Elector of Saints,
Save me from the false hope of the hypocrite:
May I never suppose I am in Christ unless I am a new creature,
never think I am born of the Spirit unless I mind the things of the Spirit,
never rest satisfied with professions of belief and outward forms and services,
while my heart is not right with thee.
May I judge my sincerity in religion by my fear to offend thee,
my concern to know thy will,
my willingness to deny myself.
May nothing render me forgetful of thy glory,
or turn me aside from thy commands,
or shake my confidence in thy promises, or offend thy children.
Let not my temporal occupations injure my spiritual concerns,
or the cares of life make me neglect the one thing needful.
May I not be inattentive to the design of thy dealings with me,
or insensible under thy rebukes,
or immobile at thy calls.
May I learn the holy art of abiding in thee,
of being in the world and not of it,
of making everything not only consistent with but conducive to my religion.
-from The Valley of Vision, page 316
I have zero interest in reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Just wanted to get that out there.
Things have been really challenging lately. Fox has been having a hard time for some reason. Of course, my first guess is that he’s teething, but it seems like I’ve blamed every challenge on teething from the time he was 3 months old and suddenly became a drool factory, and guess what? Here we are, 7.5 months later, and we still have no teeth. We started sleep training in December so that Fox would learn to sleep in his crib. That was hard, but it was starting to pay off, and for a few weeks we enjoyed regular naptimes, bedtimes, and sleeping through the night from about 6:30pm til 6:00am. Then things started deteriorating. In addition to the napping drama I described in an earlier post, he has started waking up at 4:00 EVERY morning, ready to go. I didn’t really think things could get worse, but the last few nights he has woken up crying 2 or 3 times during the night, and to top it off he still gets up between 4:00 and 5:00 for the day.
At church this Sunday, our pastor baptized a sweet three-month-old baby girl. He typically tells some personal information about the baby and family after the baptism, and he talked about how her parents had been blessed with another “easy” baby who only cries when she’s hungry and is already starting to sleep through the night. For a moment, I found myself feeling wistful and thinking, “Boy, wouldn’t that have been nice.” But I quickly chided myself for these thoughts and thanked God again that He gave Fox into our care exactly as he is. Mike apparently had similar thoughts during the service. Afterwards we were talking, and he observed that that baby’s parents were probably already godly, patient people who could handle being blessed with an easygoing baby (this is conjecture, of course, but work with me here). We, on the other hand, desperately needed Fox, difficulties and all, to expose our sins of selfishness and self-reliance and to help us grow into better, more godly people than we once were. This is a theme we’ve revisited many times over the past 10 months, and it constantly affirms God’s sovereign provision for us. God knew exactly what baby we, Mike and Laura, needed for our own sanctification, and He blessed us so richly by putting that child in our charge. I am so grateful for Fox.
And now for something completely different....
The census was a total bust. I thought there’d at least be more to it so I’d feel like I was filling out a survey or something. Nope. Just a few questions about who lives in my household and when they were born. That’s it. My income taxes were more interesting! Boo.
But, oh, how I miss the days when he would sleep for a blissful hour or two twice a day.
I mean, look at them - couldn’t you?
It turns out that, on top of English grammar and learning foreign languages, I’m also a sucker for administrative work. I actually had fun doing our taxes this year. I enjoy filling out forms at the doctor’s office. I like making lists and organizing information. Who knew?
I thought I’d put my cubicle days behind me, but apparently there’s still a remnant here somewhere. Could there be more administrative work in my future?
We’ll see. For now, I’ll just revel in little bureaucratic pleasures like the census and my grocery list.
I am daily inspired and deeply touched through other women who blog. Some of these women I know personally, and others I only know through the blogosphere (though many of them feel like good friends, even though we’ve never spoken and they probably do not know I exist). My interest in other blogs started during my pregnancy, when my friend Megan directed me to MckMama's blog to read about the incredible story of her sweet son Stellan, who, at the time, was fighting for his life due to a congenital heart defect. Stellan’s story is truly incredible, and I encourage you to read it here.
The blogosphere has really opened up the world to me and has brought me into a virtual community I never knew existed. I won’t list many of the blogs I follow, because not everyone has the public presence that MckMama does, and they may want to keep it that way. I will say that I’ve learned so much about being a mother, wife, and Christian through reading about the musings and the day-to-day stories of these women. I’ve learned that I’m not alone in the struggles I’ve had adjusting to motherhood. I’ve learned to put my own struggles into perspective after learning what so many of these women have dealt with or are still dealing with. I have learned how to have a joyful, grateful attitude in the face of hardship, and I’ve learned that it’s okay to openly admit my failings, sometimes with humor and sometimes with sorrow, but ultimately with the goal of accepting them and becoming a better person through it all.
I am grateful for women like MckMama who bare their souls and invite readers into their lives. The inspiration I’ve gained from these blogs is actually what motivated me to start blogging again, though I don’t have any illusions of grandeur as far as my readership or scope of influence go. I simply want to write about my life, using this in many ways as an outlet for my thoughts and a way to see myself more clearly. You will, no doubt, see references in future posts about other blogs that have made a particular impression on me. Maybe, if I’m lucky, something I say will inspire you the way these women have inspired me.
I've been really bad at organizing my thoughts lately, so I just wanted to post a few things that have been on my mind.
Short-term (as in a week or two) mission trips are amazing. I've heard certain objections, particularly that the short-termers (out of innocent ignorance) might come in and disrupt or set back the work of the long-term missionaries in an area, and I've even heard "Why fund someone's short-term mission trip? What can somebody really accomplish in one short week?" It's true that it is difficult to make a real, lasting impact on a new area in such a short time. But the more I think about it, I think this is not really the primary purpose of short-term missions. Short-term missions are a unique and powerful opportunity for people to broaden their view of the world, God, and His love for His people. More specifically, short-term mission trips often birth a love for the work of missions and pave the way for God's calling in the lives of long-term missionaries. This was the experience I had when I didn't even know I was seeking it.
My freshman year of college, a senior who had been a friend and mentor from my freshman orientation ran into me in the library and asked what I was doing on spring break that year. Spring break was just in a few weeks, but I hadn't even thought about it. He told me he was going with his church on a week-long mission trip to the Dominican Republic, and he asked me if I wanted to join them. I had never traveled out of the country, and I had no clue how I could raise the $1200 it would cost for the trip. I told him I didn't think it would work out since I didn't know where I would get the money in such a short time, and I didn't even have a passport. Thankfully he didn't give up on me, and after encouraging me that the money would come together, he even said, "Why don't you come with me now and I'll drive you to the passport office so you can get an expedited passport?" We did that, and I started asking people in my church if they would be interested in funding my trip. My church gave me $400 in the following days, and I was encouraged, but I still wondered where the other $800 would come from. The next day I went to a new dentist to have a filling done. We started chatting , and I told him about my upcoming trip. He asked me how much money I'd raised so far, and thinking he was just being conversational, I told him. He looked at me for a moment and then said, "I'd like to match the $400 you've already raised." I was astonished. My parents and I were able to afford the remaining $400, and before I knew it, I was on my first non-domestic flight on my way to the Dominican Republic. I would like to write in detail sometime about what I experienced there, but I will sum it up quickly by saying that it permanently changed something in me. All of a sudden I had a bigger understanding of God and His creation and my place in it, and He gave me a passion and excitement for missions I'd never had before. There's a fairly involved story about what has passed between then and now to stifle that in many ways, but I'll save that for another time as well. The point I'd like to focus on is that this one-week experience where I made little (if any) impact on the people of the DR irrevocably changed my life and my faith. If it had not been for my friend's encouragement and persistence, my church's and family's support, and the unexpected gift of my dentist, I would not have had this experience. In His providence and wisdom, the Holy Spirit worked in the hearts of these people to put me in a position to have my heart and life changed forever.
There is a Caedmon's Call (yes, them again) song called "Two Weeks in Africa" that ties in closely with these thoughts. This song says,"Two weeks, and we all can feel a calling (two weeks) to make the world a little smaller." Later in the song, they sing, "We put the walls up, but Jesus keeps them standing. He doesn't need us, but He lets us put our hand in, so we can see His love is bigger than you and me." I feel like this was my experience, and what it has done and is still doing in my life is tremendous (and the topic of yet another future post). But if you are a believer and have ever been asked for financial support toward a short-term mission trip, I hope you will think about what I have written here and realize the amazing opportunity you have to be involved in advancing God's kingdom through investing in someone to allow them the opportunity to discover things they never knew about their faith, God, and His calling on their life.
No way would I trade jobs, but it don't pay overtime
I'll get to the laundry I don't know when
I'm saying a prayer tonight, 'cause tomorrow it starts again
Could it be that everything is sacred?
And all this time
Everything I've dreamed of has been right before my eyes?
The children are sleeping, but they're running through my mind
The sun makes them happy and the music makes them unwind
My cup runneth over, and I worry about the stain
Teach me to run to you like they run to me for every little thing
'Cause everything is sacred
And all this time
Everything I've dreamed of has been right before my eyes
When I forget to drink from you I can feel the banks harden
Lord make me like a stream to feed the garden
Wake up little sleeper
The Lord God Almighty
Made your mama keeper
So rise and shine, rise and shine, rise and shine
'Cause everything is sacred
And all this time
Everything I've dreamed of has been right before my eyes
