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

M is for Mom Mantras

by Ginger Plowman

 “Go to what you know.” 


That’s one of my mom mantras.  

Another is,

“How do YOU think it’s spelled?”



You know what I am talking about, those truths and principles you repeat to inculcate them into your kids, to give them what you believe they need to overcome obstacles and become productive people, people who can figure things out and stand on their own two feet. These are Mom (and Dad) mantras.

We remember some that our parents spoke into our lives.

“I used to walk 10 miles to school, up hill and in the snow.”

“We never got to do that when I was growing up.” 

“Nothing good ever happens after midnight.”

“Chores first.”

Each of us has our own list, though some may be common to all if you are from similar cultures.  The mantras are meant to instill in us perseverance, strength of character, wisdom.  In my house, among the regular chanted mantras I used were messages about attitude. 

“Attitude ‘A’ every day.”

"Be a blessing and be blessed.”
“What you practice you become.”

"Hold on to the Lord."

Your mantras say something about what you value, about what you believe contributes to a good life, about what influences you.  Some of the mantras of our lives we don’t even realize are there.  They may be subconscious, repeated messages in the recesses of our mind, but shining through who we are none the less.  Sometimes others may hear what we don’t realize we repeat.  These can be dangerous mantras because they may be shaping us with something harmful to our character. 

It’s a good practice to occasionally do a mental check of the mantras we recite, to listen to that voice that speaks within us, the messages we let freely rerun on the screen of our minds.  Listen as well to the ones we speak into the big wide world of our children’s futures.  It wouldn’t hurt to check with loved ones.  Ask if there mantras we are missing that may be having an ill-effect on us or those around us.  We all have blind spots that we can use a little passenger assistance to see. 

  What mantras have been influential in making you who you are?

A to Z Challenge

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. 

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.  

                        

A Simple Truth of Life

Why is it so hard to grasp the simple truths of life, so much so that we let them slip through our fingers like water.  These truths should be drunk in like living water, but instead we fill up on pop which gets us farther away from holding onto the essential.

Relationships are essential.  We were made for relationship, yet relationships DO take effort and time and some grasping.  We don’t often grasp this simple truth as we let other things, pop, take priority.  The ‘pop’ of life can be all sorts of glitz and glamor, fun and exciting and time consuming.  

How often do we ignore our little girl who just wants to talk in favor of the email that calls for our immediate response?  How often does the tv drama take precedence over an intimate conversation with our spouse?  How often does an entertainment of some sort or an important task crowd out our prayer time with God?

Lord, help me grasp the simple truth that my relationships are of greater value that most anything I may put before them. 

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.  

Physical Fitness in Home School

Clipart source

“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”  (1 Corinthians 10:31 KJV)

No matter when we start our school year, most of us tend to have a sense of beginning or or transitioning to something new in September.  Children usually move to a new grade, classes gear up, new programs begin.  Even as home schoolers we have many patterns ingrained in us that adhere to the common cultural norms like this and there is nothing wrong with that.  Having standardization works in a number of ways.  However one area that I hope we can break out of standardized thinking is in ‘the check in the box’ mentality to learning in general and physical fitness in particular.  

There are some subjects we want our children to learn simply to have a familiarity with the information, to help them be well-rounded, or to give them a taste of it to see if it might be something that would help them find their bent.  Exposing them to that subject matter and moving on works fine.  Other things we know we have to build upon like reading, writing, and arithmetic.  In the early years these are foundational for what will come later, and most of us understand that these are not learn and dump studies.  Spiritual development is a category all to its own.  As Christians we should train our children to have their faith inform all of their studies and not fall into the trap of  just exposing them and laying it aside. Bible study is more than a separate compartmentalized subject which may be foundational for more Bible study, but rather it is applicable to all of life, throughout the day, across all subject areas.  

Persevering in Our Calling

Deuteronomy 6: 5-7 “And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when thou sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.”

I am a bit eccentric.  I like being left-handed, thought my most attractive feature growing up was my feet - alas, no longer the case, - and am glad that I am part of the 5% of the population who doesn’t have wisdom teeth, not because I don’t have wisdom teeth, although that is great, but because I am part of the 5%.  So it may not be a stretch to say I was initially drawn to home-schooling simply to be different.  It also shows I am a bit dull to just now be realizing this.  Eccentricity and denseness is not what got me to actually begin home-schooling or what kept me going, however.  It was clearly a gift from God.

Before we even had children, we attended a small church in Tennessee which had one home-schooling family.  I had never heard of home-schooling, but I was intrigued and wanted to know more.  This kind, godly family invited me into their home to spend the day watching how they home-schooled.  It was delightful chaos as this mom nurtured the growing minds and hearts of her children.  I was in awe.  Now attracted to this concept, I attended a home-schooling conference with my new friend, bought books on the topic, and examined different views on education, all before my first child was even conceived.