.


I took my three youngest sons hiking yesterday.  It was magical.  One of those perfect fall days of sunshine and fresh air and brilliant color.  A perfect storm of all the best that Tennessee woods have to offer.

We were journeying hobbits one moment then as we passed along a gravel topped spill-way my 4 year old began to drag his hiking boots and acted as though he couldn't quite keep his feet on the ground, "Look, I'm John Carter of Mars!"

We saw turtles and geese and flowers and a man in khakis, dress shoes and a good haircut "hike" past sipping from a Starbucks coffee cup.  Evidently his break-room door is a portal into a State Park.  We passed a group of Japanese tourists all dressed in black and white striped shirts and pushing strollers.  An odd sort of chain-gang?

The boys danced in the wind gusts trying to catch leaves.  Which would have been peaceful except that the gust kept timing out to when we were at the edge of precipices.

Back to the Canadian Geese, they were gorgeous and huge, and they made my 4 year old hungry.  "Mom, remember how I learned to swim under water this summer?"

"Yep."

"Well, I think I could slip into the water and swim until I was under that goose and then I could pop up and grab it and then we could eat it for lunch."

"Wow," I responded.

"I'll do it right now," he said as he stepped to the edge of washed out road above the lake.

So many mental images.  I know we are not allowed to take leaves and flowers out of the State Park- but what's the law on hand-caught geese?

As a mom I choose this outing as a keeper-memory to put at the top of my stack of go-to memories.  I control my brain's memory filing-system so why not use connection moments like these as my mental screen saver?





.
http://womentakingastand.blogspot.com/2012/10/thankful-thursdaywhat-is-perfect.html

.



I have a great life, a blessed life; so don't pick up rocks to throw thinking that I'm whining.  I'm not.  I'm merely stating facts; I have been sleep deprived for 6 years now.

6 years.

6 years ago my 6th child was born.  He nursed poorly and often.  Later he drank from a bottle poorly and often.  Then in a blur his little brother was born.  Two Littles.  Two precious Littles plus older children and a life full of family and school and work.

I burned the candle at both ends.  I often felt like I was the candle, a messy molten mess.  My two Littles were diagnosed with a metabolic condition that required them to be fed at night, long long looonnngggg after typical children give up night feedings.

After 6 years my 6 year old is finally cleared to sleep the night without any night feedings!  He just has to take 7 T  of raw corn starch mixed into milk before bed.  Yeah, I know that's weird, but it's normal for many of those with a Fatty Acid Oxidation Defect.

Sleep.

Sleep.

I can now go to bed at 10:30 or 11:00 and sleep till 5:30.  7 hours. I've averaged only 3 to 4 hours in a stretch for years now.  In fact for over a year I lived on an average total of 3 1/2 to 4 max.  Talk about going mental...

What do I plan on doing with all this extra sleep?

Rejoice.  Thank God for the grace he's given me over the years.

My two sons are healthy and thriving.  We made it through their early growth spurts.  I plan on sleeping well until they hit puberty.  I got my hair done.

What else do I plan on doing?

I don't know, I feel giddy with energy so for now I'll stick with Philippians 4:4

.

Over the years my husband and I have vetoed or forbidden, certain ideas that crop up as predictably as developmental milestones with our children.  One after the other each child has had to have the rules of life gently explained.

Things like:

Thou may not spit at thy sibling no matter the provocation.

Thou may not pretendeth to drown at the pool.

Thou art not Hugh Jackman thus thou may not taketh all the table knives between fingers to role-playeth Wolverine.

By child numbered 6 and 7 we are mostly forbidding repeats. Until last night.  Last night was a new one.  Last night I had to write a rule I never even dreamed of.

My husband and I came home from a date and saw strange shadows in the little boy's window.  I went into their room ostensibly to kiss them goodnight but mostly to see what they had been up to.  Blankets were draped all over the room.  Okay, clubhouse building after bedtime.  Totally fine.

My 5 year old's eyes sparkled when I walked in the room.  "Mom look what we built!"

"Cool."

"Can I sleep in it?"

"The clubhouse?  Sure."

"No, I mean the hammock I built with ropes from the garage."  He climbed out onto the comforter I thought was merely draped between the tops of their two bunk beds and lay down.  He gently swung back and forth while on his back 5 feet off the ground. "See, it swings just like in The Voyage of The Dawn Treader."

Ropes from the garage.  My son was dangling between bunk beds on a hammock he (my 5 year old) had built with ropes from the garage.

In shock I left the room and got my husband.  Parenting joys such as these must be shared, plus I needed time to compose our newest family rule.

The building of hammocks is henceforth and for all time forbidden.


.

.

Yesterday we had one of those curious February days of full sunshine, fresh breezes and warm weather.  My entire family was giddy.  Windows were raised, shorts donned, and school work done outside.

My husband roller-bladed with the Littles and I grilled hamburgers and fat potato-fries on the grill.  My 4 yo licked the ketchup from his plate.  We dipped strawberries in freshly whipped cream for dessert.

After dark we entered into family wide multi-national negotiations in order to pick out a movie to stay up late and watch together.  Believe me with a family of nine this is serious stuff.

I don't do well at planning holidays or birthdays.  It gives me stage fright, and I have a curiously frustrating habit of forgetting important dates.  A spring sprung on me?

That I can roll with.

Just not roller blades.


.

.

My 5 year old checked out a Hank the Cowdog c.d. from the library.  Everywhere we drive we are accompanied by Hank's tales.  I'm starting to cogitate in Hank's vernacular, see, because as head of this ranch's social life I do a lot of cogitation.

It's kind of like what happens after an overdose of Dr. Suess.

I was fixin dinner yesterday.  "Fixin" because we live in the South.  We fix a lot of things.  We can even be fixin to fix a lot of things.

Anyway.  I'll try to write normally now...

My 3 year old ran in the back door in a gleeful burst of fresh air and hollered, "I need a sharp knife to cut the skin off too!"

So of course I reached in the knife drawer and handed my 3 year old a sharp knife.

Wait, no I didn't.  I believe what happened was a momentary tableau.  At the exact moment that he hollered, "sharp knife, and, skin," several other family members were in motion moving through the dining room and kitchen.  We all froze.

I think the word "skin" was the clincher.

"Um, what skin?"

"The skin like big brother is cutting off with his knife."

Well that was helpful.   There was a general household-wide movement to the back door.  "The skin of the pointy thing... you know..."

Why do children speak so slowly when you most want them to HURRY UP and get to the point.

"Oh, you know off a tree, a stick.  The skin on a stick."

"Bark!" exhaled 3 or 4 listeners all at once.

I think we offended him with our laughter.


.

.

.


I'm washing dishing and looking out the back window.  My husband is playing with our three youngest sons.  They are in a big plastic climbing cube that he is slowly rolling.  Raucous good times.

The last Sunday night I stood here washing dishes was also a good night.  Little did I know that my boys would wake in the night with the stomach virus from hell.  Litttle did I know what drama was about to unfold.

I took one boy to the hospital around midnight that Sunday and then called home the next morning only to have to hang up because my 16 year old needed to call 911 while my husband tried to administer glucose gel to my lethargic 3 year old.

I waited, helpless and unknowing, in an observation room (in another city) with my sick 5 year old for the intercom announcement of the ambulance arriving with my sick 3 year old.

I'll never forget the feeling of being crumpled to my knees one moment and then raised the next.

I'll never forget that first hug with my 3 year old. He was still strapped in his carseat, strapped to a gurney and attached to an I.V. pole rolling down the E.R. hallway.

It was a rolling, overwhelming, dextrose enhanced, adrenaline rushed thanksgiving sort of hug.

So this Sunday night, I wash dishes and glance outside and feel blessed.  I feel blessed and yet know that I will be annoyed with my boys about something-or-other several times before bed.  They will misbehave one moment and shine the next. 

I'm too weak to be consistently thankful or consistently joyful.  No memory is that powerful, but I can thank God for moments of clarity.  Moments when I see clearly.  Moments on the hospital floor praying and feeling God's presence. 

Moments that remind me of the power of the Cross and God's overwhelming sacrificial love.


.

Speaking of my 2 birthday boys with their birthdays just two days apart.

Ben, just 6 at the time, spent some time pondering the eventuality of a shared birthday.  He came to me one morning to let me know that it would work fine to have the baby during his birthday party because,  

Waiting at the Pharmacy.

Excitement is not 

something they find...

It's something they create.

Throw in some dirt and the possibility of bodily harm and errand running is transformed.

Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

Sam's crankiness, Jack's poolside throwing up all make sense now.  Someone invited the flu to our house without my permission.  Probably the same someone who always spills ice on the floor in front of the fridge.  The upside is I am showing videos in the middle of the day with absolutely no guilt, which means I have time to sit at my computer unmolested.  I thought I'd transcribe another section of my Mom's old talks about suffering.  

Remember that I am transcribing lecture notes as they were written, and Mom probably expounded on certain areas.  Some of this section seems a bit abrupt when typed but try to imagine a sweet voice and an incongruously loud laugh.

Why is Suffering In The World?

Years ago when we lived in Boston, my friend, Peggy Holley won a radio contest in  my name with the following ditty:

God made a beautiful beginning,

But Man spoiled his chances by sinning.

We hope that this story will end in God's Glory,

but at the present, the other side is winning.

We live in a world where there is sin. When we put on our Lord as our savior, we don't get plucked up and moved to a perfect place.  He leaves us here to contend.

We are told that Satan is a fallen angel.

2 Peter 2:4  "For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them in to hell..."

Jude 6 "And the angels that did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling have been kept by him in eternal chains in the nether gloom until the judgement of the great day"

We know that Satan has powers.  He tempted Jesus when Jesus was lead into the wilderness. He had to have had the power to fulfill these temptations.

Jesus himself, called him the Prince of this world.

1) John 12:31...now shall the ruler of this world be cast out.

2) John 14:30....for the ruler of this world is coming.  He has no power over me.

3) John 16:11...because the ruler of this world is judged.

We are told in 1 Peter 5:8 that he walks around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.

So with suffering we have 2 choices.

#1 God is the author of suffering and He puts it in the world to hurt, to refine us, to test us.  That God has absolute control and plans suffering as a tool....

#2 Satan has power too and he tries us with his powers.  That it is Satan who wants us to suffer.  That it is Satan who wants us to sin and suffer.

The only perfect place where there was no sin, sorrow, or suffering was the Garden of Eden.  When man and woman made the choice to disobey God and eat the wrong food, they made the choice for all of us to have to live in the World.

God did not want to be worshiped by robots... He wants us to worship Him freely.  He has a perfect will and a permissive will.  He allowed the death of our child but he did not design it.  He could have prevented it... but my son had the choice of running across the street or waiting for me as he should.  Once the choice was made, we have to live with the circumstances that come from that choice.

When we were told that, "God must surely love you because of the suffering you are going thru."  I was less than Christian in my attitude.

Of course, they got their idea from Hebrews 12:6 "For the Lord disciplines him whom He loves."

Discipline and Love may go together but the God of discipline and love does not cause suffering just so one can grow from it.

It comes down to would you rather believe that God made suffering and plans it for us or that we live in a world that is not longer perfect and Satan has powers too.