Saturday Scraps: Family Newsie Stuff

Isn't my title eloquent?



Mmmm....news...what's the news.....well, God is good and life is crazy, but you probably came by for more than that so....



Basketball is Over:(

Though Princess is a bit relieved I'm sad it's over. It was fun to see her push her lack of athleticism and have a chipper sense of humor after her practices surged her body with lovely endorphins. It taught me, a mommy of tween, soon to be teen, a lesson....make sure they get exercise. In fact, I decided if I see it in her that noticeably, I should be convicted to do it myself! It was fun to go to the games and hear Rick yelling out of excitement to be back in some form of sports arena again. Though at the time I confess, I may have begged him not to yell so loud. I was worried the coach would think he was trying to take over his position from the bleachers. It was fun to see her in uniform and get out there and give it a try. Coordination has never been her strong suit but she really got better as she practiced. She learned a lot of lessons I've written about in previous posts concerning doing it because you love it and not because the other girls tell you you are bad or awesome.


Superkid's Life Lessons

Well, you can probably tell, we are not against boys playing with toy guns at our house. This is Superkid and his neighbor friend who is also in his class at school. They play many afternoons.

Superkid is in a time of great stretching in his life. He has never been a big fan of going to school but right now he is really not liking it. Having been former homeschoolers we are very sensitive to watching for signs for God to tell us to stay or to bring one or any of them back home. His will is always working and we want to be sensitive to it. In fact, I read a Focus On The Family article once that I totally dissagreed with. It was saying that parents should consider well which option is for their family but to stick to one and be consistant. I don't think that is so. I think every year, and every child and sometimes every month in the year has be be handled with prayer for direction. So, I have been talking more with his teacher, and talking more with him, and being in the classroom. He just is in a severely apathetic mode about school work at all. He is struggling with it with his homework so it does not seem to be confined to the classroom. It really could be summed up in a stage of the severe "I don't wann's". He tells his teacher he is bored. Being that academically he is at the top of his class, this may very well be true but when he does his work he has been doing it sloppy on purpose and taking his time on purpose and not focusing on doing the work when the teacher is walking around helping others. It's really just a disobedient phase of the heart. He also decided recently that the items at "store" time (when they get to spend the points they earn each week) are not worth his trouble (he asked me if the teacher could give them real money so they could go buy something they really wanted....ha! I don't think the world works that way dear!) so he stopped trying to earn them. So, we had a talk about doing things right as unto the Lord and not for any earthly reward. It makes me thankful, thought it's challenging, when school brings up these heart issues that we have to deal with because I know the Lord is working in his heart. We could just as easily have the same problem at home with him deciding that was boring and not wanting to do his work for me either. Right now he has a fantasy idea of homeschooling and thinks it means getting to watch more movies and rest during the day, or play with his Lego's all day long. By this point in my parenting I have a better incite into this "grass is always greener" element and am not as easily swayed to make quick decisions by it.

So, half of it is his heart issues, but the other half is the decline of the public schools, plain and simple, especially when it comes to the early grades. In fact, Rick and I were talking that if we had any more kids younger, we don't know how they would survive, boys especially, in the classroom. It's not really the fault of our particular school but state legislators are to blame. The classroom sizes are crazy big, again, especially for this age. Last year Superkid's teacher had 15 or so kids, and this year there are 28-29. Next year she said they are projecting 30. Now, you can run a class of 4th, 5th or 6th graders at that number, but I don't believe in doing that for the young ones. I can attest, being the one to go in and give the assessments, that 2/3 of the class cannot read yet. The teacher is doing all she can but she is up against the obstacle of not enough resources, time, and one-on-one opportunities. Not to mention a plethora of parents who don't care and children who come from challenging circumstances such as exposure to drugs in uturo, fetal alcohol, and homes where reading to your kids just does not happen. With the class size that big, and the obstacles, THEN you have the state mandating what all to cram down their little throats in the time you have. There is not time for art or music or hands on learning, though I know some teachers at our school say fooie to the state because frankly, they are near retirement anyway and don't believe in the new philosophy of education. They (the state) don't realize they are drowning themselves because by pushing more, the kids are getting less. Especially at these ages when their brains are developing on many different levels and their information and learning are gleaned in many different ways. A kindergartner, 1st or 2nd grader does not learn efficiently by sitting in a desk for 6 hours and having you cram stuff into him all day by lecture, pen and paper. His brain just will block off 75% or so of what you dish out. Then, you move on, because the state tells you you have to and little Johnny didn't get what you last did so he is not anywhere able to get the next step. They end up floating around a early 1st grade level until their brains naturally catch up by means of every day life and experience really. The sad thing, is that once their brains wake up to some things, many important academic building blocks are missing for their further education and they end up either always being behind, or having to learn to wing it most of the time.

Where Superkid sits in his development is the only thing that keeps us from yanking right now, well, that and God's directing us. He gets the academics very well. He just needs more creative time. If he lacked in the academics I would have no choice but to bring him back home because he would NOT be getting the education he needed. Even the sweet Christian teachers that we love have their hands so tied (unless they are rebels at heart enough to not care like I said before). They are working with a near impossible set of circumstances.

So, we have been praying about this and right now we feel he should stay. Mainly because the lessons HE is needing to learn are in the area of listening to directions and being diligent in his school work. The scale is near tipping though and if it were not two months till the end of the school year, I may feel differently. I will not criticize parents who put their boys on meds because that is a personal decision but Rick and I agreed when we went home to public, that if he ever got to that "oh, he's ADD" point, and it effected his education, he would come home. Superkid is at that point (as it would be defined medically, but we happen to think it's more the way God created boys) but he is a reclusive ADD (if we were going to label, which we aren't), meaning that he sits there but zones out and goes far away in his imagination. He is not very loud or disobedient by bugging others or getting out of his seat or anything. So it becomes a question of time. Will he make it to the end of the year? We feel he should. We on the other hand are focusing on some character building and making sure he gets some creative time at home and outside time as well. It's really quite sad the schools are headed this way because it makes it hard for many mom's like me, who are not feeling God has called them to homeschool at the time, or don't do well balancing it with the rest of their responsibilities. Right now we are having to trust that God has a purpose for him to learn some things even though the situation is not ideal. The same could be said of homeschooling. There are always pro's and con's so all you can really do is let the Lord lead.

We really want to hold out for next year because he would have the teacher Lilo had that we really loved. She is one who is brave enough to do what she thinks is good for the kids in her classroom and not what is good for the state. They make fossils, build art projects, grow butterfly gardens and watch them metamorphosis there, and get up and sing songs and dance around many times in the day. After that, well....one year at a time, one prayer at a time!

Oh! I did want to mention the other thing that happened that the Lord used to show us he is where he needs to be right now. Superkid was playing four square with his friends and he did not really know how to play. He bounced the ball too many times and the kids told him he was out. He felt they should let him stay because he did not know the rules, and he was upset they told him he was out. His eyes filled with tears and his face scrunched up when he told us this. Now, at home Superkid is not only the only boy, he is the baby, and for many years he has been catered to in ways we don't even realize (yes, probably mostly by me), so my first reaction that I immediately knew I had to fight off, was to agree with him! BUT, this is one way school is good for him! He is learning that life does not bend the rules to make you feel better about yourself. You WILL get out sometimes. It's time to grow up a bit and be okay with that. So, we got a ball and his sisters got outside with him at home teaching him how to play. That way at least he can get with the game. Yet, the real lesson here was a social one that he really needed.

Wow, I kind of took up my Saturday Scraps with Superkid! And, I'm kind of out of time to blog so I guess that will have to be it for today! Have a blessed Saturday!

Coming this week (Lord willing and health/time permitting:):

• My easy way to lovely Corned beef and cabbage- gotta love St.Patty's day!
• Putting together the girls new decor in their room- I'm hoping for pics.

Christian Hedonism Part 4a: The Problem

Please read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 to know what is going on here.
I came back to the "table" of my thinking to finish this off with joy, frustration, and a great sense of being overwhelmed. There is no way to do Part 4 in one sitting. There is just too much for me to write and too much for you to read and I worry if I put it all out at once you will get exhausted of the reading. So, I'm breaking it down into what I believe will be 5 sub parts, both for my benefit in organizing the thoughts and your benefit in receiving them. They will be:
The Problem
The Power
The Praise
The Prayer and..
The Practical
I'm not trying to be all spiritual with the P's, it's just the best way I could come up with organizing the thoughts in my mind. I don't know how long it will take me to get to them either so I will be taking the week off blog themes till I get through them. They were just too important not to miss though.

The Problem:
I said when I ended Part 2 that the problem I felt in myself and other believers in Christ is that we don't enjoy God. That was bleak to me.
Now don't misunderstand, this is not something I'm just coming up with. In fact, what you read here to day will be more from others than from me. It is something the Lord has been trying to show me and I've been amazed at the congruency of his direction on this topic as many different things in my life that "coincidentally" come my way are right along the lines of this topic.
You may not understand what I mean when I say "we don't enjoy God" and you may disagree with me. If we are not enjoying God as believers, then what the heck are we doing? Well, see if any of this sounds familiar to you:
"....once we've been saved, once we've understood and accepted the message of the gospel, the person and work of the Redeemer becomes secondary to what we're focused on- living the Christian life. ....our attention is primarily focused on our performance, on our spiritual growth. We know that the incarnation and resurrection are important truths to our initial salvation, but that's pretty much where their impact ends. "
"We haven't felt his absence because we're so preoccupied with living life for him."
"I believe that most Christians think fondly of Jesus, are sincerely grateful for salvation, and remember his name as a tagline when they pray, but they don't see his work and life as something to contemplate every moment of every day. I have to admit that until fairly recently I, too, pursued godliness without much thought of him."
"In your pursuit of godliness, have you left Jesus behind?"
(from Because He Loves Me by Elyse M. Fitzpatrick)

Here I was studying Piper and then opened the book I was rather begrudged-ly beginning for our ladies discipleship group when I came across this in the introduction! Do you ever feel God is pretty much taking something and hitting you over the head with it!? I felt Elyse stated the problem a little more clearly than some of the more challenging poetic type language of Piper (that I do love, but it can tie your brain in knots within 30 seconds sometimes). Her focus in her book is really on Christ, so it may seem unrelated to what we talked about in Parts 1,2 and 3 but it's not. Why? Because of what is at the right hand of God Almighty, pleasures forevermore....Jesus Christ. They are all connected and therefore her points are completely valid to this discussion.
Now that we've done some stretching with Elyse and started to feel our mental muscles warming up, let's visit the "Jillian Michaels" of Christian thought exercises- Mr. John Piper:
"For many, Christianity has become the grinding out of general doctrinal laws from collections of biblical facts. But childlike wonder and awe have died. The scenery and poetry and music of the majesty of God have dried up like a forgotten peach at the back of the refrigerator.
And the irony is that we have aided and abetted the desiccation by telling people they ought not seek their own pleasure, especially in worship. We have implied in a thousand ways that the virtue of an act diminishes to the degree you enjoy doing it and that doing something because it yields happiness is bad. The notion hangs like a gas in the Christian atmosphere."
The trap for the believer is working out our righteousness rather than enjoying God. We so often put the cart before the horse. We do our duty and hope to find our delight when we need to delight and find that our heart response to God when we do, is nothing we would dare call "duty" at all. Working out our righteousness actually distracts us from Christ and it causes us to focus instead on our measure and the measure of others. We still are not focused on God.
This is a serious thing because it is falling into deceptions of the enemy. Let me try to explain how.
If God's main goal for us is to be happy in Him, what then would the enemy's main target be? Well, it seems that he would be working that we would attempt to fill that with anything BUT God. For the unbeliever that would be through false "happiness" and pleasure seeking of the world. But what would it be for the believer? What would it look like? How would he take our eyes off Christ and have us once again drinking from an empty well? By the very deception that we don't need to enjoy God, but we need to be a better Christian. God calls out to us trying to give us the joy and happiness of Himself, the goal He has had since the dawn of our existence and we sit there with our hands over our ears and our mouths gabbing "la,la,la,la,la!" at the top of our lungs. The only difference is that the unbeliever does not want to hear God say there is more than the happiness of the world, and the believer does not want to hear that there is more than the striving and striving to be holy!
"We assent to these precious truths of Scripture, but we frequently find ourselves living life like practical atheists- not much different from our unbelieving neighbors down the street- except that our garages are empty on Sunday morning. We forget who he is, what he has done; we don't know why it really matters. Because of this, we fail to remember who we are and how he has called us to live."
(Elyse)
This is the saddest of the sad! I believe it's the passion in God's heart when he says to the church of Ephesus that they have forgotten their first LOVE! What were they doing then? Well, the passage says they were doing really good at working on being Christians! Sobering don't you think?

"I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false;
and you have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake, and have not grown weary.
But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place--unless you repent."

(Revelation 2:2-5)

The strong admonishement is just as heavy as those given to the believers behaving as the ungodly! Yet, we seem to not realize the severity of these words.

The problem with the unsaved is their love affair with themselves. Are we falling in love with Jesus just to abandon enjoying Him (and thereby enjoying God himself) only to fall back in the pit of a love affair with ourselves?
I present to you that this is why God called me OUT of homeschooling. NO, I do not mean that all should be called out. Yet, I had fallen guilty of the above, my friends. I had barely a thought of enjoying God and my savior, I was too busy working harder at the Christian life. I was looking for my fulfillment and my happiness in one person's work, mine. You may not struggle with that if you homeschool, but I did and I THANK GOD EVERY DAY THAT HE PULLED THAT IDOL FROM MY LIFE, AND I HOPE HE KEEPS PULLING THEM! (This does not mean it is an idol or form of idolotry for all or any for that matter, for them I cannot speak nor do I dare to presume, but it had become that for me. It did not start that way, but it became that) He may even call me back at some point but I know now that it would never be to me what it was then. When I stopped homeschooling I had to take a huge leap of faith into the very hand of God. I began to acknowledge how powerful and huge he was and how I needed him. I began to be more and more focused on Him every day. He used that to grow my faith. I still struggle with this battle of self-righteousness. I use to want to be godly to keep up with the godly, now my heart has changed to want to be godly because I want to be like Him. "..our desires will be transformed when our eyes are fixed on his godliness." (Elyse) How often I still struggle with that godliness meter I parade around with me. I've been praying lately that God work in me now not to let the enemy have a foothold in my heart toward my brothers and sisters through that stupid meter either as I interact with them in any way. God has no use for such measurements and they dishonor him entirely. They only serve to do one thing and that is puff up my pride. I don't have to worry about others when my focus is on Christ. But, I digress and see the dust of a rabbit trail starting! LOL!
"Instead of humbly receiving the gracious love of our Father and depending daily on him, we want to believe that we really can improve ourselves. God's love is wonderful at first blush, but because it's not based on anything we've done, it humbles us to the dust." (Elyse)
Does it not pain you as it does me that we are just as bad as the world then in not enjoying God!? This is what I mean when I say I put the cart before the horse. I focus on me! I pray for help for me! I ask that I would do better! OH, heavens! I have forgotten my first love, which is NOT me! My LOVE is CHRIST! All that he has done, all that he will do, all whom he is, all he forgave of me, all he will work in me, all he does in the church around me, the world around me, his wisdom, his might, his promises, his peace above understanding. Do you know that if we pondered more the great things to enjoy about God, we would have so little time to fret about our performance. Our performance is pathetic, and it will always be pathetic. So what is the glory in our life? Whatever God does in us and through us, but that which he can only do if we let him and stop trying to grab the wheel of our deceptive strive for holiness!
I have to bring this back around at some point.....
I think that what we mean when we say that God's goal for us is our complete happiness, that this is what we mean, our enjoyment of Him. We enjoy Him by so many means I'll get to later. It's a constant hunger and pursuit, a passion, a delight and a constant need that God fills. Our joy stays with us through it all, but we also pursue our happiness through pursuing enjoyment of God in many ways. If we don't focus on Christ, we do just as the unbelieving and focus on our flesh. Even if the way we do that is by focusing on our Christian performance, that is still us, and it's still the flesh and it's satisfaction is deceptive.

"Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? (Galatians 3:2-3)

"Religious 'flesh' always wants to work for God (rather than humbling itself to realize God must work for it in free grace). But 'if you live according to the flesh you will die' (Romans 8:13). That is why our very lives hang on not working for God.

You may also be discouraged repetitively, depressed again and again, and insecure. Though these are a struggle for us all, the more we understand this view of God not needing our service to Him, the more freed from these we become.

"God is not looking for people to work for Him, so much as He is looking for people who will let Him work for them. The gospel is not a help-wanted ad."

"From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him." (Isaiah 64:4)

"Most of us think serving God is a totally positive thing; we have not considered that serving God may be an insult to Him. But meditation on the meaning of prayer demands this consideration.

Acts 17:24-25

'The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.'

'The Son of Man came not to be served (Mark 10:45). He aims to be the servant. He aims to get the glory as Giver.

This is true, not just in the days of His earthly humiliation, but even in His glory at the close of the age.

'Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.' (Luke 12:37)

To be sure, we are called servants- and that no doubt means we are to do exactly as we are told. But the wonder of this picture is that the 'master' insists on 'serving' even in the age to come when He appears in all His glory 'with his mighty angels in flaming fire' (2 Thess 1:7-8). Why? Because the very heart of His glory is the fullness of grace that overflows in kindness to needy people. Therefore, He aims 'in the coming ages to show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus' (Eph 2:7)

What is the greatness of our God? What is His uniqueness in the world?

Isaiah answers:

'From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him. (Isaiah 64:4)

All other so-called gods try to exalt themselves by making man work for them. In doing so, they only show their weakness. Isaiah derides the gods who need the service of their people"

(All taken from John Piper's Chapter entitled "Prayer" from Desiring God.... I went from thought to thought that struck me. I really do it injustice to say that is all however as reading on your own you will find much more in between)

The obvious question would therefore be what about all the scripture that tells us to serve God? How do we serve Him. Well, first I have to recommend reading this yourself because I'm not getting it all as I just stated in the parenthesis. But here is a morsel:

"The way to serve God so that He gets the glory is to look to Him for mercy. Prayer prevents service from being an expression of pride." Piper

Ah, and there in lies the rub as they say! Pride is self, self is flesh, flesh is me. I'm back to square one where I'm not enjoying God I've started to enjoy me and my fine tuning Christian ways.

I hope you start to see therefore, how this all comes together. It's a lot I know, and there is more important stuff surrounding it.

Next post I'd like to hit the really joyful aspect of the power behind this happiness. Where does it come from? What makes it such a strong desire in us, this pining for happiness?

Please, please, and I say again, please ask any questions and make any statements of thought. I welcome them all.

Thankful Thursday: Yes, I'm Thankful For The Public School

I've decided to devote my Thankful Thursday (which I've not been remembering to post enough, sorry!) to something on my heart. I've pondered and prayed about the emotions this conjured up in me and the Lord has convicted me to deal with it from a grateful heart.

I read this on someones facebook pages as a group description they had joined.

"So-called "public schools" are, in fact, "government schools." "They are operated by the government, using government employees, on property owned and controlled by the government, using government funds. Supporters of this destructive system would object to such candor, of course, since most Americans know that to identify something as a "government institution" is to brand it inefficient at best, destructive at worst. Child abuse is neither always obvious or intentional. The most rampant form of child abuse in this country is not only legal, but committed routinely. It is the act of taking what arguably is, or should be, the most precious things in your life--your children--and placing the responsibility for their education in the hands of the government."

I don't think I took that wrong when I read it to mean that I was exposing my children (or bringing it about myself) to child abuse by having them in public school. This hurt my spirit so much as a fellow member of the body of Christ.

It hurt me not because I care what men think, even Christians because see, I answer to two others above all these. (1) I answer to God who distinctly led us into the public schools all be it shocking to me and crushing to my legalistic presumptions about going public, and (2) I answer to my husband who decided this was best for our family at this time.

God would NEVER lead us into sin, NEVER. God would never lead us into abusing our children. One cannot say that attending a government school is child abuse (and therefore sinful) if they are not willing to say that all governmental institutions are sinful. Is sending your child to a state college sinful? Is it child abuse because it's government?

Is a single mother abusing her children by sending them to school when she has no husband and therefore has to work? If it is not sinful for that situation, then it is not for any family with these options. Though her reasons are desperate and extreme they are a good guideline to tell us if something is sinful or not. The family unit may have it's own less dramatic reasons for being led into the public schools. Sin is always wrong across the board. It is always clear and not altered by motive.

That is all I will say on that. I have a tender spot for this having journeyed through it and I want to be careful to be gracious though my emotions are in tumult at such "Christian" attitudes.

So...I am thankful:

• I am SO thankful for the journey the Lord has us on right now. Every day I keep an open heart and ponder what the next step is. Is it to have them back home? Is it to stay where they are? Is it for one of them to come home? What do you want Lord? I'm willing to do any of those if the Lord leads. I know His way is joyful.


• I am thankful for our little town and how close the school is to home.


• I'm thankful for great teachers, and I'm not just saying that. Each year the Lord has provided wonderful teachers for the kids so far, and guess what? I trust him to do that as long as he wants them there. Now, a bad teacher may not mean that it's not still God's will, it may mean a new challenge for us as a family and for our child. That is why we will seek him every step along the way. He will bless when we do what He wants, not what we want. To obey is better than sacrifice! Isn't it true though that sacrifice fulfills our sense of righteousness though? We feel good that we have given up something for the Lord. That may not be the sacrifice he wants us to make and obeying him is always a sure way to know what He wants.


• I am thankful for how public school has changed our family. We are able to relax more as a family and talk about life and God. Rick and I are able to have time together that we never had. My sanity level is so much better and have learned so much more what it means to trust the Lord with my children. When a homeschool mom teaches, she sacrifices ALL her time for this goal, and that is not easy. When a public school mom sends her kids in the Lord she sacrifices ALL control on what the Lord allows in their hours away. That may sound trite if you are on the homescool end and you may say "oh, that's nothing!" but trust me, it is.


• I am thankful for the branching out into the community that this has allowed us to do. Although being salt and light was not our mission statement, it is, now that we are called, a real joy to see happen. I truly trust that the exposure and challenges we face are preparing my children even now for the exact purposes God has for them in His kingdom. If I were to hold back, I would stand in His way.


• I'm thankful for the homeschooling years we had! They were great! That is until the Lord began to show me that a change was needed. That is not to say that a rough day homeschooling is a sign that you should stop. We have bad days in public school too! I go to the Lord with all of those and wait on Him. No hasty decisions, just waiting on His lead.


• I'm thankful for our freedom as Americans! We have the right to teach at home! Praise the Lord. We have the right to take part in an institution put together by our government! Praise him still. We are not shut out from those places because of our faith and that is freedom! Again I quote something that meant a lot to encourage me a few years ago by a mom blogger "we seem to want to keep God in the schools but take Christian kids out of them". Oh, dear, what sadness. If the Lord takes me back out, I pray he sends others in! Christian kids and parents ARE Christ in the public schools.

I have a heart to encourage other mom's to be open to God's leading. We serve Him before any man or woman. People will create legalistic boundaries, God will break them down. He will send us everywhere, teach us all things, call us out, put us back, use us in every way. He does not expect us to look the same, march the same, or be afraid of those who don't and who need Him. If you are a mom struggling with schooling decisions, I encourage you to pray and then speak to your husband about your concerns either way. Let God be the author of your children's education, not you, and not the government, GOD. HE does all things well.

NOTE: If the above quote is intended to mean only that the government requiring public school for children then the abuse is on our rights to freedom, not to children. It is not abusive to a child to have him in a school, it is an abuse to take away our freedom to have him at home.

Pantry Challenge: Day 4 & The Public School Mom Extra Challenge

Well, I'm sick with a virus. I'm in bed with fever and aches and meds. I'm so thankful Trish brought me canned foods she could not use because times like this usually throw me off a budget for food. I would normally have Rick pick up something for he and the kids. Tonight I had soup for me and beef stew for them. That was nice.

(go here to know what I'm up to with this challenge)

One of the ways this sort of challenge is hard for me is in the fact that everyone but me has to eat a lunch that cannot be warmed up. Therefore, leftovers (which are a frugal way to milk out your food for sure) are not usually an option for us. Knowing that I was taking this challenge I went to the Grocery Discount Store in A-town where I usually stock up on a lunchbox selection for the kids and Rick.

They have these bags there that have granola bars, snack mixes and sometimes fruit snacks. I'm not a big fan of the fruit snacks but it's a fun treat when they can have it. Each bag is usually $3.50 and contains about 24 snacks. I got 50 snacks for $7. When you consider that a box of granola bars on a good sale will run you $2 for just six, this is not bad.

Reporting this challenge I wanted to report what I spent so here is that stops rundown:

2 loaves of sandwich bread, 2 containers of coffee, 2 lemons, juice (for our picnic and more for lunch treats), lunch snacks, 6 red onions, pesto seasoning x2, and something I'm not remembering at the moment that cost $1.75 (they don't tell you what the items are on your receipt). Total cost: $21.19

Day 2 we had leftovers

Day3 We had cereal, a beach picnic (meat, cheese, crackers, carrots, juice, apricots and corn chips)

Day 4 (today) Whole Wheat Pancakes, PB&J packed (I got sick), and thankfully canned soups for dinner

Here is what's up and coming (understand that lunches are what I'm making for them and will be adding a fruit or veggie, a snack and a treat to the lunchbox):

Jan 5: Cream of Wheat and Grapefruit Juice

Pesto bowtie pasta w/ garbanzo beans and chopped tomato

Chicken Tortilla Soup w/ Cornbread (that was supposed to be for tonight)

Jan 6: Banana Muffins w/ milk

Meat and Cheese Sandwich

Albaloo Polow (A Persian Dish for Epiphany...more on that later)

Jan 7: Homemade Granola

Couscous Salad dried fruit and nut salad

Lentil Casserole w/ shredded lettuce salad

Jan 8: Baked Oatmeal

Leftover Lentils and rice

Ham and Cheese Scalloped Casserole w/ Salad

My rule for myself in this challenge is that it's better to buy a few little things to make food with the pantry than to buy normal groceries. However, so far, I have everything to make the above. Next week I hope to make some homemade things for lunches as well to milk out the snacks I purchased for the month.

"Are You A Cool Mom?"

That's what a fourteen year old girl asked me yesterday and boy has it set me thinking.

When our children are little, they don't care if we are cool, we are the world to them. We are the mender of scrapes and aches, the soother of fevers, and the console of emotions. We are superior to cool. Then your child turns 11, or 12, or 13 and all of a sudden you have to earn your coolness to them. Or at least that is what THEY think. I've thought it out and realized this peer pressure from my own child aught to be put int the category it belongs...immaturity.

Dare I say that in homeschooling, you also can mostly avoid this challenging transition. You control their environment, their exposure to friends, EVERYTHING. But when your kids are in school they go through this phase where they are enchanted by what other people get to do and YOU become the ball and chain. It's CHALLENGING! But you know what! It's real life! Some may face it now, some later on, but definitely the coming Jr. High years are about to be my most challenging ever. If we don't go through it, I'm certain that it will show up in retarded timing later on in their lives. So, I guess I just have to strap my big girl boots on and walk on.

A mom of three nearly grown girls told me once that looking back she wished she had not tried to be her girls friend as much as their mom. I took that to heart and it's helping me here. That is my right, given by God toward them. I'm serious here! Do you think that I will go through the pain of birthing you (of which you will only know later on in life), the JOY of wiping your slimy bottom for a few years only to transition to cleaning up your pee mess on the floor now and then, the glorious job of patiently teaching you you are NOT the center of your own universe, the delight of loving you at every turn whether you deserved it or not, to be turned down at 11 because I have not EARNED you coolness standard? Uhhhh, I DON'T THINK SO!

So I've been sorting out in my head this anomaly of "coolness". What does it really mean to "be cool". Does it not at this age really mean I will let you do what ever you want, when you want, and on top of that like a little cherry on a sundae, I'll let you do whatever your friends want to do as well. Wow, it seems to me I've just defined one thing:

A REALLY BAD MOM!

When this gal asked me this last night, Victoria answered for me with a gesture of her thumb not up or down but in the middle and made a "ehhhhh" sound. In other words, I wasn't really. I have to admit, it hurt my feelings at first. So much so that I went home to sulk about it. Yes, I felt really immature when I did but you wait till YOU get there (unless you avoid this stage alltogether) and then talk to me about the way I felt! :) Then the Lord allowed something to happen to get me back on track and realize what my daughter really needed....GUIDANCE.

There is a boy in Victoria's class who has been on my heart since we put them into public school. He comes from a poor home with parents that are somewhat anarchist. They are also racists and being at a school full of Hispanics, that is not a great thing. His older brother is in the "community school" with it's own little two modular campus gated in at the back corner of the school property. He has been in so much trouble for being in fights with Hispanics. Louis however, the one in Victoria's class, is still a great kid. He has been effected by the things he is taught at home but he does not act out at anyone yet like his older brother. The kids have ostracized him and say he stinks or is dirty. Truthfully, he is a very loving kid, and trying hard to do well in school despite his lack of support at home from parents that don't agree with the requirement of the government that your kid be schooled at all.

I stood the other morning with the 6th grade class waiting for Victoria's teacher to get to the classroom to let them in. The kids line up in two lines but I noticed that one line was very long and one very short. I asked the kids why that was and they said (right where he could hear mind you) that it was because no one wanted to stand next to Louis. That crushed me. Children can be SO awful! I did not keep my tongue. I told them "well, that is just ridiculous!" and I went to stand by him and gave him a little side hug. He was very quiet. The whole class was watching me and hearing what I said and I wanted them to. I know he goes through this all the time. I happened to look up at my daughter who was smiling proudly at me. I knew she had felt bad for Louis for a long time and tries to be the one to be nice to him when she gets the opportunity. Her heart is convicted that the way he is treated is wrong.

But oh, the price we will pay for coolness......

This same 14 year old mentioned above was writing a note back and forth to Victoria last night that I happened to get my hands on though my daughter does not know it yet. She mentioned something she had to do this weekend that she did not like to which my daughters response was:

"Well, at least you don't have to sit by Louis (last name)"

The gal went on to respond that he was ugly, and his brother was a racist and all he had gotten in trouble for.

I was furious.

I would have pulled my daughter out of her cozy bed of reading last night when I finally discovered this and had a good talking to but she had fallen asleep. I discussed it with my husband and had time instead to process all this and I'm so thankful for that. God's good to slow me down.

My daughter looks up to this 14 year old and she knew she had a one way ticket to "coolness" by saying this derogatory statement about Louis. She took it. She cashed it in, and it worked. I KNOW this is not what she really thinks about Louis or how to treat him, but she was willing to trade in her character for cool.

And THAT is what it really comes down to isn't it!? Trading our character in for "cool". Is it worth the price we pay? Never.

So, you can imagine, my husband and I have a very teachable moment to grasp with our daughter this evening but I came here to share what it taught me.

"Coolness" is a versatile thing. It is defined by the one who defines it. There is no set in stone definition of cool. There is what one person thinks is cool, what one group, what one society, what one decade thinks. It forever changes. We have to be careful how we define it and the fact is, it will look a little different to all of us but there is one certainty....

God defines what's cool with Him, and what's not. That is the one thing that does not change.

This lesson is just rich with layers of life lessons for my child. She may never hear the end of it:)

For me, I had to remember whether I was defining "cool mom" from the perspective of an 11 or 14 year old, or from God's perspective. A really bad mom is not cool, but kids this age don't have the maturity to see that so we have to check ourselves by a different definition and realize the depravity of theirs. I was grateful for this reality check as to how fickle my immature child and this gal really are still. They need to be guided, they need to be guarded, and they need to be told "no" often. They need to be held back, away and from so many things and that is not going to look "cool" to them.

I do believe that what they need to see is a mom that when their maturity catches up with them, they will look back and see clearly. Being a mom they would think "cool" now, would later look flippant, unconcerned, and week to them later on.

My conclusion? If my child ALWAYS thought I was cool, I'd be in trouble. If she NEVER thought I was cool, that would be sad (because some of their definitions of "cool" are valid). My daughter gave me an in-the-middle "ehhh", and I realized that's exactly where I should be!

SO, that's cool with me.

*NOTE*

A dear friend of mine who homeschools has enlightened me. She was not able to get comments to work but wanted to say that she had the same problem at this age with her kids and their social homeschool group. Also, that there were social problems of unkindness there as well.

I thought that was important to add here. So, the desire for coolness must transcend schooling options. :)

I have since fixed the controls on the comment so that anyone can comment even without a google account. FYI

Just Waz Up And Some Muscle Building

I have had so little time for blogging lately. Since school has started my life is so structured which is great but I don't have more than just five minutes now and then to update my facebook status and that's it. I hear some people chat how they never could have time for facebook but if you just check in with people by reading updates, and you put your own, it is the quickest way I know of connecting. It's the blogging that has taken a back seat in my life for now. It's hard too because I have so many blogs go through my head.
So, you would think that a mom with three kids in school would have so much time on her hands for her hobbies and what not eh? Nope. No matter what situation, a mom's work is never done and I am never bored. Keeping the house ready for the next thing once the family is home keeps me hopping every moment. On top of that I'm taking some big time to exercise this fall and once I do that a big chunk of my time for the house is even gone. It's wroth it though and I've needed to get myself back on track from years of putting other things first. It's a great benefit to my family and husband for me to drop a few.
I've not had time for a Thankful Thursday this week but I have to say I've been so thankful for some heavy teachable moments with my children. It would seem that having them out there in school is just a different approach to preparing them for life. When we had them at home we prepared them hypothetically and now we do it experientially. The thing with the hypothetical was that I was not creative enough to think of all the hypotheticals and they were not real enough to demand being teachable moments. Now, very interesting things happen that give us wonderful springboards of conversation. How is the right way to deal with this? What would bring glory to God? What do you do when you are tempted to do what your friends are doing? Do you obey friends or God? Are you patient when being wrongly judged? Do you kindly learn to speak up for yourself? Here were some situations this last week or two:

-Victoria has a friend who comes up and acts like she is going to get something out of her hair and instead proceeds to just yank a bit of her hair out. This girl is a quiet aggressive and has shown some signs of being jealous of Victoria for some reason. Her ways are manipulative and unexpectedly insulting. Victoria had to learn to be forgiving but to speak up when someone does something like that and not just take it quietly.

-Caedmon got caught up in a 1st grade tease of a little boy who all the other boys were saying "wore his sisters underwear". We discussed how something being funny does not make it okay. How the one being teased will possibly even laugh but that does not mean they like it but rather that they are covering their shame and embarrassment with laughter. How God convicts us in the middle of these times as to what is right. Caedmon did feel that convicting but decided that since the boy was not saying he didn't mind that it was okay. We talked about the good meter to use of thinking how we would feel if such things were said about us and to always trust the conviction of the Holy Spririt of God.

-Caedmon did a fake stutter back to a little boy at school who stutters. This one was hard for me. It actually made me tear up to know he had done that. Having had a brother who was disabled and standing up for him when he was teased made this a sore spot for me. I needed a moment before we could even talk. We discussed how some children have to be even more brave than he ever will have to be to say what they want to say and always be teased for not being able to speak clearly. How blessed he is to be able to communicate well and how he can be an encourager to the child who struggles instead of making him shammed through mocking.

-Victoria makes a project in science and turns to her supposed friend to ask what she thinks and her friend replies "it looks like crap!". This friend was the one girl who professed to be a Christian and who Victoria had high hopes of being a good pal for her in school but the girl flips between wanting to be cool and popular and wanting to be a faithful friend. She is one of those what I use to call "light switch friends". I seemed to gravitate to girls who did that to me. They are your friend when THEY want to be but when it's inconvenient or uncool they want nothing to do with you. You are kind of their fall back plan. It's a painful thing to go through and she has weathered it very well. Thankfully there is a new girl in her class who has been a cheerful companion to her this year and who has also been troubled by some of the same girls Victoria has so they can relate on that level. Victoria is learning to love her friends even when they are sometimes unkind. The group that has been rough for her are the three girls we usually take to Awana so she has had to stay dedicated to taking them there with her to hear about the Lord even though she has been badly treated by them many times at school.

Those were just the ones off the top of my head.
I marvel sometimes what God must have in mind for my children. Knowing that he has called them to this place tells me that he has a specific set of preparation for them unlike what I could give them by keeping them home. He is building their armor and sharpening their defences as well as their convictions to bring Him glory through all things. I feel honored and challenged to give them what they need at every barrier they face. To seize those teachable moments even when they come fast and plenty! I definitely think you can prepare a child at home for the world and I definitely think you can prepare them from home while they are facing it. There are unique outcomes for both that God will use in their lives. Where we are fits us. It's where the rubber meets the road and for me that's where I can teach the best. Give me the situation Lord and I'll shine your light on it. Throw me one and challenge me to catch it. There is no time for hit and miss training when your kids are in school now days. You have to talk a lot and connect on everything. You have to be all ears. They are out there, in the real world with real people facing real issues. We are so much better at this part with our kids than the academics and I thrill at the challenge. This is why I love working hard on the home all day as well. That way, if we need to sit and talk at the dinner table longer about something, or just congregate in the living room for the evening to discuss life, we can.
I have no fear of what will come next. I look forward to it. There is always sufficient truth in God's treasure house of wisdom to give them. It is a privilege to hold their hands through it until someday we let go and they walk with Him alone through this world. As He leads and we walk through some places I may have chosen to shelter them from, I am thankful that He knows better how to build the foundation of their lives. Other wise I may have opened their cocoon for them thereby disallowing the full development of their spiritual muscles and when they hit the freedom of their transformed lives they would fall in weakness completely unable to survive.
As I work lately to build back my own physical muscles I think of God's goodness to stretch and build my children. Our job is to feed them well from truth and care for them between times so they are stronger and stronger each time resistance or challenge comes their way.