"We used to be embarrassed..."
That was the beginning of the comment from my oldest child, my only daughter, the mother of my grandchildren, regarding our unconventional living arrangements.

She went on to say, "...but then we were like 'YEAH!'" (insert FIST PUMP)

At the ripe old age of 42 my hubby and I moved back into the home we left in 1998, a home owned by my parents. Our children (and their children) came with us, combining two complete households into one home.

To date, we have four adults, two toddlers, one infant, and one teenager living here full-time. One young adult is here on the weekends, and the other YA... well, he just left the nest to become an over-the-road truck driver. Every few days someone asks, "when will E be back?" To which I shrug and say, "I have no idea." And then I go to my room and cry. But that's not the purpose of this post.

The purpose is to say:

Your life is your life. Do the best with it that you can, every day.

Every family is different. Every LIFE is different.
Your life does not have to look like the one your parents modeled for you, or your grandparents. Your life needs to look like the one you are living right now, and you need to be happy and content with it, whatever it is.

That might be a child-free life, or a multi-generational life, or an adoptive parent life, or a single-parent life, or a parent of pets life, or a single life, or ______________________? I clearly remember being shamed for having FOUR children... My mother felt shamed for having only ONE. There's shame available for having them too young, for having them too old, and for not having them at all. Quite simply, you can't win...

Being happy and content with your life is highly individualized. It might mean living in what looks like a commune. It might mean having $300K in debt toward a beautiful home in an expensive neighborhood in a trendy community. It might mean shucking it all and joining the Peace Corps (you have no idea how tempting that is at this stage of life) or sucking it up and taking that high-pressure corporate job with the luscious retirement package. It might mean moving back home to tend to aging parents, or living near (or even with) your ex for the sake of the kids, or moving closer to your children to help raise your grandchildren. The possibilities are endless.

For our family, it means that we're home during that "fussy hour" when babies and toddlers demand excessive attention while moms and dads are trying to wrap up their own days. It means when my daughter needs a sitter she doesn't have to pay for one. It means I get to watch my grandbabies grow on a day to day basis.

It also means I've been thrown back into diaper world, there are Legos on the floor when I traverse the living room at night to pee, and that I live in a weird limbo-land between raising babies and being a "free" adult. Is it worth it? For me, yes. For someone else, I don't know. And that's OK.

It's sad that in our modern culture—with its constant demands for acceptance and open-mindedness—we are still being judged for any household structure that differs from "the norm." (Where that norm came from, I don't know, but it needs to be tossed out with the trash.) In the Old Testament, the word "household" referred to the immediate family, the extended family, the hired help, and the livestock... it was all-inclusive. It should be so today.

Let's stop promoting shame and guilt when it comes to the households of our friends, family, and neighbors, and start promoting love... the unconditional kind.

I'm late. As usual.

According to my mother, the last time I was punctual for something was my birth. She married my dad on Oct. 16, 1969. I was born nine months later, to the day, on July 16, 1970. Since then, arriving "on time" for school, for work, for church, for just about anything, has been an ongoing challenge for me.

My friends and loved ones have been known to tell me to arrive 15 minutes before an event is actually scheduled to start, in hopes that I'll be there on time. *sigh*


So here's my belated "J" post for the A2Z Take 2 meme... 


Why June, you ask, since it's still only March?

Because in June 2012 we will be moving. After spending 14 years in the rural community where we planted a church in 1998, we're heading home. No, really. HOME. back to the Colorado ranch we shared with my parents before we accepted God's assignment and set out as church planters.  We'll return to the home church that "grew us up" in the knowledge of the Lord.

We leave behind a church plant that, although small, is alive. New pastors, who have a fresh vision and a passion and connection to this particular place and community, took the helm last July.

In June, my third child will graduate from high school. He'll be the first of my four to graduate from a traditional public school, and the first to pack off to live in a dorm and be a full-time on-campus college student. I'm thrilled for him because I know he's going to thrive and succeed in that environment, and I weep because it's a transition to adulthood that means yet another degree of separation between us.

And yet, with so many changes afoot, I am jubilant.

The 14 years we've spent here are filled with notes of joy as well as jaunts of pain, depression, doubt, and fear. We've learned things about ourselves, about our faith and about our beliefs, that we will carry with us forever.

We've grown to despise small-town politics, the prejudice that comes from generational pride, and the clannishness bred by isolation and insecurity.

We've learned to value the things of life that have eternal value, not the things valued by men (even religious men). We've come to know that we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God loves US, not what we do for Him, not what we succeed or fail at. We've learned, by virtue of tests and trials, the triumph of mercy over judgment and the power that is released when we yield ourselves to compassion instead of condemnation.

In June, we have a blessed opportunity to begin anew. Relationships that were strained have been refreshed and restored. Dreams that have been set aside in the face of financial restraints will be reopened to the light.

Perhaps most important, my family will be together, three generations in one place, on property my parents have sown their time, their sweat, their finances and effort into for the sake of their descendants. I am humbled by their faith in so doing, year after year, never knowing if their child (me) or their grandchildren would come back to receive that for which they have labored.

Thanks, Mom and Dad.
God listened.

Family. Where our hearts and souls are tethered to earth.

When your children hurt, you hurt. When your family hurts, you hurt, too.

Years ago in college psychology, I read about a horrific experiment performed on rabbits. A mother rabbit was monitored for physical reactions when her offspring, which were nowhere near her at the time, were killed. She responded as though the pain and suffering were hers.


Does this sound familiar? Whether the pain is physical or emotional, social or academic, mothers experience their children's suffering and pain personally. Whether it's a physical ailment, a fight with their spouse, a break-up with a girlfriend or boyfriend, or the loss of a pet, we feel their pain right along with them. Intensely.

Which leads me to wonder... since we are called "the family of God," that would imply that the strife, trauma, pain and sorrow we feel are experienced by God with at least as much intensity (because He is perfectly pure and holy in all his motives and reactions) as what we feel when our natural children are in pain.

Does that make it easier? No. Does it make it bearable? Yes.
When I am in the throes of "mommy pain," knowing that my Abba Father knows and feels the same is somehow helpful.

I'd like to wave a magic wand over my children and make their lives easy and comfortable. Yet at the same time I know that if they never experience any struggles, pain, or resistance, they will be weak spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and socially. Strength is developed in resistance, not in relaxation. But letting them go through the pain of growth into genuine maturity is a pain as acute as any contraction in childbirth.

Again, at least we know that our Abba Father knows what we're going through and pours out fresh grace, mercy, and compassion every day. Even when I look and feel like this little bunny...

Found at www.disapprovingrabbits.com

For happier posts (I'm sure) check out the other F posts Patty Wysong's a2z4u & me take 2 by clicking the link below. Don't try to click the bunny. He's not in a good mood.

Despite my pre-Christmas season commitment to avoid the annual commercialized Christmas pressure, I find myself drowning in a sea of cheap bows and ugly wrapping paper yet again.

Besides the nasty glue gun burn on my finger (yes, the same finger I snipped open with kitchen shears last summer) obtained while obsessively creating 3D paper stars so we would have some "new" decorations this year, I've depleted my "slush fund" like a cistern in a drought to buy presents for my kids and grandson. Not lots of presents, mind you, just one or two apiece. Now I'm fretting over the dearth of gifts and the depletion of my slush security fund. And there are still names on the list...

It doesn't help that everyone around me seems to have a surplus of Christmas funds this year. From iPads to the latest gaming system, to those wretched commercials where the wife presents her husband with a brand new Lexus with a ginormous bow on the top and the husband cracks open a box of "he went to Jared"...

Besides the gift issues, in order to spend Christmas Day with grandbaby, I did something I would ordinarily NEVER do. I finagled (manipulated) an invitation to the home of my SIL's parents for Christmas dinner. The kind of invitation that comes because folks don't want to say "no, we'd rather not include you, but we won't say so because we don't want to be rude."

Blea. Why do I do this to myself again and again? Can we just skip this season?

Don't try to tell me it's all about worshiping Jesus, because I had a more spiritual worship experience with the Lord last night in my dream montage (which involved a marble grotto, holy water and a genuinely intense one-on-one with Jesus) than I've ever had doing the Christmas thing.  Seriously, there's so much hype involved in Christmas and Easter services at church that it's often hard to hear His voice.

© Photographer | Agency: Dreamstime.com

As for the "creating family memories" and "togetherness" idea, that disintegrated sometime after my kids became teenagers.  Yeah, I remember opening gifts and racing to the phone in the hallway (the kind that was attached to the wall, folks, with a cord and everything!) to call my friends and compare gifts. I remember wishing, desperately, that one of my friends could keep me company for Christmas dinner with the fam. I really don't want to force my kiddos to endure my idealistic holiday vision against their will, either.

*sigh*
Hubby just came home and announced we must have a "state of the finances" meeting, which means nothing good. This is where I need a fast-foward button ...


Like I said, this is my whiny post. I'm sure I'll come out of it soon. Please forgive me for pity partying!

Our Christmas trees talk. (No, I haven't been sniffing the pine-scented room spray while decorating.) When we festoon the branches with baubles and bows, we are writing a kind of story for our families.

Turner Tree 2010

As a newlywed, the financial expenditure of a tree and ornaments was a big deal. I found a box of wooden ornaments on clearance at K-Mart. I think the box escaped from the Island of Misfit Toys. There were wooden nutcrackers with no arms, angels with broken wings, dolls and bears with missing ears or eyes painted on the wrong side of their heads. They matched the condition of our lives at the time.

My mother-in-law's Christmas trees are always beautifully decorated. Her trees were the first themed trees I ever saw. Shortly after her mother died, she had an angel tree, decorated all in white with inherited angel ornaments. At the time I thought it was just pretty, now I see the story -- her mother's story -- in the decorating.

The year she was away from home, my father-in-law and future hubby decorated the tree by themselves. With lights. Nothing but lights. Colored, clear, twinkling, chasing, big and small, all on one tree. It was a sad tree. Like a flashy book cover with blank pages inside.

My family's tree was one of those tattered scrapbooks, filled with memories from cover to cover. We got the same kind of tree every year, had the same lights every year, and used the same ornaments every year, with a few additions here and there. The topper was a construction paper angel with gold cardboard hair my mom made. She let me draw the face on the angel (I was 3 or so). Every year, into my teens, that angel stared down at me with her black Crayola unibrow.

Chickadee, paper birdhouse, and thrift store mystery bird.

Over the years, we've had a brightly colored gypsy Bohemian tree with oversized ornaments and glittery star garland; an all white bridal tree with tulle and feathers and a dove; and the country Christmas tree with plaid ribbons and tiny baskets of popcorn. The year I was too busy to get the tree decorated in time to suit the boys, they decorated it by themselves. I called it the Technicolor Yawn Tree. It looked like someone hurled the contents of the decorating boxes onto the tree and ran away. I cried for three days.

I think I'm finally finished decorating the tree this year. Although, as with all creative processes, it's difficult to stop messing with it and call it done. There are birds roosting in my tree this year. I like birds. God always uses them in Scripture as references to His loving care and provision. He is our provider, and He'll see to us just as surely as He sees to the birds outside my window.

Bird garland from plain white copy paper.

I have yet to wake up and see a bird outside with a foreclosure notice on its nest. When the hummingbirds appear each spring, staring boldly into my windows and demanding their food, I respond. If I'll respond to a hummingbird, surely God responds to His children when we call on Him!

So this year, I suppose the theme of our tree is faith and trust in God's provision. A timely message, not just for our family, but for our nation right now.

If you "read" your Christmas tree like a book, what kind of story does it tell this year?


As part of our "freegan" Christmas, I made do with what I had this year instead of heading to Walmart for new stuff. The bird garland, tiny birdhouses, chickadees and cardinals are all homemade paper crafts I found online. I did buy the funny looking bird (no one can tell me if it's a partridge, a quail, or some imaginary birdie) for 50 cents at the thrift store.

I committed the mother-in-law's cardinal sin. I meddled.
I could justify my meddling. I was, after all, simply concerned for their safety.But justifying behaviors doesn't resolve an offense. Only an apology, given and accepted, can do that. And so I had to humble myself and apologize to my son-in-law yesterday.
Family gatherings, stress over money or health, personality conflicts, misunderstandings, lack of sleep, and too much sugar create the ideal breeding ground for strife and unforgiveness this time of year. Who hasn't left a holiday gathering disappointed, hurt, angry, embarrassed, or otherwise traumatized? It may have been the family member who drank too much and embarrassed him- or herself, or the blowup between mother and daughter about how the grandchildren are being raised, or the subtle (and not-so-subtle) criticisms about your weight or your date.
We all know how it feels to be inadvertently thrown onstage during the annual production  of Christmas family theatrics. But what happens when you realize you're the one who opened the scene? For once, don't justify yourself. Don't defend your right to behave a certain way. Don't try to explain your way out of a sticky spot. Just suck it up and say you're sorry.
'Tis the season of peace. Maintaining the spirit of Christmas isn't  about the gifts you buy, winning the holiday lighting contest, or participating in the Christmas choir. Your part is this: "As far as it is possible with you, be at peace with all men." (And women, and children, and your pets, and those irritating people in front of you in line at Wal-Mart...)
The story of Christmas is of a great and mighty deity who humbled himself to come to earth for the sake of "peace and good will toward men."
Take a cue from the Christmas carol that says, "he's making a list, and checking it twice..." Make your list, and see if you need to humble yourself and offer any apologies this holiday season, in honor of the Prince of Peace.

"I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil - this is the gift of God."

Robin Lee Hatcher reposted this from Randy Alcorn's blog and it is too good not to share.
I wouldn't mind having this framed and hung in every room at eye level!

Four things you can't recover...
 

 

 

 
 p.s.
Click the links to visit Robin Lee Hatcher's blog and Randy Alcorn's blog! Both are well worth the time.

In this house full of boys I feel like part of a freak show sometimes. Even our dogs are males. I'm seriously outnumbered! But I've never actually been to a real freak show, unless the White River Museum with its two-headed calf counts. I have been tempted, I'll admit, to stop at that place in Kansas that boasts of having the world's largest prairie dog. Not that I really care about giant prairie dogs, I'm just looking for an excuse to get off the highway.

Freak shows, or side shows, were wildly popular in Europe and America from the late 1700s all the way into the 1940s.
Traveling caravans like P.T. Barnum's and the Ringling Bros., spotlighted the bizarre physical abnormalities or exceptional abilities of humans and animals hired to "perform" for the show. People collected and traded freak show cards like baseball cards. I remember thinking the "Garbage Pail Kids" trading cards in the '80s and '90s were twisted! (They're making a comeback, by the way!) How would you like to have your kid come home with a "Titana the Fat Girl" card, or an "Eliza Jenkins the Skeleton Woman" card?  "Hey Johnny, I'll trade you my Jo Jo the Dog-Faced Boy for your Grace the Mule-Faced Woman!" What's wrong with this picture?


Oddly enough, Germany banned freak show exhibits in 1939 because they were "exploitive." In the same year the Nazis invaded Poland and began the Second World War. Apparently, tossing Jews in the gas chamber was okay, but pointing fingers at the deformed people wasn't nice. Talk about a bad case of situation ethics!

Some freak show performers became famous, like Tom Thumb, who appeared before Queen Victoria three times. He was only eleven years old when he signed on with P.T. Barnum. Oh yeah, no exploitation there.
Bearded ladies, probably the victims of a simple hormone disorder, were frequent attractions, along with albinos, giants, midgets and dwarfs, hermaphrodites, multiple amputees, conjoined twins and individuals with varied birth defects... like Howard the Lobster Boy. Folks with "self-made anomalies" were popular, too, like the tattooed husband and wife team, the fireeaters, the sword swallowers, and the "human pincushions."

So this afternoon I sit down to check my e-mail and come upon a headline about the Duggar family. It seems Mrs. Duggar has announced her 19th pregnancy. Feelings about the Duggars run strong, judging from the emotional comments left on the news article. And that got me to thinking... (which is always dangerous). I turned on the television and scanned the ridiculous number of available channels. Almost every other program was a "reality show."

We have shows about the day to day lives of  "little people." How they drive, how they reach the top shelves in their kitchens, and so on. We have Miami Ink, an entire program dedicated to tattoos, tattoo artists, and the people they tattoo. "De plane, de plane, boss!" Sorry, wrong Tattoo. I have no business posting a blog at this hour of the night.

We've got American Idol, America's Got Talent, and Survivorman highlighting the special--and not so special--abilities of everyday folks. For everyone out there who grew up on Knight Rider and Baywatch, is it NOT embarrassing to watch David Hasselhoff demonstrate his mid-life crisis--complete with chest hair and gold chains? And what in the heck was Sharon Osbourne thinking when she married Ozzy? Sharon is a reasonably attractive woman. Ozzy is, well, Ozzy. And who is that British guy with the bad attitude, anyway? Oh, right, which British guy? Both of them. Are British guys just grouchy? And if that isn't enough, Discovery and TLC offer options about morbid obesity, women who didn't know they were pregnant until they gave birth (yeah, right), and mysterious, incurable diseases. Yippee.

And then there are the parenting and marriage shows (not counting the Duggars). There's Jon and Kate plus 8. Whoops, make that Jon, Kate, their significant others, and eight kids. There are the nanny shows, which prompt my children to say, "That kid needs a spanking!" And there's Wife Swap. Which used to be a very naughty term, but apparently just means taking a feeding-on-demand mom and trading her with a feed-on-schedule mom to see if the moms fall apart before the dads and kids do.

We've gone back to the freak show, ladies and gentlemen. 

Hey, can I get some Duggar family trading cards? 

Next week is my 18-year-old daughter's wedding. I've been thinking about the privilege it has been to raise her.

My first thought was to list all the things I wish I hadn't done as a parent. But those things are the same ones you see on every list... I wish I'd worried less about having a clean house and spent more time having fun with my kids, I wish I hadn't yelled and screamed about stupid, trivial things, I wish...

Yeah, well, that's depressing and futile to consider at this point, so I'm going to look at the bright side. My husband would tell you that was out of character for me, but I'm pretty darn proud of the way our oldest child has turned out!

I certainly can't take the credit. God gets the glory. Anything I did right is because He directed my parenting steps as I cried out to Him for help! And that, dear readers, underlies all of the following tips and tricks, because every child and every parent is different, and only God has the right answers.

1. We flooded her with the Word.
We played scripture tapes, bought Christian videos, watched Christian programming, read the Bible, and prayed with her from the time she was just a toddler (we didn't get saved until she was almost a year old.) We didn't limit her intake of the Word, or church, or of the Bible to things we thought she could understand. We just trusted that the Word would do her spirit good whether she "got it" or not. We found out later she understood a lot more than we expected!
The biggest benefit? When she was old enough to be exposed to other things, she recognized the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, truth and lie, more rapidly than we did. Like the bank employees who are trained to recognize the counterfeit by examining the real thing.

On that note, a number of people have questioned our willingness to let her get married so young. All I can say is that we've invested the last 18 years into teaching her how to hear from God for herself, how to be led by His spirit in all her ways, and He has proven Himself faithful to speak to her on any number of issues. At this point, if we can't trust God to talk to her about something as critical about her marriage, we're all pretty much up the creek without the proverbial paddle!

2. Backwards diapers won't hurt them.
I was blessed to have a husband who was willing to change diapers and take care of her from the time we got home from the hospital. But sometimes it was a struggle for me to let him do it. Especially when I would come home and the house would be a disaster and her diaper would be on backwards, or she'd tell me about their "adventures" riding dirt bikes or spelunking using the light from his cell phone. It was tempting to pull her in and turn her into "mommy's girl," but she needed that time with her father, and the balance he supplied her with. When she hit the hormonal tween years, it was her daddy who stepped in and counseled and comforted and corrected her most of the time, and because she'd spent so much time with him, she received his guidance. I encourage every mother to find trustworthy men, if dad isn't around, to help you raise your girls.

3. We encouraged her to find her own "voice" instead of being an "echo."
Granted, sometimes she sounds just like me. And I usually cringe (that's those mistakes we make that come back to haunt us). But when it comes to her personal likes and dislikes, and the decisions she makes, she's her own person. She doesn't have to copycat anyone else because she's confident in who she is. I made it a point to choose my battles very carefully. In Dr. Dobson's words, "Is this a hill you want to die on as a parent?" Things like hairstyles, ear piercing, clothing style, decorating her room, etc. were all potential sources of strife when we disagreed. But most of the time, if I stepped back to pray, God would remind me that those things were superficial, not spiritual, and they didn't really matter. He trained me with my daughter. Applying the same principles to my son has been much more challenging! (More on that in the future!)

4. Traditional social circles can do more harm than good.
Homeschooling and living out of town made limiting interactions with her peers easy for us. I shudder at the amount of time girls spend with their "friends." We didn't do sleepovers, she wasn't involved in a lot of group activities, and she learned early to choose her friends wisely. Yes, sometimes she laments the fact that she doesn't "have any friends," but in reality, she has a lot of friends, they just aren't her age! She interacts easily with people of both genders and all age groups, which is important for her success as an adult!

5. I jumped off the "Mommy" pedestal.
Sometimes to the point of TMI, I openly shared the mistakes I made at her age, and I apologized a lot when I made mistakes with her. I set my own mother on a kind of pedestal for years, and tried to live up to her "perfect" example. And then I found out she was just human like the rest of us. I'm not perfect, and I have no problem with my kids knowing it. I don't want her to try to "live up" to me, I want her to go as far beyond me as she can!

Growing up, my next-door neighbor's mom, who had five boys and one girl, used to say she'd rather raise five more boys than one more girl. I have had moments where I've felt that way, but for the most part, daughters are a blessing. What a divine privilege we have to help develop strong, confident women to lead the next generation, and possibly usher in the return of Christ!

Caiti, I couldn't be more proud of you. Keep following your Lord and He will lead you into a life of blessing and peace that's more than you can ask or think! Love, Mom.