Night out with Mae Wahn

Looking pretty.

 

 

The Ferris wheel.

We got to watch him spin this cotton candy right there.

 

 

The ride home on the back of the truck.

October 31, 2012

 

Regarding the Internet…

This is a post asking for input and wisdom from you.

We conservative people, have, for the most part, decided that TV isn’t worth it’s time. Why pipe it into your living area for us to have to flip through in order to find something half decent to watch? So we’ve pitched it.

Along comes internet and things get complicated. We find it almost necessary to live and operate in this modern world. Meetings and appointments are planned, cancelled, and even held online. For those of us on the mission field, it’s amazing to be able to talk face to face with family at home via skype.

But this doesn’t change the fact that I unfriended another of Dru’s facebook friends today. It doesn’t change the fact that the news sites flash dumb stories and maybe even adds. We find ourselves knee deep in stuff we don’t want to see and don’t by any means want our husbands to see, by an accidental click. We all know our husbands and men run into junk now and then because they’re honorable men and tell us. Even those of us with internet filters find junk now and then by accident.

But what am I going to do when my 3 year old is 14? Open communication is the key. We all know that. If we just get the internet out of our houses entirely, does that really teach our children how to deal with the real world? Yet, how come it’s okay to have this kind of media in our homes?

Facebook is a fun, amazing tool. But, when you’re in ministry, you have friends who are going post language and junk, and you have to see it. And then friends you thought you could trust post bad stuff. Is the answer a family Facebook page? How many teenagers are going to be enthralled with that?

I don’t have any answers. I want to grow kids that are sheltered from within. Kids that don’t look on sin and read junk just because they want to serve the Lord and be pure. Kids that are going to know how to handle temptations when they discover the real world. Actually, I want my kids to know about the real world as they grow up and know how to deal with it well. But I’m wondering—are we bringing the real world a little too close to us when we pipe it right into our  homes? Our homes that are supposed to be safe, nurturing places.

So, what has worked for your families? What are your house rules? And, if you’re brave enough, what hasn’t worked for your families? What would you do differently if you had it to do over again?

Just Because…

 

Long Post About Life…

Life ticks by. I feel busy, busy. Always. Always something to think about. Something to pray about. Things to remember not to mull about, but to turn over to the Lord. My time, relationships, children, hubby…all of it. My brain feels like it’s on overload, although this week things are better. Thai class isn’t just about language. It’s culture stuff. Complex. More to think about.

So here I sit with my coffee on this stuffy afternoon to tell you about the fragments that make my life go around. I’m fully aware that I should probably take a nap. I know full well that I should work on my Thai studies. Double chocolate chip cookie dough is in the fridge waiting to baked, and later frosted with cream cheese frosting and eaten at an astounding rate. Never mind. It’s time to stop. To write. To reflect. To rest.

This is us all dressed up for banquet night.

I learned in Thai class today that if I live in a Thai neighborhood and we live our lives together as friends, knowing each other well, we still have to use “high” language when we go to church with these same people. Because it’s appropriate, and to use common language in the church building, would be rude. However, if I take this same group of people and we meet together in my home, and talk about the things of the Lord, than I can use normal street language.

For today’s lesson I’m too try to memorize a prayer in Thai…high language and all. I told her I’d study this so I know it, but I’m not studying this in order to impress the Thai people with my ability to pray.

I also learned that if I’m to pray in a way that is appropriate and proper, than I must learn to speak the high language. We don’t use street language to speak to God anymore than we do to speak to the king. This is why Pii Bob, as of yet, refuses to pray in church when asked. (However, if we were in a home, maybe, he’d be a little more comfortable. I’m not sure.) New Christians in Thailand will tell you, when asked to pray publicly, “I haven’t learned how to pray yet,” as though it were a subject you learn, such as Math, or Science. It is indeed, a bit of a science. In Thai, some people are known as good prayers, in the same way that we think of people as good singers, or good mechanics, or good students or teachers, simply because they know how to use pretty language to pray. Kru Gaye admitted to me that many people are guilty of the sin of the Pharisees, wanting their beautiful prayers to be heard. Too many of them, not praying from the heart, but from the head.  All this troubles me badly. And, although this information answers some questions, it brings up new ones. This is indeed a complex culture we live in.

Dru and I are also in the midst of asking ourselves—what should the redeemed Thai culture look like? How does Jesus want to change Thai culture? We’re thinking about specific applications of Scripture. And we find ourselves in a position of some awkwardness as we work with our Mennonite brothers and sisters here, loving and trusting them so much, yet finding that my Dru Seth isn’t really a Mennonite after all—and by extension, I’m not either. We desperately want to do what is right towards our Mennonite brothers and sisters, our Thai brothers and sisters, and our Heavenly Father.

Amidst all of this, this lady, with so much on her mind, is very thankful to her Heavenly Father, for His care. Specifically, thankful that He brought Francis here to live with us for these few short months. I knew I needed her, but didn’t know how much. Just having the stability of her presence has meant so much. Last weekend I was hormonal and emotional. I realized that with my housework, children, Thai classes, husband, and church planting on my mind—even with Frances here, some things were still not happening. Jube’s behavior in general was getting out of hand and the housework was not happening right because I didn’t have the brains to delegate properly. So Frank took over the laundry…just poof…she’s doing my laundry…which feels amazing. And I’m not even thinking about it. The laundry smells clean and lovely again, under her tender loving care. She’s just quietly picking up tabs in other areas too, she has all along actually, but, well, this week I’m just letting it slide better and trusting her for it. It feels like it took we awhile to figure out how to make this all work. It’s not Frank’s fault at all. It’s my crazy, fragmented, brain.

It’s also been just plain fun to have Frank here and get to know her as my sister. I’ve observed that she doesn’t like red straws but uses all the other colors first. When all of the other colors are nearly gone, she’ll dig out new straws. “There just…too red,” she said. She likes clean babies. So my babies get scrubbed more often than they’re used to, but they don’t seem to mind and I don’t either so it’s fine. We think alike along a lot of lines…even about things like croutons that should be in the salad.

The children are healthy and happy. Jube will probably still need to wear a pull-up when he’s sixteen, but there are worse problems, right? Havilah is underweight according to my doctor. So I’m feeding her more milk and and he gave me an iron supplement for her. It’s not like she doesn’t have any chubbies though, so I’m not real worried about it other than to be subconsciously keeping better tabs on how much she eats. Bottles kind of save the day when her teeth bother her too much to chew food.

It all started with Jube’s verse about God’s Word being a light unto our path. Which made him think of Tim walking him down the path to the cabin with his flashlight after a long happy day at Nanna’s house. So he wanted to be shown again where Tim lived. Geography has already begun around here. The other day he begged his father for a city map so he could see where the park with the birds and fish was.

Hubby is back in school again. The second semester started this week. He has a lot of writing and oral presentation type classes this term and so he’s enjoying that aspect of it a lot. He’s also hoping to take some tests here pretty soon that will effectively allow him to “skip” those classes—if he can pass the tests.

Two weeks ago a friend of ours made it possible for us to stay at one of the nicer hotels here in the city for a very good price. Many thanks to this unnamed friend! My amazing man had made mental notes of quite a few different things that we needed to talk about as a couple. Things that had been sitting on the back burner and falling by the wayside for too long. Mostly things about where we are headed as a family. What we are doing for family devotions. What we’re doing for entertainment. And a lot more. All in all, it was one of the most profitable dates we’ve taken. I came away grateful for the amazing man God gave me. Thankful for a man who cares about his family and our direction as a family. Thankful for a man who wants to be tuned in to me. I came away from that time feeling safe and happy.

These two pictures were from our date. We didn’t take enough pictures…our camera battery died. But these are are happy memories anyway. My favorite meal was the one above. Just plain cashew chicken at Black Canyon in the old mall.

One of the things we talked about on that date was how Dru’s wife was really disturbed by how her bedroom was not well-painted or pretty. Mostly all it needed was some time and support from the man. We had the paint already. Our room is now beautiful, the only thing waiting to be done is the installation of a light fixture. This was kind of extra, but because we didn’t have to buy paint and the only expense so far had been masking tape and paint brushes, we bought an on sale new light fixture the other day when we were in the store for something else. I don’t think that we’ve spent more than $20 USD for the whole project. Nice. And it very deeply blesses my heart. All the way down to wall paper border from Lily that I finally got to hang. I am very happy about it. The light fixture still needs to be hung…that will come some day, hopefully soon, when Dru has time.

My Men’s Birthdays and More…

I know it’s been a while since I’ve blogged. Those of you who really care about pictures have been keeping up with Frank’s blog. I’m glad you’re enjoying them. I hope that you all will go home and take pictures of your lives for us to see now. And blog them. Sometimes I think people forget that in all of their caring for us, we want to know about them too.

Life has been crazy around here the last—oh, about three weeks. I’ve been so thankful to have Francis here “for such a time as this,” only I wish she could have missed out on some of the drama that surrounded us these last couple of weeks. Drama I’m not even going to go into other than to say that it’s better now and God answered many tears and prayers and the world isn’t going to stop going ‘round, even though in the middle of it, it did feel really awful at times. Actually, looking it all back over I have to say, God IS good and will continue to be.

And after we got through all of that, we felt like we were thrown another curve ball, which I’m not going to tell you about either. But last night Dru told me that he came to a decision that he felt peace about, and when the man does that, then things feel better cause then you at least have a plan. A man without a plan has got to be one of the world’s most helpless feelings.

But in all of this, my life is still pressed down and shaken over with good and happy things. Like my family.  Frank snapped the following two pictures of us when we went to the Mall. The children we left with Mae Wahn.

I like it how we look like we like each other.

For Jube’s birthday we headed to the park to feed the birds. Jube was so excited and amazed that he didn’t’ even eat his cupcake. I couldn’t even get him to pose properly.

Sitting near the edge of the water like this made it easy to feed both the fish and the birds. Notice the water swirling.

Havilah was determined to go swimming. She was trying to leap into the pond with great bounds. Stinker.

This is my Dru man with his new book bag. We’re kind of happy with it because its leather, the right style and the price wasn’t too bad. After going through one bag in just one semester, we decided we might as well get him one that would last. Any of you who know Dru know that he can be dreadfully hard on things. It was kind of a struggle with the conscience to go ahead with this—but his wife kind of convinced him to go for it, so he did.

Finding it was a bit of a hassle but it made for a long, latish date (happy thing). Frank had the children tucked into bed by the time we got home. But then both children were sick and Jube had to spend some time in a steam tent, and Havilah didn’t want to sleep all night. So I didn’t get much sleep that night.

I like us.

And then we went to the coffee shop and ordered too much but got most of it down anyway and laughed and talked and read Jube  a story , and chased Havilah around and had a good time while the dirty dishes waited at home. I made a conscious decision not to think about them and enjoy myself and my family.

Jube with one of his new books. Jube got lots of presents from other people. Anticipating this and given the amount of toys he already has, we kept it really simple. We gave him two books and his bears from Marmee and Dru bought an app for Jube to play with on his computer. (Dru’s computer that is. Dru and Jube like to play games on the tablet but Jube is still a bit young for angry birds.)

 

This little girl got silly and ran around and was cute.

Please excuse any typos until my husband finds them and fixes them. I’m going to go get my day on the road. I have to study for my Thai class. There are more pictures of the the birthday party we had at our house last night with Jube’s famous snowman cake that I made for him. He has insisted ever since Havilah’s birthday that he wanted a snowman cake…so I made one. It turned out okay if I must say so myself.

On a Rainy Morning

The children and Frank are still sleeping. The rain is falling, is falling, is falling, as rainy season rains itself out by hours at a time. I worry my precious pumpkins will blight and mold with all of this rain. But it really doesn’t matter about my pumpkins now does it, in the light of eternity.

My washing machine was fixed and I got it back last evening. Lovely to have my clothes wrung out properly. Today’s agenda included mostly laundry but I’m loath to get started until the rain stops. Drying laundry, even if I am doing it inside with a fan on the wrack, is a near fruitless endeavor.

Yes, it is lovely to have Francis (a.k.a., Frank) here. It’s hard to believe it’s been over a week already since she arrived. So far we’ve done nothing exciting with her other than get stuck in the rain on our first Sunday to church because our car doesn’t like rain and has a tendency to get fussy when we take it out in the rain. But we forget about this quirk it has until we’re stuck in the rain…so it hasn’t gotten fixed. So Francis missed church the first Sunday all because of a car.

And here we are still struggling to pin down a Thai teacher. One teacher we really liked is a bit pricey and transportation is an issue. Dru was able to make contact with another teacher we were recommended (she wouldn’t answer her phone) only to have her say that she was really busy but has a friend who’d like to start teaching and are we interested? So that’s where we are this morning. Do I want to have a teacher who’s never taught Thai before as my teacher? The lack of experience on her part has its pros and cons. There is some advantage to having a teacher to whom I can bring my agenda and say, “This is what I want to learn this month,” rather than have her decide what we learn. This does require more work on my part, but done properly, it could be the most effective way of learning. But, do I even know what I need to learn? Sigh. So glad for Dru helping me through all of this.

Today we also need to go pick up Dru’s now repaired bicycle. Then Frank and I can ride around the neighborhood. She says she’s going to go on bike rides and that she’s not scared of dogs.

It’s time for me to go make breaky. Jube just came an asked for a muffin. Muffins are his preferred form of breakfast. So I shall go make some breakfast. And I don’t have anything else to say anyway. Life is just really normal around here…

My Motherhood Buzz

I love my children. Really, I have been able to enjoy them a lot lately. I'm noticing on the days that I'm tired, I can still make life happen--the work doesn't pile up. This because I'm not sick or pregnant. It's been lovely to spend more time with both of my children. Jube and I get along better this way. Somehow, it helps with his over all attitude and his desire to please and obey. And I can give Havilah all the hugs and squishes I want to. I guess it boils down to being able to enjoy my kiddos right now in a way that I haven't in the past. I'm very thankful and blessed by this stage of our familyhood.

Having said all that, sometimes, I just buzz. There is a certain, constant vigilance that every mother has to keep. I must know where my children are and what they're doing at all times. If I don't I'm sure to regret it. Jube will surely find a new zone to explore or Havilah will tumble. All this vigilance and constant awareness starts to make me feel like I need to get away so that that particular lobe of my brain can rest for a bit.

I was explaining to Dru the necessity for me to get a break now and then to calm my buzzing brain. I asked him if he "got" what I meant. And he did. He said he gets that way after a half hour of babysitting. This is why God made women to be moms and men to be dads.

Another interesting thing came out in that conversation with Dru. He said he tends to gage our necessity for a date based on how much talk time we've had. In other words, we get away for a date to talk. He's felt in the past that a quiet date is a little bit of a let down. It kind of dawned on him made that when I go on a date, it doesn't matter if we talk or not. What matters is that I'm away from my children for a couple hours.

That almost seems terrible to confess. But there it is and I know I'm not the only mother out there who knows what I'm talking about. It actually feels funny to say all this because I really am so much enjoying my children right now. In fact, I can buzz and be happy at the same time, now that I figured out what was going on. It took me a bit to figure it out actually. I had a few, "What is wrong with me?" days.

Anyway, I got my date with Dru today. We did some market shopping in big market today--a place to not take children. We ended up at the mall for a while because the motorbike needed a tune up and the shop is very near the mall. I got to hold Dru's hand lots and lots for about 3 hours. It was amazing. Tonight I'm not buzzing.

I'm looking forward to my day with my children tomorrow. I think maybe we'll make a cake or cookies or something fun like that. Jube will help me fold laundry and Havilah will unfold his washcloths. We'll steam carrots to eat for Havilah because she thinks they're candy. We won't feed Havilah so many grapes though, because I think they're giving her the scoots. Jube won't do the farm puzzle on the floor, like we did today, because Havilah will slip on a piece and bump her head, like she did today. Oh, I love my babies!

Odds-N-Ends of Life

--Havilah is fussy these days. More teeth I think. It's also a stage of life consisting of many bumps and bruises. More so even than Jube at her age. Saturday night she was eating dragon fruit in her high chair, dressed in only her pamper. When she was finished I took her out and rinsed her off in the bathroom. She had it dragon fruit all down her front. Then I sent her up the steps to her dad who was putting them both into the bath tub. On her way up she slipped and fell backwards, biting her dear little pink tongue that likes so well to hang out of her mouth when she's happy. It was my fault. If I had dried her off before sending her up the steps she might not have slipped. Dumb, dumb mom! It was a very good little bite she got and it's still in the process of healing. I'm thankful it only bled as much as it did.

--Jube is memorizing verses very well these days. It's good for both of us. I made him a verse book that we write or paste his verses into, along with stickers and pictures. This  has made learning verses fun--and wow! what a good little brain. I want to cram it as full as Bible verses as I can. I thought about starting him on his multiplication tables now so that he'd know them...but I decided that that was ridiculous when we can be learning Bible verses and multiplication tables are useless to him right now. Where as, "Children, obey your parents," and "Be ye kind," are not.

--Speaking of being kind. Jube is learning about that right now too. What makes a child do what they will to another child for seemingly no reason is beyond me. But Jube isn't naturally spiteful--he just doesn't think sometimes. But, I think he's beginning to.

--I am missing two molars on my lower jaw. The second one from the back on either side. I was complaining to Dru the other night that eating salad takes me twice as long as everyone else. Eating raw carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower, is slow, thoughtful work--and painful if I bite down wrong. To my glee the other day I discovered that my wisdom tooth on one side is coming in, pushing the back tooth forward into the missing tooth's spot. I can see one corner of a brand new tooth. I was suspicious that this was happening and behold, now I know.  Silly, the things that make me happy. But you just trying chewing raw veggies without sufficient molars once, and you might understand. I should go to the dentist and see what she has to say about these developments. I am slightly concerned that the "traveling" tooth will travel in an undesired direction and mess up my bite.

--I finally have two pumpkin seedlings growing my back yard. This makes me happy.

--The light bulb in my laundry room is dead right now so I have been opening the back door to let the light in. Keeping the screen door shut. But there is still a crack under the screen I'm afraid. I was lifting a load of laundry into the wash machine from off of the floor and a large, foot long or so, lizard jumped out. I let out a squawk, put the load in the washer, checking to make sure there wasn't another one, and then went in search of a flashlight. I found one, opened the screen door, looked under the sink and there he was. But he wriggled out and I assume he went out the door because he disappeared somewhere. I'm just glad he wasn't a rat. I can not handle rats.

--We've been thinking lately of how thankful we are for the church family at Grace Bible in Wisconsin. Some of the friends we've been talking to lately really don't have that support in the same way we do. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers and letting us know that you believe in us and believe we're supposed to be here. It means so much more than you know!

--Frank is coming in two and a half weeks. I'm very excited.

--After she gets here I'm going to do some serious Thai language study. Help me pray for the right teacher. Someone(s) anonymously gave us 3,000 baht for my language study. Wow. Thanks so much. Good language study can be expensive and I really need to make sure these next months of study are not wasted. So, to those of you who pray for us, pray for my language study, the right teacher, and the right price.

--I'm still not posting pictures of our time with LaMar and Dot. This computer is missing two programs I like to use for that project. So later. We very much enjoyed our time with them. So glad they could come.

An incomplete collection of pictures…

Kitchen help.

Potty training? Kind of. I’m getting trained anyway. He goes if I take him. He doesn’t quite have the hang of it all yet and so I’m still taking it as a slow process.

Dot and LaMar at our home. They’re working on the felt, quiet book that Dot brought Jube. I have more pictures of our time with LaMar’s but they’re on Dru’s computer still. We had to get them off of their camera, seeing as I kept forgetting to take pictures.

At Duff’s one Sunday afternoon.

Hard boiled egg time.

Sometimes I see my cousin Laife in my son.

We do books at our house.

Dru fed the children ice cream for breakfast one morning.

This is our resident princess. On this fine day, she chose to do some gardening.

Little Updatish Sort of Post

It’s a very Monday sort of Monday. I’m not sure why but I’ve got very little motivation. It’s not even like we did anything besides go to church yesterday, yet, I’m just barely moving.

And I desperately need to blog. Life is rolling along here. It’s been so nice having Dot and LaMar here to see our world and life. Dot was over night the other night then spent all of Friday with me. I figured out where Melinda’s energy came from. We tackled the weed patch in the back corner and the lawn. Dot did most of it. Three days later and I’m still sore. I actually don’t even know why because Dot did most of the work. Maybe it’s from something else.

Friday night, Dot and I walked down to the church to see English classes in session. We pushed Havilah in the stroller and Jube rode his bike. We showed up way later than I anticipated and Dot missed the general assembly. I’m sorry Dot! I finally figured out why Jube was having such a slow time on his bike and thus why we were so slow. Last night when we went on a family walk I discovered that both of Jube’s tires were very FLAT. His training wheels were holding up his back tire. No wonder he was having a hard time. Even as we went on Friday night I was puzzled by Jube because he often can be way on ahead…So now I feel bad for Jube and Dot. Why didn’t I notice they were flat? Partially because he’s light enough that he doesn’t really “squish” it down when he sits on it. Now I’m a smarter mom though I guess.

I got really tired of trying to trying to get to Jube’s understanding the other day. I decided another form of discipline was in order for a while. Now he has a necklace with buttons on it. If he’s naughty I can take a button. This is devastating for him. The idea was a spin on an “Instruction for Righteousness,” idea. Yes, Mama, I dug that book out in desperation and have enjoyed all the scripture and how it can apply to child training. Thanks. Oh, and if he’s good he gets buttons. Sometimes he gets “just because I love you” buttons. So we’re happier around here again for a while, as long as I’m consistant.

On Thursday night last week we took LaMars to the Hideaway restaurant. It’s fun to take people there and watch them despair over what to get because the menu is so big. Dru and I hadn’t been there for a long time either. Maybe not since Havilah was tiny and we took Elijah and Brenda about a year ago. And then Brenda and I sat in the truck bed all the way home and talked a mile a minute. But that’s another memory.

I’m looking forward to Frank being here, not only to have her but to start studying. 

Can’t wait to hit the language study—I’m starting to feel frantic about how much I don’t know. You can be praying for that part of my life.

I’m tired and draggy a lot lately and not sure why. But you don’t need to hear those moanings here are now.

Have a happy day.

Not Flesh and Blood

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading in my Bible the passage where Paul tells the Ephesians to put on the whole armor of God. I  liked the way my New English Bible says it and I read it several times. “Our fight is not against human foes…but against….the superhuman forces of evil in the heavens. Therefore, take up God’s armour: then you will be able to stand your ground when things are at their worst….. Give yourselves wholly to prayer, and entreaty: pray on every occasion in the power of the Spirit…To this end keep watch and persevere, always interceding for all God’s people.”

That night I had a dream that demonstrated exactly what this verse is talking about. I don’t know if you can say the dream “meant” anything. I just know that I woke up terrified and eventually realized that principalities and powers were probably delighted by my fear, so eventually turned the light on and read all of the book of Philippians and prayed until I could go back to sleep.

The next evening, I got a chance to tell Dru the details of the dream and how they affected me. So thankful for that man’s prayers! In the end, I had to admit that the powers of Satan are scary to me. But I realized that until the day that I can say that I have no fear of these “principalities and powers”, I can take refuge in the fact that my heavenly Father does not have one smidgen’s worth of fear towards Satan or his demons. In this I rest.


Later, on the phone with my mom, she told me about how the Native American children were able to attend the Vacation Bible School at Northwoods Mennonite Church. She explained some of happenings of that event, and especially what my brother faced on the last evening. Again, principalities and powers.

I’ve been on Dru’s Facebook a lot recently. I don’t really have a Facebook account of my own right now that I use, so I’ve been on Dru’s to keep up with what’s happening in the Skrivseth world. At the same time I see what’s up on his home page. I ended up removing a friend from his list the other day because of a totally inappropriate image. Also, there are words that get slung around in people’s common vocab that make me feel dirty to read. This is the world we live in.


My cousin just lost her children to social services; not because of parental negligence, but through the perversion of a system.Justice was greatly lacking, while lies abounded throughout the whole case. Again, I had to think about how we do not fight against flesh and blood. And what about our prayers? Were they not heard? I cried for an hour this morning and still find myself choking up today. How can my cousin and her husband pick up the pieces? How do you go on? What is there to live for? And then I remember that God is in control. I ask myself, “Didn’t I pray hard enough?” Because the situation really has been on my heart and in my prayers this month. But not enough apparently? Obviously, I didn’t realize the gravity of the situation. Somehow, I thought that Truth would prevail.

Then I remind myself that Truth has already prevailed. Somehow. Somehow God is going to be glorified in this situation. Somehow God is in control. It feels like we lost our chance to pray this thing through to the appropriate ending. It feels like Satan has prevailed. Yet I pray to God, that He, who is not locked in time, will, in a sense, go back and change it. That somehow, this story isn’t completed. That principalities and powers will still be defeated as they relate to this specific situation.

Now I’m asking myself questions about what this means for me today. For me as a mom with two children. How do I raise my children in the fear of the Lord? The responsibility of it is huge! Is it even prudent to bring children into this world anymore? Yes, I realize that the grace of God is sufficient—but don’t tell me that as parents of children, aware of the world we live in, you haven’t asked yourself this same question.

“For I am convinced that there is nothing in death or life, in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers, in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, the forces of the universe, in the heights or depths—nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38, 39

I Love Dru

After a sad day yesterday filled with sick children a a piece of sad news, Dru brought me flowers.

Sorry if my blog looks a little funny, Dru was in the process of beautifying it yesterday when he should have been homework. He’ll get it fixed nice again one of these days.