Monthly Archives: August 2013

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Prayer Thread.

Several years ago there was a moment that terrified me.

 

We were in Florida for a family vacation. Steve had broken a bone in his foot, although at the moment we only knew he had hurt the foot. I was in the condo with Sammy who was still just a little one…maybe about the age Maddie is now. Steve had gone down to the beach with Nate and Zach and had been there for a few hours while I had let Sam take a nap.

 

It was that moment when you knew they had been gone too long and something just didn’t feel right. I walked out across the little boardwalk to find Zach and Nate walking back and Steve somewhat stumbling back. It was a terribly hot day.

 

Steve doesn’t stumble.

 

He sat down.

 

He doesn’t do that.

 

I walked with him and he said it was his foot bothering him. Other people were noticing. A woman came up quickly toward us. She had been watching from her condo on the 30 something-th floor and was a nurse and could tell something was wrong. While I was talking with her suddenly Steve was laying flat on his back on the board walk. Two men came rushing up and grabbed his legs and swept him up, after checking and saying he had no pulse and wasn’t breathing.

 

It was all of five minutes. I had all my kids in sight, and a wonderful woman had caught my eye and began keeping them occupied with the hose that you clean off the beach sand. Steve revived quickly and we found that he was in shock from breaking a bone in his foot and being dehydrated from being in the sun. In that five minutes though, I was very afraid of what I might be in the midst of.

 

What does this have to do with a prayer thread? I shuffled my startled boys back up to the condo as Steve was taken in the ambulance and I posted a prayer request on a thread on a blog. I was in a strange town where I didn’t know anyone and I was afraid and I needed to know I had some friends praying. Facebook was not as used then, or at least I was not as adept…and this blog kept me sane.

 

I came back from the hospital (without Steve who spent a little more time there to get checked out) and found a thread filled with encouragement and prayer. Community. Support. From people I had not met in person, but who were online and all over the world and were able to support me in a rather unique moment.

 

Most of our days will not be like that day. Thankfully. But some days are difficult, and some days are fantastic. Some days we just need to know that we have folks praying. The blog I posted that request on is on a bit of a hiatus which may become permanent or may not. In that season I’m going to post a thread each week here for prayer requests.

 

We may not get any, and that is fine. If you are feeling like you need to know someone is praying…feel free to ask. There may not be lots of responses, but I will pray and there are others who read without posting who will pray. We’ll see what happens.  It’s always good to have a place to come when we need to know someone is praying…

 

I may make this more structured as we continue, we’ll see, but for today I wanted to explain why it felt important to have a prayer thread.

 

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Here’s to Reading Dead Authors and Being Less Grumpy!!

“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.” 

G.K. Chesterton

I cannot remember when I first began reading Chesterton, but it has been years and years. When I first stumbled upon his writings I devoured him. I loved his wit and then I found out I loved his wisdom as well. He doesn’t know everything, but he has this way of refreshing my soul on days when I need refreshment. There is something about his humor and wonder that draws me in, but he is no slouch; he makes me work when I read him.

I get sloppy in my reading.

I get sloppy in life, to be honest.

Days are a bit full with a husband, four children, a dog, two cats and four fish living in the house. The laundry piles up, the dishes pile up, the dust piles up…the duties pile up. It is easy to come downstairs, get my cup of coffee and sit down at the computer and be lulled into catching up on everything on FaceBook as the start to my day. There’s nothing wrong with that; I like seeing what is happening with my friends and I do find things happening I can pray for and folks I can catch up with in real time. Still, I am not a disciplined person and I too easily find that I have spent far too long in front of the computer and the children have appeared and the day is rolling and the duties are getting ahead of me…and things are getting sloppy.

And I am getting grumpy.

I am behind the day and trying to catch up.

I need, and I use that word intentionally, the space and time to read and to think. I need the sanity of those like Chesterton and Frederich Buechner and C. S. Lewis and Madeleine L’Engle and Henri Nouwen and Tim Keller and Sally Lloyd-Jones and … Scripture.  I need the time and the space and the discipline to turn my face and my attention toward God before the duties and the demands of the day start getting ahead of me.

Now that the school schedule is about to come into swing, I need that all the more.

Or else, I begin to feel grumpy.

No, not just grumpy.

I begin to feel physically like I am going to explode.

I begin to feel like I need to run around the house and straighten things and get everything in order, RIGHT NOW.  And the kids can tell that I am on edge, and everything goes downhill. Not a good environment for learning.

So. Tradition.

Not FaceBook.

Tradition.

Turning off the superfluous noises. Those things that are okay, but are not necessary, so that I can turn to the necessary. Quieting the mornings so I can have that space and time to be silent and turn my attention toward God. I need the help of the authors I mentioned sometimes because I need help focusing my thoughts. They help me narrow my focus and quiet my spirit.  FaceBook, internet…feeds my distraction. The lesson is not just for me. The season is for the boys as well; it is time for them to turn off the iPods and the Xbox and turn their attention to their studies.  We have to make the space for silence and then introduce them to the those who can be our guides in learning how to think well in training our thoughts to think on God.

Turning off the superfluous.

Listening to tradition.

Feeding not only my mind with something worthwhile, but feeding my soul.

That doesn’t mean I’ll never turn on FaceBook again, but it does mean it is time to be intentional again. Setting up the day for a more peaceful start instead of irritation. The duties still have to be done, but I sure find they are easier when my spirit is not so agitated. There is time to simply catch up on the computer and sneak a peak at friends’ lives and play a game, but I know myself well enough to know I let it get the best of me and a little time ends up being far too long.

So here’s to a school year of intention, of reading from wise writers and being much less grumpy!!!

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Get ready….get set…..GO!

I love this time of year. I loved it when I was a kid because it meant I was able to buy new notebooks and pens and paper. New backpacks. I can get in lots of trouble at office supply stores.

I love school.

I am jealous of the kids heading off to college for the first time.  I love the environment and I love the chance to read and to take in new things.

I love what we are doing now with our kids…the chance to learn at home with them and to be part of the education process. I love picking out the curriculum and this year I am enjoying developing our own Bible curriculum. I have learned a few things from our first year of homeschool last year, and I am eager to see what we learn this year.

So, as we are just about to jump back in…it is time to open up the discussion once again. I’d love to hear from friends about what has worked and about what you have learned in the last year. What worked, and what did not work. You can share about big things like curriculum or little things like tweaks you made to your schedule.

A couple things I learned this last year:

1. I’m going to mess up.  There are going to be days I simply am going to be irritated and we are not going to get through the material. There are going to be days where I cannot get all the kids on the same page, and that will be okay. Some times we have to just chalk it up to a bad day and move on; other times we have to pull it together and redeem the day.  Either way we have, myself and the kids, have to learn to have grace for one another and for ourselves.

2. The kids will learn something. We will not get to the end of the year and find out that they didn’t learn anything. They’ll pick up something, and probably a lot. We have to do our best and set the table well, but we also have to not stress too much.  They are getting loads of individual attention, and are getting opportunities to investigate things they are interested in and excited about. Those things are going to sink in. Let them chase those things some. Along those lines, my middle boy is taking conversational Italian on Rosetta. No, we do not know anyone who speaks conversational Italian, but I bet he’ll find someone one of these days!

3. Find people smarter than I am and ask them lots of questions. I do not know everything I need to know to educate my children. I do not know all I need to know to keep Zachary on track for entering Middle School and High School. There are a lot of people who do know. I can find them. I can ask them questions, and they are more than willing to answer my questions. That helps me immensely, and in turn helps my kids out. This also shows my kids I’m willing to learn and not afraid to show that I have areas where I need to learn.

4. When I am excited the kids get excited.  The days when I whipped the books out, was irritated and just wanted to get through the material, everyone was miserable. We griped and we yelled at each other and none of us learned anything. The days when we were interested and when I was excited about what we were learning we laughed and we had a good time and we were relaxed. This usually happened on the days when I was able to get up early enough to have a cup of coffee in silence and spend some time in prayer and in quiet before the day began. I have more to write about this, but that will be in another post.

5. This season will be gone to quickly. We all say it, we all know, but we need to repeat it. Again. And again. It’s a privilege to be around these kids. Every day. Even the crappy days. Spending the day reading together and learning…is a pretty great thing.  I hope I can keep that at the forefront of my thoughts this year.

6. I am not, and probably never will, be crafty. Pinterest does not help this.  I love the stuff I find on Pinterest. I’ll go a week and do a bunch of the stuff. Then I get tired.  Then I feel slightly guilty and life goes back to a bit of a routine of laundry and cleaning up after kids and kittens and dogs and fish. That keeps me busy enough to not get to the painting with salt and baking soda and food coloring. Still..I do hope to do some of the creative things this year…I just won’t get too carried away.

7. Books, and especially novels, are fantastic. Reading aloud to children is one of the best things in the world and can never be rushed.  One of the curriculums we used, Sonlight, is heavy on reading. I love this. We did a lot of reading, and a lot of reading out loud. I love this. The kids love this. It never gets old. This will always be part of our structure.

8. I have to be a little bit mean. I realized this first after coming back from vacation in California. This was the one thing about home school I didn’t realize. Because you are not going away to school there has to be some sense of structure that separates the school day from the play of vacation or weekend (I have some friends who don’t do this and who incorporate school into all of life…I haven’t been able to get there, but that is awesome if you can make that work). So, for us, I have to be a bit mean and a bit structured to get the kids attention and then we can have fun. There’s a spiritual lesson in there somewhere…first discipline, then freedom…..

Okay…those are a few of my ‘lessons’. Tell me yours. Tell me your hints. Tell me your ideas. Tell dreads and your hopes for the coming years. I know I have a few friends diving in for the first time this year…ask questions if you have them. I’d love to hear some discussion here. Or are we all old hats at this with nothing new to say?