Alphabet Flashcards

We made these fun flashcards today and thought I'd share. No, I'm NOT a fan of flashcards and neither am I trying to replicate a classroom environment at home. However, the kids had so much fun making these and Bombie is getting to where she's soaking up large amounts of information. I'm thinking it's time to teach her to read. She knows the sounds letters make - thanks to Leapfrog's Phonics DVDs - but she knows only her uppercase letters. So, this is what we did!

We bought some plastic separators from the office store and stuck plastic letters on them. Then I punched holes in the side and tied them with ribbon. I thought about binding them together, but that was not such a great idea because this way, we can focus only on the ones they're having trouble with as well as break them up and make words later. So fun! And, because they made them, they love them!

Pretty soon, they'll be reading! Hey, look at us... we're homeschooling. :)

Big Shoes to Fill

Some of you know that I'm working on a book called Big Shoes to Fill. What you perhaps didn't know is that I had stopped writing for a long time. (By "long time" I mean a few months, huge by my standards, someone who can't not write. I finished the first draft in October and even through that, I had felt a certain need to shrink away from it.) Why I had stopped was not really clear to me. Part of it, of course, was just the time necessary between the first and second draft. Most writers will create the first draft in a rush, as ideas come, not stopping even to check spelling, then leave it "to simmer" so to speak. They will come back to it refreshed a few months later. And sure, some of my reticence to continue working on my book could be traced to the fact that I needed some distance from it to write a new draft and develop it further. But that was not the entire story.

Part of the real reason was the immensity of the task. As a work of Christian non-fiction, not only do I have to be true to my own reality of how I have grown as a result of being a wife and raising my two babies, but also to the fact that none of this is my own doing. God is the one at work and I can only perceive Him in my limited way. Sometimes I clearly see His hand at work, sometimes I have no clue. Sometimes I call to Him for help and I feel completely abandoned, some days seem tailor-made for me. What am I to make of this? How do I fit this into a book? And what if I'm wrong? What if, in a year or two, I realize God had thought of something completely different and, in my inability to understand, I had written something else? Books can't be erased like so many pencil markings; they have a life of their own. Although stamped with a date, they can be timeless. Was I comfortable with the idea of possibly misrepresenting what God was doing in my life? More importantly, could I live with it?

If how to write about such a big subject was my first concern, my second concern was even more metaphysical. Should I write? Everyone has an opinion. Every person on earth has a book inside him, if he just sat down and wrote it. Do I really need to add to the babble? And more importantly, had God indeed called me to write, as I had begun to believe? Was I even meant to write? Wasn't I clearly called to be a mother? To teach my children, to watch and pray? Wasn't that enough? Theologically speaking, what was I here for? To raise my children, right? Was it necessary then to stick my neck out about my beliefs? Because, of course, I could be wrong.

The fear of being wrong can be incredibly debilitating. And if, like me, you have mistakes in your past, regrets you wish you could erase right off, the fear or being wrong can be downright paralyzing. I was paralyzed. Each time I thought about the book, I banished the thought. I moved the first draft document off the desktop and hid it. I prayed about it, handing it to God forever. I convinced myself I didn't know enough theology, I didn't have enough time, (what mother has time to write for goodness' sakes?) enough information, enough piety, enough prayer. I wasn't enough. And I told myself I wasn't going to write until I was enough.

Well, you can guess what happened, can't you? There paraded in front me instance after instance of people who didn't know theology, didn't have information, didn't have time, didn't hold day-long prayer meetings, people who were never, ever "enough" in any sense of the word but were enough for what God had chosen for them. I know I sound incredibly flippant here, but I'm not saying anything Scripture doesn't hasn't already said. Just read 1 Corinthians 1:27: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.

As regards theology, as soon as I delved into that study, the very first thing the Bible impressed upon me (there's lots, lots more - more than I will ever know!) was man's utter and complete depravity followed closely by man being made in the image of God. Yikes. Talk about a sorry, sad state of affairs! On the one hand, we are made with creativity, with the desire and divine command to rule, to make, to subdue the earth and all that is in it and, on the other, nothing, but nothing we do has ever any hope of being pure or untainted by sin. Wow. Is it any wonder that I stopped writing? Is it any wonder that I simply must write?

I will probably be wrong. A few years down the road, I will probably look at my work and cringe because God's footsteps will be so apparent to me later, so obvious I will slap myself and shake my head that I didn't see them. I will be appalled at how little I knew, how rudimentary my faith seemed. I will, very possibly, make huge leaps in theology that will embarrass me in the future. I will want to blot out entire pages in my book. I will appear naive, stupid, even sometimes a little loony. I will seem overly pious, stupidly moralistic, self-consciously holy, annoying, paradoxical and nothing if not a tad hypocritical. But that is what I must do. It has taken me a while to understand that the desire to write, to create beautiful things, to sing, to run, to take joy in God's blessings and shape and build and create and mold is part of being made in His image. To be overly pious, to sit and pray for hours on end, to refuse to enjoy God's gifts is not. And yet, even as I write this, I worry that I may be wrong. I may well be.

I suppose I really do have big shoes to fill. My feet will always be two sizes too small, the shoes always two sizes too big. They will always bite. And yet, fill them I must.

Random Musing

My husband and I have a silly game we play with each other. I don't really remember how it got started except that he started it. It goes something like this: any time I complain about something I don't like about what he's doing, he says, "Yeah, you're husband's a jerk/insert-expletive-I-refuse-to-use. Why did you marry him anyway?" And then I'm forced to say something sappy but very, very true, which is I married him because he was (still is) the most honest man I knew. I married him for his character.

Now, anyone who knew me then must think I'm lying because I am not proud of how I was living at the time. I have repented for much of what I did. However, this one shining moment of recognizing what I wanted in a man I would call my husband stands out for me clearly in my memory and it brings to mind much of what I'm learning about having faith.

Having faith in something or someone is, in its very essence, a spiritual act. It is placing your self in something or someone else. There's a story that circulated on Facebook recently about how a little girl and her father came upon a rickety bridge they were about to cross. The father said to his daughter, "Hold my hand." She said, "No. You hold my hand, daddy. Because if something happens, I might let go of you but I know you will never let go of me." That girl is exercising faith. Faith in someone. 

Daily, it is this kind of faith I seek. Daily, I am reminded of how far short I fall of it. Just yesterday for instance my Bible reading was about the Israelites coming to the Jordan river and Moses sending twelve men of the twelve tribes to go scout out the territory of the land God had promised to give them. They come back with a bad report. They look at the people there and are terrified. Instead of placing their faith in God's character, they place it in their present circumstances. They lose focus.

Last week, my husband talked about complimenting someone at work. Now, don't get me wrong. I have no problem if the "someone" he compliments is a man. But it was a woman. And wheels began to turn in my head. I was about to get seriously upset about it when he said, "Sweetie, why did you marry me?" He wasn't playing the game this time and he wasn't teasing. He was saying, "What do you know about me? What is my character?" I had to laugh. My irritation evaporated. I was at peace.

And then another thought came to me. God often asks me the same thing my husband articulated. He is often asking, "What do you know about Me? What is My character?" Isn't that why I read the Bible? To learn more about His character? I really, really must take time to remember, to reflect; I need to take time to answer Him. Because this is exercising faith. This is turning to Him and saying, "No, You hold my hand, because I know You."

The Most Wonderful Time of Year?

That time of the year has arrived. I cringe a little more each year. It is also constantly thrust in my face in no uncertain terms. It’s always said tongue in cheek but it carries with it deep significance: mothers it seems are doing the happy dance that their children are now away at school and they have some time away from them. Relief floods their voice. Ever since we decided to homeschool, I try to steel myself against this day. And my children are not even close to school age yet. However, it still affects me. This time reminds me of my choices, our choices as a family, that we are not mainstream, that we have made some unpopular decisions and the consequences of those decisions give me less time away from the children, less time to develop myself (whatever that means) and a more insular life focused entirely on my children, my husband and our three bedroom home with its laundry, its cobwebs and its perpetually unkempt bathroom.

I now get why one of the homeschooling groups I know in Sacramento throws a “Not Back to School” party. It’s a reminder that we are not alone, that we do have something to celebrate. As my veteran homeschooler friend Jackie Ehtesham put it, “‎Why shouldn't the people who are subject to someone else's schedule and an assembly line curriculum (both at school and at home), feel as if THEY are the ones missing out?” It’s true and yet I forget. They are the ones missing out – they’re missing out on time with each other, missing out on a Christian education in the home (schools are Humanist if anything); they are the ones missing out on being able to take vacations when they want and learning experientially, creatively, at a pace that works for them, in an educational environment that is focused on their children individually. It doesn’t get better than that. Not for my children and not, as a mother who wants the best for them, for me. “And yet,” Jackie says, intuitively, “even in the face of wildly successful statistics on the social contributions and academic accomplishments of homeschoolers, we can still succumb to the fear put upon us.” Fear that the children aren’t being “socialized” as if we’re going to put them in the basement and keep them on a strict diet of chicken bones and algebra.

This fear however I think takes a back seat to the real fear most women (including me) have hidden in the back of their minds: the fear of a diminutive life, a life where no one notices what you do, a life where you do not matter. Feminism has done immense damage in this area, preying on this fear that is part of a normal person’s life – man or woman. The only antidote to this existential fear is Biblical. I might matter to no one else, but I matter to God. In the absence of God’s authority, however, and certainly in some circles in addition to God’s authority over us, feminism has convinced us that if a woman doesn’t have a job outside the home (or a home-based business) she isn’t really worth anything. Fear-mongering of this kind is even blatant in supposed financial planning shows where women are told to keep a stash of money hidden away from their spouse and be aware, be aware of how much money they have as a family if they choose not to do so and never, ever quit your job because, hey, your husband could cheat on you, leave you or, well, he might just up and die on you. I hope my sarcasm comes through because with all that is living in me, I reject this notion. This is not my truth. This is not my reality and I refuse to accept anything that would shove its way between a union God has created – that between my husband and me. My truth is a man who cares enough for his family to accept a life of unending work, who cannot go to school to further his education and start a new career path because the drop in pay at the entry level position would be a hardship on us. So much for the male chauvinist holding down his woman, pregnant and barefoot.

This existential angst, this reaching for the stars on our own, this fear that I will never amount to anything in and of myself has its roots in the Fall of Man. Throughout Genesis 1 and 2, we see order placed where there was no form, order where there was chaos, words of blessing, natural divisions between light and dark. And then, in Genesis 3 begin the lies, the deception and eventually the Fall.

When Eve spoke to the serpent in the Garden of Eden she was subtly deceived into misquoting God. She was asked, “Did God really say…” Doubt was planted in her mind. She should have exercised authority immediately. After all, man(kind) had dominion over animals in Eden - the serpent had no business questioning God’s commands. But she did not stop him. She refused to exercise her authority over him and in arguing with him, she misquoted God. In one statement, “Eve disparaged the privileges, added to the prohibitions and weakened the penalty.” (The Bible Knowledge Commentary edited by Walvoord and Zuck.) I can’t help but think that this is the way of all sin. Each time I am tempted to sin, this is the trajectory my thoughts take and this exactly the thought process that is behind me so-called role of being a boring, frumpy stay-at-home mom who homeschools her children.

Thank goodness (and God!) for sending me friends who get what I’m saying, friends who I can turn to for support and direction, who have been there, done that, felt that and have chosen the right thing to do. Kari Brautigam is one of them. I have never met her – she lives in Wisconsin and we have only “talked” through our blogs and Facebook pages. I complained to her about moms doing a happy dance this time of year and asked her how she felt about it. These were her words, “To be honest I hear you... your little ones are so little and dependent, I know what that's like! BUT (and here's my big BUT) DON'T LISTEN TO THEM!!!! They won't be dancing when their kids come back to them disrespectful and whiny, hurried and stressed. Don't think that sending them away will be better for you. They won't behave better if they get a break from you either, in fact, the opposite will probably happen. You are wonderful with your children. You have a grip on discipline that will be lost if you send them away. If you need to, set up play dates, trade childcare days with friend, make the time you spend with them fun... It's true, you may have to give up some of the things you enjoy, but it's only for a season!” Or in other words, according to Jackie, who I previously mentioned, “It's really hard to break out of that mold of comparing ourselves to everyone else, instead of looking at our actions from an eternal perspective and using The Bible as our measuring stick (incidentally, the word "Canon" means "measuring stick"). The Apostle Paul talks a lot about "keeping our eyes on the prize" so as to "win." We are never told to keep our eyes on the other runners.”

In a world where nothing beyond today matters and the best life one can have involves having the most fun or the most stuff, it is important to remember quotes such as this from G. K. Chesterton:
"When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness."

So keep your dancing shoes on, those of you who are so thrilled to get rid of their children. But I will not be joining you this year or any other year when school begins. I will be rejoicing quietly in my work as a woman, a wife and a homeschooling mom in my three bedroom home with its laundry, its cobwebs and its perpetually unkempt bathroom.

The Discipline of Thanks

"It's hard...the discipline of thanks comes only with practice. I know. So many days, so hard. I want to give up, too. But give up the joy-wrestle... and I die."

I have just finished reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Blessings and it is hard to see the ways in which it has affected me. Good books do that - they seep in and are remembered later, much later when it really matters. The premise of the book is simple: we say we are grateful, but are we really? If we paint with wide brushstrokes the thankfulness for "everything," are we really noticing the everything we give thanks for? And, more importantly, when what we perceive as bad happens, can we still be thankful, knowing that the circumstance comes from the hands of a loving God?

Ann is no stranger to accepting tragedy. She recounts the death of her sister crushed in front of her parents, a brother-in-law burying two children of his own within eighteen months of each other. And the question remains: When what we see as bad happens, can we still give thanks? Can we take the hard bread that God gives, can we eat the mystery as the Israelites ate manna and let it sustain us?

The book brings to mind another: The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, who hid Jews in Nazi Germany and was sent to concentration camps because of it. She recounts how they sat in a crowded room with other women, in unsanitary, unclean conditions, some sick, all malnourished and gave thanks for fleas because her sister reminded her that we are to give thanks in all circumstances. Corrie later comes back to this instance and remembers that it was because of the fleas that women in that group were able to hear the Gospel because the Nazis left them alone. Because of the fleas, "for creatures [she] could see no use for."

Give thanks in all circumstances.

Easier said than done. And yet, done it must be. In my own little way, I have started. I have begun a gratitude journal, where I try diligently to write things I am grateful to God for. I follow each sigh with thankfulness. Sometimes I see the blessing immediately. Sometimes I don't. But I have begun  because I can see how gratefulness is a discipline. And naming things to be grateful for - that, Voskamp claims, is Edenic. Naming always is.

And for that little beautiful truth, I am especially thankful.

A New Creation

If you're reading this through Facebook, it's because you haven't hidden my updates from your wall. First off, let me just say I appreciate that immensely. Secondly, if my Lose It! updates are beginning to get to you, you can hit the "x" next to my posts and then pick "Hide all from Lose It!"

Okay, with the disclaimers out of the way, I can now begin to tell you how much I am truly enjoying this weight loss/working out journey. The best gift my husband could have come up with, he gave our family last September - gym membership. Believe me when I tell you I was never a gym person. It freaked the heck out of me. We had made one attempt at going to a yoga class years ago and I even used their stationary bicycle once and then that was it. I was done. It was much, much more relaxing to stay home and drink wine and have a nice dinner. Much better than to be in a roomful of healthy, fit people all staring at overweight little me.

I cringe a little when I think of how much time I have wasted being afraid of the world and being ashamed of my body. I cannot pin-point an exact date all that changed but it had much (all?) to do with accepting Christ. Of that I am certain. I felt light and I felt free, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to run. I know. It surprised me, too.

Since last May, (I am dating May because I remember my birthday and how much I weighed - no other reason) I have lost 29 pounds and gained some muscle in the process. I have run my first 5k (3.1 miles), my first 4 miles, done many group classes in cardio-kickboxing, strength training, tried x-bike, learned to zumba and spent innumerable hours weight lifting as well as reading all I could get my hands on about sports nutrition and eating right.

In the grand scheme of things, compared to a real athlete for example, this is small, miniscule, but knowing where I come from and who I used to be, the changes I have made are truly remarkable. While I was never obese, I was overweight with almost no muscle and zero endurance. I couldn't run for more than two minutes. Today, I run two miles (at least) five times a week. I was weak, so weak my arms jiggled when I waved. Now I weight train with my husband three times a week and can bench 70 pounds, deep squat 65 and do tricep extensions with 45. I go to kickboxing and strength training classes twice a week and zumba classes once a week.

I love every minute of it. Every single, sweaty minute.

You may ask why I'm doing this. Is it pride? A desire to be beautiful? Strong? Or just healthy? Am I in a competition? Training for something? The answer to all these would be somewhere in the middle. The answer truly is, as I had shared with a close friend, is that I want to see what this amazing body God gave me is truly capable of. Not only is this an amazing, beautiful body He has given me, it is also God's temple. I am finally beginning to believe that. ("What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" - 1 Corinthians 6:19) So, I suppose you could say that I am doing this as a testimony to God's grace.

Which is why, even though I'm a fan of shows like The Biggest Loser, it bothers me when they speak of "being selfish" and "doing this for yourself" and "loving yourself." No amount of telling yourself you're beautiful when the reality of sin is staring you in the face is going to make you believe it. No amount of trying to forgive yourself will work if you know you have broken God's law. We all know that, don't we? Aren't we all aware of something not being all right with ourselves? Maybe I'm delusional, but I think we do. No, I think I might just be a Calvinist in this one - I think unless the Spirit of God quickens us, we are dead. And I have been, for a long time. But I think I've been made alive and forgiven. I am a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Blah (or the New Baby Blues)

Three days of rain in May and see what happens? My enthusiasm dips, my allergies get my head all stuffed up, I miss my morning runs a few days in a row, I start to feel pudgy and my joie de vivre is nowhere to be seen. Ugh.

Slowly I begin to notice women without children. How they have time to linger in grocery store aisles and actually read the names of ingredients, how they aren't talking in forced enthusiasm and raised voices to get their toddlers to listen to them, how they can drive without screaming at their kids in the back of the car, how they can actually pick up and go - on a whim - anywhere they choose without worrying about nap times and routines.

I whine and complain to my husband. I'm never alone, I say. The children are always with me. Even nap times are so... regulated. My life doesn't change. Every day is just the same as the last. And the last and the last. It's beginning to get to me. What I would do for a day (or a week) to myself!

These are the tough days, I guess. Motherhood wouldn't be such a high calling without it being difficult somewhere down the line. It's not all roses and hearts, no matter how much Hallmark makes us want to believe it. Rather, it's about trying to teach my children the right way to ask me for something when all I want to do is complain at God about how hard my life is. It's about recognizing that everyone is in the same boat in one way or another. It's realizing that I am the best prepared and especially chosen for this job even when I don't do it perfectly. My husband never complains that he is the one who has to go out and work and if there's a financial crisis he is the one we look toward to bring home the grass-fed beef. Then why should I?

And slowly a new mood begins to emerge. That woman who was poring over labels at the grocery store? Who knows if she's just turning the corner now into another aisle, buying a pregnancy test, hoping, praying, thinking, "I'm almost thirty-five. Please, please, please be positive."

No matter how much I complain, I have to realize this truth: there is nothing like motherhood to bring me closer to the heart of God.