Books

     Books, stacks of books everywhere.  One for the young ones' summer learning.  One for Michael's NCAA core curriculum worksheets.  One for McKala and Timothy to read excerpts on marriage.  One Melody took to camp with her to be academically confident upon entering high school. 
     But you know what?  I've gotten rid of the ones that didn't stand the test of time.  And that includes the mounds of workbooks I've always drug along, just in case.  All anybody really needs to teach young people is a good, right to the point math workbook and well written older books that have a moral to the story.  I would say the Word also, but it is wiser that the parent have a good working knowledge of it themselves rather than treat the Holy Bible like a mandatory textbook.
      I've been going through the roomful of storage that flooded when the dehumidifier quit on the air unit.  I dumped out the plastic bin of my childhood activities.  Seems like I went to every camp, jamboree, lesson, and VBS in the region.  I entered and won almost every contest, exhibit, and officer's position I could.  But for what?  Ribbons, trophies, letters, and awards to look at these many years later? 
     Achievement is good.  Service is better. 

     I have cards from all the way back.  I'm keeping the handwritten notes, like the one from a classmate thanking me for helping out.  That's what really matters all those years ago.  Wish I had more of those to speak of.  That's what I'm pursuing in raising my own children, that they might be a help, not a star, but a help. 
     Among the cards separated into years, intermittently I have letters written to myself of how I might improve so that my husband might love me, not equating my bouts with gluttony and vanity with his drunkenness, the way the Bible does.  That's why I can't get this mess up and done in the basement, for the flow of memories that come with it. 
     I was always trying to reach the pinnacle of a more perfect household and body, waiting for the day that things would go just right, not understanding that God is looking for a perfect heart, not a perfect day.
    
     I've had friends who believed adversity was always a direct result of personal sin.  I've studied too many stories in the Bible now to believe that.  "Asa's heart was perfect with the LORD all his days ...Nevertheless in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet."  And there "was a great woman" who made her home open to Elisha and was then blessed in her old age with a child.  Yet, "And when the child was grown, it fell on a day, that he went to his father to the reapers.  And he said unto his father, My head, my head."  He died and was later restored to life by Elisha.  And then there was the man who was blind from his birth and Jesus' disciples asked,"Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?  Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents:  but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." 
     What I am convinced of is that "The Lord's mercy often rides to the door of our hearts on the black horse of affliction."  Mike's cousin posted this Spurgeon quote today.  Similarly, Megan posted, "Pressure makes diamonds."

     So, as I wrote the last blog post, awaiting those summer days I could hammock with the young ones and reclaim lost time, the storage room was about to flood.  A head cold was about to invade the house and has yet to leave.  Melody had to go back to the doctor, plus she's gotten a very black eye playing ball and has a serious case of poison ivy at camp.  But the camp nurse messaged me that she is getting better and "smiling as her usual." Megan has hurt a place on her back that even the chiropractor can't help and has taken the cold with her to work in the 100 degree weather in Georgia.  Michael has managed to elude the problems the rest of us have.  His summer is no easy task though.  He gets up at 4:30 am, gets home no earlier than 4:30 pm, spends most every evening in the gym, and tries to consume 6,000 calories a day.  And virtually every dime he makes is going back to the school or to the gas tank. 
     And McKala, she's the real reason I'm writing today.  Last week, I noticed she was speaking lightly.  Then, I noticed she was oversleeping.  So, I asked her what else might be wrong.  A while later, she said, "My back (lungs) hurt like they used to." 
      Today, we found out the labwork shows another active case of walking pneumonia.  This time she's been prescribed antibiotic therapy for 6 months.  Thankfully, the doctor considered that she doesn't have insurance and got us huge discounts on everything. 
      So, the young woman who will soon be a bride will carry this burden into her new life.  I pray that it will only draw her closer to the Lord in whatever He has to teach or show by it. 
      Because we don't always have to sit by and suffer needlessly. Hezekiah "trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.  For he clave to the LORD, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the LORD commanded Moses.  And the LORD was with him; and he prospered as he went forth: and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not."  Later in 2 Kings 20, "In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death.  And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.  Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed unto the LORD, saying, I beseech thee, O LORD, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight.  And Hezekiah wept sore.  And it came to pass, afore Isaiah was gone out into the middle court, that the word of the LORD came to him saying, Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus said the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen they tears: behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the LORD.  And I will add unto thy days fifteen years; and I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.  And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs.  And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered." 

     But in the meantime, we press on.  That "perfect day" doesn't come often and when it does, there isn't much to claim in it.  For even the heathen can manage as well, just as they take care of their own.  But we are called to a higher place, not to wait for seamless circumstances to control our tempers or our appetites or our spending or our duties.  The discipline of a seasoned believer is tested in the midst of the mess.  "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you."  Funny how we like to only apply that to outlandish persecutions and not to everyday temptations.  Ending out this saying is verse 19, "Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator."
      Today is another less than perfect day.  I would have it be perfect, but that perfect schedule is always just past my grasp.  But that basement has to be done sometime or another.  So, we rescued part of the day by pulling the car around nearby the basement doors so that Macklynn and Madalynn could clean it without being so near the road and out of sight.  And before that, Macklynn read his word problems to me and tackled some new concepts, though it was for a few minutes before I got the call about McKala's results.  God knows I want to do what is right.  He knows if we groan in our spirits when we are prevented from performing what seems good, just as He knows when we sigh of relief when we get out of having to do something.  He knows if I'm glad I got out of that walk because of my cold.  He knows that I got out anyway just for the sake of discipline for the kids.  Something is always better than nothing.  That is all that matters, the heart cleaving to what is good.  That we pursue the right track but are willing to pause for the needs of others.   It is nothing to boast of a pristine routine that rejects the inconvenient and immediate needs of a lost and dying community.  1 Corinthians 13 says I can move mountains and bestow all my goods on the poor, "and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."
     Teetering, I'm always teetering somewhere between dying for structure and denying it the inherent stranglehold it brings.  I rewrite my day over and over.  For someone who's used to winning, it makes sense that losing would be the way God shows me I am not the one in control.
     July 1st, our 27th anniversary it will be.  We thought I'd get to ride up and be with Mike in the hotel where he's staying to help his new employer gather propane tanks that have been swept away by the floods.  It doesn't look like that's gonna work out either.  But something I have found in the oceans of things downstairs is history, a history that no one has but us.  I even feel kind of lost without him here.  I used to breathe a sigh of relief when he left (as I'm sure he did, never able to live up to my expectations).  We have progress.  We have something to go on now. We have a mutual desire to serve the Lord and make Him known.  So, here I am crying again, with little cause compared with the souls that were washed away in the flood or the people in the explosion today at the aluminum plant my father used to supervise.
       As if all this is not emotional enough, I got a letter just this afternoon from Melody saying the kind of things a mother longs to hear, of thanks and acknowledgement of our friendship and sentiments of regret, and that she misses us - the one who was so frustrated and eager to leave.  Can't say that I blame her though.  She had to fill my shoes for many months of the last year. As the card I found from Megan states, "Motherhood is not for sissies.  Motherhood is not for women with weak stomachs, strict routines, or white wall-to-wall carpeting.  Motherhood is not for women unable to juggle three things at once, read between the lines, or face fear on a regular basis.  Motherhood is not for women who can't answer the same knock-knock joke 'umpteen' times a day, the endless 'whys?' of childhood, or hear the unspoken feelings of a child's heart.  Motherhood is for women who can taste the tea in an empty cup, see the smiles behind the peanut butter, and the genius in the tiny scribbles.  Motherhood is for the caring and courageous women who make a difference in the lives they touch - women just like you." 
       So, while some of you will be in church tonight wondering where I am, I'll be in the basement fighting back the residual cough I have ...and more tears, I'm sure.  Because I'm not quite done going through those old things that remind me how far we've come and give me hope that we will make it to where we're supposed to go ...
     Then again, I might be downstairs listening to the bats chirp and laughing about last night when the kids were trying to smoke the bats out of the fireplace insert, and Miranda decided to take the airsoft machine gun with Mike's night vision scope on it to inspect from the rooftop, as the police drove by suspiciously.  We have plenty of times to look back on and to realize that while we have lagged here and there, we stopped the regimen for something different than we could have imagined and learned life spontaneously and delightfully without stunting one part for the other. 
      Some of you probably took offense when I posted over the weekend that if your Christian walk is boring, it isn't God's fault you're an ungrateful prude.  I only meant that there is endless adventure and that you can jump in or you can sit back and watch.  But don't blame God for an uneventful path and nothing to bring to the table of relationships when you are unwilling to sacrifice that which is safe and comfortable.  Most of the time, you just have to throw the book out the window and let God write the rest.  Grace doesn't excuse oneself from the law but supercedes the law. Else if we all had a textbook life, we would have no need to go before the throne of our Father all hours of the day and of the night to know Him as such.