Margaret McSweeney's Blog, page 22

No Cure Like Family and a Chance to WIN!!!

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No Cure Like Family

Leave a comment below for your chance to win a copy of Mother of Pearl: Luminous Lessons and Iridescent Faith! Winner will be announced next Friday!

To read more about Mother of Pearl: Luminous Lessons and Iridescent Faith and to purchase your copy, visit the bookstore.

Win a copy of Mother of Pearl! #motherhood #books #giveaway @MargaretMcSweeney
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A Gentle Word | Liz Tolsma

Have you ever heard kids fight? They can be nasty to each other. The call each other names and taunt and tease. They are merciless.

I remember my mother telling me, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” I never bought into that. I was the nerdy kid that was picked on all the time, and the scars run deep. Each time I hear name calling, I cringe.

The Bible agrees with me. (Or better yet, I agree with the Bible.) “A gentle word turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” Proverbs 15:1. It can be so difficult to do. In the heat of the moment, the climax of the battle, it’s important to win. You pull out your ace in the hole and hit your sparring partner with your best shot.

That doesn’t solve the problem. Often, it makes it worse. The injured party will fight back and so it goes, on and on.

Have you ever stopped in that moment and thought about the words that were set to explode from your mouth? Have you ever thought about changing them? Instead of slashing with the sword of your tongue, try a gentle word. It may require an apology or an admission of wrong on your part. Oh, that is so difficult to do. We want to win the fight. At all costs.

The NIV translates Philippians 4:5 as, “Let your gentleness be evident to all.” The ESV says, “Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.” Gentleness and reasonableness go hand in hand. And they are to be displayed in our lives.

Speaking a gentle word in a hot situation shows our love for God and our love for our fellow man. Whether we are dealing with our spouse, our children, or a cranky boss or coworker, we must remember that our Christian life is always on display.

What did Jesus do when he was confronted by an angry mob? The Bible records one instance where they were mad enough to stone him. Did he turn and slay them with his words? He could have. He would have been well within his rights. But we are told that he slipped away.

When the soldiers placed the crown of thorns on his head and mocked him, he could have called down fire and brimstone on them. But he didn’t. He stood silently and took the punishment for all of the rash words we have said.

Speaking a gentle word in a hot situation shows our love for God and our love for our fellow man.Next time you find yourself confronted with tense situation, take a deep breath, say a prayer for courage and wisdom, and speak a gentle word.

Show love for God and our fellow man, speak a gentle word. @MargaretMcSweeney @LizTolsma
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Liz Tolsma has lived in Wisconsin most of her life, and she now resides next to a farm field with her husband, their son, and their two daughters. Add a dog and a cat to that mix and there’s always something going on at their house. She’s spent time teaching second grade, writing advertising for a real estate company, and working as a church secretary, but she always dreamed of becoming an author. She’d love to have you visit her at www.liztolsma.com.

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Music from a Mother’s Heart

This past week, my dear friend Vicky Wauterlek, founder of Hands of Hope (one of the charities supported by Pearl Girls) asked me to write an article for the newsletter to share the story of Ariik, a Lost Boy of Sudan. First of all, I must say this was an incredible blessing in my life to actually have the opportunity to interview Ariik and hear firsthand his heartwarming and heart wrenching story. Mere words on a page can never accurately capture the life experiences of such a brave young man. However, I hope that my article can at least provide a peephole into what Ariik’s life was like as one of the Lost Boys of Sudan.

During dusk in 1987, Ariik’s peaceful life in his Sudanese village was shattered while he was taking care of the family cow. He was five years old. The enemy attacked, and a hurricane of fire soon ripped through his village. More than twenty years later, Ariik can still hear the screaming and crying in his mind. Everyone was running away from the soldiers who were burning the village. Ariik was separated from his mother who was running with his younger brother wrapped in her arms. Thousands of children fled toward the forest. The majority of them were boys. They became known as The Lost Boys of Sudan. He was one of the youngest. The oldest was only eleven years old.

Ariik’s life journey would be a heartbreaking one. These children spent two months on the road walking to Ethiopia from Sudan. They had no shoes, no clothes, no food and no adults. When they arrived in Ethiopia, there was no place for them to live. However, the United Nations arrived and arranged the children into twelve groups with 2,000 in each group. The U.N. workers provided clothes, food, and shelter. Ariik even started going to school to learn math and English. Life settled down until four years later a civil war erupted, and once again the Lost Boys of Sudan had to run away. One of the most heart wrenching memories Ariik has of that time was crossing the crocodile infested Gilo River between Sudan and Ethiopia. It took three days for everyone to cross, taking turns on a flat wooden raft. When the enemy tracked them down and started shooting, a lot of children jumped into the river. Ariik witnessed a lot of his friends drown or be eaten by the crocodiles. He flung himself on the ground behind a tree until the spray of bullets stopped.

The Lost Boys made their way to Pochalla where they stayed for six months to hide from the enemy. All the food was gone. Their only sustenance was to eat leaves from trees in the forest. The Red Cross found The Lost Boys and provided food. But once again, the enemy attacked. Helicopters flew overhead. The bombs and the booms of guns pursued these children, who fled by foot. Months later, when they were in Lokichokio, the U.N. arrived and squeezed over a hundred children in each truck to transport them to Kakuma Kenya. Ariik remembers the sensation of not being able to breathe on that truck sandwiched between so many others. That was August 1992. On June 20, 2001, Ariik at last was sent to the United States. He was one of the 150 Lost Boys of Sudan who ended up in the Chicago area. It was his first time on an airplane and his first time in a nice home. Yet he constantly thought about his own home in Sudan. Was his mother still alive? He was working two jobs and sent people money to find his mother. In March 2006, she called Ariik. He remembers the conversation.

“Is it you Ariik?”

“Yes. It’s me. Is it you, mom?”

“Yes.”

“But how do I know? How many children do you have?”

“Only two children. One is with me.”

But Arrik still wasn’t sure if he was really speaking with his mother. Over twenty years had passed. How could he know that this woman was truly the one who he had been searching for? Then he knew what he must ask. Only his mother would know the answer.

“Can you sing the song to me that you sang when I was a little boy?”

His mother sang his special lullaby, and the music from her heart wrapped around Ariik and held him close from across the miles and from his past in Sudan. He was no longer lost. She had made up this song just for him. Before Ariik, his mother had given birth to nine girls. All of them died as babies. Her song for Ariik says “This child I hold is like a cup of water.”

In June 2008, he returned to his village for a visit. His mother immediately knew who he was and rushed toward him. They both cried in each other’s arms. Ariik’s mother tried to lift him up as she cradled her adult child who she thought had died.

Ariik brought gifts with him from Hands of Hope for this remote village in the southern part of Sudan. Using money from Wildflower, the monthly donation club, Hands of Hope provided some support: $2000 for hoes for their village, $10,000 for two brick making machines to make bricks for a school they are building, and $2000 from the goat card fund. Ariik had joined several other Lost Boy of Sudan to start the non-profit Lost Boys Rebuild Southern Sudan. He believes that education is so important for the future of Sudan’s children.

Ariik expressed his sincere gratitude for the women of Hands of Hope. “Women are everything. I respect the women of Hands of Hope like my own mother. Thank you very much for everything.”

To find out how you can get involved with Hands of Hope and the Wildflower Society please visit the website!

Hands of Hope and the Wildflower Society. @MargaretMcSweeney
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How To Respond When You Get in Trouble

After making two dreaded phone calls to parents about student behavior, my husband and I sat and talked about times we had gotten in trouble when we were in school.

His list was long, because he wasn’t exactly studious and self-controlled in high school. I said, Some students it doesn’t matter where you seat them, they’re going to reach out and affect the whole class with their behavior.

He confessed he had been one of those students.

I reminisced about my Mary Poppin years and how I was compliant in school and “practically perfect in every way”. Then I remembered that one time I got in trouble.

I was a freshman in college and foolishly registered for an 8:00 psychology class. My good friend and I sat right next to each other and made every effort to help keep each other awake, which is why we ended up playing a little slapping game one day.

The professor was lecturing, and right in the middle he said, Girls! and then kept right on lecturing.

I was mortified. I wasn’t the kind of girl who got in trouble in class.

I was telling my husband this story, and tears started rolling down my cheeks, as I remembered the humiliation of that moment.

I said, I still feel so bad that I caused trouble.

And there’s my husband on the end of the couch, listening to my story, with an incredulous look on his face that 26 years after the psychology class incident I’m still mourning getting in trouble.

As a teacher, here’s what I see. Most everybody gets in a bit of trouble now and then. Some students are disappointed in themselves when they’re called on something, and they give a sincere and immediate apology.

Then there are those students who look you in the face and feign innocence. If the innocence act doesn’t work, they start hurling out blame to other people as fast as they possibly can.

I’ve been guilty myself of both of those reactions before –sometimes deep regret and willingness to come right out and admit my fault. Sometimes stubborn back peddling and trying to force the guilt onto anyone but me.

Here’s an amusing irony. This blog post was due yesterday, and I got an email that it was late, asking was I going to post or did they need to find someone for that day?

I sat with fingers poised over the keyboard getting ready to rattle off as many really great excuses as I could think of for why I couldn’t do this post on time. But instead I just said, I’m so sorry.

Yuck. It feels bad to mess up.

But we all do. At least we can handle our mistakes with truth, regret, and sincere apology –followed by a determined effort to do the right thing in the future.

Is there any mistake you’ve made where you’ve been trying to defend yourself instead of taking responsibility?

Do you take responsiblilites for your mistakes? @MargaretMcSweeney @Christy_Fitz
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You Are God’s Poieo

Did you know that God did not just fashion and form you with His hands?  As spectacular as that is, He did even more.

More than giving you ten fingers and toes, which is definitely important, God sang into your heart a melody that only you can carry.

We are more than flesh and bone. We are more than what the mirror reflects back to us. But to see the intricacies we have to come back to our Creator. To see the more that’s inside of us waiting to be released, we need to lay aside our fears and lose ourselves in His love.

 When we do, we just might hear who we really are . . .

 You… are… my…. workmanship… {Ephesians 2:10}

{That word, workmanship, in Greek it’s poieo, which is where we get our word, “poem.”}

In other words, God calls us His poem.

That means, we don’t just live and die. We don’t have to get caught up in the motions of what it means to be a human on this earth, running our life like a well-oiled machine. In the name of effectiveness and proficiency, we forget to slow down, to listen.

We rarely ever dive into the caverns of His creativity because we are caught up in the deathly cycle of survival and achievement.

Our performance mentality keeps a constant buzz of activity around us. We get addicted to the hum of busyness and become deaf to the beat playing in the background. But it’s there . . . music rising from within our starving hearts.

God designed our lives to be a swaying dance, a rhythmic poem. Can you feel it? Can you hear it?

Our lives were created to flow like a piece of poetry, rather than operate like a productive factory.

We are more than useful, we are unique.

We are more than practical, we are a poem.

Our lives are laced with creativity, doused in the rhythms of heaven- complex layers of mystery and meaning all leading us deeper into His heart, where we become most alive.

Let’s choose to see our life as a work of art today. To slow down and get back into rhythm with Him. To emanate the beautiful poetry of our Father to a productive and busy world. To discover who we really are in His love.

God didn't just fashion and form you with His hands. @MargaretMcSweeney #CharissaSteyn #creative
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No Cure for Family

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Leave a comment below for your chance to win a copy of Mother of Pearl: Luminous Lessons and Iridescent Faith! Winner will be announced next Friday!

To read more about Mother of Pearl: Luminous Lessons and Iridescent Faith and to purchase your copy, visit the bookstore.

Win a copy of Mother of Pearl! #motherhood #books #giveaway @MargaretMcSweeney
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Are you new here? You might want to subscribe to my email updates or follow me on Facebook.

No Cure Like Family

Leave a comment below for your chance to win a copy of Mother of Pearl: Luminous Lessons and Iridescent Faith! Winner will be announced next Friday!

To read more about Mother of Pearl: Luminous Lessons and Iridescent Faith and to purchase your copy, visit the bookstore.

Win a copy of Mother of Pearl! #motherhood #books #giveaway @MargaretMcSweeney
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Zero Dollar Beauty

You may have heard the saying “beauty is only skin deep”. And that may be true to some extent, if you are referring simply to physical beauty. And even that is subject to the beholder’s opinion. Beauty, real lasting beauty, comes from within yourself. That got me thinking. Women spend a whole lot of money on “beauty treatments” and fancy clothes aimed at making us look beautiful or more beautiful. Imagine though if you could do that free of financial cost. I can think of three ways to achieve beauty without buying a single product.

Glowing Skin

You know all those products that promise you a glow? Well I was able to get that glow recently.

My husband came to me one day a couple of months ago and said “You have a glow about you. I’ve noticed that lately. I love it” I hadn’t seen him moon over me that way in a while. He looked so amazed at my “glow”. What product was I using? Prayer and the Bible. I was praying diligently for my husband, myself as a wife and for our marriage. I was deep diving into devotions and scripture. And somehow the connection between spending a lot of time with God played out on my face every day. I don’t think you can get that out of a jar, bottle or tube. And if you could, you’d probably never be able to afford it!

Beautiful Lips

What about lip products? Sure they may give you luscious lips. But if what crosses those lips are crass or cutting words, lies or even gossip, no amount of lipstick, stain or gloss is going to keep peoplefrom thinking your mouth is less than beautiful. I’m making an effort to memorize scripture about the tongue and the lips. This way when my perfectly crafted “Bit of Berry” lips begin to say something that is not uplifting or true, I can pull it back by reminding myself that “He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity.” (Proverbs 21:23 NIV)

The Perfect Outfit

Fashion magazines, online clothing websites and store displays could drive you into poverty. I’ve literally gone into a store, picked out all the stuff I’d love to have and tallied it up. It was way into the hundreds of dollars. Clearly, not in my budget. But a famous lady from the Bible has a fashion tip we’d be wise to implement. Proverbs 31:25 tells us she, The Proverbs 31 Woman, is clothed with strength and dignity. Those are “outfits” that will never go out of style. There is no worry about sizing. But one thing for sure, if you wake very morning and don your strength and dignity, you will always be well dressed.

I don’t know about you,  but I plan on using these beauty treatments to my advantage. You can’t go wrong with any of them. They won’t break your budget. They’ll never be out of stock. And you can use them no matter how young or old you are. There is no company or product that can say that. Now go get beautiful!

#Beauty treatments that won't cost you a dime! @MargaretMcSweeney @RaleighGirl
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The Plan

We were supposed to be off on an adventure at the moment. Not able to swing any major travel for this holiday, the three of us decided, about a week ago, to have a mini-excursion, heading out on a 2-day hiking trip. In some ways it was going to be actually more of an adventure than a standard vacation, as we were going to just play it by ear once we got there, so far as hiking plans and lodging goes, none of us knowing the destination point other than just by word of mouth. The idea of getting out of the city, however, was enough to energize us with an edge of carefree adventurous spirit thrown in there.

But when V called me, about an hour before we were supposed to leave, what I heard was not a question about our plans as I expected; instead I heard a voice speaking too quickly, so that I had to ask her to pause and start over so I could understand. She had begun to worry about several things on her agenda for the next few days, and about the prospect of going away. She didn’t think she should do it. Apparently whatever came out of my mouth was not what she imagined because she sounded surprised. “You’re not upset?” she asked. Not at all, I assured her. In fact, I had a few of my own misgivings that I just had not vocalized. We called M and decided together to cancel the plans.

Instead, we ended up picnicking in a park. In some ways this simple activity was actually a bit unusual, considering how green and different-from-our-usual-surroundings the park was.

Scrapping our intended plan, we each unpacked our hiking bags, repacked picnic daypacks, and biked to the park. On the way over there, as I enjoyed the peaceful thinking time, I realized that I was getting less peaceful in my thoughts and more intense as I talked to God. I began talking out loud, repeating a few prayers as I did so. Until this moment, I had not realized how much I needed to pray. Really pray. Busy-ness has a way of doing that—a way of crowding out prayer space from the mind and heart. Today being the first real day of un-planned-ness, then, my feelings of late were able to be really felt. And tears came.

Later, at the park, once we had gotten our goofy photo-taking urges out of the way, we sat down to our picnic. As we did, I talked of my bike ride over. And like I suspected it might, it resonated with V and M. In my case, it is due to the fact that another year’s door in my life is about to open. Or close, depending on how you look at it, so far as biological clocks go. And as the years pass, I grow increasingly aware of the ways in which my life’s path has not turned out the way I used to assume it would. For quite a few years, this didn’t really matter. But now time has crept up on me and I realize that at this point in time, I may never have some of the experiences I assumed were just a “normal” part of life.

I do not say this to have any sort of a pity party: in fact, I have a great deal of enviable aspects to life. But it is simply a matter of fact right now. And I say it matter-of-factly. So be it.

We encouraged each other then, M recalling a quote she had heard recently. As best as she could remember, it went like this: “You [i.e. human beings] are too insignificant to mess up God’s plan for you.” This hit a deep need in my heart, as one of my struggles, in this season of long-term vision-seeking, is the fear that I somehow messed up His plan for me. No, the day may not have gone as we planned. But it most certainly went as He planned.

At one point in the day V snapped a photo of me smelling the only rose we could find in the “rose garden. When I looked at the way the sun’s rays were shining down, I gasped and asked how she did that. She shrugged and said she always manages to capture the sun’s rays like that. She would . . . she has a way of capturing beauty.

Has busy-ness crowded out prayer in your life? @MargaretMcSweeney @GraceAnnaJ
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