Don't Fence Me In

Today reminded me of title of one of Christina Rossetti's poems, "In the bleak Midwinter", one of my favorite poems. The first verse is:

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Although it's not snowy (it has melted away), it is gray, gray, gray, and we needed soup and bread. So I pulled a chicken out of the freezer and let it simmer most of the day with lots of garlic and onion. When superman came home for lunch he
knew what was coming for supper. Happy man!

Around 3:30 I started the bread. Jill has the best whole wheat recipe and Gar had ground a bunch of wheat on Saturday - that's his job. The kitchen was toasty from the simmering soup so it rose nice and easy. I added carrots we are still harvesting from our garden, plus celery, cabbage, broccoli, and squares of homemade noodles.

At 6:30 we ate our feast finished off with bowls of canned peaches from Mom & Dad's trees, done up last summer.

Christina Rossetti wrote this poem when requested to write a Christmas poem in 1872. The final verse of the poem is:

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

At times, bleak days make us feel poor in spirit. I am very thankful that I can put a chicken in a pot, mix some bread in my 30-some year old Bosch mixer, and be reminded of a poignant poem that leads me to thoughts of my Savior. The soup and bread warm my sometimes cold and achy body, but He warms and gladdens my heart and makes bleak days bright, even through soup and bread.