In Which a Rabbit Trail Leads Me to a New Post

Yesterday I went on a little rabbit trail about a favorite preacher while mentioning a book of his that I had recently read. I wanted to say a little more here. There are a few preachers whose ministries through radio and writing have blessed me a lot over the years. Alistair Begg and John MacArthur are two men whose radio ministries have been a real treat to hear for the past seven years or so. I began listening to both these men when I lived in Florida after the birth of our first son when I began to stay home full time. I was very thankful to have solid Bible teaching to listen to as I cleaned the house and changed diapers. I have learned much from both of these pastors over the years, and there have even been times of drought spiritually when I really was glad to have that extra teaching.

But I would be remiss if I did not say that radio and book ministry in no way can ever take the place of the local church. When we lived in Florida, we were so blessed to be members at a church where we were learning and growing. It was the first church we visited when we moved to the Tampa Bay area, and we never discerned the need to go anywhere else. It was hard to leave there, but I can see, in looking back, that we needed to be pushed out of that nest and to have the next seven years’ growing experiences.

When we moved to Indiana, we really struggled to find a church. We visited quite a few, and when Drew got the call to go to Bosnia with the Army National Guard, we still had not joined a church. After he left, I and the boys, who were just little then, visited yet another church and found it to be the place where I was to spend the next year while he was away. The people were so warm and the preaching good, and I knew I needed that support network as I was dealing with all the struggles of being new to the community and missing my husband. I joined the church without Drew, and by the time he came home he had already accepted a new job in South Carolina and we were in the midst of planning to move there, so that local church was a haven for me and just loved on me and my boys during a true wilderness year, and I treasure the brothers and sisters who became friends that year. But Drew was never a part of that since we moved away a month after he came home from Bosnia. This was strange for us.

Once we moved to South Carolina, we really thought finding a church wouldn’t be all that hard. It’s in the deep south, Bible belt to the max, or so we thought. We were sadly mistaken. We visited tons of churches and finally joined a small church that we thought would be a place where we could plug in and serve. If you’ve been reading here for a long time, you know about our struggle there when we finally came to the realization that we could no longer stay at that church after four years because we just didn’t feel it was a safe place spiritually for our children, especially since we believed at the time that we were probably going to be living there for a long time. I’ve deleted most of the posts I wrote about our church struggle during that time, by the way. I just didn’t feel they should have been on the blog. The last year that we lived there we did find and join a good church where the preaching was good and the children were growing. That year was a time of healing for Drew and me and a time of much growth for our kids. We are thankful for the ministry of that local church and the year we got to join with them, and how it prepared us for where we are now.

One thing I’ve been meaning to share here is how I really believe the move here to St. Louis has been a very good thing, for us as a family and in the area of finding a local church. Drew and I were talking the other day, and we were agreeing that the reason I was miserable in our last place wasn’t that it was a small town. It was that we had such a hard time fitting into a good, solid church family. To me, what makes any place ‘home’ is finding that group of believers with whom we can fellowship and serve together, and we had four years of wilderness in that respect there. I’m not saying I didn’t grow and learn from the experience, however. God graciously uses all things for good to those who are called according to His purpose. I’m not saying otherwise. We did learn and grow and we needed the wilderness time, I believe.

But I can also say that God has richly blessed us here. The first church we visited was so obviously ‘home’ that we never went anywhere else. This place has been a true balm to our souls. And while I’m talking about great pastors, I have to say that we really, truly love our pastor here. He is a godly man who preaches the Word, and we are truly blessed to hear the teaching God leads him to bring each week. He and his wife are a true team, and the way his wife leads the women of the church is precious, and we love them and our church family here so much. Not since our Brandon days have we felt so truly at home with our church family, and we are grateful.

So, though I’m thankful for the great teaching of men like John MacArthur, Alistair Begg, Al Mohler and others, they are not my pastor. I’m grateful for their willingness to share their teaching, and I truly appreciate hearing it as a supplement to what I get to hear each week, but I’m also very grateful for the pastor in my local church who knows my name and my husband’s name and my children’s names, and who opens God’s word faithfully to our local body of believers each week. I’m thankful for the people who make up this local body of believers, and I’m very thankful that God led us to Parkway Baptist Church that Sunday in December when we first began looking to move here. I’m only trying not to think too much about the fact that we know that our stay here in St. Louis is temporary – we know the Army will move us on before too long. But until then, we will be faithful here. May we be faithful to serve wherever He plants us and bloom with His grace as lights pointing others to Jesus.

What's On My Nightstand - April

The last time I participated in this carnival was in January, and I said then that I wanted to do it again, but in the midst of my on-going blog slump, I just haven’t done it. Then I saw that Leslie has a post up today, and I thought, “Hey, maybe this will help me get out of the never-ending blog slump!” Click on the picture for the original carnival post at 5 Minutes for Books. So, here’s my list for April, though it's so short this month, I apologize in advance to anyone who may have clicked over here to see it:

Just finished:

Saved Without a Doubt by John MacArthur. You know, for all the people who go around saying that John MacArthur is cold on mercy and grace and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…..read this book. His pastor’s heart and concern for believers to have a deep and abiding peace and assurance is so evident. The biblical teaching in this book has really helped me with a struggle I had been having. A big reason for my times when I struggle with assurance has to do with not knowing the actual date of my salvation. I was saved as a young child and I can point to several specific times when I committed myself to Jesus and when I experienced conviction over sin, but I struggled for a while as an adult with when was I actually saved. I have finally come to realize that the specific date is not as important as knowing that I am trusting in Christ alone, His finished work on the cross and His resurrection. The direction of my life must be toward His holiness and my desire is to be what He would have me be and to be obedient to His calling. So, I’m thankful to have read this book.

If you can stand a minor rabbit trail here before I go on with my list, I have been itching to say on this blog that I get so tired of hearing people knock Dr. MacArthur because he preaches the Word and doesn’t back down from the hard truth. I have been immensely blessed by his ministry, and I, for one, am glad God called him to pastor and has gifted him to do it so well, and I’m thankful for the way Grace to You makes so much available to those of us who are hungry for good teaching but do not live in Los Angeles.

Drew and I were having a discussion with a pastor friend once about the seeker-type approach to ministry and meeting people’s felt needs. Right there we were noticing a difference in how we thought and he thought. Anyway, in the course of that conversation, somehow we got to talking about John MacArthur, and he said something about how, sure MacArthur is a solid Bible teacher, but you just feel so beat up when you listen to him or read his books. Drew and I kind of looked at each other like, huh? Because we have been extremely edified by John MacArthur’s preaching and teaching, and that kind of took us off guard from this particular person who Drew has known for a very long time and would not have expected him to think that way.

Anyway, in the course of blogging, I’ve heard similar comments about Pastor MacArthur and about Dr. Albert Mohler and other men who are very serious about God’s word. I’ve seen some very derogatory comments about both those men at several blogs where the writers and commenters seem to pride themselves on their tolerance, kindness and niceness and spend lots of pixels taking other bloggers to task about their ‘tone’ and perceived lack of love and mercy and grace. What they said about these serious-minded men was childish and unkind, unloving and harsh. I guess tolerance and kindness and careful ‘tone’ are only to be applied to those who are squishy in their theology and who shy away from hard truths. If we don’t like what someone has to say or disagree with their certainty in biblical truths, then we can be ugly and harsh and derogatory, eh?

I happened across one of those ‘tolerance’ blogs, one which considers itself an anti-watchblog kind of site, and there I saw a comment, written in an offhand kind of way about Dr. Mohler. They said something about, “like anyone outside the SBC even cares what he says anyway.” How is that charitable? I’m really glad people like Mohler and MacArthur have enough gravitas to steer clear of the name-calling and stupidity that makes up much of “Christian” blogging today.

So, a few weeks ago, Drew and I spent most of the drive to Georgia for our vacation listening to some episodes of Grace to You on my iPod. Dr. MacArthur was preaching about the doctrine of the Perseverance of the saints. After one very encouraging session, Drew looked over at me and said, “You feel beat up yet?” And I just started laughing. “Not hardly.” As we discussed that, I told Drew that the only time I feel bad when listening to his preaching is when there is some sin in my life that I need to confess and repent and his opening of God’s word and explaining it helps me to recognize it. That is not Pastor John ‘beating me up’, though. That, my friends, is the gracious conviction of the Holy Spirit as He uses His word to pierce my heart, and I am grateful for it.

Anyway, leaving the rabbit trail and moving on back to the post. You didn’t come over here for that, I’m sure. But that is a good book, and I recommend it highly.

Currently reading:

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. This is another of my oldest son’s books that I decided I wanted to read. You may remember me blogging about reading his Shadow Children books. Well, we took the boys to see the movie Inkheart, not realizing that it was a book first. After seeing the movie, which we loved, we all wanted to read the book. My mom and dad gave J this book for Christmas, and I’m just now getting around to reading it. I like it. It’s even better than the movie. As it would be. You know me, usually I want to read the book before seeing the movie. Anyway, so far, I’m liking it. And, for once, I only have one book going, if you don't count Loving God With All Your Mind by Elizabeth George, which we will be finishing next week in our women's group at church, and which I've mentioned on here several times.

Soon to be reading:

I don’t have anything yet. I need to go to the library once I finish Inkheart. I’m thinking I want to read the other two books in the Inkheart trilogy and then I want to read Stephen Lawhead’s King Raven trilogy. I read Hood a while back and want to read the rest. It’s been so long, I’ll probably have to read Hood again first and then the others. Those are what will probably be next, but we’ll see!

Want to Meet the Newest Member of Our Family?

This is Roscoe. We adopted him from a local pet shelter, and he is the sweetest little puppy. He came home with us Saturday afternoon, and he's about six months old, almost housebroken, and, thanks to some helpful advice and tips from our new vet, quickly learning "sit," and we'll be working on "stay" once we get "sit" firmly established. He is a playful little guy who came to us with some health concerns with pneumonia, but we are pretty sure he's on the mend and seems to be happy here with our family. Well, if you don't count last night when he barked and barked in his crate. We're working on that.....

Please excuse M's "Calvin face" expression. He loves Calvin and Hobbes.....

We tried to get more pictures with the kids this morning, but everyone was a little wiggly.

Reading With My Children

I love to read with my kids. They love it, too. We are a regular bunch of bookworms around here. We usually try to read in the evening before bedtime and we are currently reading The Fellowship of the Ring together, when we get an early enough start in the evening, that is. Boo likes to read in her rocking chair before bed, also. She’s quite demanding. She usually knows what book must be read, and then when I finish, she says, “Sing.” So we sing a song or two or three. Then I put her in bed and many times she’ll hand me a book and say, “Daddy read.” So I’ll go find Drew and he’ll read to her a little more.

A while back the boys and I started reading through the book of Genesis in the morning before school. We had been studying Exodus on Sunday nights at church, and it became clear to me through some questions they were asking that they weren’t clear on what led up to Exodus. I am a firm believer that the stories from the Bible should be understood in their greater context, not as stand-alone stories unconnected to the greater whole. I’ve blogged about this before. To properly understand the stories, you really need to know how it all fits together, and to truly understand Christianity, you need to understand the Old Testament and how all of it goes together as well.

So, we began reading through Genesis. Can I just tell you that we have had a really good time doing this. I don’t always get to it each morning if we are having a late day, but the boys ALWAYS ask if we get to read Genesis today. That thrills this mommy’s heart, let me just say. It has been a good exercise for me, too, as I attempt to explain as we read because I want them to understand and know it as well as I can teach it to them.

I was so excited the other day when the boys really seemed to be getting into the story as we read. We had started in on Genesis 30 and had gotten to verse 3 when Rachel decides that since she has not been able to conceive that she would give her maid to Jacob. J spoke up about then and said, “Oh, no! Don’t do it! Not again. She’s not going to, is she mom?” I told him, “Oh, yes! Just wait, it gets even worse.” J couldn’t believe it, after the whole Sarah, Hagar, Abram, Ishmael thing earlier that here we were again.

I love, love, love it that the boys are paying such close attention and getting this. I cannot wait until we get to read about Joseph. They are going to love it!

Who says reading the Bible is boring? Moms, make the Bible interesting for your kids! If you love it and read it like you love it, they will see it in you as you share it with them. Read with excitement and inflection and explain as you go along, and it will be precious time spent in the Word with your kids. This has been so good, and we have so much more still to go!

He is Risen!

He is risen indeed!

May you rejoice today as you celebrate our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 6:19-20
"This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek."

Hebrews 12:1-2
"Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

What I'm Reading These Days

Not much blogging going on around here. I’m trying not to feel guilty about that. This is supposed to be a fun hobby, not another source of guilt, right? It’s not that I haven’t written anything this week. I just haven’t written anything well, so it’s all still in draft form, hoping to be edited and usable. I have lots of thoughts, but I’m in something of a blog slump when it comes to organizing them.

So, though I’m not blogging much, I have been reading. One serendipitous perk that I had not expected that goes with parenting a 10-year-old who reads at an advanced level is being introduced to books I might never have encountered otherwise. It’s very nice to see J really enjoy reading. Even more fun is being in a race with him to finish a series we are both reading at the same time. Last night I finished Book 4, and J is on Chapter 9 of Book 5. He really wanted me to wait for him to finish first, but I convinced him to leave the book here while he and his dad and brother went to a Cardinals game last night, because I would be really bored with nothing to read and I really wanted to know what was going to happen next. He said okay reluctantly, realizing that I just read too fast for him to finish first. Then he pleaded with me to try to finish the book while he was gone so he could have it back when he got home. He was so sweet, “I don’t know, Mom, this is the longest one yet. It’s over 200 pages!” I finished it in a few hours and it was on his pillow when they got home last night. And now he is pumping me for information, and I’m not telling. That’s another reason I wanted to jump ahead. He just cannot keep himself from revealing interesting plot elements in the books I haven’t yet read. I would beg and plead with him to not tell me anything, and he’d say, “But Mom, just this one thing….” And I’d put my hands over my ears and loudly say, “I want to read it myself! Don’t tell me, don’t tell me!” And then he’d say, “But it’s not that important….” And proceed to drop some very significant plot twist. I'm also one of those people who likes to read the book before seeing the movie. So, I didn’t feel that I was being mean at all to speed on past him. We are a weird family. Go ahead and say it.

A few weeks ago, J came home telling us about a book he had read at school that he really enjoyed. Then he told us it is a whole series and he wanted to read the rest of the books. At first when he was describing them, I thought that the topic seemed awfully heavy for fourth graders, maybe I should look at the book, too. Then a book order form came home from school and, what do you know, all seven of the books were for sale in it at an affordable price (we got them for considerably less than the set I linked in the next paragraph, but it was the only full set I could find to show you in case you're interested in what the books are). We ordered them.

They are the Shadow Children series by Margaret Peterson Haddix. Set in a fictional totalitarian society where having more than two children is outlawed with strict penalties (death!) for violators, the series follows several ‘illegals’ or third children who have spent most of their short lives in hiding and the adults who try to help them. This series is loaded with intrigue and plot twists and food for interesting conversations with my son. Think 1984 for kids. I am enjoying interacting with J about this immensely.

Some themes that this series is helping me explore with him are sanctity of life issues – from a perspective he can really get since all these ‘illegal’ kids are his age or a tad older. And many of the characters are behaving very nobly – when given a chance to just look out for themselves or put themselves at risk to save someone else, they are making very heroic choices and overcoming a lifetime of extreme fear to do very hard things. We’re also able to discuss some about why we tend to vote the way we do and why we don’t think government should be in the business of running people’s lives. This is a pretty timely series in that respect – we’ve even talked a little about why we don’t agree with our current president on A LOT of issues and why, and this series is helping him to understand it better. One interesting idea we’ve been talking about is how in the books there was a true crisis, and motives were to save lives, but the way the government chose to address the crisis was immoral, evil, and wrong. J has been asking how a government gets that way. Well, if enough people are in power who have a slippery slope idea of right and wrong and the value of each individual life and of personal freedom, it wouldn’t be hard to see how easily it could happen, especially if some dire crisis came along and people were willing to sacrifice some freedoms in the ‘short term’ with the promise that it was only short term. The difficulty there is once you’ve sacrificed freedoms, the more power over your personal life you put in the hands of government, how do you get them back once the crisis is over? Sound familiar? Problem is, in a fallen world, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It doesn’t matter if the reason for making a wrong choice was ‘good’ when that wrong choice is immoral and evil. In a fallen world, it is all too easy to see how this could happen. So these books are chilling. But encouraging, too, because they are written from the standpoint that the law was evil and that these children have a right to be ‘legal’ and heard and saved. Life is treated as precious in these books.

And the most chilling thing of all, I’ve been thinking as I read these books that it is only a short step from legalized abortion being euphemistically called choice, presented as a desirable option, and pregnancy being seen as a ‘punishment’ to one day being told you have to limit the number of children you have. That’s already how it is in China. You hear rumblings along those lines already over here from the people who are worried about ‘population overcrowding.’ We’re already considered unusual for having three kids, and my friends who have larger families are seen as weird, too, by some segments of society. On that note, Al Mohler had a good discussion a while ago about the real population threat, and I just read this today if you don't believe me about that short step slippery slope our culture is on.

We live in an increasingly child un-tolerant society. Read this article I noticed the other day that I started to write a blog post about but never finished because it just made me so sad and I just couldn’t address all the reasons why. We are becoming so self-centered in our culture that we just don’t want to be bothered with children or we are surprised when raising them inconveniences us and our ‘happiness’ in some way, and I find that sad, disturbing, and dangerous for the long term. I could have said soooo much more about my impressions after reading that article, but I won’t in this post. I don't know if I'll pull that other post out of the draft folder or not.

Anyway, I’m enjoying these books. Lots to think about and discuss with my son, and they are written on a level he can understand. I have about two and a half more to read before I’m finished. Hopefully I’ll like the ending, too.

I've Heard That Bettas are Fairly Indestructible

It's a good thing, too. I was noticing that I have posted nothing since last Thursday, I'll just check in with this little tid bit and hopefully write something else soon.

So, M got a betta fish for his birthday. That was last Thursday. Friday night we had a babysitter come and Drew and I went to the mall and to a movie. When we got home, J told us the fish was acting funny. The babysitter explained that Boo had found the fish food jar and proceeded to empty half of it into the bowl. He's only supposed to have two pellets twice a day, and this was hundreds of pellets at once. "Feed Sid! Feed Sid!" She gleefully cried. She really likes animals. I was much impressed with our babysitter's quick thinking. She transferred Sid to a cup and rinsed out his bowl and washed the rocks and everything. We looked at Sid, and he seemed happy enough - I mean, he's a fish, for goodness sake. All he does is swim around in a bowl, it's kind of hard to tell what he's thinking. So we thanked her for her quick thinking and commisserated with her about the stress our two-year-old caused. Welcome to my world.

On Saturday we had choir practice because Sunday we presented our musical in both services (it was very nice, very worshipful, by the way). After practice, the babysitter's mother waved to me in the church lobby and told the person she was talking to, "You won't believe what her daughter did last night!" I really hope that won't become something I hear often, by the way. I told her how impressed I was that her daughter was able to handle the situation. I'm pretty sure at her age I would have been stumped about what to do. "I'm so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So, the children are fine but your fish is dead."

So, on Sunday I told the babysitter's mom to please tell her that Sid is doing just fine, and I am much impressed with her quick thinking. Her mom and I had a good laugh about the stress level of the babysitter that night.

I wonder if this means a pay raise next time.....

Status Report - Early April

Sitting…at my computer desk, shamelessly stealing Lisa’s blog post idea and writing a status report for April. I, too, treat my laptop like a desktop. It’s just easier that way for this girl who barely even knows how to switch all the techie equipment on. If you knew how long it is taking me to figure out how to use our swanky new digital camera and the software affiliated with it, you’d laugh at me.

Drinking….coffee, decaf with hazelnut creamer and Sweet N’ Low. Drew and I have decided Sweet N’ Low is probably the least toxic of the diet sweeteners. Who would’ve thought?

Noting….that I am not ready for my middle son to be eight-years-old. But, ready or not, as of today he is. Today is his birthday. At 12:01 PM today he was officially eight-years-old. Where is the time going? Want to see one of his birthday presents? This was the big surprise I had waiting for him when he came home in from school! He named it Sid.

Weighing….too much. Okay, I know Lisa doesn't mean literally when she says this, but weighing options. Still. The scale is not my friend. Actually, maybe it’s just a really good friend – the most honest one I know…..

Tired….of potty training. She’ll get it, I know she’ll get it. But it’s just tiring these days. I bought one of these:

(Bissel Little Green ProHeat)

It was necessary. I like it. And then once she’s potty trained, I’ll be whining about how she’s growing up so fast I can’t stand it. I’m already whining about it. But I really cannot see myself weeping over being finished with diapers. Unless they are tears of joy.

Wondering….if we will be dog owners again soon. We found an adorable little guy while web surfing local animal shelters. When we contacted them about him, they told us he currently has pneumonia, but we can meet him once the vet says okay. I think he’s seeing the vet today. I hope we get to meet him soon. I’ll let you know.

Reading….The Last Jihad by Joel C. Rosenberg. I like it so far. Also reading Saved Without a Doubt by John MacArthur. I really like it. I think I need to write a whole blog post about it soon.

Recently finished…Ruthie and the (Not So) Teeny Tiny Lie by Laura Rankin. Okay, that’s me being funny. Boo got this at the library, and has insisted on having it read to her more times than I can count already. She loves the ‘fox book’ (Ruthie is a little fox). It is due back at the library on the 7th. I have a sinking feeling there will be much wailing and gnashing of toddler teeth on that day. We may be making and outing to the bookstore soon. As for me, recently finished is Sons of Fortune by Jeffrey Archer. I liked it.

Also wondering….why the manufacturers of my new blender felt the need for this:

I had to use scissors to cut it off. Really, was that necessary?

Needing….some new clothes. I hate shopping. This, too, could be an entire blog post, and since I’ve been so lax about blogging, maybe it will be soon.

Not liking….how seldom I seem to be able to focus for long enough to write a decent blog post these days.

Really liking….this season of LOST. Some things are beginning to come together, and the story is moving along. Confusing, yes. But very interesting. I’m driving my husband crazy with my speculating and wondering. I still think if it were a book I’d have to stay up all night to finish it. I really want answers.

Thanks for allowing me to copy your status idea, Lisa!

Thinking Biblically - Be Anxious For Nothing

I woke up the other day feeling anxious and out of sorts. The things I was stressing about were really stupid things to obsess about at 4:30 in the morning. In fact, as I lay there trying to go back to sleep, I noticed a trend in that none of them were major, life-shattering things. They were all either things that are fairly easy to take care of in the day light hours or things that don’t warrant anxious feelings anyway, but there I was feeling anxious. In fact, almost every one of them was something that I had procrastinated about doing for one reason or another, but none of them were major life issues. So, you see what a stupid stress session I was having at 4:30 in the morning the other day. And that’s only the beginning. From there I started stressing about other things that also are not huge, big things and are fairly easily remedied. Finally I just decided to get up and pray and read my Bible since by then it wasn’t all that long until the alarm was going to be sounding anyway as I get up early most days to try to pray and read my Bible before the kids get up.

This day I decided that before I tried to continue with my daily read through the Bible plan I would turn to Philippians 4:6-7 first and focus my thoughts on how God tells us in His word to be anxious for nothing. So, I opened my Bible, propped it up on the chair and knelt to read and pray. But I didn’t just read verses 6 and 7. As I read, I realized what the verses before and after 6 and 7 say. And I got to thinking, and it was like a light came on. Here’s what I read:

Philippians 4:4-9
“Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.”

I don’t know about you, but I tend to whip out the “Be anxious for nothing….” part of that passage, it’s one a lot of people memorize, when I’m feeling anxious and try to browbeat myself into not feeling anxious - focusing on the feelings while not addressing the thoughts and where they are to be focused. However, not only is the command to not be anxious given, but the antidote to being anxious is also given. How cool is that? This is why I love God’s word. This is why we say it is the Living Word. I’ve read through Philippians I don’t know how many times, but it only just the other day really clicked for me how three very popular and familiar passages to memorize actually work together. Novel thought, that, reading Bible verses in context, eh?

How many of us go around trying to gear ourselves up to rejoice in the Lord and be anxious for nothing in our own strength, and with no “finally brethren, whatever things….” to think upon we find ourselves spiraling right back into anxiety? Raising my hand. How many of us know those three sections separately and pull them out often, but very seldom put them together and see how it all fits?

We’ve been reading Loving God With All Your Mind by Elizabeth George in our women’s group on Sunday nights at church, as I’ve mentioned before, and in the first part of that book several chapters are spent discussing just what it means to think on what is true. For example, when I’m lying there at 4 dark thirty in the morning feeling anxious and out of sorts, I can ask myself, wait a minute – what is true here? Are the things I’m worrying about true or just potentialities? Am I anxious because I need to be doing something I haven’t done yet or have put off doing? Then what is true is that I can get my act together and do what needs to be done. Am I anxious about something out of my control? Focus on what is true and not what I fear might happen. Usually there is enough to focus on that is immediate and true that I only get into trouble by focusing on the 'what ifs.' My husband and I have a phrase we repeat often to each other: "There are no 'what ifs,' there's only 'what is.' Not that you don't ever prepare, but you get my meaning. You could write a whole book on this topic (in fact, it's covered nicely in Loving God With All Your Mind), this is just a blog post. Is my understanding of God lining up with His word in all that I’m thinking? If not, focus on what is true about Him. Am I purposefully remembering that God causes all things, even this whatever it is, to work together for good for those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose to conform us into the image of His Son? Even if the whatever doesn’t seem so good at the moment, am I trusting His purpose?

So that morning while I was reading and praying the scripture, I began thinking about the command to rejoice in the Lord. It doesn’t say, ‘Feel good about everything right now.’ It says, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always.’ So I started thinking about why I can rejoice in the Lord always. Awesome. And I took my requests to God, and remembered that His word says that when I do so the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard my heart in Christ Jesus. And part of that peace stems from thinking on those things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous and praiseworthy. Purposefully retraining my thinking from me, me, me, woe is me, to those things that lead to trusting in the God of peace who is with me.

It was a good morning.

A Plea From a Frustrated Housewife

I bought a new blender today. My old blender served us well – it was a wedding present when we married 15 years ago. It has been time to retire the thing for over a year – the plastic jar has a crack in it, so when I go to make a milk shake or something, I have to move really fast to get my blending done before the liquid seeps out the crack in the side. I have lived with this situation for quite some time, never mind the fact that blenders are relatively inexpensive and easily found in many, many of the stores I frequent. Clearly, Martha Stewart I am not.

Anyway, I broke down and bought a new blender today because I also bought some powdered Slim Fast and I want to add strawberries and ice to it to make a nice shake for lunch today and I’m tired of the mess caused by my old blender. We’ll discuss the merits or non of Slim Fast at a later date – or not – depending on whether this move of desperation results in any movement of the scale toward the left or not. Though I am quite conservative, I would rather a more liberal bent to my scale needle, to be demonstrated in a marked leftward shift. But that is not the point of this post at all.

No, the point of this post is to make a plea to manufacturers to please take into account who the likeliest person is to open a new product. The reason being, I have unpackaged the layers and layers of cardboard and plastic wrap to finally get to my new blender. The thing came with the jar thingy assembled. I am one of those germophobe, clean freaks who washes new dishes before using them. However, the jar is so tightly assembled that I CANNOT get it unscrewed. It’s not budging. I’ve tried and tried, but I’m just not strong enough. I’m wondering what kind of industrial strength tool they used to screw the jar onto the base. And what kind of Hercules did they expect would be opening the box and trying to use the blender? Sigh.

So, please, manufacturer people, help a girl out. Does it have to be fastened so tightly that nothing short of a bomb blast will detach it?

And while we’re at it, could we also discuss the plastic tie wraps and screws that hold every stinkin’ piece of children’s toys in their impenetrable boxes? And how about that thick plastic box stuff that is much thicker than shrink wrap and is nigh unto impossible to open - even with scissors? And shrink wrap. Don’t even get me started.

I’m off to try again to detach my blender jar from its base. Just needed to vent. And apparently when the blog drought ends, it results in this. I do apologize.

A Laundry Day Journal

One of the most satisfying, and yet profoundly unsatisfying phrases in the universal language of keeping house is, “The laundry is done.” The sense of elated accomplishment which floods you as the last towel of the last load is taken from the dryer, folded neatly and placed neatly on the towering pile of neatly folded, marvelously fresh smelling towels and you shut the dryer door in victory lasts all of about a minute and a half as you begin the climb up three flights of stairs to put them in the linen closet, balancing the sweet smelling pile under your chin, drinking in the aromatic freshness (I’m a Gain girl, myself) and the overall sense of having accomplished, when you make the mistake of looking down as you pass through the living room on your way to the last set of stairs before final completion and delivery of towels to linen closet. And there you spot them. The pair of dirty socks that one of the little arrows from your quiver has thoughtfully left right there in the middle of the floor, right where he took them off and promptly forgot they had ever existed in the assumption that they will magically put themselves in the hamper, and later the washing machine, somehow appearing sometime later in his room, no longer dirty. I say thoughtfully left them, because, of course, you needed to be brought down from your elation and be reminded that laundry is never, actually, done. That sense of accomplishment was based on a faulty, shifting sand. The rock bottom truth is that there is never an end to laundry, but merely an abating of the flood of dirty clothes for a fleeting moment.

And you sigh and think about the series on Ecclesiastes that you’ve been listening to Alistair Begg preach, which he titled, “Chasing the Wind,” and you think, yes, laundry, too, is vanity, vanity and chasing the wind. And you nod sagely with Solomon the Preacher, pondering how there is really nothing new under the sun as you call your son and remind him – again – that dirty socks belong in the hamper, not the living room floor, and you remind yourself – again – that love is long-suffering, and you must be patient, because, after all, Jesus has been so very patiently long-suffering with you, my dear, when you go into your son's room to gather up the dirty clothes from the floor there, where they still sit, even though you had asked him three times (at least!) already if he had dirty clothes that needed to go to the laundry room this morning.

Then you find yourself thinking that, really, you shouldn’t complain about laundry because, after all, how thankful you are for the clothes you have on your back, and on your husband’s back, and on your children’s backs, and how thankful you are for those bodies that wear the clothes and how thankful you are for God’s provision for the food and clothes and shelter you enjoy today. And you find yourself pondering with thankful heart that you are not lugging said laundry down to the river for an all-day session of back-breakingly scrubbing your only other set of clothes on rocks and then hanging them out to dry, but you are blessed with an automatic washer and dryer right there in the basement and can wash the clothes several times a week rather than much more seldom as those in earlier times were forced to do. And you go back to Ecclesiastes and read:

Ecclesiastes 3:10-12
“I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.”

And you skip to the end and read:
Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:
Fear God and keep His commandments,
For this is man’s all.
For God will bring every work into judgment,
Including every secret thing,
Whether good or evil.”

And you ponder the significance of doing laundry as unto the Lord. And then you come to the end of your blog post and get up and go down to the basement to sort and start the next load of laundry and thank God for the blessings whose clothes you get to wash today.

Morning at My House

A phrase I am 100 per cent sure my pre-mother-of-boys self would never have imagined herself saying:

"Quit burping at each other and get ready to go to school!"

Youth Ministry: A Parody and Some Thoughts

You know, the thing that makes a parody a really good parody is when it looks so much like the thing it is satirizing that you almost cannot tell the difference and you feel like squirming a little (or even a lot) when you see it. That’s what this video is like if you’ve been paying attention at all to youth ministry in the evangelical subculture lately.


Ignatius from travis hawkins on Vimeo.


I have to say, though, that I am really thankful for certain youth pastors I had while growing up. They were often kind of crazy at times, but they also loved us and loved us enough to tell us the truth of God’s word and to teach us how to read it and study it for ourselves, too. My first encounter with learning how to read my Bible daily came from GA camp as an older elementary girl and then youth group at our church in junior high and high school. Sure there are things about my youth group experience that I wish had been different, but, overall, we were taught to respect God’s word. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t any nonsense, but it was nothing like the trends I see today. My youth workers would not be seen as “cool” by a lot of the people telling us what is “cool” for youth ministry today, but they did make youth group interesting and fun enough that we wanted to be there, and deep enough for those of us who had the yearning to dig deep. It wasn’t perfect, but I’m thankful for those who sacrificed to show me that they cared about me and that they loved Jesus enough to teach us His word, and even during the fun, truth was not sacrificed on the altar of entertainment, though, to be honest, I'm not sure the church where I grew up would still be able to say that, and I'm not sure the tendency wasn't beginning even then. But, for the most part, I was taught to love the truth and not to compromise God's word, and I am eternally grateful for that, and even more so, I am grateful that God opened my heart and eyes and ears to hear His word and respond in faith.

What the Lord allowed me learn in my teenage years prepared me for college and laid the groundwork for me knowing that I MUST find a Bible-believing, Bible-teaching church while I was away from my home church and I am thankful that, only by God’s grace was the faith mine by the time I left home and entered the University of Florida (or ‘the brothel’, as one friend from youth group unkindly called it when voicing his unsought opinion that it wouldn’t be good for me to go there - I told him I was pretty sure the peer pressure to worldly living wouldn't be much more severe than what I'd already endured in high school). On graduation Sunday in 1989, my youth pastor asked me to be one of the graduates to share my testimony with our church. I don’t remember everything I said that morning (it was 20(!!) years ago, after all – we’ll bemoan that sad fact later), but I do remember that I read Jude 24-25, which I had marked in my Bible long before. Here’s what it says in the New American Standard version:

Jude 24-25
“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”

As an 18-year-old girl, with all the uncertainty and hope and fear that lay ahead as I prepared for the great unknown of leaving home and going off to college, I stood on the promise of God’s word that my Savior, Jesus Christ, was able to keep me from stumbling and to make me stand in the presence of His glory, blameless and with great joy to the praise of His glory. And, by God’s amazing grace, through no goodness in me and in spite of my naiveté and sinfulness and mistakes along the way and in spite of so many things I wish I had known then that I know now, in spite of it all, I can say with gratitude that Jesus has always kept me and held me and been the anchor for my soul. He has filled me with a love for His word that has only grown deeper the more I read it and the more I learn how to apply it to my daily, moment by moment life. I can look back, and yes there are things I would do so differently today, but I can look back and say that my God is faithful, even when I am not. I knew it as an untested 18-year-old, and I know it even better today as a 37-year-old, and by God’s grace, I know I will know it even better when I reach the end of the days God grants me to live here on this earth.

So, I don’t post this parody to say that all youth ministries are off the rails. As I said, I am very thankful for the youth workers who helped shape me into the woman I am today, but I do post it as a warning.

Parents, do you know what is going on in your teenagers’ youth group? I don’t think we can assume that just because the kids are meeting together at church that it’s all okay. I’m very, very thankful that it was at my church growing up. Sadly, it isn’t everywhere. I’ve seen some things since leaving home. Check it out. Know what they are doing and what they are hearing and what they are learning, if you are at all interested that your faith become theirs, for that is the aim we must be shooting our arrows toward. (Psalm 127:3)

HT: Thanks to Jules at Everyday Mommy for posting this video. It got me thinking, and even back to blogging today!

Little Cabin in the Woods

That's where we stayed while we enjoyed our vacation to the mountains in North Georgia. First, we visited Ft. Knox, KY since we most likely will be going there next. The boys liked staying on the Army base, I’m a little nervous about the move there, though I’ve heard from several people that it is a good place to be. I’ll cross that bridge when it is time – I’ve got enough going on here to focus on at the moment.

Anyway, we spent last week at a cabin we rented from an Army buddy of Drew’s and his parents and brother joined us, enjoying the peace and quiet, making s’mores on the campfire, giggling at the wild turkeys that would come strolling past the back porch and relaxing. On Wednesday, we spent the day at Amicalola Falls, the largest waterfall east of the Mississippi River, and that was my favorite part of the trip. We drove to the top and walked the trail to the hotel lodge there and ate in front of a window wall with a gorgeous view, where we also got to talking to one of the park rangers. She offered to meet us at the bottom after we walked down the 604 steps and show us some of her birds of prey. Very cool. Drew, his brother, the boys and I walked down the steps that follow along beside the falls while his parents and Boo drove back down to meet us at the visitor’s center. My most unobservant son managed to spot a beaver (actually, upon reflection we think it was an otter) on the other side of the falls as we were making our way down all those steps. That was cool, too.

At the bottom we met up with the park ranger and she introduced us to her birds, and one of the other rangers told us she is one of the top bird rehabilitation specialists in Georgia. They were gorgeous. There was a hawk that had been blinded in one eye by crows, several beautiful owls and a vulture. We got to have our own little educational session as she told us all about these birds and how they go about trying to rehabilitate them or place them in educational programs if they are not able to be rereleased into the wild. I loved it! Those birds of prey are some of my favorite creatures to see, and I always look forward to programs where we can watch them fly or learn about them. Back inside the ranger station, the boys got the opportunity to hold a non-venomous snake. I passed. Snakes are my least favorite creatures. By far.

I also got to reconnect with my uncle and his wife as who live in the area there as we had dinner together one evening, and then we got to visit my Grandma and my uncle in Knoxville on our way home, too. And that was really good, too.

Maybe if I can figure out where Drew put the camera I can share some pictures in the near future.

What I did not get done was any writing for future blog posts. I’ll have to manage to find some time for that now that I’m home – once I get the laundry done and the house back to normal, that is. I tell you what, over a week with NO INTERNET access was brutal. My hands were twitching by Saturday. What with writer’s block and last week’s vacation, I have really missed blogging – and reading blogs.

All in all, it was a great vacation, but it’s very good to be home, too. Looking forward to getting back into our routine and hopefully blogging again this week. But for now I must go check the chicken I have cooking for dinner tonight and do some work around the house while Boo naps and before I have to go pick up the boys from school.

Jello and Walls and Nails, Oh My!

If you, as I do, find the postmodern mindset to be confusing in the extreme and frustrating to engage in conversation, you might appreciate this as a great article to read. I have a lot of respect for Dr. Albert Mohler, and he does a nice job in that article of kind of summarizing the postmodern's mindset and the way people today tend to view truth as relative and non-universal. In my opinion, the postmodern attitude seems to revel in confusion and frustration. The more convoluted the argument, the more confusing the vocabulary, the more obscure the reasoning, so much the better. Just don't insist on anything being absolutely true. That's a huge no-no. But trying to figure out the movement/attitude/philosophy and conversing with someone whose thinking is shaped by it, well, the whole nailing jello to the wall analogy applies, I think.

I am behind in my iPod listening to Dr. Mohler's radio program, and today I was listening to his March 4 broadcast "Ask Anything Wednesday." The whole program was interesting, but what stuck out most to me were the last two questions at the end of the program, one dealing with talking to teenagers about postmodernism and the other about Open Theism and Process Theology and liberalism. Fascinating discussion. You can find the whole program here if you want to listen to it.

This shift toward postmodern thought has been going on for a long time, certainly its manifestation in the popular culture was at least beginning while I was in high school and college, but it is much more full-blown now. I'm sure the theories and shift among academics was happening way before it became so widespread popularly. Such things usually take a while before infiltrating the common thinking of regular people.

Anyway, since I started blogging I have become much more aware as I read comment threads on certain blogs how pervasive this 'postmodern' deconstructionist kind of thinking is becoming. And I think a lot of people don't even realize how much we've been buying into it. But you see it manifest in many ways, especially in a subtle, and sometimes not subtle at all, disregard for authority and objective truth and morality. Anymore, you have to be extremely careful to define terms and be clear about your meaning because one of the most frustrating aspects of this whole attitude is that people who are entrenched in it revel in playing around with language and you can never assume they mean what a straightforward meaning of words would normally mean. I have been left extremely frustrated after reading a lot of blog conversations where someone willfully misinterprets a straightforward meaning and turns it all around to mean something the writer never meant. Apparently this is a hallmark of postmodern thinking. What the author means matters little, it is all in what the reader wants it to mean to them that matters anymore. Dr. Mohler says this idea is called the "death of the author." I saw some of that in my English classes in high school and college, but apparently it's huge these days. That must be the root of so much of the hair-pulling frustration in blogging that I see around.

Anyway, I am only beginning to piece together some thoughts that have been mulling around for a while. I have been wanting to write something for several weeks that I just have not been able to get time to focus on enough to write well, but since it kind of dovetails with what I listened to and read from Dr. Mohler today, I'm going to try to start working on it.

We are going on vacation for spring break, so I'll be taking an official blogging break for the next week or so (as opposed to my unofficial, unintended break of recent weeks), but I'm hoping to spend some of my time there thinking through the post I've been trying so hard not to write, but which seems to be sapping all my thinking energy until I finally write it. Curious? See you in a week or so.......

Hello, My Name is Rebekah.....

...and I’m a bad driver. Just one of those little things you didn’t necessarily know about me. Oh yes. It was one of those days.

Confession time: I have a problem with curbs. If the battle is mostly won by admitting I have a problem, well, I’m admitting it. We have had this van for five years (I think?). You would think that I would have figured out how wide it is by now, wouldn’t you? Well, you would be mistaken to think so. Apparently I have yet to meet a curb I don’t love to ram my right tires over. And if you’re going too fast when you hit a high enough curb, it will give you a flat tire. Or two. Yes, ma’am. I know of what I speak.

So, today I met my husband for lunch and then he said that since I was dropping him off at work why not come on in and get my military ID updated since mine has been expired since January. Short aside, you have to go through a lot of security to get into his building. My jacket set off the metal detector, and Boo took off down the hall while they were scanning me to find out why I set it off. Good thing Drew was with us, in fact had to be with us since we civilian unauthorized people are not allowed to be unescorted anywhere in the building. Quite a change from his hospital days. Oh, and it took, like, forever, to get this ID taken care of. Drew leaned over while we were waiting and said, “There are 8 people working in this office, most of whom are standing over there talking to each other…..and only one can take the pictures?” Sigh. That’s the fun part of Army life. Hurry up and wait……..

Anyway, that had absolutely nothing to do with my story. It’s been a long dry spell writing-wise, bear with me, please. Anywho, I was driving home when I encounted a curb I have managed to drive past uneventfully for all these months of living here. Today, apparently, I needed to show the curb what I’m made of and rammed it good. The bump and immediate roar of the flat tire was disheartening. To say the least. Oh, and it's cold again today. Really cold.

Quite grateful that I had at least made it off the main road and was now on a somewhat less traffic infested road when I decided to make my driving error, I pulled out my cell phone and called Drew. “You’re going to kill me,” I began, which made him panic and wonder if I was okay. I assured him I was fine, didn’t mean to worry him like that, but I needed help. He came right away. I’m so thankful for my man. He assured me I wasn’t stupid and needed to quit apologizing, he was just glad it wasn’t an accident, when I kept berating my propensity toward driver’s curbside errors. I’m really, really glad he was home this time. The other times I have evidenced this particular quirk he has been deployed somewhere far away. That seems to be when I err the most often.

And another thing, the tire place had my tires in stock and can finish it tonight. When we lived “on the island” that was never the case. They always had to order my tires and it would take a day or two before I got my longsuffering van back.

And I think it’s pretty sad that I know that.

Could it Really Be Spring?

Ya’ll. I have my air conditioner on this afternoon! Spring is in the air. This is the first time I’ve ever run the A/C in this apartment. I tried keeping the windows open for a little while, but it is actually hot enough that the upstairs rooms were too hot and I needed to close up and turn on the air.

Woo-hoo! I’m so ready for spring and sunshine. I’m ready to see what our new home looks like with leaves on the trees and green on the grass. And I cannot wait to see the spring flowers. I just know it’s going to be gorgeous around here.

I’ve been seeing robins for about a week now and I saw a blue jay the other day. The birds are coming back! They know it’s just about spring, too. I also saw a gorgeous hawk in the tree out back. Love it! Didn’t have my camera handy, so no pictures to share, but, oh are we ready for spring.

I know, I know, there will probably still be some cold days yet to come. Don’t spoil my springy mood just yet. For today, I’m lovin’ the sunshine.

You Know You're a Mom When

Anyone remember this?



That was me this afternoon.

I looked up and Boo was standing there with her pants off. I asked her what she was doing, and then it occurred to me, helloooooo we're potty training, use the opportunity. So I took her to the potty, she sat down.....and she pottied. And her pull-up was dry. Dry, I say.

Woo-hoo!

I immediately high-fived my precious girl and thought of Balki and the dance of joy.

I guess if you've never tried to potty train a stubborn little person who does not want to be trained, this probably has no relevance to your life. But, if you have, well, then.

I'm easily amused. The dance of joy was not stifled by the fact that she had pottied through several pairs of panties and I had cleaned a bunch of spots on the carpet earlier today. Still. at this point I celebrate every small step in the right direction. Maybe there is hope of this child giving up diapers in the foreseeable future after all.

Really, I do have more on my mind than potty training these days, not that you could necessarily tell it from recent blog posts.

I guess the blogging obsession has finally settled into a hobby of more manageable portions. I just don't seem to have the time to blog as much as I'd like since this move. I haven't been able to figure out what exactly is keeping me so busy, but taking my two-year old potty often and pleading with her to keep Dora dry probably is part of it. I finally got my Google reader down to zero today, but to do it I had to sadly just mark all as read for more of my favorites than I wanted to. Anyway, maybe one of these days this blog will resemble thoughtful blogging again. I hope so. I bet you do, too.

Wading Through the Bookstore

The other day we were out shopping, and while Drew and the boys were at Circuit City looking for deals from their store closing sale, Boo and I walked on down a few shops to a Christian bookstore. It has been a very long time since I have visited a Christian bookstore, and can I just tell you that, rightly or wrongly, I was really sad after my visit?

It is not that there weren’t some good things there. There were. I even bought a few things, most notably this:

It’s a modern day retelling of the Pilgrim’s Progress, and it generated some good thinking and discussion with the boys. We’ll be watching it with them again and discussing more, I am sure. So don’t hear me saying that Christian bookstores have nothing to offer. I’m not saying that.

What I am saying is that I walked away from that store a little depressed. What I am saying is that you have to wade through a lot of junk and a lot of questionable stuff before finding a gem among the rubble. So much of what is on display is just not what we are to be about. And so much of what was on display was stuff that I hope people will be discerning enough to just stay away from. There is an awful lot of self-help and financial success and body image and other kinds of things that seem to focus too much on thinly veiled worldly thought and worldly lusts. That’s the bulk of the things I saw. Plus a lot of charismatic emphasis and a lot of big names you would recognize who are either shallow or downright dangerous in their teaching. And a lot of emergent/emerging/ etc. type stuff, too. Pretty much anything with a Christian label is there. Whether it is biblically sound or not. But it’s in the Christian bookstore, so it must be okay, right?

And I won’t even start on the kids’ stuff. Ugh. It’s depressing. Sometimes I wonder if the marketers are laughing at what an easy market we are as they offer us ‘Jesus Junk’ and we gobble it up without realizing that it is actually offensive when you start thinking about the glory and the wonder of who Jesus really is. I used to like the whole Christian subculture, was steeped in it you might say, but I have come to be very, very wary of it. So much of it is just not good.

When complaining about the goofy children’s stuff, Drew told me I should write something good and see what happens. His complete confidence in my ability is sweet and so affirming, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have what it takes to write something anyone would want to read. Maybe I should try it anyway, huh? We’ll see.

And the other day we found a Christian station that was not TBN and we were watching some kids’ show with our children, and Drew made an interesting observation about the commercials. Almost every ad had something to do with exercise, body image, or financial success. Not necessarily bad in and of themselves, but pretty revealing about what the advertisers think the target audience of that station is most interested in, don’t you think? And, no, I’m not saying it is wrong to want to take care of our bodies and to eat right and exercise, nor is it wrong to want to be wise with the finances God has provided. We should be good stewards of all that He gives us. I just think that our main focus shouldn’t be on the externals. And that’s the impression I walked away with, just judging from the sheer volume of the books on the shelves and the ads on the TV station, that we are preoccupied with things that are temporal. There is so much on those shelves that either feed our worldly desires or address our anxieties, hurts, self-esteem using worldly psychological models with a veneer of Christianese painted over them that I found it really depressing.

But maybe it is just me.

Is it Just Me....

Or is there something quite depressing about Christmas decorations during the last week of February?

That is what I think every time I drive by the house in our neighborhood that still has candy canes and Santa stuff in their front yard. Maybe they're just getting a jump start on next year?

Anyway, I think it's a little depressing. I'm so ready for spring....

Just sayin'.

Status Report - Nearing the End of February

Borrowing from Lisa again because I seem to be at close to an all time blogging low around here, I thought I’d try to jump start writing thought with this:

Sitting….on a chair. In my dining room, if you’re wondering, where we keep our computer.

Sipping….nothing. My diet Dr. Pepper is too far away over there on the dining room table, and now that I’m finally typing a blog post after a week (forever in blog time) without a coherent blog thought, I don’t feel like getting up again to go get it.

Pondering….hypocrisy. I’ve been percolating a post on it for a while now. Maybe soon I’ll corral my thoughts….

Thinking about….how lonely Leah must have been. I just finished reading and pondering Genesis 29-30. Sometimes when you read through those stories, you forget these were real people with real feelings. Not that feelings are the end all be all of who we are to be, but I couldn’t help thinking about how lonely she must have been to have been unloved by her husband and to have a relationship of rivalry with her sister. And I wonder what it was like for her after Rachel died. We aren’t told, are we?

Thankful….that God uses flawed people to bring about His gracious purposes. He used Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah and Rachel and Bilhah and Zilpah and all those boys (have you read about those boys?) to bring, ultimately, the promised Redeemer. It is absolutely amazing to read the Old Testament and see God’s mighty plan unfold and to witness His gracious love and kindness. Amazing.

Amazed….by God’s grace. Overwhelmed by His kindness to me. Grateful beyond words that He would save even me.

Currently reading….Loving God With All Your Mind by Elizabeth George (still, our women’s group at church is still working our way through this one). And World Without End by Ken Follett (the sequel is as good as the first, but, wow, it’s got some rough stuff in it – be cautioned if you’re thinking of reading it. It’s making me very thankful to not have been born in the 14th century.)

Next on the list to read….Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It’s sitting on my nightstand waiting for me to finish the current book.

Looking forward…to tonight. We have a babysitter coming so Drew and I can go out to dinner and shopping, and possibly even a movie – if we can find anything worth watching. At the mall. Can you believe what a good guy I’m married to that he will use a date night to go shopping for a new comforter and some other household things with me? How long has it been since we’ve done something like that? Not while living on the island, because we had no mall and crummy shopping.

Feeling guilty….about not starting the story my middle son keeps asking me to write for him. Problem is, I’ve gotten into this spiral where I feel guilty if I’m not cleaning something, so writing, all forms even including blogging, have recently fallen into a dark pit called writer’s block. Which means I’m all dried up for ideas for a story about parrots or pirates or something he will find entertaining.

Wading…into the search for a new dog. I think I’m ready. Now that we are having nicer days some of the time and we’re able to walk outside some, I keep finding myself thinking that it would be so nice to have a sweet little dog trotting along on a leash as we walk to pick up the boys from school. Though while looking at adoptable pet pictures on the internet today I ran across a little mini schnauzer and started crying. I still miss Oliver a lot. We all do. Boo keeps asking to go to Oliver’s house. She thinks we left him at our old house, I guess. Anyway, I saw some very cute beagle puppies that I want to visit, I think. Maybe soon….

Wondering…..how the little scale needle never manages to move to the left, no matter how I watch what I eat and how often I go to exercise. I must not be watching what I eat carefully enough, I suppose. At least it isn’t moving to the right, either….

Finishing….this post. I think that’s enough for now. Hoping to get back to blogging again soon. I miss it.

He Loves Me....

Look at the surprise I got for Valentine's Day:

The funny thing is, we were driving somewhere the other day and talking, and somehow we got to talking about exercising at the Y and I said something about how I'd like to get a real iPod some time, but that it was really more of a want than a need, so I would just wait a while. Anyway, my treadmill time at the Y is some of the best reading time I have - I just plop a book up there and walk away the chapters, but there are times I'd like to listen, too.

Then, yesterday I was listening online to John MacArthur preaching and Drew and I were talking again about how it would be good to be able to download some of the sermons and be able to listen while I walked or worked around the house instead of having to sit in front of the computer because our local radio station plays Grace to You at 9 PM when I'm not listening to the radio rather than during the day like our old station did, but I didn't think anything else about it.

And this morning, he gave me this. Total surprise. We don't usually do much in the way of gifts for Valentine's Day, but Drew decided this was a good year to go against our norm. I asked him if he got it before or after our conversation in the car and he said before. He knows me so well, doesn't he?

Now I just have to figure out how to use it and look for some good music to buy for download. Any suggestions?

Government Holidays

So, I went to get my new driver’s license today. Drove up to the place, saw the hours posted – opens at 9 AM on weekdays, it was about one minute after 9, so all’s well, except that there were two men standing outside the door peering in hopefully. First clue that things were going to be more difficult than anticipated this morning. Serves me right for waiting so long to get this necessary chore done, I suppose.

I got Boo out of the car and into her stroller and started toward the building, and met one of the men who had been peering in the window coming back to the parking lot, and he said that there was a sign on the window stating that the office is closed today for Lincoln’s birthday. Ummmm, isn’t that what President’s Day is supposed to be for? So, I went to look at the sign for myself and it said they are closed today for Lincoln’s birthday and on Monday for Presidents’ Day. Interesting. Guess the Federal holiday on Monday wasn’t enough celebrating for the local license bureau.

And government people wonder why we measly citizens are often frustrated and cranky when we have to deal with them for anything.

Think nationalized, government run healthcare will be any more efficient? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. I laugh in your general direction if you are that optimistic. Or should I say, “Optomistic?”

Limited government…sounds good to me.

More Conversations With a Two-Year-Old

Me: Did you have fun with your friends at church?

Boo: Friends! Bible Church!

Me: What did your teacher tell you about?

Boo: Teacher!

Me: Do you want peanut butter and jelly or ham and cheese for lunch? (I know, I know, offering too many choices at this age is probably a mistake....)

Boo: Peanut butter! Ham cheese! No raisins!

Me: Let's read a book.

Boo: Read! Mickey Mouse, Lazy Dog, Pink Bear, Nemo fish...... (all of her stuffed animal friends.)

It's sort of like talking to a cute little parrot.

Lessons in Patience

Or: Conversations With a Two-Year-Old

In the van on the way home from the Y the other day, radio playing in the background, but I wasn’t really paying any attention to it, when suddenly:

Boo: “Go St. Louis! Wanna go St. Louis!”

Me: How cute! “We are in St. Louis, Boo.”

Boo: Growing more agitated, “Go St. Louis! Wanna go St. Louis!”

Me: “Honey, we are in St. Louis. That’s where we live.”

Boo: Tears have started and now she is yelling, “St. Louis! Go St. Louis!”

Me: If I bang my head on the window, will she stop? What does she want? What? And why am I even trying to reason with a two-year-old for goodness sake? “We’re already in St. Louis, we can’t go there, we are there!” Pulling up to the parking space in front of our house and wondering if maybe she’s wanting to ‘touch the rainbow arch,’ something else we hear from her a lot.

Boo: “No! Go St. Louis!”

Me: “Oh, look! We’re here. We made it to St. Louis,” and I took her out of her car seat, into the house and quickly distracted her as I scratched my head and wondered why she suddenly had this little melt down in the car, and wondered even more why I was arguing with a two-year-old like she’s going to be able to process reasoning thought or something.

Another day, also in the van on the way home, radio again playing in the background when I noticed this little jingle (sorry I can’t provide the musical clip, just imagine voices singing it joyfully) “The Joy FM, St. Louis!”:

Immediately, Boo said: “Go St. Louis! Wanna go St. Louis!”

Me: Light bulb appears over my head. “Oh, you like the little song?” Sigh. I had no idea she was paying such close attention to the radio. Now I cringe whenever that little jingle plays, but I have learned not to argue with her about it.

Another entirely different scenario on any given day around our house:

Me: “Boo, need to go potty?”

Boo: “No, I dry.”

Me: “Yes, and we want you to stay dry, so let’s go potty.”

Boo: “No, I play.”

Me: “After potty, let’s go.”

And this happens over and over. Or there is this variation:

Me: “Boo, let’s go potty.”

Boo, in an obviously wet pull-up: “No, I dry.”

Me: “Nope. Not dry, let’s go.”

Boo: “No, I play.”

Me: “Here we go, potty’s this way.”

She’s nothing, if not consistent. And, by the way, spending time with a two-year-old ought to be enough proof for anyone that we are born sinners. I don’t have to teach her to say, “No,” or to have a temper tantrum, or to run away from me when I call her – and boy do I have stories about that. But training her to obey and to come to me when called and not run screaming through the grocery store displaying her independent stubborn streak is a constant exercise in patient discipline. Well, being honest here, sometimes I’m not so patient. But it is constant. And it has to be, because I love her and want the best for her, and the best for her is not allowing her to run screaming through the grocery store defying authority. And while training her, I’m learning that the best for me is to practice patience and consistency, too.

So Funny

I saw this last night and thought it was hysterical. Anyone else tired of the soul patch, postmodern, truth is relative, metanarrative story telling emerging lingo huh????, I'm so intellectually superior and emotionally tuned in you 'modern' behind the times thinkers just don't get it, wannabe cool and unique but really they just look like every other wannabe "look"? So funny.....

I Wonder.....

Why no matter how much or how little I put in my sons’ milk glasses, they never finish that last swallow. Do they think something terrible might happen if they drink the last mouthful?

Why it never occurs to anyone in my house to throw away a box when they take the last item. Do they think only Mom’s hands can throw away an empty granola bar box, cereal box, etc.?

Why everyone else in the house will walk past the same piece of trash on the floor for days. It's true. I've tested my theory by watching to see, and until I pick it up, it will stay there forever. I call it "trash blindness."

Why every kid in my house will go out of his or her way to walk in a mud puddle. Well, I guess that’s a given, isn’t it? Squishy mud is just fun to walk in. Not so fun to clean off of their only pair of clean tennis shoes or the carpeted stairs, but fun to walk in.

Why ‘they’ say girls are so much easier to potty train. Or is my girl just stubborn? And who are ‘they’ exactly, and why do we listen to them? Or maybe I just don’t remember what it was like with the boys? It is a relatively short time in life, all things considered. But I’m sure the gray hair I found this morning is directly related to the trials of potty training our girl.

Why anyone would want to be famous. Have you seen all the gossip ink spilled over the past week or so about a certain singer’s supposed weight gain? Everytime I pull up my e-mail, there’s another blurb about it. And if it isn’t her, it will be some other star tomorrow. Why would anyone want to have their every little struggle with weight or bad hair days or bad clothes days or whatever else discussed ad nauseum by the media which seemingly does not have enough to do. And even if they are just flat-out beautiful, the media which does not have enough to do will find some unflattering picture to post everywhere. Why is some singer’s weight or melt-down on stage worthy of days and days and days of news coverage?? I cannot imagine the pressure of having my every up and down with the scale scrutinized by people who don’t know me or care anything about me. This is why I say it would be misfortune to be famous. I relish my obscurity, truly. We have such a warped view of what matters in this country.

Just a few unimportant things I’ve been wondering about lately.

A Book I Really Enjoyed

I’ve said on here before that I haven’t found a lot of Christian fiction that I like. Well, obviously I had not read this:

Ya’ll. This is a GOOD book! Read it! Seriously. I loved this book. I definitely want to read more from Francine Rivers. The writing was beautiful, the story so engrossing that I was drawn in and crying by page fourteen. No lie. I loved the characterization and she has the “show, don’t tell” touch that made me forget I was even reading.

Apparently I have just not picked the right Christian fiction with the selections I’ve read previously. I think maybe I should have been a little more careful when I slammed most Christian fiction, and I shouldn’t have made such a blanket statement earlier. Just because most of what I had come across to then wasn’t great doesn’t mean that none of it is worth reading. As with any genre of writing, there is some good, some very good and some bad and some very bad.

There are a few reasons I have tended to be turned off by certain types of Christian fiction in the past, and I’ve tried to blog about it before, but my thoughts always ended up being too long or too critical and I never posted them. For example, I read a book once that would probably be classified as a kind of Christian romance. First mistake. I don’t really like that formula-driven kind of book anyway – you now, girl meets boy, girl is angry at boy or they get off on the wrong foot for some reason, girl finally realizes she actually loves boy, etc. - so painting a thin veneer of Christianity over the top and cleaning it up a bit didn’t add to my liking that particular book. That and the writing was not very good. And I ought to know. I’m plagued with a real desire to write, but I’ve tossed out so many things I’ve tried to write because they suffer with just the kinds of shallow and bad writing that I’m describing. But The Last Sin Eater was very, very different from the kind of book I just described.

It is HARD to write a Christian fiction story without the dialogue about faith seeming either contrived or preachy. It is neither in The Last Sin Eater. I love how she wove in the discussions of faith so well and naturally, and the conversions were so believable. In that other book I mentioned, the character kind of had a moment where she all of a sudden said that she just realized she’d been trying to live for God out of duty but now she realized it was love that mattered. It was odd because there was no indication earlier in the book that she even thought she was living for God at all, and no real reason for her to change her thinking. It was almost like that little epiphany was just thrown in to make it a “Christian book” but her change of heart wasn’t really developed very well before or after at all. In Francine Rivers’ book that I just finished, she does a masterful job of portraying characters who are weighed down by the guilt of sin – their own and others’ - and the realization that there is no way they can save themselves, and their pain and searching are palpable as you read and grieve and cry with them. And the thing that turned their thinking around was the word of God. Whenever a character is sharing the faith in this book, they are quoting actual scripture, and doing it in such a way that it sounds conversational and natural and right, not contrived. I am so impressed with the way this book was written.

Another thing I have run across in other Christian fiction books is, for lack of a better term, bad theology. Ideas that just don’t line up with scripture and are passed off as Christian. That kind of thing doesn’t bother me so much in books that are secular because they are not trying to present a Christian worldview and no one is really expecting it and it is even pleasantly surprising when such a book accurately portrays the faith at all, but when a book is published as a “Christian” book, it really bothers me to have bad theology or weird spiritual speculations presented as Christian thinking. And there are lots of that kind of stuff out there that women, especially, seem to gobble up without any discernment at all, swallowing weird theology or bad thinking as orthodox because it is presented as ‘Christian.’ Kind of like assuming we can turn off our discernment if we found the book in the Christian bookstore. I find that disturbing. And the reason I find it disturbing is that we American Christians seem to be becoming increasingly biblically illiterate, developing most of our theology from books and TV personalities (Oprah, TBN, the current 'Christian' fad, etc.) and not necessarily testing what we read or hear by the plumb line of God’s word. And when we do not take the time to know the Word, we are ripe for deception masquerading as truth.

Anyway, I’m happy to say that I found The Last Sin Eater to be a book I could really enjoy on a lot of levels. Not only was the story itself engaging – engaging? I couldn’t put it down! - but the writing was good, too, and for the most part the spiritual theme was well-developed and didn’t make me squirm, either. I’m glad I read it, and I’m looking forward to reading more.

Lost Shoe = Opportunity for Character Refinement

We had a frantic morning today. The boys were certainly acting out their boyishness, rowdy and loud, and with five minutes left before we had to walk out the door, I could only find one Boo shoe. It was right where Boo shoes usually live, but its partner was not to be seen anywhere. I corralled the energetic whirlwinds and asked them to help in the search, but, let’s just say that looking for lost items is not my sons’ expertise. We spent a lot of the five minutes searching under the stairs because a certain two-year-old in our house has a fascination with tossing things through the open stairs. Three levels of them. Most of her offerings end up in the mess of boxes under the stairs on the bottom floor. Those are the last of the boxes that will probably just stay there until some adult in the house is finally energetic enough to unpack them or maybe just throw them away. I don’t know what all is there at the moment. Not the point of this post.

Anyway, in a fit of pique, I pulled out half the boxes under the stairs so I could get to the juice cup that J found (see, a blessing in the midst of the frantic rush!) and which had been hiding there for, well, I don’t rightly know how long, and in the process did not find the missing shoe.

Now it was really time to get out the door, it was nine degrees outside, so letting the toddler go barefoot clearly was not a responsible option, and I was frustrated. And, sadly, I let it show. A lot. Crying and everything. It wasn’t pretty. So, I pulled out Boo’s old shoes, steeled myself to her cries that her feet hurt and hustled everyone out the door and into the car.

And as I sat there in the front seat waiting for the brothers to buckle themselves in, I sensed the Holy Spirit gently reminding me that I had prayed just this morning that this day would be His and that I would be willing to follow Him today. And I confessed, out loud, my bad attitude and prayed for wisdom that I would find that shoe and that I would know where to look and that I needed help, Lord, to get my focus back where it needed to be – on Him. In the grand scheme of things, it was just a shoe. A shoe we had bought less than a week ago, a shoe I really needed to be where it was supposed to be this morning, though if I had done the right thing and made sure everything was out the night before I could have spared myself this frantic last minute frustration, but still, just a shoe. What I was modeling for my children was more important than finding the shoe. So, I prayed and I apologized to my boys for my temper, and I asked God for wisdom to find the shoe when I got home.

I think it is right to pray about the little things, don’t you? God is in the details of my life every bit as much as the ‘big stuff.’ In fact, the longer I walk with the Lord, I am finding that it is often in the small things where I find that I have the hardest time surrendering to His Lordship. It is much easier to admit I need Him, Oh, I need Him when a big trial comes along. It is in the little, everyday interruptions that I find that I tend to live like I can do this thing called life on my own and forget that even in those little every day things, in fact especially in those little everyday things, I must remember that Jesus Christ is absolutely Lord. And He is absolutely Lord in my life, today, right now, in the midst of feeling frustrated, in the midst of feeling I have it all together, in the midst of today, whatever today holds. It is in the small stuff that my character is revealed, and tested and purged, and refined and molded so that I will be ready for the ‘big stuff.’ Just like this morning. I’m so glad I did start my day with prayer, and that what I had read in my Bible and prayed was right there to be remembered and confessed when I felt my emotions spiral out of control. And it was amazing how quickly my frantic and frustrated attitude melted into one of surrender when I gave up my ‘right’ to vent and confessed my need for His peace and strength to guard my tongue and my temper.

And when I got home I was able to calmly look in all the places I reasonably thought it might be and finally found it under Boo’s bed. I have no idea how it came to be under Boo’s bed. But I can tell you that when I saw it there, after less than five minutes of searching calmly, that I stopped and thanked and blessed God for granting me the wisdom to look there. I pray that in the next ‘small thing’ that interrupts my agenda I will better remember today’s example and trust God to continue to refine my character, in the big and the small things of life. Because He is sovereign Lord over it all.

Finally a Picture to Share

Our seven-year-old son was baptized on December 7, and I finally have a picture from that day to share. It was a little while for it to be e-mailed from the church and then with all the upheaval of the move it took an even longer while for me to get around to filing it so I can get it on my blog, but I wanted to share it here and not bury it back on my original post.

Here it is!

Father, help us to continue to teach these children how great You are and to know and love and hide Your word in their hearts, and help us not to place stumbling blocks before them that would make it hard for their faith to grow. Thank You for moving in M's heart and in J's heart and drawing them to You. Please continue to lead them to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, our LORD and Savior, and we trust You to please draw their sister to You, we pray, and help us to live faithful lives before them so they will see that their Mom and Dad really believe these truths we are teaching them. Help us to model in front of them an ironclad trust in our covenant-keeping God, and lead us to continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, too. And when we stumble, help us to be honest and tenderhearted and confess to You and trust You to guard their hearts. These children are Yours, please help us to point them ever to You. Amen.