Don’t Wish Yourself Away

Christmas weekend we took our grandchildren to see the new Narnia movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. In this story Lucy is fixated on being as beautiful and popular as her older sister Susan, and in one scene stands in front of a full-length mirror comparing her appearance to Susan’s. As she stares at her image, she sees herself morph into Susan. She then steps into the mirror and finds herself at an outing where she is the center of attention. As she basks in her new-found popularity, however, she discovers that when she became Susan, Lucy had ceased to exist, either in the past or the present. As a result, all of Lucy’s contributions to the family had disappeared along with her, and Narnia had never been discovered. Lucy is then pulled back through the mirror and Aslan appears beside her. When she asks what happened, he replies, “You wished yourself away.”

I believe that this may be the most important lesson in this latest theatrical release in the Narnia series.  It is a lesson that is especially appropriate for this time of year when many of us are preparing our New Year’s resolutions—most of which will be some version of losing weight and/or going to the gym regularly. As a society we long to be someone “better” than who we are. We are constantly exposed to people who are better looking, smarter, better educated, and more successful than we. As a result, we try to remake ourselves into their images. We begin to believe that if we were better looking, smarter, better educated, or more successful that other people would value us and we would lead more fulfilling lives. We end up wanting to be almost anyone other than who we are.

It is, of course, important to always look for ways to improve ourselves, but it is equally important to recognize that we already have value. God loves diversity and he made each of us unique. While it is true that you cannot become someone else, it is equally true that someone else cannot become you.  You have special work to be done in a special way that is unique to you. If you were suddenly to morph into that person whom you admire so much, who would do those things God entrusted to you? The truth is that God’s world would have a little hole in it shaped just like you.

I hope that as you prepare your New Year’s resolutions you will give serious thought to the things that need work in your life and make a genuine effort to improve in those areas. I also hope that you will remember that you are God’s unique creation. He made you exactly the way He wanted you to be, and no one else can take your place. Whatever else you do in the New Year, don’t wish yourself away.

Give What You Have—Not What You Haven’t

                                                                       

This time of year most of us are focused on giving. Gifts, time, charitable contributions; the list is endless. For those of us with more family than money, this is an especially difficult season. We try to get creative and shop smart, but the truth is that little kids do not lie awake at night dreaming that they will find a package of socks and underwear underneath the tree on Christmas morning. They want video games and talking Iron Man and Buzz Lightyear toys.

It is easy for parents to feel sad or embarrassed or inadequate. We fear that come Christmas morning we will disappoint the children in our lives to some degree. We recoil at the critical stare of those collecting for all sorts of charities when we are unable to help them meet their goals. It is difficult to explain to various people at church why we do not have the time to volunteer for free gift wrapping in the mall or a Christmas cookie giveaway as an outreach to share Christ with busy shoppers.

We tell ourselves that we are just plain selfish if we do not somehow come up with the money to buy those really special gifts or make that generous contribution. After all, isn’t that why someone invented credit cards? Furthermore, if we refuse to make time to perform all sorts of acts of kindness during this most wonderful time of the year doesn’t that prove that we are sort of a cross between Scrooge and the Grinch?

In times like these we will do well to remember what Paul says to the Corinthians:  “…it isn’t important how much you have to give. God wants you to give what you have, not what you haven’t” (2 Corinthians 8:12, The Living Bible). God never expects anyone to give more than he has, and the Bible addresses this point in numerous places.

We have the example of the widow’s pennies (Mark 12:42). Jesus sat watching the crowds dropping their money into the collection boxes in the Temple. Some who were rich deposited large sums. Then the poor widow came and dropped in two pennies. Jesus told his disciples that she had given more than all of the rich men put together because they had given only a small portion of their great wealth while she had given everything she had.

Likewise, Mark 14:3-10 recounts the story of the woman who came to Jesus and poured the flask of expensive perfume over his head. She washed his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. The Jewish leaders criticized her for her “waste,” but Jesus told them to leave her alone. “She has done what she could….And I tell you this in solemn truth, that wherever the Good News is preached throughout the world, this woman’s deed will be remembered and praised (The Living Bible).”

These women gave it all. They gave everything they had, but they did not give what they did not have. Their giving was sacrificial but it was kept within the bounds of what they had to give—no more and no less.  Jesus himself proclaimed that these two women had gotten it exactly right.

As we head into the last few days before Christmas, I hope that you will remember these women of faith and follow their example. Give what you have in terms of gifts, charitable contributions and time. Be generous, but remember it’s alright to buy one special toy for your little guy and also include the package of socks and underwear beneath the tree. Make a list of your special offerings and stick to it. Unless you know that God is leading you to give something that you had not anticipated, don’t feel guilty about saying, “I can’t.” Time is the only thing that is always limited; you can never make more than twenty-four hours in one day, no matter how hard you try. Save some of it to spend with your family, and take some to enjoy the wonder of Christmas yourself. Most of all remember to give what you have, not what you haven’t.  Jesus says that is enough.
                                                                                    

What Time is it When the Calendar Strikes December 1?

     What time is it when the calendar strikes December 1? It’s Party Time! At our house we make the entire month of December a celebration of Christmas, and that takes a lot of the “work” out of all those holiday preparations.

    When I was homeschooling my ten children, they looked forward to the holidays with huge expectations. Of course, all children love Christmas, but like so many homeschoolers, we had more children than money. We could not afford to attend costly Christmas performances or take family trips. Our holiday celebrations had to be cheap and close to home. As a result, we learned to make every aspect of our Christmas preparations into a series of little parties. By making the events leading up to the big day as much a part of the celebration as Christmas Day itself, we were able to satisfy the desires of those little hearts for a magical Christmas season.

    One of the things I did was to check out the television listings for special programming. We did not have cable so were limited to the three networks, but that limited selection provided everything we needed. I noted when A Charlie Brown Christmas, Charlotte’s Web, and other special programs would be televised, and I always made it a point to watch those programs with them.

    I designated one Saturday as Fudge Making Day. No one was required to join in, but everyone did. We made a huge amount of chocolate and peanut butter fudge which we stored away for Christmas, but everyone had to taste everything and scrape the pans. By the time we finished, they were all full of fudge.

    For these occasions I allowed everyone to be as involved as they wished, but sometimes I had to really think about what some of their contributions could be. One year when Victoria was only two years old, she really wanted to help. I put a line of miniature marshmallows, a line of chocolate chips, and a line of pecan pieces on the counter.  I then stood her four year old brother on one chair and her on another and told them to eat the various ingredients so that I could make certain that they were good enough to put into the fudge. I told them that they were “quality control” and that if they found any pieces that were not good, they had to let me know right away. Every few minutes I would ask, “Is everything still okay?” They assured me that everything was okay. By the time they had eaten everything that I had put on the counter for them, I had finished making most of the fudge. They felt very important that year because they had made sure that the fudge was “safe to eat.”

    Every year we had a gift wrapping party and a separate tree decorating party—we always put up the tree the closest Saturday to December 10. I turned on Christmas music while we worked and provided “treats” in the form of cheap store brand sodas and a big bowl of M&Ms.

   Daily Bible reading was always part of our lives, but at Christmas I put aside our regular reading so that the last couple of days before Christmas we would read the entire Christmas story from the Bible. By reading the accounts from all four Gospels, we were able to cover everything that the Bible records concerning Jesus’ birth.

    I have known families who are able take lavish trips to celebrate Christmas; they go to ski resorts, or they take cruises, or they rent a house on the beach in Maui. I am certain that they have some wonderful Christmas memories, but I suspect that the most precious component of those memories is the time they spent together at those various vacation spots.

    Love and friendship are free. By taking the ordinary things that have to be done to prepare for Christmas and turning them into special traditions, we can make all that “work” the best part of the holiday. We can stop dreading the various tasks that must be performed and start looking forward to a month-long celebration of Jesus’ Birthday that every family member will cherish for a lifetime.

                                                                        

It May be Later than You Think

Why do so many parents stop homeschooling just when their children need them most? If you are tempted to exit prematurely, check your clock. It may be later than you think.

A couple of years ago I saw a store display for digital clocks that were supposed to set themselves, adjust for daylight savings time, and, in the case of a power failure, come back on displaying the correct time. I was mesmerized at the thought that I would never have to deal with resetting my clocks. Giddy with excitement, I purchased two.

When I arrived home, I plugged one in next to my bed where I could see it whenever I awoke during the night. The other I installed in our exercise room. I set both to display mountain standard time and to adjust for daylight savings time. I was thrilled at the prospect of never having to adjust them again.

I noticed that the other clocks in the house—the old undependable kind that need to be reset from time to time—never quite kept pace with my super-duper self- setting clocks, but what would I expect? After all, the literature that came with them said that they were set by a tower in the Atlantic Ocean. Their time keeping abilities were clearly superior.

I soon noticed, however, that there was a two-minute difference between the identical clocks regulated by the same tower. That was a little disconcerting, but since I could not manually reset them, I pushed that information out of my mind.

As the months passed, I noticed that the two clocks were displaying times that continued to widen the gap between their time and the time on my other clocks—although they did continue to be exactly two minutes apart from each other. Finally, in desperation, I checked the time displayed on my cell phone, the time reported on the radio, and the time displayed on the television. All of them agreed with each other. I began asking other family members what time it was, and when they consulted their watches or cell phones to give me the time, they all agreed with the manually set clocks in my house.

In one final attempt to rectify the situation, I unplugged my self-setting clocks and gave their little digital brains a chance to clear. I then plugged them in again and found that they were still two minutes apart and that one was still displaying a time that was six minutes earlier than the regular clocks and the other was still displaying a time that was eight minutes earlier than the regular clocks. Although I had done everything I knew to rectify this situation, absolutely nothing had changed.  When I consult either of those clocks, I must add the appropriate number of minutes to the time they are displaying because it is always later than I think.

This experience got me to thinking about homeschooling. Many parents sacrifice a great deal to homeschool their children through elementary and middle school. They give up one income and readjust their lifestyles so that their children will be protected from the negative influences that are so often present in the public school system. They work hard to teach the reading and math skills that are frequently lacking in public school children.  They give, and give, and give some more to ensure that their children will really learn their lessons in geometry and history and literature, but when those children are ready for high school, they turn them over to the public system.

Parents often make the decision to allow their children to go to a “regular” high school partly because the children pressure them. They, naturally, want to be with their friends and to be like their friends.  But there is something else that comes into play that is more often than not the real reason that parents opt to enroll their children in the local high school. By the time the children are ready for high school the home teacher is often so tired and over-extended that the temptation to “set them and forget them” is almost irresistible. After all, as their children’s educations advance, it seems likely that they will be better trained by various teachers who specialize in the subjects they teach than by a home teacher who teaches every subject. Logic says that if they live in a good school district, their children are in good hands. The thought of being able to “retire” as a home teacher can make almost any parent giddy with excitement.

Before you enroll  your children in your local high school, however, take time to think about the consequences. Once you turn them over to the professionals, you can no longer regulate the process. If they begin falling behind—either scholastically or morally—you will not be able to reset the mechanism. All that information being beamed from that tower that controls their little brains will read as correct. One day, after it is too late to do anything about it, you may take a good hard look at them and discover that it’s later than you think.