Bring it to Me

Last night, I was reading my Bible and this verse just sort of jumped out at me, so I thought I"d share it. Matthew 14:18~He said, Bring them hither to me. This is Jesus speaking to his disciples. The multitudes following Jesus were hungry, so Jesus told his disciples to feed them. The disciples replied that the only food to be had was a little boy's lunch of 5 loaves and 2 fish. It is clear in this passage that the disciples were thinking "NO WAY can we feed all these people with those loaves and fish!" Jesus' simple solution? Bring them hither to me. When they brought Jesus the bit of food that they had, He not only fed the multitude that was there, but he had the disciples collect the 12 baskets full of leftovers!! He took their little bit and made it MORE than enough! We often think we don't have enough~we feel like we don't have enough time, enough energy, enough strength, enough patience, enough money, enough talent, enough knowledge, and on and on the list could go. But what did Jesus say? Bring them hither to me. Take the little bit that you have~that little bit of time, money, faith, patience, strength, wisdom, etc, and bring it to Jesus. HE will make it MORE than enough. But ONLY if you bring it to Him. In His Love, Vicki

Dating, Courting, and Social Networking, Oh My!!

Yesterday, a discussion took place among some friends of mine about the dangers that social networking webistes like Facebook and MySpace can bring to a marriage. People set up accounts and start spending time on these sites, then find themselves re-united, though perhaps only electronically so, with old friends and with old flames. Sadly, I've heard a handful of stories about marriages that have been broken or badly damaged by online "reuntions" that lead to affairs.

Of course, there are some obvious solutions to safegaurd your marriage from this kind of attack. First, you could just not use social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace. Secondly, you could limit your online "friends" to family only, or persons of your own gender. A thrid option, and the one my husband and I employ, is to keep the computer in a central location in the house, and to allow each other ABSOLUTE access to ALL accounts~usernames, passwords, etc.

So, when this conversation took place, I started thinking. My husband and I have a wonderful marriage. It's not perfect, but it's pretty great :) So, I started to think about why it is that we have been spared a lot of the pain and anguish that others have gone through.

It most certainly is not because we are any better, or any smarter than any other married couple. I DO believe though, that we are very, very blessed.

Part of the reason that I don't fear "old flames" harming our marriage is because I don't have any :)) My husband is the only man I ever dated. Now, there is a popular concept among some christians called "courting". I am not sure I understand the concept completely, but from what I gather, in families that promote courting ( as opposed to traditional dating) young men and young ladies spend time together with groups of friends, or with each others family memebers. The young man and young lady do not spend time alone together until they become engaged, I guess. As I said, I"m not sure of the particulars of courting.

In any case, it was never my intention to only date the man I was going to marry. I simply never had any intrest in dating anyone until I met him.

I was blessed with a lot of good friends in high school, and many of them were guys. But I never had any intrest in dating any of them. I just didn't think of them that way. After high school, the first couple of jobs I had placed me in situations where I worked with other women, so I just didn't meet a lot of guys. I could go into a lot of long, boring details here, but I"ll spare you. My point is that even though it was not really a conscious decision on my part, I never went on a date with anyone other than my husband.

It may not have been MY design, but I believe that it was God's design. I was sparend the teen age trauma of break ups and all of the angst that goes along with typical teen dating relationships. My husband is spared any emotional baggage I might have brought into our marriage from relationships like that~and as an added bonus, he knows he has no reason to worry about anyone on my Facebook "friends" list. :))

I can't really see us encouraging our daughters or our son to "court" rather than "date". But you can be sure that we will teach them NOT to date for it's own sake, and I pray earnestly that they will never feel the need to have a "boyfriend" or a "girlfriend" simply because all their friends are "dating someone". My prayer is that they will take to heart what we have taught them~that God has all ready chosen a spouse for them, and that He will bring that person into their lives in His way and in His time, and that He doesn't need our help to do that.

You see, I believe with every fiber of my being that the man I am married to is the man that God chose for me to marry. Believing that with absolute certainty goes a long way toward curbing ANY behavior that could harm our marriage. I hope that each of my children will have that same rock solid belief about their spouse.

I'm not naive. I realize that no marriage is untouchable, and that satan can be very powerful in his attacks, and marriages and families are his favorite targets. I get that. I am just taking this opportunity to say that I believe God placed in my life some protections for my marriage long before I was actually married, and I am far more thankful for that than I feel able to express.

No marriage is perfect, but am more thankful every day for the one God gave me.
Blessings,
Vicki

What I Learned When I Read Twilight

I had NO intention of reading Twilight. Ever.

I first became aware of it while playing with the "Flair" application on Facebook. I began to see a ridiculous amount of "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob" flair. I had no clue what it meant, and frankly, didn't care.

I mentioned this to my 17 year old nephew, and he explained to me that these were characters in a series of books. He told me that the books were really good, and encouraged me to read them. I told him right away that I had no intrest in reading about vampires and werewolves, and that he shouldn't be reading that junk either. His reply was that there was nothing "wrong" with stories about vampires.

Not long after this conversation, my then 11 year old daughter began to hear about Twilight from her friends. She asked to be allowed to read the book, and I told her no. I told her that there were much better things that she could spend her time reading. When she asked me WHY I objected to the books, I told her that I didn't like the idea of her reading stories about vampires.

Now, please understand that when my daughter asked her next question, she wasn't trying to be a smart aleck. She certainly CAN be one of those, LOL! but in this instance, she simply wanted to understand. So, she asked, "Mom, if you don't want me to know about vampire stories, why did we go see the play "House of Frankenstein", and why did you let us watch that "Young Frankenstein' movie?"

A while back, my Dad played Dr Frankenstein in a local theater production of "House of Frankenstein". The play was a comedy, very light, very funny, but two of the characters WERE vampires. Just before seeing this play, we had also watched the old Gene Wilder movie "Young Frankenstein"~again, very light, very funny, but contained characters that were vampires, along with werewolves and various other 'monsters".

So, my daughter had a legitimate question. Why were vampires and werewolves okay in a play or movie, but a popular book was forbidden to her simply because it was about vampires and werewolves??

The answer is that I ASSUMED that because the book was about vampires and werewolves, that it would be violent and graphic, and that because it also involved a romance, it would contain inappropriate intimate scenes. I ASSUMED that because a few people that I know objected to the books, they must be bad. Then, my daughter asked another question "But Mom, have you actually READ the book?

So, I told my daughter that I would read the book myself, and THEN decide if she should be allowed to read it or not. MUCH to my surprise, this book did NOT contain gore, it was NOT violent, and it did not contain any inappropriate scenes of intimacy. Having read the book myself, and taking into account my daughters personality and maturity level, I chose to let her read the book. I made a point EVERY day of asking her where she was in the book, and talking with her about what was happening in the story. After about 3 days, she was coming to me on her own to tell me what part of the story she was reading. She was enjoying it, and was excited to be able to discuss it with me.

These conversations led to some WONDERFUL moments with my daughter. We had some great discussions, and I got some good, clear insights into my daughters character, and the kind of person that she is becoming. We followed the same patter with the 3 sequels to Twilight, with me reading each book first before allowing her to read it. Each book led to more really good discussions.

Now, having said all that, let me also say this....I'm not saying that you won't find ANYTHING to object to in these books. I'm not saying that they are appropriate for everyone. I would NOT allow my almost 10 year old daughter to read them. She has no intrest in them at all, but even if she did, I would not allow it for her right now.

I"m not suggesting that everyone run out and read the Twilight books, or allow their children to read them. I"m only saying that in this case, I almost missed out on some great talks with my daughter because I formed an opinion based on assumptions and the opinions of others. One of my goals in homeschooling our children is to teach them to THINK, and to form opinions based on what they learn, NOT on what they ASSUME, or on what they hear other people say.

I just want to make sure that I teach by example.
Blessings,
Vicki
PS~For the record, I thought the books were okay~sort of light, fluff reading. I couldn't care less whether the heroine ended up with the vampire or the werewolf :))