No Greater Joy Ministries » Mothers / Women

When Dirty Diapers Land on Your Head

Shalom (Pearl) Brand — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:10:12 +0000

Losing things is something I am no stranger to, and this last week was no different. I lost something I had just bought! I looked everywhere and after not finding it, I asked my eight-year-old daughter Gracie to keep her eye out for it. Gracie loaded the golf cart full of sacks, all of our garbage including a box of dirty stinking diapers (thanks to her baby brother), and headed down to the dumpster which is by the NGJ office. Then she began throwing each of the bags over the sides of the five-foot-tall dumpster. She loves the job, I guess because it takes all her strength. She picked up the small box of diapers and gave it a great big push up to the edge, but it didn’t quite make it over. Down it came, dumping the diapers over her and her little sister. The girls quickly picked up the diapers and again tried to push the box up and over the edge, but it came back down on them again. So, my diligent little girls once again picked up the diapers and put them in the box then together they shoved it to the top of the large, green, metal dumpster. But, as my daughter said, it was as though an angel was pushing it right back at them. This time Gracie told her little sister, “God is trying to tell us something, so let’s look in the box.” Upon pulling the remaining diapers out of the box, there at the bottom was the item that I had lost a few days earlier. My daughters then put the diapers back in the box and with great triumph shoved the box over into the dumpster. And this time it went like it was well trained. Gracie came into the house smiling from ear to ear, “Guess what, Mom! An angel was dumping diapers on us so that I would look in the box and find this!” She proudly held up my lost item. I hugged her and told her thank you, but she would have none of it. “Don’t thank me, thank God.” So I quickly did. When boxes of dirty diapers land on us as adults, do we get short and frustrated or angry and ask, “Why is God allowing this to happen to ME?” Or do we, like a child, pick up the box again and know that God is working all things out for our good?

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A Wise Woman Proverbs

Debi Pearl — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:03:42 +0000

A wise woman does not carry her man’s God-given burden of supporting the family. If she does, he will become weak, lazy, disillusioned, and depressed, and she will become bossy, weary, worn, and angry. A wise woman will do her duty diligently, caring for her home and children, cooking and serving others—what the Bible calls “a keeper at home.” A wise woman will be gracious. She will cultivate humility and a servant’s nature—what the Bible calls “shamefacedness.” Her husband will cherish her and others will be thankful to call her a friend. A wise woman will be kind and longsuffering, not controlling or pushy. Strangers will be blessed by having met her—that includes waitresses and store clerks. Due to her goodwill and graciousness she will be liked and appreciated by all. A wise woman will be open to counsel, always learning and striving to overcome any weakness or faults. Her husband will be encouraged by her openness and willingness to grow. A wise woman will be generous and serving; never greedy in her friendships. Her husband will gain respect from friends and business associates because of her kind, thoughtful behavior. A wise woman will be careful in how she spends money on temporal things knowing every dollar spent means hours of her husband’s labor away from the family. She will train her children to be wise, honorable, and kind. Her husband will have cause to rejoice that his labor is not poured upon the ground, but is used with honor, thus he is honored. A wise woman is always the lady, gracious, generous, full of gratitude and good works. Let me always be a “4-G” lady.

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Created for Him?

Debi Pearl — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:01:03 +0000

Were you created to be his help meet…not HIS (Jesus’) help meet but “his” (hubby’s) help meet…helper to a mere fallen man? If you are a real believer in Christ, if you truly want to serve and honor God, and if you are in awe of God’s Word, then you will know that your marriage oath is indeed sacred. Regardless of your husband’s short comings; regardless of your drive to be God’s helper—ministering as you feel led; regardless of your lack of personal fulfillment in the direction he takes the family, God’s ultimate will for you, the very reason you were created and became part of a union of two, is so you can fill the role as helper to your husband. Your role is not to help by being his mother or his enforcer, or the Holy Spirit convicting him of his sin, but a helper to his vision of life regardless of how small or unfulfilling that vision may be. When you smile at him as he enters the room…your smile is an honor to God. If you are married to a worthless lump of selfish so and so, your smile may be a sacrifice but that makes it all the more a service to God. Your calling in life is to learn to listen with all joy to him; talk of his projects, plans, ideas, and hopes instead of directing the conversation to your interests and needs and visions. Your life should be dedicated to helping him realize his full potential, or limited potential, as it may be. The day we take our vows we all think we will be an encouraging, loving wife. If being a superb help meet were easy, everyone would have a wonderful marriage. The odds are against us, because nature is against us, the culture is against us, or our own selfish interests are contrary to God’s interest. Being a God ordained help meet does not come naturally. It is a labor and sacrifice of duty. We bring to the marriage the many years of negative conditioning. Girls spend years watching their Moms dishonor Dad. The TV, movies, and modern culture are conditioning the next generation of girls to greater dishonor. Romance novels were written by women describing make-believe men who are gloriously sensitive and preposterously masculine. These make-believe characters and story-lines unreasonably warp reality and often cloud what a girl expects of Mr. Regular Joe Husband. Christian girls come into marriage determined to be the help meet that God defines in his Word, but then we discover that the hubby is not the super-spiritual, romantic hero that he should be. A wall of frustration builds as our plans hit the fan. Our husbands become a bondage that holds us back from what we know we could have been. We become the person we so disliked when we were young girls, looking through the brightly-colored window of hope. God set the rules into place, obviously for a variety of reasons; many I have yet to learn (and I am old). One very good reason is to maintain order. Someone has to be central and the other a follower. It is too bad that the best and most capable is not the leader, but as in any company or corporation, ability does not a president make. Often second fiddles play the best tunes while the first fiddle gets the credit. Two bosses are a catastrophe, especially if the bosses don’t agree. With confusion comes disorder, lack of appreciation for rule, and then, rebellion (usually the children’s). God also set the rules into place in order to bring out the best in both the male and female. He did create us. He knows our psyche. He understands what makes us tick, how we can best grow and minister and what will make us conform more into his image, AND, in the end, how we can accomplish the most for eternity. He does see the big picture. God created men with a NEED. God told us that it was NOT good that man should be alone. God called the woman a “help meet.” Men were created to need a helper, a cheerleader, a listener, a healer, as well as a host of other things that only a good woman can provide. All these are like balm to a man’s soul; they help him grow, make him stronger, better, more loving, and arm him to become all that God desires. Men are fallen sons of Adam, and as such are totally selfish. As far as I know, most all men are fleshy, given to animal appetites. Some men are so cruel that regardless of what a wife does they still will be cruel. But all unfulfilled men, whether evil or good, are confused. Down in their souls many of these confused men really want to cherish their wives, but they struggle. They struggle because they were created to be honored, obeyed, and to have a help meet that helps them achieve their dreams. The lack of having a proper help meet affects men in the strangest ways; almost like lack of nutrition or a disease weakens the body, causing organs or limbs to fail; so then, different parts of a man fail when they lack a good help meet. Some men just never mature, thus remain silly boys all their lives. Other men spend their lives frustrated (shows up as anger), which disrupts their ability to follow through with what they start. Often men, who don’t have an encouraging help meet will become despondent, thus will lack any drive to succeed. A great majority of these struggling guys simply lose interest in their wives (and eventually their children). How does a man explain to his wife that he just wishes she would listen to him talk about his dreams and hopes, and even wants her to enjoy hearing about his rash ideas? Men can’t describe what is missing in their lives. It’s a feeling, a deep river of need that has nothing to do with the physical. They yearn for someone, even something, and when it is not found in their woman…well, the man seeks fulfillment from success, other people, or entertainment. There will come a time that he will no longer look to his help meet to meet this God-given need. This will naturally result in him losing interest in the one person who was created to meet this need. This lack of interest in a wife can show itself in the man spending long hours at work, being involved in other activities and/or it even reveals itself in the husband having a lack of sexual interest in his wife. Much like the body needs vitamins, minerals, and exercise to grow strong and healthy, a man’s soul was made to need a help meet that provides soul nourishment called encouragement. God set the marriage pattern for the good of the man and the woman. When a man’s soul needs are met through his woman, he will NEED her to stay content. His need for her will cause him to hunger for her attention. He will seek her out as his friend. He will want to please her. He will cherish her. He will desire to please her in intimate ways. It is in his best interest to take care of her because she is so necessary to his soul. It is the way of a maid to her man. A help meet is not first a cook, cleaner, or even a mother. A help meet’s first ministry is to her husband, how she may PLEASE her man. If cooking healthy, being a super-neat housewife, or even being involved in a ministry (even if it is where people are REALLY getting saved) interferes in ANY way with your first, and foremost ministry of pleasing your man, then you are not pleasing God. So, go back again and read Created to Be His Help Meet. Look up all the verses and mark them in your Bible with a special color. Ask God to make you into the woman he wants you to be. Drop all your extra outside activities that have made you too busy to remember your first love. PLEASE don’t say, “Tried that already and it didn’t work.” You should obey God because he is God. A big portion of our ministry has been trying to fix—sometimes futilely—that which is so badly broken that it is like trying to put humpty dumpty back together again. Most women say divorce happens to them unexpectedly. They come in one day and their “godly” husband has packed his bags and left. At first, the wife is almost relieved he is gone because the underlying tension is over, but then, long nights, emotionally disturbed kids, tension between family members, and then single life really sets in. Being alone is not all that it is cracked up to be. Wolves are looking for lonely women with cute kids and you will soon find yourself so tired of being alone that you will consider a man, some other woman rejected, who is half the man of the husband you once scorned. Being alone is an ugly phrase, a dishonor to God. It will not matter how poorly everyone thinks of your husband for leaving you for another woman…being alone is not what you want. Being alone starts while you are married. It is you slowly shutting the door; no welcoming smile, no meal prepared for him when he comes home from work, no encouraging word, off-handedly listening to his ideas and dreams; too busy rushing to ministry, games, classes, or whatever keeps you from being his soul mate. …continued in Mike’s article, “Marriage Is God’s Finishing School”

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Feed the Children

Shoshanna (Pearl) Easling — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:05:43 +0000

We just came in from planting kale and collards that I started from seed 6 or 8 weeks ago. I still have chocolate-brown soil underneath my nails. The smell of fresh soil in the spring is wonderful! My kids love helping, learning, and getting right in the middle. The whole planting experience becomes a homeschool lesson. We talk about how to plant, why heirloom vegetables are good for the body, what makes healthy soil, and, of course, our favorite subject—worms! James and Jeremiah had a hard time doing anything but comparing who found the biggest worm. You know you have healthy soil when it looks like a worm bed. James said, “We are my heroes!” as he was observing the dark, chocolate-brown, beautiful soil full of life. Last year we started working on a series called Making Vegetables. We did a lot of research and interviewed people around the world on everything pertaining to gardens. From soil and compost to veggies and preserving the harvest and so much more, we’re putting together the best tried-and-true and cutting-edge information in the world. Last year, we put in a sustainable hillside garden. It started with carving away our driveway. We live on the side of a hill, and we have a circular driveway around our house. We made three large, curved steps terracing up the hillside. We dug a footer along each step wall. We poured footers and laid blocks, enforcing with rebar and pouring every other one solid. We had a strong wall. After letting the concrete set up for a few days, we backfilled. We added two feet of topsoil, two inches of compost, and an inch or so of manure. We used a rototiller to mix it all together, and covered it in about 3 or 4 inches of wood chips. We had our hillside garden! The best part of our hillside garden is the way we built up our soil. That was the first and last time we will ever need to rototill our garden. The 4-inch layer of organic matter on the top of the soil acts like a skin that protects and feeds the soil, making it a great home for worms. Every year we will sprinkle a little compost or manure on top, and add more wood chips. This is called “weedless gardening” because the wood chips keep the weeds from coming up. One year later our soil is rich, soft, full of worms, and begging to be planted! We are growing organic, nutritionally dense foods again this year. They taste so good! People ask me all the time how I get my kids to eat veggies. Well, it helps to have really good ones, but mostly they eat them because that is what I feed them. Penelope’s first taste of food was an onion. They are developing taste buds, and I make sure they develop healthy taste buds by feeding them lots of fresh veggies. I am so excited about our garden this year because it is not just fun, it is growing my children into healthy people. It makes me smile!

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The Well

Debi Pearl — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:07:12 +0000

I have very fond memories of my grandmother training me in the art of making biscuits. Teaching me seemed to make her happy. Each morning she would pull out the biscuit board drawer that was built into the cabinet. It was a board, like a table top, mounted like a drawer. It was always covered with flour. Once the board was extended she would mound two cups of flour on it. Then she would explain to me as she pushed a hole in the middle of the flour, “First make your well.” The well was just a hole in the middle of the pile of flour. To my young ears, calling the hole a “well” sounded so fine—mysterious-like. Into the well she dumped slightly warm lard, and then she added homemade buttermilk. With her thumb and index finger, working only in the well, she worked the lard and buttermilk, gradually incorporating the flour until it formed a soft dough. She rolled the dough with a rolling pin a few times, and then patted it down to about half an inch thick. With her biscuit cutter she pressed out about ten biscuits. She always had a big black skillet with butter in it warming in the oven. Each biscuit would quickly be turned in the warmed butter before she added the next one. While they baked in her hot oven, I played with the leftover dough, learning how to cut out biscuits. I can clearly remember standing there, almost eye-level with the countertop, working with the dough while drinking in the wonderful aroma of baking biscuits. My grandmother trained me to make biscuits. She trained me to laugh while making biscuits. My mischievous streak was developed in that kitchen as I conferred with my grandmother in how we could scare Papa when he came in for breakfast. Ask my staff—I am well trained in making biscuits and in the art of scaring distracted office workers. I am the queen of “BOO!” Oh, how dearly I loved my grandmother! As I look back, I know I must have left her floor covered with flour, yet she included me. I can’t remember a time I disobeyed my grandmother. I wanted to please her.

Her joy in helping was immeasurable; and more important, she was being trained to love working with her hands.

Today I sat at the kitchen table making guacamole out of 600 avocados. You read it correctly…600 avocados. A man in the church was able to buy a hundred boxes of avocados for a ridiculously low price. I bought ten boxes from him. My daughter Shoshanna and 3-year-old granddaughter Penelope dropped by while I was in the middle of my green venture. Penelope didn’t hesitate a minute. She was up in my lap, and where once there were two hands working, suddenly there were four. She imitated my every move. It slowed me down considerably, and green goo plopped on the floor a few times, but her joy in helping was immeasurable; and more important, she was being trained to love to work with her hands. It was Proverbs 31—Training Class 101. Many parents get so worked up over making their children be obedient in all things they forget that training doesn’t mean discipline; it means instructing the child in how to master the issues of life. Training is the art of imparting skill sets and worldviews. Training a child in the way he should go involves taking a child by the hand and allowing him to be a part of your productive life. If you cook a meal and don’t have your little girl standing beside you as you talk her through every step of the process, then you are NOT training her up to be a good cook. If you clean house, shop, sew, have a Bible study, or any number of productive activities and you don’t involve your children, then you are not TRAINING UP your children in the way they should go.

Training a child in the way he should go involves taking a child by the hand and allowing him to be a part of your productive life.

God stated it correctly when he said, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” When you train a child to enjoy cooking, she will always enjoy cooking. When you train up a child to work, he will always enjoy the accomplishment of a job well done. When you train up a child to notice what needs to be done, to be on time, to be respectful, to work as a team, to use time wisely, and to put his shoulder to the plow, he will always be responsible and productive. It is not a strange turn of events that one boy grows up to be lazy and another is a worker; that one woman is bitter and the other is full of joy; that one person is productive and the other expects others to pay his way; that one man is lustful and the other is self-disciplined; that one woman is emotionally crippled, and the other is wise and thoughtful. Train up—not spank up or fuss up or even instruct up—it is TRAIN UP. Train her how to make biscuits. It starts with a well and results in a life well lived. “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6

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What Is Creativity and Is It Important?

Debi Pearl — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:05:50 +0000

Creativity begins with imagination, conceiving a thing that is not but should be, and then taking steps to make it a reality. It is facing a problem and envisioning an original way to solve it satisfactorily. Creativity can be born of practical necessity or artistic expression, but it is something original—not done before, or not done in the same way. Without creativity there would be no innovation, no progress, nothing new or different. Think of the tools and trades that never would have existed without creative thought. Man would remain in the Stone Age—no houses, cars, computers, planes, or even light. Disease would have no cure. There would be no music or storytelling. God is creative. We are the proof of that. Being in his image, it is our nature to create—to endlessly strive to come up with something that amazes and gratifies. Creativity is associated with happiness and success in life. Creative people are interesting people; the lack thereof makes one a wallflower. Just a few years ago, operational efficiency was the yardstick of market success; today it is all about anticipating consumer demands. This translates into the insight to conceive of a heretofore-unknown product that meets a need, or at least a new way to market an old product.

Is Creativity an Inborn Gift?

Why are some people creative and others not so much? I have often heard people say, “Oh, I just wasn’t born with the gift for creativity. I am better with numbers and facts.” This statement simply is not true. Researchers have found environment to be more important than heredity in influencing creativity, and a child’s creativity can be either strongly encouraged or discouraged by early experiences in life and in school—including homeschool.

Are Your Children Creative?

Ask a group of eight-year-olds if they are creative and 95% of them will say, “Yes.” Ask twelve-year-olds and only 50% will say, “Yes.” By the time students finish school, only 5% say they are creative. The fact is we are all born with creativity, but it is pulled, wrenched, strangled, pried, screamed, and bored out of us by the time we are adults. Creativity can’t be tested, so it has generally been abandoned. Yet now, by questioning large numbers of successful people, it has become apparent that creativity is the key to their success. Homeschooling began as a creative explosion that was pulling children from the ranks of sameness and giving them a vision of possibilities. Then came homeschool curriculum—same old, one-cover-fits-all books and tests. Then quietly, the homeschooler began to fall back into the line of uniformity. What a crying shame!

How Can We Unleash Creativity?

Every child is born to be an artist, a storyteller, an inventor, and an explorer. Expanding creativity in children takes place when we turn them loose and teach them to have grit, determination, perseverance, and belief in what they are doing. Adults have a tendency to want to see the end of a thing, but creativity comes in bits and pieces. A creative person rarely sees the whole, only the piece he is touching at any given moment. Creativity can’t be hurried. Anything rushed is just a stamped-out repeat, and is not part of creative genius. Many years ago when I was in school, my art teacher made a dumb mistake. She had a class of gifted artists. She came to class one day and gave each of us three pieces of colored paper and told us to create a picture using those papers. She wanted us to be creative, but the idea she had in her head was just that—in her head. The three-colored project was a boring, frustrating experiment for the whole class. If the teacher had been wise, she would have shown us two or three examples of how an advertising company used three colors, and in doing so would have unleashed a ton of creativity. The most powerful way to develop creativity in your children is by example—your example and the examples of what other people have done. There is real pleasure in creativity. In studies, children who are allowed to be creative associate joy with making something new. Sometimes all a child needs to get started on a project is a good question. Instead of making a suggestion, ask a question: “Does this blue remind you of sky, water, or a pretty dress?” You might notice a child staring at a pattern on the kitchen wallpaper, so you ask, “Do you see something? I think I see an alligator in that pattern.” Homeschooling mamas are almost always in a hurry. Hurry and creativity cannot sit in the same seat. Stationing a baby or toddler in a puddle of warm sunshine that is pouring through the window, where he can stack blocks, paper, and various objects, is a simple, soothing, creative afternoon activity. Letting children play in the dirt, making roads, bridges, lakes, and buildings is creating the next generation of builders and makers. Sitting them in front of electronic media, even educational media, is killing their genius and dumbing them down. Sitting them down with a stack of workbooks that bore them silly is creating silly. Consider this: Any project that they get involved in—whether it be music, painting, mud building, writing, storytelling, stacking, making tents, performing plays, making cameras, or whatever—that results in someone being able to say, “Wow, that is interesting. What are you going to do next?” is creativity.

Old School, New School

As children mature, creativity will begin to involve long-term projects. Songs that need hours of careful trial and error, poems, stories, articles, term papers, research, building projects, etc. can lead to frustration or despair without patience. Encouraging a budding mind to persevere is critical. An important lesson in life that will be reflected in all areas of maturity and godliness is learning that life is work, and that rewards for greatness only come with time and energy. You don’t immediately become an expert musician, artist, writer, or builder. Good things come to those who stick with it. This lesson could be called discipline: learning to harness your feelings and drives for the greater good of tomorrow. Schoolbooks are set up for short-term accomplishment. “Finish your pages and then you will be through,” I have heard said a hundred times. The end of today’s torment is near…yeah! This type of schooling does little to teach children the value of delaying gratification. School projects are a much better way of teaching, and they are certainly more conducive to developing good character. In today’s society, knowing how to research is a thousand times better than knowing facts. Information is now at our fingertips. We live in a different world than we did 25 years ago, yet homeschooling curriculums are developed in the old world of knowledge. Once, schools were the gatekeepers of knowledge and memorization was the key to success. We tested a child’s ability to regurgitate facts and formulas. That day is over. Yet even in the old-school program, children came home each evening to run and play, chase the wind, and build doghouses. There were hours of creativity that children don’t experience today due to electronics. I would that all children become tinkers and thinkers. If we are to remain a free, strong, and confident people, then this next generation needs to dream, create, work hard to make it happen, and then take the next risk.

Questions to Ask

Are you homeschooling your child in a way that cultivates creativity or that stifles it?
Is your household structured to encourage creativity?
Are you so regimented in finishing school books that you leave no place for developing creativity, leaving your children to face a dull life, not becoming accomplished in business?

Facts to Consider

From the perspective of CEOs, creativity is now the most-valued quality in a potential employee. In an IBM research study, about 60% of the CEOs polled cited creativity as the most important leadership quality.
In the world of business, studies prove there is a strong connection between trust, character, and creativity. Trust in a company, a family, and even in a government, unleashes creativity. The knowledge that we are all working to make a better life for everyone causes an individual to reach for greater ways to serve others. This environment of goodwill allows followers to take risk. Risk is associated with creativity. Where there is no scary risk, there is no creativity.
Creative individuals are naturally more unafraid of experimenting with new things. They think more about ideas and less about what people think of them, thus they are often less susceptible to peer pressure. Studies show creative people tend to be self-reliant and willing to go against conventional “wisdom.”

Creativity Killers

Don’t patronize children by offering rewards for their creative labor, for it will steal their pleasure.
Be careful not to make your child a nervous wreck by unconsciously setting up expectations of grandeur. Be practical in your expectations, and let his vision of what he can do grow with his abilities.
When your children are involved in creativity, don’t hover over them instructing them on how to improve their creations.
If your child is making something, don’t feel compelled to evaluate his project.
So you’re an adult and can show your child how to do it better—don’t. Let him have the joy of discovery. It is much more valuable than the outcome
Please don’t set up creative projects that suit your house-cleaning habits. Take the kids to the library and turn them loose on ideas. You might sit on the floor and look through “how-to” books with them. Let them come up with ideas they would like to try. You can coach but don’t poach.

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School Adventures

Shalom (Pearl) Brand — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:04:39 +0000

School time is never without some new adventure in the works, and this last week was no different. We were sitting around the table working on math when my nephew Jeremiah, who was looking out the window daydreaming, exclaimed that it was snowing. We all ran for the door, but to our disappointment, it was not snowing but sleeting. Snow and sleet are very rare where we live, so the children were too excited to continue with school as usual—if there is a usual. Gracie and Jeremiah wanted to go out and pick up the sleet, which they did. Seeing this as an opportunity to teach them something, I brought them back into the house and told them we were going to learn why it was sleeting and where it comes from. I started by putting in an earth science DVD that my sister had brought over to share with us. They had watched this before, but it had not sunk in. It was about five minutes long, and the kids were amazed at how sleet froze in midair and hail was just tossed around before it fell to the ground. We then went to the computer and I opened the weather app and showed them how the different colors meant different things. They saw that we were in the sleeting color and that it was snowing north of us and raining south of us. We then went to the porch and looked at the thermometer to see how cold it was. We talked about the temperature and what it meant; they saw that it was above freezing right then. After this they went outside to look at the sleet again and to bring in bowls full to examine. It has been a week since that day. I just asked them questions about how sleet and snow are made, and they have not forgotten a thing. School is fun when you look at it as an adventure in discovery and learning. We also have a science kit where we mix different elements to make dancing water or a colorful waterfall, or just watch red cabbage water turn blue when you add baking soda, or turn pink when you add citric acid, then turn clear again if you let it sit for a few days. It raises questions that they want answered. Questions are the root of all learning. Last week we mixed baking soda and citric acid together to make carbon dioxide gas, and then we talked about it. Afterward the kids watched a ten-minute science show on the lungs and how we inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Today as Jeremiah was doing school he was reading in his second-grade pace science book about fish and how they take the oxygen out of the water. He stopped reading and asked, “How do they get rid of the carbon dioxide?” So we stopped working in the workbooks and went to the computer. With great excitement all five kids stood around me, and with the baby in my lap we looked it up on the computer. Soon we were learning all kinds of fun facts. The kids were interested and asked if they could make some more carbon dioxide. So back to the science kit we went. From my eight-year-old to my sister’s two-year-old, we all sat around the table again and watched the baking soda and citric acid bubble and fizz. It is when children ask questions and we take the time to answer that they learn the most. But some questions I am happy to leave for another day. Today as Jeremiah was reading his book on fish, out loud at the table, it said that fish lay their eggs in warm water when the days grow longer. Gracie, who was listening along as she did her school at the table, interrupted. “How do they make the babies? Are there daddies? Do they kiss under water?” Jeremiah excitedly jumped up and said, “Lets go look it up on the computer!”

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The Power of a Box

Debi Pearl — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:02:01 +0000

My father’s extended family was not rich, but we were quite well off, so Christmas was a time of fashionable gifts. I really don’t remember any of the many fine gifts, but I do remember the non-posh gifts from my Aunt Grapelle. I smile as I write this because I also have this clear memory of the rest of the family making light of her yearly gifts to me. Even as a young child I was outraged by their attitude and lack of appreciation; how could they think that her gifts were anything less than magical? My Aunt Grapelle was a seamstress, and not just any seamstress—she was a creative genius, and everyone knew it. She made dresses for balls, weddings, and all things spectacular. I thought she was wonderful and always looked for ways to please her. You would think by the way I speak of her she lived next door and was a vital part of my life; not so, I only saw her a few times each year, and then she was busy visiting with the other adults. But, oh my, every Christmas I knew what my gift would be from her. Each year she packed a large box of bits and pieces of silky and gauzy material that she had left over from her many sewing projects. Ribbons and bows, snaps and buttons, and occasionally a piece of material large enough to make a baby-doll a dress—it all made Auntie’s gift thrilling. And to make it extra special, she always included needle and thread, scissors, pictures of ideas, and any other thing I might need to make my visit a time of creative wonder. Sometimes she would slip away from the adults to find me sorting through the box, and she would give me simple instructions on how to make this or that. My whole life of creativity, writing, art, homeschooling, and child training reflects those wonderful boxes of opportunity.

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Only One Life

Ben Sargent — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:01:39 +0000

Man, it’s quiet around here. Deafening actually. Mansquared, the baby of the family, left a week ago today for his first semester at a four-year college. He gained that moniker, Mansquared, from his big brother Firstborn because, well, he’s as strong as any two men multiplied. Firstborn’s a sizable fellow as well, just a tick under six-feet-five and an established military man. He finished his degree in political science and is now improving the world by making us all safer, having just completed his second deployment in a faraway land. Two mighty men, almost ten years apart, who have kept their virtue. Oh, and we also raised three virtuous daughters as well, who, thankfully, look like their mother. Our eldest daughter Punkin’ and her husband Mr. Perfect are busy raising two sons with a third grandbaby on the way. As singles they both served the Lord as missionaries, and did so again as a married couple. Our middle daughter Peaches is the family brainiac and an English fanatic (another trait she gained from her mother), who super-achieves in all she endeavors to accomplish, and who glorifies the Lord with her violin. And then there is Miss Gail. She is the family artist. Only God himself could give talent like she possesses from two parents who can’t draw a box if you spot them the first three sides. She can draw a picture that looks like a photograph, or a caricature of it, too, if she’s in the mood. All five children have honored the Lord in foreign missions as well as in the local assemblies where they have lived. And we couldn’t be more pleased. As my friend Donny has said many, many times, “We didn’t have ‘em to keep ‘em.” But man, it’s quiet around here. We sure didn’t have them to keep them. We just didn’t realize that 28 years was going to go by so quickly or that the quiet would be so incredibly loud. The boys aren’t playing their guitars, Peaches her violin, or Miss Gail the piano. Punkin isn’t directing traffic in the kitchen or challenging anyone to follow her on the next mission trip to…wherever. “The Lord will provide!” she would say, and sure enough, he would. No one is asking, “Daddy, what does it mean if your car…” There’s just quiet.

“The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.” 1 Corinthians 7:4

Too often this is where Mom and Dad look at one another and think to themselves, “Who on earth are you?” They raise kids until their tongues are hanging out from exhaustion and lose sight of each other. Even worse, they lose sight of their first ministry, which is to each other. 1 Corinthians 7:4 says, “The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.” Serving one another and caring for one another can easily be lost if raising the kids becomes the priority in the home. Worshipping God and honoring him should be the priority. When that is done, then Mom and Dad have the opportunity to rally together to bring up the children in the “…nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). Eighty percent of leadership is our personal example. We wanted our children to know we loved one another and that we were still in love. There was that and, well, we wanted to stay in love. We wanted to be like that couple we saw when we were traveling. We were young with all of our stair-step children. The couple was not young, but they held hands. And they matched colors. They looked at each other with their age spots through their watery eyes with utter adoration. As we approached them with our little herd they stopped, looked up at us, and the old man said, “You’re so rich!” I said, “So are you, to still be in love.” The old lady proudly proclaimed, smiling, “We still work at it,” and I could see that was true. So we worked at it—worked hard at times, and at others just enjoyed the fruits of our efforts. Our first night alone I said, “Well, we did it. We raised a family.” She put her head on my shoulder and said, “Dad, that was fast.” It was indeed. And now as the deafening quiet has set in (at least we can finally hear each other!) we look at one another with hearts broken from joy that we had such a wonderful privilege, but with equal joy that we got there together, in love. - Ben Sargent (life-long friend of the Pearls)

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Living Large

Karen Sargent — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:06:36 +0000

We all want the best for our children. We want them to be used by God to do great things, to be world-changers and make a difference in eternity. But these things don’t happen by accident; they are planned for, prayed for, and worked toward. You may be surprised to hear this, but children are born with an incredibly small worldview. Their entire universe exists inside their own skin: what do I want, what do I feel, what makes me happy. If we want our children to grow up to be something for God, we must expand their view of life, and it’s never too early to start. Just taking the children to church is not enough; if that’s all you do, you haven’t even gotten in the ballpark yet. “Church” in the twenty-first century is mostly a spectator sport, and God has enough spectators. What he wants are workers. How do we raise up workers who will make a difference for God? Three ways: we plan, we pray, and we implement.

Plan

Nothing big ever happens without a plan… “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish” (Luke 14:28–30). …and the plan should be in place before the materials (the children) show up. Parents, have a vision of what you want your children to be when they are adults, and start heading toward that goal right now, even before they are born. Plan for the good times and the difficult times before they happen. Make your decisions now, when you can think clearly, before you are in the heat of the moment. Decide how you will handle this situation and that one. Will you let the children have sleep-overs? Who, if anyone, will be allowed to babysit? Will you homeschool or send them to public or private school? Will they take dance lessons or learn cooking and carpentry and first aid skills? Will you permit shyness or teach them to be outgoing and confident? Consider how all your decisions will shape who they become, thereby dictating what they are able to do in the Lord’s work.

Pray

It goes without saying that we must pray for our children, so why is it so hard to do consistently? Is it because we are too busy to spend ten minutes on our knees asking God to use our kids for his glory? Is it because we think he is too busy to listen? We’ve all heard the story about the guy who gets to heaven and God shows him all the storehouses of blessings he wanted to give, but the guy never asked. I wonder how many of our children will miss God’s best because we didn’t make prayer a priority. Pray now. Pray often. Pray without ceasing. Don’t wait until there is a catastrophe and then beg God to get you and your kids out of it. Pray preemptively.

Implement

So how do we bring about what we want in our children’s lives? How do we implement the plan? Just as we learn the scriptures line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, our children will learn what it means to serve God the same way. You will never get your children to a particular place if you don’t go there yourself. When the shepherd wants his flock in a particular place, he doesn’t run after them, yelling about which way to turn or barking directions about how much farther it is. He gets out in front of the flock and LEADS them. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). If you want your kids to be hard workers, be a hard worker. If you want the girls to be contented homemakers who serve their families, be a contented homemaker who serves her family. If you want them to be soul winners, be a soul winner, and take them along so they can see how it’s done and gain confidence that it is a normal part of everyday life. Show them how we hand out tracts and tell people about Jesus everywhere we go—the bank, the gas station, Lowe’s, Walmart. They will grow up thinking this is normal, and when your kids meet people who don’t witness all the time, those people will be the oddballs. When our five kids were little, we were part of a missions-minded fellowship. There was a constant stream of missionary families always coming through, and though we had five children in a 1200-square-foot house with one bathroom, we always had missionary families staying with us. Our kids got to meet the families who were bold enough to go, and hear firsthand the stories of God working on the mission field. It gave them a taste of what was possible and greatly expanded their worldview. They learned there were billions more people in the world than just the twelve kids in their Sunday school class. By the time they were teens, our kids had seen and heard enough; they were ready to go and do. One by one they committed themselves to a short-term work they felt God would bless, and dove in wholeheartedly. On an enlisted military salary, we couldn’t help them pay for their trips. It was up to them to figure out how to do that—and what great lessons in trusting God!

Send Them Out

Our oldest son spent a college spring break with a group of young men doing construction work for a mission in Mexico. We had no money to pay for his trip, but told him we would help him pray for God’s provision. Two months before they were to go, God gave Mike a small job that would pay the full price. Watching God provide became deliriously fun sport at our house. When our second child, Deb, was sixteen, she was ready to go. She found a group that organized summer-long mission trips for teens and signed up. Her first-choice trip to Siberia was canceled due to visa problems, so she had to choose another destination. Three weeks before she was to leave, she told us she believed God wanted her to go to Cuba. When her daddy balked at that idea, she countered with, “But you said I should go someplace where people might never hear the gospel if I don’t go tell them.” God has a funny way of turning the tables on us, doesn’t he? Our goal for our kids was that they should learn to trust God completely; now we were the ones doing all the trusting. For 30 days she and her team traveled around Cuba, eating nothing but rice and beans (and dog, the one time they got meat), having no access to clean water, contracting parasites, at times being sought by the authorities for their proselytizing—and we had no communication with her at all. Now that will bring a mom and dad to their knees. In subsequent years we sent children on mission trips to Poland, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, and Hong Kong, always letting them trust God to provide for their needs, and what an amazing education it was for them and for us. God does not give us children so we can hoard them for ourselves, keeping them for our own enjoyment. If your view of life is so small that you can’t see past your own four walls, start inviting life in. Expand your own worldview, and take your children with you. Get to know some missionaries, and find out how your family can help them. Don’t raise your kids up to keep them close; prepare them to go out and to carry the glorious gospel of Christ with them when they go.

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