A New Year Note

Dear Friends and Family,

Happy New Year! We look forward to 2016 even as we reflect on what God has done for us as this year closes.

This year has been one of blessings , challenges, changes, and perseverance.  As a family we have witnessed God's love and mercy, His faithfulness and patience with us, and His reminder to us that He is real and that He cares about every detail of the plans He has for us.

Bryan and I celebrated our 25th year of marriage all year long.  We enjoyed sunny Orlando and even sunnier (except when we were there!) Jamaica as quiet get-a-ways from our busy daily life.   It has been wonderful to reminisce and remind one another of the beginning of our love life together.  How far we've come and how much our lives have been shaped by our love for each other and by the love of God in our lives.

Justin graduated from Grove City College in May and secured a teaching position for the 2015-2016 school year at a Classical Christian school in Beaufort, SC.  We see him (and make room for him) every weekend as he travels 3.5 hours to and from the coast.  It may sound like he's had a hard time separating from us, but in reality he comes home every weekend to see Sarah, to whom he is now engaged! (Yay!)

Joanna started her college career in January at University of South Carolina Lancaster.  She is a teacher's assistant and is balancing classes, work, piano lessons, and teaching Sunday school.  She has been blessed in all her endeavors and truly enjoys life as a college student right now.  She wants to study history and possibly minor in music and will have to decide if she will continue her schooling at USC or transfer to a smaller private college in the next year or two.

Aaron works at Chick Fil A, has been accepted to Liberty University next year, and is in choir, has a garage band, and plays soccer and rugby.  He is in his senior year of high school , always a challenging year trying to figure out what comes next and what to study in college.   He has grown in his faith this year and is a blessing to us as we help him work through all the possible ways he feels called to serve the Lord.

Abigail is in Year 8 in our home school.  She plays soccer, enjoys choir and has good friendships near and far.  She is learning to play the ukulele along with her piano lessons.  She is such a good help to me regularly in the house and a joy to teach.  It will be strange to have only one student in our home school next fall but I look forward to it.

We've seen both sets of our parents this year deal with health stresses that they have faced.  It has been such an encouragement and testimony to us and to our kids to see older saints who are facing life-changing news by trusting in God and calling on His mercy and His healing.   My parents and Bryan's parents are living out their faith and trust in their Savior and do not hesitate to show how much God has cared for them in the big and small things.

It has been a year of reconnecting with family even though we may not see them face to face.  We have had our ups and downs as a family, but feel the love and encouragement even if we can't be with each other in the same room, house, city, state, or even country!  We know that prayers and Christian love surrounds us as we share our lives with one another, even at a distance.

Our hope and comfort has always and continues to be in our faithful Saviour to meet all our needs.   Through disappointments, trials of faith, suffering for Christ's sake, blessings, and trusting in what is unseen but sure, we will face the new year as we did the last: with confidence and joy. 

Giving a Bridal Shower Devotion

I've been asked to give a devotion for a bridal shower on Saturday.

This devotion will be different than most of the ones I've done in the past because I am only writing notes, not writing out the whole devotion.  I've wanted to try to present a devotion without reading every word.  I am not good at organizing my thoughts in my head and then speaking them to a group of people, but  I will never be good at it if I don't try, so that's why I'm trying.  My fear is that I will begin babbling, with many disjointed thoughts that make sense to me but to no one else.  I get nervous speaking in a large group of adults (I don't get nervous in front of children--only adults--go figure!).

I'm keeping the devotion simple; Scripture readings and some notes on how to apply them to a marriage. Simple is hard when it comes to talking about marriage; I want to include so much more than I have time to say.  There are many directions one could take when speaking to a future wife about what it means to have a good marriage.

Today after finishing what I wanted to say, my husband gave me four main tenets of marriage as he sees it:  love, respect (honor), communication, and sex.  I've included love and respect in my presentation, but missed the other two, not because I don't agree with him, but because of my adherence to 'keep it simple'.
I could just imagine trying to talk about the importance of sex to a group of ladies!  Definitely not a topic to speak about when one is learning how to speak from notes only!

My husband's quick list of what a happy marriage consists confirms that there are more topics to choose from in giving a bridal shower devotion than there is time to share them. Another topic formed in my mind when my husband gave me his list: the differences between men and women, especially in how we think. That could be its own devotion--how God has created us male and female to compliment/complete each other.  Or a devotion on Biblical communication.  Or on physical intimacy as a characteristic in marriage that makes the marriage relationship unique and different from any other human relationship.  I could go on and on. I hope I don't go on and on tomorrow (a sure sign of rambling!).

Tomorrow my topic is living out your Christian walk in the Lord through your marriage: treating a husband as a beloved Christian and centering marriage on a relationship to the Lord Jesus so that as a wife grows in the Lord so will her marriage bear the fruit of that growth. A simple concept that takes a lifetime of practice.  If marriages are based on God's Word and prayer, they can be fruitful. 

I will read the summary of God's Law that Jesus gives us in Matthew, and I will read passages that show how Christians are to treat each other as they learn to serve and love the Lord.  Nothing profound, just a reminder that as Christians our marriages should reflect first our love for Jesus. There will be a lot left unsaid, but hopefully everyone present will be able to relate to the promises and commands that God gives us in His Word, no matter if they are married or single, as long as they are Christians.

It's all relative

Relationships are difficult. They are also hard work. Sometimes it just doesn't seem the worth the effort. But of course, when things are going well in a relationship, the blessings that one reaps are worth the time, energy, and emotion involved in keeping it healthy and strong.  And we, as humans, need relationship.

There are all kinds of relationships.  And all of them give us identity.  I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend.  Each of these titles means that I have a relationship with someone; they define me in some way.  I have relationships with my immediate family, with my extended family, with my church family, with my fellow home school moms, even with my dentist.  And each relationship has an unwritten set of rules or expectations.  If I don't follow those 'rules', I've broken the relationship or damaged it.  

But relationships are not one-sided.  It takes two to have a relationship.  I can uphold my end of a relationship to the best of my ability by following the rules or expectations, but in the end, if the other person in the relationship does not follow those rules, then our relationship will only go so far.  It will wither and eventually die on the vine because it can not only be fed by one person.  This means that relationships are conditional; they depend on more than just me.  

What is my responsibility in relationships?  What are the rules I must follow?  What is expected of me?  It depends on the kind of relationship.  I can only have a relationship with my dentist if I make an appointment, keep it, and she does what I pay her to do competently.  I have expectations of how I think I should be treated by her; she expects me to keep coming back to her for treatment (and of course she expects to be paid for her services.)  But my relationship with my husband requires much more.  It is my most intimate relationship with another person and I must nourish, cherish, and work at it every day in order for it to grow and bear fruit.  Again, though, if my husband does not also work at our relationship, it will not be as healthy as it could be. It may fail if only one of us works at it.  

The highest 'rule' in a relationship involves trust;  we trust each other to make time and to commit to be involved with each other enough to fulfill what we expect to get out of our relationship: love, friendship, encouragement, help--whatever it is that defines how we are related.  If that trust is broken by lack of communication, unkindness, or some other kind of separation, then the relationship changes and may not be sustained for long. 

I pray frequently that I may be responsible and honorable in all my relationships.  I pray that I may be a good wife and mother, a good daughter and sister, a good friend and neighbor.  I am sad when my relationships falter because I have not been as committed to them as I ought, or the other person has allowed them to dwindle.  I grieve when a relationship that was once healthy and strong shows signs of illness and disease. 

I sometimes don't know what to do when a relationship I have with someone falters.  I love the people that I have involved time and energy with, who I am related to either by blood, common faith, or common interests. When the desire to keep a relationship healthy and strong is not reciprocated by the other person, what does one do?  I don't have the answer to that, except to pray for the relationship, and to not allow resentment, frustration, or anger to rule my heart as I try to accept the outcome. 

Even the most important relationship I live for can be dry at times.  My relationship with my Father in heaven is secure in the knowledge that He will never leave me or forsake me, and that nothing can separate me from His love.  But I can be lukewarm to Him. I can take my love for Him for granted, and get lazy about nurturing and growing closer to Him.  And when my relationship to my Lord and Savior is not bearing fruit, then all my earthly relationships suffer, too.  I must love God with all my heart, my mind, my soul, my strength before I can love my neighbor.  

Some relationships aren't worth the work that may go into them.  If a person is rude or selfish every time I interact with her, I naturally will avoid that relationship or may even put an end to it if it I can.  But some relationships are here to stay; you cannot stop being a sister, or a daughter, or even a fellow Christian to someone who is a difficult person to like or love.  Those difficult relationships remind me that I must in one respect love others unconditionally, just as I am loved by my Father.  He loves his children who are unlovely, stained with sin, and constantly failing in relationship with him.  So I must also forgive, forget, put hurt feelings or bad experiences behind me and move forward with optimistic hope that my difficult relationships will become easier as the Lord governs them and rules in my life, showing me how to love.