The Joy of life is God, Family, and Books. And, of course, Dragons.
Author: wordworkerrussell
I'm a homeschool mom of five, three girls and two boys. I'm a daughter of the King who works hard to keep her family living as close to God as we can. God created a world perfectly designed to provide everything we need, and designed us to reflect Him throughout it.
Writing is my happy place. I have always loved stories and words because they express the human spirit so beautifully. A story can speak many messages, each received by the reader as needed or understood by individual experiences. I hope that my stories, both true and fantasy, speak to you in some way.
She trailed her fingers along the wooden bannister, stepping carefully to avoid tripping over the litter of decay. The air smelled faintly musty, but the open front door lit up the foyer with clear sunlight. She turned and grinned at her companions.
Chuck groaned. “I know that look,” he told the real estate agent with a dramatic droop. “Honey, did you have to pick the dump?”
“Don’t call it a dump!” she pleaded, laughing. “Look at the lines; it’s a beautiful old house!” She gestured to the agent standing just inside the door. “Tell him how special it is.”
“A historical gem, really,” the woman agreed in a tone just a little too bright. “A bit closed off for modern tastes, of course, but a few walls could easily be removed.” She stepped gingerly over scattered glass from a broken window, forgetting to hide a grimace.
Honey followed her, peering into the dim interior of the front room. “Look, Chuck, there’s a fireplace! Oh, let’s go upstairs; I bet every room has one!”
He sighed but let her take his hand and pull him up the creaking steps. “Central heating was invented for a reason, Honey. Do you intend to have a fire in the baby’s room? And it’s gonna take a fortune to fix everything wrong with this place!”
She squealed with delight from two steps above him. “Look at the wood floors, babe! Can’t you just see them all polished up?”
He looked back at the agent once again waiting at the front door. “Are you sure there are no ghosts in this old place?” he asked with a rye grin.
She clicked her pen and opened a notebook, standing a little straighter than she already was. “Shall we start the paperwork now?”
Jesus told a story of two brothers. The older brother fulfilled society’s expectations of a dutiful son. He worked alongside his father, maintaining and supervising the family estate. He never broke the rules, never disappointed his father, never neglected his responsibilities.
The younger brother was the family wild card. He chafed at responsibility and expectations, and when he reached manhood he demanded that his father hand over whatever his part of the inheritance would be worth so that he could go out on his own. He was sure he could find a better life for himself than drudging away under his father’s thumb. When his father, instead of rebuking his restlessness, gave him what he wanted, the young man traveled as far from home as he could get. With no one he had ever known to see or comment on his lifestyle, he indulged every desire and filled his life with every pleasure he could imagine.
On the surface the brothers look like polar opposites: one the responsible, respected son; the other rebellious, thoughtless, and selfish. But the story doesn’t end there, and the young men are both full of surprises. The younger brother woke up one day to find all of his money gone; he had done nothing to replenish his resources, had been entirely focused on his “good life” until he could no longer pay for his pleasures. Then, as drought set in and work was scarce, he took the most demeaning job in his society in the hard realization that he had wasted his truly good life. He had squandered every blessing ever given him, including that of a father who only wanted the best for him.
The older brother came home from working one day to find the house in a fever of celebration; the rebellious son had returned in humility and had been received with joy. The son who had been outwardly responsible and respectable immediately revealed his true heart, a knot of well-hidden resentment and rebellion. All the while he did what was expected, he hated responsibility, wished for the pleasure his brother pursued, and resented what he perceived as lack of appreciation from his father.
Both brothers shared the misunderstanding that their inheritance was a physical thing: money, possessions, etc. Neither understood their father’s love and provision for them as being his true estate. Both threw away, squandered, the relationship that was their father’s truest legacy.
Jesus told this story to Jewish leaders who complained that He welcomed sinful people into his presence. Those sinful people were the brother who had thrown everything away for his own pleasure, and who had been humbled and drawn back to the father’s embrace. The leaders were the “responsible” son who secretly harbored a rebellious heart. Neither those who had wasted their lives in rebellious lifestyles or those who prided themselves on outward righteousness had appreciated the love of God. They viewed God’s “estate” as an oppressive system of rules and demands; the only difference was whether they rebelled openly or secretly.
Jesus came to show us His true estate. He came to demonstrate the open arms of the father and the joy of belonging with Him. He came to show the difference in being a son and being a slave. Those who recognize the blessing of belonging to God approach Him with a longing to serve in gratitude and love, and receive the treatment of sons with awe and wonder. Those who see themselves as sons strictly because of their own outward fidelity, expecting privileges that ultimately get them out of such fidelity, behave like slaves. They throw away their inheritance for the sake of selfish pride.
The great news is that, no matter how we have squandered our portion, our condition is not final unless we make it so. The younger son was welcomed home with great celebration. The older son was reminded that he had always had access to what he sought, he had just been looking from the wrong direction. We will never stop being God’s children as long as we live, no matter how we waste our time and His chasing the wrong dreams. He will always be there to welcome us home. But why squander any of it? Why throw away a love, an eternal estate, so full as His?
She sniffed the night air, savoring the smells of grass and dead leaves surrounding her den. A screech overhead drew her gaze, but the owl’s presence woke no concern in her yet.
A musky scent set her body trembling, and her mate trotted out of the underbrush. He sat just out of reach, tongue lolling from his mouth, waiting. She heaved her swollen belly up and attempted to gambol around him playfully, managing little more than a waddle. He licked her nose and trotted back into the underbrush.
She followed him, panting with the effort. It would be the last hunt together under the moon for many weeks. The cubs would be born before another night arrived. A scratching in the leaves behind her stopped her in her tracks, and she locked her chops as her mate crouched.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
That’s how she knew she had stepped through. Thirteen hours on the clock. The impossible hour. Her breath froze and shattered as another puff left her nostrils. Humans weren’t meant to be here. Well, here wasn’t exactly the right word. Weren’t meant to be… now? Whatever; she needed to get her proof and find a way out before it was too late.
Her fingers, already growing numb, fumbled with the lens cover on her camera. Impossibly, the camera felt warm; maybe it wasn’t the day that was cold after all. She gripped the thing firmly and turned in a slow circle,eyes squinting into the too bright sky.
A – creature – stared at her unblinking from twenty feet away. She thought it wasn’t blinking; she couldn’t seem to focus on it properly. As if it wasn’t quite, well, possible. And it was sort of sitting in mid air, which was really beginning to wig her out. She hastily raised the camera and pressed the button.
The creature squawked and vanished at the same time that the camera disintegrated in a loud black rumbling puff. The clock face cracked and the hands spun out of control. Ice crept up from the ground, locking her in place, and her scream was a silent crystal shooting from her nerveless mouth.
Fifteen years since she had fled the city, a child in a handful of refugees with nothing to feel but pain. Child or not, that last view of the city had been burned into her memory as surely as the real fires had marked her face. She frowned, old scars pulling tight; surely it should look different by now.
The burned out buildings shot twisted iron fingers toward the sky, and the asphalt beneath her feet had melted and cooled into a strange, urban desert floor. The ruins were earily silent, the cracked walls devoid of even the smallest sign of life. She shivered, glancing back at the overgrown countryside, and faltered. The boundary was too clean, too clear.
It had been a mistake to come here; they had warned her, but she had been so sure of herself. Fire leaped suddenly around her, crackling, roaring angrily. The scent of smoke choked her airway, and her coughs joined disembodied screams and shouts that assaulted her from every direction. Despite the flames, her hands numbed with cold, and every cough spewed white mist from her lungs.
Just as suddenly the ruins were empty again beneath the blazing August sun. She turned and fled.
The Pharisees and other Jewish leaders ostracized anyone who broke what they thought was part of God’s law. They spent their days watching for infractions, railing about rules, and arguing about minutae. When God Himself visited them, they rebuked Him using their interpretation of the law He wrote, the law He was; then they killed Him rather than admit they were wrong.
Jesus looked for the smallest signs of faith, sometimes extending compassion and help in order to spark life in broken souls. He lived by love rather than rules. He was intimate with “sinners” and held the “righteous” at arm’s length. Hearts were changed by being in His presence. Crowds followed Him everywhere, drawn by what He offered. A feast day parade to the temple reversed course into a reception for the King. The only people given harsh treatment were the heartless enforcers.
What we look for in people matters. The Jewish leaders looked at Zaccheus and saw a greedy thief. Jesus looked at him and saw an eager heart. The Jews looked at the Samaritan woman and saw an adulterous descendant of a rebellious people. Jesus looked at her and saw a woman searching for a Savior. The Pharisees looked at the crowds following Jesus and saw lazy, unholy rabble. Jesus looked at them and saw sheep longing for a shepherd’s love and protection.
The Pharisees were certain that salvation came from their own actions, their own perfect rule following. They lost sight of the law giver and of the souls to whom it was given. They believed that they trusted God, but when given the chance to prove it they dug into their self-imposed framework instead and lashed out at anyone who threatened their perception of their own perfection.
Matthew 23:13, 15 (CSB): “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you don’t go in, and you don’t allow those entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to make one convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a child of hell as you are!”
Jesus delivered the above rebuke over exactly that behavior, that approach to their fellow humans. He also said anyone who hindered another from a relationship with God by their need for control would be better off drowned in the deeps with a millstone around the neck. Jesus didn’t see people with such an attitude as sheep; he saw them as wolves slathering to rip the flock to shreds and eat them for lunch.
The faithful reflect the nature, the character, the viewpoint, of Jesus Himself. If our claims to faith are accompanied by a fine toothed comb or a twist of the wrench, whose character is reflected? What is it we are truly seeking?
Shara peered through the nearest window as she worked the complicated controls. Jumping onto the long crank shaft to add her full weight to the effort, she grumbled under her breath. The thing creaked louder than a banshee shriek, and moved about as fast as old Piet dozing in his armchair. She heaved a sigh of relief when the shaft suddenly dropped and a thudding jolt confirmed a successful landing.
“Cam! Jolie! Are the booths packed?” She hurried into the other room, pulling her carefully brushed market coat over her shoulders. Her siblings waited near the door, the double tongues of their rolling booths locked into their hip implants.
Cam grimaced from his cycle. “We’re ready, but one of my gears has a nick in it. Makes the tongue jump. My hip is already sore just cycling in here from the storeroom.”
Shara grimaced. The twins shouldn’t even be cycling heavy machinery yet, but since Piet had weakened and Mam succumbed to cloud sickness, there was no one else. “We’ll just have to make enough to replace it today.” So much for fixing the crank shaft.
She stuffed the leather pouch holding their permits and a few stray chits into her coat and locked her own booth into her sockets. “Watch out for dracs; the young ones can survive above the miasma for a while, and sometimes even make it up here over the cloud line. We don’t need radiation burns on top of everything else.”
The mustard tree is a fascinating plant. Its tiny seed is one of the smallest in the world, and must be collected by soaking the pit of the mustard fruit for several days and then straining the resulting pulp through a cloth. The seed germinates quickly but grows incredibly slowly. Its most rapid growth occurs when planted near a water source; its roots seek out water, sensing it and growing toward any source, even breaking through pipes or well walls to access it. However, the tree can live and thrive on less than 8 inches of rainfall per year in some of the hottest, driest climates on Earth. The hotter and more consistent the sunlight, the healthier the tree, and clay that grows little else nourishes it. The leaves resemble those of succulents, and are often consumed for their moisture by desert animals and people. When in dryer conditions the mustard tree may only grow to about six feet tall, but in wet environments will grow up to 25 feet, an imposing sight.
On three separate occasions Jesus explained the power of faith using the image of the mustard seed. He said that even faith as small as a mustard seed could do such impossible things as moving a mountain from one place to another or uprooting a mature tree to plant it in the sea. I have known the analogy all my life, but grasping such a thing is difficult when we tend to think of big and small as opposite limits of size.
God doesn’t think in limits. Just as a day and a thousand years are the same to Him, big and small hold no meaning in a physical sense. Instead, he sees potential. The tiny mustard seed has no strength of its own, no power to impress our human sensibilities, yet in the harshest, most unexpected conditions, life can be induced to spark within it. The germs of faith wake under similar circumstances. Like the mustard tree, faith does not become full overnight. It grows, millimeter by millimeter, over a lifetime. It can outlast some of the hardest circumstances life can throw at it, although often in hard times it merely exists, eking out drops in desperation but not finding enough to grow any larger. When the nourishing rain of an answered prayer, an encouraging word, a relief from a trial arrives, it grows again and fills new leaves with nourishment to hold in reserve for the next difficulty.
Also like the mustard tree, the roots of faith reach out endlessly with insatiable need. Faith knows its source, and will move in that direction only no matter what gets in the way. It cannot be stopped; even when we feel like we are barely hanging on, faith looks for any sign of God in the darkness and dirt of life and drinks it thirstily. If there were no water to be found, the tree would die – it cannot manufacture its own nutrition – but those roots can find and use any trace of moisture. Faith without nourishment would be nothing -a shriveled, rotten trunk – but unlike water God is always there to be found.
When Jesus’ disciples woke Him in the storm, He told them their faith was weak and small but He still stopped the storm. When they failed to cast out demons in His name He told them their faith was weak and small but He still cast out the demons. When a man begged for healing for his son and said he wanted to believe but needed help making faith stronger, Jesus healed the man’s son. When Moses hid in the wilderness for forty years because what he thought he was supposed to do for God failed, God became fire in a bush and told him he was chosen for a purpose because of his faith. How many more have been planted while tiny and insignificant, then nourished by God’s eager help into trees of faith to feed and harbor weak and searching souls?
“It’s like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the sky nested in its branches.” Luke 13:19 CSB
God will feed any faith we are capable of placing on Him, including the mere desire to have faith. Are you a mustard seed? How high will you grow?
The Grand Experiment, the village council called it. Marigold sniffed; Mayor Belfast always did tend toward the dramatic. Bunch of nonsense, in her opinion. What folk were thinking electing that bunch of nincompoops she would never know.
Six months they had wasted building the stupid things. A whole row of cottages made entirely of turf. Except the hare-brained idiots hadn’t been able to figure out how to hold up a roof made of dirt, so modern eaves of wood painted black stuck out like a sore thumb. Glass windows had been the next logical step, but only in the wooden sections. That looked well! She rolled her eyes.
The entire town had come out for the unveiling; the result had been underwhelming. Marigold really didn’t know what that sorry excuse for a mayor had expected, trying to talk up walls and floors made of dirt like they were the golden streets themselves. The tour had been a disaster from start to finish. The only person remotely interested in living in one of those fake caves was crazy old Miss Hartskell. The council had finally been forced to accept her application to recoup the cost to the town.
Since then that batty old witch had taken over the row with strays, plants, and incomprehensible handicrafts. No one bothered to argue; it wasn’t like the cottages were in demand. And even Marigold had to admit that from the main road they looked like pretty green hills nestled in an old Grove. Too bad she had to pass it on her way to work at the town hall every day.
“Rain before noon, Marigold!” Marj Hartskell waved delighted lyrics as she delivered her forecast through a cascade of tumbled curls. “Morning, Marj,” Marigold called back through the open car window. Potty old hag. “See you at tea time as usual. For goodness sake, don’t bring any wildlife!”
It was a house like every other. Brick walls, stone trimmings, wooden doors, and shingles roof. At least, that what everyone saw during the day. A nice, ordinary dwelling, if a little old-fashioned and pretentious.
The moon told a different story. Bricks and boards gleamed, reflecting the soft rays with a greenish light that could only come from glass. As the moon rose higher, the house transformed, seemingly a thing of crystal. Though glass, the faceted brick revealed nothing inside. Shadows melded with shifting light in a nocturnal dance, seen only by the rare soul unable to sleep and out for a midnight constitutional.
Such walkers avoided the gleaming property, spooked by its ghostly appearance. None of them would ever have noticed that one shadow moved differently. As far as they knew, no one had set foot in the mansion for a century except for a daily woman, hired to clean, and a caretaker who visited one day a week for maintenance. The servants were frequently plied with questions over a friendly ale at the local pub, but to no purpose.
Only in the moonlight did that independent shadow flit across windowpanes, or pass through green-hued doors of carved glass to pace restlessly on the manicured drive. Silent, it would retreat with the stars into its daily disguise, invisible, waiting.
The Word Worker 
