Only one life

“Two little lines I heard one day,
Traveling along life’s busy way;
Bringing conviction to my heart,
And from my mind would not depart;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Only one life, yes only one,
Soon will its fleeting hours be done;
Then, in ‘that day’ my Lord to meet,
And stand before His Judgement seat;
Only one life,’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Only one life, the still small voice,
Gently pleads for a better choice
Bidding me selfish aims to leave,
And to God’s holy will to cleave;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Only one life, a few brief years,
Each with its burdens, hopes, and fears;
Each with its clays I must fulfill,
living for self or in His will;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

When this bright world would tempt me sore,
When Satan would a victory score;
When self would seek to have its way,
Then help me Lord with joy to say;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Give me Father, a purpose deep,
In joy or sorrow Thy word to keep;
Faithful and true what e’er the strife,
Pleasing Thee in my daily life;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Oh let my love with fervor burn,
And from the world now let me turn;
Living for Thee, and Thee alone,
Bringing Thee pleasure on Thy throne;
Only one life, “twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Only one life, yes only one,
Now let me say,”Thy will be done”;
And when at last I’ll hear the call,
I know I’ll say “twas worth it all”;
Only one life,’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last. ”

— extra stanza —

Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
And when I am dying, how happy I’ll be,
If the lamp of my life has been burned out for Thee.”

C.T Studd

I have been thinking of this poem a lot lately. Pastor Chuck Smith passed away earlier this month as I have mentioned before. This poem had a great impact on his life. I have heard it before, but only part of it "Only one life, 'twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last". After being reminded of it when watching Pastor Chuck's memorial service, I decided to look up the poem and I read the whole thing this time. 

What an encouragement! What a challenge! Only one life. That is all we are given, and even then we are not guaranteed a full life, and none of us can say how many years we will have. 

I want so much for this to describe my life, that I spent it all for my Savior! That everything I did was for Him. I cannot say that every moment of my life was for Him, I have lived too many moments for myself. 

Listening to Adventures in Odyssey this morning I heard Mr. Whittikar say "There are two warring sides inside of you. The flesh and the spirit. The side that will be strongest is the side you feed the most". This really got me. Which part of myself am I feeding the most? Do I give in to what *I* want, rather than feeding my spirit with the Word of God? Do I seek to satisfy my own flesh? Or do I seek to live rightly before the Lord and seek His Kingdom, and His righteousness? 

To be honest, I do both, which only makes things more difficult. I strive to nourish my spirit with the Word of God daily along with praise and worship and fellowship with other believers. Then I go and feed my flesh with meaningless, selfish things. How long, O Lord? My desire is for You! 

The longer I live, (though I am not old), the more I realized how selfish and sinful I am. The more I long for the day when I will be face to face with my Lord and sin will be no more.  

Sin will be no more, what a wonderful thing to look forward to!

I am here now, on this Earth. The Lord has allowed me to continue on this journey here for now. My true desire is that while I am here, all that I am be poured out for Him. That I would turn away from the world and towards Him. There are many things to be regretted in this life, but one will never regret giving all to the glory of God. And in the end, how happy I will be, 

"If the lamp of my life has been burned out for Thee."

Clothes

Michael and Gideon have both always been big for their ages. Michael was 11 lbs 4 oz at birth and Gideon was 9 lbs 12 oz. Neither of them EVER wore newborn sized clothes!! By the age of 1 they were wearing 3T clothes. Now they are both wearing adult Medium t-shirts and 34/30 pants!

Jason and Silas are my small ones. At 4 1/2 Silas was finally into 4T's. At 8 Jason is wearing 7's and 8's. They both gained almost nothing between the ages of 2 and 3 and stayed in the same size clothes for nearly 2 years! Before and after that they pretty much wore the size that corresponded with their age.

I have always tried to save clothes that have been outgrown to pass down to little brothers. Right now I have a closet full of clothes that don't fit anyone right now. However, since Silas is not here to pass down to, and Jason is growing at a much different rate than his older brothers, I am not sure it makes good sense to save some of the things in that closet anymore. I need to go through it and figure out what I really want to save, and what would be better passed on to someone else outside our family.

Of course, I do save some special things. I have a few pieces of baby clothes that I am saving, perhaps for grandbabies one day? A few special t-shirts that have memories associated with them. I don't want to hoard too much though.

Sometimes the boys complain of having too many clothes in their drawers, saying they don't all fit. It is usually because either they have a bunch of clothes in their drawers that don't fit anymore and they haven't been pulled out, or because they have not folded their clothes neatly and tried to jam them all into the drawers wadded up in balls. Its more often the latter. I fold their clothes for them still, most of the time. I do make them help and I do make them put away their own clothes.

I told Michael I might make him start washing his own laundry. He was complaining the other day about not having any clean clothes, but I had just done ALL of the laundry! Or so I thought. Apparently he hadn't brought his dirty laundry out of his room to be washed, therefore, it didn't get washed. He's nearly 13, seems a good age to start washing his own laundry doesn't it?

What we do and don't celebrate in October

There is a lot of controversy in the "Christian" community about whether or not its OK to celebrate Halloween or anything surrounding it. I'm not really going to go into that here though, I'm just going to tell you my perspective and what we do.

We don't celebrate Halloween. We don't decorate with witches or goblins or ghosts. We don't let our children go door to door trick or treating. We don't allow our children to dress in scary costumes. The Bible is clear about staying away from evil, witchcraft is evil, ghosts are evil spirits/demons, trick or treat implies "if you don't give us a treat we will play a trick on you".

We do enjoy celebrating fall, the change of the season, pumpkins, fall colors, harvest, dressing up in fun costumes, hay rides, and fall festivals. We usually attend at least 2 or 3 fall festivals during the month of October and we have a lot of fun! I don't consider theses festivals "Halloween alternatives" but rather festivals celebrating fall and I don't have a problem with that.

So there you have it. That's what we do.

Silas and I riding the hay ride at the downtown festival last year.

Christmas - looking back and looking forward

Though neither of us would ever admit it at the time, I believe Archie and I both knew that Christmas last year would be Silas' last Christmas on this Earth. We said "what if it is?" but never, "I think this will be".

It was the biggest year for gifts that our family has ever seen! One of Silas' nurses shared his story on a Savannah radio station and they asked people to send gifts for our family. We did not know about it until right before it happened. They invited us to come have lunch in Savannah one day with other families that had been featured on the radio and we received a TON of gifts and gift cards for our family, particularly for Silas. On top of that we had several other groups come together and bring Christmas gifts for the boys! We never asked for any of it, and I tried to tell people we had plenty, but the gifts kept coming. We donated some of them to the children's hospital in Savannah, we mailed some off for other children fighting cancer, and the boys enjoyed many of them themselves.

It felt awkward being on the receiving end of such generosity. We tried to be gracious and thankful. We tried to be generous with others as well.

We wrestled with feeling that so much excess would cloud the true meaning of Christmas. (Though we certainly acknowledged Jesus and His birth). We wrestled with feeling that there were so many other people out there in need and here we were being given more than we needed!

Looking back, remembering how excited the boys were to receive the gifts they were given, and how excited they were to send gifts to other kids. The thoughts that comfort me are 1. How blessed those people who gave were for their generosity and 2. Michael, Gideon, and Jason will always look back and say "Our last Christmas with Silas was the best one ever".

Looking forward to this Christmas. As every year, I hope that we can help our boys see past all of the gifts and decorations, and see Jesus. That they will see the gift that God gave us in sending His one and only Son. That they can see the love that God showed us in giving us life and salvation. That they will see that the blessing we receive by giving to others is far greater than the blessing of receiving gifts ourselves. I am hoping that we will have many opportunities to give this year. Though we do not have as much as some, we have more than others and I pray the Lord will show us how and where to give.

Camp Sunshine

I posted about our weekend at Camp Sunshine on Silas' Caring Bridge page, you can read it here .

On this blog post however, I want to share something I realized at Camp Sunshine. I realized that we really really need a routine!! We have sort of had one for the last few weeks since we have started our new school year, but it has not been clearly defined. This weekend we had a scheduled that we followed, meals at certain times, activities at certain times, sleep at certain times. I realized we need this at home too, and it needs to be clearly defined.

Last night I asked Archie to move my large white board to the hall way where it can be used more efficiently. A long time ago I made magnets with the boys names on them and magnets with chores on them. So last night I arranged the boys names and put the chores they needed to do today under each name. After they have completed a chore, they can move the magnet out from under their name to under the "Completed chores" magnet.

I also made a morning routine for us and wrote it out on the board. We need to have the whole day scheduled but for this week, we will just focus on the mornings.

8:30 (or earlier if you wake up earlier) Get dressed, eat breakfast, start chores
9:30 Start school (today we are doing P.E., Handwriting, Math, Reading, and Bible memorization)
12:30 Lunch

Of course we will do more than this today, but I am just focusing on sticking to this part of the routine this week. Next week I plan to add in the afternoon and focus on that. Perhaps something like this..

1:30 School work
3:30 Chores
4-5 Free time (or chores if they aren't done yet)
5-6 Get ready for dinner
6:30 Dinner

And then of course the next week we will try and get the evening routine down...

7 PM clean up from dinner
7:30-8:30 Free time
8:30 Get ready for bed and family devotions
9 PM bed time for boys
10 PM bed time for adults

I am not one to oppose tweaking the schedule if it seems like its not working. I may change it an hundred times! But that's OK. Some Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday will have to be different since Tuesday and Thursday Jason has gymnastics classes, and Wednesday is church/AWANA. Free time can also turn into chore time or school time if the work wasn't completed during its time slot.

The boys are already not sure they like this routine but I think it will be really good for us as a family. We have done it before and I think we are always more productive when we stick to a schedule. I always say "Its better to have a plan and change it than to have no plan at all".

Rest, be still, wait

These are the 3 words I have been hearing from the Lord lately. Where ever I go I hear them. On the christian radio station, at church, at the women's retreat, in my personal devotions.

Rest. Be still. Wait.

I am not very good at this. I have always been doing something. Big things and little things, but always something. I have been involved in some kind of ministry most of my life.

Rest. Be still. Wait.

What this means for me is something I am still trying to figure out. I know the Lord wants more of me, more of my time, my focus, my worship. He wants to comfort me in the pain of the death of my son. He wants to teach me more of Him, of His mercy and grace, of His goodness, of His love, and of His will for me. He wants to make me more like Him, which is what I want too.

Rest. Be still. Wait.

I do what I don't want to do. I don't do what I do want to do. I echo Paul. Oh how I long for the day when sin will no longer be part of my life. When I will no longer desire anything wrong, but only what is right and to worship Him. Oh how I long for the day when pain and suffering will be no more.

Rest. Be still. Wait.

Rest, in His presence, in knowing that He is in control, in knowing that He loves me and has a plan for my life. Rest in knowing that everything will turn out for good because I love Him and am called by Him.

Be still in His presence, listen to the Words of His book. Do not run too and fro looking for things to do. Be still and calm, enjoy being in His presence.

Wait. Patiently, quietly, calmly. Not on the edge of my seat waiting to jump up again, just waiting patiently.

Psalm 37:7 "Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him"

Psalm 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!"

Baptism

Gideon and Jason were baptized today! They have both been asking to be baptized for a long time and today we took them down to the river and Archie baptized them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!

Michael was baptized in the same river a little over 4 years ago. Archie was baptized in another river in Georgia in 2000. I was baptized in the Pacific Ocean in 1986.

Homeschooling this year

The last two years have looked a lot more like unschooling than homeschooling. With Silas' illness and passing it was a necessity to be more relaxed. Don't get me wrong, the boys most certainly got an education! Michael had testing at the end of last school year and aced everything except math, they definitely learned.

We started our school year the 16th of September. Since we are homeschooling we can set our own school year and school days as long as we have 180, 4 1/2 hour school days during a 12 month period.

We have started out slow and are working towards a regular schedule. So far we have only had 4 days of school per week since we have been so busy on the weekends lately. I'd like to get to where we are doing 5 days a week most weeks though. I do love that we can take a day off when we need to though! I really like homeschooling year round rather than taking months off at a time. It seems to work better for us.

Michael and Gideon were up in the tree house doing math and handwriting together today! I loved that! Michael is in 7th grade this year but for him I am teaching 6th and 7th grade math this year. Gideon is in 5th grade but I am teaching him 5th and 6th grade math this year. Jason is in 2nd grade but with all of the laughing that is going on when he does math I think we may need to move on to something more challenging for him. He laughs because he just can't believe how easy his math work is! I might end up doing 2nd and 3rd grade math for him this year.

All of them need work on their handwriting. Michael and Gideon both are doing cursive and Jason printing. I think Gideon and Jason will both have readable handwriting but it is much more challenging with Michael.

Michael is reading a lot! He can read books at an adult reading level and has an extensive vocabulary. Gideon reads at maybe a 2nd grade reading level but I think he is improving a lot and will "catch up" before much longer. I think that it will help a lot that he can see better now and isn't in vision therapy anymore. Jason is probably still at a Kindergarten level, mostly because its hard for him to be still long enough for a reading lesson! I am still teaching him reading of course and I think eventually it will click when he realizes the benefit of knowing how to read. I am not too worried about him as I was still at his level when I was 3 years older than him!

Science has always been a favorite subject with the boys so I do not worry about that too much. History is something I want to get more serious about, as well as Geography.

My main goals for this year are to get all of the boys up to grade level in math, handwriting, language arts and reading. My other goal is probably more important, for them not to complain about doing school work. They don't always but they often do. That is something I want to see stop. I want them to love learning AND enjoy "school".

Papa Chuck

Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel moved, he went home to Heaven today.

I remember hearing him say "One day you will read the headlines 'Pastor Chuck died today', but don't you believe it!" He moved out of this world and went home to Heaven.

Papa Chuck, as he was affectionately known by many, served the Lord with all of his heart. He showed us so many things about the Lord and His Grace and Mercy toward us. Pastor Chuck took us through the Bible chapter by chapter and verse by verse. He also was an example to us in other ways, picking up trash in the church parking lot or stopping to pray with someone no matter how busy he was.

I remember meeting him as a 16 year old at church camp. He was talking with another pastor and I didn't want to interrupt so I stood nearby and waited. After a minute or so he noticed me standing there and stopped the pastor who was speaking to him saying "Hang on a second, let me talk to this young lady here". He was a genuinely happy, loving, godly man. I am pretty sure the boys from the camp got in big trouble for pushing Pastor Chuck into the swimming pool that year, but he came out with a smile on his face!

He will be missed, but I am so happy for him, he is in the presence of the God he served so faithfully, surely singing praises at the top of his lungs with hands lifted high, and I know that is exactly where he wants to be.

Prayer

The topic for tonight's Bible study at church was prayer. Prayer is talking to God. It is a truly amazing gift to be able to talk with the God of the Universe! Not only are we allowed to come before Him and speak to Him but He wants us to!

We can pray every day, everywhere, about anything. We can tell God anything, He already knows everything but He still wants to hear from us! If you watched your child on a hidden camera throughout their day and knew everything that they did and said, would you not still ask them about their day when you got back together?

I loved something that someone said in my group "If you were cuddling with your child and having  a conversation with them and they fell asleep, would you be mad at them? Of course not! It's OK if you fall asleep when you are praying!"

I have been mulling over a couple of things I have learned through and about prayer in my life that I would like to share with you.

When I was 18 years old and had finished High School, I went to Indonesia to spend a couple of months working with missionaries there. There were a couple of things I needed for the trip and I prayed and asked God to provide. I waited for what seemed like a reasonable amount of time and then bought them for myself. Just a day later someone at church approached me and gave me exactly what I had been praying for only WAY nicer than what I had bought myself! If only I had waited and trusted the Lord to provide rather than jumping the gun and "providing for myself". What He has always comes on time, and is always better.

The next thing I will share is much more recent.

Last year, February of 2012, my youngest son Silas was diagnosed with cancer. I prayed and fasted and asked God to heal him. To take the cancer away and let him live. I continued to pray that for a long time, and often ended my prayers with "Your will be done". As things progressed and got worse and worse for Silas I wrestled with whether or not I was praying right. Was there sin in my life that was hindering God from answering me, from healing Silas. I confessed everything I could think of. I agonized over how to pray.

In time my prayers turned from "Please heal Silas, take away his cancer" to "Please heal Silas, in Your time, and in Your way". I was much more confident in this prayer and I began to realize that God knows better than me and I didn't know what was best in this situation. I did not stop praying but my prayers changed, I asked God to put His plan into action and do what He knew was best.

The last couple of weeks of Silas life, especially the last few days, I began to pray "Lord, please take him home". I believed this was best, I knew that God could still heal Silas in his earthly body, but I knew going to Heaven would be far better for him.

Silas prayed too. Monday, before he passed away, we listened to the song "Softly and Tenderly Jesus is calling". When the song was over Silas said "OK, I'm ready to go now". I said "go where?" He said "to go home". Tuesday he asked me to pray for Jesus to take him home (and by home, he always meant Heaven). To hear your 4 year old ask you to pray for him to "go home", to die....but I did, I prayed for him, for Jesus to take him home. On Wednesday he would wake up throughout the day and pray out loud "OK Jesus, I'm ready to go home now". He prayed several times throughout the day. Thursday he was very "out of it" and Friday evening he became unresponsive. Saturday afternoon he took his last breath. Blessed be the name of the Lord, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.

God always answers our prayers. He teaches us through our praying. He uses our praying to conform our will to His. He never gets tired of hearing us talk to Him. He never sleeps! He's always available whenever you are ready to pray.