Talking with God

There was a brief respite yesterday from the heat wave that enabled us to take a walk as a whole family, something we rarely do. Schedules just don't seem to agree with evening free time (or perhaps we allow schedules to interfere? That's another post, I think.)

My husband pushed our 20 month daughter in the stroller, my older two walked, the middle son rode his bike and I had the pleasure of walking with my 3 year old son. This was the highlight of my week, likely the most enjoyable 1/2 hour I've had in a long time.

I loved hearing him talk the entire time. Looking at the world through his eyes, seeing the trees, the flowers, the sky, even a sprinkler watering a parched lawn. He would stop every now and then and pick up a rock, although it looked random to me, I'm sure it was special, in some way to him. As we came across patches of grass that had grown through the sidewalk, he would stop and jump and wait for my approval. "Great jump Sam! You're a good jumper!" He agreed proudly with me.

He heard every noise and would make sure I had heard it too. "Oh! What's that? You heard it mom? Yeah, it's a dog." Nothing escaped his attention. He held my hand for part of the time, the rest he ventured out on his own, not wandering far from me. The few times he ran ahead to his dad, he stopped and looked back to make sure I was following behind. His constant chatter made me smile. It was nothing and yet everything special.

As I reflected on it this morning, I realized how many parallels I could draw from our time to our walk with God. How does God feel when we talk to Him? I imagine He feels absolute joy when we come to Him. So many times we only pray when we need something. I know He loves us and wants us to come to Him and is a very present help in our time of need, but how wonderful to His ears when we just want to chat with our Lord. To tell Him about our day. To ask Him if He heard that noise in our lives. To show Him that we see His creation as wonderful and beautiful. To reach out our hand and want Him to take it. To draw encouragement from Him. We see God as some distant being, too high to reach, too majestic to care, but He's there next to us saying, "I'm here. I'm always here. I love you. Talk to Me."

Sam never once asked me to carry him. If he had, I would have gladly scooped him up in my arms and given his little legs a rest from walking so very far. How many times has God carried us? More times than I care to admit. More times than I actually know.

When should we pray? Always. How should we pray? From our heart. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 tells us to pray without ceasing. Is this possible? During our walk, Sam barely took a breath before speaking another word. Can we pray that way? To pray with each breath? With God, it is possible. I challenge myself to this goal.

In the meantime, I look forward to more walks with my precious son.

She's a grand old wreath...

I jokingly told my kids I was going to go out and get a job and they would have to stay home and take care of the babies all day. Jokingly.

My 14 year old son said, "Why don't you just amp up your blog and then you can get advertisers and they will pay you to blog." I told him that I'm not a very talkative person (they know this) so I wouldn't know what to write about each day. He said I should just blog about recipes, craft projects, stuff we do in homeschooling. Ok. I can do that. So this is my latest craft project (thank you Pinterest.)

I went to Pat Catans and bought a styrofoam wreath, three colors of yarn, and a pack of foam stars/USA stickers. Altogether, my total was just under $14. Not bad.

I started wrapping the blue yarn around the wreath, fastening it with scotch tape in the back (lazy, yes, but I wasn't about to dig out my hot glue gun and risk burning the fingerprints off my fingers if scotch tape was going to work just as well.) My daughter actually took over and finished the blue quarter.

We cut the yarn and taped it in the back and began with the red yarn. I eyeballed the spacing, I'm sure there's a more precise way to do it, but I'm pretty good at estimating. I like to call my style "Imprecise Precision."

I alternated white and red yarn until the wreath was covered. Because it is a circle, the yarn overlaps a little bit in spots on the inner ring. Unavoidable, really. When I was done, I stuck different size white stars on the blue field, not putting them in an order, just laying them where they would look good. I didn't glue them, I just removed the backing and placed them on. They stuck fairly well. If they start to come off, I can glue them then.

So here's my finished product. I think it looks pretty good. I'm happy with the result.

Proceed with caution: Reality ahead.

I've been reading a few different homeschooling blogs lately.

Bad idea.

I see how so many moms are doing science experiments everyday and taking their kids to the park and painting and reading Latin and yet, they still find time to finish all their chores and eat 3 nutritious meals. I'm thinking either these people are lying or they are only posting about their good days. REALLY good days.

Don't get me wrong, most days, we get our school done and done early. But some days....well, those are the days that you don't see written about in blog posts. Until now. DUN DUN DUN.....

Now, for your reading pleasure, this has been our day:

7:00 am 14 year old son's alarm starts beeping. And beeping. And beeping. For quite awhile, it keeps beeping. He finally jumps out of bed and shuts it off and promptly jumps back IN to bed and falls asleep. At least this time, he didn't reset it for half an hour later.

7:15 am 10 year old son gets up and goes downstairs. Is he getting a head start on his schoolwork like the studious lad that he is? No. He watches the Three Stooges (thank you Husband for introducing that to the boys) on the Roku.

7:30 am Sick Husband goes downstairs and calls his boss to tell her he won't be coming in today. A rare occasion, you know he's sick when he doesn't go to work. 13 year old Daughter comes downstairs and eats breakfast. 14 Year old son still sleeps. I try to fall back asleep and pray that the babies will sleep a little longer so I can get some sleep.

8:00 am The 2 year old Boy starts making noise. Whining and crying (most of my kids wake up this way, never laughing or talking.) So I take him downstairs. On the way, I tell the 14 year old to get up. He grunts.

From 8:00 am until 9:30 am, we did nothing. By nothing, I mean, we played Wii. Husband slept on the couch, trying to rid himself of the cold. I am thanking God that my husband is NOT the stereotypical big man baby when it comes to colds. He gets sick, sleeps for a whole day and is better. Doesn't whine, doesn't demand, doesn't act like he's dying. He's a good guy. :o)

9:30 am Baby girl wakes up crying. We get her up in all her 17 month old glory, hair a mess and pink jammies covering her from head to toe. 14 year old is up, but in the bathroom. I tell the 10 year old to do his Bible and spelling (at least some learning will take place today!!!)

I'm going to summarize 9:30 am to 1:30 pm. Whine. Eat. Drink. Wii. Clean. Change diapers. Write grocery list. Whine. Temper tantrum (just to be clear, this isn't all me. It is indicative of all 7 of the humans in my house during this time.)  Change diapers. Eat again. Watch Max and Ruby. Change diapers AGAIN because, apparently, clean diapers are more fun to poop in. Nap time (YAY!!!!) but only for baby girl. Husband tells me to go to the store with the older two while he stays home with the youngest 3. I'm not going to argue.

3:30 pm and I've already been to three places. Halfway through the grocery list, I need to sit down because I'm winded. No, I don't need to work out more. It turns out that the cold that has hit EVERY person in the family has now finally hit me. So I send out the older two to get a few items on my list while I recover.

4:00 pm. Last store. We need to get home by 4:30 so I can make dinner before Husband goes to school for the night. List is done. Older kids check out and bag groceries for me.

5:00 pm. We eat dinner. 2 year old doesn't want the pizza or ham or cheese that is on his plate so he sticks his finger in them and then shoves the plate to the floor.

5:45 pm. Husband leaves for school. After a few temper tantrums from a little boy who should have napped after all, we have bath time, snack and then bed, at 8:30 pm.

LET THE CLEANING BEGIN!!!!!

Did I forget to mention that I am having my two friends and their kids over tomorrow for lunch? So that means we clean. Since we are all getting over a cold, the cleaning has been slow. It is now after 10 pm as I write this and we still have a lot to do. I just downed a cup of coffee, trying for some energy to finish up tonight.

Hmm....weren't we supposed to have school today? I guess there was some learning going on.

Life experiences. That's what we'll call them.

Give thanks.

Eucharisteo.

The meaning is to be grateful, to FEEL thankful, to give thanks. I bolded the word feel because that's the hardest word in that whole sentence. I am reading, almost finished with the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. She talks about Eucharisteo and giving thanks. Eucharisteo always precedes the miracle. When Christ fed the 5,000 He first gave thanks for the food. Then the miracle. 5000 empty bellies filled when it should have only been enough for a few. How could anyone give thanks for a few loaves of bread and couple of fishes thinking logically with a human brain and calculating that the meager portion would NEVER be enough for everyone? But then again, He wasn't using His human brain. He was using His faith.

How many of us would have expected to feed everyone? No one. How many of us look at the things given to us and think, "If only I had..." yet there always seems to be enough. Are we relying on our bank account or on God? What is more powerful? What has the influence in my life? In what/whom do I trust?

Giving our trust to God, our faith in Him is easy. We say it with our mouths all the time. "I trust in the Lord." Do we show it with our actions? In some ways, yes. Some areas of our lives are easier to give to God than others. We can tithe 10% no problem. But don't we still worry that we won't make ends meet? We thank God for our children and say that they are a gift from God. But we tell God, "That's enough. I've decided I don't want any more kids." We give up our social life to God and pray for a spouse. But we go looking in places where we shouldn't to find a mate. We pray "Thy will be done!" but we give God suggestions on HOW that will should be done.

When I say these things, I point the fingers at me. Why can't we trust in God? He made the earth. He made the universe. He made ME. He knows me. I can't fool Him, I can't bargain with Him. He loves me and wants what's best for me, but I can't see it. The devil whispers lies in my ear saying God is punishing you, God doesn't love you, did God REALLY say that? I can hear the same lies Eve heard repeated. God DOES love me. God ISN'T punishing us. God DID really say all those wonderful things and I can prove it so easily.....then why can't I live it out?

Giving thanks. That is where it begins and ends. Remember what the Lord has done. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, "In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." I only need to give God thanks for the good things, right? Nope. EVERYTHING. This is HIS will for ME. When bad things happen, find the thanks. Every day, every moment is a gift from God. However.....I'm human. I grumble and complain, it's in my nature. You read about the Israelites wandering through the desert, complaining all the time and think, "What, are they crazy? God parted the Red Sea right in front of you and you are complaining???" But we do it too. We've seen God work miracles in our lives, we've read, memorized, and even sang the promises over and over again and yet we grumble. We stress, we worry, we complain.

So these are my goals. Trust in God and give thanks. Easy peasey, right? Um, no. But, I do have this wonderful gift from God called the Holy Spirit living inside of me and through His power, I will endure, finish the race and overcome. A good friend of mine recently challenged me with this thought: if you were to wake up tomorrow morning and the only things in your life were the things you gave God thanks for the night before, what would your life look like? It's a sobering thought.

Thank you, Father for all you have given us. Thank you for Jesus Christ and His death, burial and resurrection for my sins. Thank you for providing for us. Thank you for family. Thank you for love. Thank you for everything in Jesus' name. Amen.

Lessons from my tomato plants.

I am not an outdoorsy person. At all. I think nature is beautiful, but I believe it should be viewed the way God intended it: through a window.

This could be the reason why, when I said, "I would like to grow a garden this year" that I heard my husband chuckle softly. When I responded with, "Don't worry. All you have to do is till it. I'll do all the work" I'm sure he heard, "Don't worry. I'll make you do all the work while I sit in the house and enjoy the harvest."

However, I have to say that I am proud (and slightly surprised) that I have done a lot of working in the garden myself. The kids have helped, of course, but I've gotten down and dirty with the planting, weeding, and whatnot. Taking care of a garden brings to mind the original garden, the Garden of Eden. How nice it would have been to take care of a garden with no weeds, bugs, or other pests! I'm sure each time Adam had to work in his garden after the fall, he got a profound sadness in his heart, knowing what he had and lost in a moment's time.

It has also brought certain lessons to light. Case in point: my tomato plants.

We bought them from Walmart, good, healthy plants. I started with 3 and ended up with 5, plus a cherry one for Rach. I planted them and they did FANTASTIC!!! They got big and bushy, almost outgrowing the tomato cages I had put around them for support. They started to bear tiny green tomatoes. Yay! Then, something weird happened. They started to wilt, one at a time. I watered them more and it didn't help. I used Miracle grow. That didn't help. I even resorted to using pesticide to kill any nasty bugs I didn't see. Yet they continued to wilt. They also continued to bear fruit but the fruit didn't get very big. I have lately given up on the plants. They are dead and the fruit they were bearing, although starting to turn red, are tiny and rotten. Not good for eating. I did some research to find out WHY my plants had died when everything else in the garden seemed to be doing so well.

As I read articles on the subject, one thing caught my eye: Walnut Wilt. I had never heard of it before. Apparently, Black Walnut trees put out a chemical that is toxic to tomatoes and some other plants. It causes them to wilt from within and there's nothing you can do about it. Guess where I had planted my tomatoes? Yup. Close to the Black Walnut tree.

I was looking at my wilting tomato plants one night and I felt like the Holy Spirit showed me how this related to our lives. We may look good on the outside, like my big bushy plants did. Everyone thinks we are saved, everyone thinks we are doing good works for God. We can grow and start to bear fruit, yet have something hidden in our lives, a sin that eats away at us that no one knows about. We can try to hide it but eventually, it will show. We will start to "wilt." Our fruit that we were bearing, our good works, will be useless and rotten. Eventually, if we do nothing about this sin, it will be fatal. John 15:5-8 says: "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples." I find it interesting that the word "withered" is used. That's just what happened to my plants.

My fruit, the tomatoes are rotten, tiny and unusable. Christ says in Matthew 7:16-20 "You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them." The outer fruits reflected what was happening on the inside. We can't be living a secret life hiding sin or even continue on as an unbeliever and still do good works for Christ. The works will be rotten and useless and eventually, people will see that. If we don't repent and ask Christ to forgive us of our sins, it will be fatal.

So that's my lesson from the tomato plants. I have since planted more tomato plants, farther away from the Walnut trees. Hopefully, they will do well. It's incredible how God can take something that I would view as a failure and make an illustration out of it so I could learn more and grow in Him. Our God is an awesome God!

And the answer is.....

Since I have 5 kids and choose to homeschool them, I sometimes get treated like a circus freak with two heads. For some reason, people seem to think it's ok to comment on our choices and/or ask rude questions. I thought I would take this opportunity to answer some of them.

1. There are 5.

2. Yes, they are all mine.

3. Yes, they are all my husband's.

4. No, they are not home from school sick. We homeschool them.

5. Yes, I am a saint, but not for the reasons that you think.

6. Yes, we are busy. But we also have moments of boredom.

7. Yes, you could do it.

8. Yes, it is legal.

9. We have to inform the school district and either take a test or get a written letter by a certified teacher that we are actually teaching our children something.

10. We are learning about the same things your kids are learning about, just in a different way.

11. No, I am not worried that I am screwing my kids up and taking away opportunities for them. Homeschooling is increasing in popularity and more and more colleges are actually seeking out homeschoolers.

12. Yes, I have them with me ALL DAY LONG so that means we all go shopping together, we all eat meals together, we all talk together, laugh together, etc....

13. No, we don't sleep in. Some homeschoolers do and that's fine, but we choose to get up and get our work done so we have the rest of the day free.

14. Yes, you really COULD do it.

15. Yes, I do teach them all on different grade levels, and yes, that does include Algebra. They make these wonderful things called "Teacher's Editions."

16. No, I don't care if they miss their prom.

17. I agree that Christians should be an example to the outside world. But I also think that kids should have a strong foundation to know what they believe and why.

18. Yes, we do socialize them. Some weeks, they are out more than they are home.

19. No, I don't know if I'm done having kids. But thank you for asking such a personal question.

20. Yes, I do have times where I want a moment's peace, but those are few and far between (and that's when I go hide in the bathroom for 10 minutes). I genuinely LIKE my kids. This is my job, my heart and what God has in His will for me.

21. No, you're right. You probably couldn't do it then.

I cantabelieve it's not squash!!!!

The three older kids are involved in 4 H this year. First rule: NO ANIMAL PROJECTS. Second rule: Must be something mom can do. Third rule: Only two per kid. Being the wonderful mom that I am, I decided to let them have some say in what they picked. By "some say" I mean that I gently directed their interest toward certain projects that I thought were cool. For example, I would say, "You want to do Fishing? Hmmm....I don't think you would like that one very much. I think you would enjoy Photography!"

So Mike is doing Quick Breads and Gardening, Rach is doing Photography and Cake Decorating, and Dave is doing Photography and Gardening. Like how they overlap? This way, I'm only doing 4 projects instead of 6. I mean, THEY are only doing 4 projects instead of 6.

Let's focus on Gardening.

For the boys' projects, they needed to do 4 plants each. Mike chose pumpkins, cucumbers, corn, and green beans. Dave chose orange peppers (he loves everything orange, you will see that theme often), cucumbers, Big Max pumpkins, and peas. We thought the orange peppers were goners so we replaced it with a chili pepper plant. After we did that his orange pepper started to flower. Who knew?

So since we had to plant the garden anyway, I decided to grow some stuff for myself. Obviously, I wanted to grow things that we liked. No sense having a garden full of asparagus. It started off as a small garden, 10 feet by 20 feet. Then I got hooked. Three rototilling sessions later and the garden is now over twice as big as when it first started. One of the plants we wanted to grow was cantaloupes. We all love cantaloupe. Can't go wrong with the melon. I bought some seeds. Hybrid, big sweet melons. I planted them, watered them, sang Kumbaya to them.

They didn't come up. Nothing.

I figured I planted them too deep and didn't water them enough. So I did what any self respecting gardener would do. I got myself to Home Depot and bought me some plants! I checked the labels on all three plants carefully. "Cantaloupes." Yup. That's what I want. I planted them in the garden. I lovingly coddled them and spoke sweet nothings into their ears. To my surprise they actually grew! And grew and grew and grew. I have three very big, healthy and happy cantaloupe plants! Success! I can almost taste them.

I noticed something a bit alarming the other day. Since I've never grown cantaloupes, I don't know what they look like before they mature. Looking at the fruit, I am thinking that they look more like squash than melons. Hmmm. That's not good. Yesterday, I recognized the yellow things hanging off the plants.

Summer squash.

You've got to be kidding me!!! ALL THREE PLANTS. Not a melon among them. I took a picture, which I will attempt to attach to this blog of my "cantaloupe." So now, instead of enjoy sweet melons this summer, we are looking forward to a bumper crop of squash. The kids are so disappointed.

Next year, I'm starting everything from seed so I know what we are planting (of course, I say that now, let's see what happens when spring gets here and I forget all about it). Can you put summer squash in a fruit salad?