resting and drinking

Galatians 5:22
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

After six weeks of wellness, a cold virus attacked--just in time for the homeschooler Valentine party occurring on the 10th.  Little hearts here ache to attend, especially since illness hit last Christmas as well, causing us to miss that party.

"Bedrest and fluids!  You have to do them if you want to go!" we implore.

While we could take them sick, it wouldn't teach sacrificial love toward others--instead it would teach selfishness.  I grant you it's different when the outing is mandatory, like public school or a job.  But a party?  Different rules.  We can't skip life for half the winter, but during the worst of the coughing, sneezing and drainage, I try to keep them confined.

It takes so much self-control for them to rest and drink!  And similarly, it takes self-control for us to remain firm but compassionate throughout.  After all, we're over-tired, sick and miserable ourselves, during these outbreaks.

I used to dread waves of illness and felt cursed by them.

But suddenly, I see opportunity!

They present a key time for parents to display the spiritual fruit spoken of in Galatians 5:22.  Children won't remember specific illnesses, but they'll remember the extra love--making it second nature for them to behave similarly when people are in need.

God wants us to display the fruits of the spirit each and every day, of course.  But in times of trial, even more so.  It's more of a testimony of God's grace.

rescued

Paul's brunch prayer:

Dear Lord,


Thank you for my family.  Thank you for all you provide.  Thank you for everything in the world.  Thank you for the food.  Thank you for the little bit of money.  Thank you for the sunshine.  May we get more money.


Amen.

Oh, how I needed this prayer--funny though it was!  The baby woke me early after a rough night of molar teething.  I foolishly went to bed at 1:30 a.m., even while anticipating a poor night of sleep.  Anyhow, I did three hours of housework, which has become my standard routine--starting school at 9:00 or 10:00 a.m., after doing laundry and floors and decluttering from the day before.  The children play, color, read books, watch a library video, or do crafts during this time.  Daddy is usually sleeping in due to late nights of working and studying.  The baby stays happily engaged with her siblings.

Peter is off any ADHD medicine, so at times he talks incessantly, not having any social sense about giving people space.  After two solid hours of him following me around, talking non-stop, asking questions, it was all I could do to avoid primal screaming.  In my mind, I begged the Lord to release me from a very bad mood.

And then the Lord gave Paul this brunch prayer.  And my heart?  It melted and I discreetly wept my thankfulness.

Bad mood gone.  Gratitude back.  Heart repentant.

He is SO faithful!

swing dance their hearts

My sentiments exactly!  That's a bag of Hershey's milk chocolate chips, by the way.  Tough week around here.  Chocolate required.

Yes, we're silly.  Four rambunctious kids can do that to you--in cold, snowy weather, with no cable TV.   When this little guy was a baby, he was just as pale as pictured here.  The pediatrician held him up at the sixth month appointment and said, "Wow!  Turn down the lights!  You're bright white!"

The three sillies.

I believe this is the first two-story Lincoln Log building I've seen Peter build.  Don't let these pictures fool you, though.  They aren't using their toys more since we shut off the cable.  They're dancing more, roughhousing more, and just generally moving around in fast mode a lot more.  And the groundhog saw his shadow, I believe?  This may be the beginning of the end of my sanity.  Stay tuned.

We took a swing dance class before we were married--put together by our church singles group. My honey has two left feet and loves dancing far less than me, but someday, I want to try again.  Dancing is good for the soul.  

Today the children found our swing dance CD and started their regular frenzied joy dancing.  Daddy was studying, but stopped to teach them some swing steps.  "Mommy can do this a lot better, but I'll show you some steps."  (Actually, that dance class seems like a century ago.  I don't remember a thing!)  Daddy swung them over his shoulder and spun them around, eliciting such delight.

We rarely have time to be a couple.  We've not been without the children since last June, in fact.  And that was only for ninety minutes.  We're short on romantic love in this season, but long on steadfast love--the kind requiring endless doses of grace and mercy.  When he delights the children in this way, I couldn't love him more.    I'll tell him that tomorrow.  After these dancing moments today, the day sped by--leaving no time for conversation.  He's at work most nights.

 

Wow.  I wish he would do that to me.

ring around.....

Baby Beth does the funniest thing when I make a deep-voiced cow moooooo.

She immediately leaves the book and comes at me laughing nervously, as though my voiced scared her.  She  loves my "quack quack" and my "cock a doodle doo".  But my mooo?  Scary.

Ring around the rosey

Pocketful of posey

Ashes, ashes

We all fall down!

When the children feel sassy,

And the mess is out of hand,

And there's no chocolate,

And you just changed your tenth diaper,

And you're more focused on your list than your children.....

I highly recommend Ring Around the Rosey.

You'll end up in a heap of hugs and kisses,

And your day will take a sharp turn toward wonderful.

See if it ain't so.

Did you see Sally Clarkson's two recent posts on her personal blog, I Take Joy?  I can't wait to read her books.  She has such a heart for the Lord and for her children!  I find it precious.  I'm so glad we can find Titus 2 women on the Web. I certainly can't afford to go to any mom conferences, although I'd love to see Sally!

why have you forsaken me?

Remember when Jesus was in the garden, talking to his Father about the upcoming crucifixion?  

Luke 22:42 (King James Version)  "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done."

God didn't take the cup of suffering from Jesus.  He had to suffer.

During the suffering there was a time when Jesus bore the pain of punishment for all the sins of humanity.  This is a metaphysical suffering not described in the Gospels.  The theology is there though, in the Old Testament--specifically in Isaiah.

Source for these blue paragraphs:  gotquestions.org

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). This cry is a fulfillment of Psalm 22:1, one of many parallels between that psalm and the specific events of the crucifixion. It has been difficult to understand in what sense Jesus was “forsaken” by God. It is certain that God approved His work. It is certain that He was innocent. He had done nothing to forfeit the favor of God. As His own Son - holy, harmless, undefiled, and obedient - God still loved Him. In none of these senses could God have forsaken Him.


However, Isaiah tells us that “he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows; that he was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities; that the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him; that by his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4-5). He redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). He was made a sin-offering, and He died in our place, on our account, that He might bring us near to God. It was this, doubtless, which caused His intense sufferings. It was the manifestation of God’s hatred of sin, in some way which He has not explained, that Jesus experienced in that terrible hour. It was suffering endured by Him that was due to us, and suffering by which, and by which alone, we can be saved from eternal death.


In those awful moments, Jesus was expressing His feelings of abandonment as God placed the sins of the world on Him – and because of that had to “turn away” from Jesus. As Jesus was feeling that weight of sin, He was experiencing separation from God for the only time in all of eternity. It was at this time that 2 Corinthians 5:21 occurred, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus became sin for us, so He felt the loneliness and abandonment that sin always produces, except that in His case, it was not His sin – it was ours.

Have you ever suffered and wondered in the midst of it why God wasn't more merciful to you?  Why you just couldn't feel him at times?

I have.

Just before Thanksgiving 2000, I lay in a labor-ward hospital bed.  Women filled many rooms, ready to give birth.  Loud fetal heartbeat monitors dutifully advertised life sounds.   

I was there to deliver a baby boy who passed away sometime between pregnancy weeks 19 and 21.  They induced and I waited, listening--the sound of heartbeats overwhelming me.


A kind Christian nurse said to me, upon learning we were people of faith:

"I'm sure your faith helps you with this, doesn't it?"

"Well, you would think so.  But it isn't.   I just want to die, to tell you the truth.  The horror seems overwhelming."

I didn't speak out of contrariness or melodrama.  I spoke the truth.  God seemed absent, in the midst of searing pain.

Fast forward a few years. 

Healing occurred.   We arrived at the "other" side.

Recent events illuminated again for me why we suffer so intensely. Back in December I heard that my California school principal's daughter-in-law suffered a long, scary pregnancy.  Many specialists came together, discussing devastating scenarios. 

A plan came together.  A C section would occur on January 29, and the baby would reside in NICU indefinitely in Los Angeles--two hours from their home. They would stay at a Ronald McDonald house across from the hospital.

As soon as I heard about the difficulty, I prayed.  And kept praying.  I never got so busy that I forgot.  I knew God might heal the baby.  The whole scary pregnancy might have a miraculous outcome--a perfect baby with a perfect little heart.

Or maybe not. 

I waited until January 30th and then e-mailed my contact person to see how the birth went.

The baby, a beautiful girl named Hope, did not make it.  Her enlarged heart didn't allow her lungs to work properly.  I don't know all the details.

What I do know is this.  A post-operative mother lies in a hospital bed--her milk probably in by now--and she has no. baby. to. suckle.  Absolutely devastated, she marvels at the uselessness of her faith.  She feels like dying.  She just can't believe the intensity of sorrow.  The groaning of her soul.

Each time her breasts hurt from the overflow of milk, she feels the cruelty of her situation.

Now on a different note:  Several weeks ago I read a blog post about a young mother of three diagnosed with advanced breast cancer--her latest infant not even a year old.  This mother would undergo surgery and a year of chemo.  The post was very upsetting, and I've prayed for her since reading it. 

But I've forgotten on some days.  How could I forget a need so urgent, I wondered sometimes. 

Because I know nothing of her suffering.  I haven't lived it. 

Yet, I do know of this other mother's suffering, and believe me, I won't be forgetting to pray for her in this next year.  My mind will turn to her and to her suffering often.

God doesn't take the cup from us.  We feel all of it.  And it's intense...terrible.  Surprisingly terrible.

Why? 

God says I will never leave you or forsake you.  So why the intensity of pain?  Isn't the intensity itself, a forsaking of us?

It is in a sense, for a short season.  The intensity helps us to remember.  It equips us to comfort another fellow sufferer, in their hour of need.  To bare some of their pain.  To pray.  To offer ourselves.  To be the face of mercy--the face of God the Comforter.  To know.  To really know the pain.

God doesn't come down in the flesh every time our souls groan.  But he does come down....

...through the faithful.