Faint We Were

Faint were we and fears possessed us,
Bruised were we from many falls;
Hope was gone and shame distressed us,
But his love would pardon all.

We were lost when Jesus found us,
Found the sheep that went astray.
Raised us up, broke and bound us,
Taught our hearts to know his way.


Chorus:
We will sing, bathed in his riches;
We will sing of the love he spoke in blood.
We will sing, held by his promise;
We are carried by the faithfulness of our God.


Days of darkness still may meet us,
Sorrow’s path we will oft tread;
But his presence still is with us,
By his guiding hand we’re led.

He will keep us till the river
Rolls its waters at our feet:
Then he’ll bear us safely over,
There his beauty we will meet.

words Francis H. Rawley, 1886; chorus and music Nathan Partain, 2002

5 of 52

I've got quite the stack of parenting books to get through, and a couple that I've already read (Shepherding a Child's Heart; Parenting with Love and Logic; Parenting is Your Highest Calling (and 8 other myths)), and someday when I'm finished with them all I'll write a quick comparative review. This week I read Don't Make Me Count to Three by Ginger Plowman.



This book gets a mixed review from me. We started off on the wrong foot.

See, most of the time I hate it when people make absolutist claims about anything. Ginger does this right off the bat:

"When we respond to the high calling of motherhood with passion, the rewards are far greater than any we could ever gain outside of that calling."

I hope that she means that when we respond to God's calling {of motherhood or anything else}, the rewards are greater than those we would find if we didn't respond to God's calling. But I'm afraid she's indicating that the greatest rewards a woman can ever find are in responding to the calling of motherhood.

The greatest rewards any person can find are in responding to God's call to glorify him and enjoy him forever. Parenthood, optional.

{following quotes drawn from three books about the greatness of mothers}
"One thing is for sure. The mothers of these great men {Edison, Lincoln, Washington} knew how to reach the hearts of their children. They knew the importance of God's word in training and nurturing their little boys. They understood biblical discipline and they faithfully instructed their children in the ways of the Lord."

Really? Are we sure that these mens' mothers raised them in the Word? I have my doubts. I call upon my brother John to answer this question for me.

"We all share no greater role model than the woman talked about in Proverbs 31."
Speak for yourself, Ginger. I have found better role models. Jesus, for one.


Ok. Whew. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

After the first two chapters, things improved. The book is, in large part, a "re-working" (to use the author's phrase) of ideas from Lou Priolo, Ted Tripp, and Roy Lessin. What I found helpful in it was that - at least as far as the Tripp material goes- Plowman offers a little more in terms of practical application. She fleshes out the biblical principles with helpful examples from real life, providing sample mom-child dialogues showing how to teach biblical principles in specific situations.

A helpful book - but one to read with a careful, discerning spirit.

rosie discovers the mic

4 of 52

Kevin Roose, who graduated last spring from Brown University, spent a semester of his sophomore year as a student at Liberty University, the school born of the late Jerry Falwell's vision to train "champions for Christ." Roose goes "undercover," pretending to be a fundamentalist Christian himself, and dives into just about every aspect of the Christian life he is introduced to at Liberty, joining Bible studies, prayer groups, and mission trips; practicing abstinence, singing in the church choir, and studying young earth Creationism.

Acting like an anthropologist, Roose records his personal narrative like a journalist, but he also writes with refreshing candor and openness. I laughed out loud reading his book; I felt embarrassed by the Christian fundamentalists he met, and I felt impressed by the Christian fundamentalists he met. All in all, it's an engaging portrait of evangelical fundamentalist college culture without being bitter, mocking, or condescending. I recommend it!

happy birthday rosemary!

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rosie eats chocolate pie

documented beautifully here.

bathtime

I don't mean to brag

but look at my kid's hair!

my one year old

While I was in Arkansas, Mom and I went through a box of dresses and nightgowns that she had saved from my childhood. I brought several of them back to Seattle with me, even though they are mostly for ages 3-6.

Today as I was unpacking, I found one dress that I thought might already be too small for Rosie, so I decided that she should try it on.
It was so cute that I just kept taking pictures. As parents are wont to do.



The unpacking continued, and I found a photo album that Grandma gave me. It's full of pictures of me that she collected during my first six years or so. Lo and behold, I found myself in the very same dress Rosie was trying on.

Me, at age one

And Rosie, who turns one in six days

You sure can see her dad in her, but I think there's a little resemblance to me too.

3 of 52

Home. Home Sunday night at 10. Yakisoba for lunch, sunshine, walk to Scarecrow. Two coffees and one nap. About 20% unpacked. Tired, physically and emotionally. But home.

I barely finished Nurtureshock, my 3 of 52, before I had to leave Little Rock.



I'd heard of this book on NPR, I guess, and had wanted to read it for a while. The authors compile tons of research about children (infants through teenagers) which they, as parents and writers, found "shocking" and counter-intuitive. Not all of it was counterintuitive or new to me, but a great deal of it was, and as a parent and an educator, I did find all of it to be interesting.

One of my favorite research chapters was the chapter on the importance of sleep. One section of the chapter showed how strongly a child's capacity for memory is affected by the amount of sleep the child gets. Even more interesting, though, is what they found about emotional memory:

Perhaps the most fascinating, the emotional context of a memory affects where it gets processed. Negative stimuli get processed by the amygdala; positive or neutral memories gets processed by the hippocampus. Sleep deprivation hits the hippocampus harder than the amygdala. The result is that sleep-deprived people fail to recall pleasant memories, yet recall gloomy ones just fine.

In on experiment by Walker, sleep-deprived college students tried to memorize a list of words. They could remember 81% of the words with a negative connotation, like "cancer." But they could remember only 31% of the words with a positive or neutral connotation, like "sunshine" or "basket".

And with that, GOODNIGHT.

wedding day

rehearsals for departure