TESTED FAITH SHINES LIKE GOLD

I have been sick for three months now…more ill than ever before in my life, and for much longer. There’s an interesting dynamic when you attend a fellowship of believers in divine healing. Your lack of healing becomes everyone’s mission…then question, then intensified mission, then, if like me you continue to remain decidedly un-healed, a chance for some to get discouraged, some to doubt God or their own faith, some to question your faith and even wonder if you are being corrected.

Two years ago I drove my 15 passenger van home on the back roads through grass seed fields, up and over I-5 from an excursion in Lebanon on a bright sunny dry road with visibility clear to the top of Mount Jefferson. As I neared home, a green minivan was stopped at a stop sign at the intersection of Tangent Drive and Tangent Loop. When I started into the intersection, the van pulled out directly in front of me! As I had no stop sign and a clear right of way, this was a bit of a shock. After all, no one tends to miss our Baby Blue Behemoth, especially under these conditions. I braked, rammed into the side of the other vehicle, and careened into a nearby power pole. When I called home, my kids asked, “Is that why we lost power a few minutes ago?”

Our experience with the driver and his passengers were less than encouraging. The men were migrant workers who spoke not one word of English, driving their farm owner’s vehicle which was only registered for the fields, not insured for street use, we found out through the police and firemen who were dispatched to the scene . When I asked if the men had papers proving they came here legally, our answer was that our new governor and legislature had recently made it illegal to ask. “But they caused an accident! Do they even know how to drive, know the laws (know how to wait until the traffic passes)?” I contended! As long as they have driver’s licenses, we aren’t allowed to question anything else, I was told. A recent expose’ on the driver’s license scam for illegal aliens in nearby Portland made me anything but reassured.

That accidental moment two years ago sent me on a long and ponderous journey…one I have begged to be released from, which has yet been the cause of amazing growth. Because of the moment that never should have happened, I spent eleven days in the hospital with trauma-induced pancreatitis, and the next two years with what became reoccurring chronic pain that was debilitating when it would flair. I saw many doctors and specialists, underwent tests of every kind, and took way too many pain medications trying to keep up with my very busy life (and baby number 13 was born in the middle of all this).

I must say, there is nothing quite like the skepticism we endure when doctors have no answers. They want to solve our problems, and when they can’t, it becomes easier to wonder if we are being dramatic or exaggerating. Sometimes I wonder what a doctor gains from treating his patients like hypochondriacs. I fantasize about addressing these doctors: Just because my problem is a mystery does not mean my pain is any less real!

Finally, this September, in the midst of a flair-up and seeking medication when my primary care physician was out, I saw a nurse practitioner who did not examine me, but dubiously asked questions. It was clear by the end that she thought I might merely be a drug-seeker, because she grabbed me and shoved her fist into my side as I was walking out of the room. Apparently she did this just to convince herself whether or not I was really in pain. That inappropriate act set up a chain of events which eventually led to a solution, but which came with the excruciating cost of being in extreme pain for ten weeks. I went home from that appointment, pale and shaking, and dropped exhausted into bed. As we eventually found out, my gall-bladder had also been injured and scarred by the car crash, but until the skeptical nurse injured it further, we didn’t figure that out.

One essential lesson I have learned about medical arenas: Just because you "pass" the test or screening does not ever mean there is guaranteed nothing wrong. My gall-bladder has been pronounced healthy and free of stones (that last part was true) repeatedly by many tests over a period of two years. My blood work did not show an elevated white count, and every chem. test came back normal. A note to doctors… please listen to your patient more than you do to your screen, test, or lab result. You know there is an element of error in every test. In fact, most of these screenings exist to rule out the most common problems and will not diagnose, or even find, all ailments. They are based on averages, and that means that there will be problems which lie outside their scope and range. Why then do you act as if the paper in your hand is a fail-proof analysis of the problem?

Finally, my symptoms began to mirror those of classic gall-bladder problems (Abdominal pain can migrate because of a lack of nerve endings in crucial areas) and one surgeon sent me to have a Hyda-scan performed. The result? Though completely stone-free, my gall-bladder was only functioning at 3%! The day after we got the news, I was in laparascopic surgery. Now, almost three weeks later, I am still healing up. My weakened immune system has been welcoming every virus within sneezing distance. My unhappy hormones have been having a hey-day with what’s left of me. At times like these, I am glad to remember I am a soul who has a body and not the other way around.

And I want with all my heart to be able to say, “I am great!” to the faithful prayers at church, but it is true by faith and not by sight. I want healing so deeply I ache over it and dream about it, despair of it in weak moments. In these moments, my trust is in the goodness of my Lord, rather than any deep understanding of why it had to happen and why I’m still in this desperate sleepless status.

Today I told the Lord, “I surrender. Again. But please Lord, could you make it clear what I am supposed to learn through all this pain and frustration? Please point out the gain in resting while my family’s needs go unmet? Could you work me through it, and give me courage to face whatever the spiritual growth needs to be? My hope is completely in You, oh Lord!”

And sometimes that is where we stay…at hope in Him who holds our hope, resting in His love, grateful for progress though it be tortoise-paced and not so steady. God is growing me to be an intercessor like many who have blessed me…one who prays only what the Lord shows and believes by faith that what He has shown will be done. I want to be one who does not put the burden on the needy to pretend faith they may not have. Lord, make me faithful and faith-full no matter how long the trial. It is a challenge to keep on caring and keep on believing for someone else when you see no outward sign of healing. But if my faith were not tested, my Bible tells me, it would not come forth as gold.

Comments on Abortion from a Facebook Thread

Brad
ABORTION: as far as the whole abortion thing goes, anyone opposed to it should LOOK AT HISTORY. Outlawing abortion does not stop it, it means only the rich have access to doctors in other countries, where it's legal to perform, and that the poor do it with coat hangers in back alleys. I don't think anyone has the right to tell someone else WHAT TO DO WITH THEIR BODY. I don't tell anyone how to worship god, so please don't tell other people what to do with their bodies. Until the Pro-Life people set up adequate child care for EVERYONE, equal education for EVERYONE, counseling for the poor and access to healthcare for the poor, than don't force them to bring UNWANTED CHILDREN INTO THIS WORLD. If you like women dying from infections and botched abortions, make it illegal again.
Health care bill: as I've said before in other places, if the insurance companies are for the bill, it means we're going to get screwed. I don't like the bill as it stands, for that reason. We need single payer and until that happens, we are living in a second class nation.It's a blow against freedom to force people to think one way and not the other. Reinforcing the right to make up you're own mind is reinforcing freedom of thought: the right to choose.

John
Well said!! Now lets all go blow up a planned parenthood clinic in the name of god!!!


Brad
Morality is forced on others every day. I think that there's not enough personal responsibility taken in this world today, but do we really need to add tens of thousands of unwanted children sucking up social service monies every year? It's a compromise, and not one I take lightly when I stand for Pro-Choice. I find it personally distasteful that abortion is used as a birth control option, but I find tens of thousands unwanted children being brought into this world an even worse option. I'd rather not have more unwanted children in the world, we have too many already.

James
I agree, we should be allowed one day a year to kill all the worthless eaters! The homeless, the incureably insane, the career criminals... I believe that this is a choice that is best for society. Reinforcing the right to make up you're own mind is reinforcing freedom of thought: the right to choose.

John
I like James' idea. That would motivate people to be better contributors to society. But we just need to add one more group. Boy Bands!!!

James
Right on John! Include the boy bands! Oh here we go .... add the leadership of the Demorats and the Repuglicrumbs!

Olivia
Y'all are a mess!


Diana
Brad way to go on starting this discussing now if we could all go to congress and tell them how we feel and that we are the ones that put them in office and that they DO work for us maybe they would do what the people want instead of the lobbyist, and the oil company's they need to remember these words " We the people"

Jodi
Banning abortion is a-ok with me, so long as in addition to the ban, there are permanent and fully comprehensive services to deal with the increased population. Like the non-exhaustive list Brad gave before. It seems like the pro-lifers care about the babies until birth-3 months, and then don't care about the social services being cut for said babies or their mothers. And heaven forbid there is any comprehensive sex education funded that would prevent the pregnancies in the first place. I would like to see more solutions offered by the pro-lifers. Sure, get rid of abortion.. and then? What is going to be done with the extra millions of mouths to feed, the drain on an already strained system, schools maxed out, whatever? I just never see anything addressing the "after" part of banning abortion. Just a blanket prohibition, with none of the backlash of the prohibition addressed.
I appreciate the stance, but would like it to become a more practical than ideological one when people try to use it to make laws. I don't like babies being killed, but I'm realistic enough to know that stopping that presents a host of other problems no one on that side seems willing to care much about or offer ideas on.

Nicholas
you have quite a variety of friends, Brad! As far as the "birth control" argument goes, you'd have to be clinically insane to use abortion as such. It's one of the most emotionally scarring actions any woman can take. And anyways, Prohibition doesn't work. Prohibition doesn't work, and furthermore, PROHIBITION DOESN'T WORK! If you want to stop abortions, be a teacher. be a good parent, be a mentor, foster parent, good neighbor and good friend. Or get a vasectomy. It's the most effective form of birth control, and you pro-lifers don't like gray areas, do you?

How can you be pro-life if you leave a chance for an unwanted pregnancy to occur on your watch? Put your money where your balls are.
Hell, shouldn't all of us guys get one anyway? Who here thinks the human race should break the 7 billion mark? I sure hope the health care bill covers vasectomies.

Brad
Nick, I have I like to expose my brain to alternate EVERYTHING. My criteria for adding facebook friends is easy. I know you, I know someone you know, you have an interesting picture, or I just feel like adding you for the hell of it. It sure has made it interesting. I've met some really cool/different people on here, some of whom I'm diametrically opposed to politically. I like all of them, "friend or foe," because, for the most part, everyone has some valid points to make.
Yesterday at 2:37pm

Diana
thank you Brad


James
Based on the emails I have received people have missed the point I have made, so let me simplify it. I am Pro-Choice. It is a right. So is freedom of the press, the right to bear arms, and ability to drink alcohol. It is NOT the responsibility of the government to buy me a newspaper, a gun to buy me a newspaper, a gun or a drink. A right is something a citizen may personally choose to act upon, not is something they are required to do. And the government's job is to protect rights, not enforce or provide for. Read both John Adam and Thomas Jefferson.

PS: The house bill would cover vasectomies (in part)

PPS: and if you do support the ability to provide low cost abortions, write a check to Planned Parenthood. Don't use the excuse that you are a poor student. Send the check and then go to a bar. Tell people you aren't having a drink because you gave your beer money to Planned Parenthood, so you have none to drink on. You will have more drinks bought for you than you donated, and you may get a date too. Women go for men that support women's rights.


Nicholas
James, I like your thinking!

James
But not a single penny of federal money should be used to cover abortions!

Brad
Valid points, James, but I still think it's cheaper to provide abortions then it is take care of unwanted children. Cheaper monetarily, and as a cost to society. Do we really need more socially misfit kids who can grow up into criminals, that we then have to pay to keep in jail? As for vasectomies, do the stupid people get those, or the smart people who have valid reasoning skills?

Nicholas
Anyone who wants to have a future for anyone. No mandates, of course. I think breeding at this time, when 40,000 children die of malnutrition a day, when the current population is already killing the planet plenty fast enough, is completely irresponsible in every manner. Smart people with valid reasoning skills will realize it's a fool's bet to expect your progeny to do anything but consume more, and that the responsibility to change things before it's too late falls squarely on their shoulders.
It's like James said. you can't force morality on others. We can't expect our children to be the next Ghandi, WE have to BE the next Ghandi.


Brad
See, that's the fly in the ointment. We force morality on others every day. Why is the drinking age 21 in the U.S., but for most of the world, it's 18? This was done, supposedly, to stop young people from dying in car crashes. Yet, at 18, they can join the armed forces and kill other humans. I consider that xxxxed up. Instead of legislating problems and trying to control actions with laws, we COULD increase funding for pre-school through college and just MAKE SMARTER PEOPLE. That makes more sense to me, yet we don't because Americans want a magic pill to solve their problems. We want short term solutions to long term problems and we can't seem to get that IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY. Ok, not the clearest argument, but the coffee is making me spastic and I've been doing homework since 10am.

Lisa
I just love it whan people start talking about the woman's right to abort....has anyone ever asked the baby for their opinion?

Brad
No, frankly, I don't support the right of fetuses to be born into a world that doesn't want them. Life is a crapshoot, and that's just the way it is. Life IS NOT FAIR, even to the unborn FETUSES. I'm just wondering, what's more unfair. Being an unborn FETUS who doesn't get born and is never truly cognizant of life, or being born to a mother who doesn't want you, in a world that doesn't want you, that wishes you were dead?

Lisa
I'm sorry that you feel that way.. there are just coule prolebms with your arguement.... I have never heard any woman say " I'm going to have a fetus" IT IS A BABY..I know far more women willing to adopt these "unwanted" children than I know women who have had abortions.Your remaks are quiet offensive ,especially to myself(and millions of others) ... Read Morewho had addopted one of those fetus'.Being that the nervous system is the first thing formed in a newly concieved child ~thet ARE cognizanyt of pain >>>just watch a video /utrasound of an abotion....the poor baby tries to move away as his tiny limbs are sucked of his body....Maybe we should try this on adults that think it's OK.

I'm sorry that you feel that way.. there are just coule problems with your argument.... I have never heard any woman say " I'm going to have a fetus" IT IS A BABY.. I know far more women willing to adopt these "unwanted" children than I know women who have had abortions. Your remaks are quite offensive ,especially to myself (and millions of others) who had adopted one of those fetus'. Being that the nervous system is the first thing formed in a newly conceived child ~they ARE cognizant of pain >>>just watch a video /utrasound of an abortion....the poor baby tries to move away as his tiny limbs are sucked of his body....Maybe we should try this on adults that think it's OK.

Brad
Well, for one thing, we're not killing babies 3 days before they're due. The majority of abortions occur in the first trimester. (And, we do do this to adults, it's called capital punishment. And the people who suffer this usually came from families that, for the most part, didn't want them as children, abused them, and didn't have the proper upbringing and social net to save them.) Also, while not fully informed on all aspects of this issue, I am sure of one thing. We have too many children that go unadopted now. Do we really need more people on this planet when we can't take care of the ones already here? Why don't we solve the problems first, then bring more people into this world. And another thing, by cognizant, I don't mean aware of pain. Fish are aware of pain, trees are aware of pain, cows are aware of pain. Are you going to stop using wood now? Or eating fish?

Peggy
I agree Lisa. The choice comes before conception (have sex or not). I think it is always interesting to hear the abortion argument from the mans standpoint. What if all men under a certain income and education level were required to have a vasectomy, would we need to have abortions? Some of the arguments made previously sound like only low income women who can't afford babies get abortions. Why is it the women we look at here??? It does take two and by doing it this way, no babies die. What ever happened to personal responsibility???

Ilene
Just a thought....How many women do you think would opt for abortion if it included mutilation of their genitalia to the point that they could never enjoy sex again? Hmmm...just something to ponder....

Brad
Nothing I'm saying here hasn't been said by a woman already. Your point of view seems rather uninformed and non-empathetic. I grew up in a house where my mom celebrated Roe vs. Wade and she kept fighting for womens rights until she died, all while she was making less money than a man for doing the same job. Did you read all of this thread? Because, historically, the rich were never affected by illegal abortions, they just sent their children to Europe where it was legal. I already mentioned personal responsibility, also. About the vasectomy: that's funny, that's the birth control that we, America, support in third world countries. Lower caste males in India are paid $5 or given a cheap item such as a transistor radio to get a vasectomy. (We should do that here! Except, I want a new car. Hey, I'm American, I'm not cheap like some "untouchable" lower caste Indian.) And the reason we look at the woman, and not the man, is because IT'S HER BODY, not his or anyone else's. The final decision should be up to her. Not me. Not you. Her.

Lisa
Brad, again there are several untruths in what you have written. While I will agree that you have right to your opinion, I also need to make you sure that folks with your way of thinking have the facts.
#1 While many (not most )abortions are preformed 1st trimester. Some women ARE exercising their 'right' 3 days prior to birth.Its called partial birth abortion~I'm sure you hvae heard of it.
#2. Have you ever looked at the time lines to adopt a newborn baby? There are not enough babies to go around,many families wait YEARS to get a baby. That's one reason why we go to other countries.
#3 Yes we do have Capital Punishment...for people that have commited heinous crimes....PLEASE tell me what the baby has done wrong......also, an equally important idea to think about :Capital punishment is NOT painful,it is done in a sterile, controlled enviornment,new needles are used for the injection as to not spread disease (that seems like a mute point) Criminals are put to death after years of trials and chances .Abortion is done because some woman decided it was not convenient to have a baby (this is the #1 reason for abortion)
#4.Trees do not feel pain-Babies do.As far as the fish argument ,they were given to us by God for food (I'm sure that opens up a whole new arguement for you)
#5 .It is not a rich/poor issue. It is a matter of taking responsibiliy for your actions,something no one wants to do anymore.


LeahDeVyldere:
Interesting thread. I have heard it all before, but maybe not to this degree. Am I to understand that you gentlemen actually support government funding of not only abortion, but the killing of anyone considered unwanted?
Abortion is the only instance I can think of where the identity of something or someone depends on its method of destruction, or perhaps its location (in or out of the uterus). Is it a fetus because it is doomed to premature death? Scott Peterson was accused of a double murder because his son was a wanted child. If we are honest, this is ridiculous!
How many unwanted children have become amazing human beings, capable of not only changing the world for good, but contributing to those too selfish to understand the value of life? If you believe in human rights, then I don't see how you can decide which people have value in the world and which do not. Isn't this worse than war?? In the past, it was considered courageous to protect the lives of children. Now, we are reduced to "Screw anyone else's rights..what's in it for me?"
Have you studied psychology and social justice? Do you know that sociopaths such as Hitler and Jeffrey Dahlmer have the highest "self -esteem"... I guess they were valuable and wanted. Kip Kinkle also grew up very wanted and educated by upper middle class parents who were both teachers. Maybe you don't consider their actions (systematically killing others)wrong or unwise, since legislating morality is inappropriate. And I guess the desired result is achieved...less people on the planet!
Your assumptions against those born in poverty are laughable. I doubt you would walk up to your gas station attendant or waiter and tell him his life is worthless, that he should end it all. Why not? Because I hope you would respect his right to make something of himself, regardless of the fact that he currently makes minimum wage.Or maybe he wants to make minimum wage all his life. Isn't that his right??
Reducing the number of people on the planet will not make sure that the ones here will be wise...or even fed. People are not starving because of lack of humanitarian aid. They are suffering because of incredibly foolish and selfish leadership. Look at the last tsunami in Indonesia for proof. The world stood ready to end the suffering of thousands and their government prevented this.
In fact, the governments in question sound a bit like you two, negating the value of human rights, the responsibility of each human for their own sexuality, and flaunting your freedom to do so.
Ironically, I am raising children who are well-educated and value all rights, including those of the unborn. Though I have many, they are all wanted. Therefore, I guess I'm okay to not kill them. Just in case, I hope you don't mind if I don't introduce them to you.
How can anyone pretend to be for human rights if they arbitrarily deny rights to some while insuring those of others? Legislating morality is something every law does, by the way, and I don't think anyone here is advocating a world without laws. The key to laws, as I understand them, is to balance the rights of individuals.
I have heard this kind of double thinking before. When we did not want to honor the right of native Americans, we called them "savages" and took their land. It was an excuse for selfishness and potential wealth for those in power. When we wanted slaves to run rich plantations, we imported African people and "owned" them. Those who did this denied the clear proof that these were not unfeeling animals or savages. They were people. Our populace eventually admitted this and gave them the rights they deserved.
In fact this particular thinking is common everywhere in the world that genocide breaks out. There are seemingly not enough resources... someone is inhuman and undesirable so they do not deserve to live. To Hitler, it was the Jews who were less than human and in the way of the greater good. Your arguments are not new. So if we call some babies "fetuses" we can kill them without conscience??
So the question is whether we are or are not endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness... If, as I suspect, you have trouble with this statement, it is perhaps the part about the Creator? You have no reason to fight for the rights of anyone but those you deem worthy. Congratulations, but these beliefs may put you on a slippery slope!

Reading time with Ezra

Read Aloud Blues

Once upon a time, a mother sat down to read a book to her four month old baby. Twenty years later, she still reads the same book to another four month old. No, not her grandchild. Her own. And in between those two times wer an infinite number of other times just like them, stretching all the way between like an intricate web of words and learning.
Quiz: What’s the single most important factor in a child’s reading ability and therefore, his success in school? Yup! You guessed it. Parents who read aloud to their kids give them a huge head start on all language and reading skills which are often never surpassed by any other learning exercise. As the mother of thirteen who just today celebrated 20 years of parenting with the birthday of my eldest child, I had an epiphany:
Reading aloud to my children has irrevocably damaged my brain.
Sure, I began reading when they were babies and all of my children were early talkers and readers. But this scary thought occurred to me tonight as I was blithely rhyming my way through Apple Pigs which I couldn’t really see due to the three children on my lap and one leaning over the side of the rocker. Ezra kept pointing out his favorite parts of the book over and over again so it sounded like “Once in our garden there stood an old tree (quiwo! quiwo!- which is squirrel in two year old in case you were wondering.) No blossoms, no leaves, no fruit for me,” (birdie! birdie!). As I pressed on, my thought was, “He’ll get through this stage. I remember Jerusha was a big one for doing that when she was a little over a year. Every day we would read the little book about the Bible, and she would point out the kitty on every page. I used to wonder if she would think the Bible was about kitties.”
And then it hit me. Though that time seems like yesterday, Jerusha is currently seventeen years old!
I have been reading the very same books repeatedly many times a day for 20 years! Now I know what you’re thinking. This isn’t a big deal. But let me remind you that these books are not literary classics. I’m not reading Ben Hur(although I have gone through the Little House Series three times now with each successive age group) or books that can be reasonably plumbed to their ultimate depths in 20 years of re-reading. I’m reading Dr. Seuss and board books with entrancing titles like “Apple, Ducks, Block” Incidentally, that particular book is a true classic in its own right because it has managed to make it through thirteen babies and still be readable, or at least gummable.. It meets the criteria for excellent board book in my mind because it has clear pictures of every day objects in a child’s world, one simple word on each page, and it made it through the one-year-old Elijah demolition cyclone intact.
Seriously, folks. Its not a wonder that my children start college at 15 and 16. The wonder is that their mother is still a relatively sane human being who can carry on a fairly decent conversation. Give me another year and I’ll crack. This is how it’ll sound...

Neighbor getting mail: “Good morning, Leah!”
Me (bemused) “... Get up! It’s day! The sun is up! Day is not a time for sleep. Now all the dogs get up! Go dogs go!”
Neighbor backing away, “Go?? Okay! See you tomorrow!”
Me (still muttering on the way into the house) ...”If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk...and if you give him the milk....”

At the store...
Me :“A a A a What begins with A?”
Produce guy: “Asparagus? Apples?”
Me: “Aunt Annie’s Alligator, A a A”
Cashier: “That’ll be $167.42”
Me: “Many mumbling mice are making midnight music in the moonlight mighty nice.”
Cashier:” Debit... Please enter your PIN Number...”
Me: “Silly Sammy Slick sipped six sodas and got sick, sick, sick!”
Kids: “Mom, what are we having for dinner??”
Me: “Jam on bread. We like that. When its sticky and it lingers, we can lick it off our fingers.”

The rhyming is catchy. That’s what makes it maddeningly easy to learn. Ask anyone who pens jingles for a living why they write the way they do and the answer will have nothing to do with creative license and innovation. It has everything to do with stickiness, or the way the concept sticks with you. Have you ever said, “I just can’t get that stupid song out of my head?” THAT is why we have Dr. Seuss! Of course, little children LOVE repetition more than they love peanut butter sandwiches. It helps them learn. And, God help me, I am a sucker for a learning child. It just never gets old. I love to see their responses, see them thinking and developing language. I may have read “Apple Ducks Block” a conservative 140,000 times in my life, but to Keturah, it’s brand new. And so for me, its also brand new every time I share it with her.
I have a feeling that as my strength and agility give way to old age, the only thoughts left in my poor confused brain will be these bits of my “Mommy Mantra.” After all, its not my amazing sparks of insight that take up most of my days, not my wisdom gleaned over 30 years of teaching children, not even the Bible verses I memorized which have made the deepest grooves in my grey matter..It’s little snatches of literary fluff that have formed shocking crevasses in my cerebellum from the sheer repetition of them. No brainwashed POW has anything on me. After all, I did it voluntarily. I made my mouth form the words “Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake Baker’s Man” and “Jack and Jill Went Up the Hill” more often than any other phrases over a two decade span, and this includes the ever maternally popular “Did you make your bed?” and “Don’t put the cat in the toilet!” I’ve spoken the tongue-twisting rhymes or ploddingly mundane labels over and over , more often than anything besides diaper changing, and you don’t want to know what THAT”S done to my psyche.
I’ve stated these phrases in my sleep, especially the restless sleep with a new baby and a sick toddler. I’ve even found interesting deep parapsychology in them at times that seems to fade with morning light. I’ve repeatedly the seemingly innocuous words until they had a life of their own, a sort of family culture that binds my children to each other through the shared experience base. We all replayed the Amelia Bedelia predicament with misunderstanding words of double entendre’. We’ve laughed at the Stupids, thrilled at the independence of the Boxcar Children and solved mysteries with Encyclopedia Brown.
“Once upon a time,” begins the most magical time I know, parental brain damage notwithstanding.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
THE END

Chatterbox Leah Faith (with Keturah)

No Child Left Behind

"Mom," six year-old Faith asked from the backseat, "if you could have only one wish, what would it be??"
As I pondered the question, the answer caused tears to emerge, so much so that suddenly the road ahead looked very blurry. I wondered if I should pull over.
"Honey, if I could have only one wish from God, it would be that each one of my children walk with God and fulfill the destiny God has for them."
I asked her what her wish would be, and she chattered on (as she usually does) about not really meaning that kind of wish. But my mind was still considering the thought....
I've known many Christian families over the years, some large, some small. But almost every one had a child or two who threw off the wisdom of their family of origin and walked away from God, many of them forever. There were families Tony and I admired and wanted our family to be like when we were getting married. Their children were well-mannered and obedient, seemed to be choosing the Lord, but now I look at the adults those children have become and I'm shocked to see the choices they have made. Some families we admired are a complete wasteland. Some have a few of the children who made it into adulthood with a desire for God and a few who are outright rebels or worse, indifferent. Very, very few have 100 percent success when success is viewed as fulfilling their personal God-given calling.
I'm glad God is not the God of only one wish granted. And yet I wonder at the audacity of my faith. Sometimes it seems I have sacrificed everything the world wants for this one goal. But will it be reached? There are no guarantees when we are talking about the free will of another human being. And what about 13 human beings?? It seems like the odds are against that kind of success rate. If my friends did not succeed with their three, I ask, what makes me think I will with all of mine? This is especially concerning as mine cannot hope to get the kind of one-on-one attention some of my friends provide their children.
But I am reminded that nothing is impossible with God. The same God who gives life can also sustain it and cause it to prosper. “Unless the Lord builds a house,” scripture reminds me, “its workers labor in vain.”
Just as He miraculously provides each day for their food and clothing, God has been so faithful to provide just what each child needs at each time. I am utterly dependent on God and His miracles with my life, and I am committed to helping each child experience God right now, grow with Him, and see themselves as ministers of His truth. I am not dependent on my child -raising techniques, my discipline plan, my chore chart, or any other means of managing my brood. When you have 13 children, you are reminded each day that you absolutely cannot meet all the needs. But that’s where the fun comes in, watching God do it! He provides wisdom, money, health, strength, helpers, security, and every other item we need, material, emotional and spiritual. We never lack when we ask Him. The Lord is our everything, and He is more than enough!
I have many friends whose goal is to be the best parent ever. This kind of thinking puts the focus on the parent. Popular wisdom says the best parents never miss a game their child plays, feed them each meal from the food pyramid, help with homework, limit TV, make sure they brush their teeth three times a day for 3 minutes each time, and on and on. There are so many expectations that a parent could do 90% and still suffer perpetual guilt. And, of course, the expectations change with the environment. I am expected to always keep my child perfectly safe, for instance, but popular wisdom says to always give him or her a choice in every situation. What should we do when those two values contradict each other??
Parenting, after all, is not about the parent. It is about the child. And when we lay down our ideas of what is best and ask God to show us our child’s true needs, we might be surprised how simple parenting becomes.
Walking with God has freed me from confusion. He is the focus of my life. He only directs my paths. His ways are perfect.
If there is one valuable lesson I have learned the hard way in twenty years of parenting, it is that my children become who I am, not what I say. To put it another way, if I had known when I was starting out that my children were watching me and reading every personal thought, I would have paid a lot more attention to my heart and a lot less to the ways I was protecting them and things I was telling them to do.
Think about that. Your child becomes who you are.
I’ve thought about this a lot, and the answer to my heart’s desire astounds me. There are no guarantees in the Kingdom of God. But I have not sacrificed my life and desires to my children. To do that would bring resentment if my hopes for them were unrealized or my love unrequited. No, I have sacrificed my life only to Jesus and He has truly given it back to me as a happy and abundant life, full of hope and peace and promise for the future. Though I long with all my might that each one under my care reaches full potential in Him in this quest, I also realize that it’s really not up to me. I will fix my eyes on Jesus and love Him with all of my being, and He assures me He will make sure no child is left behind.

Keturah Rose