Check out our crazy ice storm. no fun. These are pictures of our trees at our rental. The one that is completely split is in our neighbors yard, right next to our house. The other picture is of our GI-NORMOUS tree in our front yard. It is lingering above our roof and cars, so we are kind of on pins and needles. Every creak makes us jump. We hear a lot of those too because trees are breaking all over the place. Have I mentioned that I cannot wait until Spring???
OK now I am off to listen to my handsome hubby play his guitar---rarrrrrrr (that rarrrr was my attempt to make the sexy growling sound...ha)
ICE STORM!
Go girl!
I am loving this new stage!!!!! This is Ireland making herself an egg "McMuffin" for breakfast. We have sort of become health freaks recently so we don't go to McDonalds, but try as we might, we can't let go of the egg McMuffin. So this is Ireland's version of it. Its an organic wheat English muffin, with a farm fresh egg (that we actually pick up from a farm) topped with a little cheddar cheese and some all natural organic strawberry jam. YUMM!
When I posted last week about my girl starting to cook, I thought "Oh how cute, this is going to be fun". Now I realize this is more than fun.
This leads me to another subject. The subject being that of how to we raise good adults? These big girl steps that Ireland is taking are a symbol that I no longer have a kid to "train", I have a young girl to raise into a Woman. Its crazy how that sort of freaks me out. Not because my daughter is getting older (although that does make me sad) but because there is so much more responsibility in raising Godly, sweet, selfless, women, then to teach a little child to obey. To teach my children to obey was a constant battle of being consistent, delving out spankings, and lots of prayer to the Lord for Patience. When it comes to discipline however, I am entering this next faze of "older children" and my thoughts go from "what toy can I take away?" to "how do I handle this situation in a way that will best effect their heart?". I am realizing now, that I must be an example more than ever. I am not saying that you don't need to be a good example when they are young, because obviously you do. It seems though, that at those early stages, their life is more of cause and effect. Toddler hits another child, same toddler gets a spanking for being unkind. Young child steals, same young child gets his/her toys given away to the salvation army :)
Cause and effect.
Now though, things are changing. She is looking more deeply at how "I" handle things. How do I respond when things go wrong? Do I argue when I do not get my way? Am I taking the time to explain the greater reasons of WHY do we not do things? Am I always completely honest, as I train her to be? Am I "training" a child in the way they should go so that when they are old they will not depart from it? YIKES! Talk about responsibility. Its hard enough to keep them from being totally spoiled and immoral, which is the way our natures bends. But to train them to be good, and noble, and courageous, to stand for what is right and against injustice. MAN!! who can do such a thing?
I can.
You can too. How do I know this? God says we can. He says He has given everything we need for the challenges in our life. In Acts 17 it states....
24"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
And again in 2 Peter 1:3
"3His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness."
It also says Deuteronomy several times that we are to train our children, to teach our children, to talk to them, to raise them right (I wrote more on that subject in this post)
Sometimes though, its just plain HARD. I see so many of my failures in how I parent. So many failures in who I am. I can be very impatient and rude. I can easily choose time on the computer over time with my kids if I am not careful. So where do we go for strength when we feel this job is not only hard, but never seems to end! ha ha. Well once again, His Word gives us encouragement in this when it says in Galatians 6:9 "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."
We are in it for the long haul ladies, let's do it well.
update: 90 day challenge
Can I just say again how much I AM LOVING the 90 day challenge? Well its my blog so I can say it anyway :)
I am especially loving being in 1 Samuel. It's a wonderful book filled with surprising twists and turns throughout every chapter. I would love to delve into some awesome DEEP theology, because there is A LOT of opportunity for that in the book of 1 Samuel. But I am not going to because the only thing I can think of right now is HOW MUCH I LOVE JONATHAN! After seeing almost every man and woman so far, Jew or Amalekite, lie, steal, backstab, gossip, cheat, and basically commit every other sin known to man, it was so refreshing to read about Jonathan. I mean I am supposed to be riveted on David at this point because besides God, David and Saul are the main people in 1 Samuel. But my heart kept going back to Jonathan. His words of love and friendship to David, his heart for God, and even his loyalty for his Dad. When he hears that his dad, Saul, might be trying to kill David, he is shocked at first. "How could this be?" he thinks to himself. In almost soap opera like fashion, he decides to test whether its true or not by seeing his dads reaction to Davids absence. When it is confirmed to Jonathan's heart that his dad truly has become wicked and wanted to harm an innocent young man out of jealousy, his heart breaks. But, as I just read a few moments ago in chapter 31, he dies in battle fighting loyally with his dad. Now I am fully aware that Jonathan sinned in his life because the bible is clear we all have sinned and we ALL fall short of the glory of God. But wow, up until this moment I had not found someone who had inspired me or moved my heart the way Jonathan did. As I read a few moments ago about his death, I grieved. Not a lot, but a little. I closed my bible and thought about how sad I was to read about his death, I thought to myself, "maybe if I have another son, I will name him Jonathan after this man". Well most of you know that we have been wanting to conceive for quite some time now, so it pained me a little to think about it. But I truly meant it. If God does so choose to bless us again with another gift I really think I want to. So I got on my computer and decided to look up the Hebrew meaning of Jonathan and wouldn't you know it.....Jonathan means "God has given, or Gift from God". God is good either way, but I think I will dare to hope there may be a boy in my future and he may be named Jonathan.
I have waited for this moment
This was such a bittersweet moment. My daughter, who is 8, begged me to let her cook dinner. Now she has been "cooking" for years. But by that I mean, she can make toast, and cereal, and even quick Farina in the microwave. She loves to help me in the kitchen by stirring things and helping scramble eggs and such. This time was different though. She wanted to cook. She wanted to invent the recipe, stir fry the hashbrowns, and overall, be the woman in charge of the kitchen. So I stepped back (which was hard for me to do) and let her go for it. I helped shred the potatoes because I was afraid she would cut herself on the shredder, and I turned the oven on and took the casserole in and out of it. Otherwise she made dinner. I wanted to cry because.....MY DAUGHTER IS GETTING TOO BIG! I also wanted to jump for JOY because now I can totally use her as slave labor allow her to help me. What a beautiful and sweet thing it is to watch them grow. She must have been high on the fumes of "big girl" praise, because when we were done with dinner she asked if she could homeschool her little brother with his math because is it was "soooo easy". So I once again stepped aside and let her. And you know what? She is a better teacher than me!
POP QUIZ!!!
OK, don't get scared. Its multiple choice. I wanted to share some things I have noticed as sort of a resounding theme in Deuteronomy. Maybe you too will see what I noticed.
Try and figure out the answer.
In Deuteronomy it says...
(ch4-vs9)"Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip form your heart as long as you live. Teach them to______________ and to __________________.
A) your neighbors and to your friends
B) your Sunday School class and to your bible study group.
C) your children and to their children after them.
(ch4-vs10)"Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, "Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them _______________.
A)to the church youth group
B)to their children
C)to their unsaved friends
(ch6-vs4-7)"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give to you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on_____________. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."
A)your husband
B)your annoying co-worker
C)your children
there are plenty more I could type up but 1) I am getting tired and 2) you pretty ladies are so smart I am certain you got the point. GOD wants us to teach OUR CHILDREN! I am sorry, that was excessive capitols, but its true. God only offers ONE solution for your childrens biblical training and one answer for their lack there of................YOU. Yes, you.
You may say "well I am not as trained as a youth pastor, or a Sunday school teacher for that matter", well what I say to that is.... you have a pastor!?!? Good for you! Still your job. You have a really nice neighbor who loves to give the children in the neighborhood little bible lessons on Mondays?? Good for you! Still your job. Are you overworked and unappreciated as it is? That so stinks, I feel ya, but.....still your job. Do you feel unequipped and hypocritical? So do we all! Pray, ask God's help, and believe, its still you job! :)
You may think I am lecturing you but actually, my blog is often my weird way of having some introspection time and lecturing myself. You see, I often like to shout it out when I learn something new, or when God has refreshed in me a fire I once had, but let go out. That is what I am finding with this subject of parents, as primary teachers of religious studies, with our children. I went to a private catholic school and there only nuns and priests taught religious studies. How was I to know I was to teach them? That's where reading His word comes in. You can't escape it, its all over the bible. TEACH YOUR CHILDREN. Over and over and over again, He says it.
Even as a homeschooling family with the time together all day, we still have plenty of days that we focus more on math than we do one God's word. Some days what God wants is personal accounts of what God has done in my life (which I feel are equally important to tell to children) told to them.
I am starting to understand God never set it up, nor did he ever wish, children to be taught their Godly heritage by just ONE or a few "experienced" childrens ministry people. DO NOT READ ME WRONG, there is nothing wrong at all, with childrens ministry (although some can get out of hand), nor is there anything wrong with the sweet lady down the street giving bible study lessons to children. There is something wrong however with them being the ones teaching your children FOR YOU. If THEY are the only ones who teach your kids, then in my opinion, it stands in opposition to scripture. We must do our best to speak of God to our children, to answer their questions about God, and to dive into the scriptures with them. Sadly in America, we tend to think, and are even sometimes TOLD by our churches, that its better to hand them over to someone who is trained to do these things. I mean they have all kinds of cute coloring pages, and songs, and finger puppets! And the older kids love the high energy action packed lessons! How can I compare to that???? The only problem is God not only thinks you can compare to that, HE knows you CAN DO THE BETTER JOB. He set it up that way. Certainly I am grateful for programs that help children better understand the gospel, ESPECIALLY children whose parents don't follow the Lord. Praise God we have people willing to step out there and help preach and proclaim the Gospel to all people. But could we all agree that there is a difference between something that is good, and something that is ideal? As odd as it sounds, the "ideal" that God set up is, *gulp* you and me. The flawed boring parents. But God's plans are good plans. And if He says that WE are to teach them to OUR children then, by golly, I am doing to do it. What do you think?
p.s. I am fully recovered from my Catholic school education, thanks for asking! :)
A long one, but a good one.
I got this email today from a very sweet friend on the subject of my last post, primarily, adoption.
"Are you going to elaborate? I know of people that have adopted, but I have no idea what all it involves. Seems a little scary to me. Also, I was wondering what brought about the change of heart about having more children. I was reading in the Voddie Baucham book, um, Family Driven Faith, where that's what happened to him and his wife, too. I was just wondering what set of events God might have used for you. (I would completely understand if you don't feel like sharing all that.)
May the Lord bless you and keep you and give you peace."
I share that so that I can answer it here on my blog because this is not the first time I have received this question. I fail to talk about it sometimes on the blog because I feel like I have talked about it to everyone I am near sometimes and that maybe everyone is sick of hearing about it. Guess not, though, huh? Sooooo since, at least, one person has not heard why my husband and I feel the way we do, I am going to dig into it again :)
I will save the adoption question for another blog post that I am planning to write soon. So for now I will briefly tell of how my husband and I came to want more children, even after we had one boy and one girl, the PERFECT American dream (*dripping with sarcasm*).
My husband and I were married at 20 and 19. I was 20 and had a 4 month old little girl that I brought to the marriage. If being married young, with a child already (who was not biologically his) was not hard enough, my husband was in the army and we were married just 3 months after 9/11. But we were living on love folks! We greatly enjoyed (well most of the time) our first 10 months together at Fort Hood Texas. It was ignorantly blissful until we started noticing some not too fun habits in one another. He avoided conflict and hid things from me. I, in my pathetic need to always feel loved smothered and controlled him. We were making it though. Then my husband received a telegram (yes, they still send those) and it stated he was to report to a one year unaccompanied (meaning he cannot take wife or children) deployment to the Demilitarization zone in South Korea. We had heard of many soldiers being deployed there so it was not a total shock, but it was devastating. He moved to Korea 2 months shy of our first wedding anniversary and I moved back home to California. Over the phone over the next few months we discussed having another child. We had a "hey, why not?" attitude about it. We were a little nervous, a little excited. He came home for a 28 day visit after being gone for 9 months. A week after he returned to Korea following his brief visit, I found out we were expecting. I told him over the phone. We were excited. For a little while at least. I quickly got very sick with morning sickness and had to move in with my mom. By the time his deployment was up I was four months pregnant. For many reason that I cannot disclose at this time, our marriage was falling apart. We held on to the hope of it all working out but made the decision, based on morning sickness, stress, and family pressure, to have a vasectomy as soon as my son was born. And we did. Now, skip forward 4 years. We almost divorced many times, and barely hung on. But then my husband committed his life to Christ. He had known the Lord before, being raised in a Christian home but he had not committed to him. He was so different and so was I. We both started to learn what it was like to walk with Christ, not just sort of notice him in the background. At that point He got deployed to Iraq. Another one year deployment. I was so concerned it would kill all the progress that had begun. But I was wrong. God did many miraculous things in Jake's heart during that year. Mine too actually. We grew closer to God and each other during it. But God started to stir a desire within me for more children. I am not kidding when I say i would lie awake and talk to God saying "Surely you don't want US to have more kids?!?! I mean a baby would be cute and all, but you were there, you remember how much I puke! And Jake, well he loves you and all but He doesn't ever want more kids. He can't wait until these two leave for college!" I went on and on having conversations with God like that. Over and over I would tell him of my confusions over my little flame growing within me, but still it stayed. So when he got what the army calls his "mid-tour" (meaning his trip home to visit in the middle of his tour), I sat with him at a coffee shop and asked him point blank
me: "would you ever consider having more children?"
him: *cough cough* *spit out a little coffee* "no! Why do you?"
me: *eyes looking down, ashamed* "well sort of, only a little though"
him: "well sweetie, maybe one day we will adopt, but as you know, we cant have anymore ourselves and I don't want a reversal"
The conversation was left there. I did not want to spoil our only time together in 5 months. So that was it until one of the last days he was home before he had to return to Iraq. I was watching something and it had a lady who was going to have a child on it and I burst into tears. It was pain. It was raw. And he had no idea what was going on with me. I told him again, that I had a desire to have more children, and that although I respected his decision, it still hurt to loose that hope. He looked deeply sad to see me hurt, and I knew the old Valerie could have taken advantage of that situation and manipulated him into making some sort of decision that would make me happy. But the thing was, I didn't want to just make me happy, I wanted to please the Lord and I knew it would not please the Lord for me try and "get my way" or even to speak about it again. He was calling me to leave it to him. I knew that in order to affirm this desire was from God, then He would have to come through my husband. So not another word was said about it and we had a fantastic few days together before he left. I did not bring it up again. Although I always had a cheerful attitude with my husband, and was working really hard at leaving it in God's hands, my womb still cried out for a child. One month later God answered my prayer. My husband informed me he was sad about the vasectomy and that God simply "would not let him be!" (his words exactly). He said he did not know what to do about it, but that he was going to pray about it. I said "OK". My heart soared with hope. One month after that he said, very casually, "why don't you look up some vasectomy reversal stuff and see how it works." So I did. I reported to him what I had found, including a Christian doctor only and hour and half from us that did reversals incredibly cheap, as a christian ministry. My husband said, "OK make me an appointment with him as soon as I am scheduled to get home." And I did. He got home, we got the reversal done, we got fantastic results and the doctor gave us a 96% chance of conceiving (although he was clear to point out it was God who decides).
Now it is a year and half later and still no child. But we are different people. WE love children as we have never loved them before. The desire to have more children had led to us loving the two we have even more. It lead us to our decision to homeschool. It led us to our decision to adopt and maybe even foster. It lead us to love children in such a passionate way that it brings tears to our eyes. There is nothing more sweet than to watch my sweet husband get on his knees and plead with his heavenly father to bless us even more. He desires for more children, but we love and know God enough to do our best to be content with what he has given. But we will never be the same. The vasectomy was by far the worst decision we have ever made, and the one we regret the most. Our children even cry for siblings they may never have. And it was all our doing. God gave us a precious gift, a LIFE giving gift, and we threw it back at him and said "thanks, but no thanks". OH what I would do if I could go back again. But I cannot. So for now, I will love all children that God brings my way, be it biological or adopted, or even just kids I meet at the library or in a store. For they are a precious gift. So apart from my sadness at not having yet conceived and the fact that babyshowers can sometimes be serious cry fests for me, the reversal was a wonderful gift from God, but his greatest gift was the reversal that took place in our hearts. For truly we are changed for the better.
Oh God let us never despise your good and perfect gifts!
so busy...... with lots of blessings!
I swear, if I am able to type out a post any longer than four sentences this month I will be happily shocked. I thought this month would be my slowest month ever, being that I JUST moved, hardly know anyone, don't have a formal schedule, and its so stinking cold nobody is doing anything. But hey I was wrong. I am having a wonderfully busy time playing catch up with homeschooling, organizing my new rental, getting the kids appointments to see the dentist and optometrist, meeting some women in the homeschool group, joining a small group at my church, reading my bible in the 90 day challenge cooking, snuggling kiddos, filling out adoption paper work, cleaning, blah blah blah. I am loving it though! I love being productive. It feels great. Don't get me wrong, I love relaxation too, but you never have to worry about me becoming a workaholic or anything, I am far to bent towards laziness for that :)
Anywho, the point of this post is this, I wish I were posting about things I am passionate about, like Celee at Miscellaneous Musings on the topic of the Family integrated church, or Tara at Too Many Kids in The Bathtub and her Journey to becoming a Godly wife. Also I am LOVE LOVE LOVING McMamma's series on authentic and honest blogging.
But alas, I am throwing things together the best I can. For now all I can off is my love to you all and how you are all encouraging me to be my best.
Blog posts to come SOON :)
*Purity: How can we teach it to our daughters and sons in ways that stick.
*Discipleship: How it's different from fellowship.
*The Plight of the Orphan: What are we called to do?
*Disciple of Christ: What does it REALLY look like.
These are things I am passionate about (among other things). Can't wait to start the discussion
xoxox
Valerie
