No Apologies!

I enjoy the study of apologetics, defined by the dictionary as the branch of theology concerned with the defense or proof of Christianity. I think it is important to know what we believe and why. Voddie Baucham's humble but intellectual speaking;  Josh McDowell's awesome testimony and clear arguments; Janet Parshall's articulate ability to deal with controversial issues; Ryan Dobson's wit and sense of humor as a new voice to teens: all these are experts in the field which I admire (though I don't necessarily agree with everything they say). I plan to teach my children how to defend what they believe.

However, the term apologetics seems unfortunate. It is also defined as "offering or expressing an apology or excuse". While the Bible does say to be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks, I'm wondering why we feel the need to apologize or give an excuse for believing the Truth. The question running around in my mind is, "Why does the burden of proof always have to be on us?"

When people ask me why I choose to dress modestly, I never ask them why they feel comfortable in exposing their bodies to the world. If I did, they would probably just shrug and say, "I like the style of my clothes" or "I don't want to look different". So, instead of giving them a Scriptural thesis on modesty, would it be o.k. for me to just say, "I like the look of modest clothes" or "I don't want to look like everyone else" ?

When people ask me why we choose to homeschool our children, why do I feel I have to pull out my "credentials" and "reasons" as if apologizing for our lifestyle. I never require them to tell me how much education their children's teachers have or if they think the kids are being positively socialized or if they can read well by age 5.

When people ask me why I don't work outside the home like them, why can't I just reply, "Because staying home with my kids fulfills me. It is the best scope for my talents to be used" ? Like they do.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying we should check our brains at the door and live by how we feel about an issue on a given day. But every once in awhile, maybe we should just stop before we get into a long explanation. Because most of the people who ask don't want to know anyway. Debate is not helpful to the cause of Christianity most of the time. At least not when it's engaged in by you and your neighbor or relative.

The truth is when I feel I must apologize for my lifestyle, it isn't really in my heart, but it's just a list of rules or dos and don'ts. If the law of God is in my heart, I can reply just like those who disagree with me:
 "It just feels right to me." "I like it this way." And mean it.

If you want to know what I believe, I'll tell you. I'll even tell you why if you really want to know. But don't expect any apologies from me, because God has written on the table of my heart His law, and no excuse is going to erase it!

Are You an Approval Junkie?

I look out anxiously at the mass of people and nervously straighten my new dress. I sit in a row of other nervous students clutching sheet music or desperately wishing they were. I scan the crowd, my stomach jumping. There! In the third row from the front are my parents and my young siblings, proudly supporting my first piano recital. I relax just a little. Then, a nudge. It's my turn! Determined to get on with the inevitable, I fly across the stage as if projected from my seat. I give it my all, plunking away with abandon the all-too-familiar song. As soon as I hit the last note, I fly back to my seat, eager to get the attention on to someone else. As the next beginner student plods through his piece, I notice my teacher in the seat ahead of me jotting notes beside a list of names. I do a double take--beside my name. It says something about my playing too fast. I sit later during the awards ceremony as the trophies are given away and go home with a participation certificate.

Photo Credit

Year after year, that's all I received, a participation certificate. In my thinking, I had failed. My teachers did not approve of my performance.

Silly, wasn't it? It wasn't until recent years enjoying a piano concert that I realized that approval didn't matter. No, I couldn't play like the master on the stage. But I didn't need to. Though I love the piano, performing for the masses isn't my calling in life. I use my talents, limited though they may be, to awaken a love for music in beginner students and to accompany the congregation and some soloists at my church. I think that realization was the beginning of a new chapter in my life.

Does it matter if everyone approves of the way I live my life? No, that's not even possible, so why try to please anyone but my Savior?

Does it matter if someone doesn't approve of how I look or what I weigh? No, not at all, because my physical body is just the outer wrapping for my eternal soul.

Does it matter if my parenting style isn't met with approval? No, the only One I answer to is my Lord.

Does it matter if you don't like my writing? Well....maybe a little....After all, who else would I write to? (I guess I need a little more work.)


How about you? Do you seek the approval of people or the approval of the Lord Who loves You more than You could ever understand? Tell me about your journey to breaking "approval addiction".

Putting God First This Year

In keeping our priorities straight for the year 2010, I thought it would be fitting to begin the year with a post about the most important Priority of each Christian woman's life--God. Having a consistent, productive devotional life is not something to be figured out once and repeated over and over. It is constantly changing and unique to each person. That's because it is a relationship not a duty as so many of us fall into believing. Here are a few tips and links to help us get started in the right direction as we consider God first this year:

• Plan it. Our time with God will not just happen. This simply means having a certain time and place where we meet with God. If it's not possible to do it the same time and place every time, it can at least be scheduled in on the calendar so that it will be part of the day.
  
• First things First. In Ordering Your Private World, George MacDonald tells us that it is important not to arrive before God's throne "emotionally breathless". To keep from doing this, he journals his thoughts first as a way to empty his mind. For some, it is hard enough to be awake, especially if our devotional time is first thing in the morning. In that case, it may be easier to take the advice of Anne Ortlund in Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman. She spends the first hour waking up, exercising and dressing for the day so she is at her best when it is time to meet with the Lord.
• Begin with Prayer. This is not a set-in-stone rule, but I have found it helpful because it is easy to read your "assigned" reading for the day, blurt out a few quick words to the Lord and move on without really worshiping Him.
• Praise First, Petition Later. If I fail to spend the first part of my prayer time praising, I will get to the end of prayer and realize that I have done all the talking and that I have focused mostly on myself and my needs. Focusing on Him in unhurried, adoring praise is the most precious way to talk with the Father.
• Read the Word according to your needs. I realize there is great value and importance in having a regular Bible reading schedule and sticking to it. However, sometimes I have been at my lowest, needing something from God and have found my daily reading to be the genealogies in the Old Testament. I have a little emergency plan set up where if I need extra wisdom for a certain situation, I add in the Proverb of the day. If I need encouragement or help in praising the Lord, I add in a Psalm or two.
• If you miss a day, don't give up! If your husband were to go on a business trip and be gone for several days, you would not give up on the relationship (I hope!). You would eagerly anticipate his return and contact him in any way you were able while waiting to see him again. Our relationship with God is much the same way. If circumstances keep us from having our planned quiet time, instead of growing discouraged, we can pray in snatches during the day or take 5 minutes here and there to read a verse or two. Then, we can eagerly anticipate the morning (afternoon, or evening) when we can once again sit at his feet.
  

Related Links:
Bible Reading Plans @ Women Living Well Blog
Tips for Mommy Devotions

Establishing a Devotional Life: Baby and Toddler Edition
My Daily Bread @ awake
Facing the Demands of "Me Time" @ Pursuing Titus 2

This post took 26 minutes to complete and is part of the Steady Mom's 30 Minute Blog Challenge.

"I Need Thee Ev'ry Hour"

"One day as a young wife and mo­ther of 37 years of age, I was bu­sy with my reg­u­lar house­hold tasks. Sud­den­ly, I be­came so filled with the sense of near­ness to the Mast­er that, won­der­ing how one could live with­out Him, ei­ther in joy or pain, these words, “I Need Thee Ev­e­ry Hour,” were ush­ered in­to my mind, the thought at once tak­ing full pos­sess­ion of me." -Annie S. Hawks

I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord;
No tender voice like Thine can peace afford.

Refrain

I need Thee, O I need Thee;
Every hour I need Thee;
O bless me now, my Savior,
I come to Thee.

I need Thee every hour, stay Thou nearby;
Temptations lose their power when Thou art nigh.

Refrain

I need Thee every hour, in joy or pain;
Come quickly and abide, or life is in vain.

Refrain

I need Thee every hour; teach me Thy will;
And Thy rich promises in me fulfill.

Refrain

I need Thee every hour, most Holy One;
O make me Thine indeed, Thou blessèd Son.

Refrain

Source: hymntime.com

Ever since I heard that this hymn had been written by a wife and mother like myself, I realized how pertinent it is to my everyday life--to my unique situation. I would often sing it to myself in devotions and wish I had a way to remember it through the day as a reminder.

The problem is I spend time with the Lord and enjoy His Presence, learn from Him and worship Him. Yet, after I put my devotional basket away and go on with the day's business, it is easy to forget that closeness. Noise and distraction of little ones and laundry and schooling crowd out the thoughts of drawing near and the consciousness of needing His constant help through my day.

Then, I read this post and this one and this one. It seems that everyone in the blogosphere is trying this experiment. So, I decided to try it with my own little twist.

Today, I set my cell phone alarm (since I don't wear a watch) to go off every hour. When it did, I bowed my head and thanked the Lord for His help thus far and asked Him for new strength for the next hour. Then, I gave each of my children a hug and texted my hard-working husband since he wasn't there to hug.You may not need a reminder to hug your children or tell your husband how much you love him, but I tend to have tunnel vision when I'm trying to get something done.

I can't remember what was happening every time the alarm went off. Once I was folding laundry, another time I was breaking up a fight, another time we were eating lunch, and another time we were doing school work. When my children were all having quiet time and I was having computer time, I heard the increasingly familiar alarm go off. I bowed my head and prayed, but I hope you don't think bad of me for not waking or otherwise disturbing my children!

What about you? Have you tried this? If not, do try it, and let me know how it works for you. I know my day was much more peaceful. Depending on God every. single. hour. is the best stress-buster I know!

Entertaining Thoughts (Loving God with Our Minds)

en-ter-tain-ment (noun) - agreeable occupation for the mind; diversion; amusement
-dictionary.com

Photo courtesy of alles-schlumpf

Oh boy! As if I haven't gotten myself in enough trouble! God wants us to love Him with our minds? Our entertainment?! Big ouch. As I talked about in the junk food post, it is easy to fall into the trap of non-edifying entertainment. We live in an amusement-obsessed culture and are inundated with media everywhere we go. Technology has made it even more available and more attractive. Gordon MacDonald in the classic, Ordering Your Private World, gives us the literal meaning of amusement: functioning without thought. Some people, even in the Bible times, knowing the dangers of wrong or excessive entertainment; decided to cut it out altogether. I don't think that is a good option. God made life to be enjoyed, and there are plenty of ways to enjoy life in a God-honoring way. However, do we endlessly amuse ourselves with entertainments that require absolutely no thought? If we do, how is that glorifying to God?

Then there are our thoughts. What do we think about? Do our thoughts honor God?

Much of what I said about the body yesterday can be applied to our minds. I won't repeat all the principles of discipline and moderation. However, I do want to leave you with some links and a challenge as we wrap up this series on Loving God With Our All.

• Michelle at She Looketh Well talks about Controlling Our Thoughts in Marriage
• Homemaker Barbi tells us how to entertain our children without TV and video games here and here
• An excellent resource for Christian reviews on popular media *Note: Everyone's standards are different and God deals with us all at different times, so I realize this isn't the final authority on entertainment, but it can be a tool to evaluate it for ourselves and for our kids.
• Book: Ordering Your Private World by Gordon MacDonald, particularly the chapter on the mind.
  

Challenge: Do ONE THING this weekend to make your mind healthier. Read a book that stretches your brain or teaches you something. Take a class. I don't care what it is, but make sure it is spiritually edifying as well as intellectually healthy. E-mail me about it. I'd love to hear it!

Addiction-Free Life (Loving God With Our Bodies)

If I were to ask most Christians how they could sin with their bodies, their answers would most likely be confined to smoking, drinking, recreational drugs or immorality. While these things are never in line with God's Word, if we are to grow as Christians, we need to go a little deeper than that. This isn't something that we can check off a list. "Love God With My Body. O.K. done that. Check. Next item." It's back to that dreaded "d" word: discipline. And daily.

I know, it sends chills up my spine just as it does yours. Why do we react that way? Because our flesh (our body) does not like to be restrained. While we may not indulge in overtly sinful practices now that we are saved, we can't just forget about this area. Besides the temptations we have to guard against that Satan will throw at us from time to time, we must be sure that our bodies do not rule us. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:27, "But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection."

In our modern world, we hear a lot about addiction. This is simply because, in a culture that doesn't acknowledge God where everyone does "that which is right in his own eyes", the flesh is easily satisfied with no restraints. Dictionary.com defines it this way:

ad⋅dic⋅tion – (noun) the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma

But Christians don't get addicted to anything, right? Paul must have thought it was a possibility for the older women in Titus 2. He told them to "not be given to much wine". You're probably thinking what I thought when I first read this. "These women are supposed to be teaching me what to do, and they have to be warned about alcohol addiction?" I know that alcohol addiction is very real, and I am in no way demeaning those that struggle with or are recovering from it; but it does seem a strange thing about which to warn women that have been Christians for many years.

Photo courtesy of rogersmj

A speaker I once heard enlightened me further on this point. In those days, a woman suffering with the aches and pains of aging could not reach for a bottle of Tylenol or ask the doctor for a prescription of Vicodin. The only means they had for controlling pain was wine--fermented, alcoholic, potentially mind-altering wine. Paul prescribed it for Timothy when he had stomach problems. Please don't shoot me, but it appears that there were people that used alcohol in the Bible times. However, Paul warns the women in Titus 2: "Watch out! This can be habit-forming! You are using it for a legitimate purpose, but it can control you and not just your pain. Take it only in moderation."

While I hope you don't try to moderate alcohol, I've known many Christians that struggle, myself included, with something that is difficult to moderate. Before you get too self-righteous, let me give you a few examples.

• Food is a big one. Gluttony is merely "excessive eating and drinking" according to the dictionary. Ever pushed back from the Thanksgiving table and sighed, "I am stuffed. I feel like I'm going to pop!" Ouch.

• Prescription drugs are easy to come by in America. I went into a doctor's office once to refill a prescription for a medication I was on, and the receptionist handed me a sample pack without even checking to see if I was a patient! I walked out with my sample because I knew I was legitimately supposed to take it, but I never went back again. Sadly, they are causing addictions in many people's lives, including older people and people in high-stress ministries.

I could go on and on, but I'm sure that God will deal with you on some of your own issues in this area. Our bodies are His temple, so let's make them a fitting place for the King of Kings to dwell.

Links:
Andrea at Exemplify talks about her struggle with emotional eating and what she does about it
Courtney at Women Living Well tells us a lesson she learned from Chef Mesnier
Lisa at the Well Grounded Life tells us how to give our bodies a "tune-up"

Book:
A Prodigal Comes Home
While I don't agree with this author's perspective on all things, this book painted the picture for me of how horrible addiction and sin can be. It is, in part, the story of gospel singer, Michael English, and his struggle with prescription drug addiction.

*Food photo courtesy of patterbt
**Medicine photo courtesy of Darren Hester

Become as Little Children (Loving God With Our Hearts)

Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little
children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

-Jesus, Matthew 18:3

Photo courtesy of allposters.com

Although I've had a general understanding of this verse since becoming a Christian, it didn't have the meaning to me that it now has until the birth of my third child. Jerrod is a typical "mama's boy" and doesn't like me to be out of his sight. Complete strangers will come up to me in the grocery store and ask me, "Is he always that happy?" And, in general, I can answer, "Yes, unless he is away from me." He would rather be carried around and involved in whatever I'm doing than to do things on his own.

As Christians, we are to be like little children, but what exactly does this mean? I don't know all the theological implications, but in observing my littlest child, I have a better idea than I used to have. There are several main things that a little child does that are imperative for a true child of God to do as well:

• Desire to be with Him. I've already told you how my son loves to be right there with me doing whatever I'm doing. So it is with our relationship with Christ. We must desire to simply be with Him. I know, as mothers or busy women, it is not always possible, however our desire should be to spend time alone with our Father. I'm not just talking about our "quiet time" in the morning, but all day long, we should just enjoy having Him near and being near to Him. How does my little one do this? He reaches for me--anytime I put him down! This is a Biblical concept recorded in James 4:8, "Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you."
• Reject all others. Unless it's someone that Jerrod is assured will not take him far from me, like a grandparent or, of course, Daddy; Jerrod will turn away from anyone who reaches out to him to tries to take him. If I'm holding him, he will turn his face to my shoulder and hold on tight if he thinks the threat is very real. Do we do this as Christians? If someone or something tries to draw us away from our Father, do we turn away and hold tight to Him or do we go readily to another?
  
• Seek His face. The Word of God tells us in I Chronicles 16:11: "Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his face continually." I don't know what this means to you, but I imagine it's a bit like Jerrod when he is frightened. I turn on the vacuum cleaner or my wonderful but very loud Vitamix, and the noise scares him. What does he do? He looks for my face. When I make eye contact with him and give a reassuring smile, he is fine and smiles back. If I look the least bit disturbed, he will start crying. There are pressures of life that disturb or frighten me as I'm sure there are for you. When I feel the fear build, I need only seek the face of my Father. There I will see reproof or reassurance depending on my reason for fear.
  
• Seek to please Him. Jerrod doesn't only seek my face when he is fearful. He also looks for my face to see my smile for no reason at all. He will take his chubby little hands and pull my face toward him, give me a big grin and wait for me to return it. This is one of the most important things in a relationship with God. Do we seek Him when all is going well just to see His smile? Do we want all we do to please Him? His smile of approval on our lives should be our constant and overarching goal in our daily lives.

Let us purpose today to become like little children because these are the ones who will "enter into the kingdom of heaven." That's something I want to be sure not to miss!

Above photo courtesy of sara.atkins

Loving God With Our All

"And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength..."
-Jesus, Mark 12:30

"I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless..."
-Paul, 1 Thessalonians 5:23

These two verses make it clear that, whatever it involves, I am to love God with everything that makes ME. Everything. Without getting into this discussion deeper than we can in 5 days, I am only going to scratch the surface of three main areas that make up ME and that make up YOU. These are:

• Our Hearts - our affections and desires, emotions: the spiritual side of us
  
• Our Minds - our intelligence and thoughts: the intellectual side of us
  
• Our Bodies - the physical side of us

We talked yesterday about "junk food" in not only our physical lives but also our spiritual and intellectual lives. This is an area which God deals with me regularly. If you are attempting to grow as a Christian, I'm sure He deals with you in these areas often as well. The glorious, spiritual life He has given us is wrapped up in human, earthly flesh. No, I don't mean that gives us license to sin because we can't help what our flesh does. But, ever since the Fall, we have had to struggle with living in a fallen world with fallen bodies and minds. God desires to preserve our spirits, souls and bodies (i.e. our hearts, minds and bodies) until he comes as the above verse suggests. If that is true, than we can be victorious in these areas! However, it is only as we turn ourselves over to Him that we can achieve victory. This does not mean we do nothing. God wants us to live a life of discipline. Ouch! Yes, I know that is a tough one. As I said, I struggle with it daily. Let's explore a little bit further this week the practical applications of loving God with all that is in us. My hope is that by the end of the week, we'll all be just a little closer to God's wonderful purpose for our lives.

Junk Food

Photo courtesy of DHDesign

I wake up slowly wondering why I feel so rested and what woke me up since I don't hear the alarm clock. The alarm clock? I bolt up in bed and squint at the neon green numbers. Oh no! The alarm was supposed to go off an hour ago! Not stopping to figure out what happened, I leap out of bed and hurry to start dressing, leaving the bed in a crumpled heap. I have to get to a doctor's appointment and get the grocery shopping done before the plumber arrives at 2:00 to fix our leaky faucet in the bathroom. The kids wake up one by one, moving as slowly as they possibly can--or at least it seems so. I mumble a quick, "Help me, Lord, today!" by way of my morning devotions and dress everyone as quickly as possible. I glance at the clock. No time for breakfast. Herding everyone into the car, I fasten carseats as fast as possible. "Mommy, I'm hungry!" one of the kids whine. "We'll get something on the way," I promise as I jump into the driver's seat. Irritable from being rushed around and no breakfast, they start fighting in the back seat. I bite my lip to keep from shooting back an equally irritable response. Glancing down at the gas gauge, I realize that we may have to walk if I don't fill up very soon. Grumbling again, I scan the sides of the road to see which I get to first, a gas station or a McDonald's.

Photo courtesy of WanderingWhitehorse

After filling up and ordering breakfast for the kids and myself, I'm back on the road with barely enough time to get there before they will start calling for the next patient. Searching for something to calm my nerves, I switch on the radio station. The music is a little too heavy on drums and electric guitars for my taste and the words are hard to catch, but I didn't think to pick up my Ipod on the way out.

I pile everyone out of the car at the doctor's office, feeling like I'm going to drop over from exhaustion even though I've been up less than 2 hours. After checking in, I drop into a chair to wait my turn. Beside me on the table are some women's magazines, so I pick one up. I'm in the middle of a great book, but it is at home. I didn't have time to grab that either.

Photo courtesy of julep67

Later at the grocery store, when the kids ask for a candy bar and a pop, I don't have the willpower to say no because that's exactly what sounds good to me, too. It's been a tough morning...everyone deserves a little treat...right? Rushing through the store, I finally get home with about 10 minutes to spare before the plumber is due to arrive. Seeing the mess we made as we hurried to get out of the house that morning, I quickly order the kids to start picking up their mess and rush to put away groceries. "At least there are no dishes in the sink," I console myself as I hear the start of another fight and a knock at the door simultaneously.

Sound familiar? I hope your mornings aren't like this on a regular basis. Unfortunately, I've had scenarios like this happen more often than I'd like to think. A morning full of junk food. We all know that fast food is not healthy for our children or us, but that's not the only junk food that I had in this fictional-but-based-on-fact scenario. While I normally prepare a balanced, healthy breakfast for my kids, this particular morning it was easy to run through a drive through for a breakfast with little, if any, nutrition. I know that my days always go better after I've spent time with the Lord, but this time it was easy to send up a hurried prayer. Although I normally listen to edifying music that draws me closer to the Lord, I settled for music that had little, if any, message which was hidden by a bunch of noise. Since I didn't have any good reading material available, I had to sift through gossip and worldly advice to get very little "nutritious" material for my mind.

So what caused me to give up good nutrition physically, mentally and spiritually and accept inferior, fake food for my soul, body and mind? Urgency. I had a place to be and I had to be there quickly. There are lots of reasons for urgency--some of them out of our control. Better planning, more careful attention to details, being more organized: those things might have helped my day go more smoothly. Whatever brought me to it, the urgency of what I thought I needed to do--howbeit legitimate--outweighed the importance of spending time with the Lord and feeding our spirits, minds and bodies with nutritious food. Charles Hummel, in a classic work by the same title called it "the tyranny of the urgent". No wonder the Bible tells us, "Be still and know that I am God."

Photo courtesy of abcdz2000

The most dangerous part of settling for junk food is that it is much easier to do so the next time. In my scenario, I made excuses for buying the junk food from the grocery store because I was already in the habit of fast food from my breakfast. Although we know junk food is inferior and doesn't satisfy, there is a craving for more once we indulge. Turning the radio off and listening to spiritual music and picking up a book that challenges my brain instead of a mind-numbing magazine will be more difficult after having "fed" spirit and mind with the inferior. No matter how difficult it might be to get back on track, the rewards of our efforts will be well worth it: a healthy and fit body, mind and spirit.

Feed My Lambs

This poem is my personal testimony/journey on this topic. I didn't actually do all of the things in the poem, but it expresses some of the different ways we could minister as women. Some of the ministries mentioned may be exactly the ones God has for you. Remember, this is only my personal testimony. I just thought it might be a good background to start our subject this week.

Feed My Lambs

When I began to follow Jesus, my heart was very full
Though I was deeply satisfied, I felt another pull.

Emotions soaring, to God I cried, "I want to work for you!"
Is there a ministry for me - a work that I can do?"

"My child, do you love me?" Answered the Great I AM.
"Oh yes, my blessed Savior!" "Then, Child, feed my lambs."

So off I set to find them, these lambs of which he spake.
I traveled far to Africa, many converts to make.

Then my Father told me, "These are not for you!
"Closer to home I have a work for you to do."

So I began to work at church in many different things,
Visiting and teaching, I would speak, play and sing.

After many months of this, I was sure I had it right.
All the work that I did must be pleasing in His sight.

But when I took the time to inquire of the Lord
To seek after His heart and study in His Word,

Of His will for me, He told me once again,
"My child, if you love me, you will feed my lambs.

"The work you've done is noble, but it is not for you,
Closer to home I have a work for you to do."

So I laid aside my plans and I began to feed His sheep,
One little girl and two little boys in the home that I should keep.

Much kingdom work there is to do, but all of that can keep.
For now, my Lord has bidden me, to simply, feed His sheep.

Glimpses of Love

If you have been ill and felt the touch of your mother's hand...

If you have been afraid and ran to the strong arms of your daddy...

If you have stumbled, gotten up and heard the cheering of your parents...

If your heart has beat wildly when a "certain someone" entered the room...

If your sweetheart's profession of love has brought tears to your eyes and an ache to your chest...

If you have stroked the velvety softness of a newborn's cheek...


If you have watched your husband cradle that newborn in his arms and exclaim with shining eyes, "She's beautiful!"...

If you have inhaled the "baby smell" of a newborn's head, felt tiny fingers wrap around your own, seen your child's first smile, and heard the first word...



If you have seen a doctor's furrowed brow and cried inside, "Let it be me instead!"

If you have met a tired, dirty husband at the door as he comes home from a hard day's work...

If you have made a horrible choice and heard the words, "I forgive you"...

If you have felt the pain of a child's screamed, "I hate you!"...

If you have seen your teenager running from all that is good straight towards all that is evil and spent nights weeping...

If you welcome back the repentant child covered with the dust of sin and reeking of the stench of evil...

...than you have seen just a glimpse of the deep, deep love God has for YOU!

All photos by allposters.com

The Gospel According to Pinocchio (Part Three)

If you didn't read Part One and Two, please read those first.

When Pinocchio found the bottle with the message in it, it told him the lengths to which his father had gone in order to rescue his disobedient child. Remember the first time you were faced with Grace? When you saw the sacrifice made for you when you were no more deserving of it than a cockroach deserves to eat from the table of a King? Pinocchio began his choosing at that point. He could have turned his back on the sacrifice made by his father and returned to Pleasure Island. In doing so, he would have gone to the salt mines.

Many do the same thing. They are faced with Christ’s sacrificial death for us and turn their back, returning to the games of sin. Though it grieves the Father, He has given them their free will and they go to Hell of their own choosing. However, Pinocchio did not do that. Instead, he began to think of his father and came to the point where he was willing to go back to him on account of the sacrifice he had made. He swam into the mouth of the whale, facing death for his father. I find it interesting that his conscience was left outside. The quest for the Father becomes such a strong pull that a conscience is overshadowed by the Spirit’s wooing.

The time in the belly of the whale was a time of reunion with his father, but Pinocchio had not yet found life. He wanted to save himself in his own way. His efforts only saved him from one peril, the whale’s belly, and plunged him into another, the ocean and certain death.

Death is essential to love. God loved so He gave His Son. Christ loves so He died for us. We must love so much that we give our lives completely to God. Geppetto found Pinocchio’s lifeless form and wept. God knows that we must come to the point of death in order to love Him which is what He desires, but He loves us so much that it grieves Him to see us suffer even to that extent.

Geppetto took Pinocchio home. Withe the Blue Fairy's return and granting of life to him, the parallel to our own salvation is complete. The Holy Spirit sees that we die to sin and gives us spiritual life. Note that Pinocchio never reached school. Though we can try to attain to the Law, it is impossible in our depraved state. We will never measure up.

Do you remember when you woke from that death to see your home? And to see the Father? No mention was made of Pinocchio’s disobedience. He was more than just a changed Pinocchio with a blotted out past. He was new! The new Pinocchio had done no wrong. He was completely new with no past. It was as if his past rejection of his father had never happened. And so are we—new creatures in Christ Jesus with none of the old past hanging on to us.

Perhaps the best part of the story is that Jiminy Cricket moved on. When we are in a constant relationship of love with our Father, we no longer need a conscience or the Law. The Spirit dwells within us and writes His Law on our hearts and we are free— free from the Law, free from sin and free to love our Father. So, God’s wish—for fellowship with His creation—really can come true.

I'd love to hear your story of Grace. Care to share?

The Gospel According to Pinocchio (Part Two)

If you didn't read Part One, please read yesterday's post first.

Two phenomenal things happen in the story at this point: Geppetto begins to search for Pinocchio. So does our Father. We are lost and running from His love, but He seeks us. Then, in the very bondage of our own making, the Holy Spirit visits us.

Pinocchio was not ready to repent and love when the Blue Fairy found him in Stromboli’s cage, but his pride had been deflated and had gotten him into a mess from which he could not free himself. He tried to lie to the Blue Fairy, but just as the “One that guides into all truth”, she could not be fooled. She set him free but allowed him to keep his own free will.

When the fox and the cat met up with him again, he told them he was “going home to Papa”, but he never made it. They enticed him again, this time with pleasure. Pinocchio and his peers enjoyed all the forbidden things of Pleasure Island and forgot about school entirely. We’ve all been at that point—giving lust free reign with no regard to our nagging conscience or the Law that seems so far away—not to mention our Father and His love for us. But sin “makes a donkey out of us”, just as Pleasure Island did to Pinocchio. It reduces us to a braying fool clutching at the world’s “candy” and “trinkets” while being prepared for the salt mines of eternal bondage.

Though many lose themselves in sin and ultimately end up in the salt mines, or Hell, Pinocchio’s relentless conscience got him out before he was eternally lost. Running for his life, he dove off the cliff to the ocean below. That crisis experience is one we all must face on the way back to our Father. It is the time when we become sick of sin and rush from it for our very lives.

Tomorrow we will conclude with Part Three. Thanks for sticking with me on a little "deeper" topic this week!

The Gospel According to Pinocchio (Part One)

As I read Disney’s version of Pinocchio to my daughter for the fiftieth time, I began to see the classic story in a whole new light. I’m not sure what the author had in mind when he wrote Pinocchio’s adventure, but I see it as the tale of every man and his struggle with good and evil and the drama of the Law and Grace.

The story begins in the shop of a woodcarver named Geppetto. Man’s story began when God created in the Garden of Eden. And my story? It began when I was born into this world. And so did yours. Each man born since the Fall has possessed a great void, one that theologians call depravity and what we may call a “God-shaped” hole that nothing but He can fill. In that respect, we are little more than lifeless puppets at our creation, physical beings created in the image of God but with no spiritual life.

As Geppetto looked out his window on the night of Pinocchio’s creation and wished that he would become a real boy, God the Father looks at His creation and puts into motion a plan to woo man to Himself that he may receive life. When we are born, any spiritual activity is basically inert until we reach an age of accountability. We live physically, but we sit on the shelf, so to speak, as Pinocchio did. But, there comes a day when the Holy Spirit speaks to the heart with conviction and Truth.

In Pinocchio’s story, the Blue Fairy came and awakened Pinocchio, not to real life, but to the realization that he was not complete. This is continually brought to our mind by the receipt of our conscience, which to Pinocchio came in the form of Jiminy Cricket. Geppetto’s joy over Pinocchio’s coming to this partial life is not unlike God’s. He joys in the wooing of man just as he joys in our receiving spiritual life. Though He has omnipotence and can keep us in His “shop” where we will follow His every wish by force, He knows love is a choice. And, the choice to love God can only be made when we are set free to will what we choose and given the opportunity to reject Him.

Geppetto sent Pinocchio away, but he sent him to school. So God sends us to the schoolmaster of the Law, for He knows that unless we know the Law, we will never know our sin. And until we come face to face with our sin, we will never choose Him. From this point on, Pinocchio’s life represents a struggle. His conscience, the “inner law”, struggles with the outward influences of evil in his world. The fox and the cat represent Satan’s agents to draw us further and further from the Law and consequently, the Father. The first temptation they used to trap Pinocchio is fame—nothing more than an appeal to carnal pride. Pinocchio forsakes all thoughts of school to become a puppet for Stromboli. Many have sought fame and allowed their pride to make them mere puppets only to lock them in a cage of bondage in the end.

Come back tomorrow for Part Two...

Spiritual Life Week: Allegories

According to my new blog schedule, this is spiritual life week. I had something planned for this week, but as I was looking through some old files I found an article I wrote some time ago and began thinking of allegories. Since I'm doing something really different this week, I thought I owed you a post of explanation.

From John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress to C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia to Ted Dekker's Black, White and Red; I love stories that not only entertain but have application to my spiritual life. It's kind of like a treasure hunt for the mind: what's beneath the surface? My mind works rather strangely, I admit, but I have found some of Disney's works to be allegories. I know, Disney rewrote some classic fairy tales--they weren't all his original works. However, as a child, I enjoyed the "classic" Disney stories and have enjoyed reading them to my own children.

This week, I'm going to share in three parts my own interpretation of a story most, if not all, of us know well. What does this have to do with being a wife, mother, and keeper of the home? Much! Am I straying from my original purpose of this blog? Not at all. I firmly believe that if our spiritual life is not in order, we miss our whole purpose for marriage, parenting and keeping the home.

So, stay with me. The message of the story I will discuss this week may convict you, may anger you or may resonate with you from your own experience. You may want to prepare by raiding your child's bookshelf and reading again the story of.....

Tips for Mommy Devotions

After all the great resources I've mentioned this week, it seems a bit silly to list my own personal tips. However, just in case what I've found to be helpful to me also works for you, I am sharing. I couldn't help but laugh when my husband read Tuesday's post and asked, "When did that happen? I don't remember that." No, it wasn't an exact "day in the life of" post, but it could have happened to any of us mothers of littles. Right?

I admit that I do not spend an hour every morning at exactly the same time in quiet Bible study and prayer. This is not the season of life for that, as we've already heard from mothers much further ahead than I am. However, I desperately need time with my Savior. Here are a few things that help me to keep a (sort of) regular quiet time:

Photo courtesy of AllPosters.com

• Get up. Sounds simple, but it is not always easy. When I have been up often through the night with the children, I feel it is more spiritual to get my rest in the morning and catch time with God in those "short moment through the day". You may disagree, but if I become irritable from lack of rest, what good is an hour of Bible study? However, if I have had a reasonable amount of sleep (it's been awhile since I've seen 8 consecutive hours but more than 4 seems reasonable), I find that I must discipline my flesh to get up early before the kids and spend time with my Father.
• Write it down. I've told you before that I'm easily distracted. I do have the tendency to be praying earnestly and find ten minutes later that my mind is a million miles away. What has greatly helped me with this is writing my prayers rather than saying them. I got the idea first from Anne Ortlund in one of her books. It seemed strange at first, but I find that not only can writing down my words to God keep me from getting distracted, but it can help me when I do get interrupted to remember where I was. Another benefit is being able to look back and see all the answers to prayer.
• Don't stress. I used to feel like if I didn't read my Bible through at least every other year, I was not a very deep Christian. I would set myself up for failure and always be playing "catch-up" therefore I couldn't really enjoy my time with the Lord. That's just one example of all the burdens we can put on ourselves. Your quiet time (and mine) is not a performance; it is a relationship. Love the Lord, enjoy Him and share with Him. Learn His heart. These are just a few of the things I'm endeavoring to do now without the guilt trips.
  

Establishing a Devotional Life: The Baby and Toddler Edition

Having a meaningful devotional life as a Christian woman can be simplified into three steps:

1. Take Bible to a cozy chair upon rising in the morning.
2. Spend the first hour in prayer.
3. Spend an additional hour in Bible study.

Nice and easy of course. If you are a mother of babies and toddlers, you may need to add a few additional steps. Preparation is key, so the steps begin the evening before your anticipated devotional time (aka "quiet time"):

1. Set alarm for 5:00 A.M. Early morning devotions are essential. You must meet with God first thing, of course.
2. Go to bed at a decent hour. (Note: The phrase "a decent hour" is highly relative. The most exact figure used to explain it would be the hour between the last drink/good night kiss/"just one more thing to tell you" routine and the hour the baby awakes for his midnight feeding.)
3. Awaken approximately 4-5 more times for varied reasons involving your children before falling into a deep sleep at 3:00 A.M.
4. Drag out of bed at the prompting of the alarm clock you diligently set last night. Fumble with alarm clock to turn it off and realize that you've already turned it off. That high-pitched siren is actually the baby...hungry...again.
5. Gather Bible from under a pile of artwork, bills and a banana peel. Breathe the first prayer of your devotional time which is a prayer of repentance for allowing something to be laid atop God's Word. Oops...add to that repentance for allowing God's Word to be dropped on the floor...bananas leave a slippery residue.
6.Wipe off the front of your Bible and take it and the now screaming baby to the cozy chair. Dump the stuffed animal collection and the stack of books on the floor and settle in to feed the baby while reading your three chapters of the Old Testament for the day. (Your plan to read the Bible through every year has yet to make it out of the Old Testament by December 31.)
7. Read first verse and hear a plaintive whisper from the staircase, "Mommy, I can't sleep. Can I sit with you?" Smile sweetly and say, "Why sure, dear!" Mumble something that sounds like an affirmative and wait for said darling to climb onto your lap. As he settles in, you get a good idea of why he couldn't sleep. His waterbed sprung a leak...oh yeah, no waterbeds in the house. Which must mean....
8. Tuck darling into bed after a sponge bath and clean sheets. Utter the second prayer of the day which is "Please let him go back to sleep, Lord!" Scoop up once again screaming baby who is indignant for having his feeding interrupted.
9. Settle into a chair with baby again and reread first verse. Read verse two and three before baby starts to fuss--he's done eating but not ready for sleeping yet.
10. Abandon your Bible and decide to walk and pray while jostling baby. Five minutes of this and you start to feel a bit smug for multi-tasking. This has got to count for an exercise routine. Which reminds you that you never got around to exercising yesterday or the day before that. You start wondering if you'll ever be able to lose the baby fat with such an erratic exercise routine when your husband comes downstairs and asks what you are doing. You start to tell him you are praying then realize that your mind is a now a million miles from whatever you were praying about. You also realize that he will laugh if you tell him you are exercising by jostling the baby who is now (finally!) sleeping, so you remain speechless.
11. Your husband gets in the shower. You successfully put the baby back to bed. You decide to pray while fixing your honey's breakfast. While you are buttering toast and starting on the missionaries, said honey hollers, "Could you bring me a towel?" At which point you realize that the entire household inventory of towels are in the dryer, which after investigating, you discover was never started. You pile them into the washing machine again and look around for something with which to improvise.
12. You head back to the kitchen and are met with several tousled-haired children with one thought on their mind, "What's for breakfast?"
13. After serving your children the now-cold buttered toast, you pop some more in for your husband and surrender to the fact that your devotional time for that morning is now over.

Disclaimer: The above scenario is completely fictitious. Any similarity to a real-life situation is completely coincidental and entirely probable.