I am subscribed to an online resource called “The Missional Mind”. I received an email from them this week advertising a book called “The Mission Minded Family” that seems like a valuable resource for those desiring to raise up children with a global mindset, a God-centered, global mindset that is. I previewed the book online and found a quote that has been such an encouragement to me today as a homeschool mom. Believe it or not, we are not some weird homeschool family. I do not possess some super human quality that gives me greater patience or less selfishness just because we have chosen to homeschool our children. So many people say to me when I tell them that our children are homeschooled, “I just could not do that. I do not have the patience nor am I gifted in teaching.” Oh yes you could! God gives me the grace to make it through every day. There are days that I want to quit for sure. There are whole months that I want to give up. Thankfully, God gives me the courage that I need daily to press on. This is the quote that I came across that has challenged me to go the distance, to see beyond my selfishness and to God’s greater plan for my children.
Look beyond your children’s faces
and see the potential of a new generation—the families they will guide,
What an absolute blessing it was to worship at Roane Church on Sunday. First of all, what a blast to sing Christmas music “Roane Church style”. Here is a sample:
I just can’t get over the bridge lyrics. “Joy, Unspeakable joy, Rises in my soul, Never lets me go.” I could not sing those lyrics without a rush of emotion from the unspeakable joy that is mine all because of Jesus. An interesting tidbit that our worship leader, Kyle, told us on Sunday. Joy to the World was not written as a Christmas carol, celebrating the arrival of the newborn King. It was written as a song celebrating the second coming of the King! Wow. What a new meaning it gave to this song as I sang out and reflected in worship.
Secondly, we had friends to join us for the service. Our friends Michael Durham and Phil and Julie Robertson. It is always such a joy and encouragement to have a visit from the Robertsons, but our friend Michael had a specific reason for coming to visit us. Michael was one of our student ministry volunteers in Cleveland that we loved so much. He has recently been called out by God to “GO”. On December 22, Michael is moving to Honduras. He will be living and working in an orphanage there. His testimony is so awesome to me. “I am 60 years old and entering the last quarter of my life. I had a choice to make. Go and drink coffee at 6 a.m. with all the other old men my age or go. Go and be a father to the fatherless in the name of Jesus.” What a challenge! I also loved his testimony of his preparations to leave the country. Basically, he has given everything he has away. He came down to the final items, the washer and dryer. He and a friend loaded them up into the back of a truck and took off to the laundry mat. They waited and watched at the laundry mat as people came in and out. Then God told him whom to bless in His Name with a free washer and dryer. Can you imagine being those people? How good it was to pray over him on Sunday before he leaves. Check out the video below to hear his testimony.
Lastly, oh the richness of John’s gospel! One of the final things that Melvin said during the teaching time was so powerful to me. Repeated words and phrases are very important to notice and study as you are going through a book of the Bible. There are 3 important must in the third chapter of John.
A “Must” for the Sinner - “You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’” John 3:7
A “Must” for the Savior – “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,” John 3:14
A “Must” for the Servant – “He must become greater; I must become less.” John 3:30
John the Baptist’s testimony was so captivating to study in verses 22-36. John was making sure that those disciples of John the Baptist that were elevating him to a position that did not belong to him were clear. John the Baptist was not the one. God had a plan. People have a problem. They had an affection or devotion to someone else but Jesus. There was a prophet, John the Baptist, after 400 years of silence. Then, there was the preeminent One.
The weather said “snow showers”, but we awoke to a beautiful covering of snow. Our home was filled with joy at the surprising addition to our day. Gorgeous. Simply gorgeous. This was our dog Samson’s first snow. He had so much fun with us in our snow ball war. He loved eating the snow. The kids were all in it in every way. They rolled in it, made snow angels and snow balls, tried to build a snowman, and ate it of course. Thank you Father for such an amazing addition to our Christmas celebration. Oh, I can’t wait to see what Heaven is like if this earth is so filled with such beauty.
This deer was bedded down right beside Samson's kennel when I went out to feed him.
Melvin and I have a new opportunity in our community. We have been asked to partner with FCA in being the chaplains for the boys and girls basketball teams at Roane County High School. We have been praying that God would open a door for us at this school since we moved here two years ago. Melvin has been meeting with the boys for about 3 weeks now. He feels like it is going well. I begin next week. I am asking that you will pray for us. Pray that we will be sensitive to the Holy Spirit as we minister to the students on these teams. There are some great needs. God can definitely meet them all. We are just so thrilled about the opportunity.
The kids and I made our first trip to the public library today. It was amazing. The kids were in book heaven. They behaved in their very best library behavior. But of course, we faced our never-ending situation. When it was time to make the final decisions, Josiah quickly made his selections and Callie Grace wandered around looking at the books. Unfortunately, since moving to our new house, we have not been able to continue our library time that we had enjoyed each week in Kingston. I am thankful for our experience today. We will look forward to it each week now.
Last week, we had a family in our community have a tragic, impossible experience two days before Thanksgiving. We were at a local rivalry basketball game when the head coach of one of the teams had to unexpectedly, in the middle of the JV game, leave because of a family emergency. As the girl’s game began and progressed, word began to get around that the coach’s infant grand baby had experienced some kind of respiratory emergency. Before the boy’s game began, someone stepped up to the sound system and announced that the boy’s head coach’s grandson had in fact passed away and that we were going to have a moment of silence for them. Everyone was in total shock.
Melvin and I both experienced that “someone kicked you in the stomach” feeling that we always feel when we hear of a situation similar to ours, in that someone has had a baby pass away. Some of our students are close to the family, so during our small group prayer time on the following day, the students were voicing how much we needed to pray for the family and giving some details that they had heard about the situation. I was holding Callie Grace in my lap at the time. As the students continued to talk about the family, she slipped out of my lap and out of the room. Prayer request continued and Melvin ask me to pray. As I bowed my head to pray, Josiah came up to me and said that Callie Grace needed me. I asked him if it was an emergency, and he said “kind of Mom”.
I knew immediately what was wrong. I rounded the corner and saw Callie Grace, tears streaming down her face. I scooped her up in my arms and just held her as tight as I could. She said, “Mom, I just can’t stand it. I want to forget that Elijah was ever born, but I love him too much to EVER forget about him.” My 7 year old daughter had just communicated exactly the feelings of my heart. She went on to say that she didn’t hold Elijah that day that he was born because she thought that he was just sleeping and didn’t want to disturb him. “I had no clue that he was dead. I wish I could hold him right now.”
To say that we as a family have been praying for this family in our community would be an understatement. We do not know them, but we are holding them up in prayer as if we were a part of their family and will be for a long time to come. As we enter this holiday season, I will not forget that there are people all around me that are hurting, people that do not feel as if they want to take another step on this earth. I pray that I will be sensitive to them and love them with the love of Jesus.
We have a wonderful tradition of not putting up a single Christmas decoration until no sooner than the day after Thanksgiving. Well, really, it is Melvin’s rule, but I think it builds the anticipation for the Christmas celebration in our home. So yesterday, we went to our wonderful tree farm, www.buttermilkfarm.com. It is all about the experience for us at Buttermilk Farms. My children think that there is not any better hot chocolate than there. The hayride always tops off our trip. But it is truly all about the search for the most perfect tree. This year, as last year, we scored. Our tree is gorgeous, and what beautiful memories that we made together as we searched for it throughout the farm.
What a whirlwind day of family fun! We decided to brave the triple family celebration this year. Yes, three family parties in one day. Callie Grace made it beautifully. Josiah held up well until we got in the van to head back north. He had major meltdown. It reminded me of the “good ole days”. We have pictures from two of the family functions or dysfunctions? Whatever you want to call it, I love them. I don’t know anything different.
My Pop and Momma
Russell, Mom, Pop, Nena, Andy, and Aunt Janet
The granddaughters with Pop and Nena
My Nanny and her boys
and her daughters-in-law
Nanny with her boys and granddaughters
Nanny had 3 boys and then 5 granddaughters
You have to have a little fun in the photograph mania
And then, a boy was thrown in the madness when my dad was remarried
I thought this was really neat. This the official proclamation by Abraham Lincoln for an annual national observance of Thanksgiving. It think his words are so rich and beautiful.
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.
I always think it is so cool to read the yearly Thanksgiving proclamations of our presidents. If you haven’t checked out this years, you must. It is not very great.
I had an incredible moment with the Lord yesterday during the teaching time of worship at Roane Church. Melvin was continuing our journey through the book of John and came to a most familiar Scripture. One thing that he has taught me over the years is to not let familiarity stand in the way of God speaking to you in a new way about a particular Scripture. He has always warned me that we sometimes miss the richness of the verses surrounding verses that are very familiar to us. I have tried so hard not to allow this to happen to me, but I must admit. I have allowed the overwhelming familiarity of John 3:16 to shadow all of chapter 3 for my whole life. Melvin unearthed some incredible richness for us. I am utterly overwhelmed still today by the awesomeness of the living Word of God.
How many hundreds of times have I read John 3:16? How many more times have I quoted it? But I have never really grasped the significance of it in context. Why I have never taken the opportunity to turn in my copy of God’s Word to see what narrative from the Old Testament that Jesus was referencing as He made a comparison between He and the snake that was lifted up in the desert? When Melvin began to unearth this for us yesterday, I was overwhelmed at the comparison that Jesus made. As Melvin taught yesterday, God did not provide an anti-venom for the snake bites in the desert. When the Israelites disobeyed and complained against God in the desert, He sent venomous snakes that bite them, and there were Israelites that even died because of the bites. They begged Moses to pray to God to take the snakes away. He did not take them away. Instead, He had Moses construct a bronze snake to be lifted up on a pole. When they were bitten by a snake, they were to look up to the bronze snake, and they would not die. In the same way, we have been bitten by the snake of sin. We must look to the cross to live! “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:14-16
What a beautiful example of evangelism that Jesus gave to us. The Holy Spirit was working in the life of Nicodemus. The evidence of this is that Nicodemus was asking spiritual questions. He was seeking. Jesus allowed him to be real and Jesus was real with him. One of our core values at Roane Church is that we want to be real. Most of us have spent our whole lives going to church where people want us to leave our baggage at the door. We have even been ask if we have problems, to leave them behind us and worship the Lord. Is that really possible? Is that really what God desires? I don’t think for one moment that God wants us to do that. How many people have issues dating back to childhood that Christians have minimized and even asked them to forget about? Jesus wants to deal with us, heal us, break us free from the bondage of our past. He wants us to drag it on in to church with us so that He can deal with our mess as we connect up with Him. He wants to heal us. At Roane Church, we want people to know that there is no need to pretend with us because God wants us to be real with Him. How incredibly this Scripture reveals this truth.
And then, verse 17 -18, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” Oh how the church has got this wrong so much! So many churches, and Christians for that matter, feel as if it is there duty here on this earth to condemn the world. From the lips of Jesus, He was not sent into this world to condemn the world but to save the world. Isn’t that our job too? Are we not to be proclaiming salvation? Let it be so Jesus at Roane Church. Please show us how to be like you. We want to lift you up that all people may be drawn to you. We as a church want to be investing in the lives of people in our community that they many know the salvation of our Savior.
