Back To Africa...

I can't believe I'm writing this, but in just 3 days (Sunday), I'm heading back to Africa...Swaziland.  I know there's a story to tell here, but I think it needs to wait until I return...

It's a small team that's going...  I don't have the foggiest clue what my purpose is on this trip, only that God called me to go in a way that left me without a doubt that I was supposed to go. 

I will only be gone for a week, but it will be a full week...  One of the things we will do is spend some time with an orphan headed household that has 28... that's no typo...  28!  children and no parents...  Can you imagine?  Even as I write this, I want to just sit and weep...  We will take them food, blankets and just love them for a little while... Another trip will be to the garbage dump to feed some of the families living there... 

These trips to Africa always change me, but I'm not sure I'll ever be the same after this one... I can barely stand to think about what we will see, and yet, I know I'm supposed to go...  God doesn't stick His 'head' in the sand, so I will face this and let Him break my heart...

While we are there, we will have a lot of meetings...  I would tell you more, but again, I have an idea of what we're doing, but it's not clear enough for me to try and put it to words yet...  I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff...no parachute...no hang glider... no net...  Just a promise of Him, with wings like eagles, to be there when I jump...

Will you pray?  Something has to be done or this nation...this tiny little country (Swaziland) will die...  They project that by the year, 2020, there will be no adults left living in the country...  STAGGERING! 

So whose responsibility is it to step to the plate?  Many have asked me why the government isn't doing anything... I've thought ALOT about that...  But God DID NOT create government to do this job...  He created the church...

I suppose it could be argued that the church is not doing their job, so someone has too...  And that's a fair argument...  But if you are reading this and you are a Christian, consider this...  When we step back and let the government do, what God has given us to do...  We are robbing God of His glory...  Yes...  Hang on that one for a while...  WE ARE ROBBING GOD OF HIS GLORY!

Not one thing we do better reflects the heart of our Abba Father than to care for the widows, and especially the orphans... God is in the 'orphan caring' business, we were ALL orphans before He adopted us into His spiritual household...so how can we not do what has been done for us?

And think about all that Jesus did while He was on earth...  He fed the people, spiritually and physically...  He cared for widows...healed the sick...  He put His hands and feet in the muck of our lives...  He taught the church (that's you and me) to do the one thing that most shines a light onto the heart of God... to love the unlovable...  So when we let any government, here or in other countries, do what God ordained for us to do, we are sitting back and ALLOWING them to steal God's glory...  How that must break His heart!!

I want to really encourage you to read "It's Not Ok With Me," by Janine Maxwell, she's the VP of Heart For Africa...  When you finish that one, read "Father to the Fatherless" by Charles Mulli... And then, in December, when Janine's new book is released, read it too...  (Am I getting bossy here?!)  She was gracious enough to send our team an advance copy so that we could read a couple of chapters that would better prepare us for this trip...  A couple of chapters?  I can't put it down... But don't say I didn't warn you, it will rip your heart out...today I just sat and read with tears running down my face...  But it is reality and we MUST stop sticking our heads in the sand...

So, I'll see you when I get back...  Have a great week!

Out of the wilderness...

I realize that I promised a post last week on Revelation 5, but I can't even begin to describe how busy last week was, so please forgive me, I will go back to it at some point...  But I have to write about something that really grabbed my heart this morning...

I just found the most AWESOME Bible... It's by Crossway and it's a Journaling Bible!  It's the ESV translation, which I'm really loving, but it has 2 inch margins with lines.. It is the perfect quiet time/devotional Bible, you can write your thoughts on verses that touch you in the margins...

Originally when I found it, I thought I would use it to start reading through the Bible, from start to finish, but then I decided to pray and ask where I should start instead of just following what seemed like a good plan to me.  And what He impressed on my heart was the book of Hosea!  REALLY?  I love the book of Hosea, but it's not the book I would immediately think of for devotional reading...

But I am blown away!  And I just have to tell you about what I read this morning...

Hosea was written just before Israel fell to Assyria in 722 BC, God led them into exile because of their idolatry, because they had turned from Him...  He says in chapter 2, verse 13...  "And I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals (idols) when she burned offerings to them and adorned herself with her rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the LORD."

Israel has blown it...She has been behaving like a harlot, running after all kinds of other lovers (idols) and she has forgotten her one TRUE God, who led her out of Egypt, out of slavery and into freedom.  But listen to what God says, in verses 14-17...

""Therefore I am now going to allure her;
       I will lead her into the desert
       and speak tenderly to her.
 ¹⁵ There I will give her back her vineyards,
       and will make the Valley of Achor (Achor means 'trouble') a door of hope.
       There she will sing (also means respond) as in the days of her youth,
       as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
 ¹⁶ "In that day," declares the LORD,
       "you will call me 'my husband';
       you will no longer call me 'my master.'
 ¹⁷ I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;
       no longer will their names be invoked.

God leads her into the wilderness, not to punish her, but to draw her back to Him!  In the wilderness, He makes her fruitful (vineyards vs. 15)... He gives her hope in trouble (v15)...  It is there that she sings, or responds as in the days of her youth...  It makes me think of Jesus' words to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2...  The church had lost it's first love and He urges them to repent and do the things they did at first...

In the desert, God brings her back to her first love, the ONE who led her out of slavery...  It is there, in the desert that she comes to know Him as her husband...not just as master...  Her life becomes a sacrifice of love, rather than a task of duty and obligation...

I've always hated the wilderness of life, but you know, as I think on this, I have a different perspective... 

First, if I am in the wilderness, chances are it's because my sin has made it necessary...  Over and over, when I think of the people who are led to the wilderness in Scripture (with the exception of Jesus, of course) it is because of sin in their life...  Moses went there because he tried to take God's plans into his own hands and murdered an Egyptian...  The Israelites ended up there for 40 years because they refused to believe the promises of God and take the Promised Land...  Over and over God has led His people to the wilderness to purify and refine them, to draw them back to Him...

And when I slow down and really consider the longings of my heart, I want to be fruitful... I want to live in hope, in the face of trouble...  I long to remember my first love...  I want to know Him as my husband, not as my task master...  And it is in the wilderness that God accomplishes that...

Does it have to be that way?  If we were perfect, then no...  But we live in a land of prosperity.  There are just too many distractions, lovers if you will, who will draw us away from Him and make us forget Him.  But because He loves us so much, He leads us to the wilderness...  And did you get this part, He speaks tenderly to our hearts!  I looked up the Hebrew words for speak and tenderly and get this...  Speak means to commune and tenderly is really referring to the inner man...the heart, mind and will...

God leads us to the desert to commune with our heart, mind and will...  The very thing that He wants us to love Him with all of (The first and greatest command is to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength!)  In the wilderness, we learn to love Him as He longs to be loved!

Perhaps the wilderness isn't such a bad place after all...

What A Day...

I don't want to go into all of the details of the day because it involves situations in other people's lives, but I'm starting to think you wouldn't want to be my friend right now, because I have so many friends,or their close family members, who are suffering, and I don't mean little stuff, but really big stuff, life and death kind of stuff...

And then today, someone very, very close to me had a scare too...  I can't begin to describe the stress level by the end of the day and yet, the peace was amazing.  At one point I felt so completely overwhelmed by circumstances and I just started praying and God gently reminded me that He is in control... I don't have to worry about the what-ifs, because He knows...It may seem uncertain to me, but NOTHING is uncertain for Him...

This study in Revelation has so increased my view of God, it is amazing what a difference it makes in the day to day happenings of life...

After I got all of my kids home from their various practices, meetings, etc., I decided we were going to dinner...  Scott is out of town tonight and this mom needed a break.  So we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant and we talked, we laughed and before I knew it, the tension in my body was gone...  I have the most AWESOME kids!  Thank you for the much needed laughter!!

By the time we got home, it was time for Abby to go to bed and I noticed that she had put her new pillow, that she just received in bed with her.  Yesterday, she received the most incredible gift from Scott's grandmother...  She took a picture, I guess from the blog and quilted it into a pillow!  Grandmother M...  What a treasure you gave her...  She so loves it!!  She wants me to make a picture of it so she can take it and show it to her teacher!

But we started talking about the photo... It was from Gotcha Day, but it was one of her early smiles, when her siblings had first gotten her to laugh and giggle...  I love the picture.  So as we were talking about it, I said, "Abby, you look so young in that picture, it's hard to believe it was only a year ago."  And she said, "But mommy, I was 5 in that picture."  I reminded her that no, she had to be 6 because she was 6 when we got her.

At that point she told me how confused she was...  She said, "Mommy, in China some people tell me I '4' and some tell me I '5'..."  And then she started telling me about the orphanage.  She has NEVER talked about the orphanage before... I was beginning to wonder if she even remembered.  She told me about some of the children... about a little child, she couldn't tell if the child was a boy or girl, who looked really weird and then she said,, "Mommy, I think they die...  I really scared."

At that point my heart broke, a nameless child, who never knew the love of a family had died alone in an orphanage.  And a very observant child, silently watching, with no one to explain what was happening, no one to reassure her...  I'm sure it was terrifying...  And I understand now why she talks so easily about death...  If anyone gets sick, one of her first questions is always, "Are they going to die?"  What all has this precious child seen?

Next she told me about a little girl who was so cute.  She described how she had a place on her face, probably some type of birth mark, or spot, but that it didn't matter, "she still so cute!"

And then she told me how they would cut her fingernails too short and how they would bleed...

I could have listened to her for hours...  But then she said, "Mommy, I tell you more tomorrow if you want."  (She's very serious about her bed time!)  I'm so thankful for the 2 hours I will have with her tomorrow and I'm even more thankful that she's finally comfortable enough to start telling me these stories, admitting her fears and hurts and uncertainties...  When you watch the process an older child goes through in adoption, you know for certain that God is still in the miracle and heart healing business...

Just A Little Teaser...

This week we've been studying Revelation 5...  WOW...  BREATHTAKING...  AWESOME... AMAZING!!    But here's what I've come to realize as I've studied this week, it completely changes the depth of Scripture when you begin to understand the old behind the new...

There is so much of the Old Testament tied up in this chapter... I can't wait to tell you about it!  But just in case we happen to be in the same class, I better wait until tomorrow, or you wouldn't need to come to class... It will be a 2 part post!

Be ready to be even more overwhelmed by what Jesus did for us!!

P.S.  If you were reading over the weekend, I decided to take down the post I had written about Christian school and football...  I learned something new and while it doesn't change how I felt about the situation on Friday night, it made me question whether or not I had the whole story...  I would never want to wrongly represent someone, so I thought it was best to just remove it...

We Have SO Turned A Corner!!

I have no idea what's changed, but Abby has for sure!!  More and more her hugs have been warmer, she actually hugs back...  She gives them freely at bedtime, she doesn't get upset when I kiss her on the head and last night at the soccer game, when she got cold, she came and sat close to me and let me snuggle her up and rub her arms...  AMAZING...

She plays with me and teases me almost constantly and tonight, when Scott came home, she was so excited to see him.  She was holding his hand, so I went over and hugged him on the other side and the next thing I knew she was giggling and pushing me away, just like Mackenzie used to do when she was little!

After over a year, she is really starting to feel like my little girl...  Wow... I can't even begin to describe the feeling that goes with this...  In the last couple of weeks, her little personality has become more and more free...she's so joyful and such a joy to be around.

To experience a child giving their hearts to you is breathtaking beyond words...  When you give birth to a child, it happens so quickly, you have so many opportunities to create that love and trust with them.  But when you adopt an older child, it is such a different process...  It is truly one of perserverance, faith and hope.

Once again it makes me think of my Abba Father...  He loves us so patiently...He perserveres...He meets us right where we are, over and over...  And He waits for us to give our whole hearts to Him because giving your heart over to Him can be so hard, especially if you were spiritually adopted older (became a Christian later in life).  But when I think of the joy I'm experiencing right now...the utter delight...I'm overwhelmed at thinking how much pleasure we must bring Him.

He loves us so perfectly and so purely...  His longing for us is never motivated out of anything selfish...  He doesn't need us for anything...  He just loves us!  WOW...

 I am overwhelmed at the miracle God has worked in her precious little heart... Love truly does break down walls!

The Bible Is Just So Amazing...

This week in Community Bible Study, we were in Revelation 4...  I know I've said this before, but WOW...  Revelation is so incredible!!  In Revelation 4, John takes us into the throne room of heaven, it is an amazing vision!!

Several years ago, our pastor talked about some different worship scenes in Scripture and how he would read them at the start of his quiet time to prepare his heart to meet with God.  I decided to do that with Revelation 4 and I will never forget the first time I read it and really tried to imagine it...  For some reason, it made me so uncomfortable...  The thought of such abandoned worship was really hard for me to grasp (I'm not a hand-raiser, although God is working on that!)...  But I decided to read it for 30 days...  And Revelation 4 became one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture...

But I had never studied it depth until this past week... The imagery...the symbolization was stunning...  How God ties to the Old Testament with the New Testament, just takes my breath away.

There are so many different opinions about what the descriptions in the throne room mean, but I believe that Scripture interprets Scripture and since Hebrews 8:5 says that the earthly tabernacle was a shadow or copy of heaven, it made sense to me to look back at the tabernacle and its meaning to understand the throne room scene.

I learned so much, but there was one treasure that still just makes me shake my head in wonder...

In John's vision, he describes a sea of glass, as clear as crystal before the throne.  In the tabernacle, the bronze laver (a big round basin) was sometimes referred to as the sea.  And when King Solomon built the temple, he built a replica of the bronze laver and in 2 Chronicles 4:2, it was referred to as the sea.

So here's what blew me away...  The bronze laver was used to cleanse the Priests before they could go into the tabernacle to serve God.  When the Levites first became priests, they had to go through a consecration process, a ceremonial cleansing.  Their entire body had to be washed in the bronze laver, but they couldn't do it for themselves, someone else had to do it for them.  Then they were dressed in their priestly garments.  From that point on, they never had to wash their full body again, only their hands and feet and they could do it for themselves because the full cleansing was complete.

That is such a picture of Jesus!!  In John 13: 8, Jesus said to Peter, "Unless I wash you, you can have no part of Me."  We cannot enter the presence of God, or be in relationship with Jesus, unless we have been washed in the blood of Jesus...  He has to do it for us...  Then, Romans 13:14 tells us to clothe ourselves in Christ.  Jesus is our High Priest and so we are to clothe ourselves in the garments of the priest.  And then, Jesus tells Peter in John 13:10, "A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean."  Once we have been cleansed by Christ, we simply have to wash ourselves daily from the remnants of our daily sins...

The bronze laver is a picture of the saving and sanctification process that happens in Christ.  In heaven, it is a sea of glass, clear as crystal because in heaven, we are made into the image of Christ...  There's no more sin to dirty the waters of the 'sea,' Jesus has defeated sin and death, once and for all and when He returns, it will NEVER corrupt creation again!

But here's the thing, what John sees in heaven is a present reality!  It's a done deal...  We have a freedom from sin that I think we really don't grasp.  Will we experience the fullness of that on earth?  No, but we can learn to grab hold of it, more and more... 

I don't know about you, but I have far too many sins that I still struggle with...  I commit them, they break my heart, I confess them, decide to do better next time, and then I fall on my face again.  But what if I really learned to live in the reality of my salvation...  What if I really got that sin only has the power over me that I give it...  Maybe I would experience just a little more victory in my life... 

I am so thankful for God's amazing Word that teaches me about the reality of being a child of God... 

She Wants To Go To China...

Abby has had a nasty virus for the last few days, out of school since Thursday, she and I even missed church today, but we've had fun just hanging out together...  Lots of Trouble (the game...she loves to call herself the Trouble Queen because she always wins, but everyone gets a chuckle out of that one!)... Pick-up Sticks (which she's amazing at) and lots of movies...  Some really good ones.  (And Abby is better, she'll go back to school tomorrow.)

But last night, she started talking to me about wanting to go back to China.  Whenever we've had this conversation in the past, for some reason I feel a little defensive because I think she's asking me to go back, because she likes it better there...

Last night though I finally wised up and asked her what she would like to do if we could go back...  I LOVED her answer...  She wanted to have a pillow fight, blow bubbles and go to the park on the roof...  My heart just melted!  Those were all of the first things we did with her in China!!  (And of course we have tons of bubbles here and parks and I guess I'll have to arrange a pillow fight...)

I sometimes wonder how we're doing... I think we're making progress, but for some reason I just get insecure sometimes.  And life is so busy, I can't help but wonder if we're hurting the attachment process...  But what a tremendous moment of encouragement...  We may not be doing this perfectly, but God is honoring the desire of our hearts and continuing to break down the walls of her heart...

Praise In The Battle

It’s interesting to me that life as a follower of Christ is often portrayed as a battle…the battle of light, warring against the kingdom of darkness to take back the captives from the enemy…

And while I think we would all agree, that we are always in the battle, there are seasons of our life that feel more like war than others…

I’m in one of those seasons right now…

There’s the normal struggles of parenting teenagers and an adopted older child…The challenges of a husband who is working long hours right now, thankfully because of a big contract…And in the last couple of weeks, there has been a downpour of bad news in the lives of some people I love…

Some of the news has rocked my world…  It’s made me want to kick and scream…to throw a spiritual temper tantrum…  But you know, it’s really not God that I’m mad at…  I believe with ALL of my heart that HE is good…  It’s the enemy…the prince of darkness who continues to plague this world, that I’m angry at…  I’m just tired of sin, and death and suffering…  Sometimes I’m just so ready for Jesus to come back…

But the fact is, I am called to live the abundant life, in spite of my circumstances…  I’m called to live with joy and peace, thanksgiving and love… I’m called to be light, in spite of the darkness…  So the question needs to be asked, what do you do when the battle heats up?

One of the things that I’ve been learning as I pray for my friends that are suffering so much now is that praise is essential in times of extreme conflict, when the enemy comes against us…  Whether it’s the enemy of cancer…or addictions…or lust…or joblessness or depression…  Whatever it is, we must learn to face the enemy with a spirit of praise for our God who is able to do the impossible…

There’s a wonderful story in 2 Chronicles 20 about a good king of Judah named Jehoshaphat…  the chapter opens with some really wicked enemies of Judah coming against them…

And when King Jehoshaphat hears about it, he stands up in the assembly at the temple of God and he cries out to God…

2 CHRONICLES 20:6-9 & 12…

“O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you. ⁷ O our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? ⁸ They have lived in it and have built in it a sanctuary for your Name, saying, ⁹ ‘If calamity comes upon us, whether the sword of judgment, or plague or famine, we will stand in your presence before this temple that bears your Name and will cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and save us.’

¹² O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.”

Jehoshaphat heard about the enemy coming against Judah and he went straight to the LORD…

He didn’t call his best military advisors…He didn’t order the best of his arsenal brought out from the storehouses…He went before the people and he led them to the throne of God

And then he praised God and remembered all that He had done before…And then the LORD responds… 

2 CHRONICLES 20:15&17

¹⁵ He said: “Listen, King Jehoshaphat and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem! This is what the Lord says to you: ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s…¹⁷ You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you… Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you.’ ”

And this is how Jehoshaphat and the people respond to God’s word…

2 CHRONICLES 20:18-19…

¹⁸ Jehoshaphat bowed with his face to the ground, and all the people of Judah and Jerusalem fell down in worship before the Lord. ¹⁹ Then some Levites from the Kohathites and Korahites stood up and praised the Lord, the God of Israel, with very loud voices.

Are you starting to hear a common theme of praise and worship?  They praised as if the victory was already won…

Well listen to what happens…

2 CHRONICLES 20:20-21

²⁰ Early in the morning they left for the Desert of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Listen to me, Judah and people of Jerusalem! Have faith in the Lord your God and you will be upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be successful.” ²¹ After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: “Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.”

They go into battle, praising God… It wasn’t their bravest leaders in the front…  Or their fiercest warriors…  It was men appointed to sing praise to God…

When we go into battle, we should always go in praising God…  Here’s why…

First, Psalm 22:3, in the King James Translation, it says that God inhabits the praise of His people…  Matthew Henry says, “God manifests His glory, grace and special presence with His people when they praise.”

A group of us are starting to meet weekly to pray for my friend with Stage 4 breast cancer, and following the example of the King Jehoshaphat, we are beginning our time with praise…

My friend is in a battle for her life, a vast army of cancer has come against her and we will go out in front of her, singing His praises…

We experienced first hand, this past week, how God truly inhabits the praise of His people…  His presence was almost tangible as we were reminded of how great our God is…  Our hearts were strengthened and instead of despair, we have great hope…

And that brings me to the second reason to praise…  Praise reminds us of who God is…

In ancient times, the name of a person held tremendous significance…  A person’s name described their character…

So when we pray and praise the names of God, we are focusing on who He is…  And we are reminded that He is sufficient for all of our needs…

And that brings me to the third reason we praise…  When we praise, we remember how BIG our Great God is and it helps to put our problems and circumstances in a proper perspective…

As the wonderful old hymn says, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”

When we’re praising, there’s no room in our hearts for fear, or doubt, or discouragement or despair…the glory of God just crowds it all out…

So here’s what happened when the men of Judah went into battle praising God…

2 CHRONICLES 20:22-24

²² As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated. ²³ The men of Ammon and Moab rose up against the men from Mount Seir to destroy and annihilate them. After they finished slaughtering the men from Seir, they helped to destroy one another.

They turned on each other and destroyed themselves…

²⁴ When the men of Judah came to the place that overlooks the desert and looked toward the vast army, they saw only dead bodies lying on the ground; no one had escaped.

God…our Mighty Warrior, who fights our battles for us, wiped out their enemy to His glory and praise…

So as you fight life’s battles, no matter how hopeless they may seem, no matter how tempted you are to give in to despair, no matter how vast the enemy seems… Turn your eyes to our glorious God and praise Him…

The circumstances might not always change right away, but your heart will and you will shine His light into the darkness in a way that is only possible when we’re walking through life’s darkest trials…

Guess What Just Happened In My Kitchen?

So, you have to read yesterday's post for this to make any sense, but when we came home from church tonight, the boys noticed that the dishwasher needed cleaning out...  And, are you ready for this...drumroll please...  they did it together!!  Yep...you read that right...no I wasn't dreaming or hallucinating...they cleaned out the dishwasher TOGETHER!!

I know...it's only the first day...  And afterwards Zack said, "I really miss that job chart!"  But hey, it's a step!! And in the right direction too!!!

Life Lessons In The Kitchen...

I love our kitchen...  It's nice and open, it has a big island in it, many of our teachable moments are lived out in the kitchen.  We have a big table in the kitchen and it's where most of our family meals, and some great conversations, take place...

Some of my all time favorite conversations were what it means to be transformed instead of conformed...  When we were praying about adopting...  Creation vs. evolution...  What does it mean to do everything to the glory of God...  How to deal with a bully... I wish I had kept a journal of all of our topics...

The conversations have been fewer in the last year, but only because we didn't want Abby to feel left out, so we kept it to more topics that she could participate in...  But tonight was one of those great conversations...

It wasn't planned, they rarely are, but it started when something was mentioned about praying while cutting the grass...  And one of the kids said, "You mean you can pray when you are doing other things?"  After all these years, how did we miss making that clear?  It's funny though, I didn't learn that until I was well into my 30's...

Like our child, I always thought prayer was something you did a couple of times a day when you had a few minutes to sit down, center your thoughts on God and talk to Him...  It was all very formal...  I was embarrassed if I would accidentally burp when I was praying, I mean good grief, I'm before the King of Kings and I burp, how rude (seriously, I really thought that...  I seemed to forget that God created me to burp!)

But one day I read, Practicing His Presence by Frank Laubach and Brother Lawrence.  Brother Lawrence was a monk who lived a really long time ago, but wrote letters to his friends about trying to live moment by moment in the presence of God.  And then Frank Laubach is a present day missionary who tried to live out what Brother Lawrence wrote about and wrote letters to his father about his experiences.

It was through this book that I began to understand that prayer is really about constant communion with God...  It can happen anytime, anywhere and it is what we should strive for 24/7...  Prayer keeps us in humble dependence on God and in close connection with Him.  The book COMPLETELY changed the way I looked at prayer.

So tonight, we had an incredible conversation about prayer...  Hopefully our kids have learned what it took me over 30 years to learn...  That the proper posture of life is a posture of prayer.

But then things kind of went downhill from there...  Since the kids are old enough (well, Abby is still exempt from this) their responsibility is to clean up the kitchen after dinner.  But lately, every week or so, we've had a major discussion over "it's not my job."

It inevitably starts with someone who didn't do their job earlier in the day and things have piled up and it dissolves into grumbling, complaining, and whining about how it's not fair that I have to do their job.  Tonight, I decided to let Scott handle it and I just kept playing with Abby...  But I was listening...

As I listened to this conversation, something occurred to me...  Where is their sense of family?  Of team?  It's all about protecting their time...their effort... about not having to do more than another person...  making sure that everything is fair...

And then it occurred to me, we (Scott and I, but really me) created this selfishness with our stupid job chart.  Several years ago, I got the bright idea to create a revolving job chart...  I spent hours developing a job chart that cycled by week, making sure that everyone had a fair amount of responsibility in the house.  As the years passed, the work became more balanced as the kids grew older and could take on more.  On the surface, it sounds great...but what I realized tonight is that it has created a very selfish attitude in them...

There's no sense of "he/she has a busy week this week, let me help them out..."  All I hear is "But that was my job last week..."  Or having to negotiate, since____ is gone this week, you do the dishes and next week, ___ will take your turn (what... I'm the mother... I don't have to negotiate ANYTHING...just clean out the dishwasher for crying out loud...)  But this cursed job chart had created all of that...

Well the job chart came off the wall tonight and went into file 13...  The garbage can...  Gone with it... "But it's not my job"...  Excuses to not take initiative... Reasons to not support a brother or sister...  Now, I am not disillusioned into thinking the battle is over, but at least we are back on the road to learning what it means to be and live as a family...  I'm a slow learner, but thankfully God got through...  Amazing, I was listening for once instead of lecturing!

Children need to learn responsibility, but that has to be balanced with a sense of team...of helping each other...of laying down your life for someone else...even if it is just cleaning out the dishwasher for them...  It has to start somewhere...  And once it again, it began in our kitchen!  I would say it was a rather productive evening!

She Has An Eye For Beauty, But How Do You Explain...?

Abby has an incredible eye for beauty...  This morning as I was taking her to school, she pointed at the sky and said, "Mommy, look...so pretty!"  As the sun was coming up, it was beautiful...those incredible shades of pink against the soft blue of the fading darknesss...  Light overcoming darkness (now there's a whole different post!)...

But as we pulled into school and sun was further up in the sky, the colors were even more spectacular...  So I said Abby, "God painted us a picture!  Isn't He a great colorer?!"  (She LOVES to color!)  "Yes mommy, God knows everything doesn't He?"  And then for the zinger..."Where does God come from?  I know He lives in the sky in heaven...  But where does He come from?  Who is His daddy?"

Wow...  Such questions from a 7 year old!  How do you explain that God was before all things...that He has no start and no ending...that He is not a created being...that He has existed for all eternity... That is too big for me to wrap my brain around, I have no clue how to put that into words for a child.  There's so much about our beliefs that require so much faith... 

It's always interesting to me to hear sceptics accuse those of us with faith as being weak and needing a crutch...  The kind of faith we are called to have is anything but weak and small, it takes far more courage than one who puts their faith in themselves or in the concrete things of this world.  I pray that someday God will give Abby the gift of faith!

But I will say, I love her questions because they cause me to stop and ponder this AMAZING God I love, who is so vast and so magnificent that He is completely unexplainable and such a good colorerer!  Take a minute today to stop and be amazed by how you see God around you!