We All Sin.

I hear people say...let kids be kids..kids just want to have fun...I just want my kids to be happy....they are so sweet and innocent.  I do not experience that, with ANY of my kids. 

 Let's be CLEAR I LOVE LOVE LOVE my kids and grands so very much. 

 I learn from them daily, they are life and joy and wonderful gifts from God; they are the biggest blessings of our lives.

  I LOVE them, and their spirit and energy and child-like faith. 

 What I don't see is this naturally sweet innocent nature that people talk about.  When we just let our kids be kids...they whine and scream, and throw food,  and do all kinds of crazy stuff.  I never never never had to teach them to hit, or bite, or lie, or be selfish, or self-centered.  I never taught them how to run off when I call for them.  I did not teach them any of these things, it's in their nature and they have to be taught NOT to do these things and they have to be taught to DO something different than what comes naturally to them.

We are three amazing grown kids into this journey, and the beauty of that is we can look at what worked, what has helped them the most and what was not a help to them. I can promise you, the stuff we as parents have spent the most time worrying about and trying to do for them is not the stuff that gives them what they need in life.  They need Jesus, they need to know they can trust Him, they need to know how to love Him and serve Him, they need to know how to love people, all people, all the time.  When we spend so much time trying to do everything else, and working our heads off to give our children this amazing childhood, and then sit passively by when it comes to a relationship with the Lord, we are treating the symptoms of a broken life in a broken world, not giving them the cure, the TRUTH that will fill them with true joy and happiness and wisdom and LOVE and PURPOSE. 

 I don't know what has made us as parents so timid when it comes to the spiritual side of our children.  Why will we do everything in our power to help them thru life, and then leave it up to them to figure out their own TRUTH?  

That is like giving a kid a car and having them figure out their own way to drive the thing, never telling them where the gas pedal or brakes are, let alone how to use them.

We are born with a sin nature.  We are broken people in a broken world and I don't know about you but I can't even blame Eve for my sin...I can know the rules, just like Eve knew the rules and I still break them constantly.  I don't even have a talking serpent trying to convince me to do things, I just do them.  The very first commandment is to have no other gods before God. There are many times I put my kids before God, myself, my house, my time, my problems, my worries, my activities. I can't even get past the first step on many days. 

 

I have had a struggle in my own heart because we have fallen out of some good habits; we had a routine of pretty consistent family devotions and prayer time, and since we have moved we had let that go, not because we meant to, it just got over-run with everything else. 

 I then began to think...well, it's fine because I can't have a relationship with the Lord FOR my kids (which is the truth) so I began to think I would just let it go, and let them figure it out for themselves.

I thought we would just continue to pray for them and encourage them, and take them to church.  Going to church is never a struggle, for us or our kids, this is a constant in our lives no matter the season we are in.  But, I didn't have peace about just leaving it at that.  I kept going back to it in my mind thinking I don't want myself or my kids to do things out of ritual or religious obligation, I  want them to know God and want to know Him more every day of their lives.  

After wresting it through for a time, I have come to understand our role as parents a little better,  I do believe as long as kids are being raised and still living under the care of their parents, the parents have a big responsibility in 

*creating a space and time and an example to allow and encourage that relationship with the Lord.*

  I can't make things take root in their hearts, but I can sure till the soil and plant seeds and water the hell out of it. 

 I don't think it is something they just pick up by watching either....I mean I have never jumped on the couch (since Cellie has been alive :) ) and yet she is constantly jumping on the couch, so I don't think she is naturally picking things up, by just watching the people in her life.

  My teens and young kids are super receptive and responsive any time I create that space and time for them to participate in Bible time, faith discussions, and prayer time, but it isn't something they naturally do on their own very often.  I don't know when that will happen for each of them, but I know as I watch our older kids it does become their own, and it is the most beautiful part of them that affects every single area of their lives for eternity. 

I can't take responsibility for my kids' hearts and I can't take credit for them either, but I can keep taking them to Jesus and trusting that He is faithful and worthy and He is the most influential person I can introduce them too, and keep bringing into their view.

I pray that God captures each child's heart, and they learn to enjoy a very close and intimate relationship between them and God, but we as parents, we have to do our part in giving all we know how to, to help cultivate a relationship that continues well beyond our time with them in our home.  Our faith has to be lived out in our own lives and also a constant invitation to our kids to join in a deeper relationship with God.  

Joshua 24:14-15 The Message (MSG)

14 “So now: Fear God. Worship him in total commitment. Get rid of the gods your ancestors worshiped on the far side of The River (the Euphrates) and in Egypt. You, worship God.

15 “If you decide that it’s a bad thing to worship God, then choose a god you’d rather serve—and do it today. Choose one of the gods your ancestors worshiped from the country beyond The River, or one of the gods of the Amorites, on whose land you’re now living. As for me and my family, we’ll worship God.”

Waiting Well

Almost 16 years to the day of the first time setting foot on our 40-acre piece in Powell Butte, we are done.  The last 8 years were a struggle.  It's a bittersweet feeling to have it behind us.  When I signed the papers I felt thankful, relief, and sad.  Thankful for the time we had and thankful that it is finally over.  Relief that it sold and we don't have the weight of it on our shoulders or on our finances any longer.  The sad part is that it didn't go the way we planned and it feels like a defeat more than a victory.

After all these years of praying and waiting to see how it was all going to turn out, one of the biggest things I wished I would have done differently; I wished I would have waited well.

We prayed and fasted and tried everything in our own power to "fix it" any way we could.  

The part I didn't do well was waiting on the Lord.  We waited all right, we had no choice, when our Father decides it is time to wait, it is time to wait.  The last few years I gave up on my plans and waited much better, but it took about 6 years of high stress and struggle, to get to the 2 years of surrendering to the process and wait.

We kept living, we kept using our piece of the planet for many gatherings, and celebrations and fellowship, we brought home babies and adopted kids over the course of the wait.  We lived full speed ahead but with a knot in our stomachs for much of the time. I often felt guilty and anxious about our situation.  I felt crazy with trying to figure out how it was all going to work out and what was NEXT for us.  Little did I know God was putting every piece together for us to come to Montana and enjoy 6 grown married kids and an undisclosed number of GRANDS, while still raising the 6 kids still at home.

 If I would have known we were all going to be here at this time altogether, I would have spent every minute of every day trying to figure it out, plan it, and control it.  I would have made myself and everyone around me miserable.

  Instead, God chooses to keep working out a plan for my good and not telling me anything about it, He knows I would have taken the information and ran with it, probably ran it right into a ditch.

My prayer is that I have learned how to wait well.  I have no doubt God has a good plan, so my prayer is, as He is working out His will and plan for our lives, that I wait well.

Currently, we are waiting for Charlie to be able to join the family full time and I have once again failed at waiting well on several occasions, but hoping I have learned some things along the way and I can wait well from here on out.

God Is In The Details

It's the details that make me know Jesus loves me and knows me, and cares for me.  The big stuff, the big picture is not hard for me to know there is a big awesome God.  He is so big and so amazing that my mind can't grasp how He created all the earth and keeps it spinning and makes the sun rise and set every single day, it is easy to believe that the God of the world has been here since the beginning of time has done all this, but it's the details, it's the intimate knowledge and personal gifts that make me feel so loved and cared for personally by my Lord and Savior. 

For some crazy reason, when we moved here I felt like I should homeschool Maezie this year....the one concern I had was being new to Montana she wouldn't meet any friends.  I went for my first Montana hair appointment this summer, which was a stretch for me because I have always had people that were close to me do my hair...good friends and my sister are the only ones that have done my hair for the last 25 years.   I went to my first Montana hair appointment and became instant friends with Brooke, and instantly knew she loved Jesus.  It came out in the first 5 minutes of that appointment that she is homeschooling her 1st-grade daughter also.  I can't tell you how many prayers were answered in one simple hair appointment.  This is the friend that gets me out of my house on days I would rather just not leave the house.  This is the friend that talks about Jesus with me and tells me what He is doing in her life.  This is the friend that makes my hair look like I'm not going thru a total life crisis.  This is the friend that doesn't think I'm a total nut case and doesn't judge me that Cellie takes her pants off every single time we meet at the park.  She gets me, and she gets my kids, bigs and littles.  I couldn't have found a better match on friend.com if there is such a thing.  

I could go thru the list of kids and how God has done something so special and personal for each and every kid along the way in the last few months.  It's not that it's all perfect, but when I know a perfect and loving God is looking out for our family, it makes my worry seem ridiculous.

Another biggy for me was that when we left Powell Butte, I was so sad about leaving Charlie in that big empty house alone to see it all thru to the end of the deal.  I knew it would be a shock to his system and lonely at times, especially at first.  Of course, God was thinking ahead and moved in the best neighbors we could ever ask for back in February before we knew any of this Montana move was going to happen.  Our good friends that love Jesus and know how to love their neighbor as themselves live about 3 feet outside of Charlie's door.  The transition from a big full house to one man baching it has been a very smooth transition due to good neighbors that feed Charlie often and feed the animals when Charlie is up here seeing us. 

I have no idea what the next step looks like for us, and there are days it overwhelms me to think of it all.
  We have spent close to 30 years building a business with the motto,
"Where details matter most."
We are in a spot that we can't see the big picture clearly let alone the details.

 God is so good and He is into the big picture and the details of our lives, and He has reminded me again and again from providing a friend for a 1st grader to forgiving the sins of the world, and everything in between. 
He will lead us and guide us into every single step we take.
May we praise Him with every move we make!

Romans 8:28-29 New Living Translation (NLT)

28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 29 For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.