Category Archives: Inspiration

God’s Heart for People: Insights from a Montreal Visit

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Greetings from Montreal, Quebec, Canada! The hubby and I have escaped for a few days and are staying at a really cute little place in the heart of Montreal… country folks back in the city. Admittedly, I don’t miss it. It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t wanna live here. Too many cars, too much traffic of said cars (okay Montreal-ers are crazy drivers, I know) and the people are everywhere. And the only chickens we saw were the ones deep fried in a bucket to go. Nonetheless, it was worth the sore feet to tour through old Montreal and enjoy the hustle and bustle for a change. Street vendors, your pick of food, (including two giant farmers markets with European meats and cheeses!) and the sights and smells of city life. Montreal has some great churches, building rich in history and beautiful to look at. It was good to see a collection of diverse faces and the sounds of many languages and cultures for a change.

Like the story of the country mouse and the city mouse, each place has its pros and cons, but as the mice discover, home is always best. Yet, the visit had me thinking about cities. Big, diverse, bustling cities. Of course, I grew up in the “city” and should be used to the chaos. I learned how to drive with traffic in winter. I do miss the conveniences of city life: a shop on every corner for quick pick up of milk and coffee. Don’t like this selection of shoes? You can find another store just around the bend. No car? The transit system in most cities will get you to where you want to go. And the culture of a city. Yup, people. People from every walk of life and every level of education.

Perhaps a little taste of heaven? Every colour skin and language, all praising God in the way they know best. I’m sure it will be cool when we get there! Not that I’m ready to go just yet, but it will be cool when we do get there… I hope God lets us all cook our favourite foods in Heaven. Can you imagine Pho noodles or an authentic Italian pasta in Heaven ?! Fabulous!

Anyway, I digress. I was thinking about “cities” in Bible times. Unlike now, people rarely traveled out of their own space, and if they did, it wasn’t far. Yet, big cities would have similar characteristics: people of diversity with busy businesses and a way of life reflecting that city culture. Paul talks about it. He traveled enough to see the sights. Ships similar to the current means of transport that we saw on the great St. Lawrence in the old port in Montreal. Okay, maybe not shipping containers littered with graffiti, but I’m sure there were trunks and wooden containers piled high with the same stench of rotting fish as we experienced.

Still, above all the sights and sounds comes the target of God’s heart: the people. At one point on our one-too-many tours, I sat resting my ever aching feet and marveled at all the people. Tourists, like us, wondering around the streets. I wondered about how many knew that God loved them. How many people sitting in the great cathedrals of Montreal knew that God didn’t need their lit candles and silent prayers in gold lined alters. He wanted their hearts and a relationship with them. I wondered if the families sharing breakfast with us knew that God watched over their travels as He did ours. Or the young girls who served us were aware that God sees their devotion and cares about their work. Or the homeless folks sleeping on park benches knew that He cares about them, too.

My mind is reminded about people when I go to the cities. I think about it, but rarely does my heart follow the thoughts long enough to actually do something about it. Admittedly, my faith is weak in this. I don’t have a heart for people as some do. I don’t cry out for justice for the homeless or care for the poor in the ways I should. Jesus stood at the footholds of Jerusalem and wept for its people. He cried over the hearts of the people who were so lost in their sin, and the “ways of the world” that are so rampant in our cities still. May He soften my heart for them, too. May a vacation to “the big city” change my heart for not only all the people in the crowds there, but for the few in my circle here at home too.

Deep and Wide: A Muddled Reflection

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Welcome back, my beloveds! We’ve had an exciting weekend! It was our church’s annual “church in the park” where we take over the local parks band shell and hold our service by the beach. Traditionally, we have a baptism service and bbq lunch with fun activities for the afternoon. This time, eleven people committed to living a life for Christ through baptism. The fun part was that our staff had to wade out in to Lake Ontario … and it was anything but calm. June makes it a little chilly out there and the waves were coming in hard. Poor little youth leader; she was struggling to keep herself a float, let alone dunk others under! Yet, all survived. And it had me musing…

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

Okay, but before I get to that, I need to premise it with another trigger. We have been enjoying watching our little grand baby grow (he’s six month’s already!) and this weekend he got to hang out in our inflatable kiddie pool… well, sort of. Hose water is still slightly cool for his chubby little legs. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Hanging out at the farm with grandma means Alexa is playing Veggie Tale Songs. I tried “traditional Sunday School songs” but that led to crazy war propaganda from the USA and nothing I recognized. Veggie Tales was it.

Yada yada yada…. all that to tell you that waves and water were my thoughts this weekend… which had me thinking about how many traditional hymns and songs have water, waves and being “washed” in fountains and rivers. Are you thinking of a few? Anyhow, I settled on Deep and Wide. A traditional Sunday school song all about (what I thought was) how deep and wide God’s love for us is. Turns out, other people have different thoughts. So here’s what I found.

The original “Deep and Wide” song was written by a Canadian Salvation Army officer named Sidney E. Cox. The original had three verses. You can find it here. Mr. Cox was saddened by the fact that the verses were essentially lost due to the song’s popularity as a children’s diddy. And the actions? Well, that was frowned upon too. Ha Ha… just realized this was originally printed in the Salvation Army’s War Cry Documents… it’s a war song too! He’s Canadian at least. Nonetheless, I think the song emphasizes how vast and wide God’s love for us is. Since depth and height are infinite in opposite directions, it’s a pretty good description, I thought.

The Original Deep and Wide with 3 verses printed from Salvation Army War Cry

Other thoughts on the song, however, reverberated with the idea of water, river and flowing. Like the waves of Lake Ontario, a crashing wave can be quite cleansing! Ezekiel 47:9 describes a river flowing bringing life to all it touches. So true a foundation to teach our little ones! And so, as we begin the summer season, and you hit the beach and get bowled over by a wave, think about Deep and Wide! Or perhaps your vacation takes you hopping through European cruises with great fountains bringing fresh water … flowing deep and wide!

So that’s my thoughts for this week… and hope it gets stuck in your head all week. Some veggies will be proud, even if Sidney is unimpressed.

The Truth Behind Country Living: Weeds and the Reality of Free Range Chickens

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We were doing so well. Spring had us thinking we were ahead of the game this year. Things looked cleaned up and projects were on task. Sigh. Fail. Again. You know those great Instagram posts of the pretty summer .porch with chippy paint and rusty pails with random chicken eggs in a rainbow of colours next to a few beautiful wildflowers that look so romantic? It’s a lie. Country people will tell you the chippy paint is because we have no time for painting and we forgot the pail so it got rusty in the rain and your wild free-ranging chickens lay random eggs everywhere now instead of neatly in the nest boxes and it’s a daily game of hide and seek to collect them… and the wildflowers are really weeds that grow like crazy and take over any available spot except for the places you sowed the wild flower seeds hoping the pollinators would be happy that you thought of them….

Romantic? It’s a lie I generated with A.I!! Pretty though, isn’t it?

There are always two sides of the story friends. I love my house. I love my chick birds. I love my life and the adventures it brings. Yet, today, I am feeling a little bit on the other side. The dream has been crushed and it’s overwhelming and hard and not fun anymore. Part of my trouble is my own head. I get inside it and romanticize. Now don’t get me wrong… we do the work. We try. The hubby does his best, and I have good intentions, but most days I get home from work too exhausted to care. Everybody is safe and fed and clean and that’s enough. Yup, we keep it real here at mittonmusings.

I watered the “garden”. It is now a patch of thick thistle weeds and grass with a few stagnant tomato and pepper plants. I have 4 strawberry plants flowering which likely the wild birds will get before we get any fruit. Peas, beans, and any form of salad ingredient have been snatched up by the chickens and stubby bits of cucumber vines are choked out by more weeds. It’s a disaster! And I am sad. We tried to pull the thistles. Now I think I am going to try chaos gardening. Who cares. Let’s see what grows among the weeds.

I suppose thistles can be pretty too. Perspective.
Photo by Orhan Akbaba on Pexels.com

New found friends have a beautiful garden. Perfect rows. Ne’re a weed to be seen. He has blueberries! Blueberries! I didn’t think they grew down here, only up north, where it was colder. Okay, so they are retired and spend all day out there. Okay, they did research and planned and dug and tilled and worked for the last who knows how many years to achieve this greatness. How the blueberries were dug in trenches, fertilized and babied for four years before a single bloom. Still. I am grumpy there is no country property fairy. Instagram lies.

Ah friend. Is my musing simply a rambling of complaints? Partially. Hey, it’s my blog, I am allowed to vent. Still, it’s self talk as well. A reminder that God never promised life would be easy. We were chatting the other day about the angel who stood guard at the gate of the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve got kicked out. Do you think they “drove by” every now and then to see him? To wish for the paradise? Or did they keep far away, ashamed to ever cross the barrier? Warning their children like Peter rabbit’s mom at McGregor’s garden gate… that’s where disaster struck, kids. Stay far away from the edge.

So what’s my point? I suppose it is simply this. Life here in our fallen world is harsh. Things are not fair. Time steals. Instagram really does lie. A.I is going to make it harder and harder to decipher Truth. Our children’s children will continue to struggle. Yet God is bigger and stronger than anything we can complain about. Weeds choke out wisdom. The Bible says so. Things get squeezed out and our minds get infiltrated with doubts and struggles and sadness. We go through seasons, like the natural world does. Eventually, something grows. Perhaps the wild flower weeds are the only thing, but it’s still growth. My chickens have been well fed by their foraging. It’s all about perspective. I’m learning. And I guess that’s where I must focus for this week. Thanks for coming along on the journey, friends. Let’s meet again soon to encourage one another one more time.