Getting to Know God's Character

I've started a new focus on reading through the Bible with the purpose of slowing down to meditate on the details.  I have been astounded by how the Lord has opened my eyes to new revelations of who he is.  As I read through Ephesians chapter 5 this morning the descriptive words jumped out at me.  As I listed them in my journal I was tempted to view them as a list of words I need to apply and grow in.  But, then I was overcome with a thought that was so superior to self-improvement, the idea that these are words that describe God's character first.  As I marveled at how God is perfectly worthy, humble, gentle, patient, righteous, tender-hearted and forgiving my focus changed.  I don't want to improve I want to be renewed!  If I change my gaze from the improvement of self to looking at the greatness of my Lord and his character will there be room for self-improvement?
I grieve for the lost time I've spent trying to change what the Lord created, trying to conform to a standard that was not His.  How often I have exchanged the freedom of my God and King that was bought for me with the blood of Jesus for rules, self-improvement, earthly standards.  I pray that no longer would this pharisee like bond hold me.  It is true just as cynicism is easier than hope, rules are easier to follow than to search and seek truth in all it's tremendous greatness.  At some point my mind became dull to the hunt for truth's treasure and wanted to settle for a to do list.
If my gaze is to change I am certain all the details of servant-hood will fall into place.  I won't need to fret about each rule being followed.  They will work themselves out when the focus is on the right prize.  I can be certain that this is the uncomfortable walk, that the boundaries are outside of my comfort zone and the truth and beauty are stretching and overwhelming.  Yet what excitement and joy lie in the challenge of seeing my God in increasing wonder and awe. 

Thoughts on Sobriety

The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;  4That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, 5To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the work of God be not blasphemed.

Several years ago I read a book by Debi Pearl, Created to be His Helpmeet.  I had been praying for almost a year that God would show me clearly what he desired in a christian marriage and specifically how a christian wife should obey Him and act towards her husband.  God was so good to answer that prayer in the form of a wonderful women in my life that was a beautiful example of what a christian wife and mother look like.  He also put this book in my hands.  As I read through it my eyes were opened to just how important it was for me to obey this verse from Titus.

As I studied and meditated on this verse I was really provoked by the word sober.  I had a very worldly view of the word sober, applying it mostly to the idea of not drinking alcohol or being under the influence of alcohol.  As I looked at the definition of the word and though more on it I felt challenged to apply more of this trait in my life.

Sobermindedness:  Calmness; freedom from inordinate passions; habitual sobriety

Sobriety:  Seriousness; gravity without sadness or melancholy

Webster 1828  Dictionary

Once I had a clear idea of what sobriety was, I started asking God to give me a sober heart, especially in parenting.  It quickly became evident to me that there is a severe lack of sobriety in our culture today, specifically in marriage and parenting.  It didn't take me long to make the commitment to the Lord and myself that I would parent with a sober mind.  It is so easy to parent out of reaction and feeling, not considering seriously all situations.  After watching others blunder their way through parenting without much regard for sobriety I saw that I would need to work hard and focus to do things differently.  At the time I thought it would be a habit change that would become customary to me.  Now I realize that it is a challenge that I will have to continue to purpose.  Without a will and desire to consider this it becomes too easy to be swayed by a have it all, forget the consequences attitude in our culture.

One of the first sober-minded decisions the Lord lead me to make was that I would take care of my children and be their main influence.  One way I have chosen to accomplish this is that I do most everything I can with my children in tow.  If I cannot do my errands or appointments with the children I wait until after Pete is available to care for them.  We have babysitters on occasion and much help from our parents, but I try not to rely on the care of others if at all possible.  God has called me to be the caretaker of my children and I take this command seriously.  As nice as it is to get a break or have some "me time" I realize that if it means I am unloading my responsibility onto someone else their is a much bigger problem.  For me it means I have not managed my house to the extent that it is a place of peace and rest for not just my husband and children but for me as well.  There are seasons where there is less of this, still I must create the peace by managing my home and family well.

Another area that I continually find myself challenged to remain sober in is entertainment and language choices.  The darn that comes out of jr's mouth today becomes the damn it out of their mouth later.  I do not allow my children to speak slang or swearing even if it is what our culture would view as innocent.  What goes in the ears generally comes out the mouth so just this language decision has narrowed our entertainment options.  We do not want to emulate the slick tongued, provocotive adolescents in pop culture so we usually skip watching them and listening to them.  Amazingly this has been one of the easier decisions to enforce.  There are so many great options in books, movies and music that aren't vulgar that we find we have plenty to keep us entertained.  The harder part is to encourage the children to not let their ears embrace what the world says when we are in it.

One last area that I will share with you about sobriety is the stance on the time our children spend away from home.  God has been very good to give us the confidence to make decisions about sleep-overs, camps and time with other adults for our children.  We very rarely entrust these precious, innocent little ones to other people's care simply because we want to take seriously the threats that are in this fallen and unfortunetely wicked world.   I went to numerous camps and sleep-overs as a child and I turned out ok, however that will never be a good enough reason for us to jeapordize our children's safety.   We do not lightly take these sorts of events into consideration.  There have been a few sleep-overs the girls have done, but rarely.  No one has gone to overnight camp as of yet.  Each time one of these events comes up we pray and really seek God's wisdom in sending our children out of our care and into someone elses.  It doesn't matter how many other families choose to send their kids, what matters is that we know that we are doing the right thing before the Lord.  

Our children are only children for a short while.  If we are not careful with the time we have with them we could really make the rest of their life difficult.  I am at times tempted to quiet being the strict mom.  Once in a while I feel like I am over protective, but I am not sure when I address these concerns from a sober view that these thoughts are anything other that the world's influence. 

Diet Update

We have gone several weeks now trying to avoid gluten and dairy and I am happy to report it is going well.  I had a short spurt of eating only soup because the weather turned cool and I discovered soup is an easy thing to make without gluten and dairy.  Here are some of the meals we've tried:

Sloppy Joe stuffed potato boats-  I baked some potatoes scooped out some of the potato to use for another meal and filled it with sloppy joe.  I put it back in the oven for a bit and then topped it with crushed up potato chips.  The children loved this, it's a definite keeper.

Our good ol' stand by fried rice which everyone likes

Spaghetti stuffed squash-we stuffed a spaghetti with marinara meat sauce and baked it.  The children loved this.  Pete and I had quinoa and chicken sausage stuffed acorn squash.  It was really good.

Salmon Salads

Roasted Vegetables with Chicken Sausage

Tacos-surprised to find no one misses the cheese or minds using corn tortillas

Soups-chicken wild rice, chicken pot pie soup, alphabet soup and cream of vegetable soup.  These were all really good, but I did have some requests from my family not to make them all in one week for our meals.

It has been really great to see that there are still fun culinary options for eating despite the need to do without many things.  I have been putting off this change for a long time in fear of being a burden to others with our special diet.  It does take extra time, money and effort but the health results for us have been so encouraging.  I am still working on getting over the hurdle of letting go of having what I want when I want it and the other hurdle of having to plan and inform others that I can't eat dairy, gluten, corn or tomatoes and a few other items.  I've always tried to live by and teach the children that we eat what we are served in gratitude.  I do believe that if others are willing to serve me by cooking for me I should have a grateful heart and never put forth demands.  These food intolerances I am finding are a huge blow to my values and I haven't worked through how to manage the situations we encounter eating with others.  Initially I thought it wasn't very often that this would come up but now I realize it's all the time!  We can't simply run through a drive through, there's too few options that or family can eat.  If we are invited to some one's house I haven't quiet figured out how to communicate our needs.  Perhaps the hardest is celebrations with others where I feel like I don't even want to go because I have to bring a separate meal for some of our family and then explain, explain, explain why we don't eat certain things.  Depending on the crowd and family the reaction is often that I am a paranoid freak.  Which perhaps I am, but would rather not admit to others!

So the physical part of our experiment is having some great results.  The emotional part is a different story.  I didn't realize there would be an emotional part to this and feel a little side swiped.  Thankfully I have been feeling a lot better which gives me a lot more margin to deal with these issues as they come up!

Worrying the Kids Away

I read this post by Nancy Wilson this morning and felt I must share it.

"We mothers are tempted in many ways, but one of those ways is to be worriers.
What do we worry about? Oh, we are very imaginative! If we don’t have any real situations on our hands, we can come up with all kinds of potential stuff to worry about.

Now, worry is bad for us. And it’s bad for our kids. It’s an uglifying sin (like all the rest of them). Worry is antithetical to biblical femininity. It is never pretty. It sucks the joy out of our lives, disturbs our peace, and disrupts a gentle and quiet spirit."  To read the rest go here.

Friendships and Our Children

I have been lacking clarity and discernment lately in the area of friendships and our children.  There are so many messages that I've allowed to populate my  mind.  Unfortunetely I have not been on my toes to the chaos these messages have caused until now.  I've always had several ideas running around my head about how to spend time in friendships, but never really have come to a hard and fast conviction of what friendships and social time in my children's lives should look like.  I suppose part of the reason why I haven't really evaluated what my convictions are is that my children are still pretty young and the subject didn't come up very often.  The past 6 months have changed that.  Now that my eldest is 9 I am finding that I need to figure out these convictions and quick!  The pressure to spend time with others, invitations and oppourtunities for friendships are astoundingly many.  The choices we make as parents will have a big impact on not only our children's friendships but their entire future.
I know that choosing the wrong company can lead to a plethora of issues.  That  was my childhood.  I always seemed to choose the wrong crowd and suffered the consequences of shallow, rebellious relationships my entire childhood.  It is really sad to look back and see that without any guidance the easy choice was always the wrong choice.  Knowing this, I have complete confidence that I, as a parent need to be heavily involved in where our children spend their time and energy in relationship.  The problem is that now I know I need to be involved what do I do?  Praise God that I do not parent alone and have a very wise husband.  I have much control over our daily schedules, but love that he ultimately looks at the schedule and can easily tell what is and is not wise.  I find the more I consult my husband and pray to God the more readily I can make righteous decisions in this area. 
The two biggest questions that seem to perplex me the most is who to allow the children to spend time with and how much time.  As christians we want to be a light to the world.  I want to train my girls to be able to to deal with difficult people and stand true to their convictions.  I want them to share the love of Christ readily and show his love by speaking the truth in love.  I find that this desire drives me to allow them to sometimes spend time with company that does not share the same convictions in their walk or a belief in God.  I was under the idea that somehow my children were ready to be a shining example of Christ's love to others and they would not be tempted give into the temptation to follow the ways of the world.  God ever to kindly rebuked me of this naiive attitude I've had.  This  morning as I was praying about a specific relationship in one of my children's lives I was reminded that we are not on earth to have pleasures and be popular.  Was I allowing my child to compromise her character to be popular or liked?  I was allowing her to pursue and spend much time in a relationship that was often causing her to sin.  I am so thankful for God's gentle wisdom in this matter. 
My dear friend Kim Doebler once told me that she often asks of relationships, "are we being more influential or being influenced."  In this relationship my child wants to be in I am so dissappointed to say that she is being more influenced and unfortunetely it is for the detriment to her.  I am not sure the other child has any intention to lead my little one into sin, but sin is what results from her time with this child.  So as unpopular as I will be for limiting the time she has in this relationship I am convicted it is not for my or her popularity that we spend our time, it is for the Lord. 
Thankfully we have many other relationships in our life that are uplifting and mutually encouraging in our walk with the Lord.  We are so incredibly blessed to have others that lead us towards righteousness that we don't have enough time in our schedule to nurture all of those relationships in our lives and the childrens closely.  We had a terrible afternoon of crashing this week after over committing and under discplining ourselves.  It was a blaring red flag to me that I had mismanaged our time and stressed my entire family out by having too much time with friends and in enjoyment.  We were no longer able to refresh and keep our home running and we all had a feeling of chaos.  This has led me to evaluate how much time we spend with our friends.  God has not spoken to me quite so clearly about this one.  I think there must be a balance that I try and strike with this that happens before we commit to things.  I know each family has a different tollerance for outside activities, ours happens to be very little.  I know this about us.  I know that we can only handle a few extras in our schedule before it has a bad effect.  Given that understanding I think the best course is to look at the realitites of our capacity and schedule a little more clearly in the future and ask my husband a little more often his input!
I feel a have a little better vision and conviction to move forward with but still have a long ways to go.  I don't want to raise children who are so guarded they don't know how to function outside of our home.  But I also don't want children who value friendship more than God.  It's a delicate balance, one that I am sure I'll continually be learning to seek God's will in. 

Day 2 of Our Dietary Expirement

This morning I got up motivated to try a new recipe and was rewarded!  It was fabulous and go two thumbs up from every family member.  An unanimous two thumbs up vote at our house happens rarely so I'm feeling pretty good about myself right about now!  I tried another recipe from Cooking for Isaiah, the chocolate banana waffles.  The waffles were really good with a nice crisp crust.  I found a gluten and dairy free chocolate sauce recipe on-line that I drizzled over the waffles and bananas.  We added some sausage and fruit salad.  That recipe will definitely stay.  We had left overs for lunch and look forward to a roast with potatoes, carrots and onions for dinner with a salad.  Day 2 was a huge success.  My child's skin is looking better too.  I'll just have to figure out a way to stretch our budget to keep up with all of these new recipes! 

A Dietary Expirement

Our family has been almost completely dairy free for almost a year.  Our little Gretta kept having skin rashes and digestive issues that prompted us to have her tested for food insensitivities.  The only thing that came up was pasteurized dairy so we decided to go dairy free.  On occasion we've enjoyed a little raw cheese but otherwise we don't use dairy.  Our goal has always been to gratefully accept whatever is offered when we are out.  However, Gretta complains of belly aches after dairy so we try and really avoid it. 
This fall as one of my children started experiencing allergy symptoms and a skin break out a friend suggested that it may be gluten so we are on day 4 of her not having any dairy or gluten and by golly her skin is clearing up!  So we are going to do an experiment in no dairy and no gluten in our diets for a few weeks and see how it effects our family.  I plan on reviewing here how it is going and what sort of recipes we are using.  Here is tonight's review. 

Dinner:  chicken rice tetrazzni with mushroom gravy and mustard crumbs from the cookbook Cooking for Isaiah, maple roasted acorn squash and salad.  Squash is a huge hit with our kids so that went over well.  The children did not really enjoy the tetrazzini, but Pete and I did.  We will not make it again as Pete wasn't thrilled about it and none of the children really liked it.

Dessert:  Chewy Chocolate Chunk Cookies from the Cooking for Isaiah cookbook.  I used Earth Balance margarine in place of the shortening and a mix of chocolate, white chocolate and butterscotch chips.  This was a hit!  I made them to bring to church so the kids could have a cookie with their friends.  I loved these.  In this cookbook there is a baking mix and pancake mix you pre-make.  It makes the prep for baking gluten free easy. 

So far so good.  I had one child pretty upset she couldn't have some french bread with garlic butter, but was happy to have the garlic butter on our sprouted bread so other than that hiccup it's been going well.  We'll see how tomorrow goes.....