Making the Most of...

I am participating for the third year in the April A to Z Challenge. Each day of the month, minus Sunday, we blog on a certain topic that begins with the designated letter from the alphabet. Today is 'M' and I chose to make the most of it. 

We have reached the halfway point. So I thought one way to make the most of the challenge was to again thank Arlee Bird for creating the challenge for all of us to enjoy. It is amazing how it has grown. Well over a thousand people are participating this year. Thank you to all of those involved in making the most of this blogging experience.

A to Z Challenge

Making the most of: An idiom meaning to use to full advantage, to enjoy to the greatest degree possible, to maximize one’s experience, to get as much out of something that we can.

Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Ephesians 5:15-17 (NASB)

I encourage you to check out what the therefore is there for in this verse from Ephesians. But even if you don’t, the point that is made about being wise in the use of your time if you are going to make the most of it is worth pondering. We are constantly in a state of making choices from the littlest thing to the monumental. Do I stay in bed an extra 5 minutes? Should I take the job? Do I marry him? Many little decisions we don’t even realize we make. Will I smile at the cashier or remain preoccupied? What kind of an attitude will I have today?

I believe the more purposeful we are in these little decisions, the more likely we are apt to make the most of…(fill in the blank.) Deciding to have a good attitude, to have a positive impact on one’s environment, to be a blessing and to receive the blessings from God gratefully, all these little decisions have monumental consequences and lead to making the most of our lives and everything in them.  

Here are a few articles to help make the most of your life, talents, and even less than happy circumstances.

Making theMost of Your Christian Life 

Make The MostOf Your Talents 

Making theMost of a Breakup 

Maria

Discovering the Power of Puritan Prayers

Recently my pastor shared a Puritan prayer in church from a little book called The Valley of Vision.  It so blessed me that I asked if he would email me a copy of the prayer.

"Here Maria.  Why don't you borrow the book for a couple weeks?"

Reading some of these prayers, I have been so profoundly moved.  Several I have copied to share with family and friends.  I searched on the web to see if I could find easier versions to email and I found Puritan Prayers which replicate many of the prayers from my pastor's little book.   I hope to  commit some of them to memory.  I want to learn to pray like this from my heart, to pour my heart out with the depth of appreciation these godly folks had for their state and the awesomeness of God, His love, and His grace.  I want to pray like this.

Portrait of the Founding Fathers at the signing in the Capitol Rotunda

As God would have it, in the midst of contemplating the place of prayer in my life, I was privileged to take a tour of the US Capitol exploring our spiritual roots with the Center of Christian Statesmanship.  One of our guides, Congressman Forbes of Virginia, pointed out the place of prayer in our country's history and its transformative power before the birth of our nation.  Again my heart was pricked as I considered what greater role I should be giving to prayer for my nation. 

Today we don't give nearly the time and devotion to God in our prayers that was true of our Christian predecessors.  They would spend hours in prayer to our minutes, and it made a difference in their lives and their purposes, because they aligned their lives and purposes with God's meta-purpose.  Though I try to keep a prayerful stance, praying continually, I don't spend the devoted time in contemplative and repentive prayer that I believe I should.  Puritan prayers like these in this little book come from a heart that has been bathed in the presence of God in prayer and time in the Word of God.  I don't believe it flows from a few minutes, but from practiced Christian Discipline.

Now it's good to pray for whatever time you do.  However, as I read the prayers of these humble saints, I long for more of God.  God was so gracious to have these prayers committed to paper so that we could glimpse what beauty awaits us if we will pour our hearts out to the Lord and let Him fill us up.  How glorious we become in our contriteness because in our weakness, He is strong.

Here is the prayer that started me on this journey.

Valley of Vision: The Precious Blood
The Banner of Truth Trust ^ | 1978 | Arthur Bennett

 

Blessed Lord Jesus,

Before thy cross I kneel and see

the heinousness of my sin,

my iniquity that caused thee to be

‘made a curse’,

the evil that excites the severity

of divine wrath.

Show me the enormity of my guilt by

the crown of thorns,

the pierced hands and feet,

the bruised body,

the dying cries.

Thy blood is the blood of incarnate God,

its worth infinite, its value beyond all thought.

Infinite must be the evil and guilt

that demands such a price.

Sin is my malady, my monster, my foe, my viper,

born in my birth,

alive in my life,

strong in my character,

dominating my faculties,

following me as a shadow,

intermingling with my every thought,

my chain that holds me captive in the

empire of my soul.

Sinner that I am, why should the sun give me light,

the air supply breath,

the earth bear my tread,

its fruits nourish me,

its creatures subserve my ends?

Yet thy compassions yearn over me,

thy heart hastens to my rescue,

thy love endured my curse,

thy mercy bore my deserved stripes.

Let me walk humbly in the lowest depths

of humiliation,

bathed in thy blood,

tender of conscience,

triumphing gloriously as an heir of salvation.

A version of this prayer has been committed to song and can be heard at Sovereign Grace Music.  You can listen to or purchase the song or the album on this website.

                                                                              God bless, Maria

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

Insecure Writer's Support Group: Who Am I?

The Insecure Writer's Support Group

It has been such a busy month trying to keep up with the A to Z Challenge.  Now I have whirling around in my head that I want to make the next hurdle and post on the reflections link.  And will I make it?

I am not a novelist, but I love to write.  I primarily like to share things that I have learned or that I believe the Lord is teaching me that someone else might benefit from.  I am a counselor, a home school teacher, a mom, a wife, not necessarily in that order.  I have been a newsletter editor, a speech editor, a program editor, among my various editorial experience.  But who am I to think I can even be part of an "Insecure Writer's Support Group?"

It has been a real high being part of the A to Z challenge and rubbing words with all of you real writers.  Who am I?  I write my thoughts down in a blog.  I write devotionals for our home school newsletter.  I write in my journal.  I think about writing more extensively, but barely have time to keep up with the pittance I am already executing.  A to Z was a real CHALLENGE for me to fit in while keeping up with all the rest of my responsibilities.  I am no writer.  Am I?

Who am I?  I am not any one of any notoriety and probably never will be.  I am a pretty joyful, Christian wife and mom.  I am happy to be serving my family, the church, and the community in the capacity that I do.  But is the Lord really calling me to write?  Do I have something to say that needs to be heard?  Who am I?  

So while I came away from the A-Z Challenge really excited for all that I learned and everyone I met and what I was able to accomplish, I also came away with that sense of "what am I doing here?"  Who am I?

A to Z Challenge: What is God's Will

A to Z Challenge: The Will of God

Image Source:  http://thecrackeddoor.com/

And what does the Lord require of you

But to do justice, to love kindness,

And to walk humbly with your God?  Micah 6:8 (NASB)

I am taking a course with Ligonier Ministries called “Dust to Glory.”  R. C. Sproul in this course gave some insight into this verse that I found very helpful and helped me meditate on this verse more effectively, and I think it is worth sharing from some of my notes.

The things of God require a rigorous use of our minds.  And what does the Lord require of you, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.  This is the simplicity of the commands of God.  

In this verse, “to do justice” or justly is associated with righteousness.  In ancient Israel justice is always defined in terms of righteousness.  What Micah is telling us here is that we ought to understand the first thing God requires of us is to do the right thing. And God defines for us throughout Scripture what the right thing is.  

Love mercy is the second thing.  According to Dr. Sproul, the term here can be a bit more confusing.  The Hebrew word used here is "Hesed,"  which is translated many different ways in English.  The most common translation is steadfast love.  The most accurate translation according to Dr. Sproul is to love loyally.  Hesed is the term used in the Scriptures again and again to describe God's love, His covenant love, His faithful, loyal, love to His people, which begets His mercy to His beloved.  Our relationships in this world are to be marked by loyalty, by a kind of love that covers a multitude of sins, by the kind of love that shows mercy.  In a sense the whole of 1 Corinthians 13 reflects this kind of love, Hesed.  This is the kind of love, faithful, kind, perserverant, steadfast that reflects the character of God.

The third thing in Micah is to 'walk humbly with your God.'  Dr. Sproul says that this verse is summed up in the term Coram Deo, a Latin phrase meaning before the face of God.

“To live Coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God.” Dr. Sproul. 

We as Christians are to live acutely aware that our lives are lived out in the presence of God.  We are to do all things in subjection to His sovereignly and His authority.  Micah is saying just this. 

Sometimes God’s will isn’t always so clear to us, but the more closely we practice the truth of Micah 6:8, the easier it is to discern what the will of God is.

A to Z Challenge

A to Z Challenge: V is for View

A to Z Challenge:  V is for the View from Inside

It occurs to me that all of us have a view from inside from which we look out, which no one else can see.  As I reach out to you, you see a certain part of me as you look out from the inside of you.  Both of us have different views from which we look.  What you see may be what you get but it is far from what you may perceive to be there.  No one but you and God can get inside of you.

I foolishly operate in the world assuming others come at it knowing and understanding the same things I do though perhaps choosing to think differently.  The fact is there is no one, not one person in the whole wide world that has the same view from inside that I have or that you have.  Even if we had the same experiences, the same home, the same everything, our interaction with those things would have impacted the view from inside differently, like the way we see an elephant in the center of the room differently depending on the perspective of where we stand.  We all have our own view from inside.

 That said, that view of and from inside is affected by a belief system, a worldview which influences our view from inside and our interaction with the world.  Most of us don’t live congruent lives with our belief systems.  We might say we are Christians, but we do things that are inconsistent with how God calls us to live.  We may say we are atheists, evolutionists, Muslims, Hindus, Pagans, nothing at all, but whatever we claim, we live in such a way that borrows from other worldviews to some degree, and we respond to the world in disharmony with our stated beliefs without even thinking about it most of the time.  

Why is that?  If we truly believe what we say we believe, why are our lives and our worldviews not consistent?  For some it may just be a matter of it isn’t important.  It doesn’t matter.  Yet shouldn’t it?  Can we live at peace with ourselves or with others, can we know ourselves, can we grow, thrive, think about the big questions, if we are incongruous with our belief system, with what we hold as truth?  More questions abound.

Since we are the only one who can enter our own land of inside, we are the only ones who can clean it up.  Others outside can give us tips, can tell us what worked for them, but ultimately they can only direct.  They cannot come inside.  There is One Who can join us in our land to know us fully and better than we know ourselves.  There is One Who can help us solve problems we can’t solve ourselves, Who can enter in and clean up with a sweeping wind that clears away the debris.  There is only One Who can enter with omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence to have a desirable, purifying, enhancing impact on our land inside to help us improve the view.  

Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.  2 Timothy 1:13-14 (NASB)

I am glad I have let Him in to walk with me and be the King of my land.  With Him here, it is becoming a better place to be all the time.  I am learning how to live more congruently with who I am.  I believe what I believe because I believe it is truth.  It isn’t blind faith, but it IS faith, faith that is supported by concrete evidence, faith that is consistent, and faith that is congruent with the character of God.  Even if my life may not be totally aligned with who I want to be or should be, God doesn’t have that issue.  He is congruous even if I don’t always understand Him.  How can I, finite being that I am, fully understand God in His fullness?  I am not omni anything!  But I can walk with Him Who is the light, for He lives!  He clears up the view from inside, and I hope into inside as well.

Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”  John 8:12 (NASB) 

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. 2 Corinthians 13:14 

A to Z Challenge

Recreation in Christian Meditation

A to Z Challenge:  R is for Recreate in Rest

Recreation has come to mean having fun, often if not usually actively, and often involves vacationing with lots of activities.  It is not uncommon to need a vacation after a vacation because not much recreating has gone on, that is renewing, reviving, or restoring, in busy vacations.  

I remember an acronym for busy:

Bound

Under

Satan’s

Yolk.

We human beings are designed to need recreating rest daily in sleep, weekly from our toils, and regularly throughout the year to reconnect with who we are and detoxify from the pollution of life.  Without this kind of recreation, we become weary, worn, and warped.

So what is a better form of recreation?  Richard Foster in his book Celebration of Discipline discusses the recreating power of meditation, noting that the significant difference between Eastern meditation and Christian meditation is the difference between emptying and filling.  

Eastern meditation stresses the need to become detached from the world, emptying oneself, losing one’s individual personhood to merge with the Cosmic Mind, as one does is seeking the Nirvana, the extinction of desire and individual consciousness.  There is no personal God to be attached to.  The goal is to be free from burdens and pains of the reality of life.  Detachment is the ultimate goal.  

Christian meditation, on the other hand, goes beyond detachment to emphasize an attachment to God.  Rather than having us withdraw from the world, it redirects us to be able to deal with life.  We are not led to be ethereal to our humanity, but rather we are empowered to be more fully compassionate in our humanity.  Through communion and communication with the God who loves us and wants us to dwell in His omnipresence, we are filled with His love to be recreated for loving others. 

Jesus took time to be alone with God to be renewed, to pray, to be quiet, to rest.  I wonder what He might think of our modern version of recreating.  I am not against having rip-roaring fun.  That has its place.  However, if the only recreation we know is at the frenetic pace of busy and we don’t rest contemplatively to recreate, we lose more than we gain.  We miss out on something profoundly rejuvenating and fulfilling, a recreation we were made for, and we settle for tired, tattered, and twisted.

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

A to Z Challenge: F is for the Freedom of Discipline

A to Z Challenge: F is for the Freedom of Discipline

Picture source

To some freedom and discipline will seem like a mismatch, but I hope you will think again.  Any musician, athlete, performer knows the freedom that comes with the discipline of their craft.  The reason they have the freedom to be excellent in their ability, to do what they are able to do with joy, is because they have taken the time to employ discipline in their learning.  If they had not done so, they would be free to play well.

Discipline is training, practice, immersion in the facets of and obedience to the rules of a system of learning of an activity or of life in general.  Without it, we never develop depth or expertise in a particular area of interest.  We will always be limited and lack the freedom that comes with  knowing something fully.

• Discipline as a life skill helps us develop healthy habits and resist those which lead to addictions.  Again the avenue to freedom is discipline.

• Any employer will tell you how liberating it is for them to have an employee they can count on to arrive on time, get the job done as expected, trust to finish what he has set out to accomplish.  These are all marks of discipline.  

• A child who has been disciplined, has manners, can interact more freely and comfortably with those of all ages.

The Christian life is no different.  However, many of us who call ourselves Christian have become lazy in the spiritual disciplines of the faith.  Without practicing these disciplines, we become flabby and ineffective just as one does in any area of life that requires discipline.  What are these disciplines?  

• Spending time in the Word of God - including reading, memorizing, and meditating on the Word

• Prayer - spending time with God both alone and corporately with other members of the faith

• Worship - which would include church attendance as well as the state in which we live our lives

• Evangelism - sharing our faith as ambassadors for the kingdom of God

• Service - having a servant’s heart to be the hands and feet of Christ within our community and to the world

• Stewardship - realizing everything we have belongs to God, the earth, what we own, our relationships, all belong to God and so we should care for it as such and be willing to give back to Him at least the portion He lays on our hearts to give

• Fasting refraining in some way from something to more fully focus on Christ, the direction of the Holy Spirit, and a life of holiness and selflessness

• Surrender - putting the Lord’s calling on our lives in all areas above our own desires, in fact making His good pleasure the main desire of our hearts knowing that His good pleasure is really meant for our good as well

• Fellowship - meeting with others in the faith involves being with like-minded people at play, in study, in worship, for encouragement, for accountability, and more

• Gratitude - giving thanks in everything and in every circumstance as a practice of life.  This discipline would turn our lives upside down and get rid of the need for a number of medications

There are more but how many of us even practice these regularly.  If we who call ourselves Christian would practice these disciplines, oh the freedom and joy we would unleash.  Could it be that we do not see a vibrant impact of the Christian church today because the world does not see the freedom we have in Christ without the discipline of the faith practiced among its members?

... On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; 

1 Timothy 4:7 

Three good books on Spiritual Discipline:

Christian Disciplines: Building Strong Christian Character by Oswald Chambers 

Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Foster

The Disciplines of the Christian Life by Eric Liddell 

A to Z Challenge

Being Delivered from the Negatives of Critical

The Five Minute Friday Word for this week is REMEMBER.

Artist: Steve Hanks

One of the things that is a strength for me is also a weakness.  I see things that need fixing.  I am a fixer.  Doesn’t that sound nicer than I am critical, but alas, that is part of who I am.  I tend to see what is out of place, what needs repair, what is still left to be done.  

Until a few years ago, I saw this as only a negative.  I remember hating this about myself and always wanting to change.  Then one day I had a conversation with a friend who suffered from the same ailment.  She pointed out how we need people who are able to see what needs to be fixed.  It is only bad if you don’t see it in yourself and temper it with appreciation.  It, like most traits, just needs to be managed in order to be a blessing rather than a curse.  Well that was much more pleasant.

Since then I have learned more about gifts of the spirit and how being able to contribute constructive criticism is often called for.  My children have mentioned on more than one occasion that they appreciate constructive criticism because it helps them improve and they truly dislike false praise given just to make them feel good.  Further confirmation that this trait is not totally to be despised.

However, I also have realized that my critical nature has been a stumbling block to me, and it is good to keep that in perspective as well.  The Lord has been teaching me about love of late.  It is my word for the year.  I am already seeing how very much I have to learn about love.  It is a humbling journey to see how much criticism has kept me from loving or how the lack of love has cultivated a critical cynicism.  I thank God for continually humbling me, because it is in that humbling that He is showing me where I need to repent and how I can become more like Christ.  

STOP.  5 minutes up.

It never ceases to amaze me how I think I know something, and God clarifies how little I really know.  I am also grateful for that.  It has given me perspective along my life journey.  I have many humble, tearful, joyful rides with the Lord these days.  It is life-changing.  It is life-enhancing.  It’s liberating.  The tears shed, are tears of joy as the Holy Spirit not only shows me the error and sin that have been my stumbling blocks, but concurrently delivers me from them.  What a gracious loving God.  As He sets free, everything else becomes richer.  It’s like the smoker who gets a new appreciation for food once she quits because the taste or rather her ability to experience the taste is intensified.  

Ah the renewing power of the Holy Spirit brings love to life and leaves the fixing to Him.

But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul.  Deuteronomy 4:29

Now, set your timer, clear your head, for five minutes of free writing without worrying about getting it right.

Now, set your timer, clear your head, for five minutes of free writing without worrying about getting it right.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.

2. Link back here and invite others to join in.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

Oh and Ahem, if you would take pity and turn off comment verification, it would make leaving some love on your post that much easier for folks!

OK, are you ready? Please give us your best five minutes on:::

Remember…

Also linking up with:

My Beloved, You Teach Me What Love Is

The Promise by Robert Sexton

This week's

Five Minute Friday 

Prompt 

is 

Beloved.  

You are my beloved because you have my heart.  You have helped me be more than I would have been alone.  You are willing to put up with me in my worst.

I read at “Heart Choices” a beautiful thought.  To paraphrase:  You are my beloved because sometimes I feel so in love with you, and when I don’t feel quite so in love, I choose to love you because that is love.  It wraps up emotion with action and commitment.  It goes beyond what I feel, but is what I feel as well.  I choose to love you, my beloved, and with every step of that choice, the love grows and you are more my beloved each day.

For Now and Ever by Robert Sexton

I love you because He first loved me.  The precious love of my Jesus makes me more able to conquer my selfishness and appreciate just how beautiful you are.  You are the blessed, beloved partner given by God, and I rejoice that I have you, my beloved.

Stop.  

Five minutes are up, 

but I have more to say to my beloved.

My beloved, how blessed I really am to have you:

To care for me when I am unable to do for myself.  

To be an example of love and selflessness not only to me but to our children and others whose lives you touch. 

To listen to me whine and not pass judgment and then lift me up so I whine that much less.

To laugh with and to make me laugh.

To be part of my cheerleading squad and to cheer you on as well.

To be a co-laborer for Christ with me.

To share the journey of life until we are those two waddling older folks walking the lane together. 

The Vow by Robert Sexton

Through you and with you, I am learning what love is, my beloved.

In Our Time by Robert Sexton

To see more of the work of Robert Sexton, click here.

Signing on the A to Z April (2013) Challenge List

Laid up in bed after knee surgery, I have had a chance to navigate the electronic devices and internet sites often left to scant snippets of time I don’t have.  I was able to set up wireless to the new dvd player in our bedroom to watch   Netflix or Amazon prime when hubby or the kids have commandeered the living room tv.  I am especially proud of this feat as my children, whom I usually turn to for these acts of magic, were unable to figure it out.

Among the other practical pleasures I've been pursuing is visiting the blogs of friends which I enjoy doing almost as much as eating chocolate - almost.  It was fun to catch up on the musings and profundities of those much wiser than myself as well as just getting a glimpse at what might be going on in their lives.  In the last three months I have only blogged once, last Friday, quite off my original goal of twice weekly, and had not visited at all any other blogs for most of that time either, also quite off my goal.  So being incapacitated has its advantages.  It may just be the spur to get me back to blogging.  I hope so.

Visiting friends and seeing what they were writing or preparing to write brought to my attention the A to Z Challenge.  The history of A to Z  began in 2010 when Arlie Bird, or Lee as he signs his name, of Tossing it out  more or less on a whim decided to celebrate his 200th follower by posing a challenge.  And 4 years later what an explosion.  Arlie now has thousands of visitors and followers and has started something that has become a phenomenon all its own.  

I must admit I was a bit dubious about taking the challenge.  I wondered if there was something I was missing.  Is it possible that it is more than it seems?  What would I step into if I signed up for this challenge?  

So to relieve my concerns, I checked out Mr. Bird’s website and those of several other of the A to Z hosts.  I think I am safe.  I plan to visit them all in the coming days.  I also hope to keep to the contract of checking out at least 5 A to Z contributors each day during the challenge.  Yes, I signed my name to the list.  Check it out.  You too might find it a challenge worth taking like the many hundreds of others, including me, who have already signed on.   I think it will be a fun adventure.  Thanks Lee!  And thanks Elizabeth of Transitional-Woman for my first exposure to the possibilities of this challenge.

Just ot help me remember, I am number 641 on the list.

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.