Jodilightful!

(Warning:  Mom, don’t do it.  Just stop reading now.  It’s not a good idea.  Step away from the laptop.)

Dear Baby Sister,

A little while ago (I don’t know, maybe like five years or so?)  Mom gave me the shock of my life by telling me that I was going to be a big sister.  I was fourteen, an only child, and had just been given the same news by my Dad and Debbie less than a week earlier.  I laughed and cried and rejoiced.  And we talked names.  Immediately.  (I know, you’re shocked.)

A few months later, on a Thursday afternoon, I was mad at Grandmom for letting me stay at school when I should have been at the hospital where you had been dragged kicking and screaming into the world.  Mom and I won the name debate.  More rejoicing!

You came to my marching band and choir performances (you stop that snickering right now, young lady!)  I loved taking you anywhere with me, despite the occasional shocked stare I would get (good practice for my life now toting a small herd of little ones everywhere I go!).  I was so proud of “my baby”.  You had sparkly eyes and made a ‘monster face’ on command.  You were the ultimate party trick.

Then you got bigger.  At 18 months you quoted scenes from Dumb and Dumber word for word through your baby monitor during nap time.  At three you could dance the Macarena perfectly.  We should have known then.

I went to off to college.  I blinked and you were six: reading and writing and riding the bus to school.  Nevermind.  Still plenty of time to get reacquainted before you grew up.

And then I moved to Scotland.  Another, slightly longer blink later, and my baby sister was thirteen years old.  Sure, I had seen you here and there over the years, but nothing could have prepared me for the shock that the spunky seven-year-old I had left at home had transformed into a beautiful, smart, thoughtful young woman of thirteen.  Nothing.

Once the shock wore off, I was excited about all the time we were going to have together.  Excited to really be in your life.  Excited to get to know this beautiful new version of my baby sister.  I had so much to teach you and show you.  We were going to be best friends.  And we were!  But life with babies was busy, and you never had a dull moment in your social calendar.  There were rich, sweet times together, but not enough of them.  (Could there ever be?)

And here we are.

In less than a week, you are leaving for college.  College! I know it isn’t the end of the world, but it is the end of something.  The end of your childhood, maybe.  The end of my chance to have any influence over the person you become.  At very least the end of the time when I can bribe you with popcorn and iced coffee to hang out with me on Monday nights for Bible study.

You may only be going an hour and a half away from home, but you are going into a world more amazing and more hostile than you could ever imagine.  A world that will embrace you and adore you if you can just keep the Jesus thing  to yourself.  ”Oh, you’re a Christian?” they’ll say.  ”That’s cool.  Whatever works for you.”

But if you choose to be different, if you choose not to conform to the pattern of this world, if you choose to speak the name of Jesus Christ boldly with both your words and the very person you are, then you will not be the most popular girl at school.  You will offend people.  You will step on toes.  You will make people squirm.  Jesus did, and He said we would, too.

But you will also love people with a love they’ve never seen before.  And as the integrity of who you are in Christ shines through, some, not all by any means, but some, will wonder what makes you so different.  Some will see the peace and hope and purity that you have in this crazy, messed up world, and they will want it for themselves.

But only if you’re different.  Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you will win anyone for Christ by living a life of compromise.  You will only remind yourself of what I know you already know: all the fun and pleasure and satisfaction that the world has to offer are empty.  The party life is really no party at all.

You have been so well prepared for this challenge, but it still won’t happen by accident.  If you wander through campus life with a see-what-happens attitude… well, you’ve already seen what happens.

Decide now who you will be, where you will be, whose company you will choose.  There are no rules for you in Christ, but there are choices to make.  Some that will leave you heartsick and miserable and others that will draw you nearer to the One who loves you enough to die for you.  Choices that will bring deep joy and  satisfaction, and choices that will satisfy for a moment and then leave you utterly empty.

These choices are made in a heartbeat.  You won’t have any idea how big they are when you’re facing them.  Make choices now.

I didn’t want to send you off with a sermon.  But whatever.  So much for that. I know you don’t need another mom (or do you?  Because Mom’s a busy lady… No, okay.  You don’t.) but please accept my appeal, my plea, as an older sister in the Lord.  Be who you know you are.  You are not your own; you were bought at great cost.

Remember that you are an ambassador.  Everywhere you go and in every decision you make, you are wearing the name of Christ.  Wear it well.  You are a charming girl, and you will wrap the world around your little finger just like you’ve wrapped me around it.  Use that gift wisely.

Baby sister, I am so proud of the woman you’ve become.  I can’t wait to see how God will use you in this exciting next stage of your life. I do not fear for you going out into the big, scary world.  You are rooted and grounded in Christ.  Just don’t forget to put on your armor.

I love you more than you’ll ever know, Paigie.

Love,

JLY

Ephesians 6:10 – 20

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, 19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.

As we were driving home from the craft store today, Pippa heard the words “When my heart’s broken…” in one of our Sovereign Grace Kids songs, and she asked me to turn the music down.  She had something to say.

Pippa: I want to say something, but I need to think for a minute, but leave the music down…

(And then:)

When my heart breaks in two,

And I don’t know what to do,

My Savior will make me a new heart all the way through.

(The last line was tweaked slightly when we wrote it down later, her revisions, not mine.)

Is that a good one, Mommy?

Me: (just about crying) Yep, that’s a good one.

Sam and June.

I had the pleasure last weekend of visiting with a long lost friend.  We grew up across the street from each other, but only became good friends in high school as each of us began to grow in our love for the Lord.

After our family moved back to the States we had one all-too-brief get-together with Amber and her husband, Greg.  They introduced us to Take 5 bars (yum!) and The Settlers of Catan, and then they moved to Texas.  Isn’t that always the way?

When we last saw them we had two girls, and they had no children yet.  Last weekend our four girls got to meet her two boys, and we mommies had a couple of hours to catch up on the last three and a half years.

Among the many things that impressed me about how my dear friend has grown into a wonderful wife and mother was the care she took over choosing her boys’ names.  I don’t mean in choosing names that I think are fabulous names (although they are that, too).  I mean that she really put thought into how she would name all of her children when she set out to name her first child.

Her boys are Samuel Courage and Lucas Wisdom.  Pure loveliness.

Each of her boys has a biblical virtue name for a middle name, *and* each of them has a corresponding Bible verse, which she recites to them at naptimes and bedtimes.  All I could think when I discovered this was, ‘why did I not think of that?!’

Now, our girls are into their names (I know.  You’re shocked, right?).  My mother-in-law has always taken great care to find the girls name-themed gifts and the whole family has now gotten on board with the girls’ name ‘symbols’.  Pippa (Greek, “Lover of horses”) often receives gifts with horses and violets (her middle name) on them.  Romilly has always been showered with either sunshine themed clothes and accessories (her initials spell RAY) or Alice in Wonderland items to go along with her middle name.  Beatrix gets the obvious Beatrix Potter references or the even-more obvious bumblebee motif.  June is a little trickier, but we’ve mainly been working the Junebug = ladybug (which it doesn’t, but who’s counting?) angle, keeping a vague Narnia link up our sleeves via her middle name, Lucy.

But Bible verses for each one?  It was ingenious!  I had to have them!

And so the quest began.  Would it be possible to find a verse for each of my girls’ names that wasn’t either ridiculously obscure or so tenuously connected to the the name that I’d have to spend more time explaining how it’s related than teaching the verse itself?

I think I’ve more or less done it.  What do you think?

Pippa’s verse: Psalm 20:7 (ESV)

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

Romilly’s verse: Isaiah 50:10b (New Living Translation)

If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light, trust in the LORD and rely on your God.

Beatrix’s verse (Beatrix means “sojourner”, not super useful for clothing and toy shopping, but fabulous here!): Psalm 119:19 (ESV)

I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me!

Juniper’s verse: Isaiah 41:19b-20a (Good News)

Forests will grow in barren land, forests of pine and juniper and cypress.  People will see this and know that I, the Lord, have done it.

It would have been nice if they’d all been the same translation, but I’m still pretty excited about using them to teach my girls some amazing truths about our great God.

I may have to find ones for myself and Trevor.  Jodi means, “See Judith” (or so I thought for years, having looked it up in a name book in elementary school), but once you get past all that, the going theory is that it means, “God is gracious”.  That’s certainly workable.  Or I could utilize the fact that my initials are JLY, Jesus Loves You!  So many possibilities…

Many thanks  to Amber for giving me this brilliant idea, though she likely has no idea I’ve stolen it. May she have many more fabulously named children.  (And if you’d like to suggest middle names for them in the comments, she’s accepting suggestions!)

I thought I’d give you a peak at one of the many things that’s been keeping me from blogging lately.  I’ve made a cross-stitched birth sampler for each of our girls, usually finishing them in time to give as a first birthday present (super duper exciting to a one-year-old, let me tell you), but by baby number four I guess I was just a little stitched out.

I bought a huge, ridiculously elaborate and tedious Holly Hobbie sampler to do for Juniper within months of her arrival.  I stitched half of Holly’s hat in one shade of blue and then it sat, and sat, and sat, while I focused on any other crafty project I could think of to do instead.

Eventually, I accepted defeat, and cobbled together a *much* simpler design from a pattern I found on line.  I started and finished it in about two weeks, and I’m happy to say, Miss June finally, at 15 months old, has a birth sampler hanging above her crib.

Here is the finished product:

Not so pretty, right?

Well, embroidery work always reminds me of God.  Trevor says I’ve blogged about it before, but I think that’s just because he’s heard me say my whole spiel *every time* I finish a project.  I gave it to the girls this time instead.  Twice.   If I have blogged about it, it was a long time ago, and you’ll forgive me if I do a bit of recycling.  It’s good for the environment, after all.

Now, some cross-stitchers like to keep the back of their work looking as impeccable as the front.  Me?  I’m all about efficiency.  If dragging a big red thread across the back of my work means one less time I have to tie off and restart, I’m all for it.  But it does leave the back looking rather… umm, disorderly.

Isn’t that just like our view of life from Earth, though?

Sometimes it seems that life is going along nicely in pretty little rows.  We think we know what God is doing, and we like it.  We’re pretty sure we know what lies ahead, and it’s neat and orderly,  just how we like it.

Likewise, sometimes a life walked out in faith is simple.  Sometimes we enjoy the rich blessing of submitting our paths to God in the form of a peaceful, relatively hiccup-free life.  For a time.

Then suddenly we can find ourselves a million miles from what we thought was God’s plan.  Things take a turn toward the unfamiliar, the uncomfortable, or the downright painful.

We wonder, from our view of the back of the sampler, why in the world God would want to drag a big ugly piece of thread across our nice tidy life.  Why would He want to mess up such a pretty picture?

But of course, He can see what we cannot see: the view from eternity.

He can see how the trials He allowed us to endure took us to exactly the places we needed to be, for our good and His glory.

It turns out it was never about life being simple, and tidy, and orderly.   It was about being used by God to create a beautiful, intricate, perfectly planned work of art that we could never have put together ourselves with our very limited perspective on things.

We may not see this glorious big picture of God’s perfect will this side of Heaven, though we can catch amazing glimpses here and there.  But we can rest assured that when we see, with our own eyes, how it all came together, how every detail of our lives was lovingly planned by our sovereign Lord for His holy purposes, we will surely stand in awe.

This morning as I was checking my email, the three big girls were playing peacefully together in the living room.  Then, above all the usual chatter, I heard a whisper (mothers can hear whispers the way people who don’t speak English can hear their own names in conversation, the way that dogs hear dog whistles.  It’s really almost superhuman.)

This is what I heard my firstborn say:

“Don’t tell Mommy!”

followed by,

“We’ll hide it!”

This can only be bad, right?  Right!?

With a deep sigh, I emerged from the computer room, preparing for the worst.

Me: (in my best teacher voice, which is really not that good) Well, what did you do?

(Six perfectly angelic eyes blinked back at me.)

Them: Nothing,  What do you mean, Mommy? etc.

Me: What are you hiding?  What are you not telling me?

(Crickets.)

Me:  I heard you say you’re hiding something.  What are you hiding???

(Then, finally…)

Pippa:  Well, we were hiding one of the sofa cushions under the sofa.  We were making bunk beds.  We were going to surprise you.

Me: Really?  You weren’t doing anything naughty?

Romilly: Yes.

Me:  Yes, you were doing something naughty?

Romilly: No.  YES, we weren’t doing something naughty.  (Seriously, this child grasps the English language like a literature professor.  It’s nuts.  But I digress…)

*   *   *   *   *

Yeah, so, really… they weren’t.  A little weird, maybe, but definitely not bad.

Then a few minutes later, as if to pour salt on my wounds, Romilly says, “Mommy, you were mean to us when you were saying we did something naughty.”  My slanderous assumption has genuinely hurt my sweet, tenderhearted girl.  Ouch.

And it dawned on me: the way I had acted is exactly the way love, real love,  doesn’t act.

From 1 Corinthians 13, the famous “Love Chapter”,

Love… does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things…

Love doesn’t assume (perhaps secretly hope, even?) that someone has done wrong, even if that person has a pretty patchy track record.  It “believes”; it “hopes”; it wants to see loved ones growing in God’s grace.  It trusts that He is faithful to His promises to complete a good work in someone, to be ever transforming those who love Him into His likeness.  It expects improvement.  It assumes good things are happening.

I’m not suggesting we should turn a blind eye to sin (especially when it comes to our children), or look at those around us through rose-tinted lenses.  Rather, just as God looks on us in love, we can look for the good in those we love, and celebrate it when we find it!

My children are not, in general, sneaky, deceitful little people, yet I was so quick to assume the very worst about their character today.  I won’t go so far as to say that assuming the worst may be a self-fulfilling prophecy, though that may at times be true, too.  What I do know is that it isn’t how God loves us, and it isn’t how He commands us to love each other.

Who knows, maybe someday I will overhear the words “Don’t tell Mommy!” and automatically assume my daughters are planning a surprise party or better: cleaning the playroom!  Until then, by God’s grace, I hope I can at least resist the urge to pull out the teacher voice first and ask questions later.

Ten years ago today, an American girl said “I do” to an English boy.  Hollywood would tell you that that was where the story ended, but I can tell you our “happily ever after” was only the beginning.

We were twenty-two and twenty-one.  We had only spent maybe a couple of months total in the same country over the year and a half we’d been together.  People must have thought we were crazy.  They probably still do, come to think of it.

But the Author of our fairytale knew what He was doing, and as we have walked through our story together, each chapter has been more incredible than the last.

It may be cliched to say that I love my husband more now than the day we married, but in Christ these words have a totally different meaning.  In truth, I am married to a different man than I was that day: a gentler, kinder man.  A wiser man.  A better man.  A man who is a more amazing father than I ever could have hoped for to our children.  And I thought he was pretty great to start with!

I do not deserve to be caught up in this storybook life I live, waking up each day to a Prince Charming and four tiny princesses whose smiles light up my day, but I thank God for it just the same.  And I pray He may bless us with many more years like the ten He’s already given.

Happy anniversary, my sweet husby.

* So, every year, at least in some token way, we have given each other traditional anniversary gifts.  Some have been trickier than others, but we’ve always at least given a nod to the appropriate gift material.  Do you know what ten is?  It’s tin.  I’m supposed to buy my wonderful husband something made of *tin* to mark a whole decade together.  And what makes shopping for this gift even more challenging is the ever-present stipulation that I not spend *any* money on it.  Well, a blog post is free, my love, so here is your TIN anniversary gift!

A few of you have noticed my absence lately – thanks!  Life is busy at the best of times as you know.  But in truth, there had been another project sucking what little free time I have had recently.  A project that is now thankfully behind me.

A little over a month ago, I was asked to speak at our church’s annual Ladies’ Spring Tea.  I was mildly freaked out – there were, after all, 65 ladies in attendance last year – but I also had a sense of peace about it.  For while anyway.

My assigned title was “Spring Cleaning for the Heart and Soul”.  You’re laughing, right?  I did, too.  But I was incredibly blessed by the process of preparing my fifteen-minute talk, and actually giving it was… well, not as bad as it could have been.  Guess how many ladies were there this year?  115.  That’s one hundred and fifteen.  Yeah.

I wrestled a lot with whether or not  to post the video.  I sound weird and nervous and emotional (and to be fair, I was all of those things), and it was horrible and cringy to watch it myself.  Still, by way of excusing my bloggy absence and in the hope that it will be a blessing to someone, here it is.

Gulp.

I am not domestically inclined.  There, I said it.

I don’t know whether it’s nature or nurture or both, but I am a messy girl, and after years of trying to change (I started receiving FLYlady‘s emails when I was pregnant with Romilly in 2005!) I still struggle to maintain even the most basic level of order in my home.  Sometimes I catch glimpses that there are advantages to being the way I am, that those who have the “neat freak” gene do not always count it a blessing.  But mostly, I just wish I were doing a better job of serving my family in this area.

I was no better at keeping my home tidy before I had children, though well-meaning friends and family are always quick to offer my four little ones up as an excuse for the state of my house, but now there is an increasing sense of urgency to the matter.  How can I keep my girls from ending up like me?  When I see the horror in Pippa’s face when I ask her to tidy up the playroom, or hear the desperation in Romilly’s voice when putting all the doll clothes away is “Just too much, Mommy!”, I see and hear myself!  How can I train them to pick up after themselves, when I don’t consistently do it myself?  How can I teach them what I just haven’t learned yet?  The situation is getting pretty dire as more and more little girls graduate to mess-making age around here.

This  passage has been staring me down for quite some time now.

Proverbs 6:6-11

6 Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. 7 Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, 8 she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. 9 How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, 11 and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.

When I have read it,  it has always said something like this to me:

Hey Jodi, look at all these other women who keep their homes immaculate and their laundry folded and put away all the time!  They do it every day, not just when they’re getting ready for a birthday party.  When they pull out their vacuum cleaners, their children do not ask them, “Mommy, is somebody coming over?” They scrub and bake and even garden (which people think you do, but it’s actually your husband who does all the work), all while you sleep in, or maybe play on the Internet for a few minutes hours on end.  Those women are so. much. better than you!

But of course, whatever voice that was that I was hearing, it was not the voice of my gentle, loving Lord.  What I had never noticed about these verse before  few weeks ago, was this part:

Go to the ant… consider her ways, and be wise.

I wasn’t reading what these verses actually said.  The answer has been right there all along: Go find “those women” and see how they do it.  Learn from them!  I don’t have to stay a sluggard, I can be an ant, too!

So, this is where you come in, ant friends.  You know who you are, you who basically have things under control.  If your laundry spends most of its time clean and folded in its proper place, and you know, for instance, that you are supposed to clean under your microwave at least every once in a while, I want to know what makes you tick!  (Advice is also more than welcome from recovering sluggards: you are an inspiration!)

• What motivates you?   Does the mess just drive you crazy or do you have to make yourself clean up?
• Have you always kept your home in good order?  If not, was there a gradual process of improvement or a sudden Ah-ha! moment that changed everything?
• What habits have you found most helpful in this area?
• Is there a spiritual element to it?  A key verse that might help me see more clearly that it’s important to God that I keep my home neat and clean?

I want to be able to serve my family better in this area, and I think I’ve been taking baby steps in the right direction, but if there are more secrets out there, I want to know them!  I want to teach them to my daughters so that they can enter life more prepared than I was for how messy life really is.

Wisdom?  Please?

Yawn!

Well, I’m here.  I have woken up and stayed up (more or less) at 6 AM six times now.

I was hoping that at this stage in my rising-while-it-is-yet-night journey I would have something marvelous to report.  I thought my house would be clean and my demeanor calmer.  I thought I would be completely up-to-date on my Through the Year Bible reading program (what, you didn’t know you could already be behind by January 11th?  Oh, you totally can.)

Well, as you might have guessed, I don’t have any of those things to report.

But I do have all of these things to report, and I look forward to seeing what else God will work in my life through this new habit.

• I have a whole new respect for what my husband does for us every single day.  I have always known that he was a trouper for getting up so early and braving the cold, but now, I really get it (well, the cycling part, I still don’t so much get).  I get why he wanted to be in bed by 10:15 each night when I would have preferred a bit more time for us in the late evening.  Now, each night it’s a race to brush our teeth and be in bed first.  If this were the only good to come out of this whole thing, it would probably be worth it.
• I have been dressed and ready for the day when the girls wake up, which has mostly meant that they get a little more of me during the day.
• I was *on time* for a 10 AM appointment with all four girls in tow.  Wait… 10 minutes early, actually!  This was largely a result of the above.
• I have had more time to spend in the Word, and I’m not as sleepy while I’m reading as I thought I’d be.  Also, reading at the table seems to be better for my retention than reading in bed like I used to.  Can’t think why…

What I still need to work on:

• As always, the main struggle is still using my time well.  Just because I have more of it now doesn’t take away the temptation to fritter it away.
• I haven’t quite worked out how Juniper fits into my morning.  She doesn’t always wake up at the same time, so it’s hard to plan my time.  I have learned that feeding her lying down in bed like I used to isn’t real conducive to me staying awake.  That was Friday’s lesson, but if there’s a day to half-fall off the wagon, I guess it’s Friday.

How hard is it?

It is crazy hard until about 6:30.  Then it’s a little bit hard until about 7.  By then, the sun’s up and it starts to feel like a pretty normal day.  A normal day, except that my dishwasher is already turned over, and I am excited for my girls to wake up instead of closing my eyes tighter and pretending not to hear them stirring in their room.   By about 7:30, I begin to remember why I’m doing this.

I have to say a special thank you to my dear friend Emily, who has had a particular hand in urging and praying (yeah, she prayed for this, can you believe!?)  me toward this change.  You are a true and faithful friend.  (Now, don’t all fight over who’s next to be prayed for in this way.  I’m sure if God can get me up at the crack of dawn, He can do it for anyone!)