Prayers

I am weary with my sighing, every night I make my bed swim...
...the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping.  The Lord has heard my supplication.  The Lord receives my prayers.
Psalm 7:7-9 


Life has been hard the past nine months since Bill died.  There have been many trials, and they are not over yet.  I admit sometimes I am scared, and I have fought a lot of depression.
Nights are the worse.  My mind runs and runs.  In order to turn it off enough too sleep, I take Valerian Root and Kava Kava, although I have heard that Kava Kava is hard on your liver.  Sometimes it works, usually it does, sometimes it doesn't...

Depression creeps up on me in the afternoons, when I start to get tired.  It can escalate by the night hours.

I know this is not God honoring, and I really do trust God.

Yesterday afternoon, I pondered how easy it would be to just give up.  I thought how much easier life might be.
'Might be' is the clue.  That's Satan talking, and I know it. Life would be a terrible thing to face if the Lord was not with me.  Things would not really be better if I gave up being a Christian.  But in a weakened state, it's easy for Satan to hit the target with his darts.

So I prayed a lot.  I told God there was no way I was going to give up.  But I really, really needed encouragement.  Could he show Himself to me?  I know it's not good to be asking that all the time, but once in a while, was it okay to ask, when we really needed it?

He had already been good to me a few hours earlier through his people.  My car had had a flat tire the day before, and a man from our church, who owns a tire shop, fixed it for me.  When I asked for the bill, he told me it was already paid.
That's humbling, friends, when you know you don't deserve the kindness people are showing, over and over.  My children deserve it, but I don't, especially when I spend too much time in the "slough of despond" (if you don't know what that means, go read  Pilgrim's Progress).

So I went to bed last night after taking my Valerian Root, and I "made my bed swim" and I prayed the hours away.

Then I got up this morning...

And I walked outside in the bright morning Texas sunshine...

And I knew God had heard my supplication, because I saw His glory everywhere I went...

First in the farm newborns:

And in the rooster that considers me a threat to his ladies, and tries to spur me everytime I walk near him, and thank you God that his spurs are not big yet, because I still haven't taught him who is boss even though I try to remember to pick up a stick whenever I see him:

In the goats that run to the fence to say good morning.  At least, that's what I tell myself they are doing.  Probably, they are trying to see if I have the feed bucket in my hand.
I really like this goat:

And in Samantha the goose, still my most faithful farm yard friend:

The Bible tells us that a man's life is threescore and ten.  I am 61.  Whose knows if I will live 9 more years, and reach threescore and ten, or if I will even reach the end of this day.  The women of my family do seem to have long lives, my fathers mother died just before her 95th birthday.  My own mother is 81 and very healthy, and her sister, my aunt Joy, just turned 88 and has hardly slowed down.
Even so, I thought if I do have a few more years, now is the time to try and do some of those things I always wanted to do.  I had better not put it off any longer.

I really want a fiber farm.  I want to learn to spin, and I want to raise animals that will give me wool.

I had the Angora Rabbits, but I wasn't doing much with them, so I bought a "husband" for them.  He is absolutely gorgeous, a rare white rabbit with blue eyes, and the beauty of this animal could only come from God.  It's hard for me to believe this gorgeous rabbit is considered "pet quality" rather than "show quality":

My spirits greatly lifted in my rabbit house this morning.  I had spent the last days cleaning it and moving air conditioners into it.  It's still a mess, but I am trying to do a little every day to get as much out of it as I can.

Yesterday, I picked up this beautiful rabbit that I am in love with, and also picked up some Jersey Woolies I got a deal on - buy the baby buck and get two older does for almost nothing.  I was pretty happy with the seven week old buck:

And one of the does, who the lady assures me is pregnant with at least three kits:

God shows himself and His glory in all His creation, including the human ones.

Like a little girl who rides her bike to a neighbors house, and comes home with a kitten (yeah, THANKS Tammy...if I remember right, the mother of that kitten was one of ours who ran to your house to escape the very child you gave her offspring to this morning...)
Then when I tried to take her picture, three photobombers had to get in on the action:

And in a young girl who made her first dress yesterday, and was so proud.  And to make it even better for her, her first handmade dress matched one her mama has:

So, although my nights are sometimes hard, I purpose to take more walks outside my own house in the mornings.  Because the goodness of God is everywhere, all we have to do is open our eyes.  It won't be long before we reach the "Celestial City." (There's Pilgrim's Progress again, I got it out recently to read to the kids during school this year.)

May we be strong and of good courage.  Heaven is near!

Call to me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.  Jeremiah 33:3

Beautiful children

We went to a funeral this week.  It was a very sweet funeral of a much loved lady who was nearing her 90th year.  She was the mother of Bill's brother in law.  I didn't know her well, but I wish I had - the people who spoke and sang at the funeral obviously loved her much. My son Max remembered that she always made coconut cream pies for him when she knew he was coming.  I heard a lady behind me whisper to her friend, "She never missed a service.  She was there Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday night."  I felt a bit convicted...
The preacher agreed in his eulogy.  He said that after this lady was diagnosed with cancer, sometime other parishioners would call and tell him they weren't going to be at services because they had a headache.  "I'll ask Miss Liz to pray for you,"  he said he would tell them, because Miss Liz would be sure to be there, even with the pain of her cancer.  That was usually enough and the person on the other end of the phone would be at services, he said, laughing.  It was obvious he loved her very much.

After the funeral, we were all invited back to church for a meal.  Our family went, Bill and I and our five youngest children.  Bill's extended family doesn't have a lot of children in it.  I'm not sure why that is, because it is certain that they love children.  But regardless, when this family gets together, my children are usually the only ones there, and they get much attention.  This day was no exception.
One thing I heard throughout the day, both by family and people I had never met before, was how beautiful my children are.  I have to admit, I agree!  Beau was especially fussed over, because he has grown into a man now:

And no, I'm not ready to marry him off, so don't email me pictures of your daughters!!  :o)

But then, they are ALL beautiful, pretty Celeste is the only one missing from the first picture:

Someone asked me how I managed to have ten children, and all of them beautiful!  I jokingly replied it was because Bill and I are so beautiful, ourselves.
Then last night, I was reading a new book after all the kiddos went to bed.  In it, the main character was talking about a family who lived in the hills.  She said there were many children in the family, and they were all ugly.  At least, she thought so until she got to know one of the sisters.  The more she knew her, the more beautiful she became, until this person thought, "Why, she isn't ugly at all!"

I thought about that...

What is beautiful?  Here is a dictionary definition:

adjective

1.

having beauty;  having qualities that give great pleasure or satisfaction to see, hear, think about, etc.; delighting the senses or mind: a beautiful dress; a beautiful speech.

So it doesn't have to just be a perfect face, it is something that "gives great pleasure.. to see" I thought of three things that are beautiful to see in a child:  Good health, nicely dressed, and happy.

As mom's, we are responsible for our children's health.  Healthy children are a joy to look at, and usually, a joy to be around.  If you are pregnant, are you taking your vitamins and eating healthy, well balanced meals?  This is the very start.  Once baby is here, are you breastfeeding?  Again, as a mommy, it is the very best you can do for your child.

Now that they are older, are you being careful to provide healthy meals?  Or are you throwing a box of sugar laden, food colored cereal on the table?  Processed lunch meat on white bread?  Come on, mom, you can do better for your children...

That food is okay once in a while, but it should be the exception rather than the rule.

How about how your dress your child?  Do their clothes fit?  I remember going to a foster care meeting one day and I could almost tell which of the foster children were welcomed into the family by how they were dressed.  Some were wearing ill fitting, worn out looking clothes that obviously came from charity, others were dressed like well care for children.  I'm not saying thrift store clothes are wrong.  We went to Goodwill ourselves yesterday.  Mary Susannah found name brand Aeropostale clothes mixed in with everything else there.  They cost the same amount as the worn out looking shirts.  She found a trendy skirt.  She is turning into the queen of thrift store clothes.  I, on the other hand, don't often have the patience to dig through the tremendous amount of clothes that she does.  I was looking for shirts for Luke and didn't find anything I thought was nice enough for him to wear.  I've sort of learned that to find clothes for Luke, I need to go to the Burleson Goodwill.  I don't know what the difference is, but it's there.  This Cleburne Goodwill, however, is great in the book department!!

And lastly, is your child happy?  A happy, clear countenance is priceless.  A well loved older man who has passed on to glory, Richard Mummau, told me once that a Christian always has a clear countenance.  I could write a whole other blog about that, maybe I will someday.

Do your children have a clear countenance?   What do you feed their minds on?  Are they innocent?

One lady at the funeral told me that Luke was the cutest little boy she had ever seen.  I know what she means.  While Luke may have funny ears and a skinny body and he doesn't talk much in public,  he was born smiling and hasn't stopped since.  He doesn't need to talk, his face is very expressive and  says it all.  He looks like a child who has never seen a bad day.  Yeah, he can be naughty, when he is, it's hard for me to discipline him (although I do, honestly) because I don't like to do anything to make him cry or be sad.  When the church we were attending made it a rule of membership that the children HAD to attend the church school, I knew I would never be a member.  Trying to explain it to them, I told one lady, "I can't imagine that I would have to go all day and not see Luke's smile!"  Her reply?  "Oh, you will get used to it."

Used to it?  I don't WANT to get used to it, I told her.  She looked at me like she could not comprehend that...

So momma's, take stock: are your children beautiful?  

I think I can hear a lot of "yes's" out there!!

Questionable music and our children

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.  Proverbs 23:7

A few days ago, a homeschooling friend of mine came over to my house.  Like me, she sort of has two families: older grown children, and a younger child - a daughter about the age of my Mary Susannah.  Somehow music was brought up, and we both agreed that we had changed so much in that area as we grew in the Lord.  Music we enjoyed as unsaved teenagers and young adults did not appeal to us anymore.  In fact, we were both grieved at the lyrics of music, both then and now.

In fact, one day a few years ago, I was at the grocery store with Mary Susannah, who may have been six or seven years old at the time.  As we bought groceries, Billy Joel's song "Piano Man" came over the loudspeaker.  In my old life, I had loved that song, and soon found myself quietly singing along as I bought groceries.  After a minute, Mary Susannah looked at me with her pure, innocent eyes, and asked, "Momma, what's that song about?"  I looked down at her in horror!  What was I supposed to tell her?  "Well honey, it's about a piano player in a bar singing to a bunch of drunks..."  I told her it was not a nice song, and I was sorry I sang it.  Then I prayed quietly in my mind, and asked God's forgiveness, too.

 When I was a young teenager, my father gave my sisters and I an allowance on Saturdays.  I would usually take that money straight to the store and buy a 45 record.  But my father forbid me to buy the Beach Boys song "Fun, Fun, Fun".  He told me "All that song is about is a young girl disobeying her father."  I rolled my eyes and thought he was silly.  But now, as an older mother, I think he was very, very wise.

I heard a man in church once ask if we really meant the words to the songs we sang.  He was talking about hymns: are we really as passionate about God as the words we sing would suggest?
I would ask that same question in another way: as we sing those impure songs about lust, drinking, young people disobeying their parents and other sins, are we enjoying them in our hearts?  Jesus tells us Matthew 5 that if we even look at a person and lust, we have already committed adultery  in our hearts.  He says it's better to gouge out our eyes than go to hell.  So what if we are singing about it?  Would that not be the same thing?

Proverbs 6:27 says "Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?

Can we listen to and sing along with impure music day after day, and not be changed by it?  

What about the young children who are listening to that music with us?  Can they listen to, and sing along with music that tells them to disobey their parents, to grow up wild, to let a young man hold them through the night, and still be pure and moral as they grow to adulthood?  Can we plant seeds like that in their impressionable hearts and minds and not expect to reap a harvest from it?

Matthew 18:6  " But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea."

I have such a burden for little children and their parents today.  I wish I could make them understand how important it is to keep their own minds, and the minds of their small charges clean and pure.  There are so many beautiful songs in this world.  There are the old hymns, and even the newer contemporary Christian music.  Why would we expose our little children to music that sings impurity to them?

Hebrews 12:14  

 Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

spiritual battles

Earlier this week, I went to the Dollar Store for some last minute Christmas things. There is a young man who works there that I always enjoy checking me out. He's friendly, talkative, and polite, three very good qualities.
This trip, however, as he was checking me, I noticed he had a really bad black eye. It was swollen and several different colors, and he had a large band aid in the corner of his eyebrow. It was bad enough that I thought he had been in a car wreck, or maybe mugged or any number of things, and I asked him "What happened to your poor eye?"
He smiled sheepishly at me, and lifted the corner of the band aid. "I had my eyebrow pierced," he said. He had two large silver balls, one on the top of his eyebrow, and one underneath. "Oh, good grief" I cried with a half smile on my face. "I don't feel sorry for you anymore! Didn't that hurt?" "Not really," he said. "The needle didn't hurt at all. It did hurt when he put the clamp in." I just shivered. I couldn't imagine putting myself through that voluntarily. We talked as he finished ringing up my things, and as I left, I said I hoped his eye got better soon. He said he did too, because he planned on having the other eyebrow done next week. I just shook my head at him, and left.
Since the Dollar Store didn't have everything I needed, I stopped at our small towns local grocery store. I bought one item, and got in line to check out. As I waited, I glanced around at the other people. There, standing next to me in line was another young man, but this one seemed a bit different from the one at the Dollar Store. His face was covered with piercings: three just under his bottom lip, more in his eyebrows and in his ears, but these piercings were mean looking spikes. In addition to the piercings, he just looked unapproachable. His shoulders slumped, his face was unhappy looking. He looked as if he expected someone to look at him in a negative way.
I checked out and went to my car. I put my bag in and then got into the front seat, put on my seat belt and got out my keys. As I put the key in the ignition, I looked up and saw the young man with the spiked piercings standing on the sidewalk, waiting for me to back out so he could get into his car. As my car started, our eyes met and I smiled at the young man, but he did not smile back. His eyes looked empty, not mean, not mad, just empty. He didn't even seem to really be seeing me, even though we were certainly looking at each other. In that same instant, a song by Steven Curtis Chapman came on in my CD player, and I heard the words a godly father had written about his daughter: "You are a masterpiece that all creation silently applauds, and you're covered with the fingerprints of God."
The thought immediately sprang into my mind, as I took in again his spiked piercings, sad, unhappy countenance and slouched shoulders, "It's not the fingerprints of God he's covered with."
I lowered my eyes and backed out my car. I felt heavy all the way home. I felt as if for a split second, a veil had been lifted and I could see the spiritual battle taking place for our souls. I felt sad for the young man, whatever it is in his life that made him look like he did that day. I want to remember to pray for him, and even, if God wants, maybe see him again someday when I can talk to him. This is an awfully small town. It wouldn't be impossible.

Ephesians 6:12 "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

Raising Godly Children

Do you take the time often to think about what kind of adults you are raising your child to be? Do you plan how you can reach that goal? Do you have a vision? Or are you only allowing each day to happen in our busy, over booked world?

This is a very important thing for a parent to think about. It was God’s plan when he gave you children to raise. Malachi 2:15 tells us so: “You were united to your wife by the Lord. In God’s wise plan, when you married, the two of you became one person in his sight. And what does he want? Godly children from your union.”

Godly children, that’s what God wants. When Christian parents do not take this seriously, or even when they decide to limit the size of their families, they are decreasing the warriors that God needs to work here on earth for him.

So how, as parents, do we raise Godly children? Deuteronomy 11:18-21 tells us: “Keep these (God’s) commandments carefully in mind…Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are sitting at home, when you are out walking, at bedtime, and before breakfast! Write them upon the doors of your house, and upon your gates, so as long as there is sky above the earth you and your children will enjoy the good life awaiting you in the land the Lord has promised you.”

The Lord wants us to be continually teaching our children. We should always be looking for ways we can incorporate a godly lesson into our children’s lives. To do this, you must plan. To do this, you must watch what is going into their minds.

Guard what your children are reading, watching, and who they are associating with. Do not let anyone convince you that you are too careful. Don’t let them tell you your children won’t ‘grow up like everyone else’. If you DO hear this, then answer them, “Praise the Lord! I don’t WANT my children to grow up like everyone else! I want my children to be strangers in this world, like the Bible says.” (1 Peter 2:11).

Guard what your children are reading. We become what we put in our minds. There are so many good things out there, and so many bad. The Bible has much to say about witchcraft, magic and sorcery, and all of it is bad. Don’t let people convince you that books that have these things in them are “Christian analogies”. Flee them. And as you flee, grab your children! A child’s mind starts out pure and sweet, never let the ugly, profane, wicked, and impure enter it as far as you have the power to protect. You can do much for keeping your child’s mind centered on the Lord with this one thing. Buy them good character building books. A good rule is to look for things written before 1960. That’s not hard and fast, but something to begin to guide you. Look for books with a good work ethic, good morals, and children who obey their parents, and don’t make fun of them, or get anything over on them.

Watch what your children see on TV and in movies. That includes commercials and trailers. We had a TV until about 10 years ago, and things were getting so bad then, I can only imagine how they must be now. I stopped my children from watching a cartoon where one of the main characters burped out songs. Yes, it was funny, but was this the kind of thing I wanted my children imitating? Would this kind of thing bring about good character? Is it a good Christian testimony? Another thing was that I began to notice that sometimes really impure commercials would air during a decent cartoon. It wasn’t long before I decided we just didn’t need it at all.
Another thing I noticed in the newer children’s shows and movies is that there is always just a little bit of sexual innuendo somewhere. Maybe this is to keep the adults interested? Children pick up more than we think. And they do NOT need to be exposed to this.

Watch who your children are associating with. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15:33 “Do not be mislead, bad companions corrupt good morals.” It also says in Proverbs 13:20 “He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.” The last thing your child needs to be is popular. The last thing he needs is to spend the lion’s share of his time with his peers, who are not wise. Your child needs to be with YOU most of his waking hours. YOU are wiser, and should be the one who, like Deuteronomy says, is walking, sitting, eating and spending time with them.

In closing, remember the scripture in Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” To train, you must have a plan, or a vision. Pray, and the Lord will give you wisdom!