Triple Duty

If you are looking for a new gift giving tradition in your family you have come to the right place.  I don't have a huge family but we are a close family.  While most people have long since stopped sharing Christmas with their first cousins by the time they turn 40 we continue to gather every year with my aunt, uncle, first cousins and their kids (would they be second cousins? and what are they to my children?)  While we love each other and our traditions very much the expense of gift giving even just to the children can be a burden.  For me it is only an additional 3 children but for my cousins it becomes an additional, soon to be, 7 children between my brother and me. (we stopped including my sister who lives out of town in the gift giving side of this gathering years ago)

The adults each bring one generic gift which we play a game to distribute each year.  It has been a fun tradition but we needed a new approach for the kids.  They are too young for the game plus someone still dresses up as Santa every year and we needed him to be able to pass out the gifts.

Then last year my cousin came up with an idea I thought was ridiculous.  However, nobody else had a better one so we decided to try it.  Forever we will be bowing to her genius and our lack of vision as we loved how it played out so much.

We decided to buy each child 1 $25 gift rather than them getting several cheap gifts.  We each contributed $30ish to the pot including the grandparents and then the cousins went out on a shopping day where we each chose gifts we knew our children would love, followed by dinner and a gift wrapping extravaganza.  A girls day out and shopping for an entire Christmas event finished.  Santa passed out the gifts, the kids loved them, peace and harmony reined across the land.

This year we decided to step it up a notch by including the grandma's in the mix.  While we were out shopping they were getting a tea party ready for us.  After our successful shopping spree we headed over to my Aunt Cari's for a lovely luncheon tea, shared the gifts and then got to work wrapping them all up.  We sent them home with this years Christmas hostess who will have them ready for Santa on Dec 18th.  A good time was had by all.

We let under 1 year old come to our ladies events.

All wrapped up and ready to go.

OH and just as we come to what we THINK is the last child born to this generation (that is what we thought about the last last child) we have started a tied quilt tradition.  The hands of each woman in the family are part of tying this quilt just as we will all be part of this child's life.  So while Julia didnt' think the 5th child needed a baby shower per se we snuck that task into our Christmas shopping/tea day anyway.

Do you not percieve it?

There is just something about girlfriends.  Especially the ones that have known you through thick and thin.  The ones you have known in your youth and grown old with.  I have a little group of women that I started a bible study with many years ago.  We met weekly in my home to go through the study of Esther by Chuck Swindoll.   When it was done we kept meeting, kept doing studies, kept praying together.  I believe we all had one child when we started but our broods have all grown and we have loved up each new baby that came to visit us.  But our group isn't about our children, it is about us.  About loving and encouraging one another, listening to each other, sharing our hearts.

We haven't met weekly for several years now, our lives caught up to us and our calendars filled up with kids sports schedules, church meetings and family activities.  We tried daytime as our kids got older but we keep having new babies and combined with part time work schedules and daytime church activities that hasn't been much more successful.  Yet, we still find time occasionally.  We negotiate though the business of our lives and find a date to come together and share our lives.

These are the women in my life that I know will be standing at my side no matter what path my life takes.  They will cheer for me when I succeed and they will weep with me when there is loss.  No matter where life takes each of us we are sisters in Christ, united as one.  They are my ya-ya sisters.

In the past week 2 of these women both learned that their husbands will be unemployed in the new year.  In this economy it is a scary place to be.  God immediately opened a date on all our calendars for us to sit together, share and pray.

I thought of a scripture I had been sitting in lately and shared it with them.

Isaiah 43:18-19 "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."

No need to dwell on the past, on what has been lost.  God is doing a new thing.  Don't you love how there is an exclamation point at the end of that.  New thing!  So exciting!  Do you not perceive it?  Like God is confused.  "what you don't see that?  look around!"  God is already doing the new thing.  He is already preparing them for the next job; preparing the next job for them.  And the reminder that God works in any circumstances.  He makes a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland and he will make a way through whatever circumstances you are in today.

Our family has been weathering a difficult financial year yet I am continually amazed to see God working things out providing for us exactly what we need.  A couple days after having to pay for a large repair to the plow truck I signed 2 new contracts which paid for those repairs. That wasn't coincidence, that was God working.  From the "Experiencing God" bible study it says, "God is working all around you."  The study encourages you to look around, see what God is doing and go join Him in His work. 

As I have stopped focusing inward on my needs and started looking around I am amazed at how often I see God working.  I am also amazed by the other thing I see, other people in need.  People with more need than me.  I am not alone.  And just as I see God taking care of me I know God will take care of all His children in need.

So rather than worry about my girlfriends, wringing my hands, or comparing my trials with theirs, I am expectantly looking to see what God will do in their lives and how He will "make a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."

He is working right now.  Do you not perceive it?

Wrestling

The next 2 posts could be alternately titled, "Why I love my SLR camera and will carry the big thing around more often even if it is heavy and doesn't fit neatly in my purse."  Just saying.

My son is now a wrestler.

I realize that by the time a child is 16 years old they typically have been involved in sports for years and years, have lots of experience in sports teams and have pretty much chosen a sport and are busy honing the skill but that is not us.

We figured out at an early age that Jake was not a team sport kind of kid.  And since the options for younger kids was pretty much soccer, baseball, basketball or hockey we probably weren't going to become a sports family.  We did stay in baseball until 3rd or 4th grade but finally we agreed Jake's interests lay elsewhere and moved on.

Then I became an adult onset athlete and started wishing I had some background in exercise from my youth and started revisiting our decision to just go merrily along without sports in Jake's life.  Jake started doing some running with me and as you may recall I talked him into going out for track last spring.  He wasn't great at it but he seemed to be enjoying it and the important thing was that he was moving his body.  I mostly start and finish races toward the back of the pack and every time I finish I don't think of all the people who finished in front of me but of all the people sitting at home on their couches who would never even try to run.  I am a winner.  Jake was a winner every time he stepped on the track.

Still, it is fun to do well and win.

This fall a friend of Jake's in his weight lifting class started talking to him about winter wrestling.  He taught Jake a few moves and invited Jake to some captains practices before the season started.  I have to say I was pretty excited to see Jake on the wrestling team.  He had hoped to be part of the winter plays and I was disappointed for him when he didn't get a part but I was just so excited to see him on wrestling it was hard for me to be too upset.

Saturday was the first wrestling tournament of the season.  It would be Jake's first chance to wrestle outside of practice.  They had just started official practices 2 weeks before so I didn't know what to expect but I knew Jake was really enjoying being on the team.

Jake is in black

He did awesome.  Although I only caught one of his 3 matches because of a church meeting that day (the tournament was from 9-4) I was so impressed with him.  These pictures are of the first match which he lost 3-4.  I was told but other people who know better what is going on and how things are scored that he did really good and low scores are good.  The second match wasn't as good, he was pinned almost immediately but on the third match he pinned his opponent.  Hurray for him.  Overall a great first time out.

Here is a little peak at my boy in action in his first ever official wrestling match:

Grr I can't get it to load.  Will try again later.  Sorry.  My computer isn't very powerful and really does not like videos.

I must confess I briefly dated a wrestler in high school and remember that I really liked wrestling. I worried that maybe it was just because I liked the wrestler not because I liked the wrestling.  However, the moment Jake started wrestling I discovered that I really did like wrestling.  It was fun to watch him.  I can't explain it but I just love the intensity of the sport.  I am looking forward to the rest of the season.

Identifing gratitude

I didn't do my list on Monday of things I am thankful for but today I would like to say I am grateful that the circumstances of my life do not define me.  My identity is not wrapped up in the ability to pay bills, buy fancy Christmas gifts, wear fashionable clothing, make everyone happy, always do the right thing and know all the answers.  Because, if it did I would be a big fat failure at every turn.

I must confess I hate admitting failure.  I live in fear of failure and fear of the humiliation I think would come with failure.   And when I think I have failed I am depressed.  It is hard for me to get past it.

Yesterday I had a particularly frustrating encounter with someone who made me feel very small and very overwhelmed by our current financial struggles.  I wanted to crawl in bed but I knew I needed to go on and could not let this person ruin my day.  While for a brief moment I let this person define me, I quickly reminded myself where my true identity comes from.

My identity is in Christ.  My identity lies in knowing that I am loved.  Knowing that when I mess up there is forgiveness and restoration.  There is no judgment.  Knowing God will help me when I am down and not try to take advantage of me.  He believes in me and sees beyond the circumstances of my life and into my heart.  And when I define myself that is where I also must look.

So I did a few jumping jacks (exercise relaxes me) and repeated over and over the truth.  I am a child of God.  My identity is in Christ.

That afternoon I added to my gratitude list, I am thankful my identity is in Christ.

And when John came home that evening we added one more thing to be thankful for.  Dated bathrooms.  He has another job lead.  We may be waiting between jobs right now but this is not looking to be a very boring winter.  Praise the Lord.

God Guides

I am reading a booklet called, "God Guides".  It is a compilation of journal entries written by a woman named Mary Geegh who was a missionary in India for 38 years after WWII until she retired.  She learned early on in her ministry that she needed to have a quiet time each morning if she was going to have success in her ministry and life.  But while I hear "quiet time" and think about praying or reading the bible, when she said quiet time she meant quiet.  She wasn't making noise telling God what she needed but instead sad quietly listening to what God was telling her.  And as she proceeded through her ministry she often said to people, "I don't know the answer but God does so let's go sit and listen to Him.  He will tell you what to do."  She would bring the person into a prayer room she had set up, hand them a notebook and tell them to write down whatever thought came to their mind.

I often will say things like, "then God told me..." but many times when I suggest that someone ask God for an answer they will tell me they don't hear God talk to them like I do.

I think we make it too complicated.  I like how Mary did it, gave a notebook and said to write down whatever thought came to mind.  We give ourselves too much credit for our good ideas.  I don't hear an audible voice.  I just get a thought. 

Sometimes I tell God a problem and then I get a thought so I respond to it as if it wasn't my thought but God's voice.  Because I often find it is.

Maybe it would go like this:

"Lord, I am mad at so and so"
"What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything it was them"
"but what did you do about it?"
"I didn't start it"
"but did you help?"
"But they owe me an apology!"
"Well you can wait for one but is it really worth feeling angry?"

And on and on like that until I am ready to submit to God and follow his direction.  Then I get the real word from God.  Maybe to go apologize myself, or confront about the situation or maybe I just need to let it go.  God knows and when I am ready to obey He tells me.

You have to be willing to hear God and be vulnerable.  There are several stories in the book of people who heard God ask them about something in their lives seemingly unrelated to their problem.  They would leave Mary's home in a huff only to return a few hours or days later ready to admit the relationship between the problem and what God told them.  Maybe they were having a problem with their business because their marriage was struggling or they came with a struggling child and God told them how to change themselves rather than how to change their child.

It can be hard to obey God.  It is hard to listen because sometimes what He says is hard to hear.  And even harder to obey.

I have learned over the years that it is very rewarding to listen to God even when it is hard.  Even when I don't like what he is telling me about myself.  Even when He asks me to do things I don't want to do.  When I obey I experience joy and peace I wouldn't otherwise know.

But I have decided against obeying God plenty in my life too.  He doesn't need me.  He just used someone else.  God didn't loose out, I did.  But I will never know how much.

This past summer God told me that our women's ministry needed to spend a year praying and listening to God.  I didn't really know how it was going to look, what we were going to do or who would pray with me.  I just saw the vision, got excited, told a bunch of other women, got them excited and now we are meeting in a week to begin monthly praying together for the women of our church and the women's ministry and ask God what we should do and how we can minister to the women of our church.  I told the women this wasn't going to be a discussion of what we should do with women's ministry this was going to be a time to pray and listen.

In preparation I have been busy meeting with other godly women in the church, praying, and reading this "God Guides" book.  And it has me thinking way beyond women's ministry with this prayer and listening plan.  As I have been praying and listening to God in my personal life I feel life is changed.  Recently a friend called with a struggle and I encouraged her to listen to God, something that would have been a hollow comment in the past, but that day I said with conviction of its power when I told her, "I don't know the answer but God does.  He will tell you what to do."  And I meant it, not a blow off but the most powerful thing I could tell her to do.

I don't know what my girlfriend will decide.  I am looking forward to hearing.  I don't know what He is going to ask us to do with Women's Ministry at our church but I can't wait to find out what it will be.  And I don't know what my future or my family's future holds but I know God does and I am listening.

One of my favorite stories from the book so far tells of this woman being out of town at a conference where she met a man whose home had recently burned down and all he owned was the suit he was wearing and his bible.  After talking with him she heard God tell her to give the man all the money in her purse.  Well she wasn't sure about that because she needed to buy a train ticket to get home that day.  But she had learned to obey God when He told her something so she put it in an envelope and gave it to the man. 

Now this is amazing but that isn't what really struck me about the story.  The amazing part is that she then went to the train station to go home.  WHY?  She had no money.  No way of paying for a train ticket.  Was she just going to sit at the station until money fell from the sky?  Was she going to walk up to the ticket agent and tell him that God told her to give all her money away so she was going to need a free ticket home?  She doesn't record her thoughts.  This part that I find so amazing didn't seem amazing enough to her to record her thoughts.  She had so much faith in God's provision in her life that she simply went to the train station.  If God wanted her to give away all her money then he had another way of paying for the ticket.  She would just do her usual routine and wait for him to tell her what to do next. 

Well, as she was walking up to the train station a young man comes running out and hands her a ticket!  He had seen her put her money in an envelope to give the man and God told him to run to the train station and buy her a ticket before she arrived.  So he did!

Seriously you can't make these stories up!  This is how God works.  When we walk in faith, trust Him and listen for his voice.

It is a beautiful thing. 

John 12:49 "For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it."

40 years of gratitude

Today is the day!  Happy Birthday to ME!  I am 40 years old.  And for all the jokes about being old I am loving it.  I did have a girlfriend who turned 40 last year tell me it has been a terrible year.  Her hair all turned gray, she can't see anymore and she has sprouted chin hairs.  Well I guess if that is as bad as it gets I say, "bring it on!"

I have had a lovely but quiet day today.  I got breakfast in bed and my birthday poster which has become our new family tradition this past year.  I stayed in bed until almost noon finishing up the final book in the Midford series.  And then just felt like going to the como zoo and conservatory with Isabelle this afternoon so I did.  Finished the day with dinner out with the family. 

Because of our current financial state I didn't get any gifts, we didn't have a party and even dinner out was up in the air for a while but we decided to go for it anyway.  However, as I was enjoying the day doing nothing particularly special I thought of all the things I have to be thankful in life.  I don't really need more presents, I really have everything I need.  (Although I will confess my parents were generous with me this year and it did put a smile on my face.)  But my life is full.  I have nothing to complain about, only reasons to rejoice and give thanks. 

 My birthday poster.  They wrote all the things I am.  It was very sweet.

 Isabelle took my picture.

We continue to give thanks this week and on my quiet birthday I share the joy of thanksgiving with all of you:

1. Friends
2. soft beds
3. healthy bodies
4. lice treatment
5. free tires for the work van
6. 2 working snow blowers
7. Knock knock jokes only a 5 year old can tell
8. Adam, John's cousin who gave us tires and a place to fix the snow blowers
9. Purdue, Jade's safety school which she got into this week
10. freedom to study God's word
11. A 5 year old trying to give rabbit ears to everyone in pictures
12. Lazy Saturday afternoons
13. A good book and a roaring fire in the fireplace
14. vacuum cleaners to get up lice and nits from carpet
15. the high heat setting on the dryer to kill nits off comforters, jackets and other large items.
16. flat irons to destroy nits on the hair
17. a great school conference
18. Isabelle sliding along on the icy sidewalks
19. Beautiful flowers to enjoy year around at the conservatory
20. A new magazine in the mail on my birthday to cuddle up with tonight.

4 or 40?

Over the years I have found that my milestone birthdays are marked with sickness.  I recall my 18th birthday sitting in a chair with my tonsils so swollen with tonsillitis they were touching while my family was trying to be cheerful and celebrate around me.  I recall that although I wasn't specifically sick on my 21st birthday I had walking pneumonia most of that year. My 30th birthday present was a trip to the doctor because I couldn't get rid of a cough and worried as I prepared for a visit to my sister and her one year old daughter that I might have strep.  I was about to walk out the door after they said it wasn't strep but the doctor insisted on testing me for mono.  I was laughing at the thought until the test came back positive.

So I guess it should be no surprise that with my 40th birthday looming some medical disaster was on the horizon for me.

The funny thing is that I seem to be aging backward with my illnesses.  Tonsillitis and mono are illnesses you get as a kid not an adult.  One of my girlfriends husbands, who is only a year or 2 older than me, is having hip replacement surgery on my birthday.  It isn't uncommon for people to experience pre-mature aging.  To have illnesses that would typically be seen in much older adults.  I have known a 20 something who had a stroke.  Heart disease is on the rise in younger and younger people.  A neighbor in her 40's had a mild heart attack last year.  It is unfortunate when it happens but not totally un-heard of.  I, on the other hand, am like Benjamin Button who was born an old man and aged backward dying as an infant. My illnesses seem to originate in a younger and younger crowd as I go from milestone to milestone.

And so here we are 5 days from my 40th birthday and I am waiting for my husband to return home with lice treatment.  That is right.  I have lice.  Yuck. 

And the funny thing about all these sicknesses.  I never had any of them as kid.  Although I had large tonsils as a kid I never had tonsillitis,  my sister had mono but I didn't and not once did we ever have lice in our home.  Until now.

I wonder what it will be for my 50th birthday.  Cradle cap?  Thrush?  Ear infection?  croup?  Maybe I should just start planning to have the big celebration at 49 instead.

Since this seems like a childhood problem I did what any child would do, I called my mommy.  She is on her way to help me comb through all my hair with a little comb, seek and destroy all the eggs on my head.  What would we do without moms?