Hard Lessons

It's been a rough day at Maas Academy. One of my students in particular is having a difficult day and has been screaming at me, taking it out on siblings, and hurting that student's own body. My main thought this morning was, "I hope I don't die soon because Glenn will need to re-marry and I would hate to have any other woman ever treated the way that I have been treated today."

I have been praying a lot and trying to respond with grace and love and not react sinfully as I am sinned against but it has not been easy.

Which brings me to the other thought that I have been pondering today: "How do I make God feel? How often do I treat Him like I've been treated today? How does He respond?"

I fail, I am disappointed, I get frustrated, I want to give up often and, often, I get angry. I flail. I guess, to my sorrow, my beloved student in question has learned from my example.

Lord, do You often wonder about me, Your student:
- Why won't Sonja listen to me?
- I love her so much and just want to help her.
- I am trying to help her, why won't she accept My help?
- How can I passify her anger?
- How can I help her in a way that will be received?
- Why isn't she more teachable?
- Haven't we gone over this many, many times before?
- Will I ever get through to her?
- When will she ever learn from her mistakes?
- Should I just give up on her?
Dear Teacher, I am sorry for not always being a receptive student in the lessons that You have for me. Thank You, Lord, that You don't give up on me. Thank You for Your mercy and Your grace. Please give me wisdom. Help me to keep my eyes on You and learn from You and Your example how to teach these students that You have entrusted to me. I love You and I long to represent You well in our home.

My, How They Grow

Earlier I was looking at my pictures on facebook for a picture and I came across this one from the summer of 2009:

they were so little!

I had taken that picture of the kids with the mule boy outside the Erie Canal Museum downtown early on in the time that we lived in Syracuse. I took in on purpose because I wanted to see how much the kids would grow over the time that we lived in Syracuse and grow they did.

The picture below was taken just after we moved from Syracuse when Glenn had to be back in town for orientation or something:

It was cold and windy that day.

I laughed when I saw that I had had the kids do a silly picture each time so here are their silly pictures as well:

I've always been told "Don't blink, they grow so quickly." It seems like it was just yesterday that the girls had those pink keens that we'd bought when we thought we were moving to  the Caribbean (for more info on that read posts from the summer/ fall of 2008 - I've stood in awe, once again as I read over some of those posts at what God did back then) and those funny Crocs on Lydia we'd bought at Ollies when we lived in Rochester. That shirt that Abigail has on was a favorite of all 3 girls and was ragged long ago (like most clothes when Abigail gets done with them!) And my Caleb, he's almost as tall as the mule boy. I kind of figured he would be.  They do grow quickly. I want to seize every moment.

Do your kids ever get frustrated with you?

My kids often frustrate me. I, also, often frustrate them.

Today the it was the latter. Today after HIM (the monthly homeschool co-op we go to) I was praying out loud asking God to get us to a gas station or to send some good samaritan to help us if we ran out of gas. I had planned on buying gas on the way to HIM but we were running late this morning so I decided that we'd have to buy it afterwards so we wouldn't be late. We have one of those meters on our car that tell us how many miles worth of gas we have left in our tank and when I got back in the van after HIM it said 0 miles. That made me a bit nervous so I started praying out loud. Caleb got so mad at me. He ranted at me, "Mom, why are you worrying? God always takes care of us. You know that. He has always taken care of us before. He's going to get us to the gas station and if He doesn't He is going to provide someone to help us. Seriously! I totally don't understand why you worry about things like this. He always takes care of us."

Well, God did get us to a gas station and I am thankful. I am also thankful for the faith that my kids have in our great God. I didn't have as much faith as they do when I was their age and, because they have consistently seen God provide for and take care of us, they often (especially Caleb) get frustrated with me when my faith is lacking. I am thankful that their faith is in God (Who will never fail us) not in me (who fails all the time). I often wonder how many of our faith stretching experiences are to prepare our kids for what He has for them in the future.  

Please give me wisdom God as I walk through this life and help me to train these blessings for what You have in store for them. Thank You that I can always trust You!

"If anyone is in Christ..."

We are a family of movie, radio program, book and song quoters and it is OK most of the time. Sometimes it get really annoying though. I often get frustrated with the kids when they quote the same thing over and over and over and over again. Lately, I have been thinking, "I wish that they would go around quoting scripture like they quote these other things" and have talked to the kids about it. We started a new devotional book last week at breakfast and there is a new Bible verse every 5 days. I decided to put the verse on the white board on Hannah's desk (easily visible from the living and dining rooms) and we started talking about it and practicing it together. Somehow (not sure who started it) it started to become a game: whenever anyone starts quoting something from a book, movie, etc someone else would start quoting 2 Corinthians 5:17 back at them "If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" It has been a fun way to help us memorize scripture. I just heard Hannah quoting it to herself after she caught herself quoting something else. We get a new verse tomorrow. Looking forward to getting more of God's Word in our hearts.

A visit to the zoo

Warning: Guest post by Glenn again.

Here are some captioned pictures from our trip to the zoo on this beautiful spring-like day.

She's only looking @ me because she think(s) I look tasty

My dad says my head is hard enough to compete with these guys.

I would go swimming if I had remembered my tuxedo

Do I qualify as a small Mammal?

4 brave monkeys riding the tiger

My Beautiful Bride

A hop and a spin at the Park

So I am supposed to clarify that this is a guest post by Glenn in the middle of Sonja's Lent blogging. Today we went out of our house (mostly because we actually had a vehicle to get out). So we decided to go to Green Lakes State Park. (We were going to go to Watkins but someone who desires to remain anonymous but happens to be on Spring break slept in.) So instead we went to a much closer park and played at the play ground and walked all the way around the longer lake. (We aren't sure how far around it is but if we had walked both it would have been a little over 3 miles). So we took lots of pictures at the play ground and during our walk around the lake. So with my camera on burst mode I was able to use the pictures I took to make a stop action video of a few of the adventures at the playground.

Caleb

I just want to brag on Caleb for a little bit. I am SO proud of him. He has really started reading well! Today during quiet time he asked if he could take his Bible to bed and work on his memory verse for Sunday School. We have been going to Fingerlakes Christian Fellowship for about 5 months and I just learned that he is supposed to bring back his "homework" for Sunday School and memorize his verse, I am not with it. So anyway, Caleb was in his room for about 10 minutes when he came back out with a huge grin on his face and told us he knew his new verse and quoted for us Colossians 3:17 "In whatsoever ye do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." He had read his verse and memorized it himself. After quiet time we sat with his Sunday School homework and he read me the story about Jesus healing a blind man. We talked about loyalty (had to look it up in the dictionary) and how we can be loyal to God. I am so excited that Caleb is able to read his Bible. He can look up verses in his Bible too because he just memorized the books of the New Testament for AWANA. He thought of a verse that he had memorized earlier this year in AWANA and ran to get his book to find out where the verse was found. He is almost done with his first book and doing well. We went through and looked at all he had learned this year. How excited to get so much of God's Word in his heart at such a young age. He is my firstborn son, the one that the Bible tells me should be given to the Lord. His ambition right now is to be a pastor. What a great calling. I pray that he is always excited about learning Bible verses and knowing more about God.

This morning as we started school, pretty late unfortunately after staying up so late at the Superbowl party that we went to last night, Glenn was reading from More Little Visits With God and it was about Charles Spurgeon's mother paying him to kill rats and to memorize hymns. We started talking about what hymns were and I got a hymn book and we looked at it and decided to work on memorizing one hymn a week. This weeks is A Mighty Fortress is Our God. So we discussed Martin Luther and read through the hymn and had to look up several words in the dictionary like fortress and bulwark. We talked about how through Jesus we have victory over Satan and don't have to fear. It was great. As we sang it together, having just discussed the hymn, I was crying over the truth in it. I am so thankful that the Lord of Hosts is in the battle and that I don't have to strive in my own strength. I am excited about learning hymns with the kids and strengthening their faith in God (and my own) through the words.
God is really working on renewing my mind right now, about homeschooling and lots of other things. He is using His Word, Calm My Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow (from my Tuesday morning Bible Study), Sunday School, Church, stuff I hear on FLN, a homeschooling blog that my 'mother in love' recently introduced me to, etc. I want to do what He wants me to do. I know that He has a purpose for my life and I know that I have not been going about it the right way lately. This coming week in Bible study we are supposed to work on a life purpose statement and I am so excited because I can see how God has been preparing me in the last few weeks to do just that. Our God is so faithful and amazing. I am so thankful that I am a child of the King! Pastor was talking yesterday about how thankful we should be for the Word of God and what advantages we have over OT saints, Christians in the 1st century, even Christians of 100 years ago or Christians that live in other countries. Am I taking advantage of the advantages we have been given? I know I have not been but I would like to do so and am praying that God will reveal through His Word and that I would be obedient.
Anyway, enough blabbing. I am just so excited to see what God is doing in us.

When it rains, it pours...

It is raining here today so we thought we would pour some pictures onto our blog that we have neglected lately. Here are some fun pictures of the kids taken recently. FYI - for those of you who heard about how cold it was in our house for a while when we lived upstairs, it was not cold when we took the pictures of Caleb, he just decided to take a nap with his hat on in 80 degree weather. ;o)