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Last summer my three youngest children decided to grow a garden. They were inspired by receiving seed packets with their lunch from our local school. They went out and enthusiastically cleared out the garden bed, with some help from an older sibling. Into the ground went the seeds.

Then I found some potatoes had begun to sprout in the pantry. The children asked if I could cut them up so they could plant those too. Then our neighbor gave them some extra vegetable starts she had. Now they had quite a full garden!

Every day they would go out and water their plants. To my surprise, quite a few of the seeds actually grew. Some of the starts did quite well too. The problem came with the potatoes.

None of us knew what potato plants actually looked like. The children kept dutifully watering the “potatoes.” When they finally looked a little wilted, they set out, shovel in hand, to gather in their harvest. Unfortunately, no potatoes. It turned out that they had been watering weeds. Luckily some of their other crops did quite well, so their gardening spirits were not dampened, but it did get me to thinking.

Where in my life am I “watering weeds?” Is it in my thoughts? Maybe a tiny seed of a negative thought gets planted in my mind and before I know it, I have watered it with worry until it is a big old nasty weed.

I could be watering the weed of a bad habit. I know it’s bad for me. I know I should stop. I know that God gives me the strength to overcome, but I just choose to keep on going, allowing my life to be choked by an entangling weed of a habit.

There are so many things that could constitute “weeds” in our lives: bad relationships; being in the wrong job; even laziness about things we know aren’t right. When I grow a physical garden, weeding is my least favorite task. However, I know if I want my plants to survive and thrive, it has to be done. It is much the same with all of these other things.

If we want to be free to live happy, productive lives, it is imperative that we ask God for help and allow Him to weed out the negatives in our lives. I absolutely love the verse that says we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. That is such great news. God can literally help me weed out the negative, unproductive thoughts and beautiful thoughts and actions can result. In fact, in the Bible these things are literally called fruit, and I’ll take fruit over weeds any day!

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22 & 23

Do you remember those little comic strips? My Mom loved them. In fact, she kept a little notebook of clippings she gathered from the newspaper each day. The thing that is so significant about these single, “Love Is” sayings, is their simplicity. Each comic is a picture of just one small aspect of love.

I think a lot of time, in our over-Hollywood-saturated culture, we come to think of love as the grand gestures, the larger than life, just in the nick of time, romantic stories. Hollywood and Hallmark promise the happy ever-afters, but roll the credits before they have to figure out how to sustain it. And this brings us back to the little things.

Love is won or lost over a thousand little things. In the 60 plus years that these comic strips have been written, the artists have literally found thousands of things that love is. I think the trick to it all is being able to see what love is.

Being able to appreciate the people who love you is not as easy as it would seem, it actually takes quite a bit of work. Being able to say thank you is another step. And then there is the part where we need to be actively loving others! Again, all those little things add up. If you are like me, and need some help to understand all of this, God gives us some great information about how to love and what love is, in the Bible.

In the book of First Corinthians chapter 13, Paul gives us a very clear picture of love:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres…

…Love never fails.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

My short term memory is not so great. I think all of my memory-making ability was used up in childhood. I can seriously remember what my baby food tasted like, but I can’t remember something one of my kids said to me yesterday!

This inability to remember drives my family crazy, mostly because I won’t admit it. Even though forgetting day to day little things is inconvenient, it is not the worst of my memory problems. Turns out I have the memory of a disciple.

You would think that Jesus’ disciples would be the most faith-filled guys around. They were there for every miracle. They lived with Jesus day in and day out. However, they seem like they have the memories of proverbial goldfish!

For example, they see Jesus feed over 5,000 people using just a few loaves of bread and a couple fish. Then just a couple pages later in my Bible, they need to feed a crowd again and seem to have completely forgotten the first miracle of abundance. This time Jesus feeds over 4,000 people with 7 loaves and a few small fish. And yet, on the very next page they are all worried because they forgot to take some bread on a trip across the lake!

At this point, Jesus sounds a little like my family. “How have you already forgotten that I fed over 9,000 people recently starting with just a tiny amount of food?” Okay, maybe I am paraphrasing, but Jesus does rebuke them for their lack of faith and also their forgetfulness. This is where I am unfortunately similar to the disciples.

Jesus has provided for me over and over again in my life, one time literally giving me loaves and fishes, and yet I tend to forget. I begin to worry and plan. Then Jesus patiently shows up, yet again, and provides in a completely unexpected way. Beyond that, just as Jesus was more concerned about his disciples souls than their stomachs, I also sometimes focus on the temporary instead of the eternal.

Jesus is so good though, always gently reminding me that I can trust Him. He always, always takes care of me, even when I forget!

“I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.” Psalm 9:1

No one warned me ahead of time about how much math is involved in having a large family.

I have always done well in English. I am musical. I have some artistic ability. However, simple math has always eluded me. Just trying to count sometimes is difficult, much less anything more complicated such as variables. And then we went and had a large family.

Now all day I find myself faced with word problems such as: If I have 8 children, but only 1 box of granola bars with 6 bars in it, how do I give each child a snack? Or a particular favorite of mine: If I spend 2 hours making a nutritious dinner for 10 of us, how many children are actually going to eat it and how many will just sit there glaring at their plate?

The car math is almost a whole different category: If our family is going on an outing, but 2 older children will not be joining us, but Grandma is, will we have enough space in the vehicle to pick up 2 of the children’s friends??? And the math also changes form when we are out somewhere: Wait, didn’t I come with 7 children? Why do I now have 8, or 6…*

It really goes on and on. How many chairs do we need for dinner tonight? How many sandwiches do we need for lunch today? How many loaves of bread do I have left, and if only 5 children are going to eat sandwiches for the next 3 days, but 1 of those children will not actually eat their sandwich so I could save it for her brother to eat the next day, how many days can I wait to go grocery shopping?!?!?

Thank goodness God’s math is a lot simpler: Jesus + cross + resurrection = gift of salvation. Forgiveness for others + love = peaceful relationships. Obedience + faithfulness = guidance from God. Our lives are so complicated these days, even if you don’t have a large family, that sometimes it is very restful to just go back to the basics: God loves me, nothing that ever happens surprises Him and He has a wonderful plan for my life. So I am going to go drink a cup of tea, think about those wonderful truths and rest my brain from all of the math, before I have to do it again for dinner…

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

*Just for the record, I have never actually left a child anywhere or accidentally brought anyone else’s child home with me!

Evidently I need coffee before I can have my coffee.

This morning I had managed to stagger to the kitchen, pour a nice big cup…and then spill it all over the counter and the floor. To my credit, and I have to admit, surprise, I did not get a drop on myself. After cleaning up the giant mess and pouring a new cup I came to the conclusion that maybe I need to somehow wake up and drink some coffee through a straw before even climbing out of bed!

In all seriousness though, there is something even more important than coffee in the morning and that is making time to be with Jesus. I have written before about starting my day with coffee and quiet time. This morning though, I began to think a little deeper about, “first Jesus.”

I realized this shouldn’t just apply to my mornings. In reality, I would be far better off if everything in my life came through this filter. What if instead of jumping straight to worry, I first asked Jesus what He thought about a situation? What if instead of being so quick to speak or answer I took a second to ask Jesus what He would say? How would Jesus respond to an interruption by a child?

Taking this even further, what if I included Jesus first in all my good times too. What if Jesus was the very first person I turned to when I saw a beautiful flower, read an uplifting verse, had someone give me a compliment?

I am a people person by nature and I love to share things with my friends and family. I am also a talker who naturally works out thoughts and feelings out loud with those same very patient friends and family! However, I still need to make sure that Jesus is still my number one go-to for everything.

So while drinking hot coffee through a straw first thing in the morning will probably not be a reality for me anytime soon, I can still begin my day with saying, “Good morning Jesus, what shall we do today?”

“I am the vine and you are the branches. The one who remains in Me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

As a parent, I find myself using a wide variety of events as object lessons for my children. Take the huge container of cheese puffs for instance. They were a wonderful way to illustrate Proverbs 25:16 to my son: If you find honey, (or cheese puffs) eat just what you need, (although does anyone really need cheese puffs?) lest you have too much and vomit it up, (all over the bathroom!) Needless to say this particular son is much more moderate in his consumption of treats!

As inconvenient, or messy as these lessons are for me, I am so grateful that my children are learning some of them while they are still at home. I do find myself asking God for strength and patience on a regular basis though.

Even though (hopefully) most of us learned some of the basic lessons while young: moderation, don’t steal, tell the truth, be kind; none of us is perfect and life is an ongoing learning process. I am so glad that God is a loving Father who doesn’t just leave us on our own to struggle and try to figure things out. He gave us an instruction manual full of guidance and wisdom.

In the Bible we meet all kinds of imperfect people going through God’s object lessons. Just as sometimes I want to force my children to make the right decision, sometimes I want to yell to someone in the Bible, “Stop! This is going to end badly!” However, God never allows the bad ending to be the true end, His perfect story always continues.

I am so thankful that this is still the case today. I have definitely not always made the wisest choices, but God in His mercy has still used them all for good, not that I have seen all the outcomes yet, but I am believing His promise. Knowing how my Heavenly Father has so lovingly and gently parented me helps me to have more grace for my own children, even after too many cheese puffs!

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” Proverbs 1:7