As a mother of 5, there is hardly a day that goes by without at least one of my children adding a new word or phrase to his or her vocabulary. Sometimes these words are good words - words like "apple" or "puppy". Sometimes they're not such good words - words like "poop" or "idiot". Levi, who is about to turn 4, happens to be learning the most distressing words and phrases. Some of these are undeniably ones that he's heard me utter. Other ones I honestly have no idea from whence they came. I often hear him mutter words like "poop" at the dinner table and say, "We don't say those words at the dinner table." He replies, "So can I say 'poop' in the living room after supper?" The truth is, I'd rather he didn't say those words either place, but if he has to say them one place or the other, the living room is preferable. I guess I could just tell him that those are bathroom words - if anything. A few months back, he liked to say things like "stupid" and "idiot". We told him that it hurts God's heart when we say those words. He whispered, "Well, God can't hear them if we're in our room and we whisper them like this." I guess that explained all the time he'd been spending in his room by himself... quietly. This was also during the phase when I found in him the bathroom talking to himself in the mirror. He looked confidently at his reflection and said, "I'm a BIG boy! I don't say, 'stupid'. I don't say, 'shut up', and I never point at people... like this," (as he pointed directly at me). Somehow toddler hypocrisy is funnier than adult hypocrisy.
(Levi - being Levi)
This past week, Levi has discovered a new phrase - one I am positive he didn't learn from me. "Snot fair" has been a regular lately. It applies nicely to virtually any toddler situation - from when he doesn't get to watch a favorite movie, to when he gets put into the timeout chair for hitting his sister, to when he doesn't get enough jelly on his PB&J. Today we ate dinner at Fiesta Cancun. The waiter only put in an order for one cheeseburger plate when we had ordered two. The waiter gave the plate to Violet, and Levi ended up sharing Violet's for a while until they brought Levi his. "Snot fair" made it into that conversation too. The vocabulary geek in me is happy that he uses this phrase in context, while the mother in me is annoyed at the sound of, what we refer to in our household as "sass".
Now I said before that I know he didn't get "snot fair" from me, but that's only because I don't say that things aren't fair. That being said, it's not because I don't think sometimes that certain things aren't fair. In fact, I see a lot of things that make me want to say, "snot fair". This thinking sometimes originates from seeing something that is hurtful to a person I love. As I've said before, I am generally in favor of vigilante justice, and I have been the deliverer of such on more than one occasion - mostly in my younger years. I have a tendency to want to right perceived wrongs and straighten out contradictions. No doubt it is prideful of me to think that I have the right answers to the problems I perceive.
Contentedness and vulnerability are themes that have been running simultaneously through my life lately. Our family has been experiencing a lot of changes, and a lot of those changes require more work from me. In the midst of a busy life, I can find myself being discontented with everything from my marriage, to my family, to my job, to my possessions, to whatever else I don't have - or the things I do have and don't like - or the things I do have and wish I didn't have... My husband has been going through a lot of spiritual and emotional awakenings that I've been hoping and praying about for him for so long that I wasn't even sure it was any use to pray for them anymore. These changes are coming fast and furious. He's becoming a different - even more amazing - man. So that's good, right? GREAT even, but even in the midst of that, I find myself desirous of different timing or process. We are finding an openness and vulnerability that is more intense than I even knew was possible with another human being. However, I find myself hesitant to embrace it, because it seems there is no such thing as complete vulnerability with another person without some level of pain attached to it.
Tonight we were reading Dr. Seuss's Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories before bed. There is a story in the book called, Gertrude McFuzz. Now Gertrude McFuzz is a bird who has one plain tail feather on her rear end. However, Gertrude "knows of" this other "fancy young girl-bird named Lolla-Lee-Lou" who has two, nice, colorful tail feathers. This makes Gertrude so discontented that she must have two feathers also. She goes to see her "uncle doctor" who sends her to a "pillberry vine" that helps her to grow new tail feathers. With each (awful tasting) pill she pecks off the vine, she grows a new tail feather. Gertrude starts off by making her tail feather exactly like Lolla-Lee-Lou's, but then decides that she should make hers more striking still. So she pecks off pills, tail feathers shooting out everywhere "gleaming like diamonds and gumdrops and gold" until she has a huge, fancy tail made of dozens of feathers that she hopes will make Lolla "scream" and "fall right down dead". The caveat is that Gertrude McFuzz's new fabulous tail is so heavy that she can't fly over to show anyone. Not only can't she fly, but she can't run or even walk. So she has to get carried by several friends back to her home where she has to have the feathers painfully plucked until she's left with just that one she had to start.
I guess the bottom line with contentedness is that - when I don't have it, I'm not trusting God that what He is giving me at this point in my life is what I need mostly because it's not what I want. Often in my parenting I give my children what they need although it's most certainly not what they want. I am more likely to give myself, however, the things that I want instead of those things that I need. What I am giving my children is genuine love - love that looks out for their best interest and their long-term happiness. What I give myself, in contrast, is short-term happiness and followed by long-term misery. I have to trust God that He is like parent-me, not self-absorbed me - or better yet, not like me at all. He gives me what I need, even if it's not what I want. His desire is my holiness not merely my happiness. My happiness achieves nothing in me. Holiness, however, achieves all sorts of things - from perseverance and endurance, to patience, to peace, to trust and faith, to compassion for others, to everlasting life.
I receive daily e-mail readings from www.ransomedheart.com . Yesterday, the reading was about being content. The author said that women need to have satisfying relationships with others - specifically other women. However, the author was quick to point out that, in our fallen state, we feel this need for others to fulfill us - to fill us up - to make us whole. We desire others to "come through" for us. If they don't we often try to force them to do this. Other people were never meant to meet this need for us, and they can't and won't. This leaves us, in the end, alone, broken, and more desperate than ever for fulfillment. The only way we can have healthy, vulnerable, contented relationships with others is by getting our fulfillment from our Maker. He made us, knows who we are, gave us our identity in the first place, and He's the only one capable of filling our emptiness and making it abundance. When we live a life overflowing and fulfilled, we are able to give to others from our bounty instead of trying to give them water from an "empty well".
God has given women some things what would seem to invoke the phrase, "snot fair". We are generally physically weaker than men. We are more physically vulnerable. We have menstrual cycles, menopause, and child bearing to endure. However, we have been given a unique ability to give life to other human beings. Our bodies are built for bearing and imparting life. Our tendency from the youngest age to the way we carry our books in high school show that we were made for this purpose. However, we often think our ability to give life stops at they physical. God didn't stop there... everything special about me from my appearance, to my words, to my touch has the ability to impart life. Too often, I don't use that gift. In fact, the ugliest portraits of women are the ones who suck the life out of those around them... from Medusa, who turns mortals to stone with a glance, to Delilah, who uses her beauty to take away a man's strength and his very life. We don't often see the strength in our softness. The ability we have to give life to those around us - no matter whether we will ever physically become a mother - is God given. Our temptation, however, is to do the opposite - to say words that cut like a knife... to disrespect, to maim, to embitter - or to ignore. In so doing, we unwittingly abandon the possibility of receiving that which we most desire - vulnerability - the opportunity to be fully known and to fully know. We cause our loved ones to build up defenses against us and for good reason.
In front of the mirror last night, it occurred to me that, in the garden of Eden, the serpent convinced Eve she did not have. She didn't have God's benevolence (And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”). She didn't have God's honesty. She didn't have God's best. She considered it, believed it, and changed history with one decision. The irony is that she had all of those things... and more than she could have ever imagined until after she had already lost it. God had never created another being in His own image. She had the privilege of being the most beautiful of all creation. She had effortless comfort and lavish, loving relationships with her husband and her Creator. She had equality with Adam. She had everything we modern women strive after. As I searched the mirror, I longed for something I felt I had lost. I was Gertrude McFuzz, and my spirit was shouting, "Snot FAIR!" But a Still Small Voice graciously reminded me, "You already have it."
Whatever you're longing for today, you already have it. Ephesians 2:4-7 says, " 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus." 2 Peter 1:3b-4a says, " as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature..." In case you missed that, if you are in Christ, you have EVERYTHING you need for life and godliness. Don't let yourself be convinced of nonexistent lack that leads to an all-consuming covetousness. In this life, you may obtain things that are not God's best for you, but you will never be without those things He has decided are best for you.
(Levi - being Levi)
This past week, Levi has discovered a new phrase - one I am positive he didn't learn from me. "Snot fair" has been a regular lately. It applies nicely to virtually any toddler situation - from when he doesn't get to watch a favorite movie, to when he gets put into the timeout chair for hitting his sister, to when he doesn't get enough jelly on his PB&J. Today we ate dinner at Fiesta Cancun. The waiter only put in an order for one cheeseburger plate when we had ordered two. The waiter gave the plate to Violet, and Levi ended up sharing Violet's for a while until they brought Levi his. "Snot fair" made it into that conversation too. The vocabulary geek in me is happy that he uses this phrase in context, while the mother in me is annoyed at the sound of, what we refer to in our household as "sass".
Now I said before that I know he didn't get "snot fair" from me, but that's only because I don't say that things aren't fair. That being said, it's not because I don't think sometimes that certain things aren't fair. In fact, I see a lot of things that make me want to say, "snot fair". This thinking sometimes originates from seeing something that is hurtful to a person I love. As I've said before, I am generally in favor of vigilante justice, and I have been the deliverer of such on more than one occasion - mostly in my younger years. I have a tendency to want to right perceived wrongs and straighten out contradictions. No doubt it is prideful of me to think that I have the right answers to the problems I perceive.
Contentedness and vulnerability are themes that have been running simultaneously through my life lately. Our family has been experiencing a lot of changes, and a lot of those changes require more work from me. In the midst of a busy life, I can find myself being discontented with everything from my marriage, to my family, to my job, to my possessions, to whatever else I don't have - or the things I do have and don't like - or the things I do have and wish I didn't have... My husband has been going through a lot of spiritual and emotional awakenings that I've been hoping and praying about for him for so long that I wasn't even sure it was any use to pray for them anymore. These changes are coming fast and furious. He's becoming a different - even more amazing - man. So that's good, right? GREAT even, but even in the midst of that, I find myself desirous of different timing or process. We are finding an openness and vulnerability that is more intense than I even knew was possible with another human being. However, I find myself hesitant to embrace it, because it seems there is no such thing as complete vulnerability with another person without some level of pain attached to it.
Tonight we were reading Dr. Seuss's Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories before bed. There is a story in the book called, Gertrude McFuzz. Now Gertrude McFuzz is a bird who has one plain tail feather on her rear end. However, Gertrude "knows of" this other "fancy young girl-bird named Lolla-Lee-Lou" who has two, nice, colorful tail feathers. This makes Gertrude so discontented that she must have two feathers also. She goes to see her "uncle doctor" who sends her to a "pillberry vine" that helps her to grow new tail feathers. With each (awful tasting) pill she pecks off the vine, she grows a new tail feather. Gertrude starts off by making her tail feather exactly like Lolla-Lee-Lou's, but then decides that she should make hers more striking still. So she pecks off pills, tail feathers shooting out everywhere "gleaming like diamonds and gumdrops and gold" until she has a huge, fancy tail made of dozens of feathers that she hopes will make Lolla "scream" and "fall right down dead". The caveat is that Gertrude McFuzz's new fabulous tail is so heavy that she can't fly over to show anyone. Not only can't she fly, but she can't run or even walk. So she has to get carried by several friends back to her home where she has to have the feathers painfully plucked until she's left with just that one she had to start.
I guess the bottom line with contentedness is that - when I don't have it, I'm not trusting God that what He is giving me at this point in my life is what I need mostly because it's not what I want. Often in my parenting I give my children what they need although it's most certainly not what they want. I am more likely to give myself, however, the things that I want instead of those things that I need. What I am giving my children is genuine love - love that looks out for their best interest and their long-term happiness. What I give myself, in contrast, is short-term happiness and followed by long-term misery. I have to trust God that He is like parent-me, not self-absorbed me - or better yet, not like me at all. He gives me what I need, even if it's not what I want. His desire is my holiness not merely my happiness. My happiness achieves nothing in me. Holiness, however, achieves all sorts of things - from perseverance and endurance, to patience, to peace, to trust and faith, to compassion for others, to everlasting life.
I receive daily e-mail readings from www.ransomedheart.com . Yesterday, the reading was about being content. The author said that women need to have satisfying relationships with others - specifically other women. However, the author was quick to point out that, in our fallen state, we feel this need for others to fulfill us - to fill us up - to make us whole. We desire others to "come through" for us. If they don't we often try to force them to do this. Other people were never meant to meet this need for us, and they can't and won't. This leaves us, in the end, alone, broken, and more desperate than ever for fulfillment. The only way we can have healthy, vulnerable, contented relationships with others is by getting our fulfillment from our Maker. He made us, knows who we are, gave us our identity in the first place, and He's the only one capable of filling our emptiness and making it abundance. When we live a life overflowing and fulfilled, we are able to give to others from our bounty instead of trying to give them water from an "empty well".
God has given women some things what would seem to invoke the phrase, "snot fair". We are generally physically weaker than men. We are more physically vulnerable. We have menstrual cycles, menopause, and child bearing to endure. However, we have been given a unique ability to give life to other human beings. Our bodies are built for bearing and imparting life. Our tendency from the youngest age to the way we carry our books in high school show that we were made for this purpose. However, we often think our ability to give life stops at they physical. God didn't stop there... everything special about me from my appearance, to my words, to my touch has the ability to impart life. Too often, I don't use that gift. In fact, the ugliest portraits of women are the ones who suck the life out of those around them... from Medusa, who turns mortals to stone with a glance, to Delilah, who uses her beauty to take away a man's strength and his very life. We don't often see the strength in our softness. The ability we have to give life to those around us - no matter whether we will ever physically become a mother - is God given. Our temptation, however, is to do the opposite - to say words that cut like a knife... to disrespect, to maim, to embitter - or to ignore. In so doing, we unwittingly abandon the possibility of receiving that which we most desire - vulnerability - the opportunity to be fully known and to fully know. We cause our loved ones to build up defenses against us and for good reason.
In front of the mirror last night, it occurred to me that, in the garden of Eden, the serpent convinced Eve she did not have. She didn't have God's benevolence (And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”). She didn't have God's honesty. She didn't have God's best. She considered it, believed it, and changed history with one decision. The irony is that she had all of those things... and more than she could have ever imagined until after she had already lost it. God had never created another being in His own image. She had the privilege of being the most beautiful of all creation. She had effortless comfort and lavish, loving relationships with her husband and her Creator. She had equality with Adam. She had everything we modern women strive after. As I searched the mirror, I longed for something I felt I had lost. I was Gertrude McFuzz, and my spirit was shouting, "Snot FAIR!" But a Still Small Voice graciously reminded me, "You already have it."
Whatever you're longing for today, you already have it. Ephesians 2:4-7 says, " 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus." 2 Peter 1:3b-4a says, " as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature..." In case you missed that, if you are in Christ, you have EVERYTHING you need for life and godliness. Don't let yourself be convinced of nonexistent lack that leads to an all-consuming covetousness. In this life, you may obtain things that are not God's best for you, but you will never be without those things He has decided are best for you.
