Open Spaces

Open Spaces

By John W. Vander Velden

February 29, 2020

Vol.: 20.2

With February as good as behind us, the winter is winding down. Are you ready for spring? I'm not certain I am. Don't get me wrong I’m not a fan of the cold. Frozen pipes and icy roads do no equate to fun times, but spring brings a list of “to dos” of its own. So maybe we should enjoy the season we're in, don’t you think.

I recently participated in a local Author’s Fair, my first. That event was, like so many things lately, a learning experience. I met some interesting people and reestablished a connection with one of my brother’s school chums. He had moved away several years ago and had recently returned to the area. It was good seeing him and meeting his wife.

Things like that remind me how the unexpected happens to us from time to time. Unexpected occurrences can be good or, well, not so good. Things happen. But I have learned that our lives are shaped by how we respond to the events we face. How we handle the expected things, and how we respond to the stuff that comes at us out of the blue. Good stuff and, like I said before, the not so good stuff.

Enough philosophizing for today.

So what does next month have in store for the author part of me? Well, I was asked to speak to a book club. I’m thrilled that The Argos Page Turners chose Misty Creek for their February read. So on March 10th I'll be joining the group to discuss MY book. It's another first for me and I’m excited. Then on the 12th I will be having an Author’s event in the Plymouth, Indiana, Library. Stop by if you’re in the neighborhood. 

So friends I hope February was good for you.  My wish for you and yours is a great month ahead filled with health and happiness. 

Blessings,

John

Beyond Youthful Imaginings

Beyond Youthful Imaginings

John W. Vander Velden

2/7/2020

Another birthday approaches and it has made wonder.

How on earth did I get here?

Fifty years have passed since my cake held eighteen candles, when my primary concerns included registering with Selective Service, that’s the draft. I was only given a few days to deliver myself to the office in LaPorte and deal with the demanded paperwork. That year college lay before me with high school graduation only months away. But what I had visualized of my future...well...today those expectations seem but silly dreams of my youthful self.

I never could have known the journey on which the years of my life would lead me. Did I even suspect that my life’s work would include tending soil and livestock, when my planned studies were in a total different universe?

Impossible!

Could I have imagined that I would one day own the property, the farm land, which I have over so many years, saved and sacrificed to gather beneath my control?

No! Though the farm is not a massive amount of property, but it belongs to Jackie and me.

Could I have expected to live in a community that at eighteen I barely knew existed? But here I am, a resident in Marshall County for nearly forty-eight years.

Did my mind grasp that I would have a son, strong, well, and tall, an engineer, a self-sufficient man building his own life? 

No, that was far beyond the imaginings of my high school self.

Did I predict that somehow in an insanely busy life I would manage to write books, that a day would come when I had two published and available to the world?

Naw...not a chance!

But most of all could I have predicted that through that journey I would at last meet a wonderful person, a beautiful woman, kind, caring and capable, that would somehow see more in me than I saw in myself? Did I at eighteen even believe that I would one day be worthy? Perhaps somewhere in the foggy edges of possibilities perhaps I expected one day I would marry.

But never in my wildest imaginings would those thoughts come anywhere close to the reality I wake up to each morning.

GOD has had his hand upon me, even all those years I did not notice. And he has helped me on this road I call my life. And on that road he has allowed me successes, and has helped me through the hard times, the setbacks, the illnesses, the losses, the pain, and the disappointments as well. And now as I look back at sixty-eight years I thank HIM for those years one and all. For the great ones, for the ones that were not so great and even for the really difficult ones. For I have endured, and more, and become the man I am. And hopefully the man I have become is worthy of Jackie’s devotion, my son’s respect, and my GOD’s love. For though I have GOD’s love no matter what, my love for the Master of the Universe, for the SON that saves me, for the SPIRIT that surrounds me, makes me hope that in some small way I serve GOD and the growth of HIS kingdom.

So I stand upon the sixty-eight years I have lived and look forward. Knowing what lies ahead is not only beyond my youthful imaginings, but beyond what the man that stands here now is able to visualize. Yet there is one thing I know without a doubt. That though the road before me is hidden within the swirling mist of years, as I move forward, I will never walk that road alone.