yarn globes

Have you met my niece Josie yet? She's the best. In the picture above she was dressed as a green bird for her middle school play, Seussical. She's fun, animated, kind and we adore her. Ivar adores her. She adores Ivar. It really works out well for everyone.

We got to have Josie over the Friday night before Ivar's Ball Party. I had seen tutorials for Yarn Globes before, but was thinking I'd probably scrap this decoration. It was getting to be to much. But with the news that Josie was coming over I got a second wind. If there is a girl I'd like to make a yarn ball with, it's Josie.

It was a total mess. And so fun. We worked hard on how to best execute this project and by the end, we were a slick machine.

Basically we are soaking the yarn in a combination of water, modge podge, elmers glue and flour..with no real ratio of one to the other. We just sort of dumped and stirred until it felt about right.

We made three balls and we got so slap happy. Might have been the glues we were sniffing, might have been that it was getting late, but I felt like I was in 7th grade again. We took breaks for huge bowls of icecream with chocolate syrup. We took breaks to watch America's Funniest Home Videos with Rory. We took breaks to watch Josie's dance routines for the play. We sang Sara Groves songs so that Rory had to tell us to keep it down or we'd wake the baby.

We hung the balls to dry in the kitchen overnight and then I brought Josie's to her at church so that she could pop the balloon and sneak it out one of the holes, leaving just the hardened yarn shell.

They made pretty decorations, and now they are hung over Ivar's crib, which delights him to no end. He points them out to me every time I put him down and every time I get him up. And I reply, "yep. those balls are still there!"



grandma b's funeral

The funeral was a sweet, sweet time of family. I kept thinking Grandma would have loved it.

I cried the hardest while the whole family was gathered in the basement of the church before we walked in for the funeral. Seeing us all together and knowing that it might just not happen ever again, was a death I was grieving, just as much as Grandma's. Obviously I'll see all of them over and over, but it won't ever be the same. Death to a chapter in life, I suppose. I know this from Grandma and Grandpa Harrington's deaths. I miss that we don't all drive to Waverly for Christmas and wander around HyVee and Walmart the day after Christmas with Uncle Mark and Aunt Jane. I miss lingering over the continental breakfast in the Super 8 before heading to the nursing home. I just miss that chapter. And I know something similar is about to change with the Bredbergs too. I am most sad for that.

***
My cousin Daron gave a great talk on Hope and Humming, reading Psalm 108 and telling how one can't really hum unless they have a deep peace inside of them. Grandma hummed all the time, no matter what she was doing. And that was an outward evidence of the joy and contentment she felt on the inside.

My cousin Mark told a story at the wake. He told about how Grandma had a way of making ordinary moments feel special, and how on the night before his wedding at the farm, they found the dress shirt he was going to wear the next day in the clean laundry. Grandma walked the shirt over to Mark's mom and asked her if she would like the honor of ironing the shirt her son was going wear the next day. Mark said his mom would typically pay no attention to such a small task, but somehow the way Grandma presented the shirt made the ironing feel important, sacred. And so she ironed the shirt and she still talks about how special that was for her, how much love and care she took and how Grandma helped her see the holy in the ordinary.

That's what I'm going to miss the most, I suppose. Grandma was a quiet work horse. Always a project. Always turning the ordinary into something sacred.

It was hard for me to really be sad about Grandma. There was time for closure, and many had a special moment of prayer, a verbal blessing, a heartfelt farewell. It was time. I feel very badly for my cousin Kathy who is expecting in May, that Grandma will never meet her first baby. And actually I feel most badly for Kathy and Sarah. Grandma was basically a second mom to those two, always folding their laundry, at every game, involved in every 4-H project. I was keenly aware of how different their grieving must be from my own. I was definitely the city mouse and they had grandma in the country. And now to have Grandma miss meeting Kathy's firstborn...I can't imagine how hard and disappointing that must be.

Her funeral was so full of Jesus and why we are here, and what it looks like to live a life for all the right reasons, focused on the truly most important things. Dad preached and did a really excellent job. Got in a political comment, just enough to make the whole family laugh/squirm, and somehow even that felt right.

I didn't get to see her apartment emptied out. I think that would have been helpful. Also, she didn't look like herself in the casket, I didn't think. Her lips were spread too wide. She definitely was not in that body anymore, that's for sure. During the wake she was in one room and the family was in another all together, laughing, eating, talking. And when I went to her casket I felt so convinced that I was touching a shell. The party was in the next room over. She would have been by the food.

***
Just one closing thought. I have shared a few conversations and emails with friends talking about how they wish they had such a family. And I guess I have two responses: 1) I wish you did too. and 2) This family is far from perfect. But the truth remains that love and forgiveness fill in a whole lot of hurtful places, because this family knows the Lord. And what is so inspiring to me, is that somewhere, generations before me, a husband and wife decided to bend a knee and made a promise, "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." And now, because of some great, great, great, great grandpa and grandma, I am living in the blessing of a Christ-filled family. There are hurts a plenty, but there is even more grace. That's the difference. So to the friends who wish their family behaved something like the Bredbergs, I guess I'd say, bend a knee. And you'll get be the great, great, great, great grandma or grandpa to some great, great, great, great grandchild like me one day. And she'll be unable to find the words to thank you for the gift you have given to her.

passing on the faith: a repost

Tomorrow is Grandma Bredberg's funeral. The service will be at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Dunnell, the same church where she was baptized, confirmed, married, baptized her seven kids, confirmed her seven kids, married off most of her seven kids, and buried her husband. It's going to be a celebration, but I definitely am bracing for the sadness to hit. I have a feeling it is going to hit hard when it does.

I wrote this post two winters ago. I am reposting it for two reasons: First, there is something so dear and precious about a person's handwriting. Second, because what is writen is the foundational truth of life.

We are right in the middle of 'Believing God' and I am, once again, learning so much. But for me the coolest thing about the study this time around is getting to do this Bible Study with my mom and my grandma. Not to mention the women from all different parts of my life who have also joined in this online study. It is a sweet community, and I am grateful.

When I was in Mesa, I found this list taped to my grandma's bathroom mirror. It's the five statements that the study is based upon, and part of the study is to memorize them. I saw them taped on her mirror, in her handwriting, and in that moment realized what a true treasure this opportunity truly is... to get to study and learn God's Word with my grandma. My heart overflows with thanksgiving for this sweet 10 weeks of growing in faith with her, and for her strong example to never stop learning God's commands and to always follow Jesus.

no, seriously velma, well done.

Grandma b died yesterday with her kids surrounding her bed and singing this hymn, "Oh Jesus I have promised to serve you to the end." Just read those words above again. The woman was preaching even in her final breath!

When we got the news, Rory and I talked for a long time imagining what she must be experiencing at that very moment. We imagined Jesus saying, "No, seriously Velma, well done. I mean, you ran that race. You fought that good fight. Well done!" And then we imagined the enormous family reunion she was walking into, a joyous celebration as she stood before grandpa b, a man she has been lonesome for for almost fifteen years. And then to be reunited with her mom and dad, her sister Elsie, her best friend Minnie. On Monday I was looking at a picture album my Aunt Connie had put together of all of Grandma's ancestors and nearly every person in that book is no longer alive. I imagine her walking from this world of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and into the welcoming committee of that photo album: her grandparents, her parents, aunts and uncles, life-long friends, siblings, a baby she miscarried between her first two girls.

I believe all of this to be true. And let me tell you, it puts wind in my sails. She ran this race with so much love and determination, all to be sure that the next generation knows the love of their Savior. That was the most important thing for her. In a conversation earlier this week, she asked my cousin Dan if he would speak of the importance of passing on the faith at her funeral. She just keeps on preaching!

I'm not sad yet. I don't know quite how to describe this, but I feel strengthened. Empowered. Like the baton was passed and its my turn to run. What a role model I had! What a teacher! To God be the Glory for a life well lived.

the christmas road: a repost

Grandma is still hanging on. She continues to decline, but I find it so fascinating that only in birth and death do we really have no control over the timing of things. In a day when everything is scheduled, booked, and reserved, unassisted birth and death come with a whole lot of mystery. We wait expectantly for life to naturally come. We wait peacefully for death to naturally happen.

I came across this blog and wanted to share it too. It's one of my very, very favorites. And a great post to kick off the start of the Christmas Season.

My grandma sends a devotional email to her family almost every day. Recently she wrote about another christmas memory:

Merry Christmas, dear family. We had a little coating of snow last night. Reminds me of years ago when snow was always expected and accepted at Christmas. Dad and Ed Hybbert would plow roads thru the fields where the snow wasn't so deep in order that we could worship on Christmas at Immanuel. Think of all the fences they had to cut and then repair later.

Just picture that! New roads just for Christmas! Plowed through farm fields three miles away.

I love the community picture this paints, neighbors working together all going to a white steeple church in Southern Minnesota to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child. Weather didn't stop them...they busted up fences on the way.

What a glorious example they were to their children, getting them to church, raising them in the faith, believing with might that God is indeed with us.

Haste! Haste! To bring him praise!
The babe, the son of Mary.