Recap

A few pictures from the Birtch Academy yearbook, 2010-2011. Love making memories!

Farm Trip

Clovermead Aviaries

The 5 Senses

A Bible study on God's saving Israel from slavery through Moses.
The hard boiled egg was a lesson on a hardened heart (like Pharaoh).

Creation

Some art with circles

Gratitude

This is the day that the Lord has made. We will REJOICE and be glad in it!

The Girl Next Door

After losing Lilli (our family's pet cat), we hung up LOST CAT signs around the neighborhood. One day, while on a family walk we noticed that a few signs had been ripped off of the mailboxes. Heartbreaking to say the least. Who would do something so cruel? It was uncalled for. Mean. FRUSTRATING. Seriously, the kids around here know us, and seriously, almost all of them were helping us look for Lilli. I wouldn't allow myself to jump to any conclusions or lay blame. Someone, for some reason didn't like our signs. Someone didn't want them up.
And then the questions: Does someone around here not like us? Did we make someone upset? Does someone have her in their home and doesn't want us to find her? The kids were really upset about it too.

"Don't judge. Don't read into it.
Just shrug it off and re-hang some signs."

That was the plan: forget about it. Until I found this:


What would you do if you received a letter like this? I found this in my mailbox. It was followed by gentle tap at my front door from Alex (and her dad).

My heart sank. I wasn't upset at ALL about the signs anymore. This poor little girl. She is beautiful. She is kind to the kids in the neighborhood. I just want to wrap my arms around her and tell her it's ok, it will get easier, that one day it really won't matter what those kids think.
Except that might have been creepy and awkward from a stranger. So less the creepy hug, I tried to encourage her in what I saw, and that I remembered those years of my life being very difficult. I told her I forgave her and cared more about her than the signs.

Her father, God bless him, was going with her door to door in our neighborhood asking if anyone had seen our missing cat. She also re-hung our signs and faced grounding from movies and playing outside. Ouch.

Here she is going door-to-door:

So despite our missing our precious kitty still, I'm amazed at how it is connecting us with those around us. And I am grateful for the opportunity to know how to pray for and encourage a young girl that's hurting.

(I wrote this in June. Lilli is still missing)

A Hug From Abba

Without Brushing My Hair

by Hafez

The closer

I get to you, Beloved,

The more I can see

It is just You and I all alone

In this world.

I hear

A knock at my door,

Who else could it be,

So I rush without brushing

My hair.

For too many nights

I have begged for Your return

And what

Is the use of vanity

At this late hour, at this divine season,

That has now come to my folded knees?

If your love letters are true dear God

I will surrender myself

to

Who you keep saying

I

Am.

The last stanza, “I will surrender myself to who you keep saying I Am,” is so inviting and so haunting. In just a few short pen strokes Hafez, the poet, has captured what, in my mind, is the essence of Scripture and has put words to God’s deepest desire for us as his children.

It is haunting because there are things I don’t want to surrender. There are things that I have convinced myself are absolutely necessary to maintain the image of self whom I and the world around me have come to know. Who would I be if I am not this person? Coming face to face with Jesus causes a crises in identity. It is to lose my life as I know it. It is to cease to function as the person with split personalities – juggling my identity between different groups of people depending on how I think they think I should be performing. To surrender the self I have constructed that my family and friends and enemies have validated is to die. What a terrifying thought.

But those who lose their life will find it.

It is also very inviting. This Jesus who stands before me, bearing all of my scars, all of my shame, all of my pain, invites me to reach out and touch. As I gaze upon the one who has taken all of this upon himself, all the things I feel I must hold on to lest I die, I am confronted with the reality that he is risen. And so I reach out and I touch, trusting that who this person says I am is perhaps true – at least for today – and today I discover life. Suddenly it becomes clear that what I thought could sustain me and shore up my identity was false and I find myself declaring, “My Lord, and my God!”

There is yet another reason this haunts me though, or rather, terrifies me. If I really am who God says I am than no longer can I walk through life as a spectator. No longer can I believe the lies that once enveloped me – those lies that say I am not good enough or righteous enough or talented enough or smart enough or, or or… – but now, if I take these words to heart, I must accept that I am loved ruthlessly, unconditionally, irrevocably. Even when I was the most obstinate this Christ died for even me. Such love directed towards me compells me into deeper relationship. Deeper relationship inspires in me a oneness of purpose and desire. A oneness of purpose and desire, this total and complete conversion, similar to being born again, causes my heart to not beat for myself but with my Creator, which shamelessly and scandously beats for all the world. Coming face to face with Jesus scares the hell out of me because to accept the truth about me, the truth which God says is true about me, requires a complete reordering of my desires and it demands more from me than any of my family, friends or enemies ever demanded. They only desired I look more like them – to uphold the status quo, to not rock the boat. Jesus says I am more than that – that I should be “perfect” (complete) not like the best Christian or Muslim or Buddhist or Atheist – well, the best human - I know, but something far more. Something like his Father in heaven.

Am I willing to journey into that? Am I willing to be who God says I already am? Jesus’ answer was a resounding, “I AM.” I want to be.

God, I will surrender myself to who you keep saying I Am.

*I wish that I could take credit for this. It is written as if my heart and soul had cried it out and I had to share it. I posted it first appearing as my own because it speaks for every part of me. It is actually written by a man named Chad Holtz and you can read his blog here.

LOST

No no, not the TV show (although I could write a book about the things that I have learned from that show. Judge away).

Here is the definition of lost: –adjective

1. no longer possessed or retained

2. no longer to be found: lost articles.

3. having gone astray or missed the way; bewildered as to place, direction, etc..

I have been thinking a lot about Lilli being lost. Where is she? What is she doing? Is she alive? Does someone else have her? What is she feeling? Does she miss us? Is she trying/wanting to get home to us? Does she even realize that she isn't with us or is lost?

And of course, as I wander the streets in the middle of the night (don't worry, cell phone in hand. Plus I'm pretty tough :) ), I am talking to God and listening for him.

Paul writes to the Philippians that "it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose".

God has a purpose, a goal, and he never stops perusing it. At least that is what I see.

There are a series of parables that Jesus talks about in Luke 15 about a lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost son. And here is what I have recently realized: these stories are not ultimately about things being lost. Instead, they are about things being found. Jesus is teaching us about a God who doesn't give up until everything that was lost is found.

We might never find our Lilli girl. But we won't give up! I may not wander the streets in the middle of the night anymore, but we will keep calling her name, and we will keep our eyes open, and we will trust our God to care for her. And if he cares for her, how much more does he care for us?

Please Come Back Cat

This is our baby girl, Lilli. We love her very much, as any other pet-owner can relate. She has been missing from inside our warm, dry, protected, loving walls since last Wednesday. We have spent many many hours looking for her.
Animals were made for the outdoors. And she so desperately wanted to be outside. We kept her in the safety of our home as long as we could. But I always felt that we were doing her a great injustice. She was made to be outside, and she knew it! It's one thing if the animal does not want to go outside, it's another thing when it tries to run out each time the door opens. That was our Lilli. But we were so nervous to let her out.

Finally this year we decided that if she wanted to go out so badly, it might be safer to let her out when we were outside with her and could keep an eye on her. We thought that if we gave her some freedom and cared for her well, then she would be happy to go every-so-often and wouldn't escape and run away. This had been working until last week.

We figure she snuck (I know that is not a word) out of the house Wednesday morning, maybe when Nathan was leaving for work. She normally stays in our front garden, but I got called out of the house and when I came back I noticed she was gone. I also noticed that the maintenance people had been working on the grass etc. all day and all we can figure is that they scared her off.

We have done all kinds of things: made posters and put them up all over the neighborhood, called the shelters, called the city, put out kitty litter (it has her scent on it). I have even spent two nights searching in the quiet, wee hours of the morning (3-5am). All of these in vain.

So our baby is gone, for now. And we remember she is gone when no one is there to greet us at the door when we come in, or perch herself on the window ledge to say "good bye". We open our yogurt and no one comes running. I climb the stairs with nothing attacking my ankles. And no one is sleeping at the foot of our beds.

We are sad. We don't know why she ran off or what has happened to her.

But we know this: God loves His creation. God cares for His creation. God will bring good things from this. We have hope. We always have hope.

Hmm.

I have been thinking a lot about why I blog - because the truth is that it is a scrambled, messy assortment of what is going on in my head. I don't mean for it to be. But I am like an addict when it comes to honest expression. I just can't deny some things that I am thinking and feeling.
(I am just being honest, ha ha)

I have written before about wanting to express, having a creative space, wanting to share some of our endeavors in homeschooling (and prove to the doubters that we are capable and our kids are not only SOCIALIZED but educated!). And then I have had to have follow-up blog postings, apologizing because I may have offended some by talking about what my kids are doing. I write, I offend, I ask, I doubt, ....and then that's what it is: a mess.

I want so badly to write honestly. It bugs me to no end when I read blogs that are all pollished and nice and neatly done. You know, the shoes are shined, the shelves are dusted. Maybe that is the way that some people are. They never question things (especially of faith!), they aren't opinionated, they never raise their voice to their children or feel frustrated, and the cute confessions of laundry piles and stacks of dishes don't compensate for me. You know, the perfect mother/housewife deal. I'm too honest for that. I want to be all of Proverbs 31 and more! But I'm not there yet. I have a long ways to go.

When I read something like A Holy Experience I feel like I am reading about my dream-self. The person that I dream about being. The life I always dreamed I would have when I was "older" and "all grown up". And then I feel terrible guilt and embarassement about the things I write about. I so badly want to be an encouragement. I so badly want to write about things that matter, that will bless and edify Creation. But I just can't shut myself up. There's too much going on in my head most times and I need a place to spit it out.

So now I am regretting not starting a cute little blog that is all flowers and embedded with creatively expressed Truth.

And I regret not starting a secret blog that would be just for me and the lucky strangers who would stumble across it. That would be my "safe place" to puke out all my questions and thoughts. Maybe I will. Maybe I will start a new, secret blog and transfer anything I've written as on opinion or questioning there. And here you will see the shiny, spiritual, mature, happy homeschooling housewife.

See, I am a mess! :) Love me or leave me I guess.
Don't worry, I confuse myself!

Check marks, Gold stars, and Cell Phone Plans.

This is what it’s all about: WANTING to read God's word.

In light of Gods moving and stirring our hearts lately in new and amazing ways, we have been wanting to open our bibles, to dig deep, hear him, understand Him more and what he is teaching us. And guess what....
It’s not about a bible reading plan.

Honestly, I can’t stand them.
Please hear me when I say that we are not wanting to make anyone feel bad who has ever encouraged or done the bible reading plan check it off thing (we have!). However, it is becoming increasingly clear to us that when we attempt to adhere to these types of regimented programs, two things happen. First, once the initial excitement of getting into the bible on a daily basis wears off, we begin to suck the life out of the words that were intended to give us life. We begin reading the bible not to hear from God but to check off our bible and give ourselves a gold star. Sure, God can use these moments to speak to us, (and he does at times) but even we he is speaking to us we often quickly move on because we are “supposed” to read four more chapters still for that day or we can’t get our check mark. Really, how satisfying is a check mark anyway? Clearly it is no substitute for being led on a journey by the living and active father.
And then once the initial newness of “getting on a plan” wears off (sounds like a cell phone….is it “pay as you go”?…yes it is keep reading) we start to lose motivation and then the unthinkable happens. We miss a day! Quick call the church elders, call the prayer team, we have a crisis!!! We have been taught the following…we need time everyday in the word. Find a quiet place even if it is only for 15 minutes and read your bible and pray. A childhood song comes to mind…”Read your bible pray every day and you’ll grow grow grow”….something is missing from that to me. I can’t quite put my finger on it….

So the problem quickly becomes guilt. One missed day turns into 2. And then a week goes by and pretty soon we feel like terrible Christians. I don’t think the bible talks about getting on a bible reading plan. What comes to mind is Dueteronomy 11:18-20

“Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates”.

This sounds a lot different to me than getting on some type of plan but I guess it depends on your interpretation. To me this is explained as a lifestyle that weaves it’s way into our daily life….not a fifteen minute “quiet time”.
I am coming to realize that a deep desire and hunger to dig into the scriptures comes when we are inspired by revelation. Revelation comes when we are free and open to hear his voice, which by the way is ALWAYS speaking. We just aren’t always listening. We can only truly hear his voice when we quiet voices opposed to him. I.e. The news, the government, OTHER Christians, atheists, the bible….wait did i just write that? Yes, if we are simply reading words, instead of listening for a voice then we can actually be drowning him out.
So my recommendation…..get off the “plan” or you will “pay as you go”.
And this quote seemed fitting

“After a while, religious people can allow the words themselves to become part of the non-negotiables of their of their faith, and when this happens, arguments ensue, usually about words rather than about reality…At the very least, a religious obsession with theological phraseology can turn a thriving spiritual life into one that is dysfunctional and detached, deadened by an overdose of mental abstraction.”

The writer continues,

“…Christians must never treat theological study as our stairway to heaven. Finding the right words and phrases to express faith in Christ is not what saves us.” Bruxy Cavey

*A rare appearance made here by my husband who wrote this on a friend's blog. See the comment section if you would like to see my additional thoughts