Cultivating Childhood

My life right now is a paradox.  Physically, I'm here.  Sitting in my comfortable chair. Writing on my laptop.  Gazing out my window at a beautiful sunny Seattle day.  My heart, though, is half a world away.  It is torn for the people of Burma.  The Rohingya .  The Kachin .  The Karen .  IDPs.  Migrants. Victims of trafficking.  My hands feel tied as I live my life here in the States.  I'm so eager to GO. What is it I can do now?  How can I be the hands and feet of Jesus from here? I can pray. I can't believe how often I forget the most obvious.  Prayer.  God uses prayer to turn our hearts toward Him and to bring more people toward His Kingdom.  Luke 10:2 says: He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. [NIV] We can pray for the people there.  Their plights.  Their struggles.  The...

We are totally into the superhero stage right now with the boys.  They want to dress up like the Avengers or Superman or Batman or whoever!  They pretend to have superpowers, and they love to vanquish the bad guys. I've tried to kindle in their hearts a spirit of courage and not of fear.  And yet, as they get older, I see that many times their courage is unfounded, and they think that they are unstoppable.  N, especially, seems to have no fear.  He runs around like he is a superhero, and unfortunately, this happens in public too.  I don't want to scare him into staying with me with constant worry, but I've realized that he needs to have a healthy respect for the dangers that do exist in our world. Recently, I decided that we needed to have a good talk about safety.  There have been a couple of attempted kidnappings in our area in the last year, and I need to be able to trust my kids to stay within sight at a park or not to take off at the groce...

I haven't wanted to read anything this month.  I've been exhausted with a husband out-of-town for 10 days, a four-year old that has begun lashing out in anger whenever he doesn't get his way, my cold that hasn't gone away for over a week, and nursing a burn I gave myself while pouring myself boiling-hot coffee.  My normal outlet for peace is usually to find a good spot to curl up and read a good book.  For some reason, I haven't even wanted to do this.  (Probably because I feel like I should be reading some of my good parenting books, but I don't want to think about parenting when I'm taking a "break" from parenting when the kids are in bed). First-World Problems....  The "argh! I can't do what I like because I have two living wonderful children who need me to help them.  And pity me - I have a mess in my house right now - you know, that structure with four sturdy walls and a roof that keeps us safe from the weather and other dangers. An...

Well, I'm continuing my new tradition of keeping track of the books that I've read throughout the year.  Last year, I read 36 books.  This year, I read 59!  My goal was to read a book a week, but I was surprised how many more I read.  I did read more novels this year, so that definitely helped. I really enjoyed a new-for-me author, Kate Seredy.  Her book The Chestry Oak  is just fantastic, and I enjoyed The Good Master and it's sequel The Singing Tree as well.  I also read any of the Jane Austen canon that I hadn't read before.  I think that next year, I'll have to reread some of the ones I've read before. I also read a lot of Sally Clarkson's books.  I just love her encouragement for moms.  In February, I get to go to her MomHeart Conference in California that I'm super excited about.  Tim Kimmel's books are also excellent.  I reread his Grace-Based Parenting book this year, and read his new book Grace-Filled Marriage. ...

For those of you who have talked to me about homeschooling, you know that I've been very influenced by Charlotte Mason and her approach to children and their education.  I've tried to model what I thought her method would look like in our home, and I have been pretty happy with how it has been going. One of the biggest reasons I like it is her philosophy on who children are.  In fact, she had 20 Principles which speak of the nature of children how they should be taught.  Here are the first four (see link for modern day paraphrase): Playing at Garden Tots Children are born persons . They are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for good or for evil. The principles of authority on the one hand, and of obedience on the other, are natural, necessary and fundamental; but-- These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality of children, which must not be encroached upon whether by the direct use of fear or love, suggestion or influence...

Since college, my avid reader of a husband, has kept a list of all the books that he has read/is reading/wants to read.  Although I wish I started a list like that with him almost ten years ago, I figured it is never late than never.  I read 36 books in 2012, and I hope to read many more in 2013! 2012 A Thinking Love * by Sonya Shafer Smooth and Easy Days * by Sonya Shafer Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall - a great memoir that exposes that issues and baggage that poverty bring to both those inside and outside of it A Charlotte Mason Education by Catherine Levison - A helpful primer for understanding the basics of the Charlotte Mason method.  However, many of her links and sources for curriculum are outdated as it was written over ten years ago. Manalive by G.K. Chesterton - This is my husband's favorite book.  It's taken me a long time to read this as I had a hard time getting through the first part.  It really is good though Fast Li...

I thought I'd document my New Year's Resolutions this year.  I don't usually make resolutions, but I like the idea, and I want to make them something that will be beneficial to my life but also doable (which is why I'm not resolving to blog more ;-) ). They are... 1. Complete a 90 Day Paleo Challenge - I've been looking at Paleo now for a couple of months.  It looks really interesting, but I don't know if I could make the complete lifestyle change especially since my family wouldn't be doing it with me.  (Hubby likes his bread!)  Starting the new year, I want to eat only primal for 90 days except for when I'm at other people's homes.  If I start on January 1st, I'll be done on Easter! 2. Finish losing the weight that I started losing last year - I lost a lot of weight last year just counting calories and working out, but I gained a fair bit back over the holidays.  This time around, I'm going to try eating Paleo (for a while) and more s...

My Nightstand Can you guess what I've been interested in lately?

For a fun Sunday afternoon family time, we decided to go see the film Rio  at the cheap theater down the road.  Buddy really enjoyed it, and Button almost made it through his first movie in a theater except he got bored near the end. The movie itself was a fun kids movie, although not one that I think we'll want to watch repeatedly the way we've recently enjoyed Tangled  or How to Train Your Dragon.   It was nice to get a family date and a relaxing afternoon. The real reason for this post, though, isn't to give you my impressions of Rio.   Really, from a psychological standpoint, I was far more intrigued by the " short " that was played immediately before our movie began.  It portrayed Scrat the Squirrel from the Ice Age movies trying to find a place for his beloved acorn.  He ends up dividing the earth and being plunged into the core of the planet while still chasing his acorn.  Everything goes wrong, and he still can't keep track of his acor...

Simplify. Learn. Give. This has been the motto our church has adopted during its Spilling Hope campaign these last fifty days since Easter.  This campaign is like one I've never seen.  Though the ultimate goal is to provide life-giving water by building wells in Africa, it strives to change the way we live.  Here.  Now. Simplify - The idea behind simplifying is basically realizing just how much we have and what we really don't need.  What if we allocated our funds elsewhere?  What if, instead of buying a latte at Starbucks, we made coffee at home and give the money we saved to help people in Africa?  What if we sold the clothes that we don't wear in our wardrobe and donated the proceeds?  How could our lives be changed for the better if we were to simplify our budgets, our homes, our calendars? When given this challenge, I chose to follow the " No S Diet " for the fifty days.  Granted, this was hard to do.  Basically, I was giving ...

I've already alluded to it, but for the season of Lent, Phil and I have been reading Timothy Keller's newest book, The King's Cross.   I must say that it was powerful.  I came away with a greater sense of who Jesus really is and how significant His death on the cross really was. I wanted to share one passage that was particularly meaningful to me.  Timothy Keller begins one of his early chapters explaining the "dance" of the triune God.  The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all gave and received perfect love from one another in a sort of dance between three distinct persons in one most holy God.  Keller then goes on to say: Why would a triune God create a world? If he were a unipersonal God, you might say, "Well, he created the world so he can have beings who give him worshipful love, and that would give him joy." But the triune God already had that - and he received love within himself in a far purer, more powerful form than we human beings can e...

Have you ever noticed that having agendas with toddlers and preschoolers doesn't work?  You plan on a quick trip to the grocery store, but your preschooler doesn't want to go.  Finally, you get there and the toddler whines that he wants to walk with his big brother instead of riding in the cart (which you know means trying to keep them both contained and not pulling a bunch of food off the shelves).  If you have a set plan in mind and it doesn't happen, it can be extremely stressful. Sometimes, agendas are necessary. Moms need to go to the grocery store.  You need to go to the doctor's appointments.  And more often than not, you have to bring along the young'uns.  The agenda must be completed despite the obstacles that get in your way.  This is where good discipline and training is important to keep sanity. Other times, agendas are not  necessary. I've been finding this to be particularly true during our nature walks.   I want to take ...

I met a lady last week at the park.  She was fussing around her two-door coupe with about three feet of stuff attached to the hood of her car with a big blue tarp.  It was pretty obvious that she was living in her car, and I wondered if she had recently gotten evicted from her home.  As I was at the park with my husband and kids, I tried to talk myself out of going over to talk to her. You see, I'm terrible about talking to strangers.  Always have been, but at the same time, it's easy to talk to people that have other kids like yourself where your conversation never goes farther than the weather and kid stuff.  It's a totally different thing to talk to someone who appears to be hurting and open yourself up to being someone that they can really  talk to.  There's a sense of commitment there that I wasn't so sure I wanted to give myself over to. But, then, there is the Holy Spirit.  Working in my life.  Urging me on.  Telling me that w...