Tag: parenting

Sentimental Stones

.Reading time 12 minutes.

I recently sold a bunk bed. When I see these words in print, they seem like small talk. They seem like the sort of thing you tell a friend while catching up at a coffee date. It is just furniture. However, every time I have tried to say them out loud, I can feel a dry lump in my throat. A lump that must be big because I know it is the force that is holding back a flood of tears. So, instead I don’t say it out loud. I just talk about my girls new beds. Don’t be confused, I am not overly sentimental. Most people in my generation grew up in houses filled with stuff and knick-knacks and try to be more minimal as adults. I have very few things from my childhood. No 80s toys, No baby blankies, No pictures. Everything I have almost makes it seem as if I didn’t exist before 2004. Some sort of witness protection plan.

I am coming to understand that the things that I am sentimental about are more like the stones at the Jordan river. The things that remind us of struggles and triumphs. The things that remind us of where the Lord has brought us through. The proof of what we believe and why we believe it.

I have this brown bowl in my kitchen. I think it probably came out in the 60s and most likely has lead paint. I keep it put away and ask my family to not use it as I don’t want it to get broke. It was my grandmother’s grapefruit bowl. Well, she would usually have a bowl of smacks cereal, then a grapefruit. She taught me about resilience and a quiet strength that is required to survive. She taught me to be grateful for even hard times because that is how we are refined. She tried to teach me that I didn’t have to have the last word… It would take decades for that to sink in. I am sentimental about that bowl.

I have a piece of the bomb that blew up my husband in 2006. It isn’t to remember the anxiety of standing in a guard tower for 6 hours watching the smoke in the distance and not knowing if he had been put in a body bag yet. It is to remind me of what I felt when I saw him again. 8 hours after the blast came over the radio, I was leaving for a security patrol out the gate when his convoy came through the gates. I first saw his big recovery truck mangled being towed by a recovery tank. You could see that the blast went right under the driver’s seat… his seat. I didn’t see him…and my chest felt so heavy I couldn’t breathe. Then I looked behind the truck and I saw him walking. His uniform was almost black and torn in a few places. His flak vest was hanging off him. He had his helmet in one hand and his rifle in the other. I didn’t run to him, and he didn’t run to me. We simply gave each other a nod that said everything that couldn’t be verbalized. The nod that gave us both the confidence to keep going. Then I drove out the gate down the road he just came from. I am sentimental about that scrap of metal.

Then I have these bunk beds… well had. We bought these beds in 2012 when we moved back to Oklahoma. We were staying with my dad while we were waiting to find a house here. My husband and I stayed on the bottom bunk and my son stayed on the top bunk. Then we bought a house and the bunk beds became my sons big boy beds in his own big boy room. This is the bed I tucked my son into for years. The years where I was lost, unhappy, and often drunk. This was his bed I woke him up in on his very first day of school. Then we ended up moving my son to another room and gave the bed to my youngest. My youngest who screamed and cried nonstop for a few years, so someone usually had to sleep in there with her. I would pray while holding her through her fits of rage until she passed out. I prayed that God would heal her little body. My in-laws slept in it when they would visit. They slept in it when they stayed here and helped me through a neck surgery, through a shoulder surgery, through cancer removal surgery, through a hysterectomy, through implant removal surgery. Army friends slept in it when they would stop in to reminisce the old days. There was also a time when marriage was especially hard. Times when my husband and I wouldn’t talk for days at a time. Times when I was just broken. During these times, I slept in this bed. I would cry myself to sleep and beg God to heal my husband, heal me, and heal our family. It was in this bed that I begged God to take my life if he wouldn’t heal my broken mind. The bed became a place of prayer for me.

Well, both of my girls will now be homeschooled, and I wanted to get them both beds with desks. So, the old bunk beds needed to go. When I listed the bed for sale, it took a few weeks to sell. I sold it to a nice family of 7. When they picked it up, I forgot the ladder and had to take them the ladder. While getting the ladder out of my SUV, I saw a place where my middle child had written, “I love you God”. It was on the underside of the bottom ladder step. (I knew it was her because she has written on most things in our home over the years.) Every memory of this bed flashed through my mind, and I almost lost it in the parking lot. Apparently, I am sentimental about that bed. After I put the ladder in the new owner’s car, I walked back to my car as I could feel tears well up in my eyes.

While I know that my family is far from perfect and we are continuing to be healed by God, I know we are also living answered prayers. Prayers that were spoken from that bed. I was suddenly emotional over a piece of furniture, but it was really that I was emotional over the reminder of what the LORD has done in my family. I was emotional over how far he has brought us. I was emotional over a God that has allowed us to live in a valley, so that when we are on a mountain, we will remember him. Then, I was reminded of Jacob’s rest and the ladder in his dream. Most of all I was reminded of what he said after his rest.

“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” (Genesis 28:16)

I have been on a long sabbatical since January 1st. After doing ministry for 7 years, I needed a long rest. Over the span of seven years I walked in discipling relationships with 18 women and 4 men, I led dozens of teens in student discipleship, I was a youth camp counselor for 4 years, I taught in kids ministry, I led worship on Sundays, I became a speaker at a family camp, and I organized and preached at 3 women’s conferences. On top of that I was also busy with non-ministry things. Years of coaching soccer teams. Being the president of a soccer club. Serving in random PTA functions. Advocating for my kids education. Running a small business. Being a wife, mom, friend, daughter. Doing all the things, ministry and other things, started to make me tired and I felt far from God. To say I needed rest, was an understatement. I have had a good rest over the last 7 months. I have been waiting for the Lord to bring me out of rest. I have been waiting for the sign to “get up”. Watching the bed leave has told me that my rest is coming to an end. Watching our ladder leave has reminded me of the presence of God in my life. I didn’t know what the Lord wanted to show me during the rest. Apparently, he wanted to remind me of the things he has done and that he has never been far from me. Being reminded of what Jacob said has shown me that when I do come out of rest, I just want to be where the Lord is. There are many things that I don’t plan to do anymore. Some are ministry things, some are not. However, whatever I find myself doing, I just want to be where the Lord is. Anything that reminds me of the Lord and his goodness and his faithfulness, I plan to be sentimental about that.

baskets clean color cotton

Taking the mess out of Hot mess

.Reading time 11 minutes.

This season of REST has been amazing. There were many times that I woke up and thought “ I have to write about that now before I forget!” However, I did not go write about it. I had sat with the Lord and came to the decision that if I was taking a season of rest, then I needed to take a break from the blog as well. This was hard for me because I do love writing. Taking a season of rest is not just a time to take a break from things you dislike or things that are draining you. It is a time to take a break from anything you can, so that you can spend more time with the Lord. I obviously can’t take a break from being a mom or wife… but I can take a break from pouring into other women, writing the blog, and any other ministry related things.

A big thing that the Lord had me sit in was organization. I have this joke that I say more often than I should; If the Lord made me in his image… he must be sarcastic. I say this as a complete joke. I have no clue if the Lord is sarcastic. Sometimes I wonder… but I don’t know. There are times when we can take scripture out of context. The verse that says, “ Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”, is often taken out of context. While it is true that he made man in his own image, that does not mean that the Lord made me sarcastic. I am sure that the fall of man, and years of childhood trauma have a big hand in my sarcastic abilities. I am going to drop a few scriptures at your feet and ask that you really sit with them.

  1. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.         Genesis 1:27
  2. This is how you are to make it, the length of the Ark 300 cubits, it’s breadth 50 cubits, and it’s height 30 cubits.             Genesis 6:15
  3. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements- surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?           Job 38:4-5
  4. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.            Romans 12:2
  5. For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.       1 Corinthians 14:33
  6. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Proverbs 31:27

I don’t talk about organization because I have it all figured out and I am a subject matter expert. I talk about organization because 1. It is biblical and 2. I need to work on it. I have a slight OCD about how things are cleaned and put away in my home. I often refuse cleaning help because when things are not done my way, I end up having to go back and redo it. If you look at these verses, you can see that 1. We are made in God’s image. 2. God is very organized. I am repeatedly asking myself if the traits that I have are Godly or Worldly. I can remember my children being late for school at least twice a week a few years ago. Over time I have been able to correct this bad habit. I have a few medical problems that team up and make going to bed at night very difficult. While I have these medical problems, I also have bad habits that make going to bed at a decent time, an irregular occurrence. My lack of self-discipline in this area has spilled onto other parts of my life. Such as getting my children out of bed in time to eat and get to school on time. If I am tired or oversleep in the morning, I won’t get a chance to sit in the Word before I wake up my children. Then I might also not have time to make them a nutritious breakfast, pack a nutritious lunch, talk to them with patience, make sure their teeth are brushed… make sure MY teeth are brushed and I am wearing a bra!

We can say all day, “God bless this hot mess”. But is a hot mess what we are really striving for? Let me say, that I am not trying to shame anyone for not having everything together! I know I don’t! (Jesus walk with me!)What I am saying is that while we appreciate that the lord blesses us even when we are a hot mess… That can not be the goal. The goal can not be to just barely get through every day. The goal can not be to get out of bed late and rush around and get our kids to school late and frustrated. The goal should be to work on being transformed more and more into the attributes that the Lord has laid out in his Word.

Over the season of rest, I have worked at becoming more organized and self-disciplined. I have purged bags and bags of clothing. I have thrown out things that I was saving for various projects. I have started projects that I was putting off. I have drastically cut back on the amount of tv time I am allowing myself. My next step is to commit to going to bed by 11pm, meal planning, grocery shopping before we are out of something, and turning off my phone by 10pm.

When we make plans, we have to make tangible plans. If I say, “ I plan to be on my phone less” Who measures what is less?! Plans have to be something you can actually measure. Using words like less or more, is not a complete plan. My phone being off by 10pm would mean that I am on my phone about 3 hours less a day and I may end up falling asleep sooner and get more sleep, allowing me to get up earlier and be more productive in the morning. While the plan may lead to other things that are less and more, the actual plan needs to be specific.

I wanted to share a new planner that I purchased that is also great for those that need to organize more. I bought the Faith and Focus planner. It is a 90 day planner that focuses goals, and abide time along with your schedule. I will share an amazon link below.

            Amazon.com : Faith & Focus by Christian Planner | 90 Day Undated Planner | Eco-Friendly FSC Certified Paper | Work, Life, Spiritual Daily Journal, Designed to Help Accomplish Your Goals & Increase Productivity : Office Products

The next thing I wanted to share was the school planner that I purchased for my middle schooler. I want him to learn organizing and study skills younger, so he may be more productive later. After reading some reviews from a seasoned tutor and teacher, I found this planner and it seems to be great so far.

Amazon.com : 2021-2022 Academic Planner, A Tool for Time Management, Daily, Weekly & Monthly School Agenda for Keeping Students On Track & On Time, Size 8.5×11, (July 2021-June 2022), Navy/Lime : Office Products

I have also found a youtube channel that is just a God-loving woman cleaning and organizing her home. It’s kinda like when you watch a cooking show and think, I could go make that! I watch this channel and think, I could go clean that!

Amy Darley – YouTube

So, my questions for you:

What part of your life needs more organization?

What does the Lord say about that part of your life?

What is your tangible plan?

REMEMBER! I am not trying to shame anyone or make anyone feel guilty. I am the first person that needs to attempt to remove the mess from Hot-mess.

Once again, I am excited to be back for this season and PLEASE send me all your questions, concerns, and content suggestions!

Grace & Peace

Chorley

Entrusting in the Reliable

.Reading time 13 minutes.

When I first got married, my husband and I had agreed that neither of us wanted to have children. We were 18 & 19. We were still kids ourselves. While my husband had a relatively great upbringing, My childhood was less desirable. We deployed very shortly after we got married and we spent a lot of our time in Iraq watching how horrible humans can be to each other. We decided that we didn’t want to bring a child into this world because of that and because we were both very consumed by our careers. I had a goal to be a Sergeant Major. Then we both had too many close calls in Iraq. When we returned from our second tour in Iraq, we decided that we would like to try again.

In 2009 after we had a couple miscarriages, we finally got pregnant again. We did the normal pregnancy tests and lab work. That is when we found out that we had to go see a specialist. When we saw the specialist, we were told that Our baby had trisomy 18. Trisomy 18 is when a child has an extra chromosome. This disease causes severe abnormalities and ¾ of all children born with the disorder are still born. The 1/4th that survive birth have all died before the age of 18. There is only one that has survived to 18. The doctors suggested that we abort the pregnancy. This was a hard thing for me to learn. I was already three months along in my pregnancy. I remember just laying in bed for days crying. We decided to wait and get a second opinion. I finally got a second opinion a month later. A month after I was supposed to have a scheduled abortion. When we got the second opinion, the doctor informed us that he was glad we waited because he discovered that our child had been misdiagnosed. Our child was currently very healthy.

My Calvin was born on his due date. September 14th 2009. He was beautiful. He was Just under 6lbs with dark brown eyes. I don’t have any memory of the two weeks after his birth because I was in a medically induced coma. I didn’t get a chance to bond with him until he was about six months old. I had a severe case of amnesia and the lack of bonding had created a separation from Calvin and I. The first thing I remember saying about him was, “Is that Kevin’s baby? Did he have another kid?” (Kevin is my little brother.) That is when I was informed of the reality of what all had happened. Then everything just clicked at 6 months and I couldn’t imagine my life without him.

When I said yes to Discipleship in my life, I had no clue what it would look like. I thought that I would start to understand a little more about the Bible. Then the longer that I walked with Rachel, I began to understand the termination theory. The termination theory tells us that as long as we continue to pass on the knowledge we have been given, some of those who receive the knowledge will then pass it on to others. I remember sitting in someone’s living room when I first learned about the termination theory. I remember being asked what the theory meant for me and my life. I looked over at the women who had spent almost a year poring her life into me, the woman who had cried with me and helped me understand what the Word says and what the Lord says about me. The woman who invited me into her life before she knew what I mess I was. The woman who I had watched fight cancer for months. The Lord had revealed to me through the story of Tabitha, that my dear friend and spiritual mother’s body would not survive cancer. I cleared my throat and managed to tell her that, “If we were the last people that she ever discipled, I could not let that be in vain.” I could not let the things that she taught me, die with me. From then on I knew that I had to start looking for the women that the Lord wanted me to walk with in the process of discipleship. The Lord presented four women to me. I walked with those women for two years. I am now walking with another group of four women. I have this hope that all of them will pour into other people. They may not walk with women in the same way and they may not all start groups of their own. What I do know is that through this process all of these women have been transformed to look less like the world and more like Jesus. While, they may not all start groups in the same way I did, I have personally seen them all pour Jesus into their friends and families. I know that I followed the Word when I chose to walk with these women.

The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others. 2 Timothy 2:2

            2 Timothy came to mean something vastly different to me last week. When I picked my son up from school last week, he was clearly distraught. He was stressed about the number of tests that he had coming up the next day. I remember telling him that school is not the end all be all of his life and that his test scores in fifth grade are not going to follow him the rest of his life. I had debated letting him skip school the next day. Take a mental health day. He seemed like a different kid the next morning. He woke up early and was ready to go well before his sisters. I started to think that he was much better because he had gotten a good nights sleep. I was wrong. I had sent him to bed a little early the night before. I figured that he just went to sleep. I was wrong. Apparently he stayed up and listened to worship music while he sat in the Word.

            My son keeps an abide journal. On the first page he has:

“people were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them, but the Disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them. “Let the little children come to me. Don’t stop them because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” After taking them in his arms, he laid his hands on them and blessed them.      Mark 10:13-16

This is one of his favorite verses. If I look through his book, I can find notes from every sermon that he has sat through. You can find words like chesed: Covenant love, Logos: The divine Word- Christ, words become a mirror in your life, horeo: perceive with inward spiritual perception, a list of grain offerings the Lord has brought him, as his admission of faith and Christ’s Lordship in his life. When my son got home from his test day, I asked him how his day was. That is when he informed me that the night before, he sat in the Word and the Lord reminded him that he is in control and he is going to get him through his tests, and he is the one who gives him hope.

            When Paul wrote 2 Timothy 2:2, he was letting leaders know that they have a responsibility to train up more leaders. They had a responsibility to reproduce. I am reminded that the Lord first gave us the direction to go forth and multiply. When Rachel told me that I would be reproducing other disciples by walking with other women, I thought that would be my only job. I never even considered the fact that while I may be making Disciples with other women, my main disciple making duties will be done inside the walls of my home. The Lord has blessed me with three beautiful children that I don’t deserve. Three children that I plan to Disciple to Jesus, for the rest of our lives.

            Disciple making looks different for everyone. Sometimes it looks like walking with a group of adult women, sometimes a group of teenagers, sometimes one on one, and sometimes your own children. You may walk with people twice your age, and you may walk with a five-year-old child. What matters is that you make an effort to pour Jesus into everyone in your life. If you believe in Christ and the truth and love that he brought us, you will never regret sharing that with people in your life. When my son told me that his hope is found in Jesus, it gave me hope for not just him and the women in which I walk. It also gave me hope for the people that my son walks with; his teachers, his best friend, and his sisters. My son shares the light of Christ.

Who do you pour into?

What does the termination theory mean to you?

What is it that you are reproducing?

Grace and Peace

-Chorley

Children of the Lord

.Reading time 6 minutes.

What does it look like to raise your children up in the ways of the Lord? What does it mean that children are an inheritance from the Lord? I have been given the gift of youth. Not youth as in a youthful appearance or body. I have been given the gift of working with the youth of Harrah Church. They are a gift. This gift has opened my eyes to many things. When you look at the average Christian child:

-They are born into a family that goes to church every Sunday. The average parent drops their child off at the children’s ministry on their way to the “adult” service. The child typically spends his days in Sunday school being told all of the nice bible stories and how much Jesus loves him no matter what. That becomes the depth of many children’s relationship with Christ. Then their parents come along and often have them baptized at a young age as soon as the child says, they love Jesus. I am not here to judge anyone’s raising, just making an observation.

– Then the child becomes a teenager and is no longer stewing in innocence. The teen begins going to a “youth group” for most of their biblical learning. Most youth groups play a game every Wednesday night, sing some worship songs, then give a 15-minute sermon. I know this, because I grew up with this. There are very rarely hard teachings because we wouldn’t want our kids to get uncomfortable and quit coming. Our sermons are not long because we know they could never pay attention for longer than that. Most are never taught how to really read the Word. If any youth leader shows an interest in a teen, the situation is almost always presumed perverse. Thus, ending any type of intentional mentor relationship. The teen stays here for a few years until the age out of the church’s system. As soon as the child graduates, they are no longer part of any direct ministry.

At what point do parents take responsibility for their child learning about the Lord. Does the Word not say, “ “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”? We can not always expect everyone else to teach our children about the Lord. While I say this, I am also thankful for the workers. I have witnessed workers lead children to the miracles of Christ. I have watched these workers prepare children for the work of the saints. I have watched these workers remind children of the Lord’s Word so many times that the child is now reminded of the Word. While the workers are doing good work for the Lord, what are the parents doing? Are you taking every opportunity to pour Christ into your child? When St. Augustine was studying in Rome, he was an adulterer. He had a mistress with whom he had a child. He was following a Manichean theology of religion. His father showed him the pagan ways and his mother showed him the Catholic Christian ways. When he left their home at an early age, he was led astray by every kind of deceit. The few things his mother taught him, were trying to compete with the sin filled world. His mother Monica left their home in Africa and followed him through Rome. When he boarded a ship, she followed. When he got off, she followed. She stalked him like prey preaching to him over and over. He had to escape a ship that she had followed him onto to get away. It wasn’t long after this that St. Augustine fell ill and found a new mentor. A bishop. This bishop was able to show St. Augustin the truth and power in the Pauline letters. So, while his mother may not have been the one thing that pushed him towards salvation in Christ, her persistence in planting seeds in her son played a huge role in his salvation and his path to lead others to Christ.

What seeds are you planting in your child? Are you watering those seeds with the Word of the Lord?