Happy Thanksgiving
It’s Thanksgiving Day, and in our American culture, we tend to busy our day of thanks with parades and football, family and fabulous food. But let’s not forget the real reason for this special day—to be thankful for God’s many gifts.
We rightly thank God for all He’s done throughout the year. We thank our family and friends for their love and relationship with us. We thank those who have made a difference in our lives. And sometimes we thank those who we have overlooked in the busyness of life.
With all that thanksgiving to do, who can limit it to just one day and make a huge Thanksgiving dinner and enjoy time with family and friends and watch football? Not me! That’s why I am trying to be more intentional about being a grateful person all year long.
But today, I want to express my gratitude to each of you who read my blog or Facebook posts or Twitter feed. And I am especially grateful for you who comment on them, share them, or “like” them. For a writer who puts herself “out there” for the world to see, your interaction is a blessing. For someone doing such isolated and solitary work, it encouraging to hear that you read it and care about what it says. And besides, it’s just plain fun to connect with you.
I am honored to serve you, even a little, with the words I put on this blog or on paper or say to you in person. Like Paul in 1 Thessalonians 1:2,4, I want to let you know: “We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers…For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you.”
So I pray that this holiday—and the entire holiday season—will be filled with the richest of gifts: life, love, peace, and joy from God’s gracious hand. Happy Thanksgiving!
Read me a Story!
Happy National Family Literacy Month! Yes, there are hundreds of national days, but I think this one is worth celebrating. In this TV, video, YouTube, internet, and out-and-about driven world, bringing back the tradition of reading as a family is one of the greatest gifts you can give to your children.
Reading books together increases a child’s knowledge, develops the imagination, and helps teach concentration and a love for learning. As a parent, preschool teacher, an elementary teacher, and a grandparent, reading to children is and has always been a treasure and a joy. It’s a special, intimate, and memorable time to spend with kids. It also teaches kids to love books, to love learning, and to love being together.
My grandchildren live in South Africa, but that doesn’t stop me from reading to them. In fact, they expect it! Every week we Skype and besides talking, laughing, and loving together, my grandgirls always ask me to “read a story.” I pick four books from my ever-growing picture book library, and then I let them choose one of them.
Some of the books take us to faraway places like Lexie’s Adventure in Kenya, the first children’s book I authored. Some of them are silly like the Dr. Seuss books. Some are poignant and emotional. Others teach about the future or the past or character values or biblical truths. When we read together, we talk and laugh and share and make memories. Books transcend time and space, build imaginations, and bring the world to our doorstep, even when we are half a world away.
So how can you create a tradition of reading together? Just do it! Build a library. Give books as gifts, not only to your children or grandchildren but also to others as baby gifts or as birthday or Christmas gifts. Seriously, don’t they get enough toys and clothes already?
Then read. Read before bed. Read on snowy or rainy days. Read family devotions together. Go to story hour or bring a book and read while you’re waiting for appointment. The opportunities are endless—from reading road signs to recipes to game rules and more. Affirm every effort your child shows to read and listen as they learn. And treat every reading opportunity as the miracle and wonder it is.
Truth is, reading rocks! How do you build reading traditions in your family? I’d love to know!
Time for Change?
The holidays are soon upon us and so are the inevitable changes of the new year. Crazy as it is, change is all around us.
Elections. A wedding. A new baby. School. A heart attack. A honeymoon. Retirement. A new home. Death. A promotion. Divorce. A big inheritance. Cancer. School. A new career. Remarriage. Each of these situations—and a zillion more—bring change into a person’s life.
Some are good; some are bad; some are just plain ugly. Some of these changes we choose; others we do not. But change happens, so it’s wise to learn how to respond to those changes well and move forward.
The challenge in all this is to grow through it and allow the change to do its work in you. Whether you’re a tweenager on the cusp of puberty or a retiree trying to figure out what to do with the rest of your life, we must continually deal with change. Though change is a natural process of life and growth, few of us really know how to go through it well. There are the times it can be downright overwhelming!
The reality is that the adventure of change isn’t usually comfortable or fun. And in today’s culture, life is moving so fast and changes happen so quickly that we hardly have time to adjust or respond before the next change comes. How many of us just got used to the iPhone and along comes an iPad with all the new changes? Just buying clothes for my granddaughters slap me in the face with the reality that they are changing every day.
Change can make us feel disoriented, confused, even annoyed. If we know it has a specific purpose, we can usually hang in there and work through the change. But if we can’t see the reason for the change, we can feel distressed, frustrated, even fearful. So we revert back to old and sometimes bad habits to find our safe places to find our balance—our old routines or activities or comfort foods—and that’s okay for a season. But we can’t hide in them. We must move on.
What kinds of changes have you faced, and how did you move through them? I’d love to know!
Winds of Change
In my first novel, the main character has six small children when she immigrates from Ireland to Canada. I cannot imagine how hard that must have been. Many, many Irish immigrants took the perilous journey with little ones in tow. And with each child comes lots of challenges and changes each and every day.
I think most of us have a love/hate relationship with change—and life is full of change! We love how the seasons change but often hate how our lives change with it. Just when we settle into a routine or get a handle on something, life seems to turn our world upside down, and we are forced to adjust to it.
As most of you know, I’m anticipating the birth of our fourth granddaughter who will be born in South Africa in a few weeks. I count the days, the hours, the minutes. I pray and dream. And I wait.
This precious new life causes me to ponder how much a child changes everything—in the parents’ and the siblings’ lives, and even in the loved ones around them, like you and me. We are never the same when a new life touches our world. It changes us, if we let it.
For young parents, though, life is full of wonder and beauty. When a baby comes, they have to change and make huge adjustments—their lives are no longer their own; their time is not their own; their bodies are not their own! Their lives are forever changed when a new life enters their world.
But isn’t that true for us as Christians? When Jesus came into our lives, our world was turned upside down. He changed us, and He keeps on changing us (thank God!). Our lives are no longer our own. Our time is no longer our own. Our bodies are no longer our own. Oh, if we could fully grasp this and live in it every day.
I sure want to. How about you? What changes is God bringing into your life? I’d love to know.
Time to Rest
Dale and I love to travel, and we’ve been blessed to do a lot of it since we got married. We’ve taken trips to Europe, South Africa, Central America, the Caribbean, Australia, and more, and we’ve discovered an amazing tapestry of God’s beautiful world and the cultures of times past and present. Most of our trips are filled with a busy schedule of tours and trying to glean all we can from our time in these wonderful places.
Last week we traveled to Mexico simply to rest, relax, and reconnect. We needed to get away from the busyness of writing my books, and of all the demands of this year thus far. I didn’t even take my computer with me, and that was wise.
It’s always amazing how easy it is to let the busyness of life fill your days and weeks and months—until you long for time alone, for time apart, for time to relax together. So that’s what we did.
We talked. We walked on the beach. We laughed over dinner. We rested, and we found such joy in simply relaxing—and not feeling guilty.
True confessions. Dale and I have one, major besetting sin—we tend to be workaholics. We feel guilty when we rest. We have trouble sitting still. We have an inordinate need to be busy, busy, busy.
And the Sabbath Rest? Argh! We try. We fail. We try again. And we know that this will probably be our ongoing pattern until the day we die. Yet I know I must heed the old adage that I taught my kids, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.” So we try and I think, succeeded a little…on the beaches of Puerto Vallarta.
How about you? Is resting and relaxing hard for you? Why or why not? I’d love to know.
God Talking
Talking about God is not just for Sundays; it’s for every hour of the day. Deuteronomy 6: 5-7 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” But I don’t think this Scripture is only for parents. It’s for all of us—with or without kids at home! So how do you, as a couple, make “God talk” a lifestyle and have conversations about God in a natural, comfortable, and life-changing way?
God needs to be a part of your every day life—your thoughts and actions. Attend church but don’t just go on with your day. Talk about the sermon, the worship songs, etc. Read God’s word together daily, even if it’s just a few verses, and talk about them. For us, breakfast is a good time for us to do that. We also listen to Chuck Swindoll’s radio teaching while we get ready for the day. This has a way of leading us to some pretty interesting God talk.
Be sure to apply God’s truth to your relationship and to your life. Sometimes that takes two minds trying to figure out how to do that. As you talk about it, God can often inspire you together in ways you wouldn’t think of separately. As the saying goes, “Two heads are better than one.” There are times when Dale and I snuggle up together and just chat about a God topic or something we’re thinking about.
It’s also important ask godly questions about things that happen during the day. There are times I’ll get an email or phone call that requires wisdom from God to answer well, so I sometimes talk about it with my husband. And when we watch the news, we frequently talk about the different news stories and how God’s word applies to them. That sure makes for interesting conversation.
Last, if you have kids at home, doing all this will model for them that “God talk” is a normal way of life. Include them in your God talk—in the car, at home, everywhere. And if you have grandchildren, be sure to shine your light brightly before them. You’ll be glad you did!
How do you make God talk a part of your daily life? I’d love to know!