This week our youngest turned five! We survived the preschool years (all twelve of them)! High fives all around! In this episode, we talk about some things that we feel made a difference in our marriage during the crazy little bitty kid phase. We hope you’ll find some encouragement and maybe some practical advice that you can use. No experts here, just sharing what has worked for us. Also: our most loyal listeners, Chad’s latest experience with being open, and more!
This week we briefly discuss the interesting experience that I blogged about yesterday, and how it happened right after we had the discussion last week about being more open to the Holy Spirit. We also talk about some strange dreams we’ve had lately, and we explore this piece of marriage advice: Men, just let your wives decorate!
I have always hated Lincoln Logs. You spend an hour building the log cabin of your dreams or an awesome fort, and as soon as you try to play with it, the whole thing falls apart. Precious minutes of your life that you will never get back, wasted.
Yet, they are always in the stores. Always showing up in the lists of things that people think you should buy for your kids. Lincoln Logs are supposed to be good for your brain, good educational toys. They’re supposedly great for learning centers in classrooms. But, try as I might, I just don’t get the allure.
What Lincoln Logs really need to come with is a big tub of wood glue. Think of all of the permanent, play-ready dwellings that we could build with glued-together Lincoln Logs. Those forts and cabins would hold up to some serious knocking around. Big gusts of wind, little sisters, Daddy’s big feet; we wouldn’t live in fear of any of those things because the hard work we put in would be firmly held together by our trusty glue.
Sometimes ministry feels a little bit like building with Lincoln Logs. Church building. Relationship building. There’s always plenty of work to do. We can fill all of our days with projects and plans, and sometimes it’s amazing how quickly things build up. Things look good. We look good. But, when the first sign of trouble comes up, we realize that all of the work we put in was really just building a nice-looking, useless community. Unable to stand up to any kind of dissension or criticism or tough times. We built the whole thing on our own effort, patting ourselves on the back all the while, without any kind of glue to hold things, to hold us together.
Without the Holy Spirit, without the power of God, we might as well be building the church with Lincoln Logs. Weak. Rickety. Destined for destruction.
We need Him. He is the glue that holds the church together. And, when we try to do things on our own, when we forget our dependence on Christ, then we will eventually find ourselves helplessly standing by while all of our work is scattered, like Lincoln Logs across the kitchen floor. That’s not the kind of church that He called us to be.
Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Psalm 127:1
Our bedtime routine is pretty basic. Bath time, vitamins, teeth brushing, reading (if it’s not too late), and prayers. I pray with all three of the kids in Adelade and Sawyer’s room, and then Emerald and I leave to begin her own special brand of bed time routine. I put her in bed, and then she recounts her entire day and thinks of a million questions to ask, and as I inch closer and closer to her door she continues saying, “But, Mama, I need to tell you something…”
In the past few weeks, she has started asking me to pray in her room, too. She also dictates what I should pray about. At first she was having me say five or six separate prayers for various things, but in the interest of cutting down on the length of this ritual, I have now condensed her prayer time down to one (or two prayers). She has all kinds of different ideas to pray about. Tonight she wanted to pray for Elsa from Frozen. She often wants me to pray for Adelade and Sawyer or for her grandparents. But, one thing she is consistent about every night is asking me to pray for our hands. She has never explained what she means by that, but I pray about our hands every night and she seems satisfied with my interpretation of her request.
I don’t think I have ever prayed for my hands before.
Have you ever thought about all of the things that your hands do in a day? How many good and precious things we can do with these gifts, and how many harsh and sinful things we can do? Have you ever considered how often your hands are idle? Or whether they are working too often on the wrong things?
Neither had I. But, now I have. And, I have thought of so many different ways to pray for our hands and the things that we do with them.
In Emerald’s tiny little bedroom, leaning over her bed, holding those soft, sweet little fingers of hers, I have breathed prayers for us. For our hands. I have prayed that we would serve God and serve others. That we would be hard workers. That we would use our hands to bless people. That hurting souls would find comfort in our touch. Understanding. The love of the Savior. I have prayed that our hands would be useful to God. That we would be known as people with a soft touch and a firm hold on truth.
I still don’t know what Emerald means when she asks me to pray for our hands. But, I keep praying for them, every night. I can’t help but wonder, in the way that mothers do, if the Holy Spirit isn’t whispering some things into my baby girl’s heart that her mama really needs to hear. I’ll probably never know.
But, this I do: I’ll keep praying. And, I’ll keep holding Emerald’s hand and listening to her heart. And, occasionally, I may even pray for Elsa.