21 Jun 2013

Struggles of Life’s Calling: Part 3

by | posted in: parenting, Women | 0

I really think this will be the last one of this series (some of you might be glad).  I hope this series has been helpful.

Let me clarify a few things that were pointed out to me by talking with my husband and then turn our eyes to the point of this part 3.

We are all created differently and uniquely.  We all have different gifts, talents, and callings.  We all should use those to God’s glory.  I know many women who have only longed to be a wife and a mother from the time they could hold a baby doll.  Some of them are dear friends and struggle with a period of singleness because they just want to fulfill these desires.  If that is you – praise God.  I pray that He either has given you your heart’s desire or will fulfill it soon.

I know some other women who may have gotten married later (or right out of high school/college) who have other plans and desires other than to be a wife and a mother.  But, along the way, that woman gets married and its the best thing that has happened to her.  Then she must figure out a way to make that calling (a wife and maybe a mom one day) a priority in her life without hopefully dying to everything else.  I fit into that category.

Since we all fit somewhere in either of those categories – I trust that we can all believe the best from each other and not try to force the other life on every woman.  Encourage them women in your life to live every minute of their days to God’s glory – not their own.  It will look different for each woman.

Here is the main point of this post: when I struggle – how do I find hope in the gospel?  My husband and I have many conversations about how Christ is found at the center of the Word – so how is Christ found at the center of my life and my struggles.  I am very thankful for the psalmists.  These psalms were read aloud to the people of God as part of their worship services.  They weren’t just read to one person.  I’m so glad the God-breathed book tells us of the struggles that even “a man after God’s own heart” faced at times.  What did he do?  He wrote those down as God commanded him to.  He let his struggles be known.  He wasn’t looking for validation for those strggules or wanting to be told that he was ok in those struggles.  He may have just wanted a listening ear or someone to say “I’ve been there too”.  But, then at the end of it, maybe even days later when the psalmist was able to hear it and receive it – say God is here.  He is bigger.  The psalmists weren’t perfect – just like we aren’t perfect.  I believe that we can share life with others and share our struggles and hopefully in doing so come back to the gospel.

It is hard to hear from “perfect” people. You don’t think you have anything in common.  But, those people that say, “I have a hard time submitting, or I want something more out of this life, or raising my kids is tough at times” – then turn it back to say God is good in it and He will be there every minute to sustain you – those are the people I want to hear from.  God doesn’t require perfection from us – because He knew we could never fulfill it.  That is why He sent Jesus.

Jesus even struggled with the cross.  He said take this cup from me – but not my will but yours.  Obedience came even from great struggle and distress.  He was a perfect High Priest who is able to understand our struggles and empathize with us.  He endured.

So can we.  Endure well – even in the struggles.  Don’t be afraid to share those struggles – and to point people to the hope of the Gospel.

28 May 2013

One Sobering Thought in Praying for Our Son

by | posted in: mothering, parenting, writing | 0

I’m in the middle of a prayer-writing project in Ephesians.  Will hopfeully get it off to my editor by the time I find out if the next baby we have will be a boy or a girl.  Exciting times.

But, also, this has proved to be a very sobering time for me.  Much of Ephesians is about the dichotomy between life and death, between darkness and light, the difference between believers and unbelievers, adopted son and daughters or forever separated.

As I’ve been praying these for E – I know he is a believer so they are easier to pray with assurance that these verses of new life apply to him.  As I pray for little e, I do not have that same assurance.

Mister and I can pray for our little e.  We can train him up.  We can desire that he be saved.  But, that is all we can do.  The saving comes to God.  I don’t know for sure that God called and adopted our little boy before the foundations of the world.  All I can do is wait and see – and live with the knowledge that all God does is good and for His own glory and live my life in such a way that it would point our son to Christ.

The proverbs are sayings of wisdom not necessarily to be taken as divine promises.  And how many people do you know have sons and daughters they have raised in The Lord but they reject Christ.  And how many spouses pray for their entire lives for their husbands or wives to come to know Christ, but they never do.

God is our eternal Father and sent Jesus to save some.  There will be some in hell.  I can pray with all my might  that our little boy will be one of the elect, chosen in Christ – but God is the knower of all things.

I will pray and live to that end.

23 Apr 2013

Family Ministry Today: Meals and Media

by | posted in: life together, parenting, restaurants, Uncategorized | 2

Meal time has often been considered one of the most needful times when connecting with your family.  Whether you eat at home at the table, in the living room, in the car, or at a restaurant, meal time is important.  You can make it either meaningful or literally a waste of time (except for filling bellies).  What are some issues concerning meal times and what can we as parents do?

1.  Media.  Mostly I mean television – and I’ll start with home.  Rarely do my husband and I eat in front of the television.  I can probably count on one hand the times we’ve done that in 19 months of marriage.  But, growing up we did that more times than we didn’t.  It was acceptable and counted on to eat while watching a Mets game, the news, or sitcoms.  Television watching at home provides a means to have no conversation and to also not think about what you are eating.

2.  Social Media or Telephones.  I rarely remember a meal when the phone didn’t ring in our house growing up and someone didn’t get up to answer it.  It speaks of what is more important: the person on the phone or those you are eating with.  There may be times when emergencies happen and you must do that – but I would say those are rare.  Parents: leave your phones in another room or turn them off.  Eat with your family: be all there.  If your children do have phones or other handheld media devices, have them turn them off or don’t allow them to interact with them during a meal time.

3.  Restaurants.  Last night my husband and I went to Carino’s for dinner.  We sat in the bar area and I sat facing the news channel.  They were focusing on a sex crime/murder trial.  I didn’t know anything about it but caught myself glancing up every now and then.  By the end of the meal I had mentioned it to Eric just as a way of soundbite.  It didn’t do anything to fuel our conversation, but sometimes it does.  If you are out with small children: go to a place without a tv or sit in a place where they can’t see it.   You usually have no control what is going to be shown and therefore can’t be on guard against what your children (or you) might see.  I often am saddened by couples or families that sit in almost silence at restaurants.  They rarely talk with each other and are instead engrossed in their phones or just staring at their meals.

4.  Use meal times strategically.  You can teach young children responsibility and what is important.  You can make meal times a priority for your family and a chance to have great conversation about their day and your day and what you read in the Word that day or use some books to fuel conversation.  Nancy Guthrie has a book on dinner table devotions that would be an excellent choice.  Eric and I use a grouping of memory verses to read and pray through before the meal.

Whatever you do, don’t let meal times be stolen away by society.  Use them for your family’s strength and God’s glory.

28 Jan 2013

Prayers for Our Children

by | posted in: mothering, parenting, Uncategorized | 0

This past week I did a lot of driving as I was back and forth the length of I-4 in Florida.  This provided me time to listen to Z88.  I was listening to a Mark Schultz song and after sobbing, swo=iping tears, trying not to wreck due to my blurred vision through tears, I prayed aloud these three things for my son who was in the back seat.

1.  I want him to know and love God.

As I read, pray through, and study Psalm 119 this year, I am seeing a lot of cohesiveness between knowing the truths of God and trusting them and being blessed by them.  In John’s gospel, Jesus says that His sheep know His voice and elsewhere in Scripture God says that if we love God we will obey His commands (and we have to know them to obey them).  I don’t really knnnowhich comes first: the knowing or the loving.  Either way, we would not seek to know this love or know the Lover if the Lover had not first loved us.  All of this life and a relationship with Him is because of grace.  We know HIm because He has revealed Himself to us (Psalm 19, Gen 1, Rom 1, Rom 8).  We love Him because He first loved us (1 John 1)  We, as sinners, do not freely choose to love.  But, I pray, that God in His foreknowledge, has predestined my Son to be His (Eph 1).  Mister and I will raise our son (and any future children we might have if  the Lord wills) in light of this (Prov 22.6, Deut 6).  But, in the grand scheme of things, God has made the decision and knows if our son is one of His.  We will see in time if Little Mister desires the things of God and runs hard after Jesus – knowing and loving Him.

2.  I want him to love and be loved.

I want Little Buddy to know what it means to be loved and to love deeply.  Is there pain in doing that?  Yes!  But you see and experience the world in a much brighter and better way  when you know you are loved unconditionally and you are able to love to your fullest measure with one person.  Do I know if it is in God’s plans for the LB to be married one day and have children of his own?  No.  But, again, we trust in God’s perfect plan and we will strive to raise him in such a manner that he will make a great husband and father one day.  And if he is never married, then those traits will be good of a man of God!

3.  I want him to see and change the world!

One of the bestEST aspects of my time being single (the other one is discipling many girls and living life with them) was the fact that I got to travel a TON!  I was usually travling on my day off, weekends, or weeks or mission trips.  I loved the freedom God allowed me so much time being single so I could see more of the world  He created.  That is one thing that the Mister and I love doing together – traveling.  It started in our courtship and continued to our honeymoon (a two week, two country road trip) and continues now.  I want LB to love to be in the car, plane, or train or boat or rikshaw or what have you! I want him to see God’s beauty in the Rockies or in Alaska or in Thailand or in Mexico or in NYC or in PEI or in China or in South America or in South Africa.  I want him to know the beauty of sunsets and sunrices on every continent and in many different time zones.  I want him to see the waves from every ocean that is on the face of the earth.  I want him to go in search of wonder and explore all that God has created.  I want him to go and learn to love cultures of every kind and see the beauty and diversity that God has filled this earth – and that seeing those sites would cause him to yearn for heaven.  I want him to desire the nations for the glory of God.

What are your prayers for your children?

3 Nov 2012

Book Review: 52 Creative Family Time Experiences (Smith/Randall House)

by | posted in: Books, parenting, Uncategorized | 0

Do you ever hear the term “Family Worship” and think how in the world am I as a parent supposed to do this?  I ask myself this as I have a newborn – only 6 weeks old.  For me, right now, it looks like praying with him while I’m feeding him or talking to him about patience when he is screaming for food or for his diaper to be changed.  But, I know as he gets older, my husband and I have the primary responsibility to lead this little treasure to Christ and to help him grow to be a man of God and to have a heart for God.

Timothy Smith’s new book, 52 Creative Family Time Experiences, helps parents succeed in their role as their child’s primary Christian influence.  This book is a great jumping off point for parents who really need help and direction with leading Family Worship.

Here are some great points about this new tool you can use:

1.  It is adaptable.  If you have kids of varying ages, you can use this book with all of them.  It gives you ideas to make the lesson more applicable to older children and younger ones alike!

2.  It is organized.  Everything from the opening activity to the closing prayer, this book gives you 52 weeks of creative ways to teach the Bible to your children.

3.  The main point is there.  Smith definitely gets that it is the parent’s role to be their child’s main discipler. It is not the church’s.  I’m thankful that he gets it!  I wish every writer writing for families and for youth/children would get that main point.  That is clearly what the Bible teaches.

4.  It is varied.  Smith understands that all children (and adults) do not learn the same way.  He has examples and activities that hit in every learning style: auditory, smell, vision, touch, doing, etc.  This helps when all of your children learn different ways.

My only hesitation for this book is that it is not gospel-centered enough for me.  I would want to teach the explicit Gospel of Jesus in every lesson.  Take just one lesson – the one for Thanksgiving.  It says we need to thank God because He is good and blesses us.  We need to be thankful.  It doesn’t mention that we need to be thankful for the cross of Christ because it is the only way our sins are forgiven.  There are some that teach that and have it written in the lesson, but not all of them.

All in all, this is a “get book” – especially for parents who are striving to teach their children about the Bible and have no clue where to start!

30 Oct 2012

31Days: New Tiredness (30)

by | posted in: 31days, mothering, parenting | 1

I think this whole sleep deprivation thing is setting in.  To both of us!

Sweet Buddy has been kind enough and sacrificial enough to take the morning shift – that oh dark thirty hour before anyone really should be awake.  He usually gets up with little buddy about 5 and lets me sleep until he goes to work.  So Kind!

People tell you to take naps when the baby does – but I generally can’t do that.  If I took naps everytime he did we wouldn’t: have dinner EVER unless it was take out, never have clean laundry or dishes or a bathroom, etc.  I would never get any writing done (because I like calmness to write – not a screaming 6 week old).  I wouldn’t have any time with my Buddy – and my relationship with him comes first.  We stay up watching a show or reading Scripture or just talking about our days.

Marriage is more important than naps!

And I’ll catch up on sleep – maybe I can ask that for a birthday present.

And, btw, I love watching my little boy sleep!

26 Oct 2012

31Days: New Vocabulary (26)

by | posted in: 31days, mothering, parenting | 1

My vocabulary has definitely changed since having a baby.  I used to always talk about blogs, networking, theology, family ministry, curriculum, marriage, etc.

Now, these are my latest phrases:

“I’m giving you some Mommy slobber” – when I’m going to kiss little e

“He pooped 4 times today” – talking to E about our day

“Hey sweet boy” – when I pick him up out of the rocker sleeper

“It’s time to change you…again?”

“Sssshhhhhhhhh…” – all the time when I’m trying to get him to sleep.  I’ve even done this to my husband in my sleep!

 

22 Sep 2012

Yawns, Tubes, and Squishy Cheeks: Lessons in Motherhood #1

by | posted in: mothering, parenting, Uncategorized | 4

I will write a post all about the birth of our firstborn son, Elijah Levring, and thoughts about his name and what he has meant to us so far, but that will come soon.  Right now, I want to think through some early lessons I have learned in motherhood:

1.  I am not in control.  No matter what I tried to bring on contractions (and believe me, we tried almost everything), we delivered at 40.6 wks.  That was really long.  I think I had been done for at least 4 weeks.  But, God knew when I was done and I kept telling myself that He would not give me anything which I could not handle with Him.  Then I couldn’t control the tub I had.  The nurse filled it so full that when I got in, we had about 4 inches on the bathroom floor.  It was like a tidal wave of water.  I can’t control the weight I lose (or don’t lose).  Elijah was 9.06 lbs and I lost just that much and now have gained some back – maybe I should just stay off the scale.  My husband would love that!  I can’t control the lights on Duke Street.  Since we are having to make trips to Duke UMC every day we travel Duke Street a lot – and we always hit the lights.  I can’t control his platelet levels (which is why he is in ICN).

2.  Prayer is my heart language at 2am.  Who else is up with me?  A friend gave me Psalm 121 and that is so true.  I pray when I am holding him tight and he has all the cords hooked to him.  I pray as I’m singing to him.  I pray as I’m writing in his journal about what kind of man I want him to grow to be.  E and I pray as we are going to bed, clearly exhausted, and just sometimes mumbling our prayers – thankful that our God hears even when we don’t make sense due to exhaustion and sleep-deprivation!

3.  I need to extend myself grace.  I started crying this morning when the only shirt that fit that would also be good for breastfeeding was a maternity shirt.  I was upset at myself when I turned off the alarm at 2am which I had set so I could pump him some milk.  i just rolled over and finally got up at 6am.  I was frustrated this morning when Eli wouldn’t eat very well, but ate like a champ yesterday.  I needed to extend myself grace when I finally gave in to stadol and an epidural 7 cm into delivery.  I need to extend myself grace!  My husband extends me much of it, but I need to as well.

Thankful for all these lessons I am learning.

13 Sep 2012

Book Review: Boyhood and Beyond

by | posted in: Books, mothering, parenting | 0

The day this post goes live will be my first son’s due date.  As most of you Moms know out there in blogland – due dates rarely mean anything.  I think it is a ploy for women to get all worked up and having something to plan for – then it comes and goes with little fanfare.  But, we shall see.

As soon as I found out we we were having a boy, I wanted to start praying specifically for him to be a man after God’s own heart.  I already was praying for his daddy that he would continue to press in and love Jesus – and that is what I want our son to model as well.

The first book I was recommended has been a wonderful tool for me to use to know things to pray for Baby about: Boyhood and Beyond by Bob Schults.  This is actually a book written for boys, probably between the age of 10-12.  And that means it was great for this pregnant mom and her attention span.  Short chapters, not difficult theology, and very practical.

Covering such topics as: wisdom, letter writing, loving your sister, obedience, serving, working hard, preparing for a wife and children and a myriad of other topics, Bob writes courageously for young boys but not treating them as kids – treating them as young men.

I want to train my son early to be man after God’s own heart.  Yes, there is plenty of time to have fun, play games, etc – but I want to raise him to be a man.  Teach him the characteristics of what a man should be: gentle, kind, humble, meek, protector, provider, and leader – whether it is in the classroom, at home, or on the baseball field.

“God creates boy to become men.” – pg 40

I didn’t mark a lot in this book, because I will probably be praying it again for him and then giving it to Baby when he is old enough to read it and learn from its wisdom. 

What do you or how are you praying for your children?

22 Aug 2012

My Son’s Love for my JCrew Peep Toe Heels – the Art of Gender Bending and Parenting

by | posted in: parenting | 1

I have a pair of shoes that I love.  Found them at a consignment shop in Belmon, NC – a pair of JCrew Zebra peep toe 3 inch heels.  They are fabulous.  Heels are amazing and so are flats – gorgeous shoes that make any outfit.  What about the lipstick I just found in a perfect shade of purple or that great gray knit clutch I have that goes well with any outfit I have on – any time of the year?

Should be there some boundaries in what I allow my son to wear/try on?

Read this article in Parenting magazine.  I couldn’t believe it.

“Picture this: you are a single mother raising a son. You walk into your 4-year-old’s room and find him wearing his sister’s tutu and his face smeared with lipstick.  What do you do:

A.  Get on the phone with your pediatrician, sure that the lack of a male role model at home has caused irreparable harm

B.  Tell him peach is more his color and grab your tube of Coral Sea

C.  Shrug and reach for the wet wipes.

Parenting Answer: You are a fine parent if you do any of the above.  Children from single parent homes are always experimenting with perceived ideas about gender. 

This article frustrated me so much.  Really…here are my thoughts.

1.  God made you the parent to help shape your son or daughter into who they are going to be.  That is a significant role.  And I don’t think it is right for a boy to dress up in girly fashion, try on lipstick, or really, play with barbie dolls.  I think boys struggle with their identity as it is.  Just like girls do.  But, fathers – step up and be a good positive manly role model for your son – starting before he is even born.  Women – teach your daughter how to be feminine even when she is a baby.  You have this charge!  God created each of us male and female.  We display the glory of God by being who God created us to be.

2.  If you are a single Mom – see if there are dads in your local congregation that you can ask to help show your son what it means to be a strong man of God.  Ask the children’s pastor or youth pastor if there is someone he would recommend.  Single Dads – do the same thing – but with a godly woman (aunt, sister) who might mentor your daughter on what it means to be feminine.

3.  Don’t feel like a failure.  If I catch baby trying on my heels or lipstick.  I may laugh then tell him that those are not things that he is to wear.  Then I’ll go grab his daddy’s cologne and spray it on him, put a tie around his neck, or maybe put his ball cap on his tiny little head.  Much grace is needed in parenting – we don’t need gender bending. 

I’m not talking about teaching your son how to cook or make a bed, or teaching your daughter how to change the oil in her car.  These are life skills that each person needs (and I still don’t know how to change the oil in my car).  I’m talking about gender-specific activities or apparel.  Lipstick, dresses, soldier play, guns, etc. 

The one part I liked about the Parenting article: “Parents are a key influence!”  Will you be an influence for biblical masculinity and femininity – that hopefully will give them rich insights into the Gospel of Jesus Christ – or will you allow you children to determine their “preference” in who they want to be.

Photo: These aren’t the shoes I’m referring to in the post, but aren’t they gorgous.  I saw them in an NYC store front while we were on our honeymoon.  Fab.U.Lous!

Two books to recommend on this topic: Boyhood and Beyond by Bob Schulz and Girl Talk by The Mahaney Family and this link by Randy Stinson