Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Cinderella Mom

If you think Jesus would have come into your home that day and not issued a strong rebuke to the head of household, you are mistaken. These words of condemnation have been haunting me for days now. They aren’t all that different than the soundtrack I play in my head on an almost-daily basis. It’s…

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This is 40

I am nesting. On Saturday I emptied the refrigerator. Last summer’s homemade pickles in their jars. The bread ends that seem to multiply on every shelf. The eggs. The milk. The fruit and veggies. All of it sat on the floor or the counter as I carefully removed the shelves and wiped them down with…

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Beauty on the Backroads {or Why I Changed the Name of my Blog}

I’ve heard that life is like a highway. And it definitely seems like that sometimes. The pace of life swirls around me at dizzying speeds. We’re all so busy. In such a hurry. Always somewhere to be, something else to do. I’m a get-to-the-point, get-there-quick kind of girl. I don’t like to waste time on…

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The ingredient exchange

It was a layering kind of food day yesterday. Isabelle and I started the afternoon by making 7-layer bars for part of Phil’s birthday celebration, which starts tonight for dinner. She, of course, wanted a graham cracker, then some chocolate chips, then some butterscotch chips, then, well, I think you get the idea.

Later, we made Mediterranean lasagna. She ate a few red peppers and wanted eggplant as I diced the vegetables. When I mixed the ricotta and the eggs, she demanded some of each of those. While I was shredding the Gruyere cheese, she was almost inconsolable when I told her she couldn’t have any.

Her insistence on eating the ingredients separately rather than waiting for the finished product reminded me of what we miss sometimes in life.

When we want sex without intimacy.

Relationship without commitment.

Love without sacrifice.

Obedience without respect.

Like chocolate chips or ricotta cheese, these things can be good or OK on their own but are even better when served together with the ingredients that make them complete.

Paul writes in Romans about how the whole world knows about God because His presence is evident in what is created, but how we choose not to see Him.

“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. … They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” (Romans 1:21-23, 25)

I pray for the strength to wait for completion rather than settle for a taste of something that is far less satisfying.

Two years isn’t much in the land of the Dutch

I drove past Salvation Army today, another Wednesday Family Day where clothes are half off, meaning the parking lot is over full. And I remember my excitement, two years ago, when we drove past the SA for the first time on the way into town. It was late, much too late to be hauling most of our earthly belongings the second half of a 700-mile journey. But I was relieved to see the SA. And the Wal-Mart. Two familiar signs in a land of foreignness.

Two years ago, you see, we moved from Charleston, Illinois, where we had lived for a year, to Myerstown, Pennsylvania, where we have now lived for two years, so that my husband could begin attending seminary. Not only was this an entirely different state, it was a culture much unknown to us.

Moving to Charleston after we got married was not as much of a stretch. My husband had lived there during a previous stint at Eastern Illinois University and we were still in our home state. We knew who the governor was, even if we thought he was nuts, and how to pronounce his name, even if we couldn’t spell it (Blago-j? y? a? vich?). We knew its history, thanks to fifth grade, and who its famous people were. We didn’t have to ask, “Where is that, again?” every time people told us where they lived. The grocery and retail stores had the same names as the ones at which we shopped at home.

All of that changed when we moved to Pennsylvania.

But in the past two years, we’ve adapted, like most people who move from one state to another do. I’m not saying we’ve done anything incredible in the eyes of the world, but as I look back, I realize how much fear and wonder has been replaced by comfort and familiarity.

I no longer rush to the window hoping to catch a glimpse of an Amish buggy as it clip-clops down the street. I happily shop at grocery stores called Dutchway, Hornings and Giant. We don’t get lost as much when we go out for a drive, an errand or something fun. And I’m learning, little by little, what it means to be Pennsylvania Dutch.

We’re well settled in, but to most of our community, we’re still the newbies. Most of the people we know have lived here all their lives and if they leave, it’s for vacation. (We sometimes joke that central Pennsylvanians think the world ends at the Mississippi River.) Their families live here, something we often envy. And they know that “Kumm Esse,” the name of a popular diner in town, is an invitation to eat, not a random placing of letters on a sign.

At his current pace, my husband is halfway done with seminary. And Myerstown has become home. Not a replacement for the home from which we came, but an addition to our lives.

We may not be called to be here longer than it takes my husband to complete his education, but if we are, I won’t be sad. I’m just not sure I’ll ever really be Dutch. I think you have to be born into it. They say around here, jokingly I hope, “If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much.” I wonder if they adopt.