How?

Yesterday I was asked at Easter dinner, how do I do it?

Do what?

Stay at home with the children, every day.

My first reaction was a snarky oh, I just eat bon bons all day and they do whatever.

Then I looked at my middle child and asked him to recite the Bible verse we have been reading to the children for the past several months.

It is not ME that makes my children who they are.  Yes, genetics play a roll but it is God who is changing them from the inside out.  His love, grace, forgiveness and guidance in our lives plays out on a daily basis and we try to point them to the Word when they make mistakes.

We make mistakes, and are not perfect.

They are not perfect.

His grace has brought us this far and will continue to bring us.  Its not by our works but His.

My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings.

Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart.

For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh.

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

Put away from you crooked speech…..and put devious talk far from you.

Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you.

Ponder the path of your feet;  then all your ways will be sure.

Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your food away from evil. 

Proverbs 4:20-27

As I Live and Breath

No School, even a few months ago these words made me cringe, how on earth am I going to get through a day of fighting and boredom?  In one breath I set myself up for failure.  The enemy set me up to be an irritated mom with no hope in having fun with her children.  This school year that all changed.  I made a plan for days off (yes, even those pending snow days that we all hope don't happen.)  Routine has always worked with my children, that is why school is fun for them, its predictable and they know what is next.  Today we have sung songs, talked about the fruit of the Spirit and gone over our Literacy and Math workbooks.  I am not going to be consumed by fearing days off anymore, I am going to embrace them.  There has been talk about walking to the library but at the current moment they are playing with kool aide play dough (and have been for the past hour!)  and talking about random ideas that come to mind.  I am blessed.

I look and see I haven't written since August...wow.  I really, really miss pouring my heart out in a safe place.  This is a public space though, not safe at all but I want to say a little.  I pray that something I say might spark that worn down mom to press on.  My days are terribly hard sometimes, trying to help my daughter with a learning disability grasp simple concepts, chasing after a Kindergarten who wants to know everything and a toddler that just wants to be with me learning and growing. All while often missing my son who we never got to experience life with. My life isn't a movie where some seven foot guy is going to gush words of wisdom over me...though it would be nice...:)  I CAN do this WE can do this!  God and I.

So how can I pray for your day today?  I want to pray for you as I clean play dough off the floor, do another load of wash or in my quite time with Jesus.   Leave a note on Facebook or a comment here.  Reach out if you can relate.  Weather you want to be able to relate or not.

"God brings you to places, among people and into certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose through the intercession of the Spirit on you.  Never put yourself in front of your circumstances and say "I am going to be my own providence from here, I will watch this closely, or protect myself from that."
My Utmost for His Highest

"Oh be Careful Little Eyes"

When I was growing up we sang a song in Sunday School, the final verse went something like this,

"Oh be careful little eyes....ears.....mouth....what you do,
Oh be careful little eyes....ears...mouth...what you do,
for the father up above is looking down in love,
oh be careful little eyes....ears...mouth what you do."

A very catching little song, but the words mean so much more now that I am a parent.  A friend and I were having a discussion the other day about how old children should be to watch a movie that involved language.  I pondered the question for only a moment when this song started playing in my head.
 My response was I want my children to always be sensitive to the sin of this world.  Our hope and prayer is that they are to be in this world, not of it. There is no way to protect them 24/7 from language, sex and the like but I am not going to make the conscious choice to allow them around it.  This person responded that they might be old enough to one day block out language.  I am almost 33 and language still makes me squirm when I am around it, whether it is in a move or another person is saying it.  I am sensitive to the sin, and I am very aware of it, especially if I falter and use a word.  That is the worst.
Sin should not be something we "block out" or "get used to."  If that is the case then our spirits are numb to what is actually going on.  I love my children with every fiber of my being.  We do no live in a perfect world and they need to understand that.  We are made perfect by God's love and forgiveness but we are not to join in on a movie, conversation or song just because we can block the sin out.  We are called to honor the Lord in word and deed, our bodies are His temple and we should do everything in our fiber to do His will.
I could never give my friend a straight answer, just what I said above and I pray that the Lord can guide the rest.

Friends

Over the past month or so I really have been focusing on friendship and how this bond has been ever so present in my life, all my life.  The whole thought of friendship is a strange one, a group of people, often total strangers that decide to start conversing then a bond develops.  It maybe a surface-y type friend that you call when you need to be human or that friendship that runs so deep that you can almost think for that person.

I have experienced both and so much more in between.  I look back on the years and am honestly embarrassed about how I approached my earliest friendships.  One friend I called everyday, at the same time after school.  Really?  Embarrassing, feeling that our friendship would not hold if there wasn't a daily connection.  In high school the act of trying to keep up to just fit in became exhausting but a lot of fun.  This group of friends held Jesus as a standard in their lives and we did so much together, road trips, band shows and late night hang outs and eventually youth group. Then there was a foolish need to try another group, that  other  set of friends whom I drew especially close to chose drugs and alcohol over anything.  That was my first "break up" after many nights of praying and hearing that I didn't want to head down that road at all.  I had hopes and dreams that would be dashed if my life became nothing but that style.

 I didn't trust for a long time after then.  Why would I?  God was my friend during the time I felt like I couldn't trust.  Having learned so much over that time of solidarity the Lord blessed me with the group of close bonds that I now experience.  It is refreshing to not have to change, hide or call every day to know that they have my back. During this season my heart has been healed and then I finally led a Bible Study on Friendship and the wound was healed completely.  Maturity has a lot do with it but so does learning to trust again.  Enjoy friendships today, laugh and take a chance in another person. God never intended us to walk any road alone!

It's June

June, so many people look forward to this month, school ends, the air is warm and the sun stays out for what seems like forever, ice cream drips from happy chins and families gather to celebrate each other.

June is a difficult month for me, this is the month that we found out our son was no longer alive, almost three years ago.  The day was beautiful, the children at the daycare I worked for had a park day and I walked over to help them come back, all along day dreaming of seeing my baby on ultra sound that afternoon.  I was almost 17 weeks, we were trying to stay on "team green" but deep down we hoped to get a glimpse of the gender.  I had started to feel the baby move a few weeks prior, but that week was very hot and I remember not feeling much movement and saying something to a few people but chalked it up to it being early.

I entered the exam room, hopped on the table and told the tech all the above and she agreed it was early and maybe the baby wasn't facing out but in where kicks are hard to feel.  Lights turned down, machine on and then....my baby.  "It's in a funny position, I need to get the doctor."  My reality set it very quickly, I looked at my husband, there isn't a heart beat.  She said she would be back, please change the outcome, but the doctor confirmed what we already knew.  What was inside me was no longer a thriving life but one that was now thriving in heaven.  The image was still, yet beautiful.  I looked at my husband, change this, change it now!   Our baby, our child, lay silent.

Next came the chatter, autopsy, no, genetic testing, no, a D&E?  No, I want to deliver this child.  We were told that mourning was going to start.  Who was she kidding?  We had lost two grandmothers in the last two months, the mourning wasn't starting, just getting worse.  At the hospital, they greeted me and sent me to the farthest room, away from the crying and placed a flower on my door.  That flower hangs in our living room now, it signals to the staff that what is happening in that room isn't a live birth but a still birth.  We view it as God' reminder that he cares for the flowers and he cares even more for us.  I prayed for three things

 1) A quick, natural delivery.
2) To be able to determine gender, to hold and to be with our child.
3)  To know why their life was cut so short.

My contractions started quickly, my water broke and an hour later Logan Anthony came in and out of our lives.  He was perfect, fingers, toes, eyes that only saw Jesus, never my face.  His cord was wrapped tightly in several places, no medical testing needed, it was clear.  He lived within me for just over 15 weeks and was part of us for 17.  He will always be our third child.  Always our son.

Bereaved mothers are all around, please be aware.  We see every eye roll when we talk about our child, the whisper and every forgotten birthday is like a stab to the heart.  If a close friend or loved one has lost a child, make a note of the day and remember them.  From the time those two lines appear on the pregnancy test we plan futures, weddings, grandchildren.  No matter how long that life is it matters to the parents.  Even early miscarriages are carried with mothers, they may not speak of them but they remember that baby.   A life is a life.
My son's life was far too short, we are healing but now that my children are growing older he is is more real to them than ever.  I love to hear his name, to show his pictures because he was ours we celebrate him, and yes talk about him.
 No many understand, but maybe its the fact that too many do....I don't wish this on anyone, I don't want anyone else in the world to know the pain of  losing their child.  It is said that until you walk in these shoes you won't understand.  Than I pray to God that no one else understands.

All or Nothing

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.  And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.  For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Hebrews 12:1-2

I am an all or nothing kind of gal, and so far two of my children have inherited this trait.  So many examples are tumbling through my head....I can't just have ice cream in the house if I am trying to stay away from it, there can't be any.  When it comes to tithing on Sunday I cannot give just some, it has to be all.   I needed to lose weight years ago and making smaller portions wasn't working so I did the dreaded and developed an eating disorder.  I need to hear words of affirmation daily, or else my significance in this world slips.  With the children, when it comes to video games there is no such things as moderation, we either let them have it and they are on them all the time or we take them away and they collect dust.  Same with TV, it can't just be a little, so they often don't watch at all.  Our pediatrician suggested this approached with red food dye, it has too be all or nothing, so we chose nothing (no, I am not going to debate this, they simply stated that it works for some families, they never said it was proven...)  We slip up and let chores go for a day, or even two, and it is so hard to bring them back in.. My list goes on and on.
What about my faith?   Well, that goes along well with my all or nothing, realist view.  I trust my God with everything, I trusted him with his choice of my future husband, a man that I only knew for four short months before our engagement and never had a relationship of any type.  We trusted God with all when starting our family.  We chose to trust him with all when we had to bury our son and again when we discovered our fourth pregnancy that so quickly followed.   We have had to trust him, all or nothing, even when it seemed impossible.  He showed it was possible, a check came in the mail, a note, a word from a stranger.  I often battle  my all or nothing out look, others do not understand but the again, I am not in charge of others.  God has blessed us with this little family, with the things he has given us and the children that are  on loan.  Satan might try his best to come in to kill and destroy but I know that God has the end of the battle.  I pray that my family, my friends, my mothers that I walk next to can rest in this peace.  God wants us, not some, not occasionally but he wants our hearts, all or nothing.

"Every high thing must come down."

This is a picture of my scale, or what used to be my scale.  I would get on this scale every Friday morning, every week it would define me for that day, or week depending on what it told me.  Good or bad I really held a lot to this square glass scale and it had to end.  It has become far too high in my life and where I was on my journey, so I was going to throw it out. Someday.  Until my two year old decided to try it out, she wanted to stand on it just like mommy did, so she tipped it over (it stood on end against the wall) and it hit the floor with a crash.  Problem solved (praise God no one was cut, either.)  This was a great reminder to me that no matter what excuse we make, now much we put our convictions off, God will find a way to make His will clear.

"You are always fighting for us

Heaven's angels all around

My delight is found in knowing 

That You wear the Victor's crown

You're my hlep and my defender

You're my Savior and my friend

By Your grace I live and breath

To worship you

e

To Every high thing must come down

Every stronghold shall be broken

You wear the victors crown, 

you have overcome,

you have overcome"

(Victors Crow

Darlene Zschech)

What a glorious thought!  He holds us in his arms and he wears the crown of VICTORY!  We have had quite a journey these past few weeks, my oldest was given a diagnosis that we saw coming.  My weight loss has been long, painful and slow, my husband gave up a stronghold in his life and is feeling so much better and so much more.  We parent, we pray we work through this crazy life and we live for the one that has promised to walk beside us and he delights in every effort we put forth.  I know that I can just lay down every time I botch training up the children or lose my cool and my father will be patient with my faults and not just forgive but forget.  

My husband and I are very intentional with the children, two of the three are opening their hearts to God's love with every day that goes by.  They still sulk, and throw fits but we work with them, pray verses over them and try our best to mirror what we have learned through growth.  Grace is practiced in this home. Be encouraged.