Friday afternoon and an hour to go before S’s bio-father picks her up for the long weekend.  As common courtesy, he could tell me when he is taking her out of state, but it is not long before she informed me that he is taking her to Delaware.   Anyway, I decide to make cookies.  She asks if she may bring one with her to her father’s and I consent.  She then asks to bring two and I agree.  Then she asks for 6.  She explains to me that it is her Uncle’s graduation and he is now a nurse and everybody is making something.  I am thinking this is something she should be doing with her bio-father’s gf.  (Besides, this uncle is truly not one of my favorite people and I cringe.)  However, in the back of my mind I am hearing “love your enemies” and I consent to the 6 cookies.  Then she asks for 12.  See there might be a lot of people there and everyone will want a cookie.   I pack a dozen cookies in her bag for her to bring.  This morning I am reminded of that verse in Isaiah, “He gently leads those with young”.  Yes, and he is leading me one cookie at a time. 

This past week I organized the girls’ clothing.  I went through each size and got rid of the excess – too many of one thing (who needs 20 pair of jeans in one size?), stuff deemed inappropriate, stuff that just doesn’t fit any of their body types, stuff that is just plain strange, stuff stained beyond recognition and some stuff I that looked like it was from the 80s.  Some got tossed, some got freecycled.  God reminded me of how he blesses those who are obedient to Him.    We had an abundance of size 6 and 4 clothes, more than my girls could ever wear!  I knew it was poor stewardship to be holding on to all these clothes.  I bagged them up and listed them on freecycle.  I woman contacted me asking for them for her friend.  She told me her friend’s ex-husband is keeping her 4 year old’s clothes and sending her home in a size 2.  How greatly amusing to learn that there are other people that do this to their children!  I wrote her back to say she could have the clothes, and oh, by the way, my 7 year old’s bio-father sends her home in size 4s.  What a privilege that God allowed me to bless someone who has the same struggles as I and simultaneously put this in its proper perspective.

Today is the first real spring day.  It is 65 and sunny and the crocuses and snowdrops are in bloom.   It is bittersweet, however, as I realized that I am no longer smelling the roses.  Specifically, I am no longer going to be able to smell my rose scented geranium that Schuyler got me for mother’s day 5 years ago.  For 4 years I faithfully took cuttings and rooted them to take in before frost.  This last year I did not.  Being on bedrest since the end of August and not coming home from the hospital till November, I completely forgot about this sweet little plant till now. 

She watches over the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.  – Proverbs 31:27 NKJ

Ms. P31 did not taste the bread of idleness and it’s a good thing because I believe that the bread of idleness contains the yeast of the Pharisees.  The Apostle Paul instructs the Thessalonians, “We hear that some among you are idle.  They are not busy; they are busy-bodies.  Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat.” (2 Thessalonians 3:11-13 NIV).  Yet I have found myself tasting the bread of idleness and becoming concerned over what my husband is not doing.  When his clothes are in a pile on the bathroom floor, or papers left on the kitchen table, or countless other things are left undone, I can easily allow anger to build up resentments over what he should have done.  That is, instead of just doing whatever the task is, and being done with it, I taste the bread of idleness.   Instead of becoming busy, I become a busybody.  Jesus exposed the hypocrisy of the Pharisees -- the outside of their cup was clean yet the inside was filthy.   When we become riled up and idle instead of settling down and earning, we are being hypocrites in our belief in our Lord Jesus Christ.  Outwardly, we are godly women but the inside of our cup is grimy with self-indulgence.  Be forewarned, just as a little yeast works its way through the entire loaf of bread, the bread of idleness works its way through your entire house. 

I opened the cabinet to get out the large Rubbermaid container for our homemade granola.  CRASH!  Excited squeals erupted from the kitchen table, “Mom got doomed!”  Anything container that did not have a matching lid has been tossed.  All lids not fitting on any containers were tossed.  All containers that previously contained sour cream, sherbet, ricotta cheese and the like were tossed.  Now to find a way to store all those little lids for the half cup sized containers we use so frequently.  These little guys are the source of some major doom.  They are great cost savers (especially since we purchased 30 of them for $1 at the thrift shop) for people like me who refuse to support consumerism through pre-packaged foods.  We use them to make individual servings of jello and pudding for park days, field trips, and my husband’s lunch.  I have been sending him with carrot sticks in one and ranch dressing in another.  Individual portions of just about anything can be conveniently served up in one of these and every time I do so its one on the board for Mom, zilch for Corporate America.

Last week my daughter was unloading the dishwasher, helped by her younger sister.  I am listening from the living room as I nurse the baby.  “Here, Lynds.  Put this in the Doom Cabinet.”  The what? I am thinking.  CRASH!  Oh.  That must be the doom cabinet, I think to myself, the place where assorted and never matching pieces of gladware and the like are stored.  And that was the beginning of God’s call to me to declutter and beautify our home.  I am getting rid of stuff we do not need.  Lots of stuff.  Tons of stuff.    My 8 weeks of bedrest, followed by 2 weeks of hospitalization, followed by running down there every day for a month left our home in shambles.  As I am scrubbing, tossing and painting God speaks to me.  He tells me that it is good that I am doing this, but what about the clutter in my mind and heart?  That has already been washed clean by the blood of His son, yet I continue to hold on to it.  It is time also to rid my heart and mind of all the things I have seen and experienced before I knew Him.

Contentment is having options.  To be at the mercy of circumstance and to try to force contentment only pushes one into further discontentment.  But, ah…to have options! To make a choice, be it profitable or poor, brings forth contentment.  How often do we fall victim to our circumstances when, unbeknownst to us, it is our choice?  How often do we not realize that our reactions to our circumstances are indeed a choice?  This morning I awoke to having one log.  Yes, one log left, in addition to the ones too knotty to split that is.  With a quarter tank oil and snow in the forecast I was feeling rather irritated.  I began to blame my husband for not getting us enough wood to last the winter and that we couldn’t afford to fill the oil tank right now.  Then, I chose to go next store and take the branches our neighbor offered us when he cut them in the spring.  I determined that anything an inch and over in diameter was worth taking to burn.   As I began to break them into woodstove sized pieces with my foot and I noticed that I began to feel good.  I was doing something other than wallowing in my circumstance.  Would these branches really carry us through till Saturday when my husband could pick up more wood?  Probably not.  Did I effectively solve the problem?  No.  What it did was busy my hands and my mind, not to mention burn quite a few calories (which was likely way more effective than the aerobic video that did not cause me to loose weight over two faithful months).  I was left with a pile of stuff I couldn’t break with my foot.  I was thinking of what to do when I spied the maul that I had gotten stuck yesterday in one of those logs too knotty to split.  Now for the lesson in physics: when branches are placed between two knotty logs and struck with a maul, dried wood, up to around 4” in diameter will break.  The smaller the diameter of the branch, the higher and further it flies when struck with a maul.   Probability dictates that I am quite fortunate that I neither broke a window, nor bonked myself in the head.  Either way, choosing my response instead just reacting did wonders for my spirit.    

This morning Schuyler came to recite her Latin phrase, which was, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”.  Creative and mischievous as usual, she made it her own statement as she proudly recited, “In principio creavit Deus caelum et cetera”.  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the rest.  That just about sums it up, doesn’t it?  Sure, we know that God created the heavens and the earth, but do we really remember God in all the rest?  Do we remember the rest when the clerk in the store treats us rudely, or when the person on the highway cuts us off?  Do we remember that our own children are part of the rest when they naughty and irritating?  Dare I mention our spouses?  Whether we are careless with our words and actions, with our possessions and desires, or with our homes and the outdoors, we are forgetting the rest. 

It was early morning in early May 2005.  I had just dropped my husband off at work and my three girls were sleeping in the back seat.  My marriage was on the brink.  There was a reason my husband could not drive himself to work, and it was not a good reason.  I heard a voice.  It was quiet but clear; certainly not a whisper.   The voice said, “The baby is Evangeline Ember”.  “Oh boy do I need more sleep”, I thought and yawned.  Again, “the baby is Evangeline Ember”.  Some imagination I have…what kind of a name is that?  And…what baby?  “Evangeline.  Ember.  Westermann.”  Chills ran up and down my arms.  There is no way I’m pregnant.  By noon that day I could no longer cope with this new information and I find myself dragging three little ones behind me into the pharmacy for a pregnancy test.  Then, locked in the bathroom with the customer service rep from EPT on the phone, I am asking “are you sure that’s what it means”?  Of course she’s sure, they manufactures these stupid things.  I look up the name on the internet and it means, “like an angel glowing”.  Wow.  I have two hours to make it to the courthouse to face Schuyler’s bio-father and beg for continued supervised visits.  I lost.

July 2005 is my 20 week my ultrasound appointment.  My three girls are lined up on the bench anxiously awaiting their chance to meet their new sister and the technician has remarked already about how well behaved they are.  She can see there is something different in our family.  It is Christ she sees in us.  She asks me if I want to know the baby’s gender.  Before I can open my mouth, my eldest, who is 6, responds, “Oh no thank you, we already know it’s a girl.  God told Mommy.”  I can see she is thinking, what are the chances, this lady is sitting here with three girls already.  “That’s nice…" she starts to say as she zooms in on the area, and she confirms, another girl.  Two weeks later, at 22 weeks I am having complications and home on bed rest with a toddler in diapers, a three year old and a six year old homeschooled soon to be second grader.   And oh, remember the issues with my husband?  They just got worse…a lot worse.  The next ten weeks were an all time low.  I have never been so alone, so isolated nor so distressed.  The situation with my eldest’s bio-father had gotten to an all time new level of ugly and the family courts and DYFS failed her. 

In October, at 30 weeks I awoke at 4 am to discover that I had broken my water.  So, I drive myself, husband and two of my children to the hospital, only to be transferred by ambulance to another hospital about an hour from home.  My husband is still unable to drive.  I am told I will have the baby within 24-48 hours.  That is what happens 90% of the time.  My heart grew heavy that I would end up having the baby without my husband.  He spends the next two weeks home from work with the girls.  There is nothing like two weeks with three children under 7 to give a man a new perspective.  Two weeks later I am still pregnant and sitting in a puddle.  Evangeline is still growing and developing.  Finally my husband’s driving privilege is restored and the next day I awoke in labor.  Thanks to the inexperience of the resident, and that they transferred me to a university hospital, I continued in labor with a pitocen drip for another 27 hours before Evangeline makes her entry into the world.  I want to push but have to wait for them to populate the room with someone from every department of the hospital.  Yeah, it’s a regular party in there.  They keep asking me if a training so and so can come in and watch.  I really don’t care if it is on prime-time TV at this point.  I am in pain.  The big-shot doctor pops in and comments that he doesn’t “know why women chose to do this to themselves when the epidural is so readily available”.  I had to repent of my thoughts of him.  Evangeline finally arrived weighing in at 3 lbs. 13 oz. and very unhappy.  So much for underdeveloped lungs I thought.  As soon as they removed my IV I hopped in the shower and walked to the NICU in the next building.  I hadn’t been up in 10 weeks and I sure was not waiting for a wheelchair.  I arrived just in time to see them extubate her and she did not require a c-pap, but went straight to room air.  I spent the next month going back and forth, pumping and trying to juggle the other three.  I was worn out physically, emotionally and spiritually.  My eldest remarked at dinner that she didn’t even want any Christmas gifts, that all she wanted was to have her sister home.  Two days later we were getting together some things for our church to take to the hurricane Katrina victims by tractor trailer.   I had a cabinet of gifts that I’d accumulated through the year and I felt convicted to give them all, even the gifts we’d gotten for our girls.  I asked my eldest what she’d like to do, keep them or send them on.  She chose to send them on but Lyndsee was a bit reluctant.  Schuyler told her that if you give something in Jesus name that he’d bless you with something even better.  She agreed to send her gifts as well.  I packed the gifts into the truck and dropped the girls off with my pastor’s wife so I could make my milk delivery and spend a bit of time with Evangeline.  I was just about to leave the NICU when the neonatologist stops me…to tell me he is going to do Evangeline’s discharge exam!  So I go back to get the girls and call my husband on the way.  He leaves work early so nothing else goes wrong before we get there.  We almost took her home so many times we were afraid something would happen last minute.  When I pick up the girls I tell them that their sister is coming home tonight.  Then we head to the collection point to drop off our gifts because I am going to have to switch vehicles with my husband to accommodate 2 boosters and 2 car seats.  Since our church doesn’t yet have a building, the local auto parts store is the collection point.  They each carry in a bag of gifts and my eldest tells the entire store that she is giving these things that were supposed to be hers for Christmas to the hurricane people and that God would give her something better, and he already did because her baby sister is coming home tonight.  I could not believe that my six year old just witnessed to an entire store of people.   And that, my dear friends, is the story of one who is like an angel glowing.

How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings. They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house, And You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures. For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light. Oh, continue Your lovingkindness to those who know You, And Your righteousness to the upright in heart. Let not the foot of pride come against me, And let not the hand of the wicked drive me away. Psalm 36:7-11

If contentment is being satisfied, what is being abundantly satisfied?  What does it really mean that I get to drink from the river of His pleasures, to experience the fullness of His house?  My mind cannot even fathom how wonderful this is.  Am I looking to settle for mediocrity because I seek in earnest only a season of peace?  The first thing I notice is that I need to “put my trust under the shadow of his wings”.  To be under the shadow of something is when things are unclear and have something large over you.  It is exactly those times when there is something large over me, and all seems unclear or unknown, that I need to trust in the Lord.  How many times when we are there do we want to hold on to all the things we know and not put our trust in the unknown or the indistinct uncertainties that lie under the shadow.   I also notice that there are two things that can keep me from being abundantly satisfied: the foot of pride and the hand of the wicked.   Okay, so it is obvious that the hand of the wicked can keep me from contentment.  Really, its how I respond to the hand of the wicked that keeps me from being content, but it certainly does make contentment come easier to avoid being involved in anything wicked.  Now, about that foot of pride... 

And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.   Luke 14:27 

About a month ago I was humbled a little bit more.  Thankfully God is graceful and has humbled me step by step a little bit at a time.  E came home from the hospital and we needed to fit another car seat which would never fit in my 1998 Jimmy.  What a cute little sporty truck my Jimmy was.  It carted the 4 of us around without fail for years.  With no money for another vehicle, God provided.  He provided a tank.  

Okay, so its not really a tank, but a 1989 Suburban, which L started calling “The Zerban”.  This morning I took the four kids in The Zerban to the Dollar Store in the pouring rain to get pencils.  Out from the Dollar Store we emerge, only to see that I had left the lights on.  No biggie, I think I am thankful we were only in there for 10 minutes.  I put the key in the driver’s side door as the rain continues to pour, and it won’t open. 

Why won’t it open?  Because Sunday morning, as we are all ready to go to church the latch on the door sticks, and then my husband locks it and cannot unlock it.  He is then trying to force the lock open with some sort of pliers, ripping off the little knob. My heart starts racing in panic at the thought of being stuck in the house with these four kids.  I mutter something about “you broke my door”, which promptly slams shut, I am hoping before my kids heard the expletive that fell from my husband’s lips.  Determined to find the cause, my husband begins to disassemble the door. Finally, armed with more tools, the inside panel removed, and screws and pieces everywhere, he comes to the conclusion that the lock is frozen, quite possibly from that ice storm we had the night before. 

So, there I stand with 4 little ones, getting soaked and trying to open the door.  Finally I direct them all around to the other side of the truck where we gain entry from the passenger’s side.  Okay, everyone is in.  Everyone is in their car seats, everyone is buckled properly.  I turn the key in the ignition and...nothing.  No roar of the motor, nothing.  I was only in there for 10 minutes, how could that have killed the battery?  I have had a tough morning and it was God alone who kept me calm and avoided a mommy meltdown.  I announced to the girls that we weren’t going anywhere because the truck wouldn’t start, which is met by a chorus of “call Dad”.  Yeah, Dad is gonna love this!  Yup, leave work and come rescue us because I forgot to shut off the stupid lights, which really shouldn’t have killed the battery in 10 minutes anyway.  The excited little voice of my eldest pipes up from the back seat, “Mom, I really think that God is going to use this for something!” Hey, The Zerban is not all that rusty anyway.

Once mom is occupied, children can scatter like marbles. 

Marbles can move quicker than mom. 

Marbles are hard to find when they are hidden.

Marbles can hide very easily and quickly.

Marbles hurt when you step on them.

Okay, seriously we have completed our first two weeks of school and I have lived to blog on it.  Things to keep in mind about starting up next year:

-         Language Arts and Math only for the two weeks (possibly the first month) which means that we don’t do history, foreign language, Bible, and art on the first day.

-         no matter how much I planned, I cannot expect our schedule to be perfect

Schuyler is doing very well with mathematics (which is review from last year’s lessons) and English.  The curriculum we are using, English for the Thoughtful Child, is very well suited to Schuyler’s love and knowledge of all things out of doors.   Schuyler is a bit slow to catch on to Latin, so we will do each Lesson over the course of 2 weeks instead of 1, until she gets it quicker.  Handwriting needed review and some letters need help to be formed properly.  I am surprised that she is freely composing and writing her sentences with little assistance from me.  I am restructuring some things to include Lyndsee in the beginning of our day, and then letter her scatter with the other two marbles when she is done. 

I am not Catholic, but I am Christian and I am certain that true Catholics do not promote abortion.  Sadly, the producers of NBC’s long-running show ER have no shame in exploiting a Catholic doctor who performs an abortion, even having said character call it “giving God a chance to reconsider.” 

The previous episode of ER ends where nurse turned doctor Abby confides in ex-boyfriend, recent one-night stand Luka Kovach that she is pregnant.   Kovach, who just ended his previous live-in relationship with a nurse because he wanted children and she didn’t, would like to “keep the baby”.  Throughout the show, pregnant Abby continued to come up with several very selfish reasons to abort her baby. 

 In to the ER comes a pregnant teenager with conservative Christian parents.  (Said teenager is deemed “raped” by doctor Neela because she was drunk and passed out, though there is no discussion on personal accountability or whether or not she consented to sex.)  Neela then confronts Kovach over not referring said teenager to an abortionist, asking specifically to present to a doctor who is not Catholic.  Disappointingly, Kovach caves and administers laminaria as an abortifacient to cause an incompetent cervix, after quoting scripture and insinuating that God had not breathed life into the teenager’s baby.  He further instructs the teen to lie to her mother, saying that the teen’s parent would think she was having a miscarriage.  Character Kovach also confesses his faith to this teen.    The show concludes with Abby deciding to “keep the baby” afterall.  

At first I was outraged considering the ripple effect of this episode.  How many people in the position to influence young women would be discouraged from standing strong in their faith?  How many young woman would think they were giving God a second chance when they were really killing their babies?  And the conclusion?  Kovach gets to keep his baby after killing someone else’s in the name of medicine?  Ah, yes.  This is where God spoke to me.  He is faithful even when His people are not.  As I struggle with my own sin issues, I often overlook this fact.  How awesome our God that He can use what NBC meant for evil to speak of His character to one of His children?  Given the current cultural climate, I am so thankful that God is faithful even when we are not. 

Today was my first day using the aerobic step and video I got from freecycle.  I am determined to drop 15 pounds and flatten my tummy.  My tummy is one thing about which I am discontented – that and my jeans that no longer fit, which includes all of them.  I was strangely confident as I popped in the video, sure it was about 15 years old, but people still do aerobics, right?  Memories of how cute Olivia Newton John looked as she got “physical” got me thinking how I might look as I do this video.   The lady on the video was not Olivia Newton John.  She is a monster.  She obviously does not eat.  I began to look like a windmill seriously out of control, as she shrieked, “woo!”, “Yeah!”  “Are ya with me?” No, lady.  I am not with you.  I am so not with you.  I don’t even know how you make your body go like that without falling.  Ouch that hurt.  I just missed my step.  My mind began to wander to the Proverbs 31 woman.  She was content and the Bible doesn’t mention exercise as part of her every day routine.  She was up at the crack of dawn and did not retire until all was done, yet no mention of discontentment or exercise.  I conclude that she was just too busy for discontentment and not discontented enough to exercise.  Perhaps I need more to do.  Seriously, I need to go about my daily routine intentionally, with purpose, as did Ms. P31.

During our school work today, while I’m promising more nature walks and outside time when it gets warmer, Schuyler exclaims, “I hate winter!”

I reply, “If you sit here and whine about this season you will never get through it.”

Suddenly it hit me.  Duh!  If I sit here and whine about this season I will never get through it.  Good advice.  If I know this, why am I complaining so much?  Will this season never end so long as I continue to whine through it?  God is graceful and good, giving me the key to finding my contentment as soon as I set my heart to it.  I have struggled with discontentment for as long as I became a Christian and now, as soon as I have set my heart to being content, God has told me how.  Quite simply, I am to stop whining, to do all things without complaining and disputing.  My goal is to get through this week without complaining and disputing about ALL THINGS.

Today was the first day of our third year of homeschooling.  We started nearly an hour late and I had woke up with a sore throat.  Schuyler started second grade and Lyndsee started pre-K.  Schuyler zoomed through the first page of mathematics, however she found English for the Thoughtful Child to be a challenge.  We are using it with a Second Grade Notebook as the lines are not generous enough within to allow for clear handwriting and I’d like to be able to use it with the other girls as well.  Using her “best handwriting” is more of a chore now than ever and I met with a lot of resistance.  Lyndsee was a more than eager student and was disappointed to not have a math or English book in which to work.  Schuyler much more enthusiastically embraced Latin.  We did not get to reading today, as everyone was tired from New Year’s.   Tabitha kept occupied the entire time with her bin of school work, and the baby slept most of the time.   I was dreading this but it was not so bad.