We are serving up some previously published articles for you to feast on this week, while our family is on spring break.1
Goodbye, winter!
Hello, flowers in Victoria, Canada! Enjoy some of this site’s top articles from around this time last year.2 And may these articles help you stride confidently through life!
With desperation, I can ALMOST (!) hear you, then, asking me, “What is this one unknown truth that makes my plant (I.e., life!) flourish?”
Great question! I’m glad you asked (me!)!
It’s the following truth:
Join people in over fifty countries who read this to gain valuable life wisdom! (Or maybe they’re just laughing at me? . . . Whatever!)
God has terrible math skills!
And so, in today’s article, we will:
Prove that God (sometimes!) has terrible math skills.
Explain how God’s bad math skills will help you to soar in your life!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
Part 1
“How can I have the MOST productive, important life?” I asked God over and over.
Not that I am neurotic or anything, but I obviously asked this only so I could best help others thrive!
Well, that part came a bit later (it’s still coming a bit), but the point is that we ALL want to be IMPORTANT and AMAZING, if we push past the clutter of our words that we try to make ourselves believe when people are listening to us.
When I had my first child, I was almost immediately asked by a helpful (?) family member what everyone else was thinking: “Can you earn more money if you get someone else to take care for your baby, versus if you do it?” (I.e., He was basically asking me something like, “Do you have more earning potential than an unskilled nine-year old?”) Yes!
I did!
“Then you’ll put your kid in daycare,” his brain automatically assumed. He was talking without thinking. Makes sense!
The math adds up!
But then it seemed God was asking me to care for and then homeschool our two1 kids for twenty years.
Dr. Robertson McQuilkin, a prominent author, educator, and former president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary, famously resigned from his prestigious position in 1990 to become the full-time caregiver for his wife, Muriel, who was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
And so, how do God’s bad math skills help you to soar in your life?
For one, you can write online (if God is calling you to do this2). And then, you can write online with confidence! And if only ONE person (your mom?) reads your stuff, then you can still trust that your life is amazing!
I can trust that my small life, in the palm of His hand, is stewarded well as I do my best, falling as I go, to walk along the path He chooses for me because God carries the responsibility for what exactly a life well lived consists of!
So you can relax and follow God, and not care so much about what everyone else thinks of you or about boring stuff like whether your life is a good use of time, as valued by something as dumb as math skills! And that is freeing (once you can become socially adjusted enough not to care what others think of you, which took me twenty years3). But the IDEA is freeing once I can finally trust that my life has value as I trust Him to lead me!
And one day, I sensed in the depths of my heart God comforting me by whispering something along the lines of:
2 If you are a Christian who believes EXACTLY the same stuff as me, then You should be writing online, too! At least that’s what I think: We need more people to spout off and to say things just like I would, and to be exactly like me, is basically what I believe, though I would say that in a more nuanced way, if I were ever to mention that above a whisper.
4 Would I believe Him? Well, that’s for next time. But know that I did (!) start writing online! And then, my Mom even read what I wrote once! And now, even YOU read it! (More on why or if that matters another time.)
Sit by me and be encouraged to take this anti-seasickness medicine, friend!
As mentioned last time, I may not write QUITE as many new articles in the next while because I have to get my youngest kid ready to move out1.
And if you are still deep in the throes of homeschooling, friend, or are trying to get through another nearly impossible situation this winter, well, JUST GET THROUGH FEBRUARY.
I may not write QUITE as many new articles in the next while because I have to get my youngest kid ready to move out. What that involves is figuring out all the ways I messed her up, and then gently revisiting those topics to say things like, “Ha Ha! I was kidding! Of course!”
That type of process is what motivated our first daughter to begin her own healing journey, so I’m hoping the same method works again!
Pull up a chair and laugh WITH (Wait – AT?!) us, friend!
As clearly and thoroughly elaborated in THIS ARTICLE, I require an EXCESSIVE amount of time this holiday season skiing and soaking in a hot tub.
However, given that some of you in the over fifty countries1 who read this drivel (no-STUFF!) can barely function without my constant wisdom flooding your inbox, I will be posting some of our previous Christmas letters here to help you through this season with adequate wisdom and insight to complete the bare minimum of your Christmas activities.
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
We enjoy publishing a letter and sending it to all our friends and family for the Holidays.
You can learn that from me! You’re welcome! Good luck!
The worst, most terrible, awful part about parenting and homeschooling, is that God will want to transform your attitude, heart and motives and that STINKS!
I mean, think about it – you have always wanted to boss someone around, and now you have your little people to line up army style and pull rank on. YOU know what’s going on and YOU call the shots. You’ve been alive longer than they have, and so the world is in perfect order, thank you very much!
Then God steps in and messes everything up for you.
Thank you for liking me! I like you too! Let’s journey together!
At least that’s what happened to me every SINGLE DAY. Yeah, it stinks. For example, consider entitlement.
One day, I was looking down my nose in condemnation at my five-year-old because – WOW!- she wasn’t thankful!1
“How did she end up as such an unthankful little human?” I wondered with fear and trepidation. Would she be an unthankful little brat her entire life? THIS has got to be fixed!
I lectured her for half an hour on the benefits and joy of noticing the little things.
She looked at me blankly and continued to blame me for not buying her a third ice cream cone, stamping her little feet and yelling insults at me.
Yikes!
“What do I do now?” I wondered, finally looking up at God. “Can2 you please help me?”
And He did whisper to my heart that day as a gentle wind passed us.
And what He said was THE most annoying, infuriating and upsetting thing He could have mentioned to me right at that exact moment.
He seemed to whisper to my heart:
And how is your level of thankfulness, child?
His words were not harsh or condemning, but gentle, patient and full of the same kind of love I had for my daughter – I WANT her to find joy, and this is the path to it!
So it is for you, he seemed to remind me, turning the parent-child relationship on its head again.
How had I become the child again?
I wanted to be the parent, carefully explaining truths to my little mirrors of me.
And THAT was precisely the problem.
She WAS a mini-mirror of me on this issue.
Time for me to change.
Jesus held out his hand to me, and asked me to walk with him on this path towards a having a bit less gunk in my heart.
Would I follow?
Will you? He holds out his hand to you, too. Will you follow?
Yeah. I know. It STINKS to follow God sometimes because instead of changing THEM, He ends up changing US! I HATE THAT!
The song below is too humble for my taste. However, it contains some excellent thoughts about gratitude that are worth considering. As the song below plays, consider asking God how He may be a Shepherd to you, increasing joy through gratitude.
God, help us to figure out the (one or two places) where your plans for us are better than our ideas for how to run our lives, we pray.
Thank you for liking me! I like you too! Let’s journey together!
Photo Credit – Someone ELSE (NOT me!) Being Annoyed At God by Icons8 Team on Unsplash
1 It is worth noting that whenever my children demonstrate excellence in virtue, they naturally reflect the excellent teaching, values, and confidence that I instill as a homeschooling parent. But whenever they do something naughty (WHAT?!), of course, that is because they didn’t sleep well or their stomachs were upset, as explained perfectly clearly HERE. (Yes. That article is about my dog, but the SAME THING is true about my kids, OF COURSE!)
2 Notice the verb “Can” which of course makes Jesus laugh and slap his knee, wiping the tears a tear from his eye because he is laughing so hard. The answer “Yes. He CAN help!” A valuable truth to remember, one I often seem to forget. Jesus IS helpful!
If you haven’t read those Newsletters yet, I’ll summarize them for you: Whiny, whiny, boo-hoo, cry, send our kid away… boring, boring. But this is the thing that really bothers me, as I think about it a bit more.
It’s unfair that we are expected to send our kids away just when they become helpful!
I felt joy rise in my heart that day as I took another bite of an apple at the fall picnic.
I lay on the blanket, watching my children frolicking in the water nearby and delighted in another bite of the fall fruit someone had picked from the apple tree above us.
And I offer the fruit of my labor to them, to the world, as I watch my Homeschooled children help the younger ones pull themselves up on the log in the water.
And as their sibling bickers reach me even here, far away, I am reminded that though they are still annoying, as all of us humans are, still, the fruit from this fall season, of a season of Homeschooling has been good.
I delight in this.
We had to live with these humans, so we were forced to prune the trees and apply fertilizer even though it stung them sometimes.
We couldn’t turn aside and try to forget unbecoming behavior in our children because the school bus was coming soon. We saw them again at lunch, and then they were still there right after lunch, an hour later, and into the evening. This behavior has GOT to be dealt with. This rot in the heart has GOT to be addressed, we would finally admit.
Love drove us out of hiding.
“Show us how You see each child,” we would beg our God in prayer, longing for His picture of them, which was the sun and rain they needed to flourish.
One child was like a strong tree that would grow a thick branch in just a moment, but it grew directly into another sibling’s eye, or into my face – Ouch! Jesus would offer us a saw. Prune the tree, He would remind us.
And so, we did.
And then God pruned my tree, too.
A lot of sweat has gone into the farming of my fall crop. We had many seasons of scraping and tilling hard earth under the hot sun. We didn’t make a lot of progress. But sometimes we would delight to find a small patch of rich, dark soil, and we would quickly plant something there in their hearts before they noticed. And some of these offerings took root, though many plants languished or had to be replanted.
But the gardens of their hearts were tended as God tended my heart simultaneously, teaching me to love.
And God quickly planted something, a small plant in a tiny patch of rich soil that He found in my heart one day, soil among a seemingly endless expanse of hard, clay-baked earth. He planted it that day when I wasn’t looking. Homeschool, he bid my heart before this schooling adventure began.
And as another graying hair testifies to a beginning fall season of my life, I remember the fruit in my heart that was not there before this gardening adventure, and I am thankful that God had been tilling my soul all along, too.
And so, I took another bite of that apple, feeling happy.
So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit.
Get going, friend! Start now! The fruit of following Jesus on an adventure is worth all the hard labor of past seasons.
And may you savor many fall apples, explosive in flavor, as God scrapes off the edges of each other, not unlike iron sharpening iron, as love pours from God’s heart through us, through our kids, and then to the world.
And I took another bite of that fall apple.
And I felt love swell in my heart with each bite, love that came with this harvest.
Restoring Life 