Down Under Goes Out Yonder

We just said goodbye to our new friends from Australia who spent the week with us, one of about 25 families they are staying with over the spring.  You may read more about it on their blog, but in a nutshell, they are a young couple wildly zealous for the Lord and knowing no one in their homeland who is like-minded, decided to travel the states for 3 months and get to know other families who have the same vision as they do.

I don’t exactly know the sequence of events that led them to us, but I’m so glad the Lord worked it out that way.  I think we were the family where Jonathan and Katie got to see how true it is that none of us homeschooling families have it all together.  We managed a complete come-apart learning opportunity Easter morning over….shoes.  Their crawling baby had dirty knees most of the time (cleaning day is on Friday, people) and a broken dish washer had us using our share of paper plates.

Katie wisely explained that she wanted to add some positive experiences and influences to her “psyche” as she mothers her children. Jonathan describes his wife as “the fastest learner I’ve ever seen”. He is right.  I’ve never met a young couple so passionate about following the Lord and building a family who honors Him.  It was such a blessing to witness this loving husband gently bathing his wife in truth while she basks and thrives in the glow of this “life-laying-down love”.  They are learning and growing together, and what he couldn’t give her–real life examples–he found for her.  *tears*

Saying goodbye this morning was hard; from across the world, three people were swept briefly into our lives and became our brothers and sister.  With our cultural differences and varied life experiences, there was yet such a sweetness of the bond of Christ.   In one week we made forever friends.

We will miss you, Jonathan, Katie and Eljireh!

“Y’all come back now, ya here!”

Helping Siblings Get Along

There are days when I feel on top of the world as a mother.  The birds are singing, the sun is shining, I know what we’re having for supper and my children have laughed most of the day.

Then there are those other days…(Mama said there’d be days like this.)

Days when I collapse into bed at night, melancholy with a keen sense of failure.

Those days are awful.  They can be accompanied by a sense of hopelessness and strong desire to “give up”.

But what I love about those days is that they almost always create in my life the clouds that allow the sun to illuminate all the brighter the next day.  They don’t last.  Joy comes in the morning….a fresh, new perspective and surge of energy is waiting from the hand of my Father.

Such was my morning.

Enough backdrop.  Now onto a blessed little mother-moment that may give you some hope when you come off a hard day:

Two of my children rub each other like sandpaper.  Not all the time, but often enough.  Whoever said children can’t learn socialization at home didn’t have 8 children spending all their days together.  Socialization is what we do.

I fought the urge to sleep and got up to see the beautiful sun rise.  Coffee in hand, prayers on my lips, I woke the oldest of the “sandpaper couple”.

We read Colossians 3 together, snuggled up in a chair, under a blanket.  A ripe condition for heart-talk.

“Do you know how a bank account works?  In order to take money out, you must put money in.  People are kind of like bank accounts.  Praise and criticism must be at least equal.”

Child listened intently.

“Do you know what I think?  I think you can “head off” strife by deliberately beginning the day with a kind word or gesture.  That way, when you need to ask [insert other child's name] to stop doing something, you will have already padded your ‘friendship account’.

So, when she gets up this morning, instead of just being in the same room, do something actively kind.  A smile, a tender touch on the shoulder, a cheerful greeting.”

Child was so receptive.  Like a light bulb had gone off.

I gave a few more hints:  “Watch the difference in the way I say this phrase, once with a demanding tone and face, then with a gentle one…”

Child was amazed at the difference.

(Wait for it…..)

Up the stairs the children began coming.  They were all greeted with such sweet voice, child offering to pour bowls of cereal, and inquiring of the night’s sleep.

I almost cried.  It was beautiful.  A genuine heart of friendship oozed out.  They need more than a “be kind”.  That’s what we’re here for.  To show them what that looks like.  And on those days when I want to check out, well, that’s just not an option.

The simple little gestures, the ones that perhaps just needed a verbal nudge, worked like giant shock absorbers that headed off the friction so easily found in our mornings.

The birds are singing. God is good.

Mothering With a Solomon Sincerity

How is it that a Word so old can continue to spring fresh every time it is read?  You know the story…God asked Solomon what he wanted and Solomon said “wisdom” so God gave it to him, and then some,  since he didn’t ask selfishly.

But there is so much more there!  And it met me as a mother.

Read:

“Solomon went up there before the LORD to the bronze altar which was at the tent of meeting, and offered a thousand burnt offerings on it.”

I’m sorry, but did you get that?  1,000.  I’m no theologian, but I think it was a pretty timely process to offer any burnt offerings.  Maybe it was just vegetation offerings, but I’m thinking animals were involved.

Do you know how paltry this makes my pathetic little petitions to God look?  My sit-in-my-comfy-chair-with-coffee prayers?

Solomon wanted God to answer him and he was serious about getting His attention.  I’m not asserting that God doesn’t listen until we do something radical, but maybe, just maybe, He knows when we are really serious about seeking Him and when we just treat Him as a favor-machine.

So God finally answers, “Ask!  What shall I give you?” Or, “What do you want?”

The second part is just as good as the first.  Solomon didn’t just ask for wisdom; he had a motive that drove him to ask for that.  Solomon said,

“Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people, for who can rule this great people of Yours?”

He realized that his position as King was grave and his subjects’ health, success and welfare depended on his ability to rule.  He asked for them. His heart was such that he gave up his own desires, wants and needs, and asked solely for what those in his charge would need from him.

Wow!  He asked for their benefit, and he asked with all his heart, petitioning the Lord with a tenacity few of us could even touch.

Do we press Him?  And do we love those in our charge enough to give up rights to ourselves and seek only what is needful for them?

“Give me wisdom for these people in my charge!” Pursue Him until He says, “What do you want?”

Virtue Begins With a Spoon

Brilliant read.  A profound reflection on how a little deliberate living can so powerfully affect our children.  Ready to talk about socialization?  As you read, consider the antithesis and see if it measures your observations.  (Don’t forget to come back and comment!)

“Let me state my thesis outright: The quest of Wisdom commences with learning how to eat. The most basic steps towards virtue are mastered at the family table. Character begins with etiquette. Teach a child how to dine like a human being, and you have gone wonderfully far in his education.”

Read the rest at Virtue Begins With a Spoon

Guarding the Quiet Spaces

(Image from Just a Family)

As a keeper of home–a guard (according to the Greek connotation in Titus), I need to be reminded of my guarding responsibilities.  There is much to guard in my home, and much to guard against.

Perhaps every generation has its own unique challenges, its own unique enemies of home.

And while we could make a never-ending list of things against which we must guard, often the little things are the biggest things.

This generation is noisy.  So noisy, we don’t even notice the absence of it.  Until the power goes off and then we start threatening the power company to “give us our life back”.  Lately it has been heavily on my heart that I need to guard against this noise and carve out “quiet spaces” in our lives.

My husband just changed cell phone companies.  The new company boasts better signal coverage and delivers.  But guess what?  Anyone can reach him at any time of the day, anywhere he is.  The phone rings early in the morning, late at night and during dinner time.

That’s normal for most families.  But more and more I wonder how much we miss by trying to organize our lives so that we don’t miss anything?  Do you know what I mean?

Yes, cell phones are progress.  I’m glad to be able to call and have him pick up bread on the way home.  But almost every form of progress brings with it an element of hindrance, at best, especially if we don’t deliberately keep it in check.

I remember reading to my children a story about the introduction of the house phone in the author’s family.  The father was adamantly opposed to such an intrusion, thinking the ability for people to be able to reach you within the privacy of home was preposterous.  It’s almost laughable to read it now, but it’s a glaring look at how easily we’ve accepted more and more intrusion, to the point we’re addicted to it.

And why the need for quiet spaces?  To think, to listen, to connect with those closest to you, to retain the really important, hard-to-touch sentiments of family life.

The television, the computer, the telephone, the advertisements, the constant stream of information screaming at us and every moment of the day–it is a realistic part of our lives.  And it can be a tremendous advantage.  But I am challenged to keep it in check.

I want to guard the quietness of our hearts more carefully.

Great Children’s Books for the Christian Home

I had forgotten what a treasure the Lamplighter series of children’s books are.  I picked up Hedge of Thorns this morning and read a chapter to the children and was again delighted with the quality of the literature as well as the tremendous inspiration it offered.

“I remember kissing her [baby sister] soft hands; and from that time, my little sister became the object of my tenderest love and affection, and I waited with anxious expectation the happy time when I could take her on my Sabbath picnics near the castle of Hemlock Forest…and how happy I was when I had taught her to repeat her first prayer!”

The Lamplighter Rare Collector series are short, interesting books re-printed from the late 19th century, full of literary richness as well as the themes of godly character-building, most familiar to Christian families of the past.  They make great read-alouds!

Just wanted to offer some suggestions for those of you who are looking for great literature!

(By the way, I don’t benefit from suggesting these, I just like them )

There are several sites who sell them, but Grace & Truth Books is the best price I have found.