The Blog Porch…

Everyone who reads this blog [note: this was posted originally on my HSB blog which had the picture that is now on my Family Blog] eventually asks if that porch you see at the top of the page is MY porch.  My answer is always “not yet”.

 

I searched everywhere for something that would make people feel like they were welcome to just come ’sit a spell’ while we ‘chat’ and drink some lemonade or iced tea.  When I saw that picture two things happened.  First, I found my picture.  It was PERFECT.  I just loved it.  My blog had that welcoming ’sit on the porch, watch the world go by while we solve it’s problems’ feel.  All-American.  I still smile everytime I see it.

 

The second thing that happened requires a little bit of background so I’ll tell a story.

 

Once upon a time, an engaged couple was looking for the perfect nest to call home.  They saw new townhomes on “Lilac Square” that tempted them.   The homes were bright and new, lilacs just happened to be the girl’s favorite flower…  but the yards were tiny and two townhomes were conjoined at a time.  This meant only a thin wall of privacy protection was in place.

 

They looked high and low, hither and thither.  Finally, they looked at a house on a busy street that they’d previously rejected due to curbside lack of appeal and location.  (that street is BUSY!)  The house, from the outside, looked like Santa’s Reindeer lost their pea soup all over the house one Christmas!  The pea green stucco was trimmed in barn red with a white foam roof.  No, this is not a joke. 

 

But once the couple stepped inside the house, they knew.  This was their house.  She fell in love with the wall paper, the hardwood floors, and the large rooms.  He fell in love with the back yard… the HUGE back yard.  They both hated the outside.  A saltine box covered with pea soup.  No life, no shape, BORING.

 

They quickly added siding to their house.  It was a definite improvement.  Really.  But unfortunately it also gave the appearance of a 1970’s mobile home. 

 

Enter, my blog picture.  The second thing I realized when I saw that picture was that this could be MY HOUSE!!!  I can do that to my house.  I can build that porch, I can have the ’shape’ and I’ll love it.

 

Yesterday, phase one of the new house was implemented.  My son-in-law, David, put my new door in for Kevin for his birthday.  Kevin now has one less project to worry about and I have my new door up and looking beautiful.  Kevin added locks and such last night.  I am SOOOOOO excited.  Two windows and that room is du-double-n- done!

 

I’m considernig paint and I have new fabric for covering couches and making cushions and such.  It’s going to be so pretty!  I get new trim around the new doors and windows and everything.  After that, we do the windows in my room… redo the trim and such there… and VOILA!  I can put new siding (long discouraging story but all siding must be replaced) on the front of the house and start building my PORCH!  WAHOOTY.

 

Off to find a recliner cover.  I can’t wait. 

Editing~

I’ve been working on my first novel these past weeks.  I want to get it edited and to an agent.  It is time to step out and show my baby to someone who can help it grow into the book it was designed to be.  It’s an exciting time for me.

 

However, there is something everyone should know about book editing.  It’s tedious.  It takes hours.  Oh, and it takes hours.  And did I mention how many HOURS it takes?  Honestly, I had no idea it would be so time consuming.  I’ve barely edited chapter one.  It’s 10,000 words now.  Do you know what that means?  Yes, I have to adjust chapter one into about 3-4 chapters… which means that I will end up adding several hundred words just to keep my current format.  And that’s chapter one.  So much for a 90,000 word manuscript.  I’m over that already!

 

In editing you take a paragraph and you rewrite it to say exactly what you want it to say, awaken all the senses, and ensure your reader can see, touch, taste, smell, and LIVE what you’ve written.  You create technicolor with your words.  It’s exhausting.  And when you’re done, you realize that it doesn’t flow properly with the previous paragraph so you have to edit both a bit to get the right rhythm.  It’s great.  Until you realize that you’ve used the same descriptor twice in a thirty word span… then it’s not so great.  (Note the use of the word great in the paragraph above and you’ll get a visual of what I mean.)

 

Each sentence builds upon the previous sentence and transitions to the next.  The same goes for paragraphs, chapters, and even books if you happen to be working on a series.  Yes, I am.

 

Oh but then the fun begins in earnest.  You see, you can’t just sit down and edit.  Well, I can’t anyway.  I must work, change stories and write, then come back and work, until my eyes cross and I get my story lines mixed up.  If I stick to editing all day, I do a lousy job of editing.  If I work on new stuff all day, I don’t get anythign edited and nothing I write will ever be published.

 

As I was retyping yet another paragraph, it occured to me that editing is sort of metaphoric of my life.  We start with writing a page of who we are and what we stand for in our attempt to mature.  Then, we continue to grow, change, refine, and define until the final paragraphs of our lives read as we desire them to read.  God erases our mistakes and writes new passages on our hearts.  We’re molded by Him and His Word.  Daily we erase the mistakes of yesterday and strive to make today’s paragraph closer to that goal we have.

 

We discover our paragraph on organization is incomplete.  It doesn’t cover all the topics we want to organize.  We erase, we rewrite, we restructure.  Our excitement grows as we finally see improvement over the mistakes of past attempts.  We must keep editing.  Anyone who has tried to master the art of organization knows that you cannot set an organizational plan in motion and then leave it to run itself.  It doesn’t work.  We have to prune, fine tune, and recreate when our lives change.

 

This is true of our entire lives.  We will never be ‘finished’ in the earthly sense until we’re ressurected on the last day.  We’ll continue to grow, refine and become the person that Christ wants us to be.

 

Isn’t that amazing?  I’m in awe.

Spiritual Bootcamp~

http://gregscouch.homestead.com/files/Quiet_Time_Guilt.htm Caveat:  What I am sharing below should be tempered with the wisdom shown in the linked blog above.  Below shows practical ways to get past a HEART attitude.  If your heart is in need of bootcamp, then by all means, read on.  If your heart is right before the Lord, and you have a tendency toward self-induced guilt, please ignore my blog today.  I don’t want to feed that tendency. Spiritual Boot Camp   What kind of Christian are you?  Are you a strong warrior for the Lord?  Is your relationship with Him similar to the soldier?  Can you stand strong and say “Yes Sir!” to each command that He gives?  Do you know the ‘rules of conduct’ inside and out?    I realized that after being a Christian for almost eighteen years, I have quite a bit of growing to do.  I realized that spiritual growth is similar to physical growth.  You can have inches/knowledge out the ear but that does not automatically bring maturity.  I desire a deep, close, mature relationship with the Lord.  I desire to obey Him as swiftly as I did my earthly father.   I have many excuses for why I am so spiritually weak.  I am a mother!  I have nine children and I could be a grandmother in less than a year!  I have low thyroid.  I home school my children.  I have a home business!  I… I… I… I am pathetic.  Do I really think that the Lord will look at those excuses or the myriad of others that I could come up with, and say “Oh, I’m sorry honey, you had a rough few years there.  I understand why you neglected Me.”  K   It is time that Christian women took seriously their Christian walk.  We are rearing the next generation of warriors for Christ.  We cannot overhaul our lives overnight.  We will grow weary and discouraged.  There will be dry times and dark times and we will want to give up.  We can’t.  It is wrong of us to easily quit this ‘good fight’ that we are supposed to be fighting.  We need to finish the course, not dragging our feet and stumbling across the finish line, but with strength, and dignity, like an Olympic champion!   The Word   How well do you know the Word?  Can you find what you are looking for in a timely manner?  Can you Biblically support your doctrine?  Do you spend time etching the Word on your heart?  Do you immerse yourself in the Word?  Is the Word ’sweeter than honey’?  Is the Bible the first book you pick up, the last book you pick up, or one of the books that you pick up?   Prayer   Do you ‘pray without ceasing’?  Do you pray at all?  Do you pray a little or a lot?  What is prayer?  Why do we pray?  What do we pray?    Memorization of the Word   Is the Word ‘hidden in your heart’?  If you were stranded without your Bible, how much scripture could you share with those around you?   Hymns    How many hymns do you read outside of church on Sunday morning?  How often do you sing them outside of Sunday morning?  Are you familiar with hymns that are almost like singing sermons?  How often do you read the hymns that are unfamiliar to you?   Excuses   There are so many disciplines in the Christian life but if you work hard at overcoming the natural laziness that we all tend to have for them, you will find that the discipline becomes a joy as well.  What excuses do you hear yourself making for not ‘entering your closet’ on a regular basis?  I came up with quite a list very quickly.   I am too tired when I get up. This one has many possibilities. Go to bed earlier. Do it later in the day. Do it anyway and perhaps you will wake up. Get up later. Have your coffee first.   I am too tired when the kids are in bed. Again… Do it when you get up. Do it in the middle of the day. Do it anyway and perhaps you’ll be energized. Have a cup of coffee. Put the kids to bed earlier.   The house is too loud. Train your children to keep it down to a dull roar in the house. Wear earplugs. Put them to bed or listening to tapes or watching a movie while you study. Send them outside. Learn to concentrate in spite of the noise.   I cannot concentrate. Would you let your children tell you that they can’t do their school/homework because they just can’t make themselves concentrate no matter what they do?  Why do we treat God in less of a respectful manner than we expect our children to treat us? Start small.  Five minutes is enough to begin with.  Work your way up slowly.  READ ONE VERSE! Remove distractions if you can. Keep forcing yourself back to your task at hand. Keep a note pad handy to scribble notes to yourself so that you can keep your focus.       My children keep interrupting. This one is simple.  Make it a cardinal sin to interrupt mommy while she is studying unless someone is gushing blood or losing their cookies.  Discipline consistently and in a few days, you’ll be set.   I don’t understand what I’m reading. Well, here is the good news.  You don’t have to.  The Lord says that His Word will not return void.  YOU WILL get something out of it even if you don’t realize it.  Try other versions if it does not violate your conscience.  Keep a dictionary handy.  Read it aloud and if necessary, write it down.  In the end, the more familiar you are with the Word, the more you will understand it.  Oh yeah, and if you’re reading Ezekiel as a baby Christian… stop.  Pick up Mark or Acts or something.   It feels ‘fake’. First.  Feeling don’t make it so.  Bad grammar I know, but it had to be said.  Your feelings are only that, feelings.  They are not necessarily real.  Feelings have nothing to do with God’s will and our NEED for Him.   Even if your feelings are real, and your time with the Lord is fake, it is still practice in reality.  Eventually, it will be and feel sincere.  Like anything, a new church, new job, new baby, new friendship… there will be an awkward period.  This is normal, acceptable and you will find soon enough, that it turns into something beautiful.   I have so much to do! You must be a very important person to have so much more important stuff than God and His Word.  Will the Lord say, when you answer for the time you didn’t spend with Him… “Oh that is right… I gave you too full of a plate to be able to spend time with Me… I’m sorry.”  Ahem.   I have so many kids and they are ever present. Did God make a mistake in giving you those children?  Did He truly give you more than you can handle?  Where is that supported in the Word?  God has given you EVERY resource that you need to do what HE wants of you each day.  This includes time with Him.  If your children are crowding out the Lord’s time in your life, they have an unhealthy position in your family.  It is time to put them in their place.  Use some of the previous ideas for how to keep them quiet and away from you and just DO it! God feels so far away. He’s not going to get any closer if you keep moving farther away from Him.  James 4:8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.  Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. The truth is, He is not far away.  You are.  Draw closer and soon you will find that He was right there all along.  Staying away from the Word and prayer is not the way to develop a closer walk with the Lord.         It never seems to help. Operative word in that excuse is ’seems’.  It does help.  The discipline helps, the Word becomes engrafted upon your soul, and you learn, no matter how slowly, to grow in wisdom.  This one is based again on ‘feelings’.  Do not let your feelings lie to you.  THE WORD ALWAYS HELPS.  PRAYER ALWAYS HELPS.  NOW DO IT!   I feel unworthy. Aha!  For once, your feelings are right.  You are unworthy.  Praise the Lord; Jesus has created, from an unworthy lump of clay, a vessel for His use.  You are in and of yourself, unworthy.  In Christ, you are of great worth.  You were bought, redeemed and are cherished.  You were purchased with the blood of the One who DIED FOR YOU.  To consider yourself unworthy, when you are covered by the blood of Christ, is a mockery of the Lord’s work on the cross.  BECAUSE OF HIM, you are worth more than everything; in yourself, you are worthless trash.  If you need to feel worthy, remember that you are worthy, worthy of hell!  Praise the Lord you are saved from your worth into His worth.   Like anything worth doing, sometimes you just have to buck it up and do it.  The rewards are immeasurable and the consequences for neglect are horrific.  You CAN do this.  You NEED to do this.  Will you?

Homeschoolers, Arrogance, Pride, and Reputation

I read some sobering and unsettling things today over at Homeschoolchristian.com .  The discussion seemed simple in the beginning.  If you’re going to participate in something that is costing a coordinator money, pay up, on time, and don’t back out expecting a refund.  Things cost money to organize and to consider them ‘optional’ once you’ve committed is rude.

 

But the discussion, as you’ve probably surmised, did not end there.  I was appalled to see the reputation that homeschoolers have gotten for themselves.  Did you know some places groan when they hear a homeschooler wants to visit?  Did you know that homeschoolers have a reputation for being unruly because they don’t know how to stand in line unless it’s at a grocery store?  Do you know that homeschoolers have a reputation of not turning work in on time or paying their ‘bills’ when it comes to field trips and co-op classes?

 

This is shameful!  I am appalled.  I’m also nervous as I look over my life.  Am I guilty of this?  I could be.  I deliberately avoid things like this because I don’t want to make that kind of commitment.  But, if I was honest with myself, I would say that I am not completely guilt free here myself.  I’m sure I’ve done the same thing in one way or another.

 

I have to think about this.  We are rearing the next generation of this country’s leaders.  Homeschoolers can make a large impact on the world and they will.  WHAT that impact will be depends upon how we rear them and what we teach them just as much as what we don’t teach them or expose them to.

Homeschoolers, Arrogance, Pride, and Reputation

I read some sobering and unsettling things today over at Homeschoolchristian.com .  The discussion seemed simple in the beginning.  If you’re going to participate in something that is costing a coordinator money, pay up, on time, and don’t back out expecting a refund.  Things cost money to organize and to consider them ‘optional’ once you’ve committed is rude.

 

But the discussion, as you’ve probably surmised, did not end there.  I was appalled to see the reputation that homeschoolers have gotten for themselves.  Did you know some places groan when they hear a homeschooler wants to visit?  Did you know that homeschoolers have a reputation for being unruly because they don’t know how to stand in line unless it’s at a grocery store?  Do you know that homeschoolers have a reputation of not turning work in on time or paying their ‘bills’ when it comes to field trips and co-op classes?

 

This is shameful!  I am appalled.  I’m also nervous as I look over my life.  Am I guilty of this?  I could be.  I deliberately avoid things like this because I don’t want to make that kind of commitment.  But, if I was honest with myself, I would say that I am not completely guilt free here myself.  I’m sure I’ve done the same thing in one way or another.

 

I have to think about this.  We are rearing the next generation of this country’s leaders.  Homeschoolers can make a large impact on the world and they will.  WHAT that impact will be depends upon how we rear them and what we teach them just as much as what we don’t teach them or expose them to.