Where It Is Impossible to Keep From Thinking About God

I was privileged, in the spring, to visit in a home that was to me--and I'm sure to the occupants--a little bit of Heaven. There was beauty there. There was a keen appreciation of the finer things of life, and an atmosphere in which it was impossible to keep from thinking of God.

The room was bright and white and clean, as well as cozy. There were many windows. Flowers were blooming in pots and vases, adding their fragrance and beauty. Books lined one wall--good books--inspiring and instructive--good books--good friends. Three bird cages hung in the brightness and color of this beautiful sanctuary, and the songsters voiced their appreciation as if their little throats would burst.

Nature's music, nature's beauty--nature's peace....It seemed to me a kind of Paradise that had wandered down, an enchanted oasis--home.
~Peter Marshall

What an extraordinary thought--that we can create a home where it is "impossible to keep from thinking about God."

Our houses need not resemble a page from House Beautiful magazine. Regardless of their size and style or our financial status, our homes can exude warmth and provide refreshment for all who walk through their doors. They should be pleasant havens for our husband and children, sanctuaries where we offer care and hospitality to other Christians, and gateways from which we extend the gospel to family, friends, and neighbors.

So I have made this my prayer: "Lord, help me to build the kind of home where all who enter find it 'impossible to keep from thinking of God.'"

Why not make this your prayer, too?
~Carolyn Mahaney, Feminine Appeal

There's Hope Even When Your Children Know About the Cow Pies

Picture your marriage as a grassy field. You enter it at the beginning full of hope and joy. You look out into the future, and you see beautiful flowers and trees and rolling hills. And that beauty is what you see in each other. Your relationship is the field and the flowers and the rolling hills. But before long, you begin to step in cow pies. Some seasons of your marriage they may seem to be everywhere. Late at night they are especially prevalent. These are the sins and flaws and idiosyncrasies and weaknesses and annoying habits in you and in your spouse. You try to forgive them and endure them with grace.

But they have a way of dominating the relationship. It may not even be true, but sometimes it feels like that’s all there is—cow pies. Noël and I have come to believe that the combination of forbearance and forgiveness leads to the creation of a compost pile. That’s where you shovel the cow pies.

You both look at each other and simply admit that there are a lot of cow pies. But you say to each other: You know, there is more to this relationship than cow pies. And we are losing sight of that because we keep focusing on these cow pies. Let’s throw them all in the compost pile. When we have to, we will go there and smell it and feel bad and deal with it the best we can. And then we are going to walk away from that pile and set our eyes on the rest of the field. We will pick some favorite paths and hills that we know are not strewn with cow pies. And we will be thankful for the part of the field that is sweet.

Our hands may be dirty. And our backs may ache from all the shoveling. But one thing we know: We will not pitch our tent by the compost pile. We will only go there when we must. This is a gift of grace that we will give each other again and again and again—because we are chosen and holy and loved.

~John Piper, This Momentary Marriage

*********

Today my Mountain Man and I celebrate 26 years of marriage. It really does seem like just yesterday when we said, "I do." In my many years of reading, I've come across some godly authors who never remember their parents fighting. Such an admirable thing it is! 

But that's not my memory, and, sadly, it won't be my children's, either. My children have too often heard me speak of the cow pies of our married life. And I'm surely not going to romanticize the cow pies to you and call them "beautiful ugly" or something like that. The cow pies are what make marriages so hard. They wound us, and they expose our selfishness. Sometimes they even seem too much to bear.

But God sustains us. God keeps us from pitching our tent, as Piper says, near the compost pile, and He keeps us from tearing down our tent altogether.

And because God is the one who keeps us, I have hope that even though our children can't say they've never seen or heard us fight or argue, they can say that they know what repentance and faithfulness and forgiveness look like in the grassy field of marriage, and more importantly, they know the One who is the Giver of it all.

And that really is beautiful.

With love,

Trisha

Another Barna Poll and Women Making an Idol of Family

This poll from Barna, released over a year ago, but making its appearance again with a new article from Patheos, has me scratching my head and wondering why we're making the conclusion that women now put their families over their faith. Here's what the Barna president says about the study:

The president of Barna Group, David Kinnaman, offers this commentary on the research. “Some may interpret this research as a false choice: can women be asked to choose between their role as a parent and that of their faith? They see motherhood as core to what it means to disciple and be discipled. Others may conclude this study shows too many women have created an 'idol' of their family, perhaps at the expense of their devotion to Christ.

But then Barna states this in the study: 

Though women project a calm, confident exterior when it comes to their faith, the research suggests their spiritual lives are rarely their most important source of identity.

Can we really assert this conclusion from this study?

I'm not an expert in statistics, and I have not studied the poll at length. There are many things to discuss about it, but here are three things that stand out to me as  major concerns with this study.

1) Let's define Christian: This should be the first question with any of these Barna studies. If the pollster just asks, "Are you a Christian" or "Do you consider yourself a Christian?" without further explanation, we have a mixed bag already and perhaps we should take all Barna polls with a grain of salt.

The Patheos article seems to include Mormons as a viable option under the label Christian. No doubt  Mormons elevate family over EVERYTHING.

2) Is being a follower of Christ a "role?": How many of us think of being a Christian in these terms, or rather, do we think of the roles we have as flowing from who we are in Christ?  There is a HUGE difference between these two perspectives! I think the question is a tricky one, and that women who answer that their most important roles are being wives and mothers should not be assumed to be making an idol of their families. What if the question were posed as a multiple choice? "Out of the following roles, which do you consider most important?" No doubt we would see different results.

Consider this story from Joni Eareckson:

"What's the most important thing you do, Joni?" It was a press conference in Poland. My mind, like a computer, zipped through a list of possible answers: speaking...painting...writing...singing. I clicked off another list: campaigning against a euthanasia initiative on the state ballot, visiting cerebral palsied teenagers, delivering wheelchairs and Bibles to disabled people in Africa. 

All of this is significant to me. Especially since it means exhausting travel and long hours away from home. But what is most important to me? I smiled. Among all the options, I knew.

"Being a good wife to my husband." The group of twenty reporters chuckled. I guessed their thoughts. She can't be serious. Her books are in so many languages...she's speaking here in Poland and in other countries around the world. Surely she's being gratuitous...

Would any of us accuse Joni of putting her role as a wife before being a Christian, or is it clear to us that her role as a wife is so highly valued and made a priority BECAUSE she is a Christian and puts Jesus first?

3) Look around us: If anything betrays the assertion that Christian women have their highest priorities set on family, it's what we see before us every day. Our churches and our culture are so affected by feminism that we don't even recognize the signs anymore. I'm convinced that even many complementarians are really feminists at heart. Feminist ideology is in the air we breath, and we have to push back its lies every day and guard against their favorite question, "Did God really say?"


With love,
Trisha

On Reading

Reading serves for delight, for ornament, for ability. The crafty contemn it; the simple admire it; the wise use it.
~Francis Bacon

Happy is he who has laid up in his youth, and held fast in all fortune, a genuine and passionate love for reading.
~Rufus Choate

If the riches of the Indies, or the crowns of all the kingdoms of Europe, were laid at my feet in exchange for my love of reading, I would spurn them all.
~Fenelon

You may gain knowledge by reading, but you must separate the chaff from the wheat by thinking.
~Osborn

Always have a book at hand, in the parlor, on the table, for the family; a book of condensed thought and striking anecdote, of sound maxims and truthful apothegms. It will impress on your own mind a thousand valuable suggestions, and teach your children a thousand lessons of truth and duty. Such a book is a casket of jewels for your household.
~Tryon Edwards

He picked something valuable out of everything he read.
~Pliny

We should accustom the mind to keep the best company by introducing it only to the best books.
~Sydney Smith

Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.
~Witherspoon

If we encountered a man of rare intellect we should ask him what books he read.
~Emerson

The first time I read an excellent work, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend; and when I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one.
~Goldsmith

How to be the Perfect Hostess and House Guest

In her book, The Shaping of a Christian Family, Elisabeth Elliot fondly recalls visiting a family and watching the couple put their children to bed. Everyone of them went cheerfully--no murmuring, no getting up again for a glass of water. It was beautiful.

If she were to visit my home, she would see little ones fight over getting to use the bathroom first or coming back out from their bedrooms to look for something they must have on their person in order to go to sleep. No doubt Mrs. Elliot would think there was work to be done, though I'm sure she would be gracious about it.

I've read many helpful hints about being a hospitable hostess or a thoughtful house guest.

Find out if there are food allergies.
Have a welcome kit.
Clean up after yourself.
Don't overstay your welcome.

But in all of my reading, I don't recall the two qualities that make the most ideal house guest and hostess.

1) Remembering life happens here and there: A house guest might expect perfection and an uptight hostess might seek perfection. Both need to remember that life happens wherever we are, and sometimes it's messy.

Often the hostess wants perfection in her table settings, her linens, her decor, and eventually, in her family. Without even realizing it, she'll try to hide that life happens in her home. This phrase came from my pastor. He reminds me of it when I'm struggling with the fact that our Littles aren't behaving in church, or one of them just climbed on a luncheon table, or is screaming in the middle of prayer or preaching. "Life happens here," he says, and it's helped me keep things in perspective not just when at church, but especially when at home.

This is a truth we have to remember when showing hospitality and when receiving it. I don't mean neglecting to clean the bathroom or teach your children manners. I do mean embracing the fact that our children will misbehave, food will get burned, little boys might forget to put the toilet lid down, and there might be stacks of papers or books and other things that reveal that this is a home and not a showroom.

2) Remembering sanctification happens daily, moment by moment, for the rest of our lives: Praise God there's not a moment when He's not making us more like Jesus. We are all a work in progress, all of the time. This means that you might have to get up in the middle of a meal and discipline a child, or your child might have to apologize for being unkind or inconsiderate. Or you might have to hold your tongue when a guest is rude or thoughtless. And on extended stays, even more sin will be exposed when Mom gets annoyed or children disobey or we get upset over the little things.

Being like Jesus to one another is at the heart of hospitality. This means extending grace to one another as we enjoy the fellowship God has set before us. What are we communicating when we expect to be or to visit the "perfect" family in a "perfect" home?

My favorite house guests are those who graciously bear with my infirmities, remembering I'm a sinner with feet of clay. And when I visit a friend and hear her yell at her child, or I watch her children fighting, or I spy a pile of laundry still not folded, I don't think, "She really needs to get it together." Instead, I thank God for another home where "life happens" and where everyone is being made more like Jesus every day.

With love,
Trisha

Keep Fighting

You're in that same place with that same child once again, and you wonder if he's ever going to learn. You realize that every time you faithfully discipline him, you're fighting. Fighting for his soul. Fighting for him to master Self, so it doesn't master him for the rest of his life. Fighting against your own weariness and discouragement. You're fighting for the unseen, and it often wears you down.

Sometimes it's hard to walk this way, the way of faith, especially when we're so goal-oriented, so motivated by what we can see and touch.

But the seeing and touching isn't always immediately possible as we disciple these tender souls God has given us. When our child has sinned and been corrected but there's no fruit or repentance, it's easy for our spirits to grow heavy, weighed down by whispers of doubt.  "When will my child learn?"

We often want to do the work of the Holy Spirit. Of course, we know we can't, but our behavior and our thoughts reflect otherwise. Can you imagine how boastful and prideful we would become, how ignorant of our own sins we would be, if we could always SEE the fruit of our labors? We would actually begin to believe that this was fruit of OUR labors instead of the work of the Spirit, the grace of God.

Heart-tending is hard work. It requires more than just making a child obey.  It requires dying to ourselves, not growing weary in doing good, forbearing in love for the sometimes oft-repeated sin.  It requires humility and an utter dependence on the LORD. It requires walking by faith and not by sight, because though God in His goodness does show us the fruit of His Spirit in our children's lives, there are many days He leaves us searching.

"The Lord will sometimes strip you of the leaves of evidence to teach you to live by faith..."~Charles Spurgeon

So today when you child just doesn't seem to get it and your heart is aching because of it, when you long to see your child delight in this amazing love Jesus has for him, but he's just not moved by it, when you weep because your precious one is refusing life-giving instruction, continue walking, my friend, continue fighting for your child. 

Guard against trading God's parenting wisdom for man's. Desperate times often lead us to unwise remedies, as our hearts echo the age-old question,"Did God really say?"

Embrace the little spurts of growth that ARE happening in your child. A kind word to a sibling? Not grumbling about the food set before him? Giving a bigger piece of pie to his sister? Giving a kind word instead of an angry one? Write it down, and praise your child accordingly. "See, this is the work of the Holy Spirit in you!" "What a testimony of God's grace!" "Isn't the power of the gospel amazing?"

Love your child and keep your heart tender towards him. Repent of any bitterness and guard against letting the tiniest bit creep in. You know better than anyone when it's there.

Get serious about praying for your child. Really serious.

Remember God's patience and goodness to you, especially if you have a sin that you repeatedly battle. Remember His many mercies poured out on you.

Be faithful to know the state of your flock. Thank God for His goodness in showing you your children's sin NOW and for the privilege of training them up in the way they should go.

And trust God, our mighty God who keeps His promises, to finish this work He has started in your child and in you.

Love,

Trisha

How to Make the Most of a Sermon

From Puritan minister Richard Baxter, here are ten exhortations regarding "Directions for holy Resolutions and Affections in Hearing."

"The understanding and memory are but the passage to the heart, and the practice is but the expression of the heart: therefore how to work upon the heart is the principal business."

Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.~John 17:17 

1)  Live under the most convincing, lively, serious preacher that possibly you can.   What man that is alive and awake, doth not feel a very great difference between a dead and a lively preacher?

2)  Remember that ministers are the messengers of Christ and come to you on His business and in His name.

3)  Remember that this God is instructing you, and warning you, and treating with you, about no less than the saving of your souls. Come therefore to hear as for your salvation. Can that heart be dull that well considereth, that it is heaven and hell that is the matter that God is treating with him about?

4)  Remember that you have but a little time to hear in; and you know not whether ever you shall hear again. Hear therefore as if it were your last.  How would I hear if I were sure to die tomorrow?

5)  Remember that all these days and sermons must be reviewed, and you must answer for all that you have heard, whether you heard it with love, or with unwillingness and weariness, with diligent attention or with carelessness; and the word which you hear shall judge you at the last day.  (John 12:48)

6)  Make it your work with diligence to apply the word as you are hearing it, and to work your own hearts to those suitable resolutions and affections which it bespeaketh. Therefore be all the while at work, and abhor an idle heart in hearing..

7)  Chew the cud, and call up all when you come home in secret, and by meditation preach it over to yourselves.  

8)  Pray it over all to God, and there lament a stupid heart, and put up your complaints to Heaven against it. The name and presence of God hath a quickening and awaking power.

9)  Go to Christ by faith for the quickening of His Spirit. Your life is hid in Him, your Root and Head; and from Him all must be conveyed; he that hath the Son hath life; and because He liveth, we shall live also. Entreat Him to glorify the power of His resurrection, by raising the dead; and to open your hearts, and speak to you by His Spirit, that you may be taught of God, and your hearts may be His epistles, and the table where the everlasting law is written.

10)  Make conscience of teaching and provoking others. God often blesseth the grace that is most improved in doing Him service; and our stock is like the woman's oil, which increased as long as she poured out, and was gone when she stopped.

With love,
Trisha

Thankful Thursday~Precious in the Sight of the Lord

My sister's husband died last Friday. He's free from cancer's rampage on his body, and he knows a peace that he never knew while on this earth.

My heart is overwhelmed when I think of what it means for my sister to be a widow. But, oh, how the Lord has sustained her in the past week! I'm full of such joy when I hear her voice, because it reflects God's faithfulness and provision and mercy and grace. All of it.

There are many hard days ahead, including their anniversary, his birthday, and her son's birthday, all happening in the next several weeks, so we praise God for the truth that His grace is sufficient and His mercies are new every morning and that His dosing of affliction is perfect.

In the midst of the sadness of not having my brother-in-law with us, it is a gift of His grace to see His mercies abound.

1) That Pete knew the Lord.
2) The favor God has given Catherine in the sight of others.
3) The calm spirit He has given her and the ability to focus and do what needs to be done.
4) The tension He has relieved in certain relationships.
5) The joy of bearing one another's burdens and having in our hearts His truths to speak to those who are deep in the valley.
6) The prayers of brothers and sisters in Christ.

 "You see, when death (came)...it came by an 'arrow sharpened with love'....Every Christian ought to contemplate his own death along those same lines. It is not that death is now pleasant. Let us not pretend that it is. But the wonder of the Gospel is that grace has conquered and enlisted even the dreadful things of the curse to advance the Saviour's cause. Death is still rightly called 'the last enemy' (1 Cor. 15:26), but for the believer the last enemy has already been transformed thanks to the grace of our greatest Friend."
~Paul Wolfe, My God is True

With love,
Trisha

No, It's Me

While shuffling through some papers on our dining room table ( I do that a lot, always defying that "only handle a piece of paper once" advice), I came across this adorable drawing.

Me: Jedediah, did you draw this?

Jedediah, with a sheepish grin: Yeess.

Me: He's so cute! What's his name?

Jedediah: Jedediah

Me: Oh, so it's a self-portrait.

Jedediah: No, it's me.

Notes From the Reading Chair-Courtship and Biblical Dating

I recently finished reading Doug Wilson's book on courtship (or biblical dating if you prefer), Her Hand in Marriage. It is a most beautifully balanced book, so balanced that I'm amazed it's not more widely read.

Wilson begins with this much needed caution about the distinction between principles and methods:

"Because our contemporary practice of recreational dating has failed so miserably, many Christians are hungry for alternative methods. 'Just tell us what to do!' In this arena, as elsewhere, the Christian life is approached as though it were a paint-by-numbers kit. But nowhere is this kind of 'connect the dots' thinking better calculated to bring disaster than in the realm of courtship. We are men and women with sons and daughters, not social engineers playing with interchangeable, interconnecting tinker toys. This simplistic but destructive mentality is revealed in questions like, 'How man times must a young man come over before the young girl's father should allow him to sit next next to her at the dinner table?' The author of this small book frankly confesses that the answer is none of his business, and that he doesn't really care. Seek to understand principle, and appropriate methods will follow." (emphasis mine)

I learned much from Wilson's chapter on the authority of parents as he addresses issues such as whether couples are really married just because they've acted like they're married and whether or not sexual immorality was a capital crime in Israel.

He goes on to address preparing sons and preparing daughters for courtship as well as the culmination and details of courtship. This is good stuff. Stuff you want to be reading now when your Littles are Littles. (But if you wait until you have a Little that's turned into an 18 year old Big, like I did, that's good, too. Just read it, and praise God for the grace that does cover those areas that you wish you had done differently.)

If you refuse to read it because it's written by Doug Wilson, then calmly remove the chip off your shoulder so you don't miss the gem of a book among many courtship duds. If you've passed by this book because you think it's just another compendium of rules, then read the above quote again and know that Wilson stays true to that assertion throughout the book.

"So the time a person spends when he is single should be time spent in preparation for marriage. This is important even if he never gets married. This is because biblical preparation for marriage is nothing more than learning to follow Jesus Christ and to love one's neighbor. In other words, preparation for Christian marriage is basically the same as preparation for Christian living. Christians are to prepare for marriage by learning self-denial, subduing their pride, and putting their neighbor first. Once they learn to love God and love their neighbor, they are prepared to enter into the covenant of marriage with one of their neighbors."
~Doug Wilson

With love,
Trisha

Why We Write

Though for no other cause, Yet for this.
That posterity may know
We have
Not loosely through silence
Permitted things to pass away
As in a Dream.
~Richard Hooker, 1554-1600

First Day of The New School Year

The first lesson of the day was for me. It was a loud reminder from the Lord that I'm to make my plans and then surrender them to His. Sometimes our plans are the same. More often, they're not.

So, after a bit of a fight, I just took a deep breath, remembered the beauty and flexibility of teaching our children at home, and did the next thing.

Cap'n looks a bit scared, and Sarge looks like a Sarge.

And for a bit of FUN:

With love,

Trisha

Thankful Thursday~The Celebration

I'm thankful to celebrate ONE again. I'm thankful that I've learned my limits, to know that frozen pizza and store bought cupcakes have their place, too, in the midst of homemade and handcrafted and that what our children remember most is the atmosphere. Is it joyful or stressed?

I'm thankful for children who love to celebrate and who rejoice in the little things, who say "thank you" around the dinner table. I'm thankful for homemade pancakes and a baby who loved his balloons more than his gifts.

I'm thankful for fields of wildflowers and the color yellow. I'm thankful for cameras and buttercream frosting smeared on the tip of Sarge's nose. I'm thankful for the birthday cards and packages and birthday wishes and for the people in our lives who take the time to show they love us.

I'm thankful for the unexpected circumstances yesterday that reminded me of God's sovereignty. I'm thankful He's transforming my thinking so that I view disappointments as opportunities instead of roadblocks.

 

I'm thankful that every day the Lord lets me taste and see that He is good.

With love,
Trisha

One Year Ago Today

One year ago today, God graciously brought Elijah Henry into the world. There's a whole lot of happy going on around here today as we celebrate ONE.

(No, he's not walking, yet--but he's working on it.

 And I'm fine if he takes his sweet time.)