We found more flowers!

I'm a flower lover

Spring is here!

The blessedness of the humble

This [the Gospel] is despised as a weak and foolish thing by those who are wise and strong in themselves; yet this is the grace which heals the weak, who do not proudly boast a blessedness of their own, but rather humbly acknowledge their real misery. (Augustine City of God p335)

If we would truly call our children to Christ through the Gospel, we must be faithful to the message of the Gospel: that this good news is for the humble, but not for the proud. It is for the miserable, not for those who feign happiness. It is for the self-despairing, not the self-confident.

In a day when self-esteem and self-confidence are hailed as great virtues rather than grave evils, the Gospel appears as foolishness - and it is. "[I]t pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe" (1 Corinthians 1:21). If we love our children, we will announce, in word and life, that we find rest and joy and peace in being nothing, and God being everything.

Eric Liddell and the Sabbath

Some years ago I read a book called A Boy's War by David Michell, who was a young boy in a Japanese prison camp in China during the Second World War. His school was imprisoned in the same camp where Eric Liddell was held, and later died just months before liberation.

Eric Liddell is the man on whom the movie Chariots of Fire is based. He refused to run the 1924 Olympic qualifying heats for the 200 meters because they were held on a Sunday. Instead, he ran the 400, a race for which he hadn't trained. He won the gold medal in the 400, and set a new world record. Shortly thereafter, he departed for China, saying that he was "Going abroad to endeavor to do his part to unify the countries of the world under Christ."

Michell recounted something that truly impressed me regarding Eric Liddell:

"Strong as he was in his conviction about Sunday not being a day for sports, he even agreed to referee the games of some of the children whose parents let them play on Sundays, when he found them fighting over the game." (A Boy's War 116)

This man who would not compete in the Olympics on a Sunday for himself was willing to referee games for children in a prison camp on Sundays! He understood that the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath, and therefore trusted Christ both by refraining from running in the trials for the 200, and in refereeing games for children on a Sunday.

O how I want our children to grow up with heroes like this, who live according to God, and not according to their own wills! I remember being inspired throughout my childhood years by the missionary biographies that my parents read to me. They became my heroes, of whom the world was not worthy.

Giant Sticker Activity Workbook

This sticker book is Elisabeth's favorite activity right now. It has over 600 reusable stickers with glossy pages. The book covers numbers, letters, colors, animals, vehicles, and even has some dot-to-dot pages. About 400 of the stickers have a "home" on one of the glossy pages, so each sticker is an occasion to hunt through the book for the appropriate color, letter, number, etc.

At first, Elisabeth was just fascinated by the sheer number of stickers, but within a week or so she learned to take out one sticker and search for the place where it belongs. We have spent hours on buses and trains doing it together, and she happily does it by herself on the couch or in the stroller. I highly recommend this book for this stage of development!

Look, Ma, no hands!

Today Elisabeth and I played soccer in the park. For the first time, she played the entire time without touching the ball with her hands! Not surprisingly, her trapping and kicking skills improved tremendously just in the time that we spent today.

Brownies

My wife has long contended that brownies made from scratch just can't contend with the mixes that come in a box. Yet when the latest Every Day Food arrived, she was excited by the whole section on brownies.

So I decided to try my hand at making brownies from scratch. It was not as hard as I had expected, and the brownies were good: better than the average brownie mix, but not as good as a Ghirardelli mix. So if you're up for a brownie experiment, this is a great place to start.

Asparagus, snap pea & avocado pasta

We recently went through a season of eating meat-less, and realized quickly that we didn't have that many go-to vegetarian recipes. One of the ones that we discovered (and have repeated) is asparagus, snap pea & avocado pasta from Every Day Food.

It is quick, easy, healthy and tasty!

I need a 'break'!

This past week, Elisabeth threw something across the room. I asked her to pick it up and bring it to me so that I could put it away because we don't throw things. She started crying because she didn't want to part with the bracelet she had thrown. She looked at me and said,

"I need a break."

I was amazed at how she had internalized the concept of a break. She understood that when her emotions overwhelmed her, that a break is the place where she can quietly collect herself before we talk about the episode. What a joy to see that she is understanding it as helpful and restorative, and not punitive!

Smelling the flowers

This one was taken on the same trip to the gardens as the last one . . . but there will be many more trips now that the tulips are opening up!

Inordinate love

Consequently he who inordinately loves the good which any nature possesses, even though he obtain it, himself becomes evil in the good, and wretched because deprived of a greater good. (Augustine City of God p388)

Loving the good things that God has created is not evil. Loving them more than Him who is truly lovely is both evil and wretched. This is the key that unlocks the joy of the saints, and exposes the misery of sinners. The great commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength; He is to be our supreme love. When He is, and our love of other good things are rightly ordered under Him, we enjoy the life for which He created us.

I'm convinced that this explanation of the biblical teaching on love can help children understand how to love good things in God's world in the way that He has designed for us to love them. Even a young child can see that it is good to love a pet, and good to love one's parents. But if you love your pet more than your parents, something is wrong and you can properly enjoy either. So it is that if we love anything inordinately (including anything more than God) we become "evil in the good, and wretched because deprived of a greater good."

Tulips are starting to bloom!

Television and Alcohol

Recently I posted on our decision not to have a television. Afterward, I thought it might be important to clarify: I don't think that our decision is the only right one. In fact, I think that the clearest way I can explain our decision may be by comparing it to John Piper's attitude toward alcohol. He is a teetotaler, and commends teetotaling. Yet when he became the pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, he argued against the church's constitution, which required members to be teetotalers. He said,

I want to hate what God hates and love what God loves. And this I know beyond the shadow of a doubt: God hates legalism as much as he hates alcoholism. If any of you still wonders why I go on supporting this amendment [removing the requirement that church members be teetotalers], after hearing all the tragic stories about lives ruined through alcohol, the reason is that when I go home at night and close my eyes and let eternity rise in my mind I see ten million more people in hell because of legalism than because of alcoholism. (Source)

I take much the same approach to television. We have chosen not to have one, for what I believe are good reasons. Yet I am unwilling to make it a rule for all precisely because it would go beyond Scripture.

Moreover, I want Elisabeth (and any other children God gives us) to see this in practice throughout her formative years: that as parents we make decisions for our family through faith and wisdom on "disputable matters." The fact that they are disputable doesn't mean that we are not convinced in our own minds. On the contrary:

1. There are a host of things on which we must make judgments.
2. We can gladly embrace those who make other judgments consistent with the Gospel.
3. We can learn from those who make other judgments without denying the integrity of our own position, or dismissing them out of hand.
4. We diligently guard against casting judgments on disputable matters as being central to faith.
5. The Gospel defines the criteria of our judgments, and our evaluation of those who judge differently.
   

I think that this is how children learn to be truly catholic in the faith, while remaining faithful - both of which are desperately needed in our time. [Ian Murray offers an outstanding treatment on true Christian catholicity here in the life of George Whitefield.]

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Getting Dirty

I'm an avid playground observer. I am convinced that there is much to learn about parenting from watching others - both the parents and the kids.

I realized that again yesterday watching a friend of ours with her kids. Every time they're in the park together, she's playing with her children. She doesn't simply stand on the side and watch while they do their thing. She sits with them in the sandbox and builds castles (despite the fact that all the other adults are clustered around the edge of the sandbox). When her son is climbing on the jungle gym, she is just as likely to be chasing him through the apparatus as paying attention from ground level.

As I watched, I couldn't help but look forward to the kind of relationships that this Mom will have with her kids when they're teenagers. Her kids will know that she loves being with them, and doing things with them - and that she's willing to go outside the bounds of what other parents do in order to strengthen those relationships with her kids.

My onclusion: Getting dirty is well worth it.

Penny in the Bjorn

What do we offer God?

We must believe, then, that God has no need, not only of cattle, or any other earthly and material thing, but even of man's righteousness, and that whatever right worship is paid to God profits not Him, but man. For no man would say he did a benefit to a fountain by drinking, or to the light by seeing. (Augustine City of God p308)

This is the classical, Biblical understanding (and experience) of the self-sufficiency of God. Yet it is frequently denied in the lyrics of current worship tunes, which suggest that we offer God in our worship something that He needs, or otherwise cannot get. For that reason, it is incumbent upon parents to make these things plain to their children through metaphors like Augustine's in order that children would come to God has He has ordained: not to offer Him something He needs through our worship, but to drink deeply from the fountain, and thereby glorify the fountain.

The beauty of the universe

"For as the beauty of a picture is increased by well-managed shadows, so, to the eye that has skill to discern it, the universe is beautified even by sinners, though, considered by themselves, their deformity is a sad blemish" (Augustine City of God p367).

Augustine captures beautifully the wisdom of God in showing His beauty even through the sinfulness of humanity. He offers a perspective that children must be taught to see and appreciate. This understanding of beauty and wisdom explains why great, and not trite, literature grips our hearts - not only because we see the light, but that we see it more clearly in contrast to the shadows. Indeed, I think that the way a child will most readily recognize this at a deeply personal level is through great literature.

If, by grace, a child can see this truth early, she will scorn one-dimensional media (literature, poetry, film, etc.), preferring rather that which shows the wisdom and glory of God in permitting the shadows, and not frivolously questioning his goodness in doing so.

Friends

Not only is it great to have friends; it is great to reach the age where you begin to appreciate having friends.

One man's trash . . .

As we were walking home one day this week, I saw an adjustable child chair on the garbage. We picked it up, cleaned it up, and Elisabeth has a new chair that is ideal. It is not a high chair ("High chairs are for babies!") but it sits higher than an ordinary chair and has a footrest so that she can sit up at the table. What a perfect transition chair!

Now I think I'm done with sleeping

This morning Elisabeth greeted mommy with these words:

Mommy, now I think I'm done with sleeping, and it's time for you to cuddle me.