Heed

When school was closed for MLK Day, we'd just been away without the kids for five days.  A nice winter's day inside was all we had planned.  Then a knock at the door.  More than a year had passed since a visit from LT, our old neighbor.  He wanted a ride into the next town and thought he'd try us.  He didn't need to get there fast, so he stayed for a while.  Over the next couple of hours, we ate together, drank tea and coffee, prayed, talked theology and played with the kids. 

I felt Grace move so freely that morning.  (Oh, when we let it do so!)  The kids were in and out of conversation and back and forth in play.  Cooking, clean-up and dishes just flowed along with the chatter and jokes and childhood stories.  Nothing out of place.  More than once in recent days had the bunch of us remarked how we'd missed LT.  He fit back in like we'd seen him just yesterday, like he's one of the family. 

I was bent down, getting some paper for A when she whispered to me in deep satisfaction, "I knew he was coming.  I thought he was coming, and he came."  I understood completely.  It happens to me and has for as long as I remember.  With joy, I whispered back something about connection, about the Spirit knowing her heart and speaking to her inside.  She smiled wide.

Not much later, LT was talking when I re-entered the kitchen.  He was saying that he'd started out that morning prepared to scrounge up change along the train tracks and out of shopping carts as he's always done.  "Something told me to stop," he noted his uncertainty.  He confessed he kept on course, ignoring it, but it kept on until pointing him to us.  He didn't want to come, not to ask for help.  But he couldn't shake it.  "I don't know what it was..." he wondered but spoke with jittery gladness for heeding.

You bet I let him know about A's encounter!  Plus I shared a thought on the Voice inside him, too.  I've no doubt both of them sensed that pull at precisely the same time that morning.  What untold prayers were answered that day, I can and do imagine.

Firestarters

There's fire in us all.  How and when do we let it burn?

I began to write about my daughter's own in my last post. It's more often hers that stirs up the strongest response in me.  Perhaps it's the depth to which I relate to it, being myself a daughter, a sister... a female.

Naturally, we parents are quick to extinguish fires.  It feels safer.  We seem to have control by the looks of it, but our fear-filled force may very well leave a barren land after the flame's stamped out. Or it turns the fire into fury. Be it a slow, steady burn, one day it just blows and consumes anything in its path.  By forcing our way we only damage what God intended for beautiful purpose. 

I have a picture of backburning. It's a calculated method and likely implemented this week to help rescue Australia from dozens of bushfires burning there. Using any natural or man-made gaps in vegetation such as a river or road, fires ignited purposefully at such "firebreaks" will run back toward the wildfire and consume any potential fuel threatening to increase that fire's power. A positive force is applied.

What if we parents start little fires?  Clearly,  not the kind that would mean "exasperating" our children.  What about starting fires along the pure and good bounds of God's ways?  Our kids' passions that are specifically turning toward the dangerous might stay confined and find no more to consume. Instead, we direct their steps in order to usher in God's holy design for them by accompanying the work he's already begun. We're fanning the flames he ignited in the first.  As servants chosen for this purpose, we act in humility. And we must pray.

I have friends who began an online community centered around a short-term, concentrated prayer effort for their own kids.  It has stirred up my desire to pray more consistently to this end: to keep discovering and subsequently celebrating the passions in my kids in ways that won't bring hindrance but will fuel what our Father intended for Glory. And as I write, I am reminded that prayer brings the Fire that consumes the offering and fills the place with Glory! (See 2 Chronicles! I may have to pick that up in another post....)

I'll share a sort of backburning I've seen bring good things to my home. Kids desire boundaries. In fact, when they act out of control, it may be their way of crying out to understand the boundaries we've created or why we've neglected to set others. When my firstborn was an older infant, he'd fight diaper changes because it interrupted his play.  That was expected.  He'd get quite mad, though, and that seemed out of character to me.  He was so determined and strong that I'd physically struggle to hold him in place. The more force I used, mainly to avoid a nasty mess, the more power he seemed to gain. I guess it became a battle I was willing to fight, because it kept on until one day I smacked his thigh in the middle of an episode. Did he cry and submit and look longingly for an embrace of reassurance? Oh, no, he hit me back - with the fire burning hot.

That was that. It all came back to me - but not all at once - how gentleness covers mistakes and turns away wrath. A firebreak. I started to practice lowering my voice and upping the patience when my son raised his voice along with his temper. The response was amazing.  In the months to follow and years since, we've learned that our boy is full of his own fire - for what is just.  He's particularly sensitive to aggression, such as pushiness in people or unrest in his surroundings.  My choice to show him kindness in the midst of his own resistance toward me would snuff out the flames of hostility nine times out of ten.  It still does, and he's twelve.

Yesterday, I approached our daughter the same. Her older brothers and I have been lying around the house with the flu this week. Not a party, but she seems to think it so. She woke, insisting she wasn't going to school because she was too tired.  I'll use some force at times to get her going, usually coupled with silliness that eventually turns her mood around.  I didn't have strength for that yesterday, so I picked her up and held her in my lap.  I simply acknowledged her cry.  After five minutes of cuddles, she was chatting and pleased to get on with her day, that wildfire of innocent delight flickering inside and out!

Life as a fledgling

My four-year-old decided to mimic my journal writing (in my journal).  It was cute, until I told her she had to stop to get ready for school and she threw a fit.  Her desire to be grown up is sometimes so endearing but other times it's maddening.  I have lost count of the moments she's insisted she could do something without help and has hurt herself trying.  I'm glad I am there to pick her up again.

I've realized this is my story, even as an adult.  Now and then, I'll wander just far enough by myself and start to get this idea that I've gained enough insight, strength in the wings, that now I'm ready to fly.  Solo. To handle it all alone and suddenly soar.  Never to return?

I love the book, Are You My Mother?.  That baby bird is  pretty cute. He's determined to find his mother.  I will! he says. I WILL!  He jumps (and falls) out of the tree, wanders among strangers, gets a little confused, and doesn't find his mother.  Something scary swoops in and that scary thing takes him home.  His mother returns and the baby bird thinks he's the one who's found her.  How endearing.  She humors him.  Can beaks smirk? They do in children's stories because I can hear her thoughts, Mm hmm, you sure are smart, little one! You've figured it out all by yourself. Look how far you've come!

In actuality, the bird still hasn't learned to fly.  He's a fledgling.  He may be strong enough to try to fly, even leave the nest for a bit, but his mother's job is not done.

It usually takes something of the scary sort to help me find my way home again.  To remember, even if I know how to fly, that the soaring only comes in surrender.  I yield again to the reality that I can't do it alone, and flying with wings like the eagle only happens when I trust the Wind alone.

No matter how far I have come, I need to let the Wind carry me... and lift me again when I jump and fall. 

Spirit, teach me how to really fly.  Teach me long. 



*Second photo image taken from illustration by P. D. Eastman ©1960

an early Christmas gift

last year our family began the tradition of using a jesse tree to celebrate advent.  our pilot run didn't prove to be so memorable, but this year it's surely a highlight of the season.  if you aren't familiar with the concept, it's inspired by the isaiah 11 passage prophesying Jesus' coming: "a shoot will come up from the stump of jesse . . . " typically, a tree or branch of sorts is chosen and for every day of advent one ornament representing a truth or particular story from Scripture is hung on the tree.  all of the symbols and coinciding teachings point toward the gift of God's Son, connecting thousands of years of history to Immanuel's birth.

kenn and i love how engaged the kids have been while we talk about each story, read from the Bible and pray together.  each day we cut out a simple drawing from a free collection i found online.  one kid colors it, one glues it to a paper background that's been tied with thread, and the third hangs it on our tree.  we've covered creation, how sin entered this world, famous prophets and people like king david and ruth.  every one includes a promise of what a Savior brings. last week, R (who is four) started asking about death.  quite exciting, it was no surprise after all the conversations we've had. he and kenn had a lengthy talk - comical at points - about salvation, whom we know who knows Jesus and how everyone dies.

tonight it was my turn to stay with R on his bed after all five of us prayed and kenn had taken A to her room. R and i chatted about the fun day we had and the upcoming visit to his grandparents'.  and somewhere in the middle R mentioned how Jesus can live in our hearts.  affirming him, i asked if Jesus lives in his.  he nodded yes, so i asked if he prayed about it with daddy. "we talked about it," he said.  when i asked if i could pray with him, he responded with that adorable, happy nod of his.  the bashful grin and gleaming brown eyes melt you away.  so i prayed a little prayer that he repeated after me, confidently.  after celebrating a little, he wanted to talk some more.  does so-and-so have Jesus in his heart?  why did mom-mom's husband die?  people put people in dirt.  God goes everywhere with us.  what does God look like?  we even discussed spirits and how eternal gifts are better than toys. (don't think he agrees with that one yet!)

i made sure to bring daddy back so he could celebrate.  then when i sat with O (10 yr) downstairs, i shared the news with him.  i pondered the beautiful things that may be forming in our kids' hearts as we celebrate Christmas this year, and another portion of isaiah came to mind.  chapter 55 says:

"for as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."

amen.
and MERRY CHRISTMAS to you!

flying

our baby girl, who is about to turn two, was born with skew foot. it's not as common or severe as club foot, but as a tiny infant acacia wore full-leg casts and then moved to wearing a brace around the clock. at a year old the brace was only worn in daytime, then we were rid of it altogether this past winter. her skew foot was healed in both feet!

you'd never know acacia had any "abnormality" confining her to some artificial support. she was born sunny. and that sweet disposition has been God's gracious gift to me (and the world!) since her birth. she draws people to her no matter where she goes. i cannot tell you how many have whispered, "she's my favorite," as in secret. and physically? the girl lets nothing stop her. she thought she could just roll off my lap from a chair to the floor before she could even sit up! and how does she walk? running is her MO. her speedy pitter-patter is absolutely adorable to see.

knowing all of this about acacia, i was still concerned about getting her new shoe inserts. her specialist recently prescribed them after seeing how severe her ankles pronate and how flat her feet are. it's been so long since she had to wear a brace, i thought, what if they bother her, hurt her little feet? she might fight us to not wear them. what if it slows her down?

rhys, acacia and i picked them up last monday. the braces were tried on and a few adjustments were made, then we put an extra-big pair of crocs over them. our appointment was over, so we headed outside. there's a great playground right in front of the hospital. we always spend some time there before driving back home. as i walked the kids through that gate, their excitement was spilling out. don't you know, my little girl let go of me and RAN to the swings!? she galloped like a filly. she climbed steps like a big kid. she slid down slides over and over. one time, she did that little trick where you swing by your hands on the bar across the top of the slide before dropping yourself to slip away. she's never done that!

i kept shaking my head in awe, wondering momentarily how strange my grin might look to the other people there. i didn't care, joy was bubbling over. it was as if acacia had new strength in those shoes! and then, rhys began jumping off steps pretending he was superman, flying. guess who copied. acacia started FLYING. boy, did the tears come then and i recalled isaiah 40:31

"...they will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

those whose hope is in the Lord.

acacia was born with a resolve and it's only fitting. her name means guileless. that's a childlike innocence. it is trusting.

i really needed to taste the truth that morning. not only with regard to acacia's feet. i needed the truth about hoping in God alone. trusting him as his child, in a freedom that knows it'll all be taken care of by my Dad. playing my days away as he deals with the big stuff. and to think, when i do so he delights to watch me just like i watch her. when my hope takes me to flight, makes me daring, gets me giggling, he beams in his glory. which just so happens to be my baby's other name.