The whine, it ages me...

Sunday, I told my 8 year- old- son to "stop whining and act like a man". Perhaps not my finest mom moment, and yet, the world kept spinning.

These pearls of wisdom dropped from my thinly-pressed lips after a long morning periodically dealing with/and or soothing the son of my heart who- we are not sure why, but we suspect large doses of multi-media the night before might have something to do with it- turned into a complaining/weepy/clingy/pouty/affection-demanding/flesh-wound-proclaiming, baby.

It was actually, a hard thing for me to say- so very opposite of this deep-seated need in me to comfort and soothe...and yet, in the middle of our 2 hour Sunday School class that Sky and I were supposed to be teaching- I laid down the law, because I did not know what else to do with him.
Sorry,
I can't report a miraculous happy ending in a parenting-zen sort of way. He actually sat; teary-eyed in self pity, and then, upon being mercilessly teased by an older boy, oozed into a big, crying heap. Sky took him somewhere and did some sort of magic to end it all. I asked him what he did.
Sky: "I told him to take it like a man..." Sounded familiar, but it worked better somehow for him.

Later that night, Sky and I talked over the events of the morning and tried to work out a plan on how to point our son towards manhood. It basically involved lots of manual labor. One of the complaints Demi was moaning about was a vague hurt in his hand, then his head, then his leg...Sky decided he would introduce him to the concept of callouses on the hands due to hard work as a real-life contrast.

I stumbled upon this post, Love hurts. Are we raising generation why-me? Sort of timely in light of Sunday... So, how do we raise a boy to be manly, dependable, a hard worker, kind, responsible? This is our first attempt at man- making...how do we go about it?

"He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what the Lord requires of you. But to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" -Micah 6:8

I think what we need, really- is a farm. But, we don't have one. We are thinking out right now, how to add more chores and responsibilities to our boy's life- not just busy work, but work that contributes to the smooth running of the family. Work that makes a boy feel needed and important to the family, work that he can take honest pride in completing.

I'll let you know what we come up with.

The thought that has held me back in the past, -from posting on the fridge a heaping list of chores for all my kids- is the fear that someone, even one of my children, will accuse me of having many kids for the cheap labor. Laughable, really, when you think it out- I could have had no kids, or stopped at one kid and simply hired a housecleaner with the extra money I wouldn't be spending on my four kids... I hate to be judged quickly and unfairly, though.

It's not the end product of a clean house; it's the end product of God-loving,responsible, hard-working, cheerful, happy children that I am looking for.

What are your thoughts on raising responsible kids, hard work, chores, having everything given to you, the school of hard knocks vs. gifts of love?

More thoughts coming, but this post is already too long...

it's madness, but in a good way...

This week our house has been a crazy place...but also a very good place to be. For some of my new blog friends, I will share with you what "The summer training" is like.

Twice a year, our church holds a week long Bible conference of sorts, in winter and summer. People come from all over the world to attend- with something like 3,000 people in the main conference center and then more in meeting halls all over the world watching via satellite. This week we have 13 people staying with us for the week- and we had 4 extra for 2 days before it all started...(and 5 to 10 extra for lunches, some days) I kind of had trouble at first knowing who was coming and going- and exactly how many people we had. This is in addition to the six of us. We have 2 bathrooms...it's a little rough at times.

And yet, it is so much fun- and a great time to dig deep into God's word. We have people staying with us from Canada, western and eastern Washington state, Boston and Texas. Most are old friends, but we have a new family with us this year, too.

At the conference, we have to be in our seats before 4 p.m everyday, and it ends around 9:30 p.m. We have a dinner break, most bring a sack lunch. Our days run sort of like this...breakfast at 8 am, clean up and then study time- because we get a list of questions the night before- and when we get to the next meeting, they will start with calling sections of seats up to the front to answer the questions and to go through the main points. It's kind of like Charlotte Mason type narration -for you homeschoolers out there...you will know what I mean. God's word is meant to be spoken and shared, He is the word- and the more we speak it, the more we own it... and usually, as you are sharing, you gain more insight into what you are speaking about...

After study time we have lunch and clean-up, then it is supposed to be rest time (unless you have 11 or so kids running around...then not so much rest for some of us. Then we begin making and packing dinners to take to the meeting. The moms and dads of young kids at our house are taking turns going to the meetings, the dads all go one night and the moms stay home with the kids- the moms go the next night. It works out well, and we have time for fellowship and fun with the little ones.

The horde wander in around 10 pm or later...and then we all talk, share what was spoken at the meeting, snack and check emails, then lights out between 11 and 12.

This week the subject is the Gospel of Luke. I'll share more about some really good points, later- if I get the chance.

So, this is what my week has been like...and why I haven't been around blog-land...
hope you are having a blessed week, too!

Hast thou heard Him, seen Him, known Him?

Esther commented somewhere on my blog asking about an alternate melody for this hymn, this is actually the melody I know it by....

  1. Hast thou heard Him, seen Him, known Him?
    Is not thine a captured heart?
    Chief among ten thousand own Him;
    Joyful choose the better part.

    • Captivated by His beauty,
      Worthy tribute haste to bring;
      Let His peerless worth constrain thee,
      Crown Him now unrivaled King.

  2. Idols once they won thee, charmed thee,
    Lovely things of time and sense;
    Gilded thus does sin disarm thee,
    Honeyed lest thou turn thee thence.
  3. What has stripped the seeming beauty
    From the idols of the earth?
    Not a sense of right or duty,
    But the sight of peerless worth.
  4. Not the crushing of those idols,
    With its bitter void and smart;
    But the beaming of His beauty,
    The unveiling of His heart.
  5. Who extinguishes their taper
    Till they hail the rising sun?
    Who discards the garb of winter
    Till the summer has begun?
  6. 'Tis that look that melted Peter,
    'Tis that face that Stephen saw,
    'Tis that heart that wept with Mary,
    Can alone from idols draw:
  7. Draw and win and fill completely,
    Till the cup o'erflow the brim;
    What have we to do with idols
    Who have companied with Him?

Esther, here is the link to hymnal.net where I found this-unfortunately I could not find the sheet music, though I do think there is a place for it...I will have to ask around and get back to you.

thanks for visiting!

Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit- wow




We were able to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit while it was nearby in San Diego- it's the ultimate field trip, specially when you are studying ancient history.

This top photo is of the natural history museum and part of beautiful Balboa park in San Diego.

Next photo is of Sky and Josie center, flanked by a few of our bible school friends. They were the center of an incredible conversation around our table one night about archeology, the scrolls, Biblical manuscripts and I don't know what else...they are clearly a brain trust...so we decided to invite them along to enhance our experience. Here we stopped downtown for lunch.

This last photo...immediately after exploring the exhibit for a solid two hours, the boys headed straight for the books in the gift store to look up some points they were unclear on - we had to laugh! And then ask them their thoughts of course.... Meg is in this photo with the boys.

The exhibit took us 2 hours to work our way through, we did not take Amie and Demi, and I was really, really, really glad that we didn't bring them along...they would have been bored to tears.

It was an incredible experience to see the scroll fragments and other artifacts. Without getting all technical, I just have to say that to stand and look at scroll fragments written in Hebrew from the time of the 2nd temple was amazing...I loved the surety and confirmation evidenced by these same texts word for word the same as the Bible I hold in my hand. I can't describe what I felt, standing in front of a glass case, looking down at Psalm 121 with my daughters- listening to a recording of a Jewish girl singing the Psalm, while I read it with my eyes and sang along in my heart those ancient, comforting words.

It was an amazing exhibit, and learning about daily life at the community where these texts were produced was very interesting. It seemed like a lovely place, a community of believers-living, studying, praying and working together daily. I liked the thought of the group studying scriptures every night for an alloted portion of the evening. Some of the text found are interpreted by scholars as describing their own community; parts of the texts referred to the pure not being overthrown by war or pestilence...it was taken to mean that the group felt if they lived pure lives, that God promised to protect them and let them live forever- but as I read these lines, all I could think was that they were describing the body of Christ- His body made up of believers...the Church that the gates of Hell would not prevail against. The different parts of manuscripts read so like our new testament epistles in some places.

The last part of the exhibit felt a little like the deflating of a balloon...I really think that they tried so hard to make the scrolls identifiable to all people that they stripped it of it's amazing singularity and confirmation of a single message and history. Kind of like the point was out of focus and fuzzy...

And yet, I am so glad we went and saw what our ears have heard and our hearts confirm..

"Hear, O Isreal: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!...."
-Deuteronomy 6:4

"I will lift up my eyes to the hills, From where will my help come?
My help comes from Jehovah, Who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip; He who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, Israel's keeper Will neither slumber nor sleep.
Jehovah is your keeper; Jehovah is the shade at your right hand.
The sun will not strike you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
Jehovah will keep you from all evil; He will keep your soul.
Jehovah will keep your going out and your coming in
From this time forth, and even forevermore."
-Psalm 121

above all, be kind

We had the bible school boys over Sunday night, they actually come over every Sunday night...the house seems empty when they are on break. I had a really interesting experience with one of the boys and I've been mulling over it today.

A new young man, I'll call "M" struck up a conversation with me after noticing some of our Abeka math charts on the wall. He found out we homeschooled, and told me about his experience in a homeschool-like cottage school his first years of schooling before moving on to several other forms of schooling. M also went on to share with me how homeschooling for all of the school years was a bad thing, how "studies" have shown that solely homeschooled kids can't go on to function at University or in the real world...

Ahem. Can you in any other way more clearly mark a big ole' target on your forehead... Could you get a rise out of a in-the-trenches-homeschool-mom, any faster?

I did pause- for once- before opening my mouth to enlighten my new friend, before challenging some of these popular assumptions and faulty lines of reasoning. He even threw in the family of homeschoolers he knew who did not go on to achieve anything... Now, I do enjoy a good, intellectual, friendly debate, and when I was young and much less wise, I actually believed such was possible. Looking back at such debates, my opinion now is that it is not feasible unless the two debating are very good friends with a good sense of humor and good understanding of each other. In all other instances, even if the two walk away amicably, something is lost- one walks away put down a little, one walks away feeling a sting, the other walks away feeling a little too wise in her own eyes, or maybe even a little ashamed for the win.

This time, I paused, and made a decision to simply 'be kind'.

I looked M in the eyes and nodded and "really-ed!" and gave many "hmmm's" and I smiled, and I asked about his school experiences.

The amazing part of this little conversation...he actually corrected himself over his anecdotal evidence of homeschool failure, and remembered a family that had fantastic results.

The best result of being kind proved to be the very rich conversation centered around this young man as several of them talked of such things as the different manuscripts used for bible translations, groups of texts, the King James version, the dead sea scrolls, recent archaeological finds, carbon dating, it was just fascinating. Apparently, the physicists, linguists and engineers sitting around our table-harbored several interesting hobbies and lines of study.

I really wondered if I had not chosen to practice kindness (when I really wanted to be offended and defensive) would the free-er flow of topics occurred? Would M felt free to share or would he have felt put in his place, or even merely sat with the feeling of not being liked by his hostess? Would the evening ended much quieter and would we have lost the richness we enjoyed sitting in on those conversations?

Be kind.

sometimes we adults need to remember those words, too.

reading lately

"[Sloth] is a sluggishness of soul or boredom of the exertion necessary for the performance of any good work... Sloth can also mean a repugnance to divine inspirations or the friendship of God due to the self-sacrifice and labor needed to cooperate with actual grace or to remain in the state of grace."
-John Harden as quoted in A Mother's Rule of Life

"I had to wonder if my inability to find adequate prayer time wasn't more a result of sloth than of being too busy. It seemed I aways had enough time to read a book or magazine or watch a show, but prayer was somehow impossible."
-Holly Pierlot, A Mother's Rule of life pg. 173

"You like to be free. To be free means not to be regulated. You may not like to be regulated by anybody. But when you are not regulated, you are through with the growth...this growth by regulation has a goal, and this goal is maturity and function...We are cooperating with our God that He may give you more growth, that He may give you the maturity you need, then you will be useful..." -Witness Lee

I've noticed a sort of theme running through my reading lately. Can I say, "ouch"?...

I am kind of a "free-spirit" type person, and I have a hard time staying on task. The word "diligence" has also popped up quite a bit in my reading lately. I have a hard time with regulation.

"Everyone who has reached maturity is a very diligent one. You need to fellowship with the Lord, pray to Him, receive His enlightenment, and be dealt with by Him. A slothful person would never contact the Lord regularly..." -Witness Lee

We are told in the word that we need to become mature in Christ, that we are in a state of becoming, that we are to reflect Christ, and to shine as lights (Phillippians 2:15) in this world. I think upon reflection, we can all agree that simply growing older and gaining gray hair does not automatically equal maturity in Christ. Being saved X many years does not automatically equal maturity. As much as I do not naturally like regulation and discipline, I have to acknowledge the truth and wisdom I am finding lately in my reading.

Ponder this; to grow up to live a 'go with the wind' lifestyle does not take any special training or regulation or discipline...but to grow up, say to be a future King or Queen or President of a Nation- if parents knew a son was destined to rule a nation- they would take great care in outlining a scope of training and preparation for such a weighty calling. Training in manners, care and deportment of self in public, character, public speaking...mastery of politics, history, world events...All these things would ensure the son grows up having a full array of skills to qualify him to carry out his job. In contrast, to grow up to wander the roads, working time to time in small towns- living a vagabond life...would take no training.

growing to be lights in a dark world, growing to be conformed to the image of the Son, growing to be useful in the Father's hand-it must involve some kind of discipline, training, conformity...

"Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.
Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind." -Philippians 3:13-16

reaching forward- not the picture of sloth, actually Paul seems to be painting the image of an athlete, again the opposite of slothfulness. I see the word mature in there, too.

I find staring at me lately, an exhortation to walk in newness of life, to shake off that sluggishness of soul and to meet with the Father out of obedience and love.