Behemoth fits, yeah I’ve had a few. It’s never appropriate because the way I handle myself is wrong, and it grieves my heart that sometimes my children are present, if not the brunt of my wrath.

Sixty dollars spent on black PVC tubing that ends up kinking and leaking is not worth going nutzoid over; but it’s too close a memory to the sixty dollars I forked over for a television that toppled over crushing my son to death.

I thought it a good purchase, the T.V just like the tubing but both end in failure. The loss of Mattias, devastating; the hose not working, frustrating; but the response to the PVC is magnified because of the television. It’s an accumulation of failure upon failure.

There’s this realization I’ve come to, ‘my whole life now revolves around that night, that basement, that decision.’ It’s a never ending constant circle of torment: broken tubing equals broken T.V equals broken child; uninstalled windows equals broken T.V equals broken child; leaking bathtub equals broken T.V equals broken child; overgrown weeds equals broken T.V equals broken child; it continues over and over my purchase, my T.V, my broken child.

It’s dark at times for I’m a husband and a father. I’m supposed to fix and protect and make things right but I can’t. I tried making the hose, I tried fixing the bathroom, I tried keeping the garden but I just plain can’t. I can’t change my purchase as I so wish. I can’t fix the T.V as I want. I can’t save my child no matter how hard I want to try.

With all this in mind you’d think I could spare my children the manic outbursts. I mean they’ve got issues too. They all witnessed the accident, within feet and feel as helpless today as they did back then. I see it in the anger of my oldest son. It’s all rather depressing, all this brokenness, but there is one thread that remains and if you can hold onto that thread its enough to keep you from falling into a furnace that will burn anything you may think you have left, even your very soul.

This is what I proclaim. From the experience of my hurt I contend that this brokenness proves the validity and truth of the Christian faith. Though we deal with pain and suffering in very real human terms, this pain is best described by and dealt with through the prescription that is the biblical narrative.

Why is there pain and suffering in general? Because we are rebellious! Genesis 3:6

Why do marriages fail? Because we are stubborn! Mark 10:5

Why is there poverty? Because the poor will be among us! Deuteronomy 15:11

Why is there religious chicanery? Because of the lust of the heart! 2 Peter 3:3

Why do the nations rage? Pride! Psalm 2:1

Why do our loved ones die? For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God! Romans 3:23

We have seen our children die, the heinous cost of sin that good theology can explain, but human emotions still remain. The death of our children have broken us in a sense, changed us. In our hurt we lash out. We work hard to recognize the trigger points so not to transgress in our anger (Psalm 4:4). Some may condemn us for our actions, for being so honest, but I have this perspective:

When I read your comment Troy I see a father acting in truth and great in his faith. I see a broken man, who can’t fix what is broken; his environment, his health, his son, himself, yelling and screaming forth the sorrows of his shattered soul, pleading as David did (Psalm 109), in brutal honesty.

I see a Heavenly Father who is not surprised by His child’s weakness and the cries of his heart. I see a Heavenly Father who does not condemn His child but One who meets broken humanity at the individual level, right where it hurts. I see Abba Father ministering to a hurting soul, and an earthly father teaching his children that life carries degrees of brokenness, but in all its’ sadness there is healing, there is understanding, and ultimately restoration (Revelation 21:4)

I have told my own children, often:

You have seen your dad hurting, in deep sorrow and acting at times quite wrongly. Though I fail, look at my life, it does not lie. No one loves you more on this earth than your mother and I, but we are human and you will see us in our folly, and we will disappoint you and fail you. That’s why you need to first look towards God in life. I will try my best for you, but there is a Father in heaven who will never fail you, never forsake you. Though I fall short at times, you know you can come to me in times of need, but never forget that it is in Jesus Christ you will find fulfillment, it is in the Holy Spirit you will find the wisdom, and in the Father an everlasting hope and love. His mercies do not fail (Lamentations 3:22-23).

This has extended well beyond the limits of a recommended blog post, yet from one grieving Father to another I wanted to give you my best, from the heart. Recently I came across this song by Gerry Asmus, Hard to Say Goodbye. I was going to pull out what meant most to me, but everyone gleans differently. While listening to this I’ve changed names and situations, I’ve cried, but when all is said and done, the good news is there:

I had an older brother so I know how it feels
He’s with the Lord now I know his faith was real
Sometimes I wonder if he’s watching over me
And if he is, is he proud of who he sees

Some people say God’s children shouldn’t feel the pain
That we should understand we’ll see our friends again
But I know how the angels felt after the last words Jesus said
The sky grew dark, the land shook from the tears that they shed
And though I know my brother was in the Lord on the day he died
My eyes grew dark and my hands shook as I stood by his side
And I may say I have no fear and I don’t ask God why
But it can still be hard to say goodbye

Now you’ve lost a dear friend you loved more than you knew
You never know until they’re gone how much they mean to you
There’s an empty feeling and an aching in your heart
That’s how it feels when friends are pulled apart

I guess by now you know believers feel the pain
Don’t be afraid to let it show and don’t you be ashamed
For you know how the angels felt after the last words Jesus said
The sky grew dark, the land shook from the tears that they shed
And though you know the one you loved was by our Father’s side
Your eyes grew dark and your hands shook as you broke down and cried
And you may say you have no fear and you don’t ask God why
But it can still be hard to say goodbye

When the tears start to flow you know it isn’t wrong
Just remember Jesus wept when Lazarus was gone
and if you think I’m over it because years have passed you’re wrong
God is still the only reason I can carry on
Now you must carry on

With God’s blessing I’ll grow old but some day life will end
And when it does I know I’ll have to part with you my friend
Sometimes when I think about the day I say goodbye
To all the ones I love it makes me want to cry

Some people say that Christians shouldn’t feel the pain
That we should understand we’ll see our friends again
But I will know how Jesus felt and how it must have weighed a tonne
When he said John behold your mum and mum behold your son
And if you’re there I’ll say these words on the day I’m set free
I hope my friendship meant as much as yours has meant to me
And I may say that I won’t fear and I won’t ask God why
But it will still be hard to say goodbye
Yes it will still be hard to say goodbye

P.S. Carry on dear brothers, Carry on dear sisters. In Christ, Tiggy’s dad.

And though the cows didn’t get pregnant on their last trip to the bull, I had some encouragement that the bull’s fertility could have been affected by the drought and then by extreme cold and their lack of pregnancy might not actually have anything to do with them. And that gave me some hope that when we try again in June, we might finally have calves to look forward to.

And in early March, as spring finally arrived, the bees in one of my hives emerged. I had finally seen a hive through winter and I was optimistic. I ordered a replacement package for the other hive and felt like we were finally getting somewhere with all these plans.

But then winter hit again and for three weeks there wasn’t a single day warm enough for the bees to fly nor warm enough for me to open the hive to check on the bees. And in those three weeks, my second hive starved to death. I added a second package to my order.

Only the entire shipment got stuck in a snow storm in Wyoming. Apparently, when the truck driver checked on them, he thought the bees looked a little cold so he turned up the heat. And cooked them all.

While doing evening chores, I saw a coyote run up the road. The dogs had flushed it out of the ditch across the street. Thinking about it crouching there, watching and waiting sent chills up my spine. But it took off and the dogs stood in a line just beyond our property, seeing it off with a chorus of angry snarls.

I can’t help but think it was the same coyote that came back later that night, while I was sound asleep, and woke me with its yipping. Right down by the henhouse. We have’t had coyotes on our property since we got Flee, our Great Pyrenees. Yet, this one walked right by him to get to the chickens and therefore knows he has boundaries he cannot cross. And though Luke ran it off before it could get in, it sent the birds into a panic that resulted in three geese and a duck killing themselves in their terror.

We lost Bunny (whose full name is Sally Bunny LE’s Bunny Hanley) and I had to hold a very sad little six year old who cried for her friend. Her very first pet. Her comfort and companion after losing her little brother. We don’t know what happened but we also don’t know how old Bunny was. We got her as a full grown adult and had her for over two years.

I lost my drake. My almost perfect drake whose breeding plumage came in so lovely and I was so looking forward to showing him this year. Not to mention hatching his little ducklings, but his death left me with three females and no hopes of breeding until next season.

A cold snap coupled with a string of heat lamps burning out within days (three in a week!) took out half of my ducklings I was so excited about.

When I found the sixth little body, I couldn’t take it any more. I stormed out of the garage in a temper, yelling at ducklings. Yelling at circumstances. Yelling at God.

“I can’t take any more.”

“I can’t do this.”

“I am done.”

“I. Give. Up.”

And I did. Right there on the porch waiting for the ducklings’ water dish to fill up.

Because all the failture was too much: the bees, the ducks, the geese (all two years in a row), the dog I had to give up, the dog that got hit by a car, the cattle and my son. Because whenever I feel like this, it always goes back to that night because all loss hurts a little deeper and stays with me a little longer and seems a little more hopeless because it brings up the feelings around losing Tiggy.

And somehow, when everything is going wrong, you can’t help but wonder why.

Is this not what I am supposed to be doing?

Or is there something I am supposed to be learning through all of this?

My judgment is a little too clouded to see through the frustrations of the present to really figure out the difference. But one passage of Scripture keeps going through my mind.

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;perseverance, character; and character, hope.And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

~Romans 5:3-5

I’m just not totally sure it applies to farm animals.

But this also isn’t quite the end of the story. The rest will come . . . hopefully . . . tomorrow.

Because I have a lot to write about and some of the nausea surrounding this pregnancy is finally abating.

But I disagree.

For while this picture says a lot . . .

. . . it does little to express the excitement and the fear, the hope and the worry, the joy and the grief.

And I’ve struggled all weekend with exactly what I wanted to say.

But I like what my little Bear said on the way to church Sunday morning, so I’ll share his words instead.

“Mommy, the new baby won’t replace Tiggy and it won’t make the hurt go away and it won’t fill the hole Tiggy left. But it will help a little bit. Because the hole is just all of our love we want to give to Tiggy but we can’t. Now we can share it a little with the new baby.”

And I know our family has a lot of love to share.

My husband’s accent is cooler than mine, so he did the honors of narrating.

We have since thrown in a couple goldfish which seem to be doing well. It of course got very cold as soon as we had something living in the tank. The current is strong enough to keep it from freezing, but I’m not sure the little feeder goldfish like these nighlty lows in the 20′s.

We also had some problem with water spraying out of the tank. I found a spot in the irrigation system in the grow bed where the water was hitting the side and just enough sprayed up to dampen the outside of the grow bed. I buried that section in gravel and it was dry in the morning. The water draining back in the tank also splashes just enough to get some out of the tank. I have that fixed with a small skirt to guide the water back in the tank for the moment, but we need to work on that a little, too.

We ordered the pumps for the rest of the tanks and are looking into getting the lighting hooked up soon. If all goes as planned, I may plant our first lettuces by the end of next week when it is supposed to start feeling like spring!

“Among believes we surveyed, only about 25 percent of tweens and about 40 percent of teens, young adults and people twenty-five and older currently, consistently turn to God’s Word for spiritual growth and daily direction.” ~Unstuck, p. 57

A survey of over 70,000 Americans shows a difference between the spiritual maturity and behavior of those who engaged the Bible at least four times per week and the rest of those surveyed. That isn’t really surprising. After all, it is God’s Word. But this bit surprised me.

“There are no statistical differences in the behaviors of those who read/listen to the Bible one to three times weekly and those who spend zero days doing so.” ~ Unstuck, p. 56

I think I expected some sort of gradual increase in godliness, but no. You are either all in, or it doesn’t really matter.

And I suppose that shouldn’t really surprise me. But it still does.

And strangely enough, my personal struggle in this isn’t really about the actual time spent in the Bible, but the purpose.

I homeschool five children. I am trying to set them up with good habits. We have a daily time of Bible reading right after breakfast that we all participate in and all the children have their own way of “studying” during that time. But most days, I know I sit down and read more as an example to them than as a way to grow myself.

So while I have some good habits, my heart doesn’t always follow my actions.

How do you structure your day to include daily time in your Bible? What struggles do you have?

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Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you happen to click on one and buy something, I earn a few cents. I am no longer donating this money to Tiggy’s House because the money has been raised. Now, most of it is being saved for airfare to hopefully fly over one day. I say most because I am very tempted to buy myself a new canner beforehand.

That’s Marley, my new puppy, Marley, who was afraid of me stomping the snow off my boots when we first got him. Now look at him standing there and not minding the noise of the saw, or the banging around of these huge plastic containers in their metal cages.

And our big project for the year is an aquaponics experiment.

A few years ago, I wouldn’t have had a clue what that was.

One year ago, I thought my husband was slightly loopy.

And now I have five tanks sitting in my garage waiting for the next step.

Before I get there, however, this is pretty much what we are going for.

See the grow bed on top? That will be full of nice garden veggies. The tank underneath will be full of fish. For the moment, we’re planning on getting catfish because we can get them locally, they do well with our climate and they handle poor water conditions. Once the system has been running for several months, we may switch to a more sensitive fish. But first we have to get it running.

The first step was getting the IBCs. These are used to transport liquids and they are big. I believe ours hold 275 gallons. Well, at least they did before we cut them apart.

You have to watch what was transported in them. Most of ours contained bacteria and enzymes to aid in the fermentation of ethanol. Nothing harmful to fish, so a good cleaning was all that was needed.

Then we decided to give our son some power tools because we spent all day building this and had to be able to count it toward our children’s education somehow. Shop? Science? Math? All of the above?

He might have been a wee bit excited about that. Maybe too much so. But after you get those top bars off, you can slide the liner out and start cutting the whole thing up.

That’s my favorite part. It is loud. It sprays a shower of sparks. And it involves power tools my husband has never used before.

Isn’t that cool?

Now, I had actually taken pictures of every step of the process, but then I thought that would get a bit tedious. After all, most of you will probably not ever actually make one. And if you want to, you’d be better off following the directions we followed.

After all, they got us this far.

And we don’t have any idea what we are doing. All five of them cut apart and lined up in the garage sure look nice though. It’s kind of like planning a garden in the winter. Everything grows so well on paper.

We also bought everything we need to finish off one system. Or at least everything we think we need. Projects like this tend to take some trial and error. I’m hoping to have it set up by the end of the week, and the next step will be throwing in a few test goldfish while we wait for Orscheln’s fish days.

But stay tuned for updates. And in the meantime, if you are at all interested in trying this out yourself, we got the directions and the demonstration absolutely free from Backyard Aquaponics. Here is their free e-book on setting up a backyard aquaponics system.

And the video we have watched over and over.

I can’t wait to get started on the next step!

But it’s not. It’s an heirloom variety of popcorn, developed by a hobbyist and shared with Native Seeds. When I saw it, I thought, “Wow! Wouldn’t that be fun to grow!” And somewhat on a whim, I signed up to be on the waiting list.

When I got the email saying it was my turn, I felt like I won the lottery.

But then I started having second thoughts. I felt like I’d be planting gold, or something. Not that it was really that expensive, but this corn is special. What if I kill it? I do not have a good track record with corn.

Our first attempt was destroyed by hail.

Our second attempt was destroyed by geese.

Our third attempt was destroyed by drought.

A drought we’re still in, by the way.

And with corn this special, I could see myself being tempted to water under cover of darkness. And I could see myself being caught because anytime you do anything under the cover of darkness, you should really think twice before blogging about it afterward.

What if it survives, only to be pollinated by the miles of GMO corn that surrounds me? It’s not like I’ve ever actually bagged and hand-pollinated corn before.

I want to learn, but this is sort of high stakes, here.

Now, I could sell it on ebay. I looked there, just out of curiosity. Ten to fifteen dollars for TEN seeds seems to be about the going rate. The guy wanting $50 for his fifteen seeds has to be out of his mind. I could just divide up the package and make a tidy profit.

Except that I wasn’t really interested in this as a business venture. It was just a for fun venture.

And I really want to grow these little beauties and see if I can get some interesting ears of corn.

So I’m going to plant them and blog about them . . . and all the legal measures I undertake to keep them alive.

And we shall all see how my little project experiment goes.

I wonder how often we smile, shake hands and pretend everything is fine.

How many opportunities to connect and to grow and to encourage do we miss because we are to busy holding it all together?

Do you have people you share your spiritual battles with?

The most frequently asked question I receive from polite strangers has nothing to do with socialization and everything to do with latent fears regarding parenting. “How do you do it all?” They ask as my daughter bags groceries and I pay. I revel in the praise which comes as a welcome distraction from the questioning glances I receive shopping at one o’clock on a school day with kids in tow. Because I believe that these concerns about parenting ability actually underly most people’s misgivings of homeschooling, I have decided to reveal my secrets.

Principle I: Delegate

There is no way one person can humanly get everything done that needs to be done in the care and education of four children on a daily basis. It is therefore imperative to learn to delegate. Teaching children to do simple chores is a necessity, not only for your own sanity but for their development. Here is my two year old sampling some cookie dough she and her sister made. The eight year old may occasionally confuse teaspoons and tablespoons, resulting in some pretty salty pancakes, but that is where the taste tester come in. What stays in the two year-old’s mouth is probably edible, unless it is a toy, bird seed or some random thing she has pulled out from under the bed. For the life of me I cannot figure out why toddlers, who stick everything in their mouths, are such notoriously picky eaters. They even did a pretty good job at cleaning up after themselves.

The picture does not really show the flour and flecks of dough, but it does answer another mystery. The worst cup of tea of my life. Take a closer look:

An empty box of baking soda and an open sugar container. I think my taste tester has some ‘splaining to do.

Principle II: Multi-task

Young boys have a peculiar knack for getting dirty. Really dirty. In fact, if you don’t wash them once in awhile, they can be hard to recognize.

Now it is time to put some sibling rivalry and his affinity for making messes to work. While his sister chased him with the hose, I started a bath and a load of laundry. He then removed all of his extra clothing on the back porch and was carried to the bath. By the time he was done with his splash fest, we had another task to check off our list of chores. With the bathroom thoroughly soaked, all it needed was a good toweling off to be as spic and span as my bright little boy.

Principle III: Foster Independence

Young children are necessarily needy. And the more children you have, the more they all seem to need your attention at the same time. To ease the stress of being pulled in ten different directions at once, it is good to train your children to help themselves and each other as much as possible. Here is an example. Due to the small size of our house, we store most of our books in storage tubs, rotating them on a weekly basis. The rotations have slowed since their father was forced to Denver, however. My two year-old and my son decided that we needed to remedy this situation. Why bother mom? They have been raised to be independent, which I am sure is what possessed them to stand on top of the dog food bin to pull down a storage tub full of books.

You probably saw that coming. Fifty pounds of dog food and 200 books on the laundry room floor. This is where deep breathing, prayer and the self-control to just walk away come in. As well as the next principle.

Principle IV: Appreciate the little things

We all need our quiet place. And it is very good to go there before exploding. Especially when you are about to ground your two year old and four year old until their eighteenth birthdays for doing something they thought would be helpful. So take a deep breath and count to three. One. Two.

Three.

I bet you feel better now. It works for me every time. And simply cleaning up the mess was a much more reasonable consequence, don’t you think?

Principle V: Everything is Educational

Life is bound to interrupt your school day now and again. Not nearly as often as the PA system in a public school, but it does have a way of cropping up on you. Before fretting too much at how far you are getting behind, remember that there is educational value to be found in everything. Whether it is a trip to the beach,

a torn toy,

or even just cleaning the laundry room while mom holds the baby and talks to the ceiling, there are lessons to be learned. And it is in this daily walk that we teach them the most about how to live and what is important.

Disclosure: This post from my archives is being re-run as part of BlogHer’s Smart Mom’s Guide to Being Busy editorial series, brought to you by Rice Krispies and BlogHer.

Not that there isn’t a point to reading the rest. I’m enjoying it enough to want to discuss it here, after all. So if you are looking for extra encouragement to read your Bible more, the link above takes you to Amazon where it is only $6.

As I read this first chapter, I kept asking myself, “Am I stuck?” Is that really what my issue is? I feel drained. Exhausted. Like when you’ve cried all the tears you have to cry and still there’s still no relief.

That’s mostly because we’re coming up on my little Tiggy’s fourth birthday and it will be the third one we’ve celebrated since he went to heaven.

I feel like I am walking through a spiritual desert, but I’m not sure that is the same as being stuck. I am not apathetic. I am not standing still. It isn’t like those times when you feel like your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling and you aren’t sure whether God is really there or whether he really cares.

I’m walking forward, it’s just that it is such a hard journey. I know God is there because he has carried me every step of the way. For I worship a Lord who wept at Lazarus’ funeral though he knew the miracle He was about to perform.

The images of that night are burned into my mind. I still see him lying there on the floor. I still see the blood. I still hear the labored breathing. I still feel the fear of touching him lest I hurt him more. And sometimes I wish I had known that it didn’t matter so that I could have held him in my arms one last time while he still held the breath of life within him. But as I cry at the foot of his grave, I also know this isn’t the end.

I just don’t always know where to go from here.

After some time of reading the same passages of Scripture over and over, I thought perhaps it was time to move beyond that. I wasn’t up for any 90 day challenges, but decided to read along with the reading plan I gave my daughter.

So I found myself listlessly reading through the great stories of the Bible the same way I used to get though assigned books for school. Where you can read every single word and not remember a single one.

Scripture is supposed to feel alive and meaningful and relevant. But somehow every passage felt as dry as Chronicles (which is where I stumble in every challenge).

So I wonder. Am I stuck?

On page 26, Arnie Cole writes,

“Jesus forgets our yesterdays and reminds us not to worry about our tomorrows. Yesterday is there to be learned from, not stuck in. And the worries of tomorrow must be released to God. We can’t tightly clutch tomorrow no matter how hard we try to grasp it –God owns tomorrow.”

Living in the present has become somewhat of a survival strategy for me. Thinking about the past brings me to that night. Thinking about the future shows me all the days ahead of me without him. If I focus on right now, I don’t get overwhelmed.

That is easing to some degree. For the first time, I am looking forward to our plans for spring: training my new puppy, starting my herb garden, adding onto our orchard, starting our aquaponics system. But I also want to be careful not to seek to fill the dryness of this journey with the “water” of busyness.

At the end of each section is some research notes, encouragement and three days of scripture readings with questions to consider. The very first one is Revelation 21:4.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

A passage I have read over and over these past two years, because these words are water to parched earth. Living water from a spring that never runs dry.

What challenges do you face in your faith? Where do you find encouragement?

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Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you happen to click on one and buy something, I earn a few cents. I am no longer donating this money to Tiggy’s House because the money has been raised. Now, most of it is being saved for airfare to hopefully fly over one day. I say most because I am very tempted to buy myself a new canner beforehand.