The Faithful Climber

My kids are pretty fearless.  They like fast amusement park rides, jellyfish stings don't keep them out of the ocean, and there is no trace of acrophobia in their little bodies.  They eat sushi.

Last year, at ages 9 and 7, Evie and Kate rappelled down Copperhead Cliff at Fall Creek Falls State Park.  Our family had been indoor rock-climbing before, but that was their first "real life" experience.  They loved it!  In fact, as Kate was rappelling to the bottom of the cliff you could hear her yelling, "Weeeeeeeee" everytime she pushed herself away from the rocks.

We went rock-climbing again this past weekend and this time Briggs made his first ascent.  He did fantastic!

While my kids were climbing up and rappelling down the rock walls I found myself closely watching their belayers.  The job of the belayer is to pull the slack through a belay device as the climber goes up the wall, "catch" the climber if they fall, and control the descent of the climber back to the ground.  As the belayer, the safety of the climber is in your hands!  As the climber, you have to have complete faith in the ability of your belayer.

Faith.  I like it defined this way:  "having a confident belief and a confident hope, which motivate you to take action".  As Christians, our belief is in God our Father; our hope is for eternal life with Him in Heaven.  That belief and that hope, together, incite our obedience to His Will, which is revealed to us in the Bible.

I read an article once about a missionary named John Paton who translated the Bible for islanders of the South Sea in the latter part of the 19th century.  He had not been able to find a word in their vocabulary for the concept of believing, trusting, or having faith.  One day, while he was in his hut translating, a native came running in and sat down in a chair, utterly exhausted.  He said to Paton, "It is so good to rest my whole weight in this chair".  And there it was....John Paton had his word for faith:  "resting your whole weight on God".  I like this definition too.

I think of Evie, Kate, and Briggs literally "resting their whole weight" on me or Sam as we belayed for them while they climbed to the top of the rock walls.  This is a wonderful lesson for the Christian!  Is there anything more assuring than knowing that as we face challenges daily, as we struggle to meet our goals, as we climb and fall over obstacles in our lives; we can rest our whole weight on God, knowing that He is holding our rope, and He will keep us safe.

Today's the day

It's here.  The day I have anticipated and talked about for some time now.  The "once the kids are all in school" day.

I find my "To-Do List" is quite long on this most historic of days.  It's no wonder!  This list that has been accumulating over 10 years and it covers a myriad of topics... 

"My house is an absolute mess....but "once the kids are all in school", I'll have so much more time to clean."

"I wish I could find more time to write, and "once the kids are all in school" that's what I plan on doing all day long."

"I really need to exercise, and "once the kids are all in school", I'm going to be a running machine!"

It's a day that has been my fall back, my safety net, my recovery attempt, if you will, after making  statements that substantiated my less than perfect self.

So, now it's here.

It's 12:52.

I've started one load of laundry.

And I miss my kids.

"Caution! Wet Floor!

For parents, there is never a dull moment!  Daily life is a maze with the unexpected looming around every corner!  There is no telling what the next 24 hours will bring.....or even what a quick trip into another room of the house will bring.  It's always an adventure.

Yesterday, Sam walked into the Living Room and found the kids making an 80's exercise video.  Complete with lace gloves and valley girl cues ("Like, now, totally do some knee bends!"). 

Case in point.

What I like about unexpected parenting moments is that they usually disguise a greater application.  If you look deeper, you might not just see the event taking place in front of you (Sweatin' to the Eighties) but an important life lesson for both you and your children (Team Work!).

Recently, Kate did something that really made us laugh but it also gave me something to think about.  She could be heard rattling around in the kitchen.  After a few minutes had passed, she called out, "HOW DO YOU SPELL THE WORD 'CAUTION'?"  Sam spelled it out for her and nothing else was said.

Later, when Sam walked into the kitchen, he found a spill on the floor and next to the spill was this sign:

Instead of cleaning up the spill, she found a piece of paper and made this "warning sign"!  In the time it took for her to create this sign, she could have cleaned up the spill and been well on her way to other things.  Sam and I got so tickled by her means of "fixing" the problem.....it was certainly creative and had "Kate" written all over it!

That night, I thought about the sign (which has now found itself among our collection of paper keepsakes) and it reminded me of how Christians often treat sin in their lives.  We seem pretty good at acknowledging our mistakes or our shortcomings; we may even call attention to them around others, but when it comes to "cleaning up the spill", we sometimes don't make the effort.  We leave signs next to our behaviors that say "Caution!  Sin!", but then we leave the mess there, getting stickier and stickier, putting us (and others in our lives) at risk for slipping.

When we have a "sin spill", we can purify our lives again through repentance and prayer.  We can't just be sorry about our sin, we have to commit to making a complete change in our behavior, which may require getting rid of negative influences that can lead us to sin.  Then we can protect ourselves from future "spills" by waxing our hearts with Bible words, because knowing what God wants you to do makes the clean-up somewhat easier.  As Christians, we never stop "spilling" but we CAN learn to become really great custodians!

A backyard prayer for "Lola"

Some of my favorite moments with my children are the ones I have spent with them in prayer:  whether it's sitting down at the table before we eat, snuggled under the covers at bedtime, driving along the road in our car, or any one of a million random moments when the words of a 30-something year old mother just aren't enough. 

We had one of those moments on Sunday when our dog, Black Pearl, caught a rabbit in the backyard.  Although it escaped, my three animal-loving children were distraught over it's future.  My feeble words did little to comfort as I tried to suggest that the rabbit was probably back home being cared for by its rabbit family.  "But Lola was just a baby, Mom, how do you know she's going to be okay?"  (Somewhere in there, the rabbit found a name, taking this event to a whole new level of injustice)

Over the years I've learned that when I find myself struggling for words, the best thing to do is stop talking and let God take over.  I suggested to the kids that we pray for "Lola".  So there we were, in the yard, in a circle, heads bowed, asking for God to help a rabbit...and best of all, for Evie, Kate, and Briggs, this seemed like the most perfectly natural thing in the world to do (that should tell you something about how many times I find that my words are not enough).

I want my children to know that God wants to be a part of their everyday lives.  He wants to hear their voices and listen to their concerns, their fears, their joys: no matter how small they may seem.  What a gift we give our children when we help them discover the peace that comes through prayer and what a gift we give ourselves when we give attention to our children's heart felt conversations with God.  I never leave prayer time with my kids without my heart feeling encouraged and my faith being strengthened.

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ."  Philippians 4:6-7

There was no flash of light from heaven and the rabbit didn't suddenly dart across the yard in a miraculous display of restored health, but my kids (and I) were comforted after simply talking to God about what happened.  We don't know the fate of "Lola" but we did remind ourselves that God our Father is in control and that when He is involved, ultimately, (in the words of the Shunammite woman, 2 Kings 4:8-37)..."it will be well".