Disneychurch

I listen to a Christian station, broadcast from the east coast, or west coast, either way it's not local.  Usually I like what they have to say, I like the music, all in all it's a good station.

Today the broadcaster gal made a sad statement; not that she meant it to be sad, she was serious, but I found it heartbreaking.

She said that she wished her church would make church as fun as Disneyland so her kids would want to go.  Or even half as fun, she added.   Such a sad reflection on church in America.  And on Christian parents.

I've been re-reading One Million Arrows, by Julie Ferwerda.  If you have kids this is an essential read for you.  Julie likens our kids, especially boys, to firemen.   I want to raise boys who save lives.  Kids who are trained, ready to save lives even at the expense of their own.  Purposeful, deliberate boys, aware that lives are at stake.  Warrior boys who know that the more lives they save the better. 

Our boys seem to be pre-programmed for adventure, challenge, discovery; a hunger to find and fill their purpose.   Our kids want risk, they crave significance.  Has there been some mistake in their creation?  No, God does not make mistakes. 

Kids are dying of boredom, literally in some cases.  Suicide, drug use, risky sexual behavior, fast driving....you get the idea.  Our kids are bored, Christian kids are bored.  They are designed for action - God made them that way.  As parents we need to recognize their passion and see it as preparing them for warfare on the battlefield between good and evil. 

The Bible tells of many teenagers used to change history.  Joseph, Esther, Mary, David.  What can your pre-teen or teen do for Jesus? 

According to The Barna Group today's Christian parents rely on the church for all of their children's religious training, they have no plan for the spiritual development of their kids and they do not consider it a priority; they don't have any spiritual goals for their families. 

Children are intended to be arrows, our job is to sharpen them and send them out with training, purpose, courage - lion hearted courage!

Heart sick

I am reading a heartbreaking book, for the third time.  I read it, break, cry, commit to staying broken....than I forget.  I find myself wrapped right back up in selfishness, consumerism, apathy.  Apathy is frightening.  It is the why behind indifference.  Indifference is worse than hate.  It is feeling nothing about a person or thing. 

The book is "The Hole in our Gospel" by Richard Stearns, President of World Vision U.S..  If you dare to read this book it will likely be one of the most potentially life changing books you will ever read.  Even if you are not a Christ follower.  If, as I am, you are committed to following our King, then you will break.  The challenge is to stay broken.

Pray daily for your heart to break for the things that break His heart. 

The Gospel has the power to change the world, but not if all we do is read it, and fail to live it.  The power of the Gospel truth is in the heart change that results from choosing the Christian life.  Many who say they have chosen it will find themselves in hell.  Choosing Christ results in a changed heart, hands, and soul.  If there is no fruit, the faith is a lie.  It does not happen in an instant.  It is up and down, light and dark, joy and pain. 

At times I feel so like Jesus is my best friend, at others I feel a wall between that I just can't seem to remove.  I pray and plead with Him to come close.  I trust that this season has a reason in His greater Glory, and that He will bring me through, like Job.  But I hate feeling apart from Him. 

What does our Creator expect of us here on earth?  We are to act, we are His hands and feet on earth, today! 

Christ has no body on earth but yours,

no hands but yours,

no feet but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which

Christ's compassion for the world is to look out;

yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good;

and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.

-Saint Teresa of Avila

What are you doing for Christ?

Are we loving our neighbors as ourselves?  Who is your neighbor?  In this current age, everyone in the world is your neighbor.  Help them. 

People should be able to hear, see and feel God's love through us. 

There are almost 2000 verses in our Bible that deal with poverty and justice.  It is a big issue.  It is of utmost importance to God.  Why do we ignore it?  Being nice is not enough.   Not all of us have to give it all away, but if He asks us to it should be a pleasure.  Would it be a pleasure to you if God asked you to give all of your possessions away?  Who do you serve?

Our family is examining just what God wants of us.  We know we aren't doing enough.

Mr. Stearns asked himself a tough question when deciding if he would take a job with World Vision, "What if my cowardice costs even one child somewhere in the world his or her life?" 

Which one would it be okay to see starve to death, or die of malaria, or be sold into prostitution?

I'm asking that of my family, and asking God the Father to break our hearts for what breaks His. 

Now I know that at least one person who reads this will say, "that's a bit much!".  So you think God is a God of mediocrity?  You think He is okay with the fact that the divide between rich and poor is growing, not shrinking?  Read your Bible.

Should be an interesting year! 

various pics and ponderings

My favorite bumper sticker of the week:

BOOBIES
give your baby the breast

My friends A in TX, and M in WA would like that on their bumpers, I'm just sure of it. 

286. Great Grandmother L.
287. speckled puppy tummy

288.  little E who conquered the dinosaur head and jumped off by herself
289. friends who come for dinner and survive the chaos
290. the completion of painting the boys' rooms and bathroom

We went to the park today, took Harley along to get him used to things like strollers and screaming kids.  Wore him out! 

I have wanted to write about hearts, but just haven't had the words. 
Church on Sunday was about the tendency to have our hands and feet moving, but our heart disengaged.  

But the greatest of these is Love.  You can be top dog, go getter, degreed, PHD'd, and all that, but if you have not Love....

I go through days, maybe even weeks feeling like I've accomplished much, but my heart was not involved; I've been cold, detached, effective yes, but not loving. 

Sometimes loving feels like accepting bad behavior, looking the other way, taking a break from the incessant need to correct and guide and teach. 

I can't afford to take a break and simply love; Good Lord, what might happen!  Ugh, dirty clothes not in the basket, dirty boys with dirty ears, clothes on inside out and backwards, toilets not flushed.  To hell in a handbasket to be sure!

Just let me get them squared away, then I'll take the time to love on them.  I won't be as likely to get jelly in my hair. 

Then on the 28th I opened my daily blog update from Ann at aholyexperience and she had a link for a free Charlotte Mason e-book. 

I like free. 

I like Charlotte Mason's work.  Sweet.   The book is called "A Thinking Love".  I have just begun reading it, but I'm hopeful that it was a timely God sent gift to me and will help me put my heart ahead of my foot and hand action. 

Here is the link so you can have your own bit of free today:
http://simplycharlottemason.com/books/a-thinking-love/

Finding the lines between laying down the line and showing grace or mercy towards my kids is really hard for me. 

It is easier to bark at them, correct them, and get on with things, than to stop and make a decision about correction via punishment or teaching,

or showing them grace in the moment. 

It just seems like it takes so much time!  and I'm busy, you really have no idea.  but then I think about what is the busy?  what do I do each day that is the most important task in my now?   Raising boys.

Harley and I enjoyed walking at the park today.  He's a boy, what is it with me and boys?  He makes me laugh, and that helps me be a little lighter with my two legged boys. 

Each blade of grass is beautiful.

Like my favorite fireworks on the Fourth of July.

Central Texas, June, 100 degrees, cactus two feet away, and mushrooms?  Seriously?

Library books I'm reading:

The Case Against Fluoride by Connett, Beck, and Micklem
I am totally against drugs in drinking water.  Where's the informed consent in that?  and the statistics do not support fluoridated drinking water; in fact the opposite is true.  If you are a fluoride junky, read this book.

Amexica by Vulliamy
The whole United States, Mexico deal fascinates and disgusts me.  This book is specifically about the border land, almost a country in and of itself.  So far this is a well written, sad, enlightening book.  It was completed in 2010 so stats are very current. 

Day of Honey by Ciezadlo
One woman's life in the Middle East from 2003 to 2009. 

The above are non-fiction works. 

The Beauty of Humanity Movement by Camilla Gibb
About contemporary Vietnam

The Help by Stockett
Wow, this book kept me up at night, made me cry; it's rare for a work of fiction to make me cry.  Set in Mississippi in the 1960's, written in multiple voices, from white women and their maidservants.  I just kept counting back the years and thinking how all of that nastiness and hate is not history, it's like it was yesterday.

What were people doing and thinking?  What were my parents doing!  How could educated, Christian, people let that crap go on so long?  Ugh.

It is a really good book.  Be brave and read it.  Consider what is ugly in your community, city, state or country.  What are you going to do about it? 

Last week in review: book and food success

Our trip to the library, within walking distance of our home, sent me home with lemon cake. 

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is our library club book this month; it is excellent.  A tale of a girl who tastes the emotions that go into food, from the happiness of a pasture-raised dairy cow, to the emptiness of her mother. 

Lemon Cake reflections.  Being aware of my cooking emotions.  What am I adding to dinner?  Sorrowful spaghetti, irritable enchiladas, chipper chicken?  Roast with a side of joy?  To have food, nourish my family, what a blessed gift.  I will slow down, cook with intention.  Choose joy as an appetizer. 

I wonder and guess at the emotional sides served up by cooks in my past.  Grandmothers, neither one especially happy or satisfied.  Mother, a mystery of sacrifice.  Ex-husband, sly tricks, doling out entrees to multiple women. 

I come back to self.  Serve up goodness, silly, smiles, patience and the greatest of these, Love.  I will choose more than ingredients, nourish more than bodies. 

46. good books
47. lemon cake smell and taste
48. music in unknown language
49. soft bed warm with flannel
50. my Creator waking me up in the dark hours, house sleeping, to talk with me? yes me, I matter to Him.
51. soup

Soup, I love soup; I serve it about once every 8 years.  Last week we had soup.  Soup?  How can something so full of good be reduced to doubt and distaste by my kids?  Same word, different tone, changes meaning completely.

I don't have a photo, but here's the recipe.  Customized for my family of 7, Good Soup:

1 lb. ground meat (turkey, beef, venison...)
1 lb. sausage
1 chopped yellow onion
2 smashed garlic cloves
1 can diced tomatoes with oregano and basil
3 cups of frozen green beans, broken into pieces
2 cups frozen corn
3 cups chopped cabbage
5 cups beef broth (I used Rachel Ray's)
2 Tbs. balsamic vinegar
1+ tsp salt
black pepper

Brown the meats, remove, cook the onion - add the garlic when onion is almost finished.  Add meat back in, along with the broth and all the vegis.  Bring to boil and simmer for about 15 minutes, until vegis are cooked.  Turn off heat, add vinegar, salt and pepper.

They all complained at the word soup, but we ate the whole pot!  Accompanied by:

Beer Bread
1 12 oz beer
3 cups self rising flour
2 Tbs. sugar

Stir together with a wooden spoon, pour into greased bread pan.  Pour 1/4 cup of melted butter over top if you like butter.
Cook at 350 for about 50 minutes.

Dessert incentive to eat all the soup:  Peanut Butter Chocolate Pie
2 1oz squares of semi-sweet baking chocolate
1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
8 oz Cool Whip
1 graham cracker crust

In large bowl melt chocolate in the microwave.  Add milk and peanut butter, stir well.  Fold in Cool Whip, dump into the crust, and freeze.  This needs to freeze at least all day, if not overnight.  Recipe courtesy of Borden.

No food pics, I was only thinking with my stomach.

52. winter in Texas