X-mas

This is the time of year when people get up in arms about the removal of Christ from Christmas, suggest boycotts, get angry when employees of stores say "Happy Holidays!" (Most of them are just doing what their boss told them to do, they don't have a hidden agenda.) I have mixed feelings about the issue. Yes, it bothers me that in the name of inclusion, everything but a specifically Christian celebration is venerated in public. But then again, why are we surprised when, as the Scripture promises, the world hates us? America is not a Christian nation. The world is not a Christian world. Anything that is not Christian, that does not belong to Christ, belongs to Satan. I think that should inform our response. The AFA recently called for a boycott of GAP because of their commercial that has people chanting "Go Christmas, Go Hannukah, Go Kwanzaa..." and ends with something like "Merry dowhateveryouwannakah". They are a retailer. Their goal is to make money, and to be honest, I prefer mentioning everybody to the stupid "Happy Holidays!" or "Season's Greetings!" I don't plan on boycotting GAP for recognizing that not everybody is a Christian or celebrates Christmas. A better response, and one that would make more of a difference, would be to make sure, that wherever we shop this year, and all throughout the year, that we are kind and patient with the sales clerks. Don't huff about long lines or slow service. Smile big and wish them a Merry Christmas, after thanking them. The employees aren't going to notice/care/be affected by the absence of one more faceless consumer. What they will notice is someone treating them with respect and kindness. Self-righteous retreating from the world because not everything is to our liking is about the worst response. I bet Satan loves it when the AFA or groups like that succeed in getting Christians to run and hide instead of engaging in the world, like we are commanded to.

Books: free to a good home

If you would like any of these books, please let us know by this Friday. Otherwise they are going to a garage sale.

Words of Wisdom: A Journey Through Psalms and Proverbs (Tyndale Press)

Man of Destiny (A retelling of the Gospels) No author

Moses and Monotheism by Sigmund Freud

The Dead Sea Scriptures: An English Translation by Theodore Gasner

From Paradise to the Promised Land by T.D. Alexander

An Introduction to the Parables of Jesus by Robert Stein

Interpreting the Parables by Craig Blomberg

Poet and Peasant/Through Peasant Eyes by Kenneth Bailey

Teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews by Geerhardus Vos

Encountering the Old Testament by Bill Arnold and Bryan Beyer

Westminster Confession of Faith, commentary by GI Williamson

An Introduction the New Testament (2 copies available)by Carson, Moo and Morris

A Biblical History of Israel by Provan, Long, and Longman

Ten Secrets for the Man in the Mirror by Patrick Morley

Scripture Twisting by James Sire

Caring Enough to Confront by David Augsburger

Debating Calvinism by Hunt and White

What Love is This? by David Hunt

The Soul of Science by Pearcey and Thaxton

When Science Meets Religion by Ian Barbour

The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard

The Soul of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by Gene Veith.

fashion-able?

I just got done flipping through the one fashion magazine I subscribe to. Every so often I have a crisis about my clothes, perpetuated by continuing to do things like flipping through fashion magazines. My personal style is a little younger than I actually am, and I prefer the "casual" end of the business casual dress code at work. But then I think I should be dressing more my age, whatever that means, and of course I want to look cute. But some things have changed. I feel entitled to keep my flabby post baby tummy as long as I want, skinny jeans be darned. There will never be a pair of pointy toe boots that don't make me look like a circus clown and/or cut off the circulation to my toes because my ginormous feet grew even bigger during pregnancy. One trend I will shun for sure: wearing 2 cardigans at once. Besides the fact that I live in Florida, where one is enough, it just looks like the sweater equivalent of putting on one of each of two different pairs of shoes to decide which to wear but forgetting to put the match on of whichever you ended up with.

Out of the mouths of babes...

This week (and last week, too) I've been overwhelmed, as does happen... with balancing work and motherhood, with concern for the trials of friends and loved ones, with lack of sleep, the ever-growing pile of "to be graded"... This morning I arrived at my tutoring job and before we got started, one of the girls told me she had finished her Bible memory work. I asked her to recite it for me, and this was the passage:

Isaiah 40:28-31
28 "Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.

30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

31 but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint."

Amen and amen.

Motherhood: the great re-prioritizer.

About this time last year William and I were discussing when we were going to start trying to have kids. I was the hold-out, but after a lot of prayer and thought we talked and the conclusion was we would wait a year. Little did I know I was already pregnant. I was chalking up the exhaustion and the crazy to the fact that I was teaching 100 adolescents a week. Fast forward a year. I have a beautiful 3 month old son, and I’m teaching only about 70 adolescents a week. This year has been a huge learning process. Learning to trust God more deeply, learning to ask for help, learning to be a mother, and learning to be a mother who works outside the home part time.

Now that I have Edward, I am learning to let go of a lot of stressors I had before. I have always worked in jobs where my priority was other people’s kids, as a babysitter, teacher, youth group worker. Even though I’m still teaching, other people’s kids are not my priority. My child and my family is my priority. And I see now that it should have been that way before God gave us a baby. When I’m teaching, I give the best I can, which with the lack of sleep, isn’t always that great. When I’m at home, I give the best I can to my family, which with being exhausted from teaching on little to no sleep, isn’t always that great. But I’m not still giving my best to my job and putting my family second when I’m at home. My best is for my husband and son, not the stack of papers sitting next to me at the table. And that’s another blessing. My idea of a successful, accomplished day is very different from what it was last year. At the end of the day, the most important question is not “Am I all caught up on grading?” but “Did I serve my family?” If the answer to the latter isn’t “yes”, then it doesn’t matter how caught up I am at work, if the laundry is all done, or if the kitchen is clean. In this new responsibility I have a freedom I never knew before, which is to just let go.

CS Lewis

A couple weeks ago I had the privilege of attending a conference on CS Lewis, and the main speaker was his stepson, Douglas Gresham (the guy in my profile photo... one day Edward will appreciate having met him!) I haven't had time to post all the things I want to about what I heard and learned there. I don't know when I will... so I just wanted to throw some snippets out there that really stuck with me.

The first is from one of the other speakers, Jill Briscoe, a delightful elderly British lady who was a small girl in WWII. Her description of the gospel, as she heard it for the first time, was "God came down the stairs from heaven, put a baby on a bale of hay, and set the world on fire." This might be one of the most beautiful and powerful descriptions of the gospel I've ever heard. It will stick with me for the rest of my life. The incarnation changed everything. Another was her description of spiritual warfare and the reminder that Satan hates us, our families, our friends. Hates. Her encouragement was for us to use the spiritual weapons given to us to make Satan and his demons sorry they ever started this whole business. Both those things she said were such amazing reminders that we are at war. The Christian life is one of future peace, but of temporary violence. It's easy to get lulled into just wanting to be safe all the time and that is just what Satan wants.

In speaking of the nature of grief, Mr. Gresham put it beautifully that the grief we feel over earthly loss is a testament to how much we loved that person and what that person meant, and it's nothing to be ashamed of, and very often, it's all we have left of the person who has died. Another good reminder that "happy" isn't the only option for a Christian.

On a non-deep level, Mr. Gresham told us that his mother and stepfather had 2 Scrabble editions, and the way they played was that they combined the letters and boards and could use any word in any known language, real or fictional, as long as they could prove it existed. How awesome is that?

models of inefficiency

Last October, when we found out I was pregnant, we had been searching for months for an affordable private health care plan that covered maternity. (They don't exist). Our last resort was that we were going to join Medi-Share. For me to join they required x-rays and a sign-off from a doctor that my scoliosis does not require any kind of ongoing treatment. We were just getting ready to see if my old orthopedist office had the records after all these years or get new x-rays when we found out I was pregnant, which means Medi-Share wouldn't cover me, and neither would any other insurance company. We tried all the government programs but we made too much money. (Those of you who also work at ICS will know how laughable that statement is.) So we paid for my pregnancy and birth out of pocket, with lots of prayer, love, and financial support from our community of friends and family. Before Edward was born, William, who is on Medi-Share, got all the info on how to add our son to his coverage. We couldn't add him til he was 21 days old and they don't cover retroactively, which was fine. William got the paperwork going and in as soon as they'd let us. He called to make sure they received it before we had Edward's 2 month checkup and that's when they told him they don't cover well-checks or immunizations. Apparently no-one thought this was pertinent information to divulge until after they had our money. While this was all going on, we had tried again for Medicaid since I'm now working part time and we're much closer to the poverty level than before. We were denied. The reason? We own our cars, payment free. We qualify only for medically needy, wherein we would have to pay our entire month's combined salary EACH MONTH before we get any help. We've applied for Kidcare, which is our last shot at getting our baby any kind of health coverage. We should find out soon if we get it or not. Our doctor told us we could go to the health department to get Edward's immunizations for free instead of paying out of pocket, so we tried that. The health department opens at 7:30. Last Friday we went at about 8:00 and they had filled their quota for the day and wouldn't give any more. There's a mad rush right now, the lady explained, because of back-to-school. So we got up at 6 on my day off to get there extra early this morning. We stood in line for an hour, slowly moving into the building. The workers were handing out the papers you have to fill out to get your shots, and right as it was our turn, the lady in charge announced that they were done for the day and we all had to leave. No matter that we were here on Friday, and they even recognized us, no matter that we'd been waiting for an hour, no matter that we needed a different shot than everybody else there. They give a certain number a day and that's it. This is government health care. This is not the solution to the problems we've been having. I was, to put it mildly, less than gracious upon being told I couldn't get my baby vaccinated today. Again. If this is the future of health care, then God help us. It didn't help my mood to see other families that had been waiting pack up in a brand new Escalade and a Lexus. Really? You drive an Escalade but you can't afford health care? Bull-something I won't say because my mom is reading.
If I wasn't working or if William and I weren't married or if we had debt on our cars we would have no medical bills. That is not an exaggeration; it's how government health care works. If I was getting my groceries and health care paid for by the government, why would I want to make enough money to get to where I am now, just barely making it each month and unable to get shots for my baby? Why? And the answer is not to expand government care so then we can all go stand in lines, hoping the government will be able to hand us what we need today. No one should have to do what I had to do this morning, and will have to do again until we luck out. I don't want that to be how all health care works. The government has created a broken system that perpetuates dependency, laziness and entitlement and now they are trying to fix it by making it an even bigger beast. I hate this but I don't have a solution. I just know that more of something that is crappy is not the right answer.