Post Category → faith

the first day

“And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” ( — genesis 1)

I remember reading that line several years ago, and how it jumped out as odd, worth a second look.

Evening and morning, one day? That’s not right. It should be morning and evening. Right? Isn’t that how we all figure one day? So why was it backwards?

Ponder. Think. Wonder.

And suddenly, ah yes. Evening and morning.

God’s days never end with dark. They always end with morning. That first day of creation was a promise to us of how things will be: after this black of night, fraught with sin and suffering, there will be morning. And that is where we will live for the rest of forever — in a Day where there will be no need for the sun, because He will be there.

I think of that often. We all do, in our own way, I suppose. We all groan in our spirits for redemption. “Maranatha!,” is a cry familiar to our hearts, I dare say. As much as I love the sunsets, flowers, smell of crunchy leaves, and laughter of my darling son, I am not at home in this dark and tormented world. Here there is the Curse, and that doesn’t settle well with me. I’m looking to an eternity where Peace and Justice and Love reign completely.

The cry for heaven turned up a few notches when I turned the calendar page this week. Fall carries with it anniversaries of deep, scarring sadness. It wasn’t always the case, but in the last few years, the searing pain of tragedy has etched its mark on me, and this season brings it again to the surface.

My heart feels heavy. I sob at lunch, seemingly unprovoked, but I know why.

I carry pain, as though it were my own, and I wouldn’t have it any other way… but still, it’s pain. It’s questions. It’s wanting an end to this Curse.

And it’s the poignant Hope for redemption.

While the pain becomes sharp again, so does the faint outline of things hoped for. Heaven — redemption, resurrection, Jesus — becomes almost tangible. Waves of deep sorrow cannot deny the Rock of comfort to which I cling. And the harder they storm, the more firm does this Hope become.

There will come a Day…

We can know it, because we have seen the Morning Star rise on the horizon. And the moment He appeared, so did the promise of evening and then morning.

(The soundtrack of this week’s heart cry.)

mark 4

“The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows — how, he himself does not know…” –mark 4

I sow the little brown, plain-jane seeds into the soil.

I go to bed at night and get up by day: I do what I’m supposed to be doing. (And can I just say that is, like, the perfect description of how my life feels right now?)

And God — God! — causes seeds to sprout, to grow. He amazes me with a harvest. (How, I myself do not know.)

That was all the Word I needed today.

red flag: parenting styles

Amy’s link to a post on “Mommy Wars”, along with a flurry of activity the last few weeks elsewhere on the world wide web has set me to thinking.

And to being thankful for the Holy Spirit. I definitely appreciate the red flags He occasionally waves, indicating that perhaps I’ve just read, thought, said, or discovered something a bit “off”.

There was one such red flag last week when I realized how deeply mothers associate themselves with schools of thought or philosophies of behavior. A “beware” sounded in my ear.

Here’s what happens: We’re all, always, looking for the right way to be a mother, the right way to parent, the right way to not fail our kids. Built into each of us — whether through personality, background, or culture — are instincts. And we hear an idea and say, “Aha! That sounds right!” Eventually, you may hear a whole string of “aha” ideas, find out it has a name and an official wikipedia entry, and realize that not only does your style have a title, but there’s a whole circle of mamas out there with the same ideas! How comforting is that? To find out there are whole books written to answer each of your questions as your refine this style that you’ve decided is yours? To know there are forums with dozens of trying-hard moms asking and answering the same dilemmas you face? Magazines, conferences, groups… You’ve been adopted into an official mama club!

But here’s the deep, deep problem with that: we begin to identify with a philosophy, rather than with Christ and His Word. We begin by perhaps agreeing with the outlying principles of a certain school of thought, but eventually, we’ve bought the whole thing. Our ideas on the basic nature of man, the relationship of parent-child, the goals of parents, the end-result desired for our children: all of these are now defined and articulated by whichever philosophy we’ve decided is “us”.

And that’s dangerous.

That’s not how a Christian is supposed to live life.

Want an example? Okay, how ’bout me: I came to mothering with lots of ideas inherited from my mother. Imagine my amazement when I discovered that much of what she’d taught and modeled to me was attachment parenting. (I can hear my mom now: “Attachment what?”) As I read about this philosophy of parenting, I realized how much I happened to fall into that “camp”. But when I began to notice “attachment parenting” in the profiles of Christian mama bloggers, a red flag went up. See, my ideas about how I respond to my baby’s cries, or feeding them on-demand in favor of schedules, and about nurturing them and ministering security and comfort to them were a result of my mom’s Bible studies, maternal instincts, and discoveries about how God designed babies’ and mother’s bodies.* As I continued those Bible studies on my own, the instincts that had been cultivated by my mom just grew stronger.

But I saw the trap before me — to jump from my Holy-Spirit and Bible based parenting into a camp defined by a human philosophy. A philosophy that would eventually influence my thoughts on human nature, parental authority, and goals for my children.

See, books and research, forums and magazines can perhaps help to confirm a God-given instinct. But when they become our identity, we can find ourselves going down paths not carved by the Word.

This goes for all parenting “methods”, not just the one I’ve given as an example. I just don’t think it’s a good idea for us mothers to go around saying, “I’m attachment,” or, “I’m Babywise,” or “I’m gentle discipline,” or whatever your flavor of choice may be. There are “hook-line-and-sinker” ideas in all of those that should not simply be adopted as our own. (With attachment parenting, for instance, you eventually come to the belief that children are basically good.) The Bible tells us to sow with a view to righteousness, to sow to the Spirit — if we want to see Holy Spirit fruit. That means we must do more than simply grab at the most natural to us parenting style; we must purpose to have our minds renewed, our choices refined, and our lives characterized by Kingdom values.

Perhaps our parenting choices should be guided by the Word of God itself — a Word rich with principle, wisdom, direction, and all manner of guidance for every moment of life. Perhaps our questions should be posed to men and women of the faith who have borne fruit and whose wisdom is seen in the lives of their loving-the-Lord children…and not to a stranger in cyber-space who makes us feel comfortable because she just admitted to screaming at her children, too. Perhaps when Dr. Phil, or even Dr. Sears, makes a statement about the psychology of children, we should be quick to run to Scripture. And when the world tells us what kind and loving parenting is, we should be ready with the knowledge of what God says love and kindness are.

The world doesn’t need another generation of parents who think they’ve got the corner on the market with their new ideas and techniques. The world needs a generation of radical, take-God-at-His-Word disciples who are raising up a generation even more in love with Jesus.

So, I guess I’m writing this to stir myself and challenge you: don’t be an attachment mama or a Babywise mommy, or whatever.

Be a Christian.

(*This is not my subtle attempt to tell you that this is the only right way to parent. I’m just telling you about me, so you can understand the close parallels I found in attachment parenting.)

winnie

Yesterday afternoon, Ryan’s grandmother passed away.

I certainly didn’t know her terribly well, as our opportunities to see each other were few and far between. But she was warm, instantly embraced me as one of the grandchildren, and called often to make sure we were okay. I was able to spend a few afternoons with Winnie (there’s old fashioned for you, eh?) and her husband, and I’m glad for those few hours that help me understand how special she was to Ryan and his siblings.

Anyway, despite only knowing her for a few short years, and seeing her only a few brief times, the news of her death was deeply sad.

Death is, you know. Deeply sad.

Sometimes, it’s accompanied with hope. But sometimes, you don’t know. Either way, it’s an enemy.

*****

Life is fragile, a vapor. We do all we can to hold onto it: we choose a distant parking spot and walk 10 steps more, we eat blueberries on our whole grain cereal and spinach in our free-range omelet, we campaign against smoking and drinking and deadly vices. But in the end, we are dust. Ryan and I have talked much about the denial and fear, the unwillingness to even admit that our bodies are inevitably headed toward the grave. I understand; who would want to even think about such a thing unless they were secure in Hope?

It makes sharing Hope harder; they don’t want to hear, because they don’t want to consider that there will be an end. But once in awhile, our undeniable frailty shows through the cloak of great exercise regimes, and there is a moment. An opportunity. An ear that will hear and a heart that is open.

And I need those moments as much as any other. I need my world to be jolted a bit, need to remember that this Truman Show I live in is only hiding the fact that a world is dead and dying. The need for Hope is everywhere I turn.

Lord, shake me up. And may the truth about the Hope within me spill out.

this week

Another week slipping by…

:: I need to get one of those ticker things for my pregnancy. Ryan says, “Why? Those are so…. cheesy.” (He forgets, I think, that I’m just a little weblog, and not one of the super-cool, design award-winning tech blogs.) “Well, I need it. For me. How else am I going to possibly remember how far along I am?” Please tell me that some of you have those tickers up for your own benefit, and not just for your readers.

:: Jameson jabbers more and more. Still not much English, but after Bronwyn’s long stint with customized German (that’s what we called it), I’m not too surprised. He’s very intentional about his jabber, I will say. If he rattles something off, and you say, “What?”, he’ll repeat the exact same jabber. Funny.

:: My tummy is growing, but I feel well enough that occasionally I forget I’m pregnant. And just at that moment, I’ll jump up off the couch and run to the kitchen and suddenly have those bizarre SPD pains that remind me: Oh yeah. Chill out, Danica. You’re pregnant.

:: My head and heart are expanding. (That’s always something I’m glad to have happen on any given week.) I’m thinking about: the Holy Spirit, the veracity of Scripture, further identifying my rich heritage of faith and confidence and relationship with Jesus, wanting to pass on those things, how many people are hurting in so many different ways, the answer to my life and theirs and everyone else’s being Jesus, wanting to be more disciplined about worship* in this season… Mostly, just having the Lord stir my heart to want more of Him. To long to see His glory cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. To want my life to carry part of that glory. To want the same for your life.

:: And this is kind of last week, but I’ll stick it here: Jameson’s nap and bedtime routines changed a week ago Monday. He no longer nurses to sleep. It seemed like the right time to make the change, and sure enough, he adjusted amazingly quickly. The best, best part of the change is having him cuddle on my lap while we rock in the chair from my mother-in-law. I read stories to him, and he actually sits through them. I sing songs to him, and he nestles his head deeper into my chest. He’s perfectly still, and it’s totally precious. That may seem like, “Yeah, and?”, to you, but you must understand: only a weaned child will sit with his mother for that long and not be demanding more. It makes me think of Psalm 131: “Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, my soul is like a weaned child within me.” That’s how I want to be with the Lord. Content to hear His heartbeat.

*By that I mean playing and singing for 10 minutes every day. Hymns, songs, whatever. Just play and sing and make it happen.

another fad?

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across a post somewhere in the depths of blogland — don’t ask me where — written by a Christian mom. In it, she listed the things that moms get really “into”, and the pressure one can feel to conform, in order to be hip or whatever. Since I can’t remember where in the [cyber]world this post is, I’ll just write a short list of the things I remember that she mentioned:

— breastfeeding
— organic, from-scratch eating
— homeschooling
— spanking*

Okay.

Read that list again. Now, tell me, which of those things is not like the others?

Did you figure it out? If not, here’s the answer: spanking.

Now, I’m totally gung-ho about breastfeeding, and I have my biblical reasons for it. And over my dead body will my kids spend 8 hours a day being taught by anyone but my husband or me. However, those things are personal convictions — convictions, yes, and I can tell you the scripture and verse with which I’ve been convicted — but personal revelation.

But spanking does not fall into the personal conviction category. No, things that are written in black and white, over and over and over, are no longer a matter of how the Lord is speaking to you personally. At some point, it’s just the Bible truth, and we have to obey.

Now, let me say this: if you are spanking your children because you’re trying to fit in with a cool group of mommies, well, you’re wrong. If you’re spanking your children just because that’s how you were raised, well, you should think twice about that, too. And if you’re spanking your kids because you’re angry, then you’re in serious sin. The reason behind how we are training our children needs to be firmly rooted in the Word. Period.

But once we have the Word established as our guide for raising our children, we will find that there are black and white truths to be found. Like, the rod of correction.

The fact that I believe this to be true doesn’t mean childtraining is a walk in the park. It doesn’t mean I’ll never raise the questions again. That’s why I’m really excited about the upcoming series at momandus. I can’t wait to see what my mom and Brietta — two moms I seriously honor and venerate — have to say about obeying the Word and reaping the fruit of children walking in righteousness!

(*When I say spanking, I’m referring to controlled and purposed swats on the bottom — not random hitting.)