I Just Don't Understand It

I recently read an article in WORLD magazine where a Congressman read some of the material that the public schools use for sex education. It was truly appalling. While I appreciate WORLD keeping us abreast of what is happening, I actually tore those pages out so my children would not be subjected to the material. Many of the adults in Congress were squirming while it was being read because it made them so uncomfortable. Imagine, reading to children things that even most adults consider inappropriate.

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Then I ran into this over at the Common Room.

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I know things have been getting worse. In recent years when even Dr. Dobson was calling for Christians to remove their children from the public schools, I knew the situation was becoming critical.

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I have heard and read about the agenda in the public schools and the kinds of things the kids are being indoctrinated with. It makes me want to do something but since I homeschool I know it would not be effective. I don't have a dog in that race. But what about those in the system who are Christians and who are opposed to what is happening? Are they doing anything? If the public schools are a great mission field (which I have heard Christian parents say), where are the great missionaries? Surely we are not entrusting children with such a job. When I hear the statistics of adults who consider themselves Christians, I marvel that this propaganda can continue to be allowed. Do people not realize that ideas have consequences? Have we so been lulled into complacency that we don't even care? Or has the propaganda had it's desired effect and the parents actually think this is necessary? That this is the answer? I don't get it.

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Hasn't anyone out there read Brave New World? Oh, that's right. No one reads anymore. Maybe if they made a tv show out of it people might recognize a slippery slope when they see one.

Purple Makes Me Happy

Something kinda weird about me - purple makes me happy. It really does. I was sitting in the car, honking for the last stragglers to load up so we could go to a church meeting. Normally, this is a time when I get very irritable. I hate being late and I hate waiting. But when I looked up and saw my pretty purple clematis climbing up the stair rail, I had a wave of happy feeling come over me that overrode the irritation.

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I think maybe I started out liking purple when I was seven years old in order to imitate my step-mom. But it never went away. Now I involuntarily notice purple everywhere. My eye just draws to it. I don't think anyone really knows how much I love it. Almost every room in my house has something purple. The living room is tan, green and purple, the dining area and kitchen is painted solid purple, my dishes have purple irises on them, the upstairs bathroom is lavender, my bedroom is deep purple and white.

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Once when Candace was searching for a birthday present for me at a flea market, a sales clerk asked her if I collected anything. Candace replied, "Errr, purple. Anything purple."

Purple was very "in" a short time I ago and I was in my element. Purple things were available everywhere. I was tempted to stockpile everything purple. Now the fad is fading and other colors are replacing my own favorite.

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Thankfully, I have found an answer to being able to surround myself in purple despite retailer's fickle tastes. Purple flowers are my latest love - hydrangeas, hostas, larkspur, balloon flowers, irises. If it's purple, I like it. They make me feel like I'm in purple heaven. Even my potatoes are blooming purple. Ahhh.

Miscellaneous Goings On

I haven't been able to think of blog posts lately. We are just enjoying life and feeling very grateful.

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Everything is green and has finally recovered from the late freeze we had. We've been working in our garden and yard quite a bit. So far we have the tomatoes, peppers, peas, potatoes, strawberries, lettuce, and broccoli in. Today we hope to finish with the green beans, squash and cucumbers. My semi-new discovery in the garden has been landscape fabric. I love putting it down between the rows and avoiding weeding. We use hay or straw in between the plants and we have very little weeding to do.

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We tore down our pool after our puppy drowned in it and we are replacing it with a cobblestone-type patio. We have plans to install our little pond and some flowers and we're making a fire pit in the middle. The girls bought me a park bench for Mother's Day and it's going to be perfect out there. (The boys each got me beautiful cards and flowers. )

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Ford and Kenny (and even Lori) have been working hard on the additions down at the shop and they are hoping to start the digging of the lake soon. They are really hoping to have it done so we can use it this summer. They hope to bring in sand for a nice beach area and leave an island with a big tree on it in the middle. I'm having fun imagining get-togethers with volleyball and big bonfires on the beach, seeing the kids enjoy fishing, boating and swimming, camping on the island and having ducks.

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My sister, Lori, has also fully recovered from her last baby. The sound of hammers and saws can be heard through the woods on a regular basis. She's always tackling something - redoing a floor, drywall, ripping off a deck, etc. The other day she popped over to fulfill her promised birthday present to me and cut landscape timbers and cut out some steps that come down the hill from her house to ours. We just have to finish nailing the timbers down. Now you don't have to slide down the muddy bank into our screenroom. What a woman!

The Master Plan of Evangelism

Have I mentioned how much we love our church? Oh yeah, forty times or so. I think I mentioned before when we changed churches we expected to have to swallow quite a bit. It turned out quite the opposite. Instead we are constantly, even still, amazed at how much we love it and how excited we are. And not just over the people but the underlying principles that govern the church's actions.

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At a recent leadership meeting one of our pastors highly recommended the book The Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert E. Coleman. We ordered it and began reading it aloud as a family at dinner (which is at noon) today. We've never been a family that has had a big interest in evangelism as is commonly practiced in our society but this book definitely has our interest. One thing we have been amazed at is how successful our church has been at reaching unchurched people and they do it with a large dose of REALITY. Being real and relevant while loving people not only draws them but keeps quite a few of them growing and in turn serving others. We immediately felt that not only would this be a place where we could give, but that there were things we could learn here.

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Back to the book. The first chapter describes Jesus' stradegy. He concentrated heavily on teaching and mentoring a few, while at the same time serving the multitudes. He "favored" a few because of His love for the multitudes and He had a plan to multiply His work on earth.

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"Yet, strangely enough, it is scarcely comprehended in practice today. Most of the evangelistic efforts of the church begin with the multitudes under the assumption that the church is qualified to preserve what good is done. The result is our spectacular emphasis on numbers of converts, candidates for baptism, and more members for the church, with little or no genuine concern manifested toward the establishment of these souls in the love and power of God, let along the preservation and continuation of the work."

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"Here is where we must begin just like Jesus. It will be slow, tedious, painful, and probably unnoticed by people at first, but the end result will be glorious, even if we don't live to see it. Seen this way, though, it becomes a big decision in the ministry. We must decide where we want our ministry to count - in the momentary applause of popular recognition or in the reproduction of our lives in a few chosen people who will carry on our work after we have gone. Really it is a question of which generation we are living for. "

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Several of us remarked on this last passage and how like homeschooling it is. How so many parents are giving up the approval or recognition from their peers and society because they are thinking ahead to the next generation. And how like Jesus' plan it is to spend the most intensive teaching time on a few.

Being a Helpmeet

You know when you have those times where there seems to be a theme in all you experience? Being a better helpmeet to my husband has been a theme for me lately. Shirley Solis of Lifetime Books gave me the CD of her lecture on the topic and we listened to it on the way home form Missouri.

I am also working my way through the Anne of Green Gables series. I am in the middle of Anne of Ingleside. Anne has to live with Gilbert's aunt who has come for a short visit but it has not been so short. This aunt "poisons" the home and makes everyone miserable. Gilbert does not do what several wish he would - kick her out. "He says he could never look himself in the face again if he turned his own flesh and blood out of doors", even though she has plenty of money and a home of her own. She is mean to the children and the household help and ruins every potential nice time together. She constantly complains and undermines Anne and makes her feel as if she doesn't belong in her own home. What would I do in those circumstances? Unless God had really got a hold of me, I can tell you it would be the exact opposite of what Anne does. What does Anne do? Does she explode with anger at Gilbert? Does she disrespect his spinelessness and unwillingness to stand up to his aunt and protect his family? Does she take matters into her own hands? No. She defers to Gilbert's sense of honor. She chides herself for complaining of such "little things" and feeling sorry for herself. Instead she embraces compassion for the friendless woman and ends up giving her a surprise birthday party. God blessed Anne in the end because the aunt ends up offended over the birthday party and finally leaves. But in her leaving, Anne can rest with a clear conscience and the knowledge that she chose Christian love.

With a little more free time this week I decided to borrow my sister's copy of Debi Pearl's Created to Be His Help Meet. It is such a chore for me to read these kind of books but I decided to give it a try. I've read the first few chapters this afternoon and it immediately put me in mind of the character of Anne. She demonstrates the qualities of a helpmeet with a joyful, merry and thankful heart.

All of these things sure shine the light where improvement is needed in my character. It's one thing to read these things and gain fresh inspiration to do good, but it's another to form habits that last long after the books are forgotten.

My middle name is Ann without the e. I need to become more like the "Anne with an e".

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**Update: A funny note. Tonight I sat on the porch swing reading to Annalise the next story in James Herriot's Treasury for Children. The story we are on is called The Market Square Dog and in it the country vet and his wife are all dressed up in their best clothes about to leave on a special rare date out when a policeman comes and brings a hurt dog. When Mr. Herriot apologizes to his wife because the care of the dog will prevent them from their plans, she graciously reassures him that she understands. And here is a quote from the story:

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"By the time we had finished, it was too late to go out anywhere, but Helen was quite cheerful. 'We can still have our picnic,' she said. We carried the sleeping dog out to the garden and laid him on a mat on the lawn so that we could watch him as he came round from the anaesthetic.

Out there in the old high-walled garden the sun shone down on the flowers and the apple trees. Helen put on her fancy hat again and I put my smart jacket back on and as we sat there, enjoying the good things from the picnic basket , we felt that we were still having a day out."

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Isn't that a beautiful example of a good wife bringing comfort to her husband and being thankful and cheerful and not pouting and scolding and feeling sorry for herself? Isn't it funny that this was in the story I read to my little girl tonight right after I wrote the above post? Hmmm.