Honoring Dad

Love days like fathers day, birthdays too.. . when you take a moment or hopefully Lots of moments to think about  that one person.  Remembering all the ways you love them.  Have you ever told them of their unique qualities that you love?  You know.  .  . the thoughts that often run through your mind, but sometimes we forget to tell that person how highly we think of them.  It's so great to take that time to honor your loved one, especially, when you can think of a new way to show how you appreciate them.

Today, I want to focus on "Dad," with Father's Day shortly ahead I think it's a good place to stop and focus.  But, wait. . . not your Dad; this time I'd like to focus on our husbands.  In many cases it can be easy to honor and show respect to our own Dad, maybe Grandpa, or show appreciatiion to  other important men in our lives.  But I would like to bring your focus to your husband.  Your child(ren)'s daddy.

Unfortunately, and all to often, we (I) tend to treat the people under our own roof in a way we would never dream of treating a friend.  How can some days be so wrenching that we treat our own family with an enormous, ugly. . . unacceptable attitude?

A friend,  with a sweet bubbly personality, once stated --what I'd like to share with you-
-perfectly.  I was talking with her and another lady, can't remember the conversation precisely but in some way or another, speaking about her husband. I don't recall all the words leading up to this comment, but I will never forget my friends response:  With a huge smile over her face, she joyfully said. "How couldn't I forgive him, When Jesus Has Forgiven Me of So Much!"

This is what it's all about.

My challenge for you, is the same I am giving myself.  Give your husband the gift of grace.  This Father's Day I'm convinced you couldn't give him or your children a better gift.  Not just on father's day, but will you choose this every day?  I have been listening recently to what Jani Ortlund has to say.  Her question, hit me Like a ton of bricks.  And it was something like this, who will you be: Mrs. Law or Mrs. Grace?

What are you expecting from your husband right now?  The one thing (or many things) that must change for "Things to get better."  Even if he is wrong.  (Which aren't we all in many ways?)  Let's try to stop changing our husband(s).  Then, let's begin looking to God to change ourself!  I have found so often when I just NEED something to change in my husband, I find God really wanting me to change.

How can we show our husband more grace?  Can I surrender my (many) expectations to God instead of looking to my husband to fulfill them?  I think "Mrs. Law," so easily comes out of us, always trying to fix things with our special "Do and Don't lists."  And we are so right!! Right??  Maybe.  Yet if you are like me, we so often go about it the wrong way.  Why do we feel the need to correct them, why not just love them, and give back to them the grace and forgiveness that we have received.  If every bad thing we have ever done, is wiped clean through Jesus, how then can it be hard for us to forgive.  Even if it's over and over.  Forgiveness.  Grace.  Jesus gave.  Let's give!!

Happy Father's Day to all the Daddies!!

Simple...But Good

Sometimes the best things are the simple things.

  Not to far back I was watching a friend's kids, one of them said he was hungry.  Me, not knowing what he likes to eat, was trying to come up with ideas.  But he just walked to the fridge, pulled out a little glass container and some maple syrup.  He pulled out the toaster and from the little glass container- pops in some mini pancakes.  I thought "Wow! simple, but brilliant!"  You might know by now . . . I'm excited by new ideas.  Why had I never thought of this?  It's easy, healthy, economical, and pancakes-they can really fill a kid up.  

 My kids... I think that food just falls into their mouth and dissipates into thin air.  They are always hungry.  Remember the days when you heard your parents say, "You guys are going to eat us out of house & home,"?  I guess I never really considered that was possible.  Till now.  They eat a ton.  So hear is the recipe for: Cute Fluffy Pancakes.

A little aside, I often don't do many pictures, cause a huge part of my blogging is to try and just be real.  And really...I don't have much time for photos, even though I love taking them.  Also, photos can create an unreal snap shot of the truth.  Cause a picture may look cute, quaint, inspiring ...awesome...and more.  But if we all just had snapshots or our life. . .we'd all look perfect.  And "computer life" can quite easily promote a false image.  

Back to fun simple things.

A mango.  Thats fun, . . simple & yummy!  I love to eat them, and hate to peal them.  It usually ends up a slimy mess in my hands by the time I'm done.  But, there's a new way!  Well new to me: 

A mango is so simple to slice like this then enjoy!

One more, simple- but good thing.   Lunch.  If you came to my house during lunch you may think it's a bit odd at first.  Yet, it's healthy (usually) and it works!  When you teach your children during the day it becomes exceedingly important that they eat well.  When my kids eat unhealthy things during the school day. .. I usually want to pull my hair out.  It's just not good.  I see how food so intricately effects their behavior and mood.  So, quite often our lunches look something like this:

It's so simple, & better yet, they love it.

So often in the bustle of everyday life, we sort of... let life happen to us, instead of thinking things through.  If you have kids, their needs are so... There...always in need of something. Right in front of us.   Especially true with little children.  Quite easily our spouse can be put on the back burner-so to speak, because it's not urgent.  Your marriage relationship is so important, because when it is healthy--the rest of the family will tend to be healthy also.

With that, I wanted you to see this below.  (Clicking on the title will take you to the page.)  Very thought out observations on this topic.  I read it a few weeks back on the Family Life website and wanted to pass it along.  

Improve Your Marriage by Being Worse Parents 

by Jim Keller

Here's a snippet:

Parenting is a great responsibility and a great joy, but it can also be a great distracter. Our lives are so inextricably linked with our children that it sometimes can be overwhelming emotionally. My most emotional moments and the majority of my tears were engendered by my kids. But my children eventually left home—can you imagine?! And my wife and I were the ones that remained. And the really interesting thing to me is that our relationship is still the backbone of our now-extended family. Don't focus so much on your parenting that you forget that the most important relationship in your family is your marriage to your spouse.

Up, Down . . .UP

Ever get stuck in "down and out?"  Run down and weary?  Tired?  Overwhelmed?  Unsure.   Maybe you are like me and always try to “fix” yourself...somehow.   When you feel unsettled or when something troubling comes up and you feel like you need to get it out by talking things over with a friend, husband, or whoever is your first person to confide in.

Or perhaps it is food you turn to first, usually not even realizing it but those yummy things somehow always seem to make you feel better…for a moment.   Chocolate is so heartwarming...isn’t it!  Don’t know about you but so often I am turning first to everything else except where I should be, and that is to God in prayer.  Search His word.  “Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” -1Peter 5:7

Secondly,  focus on being grateful, thankfulness always puts things into a better perspective.  Here is a little excerpt from Oswald Chambers; it was on my calendar today:

“Let us go to Judea again.”  The disciples said to Him, “…are You going there again?” –John 11:7-8

“Faith is not intellectual understanding; Faith is a deliberate commitment to the Person of Jesus Christ, even when I can’t see the way ahead.  Are you debating whether you should take a step of faith in Jesus, or whether you should wait until you can clearly see how to do what He has asked?  Simply obey Him with glad, unrestrained Joy.”

Right now is the perfect time to remind ourselves to put our focus on Christ.  The day we celebrate on Sunday changed life forever.  It gives us hope.  Gives us what we could never deserve because our sin killed our chance to have a relationship with our Creator.  But Jesus restored it.  There is a place to focus.  My heart will rest on that hope.  One more unexplainable thing is that God doesn’t see me as the sinner I am, He sees me through His son. 

“You sin, and if you are His and the Holy Spirit indwells you, you know what your sins are. How on earth are you going to get up tomorrow morning and say, “I’m going to serve God today” . . . how are you going to do that? You have to know that you’re forgiven, and you have to know that you are righteous, and you have to know He loves you. It’s the only way.” --Elyse Fizpatrick

One thing I won’t understand this side of forever: God sees you as righteous.

Here and Now

A while ago I got a tattoo on my wrist that simply says GRACE. I wanted it to remind me of God’s grace for me and to help me remember to give grace to others. Sometimes that tattoo on my arm has been my own personal ‘Jonah type situation’. I could easily ‘cover it up’, or so I thought, when I didn’t ‘feel like it’, just like Jonah ran, or so he thought, when he didn’t feel like it. I am asked daily to live like Jesus, extend grace (which I am so freely given – God is a god who extends mercy when we don’t deserve it, everything that is given to us, even the submission to Him is given by grace and mercy), show His love through my life. Well, let me tell you, sometimes, okay honestly, most of the time, I JUST DON’T WANNA!!!!! I have had something inside of me stirring for more, more Jesus, more ways to show Him in my life, more than what the church we were attending was providing on so many levels. I wanted to get out….. (I ran).

Jonah spent three days in the belly of a fish. That fish was Jonah’s ‘salvation’. Bear with me here. If he

didn’t have that time in the belly of the fish, time to spend isolated with God, I think he would have kept running or ‘covering up’(or trying to at least). When we left our church, the church we had been at for so many huge milestones in our lives, I felt lost. I was not content with the church but I felt out of place with the point in our lives we were at. I prayed, a lot more than I had been praying in the past years. I leaned on God, way more than I had in the past years. I dug in to His word, clung to his promises. 

This was my fish belly.

I was starting to feel a lot of discontentment with what was going on. I felt like there was more that I

should be doing (always thinking it had to be something BIG). I was afraid I was going to miss the point, the point of all of this. What God has opened my eyes too are that there is something more, He has plans for me, but they are His plans, I cannot control them. I have so much to work on, right here in

my adorable little home that my hubs and I have together. I have three beautiful children that I am

homeschooling and need to practice GRACE with on a minute by minute basis. I need to show them

God. I have myself to deal with, my completely insecure self. I am slowly learning the more I embrace

that God loves me, the me I am, not the me I think others want me to be, the more grace can flow

out of me. I need to show myself God more. I have an amazing husband, who needs me to hold him

accountable and show grace daily as well. I need to show him God more. I have neighbors who will

hopefully see the love of Jesus by us just simply reaching out by helping out (totally out of my safe little

world I have put myself in). I have come to realize that Jesus is the SAFEST place to be, but he doesn’t

want us to be ‘SAFE’ in the terms I have put it in to. He wants us to move out of comfort, he wants us to stretch, to grow, to go, FEED HIS SHEEP! He will hold our hands and give us the words, we simply need to let the grace flow through!

-JENI

A Matter of Mathematics

Ever get feeling like you are a bit ...dare I say...craZy?  At times there is so much to accomplish.  To much, on the to do list.  You feel like you can't take it any longer.  

How can it be that the dishes are never actually done?  Laundry?  Don't start me on that one.  I could do, and do...and keep going...and going, and somehow never-never actually be done with "stuff."  There's house work.  There's school work.  There's cooking (3x's per day) This is not even mentioning the more important things like, spending quality time with my husband, or kids, family or friends.  

You may think this is a "laundry" list of complaints--post.  It's not.  Here's a tid bit you might never know about me now- being married and with four kids- but, I once was a clean, clean, very clean-perfectionist.  At least for as much as I was able in any situation.  Much of this precedent I had to let go of--so that i wouldn't actually go crazy.  So . . back to crazy. Ever been there?  How can you work so hard and never 100% finish.  

One day not to long ago I started calculating.  Yes, I enjoy math.  Actually ...i do!  I know it's weird.  An interesting realization came to me through just a bit of easy multiplication.  My family = 6 people.  

Laundry alone:

• 42 pairs of socks per week (84 pieces)
• 42 shirts per week
• 42 pairs of pants...hopefully 24 if they are jeans - and the kids remember to wear them twice! (long as were not at the zoo..or Sam's club..or, haha you get the picture..
• 42 pieces of underwear (it's not a pair..there is only one) per week
• 15 Sweaters (approx.) per week
• 42-84 pajama tops and bottoms 

This is leaving out numbers on:

Towels
Sheets
Work clothes
Etc.

Realization hit me.  I'm not crazy.  Those Numbers are what is crazy!!  Over 200 things to wash, then fold, then put away each week.   That is merely one of many things that need to be done.  

Those number gave me more peace. 

 It's not a matter of being tired or lazy.  It's not less energy cause from getting older.  It's crazy numbers.  It's just life.

Never could I hope to keep up on my home as I'd like  to during this season of my life.  And that's okay.  Often, reminding myself:  "The day my house will be perfectly clean, chores done, no dishes in the sink . . . my kids will be gone."  So it is necessary to decide where my focus is.  Do things need to be perfect?  Or do my kids need my time.  Hard to look at it so black and white, yet so often I am reminding myself of that very thought.  My boy won't forever ask me to play risk with him. . . especially if I keep telling him "no,"  or, "later."  My daughter won't always say "wait, wait" as I walk out of her room when she goes to bed.  Especially if I don't respond to the "wait."

My husband may not look forward to coming home if I ignore him - to busy doing dishes- ...and Need to finish before greeting him.  Or simply asking, "How was your day?"

I hope you find peace in the numbers as I did, just knowing-yes the work is never ending, but we can do it with a joyful spirit.  We don't have to have things perfect.  If they always are - we could be wasting valuable time.  Feeling overwhelmed is a normal thing, but we can find rest in God's words and asking Him to take our anxious thoughts.  Pray for wisdom and understanding, so that  you will have the discernment on when to put the towel down and open your ears to the one who may need them.  

Do something really craZy...like sit on the floor when your kids expect you to just walk by.  You might get goofy looks at first, but they will be delighted.  

Teachable Moments & the Word

Once you are a parent. . .I think teaching is meant to exist for the life of the parent/child relationship.  In an -on the spot- demanding way, when kids are young.  The word of God is a one hundred percent trustworthy source for teaching.  I have seen the ability in my children to be many things that are not okay.  When they are without direction-and even with, they figure out how to cheat, lie, fight, hold a grudge, take revenge. . .I don't think I need to go on... you get the picture!

That's just the negative that we try to discipline, or "teach out" of them.  Now let's turn to the positive.  We also want them to be loving, kind, act out of wisdom,  be joyful... and obedient.

So on these two sides...correcting negative actions and teaching positive behaviors, there is one foundation that will uphold goodness.  The Bible.  Chances are-if your like me- you can't come up with a verse at the top of your head when...say...when one child throws a water bottle at the other's head and the hurt one is screaming and the non-injured is professing innocence.  Or maybe when one of your sweet littles breaks your favorite ceramic coffee mug by being careless --and it's not like the other  stainless steel type you have [that tamper with the flavor of the coffee].  Not saying that happened to me... you know just an example here.

Basically, as I am in the heat of any moment. . .I want to rely on scripture.  I have struggled with this because I have so little memorized.  Yet still...it is what I want to teach,  and need to teach my children.  It is more profitable to teach "because God says so," than "because mom says so." I am by no means the end all, but God-began all.  

 Over the past number of months I have collected verses specific to teaching my kids.  They are mostly short. . .to the point and have a topic for quick finding.  Here is a link to make your own Verse Printout.  Simply print out the verses on card stock and cut them (sizes vary) punch a hole in the middle and hold together with a loose ring binder like below.