Schooling vs. Education

 Tom started school. The schoolmaster, Mr. Engle, had a terrible temper. He didn't like children very much. Most of all, he didn't like Tom Edison, who asked so many questions.

One day Mr. Engle lost his temper. "Tom Edison", he thundered, "all you do is ask silly questions. There is nothing I can do with you--your brains are addled!"

When Mrs. Edison heard what the schoolmaster said, she was angry. Addled! Weak in the head! Her son was not addled. But she could not say as much for Mr. Engle!

Mrs. Edison took Tom out of school. She would teach him herself. Tom never went back to school. In all his life, Thomas Edison spent only three months in school.

Tom Edison didn't go to school, but he was a great reader. He read all kinds of books. When Tom was nine he read a science book. It told about chemicals and carbons and electricity. Electricity. How Tom loved that word. This book changed Tom's life. He decided to become an inventor.

Excerpt from The Story of Thomas Alva Edison Inventor, pps. 13-14, by Margaret Davidson.

When Thomas Edison reached 12 years old, he needed money for his science books and experiments. He went to work on a train, leaving his home in Port Huron every morning at seven o'clock. He sold newspapers on the Detroit express, along with molasses candy, apples, sandwiches, and peanuts. He made money, but not enough for his books and experiments.

What could he do to earn more money? Tom thought about this for some time. Then he had an idea. He would put out his own newspaper. He would write it, and print it, and sell it.

But where could he work? There was plenty of room in the baggage car on the train. Tom bought an old printing press and put it in the baggage car. And he started to work--writing, printing, and selling copies of his own newspaper, The Weekly Herald. 

Tom didn't spell very well. Sometimes he forgot to put periods at the end of his sentences. So they ran on and on and on. But people bought his newspaper. They liked the stories in The Weekly Herald. And Tom's spelling made them laugh.

Excerpt from The Story of Thomas Alva Edison Inventor, pg.16, by Margaret Davidson.

We read this Thomas Edison biography in our homeschool this week. The book is short, simplistic, and written for a younger audience than my boys' current ages. It expounds on Edison's questioning nature, his hard work, and his pioneering technology, but it speaks nothing of his heart. Perhaps Sonlight chose it merely to inspire students to believe in themselves, to work hard, and to think outside the box? 

Finding the book lacking, I read more extensively on my own this week and found that Thomas Edison was a practical atheist, and in some respects he was mean-spirited. Now I see why Sonlight chose such a simplistic book to portray him. They didn't want to leave him out of the historical survey, but they also didn't want children to admire some of the more selfish, unbalanced aspects of his life and heart.

Thomas Edison offered George Washington Carver, God's Scientist, $100,000 dollars a year to come invent with him. "Together, we will change the world," said Edison. One of Edison's fancy-suited assistants went down to the university and presented Professor Carver with the proposal. 

But Carver? He was a man after God's own heart, and I think he knew Edison wasn't. Also, God had plans for Carver to continue to bless his people through crop education. Carver fought poverty and gave glory to God by teaching the South--and the rest of the world--how to cultivate food. 

Edison? He fought for patents and became a very rich man. Carver made $3,500 a year as a professor, and he didn't even cash most of his checks. He had no use for money, he said; God provided everything he needed for free.

Henry Ford, the motor-vehicle inventor, was a friend to both men. I am curious to know how Henry felt about the Lord? He befriended a fellow inventor who gave God the glory for everything, and another who thought mostly of himself. What did Henry Ford make of these men? I want to know more.... 

Simple though it was, this Thomas Edison biography spoke to me as a homeschooling mother. 

I'm so grateful to be educating at home. 

Staying home to disciple and educate my children is worth every feminine skirt I can't buy, every fancy dish I'll never own, every trip to Washington D.C. we'll never take, every hair cut I won't get, every clean and stylish throw rug our floors won't see. 

God has taught me value...true worth. My children are free to live and laugh and think outside the box. They don't have to conform to what an overly-busy teacher--concerned about test scores--expects from them six hours a day. They have many hours a week to spend reading and interfacing with ideas. They have time to experiment, to invent, to play. 

This week alone they invented a new card game, a boat that floats, and they thought outside the box to use their toys in new ways.

They pretended to be real train operators on the playroom couch, marking their destinations on a US map they drew up. They announced each city stop as they pulled up to the "station". 

My Peter still doesn't begin all his sentences with capital letters--yes, he knows the rules--and although his spelling is improving greatly, it isn't entirely conventional yet. He can't print well without a dotted line. 

But he devours books and talks about his ideas. 

And he dreams. 

He dreams of soil experiments, of beautiful gardens, of the natural pesticides he'll invent. He dreams of crops and harvest time. He dreams of family working alongside him. He dreams of bouncing babies on his knees and reading the Bible to his family.

There's so much more to an education than the schooling. Just as cleanliness is not next to godliness, proper punctuation and instantaneous retrieval of multiplication facts are not the gold standard of a great intellect. If they have to think for five seconds, that's okay. If they always need another draft, that's okay.

Thomas Edison didn't spell well at age 12? Oh, well. Spelling proficiency isn't indicative of a sharp mind. By the end of high school most well-read children will spell well enough. I do spelling lessons most days of the week, but sometimes I don't know if my son is improving in spite of them, or because of them.

Thomas Edison's intellect and aspirations weren't limited to what a teacher thought of his skills, thank goodness.

He once wrote of his mother:

"My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint."

As homeschooling mothers we mustn't get distracted by skill acquisition. Skills are merely a means to an end. Our goal is a well-trained mind--one that first meditates on Him and on His Creation. The mind is a gift to be stretched--to be exercised by the meditation of ideas and the solving of problems. 

Educating our children should be about exposing them to all of God's gifts. For hasn't God given us what we need for fulfillment, both through relationship with Him and through Creation? In his graciousness, he's held nothing back.

Here are a few gifts to share with our children:

~ The gift of beauty in the natural world--flowers, trees, rivers, lakes, mountains, insects and other animals. 

~ The gifts of the arts and the written word--music, painting, sculpture, dance, novels, poetry.

~ The gift of natural resources for our basic needs and for ingenious invention.

~ The gift of patterns around us--in math, in art, in music. 

No, I don't admire Thomas Edison's heart, but I see how his mother did right by him. 

"My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me." 

• Teach them to go to the only source of Truth--to measure everything against God's standard.
• Believe in your child's potential.
• Set your gaze on what she can do.
• Don't be the anxious teacher, bent on checking off skill-mastery.
  
• Be the inspiration for a mind that's always stretching.
• Clear the calendar to allow time for nothing, which really means, give them time to invent and explore and play. A too-busy schedule is not the father of creativity, but the killer of it.
• Let them make messes.
• Let them fail and start again.
• Champion their God-sized dreams.
• Buy few toys and stick with classics. Pre-made toys, like commercial entertainment, can stunt the imagination.
• Teach them not to remember facts, but to acquire the tools of learning.
• Teach them to ask questions and find answers.
• Teach them that God has provided more than enough for their physical and spiritual fulfillment, and if they covet more, let it be more love in their hearts, not more things. The acquiring of things is a waste of the time God so graciously gives.
• Teach them that the world rarely chases what is good, and that God provides an abundance of good, all for free.
• Teach them that sin ruins and holiness blesses.
• Teach them that God's love never ends, that his faithfulness never wanes, that his comfort is ever-present...just a quiet time away.
• If traditional school crowds out the time you need to teach all these things, then follow Mrs. Edison's advice and think outside the box. Get rid of the school.

Ecclesiastes 7:12

For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.

Proverbs 9:10

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

Deuteronomy 11:19

You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

Romans 12:2

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Proverbs 4:13

Keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her, for she is your life.

Proverbs 16:16

How much better to get wisdom than gold! To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver.

More on what the Bible says about education here.

The Ordinary Life

“Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.”
- Tim Kizziar

Francis Chan quoted this in his book, Crazy Love. I thought about it as I shifted laundry, dictated paragraphs, loaded the dishwasher, swept the floor.

After reading biographies like these from our homeschool curriculum, the boys and I inflame with desire to make our lives matter. 

George Washington Carver and William Wilberforce are both famous because during slavery, and after, it took courageous, tenacious people to move our world forward. Fame never mattered to these men. Just justice and freedom for all--freedom from slavery, and then from poverty--so that everyone could have the opportunity to lead an ordinary life.

I don't know why some are chosen for greatness, and some for the ordinary, but I'm awfully thankful for the opportunity to be ordinary. Throughout history, it wasn't always this way; it wasn't always this easy to get up in the morning and live.

War and disease ravaged lives. Injustice pierced the heart here at home, not just abroad.

I am safe, well-fed, with shelter over my head and people around who love me and need me.

Sometimes I wonder if circumstance doesn't make an ordinary person great? Would these two men be in our history books if not for slavery? Or would Harriet Tubman, another giant? Are role models few now because life is too easy, stateside?

Most of my current role models do their work in the third world, like Katie living in Uganda, parenting 13 orphaned girls as her own and starting the Amazima ministry--all before the age of 22.  She went to Uganda as a teen hoping to enjoy a summer in ministry, and she never left.

And like Maureen, who runs a Kenyan non-profit for orphaned, abused, pregnant girls, and like Kristen, who founded the ministry and handles the planning and business part, stateside.

I am ordinary. Maybe you are too.

But God.

He has plans for our hearts...and the plans are anything but ordinary. When we truly follow him, trusting tomorrow to Him, the path is life-changing and bold. Even great.

Maybe it takes God, not history, to transform an ordinary person? 

Do ordinary people maintain the status quo? They go to church and put a twenty in the plate each week, making meals when someone has a baby or a surgery? But they stay in the driver seat of life, not giving Him the key? 

No person in history is as great as Jesus Christ, our Lord. Our God.

To live a great life, a radical life, we only have to do one thing. 

Wake up every morning and say to the Almighty Living God, the creator and author of the universe, "What will it be today, God?"

Before we can say this and mean it, we have to decrease so He can increase. That's become cliche, I know, but is there a better way to say it? 

Lay down your life. 

Give up what you want.

Give up your image--your desire to look good to others, either physically or through your deeds. Be willing to forgo that image for something humbler. The more you look like the next American woman, with her salon-manicured nails, her hundred-dollar hair job, her SUV, her spa membership and her busy schedule, the less you look like a Christ follower.

Don't be like everyone else. Everyone else is chasing the ordinary, and they don't even know it. 

Everyone loves themselves, and that's part of being ordinary: to love yourself more than you love God.

To live greatly, radically, we need heart change. We can raise a family, love and serve for the rest of our lives, and appear ordinary to the outside world. The Lord evaluates our life not on our accomplishments, but on how much heart change there's been. 

The giants I began with, George Washington Carver and William Wilberforce? 

They loved Him radically. They loved his Word. No, not from the beginning, but they trusted him and let their hearts be changed. As the Lord worked, their hearts fell more in love with Him and their lives reflected Him more. 

As I read, it struck me. These giants were really just shrimps. They bowed down to a great God. They bowed low. 

The Lord shined, not these men.

On my gravestone and on yours, let that be said of us. That we were just shrimps.


Writing about radical with Ann and friends.

The Blessing of Hospitality

John Frederick Lewis - Highland Hospitality, 1832

Three times after our guest left last night, and four times this morning, at least one of my children commented, "He's so nice, Mommy." 

"I can't believe how nice he is ."

And Peter offered this, "It's so nice to have a Christian visitor, isn't it Mommy?"

We have non-Christians over frequently and pray for them and try to be Christ to them, and that is nice. But nothing compares to fellowship with another Believer. When you share a love for Christ there is a special joy, a special peace, a happy energy. The time goes by so fast and when the inevitable goodbyes come, they're bittersweet.

Satan knows that alone, Christians are more vulnerable to his attacks. The Bible encourages us to fellowship and build one another up. We are strength for one another always--especially in difficult times.

In order to follow scriptural mandates for hospitality, we can't have our own agendas. He must rule our hearts and lives. We can't fill our lives with worldly fluff and still hope to have the time and resources to offer hospitality.

Oh, I know hospitality isn't easy, especially for busy moms whose children make messes on the quarter hour, daily. On my first spiritual gifts inventory, I scored lowest on hospitality and mercy and helps. My highs were knowledge, discernment, teaching, and faith.

Unbeknownst to me, God set to work on my lows and thankfully, they're climbing higher. I don't think my scores would be the same if the same test were given to me now, eleven years later.

Glory to God!

Hebrews 10:24-25 

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

1 Peter 4:9 

Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.

Acts 2:42They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Hebrews 3:13

But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.

I enjoy every church fellowship, but I have my four young children to look after and conversations must be short or not at all. Little people aren't prone to sitting still long, letting Mommy and that nice lady have a lengthy conversation.

When Christians come to my home, however, the pressure of looking after the children subsides for the most part. The children are fully part of the fellowship and I love it.

I encourage you, invite Christians over.

Last night our old California friend, D, came over for four hours. He married a couple years before we moved here, but neither of us cared for the match, believing the woman wasn't a strong Christian. She had been married twice and had three kids, so we didn't have much hope for the marriage. Moreover, D suffers from severe Bipolar Disorder which wasn't well-controlled at the time, and he didn't have full-time work.

The woman wasn't altogether truthful about the past, blaming her divorces solely on her two ex-husbands. To me that indicates an unteachable heart. Every married person is a sinner and every marriage problem is the result of sin, so even if a divorce filing isn't mutual, both people must go to God separately and ask Him to search their heart. Secondly, they need to acknowledge and confess sin and ask for forgiveness.

And sometimes, they are called to live the rest of their lives alone, depending on the circumstances. This is a devastating thing and these people need our love and fellowship, not our condemnation.

During the Christmas season, hearing they moved to Ohio, I looked up their names, hoping to find an Ohio address. I wasn't surprised to see D listed alone, in an apartment, but I hoped for the best as I sent out a Christmas picture and letter. When a reply came in the form of a Christmas card, it listed only D.

On the phone, D told my husband the woman remarried for the fourth time six months after their 2009 divorce. I knew I'd heard enough.

If you know a single person especially, whatever age, invite them over for dinner, or for lunch after church? They need fellowship badly, before depression or despair have time to set in. Fellowship and love help fight those emotions off and keep a single person's eyes on God, not on themselves. God designed Christian families, I believe, to fulfill a single's need for fellowship, to a large extent.

Singles' groups are okay, but pairing off frequently occurs and the goal becomes to meet and marry someone, more than to fellowship or grow in Christ. Courtship is better than dating and when the whole group stays together, these groups are a more positive thing. Group fellowship prevents physical attraction from taking over, reducing emotional intelligence.

The Biblical version of emotional intelligence is spiritual discernment. Discernment is a spiritual gift--not something everyone readily accesses.

I wish we could have helped this couple think through their decision to marry, since my husband is pretty discerning as well, but I was at the end of a complicated pregnancy when they became engaged, confined to bedrest and trying to watch over my twenty-month-old toddler. Also, I worked part-time as a homeschooling facilitator, mostly from home. My husband split his work day as much as he could, working early morning and evening, when our toddler son was asleep. We had no family anywhere in the state.

We were overwhelmed and thought the pastor counseling them could take care of the situation. But, what does a pastor know compared to a person's friends? Our friends are placed in our lives for a reason and they know much more about the flavor of our lives and hearts, than do pastors conducting meetings in their offices.

It takes bravery to tell someone what they may not want to hear, but twice now my husband and I felt we failed some friends in this regard. Over time, our commitment to serve others with our lives has gotten stronger, and I pray we'll make better choices from now on.

One side thought here as relates to hospitality: When offering fellowship to singles, there is one caveat--the same one I'd advise in the workplace and everywhere else. Avoid being alone with a person of the opposite sex, if you are married. And keep phone conversations with them short. Emotional bonding (too much sharing) is often the beginning of adultery.

Be a true blessing to a single person by keeping the fellowship pure and lovely, and whole-family oriented. Of course, avoid tight or otherwise immodest clothing when opening your home, both to avoid wrong thoughts in a man, and to encourage single and married women to also dress modestly.

Sometimes, things don't go as planned with hospitality. The strangest thing happened last night.

For dinner I served shepherd's pie, fresh fruit, and salad. The conversation was lively and fun, then suddenly, our guest held his hand up to his mouth, as though in pain. He excused himself and went to the bathroom.

He was gone for what seemed like an eternity. We all stared at each other, wondering what on earth...? My insecurity about being a hostess took over and I feared it was the food. Was there a hair in the meal? Did my 4 year old put a small toy in the salad or something? Were the mashed potatoes in the shepherd's pie lumpy and he liked them smooth?

What was it? And how could I ever apologize enough?

I began to regret the whole hospitality thing, thinking I was the absolute worst at it. After all, we use jars for drinking glasses and our dishes don't match, neither our flatware. I don't own nice tablecloths or anything fancy or expensive.

The offerings are humble, and though I know this doesn't matter to God, it suddenly began to bother me while our guest sought relief of some kind in the bathroom.

What was it?

Thank the Lord, it had nothing to do with my hospitality.

He bit his tongue pretty badly and it bled a lot and was quite painful for an hour or so. But still, he stayed until 9:00 PM and had a nice time. We sent some chocolate cake and more dinner along home with him, since he couldn't finish due to the bleeding and pain.

When I heard he bit his tongue, I was so relieved I almost cried. Yes, I'm sympathetic that way.

I noticed that his bipolar disorder seemed well-controlled now, and later that night I thought about his twitching eyes, a tic he didn't previously have, and I wondered if the tongue and cheek biting (which he told my husband about) weren't a strange side effect of a new medicine, along with the tic? Bipolar can often occur along with Tourette's Syndrome and OCD, just like ADHD can. Perhaps he had the tics before in a different form...I don't know.

Chronic neurological disorders are heart-wrenching, to say the least. I know God placed D in our home as a guest on purpose. We live this reality on a daily basis and we understand it with our whole hearts. My Peter's ADHD is well-controlled now, but the OCD and the Tourette's tics are not, much to our dismay. The new medicine incidentally helped the ADHD, but was given to him for the OCD. Full therapeutic affect is supposed to occur by the third month.

Two months in, we pray for the best, and we're thankful on an hourly basis for the ADHD improvement.

All this to say, I suppose, that God has a perfect plan for our lives, including with whom we will fellowship?

My Lord is so faithful and so compassionate. He amazes me every day. He truly, truly loves us.

There are so many parts to His beautiful, divine puzzle. How thorough he's been in loving us, how wise in guiding us. How it behooves us to trust Him!

Giving Thanks Today:

Thank you, Lord, for...

~ a guest for Peter to share his birthday hamster with. (D happens to like hamsters, too.) No asthma from the hamster this time for Peter.

~ a Christian husband to share triumphs and hardships with.

~ the cousin who fixed our slow drains.

~ four amazing children to warm my heart and home.

~ wisdom and comfort from the Word.

~ online friends.

~ Peter's improved spelling.

~ George Washington Carver, a wonderful Christian man who inspired us greatly as part of our homeschool. He was a botanist and professor who helped black farmers in the post civil-war era learn to diversify and rotate their crops, leading to successful peanut crops, cotton crops, and sweet potato crops--even in poor native soil. He helped rebuild and strengthen and revolutionize the southern farm economy, and he kept his people from starving as they sought to make it on their own after slavery. He also invented peanut butter and other things derived from peanuts and sweet potatoes. His work and research helped farmers all over the world, but most of all, his heart for God was amazing. I can't even type about him without tears. Every child should read about him, especially every Christian child--role models are few in these insanely worldly days.

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A Challenge for America

My mind grapples with a few things I've read over the last few days. The first quote came to my inbox:

Sometimes I wonder how you handle all of the problems that go along with not having enough money, having special-needs children, having migraines, etc. 

The second is a few paragraphs I read on Kristen Welsh's blog, We Are That Family. Her regular readers know that Maureen, the young director of Mercy House Kenya, is in America staying with Kristen's family in Texas while both women fulfill a few speaking commitments and work on their ministry together. Kristen writes:

How could I know seeing my life thru her lens would wreck me in a new way?
How do I explain why my country spends more on accessorizing pets in a year, than her entire country earns? She asks innocently without judgement, “Does your country know how we live in Kenya?” I don’t even have an answer. I’m just embarrassed.

Everything about my life is easy. From the laundry piles I whine about to the dinners I prepare, my life of comfort and convenience is the polar opposite to hers and millions of other. I know this. I have been to Kenya three times now and even as I prepare to go again in April, it’s startling to see my life thru her eyes.

It’s one thing to think about your life, comfort and convenience when you’re in the middle of extreme poverty. It’s hard not to. But it’s a whole different ball game when you bring someone from that background into your comfort and convenience.

She tells me more of her childhood story, so much that I can smell the sewage that ran in front of her family’s shack. I am moved with compassion at the suffering she endured. I ache for her family and her world and I long to wipe out the suffering of her people. “Don’t cry, Mom. Look how far God has brought me,” and she begins to name blessings. “Look at all I have,” she exclaims and spreads her arms out.

We are standing in my big, beautiful home and I quietly answer, tears falling now, “Look at all I have.” There is no comparison.

I see and feel and read about contrast all the time, and my mind keeps coming back to this thought: What is blessing, really?

Kristen is the privileged wife of a pharmaceutical rep with three physically- and mentally-healthy children. She pays her bills on time, lives in a big, beautiful, well-constructed house. She can afford well-made appliances and vacations and getaways. She can afford to give generously, and still live well. And God is using her.

Her life has changed considerably since her 2010 Compassion blogger trip to Kenya. She sponsors a lot more children, she gifts all the proceeds from her blog to her Mercy House ministry, and she works for free to organize and ship out Mercy House-made products that help fund their ministry, using a large trailer in her backyard as a warehouse/work place. She's had to endure the stress of running a non-profit agency without prior experience (learning all the tax laws, etc). The stress has been enormous and only God sustains her through it.

After these couple weeks with Maureen, Kristen probably wishes she could give all she has to the poor and live spiritually perfect, giving glory to God through it all.

But that's too hard. It's not in our human nature to live that sacrificially--placing oneself in a position of poverty. Human nature works to get out of poverty, not enter into it.

Maureen knows she's blessed. Americans? Do we know that? Can we know that, truly, while living privileged lives?

The question, what is true blessing, is answered by Kristen's angst right now. She feels more embarrassed than blessed. She feels the weight of inequality, more than the blessing of convenience.

She feels more than ever, I believe, the truth of this verse: Luke 12:48 From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.

In March 2010, after her first Kenyan trip, Kristen wrote this:

So. This week, I got up the nerve and asked God, “Why do you allow poverty, suffering, and injustice when You could do something about it.”

And He asked me the same question.

Kristen has spent nearly three years doing something about it, and she will continue to do more. As she said, "How could I know seeing my life thru her lens would wreck me in a new way?" God will use Kristen's faithfulness, her spiritual insight, to change not only Kenya, but America. As she does, she'll continue to grapple with how much of her personal wealth to give.

A couple C.S. Lewis quotes fit in well here:

I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusement, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little.

If our giving does not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say it is too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot because our commitment to giving excludes them.

And a few Bible quotes as well:

1 Timothy 6:9-11 People who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows. But you, Timothy, are a man of God; so run from all these evil things. Pursue righteousness and a godly life…


Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

We all have to grapple with this same question. How much do we give? In America we'll always have to fight hard against the love of money, for money brings convenience, comfort, recognition, power, status, health.

God gave the world enough. There is enough to go around and he's given us the responsibility of distributing it fairly. To whom much is given, much is required. How much can we keep, and still hold money loosely, believing it comes from God, not ourselves? I believe it's our sense of entitlement that causes us to keep too much for ourselves.

Are we entitled to anything, or is everything a gift?

I go back to the question in my inbox:

Sometimes I wonder how you handle all of the problems that go along with not having enough money, having special-needs children, having migraines, etc. 

My answer will resonate much with this person; I have to choose my words carefully. God has given an opportunity in this question, and after reading and contemplating and praying over quotes and verses that have come my way in these last few days, I think I will answer with some version of this:

Are we entitled to anything, or is everything a gift? I have come to believe that everything is gift. Hardship is gift. Health problems are gift. Not enough money is gift. Whatever pulls me away from this world, and brings me closer to God, is gift.

I realize I don't have to fight as hard as Kristen, and that's one of the reasons I admire her. God slowly took away money and convenience from me and added hardship, in order to bring me to a place of thankfulness. He took away my sense of entitlement, little by little. I look at the last five to seven years as a form of discipline. I was a Christian with access to the Bible and to Truth, but I wasn't getting it. I needed a huge nudge, and I'm forever grateful God didn't give up on me, but choose to work with me.

But from Kristen he hasn't taken anything away--except her ignorance about abject poverty--and she still understands. She is still thankful. She holds the things of this world loosely.

This is the commitment Kristen and Maureen have made together, and it's what Kristen challenges us all to do:

I want to live my life with one hand open to receive from God above and the other hand open to give it to others. I want to be a conduit, not holding anything too tightly, ready to open my hands to others, to give to those who can never give back.

 This is our commitment. This one thing will change your life. I dare you to try it.

 “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” -John Bunyan

Read her whole post here.

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Father of Mercies, God of all Comfort

Revelation 21:4and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away

2 Corinthians 1:3-4Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Today, January 24, is the birthday of precious Jonathan, Tesha's baby boy, stillborn one year ago. Late term losses are often discovered during routine exams, in which the parents are told, "I'm sorry, but there's no heartbeat." 

Inductions usually occur at the hospital labor ward, forcing the grieving mother to listen to loud baby monitors advertising healthy heartbeats. First cries and congratulations are also heard. Torture doesn't begin to describe the experience. My worst memories, the ones that bring tears immediately, thirteen years later, come from that hospital experience.

Today, many similar memories will flood Tesha's mind. Please pray for her?