Family Worship

Do you or did you worship as a family at home? We don't. I, for
one, would like to start doing something as a family. I think with the
ages of our kids though, eight, four and one and a half, it might be kinda hard
finding something that works as a group.

I was just reading the book Shepherding a Child's Heart by Ted
Tripp. Okay, okay...I've been "reading" it for like half a year now, but
it IS a good book every single time I pick it up. I just get distracted
easily. *wink* So, in this book he's talking about Family Worship and here
are his thoughts on it. I thought them interesting and wanted to share
with all my peeps who have younger kids.

The practice of family worship is a means, not an end. It is a means
to the end of knowing God. The name of the game is not daily family
worship per se; it is knowing God. The end is knowing God. A means to employ in
reaching that end is family worship.

You need family worship that connects with your children and
their lives. You must be creative and flexible in assuring that your
family worship serves the shepherding and nurturing tasks
we have outlines above.

Reading the Proverbs daily is of great benefit to children (and
adults). Our daily practice was to read one-third of a chapter of
Proverbs before school each day. This was a rich source of wisdom and
encouragement for our children. We have seen them learn and then later
internalize the principles in this practical section of the Word of
God. The Proverbs serve as an owner's manual for life. Proverbs
confronts a child with every aspect of true spirituality.

When our children were little, we would read Old Testament passages and act
them out. I have been Goliath (with help of a chair). We have hidden
in caves (under the table) with David as he ran from Saul. Reading some of
the Psalms pf persecution in that setting made them come alive for our
children. One day, we packed our things and set out on foot, talking about
Abraham who left Ur not knowing where he would go, only knowing God would go
with him. We tried to imagine walking away from our home knowing we would never come back again. We tried to imagine not knowing where we would
go.

Why do all this? For this simple reason: to make the Bible truth live
for our children. Always remember that the goal of family worship is
knowing God. When you lose sight of that goal, family worship becomes an
empty ritual. You need only read Isaiah 1 to see how God feels about empty
ritual.

What a good idea, right? I can just imagine Scott with a towel wrappedaround his head secured with a rope of some kind pretending to be from the Old Testament. Hee hee hee. I think we're gonna give it a try and it's gonna take me getting out of my comfort zone and being 100% okay with being silly and childlike. I think that's a great thing about being a parent. You get to act like a kid and live life through their eyes whenever you want to take that golden opportunity. Pretty awesome!

I Want God To Be My Rockstar

So, I've realized a few things this past week. A few things that the Holy Spirit is working on me with and are a tidbit painful. To tell you the truth, these aren't new things that I've learned; I've had to come to realize them before, but in a different way.

Most of you know that I come from a split family situation. My mom and dad were never married to each other, just two souls coming together to bring forth new life. Yay me! My dad moved out to Wyoming and started his life there with my step-mother and they had my little brother. Here I am 31 years old and I STILL struggle with the fact that I don't have my dad around. A majority of my life I've held my dad at this rockstar status, kind of untouchable, always wanting to be near him but couldn't. I often have dreams of him showing up at my door or just walking up into whatever I was doing in the dream. It always takes me by surprise and I get distinct feeling of thrill and excitement in the dream.

In late Fall/early Winter I was going through one of those "gawd, I just want my dad" spells and at the same time he was going through some rough stuff where he was. So not only was he physically unable to reach me, I think he really didn't have it emotionally to give to me over e-mail or phone. Frankly, I was spiritually dry, dry, dry at that time too and was unable to see through my own personal feelings. I did not take it to the Lord AT ALL, but rather sat and sulked and brought up every reason why I should just give up the whole relationship. Oh, I had all kinds of self-righteousness going down. Looking back on it...it's embarrassing and I hate that.

Now this isn't to say that my feelings aren't valid, I just acted out of emotions instead of rationally. Look, I miss the crap out of my dad and it will probably take a long while to work through all my "daddy issues", but I can see now that I need to just let it all go into God's hands because frankly, I'm messing it all up. I know that my dad is a regular person just like any of the rest of us. I am trying to get him out of this elevated status that my child's mind has put him in and really know that he's fighting his own battles, can't change history and probably longs to be with me just as much. I know now that I have been trying to shove the two of us into this pretty, perfect box and every time we didn't fit (which has been all my life) I'd throw a hissy fit and whine (either outloud or have an internal pity party.) "It's not fair that he's alllll the way out there and I'm here! I just want a dad to hold me! Why don't I have a dad around to call when things go wrong or I need advice? Boo-hoo-hoo"

The truth is...I do. I have a heavenly Father who is more than enough for me and can be relied on no matter what. I've had my focus on what I think I'm missing out on, instead of taking it for what it is and letting God fill in the gaps. I had to learn that with my relationship with my husband too. I was consistently flinging jealous attitude his way. If he was gone too long or spending too much time out of the house (tennis, work, etc) I'd throw a cold-shoulder his way for a day or so. I finally got some quiet words inserted directly from above that clearly said "he'll never be enough for you. You'll only find your everything in Me. I can give you everything you need and more." It didn't happen overnight, but I did let go of those jealous feelings and came to fully trust my husband. He had earned it afterall, but my history with men had told me that they eventually leave or do something hurtful to me, so be sure to keep a guard up. The Lord took that wall down for me, filled in those gaps and glory be to Him b/c my marriage is stronger than ever right now.

So what I'm getting from all directions right now (Scriptures, talking with wiser older women and that quiet voice inside) is that I need to look to God as my Rockstar and let my Dad be a dad. Our relationship may never fit into a pretty box. We may never live any closer than 1400 miles. I may have to be content with a purely phone relationship and any possible visits we may get in over the years. But most importantly, I need to lay all these issues I have DOWN, back the heck away and let God work it to fit whatever shape he wants it to be.

In the meantime I will have to wait and see if my stubbornness has closed the door for good.

What's Going On

Scott has been working and healing all Winter. He sprained his ankle on the tennis court in November and hasn't seen any good tennis action since. He's been in physical therapy three days a week and recently got the okay to mildly jog and has gone down to PT two days a week. Overall I think it's healing well albeit very slow. He's also healing from some wild stomach virus/our bad eating habits coming to head. Honest to goodness, we still eat pizza (frozen usually) once a week and we've been eating out a bit more lately due to birthdays, convenience and/or laziness. Anyway, for the past four or so days he'd been complaining that his stomach was queasy and he couldn't eat. We chalked it up to too much junk food, but then Sunday night/Monday morning he woke me up making this godforsaken sound clear from the downstairs bathroom. Oh, and let's not forget the foulness he had to burp for 24 hours. My gawd, it was like a tiny corpse was rotting in his stomach!

Now, let's pause and really get the effect here. My husband hasn't puked since he was in high school and was very proud of this fact. Whenever he'd get a bellyache he'd declare it, but then quickly add that he would not puke since he'd not puked since high school. So about 2am on Monday morning I'm in the inky black abyss of lovely sleep and suddenly I jerk awake to this noise that sounded like a goose being acutely choked. And I'm telling you...it.was.loud. God love Scott. He was downstairs trying to just get himself to puke but apparently his body has been SO out of practice he couldn't even gag himself into vomiting. Did you hear that he had not puked since high school? *tongue in cheek*

So I jump out of bed and run downstairs to make sure that, in fact, a goose was not being choked inside my house, to find my poor husband vomiting his toenails up into the bathroom trashcan. I felt so horrible for him and that I couldn't do anything to help. And you know the last thing you want when you are like that is to have company. I did try to help and keep him company but for the sake of his dignity I went back to bed and I think he made it back upstairs about 5am. The morning light brought a mildly better day for him healthwise but I still don't think he's 100% yet. He lost five friggin pounds just over night.

As far as I go, I think I'm hanging right in there. This Winter is starting to take it's toll on me. I'm so over being stuffed inside the house, not being able to take a nice long walk. I'm ready to play out front and sit on the back deck. Eh, but what's the use complaining? Everyone else feels the same way and we got another two months at least. I'll just be dreaming of warmer, poolside days of Summer!

Spiritually I feel like I'm waking up again. I joined a women's Small Group at church and these ladies are really, really neat. They are all older than me, except for my friend Karynda, who is younger than me. These ladies are all more consistent and wise in their own ways and experiences, so they are just what I need in my life right now.

Scott and I are doing well in the ol' marriage department. We've never really had too much issue between us anyway, but since he's been home more (due to not being able to play tennis) I feel like we're a tighter family. I'm still thinking about what we possibly could do for our ten year anniversary this Summer. A long beach vacation looks to be out of reach for us, but something more local might be cool too.

Life seems to have come to a place where we're good. We are surviving the economic downturn - thanks be to God. My kids are all healthy (aside from the yucky viral bugs that keep creeping in on them) and happy. In fact, this post has gone on waaaay too long. So I'll update on the kids tomorrow!

May You Be As Blessed By This As I Was

I Know We're Fireproof But Sometimes My Girl Tude Gets The Better of Me

Okay, so I've read a couple books in the span of my almost ten year marriage and I get it...men and women are different. Yea, yea..he's a clam, I'm a crow bar. He's from Mars and I'm from Venus. The love tank is empty and in order to fill it you gotta find his love language. Aye-Aye-Aye! I get it...we're different.

I also get that men can be pretty dang dense in the lovey-dovey department, especially after we get married. Why bother buying the cow flowers after you've already married it, right? Uh, hello guys? You buy the damn flowers because you want your sex tank filled and because you want your underwear lovingly folded in your drawer, as opposed to crumpled and half wet in the dryer for two days. But I get it already, a guy usually needs it spelled out for him. "Honey, I'm feeling a little low in the love tank department and my love language is gifts, so you need to get your toosh up off the computer and get me something pretty or suffer the consequences." Not too hard. I don't mind being blunt with my man.

So, here it is February 2009 and I can count on one hand the number of times in the past year that my husband (who cannot claim ignorance) has bought me something without being solicited, brow beaten or let off the hook (i.e. I buy my own gift.) And I'm a simple gal, I don't NEED expensive presents...make me a card, send me a free e-card, fold me up one of those origami cranes...heck, I'd take a nice cup of coffee from somewhere that rhymes with Arbucks on your way home.

Every stinkin' month I go through about a three day spell where I feel all mushy and wish the guy I loved would make me feel special, and I inevitably tell him and he inevitably takes note of it and tucks it neatly in the "deal with it later" pile in his brain.

So, I sit on this post for a day or so...just enough time to let the Holy Spirit do a little work in me. If had just hit send on this, most likely I'd have just made my hubby feel all crappy and like why bother giving me any dang thing. We sat down last night and watched "Fireproof" together. At the beginning we were both thinking "okay, here we go with the cheesy acting *rolling our eyes*" but we sat and gave it a fair chance. And surprisingly this was a really good movie. Honestly, it was a really good interpretation of how men and women argue and think, and I really like the idea of a 40 day challenge. At the end of the movie we just sat there with each other, hugging and I swear a tear or two fell, but we were both in complete agreement that the marriage covenant we have is FULLY intact and healthy. We also both agreed that it's high time that we both grow up spiritually. We've gotta do some soul housekeeping and just get over ourselves thinking that we can do it later. Later has come and it's time to be humbly obedient to God's call for us to be close to him...no matter what time it takes, no matter how sensitive it makes us, no matter what it costs. It's time.

And I really believe that as we get closer to Him, He'll bring us closer to each other. How can we go wrong with that equation? We're already pretty darned close, so closer is only gonna be better! If you haven't seen "Fireproof," go rent it. It's worth the time.