Monday, July 23, 2012

It's a....



... GIRL!!!


More pictures to come later, but this is a sneak peek :) Thanks to Melody Mersiovsky for her AMAZING photography (and for passing on the idea)! We are so blessed. Thank you, Jesus. 

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Covering

I wonder if doctors hate Web MD. I thought of this on a walk after an appointment today with my rheumatologist (a very encouraging appointment, by the way). I'm sure people come into to doctors and specialists all the time saying, "Well, according to Web MD, I have ____. It says I should ask you to prescribe ____. Are you sure you don't want to check again?" As if these men and women who have spent years training to do their jobs need us, need me to self-diagnose and come up with a suitable treatment plan.

While I completely support advocating for one's health, I know that I can waste a lot of time worrying that I have to figure out what's wrong. It is not my job. Doctors in a way, provide a type of covering for things I don't understand. I need to trust that they've heard from experts and are caring for me.

As time-consuming as second-guessing a doctor's every decision can be, God revealed to me this weekend that I often spend even more hours agonizing over lifestyle questions that are really not my job to answer. You see, God has given me a covering, in the form of the man I wake up next to each morning.

I've spent days and days trying to discern what to do about tough issues: how should we be budgeting our money and time? Do we need to give more out of our discretionary income? What is a Christian response to environmental concerns? Yikes, big questions to roll around all day. I have felt the urge to decide what I believe about each thing, and then tell Patrick when I did or what we need to do.

I didn't verbalize it until Sunday night, but I was living this way: There are times when I do not believe the Holy Spirit can speak to my husband. Equally as insiduous, there are times when I don't believe my husband listens as well, is as sensitive to his leading as I am. In living this way, I am forfeiting the covering that could be mine.

Ephesians 5 (NIV) says this,  "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holycleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." 

Just as Jesus made his Bride holy, Patrick, as my husband, is responsible for the holiness of myself and of our family. 

I know this idea sounds backward. When I first expressed it to Patrick on Sunday night, I laughed and said, "I feel like this sounds Amish or something." (Nothing against the Amish...it simply felt like more of a traditional family structure than I'd ever considered before). I have known many women (myself included) that have felt the pressure to be the spiritual leader in their homes. They listen to the sermon, read the article, ponder a question while cooking dinner, and frantically try to get their husbands to go along.

I think this is for a variety of reasons. Some men have neglected the call to be the primary discipler in the home. Some women  (like me) have had a hard time believing their husbands can hear from the Lord and are making the right choices.

I asked God the same question, "But what if Patrick gets it wrong? What if he isn't as generous or disciplined or (fill in the blank) as we are supposed to be? I need to keep figuring things out for us!"

God answered the question through my friend Carol. A wise woman in our church, she had encouraged me to rest under Patrick's guidance when I was really stressed about if we were giving enough. God would hold him accountable for the leadership and decisions he made, she told me. My job was to follow him in trust, allow him to be my covering.

Now, I don't believe that God wants me to blindly follow or never express my opinions. His Spirit does speak to me in different ways because of different giftings I have. However, I can lose the anxiety over figuring everything out. I can bring it to Patrick, and he can decide what our family should do (whoo what a decision to trust this is!).

One final reservation I had about the idea of covering was how it would make Patrick feel. Would he feel overwhelmed by the prospect of being held accountable for listening to God's voice, ensuring our family was following Jesus, and pointing out flaws in my thinking? Was it too much? When I asked him this, the exact opposite was true. My position of trust gave him incredible confidence. He said he felt encouraged to step up and really do his job to lead. There seemed to be joy on both our parts that came from taking our parts, the parts God intended.

And there I've gone again...writing far to much for far too long. My ideas seem to take quite a few paragraphs to flesh out. However, writing them encourages me to put names to what God is doing, lest I forget. I hope in writing I encourage you, too. Rest in the covering provided to you, and be amazed at how beautifully God's design really works. Good night!

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

One Thing...

I usually only post one thought each week, but I was trying to weave these two into one post, and it just wasn't working. I realized I was working out two ideas, and that each needed it's own space to breathe. Here is the second, another gentle reminder from a Father who wants me to be a whole lot less crazy :)

I recently quoted, rather smugly, to a friend, "Comparison is the thief of joy." I assured her that she had to stop looking at others' lives. It just isn't right. Of course, comparison isn't something I ever struggle with Never.

While I might not worry about comparing myself to people around me, I have a serious problem with comparing myself to people I've never met whose shiny blogs blink with ads for eco-friendly companies and glow with moments captured on a Nikon 10,000 (I'll let you decide which is more worrisome).

Yesterday, I was actually stressing about not having a meal planning menu.  "Patrick," I cried, trying to make him understand the gravity and despite of myself, managing to laugh at the ridiculousness, "some of these ladies online have monthly meal planning menus. They document their meal-planning experience in a scrapbook made from scraps from their grandmother's quilt. While you're reading about it, you can check out the link to pictures of their children wearing clothes they personalized with buttons from goodwill at the fairy-themed birthday party where they hired their cousin to do fancy face paint!"

While it might seem silly, this is pieced together from several actual blogs or websites I've seen. How is a woman ever supposed to keep up?

Sarah Groves describes social media in her song, "Obsolete," like this: "Walking through a hall of doors/looking through a million portals/everyone is having fun/everybody seems immortal./ And you don't know where you stand/and did something pass you by/and if you are dismissed/will you get another try?

It terrifies me to think that at times, I stress more about if I'm making Martha Stewart happy than if I'm making Jesus happy. In the end, who will matter more?

Yesterday, after another tirade about not having everything nailed down as I would like, Patrick and I paused to watch an ocean-rippled sunset sky behind our house. As I quieted I heard, "you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one (Luke 10:41-42)." 

The story of Mary and Martha, one you think I would have internalized by now. Martha was fuming in the kitchen, probably trying to get her olives in the shape of a lamb like she saw on Pinterest and angry Mary wasn't helping. Instead, her sister was sitting at Jesus feet, listening and soaking in his love. She had chosen what was better, and it wouldn't be taken from her.

My to-do lists, my blog-compare-and-despair need to be named for what they are: idolatry. For if I am bowing down to them instead of to Jesus, that is precisely what they are.

I am called to one thing and to one thing alone: to know Jesus, experiencing his love more and more deeply each day. Everything else can be wonderful, but needs to be counted as loss in comparison. May you rest today at his feet today.

An oldie, but a goodie...






A Black and White Girl in a Gray World

When I was little, we had a dish with a little chick in the middle and a ring of half-egg shells around her. It was probably for hard-boiled eggs, but we always used it to hold jelly beans. I remember taking out the beans and sorting them by color, putting them back in neat monochrome sections. Ahh, that's better.

When I was in high school, I'd babysit for some spending money. After the kids had gone to bed, I would sometimes straighten up. No, not just dirty dishes: literally I would straighten crooked picture frames, piles of magazines on tables, etc... I felt so much better when everything was exactly right, exactly how it should be.

I've been the same way about thoughts: constantly straightening, adjusting, perfecting. I've wanted my beliefs to read like mission statements: Well, what I believe about caring for the environment is precisely... Why, I'm glad you asked what I believe about prayer. You see, I know for sure that...

I am learning that whatever extremes in personality I had before pregnancy are amplified by the large amounts of hormones that are currently running through my veins. If my thoughts were vying to escape any gray areas before, my brain now feels like a middle school cafeteria dismissing. It's not pretty!

The day after our stay-cation, Patrick had to work and I cleaned up at home. I was bombarded with seemingly life-altering dilemmas. I read Matthew 5 for my quiet time. When I got to the part about "turning the other cheek," I was torn. But what if someone attacks me on a dark night? What then? This one had my mind running for hours.

That is, until I heard a radio broadcast about how homeschooling is a great way actively parent and disciple your children. I hadn't even thought this far yet, I despaired, and now I have to figure out what I believe about educating a baby I haven't even met yet! 

The broadcast also brought up how we need to teach our children why we do things like get jobs, play sports, study hard, etc... This is a great point, something I want to remember. As I put things away in the bathroom, though, my eyes locked on my makeup bag. What would I tell a daughter about wearing makeup? Oh, no! "Patrick, why do I wear makeup?," I asked him desperately when he got home. Poor man!

 This frantic kind of thinking, this desire for a cut-and-dried response ready for anyone who'd ask what I believe about spiritual warfare or eating well or solutions to poverty, leaves me harried and stressed. It leaves me joyless and worried. And guess what? It leaves me trying to be GOD. Yikes.

God has been speaking gently into this black and white girl's heart about my fear of existing with a degree of grayness. At church on Sunday, Pastor April read this from Psalm 131 (NIV, emphasis mine):

"My heart is not proud, Lord,
    my eyes are not haughty; 
I do not concern myself with great matters 
    or things too wonderful for me. 
But I have calmed and quieted myself
    I am like a weaned child with its mother;
    like a weaned child I am content."


I do not have to have a tabulated manifesto of everywhere I stand on every subject. Let me see, FASTING, that's page 23. I believe... Doing so reveals a fear that the Holy Spirit will not speak to me, that I need to know all and NOW! Jesus didn't even expect this of his disciples, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bearBut when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. (John 16:12-13, NIV, emphasis mine). 

I might not know exactly what to tell you about great matters, things too wonderful for me, but the Holy Spirit does. I might not know how I will react to one of the thousand hypothetical situations I can imagine, but I do know I can rest, contentedly, on my Father's lap. When the time comes, he will whisper what needs to be done, he will guide. My job is simply to listen. That is black and white enough for me. 

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Summer Stay-cation

This Tuesday update is a little late... We're resting up after we spent a week with my in-laws and Patrick's Grandpa Weaver. It was really fun and very relaxing ...minus the tears from an overly hot pregnant lady at the 94 degree game on Tuesday night (not naming any names :) ). It was great to get to know Grandpa Weaver in a new way and to get to hear stories about Grandma Weaver before she got sick (she had battled Parkinson's and dementia for years before I even met her, and she passed away in April.)

Enjoy some highlights!
Nothing says, "summer," like a jar of sunflowers!
Hike to Mill Prong Stream in Shenandoah National Park

Two Lukes

View from Blackrock behind Big Meadows Lodge

Outside the Nationals Stadium in D.C. 
It was a hot one...but the Nats won 9-3! 

The Irish Farm in the Frontier Culture Museum...it's free on July 4th
...definitely worth checking out!