Back and Forward

As long as I'm glancing and not gazing, it's all good.

Back at the past, that is.

That's the theme God's been driving home to me of late. And, He's used Moses, Timehop, and Easter to do it.

I'll start with Moses.

I'm studying his life this spring through Bible Study Fellowship. (Two thumbs up for BSF and their method of study. Highly, highly recommend). Moses is nearing death, and he is giving the Israelites, who are poised on the brink of the promised land, his farewell talks. Some of his words have to do with where they've been, but more of his words are to prepare them for what is ahead. I highlighted these words on page 1 of the notes BSF printed about this very thing.

"There are brief looks back to where the people had come from; then, the focus shifts forward again. The land to which God was leading His people and the future He had promised them always takes center stage."

When I read those words, I thought of a quote about where our focus is that I've heard somewhere down the line.

Glance at your circumstances. Gaze at God.

It doesn't fit perfectly - the past is behind you and circumstances are before you - but those words from BSF and that remembered quote made me start pondering my focus. Am I focused more on where I've been or where I'm going? Do I look more at my circumstances or at my God?

The routines of life beckoned after reading those notes and thinking that quote. But a "focus" pot was now simmering on my mind's back burner and it tagged along when I got busy doing what I normally do.

And, one of the things I normally do?  Check my Timehop.

In fact, every morning, an alert pops up on my lock screen.

If it's ready, I'm ready.

Timehop takes me back to this date, one year ago, two years ago, and so forth - for as long as I've been on social media - and shows me what I was up to.  It's a completely delightful daily walk down memory lane.

That simmering "focus" pot just rumbled a little - Timehop just joined the stew.

Not condemningly, though. Just mindfully.

Glancing is what you do on that fun app.  I smile, and thank God for the (mostly) good things I'm reminded of there. He has been faithful. Where that app takes me is not a time and a place I find myself wishing was back, but a time and a place I was glad I was in.

Ok, sometimes I might wish those "easy" times were back.  Sometimes, today's hard makes me either morph yesterday's hard into easy, or it makes me forget yesterday's hard completely. But I try to remind myself as I look at pictures of my smiling, adorable children that yesterday really did have its share of hard. I swallow any lumps, and go on.

Easter week 2015 rolls around. I didn't realize it at the time, but my focus pot was about to start boiling.

My Lou and I have been celebrating Easter together since 1987. We've been taking the family Easter pics since the early 90s.

If my friends told me they liked my hair, they were lying.

Since our youngest was born in 1998, Easter activities have been fairly predictable for two decades.

We'd get messy and artistic and dye eggs.

 We'd dress in our new Easter outfits and go celebrate the Resurrection with our friends at church.

Mary Grace's hat and gloves -- on point

"Can we do a silly picture?' Always the question at the end of the "real" picture.

We'd eat a special Easter lunch and then hunt Easter eggs.

Sorry, Hannah...couldn't find one of you hunting!

As I type all that and glance at those pictures, I'm smiling. I'm smiling because I'm tempted to write just how much fun it was - and stop there. Don't get me wrong. It was fun. Those were precious, precious times. But as I think back to those times, I know they weren't easy and innocent like they sometimes look in pictures. I've forgotten how much work it all was and how tired I know I was. I've forgotten the sibling squabbles I had to referee because somebody found more eggs than somebody else. I've forgotten how somebody got upset with me because things weren't going exactly like they had thought they should go. I've forgotten how under appreciated I felt at times when all I was trying to do was make sure everybody had a good time!

(Yikes. Maybe I haven't forgotten like I thought I had.)

This year looked quite different than those Easters. Four of our six kids were home, which made this mama happy. We did like we do when we are all gussied up for Easter and took pictures.

There was fun conversation around the lunch table. I like my adult children a lot. But as sweet as this Easter was, every once in a while, in the middle of it, I found myself thinking back to Easters past.

Now there's nothing wrong with thinking about the sweetness of past events in your family. I know that. But I also know my heart, and I could feel it longing a little bit for those days - gazing at those days in my heart - as if these days were somehow lacking.

These days are not lacking. This day, this moment in time, with these people, at the age they are, is right where I'm supposed to be. It wasn't better back then. The past was what I needed then and the present is what I need now. The past makes this present even more sweet. They are both a gift from the hand of God.

And God is using the past and this present to prepare me and you for the future. He has good work for us to do!

We are to glance at the past for joy, instruction, and encouragement. We are to live, prepare, and hope in the present. And we are to focus on and follow God into the future.

This is what I preach to myself when I'm tempted to think my past was better (happier, more fulfilling, easier) than my present. This is what I preach to myself when I find myself staring at pictures of times past and almost aching for those days back.

He wants me to glance at my past, but gaze at Him and be doing the good work He has for me to do!

I remind myself God was faithful then and He is faithful now and He still has good work for me to do.

He has good work for you to do. In your family, in your community, and in your world. Work that matters for eternity.

So let's glance at the past, remember, and smile, but let's gaze at God, rejoice, and...get busy.

We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10

Some Before Easter Thoughts

Today, I landed on a word I don't typically contemplate.

Agony.

It all started when I came across this tweet from Desiring God.

Desiring God ‏@desiringGod  5h

Today is Maundy Thursday. When Jesus prayed the world’s greatest prayer. http://dsr.gd/1h4UeCm 

That's a big claim, and I had to check it out. You can read the article for yourself here.

In the article, the emphasis is not on the Last Supper, which is what is typically talked about on the Thursday before Easter. It's on Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Here's what Hebrews 5:7 said about that prayer:

 Hebrews 5:7 says, “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.”

The first thing that hit me about this passage was why Jesus was heard. It was because of his reverence. If you look up reverence, you'll find words similar to:

 a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe.

That was my first check of the day. 

When I pray, how do I approach my creator God? 

It was my first check, but it hasn't been my last. Even as big as that question is, it took a back seat when I read the rest of the article. In it was this paragraph:

Nothing in Jesus’s experience comes closer to this description than the prayers of Gethsemane. “Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears,” corresponds emotionally to Luke 22:44, “Being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” “Loud cries and tears” is a description of the “agony” of Jesus.

When Jesus was in the Garden, he was in agony. 

Agony.

There was no physical pain yet, and the Bible says he was in agony. I saw this picture on A Holy Experience. Out of all the ones I saw when I googled "Jesus praying in Gethsemane," this one spoke to me.

So all day, off and on, at random times, I would think of Jesus in the Garden in agony. What does that mean? What exactly was he agonizing over?

The article describes aspects of it, and I encourage you to read the article for yourself to go deeper. 

But I thought I caught a glimpse of at least one possible aspect of his agony when I was taking a few minutes today to read the book my Luke gave me for Christmas. In Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath on page 148, Gladwell quotes J. T. MacCurdy, who said, "We are all of us not merely liable to fear, we are also prone to be afraid of being afraid."

When I read that, I thought maybe Jesus was a little like me. Did I really just type that? Jesus like me? Only in the sense that he was somehow fully human and I'm definitely only fully human. In my humanness, I have a time with the "before" to something that is predicted to be sad or hard. Can I do it? Will I do it, or will I chicken out if an "out" presents itself?

It hit me when I read the above quote, that Gesthsemane was the pinnacle of a complete week of  "before" for Jesus. He knew Friday was coming. A day that would be sadder and harder than any day before or since. I believe he was just as human as you and me (although I don't understand that fully) and that part of his agony was:

Can I do it?

Will I do it, or will I chicken out?

The "before" something has its own set of issues that God has to help us with. He helped Jesus in the Garden.

Please know I don't pretend to have this completely figured out. I don't even have it completely thought out. I just wanted to share what God and I have been bouncing around in my soul today.

Today. Tonight. When a little over 2000 years ago, he was in agony. 

Agony.

Because he loved you and me.

InstaFriday - Sometimes a Texting Parent is a Dangerous Thing

I typically check Urban Dictionary before I include abbreviations in a tweet or blog post. Now, it seems, I need to do that before I send a text.

My name is Shelley, and I am an uncool parent. 

The other night, at a basketball game, I tried to be cool and clever with my son. He was sitting on the bleachers and I saw him shake his legs like crazy. Then he'd be still. Then he'd shake them up and down again. That behavior prompted the following series of texts. Mine are in green.

Which then prompted uproarious laughter on both sides of the gym.

I have since checked Urban Dictionary for POS. The number one definition is as David so delicately pointed out. Number 2 is parent over shoulder - an instant message warning that a parent is near and could see what you are typing, so don't type anything you wouldn't want them to see. Number 3 is an abbreviation some companies use for positively outstanding service. (#3 even seems lame to me, but being as uncool as I am, I don't really trust my  "lameness" sensor.)  My definition of that abbreviation came from a friend who used to use it quite frequently. Obviously I need to pay attention to the words "used to."

The "don't tell your friends!" text was prompted because, as David was practically falling off the bleachers laughing, he was showing everybody around him our conversation. At the time, I was a smidge embarrassed. Now I think it's hilarious. I must. I'm posting it for the world to see.

A joyful heart is good medicine.

Proverbs 17:22

The joy continued throughout the weekend as I watched my daughters, Faith and Elizabeth, play in a volleyball tourney. We didn't win, but it was fun anyway.

The tourney was held at Evangel University in Springfield, MO. The bathroom in the gym sports a little old world, a little new world style. To wash your hands, you step on the black bar near the floor at the bottom of the sink, and a waterfall cascades out into the huge sink. To dry your hands, you wave them in front of the paper towel dispenser. I kind of feel like a surgeon when I'm in there.

At volleyball tournaments, you have a little down time, so I read my Health magazine. Since this is where I'm at, it caught my eye. I'm not sure if this is good news or bad news for my family...

Me? Competitive?

Monday was another day out of school for President's Day. I love seeing all the flags around town.

Thanks to the Bolivar Optimists for setting these out

Mary Grace suggested flying ours too!

And once again, at Classical Conversations, the kids impressed me - this time with their imitation of the style of Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield. Notice they copied how Davis gave all his characters big eyes.

Mary Grace's harrowing encounter with a spider inspired her comic strip

And then we come to Tuesday afternoon. The meal before the game. The light before the dark. The calm before the storm. The happiness before the sadness. The hope before the loss.

 And as proud as I am of these boys, I still don't want to talk about it.

Momerators feed the Liberators

Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, marked the beginning of the Lenten season. I got out one of my treasures -
my wreath that I first learned about over at A Holy Experience.  I wrote a few thoughts about Lent here.

Wednesday is also my hubby's day off, so we spent a little time finalizing some of our plans for our trip to Italy to see Hannah next month. (!)

Ciao!

And I ended the week with two nice surprises, courtesy of Mary Grace. First, completely unsolicited, she cleaned the kitchen. Oh. Oh. Oh. How nice is that.

Not only was she feeling the clean gene, she was feeling the creative one, too. I walked into my clean kitchen to see this beautifully decorated plate.

"How'd you think of this idea, Mary Grace?"

"I googled cute Easter sayings."

Cute. Very cute.

In fact, I'd say that's PO - Positively Outstanding.





I do know what PO usually means...once again, I'm trying to be cute and clever. Hope it doesn't backfire:)

Lent

We need Ash Wednesday. We need to be reminded of this truth.

This kind of sobering truth forces us to think about our life. Why we live. Why we die.

The season of Lent is a good time to think about those things. 40 days out of 365 to contemplate in a different way Jesus' sacrifice for us - the sacrifice that saves us from the wrath to come. (I hate typing those last 4 words. I wonder at those last 4 words. Do I really believe those last 4 words?)

I've come across a couple of helpful sites that suggest readings and practices for the next 40 days. Maybe there's something for you there...

40 Ideas for Lent

The Trail to the Tree


Please know that I've said a prayer for you, my readers, as you contemplate these things today.

Follow Through Friday on Saturday - Easter

Whoops! Time crunch this week. Reasons exist for my lateness, but that's going to be the topic of a future post, so we'll delve right into the topic at hand. My follow through task from 2 weeks ago went like this:

Next week: Easter is one month away. Every year, the day after Easter, I tell myself that I'm going to emphasize this holiday more next year.  I have my wreath out (see March 9 post), but otherwise, I have nothing celebratory around the house. And I have no special plans for Easter week. This week, I'm going to work on making the house more Easter centered and I'm going to plan Christ centered activities/readings for Easter week.


Well, because of my little April 1 prank, Easter is now a short two weeks away. Between now and then, David has 5 golf matches, Faith has 2 track meets, Elizabeth has 5 soccer games, and Mary Grace has 2 soccer games and 4 tennis lessons. She and I are also going to squeeze her "I'm about to be a teenager" trip to St. Louis in. Add a couple of more non sports related events on the calendar,  and we only have the potential for everybody to be home for 3 evening meals in the next 14 days. (That kind of hectic schedule is also fodder for a future post.)


So, what will our Easter emphasis look like? I'll list them for you and then briefly comment on each one.

nice fingerprints

1. Resurrection Eggs: These have been around a while, but we still enjoy them even though my kids are older. Each egg contains an small item representing a significant event during Jesus' last days on earth. There is a related scripture reading with each. Once a day, starting this Wednesday, you open an egg, read the scripture and discuss the symbol. Obviously, it's best to do this when everybody is home.  Thankfully, the entire family being together at least once in the day is not completely shot for us because we already have a set breakfast time in place. The kids have to be at the table every school day at 7:20 for breakfast. I'm a loving tyrant about this. They may be half asleep some mornings, but they are there. I try to read to them a short passage from the Bible. We'll just take a brief hiatus from the book of Daniel, which we are in right now (remember the writing on the wall story? Yikes.) 


Food for the body. Food for the soul. But let me be honest here (not that I'm not always honest, just need a little emphasis). I often still feel a bit awkward initiating this reading time and actually doing it. And sometimes I wonder about its effectiveness. But then I remember

Isaiah 55:11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

So, awkward feeling or not, I try to do it anyway (most days) praying God will cause it to take root in my kid's lives. Maybe, if you've been wanting to try some kind of similar reading, the Resurrection Eggs this Easter season could be a launching point.


2. Saturday Night before Easter Reading Party: How about that catchy name? This is something brand new for us. Lou came home from his Bible Study with this idea. Tom Sneed, of cutting down tree fame, has started reading through the Bible with his family on Saturdays. They set aside 1 hr and take turns reading the Bible out loud to each other, just as you might read any story out loud. The Sneeds have found it very meaningful and powerful. Out of discussions surrounding this practice, came Lou's idea. The Bible Study families will come over, and for 1 hour, we will read through a gospel, which culminates right where we are - resurrection. It'll be interesting to see what kind of discussion comes of this. An hour is a significant amount of time to sit and listen, so we'll be letting the kids know (I guess they do right now) what's going down so they can psych themselves up.


I'm sure food will be involved on some level. And if weather permits, we'll probably set up a flashlight egg hunt. If your kids are too old for traditional egg hunts, try one in the dark. Parents, after banning kids to interior rooms,  will hide the eggs while it's still light outside. When it gets dark, the kids are turned loose with flashlights to hunt. We've done this with a big group, and it is great fun.


3. Easter Sunday: Sunday morning service with its atmosphere of celebration is the grand finale. In times past I have cooked a special meal for lunch, and other times, we've gone out. I haven't decided which we're going to do this year. Always, though, I make a cake in this lamb mold.

A small reminder, but a reminder, none-the-less of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. 


As far as my house being decorated for Easter, I haven't done anything new. I have my Lent wreath, which I absolutely love, prominently displayed.

It's been good to describe its meaning to everyone who comes to the house. 


I also have these crosses.

 Lou made these from the trunk of 2 of our Christmas trees.  I had read about that somewhere and asked Lou to make it happen. The one on the right is my favorite. We discuss how the Christmas tree, the symbol of the birth of Christ is used to make the symbol of the death of Christ. He was born to die. Another something to remind us. To constantly remind us.


This season is busy. If I let myself, I could almost be bummed that we weren't doing more to help us focus. But I'm not going to concentrate on what we are not doing, but on what we are doing. And what we are doing is good. And isn't good, good?


Next week: I want to set up a table in my family room that's patterned off one I saw on Martha Stewart's site. First, I have to find the picture, then I'll set it up. How's that for specific?