Sick of the Sound of My Own Voice

I'm beginning to wonder how healthy it is for me to spend large amounts of time spouting off on what I think is a good, right, and godly way to live. Note that I didn't say there was anything wrong with it. I just think that it may be wrong for me. I am so weak in so many areas, it has gotten to the point where it feels dishonest. I haven't been dishonest, in the technical sense, but I fear that I have painted a dishonest picture- one where I blog on end about the things that I do well, but where my weaknesses are conspicuously absent.


How often have I mentioned that in disciplining my children, I am woefully inconsistent? So much so that I need to literally write out a plan of action for dealing with my three-year-old. She knows when she has pushed my patience to the limit, so she takes her cues from my behavior to know when I'm "serious." Up until that point, I rarely get first time obedience.


Did you notice the Fitness Friday posts mysteriously disappeared? That's no coincidence either. The plans that I laid out 2 months after the birth of my now 18-month-old have evaporated. 10 of the 20 pounds I originally lost have reappeared and I'm almost back to square one. I have picked up the mantle again and have a much more realistic action plan than before, but the reality is that I don't take the best care of myself. I have no desire to conform to the world's standards of beauty. My only health goal is to be the best me that I can be, but I know that I am not doing that. I know that I am not taking proper care of my temple, and what that means for me.



My heart's desire is to do everything as unto the Lord, and oftentimes I find myself doing what I do to please me, or to create the illusion of a me that's not really me at all. Blogging has, in many ways exacerbated that problem, because when I'm feeling down on me, I can always log on here. One of you wonderful ladies will leave a comment encouraging me with kind words of how I have blessed you, or with comments more flattering and more frequent than anything I will ever receive in my day to day living. Even when you comment to disagree, you validate my most profound thoughts.



Who wouldn't enjoy that? I certainly do, and much more than I should. But I need to have my cup filled with living water, water that will quench my thirst so that I never thirst again. Too often I have settled for the temporary satisfaction of pats of the back and amens from the blogosphere. And as our Messiah so truthfully noted, as refreshing is this water has been , and as much as I have learned, it is not long before I thirst again.



I have often justified my time here by noting how much I have learned and the insight I have gained, as if learning is the ultimate goal. We should always strive to learn and grow. I love learning new things and exploring perspectives I may not have considered. But that can't be the ultimate goal.The Scripture says that knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. I don't know that what I do here is edifying. I have certainly been edified, I believe, but I wonder if I have taken this too far. We have had this conversation before, and the times in which we live make the Internet a potential wealth of information and fellowship for one like me, the believing, homeschooling housewife. The fact that full time homemakers are fewer and father apart than in times past has fueled this new medium of exchanging thoughts, ideas, and encouragement from others travelling the road we travel.



I must spend more time building a real relationship with my Lord. We are admonished to "pray without ceasing." Running a household is time consuming, and there is no way that any of us who live in the real world can spend all day on our knees. But I remember, before I started this blog, during the loneliest of times as an at home wife and mother, when I talked to God all the time. When it was second nature for me to stop and thank Him for a great deal in the grocery store, or ask Him for the patience and wisdom to handle a situation in the moment. I prayed without ceasing. My brain feels so crowded now. At first I thought it was just information overload, but I realize that it's because I give so much weight to my own point of view. I am certainly not one of those believers who feels that we should check our brains at the door in order to live out our faith. I find that brand of theology insulting the Creator who has given us our wonderfully complex minds and abilities. However, the practice of expressing my thoughts so often has ushered me into a place that is detrimental to my spiritual life and walk.


My ability to come to Him "as a little child" is severely hampered by the sound of my voice drowning out His. To maintain a blog as consistently with topics as complex and potentially contentious as I have here has made me a master of defending what I believe-biblically of course! But we are not called to defend our position using the Bible after instigating a controversial topic. We are called to love the Lord, love one another (something that the blogosphere often undermines as we press our point), and preach the good news to those who have not believed. And we are to be ready to give a defense for the hope that we have should the need arise. That is not what I do here, and I need to take a break and refocus. While there isn't a chapter and verse I can call to mind, I am full aware that for me to continue to blog right now would be wrong. Anything not done in faith is sin, and right now I have strong reservations about my ability to stay on this path in good conscience.

Thank you to all of you who have graciously and faithfully followed me, encouraged me, and supported me. Although I will not be posting here for the foreseeable future, I will still be visiting your blogs, and I will lurk much less since I won't be doing much posting myself.

Before I go, can I earnestly suggest that those of you who are seriously interested in joining a lovely woman on her journey through the Scriptures visit Heather at The Narrow Gate? Her blog is wonderful, but it is not for those who don't love with the Bible. And love Jesus. She doesn't pretend to have all the answers. In fact, she is very transparent about her struggles. But this sister has figured out where to go for the answers. If you only have time to read one post there, I strongly suggest this one. Here is an excerpt:

If we are His children, we need to behave as though we believe that Daddy knows what is best...

Then, we are to do what He has told us to do, as we seek Him and He reveals it to us as individuals. Just as a large natural family can have babies, preschoolers, elementary-aged, teenagers, young adults, middle aged, older adults...we should expect God's family to have similar stages of growth happening at any given time. We need to be careful to not consider others as being unworthy of adoption. And if we really believe He's building a family based in mercifully forgiving Love, it changes the way we look at our spouses, children, neighbors, bosses--even complete strangers.

My goal as a family member is to learn to trust my Father by accepting His discipline and to remember to encourage other family members to do the same. When I fail (commit acts of sin), I need to admit that I am helpless without Him, then turn from my own foolish dimwittedness and ask Him to teach me to love and trust Him more. In this, I am set free from the law of sin and death--because death is simply what happens when Life is taken away. Salvation really is that simple.

A word of caution to the proud and perverse: (read the rest here)

I hope to see y'all next year some time. And there's always email!


Have a wonderfully blessed holiday season!

A Fascinating Conversation on Biblical Marriage...

Is unfolding at Amy's Humble Musing after she linked to this post, Does Patriarchy Honor God? She opened the floor for discussion, and I think I'll leave a comment over there, too, but there was an interesting contention was raised in the post, and it is this that interested me most:

"But Christians often misunderstand 1 Peter 3:1 (which is a passage meant to be read as a continuation of 1 Peter 2:12-13– that Christians should submit themselves to every human institution in order to be good witnesses to the culture they found themselves in — in this case, the ancient pagan cultures of Greece and Rome), thinking it is referring to Christian marriages instead of to women married to non-believing Greek or Roman husbands who “obey not the word.” That passage was never intended as a command to Christian women to let their Christian husbands get away with any and all selfish and ungodly conduct “without a word!"

When weighed against all the Scriptural admonitions for believers to spur one another on to good works (and this would have to include Christian husbands and wives), I dare say, she has a point.

What say you? Has this verse been misapplied to include women who are married to professed believers, to the detriment of husbands and wives alike?

What All the Fuss Was About

Laura, aka, The Thinking Housewife and I had a lengthy email discussion about our differing views on interracial marriage and transracial adoption. I hope and pray that even though we still disagree, we have both come away more enlightened. With my permission, she has published our exchange, in its entirety, over on her blog. You can read it here.

Random Thoughts

It isn't Monday, I know, but every day is a great day for a muse! A few of the things I've been contemplating of late:


~Let me start with an apology.
It was not my intent to insinuate in any way that the author of The Thinking Housewife is a racist. If I have done that, then I was wrong. I believe we, as thinking people, can disagree on major issues and that it in no way reflects that those we disagree with are evil. We simply disagree. Laura, I apologize if my post was offensive or insulting to you.



~You guys really floored me with your response to my last post. It was one of those posts where I wasn't expecting many comments. Devotional type posts rarely draw a lot of response. It was hastily written and I initially thought it just a confusing bit of rambling about how much I have to be thankful for and how often I forget to be thankful. Your comments simply underscored what I have come to believe: We are more alike than different, because humanity really is a shared experience. Speaking of being more alike than different:




~I prefer my racism straight up, which is one of the reasons my views evolved into what many would call conservative. I have recently come to view my thoughts as plain 'ol common sense and a belief that all men are created equal. One of the things you run into as a minority in high school preparing for college is that many colleges have a lower admission standard for students of certain ethnic backgrounds in an effort to promote diversity and meet certain enrollment ratio guidelines. The problem? Black and Latino students are the students usually targeted to receive this "benefit." Asian students, not so much. I've often said I'd rather you just call me a stupid nigger and be done with it than to condescend to me and imply that I am a special case in need of a leg up based solely on my skin color. And don't do it to my kids either. They are not inherently less intelligent than anyone else.



~While we're on the subject of education, can I take a minute to applaud a couple of single, homeschooling mamas? Now, I don't know that I would ever be brave enough to take on this challenge as a single parent (in fact I'm fairly certain I would not), but these ladies do, and I want to take my hat off to them, as well as to the one real life single mother I am acquainted with who home schooled her son to completion. Hats off to Diane, at Tomato Soup Cake. She is the consummate homemaker, and I've gotten lots of inspiration from her blog from that perspective as well. Hats of to Kysha as well, at Loves School. You ladies absolutely astound me.

~I have been paying far less attention to politics lately. I am finding much more peace as I focus on my Heavenly Father and His word. Still, I am not oblivious to the world around me and I was frankly, stunned, to learn that the health care bill almost died in the House of Representatives because there were not enough Democrats willing to sign on for federally funded abortions. This is an interesting and hopeful development. I wouldn't be surprised if, in the end, the whole health care debate falls apart on this sticking point.While I never thought that was possible, I am thankful that the issue is taking center stage. I heard about Baby Gabby, born when her mother was just 4 months pregnant, and now she is thriving. This story made me wonder why the tenor of this debate hasn't changed, given the medical knowledge and technical advancements we now enjoy? If the people of this country are decidedly pro-choice, why are we having a discussion that is not intellectually honest? Can we honestly say, whatever side of the issue you fall on, that life doesn't begin until a baby is born? Why are we pretending that this is not about killing babies, but about a woman's right to decide if she should be forced to carry a fetus (which may or may not be a real person) inside of her to term and deliver it? If we have medical evidence that these "fetus" are viable at as little as 4 months gestation, then this is no longer about whether life begins at conception, is it? Now we can have a debate about whether or not a baby's right to life is guaranteed as long as he inhabits his mother's body, and whether that life has rights before it's born, but to continue to dance around the issue of whether or not these babies are babies? Let's cut this out, already.

~It's Veteran's Day. If you are so fortunate to see one of our brave service men and women as you go about your day, take the time to thank them for their service. If you know a family who is waiting patiently for their deployed loved one to come home, thank them for their sacrifice on our behalf. And continue to pray for the devastated victims, and families of victims of the Fort Hood massacre. Happy Veteran's Day. If you read this blog and are connected to our armed services in any way, thank you.

Perspective. Or How I'm Learning Not to Sweat the Small Stuff

Something happens to our thinking when life is relatively easy for a relatively long period of time. Our perception of what is a hard thing slowly widens to include just about everything. We reach a place where being stuck in traffic, late for a meeting, or the mess of potty training takes on monumental importance. It doesn’t take as much to raise our blood pressure and get us on a soapbox of righteous indignation over what is really nothing at all. A flat tire ceases to be a minor inconvenience that could happen to anyone and is suddenly characterized as the trying of our faith, designed to work patience.

I had a moment a few weeks ago when I was forced to face the superficiality of my thinking. It was a Sunday morning, and we were running late for church, which was particularly bothersome to me. There was a tension between my husband and me over some banal triviality that I can’t even remember. It was not a good morning. As we rode to church (in silence so thick you could cut it with a knife), I was suddenly convicted of the pettiness of my emotions. Not so much the emotions themselves, but the credence I was giving to them. Believing that I was right in my frustration, I had a hard time receiving the conviction I was feeling. Until it occurred to me that I was making into a mountain what barely even qualified as a molehill.

I once heard a preacher talk about the importance of a child's formative years using the analogy of a newly planted tree. Have you ever grown a tree, or noticed that when young trees are planted, they are frequently surrounded and supported on all sides by stakes and wires to ensure that they grow up straight and not twisted? I often viewed myself as the tree without the supporting stakes. Before the first decade of my life was complete, I’d experienced motherlessness-twice. Once through death, once through abandonment. I lived through a theft of innocence that I will not recount here, and learned at a very early age the importance of being able to cope with life on my own. Not because everyone in my family was evil or uncaring (in fact, my dad was and is a good and godly man), but because they were so consumed with handling their own feelings about the chaos, no one took notice of how any of it was affecting me. Meeting the needs of the day was the priority. Every day. I’m sure I’m not alone in my experience, as this notion of exploring, analyzing, and validating our feelings is a relatively new phenomenon of American life, many times to our detriment.

As I was pulled from my memories and silence by the playful interaction of my children in the car, it occurred to me that I have come, by the grace of God, through far worse than the inconvenience of running late, or forgetting my lip gloss, and whatever the heck it was my husband said that rubbed my the wrong way. Was I just particularly touchy that day?These are the things that make up life. The common, everyday moments that combine to paint the picture of life in a family filled with people, their personalities, and all the things that make life interesting.

As a young child and teenager, I never dreamed of being rich, or famous, a starlet, or beautiful. All I ever wanted was to experience a solid, peaceful family life. For me. For any children I was blessed to birth. I have that. I have no reason to whine or complain. Life can be hectic in our house. Siblings spat, toddlers tantrum, and preschoolers sneak in the cookie jar. Husbands forget to tell you that they will be late for dinner, and the laundry seems like a never ending challenge. But it’s all small stuff. My life is many things, but never boring. I can remember when I knew the difference between hard things and the small stuff. When I was so thankful to have a family that I took great pleasure in the things that now just seem to make my day longer and my work load heavier.

I think this is what happens when life is going pretty well for a good stretch of time. We become masters at sweating the small stuff. We magnify minutiae, making it big so we can entertain our human love of complaint and cries of woe is me. We humans must fight against chronic discontentment, and it's a never ending battle. It's also nothing new. Imagine living as the children of Israel following their glorious exodus. Being led on their journey by the very presence of God, having Him rain food from heaven, food unlike any they'd ever seen before, witnessing the impossible day after day And still, they were unable to be content. After entering the promised land, they enjoyed wealth they did not work for and God Himself was their king. Still they looked around them and decided they wanted a lesser king, just to be like the surrounding nations. Discontent. How could a people grow dissatisfied with a life of the miraculous? How could they become so callous that they actually entertained the idea of returning to slavery?

It sounds ridiculous to us as we read with the benefit of hindsight, but we are no different. Discontent. It's why we find reasons to complain even as we enjoy a level of prosperity that most of the world can only dream of. Even for those of us who struggle financially, we cannot imagine a home with mud floors, no running water, and no electricity, which is the way much of the world lives to one degree or another. And still we grasp for that elusive cure that will free us from the commonness of lives that we should be grateful for. Even if, like me, you experienced some trauma or dysfunction that left you fairly screwed up, isn't it a testament to the grace of God that we have somehow, against all odds, salvaged a life worth living when others, enduring far less, have found themselves unable to live even a stable life, let alone one of peace or joy?


Being a homemaker is big job, and some days it does feel like a hard one. We put in long hours, and we never get to punch out. I don't know that I'll ever turn cartwheels for the opportunity to clean up the contents of a regurgitated meal when multiple children are battling a case of the stomach flu. For those of us who've taken upon ourselves the awesome responsibility of seeing that our children get the best possible education, the challenges may seem never ending. But given the scores of women with empty arms longing for just one child to care for, I choose my life. Warts and all. While I'm often tired, often sleepy, and often long for a trip to bathroom by myself, these aren't hard things. Not really. Inconvenient, maybe. But I've done hard, and this ain't it.

Just a reminder for myself- don't sweat the small stuff.



Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:37-39

Dedicated to the ones who have taken life's hardest punches, lived to tell the tale, and can walk through life with heads held high.

Make Funeral Arrangements at Wal-Mart (And Other Random Musings)

Some interesting things I've run across of late:

• The post title is accurate. Wal-Mart sells caskets, urns, and any other number of things a family might need during their time of bereavement. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself!
• There is a documentary/comedy playing in theaters that I am really intrigued by. It's called Good Hair, narrated by the very funny Chris Rock. I realize that most women have a love/hate relationship with their hair. However, I have yet to meet a white woman who comes even close to spending in a year what the average black woman spends on her hair in just the first three months of the year. Even here in my frugal house, where we take a do-it-ourselves approach to hair care for the most part, we probably spend about $1000 a year on our hair, which sounds like a lot, but for myself and three teen aged girls, it's not much compared to our family and friends who visit the salon a lot more often than we do. I sometimes fantasize about chopping off my chemically straight hair and returning to my roots, but I don't know that I ever will.
• I have a link over on the side to a recent post by Sheila. It resonated with me so because I often wonder if I am the only stay at home mom who feels this way. Sheila put into words what I often want to say to folks who think that because I'm at home, it means I'm available in way that I wouldn't be if I was "at work." But here's the thing: I AM at work!! I just happen to work at home, make my own schedule, and don't get a paycheck, lol. But my job is as important, no,more important than anything I could do sitting in a cubicle all day.

Hopefully next week I'll something substantive to say, but for now...

Have a relaxed, worshipful, and family-filled weekend.

It's Monday. Let's Muse Together.

For some time I’ve been meaning to devote a post to my delicious links. Many of the topics in the articles have the potential to spark a great conversation. Since I am suffering a small case of writer’s block, this seems as good a time as any. I’m not sure if I should call it writer’s block, since the block is more from lack of time than ideas for posts. Still, there are many other people writing thought provoking pieces well worth taking time to read. In this current climate we need to be thinking more than ever about who we are, Whose we are, what we represent, and how we go about doing that. While most of my delicious links are devoted to political columns that reflect the views I have declined from commenting on personally, there are, on occasion, links to articles and posts that “take the culture’s pulse”, as it were.

So this Monday, feel free to muse with me. Because I value your time and mine, I’ll take a minute here to highlight the links that I find particularly interesting. I don’t expect you to the read all the links. If I were the one presented with such a smorgasbord of thoughtful pieces, I’d just read the one that most interested me and comment on that one. Among the recent links:



Spunky Homeschool: A Truly Divine Appointment: A short post recounting the encounter between a homeschool graduate and the head of a large inner city school district. I enjoyed this story, and I thought you all might as well. Also, I thought it best to start with something light.

Ronald Reagan's speech to the 1964 GOP Convention: I heard an excerpt from this speech recently and was inspired to seek out the whole speech on YouTube and listen to it. The parallels to 2009 America are uncanny: runaway spending, wars with no aim or end in sight, trampling of the Constitution- it was really jaw-dropping. My favorite part was when Reagan recounted a conversation with a Cuban who had escaped to the freedom of America. The immigrant said "If freedom is lost in America, there is no where else for us to go."

Female Sexuality and the Fall of Civilization: I ran into this at a blog I only recently discovered called The Thinking Housewife. While I can't say I agree with everything in this post 100%, there are some hard-hitting things to consider. One thing that stood out to me was the sexually charged atmosphere on most college campuses, and how easy it is for the rare young woman who does graduate high school with her virtue intact to fall into all kinds of pitfalls once she goes to college. It was one of the things that resonated with me because we have strong convictions about the folly of shipping young people off to college after graduation. When we are met with opposition and accusations of "not trusting" our kids, I am incredulous because even as mature adults in our own lives, we realize the need for a strong spiritual support system when facing challenges. Why would we think it makes sense to toss our kids out into the world among strangers and strange values at such a pivotal time in their lives without the same just because the culture says we should? Caution: This post has a warning, but I want to warn my readers that this is a frank discussion about how the sexual revolution and the feminist movement has affected today's women- complete with references to orga*ms, ma*turbation, hooking up on college campuses, and the like. It is not crude or necessarily ungodly, but it is frank. Read at your own risk.

Peggy Noonan: We Are Governed By Callous Children: A key factor in the utter recklessness in Washington and the refusal to understand the perils of unchecked spending? The fact that most of the folks in Washington, as well as most of the population for that matter, have no recollection of an America where prosperity wasn't the normal order of business. Most of us, myself included, have only enjoyed the America of plenty where the sky is the limit and whatever we needed was no further out of reach than the nearest shopping center. We are callous. our leaders are callous- insensitive to the reality that the gravy train can end. In fact, it already has, and most Americans know it. It's just those insulated by the bubble of the Washington beltway that haven't yet realize that borrowed prosperity isn't really prosperity at all.

Pursuing Titus 2: When A Strong Will Is Redeemed: Do you have a strong willed child? I do too, and it helps to remember that a strong will that is focused in the right direction is an asset, not a curse. This was encouraging to me. God can turn today's rebel into tomorrow's world changer.

Walter Williams' American Idea: A really great column. Let me just post an excerpt:
"At the heart of the American idea is the deep distrust and suspicion the founders of our nation had for government, distrust and suspicion not shared as much by today's Americans. Some of the founder's distrust is seen in our Constitution's language, such as Congress shall not: abridge, infringe, deny, disparage, violate and deny. If the founders did not believe Congress would abuse our God-given rights, they would have not provided those protections. After all, one would not expect to find a Bill of Rights in heaven; it would be an affront to God." Now as much as the American in me enjoyed this piece of writing, I am well aware of the tension for the believer whose Biblical understanding of the notion of rights are something to be held quite loosely-even while the laws of the land in which I live grants me certain rights with my citizenship that I feel are under threat of being violated. I must to remember that my real citizenship is in heaven. I do, and it gives me great peace in these tumultuous times. But I still enjoy reading a good conservative piece of writing. So sue me.


I'll stop right there for now, but there many more links on my delicious page and I'll welcome a comment about any one them even if I didn't highlight it here in the post. Let's muse together today, shall we?

Happy Monday, all!

Book Review: Redefining Beautiful

God loves you just the way you are. If you think His love for you would be stronger if your faith were stronger, you are wrong. If you think His love for you would be deeper if your thoughts were deeper, wrong again. Don't confuse God's love with the love you get from people. Love from people often increases with performance and decreases with mistakes. Not so with God's love. He loves you right where you are.~From Redefining Beautiful

This was probably my favorite paragraph from the book Redefining Beautiful, by Jenna Lucado, with contributing thoughts from her father, pastor and best-selling author Max Lucado. It was the central message of the book, and one that is needed more and more as young women grapple with the contradictory messages and pressures pulling them in different directions as they approach young adulthood.

When I first received this book to review and began reading it, I was put off. I've made no secret of the fact that I am what I like to call a book snob, and the simplicity and conversational style of the writing left me feeling as if I wasn't being challenged enough. So I put it aside temporarily, and my teenage daughter picked it up. She read through it in 2 days after school, and really enjoyed most of it.

After hearing my daughter's thoughts on the book, I picked it up again and I began to see what was so endearing about it. It was written for the average high school aged girl. The theology is sound and the author does a wonderful job of encouraging young girls to cultivate beauty from within, not allowing their confidence to be shaken by the superficial standards of beauty presented by the media, and most importantly, to realize that in God's eyes, they are more beautiful than they know.

She tackles the issue of modesty, urging girls to clothe themselves in a way that pleases God and allows their true beauty to shine, but does so without hard and fast rules for what is the "right" or "wrong" clothing to wear. She simply reminds of the importance of covering what is supposed to be covered and not treating their bodies as a feast for the eyes of any and every person. She encouraged them to express their personal style in a God-honoring way. For me, that is the most important issue when considering modesty. I liked her approach.

She didn't discourage dating as much as I would have liked, since I believe that casual dating is detrimental emotionally, spiritually, and possibly in a future marriage. Still I appreciated the way she laid out the details of her own engagement, expressly pointing out that her fiancee pursued her, rather than the other way around. Given the increasing belief that women can and should do whatever men do, I found her story uplifting in that regard. She chronicled the respect he paid to her parents, her father in particular, and how he asked his permission to date her before allowing his interest to go further than friendship. She painted a beautiful picture of a relationship that evolved in a godly way, and implored young women not to settle for or believe what the culture says relationships should be, and to wait for God's choice for them.

There was a good chapter on friendships, and defining friendships through the lens of Scripture. She discourages trendy, superficial friendships based on popularity and treating people like accessories to climb the social ladder. As a mother of three teenage girls in school, I saw the wisdom and appreciated her insight. Gossip, backbiting, and slander, can be devastating and are things to avoid like the plague. Another great message in a world where reality shows based on deception and cunning boast millions of viewers.

Overall, this was a good book for a young girl struggling to find her security and confidence in a complex world. It is full of scripture, and throughout Ms. Lucado reminds young girls that true peace, contentment, and security can only be found in a relationship with God as secured through the sacrifice of His Son for our sins. She encourages girls to cultivate a life of prayer and Scripture meditation, and tells them to embrace rather than shun the things about themselves that make them unique because they are fearfully and wonderfully made.

This is a book I can easily recommend, not because I agree with every point 100%, but because it does the one thing that matters most: points girls to the One with the answers to the dilemmas they face and it does so in a way that they can relate to without watering down the truth. Good book.

Monday's Musings

I've had a busy month so far, and while I have many post ideas floating around in my head, I can't seem to develop them into a coherent string of thoughts worth reading. It's been quite some time since I've done a stream of consciousness post, otherwise known as my Monday Musings, so now is as good a time as ever I guess. A few of the things I've been contemplating in recent weeks:

• I have come to this point in my life: where I refuse to silently assent to things that I don't agree with. You know the thing we do, where a friend or family member says something that we vehemently disagree with, but remain silent to avoid the conflict? Yes, that thing. We should stop doing that. Now I'm not advocating running around picking fights and engaging in fruitless debates for their own sake. I had a moment this weekend however with a fellow beloved believer whose statements were in direct conflict with Scripture. In fact, their position was actually more in line with the norms of the culture than anything else. It occurred to me in that moment that as believers, we must hold one another accountable for the truth when we both claim to believe it. Is it any wonder the church seems so worldly? We enable one another in our worldliness! And yes, I said spoke up, for no other reason than to make sure my position, and more importantly the Scripture, was clear.


• I need some advice from veteran homeschoolers: We have been doing some things that I would call "homeschool lite" (I borrowed that phrase from Amy). We haven't been doing anything formal- daily reading together, observing nature as much as one can in the city, and some fun things to build recognition of the alphabet. She recognizes the whole alphabet and loves to color. She has even made the connection of certain words to the letter they begin with. It's going well. Here's my dilemma: because my older girls are in school, she understands the notion of homework, and she wants homework, too. She is adamant that it has to be pencil and paper, sitting at the table like her sisters. I found some fun worksheets on abcteach (thanks, Diane!) that are light hearted and she really enjoys them. But I really hate the idea of "doing school" like that even if it is only for 10 minutes. It feels too much like, well, school. Especially for a three-year-old. Any advice?
• A fun book we ran across: It's called Science Play, and it's basically a bunch of fun beginner science projects for kids aged 2 to 5. We've made ice cream in a sandwich bag, put a bug hotel in the back yard, and done every kind of shadow play known to toddler kind. This is a great book to spark an interest in science. Resources like this are invaluable to me because as a school parent, I'm not used to thinking these things up on my own. In fact, it's harder for me because I've gotten so used to simply reinforcing whatever the teacher is teaching. I'm praying I can make the transition from being a school parent to a homeschool parent without too many missteps along the way.
• One of my daughters has taken on a passion for domesticity. I'm not quite sure where it sprang from, but I'm enjoying watching it unfold in her. She jumps at every possible chance to help around the house- without being asked. She loves to help cook, serve the family, and try to create new recipes. She's also decided to be an English major when she goes to college. She wants to be a writer. She may minor in music theory and teach piano lessons to kids. The goal? To be able to do work that is compatible with being an at home mom. The girl's thinking ahead!
• I've been thinking lately about opportunity costs. It started a couple of weeks ago with a passage in a book on economics that I've been reading recently. While Thomas Sowell was clearly not referring to what it costs in housework time time when I avail myself of the opportunity to blog, or what it costs us in family time if every child avails herself of the opportunity to participate in every extracurricular activity, the implications weren't lost on me. The need to prioritize and weigh all of our options as well as understanding the cost of every opportunity is important. Sheila touched on this recently also, and I found the timing uncanny. Of course, the spiritual implications are huge as well.
• A fortuitous meeting: I was at the park last week and met a homeschool mom. She was a believer, too! We talked for a while and she gave me the names of some local homeschool support groups. Initially, I thought it was far too early for me to be joining homeschool groups. Until she told me of a wonderful bi-weekly meeting for preschool aged girls connected to one particular homeschool group. It is at a church I've heard good things about. The name of the group: Little Keepers at Home.
• If you have the time: Watch this video. If you can get the message despite the messenger, it is profound. It caught me up short because I can't tell you how many times I have found myself defending our parenting choices precisely because I am trying to raise young people who are not like this culture. And I can't tell you how many times I have implored my fellow Christian mothers to remember that we are not raising children, but are raising future adults. Could there be anything worse than releasing a "Christian narcissist" into the world? My reasons for linking to this have nothing to do with politics. In fact, I suggest stop watching it at about 7:58 because it's at that point when the show's host translates what all this means to him politically, and I really don't want the message to be lost. The connection between the selfishness of the culture and abortion is spot on. If you do watch it, let me know if you agree. I especially want to know if you don't agree, because as the mother of high school kids, I, would love for someone, anyone, to tell me that the fact that I see this as absolutely true is just because of where I am situational and geographically. Given my aversion to embedding videos, and my knowledge that the man on the video is a cultural lightning rod right now, surely you realize that I don't post this lightly.
  
  
  
  Happy Monday, all!

Good Grief, Enough Already!

I was just reading this column on Townhall.com, from Mona Charen, chronicling the problems with Maria Shriver's newly released report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything. I agree with everything this columnist has to say, so this won't be a very long post. I just want to again, for the record, note my disgust with the constant barrage of nonsense masquerading as facts and reasons why women are so oppressed in our country. Even as the report admits that women are faring better than men in many key areas, most notably education, they insist that the government do more help women extend their advantages over male counterparts. Of course, they don't put it quite the way I did, but there really is no other honest way to read it. An excerpt from Charen's column:

"A Woman's Nation" declares in one breath that the "war of the sexes is over" but in the next launches a broadside about women's educational opportunities. It requires some ingenuity to complain that women are educationally shortchanged, when, as even the chapter's author, Mary Ann Mason, acknowledges, "Women today receive 62 percent of college associates degrees, 57 percent of bachelor's degrees, 60 percent of all master's degrees, half of all professional degrees (law and medicine) and just under half of all Ph.D.s." But there is a problem lurking beneath the surface of this evident success. Though they dominate higher education, too many women are still choosing "traditional female majors" like education, health care (including nursing), and psychology.


Some people look at these data and see free people making free choices. The report doesn't see it that way. Some unseen hand (the patriarchy?) is herding women students into psychology class and blocking their enrollment in engineering and computer science. Women shouldn't cluster in the "helping professions," the report complains, because those jobs don't pay as well as some others. That women may prefer these fields anyway is not considered. Yes, Mason admits, women choose fields that offer job flexibility so that they can fulfill family responsibilities. But that just shows how much the world must change to make these tradeoffs unnecessary.

Oh yes, and despite the tragedy that is the American education, they actually think the government needs to do MORE to supplement childcare for children at younger and younger ages so that more mothers can drop their babies off at daycare and compete with their husbands in the marketplace for the title "top dog" based on who is bringing in the bigger paycheck. (Please do not interpret this as a slam against working mothers. It is one thing if a mother has to work and pays for her own childcare. It's another thing entirely to ask the taxpayer to provide the childcare so that it's easier for a mother to go to work when she may not have otherwise.)

You would think the societal evidence and carnage all around us would speak for itself, but I believe we are sinking deeply into the cycle of degeneration and blindness Paul described in Romans chapter 1.

Enjoy a relaxed, worshipful, and family-filled weekend!