Wind

It's a whirlwind, the world I live in. A constant running to and fro, up and down, back and forth. My children dance around me like little leaves being tossed by the wind; fluttering and occasionally close enough for me to catch. When I have a moment, I look down on the fragile little life in my hands and I am captured by the intricate design, delicacy and preciousness. Then "whoosh" and the winds of life blow us on to the next activity.

Will it slow down? Sometimes I wonder how I can ever fit in all the enriching, culture, love, prayer and creativity that I wish filled our home on a daily basis.
Wouldn't it be lovely to sip my coffee in the early morning with children happily tucked under my arms, some good literature being read and lovely classical music in the background?

Yet my attempts in the meantime are constantly thwarted by spilled milk, playdough being put where playdough does not belong (in the nose or mouth!) - or, once again, the baby is playing in the toilet!

"Children, " I say in my sweet motherly voice "Remember that one must always shut the lid of the toilet when one leaves the bathroom." (Well.. maybe it doesn't come out quite like that, but writing is often filled with great intentions!)

For the time being, God grant me patience.

A New Measurement

If only you could hear the noises in my house today. There is a child practicing her piano pieces along with a CD, only the piano is tuned a semi-tone off concert pitch because it is so old. What an atrocious sound! Every note is being played properly, but sounds just nasty!

Sometimes my life feels like that. You feel like you are making all the right moves, doing what you know to do, but something just feels off. There is no beautiful music to be heard.

This makes me think of the words in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, "The Love Chapter". It talks of all the things you can accomplish, but without love, you sound like a clanging gong or cymbal!

It is important, as a busy mother and housewife, to measure my productivity not by how many homeschooling assignments we accomplish on a particular morning. Nor should I be counting my worth based on how clean my house is or how nicely my kids' hair is done and whether they are wearing matching socks or not! Sometimes we will eat Kraft dinner for dinner and sometimes I give up and hand out bread and peanut butter and say "Make your own food!"

The temptation is in the measuring stick. I'll admit, often mine is made out of all of the wrong things:

Clean house
Clean, well-dressed kids
Nutritious meals planned and prepared
Stellar homeschooling (where I actually follow and complete the week's schedule)
I'm dressed in "real clothes", have exercised, done my hair and make-up
My early morning starts with devotions and quiet meditation
Oh, and the biggest one... All the laundry is done AND folded AND put away!

So the question to ask myself, is this: Would I really be happy if all these were accomplished? To what end? Would my children and husband feel that I had spent meaningful time with them, loving them? Probably not.

What if we just used love as our daily measuring stick? How then, would we score?

This doesn't mean I throw all the scheduling into the garbage, and stop wiping the high chair tray for the fifteenth time that day, and avoid the laundry baskets for weeks! However, I think what this means for me is paying attention to life and looking for MOMENTS to operate in love. I will look for opportunities to affirm, comfort and exhort. I will hide away for minutes at a time and instead of browsing Facebook, I'll bask in my heavenly Father's love by reading His word or talking to Him.

There will always be dishes.
There will always be runny noses and dirty shirts.
For sure there will always be tangles in my 5 year old's hair (at least for the next 8 years until she discovers boys).

But for now, I'll stop and seek to infuse more love into my life and the lives of those around me.

Peeling Away

My heart is like an onion.

Over time, life has made my heart crusted and brown. Touch me, and my skin will crackle. You can't see in to the light; the delicate softness that is inside.

It's safer that way... you can toss me into a bin with a dozen other onions, and I'll stay "preserved" for months, maybe longer.

Somehow, though, life as a crusty onion is lacking. Just because I am less likely to get hurt because of the dried outer skin, I am missing out. My heart, my emotions, my very soul is hidden from the embrace of warm light.

I hear the call, the offer of hope and life. If I am but willing to surrender my heart, to the hands of the One who loves me and has watched me grow from the beginning... He will take away the hardness. He wants to reveal my soft heart.

It hurts when He peels the skin away. And I fear that my hurt is more than one layer deep. I've built up a wall and become hard - I don't know if I want to let Him in. But I know that although He tears away, He will also heal.


Hosea 6 (New King James Version)

1 Come, and let us return to the Lord; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. 2 After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up, That we may live in His sight. 3 Let us know, Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, Like the latter and former rain to the earth.


It's so beautiful how God can restore. He can deal with any hurt, forgive any sin, restore what has been stolen away.

The more I seek Him, the more I sense the flashlight of the Holy Spirit shining on areas of my life. Even when all seems well on the outside, He requires much more. He requires total surrender, so that His power can work through every part of me. I am His, that is for certain, but the deeper I dive into His grace, the more He wants to re-write and restore the places in my life that are not whole and complete.

I recently went to the theater and watched the latest installment from the "Chronicles of Narnia" series. I was disappointed that they seemed to leave out a crucial element of the book in regards to Eustace coming before Aslan in repentance.

First, Aslan told Eustace that he must undress. Try as he might, every time he peeled one layer of dragon skin off, another layer would be underneath. He was inadequate and unable to deal with this problem on his own.

Aslan could bring healing, but it still hurt.

I'll end my blog with this excerpt from the book:

From "Voyage of the Dawntreader"
Eustace is explaining to Edmund how Aslan changed him back into a boy.


“Then the lion said — but I don’t know if it spoke — You will have to let me undress you. I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was jut the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know — if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund.

“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass, only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on — and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. . . .”

Two words I find hard to say...

Last night my husband and I attended our first evening class of "Grace-based Parenting" by Tim Kimmel. It is conveniently being run at the same church where our kids attend AWANA, during their club meeting. So, Dan and I figured we should go for it! Not only is it a chance to be on the receiving end (doesn't happen very often when you are senior pastors) but it is also a chance for us to interact with people who don't really know us, other than as parents wanting to do a better job with our kids.

I was excited about attending the course. I know that my parenting style is fairly "Biblical", at least I feel it is, however, I know I can get caught up in all the rules and stuff I have to do, and lose some of the flavor and meaning behind it all.

We talked a lot about how we were raised as kid - because undoubtedly, people will often mirror many of the things their parents did, or they will polarize and try to be totally different! I recognised, as a I have in the past, that my parents ran a mostly authoritarian style home. We had utmost respect for my parents (especially my "Pa" as we called him) and we were not entitled to question their authority. Thankfully, they didn't abuse this power, and I believe they did the best they could with the tools they had at the time. They brought us up with a firm belief in God, and made sure church was a priority in life. However, I look back, and I think I often lost the "meaning behind it all" in some of the discipline they used. Because we were afraid of questioning - it seemed more about "doing the right thing" no matter what, and therefore I often missed the heart of the matter.

In that sense, I have tried to shift in the way I raise children. My biggest concern is to raise them to love the Lord, but to also maintain an emotional connection to my kids and stay on the "same page" in regards to their lives and how they feel.

So the class last night was really an introduction to "Grace Based Parenting". What exactly is that? They described it as "parenting the way God would parent". Ha ha... easier said than done!

What I was challenged with, however, was the idea that I need to have more humility with my kids. I truly am here to serve them - not just keep them alive and shoo them out the door once they're 18! One area that I recognised as a weakness in my life is my ability to repent when I've done wrong. I find the words "I'm sorry" very difficult to choke through. Why? I think it is because I try so hard, and hold myself to such a high standard. I don't want to screw up! I'm afraid of making mistakes, and if I start saying sorry to my children every time I rush into things or yell at them, I will be saying sorry 20 times a day!

The problem with not being willing to apologise, however, is that I am not asking for grace, and I am therefore not giving an example of repentance and graciousness. Why should I expect my children to know how to apologise if I don't apologise when I blow my top? I can preach at them all I want about kindness and controlling their tongues, but it really starts with me. I need to take ownership of my faults, in recognition that I need God's grace in my life in order to be a better parent. I need to experience God's forgiveness in the first place, in order to model and ask for grace in the lives of my children (and even my marriage).

So that is my challenge for these next couple of weeks. I am going to start saying "sorry". I will choke down my pride (sinful as it is) and acknowledge when I've been wrong. I believe that in that, God will also be able to extend his forgiveness and grace towards me, giving me an ability to change! What a miracle that will be!

"I'm sorry"
Those two words just might bring about a revolution in our home.

Resolutions, again!

It's a new year! This one is going to be so different... Ha ha! Well, that is the typical viewpoint, especially in January. However, I know that I am changing and I am asking God to change me more and more this year. I remember last year thinking, desperately, that I couldn't stay the same and my heart's cry was for God to deal with some of the junk in my life. I can't say that I'm totally different, but I feel ready to become ESTABLISHED.

Have you ever noticed how time is speeding up? Yesterday I was a teenager, sneaking out of the house to get into trouble. Tomorrow, I will be the mother of a house full of teenagers. That's what it feels like anyway! So there has to be a solution. How do we embrace today, change the way we live, stop being lethargic and begin to prioritize the things that really matter?

First things first. I've been so proud of my new habit of regular exercise - I have goals and I've made it a priority. In the same way, I plan to make some goals in my spiritual walk. I've been pretty consistent with spending time in the Word everyday, but I need to consider my habits and whether they are worthy of being emulated in my own kids. That reminds me of a quote:

He that thinketh he leadeth and no one followeth simply taketh a walk

Where exactly am I going? As my kids grow older, I see my characteristics showing up in their lives. Sometimes they are the good characteristics, like showing kindness and care for others - sometimes they are my bad characteristics, grossly exaggerated.

I know that I have been rambling, but I do have a couple things that I should put out into bloggy-land so I'm committed. First, I'm going to be taking a Bible college course and finishing my diploma. That, I believe, will give me a more firm direction with my spiritual walk and Biblical studies. Next, I am going to make this a year of reorganizing my time to cut out the things that don't matter. I have so little time to invest into the relationships around me, and I want to prioritize my spouse, my kids and most importantly my God above all the clutter that this world offers.

Happy New Year! Here we go...

I've lost it! I've really lost it this time. I can't find the fruit of the spirit anywhere...

This is only day 3 of homeschooling for the fall, and I'm going crazy. The kids are trying my patience in every which way and if I had a heart-problem, I'd probably be hospitalized at this point because of the excess stress and elevated heart-rate.

I don't know if this is just a symptom of all of us adjusting to the new schedule - I know it can take a few weeks to get used to sitting down in a controlled manner, getting the bookwork done - but I don't know how I will do it if something doesn't change. I have about 14 weeks of curriculum that I really want to get finished by Christmas, so my goals right now are really important! I just don't know how to motivate my kids to be more... attentive, quiet, helpful, grateful!

Then, on top of that, I have a 1 1/2 year old who is so clingy and wants to be in my arms or on my lap any time he's not stuffing his mouth in the high chair or sleeping.

Okay... I think I'll be searching for some motivational tools. Like a star chart or treats... for ME! Well, I guess I could do something for the kids too.

Now that I've vented, there will be a positive list of ideas on my next blog post...

Organization for a large family...

Well I've really done it now! I have spent hours and hours thinking about how to get my kids to do more chores; I researched on the Internet how to make it happen; I've even read the books about raising responsible children!

Now I'm trying to put this all into action and I've created a chore chart for our family, so there is a sense of motivation and achievement when the kids help out around the house.

Here are the main principles. First, I will give the children allowance every week. I don't like the idea of "paying" the kids to do work around the house when they are part of the family, and we all must work together to keep things going. For example, I would not withhold allowance from a child who had broken his/her arm and couldn't help out in the house that week.

However... there needs to be some motivation. Here's where the parental ingenuity comes into play. I would like to see these chores done by a certain time every day... say 12 noon. So in order to motivate the kids to do it on their own, there is a catch. If their chore has not been completed by the pre-determined time, it becomes open game to be assigned either to another child or to myself. In that case, at the end of the week, the child who was supposed to do it has to pay, out of their allowance, the person who completed the chore in their place. Ouch! So... here's hoping it all works. The bonus to this methodology is that if a child is being lazy and doesn't do a chore, it isn't going to be left undone until the next day. Instead, there is great motivation for another child to pick up the task and complete it... because they can make extra $$$!

So onto the chart. All in all it cost me an hour or so of planning, about $4 in supplies and somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 hours to make. I used velcro strips that I bought at Walmart, which I then glue-gunned onto the colored poster paper and the white poster board. Each of the different chores are movable so that I can assign each child a different set of chores each week. Also notable, each child has a specific color for their "personal chores badge" and the "markers" for couple of chores they do every day.

Personal Chores: There are certain daily tasks that I would expect the children to do everyday... chore chart or not. I've been trying to implement these over the past few months, by having a sign on the inside of their bedroom doors that tells what they need to do before they leave the room in the morning to have breakfast. There are four simple tasks: Make bed, pick up laundry, clean up toys and put away any books. As it relates to the new chore chart, I've made a daily "happy face" that each child can stick in their spot for that day of the week once they've completed their "personal chores".

Daily chores: Each child can see their daily chores next to their name on the chart. There are 2 daily chores, and 1 weekly chore. I will likely assign that the weekly chores get done on a certain day, probably near the beginning of the week. Once their chore is completed, they place one of their colored markers on the velcro spot for that day. So each day, they should be placing 2 markers, except for the day that they also complete the weekly chore.

On the occasion that the child does not complete their chore, for example if Ethan did one of Sabrina's Tuesday chores, Ethan would place one of Sabrina's colored markers in his Tuesday spot (so then he would have 2 of his color, and one of hers). That way, at the end of the week, we would see that Sabrina owes him money because he did one of her chores.

I think that covers the workings of my new chore chart. I know that the next few weeks will be a lot of effort to implement this new system, but it should really pay off in the end! That's actually the reason why I decided to wait until summer to get something like this going... that way when we get back into homeschooling this fall, it should be running smoothly without much prodding from me! Cross your fingers for me!