A few weeks ago, I shared a link to part one of a Bible study about Abraham that I wrote for myMISSIONfulfilled. Today, I want to share part two of the Bible study with you.
Family Traditions is about handing down faith from generation to generation. As believers, we have a responsibility to mentor and assist younger believers as they grown in faith. Click through MMF to read the entire article, and let me know what you think!
Until next time, grace and peace.
Lest you think it’s always roses and sunshine in the Jones household, I’m going to be honest. I don’t want to pretend to be a perfect mommy who has everything together. I don’t. I try my best, but there are times {lots of times} when my little spitfire and I have epic battles. And, as you can tell from the picture above, she’s not always smiling. Today has been one of those days.
It’s been a trying morning…
Yesterday evening, after the storms had finally passed through, Dennis and I headed North to rendezvous with my parents and pick up Micah. We enjoyed a gourmet meal at the Golden Arches in Waynesboro, Tennessee, then we loaded up and headed home. As soon as we walked in the door, I got Micah into her pajamas and into bed. It was well past her bedtime.
This morning, she slept in, so I thought we’d have a pretty low-key morning. I don’t know why I think things like that. It always turns out to be wrong.
At any rate, by the time Micah woke up, I had biscuits {the frozen variety} ready, so after I changed her diaper, we headed to the kitchen. Which is where World War III went down. Seriously. She didn’t like the cup I got out for her milk, and she wanted nothing to do with her highchair. She writhed in the highchair wailing for at least 20 minutes while I sat at the table and ate breakfast. I guess she finally realized that she wasn’t getting another cup, and I wasn’t getting her out of the highchair, because all of a sudden, the wailing stopped, she picked up her biscuit and started eating.
What in the world??
After breakfast, there was more general crankiness, so I thought I’d share it with the rest of Iuka. We went into town and dropped by Caytee Belle’s Closet to visit with Carly, and then we headed next door to dine at the Mexican restaurant. I dined, but Micah mostly sat there. Not much eating on her part, but thankfully, there was no more wailing.
As all of this was going down, I couldn’t help but think of the curriculum series I’m working on at the moment. The lesson that I’m wrestling with this week is on Ephesians 6:1-9, which is about proper relationships in the household, including the parent/child relationship. Specifically, the passage instructs parents “not to provoke [their] children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
As I have meditated on the passage this week, I can’t help but wonder if there are moments when I unnecessarily provoke Micah to anger. When it comes down to it, it doesn’t really matter what cup she drinks out of or whether or not she sits in her highchair to eat. But teaching her to obey does matter. So does teaching her to be grateful for the things that she’s given. To say please and thank you. To show gratitude for the milk, whether you like the cup you’re drinking out of or not.
Part of bringing Micah up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord is giving her a home where there are rules and boundaries. A home where her father and I are in charge and where there are consequences for disobedience. When we set boundaries and expect obedience and discipline her, we reflect our heavenly Father, who also sets boundaries and expects obedience and disciplines us. As one of the commentaries I read yesterday put it:
“The NEB well translates ‘give them the instruction, and the correction, which belong to a Christian upbringing’ … This is the highest duty of Christian parents. As Dale puts it, ‘parents should care more for the loyalty of their children to Christ than for anything besides, more for this than for their health, their intellectual vigour and brilliance, their material prosperity, their social position, their exemption from great sorrows and great misfortunes.’”
Francis Foulkes, The Tyndale NT Commentary on Ephesians
When it comes down to it, I deeply desire for Micah to grow into a young woman who loves and serves the Lord cheerfully. Molding her into that type of woman starts now as we are deep in the throes of toddlerhood. I care more about shaping her character than the crocodile tears she sheds when she doesn’t get her way. Sometimes I feel like a mean mommy, but establishing boundaries is one of the most loving things I can do for her.
That’s what I tell myself anyway.
Until next time, grace and peace.
What a weekend we had! It was filled with egg dyeing, visiting with my parents, celebrating at church, egg hunting, and general fun. It’s no secret that I’m striving to be more intentional this year, and that includes the way we celebrate holidays. More than anything, I want Micah to know that Easter is about more than a fictional bunny that delivers candy in the middle of the night. It’s about more than new clothes and egg hunts and yummy food. It’s about a risen Savior.
That changes the way we approach a lot of things in our home. For one thing, the Easter bunny doesn’t know our address. Micah still received a basket of small gifts, but it came from her daddy and me. We still dyed Easter eggs because we can use them as object lessons for the new life we have in Christ, and yesterday afternoon, Micah hunted plastic eggs in the yard because empty Easter eggs are a great way to convey the message of an empty tomb. We’re trying to be thoughtful about the traditions we practice and honor in our home. For us, it’s worth it to sacrifice the Easter bunny because it allows the cross and subsequent empty tomb to be the center of our Easter reflections.
At any rate, the way we celebrate Easter may be a little different than most American families, but it works for us. Here are some images from the weekend.
Egg dyeing with Micah was a lot of fun. She was patient and interested in the process, and she even “dyed” her own {plastic} egg while I took care of the real eggs.
Since my parents were here to visit, we had someone to take our picture yesterday afternoon after church. Yay for a family portrait!
Micah enjoyed hunting eggs for a little while, but she soon lost interest and preferred hanging out with her Nana and Grampa, who took her home with them yesterday afternoon. It’s a quiet house around here without my little spitfire, but that also means that I have a little uninterrupted time to do a bit more writing and designing.
Hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend! How did you celebrate??
Until next time, grace and peace.
Easter is such a fabulous time of celebration for believers, and there’s nothing like a good Easter service at church to make you want to jump for joy. It is, hands down, my favorite church service of the entire year. Don’t get me wrong, I love the pageantry and drama of Christmas, but the joy and wonder of the resurrection simply can’t be topped.
This morning in church, we sang songs of Jesus’ life and death, his burial and his resurrection. The place seemed to be vibrating with the glory of our risen Savior. We have so much to celebrate, and believe me, there was some celebration going on.
On Friday, I mentioned that it was in his death that we see Jesus’ humanity most fully, but it is in the resurrection that we see his divinity most clearly. Only God could raise himself up from the dead. He is worthy of all honor, glory, and praise, and I pray that you had a chance to worship Him this morning.
As I have spent the weekend reflecting on the events of Easter, these words from Frederick Buechner seem particularly fitting.
“The symbol of Easter is the empty tomb. You can’t depict or domesticate emptiness. You can’t make it into pageants and string it with lights. It doesn’t move people to give presents to each other or sing old songs. It ebbs and flows all around us, the Eastertide. Even the great choruses of Handel’s Messiah sound a little like a handful of crickets chirping under the moon.
He rose. A few saw him briefly and talked to him. If it is true, there is nothing left to say. If it is not true, there is nothing left to say. For believers and unbelievers both, life has never been the same again. For some, neither has death. What is left now is the emptiness. There are those who, like Magdalen, will never stop searching it till they find his face.”
Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter’s Dictionary
May you never stop searching the emptiness.
Until next time, grace and peace.
It’s a contradiction, really, to speak of Good Friday as good. It is, after all, the day that Jesus died, and we don’t generally think of death as a good thing. When’s the last time you heard someone jumping for joy after a loved one died? Probably never. When someone dies, our first thoughts aren’t usually, “Good! I’m so glad!”
Sometimes I think we Christians brush over Jesus’ death. When it comes to Easter, we sing songs about the resurrection and proclaim gladly, “Up from the Grave He Arose!” because that’s what happened. That’s the end of the story. But in order for the resurrection to be possible, the death had to occur.
Jesus had to die.
And his death was real.
There’s a story in Luke 24 about a couple of Jesus’ followers. They were headed home from Jerusalem after witnessing the death of their beloved teacher, and as they walked, their grief was palpable. When a stranger on the road asked why they were so sad, they told him about Jesus, and they said, “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” Did you catch that? They said that they had hoped. Past tense. They weren’t hoping anymore because when Jesus died, their hope died with him. I’m sure that the grief was unbearable. Their leader, the one that they had trusted in and hoped in and believed in had died. And they were left alone.
God died.
How is it possible that God could die? It goes against everything that we know to be true about him. He is the immortal, unchangeable, king of all creation, all-powerful, unchanging God. And yet, in the span of a few hours one Friday morning, he laid all of that aside and died.
It is, I think, in his death, that we see how human Jesus really was. God doesn’t die. People do.
All of these things must have been swirling madly in the minds of the people who knew and loved Jesus. They would never walk or talk with him again. They wouldn’t share another meal with him or settle in to hear one of his stories. Maybe they were angry. Maybe they felt betrayed. Maybe they thought that everything they had believed in was a lie.
I don’t know everything they felt, but I know how it feels to lose someone you love. To be struck with the awful finality of their parting. To realize that you have hugged them for the last time. To say good-bye.
They had hoped that he would be their Savior.
For those three days between Friday and Sunday, they grieved. They cried. They mourned.
Because he was gone.
And he was gone because of their sin. Because of my sin. Because of your sin. His death was necessary to cancel out everything that is ugly and evil and wrong in this world. And that is exactly what he did. He canceled it all out. In that moment, finally, justice was served.
And that is why Good Friday is so good. Because on that day, God offered himself as the perfect sacrifice, the only sacrifice that would do. And it is by that sacrifice that we are healed. That we are purified. That we are able to draw near to God.
And that, sweet friends, is a good thing.
Until next time, grace and peace.
{photo credit eclatdusoleil}
