Absent....then Easter

I don't even know how longs it's been since I wrote. It seems like forever. No One Thousand Gifts, No poetic writings of my trials as a mother or my joys. I've gone silent over the past few months. Things have been...strange.

I'd like to blame homeschooling. It sent us into a new schedule, placed new demands upon my time, my free "me" time, caused me to cherish a quick nap when I can grab one.

The holidays came and went with a whirlwind...why do I fear this will all happen again too soon. It's already April for goodness sakes. April...

We have a January birthday, twinkies in March, trips to the dunes as a family...sometimes it's a blur. But, a lovely, blessed, crazy, sometimes manic blur...

I'm a perfectionist, I think we've talked about this before. My ever demanding need to keep things consistent, updated, and perfected. When too much time goes by without writing or sitting down to share on our family blog (which operates much more like a timeline of events than this particular blog) I tend to then avoid it because I'm uncomfortable with the imperfection.

Isn't is crazy? Blogging doesn't have to be perfect. It's just a simple window to my heart. Something I actually use to leave behind a piece of myself for my children. It's a journal. But I started and restarted journals as a kid when too much time went by. I couldn't stand the lapsing in time. I wanted to be a perfect, neat, tidy, wonderful little journaler (is this a word?). What world is that from?

But, as is to be expected, here I am again picking up after a month of being away and tons of inconsistencies before that. God is refining me through even something as simple as this!

Easter
I've laid low this year about Easter. Much less than the year before have I talked and read about the coming celebration. Maybe I'm tired or maybe it's just a year to be quiet.

Christmas was quiet this year and for that I'm grateful. It simplified God's love for us. Made the whole thing just about God coming to earth. No confusion or too much information (which I think I've done before with the Jesse Tree and readings).

Easter is following this same smoothly, quiet path.

My oldest randomly asked me when were going to do Passover, by marking our doors with red paint and sharing in the model God set in motion long before Jesus was actually nailed to the cross. They get the picture. My sweet, sinful, distract able little children see the picture painted by God in Egypt and then again in Isaac and then again on the cross.

It amazes me. There is no confusion to them. It is as clear as day. Jesus is the blood on the walls, the lamb in Isaac's place, the final payment of our sin at Galgotha.

We began to read this morning to start our school day in Matthew of Jesus being crucified. It is a simple version of the events, not too filled with details in case they get distracted, when they get distracted.

Within minutes the questions are flooding from their mouths. "Who helped Jesus carry the cross?", "Was Jesus' brother there to watch him die?", "Was his mommy sad?", "Where was his daddy?", "Where did he go after he died before he rose from the tomb?", "Does he live in heaven now?", "He loves us so much mom.".

I asked my children if they would be willing to die for the whole world, beyond the people they love and who love them. My oldest who is still 6 (even though I like to treat him like he is already 7), pondered this carefully and then matter of factly said, "No. They don't deserve it."

It was as though God simply handed me the smoothest line of questions and answers in order to perfectly paint for my children the ultimate and love and sacrifice Jesus gave to us on the cross. I couldn't have planned it better. I simply obeyed the tugging from the Lord to read to them from the Bible. Something I don't do enough b/c they tend to get bored.

God is faithful.

We then took a hike up the hill at a nearby church to see the cross and see the tomb, to ponder even more what He did for us that day. What God had planned from the moment Adam took the apple in His desperate desire to draw us back to Him. To bridge the gap between the creator and the created.

I saw the cross today through my children. I put the pieces together again in a renewed way and then reminded us all that it isn't just about eternity. It has to be about today. Living out the gospel today. Loving, sharing, forgiving...

I asked them, "If the cross and the gospel are the most important things in our life, do we share them with others like we should?". Cole, stated, "No, I don't." I asked him why. "Because I get nervous."

Me too buddy. Me too. It's true. We don't want to offend, put off, seem weird...Well, I don't want to do that. But, the gospel is the most living and breathing thing we as Christians have to share.

In what ways has the Gospel moved you today?

Real Men

This is a topic near and dear to my heart, considering I have 4 soon-to-be REAL men in my house (currently) in which I have been trusted to raise as such. My husband and I have been encouraged and inspired over the past four years, in large by the homeschooling community, but also pastors such as Voddie Baucham, Mark Driscoll and Matt Chandler and also several books we've read. We have also enjoyed much of the teaching from Raising Real Men, in which we got to hear speak at the last homeschool convention.

Our society has completely feminized, disrespected, defaced, dehumanized, and created an acceptable culture of masculine mutilation in which Women are at the top, men are idiots who act like overgrown teenagers and everything in the world is RIGHT if men would just be the work horse, bring home HALF the money for the home, and shut their mouths about everything else.

It is downright disgusting and I'm completely tired of it. I even know too many people within my large (not intimate) Christian circle who talk and act the same way, tolerating and/or perpetuating the cycle, or worse allow their husbands to follow this ridiculous trend by being hands off with the children, devoted to sports and video games, and rarely make time for any one but themselves or their buddies while barely lifting a finger out of love for their spouse. Mommas boys who don't put their wives first and make questionable decisions b/c they can't think for themselves...come off it.

This is NOT what God designed and it will be take the culture to the pit of hell (in my not-so civil or politically correct opinion).

I could truly go on for a very long time with examples of how we see this in our society today. But, I will save that for another time.

Instead, before I paste a great article I read today on this very matter, I'd like to profess that Justin and I will chose a DIFFERENT PATH for our boys. It will require much prayer, endless, on the knees, hours of prayer. That is step number 1. Secondary to that is the INTENTIONAL, hear that INTENTIONAL work of setting them onto the course of TRUE MANHOOD.

Leadership, sacrifice, protection, love, hard work, determination, chivalry, LEAVE AND CLEAVE (when that time comes), loyalty, dedication, fatherhood...qualities we just DON'T see in our culture today. Men today think it's cool to dress androgenic, behave effeminately, shy from hard work, drown themselves in hours of a world that isn't real while they play video games neglecting their responsibilities and their wife, and think they are entitled to something even if they don't work for it or earn it.

Really...

My daughter is supposed to marry someone like this?

No way in HELL...

We will go back to arranged marriages to make sure this doesn't happen. Dare me...

We desire for our children to reflect the maker, make a stand for what is right, while not standing too far outside of the culture so they don't impact any one. This is a challenging task...a heavy one as a mother...and all the more tricky to achieve in a society that operates in this effeminate manner.

There are so many "traditional" ways in which we castrated real manhood in our culture. Let me list a few things we do to keep this at bay:

1. We let our boys play with weapons and get DIRTY...God created them from the earth.
2. We try not to allow crying and being wimpy to determine any change (this robs them of accountability and learning the hard lessons that not everything is fair).
3. We expect respect (towards us and others especially adults and ladies).
4. We try (it is hard) to discourage the sense of entitlement. This is a rough task but we are prayerful.
5. We expect them to contribute, even at age 3,around the house. We want them to be hard working.
6. We discuss chivalry and being a Modern Day Knight
7. We try to teach them how to make decisions (when appropriate) and do things independently when possible. NO BABIES after they are done being babies. *smile
8. We don't let them give up
9. We intentionally parent with the knowledge they might get married young and they need to be READY even young. There are no excuses.
10. We intentionally look for their strengths and weaknesses to we can sharpen the iron and reinforce the weakness into strengths.
11. Allow them to be sensitive (not cry babies to get what they want) genuinely sensitive.
12. Allow them to express emotions.
13. Validate their differences.
14. Build them up about the things that are Good and God honoring.
15. Encourage character.

It is truly critical that we as mothers and also parents (team) trudge this glorious path with firm love and enduring strength. The enemy will not ignore it. He will try to distract us from it,confuse it with naughty behavior, entice us with distractions so we don't meet the issues head on. We must cherish the CALLING!!

Check out this awesome article, only 1 of so many wonderful articles concerning MEN.

I want to write about how there are no men. (Well, there aren't no men, there are just few men). And a lot of women don't even like real men; they like feminized men - - especially if they're gay. That's even better. And many women marry mama's boys because they don't want a real man. Then they get shocked when his mother can push him around better than they can. Well... his mother has had a lot more practice -- his whole life.

Betsy Hart, one of my favorite writers, recently wrote a great article about this topic. She begins:
Whatever happened to men? That's a common question today, being asked by social commentators, parents and single women everywhere. They are lamenting young men's shrinking status in academia, the workplace and, maybe especially, marriage....

She goes on to say:
...it's simply the case that too often today's males are living up to the low expectations the culture has for them.

This is true particularly since feminism arose with the attitude of "we don't need men." Gloria Steinem said: "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle". That was feminism. It rarely had anything to do with equal pay for equal jobs. It had to do with hating being a wife... hating being a mother... and hating men. That's what feminism primarily has always been about. Don't kid yourself.

Betsy Hart goes on to quote from Bill Bennett's new book: The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood. In it, there's an essay by:
David Gelernter, the renowned Yale computer-sciences professor who was injured in an attack by the Unabomber[. He] talks about how he is bringing up his own sons against the culture. He writes that 'a man's role in respect to women is to protect, to help, to support, to cherish as opposed to consume. We are a consumer society and the number one consumption is that of women.'

...Families need to teach young men what it means to be responsible, to work hard and to be prepared to someday get married and care for a wife and children....

I would argue that we also might teach our daughters to respect men. Real men, not the men concocted for treacly romantic comedies. And to respect themselves enough to wait for that man in every sense of that word.

Please take the time to read Betsy Hart's entire article: Lamenting the Demise of Manliness in America

And then my staff got me information on traits of real men and I want to share this article with you. It's from the blogger MochaDad:
Men were made to be bold, strong leaders. However, our society has attempted to repress these traits. (Sidebar: Look what happens in schools with little boys and girls. Schools are organized for little girls who can sit quietly and sweetly with their hands folded at the desk. Of course I was never one of those little girls, but generally speaking the schools were. And the little boys? Well, we say they have ADD and we drug them so they'll sit like little girls with their hands folded sweetly.) If you look at the way men (especially dads) are portrayed on TV, you'd think we were all a bunch of irresponsible, befuddled, nincompoops, who can only function with the help of a "smart" female partner, friend, or spouse.

He titles his blog: The 7 Traits of Real Men. Women -- I want you to read them because this is the guy you should look for. Men -- I want you to read them so you can stop being weenies and take back your masculinity, your parts, your giblets -- if you get my drift. I can't believe how many women who have called my show over the years who I've told they should have married another woman because the traits they wanted in their husband are not masculine.

Read it Here.

Sharpening the Arrows

By God's grace their hearts are filled, their minds growing in capacity and their souls enriched through the learning taking place...

in a small room, in our average house, equipped with the Sword and the hearts of those who have treaded before me and put their lessons to paper creating a place at which I can somehow, reach and instruct...

we are only 3 rugged weeks into daily picking up our crosses, putting on patience and love with discipline closely knit to my side, and putting pens to paper and ears that hear onto our heads so that we might school at home...

Not just the sharpening of children but me...my ears that hear them, a heart that feels them, and eyes that see their needs (they are not always academic needs during academic times)...

The refining and the sharpening of these arrows sharpens me as well...

The soul of a mother, often broken and lost but forever coming back to the Savior and the man he gave me to pull me through...

Oh, how I need him, the one God sent to me. His encouragement, his embrace, his love, his understanding and the victory he sees...my partner in this journey, the travels of the Christian life...

when my knees are lowly bent asking for resolve as we train up, school up, and bring up these blessings...

In His Holy Word, they are always God's blessing, a reward to His people, a sign of great wealth in the Lord...

I shall not take it lightly...Lord remind me daily... 



The arrows that start out dull with only a hint of purpose must be daily sharpened that they might fight the war waged between the spirit and the world...

They cannot sharpen themselves in order that they be at the ready...they must intentionally be made equipped, showing the marks of the sharpening, glistening in the sun light as a warning of their ever ready blade...

Psalm 45:

Thine arrows sharpened are,

Men under Thee to bring,

To pierce the heart of enemies

Who fight against the King.

Today, yesterday, tomorrow...they are just the beginning of this adventure of schooling at home...

I am confident it will be difficult, I will be tired, at times wanting to quit, but the reward of the sharpening keeps me forging on...

to continue sharpening the arrows even when the battles victory seems distant...

for them....
for me....
for Him...

For God is the craftsman placing the arrows the hands of those He's called, to form them, sharpen them, give them the PURPOSE He has called them to.  He equips the guilder with the tools they will need to sharpen each arrow for it's unique purpose.  God then takes up His bow, the war is being waged even among those things unseen.  He loosely grips the sharpened arrow and employs it purpose in His calling, in His kingdom. As the arrow dulls he again and again calls upon the guilder to refine and continue the sharpening process.  These actions are almost happening simultaneously as the craftsman takes up His bow and the guilder sharpens the arrows.  Without God as the Archer the battle will not be won. Without the guilder to sharpen the arrows the battle can never begin.

My son, observe the commandment of your father and do not forsake the teaching of your mother; bind them continually on your heart; tie them around your neck. When you walk about, they will guide you; when you sleep, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk to you.  For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching is light. Proverbs 6