Category Archives: Parenting

Laudable Linkage and Funny Videos

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Just a few links this week:

For the Young Mother: Ministry, Guilt, and Seasons of Life.

Why So Critical? Excellent thoughts on the difference between judgmentalism and discernment — too often people ignore the latter thinking it is the former.

How To Find a Job (Yes, Even Now). Thought this had some creative ideas.

Summertime Pest Control: round-up of home-made remedies for getting rid of pests.

Root Beer Float Cake. Looks.So.Good.

Crafty stuff:

Spring Hats Pincushion. SO cute! Makes me wish I were planning another ladies’ luncheon to use these as favors. 🙂
Crafting with Kid’s Prints by Karla Dornacher…but not just for kids, I think. Good tutorial on making a simple plaque.
Tutorial for making covered buttons.
Paper roses.
Charlotte Lyons’ Spring Stitching — so pretty. I’d like to make a sampler like this.
“Sweet Menagerie” Nine Patch Quilt. Maybe someday….
How to make a thread rack.
Bird in the House.
How to hand quilt.

I keep having to remind myself of this in this season of sorting and discarding while preparing to move. My boys love this:

This is a take-off on those hilarious Old Spice commercials.

I almost listened to this when trying to think up “Momisms” yesterday to see if I had forgotten any — I wish I had, I forgot plenty!

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage and Grandma’s Birthday

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We enjoyed celebrating Grandma’s 82nd birthday last night  with Pizza, cake, presents and “Team Scrabble.”

I don’t know how many people are around this holiday weekend, but here are a few things I’ve enjoyed reading the past couple of weeks.

Sometimes It’s Just Plain Hard, a very honest perspective that not everyone has beautiful, inspiring last days and death, but the hardness is all the more reminder that death is an enemy and Christ has overcome it and offers new life.

Another on the subject of death: I was brought to tears by the text of The Long Goodnight, HT to Challies. My own preferences for musical style is more conservative than the accompaniment here, but the text is from an old German hymn.

Laura introduced me to the M. O. B. Society (Mothers of Boys) with the post A Woman of God in a Household of Boys.

The High Calling of a Wife and Mother in Biblical Perspective.

“If Anyone Destroys God’s Temple…” Very convicting, not the usual take you see on this passage.

Beware the anger of man that attempts to produce the righteousness of God.

How can I make sure I am regularly shepherding everyone in the church?

In the “something to think about” department: Girlie Christianity.

Hope all my American friends have a happy Independence Day! I’ve loved this explanation of the Declaration of Independence by Red Skelton since I first heard it:

A Mother’s Day Prayer

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I highly recommend For Moms, Former Moms, and Wannabe Moms by Wendy Alsup at Practical Theology For Women. Here is a sampling:

Motherhood is not the greatest good for the Christian woman. Whether you are a mom or not, don’t get caught up in sentimentalism that sets it up as some saintly role. The greatest good is being conformed to the image of Christ. Now, motherhood is certainly one of God’s primary tools in His arsenal for this purpose for women. But it is not the end itself. Being a mom doesn’t make you saintly. Believe me. Being a mom exposes all the ways you are a sinner, not a saint. Not being a mom and wanting to be one does too. We may long to get pregnant, looking at motherhood from afar. God sanctifies us through that longing. We may lose a pregnancy or a child, and mourn the loss of our motherhood. God conforms us to Christ through that as well. We may have a brood of children of various ages, and heaven knows God roots sin out of our hearts that way. It’s all about THE greatest good, being conformed to the image of Christ – reclaiming the image of God that He created us to bear through gospel grace. And God uses both the presence and the absence of children in the lives of His daughters as a primary tool of conforming us to Christ.

I shared this last year, but it is on my mind again this year:

A Mother’s Day Prayer

God our Creator, I pray:
For new mothers, coming to terms with new responsibility;
for expectant mothers, wondering and waiting;
for those who are tired, stressed, or depressed;
for those who struggle to balance the tasks of work and family;
for those who are unable to feed their children due to poverty;
for those whose children have physical, mental, or emotional disabilities;
for those who have children that they do not want;
for those who raise children on their own;
for those who have lost a child;
for those who care for the children of others;
for those whose children have left home;
and for those whose desire to be a mother has not been fulfilled.

Bless all mothers, that their love may be deep and tender,
and that they may lead their children to know and to do what is good,
living not for themselves alone, but for God and for others.
Amen

Author Unknown

I am thankful for the mother I was blessed to have for 48 years (and I miss her sorely), my mother-in-law, older moms who have helped me along the way by their words and example, and those who call me mom.

An original poem…

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When my children were babies and toddlers, the last thing I did every night before going to bed was check on them. If I couldn’t hear them breathing or see the rise and fall of their chests, I’d place my hand on their back to make sure they were still breathing. As they got older, probably until they hit puberty, checking on them last thing before I went to bed was still my nightly ritual. If they were out for some activity in their teens and college years, I could not go to bed until they came home…though I did sometimes fall asleep on the couch. It was disconcerting when they got old enough to stay up later than I did. I missed that settled feeling of knowing everyone was “tucked in” before I went to sleep. That feeling was magnified as they started going away from home for longer periods, to camp or missions trips or to work somewhere for the summer, and then as I began to think of their leaving home to establish their own. But I reminded myself that they were in God’s care.

This poem arose out of that experience. I wrote it almost two years ago and sent to my friends Bet, who teaches college journalism classes, and Ann, who teaches high school English, for their critiques. Thank you both for your invaluable comments! I put it away for a while in order to come back to it later and hopefully think more clearly about it, and just got it out again several days ago. It’s still not perfect, but it’s better than it was, thanks to Ann and Bet’s suggestions.

I debated about putting it on my blog. because once it is on the Internet it’s in danger of being kidnapped. On the other hand, people don’t write poetry to keep it in a book: I hope it ministers to others’ hearts as it did my own. I would just remind people that it is copyrighted and ask that if you use it, please include my name and preferably a link back here.

A Mother’s Nightly Ritual

Before a mother goes to bed
She checks each little downy head,
Places a hand on back or chest
Of each sleeping child at rest,
Making sure that all is well
Before succumbing to sleep’s spell.

As children grow and youth abounds,
Yet Mother still must make her rounds.
She can not rest at ease until
Her little ones are calm and still,
Safely tucked into their beds,
Then softly to her own she treads.

From childhood into youth they grow,
And she waits up until she knows
They’re settled safe and sound at home
Til the next day when they roam.
Though now they stay up long past her,
She can’t rest til they’re home, secure.

Her birds fly later from her sight.
Their beds are empty now at night.
She cannot check the rise and fall
Of sleeping breaths within her walls.
Yet she trusts they’re safely kept
By Him who never once has slept.

Though now they sleep beyond her care,
They never move beyond her prayer.
Her nightly vigil now is to
Trust them to the same One Who
Watched o’er Jacob while he roamed,
And kept him safe though far from home.

Barbara Harper
Copyright 2010

Mother’s Little Angel

by Norman Rockwell

Courtesy of imagekind

Assorted reading and stray thoughts for Mother’s Day

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One old post of mine getting a lot of hits these days is one about Mother’s Day reading, but since I did not know many of you then, I’ll repost a little of it here. I know some of you don’t like to look through lists of links, but there is good stuff in these. I was thinking of posting this on Saturday, but then thought some of you might like to see some of these before then.

Elisabeth Elliot wrote a leaflet she titled “A Call to Spiritual Motherhood” which she read in on of her radio broadcasts. You can read the transcript here. It is an excellent article encouraging all of us in any stage of life to spiritually “mother” younger women. Many of us have had godly women besides out own mothers who were shining examples to us, who taught us along the way and encouraged us. I think they are worthy of honor on a day like Mother’s Day, too. :)

Girltalk has some excellent articles for those who have lost children to miscarriage or a later death, struggle with infertility or have wayward children, for whom this time of year can be quite painful.

Annie’s Mother’s Day pages have several neat links. I especially liked What the Bible Says About Mothers.

I mentioned the high expectations some women might have about Mother’s Day, setting themselves up for disappointment, but I’ve often run into just the opposite: a mom who doesn’t like all the fuss on Mother’s Day, or, as Al Mohler wrote one year, that Mother’s Day is a bad idea because of the commercialism, the sentimentality, or the lack of honoring mothers other days of the year and trying to make up for it on that one day. To moms who maybe don’t like to be put on the spot or feel uncomfortable about all the attention that day, I would say just accept it as an expression of love.  You may not want or need gifts and may just want the family to have time together, and that’s fine, but don’t downplay what your family tries to do to honor you. Have you ever tried to give a gift to someone who keeps saying things like “You shouldn’t have!” so much that it takes all the joy out of giving to them? Don’t be like that (of course, balance is the key here. Maybe next year well before Mother’s Day you might want to express to your family that you really don’t want anything and ask about a family day instead, if you feel that way. But don’t downplay their efforts after they’ve already done something.)

As for the sentiment that Mother’s Day is a bad idea for the reasons mentioned: I agree with some of Dr. Mohler’s points: it’s wrong to passively neglect or actively dishonor one’s mother and then try to assuage guilt with a card and flowers on Mother’s Day. And I do agree some sentiments are over the top: sometimes when buying cards I have wondered if they were made for real people at all. Sentimentality, though, is often in the eye of the beholder. What might seem “gushy” and over the top to some might seem just right to another. And, yes, most holidays have become too commercial, but that doesn’t mean we need to do away with them completely. There are multitudes of options between going all out and not celebrating at all.

I consider Mother’s and Father’s Day and many holidays  in the same way I think of Thanksgiving: we’re supposed to be thankful all the time, but there is something special about that one day and taking special care and thought into pondering just how much we have to be thankful for and the One to Whom we owe our gratitude. So with a day dedicated to parents: it’s one of the ten commandments to honor our parents, and Mother’s and Father’s Day is just one way to do so. It’s not that we save up our honor all year for this day: we honor them all the time, but this special day we focus on them, their love to us, and all they have done for us, and let them know we love and appreciate them.

What if you don’t feel your mother is worthy of honor? The command to honor our fathers and mothers is just that — a command. During my teens I did struggle for a brief while with respecting my parents. One day after a sermon on “Children, obey your parents,” it occurred to me that the two passages that teach that (Ephesians 6:1-3 and Colossians 3:20) do not qualify the command (obey if they are saved, if they are perfect, if they do everything just right, if they deserve it). I realized that all of the commands about relationships in the rest of those passages were not dependent on the other person doing his or her part. We’re supposed to do our part whether the other one does or not. I was supposed to obey my parents and respect their position as my parents. I had to apologize for my attitude, and the Lord enabled me to indeed honor them and respect them, and even to appreciate them and to be thankful for the life they gave me, the care they took of me, and so many more things. It showed in my attitude (I had never been allowed to “backtalk,” but there are other ways a disrespectful attitude can seep out), and the Lord healed the breach between my parents and me. I only wish she were still here for me to honor, but I do honor her memory. A few years ago I wrote Things I love about my mom.

Here are some things I’ve posted in the past regarding Mother’s Day. 🙂

Mother’s Day funnies.
Mother’s Dictionary (funny).
Mother’s Kisses (poem).
Mother’s Day Poems.

Microfiction Monday

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microfictionmonday

Susan at Stony River has begun a Microfiction Monday wherein participants write a story in 140 characters or less based on a particular image that Susan has chosen for the day.  Design 215’s Character Counter helps keep track of the number of characters. It’s a fun exercise in creative conciseness…or concise creativity… You can visit Susan’s to see some very creative stories for today.

Here’s today’s photo and my “take” on it:

Unnoticed by Katie’s mother, Father Time lurks in the shadows, ready to whisk Katie to adulthood all too soon. He moves fast for an old man.

Microfiction Monday

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microfictionmonday

Susan at Stony River has begun a Microfiction Monday wherein participants write a story in 140 characters based on a particular image.  Design 215’s Character Counter helps keep track of the number of characters.

picasso

Busy boy still,
Rare quiet respite.
Time to enjoy,
to soak in these precious, fleeting moments
before they are only sweet wistful memories.

From the worldling’s hollow gladness

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In the “one thought leads to another and I don’t know how I got here” department, I found myself thinking this morning about an incident in the junior-high years of one of my sons. Junior high is probably not anyone’s best time of life, but some people have a harder time of it. One of my sons got into trouble one day for using a phrase that had a “dirty” meaning. Fortunately the principal believed him when he said he didn’t know what it meant, that he just said it because other kids were saying it. (We had been here a little over a year and he hadn’t really made friends yet and was trying to “fit in.” I think we must’ve talked to him about not saying or doing wrong things to fit it and not trying to fit in with the wrong crowd — and yes, sadly, there is a wrong crowd even in Christian schools. I know we talked to him about not using phrases when you don’t know what they mean.) Oddly, neither the teacher nor the principal nor my husband nor I knew what the phrase meant. None of us had ever heard it before. Discreetly my husband asked someone he worked with, and we were shocked that such an innocent expression had such a meaning. It’s amazing to me how people can dirtify words with double entendre. It reminds me of Titus 1:15: “Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.”

When my son was in the tenth grade, an evangelist came to their school under whose ministry he was saved. He had made a profession before and had seemed to understand, but we were happy for him to have the matter settled in his own heart. We weren’t about to tell him, “No, no, you were saved as a little child. Don’t you remember?” I had had enough struggles with assurance on my own that I would never say that to anyone wrestling with whether they had really believed on the Lord. And that was a changing point in his life. A generally resistant spirit was gone and he began taking real and observable steps in his walk with God.

Some years later I found an essay in that son’s school folder that he had written for Bible class. I don’t remember what the main topic of the essay was, but in it my son described how in his junior high years he was actually in the wrong crowd, whereas I had thought he had merely had a brush with them. It wasn’t widely known what kinds of things these kids talked about because they were wise enough to keep their conversation generally clean around teachers and other students. But, my son went on to write, in the intervening years, every guy in that group had either gotten right with God or left the school.

I was surprised, frightened, and saddened that these things had gone on under my nose without my having a clue, or missing the clues I did have. But then my heart was so warmed and I was so grateful that God was watching out for my boy in those situations and brought him out and turned his life around. When I think of how easily he could have gone the other way…well, I just can’t think about that too long. And to see his growth and to see him now as a young man seeking to walk with the Lord, and to have an openness between us that was absent those years ago — my heart overflows.

I don’t know why this came to mind this morning or why I felt strongly led to share it. Perhaps another parent can use the encouragement. We do need to “be sober, be vigilant; because your [and their] adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:  Whom resist stedfast in the faith” (I Peter 5:8-9). We can’t afford to be lax, but then again we can’t be neurotically overzealous to the point of driving them away. And at some point in their lives they will spend time away from us. We can trust God for wisdom and balance in raising them and trust Him to see and deal with what we don’t see. He cares for them even more than we do and wants what is best for them infinitely more.

I posted this poem, written by Amy Carmichael for the children under her care, a couple of years ago, but it is one that I come back to often and that echoes my own heart’s desire for my children as well as other children I know:

Father, hear us, we are praying,
Hear the words our hearts are saying,
We are praying for our children.

Keep them from the powers of evil,
From the secret, hidden peril,
Father, hear us for our children.

From the whirlpool that would suck them,
From the treacherous quicksand, pluck them,
Father, hear us for our children.

From the worldling’s hollow gladness,
From the sting of faithless sadness,
Father. Father, keep our children

Through life’s troubled waters steer them,
Through life’s bitter battle cheer them,
Father, Father, be thou near them.

Read the language of our longing,
Read the wordless pleading thronging,
Holy Father, for our children.

And wherever they may bide,
Lead them home at eventide.

Thank you, a question, and laudable linkage

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Thanks so much for all your sweet birthday wishes! My family gave me a wonderful birthday — I’m thinking I might save the particulars for the next Friday’s Fave Five post.

Some of your comments gave rise to a question, though:

How do you get those musical notes in your comments?

Those were so neat — and there are times I’ve wanted to do that but didn’t know it could be done.

I have some assorted puttering around to do today — a little cleaning, a few errands, etc. But I wanted to share with you some great things I’ve read recently. Some of these are blogs I am subscribed to through Google Reader — some I found through a series of links that I forgot to make note of.

Studying love at Making Home — great study of I Corinthinas 13.

Gifted Moms — funny post from Christian comedian Cheryl Moeller.

Before I was a Mom — poignant post on love learned as a mom by The Diaper Diaries.

Interview with Stephen King and Jerry Jenkins — the latter of the Left Behind series as well as several other books, the former of…well, who doesn’t know about Stephen King? I haven’t actually read his books — I don’t do scary — and the only film I’ve seen based on one of his books was Stand By Me, and I really enjoyed that. But though the authors are opposite in some ways, they have some similarities and mutual respect, and I thought this interview was quite interesting.

On the craft front — I love these little collages by Charlotte Lyons at house wren studio.

I’ve mentioned before that I was looking for ideas for craft storage or craft/sewing rooms: here are links to some inspiring ones I’ve found.

Lynn at Queen of the Castle is hosting agiveaway for the book Making It Home.

Reason #4,926 why I love him by Carpoolqueen. Just go read it. It’s hilarious.

Have a wonderful Saturday!

It’s beginning to sink in…

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When Jason and his fiancee first starting talking about marriage, they were planning to go to CA — aaaaallllll the way across the country from SC — to work in the camp where Jason has worked for 5 or 6 summers. But that camp closed down. So they decided to live nearby in the meantime, work on paying off school debts, and pray about where to go. I want them to be wherever the Lord wants them, of course, but I am delighted to have them nearby for a while. I attributed the fact that I hadn’t had any mushily sentimental moments to the fact that I wasn’t really  “losing” a son since he was only going to be ten minutes away. I also joked with some of you that my inheriting Jason’s room for a longed-for sewing/craft/guest room is softening the loss a bit.

Jason found a little house to rent and, since it has no current occupants, the landlord went ahead and gave him the keys. Jason wanted to go ahead and start packing up some of his things to take to the house so there wouldn’t be quite so much to do after the wedding. When I peeked in and saw all those boxes…that’s when it began to really sink in that he was actually moving out.

Jason’s been my rover — away almost every summer for years, on two international mission trips, and even though he lived at home during college, he was often gone from 7 a.m. til 10 or 11 p.m. So you’d think we’d be “used to” his being gone. I don’t know that we ever got completely used to it, but, even still, his room was always there waiting for him to come back. And the sight of all those boxes being packed up suddenly confronted me with the reality that he is actually moving away from home. Not far — but, still, it’s the end of an era.

When I commented on that fact and got all teary, my husband, Jim, teasing, said, “No, no — think sewing room! Sewing room!”

And later I smiled to see that Jason had made this sign and put it on his door:

CIMG2927

The moment passed. Jason took us over to his new house and showed us around. His happiness and excitement are infectious. It’s just really cute to see (forgive me for putting it that way, Jason. 🙂 ) We are happy and excited for them and love our future daughter-in-law. But I am sure there will be a few more of those poignant, teary moments in the next few weeks.