Abigail Dodds

A Tribute to Our Home and to the God Who Gave It to Us

By: Abigail Dodds May 9, 2013May 9, 2013

body of Christ, gratitude, photographygratitude, home3 Comments

For 7 years and 7 months we’ve called this place our home.

This place where I sit now, where I watch my kids laughing on the couch, snuggled neck deep in goofiness and a blanket. This is a good place.

It is this good place that we will say goodbye to in a short month and half. Places matter to me. They matter because you build your life in them. You bring babies home to them. You share countless meals with friends under their roof. Homes become more than material, they become a reflection of the people that live in them, the people that share them, the people that write on their walls.

Which is why heaven will be so marvelous. It will be a home perfected by Jesus and His Righteous people. A place where we can put down roots that never get pulled up. It will be a glorious place with walls and streets and everything that makes a home a home–most importantly, the people, the Person.

Can you say thank you to a material thing? Sure, but it’s pointless. Can wood or stone hear you to receive the praise? But you can say thank you for a material thing–thank you for the rooms, the wood, the brick, the concrete that holds it together. Thank you for the ceilings and walls, the oven and fridge, the lights and windows. And the thanks all belong to God. He’s the Giver.

So, here is my tribute to our home, my thankfulness to God, which I boast in, because of all He’s done, because of the story He’s told of His glory here, in this place.

For the open doors that welcomed three new babies and kept us all warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The doors that opened for family and friends and neighbors, even when the doorbell was broken, I give thanks.

For the rooms that held sleeping babes grown to children. For the number of bedrooms that forced them to share, so that they have never known differently and wouldn’t change it if they could. For the storage space turned “cabana room” under the stairs that has seen every kind of play and a hundred kids’ movies. For the family room and dining room where the Word has been opened and our hearts have opened as well–opened to you, Lord, and to one another, in weeping and rejoicing, opened in songs, I give thanks.

For the kitchen, the place where I learned to enjoy cooking (at least some of the time) and to try new things and to delight in the children who are wanting to help. For the hours and hours of school work done here. For the oven and stove that worked, whether clean or not, and prepared hot food for many in Jesus’ name. For the sink and dishwasher that washes every night–one new mercy that meets me in the morning, I give thanks.

For the lights that kept us glowing in the dark months and the windows that kept us sane, with a view to bigger things. On days when I thought I wouldn’t make it, this gift of a home has always let the light in and the Lord has snatched me out of darkness to the true Light of His Word and Jesus who is to be found there. For the windows and the light, I give thanks.

For my journey with orchids here, that has been analogous to my own story. For the orchids that have died under my care, that remind me of all the dying I’ve done here–the deaths purposed by my Caretaker–deaths of selfishness and pride and envy and all kinds of ugliness. Deaths that will continue wherever I go. And for the one orchid that has lived here, blossoming, going dormant, and blossoming again, I am reminded that I’ve lived here, too. That in Christ, this has been a place of flourishing and seasons. Life that will continue wherever I go. For the death and the life, I give thanks.

God has called us away from this good place to another place, a place where we are excited to go, a place where, Lord willing, we will tell this story again and deeper. May you do it Lord, may you make a home out of mere brick and stones and wood–may your story be told on its walls and in its rooms. May you refine us and own it all. For this new adventure, I give thanks.

Praise the Lord!
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart,
in the company of the upright, in the congregation.
Great are the works of the Lord,
studied by all who delight in them.
Full of splendor and majesty is his work,
and his righteousness endures forever.
He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered;
the Lord is gracious and merciful. (Psalm 111:1-4, ESV)

When the House Cries

By: Abigail Dodds April 19, 2013April 19, 2013

everyday, photographyphotography, snow, springLeave a Comment

Our home has been crying for two days.

It started with the hot tears of disappointment. Yesterday morning, out on the pond, there were ducks. By early afternoon the storm had started, the ducks were gone and the window panes were covered with tears.

The following day, the hot tears had become ice cold streams of sorrow. Unrelenting and dimming every view.

After a while, the cry started to wear itself out. The sadness was there, but the tears were stagnant. They’d lost the volume, but not the ache.

At last and almost by disguise, light started to creep in the windows. A single color presented itself. And our house sighed and silent tears started. Tears of gratefulness, of heartache soothed, of melting. Tears that taste all the more sweet for the time of bitter.

P.S. Anyone else feeling morose and wordy in the wake of this weather?! Forgive the melodrama!

Manna, Funnel Cakes, and Thankfulness

By: Abigail Dodds April 4, 2013July 2, 2016

body of Christ, culture, food, gratitudefood, gratitude9 Comments

We had funnel cakes on Good Friday.

They made me think of manna. Then I thought of the state fair and how much I enjoy the taste of funnel cakes and all the other foods to be had there and I wondered what manna tasted like. “Now the house of Israel called its name manna. It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.” Exodus 16:31

Psalm 78 describes manna as the “grain of heaven” and in Numbers we’re told that they would grind it up and make cakes out of it.

And I thought of the mass complaining/justifying/scorning/indulging that goes along with something as silly as fair food. Manna would never pass muster among today’s diet gurus, it would take its place among the naughty fair food. A single grain? Made into a cake? With sugar on top? No way, no how. It didn’t pass muster for the Israelites either. They were so over this “grain from heaven.”

“Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, “Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.” (Numbers 11:4-6, ESV)

The Egyptian diet–now there’s a diet conscientious Christians of the 21st century could get behind: fish for free, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic! Sounds like something from the food network in Greece! Let me at those omega 3 fats! And I’m guessing it all came with non-GMO labels to boot.

The Israelites grumbled so much that God finally gave them some meat to eat. Finally some protein. But it didn’t work out quite how they’d hoped. “Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat. You shall not eat just one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but a whole month, until it comes out at your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before him, saying, “Why did we come out of Egypt?” (Numbers 11:18-20, ESV)

When I think of the forceful health movements out there today–the ones that reject a large portion of the food sold at the nearest supermarket as “poison”, I think of the Israelites scorning the manna. Here, in our supermarket, is a place filled to the brim with the answered prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread..” and it isn’t good enough. Here are our “vats bursting with wine..” and we just want to lament over the nutrition label. Gratitude is about as far from our lips as it was the Israelites. Instead we relish our scorn and discontentedness and superiority over all the ignorant ones actually buying the funnel cake mix from aisle 7.

Now I can hear someone objecting saying, “Well, any food that came straight from heaven would have been nutritionally perfect, so there’s no way I would have rejected that. It would have miraculously had every component necessary for healthful eating, because God is perfect.” I wouldn’t argue with that necessarily, although I don’t think it’s a given.

And here’s something I know for sure, straight from Jesus’ mouth, “Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and they died.” Wait, what? They ate a nutritionally perfect food from heaven and still died? Yep. Well, I’m sure they didn’t die from cancer at least. It was probably just from natural old age. Some maybe, but not all. A whole bunch of them died from God’s wrath being kindled against their ungratefulness and he sent a plague and they died.

The point of all this is not a new diet fad. I’m not advocating a diet of manna-like food over and above any other food. I’m not telling you to eat a funnel cake. (Although they are wonderful and my heart rejoiced at the good God who provided it!)

My point is a caution against complaining and ungratefulness. I’ve heard Christians talk about how the food of decades gone by was so much better for us than the food we have available to us now. How the food we have is bad for us–the food other generations had is what we need to get back to. I myself have wondered if this is could be true and fretted ungratefully at the thought. It sounds so much like the Israelites wishing to go back to Egypt and the food of Egypt. God has provided us food. Today. In greater quantities and qualities than many of the past centuries. Yet, we spend our time grumbling under the guise of responsible eating, posting articles on how horrible and poisonous our food is, how evil the people who’ve provided it are, and lamenting for a by-gone era.

The Right Food has become a savior. The paleo diet is what will now save us from disease. And let’s not forget that just 20 years ago it was the no-fat diet that was going to save us. Diabetes, heart disease, cancer, thyroid problems, migraines, infertility are all just a result of our poisonous food. Our sin against God has little to do with it. Sometimes I get the feeling that for the die-hard health-foodies, Sin= bad food. Bad food is sin. It is the cause of all our problems. Oh, and all the behavior and learning problems your kid is having? That’s because of the sin-food you’ve been feeding him since he was in the womb. There’s a recipe for either crushing guilt on the one hand or insufferable self-congratulations on the other.

The cure for sickness is some sort of “pre-fall” diet. Yet, we will all die. Even more, this attitude is slap in the face to the real Savior. “And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.” (Matthew 4:23 ESV) How do we overcome disease? By dying and being raised with him on the last day. How do we endure behavioral problems and fatigue and the stomach flu, again? By his death for our death, His life for our life. We live in the already-not-yet kingdom. All things will be made new and the heart where His Spirit reigns is patient heart, eagerly awaiting this conquering and overcoming newness, not demanding disease-free living now.

I have been preached to and evangelized for the cause of healthful, disease-free eating by Christian women as frequently as I’ve been encouraged and admonished in the Lord. This should not be so.

Listen to the Real Savior:

“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6:48-51, ESV)

“Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:26-29, ESV)

The antidote to ungrateful, savior-seeking health obsessions is Jesus, the living bread that has come down from heaven. My encouragement to my own heart and hopefully to yours, is this: The LORD has numbered our days. They are written in his book. We cannot, by our striving, add one healthful day to our lives or our children’s lives. Instead we must “believe in him whom he has sent.”

You might think this attitude fatalistic and irresponsible, as though I’m taking all human responsibility out of the equation. Yet, the Lord holds us responsible for our sin. I understand what sin is by looking to the Word, not listening to what the culture tells me is good and bad about food. Not giving thanks to God for His gifts? Definitely a sin. Eating with thanksgiving, whether it’s a funnel cake or gluten-free-flax seed muffin? Not a sin, rather, a requirement.

The kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink. We may place perfectly healthy food in our mouth and then out of that same mouth spew hateful talk to our children, our husband, our God. We may spend hours sweating at the gym so that we can be as healthy as can be, then let the poison of sin reign and rule as we secretly view porn or watch smutty TV. This, my friends, is NOT healthy living.

And I ask this: what delights God more? A grateful heart enjoying a funnel cake every single night or a superior, self-justified, heart strictly adhering to man-made rules. And maybe you’re in the category of the grateful and happy, no-axe-to-grind, yet-strictly-following-a-paticular-diet-kind-of-heart. And to that I say, Amen. Praise God!

Let’s agree to this diet-lovers and free-wheelers like myself: let’s give thanks to God for all his good gifts. Even for funnel cakes. Let’s praise him that there is food on the table–whether it’s GMO or not. Let’s honor Him for answering our prayers and giving us this day our daily bread. Let’s tell the world about this lavish and generous God who showers us with The Living Bread from heaven– His Son, Jesus.

P.S. As I was writing this I came across two great articles on this topic: here and here.

Swallowing Death

By: Abigail Dodds March 30, 2013March 30, 2013

body of Christ, gratitude, photographyresurrectionLeave a Comment

Jesus, Bread and Easter: Give the Children Something GOOD to Taste

By: Abigail Dodds March 29, 2013

body of Christ, everyday, family, food, gratitudebread, children, Easter, resurrection2 Comments

This has been a crazy Easter season. The day we found out we were having a little boy, we also signed an agreement to sell our house. After devoting my life to a “show-ready” house and battling with the trials of pregnancy, there is nothing I’d love more than a laid back, contemplative Easter season.

Alas, the Lord has other ways to reveal His glory than in stillness alone. He also shows up when we’re doing our jobs, cleaning, schooling, working hard, feeding mouths.

Thursday was just such a day. We had to be out of the house for hours for an inspection. My folks are so gracious and let us come hang out at their place whenever we have to be gone for a showing etc. The night before I’d made dough for bread that has to rise overnight. So, I baked it just before we left and brought it along with us for lunch.

On the way over to my folks, I thought that the crusty bread would be a perfect way to illustrate the whole Easter story and we could still eat it for lunch.

Here’s what we did. We cut the loaf about 1/3 of the way in, then we tore out all the hot delicious innards and ate them.

My kids like it plain, with occasional dips of nutella. I like mine with PB and honey.

While we were doing this we talked about the Last Supper and how Jesus called himself the Bread of Life. How he said things like, “This is my body, broken for you.” The bread tasted wonderfully, as warm bread tends to do. This is an essential part of teaching my kids. If it tastes bad, how can they have a foundation to understand, “Taste and see that the Lord is good…”?

The big part of the bread crust becomes the tomb, the smaller portion becomes the stone that covers the tomb.

We saved a chunk of bread and Eliza fashioned a little man out of it.

When we got home that evening, the kids found sticks from the dead flower bed remnants and we made crosses, tied up with yarn.

It sat on the counter Thursday night, as I pondered how to set it up properly. Today the kids enacted Jesus on the cross and put him in the tomb. Then tonight, I pulled out some river rocks and serving tray and arranged it so that the crosses would stand up. The bread tomb is on a green towel, to look like a small hill.

This is the little “project” that isn’t. It isn’t anything at all, but real life. Real bread that we were making, a real meal that we were eating, to remind us of our real Savior. This isn’t a show put on for kids. This isn’t different from the truth that we live in every single day. This is His body, broken for us.

This is our table where we gather to enjoy gifts from His hand. Won’t you taste and see this Easter? He is GOOD.

The Not-So-Pitiful Truth

By: Abigail Dodds March 14, 2013February 20, 2016

family, gratitudemothering14 Comments

A dear friend recently loaned me a book called, Stepping Heavenward: One Woman’s Journey to Godliness, by Elizabeth Prentiss written in the mid-1800’s. It has been highly enjoyable and insightful. It is the fictional diary of a woman from her youth through her marriage, subsequent motherhood and many shattering trials.

At one part of the main character’s journal she has just had her third child and meets with some unpleasantness from her less than approving sister-in-law. She addresses this situation so perfectly that I had to retell it here:

“Martha takes a most prosaic view of this proceeding, in which she detects malice prepense on my part. She says I shall now have one mouth the more to fill and two feet the more to shoe, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure or visiting, reading, music, and drawing.

Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worth all it will cost.. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ’s name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother’s heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!”

She describes just how I feel with the coming of our 5th child. Having been parted from one in miscarriage before Evangeline and having weaned and quieted my soul as we asked and waited for this one, it feels a great privilege to be tired and sick from pregnancy.

In my Father’s world, in his Book, it is understood what a blessing these little ones are. Who could think of pitying the woman so blessed? Who could pity a woman with so much potential and clay under her roof?

Some pity is a kind of shocked compassion that cannot fathom what a life so spent for others must be like. This pity is confounded as to what such a life might be like. It is baffled and a little scared and therefore, pitying. It actually worries that you aren’t taking enough time for yourself and that your personal growth will be stunted by so much sacrifice (is there any other way to grow than to sacrifice for others?!). Another form of pity is laced with disdain and condescension. The kind of pity that feels badly that you are so dumb as to have got yourself into such a mess. Don’t you know what causes those?!

Both kinds of pity feel bizarre when expressed to the woman who could not have dared to hope for such blessings and is being poured out and sacrificing, yes, but is reaping the reward of laughter and learning and youthfulness all around. And more so, has found the deep satisfaction of teaching Christ’s ways all day and night to these ripe minds and tender souls. Could anything else be as fulfilling? Difficulties come, long days are many, but the acknowledgement of it isn’t a complaint, but a reality. It’s God’s will.

Bodies may be spent, faces may be tired, time may be pinched, but deep joy is there–not always chipper, but real. So when I meet with pity or disdain for the life of mothering and teaching and training and sacrificing for, Lord willing, 5 souls, may I be as dumbfounded as ever.

Sending Out Roots

By: Abigail Dodds March 5, 2013March 5, 2013

body of Christ, photographyJeremiah 17, photography2 Comments

May our roots always be drinking deeply at the stream of Jesus.

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose trust is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
(Jeremiah 17:7-8 ESV)

Developing All My Second Bests

By: Abigail Dodds February 5, 2013February 5, 2013

blogging, body of Christ, gratitudeG.K. Chesterton, gratitude, homemaking2 Comments

G.K. Chesterton says in his Emancipation of Domesticity, that a woman who has made the home her domain, “may develop all her second bests.”

I just love that. It is a happy happy thing.

I’m not the best at anything. I’m not a professional anything. I’m not being falsely modest, nor am I saying that I’m terrible at everything. I’m simply saying my duties are broad and therefore, it’s hard to get narrow in the way professionals do. I’m a stay-home mom who loves to write, take pictures, knit, and does none of them all too well. I mother, teach, cook, clean, train, love–and as much as I’d like to be a contestant on The Taste, they’d probably be appalled by my Minnesota Taco.

I laugh when I think of holding up what I do next to what someone I admire does. Every now and then I write something that feels insightful (to me) about parenting or some such thing, only to read a book on parenting that says everything I could have wanted to say and with all the grace and humor I so rarely am able to say it with! Thank you Rachel Jankovic!

And yet, I’m undeterred in my 4 year (thus far) blogging adventure. Wonderful blogs and incredible parenting books haven’t pushed me to quit. Why? Because being the best isn’t what matters. Using my gifts does though.

Writing is a way for me to take a step in the right direction. It’s a step of faith. It’s taking a seed and planting it–it’s not looking at the seed someone else planted and the subsequent mighty oak or blossoming cherry and thinking, “I don’t imagine I’ll ever be something that great, so I guess I’ll just hold on to this seed.” I don’t need to be great! God is great! And He intends for me to be spent in the strength He supplies. He’ll take care of the outcomes.

God is a God of small beginnings. He’s not disappointed at all my second bests, he’s enabling them! Indeed, Chesterton says that, “there must be in every center of humanity one human being upon a larger plan; one who does not “give her best,” but gives her all.”

So, I give my all in my writing, although I may never have time to make it my best (which would be significantly worse than many other’s trash bin of edits!), and I give my all in cooking (though I learn by hook or by crook in puddleglum fashion), and in parenting (a sticky mountain of dishes and laundry washed daily with grace, and sometimes soap), in homeschooling (though there will always be million good things that we can’t do), in taking pictures (I know nothing and can never promise results), in knitting and crocheting (my ornament creations were ridiculous and so-noted), in cleaning and organizing (chuckle, I do try!), in music (because not everyone can be great, we need someone to make the sopranos feel good) and in a million other things where I’m putting myself out there, knowing full well that life isn’t the kind of competition that you have to come in first in order to count.

I count because I’m numbered among the counted–it’s all Him. So bring on the freedom of second bests. I’ve been called to serve in one hundred interesting and mundane ways through this life of domesticity and mothering. I get to engage them all, by God’s grace, whether I shine or squeak by.

The world is full of talented people, by God’s design and kindness. He’s given me a portion to work with–I’m not going to sit on it because it isn’t as big as the next person’s. Some people out there have a whole mountain of raw material to work with and they’re making mud pies with the manure. Others have attempted to fertilize 1000 acres of corn with their small round manure hill of abilities. And if my small beginning should have a small middle and a small ending, He’s the God of that too.

My last name means, “small round hill,” or “small round man,” –the translation’s a bit tricky, being of English origin naturally. All I know is I’m going to give my all with the small round hill o’ Dodds that I’ve got.

Hobbits are surprising little things, after all.

The Advent of the Son and the Spirit

By: Abigail Dodds December 19, 2012December 19, 2012

body of Christ, everyday, gratitude, photographyadvent, the Spirit of GodLeave a Comment

Jesus came to earth as a tiny baby, in the winter of our lives. He came to us while we were yet sinners. He came to those who are sick and needing a doctor. He came for the moms needing a shower, bodies spent, and hearts in knots for their children. He was waited for and waited for, and then Zachariah held him in his arms; he came.

Jesus coming and dying and living again began another advent: the advent of the Spirit of God, who lives with us and comforts us in all our affliction and guides us in all our ways. The Spirit who gives peace in the face of war, who gives meekness in the face of slander, who gives a gentle answer in the face of human wrath. Yes, the Spirit is so dear and so close–and it is the Spirit of Jesus Himself.

For Jesus was sent by God and utters the words of God and Jesus gives the Spirit without measure (John 3:34). Jesus isn’t meting out the Spirit. “Here’s your daily allowance, daughter, two cups and no more–so you better have an average sort of day, nothing requiring too much help.” No! He just gives and gives. He doesn’t keep track.

Comfort without measure, guidance without measure, peace without measure.

That’s our God–so unlike my natural tendency to keep all amounts in check, everything in moderation. We don’t want too much of a good thing and I also don’t want to give of myself that way. “I’ve done enough for today, children, my apportioned giving is plum given out!” But not my God. My God is a lavish and generous God. He gives of Himself without measure. And as He gives of Himself He enables me to pour out in unmeasured ways to others. That is a miracle of the Spirit. Praise His Name.

So as I remember the Advent of the Son, my salvation, Jesus, I also remember the Advent of the Spirit, my comfort and counselor, who Jesus gives to me without measure, gusting winds of life that no one sees, and yet there I am, suspended in air by the strength and miracle of the Spirit.

An Everlasting Rock

By: Abigail Dodds December 18, 2012December 18, 2012

gratitude, photographyhymns, photography, the WordLeave a Comment

1. Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee;
let the water and the blood,
from thy wounded side which flowed,
be of sin the double cure;
save from wrath and make me pure.

2. Not the labors of my hands
can fulfill thy law’s commands;
could my zeal no respite know,
could my tears forever flow,
all for sin could not atone;
thou must save, and thou alone.

3. Nothing in my hand I bring,
simply to the cross I cling;
naked, come to thee for dress;
helpless, look to thee for grace;
foul, I to the fountain fly;
wash me, Savior, or I die.

4. While I draw this fleeting breath,
when mine eyes shall close in death,
when I soar to worlds unknown,
see thee on thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee.

-text by Augustus M. Toplady (1740-1778)