I do declare that I don’t recall a recent time when I was out and about that someone hasn’t stopped me to comment on the size of my family. Now, I am of the friendly sort, but I generally don’t stop people in the middle of the frozen food section to comment on their reproductive habits or lack thereof. But when you have more than 1.7 children, you are fair game.

Now, I realize we’re the antithesis of The Simpsons and other pop culture TV families–as my children walk through the grocery store calmly, without grabbing things off the shelves and begging unmercifully for Sugar Bombs–and so, I generally welcome the comments because I acknowledge that we must look strange, especially with the sheer volume of it all. Really, when is the last time someone stopped you, gave you their captive attention, and asked you to share the Gospel? Happens to me every time.

Sometimes the phrase “How do you do it?!” is a sincere question; other times it is said as a statement of bewilderment. Either way, they are waiting for a response, and I try not to disappoint them. Today, it was another version of the same question that went like this from the lady who works in the bakery, “Are they all yours?! …Boy, and you’re barefoot and pregnant again.” To which I said, “Well, I’m wearing shoes today, but only because we’re at the grocery store.” Then she went on to tell me about the Duggar family “with something like 16 kids” that she heard about on TV. Utter disgust was in her voice.

Now I realize that large families are not synonymous with being a Christian, but those who have allowed the Lord to multiply his Kingdom right in their home have a particular calling. It requires a ready, gracious response to all who are watching and hate life. They hate life because they have not bowed their knee yet to the Life Giver. They are watching. They are stopping us. They are asking—in their own way—from where comes our hope and our reason for choosing life.

And so, when the lady in the bakery mocked our family and my declaration of God’s goodness, I couldn’t help but notice that she pulled out the leftover, unsold Halloween cupcakes. She gave one to each of the children. And she handed me an extra one for the baby.

In the garden
If you’ve answered a knock at my door in the past month, no doubt the first thing you heard was, “What is that growing along your walkway?!” I believe that every person has commented on my row of lettuce lining the sidewalk. My husband lightly protested my choice of location for the lettuce starters, but like most domestic dilemmas, he conceded to my selection. So, he planted the lettuce along the walkway—at midnight, no less—while I held the floodlight and inquired, “Do you think we work too much?”

So, the joke now is that when you come to our house for dinner, you need to pick your own lettuce and tomatoes on your way in. No slacking allowed around here.

The reasons I planted the lettuce along the walkway are two-fold— #1, my annuals had finished their lifespan and something needed to fill the spot and #2, the garden spot in the backyard still needs to be turned under. Furthermore, it is easier to keep tabs on these fickle plants when you are walking by them everyday.

So, the jury is still out. I think combining beauty and functionality with one single planting is just Chapter 31-esk, while pretty much everyone else says, “Okaaaay.”

In the sewing room (that looks alarmingly similar to the kitchen table)
I finished the girls’ dresses this past weekend and practiced a few embroidery techniques. A few posts below, I mentioned that I was learning a new thing. It takes time, but I’m not as discouraged as I thought I’d be. Each try is yielding better results (form), and I am learning to decipher the nuances (function).

In cyberspace
Many people use the contact form to inquire about my site design. Tim Challies designed this site, while Valerie Mints maintains it. I just fluff it up. Speaking of form and function, Challies just redesigned his own site. I usually recommend that people begin blogging using Blogger, as it is the most user-friendly option available that I’ve seen. I ditched Blogger in favor of WordPress for two reasons. The first is that Blogger was having numerous technical issues at the time, which are now resolved. The second is that one year of hosting was given to me as a gift.

In the draft folder
Someone inquired some time ago about my opinion on church music—specifically hymns– that I never answered. Later this week, I will post on my fondness for the subject with special emphasis on the form and function of our worship. It’s probably not what you think I’ll say. But you’re used to that.

In the prayer closet
The form of one without her husband to help with the small children underfoot for nine days now is one that should be bent low, asking for more grace. Perhaps she should just be grateful for the ability to function.

There are many reasons that churches split, but the single most rampant reason in recent decades has been over the infamous Worship War. The older generation wants to keep things “the way we’ve always done them” while the younger generation desires a more hip, relevant worship style.

As the church pianist in all the congregations I find myself in, I try to stay on the outskirts of this debate as I believe that the two opposing parties are usually asking and debating the wrong question. The debate should not be about choruses versus hymns, but rather, about man-centered versus God-centered worship. Anything less is dealing with the subject superficially. Furthermore, there is an aspect of yielding my preferences to yours that can not go overlooked. For a good resource on the subject, pick up Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship for This Urgent Time by Marva Dawn.

Hymns: they have rich history and doctrine in their favor. The reason to embrace them is not for their sentimental value, but for their content. Without a doubt, today’s choruses contain a lot of fluff—with a few notable exceptions– and lack the maturity of many of the old hymns, the bad ones notwithstanding. Why? Because the current culture lacks the mature faith of the old hymn writers, and immature faith translates into immature music. Could I pen the following? “Let sorrow do it’s work/ Send grief and pain/ Sweet are Thy messengers/ Sweet their refrain.” It does me well to read, sing, and meditate on those whose faith is beyond my own–contemporary and traditional.

But that doesn’t answer the question of where to fit in God-centered, God-exalting choruses. Scripture commands us to sing a new song unto the Lord. And herein lies the rub with singing choruses. In short, if within the congregation there is not the ability to lead the worshippers in a manner that is not distracting, then a church should embrace the form that brings the most attention to God, not man. It is extremely rare to attend a contemporary, hymns-banned church where the words on the wall actually match what you are supposed to be singing, the worship leader isn’t wearing shades and a Hawaiian shirt, the worship team doesn’t have a lady flaunting a miniskirt, and all the microphones actually work and are in balance.

In order to touche’ myself, it is also important that the traditional pianist pay attention to how many verses are in a hymn. But I don’t want to talk about that anymore.

In the same vain, anyone who thinks hymns are the only way to worship has not visited another culture or another time in history, pre-Puritan. The Church should uphold that music which is mature, aesthetic, and God-centered, no matter the era it was written.

Just in case you think I’m out of touch, the very first time I sang a hymn other than Amazing Grace was when I went away to a fundamental, no-leaving-your-dorm-on-Wednesday-night-because-someone-might-think-you-skipped-church, KJV college at the age of 17. Before then, I grew up in various charismatic churches, some of them were cults by definition. If you are a psychologist, you might surmise that my rejection of a lot of modern worship is due to the influences of my childhood and my resulting dismissal of the doctrine, lifestyle, and hypocrisy that went along with it. But is important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and so, I like to think that I am looking at the situation critically and deliberately—embracing the good, rejecting the bad. I don’t always succeed.

And so now, when I find myself in a Hawaiian-shirt worship service, I worship sincerely along with them. These are my brothers and sisters in Christ, and while I have my preferences, I know that the right way to worship God is not with (often misplaced) high standards, but with my love for the brethren.

Book Review: Hymns for a Kid’s Heart
It is only fitting that I take the chance here to review Hymns for a Kid’s Heart. The Diet of Bookworms program sent this to me a couple months ago, and we’ve enjoyed wearing out the book and the CD that came along with it. I’m writing this post in response to an earlier question regarding how to teach our children hymns and what to do when you attend a church that doesn’t sing hymns.

The reason our children know many hymns by heart is not because we attend a church that sings them, but rather, because they live in a home that uses them for daily worship (along with solid choruses). There are many children in our church who do not know any hymns, but that is because of the failure of the parents, not the church. Deuteronomy 6 delegates the nurture and training of His children to parents, and while corporate worship is a part of that training, the primary responsibility rests on the parents alone.

Beside a traditional hymnbook, books such as Hymns for a Kid’s Heart are helpful in teaching the history and circumstances of hymns. With colorful illustrations, easy chord charts for guitar players (and lazy pianists), and engaging stories, Hymns for a Kid’s Heart is a delightful read. I appreciate that they included all the verses, as much kiddie media usually only utilizes the first verse. This is a mistake most publishers make, but thankfully, not this time. People underestimate the ability of a three-year-old to sing all the verses of A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. They can do it!

Common hymns are included (like Holy, Holy, Holy and How Firm a Foundation) and a couple not-so-common hymns (Eternal Father, Strong to Save and The Lord’s My Shepherd, I’ll Not Want). The only selection I disagree with—in order that I might be consistent with my above-stated philosophy—is the inclusion of America, the Beautiful. It is not God-centered, God-focused, and therefore, not a good choice among the collection. Nevertheless, Hymns for a Kid’s Heart is a good selection if you’re looking to teach your children a few good hymns from start to finish.

“If one child takes all your time, six can’t take any more.”
~Katherine Gillingham Howard

The Bible tells us to rejoice with those who rejoice and to mourn with those who mourn. But sometimes it’s still tricky to determine which action is called for. Let me explain.

My husband and I were having dinner some time ago with old friends when they told us about their troubles. Hearing water trickling in the bathroom, the couple took it upon themselves to determine the cause and fix it. Since we are the same kind of people who fix things for ourselves, we appreciated the spirit in which they undertook the task. Unable to pinpoint the sound, the husband began disassembling fixtures and cabinets. The sound continued, so he tore open a wall. Still hearing the sound, he began ripping up the floor until the whole bathroom was in pieces. Exasperated that the water trickling continued, they finally called a plumber.

The plumber came in, listened for a minute, then walked outside and turned off the garden hose. He left a bill, of course.

My husband and I looked at each other for a second, unsure of whether to pity them or laugh unmercifully. We chose the latter. And thankfully, they joined us.

In like manner, I find myself in a similar situation today—unsure of whether to laugh or cry. My husband finally returned home from a routine business trip after ten days. While I am wildly thankful to have some parenting relief and we are celebrating his return, I find the party dampened with my miserable head cold. It’s bad. So while I hope you’ll rejoice with us in Greg’s safe return home, I wouldn’t mind a few “Poor Amy’s” as well.

Unless, of course, I’ve earned a taste of my own medicine.

With Mount NeverRest still waiting for me to scale it, I am putting aside more leisurely activities in order to accomplish the feat. (For the male readership, there was a reference to laundry in that sentence.) When Mom is sick (see last entry), everything just backs up. The work ahead makes you wish you were still in bed, but good health is always preferable to sickness, even if that sickness presents an excuse not to accomplish anything.

But it is good work, and that makes for a good life.

I wrote earlier about teaching my children to work, and just this week I stumbled across another useful device. It happened early one morning when I was checking on my tomatoes and saw the lady across the street also outside in her yard. She is a recent widow with a yard full of orange trees. We chit-chatted for a few minutes, and I asked if I could take her yard trash for my compost pile. She said that she wasn’t done, so I offered my strapping seven-year-old boy to her to complete the job.

Most kids would grumble and complain at being offered out as free labor to neighborhood, but I said it like this, “Hey, hon, the lady across the street needs some help in her yard, and I thought you might want to go over there. We won’t start school until you get back, and then if we don’t finish all of it, it won’t be the end of the world.”

He lit up like Methuselah’s birthday cake. In fact, my daughter inquired about his whereabouts, and when I told her, she flew over there to join the effort. After a long time passed, I thought they should have finished, returned home, and begun their language work. So I went outside and surveyed the situation.

They were at another neighbor’s house sweeping the driveway.

I stood there and “humphed” with my hands on my hips, but what can you do…

It is getting late on Saturday evening, and I have so much to tell about these past several days. Next week, I hope to share pictures and stories, but for right now, rest is calling to me after a fruitful and productive day. (Among the hopefully fruitful, I found strawberry plants!) No, there weren’t any trips to the fair, excursions to the mall, or exciting vacation stories to relate, but rather, just some good days getting needed work done while enjoying the things the children said along the way, the goodness of God in the details, and the satisfaction of producing something worthwhile.

I spent most of Saturday exploring the plants at Lukas Nursery with a friend. It was the largest nursery I’d ever been to, so we spent many hours there. I enjoyed the visit on many levels. The employees were gardeners themselves and had a lot of information and advice to convey, unlike the workers at most chain stores. Another thing I appreciated about the nursery is that they were selling varieties suitable for Florida growing. While I wasn’t in the market for them, I noticed that the roses were grown on fortuniana rootstock, a special rootstock developed to thrive in Florida. After experimenting with both regular and fortuniana rootstock roses, the difference can’t be emphasized enough. This is just one example, as there are many peculiarities to growing food and foliage in Florida. Additionally, Lukas Nursery was selling plants appropriate to plant now, unlike the watermelon and summer squash starters I saw at the chain garden centers.

Score one for the local horticulturists.

Among a few other odds and ends, at the end of the day I’d purchased 50 strawberry plants, three blueberry bushes, a muscadine grape vine, and a raspberry bush. I recall reading that the Heritage raspberry bush is somewhat of an imperfect solution for Florida gardeners, but that this is the best they’ve produced as raspberries really need more chilling hours. We’ll see how that goes, but I’ve put my receipt in a safe place.

Whether or not I’ll ever see raspberries in my garden is one question, but the real question that begs to be answered is, “Why am I zealous about gardening in the first place?”

As soon as I began earning babysitting money as a teenager, I began buying watermelon seeds, bareroot strawberries, and flowers. While my learning curve was steep at the time, the weak and feeble rewards of my efforts were enough to keep my interest. I wish that I knew enough to ask why something failed, what went wrong, and what to do to prevent its reoccurrence. I am only now asking those questions and wish that I had this insight earlier.

More often than not, we go through life blaming our lot on “well, nothing much grows in Florida anyway” instead of taking responsibility for choosing the right plants at the right time and providing the right conditions for growing them. Now that I am bringing my fourth child through the much maligned “terrible twos” stage, I know that taking responsibility and providing good growing conditions is a gardening lesson that applies to many things.

Woo-hoo! I got this post up before receiving my monthly scathing-where-is-the-Challies-drawing-link email from The Mad Monk.

Click on the link above to enter the drawing for two prizes this month, one of them a bit unusual. Like I said last month, it’s not a scam because I actually won once.

Here’s the skinny per Challies: The first prize is a copy of The Outdoor Bible (NASB). The Outdoor Bible is printed on 100% plastic material, which makes it a fully waterproof Bible. It can be rained on, snowed on, or fully submerged in a body of water with no damage. It comes packaged in a small burlap sack. The second prize will be one of a selection of books that includes titles written by R.C. Sproul, C.J. Mahaney, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Horton and others. Some of these books are autographed, others are not. The complete list will provided to winners at the close of the giveaway.

Also giving away a prize this month is Carmon. My secret guess is that it’ll be a book, but I don’t know if that’s an educated guess or not… Check out the details and take a guess.

On second thought, nevermind! She’s already got a winner.

Living simply in an industrialized society takes deliberate thought. As an adult, I know that food isn’t produced in a grocery store or in a local drive-thru. However, my children are another matter. While they know in theory that food comes from farmers, the manner in which we attain our food (with a plastic card in an air-conditioned chain store) can leave a disconnect in their young minds. While one might argue that they will make the connection as they get a little older, I would counter that sitting down to a pot roast after playing video games all day would undo any sophisticated economic lesson.

In our society, we exchange our labor (most often, this is mental labor, not physical) for money and our money for food. When you further add in barriers such as taxes, banks, credit lines, and commuting, the disconnect between work and food is even greater. Furthermore, the case has been made elsewhere that the greater the space between the consumer and his food, the lesser the concern for quality—hence, the acceptable use of pesticides, excessive processing, and mishandling.

While my suburban landscape is humble, the garden accomplishes an important task: it reminds our family of what we need for life– God, food, and shelter. When your life is spent keeping up with the Jones’, trying on designer clothes, and taking personal-peace-and-affluence classes at the local night college, it is painful to return to the basics. Broken homes and marriages often result. Financial pressure is more often a lack of contentness and/or mismanagement of current funds than a lack of funds in itself.

Why is it important that children make the connection between food and work? Because I want my children to accomplish all that God has called them to do in this life, and they can’t do that chasing peripherals. If they invest in depreciating activities and assets, they will spend their lives in the hamster wheel of life: striving to get ahead, not knowing how to get off, and not even realizing that they should.

I’m not advocating poverty; on the contrary, wealth and abundance are eventual signs of simple living. (I will defend that statement in another post.) Should you enjoy your wealth? Yes… after your work is done. If my son ever found himself down to his last dollar, I hope he’d buy a package of cabbage seeds and not a bus ticket to the welfare line. Eating is the reward of work, and the backyard garden reminds us well of this truth.

Planting bed for the strawberries.

I have one more flat of impatiens to plant in our front yard, but here is a basket that is doing well already. There is also English Ivy planted in there, but it is not yet spilling over.

My husband can go for the practical gardening side of things (food!), but he doesn’t quite understand the aesthetic aspect that I swoon over. While this may look like just a basket of flowers, to me it is a picture of abundance.

My father-in-law grew up in a family of nine kids, and I asked him one time about family meal times. Though it was in the middle of The Depression, he replied that they’d always had enough. This surprised but inspired me. Though money might be tight sometimes with a houseful of children, I want them to sense that our home is a place of abundance—not just in people, but in love, food, affection, wisdom, and sustenance.

I’ve been making this smoothie for many years now. I call it my “Get Rid of Your Fruit That Is About To Go Bad” smoothie. I also have a bread recipe by the same title. The name explains what goes into the concoction. But this week, I’ve perfected the smoothie into a delectable breakfast item that is not just for pawning off on the kids as a “you’ll-love-it-I-promise” drink.

Here it is: Half of a large container of plain non-fat yogurt (about 12 ounces), 2 frozen bananas, several frozen strawberries, and about a cup of frozen blueberries. Blend while adding grape juice until desired consistency. If you’re not watching calories, you can throw in some frozen Cool Whip, but I like to keep it healthy. Perfect.

Most of the strawberries are in, thanks to my husband and oldest daughter. In this picture you can see the rows of strawberries, but you probably can’t tell that there are blueberries, raspberries, and muscadine grapes along the perimeter. My husband will construct a trellis when he has a spare moment for the grapes and raspberries. Today we will put in peas. The peas will be finished before the berries take over the trellis. That is, unless we got snookered buying super-charged berries with magic growth hormone.

Emily wrote in a comment on the last post, “I got the bug (no pun intended) after tending a friend’s garden while she traveled this past summer. She had the most beautiful dirt I’d ever seen - so rich and lush, it made you wanna walk through it with bare feet! Gross, eh?! Anyway, she said her secret was first, she supplemented with dirt from her own worm farm, second of all, six months to a year before she tilled she would dig up the dirt in little sections and put her compost materials directly under them. Then when she tilled later, she had this very fertile soil.”

Two years ago, I read several years worth of Organic Gardening. There was a soil quiz in one issue, and it was based on the number of worms in your dirt. We failed miserably as we didn’t even have one worm. Today, however, our soil is teeming with worms; I’d like to retake the quiz now! Our worm farm was a success, but I think it had more to do with just throwing coffee grounds and vegetable scraps on the dirt. The old phrase, “If you build it, they will come,” applies here. The reason we had no worms was because our dirt was so bad it was unfit for worms. Now that’s bad.

The lesson here is to do the right thing even if it is a slow process, even if the rewards aren’t immediate.

I found this picture when I uploaded the digital pictures this morning. I wondered what it was, then I remembered that my husband was working on the sink and wanted to remember how to put it back together. Hence, the picture. My husband, the plumber to call first. I watched as he worked under the sink last night. My daughter formed letters out of plumber’s putty while handing him tools. Why watch a movie?

While there’s much more to show and tell, it’s time to sign off. See you next time.

Email from my husband who is camping in the backyard with the kids: Still awake?

Me: Yes.

Him: Whatcha doin?

Me: Reading and deleting emails while crunching ice.

Him: Everyone here’s snoozing.

Me: Uh, OK.

Him: Just filling you in. Are you mad or something?

Me: No, just wondering why you’re making small talk.

Him: Don’t know – because I’ve never emailed while “camping” before? Are you writing a post or something? I’m looking forward to your next. You know I check the site frequently through the day

Me: No, I’m not writing anything. Do you mean to say 500 of the hits are from you every day?

Him: Maybe 250 – am I inflating the numbers? Oh, write something quick. It’s better than answering these emails.

Here you go, honey.

I want to know if anyone really eats the cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving. Really, do people eat that stuff with a regular chicken dinner? It’s a marketing ploy, I tell you. Do you put a dab on your plate just to be polite? Does anyone really like it? Should I rebel and leave it off the menu? And, why (!) do I wrap up the leftovers, only so it can be found as another chemical compound four weeks later and pitched?

For Thanksgiving this year, our menu will look like this:

–Turkey (I’m using this brine, but I always cook it upside down for the moistest breast meat.)
–Garlic Mashed Potatoes, leave the skins on
–Buttered Corn
–Green Beans with almonds
–Homemade Macaroni and Cheese, using extra sharp cheddar is the trick
–Stuffing and Gravy from the pan drippings
–Buttered Rolls
–Cream Cheese Pumpkin Pie
–Bubbly grape juice for all
–Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins for breakfast, just because I like cream cheese
and
–Cranberry sauce…I’m a wimp.

It is not just the old-timers who are resourceful. Since necessity is the mother of invention, it necessarily follows that needy people–not just the rebels from The Great Depression– often create much out of little. There is a Rich Mullins song with a line that muses, Mom could make a gourmet meal out of just cornbread and beans; They worked to give faith hands and feet but somehow gave it wings.

Children who have not been pre-programmed to require trinkets, gadgets, and blinking plastic bobbles have long since proven the theory of necessity breeding invention. As I type, there is a pseudo garage sale commencing with sticks and leaves posing as merchandise while my children mimic their mother’s bartering practices. The 17-month-old falls into a puddle while chasing a frog, and pretzel sticks serve as army men in battle. They are still too young to understand the authentic battle for their hearts and affections, but it marches on nevertheless.

The problem is not that we lack resources, but that we don’t understand our genuine need. We invent and create all kinds of solutions to our problems while ignoring the cause of the problem in the first place. The problem, of course, is sin. We buy new gadgets to veil our discontentment. We fashion our clothes after a neighbor’s while ignoring our envy. We buy trinkets for the kids so that we can indulge in “me time.” Of course, the solution isn’t the problem, as there is not anything inherently wrong with trinkets. They are just the band-aids we affix in order to mask our real problem–sin.

And so, it follows that as I seek to invent solutions to the minor quirks of everyday life, that I don’t forget my real need—which is to seek and savor Jesus Christ in all these details. If I need to feed the family on $10 a day…do I acknowledge that His lordship over my life includes living within my means? If I am unable to keep a cheerful heart during tasks of drudgery…do I ask for grace and look to Jesus’ example who endured the cross? I may have immediate needs, but I do well to remember my greatest need in all these things.

Now, if you’ll excuse, it looks like the baby could use a little bath.