Guilty of Eating Dirt in the First Degree

Yesterday we received a brief rain shower which made the world feel and smell wonderful. After who knows how many days without rain, I loved how the scent of rain lingered on the ever present breeze. Once I was done with the dinner dishes I decided to do some much needed grooming of my flowerbeds and further enjoy the rain washed world. Noah was antsy, so I took him out to play in the front yard with his slide. We were having a fun time, me snipping dead flowers, Noah toddling in the grass, babbling about a bug or whatever else had his attention.

At one point he came over by me and held up the most infinitesimal speck of dirt about six inches from his mouth. When he saw me look at him he said in his soft little voice, "N-n-n-o, n-n-n-o." I smiled and told him that was right, it was no-no to eat the dirt and what a good little boy he was. I then proceeded to mentally pat myself on the back that my  almost 1 year old was being so mindful and obedient. I had not even finished my mental victory lap, when I watched in horror as my little "angel" grabbed the largest fistful of dirt he could managed and popped it right in his mouth, watching me the whole time. We scurried inside and I washed out his little mouth, as he tried to spit out the dirt.  By the way, washing dirt out of a spitting toddler's mouth is not easy.

I think the part that gets me is he had just told me it was no-no, and I know he understands what that means. Stairs and electrical outlets are no-no too. But then I thought about how many times I know that something is wrong, I will even tell others not to do something, and yet I still turn around and do it. I wonder how many times I have popped a "fistful of dirt in my mouth".

So while the Yeatts family court found Noah guilty of knowingly and with forethought consuming dirt, charges were dropped, and he was allowed out for good behavior. Of course, giving hugs and kisses to the prosecutor sure did not hurt things.

Getting Things Done...

Tuesday of last week my mom told me about the existence of a great new book. I love to read and it has been awhile since I have had a great book, the kind you do not want to put down. On Wednesday I had the new book in my eager hands  ( Anthony loves to spoil me!) and I was struck by the ravenous desire to read the book all in one night. Reading it all in one night was not practical, espcially as I did not receive it till 6pm. However, I could easily manage a day and half. The last time I received a new book and read it in 36 hours, I promised myself that next time I would do better. While I love visually consuming a book in record speed, it is such a let down when the book is done. I am also sure I missed small intricacy in the story reading it so fast, but it is no fun rereading a book right after you read it.

In order to thwart my gobbling up a book this time, I decided to use reading a chapter as a reward for getting a task done. I looked around for a long task and realized I had a large quilt in pieces on my sideboard. I had maybe a third of the squares sewn together. So, I tackled the quilt, sewing and ironing a section and then reading a chapter of the book. I managed to strech the book out to three days. (Anthony was threatening to take me to the doctor because something was obviously wrong with me!) I also managed to finish the quilt front, along with my regular household stuff.

Moral of the story: It is amazing what you can accomplish when it is fun, or you have something to look forward too!

Dress Code

When I see the words "dress code" I immediately think of working in the hospital. We had a dress code that required all women to wear nylon stockings with all skirts and dresses. I hated this rule. Not only are nylons impractical in a hospital, I was forever getting runs in them, but are also pure torture in the summer months. But today I am taking a little literary twist on the word code. A code can be an encrypted message. I think that what we wear sends a message, a dress code if you will.

The idea that what we wear conveys a message is not a foreign one. We all know if you go for an interview, you wear a skirt or a suit. The message you want to convey is you are a professional. If someone comes in wearing a coat, you presume it is cold outside. Women dress provocatively in order to attract men, though you honestly do not want the men you catch that way. Our clothes even tell people what kind of day we are having. We have all had sweatpants and baseball cap days, or the days when we actually feel pretty as we wear our favorite outfit. Whether you like it or not, what we wear says something about ourselves to others.

But does God really care what I wear? I think He does. Clothing is mentioned throughout the Bible, and I believe there is a reason. I do not think it was fluff or a casual observation. I think what we wear says a lot about who we are, and God definitely cares who we are! The words clothes and clothing appear 66 times in just the first five books of the Bible, obviously God notices.  If you remember God  made the first set of clothing as Adam and Eve left the Garden. In Deuteronomy when God gave instructions for a captive woman to become part of the tribe of Israel, one of the things she had to do was give up the clothes of her captivity. Her clothing identified her as belonging to another people. Clothes designate mourning (King David), special favor (Mordecai), industry and wealth (Proverbs 31), service (priest in the temple), and many other things. So, what we wear conveys a message to others and as Christ's ambassadors that message is vital. The question is what does our clothing today say? More importantly, what does the clothes we wear to church say?

 In 1Tim 2:9 Paul writes " In the same way also, I desire that women adorn themselves in decent clothing, in modesty and sensibleness...". I never looked back to see what Paul was referring back to when he said "In the same way also". If you look earlier in the chapter you see the attitude of worship Paul hoped to see in others. The way we dress communicates our attitude of and toward worship. Now that is a sobering thought, especially as the Christian life is to be lived throughout the week, not just on Sunday.

But back to the idea of what we wear to church. In time past, everyone had a set of clothes that were their Sunday best, but not anymore. In embracing freedom (see previous post), we have moved away from having a certain set or type of clothes we wear on Sunday. Sunday is a day of rest, and we take it quite literally. I have had friends in the past tell me, "I have to dress up all during the week for work, Saturday and Sunday are my only days to relax".  We would never dream of going to work out of dress code and using that "logical" statement with our earthly bosses, but we have no problem coming to the Lord's house that way. Does what we wear reflect awe and respect, do we look like the princess' we are or are we princess' in hiding? When people see us at church, does our clothing reflect that we belong to the King. Or does our clothing call people to look at our "beautiful person" or flaunt the money we have. Wealth is another message that our clothing can verbalize and one I think we should seriously consider in the light of the global body of Christ, but that is another whole post.

I have found this particular post really made me think. What is the message I send others each day? Do I reflect that I belong to the King? What is my dress code?

Mega-klutz

mega-klutz (meg' u- kluts): noun. a clumsy or awkward person who has an inordinate number of events when compared to other clumsy individuals. SYN. Carey

I am sure that definition is in a dictionary somewhere. As I dropped my keys for the fourth time today, I began to wish I was a more coordinated individual. I have never been coordinated. In fact I am the only person I know off who as a fourth grader struck out not once but twice at kickball. A few years ago, my boss actually thought about putting "not falling down the stairs" as a safety goal for me on an annual evaluation. Sad thing is we both agreed I probably would not be able to meet it.

I rarely wish I was someone else. Today I did wish I was one of those women who is so coordinated that she walks in stilettos as if they were sneakers. I am sure such a woman never drop her keys. But if she did, I know that she would not proceed by dumping the contents of her purse out on the pavement trying to pick her keys up. Nor would she forget about the diet coke she placed on the hood of the car while she got everything into the car, and then drive off. Diet cokes do not do well riding on the hood of the car, just in case you wanted to know. However, such a woman would probably not have a giggly little boy who was very amused by his mommy's antics. Quite honestly, I would rather have little boy giggles over being able to hang onto my keys or remember where in the world I placed my diet coke.

Contentment comes in all shapes and sizes, and in so many different areas of our lives. Contentment has never been easy for me. I need to continually remind myself to embrace who I am in Christ, and stop wishing I was a different kind of woman or mom. As I allow Christ to mold me and make me, I should trust that He knows what is the best form for me to serve Him. If I have allowed Jesus to make me into His treasured possession, I should not wish to be anything else.

But one things is for sure, I am not a china teacup!

Free but Loved

       It is tough being a kid. You are learning about and exploring the world around you. Things like what goes up must come down, mud and carpeting do not mix well, and grown ups do not always mean what they say. Take the word free for instance. When a parent says that there is a free weekend, a little boy has dreams of spending endless hours living the life depicted in Calvin and Hobbes. What a parent really means is nothing is planned so what a great weekend to clean the garage or wash all the windows. A parent might say a child is free to go out and play, but does not mean that he is free to jump of off the shed roof  holding onto a kite to see if he can fly. A child may be free to speak, but not to tell his grandmother that the meatloaf is gross. Even teenagers learn that a free period at school does not mean they are free to have rolling chair races down the hallway, but they are free to do their homework in silence. A child quickly understands that there are boundaries to the word free. While a child might not always grasp the reason for the boundary, respect for it is quickly learned.

      Surprisingly, we as adults often have never very fully outgrown our childhood understanding of the word free. Oh, we understand one is not free to eat all a whole package of cookies without gaining a few pounds. We just now morph what we are free to do. The law of consequences only applies to certain sins or issues. We can watch what we want, go where we want, and do what we want with our bodies because we are free. We go even further in deluding ourselves, by blaming other people or, even worse, God for the resulting mess.  Our own childhood experiences tell us that our delusion is not logical. Just because we want to be free to do whatever we want does not mean we are, no matter what anyone says.
    
     Like it or not, being free in Christ is not license to do something that would displease God. I once heard in a sermon when I was small "Imagine that God was sitting there next to you. Would you still be doing...?" and you fill in the blank with a certain activity or thought.  Now you might join the resounding cry of "legalism" that is echoing through the church concerning the idea of God given boundaries or standards. Some how the idea of there actually being standards in the Bible has become a bad thing.

    Remember telling your child not to talk back to an adult or tell grandma that the meatloaf is gross? People might argue that speaking his mind is not necessarily bad. What if he had a good point? What if it was true? After all, the child was only exercising his freedom of speech. We all know that talking back and being disrespectful are bad traits for a child to have. Without loving correction the child will grow up without respect for authority or himself. He will think it is okay to do something that hurts others, all in the name of being free. So, if we as adults have standards for our children, does it not stand to reason that God would have standards for His children as well.

      Standards are the loving way that God guides us from things that would harm us. Whether we want to realize it or not. We are free but thankfully we are loved as well.

Another Attack of Mommy Brain

     Today I lost my cell phone. I mean really lost it, as in "the battery was dead so I could not call it" lost. Noah loves to play with my phone with its crazy blingy case. No one would blame him a bit. However, I do not want to find out what the charge is for sending a text to Japan, so I have a habit of hiding it. The hiding place has to be up high, as Noah has a memory like an elephant. As soon as I am not looking, he goes and gets the phone. I really wished he could talk today.  I searched every where for the phone and in the process picked up most of my house. A clean house was an unexpected perk from losing a phone. I even did two loads of laundry, hoping I would trick the phone out of hiding when I was not looking. It did not work.

       I never realized how dependent I am on a little piece of technology. I send texts out to my family and friends all morning long. I find texting is a great way to send snippets about my day or ask quick questions without interrupting some else's busy day. The dependency runs deep!  Not to mention I can only remember about four phone numbers in my contact list of over 50. Perhaps, I should have a backup.
     
     Thankfully, my little melodrama has a happy ending. After cleaning the house, two loads of laundry, and sorting baby clothes (another attempt to trick my phone out of hiding), my phone allowed itself to be found. I say allowed because I am sure I had already looked on top of my sewing machine. I would blame Noah for placing it there, but he is too short. I guess I will have to mark this as yet another example of mommy brain. Sigh...

What Hard Times Show...

     I remember hearing at some point in my childhood, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." I imagine my father probably said it to encourage me to finish that last street on the paper route some early winter morning, as we shivered together. I think there is truth in that statement. Tough times have a way of showing who we really are.

     My very sad backyard has provoked this deep introspection. When Anthony and I bought our house almost two years ago, one of the things we loved was the landscaping in the backyard. The previous owners had planted a variety of shrubs and trees, including a tall aspen, all along the wood fence. It was lush and green, a birds' paradise with plenty of places for nesting and raising a little bird family. We thought up keep of the yard would be fairly easy as an in-ground sprinkler system was already in place. Our first mistake was to think that owning a sprinkler system would be easy. But that is a story for another time.  

    In case you have not noticed, we are going through a drought here in sunny Oklahoma. A drought that actually started last fall. I did not think much of having a dry winter, until I started to notice the bushes in the backyard, especially the tall aspen. The aspen was more of a brittle brown then a lush green. I was perplexed by the BDR, bush death rate, in my backyard before it was even hot. The BDR was especially confusing as the bushes in the front yard and the pecan in the middle of the backyard were fine. I even confess to doing a little research on the web, trying to find something that would kill an aspen and a holly bush but spare a pecan. There is no such disease.

   One day I finally realized what had killed my backyard. Hard times had killed my aspen and it's leafy neighbors. Our sprinkler system, which runs along the edge of the yard, was winterized in October and until the following March the aspen had to depend on it's own shallow roots for water. The aspen never had to grow deep roots. Even in the hot summer months, water was easily plentiful because of the sprinkler head a yard from it's trunk. Any other year it would have been fine but without rain the mighty aspen dried up into kindling. On the other hand, the pecan is in the middle of the yard and appears to have been planted before the watering system was installed. Without easy access to water, the pecan had to grow long, deep roots to survive the treacherous summers.
  
    People are often like my backyard. At first sight, everything looks and feels perfect. It is not until circumstances come our way to do we see what we or others are made of.  Do our roots run deep from daily study of the Word or are our roots superficial, living on the water we get each Sunday? Do hard times cause us to shrivel up and die inside or are we able to draw from our roots and keep right on going? The same hard time that might kill one thing, will make another grow stronger. It is all a matter of roots.
  
     The tough keep going, only because of what they do before the going gets tough.