Memorials

About a year ago, I had a conversation with a friend about homeschooling. She asked how I was able to get everything done. I admitted the simple truth: I don't do all the things I would like to. She then asked me, "How do you sleep at night?" It was an innocent question, asked by a woman who knows how this job of motherhood is never ending. I answered with a heartfelt reply, about how I really had to trust God for sleep. We ended our conversation and I did not think much more about it.
However, that night in bed, when sleep eluded me again, I immediately started thinking about all the things I did not get done, all the ways this child or that one needed to improve. I was pondering about how tired I always seem to be, and how there are so many of them and just one of me. I discovered that I was not able to sleep that night because I let anxiety rule.



In the light of day, it was easy to reign in my thoughts and give them to God. It was a warm spring day after a bitter Michigan winter, so all eight of us were able to escape to the park across the street. I was watching my children; my fourteen year old nephew playing spies with my eight year old, the two older girls were entertaining the little girls, and my eldest asking if he could take a walk with me so we could talk. (A sixteen year old boy who wants to talk to his mom!) Sunshine, laughter, and everyone was having fun. I was intensely grateful, and the anxiety of the night was gone.
I thought of all the memorials the Israelites built. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and Joshua, they constructed altars or memorials to God. This day was such a blessing, a memorial that I needed to write down and come back to. The sun will not always be shining, we won't always get along , and the hard days will come. When they do, it will be so easy for me to forget the wonderful ones, and difficult to forget the not-so-good.

It is so easy to look at the mess around you, the bad attitudes, the things that never seem to get done, and to forget all the good God has done for you. So simple to focus on what is not important, and all those thoughts that matter to the world, but shouldn't be vital to us.

Lord, help me to remember the memorials you put before me, help me to be grateful and to see you in everything.

Today I am thankful for these memorials:

148. A wedding picture on the wall that reminds me of 23 years with my husband

149. Baby pictures in the hallway

150. Rocks from the beach where we have vacationed for 12 years

151. Pictures of my sister Julie

152. A folder filled with cards from friends

154. Shelves of great books I have read to the kids

155. Recipes written by the hand of a friend or relative

157.Pictures on my screen saver, showing a life of friends, family and memories

158. Kids with better memories than me that say "Mom, remember when...."

159. A Bible, underlined and written in, reminding me of all His promises I have held on to


160. the faces that sit around our dinner table every night reminding me of how He has blessed me (He settles the barren woman in her home, as a happy mother of children, Praise the Lord Ps.113:9)


Joshua 4:2-9
"Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests stood, and to carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight."
So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, "Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever."
So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, as the LORD had told Joshua; and they carried them over with them to their camp, where they put them down. Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant had stood. And they are there to this day.

What I am praying and pondering......

Speak tenderly to them. Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes , in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting. Always have a cheerful smile, but give your heart as well....
-Mother Theresa

Poetry Wednesday

Happy Birthday to my oldest son, Davis, who turns 17 today. Seventeen years ago I held all 9 1/2 pounds of this bundle , my boy, and I was completely overwhelmed at the thought that I was a mother. I remember saying to my husband as I held Davis, "I am afraid to love someone this much, it will hurt too much." Seventeen years and four children later, it has hurt but it has also been wonderful. I have loved so inadequately most of the time. I am so thankful for God's perfect love for me and my children. I wanted to find a poem that would say what I wanted to express to Davis today, but all the poems about sons reduced me to sappy tears and I had to resist the urge to run to him and beg him never to grow up and leave home! So I chose the poem below, because I want Davis (and his mama and siblings) to always follow love, even though it can be scary and hard, but it is so worth it. Happy Birthday Davis, I love you!

On Love
By Kahlil Gibran

When love beckons to you, follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.

Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire,

that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart,

and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,

Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."

And think not you can direct the course of love,

for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself

But if you love and must needs have desires,

let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

You can read other poems here.