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Get Over It

Once upon a time there lived a great prince. He was made from the dirt of earth by the greatest King who made all things. He was given a great garden set on top of the world. The garden was full of beauty. The garden was teeming with life. The King gave this as a gift to the man. He gave it to him with the intention of setting the man out to expand the garden over the rest of the world. The prince was allowed to eat of all the trees in his garden. But there was one tree and this one was not yet to be food for the prince; he was to wait until he was ready. Now this great King had fought a war in the heavens against the great Dragon. This Dragon was once the greatest and noblest of his kind. But this Dragon coveted the Kings kingdom and gathered an army together to bind the great King and steal his Kindgom. But the Dragon failed and the King cursed him and threw him out of the deep heavens. This Dragon beheld the making of the man. And he saw that man was made in the image of the great God. The Dragon was still at war and he wanted to use this man to fight a new battle against God. The Dragon was known as the cunningest of all beasts. He came to the garden and found man's wife in the midst of it. He walked with the women and asked her questions. He brought the women to the forbidden tree and convinced that if she ate of it she would be like God, her great and awesome creator. The women did want to be like God and when she looked on the fruit and saw that it was pleasant fruit, she ate of it. She gave the fruit to her husband and he ate of it. God came to man and women and spoke words of judgement. Man had started a war with God. And he would continue to fight with God and all the earth would be at war with him as well. The land would be hard and would not easily yield to his hand. Women would be fruitful but she would bear children with much pain and suffering. She would also be at war with her husband and try to rule him. All was changed that day. But God is good and loves man. He promised that he would send a prince that would be a new gardener. He would be one that would end the war between man and God and bring peace to the earth. He would do what the first man failed to do; he would make the whole earth a garden city. And he would fill the streets with the knowledge of the Lord. He would be the true Son of God and he would bear the weight of all mans sin and war against the great God.

This advent story is beautiful again and again. It is in Advent that the promise made to Eve appears through her curse of childbirth to Mary. It is hope fulfilled. It is the beginning of the end. The unmaking of the world and the remaking of the new world.

It is a wonder that we so easily forget who we are. We are called to be son's of the living God. We are also called to something. We are on a journey. We are going somewhere. We are running a race. We are fighting a fight. Our sights are set on things above. Right. Check. We know who we where in Adam. We know who we are in the new Adam. So why do we get so bogged down when we stumble in the race. Why do get so discouraged when we loose a match in the fight? Why do we wallow when we find our gaze shifted down instead of up? I often think that psycho-analyzing the situation, just makes a bad situation worse. So instead of asking why am I this way, why can't I just stop, why, why, why? Why don't we just get over it. Why don't we go to the cross again and lay our sins at the feet of Jesus. Why don't we let him take care of it. Why don't we move on and do something good with our time and thoughts. Why don't we remember that God is working the old Adam out and the new Adam in. Why don't we shift our gaze heavenward.

All right this is the plan. We will get up quickly when we stumble. We will not make a big deal out of a little deal. We will let Jesus carry our load when it is heavy. We will fight the good fight and not tire of doing good.

So go on and do something good for your family. And when you fall short, go to God quickly and continue on. Be a strong soldier and finish the task. Be strong in God's might and watch Him transform your heart into a beautiful garden.

Blessings,

Erin

Loving The Middle Years

I have discovered that there is a whole in all parenting plans and books. It seems that as soon as you are done training toddlers, if you did a splendid job of it, that your kids should run on their own pretty smoothly. Good training is like riding a bike, and once those training wheels come off, you just sit back and watch your kids ride away. The problem is, this is not how it really works! Discipleship is never ending. There is never a point that you reach that is "the Point". There is no DONE in parenting. You leave the toddler stage to enter into a whole new world, a whole new game. Thankfully the manual for this next stage is the same. The Bible always speaks to us as parents. It speaks to us in the consent and insistent age of 2 year olds, it speaks to us in the early wisdom age of the 7 year old and it continues to speak to us as we raise up our children to love the Lord. But it does seem that in parenting books this age is skipped. It does seem that this is the age where kids are given a lot of freedom without the right equipment for the job. When kids are young you need a lot of energy and a whole lot of patience and self disciple to do the same thing every day. When they get a little older they learn how to function in your home (they do not stick there fingers in the outlet anymore). And they really are able to play with friends without stealing or hitting! But, but, but....They still need you. They still need to be guided, they still need help and they still need bounderies. They are able to hang out with friends (siblings included) pretty effortlessly but issues still arise. It is a different set of issues but there is plenty to talk about and ample room for teaching and instructing. If these issue are not coming to you, you have a whole different issue. You need to know who your kids are with. You need to know what they are playing, how they are playing (or not playing!) and where they are playing. If your kids are playing with other kids out of earshot, you should ask questions in the car on your way home: Who did you play with? What game did you play? What did you talk about? And then you interact with what they tell you. If they are constantly having issues with the same kid(s) make sure to be observing the situation first hand so that you can help your young lady or young man, deal with it properly. Basically, you need to oversee there free time. This is not the stage that we let go of our kids!! We need to invest in our kids at this stage and teach them how to interact in the world they are in. When kids are toddlers we teach them the rules and boundaries of home life. They have rules all over the place. These rules are teaching them how to live in your home and how to live in your family. These rules are put into place for protection, function and to maintain peace, joy and some kind of order in the home. Really, the rules are in place for everyone's good. So by the time your kids are 5 they usually have the rules down. Yes, they may still break the rules but they know the standard. But these middle years are when their world begins to expand a little bit. They go from home, to playground, to school, to more school to work to starting their own families. Their world just keeps expanding!! It keeps getting bigger. And as it gets a little bigger, they need our help! They need our wisdom to apply to their new situations. They need guidance and guidelines for this next step. Because of this, I am going to try and focus on this for a little bit in my next posts. I am in the thick of it right now with a 8, 7, and almost 6 year old. And this is really me trying to figure out what I am doing right now with my kids. And as I go on this journey, I hope to please the Lord and help my children grow in grace and beauty!

Happy sweeping! And for those of you with older kids, much of that sweeping is in attitudes and spending time talking through things! We rarely spill milk anymore but there is still plenty of sweeping going on!

Dandelions

I have a strange memory from my early school days. Memories from St Patricks catholic school hold a special place in my mind. I loved my school and only have good memories of the 9 years that I spent there. It was small. We went to mass every friday. There was no play structure. There was asphalt and paint. This meant that kickball and foursquare where honored at recess time and that our school could have taken any other school on and destroyed them. Scraped knees where not a thing to cry over but something that made for a good story and to compare to the other kid's bloody knee to see who's was better. There was no room for bad attitudes or girly silliness. The school had a good aroma. And my class was the potpourri of the school! But back to this memory. I remember picking dandelions. My class went out during school hours to some of the houses in the neighborhood and picked their dandelions. We had big bags that we filled. And boy did we fill a whole lot of bags! We took these bags to a big factory. This is where the memory goes a little fuzzy and all I have left are some sparse but vivid pictures of this factory. I have no idea what this pest of a plant was turned into. But it did some good I am sure. And isn't that just how life is. Sin pops up in our heart but God..... God takes the sin and turns it upside down. God takes death and swallows it up with resurrection life.

Dandelions are on the brain. My yard is full of them. And they grow so fast, so relentlessly that I have given up trying to mow before they outgrow the grass. I would need to mow weekly to defeat them. But I really only like to mow every other week so my yard only looks decent for about 5 days before my grass is hiding below a bed of dandelions. Or rather a sea of dandelions for they really do appear to have no end!

The other reason that dandelions have consumed me (as well as the yard), is that I came up with a great analogy today while taking to a sister about sin. I was looking out at my yellow speckled yard when my sister was taking about how discouraging it can be when you just cannot get the upper hand on sin. Just when you think you have it down, just when you think you are over something, it pops it's ugly head up in the form of a thought, "but really it was so horrible how........."fill in the blank. How he spoke to me, how he treated me, how he lied to me, how he cheated me. And the list of offenses is as varying as condiments in my fridge. But the real perspective is quite different. Look at it this way. When sin comes in (a dandelion in the yard) and you repent (you pick the dandelion), you have dealt with it faithfully. If you notice another dandelion, and then another dandelion, do not be discouraged. Just pick the dandelions out as they come your way. And pretty soon you will find that the yard is looking pretty good! And that your maintenance of this pesty weed is becoming quite manageable. But, always, always get rid of it as soon as you notice it! It is often tempting to go sit in the bed of dandelions and ponder over why they are there. It is easy to sit down with the dandelions and ask "how did you get here?" "where did you come from?" But all this does is turn you into another weed in the garden. Pick the dandelions, get rid of the dandelion. Don't turn them into a little pet to cry over. Just get rid of it. And if you notice that your whole heart is overrun with dandelions, do not fear. But rather rejoice that God is faithful and just to forgive. Start with one dandelion at a time. And if they will not leave you alone, remember to fight the good fight and never tire of doing good, good being killing the dandelion. You will have victory! And yes, each victory leads to another fight. But that does not mean you are failing. It rather is a sign that you are being faithful. If you are not fighting sin, then you have lost. Fighting is the ticket to living a fruitful blessed life. So get out there and take a sword to your dandelions. Cut there little heads off and never tire of doing it. And you will find that you get better and better at fighting. So the key is not to stop fighting, but to become a skilled warrior. The bible is very clear that this life is not one of ease. There are blessings all around us. And life is good. But it is not true that good and easy go together. It is a lie to think that fighting is a sign of failing. Or that fighting is a sign of something wrong with you. It you have this mindset, then get rid of it quickly! Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Gear up for battle!! But on the whole armor of God. Stand and fight. And it is in this fighting that you find victory. Victory in Christ will one day lead to rest. But that will be the day that you stand before Him face to face. That time is not yet here and you want to hear these words when that time does come, "well down my good and faithful servant." So get out there and pluck those dandelions. And when you pluck one, get ready to pluck some more!

Sweet Speech

We just finished our spring break. It was so much fun to have the kids home all week. We went to the beach, the park, set up a tent in the yard and the kids slept outside with Jason, we went to the flee market, Abby made cookies, the girls and I looked up you tube videos of fun hand games to play, we played cards........wow we really had an awesome time over the break!!! But there was something that I noticed over the break that was not so lovely. There was a weed that sprung up while we were in close quarters and it was ugly. The kids kept saying "stop it" or "stop"' to one another. Now in all honesty I must confess that I am a culprit as well. And it is I that condoned such ugly speech by using it myself. When we speak a certain way, we are telling the kids that they have permission to speak this way. We need to be careful how we speak to one another. So I thought of way to pull up this nasty weed with pleasant weed killer. I gave the kids each a ziplock bag filled with ten Junior Mints. I set a five day timeline and told the kids that each time they said stop or stop it, that they would have to give me one of their mints. Well, it is only Tuesday but so far there bags are full. This is just a fun way to get rid of something ugly. I am often tempted to be a drill sergeant to the kids. But God is good to us when we act ugly and He blesses us when we are a garden full of weeds; this is grace! I want to act like my Heavenly Father in all things and this includes the way that I deal with ugly speech.

This is just a little fun idea for weeding out ugliness in speech. I hope that this gets your creative juices flowing as you deal with your own weeds!

Blessings to you lovely sisters!

Build Him Up

I continue to stray away from the Proverbs study but what I am thinking on right now is sons and in particular, what in the world to do with them! This is again stemming from a conversation I had with a sister and I am still pondering some of the things we talked about. So I decided to try and put them down so that I can make more sense of them. And by the way, I love you sisters! You help me so much and I am always loved and encouraged when I talk to you!!!

Little notes on raising boys to be men:

The first thing that comes to mind with boys, is that I am so often admitting to myself that I have no idea what I am doing. So as with all things, I pray. I pray for wisdom, faithfulness, patience, I pray that I would respect him and at the same time that I would help him become respectable.

I was asking Jason one day, after one of the boys did something totally crazy, why it is that he (the boy) would ever think that doing "this" would actually be a good idea! Jason very wisely unfolded the inner thinkings of "the boy" to me. He said that boys look at things this way: "it would be so sweet if I climbed up really high to jump off that bookshelf and I bet I could throw in a couple of awesome twists while jumping!" Jason was very clear to point out that the thought of how that might hurt, or how that idea may not work, or how that idea could possibly lead to death, never enters "the boys" mind. That something could possibly be "sweet" is the whole thought process. And it is not much of a process! Boys get ideas, lots of ideas into their heads and they want to act them out. This is not a problem. Often as women we try to get our boys not to be this way. We try and tell them that it is wrong of them to think this way. But this is not helpful and it is not fruitful. Instead we need to realize that this is part of being a boy. Conquering bookshelfs now should be the beginning of conquering the world later. We need to be faithful to help our boys conquer things. We should be encouraging them as they try something new. We should encourage their adventuress spirits. And at the same time we need to teach them to think through their ideas. We need to teach them to stop and think, "is this a good idea?" "what will happen when I do this?". And boys will learn by their mistakes. And following and scraping a knee is a life lesson. "When I take a risk on my bike, it may end in some blood on the knee, but I can get back up again!" We need to teach our boys that when they fall, they need to get back up again. And when they fall because of something stupid they did, they need to get back up again and try from a different angle, or try a new approach all together, but it is so, so important to instill in them the need to get back up again!! We do not want to discourage our boys. We do want them to be afraid to try things. We do not want them to think that they cannot not succeed. If we do this then we have stifled one of their greatest assets to conquering the world. And as boys they need to get out there and conquer!

Respect. Boys turn into men. Shocking I know, but oh so true. How boys are filled up never changes. Their need for respect is ever constant. They need respect when they are young, old and everywhere in-between. I know that you might be thinking, 'seriously, how in the world do I respect my 8 year old who still needs me to remind him to brush his teeth?" Well the nice thing about respect is that he does not need to be respectable for you to respect him. And it is one of those things that works like this- you treat your son with respect, he will become respectable. I think that this puts a big responsibility on us as parents. And it is also really convicting. If my son is acting like a total basketcase, then it sure says a lot about how I am doing as a parent. Do not underestimate the need your boys have for respect!!!

How to render respect. There are so many ways but a good first step if you are new to this, is to write a respect letter. I do this with Cedric and it is amazing what it does for him. He carries it around with him all day and makes sure to put his special letter in a safe place for later. There was one time that he put it in his underwear drawer so that he could read it every morning! It was not a long letter or a super in depth letter. It was simple and to the point. And remember that it is us women that usually base how good a letter is by how long it is!

Lets just say that when you sit down to write this letter that nothing comes to mind. No problem. We go back to what we always go back to.....God. Pray that God would help you to see things in your son worthy of praise. This is a new way to "see" your sons so it might take a little time. But once you begin to see your sons this way, it will get clearer and clearer. And know that praising your sons should be based on his abilities. He wants to be good at stuff. Be a student of your sons and find out what they are good at. "Wow, you are such a good student." "You are so good at______________." "You really know how to ______________, good job." "I am so proud of the way you _____________." The list goes on and on. But start with the basics and keep it simple. I love putting notes in lunch boxes. Cedric always comes home with an extra big smile on his face when I do this.

Speak respectfully. Be so careful how you talk to your sons. Watch your tone, your facial expressions, your body language. They need to know that they are making you proud. They need to know that they are enjoyed. They need to know that you are so blessed to have them for sons! They need to know that you value them and esteem them. How you talk to them and what you say can either build them up ten feet tall or bury them deep into the ground. God created the world with words. Make sure that you are building your sons up with your words.

You have a great responsibility to build up your little guy. So build him and watch him become a man worthy of respect from kings. Think of the great men in Bible. You can be sure that an encouraging mom is behind them!!!

Blessings to you as you learn to respect your little guys!

Eyes of The Lord

"The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good." Proverbs 15:3

Everything we do is to be done to the glory of God. Our chief goal ought to be to glorify God. This is true of us in our calling as wife, mother, employee, church member, friend, daughter..... Our main concern should be to please God in all we do. Right now we are mothers. Some of us our wives. But we will always be Christians. This is one thing that not even death can alter!

How we view this verse will reveal how view God. If God is only watching us to catch us, then we will be motivated by guilt. If God is watching because he cares for us and delights in us, then we will be humbled and motivated by gratitude and thanksgiving. Sometimes both views can get a similar outward action. But the heart of a guilt stricken person is scared, selfish, bitter and far from the Lord of the Bible. The heart of the thankful person is motivated to please God because he feels gratitude. And he feels gratitude because he knows that God is God and he is man. He knows that God made all things, governs all things and still has a love for him!!! If this is not motivation to good works then I do not what is! Therefore, this verse should relieve us, and if it does not then you can be sure that your view of God needs to change!

So how does this verse apply to parenting. It is so easy to have the kids memorize this because we want them to feel burdened. We want them to know that we know how naughty they are and they can be sure that God is watching and is wagging his finger at them in a disapproving way. But God is not this way. So if we teach this then we are misrepresenting God to our children and it is clear that we need to have a little Bible study for ourselves! The main thing to impart to your child about this verse is the amazing truth that God is watching them because he cares for them. He is watching them because he is watching over them. He has their good in mind. He watches them because he delights in them. He watches them, not to catch them being naughty and say "I told you so" but he watches them because they are the apple of his eye.

If we are to rightly teach our children this proverb then we need to copy God in his parenting techniques. When you look at your child when he is doing something good, how do you respond? Do you encourage and praise or do you discourage by thinking "it is about time you do as you are told"? When your child is in sin and disobedience, how do you respond? Do you gently lead them in righteousness by grabbing their hand and bringing them back on the path or do you beat them down by anger, frustration and unkind words? Or are you not like God in the way of not noticing either good or evil in your child? If this is the case then you need to start paying attention.

Delight in your children!!! You cannot teach this verse rightly until you have that down. And if you are not delighting in your children, then bring it to God. Confess it as sin and ask God to give you a love for your children that is like his love for his children! Look on your children with love, wanting to bless them at all times. Wanting to bless them when they are in sin, wanting to bless them when they are producing the fruit of the spirit. But always looking at them with delight and pleasure.

And how do we do this when they are not being delightful? Well, if you already have a love for them in your heart (put there by God of course!) it will be much easier. Never forget that you are suppose to be the spiritual one. You are called to correct your children. Stop getting surprised by this!!! Expect it!! And get really good at helping them get out of the mess quickly.

Remember that God is watching you! He is watching you for the same reasons that he is watching them. He loves and delights in you. He gave you your story so that you could be the heroine. He gave your kids to you so that you could serve them and help transform them into his image. But you cannot do this if you are not being transformed. So know that God is watching you. And yes, he expects you to live in manner worthy of your calling. But this attitude of obedience should come from humble thankfulness not from a spirit of guilt. And just so you know, guilt produces terrible fruit!!! But forgiveness in Jesus produces the beautiful fruit of the spirit!!!

Memorize this verse for yourself first and couple it with meditating on God's attributes. This should lead you to praising him rather then fearing him. I am not talking about godly fear here but the fear that comes from the devil. And this fear cripples and withers any good fruit. It does not convict as the holy spirit does who leads us to Jesus so that we can be free of our burdens, but it adds to our load and makes us fall under a hard yoke. But Jesus' yoke is easy and his burden is light. So remember that he cares for you, he watches you because he cares. He wants you to succeed and He helps you have victory and joy!!! Be relieved then because he sees you at your best and your worst. And in your best, he is there working it in and through you. And at your worst, he is there to pick you up and carry you. At your worst he is there, ready, always ready, to forgive you! And this why this verse is incredible!!

God bless you as you strive to be as He is!

Sin in the Camp

This is not a Proverbs study but an issue that we all need constant reminders, and constant encouragement in. The issue is sin in the camp; the camp being your home. I was talking with one of my wonderful sisters this week and we were discussing how to deal with sin in our kids when it comes up. Sin is as old as dirt and will be around until that great day of judgment when Jesus comes back. It is something that we need to get good at dealing with. It is so funny to say, but if we are honest and believe the Scriptures, we know that we will always sin in this life and it is our duty to get good at how we deal with it. There are so many temptations that we struggle with when sin enters and it is our job to eliminate these temptations and deal with the real issue of the sin itself. It is easy to get distracted from the real issue. It is so easy to blame others for our sin, it is so easy to justify our sin, it is so easy to rename our sin so that we do not acknowledge it as sin, it is so easy as parents to blame others for our kids bad attitude, unwholesome speech, disobedience.... and the list goes on! And when we do this, we add more messes onto the original mess. And this makes discernment near impossible! At this point we have taken a mole hill and turned it into a mountain. As parents we so often do this with our kids. We call it "protecting" them. But making excuses for our kids is really doing them Spirtual damage. We need to teach them to get out of sin as quickly as THEY get into it! That sin was in there heart and no one put it there. If it comes out, you should be thankful because it gives you the opportunity to give it to God and have him separate as far as the east is from the west. Making excuses for them is wrong. Making excuses for them is our sin and we need to repent of it! Making excuses for them keeps the sin in the camp and in their hearts. And being a sinner yourself does not mean that you are exempt from teaching them the true and right standard of the Scriptures. It is true that God hates hypocrisy, but He also hates disobedience. And it is true that you need to be spiritual so that you can instruct your children. But do not use your lazy disobedience as an excuse for lazy parenting. Get sin out of you, so that you can get it out of your children!!!

I remember going to Tijuana when I was 17 with my youth group to build a house for a poor family. The family that my housing team was assigned to lived on an old dump. We literally pulled up to a mountain of garbage and had to build our house there. It was a very sad business but it is also a really good picture of what undelt sin looks like. Do not build your life on this kind of mountain. Rather through repentance, deal with the "garbage" (the built up sin) and build your life on the solid ground that is Jesus.

Picture a window. This window represents your childs heart. When the window opens, what comes through is sin. It may be that when the window is open an unkind word comes out. It may be a bad attitude. It may be out right disobedience to your command. Whatever it is, it needs to be named according to Scripture. You need to teach your children to deal with sin and this is how you do it. Call it what the Bible calls it. Administer the consequence for that particular sin. Go to God with it. Confess to God the sin and ask him to take it away. Thank Him for taking it away. Confess to who (if someone else is involved) you sinned against using Biblical language.

Helpful words for moms: do not become emotional! Stay sober and close the window quickly. Do not be surprised that the house is a drafty place! Remember that sin is guaranteed and it is your job to teach faithfulness in cleaning up after sin, by cleaning up promptly, with thankfulness in your heart for the grace that God always administers! Do not tire of doing good!! God is ever patient with us. We sin against him again and again. When your kids sin again and again, imitate your Father in heaven and be longsuffering. This is a fruit of the spirit and one that we need to actively cultivate as moms. Longsuffering refers to suffering for a long time. This suffering is talking about sin. God is patient with us and does not cast us away the moment we mess up. This is what it is to be longsuffering and it is the whole story of the Bible! Ask God to give you this fruit of the Spirit. Ask God to make you like Him in this area. Mediate on this attribute of God. Think about the cross. Think about the grace you have received. This will make you more thankful and will equip to do to your children as God has done to you!

There is no reason that we should be annoyed at our kids when they sin. There is no reason that we should be angry at our kids when the mess up. There is no reason that we should be surprised when our kids sin. But we do get annoyed, angry and we are so often surprised. So go and repent and ask God to fill you up the fruit of the spirit. Ask God to make you like him. And learn to deal with sin promptly and cheerfully when it enters your camp!

God bless you as you endeavor to act more like him in this area!

Tall Walls

This has been a long time coming, so I hope to make it worth the wait. "He that hath no rule over his spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls," Proverbs 25:28. This is one of our favorites!! It applies to anger, being emotional, fits of all varieties, being too silly, and the list goes on.

But lets take a couple of steps back before we unpack this verse and talk about general wisdom getting. The Bible is God's word and it is full of wisdom. We are told to get wisdom and in all or our getting, to acquire understanding as well. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom so we know where to start. And James tells us that we have not because we ask not. So it all starts by going to God and asking him to make us wise. But remember in your asking, to not ask amiss. This means, that you ask according to God's will. And you cannot do this if you are not in His word! So fill yourself with the scriptures so that they will ooze from every pore, and pray without ceasing. This is the beginning. Read the Word, know the Word, pray that God would use it to transform you and ask for wisdom. Doing all this in faith with the chief goal being to know God better so that you may serve him better. And this is the reason that memorizing verses from the Wisdom books is so important and that is why I am starting this little series in Proverbs.

Lets head back to our verse in Proverbs. It is a tough thing to rule yourself well. We are told again and again that you should not deny yourself any pleasure. We are told that it is our right to do as we like. We are preached the gospel of autonomy again and again. It is a revolutionary idea to deny yourself something. Wouldn't that be stiffling who I really am? Wouldn't that be bad for self expression? You bet it would and the world would be a better place if more of us ruled our spirits well. We are so often ruled by ourselves and our selfish lusts but God's way tells us to rule ourselves.

Another important point of this verse is that, lack of self control makes you an easy target for the enemy. If you are city without walls, you have made it easy for the enemy to walk in and plunder what he wants. If our walls are down, then we give into sin easily and are not able to put up a fight and say as our Lord did, "get behind me Satan."

Lets say the wall is down and the enemy(sin) has come in and you have been beaten. Lets put a little more flesh on it and say that you got frustrated and annoyed at one of the kids and you snapped. Lets go a little further and say that one of the kids dropped a full cup water all over the lovely dessert that you just pulled out of the oven, the dessert that you worked on for a couple of hours. And in that moment of serious temptation, you burst out with an angry word (or words). Ok, it is easy when reading to see at what point we need to stop and remind ourselves that it is not the end of the world to have your lovely dessert ruined. It is easy to remind ourselves that our kids are more important then our fancy dessert. But in the moment it is easy to let the wall fall and to keep it down so that we have no defenses. And once that wall is down there is only one way to build it again......repent of your sin. Ask God to forgive you, ask your kids to forgive. This is how you get the wall back up again.

But how do you keep the wall up? How do you build it tall and strong? Rule your spirit well. This is so broad and covers all areas of our life. Lets list a few and talk about how we can rule ourselves well. In our speech. We should stay guarded in our speech. This means that we are careful what we say and how we say it. What are you spending your time thinking about? This is one that takes great self control and self reflection. Is most of your time spent in Prayer? What you read effects what you think about. What you watch effects what you think about. So be careful about what you are reading and watching. Who are you spending time with? Are you going to Church? Are you repenting of your sin? Are you quick to forgive? This is just a little list of things to think about. Having a tall wall that can withhold temptations and keep us from sin, is the key to this proverb. And the wall is your self control. And self control comes from living in a way that is in accordance with the Scriptures. Again we see that it comes down to the basics: read your Bible, spend time in your Bible, spend time in prayer. And ask God to give you the fruits of spirit, one of them being self control. And when the wall comes down, repent quickly and walk on in faith knowing that God is faithful to do a mighty work in you!

Blessings to you as you journey on and seek to glorify God in all you do.

A Series In Proverbs

When the kids where little and home all day with me, I had a nice schedule that I kept to keep us busy, productive and cheerful. We started the day with breakfast and I always read a Bible story while the kids ate. Before the kids where allowed to leave the table, they had to say a memory verse. The majority of the verses where from Proverbs. I wrote them on note cards and kept them at the table so that we would be consistent with our verse memorization. It has proved a good idea and now that mornings are busy with school preparations, I find it amazing to find time to do anything but eat, clean, dress and run out the door. But I have been trying to reinstate our old tradition because of the fruit I have seen from it. They still know the verses and Jason and I know them as well so it is easy to call them to mind in times of great need. And we find that these times of great need occur multiple times throughout each day. I often picked verses that I needed to memorize, finding that if mom is struggling in one area you can be sure that kids are right their with her. And it taught and is teaching the kids how to meditate on Gods word. Jason has pointed out a number of times to different groups of people, that meditating on Gods word is a public practice. It is not something that is meant to be in solitude. Meditating is the art of interacting with God's word with each other. God is a Trinity and never alone; He is always in conversation, the Son with the Spirit and Father, the Father with the Son and the Spirit, and the Spirit with the Father and Son. And so we are to imitate this. You should be in the word, getting yourself familiar with the stories, the poetry, the wisdom. But you do this not to internalize it all in your private little devotion but you take in God's word so that you can pour it out on those around you. You pour it out by talking about what you read. You pour it out by asking your kids specific questions about the text so that they can take it in and pour it out. And that is the gospel preached! You want to get good at this. It is something to strive for, to do in excellence. Memorizing scriptures with your kids will give you and them wisdom. It will teach how to meditate on God's word. It will lay a foundation for them that will bless them daily.

My future posts will therefore be meditations on proverbs that I have memorized with the kids.

Happy Sweeping to you and I look forward to meditating on God's word in the book of Proverbs with you.

Cast Your Cares On Him

This week has been plagued with that great beast the stomach flu. It is still rampaging the fort and has hit Jason hard tonight. I am usually the last to fall so we will see what tomorrow holds for me. I will say that being sick has its good moments. We have been forced to stay home and have been having a great time of it amidst the occasional interruption in the form of serious vomit and clean up. And I will say that I have been up for many nights in a row. But Jason is ever helpful and I have been taking lengthy morning naps to catch up on sleep. So even though we have been sick, we have stayed cheerful and are weathering the storm with movies, wii, Trouble and lots of Gatorade. But I will also confess that I do worry about the kids when they are sick and am tempted to worry myself sick! Every cough has me springing out of bed, heart racing and I can scarcely believe how quickly I wake up and make it to their room! I think that I could win some kind of award for this!

I have been reminding myself the need to bring my worries to God and leave them their at His feet believing and knowing that he will take care of them (the kids). David cries out in the Psalms repeatedly but he always ends the same way. And that way is one of surrender and thankfulness. Jason asked the kids what they where most thankful for during this time of sickness. I loved that he asked them and it was amazing that they all responding quickly and cheerfully. As the caregiver and nurse in times of sickness, I need to ask myself the same question. What am I thankful for? I love comforting my kids. I love rubbing their backs and pulling back their hair so that it stays clean amidst the foulness. I love giving them warm baths. I love snuggling with them during a movie. I love praying with them and teaching them to weather the sick storm with cheerfulness. I love finding them something to eat that sounds good amidst the carnival ride in their stomachs. And I love that God is constantly taking care of me the same way every day!

The other thing I remind myself when they are sick, is that we are going somewhere, we are preparing for something other then this time. And that my kids really are Gods children more then they are mine. And that he cares for them more then I can! "Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven," I do not know why sickness makes me think of this verse but it does. Maybe it is because I feel how inadequate I am. Maybe it is that I see how fragile our bodies are. But that verse sticks with me when we are sick and helps me remember the journey that I am on and the journey that my children are on.

If sickness comes your way soon, try to remember amidst the caring and nursing, to be a cheerful servant. To be a comfort to your children as God is a comfort to you. To pray for them and not to worry and fuss over them. To cast all of your cares on Him and go to Him for strength and encouragement. To remember that it is all apart of the race set before you. It is all apart of the journey God is giving you and that He is right their with you.

So blessings on you as you continue sweeping and if that sweeping includes some serious cleaning supplies and sleepless nights, may God help you be faithful through it!

Mini-World to Greater World

All is quiet in my house. The kids are out tromping in the mud with Jason and I am left to prepare for tonights Sabbath dinner. My tree is still up and Christmas decorations are hung about the house looking ready to come down. And I am drinking coffee and water trying to recover from the New Years late night! My bread is rising and I found a minute to sit down. I think that it is amazing that Christmas is gone and the new year is here. We are in the middle of the "Christmas" season and Ephinany is right around the corner. My endurence is not quite up to all of the celebrating that needs to take place in this season of goodness and joy. But every year we make it a little bit closer to our goal of running the seasonal race with celebrations and establishing traditions for the kids to pass along to their kids. In this time of quiet amidst the rush of preparations and recovery I was thinking about how our children our going to some day run their own homes. Crazy to think about and a little bit scary! But all that we have done this season really is for them. It is to teach them about what God has done in history for his people and what he is doing for his people now in this new year of 2011. We are handing them a story, a story about the way the world works. A story that they are apart of. Whether you mean to or not you are teaching them about the world. Whether you are teaching them the truth or not, you are teaching and they are learning. God has designed it this way and that is why he again and again tells his people to make sure that they are teaching the right story, the true story, His story! Christmas is an easy time to get the story right. An Easy time to tell and retell the great story of the incarnation, the great story of the Magi (the gentiles) coming and kneeling before the King of the world! Your home is a mini-world. It is the center of your childrens life. But it will not always be this way. Does your little mini-world match the one that God has made? Does your home reflect the truth and beauty of God? Is there joy in your home? Is their laughter? Some day your children will grow up and look around at the greater world around them. When this happens they will either feel like they have been lied to or they will have deep wisdom in understanding the world around them. If they have deep wisdom they will want to go forth and leave their mini-world and conquer the greater world. If they have been lied to, they will want to leave their mini-world and they will enter the greater world and be conquered by it! Either way, they will be leaving your home. I think of faithful parenting as giving your children a full tool belt to go out and conquer the world with; whatever comes their way, they have been prepared and can grab the tool the need for the job set before them. When you do not teach your children faithfully you send them out to the job site without any tools. They will fail, they will fall, and they will not produce any fruit. If they are not producing any fruit in their mini-world, there is no way that they will produce fruit in the greater world. So what do you do if there is no fruit now. You pray! You humble yourself and go before God and ask him to give you deep wisdom and faithfulness so that you can go and be fruitful in your home. If your kids are not being fruitful, it is because you are not being fruitful. So humble yourself and confess your sins to God and to them (your kids and spouse) and go forth in the forgiveness that Jesus brings and in his strength to do better! Solomon was pleasing to God and God told Solomon to ask anything from him. Solomon was King and felt like a child leading God's people. So he asked for wisdom in leading God's people. Your children are God's people, God's children. Be like Solomon and ask for wisdom in leading them. He will give to you! He is faithful to his children and you are his child. So go to your Maker and ask, so that you can faithfully represent the world that he has made. Go to him so that you can fill your childs belt up with all the resources he will need to conquer the greater world!

And happy sweeping to you as you imitate your great Maker in all you do!