My Thursday Moms: a tribute

As we sat on the sofa listening to Heather give us her update on speaker phone in a raspy, congested, "I'm too sick to come today" voice, I had a growing sense of deep thankfulness for what these women have meant to me over the many years of seasons. Even as she spoke I thought, "I cannot even fathom where I'd be and who I'd be without them." If "aged to perfection" is even a possibility, I would say that this describes our deep sisterhood in Christ. Though we are far from perfect, our friendship has taken on a beauty that only comes with the seasoning of those seasons; enduring with one another through countless trials and rejoicing together as we've witnessed God's miraculous hand weaving the threads of our lives into a garment of praise.

Little did we know well over 15 years ago that a group of women gathered to pray for our kids and Linwood Elementary would be the catalyst for such an enduring friendship. We were a Moms In Touch prayer group led by another wonderful woman who felt God's call to this ministry. Every Thursday morning from September to June we would meet to encourage one another in prayer and to testify to God's answers for our children, our families, and our school. As time went on and our kids began to leave for middle school, high school, home school, and college, we morphed from the official Moms In Touch to a more informal moms in prayer. Many women came and went over the years, each a blessing and dearly loved. There are three of us left from that original group - Diana, Heather, and me. I affectionately call us the Thursday Moms. 

These woman have walked with me through almost two decades of raising my small children, behavior issues, illnesses, attitudes and rebellion (my kids' and mine), head lice (ugh!), depression, grief, marriage issues, the teenage years, schooling choices, mission trips, the dating years, wedding planning, wedding planning, wedding planning (smile)....and now extreme empty nesting. They have been so patient and wise and faithful. They have pointed me back to God's word countless times and encouraged me with His promises. And, more than words, they have been Jesus' hands and feet of blessing.

This year we "got all crazy" and decided to continue meeting together through the summer. We didn't start out knowing how important this would be, but the Lord knew. Oh how we needed Him this summer! (smile...we always need Him!) Hopes, fears, anguish, quandaries, mountains, marriages, mine fields...and through all these things, desiring to be faithful wives, mothers, friends - faithful servants of our Savior, Jesus. So much more than seeking relief from these looming issues, we desired to respond in the Spirit and in truth; to know Him more deeply and to honor Him in all we did and thought and said. This has been our quest...this summer and throughout the years. No Holy Grail, just holy living. Journeying together through the maze of life, spurring one another on, battling in prayer and in exhortation, lifting one another's arms when the fighting was fierce. And in all this, loving one another.

Ah, yes...loving one another. This was the reason for the deep sense of quiet and peace that came over me as I sat back, shoes off, curled up with steaming coffee mug in the corner of comfy green sofa. We'd prayed for Heather and settled in to continue our morning of fellowship and it dawned on me. Gazing at my lovely friend with the rich golden hues outside reflecting the changing seasons of this place and of our lives, I realized that this was where I had always known I could be myself. I am loved here. These women have graced me with the ministry of listening...not just hearing, but listening. Such a gift! They know me so well and they have allowed me to know them. We have confessed our sins to one another, shared joys and fears, cried together, laughed together, invested in the Kingdom and in one another...together. What a treasure we share in Christ and in the wonder of womanhood, lived together as friends. Let the seasons change! We have one another and we have Christ. Oh, how I love you Jesus and how I love these sweet, sweet sisters! Thank you for my precious Thursday Moms! 

Children: Punishment or Discipline?

Punishment. I've been thinking about this word lately. While raising my children I always cringed when I heard it used. Years later I figured out why. Grace. Grace is why to my saved-by-grace-ears "punishment" did not ring true. Biblically, wrath leads to punishment. And by the same Word, I know that I have been saved from wrath. Jesus took my punishment. But at the same time the Word does speak of discipline. Hebrews 12:5-11:

5“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,

   and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,

6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

   and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”

 7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

The heart of these two words is so different. Punishment comes from wrath, discipline from love. How many times did I "punish" my kids for their bad behavior out of my anger, or fear, or a desire to control them? More times than I care to remember. And, even in the moment, it seemed wrong. It was sin for sin. This is not discipline, and it certainly showed no discipline - or self control - on my part. Disciplining has to do with intentionally desiring an outcome. In the case of our children we should truly and prayerfully ask God for a vision of that outcome so that we can direct their discipline with purpose.

Everything that we model to our children should reflect the heart of God toward them, even disciplining them. Punishment breeds rule keeping and a sense of legalism that only puts a huge stumbling block in the way of our relationship with our children and their future relationship with their heavenly Father. None of us can keep the rules. If we could have Jesus would never had needed to give up His glory in heaven to become a man and die a terrible death for us. God offers us eternal relief from the burden of rule keeping and even the way we discipline our children can begin to show them His heart.

None of this means that we are soft or permissive, but it does mean that we have tender hearts for our children that, even in the face of their misbehavior, seeks to set them on the right path. God knows each of us intimately and gives us the discipline that is best. He does judge, but is a righteous judge. We can seek to know our children...not just their behavior, but their hearts, their bent...and ask for wisdom to teach and train them effectively, to make right judgements on their behalf. So often I just wanted my kids to "behave" so that my life would be easier. This was such a lazy and selfish attitude. Parenting is hard work, and in many ways was God's way of disciplining me. As I learned to see it that way and to fall on my face before Him for wisdom, strength, and a right heart, it began to have that harvest of righteousness and peace in my life. I only wish that I had seen it sooner.

Our lives are a process and so are our children's. We need the work of the Holy Spirit in that process. I'm not sure why the Lord laid all this on my heart today, but He did. How this looks in my life and in yours will be so different and I know that this is not an exhaustive study on the subject, but it bears consideration. Do you punish or discipline? Perhaps at the heart of it all is this question: Do you see God as a punishing God or one who disciplines you...the child he loves? For those who believe on and have received His atoning sacrifice, there is grace. Not a grace that gives us license to sin more, but one that calls us to deep thankfulness and a desire for a holy life, in Him, by Him, for Him. This is the heart for God that I want my children to have.

Tears 2: A New Season

I began this note on Monday morning with tears freely flowing, but was interrupted by a phone call from Monica and Danny that, on their way to Medford, they'd had a fender bender (literally) in Kennewick. So I, of course, put on my calm, cool, and collected hat immediately and got down to helping with the situation at hand. That's what I do. I'm a mom. But these Monday feelings have been resting just below the surface for the past few days as I have watched their progress in finally getting to their destination. I know that when I get home the reality of it all will seem, well,  un-real. Ah, life's transitions. It's Gumby time again. And so I share:

Monday 10.10.11

As I fought down sobs putting on my makeup today, I was struck with the irony that a little over a year ago I was in this very place trying to put on makeup through tears last year. I was preparing to leave Jill, Jake, and one month old Cadence to begin my life as a long distance gramma and I wrote a note called "Tears." This morning I was saying goodbye as my last little bird, Monica, flew the "forest" for the place that the Lord has prepared for her and her husband Danny, and here I am in Pensacola once again. And once again, Ty and I are parted for this final goodbye. 

I've pretty much been a puddle since last night, knowing that they were having dinner with his parents and Ty, knowing that the U-Haul was packed and ready, knowing that they were sleeping in our basement spare bed...so close to home, but so far from me. It is one thing to intellectually consent to the idea that your children are leaving, and quite another to say goodbye. I've known for years that none of them would live in Spokane for very long, but that hasn't made this tearing away any easier on my heart.

(This reverie is now interrupted by the fender bender and some days to think on these things.)

Thursday 10.13.11

Our children's lives were once so contained within our lives. Moving from grade to grade, having friends over, plays, games, activities, concerts. Helping them navigate growing up, but still having a bit of control over their environment. And if "control" is the wrong word, then at least having more of the decision making authority even while slowly giving that over to them. Little did we know then, but our desire and need to pray for them would only grow with time. 

Today as I reflected on the dynamics of all the changes that have touched our lives in the last 3-5 years I realized that, though Ty and I have emptied our nest, our children's lives have almost taken on an exponential effect. No longer are they individual children under our care, but they are married children, each with an entire universe of a life of their own. So in our equation of family with three kids we've gone from, let's say, "3x" to "x cubed" or x^3. (Sorry if you don't follow the math analogy, but if x=3, then 3x3=9, but 3 cubed=3x3x3=27. Add two sons-in-law, a daughter-in-law, and grandkids, and that equation continues to grow.) Granted, on a day to day basis, we aren't dealing with raising them, but their lives in the adult world of marriage, children, school, and work are larger and more complicated. Thus our need to let go and let them live independently becomes a more difficult challenge. And we must let go if they are to be strengthened by their own adversity and enjoy the full freedom of adulthood, but it ain't easy. It's tough love of another sort, I guess. Maintaining that balance of being available, but not under foot. 

And so I will return to Spokane in less than a week to a very quiet house, and a quieter town. Ty and I will look at each other and likely laugh and shake our heads. What a ride the past few years have been. What a ride the past few weeks have been. I know that there will be more tears here and there as well. That's ok. Those tears will fall and water the seeds of what is next. I've been reading in Isaiah for the past few mornings. This passage hit home: 

“Forget the former things; 

   do not dwell on the past. 

See, I am doing a new thing! 

   Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? 

I am making a way in the wilderness 

   and streams in the wasteland." ~Is 43:18,19 

I welcome His work, hard as it may be sometimes. And I do not want to miss the new things He has planned. Fall even seems a fitting season for this season of our lives. A time when what was new dies away so that what will be can come forth. As I prepare to return home I look forward to spending time with Ty, perhaps that long awaited date at a favorite coffee shop, and to be face to face sharing our feelings of "oh my goodness!" or as he so aptly said the other night over the phone, to "just be." Be together. Be in the moment. Be facing tomorrow together. When the tears spring forth again, we'll let them come. We're both kind of sappy and sentimental. We'll just sop them up with a scone, take another sip of coffee, and look forward to Spring.

Forgiveness: Fact or Feeling

I was struck by this excerpt from Watchman Nee's The Normal Christian Life. So often we can try to value our own sense of forgiveness based on our feelings of being forgiven, of behaving well, of having had a good day or a bad day. We must learn to embrace our forgiveness on the fact that the blood of Christ does, in fact, cover our sin - not our behavior, not our noble thoughts, not our days of victory over sin. In Christ's shed blood alone is our forgiveness. Period. So "Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Some say doctrine is dry and boring. Nothing can be further from the truth. Correct doctrine is essential to correct thinking. Correct thinking allows us to reign in our feelings...to bring them into line with the truth. I have come to approach life in this way, "This is how I feel, but what does God's word say." 

Know the truth and be set free to embrace all of the strength and power that His redeeming grace affords you. If you have accepted Christ's shed blood as atonement for your sin, you are forgiven. You can stand before the Holy God of heaven by the merit of His blood, not for anything you have done or not done. "He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior." (Titus 3:5,6)

If you struggle with your "sense" of worthiness to stand before God, read on. 

(From *The Normal Christian Life, by Watchman Nee, Chapter 1)

GOD IS SATISFIED

It is God's holiness, God's righteousness, which demands that a sinless life should be given for man. There is life in the Blood, and that Blood has to be poured out for me, for my sins. God is the One who requires it to be so. God is the One who demands that the Blood be presented, in order to satisfy His own righteousness, and it is He who says: 'When I see the blood, I will pass over you. 'The Blood of Christ wholly satisfies God.

Now I desire to say a word at this point to my younger brethren in the Lord, for it is here that we often get into difficulties. As unbelievers we may have been wholly untroubled by our conscience until the Word of God began to arouse us. Our conscience was dead, and those with dead consciences are certainly of no use to God. But later, when we believed, our awakened conscience may have become acutely sensitive, and this can constitute a real problem to us. The sense of sin and guilt can become so great, so terrible, as almost to cripple us by causing us to lose sight of the true effectiveness of the Blood. It seems to us that our sins are so real, and some particular sin may trouble us so many times, that we come to the point where to us our sins loom larger than the Blood of Christ.

Now the whole trouble with us is that we are trying to sense it ; we are trying to feel its value and to estimate subjectively what the Blood is for us. We cannot do it; it does not work that way. The Blood is first for God to see. We then have to accept God's valuation of it. In doing so we shall find our valuation. If instead we try to come to a valuation by way of our feelings we get nothing; we remain in darkness. No, it is a matter of faith in God's Word. We have to believe that the Blood is precious to God because He says it is so (1 Peter 1. 18,19). If God can accept the Blood as a payment for our sins and as the price of our redemption, then we can rest assured that the debt has been paid. If God is satisfied with the Blood, then the Blood must be acceptable. Our valuation of it is only according to His valuation-neither more nor less. It cannot, of course, be more, but it must not be less.

Let us remember that He is holy and He is righteous, and that a holy and righteous God has the right to say that the Blood is acceptable in His eyes and has fully satisfied, Him the Lord Jesus. I approach God through His merit alone, and never on the basis of my attainment; never, for example, on the ground that I have been extra kind or patient to- day, or that I have done something for the Lord this morning. I have to come by way of the Blood every time. The temptation to so many of us when we try to approach God is to think that because God has been dealing with us-because He has been taking steps to bring us into something more of Himself and has been teaching us deeper lessons of the Cross-He has thereby set before us new standards, and that only by attaining to these can we have a clear conscience before Him. No! A clear conscience is never based upon our attainment; it can only be based on the work of the Lord Jesus in the shedding of His Blood.

I may be mistaken, but I feel very strongly that some of us are thinking in terms such as these: 'Today I have been a little more careful ; to-day I have been doing a little better; this morning I have been reading the Word of God in a warmer way, so to-day I can pray better!' Or again, 'To-day I have had a little difficulty with the family ; I began the day feeling very gloomy and moody; I am not feeling too bright now; it seems that there must be something wrong; therefore I cannot approach God.'

What, after all, is your basis of approach to God? Do you come to Him on the uncertain ground of your feeling, the feeling that you may have achieved something for God today? Or is your approach based on something far more secure, namely, the fact that the Blood has been shed, and that God looks on that Blood and is satisfied? Of course, were it conceivably possible for the Blood to suffer any change, the basis of your approach to God might be less trustworthy. But the Blood has never changed and never will. Your approach to God is therefore always in boldness; and that boldness is yours through the Blood and never through your personal attainment. Whatever be your measure of attainment to-day or yesterday or the day before, as soon as you make a conscious move into the Most Holy Place, immediately you have to take your stand upon the safe and only ground of the shed Blood. Whether you have had a good day or a bad day, whether you have consciously sinned or not, your basis of approach is always the same-the Blood of Christ. That is the ground upon which you may enter, and there is no other.

*This book and others can be found on 

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/bookcat.htm

Get Those Girls Home! Fall Field Trip '11

Back story: Jillian's two and a half week visit stretched to nearly a month. After learning that she was pregnant while in Spokane for a wedding, she became VERY ill with morning sickness. Fortunately I had returned from Croatia by then. Two trips to the ER later, and now on two anti-nausea meds, she's somewhat stable, though tired (a side effect of the meds.) Her original return home date was moved out a week and we all decided that I should accompany her for the flight home to help with The Cutest Little Strong-Willed Girl On Earth Who Does Not Like To Cuddle Or Sit Still. Her friends and family call her Cadence.  

Update: Our flights yesterday went remarkably well with the assistance of several Delta Airlines beverage napkins. Who would have thought that breaking a napkin into tiny pieces, which were then handed to Grandma, would keep a child occupied for so long? She was so diligent and intent on this task that it kept her quiet and relaxed enough to be content when it was finally time to sit on my lap for our landings, or, on one flight, to actually fall asleep in my arms. Also, kudos to mommy's iphone & the Mickey Mouse Club and the portable DVD player & Finding Nemo. She actually slept the entire last leg of the trip after watching a slow slide show of photos from my phone during take off...the constant drone of engines on the back of the plane didn't hurt either. 

The long awaited reunion with Daddy was all that could be hoped for. No adjustment period necessary after being gone a month...just Daddy's girl from the get go. It was so adorable to watch them play and to hear Cadence bubble over with the giggles that are reserved for him alone. 

And the long awaited reunion of Jake and Jill was great as well. Mom's are ok, but she had so longed for her husband during those nights and days of feeling so sick and distraught. That is as it should be and now they are together again. 

So here I sit, with a mug of hot joe nearby and the sound of jets overhead on this sunny day on the Cadence-acola Naval Air Station, and thank the Lord for His provision for this trip home and for this family. Jill and Jake both said they'll hire me for all of Jill's cross country flights. Haha! While they were at our house we all called Uncle Danny the baby whisperer, but apparently I've got a few skills too. I think it just helps to be able to double-team a one year old who's trapped on a flying metal tube where there's no where to run and play. And I know that the Lord was gracious to us, the first sign of that being the fact that on a "full flight" we ended up with a whole row of three seats to ourselves. 

Jill is resting on the sofa and Cadence is toddling around the house, her little bare feet making happy little slappy sounds on the hardwood floor. She stops by the sofa often for a kiss and a cuddle from Momma. It was a long absence from home for them both. It was an incredibly busy two weeks for me immediately after my arrival home from a three week trip overseas. So today, here in Florida, though there are certainly things to attend to, we choose to rest.