Thankful for the Faithful

I'm thankful for the men in our church who've faithfully stood by my husband in a difficult ministry. I pray that God will enable them to continue to be faithful and strong as we're striving for church revitalization. Ern and I have been encouraged by reading the Nine Marks journal recently. Sometimes I think our situation is unique but more times it is nice to know others have faced and are facing similar challenges.

Being a pastor's wife is no picnic, as I knew coming into it as a pastor's kid, but found out in a new way when my husband and I were the ones in our parents' position (he was a pk too)! I believe I am my husband's helper which doesn't at all mean I'm the assistant pastor (even if I didn't have convictions against women serving as pastors). Of course, I want to have a ministry at the church, but I'm first and foremost my husband's wife and my kids' mom, and then secondarily, a kids' club teacher, substitute Sunday school  and junior church teacher, and hopefully generally an encouragement to our church family, particularly the ladies. They've also been an encouragement to me, most of all in simple ways, through a sweet spirit in the middle of trials, through what they share with me of what God is doing in their lives, through just--being there.
My family is my main ministry and as I'm homeschooling this year that responsibility seems particularly huge. Also, I've faced challenges with trying to figure out how to help when a kid learns differently from usual and is extremely active and easily distracted and when there are several close-in-age younger siblings around. Just as much of a problem is another child's attitude, though there's more external compliance.  It's hard to be patient and encouraging with my kids and not to give up on them but it's certainly what I want from others, and most of all, what I want from God.
There are believers all over the world, trying with the Spirit's help to serve God where He has put them. Each has different circumstances in which to put scriptural truth into action as they're convicted to do so. I'm thankful for this body of believers. I've been encouraged by those within smaller groups, small churches, I've become intimately acquainted with, functioning as a family, different ages, different races, sharing their lives together, works in progress, being strong for each other, and faithful, as God is at work in us. 

The Perfect Mom

You know the type. The one who always looks immaculate: make-up, hair, clothes neat and stylish, put-together. Her kids also look like they came from a magazine shot. And they're smart and well-behaved, speak politely to adults and never fight with each other, let alone with other kids. She's gracious and neither too quiet or too chatty. She has a beautiful, well-ordered home and is a great cook. She never stops working and achieving. Sigh. Such a picture makes a lot of us--me, for sure--want to throw up, or at least bury my head in my pillow and cry. It's an impossible ideal for me. She can have my job and maybe I'll go work for a chocolate company. Is there a job for tasting chocolates?
Well, maybe we shouldn't abdicate just yet. God made me my kids' mom. He gave me them and He gave them me. He did the same for you. So guess who is the perfect mom for our kids?
Don't doubt what God has done. Praying for help w/ this one.  He is by His grace working in our lives and our kids' in the situation He's put us in. He made us frail and weak so that we would give way to Him, if only because of recognizing our desperate need. He can do great things with weakness. As we seek His heart, He'll be seen in us and there is nothing better than that.
Like Esther, we're where we are for a reason, for such a time as this. Super mom has nothing on you or me. W/ Christ all things are possible. And let's not forget, no matter what happens, He's at work, and it's all for His glory.
So guess what, I think we're better off not trying for that "ideal" I described, but for who God wants us to be--who we are, under His control.

Follow Him or Them?

It is important that women have right priorities, putting their husbands and families before leisure and other people, striving to have a regular time w/ God every day (and talk and listen to Him all day), being involved in ministry and caring for others. But these priorities won't, I believe, act themselves out in the same way for every woman, in every family. Nor do I think they should be burdensome. If you have a dynamic relationship w/ God, He gives you His love for others, for Himself and for the dear ones He's placed in your life--your family, Christian friends, and others you come into contact w/. Yes, many times, we need to ask God to give us this love or more of it and some people are more difficult to love than others. But God does answer prayer. As we move ourselves to do what He asks, He often moves us to enjoy doing it. I believe God uses each of us, as we are, w/ various strengths and weaknesses, to serve Him in unique ways, through art or music, through keeping lovely, loving (not extravagant) homes, through enjoying happy games w/ our kids, through studying and learning. I think that we sell short our Creator when we strive to copy another's life. There's often huge frustration in this effort. For no matter how good the other person's life may be, the life God has given you is the one He wants you to have, not another person's. He wants you to be the best unique you you can be. Following Christ, loving Him supremely, is the simple, yet complex goal, that does, to some extent, simply result in other things falling into place. Knowing Him personally and experiencing His work in your life results in His creating something beautiful and special out of you. We only follow others in joining them in following Him, following them in pursuing God. While they may share helpful ways in which God has helped them apply His truth in their lives, He may not have exactly the same thing in mind for us. As we follow God in the same way, I believe we'll come to know what it is He has for specifically for us to do. This is the beauty of a faith that is real and that isn't a list of rules, but a relationship.

More and Less Than Expected

Sweet's I Am a Follower was more and less than I expected. I thought that comparing Jesus to a shirtless dancer at a Sasquatch Festival and indicating that we "cease to think when [our bodies begin] to dance to the rhythms of the Spirit" were troubling. I also don't believe it's accurate to string communion and eucharist together as though the differences aren't noteworthy. However, with beautiful language, Sweet challenges readers to let Christ control them, to follow Him, urging others to follow Christ with them. Christ is really the focus. Even leaders are really other followers of Christ. Sweet encourages believers to sing the same song but different harmonizing parts rather than expecting everyone to sing exactly the same notes. The church and our Christian life aren't about getting as much as we can--the best or most we can as soon as possible--but about persistently serving and growing together. I was truly challenged by this book and left it to pray that the Spirit would fill me, direct me, and help me bravely do what He prompts me to and that I would love and serve and commit to the people He puts in my life, w/ all their baggage and all mine, that I would truly be a humble fellow follower--not just w/ my head but w/ my heart and feet--of Christ.

Altars

Does it sound strange to say that the desk in my dining room space is kind of an altar? It's the place I most commonly escape w/ my Bible, journal, Bible study books, hymnal. It's kind of "set apart" for that for me. Unfortunately, it's probably also an altar to the internet, as my computer sits here also, and I sometimes waste more time on it than I spend in more beneficial pursuits.
For a busy mom, an altar might be beside her bed where her Bible rests on the bedside table, a spot on the counter where she keeps a stack of verse cards, or it may be a moving place, as she sometimes curls up on the couch to study God's Word, meditate on Him or pray to Him or sings praises while she works. An altar is any place set apart for God.
There are things in my life and people that I must repeatedly offer up, set apart, for God, ceasing to hold onto them so tightly, as though I even had the power to do so.
Ultimately the truest altar for me is my heart and mind and soul--my inner self--which by God's grace and the Holy Spirit at work in me is deliberately set apart for God, though again many times it's crowded either by the frivolous or the sinful. May I give it over to Him for His control every day and in everything.

Free will/Sovereignty

While it's important to reach out to others, to do what we can to help and guide, each person makes choices for himself or herself and they carry consequences that each one is responsible for. Those choices seem to have little to do, really, ultimately, with circumstances, though much to do w/ the individual and w/ the hand of God.
From the dawn of time man has been puzzling out the connection between man's responsibility, free will and God's sovereignty, how they work together, if it's possible for both to be true. I've not solved this puzzle and defy anyone who believes to have solved it. But there is really comfort and stability in the inexplicable way they do coexist. It's frightening to deny the power and need of choice to do right and even more frightening to belittle the great strength and omnipotence of God. I find in this paradox truth and joy, a natural combination.