How R Them Seeds, You might ask

I just picked up a book by Noel Piper called Treasuring God in our Traditions. Random tidbit - my name was almost Noel (nice choice mom, although I think Kelly is more me) - and I am allowed to do random tidbits b/c I have no brain anymore ;). Anyhow, I am all of four pages into the book and already I jotted down a note in my journal to buy it for like five of my friends as soon as possible. John Piper, who I am madly in love with lately in a father daughter kind of way, is her husband and wrote the foreward.

He said, "Treasuring God in our Traditions is exactly the right title for this book. God is the treasure of our lives. We see him in everything. We believe with all our hearts that 'from him and through him and to him are all things.' He gets the glory, we get the joy. His glory and our joy are not at odds. My job has been to articulate the vision in writing. Noel has shaped a family around it. Now she turns that work into words."

That line strikes me. Noel has shaped her family around their vision for life. Now for me. I will have the joy of shaping our family around our Treasure, who is the Lord. I already feel this. Every moment. From picking up a wounded knee, how I cradle them in their injuries and kiss and pray over it and hurt with them, as Christ hurts with me when I am in pain. To settling disagreements between Kanah and Grace over "little balls" (the current favorites) and showing them that "as far as it is up to you to be at peace with one another." To learning how to say both "I am sorry" as well as "I forgive you" with sincerity. To taking joy in bringing one another Ella or Mammy when the other needs a little love. There are sooo many ways throughout the day to be about our Treasure.

In the first chapter she writes about putting out candles for something and her child asked why she did that. She said, "I realized that I was going to have to answer fom now on, not just for christmas traditions that particular year, but for all years and every day. At that moment I knew that 'just because' was no answer. Nor was 'because that's the way grandaddy and grandmother did it' or 'because it's pretty' etc. In the book of Exodus, Moses displays his understanding of thenature of children and the responsibility of parents: "And when your children say to you, 'What do you mean by this service?' you shall say, 'It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt.'"

My family is being shaped no matter what I do. I do nothing...it is shaped around chaos and a jagged path. Even choosing certain traditions with randomness and seemingly without purpose still conveys something. So when a child asks "why", he or she is looking for meaning, for some significance to my heart for why we do it. I think some things can be just for fun, don't get me wrong. But when everything is random or without a significance, it reflects that there is no Treasure at all. That is a sad thing to reflect to a child. My greatest joy would be to see our Treasure, our Lord and his ways, in everything, even things that are just plain "for fun". This is really really the most freeing truth for me lately because it has given me such delight in my One Job at home as a mama.

Don't you want to read it? Well, if you are a woman, wife and/or mom?

On these notes, an update on my "seeds" of building my house is in order I suppose. We've been trying out our weekly schedule and I don't hit all of them every week, but it's been fun trying. We've made zucchini bread, cheese bread, and cupcakes. They are also pro's now at making coffee ;). We have enjoyed music time by turning three kids chairs in a circle to kind of block off distractions and it's so cool to hear them singing worship songs and learning little signs like life, joy and peace. We've enjoyed playing with new things and getting them used to getting dirty and wet (I know most moms don't say that but mine are extra dainty!) I'll post a pic of them in the water. Jason gave me flowers for our anniversary and when I was desperate for a little project we took part of the bouquet apart for them to make mini bouquets. We talked about God making flowers and the colors. They organized the buds for like an hour.

I think the biggest change in our house is spontaneous prayer. I love it. I do it outloud when I am about to freak. Or I ask them to join me and we hold hands in a circle and pray for random things. Today it was for Jason, who is coming down from Mt Rainier. I had a sudden urge to pray so I asked them to join me. They like it! I think I am always surprised when they like something that is important to me, but it is such a joy and spurs me on to have them join me in more with the Lord.

Thanks for reading. Still sewing seeds. Looking for our Treasure in all that we do. And we'll keep posting about it so you can see the journey. And so WE can see the journey and not forget what the Lord is doing in us.