Learning to Give the Best One

Something we have been focusing on in our family is giving the best to one another.  

Last week our family was getting ready to go out and we were getting things set up in the car.  As part of coming know my children at the heart level I can now often see their attitudes as they are living life before they are expressed outwardly.  This was true on this day as we were preparing to leave.  I noticed my son was setting up to “take” a particular seat in the minivan for himself and the above thoughts that we have been focusing on came into my mind.  I used that as an opportunity remind him about giving the best to our siblings.  Later, as the kids were piling into the van I heard him ask his sister, “Where would you like to sit?” Not knowing that my son had his eye on a particular seat she responded with choosing a different seat than the one he had his eyes on.  They then proceeded to settle into their seats.

I thought about how easy that communication between them was, and I was grateful for the consideration and kindness that was expressed between the two of them.  I thought about how my son was willing to give up what he thought of as the best if his sister also wanted that seat and I told him how grateful I was for for his willingness to give precedence to his sister.

We have more work to do in this area in our family and it’s good to be seeing good fruit coming from the work we have done so far.

You can learn more ways to teach children how to love their siblings in the Love’s Actions Seminars. Just click on the link below:

Love's Actions Seminars

I Didn't Know I Was Missing Out

When my children were small and my mom would make trips out of town, we would make it an “outing” to take her to the airport and send her off.  We would watch her airplane leave and mosey around the airport a little and head home.  Then 9/11 happened and security tightened up so we started dropping her off at the curb.  She eventually decided that she liked taking the shuttle, she enjoyed the ride in the bus and felt like she was well taken care of and really I think she felt she was making life easier on me.  I appreciated that as our family size increased and life got busier.

Now that my mother is becoming more fragile at the age of 85, traveling isn’t quite as easy for her.  She hasn’t made her long treks back to MI for her family reunions in the past couple of years.  Recently she decided she wanted to travel south to see my sister and we got her set up to fly to California.  The more I thought about her taking the shuttle and getting airport assistance to get to her plane, the more I felt it was time to watch over my dear mother and personally make sure she safely got to her destination.  I decided to take her to the airport myself for the first time in a long time, and when I got to the airport the fella at the luggage check in counter offered to give me a pass to take her to the gate.  I hadn’t sent someone off at the gates since before 9/11… that’s over twelve years ago.

Something my mom and I have in common is that we really prefer to get to the airport with lots and lots of time to spare.  For me it’s just part of the traveling experience that I enjoy, to spend time in an airport and for her it helps her to feel calm without needing to hurry.  And go along smoothly it did.  We got her boarding pass quickly and went through security with ease.  It was such a blessing to see the TSA agents’ kindness and gentleness towards my mom as they processed her through.  From there we stopped at Starbucks for a morning coffee, found a salad to share at a restaurant, took a bathroom break and then, before we knew it, it was time to line up for boarding.  I could have left her once we were there, but I felt a desire to sit with her and visit with her.  Soon they came to get her, pushed her wheelchair onto the jetway and she disappeared onto her plane.  I stayed for a little while and then casually walked back to the parking garage to my car.

I was a little caught off guard with a feeling I hadn’t really anticipated when I decided to spend the time seeing my mom off.  It was a familiar old feeling, that feeling one has when an enjoyable visit is over and your loved one is going away.  That feeling one has when we know we are going to miss someone.  I suddenly became aware that I had been missing out on that feeling for the past many years that my mom had been taking the shuttle.  There was no time of visiting, no sending her off and encouraging her to enjoy her visit away with other family, there was no memories in the making between her and I.  When she took the shuttle I was doing whatever it was that I was doing and I didn’t realize I was missing out on being present to my mom leaving town, and experiencing the emotions that come with a clear and concise realization as she boarded the airplane that she would be missed.

That was three weeks ago.  Today as I was getting ready to pick her up, and this time taking my daughter with my to help collect up Grandma and her luggage, I was reflecting on that familiar old feeling that I had been missing out on.  I was thinking that, yes, it really is a bit of a sacrifice to drive 40+ minutes (depending on traffic), to find parking, to go through getting a pass and going through security and all that would follow, and that yes, THIS is what “life” really is about.  This is what “love” is about.  There was no sacrifice in my mom taking the shuttle, and there was no “life experience to reflect back on” in it either, there was no relationship in it.  I was grateful for having this experience to reflect on. 

In addition, I was thinking about how my daughter and I were going to have a new memory together today as we left early together, just the two of us to make a few stops, to maneuver through the airport together (after getting lost twice driving there – don’t ask!), and having lunch together.   I was also thinking about what a blessing it is for us to be creating this memory of helping Grandma together as a team.  An additional blessing for my mom is that we dropped her off at my niece’s home to have dinner with them and then go home from there.  Lots of family time for my mom. 

As I have been writing this out, I was thinking how this trip has provided my mom with a more relational experience and memory of getting to and from the airport as an added blessing to the memories she and our family in California made together.  I hope she has several more trips in her to take.  Though her traveling is slowing down, as long as she is eager to travel I hope to be in a position where I can make the sacrifice and create memories and continue to experience that old feeling of realizing how much I will miss my mom while she is away.

Strawberry Foibles

The past few weeks I have been reading Love's Actions - Patience and focusing in with the kids about "foibles" and the right response to have with them.  It's been really fun to do that... and last week S. "foibled" and dropped frozen strawberries all over... and then when she was trying to deal with those she dropped more...  I could totally "feel" what she was experiencing - remembering the many times it seems like I have been "all thumbs".... as I looked up at her and related (in my mind) with what she was experiencing I couldn't help but laugh and she looked at me and got the biggest prettiest smile on her face.  It was a beautiful moment that sticks in my mind.  She laughed and said something and then picked them all up... it was a beautiful response on both our parts to her foible, letting the frustration roll off like water on a ducks back rather than letting frustration give way to irritation.  Makes my heart feel warm and fuzzy all over.

Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him,  rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, overflowing with gratitude.

~Colossians 2:6-7

Sweet Daughter Turns Nineteen

Nineteen years ago we received the gift of our oldest daughter.  In so many ways it seems like such a short time ago and in others it seems like a lifetime ago.  The Lord knew exactly the person to give us as our first born, she has been the perfect blessing and challenge.  I add challenge, because I believe our children challenge the things in us that we need to examine and look at and change within ourselves, children are an exact mirror of us parents, after all   In addition this precious daughter of ours continues to inspire and challenge me in new ways as she grows older.  I look forward to this upcoming year with her, seeing what she will do and how she will grow and develop further in the things she takes on and in her heart.  I am grateful for her, she warms my heart.

Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him,  rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, overflowing with gratitude.

~Colossians 2:6-7

Looking for the Blessings In All Things

While our country is experiencing many troubles and trials, which I believe is due to a turning away from the Lord, I try to keep my heart set on being thankful in the current circumstances that we are living through.  While our country has been on a long road to bringing us where we currently are, giving up our freedoms through ignorance, and more and more erosion of our freedoms being put upon us, I can be grateful that we still have the freedom to assemble on public property and express our thoughts and our disagreement with the choices of our government.  I was blessed by the friendly spirit of the police officers monitoring this event and who were moving about the capitol campus.  I was grateful to see many people stopping to listen for a few minutes to see what was being said.  While I am grateful for these things my prayer is for our nation to see it's wrong ways and turn back towards the Lord with a full repentance family by family.

Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him,  rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, overflowing with gratitude.

~Colossians 2:6-7

Fellowship Blessings

Another thing that has warmed my heart is a recent opportunity to meet together with precious friends and share the work and heart miracles that the Lord is doing in our families.  These ladies and their testimonies have been a true blessing to my heart.

Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him,  rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, overflowing with gratitude.

~Colossians 2:6-7

Warms My Heart

Last year I came across Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts and I want to make an effort to focus on the many things that I have to be thankful for.  I will share some of those things from time to time in a series of posts called "Warms My Heart."  In the meantime I thought I would look at what it means to have gratitude and to give thanks. 

  

Gratitude:

• An emotion of the heart, excited by a favor or benefit received; 
• a sentiment of kindness towards a benefactor; 
• a sentiment of good will towards a benefactor
• thankfulness. 

• Gratitude is an agreeable emotion, 
• consisting in or accompanied with good will to a benefactor, and 
• a disposition to make a suitable return of benefits or services, or
• when no return can be made, with a desire to see the benefactor prosperous and happy. 
• Gratitude is a virtue of the highest excellence, as it implies 
• a feeling heart and
• a generous heart, and a 
• proper sense of duty.  

The love of God is the sublimest gratitude.  ~Webster 1812

Thanks:   Generally in the plural.

• Expression of gratitude; 
• an acknowledgment made to express a sense of favor or kindness received. 

Gratitude is the feeling or sentiment excited by kindness;

      thanks are the expression of that sentiment. 

                                                                                                                    ~Websters 1812

To sum it up we express thankfulness from a heart filled and “overflowing with an emotion or sentiment of gratitude” for goods or benefits received according to Colossians 2:6-7.  In order to have a heart filled with overflowing gratitude we need to be purposeful in looking around us for favor and benefits received on a daily basis.

Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him,  rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, overflowing with gratitude.

~Colossians 2:6-7

Warms my heart… 

things that make me overflow with gratitude.

It was 16 years ago that we first met our precious second born daughter.  God created her special and unique and knew just who we needed in this position in our family.  He has used her to reveal things within me that He wanted me to give up and change and He has used her to teach me how to love unconditionally more than I ever have before.  She is a delight to my heart and I am so grateful to be her mamma, I am so grateful to celebrate her 16^th birthday with her along with the rest of our family.

A friend once explained to me that children are forced into maturing prematurely when I told her how sweet yet so different it is in my mind (especially compared to my own experience at their ages) that my children enjoy “playing” in their teen years.  I am so grateful to see such sweet fruit developing between my four children from the work we have been doing, particularly during the past three years, in the form of them enjoying spending time together in so many different ways.  On this particular day it warmed my heart to witness my children playing together.

My husband was laid off work almost three months ago and he is taking advantage of the time he has available for various things.  Some thing that warmed my heart was the experience of going to the mall with him and some of the kids on a weekday (unfortunately our oldest sweet daughter stayed home with the flu).  His surprise at how different (empty) the mall is on a weekday and what he has missed all these years was cute.  I experienced a warmness of the heart excited by the benefit of being together when my dear husband normally would not have been with us.  I am grateful to be able to see the precious nuggets mixed in with the challenges of life, may we always be focused on the joys of life that the Lord brings to us in the challenge.