Category Archives: reading

grace note

Posted on by October 20, 2022

Me: Stop bossing your brother.

Child: I’m not bossing him, I’m telling him!

Oh, of course. So sorry.

grace note: pursuing harmony without preaching to the choir

We’re still working on teamwork, teaching our kids to be encouragers instead of critics, and to get the plank out of their own eyes and mind their own business. It’s hard to model this as a mom because, well, I’m bossing them about not bossing each other. After almost fourteen years of parenthood, I’m still learning when to step back – to wait before interfering, intervening, stepping in, or advising, and just let them have at each other. (Also known as “taking it outside.”)

I mean, teaching them to problem-solve and work through conflict. Yeah, that’s it.

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It happens, though, when the Spirit takes over the rooms of our house and we step into our calling. It’s dangerous. It gets crowded with growing pains. It might wreck any preconceived notion we ever had about what our lives might look like.

“Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

– C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Sometimes the unexpected happens, and sometimes we have a hard time getting along with each other.

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Frustration and bickering can bluster the day away, and criticism chills in hearts that should love each other. Maybe we just want to give the answer and fix things quickly. Or, maybe we want to be seen as someone who has all the answers, overflowing with unwanted advice and unsought counsel. Sometimes it’s out of fear or lack of control, but more often it’s from insecurity or pride, which are just different sides of the same coin. That person is doing things differently than I would do them. I would never do it that way. Since they are not doing things the way I would do them, they must need my input.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

– Philippians 2:1-4

In nothing is the power of the dark lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all who still oppose him.

– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

One of the slimiest tricks of the enemy is getting us — kids and adults — to attack each other with discouragement, misunderstanding, ignorant judgment, or anger. He’s constantly on the lookout to divide and conquer God’s people so we will take each other out, and when we fall for it, we all lose.

Anytime someone asks what the greatest difference in our life is, my #1 answer is church. That is what we gave up in order to answer the call to adopt. It is also what I hear over and over again from families….church is what they miss the most. It is very sad that the one place/group of people that should be the greatest support and most welcoming place is the one we’re often isolated from the most.

– anonymous adoptive mom

A friend of mine wrote that, and they are hard words to read. So much is at stake.

We’re made to win this, though. As an adoptive family working through attachment issues, we’re learning to live this daily:

We look at our fellow men far too much from the standpoint of our own prejudices. They may be wrong, they may have their faults and foibles, they may call out all the meanest and most hateful in us. But they are not all wrong; they have their virtues, and when they excite our bad passions by their own, they may be as ashamed and sorry as we are irritated. And I think some of the best, most contrite, most useful of men and women, whose prayers prevail with God and bring down blessings into the homes in which they dwell, often possess unlovely traits that furnish them with their best discipline. The very fact that they are ashamed of themselves drives them to God; they feel safe in His presence. And while they lie in the very dust of self-confusion at His feet, they are dear to Him and have power with Him.

– Elizabeth Prentiss, Stepping Heavenward

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.

– Philippians 2:5-9

We must be savvy…and be kind, not forgetting that we’re on the same side.

God, I’m praying tonight for protection over relationships — in families, in friendships, in work and ministry, that we would be so secure in Your love for us that we wouldn’t be insecure in our love for each other. We pray for an increase in unity, and conviction over divisiveness and friendly fire. Forgive us for being arrogant, insensitive, and critical. Help us to know how to support, how to ask, how to serve, how to encourage. 

Heaps of grace on each of us, to each other. The battle is won when we have each other’s back.

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This is day 28 of Without Ceasing: 31 Days of Relentless Prayer. Find the other posts here. To get new posts right in your inbox, subscribe here.

finishing well

Posted on by October 26, 2014

It’s a really good thing you read yesterday’s post, because there might have been a remote (very remote) possibility that someone stumbling along this blog thought that a family with six kids, three cats, and special needs maintain a perfectly clean house and never spill coffee. And homeschool. And ride an exotic purple hippo to the grocery store every week.

(Which is just silly, because everyone knows we drive a Stagecoach. Really.)

finishing well: when we don't know what we've gotten ourselves into

But in case anyone still thinks this is a meticulously-run tight ship, let me share an example of how the boys’ room chore goes:

Me: “Did you clean under your bed?”

Boy: “Yes…well, I don’t remember. I think so.”

This is a sure sign that the actual answer is no.

We go check. A pile of miscellanea in the middle of the floor has already been retrieved, but I crouch down to peek into that dark underworld under the bed, and can clearly see that there is more in there still needing to be rescued.

I look back at the pile of stuff, and ask, “What are you going to do with all this?” Shirts, papers, books, a broken clothes hanger.

“I dunno where any of it goes, so I’m just gonna put it all in a baggie.” Aha. Clever. But…

“The shirts?”

“Well, I’ll hang those.”

I’m picking through, finding broken pens and dowel rods. Note to self: hide favorite pens, stop letting boys have dowel rods in their room.

“All this stuff isn’t going to fit in a baggie. You’re going to have to put it away in the right places.”

“I have extra baggies.”

Of course. Perfect solution. Note to self: stop giving baggies to Afton.

It took several attempts in fits and starts, one step at a time, but he finally put everything away in the right places. It’s supposed to be a weekly chore, but he’d been taking a bi-monthly approach to it, and the job was bigger than he expected.

Sometimes you know exactly what you’re getting into…but most of the time we don’t. The unexpected often happens: the cost is higher, the wait is longer, the deadline is shorter, or the assignment is messier.

He soon found that the thicket was closer and more tangled than it had appeared. There were no paths in the undergrowth, and they did not get on very fast. When they had struggled to the bottom of the bank, they found a stream running down from the hills behind in a deeply dug bed with steep slippery sides overhung with brambles. Most inconveniently it cut across the line they had chosen. They could not jump over it, nor indeed get across it at all without getting wed, scratched, and muddy. They halted, wondering what to do…

“Look!” he said, clutching Frodo by the arm. They all looked, and on the edge high above them they saw against the sky a horse standing. Beside it stooped a black figure.

They at once gave up any idea of going back.

– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

And it’s okay – we don’t have to know all the unexpected details. He knows. If He had told us, we might never have started in the first place — or quit halfway, just pigeonholing the unpleasant parts of the assignment into a baggie. But we weren’t designed to be quitters, or those who shrink back.

And in this matter I give my judgment: this benefits you, who a year ago started not only to do this work but also to desire to do it. So now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have. For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.

– 2 Corinthians 8:10-12

God, I’m praying tonight for those who are in the middle of a daunting task – they have to learn something new, do something hard, face the unexpected and costly – and I’m asking You to increase their courage and determination despite not knowing what’s over the next hill. Show them a fresh vision of the greatness ahead so they will not be unnerved by the details in the way.

The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

– Philippians 4:5b-7

When we crouch down to peek at the underworld, we can clearly see that there is still more to be recovered. Your calling, my calling, is crucial to the rescue operation, and we were made to finish it well. No quitting, no shrinking back, no baggies.

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This is day 26 of Without Ceasing: 31 Days of Relentless Prayer. Find the other posts here. To get new posts right in your inbox, subscribe here.

about time

Posted on by October 23, 2014

We finally did something we’ve been looking forward to for weeks. We’ve been waiting for fall, with its cold days and hot tea, and then waiting to finish the book we were already reading (the last one in the Borrowers series, which was sorely disappointing – boo hiss) and then waiting for a quiet afternoon between work and school hours.

about time: what we do with the days we're given

But finally, it was time. We started reading Lord of the Rings to the kids. I would fist-pump the air in enthusiasm, but that would be decidedly non-Elvish.

There were rumors of strange things happening in the world outside; and as Gandalf had not at that time appeared or sent any message for several years, Frodo gathered all the news he could.

– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

We have read it before, some of us more than once, but this is the first time all of us have read it aloud together. It is for fall – for starting in fall, at least – and then to revel in for the rest of the winter as we trek through all 1200-something pages on cold nights and snowy afternoons.

You probably know this story – the fate of Middle Earth rests on the destruction of the One Ring, and Frodo has it. He is a wealthy hobbit with a coveted home in the Shire, and he can refuse to take on the task and pass it on to someone else, or ignore all the signs and warnings and pretend life is just fine for as long as possible. But he accepts the mission (you knew that) and he goes all in – giving up his home, his community, and his comfort.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

And we wish certain things hadn’t happened in our time, also. I wish I didn’t have to explain to our kids what abortion is, what human trafficking is, why their brother acts the way he does sometimes, or why their sister has misshapen toes and FAS. There are a million different whys I wish didn’t need explaining, and a million different missions I wish didn’t need funding. I wish they didn’t need to exist. But they do.

Would it be easier to not adopt? Not to give? Not to go? Not to follow the call He’s placed on us? Yes. Honestly? Heck, yes – but only in the short term. Long term, it would lead to destruction, and that short-term ease would be dearly paid for by those who are counting on us not to shrug our shoulders.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

– Philippians 2:4-7

Oh, my friends – you who have adopted, and then adopted again, have pivoted the direction and destiny of those kids, for good, forever. You who have slept on hard beds and eaten weird foods in a strange country have changed the future of that nation by bringing hope and healing. You who have emptied an account you were saving for a vacation in order to give to the hungry and heartbroken have planted seed that will grow, proliferate, and scatter.

Jesus, I pray for Your encouragement on those who have given up home, comfort, and community. I pray for wisdom, peace, and protection from doubt and misgiving, and victory in every battle. And I pray courage into and over those whom You have called, that they would not waver in their decision between easy and eternal.

Our hands, and many of yours, are in the mud all the way to our elbows. Our hands are dirty, the grit is under our nails, and we know we weren’t called to easy. We were called to abundance.

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This is day 23 of Without Ceasing: 31 Days of Relentless Prayer. Find the other posts here. To get new posts right in your inbox, subscribe here.