Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Worse, Poorer, Sickness - Still, I Love Thee

Beating the Odds - I wrote this post in 2017 and it is a great starting place to start to learn about our marriage and how we are beating the odds.

I'm not sure we could ever imagine what worse, poorer, and sickness really are when saying our wedding vows. At least I'm not sure I could.

I thought if we were already broke then there was no where to go but up. I was wrong.

I thought nothing could be worse from what we had both already endured on our own. I was wrong.

I thought sickness meant only physical ailments. I was wrong.

Seventeen years later, I know that the worse, sickness, and possibly poorer days are still ahead. Still, I love thee.

What could be worse than losing our family home, business, and relationships, and a grandbaby we never got to hold? Losing our parents, a child, a grandchild we have held in our arms. Yes, that is worse.

What sickness could be worse than mental battles and chronic pain? SOOOO many things. How naive I was to think those hurdles count as beating some odds, yet, I know they all add up.

We've learned that poor is a spiritual state and we prefer the word broke in relation to finances. So being poor is worse than being broke.

We knew it wouldn't be easy. I'm not sure we knew it would be this hard. Still, I love thee.

Today, I cherish what odds we have overcome and know that together we can beat the ones that are ahead because we are not fighting these odds on our own. As long as we continue to mutually submit to God, we can and WILL continue to beat the odds. Because of Him, the odds are are ever in our favor. 😉

I won't cry out for the challenges to come our way because, honestly, with our magnetic personalities, they are drawn to us; or so it seems. I am grateful that I have you to journey this crazy world together at my side and I'll not think of the only thing that will release us from our vows.

Still, I Love Thee!!!


#June12 #beatingtheodds #IStillDo

Thursday, March 08, 2018

QUAKER WOMEN


I highlighted several Quaker women last year and for #InternationalWomensDay I decided to put them all in one spot to make it easier for you to find!

Elizabeth Hooton, George Fox's first convert and Friends preacher! 

Mary Morris Knowles was an affluent and influential Quaker woman!  She advocated for women's right to choose their spouse, too!

Elizabeth Ashbridge had a jaded view of Christians... and then she heard a woman preach!

Joan Mary Fry social activist, pioneer vegetarian, and biblical scholar, to name of a few of things Joan Mary was known for! 

Margaret Fell Fox - "Mother of Quakerism" 

Mary Fell Lower, the youngest Quaker preacher!

Amanda Way prohibitionist, abolitionist, suffragist

A post about a few of my favorite Quaker Women!

#QuakerWomen #WomenPreachers

Friday, February 23, 2018

Kids Camp!

Roy and I had SO much fun directing Kids Camp this summer.  He was a good sport and went along with wearing matching shirts each day!

My Superman! 

"Theme" shirts!  My Superman and His Wonder Woman

Our shirts from 2016

Our shirts from 2015

Day 4... wearing 2016 Jr High Camp shirts

2017 camp shirts! 
We learned a lot.  We had a blast.  We are thrilled to have our first year under our belts and excited for future camps!  2018 camp planning is seriously underway and we are gearing up for fun, conversations about hearing God's voice, more fun, lots of singing, and building relationships!  Check out Quaker Hill Camp for more information about attending one of our summer camps!

#QHKIDSCAMP
#QuakerHill

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

In Over My Head


One way God speaks to me is through music and this song is SHOUTING!  I've always associated being in over my head as a negative thing.  A place that meant I was overwhelmed, stressed, and sinking.  There have been several times since I accepted the call to pastor a church where I not only felt I was in over my head but I knew it (and others did, too, I'm sure)! 

So, associating going under with beautifully in over my head really took my breath away.  That sinking or swimming was not the point but trusting God that I was exactly where He wanted me to be was and if that place is over my head then I'm not relying on my strength or power or knowledge but HIS! 

BEAUTIFUL!

I've just come off a sabbatical week and this song played non-stop through my heart and mind.  Is this a new or different way of thinking for you?  Am I the only one who felt that sinking or swimming was the point and if I sunk it meant I failed and if I stayed afloat then I was better off?  Am I the only one who focused on the action of sinking or swimming and not the letting go of control and trusting God with whatever the outcome?

Who's ready to say, "Come and do whatever You want to" to God with me? To say with assurance, "Whatever it looks like, whatever may come I am Yours."


"In Over My Head"


I have come to this place in my life
I'm full but I've not satisfied
This longing to have more of You
And I can feel it my heart is convinced
I'm thirsty my soul can't be quenched
You already know this but still
Come and do whatever You want to

I'm standing knee deep but I'm out where I've never been
And I feel You coming and I hear Your voice on the wind

Would You come and tear down the boxes that I have tried to put You in
Let love come teach me who You are again
Would You take me back to the place where my heart was only about You
And all I wanted was just to be with You
Come and do whatever You want to

And further and further my heart moves away from the shore
Whatever it looks like, whatever may come I am Yours
And further and further my heart moves away from the shore
Whatever it looks like, whatever may come I am Yours

Then You crash over me and I've lost control but I'm free
I'm going under, I'm in over my head
Then you crash over me, and that's where You want me to be
I'm going under, I'm in over my head
Whether I sink, whether I swim
It makes no difference when I'm beautifully in over my head
Whether I sink, whether I swim
It makes no difference when I'm beautifully in over my head
I'm beautifully in over my head
I'm beautifully in over my head


Thursday, August 03, 2017

Preacher Lady

Emotional moment being "hooded"

Signed diploma in hand!
Since graduating this past May with my MA in Quaker Studies from Barclay College, I have been trying to figure out what my new life is without school!  Figuring out the hours in my day, interactions with my family, church involvement, and home has its challenges but I am enjoying the time spent with my friends and family.

I have also been preaching at Whitney Friends Church, in Boise, directing Kids Camp at Quaker Hill with Roy, and accepting the position of Recording Clerk for Northwest Yearly Meeting!

Whitney Friends has summaries of my sermons on their website:

May 14, 2017

May 21, 2017

July 2, 2017

July 9, 2017

July 16, 2017

I also had a blast at Kids Camp!  Here is a preview of an upcoming post:

Slip-n-Slide fun!
#WomenPreachers #QuakerWomen #BarclayCollege 

Monday, April 03, 2017

Quaker Women Series: Amanda Way



Amanda Way, prohibitionist, abolitionist, and suffragist and was born in 1828, to a Quaker family.  For as many organizations as she helped found, and for as many lectures she gave across the nation, it is surprising and confusing why we do not know about Amanda Way.  Early in life she became the sole breadwinner for her family when her fiancé died three weeks before their marriage, her father died that same year, and her older brother married.  In order to support her family, she became a teacher.

Amanda wore many different hats when it came to her professions and ministries.  She was a teacher, an activist for women’s rights and temperance, a nurse in the Civil Way, milliner (she made hats!), seamstress, and a preacher.  In fact, she was active in all of the great reform movements that happened in her lifetime:  women’s rights, temperance, and abolition of slavery!  She was also a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

Amanda Way was a founding member of Indiana Woman’s Rights Association, 1851.  She revived said association in 1869 (it was inactive from 1859-1869).  Indiana’s First Woman’s Rights Convention in 1851 “focused on what women thought of as the largest injustices they faced:  discriminatory property laws, wage inequality, and lack of educational opportunities.”  In her keynote address she declared that “unless women demand their rights politically, socially, and financially, they will continue in the future as [they have] in the past.”  The following resolutions she presented were accepted:

“That all customs, laws and institutions that deprive women with an equal right with men to intellectual, social and moral improvement; to the attainment of wealth and personal comfort and independence, or to an equal share in creating, and administering the social, civil, and religious institutions under which they are to live, and to which they are to be held responsible, are unjust, cruel and oppressive and ruinous to the peace, order and progress of individuals and to the whole human family; and of all men and women who respect themselves and their fellow beings, will plead and labor for their change, or their overthrow.”

Whereas, we believe the present style of female dress is highly inconvenient, unnatural and destructive of health and a mark of the degradation of women, therefore: Resolved, That the women of this convention pledge themselves, before our families, to throw off the bondage imposed upon us by Parisian Milliners and adopt a style of dress more in accordance with reason.” 
Installed 2013 Indiana Historical Bureau, Indiana Women’s History Association, Inc., Winchester Friends Church, Randolph County Historical Society, and Friends of Amanda Way


Amanda participated in the “Whiskey Riot” in 1854.  This is a fascinating story of approximately 50 women going business to business destroying all of their alcohol!  You can read about it here, including quotes from an original news article!  A different take on the event is found here, including the lawsuit that resulted from their temperance actions and their verdict.  Some say Amanda did more than participate and named her as the leader of the pack.  The “Page Liquor Case” is what came of the “Whiskey Riot.”  Mr. Page owned a store and sold large quantities of liquor to the men in the town, causing numerous problems in the community and home, including abuse.  The women wanted the shop owners to sign a pledge that they would stop selling liquor.  Jill Hinty Keener records that,  Page refused, and locked the door to prevent them from entering.  Undeterred, they used hatchets and hammers to chop down his door and break out a window.  They then rolled seven or eight barrels into the street, chopping off the “faucets,” and breaking out the heads.  They also did considerable damage to the inside of his shop.  The list of stock destroyed tells exactly how much damage they did: 

a barrel of brandy,
a barrel of bourbon,
a barrel of rye,
nine gallons of rum,
ten gallons of gin,
ten gallons of rye whiskey,
ten gallons of sweet wine,
six gallons of wine,
sixteen gallons of gin,
twenty barrels and kegs,
twenty spigots and faucets,
one hundred dollars worth of damage to doors and windows,
as well as coffee and candy spilled on the floor.

Surprisingly, many of the town’s attorneys, all men, came together and defended the women in the criminal trial which ended with a not guilty verdict

Amanda was also a leader in Independent Order of Good Templars, a fraternal organization promoting total abstinence from alcohol that “always admitted women on the same basis as men,” according to their literature.  Offices she held included:  Grand Worthy Chief, Grand Deputy, Right Worthy Grand Vice-Templar, Right Worthy Grand Templar, and Past Grand Worthy Chief Templar.  She also served as Grand Worthy Chief Templar, their highest office.  Articles from the Centralia News-Examiner in 1905 document her attendance at their annual session in Washington, stating that

“among the more prominent people present are Miss Amanda Way, Right Grand Templar and Past Grand templar of Kansas and Idaho.”

Amanda was a member of Women’s Christian Temperance Union, where their purpose remains the same today as it was then: “protection of the home, the abolition of the liquor traffic, and the triumph of Christ’s Golden Rule in custom and in law.”

In 1869, she helped found American Woman’s Suffrage Association, working alongside Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but you won’t find her name listed with theirs.  For as involved as she was, hardly anybody knows who she was!  She is included in both Anthony and Cady’s biographies, though.  

At approximately 43 years of age, she became a Methodist Episcopal minister in 1872 but returned to her Quaker roots and became a recorded minister with them in 1884.  Five years later we learn she was in Boise Idaho!  In 1899, Charles R.Scott writes about resigning his pastorate at Salem, Oregon, and going to Boise, Idaho, stating “I found a few Friends organized into a monthly meeting under the efficient labors of Amanda M. Way, forming a nucleus for what promises to be in the near future, under God’s blessing, a work of no small magnitude;” Amanda was doing more than preaching while in Boise.  She was nominated by the Idaho Prohibition Party to run for US Congress in 1900 (but did not win) – she was 72 years old. 


When asked why she never married, her response was, “I never had time.”  After learning of everything she was involved with and in, I believe her! 

#QuakerWomen #WomenHistoryMonth #WomenPreachers 

Friday, March 24, 2017

Quaker Women Series: Mary Fell Lower


Mary Fell Lower (1647-1720)

We already learned about Elizabeth Hooton, the oldest (and first) person to preach in public (she was around 70 years old).  Now, let’s learn about the youngest!  Mary Fell, daughter of Margaret Fell, was the youngest to preach in public in the 1650s.  She was 8 years old. 

Young Mary was privy to George Fox’s preaching and she is included in the list of names of the Fell household who were “convinced.”  She was approximately 5 years old at that time.  She traveled with her mother, along with her sister, Sarah, when Margaret met with the king regarding the law requiring Quakers to take an oath to the king.  When Margaret herself refused to take the oath and was imprisoned, her daughters tried to get the king to intercede on their mother’s behalf but his hands were tied when it came to matters of parliament. 

While she may not have had a choice of what her mother did or where her mother went and she needed to accompany her because she was a child, nobody forced her to tell an Anglican priest, “Lampitt, the plagues of God shall fall upon thee and the seven viols shall be poured upon thee and the millstone shall fall upon thee and crush thee as dust under the Lord’s feet how can thou escape the damnation of hell.”


After nearly five years of imprisonment, Margaret was released just prior to Mary’s marriage to Thomas Lower, a Quaker who was also convinced by Fox.  The year was 1668. She was 21 years old.


I have not been able to find much information on Mary’s personal ministry.  She had ten children but only five children lived beyond infancy.  In 1676 she and Thomas moved their family to Marsh Grange, the birthplace of her mother.

#QuakerWomenSeries #QuakerWomen #WomenPreachers #Quakers #Friends