HAVE YOU EVER...grieved?

            This week we celebrate the life of my Dad.  He passed away 7 years ago from pancreatic cancer.  He had been married to my mom for 35 years.  They met right out of college at their first teaching job.  He had 2 daughters and now 4 grandkids.  We all miss him every day.

            Grieving is a natural part of life.  I can say that now.  Up until 7 years ago – I had no idea what grief was.  I had been sad.  I had lost other family members and friends.  This was shattering.  Real grief changed my life.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.  Matthew 5:4

            I don’t like change.  I lost my father.  My mom moved further away.  I was a stay at home mom with 2 young children.  I had nothing to focus on but my grief and the changes in my life.

            My oldest child had just started kindergarten.  I remember how everyone changes when they go to college, fall in love, get married, and have kids.  But I still didn’t like change.  I like routine.  The mundaneness of my life.  Nobody rock my boat!  Especially, you God!

            Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 that God comforts us in our troubles so that we can learn to comfort others as well.  In Revelation 21, John experienced God’s plans for us in heaven.  God will wipe away every tear.  And most of all I know my father loved the Lord.  Someday, as 1 Thessalonians 4 says, my family has the hope that Jesus will bring us all to be with him in heaven. In God’s timing. 

            Change made me grow as a person.  It was all part of God’s plan.  My life has changed more in the last 7 years than in the last 39, because of how God has been working in my life.  Because I finally accepted the changes, God is also working through my life. 

HAVE YOU EVER…changed?

Psalm 46:1-2; Romans 8:18

  

HAVE YOU EVER...sent a kid to school?

This time of year, everyone has mixed emotions.  We are all going back to school.  For me, I just love a routine.  Some moms need a break from their kids.  I know many parents are busy taking back to school pictures.  I am crying because my son is almost a teenager and going to middle school.  I’ve seen a lot of kindergarten mom’s boohooing too.

We send our kids to school to learn academics, but we know that it is also a social event.  In the mid-eighties, Edwin Hutchins coined the term distributed cognition.  And since the sixties they had been studying how interactions among people in a continued environment; mainly the work place, effect cognition. 

Cognition is socially distributed.  Our environment affects us as a culture and community.  Working with others also affects us.  We learn and solve problems better together.

Now, there are even more ways to distribute cognition.  Phones, computers, and tablets distribute from person to person.  These objects create a collaborative internet world.  We all believe that the internet is the best way to learn because it has become more accessible.  EASY.

I don’t need to give you statistics.  Our kids were born technology geniuses.  They start younger and younger holding remotes and using their little fingers to swipe screens.  Even their school books are online. 

Romans 12:2 says do not conform to the pattern of this world.  We are all addicted to technology.  It is so easy to reach out to someone far away.  It is also too easy for our kids to see or say or do something on these machines they cannot take back. 

This year our entire school district – kindergarten through twelfth grade have been issued chrome books.  I am excited because it is going to be easier for teachers, students, and parents to link school and home learning.  I am scared to death that my kid will break theirs first.  I am also afraid of what kind of trouble they could get into with this type of access.  Just because my kids have chrome books for school does not mean that any of the technology rules are going to change at our house. 

Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you.  

Proverbs 4:25

While creating a safe and successful learning environment is a goal for our schools, we still have a responsibility.  Just because our kids say, “I got this,” doesn’t mean they do.  My prayer is that they fix their eyes on Christ and make wise decisions.  I am praying for only wholesome things to pass in front of their eyes and that they see the importance of that too.

HAVE YOU EVER…prayed your kid through school?

  

Proverbs 13:20; Colossians 3:2;  1 John 2:15-17

HAVE YOU EVER...had hope?

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.  Romans 5:5

            You hear me saying, “I hope” this or that will happen all the time.  I also have hope in people.  I am a trusting person.  I believe that there is good in everyone.  Recently, I have really noticed that people have hope in me.  They count on me to behave or react in a certain way, because I am a Christian.  Non-Christians are watching and waiting for me to fail and I do.  I am a sinner.  Christian or not I fail.  Everyday.

            Have you ever been in a court room or watched a case on TV?  If it is a juicy case setting, you might have heard a judge tell someone that they were, “held in contempt.”  This means that the person was being disrespectful, causing a disturbance, or just blatantly disobeying the rules of a courtroom.  We find this interesting and exciting.  Why do we find someone disobeying rules intriguing?

            God sent his son to die on the cross for us one time for all of our sins.  We weren’t even born yet.  God knew how many times we were going to sin.  You cannot count how many times you sinned last week let alone your whole lifetime.   Why do I keep making the same mistakes?  Why do I keep falling for the same intrigue? 

           

When there is contempt, there is no hope.

            This statement says it all.  I hope in the Lord, but I do not have enough consideration to change.  I believe that Jesus Christ saved me, but I still feel worthless and undeserving.  The Spirit speaks to me through the Bible, but I do not regard following God’s word each day as important as my worldly ways.  Each day, God could be sitting in a large judge’s chair pointing a finger at me saying “I find her in contempt!”  But he’s not.

The LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love. 

Psalm 147:11

            I am a child of God.  I get up every day and read my Bible and ask the Lord to guide me that day.  I do my best.  Yes; I fail, but I keep trying.  I am still growing in Christ.  My hope is in Him.  I’m going to do better today. 

HAVE YOU EVER…been held in contempt?

  

Psalm 18:3; Proverbs 13:12; 2 Peter 2:10