Some School Years are Like That

By my count I am finishing twenty years of homeschooling. This gives me some sort of perspective point (though I am not sure how meaningful it is). 

At the beginning of the year I bought a pack of sticky stars to mark our schooldays on the calendar. Sticky stars have motivated me ever since I was in first grade so I thought how cheerful a calendar full of stars would look. 

This is how school looks at the beginning of the year, all shiny and perfect, with everything in a row.

And now last week I looked at the sheet of stars being used. It turned out the pack that was so shiny and perfect was NOT. The machine had only cut around 3 points of them and so points tear off when you try to get them off the sheet. I am too cheap to buy a new pack when I have several hundred still unused and too obsessive to put torn stars on my calendar, so using them proved to be something of challenge. Which is so often just how the whole of life goes.

This is how school looks at the end of a year. 

And after twenty years, what I know is, that's OK.

Firsts and Lasts

Tonight while I was doing the dishes a moth was beating against the window, trying to get into the kitchen. I realized it is the first moth I've seen this season and started to wonder when I saw the last one in the fall.

But that is a crazy thing. Almost always, you only know something is the last in hindsight. That last moth of fall did not flash its wings to show me their delicacy in any special way that caught my attention so that I noticed they really are rather pretty despite not being as splashy as butterflies. I did not even look twice and have no memory of the last one I saw. Today I realize that was a loss.

I suppose if you KNOW something is the last it is a sad or bittersweet feeling. But there is one last I think I wish I knew when it would come.... I always think it would be a happy thing to know that a visit to the dentist was the last one I would have to make. Perhaps I would be sad about even that, though. It is a wonderful world God has given us.

Flutterings

In the dark and in the quiet when I am not asleep but wish I were, thoughts flutter and pile up like leaves around an autumn tree. This week I had such a night. A friend, well, someone we barely knew but a brother in Christ, so I shall call him an unknown brother, died.  And the unknown brothers around the world are dying for the sake of Christ and His bride, and my dear friend’s battle with leukemia is long and heavy. So sometimes I wake with heart pounding and muscles tight but nowhere to flee except to Jesus, the lover of my soul. And where else would I want to go, anyhow? Because with Peter, I know that no one else has the words of life.

That night I actually woke up with Blue October’s Calling You playing in my head, and a kind of application to my relationship with Christ running in a parallel track, for those of you who remember 8-Track players. :)

There’s something that I can’t quite explain

I’m so in love with you {He first loved us}

You’ll never take that away

And if I’ve said it a hundred times before

Expect a thousand more

You’ll never take that away {no one will snatch (me) out of (His) hand. ~ John 10}

Well expect me to be

Calling you to see {well of course God is always around but sometimes at night it seems like He  calls to check on me and to help me remember that I love Him}

If you’re OK when I’m not around                        

Asking “if you love me” {remind you of Christ to Peter much?}

I love the way you make it sound

Calling you to see

Do I try too hard to make you smile?

To make us smile {my favorite benediction, God smiles on His children: The LORD bless you   and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you: the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace ~ Numbers 6}                                                                                          

                                                                    

I will keep calling you to see {The Spirit is with us at all times and intercedes before God’s throne}

If you’re sleeping, are you dreaming                          

If you’re dreaming, are you dreaming of me

I can’t believe you actually picked me {‘nuff said!}

I thought that the world had lost its sway

It’s so hard sometimes {The world without hope in Christ is empty and without value}

Then I fell in love with you

Then came you

And you took that away {!}

It’s not so difficult

The world is not so difficult

You take away the old

Show me the new { put off your old self... and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness ~ Eph 4}

And I feel like I can fly when I stand next to you

So while I’m on this phone

A hundred miles from home

I’ll take the words you gave and send them back to you. {praying Scripture}

~

And after phrases from this song fluttering through my head on one side of the leaves falling and on the other my thoughts of God, and remembrances of His toward me, I found myself instead thinking through the hymn, Jesus Lover of My Soul:

Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to Thy bosom fly,

While the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high.

Hide me, O my Savior, hide, till the storm of life is past;

Safe into the haven guide; O receive my soul at last.

Other refuge have I none, hangs my helpless soul on Thee;

Leave, ah! leave me not alone, still support and comfort me.

All my trust on Thee is stayed, all my help from Thee I bring;

Cover my defenseless head with the shadow of Thy wing.

Wilt Thou not regard my call? Wilt Thou not accept my prayer?

Lo! I sink, I faint, I fall—Lo! on Thee I cast my care;

Reach me out Thy gracious hand! While I of Thy strength receive,

Hoping against hope I stand, dying, and behold, I live.

Thou, O Christ, art all I want, more than all in Thee I find;

Raise the fallen, cheer the faint, heal the sick, and lead the blind.

Just and holy is Thy Name, I am all unrighteousness;

False and full of sin I am; Thou art full of truth and grace.

Plenteous grace with Thee is found, grace to cover all my sin;

Let the healing streams abound; make and keep me pure within.

Thou of life the fountain art, freely let me take of Thee;

Spring Thou up within my heart; rise to all eternity.

~

When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul. ~ Psalm 94. Even during dark and quiet nights.

End of February Quotes

Well, this has been a chilly February and I am glad to see March coming in. I am going to make a simple farewell to February with some quotes about the month itself. :)

"Why, what's the matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?" ~Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing

FAREWELL to February faces!

~ ~ ~ 

For some ridiculous reason, to which, however, I've no desire to be disloyal,

Some person in authority, I don't know who, very likely the Astronomer Royal,

Has decided that, although for such a beastly month as February, twenty-eight days as a rule are plenty,

One year in every four his days shall be reck0ned as nine and twenty. ~ Gilbert, The Pirates of Penzance

FAREWELL to the beastly month! 

~ ~ ~ 

Every mile is two in winter. ~ George Herbert

FAREWELL to double miles!

~~~

February, when the days of winter seem endless and no amount of wistful recollecting can bring back any air of summer. ~ Shirley Jackson

FAREWELL to endless (cold) and here's looking to the "air of summer."

Thanks to Pete Townshend

One of my very favorite hymns that isn't a hymn is The Who's "Bargain." I think this song expresses much of what it is like to follow Christ, because being in love with Him is such a part of that... the words of the song remind me of many bits of Scripture and so I often find myself humming it... 

I'd gladly lose me to find you 

(Jeremiah 29:13 - you will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart)       

I'd gladly give up all I had

To find you I'd suffer anything and be glad

I'd pay any price just to get you

(Matthew 13:45-46 - the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value went and sold all that he had and bought it.

I'd work all my life and I will

To win you I'd stand naked, stoned and stabbed

(Hebrews 11:37-38 - they were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword -- of whom the world was not worthy) 

I'd call that a bargain

The best I ever had

The best I ever had

I'd gladly lose me to find you

I'd gladly give up all I got

(Luke 5:11 - they left everything and followed Him)

To catch you I'm gonna run and never stop

I'd pay any price just to win you

Surrender my good life for bad

(Romans 8:5 - those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit)

To find you I'm gonna drown an unsung man

I'd call that a bargain

(Song of Solomon 8:7 - if a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised)

The best I ever had

The best I ever had

I sit looking 'round

I look at my face in the mirror

I know I'm worth nothing without you

(I Corinthians 13:12 - now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known) 

And like one and one don't make two

One and one make one

(John 17:23 - I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one)

And I'm looking for that free ride to me

(Romans 6:22 - now that you have been set free from sin)

I'm looking for you

I'd gladly lose me to find you

I'd gladly give up all I got

To catch you I'm gonna run and never stop

I'd pay any price just to win you

Surrender my good life for bad

To find you I'm gonna drown an unsung man

I'd call that a bargain

The best I ever had

(II Corinthians 4:17 - this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond ALL comparison)

The best I ever had

___

apologies for wonky formatting

My Front Porch

I have decided Facebook is the social equivalent to my parents' front porch when I was little. My reasons:

• both are used at your convenience to pass leisure time pleasantly
• a front porch is public to your neighbors, FB is public to friends.
• when you are on the front porch, you can go back in when you get uncomfortable. On FB you can choose exactly how you present yourself, who sees the information, and even block people from whom you want privacy.
• in both settings you get a general idea of what is going on with acquaintances but it is in rather a hit-or-miss fashion and requires no planning or special effort on your part.
• you can wave or smile from your porch, or hit the like button on FB
• you can talk if it suits you by waving someone up to your porch or patting the swing, or by leaving comments.
• gossip is easy in either setting.
• it is important to remember that although FB asks us to call many people we would just smile to if on our porch "friend" they are more of casual acquaintances.

most porches are friendly and relatively quiet places; but every neighborhood has someone who has ball games going too loud on his radio for children across the street to sleep, and occasionally loud fights start on the porch. At least there they tend to move inside, while on FB they tend to go on and on in comments. I prefer to save strong opinions for my blog, which to me, is more like my living room. When you enter my living room, I think you expect to be on my turf. Don't be surprised if I am opinionated here. :)      
                                            

March for Life 2015

This week we went to DC for the March for Life. It is my first time going and I'm glad to have been there.

There was a huge crowd, maybe half a million. How amazing would it be if the crowd matched the number of babies aborted in America since the decision, currently around 57 million? Inconceivable.

I remember when the Supreme Court passed down the decision. I never thought it could stand, not in America. Boy, was I wrong. I would never have believed this march would still be going on so many years later. I think most people would never have believed abortion would be so common.

But my main reaction was to the women carrying the "I Regret My Abortion" posters. Four of our children came to us by adoption. I saw those signs and was just so glad that my children's birth moms were not carrying one, at least not for my child. And I thought of all the families that did not get to know and love someone as wonderful as my children, whether as their birth family, foster, or adoptive family. So incredibly much loss, and we have done it to ourselves.