The Starting Line

I have had a number of people ask about my journey to Eastern Orthodox Christianity.  They wonder if I’ve always been Orthodox and if not why in the world I would leave behind what I’d grown up with and accept icons and incense and honor a simple girl named Mary who just happened to say yes to God.

I have gone to church my whole life.  Of course I knew that didn’t make me a Christian, but it does mean I had a deliberate introduction to Jesus from the time I was tiny.  I was the little girl who went forward for almost every altar call because I was so moved by the pastor and the music and I wanted to make sure I was saved.  Throughout my childhood and into my marriage I attended charismatic churches, Assembly of God, Presbyterian and finally, Non-Denominational.   I learned a lot from my experiences in each church. 

In 1993 my husband and I took the membership classes at a Mega Church and began ministering there in the children’s ministry, women’s ministry and youth group.  We enjoyed the idea of being able to go to church on Saturday night and sleep in Sunday.  The pastor was a dynamic speaker and really had a heart for God.  We took the Ministry 101 classes where we took personality tests to help the staff to determine where our gifts would be most useful in the Body of Christ.  We took the Christian finance classes and Evangelism 101 and many other classes. 

In 1994 my Aunt, Uncle and Mom all became Orthodox.  I had no idea what that really meant.  It sort of looked Catholic with a pictures instead of statues.  We went to her Chrismation and met some really nice people.  This funny little church met in a high school gym until they could get their own building.  All I saw were icons and ornately dressed pastors with collars.  There was incense and they sang songs I’d never heard before without any instruments.  The sermon only lasted a few minutes.  There weren’t any hymns or contemporary songs.  It was just plain weird.  But, as time went on, we decided to participate a little, only to honor my mother…and because they had amazing BBQ meals after the major feasts of the Nativity and Pascha (Orthodox Easter).  We attended the Saint Nicholas Day celebrations and were touched that they remembered our children with goody bags.  But they were still wrong.  They had icons which, of course, were graven images!  They used incense and I didn’t see any Bibles other than the one the priest used.  I was sure there wasn’t any underlining of verses or scripture memory going on there.  They had no idea what the Prayer of Jabez book was and how it was supposed to change the life of each Christian who read it. 

We went on like this for 10 years.  My mother gave us an icon of Mary and Jesus.  I thanked her but gave it to goodwill within a week or two.  She took our eldest daughter to the Pascha service and our daughter came back drawing pictures of Orthodox crosses and icons of her own.  She wanted to know why we didn’t like the icons.  We talked about idol worship and asking Jesus into our hearts.  She has already done that when she was seven, but she had a longing to be at the Orthodox Church and I had a feeling she was supposed to be there for some reason.

Orthodox Easter (Pascha) 2004 I decided to attend the actual Easter service instead of the short Agape Vespers service the day after followed by the BBQ.  By this time our family had changed churches, desiring a smaller church community over the 6,000 member one.  Little by little I started noticing things at our little Protestant church. 

1. Most of the songs we were singing were about me.  Each verse was full of "I" and "me".  They were about how I felt about God or what He could do for me.  They weren’t worship.  Some were praise but some were very self-focused. 

2. Music played a big part in the altar call.  The pianist played the soft “you’re a sinner” music and my heart strings were tugged each time.  I always prayed the prayer, which, according to my upbringing and understanding, wasn’t necessary because I was already saved.

3. The organization of the service was all about me.  It was important to have a good band and sing contemporary Christian music with a few modernized hymns thrown in.  The sermons had catchy titles with the three or five important points to each message.  Media was used to keep our attention. 

4. Our children had a multi-media experience during their Sunday school time but didn’t remember much of what they were supposed to have learned.  The Jr. High and High School classes had video game consoles, their own band, lots of mixers and 5 minutes of Jesus and were encouraged with the idea that "Jesus is cool, just like the world". 

5.  When we started having our children stay with us during the service we were looked at like we were crazy and encouraged to put our children out of the service.  It wasn’t because they were noisy, they were great and the elderly people loved having them there.  It was the opinion of the majority of the church members that church was for grown-ups not to be experienced with the whole "body" together.  Like the children had a mini Holy Spirit. 

6. I struggled with the “seeker sensitive” perspective of the church.  I understand being welcoming and bringing people to church, but it seemed that all the effort was put into those who weren’t “saved”. Once you were saved and made it through the introductory programs you were on your own.  It seemed that over time the believers would hit a ceiling which would require wandering around on the plateau we had reached or packing up and moving to another church where we could perhaps find another spiritual morsel to keep us fed.

7. The idea that if we did ____________ we will have “arrived".  There was The Prayer of Jabez, The Purpose Driven Life, 40 Day of Prayer.  If we read through these books and applied them to our lives we would have “arrived” as Christians and need no more spiritual food.  Now it wasn’t exactly said that way, but it was implied. 

We didn’t know what to do.  We wondered if we should start attending a family friendly “home church” or start one in our home and just do what we believed the Early Church did. So, I packed up two of my three girls and headed over the hill at 10pm to attend the Pascha service at my mom’s church.  I remember my girls falling asleep, along with most of the other little children, and me just standing there crying.  I cried because the choir was singing scripture.  I cried because the words were all about God and not about me or how I felt.  I cried because the music was what it had been for thousands of years and wasn’t being sung for my enjoyment or to make me feel a certain way, but to glorify the Lord.  I cried because the priest faced the altar most of the time and it wasn’t about him being a great orator or being  “relevant”.    I was amazed.  How could this place with all these nice people who were so wrong be so holy?! 

I went home and talked with my husband.  We decided we’d do some research to prove Orthodoxy wrong and then we’d move on and figure out what we were really supposed to do.  After all, if nothing else we figured we’d get a good church history education.  To our utter astonishment we found we couldn’t prove it wrong.  If we based our conclusions on what the historical documentation supported and not what a particular denomination taught we couldn’t deny what the Early Church was.  We were also confused and frustrated to discover most Protestant churches gloss over or ignore 1100 years of Church history. Our own pastor said he had only spent a day or two on that part of history in seminary!   Somehow we jump from the death of John to the Bible being shoved together and skip right over to the Reformation.  But we don’t discuss what was taught by the Apostles and what the Church looked like as they traveled and spread the Good News.  We ignore the fact that they didn’t have the Bible when they went out into every nation baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  They were Jews and the first Christians.  They went out and taught the new believers what to do and how to worship by example.  They wrote letters that were later compiled into what we have received as Holy Scripture.

We came to the conclusion that either Orthodoxy was THE Church or we were in big trouble.  We had to challenge and question everything we’d been taught and find out what the origins were for each teaching.  We were undone.  We had no choice but to become Orthodox or choose not to with the understanding we were walking away from the faith of the Apostles.  I read a lot, listened to my husband who’d read even more, threw a few books and finally came to accept the Orthodox Church as the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.  

October 31, 2004 my husband and I, along with our three daughters became Orthodox.  So many puzzle pieces finally fit together as we discovered this early faith.  It was truly glorious and has been such a blessing ever since.  Yes we have had to change our thinking quite a bit, but isn’t that what is supposed to happen with the renewing of our minds?

 

Here are some of the things I love the most about being Orthodox:

 

• The idea of Salvation being three fold.  We are saved, we are being saved and we will be saved.  I was raised in a once saved always saved church community.  The idea that we had the free will to choose Christ but somehow that free will disappeared once we'd been saved. Instead we believe in the idea that Paul taught, working out ones Salvation with fear and trembling and running the race in such a way that at the end we will not be disqualified.  Salvation doesn't just disappear, but just like we can choose to accept it we can choose to reject it.  We can choose to jump out of the lifeboat and tread water and it doesn't mean we were never in the boat.

• I love that we go through the life of Christ each year.

• I love that we enjoy and use the Tradition of the Church to help us with understanding the scriptures and how we should live our lives.  We believe they go hand in hand, like a map and a compass.  Relying on scripture alone is like what has happened with the Constitution of the United states.  Our understanding of the Constitution has changed since the time it was written.  If we were to interpret the Constitution based on how the founding fathers meant for it to be understood and interpreted and implemented, we'd be doing things a lot differently.  When we interpret based on our own personal, modern, understanding we can come up with all sorts of things that were never intended.

• I love the Theotokos, Mary, the mother of Jesus.  I love that for the first time in my Christian life she is recognized and honor like she said she would be in the Bible.  I'm not sure how she went from being a holy servant of the Lord to just some young girl who happened to say yes with the idea being if she hadn't said yes some other young girl world have...no big deal.  B ut that wasn't the case at all!  She was hand picked.  She was from the line of David.  She was set apart.  She said yes and by doing so is the mother of all Christians.

• When we first started going to the Orthodox Church we wondered why we did the same thing every week.  For one, it helps us to understand our faith more clearly through repetition, but it is also like C.S. Lewis in The Last Battle when the children find themselves back in Narnia, but it is the perfect Narnia.  Aslan tells them to go farther up and further in and they will learn more and more about the new Narnia.  There is always something new to learn and ways to grow and an aspect of the faith we come to understand in a new way.

• I like that the service is for believers to be taught and prepared to go out and tell others about Christ.  Our church experience as Protestants did try and equip us to go out and tell others about Christ, but it didn't really feed the believers, it was all about getting unbelievers to believe and then, after a few years, you were kind of on your own.  It was about getting people in but not about making sure the flock was always fed.

• I was struck by the fact that God never told us to change how we were to worship Him.  We have the Old Testament where God was very specific and was not dependent on how I felt about it.   Christ came as the final blood sacrifice, but, historically, the apostles worshipped the way they always had, as Jews, but instead of a sacrifice they would partake of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist.

So this is some of the "why" behind becoming Orthodox.  I am not judging anyone or challenging anyone's beliefs.  I can't say I know who will be saved and who will not in the end.  I am a very simple mama in the service of the King of Kings.  I fall all the time and wonder if/how/why my God could ever use me.  And I am thankful for the journey.

May the peace of Christ rest in your hearts today!

Moving Out!

That was the threat I made to my mom when I was 17 and she tried to get me to cook.  I told her I would move in with Grandma, surely she wouldn’t think of making me do such a terrible thing. 

 

 

Yep, this is me at 17 (Thank you Lisa Gonzales for the picture!)

When I was in high school, nearly all of my friends ended up living at our house for one reason or another.   The first showed up toward the end of 10^th grade barefoot after her mother kicked her out.  She walked several miles to get to our house and stayed until she graduated.  My home wasn’t always “functional” but it was always available to those in need.  My mom had been a single mama for nearly ten years by the time I graduated.  She worked hard making enough to barely make ends meet for our little three person family, and still she opened up her home to quite a few crazy, messed up, emotionally fatigued girls.  She didn’t get paid by the county or any of the parents.  She was amazing at making the money and food and love stretch just as far as it needed to.

During that time, my mama tried to teach the girls some basic skills.  She gave each the opportunity to go to the store and do the shopping to learn how to become smart shoppers for when they were on their own. She encouraged them to learn how to cook and discouraged them from making cat calls at cute boys as we drove down the street.  Notice how I said "them"?  I didn’t think I needed to learn these things.  I was sharing my home and my mom.  I was great with relationships and peer counseling type situations.  I would write or make up scenarios for us to play at or write music.  I did not need to learn to cook!

Fast forward to July 1992.  I had met my husband to be just 6 months after graduating from high school and we were engaged that following July.  We both stayed on at the summer camp where we had worked.  I was assigned to the girls cabin, The Hitchin’ Post, and he to the boys cabin, Knot 4 Sail.  After we were engaged I got this strange desire to cook for him.  His first meal, which could have been his last had the meat been contaminated, was chicken and canned corn.  It looked appealing enough, but the meat wasn’t fully cooked.  Do you know, that wonderful man ate what I cooked for him?  The Lord blessed his humility by keeping him alive that night so this undeserving wife to be could marry her handsome knight. 

 

 

You would think I’d have been a natural cook, with the mother I have.  She is classy in dress and manner and a gourmet when it comes to cooking.  Not me.  I have my own style which no one really has a name for and my cooking, though it has evolved, is more Victorian farmhouse mama cuisine than 5 star dining.  It took me five years to make a successful loaf of bread.  The hot loaves smelled wonderful and were great when eaten right out of the oven, but as they cooled they were more suited to be used as doorstops than food.  But I wanted to cook for my husband and make a good home for him.  He would have been fine with macaroni and cheese out of the box, but I wanted to learn how to do it myself.  So I did. 

Over the years I have tried my hand at a number of cooking projects.  I learned how to make a great loaf of bread.  I tried my hand at toffee and chocolates and found success.  Just this past year I was able to participate in my first farmers market making bread.  More than any of the sales, the pleased look on my husband’s face when he saw our booth sell out week after week was what gave me the strength and determination to get up at 3 a.m. every Saturday morning to bake. 

 

 

 

So, sorry Mama for threatening to move out.  Yes there are things I understand now that I am a mother that I didn’t understand as a child.  Thank you for loving me anyway.  And thank you for giving me something much more important than any cooking lessons would have imparted.  Thank you for giving me Jesus! 

Just Take it Already!

Responsibility that is...

There is a dangerous epidemic we are experiencing in our house with some of our children.  It manifests itself in a variety of ways.  This illness is called Irresponsibilititis-plasia Syndrome. 

Clinical File1: Unnamed male was told to go to bed.  Patients history included being told to take care of last minute bed time routine before said bedtime actually occurred including putting away toys, getting water bottle situated and physically getting into the laying down position on the appropriate sleeping apparatus. Instead the male seemed unable to follow through with the simple request.  He reported temporary blackouts and an overwhelming inclination to  play on the hanging rope ladder and practice strange dance moves in his underwear. He acknowledges he heard the request clearly but somehow the fault lies with the mother. 

Clinical File 2: Unnamed male 2 was instructed to clean the bathroom he already claimed to have cleaned.  He insisted the dirt and grime he had been putting off cleaning for several days now was somehow the product of him taking a shower today.  His first defense was that he forgot even though his mother stood in the bathroom with him and showed him exactly what needed to be cleaned.  His second defense was claiming he was stupid and crumpling into a puddle of tears. 

I'm not sure about anyone else, but in our home I am having great difficulty getting my children to take responsibility for their words and actions. We have it laid out pretty clearly what the expectations are and how to earn privileges.  These are not new ideas, though we haven't always had them in writing. 

We are generations away from the Rules of Civility, as penned by a young George Washington http://www.history.org/almanack/life/manners/rules2.cfm .   Those Little House on the Prairie years with children as young as 12 being considered responsible enough to watch the homestead for a day or two are long gone.  Not that I want to leave my young ones home by themselves for a day or two, but  it would be wonderful if I could give a direction or have an expectation and know it would be carried out.

We no longer live in a society where honesty is the best policy.  We don't live in communities, for the most part, we all live as individuals living our own lives as best we can...or as best we think we can.  We live in a time when authority should always be questioned and it is always someone else's fault.  We see kids movies glorifying the main characters who constantly go against their authorities and are mostly "proved right" in the end. 

But in everything we do we are to keep struggling on toward the goal.  This is true for the salvation of our souls and as we parent our children.  We have to keep swimming upstream even though the current gets swifter and the multitude of fish blissfully swimming in the opposite direction increases.

Clinical File 1 - Diagnosis and Treatment: Unnamed male 1 only stayed mad for a short time.  The mother of the patient checked on him an hour later when he admitted he had been being childish.  Instead of engaging in a long conversation, which the patient was hoping for as it would mean he would be staying up later, she opted to smile, tell him she loved him and that they'd talk in the morning. Acute symptoms were treated allowing the emotional inflammation to decrease.  Chronic condition will be addressed on an ongoing basis.  Tea may be a beneficial aid to calming.

Clinical File 2 - Diagnosis and Treatment: Mother of unnamed male 2 explained to him that calling himself "stupid" was still avoiding responsibility.  She reminded him of his straight A grades from the previous year, fantastic current grades, his creative inventions, not to mention how kind and cuddly he usually is.  She prayed with him.  Time was also beneficial in this patients emotional flair up.  After he calmed down said mother administered a great big hug which he reciprocated.  Both patient and mother agreed to sit down tomorrow and come up with an action plan for future success.

Do not lose heart, dear mother, the disease is not terminal.  And the Lord our God specializes in tough cases.  Thank God!!!

These Boots Were Made for Walking?

Week one went very well.  I was determined.  I was motivated.  But now it's week two...

Last week I got out of bed Monday morning, put on my exercise clothes and jumped on my trampoline for thirty minutes.  It was "only" thirty minutes, but it was thirty minutes longer than I had spent of focused exercise in...well...too long!  It felt really good.  Tuesday I jumped for 45 minutes and went walking with my mom for about 45 minutes or so.  YAY!  Wednesday I walked two miles with my daughter.  Thursday I walked two miles with the dog.  Friday I ran around like a crazy person getting ready for farmers market, but I ate responsibly that day and on all the previous days that week. 

I'm dreading tomorrow.  I'm already coming up with all sorts of reasons why I should have to exercise.  I have a lot to get done.  I have writing projects and recording projects and children to get to appointments and baby visits.

My last post listed how our home works.  Included in that list was TEMPERANCE: self-control, restraint, moderation.  Some people may have to practice self control when they exercise too much.  You know those people, who always want to go to the gym or for a run or for a walk.  Okay, I've only known like one person like that... Looking at temperance made me realize that sometimes I "glut" on inactivity.  With 9 children in my house there is a lot to do, but there are many "sitting" things to do.  If I want my children to understand temperance I have to be an example.  Not too much food.  Not too much sitting.  Not too much sleeping (oh how I wish I had to fight this problem!).  Not too much of anything.   We are looking for balance.  My scale has been tipped in the wrong direction (figuratively and literally), now it's time to get it going in the right directions.  Yes, I need to lose weight but more importantly I need to set an example.  So...(deep breath)...I'm going to list my goals.  Once I hit publish there's no going back.  Okay, technically I could go back and delete the whole thing, but I'm not going to. 

Goals:
1. exercise at least 4x weekly
2. eat sensibly. This is part of practicing self control.
3. lose 40 lbs before I turn 41.  I don't know if this is a reasonable goal, but I'm going to try!  I have until December.
4. lead by example.
5. there is no end. 

There have been too many times where I have had a goal and once it's reached I go right back to the old habits.  I don't want to encourage that behavior in my children so I must battle that behavior in me.  I may not always succeed, but hopefully the effort will have meaning for all of us.

So, dear mamas, what are your goals?  (They don't have to be weight related.)  What are you hoping to accomplish in your home? 

PS. I don't actually have walking boots, but I did order walking shoes :)

Home Works

"Do not do anything that brings grief to your family." -Mother Melania

While I do have two starting school tomorrow, this post is not about school. This post is about how I'm trying to get our HOME to WORK (see what I did there?).  I didn't want to call it house rules because it's more than that. In my quest to be calm and avoid needless arguments, loopholes and stall tactics, I wanted more than just a set of rules, I wanted to have, IN WRITING, the things that really make our home work well. I didn't want to be nitpicky but I did want to be clear about what the expectations are and what is acceptable as a participant in this family. The great thing I'm finding is this list is helping me stay accountable to the purpose of our home too! 

1. Love God and Each Other: Jesus says, "The first of all the commandments is: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment.  And the second, like it, is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." Mark 12:29-31.  If you love God first and others next then you will be doing the things below.
2. Responsibility: "Take the blame for the things you are responsible for." - Mother Melania      Avoid arguing or making excuses.  This is how you build trust and earn privileges.
3. Temperance (moderation/self-control/restraint): Here you are learning to stay in the middle between too much and not enough. For example: When given the opportunity to have a treat or enjoy yourself, don't go overboard.  Buy enough of a treat for you to enjoy right then, not so much that if you ate it all at once it would make you sick.  And remember to enjoy it!
4. Chastity: Purity of the mind of body.  This means: be mindful of what you watch, read, listen to and say. (Why do include chastity in our "home work"?  Because there are so many avenues by which garbage can enter the brain and we want to avoid exposing our kids to harmful things.  We don't want to hide our heads in the sand or make some alternate reality for them, but we want them to understand the world around them in a loving and godly context.)
5. Liberality: Generosity.  Give freely to others when it is within your power to do so without any expectation of getting something in return.  This includes giving to the homeless, friends, neighbors and even brothers and sisters.
6. Happiness:  Now this doesn't mean that we like everything, but it does mean that we can choose to be happy because the Lord loves us, He has provided a family, food and a home for us even if nothing else seems good.
7. Diligence: Doing any task (work/chore/job/responsibility) until it is completed to the very best of your ability.
8. Humility: Thinking of what is good for others before thinking o f yourself.  For example: If someone needs help...help them.  If there is only a little food left and someone else also wants seconds, let the other person have it.  If someone asks you to do something don't think yourself "too good" for little or "unimportant" jobs.  If someone does something unkind, be quick to forgive keeping in mind the Jesus prayer, "Lord have mercy on ME a sinner."
9. Mildness:  Kindness, gentleness and calm in word and action.
10. Obedience: A respectful willingness to do what you are told without asking "why".  If, after you have done what you have been asked to do, still want to know "why"  you will be told, unless there is some special reason not to.  If the answer to the "why" is something you should already know, we know we have super smart kids and we will let you figure it out yourself.

These are the expectations at home or out with others until you are master of your own home or under the leadership of someone else.

Now this is what I came up with.  What do you do with your family?  I'd love to hear about it!!!

Many blessings to all and to all a good morning :)

Do not grow weary

 And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.
Galatians 6:9

 

When my family went to California a few weeks ago we had the amazing opportunity to do something I don't think we've truly done before...be tourists!  We visited familiar places but did it like tourists would.  We parked and looked and didn't feel like we owned the place.  And we enjoyed ourselves!  I think it's the first "real" vacation we've taken in 20 years!! The other thing that happened was, because we were so relaxed, we were able to just observe.  And this is the part I want to write about today.

We first stayed with friends we had known through homeschooling in Santa Cruz.  When we lived there we were part of a mom's group that would meet twice a month at Marie Calendar's and talk about homeschooling or intentionally NOT talk about homeschooling.  We simply enjoyed each others company, acknowledged the struggles and ate really good salad, or potato wedges or dessert.  It was a great time, in Cool, California (name of a real town!) and they were so hospitable!!!  Little did they know I was observing.  This mama has 7 children and she always speaks so gently to her children.  She has a boy who has impulse control issues similar to my guy yet she addressed him with such calm.  She always had a gentle word and a smile.   I sat in wonder trying to figure out how she did it. I often find myself going into the black mama "oh no you di-int"  place when a child is rude or rebellious.  She reminded me of Marmie with her calm and welcoming attitude.  I didn't have a notebook to take notes with, but the computer in my brain was filing it all away for processing in the future.

The second home we stayed in was in Boulder Creek California right in the redwoods!  She also does foster care and, in addition to the two bio and one adopted already, she is adding four more to her home.  It was so fun getting to sit and talk and just "be".  Again I found myself watching her interactions with her children.  Again I was with someone who had a son similar to mine who had a very similar background to mine. What I noticed in this mama was how "present" she was in her home and with her children.  While I am always near my children I am not always with my children.  This mama, and her grown and nearly grown daughter, also had the knack of being present in a situation.  More filing and processing.

Our next stop took us to Lompoc, California, near Santa Barbara, to our friends with 10 children and one on the way!   Unfortunately we were only able to spend one night with this dear family.  With 12 people in a three bedroom house there has to be some order.  What we noticed, and my 17 year old daughter said out loud, was that the children didn't ask "why" when the parents told them to do something.  Get this...they just went and did the task!  Now, these kids weren't little lemmings without any character or spunk.  The filing and processing continued.

My husband and I had a chance to process all the information on our 18+ hour drive home.  As foster parents we are required to complete 20 hours worth of training each year.  This training includes 6 hours of face to face training through classes and the rest can be classes, videos or books.  These books have a lot of information but are often written by people who have lots of clinical experience but very little parenting experience. Normally when I read a book or learn about a "new method" I want to apply it all at once and find myself burning out in just a few weeks.It was wonderful to "live" the experience in these homes and with these families who faced many of the same challenges we face and see where they were successful and what we could apply to our parenting. 

Here's what we took away and how it has impacted our home and perspective.

1. BE the calm: We have some children who are like little land mines with issues buried under the surface that can be triggered at any moment without warning.  They may not be able to control themselves or their immediate reaction but by being the calm for them we avoid an explosive chain reaction that can lead to shrapnel flying in every direction and emotionally impaling non combatants.  Being the calm (similar to the boneless chicken I wrote about before) allows me to respond instead of just reacting and the outcome is much calmer and the "behavior uglies" tend to fizzle out much more quickly.

2. BE present: Stopping what I'm doing so that I can simply BE has made a big difference in the attitudes of my people.  This doesn't mean I don't get anything done, but if negative behavior is beginning to bubble and foam stopping what I'm doing, even for 15 minutes, makes a difference in helping to reset the situation for a more positive outcome. 

3. NO "why": Okay, this doesn't mean my children can never know the reason for things but it does mean I expect obedience first and then when the task/job/request is completed they can know the "why" behind it if they're still interested.  I love teaching my children and helping them to understand the world around them and how it works, but 9 out of 10 times they didn't care about the "why" in the first place they were just stalling.

So be encouraged, dear mama's.  Observe, sift and use what might work for your family. Be the positive influence in your home.  Do not grow weary in the good you are doing in your home.  There will be a glorious harvest someday.

Bringing Daddy Home

 During the summer I attended a meeting for a newly forming Christian school of midwifery.  It met at the home of a pastor who spoke before we got into the nitty gritty of the school plans and proposals. While I didn't agree with everything this pastor was talking about, and his Church history was a little inaccurate, I heard something that has changed the life of our home.  He talked about the benefits of running a family business.  This pastor has a radio program and does seminars.  His whole family participates in the events, setting and running their table/booth at conventions, producing audio seminars and packaging and shipping their family "merchandise" all over the country.  My first thought was, "yeah, that's nice for you, but I don't think we have anything our family could do."

 

Last summer, just before we went to visit my godmother for the last time, my husband sat in our house waiting for a phone call.  Work situations had changed and he was supposed to start wiring apartments and businesses for cable.  Each week the boss would tell him, "I should have something for you next week."  But "next week" didn't come.  He stayed behind while I journeyed with 6 children across several states and back, but still no work came. 

 

When I returned from California, we had no idea what to do.  I said, "I wish there were some home business we could do." He'd thought of that too, but couldn't think of anything.  I'd had an idea in the back of my mind for a number of years about doing a radio theater program for Orthodox children focusing on the Nativity of Christ, Pascha and lives of the saints. I presented this idea to him and he got excited.  In our family I am usually the optimist and he is the pessimist...or "realist", so for him to get excited was...well...exciting!  My husband is a musician and had been an audio/visual tech. at the Christian camp where we had worked in California.  He knew about running sound boards, recording, duplicating and packaging cd's.  He had resources for finding the right equipment to do sound recording.  This was right up his ally.  But the thought of taking such a huge leap of faith seemed impossible.  Just after we began to entertain these thoughts he received a call for a job with his boss' brother and so this idea was swept under the rug. It was a tough decision because this job meant my husband would have to work Sundays.  The relationships he'd been building at church would have to be put on hold, yet again, but he needed to provide for our family. 

 

After a few months with the new company it was clear this company cared very little for its employees, and very poor work ethic, which caused a lot of frustration and piles of stress. What we didn't know was God had a plan just around the corner.  My hubby plugged away.  We prayed. 

 

I went to the midwifery meeting and on my way home I lifted up that little rug the radio theater idea had been swept under and was met with several other ideas as well.  When I got home I presented some of these ideas to my husband and....HE WAS EXCITED!    We talked and prayed and thought and sought (counsel) and prayed some more.  The Lord opened a some doors, and even a few windows, and provided a way for my husband to come home to us.   

 

Since he's been home every on of our children has come to me (not sure why me and not Daddy...) and told me how much happier Daddy seems and how glad they all are that he's home.  And he IS happier!  He is working on our micro-farm.  He has built fences...lots of fences...built a goat pen, made a miniature coop for the chicks and fixed the chicken coop out at the barn.  He has dug and chopped and helped plant.  He has invited his children to help pull nails, build and be part of the birth of our family business.  He has set up and torn down our bread stand at the farmers market each week and made sure I get to bed at a decent time the night before.  He has purpose and, for the first time in his working life, enjoys his work.  

 

(had to include a picture of our goaties

 

We have no idea where this adventure will lead or if he'll have to find work outside of the family business we're endeavoring to create, but we are enjoying the time we have right now and we are so thankful Daddy gets to be home!   (I sure do love my amazing man!!!)