And just like that - we are Gerdes, party of seven!! You know when you’re 4 and you’re excited about being a “whole handful” when you turn 5? Well, I feel like I just turned 5 - a whole handful of treasure! It’s quite the adventure having a baby within the same week as you get a teenager. Our oldest turned 13 and seven days later, our youngest was born. To say we’re having … [Read more...]

It all happened one evening in April when my husband was at his men’s Bible Study. Shadows lengthened as the springtime sun descended. Winds whistled past our windows.  Trees branches bounced briskly in the strong breezes.  But inside our over 100-year-old dwelling, it was calm and comfortable. This old farmhouse has stood strong against many harsh storms over its six … [Read more...]

By Angela Denstad Time and again, life offers us opportunities to question what we thought we had already learned. We take as universal truth the stories we were told in childhood, or facts we were taught at school, and we fail to question them further. They remain fixed in our minds as the bricks out of which we construct reality. While it’s certainly helpful to have some … [Read more...]

By Angela Denstad Time and again, when life gets hard, little adages and bits of advice spring to mind. It’s tempting to gather them all together, reasoning there must be some greater truth to be compiled from all the individual bits of collective wisdom imparted to us over the course of our years. In difficult times, we seek solutions; in times of grief, we seek solace. And … [Read more...]

Spring showed up the way it always does out here – quiet at first, then all at once. One day the yard is still wearing winter like an old chore coat, and the next, we’re sending cows out to pasture and the machinery is coming out of the shed to stretch its legs. The alfalfa is in, the fields are flirting with dry enough to plant corn, and the cow’s wind-break barn curtains are … [Read more...]

He is Super Everywhere we look we can find evidence of a Super-Scientist, a Super-Planner, and a Super-Artist.  Although the word “super” means superior and extraordinary, it does not relate how really great God is.  But for the sake of this article, it will suffice.  He knows what our lives need to survive and provides them.  He makes the heavens work like clockwork.  He … [Read more...]

Guess what?! We’re a quarter finished with this trip around the sun! How’d it go? Usually I’d hate this question, and feel guilt from anyone who asks it, but I’d like to think I’m growing up, so I can ask myself the question without breaking out in hives.  Craig Groschel said that you cannot change what you have not defined, which is just a fancy way of saying you’ll be … [Read more...]

By Angela Denstad Time and again spring teases us along. It tempts tender green shoots out of the earth, brings back songbirds and waterfowl, coaxes us to forego our winter coats, if only for the day. But just as you soften into the fragile newness of rebirth, winter blankets us again. Such a fickle season!  A far cry from winter’s predictable celebrations, the Easter … [Read more...]

Making syrup has always been intriguing to me. Is it true there could be so much goodness flowing through the trunks of trees? I had been hearing tales of tapping for several weeks. Those die-hard sappers kept telling stories of the woods. Their stories, and my love of syrup, kept calling me to give it a try. There’s that old saying, “When the cat’s away, the mice come out … [Read more...]