Out of the Mouths of Babes - September 11th

This morning as we remember the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I thought I would share with my kids what today was about and what happened on that day. Granted, my oldest two are 5 and almost 4 so I kept the explanation very basic. After a few questions from my 5 year old he simply stated, "I'm going to pray about it."

Hands clasped, eyes closed, and head bowed Nathan (age 5) prayed:

"Dear God,

please help those bad guys not to be bad anymore.

Thank you for all the good guys that were there.

Help them not to be hurt anymore.

In Jesus Name,

Amen."

Teachable moments

There are concepts and beliefs as a parent that we go out of your way to teach. Starting with little things like mama and dada and the ABC's and then moving into the big stuff like faith and what we stand for. We thoughtfully orchestrate moments that allow our little ones to learn without them even knowing it. Sitting down with connectable toys to teach the baby "in and out" which looks to him an awful lot like play time or grabbing a pencil and paper to help the oldest one write a letter to daddy which feels like a lot of fun because he's never done it before. Reading them Bible stories so that the word of God penetrates them while they are just excited to be read to. All of these moments accumulate over the days, weeks, and years to make up a lifetime of learning.

And then there are the moments we don't plan. When life presents itself in an unexpected manner and you grab onto the opportunity and make a learning experience out of it. In elementary education we called this a teachable moment. These don't just happen in the classroom, these happen in your home as well and as a parent I take advantage of that whenever I can.

Today just such a moment presented itself. Late last night my sister-in-law texted me to tell inform me that my 8-week old niece was in the er. As the night went on they discovered she had a severe UTI and would need to stay for observation. So this morning as I was easing into the day with my boys I took a moment to share with my 4 1/2  and 3 1/2 year old that their cousin was sick in the hospital and that we should take a moment to pray for her. Right then Nathan (the 4 year old) clasped his hands, shut his eyes and spoke a prayer out loud on Sienna's behalf. And then we went about our day. But as the day continued we learned that things were a little more serious and that baby Sienna has a benign tumor on one of her kidneys and will be needing surgery.

Now at this point I had some options in regards to what I would tell the boys. How much do you share with little ones in these situations? I am sure each of us would answer differently and it would depend on the kid but in my case I decided to fill them in on the basics of what was happening. I told the boys that Sienna had something that wasn't good for her in her stomach and that they were going to have to take it out by doing something called surgery. I explained that surgery meant they had to cut her open. Nathan says with big eyes, "But that will hurt her!" I said, "Yes, it will hurt. But it will make her better." Then he says, "But if they cut her open she will be broken forever." I stopped for a minute and then looked right in his eyes and told him that she won't be broken forever, that the doctors are there to help Sienna and that when they are done with the surgery they will fix her back up. I explained that we didn't need to worry but that instead we should pray. Pray for Sienna, and for the doctors, and for her mommy and daddy and sister so that they won't be scared. So we did. We prayed.

For some of you, this may be seem like too much information for children that are not even school-aged. But to me it felt like the right moment to teach them that sometimes things in life seem scary and we don't understand them but that we can trust God and turn to him in prayer. "When I am afraid, I will trust in you." (Psalm 56:3) I am thankful for moments like this - not because I want loved ones to be in the hospital but because they allow me to model my faith for my children. The more times I get the chance to do that, the more likely there will come a day that they are the ones suggesting we should pray instead of me. And on that day I will being doing cartwheels inside...just like when they first said mama and knew they were calling me and just like that first time they said their ABC's all by themselves. Because I will know they got it. Really got it. And I will be reminded of why I do what I do each day.

The importance of hard work

In the past few months God has been hitting me time and time again with the message of hard work and why it is so important. Yet again tonight in my newest study, this topic came up. As I am diving deep into the book of Ruth, the author of my study is picking apart the relevance of basically every verse in this book. Today we looked at her work ethic. Boy was that convicting! This young woman who has not only lost her husband but has been completely uprooted from her family and her home to go to a land where she is deemed an outcast, still lifts her chin up and does what she is called to do. Not just for herself but for the sake of her widowed mother in law as well. She really sets an example of how to conduct ourselves during times of hardship.

So as I am reading verse after verse in various parts of the Bible about how much God values hard work it got me thinking. It made me realize how far off from God's plan we really are. From the beginning of time, man was created to work. Adam himself was made to work in the garden. This was even before Adam and Eve sinned which tells us that God sees work not as a punishment, but as a blessing.

Now I don't know about you, but I often think of work as anything but a blessing. It is a pain, it means sacrifice, it means doing what I am supposed to over what I want to. Where is the blessing in that? But the more I try and look at it from God's point of view, the more I see what he means. The sheer willingness to work hard opens the door for God to provide for us. Look at Ruth. She was willing to get up at dawn to find a field where she could glean the leftovers all day. This is hard, roll-up your sleeves, sweat producing work. And it isn't prideful. Those leftovers were intentionally untouched for the purpose of allowing the poor to retrieve them. Despite all of that, she did it. And God blessed her by putting Boaz in her path who later turned things around for both Ruth and Naomi.

Hard work also keeps us from being idle. You have heard the saying, "Idle hands are the devil's playground." How true is that? I know that as a kid the dumbest things I did came from having too much time on my hands. Of course this applies to adulthood as well. When we are idle we are usually filling our time with things other than that of the Lord. Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not. - 1 Timothy 5:13.

I know that in my life this is an area that I continually feel called to change. I don't work outside the house but I still have a job. Taking care of my husband, my kids and my home is my work. And big work it is! I should be pouring myself into it each day and I hate to have to admit that more times than not I am just doing what I need to do to get by. The bare minimum. Oh what shame I feel in admitting that. But there is also freedom in the truth. I know that I am not alone in this. As you read this you may be thinking that you could write this same thing. But you want to know the good news? This doesn't have to be your truth. You have a choice and so do I. The choice as I see it is to keep living day to day, fighting all the good things God has in store for me and as a result feeling both guilty and unfulfilled OR to change the way I look at my life and my purpose. To see the blessing in serving my family and working hard in my home.  To know that God only wants what is best for me and that he is just waiting to bless me in even greater ways when I choose to be obedient. When I look at it that way, the choice seems like a no-brainer!

I am going to end this by doing something I rarely do here. But as I type this I feel like someone will read it who will understand, who will feel like I do and want to make a change. So I ask, if that is you, will you pray for me? Pray that I make the choice to be obedient to God's calling in my life to work hard and to find the blessing in that work. And in return I will be praying for you. I may not know you by name but God does so I will lift you up all the same. God Bless!

A sigh of relief

The last 24 hours has been quite an emotional roller coaster.You see about a week ago we were able to pay off our car. Something we have been working hard to accomplish before this new baby comes so that we could purchase a second car that will actually hold all of our children. Not only did we pay it off, but with our tax return we had enough to put down on the next car. Talk about awesome, right? We thought so too and had been feeling so good about what we had accomplished. Until yesterday. Sunday night as Jeremy was driving home from work he heard a sound coming from the engine that concerned him so when he got up yesterday he changed the oil hoping that would help. I continued to go about my day driving downtown to Kindermusik with our youngest and noticing no problems whatsoever. But as I was driving home the car began to make a clicking sound. This sound got progressively worse so I called my husband and he urged me to get off the freeway immediately. I took the long way home hoping and praying that nothing would happen before I got where I needed to be.

Our in-laws arrived at our house shortly after I did and my father-in-law gave the car the once over deciding it would be best to take it in. He thought it would be something minor as did the mechanic at initial glance. Then we get the call. The call telling us it is the engine and the entire thing is going to need to be replaced. Oh and did I mention that it would run us somewhere around $3,800? GULP. That is unless we had receipts to prove we had been keeping up on our oil changes on our own as that would mean our 100,000 mile warranty on the engine would still be good. But of course, we didn't have those receipts. Now came the wait. Would the dealer honor the warranty despite the fact that we didn't have these tiny pieces of paper? This meant the difference between only paying a $100 deductible versus almost four grand out of pocket. This was one of those moments where the wheels in my brain begin to spin in overdrive playing out every possible outcome. Allowing myself to feel so sorry for us that we had only gotten a week of peace about the car situation before something was threatening to take it all away. Anger that a car that is only 5 years old with 55,000 miles on it was giving us this kind of trouble. Doubt that this could all possibly work in our favor.

But before these thoughts could completely consume me I began to call those closest to us just asking for prayer. Knowing that this was completely out of our hands (oh how I hate to have no control!) and that all I could do at this point was to give it to God. Last night as I tossed and turned I kept trying to pray for peace. For the ability to not look ahead but just take this one decision at a time. I don't think I got more than a minute in each time before my mind began to wander. Then this morning we got a call saying that they were sending out the inspector and hadn't even asked about the receipts. That if this person gave the thumbs up all would be well. But that we wouldn't know until tomorrow night. So we continued on our day just trying to push it out of our heads until tomorrow. Then Jeremy's phone rang around 12:30. It was the dealer. The inspector had made it and they were agreeing to honor our warranty. Not only that but they are paying for us to have a rental car for up to 10 days. All of this will be taken care of in a little over a week and is going to cost us about $100. This situation couldn't have turned out any better. And we give all the glory to God. We are so thankful that he heard and answered our prayers in this way. We are thankful to have such amazing family and friends who not only offered to help in anyway possible but who also lifted us up in prayer. I don't know another time that I have breathed such a big sigh of relief. We are feeling truly blessed.