Whose side am I on?

I've been pondering in recent weeks about the subject of criticism/judgment/accusation.  Seems like there is so much of it out there, either flying at us from others or doling it out ourselves, whether overt or subconscious, just or unjust. 

If you are a recipient of this unlovely trio, you know how painful it it, how it can paralyze you with insecurity and hurt.  We feel misunderstood, our hearts race to our defense, and we might lash back, fight for justice and dig in to maintain our position.  Or we might simply cave in, believing that we are really that bad and buy the whole package of "I'm not worth much."  The net result is usually that we distance ourselves from the source and go into protectism mode, avoidance.

The other side of the coin is when we dish it out.  "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks," so whatever we've been secretly thinking about someone might come out in a 'justifiable' situation, usually when we've got a sympathetic audience or directly at the target when the moment is right. 

In one of those moments recently--when I was giving rein to my accusation of someone--the Lord spoke to my heart and in essence said, "Did you know that you're helping the devil do his work?"  Ouch!  The Word says that he is 'the accuser of the brethren," one of his main job descriptions.  He's busy all the time working to tear us down, render us useless from within because we have to agree that we're not...whatever.  So my critical and accusing words are working beautifully into his plan against that other person--and I feel right and righteous in my 'position.'  After all, isn't my judgment right?

I see another whole realm of reason that God calls us to LOVE others (the second commandment, remember?).  When we look past the sins and shortcomings of others, entrusting them to the Lord's (effective) working, we are participating in His work of healing, blessing, restoring--to His righteous standards.  We can look past their faults and see their need.  It cuts them the slack they need to continue on their own path of deliverance and healing.  Don't I want that kind of mercy from others?

Another perspective the Lord has reminded me of is that everyone thinks they're right.  If that weren't the case, they'd be doing it differently.  Either that or they just didn't think about it, think it through, in which case they'd probably change if they knew they were wrong and could change.  Seeing it that way diffuses the missiles I'm ready to hurl their way (which is because I think I'm right).  Track that whole process back to its root, and I see that it's pride at work, a desire to control.  It's really about me, not correcting the other person or helping them to grow.

Well, needless to say, I'm working on it!  Having seen a fresh perspective from the Lord on this, I'm asking His help daily both to see where I'm operating in the wrong camp and get back to the right one, from my heart.  I'm so glad for His mercy.

A snapshot of today

If you came to my house today, you'd see...

Me...in the kitchen, frying chicken and cooking broccoli for supper, scooping handfuls of small garden tomatoes into a serving dish, and spooning marinated yellow bean salad into a bowl. What a beautiful palette of colors to enjoy--red, green, yellow. Makes it such a pleasure to cook.

My hubby...just home, resting his hurting back with a heating pad after a long day at work. He really did a number on it it while getting ready for our camping trip a few weeks ago, reinjuring an old trouble spot, and it's been quite a siege of pain, ice packs and massages, pain pills and chiropractor visits, physical therapy and lots of prayer. Thankfully, we're seeing daily improvement and yesterday got the good report that it's not a disc involved.

SweetPea...in the kitchen preparing the broccoli, helping pick up the house for a friend's visit this evening. She's had to do school pretty much on her own since we began four weeks ago since I was quite distracted taking care of Dad, but she's done a super job and is right on track. (I think I'm working myself out of a job here. Sniff.)

Mysterious jars labelled "rice, hay, egg, soil" sitting on a family room table...a biology experiment in process. We took a lovely little field trip the other day to collect pond water and see what would grow in those cultures. Pretty gross, smelled bad after a few days so I made her do her microscope work out on the patio.

A mess on our dining table...at least three sewing projects in process: 1) A skirt SweetPea needs to hem so she can wear on Sunday, the fruit of our summer's sewing class; 2) a quilting project I'm trying to work on--two pillow shams to match a quilt I did years ago for our guest bed (problem: new pieces look pretty vividly colored next to the faded quilt; I'm thinking I need to run them through some hot-water & soap cycles in the washer to force-fade them); and 3) several little fleece jackets for our little black dog--her short hair just doesn't keep her warm and she's already huddling in her bean bag to keep warm.

A lovely pile of watercolor supplies in my workroom...new paints and another brush to round out a nature journaling kit I'm putting together, sitting alongside a stunning how-to book from the library, The Watercolorist's Essential Notebook--Landscapes by Gordon MacKenzie.  And to further inspire me, I'm loving a garage-sale find, The Nature Notes of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden.  Not sure when I'll find the time to dig very deep into this stuff right now, but it's such a refreshing pasttime that I think I need to work it in. While on my current sewing roll, I'm going to make a denim field kit with pockets and ties to carry everything in.

A wilting pile of squash plants in my garden...after a heavy rain last night and some too-cool weather for them. I'll have to clean them out this weekend. But I'm happy to still be harvesting beans, collards, tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions, and kale. Hope that first frost won't happen for a while!

A very cute little black dog called Sadie...bumping my leg and wondering why I'm not paying attention to her. 

A pile of books, papers, and notes on my desk...no, not homeschooling stuff--writing stuff! I came home from our summer trip to Arizona with a new and very exciting project to work on, helping my mom get a book published! We are going the self-publishing route, which is now a direction many authors are going, given the publishing environment (hurting). If you are interested yourself, I'd highly recommend the book, The Indie Author Guide ("indie" stands for independent)--a fantastic resource for DIY publishing.   We're going with a self-publisher who also handles a lot of the marketing. In case you haven't heard, marketing is something that authors have to do themselves now, no matter which way your book gets published, traditional or self-published.

More books, papers, and notes on my other desk...yup, homeschooling stuff. I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm still working on SweetPea's grades from last year, but it conveniently fits the "later--much later" pile, so I keep ignoring it. My goal is to keep up with all the record-keeping and transcript stuff for this high school thing and not panic in her senior year because I was derelict in duty, but I don't have to do it today...

In the basement...no, sorry you can't go there. That's The Place where no matter how hard I try to keep it organized, it defies me. Today a search for some yarn and a turtleneck wrought some chaos that I can't get back to 'til the weekend. Beside, there an irritating cricket that somehow got lost down there, and we can't find him. He seems to give voice to the general mockery of my noble attempts at order. He, too, might win--I can't stand squishing a cricket.

That's our snapshot of today.  "Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox." (Prov. 14:4)  Lots of 'oxen' here...but I love the promise of much increase!

Need some strength today?

I do...lots on my plate right now.  I bet you do, too.  Summer is winding down, fall and a new set of demands face us all.  So here's the "supplement" I'm taking today--encourage yourself with a dose, too!

• "The Lord will give strength to His people; the Lord will bless His people with peace."  Ps. 29:11
• "Your God has commanded your strength; strengthen, O God, what You have done for us."  Ps. 68:28
• "The God of Israel is He who gives strength and power to His people."  Ps. 68:35
• "Let the weak say, 'I am strong.'"  Joel 3:10
• "...the joy of the Lord is your strength."  Neh. 8:10
• "I am anointed with fresh oil."  Ps. 92:10
• "As for God, His way is perfect...It is God who arms me with strength, and makes my way perfect."  Ps. 18:30, 32
• "Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord."  Ps. 27:14
• "Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them."  Ps. 89:9
• "He gives power to the faint and weary, and to him who has no might He increases strength - causing it to multiply and making it abound...those who wait for the Lord...shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint or become tired."  Is. 40:29, 31 (Amplified)
• "As your day, so shall your strength be."  Deut. 33:25
• "The way of the Lord is strength and a stronghold to the upright."  Pr. 10:29
• "God is my strength and power, and He makes my way perfect."  II Sam. 22:33
• "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous hand."  Is. 41:10
• "The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped."  Ps. 28:7
• "Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord."  Ps. 31:24
• "...that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God."  I Cor. 2:5
• "I have strength for all things in Christ who empowers me--I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses inner strength into me [that is, I am self-sufficient in Christ's sufficiency]."  Phil. 4:13 (Amplified)
• "The Lord God is my strength; He will make my feet like a deer's feet, and He will make me walk on my high hills."  Hab. 3:19

 Have a blessed day in the mighty strength of our God!

A sad day

"You look so lovely today."

Those were the last words my dear friend Kim spoke to me, last Sunday in church.  She passed away suddenly yesterday morning from a recurrance of cancer, taking us all by shock.  She taught Sunday School and led worship Sunday morning, full of joy and anointing, with not the least hint that by the end of the week, she'd be gone.

My heart is so heavy for the family.  She and her husband have five lovely children whom they've homeschooled from the beginning, the first to graduate next month and the youngest just seven.  Her dad is pastor of our church and I can't imagine how difficult it will be for her folks to carry on the ministry without her very gifted and loving presence.  Ours is a small church, so she leaves a very large hole.

Kim and I hit it off the first time we met years ago in our homeschool support group.  Later, when she left the group, we would run into each other at conferences or fairs, and always it was as though we'd just seen each other just yesterday.  It was at one of those times she invited us to their church.  We did, and from the first day it was 'home' for us.  One of the highlights of these past two years for me has been the reconnect of our friendship and warm fellowship in Jesus.  But more significantly, her spiritual strength, radiant joy, and amazing faith has lifted me time and again when I've been discouraged over the long course of healing from health issues of my own.

I've been privileged to know a truly lovely soul and been blessed by her love and genuine, caring heart.  We will miss her terribly, but the Word promises that all of this is working together for good, and that we sorrow not as those who have no hope.  Thank the Lord, it doesn't end here--she's in our future.

Some thoughts from a high school seminar

We ended a very busy week with a full day yesterday attending a homeschooling-high-school seminar put on by our state organization.  I'm a semester late on it, but c'est la vie.  Better late than never!

Thankfully, I'm not too far off track in what I've been doing for record-keeping, grades, etc.  However, we got a lot of new information about after-high-school options, testing, etc.  Right now I'm overload about all the stuff you have to do for a college degree, but at least we have a lot of choices now as to how to get that done.  I'll cross that bridge a bit later.

In no particular order, these were some of the points about high school I thought noteworthy:

• All the same reasons you chose to homeschool for the elementary years still apply.  Don't give in to fear.
• Don't let 'college' drive your life or your homeschool.
• Don't be driven by the calendar--consider a 'gap' year after high school.
• At Ivy league schools, 1% identify themselves as born-again Christians.  If you send your children to Rome, don't be surprised if they come back Romans.
• Character is pre-eminent!
• Whatever character flaws your child has will come out even more in high school.
• Any tendency to laziness and other character flaws in your child really show up in math.  (Good heads-up.)
• Education is discipleship and all of life is education.  Do as many field trips as you can.
• Don't spoon-feed them.  Make them take responsibility for their own education, help make them to be a self-motivated problem solver.
• In public schools, they cover only about 80% of the math textbooks--so don't feel you have to complete a book in a year.
• There's a huge dearth in America of students headed for STEM--S=sciences, T=technology, E=engineering, and M=mathematics.
• Enrollment of students in military service academies who were homeschooled is 5-10%.
• Attach the Word of God to everything we teach.
• To quote Vodie Baucham, "If you need to go to college, do it fast, cheap, and close to home."
• We need to teach our children how work; we need to change our definition.  When you work, you bless someone and bring glory to God.
• CLEP test scores are good for 20 years.
• Kids will rise to high standards if you set them high.
• Colleges look for students to have had American, British, and World Literature.  Always teach literature in the context of history.
• Outlining, timed essays, and research papers are important to learn.  Homeschooled students are typically not good at taking notes--make 'em learn!
• Engross your children in the book of Proverbs.
• In a study, millionaires said their reasons for success were 1.) honesty, 2.) supportive spouse, 3.) self-control, 4.) hard-working, and 5.) gets along with people.  Having a college degree was #16 on the list.

Well, there was lots more.  I came away filled with thankfulness once again that we have had the privilege of homeschooling, and with a renewed sense of 'God is with us'!  I don't have to do this in my own wisdom.

Onward and upward!

Jesus' secret

For the longest time I've pondered a question about the incredible way Jesus had with people--how did He do it?  What was His secret?

Obviously, He healed them.  When you're hurting, sick, and desperate, that would drive you to someone with a reputation for 100% success, whether or not you understood His mission or message.

And He delivered them.  He tackled the root causes of devilish oppression, spoke the word of authority and command, and people were set free, totally and permanently.  Fear and torment melted in His presence, destructions were halted cold, and hope sprang to life in the wake of instant restorations.  Yes, I'd join the crowd, too, running.

I think the most compelling quality we'd all say He had, though, was His love.  Somehow, they knew He loved them.  Many's the time I've tried to picture the scene:  His smiles and glad welcome, an open-armed approachableness that made each one in the crowd feel they were special, that it was them He loved.  He must have exuded patience and an unflappable peace that made them feel He had all the time in the world to meet every need.

I've known a few people who love like that.  I'm drawn to them, I want to be with them, because--yes, I'll admit to the selfishness of this--they love me.  They welcome me with unfeigned approachableness, I don't feel like I'm wasting their time with my stuff (even if I am).  I just know that they care.  I want to be like that.

But this morning in church, on a teaching about love, I saw another profound aspect that I think answers my question about Jesus.  Yes, it was Love that drew people.  But a fundamental expression of that Love was no condemnation.  "For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him."  (Jn. 3:17)

To condemn means to pronounce guilty, to declare wrong, to be weighed in the balances and found wanting.  Yes, I was guilty and wrong and lost in that, but Jesus, in giving me the gift of no condemnation, showed me what Love really looks like.  No longer are my failures and shortcomings the issue--it's that He wants me.  He loves me.  He has time for me.  He wants to give me everything He has, to meet every need.

The hang-up seems to be really believing that.  I still don't let myself off the hook that easily; I feel guilty over things real and imagined, I blame myself for whatever, and can just hardly accept that God (or a person) isn't holding up a measuring rod over everything I do.  And I know I have an enemy whose purpose is to bring accusation against me in any and every way.  BUT...when I can operate from a position of God's total acceptance and love, I can turn and love others like Jesus did.

What does that look like?  Not condemning...not being judgmental (my way or no way), not being critical (how far below my exacting standards do they fall?), not blaming (then I don't have to change--it's their fault).  It means I can offer forgiveness with no strings attached, no manipulation or retaliation in mind, no effort to control, because I have no agenda other than their best interests and their highest good.

Seems impossible to just live like that, every day, in every encounter.  But I can see that this is what will win the world, one person at a time.  Just letting them know, 'I hold nothing against you, I don't blame you and neither does God.'  That's how they'll see the heart of the Father and be free to come running to Him. 

A pair of mini-miracles

When God does something really BIG in your life, you're awestruck at His power and faithfulness and mercy.  A breakthrough, a healing, an answer to a long-term prayer, they're the memorable milestones of walking with our incredible Lord.

But I find I'm just melted by His love when He does something little.  Something that isn't important in the grand scheme of things, but that means something to only me.  Personal.  Loving.  Oh, my, it's those times I'm overwhelmed to realize how much He cares about me, about every detail of my life.

I had two of those this week, and of all the crazy things, they were about earrings.

A couple of months ago I lost one of a pair of my favorite earrings, french earwires with dainty round pieces of abalone shell.  They went with so many of my favorite outfits.  Not a clue, just gone.  Chagrined, I asked the Lord to help me find it, but after all this time, I was thinking I'd try to get stuff from the craft store to make a new one.

Then a few weeks ago, I received a gorgeous pair of turquoise-and-silver danglies as a gift from a dear friend.  Again, they were instant favorites.  I wore them two weeks ago on a shopping outing--and alas, I didn't realize I'd lost one while trying on clothes in a store until an hour after we'd left.  We drove back and retraced my steps, looked in the fitting room, asked at the service desk, but nothing.  I felt sick at heart to have lost part of a loving gift, and so frustrated to have this happen a second time.  It seemed almost too much to believe it could be found, but I asked the Lord to please find it.

Well, miracle #1...while shoving my sofa across the room this week in my fit of rearranging--there was my abalone earring right on the floor where the sofa had been!  It hadn't been a good day so far, and you can't imagine my joy over finding that silly earring.

Miracle #2, today!  We were out shopping again today, and on an impulse I grabbed the lonely turquoise-and-silver earring and stuck it in my pocket as we left.  Back at that store once more, I showed it to the clerk at the service desk.  She remembered me, said no, it hadn't been turned in.  As I turned to go, she mumbled something and rummaged around in a bin on the back counter.  "Wait!" she cried in surprise, and held up my missing earring!  Incredible.

He didn't have to do it, but He did because it meant something to me.  And I feel so loved!  Just at a time I really needed it, He reminded me that if He can take care of the teeny stuff with such perfection, how can I doubt that He's got the answer for everything else I need?

My keeper!

We are in such an incredible place as children of the King, every day, every minute, in every situation.  I was so blessed to be reminded this morning...

"My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.

He will not allow your foot to slip or to be moved;

He Who keeps you will neither slumber or sleep.

The Lord is your keeper...

The Lord will keep you from all evil;

He will keep your life.

The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in

from this time forth and forevermore."

~ from Psalm 121

Amen!



This and that

Every day this week I've wanted to post but it's been one thing or another...and sometimes the 'another' is I-need-to-sit-with-a-cup-of-tea-and-gather-my-brains!

Drama took center-stage this week (no pun intended).  SweetPea's Tuesday afternoons are now filled with her drama class, a neat group of kids she knows doing a semester of dramatics with a Christian outfit, wrapped in a comedy version of "Robin Hood."  My composed and proper daughter will be performing the antics of a bumbling, social-misfit, klutz of girl, the daughter of the Sheriff of Nottingham--complete with a couple of pratfalls.  Should be interesting!  Over the weekend we attended a play by this same group, a fund-raiser starring the leaders themselves.  Pretty funny and quite amazing to see what they could do with good acting and minimal props.

Second on the distraction list this week was a dream-come-true for SweetPea, the acquiring of a DSLR camera.  The treasure arrived on Friday, which was a good thing--she could play with it all weekend and have some semblance of focus (no pun intended) on her studies by Monday.  Right.  Silly mom, what was I thinking?  I'm now trying to think of clever assignments for school that will piggy-back on this Distraction...a compare/contrast essay on manual vs. auto focus?  A report on the acronyms and cryptic vocabulary associated with digital photography--ISO, BSS, raw vs. what, not-raw??, bracketing??  A psalm to the extreme goodness and generosity of the Lord??  Yes!

Thankfully we're all well once again and able to enjoy the wonderful warm-up we've had this week.  Monday I had a Valentine from God--birdsong!  That is huge.  Seems early, for which I've been inwardly shouting.  What might they know about spring that we don't?... 

Lots of prayer needs this week that have been on my heart, too, big ones.  Mostly friends and family contending with serious health issues, but also the greater picture of our messed-up world.  How incredibly thankful I am that we have the revealed love and will of God in His promises, and the place of trust that provides for my troubled heart.  Everywhere I'm hearing the call from Christian leaders to press in to the Lord, let our confidence and power come from that never-ending place of intimacy with Him.

I'd love to recommend a wonderful parenting resource for all of you who have teens.  A group of us moms did this as a study together a couple of years ago (thanks, Sandy!) and I dug it out again to refresh myself on what I'm supposed to be doing as a savvy, Christian parent and fall short of.  It's called Age of Opportunity by Paul David Tripp.  I love how his focus is helping our teens develop a whole heart for God, instilling the fear of the Lord in them, helping them to judge themselves by the Word, and living victoriously in the anti-God world they live in.  He gives a lot of practical strategies and an astute understanding of the inner workings of a teen's mind and motivations.  I've certainly felt the sting of personal conviction where I've failed, yet with renewed hope that the Lord is working in everything--success and failure. 

Pressing on in His grace, thankful for unnumbered blessings.  A good week!

A silver lining

What's white and cold, comes in fluffy mounds, kids love it, and you can have too much of it?

No, it's not ice cream.

I'm staring out at our third 'occurrence' of it this week, piled coldly on top of every tree and bush, looking lovely and seasonal and, well, sort of defiant.  "There's more where I came from!  You just think spring will be here in a few weeks...Punxatawney Phil is only a rodent.  What does he know?  I am the Snow, I cover all."

Ahem.  No, I'm not really morbid, just feeling a bit confined.  The white stuff has defined our life this week--church cancelled, quick-get-to-the-grocery-store before the next round, too cold to walk, not too cold to shovel, and shovel, and shovel.  Daydreams of warm beaches with silky white sand, the smell of green things, and hot sun on my head interfere with school and pots of hot soup.  Flip-flops, sunscreen, iced tea, and crickets...sigh.

But back to reality.  The confinement has actually been really good for me--I've steeped myself in high school planning and praying, a much needed exercise.  I sense the Lord leading us to a more out-of-the-box approach for SweetPea's last three years, so with little distraction I've been able to read or reread some good homeschooling books to lift my vision a bit.  I'm loving Senior High: A Home-Designed Form+U+La.  Barbara Shelton brings you back to the spiritual reasons we homeschool and encourages you to truly follow His lead--bravely--and not settle for the safety of a pre-scribed plan.  After a semester of frustrations on many fronts, I've concluded that both of us are chafing at the constraints of someone else defining what our studies should look like.  It worked wonderfully in the elementary years, but now that she's beginning to discover some of her God-given interests and abilities, I think it's time to customize the system a bit!

I'm rereading A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver Van DeMille (wow, if you were public-schooled, you ought to read this!), and The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer.  This last one is specifically for the classical homeschool model, but I have found some wonderful stuff in it, not the least of which is a great reading list for high school.

Anyway, I feel a bubbling of excitement in me of new things, of adventure with the Lord, of seeing in actuality the promise of homeschooling at its best for SweetPea's best.  God is able, is He not?  I don't have to pull this off myself, I think I just need to get out of the way and let Him lead.

Yay!  Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Love

Our adult Sunday School class today included some talk about our love walk with God and each others.  As an exercise, we read out loud together those few famous verses (4-7) from I Corinthians 13 in the Amplified version, personalized with "I" in place of "love".  Wow, powerful:

I endure long and am patient and kind; I never am envious nor boil over with jealousy; I am not boastful or vainglorious, I do not display myself haughtily.

I am not conceited--arrogant and inflated with pride; I am not rude (unmannerly), and I do not act unbecomingly.  I do not insist on my own rights or my own way, for I am not self-seeking; I am not touchy or fretful or resentful; I take no account of evil done to me--I pay no attention to a suffered wrong.

I do not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but I rejoice when right and truth prevail.

I bear up under anything and everything that comes, am ever ready to believe the best of every person, my hopes are fadeless under all circumstances and I endure everything without weakening.

 O, Lord, how I fail You in this, how many times a day do I let my flesh take over.  I'm so sorry.  I want to love without reservation and definition, without "self" tainting any relationship. Thank You for loving me this way!