Blog

I have an embarrassing habit. When I am at a friend’s house and I grab a cup for water or coffee, I always check the inside to see if it’s clean! I really hope none of my friends have noticed me doing this (although I guess I am outing myself now). It has absolutely nothing to do with their housekeeping abilities or any doubts of mine about their dishwashing habits. Rather, it results from the fact that at my house my children are responsible for washing my dishes and the level of irresponsibleness varies from child to child so that checking the inside of cups has become an ingrained habit.

I love not having to do dishes all of the time. For the most part, the older children do a thorough job. The younger ones though, do not seem to realize that if an item comes out of the clean dishwasher still dirty, it does not magically become clean in the cupboard. I have saved myself from many a gross incident by checking before using a cup or silverware.

As my children mature, they become more responsible and they do a better job with all of their chores. I will need to do less checking of my dishes in the future. Right now though, it is still my job to be checking the insides of my children themselves. As a parent, I try to make sure I check in regularly with their hearts. Some of my kids are quieter than others and if I am not alert, they can slip through the cracks especially in the shadow of a more needy or demanding sibling. It is important that I find times, or create times with each child so they can share how they are feeling or just get a chance to connect with me.

Again, as my children have grown older this also looks different. With my two oldest I am learning how to move from constant “Mom” mode into more of a friend/mentor/encourager. This is not always easy, there are many, many times that I want to just grab my scrub brush and get to work on their insides! At these times I try to take a deep breath and remind myself that God has always kept my children in His hands and that He loves them even more than I do. Better than that, He knows them better than I do and will protect and guide them. I love the verse that says, “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.” II Timothy 1:12b

This is not a Southern thing, as in, “Why bless your heart!” I am not talking about actually blessing our problems. Rather, I realized the other day that most of my problems and worries come from all the blessings I have been given.

I have eight children. While this is a huge blessing and I am very grateful for them, they do come with problems, some more than others! Now that I have two technically adult children, three teenagers, and three elementary age kids, I worry more than ever. It was honestly a lot easier in many ways when they were all younger…at least I knew where they all were all the time. Because of my husband’s job, we also have two houses. I know how that sounds, “Oh poor me,” but when you have two houses it is actually very difficult to remember where your stuff is! The list goes on: I have food, I have clothes, my kids have clothes, I have gone back to school, we homeschool our children, we have jobs and on and on.

I don’t know why, but it all of a sudden struck me the other day that pretty much everything I worry about is a blessing. What a wonderful problem to have! Changing my view just a little, like adjusting a child’s kaleidoscope, makes a HUGE difference.

God thank You for the children to raise and pour my life into. Thank You for the messes they make because they are active, healthy children. Thank You for all of the clothes we get to wash and the shoes we get to pick up and put away—we have more than one pair each. Thank You for the food we are able to buy that makes our kitchen and dishes dirty. Thank You that we all have jobs or a vocation from You. Thank You for the opportunity I have had to go back to school. Thank You for my children’s ability to learn, for some of them it doesn’t come easy, but they have made huge strides.

I know not everyone is blessed in the same way and that so many people in this world have real, terrible problems. Some problems do not stem from blessings, but from the lack of them. So God, I would also pray that I would be generous with the blessings You give me. Besides not turning them into problems or things to worry about, I ask that I would hold them with open, generous hands. That instead of seeing my blessings as problems to be solved, I would see them as gifts to be shared.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” James 1:17

As I have told you all in the past, my family takes their pie very seriously. Just this Thanksgiving we made over 30 pies! After a day or so of blissful indulgence, my seventeen-year-old math whiz announced that he thought he was now 1% pumpkin pie. He had weighed himself prior to all the pie consumption and I guess he figured out how much pumpkin pie weighs and voila, 1% pumpkin pie!!!

As his mother, I thought this was incredibly adorable of course. However, it got me to thinking about what I am made up of. (Although, I did try to avoid doing my own pie+turkey+mashed potatoes math!) Besides the extra “fluff” that the holidays can add physically, what are my insides made up of, my spirit and soul?

I think we have all heard that what we take in can become part of who we are, our personality and character. Who we choose to be around matters as well. As cliché as it is, what we watch and consume on social media also forms our thoughts and informs our emotions. When we are stressed or under pressure it is unfortunately our worst selves that manifest, bringing with them all of the negative we have allowed to become part of us. But what if we were made from something else, something good?

This all came together in my thoughts when I was listening to a sermon about slowing down. This topic is always a good reminder for me. I have come a long way in this area and I am now able to rest more, sit more and think more deeply, but the pastor had some really good insights. One of those was about choosing what I am ingesting and allowing to become a part of me. If I am regularly reading God’s word, the Bible, it will become a part of myself. When I am in a tight place a lot more of Jesus would come out rather than me. Another idea was to listen. It is not enough to just read through the Bible each day just because that is what we are supposed to do. I need to listen as I read and even ask questions of God. I can ask Him to show me His word in a new way, I can ask Him about things I don’t understand in the Scriptures. It becomes much more interactive and relational.

As we enter into another new year, I am going to continue to pursue this kind of consuming (while hopefully working off some of my physical consuming from the holidays!) and make it a point to not just read the Bible each day, but to really ingest and chew on it until it becomes a part of me. I pray that this year will be a year of deepening relationship with Jesus for all of us and that unlike my son who was only 1% pie, we could be 100% Him!

“And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:19

This morning I was asking God again to give me a heart of prayer, that I would remember to be praying for my friends.  I was asking Him how should I pray?  The question echoed the disciples’ own question to Jesus on the subject, and the answer started running through my mind, “Our Father Who art in heaven.”

I went glibly past the daily bread part, and got stuck where I frequently get caught up, “and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”  As I went through the rest of my day, I have to admit the prayer never crossed my mind again, until I was praying for someone dear to me that evening.  She was struggling with a lack and needed her daily bread.  As I was praying for her it hit me.  Our daily bread.  Wait a minute, daily manna.  God’s sustenance for today.

Jesus wasn’t telling us to pray for God’s provision for tomorrow, He was teaching us that God’s provision is always today, now.  We can’t live anywhere but now anyway.  The disciples would have understood a lot sooner than I did.  They grew up with the knowledge of their forefathers gathering manna in the desert.  God’s grace literally dropped down like dew every morning.  They would have heard the stories of the ones who tried to gather more than their daily share and the disgusting results.  When I try to grab tightly to what I have been given for today in hopes of somehow keeping it for tomorrow, it slips through my grasping hands and I lose it the way the Israelites lost their stored manna.  Trying to hang on to today’s grace is me not trusting God to provide all over for me again the next day.

God knew from the beginning how short our memories are, how we need to rely on fresh grace every morning, fresh bread for our souls.  God knew how my heart can become stale and forgetful, how I need to learn over and over to pray, “Give me this day my daily bread.”

Matthew 6:9-13 “This, then is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.  Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'”

Don’t you love the way it looks outside after it rains?  It is especially pretty out in the country.  The tree trunks become darker, more defined against the sky.  The moss on their bark brightens up as it soaks in the water.  It all reminds me of those paint with water pictures my children enjoy.  The ones with the faded looking colors that magically brighten with the swipe of a cotton swab dipped in water.

Sometimes our lives also need to be washed with water to bring out our deeper colors.  We may not even realize that our lives are a little faded, until God brings some rain into them.  This washing can come in many forms.  Sometimes it is the tears of grief that flow over our souls, bringing healing to our hearts.  Some days it can simply be the awareness of grace that God showers on us to brighten us and in turn cause us to shower grace on others.  We do not always get to choose how this cleansing will come, but we do know God is always with us even in the rain storms.

Baptism is one of the most beautiful pictures of this washing with water.  Baptism itself does not save us, it is an outward picture of what Jesus has already done in our hearts when we accept Him.  However, whenever we obey a command from Jesus there is a special blessing, a brightening, of our lives just like those paintings my children enjoy.  I just love the picture of being buried with Christ, (going under the water) and being raised to new life with Him, (coming back up out of the water.)

Isn’t that awesome?  Fresh, radiant life in Christ!  We do not have to go through life living faded, boring lives.  We can be washed daily in His grace and live exciting, vibrant lives in Him.

“But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”  I Corinthians 6:11

As we were driving to church on Sunday, my youngest daughter discovered a crayon in her car seat.  Very soon, of course, she broke it in half.  She turned to her big sister and asked her to fix it.  Sister replied, “I don’t know how to fix a broken crayon.”  I immediately started mulling the problem over.  The only way I knew to fix a broken crayon would be to melt it down and re-mold it.

Ah yes God, are you talking to me before we even get to church?  I could see the picture so clearly.  Me, the crayon broken in pieces by someone’s hands who had not been gentle with my heart.  God saying the only way to “fix” it is to go through the fire to melt me down.  I think I remember something about this in the Bible, melting the impurities of sin out of us.  Then the re-molding of my shape, maybe this time into a shape even a little more like Jesus.

I will be a brightly colored new crayon again.  But new crayons don’t just sit in boxes.  They are used to make beautiful pictures.  Small artists drawing them across paper canvas and leaving some of their color behind.  God, I hope that is what you do with me too.  Draw my life across other’s, leaving some of my brightness on the canvas of their lives.

I know this process will go on my whole life.  Drawing and breaking, melting and molding.  I know I am safe in my Father’s hands.  I can come to Him with the broken pieces of my life and He will be gentle.

Sitting in church I smile to myself as the paster reads Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s masterpiece.  He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.”  (Italics mine.)  I look around the congregation at us, the new crayons.  Each such a unique color, each adding such brightness to the world.  All of us, if we yield to God’s melting and shaping, ready to make masterpieces for Him.

“See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.”  Isaiah 48:10