The Preacher and I are filthy rich in our friends. One of them, for love alone, spent ten long days at Hope House recently, helping us develop our cement block basement.

His quiet example of workmanship and generosity made a deep impression on our almost-five-year-old grandson.

Benjamin spent several afternoons here while Todd* worked. One day he burst into my office, face aglow. “Nana, LOOK! Todd made this for ME—wasn’t that NICE?”

Almost reverently, he held out a simply constructed birdfeeder.

Another afternoon, the Titanic floated upstairs. “I made it, Nana. Todd helped.” We filled the tub so he could launch the 2×4 ship. It leaned obligingly, but refused to sink.

On Todd’s final afternoon of work, I took our afternoon coffee downstairs instead of making our friend come up. The walls were erected, insulated, and sheeted with drywall. Very little remained to do.

We sat in the laundry room, surrounded by those walls, raised with love and grit—and hands still bleeding from a nail puncture.

When I noticed the blood, I fetched an alcohol swab and a bandage. Benjamin watched the repair with interest. But back upstairs, he had a question.

“Nana,” he asked, “How long did it take God to make Todd?”

I said the first thing that came to mind. “Oh, a very long time, I guess. There’s not many people around like Todd, so I think it must have been very hard to make such a good man.”

That evening, the Preacher and I accompanied Todd to the door. His shoulders stooped. He’d put in another long day, and it had taken several trips to lug his tools to his truck.

“Todd, we don’t know how to thank you,” we said. I don’t know why, but he had tears in his eyes. So did we.

“Pastor,” he confessed. “It didn’t look good at first. I didn’t think I’d ever finish—but I did!”

Benjamin, busy in another room, didn’t get to say good-bye to our friend. When he noticed Todd’s absence, he said, “When’s he coming back again?”

“He’s not, honey. At least not for a while. He’s done working in our basement now. The walls are up.”

 Tears—large as fat raindrops—filled his eyes. My heart hurt. As a child, I too formed attachments to adults who unconsciously made deep imprints—then left again. I remember that emptiness.

After Todd left, I swept up the fresh sawdust. But first I ambled through the rooms, admiring the walls, telling God how grateful we were for Todd and his marvelous gift. Asking him to bless our friend as he had blessed us.

Benjamin crouched on the floor, working on his latest project—nailing small pieces of drywall together. Suddenly, as naturally as could be, out came a heartfelt, “Thank you, God, for making Todd.” That’s all.

A little time. A little care. And a child remembers forever. We will too.

But I wonder…how long did it take God to make me?

*(not his real name)

When I opened the burgundy binder, I sensed God was trying to get my attention.

I began writing Sunny Side Up in March of 2001. Within two years, requests started arriving. They came by email, card, word, and in person. They said basically the same thing:

“Won’t you please put your columns in a book, so we don’t have to go fishing through our drawers to find the one we’re looking for?”

So I compiled the first year of columns into one manuscript and sent out a few proposals. But traditional publishers love column compilations about as much as yesterday’s congealed oatmeal, I learned—and stopped trying.

“My family can publish them after I die,” I told my daughter. She grimaced and rolled her eyes.

One day I received a call from a lady who had the responsibility of sifting through a friend’s belongings after her death. “Kathleen, I’ve found something I think you should have.”

The “something” was the burgundy binder. Inside, I found years of yellowed Sunny Side Up columns.

God nudged me in that moment. I dug out my manuscript and began reworking it, trusting God to direct me to the right publisher.

But another book raced to publication first—West Nile Diary, the book a mosquito started, the Preacher lived, and I wrote. Not until after its promotional tours and interviews finished, did I return to the column collection—and finally I understood the requests for a Sunny Side Up book.

Since I had last read the manuscript, a mosquito had flipped our lives around. My husband’s sudden disability had sent us into exile from home and community for six months. When we returned we found the Preacher’s job no longer his job, our church no longer our church, and our home no longer our home.

We’d moved to temporary low-income housing, living on a disability income. I took a magazine editing job, but lost it when the company downsized eight months later. With a sudden spike in housing costs, we had no idea where we would live following our temporary situation.

Nevertheless, our life was bright, compared to the stories of many of my readers—the people who had written, phoned, and emailed to thank me for the inspiration they’d found in Sunny Side Up.

As I re-read those first columns from a very changed circumstance than when I’d first written them, they encouraged me too. In the words God had inspired years earlier, I found hope. Reminders of life’s truest wealth—God’s unchangeable, constant love. And I knew I must do all I could to honor my readers’ wishes and “get Sunny Side Up between covers.”

We’ll launch Practice by Practice, the Art of Everyday Faith—the little column collection that could—tomorrow—Thursday, April 22—at the Yorkton Public Library (back door) from 7 – 9 p.m. If you can’t make that, I’ll be signing books at the Yorkton Golden Rule on May 4^th, from 2 – 5 p.m.

I’d love to meet you there.

Since before the last millennium, Friend Glenda and I have celebrated each other on our birthdays. We’ve lunched at home and restaurants; picnicked under pines and strolled beside lakes. Once we spent an afternoon making each other friendship books filled with quotes and collages.

This year, before I turned the calendar over to April and found her birthday circled there, Glenda called. “I want to do something different on my birthday. I’d like take a vanload of women on a healthy shopping and eating trip.”

“You WHAT?” I shouldn’t have been surprised. I know my friend well. For years, she and her medical practitioner husband have deeply invested their lives in improving the health of others. Over our long friendship, I’ve watched her passion grow and observed with delight as her voluntary influence in our community has widened in lovely, healing ripples.

As a nutritional consultant who lives what she preaches (and shows it) Glenda has helped scores of people (including me) gain vitality—and recovery—after experiencing thorny medical problems. Her prescription? A simple, wholesome lifestyle anchored in healthful cooking and eating.

On the morning of her birthday, seven females—hauling everything from purses to coolers—streamed into Glenda’s vehicle. Two hours later she pulled the van into our first stop, eager to park it and market.

All day we followed each other in and out of the crannied nooks of healthy food and bargain stores. We laughed at each others’ stories and bought what each other bought.

At lunch most of us ordered Jivin’ Jerk bowls, served with chopsticks, at Regina’s 13th Ave. Coffee House. At supper most of us sipped Booster Juice. We shopped until evening. Driving home, we chatted like schoolgirls and passed around snacks: dried mulberries, cashews, pretzels, and rice chips. I forgot I’d purchased sun-dried tomatoes, or I’d have passed those around too.

A few of us had been strangers that morning. By day’s end, we’d discussed our faith journeys, horseback riding, medical histories, courtship secrets (punishable by saturated fat and hydrogenated oil, if revealed) and a second shopping trip. By the end of the day, we’d become friends.

A common denominator united us: Glenda’s well-studied wisdom had made a difference in our lives. We were all healthier because we’d listened to the things she’d taught us. Whatever we were before, we were not the same now. We all spoke of her, I noticed, with love on our tongues.

I got up and walked early this morning; strode fast and long in the yawning countryside. I saw beautiful things. Newborn pussy willows. Dumpling clouds. Burgundy cattle feeding in one long line, their gangly-legged calves fidgeting alongside.

The Creator of that beauty is a friend of mine. My deepening relationship with him has both changed me and profoundly altered my destiny. And as has happened with Glenda, my friendship with Jesus Christ has introduced me to numerous friends. All needy, we call him Savior.

And we speak of him, too, with love on our tongues.

I have one less big mistake to make in life.

After praying too little and worrying too much I marched nobly forth and took a job to help fill a few gaps in the family budget.

Perhaps the problem wasn’t as much the job as my choice of job.

In the tradition of my mother, who has been a model of care-giving right into her nineties, and two sisters, both gifted with similarly nurturing spirits, I took a relief job that involved caring for other human beings. In 24 hour shifts.

Not far into my training shift, the Holy Spirit began nudging (elbowing!) me, reminding of a few important facts of my life.

First, as I have for a dozen years or more, I already write full-time, taking a few speaking engagements on the side. I’ve also made commitments to publishers, who prefer their writers to keep them.

Second, after two moves and a major lifestyle upheaval in the past two years, my physical and emotional reserves are still in the re-building stage. A care-giving job likely wouldn’t contribute to that.

Third, since I’m often too preoccupied to recall if I’ve taken my own pills, it would be foolish and dangerous to accept responsibility for dispensing them to others.

Fourth (I don’t know how I ignored this glaring reality), I’m not my mother. Nor my sisters. God has used their compassionate, giving and gifted natures in his own way. He chose something else for me.

Fifth and most important: above my racing heart, overwhelmed by the outlining of tasks I knew outside my current capability, I seemed to hear a sweet whisper:

“Kathleen, have I ever proved myself unworthy of your trust in me?”

I knew that voice. So I quit.

I also called my sister, cried on her caring shoulder, then got on with life.

In Christian circles we call what I did “running ahead of God.” Most Christ-followers have done this—a crisis comes, and rather than trust our Heavenly Father, we begin dashing about like a fox-addled rabbit in a meadow.

As our life-director, God will always lead us to decisions both wise and productive. Ignoring his Holy Spirit’s cautions leads only to exactly what happened to me—involving others in regretful ways.

When I arrived home from my failed attempt at rescuing my corner of the world, I pulled up into the driveway of Hope House (we call our home that) and noticed some boxes stacked in front of the garage door.

Inside, I found copies of my latest book, a compilation of the first year of Sunny Side Up columns. God’s timing—and his humour—didn’t escape me: new books always generate their own work, spin-off speaking, and article-writing assignments.

I’m glad God is more patient with me than I am with him.

****

The Preacher and I will launch Practice by Practice, The art of everyday faith, on April 22, at the Yorkton Public Library, at 7 p.m. That’s in Saskatchewan, for my readers who live nowhere near…wish you could all join us.

Tomorrow he would hang for love alone, to become the bridge of light and life between God and mankind. To cancel sin’s power over you and me. But Jesus, hours before his crucifixion, prayed in a garden.

Please don’t picture a neatly groomed, long-haired man sitting on a large rock surrounded by flowers. Gazing serenely skyward, moonlight caressing his face. Picture a disheveled, frightened man. Prostrate. Arms outstretched, face pressed into black earth. Hear guttural moans. Picture burst capillaries. Blood drops watering the soil.

Picture him alone.

Jesus prayed in a garden. Ever wonder why?

“How’re ya doin’ for vegetables?” a friend asked recently, then followed that up with a gift—beautiful, bright, wintered-over produce—and just when our fridge drawer needed filling.

We’ve gardened a few times, the Preacher and I. Never well—not compared to our gardener friends. We’ll try again this year.

It’ll be our first summer in the middle-aged bungalow we call Hope House. It sits on about a quarter-acre of trees and black earth. Edna, the plucky octogenarian who owned the place before us, farmed most of her life. And until a few years before she died, she gardened almost the entire backyard.

(We’ll not try that.)

Regular old dirt astonishes me. Black soil is earth’s largest—and most maligned—womb, impeccably suited for its God-designed purpose—to produce enough food and beauty to sustain all creation.

I can’t wait to see what God will do with our little plot of dirt when we mix it with a little sweat. We hope for tulips in spring (already planted), lettuce, peas and raspberries (already well established, and needing taming) in the summer. For root fruits in autumn.

From our friends’ gift bags, I dug out treasures. Russet potatoes, washed clean of soil-freckles. Paper-white onions, candy-sweet. Carrots, orange as a prairie sunset, tidily sliced from their unruly tops. I picked one and started crunching—then recalled: company’s coming!

The Preacher grabbed a handful of carrots and wandered away, happy. “Think I’ll make a pot of soup,” I called after him. Go for it, he shot over his shoulder.

Preparing vegetables by hand centers me. I enjoy the rhythm of carrots sliding up and down our ancient steel grater. Weeping over bleeding onions leaves scant headspace for random thoughts, and carving potatoes into dice-sized cubes satisfies me almost as much as unearthing a very good verb.

What comes next is even better. The fragrance of a simmering winter soup pot. Succulent shattered vegetables, slipping down hungry throats. Only this time, rather than drawing nutrients from the surrounding dark, they provide nourishment to build and sustain both cells and body.

And so goes the cycle. From blackness emerges brightness, which—bruised, broken, and immersed once more in darkness, provides life—even while dying.

Jesus prayed in a garden. Perhaps, in his humanness, he needed the reminder of his Father’s plan—to bring dazzling life from his blackest dark.  Eternal sustenance for those who taste.

Please help yourself.