Coloring Walls to tell a Story

My daughter and her husband are closing on their stone cottage next week, so Anna has been picking paint colors. Currently, every room in the home is painted an off-white, builders-grade paint. However, to help each room reflect her unique perspective, Anna is coloring the walls.

The off-white living room as staged in the real estate ad.

Over the weekend, we took paint samples to view in each room.  In each unique lighting environment, we compared the colors to transportable furnishings (a drapery panel, a throw pillow, and honed marble tiles) to be used in the room.  What an important step!  In some rooms, what looked to be a certain color on the paint chip appeared entirely different in the space!

Anna will be using a new line of paint from Benjamin Moore called Color Story.

These are "full spectrum" paints which means each color is formulated from many different pigments not including black or gray which dulls color.  Whereas most paint colors use a few pigments in their formula, "full spectrum" paints use between eight and fifteen pigments. The resulting vibrancy is readily apparent.

Actually, artists have been mixing pigments without black or gray for centuries, but it is fairly new to commercial paint companies.

As far as I know, Donald Kaufman is the pioneer in the field of architectural paint coloration.  Back in 1976, he and his wife, Taffy Dahl, began developing their "full spectrum" formulas.  To determine the colors, they collaborated with the best architects and designers and travelled all over the world visiting museums, cathedrals, stores, hotels, grand homes, and modest houses.  Today, their luminescent (over one hundred) paint colors are available through Pratt & Lambert distributors and cost between $85 and $100 a gallon.

Customers can purchase sample cards of Donald Kaufman paint through: http://donaldkaufman.eaglepaintandwallpaper.com. Paint samples are available for purchase by calling Eagle Paint & Wallpaper at 1-800-237-6918.

   

The next "full spectrum" colorist I became aware of is clothing designer turned interior designer, C. J. Volk who started manufacturing her paints in 2001. 

Volk's passion for vibrant, non-muted saturated colors led her to develop a palette using many pigments.  Citron, Volk's company, is located in Tuscon, Arizona, but customers can purchase the nearly one hundred colors, retailing from $55 a gallon, from her web site:  http://citronpaint.com. 

Just this winter, Benjamin Moore launched their "full spectrum" line.  These paints are environmentally friendly and were tested by the company to be "versatile with a number of architectural styles and lighting environments."


Anna chose to use the Benjamin Moore Color Stories "full spectrum" product for several reasons.  First, Benjamin Moore has piloted their Color Story line in a couple of New England locations and in the Washington, DC area. For Anna, the Chevy Chase location of Monarch Home Decorating Center was a convenient place to pick up the Color Story paint samples. 

Furthermore, the $68 a gallon price, although a bit higher than the Citron paints, was offset by the elimination of shipping and availability of free samples. Finally, the Benjamin Moore Color Story line has two hundred colors to choose from, more than double Donald Kaufman or Citron paints. 


As each of the stone cottage rooms begins to tell their own color story, I will post pictures!

The Promise of Springtime

In the past couple of weeks a groove has been worn in my mind by a Christian hit tune from over thirty years ago; the song by Bill & Gloria Gaither is called:  "Thank God for the Promise of Springtime". 

Maybe the unseasonably bleak weather, together with some frightening medical news, pushed my mind's replay button on the words:     
"Though the earth seemed bleak and barren

And the seeds lay brown and dead,

Yet the promise of life throbbed within them,

And I knew spring was just ahead.

Thank God for the promise of springtime,

Once again my heart will sing;

There's a brand new day that is dawning,

Thank God for the promise of spring."

Two weeks ago our daughter and her husband went for a prenatal exam.  The ultra-sonographer and then the perineatologist saw that their 10-week-old baby had a relatively large cystic hygroma.  In the early weeks of pregnancy such a finding indicates very high odds of chromosomal abnormalities which may be incompatible with life.  With heavy hearts we have waited nearly two weeks for a repeat sonogram.  Meanwhile, Rachel and Curt prayed and processed the news.  

Here are Rachel's own words after the first exam:  
"Curt, Will and I wanted to share with you that we are expecting baby #2.  I am sharing the news with you all now, so that you can please be in prayer for our baby.  We had our first ultrasound this week and got to hear the baby's heart beat.  However, the ultrasound revealed extra fluid on the baby's neck.  My OB recommended that I see the perinatalogist and receive genetic testing.  We went the next day to the perinatologist...who said that the baby has a cystic hygroma... 

I know that through suffering we come to know Christ in a more intimate way, and for that I am thankful...But I must say, that humanly we are sad, dissappointed, fearful, while at the same time, grateful that we can trust the Lord in ALL circumstances.  

We are reminded of Romans 8:31 'What then are we to say about these things?  If God is for us, who is against us?  He who did not whithold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?' And verses 37-39:  'No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinved that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.'  

God also reminded me...that he 'uses the weak things of the world to shame the wise and the lowly things of the world He will lift up.'  God, our Father, is our ultimate example of loving the weak and helpless.  And at this time when we are feeling weak, we know that He is the one who makes us strong.  And if we have a weak and helpless baby, He will be sufficient in his or her weakness. "

More than a week later, over the weekend, Rachel wrote:

"I just wanted to give you all a little update about how we are doing.  

Emotionally, I am actually doing really well.  God has really done quite a work in my heart.  The first few days after our appointment were really hard for me ... full of fear, sadness, dissappointment, anger, and sorrow. I am sure it doesn't help to have the raging hormones of a pregnant woman and having come off of several weeks of feeling really sick!!!  

But I just kept going to the Lord with my raw emotions...He met me there and has really drawn me into such an inimate relationship with Him.  It's incredible how God's Word becomes so much more real and active in my life, when my faith has been forced to be put into practice.  

  

It has been a journey, but I have come to realize that it's impossible to fear, when God has promised to give us 'every good and perfect gift from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows' James 1:17. When I truly believe His Words and promises I have no fear... (Now I have the sonogram laying out in the kitchen, and I can look at it without anxiety and thank the Lord for this precious little life). 

What a wonder...this life inside me has taught me more about grace, prayer, joy and thankfulness in suffering, faith, trust/surrender, and intimacy with Christ in the few weeks of its life than all the previous days of my life!   

Finally, I've reflected on this:  'Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed… Without weakening in his faith… Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised' (Rom 4).   

I just know that God is able to heal this baby if He so chooses, but if that is not His will, He is still good and His plan is still perfect for our family. Anyway, it is such a freeing thing to be completely surrendered and without fear."  

Then after their appointment, Rachel said: 

"Curt and I are just about speechless and in awe of God's answers to our prayers. When the perinatalogist did the ultrasound he said the extra fluid had gone away and the area that had a really significant amount of fluid was completely gone.  It was simply amazing site to behold...because only about two weeks ago the ultrasound looked so different.  We could see our baby moving his/her hands, fingers, legs, and it's cute little nose and profile...It was just incredible.  

The doctor is very happy with these results.  However, he also said that whenever they find a cystic hygroma early in pregnancy, like they did with our baby, (even if it clears up and goes away, like it has) there is still always an increased risk of chromosomal/genetic problems. (So, I had blood work taken today that will hopefully give us even more reassuring news. I should get it back in about 10 days).

So we are very, very, very thankful for these results today!  We just want to give the Lord praise for his answers to our prayers.  Thank you all for being so faithful in your prayers for us and for standing by us through these difficult weeks." 

Today, Rachel got the results of her blood tests. Here is her latest, and hopefully last e-mail update (until the announcement of baby Peteresen #2's arrival.  She writes:


"I just wanted to let you all know that I received my first trimester prenatal screening (which uses the mom's age, baby's ultrasound measurements (including the measurement of the extra fluid they saw early on), and results of a blood test to determine our baby's risk for having chromosomal problems.

Basically, because my blood results were so good our chances actually decreased drastically after this test of having a baby with chromosomal problems...The nurse who shared the results said they were "fantastic" and "extremely reassuring".  We won't need to do an amniocentesis, and we believe and trust that God has totally healed our baby." 

Praising our Lord and Savior,

Rachel

From our daughter's journal, you can understand our journey.  It is with spilling-over joy that we thank God for the promise of springtime.

Living is Giving

In the last few weeks the Westminster Presbyterian Church congregation has undertaken a heart-stretching design project, outfitting an apartment for a refugee family.  Those who have helped in the renovation have verified the truth of Christ's upside-down kingdom:  It is in giving that we receive.

The family of six (including two parents, two younger children, an older expectant teenager and her young child) are being resettled in Lancaster County from a refugee camp on the border of Thailand.

Originally, from Burma (Myanmar) which is southwest of China, the family came from the Karenn State, one of the poorest areas in the country and the focus of civil war.

According to a Vision Beyond Borders worker, Patrick Klein, "More than 500,000 people have been killed in Burma (Myanmar) in the last thirty years.  More than 3,300 villages have been burned to the ground by the Burmese military, and thousands of children have lost parents...About one million Burmese refugees have fled across the border to Thailand...Even refugee camps in Thailand are not safe from Burmese soldiers.  They frequently cross the shallow river separating Thailand and Burma to poison water supplies and kill or kidnap refugees."

Klein said the genocide is an ethnic cleansing, but also has a specifically anti-Christian agenda.

A Burmese official boldly stated recently, "Soon there will be no Christians in this nation.  You will only be able to see a Karenn person in a picture in a museum."

Facing such persecution and genocide, it is no wonder Karenni refugees are waiting for visas to emigrate from Myanmar and immigrate to the United States.

A number of caring Westminster church members have embraced our Karenni refugee family. Elder Jim O'Conner together with his wife, Connie, initiated the effort with Church World Service, a non-profit organization that resettles approximately 300 immigrants every year in Central Pennsylvania.

Jim and Connie O'Connor 

The resettlement effort has been coordinated by a new church member, Janet Reedy.  Janet has paired the coming family's needs with volunteers, as well as linked the congregation with relatives of the immigrants who are already settled in Lancaster.

Janet Reedy

Builder, Pete Alecxih, Jr., had his crew renovate an apartment in Lancaster city for housing.  They gutted the kitchen, repaired damaged walls, retrofitted the bathroom, installed new windows, and resurfaced floors in a matter of a couple of weeks!  Now the family will be Pete's tenants.

Pete Alecxih, Jr. 

 Elsa Martin gathered furniture and linens,

Elsa Martin

while her husband, Gary, spruced up the yard for the family.

Other members scrubbed, painted, and furnished the apartment. For example, the apartment received a wonderful leather sofa, some occasional chairs, and a great circular table from David Teply's firm.  Others donated a kitchen table, chairs and hutch, beds and dressers, linens, pots and pans, glassware and dishes.  Grace Hagey organized donations of food staples. In short, the Karenni family have been provided with everything they need from car seats to toothpaste!

Below are the before and after pictures of the apartment.

Living room before

Living room before

Living room after

Living room after

kitchen before

kitchen before

Diane LaBelle and Grace Hagey organize the refurbished kitchen with Janet Reedy. 

kitchen after

bathroom  before

bathroom after

master bedroom before

master bedroom after

upstairs children's room before

upstairs children's room after

small upstairs bedroom before

Small upstairs bedroom after

What a difference paint, new floors, windows, cabinets, fixtures, curtains, and repurposed furnishings make.  The depressing place has become an inviting home. 

However, setting up the apartment is just the first step; assimilating this family will be a major undertaking for the next months.  Bob Hivner and Kim Melton have volunteered to help them learn how to manage their finances. Heather Cunningham will make sure their health needs are met, and Ellen Hivner will help the family learn English as a second language.  

With love and patience, it is hopeful that the family will be mostly independent within a year. How rewarding will that be?

Actually, our reward was seeing the family enjoying their new home.  

With so many participants, no one was overwhelmed.  To a person, the helpers enjoyed the extreme make-over.  

In reality, volunteers were mirroring their Lord "who though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor."  Think about it; Christ became a refugee for us.  Luke 9:58 says, "The foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay his head."  He left heaven's palaces and came to a "world of woe".  Why?  So that we who are poor might become rich.

What a privilege to follow his example.  Furthermore, those who helped received more than we gave.  We gave time and received the friendship of others.  We gave supplies, but had our hearts filled. To paraphrase Christ's words: Those who give are more blessed than those who receive.

Our reward:  a happy six-year-old little girl holding her new doll and claiming this bed as her own!

Retreat to Climb Upward

This past weekend, I reconnected with women from the Evangelical Free Church of Hershey, Pennsylvania where my husband and I attended when we were first married.  The ladies retreat was a rejuvenating weekend geared toward propelling women upward in their lives.

About seventy-five women, including young singles, moms, middle-aged women, and grandmothers embraced the weekend's theme: Thriving While Surviving.

From a feminine perspective, we talked about the walls humans face in life: problems with finances, children, health, relationships...  By looking at two biblical biographies, one about Job and the other about Ruth, we focused on the Lord's mercies in difficult climbs and his amazing, abundant, gracious provision for those journeys.

My Friday evening talk was titled "God's Merciful Rock Holds for Life's Steep Climbs"and Sunday morning I spoke on  "The Complete Equipment the Lord Provides for the Climbs of Life."

The retreat was held at Kenbrook Bible Camp in Lebanon, Pennsylvania about half an hour from Hershey  

 and was organized by Donna Nilson, director of women's ministries.  

Amanda Fletcher, the church's executive secretary for administration and discipleship, helped with logistics--printing handouts, coordinating publicity.

Karen Kennedy, an administrator in the worship and music department at the church, together with her team led the women in music and worship.

Joan Sproul (whose husband, Bob, is senior associate minister for music and worship at the church) played the keyboard, and her daughter, Gretchen, sang.  (Seeing Gretchen, now married and all grown up, was especially fun for me, because I taught her Public Speaking  at Lancaster Bible College  when she was a senior in high school, taking a college class.)

The summit of the weekend was communion on Sunday morning,

when we thanked the Lord for his death and resurrection, for it is because he lives, we can face the climbs ahead.

A Cozy Cottage, a Spacious Place

This week, our eldest daughter and her husband reached an agreement on buying a home. We are so excited for them. After several difficult years, the Lord has blessed them with a cozy cottage in which to nest.   Here is a peak at the exterior:

When the two of them were enduring some extremely difficult trials, on several occasions as I was reading the Bible, promises seemed to leap off the page with their names inscribed over them. Have you ever experienced comfort like that from God's Word?

The particular verses are in Psalm 18:16-19. They were penned by David when he was delivered from the hand of King Saul.

David's Camp at Engedi by William Brassey Hole

"He reached down from on high and took hold of me; 

he drew me out of deep waters.  

He rescued me from my powerful enemy, 

from my foes, who were too strong for me.  

They confronted me in the day of my disaster, 

but the Lord was my support.  

He brought me out into a spacious place; 

he rescued me because he delighted in me."

When I find a promise especially applicable to a situation, I note the name of the person it is for and the date in the margin.  Beside this particular psalm, I grabbed a pen to write April 2010.  Imagine my delight when I noticed our daughter's name and the date November 2009 already there.  

What is more, on another occasion when her and her husband's path seemed particularly steep, I opened my Bible to 2 Samuel 22:17-20. What do those verses say?  Exactly the same thing!  Now, June 2010 joins the other dates in my Bible's margins.  

Incredibly, on a fourth occasion, in November 2010, when I was particularly anxious about their situation, the same passage was the theme of an article read aloud to me by a friend. 

How comforted I am when God repeats a promise.  If he says something once, we can rest on it.  When he says it again, we can tether our hopes to it.  But when he repeats it a third and fourth time, he is setting his promise in concrete! 

credit:www.faithcanada.com.

Last night, as I was preparing a talk on Job called "Climbing Life's Walls Clinging to God's Merciful Rock Holds", these verses  in Job 36:15-16 again bolstered my confident faith: 

"But those who suffer he delivers in their suffering; 

he speaks to them in their affliction.

He is wooing you from the jaws of distress 

to a spacious place free from restriction..."

How good the Lord is to deliver in suffering, in affliction.  Somehow the distress frees us from ourselves and brings us into a spacious place. 

 I will always look at this cozy stone cottage as a spacious place, but depth of character, spiritual maturity, and freedom from self-centeredness are truly the spacious place!

Meeting God when Abused, Finding Comfort

While I have been thankful for the sentencing of the officers who raped women in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I am sure the judgment has not totally healed their hurts. The world closes the chapter after the verdict is announced, but the abused who have been violated are left with social rejection, physical pain, and personal anger.  Even condemnation of the crime by judges is not enough; these women need deeper healing.  

credit: TheAngle.com

Several biographies in Scripture reassure us of the Lord God's knowledge of and love for victims. In the Old and New Testaments, we read of innocents who were comforted by the living God. He did not shun the abused; he elevated their status.  What is more, the Sovereign of the Universe blessed them with his own precious presence.  

In the first book of the Bible, we read of an abused Egyptian servant, Hagar (Genesis 16). She was taken into Abraham's home and moved from her country to serve his wife.  This woman, Sarah, knew Jehovah as the only true and living God, yet she doubted His promise of a child.  Since she was infertile,  she convinced her husband to have a child with her servant, Hagar.  Undoubtedly, the girl felt totally used.

In fact, after Hagar had Abraham's child, she despised her mistress, and so Sarah treated her harshly. Consequently, Hagar ran away.  However, the text says that the angel of the Lord found her and promised to multiply her descendants because "the Lord has given heed to your affliction."  So, Hagar called the Lord who spoke to her, "the God who sees." 

Later (Genesis 21:1-21), when Sarah miraculously had a son of her own, the tensions between the two worsened. Ultimately, the once-kind and godly woman sent Hagar and her son away into the desert. 

Fear, hurt, and hopelessness overcame this abandoned woman.  She cried, "Don't let me see the boy die."

Hagar and Ishmael by Jean-Charles Cazin.

A second time,  the angel of God spoke to Hagar, and said, "Do not fear; for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is." 

Hagar and her son were not forgotten, abandoned, rejected.  They were on God's radar screen, and he would meet their needs. What is more, God promised to make her son into a great nation. Most importantly, Hagar's abuse became a blessing, for Hagar came to know the God who sees and hears.

Another biblical biography which reinforces the fact that God hears the cries of the abused comes from Daniel's life story.  As a young man, Daniel was taken captive by the Babylonians (Daniel 1:1-6) and most likely made a eunuch.  (We can surmise this, because he was put under the care of the master of the eunuchs. Further, Isaiah 39:7 prophecies that young men will be taken away from Judah and made "eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.")

www.presentruth.com/2008/06/daniel-1/

Such abuse of one of God's children did not go unnoticed by the Lord. The book of Daniel is replete with the Lord's gracious care for this abused young man.  Over and over, Jehovah heard his pleas, answered his prayers, and revealed his knowledge to Daniel.  

As a youth, we read in chapter one, "God granted Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the commander of the officials...God gave them knowledge and intelligence in every branch of literature and wisdom; Daniel even understood all kinds of visions and dreams." 

When he was older, we read how God gave Daniel the ability to tell Belshazzar the meaning of an inscription (Daniel 5).

Belshazzar's Feast, Rembrandt, 1635 (National Gallery, London)

As a reward, "they clothed Daniel with purple and put a necklace of gold around his neck, and gave him authority as the third ruler in the kingdom." 

The Lord preserved Daniel's life and faith to old age in a wicked kingdom.  Through abuse, peer pressure, and attempts on his life, the Lord was with Daniel "and he enjoyed success" (Daniel 6:28).

The final biography confirming the Lord's presence with victims is found in the book of Acts (8:26-40).  An African, an Ethiopian eunuch--the treasurer  of Sheba, was on a journey for queen Candace.  The account opens with him in a chariot reading the scroll of Isaiah, searching for truth and comfort in God's Word.  God's action on behalf of this victim is nothing short of miraculous. 

Philip and the Ethiopian, Alexandre Abel Denis de Pujoi, 1848 (Musee des Beaux-Arts, Valencinnes)

The Lord sent the apostle Philip to the desert road where he encountered the Ethiopian in a chariot. The official was studying this passage which must have resonated with him.  "He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth.  In his humiliation he was deprived of justice..." (Isaiah 53:7,8). 

When the treasurer asked to whom the passage was referring, Philip was able to explain the good news about Jesus. The apostle explained that Christ,  although  he was innocent was crucified, died, and was buried, but also was raised from the dead to proclaim justice for those deprived of justice.  

Upon hearing the truth, the eunuch believed, and as soon as he and Philip came to some water, he was baptized. 

How do these three anecdotes help the rape victims in the DRC?  How do they help anyone who has been abused?  

The three biographies reinforce the truth that God cares about victims. In fact, he came to bring justice, to heal, and to lift up those treated unjustly. Certainly, when God repeats something three times, we can bank on it.  God repeated the lesson these biographies teach, because he wants us to get it:  We can safely trust the Lord who sees, hears, lifts up, and rights wrongs. This is truly deeper healing.

"For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through patience and encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope" (Romans 15:4).