Mother’s Day reading and assorted stray thoughts

Posted on May 12, 2007 by Barbara Harper

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.

Anna Jarvis is regarded as the founder of Mother’s Day. The purpose she had in mind was:

..To revive the dormant filial love and gratitude we owe to those who gave us birth. To be a home tie for the absent. To obliterate family estrangement. To create a bond of brotherhood through the wearing of a floral badge. To make us better children by getting us closer to the hearts of our good mothers. To brighten the lives of good mothers. To have them know we appreciate them, though we do not show it as often as we ought…

Mothers Day is to remind us of our duty before it is too late.

This day is intended that we may make new resolutions for a more active thought to our dear mothers. By words, gifts, acts of affection, and in every way possible, give her pleasure, and make her heart glad every day, and constantly keep in memory Mothers Day; when you made this resolution, lest you forget and neglect your dear mother, if absent from home write her often, tell her of a few of her noble good qualities and how you love her.

“A mother’s love is new every day.”

God bless our faithful good mothers.

So many times these days the focus is on “how to be a better mother” on Mother’s Day rather than honoring one’s own mother. There is nothing wrong with writings and sermons about how to be a better mother — I know I certainly need them. But I think that focus can make this day all the more painful for those mentioned above who have lost children or can’t have children.

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. I don’t think I ever felt my mother unworthy, but in 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 hope to write a tribute to my mom tomorrow. She passed away a year and a half ago, and I miss her terribly.

So I encourage you to truly honor your mom tomorrow. If she is no longer with you, you can honor her memory. That might even be a testimony to someone else.

Happy Mother’s Day to you!

Praying for Heather

Posted on May 3, 2007 by Barbara Harper

As many of you already know, Heather is having surgery today to remove a brain tumor, a tumor that she was at first told was inoperable. Please pray for her and her family throughout the day as you think of them.

Janice created this button and has the code for it on her blog if you’d like to display it. It links back to the place where updates will be reported about Heather’s progress as it is known.

Kelli has organized a prayer chain if you’d like to participate in it.

Which Fantasy/SciFi Character Are You?

Posted on May 1, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Saw this quiz at The Jungle Hut:

Possessing a rare combination of wisdom and humility, while serenely dominating your environment you selflessly use your powers to care for others.

Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.

Galadriel is a character in the Middle-Earth universe.

I am easily amused.

Posted on May 1, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Once when using this spaghetti server, I noticed the little “face” in it. I think this looks like someone riding their bike against the wind:

And this is someone riding with the wind:

Woman to Woman: Enduring Health Problems

Posted on April 24, 2007 by Barbara Harper

I’ve just recently discovered that two bloggers, Morning Glory from Seeds From My Garden and Lei from My Many Colored Days, host something called “Woman to Woman” a couple of times a month. A topic is posted and women who want to can blog about that topic and link to the host sites.

The topic for today is “Enduring health problems – either your own, a spouse’s or a child’s.”

Up on the very top of my sidebar is a list of “Pages” — posts whose links stay there. I wrote extensively there about my experiences with transverse myelitis, or TM. In fact, one of my reasons for starting this blog was to have an outreach for others with TM.

Transverse myelitis basically either a virus or an auto-immune response to some stimulus which causes demyelination , or damage to the myelin sheath around nerves in the spine. What symptoms one has depends on where along the spine the damage occurred: the higher the attack, the worse the symptoms.

Mine started with one arm feeling a little funny, like I had slept on it wrong. Within about three hours that arm was totally numb, both legs and my lower torso were numb, I couldn’t walk on my own, and I was having bathroom-related problems. I was in the hospital for eight days and had multitudes of tests run before finally receiving a diagnosis — for something I had never heard of before.

It was a scary time. For the first couple of weeks I hardly had energy to do anything. Even taking a little sponge bath in the hospital and sitting up in a chair so the nurses could change my bed was exhausting — I’d be broken out in a sweat and crawling back into bed when they got done. We faced a number of questions: would I get better, completely or partially? We were home schooling at the time: would we be able to continue? How would I take care of my children, the youngest of whom was not quite two? The medical community really couldn’t give us an answers: my neurologist said, “You’ll probably gain everything back within two years: if not, you’ll be used to it by then.” I thought, “NO WAY, not acceptable. I can’t live with this.”

Well, with time and God’s help, you can learn to live with a lot of things. 🙂 Within a few months I went from walking with a walker, then a cane, then walking wobbily on my own. My lower left arm and lower legs are still numb. I can’t feel heat or coldness or pain in right foot. My balance is one of my worst problems, worse when I am standing still than walking. Bathroom issues are better but still a consideration. Fatigue is a major factor many TMers report — just can’t “go” like we used to. In the early days I would have to save up energy — if we had something planned I would have to rest up the day before and crash the day after. That’s better now, but I do still run out of steam earlier than others, earlier than I would like. Then there is a whole list of little odd symptoms — in fact, one post simmering on the back burner I’d like to put into words some day is about some of the weird, odd issues resulting from TM.

One of the things I hated most about all of this was the effect on my family. I think as homemakers we tend to take our everyday tasks for granted and feel that they are not really important in the grand scheme of things. But when all of a sudden you can’t do those things, it adds a tremendous burden to the rest of the family. We did have many people from church volunteer to bring meals, watch the kids, do some cleaning, and that was a great help. But you know how it is — there is almost more to do than can be kept up with as it is, then take a functioning member of the family out, and that’s a cause for stress. It did make me value my contribution to the family more, and it was one of the strongest motivators to get better. Even with all the stress, though, I saw the Lord minister to my family in special ways. Here’s one example: Jason’s Sunday School lesson that next Sunday morning was on Romans 8:28 — it had just been in the plan, the teacher had no idea what had happened. When Jeremy began to question why all of this was happening, Jason shared what he had learned in Sunday School.

One of my first responses spiritually was, of course, to cry out to the Lord for help. Next I began to ask Him if there was anything wrong, any sin that was causing this. I don’t believe every illness is a direct result of a person’s sin (see John 9:1-3), but sometimes He does use illness as a chatsisement or a means to get someone’s attention and turn them back to Himself. At the very least I certainly didn’t want anything blocking or hindering answer to prayer (Psalm 66:18, Isaiah 59:1-2). We followed James 5:14-15 and called the Pastor and a few men to come and pray with us and anoint me with oil.

Then it was just a matter of every day going through the challenges of that day, seeking the Lord, resting in Him, wrestling with fear, with unanswered prayer, limitations, reasons for suffering in this world in the first place.

I read something of Spurgeon’s once in which he wrote about the verses in Hebrews 12:

26 And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, “YET ONCE MORE I WILL SHAKE NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO THE HEAVEN.”

27 This expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.

28 Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe…

I would love to find that again, but he said something along the lines that sometimes God shakes up our world to let loose the temporal things which can be shaken and to focus us on that which “cannot be shaken.” When all the props are pulled out from under us and we can only lean on God, we find Him more than sufficient.

I wrote the following near the end of my page titled Onset:

As a Christian, of course I look at life through a certain “lens” or world view. I don’t remember for sure, but I don’t think I ever asked, “Why me?” If we have to ask that, we should ask, “Why anybody?” I believe that God created the world and people perfectly, but when sin entered the world, God’s creation was marred and will bear the consequences until the day He redeems it. So, the short answer to why disease and disability and pain and suffering are in the world is that it is a fallen world. We’re not in heaven yet, where “there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21: 4).

I believe that God has a purpose for everything He allows. He’s not capricious or whimsical in His dealings with us. “But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.” (Lamentations 3:32-33). Whatever He does allow, He promises His grace for (II Corinthians 9:8: “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work”) and He promises that it will work out for our good (Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”)

I can say, with the Apostle Paul:

For this thing I besought the Lord thrice [more than thrice in my case], that it might depart from me.
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong” (II Corinthians 12:8-9).

Good question

Posted on April 23, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Bloglines hiccuped

Posted on April 20, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Last night I fell asleep on the couch watching the news, and next thing I knew it was about 2 a.m. Everyone else was already in bed, so I got up to turn everything off and go on to bed. I had left my e-mail provider and Bloglines open earlier in the evening, and as I went to turn Bloglines off, I noticed it said there were over 11,000 new posts. I thought I was seeing things a little fuzzy from my sleepiness, so I squinted and looked closer, then saw that every blog I am subscribed to through Bloglines was bolded, indicating new posts, and the parentheses beside each blog had numbers in the 70-200 range rather than 1 or 2.

I clicked on the “Bloglines news,” and it said they had experienced a small hiccup during the night and they hoped it wouldn’t cause any problems.

That was some hiccup!

I clicked on a couple of blogs and saw that there were no new posts — a brief glance through what was listed showed they were all old posts.

I went ahead and closed everything down and figured this morning I would just mark everything read and then go back and check out the ones that do tend to have posts every day. Thankfully all was back to normal — I think there were 21 new posts from the 79 blogs I’m subscribed to.

I love you guys, but 11,000 posts would have been a bit much. 🙂

Heather’s love offering

Posted on April 18, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Don’t forget, today starts the love offering BooMama has set up for Heather at Especially Heather. Heather is the mother of the Emma Grace whose “Pray for Emma Grace” buttons you may have seen around. Heather just recently found out she has a brain tumor. She had appointments at the Mayo Clinic and M. D. Anderson for further opinions. This love offering is to help defray the costs of those trips and whatever other expenses they might incur as a result of this finding. Details for participating are here. But whatever you do, please pray.

An April Day

Posted on April 16, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Spring

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.

—Robert Frost

The past few April days have felt more like the middle of March…or even February!

The yard sale went well, though not quite as well as I’d hoped. I made about $100, Jesse made $20-something. I had come all set up for sitting in the sun, wearing a lightweight dress and having brought sunscreen — but we were freezing! We boxed up what we didn’t sell and are thinking about having another yard sale later on after we have a chance to sort through the attic. Or we might just give it all to Salvation Army — by the time you itemize it and get a receipt so you can claim it on your taxes, I think you probably come out about the same.

I thought families with boys would snap up some of the toys Jesse was selling, but I kept hearing parents say things like, “You have enough toys!” I understand that feeling, too! It’s funny what we get sentimental about — Jesse had about four “army sets” as we called them. One of them looked like a big tank from the outside but folded out into a flat playset for army men and Hot Wheels type tanks, etc., with little hills, turrets, roads, etc. He spent so many hours playing with those spread out all over the living room floor. I thought about saving them for grandkids some day — they are just neat play sets that I don’t think anyone makes any more, plus one day they might think it is neat to play with something that was their dad’s. But I was torn, so I didn’t say anything. Only one sold at first, so I thought we might get to keep the rest. But the last three sold in the last 15 minutes. 😦 Oh, well — I try to remind myself they are just things and hang on to the memories. One friend said it signified “the end of an era,” and I guess that’s part of it — knowing that my youngest is growing out of favorite toys.

I wrestle some times with saving for posterity vs. keeping sentimental things. We really don’t have much in the way of mementos from either side of our family, and I’d like to keep some special things for posterity. But I try not to keep anything that I don’t really think anyone will be interested in or that might break down over time — I figure it would be better for someone to go ahead and enjoy that now, so I give it away. And I remember my kids weren’t much interested in boxes of faded old toys at grandparents’ houses, so I only keep things in great condition that might be timeless in its appeal.

The fellowship also went well. There were a few less than usual, but it was “cozy.” I think our new youth pastor is doing a great job with the kids. His new wife was away for the weekend, and I had been looking forward to having her over, so I was a little disappointed there, but my friend Carol came over for a little while — she teaches first grade and usually just hangs out in her classroom while her kids are at fellowships since she lives too far to make it worth going home and coming back in that time period, so I told her she was welcome to come if she wanted to. So it was good to “visit” a little. 🙂 Before she became a teacher here we used to volunteer once a week at the school, and I really enjoyed working with her and getting to know her — I’ve missed our visits!

I told myself with all the busy-ness of the last week that I was giving myself today “off,” so I am sitting back enjoying my nice clean house and catching up on e-mail and blog-reading. While I was in the shower I was looking at the freshly-painted ceiling and thinking, “We ought to have people over more often!” Not for a while, though — we both need to recuperate! I wish Jim could have taken off today — I don’t know when he’s going to have time to do taxes.

I usually keep up pretty well with the regular weekly housework — meals, dishes, laundry, bathrooms, floors, etc. — and an almost-weekly “extra” job thanks to tackle-it-Tuesday. But somehow I need to incorporate some of the “extra” jobs into a regular routine so we’re not having to catch up on everything before company comes. Yet I don’t like a real rigid system, like every first week of the month this and this are done, etc.

After I got out of the shower this morning, I started having pretty bad muscles spasms in my back. I don’t know if I wrenched something this morning or if this is the result of working the last few days. After an Absorbine Jr. patch, ibuprofen, and a heating pad I am able to move a little better (did you know that when you blow your nose you use muscles in your back? I never knew that until blowing my nose sent a spasm across my already-spasming back!) I guess it is a good thing I hadn’t planned anything for today!

Stray thoughts

Posted on April 13, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Did you know there is a National Association for Information Destruction? Jesse and I were sitting in the car at a red light on the way to school this morning when a truck with that association’s logo pulled up beside us. The truck was from a company that sheds secure documents. I don’t know why, but the name of that association struck me funny — identity theft and the need to destroy certain documents are serious, of course — but having an association for destroying information sounded like an arm of the KGB or a militant anti-intellectual organization or something. 😀

I have to “brag on” my husband today. I mentioned earlier this week that we have a school-sponsored yard sale coming up this Saturday and we’re having the junior high part of the youth group from church coming over for a fellowship Sunday night. He took Thursday off to help me with some of those tasks that are hard for me to do. For instance, since TM, I can’t be on my knees for more than a few seconds. I can physically get on my knees, but then an odd sensation sort of like hitting your funny bone shoots through my knees. It’s hard to describe it — it’s not painful — but it’s disturbing, and every instinct is screaming, “Make it stop!!” So, I can sweep and mop, but sometimes the floors just need a hands-and-knees scrubbing. Jim did the kitchen floors, then cleaned the floor and everything in the half-bathroom except the toilet, getting one area around the faucet of the sink cleaner than I have been able to even with straight bleach. Then he went to the other bathroom — that one, for some reason, particularly attracts mold even though we have an outlet fan that we use during showers to reduce the humidity in there. The shower comes clean easily with Tilex, but there were areas around the tops of the door frames that weren’t coming clean for me. Jim tried to clean it, but decided it needed to be repainted. Some of the paint had been blistering and all of the woodwork just needed freshening up. So he ended up painting the doors, frames, baseboards, and cabinet — not something on the to-do list, but it has been needing attention and look so nice!! There’s nothing like a fresh coat of paint.

At one point when he was on his hands and knees scrubbing, he asked me if I was going to take his picture and post it for a Works-For-Me Wednesday. 😀

Overall, conquering the to-do list is going well. It really did help to make a master list and look for things that could be done ahead of time. Maybe after about 30 years of being an adult I am finally learning how to do this kind of thing. 🙂 I just know that these days I can’t stay up til two in the morning in a cleaning frenzy the night before an event.

This has reminded me of a funny story from our early married days. We were having the youth group over after church — this was probably our first time ever doing so — and, of course, the usual furious cleaning had occurred the day before. During the fellowship while they were singing, I noticed I had accidentally left my can of Pledge and dustcloth on top of the bookshelf, which wasn’t that bad in itself, but my dustrag had been an old pair of my husband’s underwear with the Fruit-of-the-Loom stripe very visible. I was mortified. But to go to it and remove it at that point would have drawn attention to it, so I left it and hoped no one would notice. No one said anything. 🙂 It’s funny but now it grosses me out to even think about using old underwear to dust or clean — that stuff gets tossed when it outlives it usefulness nowadays.

I’ve also learned through the years that I usually don’t get everything on my list done, so I’ve learned to prioritize. It doesn’t look like I am going to get my curtains up, unfortunately. The fabric I ordered just arrived two days ago. I usually wash fabrics before cutting or sewing them, but the recommended care for this is dry cleaning — will they dry clean fabric on a roll? I don’t know.

I don’t think I’ll be doing the Friday Feast today. It wouldn’t take long to do, but these interactive memes are supposed to be….well…interactive. I really can’t take the time today to go visit around the other participants, so I’d probably better sit this one out. It’s funny how you sort of get to know different people who participate in the different weekly memes — I’ll miss my regular stops and the wave hello. Maybe if my day goes well and I get a lot done, I’ll be able to do it later on.