Tag: Thoughts

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Creating Memories, IV

As we approach the end of our conversation on creating memories for our children, (see the intro, part I, part II, and part III, as well as quotes and Scriptures on the matter) I will share some specific ways that we pursue particular routines & events to create memories for our children which we hope & pray will solidify the family culture we seek to create in our home & family.

CREATING MEMORIES, IV
how we pursue creating specific memories through
routines & events to solidify that family culture

~bedtime serenades~
Last summer during some power outages (two weeks’ worth, ten days apart from one another), I picked up piano playing again. My pretty little baby grand had been gathering country dust (which honestly is unavoidable where we live) but had also been largely unplayed and unloved in recent years. During those weeks with no cd player, no internet, no videos, no electronic anything… I returned to making music. I pulled out Beethoven, Debussy, Bach, Mozart, Rachmaninoff… along with some collections of other random composers both historical & contemporary… and I simply began to play. But it is hard to play during the day when other things call me… like children… or chores of all various & sundry types. Especially once the electricity returned, and I could cook and clean and launder and internet (can I please use that as a verb? thankyouverymuch) normally again, I found that finding uninterrupted time for music making is really quite difficult.
But the children begged me to play for them, and my husband is more than delighted when I play as well. I do desperately want my children to remember their mother as partly musician, and definitely as a true lover of music.
So it happened: bedtime serenades were born.
Now, after tucking them in, kissing them, praying for them, and blessing them, I scoot myself over to the piano. I play for roughly thirty minutes, and the children love falling asleep in the midst of it. I guess it’s been a habit for over nine months now, and it is definitely rooted in the evening routine at this point.
Recently, they have begun requesting harp in addition to piano. Sometimes I play one instrument per night, other times I play a little of each. There have also been occasions recently where I simply am too exhausted to play at all, and I beg their forgiveness even as their little pouty lips show me their true disappointment.
So I do my best to keep up with the tradition, and all three of my kids nightly remind me of my musical commitment to serenade them in their beds. It’s funny how such a joy for all five of us has become a habit, part of our evening routine, and now something I hope we will all remember in years to come as something which filled our home with joy, beauty, and melody while the crickets sang and the stars twinkled outside and little ones’ bodies fell into slumber in the comfort of their own little beds.

We don’t risk because it’s easy;
we risk because of hope,
because we see the promise of something better.
~Myquillyn Smith, The Nesting Place, p85~

 

~joy at the table~
We need to keep working on this one, I’ll just say honestly from the get-go. 🙂 I long for my children to look back at mealtimes not just as opportunities to fill our mouths and bellies with food, but to love one another and spend time with one another… especially the dinner table where all of us sit down together. Breakfast and lunch, at this point in our family’s life, are meals the three kids share together, but Steven is at work and I am bustling around doing multiple other things. So evening dinnertime is our daily hallmark to sit together, speak together, laugh together, and spend time in one place together. The dinner table is not a time and place to focus on ourselves or to suddenly become introverted and quiet while we stuff forkfuls of chicken and rice in our mouths. This is a time to feast together not only on food, but on one another. As the kids grow, I know our conversations will also grow… at this point, it can obviously still be pretty tricky to carry on much of a real conversation. But conversation, even if in fits and spurts, is better than all quietly munching on our food side by side. I try to pass questions off to each of the kids (preferably not when they have just filled their mouths with a big bite… but my timing is not always stellar…), and encourage them to tell their daddy about their day. We also try to teach the kids to ask questions of others, too, and encourage conversations that way. Sometimes jokes and giggles and silly sounds make their way into the dinner routine, and I can’t help but throw my hands up in laughter and let it go. Manners are definitely a work in progress, but joy is a more important work at this point, and we are eager to continue growing in this daily time together at the table, and hope that as our children look back on their life in our home, that it will be a blessing they count in their memories, and a place they long to return to for more feasting on all the best kinds of fat things together.

Get advice from people who are doing the thing
the way you want to be doing that thing.
It’s a universal law that can be applied to almost any situation.
~Myquillyn Smith, The Nesting Place, p92~

~Sabbath as a joy & monument, Christ everyday & in our everyday~
Have you ever read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Farmer Boy” and been taken aback at the description of Sundays? As I recall, it’s the same in “Little House in the Big Woods,” and I don’t think the legalism and harsh realities of what “Sabbath” meant to people is really very far-fetched for most of us. But my boys, who are old enough to pick up on the nuances of these details we read about, find it absolutely unimaginable. They love Sundays! They happen to love dressing up, so wearing their Sunday best is anything but a chore (and I think that took some training, both habitually and watching their father learn to enjoy dressing up as well ~ because of course the boys really just want to be like their daddy!). They get leftover pancakes or waffles (because Steven has a tradition of making breakfast on Saturdays, and he always makes leftovers so the kids can have sweet goodness on Sunday morning that won’t take me a lot of time or work to prepare), and I often give the kids each a special treat like a piece of candy and say, “whose day is this?” The Lord’s Day! “and what do we do?” Be Glad In It! “and remember that it is sweet!” Then we head off for an hour of Sunday school before going to worship together. Our children learn from infancy about liturgy and participating in worship: they recite creeds and other liturgical phrases, they sing (at the top of their lungs when they know the words!), they kneel & pray, they pass the peace of Christ with the brethren around them, they partake of communion (and teach us adults so much through their attitudes of peace and abandoned delight as they kneel at the altar). We fellowship with other believers: whether in the church building or in homes, we love another with hugs and handshakes, over plates of food and cups of coffee, we seek the good of others, we ask questions and answer questions, we converse and seek to delve ever further into sharing life with these people who are our brethren. We encourage our kids even as little people that spurring one another on to love and good deeds is what church life really boils down to, and glorifying God through our fellowship, worship, learning, growing, sharpening, and sharing the Good News. We encourage multi-generational worship & fellowship, delighting in filling a pew with three generations as well as often going out to eat with my parents after church (which is monumentally exciting for the kids week after week!) if we don’t have people over or have not been invited elsewhere. We love to pray in public, and the kids frequently ask to do it. They never mince words or turn down the volume, and it’s winsome. If we aren’t spending the afternoon with other folks, we generally head home to read and play and rest and sometimes nap. We love reading by the fire in wintertime, sprawling on the grass in the summertime.
Then there is our Sunday evening family fun night, detailed under the next heading.
And after the kids go to bed on Sunday nights, it’s time for my husband and me to have our own little restful date night, usually with wine, cheese, olives, & chocolate.
We seek to grow continually in our Lord’s Day practices, and to engage the children in the process, so that our Sabbaths are simply joy-filled days of resting in the Lord & delighting in His world. We long for a truly robust habit of Sundays, which joy oozes out into the other six days we spend cultivating the world God made and loving the people He created for it.

So we don’t draw the line there, leaving our pursuit of Christ and His holiness on Sundays, of course. We pursue God’s Kingdom every day of the week, and seek by our words and our actions to lead our children in this way. We pray out loud numerous times throughout the day (we take turns doing it—the children love to lead in prayer, to speak to their Father in specifics), we read Scripture (I have Scriptures around the house in various art forms or presentations, and I try to read with the kids going straight through books of the Bible in conjunction with learning catechism together—we’re finishing Genesis right now before jumping to one of Paul’s epistles again), we praise God for both big and little things (like finding a baby’s heartbeat on the doppler! or finding a parking spot right next to the shopping cart return…), we talk of the fruits of the Spirit and sing of God’s grace and faithfulness. We discipline and disciple as diligently as we can, and grace with forgiveness are emphasized again and again throughout the days. We use catechisms and Scriptures the kids know to “hold them by their baptism” as one of our pastors would say. There is never a moment where they are not bound up in Christ, filled with His Spirit, and heard by the Father—so there is never a moment where we should not seek to act like His children, in thought, word, and deed. That is our endeavor, our pursuit, our hope, our prayer, our privilege, our delight.

 

~weekly family fun night~
As I said above, part of our merrymaking on the Lord’s Day is how we wrap up the day with family fun night: the intent being to do something fun and to eat something fun. At this season of our little family’s life, that means watching movies in Mommy & Daddy’s room while eating popcorn and ice cream. Someday, we look forward to developing it further with board games and blended drinks, for instance! We hope this weekly tradition (which the children adore) will grow and deepen as our kids do, and that its fun will continue to reflect our family relationships and the joys we find in one another.

Living is the same thing as dying.
Living well is the same thing as dying for others.
~N.D. Wilson, Death by Living, p84~

~love of learning, delight in playing, embracing of all we call neighbor~
Especially as a homeschooling family, but regardless of it just the same, we seek to daily inculcate a love of curiosity and creativity and learning. We emphasize that education is all around us, and that we should enjoy reading, uncovering, discovering, and continually attaining knew heights in our education all the time, every day ~ all of us, not just those who qualify as K-12. We love books, and try to give countless opportunities for reading fiction and non-fiction and Scripture and schoolbooks throughout the days. Trips to the library require muscles these days, as we bring home dozens of books filling a large basket, and we often renew them as many times as we can in order to best glean from them and love them. Our oldest son now often begs to go to bed right after dinner, just so he can read by flashlight for hours in the evening!
We encourage a delight in playing, especially playing together. Our kids do love toys (don’t all kids?), but they love their imaginations more. When the playing is no longer fun, the salt has lost its savor… so we encourage them to move on to new fun and different playing. They learn, they grow, they rejoice, they love life when they play together delightedly, so we try to have plenty of time each day where they can nurture their imaginations and play together with joy.
We also seek to embrace our neighbor in these things, especially as learning and playing coincide. When bringing cookies or Christmas poinsettias or loaves of fresh bread to literal neighbors, we remind our kids that we love in action in addition to our words. When we meet new families on fieldtrips or at the library, we remind our kids that these people too are our neighbors. In our church home, we teach our kids to embrace all of these people with all of these stories in all of these generations because they too are our neighbors. We try to help our kids come up with creative (or not) ways to embrace people: with handwritten or hand colored notes, with gifts of homemade foods, with various forms of opening our home & sharing hospitality, with smiles or handshakes, with grace and forgiveness.

If you were suddenly given more than you could count,
and you couldn’t keep any of it for yourself,
what would you do?
That is, after all, our current situation.
Grabbing will always fail.
Giving will always succeed.
Bestow.
Our children, our friends, and our neighbors will all be better off
if we work to accumulate for their sakes.
If God has given you a widow’s mite, let it go.
Set it on the altar.
If God has given you a great banquet than you can possibly eat, let it go.
Set it on the altar.
~N.D. Wilson, Death by Living, p110~

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Creating Memories, Scriptures

As we continue the conversation on creating memories for our children, (see the intro, part I, part II, and part III, as well as quotes on the matter & our sidebar on grace), we now pause to reflect on Scripture for a moment… and recall that our lives are but a breath, and that memory is a blessing.

Creating Memories, Scriptures
to remind myself what the Lord says in His Word

A quick bible study search shows the word “remember” 230 times in NKJV and 234 times in ESV. A search of “memory” shows 10 times in NKJV and 11 times in ESV.
Often, it seems that it is a negative comment, saying that memory of a person/place will be wiped out as a curse for disobedience. We can deduce from that that keeping memories alive are a blessing. So here are just a few little Scriptures referencing memories and remembering, as we continue contemplating the subject of creating memories even now. Psalm 90 is a recurring theme for me, as it reminds us of our frailty and God’s timelessness, and the psalmist encourages us to number our days…

 

Numbers 15:40
…remember and do all My commandments, and be holy for your God.

Proverbs 10:7
The memory of the righteous is a blessing…

Mark 14:9
…what she has done will be told in memory of her.

 

Psalm 119:52
I remembered Your judgments of old, O Lord,
And have comforted myself.

Numbers 10:9
…you will be remembered before the Lord your God, and you will be saved from your enemies.

Psalm 111:4
He has made His wonderful works to be remembered;
The Lord is gracious and full of compassion.

 

 

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Creating Memories, III

Another installment in the conversation on creating memories for our children, see the intro, part I, and part II, as well as memory quotes & a sidebar on grace. And now I will tell you briefly a little of some hows & whys behind a few of the overarching qualities that we seek to pursue in our family culture. A lot of them are interwoven, with joy and grace being the essential threads tying them all into one tapestry ~ the tapestry that we call our home & family life.
Don’t forget to share your own thoughts on the subject in the comments, so we can make it a real conversation!

CREATING MEMORIES, III
how we pursue creating a general family culture
of music, fun, joy, laughter, delight, grace & forgiveness

~music~
As a musical person myself, I have sought to teach my kids about music and singing from the womb. I have grand visions of incorporating music and singing into every meal, like a regular liturgy. 🙂 Not sure that is actually realistic, which is probably why I have only managed to accomplish such things in short spurting seasons thus far. I have dreams of our children all learning various instruments, and someday having a little family folk band together. They will all learn piano first (well, they learn singing first! then piano is their first non-organic instrument…), and then have access to our other stash of instruments (harps, Irish hand drum, guitar, handbells), and then eventually would be able to choose instruments of their own (once they are old enough to be diligent, and have a good foundation with piano and singing, we will love to hire teachers and rent instruments of each child’s choosing). Beginning this year, we get the pleasure of introducing our children to a week-long summer day camp of music camp, and we could not be more delighted at being able to give our kids this opportunity! (Only one is old enough so far to actually attend, but they’ll each get there with time…)
We always have music playing on the cd player throughout the day, and what we call our bedtime serenades is something I will share with you soon. We sing when we tuck the kids in, too, and I try to work with the kids on other songs during the days (when I remember to do it).
It would be an enormous blessing (and honestly a huge success in my eyes) if my children were to look back on their childhoods as being regularly seasoned with music.

 

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located
will betray us if we trust to them;
it was not in them, it only came through them,
and what came through them was longing.
These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—
are good images of what we really desire;
but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols,
breaking the hearts of their worshipers.
For they are not the thing itself;
they are only the scent of a flower we have not found,
the echo of a tune we have not heard,
news from a country we have never yet visited.
~C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory~

 

~words~
Our children love singing, reading, writing, & of course (oh do they ever!) talking. I hope our children remember words in their childhoods being seasoned with grace. I long for them to remember our conversations being filled with kindness and humility (and yes, I hope they will forget the times when my words are flavored with harshness, cynicism, and selfishness). I want them to remember singing amazing songs and reading fantastic books and writing to wonderful people. One of my great desires for my little bibliophiles is that words would continue to grow them, shape them, mold them, give them delight, increase their wisdom, and create memories of stories—both their own and otherworldly. I want them to love words, understand words, and use words for building kingdoms and building up of souls.

 

I want my kids to learn firsthand and up close that different isn’t bad,
but instead that different is exciting and wonderful
and worth taking the time to understand.
I want them to see themselves as bit players,
in a huge, sweeping, beautiful play,
not as the main characters in the drama of our living room.
~Shauna Niequist, Bread & Wine, p98~

~laughter~
I want my children to remember their childhoods as filled with laughter. The carillon that comes from an absolute overflow of utter delight!
Our rooms are literally ringing with it throughout the day, and as the kids get older, I don’t want that evidence of joy to diminish but to grow and deepen. I would love for laughter to be a hallmark of our family’s love for one another and delight in being together. It doesn’t take much to get these little people rolling with chuckles on the floor, but I confess that I have a long way to go in growing in my own laughter. I am far too serious, and I hope that the Lord will have mercy upon me in giving me more laughter as time goes on—so that my children will see my wrinkles someday as laughter lines rather than stern lines. This is my hope, and I need to make it my prayer.

 

Parenting in grace is not parenting on the basis
of your own consistent gospel-centeredness.
It is just the opposite.
Parenting in grace is parenting on the basis
of Christ’s consistent perfections alone.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p163~

~forgiveness~
I suppose above all else, even above an atmosphere of utter joy itself, is that I want my children to remember their home as a place where forgiveness was both sought and given wholeheartedly. There is nothing that is too big for God’s grace and forgiveness, because as His children Jesus paid the ransom for it all. I want that to ultimately permeate and override everything else in our home, family, routine, desires. Only by God’s grace can that happen, so that is what I pray for, yearn for, endeavor to inculcate in our home & in our people. From the fount of forgiveness all other graces can then pour, for without the peace that flows from forgiveness, joy and laughter and music and grace-filled words would just be empty shells.

Only humility, only transparent confession of our great need,
will result in the grace we so desperately need
to parent the little fellow sinners in our home.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p165~

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Creating Memories, II

Continuing in our conversation on creating memories… intro here, my own childhood memories here, fun quotes here… Now I will share with you some specific things (both activities/events and overall penetrating themes) which I hope, pray, endeavor, and work toward my own children embracing now and remembering as time goes on, and in a couple of days I will expand each of these areas to share about the hows (and maybe the whys) behind them. Remember to share in the comments (or link to your blog) if there are specifics that you want your own kids to remember as they someday look back upon their childhoods as well ~ I would love to exchange ideas with you!

CREATING MEMORIES, II
specifics I want my kids to remember

~bedtime serenades~
In the evenings, after tucking them in, kissing them, praying for them, and blessing them, I scoot myself over to the piano. I play for roughly thirty minutes, and the children love falling asleep in the midst of it.
Recently, they have begun requesting harp in addition to piano. Sometimes I play one instrument per night, other times I play a little of each.

~joy at the table~
We need to keep working on this one. 🙂 I long for my children to look back at mealtimes not just as opportunities to fill our mouths and bellies with food, but to love one another and spend time with one another… especially the dinner table where all of us sit down together.

~love of learning, delight in playing, embracing of all we call neighbor~
Especially as a homeschooling family, but regardless of it just the same, we seek to daily inculcate a love of curiosity and creativity and learning.
We encourage a delight in playing, especially playing together.
We also seek to embrace our neighbor in these things, especially as learning and playing coincide.

~Sabbath as a joy & monument, Christ everyday & in our everyday~
Have you ever read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Farmer Boy” and been taken aback at the description of Sundays? As I recall, it’s the same in “Little House in the Big Woods,” and I don’t think the legalism and harsh realities of what “Sabbath” meant to people is really very far-fetched for most of us. But my boys, who are old enough to pick up on the nuances of these details we read about, find it absolutely unimaginable. They love Sundays!

~weekly family fun night~
Part of our merrymaking on the Lord’s Day is how we wrap up the day with family fun night!

~music~
As a musical person myself, I have sought to teach my kids about music and singing from the womb. I have grand visions of incorporating music and singing into every meal, like a regular liturgy. 🙂
It would be an enormous blessing (and honestly a huge success in my eyes) if my children were to look back on their childhoods as being regularly seasoned with music.

~words~
Our children love singing, reading, writing, (oh do they ever!) talking. I hope our children remember words in their childhoods being seasoned with grace.

~laughter~
I want my children to remember their childhoods as filled with laughter.

~forgiveness~
I suppose above all else, even above joy itself, is that I want my children to remember their home as a place where forgiveness was both sought and given wholeheartedly.

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Creating Memories, I

A couple of days ago, I introduced a conversation to you. A conversation about memories ~ those from our own childhoods, and those that we desperately wish to inculcate into the lives of the children around us, in our homes, in our charge. As we jump into a few days’ meditation on this subject, please allow me to first share with you some of the hallmark memories from my own childhood, and the overarching theme which I remember permeating our family home & life. You are invited, and most welcome, to share your own experiences in the comments here or link over to your own blog if you have one. The intent is not to compare or even to contrast childhood memories, but to encourage one another as we see different beauties and varied glories in different homes among different families, to see with eyes of grace how the Lord has written different stories for each of us, to be lifted in spirit as we remember where we came from and look ahead in faith & hope to where He continues taking us.

 

CREATING MEMORIES, I
what I remember from my own childhood

~bedtime—singing, Daddy on guitar, Mama’s fingers running through my hair~
I remember bedtime like no other time of the day. Some of my very earliest memories (coming from someone who has a notoriously bad memory…) are of bedtime. Perhaps because it was the one predictable time of the day when all four of us were together, doing the same thing at the same time. I don’t remember how we got from the dinner table to our beds; I don’t recall if we had dinner, evening, or playtime routines; I don’t even honestly remember if my super-busy pediatrician father who was incessantly in high demand was with us every night for dinner or not (although I know for certain he was there often, and I imagine he did absolutely everything he could to be there every night).
But I remember being tucked in. I remember my dog either curling up on her pillow at the foot of my bed or scurrying underneath my bed to sleep. I remember my parents taking turns saying goodnight to my brother and me, singing to each of us separately, sometimes my dad settling himself with his guitar in between our bedroom doors to sing to us both at the same time. I remember my favorite “song” to request was “make-up, Daddy! make-up!” and he would make something up on the fly. I loved that! I remember my mother kneeling at the side of my bed, combing my hair with her fingers, sometimes just while she said goodnight and sang me a lullaby (which words she crafted when I was a wee thing), sometimes continuing until I had fully fallen asleep. I remember falling asleep with the most peaceful feeling that this was home, this was peace, this was comfort, this was love.

I remember how well they loved us without actually using words.
Because sometimes words are too difficult to hear.
Sometimes you’re just not ready to dissect what you’ve been through.
Sometimes you need both more and less than the words.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p98~

~freedom in playing & schedules & schooling—the comfort of balancing freedom with boundaries~
I remember feeling so free in my childhood. We were not married to schedules although we definitely kept to routines (don’t you kind of have to, in order to all function together smoothly, and to interact with the community around you?). I remember routines like “Thursday School” and going with my mom to her ladies’ Bible studies. I remember going to “the club” with my mom, coloring in Disney books (Ariel might have been my favorite… and one of my friends may have taught me to draw mermaids freehand, although I always ended up with the shells near the belly button somehow…), while my mom did aerobics. I loved watching her, tapping my toes to the rhythmic music. Sometimes we got to go swimming, play tennis, or play on the playground at the club. I remember the routine of Friday mornings, where my dad would take my brother and me on rounds with him at the hospitals. I remember hanging out in nursing stations while he donned yellow gowns and examined sweet tiny babies in nurseries. I remember the smell of the hospitals. I remember he would take us out for breakfast too: Jack In The Box was our agreed upon favorite at the time. Colin ordered things without eggs, I ordered things without sausage. We loved the delightful spoiling of getting to have a treat like Sprite or orange juice on a weekday morning. I remember getting to bring my schoolwork to my dad’s office, to sit at the little fold-up desk he had built right there into his own workplace. Sometimes I got to interact with patients, or hang out with his staff (including my grandma, who was the financial guru), but mostly I think I did try to focus on math and reading and writing. I remember doing schoolwork at home, and watching Little House on the Prairie on channel 36 when I was done with my lessons… although I tended to do more lessons in one day than I was technically supposed to. I remember my parents encouraging fieldtrips and experiences and reading for hours on end. I remember hanging out at the Saratoga library. I remember learning and growing and my curiosity expanding. I remember having time to create things, to play music or read books for hours on end, to run free and wild in our acre-wide backyard, to gather wild blackberries or catch tadpoles in the creek or hike through backyards to say hello to a horse a few homes down (I called her Sweet Pea, but I never actually found out her real name). I remember my friends all being tied to schedules and having very little downtime. I remember wishing my friends wouldn’t be grounded so often, because it always seemed to hurt my heart more than it hurt theirs when our precious playdates got canceled (perhaps that’s because my friends all had sisters, and I was the only one who didn’t). I remember feeling so beautifully free, but I remember the comfort of knowing my boundaries and of resting in the knowledge that breaking boundaries would result in the bittersweet blessing of discipline. I remember feeling loved and safe in the freedom of those boundaries.

~being my mama’s shadow and being allowed in my daddy’s world~
I remember following my mother everywhere. From the moment I was born, I think I somehow knew she was going to be my lifelong best friend and forever mentor. Church events, errands, hospitality, visiting those in need, catering monthly office lunches at my dad’s office, Sunday night family dinners at my grandma’s house, hosting tea parties, doing housework, cooking meals, folding laundry, adding chemicals to the swimming pool, sewing clothes and curtains and gifts, reorganizing cupboards and redecorating rooms. I loved shadowing my mother, learning from  her, watching her, coming alongside her to groom my clumsy hands slowly into shadows of her skilled ones. I hardly ever remember being without her. When I did find myself without her (at piano lessons, ballet, or even if I waited in the car while she ran in to the bank or Safeway), I do recall a feeling of painful separation. I didn’t like being without the one whom I shadowed. I embraced it and loved it and was blessed by it. Thankfully, I think she did & was too!
I remember being allowed in my daddy’s world. From the weekly trips to breakfast and on hospital rounds, to the times (was it weekly also?) when I would spend mornings doing schoolwork in his office, to playing tennis, to learning different swimming strokes, to watching him woodwork in his shop, to singing alongside him while he strummed his guitar, to recording music together on cassette tapes, to driving around buckled into the back left seat of our minivan and shopping at Home Depot for wood or Fry’s Electronics for techy stuff I really didn’t understand ~ I loved being allowed in his world. I followed him like a little duckling, not always shaping my hands to imitate his, but always watching and gleaning and loving and respecting what his hands were doing… and his hands were always doing.

Here’s just one oddity about being people:
I don’t remember anything about showing up on this planet (and neither do you).
I am here. You are here.
Others have to explain it to me.
I take it on faith.
Everything that I believe about my own origin and the early years of being me,
I have heard secondhand.
I was clearly a free agent (based on the stories).
I was assessing things and making decisions and taking action (with an emphasis on self-interest).
I was living life to the fullest.
And all of it is gone, at least from my memory.
But humans are not intended for data storage (though we have that capacity).
We are intended for living, for moving through a story.
~N.D. Wilson, Death by Living, p96~

~my brother as my constant and best friend~
I remember how people would comment about our brother-sister relationship, how we never argued (let alone fought), how we were sometimes mistaken for twins (red head blue eyed freckled waifs!), how we had vastly different hobbies & interests but always found middle ground to love spending time together. I remember always looking up to him, and wanting to be like him in any ways that I could. I remember how he shadowed our father like I shadowed our mother. I remember knowing early on that he was basically a genius, and I tried hard to keep pace with him until we were teenagers when I realized calculus and computer languages just were not going to be my thing at all. I remember playing with him in the creek, watching him practice archery on the woodshed, how he helped my dad build me “a prairie house” playhouse, how I learned to type by watching him type, how he helped teach me to drive, how we did music together, how we did Scottish Highland dancing together, how we shared friends, how we shared love of being country kids (he with his cows, me with my horse) and he built me a chicken coop for my fifteenth birthday present because I was given nine little chicks that year. I remember being told that it would change when we grew up, that boys grow into men who necessarily have to love wives so intensely that sisters will have to grow into the background. I remember not believing what I was told. But even though our friendship is not the same depth because we do not have the unique time alone together for days on end anymore, our friendship is still present and unique. He is always there for me. He always answers the phone when I call him, whether with good news or bad. We pray for one another. We embrace one another’s kids with abandon. I see us in our children… and I see the beauty of my lifelong friendship with my beloved big brother reflected in the loving friendship our children now share. He is the only other person who shared my childhood, who has common memories with me, who gets the inside jokes or secret looks across the dining table at my parents’ house. Age and distance will never change that. And the things I remember from childhood, growing up with him as my only sibling and only real bosom friend, haven’t begun to fade yet, and I seriously pray they never will.

Because [he] is my only sibling, and I am his,
there’s something completely singular about our relationship.
There’s no one on earth who has shared our history,
no one on earth who can see the world from the corner that we alone inhabit.
… Now we are grown. And he is still one of my best friends…
There is a whole world, a whole history between us that no one else knows,
that no one else understands, and there are times when my brother and I catch eyes
in a room, across the dinner table, or across the yacht club,
understanding each other perfectly, wordlessly.
What a gift it is to share this town, this history, this family,
this corner of the world with someone like him.
~Shauna Niequist, Bread & Wine, p238~

~truth, beauty, and goodness as overarching themes that penetrated our everyday~
I remember the gospel glories of truth, beauty, and goodness penetrating every aspect of our family life. Home, church, homeschooling, hospitality, Daddy’s work, Mama’s work, our relationships. There was never any doubt Who ruled our home and family. There was never any doubt that the only things truly worth pursuing (individually and corporately) were those which held truth, beauty, and goodness ~ or at least the seeds or seedlings of them. Woodworking, home decorating, feeding bellies, lavish tables, huge Christmas trees, clothing, speaking, writing, singing, fellowshipping, exercising, serving at the City Team homeless shelter, leading Bible studies and craft nights, science projects with the J girls, hiking through the hills, finishing math pages, playing dressup… there was no aspect of my childhood where truth, beauty, and goodness did not permeate and saturate. Even (perhaps especially) when I sinned, and was disciplined, those three glorious themes were huge and everpresent. The forgiveness of my father was something I craved and loved and clung to… and it taught me about the forgiveness of my Heavenly Father as well.
While my parents may not have verbally used the tri fecta of truth, beauty, and goodness in so many words all the time, as I reflect upon my childhood, that is what I remember. It is what I knew, and what I know, and what I pray to continue knowing.

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Happy Birthday, (Grand)Mama!

As I begin to delve into a little blog series on childhood memories, I wanted to take this little opportunity to say happy birthday to my mother.

The woman who has embraced me, pursued me, let me go, and prayed for me ~ every day of my life.

I know she’s praying…
The faithful prayers of a woman
who isn’t just being polite when she says, “I’ll pray for you.”
I’ve come to recognize that for her,
that phrase isn’t the worn-out cliché I’m used to,
but the battle cry of a warrior.
I don’t take it for granted anymore.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p126~

One of the greatest gifts my mother has given me is her love of prayer.
She pursues it daily, in big and little ways.
You might not know she is seasoned in combat just by looking at her, but I know that she is a warrior ~ the Throne of Grace has been battered by her cries repeatedly, daily, continually… not the least cries of which, have been on my own behalf.

I have always wanted to be like my mom when I grew up. At the same time, like most adults, I am more like her in some ways than I thought I would be… and maybe even like her in some ways I wish I weren’t. But I was made partly in her image. I am half her. And I’ve learned to love and embrace that, with its vibrancy & its shadows.
I want to cook like she does. Paint like she can. Play with my grandkids like she does. I want a vibrant and militant prayer life like hers. I want to be passionate and unafraid like she is. I want to honor my husband and adore my offspring in the private & public ways like she does.

Happy Birthday, Mama… you are grand. xo

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I will live myself to death for them

As Nate Wilson said, I am thankful
“for the people I am meant to live myself to death for.
For bigness. For smallness.
For bread. For wine.
For all they represent”
(Death by Living, p188).
May I live accurately,
according to this thankfulness in my heart.

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May I live myself to death for the people God has given me.

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Easter Lessons

This year, we went out of our way to do a few more hands-on lessons and Easter preparations with the children. The older they get, of course the more they grasp ~ and it is delightful to hear their own 6, 3, and 2 year old sized insights into why we do the things we do.

On Good Friday, rather than doing our normal homeschooling routine, while the little ones had individual room time (learning to play on their own for a solid hour is a good skill to learn), Gabriel helped me clean the house. We washed windows, cleaned bathrooms, swept floors, mopped floors, did laundry, washed dishes, wiped down cupboards. And while we worked together, we talked about why we were working so hard, and why is this what we chose to do on Good Friday. When I asked Gabriel what he thought, he paused in thought, then profoundly said, “Well, today is the day we remember the whole reason why Jesus came. He came to clean our hearts. So I guess that’s why we should clean our home.” I wanted to just stop the conversation right there, and leave it at that ~ because my kid gets SO much of the Gospel story, and I love hearing his perspective on it. It’s beautiful. But we went on to talk about how Jesus served others, even though He was King of all. We talked about “our people” ~ and who are our neighbors. Gabriel even asked if he could wash my feet when we were done cleaning, because he wanted to bless me and serve me like Jesus.

But I hate to admit, I forgot about the feet-washing, because by the time we were done cleaning the house, the little ones were ready to be done with solitary playtime, and we needed to move on to the phase of dirtying things back up again. Funny how we do that in my line of work: we clean things up so we can make them dirty again!

So after a little lunch, Evangeline was ready for a nap, and the boys & I got out supplies for some crafts that would hold more lessons.

We had already dyed Easter eggs with Grandmama, Auntie, and cousins, complete with super sweet and thoughtful conversations about the metaphors, symbolism, and just plain fun of the tradition. My children and I have talked numerous times this week about the symbolism we can see in the eggs… how they symbolize the rock which closed the tomb, but new life can spring forth from it… how we can take plain eggs and give them new clothing, as we do when we take on new life in Christ… how the yolk in a cracked egg can symbolize the glorious light of Jesus’ resurrection from the dark tomb when He burst forth in glorious array…
Click here to read about Easter Egg traditions throughout the life of the Church, following the Lenten season. Even plain old Wikipedia had some great thought-provoking things about Easter Eggs, or Paschal Eggs. And for some fun nuances on Easter Egg traditions, click here and have some fun with the kids in your life.

Romans 6:4
We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death,
in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glory of the Father,
we too might walk in newness of life.

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Thanks to Ann Voskamp’s diligent sharing each and every year, I finally felt like my boys were old enough this year to really grasp & enjoy a couple more unique & detailed hands-on projects.

First we had a snack of nuts and figs, while we made a crown of thorns (using a small grapevine wreath and a few dozen coffee-stained toothpicks) and talked a lot about the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Three year old Asher was nearly in tears (I love how his forehead crinkles and his chin quivers when he feels genuine sorrow), talking about Jesus being tortured, bleeding, and dying. He finally smiled again when I reminded Him that this was why Jesus came, and this is how He worked to save US from OUR sins. And in his sweet little voice, Asher proclaimed, “I sure love Jesus, Mommy.”

Matthew 27:29
…twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head…

Mark 15:17
…twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on Him.

John 19:2, 5
And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head and arrayed Him in a purple robe. So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

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Next we went out on to the back porch and put together our own little Gethsemane. Using a small moss planter (I used this, and don’t let the word “large” fool you!), we filled it with soil. Then we set our tomb carved in the rock in the corner of the garden (I found that aquarium accessories could offer some neat options, like this cichlid stone), before filling the rest of the garden with plants. We used some little succulents we got at a local store along with some pretty decorative moss, and then Gabriel used small smooth stones to make a little pathway through the garden to the tomb. Last of all, the boys went on a stone hunt outside to find something that would serve as a tomb cover.

John 19:41
Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.

Luke 23:55-56
The women who had come with Him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how His body was laid.Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

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On Good Friday, we used last week’s palm branches and our homemade crown of thorns to decorate our dinner table, when we ate lamb and roasted vegetables and matzo ball soup, along with the Seder plate with all  its elements and plenty of wine.

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Our kitchen island was cleared of all other decorations, and that is where we laid our own little Gethsemane. On Friday evening we closed up the tomb. On Saturday morning we found a little soldier to keep guard outside the tomb. And the children looked forward to seeing what would come of it on Sunday morning.

Matthew 27:59-60, 66
And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. … So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.

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Come Sunday morning, the children came downstairs to find the guard fallen down, the stone moved away, and a piece of linen folded inside the tomb.

Matthew 28:2-8
And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.He is not here, for He has risen, as He said. Come, see the place where He lay.Then go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead, and behold, He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see Him. See, I have told you.”So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell His disciples.

Luke 24:1-12
…On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb,but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?He is not here, but has risen. Remember how He told you, while He was still in Galilee,that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”And they remembered His words,and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles,but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.

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They found a table set for a beautiful little breakfast. Fruit salad, hard boiled eggs with sea salt, mimosas, Easter story cookies, and Easter tomb rolls (the kids had helped me make those all on Saturday, which was really wonderful). Candles and music and the excited rush of gathering and eating and praising God together, singing Christ The Lord Is Risen Today. Gifts for each one at their place ~ books and chocolates.

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Once the morning feasting was done, it came time to don our Easter clothing (clothing is hugely metaphorical and meaningful in Scripture and the history of the Church) ~ even the Easter sermon mentioned this, because we had three baptisms during the service and these Scriptures were emphasized.

Ephesians 4:17-24
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus,to put off your old self,which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Colossians 3:12-17
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Galatians 3:27
 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

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And so we got dressed in new matchy-matchy clothes (and my heart ached in all the heaviest and bestest of ways, because I have been given a family to clothe, and children who can wear sickeningly matchy outfits!), and talked about putting on Christ, putting off our old selves, putting on the new self in newness of life and the beauty of holiness, putting on love above all other things.

And then? Then the party really started. Gabriel pointed out, “there sure is a lot of joy around church and everywhere today!” and I couldn’t help but laugh. Because isn’t that just exactly, precisely the way it should be?! May the joy of the gospel, and of the Resurrected Christ, and of the hope He has given His people, shed forth from your homes, your families, your churches, and your wanderings until He comes again and everything is made new and all is set right.

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To the glory of the Father, amen. Allelulia!

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Saturday… Waiting… Where is My Hope?

Job 30:26
But when I hoped for good, evil came,
and when I waited for light, darkness came.

Hope is a double edged sword. Walking through Holy Week, we think along the lines of so many events… It’s so busy! Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem while His people worshipped and called hosanna, He cleansed the temple and taught His people, He is betrayed by one who is unfaithful, He is perfumed by one who is faithful, He gives thanks even in the presence of His betrayer, He hands out bread and wine to His followers, He prays in solitude, He is captured and taken away, He is scrutinized and condemned, He is taken before leaders and stood before multitudes, He is burdened in every imaginable way, He is stripped and scourged, He is hung and nailed through, He cries out, He is forsaken, He bleeds, He dies, He is taken away, He is buried in the dark tomb…

Now what?

The time between death and resurrection feels so dark, so empty, so long. What is happening in this day between Friday and Sunday? What are we to do as we sit outside the tomb? And what is our Lord doing in the darkness, the cold grips of death?

I was asked to guest post for Olive Tree Bible Software’s blog this weekend, so to continue reading, click here…

And click here to see what my husband wrote a couple days ago as he shared with us a remembrance that the Lord’s rejection ultimately lead to our acceptance in the Beloved.

Ephesians 1:3-10
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.

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A Little Bit Broken

A little bit broken.
That’s how I feel on my best of days.

Rough around the edges. Stained on the inside—and sometimes on the outside. Cracked here and there, a chip or two gone missing. Things leak out, sometimes because I spill them and sometimes because I am incapable of holding them in.

A chipped teacup with some leftover flecks of dried out tea leaves nestled in the mar—parts of my story that rest mostly in these shadowy cracks. Add some water, swirl me around, and you will see my beauty mixed with my pain. Which parts are the most lovely is difficult at times to ascertain. The dark bits swirl around, and eventually settle on the bottom. Take a sip, drink the water—it is flavored by what came out of the chips & cracks that had been hiding, but it is the water that carries it to your tongue and that flows into you and satisfies the parts of you that were longing to be quenched.

I am useful despite my imperfections. Perhaps all the more because of them.

2 Corinthians 1:3-7
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

 

The Lord meets me in my brokenness and comforts me. And then He gives me the ability—the empathy—to reach out from my own chippy cracks to meet others in this same place and comfort them. He gives Himself to me in a measure that is truly immeasurable, and then He makes my cup overflow so that I can give a measure to someone else. We pour into one another, often from the lip and more often from the cracks.

Sometimes I wish I were a perfectly kept, shiny, whole teacup without stains and chips, no hidden leftover tea leaves and no cracks threatening to leak little drips or big splashes. It gets messy—I like tidy. But I trust in the Lord my God, who created me to be His vessel, and He holds my broken self in His loving hands even now. (Psalm 31:14, 12, 15) Who is it that made me? Who cares for me? Who numbers my days and has already prepared the good works that I shall do? God my King, the Potter who forms us in His clay—who creates us, molds us, changes us, uses us, and even chips us—as it seems good to Him. (Jeremiah 18:3-4)

When I remember these things, I am reminded and comforted—all over again—that sometimes it is the chips and the stains that bring Him the most glory, that do the most to reach His people, that give me opportunities for greater good for the Kingdom, that make me useful and beautiful at the same time.

I am not meant to be left on a shelf. Beauty does not mean untouched, unchipped, unstained, unused. I am meant to be used for His glory, poured out for God’s people—after all, I am made in Their image, I came from clay, but I am a reflection of Him who poured out all of Himself for His people (Isaiah 53:12), and in the little ways He has prepared for me, I imperfectly image that pouring, that dying, that bleeding & brokenness. And that imaging and imitating is perhaps the most beautiful of all fragile things.

 

Brokenness doesn’t automatically bring us to the thin place,
the sacred place where God’s breath and touch are closer than our own skin.
Heartbreak brings us lots of places—
to despair, to bitterness, to emptiness, to numbness, to isolation.
But because God is just that good,
if we allow the people who love us to walk with us
right through the brokenness,
it can also lead to a deep sense of God’s presence.
When things fall apart,
the broken places allow all sorts of things to enter,
and one of them is the presence of God.
~ Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet, p94~