Practice makes perfect

The other day my daughter was practicing riding her bike.  She was working on her turns and making figure eights without turning too much and falling over.  I told her “Practice makes perfect!”, and she told me “No it doesn’t, Mommy! No one is perfect except God.”
How right she is!

If only practice made perfect, then maybe I could have hopes of being a perfect mother one day, but alas, it doesn’t….and I can’t.  Lately, I find myself making mistake after mistake after mistake.  I lose my temper, or get upset about something I shouldn’t, and I end up having to go once again and apologize to my 5 year old for getting too mad, or yelling, or not listening well enough.  It’s humbling.  Even more humbling when she practically interrupts me to quickly say, “it’s ok Mommy, I forgive you!”. 

I am finding that the more that I acknowledge that God is growing me in an area, the more I struggle with it.  Also, I and realizing that I tend to be harder on Emily in the areas that I myself need the most work in. 

For just one example - she gets upset because she’s not getting her way about something and gets grumpy with me.  DUH, right? She’s a kid!  But when she does this, I get upset with her because she’s upset, instead of just letting her be upset.  I accuse her of being selfish and getting upset just because she doesn’t get her way.  Wait – aren’t *I* upset because I’m not getting MY way? I’m not getting a nice, perfectly obedient child every minute of the day, so I get upset because it’s inconvenient for me to stop and discipline her, or teach her at this very moment.  Now who is being selfish?   I’m expecting her to have adult level behavior for issues that took me years as an adult to learn….and that I’m still learning.  Why are my expectations so high (too high) of her sometimes?

I’ve heard a saying about how when you point a finger at someone, there are 3 more fingers pointing right back at yourself (try it, you’ll see). 

I find that SO often when I am saying something to Emily out of frustration or anger, it’s like God was saying them to ME instead.  “You need to get in control.”,   “You need to listen to me”, “You aren’t paying attention to what I’m saying.”,  “Are you thinking of yourself or others?”, “Are you being a blessing to others right now?”.    OUCH.

So, I’ll keep practicing.  Every day for the rest of my life.  I’ll never be perfect, but I do hope to become more and more Christ-like.  In the meantime, I surrender all to Him!

“He who pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity and honor.” ~ Proverbs 21:21

Happy Thanksgiving!

This morning, I got up a little early, but not to dress, stuff, or cook a turkey!  Instead, I washed my face, made a cup of hot tea and sat down to enjoy my quiet time with the Lord, reading His word.  What a blessing that time is!

Today, our family is going out to eat for Thanksgiving! GASP! Can you imagine? We’ve talked about doing it for years, but never could break ourselves away from the preparing & cooking that started days before Thanksgiving.  The getting up early, rushing around, and spending hours preparing a meal that took minutes to eat.  Even then, getting my mom to actually sit at the meal is a feat in itself as she plays the ever busy hostess.  So this year, we are heading off to Maggiano’s Restaurant to enjoy their Thanksgiving feast for lunch!  Then we will all come back to our place to play games and spend time relaxing together.

I led a Bible study discussion about Mary & Martha (Luke 10:38-42) last week, so I am even more excited to be able to slow down, relax and focus on what is important today.  Relationships.   We are blessed to enjoy many a home-cooked meal in our house, and we actually eat turkey on a regular basis, so the special thing for us today is not the preparing of the food, but the time sitting and enjoying family.

That’s not to say that the time preparing and cooking is not special.  We love to do that too! To gather in the kitchen, prepare meals together, exchange recipes and laugh when we leave something in the oven too long, or not long enough.  It’s just that today, we are choosing something different.

I hope that you all have a blessed Thanksgiving, no matter how you choose to spend it.  Count your many blessings!  If you are sitting in a warm house with a roof over your head, and you plan to eat today (maybe even more than once!), then you indeed are rich!  Stop and thank He who provides it all.

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus! (1 Thess 5:18)

Are you comfortable?

I am, all too often.  But God doesn’t call us to be comfortable.  He calls us to step out of our comfort zone and follow HIM.   No matter what. 

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (Matthew 16:24)

It’s scary sometimes to think “Where will I go?”,  “What will I eat?”,  “What kind of house would I live in?”,  “What would I have to give up or do without?”, “What will THEY think?”.

God’s word tells us not to be anxious about these things.  To let HIM be our PROVIDER!  One of my favorite group of verses is Matthew 6:25-37 (click to read) where He reminds us that we do not need to worry. 

What is God calling you to do? Something that seems impossible? Something that seems HUGE to you and way out of your comfort zone? Something that makes you think “No way! That’s crazy!”  No matter how big it seems to you, it is small in the hands of God.  He’s got it covered!

I wonder how Noah felt when he was told to build a huge ark…especially considering it had never rained before.   

What about Gideon when his army got cut down from 32,000 to 300?

Or Joshua, who was told to use marching, trumpets, and yelling to knock down the Jericho walls?

Think about little David, a young teenager, who was called by God to kill a GIANT with just a stone and a slingshot?

God calls us to do uncomfortable things! Things that require us to depend totally on HIM for our strength, courage, provisions.  

WHY?

Because HE did big things for us!! His only Son came to earth, suffered and died for our sins!  He was born in a stable and placed in an animal’s feeding trough for his bed.  He never lived in a palace, or even had his own home.  He didn’t travel around in the fanciest of chariots.  He was uncomfortable…for US!

You can do it for Him! 

Copywork from the Bible

The other night, Bug got in a little trouble.  She made a couple bad choices and was being disrespectful and disobedient.  I know, shocking from my sweet girl, but it happened.  :-)

Praise God! He was right there helping R and I, as we told Bug we would be back in 3 minutes after we’d had a chance to step away and talk as parents.   We calmly left her screaming to herself while we discussed what to do.  Boy, was she mad! These 2 offenses are directly addressed in scripture, so we focused on that. 

We explained to Bug (not for the first time) that these are not just our rules, but they are God’s rules.  We are just the people that God put in her life to teach her these rules so that she can grow up to obey Him!

Then, for the first time, we implemented “writing sentences”!  Remember those from when you were a kid?  I know I had to write “I will remember to bring home my spelling workbook” a few times, and probably a few other things!

Since she’s only 5 and still fairly new to writing, we only made her write 2 sentences, but they were great ones!

First, Ephesians 6:1, and then Leviticus 19:3.

Thank you, Lord, for being right there with us during all of that!  We were calm, we brought the whole lesson back to scripture, reinforced it in her mind by having her write it, and most of all – disciplined out of love, not punishment!  She even had fun doing it!  That’s when we have to remind ourselves as parents that discipline is about LEARNING, not about feeling miserable!

To be like a child

The Bible tells us that unless we become like a child, we will not enter the kingdom of Heaven.

"I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ~ Matt 18:3

I learn so much from my little girl each day!  God uses her to teach me about His character, and the qualities He wants in each of us.  I find that I do much better when I strive to be more like her, than when I focus on trying to make her more like me.

Yesterday, I talked to Bug about her play kitchen she’s had since she was 2.  She played with it for a couple years and thoroughly enjoyed it!  However, now it just sits in our kitchen taking up space and she never plays with it anymore.  Her interests have taken her elsewhere, and she prefers to help Mommy cook in the real kitchen than to pretend to cook in a pretend kitchen.
So, I gave her some choices. 
1) She could move it outside and see if she played with it outside differently. 
2) She could sell it and use the money to buy something else. 
3) She could give it away.
She chose option #4 – “I want to sell it and give all the money to God because helping other people is more important than toys.”
WOW.
Why is it that my first (sinful) reaction in my mind is “Are you sure?? You don’t want the money for something else? You could tithe on it, but then buy something else, you know. “  Thankfully my brain-to-mouth filter was turned on, and I didn’t say any of that out loud.    Instead, I told her how proud I was of her choice and of her generosity.

Right now, I’m spending my quiet time in Psalm 119.  This morning, I picked up where I left off yesterday and read verses 36-37,

“Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain.  Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.”

We don’t need to raise our kids to be grownups who seek to “have it all”.  We need to cherish our children, and look to them as examples of what God wants us to be like.

Trust in the Lord

We teach Bug a new memory verse each week.  It is awesome to see her hiding His Word in her heart, and learning more about Him in the process.  We introduce a new verse on Sunday night, and then say it each night before bed.  She usually has it memorized after a couple times, but we continue with one verse for an entire week to really meditate on it, and what it means.
A couple weeks ago, our verse was Proverbs 3:5-6.  “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight”.  
This week our verse is Proverbs 18:10. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower.  The righteous run to it and are safe”.   We explained that this meant she should call on His name anytime and He will be there for her.  If she’s worried, scared, needs help, etc. That calling on His name is like running into a tower for protection.

As a mom, I can think of no better reward here on earth than to hear my child calling on the name of the Lord.   This weekend, she was climbing on a play structure in our yard, and I heard her say “Dear God, please help me to balance”.    Then, just yesterday, she was climbing our big oak tree for the first time, and she said “Dear God, please help me to not fall and to be safe”.


 


I love that she knows she can call on Him anytime, anywhere, and that He is always listening to her, because she knows Him.

“Those who know your name will trust in you, for you Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.” ~ Psalm 9:10

“If the Lord delights in a man’s way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him in His right hand.” ~ Psalm 37:23-24

The supremacy of Christ

I really want to put an "intro" to this, but I just can't think of something worthy of the words that God spoke through Voddie Baucham in this video.
Listen with open ears. Watch with an open heart. Grab the tissues. Prepare to be humbled. God is SOVEREIGN.

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When you are done with that, I want to introduce you to Donna Stuart.  She’s a singer/songwriter I met at a women's retreat back in February. This one particular song prompted me to buy her entire CD (I never buy a CD for one song!), and this song pierced my heart.  I can’t legally post her song here, so I'm going to ask that you follow this link to her myspace webpage, and listen to her song, Help Me Believe. You have to hear this song!

Here are the lyrics so you can follow along. But really, don't just read them. You have to HEAR her sing it!

All that I've done and all that's been done to me
Drove nails through Your hands hard and fast to the tree
and the lies that I live and the shame in my story
You covered with blood for Your name and Your glory, Lord

CHORUS:
Jesus help me believe
Jesus help me receive
This girl You've created You have redeemed
Lord help me believe this Lord help me receive
This daughter You rescued You have washed her clean

So I raise outstretched arms with my knees to the earth
and I bow low my heart for in You is my worth
and I SHOUT from this mountain great joy in my soul
HALLELUJAH KING JESUS in You I am whole

CHORUS
And when I am tempted to believe something less
I run to Your Word... embracing forgiveness
Thank You for loving and thank You for healing me
CHORUS