Tis...the last day of the year.

I got my 12 days of rain and then some. I got decent grades from my children. We are still going into the new year in the red. I will not pray for money, but for provisions, to get current on all outstanding debt. That is a heavy burden I must say. Even with the blessing of health and love and peaceful interaction, in the family; a year in the complete red can daunt the spirits. I am ashamed that I had intentions of training for a marathon and that didn't pan out in the least. If I walked, there seemed always some tripping element in my path, to hurt my knee.
The Hoedown dance was my exercise of choice, I still haven't been able to get all of the steps down, like my children. Pop it, Lock it...Hawk in the sky and then I am lost. That took the place of the hamster dance and thriller for 2009's latter end. Oh, and woe, I am aging and I am trying to keep up with that little fellow Ezra. I can't play Wii everyday. Reading has been some sort of a generation gap filler for us. He understands that I can't be a playmate as I was with just about all of the rest of them. It is very disturbing that they are unkind in their play with oneanother as they are, at times. I can relate, though not approve. I am not around them enough to apply the law of kindness to their interactions. I guess I should be grateful that they are applying the Word of God to their own interactions. They have become adept at reproving and instructing oneanother, sometimes maybe too much.
Still, the year has been crowned and inhabited by the refreshing of the Lord in our family interaction. We still are trying to use 1Cor. 13 as a guide in relating in marriage and in family life. God used the messages at church to provoke and unify us in our faith. The messages from Pastor Ryken were a prod and a stirring up of some of the things that are making this midlife a difficult portion of the sojourn, it was enlightening. I am very glad that he turned tail from that meditation straight on to 1 Cor. 13 or I would have been in the slough, with no relief. Duties are calling, the first of which is love.

The Sun is UP!

It is nearly 8 o'clock and the dark sky looks, much like it did at 3 am. Christmas early festivities have diminished and the crew is watching a movie. The children say that when there is lightning, God is taking pictures of us. We got the rain that we wanted for Christmas. We have love, oneanother and all the presents in the world can't pay for that.
Rich in kisses, even though they are getting too old for them as often as I'd like. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night?

I think I lost Peachypoo to the snow

I do hope that peachypoo will be alright. She got caught in the snow and she has been brown ever since. I have never seen her like this. She is really touch and go. I should have kept her inside or brought her inside earlier. I am sad that she has had to go through this tough time. She should be hearty enough to make it through this difficulty. I do hope so!

The First Game of Parenting.

Deuce, Advantage Mommy, First game of the first set goes to me. I held serve, as it were. When I look back, I see that I really could have lost it there. My emotions were so on end. Grandma Delaphena looked at both of our babies, Ju and mine. She held Nettie on her lap first and looked at Ju and said, not another. Don't have another child. Oh, no I thought. She took Elyse, they were a week apart. She looked at me and said, you can have as many as you wish. But not another for Julia. She could see the emotional strain that mothering is and giving wise greatgrandmotherly counsel. I should have said Grandma, do you really think so? She said, your husband is one of those helpful men, who is as much a part of the parenting as you. Like Milton, she referred to Uncle. This was a good man to them. I do have an understanding husband. They had seen many men in their 90+ years. I took this to heart, I had the blessing of Grandmother and Great Grandmother, but I was still committed to have only 2 children. Money was a very large part of my thinking. I really was just about one inch away from a post partum break,from the first(maybe everybody is), but there was nobody to tell. Hindsight is, as it were 20/20. There was nobody to scream to about the fear and the pain and the emotional upheaval. Just pray and "God will keep him in perfect peace..." People quote scriptures to women and men on the brink of emotional disaster. Be warmed and filled.
Is that what I needed? Instructions and blessing from the elder generation? Scriptures quoted over my head like incantations to keep the "devil" away. Mom! You will be alright, I made it, you will too. Everything was intense in the emotions. If you say that you are struggling, you are not trusting God. If you tell people that you need help they quote scripture at you. Who is there to bear the burdens. Truly, No one ever cared for me like Jesus. I had felt a bear like angry passion well up in myself when others touched my child. I was never the youngest child and had to let others hold my baby. I don't know these people and I don't agree with their child rearing. I wanted to get out! God, you have to help me deal with these people. God you have to help me deal with my heart of anger and jealousy. My husband is brother to all of these people and I have to share him with them. My baby is the niece of all of these people and I have to share her with them. I am angry and I don't know what to do about this. I consider it a win of the game because I didn't hit anybody. I didn't cuss out anybody or bless out anybody as Christians say. I had been taught to respect my elders and all of these people were my elders. What is my responsibility to them, Lord. I wanted to be with my family, but the responsibility of church and family stole me away from the people who meant the most to me. If I tell them how I feel, I would be renouncing my faith, it felt like. If I share my burdens with church people, I would be bad mouthing my inlaws. They weren't doing anything bad, just different. Between a rock and a hard place and there would be many more games that I wouldn't win, but the first game of the first set. I won. I kept my sanity, as it were. Always feeling on the brink, but never really able to tell anybody but Ben and God. Prayer and reading guided me into intense communion with my Lord, out of necessity. There is nobody else who cares for me like that. I still need instruction and the bearing of burdens, but God has a way of showering His care and lovingkindness and tender mercies inspite of my emotional upheaval. These are the struggles that makes a man of God learn the art and the gift of counsel. Constantly dealing with an on the brink wife and not giving up.
I wish that I could say that there was "Peace perfect peace, in this dark world of sin" I know the Blood of Jesus whispers peace within. I had emotional struggles so the diagnoses would be, that I must not be keeping my mind stayed upon Him. What else can a person do to keep your mind upon Jesus and find peace?

To the Caucasoid Mountains!

I have a bad habit of traveling to the ends of the earth in my mind when we have other responsibilities. There are so many allusions to the intentions of God in the names of the places that are in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It looks as though God brews His intentions in good literature. How much we miss when we are afraid to carry our Bibles with us into the mines of good literature for fear.

Confessions of a MOMMABOSSY!^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Thoughts on the development of Femininity in our family, eg. Tom Brown's School Days movie!

For the Love of femininity.

Ms. Brown you have a lovely daughter.

Tom Arnold’s wife is the feminine ideal from bygone days. The symbol must be studied and devoured and spit out in contemporary garb. Not stupid! Trusting. What God does to build up a man that is cared fo and relied upon. He directs. The devil sends all of his ammunition against him. Here is a man of principles. He also takes the time to teach others to do this also.
He doesn’t need a devouring contentious wife. “Nyaaaa, I need, I want, gimme, gimme.” He needs support. Do you take this man? Do you support his principles? She said I do as clearly as the first day they were wed. Do you, Jayne take Ben to be thy lawful wedded wife?
If I disagree with a particular issue on the table; it is not my part to discuss it in front of Mr. Brown, so to speak. (from the movie) It is my part to be supportive and comforting in distresses and do my correcting where others cannot catch my sicknesses. God holds the heart of the king. Do I still believe that? I do. Do I still believe that God holds our hearts and can convince my leaders of right? I do.
God has a schematic that He is creating. God has a plan and a blueprint, so to speak that He has coordinated and designed. I am not the designer, just a spectator. If God allows me to be the wife of Obed Edom and Tom Arnold and serve God in the humble prayers and study, I will be most grateful. I must, add to my faith the process of faithfulness and mercy. Those are character traits much dimmed in my judgmental attitude. God has an illustrious balance and the qualities of mercy and faithfulness are feminine though not exclusively. Family does much to breed the human quality of loyalty, if there are loving attitudes and sometimes, even if not. God is faithful and masculine but in the family, Judgment belongs to the husband and mercy usually belongs to the wife. It was beautifully danced out in fictional array in that movie Tom Brown. Just one glimpse of the merciful picture of the spouse of the headmaster and that could comfort the deepest blows of body and soul.
The body can be trained to write in perfect penmanship when the heart is broken in a million pieces but the soul cannot be trained to hang on. It is the beauty of the comfort of women, exemplified toward Jesus before the crucifixion and other places where the comfort of women has brought someone from the edge of disaster.
I know that it can push someone over the edge also. I must try to add much more mercy for the heavy handedness that I often have a crushing influence on my children, may henpeck my sons.









Now look at the love picture in Sweethearts, with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy and that is the part we play in front of the angels. They have no part in that kind of love!

Deuce, first game of the first set. The First Thanksgiving.

My first baby happened to be one of those adorable holiday babies. November 9th was just enough time for her to be ready for her first showing at holiday time. Dresses were donned, mother was ready. Where do we go? Living in NY, it had never been a problem to visit both families for the holidays. First we go to the Walkers for the food spread and then to my family to shake off the excess pounds:). That used to be as easy as pie. 1+2=3 and it shouldn't be any more difficult to carry 3 across the city, from stem to stern than it was to carry 2. She is little and she is a "good" baby. How hard could it be?
Ugh! I certainly lost that point. I am not ashamed to say so. Perhaps, I was starting the post-partum, even then, unwittingly. Nobody could have told me not to do it. When I look at the replays in my mind I am screaming, Don't do it! Take a sick day! You are going to lose your mind.
Not only did I lose my mind! I lost my health and ended up with a very severe infection from trying to nurse in unorthodox positions while sitting in Aunt Meg's small bathroom. I had not negotiated the feedings into my thought processes. Of course I am a naturalist and there will be no problem nursing with family. My mom did it all the time and everywhere.
I hadn't remembered that his was a family of mostly men. I felt awkward and sick and the baby cried and cried to nurse, more because she was overwhelmed by all of the new faces.
Where's my baby? Where am I? What are we doing? Why are we here? I felt aweful and we had only been at baby's first Thanksgiving for 10 minutes.
Sharing my baby would be a lifelong journey. I would learn lesson after lesson about God's mercy and grace which was just beginning at that session of spin the mommy. I came out of there busy and Truly Thankful! Sickness does that to people and don't try to take a new mommy's baby out of her hands in the first weeks.