Writing Scared: I Surrender

On this day I am "writing scared" because my heart holds thoughts that can no longer be hidden.  I found this quote in my twitter account today and it sparked the desire to actually write some of what my heart is thinking.  Maybe someday I'll actually write it all. 

"Sometimes writing scared is the best kind of writing." ~Lisa Jo Baker 

The door is open as we approach the church.  With just a few minutes to spare, we all pile out of the car with anticipation of the day.  It's the 115th Anniversary of Riverview Christian Church and my husband's family are direct descendants of the founders.  We can't help but be proud as we attend on this celebration day.  We are a legacy of people who loved and served, cared and gave, created and persevered, until a church was made.

Isn't that how we should be with all the tasks set before us?  Shouldn't we love and serve, care and give, create and persevere until it comes to fruition?

We are welcomed in.  The wooden pews cradle us as we sit only after we've been cradled in arms of warm hugs. Stained glass, sunlight shadows, piano's song, we are welcomed in.  Scripture and hymns, we are welcomed in.

My thoughts wander to my grandmother who now sits in her hospital bed and waits to return home after surgery.  She was the one who sat beside me when I was little and I peered over her hands to see the hymnal.  I loved to sit beside her at Girard Baptist Church, her soprano voice signing "What a Friend We Have in Jesus". All the while she waits to leave her hospital bed, she knows that someday she will be 'welcomed in' to fellowship with the Lord.  She's received a cancer diagnosis of "Stage 3C Colon Cancer" and the future is uncertain.While she is not with us in the sanctuary, her heart is in sanctuary with Christ.

My grandmother was born in 1920 in New Brunswick, Canada.  She was the sixth of seven children and she was born at home.  She lost her mother at the young age of about two and she speaks often of how she misses her.  She told me this week that she misses her now more than ever.  It is in times of trial and uncertainty that we miss our mothers.  At the age of 91, she misses her mother.

This week I miss my own mother.  She is not fully alive because of anger.  She has allowed hurts and offenses to steal her heart.  I can not bridge the gap.  My mother is facing the terminal illness of her mother and her husband in the same year.  Just this past February her husband was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis and now her mother is diagnosed with cancer.  She is struggling to accept the reality of today.

I have told her that I'm here to bless and honor her.  I am here to help if needed.  I have voiced the truth that this is her time to be a blessing to her own mother.

It is my deep prayer that God will use all these things to make us a sanctuary.  How I long for our hearts to be open to His will.  How I long for His love to shine into our eyes as the windows of His sanctuary.

We are to be living sanctuaries of serving, caring, giving, creating and persevering for His glory.

I feel fragile standing in the midst of the voices singing hymns on this Sunday morning.  I feel unable to breathe as I think about her in the hospital bed...alone.  My heart cries out to the living God to restore and repair what has been broken in my mother.  I know I must take a step back and allow her to have the opportunity to care for my grandmother.  How I long to fix the problem but I must surrender!

My heart cries out to be a sanctuary with open doors, welcoming what God would bring into my life.

Psalm 139:1 Oh Lord you have searched me and known me

Today as I waited to hear from my family, I read from a book called The Hole in Our Gospel, by Richard Stearns.  His testimony of two young boys in Africa touched my soul:


     "Two crude piles of stones just outside the door mark the graves of Richard's parents. It disturbs me that he must walk past them every day. He and his brothers must have watched first their father and then their mother die slow and horrible deaths. I wondered if the boys were the ones who fed them and bathed them in their last days." 


Love, Serve, Care, Give...


It is my surrendered heart that is obedient today and trusts that allowing my mother to be in control of my grandmother is the right choice.  I long to take care of her.  I surrender.

Choose Wisely: 
Teaching our children to choose a life of faith

By Denise Leak

"You must choose, but choose wisely. For as the true Grail will bring you life,
the false grail will take it from you."
(Indiana Jones, The Last Crusade)

How do we teach our children to choose wisely?  In a predominantly secular, faithless, selfish world where self-sufficiency and ‘follow your heart’ mentalities reign, teaching our children to choose wisely seems to be a daunting task.  However, we know that 

this is our most important calling and we must teach our children

 to know truth, seek wisdom and choose wisely the path of life.

It's devotion time this morning and I am with our two boys reading about obedience. From Character Sketches, Volume 1, we read about the Wood Duck.  

I am deeply moved by the spiritual lessons from this study in nature,  

God’s design for life.

The mother duck does not begin to incubate her eggs until all are laid gently in the nest.  Then, she will sit on the eggs and 
“talk to them” as they incubate.

From inside the tiny eggs, the little birds will answer the mother.  At an early developmental age, these tiny creatures know the sound of their mother’s “voice”! 

Are my sons listening to my voice?  Do they see the parallel message of the mother teaching?

In little more than 24 hours after the eggs hatch, the mother will call to them and ask them to take a giant leap of faith from their nest in the tree to the forest floor below.  With a leap of sometimes 60 feet, these little hatchlings will have to make the choice to jump and live or stay and die. 

The mother waits in hopeful expectation below. 

I am waiting for God to grow the hearts of our children

so that they might hear His voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoJ5WwHd_Uk&feature=fvst

   

For 7 more weeks, the little ducklings will stay with their mother as

she models life skills and they learn more about survival.  

How many more weeks, months, years, will I have to teach?

What does God require of me 
as a parent entrusted with precious lives?

The process of their growth was such a reminder to my heart that God is using this time in our home to build a foundation of trust, faith, and wisdom in our children. Our children know our voices and learn from our teachings so that one day they will hear and obey the call of their Heavenly Father.  They must choose to listen.

Each day we wait with expectation for our little ones to choose wisely.  We invest in their lives by teaching them truth, modeling faith, and seeking God in our lives.  
We hope. 
(“Faith means being sure of the things we hope for...” Hebrews 11:1)

We must remember as parents that our children were created by God, for God, with a freedom to choose.  Our calling as parents is to be faithful to the task set before us.  
May all who come behind us find us faithful. 

(“Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” 1 Cor. 4:2)

Choosing wisely as a parent:

Talk to your children. Demonstrate to your children the purpose of your life.  A life dedicated and committed to following Christ will have evidence in prayer, value of God’s Word,  faith, and a commitment to the body of Christ. 

(“Always remember these commands I give you today. Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and walk along the road. Talk about them when you lie down and when you get up.” Deuteronomy 6:6-7)

Model a life filled with love for Christ. A relationship with the God of creation is about love.  He pursues us with passion and love even unto death on the cross. We must model a life filled with love for Christ. It is in that relationship with Christ that we are obedient because of our love for Him.  Honoring his word and honoring our parents comes from a relationship based on this love.  Developing our relationships insures a foundation for trust and faith.

(“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it, Love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:37-39)

Challenge children to an extraordinary faith.   A bold and extraordinary faith where others see Christ is the goal.  Just as the ducklings faced the decision to jump, our children will face opportunities to make great leaps of faith.  Equipping them with scripture and truth will give them the tools they need to stand, or jump, when their faith is challenged. 

(“Teach them to obey everything that I have told you. You can be sure that I will be with you always. I will continue with you until the end of the world.” Matthew 28:20)

“To be in your children's memories tomorrow,
You have to be in their lives today.” 
― Barbara Johnson

A few helpful resources:

*Precept Ministries: Bible Study for kids/teens.

http://store.precept.org/s-154-are-we-losing-our-teens.aspx

*Worldview Academy:  Student summer camp experience to develop faith and leadership skills to change the world. www.worldview.org

*That the World May Know, Faith Lessons on DVD from Focus on the Family, by Ray Vander Laan; filmed in Israel, http://www.faithlessons.net/index.php?cPath=1

*Character Sketches, Volumes 1-3: Institute for Basic Life Principles, www.iblp.org

Choose wisely! (“…live well and wisely in every detail.” Deut. 29:9 MSG)

Credits:

*Wood Duck and Ducklings in Pond [700-00591457]

visualphotos.com

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoJ5WwHd_Uk&feature=fvst: LeeRentz, June 14, 2011

*All other photos by Denise Leak

Choosing the Path

     Each spring...winter really...our family begins to consider the upcoming school year. Even before we've completed the tasks set before us, we consider the next year and the choices we should make regarding curriculum, topics of study, co-ops, one-day school enrichment opportunities, science groups, sports, music, and on and on and on. Unlike the "pioneer" homeschoolers of the 1970s or early 1980s, we have an abundance of opportunities for our students. Each year, new books and resources are published to "make our job easier". Each year, local groups improve their offerings to local students with foreign language classes, classical training, individualized groups, hands-on studies, etc. As a mom/teacher/home educator/lover of creativity, this can pose a bit of a distraction to say the very least.

     Our family began homeschooling in 1994 when our precocious little 4-year-old wanted to learn but was "too young" to begin kindergarten by the local county age requirement for public school. She was curious and loved books. She was able to sit quitely and listen at the local library during "Story Time". She demonstrated all the qualities necessary to begin a formal education. Should we deny her an opportunity to learn simply because her birthday was "late" in September? I prayed and fasted seeking God's will for our daughter. I researched the idea of home school. I talked to parents in the community regarding school options. I prayed and prayed some more. As always, God was faithful. Through prayer and petition, He guided us toward the path of home education.

Over these past 18 years of home education, our family has made memories, experienced amazing opportunities, enjoyed the fellowship of one another, watched as miracles happened with learning difficulties, witnessed wondrous learning and so much more. As I type this simple sentence, I struggle to simply relay in words the testimony of our God's faithfulness to our family. How must the Israelites have felt after leaving Egypt? In their exodus from slavery, (and please don't misunderstand that I am calling any other type of education "slavery") they must have been overjoyed and overwhelmed that their God would rescue them and free them from bondage! What would they have written in a "blog"? How would they write a testimony of God's love for them? We know too well that they quickly forgot their beautiful story of freedom and they became distracted by a desire for foods, culture, clothing and other "things" from their previous life in the rich country of Egypt. Such is my story each year as I re-evaluate the plan for home school.

     Each spring as I consider the opportunities for my children, I am always quite sure that someone somewhere could do a better job than I am currently doing for my children. I look at the options for education and I imagine something different. My focus becomes "horizontal" and not "vertical". I look around instead of looking up. How quickly I fall when I take my eyes off Christ! This is when I begin to compare our home school and my students to others. I was sweetly convicted of this today as I opened my morning devotion, Jesus Calling, and read these words:

                 "STOP JUDGING AND EVALUATING YOURSELF, for this is not your role. Above all, stop comparing yourself with other people. This produces feelings of pride or inferiority; sometimes, a mixture of both. I lead each of My children along a path that is uniquely tailor-made for him or her. Comparing is not only wrong, it is also meaningless."


     How beautiful the conviction and correction of our Heavenly Father!  He gently rebukes our sinful thoughts and redirects us to the path He has chosen.  I am reminded in Jeremiah 29:11 that He knows the plans for us and for our children.  He wants to prosper us and not to harm us; to give us hope and a future!  Keeping our eyes on Him (VERTICAL!) is the goal.

     "He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, 

the justice of your cause like the noonday sun."  

~ PSALM 37:6

   

   
   

Love You So

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Practicing the Creed

As the clock runs down on New Year's Eve, my heartbeat quickens at the thought of resolutions and change.  I've always been a dreamer and this holiday definitely speaks to the hearts of those of us who dream.  We make lists, even if only in our heads, and set out with BIG ideas of change with resolve to "be better than we are".

This year I didn't actually write down my goals. Like so many dreamers, I held them dear to my heart and pondered them daily as December 31st approached.  I have prayed about, as my beloved encourages, "the top three", and I've longed to know the heart of God for my new year.  In His perfect timing, He brought a book to my attention called, The Jesus Creed for Students: Loving God, Loving Others, by Scot McKnight.  Based on the answer Jesus gives to the question, "What is the greatest commandment?", this book challenges students to know and repeat this Creed daily.  As they fulfill this challenge, their hearts embrace the simple truths of "Love God", "Love others".  Simple, right?  The book is written for high school students but I'm using it with my 9 and 13 year old sons.  It is my heartfelt (maybe dreamer) prayer, that we will all embrace this beautiful Creed into our core.  Practicing the repetition daily and pondering the words can only make Him smile.http://www.anewkindofyouthministry.com/2011/03/24/free-jesus-creed-for-students-to-the-first-50/