immanuel lutheran church

On Wednesday I loaded up the kids and we drove two and a half hours to my grandma's church. I haven't been there since her funeral but I wanted to see it again. I have lots of great memories tied to this building, like the time we all walked out of the church after my cousin Joanna's wedding and saw an escaped cow calmly walking down the street. Or when I spoke at my cousin Sarah's wedding shower in the church basement, using barbies as my props for the whole talk. We have had family reunions on the lawn, and attended a few pointed funerals. I'll never forget watching my grandma weep in the basement just before her best friend Minnie's funeral.

And there was the Good Friday service when my grandpa read the story of the crucifixion. He was older, the church was only lit with candle light and he was having a hard time seeing the words in his Bible. And I remember realizing in that moment that he was getting older and that this whole death and resurrection story meant something very real in my own life. As he read the words of Jesus' journey on the cross, I pieced together that Grandpa would die one day. But that he actually would live forever because of the very words he was struggling to read.

And then there is the story tied to the very bricks themselves. My grandpa's dad was a part of the group of men who mixed the bricks for the foundation of this church. You can see the original bricks in the picture below, the ones on the very lower level. Way back in 1903, after farming his own land, he would drive his team of horses four miles into town and helped mix and lay the bricks for the original church. And those bricks are still there.

I went back to Immanuel because this church speaks so loudly to me of the firm foundation I have been given in Jesus Christ. I have ancestors that I have never met who literally built a foundation for me to build my own faith. And I am so grateful.

I was lonesome for Grandma and Grandpa when I was there. I was homesick for my childhood and all of the people that filled my life with love who are now gone.

We walked down the sidewalk and played at the Dunnell park for a while and then met my Aunt Annie and Uncle Ed for lunch at the Dunnell cafe. Ivar excitedly told me, "Mom! I get to sit next to Uncle Ed!" And I was happy that he is surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses too.

And then we drove to find the combine in a field where my cousin Sarah and uncle Jake are farming together. Sarah is seven months pregnant with her fourth baby and still full time farming, coaching volleyball and being a mom. She is exceptional.

Uncle Jake came up the row and we got to go for a ride while watching the combine tumble over the soybeans below and pour the beans in the bin behind our heads.

It was a great day trip that left me filled up with gratitude. I want my kids to know the foundation of faithfulness they have been born into. I want them to know the people who have built that foundation for our family. I want them to feel the same responsibility that I do to one day raise their own kids to recognize this firm foundation we have been given through Jesus Christ.

It was a glorious day. The kids slept on the way home until the last half an hour when they woke up in terrible moods. So twenty minutes from our house we stopped at the A&W and remedied their exhaustion with root beer floats. Which was just enough sugar to get us home and tucked into bed, grateful for an awesome five hours of driving for four worthwhile and wonderful hours of family.

my new happy place

Oh man. I'm trying to figure out what we're going to call this place. It is otherworldly. It is stunning. And in the few weeks since we were there last, the park turned from green to yellow.

Today my sweet niece Ruby joined us, with Auntie Lisa. They are having a special auntie sleepover and included a visit to our place so I could join in the auntie love. Ruby is a great photographer and took pictures the whole time.

As we walked back to the car I tried to capture the snow globe we were walking through, with all little yellow leaves floating down all around us. What am I going to call this happy, heavenly, sunlit place?


fall leaves from Becca Groves on Vimeo.

kid quotes

Ivar drew his first picture of me. I was so touched. And equally excited by my uncanny resemblance with Mike Wazowski.

***

Daddy: Ivar, I want you to be good and to follow Jesus. Other than that, you can do whatever you want with your life.
Ivar: Okay. I don't want to follow Jesus, I just want to play.

***

Rory had to run into Menards and I stayed in the car with the kids. To help keep everyone occupied I conducted a little interview.
Becca: What is your favorite thing to eat?
Elsie: Lunch!
Ivar: Hot Dogs!

Becca: What is your favorite place to be?
Elsie: Buttya!
Ivar: The haircut place!

Becca: What is your favorite song?
Elsie: Jesus!
Ivar: doodoodoodoo (Thomas theme song)

Becca: What is your favorite store?
Elsie: ABC Toy Store
Ivar: The new YMCA!

***

Elsie: Oh, new socks?
Becca: Yes, they are new.
Elsie: Oh! From Target?
And later that day we were in Macy's and she got all caught up in the purse section, trying them on, adoring herself in the mirror. Houston, we have a girl.

***

I taped a little rectangle of paper towel onto Elsie cupie doll when she told me her baby was poopie. It was a pretty awesome little diaper and I showed Ivar. He replied, "Mom. That baby is plastic."

helping hands

There is a long list of projects that need to get done this fall, and thankfully we have willing hearts to help us get it all done. Sometimes we pay our help in pumpkins. Sometimes neighbors stop by to entertain our kids with a new puppy. Sometimes friends graciously let us use their wood chopper. We are grateful and couldn't do it all without all the help.

(Speaking of helping hands... Any photographers out there know why my pictures are turning out so bright? I am not editing them at all...but they seem hot even though I'm in automatic, as usual)

long live the queen

These lovely pictures are all taken from my second hive. That hive is thriving and the bees look great. They are making a lot of honey and look strong going into the winter ahead. I love the look of capped honey showing in the picture just above. That's what they'll live on during the winter months until the dandelions bloom in the springtime. 

The first hive isn't thriving. I've known this for weeks now, but haven't been sure what to do about it. I always see dead bees around the base, in disturbing numbers. In one of the first bee keeping books I read it recommended always starting your bee keeping experience with at least two hives so you have something to compare your hives against. I am so glad we did this, because towards the middle of August I could tell that the first hive wasn't keeping up with the second hive.

The trouble was that I didn't know what to do about it.

I kept telling myself that bees are resilient. They don't have keepers in the wild. Surely they would figure it out. I had read that if the queen was unwell or abandoned the hive, the other bees would build a new queen cell. But apparently that didn't happen. Adam, my bee keeping mentor came out the same day Mama J died, and confirmed what I already knew...my first hive had no queen. As we stood in the noisy cloud of bees surrounding the hive he told me that the bees swarming around and in and out of the hive were likely robbers from other area hives coming to get the honey.

I've taken the loss of this hive pretty personally. Adam assured me that it's really common. That it is not uncommon for a bee keeper to loose 1/3 of their hives in a year. He knew it would be sad, but assured me that next year he'd get me set up with splits from his own hives, queens that he grows and we'll be on our feet again. But I'm still so disappointed and feel so guilty about having lost an entire hive.

Adam did mention that if I had caught it soon enough, there usually is about a 10 day window to introduce a new queen (I thought this was done by the bees, but apparently a keeper can introduce a new queen as well) with hopes that the hive might resurrect.

The biggest lesson learned is simply that I still have so much more to learn. It is obvious to me that I need to be in some sort of bee keeping class, or honey bee school.

It's sad and disappointing. I'll study up this winter and be ready for another round next spring. In the meantime, I'll be building a silt fence around the second hive preparing it for winter.

a mess a minute

I found her with hair product all over her face and hands. I said, "little girl, you are a mess a minute."

She protested with frustration, "No! I'm Elsie!"

a florescent fall

I didn't change the coloring on any of these pictures it's just that this fall has been this spectacular. I told Rory that I wouldn't have thought neon colors were all that natural, but they totally are. You can see them everywhere lately. I took the kids on a country drive this morning and got a few of these pictures.

We spent the weekend in Wisconsin at our friends' cabin. It was a great weekend with a wood burning fire, hot apple cider, good food and conversation and snow on Saturday morning. We were so surprised! And it really was pretty. I never mind the snow at the beginning of the season. (Though I'm glad it's not the actual beginning of the season...)

But the kids got excited. Today they wanted to get the sled out and I was happy to pretend there was snow. And for the record, they did not want to go outside on this glorious day so I told them, "when you come out with your boots on, I will give you a peanut m&m." It worked and we played hard for an hour before nap time.

Bribery felt acceptable because it is the time of the year that you soak up every single lovely day.

wet and soggy

This morning while I was in the shower, Elsie was brushing her teeth. And then she said, "uh oh mama, I'm all wet." So I pulled back the shower curtain and saw that she was indeed getting all wet. Because she had plugged the sink, had it running and had flooded the countertop so badly that water was spilling over the front like a waterfall. I didn't even stop the shower, lept for the sink, turned it off, unplugged the drain and used my bath towel to direct the water on the counter back into the sink while pushing the pile of clothes on the floor over to soak up more of the water on the floor.

All the while Elsie was crying that I was getting her wet with my wet hair, standing over her step-stool as I cleaned up her mess.

We went to women's Bible study this morning in an absolute frenzy. When we got there the kids told me they were thirsty and I told them they had to be very careful with their little cups of water. But moments later it was I who knocked the water on the floor. And again I was down on my knees, cleaning up the second wet mess of the day. I commented to a friend that it felt like a day of baptisms for me. Water everywhere.

I raced the kids home after Bible study to get my clothes for the funeral. I didn't even let them out of their car seats. I packed them up for an afternoon an Auntie Lisa's and hit the road. And when we got there it was pouring rain. But I hadn't brought coats because it wasn't raining when we left. And I surely didn't have an umbrella.

I got ready at Lisa's and she let me borrow her umbrella. It was as I drove to Target, with the windshield wipers on full speed that I told God this water theme wasn't lost on me.

I went to the funeral and cried a whole lot of tears. Mama J's ashes were set upon the baptismal font and the pastor began the service by reciting Romans 6, "When we were baptized into Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his." 

Baptismal water.

The service was lovely. A lot was said of Linda's love of boating and even a fishing trip story was told. I went up to read the scripture Linda had chosen for me to read and fell to pieces. I was totally caught off guard that I struggled so badly. But it was a funeral, and people do cry at funerals...

I drove home in the rain and ran into the house where Rory was boiling some hot water for our first night of small group. Minutes later our house was full of new and familiar faces, all ready to pour over the story of Noah.

You can't make this stuff up, folks.

And even as I sit here, the best word to describe my mood is soggy. My eyes are puffy. I'm thirsty and tired. I feel tired in my bones and sad in my heart. And I'm holding onto that baptismal promise with all my heart, believing that Linda is resurrected with her Maker, and that one day we who know and love Christ Jesus, will join her too.

how to be good people

On the last day of 7th grade my friend David asked me "out" in the back of my yearbook. (The text above is hilarious for 39 different reasons.) I said yes, I would go out with him. And that made it official. Just where we were going, no middle schooler actually ever knows.

A day or two later we were talking on the phone and he was telling me that he was going to his cabin that weekend. He commented that I would love his cabin and that sometime I should come up with his family.

Well, this freaked me out. And I'm not sure if it was in that conversation or in the next one, but soon after I dumped David.

My plan was to never talk to him again. Ever. In my life. Which was going to be tricky, but I felt up to the challenge since I made it through the rest of the summer avoiding him each Sunday morning at church. And then school started up and I knew this was going to be hard. We were in classes together. And band. And the school play.

But I kept at it. Avoiding eye contact. Avoiding him.

One afternoon during play practice the secretary's voice came over the loud speaker, "Becca Harrington and David Wagner, please report to Mrs. Johnston's room. Becca Harrington and David Wagner, please report to Mrs. Johnston's room."

When I got there all of the chairs were up on the tables from the end of the day, except for two that were facing each other with a table between them. Mrs. Johnston had us sit down. And then she said to us with love and care, "I don't know what happened to you two, but this has to stop. You are two of my favorite people and you deserve each other's friendship. You are better than this. You are meant to be friends and that's what I want to see when you are done talking here today."

She left the room and I was left to talk to David. And so I told him that when he said I should come to his cabin sometime I thought that was moving too fast and he commented that he never meant anything by it, except that I would love his cabin and that it's his favorite place in the world. His feelings had been hurt by my 7th grade dramatic over-reaction and we were able to talk through it all and when we walked out of Mrs. Johnston's classroom that afternoon we were friends again.

I love this story because it shows quite clearly how dumb and mean a 7th grade girl can be. And how important a 6th grade math teacher can be. Because Mrs. Johnston used her influence as our teacher not only to teach us math, but to teach us awkward middle schoolers how to be good people.

She was just my middle school math teacher, but since the day I stepped into her classroom, she was one of my most faithful mentors and constant life teachers.

And it's a good thing she got David and me talking again. Because we ended up MCing the senior prom, taking a train out to Montana to work at flathead lutheran bible camp, meeting up in India while studying abroad, and now, to top it all off, we live in the same small town.

Sure am glad I stopped ignoring him.

I want to walk as a child of the Light

We discovered a new hiking trail less than a mile from our house tonight. It was a stunning evening hike, and the kids insisted on leading the way. Rory and I were amazed at how able they each are now. It really is a wonder to watch children become independent, strong and able.

I didn't know at the time, but while we were taking this glorious little hike, my dear friend Mama J passed away after a warrior-like fight with cancer. As we walked down this lush path under a canopy of changing leaves, Mama J was breathing her last.  I am grieved beyond words. At the moment I just feel numb. Strangely that picture above is bringing me great comfort. I love that beam of light pouring down to earth. I believe heaven's glory is more than we can ever fathom. And no matter the darkness or sorrow we experience on our own path, God's light will always fill the darkness. Every time.

I believe that in my heart. Now I have to rest in that promise.

All evening I have had a hymn stuck in my head. The words are ringing like a bell.  Knowing how profoundly Mama J impacted my life, I am left wanting to be sure I shine Christ's light just as bright as she did. No matter how many or how few days I have left of my own. 

***

I want to walk as a child of the light;

I want to follow Jesus.

God set the stars to give light to the world;

The star of my life is Jesus.

In Him there is no darkness at all;

The night and the day are both alike.

The Lamb is the light of the city of God;

Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.

I want to see the brightness of God;

I want to look at Jesus.

Clear Son of righteousness, shine on my path,

And show me the way to the Father.

I'm looking for the coming of Christ;

I want to be with Jesus.

When we have run with patience the race;

We shall know the joy of Jesus.

In Him there is no darkness at all;

The night and the day are both alike.

The Lamb is the light of the city of God;

Shine in my heart Lord Jesus.

I want to Walk as a Child of the Light by Kathleen Thomerson

the stuff that makes us US.

I'm about to brag about a super awesome anniversary celebration. But only because I want you to turn around and plan a date like this of your very own. The night turned into something really special, which was great because I wasn't sure what we should do to celebrate our nine years. But since we had yet to get to Lake Harriet this summer it seemed that we had better get there before winter.

And then the night before our anniversary I was with two friends who encouraged me to pack a sentimental picnic of foods that meant something to us. Which tipped me off in the greatest direction. I decided to plan a whole date around the stuff that makes us us.

We were already off to a great start. A picnic at Lake Harriet is perfectly us. So I went to the thrift shop the day of our anniversary and found an awesome picnic basket for five bucks! It had two holders for beverages, but I saw them as flower vase carriers. And since zinnia bouquets are very me, and since I am a part of the us, I brought them along. Then I took down the quilt that we got in Nebraska at the camp quilt auction. It has hung in our bedrooms and Ivar's nursery and seemed to be the fitting blanket for such a special picnic.

I figured out how to download music onto my phone (so proud!!!) so that throughout the picnic I could play him our songs. I played the song we first danced to at our wedding, The Luckiest. And later I played the song that has become our family theme song over the past few years, On the Front Porch. And finally, our favorite version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

We ate Jimmy Johns and then I surprised him with a whole batch of chocolate chip cookies I made that morning and a thermos of ice cold milk. When we first got married we used to buy Sweet Martha's cookie dough at the grocery store and bake the whole bag to eat while watching tv. How we don't both weigh 400 pounds, I'll never know. But when I was thinking through what we loved before we had kids I had to include fresh chocolate chip cookies. I brought apples from our apple trees and raspberries I had picked before we left.

We laid on the blanket for a long time and then tried to take our first selfies. We are new to the world of selfies and laughed so hard trying to get this one, blurry shot. My neck was not cooperating and I was crying I was laughing so hard. When we sat up we found a whole team of bikers parked right by our blanket and Rory commented that they probably thought we were on our first date with the flowers and quilt and silly laughing. And that made me really happy.

We got up and walked around the lake and talked without interruption the whole way. I had brought our frisbee that has been to Nebraska, Montana and Hawaii but it was dark when we got back to the car.

So we went to the Dunn Brothers in Linden Hills and looked through the scrapbook I made years ago of the year of dating before we got married. We read the love letters we wrote to each other and it made us giggle and groan and I think we fell in love with us a little more.

And then the Dunn Brothers closed at 8:30 and we were like, "what the dealio dunn brothers?" So we drove to Barnes and Nobel and played Settlers of Catan and Rory won.

The night was magic. I hadn't put so much thought into a date since we were...dating. I had a blast planning everything and pouring my heart into our time together. I hardly slept the night before I was so excited. No joke. And the whole day as I downloaded our songs onto my phone, baked cookies and picked zinnias I kept thinking about how actually simple this all was and how every wife should plan a date like this. To celebrate all the tiny things that make your marriage uniquely yours.

I can't encourage you more to start making a list: your songs, your foods, your desserts, your books, love poems, games, flowers, your favorite places, your favorite activities, your favorite trips, your favorite hobbies. And then plan a special date. Even if you've been married only 2 years, and especially if you have been married for 52 years...you really should do this.

The funny thing is that I felt a little bashful and dorky as I unveiled the theme for the night. But the second we started listening to our song, the one we danced to nine years ago that night, a sweet love swept over us and I knew it was going to be a great night. And it was. It was one for the record books.