Mommy's Charm School (for the Hyperactive and Exuberant)

I don't neglect my children's hearts. Can I just say that tonight?

Now the folding of laundry? Yes, neglected. The sweeping of the front porch? Neglected. Vacuuming the van? Neglected. Wiping of windows? Don't ask. It's been years for the outside windows, I'm ashamed to say.

Recently, I learned there's something else I've neglected.

My mother, visiting here for ten days but staying with her sister, said I have four spirited children. She thinks it will be difficult when they're all teens. (By the way, they've behaved well this week. Go figure.)

Then last Sunday my uncle referred to Beth and Paul as live wires. Paul, because he got exuberant while watching a football game at their house. And Beth because she likes to twirl around and jump like a ballerina, all for show. She's a ham that way.

Beth also likes to jump in your arms like a happy little frisky dog. She's very cuddly, just not subtle about getting the affection and attention.

I think I've told you I'm shy? That I don't like to make waves? That I'm so not outspoken? When someone says something about my children that I don't like, I seethe privately.

Spirited? Live wires?

Well, yes.

I have one child officially diagnosed with ADHD, but most mothers with this disorder in the house will attest that all her children exhibit some of the same characteristics, but perhaps not to the same debilitating extent.

Yes, they're all live wires. We burn our calories here, thank you very much. If we owned a treadmill it would be used by someone all the live long day.

I was mad, you know. Neither my uncle nor my mother meant any offense, but I took it and hid it (offense, that is).

Here I spend oodles of time on these children's hearts, and all I get in return is people telling me they're hyperactive?

Aren't they sweet and nice too, people, and don't they have clean language habits? We don't allow darn, dang, crap, or any other fake cuss word.

Aren't they friendly and engaging, rather than having their noses in some electronic thing?

Where can a mother get a little credit for her standards and hard work? I don't look for credit unless I get too much of the opposite.

I lamented to my husband for an hour one night, nearly in tears about these live wire-type comments. He was hurt by it too, and even wondered why God would give us four hyperactive children? It's exhausting, especially when they're all talking out of turn at the dinner table.

After about 36 hours I got over my anger and then I asked God for help. At least I said 36 hours and not 48. That's progress folks.

What can I do to make the world focus on their hearts, rather than on their wiggly bodies?

If I want people to see Jesus in them, I need to make their hyperactivity less distracting. I need to get the focus off the external, somehow.

God did help me, with a crazy, maybe-even-fun idea.

Mommy's charm school.

I've instituted charm-school rules and now, starting today at Save A Lot, they walk in lines. No running, twirling, jumping, skipping, hopping. No ballet moves, no football moves. No touching and hands at your sides. No weaving in and out of poles or chains or railings. No bounding up the stairs. No bounding at all, in fact.

I don't have a whistle like the father in The Sound Of Music, but I do have a secret signal to let them know they're exhibiting live-wire bodily movements.

Are you ready for it? Mommy's charm school warning signal?

The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plains.

You go Eliza Dolittle.

Why is Ann Shirley such an endearing heroine (Ann of Green Gables)? Because she's a live-wire with a huge, compassionate heart. She's equal parts stubborn and loving. She's three parts dreamy and one part practical. I love Ann Shirley but the world rolls their eyes at her type.

I love my children's exuberance, even if it exhausts me. They make their own fun and enjoy life without a dime to their names. They talk and shout and laugh and jump and twirl. They're alive in every sense of the word. That's something in this day and age.

But when we go out into the world as Christians, we have to let our hearts shine. Not our bodies or our clothes or our loud voices. Not our fancy cars or nails. Just our hearts, center stage.

Here's hoping Mommy's Charm School works to get the focus where it belongs.

A Prayer of Surrender

Dear Heavenly Father,

We love you. We thank you for the radical love that made you say, "yet not my will, but yours be done” as you faced suffering and humiliation on the cross. Help us to live each day with that same radical surrender and humility. We want to, Father, for your glory.

Thank you for the gift of motherhood, whether by birth or adoption. To be a mother, Father, is a rich existence. Could anything be sweeter? Could anything but you fulfill us more? Thank you also for marriage...how the depth of that love blows us away sometimes.

And you conceived it all, Father...both marriage and motherhood for our good pleasure and as a medium to refine our hearts. Help us to be clay in your hands as we mother and love. The selfless mothers are the best ones, Father, and we want to be that kind. The Jesus mothers. The ones who go out to the garden and pray "yet not my will, but yours be done.”

Whatever it is besides you, Lord, that we're clinging to, break the bond for us. Free us to love as radically as you do. May we regard our Bibles as daily manna without which we can't survive. May we regard prayer as our lifeblood, connecting to your Holy Spirit throughout the day. May we draw from your divine love as you enfold us in a holy embrace. Then, Father, from the overflow of that love may be serve and love others.

Help us to really see the connection between walking with you, and bringing you glory. If we don't walk in your footsteps to Calvery, we can't bring you glory. Full surrender is what we're after, Father. We want it with our whole hearts.

Satan whispers in our ear about this and that, trying to steal us away or discourage us about our God walk. Maybe one day it's that sylish dress, another day it's that lovely large garden or expensive scent. Maybe it's that couple over there who seem to have everything. Maybe it's that neighbor child with the near-perfect SAT scores, making us wonder if our child has enough smarts. Satan's rarely quiet and it's always something trying to steal away our contentedness and gratitude.

Mere distractions. Mirages. Help us to see through it, Lord. Distraction and discouragement are Satan's bullets. May we not fall, Father.

Make our lives matter for eternity, Lord? May we leave legacies behind that bring you glory. May our children rise up and call us blessed, knowing you're behind our radical love. May they see you clearly in our smile, in our embrace, and may they follow you, Father. Oh, to see our children in eternity, Father. How we long for that. Protect them from enemy lies; give them discernment. Call them children after your own heart.

We lay down our lives, Lord, without fear for tomorrow. Use us.

In Jesus' Name I pray, Amen

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Cross references:

1. Luke 22:42 : S Mt 20:22
2. Luke 22:42 : S Mt 26:39

Let Love Win

Regular readers may know by now that my 90-year-old father-in-law, a Florida resident, may come to live with us. He's fallen recently and is in a rehab center now, getting stronger daily in small leaps.

I speak to him on the phone daily to get to know him better and track his progress.

This probably seems strange, but although I've been married 14 years, I've seen my father-in-law only twice for short Florida visits--once in the year after we married, and again when my first child was 9 months old.

He doesn't care to fly or travel and we don't have travel funds. And for the last five years, up until Father's Day 2013, Luther gave all of us the silent treatment, not answering the phone, not reading our letters.

I think that phone call on Father's Day, from Luther to us, was an answer to our prayers and Part One of God's plan to help Luther finish well. Luther's fall two weeks ago was Part Two of God's redemption plan.

Some days Luther seems interested in living with us, and other days he leans toward a retirement home.

At any rate he knows the risk of falling again is too great to continue living alone. What will Luther ultimately choose?

What does God want? What is his divine plan for my father-in-law's last months or years on this earth? I wonder about this daily now. If we are actors and actresses following an already-written script (God's will) what is my next scene about...and what is Luther's about?

Certainly it would be hard both for him and for us if he lives here. The children are noisy and needy and the chores and tasks are many. My plate is already full. And Luther has lived alone some 40 years now, never remarrying after his wife died in a car accident when my husband was 16. How will he adjust to having housemates? Will he shout and bark at us to be quiet?

What happens when my ADHD son has a meltdown? Will Grandpa interfere? Will I get angry at him and him at me? Will he love my son unconditionally, or favor the other children?

Will Luther have picky meal requests on top of my children's pickiness? What will I make for dinner, pray tell? What if my pineapple-upside down cake tastes too sweet, compared to his wife's?

On the one hand it all seems so messy, but God has a purpose for every stage of our lives. He allows our bodies to give out gradually. In the 80's and 90's we lose our balance and fall frequently. We can't quite get to the bathroom in time and we feel so tired, needing daily naps.

Does all this deterioration happen for a reason--beyond just the sin curse?

Parents care for babies and young children despite the exhaustion and intensity, day and night. We all survive and hopefully our little ones stay out of trouble, if not thrive during these years.

Later, it reverses. Elderly parents need the same care from us that decades earlier they provided for us. Even down to the potty care, bath care, feeding care and settling them down for a nap.

Why this cycle? What is God's intention? After living separately for decades, suddenly parent and child are back together under one roof, sometimes with fear as to how it will turn out?

As I've talked to God about this, I think I'm hearing these words--redemption, amends, forgiveness, grace, mercy, gratitude.

Most of all, I think God wants Luther to finish well. The Lord began a work in Luther's heart years ago, but Luther was not always cooperative. He's stubborn as an ox, much like my sister-in-law and one of my own daughters (Mary).

As a father Luther was sharp-tongued and merciless with his children. As much as he could he ignored them, spending all his non-working hours in his garage, tinkering. My husband, his sister, and their mother walked around on egg shells, not knowing what would happen next with Luther's temper. There was frequent spanking, but probably not what we'd call abuse...emotional abuse, sure, but not physical.

In his defense I must add that Luther was raised by a mentally-challenged mother and no father at all. The circumstances of his birth and upbringing were tragic.

Now at age 90, as much as Luther may want the comfort and quiet of a retirement home, God may want him in the midst of family chaos and love.

God may want Luther to finally invest in someone's heart, despite the fear of failure. And similarly, the Lord may want someone to give Luther unconditional love, despite his rough edges. His wife and children despised him most of the time. Luther left his own mother when he was 16 to work and live on someone's farm, closer to the high school, and his mother disowned him for it.

Luther desperately needs a love he doesn't deserve. Like someone else I know? Like me? Like my husband and our children?

We are all the same...sinners in need of grace. We crave love above all. Love heals. Love redeems. Love changes the heart.

The Lord may want Luther to speak love into his children heart's for the first time, smoothing over past wounds. My husband can get in touch with the childhood pain easily, but he's forgiven his father. His sister hasn't.

The Lord may want all of us to swim in the pain of brokenness for a while, while he works to redeem the past and finish the work he began in Luther, while dealing with our sins at the same time. We may need to overlook a lot of harsh words, and Luther may need to overlook a lot of noise and chaos and messy family business.

Through it all each person sharing this roof will need to cling to the Father. Tightly. It will be, above all, a lesson in clinging to God. I've had lessons like that before--two miscarriages, job loss, three unpleasant medical diagnoses in my children. I look back on those trials without resentment, knowing that in those months I grew exponentially.

Please pray with me that Luther will finish well? That he will come to our home and live life messy with us? That he will let God redeem the past? That Luther would receive unconditional love here? That he would leave a strong legacy afterall, by the grace of a magnificent God?

Luther's is just one messy story in a sea of human brokenness. Every family, every descendant of Adam and Eve, has a messy story. The question is, what will we do with our messiness? 

Pray that in our home, and in yours, love wins...for the glory of God.

Psalm 66:10 You have tested us, O God; you have purified us like silver.

Pray Without Ceasing - It's Not Impossible

In this post I wrote about God's work in my life regarding the management of stress. Specifically, what God is teaching me is to pray first whenever a difficulty arrives, rather than responding with bodily stress that raises my blood pressure and changes my mood, all because I'm trying to deal with the difficulty in my own strength.

Over a full day these stress responses wear me out emotionally and keep me from mothering the way I want to, especially at the end of the day.

In response to that post, a reader wrote: "I have been working on praying first instead of stressing. I cannot believe all the testimonies I have experienced already! The only problem is I still struggle to do it. Why?":)

Well...I might have an answer to that. I've thought about it a lot these last couple weeks.

When I was nursing Beth I had an active prayer life (she nursed 4.5 years total). Three months after she was born my husband lost his job, bringing a great deal of stress in my life. Before long I was praying each time I nursed and even after the intensity of that time passed, my mind kept associating nursing with prayer time. It became automatic and the connection in my mind lasted for the full length of our nursing relationship.

Beth slowly weaned herself over several months so that by June, 2013, she was barely asking to nurse at all. After a three-week break she did ask to nurse suddenly, but the milk diminished enough that she wasn't getting much for her effort. She asked a few more times and then stopped asking altogether, with nary a complaint.
  
It happened so slowly that it didn't dawn on me right away. The less she nursed, the fewer prayer sessions I enjoyed. See, the nursing sessions were a fixed prayer time for me.

Now that she's weaned, I've had to ask myself the same question you see posted above: "The only problem is I still struggle to do it? Why?"

I can answer this only for myself, but maybe it will help some of you too. In my life it took a fixed prayer time to focus my mind and heart on prayer, so that over time fellowshipping with God became more automatic--less an act of my will. And because I was conversing so often with him, it spilled over into other times of the day. My mind was in tune with God--used to talking with him. It became a habit.

When we sit down for a once-a-day quiet time that's an act of our will. It's wonderful and obedient. But the Bible tells us to pray without ceasing. How do we make the transition from praying at our quiet time and before our meals, to praying without ceasing?

1 Thessolonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.…

Developing a prayer habit is the answer. Experts say it takes 21 consecutive days for an act of our will to become a habit. Our minds are too quick to roll through life without thought of God, but a fixed, recurring reminder would solve that dilemma. I believe this is what God is referring to when he instructed us to pray without ceasing. He's saying: Form a habit of putting me first...of making me your first love.

Luke 10:27 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind..."

We begin to love him with all our hearts after we've formed a habit of conversing with Him throughout the day.

What did it take to fall in love with our husbands way back when? We formed a habit of talking on the phone and getting together for fellowship. Gradually, we shared more and more without fear until eventually we had to get married. Being apart wasn't feasible anymore.

That is what God wants from our hearts. That they would be so in tune with his, that being apart becomes unfeasible.

We each need to find something in our lives that will function as a fixed prayer time, whether it's washing dishes the long way three times a day, or doing laundry or preparing meals. Something.

Changing a diaper, maybe?

If nothing else we can set the oven timer three or four times a day, to remind us to pause the regular daily programming and stop for prayer. Our children can participate too, either privately or with the family unit.

Gradually, the prayer relationship will solidify and spill over into other times of the day. We'll respond to difficult situations first with prayer, because prayer will become part of who we are. We'll become a prayer warrior.

Daily Christian life is a battleground; Satan's always ready to fight for our hearts. Our best defense is offense and prayer is that offense.

I believe there really is a way to pray without ceasing. It won't happen overnight and at first it will be an act of our will, but the Holy Spirit will meet us far more than halfway. He will make us succeed if our hearts are sincere.

The work of grace that started when we first believed will prevail.

Philippians 1:6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

What reminds you to pray throughout the day?

Cross references:

1. Philippians 1:6 : Ps 138:8
2. Philippians 1:6 : ver 10; S 1Co 1:8

How Homeschoolers Measure Up (A History of Amer. Education)

I found this graphic on Smockity Frocks and went to the source to see if I could use it here. They invite anyone to use it on their site, so hurrah! I found the history portion very interesting.

It was not surprising to read that on average, homeschooled students score in the 87% of standardized tests, and this score remained steady regardless of the families' yearly income, or education level of the parents. Anyone can homeschool well. Parental motivation is very high and the education is tailored to fit each child. Also, since children are not preoccupied with negative peer pressure or bullying, they're free to pursue keen interests and develop to their full capacity--intellectually, spiritually, morally, socially.

The chart states that the average homeschooling family spends $500 per child, and the average cost of public school is $9,963 per year. I have four children but I don't spend $2000 per year. If you buy used curriculum, you will spend a fourth to a third of the original prices. And remember, you'll save your purchases for younger children to grow into. Only consumables and sometimes DVD ROM's have to be purchased new.

Source: TopMastersInEducation.com