in memory of mother's day

Don't you love mothers' day gifts? Those funny little objects that your children choose, all by themselves, at the mothers' day stall at school, handing over the precious $2.00 coins that you gave them that morning as they select something Mum will really love.

And we do love them. The cutesy little pink plaster lamb on a keyring. The over-sized mug with "I love Mum" on the side. The oven mitts and tea-towels.

My mother still had a miniature cut-glass brown vase of dusty dried flowers in her kitchen cupboard when I left home at 18. It was one of the ugliest things I've ever seen. But I chose it for her when I was 6 years old, and she kept it, tucked away with the other vases.

Out of all the mother's day gifts I've received, the most unique was this one, given to me by Thomas. Somehow it epitomised his personality, with its endearing combination of contrariness and enthusiastic affection. Here it is.



A broken garden gnome. Love it!

a question about childcare

One of the readers of in all honesty sent in a thought-provoking question about childcare recently. With her permission, I'm posting her question here. We would love to hear your thoughts!

Please don't feel judged by her question: neither of us think childcare is wrong, and I know women who use childcare wisely and lovingly for reasons like those she mentions. It's more the trend and potential misuse of childcare that this writer is questioning. Anyhow, have a read, and tell me what you think.

I'm an evangelical Christian woman who has chosen to be a stay at home mother. I have many friends around me who are doing the same, though I'm noticing a new trend - Christian mothers saying that they are committed to staying out of the workforce to raise their children, but then putting their children into childcare for their 'day off'. This day (usually only one) is used to do what they 'want' to do without having to be disturbed by the children.

Now some of these women are also extremely involved in ministries that mean that they are at breaking point and feel that they are always giving to their church or their children. I don't know how to question them without sounding judgemental, hence my email to you!

Back to the topic: what I'm thinking through is whether we as Christian women are losing our way a little on this. There seems to be a general lack of willingness to sacrifice our personal satisfaction in life for the sake of our children. We will give up our career but not all those other things we like doing.

This includes accepting that there are some ministries that we are capable of doing but are limited because of the stage of life that we find ourselves in. Often there are other worthwhile things we can do to serve God during these stages but we don't enjoy them as much so we fight to keep doing what we like, at the expense of providing a calm home environment and a calm mother.

Reading some of Ali's links (Equip book club) recently about feminism has got me wondering if this trend I've noticed is a way in which feminism is infiltrating into the attitudes Christian women have about raising their children.

What do you think?

You can respond here.

yes, grace enough just for today

Three months ago I was staring down the barrel of a busy, busy term. I wrote about anxiety and how God promises to give us grace enough just for today. Today I'm writing to let you know that he is faithful: he did just that.

Yes, it was one of the busiest terms of my life. Against the advice of wise friends (sorry friends!) I added a second seminar to my already heavy load. Looking back, it's clear that I took too much on (note to self: never write a complete set of Sunday School lessons and a seminar - let alone two! - in the same term again). It could have been a recipe for disaster, and really, it's only by God's grace that it wasn't.

But God is faithful.

He answered my prayers. I prayed about my anxieties (Phil 4:5-7) and he lifted the burden of worry from my shoulders so that I felt virtually free of anxiety and despondency the whole term long. This is nothing short of a miracle for a woman who struggles with anxiety as frequently as I do. (It doesn't always work that way. Sometimes feelings of anxiety aren't taken away, and we have to battle them and trust God in the face of them.)

He answered my prayers. I was determined to trust him for "grace enough just for today" - time and energy to do ministry preparation, love my family, lead a Bible study and care for my friends. I'm sure many things slipped through the cracks, but most of the important stuff got done.

He answered my prayers. He gave me the blessing of watching my children excitedly discover great truths about God during Sunday School, the privilege of helping young women grow deeper into the grace of Christ as I led seminars on change and spiritual disciplines, and the joy of catching up with old friends and making a new friend (you know who you are!). Truly God is good.

I'm facing another busy term or two. Nothing like last term, thankfully - but do any of us really face a term that's stress-free and easy? Not this mother! I'd like to say I'm stepping forward in confidence that the God who provided for last term will provide for the next. Truth be told, I'm still battling anxiety and apprehension.

But I know this: however I may feel, whatever I may face, God hasn't changed. When he promises to provide for our needs (Phil 4:19, 2 Pet 1:3) that's a promise that holds true for any and every circumstance. He is trustworthy and true.

Whatever sorrows or joys you and I may face during the coming months, I pray that we will be able to trust him together, in the confidence that our loving heavenly Father will never let us out of his hands.

Tim Keller on living as we are

In every other religion the indicative flows from the imperative. Which means, ‘because I do, therefore I am… because I do this, therefore I’m a child of God.’ But only in Christianity does the imperative flow from the indicative. ‘Because I am in Christ all these things, therefore I obey.’ Exactly the opposite.

Tim Keller Led by the Spirit (message given at Redeemer Presbyterian Church) HT Of First Importance

image is from stock.xchng

how we change (4) why would you like to change?

I'm sitting in a cafe (the same cafe I wrote about here, at the same wobbly iron table) and I'm reading chapter 2 of Tim Chester's You Can Change.

It's not long before my heart is dissected and displayed on the page. I know that Chester's right, and that I seek change for three main reasons:

1. To prove myself to God.
2. To prove myself to others.
3. To prove myself to myself.

Most of us can probably tick one of these (the women in my seminar were divided between the three). I can put a big, black, permanent marker tick next to all three.

When I was 8, my Sunday School teacher asked what I wanted most. I knew the answer: to obey God all the time (no red trucks or Barbie dolls for me!). I long for others' liking and respect, and I'm terrified of disappointing people. But it's myself I find hardest to please. It's only when I meet every expectation - God's, other people's, my own - that I feel briefly satisfied.

It's one of those "So that's why!" moments.

But it's what follows that's really encouraging. As Chester unpacks the reality of being justified by grace, the truth that I've always known makes a new impact on my heart. God accepts me, and it's got absolutely nothing to do with what I've done or haven't done. He accepts me because Jesus died for me and paid for every one of my sinful failures. He accepts me because he sees me as perfect in his sight, clothed with the righteousness of Christ.

I've been striving for perfection, and it turns out it's mine already!

So why change? Not to become someone else, but to become who I already am. I'm God's precious child. I'm the bride of his Son. I'm the temple of his Spirit. I have all I need to live for God. I've died to sin and been raised to glorious new life. How could I not live it?*

God doesn't tell me to work really hard to earn his approval. He tells me I already have his approval - the approval he lavishes on his Son, transferred to me! - and he invites me to a great banquet, better than the coffee shop Chai I'm sipping. He invites me to the banquiet of knowing and loving him:

Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labour on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
Isaiah 55:1-2

After my visit to the cafe, I walk through a park. My feet thud on the dusty bush tracks, but my face is lifted to the glad blue sky. I can't wipe the smile off my face.

I feel free: free of the burden of earning God's approval, free of the need to earn others' respect, free of the heavy weight of my own expectations.

I'm free to love and serve God for one very good reason: because Jesus died for me and made me new.

I drive home somewhat hazardously, with an open Bible on the seat next to me, as I memorise these words:

But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. Tit 3:4-5

Not "live to prove yourself" but "live as you are". Sounds good to me.

For reflection: Think of how you'd like to change. Are you motivated by wanting to prove yourself to God, others, or yourself? How, instead, could you be motivated to "live as you already are" in Christ?

If you'd like to see or use my seminar How Change Happens, which is based on Tim Chester's You Can Change, please contact me.

* Gal 4:4-7, Eph 5:25-27, 1 Cor 6:18-20, 2 Pet 1:3-9, Rom 6:1-14

quotes are from chapter 2 of Tim Chester's You Can Change

images are from everglobe and Clairey at flickr

a rocket ship cake for Thomas

Time for another birthday cake! This one was for Thomas' 6th birthday, which we celebrated a couple of weeks ago. It was a very simple cake this time, from one of the older Women's Weekly cake books (we have a whole pile!). Here's how we did it.

We made the cake using 3 packet mixes.

We cooked it in a very large tin.
We cut around the rocket ship pattern.

We iced the cake: yellow in the middle,
and orange for the fins and edges.

We used licorice straps to outline the different sections.

We attempted the word "TOM" in lollies!

Great candles, aren't they?

The sparklers were the highlight.

Candle time!

Happy birthday Thomas!

Carmelina Read on why we need more stress

I spent a wonderful day on Saturday with the women from Bundoora Presbyterian Church. I got to lead a seminar (oh, frabjous day!) on spiritual disciplines (which will probably turn into a series on this blog some time) and even better, I got to hang out with Carmelina Read (oh, frabjouser day) and hear her talk on prayer from Equip last year (it's even better the second time!) and a great new talk she's written on stress. It's her talk on stress I want to tell you about now.

What would you expect from a talk about stress? Some handy hints about how to overcome stress? A new resolve to reduce stress in your life?

What you probably wouldn't expect to be told is that you need more stress.

But for me, and, I suspect, for many of the women who listened to Carmelina's talk, it wasn't so much the helpful hints about how to overcome stress that were useful - although they were very useful! - as the reminder that some stress is actually good!

Good? Huh? Aren't seminars on stress supposed to tell you how to get rid of it?!

No, because there's a kind of stress we should have more of in our lives. The kind of stress which comes from sharing the gospel. The kind of stress you feel when friends don't like you quite as much because you talk about Jesus. The kind of stress that missionaries experience every day when, "compelled by the love of Christ", they leave comfortable Western lives to bring Christ's love to others (2 Cor 5:14).

No, because there was a kind of stress which Paul felt every day. He experienced "conflicts on the outside, fears within" in the face of beatings, hunger, thirst, danger, cold, labour and even death as he talked about Jesus. He felt "great sorrow and unceasing anguish" for those who hadn't come to Christ. He worried over those he had brought to Christ with "great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears" as he faced "daily the pressure" of his "concern for all the churches". (2 Cor 4:7-12, 11:23-29, 5:20, 7:5, Rom 9:1-4, 2 Cor 2:4, 11:28-29, Gal 4:11, 1 Thess 3:5)

Gospel stress: now there's a kind of stress we could do with more of!

Carmelina made a resolution a year ago: that her non-Christian friends like her less by the end of the year! Not because she's insensitive and overbearing in how she talks about her faith, but because she just can't shut up about Jesus - you know, in that "today I was reading this and this struck me..." kind of way. She said she would rather that a friend said this about her (even complainingly!) than they not hear the gospel at all.

It's a scary resolution, but one worth making.

image is from stock.xchng

when a child isn't interested in Christianity

"I don't want to read the Bible anymore!"

Mother and daughter look at one another, one a smaller version of the other: straight blonde hair, fine nose, pretty features. The only difference is the mulish expression on the daughter's face.

She lies on the bed and turns her back, hunched over to express the maximum amount of disapproval. Her mother looks at her in exasperation.

Every night she sits beside her daughter's bed and reads the Bible, and every night her daughter listens. Until tonight.

The choices flash through her head. Get angry. Insist her daughter turn around. Keep reading.

She keeps reading.

"Well, you can refuse to listen if you want, but I'm reading the Bible to you anyway."

For an entire year they follow the same pattern: stubborn face, turned back, reading voice. She can picture the words flowing out of her mouth, around her child's back, across her closed ears. A year of reading to a back.

Until one day her daughter turns around.

The choices flash quickly through her head. Say something. Smile. Keep reading.

She keeps reading.

***

This is the true story of a mother I know, and her daughter, now grown, loving and serving Jesus.

A mother who trusted God's word enough, and who was wise enough, to gently persist without comment and without giving up. A mother who knew her responsibility, who wasn't scared of her child, who knew what her daughter needed. A mother who excelled in faithfulness.

I've been wondering what to do when your child doesn't seem very excited about God.

Now I know.

Tim Chester on hope

There is hope for change. That hope is not in counsellors or methods or rules. That hope is in a great and gracious Saviour who has broken the power of sin and placed his life-giving Spirit in our hearts. … Our gracious Saviour, who died for us ‘when we were God’s enemies’, invites us to ‘approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need’ (Romans 5:10; Hebrews 4:16).

Tim Chester You Can Change 191

JI Packer on holiness

The holiest Christians are not those most concerned about holiness as such, but whose minds and hearts and goals and purposes and love and hope are most fully focused on our Lord Jesus Christ.

JI Packer Keep in Step with the Spirit 134

HT Of First Importance

image is from { Karen } at flickr