Yup, Struggling with Contentment. And Reading Immaculee Ilibigiza

So, it's been kind of a rough week around here.  Or maybe I should say, it has been a rough week in my head.  Nothing on the exterior has changed, just all kinds of thoughts healthy and otherwise rolling around in my head all coupled with choice fiery darts that sometimes were so wacky as to be laughable.  Nope, not really your best shot.

It started with the after holiday normal letdown.  I LOVE MY FAMILY!  We have great discussions that range from the meaning of life to how to deal with our inherited insulin resistance, our sugar hormone-thing.  There is honesty, tears, laughter and it always ends with, "Lets do this again soon..."  Truly adult conversation.  Adult.  Conversation. 

It felt like heaven complete with the continuous feasting...though we were not in Italy.  I'm completely positive that heaven will look like a huge harvest table covered with great big bowls of pasta and overlooking Tuscan hills of olive groves.  At least my heaven.  Yours might look have more of a tropical look. 

Anyways, I got home and got lonely.  I'm surrounded by three joyful children bounding around with wonder in the Christmas season but here I was moping around combating my familiar frustrations with my un-Eden world.  Understand that all this was just a vague dark feeling until I actually got to sit still yesterday and ask God what REALLY was going on.

Yesterday I Sabbathed and got to journal and listen to the kind voice of God reintroduce me to my two oldest buddies: loneliness and discontent.  This time, instead of running to turn on the tv to drown myself in someone else's life, I sat with Him...and somewhat uncomfortably, with them.  Though still ominous, I'm not afraid of them anymore.  My God is big enough and wow, I've been on this road before and I have begun to learn the steps out.  It always starts with:  Lord, tell me the truth again.  this time, patiently, the Lord took my hand and led me to Truth as told by Paul and Immaculee Ilibigiza.

Philippians 4 holds my go-to verses for discontent:  

¹¹ I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. ¹² I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. ¹³ I can do all this through him who gives me strength. 

Thanks Paul.  So this is how I can go from feasting to hungry: Christ's resurrection-creating strength.  Time to start speaking that one out loud again.  "I can do all things through Christ who is strengthening me."  On rough days, I admit I can have a little- engine- who- could sound.

Then, Immaculee.  Immaculee lived through the Rwandan holocaust in a tiny bathroom with six other women for three months.  Her story, told in the book Left to Tell, shares how she learned to live forgiveness, to love her enemies with power and establish a deep contentment in God is more than inspiring, it is supernatural.  She became utterly fearless by living through death itself.  Her book is so filled with light that the darkness begins to lose its power.  

A small tasty morsel?  After 7 weeks in the bathroom living on stale bread and water, she had lost forty pounds and had painful body lice but because of her time of meditating on Christ's lavish love, she says this, "We may not have been a pretty sight, but I'd never felt more beautiful.  Each day I awoke and thanked God for giving me life, and each morning He made me feel loved and cherished."  The entire book is packed with this kind of in-your-face strength in the face of evil.  You will find a new hero as you read each page.

As I read pieces of Left to Tell again last night, I was able to begin to leave my desires in the hands of God again.  Oh yes, You have my best interest at heart.  And, oh yes, You can hold my desires and give them back to me in Your timing.  I yes, I do trust You to give me enough manna for today.   From experience I know that taking my will back to the point of truth will make way for my emotions later.  Maybe I'll pray that God will do the rest of the work in my dreams.

Good night, loved one. 

 

Building the Wall of our Family

Thursday Madeline and Caedmon and I carted a bunch of wooden blocks to the middle of the kitchen with a polly pocket house.  I got this idea from some brilliant blogger who I have forgotten now.  I'm sorry, virtual friend.

I was just going to give the kids the simple illustration that we all needed to build our part of the wall to make our house stronger.  Then, I got this idea to read the story of Nehemiah from our beautiful children's Bible.

You know those times when you feel as though the Lord is speaking directly to you through every word.  This was one of those times.  The passion, fasting, prayer and corporate confession of Nehemiah startled me.  He knew how to pray continually.  The opposition of the neighboring states mocking their work reminded me of those who don't believe that strong families are a possibility anymore. 

Then there was this powerfully inspiring image of those who were building on the wall had a sword in one hand, to fight off opposition.  All of a sudden I started understanding the importance of the mother, building and fighting: working with active love with all her heart (Nehemiah 4:6).

Not only did Maddie and Caed understand the power of working together,  ("Do you guys know that I don't like to clean?  How can we help each other do something that has to be done even though we don't enjoy it?") I think we all gained a better understanding of the necessity of the home.  Good walls create freedom.

More on this in the next few weeks. 

Facing Off with our Fears!

Last night I was asked to elaborate on the quote I used two days ago in my post about Love. 

First of all, I got this quote from Lisa Bevere of Messenger International's page of Free Downloads and the Lord used it in my life for an entire week.  Every time I worked out, I streamed it through my ears, pounding up and down on the elliptical until some of the truth began to soak in.  I think you'll find nuggets in the whole teaching, but this is the piece that is crying out for us as mothers to get serious about.

This teaching is under the heading, You are an Answer. 
http://www.messengerinternational.org/Display.asp?Page=toolsanddownloadsoverview

Check this out:

"John and I were very deliberate about ...positioning our children for something more.  Most generations don't ever finish what they were supposed to do.  So the next generation needs to go right back and restart what the first generation should have finished.

God told me a long time ago.  He said that your children will inherit one of two things Lisa: either my promises or your fear.  He said that's it.  Lisa, if you will not face off with your fears, your children will have to face off with them.  Mama, it's not just about you anymore."

Vulnerability takes Courage: Sara Groves, our fierce woman of the week, shows us how.

Sara Groves is unabashedly one of my favorite singer/songwriters.  Her lyrics can be brilliant and she loves a great turn of phrase.  "When the Saints" never fails to either bring a hallelujah out of me or tears of thanksgiving and surrender. 

A high school English teacher after college, she started to sing and write on the side, producing her first album just for friends and somehow it got around to becoming an album of the year. 

She'd be embarrassed that I've called her fierce but this is what I love:  I love that she is comfortable telling her audience about her most vulnerable thoughts like a blogger, but in a quiet, never demanding way.  Her humility is palpable in her music and on stage but it never changes the strength with which she is speaking truth.  Her vulnerability is her strength. 

And I love how she both wrestles with her faith and often pronounces scripture over us for us to settle into and bathe in. 

The truth she sings from this verse in her song, "The Word," is quiet but nonetheless poignant:

"People are getting fit for truth

Like they're buying a new tailored suit
Does it fit across the shoulders
Does it fade when it get older
We throw ideas that aren't in style
In the Salvation Army pile
And search for something more to meet our needs"

In this song, "I Saw What I Saw" Sara Groves tells us the story of how she receives her courage to love.  Great Video.  Great Song. 
 
Where does your courage to love vulnerably come from?
 
Thank you Sara for being willing to put yourself out there and be courageous with the truth.

A Heart Enlarged

So this is what I've been thinking about:  Enlarging our Hearts.


I think our hearts here in the States need a bit of a workout to get back into shape.  Our heart muscles are often a bit shriveled and anemic.


1 Corinthians 13 said that we can have all the outward manifestations of powerful spiritual living, but without love, all the power is sapped and the eternal significance is wiped out.  Love is one of those "nice" ideas that so much of the church seems to discount.  It was Paul who spent so much time waking up the church to the need for love.  When our hearts are engaged, we are called to walk out of our narcissistic fog and act!  Lord, enlarge our hearts!

When I first started praying for love for specific people in my life, I was shocked at how God answered my prayer in an almost immediate way.  The Lord opened my eyes to a truth I'd never seen before:  Love flows through the Holy Spirit to empower my relationships.  I don't have to conjure it up on my own.  I realized my heart had been anemic and self-focused.  I needed an enlarged heart.

What would an enlarged heart look like for each of us?  Here's an example:  Just think about praying for and then receiving an expanded love for the children of your neighborhood.  All of a sudden, during your prayer time as you lift them up to the Lord, you are strategizing how you can fill gaps in their emotional and spiritual love tank and then seeking out ways to encourage them.  Next year with an even more enlarged heart, (For me this enlarged heart builds over time with focus and prayer) you hold a neighborhood backyard Bible study and get to see their hearts given to Jesus.  


Imagine what this would do with your relationship for the woman next door, with the person you work with, with your mother-in-law or even with your husband!  "God fill me with Your love for (blank)."  You seek out and then receive that love and with an expanded heart, suddenly you are filled with God's compassion for that person, his way of seeing them.  No longer are you self-focused when encountering them and evangelism (good-news bringing) comes easy.  With your heart clicked in, you are empowered to love with a servant-like love.


Love, not duty, is the source of a our evangelical strength.  It is the umpfh behind our desire to share Christ as well as the courage to meet the needs that are festering like open sores in the world around us.  

Imagine what would happen if the powerful protective love that arises in us like a Mama Bear for our own kids were brought out as a force to confront the enslaving of other children in India's brothels.  Imagine if the nurturing desire that we already have to see our children brought up with healthy hearts and strong minds were the same desire that arises in us for other children in the Sudan.  A Mother's love, when it is empowered and enlarged, is powerful.

Often, I find myself swallowed in narcissism or a type of fuzzy mommy world where I only care about the next meal for my own kids and collalpsing in front of the tv at the end of the day.  There's a whole lot of living and powerful prayer during the meantime that is profoundly missing.  Love is what is missing.


Dear Friends, we'll finish our conversation later...and please, do converse.  I'd love to hear what you have to say!  Unfortunately, right now it is 6am and Xavier is trying to hit the back of the computer with a fork.  Daylight savings is amazing for adults but for the kids with internal alarm clocks, not quite as easy. Hmmm...breakfast and a full day ahead...I'll pray for you if you pray for me!

Mother Teresa's Encouragement to Mothers

I'm loving looking up info on Mother Teresa this week. She was simple, passionate and full of truth. Here's some special encouragement for us as mothers today.  Friend and Sister, no one can take your place.  God has chosen you for this most amazing life-task of mothering. 

An Excerpt from Mother Teresa's message to the Fourth UN Women's Conference

God has created each one of us, every human being, for greater things-- to love and to be loved. But why did God make some of us men and others women? Because a woman's love is one image of the love of God, and a man's love is another image of God's love. Both are created to love, but each in a different way. Woman and man complete each other, and together show forth God's love more fully than either can do it alone.That special power of loving that belongs to a woman is seen most clearly when she becomes a mother. Motherhood is the gift of God to women. How grateful we must be to God for this wonderful gift that brings such joy to the whole world, women and men alike! Yet we can destroy this gift of motherhood, especially by the evil of abortion, but also be thinking that other things like jobs or positions are more important than loving, than giving oneself to others. No job, no plans, no possessions, no idea of "freedom" can take the place of love. So anything that destroys God's gift of motherhood destroys His most precious gift to women-- the ability to love as a woman.





Instead of death and sorrow, let us bring peace and joy to the world. To do this we must beg God for His gift of peace and learn to love and accept each other as brothers and sisters, children of God. We know that the best place for children to learn how to love and to pray is in the family, by seeing the love and prayer of their mother and father. When families are broken or disunited, many children grow up not knowing how to love and pray. A country where many families have been destroyed like this will have many problems. I have often seen, especially in the rich countries, how children turn to drugs or other things to escape feeling unloved and rejected.


But when families are strong and united, children can see God's special love in the love of their father and mother and can grow to make their country a loving and prayerful place. The child is God's best gift to the family and needs both mother and father because each one shows God's love in a special way. The family that prays together stays together, and if they stay together they will love one another as God has loved each one of them. And works of love are always works of peace.


And then from her talk to the National Prayer Breakfast which was an incredibly couragous talk on the horrors of abortion.  (In her talk she spoke against abortion and said in front of the Clintons, "Please don't kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child.)  I want to have a couragous love like her!  This next quote was simple but true.  How bizarre the plight of rich purposeless teens must look to the outside world.  

"I was surprised in the West to see so many young boys and girls given to drugs. And I tried to find out why. Why is it like that, when those in the West have so many more things than those in the East? And the answer was: 'Because there is no one in the family to receive them.' Our children depend on us for everything - their health, their nutrition, their security, their coming to know and love God. For all of this, they look to us with trust, hope and expectation. But often father and mother are so busy they have no time for their children, or perhaps they are not even married or have given up on their marriage. So their children go to the streets and get involved in drugs or other things. We are talking of love of the child, which is were love and peace must begin. These are the things that break peace."


We have in our charge God's precious, dear daughters and son.  We all can take a deep breath.  Our kids don't need a perfect cupcake decorating Martha Stewart mother.  They don't need a cruise-ship, fun-ship nostalgic childhood, but a mother and father listening to and in love with Jesus, loving them passionately and fierce for their minds and hearts. 

Fierce Woman of the Week: Mother Teresa

Andrew illustrated his sermon on obedience Sunday by telling the story of Mother Teresa in India. 

There are so many ways in which she is our fierce woman of the week.  We will explore more later. 

Here's one: She had been called to India and for 18 years had taught school with an order that spoke English in Calcutta.  What happened next?  God called her to leave the convent and the work she knew and teach a whole new group of children, in the slums.  One day she walked out of her convent without the promise of a roof over her head.  She knew that she would either obey, or be walking away from the Lord. 

It was on September the tenth in 1946 that Mother Teresa experienced what she later described as "the call within the call" while traveling by train to the Loreto convent from Calcutta for her annual retreat. "I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. It was an order. To fail would have been to break the faith."^[

The rest of her life is just one fearless obedient "yes" after another.

Fierceness is fearlessness plus first-time obedience. 

Active Mothering

I love this free ebook from the Simply Charlotte Mason website.  http://simplycharlottemason.com/books/smooth-easy-days-with-charlotte-mason/




Since so much of a mother's job feels like putting out fires, hurrying from one emergency to another, sometimes we forget that the reason why we are intensely focused on raising our children is because we have the opportunity to raise people of character.  The question is, how do we do that actively instead of passively just hoping that it will happen? 

Active, not passive mothering: this is my quest.  One answer is by building character-building habits into our children.  Charlotte Mason talked about  introducing and focusing on a new habit every 6 weeks.  At first that seems underwhelming, but one new habit every six weeks over 10 years adds up to building people of character.  When we first started doing this, I bought a white board for my fridge and wrote the habit we were working on in bold letters and how it would be reinforced.

(As I am writing this, baby is standing behind me playing peekaboo while he "talks" by sticking his tongue in and out of his mouth fast.  He is such a charmer!...so now he is settled into an early morning bath while you and I finish our chat.)

I picked a subject that needed immediate attention:  a peaceful dinner time at which Andrew and I were able to order the amount of focus the children gave to their food.  Basic.  Before dinner started, I reminded them, "Caed and Maddie, what do you need to ask before you can get down?  "Can I get down now please?" "and then what happens?"  "We take our plate over to the sink."  "That's right.  Good thinking."    What character are we working on?  Cleanliness, being people of focus and obedience...it was just what was most needed at the time.  Right now we are working on keeping our shoes and coats at the front door as the winter season begins. I give a gentle remind er when we are still in the car what they need to be thinking about when they walk in.  Again, right now we are working on remedial stuff.

The question is, how can we parent, helping our children to make necessary connections and becoming independant little people of character...without becoming the nagging overparenting mother?

Slowly.  Deliberately.  Actively.

Anyone else have any great ideas or resources for active parenting?  If we are going to make the building of the next generation one of our major life goals, we need to do it with a focus on active mothering and teach eachother how to give our children the best possible chance for an obedient, joyful life in Christ.

Now everyone is awake, cuddled on the bathroom floor and it is time to begin another active homeschooling day.

Working on our fierce faces:)

Extraordinary Love Calls us to take Extraordinary Measures: A Sermon from June

This is the tale of two fathers, one father with a sick daughter and the other father with the ability to heal.




This is really the story of a little girl, sick with a hugely bloated belly, the six year old daughter of a Malian African pastor. Because of the pain, the little girl was not free to be a child, to do the basics of what a child is supposed to be able to do: to play and learn. Her dad, in passion for his daughter’s health, would pray for hours on his knees for God’s healing. When the doctors first started treating her, they thought that she had tuberculosis. But after treating her for six months with heavy medications, the pain was still present, the belly still extended. The dad, bereft, brought her back to the hospital but the doctors unfortunately were at the end of their diagnostic powers. Without having anything left, he got down on his knees again…for hours a day.  The dad asked the doctors what other course of action they could take. So, the doctors gave the little girl a CT scan, extremely rare and expensive for an African, especially a pastor…easily two year’s salary without health care. The results were discussed by email with American doctors. The answer coming from across the sea was that it was a cyst attached to many of her internal organs. Again, a total dead end. No Malian doctor would attempt such a surgery on a six year old. It seemed the little girl would have to live with the growing cyst without any possibility of care until she became an adult. Still, the father did not stop praying.


Then, enter my own father, traveling to Mali last January to a hospital six hours away from this loving dad and his daughter. What the pastor did not know, was that my dad was trained, not just in various types of surgery, but pediatric surgery in particular. So, in hope that the American surgeon could bring peace to his six year old daughter, the dad drove six hours over horrible roads, the little girl crying out in the backseat at each bump. Finally, using the CT scan that had seemed financially irresponsible, my father donned his surgical cap, gave this little girl anesthesia and with precision, cut the mass away from each organ, leaving the little girl pain free and healthy. The next morning my dad checked on the two of them, the pastor was joyfully watching his daughter’s belly go up and down as she breathed. It was flat…and she was able to sit up and talk. He tearfully thanked my father and spontaneously raised his voice in worship. His prayers had been answered.


Extraordinary love sometimes calls us to take extraordinary measures.


This is another story…this time with a mother. A dear friend, Clare, about ten years ago found out that her son, Bronson, had gotten caught in the web of the horrible world of heroin. …and was now being held by drug dealers in a house against his will until he could pay for his addiction. I’ll never forget this image she shared with me: white Clare knocking on the door of a rundown drughouse in one of the worst parts of their urban downtown and when the door opened, and a man peered out, Clare pried the door open, throwing herself into the house and with determination, went searching room by squalid room pulling back blankets, turning heads with empty eyes until she found her son. But, the danger was not over. In most of these houses, the drug dealers are armed and this one was no different. She was followed by an armed drug dealer and threw a huge wad of cash around the room, creating such a chaotic scene that she was able to escape with a stumbling, scared Barrett. She did not care about her own safety. She was willing to go to extraordinary measures because of love.


She was the epitome of grace and love unwilling to see her child die.


This, precious friends is the kind of love that we see in God in 1 Kings 18 with the contest on Mt. Carmel.


I’ll set the scene: You see baal was supposed to be the weather god and couldn’t send rain. He was supposed to be the fire god and could not rain down fire. God, our God was not above meeting baal on his own turf in order to show the emptiness his people were giving their lives to. He revealed himself in power…to save his people.


Extraordinary love goes to extraordinary measures.


But, I’m not done telling you the whole truth of what the Israelites were facing. The truth was even more sinister.


Israel exchanged a covenant with the Almighty Creator of the universe with a slavery to a god who was demanding blood. Baal worship was not a wild frat party around a golden calf.  Baal often demanded a bloody human sacrifice. Where temples of baal worship have been unearthed, nearby have been found the piles of children’s remains, especially infant’s bodies. In two other places in scripture, we even hear that Kings Ahab and Manasseh had sacrificed their own sons in order to try to gain the baal’s favor for their success. We see just a glimpse of the horror in this scripture when the prophets of baal could not get him to answer their plea to send fire and began to cut their body.


Forgive me for this difficult description, it is just absolutely essential that we get that this was not an embarrassed boyfriend, this was a loving, protective God, a Father demanding the freedom of his people from life-destroying evil. God, our God, was going to extraordinary measures to reveal himself to his children to guide them back to Life.


Sometimes we stray from God into something that doesn’t at the time seem sinister, but then we look back on our lives and realize that so much has been stolen from us. The worst thieves can sometimes be the most unexpected. Does that make sense?


Andrew, Kathy, Marie and myself had a chance to go to a healing prayer workshop two weeks ago and one of the most profound truths that I heard at the whole weekend was learning to ask myself: what has this cost me?


Sometimes the things that we believe are really lies. You need to be perfect or to perform in a specific way in order to be loved. You are not smart. You are ugly. You will always be rejected. You need people’s approval in order to be loved. Or after a parent has died or abandoned us, we hear an inaudible voice whisper, “I am on my own.” And for the rest of our lives we live, walled off, a self-fulfilling prophecy.These lies become a major motivation in our lives, sometimes coming out of one painful encounter with a teacher or a parent. These can be lies that we are told outright or that we were told indirectly:


Here’s another one: I will always fail. There are literally hundreds of these lies stemming from the wounded places in our lives that become the jumping off place for the sin and pain in our lives. Unless cleaned up and healed by God, these lies and places of woundedness becomes the garbage where the rats reside. This garbage is the rats' playground. In religious language: These lies and wounds become strongholds of the enemy. This is where the evil one can steal, kill and destroy.


The question: “what has this cost me?” often brought tears to my eyes during the week at the conference. Because of these lies, we often wall ourselves off from people to protect ourselves. Or like the Samaritan woman at the well, we jump into bed with people who do not really love us in order to gain approval, go to pornography to silence the loneliness or need for respect. We go to food to make ourselves feel better, hours of television, silly books, gossip, drinking, friends that we know aren’t good for us…but we don’t want to be lonely. Put your own stuff in the blanks: I go to--------- when I feel bad. We often don’t even know that we are doing it, we may have learned to go to the action so early we don't see it as a reaction anymore. But years can be stolen by depression, or even stolen by perfectionism, and our dreams are often stolen by fears.


Our bodies themselves pay the price. These strongholds literally give us years of pain.


What has this cost me?


Does this make sense? We might not have baal stealing our children, but we do have the evil one stealing our freedom. But wait, these lies do steal our children as well: these same lies and fears we live with are often passed right down to the next generation. If we don't deal with our fears, our sins and the lies we believe now, they will become our kids' inheritance.
AND we might not be asked by our god to cut ourselves to prove our worthiness, but in a way, that is exactly what we are doing by over and over trying to achieve to show we are enough, or trying to gain someone’s approval to show that we are worth loving, or respecting.


The sad thing is that we bring these same lies right into our relationship with God…thinking God wants the very same from us and move these same assumptions into our relationship with Him.


The question of the day is: what has this really cost me? What has believing this lie cost me?


We are stuck in a web with the enemy’s shadow peering over us and we need God to go to extraordinary measures for us.


Listen to these words spoken by the prophet Isaiah…that Jesus proclaimed as his mission in this war. Drink this in. There is hope:


“I have come to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners…to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion.”


Jesus took the extraordinary measure of leaving paradise to take on our flesh…coming into the sinful world that his children created in order to literally die for them. Have you ever heard a father say that he would die for his children? This is what God did.


This is what Clare would have done for her son Bronson.


Elijah today illustrates the best news of all. When we cry out to God, He always shows up! We don’t have to work ourselves up to get His attention. We don’t have to cut ourselves…or be perfect…or somehow try to come to Him with great amounts of good works to tell him that we are worthy. We come as we are…and as in the story of the prodigal son, the father will run with unbounding grace toward you.


God longs to sweep in and rescue! His personality is that He goes after the one lost sheep. He even does the ultimate, sacrificing his body on the cross in order to satisfy the blood demanded by our sins so that we can go free. By His wounds we are healed. His blood is the beginning of our healing.


He longs to show up for us when we cry out for him. You, my dear, my friend, are that son, that daughter. He will go to extraordinary measures to heal, to rescue, to restore and redeem all that was lost. Part of our going to Ohio for this training was that we could be one of the friends standing beside you, showing you the way to freedom, where Christ is pointing the way. We can show you the map out.


You are precious to the father’s heart. He longs to come through for you. Longs to show up for you. Longs to reveal himself wherever you are…He just says, come, son, come daughter, just as you are…and I will take extraordinary measures to bring you freedom.

A Lesson Overcoming Intimidation

In certain contexts do you struggle with being intimidated like me?

The Lord has been training me in a new way, away from codependancy and into an unshakable knowledge of my identity.  I want to be watching and following God like Lucy learns to track Aslan in Prince Caspian.  Do you remember?  Lucy gets a lesson in who her Authority is and how essential it is that she follows, whether her path is understood and others follow or not.

Gianna Jessen gets it.  (Check out the last post. Learn.  Mark. and Inwardly Digest.)

1.  She's straightforward, not apologizing, not afraid of being hated (My Jesus was hated and I expect to be hated too.)  There's nothing codependant about her!!!

2.  Her obvious love of the audience does not make her soften the truth.

3.  Her warmth, smile, and crinkly eyes.  She doesn't keep her emotions at the anger level.  She shows complex warmth.  Very 1 Corinthians 13.  Her heart is engaged.

4.  Her comfort within her very visible cerebral palsey weakness.  She even calls it a gift.  Can we do that with our weaknesses?  Christ is our overcomer...and if something else is overcoming us instead, this is an affirmation of the need for healing.  Pursue healing actively!  It is one of the necessities for a victorious life.

5.  She does not allow the obvious powerful make up of her audience or the formality of the setting intimidate her.

6.  The pain of her story has become the power behind her ministry.  She has mined the riches stored in dark places!Isaiah 45:3


6.  She knows who and Whose she is, solid in her true identity!  Her identity is not on the periphery but central to her message.  "I am God's girl."  This can only come, I believe, through scripture/truth memorization.  The answer has to be God-breathed.  Listen to what God has to say about you.  Memorize it.  The truth has to replace all the voices rooted in your mind, past and present. Memorize it again and watch His internal surgery take place.

Thank you Gianna!

Fierce Woman of the Week: Gianna Jessen, Abortion survivor, speaks her life sermon in Australia

Women are a fierce breed and we are meant to use our stories to tell the truth and rise up on behalf of others. 


Check out Gianna's passionate courage in the face of weakness.  I love her quote:  Where were the feminists when my right as a woman to live was being taken away?


Don't miss this chance to stretch and enlarge your heart for the babies of the silent Holocaust.



Her identity in Christ is solid.  She's not afraid to be hated because she knows who and Whose she is.  She's a teacher for all of us.

a chatty, rambling blogging letter

We're all up.  It's 7:30am. We're still in the pre-daylight savings dark and one child woke up at 5:30am finding that he needed company. 


So, baby is safely contained in the high chair and it seems that I have hands "free" to chat. 


This summer I took a few months to get a certain amount of "control" (what a tenuous word, as soon as you think you have it, the sooner it disappears,) in different areas of my life. 

First was my home, sadly neglected after Xavier was born.  I spent six weeks spending every available moment inching closer towards home organisation.  I read about it, watched shows and surfing blogs to inspire, chatted with my friends about it and found neighborhood Mother's Helpers who were out of school for the summer in order to find moments to accomplish it.

Sandra Felton is my favorite "organization lady."  Her books on cleaning and house organization draw me in.  She not only understands the struggle, she has been studying the psychology behind the struggle.  I always need to know the why behind the problem...though right now I'm pretty sure I found it!  He is sitting in the high chair covered with oatmeal. Hmmmm.  She glossed over that one.  I find that moms have a selective memory when it comes to the "adventure" of young children.  It is the great sucking time warp and once you move out of it, only the nostaligic pieces stick!  Have any of you found the same thing?


The next six weeks I rebuilt my home cafe, (We don't get to eat out often, but that doesn't mean I don't crave great food!)getting creative again, trying new recipes and focusing on nutrition.  Way fun.  Barefoot Contessa's recipes are all over the internet and her Cheese blintzes with blueberry sauce were simply divine.  Everyone agreed, even baby, who happily gazed up in a dreamy marscopone haze.  Yup, honey.  God has given us cheese and it is good. 
Then, in August, we delved right into the world of homeschooling...while Andrew started a side business in web design, (along with mobile webdesign, e-stores and social marketing) and honestly, I have taken on more administration and teaching than I should have at church.  Then, with baby waking up as soon as he hears me and going to sleep close to 9:30 each night, I fell into bed exhausted and uninspired to blog.  Hmmm.  Now I sound like I'm complaining and making excuses...

But, I miss you all as well as blogging so  that on my day off I have been writing post drafts and have lots to share.  You have been on my mind even while absent! 

I'm thinking through a change in blog title like Anglicanpriestmom...or something like that.  And, in the future, I plan on doing some book reviews and bringing more strong women mentors to the table.  Look for the first in the next few days.

Meantime, "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ." 

His peace be on your home and all who dwell in it,
Summer Joy

A Quick Laugh

Caedmon was rifling through Nana's generous pantry looking for a juice box. "Mom, where's the good juice?". He meant the juicy juice fruit punch, not the fruitables I got this last time.

No answer.  I was deep in conversation with my sister, who graduated from The Ohio State University this past weekend.  (Don't ask why they use the pretensious "The." It is actually the legal beginning  of their name.)

Back to Caed.  "Mom, where's the juice box?"

"I don't know Caed.  Check the fridge."

Then this is what I heard muttered under his breath:  "I feel like the only man around here."

Hmmmm.

Silence.  Stephanie and I stifle giggles for what seemed like an insanely long five minutes until Caed left and went to the bathroom. 

Where did my five year old get that?

The only Man. 

Our Cottages, His Kingdom: How and Why We Usher Him In

The Kingdom of God (the power of Christ in and through people) was never meant to be static.  You are filled with the Kingdom of God if you are a Christian and surrendering daily to Christ.(Luke 17:21) Christ's rule has come over your life (though we are pretty good and coming out from under it often) and the Kingdom of God is within you. 

As Christians we are meant to be praying on a daily basis:
Our Father
Hallowed be Thy name
Thy Kingdom Come
Thy Will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.

This is THE prayer that Christ taught his disciples.  It might be short, but it is not simple.

What is the kingdom of God? The Kingdom of God is where Christ is on the throne where He is always meant to be, where all things are worshiping, and there is NOTHING placed before Him! The Kingdom of God is where we are WHOLE-hearted, Peter-stepping-out-of-the-boat focused on Jesus. The Kingdom of God is where every sin has been covered by the blood, where every disease and broken heart has been healed. Isaiah 61

In the Kingdom of God there is appropriate order.  Injustice is no more.  Every crooked thing (bad theology, sin) is made straight.  In the Kingdom of God fruit bursts out big and beautiful as we dwell in Jesus. 

The Kingdom of God is Eden before the fall where God walked with people in the cool of the evening.  The Kingdom of God is Heaven established on our soil.



So, here's the next working image:  The Kingdom of God wants to go out from you (Luminous One) through the Holy Spirit into every domain that you walk in.  The dark rooms will not/should not stay dark when we have walked into them because we are carrying the light of Christ with us. 

We can pray the Kingdom of God (God's true and powerful reign on earth) as we clean the dust bunnies from every corner of our homes, as we stroller through our neighborhoods, blessing our neighbors and praying that the Father would draw them to Himself. 

John 6:44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day."

We can pray the Kingdom of God as we walk to get coffee at work and then back to our cubicle, as we process the cross in our churches.  We can pray the Kingdom into all places where we have influence so that like ripples on the water going outward, the Lord can come on earth as it is in heaven.  This is our role, our joy as Christ-followers. 

When you walk around your home today, pray that this square footage would be Kingdom land, that Christ would reign there in every inch.  As you clean, pray, "Jesus, your Kingdom come here...in my heart...and here in this home.  Clean out our hearts as we clean out this room.  Lord, I pray that this home and the people in it would please you in every way.  Lord, heal us of every disease physical and spiritual that is keeping us from serving You.  Heal us of every broken heart that is keeping us from serving, loving, sharing You with our neighbors. 

We need to be healed so that we can stop the pity party, the utter self-focus, and LOVE others into the Kingdom.  Lord, we want to live in Your Presence...we want our food that we prepare to be kingdom food, our joys to be kingdom joys.  We want to dwell with You under Your tent."

When Jesus walked into a room and people began to believe in Him, this is what happened: healings occured.  Sins were forgiven.  Demons left.  Truth was told.  People were invited deeper.  The truth is that NOTHING HAS CHANGED!  He desires to do the same thing now, but here's the difference:

He wants to bring the Kingdom through you. 

Homeschooling...and shocking, I know... it's fun!

The summer is nearly over and I can definitely say that I am back...in more ways than one. 

We're homeschooling...a decision that I agonized over for the last few years.  My mothering stress level was crazy high and neither Andrew or I could have anticipated what has just occurred. 

I LOVE HOMESCHOOLING!  Who knew?  We've been "practicing" for the last month so that I could make an informed decision and have settled into a blend of Charlotte Mason and Classical for now.  Caedmon is an older Kindergartener and loves learning and Madeline has a mind that memorizes everything around her.  She soaks up knowledge without trying.  Caedmon and I were doing a few flashcards on question  sight words and Madeline was barely paying attention though every once in a while she would look up, barely emotionally engaged and in a monotone, say the right word (which had been shuffled, I promise.)

Right now our curriculum is using Living Books Charlotte Mason style and doing our other learning activities surrounding them.  Caedmon told his friend yesterday that he wasn't interested in going to school where you had to sit behind a desk and do worksheets all day.  "Yup," his friend said, "that's pretty much what we do."  You should see the tee pee in our backyard. 

I love my job.  No longer do I watch Andrew go out the door and secretly wish I had a "day off" to be a priest.  Passionate mothering is no longer a catch word to aspire to, but  (major prayer answered!) a reality.  I have always adored my children, but for the first time, I have major amounts of joy surrounding the work God has called me to.  I even started getting all domestic, baking and stuff.  No more Little Ceasar's crappy pizza.  Hello Barefoot Contessa's honey and kosher salt infused pizza dough. 

Homeschooling seems to order our day and builds quality time right into our schedule.  The bonding the kids and I are doing is deeper (Madeline even started wanting cuddle time in the morning) and even Andrew is getting involved reading "The Sign of the Beaver," before bed.  (We're doing all things American Indians from the late 1800's right now because that's where Caed's interest was already.) 

Personally, I love the creativity involved.  I've always been a learner and a researcher and spending time figuring out how to form feast-laying curriculum is fascinating.  The other night, I spent an hour of my after-bedtime free time figuring out how to make Madeline Sacajawea paper dolls!  Mothering has become my new guilty pleasure.  

I am rejoicing right now as this all has been extremely surprising and frankly, I am drinking insane amounts of orange green tea which steeps in the fridge at all times and is probably adding to the happy buzz.   Thank you, God and thank you, Lipton.

Happy Birthday Mom

Today is the birthday of my beautiful mother.  She chose an entirely different path from her own mother and decided to tend the inner fires of her husband and children instead of being outward focused, i.e. see the last post.)  I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't understand until I started having my own children and began to see their needs in a whole new light.  

When I was living at home, I saw endless tasks instead of protective instincts.  I saw piles of laundry instead of remembering her always available listening ear.  Her choice was brave in light of the feminist world she was living in.  She courageously chose to build a home instead of a business, a piece of the kingdom of God which my friends loved to immerse themselves into.  

I remember a Campus Crusade worker named Amy who became a friend when I was in high school and who said that she never wanted to leave our home.  With tears in her eyes, she said that she finally understood what a healthy family atmosphere looked like after spending the weekend with us four children having Saturday morning pancakes and watching the evident love my parents had for each other.

I am proud of you Mother and only hope I can grow up to be just like you.

I love this quote.

There is a particular danger in the modern attitude in which both people face the outer world, both spend their time in outer things.  This leaves the inner world unprotected and many dangers creep into the household through this unprotected quarter.  Children are particularly vulnerable to this unprotectedness.

From SHE by Dr. Robert Johnson

A quick hello and a poem

June disappeared and now almost half of June.  I've been in and out of Ohio for family weddings and an inner healing prayer training and now I'm determined to feel more in control over my little yellow cottage.  However, I'm working with less time than before (without preschool, etc.)  You know the summertime drill.  Blah.  Blah.  Blah.  I guess I just wasn't expecting it.  I never am.  

Until then, here's a poem I love about Sabbaths or why we need them.  I want to live in Wendell Berry land.  I guess I do, I just don't always see it:

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's life may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

~Wendell Berry

Shedding the Dragonskin of Discontent

I got more emails and facebook comments from my last contentment exercise than any other post and thought, hmmm, maybe my dear luminous friends have an issue with this like I do.  So, here is a bit of my story with discontent.  We'll keep talking about it bit by bit over the next few weeks.  Have courage, my sister, to look into the abyss of your own soul, as one early desert father would say, and be willing to roll up your sleeves with the help of the Holy Spirit.  Freedom takes courage.

A few years ago the Lord pulled back one of the dragon skins (like Eustace in the Voyage of the Dawntreader by CS Lewis) of my heart and revealed a thick skin of discontent.  One of the major culprits? I always looked forward toward something else that would make "it all better" a pot at the end of the rainbow if anything is!  The future certainly would be better than this, I thought.  Unfortunately, I was so busy dwelling on what life wasn't giving me, that I would miss the gift of the present. 

I read "Calm My Anxious Heart" by Linda Dillow and loved her chapters on contentment.  Those chapters revealed how thick discontent really was through my everyday life.  I woke up holding discontent tight like a treasure, wore feelings of resentment like armor as I cleaned, and it spewed out of my mouth when I was chatting with friends.  Not too pleasant a dragonly sight.  My husband was finding me scaly and difficult.  This was a thick dragon skin that demanded more than just a confession.  It had to be ripped off scale by scale by God himself.

I needed my mind renewed by Truth Himself...given through the Word and as we "reasoned together" in a journal.  Scripture memorization was one of the only ways I could find that would "slay" the dragon skin.  Then, each day I kept a contentment journal.  This issue created too much havoc in my family as well as my own heart to just peak in at it, forget it and still live in the mud.  I know that if I don't learn something now, I will end up learning it again.  I wasn't going to miss this opportunity. 

If you feel the same way, go get "Calm my Anxious Heart" and read the contentment chapters then find yourself a pretty journal with empty pages to encourage your conversation with the Lord over this issue.  If you are like me, this dragon skin will be thicker than you imagined. 

On the inside cover of the journal write Philippians 4:11-13 slowly committing it to memory: 

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.
And what was his secret?

I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.

Couple that scripture with Ephesians 1 that says that the same power that raised Christ from the dead is available to us!  Wow.  That's potent resurrection-creating stuff!  I want that in my life!

Just that scripture alone has the power to slip many dragon scales from tender skin. 

You'll find after you have shed the thick dragon skin of discontentment that you are more luminous than ever.  We can worship much better when we aren't complaining all the time!

My Sabbath Yesterday

Why do I Sabbath?  Joy. This picture was taken from my phone around 12:15pm.  I just wish I could share with you the gentle sound of Lake Michigan lapping the shore, the smell of the hot seagrass and the sun warming the stress right out of me. 

A day off (mine begins at noon and goes to around 9pm on Tuesdays) gives me time to play, to think, and to process.  I discover moments of silence. Whatever the Lord is inviting me into, I spend extra time learning and focusing on that subject.  It's our date time!  In fact yesterday was a day of victory.  I can't tell you how thankful I am to the Lord that the 1 plus 1 plus 1 that He had been teaching me, finally made its way to an equals 3 in my heart, not just my head. 

Later I worked out, hunted a bargain at TJMaxx, watched Robin Hood (love Maid Marion) and then hung out at Barnes and Noble, coming home with loads of green tea induced energy.

Even without caffeine, the energy continued.  This is one of the reasons I believe in Sabbaths.  I had enough energy to deal with three children in my bed at 3 am last night gasping under blankies through hours of thunder storms.  Eventually Andrew got up to work on his 6AM Bible study, the baby went to sleep and the older two and I had lotion foot massages, trying to giggle through the fear.  The energy didn't stop.  Today I had enough energy to garden and plant the window boxes on the little yellow cottage.

I've had time periods where a weekly Sabbath didn't work, when I was home with a new baby, when I couldn't find a babysitter, and when there was an emergency in the parish.  I always have to hold it lightly. So, I pray.  If a Sabbath is what the Lord wants for me, He will make it happen.  I pray for the health of my babysitter, for the joy of my children during the day that I'm gone, and for wisdom on how God would like me to spend my time.  He knows best how to usher me into rest.

Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message)

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

For some of you this Sabbath idea is just a pipe dream.  You can't imagine how it would be possible.  I invite you, my sister-friend, to just pray about it. 

There are about 85 women who read this blog on a weekly basis coming from all walks of life from all over the world and all of us need refreshment.  Some of you just had babies in the last few months.  Wow.  I love you.  You are in the middle of the beautiful and the messy and the exhausted.  And some of you take care of family members and can't imagine how you would get a few minutes to go to the grocery store by yourself let alone find hours to replenish.  He knows, my dear friend.  He knows your need for deep breaths and quiet, for time of laughter with friends and to have your heart cared for by your Abba.

I invite you to pray and to dream.  What would a day of refreshment look like?  What energizes you?  Cooking, gardening, reading, putting your feet up in a coffee shop with a great novel?  

Do your best to try this just once a month.  Even if you don't have a spouse who understands, find ways to accomplish your time out without help. Exchange babysitting with another mom so that you can have a Sabbath every other week.   And then, next month, comment to tell the other 85 about how it went. 

Need a scriptural basis for what we are doing? Read Lynne Baab's book, "Sabbath Keeping." 

Need inspiration? Read "The Too-Busy Book" by Linda Andersen. (Amazon) You will love my friend's lovely book of encouragement teaching women how to take retreats of all lengths. 


   

Monday thanksgivings

Waking up slowly but then jumping into the car to catch the Memorial Day Parade. 

Laughing at Andrew's free train of thought. The Mounted police are more dignified in thought than actuality. 

A big breakfast of pancakes with crunchy buttery edges smothered in nutella, bacon and fried eggs presided over by Daddy.

Zee Avi, Norah Jones and Michael Buble singing around breakfast table, slow dancing while flipping pancakes


A day with two parents full of "knowing" looks


Cuddling on the red couch with Madeline, reading Corderoy

Laughing hysterically over Maddie's "I know more than you, mom." 

Caedmon finding more desire to read. 

Andrew wrestling the two older, getting their crazies out.
Holy Trinity yesterday was unplugged, but full of heart-felt praise


The Spirit promises to come when we ask!

Divine Soup: Homemaking as Kingdom Work

I'm having an HGTV night, happily exhausted after a day at the beach with the kids, and watching Dear Genevieve.  I love her contemporary traditional design style and her Anthropologie fashion.  She wears tall brown boots over her jeans like I do and I just decided after watching her that I need a linen vest to go over my white button downs too.  But, what I just had to blog about was that in the middle of a busy bathroom redesign on a rainy day, Genevieve just brought a huge copper pot of squash soup to her craftspeople and said, "When you treat people well, they create more beautiful things."  

The role of a homemaker is under appreciated until confident men and women just start loving people through their gifts, food and otherwise.  When we undervalue our gifts, other people often do too.  It is the difference between a present nicely wrapped and one brought out of a Walmart bag.  Hospitality is more than a science, it is an art. 

I was bookless in a Barnes and Noble on my day off (an oxymoron, right?).  They didn't have a copy of the book that I've been slowly working through on Tuesdays.  I grabbed a copy of the Shack off the rack and opened up to a random page.  I was sucked in immediately.  Papa was cooking dinner and baking a pie.  I sighed with joy.  God prepares a table before us.  (Psalm 23:5a)  Wow.  God cooks for us.  Sets the table and brings a hot steaming bowl of something to share between us.  He invites us to sit down to nourishment and be fed with love. 

I've always interpreted the last verse of the Psalm: "and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever" as sleeping on a pew and sneaking food out of the church refridgerator.  Somehow that seems a bit sterile...love at arms length.  This is one of the huge problems of the modern church.  Everything seems depersonalized.  We're lucky to know the name of the person who shares our pew let alone have eaten in their home.  We're too focused on consumerism and quantity instead of quality in our discipleship and relationships let alone our resurrection.  Hospitality is one of the missing gifts of the church.  How will "they know we are Christians by our love" if we do not open our homes and hearts?   Real life gets fantastically messy.

Everything tastes better when made by someone who cares.  The chefs in Italy came out to meet us as we walked into their restaurant.  We found La Gargotta high on a hill looking over the Duomo after being told that the chef cooked only Tuscan-style food, the locals favorite trattoria.  He regaled us with seasonal delights (Tortolloni with nettle flower) and family favorites like rosemary infused beef and we carried on a conversation with the chef through their waiter, who beamed with the compliments.  We are not at Olive Garden anymore.

In a poem by Denise Levertov, The Acolyte, the main character makes "bread that is more than bread" by baking blessings right into the dough. That's what true homemaking is all about.  Food should connect us to communion with eachother and with God.   

I visited an Eastern Orthodox couple in their urban Indianapolis around Easter one year and found that their kitchen table was tucked underneath a shelf that had a large icon of Rublev's Trinity.  They were including themselves at the divine table, aware that a meal could become not just food, but a participation in More.