Camping - Chaos - Christ Alone

I love camping.  Now that such a huge portion of my life is teaching little ones, managing the inside of a house, trying to teach them right from wrong, just washing the darn clothes.... I need to be outside and breathe deep EVERY chance I get.  So with my oldest in school for the first time in 4 years, I can see a holiday coming a mile away and I propose things to my husband to see what sticks.  Since adopting 2 children into our family just 6 months ago, this past weekend was our 2nd camping trip together as a family of seven.  I get a chuckle each time we fill out the online reservation form...cause the MAX OCCUPANCY allowed on any campsite is 6.  Why?  Because it's designed for a single family to stay on a site and what family in their right mind would have more than 4 kids?!??  Well, an insane one like ours.  So I check 6, and take my chances that no one is going to come up and count kids, ha!   

Packing is a daunting task, but the hope of peaceful time by the fire, peaceful kids so thrilled by the free space in the woods that they play without fighting, makes me keep going.  I was up until 3am in the morning the night before we were to leave, pressure cooking my first chicken (Jeremy received an electric pressure cooker for Xmas...wonder who it was really for) and then attempting to make something akin to the delicious chicken salad my Momma is known and loved for.   Why so late?  Cause even though I worked all day long to get caught up on 12 loads of laundry I had just done over the last 2 days while hubbie was out-of-town... it just never gets completed while the kids are awake.  They demand your attention.....someone needs something, someone is thirsty, someone needs their hiney wiped (the joy of my day to hear this sound bellow through the house.... "Mooooommma!  DONE!!!!!!!!")  Niiiiice you say.  Yes it is, and I remember this too shall pass.  I'm human, it grates on my nerves...and yes I prefer the demand versus the cleanup if I left them to take care of matters for themselves. 

So there I am, just 2 hours after I returned home from Walmart at 12:30am...cause I didn't leave my house for those 2 days to venture out with all 4 littles to the grocery store.  I waited until the hubs returned and then went....so I can think while I'm in there, instead of ending up with a bunch of random junk that we don't need.  And you know what? It was the first time I'd "fixed my face" (gotta love that Southern phrase) in those 3 days and put on decent looking clothes.  As I left to go at 11:30 that night I looked at my man and said, "I'm having a date with myself.  How do I look?"  I was happy as a lark, going through Walmart all by myself at midnight, able to take my time, without interruption and think.  This is my new normal.  How did I end up on this planet?  It has been such a strange and unpredictable winding road, I don't have the foggiest... I just know one decision to yield...led to another....led to another and here I am.  One highly educated, overachieving, student government nerd, ladder climbing girl.....now completely morphed into an unplanned preschool teacher who lives in pjs and sweats most days.  That's pretty funny, since a few years back (okay more like 6), after my first stint teaching the 4 year olds at VBS one summer, I declared I was NOT cut out for this age group.  I came home in a dither each day, frightened by my own inability to keep a Christlike attitude with a room full of 30+ 4 year olds who couldn't sit still, much less actually listen to the bible story I was trying to teach them.  I felt like I was accomplishing nothing in teaching or sharing Jesus with them.  Now fast forward to my life today, where my home has TWO 3 year olds, a four year old and a 6 year old home each day....it has to be God's plan cause it certainly wasn't mine.  Sometimes I shrug my shoulders and say, "Lord?  What was all the engineering for?"  I really feel in my heart though, that one day, ONE day, it will all come full circle and that part of my life too, will make sense.  All in His timing.

Back to packing and trying to get ready to leave for a 3 day weekend.  That sounds so simple, just throw in some clothes and food and get out of there already.  I know!!!! But, everything takes longer...not just 2 more kids longer....exponentially longer.  Not complaining, it's just a part of the equation that I'm still not calculating and adjusting enough for.  So, to keep the peace, we've let go of stressing over our inability to meet our own departure deadlines.  We just keep going, keep doing, until we can leave without any marital spats (so worth it, after years of leaving and not talking to each other for the first hour in the car, :)).  We finally pulled out of the driveway at 12:30 lunchtime and not half way to the state park (only 1 hour away) I heard the echos of children over the rumble of the diesel engine letting me know they were huuuuungry.  Well, duh!  It took your Momma and Daddy so long, it is past lunch time. But don't tell me again, or I just might explode and it won't be pretty.  Grrrr.  4 hours sleep anyone??  Not a good combination. 

Finally we made it to Skidaway Island State Park and as Jeremy signed us in, I was whipping out chicken salad sandwiches.  Isaiah had already eaten half of his bread (that I asked him to hold) before I could get the chicken on it.  Now that's why I stayed up to get it made....the beauty of having yummy lunch so quickly & it's something besides PB & J, or ham and cheese. 

We find a site and they are gorgeous. Large sites, very uncommon these days...surrounded by large live oaks dripping in Spanish Moss.  It doesn't get much better than that.  We start to get the camper situated and turn the kids loose on their trikes and bikes. Within minutes... DISCOURSE.  I've done all this work to get here, and that's as long as the serenity lasted???  Oh yea, who am I kidding?  A vacation is just the same work as at home with different scenery. :)  Seriously, they are fighting over a 15 x 20 foot tent pad with a picnic table in the middle....trying to race tricycles and pikes in a circle around it.  Don't even ask me why?  All the ground around us, was flat and wide open.  In these moments, when you just want a reprieve from the constant need for parental input into their lives....we realize that parenting is the hardest job in the world!!!! The task of teaching little ones right from wrong and getting them to care about it....it is overwhelming.  So we sat there, inside the camper for a moment, ignoring the petty sibling stuff going on outside and staring at each other.   Silence (well, kindof..RV walls are thin).  My mind spinning with all the things to contemplate in these moments...it's a wonder my head doesn't spin right off most days.  Then I say it, "Don't we need to be stronger for this task?"  "Are others better able to handle this?"  I'm talking about spiritually, inner attitude, grounded in Christ....with a transformed mind that can respond to all these moments as Christ would have us.  That is when I realize,  we can't be strong enough, I wasn't strong enough.  It really wasn't "us" that said yes.  We are as big of a work in progress MESS as the day before God wreaked us, flipped our worldview upside down and gave us a heart for orphans and adoption.  Hubbie and I have had this conversation several times in the last 6 months.  If this is really what God wanted us to do, shouldn't we be better at it?  That's just it, we weren't picked because we were ready for it...we were picked because we had quieted our selfish selves long enough during that season, we'd earnestly prayed to die to ourselves (clearly having no real idea what that would look like) so that we might truly see how He wanted us to live for Him, and then He did it.  Christ in us, moved us.  It was Him that said YES!! 

That's just it!  There was nothing better, or more mature about us in that season.  It was Christ, in our hearts, that created an obsession out of thin air....a compassionate obsession that kept me up nights reading and praying all hours.  Staring at picture after picture of the ebony faces and ivory smiles that called us to a land half a world away.  How could I be feeling such love for a people I'd never met and a place I'd never seen?  It made no sense.  Was this just a diversion, a misplaced area of internet connection, another bad habit instead of thumbing mindlessly though junk TV while my husband was working the night shift??? (Fall 2009)  It was Christ who said, yes.  Now I understand why other people have testified, that following God wasn't really a choice...there is no choice to say no.  Obedience was the only answer.  The thought processes, the unexplainable aching of the heart was relentless...and the only thing that brought relief, was uttering YES....and feeling the uncertainty of the water stretched out before us...and yet greater still was the faith that was growing, with every breath that we used to speak outloud our answer of yes.  It grew and grew.  

And now, on the other side of Christ's yes....when I am knee-deep in the work that is defied by my selfish nature, can be sabatoged any minute by anger, and I wonder why it's so hard sometimes...I remember once again. I must get myself, my ways, my thoughts, my plans OUT. OF. THE. WAY..and surrender to Christ.  He must be given full reign, of my heart, my attitude, my mind, in order for His plan for our family, and each individual in it to come to fruition.   

Now that I know what I need to do.. how do I do it?  Well that's another post.  How do you do it?  How do you keep Christ in control of your life as a Mom?  Knowing what needs to be done, and having the daily action steps to live it, can seem light years apart.  And so we press on.


Acts 20:24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.
1 Corinthians 9:24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.
1 Corinthians 9:25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

Press on dear sisters & brothers.

In the midst of all the Lord is teaching us.....there is GREAT JOY!!
We press on and we pray....and so we did.  We prayed over our kids and our weekend. And the rest of it, looked a little like the video below.

[see all that hard work to go camping...all the chores I left undone at home

....they were all worth it....see below:)]  At the end of the video you'll see us finding something in the marine forest....welcome to the world of geocaching, aka grown-up treasure hunting with a GPS.

Pause the Music at the bottom before starting the video.

This song is a special choice for all our Sonrise Family

 and those who have visited Sonrise in Jinja, Uganda.

  This song can always be heard when visitors are being farewelled,

 and at any celebration.

My little Freddie's eyes lit up as he heard the song playing on my laptop
 and he began singing along.

His kind of New

Today in our Sunday School class, in light of it being a new year our teacher guided us through a study of how God uses the word "new" in scripture and what exactly God means by that.  We reviewed Jeremiah 31:31...and the more familiar 2 Cor 5:17 which says that, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ,  he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." [NASB]

We were asked to name all the different things that are called "new" in the Bible.  We rattled off, new heart, new spirit, new wineskins, new covenant, new heaven, new earth....you get the idea.  The point was that God is all about new...especially making us new.

We talked about how we get it, when others or even some of us, purposefully boycott the whole New Year's Resolution thing.  I mean, how many do we keep, EVER?  Why even bother with the exercise that only ends in a greater feeling of failure and depression.  But we talked about living victoriously as God has desired for us too, with perseverance.  He has given us the power, the desire, to try again....not to quit in defeat.  Where does that notion of "Why EVEN BOTHER?" come from?  That defeated mentality is right out of Satan's favorite bag of tricks.  He relishes seeing one Christ follower after another just hang it up when it comes to praying more, reading their Bible more, working on a new attitude of the heart, spending more time serving others.  He's saying, "Oh yea baby, another year, no noteworthy progress, stifled growth once again! Motivation to grow, share with others dashed...Wahoo!!"

We also discussed why saying yes, to "new" in God's eyes can be scary...cause it's not comfortable.  The new year's list that God might write for us....will inevitably involve change and none of us like or are comfortable with that.  All too often [let's get real He NEVER does, cause we'd assume we knew exactly how to get there and jack it all up], God won't paint a clear picture of what direction his New is even going in or certainly not what it's going to look like.  Following God on a "new" assignment is absolutely going to be an act of faith.  Someone testified in our class, that the Lord has just revealed to her that this year is going to be different....she can't draw a plan for the year's goals...she must follow Him simply one verse at at time ...verses that He will give her.  Praises, He has given her the first verse, and that brings encouragement as one embarks into the unknown.  That resonated with me.  That is where I want to reside this year....at Jesus' feet, listening & learning & being transformed one verse at a time.  That is my prayer.

On the way home from church, my hubbie and I were discussing the lesson.  As we pondered what kind of newness God wants in our lives we asked what does His kind of NEW look like? 

I believe that the "new" God wants for us is not like a new coat that we can put on over our old self.  We can't wear it.  We can't add His kinda love, grace, kindness, forgiveness, selflessness to our current selves [even our Jesus loving saved selves].  I believe what He wants the new Mandi to be like, can only come about slowly as the old Mandi dies.  I mean the dying of self where I become weaker (surrender my rights-my plans) so that Christ in me can be stronger.  Here's the picture.  When we think of new, we think of fresh, unspoiled, flawless, [new car smell anyone?] stronger, the best.  It hit me on the way home, little do we realize in order to achieve His picture, we must be broken. I'm talking a gazillion shattered plates, cups, mugs... mere shards, the painful kind...collected over time and trials.  He wants our big old broken mess, (we hand it over as we yield to His will for our lives), so that He can put it all together to form the most beautiful mosaic.  One of His design...more beautiful than anything we can imagine or think.