The week before Christmas....(Part 2)

          So all through that week before Christmas (which you can read about here) I did a lot of thinking. In between taking care of sick kids, cleaning up messes, and being sick myself, that is. So many different thoughts have been swirling in my mind, that I'm not sure how well I can do at sorting them out. But I'm going to give it a try.

          First, I was reminded how much I have to be grateful for. I too often forget to be thankful for many things I have that are very difficult to live without. Things like running water, electricity, and heat. Because of the time we spent without power over Christmas, in the midst of throwing up and diarrhea, I was reminded how very privileged I am to have access to these things that I usually just take for granted. I hardly ever wonder if we will have a warm house, or if we will have water to drink, or if we will have to use flashlights at night. I'm thankful for my washing machine!! I really should have counted the number of loads of laundry we did this week. It was a lot! I thought about the fact that many people in the world would have been washing out all those dirty clothes by hand. And all I had to do was toss them in the washer. I'm so grateful for my children's good health. Of course, they get the normal colds and occasional stomach bugs, but in general they are very healthy. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to watch a child deal with a truly serious sickness. Watching our normally bouncing, lively three year old lay on the floor for two days reminded me that good health is a great blessing. I am incredibly grateful for my husband. He was off from school the whole time we were sick, and he faithfully helped to care for children and clean up messes, wash dishes, and find something for us to eat when we weren't feeling well. Then he took care of me when I was sick too!

          The past week also reminded me how selfish I am. My flesh cries out for comfort and ease, and I try to avoid anything that causes discomfort and disappointment. I don't want to be inconvenienced by sickness, or by the electricity going out. I don't want to have to live in a cold house for several hours while we wait for the electricity to come back on. I don't want to spend half the night being awakened by a sick child. I don't want to have to miss the Christmas program that I was so looking forward to attending with my family. I don't want to give up my plans, my expectations, my desires! I endeavored to do all these things that I didn't want to do with grace, rather than with a complaining and whining spirit, but I often failed. Even when I succeeded in responding the right way, inside, my heart was often crying out that “I don't want it to be this way!” There is so much in me that needs to be transformed by the power of Christ.

          I thought a lot about expectations this week. I had made a lot of plans for the week – plans for fun things to do with the kids, special foods to prepare, ways to make special memories as a family. Well, all of my plans and preparations were pretty much dashed to pieces this week. And I must admit that I struggled with a lot of disappointment and dissatisfaction at having all my plans ruined. But you know what? It really was ok. We made it through the sickness. We still had special times as a family. We ate chicken noodle soup and crackers instead of sticky buns and Christmas cookies.....but does it really matter? It's okay to plan and prepare, but if I wallow in disappointment and self-pity when things don't go the way I planned, than I must be holding too tightly to my expectations, rather than gratefully accepting what God brings each day. Oh, that I would learn to live with a trust-filled expectancy instead of clinging to my own feeble expectations!

          Finally, this week put some things into perspective for me as I thought about my brothers and sisters all over the world who lack basic necessities or are suffering persecution. This was a tough week for us. It was exhausting and messy, and it wasn't fun. But it wasn't anything compared to what many around the world live with every single day. I don't know what it means to live in truly difficult situations. I am very blessed.

           I pondered what it means to celebrate Christmas. There are lots of things that we do to make Christmas meaningful and special, and many of them are very good things, but we don't NEED them to be able to celebrate Christmas. Christmas is not about presents, or decorated trees, or the candles and lights that I love so much. It's not about cards, greenery, carols or special foods. It's not even really about spending time with our families or being able to attend church services. (And please understand that I'm not saying that any of these things are wrong – I love them and value them too!) Simply put, Christmas is a time of remembrance – a time to remember the awesome, amazing fact that Christ Jesus became a baby. He took on the limitations of a human being, became one of us, so that He could live for us, suffer and die for us, and rise again. Even if I am all alone, even if I have none of the things that make Christmas special for me, I can celebrate Christmas as I remember and thank God that “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14a) Amazing!

           So I can look back at this week, difficult as it was in many ways, and thank God for it. In spite of the hardships, there were lots of happy moments and good memories mixed in. God used this week to draw me closer to Himself. He showed me things that need to change in my life, attitudes that need to be laid aside, and expectations that I need to let go of. And so I can say, “Yes! It was a Merry Christmas!”  

Twas the Week Before Christmas..... (Part 1)

             I recently read somewhere that rather than having expectations and then being disappointed, discouraged, and dissatisfied when things don't go as we plan, we should live with an expectancy of what God can do in any situation in which we might find ourselves. It is not easy to do this, as I discovered firsthand this week, Christmas week, as our family had a nasty run in with a stomach virus.

              I love the Christmas season – the carols, the lights, baking cookies, spending time with friends and having my husband off work, doing special things with the kids, enjoying the snow outside my window. I especially look forward to the days that Dan has off from school and we're free to spend time doing things as a family. This year, with Christmas being on Sunday, Dan had off from school the entire week before Christmas, and so I decided that the kids and I were taking off too! We had activities planned for the week and were excited about enjoying this time.

            

As planned, we had our annual “Shepherd Night” on Monday. All of us dressed up like shepherds, made a tent in the living room and had supper as we pretended to be shepherds in Bethlehem and tried to imagine what the night of Jesus birth must have been like for the shepherds. This is a highly anticipated part of the Christmas season for our children, and they thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

              Then on Tuesday, December 20, it hit. The dreaded stomach flu. I walked into Grace's room to get her up from her nap to find her covered with her lunch. Now she had eaten a lot of oranges at lunch, and I mean A LOT of oranges. She seemed perfectly happy and content, in spite of the mess, and I figured that the oranges just hadn't agreed with her very well. So we continued with our plans to go to town to visit and sing at the nursing home. We had a few other stops to make first, and when we got to the grocery store, Grace had a messy diaper. And I don't mean a normal messy diaper, but an explosively messy diaper. I was still thinking it must have been a side effect of all the oranges. After cleaning her up the best we could and finishing the grocery shopping we headed over to Shopko to buy a change of clothes for her. We made a few other stops including a run through the drive through at McDonalds for supper, and then pulled in at the nursing home. We went in and started talking to people and got ready to have the kids sing, and then poor Grace really got sick. She started having diarrhea every five minutes or so, and there was nothing I could do but hold her as it leaked out all over both her and me! I now knew that it wasn't the oranges, but that she really was sick. If I had realized that earlier, we never would have gone to the nursing home, but it was too late now, so we had the kids sing the best we could, and I headed home with the kids after dropping Dan off at a meeting he had in town. Once we got home, I laid Grace on the sofa so I could get the older kids to bed before getting her changed and cleaned up. She was so miserable that she just laid there and waited for me.

                On Wednesday we had planned to go Christmas caroling to some older people from our church. Grace was too sick to take anywhere, so Dan and Hannah delivered the soup and rolls we made. The other kids had fun playing in the snow fort that Dan had made for them earlier in the day.

Thursday morning, Daniel woke up saying that his stomach hurt, and soon he was throwing up. In the afternoon we made ravioli, a beloved family tradition for my dear husband. Hannah and Sarah and even Joshua enjoyed helping us with that, but by the evening Hannah had joined Daniel on a blanket on the living room floor, bucket nearby. Hannah was up off and on all night, and Dan got up with her each time, as I laid in bed with my stomach churning.

              Bright and early around 5:00 on Friday morning we were awakened by Daniel running into our room and telling us that “Josh needs you!” We found Joshua sitting rather calmly in his bed, considering that he had just thrown up. We got him cleaned up and I stayed in his bed with him till he was ready to move to the living room. He spent the rest of the day in misery on the living room floor, sleeping restlessly in betweent bouts of being sick. When Grace woke up she seemed very lethargic and still sleepy, and after I nursed her she promptly threw up. She was still having diarrhea and I was concerned about her getting dehydrated. We made an appointment to take her to the doctor in the afternoon, but by lunch time she had kept food down and was acting more perky, so we cancelled the appointment. Sarah felt pretty miserable all day on Friday, but she never got as sick as the others.                     Much to everyone's disappointment, we all stayed home from the Christmas program at church on Friday evening, except for Dan, as he had some important roles to play. This was quite upsetting for some of our kids, as they had worked diligently on quite a few songs they would be singing with the children's choir. I was disappointed too, as I was going to sing in a choir Dan was directing for the first time ever, and I was just looking forward to sharing the whole evening as a family.

               We went to bed, hoping to get some rest, but at 10:30, Joshua woke up throwing up again. I stayed with him until about 12:30 and since it seemed like he was finally sleeping peacefully, I headed back to my own bed. Around 3:30 in the morning, we were rudely awakened by the power shutting off and children waking up. Grace had a super runny mess in her diaper when I picked her up, and I wondered just how I was going to change her. We hadn't found the flashlights yet, but the electricity flicked back on, so I started getting her cleaned up. The the power went off, and on and off and on, and then simply stayed off. You can imagine that changing a mess like that in the dark is a bit of a challenge, and well, rather messy. Then of course, there was no water to clean up with either. After getting the kids settled back down, Dan and I tried to get a little more sleep.

              On Christmas Eve morning we spent the morning with a few more bouts of throwing up and diarrhea, no water, no heat, and no electricity. Obviously, we were quite relieved when the power came back on at 9:30 and we could start to clean things up again. I spent the day running back and forth to the bathroom and laying on the sofa. The girls and I did play some games together and we were able to enjoy that, but I was exhausted. Joshua was no longer throwing up, but had a fever and just laid on the floor all day intermittently sleeping and crying. Daniel was feeling reasonably well and he joined in some of the games we played too. We had been planning to enjoy some cookies and hot chocolate on Christmas Eve, but our menu changed to chicken noodle soup and crackers. A highlight of the evening was opening gifts from my parents – pajamas for the boys, and nightgowns that my mom had made for the girls, with matching ones for their dolls. What special gifts! I didn't even realize that my mom had been making them, and the girls loved them! Even Grace unwrapped hers and said, “Pretty!” All day long the electricity had been flickering, and we prayed that it would stay on through the night. It did, and amazingly, we had a resful night of sleep.

               I woke up on Christmas morning feeling pretty good, so I made some eggs and pancakes for breakfast – not what we had planned for our special Christmas breakfast, but we were glad just to be able to eat! We were trying to decide who should go to church and who should stay home, when someone who had been feeling good for a few days started in with diarrhea again. We decided it would probably be safer if we all stayed home. It was a good decision, because more people had the same problem later in the day. In the middle of our little family church service of singing Christmas carols and having Dan share a Christmas message he had written, the power went off again. We were a little more prepared this time as we had filled the bathtub with water for washing our hands and cleaning things, and had filled several pitchers with drinking water.

                 We spent the day with no power, but had a good time as a family, opening gifts, playing games, and building a lego house that Dan's Dad had gotten for the kids. By 3:00 or so the house was starting to get fairly chilly, and everyone was starting to get weary of having no electricity. We called the power company to see how the progress was coming on restoring power, and they told us it should be on around 4:30. Sure enough, around 4:20, the lights came on! We popped our chicken casserole in the oven, and it heated up in time for supper. It was wonderful to enjoy a hot meal together.

               I've done a lot of thinking this week about lots of different things...... more on that another time!

Sharing our Faith: Better to Strive and Fail then Fail to Strive

So this school year I am teaching a class on missions.  However, I find a problem in teaching this class.  I do not think of myself as being successful in my endeavors as a missionary.  Somehow, I am supposed to explain to students how we ought to go about mission work, when I don’t feel that I have ever been terribly successful. 

It is true that I have never been a missionary, at least not in the technical sense, but I have always striven to live a Christian witness everywhere I go, and I make attempts at sharing the gospel with people.  However, I have not seen a lot of success in some settings.  For example, in college, I feel like I ruined my Christian testimony with a broken off engagement that consumed two years of college (during the relationship) and then marred my testimony ever after.  More recently, I provided pulpit supply for a Native American  church in a town nearby (one hour away… that is nearby in Montana).   While encouraging the faithful members of the church, I found that I had basically no ability to reach beyond to the community during those two years.  Outside of those endeavors, I find that raising my own family requires enough of my time and energy that I have little to give to further efforts, and therefore, I often feel that I fall very short of living out the Great Commission.

However successful or unsuccessful I feel that I have been, I still continue to try.  I am always looking for ways to be more involved in sharing the gospel, reaching out to hurting people, and making disciples of younger believers.  Perhaps you feel as I do.  If so, join me in this continued endeavor, regardless of the visibility of the results.  Let's be faithful and diligent, leaving the results in the hands of the King of kings.  I am inclined to think that He would rather we try and fail then to fail to try.

Jump! How High?

            So I (Dan) mentioned before that I teach Bible at a small Christian school (in northeast Montana), and as such I have a lot of opportunity to speak about what the Bible says about a lot of subjects, and what it really means to view the world by God’s Word.  I am inclined to think that this is one of major problems that Christians in the world have.  We struggle to view the world the way that God does and the way that His Word describes it, because we are stuck viewing the world the way we grew up to view it in our culture.  What troubles me about this is that when we are then confronted with what the Bible really says about things we often reject it because we don’t like what His Word says.  It is foreign to us.

            Sometimes this shows up in the way of more benign misunderstandings.  We read the Bible and misunderstand what God is truly saying to us, because we are reading the Bible or listening to it through our eyes.  Other times, it is foreign to us, but we understand it well and reject it because it asks to much of us.  This is what troubles me.  I have often described it this way.  When a military commander says, “jump”, is it appropriate to ask why?  Would we say “But that’s so harsh.”?  Wouldn’t the only questions we ought to be concerned with be “Where?” and “How high?”? 

In reality, this was one of the qualities that impressed me about my wife.  No, I’m not saying that she was perfect, but I quickly sensed that when she read the Bible, it didn’t matter what the subject was, she was quick to accept what God was telling her to do and to strive to do exactly what He wants.  She doesn’t always get it right, but then again, neither do I.  However, we both typically have this attitude:  God says “Jump!”, and we say “How high?” because it is our goal to jump that high, or at least strive to. 

This commitment has led us to make decisions that perhaps not all professing Christians would.  Many would recognize that these are good commitments.  Some would even talk about it.  Not many of us strive to do these things.  We live more simply (and yet we recognize that we are filthy rich compared to many in the world).  We give more generously than a tithe, when American’s think that my income and benefits keep me barely above the poverty line.  We are very careful about modesty, our language, movies and entertainment, and even what jokes we laugh at.  Sometimes this leaves us running a little bit of a small circle.  Sometimes you can feel a little bit like the odd man out.  But I have this thought that I find encouraging.  Isn’t it the straight and narrow way which few find that Christ calls us to follow?  So if I feel as though I walk a somewhat more narrow way than many, perhaps that is a good thing.  Perhaps it means that we are striving to jump as Christ asks us to.

Thoughts from the Presidential Election

         Today, I (Dan) sit in my desk at work reflecting on what transpired last night with the presidential election.  Not all of the votes are counted yet, but Hillary Clinton seems to have pulled a slight lead on the popular vote, while losing the Electoral College, and thus the election.  With the surprise swing of my old home state (PA) to Republican, Donald Trump has won the presidency, and while I had hoped for this and am reservedly grateful for it, I am acutely aware of something significant.  Electing a president, a congress to our liking, and having Supreme Court justices we prefer does not bring victory, “For deliverance by man is vain (Psalm 108:12)”.  I have also been thinking for some time about the truth of this election, and of its consequences.  Ultimately, no matter whether Donald Trump turns out to be worse than we ever could have imagined, or better, NONE of this is a surprise to God, though the election results were a surprise to many Americans.

            My point is this.  Often we expect that voting for a new leader will bring the change that we seek, that this change will save our nation from disaster and that if this change does not happen our nation will be too far gone to be saved.  To this I say, neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump, nor any other elected official has the power to save us and our nation.  It is true that our nation is guilty of grievous sin, and we have continued in that sin for a long time (Isaiah 64:5).  If we continue without repentance then the LORD will give us over “into the power of our iniquities” (Isaiah 64:7), and so like Israel, we have rebelled, and deserve God’s discipline (Nehemiah 9:29).  As I have prayed over this for many years, I have often prayed Habakkuk’s prayer in 3:1. “Lord we have heard the report about you and I fear… In wrath remember mercy.”  Is this not where we stand.  We as Christians and certainly as a nation depend upon God’s mercy.  I believe we may have been granted a small measure of mercy, though we deserve the rod. 

Still, there remains a more important point to remember.  Much like Nebuchadnezzar, Donald Trump will only be a vassal.  What do I mean by this?  Sometimes I worry that we as Christians in America who have the right to vote and feel that our voice ought to be heard in our democracy forget that the President of the United States of America is NOT the King of kings and Lord of lords.  I know that we all know this is true.  Jesus is “King of kings and Lord of lords.”  But what does that mean?  It means that Any leader of any nation is his vassal in a sense, and in fact, even Satan’s rule as the Prince and the Power of the Air, or the Ruler of this World is actually that of a vassal ruler.  Christ is actually the King, and even Satan has no more authority than God allows!

As Christians, we believe that Jesus is coming back, but before He comes, the world is going to start to look pretty ugly.  We often forget that this means that we will watch our country go down the tubes, morally, spiritually, etc., and more than that, we forget that God PLANNED it to happen!  So whatever happens, whether Donald Trump is good for our country or bad, remember that God is directing this.  If all Mr. Trump does is give us four years reprieve until an even worse person comes along and American’s vote for this person because Mr. Trump could not deliver on his promises, then we know that God has superintended this for His purposes!  Many American Christians like the pre-tribulation rapture position.  It may be correct, as there is a case to be made for it.  However, I fear that we like this position because it gets us out of hard times and distress.  Please understand, regardless of whether or not Jesus takes the church before the seven year tribulation, trials and persecution will come.  Distress will come, and our comfortable bubble will presumably be broken.

In all of this, remember, Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords.  He is the One.  We should feel privileged to be able to vote and be involved in our government.  We would be wise and biblical to participate to use every means to bring about righteousness in our country.  However, remember that “deliverance by man is in vain, through our God we shall do valiantly!” (Psalm 108:12-13)  Deliverance is from the LORD, for “The LORD is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear.  The LORD is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid.” (Psalm 27:1).  God directs the hearts or kings and rulers for His purposes (Proverbs 21:1) and it is our job to seek His face and pray on behalf of our nation, exercising influence in the spheres He has given us as Daniel, Nehemiah, Esther, Joseph, and others more obscure did throughout Scripture. 

Write Your Commands On My Heart

The title of this blog is based on a song that I (Dan) wrote years ago.  The lyrics are very simple. 

 “Write Your commands on my heart.  

Write Your words on my mind. 

 Teach me to love Your truth right from the start, 

that I might please Your heart.” 

 Many years ago, I realized that I needed to have a profound love for God’s word, and that without having His word written on my heart, I was so prone to stray from Him and fall into sin of one kind or another. 

For many Christians today, we aren’t sure what it means to Have God’s word hidden on our heart.  As far as I have been able to understand from scholars who I’ve read and listened to, the expression is a Hebrew euphemism for memorizing God’s word.  That is how the Jewish people for centuries, dating back to before the time of Christ, understood this phrase.  Some years ago, I realized that I had some serious work to do in my knowledge of scripture.  I would listen to people how reference from passage to passage, quoting all over the place from memory, and realize that my knowledge was weak.  I also realized that if I did not fill mind with scripture and things that point me toward God, my mind is prone to wander, and when it wanders, sinful thoughts are easily dwelt upon.  The simple reality is that when my mind wanders, I do not please God in actions or in thoughts.  I have found that reciting scripture is my most successful way to direct my thoughts away from anxious, angry, impure, and trivial thoughts.  Often, reciting scripture even reminds me to pray for others as I recite passages that teach on, comment on, or simply are prayer. 

Over the years since I wrote that song, I have come to realize more and more how much I need His word written on my heart.  The battle for my mind is continually on, whether it be anger, pride, lust, laziness, materialism, selfishness, or some other malady of thought, I need His Word, and if I don’t make it a continual priority, I will stumble, and where my thoughts go, my actions will eventually follow.

From Dan...

What is on my heart?

            This is actually my wife’s blog, however, she is willing to allow me to post on it as well, and since she has been so caught up in the duties of motherhood over the past few years, she has remained rather inactive with regards to blogging.  However, she and I talk nightly about the things on her heart and on my heart, so I feel that I may be able to contribute to well to this blog.

            A little about me, obviously, Melissa, the owner and initial author of this blog, is my wife.  She is the loving and caring mother of our five children, and a tremendous gift to me from God.  I am hers, and she is mine, and so perhaps you can tell that the subject of marriage and family is one that is “on my heart”.  To many, I am a teacher, a teacher of whatever I know. Music was my training, but now I teach math and Bible primarily, and I dabble in carpentry in the summers.  Melissa and I enjoy gardening together, requiring the garden to produce a very large part of our food for a given year.  Many of my illustrations about the Christian life come from gardening and crops (we live in the middle of a remote farming community in northeast Montana). 

            As a teacher of Bible, there are so many messages from scripture that I get to discuss briefly with my students in classes such as Old Testament and New Testament Survey, but I rarely get to fully develop these into something well written.  Perhaps I may be able to do that here.  Perhaps also, I will be able to give voice to some of the issues that my wife and I have discussed a lot over the last few years.  To this end I will endeavor to write what is on my heart!

Dan and our oldest son, Daniel

It's been awhile......

         Well, it's been quite some time since I've posted on this blog.  More than two years, actually. But lately I've been feeling like it's time to start up again. My husband has encouraged me to start writing on this blog again, and he's actually going to join me in posting some things that are on his heart as well!
        I will have to do another update on our family soon, because since I last wrote, God has blessed us with our little Grace, who is a year old already!  Time goes by so quickly!