Sunday afternoon clear at the other end of the state from where I live. My daughter and I bowed out of singing in the choir at church, and left my husband home so he could play for the church service and we headed south on Saturday afternoon. At my old home town we had reserved a room at the Super 8, and we met up with my brother and his family and my sister and we went out for supper and ice cream at old family "haunts". Then we went to my brother's and visited until late. On Sunday morning we got up and met my brother and his family and my sister at my brother's church. There, I was so blessed to see a couple of my childhood friends and have a reunion of sorts with them. After church we all went on to the next town where we had reservations for dinner. Then on to the reunion which was very close to the Missouri border. There we got to see all three of my dad's remaining siblings. Every time I see them, I am so blessed by it, but can't help but wonder how many more years I will have them. I love them so much. In my dad's family there were 5 males and 2 females and dad was the oldest of the seven. Our family was a close Christian family and it is always bittersweet to get together and remember the ones who are waiting for us in Heaven. After the anniversary, my daughter and I drove to where I went to church camp for 10 years of my childhood and where I went to church rally for more years than that. It is so weird, how things change. It looked nothing like I remembered, and I am glad there were signs to follow as the road didn't even seem familiar to me. Then we spent the night in a motel in the heart of an Amish settlement and the next morning even though it was raining we got up and went to some Amish shops before heading home. I had a wonderful time with my family and spending time alone with my daughter and reminiscing. But I missed my husband and I missed my home church and our familiar traditions.

Wherever you were and whomever you were with, I hope you were able to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. He has truly made all things new! He is risen indeed!

Change Your Life

Saturday, my daughter and I were blessed to be able to attend a women's conference called Change Your Life. The guest speaker was Becky Tirabassi. Have any of you ever seen this woman? She's no bigger than a minute and flits all over the stage like a hummingbird. I figured out quickly that's how that woman stays so tiny too. Wow! And she has so much enthusiasm and energy and motivation to share! It was truly a blessing to spend a morning being inspired by her.

The conference was entitled Change Your Life and I wasn't really sure what all to expect. Was she going to tell us how to lose weight? Was she going to finally give me the key to getting organized? Was she going to impart the secrets of finding more time and energy? Her bio said she is an author, life coach, and speaker who lives and teaches a balanced approach to the physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental aspects of life. If there is anything I need, it is a balanced life. You'd think as much time as I spend running in my hamster wheel, I'd be a whole lot thinner than I am.

So what did she teach us? She taught us about prayer. For the last 25 years, Becky has spent an hour a day, every day, praying and reading her Bible. She said an aerobics class lasted an hour so she thought well, why not spend an hour a day with the Lord too. Here are some notes I took from her 3 sessions of talks.

*Written prayer is pen and paper on a focal point and involves more of the senses.
*I will does not equal I will try.
*Make an appointment with the King and keep it!
*The devil's greatest tool is to keep the believer from praying.
*Prayer is a habit that has to be formed.
*Plan your appointment one day ahead. It does not necessarily have to be the same time every day. Write down your start time. If you're interrupted, put down the time, so you can finish your hour later in the day.
*God talks to us through His living Word the Bible.
*When you open the Word of God, you don't talk back.
*All Scripture is not about me, but all Scripture is for me.
*Read the Bible regularly to know God's viewpoint.
*You will hear from God through His Son Jesus.
*God talks through His Holy Spirit; counselor, teacher, and truth-teller.
*You're as full of the Holy Spirit as you want to be.
*Prayerlessness is a recipe for disaster.
*Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth.
*He waits to be wanted.
*Prayer is a conversation between two people who love each other.
*Tell God, "I can't. You can. I'll let you.".
*It takes 90 days to build a habit.
*Prayer brings emotion to the surface.

Becky had four parts to prayer that spelled out PART.
P=Praise A=Admit R=Request T=Thanksgiving
Her time in reading Scripture included:
L=Listening M=Message N=New Testament O=Old Testament P=Proverbs
Every day she reads a chapter of the New Testament and one of the Old Testament and one of Proverbs, so that she reads through the whole Bible in one year. She listens to what it has to say and looks for the message for her in that passage. She journals her prayers and the things God tells her to do. She has pages of prayer requests so that she doesn't forget anyone she promised to pray for, and also she can record the answers to those prayers as they come. She journals her sins as she admits them to God and looks for patterns in repeat sins.

Out of the 450 women at this conference, I am estimating at least half of them stood and made a commitment to pray an hour a day for the rest of their lives. I am thinking if a woman prays an hour a day every day for the rest of her life, it will not only change her life in every way, but will change her family and her church and her community. I wish you all could have come to this conference too. I hope my notes give you something to think about. If you get a chance to go hear Becky Tirabassi at a Women of Faith Conference or anywhere else, do it. Check out her website www.changeyourlifedaily.com . But most important of all, spend some daily time talking to God and listening to His answers. Let the romance begin!

What is Marriage?

Yesterday was a sad day for Iowa, at least in my opinion. You see, at about 9AM yesterday, the Iowa Supreme Court handed down a decision that marriage in Iowa cannot be limited to one man and one woman. Therefore, without a popular vote, or a new law enacted by an elected legislature, but simply by a unanimous vote of the appointed justices, Iowa became only the third state of the 50 United States to be a gay marriage state. Yes, our little conservative state in the heart of the heartland ranks right down there, even lower than New York and California who have not legalized gay marriage yet. There are other states who have approved "domestic partnerships" or "civil unions" but only 3 states have redefined marriage. To say I have a problem with that is putting it mildly. Am I homophobic? No, I'm not, in fact I have good friends who are homosexual. Do I think that people in homosexual relationships are unequal to heterosexuals or are worse sinners than I am? No, I don't. I personally don't think homosexuals are going to go to Hell any faster than people who steal or lie or commit adultery are. I think homosexuals in committed relationships deserve equal time off work for the death of a loved one as I would. However, I do not believe that redefining marriage to include same sex relationships is appropriate or wise or morally or ethically or legally right. I believe in a democratic society, laws should not be changed by a select small group of appointed justices, but only by the elected law-making branch of the government. I believe redefining a word does not really change it at all. Gay used to mean happy. Calling a homosexual gay does not necessarily make them happier than they were before. So why redefine it? Just because our marriage licenses will now be reprinted so they no longer say bride and groom, that doesn't mean I'm no longer a bride and my husband is no longer my groom. I had bridesmaids and he had groomsmen and they can't change that. But what will it be now? When my daughter marries, will I not be the mother of the bride? Some men are bent toward having sex with multiple partners. Does that mean we can redefine marriage so that they can have multiple wives legally and expect their employers to cover all 15 wives and 75 children on the group health insurance?

Last week our preacher said that less than 1/2 of evangelical Christians believe there is an absolute truth, an absolute of right and wrong. That most believe that truth and right changes based on the circumstances. Well, get your stones ready to stone me, but guess what? I believe there is a right and there is a wrong. I believe God is truth and Satan is the father of lies. I believe that the truth is always true and right is always right even if you redefine it or rule against it. I believe even if you legalize homosexual unions and adultery and even if everyone cheats on their income tax and every lawyer lies, that it is still sin and still wrong and God will still judge. In the Bible, God uses marriage as a picture of His love for His church. We are the "bride of Christ". So no matter how you redefine it, God created marriage and He chose the only definition that truly matters.