Author Archives: dinahoverlien

Be a Bee

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Once upon a time there was a Garden. It was full of beautiful blooms and fragrant flowers. Garden creatures scuttled under the brush and winged flyers skimmed over the petals.

garden

Light and airy after a lifetime of crawling in dirt, the newly transformed butterfly was the most enchanting creature in the Garden. It hovered and glided and danced about with grace. It careened through the spikes of foxglove and wove between the wispy cosmos. Its wings caught the sunshine and made the Garden sparkle. Landing for only a second or two, it continued to flit here and there and everywhere. After two weeks it was gone. It had given a measure of joy and frivolity to the Garden, but had not contributed in any meaningful way.

butterfly

Another heartier breed also buzzed among the foliage. Not as light and airy, not as sparkly or whimsical, the bee was not on holiday in the Garden. The bee was there on a mission. This round-bodied flyer did not have the grace of the butterfly. It did not flit or charm. The bee did no stylish pirouettes. Instead, this one dove straight into the depth of the blossoms, drawing out the nectar, burrowing down into the fragrance. Having done its job, the dive-bomber sped out of the Garden and deposited its bounty into the hive. 

bee

What is the meaning of the story of the butterfly and the bee?

bible

“To get anything from our Bibles, we must plunge in. Butterflies wander over the flowers in the garden and accomplish nothing, but bees plunge right down into the flower, and carry away essential food. We won’t get anything if we just hover over our Bibles; we have to dive right in.” David Guzik, Blue Letter Bible, Acts Commentary 

In other words, be a bee.  

“How sweet are your promises to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Psalm 119:103

Letters

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This is the way I feel sometimes.

There are letters floating all around me and in me.
If only I could grab the right combination of those shiny characters—
snatch them out of the air,
shake them up in my hand,
toss them onto the paper,
then I could be profound.

Some days those letters don’t want to stop swirling long enough
to come together in a coherent thought.
Sometimes those ABCs just don’t cooperate.

When that happens,
I simply offer the alphabet to God.
I ask Him to arrange those twenty-six letters
into words, sentences, and paragraphs that please Him.

When my words are slow in coming,
I recall this advise on prayer given by Jewish rabbis:

“If you recite the alphabet five times very slowly,
God, to whom all prayers are known,
will put the letters together to form
the prayers you can’t put to words.”

After all,
He is The Word,
The Alpha-Omega.
“Lord, to whom shall we go?
You alone hold the words of life.”
John 6:68

Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie

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My granddaughters love to create bracelets and necklaces with beads.
Itsy bitsy teenie weenie beads.
I have established a system for this artistic endeavor.

The puzzle board comes out from under the couch.

The boxes of beads go onto the board.

And away they go.

The puzzle board prevents the delightful sound of tiny beads bouncing all over the floor. Most of the time. The girls are very careful and they keep the pink beads in the pink section, the blue beads in the blue section, etc. I have taught them well. When everybody goes home, I put the boxes away and slide the puzzle board back under the couch. It’s all very orderly.

Until this happened.

It wasn’t the nine year old or the four year old.
It was me. I tipped it over after everyone was gone.
And yes, I spent the following week sorting out those darn beads.

I’m so glad it happened, though,
because as I was picking up all the minuscule pieces,
I heard the Spirit whisper.

“Some days your life is nicely sorted and everything is in place.
Don’t get too smug.
Some days your life is a chaotic, disordered, mixed-up mess.
Don’t despair.
There is beauty in all of it.”

“In Him, all things hold together.”
Colossians 1:17

Even the itsy bitsy teenie weenie things.

First Day Drop Off

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Our granddaughter started kindergarten this fall. There were tears on the first day, but not from the 5 year old. It was her dad who had the sniffles. Understandable, since he has spent all day every day with his little girl for five years. The realization that children grow up can be jolting.

Watching our sweet girl go off to school makes me appreciate the biblical account of Hannah and her sweet boy, Samuel.

According to my Bible Reading Plan for 2023, I’ll be spending the next several weeks in the Old Testament books of 1 and 2 Samuel. It’s a manageable five chapters per week through November. Join me?

Hannah promised God that if she was blessed with a son, she would give the child back to the Lord. The long awaited baby she had fervently prayed for finally arrived. And she kept her end of the deal.

Waiting until Samuel was weaned (and probably potty trained), Hannah had a few years with her baby boy. Then one day she dropped him off at the tabernacle with an elderly priest who had a terrible track record as a parent of two wicked sons.

What did Hannah do next?
She sang.

How I rejoice in the Lord!
How he has blessed me!
Now I have an answer for my enemies,
For the Lord has solved my problem.
How I rejoice!
No one is as holy as the Lord!
There is no other God,
Nor any Rock like our God.
1 Samuel 2:1-2

Surely there were a few sniffles on the 15 mile walk back home.

Hannah would go on to have five more children,
but she didn’t know it that day.
Samuel would become a great prophet of the Lord,
but she didn’t know it that day.
Samuel would later return to his hometown,
but she didn’t know it that day.
Hannah’s story would be recorded in holy scripture,
but she didn’t know it that day.

All Hannah did was
fervently pray,
humbly surrender,
and joyfully sing.

May we be like Hannah,
because there are things we don’t know today.

Cloud of Witnesses

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Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,
let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.
And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
Hebrews 12:1-2

This is what I hope it looks like when I cross over into heaven.
I don’t care too much about pearly gates or streets of gold.

I just want to round third base,
turn toward home,
and see my people
cheering me on.

Noah and Abraham,
Moses and David,
Mary Magdalene and Rahab,
John Wesley and Charles Spurgeon,
Great-great-grandma Harriet,
Barbie and Mom and Dad.

When I look up and fix my eyes on the face of Jesus,
I’ll hit my knees right there on home plate.

Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way,
all these veterans cheering us on?
It means we’d better get on with it.
Strip down, start running—and never quit!
No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins.
Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in.
Hebrews 12:1-2, The Message


Sweet Spot

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We have entered the sweet spot.
Our littlest ones are out of diapers
and our oldest ones are still not driving.
We are in a delightful window of time.

Just look at these kiddos.
They give me hope for the future of this world.

The Grandkid Lineup — 2023

Behold! Children are a gift from the Lord.”
Psalm 127:3

Penalty Flag

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PB and I watch a lot of sports on TV. It’s good entertainment and there’s no complicated plot line to follow which makes it possible to read a book while cheering on the team.

We are now entering the part of summer when we have to flip channels back and forth between the late-season days of baseball and the pre-season days of football. This means we will likely miss a home run while tuning in to the Packers and we will probably miss a touchdown pass while watching the Brewers. It just depends on who is holding the remote.

I like sports because there are rules that must be followed in order to play. Consequences of breaking the rules are clearly laid out. Rule-keepers (refs and umps) are in place and given authority.

I appreciate that professional athletes don’t get to make up rules as they go along. In football, if one player breaks a rule, the whole team is penalized. Players can’t beat up the referees if they disagree with the call. I like all that.

My favorite rule in the NFL is a rule against taunting, defined as “when a player embarrasses, mocks, baits, or otherwise commits flagrant acts or remarks towards an opponent. This includes acts such as spiking a football near an opponent after a touchdown, shoving the ball at an opponent, and pointing or waving at an opponent.” If a player is penalized twice in one game for this infraction, that player is tossed out of the game. And issued a $15,450 fine.

I really like that rule.

I think we need that rule in our society.

Paul said, “Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.” Col. 3:15
The Greek word for “rule” is “brabeuo”
which means “act as umpire”.

Paul was a sports fan, too.

Wonky

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I miss this.

A few years ago, in an effort to upscale our home’s curb appeal, I sent for a set of decorative garage door hardware magnets. From the road, the black plastic rectangles, hinges and handles looked like the real deal. There was only one problem.

Teddy is our three year old grandson. He and his sister and his parents stayed with us for a while this summer. He regularly exposed us for the fakers we are by rearranging the magnetic pieces. Children have a way of keeping you honest. And humble.

Teddy and his family recently moved to their own place and the garage door has looked respectable ever since. But I miss the unexpected reminders of the joy of imperfection. I used to smile as I drove in the driveway and saw those handles helter-skelter on the garage door. It prompted me to pray, “Lord, sometimes I put on a fake front and try to look like everything is perfectly in place. Help me to be authentic and real, even if my life looks a little wonky some days.”

“But when the Perfect One comes, the imperfect will pass away.”
1 Cor. 13:10

1001

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I’m not a numbers girl.
Words hold much more allure for me.
But this one got my attention:
1000

This is my 1001st blog post.

It only took 13 years to reach this milestone. I don’t keep track, so it was a surprise when WordPress sent me a congratulatory email last week. It goes to show that if you keep plugging along day after day, month after month, year after year, the output piles up.

Five minutes can be spent working on something trivial or working on something life-changing. Most daily actions evaporate. Some accumulate.

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits

The floors I mopped yesterday, the dinner I made last night, the time I spent watching a baseball game on TV — those will evaporate.

The notes I took on Matthew 18 this morning, the prayers I prayed on the porch, the words put down in my journal — those will accumulate.

Much of what I do on a daily basis doesn’t last much longer than five minutes. (Clean floors and pot roast.) But if I can spend a moment or two, here and there, doing something significant, it adds up over time.

I’m not a numbers girl.
But this one got my attention.
305,509 words posted on this blog.
One at a time.
Accumulation.

My Tree

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Take a trip with me back to 1966.

Lunch dishes were washed, dried and put in the cupboard. Dad went back to the fields. Mom took a basket of clothes out to the clothesline by the garden.

The summer afternoon stretched out before me, the pint-child, still too young for farm labor but old enough for solo adventures. Letting the porch screen door bang, I crossed the yard and took off for the back pasture. The first cutting of hay filled my head with rich, green fragrance. The soft buzz of insects in the tall grass sent vibrations into the warm air. I followed the trickle of the creek to the end of the pasture where my kingdom awaited.

A cottonwood tree had been struck by lightning in a storm years before, splitting it down the middle. Instead of tall branches reaching high into the heavens, the tree stretched long across the ground, offering a little girl a castle, a ship, or a leafy jungle.

The stream kept on feeding the roots of the fractured tree, so it continued to yield a thick canopy of leaves that gave me a cool place to hide, a safe place to be anything I wanted to be.

In July of 2023, PB and I trudged through pastures and climbed over fences to see if my tree was still there after all these years. Behold! Although it looked smaller to me than it did through my seven-year-old eyes, my heart thrilled at the sight. The path of the creek had changed, now flowing directly under the branches instead of around. A chorus of frogs welcomed me back.

I longed to tell my little farm-girl-self that someday she would experience a torrid storm that would strike like lightning and leave a scar. It would break her open and lay her flat. Mothers shouldn’t die of cancer.

Yet, I also wanted to tell her that streams of living water would rush to her roots, giving life despite the deep wound.

Fifty years later, I may not be able to stand perfectly tall and strong, but I am flourishing and my leaf does not wither.

“She is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season,
and whose leaf does not wither.”
Psalm 1:3