I can't believe that 2010 is almost over. It's been a very full year. I remembered how to live for me again. I'm learning to remember hurts no more.
I have a good job, which I love. I'm beginning to collect furniture and household items for my own place which I should move into in a few months. I'm going on some cool adventures with my youth, including Kenya, and I get to do summer camp again!
Life sure is busy, but I am very much enjoying it!
The highlight of this week is that I get two days in a row off! I'm going to praise God for that!
So for 2011, I have no great expectations or pressure as I have felt in years past. I'll get married and have kids when the time is right. I'm busy enough letting God be God and remembering to be Laura. I'll keep working on the surrender and trust thing, and expect God to do his show up and be amazing, thing.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Teenagers!
I love being a youth director and the crazy kids who text and facebook chat me at all hours. They are not so bad, and I appreciate that they have accepted me as one to share stories with and confide in. I'm stretching this week to look into some of the issues they face, so I can better help them as they have questions. I'm researching cutting right now. I have to say that I am overwhelmingly upset by it the more I find out. Teens who cut, (scratch or cut skin with razor or other sharp objects til it bleeds),or self-mutilate often do so because they need an outlet for psycholigical pain, usually from depression or a trauma. From what I have discovered, prevention (or the cure) for this and other kids of trouble teens get into is as simple as an adult who cares enough about them enough to ask questions and check up on them. If this is the case, often it will not go far or become a habit. Having someone to confide in who will provide unconditional love seems like the answer to so many issues people face. They so badly want someone to believe in them. They want to know it is going to be OK and that they are not alone and they do have what it takes to make it through the issue at hand.
The solution appears to be all about prevention. Train your children! Proverbs 22:6 says "Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it." I am just realizing now how huge a command this is. I'm not a parent yet, but I know that as someone who has had a hand in raising numerous children, so many of us fall so short of this. Teens want and need to feel loved and accepted. It is why they get pregnant and make other big mistakes. They want to know why they should not do something, so if no one has taught them what is the right way (or sometimes even still) curiosity will lead them to experiment. Parents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, we have to offer this unconditional love to them! If we don't they will try to find it in the world and it will cost them, and us.
Some of the experimental things kids do is just because they are curious. They want to feel the emotional rush of a first kiss, and wonder if he will still be there if she doesn't give everything to him. They suffer from not fitting in, and an extreme lack of experience. So they go on adventures and they do whatever sounds good in the moment. They do not think about the future or even the next week.
But the kid who has had a parent who tells them things like "There is nothing you can do to make me stop loving you," (and really live it) will have a much better chance of making the "right" choice when push comes to shove. The difference is that children must be taught at such a young age that decisions about sexual purity, doing drugs and harming yourself or others, have already been made. If they know they are greatly loved by a parent, they will will be less likely to make the stupid choice, because the unconditional love is established, and among other reasons, it will not produce the parental shock most kids desire.
The most frustrating thing for me right now is teen neglect on the part of a parent. I don't see it often, but it looks so ugly and costs so much. I'm automatically drawn to such kids, and my heart cries for the parental love that is lacking in their lives. Rich or poor, it is still there and it is just devastating.
So parents, keep on praising your children and offering them unconditional love and grace. Punish them when they mess up, but never withhold love! Teenagers today are dealing with all kinds of pressure and feeling misunderstood. My heart goes out to them and I'm increasingly convinced that if at all possible, I will be homeschooling my children. There is so much to learn both in and outside of the classroom, and I want to be sure they have a great foundation for being successful in life.
The solution appears to be all about prevention. Train your children! Proverbs 22:6 says "Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it." I am just realizing now how huge a command this is. I'm not a parent yet, but I know that as someone who has had a hand in raising numerous children, so many of us fall so short of this. Teens want and need to feel loved and accepted. It is why they get pregnant and make other big mistakes. They want to know why they should not do something, so if no one has taught them what is the right way (or sometimes even still) curiosity will lead them to experiment. Parents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, we have to offer this unconditional love to them! If we don't they will try to find it in the world and it will cost them, and us.
Some of the experimental things kids do is just because they are curious. They want to feel the emotional rush of a first kiss, and wonder if he will still be there if she doesn't give everything to him. They suffer from not fitting in, and an extreme lack of experience. So they go on adventures and they do whatever sounds good in the moment. They do not think about the future or even the next week.
But the kid who has had a parent who tells them things like "There is nothing you can do to make me stop loving you," (and really live it) will have a much better chance of making the "right" choice when push comes to shove. The difference is that children must be taught at such a young age that decisions about sexual purity, doing drugs and harming yourself or others, have already been made. If they know they are greatly loved by a parent, they will will be less likely to make the stupid choice, because the unconditional love is established, and among other reasons, it will not produce the parental shock most kids desire.
The most frustrating thing for me right now is teen neglect on the part of a parent. I don't see it often, but it looks so ugly and costs so much. I'm automatically drawn to such kids, and my heart cries for the parental love that is lacking in their lives. Rich or poor, it is still there and it is just devastating.
So parents, keep on praising your children and offering them unconditional love and grace. Punish them when they mess up, but never withhold love! Teenagers today are dealing with all kinds of pressure and feeling misunderstood. My heart goes out to them and I'm increasingly convinced that if at all possible, I will be homeschooling my children. There is so much to learn both in and outside of the classroom, and I want to be sure they have a great foundation for being successful in life.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Bits and Pieces
My life seems to be coming together in bits and pieces. Not fast enough for me, but I'm thankful for what I do have. I fear I keep searching and I'll find nothing, or miss something meant for me because it was too close for me to notice before it passes me by. I have never so badly wanted to control my life, or rather been aware of the need to let go. I know that is not how God wants me to live.
I have experienced a few unexpected blessing in the last few weeks, and I have had some answers to prayer. I thank God for this calm, whenever it falls on me. Some of these people, I think I'm helping, have really helped me see the face of God. Minnie, for one, I will never forget and was so blessed the day she walked into my office, very much out of breath. Thank you God, for using me to hug her and listen to a sweet old lady who had no one to care for her in the world. She is ill and her family has all died. Her reality has changed because she has found some help in the church.
My thinking has been changing quite a bit. Who I have been is not who God wants me to become. I have been foolish and selfish. I wanted to be this quite rebel, but I realized I was only being childish. I was becoming more and more desensitized to the difference of the things of the world and the things of God. The more I study and get to know God, the more I realize those crazy big families who homeschool, do a lot right. I had respect for them, but that was all. But I realized we are all trying to get it right and life is not easy. No one on this side of heaven will get it all right, but I have been surprising myself at how much I want to be more like them.
Part of this comes from watching the Duggar family. I got both 17 Kids And Counting (season 1)and 18 Kids And Counting(season 2)on DVD and really appreciate how that family does things. It has really made me rethink some of the little things I do and accept in modern culture. They are a great Christian example and I really hope God will bless me with a great husband in the next few years, and I will have the opportunity to homeschool my own children. I want to be the one to teach them the important things, and I cannot think of a better way to be sure they are learning what I think they should know about God and for life than teaching them myself.
This change in thinking has been quite unexpected, for only two years ago I could hardly entertain the thought of homeschooling and the entire idea of being so strangely out of the world. Now, the whole lifestyle looks very appealing. I'm not about to forgo pants and wear turtlenecks, but I have become much more aware of the importance of dressing modestly, thanks to hearing the definition of immodestly dressed women as being defrauding, according to the Duggar's, means, "Stirring up sensual desires that cannot be righteously fulfilled. Yikes! It makes me rethink modesty.
I'm so thankful that though I so badly wanted marriage and children years ago, God knew better. I would have been a loyal wife, but so much more a selfish one. My attempts to raise my children in and not of the world would have failed, because I would not have been able to see a clear difference. I am so thankful God has been challenging my thinking on so many things, and he has given me a new understanding of the way he wants them to be.
I would have missed this before, and way too many Christians are missing the point. We don't dress any differently or look and different, and sometimes, we do not even act any differently then our unbelieving neighbors, yet we expect God to bless us and give us great tasks to accomplish on his behalf. I'm not trying to judge here, I'm simply stating that I want to be different, a radical, not a rebel. I want to be more like what God wants me to be and that means looking less and less like the world. This could be very difficult and cost me, but I have already lost a lot from failing in trying to do it the world's way. It's a challenge that is too important not see through.
This is exciting. This is good.
I have experienced a few unexpected blessing in the last few weeks, and I have had some answers to prayer. I thank God for this calm, whenever it falls on me. Some of these people, I think I'm helping, have really helped me see the face of God. Minnie, for one, I will never forget and was so blessed the day she walked into my office, very much out of breath. Thank you God, for using me to hug her and listen to a sweet old lady who had no one to care for her in the world. She is ill and her family has all died. Her reality has changed because she has found some help in the church.
My thinking has been changing quite a bit. Who I have been is not who God wants me to become. I have been foolish and selfish. I wanted to be this quite rebel, but I realized I was only being childish. I was becoming more and more desensitized to the difference of the things of the world and the things of God. The more I study and get to know God, the more I realize those crazy big families who homeschool, do a lot right. I had respect for them, but that was all. But I realized we are all trying to get it right and life is not easy. No one on this side of heaven will get it all right, but I have been surprising myself at how much I want to be more like them.
Part of this comes from watching the Duggar family. I got both 17 Kids And Counting (season 1)and 18 Kids And Counting(season 2)on DVD and really appreciate how that family does things. It has really made me rethink some of the little things I do and accept in modern culture. They are a great Christian example and I really hope God will bless me with a great husband in the next few years, and I will have the opportunity to homeschool my own children. I want to be the one to teach them the important things, and I cannot think of a better way to be sure they are learning what I think they should know about God and for life than teaching them myself.
This change in thinking has been quite unexpected, for only two years ago I could hardly entertain the thought of homeschooling and the entire idea of being so strangely out of the world. Now, the whole lifestyle looks very appealing. I'm not about to forgo pants and wear turtlenecks, but I have become much more aware of the importance of dressing modestly, thanks to hearing the definition of immodestly dressed women as being defrauding, according to the Duggar's, means, "Stirring up sensual desires that cannot be righteously fulfilled. Yikes! It makes me rethink modesty.
I'm so thankful that though I so badly wanted marriage and children years ago, God knew better. I would have been a loyal wife, but so much more a selfish one. My attempts to raise my children in and not of the world would have failed, because I would not have been able to see a clear difference. I am so thankful God has been challenging my thinking on so many things, and he has given me a new understanding of the way he wants them to be.
I would have missed this before, and way too many Christians are missing the point. We don't dress any differently or look and different, and sometimes, we do not even act any differently then our unbelieving neighbors, yet we expect God to bless us and give us great tasks to accomplish on his behalf. I'm not trying to judge here, I'm simply stating that I want to be different, a radical, not a rebel. I want to be more like what God wants me to be and that means looking less and less like the world. This could be very difficult and cost me, but I have already lost a lot from failing in trying to do it the world's way. It's a challenge that is too important not see through.
This is exciting. This is good.
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