confessions and desires of a world-digesting writer/eater cell

Merriam-Webster defines a writer as: (noun) One that writes.

Big shocker.

I've been writing, well since I was about 5.  First just letters, then short, three word sentences without punctuation, then onto complete sentences and paragraphs.  By seventh grade when I had Mrs. Spicer for English I was writing essays and stories and poems and loving it.  In between there around the age of nine I started journaling.  For me, writing has been a way to process my thoughts, feelings and circumstances.  When Jesus became real and beautiful to me at age sixteen writing was the way I processed what I was reading in the Bible and the conflicting feelings I was experiencing as an insecure girl wanting to find my place in the world.  I wrote a play for my youth group and more essays and poems and filled a few more teddy bear and flower decorated journals.  

Between those early teen years and now I have married, graduated from nursing school, labored two sons into the world and moved several times.  In between those words are years of trials and joys.  Some too hard to speak about.  All digested in the writings of my private journals.  Also in there somewhere I discovered the blog.  I had no idea.  Up till my discovery of Blogger all my writings were private letters, journals, poems and word docs.  As women in my church, close friends and family encouraged me, I began to blog more.  

In the past 10 years or so of blogging I have been introduced to the endless voices in the public square.  It's quite overwhelming actually, the volume of published content by anyone and everyone on the internet. A simple google search on any topic will give you pages and pages of links from the famous and professional to the stay-at-home-mom who managed to squeeze in a half hour of blogging in her day full of household management tasks and human-raising efforts.  (A thought-provoking article here about the tsunami of un-governed writings and teachings available on the internet for the consumption of the church and it's implications.)

In the beginning of my blogging efforts I set out to promote my blog- reading other blogs, commenting, participating in mommy-blog contests, etc.  And then my marriage took a dive into troubled waters.  During that time I stepped away from public writing and became aware of my mixed up priorities and the praise-seeking sin at the root of all my efforts.  Writing had ceased to be a tool for processing life.  It had become an obsessive exercise to be known.  I hated finding that out about myself.  But it was the beginning of dealing with a besetting sin that was dragging me down on my race of faith. 

As I returned to meditating on God's words more and processing what I was finding there in private journals, I slowly returned to selectively writing on my blog again.  This time with a decision not to self-promote or to check stats or seek comments, but just to offer in a public way my meditations on God's word and life with a prayer that it might encourage someone out there.  

Writing for me has never been an identity or profession.  To me, calling myself a writer because I write is sort of like calling myself an eater because I eat.  It's a fact. Big deal. Writing is the way I chew on life and digest it.  Ignorantly I've sort of thought everyone does that.  Having two sons who don't enjoy reading or writing like I do has taught me that not everyone experiences life best with books and ink and words.  Not everyone feels a sense that heaven might smell a lot like the intoxicating paper pages scent of Barnes and Nobel. 

Somehow, the process of digesting life that is so necessary for me has encouraged others.  I've been told it's a gift.  I haven't thought of it that way.  But listening to others and hearing God say, "Do your part in the body of Christ! Use your gifts for the good of the body," (my paraphrase of Romans 12:3-8), I have started to take more seriously the stewardship of a gift God has given me to process the Word and the world in writing for the purpose of pointing others to him.  I want to do this while thinking of myself soberly and less.  For me this means beginning to submit public writings not just here on my blog at my will, but to men and women in the church (worldwide) who can help me steward this gift for the good of the church and God's glory.  

Desiring God has been a source of much encouragement to me in my walk with Christ and so was the first venue through which I have submitted a couple articles and have been so humbled to have published there.  The decision to submit writings to editors and people who give feedback and criticism and sometimes just a simple rejection opens me up to learning to take this gift God has given and start stewarding it for the multiplication of his kingdom.  I'm excited to learn.  I really don't feel comfortable calling myself a writer because I need to write.  But I do feel comfortable calling myself a glad and happy servant of my Servant King Jesus to the people he loves!  

I mean, I am a nobody.  Really.  There are plenty of famous and much better writers out there.  But, I am a cell in this body.  And maybe it's just another cell or two that needs to fight off some invading sin or needs help to lift it's spiritually-anemic head.  If that's one of the ways God wants to use my life I say a hearty, "Yes!"

If you're reading this I'd appreciate your prayers that I would seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness and forget about myself and be more others minded for their good and God's glory in my writing.  Pray that I'd learn to use writing as a means of building up the church and bringing God glory.  

May God build up his people, even with a world-digesting writer/eater cell like me. 

Why I took my boys to see Selma

I took my kids to watch Selma today.  Every year on MLK Day I purposefully talk with the kids about Martin Luther King Jr.  I set out to rescue the day from the "just another day off school" it could easily become.  Selma helped me do that in a big way today.  But I didn't just take them because today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  I took my boys to see Selma movie for a four reasons:

1)  I want to be purposeful about talking to my kids about history and social and moral issues.  History is what they're living and history is what they'll learn from and repeat or change.  And the social and moral issues of life will confront them unless they move to the Alaskan wilderness alone or hide in the basement playing video games for the rest of their lives.  I pray neither of those options will hold any draw for them.  The truth is, even though most of us don't live in either extreme it's easy to hide from social and moral issues.   I don't want my kids to hide.  I want them to shine.

2) My boys are about as white as white gets.  Blonde. Blue-eyed. Freckled-faced and have never been called a racial derogatory term in their lives.  They have no idea what it feels like to have a "people" who's history is full of not-too-distant slavery and segregation.  They have no idea what it feels like to live in an era when segregation was commonplace.  Neither do I for that matter.

3) Dr. King demonstrated the kind of gutsy submission I want my boys to have in life.  I want them to be characterized as a Christian should be: as a submissive person.  Submissive as Christ was.  Submissive to authority.  Respectful of those in leadership.  Obedient to the law.  Yet, like Christ, I want them to be willing to suffer when they have to stand up and against unjust laws.  In a interview on Meet The Press after the march from Selma to Montgomery Dr. King was asked how he could justify going against a law that forbade him from marching when he himself proclaimed to be a peaceful, non-violent protester.  King's response is spot on:

There are two types of laws. One is a just law. One is an unjust law. I think we all have moral obligation to obey just laws. On the other hand, I think we have a moral obligation to disobey unjust laws, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. I think the distinction here is that when one breaks a law that his conscience tells him is unjust, he must do it openly, he must do it cheerfully, he must do it lovingly, he must do it civilly, not uncivilly, and he must do it with a willingness to accept the penalty. And any man that breaks a law that his conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty, by staying in jail in order to arouse the conscience of the community on the injustice of the law, is at that moment expressing the highest respect for law.

Oh that we as Christians, even me and my sons, would be so changed by the goodness and grace of God and the excellence of his ways that we would be model citizens and when we must break a law that our conscience tells us is unjust, we would do so openly and cheerfully and lovingly and civilly and willing to accept the penalty and thereby express the highest respect for the law.

4)  Martin Luther King Jr.'s mission and stand is a powerful and inspiring way to point my boys to Christ.

Dr. King's stance against the moral evil of racial bigotry and segregation, and for the moral good of all human beings to freely live in their society, share equal access to that society's economy, politics and social aspects as people created in the image of God no matter the color of their skin is important and life changing because it's right!  There is a right and there is a wrong.  There is evil and there is good. There is sin and their is righteousness.  God through Christ showed us what righteousness is.  We human beings demonstrate over and over again what sin is.  Out of our hearts comes all kinds of evil.

Forcing people with dark skin to eat in a different part of a restaurant, go to a different school, drink from a different sink; beating peaceful demonstrators for respectfully standing against legislated evil; preventing black people from voting... and the many more evils that were accepted as right by our society is deplorable.  It should never be.  But even when that evil is eradicated from the planet other evils persist.  The killing of the unborn.  Human trafficking.  Child pornography.  Violent and oppressive governments.  Child abuse.  Domestic violence.  And the list could go on and on.  All these are evils that have come out of the human heart.  Dr. King pointed us to the One who's glory is the only cure for it: Christ.

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches were prophetic and jarring.  He often quoted from the Bible in his speeches.  One from Amos really struck me in the movie today, "But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."  It's righteous, God's righteousness, Christ's righteousness that will make things right.  In our lives individually now, as much as can be this side of His kingdom come.  And one day, on that great and glorious day, fully when we see him face to face!

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.  His glory is not merely racial equality and it is not less than racial equality.  It is massive.  It is transforming.  It is the right we long for.  And He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.  All that evil.  All that has poured out of our hearts for generations and has done horror upon horror to each other and this world and ultimately has spoken enormous slander of God's name whom we bear as creatures made in his image.  His wrath is coming against all that evil that we have done.  And there is only one place to escape His wrath- His Son.

Christ did ultimately what King was a small shadow of.  King suffered the evils of men to stand for what was right.  Christ suffered the evils of men and the wrath of a righteous God against all those evils (to which men have held dear) to save us and make us right.

The hope for the black man and the white man, the Chinese woman and the Arabian woman, the African child and the Iranian child is the One who created them and died to redeem them all.  Only His Kingdom come and His will be done will bring the ultimate of what Dr. King sought.  Freedom.

Quieted,

Sheila

Bearing the peculiar mark of majesty

So I'm doing this Bible study with my neighbor. First Peter. We're at that infamous submission part. I've camped out in this book for years. I frequently come back to it because it so directly speaks to me.

It bothers me that I'm bothered by the whole subject of submission because I can clearly see that submission is not a subheading under the subject of being a wife.  It is, as I've heard John Piper put it, the peculiar mark of majesty on all within the kingdom of God.  But it's just my fallen human nature to be bothered by the idea of submission.  No one. No. One. Likes someone else to be in authority over them  No one likes being the one who defers to the authority of another.  We all want to do life our way without anyone telling us otherwise.  That's just our messed-up nature.

Submissiveness is godly.  God-like.  It's not natural or human-like.  Submissiveness is to be the character of all Christians, not just women or wives.  Godly submissiveness is willing, not forced.  The godly submissive person knows where they come from.  They know who they are.  And Whose they are.  They know where they're going.  They know what their inheritance is.  They know all things are theirs in Christ.  And they willingly honor and defer to the authority of those in authority and they willingly humble themselves to lift up others.

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him...  "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them." - John 13:3-5, 14-17

Because all Christians are called to a Christ-like submissiveness in the way they relate to authority and to each other there is manifestly different kinds of submission.  Those who submit to persons in authority have one kind.  Those (even in positions of authority) who submit themselves to others in various situations have another kind.  But all kinds are willing, coming from a person who knows they are a child of the Living God.  They are not weak, doormats with no will or choice.  They are the wealthiest, most powerful of all because their Father is the Creator of the universe and works ALL things for their good and His glory.  No person in a position of authority over them has any power other than what their Father has ok'd.

The person who bears the God-like, peculiar mark of majesty can look the most powerful and the most harsh and the most wealthy person in the face and face any response or consequence they may impose on their life without any fear.

Quieted,

Sheila

Quiet time

(My rockhound kids with his geode finds from Payson last weekend. More on that another post.)

I'm still here. It's been a full couple of weeks. Mostly full of sickness. UGH!

Tomorrow I get to teach the 3rd and 4th graders at Pathway one of my favorite sections of the Bible.  The part where the lady pours expensive perfume over Jesus head, causing quite the stir.  What others saw as a waste, Christ saw as an act of adoration.

I get to "waste" my life and all I have on responding to the love of Christ with my poured out life.  To some it will be a beautiful perfume.  To others it will smell like a waste.  Like death.

Monday, it's back to work.  This is the last stretch of time I get to spend with the kids and staff at Wildflower.  I want to leave it better than when I came.  I have a lot of work to do.

I was thinking the other day about how turned upside down my world has been the last few years.  I had a plan.  It didn't go my way.  And that's a good thing.  I am no Joseph.  But I agree with Joseph, things done were wrong, but God had a plan.  And part of that plan was to cause me to be refined.  It is good that I've been afflicted.  It's caused me to learn God's word even more.  Being a homemaker isn't about where you make money, or if you make money; it's about making a home that honors the Creator of marriage and parents and family. Christ-like submission is not weakness or slavery or doormatishness; it's Christ-like.  It's not submission to wallow in self-pity.  That's just pouting because I want things my way.  It's not submission to gladly do whatever you agree to.  That's agreeing.

Entrusting yourself to Him who judges justly.  That's Christ-like submission.  It's good that I've been and continue to be afflicted.

May Christ be magnified in me!

I've been off Facebook and Blogger quite a bit.  It's good.  I've wanted to write many things, yet I've had this whispering in my heart:

Learn in quietness.

Some will think that's a waste.  At least One will think is smells beautiful.

 Quieted,

Sheila

My life-rythm is about as good as my dancing

(Connor's work on his memory verse)



When I was 16 I wanted to be a ballerina. Somehow though, six foot and awkward don't look very graceful in a tutu. I can't dance. I want to dance. I like to dance. But if you saw me and my kids playing Just Dance4 you could come up with some good blackmail material. Shoot, I can't even tap my foot to a beat for long.


My life feels sort of the same way.  I'm moving to the music the best I can, but my timing and rhythm are all messed up!  I'm always trying to get the beat back on track and I'm pretty sure if I would play just one song at a time, it wouldn't be so bad.  But as it is I'm trying to keep up with my blogging, my journaling, my 1000 gifts journal, my goal to memorize Colossians in a year, my clean eating plan, exercising, Sunday school lessons... and the daily life stuff, not to mention spending time with my kids and husband.  I guess each of those things doesn't necessarily need to be it's own "song".  It can be an instrument in the symphony God is composing out of my life.  I need to focus on the Conductor and not worry about all the instruments and just simply play the part He's conducting me in now.

Mornings begin the rhythm... If I get that wrong, the rest of the day is not so harmonic.  I've been taking in the Word every morning with my black coffee and using the memorizing of Colossians as my daily bread. 

The month of January was dedicated to clean eating, grateful journaling, seeking Eucharistic living, heart-knowing the Word, and more consistent exercise.  By the grace of God, all those endeavors have been blessed with success.  More grace and mercy to keep moving forward please!

I know it was grace-given success because a root of bitterness got dealt with and seeds of gratitude are already bearing fruit: having contempt for contempt I chose to think on the good and so decided to call him my Music Man.  He loves to jam.  He walks around with his guitar.  He's always reminding me, without saying a word, of that seemingly prophetic line in the song we walked down the isle as husband and wife to:

They say that the road
Ain't no place to start a family
Right down the line it's been you and me
And loving a music man
Ain't always what it's supposed to be
Oh Girl
You stand by me
I'm forever yours
Faithfully

I'm reading several books right now:  A Long Obedience In The Same Direction,  If God is Good,  It Starts With Food, Sacred Marriage, and Robinson Crusoe.  I keep bouncing from one to the next.  There are so many good quotes in them all.  I keep highlighting and underlining and dog-earing... good books. 

Baseball season is coming.  Connor and James do baseball.  I cheer them on and support in anyway I can.  Ryland looks for other player's siblings who want to play a game with him.  Ryland's been doing Crossfit kids.  He loves it.  I'm glad.  It's the only physically active activity  he enjoys.  He also wants to join chess club and today told me he misses piano lessons.  It's gotta be hard for non-jock boy with a jock dad and jock big brother.  Actually, he doesn't seem to think it's hard.  He's perfectly happy the way he is. 

Sometimes I feel we could easily become a family where one child goes with one parent and the other child with the other parent.  I guard against that.  When it's Connor's baseball season we are there for him.  When Ryland has Crossfit or is involved with the chess club, we're there for him. 

Since I spent the last 30 + days doing the Whole30 challenge I am now being encouraged by the Music Man to pursue cooking my clean, nutrient dense meals and bringing them to Crossfit gyms in the area to sell to fatigued post WOD-ers.  He suggests a morning, afternoon, and evening stop.  I guess he likes my cooking.  Smile. 

At first I thought he was just being nice, but he's serious business.  So we'll see where this goes.  I don't even know where to start.  I guess three good, kitchen-tested recipes, say, a breakfast, lunch and dinner, might be a good place to start.  Then maybe just a giveaway after a WOD... hmmm, I feel a brainstorm coming.  I guess I'll take a step of faith and go for it.   This is one of those things where I look up and think maybe the stars are aligned right...  The Proverbs 21:1 star, the 1 Peter 5:6 star, and the 1 Peter 3:1 star. 

I gave my notice at work that I won't be coming back next year.  This was before the suggestion by the Music Man to get a "roach coach" (as he puts it) and start selling Something Real meals.  I made the decision to go back to work at a hospital next year part time and use the tuition reimbursement most hospital's offer to finish my bachelor's degree in nursing.  In 2020 it will be a requirement to even become a R.N.  No more A.A.S. nurses like me.  My priority is building relationships in my family and making a home, and whatever work I do for an income needs to support that, not tear it down.  Working as a school nurse has a very beneficial schedule for a mom of school aged children, but I've decided the trade off of evenings, weekends, holidays and summer break doesn't make up for the daily life available and together.  As it is right now I feel like a part-time, seasonal mom and wife and a full-time school nurse.  That is the wrong order.  The Music Man is supportive of this and as I said, is even now encouraging me towards entrepreneurship.  Who knew?!  I know Who knew.  And He also knows what's next.  All my plans are in His hands.  If the Lord wills, next year I will be working part time, working on my bachelor's degree online, and hopefully helping out in a classroom once a week... my kids' classroom!

If every morning and every evening and all day long I don't come back to the lyrics of truth, when the seasons of my life change, when the many options surround me, when I want my life to be what it's not, when thoughts barrage and lies slip in, I loose the beat and fall apart.  But if I can keep the beat of truth going all day and all night I might just be a dancer in His sight. 

Quieted,

Sheila

"Thanksland" and a test in hupotosso-ing

It's been three days of prepping for our road trip tomorrow plus the daily things a mom of two boys home on summer vacation do.

I know it sounds kind of goofy, but the Parent For A Day game was a such a success so I went with it and we played "Thanksland" on Monday.

 I am weary of the constant complaining in my house and am aware of my own lack in giving thanks. Ann has really inspired me to pay attention and receive everything as a gift of God's grace for my good and His glory. So I told the boys Monday that we were going to play "Thanksland" from breakfast till lunch. In "Thanksland" everyone speaks Thanksese. Whatever your choice of words, it had to contain a verbal giving of thanks. So it began, "Mom, thanks for the cereal, but can I have eggs?" And when the complaining wanted to start coming (about the same time as the chores started), warnings were handed out like citations. Three citations equaled an unpleasant chore.

It was funny hearing us give thanks out loud in literally every sentence, but I noticed two things:

 1. There was no complaining.

2. There was a lot more smiling and laughing.

I need to give thanks out loud more often! What would it be like if literally every sentence I spoke contained some form of saying "thank you" or "thank You Lord" or "I'm thankful for..."? I'd probably get some raised eyebrows but there'd be less frown lines around my brows.

Today I attended a "total conditioning" class at the gym. It was 75 minutes of non-stop movement. I'm completely spent. Crossfit leaves me feeling the same way but in only 30 minutes.

I feel really bad for my husband. He had filling fall out a few weeks ago and a week ago his dentist put a temporary crown on it. Yesterday he went in to have the permanent crown put on but somehow, in the yanking off of the temporary one, some of the build up fell off and after painful attempts at re-building, they told him he'd have to live with another temporary for a couple more weeks while they send off the new mold of the broken, but rebuilt stub under his crown.

He said the appointment was sheer torture. He's not one to complain of pain, but tonight, while eating, his tooth pain brought him to his knees. He said the 2nd temporary crown is now loose. And we're leaving in the morning for a road trip.  Not good!

I despise dental pain! I really hope his tooth isn't killing him the whole trip. You know the saying if momma aint happy... Well in my house its daddy who keeps the thermostat for that. I'd be a grump too if I had a stabbing pain in my tooth my entire vacation! On the up side, maybe he'll get to eat some good clam chowder.

I'm looking forward to being with my sisters, brothers, parents, grandparents, and nephews, but I am really going to miss my Pathway family.

Connor's All Star experience was an experience. When parents act like tantrum-throwing toddlers regarding their 9 year old's baseball I realize who so many kids are so disrespectful to each other and adults. His team lost both of their tournament games pretty badly. The coach is a very patient, nice guy, unlike some of the dad's of the kids on his team. He choked back tears after last night's loss, saying people told him if he coached All Stars he'd loose friends. I couldn't bear the silence and spoke up amongst the disgruntled, but respectful parents gathered round to listen. We all felt the same way- we felt he'd made wrong choices for the games, but we respected him as the coach, kept our opinions to ourselves, and cheered our kids on. The adult toddler had yanked his son out in cursing rage on Monday night and wasn't there to hear this well-meaning man explain. I offered, "We appreciate your patience Coach! Good work!" My husband clapped in support and the kids he coached came running to give him a good hug.

You can disagree and still show respect for the person doing the leading. That's what it means to hupotosso. It's easy to tear down a person in a position of leadership or authority. It doesn't require any strength to cuss and yell and make a scene. Strength under control is displayed when you voluntarily carry a burden of living with the decisions of a person in authority.  Lord give me the grace to do just that!

Quieted,

Sheila