He Is Faithful; He Will Do It

I love the idea of recording lessons the Lord is teaching me as "stones of remembrance" to remind me how faithful He has been in the past and thus how faithful He surely will be in the future.

He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.  I Thessalonians 5:24
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.  Hebrews 10:23

I've experienced a series of events recently which led to my realization of how the Lord is working in my life these last couple years and I don't want to forget this lesson.

I had the opportunity to attend a Ladies' Day a couple weeks ago where the topic was about recognizing and using our gifts.  The day was quite practical in nature and the teachers asked us to examine our own gifts and also to help one another identify her gifts.  Most of my gifts, unsurprisingly, involved people. I came away challenged and inspired to exercise my gifts of encouraging people, mentoring younger women, teaching and studying the Bible with ladies, and creating or taking advantage of opportunities to rally a group of people to study, serve others, or work together.

Frankly, as the next couple days passed, I became more discouraged than inspired.  I felt like I wasn't using my gifts; I felt like in some ways wasn't even being allowed to use those gifts.

So I spent an afternoon studying and praying.  I read Romans 12 and the admonition in verse 6 that as we each have gifts given to us, "let us use them".  I personalized passages in my journal like the following:

Ephesians 2:10--I am created for good works which God prepared beforehand for me to walk in.
I Peter 4:10-11--As I have received a gift, I must use it to serve others.  My gifts are provided by God's supply and are for God's glory through Jesus.

As I continued studying and meditating, I realized the Lord has provided opportunities to use my gifts, even if I'm not using them in quite the same way or with the same people I've used them in the past. Some of the opportunities He has been providing for me include:

• I was invited to study the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and share what I learned with a group of ladies at a Ladies' Day in Kansas City back in October.
• It has been two years since two younger women asked me to teach them how to use freezer cooking in the managing of their homes.  In that time, more and more ladies have popped in and out of our freezer cooking days until I've had the privilege of developing friendships with at least seven younger women.  Our time together includes many life discussions such as budgeting, child rearing, marriage, faith walk, etc. and we have all been richly blessed by our time together.
• I've had opportunities to gather several women from my homeschooling community in Bible studies and book discussions as well as joint efforts in educating our children.
• As my husband served as president of the board for the local crisis pregnancy center, he enlisted my aid in organizing their first banquet fundraiser, rounding up people to host tables and invite others, taking care of advertising and promotion, and behind-the-scenes organization.

I wasn't out looking for any of these opportunities, and didn't really even think of them as "using my gifts".  But the Lord provided the right set of circumstances for my gifts to be used even when I was feeling stifled.  I realized the Lord is not limited by human weaknesses, but will use us in His way and in His timing.

Station Eleven

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

I thought this book had a good idea, but it just never fulfilled its promise for me. The characterization was one-dimensional, no one really grew through the story, and some of the characters felt interchangeable for me rather than having their own unique identity.

I did enjoy pondering what it would be like if civilization as we know it would collapse, if 99% of the population died from a strange and sudden flu. Indeed, we would look back at "that ludicrously easy world where food was on shelves in supermarkets and travel was as easy as taking a seat in a gasoline-powered machine and water came out of taps" (48). I must admit, I have a rather hard time imagining that 20 years later, our society would be as far set back as the book depicts. There are so many smart and resourceful people (like my husband), I would think we would be farther along than survival mode.

It was interesting to consider a recurring theme of people not living their lives while they had the chance, just "spending their lives waiting for their lives to begin" (86) or "these people who've ended up in one life instead of another and they are just so disappointed. . .They've done what's expected of them. They want to do something different but it's impossible now, there's a mortgage, kids, whatever, they're trapped" (163).

I could also relate to Miranda's reflections on her younger self: "Those previous versions of herself were so distant now that remembering them was almost like remembering other people, acquaintances, young women whom she'd known a long time ago, and she felt such compassion for them" (206). I feel that way sometimes, as if I'm a completely different 'Shonya" than I was 25 years ago, like it's not even the same person.

I also liked the inclusion of a traveling symphony/acting troupe as "survival is insufficient" and people need the fine arts, even when their focus is on finding food, shelter, and a safe place from bandits.

Teaching From Rest

Teaching from Rest by Sarah Mackenzie

I loved this book. I think the author should maybe send me a commission as I have recommended it to so many people--I know 11 have purchased it so far for sure. :) It has been SUCH an encouragement to me in my homeschooling this season, and I'm expecting this title to appear on my list of "favorite books read in 2015". I have 8-9 friends coming over next Monday evening to discuss this with me. I'm hoping it is a blessing to them as well--you know how different books hit people differently, and we are all in different seasons and such, but it was such a blessing to me that I am actually getting ready to read through it again and will be journaling my way through it.

So, why has it been such a blessing?

1) The author keeps it real. This homeschooling journey is difficult, we are not enough in our own strength, and she validates and commiserates with the challenges without whining about them.
2) She points time and time again to the Lord as the source of our strength, as the one who is the author and finisher of our faith--and us--and our children. She offers many words of wisdom, both philosophically and practically.
3) It's only 80 pages! There's no fluff, she just says what needs to be said.
4) She offers practical suggestions that are changing my school year. We are about 8 weeks into our year, and frankly, I had just been surviving each day, desperately trying to juggle all my plates without any falling and crashing to the floor. I have been collapsing into bed each night, absolutely exhausted--and worse, weary--and feeling like I didn't do it well. These last couple of weeks, however, I have been implementing some of her suggestions and I have been ENJOYING my children.

REVIEW PART TWO:

It's not often that I read a book twice in one month AND host two discussion evenings to discuss said book. Here are just a few quotes demonstrating why it's been such a blessing to me in this season:

--This work of homeschooling and raising hearts and souls and bodies is hard. It is more than I can do in my own strength. . .But he is not asking me to feed the 5,000; He just wants me to bring my basket of loaves and fish and lay them at his feet.

--The true aim of education is to order a child's affections--to teach him to love what he ought and hate what he ought.

--Our work in raising up and teaching our children is never really done. But we must remember that *we* were never intended to finish it.

--I cannot serve two masters, and neither can you. Whose 'well-done' are you working for?

--Will He find that we used (daily life tasks) to draw closer to Him? Were the tedious details of a homeschooling day offered up as a way for us to love Him, or were they merely gotten through, checked off, and accomplished?

--Our children are not projects.

--It is our part to offer what we can, His to finish what we cannot.

Fresh ideas like morning time, implementation of looping subjects (which I've done before, but not quite like this), and "permission" to keep educating myself are just a few more ways reading this book has brought refreshment and, yes, rest, to my days.

"We (moms) are demonstrating with our very lives that the world is worth learning about, our minds are worth cultivating, and people are worth loving. We model delight in learning something new, and we demonstrate what it looks like to find like-minded peers to encourage and be encouraged by" (76).

Flying Along

I love seeing my children get to do something they genuinely love to do.  Easton has harbored a love for airplanes for a few years now.  He has talked about being a pilot, or maybe an airplane mechanic.  He's young, just 9 years old, so it's hard to tell what he'll choose an an occupation down the road.

But a friend of ours took Easton up in his plane recently and Easton has "got the bug!"

Yes, Jason even let Easton take the controls for a couple minutes!  Talk about making a little boy's dream come true!

They even had fun finding our place from the air.  That little homestead there closest to the airplane wing is our home.  You've gotta love seeing Iowa cropground from the air.

Easton is part of a team that is preparing to compete in a Lego Robotics competition in just a couple weeks.  I would guess that league and this special trip into the sky are the highlights of his school year so far.

Thanks?

Have you ever had someone pay you a "compliment", give you "encouragement", that felt more like a criticism, certainly of your past self? Some people need to learn how to apologize.  Others need to learn how to encourage.

Let's say, for example, that someone says:

"Wow, you're looking good.  You've lost a lot of weight and I can see that you've been working at that.  Because you used to be so fat!"

That exact situation didn't happen to me, but it was comparable.

Ummmmm. . . .
Thanks?

Isolation

There are seasons that are just isolating, don't you think?

I find the baby season to be rather isolating.  I can get in survival mode, so tired from getting up in the night multiple times, drowning in feedings and diaper changes, watching everyone else seem to have their act together while I'm trying to get to know this new baby and make the needed adjustments to the dynamics of a growing family.  It can feel like no one else is there with me, like no one else quite understands what's going on in the day-to-day.

A season of sickness can also be isolating.  When there are eight people taking turns with a virus, I don't get to go anywhere and there certainly isn't anyone coming around.  If I'm sick, I don't feel like going anywhere or being with anyone, yet the enforced seclusion feels isolating at the same time.

Right now I'm in another season that feels rather isolating.  This season of launching arrows has found me retreating.  I have this haunting fear of failure.  What if they don't choose well?  What if they make mistakes that have far-reaching consequences?

What's that, you say?  This is not about me, but about them?  Oooh, yes, that ugly pride of mine rears its ugly head yet again.

Sometimes I look at a child and worry that there might be more character flaws than character strengths (critical eye--another ugly trait I struggle with).  I dwell in the "coulda, shoulda, wouldas".  It's isolating because I want to protect the reputation of my children so I don't feel like I can share with others, so I cry and pray and try not to worry.  Some mamas have walked this path before me, falling back and praying while their child makes his or her own way, sometimes stumbling, sometimes striding confidently forward.

I listen to plans and dreams and think "What?!  That was NOT in my plan at all!"

I guess it's not about MY plan either, now is it?  It's not my plan, and it's not just my story.

My story is that God is teaching me, yet again, to trust Him, to walk with Him.
Growing pains.

I find that when there are seasons that remove me a little bit from people, those same seasons move me closer to God.

Cutting For Stone

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

I thought this book was really interesting. I really enjoyed all the medical detail and the history of Ethiopia. I also really liked the characterization and the growth the characters experienced through their trials. I continue to be horrified by female circumcision/genital mutilation, and was absolutely sick to learn about vesiculovaginal fistula which is caused by young girls being given as brides, she then becomes pregnant and are physically unable to deliver the child who dies and rots in the womb, leaving her with a hole between the bladder and vagina so that the urine constantly leaked causing infection and horrible odor. (424) I think we in American really can't fathom what a life of such poverty looks like.

There were lots of interesting themes in the story. My favorite one was about choosing what kind of life you are going to live:

"Why must I do what is hardest?"
"Because, Marion, you are an instrument of God. Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case, my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'The Three Blind Mice' when you can play the 'Gloria'?". .
"But I can't dream of playing Bach, the 'Gloria'."
"No, not Bach's 'Gloria.' Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you. The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you" (7).

"I hope one day you see this as clearly as I did in Kerchele. Everything you see and do and touch, every seed you sow, or don't sow, becomes part of your destiny. . .The key to your happiness is to own your slippers (from an Ethiopian folk tale about Abu Kassem who held onto his tattered old slippers past any reasonable use, but then every effort to get rid of them ended in disaster), own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny" (351).

There were themes about the relationship between father and son, brothers, and young love. There was the theme of forgiveness and themes of loss, particularly of parents.

There was the theme of where your home is, who "your people" are:
"Her skills were so rare, so needed for the poorest of the poor, and even at times in the royal palace, that she felt valued. Wasn't that the definition of home? Now where you are from, but where you are wanted?" (95)

The contrast between life in Ethiopia and life in America was. . .sickening? We really are such a wasteful and spoiled country. We expect to have what we want. We take for granted the luxuries of our lives. I was especially intrigued at the assertion that Ethiopians go to the doctor expecting to die, but happy when they don't die. In America, on the other hand, "death or the possibility of it always seemed to come as a surprise, as if we took it for granted that we were immortal, and that death was just an option" (486).

The more I think about it, the more I liked it. My primary complaint is that it seemed longer than it needed to be. He gave lots of background information about the characters in the beginning while I wondered where this story was going. I was at least 100 pages into the book before I was very interested. There is more description than there really needs to be, in my opinion. But overall, it was really interesting, I learned a lot, and it made me think.