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At my house this is not a euphemism.  I scream this all day long in the summer months.  It is not because the air conditioner is on, it is because I HATE flies.  We live in the country, therefore we seem to have more of these pests than usual. 

One of the first things my children toddled around with was a fly swatter, trying to eliminate the enemy.  Sometimes, when there are just too many flies for me to handle, (more than one) I will put out a bounty, 5¢ per fly.  I do provide quite a bit of entertainment for my children all summer, chasing after the buzzing irritants myself.  I am somewhat surprised that none of my kids has ever bought me one of those electric fly swatters, the ones that zap them in mid-air, but then again my children are intelligent.

Just as I am vigilant about keeping the doors closed to flies, I am also as concerned about what else might zip its way into my home.  I have to constantly be on the lookout for evil that loves to come in when a door is left open.  I am not only talking about blatant evil either, sometimes the door is opened simply by my bad attitude.  Pretty soon all kinds of nasty things are flying around: hurtful words, ugly looks, unkind actions.

I have found the quickest way to squash that kind of infestation is with an apology for my hasty words.  If I can calm myself down, fairly soon things are back to normal.  Well, as normal as things ever are in a house with eight children and a mother running through waving a fly swatter!

“Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.”  I Peter 1:13

Confession time again. After raising children for almost twenty years now, I am tired!

When my first son was born, I tried hard to make sure he had nutritious, healthy food. I very rarely gave him any sugar and tried to stay away from processed junk food. I kept this healthy eating pattern for my children for a very long time. However, in the last few years, I have slowly given up.

It is difficult to stay positive when the dinners I spend so much time on are constantly met with disapproval and outright disgust by my youngest three. Also, as my older children have become busier and more independent, they have tended toward making their own meals more often. So healthy breakfasts have become cereal more frequently, homemade bread for sandwiches has become store-bought and dinners have become simpler and quicker.

I have often wished that there was simply dogfood for kids. An all-in-one bag of something they could and would eat three times a day! We come close with breakfast cereal, although I still consider it junk food and I would definitely not feed it to them three times a day. (But I could see there being seasons in life that that could become necessary!) My youngest son has also stumbled across something that he seems to believe he could live on and we jokingly call it his “dogfood.” (The huge bags of tortilla chips from Costco.) However, we all know neither of these would be great for kids to live on long term.

It is always comforting to me as a parent when I realize that God as a Father, has had similar experiences with His own children. When He brought the Israelites out of Egypt into the wilderness, they too complained about food. They sounded just like my kids whining! I am slightly jealous of God though, because He did get to take the “dogfood” solution. He decided that they would live on manna for the entire time they were in the wilderness, with some quail sprinkled in.

I am of course being rather facetious about all of this. The bottom line is that my children need to mature and learn to be grateful for the food they are given and I need to not throw in the towel because I still have many years of parenting left! God in His miraculous mercy, provided food in the wilderness and He has faithfully provided “manna” for my family all this time. In the same way, He will provide the strength I need to patiently teach my younger children healthy eating habits even when I wish I could just pour them a bowl of kidfood!

“I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’” Exodus 16:12

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” John 6:51

I don’t know if you remember this from the Mad Hatter’s tea party in Alice In Wonderland. Instead of washing the dishes or cleaning up, the characters simply moved down to clean spots at their large tea table.

I am uncertain whether my youngest daughter even remembers this scene from the book, but she has taken it to heart! Because we are such a large family, we also have a long table. To avoid arguments and to separate the more contentious of the siblings, everyone has their assigned place at the table. This does nothing to deter my daughter. She begins her day at her own place with her first breakfast. Once she has spilled enough milk, yogurt etc. to make her own spot unusable, she simply moves to the next place down! If we are not paying attention, by the time she has had second breakfast, snack, elevenses and possibly more, she has worked her way down an entire side of the table, making a complete mess as she goes.

As frustrating as this is, I know she will eventually grow out of this behavior and become a mostly responsible person. In the Bible however, Jesus was far more concerned with a different type of cleaning, one that we do not simply grow out of or mature from.

Again, this goes back to the scribes and Pharisees that Jesus frequently found Himself surrounded by. They continually only thought about their appearance. Unfortunately, they neglected their inside, namely their hearts, motives and intentions. Jesus compared their behavior to only cleaning the outside of a cup or a dish, without washing the inside. He told them in no uncertain terms that they were full of greed and self-indulgence. In fact, they were not dissimilar to my five-year-old who does not care whether she is dirtying up someone’s place at the table as long as her own desires are met!

These people were in grave spiritual danger, but Jesus did tell them how they could change. He told them to first clean up the inside of their lives and He said the outside would follow. We all tend to get this backwards. We think we have to work so hard to clean ourselves up on the outside so that we will be “good people,” when all the time, if we would put Jesus first in our hearts the rest would follow.

So as I am teaching my little girl to clean up after herself and to respect other people, I am going to also teach her, (and remind myself) how important it is to be spiritually clean on the inside!

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.” Matthew 23:25-26

For some unknown reason, my children hate to part with their clothes. From my oldest to my youngest, they cling to worn out garments with a strange fierceness. Even when I buy them new clothes, instead of the excitement you would expect, they act almost hostile to their new garb and soon have it stashed at the bottom of their drawers. I am not kidding, some of my kids are wearing clothes they have owned for FOUR years. Most of my kids are the size of toothpicks, so they just grow straight up and not out, so the clothes simply get shorter. When I point out the fact of the gaping holes, or stains, they usually want me to mend the clothes. It doesn’t matter how many times I explain that it won’t work to sew old, thread-bare fabric, and that stains are, well, stains!

Jesus was familiar with this attitude towards clothing while He was here on Earth. He was surrounded by people, (scribes and Pharisees) who were quite happy with their filthy rags. These guys were especially deceptive, however, because unlike my children, they went about in nice, “long robes”* all the while, “devouring widows’ houses.”*

Isaiah 64:6, describes any righteous thing that we could perform from our own humanness as a filthy garment. Unfortunately, the religious leaders of Jesus’ time were only following their own rules and laws and not allowing God to transform them. Jesus had some strong words to describe them in Matthew 23:27, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are all like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.” They could not see that they were clothed in rags.

Jesus came to take all of our useless, human works, all of our sin and shame, and transform it all through the cross and His resurrection. When we receive Him as our savior, we are clothed in new, spotless garments. We no longer need to cling to our old ways of life, like my kids cling to their old clothes. We can happily throw away all the old habits, thoughts and lifestyle for a brand-new start!

“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” Isaiah 61:10

*Luke 20:46 “Beware of the scribes, who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts, who devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation.”

We are almost to the end of the school year, so the last thing my kids want to talk about is math! However, the kind of addition and subtraction I have been thinking about lately has very little to do with school.

After spending over a year of living extremely differently, I am finding that I have some math equations to ponder. Now that I have a choice to rejoin the world, what do I want to add back in to my life? What are some things that I have not missed that were subtracted out of my life? I have been surprised to be confronted by these questions. I have also found that I am not alone.

Before this year, I always considered myself to be an extrovert. I would feel energized being around people. I have written several blogs about interacting with others at the grocery store. However, after having A LOT of alone time this year, I find that I do not miss the constant social interaction. Surprise! This next revelation may have more to do with my age, but I also do not miss being out late several nights a week. I am now quite content to be home with my family most evenings.

I have enjoyed the extra time with my kids and my husband. It is nice to not have to rush off in the morning or slide in sideways late in the evening. Our relationships have had a chance to deepen and grow. I have also enjoyed the extra time with God that this year has afforded me. Obviously, as for a lot of us, this time with God has included many “why” questions and much soul-searching, but He has been so faithful in the comfort He has provided.

I was not expecting to feel this way. I had really thought that after losing so many freedoms and being cooped up at home, I would be ready to burst out of the door, accepting any and all invitations or events that came my way. But, like I said, I have discovered that I am not the only person who feels like this. Many friends have shared these same thoughts. They are using this opportunity to evaluate their lives and make conscious choices and decisions about how they want to live. More than one person has called it a “reset.” Most of us agree that our world, at least in this country, had been moving way too fast and we were feeling caught up in the whirlwind.

This year has brought many, many negatives with it, but maybe it also brought this gift of re-evaluation. In the Bible there is a verse that asks God to, “teach us to number our days, that we might gain wisdom.” Maybe this is one of those times for us to pray that prayer so that we might wisely re-enter our world, in a thoughtful way. Maybe this is a time to add in what is good, subtract what is not, so that our strength will equal our days!*

“Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12

*This is from a blessing to the tribe of Asher from Moses in Deuteronomy 33:25: “…and your strength will equal your days.”

I have some bad news.

This is for those of you who have just had your first baby. I know you can probably hardly read this because the words keep blurring on the page due to lack of sleep, but it is going to get worse…

Right now that sweet little baby does actually take naps. They can’t speak yet, I know they cry, but they don’t talk back, or tell you how stupid you are, (in not so many words so that they get themselves in trouble) however, they roll their eyes at the same time so that you understand, that they understand, that you do not have two working brain cells in your entire head! Oops, getting a little ahead of myself.

Back to your baby, who probably does go to bed by about 8:00 in the evening. I know they get up by 6:00 am, but that is still TEN whole hours that you have. Here is the bad news, at least for those of you who end up with either several children or children spread out in ages: when they become teenagers they come alive at night even though you have been up early with your younger children.

You will literally spend all day trying to drag the older ones through whatever it is they need to accomplish, from getting up on time in the morning to schoolwork to chores. Then, when you are worn out in the evening from still being up early with your younger children and from dragging the teenagers through the day…voila! They wake up like giggling, nonsensical vampires ready to suck the last of the energy out of your exhausted body.

And of course, because you are a good, loving parent who realizes by now that time with your kids is short and that in just a few years these kids will be leaving home, you stay up and listen to them. When my children were all still small, I thought that was the time that I really needed to rely on God’s strength. Now I know that that was nothing and that the only thing keeping me going some days is the fact that my Father is always ready and available to listen to me no matter what time it is.

God has encouraged me over and over again in my parenting journey. If I begin to worry about my children’s education, He will remind me of the verse that says that all of my children will be taught by Him and great will be their peace. If I worry that they are not really paying attention to the Bible, I remember that He promises that none of His words will fall to the ground. And above all, when I feel like I am failing as a parent, I remember that He loves my kids more than I ever could and that He is ultimately their good, good Father. Like I said, these days are short…and I can always catch up on sleep when they all eventually leave the house!

“Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them–not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be.” I Peter 5:2