Quite a few days have passed when I would have loved to have written, but, once again, we've got a shortage of working computers! Laptops just don't work with large families, my husband has decided. And.... if we ever get another computer again...... it will be a desktop..... one that can't be moved or picked up by a toddler. Enough said.
Warning..... long post ahead....
It has been a full week. Out here it is March Break. It started off with school though. We heard through my brother that John Lennox was coming to town. I admit, I didn't know who that was either. Turns out, he sat under C.S. Lewis himself and heard his teaching.... live! He has since then become one of the most influential Christians in the U.K. traveling around debating the most famous of atheists, including Dawkins and Hawking. He came to debate another angry atheist in Toronto on Monday night and so we made an effort to take the older 4 and head on down. We knew some of it might fly over their heads in terms of content, but we wanted them exposed to these clashing worldviews. We wanted them to see not everyone believes what we believe. We wanted them to see how another Christian, and a highly educated one at that, would handle it. Lennox didn't disappoint. He stayed calm, cool, and collected the whole time while the atheist raged at him.
I didn't get to go to the debate as I was with the younger ones at my mom and dad's, but I did manage to hear him at a church in Toronto on the Sunday before as Lennox was in town the whole weekend. I was so moved to hear him as it felt like I was in the presence of Lewis himself. He's got to be in his 70s and completely lucid and humorous to listen to. Everything he said made sense as he was showing how right from the beginning of the Bible, God was in science. Yet the atheists don't want to see that. It makes no sense to them. It's not testable, they say. My favourite line from his talk was right at the end. He said, "Give me 5 atheists whose lives have been changed by atheism and I'll give you 5,000 Christians whose lives have been changed..... for the better. It's testable," he said, "that's the proof." God is in science? For sure. But changed lives? Isn't that what really proves the existence of God? There really is no other way to explain how a marriage gets brought back together that is failing or how a life gets turned around that is falling apart. Well worth the loooong drive into Toronto that morning.
A few weeks before this, I had suggested that my daughter consider putting on a sewing camp for little girls or anyone that was interested in learning how to sew. She seemed quite keen and quickly put together a flyer and an email and sent it out to our church and our homeschool group. She soon had 5 girls signed up and she was good to go! It started this past week and will finish today. I don't really know what to say except that I have walked around all week in awe - I was praising God the whole first day as I watched my two daughters from a distance, having no input from me whatsoever, teaching all these little girls. I was so thankful to have this opportunity, to have my girls bless these other girls with what they've learned. Each little girl there was so happy, so thrilled to be learning. My daughter had come up with some cute little ideas that could all be done in one 2 1/2 hour period of time so each day they left with a huuuge feeling of accomplishment. I was certainly proud of both daughters, but I was really thanking God mostly as I was so pleased that not only were they making a little extra money on the side, but that they were building into other's lives. I loved that so much industry was going on right under my roof! I couldn't believe that I was on the outside looking in! I'm so shocked that my kids need me less and less in so many ways with each passing day! It was also neat to see how my oldest daughter was letting her younger sister be a part of it as it was not really her "deal". But (and I thought this might happen), my oldest definitely needed her little sister to help out as each little girl was needing so much help as some of them were only 7. I think it really gave a little confidence boost to my younger daughter because she didn't know how good at sewing and using the machine she actually was! I was so happy, so grateful to just let them take off and do this. It's given them an appetite for more and now she wants to do more of these little camps in the summer. I love it!
Meanwhile, we'd been praying this whole time for my oldest son and his opportunity to work in a vet clinic. My husband took a lot of his work hours to help create a co-op position for my son, figuring out all the insurance details, etc. It took a lot of sacrifice on my husband's behalf, but it all came together and by God's grace, he had an interview this week and was hired on the spot. Hired, meaning volunteer! But we were so happy! He had his first day yesterday. I was praying and so hopeful that he would come back having a sense that this was what he wanted to do. As soon as he walked in the door, I could tell, he LOVED it. His face was literally lit up! He went on and on as he described his tasks. Yes, some of it involved vacuuming and dusting (so glad I was able to teach him those great life skills!) as the clinic is full of animal hair - yuck! But then he also saw some parasites under a microscope and helped with an animal getting his I.V. out, walked a cute puppy, saw a euthanized dog, calmed a dog that was getting his shots...... he loved every minute of it. I can't believe I ever wondered if he wouldn't love it, but maybe it's because I was putting myself in his place - I wouldn't love it. So glad God is customizing my children's lives. Giving them the opportunities that each one is supposed to have.
My next son, the second boy, was missing his brother all day. He seemed lost without his big brother. When my son came home after being away, I was so sure he would want to run in and tell us all about his day (as he also had a great opportunity to help with a friend's dad making candles out of beeswax this week!), he saw his brother and our dog and instead of coming in, he went on a long walk with his two best friends. It was special to watch from the kitchen window as they walked down the road together. Again, I wasn't the one he wanted to tell, it was his brother. It has made us realize that we've got the first two well on their paths of education and direction. Now, we've got to really focus on the remaining children. So right away we started talking to this other son. He has a ton of interests and skills. It's just a matter of focusing on which one would be best suited to him. Which one would best provide for a future family? We can't relax or miss a beat..... there are a lot of kids to focus on and we don't want to overlook any of them in the process of getting these older two out and on their way!
This week saw my phone take a swim in the toilet. It was dead. My only form of communication was gone. It seemed like a very frivolous thing to bring to our church ladies to pray about, but I did anyway as I really did need it (well, you know what I mean). There was no way we were going to replace it, that's for sure. My daughter took it in to the Apple store to see if there was some way they could fix it. The guy at the store seemed to know what the problem was. But then, he came back to my daughter and said, "We don't normally do this, but I'm going to give you a new one. You seem like you could use a break." WHAT?!!! I couldn't believe it when my daughter phoned me later, from my new phone, to tell me that! That was no small miracle - that saved us hundreds of dollars. I immediately emailed the ladies who had prayed to tell them the miracle! It was awesome!
The rest of the week has been filled with little trips to the library with the little people as they run cute shows all week for just $3. So sweet. It's a little tradition we have. I used to take all 8, but each year a few less go - I treasure those times when all of them wanted to come. It's also maple syrup season! We love going to all the places that give tours. It's also a tradition that I love. Yesterday, I was planning on going with 7 of the kids to a maple syrup/pancake house and as we started to drive, I felt the steering wheel pull hard to the right. That couldn't be good. As disappointed as we all were, I told the kids I had to turn around and go home. There was no way I was going to make the drive all that way just to get stranded on the side of the road. I turned around and drove slowly home with my hazards on. I made it home, changed vehicles and took just the younger 4 as the truck doesn't hold as many kids! The older ones were good about it though. A little bit later, my husband took the van to drive my son to his first day at the vet clinic. He made it to the clinic, but he didn't make it home. The van started to make sounds like it was falling apart, which it was, so he pulled off to the side of the road and to his shock, the right wheel was well on its way to nearly coming right off. All I can say is how grateful I am that it didn't come off, that he didn't have an accident, that it didn't happen when I had the 8 kids in the car, that it wasn't when I was driving......I really felt that as bad as it was, it could have been much worse!
Fortunately for us, we had a CAA membership which allowed him to get free towing long distances. So now, we have a busted vehicle which my husband described as a "catastrophic failure"! Oh dear. I know it's bad, but I found myself so grateful for how it all happened that shockingly, I was able to stay calm, borderline happy, and so aware that it was a test I must pass. I've been reading a book by Larissa and Ian Murphy, Eight Twenty Eight, about a couple who went through a test where the husband had a brain injury from a car accident. It is not the kind of test most people would want to endure. I was keenly aware that we had our health, all of us were alive and that it was something that yes, was going to be a major pain to fix, but we were all together, brains intact. Books like that sure help put things in perspective real fast.
What week goes by where there aren't both the good and the bad to deal with? Who am I to think I can get away with no trials? The book I was reading was written from the wife's perspective. She sure wants her husband to be healed and many amazing miracles have happened, but unless God intervenes more, she's married to someone that she'll always have to help. I tried to read the book as if our debt was my brain injured husband. Hardly a fair or comparable burden, but she talked just how I feel sometimes, wishing I had a life of ease or at least slightly easier! Wishing that we could just go out and either buy a new van or at the very least have someone else fix it instead of RM. He said that this fix will take days. Then I think, maybe one day, my brain-injured bank account will be better. Maybe it will get healed. But what if it never does? That might just be the case. Suddenly I read the book with that idea in mind. That was a scary thought. Everything she said was what I would have said, "I know it means continuing to enter into the darkness, turning myself over and over into and through the hands of the potter. I know that for some reason I still need this churning, this burning away into my heart, in order to keep going. If I could be given a way out that comes with an easier path, I would only find myself in a worse disposition than if I continue on in the difficulty.... Isn't this what I have been called to? This life of dependency on the One who made me? This life that doesn't make me comfortable, because discomfort is exactly what I need to make heaven more irresistible?"
Just like her, I have to be ok with my "life of dependency on the One who made me". I live a life way more comfortable than that woman. She desires heaven more than I do. Yet my trials are all I know and I am not comfortable 100% of the time. According to her, discomfort is what I need! I know this is true, just not what I want to hear sometimes.
Easter is approaching. I continue to pray all day sometimes it seems. I believe God is working. I see Him in just about everything, even in the close calls. I see how mini-battles are won on a daily basis here. Yet, there are battles just the same, attacks on me personally and on our family. Any thoughts of discouragement, frustration, or anger at our situation have to constantly be kept at bay. This same author, Larissa Murphy says it well, "I know that I can't listen to those thoughts, can't act on them or try to validate them. Instead I need to push them back with the force of knees bent. Truth must win. It has to win." What is that truth? That God is sovereign. He has a plan for my life. It may not be an easy plan or a walk in the park, so to speak, but a plan nevertheless. If I take away discouragement's food, which is the devil's lies telling me all is hopeless, than I'm finding discouragement starves to death. That's what I've learned this week - In not giving in to the lies of the enemy, truth wins, discouragement dies. It has to.
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