The Swap

I got an idea from an old Family Fun magazine about counting acts of kindness with dried beans during the season of Lent, and then swapping out the beans for jelly beans Easter morning. I didn't find this idea until this week, so I decided to tweak it in order to stretch the candy over the week of spring break (which for us is after Easter this year). I watched my kids inhale a basket of goodies that my Mom had given them and decided this rationing was the way to go until we have a little more self-restraint.

Instead of filling their baskets with candy, I put a few things in and am doling the others out bean by bean.

This is along the lines of "caught you being good".

You did what I asked without complaining, put a bean in your jar.

You remembered to make your bed and put you clothes away without me nagging. Put five beans in your jar.

Then, each night, I swap out the dried beans for jellybeans, or m&m's, or whatever small candies I have in my secret stash. I think the variety will help keep the momentum once the novelty wears off. At least I hope so.

Maybe we'll even make it a whole week together with a little more kindness!

 

Easter Baskets

For our family, Easter is about the love of God reaching down to save us through the love and sacrifice of the Savior. We are in church. We read Bible stories and wave palm braches. We sing old hymns and take communion and reflect on the high cost of our relationship with God. We breathe in grace and thank God for forgiveness.

We are also Christians from the South. This means those of us who normally wear yoga pants buy a new dress and panty hose to wear on Easter Sunday. We look for our white shoes, and color eggs, and devil eggs, and eat potato salad and ham for an enormous lunch with our families if we are able.

What to do with the pantyhose after Sunday

 

 

We also do Easter baskets with traditional chocolate bunnies. This is not the focus, but part of the celebration. As we were driving back from seeing family, the kids took a stroll down memory lane and recounted every clue and hiding place the Easter Bunny had ever used. We were a little taken aback at how many details they remembered, but we had forgotten. I smiled to think that they had actually formed some good memories in the midst of all the squabbles of day-to-day family life...like who used whose colored eggs to make egg salad.

 

Tonight, as I was putting my youngest daughter's hair in curlers (at her request), I about fell over as she explained her global manufacturing perspective on the Easter Bunny and all products that show up in baskets.

She was explaining this to our newest daughter, who is four years older than she is, but about to experience her first Easter basket scavenger hunt.

According to my first grader:

There are many Easter bunnies who work in Easter basket factories, but the biggest one is in China. The reason she knows this is that almost everything that comes in her basket was made in China!!! The factory is underground. She knows this because most people in China do not know about Easter, so the factory must be very well hidden!

We'll sort through truth and fiction soon enough. She also wrote a letter to the Easter Bunny asking for some of the chocolate espresso beans like the ones her Mom keeps stashed in her closet. The Easter bunny is considering slipping her a few.

May those underground have a very special Easter as we dress in spring clothes and gather to worship freely.

 

Field Day

Bonus on having a large family. Invite two friends over to your backyard and you have an event.

Egg humor

 

Examen

Rushing to pick up kids from AWANA only to come up against more construction traffic. Foiled again!

At a recent family retreat, my friend Lisa handed out a fifteen minute "examen". The purpose of this reflection is to help you pause in the rush of life and see what went well, and what did not. Moments to celebrate, and areas to come before the Savior asking for forgiveness. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

This exercise has helped me. Not just to feel good about myself, but to keep from despairing. To see moments throughout the day that God really is at work. I lose this perspective in the urgency of one task after another. One squabble after another. One homework assignment after another. But when I stop and reflect, Jesus calls to mind areas where I desperately need His help (currently kindness and self-restraint) and areas where I believe He sits and smiles with me.

Snatches of joy, glimmers of glory

In your presence there is fullness of joy. Psalm 16:11

In the loud and messy of family life, I sometimes lose my joy. As I have looked to God to help me find moments, I can feel His joy in the smallest of things.... A little order....a little glimpse of beauty....a moment of glory in connecting with a friend, a child, or my man.

Sharpening color pencils

Hearing the sound of wind chimes outside my door or my daughter choosing to practice the piano without being prompted to

Seeing two bunnies dart across someone else's lawn

Having a morning to match coupons to buy one get one sales

Having a plan for dinner

Confirming a play date for a daughter

Walking and (hopefully) encouraging a friend

Having a fun snack waiting in the car to greet my hangry kids after-school

Listening to a story on CD as we drive three hours in circles around our city for practices and ball games

Seeing the humor as my children do carpool yoga in an attempt to combat (waiting around for a brother to finish his practice so we can head out to the next one's game) boredom when the spring air still feels like winter.

Warm water in the shower or a long bath

Admiring the beauty of the inside of an orchid

Choosing a good-for-me hot tea instead of a second serving of chocolate

Leaving a present on my daughter's bed or hidden in the bottom of the laundry basket as a way to gauge whether or not she's gotten around to putting the piles away (without nagging).

 

Minuscule things gone right add up to a happier, more joyful heart when I ask the Lord to open my eyes to see the moments of beauty around me in the midst of crazy schedules.

Ann Voskamp says that life is not an emergency. I like that. I need to purposefully savor each moment that flickers my way so that I don't miss my life in the middle of living it.

There is a line in Rise of the Guardians where Santa and the Easter Bunny are chastised for not actually spending time with children...since they are so busy doing things for children. This line was not wasted on me. In the middle of smelly sports laundry and perpetual carpool and trying to explain the difference in ideologies between the east and the west during the Cold War....I'm so often all out of steam. And then there's a pin hole leak in my joy balloon. Until I'm wrinkly and shriveled up and ready for the trash heap.

But Jesus is helping me renew. He breathes new perspective into my tired soul through the thoughtfulness of others.

 

Tonight's surprise, a bag of sweet-smelling kitchen soap and my favorite mango green tea from my sister-in-law and sweet friend.

 

Family Advance Retreat 2013

 

Not Accepted

We are sorry to inform you that you have not been accepted to any of the programs to which you have applied.

On the same day as receiving great affirmation of my daughter's heart for God and for her friends to know Him too.

Help me Father to trust You for her next steps. Help me to rest in the fact that the most important thing is that she is accepted by You.

 

^{Romans 15:7} Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.

Lamentations 2:19a, "Rise up during the night and cry out. Pour out your hearts like water to the Lord. Lift up your hands to him in prayer, pleading for your children." (NLT)

Girls Day

 

I do not turn my back...Easter reflections

"I have died, but Christ lives in me.

And now I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and gave Himself for me.

I do not turn my back on God's gift of undeserved grace. If we can be made holy by observing the Law, then Christ died for nothing.

If we can be made acceptable to God, then it was useless for Christ to die."

Galatians 2:20-21

Easter brings hope and renewal. Fresh perspective.

Lately I have been reflecting on the cross, fatigue, and wondering why I am missing joy. It's not that I am unhappy or have anything to complain about. It simply missing God in a flurry of activity...even activity that is for Him. Missing God in the middle of church or "quiet time".

In my striving and efforts to live well and get it right, and have it all taken care of, I "turn my back" on the perfect work of the Cross. I focus on myself, and not on my Christ.

You would think that I would have a better handle on this after twenty-eight years of practicing Christianity, but it's a journey for me, a process of better understanding "the deep mysteries of Christ". I get caught up in the details of all that should be done and forget to sit at the feet of Jesus and just enjoy Him. My quiet time becomes scripture study or going through a prayer list instead of simply connecting with the One who loves me. My service becomes one more thing on the calendar or to-do list instead of walking through life with my Savior, being His hands and feet. Listening to His voice and yielding to His direction.

I know that I am not alone in this busy version of Christianity.

Paul talks about how it was a struggle for him to consistently do the right thing. He was willing, but weak. He knew what to do, but didn't consistently choose to do it.

My pastor spoke of how he can't read a passage like 1 Corinthians 13 on the nature of love and not be astounded by how far he is from God's standard. Who is consistently kind and selfless? So does that? Only Jesus.

We journey on, resting in grace, relying on the work that Christ already did on our behalf, not the work we can do for Him, and ask Him to breathe fresh life into our souls and bless the works of our hands.

This focus is my Lenten gift to Him.

 

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On blogging the simple way

Not having to worry about sharing original thoughts, or be brilliant or entertaining.

Just a record of our family history. Our everyday lives. Unvarnished. Unimpressive.

No pin it buttons or sponsored links.

Just us.

 

School Days and the guilt of parenthood

I did not make it to school to see any of these events Thursday or Friday. I had doctor's appointments and a class to teach. I lifted these pics off their class website.

Sometimes when I see pictures of other parents who were able to make it, I feel less-than, as if I were doing an inferior job of parenting. Even when I understand rationally that I can't be everywhere and do everything. Even when I've taken them bowling before at the same venue.

My thinking goes to the balance scales of what I could do, and what I didn't.

I missed the bowling field trip on Friday, but I did make it to the class picnic that followed for my first graders, and got there in time to bring a yogurt parfait to my fifth grader for friends and family day. I happened to sit next to a fifth grade boy who said, "I really wish my mom could be here." Turns out that his mom is serving in the military in another state. I told him that she wished she could be there too, and that I would have lunch with him that day.

I missed both boys' baseball games this week, and could not volunteer for the fitness gram testing or make cupcakes for the dance, but I did open my house to 16 people (with five extra neighbor kid friends in and out as well).

 

So often my thinking runs along these lines. What I did well. What I missed out on. What I totally botched. What can I do? What should I do? When is it ok to let someone else do the volunteering at school while I volunteer at church?

Easter is the perfect time to renew my thinking and rest in His perfection instead of evaluating my own progress and failures.

Thank you, Jesus, that life is about You, and not whether I've done more good than bad lately. Help me to reflect much more on your fullness rather than focus on my shortcomings. Fill me 'til I want no more.

Art by PeggyAplseed