Out on a limb in a robin's nest.
Juniper, Juniper
Middles
Esther and Pippa hard at work on their passports at the Morris Arboretum.
Romilly and Jonathan at the water pump.
Many thanks to our dear friends, the Silvas, for another homeschool adventure!
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So my best friend has Wii Fit. Have you tried it yet? You step on the scale and it weighs you. It doesn’t ask you how many babies you’ve had in the last five years or when you were most recently pregnant. It just weighs you. It tells you how much you weigh and then your skinny little character suddenly plumps up, looks down at herself, and shakes her head in dismay. Nice, right?
Anyway, that is by the by, because what I want to talk about is the Wii Fit tight rope game. You walk carefully in place on the board and your little “Mii” hopefully goes in a straight line. If your weight is imbalanced, she starts to lean to one side and flap her arms like a crazy person until you lean your body back to the other side, hopefully before she falls off. It’s really very clever, and I am quite good at it, at least until I get to the little bear-trap-like monster that tries to eat you at the halfway point if you don’t jump at just the right moment. I always manage to jump right into its ferocious jaws. But that’s also by the by…
I must have had Wii on the brain, because when another friend shared an observation about the Christian faith the other day, my mind immediately went to tightropes. She shared a conviction, and perhaps also a rebuke, that when we, in the context of Bible study or other teaching, make reference to what “other people” are doing wrong, even without directing it at any specific person or group of people, it is really only a thinly veiled form of gossip to bolster our own sense of holiness.
We spent an hour or so back-and-forthing about this concept while our kids played. I was full of “yeah, buts”, and she was having none of them. After I got home, I thought about it more and realized she was one hundred percent, completely and totally right, and I had one more thing to add to my ever-growing list of “areas that need improvement”. Sigh.
I guess this is something that non-Christians see all-too-clearly in Christians, and yet we can be so blind to it ourselves. As God works in our lives and helps us overcome sins, we want to help others to “see the light” too. Then we want to talk to other Christians about how we wish others could see the light and change their ways. And there it is. Boom. We’re gossiping. We’re judging.
I know you’re wondering by now what all this has to do with tightropes. In truth it has taken a week of having this post half written in my draft box for God to provide in today’s ladies’ Bible study the perfect verse to illustrate my point.
Proverbs 4:25 says this:
Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you.
In our Christian walk, we are on a very narrow path with pitfalls to either side. If we look to our left, we see others in sin and wish to join them. Temptations abound! If we look to our right (as I realize now I’ve been doing far too often) we see those who are in sins that hold little allure for us, or perhaps that we have already overcome. We look a little too long, and perhaps pat ourselves on the back. It might even look a little bit like this parable Jesus told in Luke 18:
Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get. 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner! 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
It seems that we know sooner recover from our frantic scramble to avoid falling off the tightrope into sin to our left than we find ourselves leaning a little too far too the right and judging others. How do we keep our balance?
The answer is in the verse above: “let your eyes look directly forward”.
What we see when we keep our eyes directly forward in the Christian walk is nothing less than Christ Himself.
Hebrews 12: 1b-2 says this:
and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
With our eyes fixed on Jesus, sin holds little attraction, and we are too busy seeing our own shortcomings to notice those of others. His loving gaze sustains us across the tightrope and ultimately into His arms. It’s a beautiful picture in my head that I fall so far short of making a reality in my life, but there it is.
At least in life there are no bear-trap monsters trying to eat you. Or at least, I’m not going to let my analogy go there. Not in this post anyway…
Happy Monday! Today, I’m considering how I love my life and find joy in mothering by knowing my worth.
A couple weeks ago on Thursday we were all set to have a lovely day. The sun was shining; we had a day out planned. It was just a matter of getting a little bit of school done and passing the time until the fun would begin.
Then I checked my Facebook (serves me right for signing in before naptime). It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but it was. Some guy I hardly knew in high school had left me a truly horrible comment, probably quite inadvertently, that cut right to the heart of everything that I am and believe as a wife and mother. I sat here blinking at my screen hoping that I was misreading it, or misunderstanding it, but no. I deleted the comment and sent him a private message asking him why he wrote what he wrote. Moments later, he wrote back and said it was a joke and that I shouldn’t take myself so seriously.
Big deal, right? Some guy I haven’t spoken to in fifteen years thinks my life is a joke. Why on earth should that bother me? Well, the short answer is: it shouldn’t!
But the world is full of messages to us stay-at-home moms. Some are subtle, some are not so subtle, but they are always there, whispering or shouting. They say things like, “Why would you want to waste your degree to be home with kids?” “Will you go back to work and do something useful with your life once they’re in school?” “Shouldn’t you be contributing something to the world rather than draining its resources by having all these babies?!”
All of that can start to persuade us, little by little, that we really aren’t worth very much, that what we’re doing is really not all that important in the long run. After all, what does our typical day look like? Cleaning up spills, changing diapers, making PB & J, settling arguments… how can all of that have any lasting value? It is never-ending work that just seems to add up to nothing.
BUT.
As a mother, you hold more influence in your children’s lives than probably any other person they will ever know. You are with them each day from their waking moments until their heavy little eyes can’t stay open another minute, teaching them what life is about, showing them how it ought best to be lived. You, with God’s help, have the power to help mold and shape them into the people they will one day be. People who can contribute to the world, for good or for evil, by hard work, invention, teaching, loving, communicating or even by someday raising children of their own.
Moms, you have a big job. Maybe the most important one there is. And on days when the world makes you feel like a barefoot-and-pregnant cliche, remember that this is what the God who created the universe has this to say about a wife of noble character (from Proverbs 31, click the link to read the whole thing, you won’t regret it):
10 b She is worth far more than rubies. 11 Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. 12 She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.
28 Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: 29 “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.” 30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. 31 Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.
While in our daily lives, we can’t take ourselves too seriously for, say, singing all-four verses of Little Bunny Foo Foo (with full blown silly voices) or for wearing a homemade necklace lovingly made out of pasta, we must also remember that when it comes to our purpose and calling as mothers, we couldn’t possibly take our task too seriously.
Happy eighth birthday to our oft-neglected, but always loved, firstborn “child” Gulliver! (Did you even know I had a dog? And isn’t it sad that Trevor and I just had to have a 10-minute discussion to decide that he is turning eight today and not seven?)
This is our sweet boy (Trevor’s only teammate in our overwhelmingly pink household) when we got him at 8 weeks old in November 2001, and today. 
This sweet guy was our practice baby, and used to be the very center of our universe. He has since been bumped a few notches down the priority ladder, but he has taken it all in his stride, and is wonderfully patient with the girls. He is a wire fox terrier from a long line of champion show dogs, and it is fun to remember that his official “show name” is Corriecote Serten Flame. Fancy! His unofficial name, Gulliver, suits him perfectly, since he traveled with us when we immigrated from Scotland. He’s been on many an adventure with us, and although he spends a lot of his time nowadays looking for a quiet nook to hide away from it all, he will always be our sweet puppy.
As a side note, Gulliver recently acquired a new little friend from the Corn Festival we go to every year. Introducing, Jonah, Jonesy for short. As a cautionary word to Gulliver, I might add, in the immortal words of the mom from Stuart Little, “We do not eat family members!” 
I’ll leave you with a birthday wish from Gulliver’s youngest (talking) admirer. Happy Birthday, Gulliver!
Whew! I’m pretty sure we did about three days worth of kindergarten today! Last week we lost a day to Labor Day, and tomorrow we’re going to the zoo with friends, which made today a catch-up-and-get-ahead day around here.
Today we…
…made M-sheets,
… made a rainbow,
… and made Egyptian jewelry…
… and then walked like them!
Romilly thinks she’s in kindergarten, too, as I thought she might:
(She’s mastered most of the important letters!)
Not to mention Bible, math, nursery rhymes, reading aloud, learning to write our address, studying Egyptian culture and reading about weather. It was a busy day!
In the middle of all that somewhere, we went out to the post office and drug store. Our sweet neighbor (who knows we homeschool) asked me, “Aren’t you doing school today?”
If only she knew!
For more Wordless Wednesday, click here.
Welcome to another installment of my new(ish) feature, MoJo Mondays. Today, I’m considering how I love my life and find joy in motherhood by…
Keeping a smile on my face (and in my heart) even when things get sticky.
I’m just beginning to appreciate how much truth there is in the old adage “When Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” Trevor says he’s known for a long time that this is the case.
No pressure, moms, but your mood sets the mood of the family. Babies may be crying, potty catastrophes may abound, milk may be spilt everywhere, but if you are still cheerful, somehow everyone knows it’s all going to be okay and the little storms just blow over. But, boy, is it hard to stay cheerful!
I think I first discovered this phenomenon in a certain department store, let’s say it was Wal-Mart*. Shopping trips have been such a training ground for me as a young mother. I used to think they were a training ground for my kids, and to be sure, there is plenty of opportunity to teach little ones to sit nicely in the cart or hold onto the side. But no, it was me who really needed the training.
I can remember going shopping back when I only had two kids (after all, it wasn’t all that long ago!). I would brace myself for the worst and just hope to get out of the store before I started crying if things got ugly. It always started out okay, but then Romilly would need a diaper change. Fifteen minutes later we’d be back to our shopping, but Pippa would have to go potty. Okay, back to the bathroom we’d go, even though she’d just tried ten minutes ago. Suddenly, we’re right on top of lunch time and naptime and I still have three more items to find. The kids are looking to me to show them everything will be okay, and on my face they see… something between annoyance and utter panic. That’s when things go very quickly downhill. Now they’re both crying, which means I can’t hear myself think to remember what three items I still need to find, we go back to the same department for the fourth time hoping this time I will remember and find the thing I need, and why is it suddenly 107 degrees in here!?
The same scenario with four kids *usually* doesn’t go that way anymore, even though the potential for complete mayhem is even greater. What’s changed? Partly, it’s just that I know now that the world will not spin off its axis if we don’t eat lunch at exactly 12 and take a nap by exactly 1:30. Partly, it’s that I’m a *teensy* bit better at scheduling my day so that we’re not still in Wal-mart at six minutes to 12 looking for three missing items.
BUT… the biggest key to staying afloat in these situations that my brief five years as a mom have taught me is this: if I can stay cheerful, *everything* is better. The kids recover faster from upsets if I correct them from a cheerful heart, I get done what I need to faster if I am calm and peaceful rather than rushing and frazzled, even the baby seems to sense the mood and smile contently up at me from her infant seat.
And this shouldn’t come as any surprise, after all, Proverbs 15:30 tells us:
A cheerful look brings joy to the heart
I can bring joy to their hearts, by keeping a cheerful look on my face. It’s almost too good to be true!
But how can I do that???
Well, in part, it’s mind over matter. My mind knows that “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13) but I’ll admit that sometimes the knowledge alone that God has provided a way for me to survive a situation without sinning isn’t enough.
In those moments, I cry out to God, frustrated and overwhelmed. I say, “Lord, my attitude is a mess here. Please change my heart,” and He is, without fail, faithful to do it.
Of course, there are also still plenty of times when it doesn’t go that way. There is always a voice in my head saying, “But everyone deserves to have an off day once in a while…” Sometimes I believe it. Sometimes I stew in all the little frustrations and think how hard my life is. Sometimes I indulge a secret hope that my family will rally around me and say, “Mom, you’ve had a rough day. We’re sorry for being a handful. Put your feet up and relax. Let us get you a cup of tea.” And maybe someday that will happen, but it hasn’t so far.
For now, my reality is this: it isn’t the whiny child or the untimely potty accident or the traffic jam that ruins the day. It is my own sinful, angry, ungrateful heart left unchecked that spreads like a virus through my family if I let it. And maybe that *is* what I deserve, but by God’s grace and with His help, it doesn’t ever *have* to be that way.
* It was actually Target, but doesn’t the Wal-mart smiley work so much better with my title than a big red bull’s-eye?
I have had the privilege of having this little girl in my life for five years today. What a blessing!
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Happy Birthday, lovely girl!
Thanks, Deb!
Thanks, KT and Shanna!
