Teach Me to Number My Days...

Teach me to number my days...

because they are flying faster than the 

speed of sound...

Carol of Summer

The month was August.

 I "thought" I was having contractions.

 Turns out,

 I was having a few "mild" ones 

that weren't really doing anything. 

I was ten days past my due date and feeling very irritated. 

A Lesson of Grace

On a hot summer night twenty-one years ago, 

God gave me a baby girl 

who was much prayed over. 

She was the third blessing added to our family

 and I was beginning to learn about a very real, very personal God who cares about the 

tiniest details of my life.

The Coming Christ - mas

I have thought that I should write something profound since Christmas is approaching, but, my thoughts have been too jumbled amidst the preparations for my family. I have three married children and their spouses who are travelling across different parts of the country to be here. I, as usual, am not sure what to give the people I love. I want the gifts to "mean something". And right along with the "Christmasing" are the routine things of appointments and school that must be attended to.

 I used to be more organized. Really, I did. But these days thoughts of what needs done rush right out of my head at almost the same instant that I think them. So there is nothing new that I could say about Christmas that you don't already know.

God the Father promised the coming of Messiah, way back in the Garden of Eden. Genesis 3:15

It is obvious from Scripture that Eve understood, because she hoped the promise was fulfilled with Cain and then seemed sure of it with the birth of Seth. But we, if we have ever heard the Christmas Story, know that Messiah did not come until the time when Rome ruled the known world. And that God flawlessly fulfilled every single prophecy regarding Him including the young virgin mother and the very difficult mandate to travel to the place of their ancestors and pay taxes. Jesus was born in a tiny town of no great significance that was filled with people who had to be there to give their money to Caesar.

It was important for us that every single detail be carefully tended to. Important, because we do not always believe God. He did not have to give us all the prophecies pertaining to the birth of Christ, but He wanted us to know that He is able to fulfill every single one. If even one thing was missed or forgotten, then God would not be God. And there was more than Jesus just getting here at "just the right time". He had come to break the curse.  You know......the curse that happened in the Garden.

When Man broke fellowship with God.

 When Man chose Death over Life. 

 The God-Man came to break the Curse of Death and bring Life back to mankind.

"[Christ Jesus], being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!  Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."  Philippians 2:6-11 NIV

Jesus came to die.

For You.  For me.

To take the punishment for our Sin.

 So that we would no longer be enemies with God, but could become the children of God.

We celebrate His coming as the God-Man. We celebrate His suffering for us on the cross.  We celebrate His victory over Death when God raised Him on the third day. We celebrate the Assurance that He is coming again to take us with Him to be with Him forever.

Christmas is not just the adoration of a baby in a manger.

It is amazement that the God of the Universe would have such Love that He would become one of us...

...in order to die for us.....

... in order to have us with Him.

Just the thought that He would want us......that He created us......that He chose us......just because He wanted to...astounds me.

His preparations for His Child (Jesus) ....for His children (You and I who belong to Him)......are flawless.

Mine, for my children, are frenzied and imperfect and not always coated in absolute love and grace. They are often harried and impatient and lacking and unfocused.

The Father's focus was absolute......On Christ.......for us.

Our focus must be .....though, often redirected........On Christ......for Him.

I wish for you, this Christmas, grace and peace from the God

and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

A Sense of Place

This is the house we lived in for two years...

It was a humble farm house, but it was

 my dream house.  

It was one of those funny old farmhouses that was added onto again and again as it was needed. 

Let the Cold stay Outside

today is a cold, blustery day that conjures up images of Winnie the Pooh 

the sky in the north has been very dark... promising more of the same

the trees bend and the snowflakes swirl with no place to land

that's all outside.....where it should be....

Inside there are candles glowing and hot chili simmering.....

children laughing and scuffling and....arguing???

and a sore throat is throbbing....and body aching.....and mood is darkening......

no.
not here.
not inside.

let the cold winds blow outside.......keep the heart fires warm inside.......

as it should be




"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NIV

Call Me Cordelia

If you are familiar with Maud Montgomery's 

Anne of Green Gables, 

you will recognize that line.  

After discovering that the Cuthbert's didn't want a girl, but rather a boy, Anne Shirley was asked her name. She replied, "Will you please call me Cordelia?" 

 After which, was a discussion about whether or not that was her name. 

Finally, she reluctantly agreed that they could call her by her real name, Anne, but only if they spelled it with an 'e'.

Cordelia was a "perfectly elegant" name and Anne, was a mere orphan whom nobody wanted. Cordelia was wonderful in Anne's imagination, while Anne, herself, was just plain unromantic 'Anne Shirley'.  

Anyone who has read the books, or seen the movies, knows that there is nothing plain at all about Anne Shirley. 

Still, it was how she felt about herself at the time.  

However, Cordelia, I have read, comes from the Latin and it means 'heart'. 

 Of which Anne's character has an abundance.

Sometimes, a person wants another name. 

 All of my children have gone through phases where they wanted to change their names. 

Sometimes, they change the nicknames we have for them or sometimes they begin introducing themselves to other people by their middle names.  Often, they will use their full given name as a sign of maturity and, sometimes, they have even used the equivalent of their names in another language. 

They are searching for a new, unique identity. 

Not the one given to them by Mom and Dad, 

but their very own. 

The one that describes who they want to be,

 or who they feel that they are.  

A name that shows another part of themselves, that shakes off the sameness of every day...

that lifts a cloud that has lingered too long.

This idea of being "called" another name that is not your own is actually biblical. We see it over and over again in Scripture.  

Lazarus had a sister who was "called" Mary. 

Mary, whose root is mara-which means bitter. Don't miss that one because she is the one who sat at Jesus' feet which was the "better choice".  

There was John, also called Mark, whom we call John Mark or just plain Mark.  

There was Joseph who was called Barnabas because that means "encourager". 

Saul who was called Paul.  

James and John were called the Sons of Thunder- does that name describe them or their father?  

Simon who was called Peter.

 Levi became Matthew. 

Even in the Old Testament,

 God changed names of people. 

Abram became Abraham. 

Sarai became Sarah. 

Jacob became Israel.

In the genealogy of Jesus in the book of Matthew, it reads "...Jesus, who is called the Christ." 

matthew 1:16

And in the book of Acts, we read that "...the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch." acts 11:26

In Revelation, we are told that Jesus has a name that nobody knows yet. 

Isn't that wonderful? 

He has a name that has never been defiled by the mouth of Man. 

revelation3:12 

You are probably called other names besides the one you were given at birth. 

Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Nana, Sis, Bubba...

While looking at old family photos I came across one that was labelled 

"Aunt Sister".  

Everyone in the family called her Sister and then it was Aunt Sister...

I thought that was rather odd, but names become part of you.

Your name becomes your identity.....

or your identity becomes your name.......
it depends.....

Lately, I've been thinking I'd rather be called something else...not because I dislike my name but because being me can get tiresome. 

Especially, when difficulties arise and I'd rather not deal with them, or I wish I were a better "me" who knows how to deal with them. 

I know that there is a name that Jesus has for me..a new name, the Bible says.....

and nobody will know it but me.

 revelation 2:17

  

That's exciting to think about....the perfected me, with the perfect name..

...but until then, 

 I can't seem to think of anything that seems to me to be "perfectly elegant" and I'd be afraid to be "called" something that fits my personality or my mood this week....

so, I'll just use one that's already been suggested......

"could you please call me Cordelia?"

Oh, and by the way, there really is a Cordelia in my family tree, so I actually have a claim to use it, don't you think? 

Here she is, (on the left)... don't you love the hat?

photos: sunsets on the north shore of PEI, smoky mountainsTN, family archives (c) deborah richardson

Loving Lainie

She is twelve.    

She is excited to be twelve.   

Twelve means she can ride in the front seat of the car.      

Twelve is almost thirteen.  

Twelve is a milestone.

Twelve is not the number I rest on......it is nine.

Nine and a half to be more exact. 

That's how long I've known her. 

That's when life changed for her and for us. 

She is closer to nine than to twelve and yet I try to balance the chronological age with the age of her understanding....

...it gets more challenging each year.

When I saw her for the first time she was a tiny 2 1/2 year old screaming, head-shaking, under-no-circumstances- do -I- want- anything -to -do -with -these- people scrap of a person with

hair cut too short,

 clothes too small,

 and feverish mosquito bites all over her. 

Non-verbal except for that squawking noise and a few baby babbling words in Russian. 

I wondered what in the world I had gotten myself into. 

 I was soon to find out......

I was an experienced mother of six children.....for sixteen years.......tough cookies, some of them.......but I had never encountered a person who had learned to be a survivor by the age of one......who deciphered her world in bits and pieces....."who knew what she wanted and how to get it" as our interpreter commented......

A child touched by neglect....illness....disabilities....poverty........

one who was picked up and taken from the only world she knew and  put down on the other side of the world into another "orphanage" where nobody did anything the way she was used to or spoke the language she had learned to interpret......

for "orphanage" was what we were to her for a long time, 

I am sure of that.

I remember telling her over and over that I was her Mama.....

but in the orphanage, 

every woman is called Mama.

I had to re-direct and claim my personal possession of her...

"you are MY girl......you stay with ME".....

over and over...."look at Me......look in My eyes".

I remember watching every odd behavior and trying to figure out if it was neglect, fetal alcohol, orphanage behavior,

 or just her personality.

I remember thinking that I was not ready for this assignment.

I was failing.

And then, I found it.  

The newsletter from a ministry that we'd supported. 

They had played a side role, but a large  one in our adoption.

 I had saved it because we had sent money for baby formula. 

There had been no milk for the babies and they had been feeding them sugar water. 

As I read the letter of thanks from the missionary, (a woman I now knew and had visited in her 'flat'- who was a big part of our adoption), she described the children who were helped.  

She listed the locations of the orphanages where the formula, "the best money could buy", had been sent.  Listed among them was one I recognized. 

I had been there.....in that "baby house"....

with the director, a physician, who mixed up her own medicines because they had none....

with the workers who had loved Leanichka......

who were washing all the clothes by hand because their only washing machine was broken.....

who had cried tears of gratitude over the instant oatmeal we left because they had nothing to feed the children for breakfast......

This had been one of the orphanages to receive the baby formula before we'd even known we were adopting. 

 What was the date of the letter?

  Wait.  

When did Lainie get there?  

No way. 

Couldn't be. 

Yes......it was true..........she had just gotten there when that baby formula was delivered.  

Before we thought about adopting and before the amazing series of events that ended with her in our home, we fed her. 

Because there was no milk for babies, we sent money......before she was even there, it was purchased and after she had just gotten there, it was delivered........

He had prepared the way........

the path we were now walking in...

even the path I stumbled in.........

through my questions and my tears, 

He had already been there....

Today she is twelve.

She is no longer a screaming, manipulating little scrap of a girl shaking her head at the speed of her no's.

She is a pretty girl who loves Jesus and loves reading her Bible even though it is a painstaking process to de-code every word of the third grade level translation. 

She works very hard to learn and to remember things. 

She practices words and keeps trying even when her tongue tangles up the speech sounds. 

She wants to be "big" and learn to do "grown-up" things like cooking and knitting.  

She enjoys doing her PT exercises to strengthen weak muscles that are causing her back to curve in scoliosis. 

She loves writing letters and calling her friends on the phone. 

She loves the teasing over the fact that she might have "turkey cake" or that everyone will be too full of Thanksgiving dinner to eat birthday cake. 

She laughs when we tell her that she used to think Thanksgiving was a holiday in honor of her birthday.

We are still walking down that path that He has set before us. 

I, fearful at times and unsure of the outcome, 

and she, trusting, holding my hand and running eagerly ahead. 

 I don't know the time she was born. 

I do not know what she has been through.....

but I know that He was there.....

and is there......

teaching me about what real love is all about. 

 That love is an action and not a feeling. 

That love is of Him. 

Agape.

Today she is twelve.

It is a milestone, indeed.

What Does Age Have to Do With It?

     The last few weeks have been very hectic in my household. 

I mentioned earlier that my children were participating in co-ops this year and that this was really something we had not been able to do much of over the years.  

All of this running around is beginning to tell on me. 

 I'm feeling it and I'm not liking it.

      Last night we had two committments back-to-back. They were both quite fun, but I was definitely feeling the fatigue of it all. 

Then a conversation about the fact that I was wearing my contacts instead of my glasses 

(no-line bifocals.....did I really just admit that?) 

was the cause of not being able to see what I was doing, 

led to one of the mom's mentioning that she did not want to get bifocals yet, 

which led to another mom saying something that caused me to say.....

"You're not even thirty yet are you?" 

"Not 'til next year"....and then the first mom mentioned that she would be forty soon..... Sigh.  

I'm the old mom. I'm forty-six. One of them said, "Oh, but you have so much wisdom!" 

     This morning the thought came to me that when I had my first child, 

this "not 30" mom was 4 years old and that

 when I began homeschooling, 

she would have been about eleven! 

Yikes! 

Why does my mind insist on conjuring up these facts for me?  

 Forty-six doesn't really sound too old, but I can remember when I was the youngest mom in nearly every social situation.

 I started my family in my early twenties and I kept it up.....so, now my "littles" are the same age as these mom's "olders". 

It's disconcerting to me, especially since I feel older than I suspect that I should.

     The fact is, eighteen years is a long time to do anything (especially homeschooling) and I am finding that sometimes it is just a matter of will to get this gal to keep going. 

At the same time, my "babies" are not babies at all, they are "tweens" and teens......geesh! 

Am I that old? It's weird because I'm doing things with other moms whose "oldest" kids are the same ages as my "babies".

     I understand that I have emotions that want to surface when I see these young moms with their "littles"......

What do I call my "littles" since they are no longer little?

I realize that I'm in a new "stage of life" (I really don't like that phrase at all) and that it won't be too long until I get to the "grandma stage" and all the wonders of grandchildren.  

But for now, I'm still one of the homeschool moms driving her kids to homeschool group activities and wanting nothing more than a long uninterrupted sleep.....for say...... a week for starters.  

For example, this last week alone we have left early in the morning and not returned until late at night several days in a row which has led to another time-tested reality that I'm really beginning to feel the full force of its existence.

      I have stated and will re-emphasize that I am a Homebody.....

I like to be home. 

It has been a long and established fact that when a person is not at home all day, little faeries enter the house and wreak havoc everywhere.  

They unmake beds, throw dust all around, pile up trash and throw clean clothes and dirty clothes in baskets together and dirty up the sinks.  

You would think that the old stories about elves finishing the shoemaker's work were true ones, but I'm sorry to say they are not. 

There are only wicked faeries who come in and mess everything up especially when you have to be gone for several days in a row. 

Of course, they also eat all the good things in the pantry and fridge knowing that you will be too exhausted to shop for groceries and will settle for toast or whatever odd thing you can concoct.

     I did find the energy to make a list of all the cleaning duties that need to be accomplished to get things back in order. 

But, I'm afraid that is as far as I've gotten. 

 I know all about the wonderful websites that will organize your life in 15 minutes a day, but I am not wired that way. 

I have to go all out and get it all done or it will nag at me. 

I'm not talking about entering the dark recesses of the closets in this house, 

oh no, 

I'd just like the clutter to be out of sight and I don't have the stamina to look at it much longer.

     It is another known fact that clutter is simply "visual  noise".  I don't tolerate noise well these days and everything in my line of vision is 

simply screaming.

 It must be stopped! I suspect that much of the fatigue I'm feeling is the actual drain of seeing so much to do and trying to muster the energy to attack it. 

Talking about what needs done is not always helpful, but writing about it in a public forum just might do the trick. 

 I seem to work better under pressure.  

If you'd like to come over for coffee,

 I am sure that I'd find the energy to clean it up in a heartbeat.......

but I'd still be exhausted and pay for it with aches and pains later.

     I know that I have to come to terms with this "stage" of life.....

I'm in my forties......

I haven't been the young mom in the group for a while.......

I know that I may have more wisdom now than when I was younger, but I can't always remember exactly what it is and I definitely don't want gray hair to prove it.  

I know that like every other stage of life, there are survival techniques that must be implemented.... and for now, I have to work out a better arrangement for staying on top of things if we are to be running hither and yon all the time. 

I know that you have to grow your own "good faeries" who will help you keep things in order and training them young is of vital importance. When my good faeries grow up and leave I will be in big trouble!

 Along with age comes health issues. We can't ignore them. We can't wish them away. We have to learn to work with them and try not to be bitter about what they take from us, like our feeling of youth. But such are common to Man. 

So we have to push on.

     Thankfully, the activities for this semester are winding down. I am glad. Because we all know what is lurking coming up around the corner.....Thanksgiving and Christmas! 

     I think  it is time for Home Ec.....where are those dusting rags??

Mom of the Century.....well, not exactly........

Today, I have been a mom for a quarter of a century. 

Wow. 

When I mentioned this to my middle son, he said he'd never thought of it like that.

There are so many memories. 

So much laughter and tears. 

So much anxiety and so very many prayers.

God has been faithful. 

He always is. 

There is never a doubt about that.

From the very beginning, when I first knew the desire to be a mother, God began teaching me to trust Him with my children. It is not an easy thing to learn. But step by step, patiently, He showed me that He is big enough to take care of them. That He is big enough to take care of me. He has made sure that there is no doubt as to Who gets credit for how well my children turn out.

My brave soldier son has hit a milestone. 

I am very proud of him. 

I am thankful that God gave me this assignment.

......and remember.......I have six other kids to talk about, not counting the wonderful people who decided to be part of this family of their own free will....

Happy Birthday, Son!

What's My Assignment?

Several years ago, my husband sent an email to me about a woman who told the Lord that she would do anything and go anywhere that He wanted. 

Of course, she was thinking about being a missionary to the other side of the world or making huge sacrifices in some other significant way of service.
 The Lord told her that He wanted her to be in charge of a group of people , none of whom the world thought very important, and that she would not get paid or noticed. She eagerly agreed and wondered where He was sending her. He told her it was where she was already. At home. 

Her "people group" was her children. 
She was disappointed.