Random Wed. part 3: When the world is scary

Today things went to a whole new level in the hood.

We have lived in North Mpls for nine years now. It has had it's quiet seasons, and it's unsettling seasons. The last couple months has seen a rise in activity.

Today while I was talking on the phone outside on the sidewalk and the kids were playing in the front yard, I had 10 SWAT team members running past me quickly telling me to get inside.

I quickly hung up, and ushered my kids inside as we witnessed the SWAT team break down the door of one my kids friends homes. He lives two houses down.

The SWAT team stayed for 15min and then left alone. They took no one with them. A squad car sat outside with officers going in and out for the next half hour.

The kids and I prayed for their friend and his mom hoping that she and he were alright. When I saw the little boy outside later that night, he looked scarred. He was quiet and withdrawn. I can't imagine what goes on in a little boy's head when 10large men break down your door and have guns pointed at your dad, uncle and all their friends.

After devotions and putting the kids in bed, the sound of sirens screeching down our street, lights going, sirens blaring got both the boys up with tears in their eyes.

"Are the SWAT team coming to our house with their guns?"

Ahhhhh....and there it is. I wasn't sure how much of the afternoon sunk into the kids, but they are very well aware of everything that goes on around them.

Middle was really scared, so I laid down with him and we talked for a bit. He had questions about what the SWAT team looks for. What bad things are in his friends house? Where were the bad guys? Why are their uniforms scary? Whey did they have to break the door? Why couldn't they knock? What is the difference between ghosts and spirits? If Fire fighters protect us from fire, and police protect us from bad guys, who protects us from ghosts? (don't ask how we got there, I am still not sure.) Are ghosts real? When I close my eyes, I only see the SWAT team and their guns.

So this was my evening. Having very grown up talks with my four year old. I've never taken care of children before my own, so I don't really know how to handle these kinds of things. I often think I should tone down my honesty, but my kids seem to be able to handle it.

The thing is, there are scary things in the world. When you are a parent you want nothing more than to keep any of those bad things touching your kids. You can shield them and protect them, and try to keep anything "evil" from entering your home or shield devises, but the truth is, its gonna get in. It always does.

My kids were really tired. I was looking forward to getting them to bed early, cleaning up an easy dinner and then setting down to sew or bringing out my favorite fall decorations. I rented a movie and my husband was with the band for the night.

I had a plan.

Then life happened. Real hard things happened.

As a parent I would like nothing more than to pretend that what happened today didn't happen. I want to erase what my kids witnessed.

Or I can invite Christ into what happened. I blend the good and the bad all together and discuss with my kids what it is to be afraid. What do we do when we are scared and saying that Jesus is with me isn't' enough.

So we talked. I listened. I gave answers when I had them and was honest about not knowing everything.

I then went and grabbed a prayer shawl that was given to middle after the tornado from Calvary Lutheran in Golden Valley. I laid his shawl on him, reminded him that he was prayed for, gave him a small cross to hold in his hand, and let him look at his Bible with a flash light to put good stories and pictures in his mind.

I know, lots of people wish and pray we would leave the hood.

The truth is we can't. No matter what happens, we are here at least for awhile.

So what does it look like to live where you are? To bring faith, love and hope into whatever situation you are given. I could wish away and dream of living on a hobby farm, but that is not my reality.

The hood is.

So how do I teach my kids to live in the messy, messy world that is truthfully right outside our door?

I don't really have a plan but to be honest.

Honest about the hard, hateful ways of people and the love that God has for sinners. Most importantly including ourselves.

Today started with middle asking me what a tampon was and how it worked. I should have known.

I should have known the questions wouldn't stop.

I should have known.

Random Wed. part 2: devotions with kids

I wish we as a culture of believers, myself included, would take the truth of starting spiritual education at home with the church supporting what we teach at home, instead of the other way around.

Paul and I are always asking ourselves how we can be imprinting a desire for God and his love into our children. We want them to want to choose Him.

Yesterday I did a lot of cleaning of all of our paperwork, files, mail, to do piles. It appears my one pile has turned into I think I counted seven yesterday. As I was going through pile after pile, I came across the kids Sunday School take home devotion sheet. This is a tool for families to use at home during one of their devotional times together. It talked about what happened in Sunday School, and what they will be learning next week to get the kids prepared. Then it also provided great prayers, questions, and activities to do together throughout the week to reinforce what they are learning at church.

I kept that paper out hoping that I would force myself to do it with my kids. It takes more time than just reading a story and by night time, I am pretty exhausted. But tonight, I was feeling it, so we did it!

We reread the story of Noah and I started asking the boys questions about what would their ark look like? What would be hard about being on the ark? Who has to take care of the animals? Would they pee of the boat into the water? Where does the poop go? It was amazing spiritual conversation, let me tell you.

Then we started talking about promises. We talked about mourning and grieving and what those words meant. What happened to the all the other people not on the boat? How long did it take Noah to build the ark? Do you think people made fun of him? Did he still listen to God instead of listening to the mocking of others? Were they sad that their friends died?

It was amazing having these conversations with the boys. After we talked about all that, we did the rain song. You know the one where you start rubbing your hands together, then you snap, then you clap, then you slap your knees, then you stomp your feet. We talked about all the rain sounds, and then we discussed the tornado.

It always comes back to the tornado.

We talked about what it must have been like for Noah and his family and being scared watching the whole earth disappear. Then we talked about what it means to abide. How God abides in us. He never leaves us nor forsakes us. He is ever watchful and everything that happens has a purpose.

After we prayed that God would open our eyes to see him working in our lives, we went outside and spread bread crumbs on the yard to help take care of the birds and squirrels, just like Noah. We are hoping they are gone by morning.

Working with the church in the spiritual development of our children is an amazing opportunity to the strongest foundation possible. For all the teachers can give our children, we have the opportunity for one on one conversations and questions with our children. Questions that come up when relearning stories the second and third time. It also provides the frame work for real life questions. Reading the story of Noah allowed real life application of the tornado to be discussed again in our home. To remember how God provided for us and took care of us.

It was this really great night of grown up conversation with my boys.

If your church provides take home sheets to further the spiritual development of what they are teaching, I recommend finding one night in the week to do it together.

FYI: This was one great moment, however we are just like every other family (I hope) and have to fight against our kids not wanting to go to church on Sunday, not wanting to the read the bible in the morning, but a fun book, and still trying to remind them that we love each other. This one moment does not make us holy, it makes us desperate for what God offers us.

Random Wed. part 1: Fun fall craft project

I saw this project on a family craft website and really thought it was right up our alley. So middle and I went to the fabric store with our coupon and choose what we thought were some really fantastic, aesthetically stellar fabrics in sight and in touch and we were ready for our fun fall project of making pumpkins.

Tomorrow at Noah's school it's teacher appreciation day and so this project idea lined up perfect. I don't ever know what to get my husband as a gift and I've known him for years. How am I supposed to find something for a woman who is teaching my son everyday, empowering him with knowledge and gracing him with patience as he learns to live in a whole new world? And we've only known each other for three weeks? What the heck do you get a teacher?

A homemade present of the best kind!

So I cleared off the kitchen table.

I gave big and middle each their own set of fabrics. We had fuzzy white, soft bumpy brown, traditional pumpkin orange, fleece green, and a fun random array of fall colors on one single fabric.



I had the boys pick out bowls of varying sizes and gave them markers to start tracing. They delighted and succeeded at the task from the word go.



They took turns with the fabric scissors. One would trace and the other would cut.





After circles were cut, we would get our thread ready and the boys would do a light stitch around the outside of the circle.



Once the outside of the circle was stitched, I took over and started to pull the thread tight. Pulling the thread tight created a fun little pocket and the boys would take our recycled plastic grocery bags and stuff them inside.

Once stuffed, I would tie them closed and vola', a ball!



Well, it was a ball until we stuffed a stick in the top and then, magically it became a pumpkin.

We were having a grand ole time making a huge mess with markers, scissors and fabric all over. We went and hunted sticks outside and collected a large number that means we have many pumpkins to make.

Big picked his favorite and we decided that was the one he would give his teacher to sit on her desk.

We found the perfect size box, found some old green tissue paper and cut it up into strips. We then had lots of fun scrunching up the tissue paper to look like grass.

Here is the final gift.



Here is a small handful of our final product.



This is a really fun project to do with kids and I highly recommend it!

We create our own busy

A few years ago, I was very conscious of people, myself included, always replying to the question, "How are you?" with "Good, but busy."

It was incredible how often that was the response. Busy, busy, busy, busy. We are just so much busier than we used to be. Everyone has so many activities, we are just so busy.

I really hate it. I don't like that phrase, but mostly I don't like how I started to blame busy as if it came into my house and stole time from me. I started treating it like it controlled me and not the other way around.

I didn't like that I was so busy. I didn't like that spur of the moment BBQ with friends could happen the day the idea popped into someones mind. We just had to schedule a BBQ with my husband's band three months out because we were all so busy!

Busy is stealing our lives. Even good busy. Good programs, church programs, school programs, community programs, self serving programs, serving programs, you name it and we just bombarded with options in how to spend our time, except we are a culture that doesn't know how to say no.

My family is no exception. We are busy, except our busy is traveling. We leave a lot. But when me and the kids are home, I try so hard to not be busy. Not that there aren't days where crazy busy happens.

A couple years ago my husband called me out on the fact that I was running our kids out every day to stuff and we weren't creating a space where they could just be. Learn to be bored, learn to think for themselves, create their own games, etc. He knew it was because I had more issues that I didn't want to deal with, and staying busy allowed me to not face my demons. But he was right. And since then, though we fail quite a bit, when we are home, we stay home. We hang out here, create here, fight here, do life here. They are learning chores, and how to manage relationships with each other.

We really like not being so busy anymore. I still need to call my mom and ask her if I should do certain events or what not, and she is my voice of reason, reminding me to slow down.

Until this week, and my old life of crazy busy was here.

This week starting on Sunday, we had our church welcome days, a trip up to a friends cabin, middle started school three times a week this week, I volunteered at big's school one morning, or tried to, we hosted two get together's, I worked one night, had a friend's goodbye dinner, and band practice, and we had a friend's wedding rehearsal and wedding. However amongst all of this is our new life calling of eating almost all raw and nutritional food. So I have to prepare the food we will eat at the wedding, because we can't eat there, make homemade ketchup, cookies, muffins for lunch, eggs and oatmeal every morning for breakfast, and your normal grocery shopping, bank run, laundry, clean the house work. And what's great, is this was the week they started work on our house.

I write that and it feels gross to me. To have commitments every night of the week and some nights, my husband had commitments when I did.

I don't like doing life this way. My life is then consumed with check lists, preparation, clean up, driving, and all of our conversations in the house are how to prepare and get ready for the next thing.

This is not me complaining, because I did this to myself. I didn't get my Bible Study written, so I NEEDED to do it before the deadline. I hosted two parties in a week where we had a wedding. I didn't put anything on my calendar and then said yes to everything.

Everything this week are good things. And some you have to do, but most of it, I could have planned better to say, we only want one commitment a week. We have little kids and we want play time. Down time. Life time.

Some people like being busy. That is fine, because that is how they thrive.

I like living at a slower pace. I have time to pay attention to life, and to my children, and my husband and to my other relationships. Cause this week, I haven't had any time to do the things I love. Bible study, calling friends, bike riding, getting down on the floor and playing with my kids.

When you are busy, your life becomes consumed with getting prepared for the next thing instead of enjoying the moment you are in.

Here's to making better choices and living in the moment you've been given.

I want to choose better next time.

A moment to choose

"It's quiet.
It's early.
My coffee is hot.
The sky is still black.
The world is asleep.
The Day is coming.

In a few moments the day will arrive.
It will roar down the track with the rising of the sun.
The stillness of the dawn will be exchanged for the noise of the day.
The calm of solitude will be replaced by the pounding pace of the human race.
The refuge of the early morning will be invaded by decisions to be made,
and deadlines to be met.

For the next twelve hours, I will be exposed to the day's demands.
It is now that I must make a choice.
Because of Calvary, I'm free to choose.
And so I choose.

I CHOOSE LOVE
No occasion justifies hatred; no injustice warrants bitterness.
I choose love.
Today, I will love God and what God loves.

I CHOOSE JOY
I will invite my God to be the God of circumstance.
I will refuse the temptation to be cynical...
the tool of a lazy thinker.
I will refuse to see people as anything less than human beings,
created by God. I will refuse to see any problem as anything less
than an opportunity to see God.

I CHOOSE PEACE
I will live forgive.
I will forgive so that I may live.

I CHOOSE PATIENCE
I will overlook the inconveniences of this world.
Instead of cursing the one who takes my place,
I'll invite him/her to do so.
Rather than complain that the wait is too long,
I will thank God for a moment to pray.
Instead of clinching my fist at new assignments,
I will face them with joy and courage.

I CHOOSE KINDNESS
I will be kind to the poor, for they are alone.
Kind to the rich, for they are afraid.
And kind to the unkind, for such is how God has treated me.

I CHOOSE GOODNESS
I will go without a dollar before I take a dishonest one.
I will be overlooked before I will boast.
I will confess before I will accuse.
I choose goodness.

I CHOOSE FAITHFULNESS
Today I will keep my promises.
My debtors will not regret their trust.
My associates will not question my word.
My husband/wife will not question my love.
And my children will never fear that their mother/father will not come home.

I CHOOSE GENTLENESS
Nothing is won by force. I choose to be gentle.
If I raise my voice, may it only be in praise.
If I clench my fist, may it only be in prayer.
If I make a demand, may it only be of myself.

I CHOOSE SELF-CONTROL
I am a spiritual being...
after this body is dead, my spirit will soar.
I refuse to let what will rot, rule the eternal.
I choose self-control.
I will be drunk only by joy.
I will be impassioned only by my faith.
I will be influenced only by God.
I will be taught only by Christ.
I choose self-control.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
To these I commit my day.
If I succeed, I will give thanks.
If I fail, I will seek His grace.
And then, when this day is done,
I will place my head on my pillow and rest."

- Max Lucado
When God Whispers Your Name