Children and Teenagers- Who Will Bring the Atmosphere?

Simyana is now two and a half. She is so wonderful. But these days she has been whining and fussing a lot. She says 'no' to almost everything, even when we try to trick her into saying yes... like; "Do you want chocolate?"

When I am faithful to ask God for solutions, I feel like He gives me insight and ideas into how to help my kids out of this. He also gives me comfort, as I read through the old testament and smile over God parenting the Israelites and He sweetly shares with me that He really understands. It seems like all the Israelites ever did was fuss and disobey, whine and complain.

As Asher and I move through these fussy days with our kids we feel God challenging us to,
"Bring the Atmosphere" On days when it seems like the girls just will not be happy,
God wants us to be happy and praise Him. When they whine and fight and cry, God wants us to "Do all things without grumbling or complaining", He wants us to walk in love which is "not easily annoyed." And He wants us to teach and discipline our children in that same beautiful way they should go.

When nothing I do seems to stop their fighting or frustration or disobedience may I still bring the atmosphere of love, worship, and obedience.

It is terrifying how easy it is to accept and enter into the atmosphere that our children are bringing to the home. Whether it is a fussy baby, a disobedient toddler, or a moody teenager. Our natural fleshly response is to respond the same. To complain in our minds or with our words like the baby, to loose our self control with our disobedient ones (which is disobedience to God), or to be down or cold with our teenagers who did it to us first.

Let us not respond to sin with sin. Let us quiet our hearts when the waters are stirred as we ask God to bring us peace and His likeness. He will be faithful. His goodness never comes from us. He is the only source of love, peace, goodness, and wisdom. Let us bring His kingdom to earth and let us start in our homes.

January 2013- A Baby Girl, in His Hands

Our first little baby was born, Simyana Joy, and there is no way to express the joy that she has brought us. I remember when I conceived I knew it because I very easily woke up at sunrise and felt compelled to pray. I knew it was because of the intercessor in my tummy. A similar experience I've had with all three of my kids.. During pregnancy I somehow sense and take on their future strengths. ... yes, you can call me a weird mystic, but I believe it fully and I would much rather have the pleasure of believing than the boredom of doubting.

We were originally planning to have at least two years before having a baby. After all we had only known each other for a year, we had no money, and we were about to become the houseparents of 15 teenage boys in a country and with people that were totally new to me. But in truth the main reason was so that we could "enjoy" life together a little longer before having the responsibility of a baby. Asher and I love mountains and hiking, motor bike rides and traveling. Things that just aren't so enjoyable when you have a little one to think of.

I have the incredible gift of optimism : )  which sometimes blinds me to the real difficulties that are ahead, so I will often run full force towards my hearts leading regardless of the amount of responsibility ... or chaos that will be on my plate. So for me I still wanted a baby.

But for Asher... well he is much better at seeing what reality will be. This is where Asher's goodness and honor of God shines bright, because in the midst of that understanding and in the midst of really truly wanting two years of life with me he felt a challenge from God to trust Him. To take the desires and plans that were in our hands, place them in Gods, and then step back, sit down and fall in love as we watch what He does with it.

So we took the first step and took it out of our hands. We conceived immediately. As I shared before, pregnancy was not an easy thing for either of us. We were both exhausted, dry, far from God, and just making it through. And an occasional complaint would come into our hearts that said we would have to wait years now before going on our much talked about treks and adventures.

Maybe we should of held our life as a stewardship in our own hands...

or maybe not.

We moved into the home with the boys and as I mentioned earlier, it was hard. A good day for me was when no one openly defied me or made fun of me. An even better day was when someone made eye contact or smiled. (I just re-read that sentence and laughed with joy over the difference now.)

Three months later our sweet Simyana was born.

She was a part of us. A missing part of us. We would often marvel over her and say, "Can you imagine if we waited two years before she came?" And then we saw something beautiful happen.

A deeper change took place. It wasn't just that we couldn't go camping anymore, or we couldn't
sleep-in till our hearts desire, it wasn't that we couldn't have freedom and watch full length movies. ... such silly things when you think about it... But the beautiful thing that happened was that God was blessing us in our soul. He was giving us life in our soul by bringing us to a place of NEEDING to lean on Him. This kind of life could never come from camping, adventures, lazy mornings or movies.

This kind of life is real and eternal.

Do you know what else happened? We saw Gods perfect plan unfold. We thought a new baby and all the boys would be chaos.,. But with Simyana's presence now in the house, the boys had a reason to come into the family room. They started to fall in love with her too. They could come in without having anything to talk about or ask or do and they could just play with the baby. There was a sense of family in the home and a sense of peace. All this was because God gave us a baby before we planned. May we never again make our own plans, because the deep joys and purposes we get from His are SO MUCH BETTER!