Moments Like This

Today I had my last IEP meeting for awhile; maybe ever.  That’s Individual Education Plan for those not in the world of Special Education.  Third grade has almost gone and the transition to a new school has apparently gone as well as transitioning to a new home and new church.  Of course, what’s not to love about a new dog?  So for all our newness we’ve been here almost a year.  And while still adjusting, we’re rooting.  And growing.

We passed out of the county standards for Special Education upon arrival.  The school has a local support board who attended this morning’s meeting.  We have had some issues with behavior, homework, and handwriting but no one feels these are outside typical peer behavior and usually improve upon correction.  So with that we pass out of the need for extra support even at the local school with assurances that we can come back if we need further help down the road.  A bit like being sent from the nest I imagine.  I usually suspect that I’m going to experience these moments with Mike because he’s oldest.

But I have found that Mike matures at a rate I can accept and almost enjoy, if it weren’t for the dread of the next phase of decisions that can wreck his whole life: college, marriage, driving!  Not necessarily in that order.  Yet, I anticipate these changes with more expectation and ease than allowing Max to go unpapered into fourth grade.   I made that up, unpapered.  It fits though.  I comfort myself with the piles of papers that prove that he, we, need help.  Yet, we, mostly he, doesn’t.  At least not the kind the school can provide.

Schools are for education.  He is capable of being educated.  Praise the Lord!  He has strengths and weaknesses but he gets along on grade level and we provide help as needed.  Once again I’m awed by God’s gracious provision for just what we need when we need it.  It’s time to go from the world where people expect less and support more.  Time to have expectations that may be unrealistically high in some cases.  We don’t know.  But off we go none the less.  Letting go of the supports that have gotten us this far to walk on our own.  So much like learning to walk, or swim, or ride a bike.  So much growth, so much grace, so much to be grateful for along this path!

A few days ago Max’s head was congested and his Mamaw prayed for him.  I offered him Dimetapp.  He turned me down because of the prayer.  I suggested Jesus could use the medicine to heal him.  ”Let it go Mom.  Jesus will heal it.”  He said with some tinge of impatience at my lack of faith.  I think I’m learning to let go of all kinds of things in these moments.

Blessings!

Books and Lampposts

I recently finished reading Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.  It was amazing.  The only negative I felt at all was the author’s inability to credit Providence for his journey into the work and his survival while doing it.  But it is worth reading.  It is a fantastic reminder of what people can do when they meet one another on level ground, even if they are actually standing on mountains.  And the realistic reminder that service is personally expensive and not only in monetary terms.

Loving Lampposts the 2010 documentary by  Todd Drezner whose personal journey into the definition of Autism looks broadly at the spectrum of the disorder and is able to bring clarity to the difficult questions parents face upon the initial diagnosis as he meets parents, children and adults with Autism.  Drezner really listens to their concerns, their struggles with “fix it” mentality, guilt, and “what now?” questions.  Those who come through most distinctly are the parents who no longer struggle to fix, as much as understand and enjoy, their children.  And the adults who have the most freedom to be themselves as they are, even if that requires a talking computer.  A must see for anyone who wants to support caregivers with loving language!

So for a week that included one art class, one substitute teaching day, one trip to Alexandria to walk the Potomac on a spectacular day with a lovely friend, one trip to West Virginia for a youth group service project with another lovely friend and some lovely kids,  the fact that I read a book and watched a movie is grace!  I’ve been amazed again by grace this week.  Amazed that I forget annually (if not more frequently) the real reason for Easter.  As I silently complain that the weather looks so beautiful but is a bit more chilly than I’d like.  And spring hasn’t sprung as far as my putting away the winter things would imply.  And there is dizzying pace; if not passion, to my weeks.  But this is Passion week.  And this year more than most I’m struck at the thought that God;  the God who sent just the right man to just the right place on a mountain so that children in a foreign country would have schools they couldn’t even imagine; the God who sent a filmmaker on a journey of peace and discovery using his own son’s love of lampposts; is the God who wanted me to know Him.

I couldn’t know Him without His knowing me and loving me enough to send His Son to die.  So I remember this week the sacrifice of God on my behalf.  We attend special services remembering the moments in the week of celebration, supper, crucifixion and resurrection.  And sometimes we forget that at the end there is not only ham, or lamb, or whatever food is present at the gathering you attend after Sunday’s service.  There will be a return.  God’s promises are true.  They were true when Jesus fulfilled prophesy after prophesy during his earthly life.  They are true in the lives of His followers today.  And they will be fulfilled in full in the future.

As I think about Easter here at the beginning of Passion week, I realize how easy it is to forget the promises for the future in the remembering of the past.  Easter is not only the promise fulfilled but the promise of more than we can imagine to come.  And what exactly are we promised?  To return.  Right after Jesus returns for us, we return to His Father; our Father, and see Him face to face.  This by the way, is the whole purpose of our salvation.

Blessings for a happy Easter!

Responding

Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?  But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed.  Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 1 Peter 3:13-15

There is much to respond to in the world these days.  And I have been troubled by the lack of Christian response to most issues.  Kirk Cameron went on an interview and told the truth about what Christians believe about homosexuality.  It’s detrimental.  Not because he says so.  Not because we agree.  Because to live in sin against God is self-destructive regardless of which sin.  He told the truth in the way that parents tell their children not to touch a hot stove.  And because the truth he told is unpopular culturally, or at least with the liberal, cultural elite, he’s being vilified.  Sorry.  But, God doesn’t say affirm the truth as long as it is socially acceptable or popular.  In fact, the passage above presumes people won’t like it.  Are we really surprised by the backlash?  Are we even saddened by the people who would go to great lengths to defend sin?  We should be.

On the other side, I’m tired of the conservative habit of late to snipe people with language that isn’t appropriate in order to get attention.  We don’t use certain language not because we know that it is unkind, or because it labels the men who use it as sexist pigs, but because we went to Kindergarten and passed.  But mom, EVERYONE else uses that language isn’t an acceptable excuse in our home and certainly not helpful on the radio by grown ups who should know better.

Our goal as believers isn’t to convert people to our own prejudices, perspectives, ideology, or any specific political party.  The goal is for people to meet Jesus.  When that goal is second to anything else we are in sin.  Perhaps this will be good to remember when the Presidential election takes on two views instead of the splintered shards of glass the Republican party seems to have become.  Prayer will get you farther than polling.  Ask the Lord for direction for the nation.  Fast for the sins in your own heart.  Listen to the teaching of God’s word and reflect on what it means to participate Christianly in a diverse political system.

We have a hope.  Our hope is not in a political party or candidate; not in an ideology or even a systematic theology. Our hope is in a person who lived life perfectly in this imperfect world.  Jesus had imperfect earthly parents; a cruel, despotic governmental system and an overbearing religious establishment willing to  throw him under the bus for the release of a known murderer for their own sinful self-protection.  Yet, He was obedient to the point of death–even death on a cross (Phil. 2:8).  His obedience is our righteousness.  How can our hearts not break for those whose only hope is in the things of this world?

Things to think about.  Responses welcome!  Blessings.

Home Wasn’t Built In A Day

This morning’s Bible study discussed the worth of our ministry efforts as viewed by God rather than the culture.  There are extremely talented women in our study.  Many know much, and do much, for the Kingdom of God.  All feel isolated and unworthy at times.  All of us get tired.  It struck me that we spend lots of time hoping for short term results to long term investments.  This is a cultural malady; and exhausting, as well as discouraging.  House projects have a similar feel, don’t they?  The moment one is finished another is noticed.

I prayed when I got home for a mom who is beginning to see the fruits of her labor, combined with the grace of God, after spending the lives of her four, mostly grown, children at home meeting their needs.  I was weeding my first garden bed of the season to celebrate the spring-like weather in February.  Gardening helps me pray.  And it reminds me of phrases like, “October apples in June.”

Yesterday, I caught up on the ABC show Once Upon A Time that we enjoy watching but missed for a couple of weeks.  I was struck by the complexity of the story and  by the fact that this show will be more or less good based upon the final episode.  A bit like Harry Potter;  fairy tales are mostly about endings.  They are offer truth: lying gets you in trouble, evil exists and is always trying to find a way to spoil good, etc. Yet, their value is in the fact that the truth of good triumphing over evil is the expected ending; an ending the characters can’t see until their trials are over.  In a world that offers as much sorrow and hardship, where often the victory looks to be on the other side,  it is odd that we believe in happy endings.

We believe in them because the ultimate narrative, writ by the hand of God, says He will make it so.  In fact, it says He has made it so; with the life, work, death and resurrection of His only, begotten Son.  Jesus died that we may live.  He gave up what only He could give so that we could give up our status as rebels.  So that we can be adopted as children of the King.  What better story?  This year I have been given extra ordinary measures of grace in a new home and am beginning to make it seem so.    I am reminded that no matter what I give up for the Lent season, in the end, when it really matters most, I get to give up sorrow, mourning, sickness, death and sin.  I don’t give them up by my own effort, or for only 40 days.  They are washed from me for all eternity that I may enter in to the presence of God.

May you see the investment in the things of eternity as worthy endeavors.  Blessings.

Simply Ordinary

I read another blog today by a busy, overachieving young mom who was trying to make a go of working on the computer from home but decided it was simpler to home school.  I had to laugh.  The simplicity movement usually strikes me that way, I’m afraid. I hear people, mostly women, talk about simplicity in terms that sound to me like giving up without losing face.  They stay home, but they make their own bread, starting with growing the wheat.  Do you know these women?  If you know me, you know I am not one of them.

I like home.  I sometimes fill out job applications.  I don’t mind working.  I seem to have plenty of work right in front of me which is usually why I fill out job applications.   But what is my purpose?  There was a song I learned as a small child, I loved it, it had motions, and words easy to remember; still my favorite kind by the way.  ”I am a promise.  I am a possibility.  I am a promise, with a capitol p.  I’m a great, big, bundle of potentiality…”  Frighteningly close to my oldest’s choice as a young one,”…you can be anything that you want to be…”

These are the messages of our culture.  They imply greatness; or at least potential greatness.  And they make us malcontents from an early age.  For a long time I wasn’t a big fan of the catechism questions.  Then I taught 2s and 3s and explored in detail the question of “Who made you?” and the next few following.  I was struck by the basic truth, go figure.  But more importantly, by the fact that answers existed to hard questions like “Why am I here?”  And I already knew them, I just didn’t always put them together with what was going on in my life or in the world around me.

As I struggled with the purpose behind raising young children, and now the timing of letting go as college mail floods my inbox and my mailbox for my high school freshman!  I’m reminded that there is a plan.  And the God who’s Spirit led me to learn the verse that promises His plan in Jeremiah (see 29:11-14) fulfills them in prophesy in Revelation and will make all things new in eternity.  There is no greater potentiality than that!  And nothing I can achieve will rival what He will do in and through me if I seek to live for Him.  So, the simple things, dishes, laundry, toilets and floors may have to be enough.  The blessings of time to write, time for lunch with girlfriends new and known, and the music from the guitar guy and his talented young ones will be enough.  And enough is plenty to be thankful for.

Blessings for a time when you have enough; and know what a blessing it is!

For more on the 2s and 3s class at church see: Who Made You? The Reason For Church

Expectant Prayer

Thinking for a few days now about how to get back to the blog.  So much to write about.  But sometimes it feels like there is little to say that really matters.  Last week was busy.  There seemed to be a theme of looking at the big problems in the world and feeling small and helpless.

Then yesterday, bad news, the worst.  About a man I met once, at his own wedding, in the church of my childhood, to one of my best childhood friends.  We got married the same year.  We had our first babies the same year.  Used the same first name for our sons.  They have the same three initials.

Last night I watched out the kitchen window intensely aware of the traffic.  I peered  into the darkness as streams of headlights passed with drivers on their way home from work.  I prayed for my husband to come home, which he did.  I prayed for my friend who would face the first night in which her husband did not ever coming home again.  This morning I prayed God would be present with her as she awakened to a new morning facing yesterday’s loss afresh.

We have heard of much death lately.  The father of my husband’s best man taken by cancer.  The grandfather of a faraway friend.  And in the midst of this where is God?  Can He be present?  In the loss of a beloved husband and father?  Or even, in the process of the losing you know is coming.

Aren’t these the moments when the incarnation matters most?  Not while we are opening all the things we asked for, or didn’t, around the décor of a season we, for all intent and purposes, invented.  But right here in the midst of death, of husbands, of fathers, or grandfathers that we know.  In the sorrow of cancer diagnosis and treatment or the anxiety of the birth of babies with  complications.  Let’s face it, things get complicated even if your birth wasn’t.

And so  we pray and ask others for prayer and expect to be heard.  By God.  No one else will do;  only God.  The God who gives the only true comfort.  The author of the reason for our only true joy.  We ask that He meet us and our family and friends, or even strangers in foreign lands, with needs too overwhelming for us to imagine.  To comfort what no one else can even really understand.  To bring comfort, justice, peace and love in a world filled with sorrow, greed, self-sufficiency and indifference.  To allow laughter to follow sorrow even if it takes some time.

Blessings today for prayers expectantly prayed to the God who hears no matter where you are or what is going on around you.

The Present of Presence

This is an ongoing theme for me.  Being present.  I love to visit people.  Our home was open and welcoming when I was growing up and I am enjoying the beginnings of entertaining in our new space all decked out for Christmas.  Tomorrow I’m visiting a friend and hopefully catching a glimpse of her new granddaughter.  I’ll take a card and some homemade bread and celebrate the season, the miracle of birth and the endurance of friendship all at once.

Presence seems to be a dying art in American culture.  I realize this makes me sound VERY old!  But in support, let me illustrate with a picture from last Friday’s lunch out with my sometimes Friday off hubby.  We went to the nearby park with the dog.  It was a beautiful, if brisk, day.  The river was fast and full.  We all enjoyed the outing and brought the dog back so we could try the new burger joint that just opened in the local marketplace.   The burgers were delicious!  The music was loud for a fairly small seating area, but what caught my eye were these two gentlemen seated across a small table from each other having lunch.  As they were clearly finished eating both ended up on their phones talking with other people.  I can’t even tell if this will be shocking to anyone else.  But it was to me.  I discussed this with the oldest M who said he was relieved I hadn’t discovered them openly expressing an alternate lifestyle so the phone thing was preferable for him.

Seriously?!  We take presence so for granted that we are openly rude to someone willing to spend time with us.  I’m not saying I don’t check my phone if it rings while I’m out. But unless you’re my kids, or my parents, with an emergency I can’t see ignoring the person I’m with to have a chat.  I wonder if we would have noticed Jesus at all should he be born amid the commercialism that has become Christmas.  Maybe if you could follow his birth on YouTube…but I digress.

Presence is so important because it is what we need.  We need it from the people who love us and the Lord who made us.  It is so necessary to our lives that in order for us to have it God was born as a baby boy in a stable in the Middle East. He came to grow up under Roman rule, in a world ruled by the Prince of Darkness and to overcome the darkness with His light.  This required a perfect life, an excruciating death, going to hell and coming back expunging the sin of those who He has chosen along the way.

May you be present for those who you love, and those God is bringing into His light this season!  Blessings.

Thankfully

This year I have more than ever to be thankful for.  And I am.  I waited a day for this posting.  Because I object to the discrediting of giving thanks for the prospect of getting stuff, even if it is on deep discount.  And because the privilege of hosting our first Thanksgiving in our new home made yesterday a day without blog time.  Even with the help of my usual hostess and exceptionally talented mother-in-law who, as usual, did a large portion of the cooking and clean up there just wasn’t enough time.   And not that much to say.  I walked my darling daughter to ambitious neighbor’s at 6 AM to get a ride to the mall where she spent the next 6.5 hours shopping for her Christmas presents and enjoying time with new found friends.  She even ran into a new friend from the new church!

I began to wonder then at why it is that I’m so put off by the thought that Thanksgiving gets squeezed every year by Christmas.  My lovely and much missed Gram put her tree up almost as soon as the last dish was dry from the Thanksgiving table, so it isn’t like I haven’t been raised with the thinking.  Maybe it is that what I’m missing in the Christmas season is the ability to see Christmas as a time to be most thankful.  No gift received in this life will rival or out last the life born on the day that is reason for giving gifts at all.  As I have set up my new home I have unpacked almost every box.  Taken out loads of gifts both long displayed and newly acquired, or newly found with shelf space to accommodate it.  I’ve filled frames with pictures old and new, hung paintings and pictures and treasured the memories each of these bring of lovely people who I have been surrounded by my whole life.  And I am very grateful for each gift and person represented.  I cannot be more grateful for them than for the One who has sent them all.

So as I decorate for a hopefully lovely Christmas, complete with a special room just for the train (already up and running!).  I pray to be reminded not only of the babe in the manger, but the life and work fleshed out among us, taken by us, and risen for us that we might live.  May you believe how much you are loved by God who sent His Son so that you will not perish but have everlasting life.

Blessings!

Frost in the Shadows

Today wasn’t cold but there was frost this morning.  Sunday was cold, at least as I was walking the dog before church. On our walk I noticed that the morning frost was heaviest in the shadows.  As the sun came up the frost melted quickly.  It was warmer this morning on our way to school but still, the pattern remained.  Frost in the shadow of a bush, a house, on a roof, in the shape of the speed limit sign in the front yard.

It seems true in my inner life as well.  I get frosty in the places I don’t warm with the light of the Son.  I become easily distracted by the seemly never ending errands, chores, and everyday tasks, and then choose brain drain over the discipline of thought, reading, writing, or filing!  There are always choices for things to do.  The easy ones are tempting, just sit for a moment and eat while watching mindless TV.  Or even find an exercise program on said TV then sit after the exercise for just a bit longer than expected pushing off the whole schedule of the day.  Wait to read, push off thinking, respond to whatever immediate need with whatever immediate resources are available instead of warming up in the light of the Word and the presence of the Spirit who motivates us as we think on lovely things.  So little lovely to think on when the TV is on.  Props, however, to ABC for the new Once Upon A Time show at 8 pm on Sundays that the kids and I are thoroughly enjoying together!

I’m reading the highly recommended 1000 Gifts:  A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp.  And it’s working.  I’ve always liked thinking about gratitude and the power of thankfulness.  This helps me remember that in the right Spirit I can be thankful to a God who is present with me exactly where I am.  Turns out thanksgiving is a fabulous defroster!

My favorite Christmas movie last year was Holiday Inn and as good as the movie is, the soundtrack is wonderful.  They have a song for each holiday and the one for Thanksgiving is both catchy and fittingly titled, “I’ve Got Plenty To Be Thankful For.”  So I’m playing it often to remind myself of the grace I need to receive before I can turn it around and graciously mother my kids, love my hubby, do dishes, laundry, band concerts and even register the van to be officially Virginians!  One thing at a time.  One day at a time.

Blessings for moments of thankfulness and the thawing joy they provide!

A Year Without Pumpkins

Interesting the ripples in the pond you don’t expect.  I’ve wanted to move for a very long time.  I wanted a house just like the one we loved despite the work for us to do. Wanted space for my parents, in-laws, guests and friends.  I want to entertain.  I want to write.  Yet, today I feel behind in everything and it’s only just begun.  We were late for school.  I had to park, walk in to the office, sign in and watch my student walk slowly off down the hall, which made us later.  Everyone feels a bit sluggish.  It’s cold and we were up late.  There were unfamiliar noises out behind the house last night.  Three out of four of us heard them.  Sister ran to brother’s room for comfort then they followed me around as I looked through the house for signs that the noise was something or someone nearby.  Nothing found except the basement toilet to flush, a blessing it didn’t wait any longer.  But Dad wasn’t home and that made all the difference to feeling safe.  Sleep came easier once he arrived, though they had been sent to bed long before!

I’m not sure why I feel so anxious about getting things done. I am mostly caught up.  It just feels like I should be doing more.  More what?  I’m not quite sure.  Usually this time of year I’m melting down pumpkins and visiting people with fresh bread.  The first blog, almost two years ago, was about making pumpkin bread.  We had lots of pumpkins we made lots of bread, waffles, ice cream and pie.  The family finished with pumpkin.  It was the second of a three year obsession for me.  I didn’t buy pumpkins this year.  At the last minute  I made a referee shirt out of a white collared shirt, two sided tape and tissue paper.  He liked it.  Referees like rules and get a whistle, it suited him.

More than being homesick for another place, these moments remind me of missing my routines.  I haven’t yet developed a pattern here.  Haven’t spent even 5 months, haven’t seen all the seasons and am feeling deeply the unfamiliar-ness of living somewhere new.  Adjustment, routine, memory are all developed over time.  I’m sure they will come.  I’m certain it is hard to wait.  As we head into full-blown holiday seasons it will be good to go through fun times in our new house.  We’ve had our first fire, in the fireplace and most of our seasonal decor is where we can find it.  In the midst of this newness, I’m reminded of the blessing of gratefulness.  Thankful for each day here and each day that brought us here.

Blessings for days that make you thankful!