Category Archives: Parenting

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Bloom Where You’re Planted

Every spring my husband and I go into the woods and find wild plants and flowers to transplant. Yesterday we moved some ferns, trillium, ground cedar, various clumps of moss and three plants I am waiting for my father to identify.

I don’t ask these plants if they want to be moved. I have decided that they will do better and be viewed more frequently in the new location I have selected. I do take into consideration the type of soil, amount of sun or shade, and the plants growing in close proximity. When choosing a place to plant something, I try to pick a place that is similar to the original location. If it was originally in the shade, then I won’t place it in full sun! I always have the plant’s best interest at heart because I want it to flourish and grow. I want it to bloom where it is planted.

Sometimes we feel that God has uprooted us. It may be a situation where we physically move to another location, or it may be a change in our lives such as a new baby, a new job, attending a new place of fellowship, or even close friends moving away. Often we cannot change the situations we find ourselves in and we don’t like the change! Things were fine the way they were  – why mess things up? We may not be able to change the circumstances, but we can decide how we will respond to those circumstances. We can choose to accept circumstances beyond our control with grace believing that God in His infinite wisdom is looking out for our good.

When our third child was born, we were in a two bedroom apartment. With three cribs in one bedroom, I was feeling squeezed. It seemed like there was not enough room for the stuff we currently had, much less a new baby. I was NOT a happy camper! I took my frustration and concern to God – and I felt His response as a gentle, but piercing question. “Why should I trust you with a bigger place to live when you can’t maintain the small place you have now?”

I immediately was convicted of the truth of what God had impressed on my heart. I needed to be faithful with the apartment where we were living. I needed to tend to the current responsibilities I had before I could be trusted with more. I needed to be content with what I currently had.

 Philippians 4: 10-13 (NLT)

10 How I praise the Lord that you are concerned about me again. I know you have always been concerned for me, but you didn’t have the chance to help me. 11 Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. 12 I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. 13 For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

In these verses Paul is writing to the Christians in Phillipi. He is in PRISON – yet he says that he is content!!! Paul knew that he needed to “bloom where he was planted” even in prison. He used that time to write letters to Christians in the various locations he had preached.  His teaching and discipling continued through those letters and continues to teach us now through the Bible.

Our contentment as God’s children must be founded in the belief that God is a loving heavenly Father who works in our lives for our good. That does not mean that circumstances will go our way – it does mean that God will give us grace to bloom where He plants us.

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Feeling Drained

Spring has sprung here in western North Carolina! The buds are bursting open and each day I look forward to seeing which flower has bloomed. It also means cleaning up from winter’s effects – the dead stalks of last year’s flowers, leaves that avoided fall’s leaf raking, and weeds that seem to push up first in their effort to take over.

We have had abundant rain this spring so the little branch that runs through the yard is flowing swiftly. The pipe that carries the water to three little pools by the garden was barely flowing, so Saturday my husband set out to fix it. He ended up digging down to the buried pipe and discovered a leak. He also discovered that the pipe was plugged with a tangle of roots about six feet long. It was such a dense mess that it is surprising that any water at all made it through. He pulled out the roots, patched the leak, and soon the water was flowing clear and free.

It reminded me of times when our children were small that I felt completely drained. Just like those tangled up roots, I was so caught up in the cares of life that I felt like all the life had drained out of me. Nothing could get in – so nothing could flow out. I was plugged up!! Now I am by nature a people person. But at this point I felt that if another person asked me to watch their child, fix a meal, or sell ___for a fundraiser, I WOULD SCREAM!!! I had nothing left to give my own children, much less anyone else’s. I was completely drained. What was wrong? I was a mother committed to the well-being of my children, why did I feel this lifeless, empty feeling?

John 7:37-40 (NIV)

 37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. 

I believe the problem developed because I was trying to do it all myself. There were several things I needed to do to “refill” my dry and lifeless spirit.

  •  Allow the Holy Spirit to flow through me. For water to flow out of a pond or lake, water must flow in first to cause the overflow.  If there is no flow, the water will become stagnant. I must refresh my Spirit with God’s Word, worship, and fellowship to prevent spiritual stagnation. Then “rivers of living water will flow from within me!”
  • Allow others to help me. That may mean humbling myself and admitting I can’t do it all. It may mean going to a counselor or doctor for treatment.
  • Prioritize my responsibilities so that when I feel drained, I know what is MOST important – and I do that first (and maybe nothing else.)
  • Remember that there will be seasons of feeling drained, suffering, trials, etc. Yet I don’t need to stay there.

The following prayer that Paul prayed for the Christians in Ephesus is a beautiful expression of the Father’s love for us and His desire that we experience that love.

Ephesians 3:13-19

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family  in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Instead of feeling drained, our heavenly Father wants to fill us to overflowing with His love. Use these verses as a prayer for yourself and your family members. You will be blessed!
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BORING!!!

I hope to set you free from one of the myths of mothering – it is not your responsibility as a mother to entertain your child!  So… now you are free from that burden.  Not to say that there aren’t times when it is fun to sing loudly with silly faces and make your child laugh. (remember, girls?)  But that should be FUN, and only done when you are so moved. You are not duty bound to make sure that every waking moment of your child’s life is fun or entertaining!

My father taught high school biology for 40 years and for several years was a naturalist in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. On days off, our family would pile in the car and drive through the park or on the Blue Ridge Parkway looking for the flora and fauna of the Smoky Mountains. This was before in-car-videos, cassette- tape players, and even the radio was ineffective because there were not radio signals on most of those remote roads. We were a captive audience. We would drive until Dad spotted a specimen, and then he would stop the car and we would wait until the light was just right for a picture.

I admit there were times I was bored. I know I complained. But eventually something began to happen. I started to see the world around me through my father’s eyes! I began to notice bee balm and orange fringed orchids blooming by the roadside.  I started to spot butterflies in damp puddles left by rain, or the fiddle heads of unfolding ferns. I was no longer bored! The world around me began to unfold as an infinite source of wonder and beauty. My father’s awe of God’s creation gradually became my own and is now the inspiration for my art work.

My father was not concerned about whether or not my brothers and I were having “fun”. He wanted to share with us something that he enjoyed and it was up to us to “take it or leave it”. I hate to think what would have happened if my parents had given in to my complaints and not exposed me to the wonders of my favorite place on earth – the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

As mothers we are bound the hear those whiny words, “Mommy, I’m bored.” At that moment we must be strong and not get sucked into thinking it is our fault and we must “fix it” so our child is happy again. It is our children’s choice to be bored – it is also their choice to be happy. These are feelings humans have and they are based on our reactions to circumstances more than the circumstances themselves. One quick remedy to boredom is a job – something to do. When our children said they were bored, their dad gave them a job to do. It didn’t take long for them to figure out that they either needed not to tell us they were bored, or better yet, figure out something they wanted to do. It was not our responsibility as parents to find something that they wanted to do.

James Bryan Smith in his book The Good and Beautiful God says that boredom is a symptom and the solution is being present where you are. I love that! I found that to be true on trips with my parents as a little girl. Taking in the beauty around me was engaging. It also began a life long habit of looking at plant and animal life. (to this day, my family and friends do not like to ride  with me when I am driving because I like to look around me!)

Some people become people watchers, some are music lovers, there are so many ways to be present where we are. This is an important skill to impart to our children. One of our children would count things. Ceiling tiles in church, panes in windows, rows of columns, she would occupy herself counting things which may have led to her proficiency in math. Our world is full of fascinating people, places and things. Helping our children appreciate the world around them will be a gift they can enjoy throughout their lives.

Psalm 19:1-2

 1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
   the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech,                                                                                                                   and night after night shows forth knowledge.

 

The result – freedom from boredom!