Answered Prayer

So, remember my post last week about my oldest son and his problems in school? It was an eye opening experience to me: children learn social behavior. Brilliant, right?0

I know, I know. I know this. I know it's important to teach my children perfect manners, correct indoor voice volume, not to interrupt adults...I know all that. But this week was a lesson in teaching the art of making friends, a vital piece of the social behavior pie chart. Something I just assumed would come naturally. But surprisingly, it's a learned behavior too and I didn't pay attention to what was being taught until he was already hurting.


But, right before I posted the previous post about this subject, here, I prayed. I cried and prayed to God for guidance on how to help my baby. To lead me to the root of the problem. And He did!




Right after that posted, I received a return phone call from his teacher, Mrs. R. At the beginning of the school year we dealt with the a similar problem with Ethan; she did not impress me as being very empathetic at the time, so I had low expectations. Thankfully, she blew them out of the water this time. Maybe I caught her on a bad day last fall, I don't know, but this time she was full of support and enthusiasm to fixing the problem.


She told me that she did not see an issue of the kids not liking Ethan, or not wanting to play with him. She said he stayed by himself most of the time, and when he did try to interact with his classmates, it came across awkward and confusing.

His sense of humor is on the odd side. He's the quiet, gamer boy in the corner...rather be playing Plants vs Zombies than talking about...well, anything. So, for example, he'd walk up to a table of classmates and yell some random phrase, like "fuzzy bunny!" then walk off. When they looked at each other in confusion instead of laughing, he took this as a sign they hated him, and shut down. 


She suggested several great ideas. I am letting him go on a field trip that I had not planned to let him attend, since he'd be gone most of the day and his dad & I couldn't go. But she assured me she would pair him up with boys she thought he could get along with (they'll be in groups of 4 or 5, which is less pressure on him to be social, too). She suggested letting him speak with the guidance counselor, as well. 

I wasn't 100% sure what that would accomplish, but I now have to say it was a wonderful idea. I'm familiar with the man, he's an older grandfatherly type and very nice. He called Ethan in to chat and when I asked Ethan about it later he said it was nice, he just thought he was in trouble so he didn't open up. I explained that he could talk to the man about anything he wanted and that maybe it would help talking to someone other than his mom & dad about these issues. He was so excited that it just broke my heart. He's happy to have help, to not deal with this alone. And I so happy for him. 

That night we had a long talk about how to make friends. How to engage someone in conversation. How to find someone the other person is interested in so you can find something in common to talk about. Smile. Make eye contact. Don't blurt out goofy stuff that only you understand and then take it personally when they don't get the joke.

Every day now when we are driving to school, Katie or I one remind him: Your goal today is to start a conversation with a classmate. And after school: Did you talk to anyone today? Who? Did anyone start a conversation with you?

Seems so simple, doesn't it? But to him, it was Greek. Like Plants vs Zombies is to me.

He has been much happier this week. No explosions in anger when he can't play video games. Only a couple of times of him feeling isolated and sad, and then we went over his day, finding times someone spoke to him, played with him, and he realized...it's getting better. He's making progress, and they're responding in kind. He's not a freak.

Something his momma knew all along. 

Thank you, Jacklyn, for your kind words. You always make me feel like the World's Best Mom when I'm feeling quite the opposite. And you have practical, wonderful advice and encouragement. Thank you most of all for your prayers. Same to you, Beth. Thanks for listening. And listening. And listening some more ☺
 

An Unlikely Hero ~ Part 4

I did not intend for this to drag out as long as it has! Truth be told, when I started study Gideon last week, I wasn't a fan. He struck me as a bit whiny, very scared, and not much of a hero. But after going over his story 2 or 3 times, studying it all out, and much prayer, I came to realize two facts:


1. Gideon had a total transformation by the end of his story and becomes the man of valor the Lord called him on day one. (Makes me wonder: is it because God knew the end from the beginning? Or was He speaking it into existence? Or both!)


2. I'm a LOT like Gideon. I need a lot of hand-holding, just to do what God promised me I could do!


I left off yesterday with Gideon tearing down the altar and statue of the false god that his clan worshiped. He seems to have accepted the call to deliver Israel from the Midianites and Amalekites. But read on. Just when you think he's ready to go....he asks for another sign!

And here's what Gideon is probably most famous for: The Fleece. Every once in a while I hear someone say, I'm putting my fleece out (before God). It's our little "test" for God to show us He meant what He said the first time (and 2nd, 3rd, 5th....). We're SO trusting, right?!


But Gideon tests God, albeit, humbly. God, please, if You meant what You said, if I'm supposed to deliver Israel from our enemies and You're REALLY going to help me....

1. Let the ground be dry in the morning, but the fleece be wet. And not only does He make it wet, Gideon is able to wring water out of it. It wasn't damp, it was SOAKING wet.

Now....shouldn't that have been enough? He's already appeared as an angel, make fire appear out of a rock, given him specific direction at night concerning the altar and statue, and now the fleece is wet but there's no dew on the ground....shouldn't that have been enough?!

Well, no, because he's human. Just like me. And no matter how many times I read this wonderful book full of promises TO ME....I just keep testing Him, asking Him for ONE MORE SIGN. Proof that He still loves me (maybe He's changed His mind now that He's gotten to know me!)...that He hasn't left me (cause, really, even *I* want to leave me sometimes!)...that He hasn't forgot me (I mean, what have I done to stand out? Besides some major whining and testing?).

So, yeah. Gideon is my Grandpa, for real.

2. Let the ground be wet with dew and the fleece be totally dry. DONE. If you know fleece at all, you know how well it absorbs liquid. There is no way this thing is going to be bone dry and the ground be wet. Unless....

Is anything too hard for God? Really, the test is a little on the lame side when you consider just who Gideon is testing! 


Now, think about this for a second. God chose the weakest man out of the poorest clan, and out of the tribe that is already divided in two (on either side of the Jordan). He has appeared to him, given him sign after sign. What does this tell you about God?

It told me that He is SO kind, loving, and patient with His most timid, weak, inhibited children. And time and time again, I'm that child. He didn't rebuke Gideon for asking for a sign. He didn't say, Again with the tests and signs? Nope, that's it, I'm done. I'm moving on to the next guy!


Why? Why does He bear with us? Why does He keep coming back to us, again and again, even though we've ran off, pushed Him away, ignored Him, tested Him, disbelieved Him?

The only answer I can come up with is this: He must really, REALLY love us. Really.

The only thing I can compare it to is the love I have for my children. I love them unconditionally. If they push me away, disobey me, try to distance themselves from me, it upsets me...but I keep working on them, pulling them back to me. I keep providing for them, cooking their meals, washing their clothes. In fact, I start looking for ways to do extra, just to show them how much I care, how much I love them.

Sound familiar? The story of the Old Testament can be wrapped up in two words, for me:

Unconditional Love.

Looks like part 5 tomorrow!

An Unlikely Hero - Part 3

I'm in Judges 6, by the way, for those that want to follow along. 

Okay, we left off with the Angel of the Lord (or the Lord, as He is henceforth referred as) calling Gideon a man of valor and telling him that HE is the next mighty deliverer...with the help of the Lord.

So, Gideon, being human like the rest of us, says...if it's really you talking to me (and not a figment of my imagination - give me a sign! He asked the Lord to remain while he runs to get a present for the Him. The Lord agrees to hang around while Gideon runs to prepare a meal. The Lord accepts the gift by touching the food with His staff and consuming it with fire that came out of the rock..then disappeared right in front of him! If that's not sign enough that you're not crazy and you're truly talking to an angel, I don't know what is! Then Gideon is all scared, cause he's just looked upon the Lord and lived to tell about it and the Lord has to reassure him he won't die for it! Sounds like he is STILL not convinced of the plan.


Now the incident I mentioned earlier: the Lord tells Gideon that his first act as deliverer is to tear down his father's altar to Baal and build an altar to the true God, then offer the wood from Baal's altar as a burnt sacrifice. And our little man of valor sneaks out with 10 servants and does so in the dead of night because he is SCARED of the men in the city. Gideon is STILL not convinced God is on his side and that he is ordained to win. What a patient God!


Of course, the men of the city woke up the next day and were all like, What happened to our altar!?! They find out it's Gideon and go after him but his dad stops them with this challenge: If Baal is truly a god, let him fight for himself! And from that day forward he called Gideon "Jerubbaal", meaning, let Baal plead. 

This got me to thinking today about a question I hear a lot as a Christian: Why does God allow suffering? Why doesn't He....(fill in the blanks). For instance, when things like the hurricane last year or the year before that hit Haiti and did a number on the island, killing thousands, leaving thousands more homeless, parentless, jobless...Why did God let it happen?
Let me tell you my answer. Why did THEIR god allow it? The national religion of Haiti is Voodoo. The people of Haiti have very clearly stated, we do not serve the God of the Bible. I'd say they serve Satan, personally, since they practice dark magic & voodoo. But these people are praying to false gods. So, why does the rest of the world get mad at God? He isn't their protector. They don't want Him. They don't pray to Him. So He honors that and stays away (free will and all that).

The point is: who are you serving? Cause if you aren't feeling very protected, if you are full of strife and discontentment, if you can't see God anywhere...maybe you're not under HIS protection...maybe you're not actually serving Who you claim you serve.

Hmmm....gonna end on that note today☺


Looks like we'll have part 4 tomorrow...I love a good cliffhanger!

An Unlikely Hero - Part 2

You can read in Judges 2:1-3 the account I mentioned yesterday, of how God warned the Israelites that He was going to leave some of their enemies unconquered and why. He also warns them that they will be "thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you." In Joshua, He adds the enemy will be "pricks in your eyes". So they had been fully warned of the consequences of messing with the false gods of their neighbors.

Now, leading up to the time of Gideon, there had already been at least 4 times of a falling away from God's law and way, to a following of false gods, to persecution from the enemy by God's hand, to calling on God and a deliverer being sent. The first deliverer was Caleb's nephew/son-in-law, Othniel. The 2nd was Ehud, the 3rd Shamgar - who had just one verse in Judges. Then Deborah. 

Ohhhhh, Deborah! What a feisty little woman of God! And when the Bible refers to them as deliverers and judges, the word is used to mean as a leader in the sense of a president or king, just like Moses & Joshua had been. Israel's first woman leader...I love it!

So, Gideon becomes the 5th judge and deliverer, at least of those mentioned in the Book of Judges. Judges 6:1 says the people were doing evil in the sight of the Lord, so He delivered them up to the Midianites.

 Ever feel like everything you do just slips through your fingers, you have nothing to show for all your hard work, and it looks like God has washed His hands of you? Might want to check your life, make sure you're not doing "evil in the site of the Lord." And evil can mean so many different things but basically is anything against the will, plan, and ways of God. 

There is also a devil at work, so that's not always the reason, but here's one good way to tell which it is for you: check and see if you have peace. If there's peace in the middle of your storm, God's right there with you and you're exactly where you're meant to be. If you can't find any peace, no matter what you do, how hard you pray, then maybe He is withholding peace to get your attention.

So anyway, Gideon. For seven years the Midianites have been oppressing the Israelites and they start crying out to God for help. They didn't even get rid of their false gods first, so there goes the theory you have to clean yourself up before you approach God. They were in the middle of their sin, asking God for help, and He responded. But the first thing He had Gideon do as their deliverer was to tear down the altar of Baal in the middle of the city and rebuild HIS altar. Talk about a loud statement!

I've skipped ahead! First, though, where does God find this future hero? Hiding out in a whine press so he can secretly thrash wheat, to keep it from falling into the Midianites' hands. And when the Lord (or the Angel of the Lord) addresses him in his hiding place, He says to Gideon "The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour." (I really wish they used exclamation points in KJV!) 

So Gideon is hiding from the enemy and God calls him a man of valour...a MIGHTY man of valour! He should have looked around and said, "Who, ME?!" 

(The dictionary does not recognize that spelling of "valor" but that's how the KJV spells it - I'm going to switch to the current spelling because that red squiggly line messes with my English OCD!)

The first thing Gideon responds with is, Where is the Lord?! He has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of our enemies! (paraphrased☺) He conveniently leaves out the part where Israel forsook God first! What surprises me is the angel totally ignores that omission as well. He doesn't point out their sin, their serving false gods, thus negating God's promise of protection. He basically says, I am sending YOU to fix that!


Okay, I'm all fired up and can't wrap this up today, so come back again tomorrow for part 3! ☺

Social...not so much.

A few days ago I woke up with a heavy heart. My 10 year old son is not doing well in school right now, socially. It's been going on for just over a year and really started affecting his grades. I can handle that; it just tears me up to see him so miserable.

We take so many things for granted, like, my child with make friends easily and always feel loved and socially acceptable. But that doesn't happen naturally for everyone, including him. He is the type that hangs in the background, unsure of himself and how he fits in, unable to speak up and take the first small step to making a stranger a friend. Small talk with his peers does not come easy to him. He is his father's son.


So, after dealing with the grades aspect, and pushing him to make just one good friend, I thought we were good. But I started noticing some ongoing problems, compounded by his ever changing emotional state (thank you, puberty!). I feel like I finally got to the bottom of the problem this week when he had a mini breakdown and admitted just how bad it is at school for him every day.

Hiding at recess, crying because no one wants to play with him, sitting alone at free time...just typing those words makes me want to bawl.

I'm still peeling away at the layers to this situation, talking with his teacher, his sister/confidant, and my most valuable ally, my Heavenly Father.

 I'm not sure how much of this is, for lack of a better phrasing, in his head. I think he has serious insecurity issues. On top of that, I think he's not at the same level of maturity as most boys his age, and so they don't know how to respond to his attempts at humor and fitting in. What's funny to him makes his classmates scratch their heads in confusion. I've seen it with my own eyes and his teacher confirmed that this week when I spoke to her.

It seems so easy to me. Walk in, make eye contact, smile, say hi. How's it going? What did you do this weekend? Do you like Star Wars/cake/riding bikes? But what comes so easy to most of us is like walking into a nest of hornets for him. He'd rather die. And at the tender age of 10, he already expects the negative. Weird looks, walking off, solitude.

But I serve a faithful, love God who controls the wind, the rain, the spin of the earth, the cycle of seasons...the One Who created all, is in all, and by Whom all exists. The One that formed the spirit in man...He's able to strengthen, to change perception, to increase courage. He's been made aware of the problem and we're working on it together. Meaning, I'm stressing, repenting for stressing, putting it back in His hands. Then repeat.

Please, if you know him, don't try to talk with him about it. Just pray. I want God to intervene and I plan to knock on His door until He answers.

An Unlikely Hero - Part 1

I decided to read my Bible through in one year again but this time chronologically. And of course I'm already two books behind! I like to stop and study things out and the next thing you know I somewhere in Galatians ☺

But I'm finally in the story telling books - my faves. Joshua, Judges, and so on. This week I started the story of Gideon, who just baffles me. He was SO not your hero type material. Hiding out in a whine press to thrash wheat, in order to hide it from the enemy. For seven years the Midianites had been coming in every harvest season and stealing the Israelites' crops and livestock. And for seven years they had gotten away with it because God allowed them to do so. 

Why? Because they kept going back to the false gods and pagan worship of their neighbors. Also something God allowed. He told them, I'm not going to let you conquer and get rid of ALL your enemies. Instead, I'm going to leave some around to prove you, test you, see what's in your heart...whether you will follow Me or go whoring after pagan gods. 

So, of course they chased after false gods, God got mad and quit protecting them from their enemies, their enemies beat the snot out of them, and they cried out to God. And every single time, He answered and sent a deliverer.

I get upset about this unending cycle, then I remember...we haven't changed much in 3,000 years, have we?! God is the ultimate parent, always forgiving, always allowing an amount of pain to teach His children an important lesson, but always ready with mercy, forgiveness, and deliverance. What a great Father!

Tomorrow I'll get back to Gideon, an unlikely hero.

Spring Break

The kids had their Spring Break last week and I had such great plans but ended up with one of those head colds that knocked me back a few days.
Then I got slammed with a UTI just two days ago, so this has been a week of unhealthiness. But I can't complain, since it's not the norm, thank God!


We did get to the lake one day with the kids, which has sand...sort of. Dirt & sand mixture, but the kids loved it, built sandcastles, caught salamanders, and made them prisoners in the castles, lol.

Here is the week in photos:

 She was my mostly willing model for bubbles

I love these things! What in the world are they called?!

Old fashioned catching of creepy crawly things. Hello, Spring!

Had to throw in a pic of my windchime from Folly Beach :)

Salamanders and Sandcastles

I have a lot of Ben because he loves the camera, lol

A lot of reading on Spring Break...for us both :)

BFFs