One of the many issues that crop up in Christian circles, and especially in Christian homeschooling circles is the issue of whether to get involved in controlling the size of one's family, or whether to "surrender control of our family size over to the Lord." I'll admit it; when you put it like that, it sounds like those who choose this path are the righteous ones and those who do not just aren't willing to give it all to Him.
I have certainly wrestled with that question myself. We have four children, and the youngest was born shortly after I turned 35. As tends to happen when a baby gets to be about 2 or 3, I still had some desire for another little one to come along. What's sweeter than a baby? And my 3rd and 4th children are the very best examples I know of why people should consider having more than two. I often find myself thinking, "I wish s0-and-so would consider having another, because she seems like a such a loving mom and I know what a blessing another baby would be for her." And thus I freely recognize that if we had more, they would bless us in ways we couldn't predict.
So during that time when I wasn't quite 40 yet so didn't feel the biological time crunch so acutely, I could have gone either way on whether to expand our family or not. We had not struggled with infertility, my pregnancies were easy, and we are financially blessed, so adding another child to raise was not threatening in any of those ways. Nonetheless, I would have happily had 10 more babies, but the thought of actually raising another child was unsettling. Obviously, I needed to pray about it, and I essentially prayed that the Lord would lead me through my husband's leadership. I asked, "Lord, if you want us to have more, please have him bring it up." And he never said a word.
Yet that concern that perhaps I'm not willing to give the Lord control still plagued me from time to time. Is it unassailable truth, or is it a holier-than-thou phrase used by people who have chosen a difficult, counter-cultural path use to help defend themselves against the many slings and arrows that definitely come their way?
I still don't know the answer to that question, but I know that the Lord did not lead me, through my husband, to continue having children. Here is how I view it now. The Lord created for seven days. He created things that man never even saw for centuries. Microscopic life that was invisible, ocean life that lives at depths that could not be plumbed, rain forest life that was hidden and rarely observed. The diversity of creation is astounding and awe-inspiring in every way.
And then God stopped. He said it was good. Was it because he was out of ideas for new creatures? Hardly. Look at all the creatures finite man has dreamed up in our own imaginations. Did those not occur to God? Could He not have come up with a unicorn or phoenix or manticore or flying horse or whatever if He wanted? Certainly He could have. But He looked at what He had created, He decided it was enough, He said it was good, and He left off creating.
We, thanks to His kindness, procreated. And we have looked at the fruits of our procreation, and it is good, and it is enough, and we have left off. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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One of the assignments in my children's early elementary language arts education is memorizing the poem "The Caterpillar" by Christina Rossetti. For those of you who have no reason to know this little piece, allow me to fill that tiny gap:
Brown and furry
Caterpillar in a hurry,
Take your walk
To the shady leaf, or stalk,
Or what not,
Which may be the chosen spot.
No toad spy you,
Hovering bird of prey pass by you;
Spin and die,
To live again a butterfly.
My seven year old, the last and latest to learn this poem, was just dancing around wildly to the music I had playing. He stopped and came over to say, "I'm going to spin and die and live again like a butterfly." He started to dance again and then came to another sudden stop. "But first, I believe I'll take a walk to a shady leaf or stalk. Or what not. We'll see what my chosen spot is. But I sure hope that no toads see me. And I'm going to hide from that hovering bird of prey (he pointed up at the ceiling at this point). Then I'll go ahead and spin and die and fly away like a butterfly."
Seven has been a very, very good age with him.
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A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. -- Proverbs 25:11
God is good all the time. We use that phrase so often, and yet I think much of the time we misuse it. Most of the time when I hear people say it, they really seem to be saying, “I am currently perceiving God as kind. He has chosen to work things out the way I wanted Him to.” But in scriptural terms, the goodness of God does not refer to His kindness, and certainly not to whether or not we are happy with His works. It refers to his moral goodness. One of the challenges of the Christian life, of the life of faith is to trust that God is indeed acting out of moral goodness even when those actions hurt terribly and make us rail and scream against the pain and hurt.
Seven years ago today, I walked into what was, for the rest of the congregation, a typical Sunday morning service. For me, it was not. My husband and I had returned just the evening before from the funeral and burial of my infant niece. As I was going through the motions of participating in the singing, I had to give up when the congregation sang “God Is Good All the Time” (Moen). We sang that song many times at that church, and I’ve really hated it ever since and will be content if I never hear it again.
Now, to be fair to Don Moen, his song does acknowledge that life is not a bowl of cherries:
If you’re walking through the valley
And there are shadows all around
Do not fear; He will guide you
He will keep you safe and sound
‘Cause He’s promised to never leave you
Nor forsake you and His Word is true
But the song itself is a very upbeat, clappy, happy, almost pep rally kind of tune. Hearing that song in a time of sorrow was not an apple of gold. Instead, it called to mind a different proverb in that same chapter:
Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar poured on soda is one who sings songs to a heavy heart. -- Proverbs 5:20
Early on when we came to our present church, I was introduced to “Blessed Be Your Name” by Matt Redman. My very first reaction to this song 3 ½ years ago was, “Now if I’d run into this song after Bethany’s death, I could have appreciated it.” It was, especially in comparison, truly an apple of gold in a setting of silver.
When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Blessed be your name on a road marked with suffering. Though there’s pain in the offering, blessed be Your name.
You give and take away; My heart will choose to say, “Blessed be Your Name.”
In other words, God is good all the time.
Today our church gathered to bury a beloved member and shepherd, and this song was one of the ones chosen. It hurts so deeply to think of his wife and daughters, especially the one still at home, deprived of his care and support. We hate the hole left in his community by his absence. We can’t imagine walking into church week after week and never seeing his smile or being caught up in his rather formidable embrace. But as he no doubt learned through the heartbreaking life and loss of his own infant daughter, God is good all the time. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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Last night for supper I prepared quinoa for the first time. And I enjoyed it well enough. But I think it gave me nightmares.
If you've never had quinoa, it's a little tiny grain, and when it's cooked, something interesting happens. The little germ sprout pops out of the rest of the grain. I really haven't the foggiest idea how to add a picture, especially someone else's picture, to a blog, but here's someone else's picture of cooked quinoa for you to peruse if it's a new thing for you:
Cooked quinoa
While in my waking hours, I thought this was pretty cool, apparently my subconscious was a little troubled, because I dreamed that there were beans just under my husband's skin, and they were sprouting. There were butter beans like you would sprout in 2nd grade science class and also red lentils. And I was charged with popping them out from under his skin. It was very, very creepy. I'll fix quinoa again, but I think I'll make it at lunch next time.
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Evidently my scale does not believe it's possible for me to weigh what I do. It's a "smart" scale that we bought just about 4 months ago. It doesn't have those body fat sensors, but it displays percentage body fat, lean weight, bone weight and some other things based on BMI calculations.
Unfortunately, I've gained about 12 pounds in the last couple of months, and I was already obese to begin with. For about the last 5 pounds, the scale hasn't gone through the percentage displays. After it displays the weight, it sits there cogitating and then apparently concludes, "No, it is not possible that an individual of that height could have that weight. ERROR. ERROR. ERROR."
I've had my husband, who is fit, try it, and it was perfectly happy to run his calculations. But just like me, it can't get its brain around the fact that I could possibly weigh that much. ;)
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Strange things happen in my brain when I'm moving from sleep to consciousness. This morning a segment of music was going through my head when I awoke, but I couldn't identify it. I did recognize that the part that was running through my head was definitely an introduction of some sort. In my haziness, I thought it was perhaps an introduction to some choir music we practiced the night before. Then I remembered we don't have a choir and that I wasn't able to stay for worship team practice the previous evening, so that couldn't have been it.
Alright, then what might it be an intro to? I thought perhaps maybe it was an intro to "Sing to the King", which I must have groggily remembered singing during the Wednesday night service. My brain went through the intro again, and decided that yes, that indeed seemed to fit very nicely with "Sing to the King." That must have been the intro to "Sing to the King."
Then I remembered. We're an a cappella church. We don't have intros. Or least not very chordy piano ones. That realization at last jarred me into full consciousness.
Oh, and just so as to not leave anyone who might wander by and read this in suspense, it turned out to be the introduction to a piano arrangement I've been practicing. The actual song? "Brethren, We Have Met to Worship". Not really much like "Sing to the King", all-in-all, but the (somewhat generic) intro to this arrangement would fit it very well!
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I have Pandora Radio playing right now. "Sing a Song", a song with which I was unfamiliar, came on. It's a live cut, and at the beginning of the song, the lead singer, Mac Powell, said something along the lines of, "I bet y'all know this one. Let's sing." I replied aloud, "Actually, Mac, no I don't know this one." My seven year old sitting beside me repllied, "Uh, Mom, you know that's by Third Day, right?"
I mean, certainly Mac Powell has a very distinctive sound, but it still surprises me to have my seven year old identifying groups for me.
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Yesterday, I broke out Karen Andreola's Story Starters for the first time. The first story starter has to do with how a family handles a small fire. The instructions specify, "Give your story a happy ending."
Muffin's first question: Do I HAVE to give it a happy ending? I decided she didn't.
Her second question: Can I rewrite some things in the story starter? Sure.
Her third question: Would you prefer the father be dead when the story starts or that he die in the fire? Ummm....
Someone please assure me that I don't have a goth in the making. She's not quite 12 now, but I would just hate to see her coming in with her blonde hair dyed black in about 3 years.
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Frankly, I think I'm just too old and uncool. I don't quite get it. But one of the worship leaders set up a twitter account for the praise team, so I signed up. So far I'm only following my husband, the praise team, Pioneer Woman, and The Old Schoolhouse.
I only very recently signed up on Facebook, and it actually did help me to feel more connected. I immediately found friends from a former church that I wanted to stay in touch with. But Twitter is making me feel like a mole.
Is there a word for when you reach the point that you think that certain aspects of technology are a little beyond you and you resign yourself to being an old fogey?
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In November and December, some things happened that caused me to think that maybe it was the right time for me to investigate participating in the church praise team. After some inner turmoil and prayer, a few things happened that made me feel confident in pursuing this. After attending rehearsals for nearly 4 months, I'm in the line-up Sunday.
The thing is, I haven't participated on a praise team since I was pg with Muffin, and she's almost 12. So I've got a little anxiety going on. And now the dreams have begun.
Many people have dreams about finding themselves in a class ready to take a final when they realize they've never attended the class and feeling awash in panic. I've always thought of this dream as an indicator of some kind of performance anxiety going on.
Nerd that I am, my performance anxiety dream generally takes a different direction. I have band dreams. Yes, high school band dreams. I clearly remember that the week I was defending my master's thesis, I had several of them. One in particular has been captured in my memory. I dreamed it was the state marching championship and we were on the field in the finals and I didn't know the show. I knew the music, but I didn't know the show. I had no clue where to go. Eddie (an actual person I marched beside for at least 2 of my 3 years in high school) kept trying to shout directions at me as I swerved and twisted around the field.
And even now, when I come to some occasion that involves me putting myself out of my comfort zone, the band dreams come. I had some before the birth of each child. And now, following the Wednesday night rehearsal leading up to Sunday, the band dreams have begun.
So here I am, apparently perpetually stuck in high school and with a great need to get over myself. It's been a challenge for me to not just give up on the idea of participating (read: hard not to lose my nerve), but every time I've thought maybe I should just skip it because they don't need me anyway (there's already several altos in the rotation), the verse about putting your hand to the plough and turning back has been brought to mind. (A hard verse from a hard passage, IMO). And then lo and behold, the text for the last two Sundays was from that passage. He actually didn't really hit that particular verse so much, but just when I was again getting ready to withdraw from something that would make me extend, I was sitting there in the service and he announced the text. I turn there, and of course that verse, at the bottom of page in red letters, jumped at me.
Thus into the breach I go. Off to ignore and walk past the adolescent anxieties (I'm not good enough. I'm too fat to stand in front of people. People shouldn't have to look at my face when they come into church.) that I've submitted to for the last 3 years of so of my life and into submitting to a spirit of worship that recognizes that not only is it not all about me, but really none of it is about me. So maybe it's not really into the breach, but onto the bridge of personal and corporate worship that provides a taste of how the Bride should sing love songs to the Bridegroom.
"We will praise thy holy Name forever; we will laud and magnify thy Name forevermore."
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Two days before he turned 7 years old, Snickerdoodle leaned over close to me and said, "Mom, do you think that just a tiny little little little tiny bit I need to shave? "
(Turns out he'd noticed that he does indeed have hair above his lip. Guess he thought it needed to go.)
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Through the oddities of popular culture, my hometown of Odessa, TX, shows up from time to time in entertainment venues. The movie Friday Night Lights, based upon the nonfiction book of the same name, is set there. I've read the book, but I haven't been able to bring myself to see the movie. So I don't really know how the town is portrayed in the movie, although I can make a few guesses. The book, being nonfiction, is about people I grew up with and did business with and went to school and church with it. It's about the high school where I spend three years of my life. It's hard for me to work myself up to seeing that all turned into a fictional movie. I suppose someday I'll go there, but not yet, and it's been 4 or 5 years since the movie was released.
But I did experience on surreal moment of Odessa-as-pop-culture when Friday Night Lights went to DVD. I now live nearly 1000 miles away from home. And here in a Walmart I passed a DVD display, and on that DVD display are cardboard figures wearing football uniforms with my high school name on them. Uniforms that I spent months and months of Friday nights (and Saturday afternoons in playoff season) watching while we waited for our turn at half-time. Seeing those Permian uniforms on that display caused me to do a double take for the first three or four times I saw them.
But yesterday I had another Odessa-as-pop-culture moment that ended up being a comedy. My husband apparently bought the first season of NBC's show Heroes. We have not watched this show as it's been on television, but the premise sounded at least interesting. He popped the first one in last night. The first episode is introducing characters and jumping between their stories. The second or third scenaro began with a caption reading, "Odessa, Texas." This, of course, got my attention. I watched as the camera panned up a large structure the character was climbing. And lo and behold, there it was. A mountain.
I burst into laughter. My husband, who had already watched a few minutes before I came in and restarted it, said, "Yeah, I thought you'd get a kick out of those mountains surrounding Odessa." I have not yet investigated where this was shot. I assume in California. But I can assure you there is nothing resembling a mountain anywhere around Odessa. It's one of the flattest places in the world. Very, very flat. No rolling hills. Flat. If you have ever been in that part of Texas, you know that the thought of mountains there is laughable indeed.
There were other incongruities, of course. Their job, after all, is to tell a story, not to create a travelogue. Bur for a daughter of the West, it was still a hoot. First, there is an aerial shot that shows farmland as it pans down to a fire at a cotton gin. Odessa has a petroleum-based economy, and there is no farmland. Soil there is about a millimeter of poor soil covering up a whole lot of calichi. So the thought of land in Odessa producing cotton like the farms about 75 miles to the north was the source of another little giggle.
Then the character's mother suggested they have a shopping date and go to the mall in Gardendale. The though of Odessans going to a mall in Gardendale was another good chuckle. Now, there is actually a town called Gardendale, and it's actually near Odessa. Think of it as a bedroom community for oilfield workers. It's in the same county as Odessa and thus part of the same school system. But there's definitely no mall. They go to Odessa to shop. Or maybe Midland. But never vice versa. Odessa has a mall, complete with ice rink and television studio (actually, the TV studio was feature in another show on the TV Guide network), and when people don't find what they want, they go to Midland (Mrs. Bush's hometown). But not Gardendale. Really. Trust me. It's funny.
And then toward the end of the episode, a character is placing pins in a map to indicate where he suspects the future heroes are. The place where the pin for the Texas girl goes in was by Ciudad Juarez, which basically means they were placing Odessa (and Gardendale, which, BTW, is very misnamed, what with all that calichi) where El Paso is. Hey, what's 300 miles, give or take?
Again, I know it's just a TV show and it's not about Odessa; it's about the heroes. But for this displaced Texan, the incongruities offered even more comic relief than the Japanese guy.
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Friday night we were watching part of Fiddler On The Roof. The children had watched pretty much the same amount that we watched that night a couple of months ago when we were visiting family at Christmas. I think someone there must have said something. That's the only thing I can come up with to account for why my six year old son asked, during L'Chaim:
Why is he dancing with drunk Russians?
Excellent question, son. I can't really imagine why anyone would want to dance with a drunk Russian. 
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I don’t know who to attribute it to, but someone has said they had no idea what unconditional love meant until they had children and received it from them. My children’s unconditional love for me has left be gobsmacked and thoughtful this week.
It began with the Wii, really. We received a Wii for Christmas and purchased Wii Fit to go with it. As my savvy daughter was creating my avatar (known as a Mii, for the uninitiated), I instructed her to make it a little umm, more rounded. Like me. Immediately my younger two set up a ruckus, insisting that I shouldn’t have a fat Mii because I’m not fat. (Let me assure you that I am. I won’t go into the gory details, but I assure you that I’m obese by any objective standard and would have to lose more than 40 pounds to make it to a BMI in the normal range. Trust me. I’m round.)
Though it should be obvious to me, they think I’m wonderful even though I’m fat. Apparently they even think I’m pretty even though I’m fat. All that matters to them is that I’m their mom. We’re in a relationship, and that’s all they need to think I’m wonderful. It doesn’t even matter to them that a substantial part of the time I’m not anywhere near being the mom I ought to be. They love me unconditionally.
Next post: The application
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Last Christmas season, while my family was still on our holiday trek, a thread showed up on my favorite homeschool message board concerning "your word for the year." Apparently, many of my cybersisters chose one word that described how they wanted to focus their thoughts and actions and schooling for the year. It really just kind of blew past me. But this year I decided to play along. Decisive thing that I am, I wasn't able to limit myself to just one. Here's what I wrote on the boards:
First, PEACE. There's nothing like spending 2000 miles in a Suburban with four children who act like, well, children to make one think about peace. I desire this year to really focus on trying to make these people family instead of enemies. To be fair, there's only one sibling relationship that is chronically bad, and that's the one that I'll be hoping to guide, but everyone has his and her moments. I want us to dwell together in unity.
Also, I want to find out what I can do to promote peace. I don't really have any idea what I mean by that quite yet. Locally? Globally? I just know that the more I think about war, the more I hate it, and I think that the Lord must have put it on my heart for some reason. I want to know how I could be a peace warrior. Again, I don't know even what I mean, but I want to be in a world where we study war no more.
Second, WORSHIP. I want to be in a place where I am in an awareness of God so that I see so clearly that I am a great sinner and He is a great Savior. I want to fall on my knees and cry holy and have a sense of what that means and what He is.
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Well, at least the best thing today. Snickerdoodle, who is first grade age, is my only kid playing Upward basketball this year. His first game today. One of the best things about having a little kid playing Upward is that the other K5ers and first graders are likely to have younger siblings, including infants and toddlers. So when my attention wanders from the game (not that it ever would, mind you) I can enjoy looking at the little ones. There were some sweet babies to look at this morning!
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While we were driving the other day, the radio station played an ad for an upcoming Steven Curtis Chapman - Michael W. Smith concert. My 11 yo Muffin said in a incredulous tone, "I didn't know Michael W. Smith was still alive!" Ummm, yes. "If he was a grown-up when you were a kid, how could he still be alive?"
You know, letting alone the fact that Michael W. Smith is far from an old man, has the child forgotten she has grandparents? Good grief. Don't worry, Smitty. We know you've still got it goin' on.
Then the next day I was deep in rapid supper preparations. Snickerdoodle was keeping me company in the kitchen. I was working on getting a main dish in the oven and a frozen veggie in the microwave, and I was trying to make time. When I had readied the veggie to be put in, I found myself asking (aloud) "Did I put that thing in the oven? Oh, yes I did. Wait, did I get the beans in the microwave? (Open and check) Okay, there they are, ready to go."
At this point, wide-eyed boy said, "Boy Mom, you sure are a quick forgetter."
I guess it's time to book a spot in the home....
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I decided that I would be a cool mom this morning and gather every one around for a math game. I recently bought some place value dice at the teacher store, and thought we could make use of those. So we roll dice (10's and 1's for the big kids, only units for the 6 yo) and turn it into either an addition or subtraction problem. Each time someone gets the answer the first time, they get a penny. If they answer for someone else or act like they're going to explode wanting to answer for someone else (a big problem at our house) they have to pay the other kid a penny.
I told them that at the end of the game, they could either keep the pennies or exchange them for an M&M (or other small candy).
Guess what the only thing anybody wants to do today is? Obviously I should have waited until everything else was done.
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My darling 6 yo Snickerdoodle should wrap up speech therapy within a few months. He is working on r's now. He just made a paper airplane and wrote some letters on it: P W W A. He asked if I knew what they meant. I, of course, had no clue.
"It's for where the plane goes! Paris, Wussia, Wussia, Alabama. It goes to Wussia twice, so I made two W's."
My inner speech therapist is telling me to have him practice his /r/, but the mom part who can't stand to tell him because he's so proud of how he wrote his w's is winning this battle, I believe.
After all, he'll have this paper plane torn up in no time and will have to plan another route. There will be time to talk about Russia then.
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Have you seen PBS's new show, Sid, the Science Kid? Snickerdoodle and I have watched part of it a couple of times. I liked it well enough, but one thing sure jumped out at me. Sid's classroom, which I presume is either kindergarten or preschool, is a spacious room equipped with everything one could dream of in an early childhood classroom. There appeared to be a space for active play and supplies for every kind of center you could wish. A classroom that any mother could be glad her child could attend.
And how many students were in this idyllic setting? Four. A four-to-one child-teacher ratio! Who couldn't love that? I think that if you can find a setting like this, you should probably go for it! Hmm. I wonder how I could find a place that would allow my children to learn in a small class size setting with a caring and engaged teacher? Wait, wait! I think I have it! ;)
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