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.