A few fun new-old photos up at my Flickr page…some of my very favorites ever.
Also, important post down below…you must read it and leave a thoughtful comment. Okay? Okay.
“Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” Hebrews 13:16
This morning while I was eating my breakfast rice and sitting in the comfy chair in my kitchen, I thought about the mothers around the world who have to split any available food up to their children each morning, knowing that none of them will be full when they are finished eating.
As I filled my bowl again, I thought about the children whose bowls would not be filled today, and I wondered why God is gracious to me in this way. Why does my family have more than enough? Why, though my son is growing right now and always “still hungry”, did God see fit to make sure we always have enough to continue feeding him?
The only reasons I can come up with is so that we can share what we have. So God can be glorified in our giving, and in their receiving. So my son can grow healthy and strong (in body and spirit) and help those who are weak. (This, I tell him, is the reason God gave him a strong body and mind: so he might help others.)
We give, but I always want to give more. Perhaps that is good. Maybe I would not want to come to the place where I feel we give enough. There is a question I have been mulling over– perhaps you can give me some godly insight: we have a mortgage–it is our only debt. We’d like to pay it off more quickly than the allotted time of the loan. We have a heart to give as well…but our discretionary income is such that we must choose– pay more on our loan (and therefore have more available to give sooner when the loan is paid off) or give more now, to the children who are hungry now, to the people who need care now?
What do you do? I know there is no one prescription for giving, paying off debts, or indulging in personal luxuries, and that it up to individual families to work out what God has for them, but I am sure there is godly wisdom to rule our financial decisions, and I know his Word has a lot to say on the subject.
I heard once that our offerings (financial) to the Lord should be sacrificial, consistent, and proportional. I often wonder about the sacrificial aspect and I am reminded of the widow’s two copper coins in Luke Chapter 21. Am I merely giving out of my abundance? Or am I giving sacrificially? Is it truly giving if it doesn’t cost me something?
I obviously have lots of questions in this area and have been praying about it over the last several weeks and have read the excellent (although sometimes bogged down in statistics) Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, by Ronald J. Sider and the practical Living More With Less, by Doris Janzen Longacre. Rich Christians especially was convicting and has an excellent section on the Scriptural mandate for giving and caring for people in need.
How seriously do I rely on the Lord for my daily bread? How seriously do I take John at his word– do I believe that if I have the world’s goods and see my brother in need, and close my heart against him, God’s love does not abide in me? What am I willing to give up for the sake of my brothers and sisters? Why does my daily life look like everyone else’s around me, more or less? 1 John 3:13 says that I shouldn’t be surprised that the world hates me. Does the world hate me? I’m not sure if it has any reason to…is there much visibly different about the way I live and give and love? I don’t think my lifestyle is particularly convicting to anyone. (I am not saying that the purpose of our lifestyles should ever be to bring conviction to someone else– only the Holy Spirit can convict the hearts of people. Our intent should only be to walk in purity and humility before God alone. My question is, am I doing this? Or am I blindly following a “Christian” version of the world’s way of doing things?)
Just some Monday Morning Thoughts. What are your thoughts and own personal questions on the topic?
Oliver made his first snow angel and didn’t know I was watching from the kitchen window.
When I came to the window, he was sitting in the snow, legs extended. He laid back in the snow, and started moving his legs like windshield wipers, side to side. I wanted to knock on the window to catch his attention and mouth the words your arms– don’t forget your arms, but I waited a moment and he remembered the arms on his own. The ten seconds I watched him there in the snow, waving his arms and legs in unison to make his snow angel are permanently etched on my heart.
When he finished, he sat up, then stood carefully, then hopped out of the snow angel he had made. He turned around and looked at it, and exclaimed, “Perfect!”
–
Bang bang bang! On the cold metal door. Is anybody home? he shouts.
I go out to the breezeway, open the door halfway and stand just inside. He is holding a snow cake in his hand, grinning like he’s going to throw it at me (I think to myself– I’ll let him do it once, then we will have a serious talk about throwing snow at mommy), but then he takes a bite of it and stands there talking to me while eating his snow. I comment on his snow angel. He says he tried to make a snow man, but that didn’t work. So he made a snow angel instead. You want to come out and get the mail? He asks.
I’ll be there in a minute, I reply. I’m writing something down.
YEAH! Not really. Well, Oliver likes it. I let him play outside if the temp. is above 30 degrees. But other than that, we feel stuck inside, there is car poop in the garage (some people call them “clinkers”) and if I have to make cookies out of play-doh and pretend to eat them one more time…
Happy January 30th from us to you.
Here’s what I’m thinking. We all know mothering is about doing small things over and over again. If you do the same thing over and over, it becomes something great, something like a picture. Each action is a little part of the whole.
So what we do as mothers is a little part of the whole. I have said it before and will say it again: shaping the hearts and minds of children is the most important thing. These are the little things we do as mothers of young children: answering incessant questions, reading books over and over, brushing those little white teeth, wiping bottoms, picking up Legos, preparing breakfast, lunch, and supper every. single. day. and instilling the truth about the nature of the world and of things eternal. These small things–and the gentle or harsh way in which we do them– add up to who our children will become, and all the children all around add up to what our world will be like someday.
I have faith in this like I have faith in the coming of spring.
So I continue on. Sometimes I am gentle, and sometimes there is a harshness or careless attitude that makes me cringe when I look back. Sometimes I am Oliver’s mother with such joy and sense of purpose that I can hardly believe this most beautiful job was appointed to me, of all undeserving people. There is grace everywhere, for everyone.
I knew it would happen, this growing up. I’m not remorseful though– being Oliver’s mother just keeps getting better and better. I am holding him all I can, reading to him all I can, and taking as many moments as I can to teach Oliver about the God we serve, who loves us and created us for his glory. I know someday he’ll be a “growm-up” and will lose track of his half birthdays, but I know I’ll always remember.
Six Months
Eighteen Months
Two and a Half
Three and a Half
I have made the most delightful discovery: I am creative!
This realization has slowly dawned on me as my quest for perfectionism has waned in recent months. I always thought that a person had to meet a few requirements in order to be labeled “creative”:
1. Everyone had to agree that this was indeed a creative person
2. People want to pay money for the work of the creative person
3. The created material had to stand out above all the rest
In other words, writing non-fiction blog posts with 3 comments didn’t count, doodles and watercolors with Oliver didn’t count, crafty ideas that were sort of weird to begin with and didn’t turn out quite right in the end didn’t count, and someone who couldn’t make up a good song if her life depended on it certainly didn’t make the cut. (I can make up really bad songs on the spot, no problem: ask me sometime.)
So I felt destined to be an uncreative person, a left-brained redhead with a strong, clear voice but no song, a way of putting words together but no stories in her head. A girl with a nice camera, but no vision for the shot.
I never really liked listening to those people who just wanted to sing because they loved it; a lot of times the listening wasn’t particularly pleasant. I never wanted to be someone who did something for the sake of doing it, unless I was excellent. (This is why I don’t do very many different things, if you’ve ever wondered.)
But what if, I wonder– what if it’s okay to not be the best at something if I really just do enjoy working at it and improving? I think it’s a matter of humbling myself and saying– look: I know that my photographs aren’t the greatest. I know they could use a lot of work, and I could use many lessons in technique and technicalities, but I really enjoy capturing the details of ordinary life.
If I was willing to admit this, would that make me a real, live, creative person? A growing, creative, work-in-progress person? Could I be, dare I say, an…artist?
Maybe.
I have a painting friend. A photographing friend. A performing cousin. (“Come see the incredible performing Cousin!” Actually, no, it’s not like that– not like that at all, really.) They are all artists– real, recognized artists with talent. Perhaps I don’t belong in this category, but shouldn’t there be a space for the Aspiring?
I think that’s where I belong.
Aspiring Artist
Work-in-progress
Nothing for sale
Come sit and watch for free.
photos & drawings courtesy of my aspiring artist son.
A couple of months ago, I heard about this book from a friend. I drove to Barnes & Noble. I bought it.
And it’s been a lot of fun.
Maybe everybody else already knows about it; maybe I bought the last copy and the whole world finished wrecking their journals at the end of 2008. Regardless, I wanted to share some wrecked-journal love.
Each page has a directive that will, in some way, wreck the journal, or at least keep it from being staid, as journals tend to be in the world of us perfectionists.
So while I’ve also continued journaling in my normal, linear way, this book has definitely prodded me in a more creative direction and allowed me to express myself in ways other than writing words on a page. Okay. I’m still using words here.
Some other pages:
Pour, spill, drop, spit, fling your coffee HERE.
Color this entire page.
Press leaves and other found things
Tear this page out. Put it in your pocket. Put it through the wash. Stick it back in.
Draw with glue.
Collect your pocket lint; glue it here:
It’s fun. It’s provided me with a project to work on. Ultimately, wrecking my journal has given me more confidence in my creative nature– you know, the one we all possess. I doubt anybody will ever want to purchase my journal and display it in their home, but I don’t think that makes it any less legitimate, right?
Our Lives Are Full of the Ordinary:
morning breath
crumbs in the toaster oven
the dishes
apple peels and eggshells
lint in the dryer
sweeping the floors
fingernail clippings
holes in socks
small cuts in dry hands
turning up the music
turning up the thermostat
making the bed
the smell of coins and paper money
dry lips
dust in the sunlight
crunching snow
dirty snow
the smell of library books
wet towels
cleaning out the drain
morning stars
paying bills
bad meals
the moon coming around the house at night
I read five works of fiction this year, and 45 non-fiction books. I hope to bring a little more balance between the two this year, as well as some poetry (more poetry was my goal last year, but it was overshadowed by my enthusiasm for studying about my son’s impending formal education).
Here are my favorites from 2009:
The Creative Family, Amanda Blake Soule
A Charlotte Mason Companion, Karen Andreola
Bird By Bird, Anne Lamott (A reread)
Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry
Freedom of Simplicity, Richard Foster (A reread)
A Homemade Life, Molly Wizenberg
Weapons of Mass Instruction, John Taylor Gatto
This Momentary Marriage, John Piper
Don’t Waste Your Life, John Piper (A reread)
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
I consider Don’t Waste Your Life & Freedom of Simplicity essential reading for people who are…living.
Here are some books on my Want To Read in 2010 List:
Oliver Twist & Great Expectations (Reread), Charles Dickens
Pride & Prejudice & Emma, Jane Austen
Follow Me to Freedom, Claiborne
The Normal Christian Life, Nee
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Don Miller
For the Children’s Sake/Family’s Sake, Macaulay
Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God, Chan
Writing Down the Bones, Goldberg
The Mission of Motherhood
Anne Lamott’s new novel, Imperfect Birds
Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman
St. Augustine’s Confessions (Maybe. Perhaps I’m just saying this to impress myself.)
More Wendell Berry: Poetry, Essays, and Novels
More Piper
C.S. Lewis (It’s been a while)
And I want to try these guys: Bonhoeffer, Schaeffer, Bunyan, Nouwen
Does anyone have suggestions for what specifically to read from the authors at the end of the list? How about poetry? I thought about grabbing the copy of Garrison Keillor’s “Good Poems” from the library and starting there (I do enjoy me some Writer’s Almanac), but I honestly haven’t read much poetry since Jewel was my hero and Edgar Allen Poe was assigned in English Class. I’m not sure if I’ll be a good reader of poetry: I like to read a thing all at once, enjoy it or not, and be done with it. (This is also why the Bible is tough for me.) Anyway, comments appreciated!
