Forfeiting Spiritual Health for Physical?

The Lord has been working on my heart this past week and it has been good.  I struggled and asked questions, but He gently guided me as only my heavenly Father can. 

Lately, my priorities haven been mixed up.  I would get up early every morning to go to the neighborhood gym and work out for over an hour.  While that is a great thing to do for my physical health, my spiritual health was suffering.  Oh, I would open my Bible and read for a few minutes most mornings before heading off to the gym.  However, once 5:45 a.m. came, my Bible was closed as I knew my time at the gym was limited and precious.  After all, with seven children, if I don't work out in the morning, it never happens during the rest of the day. 

My time at the gym was limited and precious???!!!  What about that Book I just closed?  What about my time with its Author?

What it had come down to was this:  my exercise was my priority.  Saturdays were a non-gym day for me and I would sleep in, leaving no time for God and the Bible.  The reason I was rising early was to get my work-out and I was only reading my Bible so I could go without guilt.  In all actuality, my spiritual life was nominal and meaningless.

To make matters worse, where I first made sure I only worked out for 45 minutes in order to get home just when the children were rising, I began to increase my work-out time.  I was getting home later and, therefore, our day was beginning later and the order in my home was reduced to nothing.  But, hey, I was getting healthy and that's important as a mom, right? 

What is physical health when the spirit is malnourished and diseased?  What is physical strength when the home is becoming weak?

The Lord began to tug on my heart and I'm so glad He did as that is more proof that I am indeed His child and He hasn't given up on me.  Through His men, His Word, and through other writings by His people, I was convicted.  However, I was a bit fearful.  If I made time for Him like I truly wanted, wouldn't that mean I could no longer work out?  Contrary to popular belief, homeschool moms of many children don't really run all day long.  There is a lot of sitting as we go through lessons, read stories, and do lesson plans.  If I'm not sitting, I'm standing - not a lot of calorie burn there.  I still want to look good and keep healthy.  However, I know that if I put my priorities back in order and make God first, He will allow time for what He thinks is important.  If He wants me to keep the body He gave me in shape and healthy, He will show me how and give me the time to do it.

This morning, I woke early and got into my gym clothes.  However, I only dressed for the possibility of going to the gym.  I was going to read and pray until my cup was filled by the Holy Spirit.  Then, if there was time, I would go work out and be back home in time for us to have a peaceful and orderly day.

The Lord was so good to me.  He spoke to me so clearly in His word and I was able to have true communion with Him for the first time in a couple of months.  And, do you know what?  There was time for me to go work-out for 30 minutes.  That's a lot less time than I've become used to and I was tempted to stay, but I know that 30 minutes is better than nothing and I will still reap the health benefits.  This day has gone so smoothly and peace is returning to our home. 

Once again, the Lord has proved Himself loving and wise.  I am glad He has not given up on me.  Yes, my work-outs will be shorter, but my walk with God will be stronger.  That is the race I must continue and win.

So Much to Write...So Little Time!

I can't wait to get some more time on here.  Things are churning in my brain.  Nothing major, but I finally am crunching on things to write!!!  But, for now, just know that I haven't totally given up on this blog.  I pray you all have a blessed day.  Come back soon for more postings!

Are you REALLY a keeper at home?

In this day and age, we hear so much in the conservative Christian community about raising our young women to be keepers at home.  Even in the secular community, there are many "stay at home moms."   However, how many of these mothers are actually staying at home?  How many Christian wives and mothers are actually keeping at home?

Being a keeper at home is so much more than not having a job outside the home.  It is more than keeping the home clean or keeping up with laundry.  It is staying home and doing productive and creative things more than finding ways to be entertained or busy outside the home. 

I know.  I sound like an old woman.  I used to wonder why my own mother used to question why I was out so often with my young children (this was back when I only had 3 or 4).  I'd be at the zoo one day, a friend's house another day, and the library another.  I made sure I was fulfilling my duties at home, but I was not content to stay at home.  Eventually, neither were my children.  Having fun meant going out and doing things - NOT staying home, "house-BOUND."

Now that my children are older, I find peace and comfort in staying at home more.  This is not to say we do not go anywhere.  We still enjoy visiting friends and fun places.  However, the crankiness of the kids when we come home and the exhaustion that hits after being gone all day does not make for a restful home for my husband to come home to.  Also, believe it or not, this homeschool family finds education important and I cringe when we cut into our homeschool week and responsibilities too much.  My children's education is their responsibility.  When they are older, my sons will have jobs they need to go to every day and put in a full day's work before they can go and do "fun" stuff.  In keeping with our school routine and schedule, my daughters' are learning to fulfill their duties before doing other things - just as they will have to when they are wives and moms.

What are we teaching our children by going out all the time - even if it's as a family having parties at other people's home on a continual basis?  That life is a continual party? So often, soberness is lost during these times of fellowhship.  I love to get together with other Christian friends and families, however, spending time with my own family and finding that fun and enjoyable is just as important.  It is a sad thing when a quiet evening at home with just one another is considered a boring evening.  I admit, I have felt that way - it has taken time spent at home to learn to really see that a full life is not dependent on outside activities.  You can have fun without going anywhere or having anyone over!

"But I don't have children actually doing school, yet."  "I don't have children at all."  "Once the chores are done, what am I supposed to do - look at the walls and twiddle my thumbs?"

First of all, are your duties in the home done to the best of your ability or are you doing just enough to justify going out for yet another day at the mall? What about actually playing or reading to your little ones and creating memories?  How I wish I did even more of that!  What about letter writing and card sending?  That is such a lost art in this day of instant messages via e-mail, facebook, and, ahem, blogs.  But, there is nothing like holding a card - especially handmade - that took someone time to send.  Making cards for others is a desire I have, and am hoping to set aside specific times in order to do it.  Yesterday, an acquaintance of mine stopped by with a wonderful plate of cookies just to say "thank you" for something.  What a blessing!  She had such gratitude that she took the time to bake cookies, write a note, and drive to my house to drop them off.  She didn't do that by running to and fro throughout the earth - she is a keeper at home.  Notice, she did actually leave her house.  The reason for her outing was to be a blessing to someone else - and there was true joy on her face. 

I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade.  Going out is often a stress-reliever and a breath of fresh air.  I even think it is necessary - AT TIMES.  I'm just trying to challenge each one of us (including myself) to re-evaluate our roles as "keepers at home" or "stay at home moms" and look at the time we actually spend at home blessing our families and others rather than flitting around the town having fun. 

Go - enjoy life as a TRUE stay at home mom!

When You Leave a Church...

...mine or the church down the street, please don't tell others the reasons why you have left your former church - unless it is really that you saw a place to minister and that you still LOVE your old church family and pastors.  It is amazing to me how people can be part of a church they "love" for years, yet, when they are called out to another ministry, they suddenly see faults in that church.  Then, they proceed to broadcast those faults.

Newsflash:  All churches have problems.  All churches are filled with sinners who, well, sin.  We make mistakes.

However, sowing disention is a grave sin itself.  Broadcasting to the world how you think the church should be run and how you were offended waters a seed of discontent in a weaker brother.  To the person who loves their church, it's just nauseating.  It is far from edifying, which is precisely what we are to do for one another in our spiritual family.

If you leave a church, have some humility and some grace. Follow the simple rules:

1) Go where God has called you

2) Bless others

3) Be blessed

4) Be happy

5) Be quiet

6) Move on
 
Oh, and we'd love to have you visit anytime and hear how God is blessing you!

Can God Truly See Us?

Note:  One of the reasons I have not blogged very much in the past 15 weeks, is I have been taking the English class our church's Bible Institute offers.  Our final class was last night and I hope to be able to post more often.  The following is what I wrote for my final paper for that class.  I pray it challenges you as it has me - and has changed my life. 

      Beginning the day a child is born into a Christian home, he is taught that the Lord God sees all. One of the first scriptures committed to memory, through the frequent repeating from parents and Sunday School teachers, is Proverbs 15:3:  “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.”  The familiarity of this verse (and others like it) often calluses the Christian’s heart toward the doctrine of God’s omnipresence and omniscience.  It is for this very reason we sin.  If we could actually see God as He can see us, the challenge to be perfect as He is perfect would become almost attainable.

            “For mine eyes are upon all their ways:  they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from my eyes.”  If Christians would truly contemplate these words from our God found in Jeremiah 16:17, we would feel great shame and remorse for many of our actions committed in just the last several days.  AllEverything we do is in His direct line of vision as He sits upon His throne in a perfect, sinless place.  The sadness it causes Him must be immense.  Only by meditating on what a perfect God feels when He sees His beloved children openly sinning can we even begin to get a taste of His longsuffering and mercy. of our ways are seen by God. 

            Do we really and truly believe what the Bible tells us?  Judging by our actions, by my own actions, the answer would most definitely have to be “no.”  The Bible says, “Thou shalt not covet,” yet we drive down the street and wish our neighbor’s beautiful home was ours.  We are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, yet we are too focused on our own life to write a note or make a phone call to our neighbor who is hurting.  God wants us to love Him with our whole heart, mind, and strength, yet we stay up late at night filling our minds with all sorts of ungodliness as we sit in front of computers and televisions, making it impossible for us to get up early enough to commune with the God Who gave everything for us.  I fear we do not believe God and His Word.  We do not believe in His omnipresence.  We do not believe He can see us, for if we did, we would be on our faces begging the Almighty for forgiveness.

            As a mother, when I want to find out what is truly going on between my children, I will quietly watch them without their knowing.  They do know that I am somewhere in the house, but they do not believe that I can see them and hear them.  Without me in their sight, they believe they can get away with breaking the rules.  Once a child gives in to the temptation one of two things will happen.  Either a sibling will correct him with words so that his behavior will change or he will have enjoyed the experience of “getting away” with something and will attempt it again.  When I speak to him from my secret place or reappear suddenly, a look of surprise and extreme guilt comes over his face.

            How much more so will we look when Christ suddenly appears to take us Home?  When we stand before Him and He says, “What about that time you gossiped about My child?” it will suddenly be a reality to us that He has seen every thing we have done and heard every word we have spoken each moment we have lived on this earth.  The reality of His omnipresence will be overwhelming, as will our feeling of shame and remorse.  If we could only keep this moment our future holds in the forefront of our minds throughout our days, how would our lives be changed? 

            It is sobering to realize that God knows me.  He knows my heart better than I know it.  Jeremiah 12:3 states, “But thou, O Lord, Knowest me:  thou has seen me, and tried mine heart toward thee.”  As I read this verse, I cannot help but ask what the Lord sees in my heart.  Does He see hatred instead of love, or pride rather than selflessness, or contempt toward my children instead of tender compassion?  Does He see evil and wickedness in my heart instead of righteousness and good?  Habakkuk 1:13 tells us that God is “…of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.”  God’s eyes are pure and He is holy.  He cannot look on sin, yet He does.  He sees it everywhere when He watches what is occurring here on earth and He sees it in the hearts of men.  “The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good.”  Meditate on the fact that the pure eyes of the Lord are beholding evil.  God’s eyes are pure and through no will of His, but through our own selfish desires, He is forced to hold evil in His sight.  The thought of my sin attempting to defile the eyes of my precious Lord is incomprehensible, but it is the terrible reality of our fallen nature.

            As a people who are sinful by nature, we cannot be, nor will we be, perfect as long as we live in this fallen world.  However, He has made for us a way to escape temptation and that is through His word.  Psalm 1:2-3 describes the righteous man as delighting “in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.  And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither.”  Hiding God’s Word in our hearts and thinking on it throughout the day will keep His face before us.  His presence will become real to us and evil will not so easily penetrate our thoughts and our actions.   Just as a large, green tree is pleasant to look upon and gives refreshment from the harsh elements of the land surrounding it, so is the heart of the Christian who meditates on Scripture.  Such a heart is pleasant for God to behold and its righteousness enables Him to refresh His pure eyes from the wickedness that He is often forced to behold.  

           As His name is Emmanuel, so ought we to live.  God is indeed with us.   Only by truly seeking His face daily in the Holy Bible and meditating on His words will we make this reality our belief.  Once we believe it, our lives will forever change.

Leaning on God

As I got the pile of books out this evening to plan our school week, I suddenly realized all I do every single day to keep our family going.

Here's a simplified list:  make sure chores are done and children have eaten in the morning, get little ones dressed, get everyone in their respective places for school (and continue to corral them there during the course of the morning), teach 2 children all of their subjects while fielding questions from the older 3 as they do their independent work, break up fights and instruct the littlest 2, make lunch, delegate clean-up, teach older children their lessons, figure out what's for supper then make it, delegate supper chores, laundry, getting younger children ready for bed, getting all children to bed at their scheduled bedtimes.  These every day chores are always accompanied by other items that need to be done such as:  making grocery lists, cutting coupons, finding time to go grocery shopping, answering phones, running a homeschool co-op, setting up meals for women who have babies at our church, calling friends whom I've not seen in a while, planning birthdays or holidays, cleaning, etc., etc., etc.

I do well when I don't think about all the things I need to do.  I liken it to a piano player. He doesn't contemplate that he's moving both of his hands in opposite directions and that he literally has 10 different actions occuring at the same time.  A good piano player often has songs memorized and does not meditate on each and every note as he plays it.  Everything just moves fluidly with little problem.  However, once he begins to really think about everything he is doing and every single note, that is when the mistakes tend to be made.  That is how I felt today.  As soon as I really began thinking about all the things I do and the fact that I am one person, I began to feel overwhelmed.  Yet, only for a moment.

As my breaths became short as I felt my self beginning to drown under the pressure, I realized that I never can do anything without God.  It is only by His strength that I can keep going. It is only by His grace that the plates can continue to spin without crashing to the floor.  I am nothing without Him.  I can do nothing without HIm.  However, "I can do ALL things through Christ which strenghtheneth me"!! 

I gave it to my Heavenly Father Who cares for me so deeply right then and there.  Immediately, the burden lifted and I was able to take deeper breaths.  It's going to be ok - because God is my strength in weakness.

The next time you stop to think of all the things you need to do, realize it is not you, but God who will get you through the day. 

It's the only way us moms will remain sane!

Traditional vs. Likeable

So, I have the mandatory apple pie in the oven for tomorrow's finishing course.  Pumpkin pie is in the refridgerator.  I, personally, don't care too much for these pies, but like every other good American woman, I make them to keep with national tradition.  Sort of a bonding with our Pilgrim ancestors.


However, if I have to eat apple pie, I might as well make it intereting.  I perked up when I saw this recipe posted earlier today.  Apples with caramel - THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!!!  It's baking in the oven right now and I am sure I will be dreaming of that first bite all night long!


Like many families, I always accompany the required desserts with some even more tasty desserts!:)  This year, I made a Sweet Potato pie which I think is more flavorful than Pumpkin. The annaul Toll House Pie is a glorified chocolate chip cookie, but it is truly delicious and fits right in with the pie theme that seems to be so popular on this holiday.  In case any of the younger family members turn their tiny noses up at pie (for they care not for tradition), there will be chocolate-chocolate chunk brownies to satisfy to their sweet tooth. 


Sadly for me, my mother's famous Lemon Meringue pie will not make an appearance this year.  It is my absolutely favorite pie, but because few others in my family like it I rarely make it.  My mom always blesses me with it at Thanksgiving; however, we will not be spending Thanksgiving together this year, so no meringue for me!  Boo Hoo!


You must have some favorite family traditions in the form of food for the Thanksgiving table.  Please share with me what they are.


May you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving counting your blessings as you spend time with the people (and food) you love!