True Communication

Before leaving my work at the community mental health center I was beginning to see some research articles about the damage of social networking on the internet through sights like Facebook, My Space, and Twitter. Also the potential pitfalls of text messaging. I have witnessed the issues with text messaging first hand with teens. I have seen where two teens are sitting side by side texting each other instead of talking to each other. It seems as if they have forgotten how to talk to each other.

I am not saying that texting, Facebook or any other social media sight are bad in and of themselves. There are many times when my husband recieved a business call here at home and he does not have pen and paper on the mower. Texting him the contact information can be quite useful. Also there are some people who live far away that I am able to keep in touch with due to Facebook. There are a couple of concerns that I have. First of all, things like Facebook can overtake your life. My second concern is that less and less actual conversations are happening due to virtual conversations. True face to face conversation is becoming less and less. There are actual things that we need in life that happen through actual interaction with other human beings that do not happen in the cyber world. We become less and less able to deal in the real world. Also not to mention that in cyber world a person can be anything they want to be instead of who they really are.

I know myself I am finding that I miss actual conversation with others. It seems everyone is so busy we don't make time for each other anymore. At church we hear sermons, say hi, and shake hands. Then in Sunday School we talk about our lesson and may be share a prayer request or two (likely few if any in our groups actually pray for the request is my guess, I try to but often forget). Then we go home and it is called fellowship. There is no conversation, no getting involved in one anothers lives, no spurring one another on to love and good deeds, no bearing one anothers burdens. The Lord made us to interact with one another. We need to pray together, cry together, pray for one another, bring food when someone had surgery, we need to eat together. Some of these things can only happen to a certain level in cyber world and some can not happen at all.

My late night point (I typically post late at night since that is when my house is quiet) is to enjoy your text messages and social media, but keep them under control so they don't overtake your life. Also while at the same time enjoying your friends on cyber world make sure you still maintain actual face to face friends. They all have some value to both you and the world around you. I know I am going to make it a point to have more face to face fellowship with those I love in my life.

New look for a new blog

I am making some changes to my blog as you can see from the new layout. My life is totally different than it was six months ago and the Lord has been taking me down a healing road as many of my posts have indicated. So I figured a new blog for a new me. I have some goals for this blog and I will be making changes as I go along. I will also be trying to post more often and more regularly. I want to see this blog become a place where others are ministered to, encourage, as well as challenged. I have also added a blog for our homeschool called Vanderhoof School of Excellence and another blog for our family business Vanderhoof Lawn Care and Cleaning. Please hit follow on this blog and the other two as well as signing up for e-mail updates to the blogs as I get them added to each one.

Good things

I did not post last weekend because I was sick-- I slept two and a half days solid. Then this weekend I have been so busy, but I do not want to let two weekends in a row go without posting something. So here it is late Sunday night with an early morning coming.

Yesterday the boys and I went shopping-- all day shopping. We got a lot of stuff for Daddy because Daddy needed stuff. Well, they boys only got a couple of things. Their response made me realize how fortunate I really am to have two terrific boys. They were grateful for what they did recieve from our trip. I did not think about then getting equal amounts of things-- one needed more than the other. So one got more than the other. No one complained or argued with me about it. Instead they were both grateful. They both got excited for the other in recieving things.

I see so many people who are not grateful for what they have and are so busy making sure they get their share. I made sure to take a few minutes to say thank you to the Lord for helping my children to develop this gratitude and looking out for each other.

Life in the box

Recently I was in a conversation with someone who asked me when I was going to just act like a normal person. She wanted to know when I was going to think and do what everyone else does. My answer to her was that she should not waste her time waiting for that to happen. I am not an inside the box thinker-- in fact almost none of my thinking is inside the box. It goes against my nature-- I would not be truly being myself if I lived my life inside the box of how most everyone else does things.

I am a full time therapist who also homeschools my children, cooks from scratch, does not find shopping recreational, is working toward becoming debt free, my family is building a business and are taking a familypreneur approach,. We eat at the table almost every night, we make sure we have good family time and limit our outside activities to accomplish that family time. We believe that children are to be not only parented, but discipled by their parents. We do not use credit cards (we don't even have a credit card) and if we can not pay cash for it then we don't buy it. May be one of the things that gets me seen as strange more than anything else is that I plan to quit my job once the family business can pay the bills and be home full time with my children. I believe in the traditional roles of husband as provider and wife as homemaker as well as mother to the kids. Then there are my parenting ideas. I believe that the parents should meet the relational needs of their kids, that kids should actually get to have a childhood instead of having to grow up so fast. That it is the job of the parents to actually take care of their children and not just making sure they are taken care of. I believe that parents should be the ones that teach their children the value system of the family-- even if it not politically correct. I also believe it is the parents job to make sure their kids get an education whether they are homeschooled, go to private or public school and not the job of the school.

Those are just a few of the things we do that might be against the norm of society. There are some other things that would be considered different in other places we have lived, but would not be considered abnormal here in Jasper County. Things like hanging our clothes out to dry when the weather permits or not using our air conditioner, but opening the windows instead. Also gardening, canning, and taking our own trash to the dump instead of hiring a service to do it for us.

Life inside the box seems so confining to me. I also think that if we confine ourselves to life inside the box then we become "of the world". Jesus told us to be in the world, but not of it. I truly do not feel I could live the life God is calling me to live if I lived life inside the box. One of the benefits I find is that there is peace in my heart and peace in my home living outside the box. We lived inside the box and were miserable. Now we are happy.

One of the draw backs to life outside the box (to some anyway) is that there is criticism. Often times others offer their opinions about what you are doing wether you asked for their opinion or not. Vic and I have learned to just say "Thanks for the input." It seems obsurd to me that many of these people think they actually get a vote in how we live our life. Then there are the looks others give when they just can not understand why you would choose to save for a big purchase instead of finance it or that we would rather start a business than work for someone else. The biggest thing I get strange looks for is the fact that I plan to quit my job when our family is finally able for me to.

I often here things like this-- in today's society a family has to have two incomes to make a living. My answers is that it depends on what you think you have to have. If you want a large home, weekend shopping for entertainment, fancy vacations, go out to eat a lot, and big cars then yes you do need two incomes to live. Those are not goals for my family.

Evaluate for yourself. If you think that life in the box is right then by all means you can live that way, but my family will continue to live outside the box.

How do we define sin

It seems the longer I am in counseling the more this bothers me-- couples living together instead of or before getting married. It seems I am meeting more and more women in counseling that don't want to get married but prefer this "shacking up". The fact that the Bible is clear that sex outside of marriage is sin aside let's look at this from a security and well-being stand point.

One of the biggest reasons I hear for not getting married is that she can leave whenever she wants to. It is much easier to leave. This is true and I will not deny that, but the other side of the coin is that he is free to leave as well. So she can be left with racked up bills, children to care for (that he now could very well feel no obligation). I see it happen more than you would care to know. What about the children? God created marriage to be the environment that children are raised in for a reason. How secure is a child's life when either parent is free to leave whenever they want to?

Then there is the blessings of the Lord. The Bible is clear that this "shacking up" is sin and he can not bless sin. Do you want to live your life without God's blessing? I certainly don't.

Marriage is a covenant and if you shack up you miss the covenantal protection of the Lord on your life. Our society and unfortunately the American Church has forgotten this as they condone this behavior by saying nothing.

There is certainly higher levels of obligation to each other if you are married.

Our society is so backwards-- heterosexuals are running from marriage while homosexuals are fighting for the right to get married. All the while the church is not calling sin what it is sin. Why is this?

It seems recently that I have been in discussions with some pastors who are defining sin by what feels right to them instead of what the Bible says. The Bible clearly says that there is a way that seems right to man, but it leads to destruction. So let's define sin by what the Bible says-- not what we feel. Also let's be in prayer that God bring about a revival in this country so that we get our lives right with him as a nation.

The New Year

Many times by now I have set my goals for the new year. My typical method is to pray and seek the Lord about what those goals are to be. This year I have not sensed the Lord impressing goals as much as I have some verses.

Psalms 39:4

Show me, O Lord, my life's end and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting is my life.

Psalms 90:12

Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Ephesians 5:15-16

Be very careful, then, how you live-- not as unwise, but as wise,
making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.


I definitely sense the Lord asking me to make wise use of my time. So I have spent time looking for ways to make better use of family time, time with my husband, and what ways I am wasting time. I realized that I have probably spent more time on Facebook and watching TV than I should be. The funny thing is I don't really enjoy watching TV all that much and I have been finding that I miss actual conversation and interaction with people and Facebook does not provide those things. However, I do have contact with people who are dear to me through Facebook who otherwise would not be a part of my life. So I have been talking to the Lord about the matter and am limiting the time I spend on Facebook in order to maintain some of those relationships. I also want to share more about our family and things the Lord puts on my heart.

So concerning the computer I have a limited time for social websites that I have given myself everyday and I also plan to post updates here on this blog once every weekend. I have not fully learned how to use this blog and I look forward to learning as well as sharing what I feel the Lord lays on my heart every weekend. I look forward it!!

Since the final Christmas celebrations happened last weekend followed by a feverish child I did not get this posted last weekend. Therefore I will add an additional post this weekend.

Have a great 2011!!!!!

Girls Night Out

It was a really fun night. We went over to the Stankus House and we learned all about blogging. I did not know so much was possible. Now I will have to blog since I will have people that might actually read my blog. I also might have to play with all the stuff to do that I did no know I could do. Thanks to all my homeschool mom friends for teaching me stuff.