The Untitled Blog Post January 22, 2009

A lot can happen in three months – WordPress changes its format, you find out you’re pregnant, your son turns 3 years old. So, what’s the natural response? Blogging hits the backburner. At least for me.

But amidst the craziness and chaos of life, one thing has remained constant. There will always be more craziness and chaos. That’s life with a toddler-turning-preschooler who demands his way is the best way. Wait ’till he meets Jesus.

Or maybe I should say wait ’till Jesus meets him (and hopefully transforms him SOON!). But that wouldn’t be correct because my son is already known by Jesus, already known by His Heavenly Father, who fashioned him in the secret of my womb before I even knew he existed.

And God my Father has done it again – has allowed me to become the carrier of another miraculously-created life who I will bring into the world in less than six months. If only I could pray away the labor pains. Not likely.

But what I am praying for is that this unborn child will personally know and trust Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The same prayer prayed daily for my firstborn. That Jesus will be first place in his life, that Jesus will remain the one constant thing amidst the craziness and chaos of life.

Of course, telling my son that will work wonders because he listens oh so well I believe it’s called selective hearing and thankfully he has heard my conversations about Jesus because he already knows Jesus loves him and died for him and that Jesus is alive. He at least can recite this at 3 years old and I’m praying these truths will become written on his own heart soon.

No, I think the better way for my son to learn that Jesus is first among all things is to see that portrayed in my life. In my crazy and chaotic life. For him to see that no matter what financial difficulty we face, no matter how many repairs Dada’s truck needs, no matter how many times I’ve repeated the statement that pee-pee goes in the potty not on the floor, that Jesus is still King of all. Because no matter how I treat my Lord, He is still Lord. No matter how unfaithful I am to Him, He is still faithful to me. It is undeserved love but as my husband would say, “It is what it is,” and it is grace.

Oh Lord, if only our hearts would cling to You with unfaltering faith, if only we could take You at your word and know beyond our doubts that You desire to bless us beyond belief, then we could truly rest in Your peace here on earth and exchange our chaos for your calm. For your death and resurrection have given us the right to become children of God, and as an earthly father desires to give his children good things, You, Lord, desire to give us even more.

Biblical Womanhood: If I Belittle… August 14, 2008

As a youth leader in my church’s youth group, there are two words I’ve heard more often than anything else among the high school girls I lead: gossip and drama. It appears to be inevitable especially among teenagers. They ask me regularly why there has to be so much gossip and drama? To be honest, it’s pretty cyclical. Things will be calm for a while and everyone is “on fire for God” and then they let worldly desires get the best of them and here comes the cat fight. I’ve questioned my involvement in youth ministry due to this very thing but God has encouraged me to not give up.

But you know something else? Gossip and drama aren’t only limited to teenage girls. I remember about four years ago when I was in the “working world” before my son was born I encountered two women who liked to speak negatively about others in the office. I often ate lunch with them and always tried to redirect the conversation but at one point I began to wonder what they said about me while I wasn’t there. For a few weeks, I ended up eating lunch alone and was quite thankful for the break. But I returned to them with a better idea – let’s start a lunchtime book club so we’re talking about something PRODUCTIVE. I do miss those lunches but not the gossip.

But you know who else knew that gossip would be a problem among women of all ages? Our loving Heavenly Father. In His infinite wisdom, God still created us women even though we like to let our mouths run – some more than others. However, He didn’t leave us without instruction or a guide to dealing with our mouths. He commanded us in Titus 2:3-5 how we are supposed to be:

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.

Not malicious gossips…ouch. But isn’t that true? I mean really. What kind of gossip isn’t malicious? You might be thinking that sometimes we just want to keep others around us “informed” about certain situations so we open our mouths. Or maybe what so-and-so did was just so rude that we couldn’t keep the pain of it inside. Yet women are commanded by their Creator to not be this way. Not only is gossip denounced in this passage in Titus, but 1 Timothy 3:11 says the same thing and the book of Proverbs is filled with verses about the use of our mouths. Not to mention James chapter 3 – nothing but description upon description of how our tongue can be used for good and bad.

We have this call to use our words wisely because people are watching. Claiming to be a Christ follower yet allowing your mouth to speak unkindly of others is nothing more than a bad testimony. For those of us who are moms, I can’t imagine what kind of message that sends to our children. I think for me what spoke most loudly about this issue was a recent devo in which great missionary Amy Carmichael wrote:

If, in any way, I belittle those who I am called to serve…

if I talk of their weak points in contrast, perhaps, with what I think of as my stronger points…

if I adopt a superior attitude, forgetting to consider the wisdom of the voice that asks me, inwardly, “Who made you different from the one you are criticizing – and what do you have that you have not been given?”

if I can easily discuss the shortcomings of the sins of any man or woman…

if I can speak in an offhanded way, even of a child’s wrongdoing….then I know nothing of Calvary love.

The Calvary love is the love of a sinless Shepherd dying for sinful sheep. A Savior like a lamb who was led to the slaughter yet did not open His mouth, did not say a word. A Man forsaken and forgotten, bearing the iniquities of generations. The Christ who died for all.

Perhaps the negative words the come from our mouths have their beginning a little higher up in our minds. Maybe our thoughts need to be taken captive under the control of Christ so what is in our hearts and minds will become blessings that we want to come from our mouths. Instead of choosing this day to bash your husband, friend or child, even for something you consider justified, ask God to give you only words of encouragement, love and support, and follow the Ephesians 4:29 principle:

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.

Biblical Womanhood: Loving Your Husband Until… July 30, 2008

Marriage is an interesting topic these days. Some people are happy to hear that you’re married while others feel sorry for you. A newly-engaged couple may hear jokes about “the funeral” rather than the wedding or the end of their single life. Can you really see yourself married to the same person for the rest of your life?

Women, I believe, probably have far more fairytale dreams and expectations of marriage than men do. I think most men probably assume they will continue living life somewhat as they had (go to work, come home to watch TV, hit the sack, etc.) while women envision candlelight dinners, long talks on the beach and romantic evenings out.

We (yes, I am a married woman) tend to forget that our husbands come to the marriage as we do – with bad habits, annoying problems and most importantly sin. As the honeymoon wears off, we see these men for who they really are – grooms in need of some grooming, or so we think. We complain and whine about the socks they leave on the floor, or how they do everything WRONG (aka, different than the way we do it), and we even contemplate the question, “Did I marry the wrong man?” (Gasp!)

Of course, many women and men who are Christian and non-Christian choose to follow natural instincts and bolt as soon as problems arise. I dare not mention today’s divorce rate – most people already know. With irreconcilable differences a reason for splitting, there are a host of “good excuses” for wanting out. And no one really needs to know the truth.

Yes, I do know there are legitimate reasons for divorce and the Bible outlines those clearly but right now I’m talking to women who are just fed up with their men, who think they can’t go on and are tired of trying to love a husband who seems completely opposite. Women have lost their joy in marriage and have found the best explanation is to blame their husbands. “It’s all HIS fault!” If you ever learned how to decipher a false statement from truth, you know that using the word “all” is a huge hint!

But is that how God intended marriage? Is that how God, the creator of marriage, intended women to view their commitment? Does God want us to stomp around the house nagging and whining? Does God want us to pester and prod until things get done, OUR WAY? And of all things, does God want us to let our husbands know how bad of a job we think they are doing?

According to God’s own Word, I think not. Our Heavenly Father has given us, married women, a command outlined in Titus 2:3-5 through the provision of older women:

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.

We are to love our husbands and to be subject to them – meaning we are to submit to their authority in our home. This is what God has called us to do so can we actually do it?

Yes, I believe so. If we are in Christ – we have responded to the Gospel message in faith and believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins, rose again and is Lord – His Holy Spirit is living inside us and will guide us into righteous living. We can through Christ love and submit to our husbands. We however must deny ourselves daily (like Christ commanded in Mark 8:34-35) and make a conscious decision to be a servant first to God, then to our husbands. No one said it would be easy but God says it is possible (Philippians 4:13.)

So, if we’re commanded to love our husbands, how can you practically love yours? How can you love your husband until…death do you part as the vow explains? I am grateful that God does not leave us hanging on this one either. Known as the “Love Chapter,” 1 Corinthians 13 gives us some practical (again not easy) ways in vs. 4-7 of choosing to love on a daily basis:

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Since the beginning of the year, I have made an effort to memorize these verses. I somewhat have it down but still have ways to go. But I read it often to encourage me in how I am to respond to my husband and son. Again, I don’t do it perfectly because I have “my days,” but with God’s help I am more often than not choosing to be patient with my husband and his flaws (knowing that I have mine!), choosing to not brag about things that I might do well, choosing to not be selfish and seek my own rights, and here’s the biggie – choosing to not take into account or remember a wrong suffered. I said it wasn’t easy.

If we say we are Christian, we should strive to live out the life that He did. We should walk as Jesus walked – He allowed Himself to be interrupted by others considering their needs more important than His own. He ultimately died for them, for us, for me. Living in a struggling or challenging marriage will never be easy and we have no idea when, or if, God will change those circumstances. But in all things we can make a choice to live as Christ lived knowing that our testimony under difficult trials will prove our faith genuine and draw others to this Jesus we claim to profess as Lord and Savior.

I challenge you to encourage your husband, pray for him and let him know you do love him. Choose to view yourself and your husband as a team rather than enemies, and make Christ the center of your marriage everyday. For as the Bible also says, two are better than one (Ecclesiastes 4:9).

Why I love my husband February 13, 2008

So, it’s been a rough few days for me. The stress level has been high due to several deadlines and an illness. Then, I lost my voice and am just now slowly getting it back. But I still sound like a hoarse frog.

In the midst of all my troubles and tribulations, I see a small glimmer of hope in one of the funniest things my husband has done. Here’s the background:

As an avid amateur chef and baker, I enjoy trying new recipes. My husband is usually the guinea pig. Well, one recipe for a Mexican Lasagna did not go over too well. I admit that I wasn’t fond of the enchilada sauce mixed with chicken, sour cream, cheese and lasagna noodles. It was not good and one of my few cooking catastrophes. But my husband was kind and said he wasn’t very fond of it, citing his reasoning as, “I don’t like chicken and tomato dishes.”

So, yesterday, I’m on the computer doing some e-mail and work while our son was napping and I notice something added to the title of a Word document on the desktop. Attached to my document title for Mexican Lasagna (since I had copied the recipe onto the computer), is the word, ‘YUCK!’ Unbeknown to me, my husband had renamed my Word document by attaching this very candid word to my recipe title, letting me ever so subtly know that my new dish was ‘YUCK!” I could not stop laughing and am still laughing today when I see it.

So, as an early Vday shot-out to my hubby, I love him so much because he makes me laugh, even when he’s not around!

Is divorce bad for the environment, Earth? December 5, 2007

I ran across this story on Yahoo today and was just dumbfounded. As a Christian, I don’t believe divorce is the answer to marital difficulties (infidelity aside.) But many people, including Christians, believe it is. Rather than stick things out and abide by the vow they made, they give up and create even more problems, mostly for children, if they are involved.

But divorce actually hurting the environment? Can it actually cause pain to our Earth? Well, this story appears to make that claim, citing that increased households, especially divorced households, use more resources and sometimes not so wisely.

I think this is quite ridiculous but I can see the reasoning behind it.  This whole ‘go green’ campaign has taken our country, even globe, by storm.  Everywhere you turn there is some tip or way you can reuse, reduce and recycle.  I’m all for being responsible and clean (litter is quite unattractive) but seriously – the Earth has somehow sustained itself for many years – can it not do so for time to come?  But that’s another post.

So, should we remain married to help save the Earth?  Hardly!  We should remain married because it’s the ADULT thing to do – the RIGHT thing to do.  Marriage requires maturity – that maturity is needed to persevere through emotional, financial and physical difficulties.  If you can’t handle it, don’t get married.  Marriage isn’t a game – it’s real life that can be real fun but takes real work.

Rather than focusing on how to save the Earth, why not focus on how to save marriages?  What do husbands and wives need today to remain faithful to each other and their children, to remain faithful to the vow they made in front of friends and family?  The answer is a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, who should be at the center of all marriages.  Without Him, divorce will remain rampant and marriages will continue to be destroyed.  And I can assure you that our Earth will live to see it all happen a hundred times over.

Don’t lie to yourself: “Open Marriage” is ADULTERY September 25, 2007

I don’t watch Oprah – every now and then I catch a few minutes of her show while flipping channels but today I stopped to see what her program was about. And I was disgusted and disturbed by the content. The couple, Hollie and Gregg, admitted to having an “open marriage,” meaning that Hollie has a boyfriend she is intimate with. And Gregg said he is OK with that. They both claim they are lacking nothing and don’t NEED to go outside their marriage for relationships but this makes them have more “love.”

Of course, there is no way they can even be Christian and live this lifestyle, so I have to rule that out. But seriously, this is not marriage. Whatever you want to call it, it is not marriage in any sense of the word. “Open marriage” is adultery – pure and simple. Even if the “other relationship” is accepted by one spouse, it is still adultery. It’s completely disgraceful and destructive. There is NO love in an open marriage. There is only deceit and denial. It’s a purely selfish way to live. God created marriage to be holy and of course we humans ruined that and continue to do so. The saddest part is that this couple has children. What kind of lesson is this teaching children? I can’t imagine.

I’ll end this post (which I hesitated writing due to the content) with a verse that I believe is appropriate:

Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Hebrews 13:4

Paci withdrawl = lack of sleep July 19, 2007

Per my doctor’s request, I put an end to my 18 month old’s pacifier addiction. His paci was his best friend and it was sad to see it go. I followed a trick suggested online by another mom – cut the tip off the paci and give it back to him. He’ll try to suck it and it just won’t be the same so he’ll give it up. It worked like a charm – he held it, examined it and then threw it to the ground in utter betrayal. Bye, bye paci.

One side effect, though. My son appears to be waking up earlier than he had been. Say at 5:30-6 a.m. instead of his usual 6:45 a.m. I’m guessing whenever he woke up previously he had his paci to soothe him back to sleep. My husband jokes that this is my punishment for following doctor’s orders. (And my husband even considered giving the paci back to our son – I don’t think so!) That is really not fair – I’m doing something that will help my son’s teeth and speech in the long term so I must now suffer in the short term? This leads me to a Bible verse that I will cling to:

In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:6-7

Now, I have to admit that getting less sleep is hardly a trial considered to what Peter is most likely referring. But I will rejoice knowing that even if I lose sleep for now, my son will be sleeping much longer in years to come, most likely when he’s a teenager, without a paci. And I will use this “trial” of being a little tired throughout the day to rely on Christ’s strength and not my own.

The case of the missing bathroom trash bag July 14, 2007

We are not big recyclers – we actually hardly recycle (curbside recycling isn’t available at our apartment complex and with a toddler I don’t have much energy or arm-space to lug extra stuff around) but we manage to reuse those plastic grocery bags as our bathroom trash bags.

So, today I was doing some cleaning and emptied the full bathroom trash but forgot to replace the bag. Many hours later, my husband needed to throw his Qtips away and saw no bag. The look on his faced expressed much displeasure.

Excuse me, I thought. Does he even know what I did all day? (I’m an at-home mom but I’m a part-time journalist.) Does he know how many diapers I changed today? Does he know how many size 2T shorts I folded? Does he know how many meals I made and cleaned up? Does he know how many toys I tried to pick up? Does he know how long it took me to finish my story? Does he know how many times I told my son ‘No’ as he tried to touch everything he could? Does he know how many times I felt bad for saying no? Does he know?!??! Well, if he’s reading this, now he does.

The truth is refilling the waste basket with a new bag wasn’t a priority for me at that time. Then it just slipped my mind. But it happened to be a priority for my husband later on (and missing bags also happen to be one of his pet peeves.) This is what I should have considered, as Philippians says in chapter 2 to consider others’ needs before your own.

As a Christian woman, Titus 2:3-5 calls me to love my husband, love my children and be a worker at home as some of my priorities. I strive to live this out each day, failing miserably it seems on most days. However, Christ in me is all the strength I need to persevere and not grow weary for the Bible assures me that I will reap a harvest in due time (Galatians 6:9.)

So, Buddy, sorry for no trash bag. I’ve already made one change and moved some extra bags into the bathroom to provide me no excuse to forget next time.

In the meantime, I will take a tip from the superwoman of them all…Mrs. Proverbs 31.

She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Proverbs 31:26

Did “Desperate Housewives” steal its storyline from the Bible? July 14, 2007

I believe I have found the original “Desperate Housewife.”

Before ABC dramatized the extramarital affairs and carefree lives of disgruntled suburban housewives, the Bible actually describes this woman in an even more explicit way.

She is the harlot and will use any means necessary to seduce her naive victim and live out illicit fantasies while her husband is away. In the middle of the night as a young man is passing by, Proverbs 7 shows us the wiles of the harlot:

And behold, a woman comes to meet him, dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart. (v. 10)

Definition of harlot: a prostitute. How does a prostitute dress? Nevermind, let’s get back to our story…

She is boisterous and rebellious, her feet do not remain at home. She is now in the streets, now in the squares, and lurks by every corner. So she seizes him and kisses him and with a brazen face she says to him: (vs. 11-13)

Brazen is defined as unrestrained by convention or propriety. Obviously…

I have spread my couch with coverings, with colored linens of Egypt; I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon. Come, let us drink our fill of love until the morning; let us delight ourselves with caresses. For my husband is not at home, he has gone on a long journey. (vs. 16-19)

She is ready for a long evening of adultery but her victim is in for something else…

With her many persuasions she entices him; with her flattering lips she seduces him. Suddenly he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter or as one in fetters to the discipline of a fool…so he does not know that it will cost him his life. (vs. 21-23)

Yes, I believe that antiquated book called the Bible has beat ABC to the punch. Or perhaps the creators of the “hit series” took notes from the seventh chapter of Proverbs…just forgetting to add the part about how adultery and fornication lead to death. But I suppose that could be a spin-off?

That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9