Too Busy: When “Giving Them Everything” is Not Enough

Busyness. It’s one of the diseases of Western society. Are we busy trying to distract ourselves from our own lack of contentment? Are we busy trying to “keep up”?

A man commented that he would never have more than a couple of children because he “wants to give them everything”.

“Everything”. Our definition of that word defines the entire essence of our lives.

Isn’t it time we scrutinize our “everything” and make sure we are giving them what they really need?

“I wonder if it occurs to Western middleclass parents that many of the activities we feel we cannot do without are unaffordable luxuries to parents in many other parts of the globe, or even in other parts of the city, and yet every nation on earth is capable of producing well-rounded, creative, and civilized human beings. How? But that’s a topic for another day….

Many North American parents feel not just a desire, but an obligation to offer their children the widest possible range of leisure experiences and activities. The choices are myriad: music lessons (Pick one—or more—of a hundred different instruments and musical styles, then decide: solo, ensemble, band, orchestra, choir, or a combination thereof?); sports (Which to choose? How many at once? Highly competitive or just for fun?); dance, drama, clubs, hobbies….

Some families do not eat even one dinner together per week; on any given evening, the mother and father are dashing in different directions. Larger families find themselves going in three or four directions, which only works if you carpool, requiring complicated drop-off/pick-up schedules, or (in my rural area) numerous vehicles (and teens who can legally drive them)….”  Read full article : Enough of Parenting Misery Lit

Activities themselves aren’t bad. Busyness that robs us of the simplicity and joys of living and serving others is. May we seek a careful balance.

(Thoughts to be continued…) What are your thoughts?

The Mystery of Parenting: Our Role, God’s Role

I’ve raised kids long enough to know that there is no formula for turning out great ones.

But I’ve also raised them long enough to know that “a child left to himself brings his mother shame”.

Is there a greater mystery than the fact that a heart belongs to God and yet parents have a grave responsibility to train them and bring them up in the Lord?

Where’s the balance then in what belongs to Him and what belongs to us? If it’s all Him, we have a free ride. I don’t think any of us believes that. And if it’s all us, then the formula should “work” right?

Sadly, too many of us have fallen into one of the ditches, either forsaking our careful responsibility to train “arrows” because after all, “it’s only God’s grace”, or depending on a formula and being wildly disillusioned to find that it doesn’t always “work”; and if it does, being swallowed in pride, attributing their “success” to our precision.

The answer? Just like God’s sovereignty over salvation and our responsibility to submit to His authority intersect at a mysterious, humanly-out-of-grasp understanding, so does that of the dual partnership parents and God play in the lives of our children.

We cannot escape our obligation to teach them to love the Lord, even if they don’t appear to. We are commanded to give them wisdom–the fullness of all that is written in Scripture, to help them gird themselves with the armor of God, to resist Satan, to take every thought captive, to repent of sins, to pursue holiness, to deny lusts, to love their neighbor, to walk in humility, to do good works, to flee sin, and to stand firm in the faith.

Underneath those commands we must help our children flesh them out in their lives. To speak respectfully, to not burp at the table, to dress lovingly, to pay careful attention to their recreational choices and to express kindness in a thousand ways.

And even more than all that, we must live it, demonstrating the reality of Christ and the power of forgiveness.

We must be faithful. We cannot escape our never-ending obligations.

But still they are the Lord’s. He discipled carefully and faithfully, and still one turned away. God turns the heart and He indwells His children. We must hold both, simultaneously, understood or not, in our hands.

Walking this road with you and finding it often difficult….we keeping walking.

(Thank you, Cathy, for good dialogue that inspired this post )

Living a Legacy…Changing the World One Home at a Time

Our Living a Legacy conference was a huge success! I am so refreshed, encouraged and inspired by the many women who came and whose hearts are yearning to build homes for the glory of God! We laughed, we cried and we came away with a renewed vision of the profound work of “home missions”. A BIG thank you to all who attended!

THE AUDIO VERSION WILL BE AVAILABLE SOON!

Here are a few pictures from our wonderful day together:

Kathy shared with us the profound work of making our homes a “mission base” for our families, neighbors and surrounding communities. Kathy and her family are a living example of this message and how far-reaching its effects can be. Truly the harvest is ripe!

This lady inspires us! She is mom to 13, 12 of whom are adopted, special needs children. She manages with a grace and joy that exudes from her.

“I am so thankful I was able to attend the Leaving a Legacy conference yesterday! I can not even begin to tell of all the ways the Lord worked through Robin Brooks White, Kathy Brodock, Kelly Crawford, and their daughters (Taylor White.Olivia Brodock. Emma, and Bria). I was especially touched also by Sherry Lee’s testimony. The Lord used this day to encourage, convict, and teach me so much! What a blessing!!!” Jeanette

So many sweet, fun ladies!

Good tears.

Robin admonished us with a contagious passion, to raise up warriors for the next generation, to answer the call to rescue the needy, to be available to the fatherless and to count it joy to die daily, as we do the “hard, messy work” of being the hands and feet of Christ in our homes. Stepping outside of our “comfortable, American boxes” brings the sweet fruit of finding our lives as we lose them.

“..how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”

Part of our “nation”, waiting to come up and meet everyone.

Emma Brodock

Our girls shared their hearts for what it means to live where they are joyfully, contentedly serving the Lord.

Taylor White

Bria Crawford

A sweet sister, having just recovered from a burst vessel in her brain, and an emergency c-section to deliver her 23 wk. old baby girl during the brain surgery. God’s mercy is everlasting.

Getting to meet so many of our blog friends, adding a physical dimension to our friendships, was a little slice of Heaven.

We had so many wonderful vendors! Here, Jessica encourages aspiring film makers to join her home industry, Plant and Pillars, a young, film-maker’s festival.

Olivia “wowed” us with her amazing culinary gift, serving two meals during the conference.

My handsome husband…just because.

Sherry Lee closed the evening with a heart-warming, profoundly moving account of her recent trials as she lost her husband in last year’s devastating storm, and with poised humility, spurred us to remember that “He is enough” no matter what storms we face. She encouraged us to “live a legacy on purpose” and shared that her family’s tragedy had  confirmed the reality that her children all owned their faith personally due to her husband’s faithful legacy….the legacy of trusting a Heavenly Father who is sustaining them through the most difficult circumstances imaginable.

Changing the world,  by God’s amazing grace, one home at a time.

Diapers, Dishes & Dominion: Why You Need to Change Your Mind About Diapers

My friend, Leah, is another “mother in the trenches” with a vision as big as Texas. She has written a profoundly important book for mothers who are struggling with fear, insignificance and purpose.

Diapers, Dishes and Dominion combats the destructive message of “peripheral motherhood” and replaces it with the inspiring message of what mothers can do to change the world when they grasp their influence and responsibility.

Here’s a bit about the book:

“Change your mind about changing diapers and you could change the world.

It’s hard being a wife and mother. The constant barrage of feminist propaganda tells stay-at-home moms their lives are insignificant, and inner discontentment can spring up from the mundane frictions of daily routine. From many sources, Christian housewives are under attack every day. And for some of them, a bad day has become their whole lives.

Author Leah Smith was in that boat: plagued by shapeless anxieties and prod- ded by nameless longings. She was ready to give up on marriage, family… even life. And she didn’t even know why. One night, she asked God to liberate her from her fears. Right then, she began a journey of freedom into the truth. Her life has never been the same.

Diapers, Dishes & Dominion is a product of that journey — a summary record of the truths God can use to transform ordinary Christian housewives into His weapons of mass reconstruction. In simple and straightforward language, Leah exposes some of the most prevalent lies Satan uses to keep Christian women irrelevant in God’s Kingdom, and she presents biblical truths these wives and mothers need to know in order to change the world — one diaper at a time.

Every wife and mother who wants to make an impact needs to read Diapers, Dishes & Dominion.

The first step to changing the world is changing your mind.”

Listen to Leah’s interview with Kevin Swanson from Generations With Vision!

Controversy Over the Obvious?…It’s Best For Women to Stay Home With Their Children

A good follow-up, I think, from my recent post that received so much commentary.

It’s this that I just cannot get past…that we (as a whole) get literally angry over the blaring, obvious fact that families need mothers…that it’s good for a nation to think this way. Some of you are mad just because I said that.

It’s this excerpt from the excellent article linked below, that resonates with me. Not debating over “when and if and how” and “it’s not fair”, but acknowledging what is good for us and our families, which will facilitate a movement toward making that more possible for more women.  And when we are about what is good for all of us rather than what “I want”, it’s just makes sense.

“The mentality which honors women more for their work outside the home than for their work within the family must be overcome. This requires that men should truly esteem and love women with total respect for their personal dignity, and that society should create and develop conditions favoring work in the home…”

Hear me: it’s not an attempt to “make women feel bad” who, for some reason, just are not able to be home. It’s about a collective agreement that would cause the whole of us to do what we can to support a woman home whose family needs her. Because this is what happens…if our mentality is off-base (“it doesn’t matter–there is no change in the climate of home whether mom is there or not”, etc.), then there’s a break down of  truth that hinders mothers from even being able to do their jobs. Churches and families (the first line of defense during a financial crisis)  cease to consider their need to help and encourage mothers to be home. “Go get a job like everyone else” is the default response. But not the right one. We destroy ourselves (collectively) when we don’t promote the truth, which in turn, causes us to behave wrongly.

Do yourself a favor and read all of  Controversy over the obvious? New Cardinal says it’s best for women to stay home with their children

Why I’m Not Teaching My Children to Follow Their Dreams

“What if your daughter wanted to be an interior designer? Go to school and become a professional? I’m only asking what if. Would you push her to stay at home or to follow her dreams?”

I was asked this question during a topic about a woman’s calling to be a “keeper at home”.

I could write a book about all the ways a woman is free to “be all she can be” and still remain in the realm of helpmeet and keeper at home, about the glories of being freed from the slavery of someone else’s clock and schedule and agenda.

But before all of that, we must be grounded in the basic teaching of Scripture about the call of a Christian, which directly opposes the teaching of feminism.

Notice in the comment above…”follow her dreams?”

I can not find anything in Scripture that encourages us to “follow our dreams”. In fact, quite the contrary. My Bible says to “deny yourself and follow Me”. Oprah Winfrey says to “follow your dreams”.

Fundamental to all that we teach our children should be a denying of self, at all costs, and a “seeking first the kingdom of God”. Dying to live, seeking what is eternal, others before ourselves–that is the theme that weaves true Christianity. Have you read the story of Christians who lived in the catacombs? Such sacrificial living is so foreign to us we can’t even imagine it. The giving up, not only of “all our dreams”, but even the very security of life and the simple joys of daily sunshine pushed these Christians to live in unthinkable conditions. They understood “losing your life to save it”.

Now the irony is that if we desire obedience above all else, He will give us the desires of our heart. But obedience is paramount; not following my dreams.

(As an aside, since coming home to work full time for my family, my “dream” of becoming a writer has become a reality in ways I never could have planned on my own. I know He cares about our loves and gifts.)

This is why man’s wisdom is so dangerous. It is most often driven by flesh–my dreams, my goals, my ambitions, my desires. Obedience requires faith to do what I cannot understand; to believe what may not make sense.

In my flesh, it may not seem reasonable to be a keeper at home. But if the Bible says that being a keeper at home keeps the Word of God from being blasphemed, then it is not my job to question the logic. I just have to obey in faith, and watch how mysteriously wonderfully God adds “all these things” unto me.

Am I teaching my children to follow their dreams? No; I’m teaching them to follow Christ, in whom all their dreams will be fulfilled.

“For the kingdom to shine we must not seek to do great things but seek to die great deaths. We could be heroes, if just for one day.” R.C. Sproul, Jr.