Category: Family

Another Stone, Another Memory

“…When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them …” Joshua 4:6

“…When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them …” Joshua 4:6 

Never tell God what you are and are not willing to do.

In the Christmas season of 2008, I told God that I (in no uncertain terms) would be happy to birth the baby boy I carried ANY day except for Sunday, December 7th. My husband had a rather large Christmas concert scheduled for that day and was taking a rather large portion in it (conducting, soloing, etc, etc) … ie: the kind of thing at which he might be missed if he happened to be at the hospital instead.

December 7, 2008
12:07 AM: I looked at the glowing digits on my clock beside the bed. Really? Only midnight? Sighing, I decided that now was as good as any time to get up for one of what would undoubtedly be a hundred or so runs to the bathroom this night.  As I stood up, I felt the now familiar tightening. Labor?! Are you kidding me, God? We talked about this!  Maybe it’s false labor, early labor … something other than having-my-baby-today labor!

3:00 PM: Apparently this labor wasn’t false. However, it was slow, and knowing that there was much to do for the concert that night, I dressed in my holiday finest, and went to the church.

Sometime after 8:00 PM: Okay, now labor wasn’t quite so slow. The sounds of Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” wafted faintly into the library from the sanctuary – the final piece to this concert … It was done and it had been good. Thank you, God.

8:45 PM: Begging my husband to both drive faster and NOT hit every bump in the road.  

9:00 PM: The charge nurse’s face in my vision: “Honey, if I sit you up to give you the epidural, the baby’s going to come out! You can do it! Just don’t push yet! The doctor is on his way.”

9:24 PM: A son is born. He is beautiful.   

Dear Son, This is just one of many crazy and beautiful stories of God’s love for us/you that we will rehearse with you as you age. 
Happy Second Birthday!  Love, Mom

Why Talking Can Be Better Than Listening

This is Aidan. 

Mr. Mischief

Aidan struggles greatly in the area of patience.  When he does [generally every few hours], I find myself doing the thing I swore I would never do [years ago when I was young and foolish].  I channel my mother.  Chiding him gently, I break into a little song from my own childhood about patience. 

 “Have patience, have patience.  Don’t be in such a hurry.  When you get impatient, you only start to worry.  Remember, remember, that God is patient too, and think of all times that others have to wait for you.” 

The result of this “musical correction”?  To this moment, whenever I utter the phrase “Have patience, Son“, Aidan [bless his tiny heart] breaks into a song-like chant: “Hah peh-it, hah peh-it, hah peh-it” [have patience].  Ironically, I no longer sing him the song but it’s almost as if he needs to tell himself to patiently keep a lid on whatever it was that he was about to start screaming over.  I find myself smothering a laugh whenever he does this because it’s so cute.  However, cutie-cute factor aside, as I contemplated this behavior last week, I realized that in his own little way, Aid was preaching to himself.  “Have patience, have patience!”  — which reminded me of a great quote: see below —

This little anecdote has become a lovely reminder for me.  When there is something that I’m both supposed to do, and struggling against … when I’m tired … when I’m angry … when I’m hurting … do I listen to myself, or do I preach to myself? 

When the “have patience” moments come, I pray I will choose to remind myself of all that I know to be true.  [Philippians 4:8] 

Will you?

“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them but they are talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment [in Psalm 42] was this: instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says,: “Self, listen for moment, I will speak to you” (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression, [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1965] p. 20).

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