Week 6--Two More Hugs

Sorry, this is a long one...

Contemplations

This last week I started reading another book for DTP--Becoming God's True Woman edited by Nancy Leigh Demoss. I'm on the fifth chapter and cannot even begin to tell you how good it is! In the introduction, Demoss quotes a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier that I absolutely love (1st and 3rd stanzas quoted here)!

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,

Forgive our foolish ways!

Reclothe us in our rightful mind;

In purer lives Thy service find,

In deeper reverence, praise.

...

Drop Thy still dews of quietness

Till all our strivings cease.

Take from our souls the strain and stress,

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace.

Oh, how I want this to be the prayer of my heart every day! That I would take time out from all the busyness of life and daily contemplate the person of God! That my mind would momentarily stop churning the things of this world and offer up praises to my Lord and Father!

The first chapter is "Femininity: Developing a Biblical Perspective" by Carolyn Mahaney. She says "our femininity is a gift of grace from a loving God" and then proceeds to show how we are to express our femininity through our role as a helper, nurturing children (our own or other people's), and caring for our home. Regardless of marital status, God created and calls all women to express do these things.

If all of us mommies are going to be honest, we'd have to admit that there are times when we are tempted to throw in the towel. While we recognize and wholeheartedly agree that our children are gifts from the Lord, there are times when we've had it and just want to lock the bedroom door, crawl under the covers, and let everyone fend for themselves. Of course, we would never really do so. And I am quickly overcome by guilt when such thoughts flow through my mind, realizing how sinful and in need of repentance I am.

I hit that point a few times in the past week. Last weekend Robbie was at men's retreat. About 24 hours after arriving back home, he came down with the flu which lingered about five days. Counting his late nights out the previous week, I was essentially a single mom for about a week-and-a-half. My heart goes out to all true single parents out there! Anyway, between cleaning up from the potty training (which is going splendidly!), getting kids to and from school, keeping everyone fed and dressed, doing TONS of laundry, and attempting to keep up with some of the house chores, there were moments when I didn't know if I was going to make it through the evening.

But each day the Lord pulled me through the rough spots, was faithful to refresh my soul through His Word, and gave me the strength to get through the next day! As Carolyn Mahaney says, "there really is no other source of refreshment than God."

Habits in Progress

1. Scripture Saturation: I was able to start February one day ahead! This will help me finish on time since there are only four extra days this month. I believe I am on schedule or will be before I go to bed tonight.
2. Toy Pick-Up Time: Still going great!
3. A Hug and a Kiss: With Robbie being sick, I've actually been avoiding kissing him. But I've been trying to hug him, scratch his back, rub his shoulders whenever I could.
4. Water: Even with the busyness of the week, still going at it!
5. WDTP Scripture Memorization: I have reviewed Ephesians 5:22, 23 every day since my last DTP class. "Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior."

This Week's One New Habit

Chapter 3 of Becoming God's True Woman is entitled "Daddy's Girl: Knowing God As Father" and was written by Mary A. Kassian. I read this chapter while sitting at a table in the food court area at Target this last week. I'm pretty sure if I had been at home, I would have broken down and cried as I read it. Kassian starts the chapter by describing the sad state of today's families. "Our society has not only lost the physical presence of fathers, but we have also lost something even more fundamental: We have lost our idea of fatherhood....Our society is afflicted not only with the absence of fathers, but also with the absence of our belief in fathers."

As I read this, I could not help but thank God for my own daddy! I am incredibly blessed to have parents who are still married to each other and who still love each other. My dad was always there. When we were little, he took us to our soccer games every Saturday. He helped me build my California mission in fourth grade. During our junior high years he was attending our softball, basketball, and volleyball games and French braiding the whole team's hair! Yes, he can French braid! And in high school he helped us with our Calculus by having us explain the difficult problems to him until we reached the "oh, I just found my mistake" point.

And even though my sister and I have both left home to start our own families, our daddy is still very involved in our lives. He is an excellent Bapa to our combined five children, he rescues me when I am having car trouble, he fixes things around the house for me, and he BBQs/grills dinner every Sunday!

A few weeks ago Robbie made an observation of something that I had been thinking about as well. He commented that my family doesn't really hug that much. The truth is that we were always very physically affectionate when we were younger. I remember hugging my parents a lot when I was a kid. I have fond memories of snuggling up to my dad to watch football on Sundays. But in the past few years, the hugs have been absent. I think one reason is that we see each other all the time. We hug Robbie's parents when we see them because we only see them once a month. But I see my parents multiple times each week. Also, I usually have my hands full of kids and kid-related things. And the kids are always needing their hugs. But none of these are valid excuses. I not only need to tell my parents that I love them (which I do all the time), but I need to show them that I do. This evening as we were leaving their house, I made it a point to hug each of them, even though I was juggling April and my purse. And it was nice!

So, I hereby resolve to hug my daddy and mommy on a regular basis, that they would know that I love them not only by my words, but also by my physical affection toward them.