Has Homeschooling Become An Idol?

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been trying to listen to what God might be teaching me as our time here in Russia draws to a close and I pack up our life here after nine years. If you haven’t already, I think you might need to read the previous two posts to understand what I’m about to say. You can find them here and here.

A thought occurred to me as I was sorting through the craft cupboard. Now, I have to tell you that, despite not being a particularly crafty person myself, I’m very proud of my craft cupboard! For years I’ve been stocking up on goggle eyes and lollipop sticks, sheets of felt, pipe cleaners, and colourful foam shapes. And since I know that those items are impossible to find in our part of Russia, I’ve been using them very sparingly. It seems to me ironic, now, that my kids will never get to use most of the items I’ve been storing up in those lovely, matching, clearly labelled plastic containers. Which is why I suddenly wondered, have I been storing up my treasure in the wrong place? Has my homeschool room become an idol to me? Has my homeschooling dream been pushing out some of the other dreams that God has been wanting me to embrace?

I’m still processing this thought, but now I’m more open to spending this next year listening more closely to what God wants of me. It may well be, and I really hope so, that He will reaffirm my calling to be a homeschooling mother, but I have to be open to the possibility that He won’t. And even if He does, I need to be sure that I’m storing up treasures in the right places. 

Perhaps I’ve been focussing too much on completing schedules and ticking boxes rather than making sure that my children are really learning and enjoying the experience of learning. Perhaps I’ve been more obsessed with ‘looking the part’, with the neatly labelled but generally unused boxes, than with allowing my children the freedom to explore and learn through their own, often messy discoveries. Have I let rigidity and rules take the place of relationships? How often have I filled in something myself in the nature diary or the Book of Centuries because allowing the children to do it would take too long and wouldn’t be ‘as neat’? How often have I been more worried about other people’s expectations of me than working at the pace my child needs to go at?

Now, before you start to object, I know that children often need to do things that they don’t enjoy. Personally, I'm not an ‘unschooler’ – I choose to follow a fairly set curriculum and daily timetable, and I believe children need to learn to persevere at tasks they don’t find easy or necessarily enjoyable sometimes. However, I think these are questions all homeschooling mums need to ask themselves from time to time.

Transition times are hard, but they do offer us the chance to step back a bit and take stock. I pray that we would all have the opportunity to do that from time to time, because motherhood is a lifelong learning process, and if we stop learning we stop growing.

Qu: How about you? Do you feel that sometimes homeschooling can become a bit of an idol in itself? What lessons have you learned through the homeschooling journey?

Abide in Him!

Giving Up Your Dreams For A Season – Part 2

In my last post I described how our family embarked down the path of homeschooling, all with great expectations and enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, the nature of our chosen way of life meant a return to England for six months in the spring and summer of Sophie’s first year, for ‘home leave’, and I found it a struggle to finish Year 1 with all the disruptions of travel, living out of suitcases and having to leave most of my resources behind in Russia. Still, I consoled myself, Year 2 would be much more settled.

However, that was not to be. Our time here in Russia has sadly and unexpectedly come to an end, and we’re busily preparing to move back to England for the short term while we wait and see what God has in store for our family next. For various reasons it makes sense to put Sophie (8) and Charis (nearly 6) into mainstream schools for the year. I am still coming to terms with the fact that we will never properly finish Year 2, and in all likelihood will be missing out completely on Year 3. Nor will I be able to start Charis off in Year 1 with the greater confidence that comes from starting down a road you have already travelled.

And so, as I pack up the books and the craft materials and the homeschool supplies that it took me five years to build up, I not only feel overwhelmed with sadness, but I realised that I'm also feeling afraid. I’m afraid of many things:

-         I’m afraid that I’m losing my dream, a dream I've held for five years now.

-         I’m afraid that I’m losing my status; the thing that defines me. For at least a year I won’t be ‘a Homeschooler’ anymore.

-         I’m afraid I’m losing my ‘niche’, my ‘passion’.

-         I’m afraid of getting sucked into the 'normal' educational system and of not being able to pull my family out again.

-         I’m afraid my children will be assessed academically and found to be lacking.

-         To be honest, one of my biggest fears is that my children will enjoy mainstream school more than they enjoyed doing school with me and won’t want to return to the dream life that I had envisioned for so long.

As always, I want to ask myself what God is trying to teach me through this experience. What lessons can I learn? How should I use this situation to draw closer to Him and deepen my faith?

But I think it’s too early for answers at the moment. All I know is that God has good plans for us as a family, plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us a hope and future. (Jeremiah 29v11) In a previous post I talked about having to go through hardships, and this is just another aspect of the one our family is called to walk through right now.

Qu: Have you faced the situation of having to give up one of your dreams for a season? 

Abide in Him!



 

Giving Up Your Dreams for a Season – Part 1

It was a little unexpected, actually, how fast the tears began to flow once I began to tear down my schoolroom. 

I knew it would be hard to pack everything up and sort through eight years’ worth of children’s books, artwork and craft supplies, most of which would have to be sold, given away or thrown away. However, I didn’t realise that, internally, this was signifying not just a move and a change of scene, but actually the end of a dream.

Let’s back up a little. When Sophie, who’s now eight, was just two years old, I enthusiastically embarked upon a low-key pre-school curriculum. For half an hour a day we would sit at the living room table and start learning letters, numbers, motor skills and all about zoo animals. As a teacher myself, growing up in a family of teachers, a good education was critically important to me. Ensuring that my children had the best possible start in life academically was not just a duty of motherhood but something that I was excited about.

About a year later I discovered the world of Charlotte Mason and Homeschooling, and as I avidly devoured books and trailed through websites on the subject, I eased up on Sophie’s academic pursuits. I began to understand the benefits of allowing ample time for a proper childhood, and instead I redirected my time and energies into planning and preparing myself for that wonderful day when we would start ‘properly’, the September before she turned seven.

Living overseas presented its challenges in terms of gathering materials, and those were the days before I discovered the wonders of Kindles, and so each trip back to England involved stocking up the suitcase with a few more books and craft materials, manipulatives and wall posters. When our third child, Nathaniel, arrived, we kicked Daddy out of his office in the house into the spare room adjoining the garage, and turned his office into our schoolroom. I need to add that he went fairly willingly (the increased noise and interruptions in the house were affecting his productivity levels) and he did a great job of repainting the walls a colourful orange and putting up shelves ready to hold all those wonderful books and other materials.

Our first term of following Year 1 of the Ambleside Online curriculum was so positive. Of course we had our bad days, our days of interruptions, grumpy children, or, more frequently, grumpy mummies, but finally I was doing what I’d been waiting to do for so long. Finally I had a label: I was a Homeschooler. At social gatherings I could now reply to the question “And what do you do?” with the answer “Oh, I homeschool our children.”, which sounded so much better than “Oh, I’m just at home with the kids.” I was loving it! I don’t know if Sophie was learning much, but I was learning all about the Roman Invasion of Britain, the persecution of the early Church,  and the Vikings.

I was soon to discover that homeschooling is not a smooth, predictable path, because it depends so much on family circumstances. Stay tuned as I continue the story in my next post…

Abide in Him!

Are You A Carrot, An Egg or A Coffee Bean?

Things have been a bit quiet on the blog recently, because shortly after experiencing my third miscarriage we were informed that we no longer have permission to stay in our home here in Russia, which means we have just three months to pack up and sell a house we've been living in for nine years and say goodbye to all our friends and neighbours....probably for ever. Consequently, I've been thinking a lot about hard times and trials that God allows us to go through and grow through this side of heaven.

I don't know anyone who hasn't experienced some pain in their life. For some it's a long, debilitating illness; for others financial troubles, or difficult relationships between family members or with friends. Sometimes it's a string of 'failures' at work, or serious set-backs in their career or their husband's career. Some people battle with addiction, either personally or through someone close to them. And for some it's the grief of losing a loved one. For many it's simply the daily grind of trying to cook, clean, feed your family and make ends meet in less than ideal circumstances.

The Bible tells us we will face hardships

"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, 

as though something strange were happening to you. 

But rejoice insofar as you share in Christ's sufferings, 

that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed."

1 Peter 4:12-13 (ESV)

Anyone who tells you that being a Christian means that God will sort out all your problems and life will be a bed of roses is lying. The Bible is clear that Jesus' followers will experience trials and hardships in this life. It's to be expected. I'm not saying that we should go looking for them, or thinking something is wrong if God is blessing us with a period of stability at the moment, but we shouldn't be surprised when they turn up.

The Bible tells us that God is with us in the hardships

 "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 

who comforts us in all our troubles, 

so that we can comfort those in any trouble 

with the comfort we ourselves receive from God."

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (NIV)

It's not that God doesn't care. He feels our pain, He is tender with us and wants to comfort us. Jesus Himself experienced horrible things when He was living here on earth - poverty, abandonment, loss of loved ones, pain, imprisonment and ultimately an excruciating death - and so He knows what we're going through. He can sympathise.

We need to allow time to grieve. God doesn't expect us to put on an 'everything is fine' facade and walk about life as normal, and it might take us a while to get out of that place.

The Bible tells us we should embrace the hardships

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,

whenever you face trials of many kinds,

because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete,

not lacking anything."

James 1:2-4 (NIV)

OK, this is hard. It's one thing to accept troubles, to do our best to cope with them and get through them with minimal whining and self-pity, but to embrace them? To give thanks for them? To accept them with joy?

God doesn't let hard things happen to us by chance. He always has a greater purpose in mind.

Some of the things I noticed coming from my recent miscarriage:
- a greater desire to cling to God through prayer and reading His Word
- a greater appreciation and thankfulness for the gifts He has already given me
- a greater and sweeter connection with others who have gone through similar trials
- a greater awareness that my life is in God's hands and consequently....
- a greater intentionality about how I can best use my life to serve Him

And lessons I'm learning from having to pack up home:
- thankfulness for all that God has provided over the last nine years here
- a reminder that our true home is in heaven
- needing to resubmit to God's will concerning the plans He has, which may differ from my own

There's a lovely story about a young woman who was going through a difficult period in her life and complaining about it to her mother. Without saying a word, the mother took three saucepans and boiled some water. In one saucepan she placed an egg, in the other a carrot, and in the third some coffee grains. After a few minutes she turned off the heat.
"What happened to the egg?" she asked.
"It got harder." the daughter replied.
"What happened to the carrot?" asked the mother.
"It got softer." answered the young woman.
"And the coffee grains?"
"They mixed in with the water and turned into 'coffee'."
"They each went through the same trial," explained the mother. "The egg hardened, and in the same way some people allow painful experiences to harden their hearts. The carrot softened, and others allow hardships to make them weak and to give up on life. But the coffee: it embraced the hot water. It mixed with it and allowed it to change its nature, and as a result it has produced a pleasing aroma that fills the room. In the same way, darling," said the mother as she looked kindly at her daughter, "It's not the troubles themselves but how you respond to your troubles that is the important thing."


God is like a potter, and we are like the clay in His hands. Sometimes He wants to mold us in a way that is painful, or He might want to turn us into something that we don't want to be. But we need to trust Him and allow Him to mold us in the way He thinks is best. Will we be like the egg, the carrot or the coffee grains?

 Qu: How do you usually respond to hardships? Like an egg? Like a carrot? Or are you learning to be more like a coffee bean?

Abide in Him!

Miscarriage and and the Miracle of Life

It had happened again. In fact, it was the third time in four years that the same woman, performing the ultrasound at the gynaecological clinic, had turned towards me, shaken her head, and told me that our baby was dead; that there was no heartbeat. Not allowing the tears to fall, not yet, my husband and I edged our way through the queue of other pregnant women, all in various stages of swolleness, waiting outside. This baby would never swell my belly in that way any more, not now. It wasn't to be.

Practical matters to attend to pushed aside the desire to dwell on our sorrow. We needed to act fast. Unlike last time, when we were taken by surprise by the bleeding, we had a few days before anything would happen. We collected the children from their friends and greeted them without the happy smile they were expecting. Another sibling in heaven now. That makes three, waiting for them up there. It wasn't to be. God had other plans.

Wonderful husband spent the afternoon on the phone; phoning friends for advice, clinics, the insurance company, the airlines.... I spent the afternoon cleaning. I had to keep busy, and we would be having friends to stay in our house to look after our kids while we were away. I had to do something. Anything but wallow. I wasn't ready for the tears yet.

The next day we flew to Moscow, the two of us. Was it wrong to enjoy being on a plane without children for the first time in a long while? We made our way on the metro to the apartment of some gracious friends. The next three days were spent visiting the western clinic. We marvelled at the difference in the standard of care compared to last time. There was sadness, yes, but there would be no trauma. It would be straightforward and trustworthy. We even got a little picture of our baby, something the clinic in our home town had assumed we wouldn't want. A general anaesthetic and my baby and I had been parted, for now. There was no fault, no blame, just 'one of those things', 'something to be expected at your age'.

We said goodbye, physically, to our baby on February 4th, exactly 7 months before its 'due date'. Since then we've had a chance to reflect, to grieve, to pray, to question and to be comforted. Here are some of the lessons I've learned from this experience, and I wanted to share them with you:

1) Life is Hard
It's a cliche, but it's true. As Christians we can't escape the sadness and the hurt that there is in our fallen world. God never promises that life will be easy. I've heard it said many times that He is interested not in our happiness but in our holiness, and it's often through the painful experiences of life that we grow most in our faith. He shields us from many things, and only in heaven will we realise exactly how many, but, in His infinite wisdom, He chooses not to shield us from all that is wrong with the world.

2) Life is in God's Hands
How comforting to know that God is in control! Even when we don't understand why He has allowed something to happen, we can trust Him that He had some higher good in mind. We may never know this side of heaven what that higher good was, but we can trust our lives into His hands. Yes He is sovereign and all-powerful, but He is also good, and He loves us. Sometimes He wants us to pray for miracles, because He is a miracle-worker, and times like this shouldn't stop us from continuing to pray for those miracles, but when those miracles don't come we don't have to look around for someone to blame. We can trust Him that He knows what He's doing. Even in the midst of a painful experience we can see how God is in control. My husband and I will always be thankful that we took the ultrasound when we did, and not when we'd wanted to a week or two earlier. In making sure that the clinic was all booked up until February 1st, God allowed us time to find out the sad news long before the bleeding would start and I would have to be rushed to the local hospital in an ambulance, like last time. He was also in control when he cleared our friends' schedule in Moscow for that very weekend, giving us a safe haven in which to receive prayer and comfort during those few days.

3) Life is Shared
God created us for community. The church is the body of Christ, and if one member is hurting then all the members feel it. God ministers to us through others coming alongside with words of comfort, with prayers and with offers of practical help. How wonderful to see the body of Christ rallying round. How thankful we are for our sisters and brothers who willingly share our pain. We certainly experienced a lot of love and care during that week. Perhaps the most comfort is received from those who have also gone through similar, painful experiences. The Bible says that we can comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received, and just as those people have ministered to me in a special way, I know that one day I will be stronger and better-placed to comfort another who may be grieving in a similar way.

4) Life is Precious
Finally, if there's one thing you come away with after having a miscarriage, it's that life is precious. It's a miracle. It should never be taken for granted. Just a few days later I heard that a close friend had lost her baby in the second trimester....again..., and that a friend of a friend had had a still birth. How fortunate I am to have three, beautiful, healthy children already! Every day we need to thank God for the children we already have; every day we should appreciate them and appreciate the wonder that they bring to our lives. We don't know how many days are numbered for us or our children. It may be a few weeks, a few months or many long years. For this baby its days were already numbered at eight weeks old pre-term. Let's enjoy and be thankful for each day of life that God gives us. Life is precious, so precious.

Abide in Him!



Photo credits: freedigitalphotos.net/ worradmu - sad woman, Victor Habbick - decaying rose

Hope for the New Year

Happy New Year! I don’t know about you, but I love fresh starts. Our local weather here in Russia seems to agree with me, because you couldn’t ask for a more beautiful couple of days. The sun is shining in a clear blue sky, and on the ground the fresh, white snow is sparkling and glistening. Everything around me speaks of hope…..hope for a great year ahead.

Hope…….It was one of our themes represented by a candle on our advent wreath over the Christmas period.

What do you think about when you think of the word Hope and as you look to the year ahead?  

Perhaps we have hopes for our children; we hope they will one day ask Jesus into their hearts, we hope they will grow to be wise, godly men and women, we hope they will look back and remember a happy childhood, we hope they will develop wonderful talents and use those talents for God, we hope that they would be willing to follow Christ’s call to the ends of the earth (but at the same time we secretly hope that they will stay close and give us lots of grandbabies!)

What hopes do you have for your homeschool or your children’s education? Perhaps we hope that this year little Danny will finally be able to read a sentence of three-letter words. We hope that Bethan will stop being so grumpy and just learn to get on with her schoolwork without us constantly standing over her. We hope that Hayley will succeed with her high school maths. We hope that the new curriculum we bought will be worth the money we spent on it, or that something of what we’re teaching each day really is connecting some wires inside their heads behind those glazed eyes.

What about the future? Perhaps your family, like ours, is facing some uncertainties. We hope that things will turn out OK. We hope that God will show us clearly the way ahead. We hope that we will make wise decisions when the time comes.

In the Christmas hymn ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ one of the lines goes:

“The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

How true it is that hopes often come alongside fears; fears that what we hope for might not come true.

We know a local family that has very little hope. They seem to be stuck in a pit they just can’t get out of. With five children to feed they struggle to have enough money just to buy food, let alone nappies and clothes. Their hopes and fears centre around whether they will get sick this winter, or whether they’ll have enough money to pay the gas bill. Last winter the temperature got down to minus seven inside their bathroom. We help where we can, but it’s hard to see how they can get out of this pit. It’s hard to know how to pray away the despair we see in their eyes. The hard thing is that they are believers and yet they feel that God has deserted them.

God impressed it on my heart to pray diligently for this family, especially the wife, and also to share Scriptures with her. We had recently enjoyed doing Ann Voskamp’s thanksgiving tree as a family, and I really wanted to share with her how Ann’s book ‘One Thousand Gifts’ had really helped me in the bleak days following my miscarriage in 2011. Unfortunately Ann’s book wasn’t available in Russian at the Christian bookstore in town, so instead I bought a pretty journal and copied out all the Thanksgiving scriptures onto some of the pages. I handed the book to my friend and asked her if she’d like to try writing down one thing to be thankful for each day. She seemed grateful and willing.

I don't know if my friend will keep it up or not, but writing down all those scripture verses was a powerful experience for me. God’s word really is living and active! When hope is lacking in our lives, God’s word can lift our eyes up out of our circumstances and into His loving face, which reassures us that He has everything in control and we do not need to fear.

Where is hope? It’s in the form of a tiny, helpless baby who was born over 2,000 years ago in an obscure town in the Middle East. It is because that baby was born that we can be sure that God has a plan to put everything right, and He’s working that plan out today. We may not see immediate results, but He asks us to TRUST Him. He asks us to leave our despair at the foot of the manger, to look into the sweet face of the divine baby - God incarnate - and allow Him to fill our hearts with hope.

"..that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.."   Ephesians 1v18b

"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." Hebrews 10v23

These are my prayers for you for this coming year. May God fill your hearts with his Hope as you look to what lies ahead.

Abide in Him!

Photo credit: freedigitalphotos.net/ Stuart Miles

Creating a Spiritual Atmosphere in your Home School

 Over at the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival this week, we’re discussing Principle # 20 of the introductory synopsis of Charlotte's educational philosophy:

"We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and 'spiritual' life of children, but teach them that the Divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their Continual Helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life."

A Great Privilege for the Homeschooling Mother

For me, this is one of the great privileges of homeschooling, that as mothers who are teachers we’re ‘allowed’ to address spiritual topics and answer thoughtfully and fully questions of a spiritual nature that arise during the day with our children. Having been a teacher myself in a public/state school, I don’t take that for granted.

Indeed, I’ve been blessed with so many opportunites to discuss my faith with my kids, and it’s been amazing how things have come up just through seemingly ‘ordinary’ school work. We don’t have to leave our faith at the doorstep just because we’re ‘in school’ and then take it up again when school is finished.

My Own Insufficiencies in this Area….

Personally, I’m aware that I still struggle in my own walk with the Lord not to ‘compartmentalise’ my faith. My natural tendencies are to believe that I can be ‘spiritual’ while I’m having my quiet time, or during family devotions, but the rest of the day I just have things to do that I get on and do without giving God much thought. I’d love to think I was practising the presence of God like Brother Lawrence while I was doing the dishes, but that’s just not how it happens for me. I’m a sinner, and I don’t love God with all of my heart, mind and soul all of the time like I should do.

Part of my struggle in this area, I’m sure, comes from the fact that I was raised the only Christian in a non-Christian home, and so my faith was compartmentalised. We just didn’t talk about spiritual things throughout the day. However, although I love my parents, I’m so thankful that my children have the opportunity to be raised in a Christian home, and my husband and I are trying to be intentional about how that works out in practice and what difference it makes in our daily lives.

Scheduled opportunities

Here are some of the more scheduled ways in which we try to work out Charlotte’s 20^th Principle in our family:

-         Sophie (7) now has her own Bible reading and notebook time as part of her morning routine.

-         Every weekday morning we have Family Bible time together, involving reading (at the moment from a Children’s Bible) and praying for one another for the day ahead.

-         At lunchtimes we do Scripture memory together (this is the system we use) and sing a hymn.

-         During school time we read from the Russian children’s Bible as part of our Russian language time.

-         We try to play Christian music around the house and in the car.

-         At bedtime we pray with each child.

-         We make the most of  special times,  such as Christmas, Easter, to do meaningful crafts and have discussions together.

-         The children get spiritual input each week at Sunday school

Of course there are spontaneous opportunities to turn our children’s thoughts to spiritual things:

-         conversations arising from the school books we’re reading

-         general questions throughout the day

-         special prayers when the children are feeling ill or can’t sleep
-  directing praise to the creator God when we're out in nature

And then there are things I’d really like to do more of:

-         spontaneous prayers about our own needs and the needs of others as soon as they arise

-         exchanging and writing down prayer needs or items of thanksgiving

-         a weekly 'family church' time

-         praying more regularly for worldwide needs

Qu: How do you try to implement the idea expressed in principle no. 20 in your family?

Qu: What tips or advice do you have - what has worked well for you?

Abide in Him!

Photo credit: girl raising hands: freedigitalphotos.net/pat138241

How to be Perfect!

OK, a quick disclaimer before you think I have an ego the size of South America - yes, I know I'm not perfect in the ordinary sense of the word. But it struck me the other day that when God sees me, he sees me as perfect. What do I mean? Let me try to explain...

Falling Short

Inspired by constant, repeat viewings of 'Narnia', my eldest daughter has been bugging me to buy her an archery set for quite a while. I finally came across one here in England, and she's been enjoying pretending to be Queen Susan in our back garden.

It was then that I had one of those sudden 'light bulb' moments. You know the ones... something finally clicks in your mind and you wonder why on earth you'd never thought of that before, it seems so obvious. In fact, probably the majority of you reading this post will no doubt in a moment be rolling your eyes and sighing 'Of course, Catherine, didn't you know that?'. But bear with me please....

In Romans 3 v 23 Paul says that we all "fall short" of God's standards. I don't know why, but for some reason I always pictured a ladder, with me on the ladder and not quite making it to the top...yet. In my mind, therefore, I just had to keep trying... keep climbing...try not to slip down too many rungs.... and perhaps one day, yes one day, I would finally climb to that top rung and get a big pat on the back from God. 

But that's not the picture at all!

There is no way that any of us will ever get to the top of that ladder. The Bible says that "None is righteous, no, not one.." (Romans 3v10)

Instead, God helped me to see the picture of the archery target. Now, there is some debate whether this is what St Paul had in mind when he wrote that we have all 'fallen short', but it seems to me to be a much better illustration. We're all shooting arrows. Sometimes the arrows fall quite near the target. Sometimes the arrows fall a long way away. But the point is that they always miss, they always fall short. And there is nothing we can do, no amount of target practice, to get our arrows to hit the bulls eye.

The most common word in the New Testament for sin is 'hamartia', which literally means 'to miss the mark', and therefore to lose and not win the prize in the archery competetion.

However, there is one person who did hit the target....and no it wasn't Robin Hood! It was Jesus, God in human form. Jesus never sinned. His life was complete, beautiful obedience to God the Father.

The Amazing, Humbling Beauty of God's Grace

Now, here's the amazing bit. Jesus came to die so that we could claim that we had shot that arrow that hit the target and not him! And he would take responsibility for all of those arrows that had fallen short and missed the mark.

Yes, if we have put our faith in Jesus, then when God sees us He doesn't see our sins and shortcomings but instead the perfect righteousness of Christ (Hebrews 10v14, 2 Corinthians 5v21). We've won the archery competition! There is a crown waiting for us in Heaven!

Being Released from Perfectionism

In my 'light bulb' moment I suddenly realised that God already sees me as perfect. Of course He knows how I regularly fail and mess up this side of heaven, but my eternal destiny is sealed - I have already won the prize. And knowing that God already sees me as perfect meant that a huge burden suddenly slipped off my shoulders. I don't have to keep trying to be perfect! I don't have to strive towards perfection! All God is asking of me is to love and obey Him. He doesn't mind if my kitchen floor is a mess, or if I haven't ticked all the homeschooling boxes today. 

How to be Perfect

Have you spent the day loving God and loving other people to your best ability today? Well, then, it's been a great day and God is smiling at you! In fact He is singing over you (Zephaniah 3v17). In His eyes, you're perfect!

Abide in Him!

Linking up at: Beholding Glory, Time-Warp Wife and Women Living Well

Finding Grace in the Interruptions - Part 3

Hi, and welcome back to my mini-series on Finding Grace in the Interruptions. If you missed Part 1 or Part 2, just follow the links back to them.

Part 1 talked about how interruptions can be God's way of trying to teach us something, or just his plan for our day. Part 2 looked at how sometimes our attitude to interruptions might be a sign that we have our priorities wrong or we have over-committed ourselves and not allowed enough 'God-space' in our lives. In this third and final part I wanted to mention one other way of interpreting the interruptions, and that's when the Enemy has something to do with it.

Anna knocked on the door at Kylie's house. She was a little nervous but also excited. Kylie had been a friend for a long time, and had only recently shown an interest in Anna's faith. She'd wanted to know more, and had actually invited Anna over to talk about it today at her home. The two of them should have some uninterrupted time together because Kylie's husband had taken the kids out for the afternoon and wouldn't be back for a couple of hours. The two friends had just settled down on the sofa with a mug of steaming coffee each when the phone rang. "Oh, I'd better just check it's nothing important", said Kylie, jumping up. Fifteen minutes later she returned, very apologetic. "I'm sorry, I hadn't heard from that old school friend for such a long time, it would have been rude to hang up too soon!" Amazingly, just 3 minutes later the phone rang again, this time it was another mum needing to rearrange something in the carpool. And so it continued for the whole two hours! Anna began to realise that these were not just coincidences - Somebody really didn't want their conversation to take place at all! "I need to tell some people to pray for me and Kylie", thought Anna to herself, as she reluctantly waved goodbye and drove off, not having been able to share any of what she had really wanted to tell Kylie that afternoon.

Have you every had any experiences like that? Sometimes it can be quite clear, like it was to Anna, that it is the Enemy who is causing the interruptions. Spiritual warfare is a real but often underestimated part of our Christian life. It might not be so obvious as that. Perhaps the Enemy is enjoying sending a series of mini household disasters your way (broken washing machines, grazed knees, toilet accidents...) just to make you lose your cool and provoke you to anger and sin.

Perhaps you don't honestly know whether this particular hindrance is from the Enemy or from God. This is often something I struggle with. For example, is thinking I might have to miss this family event because my child has a high temperature something the Enemy has sent my way and I should pray against, or is it something from God, meaning He didn't want me to go to the event after all?

I think there are two key things to remember:

1) God is in control! Even when the Enemy is a work, God is still in control! He is sovereign, He is all-knowing.

"And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." Romans 8v28

2) We should pray!

         a) Pray about the situation - for God to show you what His will is, and whether this is something from the Enemy you should pray against or something you should accept willing as sent by Him. Ask for wisdom:

"If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all..." James 1v5

    b) Pray also about your attitudes and responses, that the Enemy would not provoke you to sin, if that's what his goal is:

"May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer." Psalm 19v13-14

 "because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires." James 1v20

c) Pray for peace in your heart, either if there's a change of plans that needs to happen or a decision that needs to be made as a result of the interruption/hindrance. Jesus tells us, (no, promises us!) that if we're constantly bringing our worries and concerns and requests to God, then in return we will have amazing peace in our hearts:

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4v6-7

There's a lovely prayer by Susanna Wesley, the mother of John and Charles Wesley:

"Grant that it may not be in the power of any to rob me of the peace that results from a firm trust in You. Whenever crosses or troubles are met without, may all be well within."

I want to close this series of posts with a wonderful quote I came across the other day (which actually sparked off the idea for the posts in the first place):

" I think I find most help in trying to look on all the interruptions and hindrances to work that one has planned out for oneself as discipline, trials sent by God to help one against getting selfish over one's work. Then one can feel that perhaps one's true work - one's work for God - consists in doing some trifling haphazard thing that has been thrown into one's day. It is not a waste of time, as one is tempted to think, it is the most important part of the work of the day - the part one can best offer to God. After such a hindrance, do not rush after the planned work; trust that the time to finish it will be given sometime, and keep a quiet heart about it."

Annie Keary, 1825 - 1879  (quoted in Keep a Quiet Heart, by Elisabeth  Elliot)

Q: Have you had any experiences when you felt sure the Enemy was trying to put an obstacle in your path?

Q: How do you discern best what God's will is for you when a sudden, unexpected situation arises?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments!

May we all keep a quiet heart today, whatever comes our way :-)

Abide in Him

Photo credits: Freedigitalphotos.net: phone - akeeris, road closed - dan, new direction - phanlop88

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Finding Grace in the Interruptions - Part 2

Welcome back to my little series of Finding Grace in the Interruptions. I hope you found Part 1 helpful. There, I looked at how God often sends things our way that we might be tempted to label 'interruptions' or 'hindrances' to our plans, but are actually His way of getting our attention or teaching us something valuable.

However, sometimes these 'frustrations' might actually be more of our own doing than an 'opportunity' sent by God. What do I mean? Well, perhaps us feeling annoyed and irritated is actually a sign that either we have our priorities wrong or we have overstretched ourselves.

1) Wrong priorities

I'm sure you're familiar with the scene: you've just set your toddler down with a box of legos, and your preschooler seems happily engaged with her dolls. "Great!", you think, "I'll just check my emails." Ten minutes later you're in the middle of reading the latest blog entry on one of your favourite websites when the toddler and preschooler start fighting, or the preschooler needs to be taken to the toilet, or the toddler wants you to help him build a tall tower of blocks. "I'll be there in a minute!" you promise. A minute goes by. More whining. "Hold on,  Mummy's just reading something important...." Then it strikes you. Actually, to be honest, what you're reading is not that important, and certainly nothing that couldn't wait until your kids are tucked up in bed that evening. Your life suddenly flashes before your eyes, and you see yourself in an empty house, kids having flown the nest, regretting all those missed opportunities of building tower blocks of legos or rejoicing in milestones reached and skills mastered. I've been there so many times!

Now, sometimes our children might be interrupting something important, like the fact that we really do have to get dinner in the oven or finishing hanging up the laundry. In those situations it's good to pray for grace and patience. Perhaps this is an opportunity to teach our children how to help with household tasks, or perhaps we need to allow ourselves an extra half an hour to finish whatever it is we're doing. 

Something that helped me was to remind myself that God is in control. He knows I need to get the dinner in the oven, or provide the family with clean clothes. Living in a culture that values people over time has also helped. I know that He will help me accomplish all the things I need to accomplish without me having to sin by shouting at or being impatient with my children.

"By His divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.." 2 Peter 1v3

However, I've come to realise that a lot of the time it's just me being selfish with my 'me-time'. When I decided that I wouldn't open my computer during the hours that my children were awake unless it was for homeschool purposes, or to check something quickly that my husband wanted me to do, then suddenly I became a much more patient and purposeful Mummy. The same goes for phone calls and texts. I don't want my children to grow up thinking that my computer is more important than they are!

2) Over-committing

Sometimes we might have our priorities right, like we know that it would be really good to help our six-year-old with her art project right now, or we'd love to chat through with our friend who's just popped round about the struggles she's having with her marriage, but we don't have the time because we need to be off to X, Y or Z.  Or maybe we find that most of our daily annoyances come from lost shoes or last minute toilet trips as we're desperately trying to usher the kids out of the door and into the car. In that case it might be time to look at whether we've overcommitted ourselves.

Do we really need to have volunteered to help run the children's group at church? Do we really have time to go to this Bible study? Does our child really need to go to three sports practices each week? All of these are good things, but perhaps they're not God's best for us at the moment.

I still feel a wound in my own heart from the time, almost 20 years ago now, when I desperately wanted to talk to a friend about my parents' recent divorce, but she was too busy. Now, she didn't know what I wanted to talk about, and she was busy with important, church-related things, but I still to this day feel that she let me down. I would hate to think that I would in turn do that to someone else without realising it.

Filling our lives up with busyness, even good, 'Christian' busyness, is not always God's best for us. How can we be a light and blessing to others if we don't have a little space in our day to allow for these kinds of heaven-sent 'interruptions'?

"Martha, Martha, the Lord answered, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." Luke 10 v 41,42

For the third and final part to this mini-series I'll be looking at one other caveat, where perhaps the interruptions we're facing have a different agenda behind them. You can find it here.

Q: Have you had a time when you realised you had your priorities wrong? How did God speak to you about it?

Q: Have you been in a situation where you felt God was directing you to drop some of your other commitments and focus on being at home?

As always, I would love to read your comments, so don't be shy!

Abide in Him!

Photo Credits: freedigitalphotos.net. Girl with toys: Tratong, Woman at computer: Stuart Miles, Mother and Son: Ambro, Coffee: Stuart Miles

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