The Monster Tree

Matt's Aunt and Uncle own Shenandoah Tree Farm. It is practically a sin in his family to own an artificial tree, but in the past we have been given artificial trees and it seemed an "unnecessary" expense to buy a "disposable" tree. Then we had the "cat" incident last year that forced us into the "real" tree phase of life. A phase we may not be able to recover from until the boys are old enough to be OK with a fake tree again.

So on Saturday we went out to Uncle Terry and Aunt Iva's to pick out a tree. On the way there Matt and I were discussing what kind of tree to get. Should we get long needle, short needle, pre-cut, well, the list could go on and on. Neither of us had really strong opinions, but our minor opinions were not on the same page so we left it up to the boys. First mistake. :) After inspecting the pre-cut trees, and I mean Josiah really inspected them. The boys decided we needed to ride the train out to the field to check out the trees there. Within 2 minutes of getting off the train Josiah had spotted the monster tree. Micah thought it perfect and the "chainsaw boy" was called to fell Pineasaurous.

It really isn't an ugly tree, but it is tall and fat. If we had a three story, 4000 sq. ft. house it would be perfect. As it is, our little living room ceiling is going to have sap on it, of that I'm sure. When you walk in our front door the first, yea, the only thing you see is THE TREE!!!! The boys are more than thrilled. The needles are long and loose and I'll be picking them out of the carpet for months to come. But alas, as a Mommy I have to say no to so many things, I'm trying to say yes when I can. I quickly died to the idea of the big bushy behemoth and it's "hair loss" and enjoyed our boy's delight. We even let them decorate it. The bottom half of "Treezilla" was over decorated, due to the fact that the boys could only reach about half-way up it.(Micah put 7 ornaments on one branch.) I confess, on Monday while the boys were doing some school work I did sneak out and rearranged a few ornaments. I even added some ribbon to finish her off. They never noticed the changes. And while the tree is far from beautiful, it is better.

And so that is the story of our Christmas Tree. I suppose if we had gotten the beautiful 6ft., short needled, skinny one we wouldn't have all these fun memories.

Awesome Responsibility.

It's easy to forget what an awesome responsibility it is to be a parent. I can get so caught up in healthy meals, clean bodies, and strong minds that I forget I'm shaping an individual with an eternal soul. How they think, what they think, how they relate to others and God largely depends on what I teach them and how I live.

This morning I was working with Micah on a Thanksgiving project. We have been studying parts of speech so I thought we would make a diary of thankfulness. We talked about a noun being a person, place, thing or idea. I asked Micah to name something or someone in each category for which he was grateful. In the "person" category Micah said he was thankful for God and Mommy. I asked him to list a few adjectives that describe God. He gave me a list of descriptors for God. I then asked him to list some adjectives that describe Mommy he said, "Well, maybe the same things."

Wow, the responsibility of being God's representative to my children hit me again in a very real way. Having a casual attitude toward parenting seems terribly irresponsible in light of the reality that is going on in the hearts and minds of my boys. It isn't only parents who are God's representatives on earth though, each of us who claim His name are charged with the responsibility of representing Him well. Having a casual attitude about our behaviors and attitudes seems equally irresponsible in light of the reality that we are the only Jesus some people will ever see.

Crying Dragons

We were listening to "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" AGAIN last night(this is in the top 10 of favorite stories to listen to at our house). When we got to the following part, I almost cried(I always do). It rings so true to my own experience of God changing me from a beast into a "real girl". The process of learning to be honest with myself and seeing things in my life that were "beastly" was painful. But my Father loved me too much to leave me in my beastly state and though the process was painful He has made me new. And He is continuing to tear away layers and show me myself as I am willing and able to see reality. He continues to conform me into His image or dress me more beautifully every day. I'm so very thankful for that.
"Then the lion said, 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. ...Then he caught hold of me and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything, but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain was gone. After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me in new clothes." Eustace on his experience of being changed from beast to boy by the great lion Aslan in c.s. Lewis' "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader".

The Road to Becoming

An update seems in order. This summer was good and busy. I did a lot of mowing, the boys did a lot of growing, and Matt did a lot of working. Mode Camp was a highlight for us this summer,as usual. The boys would just as soon trade in the 4 bedrooms and 2 baths for the 10 X 10 cabin and outhouses. Cousin Savannah joined us this year for camp and it was such a joy to have her. She's such a ray of sunshine. Matt and I worked with the youth again this year. What an amazing group of young people they all are. Josiah broke his collar bone on the last Friday of camp. He was so brave. He's doing fine now.

Now summer is gone, and it seems to have taken the sun with it. The rain is falling and the wind is blowing. The trees are more bare everyday. With each season comes it's own joy though, so I'll try hard not to dread winter. :) We started school again on Labor Day....seems twisted, but one must labor even on Labor Day. Micah started school officially this year. It's interesting home educating a second child. How do you answer the "what grade are you in" question? He's been "sitting in" with Josiah for two years. His work spans about 3 grades, tough to "place" him. He loves school though and is eager to learn. Siah is doing well with his studies too. He started Karate this year as well, he REALLY loves that. He also has a new violin teacher, as our dear Mrs. Mellado is in the process of retiring. Miss. Guan is a very thorough teacher. We have grown to love her as well.

I am also in the process of learning. I know this is a life time pursuit, or at least it should be. My mind has been turning over the process of "becoming". New forces enter my life as I age and circumstances change. These forces act as a mirror to my soul. I find myself questioning and analyzing my heart. Holding it up to the light of Christ. Overwhelmed at times, as the force of my flesh is so powerful. I am not hopeless though. I recognize that it is my Father's great heart and great love for me, that compels Him to ask more of me than what just comes natural. He shows me reality. Ugly as that is at times. It tells me that He has no intention of leaving me as I am, broken and helpless. He calls me to surrender daily to trust and overcome, to become.

It's so tempting to want to just be, without the discipline of becoming. My flesh kicks against the hard work of self control and self sacrifice. The obvious is that I'm not "making" myself. I know I will never "discipline" myself into His image. However, I also know He calls me to do my part, to partner with Him in my metamorphosis.

And so I am feeding my mind on verses like Ephesians 4:13-16 ...13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ. 14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. And Philippians 3:8-16 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12 ¶ Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; 16 however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.

That's a lot for me to think on, so I'll leave you with that.

An Open Letter to My Blog

Dear Blog;

I miss you. I'm too busy, too lazy, and too Facebooked to pay attention to you, but really I do miss you. I miss the real conversation, the real thinking, and the real sharing that you offer. I won't make promises or plans, I'll just say that I'm feeling motivated. The "fastfood" of FB is leaving me hungry for the "meat and potatoes" of blogging. My appetite is wetted, we'll see what pans out.


Best Regards,

Julia

Happy Independence Day!!

On July 3rd Keith and Rachel hosted an Independence Day party for our church family at Fink's house. Rachel cooked a delicious meal and Keith kept the fireworks coming. A great time was had by all.

A Newsy Summer Update

Summer! I love it. It's always a busy time for us, but mostly a good kind of busy. This week has been a little less busy thanks to the Ferguson girls. They have been very kind to come down and play with the boys while I mow. The boys love being with the girls and I can get more done more quickly knowing the boys are well supervised. Thanks girls!

Camp is quickly approaching. Matt and I are helping out with the Youth this year. We are working on lessons right now and I still need to revise the script for the play. It should come together pretty quickly though. We are so looking forward to leading the youth. They are such a great group of young people and we always enjoy "hanging out" with them.

Josiah and Micah are growing like weeks. They both spend MANY hours a week in our pool. Turning into very blond fishes basically. :) Josiah started Karate this spring and is loving it. He also has made the transition to a new violin teacher. It was a tough transition at first for he really loved his old teacher who retired. But, he is learning to love his new teacher too. His old teacher taught the Suzuki method and this new teacher teaches traditionally. I'm thankful for the Suzuki beginning though. Ms. Guan(his new teacher) comments on his "good ear for pitch". I know this is not a "natural" thing of Siah. As a toddler his singing was often monotone. However, the Suzuki training really helped with that. However, I do think the time was right for him to move on to more focused site reading. And he is adapting well. Although he misses "playing songs" as he is mainly working in a site reading book. The songs will come soon enough though.

Micah is still Micah and we love him for it. We call him our drama king. For a while he was getting up in the night a couple times a week. There was always some lame excuse. Finally, we put our "foot down" so to speak. We explained to him that he was to stay in bed unless he had to go potty or had an emergency. This is not only for our own sleeping comfort, but also for his safety(children roaming the house while parents are asleep? Not a good idea). He is sleeping better and so are we as a result. The other night though, actually about 4am we heard a knock on our bedroom door. Micah walks in and says, "I'm sorry for disturbing you, and I don't know if this is really important, but, (and here he starts to sound weepy) I keep trying to get my CD player to turn on and I try and I try and it just won't work and it's getting annoying!" Daddy led him back to bed explaining that this was, in fact, NOT important at 4am and it certainly wasn't an emergency.

Well, it's been awhile since I've done newsy update so here it is. I hope you are well and enjoying your summer.

It's Worth It!

Learning to work hard and lovin' it!

Well, so much for my lofty plans of once-a-week blogging. I’ve blogged in my head, does that count? Perhaps I'll try for once-a-month blogging. Grass keeps growing and life keeps coming at us at an alarming pace. We spent last weekend working at our church camp grounds. It’s hot grueling work and every year I think most adults look at each other and think, “What are we doing spending a perfectly beautiful weekend breaking our backs?” And so after a couple days of hard work it was with aching muscles and calloused hands that we got into our air conditioned van to come home.

The boys saw the weekend through totally different eyes. They think of our work weekends at Mode Camp as nothing short of a real holiday. We actually have them join in on some of the work, but that doesn’t for a moment inhibit their absolute joy any time we drive onto the grounds. I asked the boys what it is they love so much about Mode Camp and Josiah’s response surprised me. He said, “I love the freedom best.” I asked him what he meant and he explained, “I just love getting to walk around in such a big place on my own.” In all honesty his response perplexed me at first. Is it healthy at such a young age to desire freedom? Or are we smothering our children? I spoke with Matt about my concerns and he quickly informed me

that he well remembers the exhilaration as a child of walking around camp “on his own”. The more we talked and I thought, I realized that I really appreciate Josiah’s response.

Matt and I are not the kind of parents that leave our young children “on their own”. We would never dream of dropping them off for library time, homeschool group activities or music lessons. We think it is very important at their ages to closely guard influences and monitor their behavior. Our church doesn’t hold to the philosophy of segregated worship or learning. During the Sunday School hour there is a children’s class, but our young people join in with the adults once they are ready to leave the children’s class. And we see the benefits of multi-generational relationships as a result of this approach. Our family doesn’t do sleepovers with other kids or even much unsupervised playtime with other children. (Disclaimer: this is not an essay on how you should personally run your church or home. You have my permission to do things differently.) However, for 10 days out of the year we do send our kids off to “children’s church” and when the boys are old enough and mature enough they will be allowed to stay in the boy’s dorm during camp. Are we being hypocritical for 10 days? No, I don’t think so and here’s why.

Mode Camp is a safe place for our boys to “stretch their wings” a bit. What they perceive as freedom is still very carefully monitored. In all of the parenting material we have digested over the years we still come back to an analogy that we find so helpful from the book entitled “Child Wise”. It pictures parenting as a funnel. The narrow part of the funnel represents the child at birth. All of his choices etc. are made by his parents. There is no freedom or independence at this stage. But as the child grows, and as a trusting relationship with his parents deepens, the funnel widens. Until at last by the teen years there is very little restraint on the child from the parents, but he is now governed by self restraint and hopefully his relationship with God.

What better place then at camp when our boys are surrounded by our trusted friends to give a little room in the funnel? What an opportunity for Matt and I to observe and study our boys, watching to see if they are indeed ready for more freedom or how they behave when they think no one is watching. And oh how they love it. Not just the freedom, but the fun of spending hour after hour with so many Christian brothers and sisters young and old. And while admittedly at their ages the pews get hot and hard after a long sermon, their little souls are being fed. Maybe not so much from the sermons yet, but from observing the lives of those they see in the pews around them. At camp, relationships are built and strengthened in a way that the business of everyday life very seldom affords. I firmly believe that a relationship of trust is an extremely powerful tool with which to influence another for Christ. In light of that, even the "fun and games" of camp serves a purpose.

And so in reflecting on all that, I was reminded of why we do what we do. It makes perfect sense that we are spending beautiful weekends breaking our backs. And when I start to question if the work is really worth it, I have only to look into the faces of my children. It's definitely worth it.

Strength to Stand

Matt and I are very interested in the persecuted church. We receive the Voice of the Martyrs newsletter every month and our hearts are always moved by the trials of our brothers and sisters. A few months ago the cover of VOM had a 10 year old girl named Namrata on it. Her little face had been burned. Her great crime and reason for her charred flesh was because she was a believer. Her testimony was beautiful, full of forgiveness and hope. In spite of the pain and the shadow of death that continually looms over her little life, her faith is strong.

I just read the report of the horrific torture of Gao Zhisheng. I was brought to tears reading all our brother had endured and may still be enduring. I was overwhelmingly thankful for the freedoms I enjoy. If you stop and look at history you will see how time and again freedoms never disappear overnight. It is the slow erosion of a culture. A complacent acceptance of the sirens call to change. It frightens me to hear Christians say it is not our place as believers to stand up against the erosion of our culture. It only takes a glance back at the history of the world to show us the devastating ruins of good people doing nothing. Thank God for the Dietrich Bonhoeffers and Gao Zhishengs of the world. But I digress.

The thought that has weighed the most on my mind is how well would I withstand in the face of such torture? Am I preparing my children to have the kind of faith I saw in the face of little Namrata? A few Sundays ago we were visiting a church. We enjoyed the service, but something struck me during the song service. We sang a few token hymns presumably for the "old people". The song leader stopped us in the middle of "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" and said, "Can we pick this up a little? If we don't, this song just drags on." Musically I understand what he was saying. But it seemed to me the message of the song seemed to be being missed, we were just getting it "over with". Then we moved on to the praise songs and while I enjoyed them, the lyrics were a bit repetitive. And while they inspired good feelings(which aint all bad) the challenge and encouragement found in Luther's hymn was not as evident in the praise choruses. During this portion of the singing we were encouraged to "think of the words" and worship. Now before you get your boxing gloves on, this is NOT intended to be a argument of hymns vs praise music. Neither is this a criticism of the service or the music minister of the church we visited. I gave the background because it was a catalyst of thought for me. I asked myself what would sustain me or my children in the face of persecution? Have we fed them so much ease and feel good theology that they would immediately crumble into the "why me Lord?" mentality when faced with discomfort.

I don't have all the answers to my questions, I'm really just thinking out loud here. I pray we never face in America what Gao is facing in China or what Namrata faced in India or what little Mark in Iraq is facing everyday at school. But should that day come, I wonder if we would be sustained by an understanding that others have faced this and more and stood strong for Christ. Would a knowledge of Luther's world and how powerful his song was in light of what he was facing bring us encouragement? Would the powerful trust of being eternally protected by our Mighty Fortress call to our memories scriptures of promise from our Savior? And so Matt and I are trying to actively prepare our family for whatever may come. To prepare our hearts and minds to lean hard upon Jesus in times of trial. Be that in a jail cell or in a peer group.

1. A mighty fortress is our God,
a bulwark never failing;
our helper he amid the flood
of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
doth seek to work us woe;
his craft and power are great,
and armed with cruel hate,
on earth is not his equal.

2. Did we in our own strength confide,
our striving would be losing,
were not the right man on our side,
the man of God's own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he;
Lord Sabaoth, his name,
from age to age the same,
and he must win the battle.

3. And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God hath willed
his truth to triumph through us.
The Prince of Darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure,
for lo, his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him.

4. That word above all earthly powers,
no thanks to them, abideth;
the Spirit and the gifts are ours,
thru him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
this mortal life also;
the body they may kill;
God's truth abideth still;
his kingdom is forever.

For Mom

Mom,

The yellow climbing roses have finally bloomed! You can hardly see the electric meter under there. :)