Category Archives: Sacred Mundane

My little 4-year-old son’s vocabulary amazes me.  He began talking pretty late (I still remember sweating at his two-year check-up and confessing he only spoke two words), but he’s been making up for it ever since!  (There’s a lesson there too: Late-bloomers, never fear!)  I just have to shake my head when he reports that Heidi is playing recklessly or when he correctly identifies an articulated dump-truck, a skid-steer, and a mini-excavator.  Sheesh.

But of course he’s still making sense of all these new words.  This past Sunday, we were leaving church and I let him run around in an open field in front of the building.  He went and was looking out over a pond surrounded by trees, and called over and asked if I would please come over there. I squished through the wet grass and joined him looking out over the pond.  His eyes were wide and he said in a hushed voice full of emotion,

“Mommy, look. It’s so bootiful. I can’t believe my breath.”  I took his little hand in mine and kept my dancing eyes looking out over the pond.

“Oh Dutch, I can’t believe my breath either.”

I’m pretty sure it was a mix of not believing his eyes and seeing beauty so great it took his breath away.  However those words made it into that order, the expression was so priceless and his little self so earnest, of course I will tuck them away in my heart forever. A precious moment of grasping at words to try to convey the wonder of something too wonderful for words.

I can relate.

As I drove home from church, of course it came into focus that that is exactly how my Heavenly Father is with me. I want so much to be able to use words to communicate the beauty of God, how good He is, how we can live for Him, how every moment is sacred, how we can simplify every aspect of our lives so that it simmers down to a pure and holy passion for the Risen King.  And yet the reality is that so often my words come out wrong. More times than not I look over what I’ve written and think how proud it sounds or how it ends wrong or how this is wrong or that is wrong.

How I’ve written, “I can’t believe my breath!” for the world to see.

But God knows my heart. He knows that at least most of the time I earnestly want to use words right. I want to convey the wonder in my heart, how beautiful He is, how much I want people to love Him and know Him and serve Him. The garbage of myself and my pride and ego gets mixed in way too often, but for all the mis-steps and wrong word choices, He knows my heart and loves to hear me express it.

He loves to hear you express it.

Our Father loves to hear your heart. He loves to hear you as you pray, you sing, you write.  The words might not be perfect. You might not believe your breath. But it sounds beautiful to Him.

The best part is that you do it.

And as He sees, His beautiful daughter, who so unabashedly expresses her awe-filled worship, He might just look down upon you and smile …

… and not believe His breath.

“Do you like it?” I pointed at my homemade artwork–a anthropologie-inspired sweater mosaic perched on the mantle–and looked at my friend for her response.  She nodded and shrugged her shoulders.

“Do you like it?”  She responded. I stared at her.

Did I like it? That question caught me off guard.  Later that day I thought back to 7th grade and remembered wearing a rather unusual skirt to school one day. My grandma had made it, and I couldn’t decide whether it was stunning or horrid.  It would take some work to pull it off, but I thought it was pretty cool.  I went for it.

Of course it took all of two minutes for me to see the verdict on the faces of the girls at school.  A glance down, eyebrows up, look at me, smirk. It was dumb. The skirt had failed.  I went home at lunch and changed my clothes.

Later that day a friend, a true friend, had chided me: “Why’d you change?  Don’t let what other people think make you change your clothes. If you like the skirt, wear it.”

Did I like the skirt?

Do I like the my sweater mosaic?

How often do I have to ask a hundred opinions before I decide what I think?

Are my opinions simply the sum total of others’?

While I’ve grown out my 7th grade skirt, I haven’t quite grown out of my over-dependence on other’s opinions.  And I have a feeling I’m not alone.  I recently received a text from a friend: “Can I come over? Formal event–need opinion on dress”.  I’m happy to give my input, but really she’s the only one who needs to like what she wears. Right?

Perhaps our over-dependence on other’s opinions is harmless enough when it comes to skirts and art, but my hunch is that it creeps down past the superficial and begins to take root in our hearts.

Am I okay?

The same question that haunts us haunted our feminine ancestors thousands of years ago. In Genesis 30, sisters Rachel and Leah are desperately and miserably competing for their husband Jacob’s love and approval by seeing who can bear the most children. Leah takes the lead while Rachel is barren, so Rachel gets her maid to bear a few to even the score. Then Leah becomes barren and panics, so she gets her maid to bear more children with Jacob. And after that child is born Leah announces,

“Happy am I! For women have called me happy.” (30:13)

Hmm.  Happy am I. Why?

For women have called me happy.

Are you convinced? Neither am I.  I can almost picture the scene.  Anxious and driven by insecurity and competition, Leah makes one final attempt to win the affection of the husband who clearly prefers her sister. Deep down she knows the truth.   After resorting to the unthinkable (giving her maid to her husband!), she insists that she is happy because other women have called her happy.

Modern day translation?

I’m okay because other women say I’m okay.

Dear sisters, that is not the truth.

You are not merely the sum total of other people’s opinions.

Your skirt has value if you like wearing it.

Your artwork has value if you like looking at it.

You have value because you are wonderfully made in the image of God.

You are not happy if women call you happy. And you are not worthless if women call you worthless.  We will be called both at some point, and our defining moment is what we choose to believe.

When we dismiss our opinions, we dismiss our worth. When we dismiss our worth, we dismiss the genius of the One who created us. The One who called you more than happy.

The one who called you His own.

—

In what ways have you allowed the opinions of others to trample your own?  In what ways have you allowed your worth to merely be the sum total of other’s opinions? Ask God today to show you His opinion of who you are.

Today I got a glorious gift from my husband: A day alone.  I’m fighting a cold (and losing) and the house is showing tomorrow, and I think he could see in my eyes that I was just about the throw the kids out the window (bless them).  I wanted a fresh start and some time to think and really wanted to clean the bathrooms without any little monkeys hanging on my legs.  So he took the kids out to my parents’ place for the day and I was left in glorious silence.  I scrubbed and scoured, swept and sorted, and spent four hours with my laptop writing and sipping peppermint tea.  Now that hasn’t happened since … well, since I had kids.

So I love fresh starts and I’m all geared up to figure out some New Year Resolutions, and even found a great post at Simple Mom for asking questions and helping establish healthy reasonable goals for 2011.

But first I thought we’d better head back to 2010.  My goal was a 1950s housewife.  Let’s give a quick look and see how we did. If you wrote resolutions, why don’t you go flip through your journal or search for the document or scrounge up the napkin you wrote them on from the bottom of your nightstand drawer. Let’s take a quick look at what worked, what didn’t, and why.  Here are mine, with comments:

1. Take kids grocery shopping with me. Yup!  I am pleased to say that my kids actually behave in grocery stores now. Hallelujah!

2. Eating dinner together. Mm… sometimes.  We’re getting better, but Jeff’s schedule can vary a lot so sometimes this isn’t realistic.  We do eat breakfast together, though, every morning and make that our special time to pray together and talk together.  I’m feeling like that’s the best option for us right now.  As the kids get older I do still want to make dinner together a goal, though.

3. Make the bed. Yes! I do make the bed! Woohoo! I know, that was a pathetic goal but at least it gave me a victory.

4. Have the house straightened up when Jeff gets home. Yes!  We have done this too. Not perfectly, but pretty much every day, and we’ve got a routine where the kids clean up from 4:30-5pm, then they get to watch a video from 5-5:30pm so I can make dinner in peace, then the kids and I eat at 5:30. The video is a perfect reward for doing all their cleaning, and Jeff comes home to a clean house, happy wife, and dinner. At least most days… 🙂

5. Praying together every morning. Well… we all four pray (Heidi prays in her heart, silently 😉 together at the table at breakfast, but Jeff and I haven’t been very consistent about praying together as a couple.  So, there’s growth and room to grow!  I think I’ll put this one again for next year.

6. Have a plan every day. Again, there’s been growth but certainly room to grow. I am definitely seeing our need for a bit more structure and routine. So that’s a main area to focus for 2011.  I’m still working on (Re)Learning to be Fun!

I’d love to hear what some of your goals were–either reached or unreached.  What worked? What didn’t? What were some of your victories? What did you learn??  I’d love to hear. And happy new year to you.

December 15th marks one year since we began this, the Cash, Coupons, and Envelope system.

It feels so good to finish, doesn’t it? I love fresh starts, but fresh starts are twice as delicious when you’ve just finished the last chapter, and finished it well.

Last night I had the wonderful honor of sitting at Multnomah Biblical Seminary graduation and watching my husband receive his Master’s degree.   It has been a long 5 1/2 year journey for both of us, amidst working full time, giving birth to two kids, living with my parents, commuting, ministry, you name it. It’s been a wild ride and I am SO thankful that we did it.  And ahhhh it feels so good to finish.

So as Jeff finishes this leg of the race, I have to take a second and celebrate a few things:

Thank you for the things that go ungraded:

• Standing neck-deep in a “live” sewer line in the pouring rain, covered in mud (and other stuff!), doing your construction job faithfully day after day, month after month, so we could pay for seminary.
• Getting up at 5am every morning, getting an early start at work so we could leave early for class.
• Putting aside your studies to snuggle the kids, change a diaper, tuck into bed.
• Being willing to live with your in-laws 🙂 so we could afford to keep going!
• Giving up your beloved Jeep when baby came along.
• Camping in the dorms during your week-long intensive class so I could have the car.
• Making innumerable between-class runs to the quickie-mart to get me crackers (or whatever I craved) to stave off morning sickness!
• Making oatmeal for us every morning, even when you leave too early to eat it yourself!
• Living out what you study and learn by the way you love me and lead our family.

Yes, I’m glad he has his degree. I’m glad he finished. I’m glad that from now on we might actually have date-nights that don’t include reading theology books and writing research papers! 🙂  But most of all I’m thankful for the things that go ungraded. Thank you, my husband, for finishing well in every way.  I love and respect you.

This weekend I’m so blessed to have the opportunity to teach at the Oregon Women of the Word conference down in Medford, Oregon. This week was, let’s just say, hectic, preparing amidst some other things. But this little moment showed me how God can use even the chaos to demonstrate His love:

Thursday was crazy. We had an extended-family crisis that threw many things up in the air. I was cleaning the house and making meals for the kids while I’d be gone, and I needed to work on my notes for the conference. In particular, I needed to shorten one message, and was praying about what to cut out, as I had one certain part in mind that I was debating about whether it fit.  After I finally finished the dishes I turned around to find that Heidi had discovered my bright red marker and taken to scribbling all over my notes. ARGH!   I went over, picked them up, to discover that she had scribbled into oblivion the entire section that I was praying about whether or not to cut out. I couldn’t even read it.

I had to smile.  Guess that answers that prayer!

Moments as a Ministry Mommy. 🙂

So can I just say that I’m thrilled at how many of you are gung-ho to start the Food Stamp challenge–whole, organic, healthy, seasonal food for our families for about $2/day/person, or less. So here are what I think are a few key jumpstart tips.

1. Simplify. Remember, eating healthy is not expensive. Snacks and Convenience are expensive.  If there is any way to simmer down your grocery list to as few items as possible, you are well on your way. Here is a sample of my grocery shopping this month. All I’ll need as the month goes on is some more fresh fruits and veggies, but this is the bulk of it:

• Winco (for the  month):  In Bulk: Oats, whole wheat flour, brown rice, black beans, pinto beans, lentils, garbanzo beans, almonds, whole-wheat pastas, brown sugar, evaporated cane juice, barley, and raisins.  Also: Coconut milk, yams and onions (don’t need to be organic). Oh, and a few fruit leather because Dutch was with me. Total: $50.57.
• Fred Meyer: 21 lbs. of organic fuji apples ($.78/lb this week!), bananas, Tillamook cheese ($3.99 this week w/ coupon!), organic milk (on sale this week for 1/2 gal. for $2.30), cage-free eggs. Total: $28.31.
• Costco: 5 lbs. each of organic green beans, organic peas, organic corn, plus 5 Liters olive oil (which will last forever). Total $34. (Thanks Dani!)
• Albertson’s: I happened to have some good coupons so I snagged organic blue-corn tortilla chips, dish soap and laundry detergent all for $4.02.
• So that’s $116.90 so far, so I think we should be good. I have plenty of meat and peanut butter leftover from last month.

2. Bread for pennies: I was just talking to a friend last night about how expensive healthy bread is. Don’t buy it!  It’s so easy to make. If you don’t have a bread machine you can buy one for $50 and it’ll pay for itself in a few months.  (This book is also SO helpful, for making everything from hamburger buns (yum!) to  pizza dough to cinnamon rolls.) Cook it in the oven, not the machine–so cheap and yummy!  Easiest recipe one earth, foolproof:

• 5/8 c. milk
• 1/2 c. water
• 3 TB sugar
• 1 1/2 TB butter
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• Then on top–3 cups flour (any kind, I use whole wheat), then dig a little well in the top and put 2 tsp yeast (yeast is super cheap to buy in big containers at Costco). Do dough cycle, then dump it onto greased cookie sheet, bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Yum! For pennies per loaf.

3. Challenge yourself to go without. The Beans & Rice challenge really showed me how addicted to sugar I am. I missed eating sweet things!  It was so helpful though because it kind of re-set my sweet tooth. For example today I was marveling at how peas are so sweet, they taste like candy! (Ok not quite). But I do think we can slowly wean ourselves off of things if we try.  I still put sugar in my tea though…   *sigh*

Happy grocery shopping!  I’ve also heard that the Green Grocer in Oregon City has some great local, whole, organic foods. Haven’t checked it out yet, though.  Send along your tips, ideas, recipes!  And don’t forget to thank God for every bite!