April | 2011 |

Worship as a Sweet Fragrance

30. April 2011 · 1 comment · Categories: Ploughing Hearts

“Every saint in heaven is as a flower in the garden of God, and holy love is the fragrance and sweet odor that they all send forth, and with which they fill the bowers of that paradise above. Every soul there is as a note in some concert of delightful music, that sweetly harmonizes with every other note, and all together blend in the most rapturous strains in praising God and the Lamb forever.” Jonathan Edwards

Tomorrow as we worship our Lord and Savior, may our worship express a holy love that is a sweet fragrance to Him. As we practice for eternity, may our souls be overflowing with love, our hearts pouring with praise, and our voices joined in a beautiful harmony of faith.

Journaling, part 1

29. April 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: Anxiety, Depression, Spiritual Growth

I confess that I once was a psychotherapist who gave out advice and never used it for myself. Just what am I talking about? I frequently asked people I was counseling to start a journal, though I rarely was committed to doing one myself.

That is, until I had kids. In fact, journaling has been a huge factor in helping me manage my depression. What kept me from being committed to writing before? I’m not sure, though I suppose the motivation of being healthy for my kids might have helped. I often imagine King David, on the run and hiding in caves, writing out his thoughts and feelings to God as they poured from him. There were times when he was in deep despair-I wonder if God used his writing to help him find peace and healing?

To read the rest of this post on journaling, stop by CSAHM, my writing home on Fridays.

Teach Me Jesus Thursdays: How does a Christian parent?

28. April 2011 · 3 comments · Categories: Parenting, Teach Me Jesus · Tags: Christian Parenting

What does it mean to be a Christian parent? What does it look like to the world? Is it that we restrict the types of tv shows our kids watch? Is it that we take our kids to church each week? Is there some Christian parenting program we all follow that turns out Christian kids after eighteen years?

I used to work for an agency that contracted with the state to provide counseling to families whom had been investigated for child abuse. I was supposed to go into their home and help them change the way they interacted with their children. One of the biggest problems I faced in working with families is that they wanted a “quick fix” formula or solution to parenting. They wanted me to tell them how to discipline their kids when they displayed “x” behavior so that they would get “y” result. I always wanted to start with helping them plan out a parenting philosophy that would give them a foundation to build from. Unfortunatley, most of the time, the parents I worked with were resistant to the work I was doing with them.

I think this is often the case with many of us, regardless of whether we are in crisis or not. Our society wants everything fast and a solution to every problem. We view each other as pawns to move around so that we can get to where we are going. Interestingly, the bible gives very little specific and practical details on parenting children. You’re not going to find out how to potty train a child from scripture. You won’t find specifc verses that tell you exactly what to do when a three year old has a temper tantrum. If the bible is quiet on “programs” for raising kids, doesn’t that speak volumes? Even though there isn’t a specific program on parenting children in scripture, what is written is direct and to the point on what it means to raise covenant children. There are important and clear principles on what our role and duty is as parents. The bible is clear that our role is to teach, lead, direct, and disciple our children in the faith. From the Deuteronomy 6 passage I posted about last week, it’s evident that “teaching Jesus” to our children is all encompassing, it’s all the time, everywhere, and in every situation.

With that in mind, an important starting place for parenting ought to be having a foundation or philosophy from which all the practical aspects of parenting come. That is, I believe an emphasis should be placed on building an overall biblical philosophy of what it means to be a family and what it means to raise a covenant child. Once the biblical philosophy is in place, the practical ideas for the day to day details of parenting will flow from it.

For our family, we believe parenting should be focused on grace. The foundation of the gospel is grace and our parenting should be as well. We are the first and primary example of God’s love to our kids and parenting them with grace is the way God parents us.

A look at our parenting philosophy:

G Gospel centered

R Reaching the heart

A Affirming God’s image

C Christ like humility

E Evaluating our example

Gospel Centered: What does gospel centered parenting look like? It means continually pointing our kids to the cross and what Christ did for them. It means reminding ourselves as parents of the grace given to us. It means we as parents in turn extend grace to our children when they fall, reminding them of Christ’s death for their sin, and the empowering work of the Holy Spirit to change them. It means preaching the gospel to ourselves and to our children every day.

Reaching the heart: Parenting isn’t so much about responding or reacting to behavior or molding a child to fit societal norms. It’s about reaching beyond mere behavior and to the heart of the child. Scripture says that it’s not mere outward conformity that God is seeking, it’s a broken and contrite heart. You can have a child who is behaves perfectly on the outside, yet their heart is far from God. “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are- a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Psalm 51: 16,17

Affirming God’s image in them: While the world may praise their kids to build their self-esteem, we want our kids to view themselves the way God views them: as precious eternal souls made in his image. Our children were made to glorify and enjoy God. I want to always point them to their Maker and the fact that the gifts, skills, and talents they have came from him and are for him. Each person has a calling in their life that they are to use for his glory and our role as parents is to encourage and nurture those gifts and help them find a way to use their skills for God’s glory.

Christ like humility: Christ led his disciples through service. He taught servanthood and led by example. Parenting requries significant sacrifice and is primarily about servanthood. We not only need to teach our children about humility and putting others before themselves, but we also need to set an example of service in our home and in our community.

Evaluating our example: Our goal should be to continually evaluate our interactions with our children. Are we showing them Jesus through how we respond to them, how we handle our own sin, how we handle trials and disappointments, how we handle conflicts with others, etc.?

How has your family developed a philosophy of parenting? What does it look like? If not, what would you want your philosophy to look like? For the next couple of weeks “Teach Me Jesus Thursdays” will be looking at the foundations of a biblical parenting philosophy.

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Forgetting what I know to be true

27. April 2011 · 4 comments · Categories: God's still working on me, Spiritual Growth

These past few months I have been reading through the gospels, focusing on the relationship Jesus had with his disciples, especially Peter. In the women’s bible study I lead each week, we were talking about how Jesus repeatedly told the disciples he would have to die but that he would rise again. Yet they didn’t believe him. When Jesus rose from the dead, they didn’t know what to think. Some thought Jesus’ body had been stolen.

I can read those passages and think “How could they have not known? He told them what would happen.”

Yet, how often do I forget what he’s told me?

How easily do I forget the resurrection and what it means for my faith? How many times have I read “do not worry” or “be anxious for nothing” and yet I spend my days worrying over a host of things? How many times have I read God’s promises in scripture for my life, yet still try to run my life as though I am in charge?

How many times have I forgotten that the resurrection means Jesus in reigning in power?

I too often am like the disciples. I know Christ and have lived with him many years, yet it’s as though I don’t believe that he rose in power from the grave. For if I did, I would trust. I would live without fear.

This sin that weighs me down, isn’t that why he came to die? To take it from me, to bury it deep so that I can resurrect clean and new?

Because Jesus rose from the dead, he defeated sin and death. He reigns supreme and I can live without fear and rest in his power and might.

Yet He knows I can’t do it alone.

He didn’t harshly rebuke the disciples for not believing he was alive. He showed them; they touched his wounds. He showed them the truth. And he shows me his power, that he reigns and is alive-in all the graces he gives me each day. Each gift of grace is Christ showing me that I can believe and trust in him. I don’t want to only say with my mouth that I believe, I want to live out my life in full belief.

“I believe, help me in my unbelief.” Mark 9:24

Gifted Kids and Their Senses

26. April 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: Anxiety, gifted education, God's still working on me

God has been working on my worries and anxieties about my kids health, since, well actually since they were born:) It was a huge struggle for me to let go of anxiety with my oldest when we went through the whole sinus thing for two years, including two surgeries. One of the most difficult things I’ve ever done is watch my son leave to go into surgery. So, I’ve had to intentionally focus on the promises of scripture each time a new health issue arises.

When my oldest started kindergarten last year, he started having problems in the middle of the night. He was seeing shapes and colors and it scared him so much, he couldn’t go back to sleep. It only happened when he was over-tired (with my kids, when they are over-tired, they sleep poorly). I quickly ruled out hallucinations since they are of real things like rats, bats, bugs, spiders, etc. I decided not to worry about it and attributed his “visions” (that’s what he calls them) to stress and fatigue. He’s always had a very vivid imagination so I figured it was behavioral.

Then he started telling me he was seeing colored spots during the day, all day, everyday. I broke my own rule about searching medical symptoms on the computer (this usually increases my anxiety) and started researching his symptoms. I decided to start by taking him to a pediatric ophthalmologist. We’ve been twice now and his vision has been thoroughly tested and found to be perfect. His eyes and optic nerve are also fine. We kept a food diary for a week to rule out an ocular migraine. More and more as my son described the doctor what he sees, the doctor realized that it was related to his sense of sight. We talked about his giftedness and the fact that gifted people usually have more pronounced, vivid, and exaggerated senses. You know when you blink your eyes really tight and open them up quickly? You can see spots right? Well my son sees that all the time when he blinks normally.

So the doctor told me that he’s going to attribute his symptoms to his strong sense of sight. But he said if it worsens in any way the only other thing to rule out would be a seizure disorder. I am relieved that it’s not a major problem and he will just have to work on ignoring what he sees. And I’m not allowing my thoughts to even consider what to do if it worsens!

Hearing that his vision issues were probably related to his giftedness did not surprise me. Having our son labeled as gifted has been extremely helpful to us because before we knew that, he was a complete mystery. I know labels can cause problems are there are some negative aspects to it, but once I started reading about gifted kids, I discovered that all the issues we had dealt with made sense. So the problems with his vision does not surprise me because his other senses are very strong. For those who aren’t familiar, being gifted doesn’t necessarily mean being smart. People can be gifted artistically, musically, even athletically (think Michelangelo or Mozart). In addition to have exceptional reasoning skills and abilities in certain areas that us average folk aren’t, they have quite a few characteristics that make them unique. For example, everything with a gifted kid is exaggerated, over the top, pronounced, significant, and magnified. They have characteristics that sometimes get confused for ADD or autism spectrum disorders. They have more sleep issues than the average child-thus less sleep for the parents. They see the world in a completely different way than most so it’s hard for them to fit in or for other people to understand them (including their parents, imagine being Isaac Newton’s mom!). Their feelings are more intense and deeper than an average kid as well, which is why the littlest thing can be a big deal to our son. And so now, it seems, having pronounced senses can cause interesting “visions.”

I have to admit that I have at times wished for an average child (thankfully I found other parents online who have wished the same thing so the guilt is lessened slightly). I often feel completely inadequate and incompetent and have absolutely no idea how to help him with the various challenges he faces. But just like a parent who has a child with any kind of challenge I have to remember that God gave him to us for a purpose. Children are a gift no matter the package they come in. God has a plan for him and my job is to prepare him for what God has in store for him in the future. And each time something new comes up, be it behavioral or medical or anything else, I have to let go of my worries and trust in God’s will.

Multitude of Blessings

25. April 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: Gratitude Community

“Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:7

514. Loving husband who thoughtfully stayed home late one morning to take my oldest off to school.

515. We’ve narrowed it down to France in early October!

516. Ian running up to me telling me he wanted to read to me his Bob books.

517. Convincing my grandfather to let me add his name to the WWII memorial and talking with him about his time in the navy.

518. Watching Ian flirt with the lady cutting his hair. She kept saying “He’s so cute!” For my three year old, getting his hair cut is like me getting a massage:)

519. Ian asking questions about the New Heavens and the New Earth: “You mean I won’t have any boo boo’s or bug bites on me anymore? We won’t need bandaids?” And then later, “Will there be baseball?” “Will our bodies have blood in them?”

520. Encouragement from friends just when I needed it.

521. Watching Ian’s Easter performance at his preschool. I could see he and a little friend joking during the performance. He spent half his time pointing at me:)

522. Date night, coffee at B&N, pouring over travel books on Paris, dreaming…

523. Long weekend, sleeping in, doing nothing, boys swimming, playing pretend, legos everywhere…

524. Father/son project: turning a box into a car for a “road ralley” at school

525. Resurrection Sunday celebrated with close friends

Nailed to the Cross

23. April 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: Ploughing Hearts, Spiritual Growth, Teach Me Jesus

“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.” Galatians 5:24

This Good Friday, we ploughed our hearts in preparation for Resurrection Sunday by nailing our sins to the cross. We made a small wooden cross and took turns hammering nails into the wood to symbolize the sins that Jesus bore when he was nailed to the cross.

Tomorrow may our hearts be full of joy and thanksgiving as we remember all that Christ has done for us. Christ the Lord is risen! He is risen indeed!

For the Joy Set Before Him

22. April 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: Depression, Spiritual Growth

Why does it take so long to move forward in this mending of the tears in my soul, and yet take no time at all to fall and end up right back where I started? It’s like the game of Chute N Ladders, so many spaces to go through to get to the end and win, but if you land on that one space, near the top of the board, you’re on a chute that takes you back to the bottom.

I’ve slid down my own chute in recent weeks.

To read the rest of this post, visit CSAHM, my writing home on Fridays.

Teach Me Jesus Thursdays

21. April 2011 · 5 comments · Categories: Parenting, Teach Me Jesus

A new baby brings excitement, hope and anticipation for the future. A mom may dream of afternoons having tea with her little girl; a dad my plan evenings throwing a baseball with his son. In our society, there’s a great deal of thought and planning that goes into preparing our kids for their future. We plan all the different sports and activities we want them to get involved in, we plan years in advance for where they are to go to college. We may even have hopes of what kind of career our kids might have.

How much thought do we put into their spiritual nourishment? What hopes do we have regarding our children’s spiritual growth?

When my oldest was a baby, I started collecting bible stories to read to him. I was disappointed with the selection I found. It got me thinking, if there aren’t many good books to read to him, how would we go about training my son spiritually? Since then I’ve been passionate about the spiritual nourishment of the soul of my children and have searched high and low for ways to teach and train them about Jesus.

For those who have read my blog for a while, you are familiar with a post category titled “Teach me Jesus.” In these posts, I’ve written about our journey to teach, train, nourish, and guide our children spiritually.

This verse has been the one that is always forefront in my mind:

“And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Deuteronomy 6:5-9

In the “Teach Me Jesus” posts, I’ve written about ideas, thoughts, questions, and challenges we have regarding the spiritual training of children. Topics have included: building Christian character, teaching scripture, answering tough questions like those about death and heaven, sharing the gospel with children, and more. So far in this parenting journey, we’ve stumbled quite often but we’ve learned so much. “Teach Me Jesus” isn’t just about the literal teaching of children, it’s also about how we teach Jesus through our own interactions with our kids, our responses to trials, and the way we deal with sin in our own lives.

How each family applies the passage in Deuteronomy (and others like it) with their family varies. As the body of Christ, it is crucial that we help one another along in supporting each other’s efforts to teach Jesus to our children. While not everyone will benefit from implementing something one family does with their kids, it’s exciting and helpful to hear what other people are doing with their children, their ideas, successes, and challenges. Couldn’t we encourage and spur one another on by sharing what we are doing, by asking tough questions, by being transparent in our struggles? In teaching children about Jesus, there is no magic formula and I believe we can all benefit from sharing with each other.

Might you consider joining us on Thursdays to share your own stories? I would love to hear what is happening in your home as you “teach Jesus” to your kids. This week, would you consider writing a post on what the passage in Deuteronomy means to your family? And if you would, please add my button to your post so others can join us? You can link your post to this one by clicking the link below.

Because it’s all for Jesus,

Christina

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A God Who Suffers

20. April 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: Spiritual Growth

A well-known argument against belief in the existence of God is the problem of evil. For if God really existed, he would surely stop all the evil that exists in the world. What we are celebrating this week, on Good Friday, is God’s answer to that argument. God did do something about evil. It was so contrary to what was expected, so radical, so upside down. Good Friday is good because something bad, something evil, turned out for good.

God’s own Son suffered as we suffer in this fallen world. His solution to the problem of evil was to take all the evil of our sins on himself and die a painful, shameful death. One thing that can’t be said about God is that he is ignorant of the pain and suffering that happens here on earth. He experienced it all: sorrow, temptation, despair, humiliation, rejection, torture and death. Dorothy Sayers said, “For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is-limited and suffering and subject to sorrow and death-God had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine.” In fact no one has suffered more than he did for he took that punishment for us, in our place, so we wouldn’t have to suffer for eternity. Tim Keller says, “If we again ask the question: “Why does God allow evil and suffering to continue?” and we look at the cross of Jesus, we still do not know what the answer is. However, we know what the answer isn’t. It can’t be that he doesn’t love us. It can’t be that he is indifferent or detached from our condition. God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself.”

He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave. But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants. Isaiah 53: 3-10

Each one of us has our own story to tell of evil in the world. Couldn’t we all tell about our own heartache, sorrow, fear, pain and suffering? We groan wondering “Why does God continue to let this happen? How much longer?” The sorrows of this world can become overwhelming and often we grow tired and give up hope. But scripture encourages us not to lose heart, “Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lost heart.” (Hebrews 12:2-3). When we are tempted to give in to hopelessness, consider Jesus. Think and meditate on his death on the cross to pay for sins. Today, let us pray and thank him that he is not a stranger to suffering; that he understands the aches and pains in our soul. Today, let us praise him that because he knows suffering and evil, and he did something about it, we have the hope and expectation of eternity in heaven.