Waiting

I am sitting here looking up scriptures on e-sword. My journal is somewhere in the house and I don’t want to go looking for it, so I thought I’d write down my observations here.

I was lying awake in bed this morning thinking about the fact that I need ‘endurance’…  I have an overwhelming amount of things to do and issues to contend with and sometimes it is easier to just curl up with a good book and let life flow right past me. I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to learn how to see things through until the end.

I was looking up scriptures on endurance…

Jas 5:11 Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.

We see from this scripture that to endure (or press on through our trials) is a happy thing, and leads to an expected end full of the mercy and salvation of the Lord. (Jer 29:11)

The New Testament word for endure translates roughly into the same word as ‘wait’ in the Old Testament. To me the word ‘wait’ doesn’t simply mean what we think it does in the english language. It is not a passive word, but a very active one. It doesn’t imply standing in line and waiting (how boring) for something.

It means, from the Strong’s: to bind together (perhaps by twisting), that is, collect; (figuratively) to expect: – gather together, look, patiently, tarry, wait for, wait on, wait upon.

So when I say, like David, that I am witing on the Lord it really means that I am binding my life together with Him, full of expectation for Him to come. I am not waiting for something, I am binding my life together with Someone.

All that I need is wrapped up in the person of Jesus. It is in his nearness, and in his presence in my life that I find the strength to overcome. It is His grace, his divine enablement upon my heart, which helps me to ‘not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. ‘ (Gal 6:9)

Some scriptures to chew on: (more for myself than anyone else)

Psa 27:14 Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.

Psa 37:9 For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.

Psa 37:34 Wait on the LORD, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land.

Psa 39:7 And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee.

Isa 40:31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint. 

Lam 3:25 The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

Psa 40:1 I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.

Pro 8:34 Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD.

Quality reading

…Not…

The two younger boys are going through a Captain Underpants phase. I don’t care about it (not) being quality reading. I am only too glad to have found something that they will read of their own volition.

We had our habitual tidy time this evening, after their bath.  Halfway through the tidy time the youngest boy appeared in the kitchen, dressed only in his underwear and a red cape tied around his shoulders. “Tra-la-laa!!!” He tackled his chores with the gusto of a superhero. Moments later, Jenna appeared, dressed in only her panties too, and trailing her own red cape (courtesy of her oldest brother, who tied it around her neck). She is not that familiar with Captain Underpants, and her battle cry was “Ta-Daaaa!!!”

The tidy time was put on hold for an impromptu photo shoot (I promised the youngest I wouldn’t publish a picture of him in his underwear but Jenna doesn’t really care). The middle boy didn’t want to be outdone, but since his siblings had taken up the store of red capes, he posed with underwear on his head, arms and legs.

This turned into an underwear shooting competition. They stood on the kitchen floor and marked who could shoot it the furthest. It took a while to get them back to doing their chores.

We asked Jenna what her superhero name was. Captain Underpants is a very long name for a two-year-old to say, as you all know. She grasped for the closest word in her vocabulary. Her favorite fruit, canteloupe.   Jenna called herself “Cantel-yope-a-pants.”

Evening routine

Every evening around this time Jenna goes outside through the garage and re-enters the kitchen triumphantly, with Turbo waddling behind her. It is a cute little ritual. Turbo is happy to be let into the house, since Jenna usually gives him some lettuce out of the fridge.  When the lettuce is gobbled up, he makes a bee-line for the cat food. (I have started to keep the cat food elevated, instead of on the ground)

Turbo is greedy. He will eat and eat until his crop bulges, and is lopsided and bumpy to touch.

Yes, he is still here. He is much less maintenance now that I have figured out how to ‘house’ him. He spends his days in our back yard, and he overnights in our garage…but I have learned not to give him any water in his cage at night. If I do, he turns it into a wet and poopy mess. I can handle dry duck poop – not wet duck-poop-soup. Yuck. I figure he spends the night sleeping anyhow, and his messy escapades with the water used to happen in the early dawn hours before I let him out.

Turbo is a teenager duck now. He is scraggly looking and his voice has gone from a duckling’s peep to a teenage squeak. His feathers are coming in and it has been interesting to watch how his wings have gone from little stubby things to the size they are now. His wings are full of quills but the actual soft part of the feathers are not there yet. It looks weird.  I’m going to take a picture of the wings for the kids’ notebook, might post it here. I want to get the kids a quill pen from a nearby museum so they can try to write with it.

I just found out that the boys are giving the duck a bath in my tub downstairs. I am not impressed at all. I am going to have to lysol the tub down well.

Wastin’ time

I am sitting here with a sleeping toddler on my lap. I really need to wake her, else she’ll never get to sleep tonight, but I am (and I will regret this) choosing to veg here rather than go downstairs and tackle the messiness of my house.

Jenna has been taking her diaper off all day. She fell asleep in a pretty spring dress and a bare bottom. Let’s hope she doesn’t pee on me before she wakes up.

I spent some time sprucing up my blog today. I deleted the school page, which I never used, and added some other pages.

My blog is looking good, my house is a wreck. I’d better go do something about it.   

April 21, 2007

I’m sitting here with a great sense of how good God is. Two little things happened today to remind me of this.

It is a good friend’s birthday tomorrow. She spoiled me so on my birthday, and I was wondering what I could give her for her birthday. To my mind she probably had some great things planned for the weekend with her hubby and some of her other friends. Nonetheless I called her this morning and asked her if she wanted to come to the paint studio with me, she could pick out something to paint for herself, and I would paint her a fruit bowl. She was in tears as she told me how the day stretched before her with no hope of doing anything, as her toddler was sick and there was no money to do anything anyhow. She had just been telling Jesus about her longing to just do something special when I called. We had a great time of girly fellowship at the paint studio and I am tickled at how, once again, I could just be a witness to how tenderly and sweetly the Lord reached out to fill a simple longing of one of his daughter’s hearts.  I almost hadn’t called her, since I had another gift lined up for her and assumed she’d be busy anyway.

The second thing was this: I have been watch-less for a long time now. I have missed not having a watch at night and in the early mornings, when my contact lenses are out and I am unable to read the time on the clock in my bedroom. I love sneaking out of bed early before anyone is awake, to go and read my bible downstairs. I just don’t like going through the unneccessary effort of getting out of bed thinking it is almost dawn, only to find that it is really 3 am.

I would sometimes walk past the el-cheapo watches at Walmart and glance over them but find nothing that I really like or that lights up for me to read the time in the dark. I have often breathed a little prayer/sigh to the Lord, telling him how I would like to have a watch sometime.  

Anyhow, hubby won a genuine Swiss Army watch at an office raffle yesterday. It is a bit of an ‘earthy’ watch, not very delicate and girly, but I love it, and hubby says it suits me. The best part is that it has the flourescent dials so you can tell the time even in pitch darkness. I think everything about it is really snazzy, and I see it as my own little gift from above.  

Lat night we were treated to a concert by the violinist Andre Rieu. His show is carefully orchestrated to cater to the audience and I found some of it a bit over the top but the music itself was beautiful and the arrangements masterful. When he played the Blue Danube, couples went into the aisles and started waltzing, as they do at every one of his shows, apparently. I was watching the dancing couples when I noticed something that brought a lump to my throat. A mom was holding up her cerebral palsied teenaged daughter and swaying with her in rhythm to the music. They were waltzing together as best as they could, and the smile on that girl’s face was the biggest and happiest I have seen in a long time. When the girl became too heavy for her mom to continue any longer she cradled her on her lap, still swaying along with the music. It was just the ultimate picture of motherly love to me.

April 18th

Today was busy-ish. Hubby and I had to get up early to have our driver’s licences renewed. Since we do not have permanent residency status yet, our licences need to be renewed more frequently. Thankfully, we had an appointment, so we didn’t have to stand in line. (Did you know you could make an appointment for this?) I had to do a 20-question road signs test because of a seat-belt violation  I had 2 years ago, but it was easy-peasy. The officer joked about the person who had to answer the question about “windy road ahead’ and said there was a drunk driver ahead.

Hubby and I snuck in some breakfast at an Australian Cafe nearby, where we met a scottish lady with the thickest accent. She said she often gets asked if they speak english in Scotland, to which she answers: “Yes, that is where english came from…then you guys took it and messed it up!” I’m sure she gets asked that question becasue she has such a thick scottish brogue. When I heard her from a distance and couldn’t make out her words I wondered what ‘foreign’ language she was speaking too.

I had to take hubby in to work because his car’s brakes are failing. It will be going in for a service tomorrow. Soooo I took the opportunity of running in to the Salvation Army store near his office. They have a half day sale on Wednesdays and I get the cutest little outfits for Jenna there for next to nothing. I found a gorgeous little dress, in red paisley, which looks new. I thought it was gorgeous…Jenna doesn’t. She has refused to try it on. I wonder if it is because it is paisley. She likes red, though pink is her favorite.

I am doing my own thing with the two younger boys with math at the moment. We really bombed out with the middle boy’s math curriculum and I am trying a new approach. So far, so good, though the younger boy is a grade below and sometimes catches on faster. He is such a logical thinker who sees patterns in everything, including math. The middle boy is much more random and loses focus so easily. I can explain a thing to death too, so that by the time I get to the point the boy’s mind is far away.  I am still figuring out the best way to teach him. Short and sweet bursts seem to be where it is at.

The oldest had his first math lesson yesterday. I think it is going to work well. Life is much simpler now that I don’t have to make that long drive to his school daily.

The sky here is very smoky and hazy. There are some wild fires in Georgia and on the Florida border that are affecting us. I can only imagine what the air must be like closer to the fires. The strong winds we have been experiencing lately aren’t helping. Anyway, the hazy air is perfect for moody nature photography. One day, when I am old and gray, I hope to be able to grab my camera on a whim and go capture these moments.

Mish mash

This post will just be a random whatever-comes-to-mind one, since I don’t really have much to say.

The caterpillars are crysalides already. We’ve only had them for about a week. Another week or so, and our first butterflies should be emerging. This process is going so quickly, and there have been so many distractions around here, that it is hard to find adequate time to keep a thorough-enough-to-my-liking journal.

I am so aware that ‘testing day’ is looming around the corner (only 8 short weeks). I want to test the boys this year as opposed to just doing a portfolio evaluation. Just doing the evaluation will be less stressful for me but I really want to know where the boys are at. I am feeling pressure to get their math facts down better. We will be doing lots of drill the next few weeks.

Hubby has just arrived home and I am unusually tired. I have been up at night for two nights in a row and I should really be going to bed.

Lastly…the oldest had his last day of school last friday. We decided to pull him out. Part of the reason I didn’t sleep enough was that I started ‘perusing’ books for him to read. He has been reading novels like Anthem, 1984, and Brave New World, (which he was working on when  we pulled him out) so I picked The Giver off my shelf and couldn’t put it down. Another book he will be reading is The Hobbit. I picked a copy up at a yard sale months ago and I am surprised that he hasn’t read it yet.

OK Yaaaaawwwwnnnn…off to bed.

Our new school project – for real this time

OK…here it is…

Our new school project

Wait…this isn’t it. I couldn’t resist posting this picture though. It is a wolf spider the boys found in the garage a few days ago. See how big he is next to the quarter? I wonder if it is the same one we found two years ago, giving her little spiderlings a piggy-back.

What it all boils down to…

…is, “Christ in me, the hope of glory…” (Col 1:27)

This morning I was pondering this verse, and a teaching about it that I listened to in my late teens. This teaching, called ‘Be ye Perfect’, by Arthur Katz, shaped much of my life. There is so much I can say about it but I will try to be brief.

Katz mentioned the two trees in the garden of Eden. When man ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil he became trapped in the ramifications of his carnal mind. Without God, we can at best look at any situation in life and judge it on the basis of whether it is good or evil. Many men think that simply choosing the good thing and eschewing the bad, is good enough. But…how many ‘good’ people do you know that are totally lost?

My good works are totally incapable of raising me up to a higher place in God. They remain in the limited realm of my humanness.  Praise God for the tree of life! I am so grateful that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death! (Rom 8:2)

It is Jesus who is the tree of life, and as we come and eat of his presence we are able to understand those things which are spiritually discerned and seem foolishness to the carnal mind.

I am so thankful for the fact that Jesus lives inside my heart, that he has given me his Spirit so that I can walk in his abundant life. I no longer have to struggle to meet a standard of perfection, rather I can rest in Him and let Him live his life through me.

As far as choosing the ‘good’ thing and not the ‘God’ thing goes, I wonder what would have happened if Jesus had chosen to do the ‘good’ thing that most of his compatriots thought he should do. What if he had gathered himself a sure following and risen up against the Roman empire to free the Isrealites? I would still be lost today, scrabbling at the foot of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Arthur Katz mentioned Jesus’ response to Peter, when Peter did the very ‘good’ and ‘noble’ thing of telling Jesus that He wouldn’t have to die on the cross. Jesus said: Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offense unto me: for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

Peter’s statement came straight from his own judgement, from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and Jesus’s response tells us exactly what he thinks of that.

Even today, as christians, we can sometimes get caught up in doing the good things in life and forget God. We eat from that cursed tree, thinking that we are OK, because we are doing ‘good’. Yet we forget that that tree puts us under the bondage of the law, where the tree of life sets us free by grace!

 True life in God and freedom from the law only comes through intimacy with Jesus, from being in that place where ‘in him we live and move and have our being‘. (Acts 17:28)

Let us eat from that Tree of Life today, and let the life of Jesus set us free to walk in the things of God!