Good News on Good Friday

As I made my way to the communion table at the Good Friday service this evening, I was stopped by a dear friend.

"I need prayer," she said with tears pouring from her eyes. "I don't feel like I deserve this right now."

But isn't that the whole point of His death? Sometimes, it feels good to take communion and pray, "God, I like walking beside You" or "God, I've learned so much from Your word this past month." But what makes the Good News good is that it is all about God, not us.

How wonderful to take the bread and the cup and know with complete understanding that we are not deserving of it!

Happy Easter!

Remember when there was all the hub-bub about using the phrase 'Merry Christmas'? Stores and schools were trading in the traditional 'We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!' for the bland and un-insulting 'Season's Greetings' and 'Happy Holidays'.

Easter is around the corner... what do the politically-correct say? 'Happy Holidays', because Passover comes right before Easter? Or maybe 'Season's Greetings', as a way to say 'Happy Spring to you, and to all your baskets full of eggs and chocolate bunnies'?

You know what? I don't really care. I wished two people at the store a 'Happy Easter!' yesterday, and neither of them were insulted. I think I'm going to do more of that this week. There is nothing wrong with wanting to share the joy and hope I have in me because of Christ's death and resurrection!

Every Knee, Every Tongue

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,

so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

~Philippians 2:5b-11

Judy's Song

I've shared before about my friends and mentors, Ben and Judy. They have since moved to be closer with family, and so we now see them only every few months. And though not much time passes between visits, we can see that the Alzheimer's Disease is progressing in Judy. And we can see the heartbreak this causes in Ben.

It's hard on us too. This is definitely NOT life as God intended. The Alzheimer's is slowly taking our friend away. But we know the best thing to do is pray. And whenever we see them, we try to encourage Ben and listen to him share his hardships with us. I won't disclose any details here for the sake of discretion, but I will share the lyrics to a song I wrote, titled simply 'Judy's Song'. It will give a sense of what Alzheimer's is like, and how much a caretaker must sacrifice for the one he or she loves. 

There's a girl outside my window
But she won't come in to play
I don't know the hour of day
Anymore

There's a woman in the mirror
But I can't recall her name
Yet I recognize her face
I don't know anymore

I can move my feet and fingers
But they're not my own to bear
My eyes search here and there
Where's the light?

I can hear the words you're saying
But their meaning's hard to find
There's a shadow on my mind
I can't see the light anymore

Hold me please
Hold me now
I'm slipping away

I can feel your arms around me
And your lips upon my cheek
Even though I may not speak
Please understand

There is much I can't remember
But I see the care you show
And though I can't return it, know
I understand your love

Hold me please
Hold me tight
Hold me please
In the light
Hold me please
Hold me now
I'm slipping away

To Guilty Moms Everywhere

My kids ask me on occasion to sing them a song at bedtime. Sometimes I say 'yes', but most of the time, I don't. As much as I would love them to have memories of being sung to sleep by their mother, I just don't have the energy (or voice) to sing after working twelve hours. I kiss them all, say "I love you, good night!" then look forward to a movie on the couch with my husband.

I know there are parents who cuddle with their children at bedtime, or ask each and every child about their day, or pray over each child, but I don't. And I do feel guilty sometimes. We cuddle (all of us) on the couch for read-aloud stories before bedtime. We hold hands in a circle with Dad and pray. We talk at dinner, we sing songs at lunch, we have dance parties in the morning... and I still feel guilty.

This post is in response to the article about the guilty mom on the iPhone. All I have to say is, if you're going to point your finger at the mom on the phone, you also have to point your finger at the teenager who can't sit still for fifteen minutes without checking for texts, or the man who interrupts your conversation with him to 'get that call'. If you want to write about the abuse of technology, don't just write about moms. Because moms already feel guilt, whether someone points it out or not. All moms are guilty: of not being able to give our children ALL that we want to; of not having more arms, hands, laps, heads, ears, mouths, etc...; of being limited by our talents, personalities, energy levels, budgets, and basic human needs.

Like the basic human need to feel like a person, not a robot. I'm always looking for a creative outlet, because sometimes I feel like I'll scream if I have to wash one more dish! That's why I'm here typing on the computer while my five kids are doing... I don't know what. Actually, it's relatively quiet here: my three-year-old is singing and coloring with his big brother, the baby is pounding on the floor with a plastic rolling pin, the older girls are probably crafting in their room. If one comes to me with a non-urgent need, I would say, "Give me ten minutes to finish this" or "Ask your sister to help you with that" (while telling myself not to feel guilty). If all of a sudden I hear, "Give that back!" or "The baby's eating dirt again!" then I'll reluctantly leave my thoughts at the computer and refocus on my mothering task. 

Moms are on-call around the clock. Taking a break from cooking, cleaning, and playing is legitimate. Put the baby in the crib and take a five-minute shower. Put on some make-up and feel pretty. Videos help you get other things done. Tell your older child to watch the younger one for a few minutes. Call a friend and chat. Or better yet, ask that friend to babysit so you can have some desperately-needed alone time. Children need to learn to play by themselves, take care of others, and work through disagreements. They need to hear, "Please don't interrupt while I'm talking to Mrs. So-and-so" or "I can't play right now" from time to time. It's okay if they don't always have your undivided attention, and it's okay if you're not always 'in charge'.

So, to guilty moms everywhere, remember that in order to do your best as a mom, you need to balance it with other things: time with friends, a date with your husband, an hour a week to indulge in a hobby. These things won't detract from your mothering, they'll enhance it! If you're rested, you'll have more energy for going to the park, and patience for dealing with a tantrum. If you've had adult conversation, you're more enthusiastic about singing the 'Bob the Builder' song for the fifteenth time!

I will say that if you interact more with your phone than with your kids in a 24-hour period, you might want to makes some changes, or if most of your quality time with your kids is spent in the car, you might want to restructure your day. But in the end, we all do what we can, and we all take little steps in growth.

Out of the Box

My daughter has a plush platypus. Not your usual teddy bear, that's for sure. If you are not familiar with platypuses (or platypi?), it is one of the most unique animals in the world. A native of Australia, it has a duck-like bill, a beaver-like tail, webbed feet, and dense, brown, water-proof fur. The male is venomous (it has a spur on its hind feet) and the female lays eggs. When European naturalists first discovered this creature in 1798, they thought it was a fake. Then they didn't know how to categorize it. Now, it is considered a mammal because it has fur and it nurses its young.

When my children and I were studying zoology last year, I was surprised to discover how many animals had a problem similar to the platypus's. They didn't fit neatly into a category.  The tree kangaroo is another example. It looks like a small kangaroo, but its face is really more like a koala's face. And if you think about it, the way it climbs and lives mostly in the trees makes it more like a koala than a kangaroo. Why didn't the biologists decide to call it a koala-roo? Or a long-tailed koala? I don't know. Why are legless lizards not called snakes? Why do some snakes lay eggs and some not?

We as humans are always trying to organize our world. As babies, we put labels on things: animals are 'dogs', round things are 'balls', short people are 'babies'. As we mature, our categories become more sophisticated, but they do not go away. That is why we have stereotypes and prejudices. It helps us organize our lives. 

I believe some stereotypes are actually helpful. Knowing that Chinese people tend to be more reserved can save one from an awkward situation. Understanding a person's background can help one be more empathetic and compassionate.

But also understanding that man-made constructs are strictly man-made can help us be less judgmental. When we see a person, we may be quick to assume his/her personality, hobbies, and needs. But how correct are our assumptions? We are confined by the little boxes we have made for ourselves. 

God is the only One who can see outside of the box. My husband uses the story of Jonah to help illustrate this point. Scholars for years have argued about the 'fish' that swallowed Jonah. Was it a fish? a whale? a whale shark? We don't know, because God's way of looking at His creation is not the same as our way. He made all creatures of the sea on the fifth day of creation. He didn't make gilled creatures one day and lunged-creatures the next. What's most important is that details like gills and lungs are not so important to God. And neither are tattoos, hair color, family background, height or size. When God sees a person, he never sees a stereotype. He sees the person as him or herself.

Long before 1798, God created the platypus, and He created it to be like other animals, but at the same time, unlike any other animal. If we can learn that categories are not all that matters, for platypuses or for people, we can begin to see people as God sees them, and love people as God loves them.

Occupation vs. Vocation

"You are tired to death with work," I read. "Work with a little 'w' is killing the soul out of you. Work with a little 'w' always does that to men if they give it the whole chance. If you don't mix some big 'W' work in with it, then indeed your life will be disastrous, and your days will be dead."

"What is it you mean by big 'W' work?" he asked. "Of course, that's the work you love for the work's sake. It's the work you do because you love the thing itself you're working for."

I closed the book. "That is plenty enough to think about for a while," I said to myself. "I don't want any more ideas mixed with that until I thresh it out well."

This was written by Laura Ingalls Wilder in March 1920! Before she started writing her "Little House" books, she wrote articles for magazines to give advice and encouragement to farm women (some of these articles are reprinted in a book titled Little House in the Ozarks). As I'm reading through her writing, I can imagine her blogging today. I find it amazing that it has been almost one hundred years since she wrote this particular article titled "Tired to Death with Work", and today we are dealing with the same issues!

She goes on to explain what big 'W' work means:

There is also the young woman with the musical talent and the lovely singing voice, who uses it so freely for the pleasure and benefit of others; and the one who grows beautiful flowers because she loves them and delights in giving them away.

I know I would feel like a robot if it wasn't for my piano lessons, my little choir, and my blog! Even on days when I'm tired, I find new energy when I have time to do what I love, and share it with others! God gave me these gifts, and I take delight in them!

But we must also dig a little deeper. The reality for most of us is that our jobs are not the same as our hobbies. For most of us, what we do to earn a living is, at best, rewarding and likable, but not thrilling. And for some of us, our jobs are just a degree above bearable, but we put up with it in order to pay the bills. But we want more than that! We long for substance in our daily living! Who goes to bed at night and feel satisfied after a day of motions with no meaning and results with no reason? So where Mrs. Wilder suggests 'work' versus 'Work', I suggest 'occupation' versus 'vocation'.

Calling one's job (used generally here to mean the task that consumes most of your waking hours) an 'occupation' makes a job sound like it is simply something one must do. "I am 'occupied' by it", meaning "it is busy work". 

But the word 'vocation', according to Timothy Keller in the introduction of his book Every Good Endeavor, comes from the Latin word vocare, meaning 'to call'. Mr. Keller writes:

One of the hopes for our unraveling society is the recovery of the idea that all human work is not merely a job but a calling... A job is a vocation only if someone else calls you to do it and you do it for them rather than for yourself. And so our work can be a calling only if it is reimagined as a mission of service to something beyond merely our own interests.

If that is the case, then every job can be a vocation, and every little 'w' work can feel like big 'W' work! If we see everything we do as God calling us to do it, then it matters not if you are a toll-fee collector, a corporate/software/business person, or the mother of twin two-year-olds! It is not so much what we do, but why we do it. Because then you can find uncountable ways that God is using you and your God-given talents to serve others around you. And that kind of work can never kill the soul.

Healthy God-Esteem (part 2)

I was rereading some of my older posts (as I do from time to time) and found one titled 'Healthy God-Esteem'. After reading it, I realized that I never explained what my phrase 'God-esteem' means!

Back in my days of teaching at a private Christian school, I read numerous articles about a student's self-esteem. They all had good things to say, but as I read these articles, I always found myself thinking, "But as Christians, it's not really about the 'self'. It's not about discovering 'who we are', making us feel good, being strong and confident in our own abilities." And so I coined the phrase 'God-esteem' for my own use.

And it isn't now, almost ten years later, that I'm writing about it! God-esteem means discovering who we are in God's sight, sinful people redeemed by Christ. It means knowing the person God designed us to be: leading, serving, kind, and strong. It means living in the boundaries of God's creation (meaning, His rules and guidelines.) It means relying on Him as our source of joy, comfort, love, strength, and guidance.

The world is teaching us to think about the 'self.' But if that is all one strives for, I don't think a person would ever really have a healthy self-esteem, because we can't fulfill ourselves. As individuals, teachers, parents, mentors, we need to remind ourselves that it's not about us. It's about God, the only One who can complete us and make us healthy.

To read more, here is the quick link to Healthy God-Esteem (part 1)

Grumpy Mama Bear

The last two weeks have been hard. Never has my whole family been sick at the same time. I was the least sick of the bunch, but when there are six other sick people in a house, the least sick one is the one doing most of the nursing.

It's been day-to-day for me. At night, I would lay my head on my pillow, and just as I start drifting off, someone would cry or cough. This would the pattern throughout the night. Then in the day, I would try to maintain some order in the house, while teaching or entertaining the healthier children. And I wish I can say I've been successful at doing this graciously, but weariness and stress has made me a rather grumpy Mama Bear. (At this point, my husband would jump in with "'Mama Baird', you mean." After ten years of marriage, I can't help but think in puns too.)

This morning was one of those mornings. The baby hadn't slept hardly, and was crying in pain and frustration. I was groggy, slow, and hungry. The older children were playing happily, but a little louder than I would have liked. Then I found the baby having a private tea party in the potty. Water was all over the floor. And this was after a week's worth of lectures on keeping that door closed. When my husband came to kiss me good-bye, I hardly gave him a peck.

"I have a right to be grumpy!" I told myself. "I'll take the long-suffering, but I don't have to do it joyfully or quietly!"

Now where in the Bible does it say that?!?!

Good thing we're still studying Philippians. I try to picture Paul, in prison, being glad! A house full of sick people is a prison-of-sorts, but I should have many more reasons to be glad than an innocent man in prison!

As soon as I gave up my right to be grumpy, my whole day changed. I made and served breakfast with joy. We had a wonderful day of school, ending with our mail-woman delivering our package of Painted Lady butterfly larvae and ladybug larvae! My mother-in-law dropped by for a little bit, and I'm so glad her morning was blessed by a visit to a happy home, instead of a dreary sickhouse.

But there is one thing left to do to redeem my grumpy-Mama-Bear day: give my husband a big smooch as soon as he steps through the door tonight!

Teaching Life

I do believe that parents need to decide for themselves what kind of schooling their children should receive, but if you are undecided, let me share with you something I recently read.

In an essay titled 'Art in the Bible', Francis Schaeffer writes, "The arts and the sciences do have a place in the Christian life- they are not peripheral."

I wish someone had told me that when I was growing up. My life then was divided into seven days, with church on one day and school on five. My time at school was divided into seven periods, with each period focused on a different subject. Rarely did the subjects mingle, and NEVER did they touch on what I learned at church. The atoms, plants, and animals in science class had nothing to do with the God who created them in seven days. History was just a series of random events, full of the names of dead people. Math and language arts were useful, but only because I needed them to get by in life. Art and music was even more removed-- it was extra-curricular, just the 'cherry on top' in life, but definitely not necessary.

Homeschooling my children is the exact opposite of that. Right now, we are studying the amazing human body, and we discuss how God had designed everything in us to coordinate so precisely, and how creative and artistic He was in doing so! Then, when we study art and music, we talk about joy, beauty, and how we are reflecting God's creative nature and communicating his beauty to people. Sometimes, we incorporate world cultures and history play into the subjects. And, to continue the chain, history, which was always my least favorite subject growing up, involves language, cooking, even math! And I have learned that it is anything but random. God weaves all people, places, and events together to create a tapestry stretching from creation to present day. 

Education is not about teaching my children the three R's. It is about life. Reading is used in studying scripture, writing for encouraging friends in a letter, and 'rithmetic is used in cooking, building, shopping, and sharing. In a Christian school, my children might get this if the teachers were mindful and coordinated well with each other. But at home, this is a typical day. We have our formal teaching time to focus on a subject, but most of our real teaching and learning are done through conversation. And though I'm not an expert on the American educational system (and even less so, the educational systems of other countries), I feel that my children have a better foundation in life that I ever did at their age.

If you are interested in knowing more about why we homeschool, you can read this post from 2011: Taking the Schooling out of Homeschooling

Spring is Springing!

I'm admitting here that if you see a silver Toyota minivan swerving a little on the roads of Livermore, that's me. And it's not because I'm drunk, texting, or trying to discipline a child in the backseat.

Spring is springing, and I'm SO distracted! Just driving to and from church this morning, I saw a hummingbird, two or three hawks on the hunt or dive-bombing, a Canada goose trying to catch up with his gang, and flocks of sparrow playing a giant game of 'tag'. The emerald fields are dotted with yellow wild mustard, cherry trees are bursting in pink and white (the only 'snow' we get sometimes), and happy daffodils are covering hills and front yards. Birds are gathering grass and sticks and tapping on our eaves looking for a nesting site. And when I do my dishes, I look out onto a cascade of these lovely little flowers:

I am so blessed to live in an area as beautiful as this. When I moved here from New York twenty-three years ago, I didn't know if I would like California. Now, I don't know if I could leave the Tri-Valley.

For those of you in the northern hemisphere, I hope it's starting to warm up where you are too. And as spring continues to spring while winter fades into our memories, let us remember how God is faithful, year after year after year.