January 9, 2013

• Pieces of Life

  Written Monday, January 7

  Alec ate 4 hard-boiled eggs at one shot last night. 

  This morning on the way to school I picked up what I thought was the mint Blistex and tried to take the cap off of it.  It was an AA battery.

  Andre & Liesl played so extremely nicely this morning.  Honestly, the fighting goes by Days around here.  We have beautiful lego-playing, song-humming, quiet conversation, lots of coloring pages days.  And then there are the begging-to-watch-something-on-the-computer, get-out-of-my-way, nothing’s-fun-around-here and my-family-just-doesn’t-care days.   I haven’t clued in to what swings the compass.

  I went downstairs to check on Andre & Liesl once and Liesl was saying, “I actually have two boyfriends at one time.”  And Andre said, “Which one are you going to marry?”  And Liesl said she would marry him and he was so glad.  Then immediately there was a baby.    Which reminds me that not so long ago she said to Dan & I:  “Did you guys go on your first date and then have me right away?”  I don’t know when she thinks we had the first five.

   Sometimes we work at keepin’ it real and then feel like we put too much of ourselves out there for others to poke at.  I do that on a regular basis in conversation with the people I know the best.  And with strangers.  I do it here when I blog too.   Then I obsess.   Who else gets the humour of why a (conservative-ish) Mennonite minister’s wife may or may not dye her hair?  Or why in the world would she feel like she should butcher chickens to be a good person?  (Both are points mentioned in my last post.) 

  Dan (kindly) told me the other night that he sometimes thinks bloggers tell their faults and believe that in being honest or funny about them it makes them okay.  I was hurt for a bit, but came back with the shot that I am sometimes more encouraged by hearing someone admit their struggles than I am with hearing their victories.  He agreed.

  But I see his point. 

  I really DO want words that are always spoken with grace and seasoned with salt.  I am all for discreet and chaste.  Not only because it’s a Biblical command.  It’s also attractive.  I’m challenged by a couple of commenters on Shari’s pastor’s wife post.

  I love a good honest pastor’s wife, I had that for an example when I was  young, now that I am a pastor’s wife my goal is to also be real. I think we can do this without being daring. Sometimes preacher’s kids are caught in the trap of trying to prove they can be as bad as anybody else. Could it be that as pastor’s wives, we have the same temptations because we don’t want to be separated from our friends? This can be a lonely calling. (me gulping)

  1 Tim 3:11 says “Even so must their wives be grave, not slanders, sober faithful in all things.”  I know pastor’s wives who are real and honest about their faults, down to earth, not judgmental with unique personalities all the while carrying out this Bible command. 

  If we think our list is long, 1 Timothy has a lot more qualifications for our dear men, let’s rise to the challenge and support them! God Bless. (end of quote)

  And lovely Alisa said this:  I wonder if the high “self imposed expectations” has more to do with being human and female than a particular job description. (I’m not a good enough mom, friend, or wife either.) I do also like the above anonymous comment. Being real is great, but setting out to prove it probably won’t work so well. 

  I couldn’t agree more.  For all the times I set out to prove something, I am sorry.

  And I love my church and its farm ladies and my pastor husband who is as human as I am!

  Wednesday, January 9

  Yesterday Alec needed to get passport photos done. (Keeping 8 people in up-to-date passports is a big job.  They all expire at different times.)  I needed groceries.  Tori had piano theory, but the rest of us went to town.

  The instant Walmart photos I ordered were terrible.  The debit machines were down at Peavey Mart and we couldn’t make a return or even buy a pair of gloves with no cash.  Andre and Natalia were a MESS in No Frills, the grocery store.  I had to punish them when we got home.  I had 200 pounds of groceries–or thereabouts.  Liesl got her finger stuck in an small space in the shopping cart and howled.  Alec scowled like only a 15 year old can.  I was 45 minutes late to pick up Bryant from the library where I’d dropped him. Walmart had NO snowpants and we need 3 pairs.  I don’t know where else to look for them in Dawson Creek.  I met my friend Angela looking all pretty in her green coat and knitted purple scarf.  Soon afterwards I saw my own scarf was dragging close to the floor on one side.  We were home very late for supper.

  Today I’m happy to stay home and houseclean in the office.

  But there is fresh cottage cheese, mini honey mandarins, and grapes in the fridge. 

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  I love all kinds of music.  But I will never leave hymns.  They touch me in places that I didn’t know existed.  Have you listened lately to the words of The Church’s One Foundation or In Heavenly Love Abiding? 

  Be still, my heart. 

  I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond.  One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke.  Every one there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light.  But they do not call it goodness.  They do not call it anything.  They are not thinking of it.  They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes.  ~C.S. Lewis~

   

   

   

   

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