November | 2012 | itsawonderfilledlife

Archive for November, 2012

Celebration from Two Sides

Posted in FAMILY, life, Marriage, The Hubby, WONDER, tagged adjustments, blending of families, celebrations, First Christmas, Habits, Hubby, leaving and cleaving, Mark 10:7-8, Marriage, new normal, normal, rituals, Traditions on November 6, 2012| 1 Comment »

Back when hubby and I were first married (in the stone ages), there was so much to adjust to in coming together into a new life.

Trying to blend two unique lives, experiences and upbringings is no small thing, and not at all easy. When this blending is in the initial stages the others family, habits and rituals seem nothing short of strange, because we humanly always think that our own existence is the ‘normal’ one (thus the others is abnormal).

Recently, when hubby and I were celebrating our anniversary, we were discussing the different things we each had to adjust to when our separate families were joined through our marriage.

One thing that stuck out, as contrasting was how our separate families would celebrate events, occasions and events.

My family celebrates EVERYTHING! Christmas, Easter, birthdays, graduations, moving away, etc., etc., etc. The celebrations would include not just our immediate family, but extended as well. Frequently including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. There was always food in abundance, always a cake.

My exposure to my hubby’s family, in terms of celebrations was different (remember these are just my interpretations, not necessarily those of my hubby’s experience growing up). Celebrations also included food. For birthdays the celebrations would take place at a restaurant, including the immediate family. At Christmas a meal was prepared, and shared by a few more family members. Celebrations were smaller and quieter.

From my perspective (due to my ‘other end of the spectrum’ experience) there was no celebration. I remember our first married Christmas, when the gifts under the tree were still unopened when we went to bed on December 25, only to be eventually opened the following day.

From the perspective of my hubby (due to his ‘other end of the spectrum’ experience) there was always an over-the-top celebration, with food and gifts substituting the reason for the celebration. He still does not grasp the need, on Christmas morning, to be up at an “ungodly hour” (a tradition in the home of my childhood) to open gifts, when they will still be there hours later.

Ah, and after the recognition of these differences, and others, comes the hard work of what to keep from our childhood traditions and what to throw away.

And that is what leaving and cleaving is about. When we marry, we leave our childhood, and it’s rituals behind, and we start something new. We look at the heritage we have come from and we, together as husband and wife, decide what to keep, and what to let go of, in an effort to cleave, to become a new ‘one’.

Mark 10:7-8 says, “for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh: so that they are no more two, but one flesh.” Our goal should be that over time, the two become one, understanding that together they have created a ‘new normal’, unique to only them.

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PK’s

Posted in life, The Hubby, The Kids, WONDER, tagged Children, Christ, Church, Commitment, discouragement, fo into the world, go, Kids, Mark 16:15, pastors kids, pastors wife, PK, responsibility, serving God, stereotype, wings. on November 5, 2012| 3 Comments »

When I got married to my hubby, there were two people who wondered aloud about the life (as a pastor’s wife) that I was entering. But I was young, in love, and there was nothing that we could not survive, as long as we were together!

It did not take long to realize that this life had it challenges, but it also had amazing blessings. Our life is designed around the challenge of making the life of Christ one that others want to follow, in a deeper, more sincere way. Along with that, much of our mutual desire is to help those who have been hurt, deceived, or ignored by other Christ followers see that we are not all like that, and that the One we follow is not in the business of hurting, deceiving or ignoring.

Through the years we have added three kids to our family, and as our kids they were born into the title of Pastors Kids PKs). There were negatives like having a busy dad (who has made a commitment to not miss the important events of their lives) and a life where everyone in the church knows you (but often that has meant the blessing of many dear people who pray for them), but I really did not see PK as a negative stereotype for our kids.

Our kids, like their peers (and their parents), have moments when they blow it royally, but they do so not because they are PKs, but because they are fully human.

The reality of our life in the church means that they know things others in the church do not. Things that we sometimes do not want anyone exposed to, especially them. Things like times when their dad has been spoken of derogatorily, or when their mother has been hurt. They have experienced the social ‘shunning’ by peers whose parents do not support the work of their dad. Then there are the times when they have been the center of the negative conversation, and a ‘friend’ has relayed the conversation to them (without any mention of defending them at the time). They know the discouragement and disappointment that ‘serving’ God in ministry can mean.

God has given us such a beautiful life, and we have laid down our lives for the sake of this ministry. But God has given us the beautiful responsibility of introducing His love to two daughters and one son, and that is a responsibility I will never sacrifice.

So, I do what other mothers may shudder to consider. When our children reach high school, I sit them down and explain that I want them to know the freedom of Christ without the confines of the title they were born with. I tell them that we, their parents, have no expectation that they will choose our church as their church. And then, I encourage them to …

GO!
-to a church where they choose
-to a church where they are ‘just’ another believer
-to a church where they can serve simply because they feel compelled
-to a church where the style of worship encourages them to worship
-to a church where the delivery of the message feeds them

“go into the world, and tell everyone the Good News” (Mark 16:15).

That is the most important message I can give them … that, and wings so that they can choose to fly.

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Hide and Seek … Without The Seek

Posted in GOD, Guest Post, WONDER, tagged Blaise Pascal, Church, church visitors, god shaped vacuum, great commission, hide and seek, Holy Soup, mega churches, movement, seeker sensitive, seekers, Thom Shultz, without the seek, Worship on November 4, 2012| 4 Comments »

The guest post today is from a blogger I have guested here not that long ago. This particular post made me consider how important it is to be aware of the movements and trends in society when we are involved in a church.

This Holy Soup post by Thom Shultz discusses the ‘Seeker Sensitive’ movement in churches in the last generation or more.

After reading this post I did a little research, and learned a few things about this movement that I did not know before. For instance, the seeker sensitive movement has been closely associated with the mega-churches, primarily in North America, who have modeled their worship services on other ‘entertainment’ that interests society as a whole, as a means of attracting non-church-ed people.

What I did realize about the seeker-sensitive movement is that of the desire to make church appealing to those for whom going to church is foreign.

This is not a bad thing, not at all! Certainly if someone enters the doors of a church they should be warmly welcomed, not looked at from afar with curiosity. No visitor should enter the doors of a church, and leave afterwords without someone at least greeting them. After all, as Christians, we would all agree that our purpose is the Great Commission (the instruction from Jesus to spread his teachings to the world), and we really cannot do that without relationship. How fortunate we Christians are when that world walks right through our doors.

What this post from Thom Shultz is saying is that maybe their are fewer seekers than we previously thought? Maybe we have created and re-created our worship for seekers who are no longer seeking?

Personally, I think our world will always have seekers. In the words of the French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal, “there is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.” And that “God shaped vacuum” will keep people seeking … they just might not be seeking in churches.

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Cries of Mercy

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged deserves, Gift, humble, jars of clay, mercy, message, messenger, Psalm 119:132, Psalm 41:4, Psalm 4:1, Psalm 51:1, Psalm 57:1, Psalm 6:2, Psalm 86:3, punishment, stalked, the valley, unmeritted on November 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

For about a week or more I have been stalked, but not by a vicious serial killer. I have been stalked by a word, the word mercy.

It has been everywhere; in the songs I’ve heard, in the messages shared, in the verses I have read. Mercy has been quietly creeping up in my life, subtly (or maybe not so subtly) forcing my awareness of it’s presence in my life. Communicating to me that I need to pay attention to whatever message it has for me.

Generally mercy means that one who deserves punishment is given the gift of not receiving that punishment. This freedom is unmerited, undeserved, and it is freely (not forcefully) given. It is an action on the part of the merciful, not a feeling or emotion.

When one asks of mercy from another, they ask knowing that they do not deserve it, but also knowing that the one they ask is fully able to give it, fully. When one gives mercy, they do so not out of ‘feeling’ sad, or compassion for the other, but they grant mercy because it is what is asked of them. The act of requesting mercy is a humble one, the act of giving mercy is an equally humbling one.

In the Psalms David cried to God for mercy over and over again:

“Give me relief from my distress; have mercy on me and hear my prayer” (Psalm 4:1)

“Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am faint; heal me, LORD, for my bones are in agony” (Psalm 6:2)

“I said, “Have mercy on me, LORD; heal me, for I have sinned against you” (Psalm 41:4)

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions” (Psalm 51:1)

“Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me, for in you I take refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed” (Psalm 57:1)

“have mercy on me, Lord, for I call to you all day long” (Psalm 86:3)

“Turn to me and have mercy on me, as you always do to those who love your name” (Psalm 119:132)

I am not exactly sure why it is that mercy has been stalking me. Usually when a message is delivered to me in this way my reception of the message comes when I already know why it has come, or it comes as I become aware of the lesson I need to learn, or the message I need to learn. I am not sure whether this message of mercy is to prompt me to be merciful or if I might be the one crying for mercy from another.

Whatever the case, even as odd as it seems, I know where this message has come from, and I know that this messenger is always trustworthy and timely. So, here I sit unwrapping this gift, and holding it close for the day the I will need to make use of it.

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The Closet Reno-Part 1

Posted in life, The Hubby, WONDER, tagged bead board, Bench, building, closet, cozy nook, cut once, finish, measure twice, reno, renovations, solid, sturdy, the brave husband, wood frame on November 1, 2012| 2 Comments »

Well, I am finally doing a follow-up post about my Brave Husband that I started way back in July. As I stated in that post “what makes my hubby brave is his willingness to let me ‘experiment’ with our house and garden.”

My patient man came home one day, early in the summer to find that I had removed everything in our hallway closet except for the drywall. His only response was, “I am guessing you have decided on your first (summer) project.”

I had set to work just that morning, after spending many weeks considering what I might do to create a door-less, closet storage area with a cozy place to sit and read, write or simply escape from one of our, now only three, teenagers in the house. I had filled a bucket with tools that I might need was wearing the grubbiest of my grubby clothes, and was thrilled to be taking something apart, with the visions of how it could look when I was finished.

Once it was naked of all that it had previously contained, from shelving to carpet, and everything in between, I set to work on the part that made me sweat the most … constructing a wood frame for the bench. I had never built a frame before, and this one would need to be secure enough to hold … me! I was very nervous, and the previous visions of the finished project were replaced by day/night mare of someone (me) sitting down and having the entire bench come crashing to the floor. I had the outer supports screwed into the studs of the walls, then added cross pieces every 8-10 inches (I cannot remember exactly). Thankfully I had 2X4’s in my garage, so I only had to purchase the screws!

The frame seemed to hold … even me standing on it!

The next step was to go and purchase plywood … Oh my goodness! Seriously, with the amount of trees in the area of the country that I live, I did not see the rational for having to take out a mortgage to purchase a piece of plywood! Yikes! So, when it came time to cut it, I did not measure twice and cut once, I cut eight times, and measured 2-4 times before each cut. When all was measured and cut, it fit on top like a glove. And the security of it … it was so well constructed that when I sat my happy … behind on it, not a creak, not even a whisper of a noise. Look out Mike Holmes (of Holmes on Homes).

As you can see from the photo directly above and left, there are shelves below the bench. I purchased this ‘TV stand’ at a thrift store, primed it with ‘bonding’ primer, then painted it with semigloss white paint. I was in awe at how perfectly it fit (with a bit of cutting from the back right corner, to fit the shape of the closet). I screwed it to the opening of the closet on both sides, to ensure it would not migrate.

The next step was to purchase bead board (kind of difficult to see in this picture, above to the left and right) … mortgage number two! I had to purchase three sheets of it, but was able to use all but one small piece (about 10″x 14″), so the lack of waste made the price not so depressing.

I will continue my closet reno. story in the near future … I still need to finish ~~one~~ ~~two~~ a few more details before I am ready for the final reveal.

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