Overflowing with Thankfulness

For anyone who may have wondered...yes, my family and I are still alive and well. Life has been humming along at full speed, and I’m too busy managing each overstuffed day to sit down and reflect on it in lengthy typed paragraphs. But in honor of Thanksgiving, my Good Morning Girls study is having a week of being intentionally grateful. Our first assignment was to make a list of the things, people, and circumstances for which we are thankful. My list turned out to be too long to condense into a hastily written Facebook post. Instead, I thought that I’d clear some dust off the 'ole blog, and share with all of you a few of the things that are evoking joy in my heart right now.

Because I love (and am thankful for!) organization, I have categorized my list of blessings. And for those who, like myself, are appreciative of proper English spelling and grammar, I hope that my consistent use of capitalized and punctuated sentence fragments will overshadow my violation of the complete-sentence rule. Below, enjoy my 2012 Thankful List.

Food: Yummy breakfasts of granola or oatmeal. Eggs, meat, and nuts for protein. Being able to afford Shakeology, the Healthiest Meal of the Day. Homemade baked goodies. Feasting on Thanksgiving. Cookies and pies and other treats. Going out to eat. The freedom and responsibility to choose what to buy and what to cook each day.

Appliances: A high-tech, front-loading washing machine that gets all of our clothes nice and clean. Our dishwasher, which spares me from many hours of dishwashing every day. A refrigerator and freezer to keep our abundance of food fresh.

Warmth: Long, hot showers. The bathroom heater to enhance my long, hot showers. A cozy house to keep out the wind and rain. Quilts and blankets and warm clothing to snuggle in. Heat in my car. Peppermint tea with honey.

Abundance: Having two vehicles so that we’re never “stranded.” Being able to give away clothes that don’t fit right because we don’t need them. Having more food than we need, and never going hungry. Shelves loaded with books, including many translations of the Bible, as well as having the Scripture at our fingertips with smart phone apps and Bible Gateway. Having plenty of technological gadgets to manage our lives and keep us connected.

Senses: Soft, kissable baby cheeks. The way candlelight flickers. Stomping and shuffling through crunchy autumn leaves. The smells of cookies in the oven and cinnamon. The peaceful stillness of the house when everyone else is sleeping.

Activities: My local MOPS group (Mothers of Preschoolers), where fellow moms “in the trenches” of parenting and I can encourage each other over snacks and crafts. Accountability and exhortation from daily Bible Study through my Good Morning Girls group. Being able to put our children in gymnastics, which they love. Visiting friends and inviting them to visit us. Apple picking every September. Living close enough to the beach that we could drive there every week this summer. Swimming and kayaking and snorkeling and sunbathing at the lake.

Freedoms: The privilege of homeschooling my children and choosing their curriculum. The right to own guns for sport and self-defense. Having no fear of persecution for owning a Bible or going to church. The right to participate in choosing our government. Living in a capitalist republic. All of the soldiers who have made sacrifices to obtain and defend the freedoms we enjoy.

Health and fitness: Not having to worry about deadly diseases. Every day that I don’t have a headache. Being healthy enough to workout daily. Getting physically stronger. All of our fitness equipment and many home workout programs. Healthy children who are growing and developing.

Family: The rare but precious times when I see or overhear my children being kind to each other. Going on vacation to the mountains, beach, or on a cruise together. Grandparents who are generous and always willing to babysit. Laughing together. Having no shortage of people to pray for, hug, and visit.

Church: Our church family of dear people who love and encourage us. The ladies who are happy to snuggle Abby in the nursery. Friends who have new babies and like to talk about “mom stuff.” Singing praise songs and dancing for joy. Pastors who explain God’s Word with boldness and clarity. Friends all over the country who are brothers and sisters in Christ.

My husband: Late night laughter over something silly. Date nights at the beach or gun club or our favorite steak house. Snuggling on the couch. His willingness to work hard at multiple jobs to give us a better life. The way all children adore him and teens trust him. His strong sense of right and wrong, and ability to defend his position. His incredible strength. His ability to do crazy flips and other gymnastics. His blue eyes. Backrubs. Being woken up on weekday mornings by his kisses. Chatting and texting during the day. Praying together.

My children: Raising smart, beautiful children whom other people like. Watching them play together. Donny’s intelligence, his interest in all kinds of learning, his newfound love for reading, his mind for engineering, his helpfulness with household chores, his appreciation for organization. Hayden’s affection, his intelligence, his perfect handwriting, his physical strength, his love for God’s Word. Lydia’s verbal skills, her cheerful attitude, the funny things she says, her bedtime “one more hug”s. Abby’s snuggles, her tentative first steps, the way she has blossomed from tiny newborn into tiny person with thoughts and feelings, the way she plays with her siblings, her sweet smile. The way they snuggle up together and say, "Take our picture!"

My job: Being the one to teach my children almost everything they know. Not having a boss to report to or a commute to work. Using my creativity to turn a house into a home. Making life run more smoothly with schedules and organization. Earning extra income through my Beachbody business not because I have to, but because I want to. Helping others to get fit and healthy.

My God: God’s faithfulness to meet with me whenever I seek Him. Finding comfort in His Word. Growing in my feeble understanding of the Holy Spirit. The amazing privilege of participating in God’s work through prayer. Seeing prayers answered. Not having to be perfect, because I can’t be, and knowing that I am still loved. The glorious freedom of being in Christ - freedom from sin, and from restrictive laws. Most of all, Jesus’ death and resurrection for me. Without that, nothing else matters. He is everything!

This fall’s Bible study was on the book of Colossians. When we delved into Chapter 2, this verse stood out to me:

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
Colossians 2:6-7

I have been blessed with so much in my life. It doesn’t mean that everything is perfect, or that I never have struggles and trials. We can be thankful for good circumstances, but true thankfulness goes beyond circumstances. True thankfulness looks beyond the comforts of earth to the hope of heaven, and rejoices in a God who is good even when circumstances are not. The Apostle Paul writes of his overflowing thankfulness from the dark recesses of prison. He isn’t rejoicing over free cable and hot meals - his thankfulness is all about Christ’s redeeming work on the cross.

Fellow believers, as we reflect on our blessings this Thanksgiving season, we can appreciate all that is good in our lives. But if we are truly rooted and built up in Christ, we won’t just be full of thanks . . . we will overflow!

Seven Days of Grace for the Weak

Our mid-March taste of spring was apparently nothing more than a tease, because we had flurries and hail the following week, and - no joke! - a few inches of snow on April 1. In addition, after a blessedly healthy winter, everyone in our family now has a cold, which has only added to the list of daily concerns. In fact, last week was full of appointments and errands, sickness and showings. There were many little challenges, and yet through it all, there were glimpses of God's grace.

It was on Sunday that Lydia woke up with her nose running like a faucet - a faucet that continued to drip for several days, and needed to be chased with a tissue in order to prevent her from leaving a trail of mucous smears through the house. We had a showing right after church, which meant that the house had to be in perfect order before we left. My dear husband obligingly helped me by vacuuming the floors, but in the process, somehow managed to stop the agitator from functioning, effectively crippling our vacuum cleaner. I guess that's what I get for asking for help!

Since we could not go home right away, we tried something that is commonplace for most Americans, but not for our family: visiting a fast food drive-through. While we will occasionally stop to get something for Don, this was the first time that the whole family was part of the operation. Picky Donny had a nutritious lunch of French fries, while the only meat that was safe for allergic Hayden turned out to be some extremely sticky boneless chicken wings drowned in a leaky container of sauce. Despite the potential for disaster (and the lack of feedback from the home buyers) it was a nice afternoon, and I don't think we even left any French fries behind to pollute our vehicle.

Monday morning I took Hayden to a three hour long appointment at the allergist for an egg challenge. The purpose was to see if despite testing positive for egg allergies, he could tolerate small amounts of egg in a baked good. Over the course of three hours, the boy who has never tasted a trace off egg ingredients ate one and a half cookies that I had baked with egg in them. He had no reaction whatsoever, which led to the joyful proclamation: he can eat foods with baked with eggs! While he still has milk and nut allergies to beware of, and omelets are off limits, this will expand his dietary choices in exciting new ways. He was thrilled to be able to eat regular cookies!

Tuesday was an OB appointment to follow up on some minor bleeding I had a few weeks ago. I was not only relieved to know that the baby is alive and well, but it was incredible to see all the tiny features via ultrasound on a 2 1/2 inch long person. I am so thankful for the technology that allows us to have that glimpse into God's amazing Creation - truly He does knit us together in the womb!

Not all of pregnancy has been smooth-sailing; there is the regular first trimester fatigue and nausea to deal with, and in addition, my varicose veins are already showing their ugly selves. Many days this week, I had minor pain in my leg that made me long to get off my feet (a difficult task for busy mothers, as I'm sure you know). Wednesday we went for our weekly chiropractic adjustments, which have been immensely helpful for Hayden's breathing, but thanks to Lydia's cold, he still started to wheeze that evening. After the boys had gone to bed and I was figuring out how to set up Hayden's new humidifer, we got a call for a showing: tomorrow at 10:30am. Any delusions I had of getting to bed early were quickly swept away as I realized that I needed to get to work tidying, baking, and doing something to exterminate the pesky ants that kept crawling though our dining room.

The next morning was our typical pre-showing routine: rushed breakfast, quick clean-ups, putting away anything remotely personal or cluttery, turning on all the lights, and the boys playing Angry Birds on Don's phone to stay out of trouble. I baked some delicious chocolate chip cookies (thanks for the recipe, Di!) and had every crumb, dish, and speck of visible lint cleaned up just in time. The children's rough-housing left Lydia screaming and bleeding just minutes before departure time, but even so, things were (relatively) under control. The boys were in their boots waiting for me by the door when the phone rang: the showing was canceled. Apparently, the Lord wanted my house clean that day! And thanks to the lack of buyers, my sweet husband and I got to enjoy the cookies ourselves. We turned off the lights, put the cookies away, and breathed a mixed sigh of frustration and relief.

Friday is usually my grocery shopping day, but because we were already dressed to go out and snow was in this Friday's forecast, we made our weekly excursion a day early. Grocery shopping with three little ones has become a rather exhausting task which seems to suck up most of the day. That left Friday for homeschool. Did I mention that we are now doing five days of school a week? Since we took a year and a half to do kindergarten, I had planned to use a similar schedule for first grade, so that Donny would complete first grade at the same time his public school counterparts do, and we could have plenty of time for errands and outings with a 2 to 3 day per week school schedule. However, Don recently expressed his desire for the boys to learn as much as possible, and accordingly, we are now doing five days of school in one week instead of two. So far, the boys have not even seemed to notice the adjustment. I am so thankful that they are both eager learners who can master new material quickly!

By Friday, Don and Donny had the cold too, and I had a headache, so we missed our small group meeting of church friends. I ran to the pharmacy to pick up Hayden's nebulizer medication: has hasn't needed it for months, praise God, but this cold triggered his reactive airway disease. I had forgotten that our insurance does not cover the medicine up-front (they reimburse us for a portion of it instead), so the initial bill was for $300! I asked to only get one box instead, cutting the cost down to $154, and meanwhile Don came home from a dentist appointment with a similar bill. Good thing we have insurance!

Lydia apparently napped for far too long while I was running errands, because she was wide awake even past 10pm that night. Don and I finally had to turn out all the lights and lie down with her in bed to convince her that it was bedtime, and even then, she continued to crawl on our heads, ask for her Cheerios and water, and hog my pillow for far longer than I wanted to be awake. Then late in the light, my head still throbbing with a migraine and my legs in a more minor discomfort, Hayden woke up coughing. As I gave him his inhaler and his water and rubbed his back, running through my mind were the words "God's grace." How can I get through this difficult night, with my own tired body in pain and my son struggling for breath? Only by His grace. By His grace Hayden fell to a peaceful sleep, I got back to my own bed, and morning came with the headache pain gone.

Saturday was a day of waiting for Don to finish a work project so that we could enjoy an outing to a maple sugar house. He finally finished in the afternoon, and we were able to complete our field trip in time for a family birthday party in the evening. We enjoyed our time with family despite a few sniffles and sneezes.

When Sunday came again, we were all sick (with the possible exception of Lydia, whose nose has finally dried up), so we stayed home from church. I waited for many minutes to drop off our vacuum cleaner at the repair shop, and thanks to a faded receipt, they almost couldn't find our information in the system. I thank God that we bought the five year warranty (not the three year, as I had thought) and that at the last minute, He allowed me to remember our old phone number, which retrieved our information and assured that the repair would be covered. Thank you, Lord!

And now it is Sunday again. Our house is for sale, everyone is sick, I have no vacuum cleaner for ten days, and a new crop of ants are marching one by one into our home. And yet, there is grace. I sent the coughing, sniffling boys outside to play for a few minutes before dinner, but soon Hayden reappeared at the door.

"A sign of spring!" he exclaimed, holding out to me a small, tired-looking dandelion. Even as bits of Friday's snow clung to the neighbor's lawn and we shivered in the chilly wind, Hayden was right: it was first flower of spring. A sign of hope. A tiny yellow reminder that in spite of each day's trials and challenges, there is grace. There is a God who takes weak and broken people like you and me and lifts us up out of the muck and mire. I do not need to wallow in today's pain or fear what tomorrow may bring. He will hold my hand, and each new day, if I have eyes to see it, there is evidence of His overwhelming grace.

For I am the LORD your God
who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear;
I will help you.

Isaiah 41:10

Great (and Small) Things He Has Done

God has done great things, but sometimes it takes the small things to remind me how great He really is.

I don't believe in coincidence; I believe God is Sovereign over every detail of this universe, including those that seem mysterious or random to our limited human understanding. When I find myself stumbling upon the same Bible verse in various places, or reading about the same subject in different books and blogs and magazine articles, I think it is more than random chance. I see it as God getting my attention through the small things, to make sure I really understand what He is trying to teach me.

Don and I experienced this just a few weeks ago, when he was given the opportunity to preach at an afternoon church service. He was inspired by Psalm 150 to prepare his sermon, "A Proper Response to God," on how God wants us to joyfully praise Him. When it was nearly time to deliver the message about David dancing before the Lord, Don felt uncertain, wondering if he really was interpreting the Scripture correctly. He had been plagued by a pulled muscle for a few days leading up to Sunday morning, and he wondered if it was God trying to tell him something about the sermon. But then, when the morning service ended and we picked the boys up from their Children's Church class, they were shaking paper plate tambourines. The papers they had colored showed David praising the Lord with music. In fact, their lesson was on the very same event that Don was planning to preach about! The back of the paper even had a verse from Psalm 150. When I noticed that, it nearly brought tears to my eyes. God was so good to give us such clear reassurance!

Then this week, as the children and I enjoyed our last summer days and started to gently transition back towards a more structured school year schedule, the Lord has shown me the same Bible verse three times. First, he convicted me that instead of spending every nursing moment in front of the laptop, I should use the times when the boys are awake to read with them, just like I used to read board books to Donny in the early days of nursing Hayden. Accordingly, during Monday's first nursing session, we read a chapter from Hymns for a Kid's Heart, a really interesting book about the stories behind famous hymns - it even comes with a CD of children singing the hymns that we all enjoy listening to. Each chapter includes "A Verse for My Heart," so after learning about "To God Be the Glory," we read:

The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad. -Psalm 126:3

It is such a simple verse, yet so profound. God HAS done great things for us! And we read about some more of those great things on our "Worldwide Wednesday," when I flipped to a fitting article in Donny's magazine. The article was about some orphans in Kenya who had gone to live in a place called Sanctuary of Hope. At their new home, they have brothers and sisters, and they learn verses and songs about God. Splashed across the magazine page in bold letters was Psalm 126:3, this time from the NIV:

The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.

I pointed out to Donny that we had just read the same verse in a different translation. Then tonight, I had written all of one line of a new blog post, when I decided to do a search for something on my website. The first post to pop up in my search was a summary of last year, concluding with, once again, Psalm 126:3. By now, I have the words memorized!

The Lord has done great things for me, for my marriage, and my family. He has done great things for orphans in Kenya and for a blind girl who wrote thousands of praise hymns. He has done great things for all of us, because He IS great, and His love is greater than we can understand. As I meditate on it, like the Psalmist, my heart is filled with joy. I love when He speaks to me through the small things.

Thank you Lord, for being greater than coincidence and more than chance. Thank you for the great things you have done. Thank you for encouraging me tonight. May I always be glad and filled with joy because of YOU!

The Having of Houses and Heaven-Set Hearts

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
Colossions 3:1-2

Two years ago, Don and I very nearly moved to Texas. We ended up declining a less-than-ideal job offer there, and shortly thereafter, we purchased our home here in New England, where all of our close family lives less than twenty minutes away. In the past few weeks, however, some new job prospects have led us to again consider relocating. We have a comfortable home here, surrounded by family, friends, and a wonderful Bible-teaching church. On the other hand, in Texas we could have warm sunshine, a conservative political atmosphere that more closely matches our ideals than liberal New England, and a bigger, better house to shelter our growing family.

People say everything is bigger in Texas, and when it comes to housing, it certainly seems to be true. For the same price we paid for our three-ish bedroom, one bathroom, circa 1960 ranch located an hour outside of Boston, we could have a nearly new four bedroom, three bath, two car garage home in a Dallas subdivision, or we could go outside the city for a similarly large house with five times the land we have here. Southern houses feature such luxuries as standardized central air (oh, how I love air conditioning!), first floor laundry rooms (all old New England houses have the washer and dryer in the basement), master bathrooms with garden tubs, and walk-in closets the size of small bedrooms. And since Don and I love to virtual house hunt, we have looked at literally hundreds of houses, comparing everything from lot size to the depth of the pool, in search of the ideal purchase.

Our lonestar bubble was burst when we realized that our responsibilities and ties in the North would most likely keep us here for the forseeable future. It is hard to let go of the oh-so-affordable brand new log cabin on eight acres, or Don's similarly priced dream home complete with gunite in-ground pool, jacuzzi, fenced yard, double shower in the master bath, and theater room. But beneath the dazzle of new paint and countertops, even the grandest houses are but temporary dwellings, and it is all too easy to allow such temptations to become distractions at best, and at the worst, idols.

Recently, when my children were complaining about their perceived lack of choices at mealtime, I found myself continually saying, "You can have what you have," until it evolved into a song that the children and I were singing all day:

You can have what you have
You can have what you have
And be happy with what God gave you
You can have what you have
And be happy you have it
'Cause it came from the God who made you

As usual, just as I am trying to instill Godly character and virtues in my children, the Holy Spirit nudges me with a reminder that I need to practice what I preach. My unspoken complaints about my home, responsibilities, options, or limitations are as unholy in His sight as my five year old's demands for nothing less than a flawlessly cooked English muffin "with butter, toasted on the 10 setting." Who am I to tell God what kind of house I want, need, or deserve? We are so, so blessed to be able to afford any kind of house, when just two years ago the prospect of home ownership was little more than an elusive dream. How can I be anything but thankful?

Today, our family had the privilege of eating lunch with some traveling missionaries who have been called to Cambodia. Their family includes five children ages 3 months to 6 years old and the wife's sister, who travels with them to help. For the past year that they have been on deputation, all eight family members have been living in a trailer. As I chatted with the husband and wife from my cozy spot on their loveseat, I couldn't help but feel embarrassed over my own greed and selfishness. Here I was longing for a laundry room, when these missionaries can only carry a week's worth of clothing, and have to stop to wash it at someone else's house. Don and I often say how much we would like to have another bathroom, but at least more than one person can fit in our bathroom, and we have continual running water. Details like privacy, personal space, and excess stuff were nonexistent. I have spent so much time lately thinking about furniture and flooring and lot sizes, while they carry only what fits in the trailer as they travel from one church parking lot to the next. Yes, the Lord is always faithful to provide object lessons at the very time that we need them, and He could not have chosen a better time to show me how a family of eight can joyfully serve Him in a 300 square foot trailer.

There is still an honest longing in my heart to start over in a new place, to enjoy warmer winters and cooler summers, and to watch our family grow in a place where we have room to spread out and sustain ourselves to some small degree. Yet greater still is the desire to honor my Father and submit to His Will. It's not about bedrooms or backyards; it's about eternity with Him. For now, He says, "You can have what you have, and be happy you have it." I can thank Him for whatever home be blesses us with on this earth, but the perfect dwelling place is being prepared for me in His eternal Kingdom, and that is where I want to set my heart.