The Ongoing Mold Saga

Apr1

Ah Spring. Has it sprung, really? We thought so and enjoyed a beautiful Easter weekend with sunshine and warmer temps, but today dawned much cooler than normal and I heard tell of snow coming down so thick this morning it caused near white out conditions briefly. It must have been pretty brief because by the time I was out and about there was no sign of any snow to be seen. I’m sitting here on the couch, sort of cold and tired and achey wrapped in two sweaters and a scarf to ward off the chill. Both sweaters are in a lovely spring pink, but two sweaters all the same. Mac just put the kettle on for hot water to make some tea and I’m thinking of spending the rest of the evening wrapped in a quilt with a hot cup of tea in front of the TV, thank you very much.

Something about the warmer weather we had last week has the house feeling musty and dusty. The mold issues are being cleaned up one by one, but it’ll be months still before we get it all out. We did contact a mold specialist who came out and got samples of our house air to test and gave us the rundown on mold. Turns out none of the mold is toxic and we are relieved that’s the case, but when you have allergies to mold, it doesn’t have to be the toxic kind that makes you sick.

Before the mold specialist came we found out about a mold fogger that would fog an entire room quickly and easily. The fog was nontoxic and inexpensive and we thought our prayers were answered. It does kill the mold, but the specialist told us the caveats of this method of mold removal are numerous. For one thing, the fog method is hit and miss. There is no way to ensure that the fog saturates every mold hiding place. Another problem is that you can kill the mold that way, but the dead mold spores are just as bad for allergies as live mold spores, and we just blasted them with fog, killing them and dispersing them into the air. Another problem is that the fog does not remove the mold stain. The roof sheeting in the attic still looks moldy and if we were to try to sell the house any good home inspector would write it up with “visible mold”. That would certainly make the house much harder to sell.

The attic ventilation is the real reason behind the mold. The roof over the back addition on the house has too low of a pitch. The mold specialist outlined our options. 1) Call in mold remediation specialists who will come in and sand blast the mold off the wood and replace any wood that is too far gone. This is the most expensive option and we would still have to fix the ventilation issue after all the mold was removed. 2) Remove the sheeting and the roof shingles where the mold is and clean the wood roof structure. Replace the sheeting and the shingles and add a ventilation fan in that part of the attic roof. The mold specialist said this was iffy, it would be something that we would have to constantly check to make sure nothing is getting wet. 3) Take off the roof from most of the house and rebuild the roof, restructuring it to raise the pitch over the north side of the roof. This would take the moldy wood out and fix the ventilation problem in one shot. This is the option that we are hoping to do soon. It’s thousands and thousands of dollars in cost, but it will give us the peace of mind knowing that the ventilation is better and the roof needs new shingles anyway. We are trying to figure out how to pay for it.

In the meantime, don’t make the mistake of thinking “out of sight, out of mind” with mold. The fog in the attic did take away the musty smell up there, but all those dead mold spores and the live mold spores that have been floating around the house for the last few years have found their way into every porous material we have in the house. The carpeting is a dust and mold magnet and we are in the process of removing the carpeting from the entire house and replacing it with wood or laminate flooring. The mold specialist explained that our furniture breathes mold and dust. Think about it, you sit down and air trapped in the cushions is forced out, you get up and the cushions pull air back in. It’s a terrible cycle and basically our furniture is a mold and dust breathing nightmare. After we get the carpeting out our goal is to replace the furniture.

Two of the bedrooms needed to have the mold removed from the drywall and floor. In addition to the leaky roof we found that our bathtub has been leaking behind the wall between the bathroom and one bedroom. We’ve got one of the bedrooms completely done, painted and new flooring and the child moved back in. She loves her new room. Over the summer we will need to remove an exterior wall to clean better under the tub. There is a chance, after better inspection, that we may have to replace the tub as well. It’s hard to see under there and with a crawl space, there is just no way to climb under there and remove the mold. We also discovered, after finding the house becoming more and more dusty and the air quality report coming back with a high amount of both dust and mold, that one of our heating ducts had come apart and was laying in the dirt of the crawl space, sucking up dust and blowing it into the air in the house. Yeah, insult to injury.

The health aspect of it all is pretty miserable. Think about all those typical allergy symptoms, runny nose, itchy eyes, sore throat and add to them aches and pains and numb fingers and toes, ear and hearing issues, swollen lymph nodes, headaches, chronic dry cough, mind numbing exhaustion and difficulty concentrating. Add to that it’s our own home that makes us feel this way. Air filters and purifying oils can only do so much. When we come in after a day out of the house the musty dusty air just hits you in the face. I feel like I’ve inhaled dirt all the time. I worry that my immune system is just so overtaxed that I’m fixing to get really, really sick.

There is so much work left to be done, seeing the results in one room does give us hope that when the carpeting is gone and the furniture is replaced, we’ll be breathing much easier. It’s pretty amazing that we’ve found the money to do what we’ve gotten done. God provides and when I stand at the window and watch the birds out at the bird feeder I’m reminded of this. One day we’ll look back at the lessons we’ve learned and breath the fresh air of experience.

The Narrow Way: Last Supper

Mar21

The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci

Recently my husband, Cliff over at Cliffymania.com asked me to guest post on his blog. I got a little nervous with the assigned writing topic, I don’t do well with writing about something someone else suggests. It usually begins as something I’m pondering and has to percolate in my brain for a few days, tossing around until I get my mind around what I want to say. Cliff gave me plenty of time and I got to delve into Peter’s role in the Last Supper. Here is what I came up with, I hope it honors the topic.

Leonardo Da Vinci brought the Last Supper nearly to life in his famous painting. In the painting, Jesus had just revealed to His disciples that one of them would betray Him. You can see the emotions on their faces, each of them asking, “Is it I?” Peter is portrayed with a knife, pointing away from Jesus and looking angry. You can imagine the surprise Peter must have felt. There he sat with Jesus and the other eleven at the Passover meal. He’d celebrated the Passover his entire life, this was just another Passover meal like so many before.

Read more here: The Narrow Way: Last Supper.

Sunny Days and Fridays

Mar8

I’m sitting in my favorite chair, the one in front of the windows, with the sun shining on the snow outside. I sometimes have to get to the chair before one of the cats when it’s a bright and sun shiny day. There are days that I even have to get to the chair before Mr. Bingley. Today, though, Molly Moira opted for the arm of the chair, facing the window so she can watch the bird at the feeders outside. I got the seat. Yes, I know, I could dislodge whatever furry friend beat me to the chair, but that just makes me feel like a bully.

I’ve got another sad case of writer’s block. My thoughts are all over the place and it’s hard to settle on just one train of thought. My mind is Grand Central Station these days. There is too much going on. I get to thinking about writing and next thing I know I’ve got to drive a kid to a part time job or fold a load of laundry or make a meal or something mindless like collapse into bed at the end of a long day. I’m not complaining, I truly do love being busy with things that help my family. I’m so content being Cliff’s wife and Mac and Emma’s mom, I can’t begin to tell you how content. I sigh, sitting here by the window, just thinking about how lucky I am.

I wonder sometimes if I’m a little too content, being the queen of my home, answering only to God first and then my husband. I wonder sometimes if the stereotype about unsocialized homeschoolers is true, only it’s the homeschool moms and not the students that suffer from it. I wonder sometimes if that’s just okay. We equip our kids to make good choices in an ever increasingly difficult world by providing a firm foundation of love and acceptance and God that applies to any situation over the entirety of time. Our kids keep up with the times, but we’re safely nestled in our homes and co op classes, insulated from the world at large. I think if I knew all that my kids face in this world I would cower at the thought of setting them free in it. Their dad and I have done our duty by them, we have trained them up to follow God and now it’s up to them to apply all that we have taught them.

I’ve wondered what homeschool moms do with themselves when they’ve graduated their last child and watched them enter the world they prepared them for. I’m no closer to an answer than I was a year ago when I realized this was my last year of homeschooling. The world that I’ve popped my head into seems a hostile place, I’m not so sure I want to emerge from the safety of homeschooling. I’m all for my kids growing up and being independent, I just wish I didn’t have to grow up now too.

“Jesus replied, Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” John 14;23

On a Lighter Note… Check out Mr. Bingley’s New Diet

Mar4

“Oh The LIfe of A Dog Named Mr. Bingley” Is that too long of a blog title for Mr. Bingley?

Sometimes you can be too heavenly minded… well, no, no you can’t. We’re supposed to be heavenly minded, strangers and aliens on this world. Anyway, Mr. Bingley and I decided to share his favorite recipe with you.

Mr. Bingley is my 14 year old Lhasa Apso who is the most high maintenance dog out there. Not only does he need regular hair cuts, but he suffers terribly from allergies and yeast infections. His steroid eye drops to treat his chronic dry eyes cost $25 a month and last year his dental bill ran us over $600 and he’s ready for his yearly doctor visit, so who knows what awaits us next. Mr. Bingley seems to have both selective hearing and sight. He can’t see to find his way through the dining room table and chairs, but he can spot me at the counter fixing dinner every time.

Mr. Bingley and I have been on a mission to fix his yeast problems.

A lot of people comment that my dog smells like bread, that’s a sure tip off that he’s yeasty all right. It’s an ongoing battle that I thought we had conquered when we discovered that grain in his kibble might be the culprit. I switched him to a fairly expensive dog kibble that is grain free, but suddenly one day Mr. Bingley decided he was no longer interested in the kibble he’d been enjoying up until that day. I tried a couple grain free canned foods, but realized that I could make him one at home, in my crock pot.

Our first recipe began with chicken thighs and a peeled and diced sweet potato.

A regular potato could contribute to the yeast. I added some green beans that were frozen from my garden last summer. There are no exact measurements, just go with the boneless skinless thighs and add veggies to your dog’s liking. Pile it all into the slow cooker and cook all day until the chicken thighs fall to pieces. When it’s all cooked up I simply give it a good stir to break up the chicken into smaller pieces and mash the veggies a bit.

I’ve experimented and found Mr. Bingley really likes the sweet potato/green bean option along with a carrot and green bean recipe that I put together over the weekend.

Mr. Bingley’s favorite food recipe.

I cook enough for two weeks, freezing week two because it’s good for about a week in the refrigerator. After checking a bit online, I found that the garlic that I used in my recipe is actually bad for dogs, so check to make sure what you’re putting into the crock pot is actually good for your dog. Foods your Dog Should Never Eat and Foods your Cat Should Never Eat are good lists of food to keep from your pets.

Molly Moira and Eleanor Catherine, Mr. Bingley’s feline sisters gave it a try too, much to Bingley’s dismay, and seem to like it as well. Poor Bingley cowers when Molly asserts herself and was helpless to stand by and watch as she sampled out of his food dish. He gave her a good bark, but she ignored him, knowing Bingley is all bark and no bite.

The Name Above All Names

Feb21

photo by Cliff and Tammy Richardson coptyright 2012

So, a well known day time talk show host recently did a motivational event with a well known “pastor” who is really more of a motivational speaker. He spoke of “I am” statements and had that poor and downtrodden audience chanting with him, “I am…” this or that, whatever motivational things they needed to tell themselves to get through the day. It was rather like the old Saturday Night Live skit with Al Franken, Steward Smiley, “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And doggone it, people like me.” As a pastor this guy sure does make a lot of “I am” statements, putting the focus on us, rather than the great I AM. It got me all riled up, I AM is my very favorite name of God in the Bible.

I did a search for Biblical names for God and found wonderful names that go back to the original Greek and Hebrew, names like El Shaddai:“God Almighty.”, perhaps well known by the Amy Grant song from way back when, and Yahweh Jireh (Yireh): “The Lord will provide.” or Jehovah Jireh. So many names for the attributes of God, the God who sees, the God who knows, the Lord of Heaven’s Host. When we add the different name for Jesus into it we get Emmanuel: God with us, The Rose of Sharon, The Good Shepherd, Lamb of God, King of Kings, Prince of Peace, Light of the World.

My personal favorite name for Jesus, God with us, is Jeshua because that is what Jesus’ mother called him. It’s the name that gets translated to Jesus from the Greek or Joshua in English. Mary and Joseph, when they were looking for Jesus back in Jerusalem when He was twelve, called out to Him, “Jeshua!” Luke 2: 42-52. I’m not sure what it is about calling Him by the name His mother and earthly father called Him that makes Him more real to me, but it does.

God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” Exodus 3:14

I take so much comfort in this name for God. You see, He is. Our world will crumble and pass away, we will go through hardships and hurts, health and wealth, living and dying, the whole gamut of symptoms of the human condition, but HE IS. He is who He is. We can go around creating idols of who we wish God were, we can say “The God I know would never…” but it does not change who HE IS. I am nothing compared to HE IS. Everything centers on the great I AM. What joy and comfort to know that He is and will be and always was.

What is your favorite name for God from the Bible? Please share in the comments below.

“Let the Little Children Come to Me”

Feb21

Photo by Cliff and Tammy Richardson copyright 2012

I’ve been pondering some things of late. The issue of children in church services came up recently. I was a kid in the church service. My neighbor took me to her church on Sunday mornings and eventually the church had a bus that went around and picked up kids to take them to Sunday school and my dad offered to come pick me up after church if I wanted to stay for the church service too. I was just about the only 9 year old sitting by myself in the pews of that Assembly of God church a lot of Sunday mornings. Eventually my brother and two nephews started taking the bus ride with me to Sunday school and, though I loved staying for the church service, trying to control two 6 year olds and a 4 year old on my own was hard. Someone complained to my dad and that was the end of that.

I didn’t always understand what the sermon was about but I did love the songs. I also loved the sense of belonging I felt there. It was like a family. One of my Sunday school teachers had worked with my grandmother. I hadn’t met my grandmother, ever, so it was interesting to hear about her from a woman who knew her. I enjoyed the Sunday school time, the Bible stories on the felt boards and the songs like, “Ho ho ho hosannah! Ha ha hallelujah! He he he he saved me! I’ve got the joy of the Lord.” I enjoyed the kids in my Sunday school and I loved the quiet reverence of the church service. I felt like part of the community.

Over the years Cliff and I made it a priority to keep our kids in the service with us. One time when Mac was still small we were standing, singing a hymn. Cliff had Mac in his arms and Mac was sucking his pacifier. Cliff said Mac got a strange look on his face when Cliff started singing and before Cliff knew it, Mac had plucked the pacifier out of his own mouth and stuffed it into Cliff’s. I don’t think Cliff is that bad at singing, but the boy is now a music major, so he must know something about it.

When Mac was just over a year old we sat down in a pew before the service at our Lutheran church. A woman in the pew, a friend of the family, looked at me aghast, “You are taking him to the nursery aren’t you?” I told her that Cliff and I believed church was a time for family to be together. She didn’t want her church service to be disrupted so I assured her that Mackenzie was usually pretty quiet, but that I would take him out and stand in the narthex with him if he got too noisy. I was told later that she complained that he “disrupted the whole service”. He didn’t.

Every church we’ve gone to since then had an education hour then a church service with the whole church welcome, save one. It’s a very contemporary church that says they’re “going to do what no one else is doing to reach who no one else reaches” They had the babies in Weetopia, the primary age kids in Kid Fusion, and the older kids up through high school in StuCo (Student Community) and the adults in the “big service”. Looking back I’m not quite sure what we saw in that church and left shortly after we found them to be mere ear ticklers and not gospel preachers.

This idea of splitting the family up for church seems somehow misguided. Doesn’t the family spend enough time apart? Dad at work, most often Mom at work, the kids at school or daycare, each getting home in time at night to eat dinner and then split up again to follow their pursuits only to drop into bed and do it all again the next day. Weekends are precious, aren’t they? Why is our culture constantly trying to split the family unit up?

I realize now that I should have homeschooled from the beginning because the whole concept of homeschooling brings the family back together to learn. Those days when Cliff and I defended keeping our kids in the service with us, though it was rare that we really had to press the issue, were preparing us to explain why we homeschool. Our kids became a part of their church and it is something that has prepared them to give an answer for the hope they have. What a blessing it is to learn about Jesus side by side with my children, to sing His praises while holding the hand of my little one, to hear them singing the songs later on the drive home from church.

I advocate for keeping the family together in the church service. Here are a few reasons why:

1) The family spends enough time apart. Our culture seems to believe that we all learn best by being segregated into age groups. TV shows show parents who can’t wait to be rid of their kids and kids who can’t wait to be rid of their parents. There is something to be said for multi generational learning. We who homeschool understand that our younger kids learn from being exposed to their older siblings school day. We also understand that Grandma and Grandpa have a lot they can teach kids and kids have a lot they can teach them in turn. I love that as I sit in church on Sundays my mom is on one side of me and my kids are on the other. These days my husband is teaching the message, so we sit up front to be close to him.

2) Children are part of our church community. Keeping them in the service includes them in the oneness of the Church Universal. We want them to feel included, to be included. We want them to feel at home there.

3) Children learn more than we realize. Yes even when you supply your kids with coloring books and crayons to occupy their little hands during the sermon, they are soaking in the teaching. Mac and Emma can tell you, they heard and understood more than we adults would give them credit for. As homeschoolers we understand the concept of learning styles. I researched the concept when I began homeschooling. Some of us learn best by keeping our hands busy, we retain more of what we see or hear that way. Some of us learn best by seeing and some by hearing or any combination of all methods. I have one hands on learner who needs to keep hands busy while learning, coloring pages or playing with a toy car on the pew seat during the sermon opened their mind to the teaching.

4) Children need to know how to “behave” in church. It’s our church home right? How will they ever learn how to be there if we keep whisking them away? When they need to learn how to behave at Great Aunt Martha’s do we show up at Martha’s house and immediately herd them into a back bedroom where they’ll play until it’s time to leave?

5) When children are only in a Sunday school or children’s church setting where they have fun and do projects and read stories and play what happens to them when they’re too old for children’s church? They are thrust into the “adult” church where they have to sit quietly and listen. No wonder most kids start checking out of church attendance around middle school age. Even those churches that have the high school service (I kid you not, our former contemporary church began referring to it as a “party” on Sunday mornings) face the challenge of kids aging out of the high school service and not wanting to attend the adult service, they’d rather stay in the party.

I know that kids need to be reached at their level. I understand because remember, I was in Sunday school for a time as a kid. I know the value of teaching the Bible at a child’s level and I understand the multi sensory learning experience in giving children projects to do based on the teaching. I’m an educator, remember? I’m not advocating keeping kids in an adult service and letting them fend for themselves, I’m advocating the family worshipping and learning together on Sunday mornings, a part of the same community of believers and I’ve seen it done over and over in many different congregations. I know it works.

I understand that our modern culture is somewhat naive of the concept of family centered education. I understand that sometimes little ones can make it hard for parents to pay attention and I understand that not all parents are ready to wrestle with a two year old and want to just skip church rather than have a weekly battle of wills. I get that sometimes it’s necessary for a kid to leave the service. I’m only saying that we need to go counter culture and encourage families to worship together. The family that prays together, stays together, right?

Here are a couple of resources that might interest you on what I’ve learned in my research on children in church.

Already Gone Written by Britt Beemer , Todd Hillard and Ken Ham. This book was an eye opener for Cliff and me. At the time we read it we were in youth ministry at a small church. The teens in this church were struggling with finding their place in the church and in the church service. This church did have an “education hour” for all ages and a service afterward, but no teen Bible study, the teens were expected to sit in on the adult Bible study. They enjoyed their time in the church service, but felt like they weren’t really wanted there. They were so hungry to learn God’s Word and apply it to their lives.

Children in Worship-Let’s Bring it Back is a blog post by Jason Helopoulos on Kevin DeYoung’s blog site really said it all so well. Mr. Helopoulos is much more eloquent a writer than this homeschool mom!

My dear friends, please hear me, I know not all agree and some will tell me that I’m just flat out wrong and others will tell me that the our experience is an isolated one. That’s fine, but at least consider the idea and imagine holding your little one on your lap while you and he learn about Jesus together.

Oops, My Bad!

Feb19

Reminds me of a song, Grace Like Rain

As a Christian woman I know a little bit about grace. I say a little bit because I still have trouble wrapping my head around the idea that an all knowing, all powerful, creator God could care enough about little old me to have a plan for my redemption from the beginning of time. It’s a plan that does not require me to do anything at all except believe He did it.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” John 3:16-18

That’s grace. God’s grace, I do not deserve His salvation, I can not earn His salvation, I can not buy His salvation, but it’s right there, free and open to the taking. Grace.

I was pondering a few verses in Psalm 146.

“Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing” Psalm 146:3-4

We’ve all put our trust in mortal men, our government, a teacher, a pastor, a parent, a spouse. They’ve let us down, haven’t they? Oh, they don’t always mean to, but it’s inevitable, it’s the human condition. We’re all merely human. Psalm 146 goes on to tell us to put our trust in God alone.

“Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them the Lord, who remains faithful forever.” Psalm 146: 5-6

It’s kind of good news to the walking wounded out there, you can depend on humanity for one thing, we will let you down. I’m just as messed up with my human condition as the next person, I will let you down.

Should I be okay with that? If someone comes to me and tells me that I let them down should my answer be to them “Get over it, I’m human, don’t trust me, trust God.”? Well, I can see that when we let someone down we can tell them about grace, about putting trust in God and God only. Tell them that the Author of life will never leave them or forsake them. But, does knowing that humans will let you down excuse us from wanting to do right by each other?

I’m going to let you down, it’s true, but shouldn’t it wreck me if I do? I should strive to love you so well that if you come to me and tell me that I have failed you in some way I am hurt for you and I want to make it right with you.

“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer.” Romans 6:1-2

It’s a Small World

Feb18

The very first homeschool field trip we went on back in our first year of homeschooling. Boy do I miss those days!

My kids have friends in the public schooled world, this is not unusual for homeschooled kids, we are very social, after all. Those public schooled kids have a lot they’re dealing with, peer pressure, getting along with parents, looking for colleges, deaths of loved ones, after school jobs to name just a few of their problems. Yeah, my homeschooled kids could never understand any of that. It always frustrates my kids when their public school peers tell them they “have no clue about the real world” because they’re “sheltered homeschoolers” It’s as if they believe that my kids live in a cave and have no thoughts outside whatever I have planted in their pliable little heads. My son’s friend announced on his facebook that his father had passed away. My son offered condolences, offering up his experience with nearly losing his grandfather as a way to give the friend some support. Another of their mutual friends just absolutely blasted my son for saying he understood. She told him his world was too small to understand what anyone else was going through, he was homeschooled after all. I suppose we do look pretty different to the rest of the world, but to suppose that we don’t experience loss and grief seems a bit blind to me.

I can understand a bit of my kids frustrations with being labeled clueless because their life experience doesn’t seem to look like everyone else’s. An old friend was experiencing trouble in her marriage and I offered up what I thought was support. ”You see, you just don’t get it. Your husband is perfect, he’s godly and he’s good to you.” While Cliff is not perfect, I will admit that I have been blessed with a good man in my husband. But, I don’t get it? On a homeschool message board a homeschool mom was asking for advice on how to bring her husband on board with their homeschooling. I offered up that it’s important that Dad play along. Without his support her job would be made so much more difficult and then offered up some of the things my husband did to stay involved with our day to day homeschooling. Another woman on the board just berated me for not getting it. Didn’t I understand that not everyone out there had supportive husbands and that my advice was useless because I was clueless about real men. So, it seems that I don’t have the experience for women’s ministry or homeschool ministry because I’ve not experienced every situation out there?

An old high school friend told me that because I live in our old hometown and am married and have kids and a somewhat typical life that I was not relevant and could not have an opinion on homosexual marriage. I see, so living near my elderly mother and choosing to stay married to one man and have his kids and raise his kids and have a house and a car payment and go to church and not do drugs and not become homeless somehow caused me to check my brain at the door and I can’t form an opinion?

There is a lot to be learned from those of us who seem to live in such a small world. I have insights that might surprise you. To diminish my experience as too narrow or too outside culture to be relevant is short sighted. To say that my family is an anomaly is just wrong, I can point to about 2 million other homeschoolers who can tell you that what we advocate really does work. We advocate multigenerational learning, we advocate keeping the kids with the parents, we advocate the family being the central unit of society rather than sending the children away to be influenced by culture. We advocate child appropriate learning models and we advocate doing something that may look strange to the rest of our culture, but works. We are homeschoolers, we are millions strong, we are successful. We score high on college entrance exams, we are actively recruited by colleges and universities like football players, we win spelling bees, we have friends and family, we are church worship leaders and Bible study leaders, we are doctors and lawyers and accountants and moms and dads, we are active parts of our society and have an experience that is worth taking into account. Do not discount us because our experience may seem too strange to you to be relevant. Homeschooling is only growing, it is going to part of our future and today we have generations of homeschool families. We are out to change our culture rather than chase it. We do it outside the box, outside the norm, outside the state run schools and we are a success. It would be a shame to not pay attention to what we might have to say.

Hindsight is Always…

Jan25

My Dad

Something about a good prayer meeting just gets me to really thinking. Somehow lifting people, even people I don’t really know, up in prayer connects you with the human condition, the need for Jesus, the reality of His words in the entire Bible and especially verses like,

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

When we pray we lay down our burdens into the Hands of our creator. We praise Him, we repent of our ongoing sin condition, we ask in His name and we yield to His will. See the acronym there P. (praise) R. (repent) A. (ask) Y. (yield). I learned that little ditty a few years ago at a mother daughter event at my mom-in-law’s church.

Tonight’s prayer meeting was poignant. Prayers for healing, prayers for strength, prayers for our church, for Christ’s Church, prayers for wisdom and prayers for provisions. When we pray it gives us the communication link to God to see His will. God doesn’t need our prayers, but He loves hearing from us. Our prayers serve to bring us to His wisdom, His will, His plans. When we go through those dark times we pray.

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1

I didn’t set out to do a dissertation of prayer. I am wholly unqualified to do the subject the justice that it deserves. It’s the faith in what we do not see that I wanted to zero in on here. To do that, I have to tell you a story about my dad. My dad was a larger than life force in my world. He had such a strong character that at times he could be overbearing. He was a fighter from the start, the story is that my dad was a “blue baby” at birth, suffering from oxygen deprivation and was sickly at first. He bore through a hard, hard childhood, the kind of childhood that we read about and wonder how anyone can treat a child that way.

I grew up with my dad being ill. His first heart attack at the age of 45 happened when I was six years old. His heart slowly deteriorated along with bouts of other illnesses that had him in and out of the hospital frequently. He had a stroke when I was 17 and was legally blind for a time. He was just always suffering in one way or another. His life got better after a heart transplant back in 1992. He went back to work for a short time, having been on disability since his first heart attack. He couldn’t wait to take a job. It made him feel alive again. The thing about transplants back then was the anti rejection medications had terrible side effects. He never had any problem with rejection, but by 2003 or so his kidneys were effected by the medications and he had to start dialysis.

Dialysis was hard on him. He lost his freedom, being hooked up to a pump three days a week for four hours at a time, his blood being pumped from his body and filtered and then pumped back in. The dialysis days left him exhausted. For some reason he grew more and more confused and had to stop driving. He didn’t thrive, he lost himself. He wasn’t the man he used to be. For the first time in my life I witnessed my dad giving up.

I spent so much time with him in those days. I was his driver and his cheerleader. When he wanted to give in I begged him to fight harder. He rallied and got a little better. After months in the hospital, me with him almost every day, he was well enough to be transferred to a physical rehabilitation facility. I was so happy to have him taking the next step to getting back home. It was short lived though, at the facility Dad suffered a massive stroke and died the following day at the hospital.

I didn’t understand it at all. I didn’t understand why, after I’d spent so much time with him, willing him to get better, praying for him and over him and with him, he ended up dying alone, in a hospital, without me by his side. You see, my kids came down with the chicken pox just a few days before. I was fearful of taking the virus to Dad and causing him to have a reoccurrence of shingles (yep, Dad suffered from shingles too). I couldn’t go to him in the emergency room the day the rehab facility nurse called to tell me he was unresponsive and was being taken by ambulance. My mom and brother went, but weren’t told how very dire the situation was, or maybe the doctors didn’t realize. Dad died the next morning. His nurse in the hospital reassured me, she and another nurse saw his heart slowing down on the monitor, Dad was a Do Not Resuscitate, but they stood by and held his hand as he slipped away from his tired and ill body.

I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that my dad, who had survived so much in his almost 75 years of life on earth, could possibly have died. I lamented that my dad never had peace. He was never whole. He went from one medical crisis to the next that at times they blur together. He was strong, but yet, so weak. Why? Why would one life be filled with so much illness? Why not, after the heart transplant at least, have a few years to just relax and enjoy life for a change. As I stood by my dad’s bedside the day he died it occurred to me. If my dad had been whole until his last day, if he’d have been healthy and strong and just going about his life, I’d never have spent so much time with him. I’d have been living my life, taking care of my kids and what all else and Dad would have been going about his life, maybe traveling or something to enjoy his retirement. One day Dad’s heart would have stopped, it was inevitable for him and for all of us. He’d have been gone and I would have missed out on my dad. I would have missed out hearing him talk about how much he loved all of his children. I would have missed out on his stories about life during the Great Depression. I would have missed out on him telling me how much he still loved my mother. I would have missed out on his learning to forgive his parents for the abuse. I would have missed out on so much.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not wishing pain on anyone. I would still rather have my dad healthy and well instead of nearly constantly fighting pain and sickness, but remember Jesus words, in this world you WILL have trouble. Hebrews 9:27 tells us that it is appointed for man to die once and then face judgement, so we’re all going to die one day. Our human condition, our sin condition, is why there is illness and death and suffering. God doesn’t turn His back on us through it all, He is right there with us and if we pray, if we seek His will, we can find the “beauty from ashes” that we read about in Isaiah 61.

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” Isaiah 61:1-3

When we pray, it is so easy to ask why and I don’t know that God minds being asked why because if we keep that faith in the unseen, if we see with the eyes of Jesus we can see the good to come out of that mourning.

“For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.” 1 Corinthians 2:11-12

Did you catch that? When we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ we receive the Spirit who is from God that we may understand what God has freely given us! Our eyes will be opened and though we walk through those dark valleys we will see Him at work.

I wish we lived in a world without misery and illness and one day, if we love Jesus, we will, for today though, God is not absent and He is not malicious and He isn’t capricious in who lives healthy lives and who is struck with illnesses. Our human nature is what causes our illness, God still has a plan for His glory despite our human nature. Our eyes will be opened to see the good from the bad and one day we will praise Him, just as I did with my dad, that He allowed us to take this journey through the pain and come out the other side knowing Him all the better.

I miss my dad and I wish his life could have been pain free, but I praise God that I spent so much time with him at the end. That is my beauty from ashes story.

Financial Unity

Jan10

From DaveRamsey.com

Recently I found a little nugget of good advice on Facebook. Well, Dave Ramsey’s Facebook to be exact. We know Dave Ramsey, right? Learned from the school of hard knocks about budgeting and building wealth and family finances. I like Dave’s common sense approach to family finances.

The idea Dave came up with, well, maybe he just passed it on, is for married couples to not have separate bank accounts for personal finances. A married couple is a team, teams work together. I have always thought this to be the case. While I haven’t worked outside the home for most of my marriage, when I did my paychecks and Cliff’s paychecks were deposited into the same account. We never separated his income from mine, we never even thought to.

Let me tell you why I think Dave is right on the money with this advice. I know of married couples who have completely separate finances. She works, he works, she has her account, he has his. The money they earn never mingles and they split up the household expenses down the middle, he pays the mortgage, she pays the car payment, he pays the utilities and she buys the groceries. I know that they will sometimes fight about something like the food in the house or the price of the house itself. They argue about “my money” or “my stuff”. I’m not sure this is what the Bible speaks of when it tells us,

“This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” Genesis 2:24

See, united into one, right there, in bold print. I’m not one with my husband if I’m worried about him paying his fair share. I’m not one with my husband if I don’t look at each and every financial decision that we have to make as OUR decision, made together. I’m not one with my husband if I hold back my earnings to buy what I want instead of putting our household first. We are a team and I’m all in. I don’t want a foot out the door with my own accounts and my own expenses and I wonder if it makes for a good marriage to have an escape hatch in the form of my own private checking account.

Let me clarify, I’m not speaking of couples that may have a separate checking account for the household expenses to be paid out of. When Cliff does the banking he brings me an envelope of cash to use for the grocery shopping. I could just as easily have a checking account with a debit card, but we work better with cash. I’m not speaking to the wife whose husband isn’t trustworthy, I can see having your safety net. I’m saying that a joint account makes you a better team. I can’t back away from this. I feel it so strongly. You are a team and you can work together on your finances as a team. You are united into ONE.

Now, before you tell me that I live in a perfect marriage and I don’t have my own income to speak of and I don’t understand how the real world works, let me tell you, Cliff and I have argued over a lot of things over the years. We’ve argued over how to discipline the kids or about his job or whatever, but we just don’t argue over much about money. Way back when we’d been married for just over a year Cliff told me he didn’t like my methods for bill paying. Looking back, I don’t blame him at all. He offered to take it over, I handed it over and today I rest easy, knowing it’s all taken care of. No, I don’t have my head buried in the sand, I know what we pay and who we pay and how much we pay and I could probably figure out how to get into our online bill paying account if I need to, but each month Cliff pays the bills, balances our account and tells me if we have anything left over for frivolous things like the eye glasses I need or beef or something. He hands me the grocery money and knows that I always start a grocery shopping trip with a stop at Starbucks. I have a self imposed policy of checking extra expenses with him. I’m not talking about every dime, I have a spending limit of $10 that I feel comfortable with. It used to be $20, but times are tough now. If something I need or want (yes I do get wants now and again) is more I check with Cliff first. Sometimes if I’m headed out without him he’ll ask me how much I might need to spend and tells me to adjust it for our budget or not. For his part, Cliff doesn’t make high end purchases on his own and often asks me how I feel about things he wants, like books and things. I always tell him that I have all I need, he works hard and if he says we have the money, spend it. It’s all very relaxed. It’s all very civil. He and I are a team. Go team!

As a stay at home wife and mother one aspect of our finances I had to get used to was not having money I earned to buy Cliff a gift. Cliff is the first person to tell you that I earn his paychecks as much as he does. I’m the one in the background caring for our children and our house and our food. The paychecks come in his name only, but I help him earn them by doing what I do. I had to be convinced of this, but frankly, Cliff makes it easy by not spending a lot on himself, so when I do spend our hard earned money on a gift for him, it is a gift to him.

I can’t say what would change if there were more of an income to team up on. I think it helps us greatly to live just within our small means without all the wiggle room for silly purchases that would come with more income. Not to say we couldn’t put more income to good use, but having just enough makes things a bit easier for us. I know that if I ever do bring in an income it will be deposited into our joint account and we will decide how to spend it, just like we always have.

Yes, my friends, it’s a trust issue, it’s a unity issue, but shared finances is a team building exercise. I’m not telling you to live the way I do, I’m just telling you why I live the way I do and what I’ve learned from it. I’m certain that it’s not a hard and fast rule, separate finances don’t always separate marriages. I just really believe that my husband and I are a team in all things. We are one.

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Speak In Love

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding…