In the beginning . . .

Elisabeth just picked up her children's Bible, and began 'reading' aloud:

In the beginning, everything went bonk.

Fun in the Sprinkler

Elisabeth took advantage of the sprinkler in today's heat. She played in the water, but won't run through it yet.

Cake

Last night we had one of those moments that we had to stiffle overwhelming laughter as we were doing Elisabeth's questions. I read Elisabeth Question 41 of the catechism, which asks,

What does every sin deserve?

She replied,

"Cake."

I did my best to explain that sin deserves wrath, not cake, [while not roaring with laughter] in a way that a 2 1/2 year old might understand.

Blackout shades

Yesterday I installed blackout shades in Elisabeth's bedroom window. I had noticed that increasing daylight in the mornings (which comes ever earlier during the summer) had begun to wake her before she was ready. Hopefully better regulated light will enable her to nap better in the afternoons, and sleep more naturally at night.

Return to Routine

After over two weeks of travel, we are finally home. Many of Elisabeth's routines were suspended during our travel time, and so our return brings the opportunity for return to routine.

Last night, we began the process of learning to go to sleep alone in her own bed. We put her down at about 8:30, and somewhere around 9:30 she dropped off to sleep . . . but she did it by herself, which she hasn't done for two weeks.

And she's still asleep now, nearly 11 hours later, which she also hasn't done in the last two weeks. I think return to routine may be just what the doctor ordered.

Fun times with Katelyn

Jump Up!

Jump up!

She eats it like candy!

Elisabeth loves green beans. So I often bring them with us when we go for a walk, so that she has a healthy snack. On one occasion we were on our way to the park, and she was muching on her green beans. En route, we passed a day care group, also making their way to the park. One of the care-givers saw Elisabeth munching on green beans and exclaimed,

She eats it like candy!

Because she is better than you

Elisabeth was playing with aunt Haley and talking about aunt Kate. Haley asked Elisabeth why she likes Aunt Kate so much. Elisabeth responded:

"Because she is better than you."

We're pretty sure she didn't mean it that way . . .

No, this nose

Elisabeth, as she was running through the doorway, tripped and fell. She was startled and began crying. Rebecca asked her, "Did you hit the boo-boo on your knee?" Elisabeth touched her nose and replied,

"No, this nose!"

Flower Girl

Elisabeth had her first outing as a flower girl last weekend.

Beginning phonics

For some time Elisabeth has been working on letter-sound associations. Now she has most of them down, most of the time. (Quite curiously, in the process of learning the letter sounds, she started to forget some of the letter names and would only associate the sound with the character. So we've been working on linking all three together: character, letter name, and sound.)

Two days ago, Elisabeth surprised us. She had been using Starfall to explore onset blends (sh, ch, th, etc.) On the sreen was the word, "shop." She pointed to the word and distinctly said the sounds for short o, and p in succession! To this point she has shown mere letter-sound assocation. This was the first sign that she has shown of being aware of how sounds go together to make words.

What a delight to see her take this step!

Daddy, can you please go away?

About a month and a half ago, Elisabeth began a new pattern of speech. If I told her not to do something, she would sit (for example) by the thing that I told her not to touch, and say, "Daddy, can you please go away?"

Yesterday she was playing with some adult friends as I talked with them. Elisabeth turned to me and said, "Daddy, can you go away so we can have fun?"

At least this time she wasn't planning something disobedient . . .

On the Road

I'm going to be traveling for about two weeks, and don't know what kind of internet connectivity I'll have, so posting may be sparse (or non-existent, if I don't have internet access). Hopefully, however, I'll be able to post some pictures as we go, and some Elisabethisms.

I can dip just one finger

I can dip just one finger

Pushing Penny's Stroller

Elisabeth loves to push "Penny's stroller" through the park.

Teaching kids to sing, or to worship?

Over the past week I have been teaching in a Vacation Bible School. Amidst many positive experiences, it has also put me to wondering:

Do we teach kids to worship, or do we simply teach them to sing? My own experience growing up (and what I have observed this week) is that we sing fun songs with lots of motions. But if I was asked to describe it as singing or worship, I would have to call it singing.

My point is not to criticize, but to say that if my experiences are representative, it is wise for us to consider how we teach children to worship, and not merely to sing.

So I turn the question to you: How do you teach children to worship (in song)?

Resting

Running around makes me tired!

You know we never used flattery

You know we never used flattery. . . (1 Thessalonians 2:5)

Is this how we proclaim the gospel, without flattery? Or do we proclaim a gospel that is flattering to our flesh? Can we say that we are those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel? Can it be truly said that we are not looking for praise from people?

Could it be that we are so blind to our flesh and so insensitive to the Spirit that we attempt to do God's work in human ways totally unaware? I fear that we have come to such a place in the history of the church precisely because of our failure to love God supremely.

Proclamation, not Politics

I have a deep interest in the life of the black church in the United States. So I'm not sure I would have given this post the same title as the author, but his direction for the future of the black church in this country is clear, powerful and helpful in the deepest sense.

Thabiti Anyabwile surveys the history of the black church in this country and concludes:

Consequently, today's Black church may in many ways be weaker than the church in 1830!

His call is clarion:

The African-American church is in desperate need of biblically-qualified, gospel-preaching, Christ-treasuring, church-loving, evangelistic, intellectually-rigorous men to lead her, protect her, sacrifice for her, serve her, reform and strengthen her. We can not withstand another generation of Sharpton and Jackson-like preachers who give more attention to politics (liberal or conservative) than they give to feeding the Lord's sheep and watching over the flock of God entrusted to their care.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Christ defines love

Today I was talking with someone about the challenges of addressing homosexuality - not as an abstract idea, but with friends of mine who are gay and professing Christians. How do you get the courage to have those conversatoins? The person with whom I was talking asked me very directly how I deal with it. My answer came directly from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, because I think he articulates it (though not with regard to homosexuality in particular) far better than I can:

What love is, only Christ tells in his Word. Contrary to all my own opinions and convictions, Jesus Christ will tell me what love toward the brethren really is. Therefore, spiritual love is bound solely to the Word of Jesus Christ. Where Christ bids me to maintain fellowship for love's sake, I will maintain it. Where his truth enjoins me to dissolve a fellowship for love's sake, there I will dissolve it, despite all the protests of my human love. Because spiritual love does not desire but rather serves, it loves an enemy as a brother. It originates neither in the brother nor in the enemy but in Christ and his Word. Human love can never understand spiritual love, for spiritual love is from above; it is something completely strange, new and incomprehensible to all earthly love. (Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. "Life Together." Harper Collins: San Francisco, CA.1954 p 35)

But I did that a couple days ago

This morning Rebecca encouraged Elisabeth to use the potty before she left a friend's house to walk home. Elisabeth replied plaintively,

But I did that a couple days ago!

Walk softerly

Today as we were walking away from the playground, Elisabeth said to me,

Please walk softerly!

I've learned that means slowly.

Pink Hat

just hanging around

NoCO2 coffee

For several years now I have purchased coffee (almost exclusively) from Dean's Beans, an organic fair trade supplier. The coffee is great, the prices are good, and they are both environmentally and socially active (not merely conscious).

I just got an email from them announcing a new initiative to be a carbon neutral company. I think it is a brilliant concept from a great company.

I want to stay!

I took this shot of Elisabeth perched in the hole of a tree trunk that separates and then rejoins. When I had snapped several pictures, I reached to get her out, to which she responded, "I want to stay!" I guess it was a comfortable tree seat.

Eating toothpaste

Yesterday I was cleaning up the kitchen and noticed and unusual silence. I peeked around the corner to find Elisabeth in the bathroom eating toothpaste. Her method was to force her little fingers down into the tube, pull them out and like them clean. Yuck! (Although apprently she didn't think so . . .)

Impatiens

Today Elisabeth and I visited the botanic gardens. Among the many flowers we saw were two beautiful beds of impatiens (which I had previously thought were impatients). Elisabeth asked what they were, and I read the sign: impatiens. Right away she burst into song:

Have patience, have patience
don't be in such a hurry!
When you get impatient
it only makes you worry . . .

Clearly in her mind she spelled it the way I did before today.

DuraBib

I have for some time intended to post on DuraBib. I am all about high quality baby/toddler products, and this one is at the top of my list. It is made off a washable vinyl material that snaps to form a food/drink catching compartment (big enough to catch and contain at least one cup of liquid). It unsnaps flat so that you can wipe all the mess that falls in there straight into the trash. It is super flexible, so it can be easily folded and tucked into a diaper bag.

We went through a lot of mediocre bibs before the DuraBib. We haven't bought another since - and won't until Elisabeth is no longer in bibs.

Lemonade map

Over the course of the past few weeks, Elisabeth has banged up the bottom of the world map in her room. It is within range of her feet when she is lying on her bed, and somehow those little toes tend to mangle the paper. When it fell down (due at least in part to being much touched by little toes), I told her that I would have to replace it with a laminated map. Since that time has been asking,

When are we going to get a lemonade map to find Afghanistan?

End of the Spear

This week I watched the End of the Spear, a movie dramatizing the life of Nate Saint (as if his life needed dramatization). As a father, there were several poignant moments for me as I repeatedly wept during the film. One came when Steve Saint (Nate's dad) is leaving his family to try to establish contact with a murderous tribe in the Amazon in order to bring them the good news of Christ. Young Nate asks, "Will you shoot them if they attack you?" to which his father responds to this effect:

"I can't shoot them. We're ready to die and go to heaven, but they're not ready yet."

It came clear to me in a new way the radical way these five young men trusted Christ, and how His good news had permeated their hearts. They trusted Him to save them, not from death, but through death, and to save those who would kill them. Not only that, but they trusted Him more than themselves to care for their wives and children.

As we think about urban and international work, it is a reminder to me of the way that we are to live here. We are sent with the same good news for lost and hostile people just as much here as in the jungles of the Amazon. Christ is just as worthy of our trust now as He was to those five young men. And He didn't spare their lives; He took their lives for His glory. Our trust is not that He will spare us, but that He will bring us through death to Himself, and use us to draw others to Him.

Preaching as a sinner, to sinners

I have been praying for anointing in my life, and in the opportunity to preach. In praying, I recalled this experience of Martyn Lloyd-Jones that encouraged me in the way of humble, bold proclamation:

I shall never forget preaching some twenty-seven years ago to a college chapel in the University of Oxford on a Sunday morning. I had preached in exactly the same way as I would have preached anywhere else. The moment the service had finished, and before I had scarcely had time to get down from the pulpit, the wife of the Principal came rushing up to me and said, 'Do you know, this was the most remarkable thing I have known in this chapel.' I said, 'What do you mean?' 'Well,' she said, 'do you know that you are literally the first man I have ever heard in this chapel who has preached to us as if we were sinners.' She added, 'All the preachers who come here, because it is a college chapel in Oxford, have obviously been taking exceptional pains to prepared learned, intellectual sermons, thinking we are all great intellects. To start with, the poor fellows often show that they do not have too much intellect themselves, but have obviously been straining in an attempt to produce the last ounce of learning and culture, and the result is that we go away absolutely unfed and unmoved. We have listened to these essays, and our souls are left dry. They do not seem to understand that though we live in Oxford, we are nevertheless sinners.' (Lloyd Jones, Martyn. "Preaching & Preachers." Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI. 1971 p126)

O to preach as a sinner, to sinners, without any pretense of my - or their - not being in desperate need of a great Savior!

I'm Gladys!

"He's found me and He's saved me
I'm Gladys" [our neighbor's first name]

Elisabeth sang these words this morning from a poem that actually goes like this:

He's found me and He's saved me
I'm as glad as I can be.

Smiles

Elisabeth with Aunt Sandy

Upright and Humble

This weekend at dinner I asked my extended my family this question:

How do you raise kids to walk uprightly AND not look down on those who don't?

I'm soliciting more input . . .

The Return of the King

'You will be incomplete Christians if you do not look for the coming again of the Lord Jesus.' (Robertson, David. "Awakening: The Life and Ministry of Robert Murray McCheyne." Denmark: Paternoster. 2004. p28)

I have observed a great many Christians who do not look for the return of the King. They are concerned with the affairs of the church, raising a good family, and even personal piety, but not the immanent return of the King.

Unless we look for the coming again of the Lord Jesus, and teach our children to do likewise, how can we possibly fulfill God's purposes for us in history?

Why aren't you angry?

In Humility, Mahaney relates the story of his brother-in-law, Dave, who had an aggressive brain tumor.

On one occasion, a relative of Dave [who had an aggresssive brain tumor] was visiting, a man who was not a Christian. As he watched Sharon [Dave's wife] caring for Dave and thought about Dave's relative youth and the children he would leave behind, anger seemed to well up from within him - anger directed at the God whom Dave and Sharon were professing to believe in.
He asked Sharon, "Why aren't you angry?"
She turned to him and answered with the truth of the gospel: "Dave deserved hell for his sins, just like you and me, and yet God, in His mercy, forgave him because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. David is going to heaven," she said. "How could I be angry at God for taking him to heaven?" (Mahaney, C.J. "Humility: True Greatness." Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah. 2005. p150-1)

How quickly a true view of things gives us reason for worship rather than grumbling!

After-church conversation

C.J. Mahaney, in Humility, offers this wise counsel on how to celebrate, demonstrate and cultivate humility in after-church conversation:

After the church service, talk together aobut the examples of greatness you've seen. That's a good topic for Sunday mealtime conversation - much better than subtle put-downs of the style and substance of the sermon or the worship songs, or critiques of the appearance or behavior of the people who were there. (Mahaney, C.J. "Humility: True Greatness." Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah. 2005. p163)

Petals

Practicing to be a flower girl (in less than 2 weeks!)

Paddling

Elisabeth is learning to swim!

Big Thoughts for Little Thinkers

I came across a recommendation for Big Thoughts for Little Thinkers on Between Two Worlds, which includes a link to an interview with the author.

Any input for me before I buy?

Trampoline

On a trampoline

Glory and Death

And this is the advantage we may have in the discharge of this duty [the contemplation of the glory of Christ] with respect to death itself: it is the assiduous contemplation of the glory of Christ that will carry us cheerfully and comfortably into it, and through it. (Owen, John. "The Glory of Christ." Glasgow: Christian Heritage. 2004. p31)

One cannot read John Owen without seeing how clearly he connects the contemplation of the glory of Christ and preparing to die. Owen lived in a time of high infant mortality, epidemics, and instability. He knew the impending reality of death - and he teaches us (who expect to live beyond 80) how to prepare for what could come at any moment.

Disconnected

We've been up at my in-laws for the weekend, which has meant a haitus in posting (with the exception of this post, which I'm writing from my mother-in-law's office.) They have a cable connection, but an old Mac that runs OS9.1 (that's like a commodore . . .) which doesn't support Firefox at all, nor any recent version of Netscape or Internet Explorer. So I can't check email, can't post on the blog - and even cell phone reception is patchy! So in two more days, much of what I've been writing on my Palm will migrate onto Till it was All Leavened. Stay tuned . . .