Tag: Thoughts

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Not Forgotten

It is easy to feel forgotten. Even Scripture has evidences of God’s people feeling forgotten by Him.
And to be honest, right now, I feel forgotten too.

Psalm 77:7-9
Will the Lord cast off forever?
And will He be favorable no more?
Has His mercy ceased forever?
Has His promise failed forevermore?
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies?

Psalm 42:9
I will say to God my Rock,
“Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”

Isaiah 49:14
But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
And my Lord has forgotten me.”

And in these moments where I can so easily feel forsaken and feel forgotten, I have to rely not on feelings and not even on circumstances, but on what I know about God, His character, His faithfulness. And so I must talk to myself, rather than listen to myself. I must remind myself about truths of God, not give in to the feelings that I have about where God has me right now.

Isaiah 49:13, 15
…the Lord has comforted His people,
And will have mercy on His afflicted.
Can a woman forget her nursing child,
And not have compassion on the son of her womb?
Surely they may forget,
Yet I will not forget you.

Psalm 10:12
Arise, O Lord!
O God, lift up Your hand!
Do not forget the humble.

Luke 12:6-7
Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God.But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

May God remember me in His mercy ~ by being with me in this dark valley, and by graciously bringing me to the other side of it back onto the heights someday where the sun still shines.

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They’re too big to miss

As I miss my baby girl (yes, Heritage is a girl… and apparently her chromosomes look a lot like her mommy’s… which makes me dream about what having a second little clone of me would have been like, just 18 months younger than her precious big sister…), I am clinging to faith, and clinging to Christ and His promises BY faith. There are giants in the land. Some of them have to do with the death of my baby daughter, and some of them are giants of other nations that we are facing at the same time. And what we are seeking is to approach these giants by faith, and to rest in God who is the One we trust will not only guide our steps but also equip us for battle, as He triumphantly gives us victory… one giant at a time.

 

We have to recognize the importance of fighting giants.
It is truly odd that pictures of this (in Bible story books, and so on) do not record the fact that Joshua led Israel into the land of giants, in order to displace those giants. This is a motif throughout Scripture. …
[W]hat are the giants in your life? What are you called to do about it?
The Great Commission says what it says very plainly. The Christian faith is a religion of world conquest through evangelization.
Are the giants here big enough to qualify as giants?
There are two approaches to take with giants — the first is that of unbelief and the second is one of faith.
Unbelief says that the giants are too big to defeat.
Faith says that giants are too big to miss.
~Douglas Wilson, blog

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Facing Giants

As I laid awake last night in the darkness, trying to find rest and peace and sleep, all I could think about was giants. I keep thinking about being in Egypt, and how horrible it is to be in a type of Egypt… how peaceful it is to trust that our God is leading us from the familiar chains of Egypt into the unknown but reportedly beautiful Promised Land… and yet how terrifying it is because there seem to be giants standing between us and that place of blessing.

I rolled over and said to Steven, trying not to cry, “I’m scared of the giants.” He reached my hand, and eventually said, “The thing about giants is they’re supposed to be scary and you’re not supposed to be able to fight them by yourself.” He paused, then continued, “The only way to conquer giants is for God to do it for you. Case in point: David and Goliath. The only way to overcome the giants is by faith.” I said, “But I feel like I’ve never seen a giant before, and I feel like I don’t know how to have that faith.” Softly and comfortingly, Steven said, “oh but you have, and you do.”

As I lay there trying to fight an emotional and spiritual battle during the night, I relied on the psalms to hold my thoughts captive: I distinctly recall quietly singing 6, 22, and 40 to myself. How thankful I am that God has given me weapons fit for battle with giants.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I re-read Numbers 13-14 (and skimmed a lot beyond that too) this morning, thinking about what it was like to be glancing ahead toward Canaan where there was promise of beauty but everything was ultimately unknown… thinking about the temptation to glance backward toward slavery where there was knowledge of pain but everything was familiar, and how even the hard things have a thread of comfort to them when at least you know what you’re enslaved to.

Moses sent some men to spy ahead, to see what was ahead of the people he lead, and told them to “be of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the land” (Numbers 13:20). I want to glance ahead, too, to spy out what lies before me: I want to be of good courage, I want to see that there will be fruitfulness in the place where God is leading me!

What did the men find? Well, for starters, they found grapes, pomegranates, figs (Numbers 13:23) ~ these were signs of fruitfulness, of promise, of blessing. They carried them back with them to show others, and to remind themselves, that there was a tangible reason to be of good courage. God was providing. He would continue to provide. He is faithful.

When the spies came back to Moses and the multitude, they told of the blessings that lay ahead: milk, honey, fruit! But then they reported of fortified cities, of strong peoples, of giants. It seems as though they were saying, “enormous blessing lies ahead of us! But there are giants, and they are terrifying.”

I don’t know about you, but that is something I completely identify with at the moment.

I confidently trust and believe that God has beauty and blessing ahead of me… but in order to receive that from His hand, I have to get past some giants. Some of those giants live in fortified cities. And it is terrifying.
There is part of me that wishes I could simply grasp for the beauty and blessing without having to face the giants ~ and another part of me that cries, “it isn’t worth it! Let me go back to slavery! It might be choking my spirit and drying out my bones, but at least I know what I’m facing there! Don’t make me face unknown terrors! Don’t make me conquer giants in order to obtain the bigger blessing!”

Part of me speaks like Caleb, knowing that by God’s grace and Christ’s equipping strength, “we are well able to overcome it” (Numbers 13:30), but part of me speaks like the weak-kneed men with him, “I seem like a grasshopper in comparison to the giants!”

It isn’t that I want to doubt the Lord, it’s that I am sinful by nature. It isn’t that I have forgotten the past faithfulness and provision of the Lord, it’s that I am sinful by nature. I need to fall on my face as Moses and Aaron did, I need to repent as Joshua and Caleb did, and proclaim by faith, “if the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into this land and give it to us… do not rebel against the Lord… do not fear the people of the land… the Lord is with us, do not fear them…” (Numbers 14:5-9)

Oh that God would give me the faith and humility to say like Moses, “please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying,‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of Your steadfast love, just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now” (Numbers 14:17-19).

May I not grow weary in following the Lord and His commands, may I increase in my desire to obey Him, may my joy be full when His wisdom is what guides me. May I, like Moses, who was not even permitted to enter the Promised Land when all was said and done,

Your eyes have seen what the Lord did… you who held fast to the Lord your God are all alive today. See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples… For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon Him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today? Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children… (Deuteronomy 4:3-9).

This isn’t the last you will hear from me about facing giants ~ rather, it’s the tip of the iceberg, I believe. I see giants before me, and I need to rely on Christ’s strength and God’s faithfulness. Like my husband told me last night, the only way to conquer giants is for God to do it for me, the only way to overcome them is by faith in Him. That’s what I am seeking. May God grant it to me not because I deserve His blessing but because He is near when I call upon Him ~ I want to believe it, see it, claim it, live it, and make it to known to my descendants.

Giants? Yes, there you are, I see you. I may be a grassphopper to you, but God is on my side. Amen.

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Iron: heating, bending, chipping, sharpening…

Proverbs 27:17
As iron sharpens iron,
So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.

Iron. It’s a metal that is known for its strength and stability. It is not easily bent. To shape or form iron, a blacksmith needs to heat the iron to an incredible temperature, and an intense amount of force needs to be applied to whack it into another shape. Heat and pressure: wow, that sounds like fun. And what about sharpening? When I find my Wustof knives need a little sharpening so they slice more easily through meat or veggies, I have to take that dulling blade and strike it against other metal. I can swipe it repeatedly against my knife steel (the handled little rod that came with my block of knives), which essentially chips away tiny shreds of the knife’s edge; I can also run it through my electric sharpener, which combines different stages of diamond, steel, and a stropping method to intricately and finely sharpen the edge of the knife. It is loud, it is heated, little tiny pieces of metal fly off… but the result of that fine grinding is that it leaves a sharper, more useful, more effective, even more beautiful knife behind.

So as I think about these practical things that I can visualize and even experience with metals in my life, how can I apply these principals here to this oft-quoted Proverb?

It is true that to be friends, you do not need to be exactly on the same page, every page of your book; in fact, it is often true that having friends who have different experiences or even different convictions can be sharpening in various ways. We need to lovingly challenge one another to grow and mature into Christ…

Hebrews 6:1
…leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection…

Ephesians 4:13-16
…till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

…and oftentimes this loving challenge of one another involves chipping away at one another, sometimes with heat and sparks, perhaps sometimes even with words that feel like they pit you between an anvil and a hammer. Much wisdom is required to know whether this pounding, this heat, this grinding, is bending you, forming you, chipping you, sharpening you in the right direction ~ or not.

If we are seeking to further the Kingdom of God, we want to be sharp, effective, beautifully cutting to the heart of the matter especially when it comes to mutually encouraging the brethren toward love and good deeds. As I read in a little article on the subject, if a knife becomes blunt, it still continues to be a knife, it is simply a less beautiful, effective, sharp knife. It becomes difficult to deal with. It cuts through things (eventually), but not cleanly, smoothly, easily. I end up sawing, hacking, damaging in the process. If I want to be an effective blade for God’s Kingdom, using the true double-edged sword of His Word (Hebrews 4:12), I need to be sharpened in order to be sharp. I need to put myself out there to receive the sharpening of God’s Word, and I need to seek wisdom on which direction I am being ground and hammered so that I will be sharpened toward a more effective Gospel life.

But what does this sharpening feel like? Is it always easy? Well, I imagine that having the dullness rubbed, ground, and hacked off of me is not supposed to always feel easy. Sometimes it may seem like a massaging into my faith muscles, but sometimes it may seem more like a knife digging out sin or blindness pustules. It is true that the New Testament is full of descriptions of how the Body of Christ should relate to one another, and we can not avoid the truth that when speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), the truth may sometimes be painful and sharp. When I sharpen iron with someone, it should not surprise me if a conversation gets heated, if sparks fly, if anvil & hammer are even needed. But the point is not the heat, the spark, the hammering: the point is effective, wise work. The final word is not the sharpening process: the final word is the beautiful grace of sharpness.

As I continue to think about this, I go back to this post on the subject where I read about what Proverbs 27:17 doesn’t mean ~ because in figuring out what something does mean, it is often profitable to study what it does not mean. One thing this blogger says is “I need friends whose wisdom, whose willingness to say difficult things, or whose different perspectives will provide the grit with which God can sand my dull edges.” I love that thought: that we need Christians around us who will provide the grit for God to use as our sandpaper. We have dull edges, and they can’t stay that way! We need sanctifying resistance, as she said.

So what does this mean to me? What does it mean to you?
How can I apply these thoughts and principals in my friendships? In my marriage? In my parenting? In my church community?

My personal prayer is that the Lord would grant me the wisdom to not only be a sharpener, but to receive sharpening with grace. May I not chafe under the heat, the hammering, the flying sparks, the painful bending when they come by the wisdom and grace of God; may He give  me the wisdom to have the strength and stability of iron, also, when I need to resist hammering and chipping in the wrong direction. May I both give and receive the blessing of sharpening edges unto the further glory of God and the further expanse of His Kingdom. May grace and Gospel come before, fill up, overflow, and end every instance of sharpening that I give and receive, so that these things would be done in the manner of Christ, where grace abounds and love covers a multitude of sins.

2 Timothy 2:1
You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

2 Thessalonians 1:11-12
Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power,that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

John 13:34-35
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.

…And of course this then brings up, HOW did Jesus love His people? And what kind of love is it that He wants us to use in loving one another so that the world will see us as His disciples, and see Him through us? Well, I would briefly say that, as one of my former pastors has said, using the common method of going through 1 Corinthians 13 and inserting “Jesus” in the place of “love” each time it is mentioned would give us a good idea… and yes, that would imply that there are times when heat, sparks, grinding, rubbing, sharpening is necessary…
But that just may be another musing for another time.

Grace and peace and joy be yours in abundance, and may you sharpen iron together with Christians around you for the glory of God and for the furtherance of His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

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Words

I have so many words running in circles in my head. So many things that need written. Thankfully I have started journaling occasionally again. Mostly just about family life, because I figure that’s what one of my children or grandchildren might find fun to read about someday; or it may be the kind of thing I need to read when I am old, especially if I grow lonely or senile or if I am tempted to forget any of these amazing testimonies of God’s faithfulness. I need to be able to see clearly these beautiful ebenezers that God has set up for me. So I try to write them down.

Ecclesiastes 9:17
Words of the wise, spoken quietly, should be heard
Rather than the shout of a ruler of fools.

I have new writing responsibilities for a new online ministry coming up. It’s something that is launching in April, but I have a bunch of preparatory work in the meantime. So posts about my life as a mommy-after-loss, and as a pregnant-after-loss woman, are likewise spinning in my head. I need to take the thought and time to put them down. I need to cover these thoughts and ideas with prayer, and see what the Lord would do with these words for His glory and His Kingdom.

Proverbs 18:4
The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters;
The wellspring of wisdom is a flowing brook.

I speak so many words throughout a day. I am trying to take not only my thoughts captive but also my words. As I’ve been studying Genesis using this book (I’m leading a small women’s Bible study twice a month), grace and Gospel are just such enormous, recurring themes. Today we studied Genesis 6, and what really struck me was how God reacted to the incredible darkness and sin (the thoughts of man’s heart was only continual evil, 6:5 says). Scripture doesn’t say that the wrath of God was kindled (although truly that would have been just), it says that He was grieved. Oh, Lord, that You would cause my words to reflect that kind of grace! When I see sin, oh that You may cause me to be grieved for the sake of Your glory, rather than angry for the sake of my own ease & pride. So I am praying for words to speak and write that would be seasoned with grace; that things would not end with hard words from my mouth, but that I would have the Christlikeness to always bring it back to grace and the Gospel. Because that’s what God does, and I am called to imitate Him.

Psalm 119:172
My tongue shall speak of Your word,
For all Your commandments are righteousness.

I read words at an alarming pace these days. Of course being a mom of little ones, and being a homeschooling mom to boot, that’s a big part of my calling. And then it’s also a major part of how God grows and strengthens me as His child: I am begging for meat to chew on so that my spirit would be nourished, and I’m so thankful for His gifts of the written word. As I seek to challenge and encourage my soul by reading blogs and books and Scripture and letters and hymns and psalms, I know that I need to be discerning and wise. May the Lord grant me that discernment and wisdom, so that I would be filled with Truth, and so that blessings from God would not only flow into me but fill me to overflowing so that that is what I would then spill onto others.

Proverbs 16:20
He who heeds the word wisely will find good,
And whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he.

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Light at the End of the Tunnel

Have you ever heard that old adage, “a light at the end of the tunnel”?
That’s a rhetorical question: I’m sure you have. 🙂
It is usually said in an attempt to be comforting, hopeful, calming, reassuring.

Have you ever found yourself searching for that light?
How will you know when you’ve seen it?
What if the end of one tunnel is simply the beginning of another tunnel?

How do I know what I’m looking for?
What kind of tools do I need in order to see it?

Will I trip over it, stumbling, and suddenly realize that I just clumsily fell out of the tunnel and into the light without even knowing the end was nearly there?
Do I need binoculars? Maybe a catadioptric telescope?
Perhaps I simply need to perform a quick buff of my glasses lenses or replace my contact lenses?

The thing is, if you are looking for a physical light, an actual end to a tangible tunnel, you might find that new contacts, clean glasses, a super strong telescope, a pair of binoculars, or even suddenly blinking might indeed be enough to help you see the light at the end of the tunnel.

But more often than not, this phrase is not said about a physical reality but about a hope or belief that a difficult situation may be soon to conclude.

Do you think the saints listed in Hebrews 11 looked for a light at the end of the tunnel?

Hebrews 11:1-3, 13
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
…These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

As Christians, what light are we looking for? How do we endure dark tunnels? What is the purpose of a tunnel anyway? Where does it take us? Will we recognize the light when it appears?

2 Corinthians 4:17-18
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Oh, the comfort of knowing that trials and tribulations are temporary. Whether we plan ends to them ourselves, or see the Lord working conclusions for us, or simply look ahead in faith for the redemption of all things by the Great Redeemer Himself ~ the darkness will indeed be put away, and the Lord will be THE light; there will be no more darkness, no more trials, no more “tunnels.” Thanks be to God, our Great Redeemer and Comforter!

Isaiah 60:19-20
The sun shall be no more
    your light by day,
nor for brightness shall the moon
    give you light;
but the Lord will be your everlasting light,
    and your God will be your glory.
Your sun shall no more go down,
    nor your moon withdraw itself;
for the Lord will be your everlasting light,
    and your days of mourning shall be ended.

All praise be to God, we as His children have this glorious reality to look toward! What a joy! What a balm when enduring affliction! What incredible hope when we are uncertain what lies ahead in the near future!

My friends, look to the Lord, Jesus is the Light of the world. He is the One to keep your eyes on when the darkness is closing in around you.

John 8:12
Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

You don’t need a telescope or glasses or even eyeballs to see Him. You need faith. And how do you acquire that? It is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God”). Amen.

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The Extraordinary Ordinary

O God, renew us in Thy love today;
For our tomorrow we have not a care;
Who blessed our yesterday
Will meet us there.

But our today is all athirst for Thee,
Come in the stillness, O Thou heavenly Dew;
Come Thou to us– to me–
Revive, renew.

~Amy Carmichael~

Life is a-bustle with the extraordinary of the ordinary:

little boys
dirty diapers
jammies with feeties & zippers
hot fires in the woodstove
tea with sugar
meals to cook
toys to play with and put away
turkeys and deer grazing outside our windows
floors to sweep and counters to wipe
tears to dry and laughs to join
books to read
songs to sing
the past to recount
the future to dream of
memories to make

I love how ordinary things feel so extraordinary these days.
Life. It is the most incredible thing.

My life changed so much all at once, and I am still trying to catch my breath.
New home, new baby boy ~ starting anew with life.

As I continue to gather myself, to breathe in the moments of newness, to trudge through the difficulties & bask in the blessings, thank you for continuing to rejoice with us, pray for us, and come alongside us as our brethren in Christ.

God is good and we praise Him for His new mercies every day! He does revive and renew us by His immeasurable grace! Amen and hallelujah. This view and these faces are extraordinary evidences of this in my own life.

 

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Establish the Work of Our Hands

This morning, I was meditating on Psalm 90 while praying for a friend of mine and her family. Then I began to pray for a host of people I know who are suffering through various trials, including my own family. This psalm–a prayer of Moses–is hugely impacting for me. Beginning with the acknowledgment that God is our dwelling place, and has been for all generations–moving towards the proclamation that God is sovereign over all things, including life and health and death–ending with the request for God to act, to send His mercy, to be powerful, to shower His favor upon His children, and to establish the work of godly hands. Oh that my prayers would contain such a pattern! That my heart would be more confirmed to His Son’s! And that I would be confident and comforted, in the knowledge that God is my dwelling place, that He is sovereign, and that He has the power to establish me.

Amen!!

Psalm 90

Lord, You have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever You had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting You are God.

You return man to dust
and say, “Return, O children of man!”
For a thousand years in Your sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
or as a watch in the night.

You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning:
in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers.

For we are brought to an end by Your anger;
by Your wrath we are dismayed.
You have set our iniquities before You,
our secret sins in the light of Your presence.

For all our days pass away under Your wrath;
we bring our years to an end like a sigh.
The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
Who considers the power of Your anger,
and Your wrath according to the fear of You?

So teach us to number our days
 that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Return, O LORD! How long?
Have pity on Your servants!
Satisfy us in the morning with Your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad for as many days as You have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
Let Your work be shown to Your servants,
and Your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!

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Encore of Honor

When my friend Erin asked me to participate in a special blog recently, I had too many ideas rolling around in my head to nail down just one for my post. So I wrote two posts. The first post was part of the original blog party, and this second one is just for a little encore honoring my parents and holding myself accountable for my own parenting as I pass this legacy on to the next generation.

Upon thinking about many of the ideas I had rolling around in my head, I realized that a large portion of them fell under one common thread or heading: giving yourself away.

Parenting is sacrifice, and you can do it beautifully & joyfully or you can do it bitterly & begrudgingly. My parents chose the beauty and joy, and my husband & I endeavor to do the same. The Merriam-Webster dictionary includes a definition of sacrifice as being “something given up or lost, i.e. the sacrifices made by parents.” Given up. Given away. My parents gave of themselves for their children: their money, their energy, their prayers, their time. What I want to focus on here is how my parents gave themselves away by giving of their time. They gave us themselves.

My parents constantly gave themselves away to my brother and me, both in large and small ways. I know this is a large umbrella, but I will give a few specific examples of ways they exemplified this and how I now give myself away to my children.

My dad had an extremely busy medical practice when I was growing up, so any time we had with him was especially coveted. Once a week (usually Friday morning), he gave himself to my brother and me in a very specific way, by taking us out to breakfast (donuts or Jack In The Box) and letting us go on rounds with him at the hospitals. To use other words I frequent here, he extended grace to us by allowing us to enter his world. My dad also gave himself to us by bringing joy into tedious things like math problems. He would sit us down at the kitchen counter with a little bowl of M&Ms, and work through our math lessons with us using one of his favorite treats—candy coated chocolates. He knew how to turn a grumbly little girl with a red-circled math problem in her hand into a grinning little girl with chocolate-coated teeth and a shiny star on her paper instead.

We pass this on to our Gabriel by going on special family dates, letting him help with yardwork, and are beginning to use chocolate chips to count one through ten. In the future, I would love to see my husband take our child(ren) on errands, out to breakfast, and help with math papers. Giving himself away is something my husband has been doing for me since we first met and he moved three thousand miles across the country to live near me—and he is already doing the same with our little boy.

My mom was always giving of herself for us: being a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom necessitates that, I believe! She never begrudged us of herself. We never felt unwelcome in her embrace or like we intruded upon her. Not only at home when doing schoolwork, playtime, or cooking & cleaning—we went everywhere with her. Especially me. It was extremely rare that she would go to Safeway or Mervyn’s without me! I even went to aerobics class, Bible study, and church craft night with her. Again, she gave herself to me not only by entering my world of baby dolls, plastic play-food, and my backyard prairie house—she let me enter her world of grown-up conversation, spiritual food, and responsible routine.

Being a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom myself gives me many opportunities to pass on many of the ways my mom gave herself to me. I endeavor never to begrudge myself to my little boy, no matter what I am doing. He goes almost everywhere with me—not because he has to, but because I want him to. I want to give myself to him when I am cooking, cleaning, gardening, driving, banking, listening to a sermon, fellowshipping over a meal, and helping him learn. I give myself away by giving him my time, energies, attention, and love—by allowing him to enter my world as well as by entering his.

One of my other favorite ways my parents gave themselves to us was the bedtime routine. They would trade off putting us to bed—one night I had my mother, the next night my father, and so the pattern went. There was always tucking in, kisses, prayers, and lots of singing. Oh the singing! I loved it when they gave themselves to me in the form of music. My mom created her own special words for me to the tune of Brahms’ lullaby, and to this day when my own son’s musical toys play that song, I still hear my mother’s sweet voice lulling me to sleep with our secret lyrics. My dad, too, gave me the gift of his creativity in music. When he would ask what song I wanted on a given night, often my favorite answer was “make up!” No, not powder and lipstick—I wanted him to make something up on the fly. Sometimes it would be about dark starry skies, ladybugs, or my blanket—other times it would be about God’s love, a Bible verse, or loving my family. With his guitar and his voice, my dad would give himself away to me with bedtime songs.

We pass on this heritage of singing at bedtime now to Gabriel. He can’t yet tell me what his favorite songs are, but I know them—right now he especially likes the Gloria Patri, The Lord’s Prayer, and the Jamie Soles version of the Apostle’s Creed. Steven hasn’t yet started including guitar when he puts Gabriel to bed, but someday he will—maybe when Gabriel is slightly less infatuated with the guitar (at this point it wouldn’t help put him to sleep, it would keep him awake).

My parents also taught us through example how to give ourselves away to others. My dad spends crazy hours ministering to people at his office, giving parenting advice, marriage counseling, and sharing the Gospel—even more time than he spends looking at infected ears, checking bowel function, and listening to heartbeats. He gives himself away to anyone who asks of him, even purposely doling out longer appointments than are “necessary” in order to allow him to give more of himself away. My mom has always been a woman of encouragement through words, be it in written notes or the spoken word. For as long as I can remember, she has had some kind of clever remote headset for her telephone, because she is always counseling somebody—be it in motherhood, wifehood, homemaking skills, cooking lessons, or spiritual accountability—and she never begrudges anyone who demands of her time in this way.

These are small ways my parents taught us to give ourselves away to others, and ways that I find myself imitating already. My little boy already knows when I am writing notes, speaking on the phone, or working on the laptop (sending emails or writing on forums)—and I will tell him specifically, “Mommy is encouraging someone with her time, words, and prayers. Please be patient.” We always came first to my parents, as my son does to me, and yet it is made obvious that giving ourselves away is important in many directions, not just toward the child(ren). By giving myself away to others in the presence of my son, I am giving myself to him in the form of teaching him the act of sacrificial encouragement. Just like my parents have always taught me.

Lastly, my parents taught me by example to give myself away physically to my children. When my son is sick does that mean he doesn’t get kisses? Of course not! He gets even more than usual, regardless of a snotty nose. This may seem like a silly thing to highlight, but it is one way that my parents sacrificed themselves for us as kids—showing us that even our physical health is not more important than giving ourselves away for our children. This is something that is keenly evident in my life, as I give my body away constantly to pregnancy, miscarriage, and heaps of medical treatment. My physical comfort is not more important than my babies. Anything that I can do physically to help nurture my children is not too great a task (even though I am tempted to feel otherwise at times). In fact, as I sit here looking at my arms and the eight welts that I have to show for the eight injections I recently got as a reproductive immunological treatment, my eyes are filling with tears, as I acknowledge that I would do it again every day if I had to for my babies. Even as I shirk at the idea of all the needles & pills in my future during the pursuit of children, I am confident that every pain, every prick, every tear is more than worth it for the children God has & will give us.

And who taught me that lesson of sacrificial self-giving? My parents.

I love you, Mama & Daddy.

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Sabbath Rest

This evening my husband commented about how the way we spent our Sabbath today was really a lovely way to have Sabbath rest — after fellowship with people in our church parish, we sat on a delightful porch swing in the quiet countryside watching coyotes and hawks and cows, sipping daiquiris, and just enjoying.

And then I thought to myself: it would really be lovely to spend every Sabbath that way. 🙂

And so I thought dreamily of the future… and, let me tell you, that rarely happens.

It was nice. 😀