Little People Thoughts

This was the conversation my brothers were having this afternoon. I was reading something online while they were "taking a grammar test" and "doing their penmanship" and I heard them having this conversation so I quickly pulled up blogger and jotted it down. It's so fun to see how their minds work...what they're thinking about all-of-a-sudden when they're writing out "cat', "car," "cab" in nice, clean scrawl. You just never know what it might be.

Ethan: Noah, if you had a kingdom what would you do?
Noah: How big a kingdom?
Ethan: Huge.
Noah: Well... what do you mean by kingdom?
Ethan: Ya know, a whole country where people pay you taxes and stuff.
Noah: Probably sell it.
Ethan: Sell it?!
Noah: Yeah.
Ethan: To who?
Noah: America.
Ethan: For how much?
Noah: A whole stinkin' bunch.
Ethan: How much?
Noah: Oh, about three billion.
Ethan: Three BILLION?!
Noah: Yeah. (like, of course. What would you do?)

From Pilgrim's Progress

"I looked behind me and saw one coming as swift as the wind–so he overtook me just about the place where the settle stands. Just as the man overtook me he was but a word and a blow, for down he knocked me and layed me for dead. But when I was a little come to myself again then I asked him, wherefore he served me so? He answered because of my secret inclining to Adam the First, and with that he struck me another deadly blow in the breast and beat me down backwards, so I lay at his foot as dead as before. So when I came to myself again I cried for mercy but he said, "I know not how to show mercy." And with that he knocked me down again. He had doubtless made an end of me but I cam by and bid him forebear.
"Christian, who was that that bid him forebear?"
"Faithful, I did not know Him at first but as He went by I perceived the holes in His hands and in His side. Then I concluded that He was our Lord. So I went up the hill."
"Christian, that man that overtook you was Moses. He spareth none, neither knoweth he how to sow mercy to those that transgress his law."

Mother's Day Continued

I read this post over at Girltalk: Conversations on Biblical Womanhood and Other Fun Stuff, and it was too good not to repost. The bold emphasis is mine.

I know, I know, we did that yesterday, right? But let me beg your indulgence one more day, because there was a post last week we didn't want you to miss. Kevin DeYoung issued a humble challenge to Christian colleges and their alumni magazines:

"[R]oughly half of the graduates of Christian colleges are mothers. Close to 60% of the graduates are women and most of them will get married and have children, many of them as their primary vocation for a long season of their lives....I’m wondering why the calling lived out by more graduates than any other calling is so infrequently celebrated?

So here’s my challenge: let me know if you’ve seen an alumni magazine from a Christian college that spotlights mothers, not mothers who also dance in the ballet and spin centrifuges, but mothers who are “just” mothers.

And a bonus challenge, this one for our fine Christian colleges: we’d love to see how proud you are of the half of your graduates putting their education to good use by helping their husbands, raising kids, serving in the church, and doing a hundred other amazing things that don’t look impressive to most people but should look impressive to us."

It's worth the ninety seconds it would take to forward Kevin’s post to your alma mater. But perhaps a more important response lies closer to home.

Let’s consider: what do we think about mothers who are “just” mothers? Are we proud of them? Do we spotlight and celebrate them? Do we want to be one?

If you are “just” a mother, what do you think about your calling? Do you think you are putting your education to good use wiping runny noses and dirty bottoms, combing tangles and climbing over toys, picking up after your husband and putting down your baby for a nap, creating crafts for your church’s children’s ministry and having new folks over for Sunday lunch?

To ask it another way: Who do we admire and applaud--the woman who is extraordinarily gifted or the woman who is extraordinarily faithful? As Christians, what doesn’t look impressive to most people should look very impressive to us.

Does it to you?

A Mother's Day Quote

"How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about [arithmetic], and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone?" ~G.K. Chesterton

Raising Up Godly Generations

I read this post over at the Girltalk blog, today, and thought it was so sweet, I wanted to post it here. As one who has been blessed by the way one godly, single young woman, in particular, used her singleness in my life as a little girl, and now being that single girl to many other little ones, and hoping one day, Lord willing, to have my own quiver full and letting my godly young single friends be part of my home and my children's life, this story was so sweet and encouraging. May the Lord find us raising up godly generations of those that love Him and keep His commandments, whether we be young, single or married and mothers of many.

I was single until I was 35 (now have 4 year old twin daughters--our double blessing).

As a child we had a friend called Donna who came for tea every week, babysat, and had much godly input for me and my brothers. I am 44 now and still think of her as part of our family and although I rarely see her anymore, I always remember her with enormous affection and some of her advice helps me still.

As a single I had the privilege of being very close to several families with children. I was a young lady whose main aim was (and always will be) to be a Proverbs 31 wife and mother. I found it incredibly hard being single, but found great fulfillment in spending time with the children of my friends. I worked with children, and also went to one friend every week to help her with her children when her husband was working late. I also babysat and spent time with other friends and their children. I adored all of them, and felt enormously privileged when they called me their friend, and when I heard them repeating phrases I often used!

As a Mum with young children now, I have a special friend called Helen who comes for tea once a week and helps put my daughters to bed, prays with us all, reads them stories, comes on outings with my husband, children and me, and babysits. When my daughters talk about extended family, they always include her. She has great input into their lives and I feel privileged to have her as part of our lives.

Just as I called Donna "my Donna" and my friend's children called me "my Caroline," my children are now calling Helen "my Helen." I am truly blessed!

Lord's Day Afternoon Reading

"If those frothy, fluctuating, and restless hearts of ours would come all about Christ, and look into His love, to bottomless love, to the depth of mercy, to the unsearchable riches of His grace, to inquire after and search into the beauty of God in Christ, they would be swallowed up in the depth and height, length and breadth of His goodness." ~Samuel Rutherford, Letter LXXXVII

"When we shall come home, and enter to the possession of our Brother's fair kingdom, and when our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, and when we shall look back to pains and sufferings, then shall we see life and sorrow to be less than one step or stride from a prison to glory; and that our little inch of time-suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome-home to heaven. Oh, what then shall be the weight of every one of Christ's kisses! Oh, how weighty, and of what worth shall every one of Christ's love-smiles be! Oh, when once He shall thrust a wearied traveller's head betwixt His blessed breasts, the poor soul will think one kiss of Christ hath fully paid home forty or fifty years' wet feet and all its sore hearts, and light sufferings it had in following after Christ!" ~Samuel Rutherford, Letter LXXXVIII