Soaking up Perspective

When I look at something I've seen many times and see it differently, I tend to think I'm seeing that "something" in a new perspective, a new light, if you will. I had not given this much thought until my four year old brought me a new perspective. 

While driving the other night we drove past a McDonald's. My four year old and I have this conversation:

Nick:  "Hey, Mommy! Look! It's a McDonald's!". 
Me:    "Yep, sure is buddy." 


There is a pause while he's in deep thought. Know how sometimes you can just hear them thinking?


Nick: "That's so 'mazin'!"  ("it's amazing", for those that don't speak Munchkin fluently).


Nick: "That's just so cool!"


My response here was to laugh. I've thought a lot of things concerning that certain restaurant over my lifetime, but amazing was honestly never on my list of adjectives to use. It didn't take much brain power to see from his perspective why that place is just so amazing to him. Here's where I have to throw in that he was deathly afraid of parks and jungle gyms when he came to live with us 10 months ago. Our family has taught him a new phrase; "Have fun!". While learning what fun is, I have to admit that certain indoor playgrounds have been used in our lessons on how to just be a little kid and have fun. 


My thoughts then turned to my surprise at his use of the word 'amazing'. I was shocked he knew it! When he moved in with us 10 months ago he was stringing together 2 and three words but he was mostly incomprehensible and used baby jargon along with 3-alarm screaming fits to make himself understood. So then I was thinking about how he'd have heard the word and it hit me straight on. A week earlier when the weather had been simply beautiful we had all gone outside to play in the backyard. Lia and I started pulling grass out from in between the stone on the pathway. Just so you know, yes we were actually having fun doing that. We raced each other and pulled harder and laughed. Nick noticed the fun we were having (I'm not kidding here...) and wanted to join in. Can anyone say Tom Sawyer here? Who needs a white washed fence when grass pulling will serve the same duty? Sometimes I feel so smart. I'm really not. This was a total accident, but I'll take credit just the same, ok?


I eventually started pulling less and less grass as I was still keeping an eye on my 2 two-year-olds too and so Lia took over as director of the grass pulling adventure. While she pulled, she showed Nick how to work effectively and encouraged the whole time! I was so blessed to hear her speak to him. "Good job, Nick!", "You are so good at this!", "What a great worker you are!", "I'm so glad you're helping me, you are amazing!"


Uh huh. Amazing. She told him he was good. She told him he was amazing. He in turn understood and soaked it all up and reused it. 


So here is where my thoughts went with this. Do our words that we choose to say and our thoughts we choose to think and the people we spend time with and their words said between us, does this soak into us and make up our perspective on everything and anything?


What am I hearing? What am I saying? What am I reading?

Psalm 126:2  Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them."

Amen to that!

Sixteen!

My son is 16 today. As we approached this day, I felt good about it. Then yesterday I was asked "Wow. How do you feel about having a sixteen year old?". Well, I've reflected more on the years I've shared with him, but honestly I still feel good about it. Perhaps it's because there are still toddlers in the home so "empty nest" isn't due to set in for many, many years. Maybe I'm okay with it because he's a good kid and I'm excited to see him grow up. I remember looking at him as a newborn and wondering what kind of a person he'd be at one, and five and fifteen and thirty; wondering what kind of a Mom I would be; wanting the very best for him and wondering if I could do that, bring that, to him. He is my first and he made me a Mom. It just doesn't seem like sixteen years ago. It really doesn't. I know kids grow fast, but I didn't know it was at lightning speed.

I was in a store last night and I was buying birthday plates and such and the young cashier asked if we had a birthday coming up. I proudly told her yes, we did! My son will be sixteen tomorrow! She smiled big and without hesitation said, "Oh, that's great! Is he getting a new car?" I took a momentary second to register shock at the question and then laughed whole-heartedly. She joined in laughing with me and I told her "No, he will not be getting a new car. He will be receiving pizza and hot wings." We laughed some more and the incredulity of today's youth's entitlement attitude hit me. While the clerk was still laughing, I stopped, smiled, and said "No, we don't believe in a free ride. If he wants a car of his own, he'll get a job."

Many years ago as a young Mom I used to tell him that we weren't saving for his college education, we were saving for his therapy. As he gets older, I'm thinking he may not need that therapy. I see that as success! Do you think it's because he's not getting a new car for his 16th birthday?

Happy Birthday Rejean!

Psalm 127:3 "Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from Him." 

 

Gifts of Love

One of my two favorite daughters received a teeny tiny kitten for her 10th birthday. He wasn't the intended gift, but Lia took pity on the poor undernourished thing and had to have him. Saving things is in her nature, much like her Daddy. I adore both of them for their mutual desire to wear a big red cape.

Let me remind you that this is the same girl that cries over a dead mouse and believe me, there's no pity in this Mama's heart for that. Safe to say she knew who would pity those tears that flow so freely and so Daddy brought home this wonderful gray gift along with our daughter one afternoon.

This ball of gray fur was named "Nip" and he has been a very treasured friend for my sweet, precious daughter. She has spent hours and hours loving on him, and in return, the Lord has blessed her endlessly with a devoted pet that follows her everywhere. 

In all this sweetness, here's what I've learned. I've read many books on relationships and child-rearing and what have you, but I tend to take what I can use/agree with and I dump the rest of the information. Years and years ago I had read the "5 Love Languages" for children. I cannot remember specifics, but I do know children need all five items in their lives to grow but eventually one or two will stand out as they become older. I've watched for those things and try to implement them to each child specifically that speaks love to them personally if I've noticed something. 

Here's where Nip comes into this picture. It's obvious that he is a very treasured love for Lia, and in that love she feels, she wants to gift him. Continuously. I've now taken note and I will keep it in mind. Now it makes sense as she's always gifting her friends with handmade items as well. And she treasures anything I make for her too. Little items I buy spontaneously at the store will prompt a thank you for three days. When her Daddy traveled, he would buy her a stuffed cat; a different one each time he went away. She adamantly refuses to reduce the number of stuffed animals she has because they are from Daddy. Gifts. Lia speaks and hears with gifts.

So, back to Nip. She's made handmade toys for him. Nip has dutifully played with them. She has made handmade necklaces and collars. She's handmade hats for him. I assure you, this cat has sat through these gifts and blinked at my daughter with kitty cat adoration in his eyes and purred while she decorated him. I'm in awe over that, but I am serious. I've seen that with my own eyes.

So last night, the family is watching a movie and I ask Krista, "Where's Lia?". Krista laughs and says she saw Lia downstairs with some fabric and Nip and she's making him an outfit. An unsympathetic "You're kidding!" escaped my lips and then we all broke out laughing. We laugh because we can all picture this. My precious girl and her gifts. To further confirm the happenings downstairs, I see a fast paced Nip run up the stairs and head down to my bedroom. I guess that cat has grown some sort of self respect. 

Shortly after, I see a bright eyed Lia come upstairs and ask if I've seen Nip. We all again laugh and I let her know he was hiding from her. She emphatically declared he wouldn't do that and he was just purring a minute ago and he needed to try on her gift. With much amusement, I had to see her gift on Nip too. Let me extend my apologies to you now that I did not get a photo of it. I wish I had. It was hilarious. 

She made him a wonderfully built blue vest that was fully decked out with pom poms and trim. When she put it on him, he did not look at her with adoration in his kitty eyes. I do think he glared a little, and then fell over. Lia put him on his feet and he slinked away. I think he was trying to get away while the getting was good. She laughed and declared he was tired.

This afternoon, she told me that she didn't think the vest was a big hit with Nip (yes, I held my laughter. Aren't you proud?) and so she made him a bed instead with some fabric that was his very favorite. Yes, she said that to me. She made a bed, a blanket, and a pillow. 

I asked her if Nip liked it and she said he loved it and was in it earlier. I said I'd like to take a picture and she thought that was great and ran to get him. We placed him in the bed and he ran away. This above photo was taken as he ran. Notice he ran so fast I didn't even catch any fuzzy gray tail in the photo. Impressive. 

So Lia went and gathered her love and we tried again. 

Know what she said to me when this picture was taken and I showed her? She told me that Nip didn't look happy because he was under pressure to perform for the camera and that makes him nervous. I only smiled in understanding.

Do you think love really is blind?

1 Corinthians 13:13 "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

Our Story

My story. Your story. His story; her story.  Isn't that what we are all living? I pray for those I love, yet I'm constantly returning to the realization that when circumstances don't look like what I think they should look like or people don't make decisions I think they should make that it is the LORD that writes our story. We certainly get a say in some stuff, but for those that have surrendered their lives to God, our story is not only something personal, but something to be anticipated. To be watched for. The activity of God in our lives, the waiting for what comes next, the watching for the next adventure. 

My family came to call "detours" in our self made plans "adventures". We started this while on vacation. Nothing could go wrong, we just claimed we had another "adventure"! Anything goes, and we were waiting and watching for how the "adventure" would end and we would have another wonderful story to tell and revisit a few years from now. The children caught onto the game very quickly and before we knew it, everyone was expectantly watching to see what would happen in any given "adventure"! 


I like that attitude. I like watching for the Lord and always seeing Him in our lives. My life. My story. Where will my story go? What will each of my children's stories say? My other loved ones? Our lives are intertwined; our stories are currently intertwined on a daily basis. We each have friends that are a part and we are blessed because of them. Blessed to have them. Blessed to have each other.


I am given a wonderful gift each and every morning. I have the opportunity to be a wife to my husband and a mother to my children. I am asked to be a sister in Christ and a friend.  I am wanted in their lives and they are wanted in mine. The Lord has asked me to love my husband and children on a daily basis. To be with them and to be a part of their story. As very young children,  us parents are central to our children's Life Story, but as they grow into their own calling our portion becomes smaller. I pray as my portion becomes smaller, that the gap would be filled with the Lord; that His portion would become larger and fill their hearts and minds.


There are people that enter my life, my story, for a small amount of time and others enter for an extended stay and yet others that are a central thread to the majority of my life. No matter the time frame, I know that our shared time together should mutually write something encouraging. This is right. Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 tells us to speak to each other with the message of Christ between us. 


I know that daily as we pass strangers there is something to be gained and learned and given. But that is not what I speak of today. I ponder and think on when someone you deeply love is waiting; waiting on so many things, to make sure their life is better and in some cases to make sure their life story does not become a short essay. Sometimes it's smaller issues and sometimes it's very big ones, and everything in between. What can you do? What can I do? I have been asked to be a part of many people's lives. I take that as an honor. I do not receive that lightly, and I'm careful with it. What happens when the path their life is taking is out of your hands and the decisions concerning them lie with someone else or in their own immature hands? What happens if your chapter in their life is almost over? What if it is not? Should I worry about such things? NO. Matthew 6:24-27 speaks first about serving two masters and then says therefore do not worry. It speaks about life being more than food and clothes and then asks if you can add even one hour to your life by worrying. What spoke to me was the admonishment about serving two masters and then the directive to not worry. Seems to me worrying serves the wrong master.


"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord (Isaiah 55:8).  1 John 5:18-20 speaks about the world being evil, but those that are in Christ are safe and kept safe in Him and that HE is the true God and eternal life. Does that mean being in Christ means nothing bad ever happens? No, again.  Psalm 59:16 says, "But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble." I wish my first reaction...yes, I know I should not react to circumstances but discern them and choose to act and I know it's a problem and I am working on it...but sometimes my reaction to things is not to run to God and rest in His strength and allow him to be my fortress and comfort and refuge in times of trouble or perceived trouble. Today I held out my arms to my distressed 2 year old to offer comfort and consolation and he stomped his feet and cried harder, angry that he did not get his way, and refused my comfort and my strength. It hit me hard. Oh Lord, forgive me. I've done that to You. Teach me to be a trusting, faithful daughter.


So where have I gone with all of these thoughts? Those I love, those God loves more, have a path to walk; a story the Lord is writing. I've been asked to be a part of their lives and I pray for them and then I leave their story to God. He is faithful. He is good. Jeremiah 29:11 says He has good plans for us; plans for a future and with hope! What better hands can I leave my loved ones in?


He is the perfecter and finisher of our faith and sometimes, well a lot of times, we are asked to walk in faith in order to stretch it in a very personal way. Walking in faith means trusting the One who truly is in control of the eternal pen. 


Lord, I sing of your strength and I sing of your love. Let my words reflect that.