It's Not You, It's Me

I so often have a hard time enjoying my children.  "Often" as in, pretty much daily.  

I love my children, and literally for as long as I can remember I have looked forward to being a mama.  I practiced on my little brother from the time I was five.  Then I was everybody's favorite and most reliable babysitter (if I do say so myself...).  Then I had "favorite little kids" that I would invest myself in as a young adult.  I've always loved children.  

So it is with a bewildered heart that I find myself, over and over again, feeling put out and put upon, annoyed, overwhelmed, distracted, frustrated, like my plans are being held up because of my children.  I have my own agenda, and over and over again, because of them, I feel foiled again!    

These are real feelings.  

Regularly, I see Facebook posts from friends who seem to just adore everything about being mamas, getting Warm Fuzzies all the time as they look at and interact with their children.  These girls all just seem to embody "mother" in all the best ways.  To lay their lives down for the sakes of their children is one of their greatest joys.  

And I'm over here like, "What is this?  Why don't my kids get it that they're supposed to be perfect already?  I want to love being their mama, but they're messing it up for me!"  

Remember, I love my children.  But these are ugly, real feelings.  

Talk about my own worst enemy.  

I am so, so selfish.  And I wrestle with my own selfishness all the time, because when I go ahead and get around to acknowledging it's there and a Big Problem, I still just want things my way.  I'm having an argument in my head between the proverbial angel and demon, all the while knowing the right thing to do, and just stubbornly sticking with the demon.  

I remember almost eight years ago, a pastor praying prophetically over Andy and me, assuring us both that these (yet unborn) kids of ours would follow the Lord all the days of their lives--but that it would NOT be easy--we could not just sit back and say "we got a word from the Lord (about this)"--it would be HARD WORK training our children in the paths of righteousness.  

It IS hard work.  But I have always thought of it as hard physical work, directed toward shaping my children.  

It didn't occur to me that the hardest work might be primarily spiritual, and primarily within myself.  

Sanctification is Hard Work.  But if I don't deal with myself more than anybody else, I'm not only a hypocrite who doesn't actually grasp unconditional love and grace--but my kids know it.  They are perceptive little buggers.  

"Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  Be wretched and mourn and weep.  Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you." James 4:8b-10

"Search me, O God, and know my heart!  Try me, and know my thoughts!  See if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!"  Psalm 139:23-24

"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.  And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.  And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."  Ezekiel 36:25-26

Oh, and there's a happy paradox: it is through all the (genuine, heart-wrenching) wretchedness that Undivided Joy is born.  

I am (very, very slowly) learning.  Jesus, bring me from head knowledge to a heart of flesh.  

Beautiful Geometry (Or Something Like That)

My sister-in-law sent us a jar of Magnetic Pattern Blocks for Christmas

All In A Day's Work

Yesterday was the perfect day to put on my shirtsleeves and work on my tan: 10 degrees, a few feet of crusty snow, and brilliant sunshine.  

Haha, just kidding!  I didn't go out there for my tan, I went up on the porch roof to shovel it off.  All our other rooflines are steep enough to clear themselves of snow in occasional big ol' crashing slides.  But that front porch really catches it, so we need to instigate the big ol' crashing slides there.  

This is a bad panorama of my work half-through.  Think of my roof as sort of L-shaped, the foot of the L the unshoveled section at the left.  Then you see the over-door peak of the roof, just peeking through (haha, get it?!) one-third across the picture.  The scoop follows straight across the section I have shoveled, the ladder is sticking up a bit at the second-third mark, the northern end of the roof is the line that cuts off the trees and ends at the red wall of the house over on the right.  My shovel is shoved in the narrow bank I left across the top of the porch as my anchor.  The strange black marks are my inability to hold the panorama lens steady as I panned.

I did not work out this morning as my calendar said I should.  To be perfectly honest, that is partly because I didn't feel like it--but also because I intended to do this substantial project in the afternoon.  Often my intentions go unfulfilled, but today made me feel like Superwoman!  

Morning Promises

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things
Out of the dust...
Out of us.

Father, when things happen like Andy's preaching last Sunday, when he gushed about how wonderful I am and that he still has so much to learn even after ten years of knowing me and that he's excited about that--when that sort of thing happens

it is a good feeling
of assurance

but it also makes me feel so undeserving of that praise.  I know how cruddy I can be.  I know how

grumpy
lazy
disillusioned and disappointed
bitter

I can be on the inside, and I know a lot of it leaks out.  

I get frustrated and overwhelmed, impatient and irritated, sad, full of pity for myself, fed up with serving ungrateful people, selfish.  I am tired.  

And yet that is me without You.

The You in me
is different.

The You in me
can look at the bigger picture 
and appreciate the story
at least trust that 
You always write good stories.
The You in me
sees the poetry in life.

Through You I am 
more than a conqueror
Through You I can
scale a wall
Through You I am 
a new creation
Through You I can 
do all things
Through You I have
a heart of flesh, 
not a heart of stone
Through You I carry 
the light of life.

And it's a beautiful thing.

You always make beautiful things
Beauty out of ashes.
You rejoice over me
with singing
And because I have breath
(because You gave me breath)
I will praise the Lord!

Paradox

On March 31, I realized that I had written twice in January, thrice in February, four times in March...and I thought, "Wow! Wouldn't it be awesome if I continued that pattern all the way through December, so that by then I'd be writing basically every other day?!"  

And then I never wrote again.  C'est la vie.

I have been mentally struggling with a lot of paradoxes lately.  Things like:

I am an adult, but I feel like a child.

I am young, but I feel the aging happening.

I love quiet, but am surrounded by noise.

I want to live slowly, but I have to live hurriedly.  

I want to pare down our possessions, but we're always acquiring.

I can't help but dive into projects, but am overwhelmed by what's on my plate.

I need to be more healthy, but what's another day of bad food choices?

I desire to be content and joyful, but usually I am wanting and grumpy.  

Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.

This is an awful lot of "I" statements.  We can get into a lot of trouble with "I" statements.  There is nothing inherently wrong with my feeling all these things and more.  But what I choose to dwell on shapes me, and then shapes the people around me.  So yes, Lydia, go ahead and look in, take stock, process.  Then look out at the people around me (especially the little ones that are daily affected by me).  And look up.  All paradoxes have their answer in Him that is equally engaged with the stars and our cells.

"And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."  Philippians 1:6 

  

Heard You That Time!

God spoke two little, wonderful things to me earlier this week.  

One evening I browsed through last season's Joyce Meyer magazine and did a double-take.  There in plain print was a typo, the wrong reference assigned to a verse: "Romans 8:35-37 says, 'The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).'"  

I thought, "No it doesn't.  That's the part of Romans that says, 'For I am convinced that neither height, nor depth, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things in heaven, nor on earth, nor below the earth--nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God...This verse about the thief and abundant life, that's John 10:10.  How'd they mix those up?"  (I do realize that what I almost-quoted is actually Romans 8:38-39, but you get the gist.)  

And then I thought--"WOW!  Seriously?!  I just recognized a SCRIPTURE REFERENCE TYPO, and not only knew the correct reference, but also the verse of the incorrect reference!  ME?!  WOW!"  And it was just so edifying.  Scripture references are not my forte, nor indeed is scripture memorization.  And my internal dialogue regarding scripture includes this attitude too often.  But guess what: it's in me more than I realize, written on my heart.  There is LOTS of room for improvement, but I am not a hopeless case, doomed to a lifetime of "I know how I underlined it, and where it is on the page...some page...probably Old Testament...about such-and-such a topic..."  Spend time in scripture.  It's worth it.  

The second God-talking-to-me thought came the next morning.  I had slept in a little, wasn't feeling great, dove right into the day, and I decided to sneak into my bedroom after putting the baby down for First Nap to have my own quiet time with Jesus.  Commence the thoughts, "You're being lazy.  You should be processing laundry, or playing with Lewis, or at least making this bed."  And I recognized those lies and decided I'd better start praying.  Out loud, so I wouldn't get distracted immediately.  

You know what that prayer turned into?  "Martha, Martha, you are distracted my many things.  But Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken from her."  

Jesus said that.  Martha was annoyed that her sister curled up to listen to Jesus while she was left to get dinner on the table all by herself.  But the ONE THING that is more important than anything else, even dinner for company?  Listening to Him, loving Him.  (See Luke 10 for the full story.)

And that prayer also reminded me that my spending time with Him, my prioritizing quiet time--in that God commands a blessing.  Deuteronomy 28 is a chapter full of blessings or curses that will be born out among the Israelites, and the long list of really, really good blessings hinges on "if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways.…" (Dt 28:9b).  

Anybody remember the greatest commandment?  "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." Heart (time spent with Him) comes before strength (good stewardship of your household).  Both are important, but one is more important.  

Cheers to spiritual ears and the gift of hearing the heart of the Father.  May I ever improve!

10 Plagues Puppets for Jesus Storybook Bible

Based on these puppets from Amazon.  But I made a few changes (plague of tigers?), and utilized my store of paper bags and construction paper instead of paying $12.  Here they are all together, and then individually.  I wanted to be able to zoom in on the puppets in the Amazon picture, and just couldn't.  So I solved my problem for you.  

First plague: water turned to blood

Second plague: frogs. Everywhere.

Third plague: gnats out of the dust

Fourth plague: swarms of flies

Fifth plague: Egyptian livestock die

Sixth plague: boils

Seventh plague: hail

Eighth plague: locusts (big ol' HUNGRY grasshoppers)

Ninth plague: utter darkness

Tenth plague: death of the firstborn