I Wish You Well

  Why do you visit me here at SoulShineThrough? Is it the words I write, the pictures I post? Are you often lonely like me? Blogging is a funny thing because you write what you write and you post what you post and click publish and then there it is...just out there for anyone to see! I can see that people from all different parts of this big wide world stumble across this space at different moments in their lives ~ so welcome!

 Today I wanted to wish you beauty and moments where you eyes shine. As time goes on we potentially lose our child like wonder. My husband and I were talking about what the world would be like if we acted like our two year old. When he is happy he screams with laughter and when he is excited he gives his all to express that joy. There is no sedately tiptoeing through a puddle. He jumps up and down with all he's got. We as adults do not lose the need for our eyes and hearts to be filled with that wonder. Often though it feels like everything is working against us to take any desire or energy to find and experience that wonder. Today I wish you clear minds and then happy thoughts to fill it. I wish you comfort when you are sad, nurture when you are sick, and always feelings of connection and love with those close to you....this is your responsibility to create and to bring about. I wish you so many moments of soul filling awe from the creation that is all around you. If you live somewhere that lacks color and beauty fill up whatever space you call your own with it. Find out what you love....lighthouses or flowers or Buttercup fields...whatever it is!!! and remember you could fill up your space with that life. You are worth love and you are worth deep joy. The other day it had been so hot out. We have some fans in our house that move the hot air around but I felt sapped of energy and just so tired and void of color. As the sun set I started to open all the windows and doors and realized how cool it was outside compared to the inside of the house. My husband and I had gotten the children to bed and my sister was home to keep them safe so my husband and I went for a little walk. I wish I could express how that cool breeze felt on my skin. I felt at once lighter and happier and a sense of relief and I had a moment of that child like wonder ~ that pure joy. I wish that for you today ~ a lifting of any heaviness. Love Tansy

The Broken Way Part One

   Since Christmas I have been given three copies of the book 'The Broken Way ~ a daring path into abundant life' by Ann Voskamp. She also wrote the book 'One Thousand Gifts' which I read a few years ago. I had looked through this new book multiple times, read different pages, however I had not committed to letting the words really steep into me. Ann Voskamp writes with a lot of layers and a lot of depth; if you are going to read her book, really read it, it is going to strike some chord in you somewhere because she writes truth. You need to be able to quiet yourself and focus or it will feel like too much. Two other times I have been given three copies of a certain book so I felt like it was obvious it was a book I really was supposed to read. Each time after reading the book I felt a shifting and new revelation for my life. I also was able to give the extra copies to others. I feel ready now to start reading this book with pencil in hand to underline things that stand out to me. I have only read chapter one and some of chapter two so far. The first chapter is called 'What to Do with Your One Broken Heart.' I thought as I read through this book I'd share some quotes from it. I feel like most of the book could be quoted. That is just how she writes.

'He is making all things new. 
So how do you silence the demon-lies that wont stop crawling up the sides of your mind and really believe that? How do you bind up the slow bleeding of your one broken heart and still believe wounded warriors win, still believe that there is no remission of sins or the crossing of finish lines without things getting downright bloody, still believe that scars and wounds and broken places might become you and become who you are? And maybe this is how all the brokenhearted misfits finally fit....what do you do if you're struggling to remember who you really are?'

'Great grief isn't made to fit inside your body. It's why your heart breaks. If you haven't felt this yet, it may be, God forbid, that someday you will. There's absolutely no tidy pattern as to who gets pain and who gets peace.'

'Maybe the love gets in easier right where the heart's broke open.'

'There is no growth without change, no change without surrender, no surrender without wound- no abundance without breaking. Wounds are what break open the soul to plant the seeds of a deeper growth.'

As you read these words do you feel an upwelling of some sort from deep in you? Those demon lies that wont stop? That great grief that has shattered your heart? The no change without surrender? I get all of this and this is me. So we'll see where reading this book takes me ~ it will take me along 'The Broken Way' I guess ~ I mean I am already there but maybe I am a bit lost just now and this book will help me find my way back.
xo

Resting

  These days weekends have been my saving grace. I spend a lot of time lying in bed resting. Children come in and out of my room every couple minutes but by the end of Sunday I feel the strength to do another week. This weekend as I sat in my bed in some relentless and welcome Spring heat I wrote this down.

Fluttering leaves, paper thin, elegant movement
On the tallest tree I can see from my window
Delicate bracelets on my wrist
A loose linen dress so I can manage the heat
And bare unadorned toes
The children sticky and drooping in this Spring heat
Farmers gather sweet dried grass
In squares! Hay for the future
Tiny spears of corn bravely beginning their journey
Across the road
The fan ceaselessly rustling air around me
And rumpled old quilts on the bed
An ease from hard days and sad restless thoughts
A peace filled moment to be treasured
Where my mind feels composed
And all that was too much yesterday
So sharp and seemingly grim
Has faded to smallness
I have come to hold these peace filled moments
Tenderly in my heart
They can flit away so quickly
And then the cascade that was stopped is again released
And I can barely breathe
But for now
The chrysanthemum blue cushion
On the green velvet chair
And the smell of baking biscuits
Baby birds calling to their mother
And wilted warm yellow poppies on my windowsill
Bring life to my eyes
A smile to my lips
And illumination to my soul

Tansy Elgersma

Birds

  The sounds of tiny birds singing in the dark came to me as I nursed my baby this morning. He has been mostly sleeping through the night lately and it has been miraculous. Little did I know that just a few hours later I would be woken to find that a tiny bird had gotten in our house! There was very little drama. My oldest daughter remained calm and cool, problem solved well, and the little thing, after flying into the windows, eating a resident spider, and pooing in our front entry, eventually flew out one of our sliding glass doorways. What a relief.

  I have had a bird in my house by accident twice before when we lived on our farm. Twice birds flew down our chimney and were stuck in our wood stove. How they had managed this I am not entirely sure but they had. Each time we closed all our blinds and opened the nearest door and tried to shield the area with a blanket. The bird burst out of the stove black and covered in soot and few straight out the doorway to freedom.

 Yesterday I set up hummingbird feeders for the first time and this morning one had found them. I was so glad. We have so many birds that frequent our yard because the couple that lived here before us had so many bird feeders set up and loved birds so beautifully. We have tried to do what we could to also keep them coming. There is just something so precious about birds!
 
Yesterday when I was on my deck I could hear baby birds that have hatched in one of our bird houses calling to their mother in their frail baby voices. She was busily winging along bringing them food as often as she could. When I sent my mom and husband out to listen they could not hear them.

  I feel like a lot of times no one can hear my voice but God. No one else really needs to ~ sometimes I want them to but often there is no one that can take the time. However if someone created these birds so beautifully ~ full of song, brilliant color, able to soar and flit and float, capable of building such intricate and beautiful places to bear young ~ well that someone must pay the closest possible attention to detail imaginable. So I have to believe he is paying attention to me. Have a lovely day. May you enjoy the songs of birds and feel the warmth of the sun on your skin. xo

How Life Sometimes Is

  This morning I had a new professional come to my house. She is a Behavior Consultant and she is needed because my son has an Individualized Education Plan and a Psych Ed Assessment which has come with certain labels which provides us with certain government funding around school and we have to have a certain amount of professionals in our lives to keep our school funding. I have had many professionals come into my home over the years. These are total strangers that I open my door to and choose to tell a lot of my life story to. I don't know anything about them other than their label and name.
  This has happened since the very beginning of my parenting journey when my husband and I had a home assessment done in order to be able to adopt our daughter. After that there were social workers and birth family and so many other people that came into my home. At that time I just accepted it and did my best. However as time has gone on I am starting to realize what a toll it takes. These sweet people mean the best but they come and go as their job dictates. My life is often lonely and these people are payed to try to help me cope and live life better. They are payed to give me advice. However they have to know me first in order to help. How intense is that?
  Today I was telling this new lady my life story minutes after she sat down on my swivel chair with the floral pillow at her back. She was sweet and kind and the children were polite to her and then went their ways and there I was and I was once again sharing it all. My story is not an easy one. It is unique to me as all our stories are. However when I tell it again it brings it up fresh. All the hard things I have journeyed through. All the loss I have experienced. I also realize how far this family has come and how far I as an individual have come. I realize the sacrifices I have made, how much I have had to change, how much I have learned.
  So I do this over and over each time someone new comes and each time I am left at home and they leave and go on to another family, another hour of their job. I often wonder how my story has impacted them? Do I really matter? Am I just another dollar figure to them? Does the fact that I am willing to be vulnerable, cry the first time we ever meet, share my beliefs...does it even matter? And when they move on and never see me again do they ever think of me? Do they ever wonder how I am doing? If my marriage has survived or if my children are thriving?
  If you do not have special needs children in your life, if you have never adopted, if you have not gone through much trauma or never needed specific professionals in your life you can't imagine what this is like and that is okay. Actually no one in my life can imagine how things have been for me because only I have lived this. Some may have an inkling because of similar experiences but a lot of people just do not have a clue. Insight into my loneliness.
  So another new beginning with another new worker. I hope for the best. I hope she really sees me, sees my family, really hears my story and I hope she will be an another beautiful piece of thread in this tapestry that is my life.
  The children are playing out side throwing their slightly deflated basketball in a plastic bucket they had their father cut the bottom out of and mount on a pillar in front of our house. My six year old has her dolly out with her carefully dressed in a rain coat and boots. They are all on the look out for spiders because my ten year old is studying them right now. Spiders are met with a lot of excitement around here right now and any found in the house are carefully caught and released free and safe outside. I managed to feed everyone breakfast but now it is lunch time. I am drained from my two hour session of baring my soul.
Onwards and upwards I go. I hope you have a happy day.
xo
  

Thoughts By a Meadow

 Thoughts by a meadow~

Nature has no problem with touch.
Ferns, grasses, Dandelion, Buttercup ~ they all intermingle
The massive stump of an elderly tree
Gives nourishment to Evergreen and Walnut together
Foxgloves, Bleeding Hearts, and Poppies sway together in the breeze
Leaves share their branches freely
It all sustains each other
The connection is beyond comprehension
From the caterpillar that needs the leaf
To the worm providing oxygen to the roots
And the bird eating the worm and also planting seeds
And this I think is what we were meant for
This immense connection
This sustaining of and giving to each other
From the flowering Magnolia tree to the vibrant Dandelion
To the mighty Oak and gnarled Apple Tree
It all constantly gives to its environment
And that is what we can do as well
It is what we must do
Plant generosity
Color, nurture, beauty
To be given to
To feed your soul
Nourish your spirit
To give all you have to give
To be all that you can be
As is lived out for you
So clearly
All around you in total harmony and freedom
Nature's touch

Revived

Sunlit valleys
Seen below
A hillside full of ferns
Unfurling in newness
Tree trunks so thick around
Covered in green garments of moss
Bleeding Hearts thick on the ground
Dimly outlined paths
And peace all around
A bubbling path side stream
The particular sound of a Woodpecker's beak in motion
Gentle rustle and whisper of the breeze
Delicate imprints of forest dwellers on the path
Buds in bloom awaiting a Bees kiss of life
The sound wings make as a bird takes flight
Stumps with fairy hollows
Glades of breath catching beauty
There is nothing that mars this
My thoughts quiet
My heart pumps my life's blood
Through my veins
And I can feel it
I breath in the clean air
The scents of the forest
And I am revived
There is so much unity here
It is the feeling I crave
All working in unison to give and take and grow
And it gives to me to, takes from me
Helps me grow
The Ferns, the fairy hollows, the trees

Tansy Elgersma

Beauty for Your Day

                                      Some beauty for your day today from me to you xo

 

Heaven

  I sat on a pew one day. I was at the launch of a book of letters that my friend's mother in law had translated and put together. It was following the story of a Mennonite family that had escaped the brutality that was happening in Russia not all that long ago. A bit of the story was told to a church filled with many people. There was a mixed crowd there but I saw many white heads. At the end of it all the author had someone play a hymn. It was haunting and beautiful and as it was being played suddenly I felt something I have only felt a couple of times. It was like everyone's spirits lifted up and joined hands. As the music kept playing people started to weep and no one could sing but everyone started humming in beautiful harmony. So many people in that room had lived that story. It was part of their family history and they all took a moment to feel something that was centered deeply, so deeply, in their souls. I sat there overcome. I felt such a moment of harmony and collective spirit. To lift voices together in grief, for everyone to feel so deeply as one in that moment was so transformative. Maybe there is a time in your life you have felt that? Maybe you forgot about it and this has helped you remember.

I just wonder if one day Heaven will be like that.

 We are often lonely here. So many people go through such hard tragic things and they have to keep going. They might be able to grieve, to wail, to stop for a while but nothing around them stops and so then they have to keep on. Do we really realize how many people have traveled the same road?
I forget, I tell myself it isn't true, I tell myself that it is just me. It is not.

 In that church, on that pew, I felt for a moment what it would be like if people were able to be united in vulnerability, in truth, in their feelings. It is the most impacting most profound feeling. In Heaven I think the pain of this World will be cleansed away but the beauty that pain produced will be shining in a way we didn't realize it could. I think we will be able to feel what I only got a glimpse of during that moment when the hymn was being played.

  I experienced this feeling one other time with the same amount of clarity. I was at a gathering of Youth With a Mission Leaders from all over the world. At the beginning of the meeting a First Nations Elder stood up and prayed in his First Language. After he prayed a hush fell and some of my First Nations friends came out the front of the room. They were wearing the garments of their ancestors and they started to dance. This was the first time in their lives they had ever been able to dance the dances of their ancestors in front of people who believed in God and not feel judged or wrong. They were celebrating the culture that God had given them. They were drumming and singing and once again something happened that was far deeper than anything physical and once again tears started to fall. No one could help it. There was such power in what they were doing, such a deep healing in their expression of beauty and power. I cry as I write because the healing and peace that was in that room, the exaltation and joy as well, the triumph of the acceptance as well. It was good.

  When I go into the mountains, when I look around me at Creation I can see it too. Everything works in harmony. In my favorite meadow there is a massive tree trunk standing tall and it is dead. Out of it is growing two totally different trees. They are already stately and their roots are intertwined in the trunk. I see how everything works together in unity to create this sort of beauty that is not really describable but it so deeply healing when you take the time to take part in it. 

There is power in unity of spirit. It changes the world and it creates a kind of beauty that is the truest kind.

 

Lice and Mother's Day

  Happy Mother's day!!!!!! Question for you, have you ever had lice? I have more than once. I remember the first time I was probably about ten and the little neighbor girl down the road gave it to myself and my mom and siblings (I have four). I cringe thinking back to what my mom had to go through. I vaguely remember the battle to kill all the lice that had infested our long thick hair (I have three sisters) and bedding etc.

 Has your house ever been infested with fleas? I remember when I lived on the farm growing up there was an extended period of time where I always wore my black gum boots in my house and especially in my room and I only slept on my top bunk because our house and my room was infested with fleas. Fleas ignore black (hence the gum boots) and are drawn to white. We tried everything...we had night lights shining on white lids filled with water and soap and that got some, we had toxic powders we put on the old wooden floors that had wide cracks between each board, and we vacuumed and vacuumed the orange shag carpet (or was it green) but it was a losing battle. We probably eventually had to fumigate. My poor mom!

  Have you ever had pin worms? I have. It is just disgusting. End of story.

 Do you struggle with candida? I do.

  Have you ever moved your couch to vacuum underneath and realized there was a family of mice living IN it...and then realized your whole house was infested with mice? I have.

  Have you ever had hundreds of flies hatch in your house and also had your cupboards filled with those little white worms that infest every package of food you have?

  I have.

  Since I have had children I have lived the lice experience over again, the pin worms, the fleas, the mice...the flies were just a special experience I got to have as an adult. My living room and dining room were literally buzzing with hundreds of flies. My cousin who had grown up Gabon Africa was living with me at the time and thankfully was not as obviously freaked out as I was and helped kill them bless her heart.

  Carpenter ants? Have you had them? If you are wondering...yes I have had them in my house. They are a force to be reckoned with. 

  When fleas were jumping off me onto my bed...not so long ago...and I started to lose my mind...it brought back the memories of the black gum boots and I got out the flea traps and set them up and I was panicking...I realized that often I feel this way as a mother...

  ANYWAY where am I going with this.

  Life is life.

  It's got its ups and downs. I remember when my first born had gotten lice yet again and she was only two...she went around letting people know in such a cheerful upbeat voice that she had lice. She was pretty excited about it. I felt like shit.

  So often insecurity comes knocking. Everybody's insecurity is different but no less debilitating. For me I feel less than other people, dirty (house, clothes, children ~ I can't keep them clean no matter how hard I try), poor, uneducated,  stupid, not capable, uninteresting, you name it.

   It's a lie though you know? Lies! Yet very unrelenting one and they getcha when your weak!

   I feel so worthless these days and right now I am fighting it tooth and nail. I just don't want to feel less than other people. I don't want to just feel only worthy of cleaning toilets and changing diapers. I want to feel like being at home all day and not talking to other adults for hours at a time is not less than and ridiculous. I want to own this life, that I am choosing, better. I want to feel like what I do and what my husband does are completely equal even if I don't bring a paycheck home ~and that my voice matters. It is not easy.

I don't measure up to what Society says is valuable:

I don't work outside my home
My house is usually in shambles
The walls are dirty, floors, toilets...no pinterest moments here.
I am not in shape
I don't get my hair, eyebrows, nails...nothing done with any regularity
I don't shop for new clothes hardly ever which means I don't have a clue what the latest fashions are
I don't own a cell phone
I don't know how to use a computer hardly at all
I am in no club, no groups, no societies,
I don't volunteer at my daughter's school
You name it...I don't do it. I have not much to offer the world ~ at least to standards that are projected 'out there'

I am a mom

  I get up and nurse a two year old every morning and then change his dirty diaper. Then I make different breakfasts for four different children and drive one to school. I try to get a shower in at some point and I homeschool two children while the two year old mostly screams. I make snack, lunch, snack and do after school pick up all the while dreading what to make for dinner. I do laundry, wash dishes and read some chapters of a book or two to a child while the two year old often screams. I break up fights. I brush teeth, wash children's hair, cut their nails, listen to their stories, keep them hydrated. I do all the appointments, try to prepare them for the future, comfort them through their heartbreak. A couple times a week a friend might call and my husband might text me a time or two throughout the week. My sister lives with us so I will see her briefly before she heads off to work. However this job is a one woman show here. I make dinner on a good day. I will weed my garden if its not raining. I am usually tired. I do not do my hair or wear makeup. I wear the same sweat pants daily because they are comfortable and everything I do in the day feels more manageable if I am comfortable. When my husband gets home I can barely smile at him much less give him any attention because I have given my all already and I still need to do bed time and the night shift and get up and do it all over again. There is no glamor, no glory, not breaks, no real rest and every day every day every day...this is what I do.

Where is my worth?

Who am I?

A mother.
  
It is Mother's day on Sunday.

  I just want for that one day to feel good in my own skin. Like all the things that I feel ashamed about, less than, all those things...can just be stripped away and I can feel confident again. If I could meet the confident Tansy for a day...that would be...well..I don't have words.

   So in writing all this I am trying to say to myself...all the things I feel make me less than ARE a part of me ~ yes ~ and the choices I have made and the lifestyle I have ~ there are days when I feel confident and good about it and days when it all feels hopeless ~ and once again ~ I have the opportunity to open up, let the light in and see the sweetness and beauty in the drudgery. Focus in!  Kill the flies (or in my case right now deal with the sugar ants in the front entry), eat less sugar, throw out the worm infested bags, or do the lice treatments (metaphorically speaking) or whatever it is that needs to be done to work through the issues that are making me feel less than and worthless. I have done that before and I can do it again.

  Happy Mother's day to you. I hope you are feeling stronger than I at this moment. I hope your Mother's day leaves you feeling valued, encouraged, stronger, uplifted and more. Being a mother is the hardest job on this planet because it means the most. What you are doing in mothering your child or children is raising the next generation of your family line and that responsibility is like no other. You are shaping souls, but the process of that takes all you are if you are willing to give it. If you are feeling less than, looked down on, overwhelmed, discouraged, exhausted, forlorn, unhealthy, empty and yet you look around and know that this is what you need to do and you would not change it (although if you could go on a kid free vacation you'd go...like today); I am with you and you rock. If your Mother's day sucks....and lets face it...if you have young children...it often does...do something this week for you that lets you know your worth to yourself cause as much as I am not feeling it...I am worthy and I am going to do that!
Love you
Tansy

Wilderness Wooing

An excerpt from 'The Broken Way' by Ann Voskamp that might bless you today:

 'How many woods, how many wildernesses, had I found myself in? Had I known: God takes us into the wilderness not to abandon us - but to be alone with us? Wildernesses are not where God takes us to hurt us - but where He speaks to our hearts. Wildernesses can be safe because we are always safe when we are always with Him. Wildernesses can be where God woos. God had wooed me - wife of harlotry. I have cried in deserts, been revived by the caress of His grace.'

There is something freeing in accepting the fact that life will not be perfect and that it is not supposed to be. We think that we are owed certain things and that if we follow certain rules or guidelines or paths that things are supposed to do this or that and then they should be better or easier.

I was thinking about water and how it carves its own path and everything around it must submit. No matter how long a tree has been growing in the certain place, no matter how deep the roots, when the water comes it cannot stand but that is how it goes and that is okay.

How much better is it to fight the evil, to cling to the good, to surrender to the process, and to trust that you as an individual are worthy and loved that in the pain and the dark places you are never just on your own,

Every day I wake up and go about all I need to do to serve my family and every day I feel so alone and often it feels to me like how I would feel if I were lost in the wilderness. I know I am not. I can see my life, see the children sitting beside me but I feel alone. Reading the quote up above was beautiful for me and I hope as time goes on I can soak that into my marrow. In my lonesomeness there can be opportunity for God to woo me.

A couple weeks ago I was talking to my sister and she said something so profound.

She told me that every day I needed to go into my garden and ask God to romance me. I needed to ask him to love me and help me feel loved. I have tried to remember, have felt foolish in the asking, felt unworthy and yet have felt stubborn in that I WANT to feel romanced, I want to feel that wooing. Deep down don't we all?

There is a song

'I want to be romanced by the king of the ages
I don't want to sing of a passion I've never known
I want to get lost in the beauty of Jesus
To dance through the night
Around your throne'

And I do ~ I want to be romanced, I want to feel worthy, I want to feel like the wilderness is an invitation and I want to ~ as always ~ remember and hold that close
and so I write....

Soar to Freedom

 Wander Wild
Along a grassy slope
Do you need a hat?
Beautiful swishing skirt?
Or gum boots for your pleasure?
Wander Wild
Astride a strong smooth mare
Feeling the freedom of the expanse
Eyes soft with wonder
Colors so vibrant
Perfectly expressed
Exquisitely created for that purpose
To dazzle senses
Wander Wild
Wherever you may go
Soar to freedom
Unfettered from care

Tansy Elgersma

Spring Flowers

Come walk with me in my garden. The garden I did not plant or plan or cultivate. The garden that has been such a gift. Every day it brings me such joy.


This is behind my back yard. I love horses ~ owned one when I was younger and hope to one day own one again ~ so to be able to talk to them and see them grazing so close to my house is amazing.

If you click on these pictures they will go to full screen and you can see them better. Can you spy the little visitor?

This is a 'secret' pathway the children have cut through some trees on a little rock hill we have.

                                                       One of the ways into my back yard.

                                                        The other way into my back yard.

The burned hedge is such an eye sore. Please feel free to comment with any ideas as to what to do with that!