Lessons From King Solomon

The rapid strep test last week was negative, but today they called to say that, yes, Peter has strep.

Stress.

The culture is more accurate than the rapid test. The rest of us have a 24% chance of contracting it, but still, I was in a hurry to get that antibiotic going, though Peter's body had healed on its own, as is usual for strep. In 24 hours the antibiotic takes care of contagious bacteria and keeps strep from spreading in the body and causing dangerous complications.

If my husband and I contract this illness, that's $50 out the window for doctor visits, plus the money for the medicine.

Stress.

Out we go to the van, headed for the pharmacy, to find the battery dead for the second time in a month.

Stress.

Peter's tics and OCD are causing him great stress, and in turn he's behaving poorly. I never know what causes these flares in symptoms, but I try very hard to keep the schedule routine. Maybe illness causes flares? Strep can cause a flare called PANDAS, which worsens mental disorders like tics and OCD. A flare is simplifying it, but you get the idea. This probably hasn't happened, but my son is sure miserable.

Stress.

Beth's speech is still not up to par, despite a year of speech therapy. My father, visiting yesterday, said he couldn't understand her. We understand everything, and no one complains at church or AWANA, but still, the idea that she's progressing so slowly?

Stress.

When things snowball like this, what can we do?

My first instinct is...stop everything and write a gratitude list. I know God will take care of all these stressful issues, and a gratitude list reminds me of His love and faithfulness. Yes, today is a bad day, but spiritual blessings spill over in my life and my heart is full. With the Lord, I am never alone and the answers never depend on my wisdom, but on His.

We finished the book of Matthew and are now reading 1 Kings for our morning devotions, and the boys are reading it additionally for school. I read the commentary aloud on the verses as well, which they don't have the discipline to do yet.

We learned how pleased God was when Solomon asked for wisdom.

1 Kings 3:7-14

⁷ “Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. ⁸ Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. ⁹ So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?”
¹⁰ The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. ¹¹ So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, ¹² I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. ¹³ Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both wealth and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. ¹⁴ And if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.”

I know that instead of spending a long time researching batteries and the problem of Ford Winstar batteries going dead frequently, and reading countless hours about my son's mental disorders or about strep, or about speech articulation issues, I should first and foremost, ask God for wisdom. After God hears my prayer for wisdom, I can proceed freely through my day, knowing that my prayer was the most effective response to my day.

As my children's principal discipler (husband works 54 hours a week), I need to get this right. They need to see a healthy, knee-jerk, Solomon-inspired response to every stress incident.

Have stress? Pray.

Have stress, pray.

Have stress, pray. 

Have stress, pray.

Have stress, pray.

Prayer Time: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the abundant spiritual blessings in my life. Thank you for your sacrifice on the cross, for the open relationship it gives us with our Heavenly Father. Thank you for 1 Kings, and for Solomon's request for wisdom and what it teaches us about appropriate responses to life. We desire to please you and be instruments of your glory. Thank you for the stressful days and how they become object lessons in my discipleship efforts with my children. Thank you for Peter's mental disorders, and Paul's ever developing OCD, and Beth's arthritis and speech issues. Thank you that life is not easy. Thank you that I need you, desperately.We ask for wisdom and comfort, Lord.

In Jesus' name, Amen

Gratitude List:

~ residing in America where we can have devotions and worship the Lord in our home without fear

~ that my children love the Lord

~ that medicine has progressed enough to prevent dangerous complications

~ that God has a plan for every day, and a purpose for every issue in our lives, though he didn't cause them

~ prayer and how it softens children's hearts, and our hearts

~ a working washer and dryer, furnace, water heater, refrigerator

~ Compassion International

~ going to the consignment shop for snow boots for Paul, and finding a holiday sale, allowing two for one outfits. Beth now has 4 new Lands' End winter dresses, which are our favorites.

From the children

~ shelter and warmth

~ our clothes

~ our beds

~ siblings and parents

~ games (marbles, Rummikub, tiddly winks, Trouble, our Geography game)

~ our birthdays

~ pretty dresses

~ cakes (Beth's birthday is this Sunday)

~ food

~ friends

~  a good Momma who takes good care of me and loves me (from Mary--I promise I didn't bribe her to say this :)

What are you thankful for?

Cross references:

1. 1 Kings 3:7 : Nu 27:17; 1Ch 22:5; 29:1; Jer 1:6
2. 1 Kings 3:8 : S Dt 7:6
3. 1 Kings 3:8 : S Ge 12:2; 15:5; S 1Ch 27:23
4. 1 Kings 3:9 : S 2Sa 14:17; Jas 1:5
5. 1 Kings 3:9 : S Dt 1:16
6. 1 Kings 3:9 : 2Co 2:16
7. 1 Kings 3:11 : Jas 4:3
8. 1 Kings 3:11 : 1Ch 22:12
9. 1 Kings 3:12 : 1Jn 5:14-15
10. 1 Kings 3:12 : S 2Sa 14:20; 1Ki 4:29, 30, 31; 5:12; 10:23; Ecc 1:16
11. 1 Kings 3:13 : Mt 6:33; Eph 3:20
12. 1 Kings 3:13 : Pr 3:1-2, 16; 8:18
13. 1 Kings 3:13 : 1Ki 10:23; 2Ch 9:22; Ne 13:26
14. 1 Kings 3:14 : 1Ki 9:4; Ps 25:13; 101:2; 128:1; Pr 3:1-2, 16
15. 1 Kings 3:14 : Ps 61:6

Holiday Gatherings and Redeeming Family Dysfunction

Thanksgiving's just past and if you spent time with family, chances are some raw pain resurfaced.

My father, 74, is on his fifth wife. He flew in from Vegas to spend five and a half days in Ohio, accompanied by his 17- and 19-year-old daughters from his fourth marriage.

Yes, my family is complicated. 

I have 1 full-blood sibling, a sister two years my senior, residing in Oregon, whom I haven't seen in 9 years. I also have 5 half-siblings: 1 from my mom's second marriage, a brother with whom I grew up but haven't seen in 9 years; 2 from my father's third marriage, a brother and sister with whom I've had little contact in the past 2 decades; and 2 from my father's fourth marriage, both sisters, with whom I've had little contact in the last 8 years.

If your own family is more complicated than that, surely you deserve a hug. 

Here is it: Squeeze

While my father and two half-sisters were here in Ohio we saw them once, which was today, despite not seeing my dad in the last 4 years. He has a sister and a brother still living, and nieces and nephews who live here too, all of whom he spent time with. Today, however, my dad and sisters came for lunch and my dad paid little attention to my children, who are at times desperate for a grandparent's love. My half sisters, very sweet-spirited, loved on my children, thank goodness.

A grandparent, like a parent, must be sacrificial to fill a child's love cup. Children are precious and lively, but playing their board games is not always fun. Spending time with them just because it would bless them and not because it promises to be fun, is what we all hope for in grandparents for our children.

Grandparents don't bless with their money, although some try that. Really, they bless with their time.

Love is a verb and an investment...with no reciprocal promise. It's a risk and a sacrifice because it involves time and heart and saying no to other possibly more attractive choices. My heart aches for someone to come along and decide that my children are a worthwhile investment--because Jesus asked us to love as he did. Sacrificially.

My children are not perfect, being a tad too bouncy, but they're sweet and fun. They'll almost always sit still for games and art and stories. There are ways, if someone's interested, to curb their bounciness.

Each time my mother comes (her husband, my step-father, stays home in Oregon when she visits), or my father appears, my hopes for my kids are dashed. My mother and my father both, on visits here, put my kids last, after fun activities with their siblings, such as going out to dinner, shopping, visits to neighboring states, etc.

The most intimidating people to me are always those with seemingly perfect upbringings. People who were seriously invested in, intimidate me because they have so much going for them. It's not a jealousy thing so much as an inferiority complex.

Somehow--and I don't quite understand it--our self-esteem suffers for a lifetime when our parents make dysfunctional choices during our upbringings and beyond. I guess our minds think...if someone was invested in, then they must be worthwhile, right? If we, in contrast, weren't invested in enough, our minds assume we weren't worthy of anyone's time or heart. 

It's all subconscious thinking, however, so it's hard to combat.

We usually manage to forgive our parents or guardians, if necessary, sometime in our thirties, but this doesn't mean their past and present choices cease to hurt us.

In our thirties we usually have children of our own; we have an inkling about how hard parenting is. Aware of our own mistakes, we're more capable of forgiving our parents' mistakes. We may know what perfect parenting sounds like and looks like, but in our humanness, we can't achieve it. We never will.

So our love for our own imperfect parents becomes a sacrificial love...a forgiving love. We love them not because they deserve it, but because Jesus loved us when we didn't deserve it. We love them in Jesus' name.

I'm not fond of my dad. I hate his dysfunction, which even at the age of 74, persists. But when he came today, frail and slow-moving because of a past stroke and kidneys working at just under 30%, I had to forgive him, even as he failed to love my children right before my eyes. When the old get older and weaker, we manage a deeper layer of forgiveness as we witness their decline.

When parents can't love as we wish, we can do little about it, except what Jesus does with our imperfect love for Him. He keeps on forgiving, keeps on loving, with no reciprocal promise.

Tonight, I hope all of us with familial pain and disappointment choose love. The best way to redeem the past is to love more. Dysfunction comes from too little love, too little sacrifice, too little forgiveness.

We can do better for our own children, burying for good dysfunctional patterns of old in our family line--not achieving perfection, but progress. For example, we can stay married, despite the trying times. We can be sacrificial and choose not what we want, but what will bless. 

Reminder to self: You want to build a legacy of love, so live like it.

~ Every day, choose love. It is a choice.

~ Every day, ask for the Lord's counsel and comfort, knowing earthly love, from anyone, is not enough.

~ Every day, say no to your desires and yes to your children's hearts.

~ Every day, look upon your mate graciously, remembering that when you choose to love him, you are also loving your children, who need him and want him, and need you to love him.

~ Every day, speak to your children of their Heavenly Father's love--always perfect, always enough.

~ Every day, get on your knees, praying your children's way through, and your way through.

~ Every day, pick yourself up when you fail and get back on the horse, because tomorrow is a new day.

A new chance to say yes to love, and yes to a godly legacy.

God's Adventurer

I'm 42 pages into another missionary book, called God's Adventurer, about Hudson Taylor, missionary to China.

I have the Sonlight Homeschool program to thank for my new interest in missionary books. We bought several this year as part of the Eastern Hemisphere studies, and I picked up a few more from the prolific Benge series, Christian Heroes Then and Now.

Each new missionary book tugs at my heart a little more, pulling me into a place of deeper faith and greater reliance on God. This deeper faith swirls in my heart, eager to be set free, compelling me to ask, "What can I do for you, God? How can I grow your Kingdom?"

It's confusing, this stirring within me. Most missionaries either have missionary college degrees, or some other strong recommendation or training. I only have my faith to offer, and my imperfect love.

On a spiritual gifts inventory 10 years ago, faith was one of my top five gifts, but an inventory last summer revealed that on faith I got the highest score possible for any single gift. What does this mean, and what can I do for God?

In the current book, God's Adventurer, about Hudson Taylor, an entire chapter was devoted to how this young man tested God in the months before leaving for China. Hudson wanted to learn to rely entirely on God for everything, so he refused to accept any start money from his parents, or from the missionary organization he signed with.

There were several instances covered in the first chapter in which Hudson found himself in dire straights financially, and once with his health. He prayed each time, knowing God would provide.

He was required to obtain medical training before leaving for China, and during the training period he lived quite poorly, physically speaking. Once he gave an entire half crown piece to a family who was starving, even though it was the only money Hudson had, and back at his rented room, he had only enough oatmeal for two more meals, after which he would be destitute and starving himself.

He found it very hard to give up the coin from his pocket. Several times he wished it could be split up, giving some to the starving family, and keeping some for himself, to last until his physician's assistant payday.

But God didn't give him any other option; he had to give it all.

As soon as it was out of pocket, young Hudson felt joyous and free. While fingering it over and over in his pocket, he'd felt wretched, in contrast.

In a euphoric state of mind, he walked back to his room, marveling at how wonderful it feels to depend on God for everything.

Still, waking the next morning and eating his second to last meal? It was hard. He knew that if God didn't provide by the end of the day, he would go hungry the next day.

Once again, he prayed with faith.

In the middle of his oatmeal, the landlady brought him a letter, surprising him, because he never got mail on Mondays. He opened it and a coin dropped on his table, enough to last him until payday. He had no idea who it was from, so he rightly assumed God sent it.

I can't wait to finish this book. I can't wait to marvel at the creative, seemingly impossible ways God provides. He worked another miracle in our own lives just today--one that will grow my children's faith, particularly. The more we pray and rely on him for every single thing, the more he delivers, along with new challenges to grow our faith.

The coin in Hudson Taylor's pocket, the one he fingered nervously for so long, was a symbol for every Christian. The minute we give up what we think we desperately need, spiritual blessings flow. The "coin" is different for every Christian, but in truth we all hold something back from God.

Tight-fisted, we limit what God can and will do, for us and through us.

He wants to free us. He wants us to walk in joy, but first we must open our hands and let go.