Love, Joy, Peace

In the last couple months, the Lord has been putting His finger on several areas in my heart related to parenting. Joe and I often remark on how much easier it was to transition from being single to being married than it was to transition from being married to being parents – it’s a tough gig! More than ever, you become acutely aware of the darkness of your heart and your desperate need for the Holy Spirit. I wish I could say that I’ve made drastic improvements to how I relate to my son Justice, but I feel like I’ve only taken tiny baby steps and I have so much further to go! For my own sake, I decided to write a little bit about some of the scriptures the Lord has highlighted to me, even to remind myself of what He spoke and to pray that He help me to apply them.

The first scripture that came alive to me in a new way was the very familiar passage on the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, which says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience (long-suffering), kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness (meekness) and self-control…Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (vs. 22, 25). I am convinced these verses were written for parents, for I have never needed these things more than I do now! I long to have these fruits of the Spirit growing in abundance in my life, that I could be a mother who shows unconditional love, has joy in my heart, creates a peaceful atmosphere in my home, has unending patience, shows kindness in the face of anger, demonstrates gentleness and meekness by bringing the power and authority I have as an adult under the control of the Spirit so that I do not use it in harmful ways. I want to walk in step with the Spirit instead of giving in to my flesh for, “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:5-6).

In close connection to this passage is another familiar one from 1 Corinthians 13, the famous “Love Chapter”, which says, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs…It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” (vs. 4-8) There is some obvious overlap between these two, but what especially stood out to me is that love is not self-seeking or easily angered. If parenting has revealed anything about me lately, it seems to have shown me how selfish I can be and how easily I can give in to anger and frustration. Most times, if I react harshly towards my son, it is because he is preventing me from doing something that I want (or feel I need) to do. It is no small thing to try and obey the exhortation in Philippians 2:4, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” By nature, I am more inclined to consider my own interests first and foremost above anybody elses, including my husband and children, when the very nature of Christ which I desire to have formed in me, was to lay down all his rights to serve others.

A third scripture that I desire to see fulfilled in my home in regards to parenting is Isaiah 32:17-18 which says, “The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever. My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest.” Again, I see the connection to the fruit of the Spirit (or righteousness) and I am again gripped with my need for His working in my life if I desire to have a home that is peaceful, secure, and restful. More than just wanting my home to feel at peace because the circumstances have changed (although I would certainly welcome that), I desire that the attitude and environment of my own heart and mind would be at complete peace, even in the midst of chaos. I also want the effect of having my life transformed in righteousness to be a home where my children can dwell with confidence, because they are secure in my love for them.

Lastly, a scripture that really struck me was one I read in my devotional book titled “Loving God” which contains excerpts from various books by Mike Bickle. The passage is intense and pierced my heart with conviction and sobriety as it warned, “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, therefore you shall serve your enemies.” (Deuteronomy 28:47-48) Woah. Since I consider parenting not only an act of service to my children, but also an act of service unto God, this is saying that if I don’t serve (parent) my children with joy, gladness and gratitude in my heart, that I am opening myself up to be brought into bondage by the enemy! As Mike wrote, “When we enter into God’s joy and gladness, the door to much of Satan’s activity slams shut in our lives. The joy of serving God keeps us from compromise. A glad heart is a strong heart. (Nehemiah 8:10)” How true!! If I am not connected to the Lord and if I am not communing with His heart, which is joyful and glad, then I am so much more vulnerable to the lies and schemes of the enemy to lure me into complaining, anger, bitterness, unthankfulness, and a host of other terrible things. But if I can receive and be filled with the joy of the Lord, it will strengthen me to withstand and overcome the enemy and equip me to love and lead my children well.

Justice – 18 months, Rayah – 35 weeks

It’s hard to believe that my little guy is a year and a half!!  At the same time, it’s super hard to believe that I only have 5 weeks until my due date for Rayah! 

August was a fun month, even if it wasn’t as warm as often as we would have liked.  Joe’s parents came to visit us for a weekend, which is always great and Justice totally loved being with them!  Joe and I also celebrated our birthdays this month – Joe turning 30 and myself turning 28!  I also started keeping a new daily journal where I jot down brief notes about the things I’ve read in my devotions, prayers, and also all the little things Justice does and says that I want to remember.  So this time I don’t have to try and go back into the recesses of my foggy memory to recall all these extremely fascinating facts that I know you’re just dying to hear! 

Cute & funny things:

• walking on his tip toes
• still using random objects as a phone, like a piece of cookie
• dropped one of our cordless phones into a glass of water – okay, so not so funny at the moment, but it was fine
• trying to put on my shoes – he actually managed to walk around with one of mine on for quite a distance – it was very cute!
• he likes standing in the bay window in our living room and will knock on the glass and wave at people as they walk by
• attempting to brush or comb my hair

New things he discovered:

• how to push the trigger on Joe’s drill
• the buttons on the dishwasher
• helium balloons – it was funny to watch because he seemed rather confused when he’d try to throw it and it would go up instead of down!
• how to turn on the piano by himself – he will often do this and climb up onto the bench and play the piano
• flushed the toilet by himself for the first time, but hasn’t done it again yet
• all the fascinating and wonderful buttons and dials in the van!  He’ll also crawl up on the driver’s seat and play with the steering wheel, turn on the wipers, lock and unlock the doors, etc.  Don’t tell anyone, but Joe took him for his first driving lesson down the back alley
• coloring!
• mud!  Joe let him play in some mud in our back yard in just his diaper

Eating & drinking:

• LOVES nectarines & will eat an entire one, only to cry when it’s done!
• LOVING bread – stuffs it in his mouth – definitely a favorite snack for him
• has started begging for our food and reaching out his hand saying “Oum?” which seems to mean “more” or “give me that right now!”
• had his first taste of grilled cheese
• learning to eat on his own with a fork – he does really well with Kraft Dinner and soft fruit pieces like peaches or pears.  He really loves using his fork and will get upset if we take it away or try to help him, but thankfully he still lets us feed him all the messy foods.  I’m trying to let him eat on his own more, but we’re taking it slow

Talking & Comprehension:

• Will answer “No” when asked if he wants a time out
• Will answer “Yeah” when asked if he wants a spanking (don’t think he understands that question yet)
• Will sometimes talk very expressively, pointing and making hand movements to communicate his story to us
• He’s beginning to understand some of his body parts when we ask him, like ear, eye, nose, hair, mouth, toe, and belly button – it’s still sort of hit and miss, but he’s learning  
• He’s saying “mommy” and “daddy” a lot more now – usually when he says “mommy” it sounds like a question with a high-pitched ending, so I will answer him and say, “Yes? What would you like?”  and he usually answers back with some gibber-gabber
• New words: baby, toe, eye, drum, yeah, Joe (no idea if he knows that’s his dad’s name, but it’s super cute when he says it), happy
• We’ve been trying to teach him to use the signs for “more” and “please” and he has actually done them on his own when asked a couple times, but we still often have to help him do them – he’ll often get upset when I ask him to say “more” or “please” because it means he’s not getting what he wants right away!

Development:

• has been teething & his top eye teeth have cut through, but still working on the bottom ones
• runs ALL THE TIME – there is no walking, which means he continues to fall often because he’s just careless when he runs and doesn’t always pay attention to where he’s going
• he LOVES to climb up onto anything and everything possible – we are continually having to move furniture around to try and keep him safe
• he’s pushing chairs around, but has thankfully still not figured out to push them up to things like my desk or the kitchen counters in order to climb up higher!
• he’s been desperately trying to learn how to jump and will practice often!  It’s so sweet to see him trying so hard to get his feet off the ground & I think I may have seen him actually be successful once or twice!
• has learned to open some doors at our church where the knobs turn easier, but thankfully hasn’t been able to do it at home yet!
• he has entered the stage of tantrums, screaming and yelling and getting very upset when he doesn’t get his own way – oh dear!  This has been quite challenging and we are trying to learn how to discipline him and teach him how to manage his emotions, but this is no easy task with a one & a half year old!
• getting him to go to sleep at night has been difficult as of late – he often doesn’t get to sleep until 8:00 or even 8:30pm, even though we start the whole process around 7:00pm!  But at least he’s usually sleeping until 6:30am in the morning, which is when we have to get up anyway.

For videos of Justice, check out my YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/echoinghim!

As for Rayah, today she is at 35 weeks and according to my obstetrician, she is head down and has “dropped”!  I certainly can’t complain too much about this pregnancy, which has really been quite great, but I must admit that I’ve had a significant deal more pelvic pain this time around.  I had some with Justice towards the end of that pregnancy and after he was born, but this time has been worse.  I thought it was all my fault for not doing my Kegel exercises, which may be part of the problem, but I also found an article that seemed to perfectly describe what I was experiencing and made me feel like I wasn’t alone.  This pelvic pain is definitely something that I am looking forward to getting rid of once Rayah is born!  Other than that, she is moving and kicking LOTS and we are just getting super excited for her to arrive and to meet her and see what she looks like and get to hold her and all that wonderful stuff!  Here is the most recent belly picture I have, which is only at 32 weeks.

Why Are You Afraid?

I once heard it said that when God asks a question, He isn’t asking for His benefit, but for ours. So when Jesus asks the question, “Why are you afraid?” (Matt. 8:26), He’s asking so that I’ll take a good look at my own heart and examine the reasons why I struggle with fear.

In Matthew 4, when the disciples are caught in a storm with Jesus fast asleep, they question him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” In Max Lucado’s book Fearless, which I just recently read & reviewed, he notes that “They do no ask about Jesus’ strength…knowledge…or his know-how…But rather, they raise doubts about Jesus’ character: ‘Do you not care…’ Fear does this. Fear corrodes our confidence in God’s goodness.” (pg. 9, emphasis mine)

So when Jesus asks me the question, “Why are you afraid?”, one answer is that I don’t always believe that He is good or trust that He actually cares about whatever situation is striking fear in my heart. I forget that the reason He even asks me why I’m afraid is because He truly, sincerely and deeply cares about my fears and wants to help me overcome them! He is not distant and separated from my situation, but He is actually right there in the storm with me and is intimately involved in what is going on. Yet fear causes me to question His goodness and His trustworthiness. I fear that in my imagined tragic scenarios of pain and woe that He won’t be there for me and He won’t do anything to save me from perishing. Worse yet, whenever something negative happens, or even when I imagine one of my fears coming true, I often think that it’s because God needs to punish me for something bad I’ve done.

These fears are completely misplaced and obviously sown by the enemy, but it is still difficult to combat the lies after agreeing with them for so long. Fear is such a battle of the mind and thoughts and as much as I wish I could have victory over fear instantly, I think it will be a process of renewing my mind with the truth about who Jesus is and His character. Even though I know that He can be trusted and He’s not out to punish me and His leadership is perfect and He is a good Shepherd, I still need those truths to impact my heart in a greater way so that the fear that has made it’s home there can be dislodged. I need a greater revelation of His love, care, compassion and tenderness towards me, for “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18).

I want to be made perfect in love.

Book Review: "Fearless" by Max Lucado

When I saw the opportunity at www.BookSneeze.com to review Max Lucado’s new book “Fearless” (being released today), I immediately knew I wanted to read what he had to say on this topic of overcoming fear. I have always enjoyed Lucado’s writing, and as someone who struggles daily with fear and anxiety, I really anticipated gaining some new insight and revelation on this subject and I was not disappointed! This book addresses many of the types of fears that we encounter in our lives, drawing from the stories in the New Testament where Jesus was addressing the fear and anxiety he saw in the people around him. It was encouraging to be reminded that Jesus really does care about the things we dread and get anxious about and that He is concerned about delivering us from those fears.

Of the list of fears that people often face, the ones that struck home with me were the fear of disappointing God, the fear of not having enough (time, money, intelligence, acceptance, health, etc.) and the fear of worst-case scenarios. And while each chapter held meaningful pieces of Biblical advice on how to counteract these fears, I found that I enjoyed the last chapter most of all, “The One Healthy Terror”, which spoke on the fear of the Lord. After reading about all the areas where the enemy seeks to strike our hearts with fear, I really appreciated how Lucado reminded us that there is really only One that we should fear – and that is the One who holds our very life in His hands! I was reminded that it is vital to my battle against fear to have an accurate view of God and to see Jesus for the awesomely terrifying and powerful God-man that He is! To quote Lucado…

“As awe of Jesus expands, fears of life diminish. A big God translates into big courage. A small view of God generates no courage. A limp, puny, fireless Jesus has no power over [your fears]…Stare long and longingly at the Bonfire, the Holy One, the Highest One, the Only One. As you do, all your fears, save the fear of Christ himself, will melt…” (pg. 169, 170)

I found “Fearless” to be challenging, inspiring, and thought-provoking. Lucado’s imaginative storytelling and insight into the Scripture makes for a thoroughly enjoyable read and I would recommend this book to anyone, without hesitation. After reading this book, I intend to go over the numerous portions where God was putting his finger on things in my own heart and allow Him to speak to me even more and lead me into greater levels of victory over fear!