Miraculously encouraging

Sometimes the fails we hear about in people who are part of the church global make me wonder if Christian culture is really any different.

Then I have a realization like I did when writing the last blog post.

My world prior to high school, when I chose to seek out things not of God, did not include rape or sexual abuse. Not of me. Not of my friends. It was a loving community.

That’s a miracle. And it is encouraging.

We as Christians, have hope that our children will not experience the pain so pervasive around us!

Thank you, Lord!

Judging the beggar on the corner

I’ve been confused about how to deal with the homeless person with the sign on the corner for a long time.

Last night, as I sat in my car getting organized at Ecclesia, a beggar knocked in my window. He caught me off-guard, made me feel invaded…
I had to decide (again) how to respond

I have had many conflicting inputs:

• In my childhood memories, there are many times my mom stopped to help someone along the side of the road, giving them a ride home or to a shelter.
• While dating, Joel & I went with The Grove Church to deliver food under Pierce Elevated in downtown Houston. We made a few friends & started taking food & stuff to them as a way to flee pre-marriage temptation. Each person had a story…and factor that lead them to life on the street.
• When working for a large local church about 8 years ago, I was riding with several pastors. One explained to me that the corner beggars commonly make $60,000/year tax free… And who knows what they do with it.
• I spent 2001 & 2005 working at the Star of Hope Women & Family Homeless Shelter. Lots of people were trapped in the poverty cycle & disappointed me.

Last year, I started reading Luke aloud to my kids.
I got to Luke 6:30… and the answer seemed pretty straight forward:

Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.

But how do we know if they will use it wisely? Or if they are making more then me by this profession?

The same questions could be asked when we ask for help…Was I a perfect steward of every dollar given to me? Did I buy a latte, get my nails done, pay for a movie, etc.?

What matters on my end is how the Lord will view my choice to help…

Matthew 25:35-40

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

So last night, I made the wrong choice first: judgement. I was offended (by choice) that he knocked on my window. He should have known not to invade my space. So I spoke curtly, telling him I might help when I got out to enter the building.

And my heart ached.
I wouldn’t have spoken to Jesus that way. I wouldn’t have spoken to any of you that way.

Fortunately, I was still in that place. I could look in my rearview mirror, image he was Jesus, or even imagine I was the beggar.

Then I acted.

How He loves

The John Mark McMillan song ‘How He Loves’ is a bit controversial around my house. It became very popular over the last few months around our Christian circles, and my husband had various opinions about that.

I don’t hear nearly as much new music as Joel, so I’m not sure I had ever heard this song until the first meeting for Redeemed Ministries, a Houston-area human sex SLAVERY abolition group, that I attended.

I spent the morning learning about the human trafficking of girls & boys, not so unlike me, into lives of slavery – in bondage to drugs, shame, felonies, rejection, and fear. Then I went to the general meeting where we heard specific updates on specific slaves Redeemed is working to set free.

Honestly, it is super overwhelming. How do we restore a life ripped to shreds?
How do we do it over & over & over & over, returning hope to the Hopeless?

But I also realized this task is not optional. It must be done.

At the end of the General meeting, the leader of Redeemed mentioned how much God had already provided over the past year, and how specifically God answered prayers prayed last year.

And since this task is IMPOSSIBLY BIG for us, we must unite in worshipping God and prayer.

So 2 girls volunteered to lead us in a worship song.

And this is the song we sang:
How He Loves.

Love’s like a hurricane, I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of His glory…

And it was comforting to be engulfed by God, too big to be contained, more than powerful enough to consume all these human sex trafficking victims and heal them.

Like He did me.

Everyone?

Last week in Joel’s pre-communion talking at church (I think), he reminded me of a story we heard on the video @ the Hamoreh Ministry benefit dinner:

A Kenyan lady said, ‘If I don’t have food today, I figure God is calling me to fast today.”

Then I read this in my study of Luke:

Give to everyone who asks you. (Luke 6:30a)

Made me wonder, if she doesn’t have food today, maybe God is calling ME to fast today?

Want to count to 1,000 gifts with me?

For awhile, I have desires to irradicate a critical & complaining attitude in my heart. I gave up criticizing (out loud) for lent 2 years ago, and resolved something similar this New Year.

But without a plan to change, I haven’t seen any.
On my anniversary weekend, I started reading One Thousand Gifts. Ann sees replacing criticizing with thanks as a task that takes practice.

So she started a constant, ongoing list of gifts from God she has already received.

This practice is changing me.
Looking back over my life, or today, I can see 100′s of times my life was blessing by a kind and gracious Creator.

It has amazed me to realize how many times God specifically allowed another day, when I was working against safety & life.

One specific time I took for granted was my teenage years. In January, I watched a documentary on human trafficking here in the USA. I realized I should have been a victim. Throughout high school, I snuck out of my house at night, I rode in cars with strangers, and even left a resort in Mexico with a bunch of teenagers.

I have taken for granted that I came home alive.
I have taken for granted that I was not rape or kidnapped.
I have taken for granted the tears & prayers of my mom & dad.

I now celebrate the miracles of being alive!
Thank you Lord!

Fighting darkness, individualism & the family bed

Yikes, that title sounds fragmented.
But it’s not.

Since 1997, when God took my life that was falling apart from serious anxiety and need to control a scary world, and brought me a hope and a future, I have been fighting the darkness that had consumed me and trying to figure out how to fight it for my children and the world.

This weekend, Joel and I went to a Paul Tripp Ministries marriage conference. The premise was that the biggest problem in your marriage is you (aka the biggest problem in my marriage is me). Paul Tripp explained that in marriage we are fighting between selfishness and God’s kingdom. So if we are always looking for what will get us what we want, and our spouse is always looking for what they want, there is going to be a conflict.

Truly, this is the battle in all of life, not just marriage: Is our desire more important than the good of the whole?
Here are some arenas I see this played out:

• Americans (a bunch of individuals) put together the perfect Christmas for our families each year even though we have been told endlessly that we are spending enough money on Christmas to solve a world-wide need for clean drinking water.
• Elderly: We spend money putting together the perfect house, with new cars, pristine decor, and 300+ sq ft of personal space each, but do not have room or time to care for the elderly who raised us. They are demoted to “dorm-style” living in low-rent apartments or nursing homes.
• Disability care: I have been told numerous times that parents would not impose on their other children with the lifetime care of their sibling with a disability. They need to be an individual and live their dreams.
• Caring for our planet: Regardless of how obvious it is that we can’t keep destroying the planet, and actually have room for this much trash, we keep consuming, consuming, consuming, consuming…
• Sex trafficking: During the superbowl weekend, thousands of human slaves will be transported to the city of the superbowl for people to indulge their desires, without concern for the desire of the person they use to gain physical pleasure.

I think this mindset is killing our world!
I think marriages are sacrificed to the google-eyed dreams of another life that’s better for ME, forget the spouse or the kids.
I think families are sacrificed to the dreams of the workaholic dad who is pursuing his dream at the cost of all family commitments such as reading to his kids, teaching them about the world, or caring for his parents.
I think America is preserving our sterilized, sanitized life in denial that within a mile of our Southern border & extending around the globe, people are dying in need of our cup of coffee.

So there’s my perspective. I have my cross-hairs set on fighting Individualism in my family.
IT IS HARD. I am falling for it ALL the time, too!
But I can’t stop fighting – the Bible tells me to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” and that right behind that is “Love your neighbor as yourself.“
If I truly love Him, I must be fighting for you – even if that cost me something… or everything.

But how in the world does that connect to the family bed?
First, what’s a “family bed”? It is just sleeping as a family, in one space.
And it’s not such an unconventional idea. When I talk to my grandmother about growing up, she was always sharing 1 bed with her 3 sisters. When I asked my Russian friend Sam where he sleeps when visiting his mom in the 1-room apartment that she owns (1 room with a shared kitchen) in Moscow, he looked at me dumbly – obviously next to her in the bed.
My exposure to this concept was in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India in 1999. I lived for 3 months there, and spent many nights with different segments of my Indian family.
Here’s how the typical household worked – mom, dad, and the kids slept in one room; the grandparents and any kids who might want slept in another room – and it wasn’t because of space. The family we rented enough space upstairs from for 10 Americans to live in only used 4 rooms downstairs.
An alternate at my best friend Timu’s house was a row of beds & a row of roll-out mats – the dad, brother, grandpa slept in the row of beds side by side making 1 large bed; the aunt, mom, daughter, and me slept on the floor of the room.

What the family bed aligned with in my India family was a culture that considered the group above the individual.
This cultural value reflected my Christian faith better than the value of my own culture.
I was a rebellious teenager who never once considered how my choices would effect my parents, or my brothers – and the entire culture of my Indian family led to this consideration.
You may have witnessed this value in many other cultures as people come to the USA to work, but send most of their income to support the group back home – the same group that supported them up to this point. It is not a 1-sided situation.
(I’m not saying the Indian culture is perfect, or that I am taking everything.)

Nuclear family is a mistake – a waste of resources, a form of isolation, and not best.
So in my home, the family bed and some other ways I communicate that the group is more important than the individual are one way I am trying to push back darkness for my kids. We all enjoy the good together, and we all suffer together. It is part of being a community – our well-being is completely tied together.
And I do expect Holden to look after Arabella and Darin if they need him. Just as I look after my grandmother, and will my parents. It is not a bad thing; it is the design of the world.
Pursuing their own pleasure is the loneliest, never-ending search we could send our children on.

Imagine how many government services could be reallocated if families worked together to care for the children (save daycare money), the elder (save elderly care money), and disabled (save Medicaid waiver & abuse/neglect money). Little people hung out with their grandmas, aunties, and cousins in the the shared family home.
Then the Church could tackle the widows & orphans needs, and we might have a start.

RESET

I’ve never been a big pro- or anti- New Year’s Resolution person.

I spent the end of 2010 frustrated by many things. And I realized that most of them were either about myself, or under my control.

So January 1 seemed like a gift. A year without baggage. A day I could press RESET, and change the pattern of things that seemed wrong or broken.

So I have resolved to change several things:
1. My body.
- Old way: Since I quit WeightWatchers at the beginning of the summer, I have gradually slid back into a gluttonous lifestyle.
- New way: Contemplate what is put in my mouth.
- Old way: Adjusting to the new schedule of driving Arabella to & from Friendswood daily, I never addressed where to exercise.
- New way: Find a place to exercise close to her school. First try will be the Williams Pool.

2. My attitude.
- Old way: I am hyper-critical of everything and everyone. Probably most detrimentally, my husband.
- New way: I am trying to keep my mouth shut as an initial strategy… if I still have the thought to complain, criticize, or over-analyze, I’m going to try to hold it in and pray about it. I am hoping they will be diminished in this captivity.

3. Prayer.
- Old way: Responsive. If I experience fear about an area of my life, I am likely to pray. But I haven’t been praying much about the future.
- New way: I am consciously trying to pray about the direction God would like us to take, asking about specific ideas and dreams we have, hoping He will reshape it into His will, pictured in my head.
- Old way: All in my head.
- New way: More on paper.

4. Parenting.
- Old way: Not sure what to describe here.
- New way: More routine. More positive reinforcement. More scripture memory.

5. Leisure time.
- Old way: Watching TV.
- New way: Playing games with kids, with Joel. Demonstrating good use of time to kids – read, study bible, interact more.

Already, only 3 days of prioritizing my daily Bible reading has filled my heart with the Hope and Peace that has eluded me for several months.

Why am I always surprised again?

Sabbath

This past summer, Kaleo had a seminar on the Sabbath. It kinda frustrated me, since as a mom & pastor’s wife, Sundays are very busy days. But I couldn’t shake the idea that just as in tithing I have seen God multiply our money, in Sabbath obedience He could multiply my time. I tried to start a rhythm of
Saturday Sabbath-keeping, but this was quickly pushed aside by lots of Saturday events.

Jump to this Sunday. I haven’t been going to church much lately. Kinda dealing with some baggage (the wrong way). But we’ve had busy holidays, and Saturday night I realized Sunday I must have a Sabbath rest. So I stayed up late Saturday night, doing the beginning of the month/beginning of the week stuff I normally do Sundays.

Here’s the magic:
Sunday was the most positive day I’ve had in 3 months.
I started a novel (not a good one afterall).
I played Scrabble with Joel.
Then I started working on unfinished Precepts homework from the fall… the lesson was on the Sabbath.

How my dad connects me to God

My dad is awesome!
Every moment of my life, I have known I could rely on my dad.
He is definitely a superhero – able to save me from any cliff I might trap myself on.
My dad’s love has never had any strings attached – it never dawned on me that it could/would be withdrawn based on my actions.
But I also knew he was in charge, and there were consequences for disobedience.

So my definition of ‘dad’ is stable, self-sacrificing, unconditionally loving, strong, respect-worthy.

My dad’s not perfect, but really great.
And as a starting point for picturing God, he’s great.

As an adult, I have come to realize how much our earthly father effects our connection to our Heavenly Father.

Thanks for all you are & all you do, daddy!

Confession & attempts to do better

Here’s the confession:
Structured/disciplined spiritual training (discipleship) has been really hard for our family. Failed attempts outweigh our successes. It is hard for Joel and I to pursue together… it is even harder to do with our kids.

Lots of factors contribute to this:

• Not prioritizing this task
• Unstructured homelife
• Inexperience training children
• Difficult training kids on different levels

But one of my deepest desires is for my children to walk with God, having the foundation in Christ to resist the cultural stumbling blocks of adolescence & young adulthood.

I will entrust them to God in prayer during those times, but I also want them to be armed for the battle. I don’t want to be surprised and naive about what is coming.

So, with the closure of Basilica, we have turned our focus to training our family.
In the absence of experience or a guide, I tried to come up with a system to cover the areas that I could think of.
Here are the 5 areas we cover each evening, immediately after dinner:

1. READ: Read bible story from children’s bible. I copy the corresponding page from “He Has Spoken By His Son” for them to color while we read.
2. THINK: Discuss story (We are fortunate to have “He Has Spoken By His Son”, a Children Desiring God curriculum purchased for Basilica… it helps us with questions to ask following the story.) We try to write a 3 word summary on the back of the coloring sheet, such as “God is faithful” or “Jesus is God”.
   • SHARE: One of the big things we are emphasizing is being able to TEACH what we learn to someone else.
     For Holden, we talk about teaching it to Darin later.
     So, we are building Journals of Bible Stories simply by putting the coloring pages from each story in order in a 3-ring binder for each kid.
     It makes reviewing the stories we have covered very easy, too.
3. MEMORIZE: Practice verse of week, as well as 2 previously learned verses. Sometimes, we do the Children’s Catechism instead.
4. BUILD FAITH: Look over family prayer journal, writing down prayer requests and reviewing for answers to prayer.
5. COMMUNICATE: Recite the Lord’s prayer. Pray.

We have been doing this with about 3-4 nights per week success for 3 weeks. And that’s better than any of our other 1 time attempts!
The good thing is that everyone knows what we will do and when we are done.

Arabella and Holden had friends over on Saturday, and it was easy to do with extra kids since we just needed 2 extra copies of the coloring sheet.
The coolest part was seeing growth already:
Holden has always been REALLY private about praying. He would only pray with me, and always sang his prayers. Great for me, a bummer for Joel. But since we have been praying as a family, he is getting more comfortable praying.
When we had Nicolas and Vanessa over on Saturday, Holden actually VOLUNTEERED to pray before dinner. Amazing!

Another cool prayer story:
In the Build Faith section, we are listing prayer requests, then reviewing them to look for God’s work in the world. Holden’s main concern is always his friend, Noah, a missionary kid.
Prayers for Noah usually focus on safety. But the other night, Holden prayed for God to work on the king’s heart so he will let people learn about You.
This was not something we had given the idea of, so I definitely see the Holy Spirit giving him the words!

Back to the system.
I had one thing I wanted to tweak, and the solution came to mind as I was trying to fall asleep last night.

BUILD FAITH: In the family prayer journal, it was hard to review the prayer requests for answers to prayer, but also realize there are some things we will always need to pray for – like Noah.
So here’s my visual solution:

This board helps us see what God is doing in our world

It’s pretty simple:

• The purple paper: “Things God took care of before we knew to ask:”
• The pink paper: “Things we are asking God to sustain:”
• The white paper represents “answered prayers”
  • The blue post-it notes are “prayer requests”
  • “Prayer requests” are moved onto the white paper after they are answered

Hopefully, the white paper will be overflowing with testimonies of what we have seen God do in our small part of the world.

Please let me know if you have ideas I can incorporate. Hopefully, this will grow to encompass more areas of our life.