I am sure this is something that every mum has to go through at some point or other - these kids God gives us are only temporary and we are to always be thinking of letting them go - which is great in theory to say when they are little but gets harder as they start to fly the nest. And it does seem they don't do it all in one good, which may or may not be easier. Oh no they do it in little jumps and starts, then come back and unload on you. And as a mother it is always to the heart.
I think too it is harder here as I have always home schooled and so they have had few friendship groups that I didn't at least know someone in the group. But also because we have done the Ywam stuff and other traveling we have shared bedrooms and also shared secrets because of that. The kids and I have always been very close.
I don't say I want them to stay forever either, but I would like to just cope with what I am feeling. It seems such a short time ago I was holding hands to cross the road with them, and now Ben has gone to Swindon and back, had a sleep over with people I don't even know, girls included in the sleep over!!, but then comes home all grumpy and over tired!!
I think too there is just that thing of how much can I trust him, how much can I trust God with him, how much will God let him go, how close is he to God, and what does God have planned for his life, and also that I do miss him lots and know I have to work through this process.
Not helped either by hearing about one Christian friend, great in the prophetic world, who has got pregnant and is having to get married, and another lovely one who is struggling with sleeping with her boyfriend on and off and who's greatest fear is getting pregnant, not what God thinks. I know sleeping with someone isn't the greatest sin of all, but sometimes I do wonder where all this fits in and where we do see Jesus in it all.
Though as I write this I know that I have issues I have to deal with, some of which involve not forgiving others and so who is to say. And also I have issues about letting go and fulfilling my role as a mother, and dealing too with Ian behaving like a man!!!!!! :-)
Friday, 20 February 2009
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Doing Greater than Jesus Did?
I have had a few sleepless nights praying into this whole thing of Jesus saying we'd do greater things than he did and again I see why we have focused on the healings and stuff rather than the character traits!
Jesus was so totally amazing in the way He could hear from God, was willing to only do what God told him to do, even though he could've done so much more, but even with all that he stayed humble, knew who he was and allowed others to be who they are too. (Very much like what Ian and I want to do with the Inspiring Heroes site - watch this space as that unfolds).
But I do wonder why we don't believe we can hear God and only do what He says like Jesus did; why we can't be humble and just go about are calling as God wants us to; to spend time with others and find out their gifts and encourage them into them; but also to see when the religious system is flawed and be willing to speak out and change things; be willing to know when we need time alone and when to share with others.
Oh I could go on and on, and of course the main one of forgiving totally and unconditionally
Though in praying into all this I realised why we go for the healings and miracles rather than the character traits, because actually the first is easier than the later, and also I don't think we quite believe how big the Holy Spirit really is, which is why we are always looking to others to lean on and to blame.
God is just so good and patient. Again this is something I so want to grow in.
Jesus was so totally amazing in the way He could hear from God, was willing to only do what God told him to do, even though he could've done so much more, but even with all that he stayed humble, knew who he was and allowed others to be who they are too. (Very much like what Ian and I want to do with the Inspiring Heroes site - watch this space as that unfolds).
But I do wonder why we don't believe we can hear God and only do what He says like Jesus did; why we can't be humble and just go about are calling as God wants us to; to spend time with others and find out their gifts and encourage them into them; but also to see when the religious system is flawed and be willing to speak out and change things; be willing to know when we need time alone and when to share with others.
Oh I could go on and on, and of course the main one of forgiving totally and unconditionally
Though in praying into all this I realised why we go for the healings and miracles rather than the character traits, because actually the first is easier than the later, and also I don't think we quite believe how big the Holy Spirit really is, which is why we are always looking to others to lean on and to blame.
God is just so good and patient. Again this is something I so want to grow in.
Monday, 16 February 2009
Sorry!
Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to let someone say Sorry to you than to say it them?
Ian and I have just been away on this marriage seminar and one of the things I noticed was that one needed to be humble and say sorry as soon as you realise you are wrong, and sometimes wrong can just be that you brought up the issue at the wrong time, so say Sorry and then you can start it on the right footing. I am even reading a book called Love and Respect, about how a woman needs love and a man needs respect; so to get a good relationship I need to respect Ian, and then he will love me as I need to be love. But notice this - I have to go the respect bit first. OK so if he was reading the book then maybe, just maybe, it would be the other way round, but............
Anyway going back to the Sorry thing. If I repent and forgive first then he will feel good, in fact anyone whether husband, child or friend, will all feel better about themselves. But you know when you do it more than once in an evening, you either feel like a really awful person who gets things wrong all the time, or like a doormat who is doing all the hard work.
Maybe its just me, but I do think some of these things that we should be doing that Jesus did are really hard work, and the fact that He said we would be greater things than Him - which is always fun when its healings or prophetic words (though how many prophetic words did Jesus utter - another thought!!) or something noticable - but think how deeply Jesus forgave when they had Him nailed to the Cross and He says we will do even greater things than Him.
Oh my word!!!!
Ian and I have just been away on this marriage seminar and one of the things I noticed was that one needed to be humble and say sorry as soon as you realise you are wrong, and sometimes wrong can just be that you brought up the issue at the wrong time, so say Sorry and then you can start it on the right footing. I am even reading a book called Love and Respect, about how a woman needs love and a man needs respect; so to get a good relationship I need to respect Ian, and then he will love me as I need to be love. But notice this - I have to go the respect bit first. OK so if he was reading the book then maybe, just maybe, it would be the other way round, but............
Anyway going back to the Sorry thing. If I repent and forgive first then he will feel good, in fact anyone whether husband, child or friend, will all feel better about themselves. But you know when you do it more than once in an evening, you either feel like a really awful person who gets things wrong all the time, or like a doormat who is doing all the hard work.
Maybe its just me, but I do think some of these things that we should be doing that Jesus did are really hard work, and the fact that He said we would be greater things than Him - which is always fun when its healings or prophetic words (though how many prophetic words did Jesus utter - another thought!!) or something noticable - but think how deeply Jesus forgave when they had Him nailed to the Cross and He says we will do even greater things than Him.
Oh my word!!!!
Sunday, 15 February 2009
The Christian Drug!
I must admit I am stealing this thought from Michael Frost's book "Exiles", but yesterday it struck me very clearly and I am suffering the after effects.
We went to a really good marriage seminar run by Bath City church, which ran from Friday evening to Saturday evening. Over that time the heating in the accommodation was up full blast and it was electric heaters which were drying the air. But this is the drug thing - as always at a Christian event there was a constant supply of tea and coffee. Yes there was water in the tap, so I do have no excuse really. And there was a constant supply of cakes and biscuits. Then last night Ian and I went out for a Valentine's day meal and that sort of finished me off.
Before we went out I was suffering a wee bit with feeling spacey from too much sugar and caffeine and not enough water. This morning I woke up just feeling awful so had to stay at home, but it did make me wonder why whenever we do anything in church there is always tea and coffee but very rarely herbal teas, free iced water - in fact even with children's work we always seem to fill them full of sweets, chocolates and orange squash.
I wonder why it is so hard for "church" to give healthy stuff out for free?
We went to a really good marriage seminar run by Bath City church, which ran from Friday evening to Saturday evening. Over that time the heating in the accommodation was up full blast and it was electric heaters which were drying the air. But this is the drug thing - as always at a Christian event there was a constant supply of tea and coffee. Yes there was water in the tap, so I do have no excuse really. And there was a constant supply of cakes and biscuits. Then last night Ian and I went out for a Valentine's day meal and that sort of finished me off.
Before we went out I was suffering a wee bit with feeling spacey from too much sugar and caffeine and not enough water. This morning I woke up just feeling awful so had to stay at home, but it did make me wonder why whenever we do anything in church there is always tea and coffee but very rarely herbal teas, free iced water - in fact even with children's work we always seem to fill them full of sweets, chocolates and orange squash.
I wonder why it is so hard for "church" to give healthy stuff out for free?
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
Complacent
Jesus woke me up the other morning and just showed me how much I had to be thankful for and it made me realize just how complacent we are about things and how we see things so negatively and don't praise the wonderfulness of the ordinariness of life.
We'd had some teenage hassles, like you do living with a 17 and 15 year old, who know best and who wont listen to advise. But as I was praying into it I saw how blessed we were because of the fact that we do have God in the centre of our lives. And I realised too how different my life had been when God wasn't really something that went on in our house when I was growing up. All sort of strange spiritual things were let into the house and with them came a sort of chaos. I realized too that even though my husband walked away from God in his teens he still had that Godly influence from his parents.
Then I looked around the kids at church and even the most disruptive of ones aren't as bad as kids who don't have God any where near their lives. I just felt that too much we see the negative side of things - the son not following the prophecies spoken over him, as we think he should; the teenager playing on their mobile phone during the Sunday service, the kid poking his mate in the Sunday school meeting. So few of them swear, so few of them steal, so few of them do the things that their school friends are doing.
I have just read another Jodi Piccoult book and again she is talking about 14 year olds doing the most amazing things to each others bodies and how they are doing things that actually are churched kids don't do because as parents we are praying over them
So my shout it to stop being complacent though that this is normal, to see the greatness in our lives because God is in there, but also to pray and to pray and to pray and to pray some more that He opens things up even more to the fulness He has so that our lives that are changed can change the lives of those around us even more, not just in words, not just in hidden stuff but so that this revival that gets preached so often can really come into being. But I don't think it will come until we see how great those Christians are that are around us.
We'd had some teenage hassles, like you do living with a 17 and 15 year old, who know best and who wont listen to advise. But as I was praying into it I saw how blessed we were because of the fact that we do have God in the centre of our lives. And I realised too how different my life had been when God wasn't really something that went on in our house when I was growing up. All sort of strange spiritual things were let into the house and with them came a sort of chaos. I realized too that even though my husband walked away from God in his teens he still had that Godly influence from his parents.
Then I looked around the kids at church and even the most disruptive of ones aren't as bad as kids who don't have God any where near their lives. I just felt that too much we see the negative side of things - the son not following the prophecies spoken over him, as we think he should; the teenager playing on their mobile phone during the Sunday service, the kid poking his mate in the Sunday school meeting. So few of them swear, so few of them steal, so few of them do the things that their school friends are doing.
I have just read another Jodi Piccoult book and again she is talking about 14 year olds doing the most amazing things to each others bodies and how they are doing things that actually are churched kids don't do because as parents we are praying over them
So my shout it to stop being complacent though that this is normal, to see the greatness in our lives because God is in there, but also to pray and to pray and to pray and to pray some more that He opens things up even more to the fulness He has so that our lives that are changed can change the lives of those around us even more, not just in words, not just in hidden stuff but so that this revival that gets preached so often can really come into being. But I don't think it will come until we see how great those Christians are that are around us.
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
Community
I have been reflecting on this ever since our home ed group decided to start a yahoo group. Lots of home ed groups have had them already but for us this is a new thing, and with all new things has been met with both excitement and derision. But what struck me was when someone started talking about the home ed community and how we could be better connected by this group, and then watching my introvert daughter putting more effort into relationships with people on role playing websites than with friends she can touch.
What do we mean by community anyway? We have been exploring community groups, which again seems to be another way of getting people into an organized place to do something, rather than something organic.
When I first started home educating internet was not something everyone had and even if they did they didnt check it regularly so we had to get in touch via phone, which involved really chatting, and then had to go and meet with each other.
Also then the whole thing of home ed community was that as well as seeing each other we did things together for the common goal, which was our kids getting some educational trips out and socializing. Community meant all of us being involved and doing something together. Now things are not like that in our group as more and more parents seem to work part time as well as home ed; on the introductions to this group most of the people home ed and ..... which was never the case.
And I remember when I was first a Christian I was in a church where the men worked and most of the women stayed at home with their young children, but I so often hear from the young mums now how they are having to go back to work. I am not decrying that but what I am seeing is that true community means that all people in that community have to have the time and energy to give something to it, or those who give get burned out and those who take seem to be dissatisfied most of the time, always wanting someone else to do more.
I can see too why my daughter is more keen to be involved in these role playing websites as for the whole game to work everyone in the group has to play their part. If one or two stop playing then the game goes off in a different way.
So why at church or in fact in home ed, see community as something that we attend rather than something we can all get involved with and all give do our part.
A bit of my conclusion comes from the discussion on Martin Scott's blog about local church actually being people who travel to it, and what happens with travel is that it takes up time and energy and resources so we have less to give to the community we are a part of, so we are tired and a bit stress so really all we do want is someone else to do the stuff for us.
Perhaps for community to work we do all need to find out what we have to put into something and what land we are meant to be standing on and encourage others to do their all for it.
What do we mean by community anyway? We have been exploring community groups, which again seems to be another way of getting people into an organized place to do something, rather than something organic.
When I first started home educating internet was not something everyone had and even if they did they didnt check it regularly so we had to get in touch via phone, which involved really chatting, and then had to go and meet with each other.
Also then the whole thing of home ed community was that as well as seeing each other we did things together for the common goal, which was our kids getting some educational trips out and socializing. Community meant all of us being involved and doing something together. Now things are not like that in our group as more and more parents seem to work part time as well as home ed; on the introductions to this group most of the people home ed and ..... which was never the case.
And I remember when I was first a Christian I was in a church where the men worked and most of the women stayed at home with their young children, but I so often hear from the young mums now how they are having to go back to work. I am not decrying that but what I am seeing is that true community means that all people in that community have to have the time and energy to give something to it, or those who give get burned out and those who take seem to be dissatisfied most of the time, always wanting someone else to do more.
I can see too why my daughter is more keen to be involved in these role playing websites as for the whole game to work everyone in the group has to play their part. If one or two stop playing then the game goes off in a different way.
So why at church or in fact in home ed, see community as something that we attend rather than something we can all get involved with and all give do our part.
A bit of my conclusion comes from the discussion on Martin Scott's blog about local church actually being people who travel to it, and what happens with travel is that it takes up time and energy and resources so we have less to give to the community we are a part of, so we are tired and a bit stress so really all we do want is someone else to do the stuff for us.
Perhaps for community to work we do all need to find out what we have to put into something and what land we are meant to be standing on and encourage others to do their all for it.
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Oh no not time to have fun!
I was going to write something deep and meaningful from the course I am doing, esp as I am now procrastinating from writing an essay, but with the wonder of snow I am going to just say how I love the way this country grinds to a halt and everyone only talks of the weather when it snows.
As I looked through the Googlenews headlines this morning there is all sorts of things going on in the world but the only thing I clicked on was the headlines about the snow. Mind you it was very scary this morning driving Ben to his bus stop. I have never used ABS brakes before and they make the most amazing noise when on. But I did all the right things and survived the journey. In fact round our way things have been a bit tame compared to friends. Yes we have been phoning round to find out what has been going on, under the pre-text of knowing if people can make it the our home ed art group. Well it seemed to be only Tabi and I, and Karen our art teacher who were able to come so we canceled and thankfully the person we book the hall with is giving us a refund. Oh the people of this country are so good.
But then by the time we got out to go for a walk this afternoon most of the snow had melted and it was almost warm.
Funny that too with temperature - if it has been freezing cold, as in -6 this morning, when it gets up to +3 it feels positively hot.
But it was great hearing the news and one woman saying "what are we teaching our children by closing the schools, that when things get tough we go out and have fun?" Seems fair enough to me. Interesting comment after yesterday's report that said children were too pressurized by parents not wanting them to have any fun.
Perhaps we need more disrupted days so that we can all just go out and have some fun.
As I looked through the Googlenews headlines this morning there is all sorts of things going on in the world but the only thing I clicked on was the headlines about the snow. Mind you it was very scary this morning driving Ben to his bus stop. I have never used ABS brakes before and they make the most amazing noise when on. But I did all the right things and survived the journey. In fact round our way things have been a bit tame compared to friends. Yes we have been phoning round to find out what has been going on, under the pre-text of knowing if people can make it the our home ed art group. Well it seemed to be only Tabi and I, and Karen our art teacher who were able to come so we canceled and thankfully the person we book the hall with is giving us a refund. Oh the people of this country are so good.
But then by the time we got out to go for a walk this afternoon most of the snow had melted and it was almost warm.
Funny that too with temperature - if it has been freezing cold, as in -6 this morning, when it gets up to +3 it feels positively hot.
But it was great hearing the news and one woman saying "what are we teaching our children by closing the schools, that when things get tough we go out and have fun?" Seems fair enough to me. Interesting comment after yesterday's report that said children were too pressurized by parents not wanting them to have any fun.
Perhaps we need more disrupted days so that we can all just go out and have some fun.
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