FAMILY

A to Z Challenge

Family: Traditionally the family unit would be defined as a husband and wife with the possibility of children produced by said union. It would also extend to the father and mother of said husband and wife, so grandparents, and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and so on. The word family has come to include a whole host of different unions today.

In our Sunday school recently, we considered what a Biblical family looks like and what the idea of a Christian family should look like. If you look in the Bible at families, it doesn’t pull any punches in identifying an assortment of dysfunctional families. So we are left with the question, “what would God want from family and in family relationships?”

It is my belief that God wants a family to be the source of learning about Him, the place where we find strength, refuge, character, among other empowering and good things.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ...

Matthew 5:43-48 (NASB)

Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:5-8 (NASB)

Clearly God wants us to be loving and kind to reflect what it means to be a member of the family of God. To find out more about living as a Christian in family visit:

http://www.familyrenewal.org

http://www.focusonthefamily.com

http://www.cftministry.org 

This is another “F” website I came across in my search with some excellent short clips on living as a follower of Jesus Christ in the family of God..

https://flannel.org/store/films/nooma

Celebrating Our Graduate

Celebrating our Graduate as a Family

 This past Saturday, June 7, 2014, we graduated our 4th of five children from our homeschool, another milestone reached for him and for his dad and me.

5 of My Gifts from God

That's my boy!

 Exuberant and loving, Kipp is a joy in our home.  I am blessed he won’t be leaving us just yet.  He has elected to pursue his associate’s degree in computer science at the community college before continuing at a 4-year institution, if the Lord allows.  There is joy in the journey.

At his graduation ceremony, the president of our state homeschool group was also watching her youngest child of nine graduate. She noted that though people often comment that this is a bittersweet time, she disagreed.  

“It’s just sweet,” she professed.  

I’m not sure any transition is ‘just sweet’ for me, but there is a sense of that sweetness in the respite of accomplishment, of completion.  There is a sweetness in watching the little ones we brought into the world now prepared, albeit never fully, to take on that world themselves.  There is sweetness in remembering, because it is the sweetness of the memories that remains.  

Our Fine Young Men

Yet how easily tears flow these days as each transition not only brings its own twinge of trauma, but also a re-visitation of all transition traumas past.  So…sweet yes, but it is a sweetness that exposes both weakness and strength, tenderness, with all its facets, yet energetic vitality for what’s ahead.  There is joy in the journey, even in transitions.

         So as you celebrate your own transitions, whether they be graduations, or weddings, or something else, I encourage you to cherish them.  Bask in the moments, because they pass so quickly.  They are gifts from God.  Let go of the lies that rob you of your sweetness, and treasure the preciousness of your life.  Even in transition one can relish and delight in the joy of the journey.

Transitions Make Memories

 To you my special family:  I love you guys.  You are all and each special blessings to me from God.  And I will thank Him all the days of my life for you.  Go forth.  Be a blessing and be blessed.     Love, Mom

A Son's Wedding - A Mother's Transition

It has been a whirlwind weekend for our family.  We headed off last Thursday to join my son and prepare for his wedding on Saturday, on my birthday.  

Family came from all parts and we had a wonderful family reunion after the rehearsal on Friday.  

Then came the big event on Saturday.  It was beautiful and lots of tears were shed by Mom, (that's me).  

My Children were all in the wedding, the groom in the middle.

Of course they were happy tears, sort of.  I didn't think this would be as difficult as it is.   After all, isn't this what we get them ready for - to go off on their own, live their own lives, start their own families?

Really it isn't that I am not happy for the bride and groom.  I am.  They love each other and they bring out the best in each other.  What is difficult are these transitions.  It is like you are leaving behind one life and beginning another.  Transitions are difficult.  You know an era has passed.  That's a hard thing on a personal level for me.  Even happy transitions are hard things for some of us.

And so, though I should be rejoicing, and I am, I am also struggling with the emotional tumult of transition.  I feel bad for my family because I am sure I am a bit salty right now.  But salt brings flavor and salt preserves; so perhaps I'm adding something good with my internal wrestling match as it flavors their lives.

I am spending extra time with the Lord lamenting the emotions that accompany transition.  I am not complaining.  There isn't anything to complain about.  Look at this beautiful couple!  It is a wonderful thing, marriage.  

I am confessing, confessing that I want to be as joyful as I know I should be, but I am not there yet.  I am thanking, thanking God for the beautiful bride He has given my son, and the wonderful family He has blessed us with.  I am praising, praising God for who He is and how He works all these things for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.  I am just resting, dwelling in His presence so that my lament will turn to praise and thanksgiving and contentment and joy.   

Buck and Anna Dunn, married May 11, 2013 

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. Genesis 2:24

 Thank you to those who have passed along awards to my blog.  I appreciate you and will get to the responses eventually.  And thanks for coming by and celebrating this joyous time with me too. 

A to Z Challenge: N is for Noah

A to Z Challenge:  N is for NOAH showing at Sight and Sound Theater 

About 17 1/2 years ago we went to our first production at the Sight and Sound Theater in Lancaster, PA, an amazing musical production of Noah.  My oldest daughter was 2 1/2 years old; so she doesn’t remember much of that production, but I do remember that it was quite spectacular.  

Since that time, the Sight and Sound Theater has produced a number of amazing Biblical performances. We have seen a few; last fall we attended a showing of Jonah which was also phenomenal.  These folks know how to move you back in time, stir your emotions, and give you an experience you will not soon forget.  The sets are incredible; the music and the singers keep the audience enthralled, and the story is timeless. 

So when I heard NOAH was back after all these years, I had to get tickets.  The show runs from March to November 2013.  I bought tickets last November for the show on March 29th.  Many of the dates are already sold out because it will only be running for the one season.  The show did not disappoint.  

If you are unfamiliar with the story of NOAH in the Bible, you can read about it in Genesis chapters 6 through 8.  The story is about God saving Noah and his family and anyone who would join them from coming judgment on the world for sin and rebellion.  Noah has loved God and appreciated God’s blessings as he sought to be faithful in his relationship with God.  God directs Noah to do something that has never been done before in an area that seems to make no sense at the time.  God directs Noah to build an Ark.  This large boat would then be used to transport 2 of every kind of animal on the earth along with Noah and his family in order that they would survive a coming worldwide flood.  Sounds incredible even to Noah, but he is faithful as he has always been to believe God, and God is faithful to His promises.

During the show you are transported into the ark with dozens of live and animatronic animals.  You get a glimpse of what life might have been like cooped up in a limited space with your family and smelly animals for a lengthy period.  The range of emotions that they would have encountered, extreme sorrow at the loss of mankind, great appreciation for being saved, frustration, exhaustion, impatience, well you get the idea.  It is all in there.

I would encourage anyone who wants to see a performance of Biblical proportions to consider checking out the Sight and Sound Theater’s show list.  People travel from all over the country to see one of these productions.  They have a second theater in Branson, Missouri which is now showing Joseph.

A to Z Challenge

A to Z Challenge: M is for Mom

A to Z Challenge:  M is for Mom

My mom went home to be with the Lord on February 14th, 2009 two days before her birthday.  I can’t believe it has been that long.  When she died, she left me matriarch of the family as the oldest child of 6.  That position within the family continues to seem strange to me.  Not that it has much significance really, but just knowing it is enough.

I have been especially missing my mom of late, needing her matriarchal wisdom.  More than a few times I so longed to pick up the phone to talk with her.  There are things I could cry on Mom’s shoulder about that if shared with someone else might be gossip.  I need to talk with her about hurts and hardships that to someone else would be complaining.  Oh Mom, I miss you.  Who else is like you to lean on?

Something about talking with Mom is (was) a natural pain reliever.  She could lovingly listen, sympathetically understand, and wisely guide me to peace and forgiveness.  Now, I sip coffee with her in the mornings in the cup that reminds me of her.  It had been a gift to her, a special cup, with a reminder round the rim, “Praying for you always.”  And I have a feeling she still is, right there before the throne of God.

Lord, thank you for giving me a mom who loved and cared for me, who was a living example of what it means to love and live for You.  Thank you for the memories I am able to cherish.  I pray I can be that kind of mom to my children as they continue along their life journey as well.  Grow me into the praying woman my mom was, grow me into all You want me to be, as Mom, the family matriarch, child of God.  Thank You that I can always lean on You.

A to Z Challenge

NOT Becoming the Proverbial Hated Mother-in-Law

I haven’t written in my blog for some time now.  It wasn’t a purposeful sabbatical on my part.  Life just happened and squeezed it out of my routine.  I don’t know if I will be able to achieve my goal of twice a week anytime in the near future, but I do hope I can take some time now and again to practice encouraging others through this blog.  I am delving in again with this week’s five-minute-Friday word:  afraid.

We all have things that we are afraid of.  If we sat and thought about them all the time, it could be terribly debilitating, and is for some.  But there are day to day things that do nag at one that can also be a distraction and are best to just tackle and address.  For me most of those things that I am afraid of are relational.  I am afraid I am not doing enough.  I am afraid I might offend or hurt someone somehow.  I am afraid I am not being who I should be to adequately be Christ’s representative to those around me.  I find a daily pow-wow with God keeps me humble and at peace with these fears.

There are other relational things I am afraid of as well on a more immediate basis, and that is what I will just write for five minutes about today.  

So here goes.

I am about to become a mother-in-law in a few months.  It is something I have thought about for long before my kids were even old enough to consider marriage.  I didn’t want to become the proverbial mother-in-law, with fangs and claws, hated by all.  Why is your mother someone you hold dear, well, some of us at certain ages anyway, but all of a sudden when you think of the mother-in-law, someone dear to you’s mother, you have this image of the one no one wants to have around.  It is that image I am afraid of having an association with.

Apparently I am not alone.  I decided to look into this and talk to folks about it.  This is not an unusual concern.  Of course mother-in-laws are not evil meddlers who are always in your business, but they are certainly characterized as such.  There are tensions that arise in all relationships because other relationships develop and change the relationship you had, whether that be adding children to a family, or adding a husband or wife to the familial equation.  Even new friends or business associations change how we may relate to others we already have a relationship with.  

Being determined not to become that image, I may be swinging the other way.  I do want to continue to have a relationship after all with my son and future daughter-in-law.  The change one undergoes as a parent is hard.  First we are given this responsibility for this new person that we know very little about how to handle.  We have to take on someone who is totally dependent on us for everything their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.  As we get a handle on what we are doing, we have to train them how to be independent of us.  Then we have to learn to let go and take on the role of advisor.  Before you know it, even giving advice is unwelcome and considered meddling.  

So I am determined to tread carefully, to try to only give advice when asked and even then cautiously, and to NOT, under any circumstances, become what I fear, a hated, meddling mother-in-law.  

Five minutes:  STOP.

The Lord has created us for relationship.  There is nothing more important than our relationship with God first, and then our relationship with others, foremost those closest to us in our family.  If we invest much of ourselves in those relationships, it can be bitter-sweet as we experience them changing in all of the forms that change takes.  Yet if we keep our eyes on the Lord, and let Him work in us, stretching and refining us through these changes, it is an incredibly rich growth experience.  

                        

Practicing Good Statesmanship

United States Capitol

Have you heard about the fanatics, mostly Christian, who planned a revolution against the government? 

Life-Scape in the Wide Angle Lens

Five minute Friday Prompt:  Wide

“I love you this much,”  she says as she spreads her arms as wide as she can and her smile just as big. 

“Well, I love you all the way around the world and to the moon and around the sun and back again!”  I respond, and we both laugh and hug.  

Church Family is Worth Our Commitment

Five Minute Friday - The prompt for last Friday was Join and I am joining later that usual.

Every Wednesday, A Holy Experience hosts a community link up and last week's post topic was The Practice of Relationship.

I am sad to admit that though I thought of myself as an active member of my church, teaching or attending Sunday school, helping out where I could on Sunday morning, even hosting our church’s home group, I had not really joined the family.  Oh, I was a member of the larger family of God, but I had not become a part of my church family.

Photo Source

Recently a sister in Christ from my church and I were talking about the differences between our generation and that of our parents.  What she said has stayed on my mind.  

“We are different from our parents generation because for them, church was more than just another activity in their lives; church was their family.  It was a priority.  It was the center of their social life.”