not alone...never alone

At least once a day I have a sudden thought about someone I know, or about a current event, such as the situation in Haiti.  Sometimes it will regard a known issue, such as a friend's job hunt.  Other times it will merely be the person's name.  I pray in response, even if it's only a sentence-long prayer.

Afterward, I think to myself, "That was a really sudden thought.  I wonder if God himself prompted me to pray?"

Rarely is there ever confirmation that, yes, it was God.

Today such confirmation came.

First, a little lead up as to how the day went in general.

The baby has been working on four first-year molars for what seems like weeks.  Mostly, she's been a brave, happy soul, although not the best sleeper.

Today was different.  She whined plenty.  I would try holding her, only to find she didn't want to be touched. I offered her cold water or a teether, which she threw down in defiance.  I tried a gratuitous nursing, only to wince at her annoyed bite ( the suction involved in nursing can aggravate the pain).

It was a long, stressful day.  There wasn't much time to think.

When Beth nursed at naptime, I lay there on the bed with her, exhausted and grateful for a breather. When tired, she always nurses.  My unsaved parents generally come to mind as soon as the two of us get settled, and I pray for them and for my siblings (also unsaved).

Today, right after praying for my family, a blogger friend's name popped into my head, with the thought:  Here is a person having a harder day than me.

My friend is working as a social worker in a new job, much needed by her family.  Her husband lost his job two years ago.  Now in his fifties, he decided to go back to college in response to the depressed job market.  It has been a long, painful road for them, but God has been faithful.  She is a talented writer who loves the craft and would like nothing more than to write for a living, as well as for pleasure and for the glory of God. Her landing a job seemed like a miracle, but a bittersweet one.  Social work is terribly exhausting, leaving her few creative hours in the evenings.  So when her name popped into my head, I knew it had to do with her very difficult job, and her dreams, which some days seem long lost.  I prayed.

Then, after the kids were in bed tonight and I had time to check some blogs, I found her post.  Please read it.  It will encourage you today, and remind you that God never asks us to do anything alone.  I am so blessed right now.

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  Psalm 23  (Scripture from biblegateway.com, click on blue)

  A psalm of David.

   ¹ The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. ² He makes me lie down in green pastures,
         he leads me beside quiet waters,
   ³ he restores my soul.
         He guides me in paths of righteousness
         for his name's sake.
   ⁴ Even though I walk
         through the valley of the shadow of death, ^[a]
         I will fear no evil,
         for you are with me;
         your rod and your staff,
         they comfort me.
   ⁵ You prepare a table before me
         in the presence of my enemies.
         You anoint my head with oil;
         my cup overflows.
   ⁶ Surely goodness and love will follow me
         all the days of my life,
         and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
         forever.

humbling

Delight in your children.  That is the answer, for the Christian parent.

I read a post the other day exhorting me in this matter.

I love my children with an indescribable depth.  It's so deep it hurts.

And yet.

Tonight, I flew solo.  Daddy left for work at 4:00 p.m. rather than 9:00 p.m., which is a huge difference in terms of my sanity.  It's not bad when we know ahead of time; we plan for it--completing showers and baths early and prepping the main dish early, leaving me with minimal cooking followed by teethbrushing, storytime and prayer.

This being a last minute change, we did nothing ahead of time.  In addition, I left for a hair perm appt. late morning, which kept me away three hours.  I arrived home to find messy rooms, a cluttered dining-room table, and a dish-and-crumb-cluttered kitchen.  The laundry had gone no where, and the boys hadn't done their reading.  My nerves rattled within ten minutes of accessing the situation.

It never pays to leave the house, people.  The more kids you have, the more you need stay home.  This isn't a negative, necessarily.

What's more, all the children missed me and wanted my attention--especially the girls.  I'm rarely ever gone more than ninety minutes (grocery runs), so three hours felt like an eternity to all of us.  I missed them as well.

But because the afternoon and evening turned into a herculean challenge, I failed to delight in them.  The baby and three year old were both whiny, which always sends me into fits of guilt and stress.  Baby cries are a sound I find intolerable, possibly because I'm a nursing mom.  Baby cries, offer the breast.  It's a knee-jerk reaction, but when they get older and desire the breast less, you have to find new tricks.  And when you're cooking, it's nearly impossible to entertain an active baby.  Go ahead and run your fingernails across a chalkboard.  That's how it feels to me to hear a baby crying, and be powerless to act immediately.

My eight year old wanted to help with the Italian-sausage spaghetti sauce and pasta shells.  While I did let him, I was only pleasant in spurts.  His chatty presence made me more nervous, as it blended with the whiny sounds coming from the playroom, where I had gated up the girls.  I've tried many times to cook with them on the loose, but keeping them out of trouble while attending to meal prep consistently ends in futility, without Daddy around to run interference.  The boys try to keep their sisters entertained, but their help isn't what you'd call mature help.  Just yet.

My intense frustration is this.  There's nothing I want more than to succeed at loving my children.  I try hard.  Much energy is expended in looking for solutions and answers to the various challenges.  I want them to grow up, look back, and feel that I delighted in them and pointed them to Jesus.   That's all I want from this life.  That one thing.  Everything else would be a bonus.

I really agree that delighting in them is the key.

Then why, oh why, do I find it so hard sometimes?  Why do I get so nervous so easily?  What a horrible trait!

I read this post after they all went to bed.  It's a message I hear from God on a regular basis.  Essentially, it's this:

You don't have to try.  I already did the work.  Stop your treadmill-style effort, and delight in ME!  I am your answer.

In the last year, I've come to realize that my insane trying is actually sin.  Working out my salvation is sin.  What's behind it, really?

Dare I say it?  I'm ashamed--but here goes.

I think we try so hard because we want the credit.  We don't really want the glory to go to God.

But as Sandi said in her beautiful post, it isn't supposed to be about us.  It must be about him, and his glory, always.

My weakness isn't about me and where I fall short.

It's about Him and all His glory.

His surpassing great power is shown through my inability to do it on my own.

I need Him on every level and that is good for me and pleasing to Him.

Why do I fight it so? This stubborn nature of mine, thinking I need to have it together. It is the lie of this age...To do it all, well, and all the time.

Our limits are our friends not the enemy.

They escort us to the One who has no lack.

above excerpt from: A Mother's Musings (Morning Meditation)

Tomorrow morning during devotions, I will explain the futility of our efforts to the boys.  It's not enough to just apologize to them for snappy behavior.  They need to know why I continue to struggle with nervousness and impatience, and why they continue to struggle with their own faults.  They might not comprehend all of it, but I can gauge where they're at in their understanding of grace, by starting the conversation. 

to be willing

I'm crafting a letter to my husband's classmate regarding the teenage pregnancy situation.  Honestly, I don't think any offer of help from us will be seriously considered.  Sheer obedience keeps me writing and rewriting the piece.  Part of me fears we'll be laughed at, or deemed crazy religious freaks (even though I haven't written anything spiritual, or controversial).

Many American families want to adopt--some of whom are wealthy and desperate to become parents.  They could offer to pay for medical treatment and other expenses, and we'll barely be able to afford diapers and formula.  (Could I take some hormone, and manage to nurse an adopted or foster baby?  I've heard of such things.)

Anyhow, after reading that my husband is working only part-time and attending school, the teenager and her mother are likely to think they could do better themselves.  And they probably could, financially speaking.

 If I'd been leaning on my own understanding, I would have quit after the first paragraph.  But somehow, I can't quit.  The thing must get written, and delivered to this girl-mom, and her mom.

I've thought of various reasons God might have for pushing me to get this done, such as:  The letter might arrive just as they are getting ready to go to an abortion clinic.  They might go back in the house, and rethink that.

Other little scenarios swirl around my head, but I'll spare you the details.

There's little time in my life right now to devote to anyone outside my family.

That statement makes sense, but I know it's true only when I'm the keeper of time.

Who should order our days--keep the time--really?

Not us.  HE who created time, should control every second, hour, minute.  Our greatest challenge as mothers is to make sure we're not ordering our own days.  As much as we like being in charge, it dilutes his impact and his message--for us, and for our children.  We end up less blessed, less peaceful, less effective, less loving.

So, yes, I do have time to get involved, if he wants it.  I do have time to disciple this fourteen-year-old girl, and teach her how to be a mother.  I would love to nurture her child, while she, a girl-mom, grows into adulthood.  An adoption situation would take her parental rights away, possibly leaving her with life-long regret. I want her to experience life-long gratitude for the gift of motherhood.

Mothers would universally agree that all children are blessings--whether conceived too young or too old, whether enjoyed in our midst for five minutes, or for sixty years.  Even conception itself is a blessing, whether our baby makes it to our arms or not.  Teenagers cannot fathom these things.  But those of us who hold these truths in our hearts can teach them, before it's too late.  Before a young momma or a young daddy make decisions--or have decisions made for them--that will bring sorrow forevermore.

I want to see God take a tragic situation, and make it beautiful.  I want him to move mountains.

I want to be an instrument.  How...I don't know.  To tell you the truth, I'm afraid of teenagers.  I was a very careful, dutiful teenager, never getting into trouble.  I'd be out of my league with a mainstream teenager in my midst.

But life is messy, I tell myself, regarding these fears.  To shield ourselves from another's messy pain, is to live a sterile, useless life.

I'm learning, through the challenges of motherhood, to embrace mess.  What comes out of orderliness, really?  It's too sterile.  To untouched.  Too fleeting--like the kitchen floor that never stays clean.

I'm not advocating the cessation of mopping--just that we throw out the notion that we've had a successful day if we've cleaned enough.  Better to think...we've had a successful day if we've paused enough, and invested ourselves in our children...in our unreached acquaintances.

After I became a Christian (age 31), I remember thinking, "I wish someone had invested a little bit of time in me, so that I could have known God earlier."

I recognize this as an ungrateful thought.  God did send people, but not until my late twenties.  Maybe he knows I wouldn't have listened, or received, earlier than that?  I don't know.

I'm grateful he changed me at all!  I've no right to take issue with the Almighty God, about when he decided to wake me up.

But still, I don't want another person--this young girl--to feel that same thing one day.  I want to be willing to invest my time in her heart, in her life, if she'll have me--all without upsetting her mother.

Could I help homeschool her (she attends public school now)?  Teach her to nurse her baby?  Take her in, so she is protected from further harm, while her mother works graveyard?  Or do I just offer to care for the baby--and later adopt the baby, should they desire that?  Could I be a daily or periodic babysitter, easing the stress on the girl-mom and her single mother?  Can our home be a spiritual catalyst, as she visits her baby and finishes school?

So many details.  So many questions.

To be willing.

God wants that from me, right now.  Not answers, or know-how.

Just willingness.

camera drama

 

This represents the very last photo taken by our camera.  I took a picture of these cookie bars, and as I angled the camera just so to see if the photo was in focus, the camera dropped through my fingers, hitting the wood floor with a bang.  A rather disastrous bang, as it turned out.  The camera didn't recover.  

Before I get to the twist in the camera story, I wanted to tell you about the King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour I've been using in baked goods lately, including in these chocolate chip bars. It's an albino wheat with all the benefits of whole wheat, without the grainy taste.  No one around here detected any difference between this, and regular all-purpose white flour.  Although I liked the grainy taste of whole wheat flour in my baked goods, the kids didn't, and I feel good about serving them this alternative.  

Okay, back to the camera drama.  

About twenty-four hours prior to my mishap, husband talked about using some of the tax credit money to replace the camera (it's a sizable tax credit).  The flash had gone out several months after we received the camera as a baby gift in fall, 2008.  He wanted to get a better camera, and felt that such a purchase was bordering on a need, rather than a want, since the camera wasn't likely to work much longer.

He makes all the final financial decisions, while I only give input.  I rather like it that way, because God can blame husband when we mess up, and not me.  It just works for me.  Makes my life feel lighter, somehow, to not be culpable.  

Of course, I can't go around breaking cameras--especially not over chocolate chip cookie pictures. 

At the mention of a new camera, I reminded him initially that we needed to have as much cushion for the house payment as possible, since there still were so few jobs on the market.  We might really regret a camera purchase, in several months.

And I was serious.  I really thought it was a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad idea, to get a camera, when we had one that worked--albeit imperfectly.  

It just seems so strange that twenty-four hours later, I accidentally retire the camera. 

 I miss it horribly.  We took far too few pictures of the kids before being gifted the digital, and I've come to think of pictures as gifts--for our children and grandchildren.

The way it happened is just plain weird.  It's the sort of thing that makes me wonder what God is up to. A little too coincidental.  I've never dropped this camera before.

What was God trying to show me...or tell me?  Was I in fear of the future too much?  Not trusting God in regards to making timely house payments?  Or in regards to providing a job, despite a poor economy?

Maybe none of it's related.  I'm probably grasping too far, to process an everyday mishap

Anyway.  Husband is still planning on buying another camera.

And now, I'm happy about it.

And he's happy that I'm happy about it.  Because now, if we lose the house, it will seem like both our faults that we so foolishly spent money on a new camera.

Togetherness.  Out on the curb.  No roof over our heads, but a brand-new digital camera in our suitcase. 

That's wisdom folly to live by, wouldn't you say? 

My recommendation?

Don't try this at home.

a miracle?

Recently, I stated that my husband wouldn't adopt a baby unless God himself put the baby into husband's arms.

Well.

My heart is all a flutter.

Monday, husband came home from school, telling me that his classmate's fifteen-year-old son impregnated his fourteen-year-old girlfriend, while her mother worked the graveyard shift.

Several weeks prior to this, husband told me that classmate confided his son had been staying part of the night at his girlfriend's house.  He grounded him, and forbade a recurrence.  But he works a late shift as well, and is a single dad, due to his wife's cancer death.

The young girl is two months along, so I suppose the baby was already conceived at that point.  Her mother, by the way,  is a single mother.  Perhaps there wasn't any extended family to stay with her daughter at night, while she worked the graveyard shift.

It isn't known what the young girl and her mother will do.  Husband's classmate (baby's grandfather) hopes an abortion won't take place.

So do we.

It's none of our business.  Of course.

But, I did walk into our bedroom yesterday morning, while husband was studying for today's important exam.  Words spilled out, quite without thinking.  Heart spoke for me.

"Tell John I would gladly adopt that baby.  If we tell him soon, maybe an abortion won't be talked about.  If she doesn't want adoption, we can provide foster care indefinitely."

"Honey, we wouldn't qualify for either.  We are below the poverty level, and financial stability is a requirement."

I was dumbfounded at his ready answer.

"You mean.....you would consider it?  I thought you said you couldn't take another baby?"

"I don't want another baby.  But I don't want them to have an abortion either.  I would do it to save a life."

My friends, I could tell my husband had already given this some thought, on his own.

There is hope for my baby-loving, child-rearing heart, Friends.

There is hope!

I don't know details.  Details involved would be huge.  Yes, huge. Complicated.

And worrisome.  A young girl of fourteen or fifteen would be at very high risk for preeclampsia.  The baby could be born very early.

Husband said he would get me in contact with his classmate.

Heart is a flutter.  Don't know what to say.

God will give words.  Prepare hearts.