Nancy Wilson's Blog, page 31

Friendly Locals

So anyways, I need to tell you about this sign I made. For my kids. For Christmas. Which makes no apparent sense. And also I should tell you why the couch I reupholstered is no longer in my living room, and why it has a tear in the arm (look close – it’s there), and why it’s looking generally a bit more dilapidated than it has any right to look after such a short space of time.

We have this awesome old room in our upstairs which apparently (back in its Victorian days) used to be the sleeping porch, and what with one thing and another, it needed re-thinking. A while back, it was featured in Studios Magazine – and this is what (one corner of it) looked like at that time.

I had all my art stuff, sewing stuff, Amoretti stuff in that room. But I’ll be real. When the photos were taken for the magazine shoot, that was the one and only time the room was ever tidy. (Which gave me great hopes that that’s how it is for ALL magazine shoots, but somehow I doubt it.) Since it was kind of the “extra” room, it also ended up turning into the dumping ground for all the random bits and bobs in our lives that didn’t really have a home. And because it was upstairs, that made it extra convenient to just drop things off in there, shut the door, and then forget about them. Eventually we found ourselves having to rope up with a climbing harness to safely negotiate the dangerous terrain as we walked through the room.

Then it was time to think about Christmas. We had this big extra room that was technically just for my stuff – and I reckoned it was time for me to stop being such a hog. We decided to re-do the room as a sort of hang-out room for our five kids, and keep it a secret until Christmas morning. First things first, I needed to change the color. Can’t make a room for a 14 year old boy to hang out in that’s bright turquoise. So I decided to go for a grey. That would be nice and mellow and neutral and not too gender specific. The room has tons of windows, but there’s one big blank wall. I  wanted a huge, groovy sign on it- one that lit up.

Changing the subject, but not really, I should tell you a story about our kids. The first year that we were living in England (six years ago now!) our kids started randomly saying – at entirely inappropriate moments – that they were friendly locals. It never made any sense. For instance, in the middle of breakfast, one Merkle child would look at another Merkle child and say, “Hey! We’re friendly locals!” to which the second Merkle child would reply, “Haha! Friendly locals!” Ben and I were stumped. The context never warranted the remark whatsoever. After several weeks of this, I had finally realized that they said it whenever they noticed they were doing the same thing as someone else. “We’re both wearing blue shirts! We’re friendly locals!” or, “You asked for chocolate chips on your porridge too! We’re friendly locals!” Of course, it still made no sense – but at least I had narrowed it down in my mind to them saying it whenever they matched someone else. (Bonus points for anyone who knows in which book ND Wilson casually drops a reference to this! Guesses?)

Then one day, it clicked. At around this same time, the kids had gotten really into Tintin. Now that the movie’s come out, you’re all familiar with Tintin, right? Remember Thompson and Thomson? The bumbling detective twins?

Well at some point in one of the stories, Thompson and Thomson are disguised as natives in some foreign land or other, I don’t remember which one. Egypt maybe? Anyway, Tintin bumps into them, and immediately sees through their disguise. He says, “Hello Thompson and Thomson,” to which they reply, “We’re not Thompson and Thomson! We’re friendly locals!” My kids understood this to mean, “We are twins and we match.” So, whenever they matched in any way with anyone else, they called attention to their status as friendly locals. I was epically pleased with myself when I finally figured that one out.

This has stuck with us. We Merkles still frequently refer to ourselves as friendly locals if we, for instance, order the same dish at a restaurant.

So when the moment arrived (the moment which inevitably comes into each of our lives) when I decided I desperately needed to make a big old light-up sign for the new hang-out room, what better thing to put on it than Friendly Locals? This is also because I tend to dislike enormous statement pieces, no matter how cool they may look, which don’t have any relevance to anything. I knew I wanted it round, and I knew I wanted a metal rim on it. But I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how I was going to come up with a metal edging for a huge round sign. I also didn’t want to spend any money on it. So imagine my glee when I noticed a big round white metal hoop sitting outside the Salvation Army. I zoomed in and purchased it for $2.00. It was the edge of an old patio table that had lost its middle somewhere along the line. And it was the perfect size – 4 feet across. I scored a scrap of wood at the lumber yard (the lovely lumber yard men gave it to me for free because it was just a cover sheet for their other plywood!) and there we had it! I painted on the sign, we drilled holes and installed lightbulbs, popped it into the frame, and that was it!

And since this post is already a mile long, I’ll just have to tell you another day about how the rip in the arm of the sofa came to pass . . . at roughly 2:00 a.m. Christmas morning while Ben and I were peeling open the upholstery and Ben was sawing through the frame of the sofa so we could get it through the door and into the room . . . and maybe I’ll get around to taking a pic of my awesome new couch in my living room . . . one that I did NOT upholster myself. But right now I have to go do about a metric ton of laundry because I do not have the same successes and victories in my laundry lifestyle as my sister.

January 19: Indwelling

Col. 3:16 “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.”

Ephesians 3:17 “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.”

To dwell means to take up residence.  Look at these verses above. We are to invite (let) the Word live in us richly. We invite Christ to take up residence in our hearts. We are not asking Him to drop by for a visit. We are asking Him to move in. When He does, He brings all the riches of the fullness of grace with Him, and the result is that our minds and hearts are taken up with Him.

But we need renewal. We need daily cleansing, daily indwelling, daily renewal. Just like our homes need constant cleaning and upkeep, so do our hearts.  Our homes are subject to daily wear and tear as well as long-term decay. We have to stay on top of it, constantly cleaning and renewing, straightening and scrubbing. In the same way, our hearts are subject to daily distractions and disobedience. They need constant tidying, constant oversight, especially if Christ is residing in our hearts.

Daily renewal means seeking Him daily, keeping His residence in order. Renewal means asking His Holy Spirit to fill us and convict us of sin (which is like pointing out the garbage behind the fridge). Renewal enables us to live in a manner worthy of the One Who has taken up residence.

When you are cleaning your home, clean your heart at the same time. How tidy is your heart? Any bad smells coming out of the closet? Ask for renewal, daily renewal. Practice the presence of Christ. Live as though you really believe that He resides in your heart. Speak to Him when you are doing the dishes. Sing to Him as you drive your kids to school. Praise Him in the morning and at night. Let His Word dwell in you richly.

Put out the welcome mat. Invite Christ to take up residence in your heart by faith. Open wide the doors of your heart and welcome Him in. Then live as though He really has come. That is living by faith.

January 18: Proverbs 3:11-12

My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,

Nor detest His correction;

 For whom the Lord loves He corrects,

Just as a father the son in whom he delights.

This portion of Proverbs is some serious comfort food for the children of God! Do not despise the chastening of God – because you know what it means? It means that God delights in you. God chastens those He loves.

Have you been corrected by God? Have you been convicted? Has your heart been heavy over some petty sin you have fallen into? Has God pressed on your heart the weight of your own sin? Well, isn’t that Good news? If God didn’t love you, you wouldn’t have that weight. Because He loves you he is giving you this opportunity to walk away from it. 

The other day we had stopped at a small restaurant with our kids. We were all seated in the back corner right by the bathroom, and there was a family with a young son beside us. The son began throwing a monster tantrum and after some time of the mother being angry at him, she hauled him off to the bathroom. He proceeded to continue on with an epic festival of indulgence in the bathroom. Shrieking and screeching and yelling I hate you’s and much more. The father just sat beside us and looked straight ahead, completely ignoring it. It is safe to say that the minds of my children were blown.

This is the good news. When you throw a spiritual fit, your Father does not ignore you. When you have a spiritual meltdown, your Father is not silent. Whe you are screaming in the bathroom of your soul – your Heavenly Father is not leaving you to it. Rejoice in that. When God chastens you, you know He loves you. When you feel guilty over the snippy thing that you said to one of your kids, you can take comfort in the fact that your Heavenly Father is not interested in leaving you to yourself. He loves you. His discipline of you is a manifestation of that love.

So take this kind of correction as evidence that God loves you. And respond to that love with repentance. Respond to that love by running to Him. It does not honor God to dwell on our sin, and in our sin. It honors Him to flee from it into His arms. You are loved children. Rejoice.

January 17: Matthew 11:4-6

“Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see:

The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.

And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.”

As I was reading through Matthew the other day, this section jumped out at me. John the Baptist sends someone to inquire about Jesus and this is the message that  Jesus sends back to him. Now of course the content is no surprise as we are accustomed to the works of Jesus during his earthly ministry. It was that last line that I don’t remember having really noticed before. Blessed is he who is not offended by me.  Looking back over this list, and we see something interesting. The lame. The blind. The lepers. The dead. The deaf. The poor. And finally – the unoffended.

These were not society’s finest. We might look at the list and think in pretty picture Bible, felt- board approved images. But that wasn’t  the reality. A leper would have been obviously unclean and an outcast, the dead also would have been plainly unclean. The blind and deaf and poor were probably all beggars – the sort of people you step past, look past, and certainly don’t fellowship with.
This is far more like Jesus hitting the alleys in a really depressed area of a really depressed city. Healing the people who have been cast aside as a lost cause. The meth addicts and prostitutes. The drifters. Jesus went so far as to heal a few people who were already physically dead.
So these people have obviously all been blessed by Jesus. But there is one more category of person whois mentioned. All the people who didn’t have this kind of problem. The people who didn’t survive by begging. The people who had possessions, had homes, had standing in the world. The people like us. The people who watched what he did. Blessed are they who are not offended by me.
Blessed are the people who are not offended by the people that God has touched. Not offended by who Jesus sees promise in. Not offended. Not offended that our work isn’t what Jesus spends time admiring. Not offended that he sought the lowest. Not offended by the people that He brings to our table. Not offended by the reality of forgiveness and grace. Not offended by the people that radical grace will bring into our lives. Not offended by the work of Christ.
Obviously as Christian parents. we are working to bring up our children to honor God in their hard work, in their faithfulness. We do not want to bring up our children to be society’s lowest – the outcasts. So there is one category in this list that we want to be in, and that we should want our children to be in. Those who are not offended by the work of Jesus. Those who have a heart for the lost. Those who look on the work of Christ, and are blessed.
My Grandfather, a faithful evangelist, told us that many years ago he learned that there were more people who wanted into heaven than Christians who wanted them there. As parents we need to be sure that we are not offended by the work of Christ. That we are not trying to keep our children from seeing his radical grace because it offends us. We want our children to be equipped to labor in the harvest. Equipped by the blessing of not being offended by Christ, by those He chooses to keep company with.

Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” Matthew 9:37-38

January 16: Proverbs 25:28

Whoever has no rule over his own spirit

Is like a city broken down, without walls.

There are many ways to lose your self control, but I think it is interesting that one of the most frequent is to lose your self control in anger at others. We lose self control and lash out. But God tells us that that destroys our own walls. When we go out on the warpath in an ungodly way against others, what we are breaking down is our own home. When we lose self control and go wildly, inappropriately critical of ourselves, we are breaking down our own home. When we indulge our desire to snark at or criticize others, we are tearing down our own walls.

The wise woman builds her house,

But the foolish pulls it down with her hands. Proverbs 14:1

I am struck by the fact that as mothers, we are to be sheltering (of course within reason) our children – and to do that, we need to have strong walls. One of the greatest ways that we can protect our children is by maintaining control of ourselves. If you want your children to be secure, control yourself.

We want to be teaching them to control themselves – building up the walls of their own cities. The best way that we can do this for them is  by doing it ourselves. Set an example. Maintain your own borders.

This is not a call to be heartless and stoic. Do not be a city broken into. When your city has strong walls there is time for other things. Think of this quite literally – a city without walls. A city where anyone can walk all over it. A city where enemies have all of the access that friends have. Then think of a walled city. Inside there can be gardens, there can be culture. Inside, there is peace. Enemies are not able to trample on things that are being done within the walls.

 

 

 

 

Volunteers Who Don’t

A volunteer is someone who is under no obligation or requirement to perform a task, but freely and willingly steps forward and offers to do it. I imagine that many churches (if not all) could not get nearly as much done without the help of many volunteers. These folks often work behind the scenes, and so they do not get much recognition for their work. But they don’t do it for that reason anyway (we hope) but simply because they love to be useful, to chip in and donate their time and effort in countless ways.

Two kinds of volunteers come to mind: the first is someone who simply steps in to do things informally as they come up; the second is the one who signs up when the list is passed around or the email plea for help is sent out. Both provide valuable services to the church family or community in which they live.

So what am I getting at with all this prelude about volunteers? I am warming up to address a couple of troubles with volunteers. The first trouble is the undue pressure some feel to volunteer. They are motivated by guilt, so they say they will do something because they want to be known by others as a giving person. (Don’t we all?) But guilt is a crummy motivator, and they later regret that they committed themselves to whatever job it was. The other trouble with feeling this pressure is that it causes some to volunteer, not out of guilt, but so they will feel good about themselves. This too is a crummy motivation. And last in this category is the person who volunteers because it is too hard to say, “No.” This person may get in way over her head.

It’s best to be the volunteer who simply wants to help. Nothing fancy. No guilt. Just a person who enjoys helping out, cooking a meal, helping a friend, whatever.

So let’s move past all the crummy motivators and say that we now have an army of volunteers who signed up simply  because they wanted to. If you are the organizer of this event, you are in a very vulnerable position, and you had better pray that your volunteers are the kind who follow through. Faithful: that’s the kind you want.

This can be a dangerous position to be in, and many of you who are event planners can probably tell some gruesome stories about volunteers (even sweet Christian ladies) who flaked on you at the last minute and left you in the lurch. Can I just say, “Don’t be that person!”

When someone has volunteered freely to do something for which they will not be paid (or even if they will be paid), they sometimes feel free to drop the ball, not show up, cancel at the last minute, or simply change their mind. Oh, well, I’m just a volunteer so it won’t matter. Oh. Yes. It. Will.  “Let your yes be yes; and your no, no” (James 5:12). And don’t forget Proverbs 33 which says, “She who said she would bring cookies to the meeting and faileth to do so is as vinegar to the teeth.” Something like that. (Of course, in the event of something serious interfering, you should get a sub. Find someone to take your place and make sure they will follow through.)

When you have volunteered to babysit or clean or bring a meal or bake cookies or provide some other service, you are truly obligated to fulfill your responsibility. You can’t say, “Well I didn’t promise.” Your word is the same thing. Someone is counting on you. It is not optional. You may not be a no-show, you may not flake out, you may not change your mind because something more fun came up for you to do or because you just don’t feel like it today after all. The point is that we should be able to count on one another. We shouldn’t have to hope that everyone who said they would bring a main course to the potluck will really do it.

You might be surprised how often this happens. College-aged women are particularly notorious for this. They have an idea that they want to be involved in all kinds of things, helping out and getting to know the women in the church, so they say they will be there, and then they aren’t there. But they are not the only ones who fail to follow through.

There’s something very wrong with this. It should not be. So this is just a little friendly reminder. If you are unreliable and you know you are, do not volunteer until you are ready to follow through. Just bow out. Let the sign-up sheet pass you by. People might quit asking you anyway once the word gets out that you don’t do what you say you will do. It is much better to not obligate yourself, and then just jump in to help at the last minute, than to say you will be there and not show up. In fact, I think Jesus told a parable about this very thing.

Finally, I have to say a word about the event organizer who is left in a pickle. No one wants to be blind-sided, but sometimes you just can’t anticipate what will go wrong. Send reminders to your volunteers before the event. Prepare yourself for a curve ball by praying ahead of time. It would be nice to have a back-up, emergency plan if someone you are counting on bails out, but that entails having a double set of volunteers, which doesn’t seem realistic. But it might be wise to get more than you need, just in case. But no matter what, don’t get bitter or resentful. Let love cover it. Being irritated just spreads the irresponsibility around further. Live and learn. Heads up next time. Take it as a sermon to yourself about how important it is to do what you said you would do. Teach your children to follow through. Don’t let them grow up to be wafflers or flakes. Don’t give them excuses to be no-shows. We all have failed at some time in this area, so be humble and gracious. Living in community means there will be bumps and spills. That is life! Don’t be surprised by this. In fact, glory in it. God is over all, even over your best-laid plans.

My Laundry Stresstimony

I think I’m finally ready to share the dramatic story of my laundry. If you are a person who has never struggled with the laundry, this is not for you. If the laundry is something that you are afflicted by, I hope that in my story you can find a little hope. This may turn into a very long blog post. I warned you.

Of course I’m joking about this, except not really. The laundry is something that I am not naturally good at. I mean I am fine with doing it – the part that I struggled with for years was the always doing it. Then sometimes I struggled with half doing it. Churning loads through, but somehow always having baskets of clean laundry crumpling themselves up around the house. There was a long time when one basket was always about half full of lost socks and other oddments, with loads of other clothes cycling over the top of it.

And we all know what even a moment’s pause on the laundry results in. Devastation. A school morning with nothing but a pair of your sister’s leggings. A Sunday morning that involves febreeze on the clothes. Sadness, panic, and fear. Bad smells. Crying late at night. At some point I noticed that I didn’t want to wash any clothes I didn’t like to see my children in. This is not to say that I am not doing that all the time still, but I noticed a problem, and took steps to change it.

If you hang on to every item of clothing because you might need it, you will need it because there will not be pressure to wash clothes because there will always be more clothes. Then the only clothes you think are cute get worn and promptly buried at the bottom of the hamper. Then you keep on washing load after load of clothes that you don’t like. It was around the time I noticed this that I massively streamlined and got every kid a couple pairs of jeans and a few other key pieces. It is for this reason my girls often match at church. Not so much because I am really into matching, but because if I just buy everyone a pair of brown boots for the season, then I know that we have the rest of an outfit while I am out shopping. None of this wondering who among my daughters has a pair of shoes that might match this. When I find a dress that I like, and the price is right, it is far more effective to just buy four. They are getting old enough that I am changing things up a bit, but this is mostly how I work. Also, I really dislike buying a piece without the whole outfit in mind. I have had enough of random darling skirts that never connect with the rest of their outfits to last a lifetime.

Because I am not into having tons of clothing on hand for each child, I switched to a system of no dressers. Dressers, I found, were causing us to stumble. There is a lot of room in a dresser to put things you don’t want. Also, dressers lend themselves to stuffing. They lend themselves to losing tights and cute skirts until people don’t fit them. There is a lot of room for sneaking in during nap time with a towering pile of clothes in your arms and not wanting to wake a child up, so you just put it on top. Until tomorrow when you will knock it over, and then stuff it into the wrong drawer.

Because of all of these hugely important issues, this is what my kids’ closets look like. I need to make new stickers for their bins, as these have mostly been peeled off (it’s been a long time now). The big bins on top are for PJ’s and the little pink baskets are for skivvies. I keep all of the church clothes in one closet, with all of the tights and sweaters and special clean t-shirts. School clothes are in the laundry room closet so these are just our normal play clothes. The stickers on the front are wonderful for the kids – because I have them put away their own clothes when they are clean. It is a very simple job, and clearly one they are capable of. I should mention that there are more clothes for these girls waiting to be put away – but not that many. We keep it simple.

 

Back to the actual washing and folding of the clothes. I don’t believe in hampers in the bedrooms. Too much room for evil. I would have this feeling that the house was together, and then discover to my horror that there was actual about 4 tons of dirty laundry stuffed around the house. I’m pretty sure that hampers were for a time when the maid came through every day and gathered your chamberpot. In our very modern home, we only use the one big hamper in the laundry room. Actually, in the morning everyone throws their clothes on the stairs, and then they make their way to the laundry room, the earlier the better. Yes. This is a huge fiber drum.

The only things that doesn’t go in here are the dishcloths and cleaning rags. Those hang over the edge of a plastic basket until they are dry. That way they never stink, and I wash them separately. You know you are in the grip of an idea when you are posting pictures on the blog of your dirty dishcloths. Yes. This is what they look like.

So. The big things that have revolutionized my relationship to the laundry were the removal of all extra baskets. It is tempting to buy extra baskets the more you feel the laundry stress. But the truth is that baskets only make you think you are getting something done. In reality you are just making messes. I kept having baskets with maybe three things to be dry cleaned, a few shirts to save for the fabric, some old stationary, and probably some batteries. There was the system of bringing a laundry basket around the house with you, telling yourself that you were about to fold it. On the dining room table, on the couch, on the kitchen counter, whatever. There was apparently also a lot of room to sin with excess laundry baskets too.

I now own two and a half laundry baskets. They fit exactly in a line in my laundry room, and I leave them there until they are full. The big rule of my system is that the entire load is folded as it comes out of the dryer. I fold it and put it in a basket. There is no sorting. I leave the socks on the dryer door while I work my way through it, and when I get to the end of the load,I toss any lone socks in the enormous bucket we keep for this purpose.

When the three baskets are full (which does not happen every day – more like every two days), I take them all upstairs and sort them into piles on my bed. I call the kids and ask them to take their piles to their rooms and put their clothes away.

I think the biggest thing that I have come to grips with is that the laundry will not ever really be done, so the system needs to reflect that. I don’t want to feel guilty that I didn’t put the clothes away yet again – so I made the system work on an every-couple-days basis. I hated having clean rumple clothes, so I quit ever letting them into the basket unfolded. Endless baskets never helped us, so we got rid of them.

I know you have all read this breathlessly. It’s a real thriller. Honestly though, it thrills me. After a lot of years of laundry restlessness, I have finally put down some roots. The next step is to make my laundry room cute.

January 15: Hard Hearts

Tender hearts, large hearts, and wise hearts are all biblical descriptions of feminine strengths. But on the flip side, we can also develop hard hearts. To keep our hearts soft and open to the Lord, we need to be aware of some of the things that can harden our hearts. Here are just three.

1. Women stumble when they trust their own hearts.Proverbs 28:26 says, “He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered.” Our hearts are instructing us all the time. What is your heart telling you? Is it wisdom or foolish talk? Beware what you are listening to. For just one example, women can fall into self-condemnation while listening to their own hearts. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, yes. But He does not condemn and accuse. That is what the devil does. Learn to tell the difference so you can ignore doubts and accusations. Our hearts are not always the best judges of such things. Don’t listen to foolish talk. Speak wisdom to your own heart instead.

2. Women should be good learners (1 Tim. 2:11), but they should beware deception. Eve was learning from the serpent all right, but she was learning lies. She put her trust in a lie rather than in the living God.  If we believe a lie, our hearts are hardened, and we become deceitful ourselves. Look what happened to Eve. Though Wisdom is a woman in Proverbs, Folly is a woman also. When a woman is foolish, she is an easy target for deception. A woman can be led by her own foolish heart to do unwise things.

3. Women can stumble when they think more about their outward appearance than their inward appearance (their hearts). “For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). Would we rather be known for our outward appearance or for our inward qualities? Women are tempted to put all their eggs in one basket. Beauty begins on the inside and works its way out, not the other way around.

Of course there are many other ways our hearts can harden.  Psalm 95:8 says very simply, “Do not harden your heart.” Rather, we are to  “Trust in the Lord with all your heart” (Prov. 3:5-6). That is the best heart-tenderizer.

My Sock Odyssey

I have finally knit myself a pair of socks. Years ago I was talking to my knitting friend Casey and we were bemoaning how people are always taking bad pictures of their feet because they have knit socks. Even at the time I had a sense of foreboding. I think I said something about how we will probably do it too someday. Well, now one of us has. Sorry, Case. Let you down. In the process I also discovered that it is incredibly hard to take pictures of your own feet, but that you feel compelled to try.

I could write a very long paper on the story of these socks. I could. But no one wants to read it. The highlight are as follows.

1) Luke buys me the book with the pattern in it (Sock Knitting Master Class) for last Christmas. I try twice to start these socks, but I can’t stomach it. I am morning sick with Shadrach. Knitting is gross. He bought me some beautiful sock yarn that was in my stocking (I love him), but the pattern I wanted to make was three colored. The yarn I had in more than one color was the wrong gauge. Oh well. Wait a year.

2) Decide that it is really time. I have knit a lot of sock things – baby socks, toddler socks, and Christmas stockings, but no adult socks. I would like to be making socks in the background all the time, but I am pretty sure I never will. Find some random yarn to use at a local store and buy it. Not crazy about the colors, but it is what was available. I am knitting adult socks on principle. I do not expect to like them.

3) Slow poke on the socks. Knit here or there for a little bit. Make a number of other things in the meantime. Get through the heel and down towards the toe thinking that I’m not crazy for it, but I will finish the second one. I will. I will not flake off. Mostly dislike the sock all the way until I close the toe.

4) Love the finished sock! Cast on the second! Cruise through it. Finish the second sock super late at night while waiting for my husband to get home from a trip. I am feeling partly pressured by the yarn that is in the mail for me. I will want to start those socks right away! Weave in a couple of ends, but not all. Go to bed with socks on (this breaks every rule in my life). Luke comes home and gets in bed and says “WHAT! You are wearing SOCKS!” he pulls back the covers and says “Awesome. You finished them. Wear on. Goodnight.”

5) I wore them to Sabbath dinner, warned my family that I would be unbearable. Made mom and Bekah try them on. Made sure everyone saw them. Love them to pieces. Took lots of cankle pictures of my feet in them.

6) Post a blog post about the journey.

 

January 14: Proverbs 28:13

He who covers his sins will not prosper,

But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.

Like many Proverbs, this one cuts right to the heart of our human reflexes. We try to cover our bad attitudes with a smile, our unkindness with excuses, our ingratitude with other peoples sins, our sins against our children with their sins against us. Whenever we sin, the first reaction of a human heart is to cover it up. Tear the leaves off of some nearby trees and try to hide from God. But here – God lays out for us how that will not work. Confessing your sin and forsaking it is the path to mercy. 

Often times the reason that we don’t want to confess and forsake our sins is that we don’t want to admit that they were sins – we are too proud to want mercy. This can be  especially true of petty sin. Why even stop to acknowledge it when you can pretend that it didn’t happen? But if we want our souls to prosper, we need to practice confessing and forsaking our sins.

I feel like this verse sums up a very common problem that seems to happen in mothering circles. There are people who endlessly post pictures of their perfect lives on Pinterest and blogs, and they appear to have never struggled with anything in their lives. Then there are the people who want to be realistic. But the realism often hinges on sin. The realism is all about how we shouldn’t feel bad if we yelled at the kid because everyone does it. The realistic side is full of bitterness at the kinds of work that mothers do, bitterness at the fact that other mothers appear to be doing better than we are. They must be hiding something!

The problem here is that those are not our only two options. We are not invited to either live with hidden sin, or live with public sin. We are invited to mercy. So being “real” is totally healthy – so long as you are forsaking the sin. But often times women want to gather together to tell everyone that they sin instead of taking it to God. Airing your sin is not dealing with it. Confession, followed by forsaking it is dealing with it.

There is no need to pretend like your life is free of sin. We are all human, and we should not be trying to hide that fact from each other or God. But there is a step beyond that. Get it right. If you sin, when you sin, run for mercy. Do not try to sweep it under the “It’s crazy being a mom” rug. Do not “confess” things to your friends, and not to God.

Confession of sin is a foundation of blessing. If you do not feel like your soul is prospering, look at what you may be trying to hide from God. If you aren’t certain what is wrong, open your hands, and ask God to show you. God is mercy, and He loves to forgive.