Caer Rivendell

My MOM List

2012-05-16T09:28:00.001-07:00

Mother's Day prompted me to start my MOM list. I have listened far too long to those voices. You know, the ones which tell us that we are wasting our lives choosing the noble profession of keeper of the home. So, with inspiration from 1000 Gifts I decided I needed to start my own list. It is the one which says what I have learned or accomplished since becoming a mother 27 years ago. Things that I never could have known before motherhood. It helps that my family is amazing and made my Mother's Day absolutely perfect and they inspire me by telling me in 1000 ways that I am beyond good enough. So here is a beginning of my list. Maybe starting your own will remind you that motherhood is a high calling, a vocation, a life....and pretty hysterical at times too.
MOM LIST OR WHAT I HAVE LEARNED OR ACCOMPLISHED SINCE BECOMING A MOM:
1. How to function with sleep deprivation.
2. Ride bikes slowly with little people.
3. Pack for 11 people for 2 weeks camping trip.
4. Cook mostly edible meals.
5. Make a rotating chore chart.
6. Burp a baby.
7. Don't hold a baby over your head with your mouth open.
8. Manage mountains of laundry.
9. Read one book over and over and over again.
10. Stay calm when there is lots of blood gushing from an injury.
11. Plan and enjoy tea parties.
12. Make large quantities of food.
13. Stay calm when child holds breath and passes out. They start breathing again then.
14. Sew late into night Christmas Eve.
15. Patch holey jeans.
16. Use the 5 S's to get REALLY FUSSY baby to rest.
17. How to push/pull two carts at store: one with kids, one with groceries.
18. Put makeup on in 2 minutes or less.
19. Live with "lived in" look not Martha Stewart look.
20. Making a bed every day is simple way to feel organized.
21. Grape tylenol is not pretty second time around.
22. There really is a person manning the phones at the Poison Control hotline.
23. A box turtle eats hamburger.
24. Little boys chew toast into gun shapes.
25. Kids know when someone is breathing in "their" space.
26. Ice packs are essential items for your freezer.
27. Neosporin is essential item for your medicine cabinet.
28. Crisco and Milk of Magnesia do work on VERY BAD diaper rashes.

To be continued....What's on your list?

Are There Any Questions Now?

2012-05-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

In a recent Washington Times article, Mr. Obama and his regime make it clear who they are and with what historical thread they identify. Read This to learn that our President finally removes any mask and reveals his true identity. And then pick up Whittaker Chambers' book Witness to understand what some of the ramifications are. Chambers said 60 years ago that Christians are on the losing side of this battle and that most Americans are clueless as to what is really going on right in front of them.

High Impact Living

2012-05-05T00:27:00.002-07:00

10 to 15 hour days for 10 days and counting, relieved by my husband and us trading shifts. He takes the night and I have the day. We are tired and exhausted, and yet he does not complain. I know it is taking a toll on us, but we signed up for this because it is laying our lives down, honoring our parents, following Christ. Deciding for that kind of life means that our personal lives take a huge hit most days, weeks, months. I am acutely aware of the huge impact it has on my children when the little ones cling to my arm as I leave each day begging me not to go because they are needing mommy. I ask God for grace to continue.

In those hours away, I wonder how people spend so much of their lives insuring that they have zero or low impact lives. Where they choose to let someone, anyone else take on the responsibilities and care of things, as long as their personal lives are not impacted to any degree. Where people choose personal peace and prosperity over sacrifice and poverty. When we say we love God, and we commit to pursuing Him wholeheartedly, we must expect to have lives impacted by that decision. Low impact living--where we do not let the poor or needy, the elderly, the widow or orphan interfere with our personal pursuits--cannot be what Paul said was our reasonable service of worship. It cannot be us as living sacrifices. Living for Christ means our lives are regularly shaken by what He requires of us next.

Interestingly, I find that those who are living the high impact lives where daily sacrifices are required are usually those who have the most responsibilities already and have the least resources at their disposal. And I think it must be a sweet aroma in the LORD's nostrils. But here and now it is draining and hard and requires endless grace.

Fellowship and Truth

2012-04-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

"Consequently, if we were to say that we enjoyed fellowship with him and still went on living in darkness, we should be both telling and living a lie. But if we really are living in the same light in which he eternally exists, then we have true fellowship with each other, and the blood which his son Jesus shed for us keeps us clean from all sin. If we refuse to admit that we are sinners, then we live in a world of illusion and truth becomes a stranger to us." (I John 1:6-8 Phillips)

What is true fellowship with one another? It is God's truth at the center of our existence. Truth puts aside all walls that we put up. When we decide the other person is "not good enough" or "does not measure up" or whatever reason we give for denying fellowship with that person we are not living the truth. We sin so much. Christianity abounds with hindered fellowship and the only reason can be sin. And the only one we have control over is ourselves. Truth shedding light on our own sins, eliminates our lofty,"I am not as bad a sinner as you", illusory lens of condemnation or criticism of others. Christ did NOT say, "you have to achieve this behavior or this status or this characteristic before I love you." Yet we withhold love from our fellow believers and family members if they do not live up to what we want them to be. Christ loved us first and before we loved Him and extends love to us while we are yet sinners. True fellowship is when we are more and more like Him, when we admit our sin, when we come out of darkness, and not just at salvation or conversion, but every day of life here.

Is Sin That Bad?

2012-04-28T11:36:00.002-07:00

"Christians must chuse rather to suffer the worst of torments, than to commit the least of sins, whereby God should be dishonoured, his name blasphemed, religion reproached, profession scorned, weak saints discouraged, and men's consciences wounded, and their souls endangered."
(Thomas Brooks, 1811)

More Shaving

2012-04-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

This last week Nancy Pelosi announced the Democrats' plan to push an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to limit free speech and to curb our First Amendment rights. Wake up God's people. They are shaving, hacking, destroying more and more of the freedoms our forefathers fought so valiantly to procure for us. And we are not yet weeping over our own sins.....

Longing for God

2012-04-23T20:10:00.002-07:00

Gleanings from our book club reading of Through Gates of Splendor:
"Oh the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth!
I care not if I never raise my voice again for Him,
if only I may love Him, please Him.
Mayhap in mercy He shall give me a host of children
that I may lead them through
The vast star fields to explore His delicacies
whose finger ends set them to burning.
But if not, if only I may see Him, touch His garments,
and smile into His eyes---
Ah then, not stars nor children shall matter, only Himself."

---from Jim Elliot's diary

Love and Death

2012-04-10T08:29:00.000-07:00

The apostle John tells us that "God is love." (1 John 4:8) In the next breath he tells us that this love of God's was manifested---shown, revealed, made clear---by His sending His only Son into the world to be the propitiation (an atoning sacrifice) for our sins. So God's love is revealed to us through death, the death of Christ. Love is death and Christ tells us to follow His example.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Christian martyred by the Nazis) said, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." So our returning love to God is our call to death. I think we get told way too much how to live the Christian life. The longer I walk with God the more I am realizing I need to know more how to die. A dead person does not feel pain, thinks no independent thoughts, has no expectations or ambitions. They're dead. Certainly our bodies are to be presented as "living sacrifices" (Romans 12:1) But how to die when we are alive is an ongoing challenge. We are presented with opportunities to love through death daily. Do I embrace those? Or even recognize them?

Christ humbled Himself and became obedient unto death. (Phil. 2:8) He thought others better than himself, He did nothing through selfish ambition or conceit, He put the interest of others ahead of Himself; He suffered mistreatment, being misunderstood, being falsely accused, and torture----all for me, to show love for me. We love God because He first loved us. This means we are called to die. Goes against all the modern thinking and culture--to look for ways to die.

Judges Deja Vu

2012-03-20T17:55:00.001-07:00

"In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes." (Judges 21:25)
No where is this more evident in Christian circles today than with regard to child bearing. And I have heard it all. Christians reason that to "be reasonable" you should put off having children, or only have two or three at the most...so that you can be financially secure, or travel, or fill in the blank. The arguments are endless so it seems, but if we are going to take the whole counsel of God's Word, the general principles contained therein state that God wants us to mulitply (notice He did not say replicate), to have children in our youth, to have marriages because He wants to bring forth godly seed from us, and to see that children are a reward and blessing. (Caveat: I am not condemning anyone who is childless by circumstances and not by choice. God is gracious and I know we need to be also.)
I do believe that for the most part people, including Christians, want to be unencumbered by the responsibility and, yes, the cost of children. That simply is not what God calls us to. I don't recall Him saying, "lead a life devoid of sacrifice or expenses." I do recall He said to gain our life we had to lose it.
Augustine had an ungodly lifestyle for years before his conversion and then wrote in retrospect these words: "In those years I had a woman. She was not my partner in what is called lawful marriage. I had found her in my state of wandering desire and lack of prudence. Nevertheless, she was the only girl for me, and I was faithful to her. With her I learnt by direct experience how wide a difference there is between the partnership of marriage entered into for the sake of having a family and the mutual consent of those whose love is a matter of physical sex, and for whom the birth of a child is contrary to their intention..."(Confessions, p.53) Christian people get married and then have sexual privileges but the birth of a child is contrary to their intentions. I am not against wisdom, but I am against doing what is right in our own eyes because it is more convenient. That is not what kind of life God has called us to. St. John of the Cross said, "Strive to choose, not that which is easiest, but that which is most difficult. Do not deprive your soul of the agility which it needs to mount up to Him." God have mercy upon us.

More Madness

2012-03-16T17:50:00.004-07:00

All those books on Big Brother they made us read in high school English in the 1970's and 1980's are coming true! Read This to see what madness our country has become.

Madness

2012-03-14T17:30:00.001-07:00

Included in the list of curses promised by God for His people if they disobeyed His voice and did not carefully observe His commandments and statues is this from Deuteronomy chapter 28:
"²⁸The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart. ²⁹And you shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you."

We surely live under this sentence today. Our president, his administration, and our legislators have printed more than 1 trillion dollars since Obama took office, and have increased our debt exponentially and still there is no attempt at curbing spending, stopping currency printing, or doing anything different at all. So how is this madness you ask? Let's say each of us owed $45,000 in debt, which currently per capita in the U.S. we DO. So we all said that the way we would pay off that debt was to go out and spend lots more money and print some to boot. In real life, we would be put into jail! Yet this is EXACTLY what is going on in Washington. Every day we are groping around in darkness, not prospering and becoming more and more plundered and oppressed. What is the solution to this madness? God said He would visit this curse for not obeying Him or following His commands. Let's seek repentance, stop plundering our own neighbors through government programs, and demand that we have a balanced budget and return to God whole heartedly. Politicians cannot fix what God has decreed. But His people, called by His name can seek His face and repent and be restored to sanity.

From Isaac Watts

2012-03-11T17:20:00.001-07:00

"LORD, I can suffer Thy rebukes when Thou with kindness doth chastise;
But Thy fierce wrath I cannot bear,
O let it not against me rise.
Pity my languishing estate, and ease the sorrows that I feel;
The wounds Thine heavy hand hath made,
O let Thy gentler touches heal!"

Help for Mothers

2012-03-08T17:00:00.001-08:00

St. Augustine's Confessions can help a mom out. How many times have you implored your offspring(especially your son) to listen to you? How many times have you worried that they weren't listening? St. Augustine recalls how God used his mother to speak God's words directly to his hard heart:

"Wretch that I am, do I dare to say that you, my God, were silent when in reality I was travelling farther from you? Was it in this sense that you kept silence to me? Then whose words were they but yours which you were chanting in my ears through my mother, your faithful servant? But nothing of that went down into my heart to issue in action....These warnings seemed to me womanish advice which I would have blushed to take the least notice of. But they were your warnings and I did not realize it. I believed you were silent, and that it was only she who was speaking, when you were speaking to me through her. In her you were scorned by me, by me her son, the son of your handmaid, your servant (Ps. 115:16)."

Monica, the godly mother of Augustine, had to have know that her son was not listening to her. But she was faithful to give the warnings even when her son scorned her counsel. Even when her son refused to listen. This is difficult. We want our admonitions to go to their hearts, but really it was not until God got hold of Augustine's heart and mind and strength that he realized the godliness of his own mother. God help us mothers to keep on telling our children of all ages the truth of God's word, to keep on giving godly warnings....even when they scorn our lives and words.....

BTW, Monica's experience is not uncommon...so take heart.

After the Storm

2012-03-04T16:43:00.000-08:00

Peering out the jalousie window cracks, I saw the twenty foot corner Palm bent double; its top touched the sidewalk. We had stayed. Dad said the house was built on an ancient sand dune and we would be safe. Mom had put water and food and blankets and flashlights in the basement. The fact we had a basement showed the age of our 100 year old home. Modern homes did not put in basements in Florida. We got to look out as the winds picked up and that was when I had seen it. The paragon of strength and flexibility, that Palm tree, bent over double. And my five year old mind worried: if that tree was already bent over, how could the house withstand the hurricane force winds? But it was too late. We would ride out the storm come what may because my Father had decided.

The next 24 hours we huddled in the darkness of the basement. Power had failed early on. We read books and tried to play games. But mostly we heard the howling of the storm, the intensity of the rain pelting the roof. We were not going anywhere. The eye never hit us, so there was not calm moments. The winds kept going and we could hear the house shuddering. My mom prayed. Dad turned on the radio but I don't remember what was being transmitted, I only recall the wind and that Palm tree.

Afterwards, Dad and my brother began repairs on the exterior of the house and took the boards off the windows. I was engaged in piling up debris and cleaning the steps and sidewalk. My Palm tree was straight, a few branches lighter, but back standing tall and drinking in the sunshine. Dad had been right. The old house was bumped and bruised, but perfectly sound and I wondered how many storms the old place had survived.

Until lately, I did not realize the life lesson God was teaching me in that storm. My Father made a decision for my life for me to stay put during a fierce and relentless howling storm. There was nothing else for me to do but wait. Unlike my five year old self, I did not patiently listen to the winds and wait for the end. I cried. I lamented. I was overcome with grief. Now, after the storm, I am not allowed to work out the grief. I am supposed to pick up the pieces and move on. But there is lots of debris. Lots to repair. And it has to start with me. I am to be a new creature in Christ. My disposition has to radically change. This is difficult considering the full force of the storm was directed at me. Storms can cleanse and change the landscape. But afterward, after the winds, pouring rain, and beating surf, the air is fresh, clean, holy. Hoping God can produce that in me.

A Gem

2012-01-15T22:40:00.000-08:00

"The sum of the Christian life is denial of ourselves."
-- John Calvin--

Poetry Morning

2012-01-09T11:16:00.000-08:00

A Christmas gift, A Book of Comfort, an anthology by one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Goudge. Here is an excerpt, a poem written by Vidal de Nicolas, a political prisoner in Burgos Jail.

A WISH
That son of Cain, let him have no more power
to loose his fury on the unfettered spring
or deal death to the kiss.
Let hatred be restrained from flooding
the pristine margins of the air.
Let knives become
impotent against swallows, and the assassin
powerless to garrotte the dawn.
May war never again
batter the skulls of newborn babes, or sever
the exultant arteries of a man.
Let poisoned fangs and pistols
and slavering jaws be done away,
and nevermore let frenzy lash us
with its insensate waves.

Let nothing remain but a love
as vast as all the oceans,
pouring like a cataract across the pupils
of our eyes, flooding the planets,
filling the songs of poets everywhere.

---posted by Queen Lucy

The BIG Day

2011-12-29T20:34:00.000-08:00

Mr. and Mrs. White

Rehearsal Dinner turned out fabulous!

Groom and Best Man and Brothers

How many groomsmen can you fit into a barbie car?

Best Man Best Toast

Dancing with my son

Daddy dancing with his baby

The whole clan

Freezing AND Beautiful

Picture perfect couple. PRAISE GOD!

No Immunity

2011-11-17T00:07:00.000-08:00

Head on over toElisabeth Foss' blog post that helped me a great deal. I don't have all the outward signs of a child rebelling. There is no pink hair, drugs, alcohol or other things. But I have had an offspring make it clear that they do not want to be associated with me, the family, or our lifestyle. And it has been hard to understand. I was one of those women soaking in all the magazines and newsletters and books on how to be a Christian wife and mama, how to manage a household, how to home educate, etc. I had full expectation that all the children would grow up and carry on.....I guess I did think they would be immune to the ditches out there.

So read, be encouraged. While there may be no immunity, there is grace. And I am seeking it too.

---posted by Queen Lucy

The Motto!

2011-11-09T18:49:00.000-08:00

For a long while our prayer meeting group has had our meetings in a little cafe with a poster that has become our motto. One of our ladies found pins with our motto on a trip to Seattle. It is very much needed for Christians these days. This was an early winter gift to me from my daughters this week:

Thank you my darlings!!!!

Trying to Understand

2011-10-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

Watched "The 5th Quarter" last weekend. Cried my head off. Not that it was a great movie. The story telling left something to be desired. But loss, that I can relate to these days. Great loss. And Grief. A death like grief. And grief inconsolable right now. Not loss of life, but loss of relationship that was dear. And like death, I have no control over now. Just trying to understand. "Sorrow she comes a stealing..." This poem was recited and looked it up and sharing now:

To All Parents
"I'll lend you for a while a child of mine," He said.
"For you to love the while he lives and mourn for when he's dead.
It may be six or seven years, or twenty-two or three,
But will you, till I call him back, take care of him for me?
He'll bring his charms to gladden you, and should his stay be brief,
You'll have his lovely memories as solace for your grief."

"I cannot promise he will stay; since all from earth return,
But there are lessons taught down there I want this child to learn.
I've looked the wide world over in My search for teachers true
And from the throngs that crowd life's lanes I have chosen you.
Now will you give him all your love, nor think the labor vain,
Nor hate Me when I come to call to take him back again?"

"I fancied that I heard them say, "Dear Lord, Thy will be done!
For all the joy Thy child shall bring, the risk of grief we run.
We'll shelter him with tenderness, we'll love him while we may,
And for the happiness we've known, forever grateful stay;
But should the angels call for him much sooner than we've planned,
We'll brave the bitter grief that comes and try to understand!"

-poem by Edgar Guest

---post by Queen Lucy

Worth

2011-10-17T16:19:00.000-07:00

How do you measure your worth? This question gets into my mind frequently in the course of trying to interact with other Christians. Is your worth measured by "health, wealth, and prosperity"? That all seems to be going pretty great in your life? Is that a measure of how important you are? How much you have accomplished? How much people should admire you or respect you?

What about your house? Do you have the Martha Stewart look down perfectly? Can people come in and admire your perfection? Is it your children and how well they behave or what they achieve? Is that what we can measure worth by? Status? By which car we drive, which clothes we strut around in, which class of people include us in their circle? Or is it the number of friends you have? People that you can invite to a family event? Does that number reflect your worth? Your importance? Your value? Your life achievement?

When I consider these things, I realize in comparison to so many Christians here in America, I am nothing. If they were to give out passes for who could be worthwhile enough to save, I would not be on the list. Depending on who was doing the judging, I would fall short somehow. And I think long and hard about this some days.

I fail at trying to lead a quiet life and mind my own business. I fail at being a good steward of my time, gifts, and all that God has bestowed upon me. I especially fail at daily having the mind of Christ, at laying my life down for the 10 most important people in my life, at managing my relationships to the glory of God. Yet in Christ there is no condemnation. In Christ, I am accepted in the Beloved. In Christ I do not have to do one thing to be good enough, to measure up, to earn His love. In Christ who is all in all. His death, burial, and resurrection are my life. Christ's sacrifice for me is the only measure of my worth. And He says He has loved me with an everlasting love. That when I come to Him, I am His beloved. What else could possible be worth more in this world? What else am I seriously going to measure my worth by? Having Him is better than anything else on earth. This is enough and I am forever thankful for His making me worth something. Like the Psalmist said, having Him I desire nothing on earth. Amen

----posted by Queen Lucy

U and U

2011-08-15T20:37:00.000-07:00

Unity: the state of being united or joined as a whole; a thing forming a complex whole. I like this word when it refers to Christians, or a local body of the church, or the visible church worldwide. We are united into a complex whole by Christ. "For as we have may members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another." (Romans 12:4-5 NKJV) Unity is something God does and a gift he gives. When Christians have it, it is a beautiful thing.

Uniform: of a similar form or character to another or others. This word often describes the expectation within Christian groups, churches, organizations. This is not what God defines as the body of Christ. He specifically says that we are different with differing gifts and functions. We are to be thankful for the fact that we are all different. We do not all need to classically educate at day schools, we do not all need to be home educating, we do not all need to wear dresses all the time, we do not all need to be intellectuals, we do not all need to be exactly the same. We do need to take our gifts and serve one another and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, graciously. Unfortunately as Christians we seem better at wanting uniformity and being drawn to those who are like ourselves and being threatened by those who are not. But God wants us to delight in unity, not uniformity.

----posted by Queen Lucy

In the Room

2011-08-09T21:10:00.000-07:00

As C.S.Lewis put it in the introduction to "Mere Christianity", we are in a room now and not living in the hall anymore. But the room does not have a fire, and meals are served cold, and there are limited chairs. It is not my favorite room.

My idea of what the room should look like and the atmosphere within are very different from the reality of where we are. I think there should be warmth, kindness, welcoming spirits, hospitality, love. Love is supposed to be the defining characteristic of Christians after all, isn't it? Love that someone can see? Know? Grab onto with their hands? Understand from not words alone but deeds? Deeds like loving one another fervently? Without dissimulation? With considering the other person's interests more important than our own? So what do you do if it is not there, but the room does have truth even if it is served on a cold platter?

I am not surprised by this room. I have been there before. The tenets of the community are very well defined. This room has rules of behavior and some of those rules include mocking, disdaining and scorning in conversation, in literature, and in attitudes home educators. Well that is one strike against me and my family. (There are others....)

When we lived in this room before, we expended all the effort to reach out, to invite to our home, to make connections with the rest of the inhabitants. They would grace us with their presence, but not once then and with one exception now (the pastor), none have shown hospitality to us. I do wonder why God has us in this room. What am I to learn? I know from past experience that any example of reaching out is not going to go anywhere.

So, we honor God by formal worship every Lord's Day, we eat at His table, we benefit from the teaching, we listen to Psalms played at chipmunk speed, we do our duty to please God, not men. And we wait until God works here or takes us to another room.

---posted by Queen Lucy

Maturity

2011-08-03T21:13:00.000-07:00

Devotions from a blessed monthly prayer time:

The goal of our life, our Christian life, is maturity. It is NOT personal peace and prosperity. It is NOT happiness. No, the goal of our life and the goal for our husband's life and our children's lives and our friend's lives and our church body's life is spiritual maturity. And whatever God deems needful to bring us to maturity, that He will do.

For us to understand this we need to "eat the mystery" as Ann Voskamp puts it in her book, 1000 Gifts. "When we find ourselves groping along, famished for more, we can choose. When we are despairing, we can choose to live as Israelites gathering manna. For forty long years, God's people daily eat that which is baffling. They fill on that which has no meaning. More than 14,600 days they take their nourishment form that which they don't comprehend. They find soul-filling in the inexplicable. They eat the mystery. and the mystery, that which made no sense, is "like wafers of honey" on the lips." (see pages 21-22 of Ann's book)

Here is some of my mysteries, that which is baffling and makes no sense to me:

---a faithful woman of God, who is elderly, and God gives her a husband who neglects her care or nurture, a man who chases off around the world to spread his "Christian" book and its message, and does not lay his life down for that woman

---faithful daughters who honor and obey God and their parents, who God still leaves without mates; while many unfaithful daughters, man-hunting daughters are given husbands, children, and homes (and they still complain)

---Christian parents with huge covenantal blessings and material goods, refusing to bless or share with their children what God has bestowed. Who demand that their 13 year old pay for everything or send their 16 year old out to fend for themselves, while the parents continue to enjoy God's blessings and kindness.

---church bodies that have reverent liturgy and true doctrines but are cold, inhospitable to others in their midst. Who hold the truth in unrighteousness yet pat themselves on the back for their spiritual maturity.

---God giving children to those who don't want them and either disdain children or kill them in the womb; while many who desire them cannot conceive or lose children.

---a godly man, father, husband, son, who labors around the clock to try and provide basic needs for his family struggling daily to do so; yet his ungodly, heathen brothers lead debauched lives and have more wealth than they can hold.

---faithful parents who live to see one of their children grow up to leave the faith

---Christian brothers and sisters in China, Indonesia, India, Africa, and the Middle East being killed, dragged to prison, raped, beaten, and persecuted. While we American Christians get fat and fail to build the kingdom of God fervently with what freedoms we have.

---that God loved Jacob and hated Esau.

---that God loved Jacob, Abraham, Samson, David, Solomon, Peter, Paul and even me.

---that God is mindful of us sons of Adam in any amount when He is glorious and made the stars and moon and earth and heavens and all that is in them.

---that Christ died for me, a miserable sinner.

---that Christ opened my eyes, and not those of many I know and am related to.

These are the mystery that I am to feast upon: those things which I don't comprehend, that are inexplicable, in which I am to find Christ, my daily bread. "Therefore let us go on and get past the elementary stage in the teachings and doctrine of Christ (the Messiah), advancing steadily toward the completeness and perfection that belong to spiritual maturity." (Hebrews 6:1, Amplified Bible) This is the goal: maturity.

---posted by Queen Lucy

Old School

2011-07-11T22:11:00.000-07:00

My mother was converted just before I was born. Dad a decade later. Technically I grew up in a Christian home, but once I was in high school in public school, peer pressure and my own bent toward wanting to belong took over. I would go to church youth group Saturday night and once it was over head to the nearest party until curfew. Then get up and attend church Sunday morning without blinking. I could have recited Scripture verses to you and tell you what were the right things to do. But I was immersed in the worldly environment of public school and sports too. Daily spending 6 to 9 hours with my friends made them my compass and not my parents nor the faith I was taught.

When God awakened my soul and raised me from my dead condition, He changed me. Status quo was gone forever. He put steel into my heart that I would not turn back to those ways I had lived before. And one of the results of His life in me was in how I would teach and raise the children God gave me. Looking back over the past 20 years I can see that in many ways the pendulum swung to the opposite extreme. I was very strict about all influences I considered worldly. I adopted the attitude of "don't touch, don't taste, don't listen to, don't watch, and don't participate." We were very much isolated and insulated from most people and most of the culture. When my children were little this was easy to enforce.

Yet as God grows children, He grows His babes too. As I grew in Him, I saw that creating a monastic life for ourselves was not fulfilling His commission to disciple the nations. We needed to be strong in the Lord and teach the children to be strong in Him, to be strong minded through the Scriptures, and to learn how to confront the culture around them and to redeem what they could from the Egyptians. My goals for the children changed: I wanted them to be more than conquerors not a people that retreated from what was surrounding them.

One thing did not change, however, and that was how they would interact with members of the opposite sex. So now because we do not allow our boys to text, email, or online chat with girls (or the girls with boys)...we are old school. As my children have aged from children to teens and young adults, the dichotomy between our rules and the rules of those around us is stark. If I think through the roster of our family, friends, and acquaintances, I am pretty sure we are the only ones who still hold fast to these standards. And of course my children want to know why.

This is my explanation. God rescued me from the pit of easy believe-ism, of surface Christianity, of watered down standards, and hands-off parenting. I know the end results of those practices of flirting, man/woman hunting, easy attachments, private conversations, boy-crazy/girl-crazy silliness. Proverbs is full of wisdom about how young men should think, act, and behave. It is full of warnings that young men should avoid strange women. Young women should take heed of the descriptions and behavior of strange women elaborated on in Proverbs and seek to avoid any similarity in their own deportment. Just because our current culture says that it is okay for young people to carry on through social media does not mean that it is a holy activity for Christian young people to engage in with complete abandon.

God is clear that youth does not have wisdom and needs to learn it. But honestly sometimes I think the need for parents to learn wisdom is greater. Our goal is mature, godly, pure, holy, honoring Christian young people who are equipped to fulfill God's purpose for their life, prepared to seek a mature, godly, pure, holy, honoring Christian mate at the proper time, and ready to build the kingdom of God. Our time, emotions, relationships are all gifts from God. How should we and our young men and ladies be spending them? The way I see it, man/woman hunting or defrauding another person can happen through electronic devices even more readily than in person. Which means, we will be old school for years to come.

----posted by Queen Lucy