Home of Splendor

Thank God, O woman, for the quietude of your home, and that you are queen in it. Men come at eventide to the home; but all day long you are there beautifying it, sanctifying it, adorning it, blessing it. Better be there than wear a queen's coronet. Better be there than carry the purse of a princess. It may be a very humble home. There may be no carpet on the floor. There may be no pictures on the wall. There may be no silks in the wardrobe; but, by your faith in God, and your cheerful demeanor, you may garnish that place with more splendor than the upholsterer's hand ever kindled.

~ T. De Witt Talmage

Simple Service

Lord of the pots and pans and things,
since I've no time to be
a saint by doing lovely things,
or watching late with thee,
or dreaming in the dawnlight,
or storming heaven's gates...
make me a saint by getting meals
and washing up the plates.
Thou who didst love to give men food
in room or by the sea,
accept this service that I do--
I do it unto thee.

~Anonymous

Journal Happy

My first "diary" began on my birthday when I was 8 years old. My thoughts were mainly about the weather, a fun activity I did, or about a new friend. As I entered high school most of my entries were attempts at poetry in order to find a way to figure out all the swirling emotions inside of me. College journals were mainly written prayers, and I kept spiral-bound calendars that I used as daily logs of all my activities. I always gave journals to friends as gifts by covering composition books with fabric (hot glued) and adding ribbons and embellishments. I knew I was giving them the precious gift of expressing themselves and an avenue for deeper spiritual growth and intimacy with the Lord.

After college I headed overseas to Eastern Europe for 2 years and kept very detailed daily journals of everything I did, all my thoughts and impressions, prayers, and even what I ate! These are some of my favorite journals and have been a memorial of all that God was working in me at such a pivotal time in my life. It's also been a source of confirmation to me of my faith and my intimacy with the Lord.

The years after that have sporadic journaling. Babies came quickly and fatigue got the best of me. I always came back to writing though because it best allowed me to get out all of my emotions and a way for me to process my life. Journals have always been a safe place for me to vent, cry, struggle, and finally surrender.

I have journaled a lot this past year as a way of healing for me from some hard places in my life and in a struggle with anxiety and depression. The more I "get it all out" the more at peace I am. I have a hard time praying out loud or in my mind but have always found my greatest prayer intimacy with Him through writing. The benefits of journaling are numerous and is a lifestyle discipline worth our time and energy.

The key to journaling is to be yourself. Keep it simple, unedited, and from the heart. Just write and allow yourself to be fully expressive in your emotions. This is only between you and the Lord and there is beautiful freedom for pure authenticity.

I was so thrilled to find this delightful blog that has inspired me to make one of these simple journals filled with the daily-ness of my life. This is a pretty place for to-do lists, poems, quotes from the children, creative ideas, recipes, etc. This will be a fun scrapbook-of-sorts of our lives, activities, and all the little things that we so easily forget down the road. These journals are a wonderful way to recycle magazines and finally cut out all those inspiring pictures that we keep those mags for in the first place!! This is also something that my little girl is enjoying doing with me and is inspired to make her own.

Buy a fresh journal, notebook, sketchbook or whatever and enjoy anew the journaling journey!

Think for Yourself

I have lived most of my life doing what others tell me to do. Whoever seems trustworthy, spiritual, intelligent or socially mature is who I will listen to and make decisions based on what they say without much thought of my own. It took listening to the wrong people and making wrong life decisions with painful consequences to wake me up to my irresponsibility of not thinking for myself.

As I was planning a home birth with my fourth child, I had a wonderful midwife who taught me to make informed decisions. I just wanted her to tell me what to do in my pregnancy (just like I did with the doctors in my other pregnancies) without my taking responsibility in understanding my body, nutritional health, testing, herbs, circumcision, vaccinations, etc. She would give me lots of information from lots of different sources that would give me both sides of an issue. Then she would ask me, "What is your decision?"

At first this made me really uncomfortable. I was used to entrusting myself into the hands of others without thought and realized how often I just want someone to tell me what to do. I don't want to take the time to really understand the issues and also to have to take the responsibility for the consequences! If we just listen to others' opinions and things go wrong, we can just blame them. Being an informed decision-maker means I must take time, learn to think, learn to discern, pray, and make a decision based on all the facts along with the Lord's leading. It causes me to become more intuitive and to ultimately entrust myself to the Lord.

Having the home birth changed my life because it truly empowered me. The process showed me that I had been a blind follower throughout my life (mostly out of sheer fear) and that having a home birth was something I decided to do without the influence of anyone else in my life. And I did it! And I became responsible for my body and my daily living in a whole new way.

Being an empowered thinker transformed every area of my life after that home birth. I simply cannot get enough of the library or the internet for research. I feel free for the first time in my life to question everything in my faith, my values, my habits, my eating choices, my finances, my relation to creation, my homeschooling, my parenting, my home, my community, my church, my hobbies, and on and on. I read a wide variety of authors and viewpoints on every topic that sparks interest in me. I examine, talk with Mike, pray, compare ideas with the truth of the Bible, realize that there is sooooo much I just don't know in life, and then jump into learning even more! My brain has come alive! My faith has deepened and been encouraged, enriched, and expanded...God is bigger than I ever imagined and more wonderful than I ever dreamed. Many of my lifestyle choices are changing and evolving as I seek to find a simple and more natural way of living in every single area of my life. I want to live life well and with authenticity.

Why do you do what you do? Are you just going with the cultural flow? Or with the culture of your faith? Or with your family or friends? Are you afraid to question life? To take full responsibility for your choices?

Be empowered to walk your own walk in dependence on the Lord. Read both sides of every issue and know all your options in the daily choices you make. Talk to or read many different people in areas that interest or concern you. Live deliberately, responsibly, humbly and with mindful intention. Listen to the gentle promptings of the Holy Spirit. Trust Him and your gut.

Enjoy the expanding journey!

Gentle Mothering

This year I prayed that God would show me an aspect of my character as a mother that needed pruning, cultivation, and growth. It was very clear that "gentleness" was to be my theme and I have spent months thinking about, praying about, and reading about gentleness.

The dictionary uses the following synonyms for gentleness:

peaceful
soothing
tender
lenient
merciful

It refers to an absence of bad temper and often suggests a deliberate or voluntary kindness or forbearance in dealing with others. It is to be considerate or kindly in disposition, amiable, and tender. The opposite is to be harsh or cruel.

So many times I am anything but these qualities. I can yell, bark orders, micro-manage, or just be in a general panic mode which makes me snippy, rude, and impatient. I can give stern stares, intimidating glares, or a disrespectful roll-of-my-eyes. It is this fallen side of my character that grieves me and is need of Jesus' grace, forgiveness and gentleness.

Jesus is so gentle and kind. Do we really realize that He treats our hearts, our shortcomings, our failures with such tenderness and compassion? He beckons us to come to Him and He offers His tender rest. He calls us to learn from Him because He is "gentle and humble in heart". He is the Good Shepherd who sees His sheep harassed and helpless and His response is compassion. He sees me as a harried, pressured, and fearful mom who chases perfectionism in her home and children and offers me Himself....gentleness, kindness, peace, rest, and freedom from the law I have been enslaved to.

We are to follow in His steps. As the Father of all prodigals lavishes grace, embrace, and a celebration, we are to walk that path with our children. We are to be gentle leaders of our children not forceful finger-pointers. We are to be kind healers not harsh heart-breakers. We are to be peaceful advocates not warring adversaries.

I woke up this morning and decided not to greet my children with the typical "Did you do you chores? Is your bed made? Blinds open?" I decided not to spend an hour handing out orders like a general to his sargeants. I chose to put relationships above responsibilities and scooped each one into a bear hug, looked into their eyes, and told them how much I loved them. We had a leisurely breakfast, laughed a lot, and just enjoyed each others' company. Instead of making them do their chores, I served them...I cleaned up after them and they jumped in with me so that we could all work together. Peace reigned. Kindness ruled. Love was supreme.

I have allowed all the "shoulds" of what I thought a "perfect" Christian wife, mother, homemaker, and homeschooler is to make me a dictator in my own home. I was allowing fear to control me...fear that God expected this standard, fear of others' judgment, and fear of failing my children by not making them fall in line with responsibilities, obedience, etc. In Christian circles the pressure to have perfectly obedient, responsible children is so strong and feeling like a condemned mother by others hurts to the absolute core. Legalism can sneakily jump in and entangle the heart of a mother, and as a result, her God-given heart of gentleness and nurturance gets choked and suffocated. I now really realize that Jesus is offering me His gentleness, freedom to breathe, His easy yoke, and sweet sweet rest.

What freedom to simply live, love, and learn together without the oppression of forced obedience, coercion, and fear. Fear drives us treat our children in an unwholesome way. Let's let go of fear together and trust the perfect Father with His little ones that He has entrusted as gifts into our care. Let's stop following controlling, man-made parenting styles with heavy yokes and spiritual demands and simply love, lead, and serve by example.

Let us be gentle mothers with kind hearts that are gloriously free!

And those of you who read me regularly know that I am very practical and love to give out practical resources. This website has helped nurture a more gentle spirit in me and this website has helped my view of children become that of blessings. I am also just beginning to read and learn more about grace-based discipline. The Love and Logic resources have also given me fresh ideas in disciplining my children in fun, creative, relational ways. And the ultimate Resource is the Holy Spirit Himself who will blow His freedom in and through us and will bear the fruit of gentleness in our lives as we turn and trust Him.

Let go, Let God, and enjoy the mothering journey!

The Blessing of Rain

For God hath made me fruitful in the land of my affliction. Genesis 41:52

The summer showers are falling. The poet stands by the window watching them. They are beating and buffeting the earth with their fierce downpour. But the poet sees in his imaginings more than the showers which are falling before his eyes. He sees myriads of lovely flowers which shall be soon breaking forth from the watered earth, filling it with matchless beauty and fragrance. And so he sings:

"It isn't raining rain for me, it's raining daffodils;
In every dimpling drop I see wild flowers upon the hills.
A cloud of gray engulfs the day, and overwhelms the town;
It isn't raining rain for me: it's raining roses down."

Perchance some one of God's chastened children is even now saying, "O God, it is raining hard for me tonight. Testings are raining upon me which seem beyond my power to endure. Disappointments are raining fast, to the utter defeat of all my chosen plans. Bereavements are raining into my life which are making my shrinking heart quiver in its intensity of suffering. The rain of affliction is surely beating down upon my soul these days."

Withal, friend, you are mistaken. It isn't raining rain for you. It's raining blessing. For, if you will but believe your Father's Word, under that beating rain are springing up spiritual flowers of such fragrance and beauty as never before grew in that stormless, unchastened life of yours.

You indeed see the rain. But do you see also the flowers? You are pained by the testings. But God sees the sweet flower of faith which is upspringing in your life under those very trials.

You shrink from the suffering. But God sees the tender compassion for other sufferers which is finding birth in your soul.

Your heart winces under the sore bereavement. But God sees the deepening and enriching which that sorrow has brought to you.

It isn't raining afflictions for you. It is raining tenderness, love, compassion, patience, and a thousand other flowers and fruits of the blessed Spirit, which are bringing into your life such a spiritual enrichment as all the fullness of worldly prosperity and ease was never able to beget in your innermost soul.

Excerpt from "Streams in the Desert" by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman

Reducing Junk Mail

It is always depressing to walk to the mailbox only to find a big handful of meaningless flyers, credit card offers, mortgage offers, random catalogs, etc. Very rarely is there anything of any value in the mailbox. Then all that junk mail has to be dealt with...either recycled, thrown away, or strewn all over the house because the children love looking at all the "exciting" pizza coupons. It is emotionally tiring to weed through it all and deal with it...not to mention the environmental impact of the paper, printing, and gas it took to deliver it.

I just read at GreenDimes that 100 million trees are cut down every year and 28,000,000,000 gallons of water are used to produce this junk mail that no one wants!!! And our cities spend $370 million a year just to handle the waste of our junk mail. And did you know that average American spends 8 months of their life opening up junk mail? Is that not just crazy?

Part of my Spring Green goals was to reduce junk mail, and I have finally begun the process! Here are a few options for you if you want to opt-out of receiving certain kinds of junk mail and thereby making an emotional and ecological investment.

• Check out GreenDimes that I mentioned above. You pay a dime a day for them to reduce your input of junk mail and they plant a tree in your honor every month.
• Register with the Mail Preference Service of the Direct Marketing Association. They will list you in their database in the "do not mail" category.
  
• Go to OptOutPreScreen.com which allows you to remove your name from lists that credit card, mortgage and insurance companies use to mail you solicitations.
• Call catalog companies and ask them to take you off their list. When you need something, just go look at their website!
• Ask your magazine companies and credit card company not to "rent" your name to other companies and to put your name on their "do not promote" list.
• For more disturbing facts on junk mail, you can read this at the Native Forest Network.
  

Here's to regaining 8 months of living doing what we love with who we love with mailboxes full of real encouraging mail from family and friends! Fill a mailbox with love today!

Good Organic Primers

I have read 2 books recently that I borrowed from the library that are very helpful if you are beginning your journey into more organic, natural living. These books are easy reading and purely practical.

The first is "To Buy or Not To Buy Organic" by Cindy Burke. This book helps the reader understand how pesticide exposure affects our health and especially our children's health. It also teaches you which fruits and vegetables you should buy organic but also her "clean fifteen" of foods that you don't really need to buy organic. She also educates on the debate on buying organic vs. buying local. At the end of the book there is a wealth of website resources and organizations to explore that will help you make informed choices with your buying. I particularly liked the sites for the Eat Well Guide, The Edible Schoolyard, and Farmstop.

The second book is "The Organic Suburbanite: An Environmentally Friendly Way To Live The American Dream" by Warren Schultz. This book covers all the ways we can make our entire homes more healthy, simple, and environmentally-friendly. Topics covered include your kitchen, laundry, office, controlling household pests, cars, garages, swimming pools, lawn care, gardening, water, etc. It is a wonderful comprehensive guide to natural living filled to the brim with practical tips, hints, and ideas to make your home as safe as possible.

I hope these books can help guide your family to a healthier, happier lifestyle!