Nancy Wilson's Blog, page 35

Three Weeks Until Advent

We got a gentle nudge from some gentle readers to get things fired up for Advent around here on Femina. Yes, indeedy, it is a comin’. In fact, kick off is three weeks from today.

Of course there are endless possibilities of what kinds of things you can do with your families to celebrate Advent. We (our family) have always viewed Advent as the pre-function to the BIG party on Christmas. (I know some Christians view Advent as a penitential season and withhold things. No criticism intended; we just don’t share that perspective.) So we start warming up on December 1, which happens to fall on a Saturday this year, which means we will light the first Advent Candle at Sabbath Dinner that night.

We have an Advent ring with four candles. Week one, we light the first candle and it burns through dinner and is blown out. The next week we relight candle #1 and then light candle #2 and so on. There are lots of ways you can tie in the colors of the candles with Christmas traditions. We use red and white. On Christmas we relight the previous four candles, and then we light a candle in the middle for Jesus. This is my job each week, so as my husband  goes over the weekly liturgy with the kids, I pop in on cue with the appropriate flame.

Since we all gather every Saturday night, and since there are sixteen grandchildren participating each week, it is actually quite a big event. The little kids are especially impressed with the anticipation of the coming celebration of Christ’s birth. Each year we think of ways to make a bigger deal out of this. Last year I finally found a nativity scene that I liked, so that was a big addition to my Christmas decorations.

Doug and I hand out the Advent gifts to the grandkids each week. You can read about some of this in old Advent posts back in the Everything Christmas category (just scroll down). Of course each of the families of our children have their own Advent celebrations as well. They have surprises for each day in December, while we just give out the goodies on Saturdays. Some of these surprises are notes about what they’re going to get to do that day, like bake Christmas cookies or go on a jammy ride.

What ever you do, keep a couple of things in mind. First, is your husband in the loop? Don’t write a huge script for him without consulting. He may have something entirely different in mind. You don’t want your Advent celebration to turn into an opportunity for a squabble or a bump or a misunderstanding.

Secondly, remember this is a get-to not a have-to. The kids should be excited about it and looking forward to it, not dreading it. If they view your Advent readings as a burden,something is dreadfully wrong. Switch it up. And whatever you do, make sure it involves lots of chocolate.

 

 

How fun is this?!

Here’s something totally fun – and personally, I can’t wait to read it! Dad’s new book is at the printers right now, and Canon is offering free shipping on pre-orders placed before November 19. So grab yourself a copy and get into the Christmas spirit! Here’s what Dad had to say about the book:

“The book is divided into five sections, or lessons. The first is entitled To Gain His Everlasting Hall, which addresses the beginining of the biography that laid the foundation of our salvation. The second is The Politics of Christmas, which would come as no surprise to Herod. The third section addresses some concerns that some may have about appropriate celebrations, and is called Celebrating Christmas Like a Puritan. For those who think this means “not very much,” you really need to get this book. And a case of eggnog. The fourth lesson is related and asks How Then Shall We Shop? Maybe our problem is that our Christmas celebrations don’t emphasize the material enough. We need to get the material out of materialism. And keep it. The last section is a collection of Advent readings to help your family walk through the celebration.”

 

5 Questions Wives Should Not Ask Their Husbands

Recently  there was a great little post about 5 questions husbands should ask their wives. Good questions.

Of course I starting thinking about what kind of questions we wives should ask our husbands, but more than that, I immediately thought of questions we should not ask them. Here are five questions a wife should never, in my opinion anyway, ask her husband. (And if you already have, I hope you just laugh at yourself now that I bring it up and not get mad at me.)

#1 Do you think I am fat?

What a terrible question! You should figure out the answer yourself by looking in the mirror or checking the scale, because if he says, ” Yes, dear, you are a little pudgy,” he’s automatically in the doghouse. How insensitive! If he says,”No” (like a good husband should), he may still be in trouble if you think he might be  fudging. Other questions in this category include, “Do I look old? Am I ugly?” Ugly? No. Stupid? Yes.

#2 Do you think Susie (or Sandy or Sally) is attractive?

If he says, “Yes, she’s gorgeous,” then what? Most of the time the next question is, “Do you think she’s prettier than I am?” Now we have gone from bad to worse! Now he’s in an impossible situation, and you are being way too self-absorbed. But if he hems and haws (“Well, I’m not really sure. She’s kind of pretty I think…”) then you’ll be tempted to think he’s not being honest. What possible good can come from having this conversation?

#3 Do you think I’m the most beautiful woman in the world, to you?

This is connected to question #2 above. Really? Seriously? Do husbands have to think their wives are more beautiful than any other woman? I don’t think so. And if you are really thinking of asking this, you are way, way too self-absorbed. A good husband should point this out.

#4 Did you miss me today?

“Ummmmm….” I am betting that, quite honestly, he did not miss you. But it does not follow that therefore he does not love you. This kind of question just sets him up to look bad. What a jerk. He didn’t miss his wife. Not once all day. The truth is that he probably didn’t have time to miss you, and he knew he would see you after work.

#5 If I die, will you marry again?

Yikes! Some wives not only ask this question, they make helpful suggestions. “Barbara would make a good wife. Why don’t you marry her if I die?” If, in God’s providence, you die before your husband, it is not your business to set him up with wife #2. I can see asking him to marry someone who will be nice to your kids. But beyond that, let him sort it out with God. He doesn’t need your help. It just is weird.

Okay, so what would be some good questions to ask your husband? Try these out for size. But remember, you asked. So prepare yourself not to react to any answers. Receive them graciously and thankfully.

1. How can I pray for you today? (This one is stolen right off of the above list I linked to.)

2. What’s your favorite thing about coming home?

3. What’s one thing I could help you with that would lighten your load?

4. Can you remember anything you’ve asked me to do that I have not done?

5. What would be your ideal day off?

 

 

 

Play Things

God is our Maker and He makes stuff, lots of stuff, for us to play in. He makes the wind and we play in it. He makes the leaves and we play in them. He astonishes us year after year with their impossible colors and momentary beauty. Each one designed, each one made from nothing. Why does He do this? For pleasure. For raking. For picture taking. For jumping.

One gorgeous fall when Nate was a senior in high school, he and his friend Travis (his future best man) were raking leaves in the front yard, making them into an outrageously enormous pile. They were probably supposed to be putting them in the big black bags. I can’t remember. But the pile they made must have been at least ten feet tall and just as wide. Once assembled,  they would back up across the yard, get a running start, and leap wildly into the air, landing smack in the middle of it. Then they would pick themselves up, rake it all back into a pile, and do it again. And again. Of course this drew Bekah and Rachel outside to join in.

It was just getting dark, close to the dinner hour. Doug pulled his old beater orange truck up to the curb, walked up the sidewalk, and took it all in. The leaves had just been re-assembled into their enormous pile and were ready for action. Without a moment’s hesitation, he set down his briefcase, put his head down, and ran full speed into it, doing a front flip and disappearing entirely from sight. I’ll never forget it. I’ve seen him deep in plenty of things, but only once in a leaf pile.

 

 

 

Harvest Time

Now that I have hit sixty (and I don’t mean mph), I have lived long enough to see a few harvests. If you are reading this and you are in your your teens or twenties or thirties, consider what you are diligently planting, because when you hit your forties and fifties, a harvest starts rolling in.

For example, if you have been sowing a whole lot of low-grade discontent, you’ll be reaping a harvest of misery. If you’ve been picking on your kids for a decade, you will see them disappear over the horizon. If you’ve been complaining to your husband for two decades, you might see him disappear over the horizon as well.

We see a harvest on both the physical level as well as the spiritual. Women who have been trying to look twenty in their thirties and thirty in their forties reap a harvest of looking  like day-old donuts. Stale. (My husband says that the only thing worse than a day-old donut is a day-old donut with a fake tan and hoop earrings.) Women who have been sowing idleness and slovenliness start looking neglected and rejected. None of this happens overnight. It takes years of diligent seed-sowing.

What our culture calls a mid-life crisis is a sort of harvest. You know what I mean. Like the men who suddenly grow their hair out long and buy flashy sports cars and start cruising down Main. Or women who feel useless and rack up large credit card debts. This is often when marital infidelity happens, and I don’t mean just the men. Marriages fritz.

Now don’t quit reading this post because you think I’m being so very pessimistic. I’m just saying that the things we do, the habits we cultivate day-in and day-out are like seeds. They germinate. They grow, and they produce a crop.  So consider what you are planting. What kind of seed have you been sowing in your field?

If we are planting faithfulness and sacrifice, the harvest is peace and joy. If we are cultivating a gentle and quiet and meek spirit, we will have a beautiful crop to put in the barn some day. So what’s sprouting in your field right now? Respectfulness, kindness, gratitude? Envy, bitterness, self-centeredness?

Consider some of the older women you know. Your mother, for example. What have they planted and what kind of crop has come in so far? Take note. Learn from the older women, both those with a good crop and those with a failed crop. Cranky old women didn’t wake up cranky on their seventieth birthday. They were cranky about lots of things for many years, and by the time they hit seventy, they had a whole lot more  to be cranky about.

Ask God to give your field a look over, and ask the Holy Spirit to identify the bad seeds that have gotten into the crop. Then pray that He will help you get rid of those so you can turn your attention to planting the good stuff, things like kindness and gratitude. Shove some of that seed into the ground each day.

God does wonders. He receives us and cleanses us. He is willing to forgive and overlook our failed crops. He graciously uses our repentance and faith to produce a new crop. We put the seed in the ground, and He brings about the increase.

Progress Progress

Just thought you should see my piebald sofa update. As you can see, I got sick of sewing cusions. There’s that lonely one in the corner still left – but I was bored with cushions and tired of zippers. I’ve gotten one half of the uphostery done . . . unfortunately it was the small half. But on the other hand, it’s farther along than the last time I showed you my sofa situation. Once it’s finished, I may decide it’s worthy of a photo taken with something other than my phone. I should also add that I have not been working on this since we last spoke. I’ve taken entire weeks off and neglected it badly. During one of those weeks our entire family got the flu – and, not that you wanted to know this, Ben and I both got it at the exact same time which is something we’ve never done before. Thankfully none of the kids were throwing up right then – they would have been entirely on their own, because both Ben and I would have been completely unable to help. They timed their sicknesses very thoughtfully – they landed on either side of us. Anyhow, what I’m saying is that life is real and life is earnest – and in between times I try to staple some more ticking to my sofa.

Discipleship

One of the (many) things we can appreciate that the Reformers did for us was to dispense with the idea that some callings are “holy” callings while others are not. Prior to the Reformation,  those who were in “full time Christian work”  (monks, nuns, priests, etc.) were engaged in “holy” work, while all other callings were seen as somewhat inferior. Unfortunately, we see some of this same old pre-Reformation attitude among Christians when they say or think that if they are really sold out to Jesus, they will go to the mission field. As though being really sold out to Jesus can’t mean going to college or working at a grocery store or bringing up children.

The Reformers saw from the Bible that God calls us to our vocation. Some are called to be preachers and missionaries full time. Some are called to be doctors and lawyers and fishermen and pilots. Each of us should have a sense of our own calling and thank God for it. Then Christian discipleship means actively serving God in our calling in a way that honors and glorifies Him.

I think it was John Own who said something like, “There is a vast difference between preaching a sermon and changing a diaper. But in God’s eyes, both are holy work.”

Why should this matter? When we know that God is pleased with what He has given us to do, and He is pleased when we do it heartily unto Him, then it gives us much greater satisfaction in our work. Rather than thinking we are second-class citizens (spiritually speaking) because we are not “full time Christian workers,” we can laugh and realize that we are all engaged in full-time Christian work. What other kind is there?

It got et.

I was having some smart thoughts to share with you all. You would have loved them I am sure, but before I could get them to you, someone ate them. Quite literally. But he looks smarter doesn’t he? And like he has been practicing some Karate Kid poses? Just by way of contrast, this above picture was taken at 6 weeks. The below picture was taken at one week. Same onesie. See! He has been eating LOTS of my brain cells!

Stuff that happens sometimes

It all started when I was at a yard sale this summer. There it was. The most perfectly beastly sectional sofa you’ve ever laid eyes on. Orange-ish, brown-ish, rusty ugliness. And dirty. And horrible. Clearly a keeper.

I had been feeling that our life could use a sectional sofa. And here it was – cheap and nasty. It is at these moments that I glibly say to myself, “I’ll just reupholster it – that’ll be easy.”

Normally when I go to yard sales, Ben sends me out the door with a parting shot of, “Just don’t bring home any upholstery projects.” So even though I mentally re-upholster things at yard sales and thrift shops all the time, I dutifully don’t bring them home. Strangely though, this time Ben was with me at the yard sale – and he too spied the clear potential of this charmer.

$75 later, we were at home with a hideous rust colored sectional in the living room. The theory was that if I put it straight into the living room then I’d be more motivated to get it done quickly – what with having to look at it all the time. And yet, it’s been three months, and now I don’t have a hideous rust colored sectional in my living room – I have a hideous rust colored sectional with most of the cushions re-covered in ticking.

A couple of weeks ago I’d had enough of the rusty fanciness  and I finally dove in. I put myself on a schedule of one cushion per day – and since there are about a million cushions with zippers and miles of piping, I’m still not quite done. One more cushion to go. But this weekend I actually tackled the upholstery portion, and this is the situation now. My goal was to have this half done so that I could put the sofa back together and wait til next weekend for the other half. But since I frittered away most of my Saturday and didn’t start until about 4:00 in the afternoon, here I am on Sunday night, faced with the prospect of starting up my week with a sofa up on cinder blocks in my foyer. We’ll hope it’s not three more months before I get motivated again. Or I could just say that we’re going for the chic deconstructed look with our furniture.

Feed on His Faithfulness

Reading over Psalm 37, which has some very familiar verses like “Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart,” I noticed something I had not seen before. Verse 3: Trust in the LORD, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.”

Let’s back up to the beginning. We are told in verse one “Do not fret…” Though the verse speaks of fretting because of evildoers, I’d like to think that fretting over anything is not helpful. Then in verse 3 we are told to trust in the LORD, and do good. Trusting is only possible if we are not fretting. And if we are trusting, we are set free to do the good things He has prepared for us. Okay. Got it.

1. Don’t fret.

2. Trust in the LORD.

3. Do good.

Now the rest of verse 3: “Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.” Where has He put us?  In His land. We are to live in His presence, under His blessing. And eat. We receive what He gives us, which is His faithfulness. We are to feed on it. We live in His pasture, feeding on His faithfulness. Trusting Him. Feeding on His faithfulness means that we are constantly nourished by His incomparable, unfailing, infinite, everlasting faithfulness. He keeps covenant with us; He fulfills His promises; He forgives. So here’s the short form:

5. Dwell in the land

6. Feed on His faithfulness

In this context, we can move on to verse 4. “Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.” If we are dwelling in the land, and feeding on His goodness and faithfulness toward us, we are living in the land of plenty. We enjoy ourselves in Him. We are delighted to be “sheep of His pasture”;  we are pleased to be His people. Our hearts’ desires will be found in Him. He will give us all those things we long for most.

7. Delight in the LORD

8. And He shall give…

Verse 5 tells us to “Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him,And He shall bring it to pass.” And we end up at the beginning. Rather than fretting, we commit our way to the Lord. We trust Him. We feed on His faithfulness. And He brings it to pass.

9. Commit your way to the Lord.

10. Trust also in Him.

11. He shall bring it to pass.