Connected

We are forgetting how to connect with each other.  My family, that is.

I mean everyone, really. . .but when we are sitting in the living room, all of us together and close, heads bent over glowing screens, near enough to touch but in completely different worlds, that is where it makes my heart pause.

Lately, in our house, I have noticed more and more of this.  More and more disconnect.  Now, I am not anti-technology, or even anti social media.  I realize it is here to stay, and I think it can be a phenomenal tool.   The Ranch has benefited greatly from social networking online, and as a chronic Facebook over-sharer, I am personally enslaved to fond of keeping up with friends and sharing photos of the kids with Grandma and Grandpa online.

Still, I wonder how many deep, heart conversations I have missed out on with my kids because they were, or I was, too engrossed in a news feed or whatever is trending on Twitter.  I wonder how many moments I have brushed off one of the Littles without even realizing it and I won't even approach the reality of how much time I could be spending in the Word and in prayer if I shut down my phone and spent half of the time on the internet. . .

But that's another blog, and one that has been written times over. . .because, well, we are all feeling this overloaded, over stimulated, over connected disconnect in our lives.

So, Stephen and I are taking some steps to battle this.  Rather than changing the wi-fi password (which we strongly considered and may still revert to), one of the things we are doing is to simply challenge our kids, and ourselves, to choose to connect.  To put some flesh on this, we came up with a list of 40 ways they might do that and challenged them to choose at least 3 things off of that list a week.  (I thought it should be 5, but Steve always says I'm excessive.  Go figure.)  Some of these are simple and take only a moment.  Some require a bit of effort and preparation.  I pray all of them will nurture the face to face, real life, soul filling connection that our over-saturated lives are starving for!

Here is our list:
(In our family with so many kids and such a wide age-range, the youngest four - ranging in age from 3-11) have bee affectionately dubbed the Littles.  Much of this list reflects our desire for our older kids (the Bigs) to pour into the lives of their younger siblings.)

1.  Do Sunday School homework with the Littles.

2.  Crochet with them

3.  Play a game with someone(s)

4.  Do a craft with the girls

5.  Read a book with the Littles

6.  Paint the little girl's finger and toenails

7.  Invite someone(s) to go for a walk

8.  Ask someone about their day, and then really listen to their answer

9.  Play an instrument with one of the Littles

10.  Help with homework, or quiz them on math facts or sight words

11.  Leave your phone in your room for 1 hour

12.  Ask someone to go ride (do this for the Littles or with someone else)

13. Build a fire and make hot chocolate for the family

14. Bake cookies or invite one of the Littles to cook with you

15. Take someone(s) out for coffee or ice cream.  (Hint:  We'd probably pay)

15. Plan a date night with someone in the family

16. Have a photo shoot with the Littles

17. Make goofy videos with the Littles

18. Spend  2 minutes listening intently to whatever someone wants to talk about

19. Spend 2 minutes sharing about your day with someone

20. Whatch a "What's in the Bible" video with the Littles then discuss it with them

21. Color with a Little

22. Write a note of encouragement for someone in the family

23. Help a Little write a note to someone and mail it

24. Call a grandparent just to chat

25. Take a Little to visit a grandparent

26. Offer to do an extra chore, or simply do something extra that you see needs done.

27. Offer to do someone else's chore for them or with them

28. Jump on the trampoline with the Littles for half an hour

29. Paint a picture with a Little

30. Read the Bible with a Little

31. Hug someone

32. Tell someone something you appreciate about them

33. Build a fort with the Littles (and clean it up)

34. Practice spelling with the Littles with Scrabble tiles

35. Build Legos with a Little

36. Trim their toenails (this was Dad's idea)

37. Do a puzzle with someone(s)

38. Grab a Little and commit a random act of kindness together

39. Stargaze with someone

40. Initiate a pillow fight

Also, the irony of sharing about this issue via a blog is never lost on me.  Baby steps! 

What about you?  I'd love to hear your ideas to add to the list!?  What creative efforts do you and your family employ to combat this in your home?  

For Every Moment . . .

Stephen,

Thank you.

For the way God used you to bridge the gap in our life, thank you.

For pointing to Him when I can't see, thank you.

For loving others where I am critical,

For leading when I am overwhelmed,

For loving me through every one of my crazy, emotional ups and downs, thank you.

For being the dad who takes the kids on errands, and changes diapers, and does bed time routine, and Sunday School homework and Bible time, thank you.

For coaching the kid's basketball and softball and being the one who dances for show choir, thank you.

For running to the store at 10:00 at night because we forgot diapers, coffee, cream, Children's Motrin, toilette paper, poster board for the science project due tomorrow, or any one of a million other things, thank you.

For holding me when I cry and for not holding me so I could  cry,

For every time you have not kissed me on the forehead,

For riding out the storm,

For always being on my side, thank you.

For the amazing facial hair   Ummmm. . .No.

For the way you always see the best in people, thank you.

For your heart for the hurting,

For saying yes to four kids who needed us, thank you.

For your desire to be generous and love others, sometimes to the point of naivete, thank you.

For putting up with "Gilmore Girls" marathons, thank you

For cleaning up puke,

For tackling mountains of laundry,

For letting me have dinner with the girls, even when life is crazy, thank you.

For seeking to live a life of simplicity that we can give more, thank you.

For letting me explore my crazy whims, thank you.

For literally working harder than anyone I have ever known, thank you.

For your repeated grace when we have to turn around because I forgot my phone, purse, driver's license, or child, thank you.

For listening to me drone on and on about my latest obsession, thank you.

For having the patience and nerves to teach our kids to drive, thank you.

For taking the trash out and remembering milk and eggs and coffee,

For tucking in and night time prayer and bed time kisses and laughter,

For calling when I didn't want to, thank you.

For driving across the country with me, to Canada and Florida, North Carolina and Tennessee and Colorado because I am terrified of flying, thank you.

For reading Psalms to me on the phone for an hour after I watched a scary movie,

For all the times you've woken up in the middle of the night to hold me after a nightmare, thank you.

For being the kind of dad that sets the standard for our future son in law,

For being a living example of hard work, integrity and stewardship for our sons, thank you.

For running out of the house in your underwear and talking to the cop to find out if we were safe, even though you were still in your underwear, thank you.

For wrestling with the hard things,

For not giving up on us, even when it has seemed hopeless,

For being my anchor and home base,

For every moment of the last 15 years,

Thank you.

For being the most amazing gift that God has given us. . . we love you beyond words.

Happy Father's Day . . .to God's best for us.

Ordinary Sacred

Prayers from the mountain. . .

Sitting in the foothills of the Cascade mountains in beautiful, central Oregon.  Faith is so much easier here in places like these where Your beauty is loud and splashes across the sky in snow capped granite and vast untouched expanse.  The heavy scent of evergreen and the sound of all creation living and breathing praise drowns out the deafening mundane of every day.  I want to see You and hear You like this always.

Give my heart eyes to find this steadfast and unyielding beauty in the mountain of dirty clothes strew across the laundry room floor.  In manure and shavings and garden weeds.  In the deepest parts of me I know that You are as present - maybe even more - in sinks full of dirty dishes and in the sticky fists and mournful wails of an overtired toddler.

This quiet, mundane, every day is the holy place where strength is forged and faithfulness is lived.

Let me know Your beauty here. Fill me with the nearness of Your presence in the sacred of every ordinary moment.  There is no other time to be faithful - no other day to yield my heart in joyful surrender.  There is only now.   And it is beautiful.

Much

Sunday morning a friend posted a link to this blog, which calls to light the imminent execution of 33 Christians in North Korea at the order of dictator Kim Jong-un.  These believers are reportedly being sentenced to execution for their work to birth nearly 500 underground churches in North Korea.

While I was sitting on my couch, curled up under a blanket and drinking a cup of coffee, lamenting daylight savings time and the loss of an hour of sleep, this.  This was happening.  33 of my brothers and sisters, literally facing death for their faith.

No.

Not for their faith alone, for faith without works is dead.  But for their passionate, all-in, willing to lay down their life in the most literal sense, all consuming devotion to share the gospel.  That others would know freedom, know salvation, know Life.  They have become obedient, even to death.  Conformed to the image of Christ in ways that I cannot even comprehend.  And I cannot shake this.

As I got ready for church, I could not shake it.  As I sat in my comfortable pew, singing familiar songs, I thought about moments I'd whispered lyrics with reverence and awe, and way too many moments I'd sung rehearsed words with much too much familiarity and apathy.  And I could not shake it.

We went out to lunch with some of our beloved church family (a rare treat for us since our family has expanded) and we came back together in the evening for more fellowship and study and play and the more I enjoy all of the blessing, the more I cannot shake it and I wonder.  Is it really blessing?  I mean it is.  But what does it mean?  All of this incredibly lavish poured out on me.  Am I called to simply be grateful and live life enjoying the extravagant much I have been given?  And all day long, I just couldn't shake it.  And softly, the Spirit whispered the Word to my heart:

Peter asked, "Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?"   

(Peter wanted to know if he was off the hook.  Don't we all?!)

The Lord answered, "Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time?  It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns.  Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.  But suppose the servant says to himself, 'My master is taking a long time in coming,' and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk.  The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of.  He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.

The servant who knows the master's will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows.  But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows.  From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."     

Luke 12:41-48

Do we get what these verses mean?  Do we understand. . .really down to our toes. . .that we.  We. We are the ones with much.  Much everything.

Much time.  We have more time than any of us know what to do with.  I know, I know.  We are all so busy it makes our head spin.  But what are we doing?  We spend very little time on anything devoted to our actual survival.  While much of the world still spends their days working hard labor simply to live, we have mastered the art of luxury.  To the degree that we can no longer even discern where the line is between necessity and excess.  Where does our time go?  I know that I am constantly complaining/bragging/lamenting how busy my life is, but I can promise you that if someone made public the amount of time I spend on Facebook, I would probably crawl under a rock in shame.  I want to serve.  I want to get on my face and pray for the persecuted church and for my friends and family who don't know Christ.  I want to disciple my kids and invest in real relationships that satisfy the soul and impact eternity.  There are so many time suckers in my life that I allow to distract me from doing anything that means anything.

Much money.  Yep.  That's us.  I know, a lot of us are sick of hearing this.  But are we hearing this?  You've heard the stats.  Much of the world lives on $2.00 a day.  Two dollars a day.  I am not going to hammer this point because so many others already are and because we know in our core that it is true.  We. Have. Too. Much.  The simple reality is that we, in this country.  Us.  We have the financial potential to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.  To provide Bibles and food and medical supplies and missionaries to the very least of these. We debate whether we should start at home, or send our resources to the poorest of the poor around the world.  The answer is yes.  I know that the issues are complicated - that just sending money doesn't fix everything and sometimes even makes things worse.  But it is time to stop hiding behind this excuse.  There are brilliant people out there who have addressed this and are offering wonderful, wholistic, thoughtful, workable solutions, but we have to act.  Rise up, Church!  Scripture is clear.  We are given much so that we can give much.

Much access to Scripture.  We all have extra Bibles idling on shelves ,in drawers, under beds.  At our finger tips we have access to endless resources.  Blogs, books, Greek and Hebrew dictionaries and lexicons.  Commentaries and sermons.  More than any generation before us, this information is available not just to the elite and highly educated - but to every day people.  You.  Me.  My fear is that we have become so saturated that the incredible, life giving Word of God has become common to us.  Such access have we to Scripture and biblical teaching and resources that our churches should be overflowing with strong, mature, meat eating believers living lives marked by joy, sacrificial service and radical giving.  If tomorrow, the government ordered it illegal to read the Bible and came in and stripped your home and church of every copy, how much of that precious, living and active Word would be hidden in our hearts?  We cannot say we didn't know, didn't have opportunity, for our lives overflow with access to both.

Much freedom.  Freedom to worship, to share our faith, to live openly as believers in the glorious Lord Jesus Christ! Is it true that some of those freedoms are under attack?  Probably.  But in light of the kind of persecution happening around the world I hardly think we can see ourselves as oppressed.  What are we doing with our freedom?  While brothers and sisters around the world literally risk being disowned by their families, thrown in prison, tortured, and killed, we call it persecution when private business owners instruct their employees to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas.  I think it is time for some perspective.

The believers in North Korea risked their earthly lives to share the freedom and Life they had found in Christ.  They planted nearly 500 underground churches, and I am often scared to share my faith because someone might think I am weird.  Sometimes I don't want to share because I don't want to be associated with many of the stereotypes and stigmas associated with Christians (and let's be honest, we've fairly earned some of these.)  But if I really believe. . .really believe. . .down to the core of who I am that there is a world full of people created in His image, precious to Him, dying in their sin and captivity, how dare I keep my faith to myself.  There is nothing more important for me on this earth than to obey His direct command to go and make disciples.  It is my calling, my purpose.  It should be the driving motivation and context for everything I do.  Every word, every action, every decision should take this one, life consuming goal into consideration - beginning with a desire to draw my family to Him - but rippling into every compartment of my life and every person I may be given the divine opportunity to touch.  What are we doing with our freedom?

"From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded."

Please hear that this selfish, comfort addicted, Facebook saturated, time wasting, witness fearing girl is preaching to herself.  I needed to hear this.  Need to remember this.  Over and over.  Maybe you too?  Oh how these verses should cause us some serious reflection.  The question isn't whether or not we have much.  That debate is old and worn out.  The question is what are we doing with our much?