 |
Joy's first time in a
swimming pool, that I
know of. Like most
things, she is not afraid
to try it if she sees the
other kids doing it first.
swimming pool, that I
know of. Like most
things, she is not afraid
to try it if she sees the
other kids doing it first.
Canaan is the best at
moisturizing and picking out
Joy's hair. He likes to do it,
and he does a great job.
moisturizing and picking out
Joy's hair. He likes to do it,
and he does a great job.
Keziah Joy is three
years old! Joy has
already seen us have
several birthdays since
she has been home. So
she was kind of cute
when we set down the
plate with the candles
burning and slid it over
in front of her. Her look
of interest changed to
one of surprise as she
realized it was for her
this time! She caught
on fast and tried to blow
out her candles and
open her presents.
years old! Joy has
already seen us have
several birthdays since
she has been home. So
she was kind of cute
when we set down the
plate with the candles
burning and slid it over
in front of her. Her look
of interest changed to
one of surprise as she
realized it was for her
this time! She caught
on fast and tried to blow
out her candles and
open her presents.
She loved the shopping
cart Grandma and
Grandpa sent her! She
loves running around
and pushing things.
cart Grandma and
Grandpa sent her! She
loves running around
and pushing things.
Summer is here! The
pool is up!!
pool is up!!
Picking raspberries with
Mommy.
Mommy.
Yummy!
Pretty, curly headed girl!
Underwater kids!
More fun in the pool!
Another week is done. Art is back to work in Florida. Every week that he leaves it doesn’t get
any easier. We have gotten used to it, yes. It has become routine. Canaan and Hannah and I
have become a very close team. We all work together to keep it all together while he is gone.
Thank God for them; I don’t know what I would do without them. For three years we have been
praying that he would have work near home. And it has been far from ideal for the littles to have
him gone so often, especially for Joy as she adjusts to her new life with us. But this is what we
have been given and we try to do the best we can with it. We are thankful for the work,
especially in this day when so many don’t even have that.
This week, Keziah Joy turned three! She is still far from three mentally, but we do see progress
from the time she came home almost six months ago. It has been a challenging time, but we do
see progress. She enjoyed her birthday and was happy to see after seeing so many birthdays
that this one was for her!
We received disappointing news this week that Canaan did not make it into the Physical Therapy
program for this fall. He will have to wait another year to apply. In the meantime, he will try to
increase his application score by getting more observation hours and repeating a class. This
was a big disappointment and setback. We really did not have a “Plan B” in mind and were
simply counting on being accepted to the program. We are having to rethink things, and a whole
year is a long time to have to wait to continue your education.
But the summer is fully here with fireflies and swimming pools and brown skinned babies running
in the back yard. The garden is flourishing and the weeding is hard to keep up with. Soccer and
gymnastics are over, but school is not.
More Musings:
We have certain things we have taught our littles about life. For instance, now that the kids in
government indoctrination centers are entering summer “vacation” time, if you ask my kids why
we don’t break for summer they will tell you, “Because the brain never sleeps.” If you ask them
the first rule of cooking they’ll tell you, “There’s no such thing as too much garlic.” And if you ask
them, what is the worst thing that you can do, they’ll tell you immediately, “Lying.”
We raised our children to be, above all else, truthful. While ironically this teaching blew up in our
face, with these next little ones I am striving to instill even more firmly the importance of truth at all
costs. And I, now more than ever, hold truth in very high esteem. I have seen the tremendous
amount of destruction and pain that lies can cause. And I know that Christ Himself told us that
the truth would set us free! Consequently, I despise deception, or anything flirting on the edges
of it. I think that God calls us to be transparent and vulnerable with each other. It is only through
this that we can truly support and uplift each other, and share in each other’s burdens and joys.
I do not take this stand lightly. My children have all been raised to know that I never lie. Ever. I
tell them from before they can talk that I will never ever lie to them. Ever. I may fail them in other
ways, but I will never knowingly tell them an untruth. They have always known that their parents
buy their Christmas presents and Santa Claus is a fun, pretend part of Christmas, that I am the
Tooth Fairy, and that there is no Easter Bunny. This has not impaired their enjoyment of any
holiday, but I hope that it has instilled in them a trust that if I tell them something is true, they can
rely on the fact that as far as I know, it is true.
This is why it disturbs me when people tell untruths (aka lies) for so-called “good” reasons. Even
children’s books will extol the virtues of the “white lie” if it is to keep from hurting someone’s
feelings, or for some other supposed worthy reason. This is where virtue must stand strong.
Truth is always true, even when it is unpopular, or uncomfortable. This is not license to hurt
someone’s feelings of course. I teach my kids that there is usually something that can be said
that is true and not hurtful. But there is never an excuse to lie.
One of the most common reasons that Christian, well-meaning parents lie, is regarding their
children. They want to be supportive, complimentary, and encouraging. I heard a mother
comment that her son was “the best son a mother could have.” I understood the sentiment. She
wanted to praise her son and make him feel good, loved, warm, accepted… But this was a boy
who had struggled with many demons, had caused great heartache and grief in his parents’ lives,
and was not even pretending to pursue a godly lifestyle in any sense. While she could have
expressed her unconditional love and support in another way, she chose this obviously untrue
statement. Why lie? When parents say these things about their children, do they think their kids
don’t know the truth? Did this boy really believe he was the best son a mother could have? Did
he even believe his mother thought so? Though they may mean well, these lies do more harm
than good. Truth is always the better choice.
I know from experience that no matter how much time and effort and prayer you invest in your
child, there is no guarantee that they will choose to do what is right when they grow older. So
when other parents struggle with these same issues with their children, I feel their pain. What I
do not condone, however, is when parents glaze over their children’s faults, and even their
blatant disdain for God, and tell the world that they are so “proud” of their kids. These are
Christian parents who clearly have children who have walked away from God and are not even
trying to do what is right, and parents who are too proud to be truthful. I will be the first one to
admit that I am not proud when one of my kids chooses to do what is wrong. I will not hide it,
glaze over it, or pretend it isn’t there. And I will not insult my kids (or other people’s kids) who
actually are striving to what is right by downplaying the poor choices of another. I choose to be
honest. And I share that pain openly. I beg for the prayers of those who care. It sickens me to
see parents applauding their screwed up children’s mediocrity. We have come to the point in our
society where some Christian parents view it a victory to simply have a child who is not in jail or
rehab. Has it come so far that we must commend our children for being merely adequate? For
simply doing what is decent and civil? Are we still praising our adult children for not wetting their
pants? Or do we raise our standards in keeping with their abilities?
It is time to be honest and humble and real. It is through our honesty and vulnerability that we
are able to connect with each other and truly relate to one another. It is through our honesty
that we can challenge our children to truly pursue their highest potential. It is through our
honesty that we show respect for each other and for God. No matter how heart-wrenching,
humiliating, or scary, truth is always worth it.
any easier. We have gotten used to it, yes. It has become routine. Canaan and Hannah and I
have become a very close team. We all work together to keep it all together while he is gone.
Thank God for them; I don’t know what I would do without them. For three years we have been
praying that he would have work near home. And it has been far from ideal for the littles to have
him gone so often, especially for Joy as she adjusts to her new life with us. But this is what we
have been given and we try to do the best we can with it. We are thankful for the work,
especially in this day when so many don’t even have that.
This week, Keziah Joy turned three! She is still far from three mentally, but we do see progress
from the time she came home almost six months ago. It has been a challenging time, but we do
see progress. She enjoyed her birthday and was happy to see after seeing so many birthdays
that this one was for her!
We received disappointing news this week that Canaan did not make it into the Physical Therapy
program for this fall. He will have to wait another year to apply. In the meantime, he will try to
increase his application score by getting more observation hours and repeating a class. This
was a big disappointment and setback. We really did not have a “Plan B” in mind and were
simply counting on being accepted to the program. We are having to rethink things, and a whole
year is a long time to have to wait to continue your education.
But the summer is fully here with fireflies and swimming pools and brown skinned babies running
in the back yard. The garden is flourishing and the weeding is hard to keep up with. Soccer and
gymnastics are over, but school is not.
More Musings:
We have certain things we have taught our littles about life. For instance, now that the kids in
government indoctrination centers are entering summer “vacation” time, if you ask my kids why
we don’t break for summer they will tell you, “Because the brain never sleeps.” If you ask them
the first rule of cooking they’ll tell you, “There’s no such thing as too much garlic.” And if you ask
them, what is the worst thing that you can do, they’ll tell you immediately, “Lying.”
We raised our children to be, above all else, truthful. While ironically this teaching blew up in our
face, with these next little ones I am striving to instill even more firmly the importance of truth at all
costs. And I, now more than ever, hold truth in very high esteem. I have seen the tremendous
amount of destruction and pain that lies can cause. And I know that Christ Himself told us that
the truth would set us free! Consequently, I despise deception, or anything flirting on the edges
of it. I think that God calls us to be transparent and vulnerable with each other. It is only through
this that we can truly support and uplift each other, and share in each other’s burdens and joys.
I do not take this stand lightly. My children have all been raised to know that I never lie. Ever. I
tell them from before they can talk that I will never ever lie to them. Ever. I may fail them in other
ways, but I will never knowingly tell them an untruth. They have always known that their parents
buy their Christmas presents and Santa Claus is a fun, pretend part of Christmas, that I am the
Tooth Fairy, and that there is no Easter Bunny. This has not impaired their enjoyment of any
holiday, but I hope that it has instilled in them a trust that if I tell them something is true, they can
rely on the fact that as far as I know, it is true.
This is why it disturbs me when people tell untruths (aka lies) for so-called “good” reasons. Even
children’s books will extol the virtues of the “white lie” if it is to keep from hurting someone’s
feelings, or for some other supposed worthy reason. This is where virtue must stand strong.
Truth is always true, even when it is unpopular, or uncomfortable. This is not license to hurt
someone’s feelings of course. I teach my kids that there is usually something that can be said
that is true and not hurtful. But there is never an excuse to lie.
One of the most common reasons that Christian, well-meaning parents lie, is regarding their
children. They want to be supportive, complimentary, and encouraging. I heard a mother
comment that her son was “the best son a mother could have.” I understood the sentiment. She
wanted to praise her son and make him feel good, loved, warm, accepted… But this was a boy
who had struggled with many demons, had caused great heartache and grief in his parents’ lives,
and was not even pretending to pursue a godly lifestyle in any sense. While she could have
expressed her unconditional love and support in another way, she chose this obviously untrue
statement. Why lie? When parents say these things about their children, do they think their kids
don’t know the truth? Did this boy really believe he was the best son a mother could have? Did
he even believe his mother thought so? Though they may mean well, these lies do more harm
than good. Truth is always the better choice.
I know from experience that no matter how much time and effort and prayer you invest in your
child, there is no guarantee that they will choose to do what is right when they grow older. So
when other parents struggle with these same issues with their children, I feel their pain. What I
do not condone, however, is when parents glaze over their children’s faults, and even their
blatant disdain for God, and tell the world that they are so “proud” of their kids. These are
Christian parents who clearly have children who have walked away from God and are not even
trying to do what is right, and parents who are too proud to be truthful. I will be the first one to
admit that I am not proud when one of my kids chooses to do what is wrong. I will not hide it,
glaze over it, or pretend it isn’t there. And I will not insult my kids (or other people’s kids) who
actually are striving to what is right by downplaying the poor choices of another. I choose to be
honest. And I share that pain openly. I beg for the prayers of those who care. It sickens me to
see parents applauding their screwed up children’s mediocrity. We have come to the point in our
society where some Christian parents view it a victory to simply have a child who is not in jail or
rehab. Has it come so far that we must commend our children for being merely adequate? For
simply doing what is decent and civil? Are we still praising our adult children for not wetting their
pants? Or do we raise our standards in keeping with their abilities?
It is time to be honest and humble and real. It is through our honesty and vulnerability that we
are able to connect with each other and truly relate to one another. It is through our honesty
that we can challenge our children to truly pursue their highest potential. It is through our
honesty that we show respect for each other and for God. No matter how heart-wrenching,
humiliating, or scary, truth is always worth it.
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