What? My son! What? My daughter?

And what? son and daughter of my womb and what children of my vows? Do not give your strength to the "illicit" or your ways to that which destroys kings and queens.
There is, everyday, an advertisement to give yourself, to search out the illicit. We spend so much time in one area of the wickedness of man. Instead of that, look around you. Find a problem to solve. Be productive. Don't keep walking around, looking for ways to vex your mother and to satiate your impulses. This is a preventative warning, I hope. I don't see you, but the silly things that we look at can, swiftly direct us to the illicit.
I like looking at that, you might say: cartoons, movies, pictures, idolatry, simplicity, tastes and sights that are pleasurable, only. Wrestle your senses into submission, to you by applying yourself to dutiful obedience. What is there to look at, if not a beautiful, young person? They are everywhere. They are on television. They are pleasurable. Don't use your senses, in only, that way. That is what the teenage discipline time is all about.
How, oh how, do I put the blinders on my eyes to focus them on the real and not on the fleeting? The worm on a hook, is the pleasurable sight of the fleeting beauty. Where did it go? You leave the house, you walk outside to follow the beauty and you are on the hook of the devil and know it not. If you live to serve your lusts, they will enslave you. "I will turn to this, just one time and then I will do my homework." It won't happen! Your lusts are bigger than time. If you follow them, unrepentantly, it is conceivable, that you would be eternally lost in their sway. What else is there? Where else is there to go? Mother is always saying "don't, don't, don't!" Your pleasures are like an electrical current, waiting to be plugged in, for good use. There is a good use and there is a powerful use for that good pleasure and God will give that to you; if it is His will. Ordinarily, that is the way. Until then, wrestle your passions and use your life and pleasures in other areas. Use the power for the corrections of difficulties. Fill your mind with other things to be used for His glory. Save those senses for the covenant of marriage. The real pot of gold, at the end of the rainbow is marriage. MMMMM, that is good!

The Reservoir was aglow with the

light of the sun, as we drove over the hill that brings it into full view. Em and I, not in sullen silence as at other times; but, in the maternal banter that comes with the season of the predawn of womanhood. "71 on a paper? Are you going to take that Em? Are you going to...?" She didn't say shut up; but I know that my days of this banter is very limited and I am pushing it, with her. But, what a challenge she has been through childhood.
Like the waves of the ocean, where we came from on Long Island and not at all, like the placid reservior, where we are now, is the spirit of my freshly budding Emily. Womanhood has so much promise for her, if she can see it.
It hurts to let go of the reigns; although, I can't say that I have held them, ever so tightly. Still, it hurts. They don't need my advice. If I could do it again, I would have held her tighter, I would have sung more sweetly into her ears, at nap time, I would have gone fishing and I would never have yelled, just spanked more. Oh well, hind sight, as they say...
They really don't want me to tell them anything at all. I could get offended and run away, in my mind. I have to ride the waves of emotions and not get discouraged, when I fall off.
Morning guilds the skies and I am grateful that she missed the bus this morning, so I can be introduced to this precious child who jumped on the beds everywhere, decorated the walls of everywhere we lived and spinned and flipped all over the world with us and now is a stallwart, strong, ambitious woman. Birthday is coming and I am grateful that God spared my life this long, to see her grown.

Everyday is a memory.

Children can get harrowing, sometimes and it feels in this season like the olive branches are entangling and webbing around eachother and me. But when I put somethings in perspective I can see that everyday is a memory. It is not native to share yourself as a mommy. It is learned and our hormones make us protect our young, but love is a fruit of the Spirit. Sometimes, I am too tired to share myself. Sometimes, I am too selfish to hear another story or tell another story. But these are the days of the memories of somebody. These are the things that they will remember. Where are you mommy? God asks me that everyday. I can't take this cap off. I can't not be mommy some days. I have to wake up and put on the cap and be who I am. God gives the grace and God blesses the smallest effort and even when I stumble and fall He is there to pick me up and put me back on the mommyhorse. I can't make it, God. Yes, you can, He says.

This morning the clouds were beautiful and bimulous

as they often are, when I am driving to work. One of them was shaped like a turtle and I thought to myself, don't act like a turtle today. I didn't listen to myself. I hear my dad, as if saying, are you dressed in your turtle getup today, what's the occasion, its not Easter again is it? I laughed at the thought of joking with him over those little things and went on to work. The birds are in the full swing of their relationships with eachother. The are flying and flitting from tree to tree. It is so wonderful to remember that God provides for them. God cares for them. God is concerned about the least little one falling and I can trust His fatherly care. I am reminded that I do not need to care and be sleepless about the concerns of the days and the mess ups that we are always getting ourselves into. God knows. He has these things planned for my good. It doesn't feel like it. I guess the birds can see that I am looking too hard at them for some encouragement on how to lean on the Everlasting Arms. They are not concerning themselves with my cares and God always has their meal and their nests and the supplies for each and every day. Lord, can I trust You in the midst of these economic downturns? I know there is not a friend like You!

To everything there is a season...

A time for feasting, was the vacation and a time to get back to work. It is now the time to get back to work and school and church and chores. Vacation was splendid for me. Time with my husband and children and a little of every taste and sound and smell that is home. Now, I go back to work today, glad to be my children's mommy and my husband's wife and the beauty of the homefires burning is good enough for me. How does it work when I am not here, is not my question. It works and children get off to school and food gets cooked and things get done. I am sometimes in the way and sometimes a help.
My shoulder needs weekly serving on the courts to find its socket, I found out. It is sharpened by serving and when I am out. It falls out and I cannot find the socket. The muscle keeps floundering looking for the bone to put it in, or that is what it feels like. I had a little time on my exercise machines and I played the Wii with the children. All is well with the world!

I am not everybody's facebook friend, but...

If I am my children's home mommy, that is enough!
Spreading yourself a little too thin, I think. 200+ facebook friends is a huge responsibility. How do you pray for each one? How do you attend to the needs of any? How do you care? I have all of my care quotients filled with just a husband, children, mother, sisters and one remaining brother not to mention extended family which is dwindling with the years. How do you keep up?
What is each one's favorite color? Do you know? Do you answer their wall requests? Do you really love that many people? Hands on love is careful and deliberate. Facebook can be a good tool to keep track of those little details, which often go and went lacking in the slow motion world of the old untechnilogical era. Or it can be an excuse to really never know anybody, not even your God or yourself. Don't miss the dates and occasions to get to know people face to face. Heart to heart. What makes you happy? What makes you cry? Can I help you through this dark veil of tears? Can we really be friends, not just facebook friends, face to face friends!

There is truly a generation gap that happened when the electric

light came on the scene. When I am looking at the principles of womanly submission that were promulgated in the late 1800's, it seems that we have been in the dark ages for 100 years. Ma and Mu and the grandmas remember when it was a delight for women to care. Care is not just a heart attitude, it is an action. Harriet Beecher Stowe and the women of the late 1800's who were deliberate in their love of God in caring for their families and community.
Her husband is known in the gates.

It is interesting that Harriet Beecher Stowe is known more for Uncle Tom's cabin than for her instruction of younger women to love their families and households. There is something that God is linking with those two principles, being linked in American History. We are blinded by our prejudices and American mentality. God give us grace to look at the links that God has made, by His providence.

Harriet Beecher Stowe