This Is the Day the Lord Has Made

Tonight was very good in spite of everything. It was one of those nights where everything just flowed! I could tell Keith was praying for me.

First of all, we’ve had bad news lately. The other day, we were told Scott’s brain cancer is growing again in the spot where doctors removed the first growth. He has to decide which treatment to go with – chemo, which would wipe him out just as he’s starting to get back to school & church work again – surgery, again! – or radiation, which would entail a half day strapped down & zapped. He said the kids (he heads up the Sunday morning kids club) laid hands & prayed for/with him Sunday & it was about the best time of prayer he’d had. Pray for the family, Scott, the kids in the group.

Then tonight we heard that Kevin’s cancer has returned. Both kinds. And they’re aggressive. My heart breaks for him, the family, all of us. When one hurts, we all hurt with them. There has been a day of prayer & fasting called for the church tomorrow. Which leads me to tonight. Sounds like it would’ve been a downer, but we had a wonderful time of teaching & prayer. I challenged the kids to join in on a fast of some kind, or wear a dot, etc. as a reminder to pray. We talked about various kinds of fasts they might be able to do: water to drink only, not milk, juice, etc., no dessert, no fruit? etc. The other idea was to wear a bracelet to remind them to pray throughout the day, or put a dot in a few places around the house where they’d see it & remember to pray, or put their watch on the opposite wrist it is normally on as a reminder to pray, etc. The kids got excited about the fact that they are in on this whole prayer thing, too. I’m glad to help them see how important they are in the Body even now. Hopefully tonight they are talking with their parents about possibilities for their own prayer reminders tomorrow.

We sang a song about today being the day the Lord has made. How can you rejoice in a day where terrible news/things happen? We talked about rejoicing not always being a big happy smile, but sometimes a painful tear, but with a trust that God made this day & He has a plan for it. We can rejoice that our God is in charge & trustworthy in it all. Then we learned a new song about Psalm 1. We are to be like a tree, planted by the water, trusting in the Father to keep us strong & help us grow. The tree can stand tall even in the worst night storm, why? It is planted by the water with it’s roots growing deep & can bear fruit in all seasons (love, joy, peace, patience, etc.)

Then our story was on Bartameus, the blind man, healed by Jesus. We talked about his darkness, not only because he was blind, but also because he was born in sin just like all of us. Jesus is the Light of the world. He came to bring His Light to a dark, blind world. We finished singing one of my favorite Donut Man songs that I haven’t had the opportunity to share with the kids yet, “Blind Leading the Blind”. We talked about how without Christ, we are blind & groping around in the darkness of sin, sure to fall into the holes of sin & then have to deal with the consequences. We talked about some of the sinful pits people find themselves in when they walk in darkness. Then we talked about our M verse (the verse we are on for this week), “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” We compared following our Good Shepherd vs. following the blind we see around us on TV or in our classrooms/neighborhoods. A wise person follows the Light while the foolish follow after blind people & end up in the hole right with the blind! They got it!! Even the five year olds stayed with me on it. If you get a chance to hear Donut Man’s song, it is a good one for teaching the kids this very important lesson. He is so good at writing fun songs with the lessons no one else is writing about…

Oh, the blind are leading the blind
With an Uh, uh, oh!! Tell me what they’ll find?
Fall in a hole, that’s right they’ll fall in a hole!
That’s what you’ll find, when the blind are leading the blind!

If you turn away from Christ, you are blinded without sight.
You will never know His ways
If you don’t know what the Bible says!

There are people you will find who to the ways of God are blind.
Do not follow them or you might fall down with them, too!

When I hear the words you say it tells me if you know the way.
Can you show God’s love to me? Are you blind or do you see?

Oh, the blind are leading the blind
With an Uh, uh, oh!! Tell me what they’ll find?
Fall in a hole, that’s right they’ll fall in a hole!
That’s what you’ll find, when the blind are leading the blind!

Stop Kickin’ Up a Fuss & Take a Little Nap

Keith took the kids to the library Saturday morning after Nate’s basketball game & they dropped me off to shop alone!!! Wow, what a difference that makes in one’s shopping experience, let me tell you. No squashed bread, hide & seek in the toilet paper isles, etc.

Anyway, they came back with a ton of books & Songs of the Civil War CD . We’ve been listening to that the last few days accompanied by the kids dancing jigs to it in the living room. Cute. (It’s a little heavy on the Confederate side for my taste, musically speaking.) Callie’s devouring the Little House series right now, so Home Sweet Home is appropriate there & all. Two Little Boys & Goober Peas are fun songs, but one song (Cumberland Gap) stands out as a favorite & so has been adopted as Anders’ new theme song. To hear the song in its entirety, although a different rendition, go here. In the CD we have, we are treated to banjo, some skillful spoon-playing, whistling at one point, & they repeat the chorus line quite a bit more, hence the reason for it being Anders’ new theme…

Lay down boys & take a little nap
They’re kicking up a fuss in the Cumberland Gap.

I think it’s hilariously ironic that he loves this song so! You can imagine the words we’ve come up with for our family verses.

Medieval Helpdesk

Have you seen this? My sister-in-law blogged this last week & I just think it’s funnier every time I watch it. For anyone who has ever had the thrill of helping another person with a computer mental block, this is for you. As I’ve said many a time, BLESS those tech help guys!! I could never do their job.

Enjoy.

Why Women Live Longer Than Men

In response to this post, I give a balanced perspective.
(Thanks, Family Man Ministries for the photos.)
Look carefully to get the full humor. Sorry the pix are a bit small.

“Let’s see those Chinese acrobats do this!!!”

“I’ve got you, buddy. Just a little further.”

“Hey, who moved the truck?!”

“What are you looking for? And what’s up with the yellow suits?”

“Of course I know it’s not safe to do electrical work around water…that’s why I’m standing safely above it on this metal ladder.”

“Yeah, it’s a stupid idea…but you gotta admire my ingenuity.”

“What do you think I am, dumb? Of course I set the parking brake.”

More Anders-isms

Anders has been cranking out the funnies over the last week. Had to write a few down…

“It’s snowing here. Is it snowing at your place?”
– On the phone with same age cousin Sam who happens to live right next door! Keith & I could just imagine Sam on the other side getting all excited, “Yeah!! It IS snowing here!!”

“I don’t know who I’m going to marry!”
– Sobbing after put to bed the other night. “I can’t marry Callie & I can’t marry Mommy. Who AM I going to marry? I don’t know!”

“Oh! I threw up!!!”
– Along with sounds accompanying the decorating of his Twinkie for Callie’s cake. I let the boys each put their own coloring on their “sleeping bags”. He promptly took the green & dribbled it from his little cookie chin to the bottom of his John Deere green frosted Twinkie. You can get a close-up of his decorating job in the Flickr pic to the left.

“I thought it was marshmallow.”
– Comment after he took a chomp out of the bottom of the giant “7″ candle, accompanied by much spitting & sputtering. I’m saving it for his seventh birthday cake.

“Do you sometimes wish you were a boy so you could wear a tie?”
– To Callie while they were playing with 5 sies together. He was wearing his tie clipped onto his turtleneck at the time. Callie’s answer, “Not really.”

“Throw it in the dump. I don’t like aces.”
– During his turn at family card game night while playing Polish Poker, a.k.a. Golf. He just randomly decided aces weren’t his favorite cards I guess.

“Mom, this is kiw-wwing me!”
– Translation: this is killing me. Always accompanied by a horrid grimace on the face & usually comes along with a dramatic hand to the forehead. Any time he is asked to do something he doesn’t want to do such as put away the clean silverware, or take in an educational show he’d rather not watch.

And some things just take a picture to capture. The other day, I walked into the bathroom to find this. I knew Anders had been there! He said it was taking a long time, so he set up some entertainment for himself to while away the time. That little stool the keyboard is so precariously perched upon is for tooth brushing. Ingenious!

A “Slumber” Party for the Seven Year Old

First off, before you read this, you need to click here & crank the sound way up. Sorry, I don’t know how nor have the time to figure out how to get music to just start up on this site. This song was Keith’s idea.

Highlights of Callie’s seventh birthday celebration:

– Aliyah lost a tooth during the party for the second year in a row!
– pizza, pop, glow in the darks, and bunk beds.
– the fishing game & playing store for party favors.
– American Girl dolls & Cabbage Patch kids.
– the giggles of four circa seven year old gals!!!
– the colored long hair wigs (Callie picked those out for the girls to have. They were the hit party favor by far. Well, that & the princess lip gloss.)
– “Napoleon” ice cream & frosted Twinkies (My kids have never had a Twinkie before so this was an over the top treat.)

More fun to follow in the morning. I got Callie’s favorites for breakfast – frozen sausage patties, frozen egg patties, & hash browns. She gets the frozen patties from Grandma W every morning when we visit up there. To her that is the height of luxury to have round egg patties. To each her own, you know? It sure makes breakfast easy for me tomorrow. Seeing as how we still hear thumping around up there & it’s well past 11, I expect a late brunch.

After Note: Come to find out, four seven year olds do not sleep when put together for the night. I barked at them for the last time around 1:30am & woke to them bumping their dolls around in there at 7 sharp. They told of their many trips up & downstairs in the night for drinks, restroom breaks, snacks of vanilla wafers, putting on princess tatoos, rounds of bean bag toss (the new game one of the girls brought for a gift), etc. Do you think they’ll need a nap today? They still seem pretty perky this morning.

After after note: Got to snuggle down for a long winter’s nap with my young ‘uns curled up under my arms. Loved every minute of it!! What a wonderful way to celebrate my baby girl’s birth! That long night was worth it after all. Come to think of it, that’s what Callie & I were doing together for the first time exactly seven years ago.

See Flickr photos on the left for pix of the party. (Sorry, I put them in backwards again. One of these times I’ll get that right.)

Happy Birthday, Lina Sue!! You’re growing up to be such a sweet little gal! I’m so glad God gave me you.

New Bloggy Friends

Spent some time last night & this morning reading about this cool couple. Both are fellow Liberty grads & Nate’s (the new daddy) a PK as well as pastor. She has CF & they just had their first baby girl. Both girls will stay in the hospital for a while as Tricia (Mommy) is waiting for a double lung transplant, & Gwyneth (baby girl) was born at 25 weeks. Neat family! Gotta move on with the day, but will be praying for them. Join me?

A Word About Pets

Our family when I was growing up never had a lot of luck with pets. They usually lasted a few months tops. There were the parakeets (Wendy & Tweety), the hermit crabs who escaped incessantly to the corner of the bathroom behind the claw-foot tub, the gerbils (Whip & Snap), the cats (Cedric the Stinky & Theo – thought he was a god so amply named), the guinea pig (Esau?), Pepsi the selectively deaf wiener-beagle dog, lovely Taffy (Do any of you boys remember that gem of a dog? He dug up all Dad’s flowers like three times in two days, then he was go-o-o-one.). Only one stands out from the rest – Fritzy – our miniature schnauzer. He made it to three years. I have to hand it to Mom & Dad, they did keep trying to give us the pet experience.

Jeana from Days to Come relates her take on poodles in a way like no other. If you’ve never read her, you’ve got to read this one. It reminds me of dear Aunt Patt’s Siamese cats. Classic!! I laughed until there was a single glistening tear on the cheek. Gotta read it to get that one. For a good laugh, see Jeana.

Teen Angel on Christmas Eve

One of the biggest reasons this blog was started was to write down those many stories of how God has provided or shown Himself in my life & our family over the years for the next generation. I call it the “Pot of Omar”, as in the pot of manna that was put into the Ark of the Covenant to remind the children of Israel how God miraculously provided & showed Himself faithful to them the 40 years they were in the wilderness, lest the next generation forget. God has shown Himself so real to me over the years, I am obliged to write it down so my children & nieces & nephews will know. They will have their own stories to add in time, but until then, may they be anchored in the steadfast love of God, & His undeniable presence because they’ve heard firsthand how He has worked in their own flesh and blood’s lives.

The story I meant to write down over Christmas but never got the time to, I will entitle “Teen Angel”. It was Christmas Eve of 1983 I believe. That was a tough year for our family, but I will always thank God for it for several reasons. On the other end of it all, I had a greater appreciation for everyday luxuries that still effect me today. I was shown a great example in my parents of how to forgive & move on, trusting God to handle the ones who caused hurt, and more than that, even seeing God’s Hand in even those bad situations!

I saw my father go through a horrible experience in the church with his faith in his Lord strengthened, when a weaker man would’ve been crushed. He was not that old in his Christian walk himself, having gone straight into the ministry after conversion about ten years earlier. Our church in M_____, Ohio was only his third church to minister in. He was not raised in the church, so what he went through could’ve easily sent him packing from church as a whole for good. But Dad was drawn more to the heart of God & thus continued to love the Body through it all! This instilled in me a deep love for Christ’s Body, Bride, the church. I know many a pastor’s family could tell tales of the terrible things that happened in their church. It’s not unusual. Non-pastoral families have no idea of the backlash the pit of hell throws at the pastor at times. Carnal people (& they are in every church – wheat & tares growing up together) can be the nastiest & most miserable people you’ll ever meet – under conviction, but in denial of their guilt. I saw my mom & dad give their life for the church & this particular year, unbelievable lies were thrown around & Dad was the one who got the brunt of it, with not a word of protection, encouragement, etc. from higher ups. Then he was literally thrown out on his ear & left without a job with four children to care for. It really is incredible when I think on the whole situation. But God taught me a whole lot through that experience, even though I was but a tender eighth grader.

Our family went without a lot that year – phone gone (Dad signed up to substitute teach, so he’d walk down to the corner phone booth at 5am every morning to call in & see where to teach that day). Hot water off for six months – that will get you up in the mornings, let me tell you! But we saved a bunch on water bills – short showers. There were nights we had oatmeal for dinner. Mom pulled out the nasty stewed raisins from Grandpa Bob’s castoffs one night – I vividly remember that one! We would pray before starting the car up each time, thanking God when it did because it was such a miracle – we had some humdingers in the car department over the years. (Another post for another time.) But you know what I saw first hand in all that? My Dad never got bitter! He clung to God & God was faithful. I saw God give us everything we needed daily. We never went without a meal. NEVER! I never remember Dad sitting around feeling sorry for himself. I’m sure he must have at times, but my memory is of him always looking forward; never stopping. He did that until literally the day God took him home – served His Lord & didn’t stop to worry or mope.

Anyway, that gives you some background for the story. You have to understand the year we were in to get the whole scope of this story. That Christmas, we all decided we didn’t need to give each other presents – didn’t have the money. I was fine with that. You’d have to ask my brothers how they were about it, but I’m sure Mom & Dad were pretty low. As a parent, about the biggest joy I get at Christmas is finding a little something to give them that’s special. To not get to do that would really bum me out! To lift the spirits, we pulled out Monopoly & Risk to settled down for a night of family competition & fun together.

Sometime that evening, the door bell rang. I went to answer it & a kid (young teenager) was at the door I’d never met. I remember his stocking cap best. It was pulled down close to his eyes. He asked if “Pastor B____” was there. You always knew when it was someone who didn’t know Dad, because Dad preferred to be called “Pastor Don”. Now, we were used to people coming to us for food or money because our name started with a B, so we were close to the top of the clergy list in the phone book. Dad often took bags of groceries to needy families late at night. I remember Mom fixing egg sandwiches as one needy family joined us for dinner. (I think that particular family was hoping for money to get steak maybe? The kids snubbed their noses at our eggs! I got a kick out of that one.) But this kid wanted to give Dad something. So I went to get him & thought nothing else of it. Dad held an envelope as he came back to join us. In it was a substantial amount of cash with a note that simply said, “from God”. I remember clearly going straight to the window to see if I could tell where he went or where he came from – a car? bike? There was snow on the ground that evening, so I looked for tracks to follow which direction he came from at least. There were no tracks in the snow.

As long as I live, no one will be able to convince me that boy was anything less than an angel in disguise come to bring encouragement to a hurting pastor & his family. I will never forget how God provided that Christmas through a young boy, a note, & an envelope. Later, about a week after Christmas, a relative cleaned out their toy box & dropped off two or three stuffed bags full of more toys than we’d ever had in three Christmases combined! We had an awesome Christmas of toys that year, a week later.

Psalm 37:25
Once I was young, and now I am old.
Yet I have never seen the godly abandoned
or their children begging for bread.

Thinking Toward Next Year

Next year will be here before you know it. The overarching lessons I want to teach the children next year is the Fruit of the Spirit. In gathering the info, I have started a page of ideas (see page list on the right) to get the creative juices flowing. If you have ideas, please feel free to load up the comment box there over the next months.

I think I can use some Gothard materials I already have to lay the framework on this topic. Example – week one = dig into fruit of the month, week two = tell Bible story that teaches fruit of the month, week three = teach about an animal that exemplifies the fruit of the month, week four (when we have it) = review past fruit. I’d like the kids to have several verses for each fruit memorized. Also, I’m thinking they should work on some kind of accumulative project to review throughout the year like a mobile of some kind from the different animals, etc. Maybe some kind of “cage” to keep them in & get out to review? I’m thinking they will have a craft to make a variation of each animal on the week I teach on that animal. That gives you the idea for my basic overview of the year’s teaching, craft, activity schedule.

I know for myself, the older I get, the more I realize how desperately I need the Fruit of the Spirit in my life. It has become a daily prayer request for my life over the last few years. I’m looking forward to teaching them & really digging into them with the kids. That part is pretty much settled in my mind. It’s the theme, fun hook, that I need to decide on.

As far as a catchy theme for this topic, I have been wracking my brain & come up with several possibilities, each of which have strengths & weaknesses. One idea could be to do a chef theme – go with the fruit & food idea with aprons, chef hat, etc. I’ve thought about using the carpenter theme & hook that with building character. I think the boys would like that & cheap tool belts are easy to get ahold of for awards. Another would be to go with a bee theme, since bees hang around ripe fruit. We have access to a good giant bee costume, there’s plenty of bee stickers out there, etc. We could talk about “bee-ing” patient & “bee-ing” gentle, etc. As far as something to put pins on, I guess I would go back to the bag idea (works well for the kids to put & tote their Club stuff around) & get bee pins to award them with. Yet another would be to get sciency. Mom gave me three great object lesson books full of science experiments that I would love to hand to a couple guys in our church who would make great guest appearances as wacky scientists. Plus, Group is doing science as their VBS theme this summer & I always love their music & use it throughout the next year. I could probably find a church locally who’s done with their props & decorations to use, & they have lots of cute ideas like “test tube treats”, etc. A lot of it is in what you call it. Keith suggested I make a “periodic table” out of the character qualities & highlight the fruit of the spirit there. The kids or teachers could have lab coats as our “uniform” to put awards on.

Any ideas? Comments? Suggestions?