Me at a holiday dinner at my grandparents' house

Five years ago today was the day that Levi was “supposed to be” born. I was pretty sad about it at the time.

It was also the day I turned 30, which I wasn’t sad about.

Five years ago today, I was pregnant with Acadia but didn’t know it yet.

Hidden blessings.

Sometimes things are like that, where you don’t particularly feel the goodness of God, or wonder if He is in control of things or not. You have to believe and trust despite what you feel at the moment, even when “the moment” is more like everyday reality.

If we have been justified by Christ, we can take comfort in knowing that these experiences are truly temporary, yet God is using them to make eternal changes toward Him in our hearts.

Even when we never see tangible blessings here in our pre-eternity lives.

Spitzer says he believes that people should take responsibility for their conduct. What his actions show, however, is that people should take responsibility for their conduct if and when they get caught. Show me someone who takes responsibility for such actions before anyone finds out about them.

I’ve been asked to put up a list of stuff I want for Christmas. There’s a lot of stuff I want, so that seems easy, right? The problem is that I have developed this aversion to the Wish List. (As my parents can tell you, this is certainly not an issue I’ve had all my life.) But, putting that aversion aside, here’s the Christmas Wish List 2007 for our family.

Brian: See his post on the subject here.

Eva: colored cardstock, an oven thermometer, a heavy cornbread/scone pan, a small digital food scale, HP 98/95 ink cartridges for the printer, stationery

Gannon: Legos, a kid’s calculator, Calvin and Hobbes book, Garfield book, art/craft supplies

Acadia: Legos, kid-sized mommy’s helper kind of things, little girl’s nail polish/makeup, baby doll supplies, art/craft supplies

Merry Christmas!

Okay, so today I went to Wal-Mart. It’s the first Saturday in December, and the nearest [real] mall is at least 70 minutes away, and I went to Wal-Mart. I needed a Christmas tree. The ones we usually get (you know the authentic kind that smells nice and that sheds 6 pounds of needles on your floor that you vacuum up till Halloween?) do not come from Wal-Mart. This year we decided to wimp out go simple, because we prefer to devote ourselves to other things. Like baking and eating large amounts of cookies. Or just not vacuuming up all those pesky needles.

So I went to Wal-Mart. And man, was it ever awful. People everywhere, and none of them happy or looking anyone else in the eye. And anything that can possibly have Santa or reindeer on it, does. And lawn decorations. Huge, illuminated, inflatable ones. That move. And play loud music.

Everything was so…obnoxious.

It made me feel icky. I didn’t end up getting a tree there, not that the ickiness stopped me, mind you. I just didn’t find one I really wanted. I came home with a very nice one from K-Mart, 4.5 feet tall with lights already on it. No more messing with those strings year after year! That, my friend, is why these places flourish. Because I can get my artificial Christmas tree pre-lit. Pre-lit, people! Regardless of my rants against American, materialistic excess, I will still shop for my cheap plastic crap at big box stores.

Oh, they had a tree that played music too, with fiber-optics so that the ends of the branches changed color in time to the songs, but I had to turn it down.

Acadia’s been reminding us at every turn, “Do you know I am going to get a big bike in the spring?” (It comes out like “Do you know I doan det a big bike inna wring,” but by now we know what she’s talking about.) So I’ve been perusing our prospects. So many of the little bikes available are plastered with Dora the Explorer or Disney Princesses. Ick. I like cute, don’t get me wrong. But why do my kids’ things need to be advertisements for toys?

Blech.

While looking for something completely unrelated, I came across this discourse from John Angell James (1785-1859), entitled Female Piety–The Young Woman’s Guide Through Life To Immortality. Quite the auspicious title, eh? Scanning the chapter headings, I clicked on one called “To Young Mothers”. If you fit this category, and are able to wade through some Victorian language, you might benefit from reading it. Especially as a new home schooler, I took so much from this chapter.

Much of what is advised goes against current popular thought. Some women I am sure would be offended by James’ statements:

“The woman who would fulfill the duties of her parental relationship, must surrender herself to her mission, and be content to make some sacrifices, and endure some privations… Her children are a charge for which she must forego some of the enjoyments of social life, and even some of the social pleasures of religion.”

and

“In the upper circles of society, the task of educating the infant, is usually is entrusted upon servants [modern daycare providers?]. The nursery is not much, it is to be feared, the resort of many titled or wealthy mothers. Aristocratic habits, in some cases, can scarcely be made to square with maternal ones. Happy are the women who are not lifted by rank or wealth out of the circle of those tender and constant diligences which an infant family requires—out of whose hand ‘fashionable etiquette’ or ‘luxurious indolence’ has not taken her responsibility to train her young children.”

Toward the end, he summed it up this way:

A mother’s charge—an immortal creature.

A mother’s duty—to train him up for God, heaven and eternity.

A mother’s dignity—to educate the family of the Almighty Creator of the universe.

A mother’s difficulty—to raise a fallen sinful creature to holiness and virtue.

A mother’s encouragement—the promise of Divine grace to assist her in her momentous duties.

A mother’s relief—to bear the burden of her cares to God in prayer.

A mother’s hope—to meet her child in glory everlasting, and spend eternal ages of delight with him before the throne of God and the Lamb.

Fathers don’t get off the hook for training their children; James addresses them toward the end, saying that the very young children receive more of their care from the mothers but that fathers are also charged by God with the duties of parenthood.

I feel like I need to write here that I don’t mean to push my convictions on any other woman and I am not trying to heap guilt upon anyone! I do, however, believe in absolute truth. We could debate what that truth is, but you can’t get around the fact of its existence. (Is that delving too much into philosophy for this blog?)

One of the blogs I read regularly, Poetry for Children, brings our attention to this poem. I fell for it immediately.

OWL PELLETS
By Ralph Fletcher

A month ago
in biology lab
you sat close to me
knee touching mine
your sweet smell
almost drowning out
the formaldehyde stink
which crinkled up
your nose
while i dissected a fetal pig.

Now I take apart
this owl pellet
small bag that holds
skin and hair and bones
little skeletons
what the owl ate
but couldn’t digest
and coughed back up

You sit with Jon Fox
ignore me completely
laugh at his dumb jokes
let your head fall onto
his bony shoulder
while i attempt
to piece together
with trembling hands
the tiny bones
of a baby snake

Certain things
are just about
impossible
to swallow.

From I Am Wings: Poems about Love (pp. 34-35)

Coming off my antidepressant has left me feeling vulnerable to those little lies that pop up in one’s mind now and then…the ones that I can usually laugh at, shake off or stick out my tongue at. In particular I feel myself in danger of discontentedly living in the past and having a case of the regrets.

“If only…” is what I hear myself saying. If only we’d been able to stay in our other house. If only I didn’t have this predisposition to depression. If only…and this is the big one…if only I had gone on bedrest when my pregnancy was in danger that January in 2003.

You can imagine where all that could lead. Yeah. I told you it was dangerous.

I’m countering this ugly background hum with things like this:

Psalm 73

23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
27 For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
28 But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.

Psalm 42
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation 6 and my God.

Ephesians 1

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

The “If Only”s are an insidious bunch. If you’re not vigilant, they can creep up on you without you really noticing. Before you know it, you’ll be wallowing in these imaginary alternatives instead of being content, happy, and obedient in the great life you have right now. That’s what I preach to myself, and I will do the same toward anyone who shows signs of the syndrome because I know how hard it can be. Call it regret, call it guilt, call it living in the past. For me it all boils down to not living like I believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, which you can read about in Colossians 2.

13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

And so I should live, because I have been made alive to God in Christ…when I go along in my “If Only”s, I ignore that life that I’ve been delivered to.

Instead of posting my own quotes of someone else’s quotes of someone else’s quotes, I’ll just refer you to Brian’s blog post for today. It’s regarding the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision of 1973 (the year I was born, incidentally).

This decision was influenced by the feminist movement. For an alternative (and, I have come to believe, a sound one) inspection of that, I recommend The Feminist Mistake, by Mary Kassian.

God is sovereignly governing our lives, both at the beginning and the end. Life is sacred that way. Psalm 139 is what David wrote when he was contemplating this truth. Dr. Stan Mast has an article on the Bethany Christian Services website that talks about verses 13-18, and in it he writes this:

“It is God who gives life, and it is God who takes life. At the outer limits of life, we are treading where God rules. When we take life, even at its outer limits, in the earliest moments after conception or in the latest moments of terrible suffering, we are walking in God’s territory. It is holy ground, and we must take the shoes off our feet and proceed not with a passion for human freedom or with the best of humanitarian intentions or with the most advanced scientific precision or even with the authority God has given us, but with reverence and wonder and humility. Above all, we must be pro-God and let God be God, the giver and taker of life at the outer limits, the sustainer and savior of life always.”

He acknowledges that life is complex, and that the terms pro-choice and pro-life bring with them so much emotion and conflict. Overall, we need to be pro-God. That’s what I want to be. The rest, as they say, is details.