December 10, 2007
“Oh. It’s only clothes. “I had an idea when I was younger that all Christmas presents should be something you don’t need. I think others helped me in forming this idea.
Gradually my idea of the perfect present has changed.
Others helped me change my ideal.
It occurred to me last week that Jesus was the perfect present and that this gift is totally the point of Christmas. The sum of the gift is to meet our need.
My little new granddaughter who was neglected by being given all the extras and few of the needs is a great illustration of how much filling our needs is something to be desired and celebrated. She was unable to discuss with us or walk with us or play and romp like a Kindergarten age child should be able to. She even had some difficulty swallowing and chewing because she had been fed junk food so much that she didn’t have to chew, allowed to grab it off a plate when and if she decided to as she watched video after video after video.
It’s the new American way to warp children. Demand nothing of them. Simply plop them in front of a video with junk food and ignore them. The make no mess method of child-rearing.
But she changed as her life changed when she began to live with her father and his new wife last summer and was given good wholesome food,exercise and responsibility and was listened to and talked to and taught how to use a toilet. Then how to turn pages of a book and how to drink out of a cup and how to have a conversation, tell a joke, sing a song, pray a prayer. Her legs and arms got stronger and she learned how to help make a meal and how to dress herself and choose her own clothes.
She has changed a lot because the kind of love she was given was the kind that helped her see how much she can do. She has changed because her needs were met ahead of her wants. Her desires changed because what was given her was good.
I think of that this Christmas.
and
I am convinced that the best presents fill needs not our wants.
Jesus is the Christmas gift of what we need. First God meets our needs then with our need met we can rejoice over butterflies and flowers and rainbows. But what good is the extra stuff without our basic needs being met. If we die in our sin. What good is a candy bar anyway?
Filed under God, Mom, cold, family, friend, gift, grace, grandchild, happy, hope, irony, joy, mother, motherhood, parent, parenting, relief, saver, suffering, think, thoughts, words, writing
Tags: , child, children, Christ, Christmas, daughter, extras, gift, Jesus, joy, kindness, life, love, parenting, personal, sin
October 18, 2007
You might be my cousin intoned the guy holding the yard sale after my hubby explained part of my family tree to him. Then when I came back toting my uncle’s family history he said You are my cousin!! See that guy right there’s the one that connects us and my wife is related to him too. We’re cousins too!!
Kind of odd to go to a yard sale looking for bargains and find long lost relatives. The fella said I would be related not only to him and his wife but pretty much to his whole town. He said I’d have to come up for a visit sometime that everybody would want to meet me.
Suprising and fun.
Reminds me of becoming a Christian. I had no idea what I was infor. No idea what I was really doing in terms of the connections and the implications. I thought of that this weekend as I was gathered with a handful of other folks at a young guys baptism at a local lake. After I hugged him and congratulated him I remembered my own baptism. Why I didn’t even realize I’d need a towl and clean dry clothes to change into so I didn’t bring either. I wasn’t used to going to baptisms my own or anybody else’s so I was illprepared.
Then after I came through it I wasn’t used to much of the rest of the scene either. I was excited to find out the Lord’s prayer was in the Bible. I hadn’t known that and it meant I actually knew some scripture.
I didn’t really understand at all why so many people were excited when I became a Christian because they were all strangers to me. Seemed odd to have them all be so happy and want to hug me.
Now I understand. I get excited too. It really is the most exciting thing that can happen to anybody I know. The Bible tells us that heaven itself is rejoicing!!
Filed under personal
Tags: baptism, bargain, Christian, fall, family, friends, friendship, happy, joy, lake, life, love, yardsale
October 4, 2007
Fall is a time of racing to get done with the summer things and put them all away quick before winter hits and a time of storing up and preparing for winter for me. I notice myself struggling with dread. A dread of winter and all the struggles it brings and I have to work to make myself enjoy the momments of beauty and joy. Strange isn’t it?
I reread my writings in the spring about how excited I was over the anticipation of the beauty and the newness of that season and then I took a look at my reactions to fall and saw that I have exactly the opposite reaction. The anticipation of hard times.
It can destroy the enjoyment of the last warm days and the beauty of the fall display in the forest and the fun of the special fall foods if I let it. Now that I have stopped and taken a look at it I have vowed not to let it. I am working at taking the time to breathe in the joy and the beauty of the season and rejecting the dread of what might be actively.
Filed under personal
Tags: anticipation, beauty, colors, dread, fall, family, foods, joy, life, love, personal, warm days
August 1, 2007
Watching all the turmoil around me, sometimes my attitude seems to be a bit fluffy. Maybe some of that is on purpose. I try to maintain a certain amount of denial so that the seriousness of it all doesn’t weigh on me too heavily. I try to let God carry the heavy load in my approach to life.
That is why I leave the room when others are watching a sad or horrific movie. That is why I don’t want a tv in my house.
That is why I sometimes don’t finish a book I picked up. I excuse it with the statement that life itself is difficult enough and I don’t want to entertain myself with added problems,pain and perverseness.
God is trustworthy,it is all going to turn out ok in the end. Heaven is real. Heaven is not here but I am.
I’ve been reading about synergy. I keep rereading the descriptions of it. Trying to appreciate it. It is the relationship version of chutney. The sweet,salty,sour,spicy, with a tinge of bitter all hitting you together on a bed of cream cheese. The idea opposites can work together well if they accept being opposites. It takes dirt and water to grow a seed. In perfect cleanliness nothing is produced. Many seeds need a winter to flourish in a spring and flower in a summer and fruit in a fall.
So the idea is that I see one thing. You see another. And if we can exchange our ideas and work together we can have the whole picture. I agree in theory. I am puzzling over the applications. Perhaps carried to an extreme it is the idea that God can speak through the mouth of an ass and often chooses to do so. And because He does He is all the more obviously God.
Filed under God, fruit, grief, happy, hope, irony, joy, personal, suffering, think, thoughts, words
July 25, 2007
Summer is at midpoint and I notice myself and people around me alternating between a panic and plodding moes. We like a collective ant colony movealong the path of seasonal tasks and pleasure. Produce and blossoms come in waves and I pick and pack away. The waves and the summer sun beckon and I abandon the tasks and take to the waves to laugh and remember good times past with a tinge of sadness over those that are past.
I think life is particularly a mixed bag in the summer in the north because it is short and because so many new faces appear who come north to vacation. It makes the rest of us want to kick up our heels and forget the laundry piles and the striving after greenbacks and join the party. But at the same time we have lived through enough winters ( actually one is enough) to know better. So most of the time we restrain ourselves and plod through the should haves only occasionally packing up the kids and taking to the shore.
I noticed the last time I spent the afternoon at the beach that everybody had a child with them. Children it seems give us the needed excuse to enjoy ourselves! Hooray for kids for having the ability to influence us all in enjoyable pasttimes and pulling us out of our entrenchments!!
Speaking of kids being a good influence on us …one of the small things that persists from the days when my house was filled with kids is a habit of collecting caterpillars and raising them till one day we begin to release mature butterflies! Such a simple pleasure raises my sprits and reminds me of God’s might and imagination as I watch the changes and the beauty unfold on my window sill.
Filed under God, Mom, bugs, children, family, fruit, garden, gift, happy, hope, irony, joy, laugh, like, mother, parent, parenting, personal, plants, relief, smile, think, thoughts, words
June 23, 2007
In the life of a young couple I know the traditional idea of American law has been turned on it’s head. Not innocent until proven guilty beyond a shadow of doubt but the reverse has been the treatment they have received.
It is horrifying to sit in court and hear the evaluation of them has revealed nothing nothing nothing to be alarmed about and yet as a result of a medical crisis with their newborn they have had both of their children taken away. They have been accused of abuse and social services has refused to back down.
As this case has progressed and the word of what this young family has been enduring has spread through the community there has been a groundswell of support for them. More is needed though and my conviction is that cases like these should not be handled this way.
The children are now being returned to their home to live with their mother but the Father is ordered to live with his parents with limited,supervised visits with his children. Which means there is no time for this couple to be with each other!!! except Sundays when
the judge against the insistence of Social services to the contrary yesterday gave this young family the day together if volunteers would be screened and approved by Social Services and then be scheduled to supervise time together!! Many vounteered including me but why does this tax supported arm of government have this kind of power in a situation whre no evidence backs their accusation!??
Filed under Dad, Mom, children, family, friend, grief, hope, mother, parent, parenting, personal, suffering, think, thoughts, words, writing
June 15, 2007
Father’s Day approaches and men and women the world over are wondering what to do about it?
Men don’t know what they want.
Women respond by trying to give them what they want them to want or what they think they might want.
Why don’t we just ask them what would be fun for them and leave it at that?
Probably too easy. They might be so shocked they suffered a stroke.
Any way my advice is to try it this year with the man or men in your life.
Just ask them what would make them feel appreciated as fathers and do that if it is at all possible.
It might be simple.
It might not cost a lot besides the pride you have to swallow.
You might find you actually enjoy it though.
Mine when asked today thought he might want to go fishing at a local fishing hole. So I’ll probably give him a can of worms for Father’s Day and try to tone down my own enthusiasm so I don’t out do him.
Filed under Dad, children, family, gift, grandfather, happy, joy, like, parent, parenting, personal
