Little Red Hen Gets Wise

           It’s day three of “no toys”.  I am still sane, in my right mind, and most importantly, alive.  There have been no attempts at mutiny and no death threats.  So far, so good.  This “Little Red Hen” may have stumbled upon some wisdom. She is not going to do it all by herself, anymore.

            Each morning, I have been greeted by a different toy grouping that has been dumped out onto the floor.  My days began with a mess made mostly of small unnecessary plastic objects, and ended with a mess of small unnecessary plastic objects.  It drove me to drink some strong coffee and to do some deep breathing exercises.  The toys were taking over.

            So, two weeks ago, I sent a warning shot across the bow of my children’s Toys R Us Carnival Cruise Ship.  The toys were going to go for a long walk, somewhere far away.  Their life aboard “The Good Ship Lollipop” was going to change.  It was either the toys or me.  I decided that no three foot by three foot blob of toy Legos, army men, and plastic blocks was going to get one over on me.  I knew that the toys themselves were innocent.  The toys had just become a casualty of war; my war against “Lazy Butt Entitlement Syndrome”. 

            My final solution: organize the toys one last time in their bins, clear room for them in the attic, and store every last one of the toys in the attic.  My only compromise: when I saw change of heart, one bin might, might come out each week and then be exchanged for another bin, but no more than one bin per week.  After my declaration had been broadcast to the family, my husband stood up and applauded, the children were frozen in silence.  Then, the fight began.

            I was prepared.  I made myself mentally and emotionally ready for anything.  I anticipated a great resistance and I got one.  It began early in the morning on the day of “The Big Sort”. 

            Fits of shaking, tears, fists shaken at the heavens, and many great speeches on the benefits of toys came my way.  I was a wall, unmoved, undeterred.  Then the bargaining began.

            “Mom, can I just keep this one car out, this one hat, this one plastic army man…”  I stood my ground, “No”.  The psychological warfare was not working.  Then they began their final assault.  The weeping and deep guttural groans erupted from them like a choir of dying hyenas as the sorted toy bins went up the attic stairs. 

            When the final toy was put away, the children became very still and peaceful.  I think it surprised them that they were ok, even after the toys were all put away.  They accepted the reality of what had just taken place and fought no more. 

            Now the fighting, yelling, and hours of picking up toys became almost nonexistent.  It was a moment of grace. I think the Little Red Hen finally got wise and decided to stop making and baking the bread for her ungrateful friends.  She has too many other things to do in a day.  She was tired of watching her housemates play all day while she worked for them. Sometimes Mommas have to make hard calls to protect their little ones.The change in toy policy brought us a peace we desperately needed.

            My youngest son, Elias, was observing a mother cat and her kittens outside of a friend’s house today and said,” That Mommy kitty is protecting the baby kittens because the baby kittens like to play in the trash.  And that trash is yucky.”  Yes, my son, just like that mommy cat, I too want to protect my little “kittens” because they too like to play with the “trash”. 

            A seasoned mother once said, “Little children exude little plastic toys and bits of trash.”  It is so true.  A small child cannot care for the large inventory of toys most of us have collected over the years.  Children can become overwhelmed by so many things to see and do, let alone pick up and put back just the way they find it.  It can be a full time job just keeping all of the toys put away and organized.  Frankly, I have too many jobs and it was time for me to retire from “toy manager”. 

            John Rosemond, well known parenting columnist, likes to say that children cannot handle any more toys to care for than their numerical age, and the child’s toy inventory should never exceed ten.  That is a hard line you may say.  Well, it is all in what one may want.

            I was becoming the shoe salesman at Sears.  “What size do you wear, how does it fit, don’t like that?, I think I may have that in brown, let me go check.”  I was going to the stock room exchanging box after box of unnecessary plastic objects and I was beginning to get the look of the shoe salesman at the end of the day.  It was not pretty.

            When what my children and I thought they needed in order to get through the day to be happy was taken away, it exposed some interesting things.  What would we do with our time now?  How can I keep myself occupied now?  Will I be ok without the toys?  So far, we are all fine.  And you know what, not once, not for even one minute, have the children asked me to get their toys out for them.  They play outside longer, they imagine all kinds of things, they tell stories and act them out, they build things in the woods, they draw, and put puzzles together.  My children play the way their grandparents played, with less. 

            I have been on a journey to simplify our lives for a while now and my courage is building.  I am gaining the strength to follow through on what some may think is a life of Spartan minimalness.  But I am seeing us come alive to a life freed up from “stuff” and I am seeing what was once dull begin to sparkle. 

            Today, we picked up some trash, did some laundry, and put some dishes away before we went to the park.  There were no visions of block puddles upon the floor or mounds of plastic animals in the back of my mind.  I was not distracted.  I was focusing on my children who were being children. I was able to see my children gain courage too.

            My daughter was able to take part in a ropes course along with some friends, including zip line and rock wall.  I watched her being pulled way up into the air in her harness and then swing back and forth in the air with a smile on her face.  “I had to be pretty brave today, Mom.  It was hard, but I did it.   You should do it too, Mom.  If I can do it, you can too.” 

           Yes, Bella, if you can do it, then so can I.  I can be your Mom and protect you and your brothers from all of that ”trash” you like to play in sometimes.  I love you and you inspire me to go higher too.    Less stuff and more people, more time with the people that I love.  More time to watch them soar higher and higher with smiles on their faces.

~Your Fellow Sojourner

Bella and her friends at the ropes course.

Article by John Rosemond on Toys

It's Natural

Caring for a younger little person is second nature for my children, but I never saw it coming.  I had heard that in bigger families this kind of caring for one another can happen naturally.  I looked for this phenomenon years ago in my children, but did not see it materialize. Then, we had twins.

When the twins arrived we were thrown into a world of stepping slower and bending lower, out of necessity.  It was “all hands on deck” and we have kept that motto ever since. 

Sono Harris used to say that the youngest child should set the pace of the family, not the oldest.  Even Jacob from the book of Genesis knew this truth.  He knew what hard travel would do to the young ones in his care.  “Then Esau said, “Let us journey on our way, and I will go ahead of you.”  But Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are frail, and that the nursing flocks and herds are a care to me. If they are driven hard for one day, all the flocks will die.  Let my lord pass on ahead of his servant, and I will lead on slowly, at the pace of the livestock that are ahead of me and at the pace of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.” It was a season of slowing down for Jacob.

Think what would happen if we insisted that our three year old do all that our fourteen year old does. If we brought our three year old along for the ride whenever Jackson does his all day and into the night grass cutting at his Grandmother’s,  or we allowed Elias to run in the pitch black for hours to play late night flash light tag.  Not only are these allowances not healthy for a three year old, neither are they safe. 

We have had to say “no” to certain events and invitations due to our young children.  The alternative to always saying “yes” has resulted in a slower more home bound life.  I have found that our older children order their days around the knowledge that they will be needed to help care for their younger siblings.  We don’t tell them to do this, they just know.

Some may say, “That is not fair to require that of your older children.  Just think of the burden you are placing on them and all of the things they are missing.”  But our two older children, and even our six year old twins, do not see what they “miss” because they have each other.  When we do have days that are faster and filled to the brim, or when my oldest children do more apart from their younger siblings, they will often regret their time away to some degree or need to recharge by being at home with family. 

It is like the grandmother I met last summer who grew up in Queenstown, Maryland.  She had told me that several years ago she moved to “busier” Kent Island.  We were both pushing two year olds on the swing set in Queenstown, and she began to reminisce.  “You know, I loved it here.  I spent my whole life here. “I asked her what she thought of the way things had changed since her childhood.   She told me she was glad for her childhood, the way she was raised.  “We didn’t know we were missing anything.  We never went to a mall.   We were happy because we didn’t know what we were missing.”  She spoke about family and friends rather than experiences.

That struck me.  It calmed some of the questions and thoughts that come to my mind in this fast paced world.  What if… what if my children don’t ever do…or get to experience…  This woman had no regrets and no bitterness from her smaller, slower world as a child.  It made me smile inside. 

I have seen empathy and nurturing increase in our lives because there is always someone who needs care.  And yes, we complain and we dream of servants who can work for us and hours of free time, but we do not dwell on these thoughts.  We move on because we are needed.  And when we give, we find that it is more blessed than to receive.

My oldest is very close to my youngest.  There is a 10 ½ year difference between the two.  My daughter, almost 12, longs for more babies to care for, or to “mold into her own little minions.”  I am content with whatever God intends for the number of children in our family.  I can see that no matter how many children we have, the hearts of the children we have now will only grow in compassion and care for others.  And I pray that by the grace of God, they will look to slow down their adult lives in order to walk along side others. I hope they love people, no matter what the cost. 

Today, as my children ran out into the back yard and disappeared into the woods, I heard one after the other call to their youngest brother. “Elias!  Where are you?  Come here.  Don’t go there, be careful.”  My little son was surrounded by his brothers and sister as he stepped into a wood that seemed to swallow him up.  I stood in the backdoor smiling, sipping my coffee.  One day he may need to call on his siblings to contend with him as he faces the enemies in his life.  I do not think he has anything to fear.  I can see them come to his aid and it will be a day of reckoning.  As one man, they will fight for one another and for their God.  It’s natural; they know nothing else.

~Your Fellow Sojourner

Our own home grown militia. 

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,

the fruit of the womb a reward.

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior

are the children of one's youth.

Blessed is the man

who fills his quiver with them!

He shall not be put to shame

when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

Psalm 127

Jackson and Bella explore the cannon.

Winston, poised and ready. 

Dirty Jobs

              Our porch was approaching disgusting and the beautiful fall weather was around the corner.  I wanted my porch back.  So, after years of neglect, the power washer came out.

            Because we have limited time for yard work and because I am more of a detail person when it comes to cleaning, I offered to do the power washing.  After twenty minutes of plugging things in and hooking things up, I realized this was not going to be a “quick” job.  After using the power washer for the first ten minutes, I also knew that this would be a “dirty” job. 

            The front of the house was the toughest to clean.  It had just taken a beating with years of hard weather conditions.  Hurricanes, blizzards, tornado winds, sun, and dirt, lots of dirt.  And the bugs!  However, as I moved inward, toward the house itself, it was not as dirty. 

            It took muscle and patience and being ok with getting wet and dirty in order to stick with the job.  And after a couple of hours I had managed to power wash only a third of our porch. 

            Chris asked me what I thought after I was done.  I told him that I could come out here and wash this porch every day – there would always be dirt and bugs and debris.  Our porch and lower floor of the house was the first defense against the elements, so it made sense that it would need to be washed regularly.

            It made me think of another dirty job, washing feet.  Four boys, three under the age of seven…   They have some nasty feet.  Their feet are so gross, that we have a scrub brush in their bathtub just for their feet.  As soon as they say “I’m going outside, Mom,” I know their feet will be dirty.

            We get dirt on us just from walking around in the world.  The dust and dirt and heat and wind can beat a body up!  We all need to regularly wash off the refuse of life. 

            When Jesus took a bowl and a towel and told his disciples to let Him wash their feet, He was doing a pretty dirty job.  He was the “power washer” they all needed.  Peter of course didn’t see how dirty he really was, and neither do we.  We don’t see the poo on the bottom of our shoes or the leaves in our hair or the toilet paper hanging out the back of our pants.  We think because we may go to church, read the Bible, pray, or stay pretty moral that we can’t be all that dirty and we certainly don’t need a power washing!  I mean, come on, I stay home and cook and clean all day – how can I get stained by the world?  But I do. Watchman Nee puts it this way,

”Let us suppose a young mother is preparing dinner and has something

 cooking on the stove.  All at once the baby cries, the door bell rings,

the milk boils over – everything comes upon her together in a rush. 

She runs to one and missed the other!  After everything is eventually

 settled she sits down, and it seems as if she needs a power

 to lift her up to God again.  She is conscious of something there –

not sin, but as it were a deposit of dust over everything. 

It clings like a film, coming between her and her Lord,

and she feels tarnished, soiled.  There is not that clear way

which takes her through to God at once.  This I think illustrates for us

 the need of feet-washing.”

            The dirt and dust will come, it is inevitable, and so we need to be washed.  Now, we are not made of wood and trex and vinyl siding.  We are flesh and bone, heart and soul.  We need a more gentle washing.  The touch of a hand, the smile on a face, the twinkle in an eye, a bear hug, prayer with a friend, and the pure water of the Words of Life.  Renewal and cleansing come from encountering another who is reflecting the heart of God.  “The Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4, ESV)

            This washing of one another is like that feeling you have after you have had a long day and you take a nice hot shower.  I think of my grandmother’s summer shower ritual.  In the summers, she would wait until the end of the day to take her shower and then come out into the living room before she said good night.  She would be in her nightgown and robe, with her Noxema in hand.  She would rub that Noxema into her skin and that cool clean aroma would travel across the room.  When she was done, she would say good night and she would go to sleep.  I always thought now that is a woman who knows how to work hard and wash up well.

            The smell of Noxema still stops me in my tracks today.  I associate the smell with a good deep clean.  My hope is that I will stop and get my own container of comforting “Noxema” out when I see another soul in need of some good clean washing.  And I intend to stop if anyone ever comes along with his/her cleaning salve for my soul.  We have the promise of blessing in refreshing and being refreshed by one another.  So, strap on your towel, grab your Noxema, and let’s go walking around this world together. 

~Your Fellow Sojourner

“Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.  During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God,  rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.  Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.  He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?”  Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”  Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” … When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you?  You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.  If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.  For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.  Truly, truly, I say to you, no servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.  If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” John 13:1-17 esv

Unfinished

              It hit me today, why we never finish anything.  And we never really will.  I am destined to never get my “to do” list done, ever.  I finally faced it, the truth.  No one ever finishes everything. 

               But there is One who did, and does, finish all that He sets his hand to do.  “It is finished,” He said.  And it is not just a claim, it is a reality.  All is complete in Christ. 

                He finishes things so that I don’t have to strive for perfect completeness in my life.  Amazing.  He says, “Let me take that.  Let me carry that for you.  It is too much.  You need Me.”  His love and care for me is not conditional upon my completion of certain tasks.  Like someone reminded me today, God likes me; He even loves me, just as I am.

                Somewhere, somehow, we got this idea that security, success, peace, and rest come from finishing tasks.  The more we finish in a day the better.  We race against the clock.  We check off our mental “to do” list and we feel good about crossing things off.  Completion.  Just look at what I did today! 

                Why do we long for completion?  What drives us?  Do we get some kind of “high” from getting stuff done?  Or is this really all about control?  What do we long for?

                We make plans and we take on tasks that we have a desire to complete.  Some are good and some are not so good and some are just plain not necessary.  But, we drive ourselves to finish.  Finishing something is not bad.  But when finishing no matter what becomes our goal, we have a game change.  What if things do not go as planned?  What then?  How do I react? 

             I am learning to gauge my days, not by what I get done, but by how I respond to what comes my way – did I gut it out, get annoyed, whine and complain, or did I go with the flow, switch gears, and thank God for the day? And did I live in each moment, embracing even the problems and interruptions, and the push back from other people?  Did I know and believe that God has created this day and He foreknew all that would happen? Do I believe that He allowed every event and difficulty to take place, just to show me more of Him?  Did I remind myself to rely on His completeness and to be thankful for His love and acceptance of me in the face of my inability to do everything? 

            When I do tasks for the Lord and ask Him to bless what I am doing for Him, I am often weary and irritable and waiting for others to notice what I have done for God.  But when I work with the Lord and follow His lead, it is all grace and I am not anxious.  I am ok with my humble situation.  I am resting in God’s provision for me and I am reaching out to others.  There is not a whole lot of room left for me to get my way!  This is Christ in me…

              So, I am trying to work in the moments that I am given each day.  I do not know what I will accomplish or get done each day.  Only God knows.  I do have goals that I set and I do have things that need to get done. But, very few, if any, are ever completed by the close of each day, and that is becoming more and more, ok.   In Him we live and move and have our being, not in the list of things that are accomplished that day.  

              If my worth is found in checking off a task, then most days would be a waste and a failure.  God does not intend for me to live just so I can “do stuff”.  He created me to worship and glorify Him in the middle of my half-finished, messy, life.  Glorify Him, not the completion of a task.  He even gives me this precious promise, that all He has begun in me, He will one day bring it to completion. 

                So when I saw my “garage turned library” project begun well over a year ago finally reach a decent level of completion, an all too familiar feeling returned.  Just as my “project done!” high was leaving, the “oh now I need to take care of…” low settled over me.  Like a PEZ candy dispenser, my mental “to do” list reminded me of the next task to be done right after I had finished the one at the top of the list. What I thought would give me rest didn’t pay off.  What had hung over my head for years was replaced by another task that had to be done. And it sent me into a tail spin.  I floundered for several weeks, mentally and sometimes literally wringing my hands.  How will I ever get everything done? It’s just never going to stop!  I was at a loss; I could find no rest for my weary soul.

                Then, one night, my husband took my hands in his and prayed for me.  I do not remember all of what he prayed, except for one phrase.  For Your glory.  And like a cool breeze to an overheated and exhausted soul, the anxiety began to subside.  I was not seeking God’s glory in all I was doing, I was seeking my own.  I knew instantly the idol of my heart.  I believed that by completing something I needed to finish, I could control it and use it for what I wanted, and that the completed task would result in a more peaceful and tranquil life for me.

                The Lover of my Soul wanted me to feel the life sapping heat of holding that completed task in my hands and worshiping it.  I became disgusted with it.  I was idolizing a garage with some book shelves in it!  Not quite a golden calf, but it brought about a very similar effect.  And so, I have begun to pray this, Lord, let my rest be found in You alone.

                The prophet Isaiah gave the people of Israel this hope in the midst of their own idolatry. “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But, Isaiah also knew the people’s hearts, “But you were unwilling, and you said, “No! We will flee upon horses…We will ride upon swift steeds”.  I too was running as fast as my little extra snippets of time would allow me to run.  I shall finish this garage, make it my own, and use it to make my life better. And I did.  And the rest I wanted never came, and my life was not better.  I became angry when my idol did not give me what I wanted. I had no rest for my soul.

                  But God, who knows my frame, began to break through. Just like in the time of Isaiah, God pursued me.  “Therefore your pursuers shall be swift.  A thousand shall flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you shall flee, till you are left like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain, like a signal on a hill.”  And as I felt the harsh weather atop the solitary mountain of my “finished garage”, God showed me mercy in holding up a mirror to my heart.  I began to be still and wait for Him.  “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.” 

                 I need to remember that my longings for a life that I can control like the temperature dial on my thermostat will never be.  The temptation to do what I can for just a little taste of that control can be so subtle. Even in an organized garage, a cleaned out pantry, a squeaky clean set of twins, or a week’s worth of lesson plans completed, I have a choice to find my rest and peace in a fleeting moment or in Christ. 

                You see, I have no lasting city here.  The place in which all will remain is coming for me.  The small adversities and temptations in this life only make Heaven clearer.  There, in that eternal city, I will know and feel and live in completeness, all of my days.  The trials of this life, that only cause me to return to God, will flee away.  My crying will cease.  My joy will remain. “For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.  Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!”

                My garage is still there, and it has been kept pretty clean and tidy.  There are days when I have no problem saying to my garage, “Be gone!”  But, the garage is not the problem; it is my idol producing heart.  I have a clearer vision now for why we have a newly organized garage.  It exists for others and for Another, not for my “life of ease”.  May God be glorified and may people encounter Jesus in our garage, be it messy or clean, organized or not. And I am learning to release myself from more and more expectations, knowing that all He requires of me is “that I feel my need of Him.”  This I know “He will give me”, because He wants to be worshiped without any other rivals. And so my wandering heart prays, Let it be so, Lord.  Let it be so. Amen.

(All Isaiah passages are from Isaiah 30 ESV.)

~Your Fellow Sojourner

Come, Ye Sinners

1. Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus, ready, stands to save you,
Full of pity, joined with power.
He is able, He is able;
He is willing; doubt no more.

2. Come ye needy, come, and welcome,
God's free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance,
Every grace that brings you nigh.
Without money, without money
Come to Jesus Christ and buy.

3. Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
Bruised and broken by the fall;
If you tarry 'til you're better,
You will never come at all.
Not the righteous, not the righteous;
Sinners Jesus came to call.

4. Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him.
This He gives you, this He gives you,
'Tis the Spirit's rising beam.

5. Lo! The Incarnate God, ascended;
Pleads the merit of His blood.
Venture on Him; venture wholly,
Let no other trust intrude.
None but Jesus, none but Jesus
Can do helpless sinners good.

By Joseph Hart