Working as Family Team

      God continues to give me a vision for our family.  Some days I continue to balk and cry out to Him that this is simply unattainable.  He smiles at me and says "Yes, dear daughter it is.  I have given you the tools you need to start but you must come to me if you want what is needed to see the job to completion."  He certainly knows how to keep me on my knees!  He also continues to show me how everything I bring to Him is fulfilled in ABUNDANCE!  Far above my expectation and certainly beyond my need.  And so I have learned to trust Him, even if I forget sometimes.  I am so thankful He is patient with me.
     The last few weeks our young daughters have been especially difficult.  They are constantly fighting, whining, and hanging on Mommy.  A sure sign of a slip in discipline.  Even their Dad has had enough.  Of course I have prayed and read and lost my temper a few times.  I know this is normal at their age, the problem is I don't believe it is God's plan.  It should not be normal!   I remembered that they are little Mommies in training and that I should be spending time training them everyday.  I have been devoting as much time as I can to homeschooling their brother and tending to the house and meals that I left little time interacting with them.  OK, so they need to get involved, but how do I get anything done?  As every Mom with toddlers knows they have a willingness to "help" with just about any job but you just end up taking twice as long and redoing everything anyway.  Well yesterday I was determined to lay aside my agenda and let them get to work with me.  After all, they are part of the team.  I can't expect them to help out cheerfully when they are 15 much less learn to run their own households if I don't start training them while they are young.  I let them join in EVERY SINGLE chore that I did.  From cleaning the bathroom and putting away laundry to scrubbing the tires while I did the truck.  They had so much fun and the funny thing is, so did I!  As I encouraged and thanked them they really felt as if they were an asset to this family and I really enjoyed them and their smiling faces and happy attitudes.  I never had to wonder what they were getting in to, they were right beside me...which suited them just fine anyway.  I had so much more patience with all of them because I wasn't already worn to a frazzle by their bickering.  Their Dad came home to 4 smiling faces, a clean house, and washed and waxed truck.  He was totally amazed!  (So was I but we don't have to share that with him :)

i Create

     I am passionate about photography and everything that goes with it...photo editing & restoration, scrapbooking, et. There is something about capturing the light and a tiny glimpse of time in a creative way.  I also love anything I can make myself from grinding wheat to make our bread to making deodorant.  If I can avoid buying it at the store I probably have a recipe for it.  Frugality and self-sufficiency make me immensely happy.  I believe it is a good use of the resources that God in trusted to me and the benefits to my family are endless.  I will admit I also enjoy the shock value of going against society's main stream.  It is fairly safe to say I have an enormous and ever increasing list of hobbies.

     Looking at all this I have come to appreciate my spectacular creator in a whole new way.  I realize, however, that I must be careful of modern day idolatry.  The "worship" of anything that could monopolize my time and pull my focus away from Christ and HIS agenda.  Another recent worry of mine, and one that I believe to be far more subtle, is these "high places" I've been reading so much about in the New Testament.  All through Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles it mentions the high places. 

"Although he did not remove the high places, Asa's heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life."
                                                                                                                                          - I Kings 15:14

In I Samuel 9:12 there seems to be nothing wrong with these altars that were set on a hill for sacrifice and worship.  The central sanctuary was not functioning as the ark of the covenant was separated from the tabernacle at that time.  Worship at the high places was later condemned because it provided a means for the entrance to pagan practices in Israel's religious observances.  (See also I Kings 3:2-3)  It is obvious now that it is not OK to sacrifice and worship here and yet how can one's heart be fully committed to the Lord except that you ignore these high places?  Is there something in my life that is not really idolatry but still just a pretense to following the Lord?  I say that I am doing something for Him but my motives are wrong?  How, in my life, might I be appearing to be worshiping the Lord but really just using the site of a borrowed idol?  It has really been worrying me!  For now, I am taking heart in 2 Chronicles 15:15b, "They sought God EAGERLY and He was found by them."  Still, something I will be praying about and researching a little more.