Post Category → scripture

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.

more on sisters

I was asked how my parents “made us friends.” I thought rather than just respond with a lengthy comment, I’d brainstorm my memories in a post. Mom, sisters, add anything that I forgot (or perhaps wasn’t aware of from my “child” perspective.)

:: When friends came over, we all played together with the exception of perhaps an hour (or less) of “alone with our friend” time. Mom would say that our sisters are our friends, too, and we can play with them, thank you very much. There would be no exclusivity.

:: For birthday parties with a few friends invited over, our sisters closest in age were always included as “friends”. Because they were. And Mom and Dad weren’t happy if they found a crying little sister who was being snubbed by either us OR our friends. It got clearly and promptly addressed.

:: Nastiness between siblings was always called out. “I don’t hear you talking to your friends like that. That tells me that you’re capable of kindness to friends, but for some reason, are grumpy and unkind to your family. We’re going to cut back on friend time and start working on being that kind to us.” So, drawing our attention to the fact that valuing our family and treating them kindly and politely was not optional.

:: In resolving fights, mom would say, “friends will come and go, but family is forever. Someday you guys will be grown up — hard to imagine right now, but it’s true — and the saddest thing would be if you had fighting and bitterness in your hearts towards your own siblings. God wants you to be best friends! So you need to repent to each other and make sure your hearts are right.”

:: They helped us understand our differences, especially if certain personality combos tended to invite fireworks. We learned to not just love our siblings in a general sort of way, but to try and understand them and how we could best relate. That was, of course, an invaluable lesson for dealing with and relating to people.

:: One thing that I so appreciated about my parents was that fighting and such just wasn’t really tolerated. Yeah. My dad had zero tolerance for bickering (one of his favorite words, I think!) People would ask my sisters and I as we got older, “So, do you guys ever fight?” Well, yeah, sometimes, but no, not really. Since fighting was dealt with fair and square as young tykes, by the time we were older, we mostly knew better. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have an episode now and then, but when we did, it got addressed.

There. That’s my brainstorm. Go ahead, guys, fill in what I missed. :)

psalm nineteen

“The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowle
dge.”

Today, this very day, is pouring forth speech — bearing witness, declaring testimony, sharing stories — of the glory of God.

Listen closely, soul. Watch carefully. See that raindrop? The sun breaking through that cloud? The thirsty earth, responding to heaven’s refreshment, soaking it all in? Listen; there’s a story of glory being told.