"You say that is What!?!

It seems our society has gotten onto a big kick about hate.  I agree that TRUE hate is awful and should not be tolerated.  However, it seems everything under the sun is being considered hate.  I disagree with you so I hate you type of thinking.  Really!?!  In our society it is considered hate speech to say that abortion is a sin.  In reality it is murder.  We try to make it sound less like taking a human life away by calling the unborn child a fetus, but really this is a child.  If God is the one who caused the conception of that child and we are playing God when we abort one of his creation.  The Bible also clearly tells us to speak up for those who can not speak for themselves.  Unborn children clearly cannot speak for themselves so I will speak for them. That is not "hate" speech.  That is "love" speech.  Homosexuality is clearly a sin in the Bible as well.  God designed the world to work a certain way and if we go against that then we are opening ourselves up to pain, heartache, and his judgements.  It is not hate to say share the truth in God's Word.  It is love because if that person repents then that person will be freed from the pain that the homosexual lifestyle causes.  It is love not hate.

In our society we would like to have the term and concept of sin eliminated.  However, the Bible says we all sin and that we all fall short.  The only one who did not sin is Jesus.  The penalty for sin according to the Bible is eternity in hell.  However, Jesus died so that if we will accept him and surrender our lives to him that we would be freed from the consequences of sin.  Pointing out sin and sharing the Gospel is not hate speech it is love speech.  So the next time someone calls something sin and it bothers you take the time to ask the Lord if you need to repent of that particular sin and if you do then repent and surrender that area to HIM.

Now there is true hate speech in our society and that I am totally against, but lets look at what the word hate means.  HATE (according to Merriam-Webster online dictionary) intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury.  That in no way says someone is guilty of hate because they disagree with another person.  Racial slurs, bombings, beatings, bullying, persecution, etc these are all examples of hate crimes.  This is a far cry different from the "I disagree with you" type of thing that has been labeled hate in our society.  So lets make sure it really is hate before we jump to a conclusion about the matter being dealt with or addressed..

Hello My Name Is...

I posted a while back that it has become necessary for me to work weekends at Cracker Barrel for a little while to help our family recover from last year's drought.  The location I work at is a bit of a drive for me, but that has actually turned into a benefit for me because for over half of the drive I am able to listen to WBGL which is a Contemporary Christian radio station here in the MidWest.  Often times, in fact more often than not, music will speak to my heart more than a sermon.  I know that might sound terrible, but for me it is the truth.  There is something about the music that just breaks through my defenses.  There have been several songs that have spoken to me lately.

Probably 5-6 weeks ago now I was listening to Christian music on the radio and when I turned the car off the lyrics to the song were, "Hello my name is child of the one true king.  I've been saved.  I've been changed.  I have been set free."  Then I went in to work.  I did not realize that the whole time I was working in the back of my mind I had that song going through my head.  Then at the end of my shift I was rolling silverware (the last thing you do before going home when you are a server at Cracker Barrel) I realized that song was going through my head.  It interrupted some thoughts I had been having.  One of my weak points is that I will hold onto and remember my own mistakes.  Then dwell on them.  I had been thinking about mistakes I had made during that shift and desperately trying to meet the new management standards (management had changed a few weeks before) but I was still learning what those were.  The combination of my being hard on myself and still learning new management's style and expectations were not doing good things to my thinking.  Well, this song interrupted my destructive thought pattern.  It was like a light bulb went on and my internal dialogue said, "Wait a minute Charity, you are a child of the one true king!!!  So it does not matter whether or not you are a good server, it does not matter if you are as good of a wife as you want to be, it does not matter whether you as good of a mother as you want to be.  It does not matter if you meet anyone else's expectations.  It does not matter if you meet your own expectations.  None of that changes who you are because those things don't define you.  What you do does not define who you are.  The Lord defines who you are and he says that YOU ARE A CHILD OF THE ONE TRUE KING."  All of sudden relief from my destructive thought pattern right there.  Something in me relaxed and I finished the job and went home.  On the drive home guess what song came on the radio--  you guessed it Hello My Name Is by Matthew West.

Other lyrics spoke to me during the drive home.  "Hello my name is defeat, I know you recognize me just when you think you can win I'll drag you right back down again 'til you've lost all belief"  That has certainly been a pattern in my life for the last 10-11 years.  When I would start to experience victory something either circumstance, thought, or person would come along and I would be knocked back down to that place of defeat once again.  Then the lyrics that followed "These are the voices.  These are the lies and I have believed them for the very last time"  Hope came at that point for me.  See just because I have let that pattern continue in my life for a decade does not mean I have to let that pattern continue.  I can decide to stop listening to these voices inside my head.  I can choose to stop believing lies.  Now I have made a resolution to stop believing them.  Changing a thought pattern that has been allowed to continue for this long will not be easy, but I am not doing this alone.  The Lord is the one who will change my heart and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wants my identity to be in HIM.  My main job is to get out of the way and let HIM do the work in me.

Then the lyrics "I am no longer defined by all the wreckage behind.  The one who makes all things new has proven its true just take a look at my life."  I realized that I need to repent for letting the wreckage that is in the past define me now.  The years of my husband's seizures, the financial devastation, the grief and broken heart I have carried for so long have left their fair share of wreckage.  However, the Lord is in the business of making all things new.  My holding onto that baggage has kept HIM from making something new and beautiful out of it.  So I have had to let go, repent, and once again get out of the way to allow the Lord to continue to work on me and on my family.  We are after all HIS masterpiece.  If you look at the road our family has traveled so far you can see that the Lord does make things new.  My husband is walking proof of that.

Then the lyrics that say "What love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called his children."  That is how the Lord will work the necessary changes in me is as I allow HIM to lavish his love on me.  So I can become all that HE wants me to be.  I am after all A CHILD OF THE ONE TRUE KING.

You know as I have been letting go of the drive to excel, please others, and my perfectionistic tendencies I have found I am actually performing better than when I tried so hard.  I find that ironic.  It seems funny to my how the Lord so often works that way.

The process of having our identity fully in Christ is a process that will continue until the day we go to heaven to spend eternity with our Lord.  So I want to make sure I am always surrendering my heart, soul, mind, and strength to my Heavenly Father.  So I challenge you today to examine your life.  In what ways do you need to surrender yourself to the Lord?  What ways are you holding onto destructive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors?  I encourage you to surrender these things to HIM and to allow HIM to lavish HIS love on you.  Then cooperate as HE makes your life into masterpiece.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuJWQzjfU3o

Our Multi-purpose Kitchen

The kitchen is not the heart of our home, but that is only because it is too small.  My sister measures the size of a kitchen by the number of rear ends that can fit and work comfortably in the kitchen   She calls my kitchen a "one butt kitchen" meaning that only one person can fit in there and work comfortably.  So the dining room has often become an extension of our kitchen.  For the sake of simplicity in this post when I refer to kitchen I also mean kitchen activities in our dining room.  Caleb had not gotten into cooking with me too much until recently, but Simeon really enjoys cooking with me.  It has been a valuable part of our homeschooling experience as we have done many math lessons by cooking together.  Simeon learned to count by throwing chocolate chips one by one into the cookie dough.  Caleb has been learning about fractions with our measuring cups lately.  Our math curriculum teaches fractions, but Caleb found those lessons pointless until he really got into cooking with me.

Cooking and math are just part of what we are learning in the kitchen.  They are learning to follow instructions in the kitchen.  There have been recipes not turn out because directions were not followed.  I have learned that sometimes I need to let the recipe flop so that they can learn that it is important to follow directions.  We have also spent time preserving food for winter time in a food dehydrator, a canner, the freezer, etc.  Other times we have prepared meals or snacks in advance to put in the freezer.  We learn to think ahead and to be strategic through our time in the kitchen.

Another lesson we learn is how to be hospitable through our kitchen.  We have recently made cookies for neighbors and delivered them.  Caleb and Simeon thought it was so fun to take cookies over to certain neighbors homes.  Then we recently made snacks for a friend who is having a difficult time.  They have helped me make meals for families with illness.  I learned yesterday of a family in our church who the husband recently had surgery and the wife has injured herself.  I plan for the boys and I to make a meal to take to them.  Then sometimes we like to have people over for a meal or tea time.  We are learning great lessons about serving others through our kitchen.

We do science experiments in our kitchen.  We have mixed oil and water, vinegar and baking soda.  Then we did other things like taking oil and water then shaking it to see how the oil breaks up to see how our gall bladder works.  Another experiment that we did was take an apple and mummify it.  Still another thing we did was take a plastic container with a lid put an egg in and shut it up then shake the container hard.  This broke the egg.  Then we did the same thing only this time there was water in with the egg in the container.  This time when we shook the egg and it did not break.  This was to show us why there is fluid between our brain and skull.  We made an edible cell, dissected a chicken bone, and I could go on and on with all the different science experiments or activities we have conducted in our kitchen.

Of course I do not want to leave out the obvious we are learning to cook in our kitchen as well as other life skills.  The boys have learned to wash dishes and Caleb has learned about knife safety.  So he and I now cut vegetables and fruit together.  We are starting to learn about meal planning.

A favorite thing for Caleb in the kitchen right now is that he is inventing recipes or new dishes.  He made a noodle creation yesterday with leftover black beans spiced with taco spices, cream cheese, left over spaghetti noodles, Parmesan cheese, and bread crumbs.  Then he garnished it with a mint leaf from the herb bed.  It was interesting and not too bad.  I did eat it with a smile.  The day before he took tomatoes, seeded them, filled them with salsa, and then sprinkled basil on top.  He named that one Meeka.  That was yet again interesting, and I ate it with a smile on my face and we saved some for Daddy to try.

Simeon enjoys baking and most of the time when I cook he will have a chair pulled right on up to the stove and will stir whatever is on the burner.  He puts on his apron and wants to know what we are doing and why.  I think he will turn into a good cook as he grows up.

There is no way I will be able to tell you all the different things we do in the kitchen nor all the memories we have made.  One silly memory was recently when our backyard wiener roast got rained out.  We roasted marshmallows on the gas burners of our stove and made smores.  I think the thing I most enjoy about our kitchen is the memories and the bonding we have during our times in the kitchen.  We have laughed and cried in the kitchen.  We are learning to live life together.  One day we will look back and I think some of our greatest memories will be times in the kitchen together.