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During the height of the Covid quarantine, my younger kids would go a little stir-crazy because they were not allowed to go play with their friends. Their solution was to meet their friends down at the fence, each group of siblings “socially distanced” on their respective sides. They would have a great time, but it was unnatural for all of them.

People have always been amazed that despite the large size of our family, we do not have a very big house. Something we noticed very early on in parenting, is that children are natural herd-animals. The kids would always be in a little clump throughout the day. It really wasn’t until they were teenagers that they separated from the pack and even then they stay fairly physically close to each other. We really didn’t need a large house because they don’t spread out.

The funny thing was that it wasn’t just a sibling thing. I remember having their friends over when they were all still young and no matter how many kids it might end up being, they would move amoeba-like wherever and whatever they were doing!

I have observed this closeness among kids on up into their young twenties. They seem to innately know that they need each other, that there is comfort in togetherness. The sad thing is as we grow older we seem to lose this knowledge. Instead of staying close with others, we can begin erecting fences of our own to keep us safe. After all, by the time we are adults, most of us have experienced some kind of hurt that we don’t want to experience again. I am not talking about healthy boundaries. All of us, including children, need to have good boundaries in place. These are more like walled-off places in our hearts.

The problem with these kind of walls is that not only do they keep other people out, they also keep God out. We are essentially telling Him that these areas of our souls are too broken for even Him to enter into. This couldn’t be further from the truth. God is willing to come into all of our areas of hurt and to heal our hearts.

My children were so excited the day they were finally physically reunited with their friends. The fence was no longer a barrier between them. Now it was simply a passageway between their yards. I believe this is what God wants to do with our fences as well. He wants to use them as passageways to greater healing in our lives and also as ways to reach other people. They become stories of victory and encouragement to share with others.

“…with my God I can scale a wall.” Psalm 18:29b

As you all know by now, I am a people person. I am blessed with many friends whom I love dearly and this is such a blessing to me. Every now and then, though, one of my friends will hand me a huge, heavy boulder.

The first time this happened, I didn’t know what to do. For awhile I tried carrying it around with me. After all, it was something very important to my friend so it seemed wrong to just stick it in a closet or set it on a shelf. The problem was that is was, well, heavy.

I also found that it got in the way of doing other things. As long as I was holding one friend’s boulder, I couldn’t seem to get close to other friends and I most certainly couldn’t carry anyone else’s boulder, my arms were full!

The boulder began to turn into a strange pet of sorts. I couldn’t seem to part from it, but it was also very demanding of my emotions. Instead of getting lighter, the boulder seemed to get heavier the longer I held it. As much as I longed to set it down, that didn’t appear to be the right solution. How could I leave it sitting there alone?

Finally, I heard a still, small voice tell me what to do. “Give it up.” Up? How could I lift this thing up, it is heavy! Again, “give it up.” And so I lifted, slowly, slowly. As I did, I felt God’s gentle hands reach down carry it up the rest of the way to Him.

I learned that I was never meant to carry people’s hurts and burdens their, “boulders,” most of the time people aren’t even desiring that. I am meant to lovingly listen and then carry those hurts straight to God for Him to heal. Sometimes, when I hear something especially heavy, I will even physically go through the motion of handing it up to Him. I can be confident that He loves my friends even more than I do and that I can trust their burdens, and them, to Him.

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all of your cares on Him because He cares for you.” I Peter 5:6-7

Don’t you just love little kids? They have no inhibitions whatsoever. They will sing, skip, climb and jump no matter the venue. I recently saw a little guy dancing his heart out in the middle of a grocery store aisle.

I, as an adult, am naturally a little more reticent. There are most certainly times when I am overtaken with a sense of joy and may feel like flinging my arms out and doing a twirl. But I hold myself back. Why is this? Who made these rules that us adults must be more stoic and reserved?

It certainly wasn’t God. Over and over in the Bible, He shows how He values joy. The Bible characters themselves portray this to us. King David danced with so much joy and enthusiasm before God that he caught the criticism of his wife.

This story really hits close to home for me. You see, my husband does not have a problem with dancing in the grocery store. In fact, his motto is that if they didn’t want people singing and dancing in the store, they wouldn’t play music! Honestly, God has had to do a lot of work on me in this area. I am very mission-oriented when I am shopping and do not understand taking time to play and dance while on that mission. However, as in many other areas, God has softened my heart and helped me move past the perfectionism that held me back so often in the past. Again, who made these “rules” that one cannot have fun even while doing a mundane task such as grocery shopping?

So these days you might catch me singing along with the old soft-rock songs in the store, or even catch a glimpse of my husband and I taking a twirl in an aisle at Walmart!

“A cheerful heart is good medicine.” Proverbs 17:22a

My friend Debbie has the sweetest chocolate lab named Gelato. He is an enthusiastic, BIG doggy who loves his treats! What he doesn’t like though, is waiting for his treats.

Obviously, you cannot have a giant lab jumping all over you for a treat, so Debbie has taught him to sit and wait. She will say, “Wait, wait.” Then when he is given permission, he finally gets to take the treat from her hand.

To be honest, I can totally relate with Gelato. I have a feeling that he does not enjoy the “wait, wait” part of receiving his treats. Neither do I enjoy the times when it seems that that is all I am hearing from God!

You see, I like things to happen immediately. If my friend is sick, I would like her to be well now. If I am having teenager trouble, I want things to be fixed now. If I am uncertain about my finances for the month, I want it solved–you guessed it–now! However, after all this time, I have figured out that God does not necessarily work that way. Sometimes His plan is for me to wait a long time for an answer. I have also learned that He is not doing this out of unkindness. In fact, it is quite the opposite. I usually end up learning more in these times of waiting than I would have any other way. The waiting draws me closer to God as I wrestle and pray, and yes, question. God is not afraid of our questions and will speak in the waiting if we let Him.

This waiting on God is nothing new. The stories in the Bible seem to move at quite a fast pace, but if you pay attention to the time frames recorded, the Bible characters knew something about waiting. Noah spent around 120 years waiting for the flood. Abraham waited, albeit imperfectly, for his promised heir for 25 years. Moses spent 40 years in between his times in Egypt just hanging out in the desert and watching sheep! This is probably why there are so many verses in the Bible about waiting on God and being still while we do it. This seems to be the thing that I hear from God most frequently, “Be still and know that I am God.” God is gracious enough not to follow that up with a direct, “and you are not!” But I still get the picture.

The difference between Gelato and me (besides our species, of course) is that he knows what his treat is going to be. His keen sense of smell tells him what is coming. In my case, I am regularly surprised at the outcome of my waiting times. Rarely do they end the way I thought they would, and this is a good thing! God’s way is always better than mine.

So the next time I hear God saying, “Wait…wait,” I am going to think of Gelato and try to wait just as expectantly for good things from my Heavenly Father.

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:14

As a homeschooling Mom, I have all of these lovely ideas in my head each year (usually in early August) about how our homeschool year is going to go. We will do all kinds of science projects, I will read great books aloud, we will learn interesting things about History. I have a beautifully planned out white board, complete with daily chore assignments for each child, color coordinated no less!

And then the school year begins. Instead of patient instructor, molder and shaper of young minds, I usually find myself holding back the chaos. For the most part, my older children do a good job of getting their schoolwork and chores done. They are showing more maturity all the time. However, my younger ones are still like a three-person wrecking crew. No matter how many times I remind them what they are supposed to do at different times of the day, the information simply falls out of their heads! It does not matter how many charts, alarms or reminders I set, unless I am physically present in the room giving them reminders, chaos ensues.

Sometimes I wish I could bottle their destructive ability and sell it. No more need for explosives when demolishing a building, just let my kids play in it for an hour! It never ceases to amaze me. I will have just had them clean up the kitchen and living room. They will be quietly playing so I slip into the other room for just a couple minutes to do something. I walk back in and–chaos! Somehow in that short amount of time they have managed to eat a snack and wipe out the entire kitchen and table and floor and to also have brought in what appears to be every item they own from their bedrooms! Most days I think my full time job could be simply sitting on a stool in the middle of the house directing traffic and keeping the chaos at bay. I do have hope that one day these younger three will become more responsible like their older siblings, but there are also days that I worry we may have all spoiled them a little too much.

God is also in the business of holding back the chaos. Even though things can look very dark in the world, He is actually keeping evil from completely reigning. He provides blessings for everyone, not just people who know Him. He created light in the dark and Jesus is even described as the Light in the darkness (or chaos). God was the one Who held back the waters for His people to walk through on dry land to escape the Egyptians and He is still the One holding back destruction in our lives, even when it feels like everything is falling apart.

He has promised to hold back the chaos until the end of the world. In the meantime, we as His followers can also hold back the evil and darkness. We are to be His light to others, sharing the good news of salvation with them. We can encourage one another as well when the darkness threatens to overwhelm us. And we can continue to hold back the chaos in our own families through prayer and it seems for me, perched on a stool right in the middle of it all!

“For this is what the Lord says, who created the heavens He is God, and the One Who formed the earth and made it, and He is the one Who established it, He didn’t create it for chaos.” Isaiah 45:18

You are being watched. Don’t be alarmed, I am not talking about “creepy stalkers,” but especially if you are a parent, you are being constantly observed.

Since first becoming a parent, I discovered that I was under constant scrutiny. My first little one would copy what he saw us do and what he heard us say. I quickly learned that this was not always a good thing. My children were very accurate mirrors of not only my good qualities, but also my flaws. In fact, for whatever reason, they were like those magnifying mirrors when it came to our flaws as parents.

Much like the character ‘Roz’ in the movie Monsters Inc., my kids were always on the lookout. This would show up in some really cute ways too. The children would try to copy us and “help” with whatever we were doing. This would call for massive patience sometimes when I would just want to get a task done and my little helper was making it take twice as long.

It is not just our kids who are watching us though. The world is also constantly watching our lives to see if we act like they think “Christians” should. This of course, can be difficult too. People have various ideas of what followers of Jesus should look like and that doesn’t always line up with what Jesus Himself taught. In a good way, this puts pressure on sincere followers of His to stay close to Him and learn from Him how to live in this world. As we grow in our relationship with Him, hopefully others (and our children also) will be drawn into copying us and seek a relationship with Jesus of their own.

This leads me to some watching that we need to do for ourselves. We need to watch how we are living. What things do we allow in our lives? How do we talk to people? How do we treat others even when they are irritating and annoying? In this divisive culture we are living in, are we taking time to hear the other side and try to understand where they are coming from? In the garden just shortly before He was betrayed, Jesus implored His disciples to watch with Him and to pray. In our day now, it is every bit as imperative that we keep watch and pray–and do not fall asleep as the disciples did!

“Watch therefore, and pray always.” Luke 21:36

“Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love.” I Corinthians 16:13-14