This Is War

   “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.”

2 Corinthians 10:4

Sometimes I forget that we are living in a war. It’s easy, even living in the midst of a city’s deepest core and most vulnerable dwelling places, to get comfortable in the ugly places. I’m thankful that, in all my years of walking with the Lord, He’s never let me get to a place where my comfort causes me to forget Him.

Last night, after getting the girl’s tucked into bed amidst a nasty thunderstorm, Kevin and I retreated to our favorite spots in the living room to steadily plod through our never-ending reading list. I was feeling a heaviness for a man we know who is coming to an end of his four year battle with cancer…leaving behind two precious little children (the same ages of some of our own) and a young, beautiful bride who will become a widow after 12 years of marriage. The heaviness settled deeper as we had also learned of a Campus Outreach staff member in DC who has gone missing with no other reason to believe that it was due to the result of the sheer evil of this world. While pondering these things, and trying to focus on researching some homeschool materials for next year amidst the cracks of thunder and flashes of lightening outside, we all-of-the-sudden heard 3 very LOUD gunshots that sounded as if they were right outside the front windows of our house. Kevin and I sprang up off the couches (while he grabbed the phone to call 911) and I ran upstairs to check on the kids. A little while later after the cops arrived and assessed the situation, we learned that there were bullet shells directly in front of our house and our neighbor’s house. It appeared as though a person was walking on the sidewalk in front of our home and fired a gun off out of either anger or foolishness.

As I peeked out the window to see all of the commotion, I watched as my husband stood side-by-side with a whole community of neighbors. Broken people. People with messy lives – all brought together by 3 gunshots. And I stood there, reminded of God’s great love and care for us. Not just His physical protection (for in losing our lives, we  really find true life) but for the Gospel colliding with neighbors, with real people all around us. We praise the Lord for these Gospel opportunities to become vulnerable with our neighbors and for the privilege to get to see glimpses into their lives and have them see into ours.

So we will keep pressing on here in these city trenches. And we plead with our real, living God, to continue to allow us the great privilege of trusting Him with our marriage, children, our lives and our faith. And we will keep fighting, because This. Is. War.

“Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.”

Psalm 73:25-26

 

 

*(We are so thankful for many others among us who fight hard. Jump over here, to join our friends and neighbors in their own war – as they fight to rescue a child from darkness. And this family(also living in our neighborhood) has courageously fought in a war against the devastating reality of drug dealing in this neighborhood. Indeed, God is at work and we give Him all the praise!)

 

Keepin’ It Real

This two year old is happy-go-lucky, cheerful, whitty and just plain fun….most of the time. There are periodic moments…..actually, frequent moments when she has a melt-down over the war with self and sin. Sometimes, she is the innocent victim of sin and cruelty from her sister-siblings, but most often, she, in her 2 year old little body, struggles with sin just like the rest of us.

My husband and I have been parenting now for almost eight years. And boy are we still learning. Alot. We will always remain eternally grateful for a little church plant (now, not so “little” anymore) that we were apart of when we lived in Columbia early on in our marriage. It was there that we were introduced to what the Bible says about parenting. We watched other godly families ahead of us in the parenting realm model the godly rearing of their little ones who sat beside them in the Church pew. We got to know these families in the rigors of the home and we tried to soak it all in with our infant first-born at our side.

Now, 9 years of marriage and 4 children ages 7 and under later, reality has slammed us in the face. Parenting is a heavy responsibility. As Jonathan Edwards puts it “Every Christian family ought to be, as it were, a little church consecrated by God’s rules.” Parenting is the real deal.  We have been handed the fragile hearts of little ones, to shepherd and lead and tenderly point to the Gospel truth. Pastor Alexander S. Campbell (from the Church we attended spoken of prior) offers the Biblical answer for the devastating statistics of prodigal children in Christian families. His words hit hard, “Household after Christian household continually breaks God’s covenant and forgets His precepts. Teenage rebellion, empty pews, the decline of morality, and the rise of paganism are only symptoms of the disease of man-worship. Unfortunately, the high priests of the man-cult of secular humanism are often the unwitting, weakling fathers and naive, doting mothers of the American Christian home. Prodigal children are often the love child of an adulterous affair between Christian parents and the Prince of this world.”

So what is the solution? What are we to do when our toddler let’s out a defiant “No!” or hits the floor in anger? What are we to say when our  5, 8 or 15 year old chooses the un-wise path and challenges a parent’s authority, or snags a toy from a siblings hand, or tells a blatent lie? Pastor Campbell does not leave us without hope:  “The answer is very simple and yet will take a life time to master; the children of the Christian home have the responsibility to honor and obey God’s Word. Yes- their role in the family is to honor and obey. The parents in a Christian home have the responsibility to enforce that honor and obedience. Their role is to lead and teach. The children have the easier task.”

Of course, there are ways that Pastor Campbell’s wise words practically play themselves out, but we must not forget that, though our children will sin, we must help them to live in honor and obedience as  the ultimate goal.

You might ask yourself, “Why is honoring and obeying so important to God?” In rebuking the reckless King Saul, Samuel remarks, ‘Rebellion is as the sin of divination (witchcraft).’ Rebellion is witch-craft? In God’s economy, there is no room for “boys will be boys” or “they will grow out of it.” To dishonor a parent is akin to demon worship. To disregard a parent’s instruction is to cast a spell.

Make no mistake about it, you are in war and the battlefield is your home.”

                                                                                                (Teaching Your Children Honor and Obedience    by  Alexander S. Campbell)  

 

 

Bell School

We recently joined our homeschool co-op on a really cool field trip to a one room school house called the Bell School.  The sweet couple that runs this donations-based school house, took us through an authentic 1900’s school day. Having lived this way themselves, they led us through the day with passion and a love for the way things “used to be.” We walked away from the day with a greater appreciation for simplicity AND the modern conveniences we now enjoy today.

The “out house”

The kids got to right with a real quill pen and ink!

This is how they washed their hands before lunch.

When we arrived, we dumped their lunches into tin pails where each child had a cup for the day to drink water with and a handkerchief napkin.

For fun, they got to play with wooden toys, hoops and stilts.

All of the kids participated in a spelling bee!

Our fun group!

 

Keepin’ It Real Series

Blogs can be deceiving. Period. I realize that a lot of what goes into this blog are the highlights of our lives. The triumphs. The things that I want to bottle up in my heart and memory forever. But there is something to be said about the messes, the mundane, the mistakes, and the shortcomings too. Maybe they speak all to painfully for themselves.  It has been amidst the mounds of laundry, the snotty noses and the tears of angry outrage that my eyes have been opened to the wells of God’s grace stored up for me and everyone else under this roof.

Welcome to the “Keepin’ It Real” photo blog series. I’ve been wanting to do this forever so here it is. I’m not a great photographer or anything, but anyone can snap shots of the not-so-glamorous right?

And most of all, it is my hope that this on-going, every-so-often series will help to paint an even more realistic picture of our lives. While we are wonderfully blessed, trekking on in gratitude, capturing life’s wonderful moments, we are still painfully imperfect, nonetheless. So here you have it, the not-so-pretty part of our lives. We hope our open book will bring hope and courage for your weariness too…

 

4 Months

Baby “Kai-Kai” (as affectionately called by his sisters) is 4 months old! We took him for his well-check the other day, and are so thankful for a good report. This little chub-o keeps getting cuter by the day. We are so. in. love. and SO thankful God decided to ruffle our feathers with a sweet, sweet BOY!

4 Month Stats:

Weight: 14.5 lbs, 31% (a good 3-4lbs bigger than all 3 of our girls at this age!)

Length: 25 inches, 45%

Head: 16.5 inches, 61%

 

A Good Cause

 

We have some friends who are in the process of adopting a child from Ethiopia and this Saturday, they are having a giant yard sale where all proceeds will go toward their adoption. Their sweet little ones will even be selling baked goods and lemonade. If you live locally, please stop by and help them bring their baby home!

 

 

Saturday, May 7th

8a-2p

2228 Kimberly Drive, Augusta

Now, folks, Let me clear about this.

This is going to be the yard sale of all yard sales.

Thanks to so many generous friends and family, we already have an entire ROOM in our house FULL of items to sell and about 3 moretruckloads to pick up!!

There will also be some delicious treats being sold by some very sweet little munchkins, and who can pass that up?

Would you stop by and help us to bring our baby home?

And, would you share this with others who also may want to be a part?

Thanks so much!!

 

Easter 2011

 

Nez Perce

We recently studied the Nez Perce Indians here at home. It was pretty fascinating to learn about this tribe and how they lived many years ago. Ashtyn was especially inspired while learning about them because “Kaya” one of her well-loved American Girl dolls, is of this same tribe. We did some lapbooking on the subject , created our own beaded “deerskin” dresses and ended the week with a Nez Perce tribal themed dinner complete with fish (sticks), nuts, seeds and fruit! I’m pretty sure our neighbors now officially think we are crazy since we all dressed up for this event and sat on the ground outside in our back yard with tribal music playing in the background….oh the things we do for our kids! (check out the look on Ellie’s face below, we told her to put on her “serious” Indian face and this is what we got…priceless.)