Books about prayer have been leaping off of bookshelves and into my hands for a while. Some are hokey, some are amazing, some are dull, some are exciting!
I know something about prayer. I grew up hearing about it, reading about it in the bible. Praying at meal times, bed times, troubeling times, praying for safety and for needs.
Suddenly, it seems, my heart is yearning for prayer. If I didn't pray early in the morning, I find myself sneaking off away from my LOUD family to spend a few moments in prayer. I keep a prayer journal and refer to it often. I want to speak to God and I want God to speak to me.
If you read my posts regularly, you'll notice that I often wonder why my life is the way it is. Most especially, when so many children? One of the reasons is becoming clear (one of many reasons).
Prayer. If it is difficult at best for me to get all six children out of the house to someplace where I have to have an eyeball and hand available for each one, by myself, chances are, we won't go. I end up saying
'no' to many activities because of my husband's schedule. I can not, in good consience, take my children on my own to whatever it is and expect everything to go well. So...we spend a little more time at home. I find a little more time to pray. My prayer time is becoming more purposeful. There is power it prayer. It's amazing to note things that happen when I know that people have been praying about a specific thing.
I know that God would have to 'ground' me in a significant way in order to make me consider prayer a significant and useful part of my life, then do it.
*UPDATE TO POST*
I wrote this post eight years ago, just at the beginning of my blogging journey. I wish I could say I'm better at editing now, but I'm not.
I can say I'm better at prayer.
Maybe not 'at prayer', but at praying. The actual doing of it. If I say I'm going to pray for you, I mean it. I don't forget to as often these days. If you post about needing prayer on social media, I pray in the moment when I see it. If I have time to be scrolling through, I have time to stop and pray.
Praying at all times isn't mysterious anymore. It is possible, and preferable. That part I keep trying to get better at. Praying without ceasing. I wish I could say that my thoughts are always on the Kingdom of Heaven. They aren't. My thoughts roam. Sometimes they get caught on something. Now and then they build things. Big things that are impossible to see around. I have quite a talent for assuming what's going to happen, and then taking it around with me as truth.
Often, though, I get to recognize it. I get to take down whatever thing my roaming thoughts constructed, and see it for what it is, or at least to take off my own perception of it and stare at it for a minute.
This often results in just walking away from a thought. My own thought. The thought that I grabbed and built into some ruinous monster. I can do that through prayer. It's really the only way I can do it.
I've tried before. Just squeeze my eyes really tight, think of something else and then when I open my eyes, the thought that was bothering me will magically disappear.
Sometimes that can work, at least temporarily. Then it really is just a magicians trick. Not really magic.
The real magic is when I give a thing to God, leave it in His hands, and trust that he will take care of it. That doesn't mean I have no responsibility left. I still have to leave it in his hands. I still have to chat with Him, learn about His character, build mine.
Talking to God is a significant and useful thing in my life. I do it. It helps.
I'd still like to get to the 'pray without ceasing' part. I don't know that I'll recognize when it happens, but I've observed people who, at the very least, appear to live this way. It's encouraging, the wisdom, strength and kindness of such people.
I don't know if anyone will ever describe my life that way, but I do aspire to reflect God's character. The best way I know how to learn it is by talking with Him.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Quiver Full?
"We are allowing God to determine the size of our family." Said by several women that have 6, 7, 8 + children. The standard answer for those brazen enough to ask things like "how many will you have?" and "are you having more?"
Here's the question: Did couples with fewer children, then, not allow God to determine the size of their families?
There are many Godly families that have 1, 2, 3, or 4 children. They are living a life according to the path that God has laid out before them. They are seeking God's will for their lives. God has spoken to these families, in some way, to allow them knowledge, wisdom and/or peace about the size of their family.
So I will be careful, as a mother of 6, about using that phrase, "...allowing God to determine the size of our family." I want to communicate that we are seeking to want what God wants for us, whether that means a large family or a small one, whether it means homeschooling or not, whether it means raising many disciples at home to go out and serve, or intensly serving our communities without children in tow.
Is there a fabulous phrase to communicate that God determines what a 'full quiver' means for each family? What about something like this "God is providing a ministry of discipling many children in our home."
Or am I getting a little to PC?
Here's the question: Did couples with fewer children, then, not allow God to determine the size of their families?
There are many Godly families that have 1, 2, 3, or 4 children. They are living a life according to the path that God has laid out before them. They are seeking God's will for their lives. God has spoken to these families, in some way, to allow them knowledge, wisdom and/or peace about the size of their family.
So I will be careful, as a mother of 6, about using that phrase, "...allowing God to determine the size of our family." I want to communicate that we are seeking to want what God wants for us, whether that means a large family or a small one, whether it means homeschooling or not, whether it means raising many disciples at home to go out and serve, or intensly serving our communities without children in tow.
Is there a fabulous phrase to communicate that God determines what a 'full quiver' means for each family? What about something like this "God is providing a ministry of discipling many children in our home."
Or am I getting a little to PC?
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Home school vs Public school - sort of.
Do you home school or send your children to public school? What are the advantages of home school?
~Parents have curriculum options
~Flexibility of schedule
~Children learn at their own pace
~Children get more one on one time with the 'teacher'
~Special needs kids have a better chance of their individual needs being met at home
~Parents can raise their children in a sort of bubble
~In general, home schooled children have a more rounded education, and top colleges are recruiting from home schooling families.
Not a terrible list. But one pops out at me as being a terrible reason. What is it that we are protecting our children from?
There can be a long, long list. It is a parents job to keep our children safe. "Don't do drugs", "Don't jump off the roof", "Don't play with fire", "Don't talk to strangers".
What do we tell our children to do? What is it that we dream for our children? We want them to be leaders, to be confident, to make good choices. We (Christian parents) want our children to go and make disciples, to live virtuous lives. How much practice do our children have at this in a sheltered environment? When parents claim that they live God centered lives, and that their children are being raised biblically, then example can your children possibly be to them? If our childen are always in the company of 'church' families, with very few exceptions, how are they practicing discipleship? How are they supposed to be a light to the world, when we hide them?
What about the children and the families that are in public school? Let's just assume, for a moment, that all Christian families are pulling their children out of school. That we have decided that the government is forcing to much in the way 'unacceptable morality ' on our children (i.e. homosexuality as normal, sexual education in elementary school that offers birth control, prayer and evangalism as unacceptable, etc.). Okay, so now the local public school is a cauldrin of sin. There are no Christian families sending their children there. No Christian parents attending PTA, or parent information meetings. No Christian parents giving input on curriculum changes, or forming relationships with teachers and other classroom parents. There are no children that have been raised to live virtuously on the playground influencing other children. There are no children in the classroom demonstrating virtues to the teachers.
What now? Have we just told all of those families to go to hell? Have we, of our own accord, chosen who has access to the gospel and a model of a Christ-like life?
If we choose to respond to the crumbling of the institution of public school by avoiding it all together, then we are supporting the decline of our neighborhoods. We are avoiding relationships that we have been instructed to build. Jesus Christ did not die on the cross so that we could put our families in a church bubble, then hope that when they graduate from High School, they will face the troubles of the world with grace.
I am all for protecting my small children from the perils of bad language, lewd behavior, and degraded thinking. Our children age, however. There comes a time when we should be coming along side our children and guiding their choices rather than making choices for them. If your children are not given the opportunity to make choices in a lost world, when parents are there to guide them, then what do they do as young adults?
A few will stick close to what they learned. They will go to a christian college, they will get into the church body and cocoon themselves there. They will attempt to become engaged in some sort of church building ministry. Even fewer will step out into the world with confidence in Christ, mingeling with the 'others'.
Most will drop out of church, if not upon entering college or the workforce, then by the time they are 30. After all, the world is nothing like the one we presented to them for 18 years!
Home school has it's place. It's a good place. It can be a great tool. So can public school.
What is your reason for homeschooling? Or, for that matter, public schooling? Are you putting your family in the way of the tax collectors? Are you influencing, on a daily basis, those that are addicted, prostituting themselves for the desires of the world, looking for something better? Or have you decided that those things are unpleasant and you just don't want to deal with them?
~Parents have curriculum options
~Flexibility of schedule
~Children learn at their own pace
~Children get more one on one time with the 'teacher'
~Special needs kids have a better chance of their individual needs being met at home
~Parents can raise their children in a sort of bubble
~In general, home schooled children have a more rounded education, and top colleges are recruiting from home schooling families.
Not a terrible list. But one pops out at me as being a terrible reason. What is it that we are protecting our children from?
There can be a long, long list. It is a parents job to keep our children safe. "Don't do drugs", "Don't jump off the roof", "Don't play with fire", "Don't talk to strangers".
What do we tell our children to do? What is it that we dream for our children? We want them to be leaders, to be confident, to make good choices. We (Christian parents) want our children to go and make disciples, to live virtuous lives. How much practice do our children have at this in a sheltered environment? When parents claim that they live God centered lives, and that their children are being raised biblically, then example can your children possibly be to them? If our childen are always in the company of 'church' families, with very few exceptions, how are they practicing discipleship? How are they supposed to be a light to the world, when we hide them?
What about the children and the families that are in public school? Let's just assume, for a moment, that all Christian families are pulling their children out of school. That we have decided that the government is forcing to much in the way 'unacceptable morality ' on our children (i.e. homosexuality as normal, sexual education in elementary school that offers birth control, prayer and evangalism as unacceptable, etc.). Okay, so now the local public school is a cauldrin of sin. There are no Christian families sending their children there. No Christian parents attending PTA, or parent information meetings. No Christian parents giving input on curriculum changes, or forming relationships with teachers and other classroom parents. There are no children that have been raised to live virtuously on the playground influencing other children. There are no children in the classroom demonstrating virtues to the teachers.
What now? Have we just told all of those families to go to hell? Have we, of our own accord, chosen who has access to the gospel and a model of a Christ-like life?
If we choose to respond to the crumbling of the institution of public school by avoiding it all together, then we are supporting the decline of our neighborhoods. We are avoiding relationships that we have been instructed to build. Jesus Christ did not die on the cross so that we could put our families in a church bubble, then hope that when they graduate from High School, they will face the troubles of the world with grace.
I am all for protecting my small children from the perils of bad language, lewd behavior, and degraded thinking. Our children age, however. There comes a time when we should be coming along side our children and guiding their choices rather than making choices for them. If your children are not given the opportunity to make choices in a lost world, when parents are there to guide them, then what do they do as young adults?
A few will stick close to what they learned. They will go to a christian college, they will get into the church body and cocoon themselves there. They will attempt to become engaged in some sort of church building ministry. Even fewer will step out into the world with confidence in Christ, mingeling with the 'others'.
Most will drop out of church, if not upon entering college or the workforce, then by the time they are 30. After all, the world is nothing like the one we presented to them for 18 years!
Home school has it's place. It's a good place. It can be a great tool. So can public school.
What is your reason for homeschooling? Or, for that matter, public schooling? Are you putting your family in the way of the tax collectors? Are you influencing, on a daily basis, those that are addicted, prostituting themselves for the desires of the world, looking for something better? Or have you decided that those things are unpleasant and you just don't want to deal with them?
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
why is parenting so hard?
I've been asking this question for a while. I've heard it pop up around me several times lately. There are so many reasons, so much good advice, but one stuck with me.
Are the problems that our kids face different or more difficult than those 20, 30, 40 years ago? Yes! They are!
Drugs, sex, and rock n'roll, the everpresent 'enemies' of a decent life (LOL!) are still around. So is the media. The images and language considered appropriate or mainstream have evolved over time until our children, if we allow them, are exposed to ideas of rebellion as acceptable, nay, encouraged! The message is that if young people aren't rebelling against something, anything, then their lives are boring, pointless and they are likely friendless.
BUT what are we teaching our children, on purpose, at home? Are we teaching them to live virtuous lives? Are they aware that ethics and morality are not the same thing?
When children are not equipped to filter media through virtues and ethics they are left with the morals of the current culture, the acceptable practices of the day - not always ethical and almost never virtuous!
How many of our children know what virtues really are? How about parents? Do we know what virtues are and how to live them daily? Do you?
Are the problems that our kids face different or more difficult than those 20, 30, 40 years ago? Yes! They are!
Drugs, sex, and rock n'roll, the everpresent 'enemies' of a decent life (LOL!) are still around. So is the media. The images and language considered appropriate or mainstream have evolved over time until our children, if we allow them, are exposed to ideas of rebellion as acceptable, nay, encouraged! The message is that if young people aren't rebelling against something, anything, then their lives are boring, pointless and they are likely friendless.
BUT what are we teaching our children, on purpose, at home? Are we teaching them to live virtuous lives? Are they aware that ethics and morality are not the same thing?
When children are not equipped to filter media through virtues and ethics they are left with the morals of the current culture, the acceptable practices of the day - not always ethical and almost never virtuous!
How many of our children know what virtues really are? How about parents? Do we know what virtues are and how to live them daily? Do you?
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Leadership at home - mostly.
Are men natural leaders? Do they automatically step up to head of the family just because they are men? Do they desire to have leadership even if their wives have assumed that role?
Women have been told that they are disrespecting their husband when they choose to keep the family under their own direction. If these women were to relinquish this role, would the men step up to that role? Does confidence come with they Y chromosome?
I boldly declare the answer to be 'No.'
While there are instances of overbearing women disrespecting their husbands, refusing to give up their powerful position as leader of the home, I believe that there are many men that do not want that position. That they would just as soon have someone else make the decisions, handle the finances, raise the children, do the negotiating.
Is it wrong for a man to give his wife these responsibilities? Giving the responsibilities is the key. What if he just sits back and does nothing, forcing his wife to assume these responsibilities. What if she takes on the responsibilities, and, over time begins to loose respect for her husband.
Okay, here's the thought that has been roaming around in my head, waiting for the questions to catch up. Wives, we have the responsiblity not only to relinquish head of home to our husbands, but to encourage and support them in that responsibility. Help them build their confidence, and offer to be a helpmeet.
This is a challenge for me. I am not a natural leader, as are so many women that I know. I don't lead my family gracefully, it is a challenge and I often grunt through my days in misery and with much rebellion in my heart.
My husband desires, because it is biblical to do so, to be the leader in our home. He knows that there are many things that I can do more effectively than he can (i.e., home school, grocery shopping, menu making, communication, set up house and home, keep skeds, etc.), and he trusts me with these areas. I, in turn, strive (because it is biblical to do so - and because I desire to allow our home to be God centered) to support my husbands efforts to be a leader in our home, exhorting him and respecting his growth as a man of God.
Not that I don't still make the occassional suggestion...
Women have been told that they are disrespecting their husband when they choose to keep the family under their own direction. If these women were to relinquish this role, would the men step up to that role? Does confidence come with they Y chromosome?
I boldly declare the answer to be 'No.'
While there are instances of overbearing women disrespecting their husbands, refusing to give up their powerful position as leader of the home, I believe that there are many men that do not want that position. That they would just as soon have someone else make the decisions, handle the finances, raise the children, do the negotiating.
Is it wrong for a man to give his wife these responsibilities? Giving the responsibilities is the key. What if he just sits back and does nothing, forcing his wife to assume these responsibilities. What if she takes on the responsibilities, and, over time begins to loose respect for her husband.
Okay, here's the thought that has been roaming around in my head, waiting for the questions to catch up. Wives, we have the responsiblity not only to relinquish head of home to our husbands, but to encourage and support them in that responsibility. Help them build their confidence, and offer to be a helpmeet.
This is a challenge for me. I am not a natural leader, as are so many women that I know. I don't lead my family gracefully, it is a challenge and I often grunt through my days in misery and with much rebellion in my heart.
My husband desires, because it is biblical to do so, to be the leader in our home. He knows that there are many things that I can do more effectively than he can (i.e., home school, grocery shopping, menu making, communication, set up house and home, keep skeds, etc.), and he trusts me with these areas. I, in turn, strive (because it is biblical to do so - and because I desire to allow our home to be God centered) to support my husbands efforts to be a leader in our home, exhorting him and respecting his growth as a man of God.
Not that I don't still make the occassional suggestion...
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
the slight
Recently, some one said something to me that, well, wasn't very nice. It was in response to a comment that I made. It wasn't horrible. It wasn't even mean. It just wasn't very nice.
It stuck with me. It wouldn't go away. Why would this person say something hurtful to me? I began to be apprehensive about being around this person. What could I have to learn from this?
I dislike confrontation. Horribly. Mostly, when I have to do the confronting. Could this be a lesson in gentle and loving confrontation? The more I thought about that, the more agitated I became.
I wondered again what I might have to learn from this. Was this person so wrong in what was said? Do I need to change something about myself? Was the comment a way for God to point out something that needs to be improved in me?
Eventually, the pressure of this comment on my mind crept out to other areas of my life. My husband would say or do something that irritated me immensly. The children's squabbles and volume would set my spine to ringing with the desire to silence them by sending them to their beds for the entire day. I was essentially being consumed with this one comment. This doesn't happen to me. I usally let things go. Why is this bugging me so much?!?!?!
So...I prayed about it. I confessed this SIN to another friend who prayed for me. When I realized that confessing sin was what I had done, I confessed it to God, asked him to forgive me, and now purpose to not sin in this way again.
I allowed a comment, probably spoken in jest, to take on it's own life. I Entertained thoughts of malice that were never intended and justified my emotions about it, allowing my feelings to dictate how I reacted to and treated others.
It's good to know that I am free of the bondage of sin. That silly, hurtful comments don't have any power over Jesus Christ and the transformations that He takes me through.
It stuck with me. It wouldn't go away. Why would this person say something hurtful to me? I began to be apprehensive about being around this person. What could I have to learn from this?
I dislike confrontation. Horribly. Mostly, when I have to do the confronting. Could this be a lesson in gentle and loving confrontation? The more I thought about that, the more agitated I became.
I wondered again what I might have to learn from this. Was this person so wrong in what was said? Do I need to change something about myself? Was the comment a way for God to point out something that needs to be improved in me?
Eventually, the pressure of this comment on my mind crept out to other areas of my life. My husband would say or do something that irritated me immensly. The children's squabbles and volume would set my spine to ringing with the desire to silence them by sending them to their beds for the entire day. I was essentially being consumed with this one comment. This doesn't happen to me. I usally let things go. Why is this bugging me so much?!?!?!
So...I prayed about it. I confessed this SIN to another friend who prayed for me. When I realized that confessing sin was what I had done, I confessed it to God, asked him to forgive me, and now purpose to not sin in this way again.
I allowed a comment, probably spoken in jest, to take on it's own life. I Entertained thoughts of malice that were never intended and justified my emotions about it, allowing my feelings to dictate how I reacted to and treated others.
It's good to know that I am free of the bondage of sin. That silly, hurtful comments don't have any power over Jesus Christ and the transformations that He takes me through.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
A Summer List
This post is from May 16th, 2009. Three years ago. Want to know what I actually was able to cross off of that list?
The list is growing. It's amazing how huge this list is. It includes some things that I didn't take care of because they weren't as important as other things, or it didn't need doing at the time, but definately does now. It also includes a few very important things that truly need doing now, all in no particular order.
1.replace/repair the sliding screen door But it needs to be done again.
2. replace the screen on the boys bedroom window (does anyone know how to do this? I have all of the materials...)
3. fix a circle vent thingie on the wall in the boys room (I don't even know w here to begin with this)
4.plant the vegetable garden
5. clear the vents at the base of the house
6.kill the moss on the roof
7. get things from storage for a yard sale (they've been in storage for 4 years, I'm probably not too attatched).
8. Price the items for the yard sale
9. Transport the items for the yard sale
10.Clean the sliding glass door numbers 10 and 11 have actually been done a few times.
11.Clean all of the other windows
12.Get rid of a broken television
13. Paint the boy's room (it is currently pink...)
14. Paint the girl's room (I have the paint in the back of the van) I got it out of the van, but never used it. It's in the coat closet...
15.Clean out the back of the van Good thing I did, since we no longer own that van.
16.Get rid of all the blue plastic storage bins that are piled up around the perimeter of my house. This was a major accomplishment and we celebrated.
17.Find a safety net for the trampoline.
18.Install the safetly net for the trampoline The trampoline needs to be repaired, actually.
19.Hang the baby swing on the play structure
20. weed the flower patch Not that you would know it today...
21.buy ink for printer
22. Plan curriculum for next school year
23. Get rid of a couch In fact, we have been rid of three different couches since then.
24. Move a piano
25. Have piano tuned As long as we are in this house, the piano will not be moved here. We have added another baby to our extremely limited square footage.
I have to stop there. I am feeling overwhelmed. That isn't the end of the list. All of these things will have to be done with the attendance of all six of the children and in conjunction with the regular daily stuff. Besides the giant ones - replacing a roof and replacing the siding (may have to wait for another year or two). How am I going to get all of this done? I had dreams of a summer where we do chores in the morning and hang in the shade or at the lake for the afternoon, with bbq suppers and evenings around the fire pit. Maybe those things will happen once or twice.
Summers are so much shorter now than they were when I was a kid. (and they STILL are!)
The list is growing. It's amazing how huge this list is. It includes some things that I didn't take care of because they weren't as important as other things, or it didn't need doing at the time, but definately does now. It also includes a few very important things that truly need doing now, all in no particular order.
1.
2.
3. fix a circle vent thingie on the wall in the boys room (I don't even know w here to begin with this)
4.
5.
6.
7. get things from storage for a yard sale (they've been in storage for 4 years, I'm probably not too attatched).
8. Price the items for the yard sale
9. Transport the items for the yard sale
10.
11.
12.
13. Paint the boy's room (it is currently pink...)
14. Paint the girl's room (I have the paint in the back of the van) I got it out of the van, but never used it. It's in the coat closet...
15.
16.
17.Find a safety net for the trampoline.
18.Install the safetly net for the trampoline The trampoline needs to be repaired, actually.
19.
20.
21.b
22
23.
24. Move a piano
25. Have piano tuned As long as we are in this house, the piano will not be moved here. We have added another baby to our extremely limited square footage.
I have to stop there. I am feeling overwhelmed. That isn't the end of the list. All of these things will have to be done with the attendance of all six of the children and in conjunction with the regular daily stuff. Besides the giant ones - replacing a roof and replacing the siding (may have to wait for another year or two). How am I going to get all of this done? I had dreams of a summer where we do chores in the morning and hang in the shade or at the lake for the afternoon, with bbq suppers and evenings around the fire pit. Maybe those things will happen once or twice.
Summers are so much shorter now than they were when I was a kid. (and they STILL are!)
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