President's Day

We headed to a President's Day celebration on, well, President's Day. It was a perfect field trip that went so well with our American History study.

My self portrait

I got Thomas Jefferson scratching his nose, I think

Playing colonial games

Wonder what her sermon would be?

The chapel is beautiful

Elijah and I watch the fun

Nice to meet you, George Washington

And some how I managed to not get a picture of Jennifer. How is that possible?

 

Here we are at the last field trip we had at this same place. There. I feel better now :)

Lighten up

I am going back through this blog and editing and organizing it to make it easier for me to find things. As I was doing this the other day, I was struck by how much this blog used to chronicle our life. I started it mainly for that purpose. Once I realized I probably was never going to have time to scrap book again, I wanted to have a place to document their childhoods. Then, some how, for some reason, this blog morphed into a place for me to unload my brain. How sad!

My challenge to myself is to start documenting again. The kids love to look at old pictures. They love to read snippets of every day life from when they were little. So I'm going to do better at doing that. 

There is certainly enough material around here for that. And my brain is too full to remember all the good stuff that happens.

Friendship

I love this picture. I love this woman. She represents a plethora of women God has given me to encourage and bless me daily. I do not deserve the love and loyalty they give so freely to me. They put up with me, listen to me, encourage me and challenge me. They care for and love my children, bring meals when I'm sick, and have watched countless movies on my couch. The love and serve, counsel and advise. The commiserate and ponder with me. They laugh oh so much. They have flown to the rescue at a moment's notice and planned in detail sweet surprises. They have been there when I had babies and buried family. They have kept me accountable and disagreed with me on more than one occasion, both of which I'm thankful for. They are wise beyond their years and more fun than I can describe.

I am so thankful for the sweet ladies that walk with me on this journey. I would do it all alone, but I'm so thankful that I don't have to. I don't deserve them, but I love them dearly.

The Bruised Reed

"A bruised reed He will not break, And a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice."

I heard this verse spoken by a woman on the brink of destruction. Death even. She uttered it in desperation to God- that He would sustain her as she struggled to find the will to live. 

That made my soul heavy. 

That was awhile ago. I looked back on that verse with uneasiness. It reminded me of her. Of the real struggles that face us-that threaten to overtake us. 

I didn't expect the verse to welcome me this particular morning. The words lept off the page and twirled around me. They didn't offer the expected comfort. They offered condemnation. 

Psalm 1 says I should be like "...a tree firmly planted by streams of water...and its leaf does not wither..."

I should be an "...oak of righteousness..." says Isaiah 61.

Not "...like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind." Dear James (1).

I was the opposite of 2 Corinthians - crushed, despairing, feeling nearly destroyed. 

Bruised. Nearly crushed. 

Slowly, like a warm embrace, came the words, "...He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds..." (Psalm 147:3)

I faltered again. In this long marathon I stumbled and fell. It felt good to lie, curled and still. To rest. 

As these thoughts filled my mind this morning, my eye came to rest just a few short verses past the bruised reed:

I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you...

It is okay to fall. To fail. To suffer... 

I see the intimacy it brings with the One who will not rest until He has finished the good work He has begun in me.

This song found its way to me. That was a sweet blessing:

My Steps are Ordered

Facebook is worth itself this week. Trying to wake from my sleepy haze this morning, I was scrolling through status updates and this caught my eye:

( I will admit to not being awake enough to listen to the sweet lady do her thing at the end, so I'm not endorsing anything she said or didn't say!)

The sentiment was comforting, especially in light of another blog post I'm working/resisting working on. I found some amazing and comforting verses:

Psalm 119:133 -
Establish [order] my footsteps in your word, and not not let iniquity have dominion over me. 

Psalm 37:23-24 - 

The steps of a man are established [ordered] by the Lord, when he delights in His way, though he falls, he will not be cast headlong, for the Lord holds his hand. 

Proverbs 16:9 - 

The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. (You Lord order my steps.)

Jeremiah 10:23 - 

I know, O LORD, that a man's life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps.

There is sweet comfort in knowing that my steps are ordered by the Lord. I can rest that He is perfectly working all those steps in a way that will most glorify Him through me. He is trust worthy. He is great and greatly to be praised. (Ps 9:4)

The Cost of Wisdom

Someone once said to me that wisdom is born from suffering. The greater the suffering, the greater the wisdom.

I'm not sure if those sentiments can always hold true. I'm also not sure if this is the only way that, apart from Scripture and the Holy Spirit, that wisdom is born. It has also been said that wisdom is knowledge most appropriately applied.

Proverbs says that the beginning of wisdom is found in the fear (awe and reverence) of the Lord. Proverbs has a lot to say about wisdom. I think of Solomon, asking for wisdom above anything else. 

What started this pondering on wisdom was the following quote shared by a friend:

Do not assume that he who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled
among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good.  His life
may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours.
Were it otherwise, he would never have been able to find these words.

~Rainer Rilke

What that quote does is change a bit the way I view the wise people in my life. And it certainly gives me a new way to pray for them. 

Could this also be another reason to embrace the difficult? If suffering is seen as a gateway to wisdom, and wisdom is to be treasured above any other earthly thing,  and if I fully realize that, could I then embrace suffering?

Suffering is a means of sanctification. I see that. I think this should be the reason I embrace it suffering. (Conform me into the image of Your Son, please.) And perhaps wisdom is a by-product of the sanctification. 

And if by pondering wisdom too long, you lose brain cells, then thinking about wisdom becomes counter productive. I realize that also.

My mailbox

 

I know that we need to paint the mail box, but I don't want to. I love that it's Africa. I take it as a sign...

and it makes me smile.

Why?

Push back

I read this article earlier today, and it was an appropriate addition to our week. 

My daughter is pushing back.

Long ago I banned all live television directed at kids above the age of 5. After continuously seeing the horrific sinful decisions these young actors made in their real lives, I decided they had no place in my daughter's life. At all. I know that I can't determine all of her influences, but there was no way I was going to allow these people to get to her at such a young age.

I realize that the previous paragraph makes me sound like a paranoid uber religious fanatic who doesn't own a television and bicycles everywhere. 

Yeah, well.

Long ago I stopped caring what other families were doing, what was deemed right and acceptable by society and what others viewed as unusual.

And I went on with things.

But. 

Now, at the age of 9, my daughter is questioning those boundaries. Fervently. About television. About music.

She begged to check out a Carrie Underwood cd from the library. I felt an uneasiness, but I agreed. (When will I learn to trust the Holy Spirit's instant prompting? When?)

She came home, went to her room, popped in her cd, started to listen, and after a few minutes I felt the Prompting to get into her room now.

As soon as I went into her room, I could tell by the look on her face that she was doing something she knew was wrong. 

This song was playing:

"Last Name"

Last night I got served a little bit too much of that poison baby
Last night I did things I'm not proud of
And I got a little crazy
Last night I met a guy on the dance floor
And I let him call me baby

And I don't even know his last name
Oh, my mama would be so ashamed
It started off "Hey cutie, where ya from?"
And then it turned in,
"Oh no, what have I done?"
And I don't even know his last name

We left the club right around three o'clock in the morning
His Pinto sitting there in the parking lot Well it should have been a warning
I had no clue what I was getting into
So I blame it on the Cuervo
Oh where did my manners go?

And I don't even know his last name
Oh, my mama would be so ashamed
It started off "Hey cutie, where ya from?"
And then it turned in,
"Oh no, what have I done?"
And I don't even know his last name
Here we go...

Today I woke up thinkin' about Elvis somewhere in Vegas
I'm not sure how I got here
Or how this ring on my left hand just appeared out of nowhere
I gotta go
I take the chips and the Pinto and hit the road
They say what happens here stays here
All of this will disappear
There's just one little problem...

I don't even know my last name
Oh my mama would be so ashamed
It started off "Hey cutie, where ya from?"
And then it turned in,
"Oh no, what have I done?"
And I don't even know my last name

What have I done
What have I done
What have I done
Oh, what have I done
I don't even know my last name

It turned into
"Oh no, what have I done?"
And I don't even know my last

It started off "Hey cutie, where ya from?"
And then it turned into
"Oh no, what have I done?"
And I don't even know my last name

my last name

I took the cd, and my daughter dissolved into a fit of tears.  

Boy, I was furious. Mad at myself not listening to that Voice, mad at my daughter for being upset by my taking that crap away from her, and mad that I couldn't tell her all of the exact reasons that I needed to protect her from this garbage and more.

Boy, I was mad.

And so was she.

She looked at me with a tear stained face and said, "Why is Christ-like the only thing I can be?"

I gasped on the inside at her boldness. I felt horror at what she had said. I was ashamed, and for a moment, that familiar voice whispered, you've really blown it with this kid...

I stabbed down that voice with a flaming sword and looked her directly in the eye.

Unafraid.

I am not afraid to parent her in spite of my past failures. I won't give in to those lies. I am worthy to parent her. It doesn't matter what I've done. I do expect her to do better. I expect her not to make those same mistakes.

What ensued was a long conversation soaked in love and compassion in light of my own failures and sinful desires and firmness. 

I thought we made head way.

The next day was better. I thought. She looked at me and asked if we could go back to the library and get some more cds. But, "... not Christian ones..."

Deep breath.

I know she's pushing back. Testing. Feeling the boundaries. Making sure I'm worthy of being her parent.

She always has. Even from day one. 

(God will use that to His glory one day. This head-strongness. This fortitude.)

Making the matter worse is that I can't articulate all that's at stake here. I very nearly sat her down and made her read that article up there. In it's entirety. Maybe it's time I handed her all the facts of life full force so that I can explain to her exactly what hinges on her tiny obedience here.

I know why parents let things go. This is so hard. I get tired of explaining. I get tired of the pushing. I get tired of the constant need to demand that we all walk in holiness.

I'm tired of the conviction in my own life. 

So I retreat back to the Word. And study. And pray. And trust. 

And I keep pushing back. 

Galatians 6:9

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

(and my kid is a good kid. she loves Christ. she has a good heart. she has a desire to do what's right. i in no way want to disparage her or alter her reputation in any way. what i see playing out in her is nothing that i haven't seen in my own life each and every day. she's an amazing kid. she's struggling in the same way that we all are. and these decisions i've made are made in light of what's right for our family and in obedience to God.)

I get it now

I'll never forgot that poor woman. In line at the grocery store, she spotted me with my newborn, my two year old and my four year old. She snorted down at me, "Enjoy these years. They are the easy ones. It only gets harder. Much harder."

Unfortunately for her, I hadn't slept in days. I hadn't showered in that long either, most likely. I was overwhelmed, exhausted and well past the end of my rope.

As I look back at this stranger, this lady who had barged into my weary world with extremely unwelcome sentiments, I found myself growing brave, confrontational. My cheeks grew red, my back bowed a bit and I transformed into someone else.

"Easy? This is easy? I haven't slept in days. I haven't showered in days. I haven't had a full, hot meal in much longer than that. I haven't even gone to the bathroom by myself in years and these are the easy days?????"

I was fairly screeching by the end of it. The cashier's eyes were wide and the lady took several steps backward. Her husband tugged on her sleeve and said, "Honey, let's go."

I remember looking at the cashier with a horrified expression and whispering, "Oh my gosh. I am so sorry..."

The cashier recovered quickly. 

"That was really rude of her. I remember when I was where you are. It wasn't easy. It was awfully hard."

A tear rolled down my cheek, and as the terrified grocery bagger asked if he could wheel my groceries to the car, I looked back at her and said, "Thank you."

She shrugged. "No big deal. You'll be fine. The days will go by quickly."

She leaned in a little then and said, "And the next stage is hard too. They are all hard. Teenagers especially. But at least in those days, you'll get a shower. And you'll get to go to the bathroom by yourself..." She smiled a sweet smile, and I cried all the way home.

To this day, if I see a mom with tiny children, my heart cries for her, just a little. It is hard. 

"Hang in there!" I want to yell. I want to tell her that soon it will be over, and she'll be able to breathe a little more.

I thought nothing could ever be that hard. 

I see it now, though. What comes next. My sweet friend J put it well: 

"In the younger years, it's hard on your body. You can't ever get it all done. You're exhausted all the time, and it's really hard. But as your kids get older, it gets hard on your brain. Your spirit. It just switches from the physical to the emotional..."

Oh.

I've seen it lately. I've seen my 9 year old wrestle with bigger issues. 

"What if what we believe is all wrong? What if the other people got it right, and we are the ones that are wrong?"

"I can't see Jesus. I can't see anything that happened in the Bible. How do I really know it's real?"

"Why can't I have a boy friend?"

"Why can't I watch those t.v. shows?"

"Why can't I listen to that music?"

"Exactly how does the baby get in the Mom's stomach?"

"How am I supposed to know what college to go to? How am I supposed to know who to marry, especially if I can't date?"

"What if the Bible is wrong?"

"Why is being Christ-like so hard? Why is that the only thing I can be?"

Oh. My. Goodness.

I get it now.

I hated those newborn days. I know that breaks some sort of Mommy code, and maybe I'd change my mind if I had a kid that actually slept, but those were hard days. I really didn't enjoy them. I loved my kids more than anything, but I was always relieved when they turned a year old. Whew. Okay.

But this is a different hard. This really forces me to be in constant communion with Christ. To be in His Word. To be in prayer. To be firm, consistent and patient. (And oh how often I fail at the patient.)

This stretches me. More.

I saw a war over my kid today. I saw her yearning for all that would kill her mind, spirit and soul. I've been there. I saw her today, wanting all that the world has to offer. Or thinking that she wanted it.

I wasn't scared. I'll fight for my kids in every spiritual battle that comes. Tirelessly and fearlessly. Not in my own strength, but His. I'm not going to get tired of fighting for what is right.

I know that a lot of this is just part of growing up. But. I'm also wise to Satan and his schemes. And as I saw the tears streaming down my daughter's face today, I felt the war raging. 

I know he wants to destroy my family. I know he wants my kids. I know he would love to see them end in destruction. I know.

You know what I used to do? I used to pray for my teenagers. I knew, on some level, how hard it would be. So I prayed prayers almost as soon as they were born for the days that would be hard emotionally. I prayed in some sort of "pay it forward" fashion. I felt better about those coming hard days knowing that for years, they had been covered in prayer. Multiple times.

I think today I felt those prayers. Prayers that I said for myself and for these kids so long ago. And I am reminded that I need to pray more. Because I've glimpsed the future. And that lady in the grocery line was sort of right. Those days are going to be hard.

At least I will have had a shower. Things seem a little easier to deal with if you've had a shower.

(edited to add:  I woke this morning, pondering these things still, praying over today. God so sweetly and gently led me to 1 Peter 5. A firm reminder of what we are truly battling against: Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith...)

Warm comfort

I didn't sleep much last night. It wasn't my brain that kept me awake this time-it was the unwise decision to have real coffee late in the evening. 

In the quiet dark is when my fears typically rage. My anxiety spins out of control. I fought that a lot last night as sleep eluded me. 

It was about 4 in the morning that I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see my daughter trembling in the dark.

Mommy. I had a nightmare. I'm scared.

I pulled back the covers so she could crawl in next to me. I soon heard her rhythmic breathing, signaling that she was asleep. She was cuddled right up against the length of my body. Her warmth was comforting. I thought this is the warmth that lulled her to sleep so quickly. That warm comfort.

I sighed and told God I wished He was tangible. I could use some of that warm comfort myself. He sweetly reminded me that He is my warm comfort.  I pictured leaning against Him, feeling the warmth and heaviness of His love. 

I surprised myself by falling asleep. I love it when God makes Himself tangible. I'm so thankful that He bestowed that warm comfort. I'm praying that a lot of the people I love today feel His warm comfort.

Spreading the Gospel

"...it is an honor to be made instrumental in extending the true religion. So great is this honor, that it is mentioned as the highest which could be conferred even on the Redeemer in this world. And if he deemed it an honor, shall we not also regard it as a privilege to engage in the work of Christian missions, and to endeavor to save the world from ruin? There is no higher glory for man than to tread in the footsteps of the Son of God; and he who, by self-denial and charity, and personal toil and prayer, does most for the conversion of this whole world to God, is most like the Redeemer, and will have the most elevated seat in the glories of the heavenly world."

This is commentary on Isaiah 49:6

He says, "It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth."

Just nailing it down somewhere so I can come back and ponder on it some more... 

Preamble

Laney's assignment for yesterday was to write a Preamble for our family. 

It had been a long time since I had read the Preamble to our Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish the Constitution for the United States of America. 

(That's another blog post right there...)

And here is Laney's Preamble:

We, the Children of the B--- Household, promise to try to obey the rule's, keep our hands to eachother, keep our bad thoughts to ourselves, try to be kind to our friends even the ones we dont like, and promise to be kind to our Elders. Signed, Laney, Jude and Zane

 Well, there you go. Our Preamble. I may make one too...