So Where Do We Start?

I received many private emails in response to last week’s post, I challenge you….

A few emails had the same questions like the one I received from “Mandy”, she has given me permission to share her email with all of you.

” Homeschooling my 3 kids and keeping home and managing the finances keeps my days full. I just… found out that the place my husband works is closing. We are just trying to keep our heads above water. I do try to be an encouragement to other moms in our homeschool group, but we neither have the space (very tiny house), the time, or the money to have people in our home.

I didn’t grow up doing the things you are talking about so I don’t really know how to teach it to my kids. I have no older woman near me who takes an interest in disciplining me so I can learn these things. My family is nowhere near me.

What is someone in my situation supposed to do? I feel I can’t help an orphan, a widow, minister to my family, and we are trying to find a good church home so I’m not serving in that area right now.

I love what you are saying but don’t know how to make it practical in my life.”

Thank you Mandy for being so honest! I do think these are very common situations for many families.

First, let me say, I was not raised to do any of the things I am doing now. By God’s grace I have learned as I went along, I still have a long ways to go! The important thing is to just start where you are…one baby step at a time.

The reason why so many people are in this place is very simple, yet it has such a wide and all-encompassing ramification! Our culture, even among Christians, has lost it’s sense of community.

For decades we (as a whole) have lived individually. We bought the lie that it is all about us… we need to be all we can be, keeping the focus on US. We live as if we don’t need each other. This is not God’s best for us!

Combine the “it’s all about me” mentality, with separating the family for the majority of the day, which damages many relationships, and then throw in a dose of “keeping up with the Jones” and we end up with a bunch of hurting, confused, frustrated and ineffective people who are just trying to survive… by themselves!

Very Few People Have a Family Community

As a whole we push our kids to “find themselves” at all cost, especially at the cost of family relationships and family finances. Because WE PUSH THEM OUT, to be more and to do more, it is easy, almost natural for them to fly far from the nest as soon as they can.

You can not have a family community if you are not close to each other, investing in each other on a regular basis. It is the sharing in the joys and burdens of life that binds our hearts together. In our culture if you live near family you are considered back-woods, cousin-marrying rednecks. Or you are viewed as having control issues. How sad this is!

We want to stand on our own two feet, not needing anyone and we are VERY selective in how much we are willing to give of ourselves to others. And, yes, we should strive to be self-sufficient, but at the same time we need to be living in family community.

WHY in the world do we have nursing homes full of people? Because the family community is broken down, everyone is trying to keep their head above water and can not afford to take care of grandma.

But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God. 1 Timothy 5:4

The average American family is deep in debt, with broken marital vows and disconnected children searching for purpose in life. Our push for material comfort has actually put a strangle hold on our culture.

We all know things are a mess, but what are we willing to do to make the changes? Are we willing to sacrifice, even if it means living with less or even being ridiculed by family and friends? How serious are we about redeeming the culture and seeking first the Kingdom of God?

So Where Do We Start?

For women, our families are our top priority! Meeting the needs of our husband is our number one calling, it is above EVERY THING else! And for some women, being the helper for her husband is all she can do. He may be demanding, or sickly, or whatever. If this is the man you are married to, he is your mission field, treat him that way!!! WHY are marriages falling apart like crazy? Because most women live with a individualistic worldview.

GET THIS!!!

For many of us, our biggest work, our life long mission is to reclaim family life the way God designed it to be. We need to be laying a foundation for future generations to build on. We will be spending most of our lives breaking the cycle of narcissism and materialism.

It is up to us to be living proof, that living sacrifice (Romans 12), to proclaim God’s truth by first establishing a family community. Once the family is united and equipped, THEN we can go out to our neighbors…and all the nations. For some of us, the going out to minister to others may not come to be in our lifetime, but that of our children and grandchildren. Hopefully we will lay the groundwork for them and they can go further than we ever dreamed.

For those of you that you feel like your hands are tied and you can not go serve as you want, first reach out where you are, right in your family. It WILL BE the most exhausting, humbling and frustrating mission work you will do.

You will be met with resistance, ingratitude and very…VERY slow growing fruit, but it is where God has you. You MUST first build up your house (Proverbs 14:1) so that it will stand, for what good is it to ‘save the world’ if your own house/family community crumbles?

Remember There are Seasons

There are times when you will be investing tons of time in your marriage or children. Every season brings new challenges and blessings. As your children grow older you will see that they need less physical investment and MUCH MORE emotional and spiritual investment. They NEED you to be all there, to advise and encourage, and be sure you have the Biblical wisdom to advise correctly.

There will be seasons that you can do more outside your home, make the most of it when it comes!

If you have spent your life laying a sound foundation, building family relationships and encouraging a family community, which means you have to live near your people, then there will come a season where you can reach out more. And what joy there will be when we can be a blessing to our grandchildren and elderly parents.

Home missions is not be pretty, or even recognized by most, but it will bring much glory to your Father.

As we work hard at reclaiming family life from the ground up we have to first change the way we view God, family and missions.

Some Practical Ways to Serve in Great Ways When Money and Time are Tight

Focus on Making Home Pleasant

This is HUGE. If you want to create a family community, then you must make home a pleasant (NOT perfect) place to be. This does not mean a beautifully decorated home. This means a home where mom smiles and looks on the bright side of things, as she points her loved ones to Christ. It means that mom is more concerned about the heart of matters than the legalities of issues, it is where forgiveness and grace abound!

Do NOT make your house a classroom. Being a teacher is not more important than being Mom. Yes, instill a love for learning, but don’t be so focused on academics that you can not enjoy daily life.

Make one night of the week, or if that is too much, make one night of the month a special meal time. Use a table cloth and glasses to drink from. Let the kids make place settings and table decorations according to the season. Slowly start making meal time something pleasant. Help direct conversation in positive ways, saying words of encouragement to each person.

Play soft relaxing music. Music is powerful!!!

Use soft lighting.

You make them remember the good times!

Make your family want to come home! Kind words, pleasant aromas, smiles, hugs, laughter, walks, bike ride, card games, cooking contests … What kind of mom will they say you were?

THIS home ministry is HUGE!

Never Underestimate Encouragement

Simply saying kind words not only to your family, but to others you encounter does brighten a day. Make it your mission to start a pleasant, yet brief, conversation with the cashier when you get groceries. Speak to someone at church you don’t normally speak to. Your children will watch you do this and they will one day follow your lead.

Make a habit of sending a letter, or even a card with a few brief lines of encouragement to someone. Think of people from your past you’d like to thank for investing in your life. Encourage a church or civil leader for their work. The written word is powerful! This is a must read for letter/card sending.

A simple plate of cookies to your librarian, emergency workers or postal workers with a note of “Thank You” is a great way to bless others.

Be Aware and Ready

You may not have money to give but you can find ways to organize giving.

Your family can organize a shoe drive, or a jacket drive for local needy children, or the homeless.

Is there a family in your area adopting? You can organize a fundraiser or help someone else that is organizing an event.

Is there an elderly person that could use their yard cleaned up, or their windows washed? Could you offer to do their grocery shopping when you do your shopping?

Are there shut-in’s in your area that just need someone to sit and talk with them for an hour or two a week?

Nursing homes ALWAYS need people to visit, especially with young children to brighten their days!

Use your handiwork skills to crochet shawls for the elderly, or baby hats for the hospitals.

Use your cake decorating skills to make birthday cakes for local children’s homes or foster kids.

Ask God to bring opportunities to you. You won’t be giving and doing every single day, but if you have the mindset of wanting to serve, opportunities will come.

Most of all, how are you building your family community?

Are you pushing your children to grow up and move on for the sake of material gain? Or are you encouraging them to stay in their community, their family community and church community?

Are you teaching them how to trust in God or are you full of anxiety and fear?

—-

The Most Skilled Deficient Generation- Ever!

Food for the Sick - Suggestions and Tips

One of the great privileges we have in life is to serve others when there is sickness or times of great stress.

One of the first and most important needs when a crisis hits is food. If you want to serve others in this way you need a plan. You need a few foods that can fixed quickly and delivered on fairly short notice.

Think of 2-3 meals that you are good at making, meals that don’t take a lot of effort because you know the recipes so well. Write these down so when a crisis hits you don’t have to think.
Think of meals that can be frozen or kept for a few days in the refrigerator.
Try to keep the ingredients for your ‘standby meals’ in stock, perhaps put on a shelf designated just for outreach.
If you don’t have time to cook consider taking a basket of fruit, lunch meats with rolls, or a bucket of chicken.
If you live far off you can order pizza or even something nicer from a restaurant to be delivered.

Other things to consider:

Inquire about food allergies.
Paper goods are always a good thing to include.
Always check to see when is a convenient time to bring the food.
Too much food at one time is more of a burden than a blessing. Sometimes food/help are needed several days later.
Always label your food and include any cooking instructions.

In times of great need these sites are good to help coordinate food for a family. This helps communication greatly and you can see when you are really needed. It is usually good for a close family member or friend to manage this for a family.

Care Calendar
Take Them a Meal
Food Tidings

Easy Comfort Foods

Soup
Chicken Potpie
Anything Pasta
Casseroles
Roast with potatoes/carrots/onions
Chicken and Dumplings
Chili with cornbread or crackers
Taco Salad

One of the problems with taking food to people is that it is sometimes difficult to get your dishes/pans back.

BeFunky_IMG_0179

This week we took food to 2 homes with sick people, one was an elderly neighbor couple who are sick and one was our son who is down with strep and bronchitis.

I made chicken noodle soup and cornbread. I took the soup in mason jars. This way it is easy for them store it in the refrigerator and all they have to do is pour it in a pan to warm up.

The best thing is that it is not a big deal if I don’t get the jars back.

Other foods that can be given in mason jars:

chili
salad
sloppy jo meat
BBQ meat
soup
stew
coleslaw
potato salad
salad dressings
toppings for taco salad
toppings for salads

Daughters - Polished Pillars or a Pile of Ruins?

“When our daughters are graceful and beautiful both in body and mind are then polished after the likeness of a beautiful palace. When we see our daughters well-established and stayed with wisdom and discretion, as cornerstones are fastened in the building - when we see them by faith united to Christ, as the chief cornerstone, adorned with the graces of God’s Spirit, which are the polishing of that which is naturally rough, and become women professing godliness when we see them purified and consecrated to God as living temples, we think ourselves happy in them.” Matthew Henry

I love where he says. ” … polishing that which is naturally rough.”

There are two applications here, one spiritual and one practical. Of course, only the Holy Spirit can draw and purify one’s heart, but then there is the practical application.

How does this “polishing” happen? Sanctification. This happens in children by God’s grace through diligent parents who will love and train their children, not only in spiritual matters but in practical, useful matters.

Women, young and old, are not to be just beautiful, but they are to serve a very important part in the family household and the household of God. Women are the ones that hold the home together, we are to manage our homes (Titus 2). Only a well skilled woman who embraces her God-given purpose can be a pillar. Show me a woman that can not:

balance a check book
clean
cook
budget
manage time
care for the least of these
reach out to the needy

and I’ll show you a woman that has not been polished for service.

Show me a women that is always on the go away from home, then I will show you a home that is almost always in chaos.

It takes skills, time and love to manage a home well, have strong relationships and still be able to reach out to the needy.

What good is a pillar if it is not fastened to the building? What good is a pillar if is cracked and weak and sways with the wind? It will not serve it’s purpose. We want our daughters to be “well-established and stayed with wisdom and discretion.” The best way to encourage that is for us moms to live it out with contentment and joy.

Will your daughters be polished pillars or will they crumble into a pile under the weight of the world?

Parents, in a spirit of love, polish your daughters, take part in sanctifying their hearts for service, not selfishness! Be diligent that they will be polished, skilled for their good works. May they, and we, be able to serve as we are adorned with the graces of God’s Spirit.

Passing the vision on until our last breath…

I feel like I’m in this in-between-stage of life. The bulk of my parenting/child training is over, my youngest is almost 17, while my other children are 20 and over. I mostly listen now and give advice when it is asked for…or if I can’t bite my tongue any longer. ;o)

God’s providence for us right now is that we have no young children in our home and no extended family that live close by with children, but, God has been gracious to give us friends with lots of little ones!

Emma and I were excited to take some of our younger friends to a local science museum, this was their first time there!

Olivia and Samantha met us there too.

I was flooded with so many memories of taking my kids there while they were growing up (I LOVE HOMESCHOOLING!). Homeschooling is a lot of work with a lot of rough days, but the good days out number the bad days. I TREASURE the time I spent with them, while we learned together, it was SO WORTH IT! I don’t even call homeschooling a sacrifice for me, it is what I was created for, to be a full time MOM (and wife of course)!

I watched my now grown girls interact with the younger kids while they still enjoyed the museum so much themselves!

I always learn something new when I go…learning never stops!

It was fun to call the children’s mom and tell her not to worry about them,

they were having a good time petting the sharks!

Our day out made me really…REALLY look forward to grandchildren one day. I’m going to be a hands-on grandma. I will be there to take them to music lessons and 4-H meetings.

I will be the one paying for their family memberships to the zoo and local museums, and making sure they go often! I’ll be doing teddy bear teas and unit studies with them!

Samantha told me I could take her kids to the museums too!

I want my schedule to be busier than what it is now. I want to be needed! I want to be so used up that when I pass from this life to the next, I go with an exhausted smile!

I want to remind my grandchildren that life is not about them, but that it is about ALL OF US loving each other and building the Kingdom together.

So until God brings me my grandchildren (please, LORD, a bunch of them!), I’ll do whatever He needs me to, putting my hand to the plow, one day at a time!

Our Greatest Resource - TIME! Anyone else struggle with time management?

Our greatest resource, and possibly the most abused, is TIME!

One of the lessons that were taught to me early on in my homeschooling days (almost 18 years ago!) was because of our freedom, and not being limited to someone else’s agenda, that it was easy to get over committed and overwhelmed with curriculum and activities. There are tons of good things to choose from, but we have to choose only those that are BEST!

When you don’t have someone telling you what to do with your day, as you do with a full time job and school schedules, you HAVE TO exercise A LOT more self-discipline. You really have to sift through what is good and what is BEST!

When you become the one responsible for your day, making sure things get done, whether it is managing the home (that is a full time job if you put your all in it!), educating your children, helping your husband, running a business or serving in ministry, you MUST learn to manage your time well! Otherwise you will be burned out, or too lazy and be no good for anyone.

As your children mature and you hand more and more responsibility over to them, one aspect of their maturity is that they use their time wisely. Jobs need to be done efficiently and our days need to be filled with purpose!

There is down time, fun time, etc… but if you think about it, most of an adult’s day consist of work. Look at the week God gave us, 6 days of toil and one day of rest. We have 24 hours in a day, about 8 of that is sleep; the majority of the rest of the day is work. Yes, time to relax and play too, but the bulk of it is work. The sooner a person comes to grip with that the more content and purposeful they can live.

Work is NOT a nasty four letter word! It’s not always easy, but we can find so much satisfaction it in! That’s another topic.

Back to time management.

I have to admit that I LOVE FACEBOOK! Yep, I do! Most of our family lives far off and it is so much easier to stay in touch with them with Facebook. Facebook is also a great marketing tool to promote this blog and our products. Because we do not have TV connection in our house Facebook helps us stay up on what is going on it the world…and so on…

BUT!

Before you know it, Facebook and any other activity (shopping, sports, video games, TV, phone, clubs, etc…) can and will rob you of your precious time. I can easily blow a couple hours a day with Facebook or blog surfing…EASILY!

It all comes down to self-government! One thing I am always saying to my kids, “Govern yourself so I don’t have to!”

When I see that they have gotten their chores and schoolwork done and they they are being productive with their time and not lazy and careless, I don’t freak out when I see them on the computer or phone, or whatever else.

In my attempt to govern myself a little better (because more is caught than taught with kids) I’m setting a Facebook rule in our house; 10 minutes of FB in the morning and 10 minutes in the evening. The timer will be set! I will also have my to-do list before me!!! I NEED to choose what is the BEST way to use my time!

I will be a better wife and mother if I manage my time well!

There is too much to be done with this life and time is short!

Do What is Most Important!

This week has been a trying one for our family and those we love. There are many needs around us and we try to discern what is most needful. Here we are at week 3 of the new school year and we are already having to take the week off.

We have family from out of state visiting this week, that alone blows a schedule, but it is well worth it. Jeff’s uncle is in bad health, on oxygen, etc… and it is sobering to think that this may be the last time we see him.

That combined with dear friends delivering a baby with very special needs, another friend hospitalized with serious complications from cancer surgery, our son (22) in the ER in another state who ended up having out patient surgery for infected wisdom teeth, and yesterday being the one year anniversary of my friend Jan’s death has really made it impossible to keep any kind of schedule. The ‘Martha’ side of me is thinking, “How in the world will I ever get it all done?”, yet the ‘Mary’ side of me is saying, “Do what is important.”

Doing what is important is sometimes going through the extra trouble and expense of a nice meal, or simply sitting for a few hours to visit during the day, even though the work is stacking up all around you. It’s all about relationships! Martha was always fretting about getting the work done, yet Mary knew her relationship, her short, precious time of sitting with The One she loved most was the important thing!

When your children attend public school and mothers work regular jobs leaving little room for flexibility, life pretty much revolves around school and work. But when you homeschool and/or work from home everything revolves around LIFE!

We have had to put a lot of things on hold this week while we take care of the most important things, family and friends in need!

I have seen others who have older children in the family offer their time and labor to help out those in need around us this week.

I love living in such a wonderful Christian community, where so many are willing to give of themselves. Where none of us is perfect, but there is love.

Sometimes the important thing and needful thing is to put the routine and the schedule on hold because God wants us to do the more valuable thing; to feed His sheep.

It is a blessing to see older teens in so many families willingly step up to help these hurting families with child care, meals, house and yard work. It is a beautiful thing to watch as these young people who have been taught how to take care of themselves and those around them.

God does not call everyone to the foreign mission field. Most often the mission field is all around us as we live a life of being available; as we live a life building strong families and open homes. This will be the primary means of advancing the Gospel! If we are too consumed with institutions, industries, material goods and activities then I dare say we are not consumed with being sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

Please pray for sweet, Baby Baxter, my friend Rob and Jeff’s Uncle Frank. God knows their needs.

Sunday…REST!

This past week was good, but I sure am glad it is over!

The quilt guild that I am president of had our annual quilt show Friday and Saturday. It was a TON of work, but the show went off smoothly..well, except for the wind and rain on Friday, which is even worse when you are on top of a mountain! Saturday the weather was perfect! We had almost 200 quilts entered, filling two buildings at Palisades Park. If you have never been to a quilt show you really need to make it a point to go to one, it truly is fiber art!

Jeff, Emma and I also ran the food booth and spent two nights at the Guild's cottage as security. Even though my house is a wreck right now, I am so glad today is Sunday and I could rest after church. The mess can wait until Monday! ;o)

I've been in a bit of a 'creative rut' lately, but looking at those BEAUTIFUL pieces of art has the little wheels in my mind spinning…just in time for Christmas!

GO HERE FOR THE SLIDE SHOW, which is just a tiny bit of the show.