Status report, Feb. 2nd....

Something needs to get me started this week and this morning. Lisa's Status Report is a good start.

Grateful.....that today is Thursday. Sleep in day. Recuperation day. Roam around in comfy clothes day. The week was stressful. Today is for recovery.

Drinking.....my spinach, peanut butter, banana, blueberry yogurt smoothie. (Breakfast is late today. See above.) And my coffee is right behind the smoothie.

Studying........1 Corinthians 1-7. It is a great deal of material to go through, but the first chapter gets me all fired up with my purpose for studying the Bible anyway--to know the wisdom of the Cross and Christ crucified though the whole world thinks it foolish.


Planning.....an upcoming homeschool convention trip and a tour through Washington, D.C.

Fighting.....a weather system headache. Our wonky 30 degree ups and downs in 24 hour periods plus rain plays havoc on my sinuses.

Thinking.....about what must get done today and what can wait because today's focus is some much needed recovery. Two of the five in this household are fighting upper respiratory infections so not pushing past the essentials, hopefully, will keep the rest of us from coming down with the junk.


Loving.....the Downton Abbey series. As so many are. I convinced three friends to watch the first season and then watch this second along with me. Then we share our favorite Violet lines with other another in our best British accents. Hy-ster-i-cal!

Ending.....here because the fifth grader needs math assistance. Bring on the coffee!

Finding delight, Week 4...

I participated last week in Leslie's carnival but neglected to add the links. That's what happens when you get distracted while writing a post and end up taking two days to finish it. Hitting publish becomes a welcome relief and proofing flew out the window.

This week I'm watching the links. I hope you'll think about participating as well. While my "delight" passages have not contained the word "delight," it has been a sweet part of my Biblical meditation to think on that attribute of God's Word.

This week I saw delight in examining 2 Thessalonians against 1 Thessalonians. The key theme in 1 Thessalonians is Christ's return and what it will mean for believers--a reception of glory. The key theme in 2 Thessalonians is Christ's return and what it will mean for unbelievers--a judgment of condemnation. While the first glows with delight, the second offends many.

I saw delight in the comparison in a couple of ways. First, God is just, and a moral universe requires the punishing of sin. Scripture has always told this story from the beginning. Either Christ is punished for my sin or I am punished for my sin, but sin is always punished. As a believer, I delight in knowing that God's promise of my sin forgiven in Christ is a lasting truth.

The second way I saw delight was in reading all the many answers in 2 Thessalonians to Paul's prayers from 1 Thessalonians. It is believed that the two epistles were written about one to two years apart. In the first Paul prayed that the Thessalonian believers would increase in their faith and love, that they would persevere in afflictions, and that they would continue to be a model of the power of the gospel to all those around them. In 2 Thessalonians, Paul gives thanks for how these prayers have been answered. It truly is a delight to see how God works in the lives of His people.

Friday adventures told on a...

Saturday.

A group of friends, fellow homeschooling moms, get together two Fridays a month for the kids to play together and for the moms to strengthen and encourage one another. Also known as laughing ourselves silly over this thing called the homeschooling life. The absurdities and the serious truths all get meshed together in one huge hodge podge while the kids run through the woods or the game room or jump on the trampoline or swim in the pool based on whose house is hosting.

This past Friday it was my house. And since Old Man Winter is not coming South this year, the day was sunny and the kids were woods rambling. When it came time for one family to leave so a dance class could be attended, we called the kids in. Except two didn't show up. Two of the girls. Questions and the answers that followed uncovered that while in the woods, these two had peeled off from the main group to talk.

After much talking and walking and not a great deal of paying attention, the result was they were lost. In the woods behind my house. My boys, who are quite aware of our woods, took off to find them. One of the girls had her cell phone so we did get in touch with them that way, but she didn't know where they were and neither did we. There are over a hundred acres of woods behind us.

Husband was home early on Friday so he got on the phone with her and began asking questions. At first she tried to tell him about the hay bales and the horses and the trees and the creek and the number of hills they had gone up when he stopped her and said, "You've got to trust me to get you out. The things that you are seeing are not things I can see. We need to use the same reference point. Tell me where the sun is based on where you are standing."

And with the reference point of the sun, he was able to tell her which direction to walk. He stayed on the phone with her and eventually the girls reached a main road where he was able to pick them up and drive back. The whole adventure lasting nearly three hours. No one had panicked, but everyone was greatly relieved to have them back, safe, a bit thirsty and hungry, and with a story to tell, but all right.

In talking to the boys about it, Husband said the whole thing served as a perfect illustration of what happens in life. We get busy walking and talking and forget our direction. Without a central reference point of truth, we try to find our way out or in or to by only what we can see. But our eyes not only deceive us when we're lost, but the sights (circumstances) around us cannot be our reference point because they change. Only the truth of God's Word can be a lasting reference point for which direction to walk. His Word does not change nor does it deceive. His Word endures forever.

Thankful Thursday is....

today. But honestly, I am grumpy and not so grateful.

I have a multitude of things and people in my life for which to be grateful, and yet this morning's extra sleep and even fitting in a quick workout all dissipated in a moment of communication confusion, of a breakfast gone awry, of a kitchen now a disaster, of a hasty spur of the moment trip to a collision center that profited nothing, of an unsatisfactory science review that foretells multiple hours of work on what should already be done. What was supposed to be a relaxing catch up day of sleep and housework and schoolwork has morphed into a long line of irritations. With more on the horizon.

The list could go on. But then that would make it Whining Wednesday and not at all Thankful Thursday.

Some would say that this is when I need to dig down deep and think about for what I am grateful. I know those things--family, health, house, car, food in the fridge, clothes, etc. But a Thankfulness Gospel is not The Gospel. Several of those things for which I am thankful are actually the source of my current irritations.

I am a sinner.

I know that on days like this what I am most thankful for is the truth of my salvation and God's forgiveness and mercy towards me. Because no amount of thankfulness for my temporal things can in any way change or add to my inadequately expressed thankfulness for the eternal things God has done for this wretched, undeserving grump I am today.

This is a day of turning to the truths of Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine!/ O what a foretaste of glory divine!/ Heir of salvation, purchase of God,/ Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood./

This is my story and my song on a day where I know the weakness of my flesh and the sin of my heart. Praising my Savior all the day long for what He has done on my behalf is where my thankfulness must lie.

Mondays and rain....

make it nearly impossible to get out of bed. The second time.

Because I was actually awake at 4:28 and out of bed by 5:06. I studied 2 Thessalonians in the quiet and warmth of a Georgia morning (unseasonably warm--Midwest, please share some winter with us); I prayed; I thought about homeschooling plans for this week; and after an hour and a half, I crawled back into bed. For just a minute. I promise.

Husband says I am like a diver with too much nitrogen in my bloodstream, suffering from the bends, who enters the re-compression chamber before re-entering the morning, the second time.

The plan was for everyone to get up at 7:00. School needed to start by 8:00. But something happened in an hour and a half. It began to rain and the sweatiness I felt earlier was now a chill only warmed by snuggling in bed. The wide awake state I struggled with before sunrise was now a heavy sleepiness that only 10 or 35 minutes of dozing would cure. The productivity that I was chomping at the bit to begin was now procrastination.

All because of a little rain and a lot of Monday.

Finding delight, Week 3...

All delight for me this week was found squarely in meditating upon God's faithfulness to prove in me that He has chosen me, loved me, and is sanctifying me. I studied 1 Thessalonians this week.

1 Thessalonians is a book more known for its eschatological stirrings than anything else, but I found myself newly enamored of the epistle because I looked for delight purely in what God does and not in what I do.  For what He does, He does perfectly, but what I do will always lack apart from Him.

I've honestly not always enjoyed studying the epistles because they contain long lists of instructions and exhortations on living as a Christian. Not that I don't like lists. I love lists. I use lists for getting anything and everything done around here. But I fall into the trap that most listmakers do, the trap of thinking that because I've crossed it off the list, I have succeeded.

Regarding laundry or the groceries, I really have only succeeded for a time. More laundry will reappear and my growing sons will quickly eat up the groceries, putting those things back on a list. Success is trapped by time.

When it comes to the lists of exhortations: make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, to work with your hands, to win the respect of outsiders, live in peace with each other, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone, and so on; I have usually skimmed through.

From the first reading, the list of exhortations stirs in me the sense that I will not sufficiently do or succeed even in the most temporary sense of fulfilling the instruction. I know my frailty. While I will add to my list something I have already done just so I can mark it off, I will not add to my list something I know will not get done. The idolatry of accomplishment has a siren song.

Reading 1 Thessalonians differently this time, with emphasis and a search for delight in God's list, reshaped my focus. Paul starts out in chapter 1, verse 3, with a list of thanks for the faith, love, and hope he sees in the Thessalonians, "We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." He writes that he knows these things, these proofs of belonging to God, are of credit to God who has done them within the Thessalonians by His election of them, "For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you," (1Thess 1:4)

The credit here goes fully to God. It is His list of what He is accomplishing in me. I am not removed from the responsibility of response to believe what He has said, but I am assured that His choice of me proves the list has been done, is being done, and will be done.

Regarding the exhortations on how one must live to please God, my eyes and heart zeroed in on chapter 5, verses 22-23, "May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it." The accomplishment of the list from beginning to end will rest in Him. My confidence is not in my faithfulness but in His. He, the Lord Himself, is my delight.

When you pull forward to a stop sign...

and stop so that you can see over the hill to your left before you pull out into traffic, and the man behind you thinks that like everyone else in that county you are actually treating the stop sign as a yield and he anticipates that you are going right through the stop sign because he does not see the white truck coming over the hill either, this is what happens:

When you have first moved into your house in the cul-de-sac, ten years ago, and are still learning to navigate the awfully long driveway in your relatively new minivan, and you think proudly that you can not only back up down the awfully long driveway but that you can also back up to your mailbox; however, you inconveniently forget that your neighbors have a mailbox too, this is what happens:

So when your fault of ten years ago meets another's fault from last week, this is the result:

New dent meet old dent. May you co-exist peacefully and bring no others of your ilk to my bumper and tailgate.

As for the minivan occupants involved, none were harmed in the birth of the new dent. That is all.