Freely you have received...

             The last of the stir fry has been scraped from the plates, and we’ve closed our Bibles, sung a prayer, spoke a prayer.  Now Leah passes out her gifts. 

            “Willem…”  Her brother grabs the wrinkled gift bag with a grin.

            “Dad…”  She hands him a small, oblong package wrapped in Scotch tape more than anything else.  I glance at my husband, knowing that he’s having a hard time not thinking about the lawn mower that needs fixing.  I study the rice that sprinkles the floor.  Try not to think about the dishes stacked up.

“Marie…”  (A giggle).

“Nathan…and Mom.”  My package looks suspiciously similar to my husbands’.

“Aw…even one for me!  Thank you, Marie!”  Leah plops into her chair, smiling, holding a gift that she herself wrapped, maybe even made herself?

We open our gifts.

 “I took two of my best pencils out of my box from school for you guys, Mom.  See your name on the heart in the middle, Dad?”

“Very nice, Leah, thank you.”  B.J. smiles at her.

“You can use it at school!”

“You’re right, I can.”

For Willem, a paper airplane.  For Nathan, a tiny stuffed dog won at Family Fun Night last spring.  For Marie, a little doll given Leah by a cousin.  “I don’t play with much anyway, Mom,” she says, nodding her head in my direction.  Then Leah’s gift, which she opens bit by bit, commenting on the wrapping, speculating as to what might be inside.  She pulls out a turtle that I saw her help Marie with earlier in the day – the kind made from plastic beads fused together with the iron, my iron, just before setting the table.  “This is beautiful, Marie!  I just can believe that you came up with how to do this pattern on the shell.  Can you believe it, Mom?  She’s only three years old!  Thank you Marie!”  She squeezes her little sister’s forearm, but Marie is too busy wiggling the limbs of her new dolly to pay attention.

This, a regular occurrence at our house.

..............................................................................................................................................

Leah is probably the most generous person I know.  She is constantly crafting gifts or going through her little stash of knick-knacks to give away to friends at church or school.  We don’t go anywhere for supper without bringing gifts with us – weeds from the ditch in a vase, beaded earrings, braided bracelets, hot-pads off her loom, and many things paper – drawings, airplanes, picture frames (“it’ll stand if you bend that back piece out just right….”) We give our children $4 to spend each month (in addition to $4 to give and $4 to save).  In August, Leah gave $3 of her 4 spending dollars to the babysitter we had over during the very first week of the month.  “I can’t think of one thing I’m going to need to buy this whole month long, Mom,” she said.  “I’d rather give it to Beth.”  When we got home late that night, Beth handed me Leah’s three dollars: “I’m not going to take her money!” she insisted.  But I urged her, “Please, keep it.  I want to encourage Leah's generosity."

I am taking lessons from her, you see, and I’ve got a long way to go.

..............................................................................................................................................

How about you?

It’s one of those things we readily assume about ourselves, isn’t it?  That we’re generous.  The same way we assume that we are likeable, or that our method of meal planning is the most effective.  But what are we doing with all the money that God’s entrusted to us to manage?  What we do with His money, after all, shows – and determines – where our heart is (Matthew 6:21).

In the Old Testament, God required that all Israelites – yes, all – tithe.  That is, the first ten percent of their gross income went directly to God (Lev. 27:30).  Any freewill offerings were given above and beyond that.  Some debate whether or not New Testament saints are required to tithe.  Consider this: on average, professing Christians in the United States today give away 2.5 percent of their income.*  2.5 percent!  Scripture teaches that the ministry of the Spirit is more glorious than that of the law (2 Cor. 3).  Materially, we are blessed beyond measure.  And yet, we give away less than one fourth of what the Old Testament saints were required to give.  We are guilty of robbing God (Malachi 3:8-10).  Perhaps the tithe can be used as a tutor to teach us to give, just as the law is a tutor to bring us to Christ.* 

                What if you heard of man who had great wealth, and strategically invested his money to provide for himself and his family for many years to come?  Sounds like someone who’s attained the American dream of financial independence, doesn’t it?  What if you heard of an individual who gave the last of his money to the offering at his local Church?  You or I might want to pull that person aside and give him a little talk on principles of wise financial “stewardship,” wouldn’t we?  Jesus called the first man a fool (Luke 12:16-21).  The second He held up as an example (Luke 21:1-4).

                Our first mistake when we hear the parable of the rich fool is to assume that we are not rich.*  I know, I’ve been there.   My husband and I married while in college, and now, 8 brief years later, we live on a Christian school teacher’s salary with 4 children under the age of 6, the first of whom now attends a Christian school.  The home we rent used to be a country schoolhouse, and when it rains hard we have to set buckets out in the dining room.  We drive vehicles that have seen decades of wear and tear, and scrape together what extra we can to pay off student loans each month.  I know what it’s like to look around and decide that compared to everyone else, we’re poor.   But when we file our taxes each year, a lump forms in my throat when I look at the figure in the “Gross Income” column.  We are going to answer for what we did with all of those dollars?  Where did it all go? 

                Our second mistake when we hear the parable of the rich fool is to assume that we’re not fools.*  For us, we lived for years assuming that all we had to do was pay the monthly budget amount at our church, for then we’d tithed on my husband’s take-home pay.  More recently we sat down to take inventory of our giving on all of our income – income from my husband’s summer job, his Saturday job, money that friends gave us when our daughter was in the hospital a few weeks ago…  When we added all that up and took off the top ten percent, we had hundreds of dollars that belonged to God to give away.  And you know, for the first time in my memory, when we gave all that away, I knew it: we are rich.

                I do not tell you this to earn your praise for our generosity.  I know what the Lord teaches in Matt 6:1-4.  And I'm embarrassed at our lack of generosity in the past.  Rather, my intention is to spur you on to love and good works (Hebrews 10:24).  Why is that we are ready to discuss how much we “saved” at the mall last Saturday but so unwilling to talk about what we are doing to meet the needs of the Church and the poor?  If we are worried about what others might think of our lack of generosity, shouldn’t we fear God, who knows exactly how we handle our finances, and whose standards are much higher?*

                What if God doesn’t increase our income so that we can increase our standard of living?  What if He increases our income so that we can increase our standard of giving?*

Freely you have received, freely give.

(Matthew 10:8)

*More ideas/quotations from Alcorn's  Money, Possessions, and Eternity.

The last from Alcorn

What do you say about a book that has changed your life?  I could quote two-thirds of Money, Possessions, and Eternity here.  One critique I have of the book is that Randy does repeat himself quite a bit.  Therefore, some of these quotations may be repeats on my blog as well.  Regardless, it is a read well worth your time.




I continually find it necessary to guard against that natural love of wealth and grandeur which prompts us always, when we come o apply our general doctrine to our own case, to claim an exception.  William Wilberforce




To turn the tide of materialism in the Christian community, we desperately need bold models of kingdom-centered living.  We should glorify God, not people.  But we must see and hear other giving stories or our people will not learn to give.




I have held many things in my hands and I have lost them all.  But whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.  Martin Luther




I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give.  I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.  In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are giving away too little.  If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small.  There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.  C.S. Lewis




How different our standard is from Christ's.  We ask how much a man gives.  Christ asks how much he keeps. Andrew Murray




You have taken possession of the resources that belong to Christ and you consume them aimlessly.  Don't you realize that you are going to be held accountable?  John Chrysostom




We must stop saying that Scripture is unclear on this subject.  Yes, it leaves room for differences in lifestyle.  But it leaves no room whatsoever for materialism, greed, envy, pride, selfishness, hoarding, irresponsible spending, unjustifiable debt, or indifference to the needs of the poor or the lost.  When we try to justify an of these sins on the basis of "legitimate lifestyle differences," we fool ourselves and each other, but not God.

Consider...

the lilies of the field...

...oh, ye of little faith...

Recommended Read

I've already referred you to two articles by Rachel Jankovic this summer (1, 2).

Now I recommend her delightful little book for moms: Loving the Little Years.

I chuckled and sniffled and sometimes laughed my way through it so hard that my kids came running from whatever they were doing to see what was the matter with me.

It delivers exactly what it promises: Godly insights and encouragement for moms of young children, and in chapters that are short enough to read while you're on the toilet.

(Thank you, Erin, for lending it to me!)

deep down things

So the day that Leah was dismissed from the hospital we spent the better part of the morning talking with a respiratory therapist about how to keep dust and mold under control.


And when I get home I finish Alcorn's book, watch a video about a family that lives contentedly in a 320-square foot home, and see the photos of Liliana, and I start feeling like I can't breathe, surrounded by all these things that collect dust and grow mold.


So I go through the house and have the kids go through their toys (It's not that I'm anti-toy, I'm just pro-child) and we load the van up to the roof and make a special trip to Justice for All.


I clear out my blender (I have a Vita-Mix), the larger of my two electric frying pans, the Quik-stir pitcher, the spare bath towels that we've hardly used in 8 years (you can, in fact, have too many towels), and the whole tub of home decor items that aren't decorating anything.   


When we come home we warm leftovers for lunch and pray that the towels and the blender and the plastic food will end up with people who really need them.  And then nap time, and we read about little Christian and Hopeful fleeing Demas and the silver mine.


And as I sort through stuff, I sort through my own sins and the way I've been distracted and my priorities that are all out of whack.  I call my little sister who's marrying and moving soon by the wrong name and I start to cry.  Why?  And where am I going?


All this, and I'm still out mornings, these dewy, crisp mornings, shooting the sky and thanking Him, that for all this, I'm not spent, for:


There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breath and with ah! bright wings.
~ Hopkins

Thank Him, my Companion on this pilgrim road.

Thank Him for these clouds, dust kicked up by His feet (Nahum 1:3).

Three

Marie turned three last Saturday.  We are celebrating today.

Happy birthday, Baby Girls.

I remember the night you were born,

getting pulled over by a high-school-classmate-turned-police-officer on the way to the hospital,

your long, stubborn arrival,

your red curls.

I remember getting sick once home from the hospital

laying in bed with you,
me, all feverish,

you, all sweet-smelling and new.

What a pretty baby.

I remember the way you used to sit at the bookshelf, turning page after page,
then scoot away on your bum.
The way you carry kitties tight around the neck,

choose "When Jesus Was Born" every Sunday evening...

How quickly the other details escape my memory...

A real live doll.

I remember you chatter, your constant chatter...

Shhh, Marie, shhh...  Mama can't think...

Why do I not listen to all you have to say?

Is she a drama queen?

Yes, and that she gets from her mama,
she's named for me, you know.

I know the way you wheeze when you are sick,
the way you whine, and
your line:  Mom, I'm hungry...

Ah, Marie,

He plays in your ten thousand places,

lovely in limbs, lovely in blue eyes, His...

When I consider Thy heavens...

O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth!

who hast set Thy glory above the heavens.

 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength
because of Thine enemies, that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

 When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers,

the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained;

 What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? 

I'm at the computer, watching a yellow moon climb the sky and waiting for Marie's belated birthday cake to finish baking.

I wrote the following last Friday:

         I've learned something this summer, chasing the sky: when there are clouds, clouds purple and red, clouds aflame with the rays of the sun, I run for my camera.  Clouds, they highlight the majesty of sun.

            Is this not true in life also?

            Throughout the Bible, clouds typify God’s justice in punishing sinful men.  Prophets Joel (2:1-2) and Isaiah (19:1-2) are among those who use this metaphor: “The day of the Lord is coming…a day of clouds,” and, “Behold, the LORD rides on a swift cloud, and will come into Egypt…and the heart of Egypt shall melt.”  In contrast, the life-giving light of the sun typifies God’s favor, His love.  Psalm 36:9-10: “For with Thee is the fountain of life; in Thy light shall we see light.  Oh, continue Thy loving-kindness unto them that know Thee.” 

Some speak of God and His love without any mention of His judgment.  God loves you, God has a wonderful plan for your life.  No mention of His hatred of sin, His righteousness in punishing the unrepentant.

But love does not – cannot – exist in the absence of judgment. 

Imagine you are walking down the street and a stranger approaches you and professes his love for you.  While you might be flattered by such a declaration, in reality it would mean very little.  Love does not exist in the absence of judgment, in the absence of knowledge, in the absence of evaluation.  Love is the husband who confronts the sharp tongue for the countless time.  Is the child who wraps his arms around the mom who lost her temper and made no time to read a book and says, “I love you, Mama.”  Is God, Who knows our inmost thoughts, judges how utterly wicked and helpless we are, and paid our sentence of eternal hell.  “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (I John 4:10).    He, who appeared on the mercy seat in a cloud and blotted out our sin with a cloud” (Lev. 16:2, Is. 44:22).

            To those who do not believe in Jesus Christ, the sun is covered by clouds and darkness (Exodus 14:20).  But to those who believe, Christ has parted the clouds, and God’s love shines through.  Some days, when there is not a cloud in the sky, we barely take note as the sun slips over the horizon bathed in a rosy glow.  But when we experience clouds of God’s judgment on sin – clouds of discord, death, disease – then His love shines, heart-throbbingly, throat-achingly, breath-takingly beautiful, shines through.

            The sun is rising, and there are clouds in the sky.  I’m off to get my camera.

   

We spent Friday evening with friends, eating McDonalds and wandering around Falls Park.

Here we are (thanks, Jill!):

I shot this thunderhead from the top of the lookout tower.

So much for the cirrus clouds in my sunrise.

12:30 found me pulled over on the side of the road so Leah could hack mucous out of her lungs on our way to the ER.  She was admitted to the hospital at 3:00 AM, and airlifted to Sanford mid-morning.  B.J. and I took turns staying with her, and many loved ones visited Leah and gave us a hand with our other children.

Saturday night: first a cupcake, then sleep (only when you're sick, right? :)

Thank you Uncle Al and Auntie Amy!

This visit made Leah smile!

Going home.

We are home.


Leah is still recovering, still sometimes struggling to breathe.  And yet, out of her mouth, strength: "We never know how God plans it 'til it happens, do we, Mom?"


And we are learning...learning things about asthma, about patience, about priorities, about God.


His love shining in this thunderhead...heart-throbbingly, throat-achingly, breath-takingly beautiful.

Quotable - lovely in eyes not his

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—

Christ—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men’s faces. ~  Gerard Manly Hopkins

Quotable

Still working my way through Alcorn's book, bit by beneficial bit...


We can't say Saving money is biblical or Saving money is unbiblical.  It may be either, depending on the reasons and the alternatives.


When we read about the rich fool, our first mistake is in thinking we're not really rich.  Our second mistake is assuming we're not fools.  He was living the American dream, storing up wealth to rely on in the future while enjoying his favorite recreational pursuits in the present.


Savings is a means of not presuming upon God.  Hoarding is a mean of replacing God.  Saving can avoid presuming upon others to assume responsibility for our future needs.  Hoarding is a self-absorbed commitment to independence from others who could help us if we're in need, just as we can and should help others [II Corinthians 8:14].


The more hostile the climate, the larger the anthill...ants only store for the coming winter, not for a decade of winters. When I save, I lay something aside for future need.  If I sense God's leading, I will give it away to meet greater need.  When I hoard, I'm unwilling to part with what I've saved to meet others' needs, because my possible future needs outweigh their actual present needs.  Hence, I fail to love my neighbor as myself.


The birds provide for their immediate future through labor - building nests and obtaining food for their young.  But they don't maintain one nest in the mountains and another at the beach.  Neither do they fill their cellars with freeze-dried worms.  Birds do the work that God created them to do; they sing when they work, they don't hoard, and they instinctively trust their Creator to take care of them.  Should we who know God's grace do any less?

The 1-year portrait

Before Leah was born, I photographed kids for 1 year straight.
Since that time, I've not been too picky about getting perfect picture.


Little Man loves two things best:
1) Daddy
2) Daddy's motorcycle
(Mama is number 3, when he's tired or hungry.)

So I thought this would be easy, but this is a little much even for me:

Compromise:

6:55 a.m. - out the kitchen window

"...are ye not much better than they?"

Matthew 6:26

crop duster days

August brings swarms of crop dusters.

When their drone becomes a roar, we rush outside to watch the show.

This pilot not only tipped his wings at us each time he flew over...

...he also came right at us, waving there in the grass,

for a flyby on his way out.

Encore

Mornin' sky this time...

I'm in the strawberries while B.J. showers and the rest of the house still sleeps.


Bien is keeping me company, nibbling at the weeds by the burn barrel and the leaves of the mulberry tree above my head.  She really just wants B.J. to come give her some grain and get her milked.


Come 'ere, Bien.  Smile pretty...

Nearer to God in the garden...

        “Hard dirt.”  My dad climbs down from the cab of his tractor and shakes his head as he glances over our garden.

                “Hard dirt.”  My husband nods next to him.  “Hopefully this deep chisel will help break things up a bit.”

                “Makes me think there must’ve been a cattle yard here once,” Dad continues.  “To get the dirt packed down so hard, you know.”

                “Hog yard, according to our landlord,” B.J. responds.

                It’s one of those things that I always assumed I would be good at, growing a garden.  My dad is, and his father was before him. But my thumbs are not green.  When we finally get around to planting, it is nearly June.  The soil is a dull grayish brown.  It does not crumble beneath the fingers.  And the seeds, they sprout sporadically.  Only a few meager corn plants grow, and I wonder aloud if perhaps the chickens pecked them free of the hard dirt before they had an opportunity to root.  As I say this, I think of the parable of the sower and the wicked one, catching away the Word sown in the heart (Matthew 13).

                Now it is August, and I shake my head as I pass the garden on my way to burn the trash.  The weeds grow wild.  I stand by the barrel near the strawberry patch that I vowed to maintain better so that it would produce more next year and fumble with match after match, trying to get a fire to go.  Garbage beetles scurry up my arm, and the hot and humid beat down and press close.  Little things, but I can feel the heat rising within.  Small stony places, yet I am offended.

                My forehead is furrowed and my mouth tight when I head back to the house.  My son sits shocking sweet corn on the front steps – not from our garden, from another’s.  “What’s the matter, Mama?” he asks as I stomp inside.  My husband, too, queries, his face concerned.  And I spew about too many things to do and too many people to care for and my lack of time.  And my care for things temporal and the discontent in my heart, they choke the patient, loving sprout of the Word right out.

When I go out to call him for supper, my husband is in the garden with a hoe.

                Dusk, and I am standing by the garden.  With the weeds cleared, I can make out more fruit.  The zucchinis and the green beans hide in the cool shade of the leaves.  The pumpkins creep up the fence and sneak into the lawn to hide their orange blossoms. 

                I remember sitting in Bible class when I was young, and thinking that all of the Lord’s parables had a singular interpretation.  I remember relief upon determining that I was represented by sower’s good soil.  Relief upon determining that I was neither the prodigal nor his elder brother (Luke 15).  Now, though, I understand that it is not a question of “either/or” but “both/and.”   I am four soils mixed through.  I am sometimes the prodigal, and sometimes his brother.  And when I wallow in pride and self-pity, the dirt gets packed down hard.

                Is gardening more about green thumbs or more about time?  Is that the point of my life?  I need time to produce fruit.  It is time, after all, in which He makes everything beautiful (Ecclesiastes 3:11).  Time in He which He comes at me with a deep chisel and a hoe, to work the soil and pull the weeds.  Time to make me like a watered garden (Jeremiah 31:12).

                I stand there as the cicadas stop their screeching about summer’s end and a chorus of crickets hems me in.  I stand and watch the last few fireflies twinkle like sequins on the hazy gown of the neighboring fields.

                I stand there, Him planting seeds in the hard dirt of my life. 

Hey Maddie

Lee and Dawn's little lady.

9:03 a.m. - No place like the front steps...

Remember Shadow's friend Kitty?


She's a mama now, to four.  Just like me.
They spent the first month of their life in Shadow's kennel, of course.


They've since relocated.

Watch your step.