Reckless Words

Uncle Jeremiah's wedding(unrelated to blog topic)

     A few weeks ago, Micah’s memory verse for school was the verse Proverbs 12:18
”The words of the reckless pierce like swords”   When he received this verse as his memory, my thoughts were “How fitting” children spend a lot of time throughout their early years of life learning how their interactions affect the people around them.  They learn how to “Use nice words” and how to say “Please” and “Thank you.”  All of these exercises are opportunities for children to begin to learn how to think through their words and the affect that their words can have on their peers and family members.  These lessons help children to learn to take a minute to think before shooting out words that cannot be taken back.  It is amazing how a word said thoughtlessly can stick with a person for years and years.  In many cases things that were said to us years ago can even begin to make up who we believe we are and where we feel our value comes from.  When in all actuality this is not and should not be where our value and self worth is found.    As this verse has been brought to the forefront of my mind, I have become more and more aware of the many times each day that I listen as hurtful words are slung at someone.  The scary thing is that due to social networking sites like facebook, twitter and the use of bogging, people can very easily attack someone without ever having to face them.  I watch as statuses are posted and tweets are tweeted and blogs are updated and I often find myself wondering, “Was someone hurt by that post? ” Ephesians 4:29 reminds us
 ”Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”   Jason always reminds the youth (and adults) at Redeemer that it is so important to treat everyone as if he or she is worth the death of the Son of God.  Because they are and that is where our value is found!  I pray that in all our interactions, we would treat people this way.

Uncle Jeremiah's Wedding(Unrelated to blog topic)

     Children learn by example far better than they learn through lecture.  They watch every interaction we make, and they hear every time we say something that is hurtful to another, they also hear every time that we compliment others.  Most times children try to emulate our behavior.  I pray that I can through my words and actions encourage my children to think before speaking.  I feel that in many cases, if we would step back and ask ourselves “Who do these words benefit? Are they helping someone grow closer with Christ or will they only serve to anger another? “  If we took a few minutes to think through our words, I would pray that many time we would choose to delete the hurtful message instead of posting it or that we would bite our tongues instead of lashing out at someone.  Colossians 4:46 is a fantastic guideline “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”  As I was finishing this blog post, I returned to Proverbs 12:18 to read the second half of the verse and this is what I found , “but the tongue of the wise brings healing.
” Proverbs 12:18 in its entirety is  “
”The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”  May our words always be words of healing and never swords to one another!

Summer Revisited

Today was a fantastic day.  We started the day by sleeping in!  There are some nights that it feels SO good to sleep, and last night was no exception.  We have been passing a cold around our family which has caused us to have a few restless children throughout the nights.  last night was the first night in a very long time that I remember sleeping solidly through the night without having a child crying, saying they were scared or asking to climb in the bed with us.  I actually woke up in the morning and felt the need to check on Madeline to be sure she was okay.

     After we were all awake, we ate breakfast and then showered and prepared to head into town.  We promised the boys that they would get to play at the Children's Museum last night and were disappointed to discovered that it closed before we arrived.  We placed the children's museum as number one on our list of things to do today.  The boys were excited!  We spent about and hour and a half at the children's museum and then ventured on to Downtown Traverse City for some lunch at the Dish.  It was yummy!  We had noticed that there was a Parade of Homes going on for remodeled homes, so we decided to check it out.  The children were excellent and loved putting little blue booties over their shoes to preserve the carpet in the homes that we visited.  After we toured a few homes on Old Mission Peninsula we decided that the kids were probably ready for a break.  So, we made a stop at the Kids Kove play ground.

 The boys enjoyed running around and climbing the different sections of the play structures, and Madeline enjoyed walking around and trying out the small slide and the swings.

We ended our time in town with a stop at St. Michael's Lutheran Church for their annual Oktoberfest celebration.  We had a great time and ate some yummy food!  I love German cuisine!  We crammed so much into our day, it almost felt like we had returned to summer.  It was a fun day!

Breakfast with Madeline

Jason is at the Seminary this week, which leaves me on parenting duty all alone.  We always miss Daddy when he is gone.  Between dropping to children off for school and picking them back up, I feel like I am constantly in the car.  After dropping both boys off at their schools I decided to head to Cracker Barrel for a nice breakfast out with Madeline.  It is not very often that I am able to spend time with just Madeline.  We had a fun morning together.

The underwear Ninja's

We spent our weekend on the go.  Jason was asked to preach in Detroit, and we decided to join him as he traveled.  We try not to miss out on any opportunity to enjoy a swimming pool at a hotel.  It is such a treat for the kids!  Friday, we left Traverse City around lunch time and drove to the Detroit area.  Most of the afternoon was spent driving, but the children were troopers and handled it well knowing that the day would end with a swimming pool!
     Saturday morning we had a few hours prior to the church service that Jason was scheduled to preach at, so we made our way to Greenfield village.  Greenfield village is a tourist attraction that is basically an old village.  We didn't have much time, but we thought Micah especially would enjoy it.  He loves"old timey" things, his Kindergarten teacher referred to him as a little old man in a little boys body.  We didn't have much time at Greenfield village, but the kids did have the opportunity to see horses plowing a field, watch a glass blowing demonstration, ride the 90 year old carousel, visit the round house, and best of all...take a ride in an old model T.  The ride in the Model T made Micah's day.  he was thrilled!
     After Jason preached, we high tailed it home and had the fun opportunity to have a slumber party at Grandma Shoemaker's house.(We are selling our home, and we had three showings this weekend!  Jason had to preach on  Sunday as well...and the last thing I wanted to do while trying to get ready for church on Sunday was to clean the house for a showing.  So, Grandma let us stay at her house so that it would remain clean for the showings!  Thank you mom!)  The boys really enjoyed staying at Grandma's house!

     We went to church at St. Micheal's this morning because Jason was preaching for a 50 anniversary celebration for a pastor who serves at that church.  So, our Sunday morning was different than normal...which is always a little exhausting.  When we made it home this evening, we were all ready for a little down time.  I told the boys that if they went and put their PJ's on, we would snuggle up and watch a movie together before bedtime.  They were thrilled...they hustled to their rooms...and this is how they returned.  I guess sitting in the car for 9+ hours does strange things to my children!  I would like to introduce you to the Underwear Ninjas    

Isaiah 64:8 (Written on 9-15-2011)

     As part of Elementary school at Trinity, the children are required to do memory work.  This means that each week the children are given a passage of scripture to memorize.  Throughout the week they work with the verse to learn its meaning and then at the end of the week recite it for their teacher.  In the first grade class, the children recite their verses on Thursday.  As a graduate of Trinity Lutheran, I remember being required to memorize and recite scripture passages.  I did not enjoy it at the time, but later in life it was probably one of the larges gifts that I took with me from my Lutheran education.  I discovered that anytime a difficult or trying time arose, I usually had a Bible verse stored in my memory that I could turn to for comfort or strength.  It allowed me to more fully know the Bible and the promises that are found there.  I am very thankful for the Bible memory that I was required to do.  I am excited that Micah and Elijah and Madeline will have this same opportunity in their lives.  My goal is to incorporate Micah’s Bible memory for the week into my blog at least one time during the week. 

     This week the verse is Isaiah 64:8  “I am the Father, you are the clay.  I am the potter, you are all the work of my hands.” This is a fantastic verse, it reminds us of the wonderful truth that God is still working with us.  We are not a finished, hardened pot, but rather soft clay, being molded by the Father with love and care to reflect him and his love to a world where pain and hurt is so prominent.  It is so fascinating to watch as our children learn how show Christ’s love to others.  It does not come naturally, but is rather a learned behavior.  In Micah’s class, they are spending time learning about the appropriate way to treat one another.  Mrs. D refers to hurtful words and comments as Porcupine words.  Micah reminds us at home that porcupine words are words that poke, and so we have been practicing using words that don’t hurt, but rather words of kindness and love when interacting with one another.  It is exciting to watch as God molds my children into the adults that they will be, and it is an adventure to experience his work as he continues to mold me into the person I am becoming.            

Grandpa's garden

There are few things that are as delicious as picking fresh fruit and vegetable from a garden.  Last night we decided to stop over at Grandma and Grandpas farm to help grandpa pick some vegetable.  the children absolutely love picking things, it is usually difficult to convince them to let the unripe veggies have a little more time on the vine before picking them.  Yesterday however;just about everything needed to be picked, so they had a fantastic time picking muskmelon, green pepper, tomatoes, spinach, basil and watermelon.  Madeline even enjoyed helping out.  We turned our head on her for a few seconds and when we looked back, she had taken a bite out of three different tomatoes.  Goofy girl!

I caught one!!!

Elijah fishing on our dock.

Micah and Elijah both love fishing, but Elijah is the boy who often begs to go fishing.  Tonight Elijah wanted to go fishing extremely bad, but Jason and I were both cleaning up from dinner.  He kept asking, if he could go fishing, but neither of us was available to watch him.  He has fished a few times with us and also with his Grandfathers. The last time Grandpa Lewis came to fish with the boys he encouraged Micah and Elijah to put their own worm on the hook and to remove the fish they caught from the hook.  They succeeded most of the time.  So, Jason and I decided to allow Elijah to fish off the dock while we finished cleaning up from dinner.(Just a side note: it is not over is head at the end of our dock, we could see him at all times, and he knows how to swim.)  Elijah was thrilled!  He took is pole down to the dock, put the worm on his hook, and in less than ten minutes we heard him yell "Mama, I caught one!"  Jason brought him a pair of needle nose pliers and Elijah successfully removed the fish and continued fishing.  I can hardly believe that my little boy is old enough to fish on his own.  He does such a good job.  He has his own methods to be sure that he does not get poked by the hook.  He usually sets the worm on the dock and then sticks the hook in it while it is laying on the dock.  That way the dock gets poked instead of Elijah.  How creative.

 

     Micah had a fun night as well, he discovered that one of his friends from school was putting their boat in at the boat launch and spent some time hanging around in our tree where he could say hello while they put their boat in.

Micah in the tree by the boat launch.

Meanwhile Madeline assisted with dinner clean up by "Mowing the deck."