Life's a Breeze...or Is It A Gust of Wind?

My last post was June of last year. Seven months ago. I feel like I've been to the moon and back.

You ever felt like you were caught up in a Kitchen Aid mixer set to medium high? Once turned off, life is a new mix. Am I truly back to blogging? I'm not sure, honestly. Blogging, editing, marketing take up a lot of time and head space that I find that I need to devote to my six children, ages 25, 22, 20, 17, 7 and 5. 

What will 2017 be like for you? I don't think you have any idea.

Thanksgiving 2016

Can you guess how long it took all of us to get outside and how many shots my best friend had to take to get this one? My daughter Maria (fourth from left) announced after an Thanksgiving early dinner that we had a 20 minute window before the sun was in the wrong place. "Be outside in 15 minutes and look nice!" was her commandment. For outdoor photographers, it's all about the lighting, I suppose.  

You see that tall guy on the end? He's our basketball player. Douglas is 6'6". In fact, that's one exciting reason why I haven't blogged in over six months. He has an opportunity to be recruited to play in college. Basketball season is now year round for me and involves a lot of driving. We enrolled him in The Regents School of Charlottesville, where he had played basketball the previous season as a home schooled student. I began driving him down to "The Dell" at the University of Virginia to work out with Coach Geoff Reed, a former private school coach and other potential high school recruits. I packed up the two youngest boys and drove Douglas up to Pennsylvania to attend a HoopGroup Academic Elite Camp. It was an introduction to the new world of elite basketball.

Not only am I a chauffeur, but I'm now a videographer and video editor for basketball games! Check out this highlight film that I made of his December 2016 games. 😊

I never wonder if the time, money and sacrifice is worth helping someone pursue their dreams. As African-American poet Langston Hughes said, dreams are a "blue cloud cloth" that one must keep from the "too rough fingers of the world". Do you have a kid with talent and the drive and desire to develop it? Help them. Do you have your own dreams on the shelf. Take them down. Sure, like me, you may have to put them back on the shelf sometimes, but if you live your life in the wind and trust that God has your best interests in his mind, then He'll blow them off that shelf when it's time.

I still home school my youngest boys and wow, do they have energy! For those of you raising kids under ten. Yeah, I know. It's real. It's realllllly tiring. It's mental. It's emotional. Some nights you sleep well; some you don't. I'm feelin' you.

But I'm not trading my days with those boys for anything else right now. 

By the way, here's a shout out to all of you young people learning about "adulting", which is the choice phrase of my young millennials. I have a draft of a post called "What Is Adulthood?" Maybe I'll get around to editing it, but I will say that watching the adult lives of my oldest three children is an education for me. When am I needed? When am I crowding their space? (#2 and #3 live with us right now) Should I share with them some suggestions without being asked? As a parent, am I still meeting their love language?

I'm grateful that my three oldest are still around so much. My oldest daughter, Christina, lives thirty minutes  away but spends many weekends here at home. God has given me spontaneous conversations with them that have shown me the the treasure-laden depths of their souls and the amazing dreams they dream. What can I do? Be their #1 cheerleader...well my husband and I share the #1 spot, Lol.

One last word before I begin my day as a home educator. Doug and I have been married for twenty-six years. We've had our highs and lows. My advice for all of you who are married and raising kids is: Be transparent. Be emotionally honest about your triumphs and your failures. Extend mercy and grace to your spouse, because one day you may need it yourself. Be an active listener. Take time to hang out and DON'T talk about the kids! Demand nothing and pray about everything. 

Try to hold your future plans or agenda loosely. Life has so many shifts. If you grip too hard, you may fall when they fall through. That's how I live my life these days cause' I really don't know where life's wind is blowing me. It's certainly not a breeze. But it's a blessing.

Matthew 7:24-26  “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock:and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand:

John 3:8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Visit our other blog: My Father's Crown
New Post: Value of Believing Pt. 3 by Doug Webb

The Push and The Pull of Raising Kids

One Saturday morning instead of running into your arms, your young daughter runs onto the couch to watch her morning cartoon. You shrug your shoulders and get her breakfast. The next week the same thing happens. You begin to notice a decrease in the amount of times that she crawls onto your lap, or nestles her head in your neck or turns to wave before heading into the school building.

At first you are caught off guard. Then you wonder and slowly begin to mourn the inevitable ending of a stage. Finally you get used to the new norm and hope that the security you instilled in your young daughter through physical affection and verbal affirmation was consistent enough to stay in her memory banks as she journeys on the road into adolescence.

As parents, it’s instinctual to begin to push our young ones away incrementally. At first it may be mom weaning baby from the breast. Next it may teaching kids how to put on their clothes by themselves. For some dads it may be when your kids want to hang out with friends instead of go fishing or watch sports with you. Their total dependence on us must end at some point. At the same time, we don’t want to short circuit their natural need for parental covering. Sense of identity and security begins at home in the formative years. Some people believe that quality time is more sufficient than quantity time for young children. I don’t believe this. I’ve surprisingly found that even my teens actual enjoyed quantity time at least as much as quality time. The push into autonomy must occur at various points based on an individual child’s God-given developmental timetable. The push is necessary.

But then we see them adapting. And we realize that we miss the morning snuggle. Our maternal bosom or our paternal arms looked forward to “the embrace” before heading out the door to work. And we are tempted to pull these precious God-breathed souls back into us…to smell their hair, to be comforted that they are also comforted by our presence. The pull is normal.

Isn’t this similar to our Heavenly Father? He keeps his arms wide open and draws us into his sheltering presence. (Psalm 91) He delights when we come to him. He delights when we want to know more about him. (James 2:23) Relationship is powerfully precious. At the same time, our Heavenly Father tells us to go—go out and represent him in all that we do and say, especially to those people that have not yet recognized His reality. (Mark 16:15) At some point He wants us to let go of the childish stage of our faith journey and step into mature partnership with him. (1 Cor. 13:11)

A godly parent will reflect our Heavenly Father. We’ll push when it’s time for them to grow into another stage, yet desire to constantly remind our children that we adore them, that we will be safe for them, that we will always have open arms for them. The push is not to their detriment. It’s not based on our convenience. The pull should neither serve our own needs nor stifle their individuality. Rather both the push and the pull maintain the security of relationship and the value of growing up. 

A Mother Worth Mentioning

What her eyes saw – lack and death– suddenly did not matter. Her heart saw the reality of God’s faithful and protective hand in her life.

Mothering becomes more difficult when a husband isn’t in the picture. In the past two weeks, I’ve been struck by the mother in 1 Kings 17. Her courage to believe God's voice changed the outcome of her circumstances.

The widow was getting wood in order to prepare one last meal for herself and her son when Elijah shows up on the scene. Elijah wants some food. She lets him know that she doesn’t have enough food to share with him. In that time, it’s remarkable that she had food at all. Famine was present in the land and she was a widow. We don’t know how long her husband had been dead. The Bible calls her son “a child” later in the passage.  She was probably younger than thirty. Economically, this impoverished single mother had no hope during this drought. Circumstances beyond her control had taken over her life. Then she hears this stranger say to her: “Give me some food first and God will continue to provide for

you until it starts raining again.”

How many of you would listen to some stranger rolling up on your doorstep saying the same thing? Verse nine reveals that Elijah met the widow knowing that God had already commanded her to feed him.  We have no indication from her of this. We merely see her do what Elijah asks. She fed him first.

Her natural eyes saw lack in her home. Surely she and her son heard each other’s hunger pangs. As a mother, she’d probably been making her son’s last meal cakes a tad bit larger than hers even though she knew that death was inevitable for them both. Her visible reality shouted “Death!”  But in another human being’s words, she heard the voice of God. She trusted that God was speaking to her through another human being. Wow! That takes courage and faith.

Faith acknowledges the reality of the unseen.

I wonder if she had heard of Elijah and if so, if she recognized him when he approached her. Even if she had, it still took faith for her to believe in the creative miracle that he said would happen: the meal in the barrel would not run dry.  The oil jar would not dry up. What her eyes saw – lack and death– suddenly did not matter. Her heart saw the reality of God’s faithful and protective hand in her life.

Her supply would not fade.

I was impressed to use this passage as my Mother’s Day post. I believe God wants to calm the fears of mothers whose visible realities shout “Death!” There are mothers who may be facing crushed dreams or failed marriages. Others may be watching their children spin into the downward cycle of addiction or plummet into the merciless clutch of disease.  Many single mothers deal with economic lack. Despite the fact that the drought was to remain for a period of time, God’s intervention for the single mother of 1 Kings declared “Life!” Still, she had to trust God. What if she had turned her back on the prophet of God? What if she had not turned her eyes from her visible reality and looked into the eyes of the servant of God to see the invisible reality of God’s desire for her life? It took faith and courage to use the rest of the meal in and make three cakes instead of two.

I pray this Mother’s Day for mothers everywhere. I pray that despite our visible circumstances, we will believe in the faithful provision of our loving Father. I pray that we would be courageous and trust in God’s Word first even though we live in a culture that renounces biblical authority. Lastly, I pray that when a situation is shouting “Death!” to our faces, that we would look up and see God declaring “Life!”

When Mommy Is Sick

Community is imperative. The sista-friends and relatives who are local can rush to fill in the numerous gaps filled by an absent mommy.

My children were five, three and one at the time. The flu struck out of nowhere. Fast. My husband worked 90 hours per week at two jobs and his own carpet cleaning business. I remember lying over my bed, unable to move thinking I can’t even stand up to make dinner. I tried. We all try. I crawled to the kitchen and tried to stand but waves of nausea and an outbreak of chills defeated my inner lioness.

My friend and prayer partner had two children at the time but still, she came over, made dinner and took care of my kids for at least a couple of hours.

This was just the flu. I’ve dealt with bedrest during pregnancies, hernia repairs, and another bout of the flu about ten years later and when my husband couldn’t help, friends stepped in.

I have a friend who died from cancer last August. She was at her sickest in the hospital, but friends stepped in to hold her hand, lotion her feet and pray at bedside to relieve her husband for at least a couple of hours a day.

I have another friend who is frequently making a 3 hour drive to take care of five nieces and nephews whose father, her brother, is hospitalized.

Both the ordinary bout of flu and the extraordinary ordeal of disease reveal the importance of the scripture: Psalm 68:6a God sets the solitary in families. We are never meant to suffer alone. Whether it’s our blood family, church family or family of friendships, we need others to fill in the gaps that we leave when we are knocked off course.

“I need help” can be difficult words for anyone to say.

However, these are beautiful words to the one that hears them. The opportunity to be a gap-filler is an opportunity to show love and compassion without conditions. So fellow mommys, and to the daddys who are reading this, when your strength runs out, contact a friend and say

“I need help.”

Do Our Kids See our Past or our Present?

         An excerpt from my work in progress: Ages and Stages: The Book

I learned that we always need healing from something. Whether it’s the dog that chased me down the street when I was five or whether I perceived that I was being rejected by a loved one, I need to regularly do an inventory of my heart. If I don’t, my family is bound to be affected by my wounded soul.

All of us reflect the environments and cultures in which we grew up and the relationships that made impressions on us. As children, we are blank mounds of clay shaped by other people. Every human being is like a chisel, intentionally or unintentionally making impressions into the souls of those around us. The Bible calls God the Potter, and as a Father, His desire is for all of us to be initially shaped by parents who reflect His character. But there is no person on earth that perfectly reflects God’s character. Even adults who had great childhoods are indented with impressions left by people or situations from their past.

We inherit talents as well as predispositions to specific thought patterns and behaviors. I didn’t grow up in a touchy-feely home and I always admired families that I saw that were affectionate. As a result, I made a conscious decision to be affectionate with my children as long as they would let me, which usually ended up being until the age of seven. The downside of this was that because affection wasn’t my natural inclination, except for the nightly kiss goodnight, my kids went without much human touch from age seven until eighteen or older. I found out later that as teenagers, they wondered why we weren’t an affectionate family. They missed it but were unable to ask for it!

This is where I’ve realized that as a parent I needed to learn more about how human beings are made by God to function. I needed to read books about child development as well as adolescence. I needed to remember the yearnings that I had as a teenager and realize that those yearnings were not individual to me, but normal for all people. Everybody wants a hug at some point, even the teenage male who thinks he has it all together.

One way that we can grow in our aptitude to give and receive love is by tackling the issues that put a stopper in our love wells. It takes courage, patience and trust in God to deal with the soul wounds of our past. In 1996 our marriage hit rough waters. Doug aptly described this time as "individual hurricanes colliding to form one massive storm". It wasn’t fun.

But it was a needed season of learning. Although as young Christians we read a lot of Christian books and recognized a few areas in our personal lives that needed healing, we had no idea that our souls were icebergs. All of us can be blind to the deep issues within.

In order to work on our marriage, we needed to address many of the unseen areas of our lives. This meant doing inventories of the rooms in our soul. Consider the soul the realm of the emotions, the mind: memories and thought processes, and the will. Faithful ministers in our local church and a wonderful ministry called Freedom in Christ, founded by Neil Anderson helped us through this stage of our marriage.

That same year we also had our third child. If we hadn't seized the courage to "go deep" within ourselves, be humble, receive counsel, and change by God's transforming power, we would have lived a miserable life together and our children would have suffered greatly. 

I write this twenty years later and every now and then I ask myself, "Do my kids see my past or my present?"  While too much introspection can be harmful, this question causes me to keep my ears open to the whispers of my heavenly Father who knows me unashamedly, sees me completely and loves me unconditionally.  Philippians 1:6b says: He who begun a good work in you will complete it...Yay! 

Oh, what would we do without our faithful God! He is our loving Potter! His hands are gentle and his ways are gracious. We do not have to ever fear going to him with our issues. Because of His cleansing blood, we can carry no shame, no weight, and no condemnation. What we don't see, he shows us when we ask. He'll carry us through the pain of bad memories and difficult seasons. He'll set us down at his throne of healing and restoration. He is a faithful parent who loves his kids!

A few books that were instrumental in not only helping me model our heavenly Father's parenting but also helped me overcome my own obstacles that were robbing my children of a emotionally healed mother were: Seven Longings of the Human Heart by Mike Bickle, The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, Victory Over the Darkness by Neil Anderson, The Root of Rejection by Joyce Meyer. A wonderful book I've recently discovered about the power of memories and thoughts is Switch On Your Brain by Dr. Caroline Leaf

Thank you for taking the time to read. 

Lord Jesus, help us to be convinced of your love for us. We love you because 
you first loved us. You extend love to us even when we sin. Your love covers our sins. Your faithful love reaches down and helps us when we don't know how to help ourselves. Give us courage to see and remove the stoppers in our love wells. Our desire as parents and caregivers is to love well. Thank you God.

The Christmas Child

Do you remember when anticipation would creep under your skin as December drew near?  The atmosphere of your home may have been full of secrets and giggles as family members wrote their gift lists and parents tried hard to find new hiding places.

Perhaps you were a child that longed for that sense of anticipation but instead wore the cloak of sadness because neatly wrapped gifts under a large Christmas tree happened in other neighborhoods but not yours.

The Christmas season highlights the contrasts that exist within the human experience.  Christ’s birth was a star-lit invasion into darkness. God’s entry was a detonation to rescue a war-torn world. It set off the most commendable and notable shift in human history.

Jesus’ entry as an infant reveals God’s goal to identify with every aspect of the human experience-the array of emotions, the highs, the lows, the suffering and the victories.

My husband lost his father the same day that our oldest daughter turned eight.  Four days before Christmas was a concurrence of fatherly smiles and a son’s broken heart.  For my husband, the Christmas season is forever bittersweet.

The Christmas Child reveals life’s incongruities. 

Every December, preachers around the world begin to sermonize about the significance of the Christ-child born from a virgin, God cloaked in the experience of humanity, becoming one of “the least of these.”

Was it bittersweet for God the Father to watch his only begotten Seed penetrate the veil that separated the Creator from the created, knowing that suffering and death would be his end, despite the victory that this death would bring? As Jesus was pushed from his mother’s loins in a smelly, dark cave, what thoughts came to the eternal mind of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, knowing that the Son, the third Person of the trinity was no longer in total communion with them? Did they miss him?

Some may say that I’m humanizing the Creator too much, but the New Testament teaches that Jesus was a perfect reflection of the Father and if Son cried for Lazarus then wouldn’t Father grieve for Son?

Yet the birth of the Christmas Child was grand! Angels sang and the Magi wondered.

What a myriad of emotions we experience when we celebrate the birth of this Christmas Child.

Jesus Christ is the junction where the differences of human beings meet and end. We all begin life totally vulnerable, wrapped in life’s blood at the expense of another person, whose selflessness ensured our first breath. Emotion permeates our daily lives as naturally as air fills our lungs. At least until we learn the art of suppression. 

The season of the Christmas Child brings the awful occasion of two classmates, one knowing ease, the other knowing only struggle, sitting side by side on the last day before what many still call Christmas break.  Both believe in Santa Claus more than the God of the holiday, but one anticipates while the other mourns.

The gift of Jesus Christ is for both. His good news will dry the tears of the mourning and teach humble gratitude to the prosperous. His birth and life’s journey shows that strength comes from vulnerability and victory comes from death. God knew that his earthly entrance would bring both great celebration and great hostility.  His chosen people were expecting a conquering King welding a sword not a bloody baby offering life. 

This year as my family celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, I want us to pause, reflect and thank God for his constant care. I want us to ask the Holy Spirit to release child-like wonder and anticipation for what God will do our future. I want us to pray for those who suffer and still yearn to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Will you join us?

So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. Now when they had seen Him, they made widely^[d] known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.
Luke 2: 15-20 (NKJV)

Constructing the Teenage Mind

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit. (Proverbs 18:21)

Our mind is designed to control the body, of which the brain is a part, not the other way around. Matter does not control us; we control matter through our thinking and choosing. we cannot control the events and circumstances of life but we can control our reactions....It's not easy; it is hard work, but it can be done through our thoughts and choices. (Dr. Caroline Leaf, Switch On Your Brain)

Raise your hand if you loved adolescence. I bet if I could see through my laptop, I would see no hands raised. Being a teenager is rough and the way our world is wired doesn't help. Contemporary culture for the teenager is a landfill of pop entertainment, verbal, fashion and hair trends, the latest social media interaction, entitlement and indulgence. The adolescent is caught between their childish nature and a rapidly maturing brain and body, as well as the volley between autonomy and group think. The professionals have taught us to expect teens to be mindless followers and slaves to their hormones; by and large we've lowered the bar for teen behavior because of these experts. 

Currently there is a growing mindset that not only teens, but even children need to be allowed a level of exploration that was once reserved for married couples. These new experts tell us to loosen moral boundaries, the gender assignments of biology and so much more in order for these developing humans to realize their truest selves.  

What do you think about this?
More importantly, what do teens think about this?
Most importantly, if you call the Bible, your handbook for living, what does God think about this?

There is so much negativity and relativistic mentality in the world, I've discovered that we need to train our children how to think and how to reason.

One of my sons sat at the dinner table last night to do his homework that had to do with worldviews like New Age, pluralism, nihilism and a whole bunch of other -isms. Then another son, overhearing a comment that I made about the -isms came into the room remarking that he was the king of swagism.

We all belong to some -ism. Biblically minded families need to make sure that their children and teens are taught to recognize any -ism that will undermind the foundation principles of their faith.

How do you train a teen who has spent hours playing video games how to identify nihilism or fatalism in the lyrics of his favorite songs? Patiently and graciously. It's natural that teens are sensitive and wary of critique. They are becoming and don't know who they are becoming or sometimes who they even are in that moment, but they innately need acceptance and respect no matter what hormone-induced personality is at the forefront. 

The daily educational grind inserts these fragile personalities with other like-minded personalities of the same age. The dominant personalities, usually the most insecure, become the clique leaders, gang leaders or class clowns that make every boring class a bit more fun. The voices within the daily grind are numerous and loud. How do our teens wade through this cacophony of peer and teacher voices, some good, some bad, but all impressing our teens to be shaped by their -isms, even swagism. 

Sometimes teens come home from school or coop and say, "so-and-so said the test is going to be hard," or "but mom, everybody's doin' it", BUT GOD says.....

Sometimes God's still, small voice is the last to be heard.
Biblical thinking in this day and age doesn't come automatically. It takes time and energy to know and understand the scripture. The verse "I can do all things through Christ (Jesus, the anointed one) which gives me strength." should be on the tongue of every adolescent. Sometimes "professional research" teaches us to expect teens to fail. Sure, adolescence is bumpy, but teens are not failures especially when they are in Christ. "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." Let's teach our kids to think biblically about themselves and the world around them. God's perspective is the only perspective that matters. "for we walk by faith, not by sight [living our lives in a manner consistent with our confident belief in God’s promises] 2 Cor 5:7 AMP

Is your road changing direction? Go with it.

I've noticed how when summer greets autumn the winds blows like heck around here. Parts of our yard become junk piles of broken branches. I guess these branches are too old to hold on. Their time has come. They won't see the next spring.

I am reading a book called "Permission Granted: To Do Church Differently in the 21th Century" by Graham Cooke and Gary Goodell. I've spent some time stuck in the Introduction because it is that good.

"Transition is an adventure into the unknown with all the attendant risks that the uncharted can formulate around us. Change provokes our hearts because it challenges the status quo. It makes us feel uneasy and vulnerable  because it takes us into territory where we have never been before. We are happy to talk about Abraham going out without knowing where he was going, simply trusting God to get him there (see Heb. 11:8). However, when it is our turn to make the journey of faith, it is a different matter. God has His own road maps for times such as these. The old ones are useless to us, and the new ones are completed as we go!
Every change involves a letting go of one thing to reach out for what is next. It is death by installments--the slow death of our mindsets, our attitudes, perceptions, and paradigms with apparently nothing obvious to take their place. That is, we see only the replacement concept as we journey. We don't just see it, though; we experience it. Sometimes our experience is first, and we go through something that we understand only in retrospect. It is important, therefore, if we are to journey with the Lord into new lands, that we build in time to reflect and review where we are and where we have come from."

Wow! That's good, isn't it! The thought that especially strikes me is: "The old ones (road maps) are useless to us, and the new ones are completed as we go!"

Those old tree branches are too old for buds to form and leaves to grow. They are too brittle to hold the squirrels and birds that need refuge. They are useless.

I love how God teaches us through His creation. Every new season and stage requires a new road map. The problem for us is that road map is only discovered as we begin to walk. This faith walk is emotionally and mentally challenging because not only are we creatures of habit, but we are people who love to know where we are going!

When the winds of newness begin to blow, we close our windows so that we cannot feel the breeze or we shut down our spiritual intuition until the change is already upon us. In those times we scramble to readjust because we know that we can't retreat. Yes, sometimes we move to a different church or dye our hair. Often we find some way to hold onto the hope that what we've become comfortable with and accepted will return. 

Some things are never returning.

As Christians we have but one promise to hold on to in Jeremiah 29:11: For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. No matter what is before us, it is part of God's plan and we must hold steadfast to the truth that our good God makes good plans. It doesn't matter that the last child moves out next week or that today the moving truck comes to load up all of your memories. It also doesn't matter what topic our media is sensationalizing when it comes to the plight of a sin-stained world. God gives us a future and a hope.

Truly it must be His presence and His faithful words that set our feet to walking and keep us steady as we go. One day, the trees around our house will die and fall unless we take the initiative to cut them down before they fall on something we value.

What wind is blowing around you, breaking off withered branches? Is it time to cut a tree down?

"Lord, take my hand. I am reaching to hold onto what I know is the surest and truest reality of my life and that is you. I don't know what is ahead. But I know that because you exist outside of time, you are already in my future, waiting. Thank you Jesus for your faithful hand to guide."

Self-Image and Special Needs

When a child has special needs, we must help them develop a good self image.Three items to consider are: what we think about ourselves, what others think about us and if we are Biblically-minded, what God thinks about us. In the hubbub of our daily thoughts, the most necessary point we must deal with is what we think about ourselves.Seven year old boy: “Mom, I don’t like the size of my ears.”
Mom: “Son, God loves your ears and I think they are cute.” 

Boy: “Well I don’t like them!”Two other responses could be, “Mom, God loves everybody! He doesn’t count.” or “Mom, you don’t count. Of course, you’d think they were cute.”Often our personal beliefs carry more weight than even the opinion of God.Not every parent faces the reality of a child with special needs whether they are physical, emotional or mental. The closest experience I’ve had is so far from these challenges, I’m almost embarrassed to write about it, but it’s my son’s reality that prompts me to share.For whatever reason, my oldest son didn’t develop the ability to say a few consonant sounds well. “R” was “aw”, “tr” was “twah”.

As a young mother, I fought self-condemnation. Did I not introduce crunchy foods early enough in order to develop the movement of his tongue? Did I not read aloud to him enough? I had many questions. Unlike the parents of children with conditions that make daily living distinctly challenging, our remedy was simple: two years of speech therapy at a local school.My son didn’t like it. I never knew until recently why he seemed to meld into the walls when we walked through the hallways and past the open doors of 4^th grade classes, to meet with the speech teacher. I also never knew why he looked so sad when I practiced the lists of “r” and “w” words with him every night.Currently, his adult peers would never know he had a problem once upon a time. Like I said, his challenge was a simple and easily solved one. However, no matter how  trivial my son’s challenge may appear compared to children with special needs, self-image was an issue for him.  I wish I had known this at the time. I was stunned to discover that during these years, Christopher had developed a very poor image of himself. This was the reason for the melancholy that I saw in his face. He was a natural competitor. His question “Why do I have this struggle?” was very real. Here is an excerpt from his blog: “…, when I was in 5^th and 6^thgrade I had to visit a speech therapist because I couldn’t pronounce the “r” sound correctly, especially when I got excited and started talking fast (which people tend to do when they get excited).

There are few things worse than being told you can’t talk properly (I can’t speak for everyone but it definitely tops wearing braces, which I also have experience with). In hindsight I’m extremely glad for those many, many speech lessons; however, back then they were a tremendous source of shame and actually caused me to embrace the role of outsider. I figured that as an outsider I’d interact with fewer people and thus be put in fewer embarrassing situations. https://thechristopherwebb.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/behind-the-mask/

These are the words of a Summa Cum Laude college graduate, so it goes to show that handicaps do not reflect intelligence.  However, in his blog article he goes on to write about the mask he assumed to attempt to be something that he felt he was not due to his speech impediment.Reality and perception are venomous counterparts. They walk hand in hand. However, one thwarts the other and can change someone’s destiny if not tamed. A child’s perception about themselves cannot be automatically fixed by a quick exhortation about God’s love while cooking a meal or reminders about the child’s unaffected skills and talents. Hugs before bed, buying favorite toys and changing the subject are feeble attempts to fix a problem and only exhibit our sense of helplessness as parents.As I stated, I never knew that my son’s self image had grown sour. If I had known at the time, I’m sure I would have performed some of the aforementioned countermeasures. I do wish that I’d not brushed off his sad demeanor and uncharacteristic behavior in the hallways of the school because at the very least I would have regularly prayed for him.A decade has gone by and I have little boys in the house again. While neither is showing any physical challenges, life has already presented situations that could affect my five year old’s self-image. I noticed on the playground months ago, that he no longer runs with abandon to play with another kids no matter what age. Now he stands back and watches. He plays alone all the while glancing at the other kids out of the corners of his eyes. Usually after 15 minutes or so, he gathers the courage to begin to interact with another child if they are about his age. What happened? 

In protecting him from rejection I once said something to him that planted the wrong idea in his young mind.Previously at another playground in another town, a bus load of boisterous preteens flooded our serene playground paradise. My then extroverted four year old went up to some of the preteen boys and began conversing with them like they were his peer, all the while oblivious of their facial expressions and deaf to their whispers. However I was not deaf. As quick as a lioness, I rushed my son away while smiling at the insensitive tweens. Getting down on my knees in front of him, I explained what I thought would be good wisdom for him as he grows up. I told him that older kids sometimes don’t want to play with younger kids because of the age difference. I said that not every older kid has a younger sibling and some don’t know how to be nice and I didn’t ever want his feelings hurt. The reality of what I said, while true, didn’t filter accurately inside his four year old brain. Months later, I learned that he was afraid of older kids.Nooooo! Not my intention! His perception of my words had tainted how he saw the world around him and how he perceived himself in the face of older kids. It took over a year to undo the fruit that my ten second statement produced.
How much did this affect his self-image? I don’t exactly know, however I know that he  began to be self-aware in a non constructive way. His age became a negative thing in some environments. Moreover he began to realize that he was much taller than his peers who assumed he was seven and didn't quickly rush to play with him. He began to feel like an outsider. Although he learned how to play by himself during our playground excursions, as I watched his eyes, I could see the longing for interaction. God is good and inevitably other children would come along and my son’s world would be as he wanted it to be.Loving well includes counseling our children in an age-appropriate manner, following up with them by asking them what they think was said, praying for them, and continuing this process over and over again as we watch them develop. We can tailor their perceptions if we get into their heads and discover how they are translating the world and our words. But it takes time.The beauty of prayer is that we recognize that some dilemmas take God’s invisible working to fix. He loves our children way more than we can ever love them and we can learn to trust His goodness as a heavenly father.Without direct parental involvement, my oldest son Chris’ self-image was mended through his relationship with God. He writes about his healing process:

“So how do we escape? If we truly are created to be someone different than who we’ve presented others for so many years how do we go back? How do we bring back the man or woman behind the mask?First, we must acknowledge that we’re wearing a mask in the first place, which is easier said than done. Repentance (i.e., changing our mind and how we think) will only come if we understand what falsehood we believe and what the alternative truth is. This is why our second task is to ask God to reveal the difference between who we really are and who we’ve been pretending to be. He’s anxious and happy to do so. This is not a one and done event. It’s a process as God not only shows us who we’ve been pretending to be but also why we’ve been pretending to be them. This journey into the past can bring up painful memories but this is the path to restoration and healing. Finally, we must accept ourselves, our true selves. God has a glorious plan for each and every one of us and it is only by becoming who he created us to be that we’ll be able to accomplish the good works he designed for us.

Although by age fourteen, Chris’ speech impediment was just a memory, his way of coping with the impediment, the mask - a sign of a poor self-image, had turned into a predicament that God has now turned into a wonderful testimony.We don’t want our kids, whether they have a special need or not, to disapprove of themselves and find a mask to put on. If circumstances cause some to have to live with a life-long disability, we want their perception of themselves to be secured by God’s love and founded on God’s identification system.  As they journey through life’s maze, all must acknowledge the reality of human weakness, incapacitating or otherwise, but not allow their challenges skew or sour their self-perception. The Bible says that mankind is created in His image. The spiritual DNA that makes each individual significant is far greater than the physical house that we live in while on the Earth. Ultimately this is the truth that removes the mask and establishes self-image. God is present to tend to the hearts and minds of our children as He whispers affirmation to their personhood. 

When Interruptions are God - Navigating Through the Extraordinary Unknown

I've home schooled for 17 years and these days it really takes God to motivate me. Don't get me wrong. I really do love teaching my kids. However, work is work for all of us no matter what our chosen vocation is. My 16 year old is a junior and will take 4 co-op classes this year. I'll teach him Music, Bible, and British Literature. I'm really looking forward to the spontaneous conversations that will spring up while he learns about the global prayer movement of the past 20 years, Classical composers, chord structures, and Ivanhoe. My new 1st grader and preschooler are getting used to our new Fall routine, which at this age, balances spontaneity with structure. Sometimes you just have to put the workbook aside and play an alternative form of the card game war: each player puts two cards down instead of one and the student has to use a math operation to determine which player has the bigger answer.

Today's morning routine has been weaved into the complex quilt called: my life. This week will go down in my personal history as the most thrilling yet most difficult week ever in my 46 years. I've sought to trust God will all my heart and lean not to my own understanding. I feel like the solder who is told to arm themselves then stand down, over and over again. We all go through these divine moments of stretching that hurt so much, yet are so necessary for our own personal growth. I'm so thankful to have a God....a heavenly Daddy, that I know is so present, so pleased, so comforting and so steady.

It's His steadiness that keeps us, as we balance the daily routine with Spirit-initiated interruptions.

"Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior" (Oceans by Hillsongs United)

This lyric gives God permission to interrupt and to invade our mundane lives with the extraordinary unknown. Whether we are a stay-at-home mother, a business owner or a company employee, as Christians, God has so much more for us to do and to pursue that is outside of our usual routine.

A friend of mine was driving home from her 12 hours nursing shift when an accident happened a few cars beyond hers. It was no accident that she drove that route home. She comforted and waited with the accident victim and prayed quietly as the Spirit of God led. Last winter, my husband and older kids left the new movie theater when they saw a man laying on the icy sidewalk. After turning around and getting out of our Suburban, they invited the man to get into the car so that he would not have to walk to his destination on the icy sidewalk. One day last summer, I left a Walmart and noticed a woman putting grocery bags into her car which was parked in a handicapped space. Compelled beyond my usual comfort zone, I walked over to her and asked her if she was okay. Mind you, I'm the mother of six who is always going 70 mph to get 27 hours worth of goals accomplishes in 1 day! I ended up praying with her and to my surprised she prayed for me in turn. It was an unusual blessing as I allowed my feet to wander down God's path according to God's goal in that moment for me.

Those three items pale in comparison to the deeply divine waters that I found myself in this past week. I'm sure I'll share the details some day. This very emotionally and spiritually stretching situation, so surreal despite its Biblical basis made this unofficial first day of school startlingly calm.

I wrote a guest post last year for Grace & Faith 4 U. I ended the article with this:

In order for life to be on earth as it is in heaven, our lives must be invaded by the unexplainable, the wondrous, the unimaginable, the jaw-dropping display of God’s love that comes through His power and might....John 5:20 For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.