Today my little boy turns four...Happy Birthday Jake!

Today is Jacob’s 4^th birthday. “Four years old” sounds absolutely outrageous to me, I can hardly believe it. Although I do not intend to top last year’s tribute blog to him, if that were even possible, I do find it necessary to reflect upon the joy of being his parent.

He is a joy, in all sense of the word. I always think to myself as he’s lying in my arms, no matter the amount of children added to our family I know I won't love Jake more, but I don’t know that I will ever experience such a heart connect as we have. Because he’s my first. Because he was born into a mess of emotions and uncertainty. And because his life each day is a reminder, is my every present proof that God promises to never forsake me, and that He will make all things work together for good. And He most certainly has. Jake’s life resounds that to me the most of all.

I am not sure what I expected from a son. Actually, I had nearly zero expectations because I had little exposure to boys growing up, having grown up with just a sister and having mostly girl friends. I would affirm to myself what good “guy” friends I had but when it came to having a son, I really could not think of any man that I wanted my son to emulate, not even my closest friends and family. It’s still mostly true, and I have a wonderful husband who makes an excellent role model for Jake.  It feels like no one absent of fault really exists. And it’s not that I expect perfection from Jake, it’s just that I expect the best from him and so often in our culture we expect men to give society’s best, but not their personal best. I want Jake to be true to himself. I want him to defy all odds, to stand out!  Allowing that has meant that I have had to give up many of my misconceptions of what it would look like to raise a son. Here are a couple of things I’ve learned:

1) There are going to be “guns” in the house, no matter how much I prevent it. There is going to be the daily death of bad guys on my living room floor and back deck and I better accept it.

2) Jesus is a friend to us, but He’s also quite useful at protecting us from sharks, lions, and bears. Oh yes, and the illustrious bad guys who lurk behind every corner.

3) I can continue to spend hundreds of dollars of my money, and my family’s money to acquire for Jake the very best of every technological gadget known to the toddler world. But at the end of the day it really comes down to trucks pulling dog leashes pulling more trucks down the hallway. Shooting bad guys.

4) Telling Jake that carrots and broccoli will give him giant man muscles is not so productive. Bribing him with a new matchbox truck is . I mean, providing “incentive.”

5) Errands with Mommy are monotonous and boring, unless we can nickname each store we visit with something that corresponds with the likelihood of a treat. Hence Wal-mart has become the “car store,” we grocery shop at the “cookie store,” and any trips to the Casino for family bowling night is known famously as heading out to “the fun place.” Oh yes, we know how to raise our kids: toys, sugar, and arcade games.

6) You can’t just say anything you want to around here. If Mommy tells Daddy his “butt is cute,” it’s coming out of Jake’s mouth the next day. That’s a true story. Not to mention Jake’s syntax with a high strung Mommy: “You cain’t be freakin’ out.” What a nice reminder from a 3 year old.

7) The Gap navy pin striped polo is so not cool. Mommy chooses it to pair nicely with narrow-lined skinny jeans and converse shoes all the while Jake responds, “I need a monster truck shirt and my boots.” And I know it’s just plain evil for me to tell him that his outfit is downright okie but don’t I get some input. Somewhere?

8) I never realized how much I didn’t know until I had a toddler. Who wants to know everything. “Where do beans come from? Where does metal come from? Where does rice come from? Where do trees come from?” I usually answer everything with “God.“ Until Jake assumes such things as, “God makes big monster trucks?” Uhh, um, no. “God makes chicken nuggets?” Uhmhh hmm, not really. Thank God for You tube and google.

9) Every time I want him to pick up his miniature guitar and sing “Jesus loves me” it somehow morphs into “trucks going in the mud and getting stuck and being dirty and chains pull it out of the mud, runnin’ over bad guys” all to such a melodious tune.


10) I assume he’s rough and tumbly and dirty and all mechanical in the head. Until he pats his sister on the back and says, “You such a pretty girl, yes you are wittle girl, you’re so pretty.” And I realize that out of all the things we have tried to teach him, only a couple things have really stuck. A) He does seem to understand that God loves him and B) All girls are princesses.

I will be honest. I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. We’re on a schedule, off a schedule. Making meal plans, then winging it day by day. Mommy’s tired, Daddy’s stir crazy, and the kids just want to bring every single thing from their toy box and plunk it on the living room floor. And the adults are screaming, “Whyyyyy?” and the kids are whining, “just because we wanted to.” No one has any logical sense right now in this house, and least of all me because I’m trying to hold down the fort. But I think each of us brings something remarkable to the table in our family and for Jake, it is joy. It is justice and an outcry for it at any cost. And every second. I don’t know what the future holds for Jake and that scares me because he is fearless and the passion in his heart burns like crazy, we are working overtime to figure out how to shape it into something good for the kingdom. Most of the time we are just in awe that a 4 year old could have such strong convictions about right and wrong and what is fair and what isn’t.

The verse that the Lord gave my family and I for Jake was Isaiah 43. It says “You will walk through fire and not be burned,” and it came at a time where Jake was standing in flames. I still cannot see any way out of what we walked through but the hand of God. And so many times I’ve prayed that verse over him, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have summoned you by name you are Mine. When you pass through the waters they will not sweep over you, when you walk through the fires you will not be burned because you are precious in my sight and because I love you.” I know that isn’t the last time Jake will walk through flames or be under torrential rains. But we walk in victory because if there is one thing we know to be true in Jake’s life, it is that God has a destiny for him, and that he is more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus.

We love him so much. I can’t imagine parenting a better kid. I have been meditating on a verse from Psalms (I think it’s 32, where did I put that Bible…) anyway, “What joy have those whose sins have been forgiven, whose consciences have been cleared of guilt.” I just breath in deep God’s goodness. I call Jake my “sin baby” sometimes…because, well, he was. But what joy have those whose sins have been forgiven. I cannot even describe it. But here is a glimpse:

Expectations

     Do you ever feel like maybe you didn’t quite get what you expected? I always say that the verse for my life is Ephesians 3:20, *hint hint*, it’s the url of my blog! My life is above and beyond what I imagined…but expected? Not so much. Take ‘ol Reagan for example, our loveable Shih Tzu puppy. Her last owners gave her to us because they both worked and she was a hard dog to take care of.  Paul was unemployed at the time and I am a stay at home mom so we assured ourselves that we could handle a high maintenance dog. But I brushed her tail one time and I was done with that mess. And she got dirty. Really dirty. We were forced to pay to get her groomed, and in our infinite money saving wisdom we told the groom to shave her to the skin because her hair grows so fast…she can wear a sweater, but I will not pay for a dog to be professionally groomed more than twice a year! That makes sense, right? Now our once furry, darling dog looks like an alien terrorist! Or more like a dog of the hairless variety. Last night I took her to bed with me and Paul warned, “If you wake up facing her, I’m afraid you’re going to freak out.” Definitely a possibility so she slept in her crate last night. 

Anyway, all that to say, much of my life the last two weeks have been what I never expected. My “dream come true” marriage has been not exactly what I always imagined marriage to be. We have had to work harder at this thing, and at changing our own selves. Of course, we're going to be ok.  But gazing into my beloved's eyes on the evening of our wedding, could I ever imagined such disagreements would take place?  Gee, we're both firstborns...but that probably won't matter. 

Getting internet has been a blessing, and yet I feel it stealing me away. I see it beckoning Paul in the mornings…and all of the sudden, all of the time we once used to eat breakfast as a family has been taken up by face book and news blogs. We’ve had to find a balance, once that my flesh nature hates. But nonetheless, when little Sonora comes to me, takes my hand and leads me away, I take a hint.

My schedule is not what I expected. First of all, right in this second, I am tired. I am exhausted. I am not sure why because I ate pretty good this morning and I got good sleep. I check in on my schedule maybe twice a week, just to see if I’m anywhere close to where I want to be. Never happens.

I worked on the kids room and have found myself in a rut. I am almost done, but I seem to have lost momentum. I need an end table from Paul’s parents house, I need to finish sewing a curtain, I need to paint scripture on the wall (and I need a printer to print off the stencils of the letters..). Oh, who has time for all of that? Better yet, who has energy for that? Ok, not me, to both of those questions.

Not to mention, I have sort of sold out to the health food movement. I think I was the voice of criticism that spoke freely of my disapproval. There are reasons to do the health movement that I don’t agree with. There is the chance that it will become an idol in my life. And I am trying to avoid the negative portion. My husband has warned often that the only thing he hears out of my mouth these days are “food, garden, compost, food, Sauer kraut, food, garden.” I hear myself talking, and yes, it is annoying! But I am finding that I at least enjoy this way of life. It’s hard for me, there is so much to learn. One of the issues that turned me off once before is this question: when is it ever enough? I can tell that I feel better when I avoid sugar and white flour. That’s all fine and good, but using other flours, and having foods in a “raw state” is expensive. And different. And did I mention expensive? So we have been having soaked brown rice with soaked lentils and bone broth for nights on end. And we haven’t made the switch over to organic meat because well, I think the word expensive could be inserted here too. I can hear the health gurus in my head, “can you really put a price on health?” Uh, yeah, $200 budget a month for groceries. But, I am trying. And I am enjoying this way of life. I am thrilled about gardening, and cannot wait to meet my heirloom seeds. I am picking up manure for my planter boxes tomorrow, to add to the brown leaves and kitchen compost that I added last week. Did I mention that I think all of this is fun. I also, after making a solid case to Paul, have gotten a solid “YES” that I can add chickens to the backyard in a coop. So the idea of gardening and even getting my eggs from the backyard just blows my mind. Last year if you would have told me that I would even want to own chickens I would have glared at you. But this is me humbling myself: I am enjoying this, in baby steps.

And as for my kids. My sweet angels. Or maybe that was the expectation? They are being good, getting along like never before. I keep thinking about God’s grace as I watch them holding hands and skipping around together. This morning Jake said, “Sonora, you are just the cutest little girl.” I didn’t really teach him to do all this, did I? I mean, we do say that our brothers and sisters are the best gift that God will ever give us on this earth. But I had no idea they actually listened. What a blessing! I seriously get in little grooves where we will wake up and pray together and do a Bible study, memorize scriptures. And then we’ll kind of hit a one week dead zone of doing nothing. And still, when I hear Jake say, “Jesus says…” and quote some scripture we went over three weeks ago I am reminded that even where I perceive that I’ve failed, God is using it for good. Thank the Lord for that!

And Jake, he is not the easy going, laid back kid he once was. He’s getting a will.

And Sonora Grace is not a delicate princess that I thought my first daughter would be. I can dress her up, brush her hair, but she still wants to be doing something other than what I’d like her to be doing. Something that her brother is doing.

But if we got everything we expected, when would we laugh? Or cry? Or be glad for surprises from our Father?

I think out of all of these things, the fact that my dog looks like a hairless weasel is sort of smile inducing. Like every second that we look at her.

Dreaming...

Yesterday I decided that I was going to get out of debt. I declared war. I sat down and wrote out the budget as I was aware of it, and erased from my memory plans of cruises or mini-vacations with my husband. I started dreaming bigger. Because when you are in debt your money does not belong to you, it belongs to the people that you owe money to. How well I have come to know this.  It's barely anything compared to "normal debt," it's basic school debt in a bad job market.  Unfortunately debt is no respecter of income, nor lack thereof. I found out that budgets are a testy thing when you don’t have income even if we are ok and make more than enough to survive with unemployment and supplemental income. Still I’ve been discouraged.

This blog isn’t about debt though, it is about dreams. Because every time debt stands in the way of one of my dreams I let it get me down. I let it crush me to the ground and suck all of my joy away because I might actually have to be patient for something that I want. I let the enemy tell me that if I dream of something more, I must not be content. I must not be responsible. I must not be a patient person because I have hope for my future. I spiral downward into this sort of empty bog where I except where I’m at and dream no more. And it is a sad place to be.

Jesus says not to worry about tomorrow. Not to worry about tomorrow’s needs, how well I know this scripture. But I don’t dream about my needs. I dream about the things that are written on my heart, these places, and persons that not for one second escape my consciousness. I want to have more children. I want to buy a house with land. Yes, I want to put all of my future children out the back door and not worry about them getting hit by a car if I’m not staring at their back of their little heads constantly. I keep thinking about what faith means, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for…,” and I wonder if I have the faith it’s going to take to realize my dreams. I guess because I know that if these things are going to happen it will take a miracle. It’ll take God’s special touch on my health, and His famous dead-raising power over our finances. And I believe in miracles. Don’t I? By God’s grace, and without it I’m desperately in trouble.

I have been praying that if my dreams are not His will for our future that they would kind of disintegrate away. That I would stop thinking about these things. Please God, I want to stop dreaming. But He says no. He says, Don’t you know that I have these things for you? And like an ungrateful brat on Christmas morning I jump up and down saying, “When?! When?! When?!!!” That is how I feel. But God doesn’t feel this way. I know this because I was in turmoil about all of these mad desires in my heart that I can’t suppress and He told me exactly where to go, Mark 7:9. It resounded in my spirit and I turned there at once and found this:

Matt 7:7-11

7 "Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
9 "You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? 10 Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! 11 So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask Him.”

So I cried of course because God’s word touched my heart in an intimate, all-knowing kind of way. And I praised Him not because He can give me what I want, or so that He will be inspired to make my dreams come true, but because He loves me and He wants to bless me. Because He has a plan for me. And just like I can’t always give my kids exactly what they want when they want it (like candy…I think Jake asks me for it multiple times a day). I know that God keeps timing in mind. Sometimes He just wants me to dream bigger.

I think it would be easier if I could just stop thinking about it. If I could just have it erased from my memory.  Then again, it’s fun to dream. And when I’m disappointed (negative pregnancy tests…lack of a job for Paul), well I have to remember that I am praying for God’s will. That He does know best. That His heart for us, for right now is to be good stewards of the things that He has provided, abundantly. But by all means, He wants us to dream.

With that in mind, this is the lady that’s got my mind all turned upside down. It’s got me in prayer about my future and God’s will. I want His will, I do. I just dream of owning my own house. Putting money into something that will belong to us. Having chickens and goats and maybe a cow (my kids really want a cow). I want to decorate something that will last (it’s hard for me to get motivated to “do my thing” in a rental…so much time and money!). The door has been shut for buying a house, and yet, I think about it. I pray about it. And let me say, I love our rental now! I am so happy in our sweet cabin. I love everything about it except the reoccurring feeling that it’s not mine. That I should decorate now because I might be here five more years. Or I shouldn’t waste my time painting the kids bedroom because I might only be here for 7 more months. But I am happy here.  I am content, but I won't stop dreaming.  My dream house.