I Still Thank God for Doug Phillips; The Messenger Fell, but the Message Stands

Several years ago my husband John made the statement, "I thank God for Doug Phillips." He had impacted us in so many positive ways. This was before the scandal. Today I can still say I thank God for Doug Phillips. He has a long road ahead of him to repair the ruins. For the sake of his reputation, his precious children and wife, and the cause of Christ, I wish him success. May the good that he has done for the kingdom not be lost. 

We were just heading out for a family jaunt on November 1, 2013 when John sadly relayed to us the news that left us all stunned: Douglas Phillips had announced his resignation from Vision Forum, Inc. and Vision Forum Ministries. He had confessed to an inappropriately affectionate relationship with another woman, not his wife. 

The announcement caused us much sorrow. My daughter Alexa felt physically ill. (She had befriended the Phillips family at an economics conference a year before.) My immediate comment was, "How could he do that to Beall? How could he do that to his children?" My husband said, "I'm not surprised by these things anymore. I only wonder who's next?" (The "next" one turned out to be Bill Gothard.)

I can only imagine the tears and agony that the whole Phillips family has gone through as the knowledge of Doug's dalliance has sunk in.

I have searched the internet for updates on the situation, only to find articles by those who have personal vendettas and harsh criticisms, circling like vultures, feasting on the opportunity to further malign the man and his ministry.

I am not here to defend what Mr. Phillips did. It is in violation to his own Biblical beliefs that he acted against God's will, law and word by involving himself with another woman (to what extent, I know not, nor pretend to know). He has threatened to destroy the future destiny and heritage of his entire family, inexorably and immeasurably. He has in my opinion lost all legitimate right to future positions of leadership in any Christian church or ministry. He has stated that his intention is to remain "a foot soldier" in future endeavors and lead a quiet life. I hope he keeps to that path.

Yet in a sense his fall is very much in line with the doctrine of man's sinfulness, a tenet he also held. If anything, his life illustrates the plight and vulnerability of men in every station and state of faith, as also illustrated in many Bible stories of leaders gone wrong. It could happen to any of us. We should take heed lest we fall.

I also do not overlook the untold pain and emotional damage felt by the unnamed woman he has been involved with. I do not know the circumstances of the involvement, though rumors abound that it was with an underaged nanny in the Phillips' home. If this is true, Mr. Phillips is all the more culpable. Every effort should be made to minister to and restore the young woman, and if applicable to prosecute to the full extent of the law. Justice must be done--after all, it's Doug's second son's name. He has publicly espoused justice, and taught it to his children; now he must live it.

However, I am here to say that much of the ministry and products provided through the years by Vision Forum have been very helpful to our family and to others in our community of homeschool Christian families.

Mr. Phillips' intellectual acuity, historical research, team-building ability, and strong communication skills produced a voluminous repetoire of top-notched resources. They were well-researched, thorough, and visually appealing for all ages. I purchased a large segment of Vision Forum's materials through the years, including books and toys for my children and audiovisual lectures from several conferences. My husband and I incorporated much of his parenting approach and philosophy into our home life, and it has served us well. The materials on courtship, manhood/womanhood, family life and parenting were very helpful to us. Today our children all profess a Christian faith, are generally happy, productive members of society and are raising our grandchildren to be likewise. We haven't done everything right, and would tweak a lot of things if we had it to do over again, but with God's grace we have been blessed with good results.

We started a local family ministry several years ago, which led to starting a family-integrated church, and we sold or gave away much of Vision Forum's materials. We are not sorry we did that. We are only sorry that the picture of Doug Phillip's face on the packaging and his voice in the audio now makes it awkward to continue using and sharing them. Perhaps with time he will live down his current reputation, people will forgive and forget, and the materials will remain useful for future generations. 

Many of the books do not bear his authorship or picture, and remain treasures in our library. I especially like the R. M. Ballantyne fiction series which VF reprinted. They are beautifully bound and very engaging reading for young people, employing history from an overtly Christian worldview. Another favorite is Verses of Virtue, compiled by Beall Phillips. I could go on. I love good books, and so do the Phillips. 

One of the common attacks made on Mr. Phillips' ministry has been that he was legalistic--that is to say, he raised man's laws (which he had created himself) to the same level or higher than God's laws. I would have to argue that he was not legalistic. His core teaching was the sufficiency of scripture--that all the guidance we need for making moral decisions regarding personal, family and church life can be found in the Bible. He taught (if I understood him correctly) that the Bible transcends culture, and that when culture leads us away from Biblical principles, we should not follow the culture blindly, but choose the Bible's standards. This would apply to decisions regarding dress, diet, education, science, family, finances, business, marriage, medical choices, government, authority structures, and--is there anything else? Cultural trends may come and go, but the Word of God will stand forever. The nature of man never changes, and God's guidebook for man will always apply. Mr. Phillips and his fellow associates stood by this concept, as do I. It is not a popular stand to take, even among professing Christians.

Mr. Phillips is an advocate of theonomy and patriarchy--two other hot-button concepts that cause feminists and liberals to foam at the mouth. They also bring out the worst in some Christians. I observe a new generation of homeschool advocates who are rising up in opposition to these concepts as they were embraced by those of us in the first generation. Some of the opposition is probably well-deserved. We may have given the impression that dressing like "retro prairie muffins" (to borrow a term from Douglas Wilson) was the only Christian way to dress and anything "contemporary" is less than Christian, and if so, we were wrong. But theonomy and its founder Rushdoony remains a viable interpretive framework of the Bible and history. Doug propounded this view evenhandedly and persuasively. 

It is also true that some modern patriarchs take their role too far and abuse their privilege of authority. As we all know, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Mankind is notorious for this in every position of church, state, and family. The concept of check-and-balance and accountability is inherent in God's law, including the realm of the family. A woman has the right of appeal to her family, church and government if her husband is overstepping his bounds of authority through abuse, threats, etc. No man has a right to absolute authority; only God does. It does not argue against the patriarchal authority structure itself to point out abusers of that authority, any more than does abusive government officials give cause for dissolving all government structures and having anarchy. The structure should remain intact, while the individual abusers removed from their place of authority and/or the victims vindicated.

One homeschool blogger claimed that Doug Phillips had been "telling us women how to dress". I beg to differ. He did sell materials written by others that addressed the issue of modesty, a Biblical concept and virtue, in a historical context. His little girls were pictured in lovely feminine dresses in their catalogues, and in this way certainly he was intending to model femininity. He also carried a book by the Botkin sisters called So Much More, and one by Stacy McDonald called Raising Daughters of Virtue, which advocated for wearing feminine, modest clothing: in particular, skirts versus pants. While I didn't conclude from reading them that the female members of our family had to wear skirts 24/7, I nevertheless appreciated the attempt made by these godly Christians to stand up against a culture that systematically demeans and exploits women and trains them to sell their bodies. The emphasis on femininity was a breath of fresh air at a time when it's no longer cool to be feminine, or distinguishable from men.

Several years ago my husband made the statement, "I thank God for Doug Phillips." He had impacted us in so many positive ways. This was before the scandal. Today I can still say I thank God for Doug Phillips. He has a long road ahead of him to repair the ruins. For the sake of his reputation, his precious children and wife, and the cause of Christ, I wish him success. May the good that he has done for the kingdom not be lost. 

In Adam's Fall, we sinned all;    

There but for the grace of God go I.

Just wanted to share this link: Not Just a Stay-at-Home Mom

A good read from MOPS: Not Just a Stay-At-Home Mom

Should You Send Your Child to College?

"Am I preparing my child for college adequately? Are they going to be ready for life "out there"? What do I do about the cost of college? Do they really NEED college? If not, what else is there for them to do? And how do I prepare them for the moral atmosphere they will be faced with?" Are these questions hovering over you as you make decisions for your homeschool curriculum? Arden Sleadd, homeschool mother of five and grandmother of five, will address these questions and share her own foibles and mistakes as she launched her grown children into the world. She will present arguments both for and against college and offer other alternatives for equipping your high school graduate for life.

My Story

Raised in a nominally Christian home, I attended church regularly. I performed well academically in public school, earning straight A's. Though I became a Christian at age 13, I was influenced by the worldly atmosphere and was romantically involved with a young man who, I concluded eventually, was not a Christian. But I was determined to marry a Christian, so I broke up with him and attended Seattle Pacific University, a Christian college; there I thought I would meet a nice Christian young man.  Unfortunately, there were a lot of other girls with the same idea; the ratio of girls to guys on campus was 3:1!  Nevertheless, I loved college, both the academics and the social atmosphere. However, I still compromised morally. I didn't drink or party hardy, but I got involved romantically--again--with another young man who, it turned out, wasn't walking the Christian walk. I attained a teaching degree in music education, secondary. I taught music for two years in Alaska, then returned to college, this time to a state university in Washington, for their master's program in music education. I met John there. We married and started a family, soon learning about homeschooling through a radio interview of Dr. Raymond Moore. I decided I could teach my own children better than the public schools. I started when Naomi my oldest was four, Nathan was two and Aaron was new. Just a few months into it I became very ill, and have been chronically so, through two more births, for the last  21 years. 

I continued to homeschool even as my health spiraled downward, until in 2000 John placed them in the public schools. However, we weren't pleased with the spiritual fruit we were seeing in our children, so John brought them back home in 2004, telling them that if their mother couldn't teach them, he would when he got home from work. At that time we were influenced further by Vision Forum and the teachings of Doug Phillips and Phil Lancaster, from which we caught a multigenerational vision. Doug Phillips has a two-CD lecture on How to Prepare your Son or Daughter for College. That lecture radically changed our plans for our children's future. 

We looked at the scripture together and observed what appeared to be the model for launching our young into world: "A man shall leave his mother and father, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh". There is no mention of the man leaving to go to college; there is no mention of the woman leaving at all before she marries.  In Proverbs it does say, a man prepares his field before he builds a house. This means, he develops his means of providing for his bride before he builds a house to live in. And Jesus, when describing himself as the Bridegroom, said, "I go to prepare a place for you, that there you (the Bride, his church) may be also." This was how God had designed for families to transition their young people into the world. We realized that sending our daughters, particularly, into the college setting was to leave them unprotected and vulnerable without their father's covering. 

So we decided to make some radical changes regarding college. Here is how our children are doing today.

Naomi, 25, was married to a fellow homeschool grad) at age 19. She has always had a gift with children since she was little herself; she loves to cook and be a mother. She has three boys and a baby girl, and is homeschooling them with  a co-op. Naomi has a lovely alto voice; she recorded with our family when we made an a cappella Christmas carol CD; she also played piano and electric bass with our family band, Homemade Jam. When she married, it rather broke up the band, but John and the younger kids still lead worship in church. Nathan Phillips, my son-in-law works for Nathan Sleadd, my son, as his warehouse manager for Ziplinegear.com.

Nathan is 23. At age 15 he went to a resort in Cave Junction where he rode a zipline for the first time; he came home and built a few ziplines to connect with his treehouses on our acre, and decided he could build them for other people. Before he could legally drive he was marketing them on eBay, and I had to drive him to the p.o. to ship out his kits. He was involved in competitive speech his sophomore and junior years, and went to nationals twice. Then as a senior he attended the community college to take Calculus and Gen. Chemistry, spending the rest of his time running his business out of our garage. He married his duo interpretive partner and has two children. He has developed the Sleadd Adventure Gear brand with a half-dozen employees, and is grossing a million or so each year. He was named Oregon's Young Entrepreneur of the Year, shaking Gov. Kitzhaber's hand to receive the award. They are walking with the Lord, as are all my children thus far.

Aaron, 21, became a true speech beast by earning the Iron Man title at regional competition; he became a pianist and drum player and recorded his own CD on piano with compositions of his own. When Aaron was a senior, we approached a Christian computer programmer named Stephen to ask him if he would train and apprentice Aaron in his field. Stephen  agreed to do so, and after about 18 months Aaron was ready to enter the workforce. He then worked for Nathan for about a year as his marketing director until Stephen offered to hire him as a partner in his business. He is now very well paid as a computer programmer, ready to embark on being a provider. He is currently engaged to Emily, another homeschool graduate and speech beast. They will be married June 8th.

Alexa, 19, is living at home. Alexa has multiple interests and talents. She has been a speech and debate beast, winning many medals, and won the Oregon Right to Life Oratory Contest for two years, the maximum allowed. She then won second and third place at the National Right to Life contests. She has become a professional photographer, actress, artist and graphic designer. Alexa initially started earning college credit by taking CLEP and DSST tests, and had a College Plus counselor helping her. She had earned 21 credits when she went to the Chicago Family Economics conference in 2012 and came home with a new vision, yet needing direction. Her father helped her launch a company called Gabrielle Imagery, through which she marketed her graphic-arts and drawing skills. I helped her by putting up a Facebook page, and she got a client right away. Now she is working as an intern for a marketing company called Define Your Edge where they are training AND paying her, in Grants Pass. She also babysits at the homeschool coop and tutors three homeschool children who are neighbors. She has been doing pro life activism on college campuses and at public rallies--she prefers to call herself an abortion abolitionist now--and has started the Abolitionist Society of Southern Oregon. She is welcome to stay living with us under her father's covering until she marries.

Caleb, 16, is a sophomore in high school. He is taking Chemistry online through Apologia Academy. He is competing for his third year in speech in apologetics. He is in Algebra II this year in Saxon Math, and he is considering computer programming or engineering as a career. With that in mind, I anticipate that his high school years will include math all the way through calculus, just as Nathan and Alexa have done, and some sort of apprenticeship and project during his senior year that will earn him dual credit for both high school and college. We are considering funding his building a solar power system for our house. Eventually I hope to have several panels in place to reduce our power bill. I have purchased some tutorial videos for building solar panels so he could learn how and do it at home.

If I seem to be opposed to attending the traditional brick and mortar college, it is not because I devalue academic rigor. On the contrary, I believe in holding to a very high standard of both academic mastery and moral integrity. It is not good enough to merely score 10-20 percentile points above most public schools. We have no room to be smug about a relative measurement against an abysmally low standard. Our standards should be more objective, which align with God's.

Why should we pursue high academic standards? 

1. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1:8) Knowledge is a highly-held value in scripture. 

2. Our children, especially our sons, need the "intellectual capital" to give them an edge in the economy. By intellectual capital, I mean a specialized skill or high level of knowledge that a majority of people do not have, for which they are willing to pay a goodly sum to receive benefit. If your sons are to compete well enough and earn a high enough income to support a family and let their wives stay home to homeschool your grandchildren, they need to keep high academic standards their goal. Only 9% of American high school grads are pursuing science in college. This represents an opportunity; if your children pursue the sciences, they will be in high demand. This is another way we can take dominion for the Lord.

It does not necessarily follow that one must go to college to attain high academic proficiency. A good high school education should be the equivalent to the first two years of college. Colleges have had to dumb-down their programs for the sake of their low-achieving entering-freshmen classes to such a degree that the first two years is largely a waste of time for those who got a good high school education. (My college allowed me to be exempted from general requirements for my degree because of my high GPA and test scores--and my high school education was unremarkable.)

What should high school look like for our children to be prepared for life?  There are a lot of options, but academically I believe these are the priorities:

  a. 4 years of English 

      i. speech   ii. logic/debate  iii. Latin/Greek roots  iv. writing/grammar

  b. 4 years of science 

      i. biology ii. chemistry  iii. physics iv. applied science/computer science/graphic arts

  c. 4 years of math--as high as they can go and at whatever speed they can go

  d. Electives of your choice: music/art/pe

  e. mentorship/apprenticeship of 3-6 months (girls: can be homemaking or tutoring; boys: career/business)

I strenuously advocate mathematics as essential for training the young brain to think. It also is the language through which we can explain and understand science--it is the language with which God speaks to us regarding the laws of nature. If your child is unable to make it all the way through calculus, at least keep him going through math at the speed he can handle, while gaining mastery and confidence.

(Caveat: Bible should be first and last the most important source of all study at all ages, incorporated into all disciplines and discussions. I am focusing for the purpose of this article on the academics.)

REASONS TO ATTEND A BRICK-AND-MORTAR COLLEGE

Why go to college? 

For one thing, it is NOT for the purpose of finding a spouse--yet how many of us went there for that unspoken reason? 

Is it for high academic pursuits? Well, I would hope so--yet (according to the newest stats) the average college student today spends more time partying and playing sports than studying. But maybe your child will be different. 

There are indeed a few highly specialized fields where you really need to pursue a college degree: medical doctors, nurses, nuclear physicists, veterinarians, science researchers, post-graduate study, etc. Those in what Dr. Art Robinson calls the hard-science fields may find they need the on-campus experience with access to the laboratories and expensive equipment. 

HOW YOU CAN BEAT THE SYSTEM

However, it is getting easier all the time to gain that knowledge from your own home, or out in  the "real world" with a laptop and internet access. MIT now has all of its course content available for free online, and many colleges are following suit. It only requires that you be motivated enough to read and work your way through it without a professor to hold you accountable. You can teach yourself most of what you need to know, and then take the requisite tests necessary to get college credit or certification in your field. 

There is a very good company started by a homeschool graduate named Brad Voeller that has systematized this approach, called College Plus. This program provides your student with a personal counselor who will coach him biweekly through the process. They utilize the CLEP and other standardized tests that are accepted by most colleges for credit. There really is no reason you can't earn at least a Bachelor's degree for a fraction of the cost of a brick-and-mortar college.

Help is also available through the CollegePrep program now offered by CollegePlus, wherein your high school student will learn how to earn dual credit for both high school and college while still at home. They will be assisted in attaining study skills necessary to become a good college-level student, critical thinking skills, memory and speed-reading skills, etc. It is a half-year to one-year program depending on what pace you choose to go through it. You also get biweekly coaching from a homeschool mother through this process.

You can beat the system even further and save $1000s more without using C+ and doing it on your own. Keep your own schedule, figure out your own course of study, etc. You have to be highly motivated. Just buy the book Accelerated Long-Distance Learning by Brad Voeller. Buy other books from the C+ Bookstore and go at it on your own.  

If engineering is your field of interest, there is a former engineering prof that offers a course of study for engineer majors that will charge $1000/yr to coach you through becoming an engineer without needing a degree. He knows which tests you have to take, he has the books you need, and you can save even more going that way. His website is called biblicalconcourse.com. It has a great bookstore with college textbooks and hands-on project-oriented materials for at-home study.

REASONS NOT TO DO COLLEGE

Why not go to a traditional brick-and-mortar college?

1. There is no such Biblical model.

Jesus was homeschooled. He learned at home, and perhaps under the tutelage of rabbis in His local synagogue in Galilee, though it is not mentioned in scripture. His home study was sufficient to cause the learned men of Jerusalem to be amazed at his abilities at age 12. He stayed subject to his parents until age 30. His father Joseph taught him his trade as a carpenter, and Jesus worked for him until he was ready to start his ministry. That was the Jewish way, and Jesus implicitly endorsed that way by following it himself.

2. Moral debauchery and compromise

Nathan Harden is a 2009 graduate of Yale and author of the recently published book, Sex and God at Yale: Porn, Political Correctness, and a Good Education Gone Bad.  His book documents the events of Sex Week at his alma mater, including the screening in classrooms of hard-core pornography. The details of what occurs, not in the dorms, but in the classrooms with the consent and endorsement of professors, are too sordid for me to print here.

Harden says, "Unfortunately, what’s happening at Yale is indicative of what is occurring at colleges and universities across the country. Sex Week, for example, is being replicated at Harvard, Brown, Duke, Northwestern, the University of Illinois, and the University of Wisconsin. Nor would it suffice to demand an end to Sex Weeks on America’s college campuses. Those events are, after all, only symptoms of a deeper emptiness in modern academia. Our universities have lost touch with the purpose of liberal arts education, the pursuit of truth. In abandoning that mission—indeed, by denying its possibility—our institutions of higher learning are afflicted to the core."

This is the case on secular campuses, but don't think you're going to avoid compromise on the Christian campuses. They may not have Sex Week, but there is nonetheless plenty of romance and couplings going on. At SPU even 3 decades ago, there were drug parties, drinking parties, and hetero- and homosexual sex among students, very close to campus if not on campus. The reason is that even among the most devoted Christian young people, when they are placed into a 24/7 environment without the biblically-instituted covering of the father, the daughters are unprotected from the advances of young men, and foolishness and sin abounds.

Now I have friends whose son is attending Patrick Henry College, a Christian college started by Michael Farris of Home School Legal Defense Association, for homeschool graduates in particular. I have great respect for my friends, but they will admit to you that there is moral compromise going on there as well. If you take seriously the biblical requirement of fathers to protect the virginity of their daughters, you have an uphill battle to do it long distance. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it will take great effort, constant communication, etc. I have seen how the girls dress at the Patrick Henry dances, and in my estimation it's not only slightly more modest than the rest of the world.

3. Money

To attend a brick-and-mortar college you have to either save the equivalent of what you would pay for a house, ($22,000/yr for a state college and $29,000 for a private school), go into debt, or get a very generous scholarship. Most scholarships will only get you through the first year or two, and then once the college has you committed, the scholarships dry up. I think it is a huge mistake for a young person to start out life as a college grad with tens of thousands of dollars in debt. The data shows that the wages they will be making in most fields no longer adequately compensate them for the debt they incur to prepare for those fields.  It is fiscal insanity. 

MORE ALTERNATIVES TO THE TRADITIONAL ROUTE

1. Take certifying exams, get work experience in your field of interest/expertise. Example given: biblicalconcourse.com

2. Internships, apprenticeships. Example: Aaron 

3. Teach yourself online; tutorials abound.

4. Start a business of your own. Example: Nathan

5. Vocational training at local junior college. 

6. Find a friend who can help you learn. Use Skype or similar social networks. Alexa did this with a friend she met at the Family Economics conference from out of state who helped her with learning to use PhotoShop, via Skype.

7. Be a servant; offer to help in the office of a ministry or business or political candidate. Make yourself useful as a volunteer and show yourself worthy of compensation.

8. Buy the software program that is considered required for the field you are interested in, and learn how to use it. Go on Craigslist and see what computer skills employers want you to have, and teach yourself. 

9. Read. Read. Read. And then read some more. I have always told my kids, "Everything you ever want to know you can find in a book." Now I tell them if it's not in a book, it's on the internet.

If you must go to a brick-and-mortar college, consider these alternatives:

1. Live at home while going to college. This helps avoid the morally-compromising 24/7 coed or bachelor-pad lifestyle. 

2. Live with a godly family who will help maintain accountability while going to college. 

3. Get married while going to college. (This has its financial and marital drawbacks too.)

4. Keep in touch daily with parents. My mother-friend mentioned above texts her son daily, and he tells her everything. They are in a good relationship, and that after all is the most important part.

Let us be very clear: we are not preparing our children for college; we are preparing them for life. College is only a means to an end.  We should, in fact, be raising up "life-long learners" and kingdom-builders. They should have a love for learning that extends throughout their whole lives, regardless of age and stage.

What does Contentment Look Like? Some Common Myths

Am I content at home? I can say, irrevocably, YES. How did I arrive there? It wasn't easy. But you may have a different notion of what I mean by the word content, so let me elucidate further. Here are some myths about what contentment looks and feels like.

Myth #1: Contentment means I feel like I've died and gone to heaven.

NO, sorry, that won't happen until, well, I've died and gone to heaven. It doesn't mean everything in my life is the way I want it. Contentment consists of knowing the parameters of real life in an imperfect world where I will live imperfectly, with circumstances likewise imperfect, and accepting them. Peace comes when you know you are doing the right thing, brightening the corner where you are, and pleasing your Lord and Savior.

Paul speaks here. Philippians 4:11-1(ESV)

11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Myth #2: Contentment at home means no conflicts.

My daughter recently said to me, "Sometimes it feels like our home is a battle ground." We had had an especially tough period with conflict and relational difficulties. I rubbed her back and said, "Well, hopefully most of the time it is a refuge. But there will be battles to be fought, and if we don't fight them, then problems can fester and get worse."

Myth #3: Contentment means I'm just waiting through this temporary season of my life until I can leave.

If you have little children in your home and you are salving yourself with the comforting thought that your present situation is only temporary, then you haven't really given you heart to your children. You are still looking for an escape plan. With true contentment comes an abiding joy, a desire to be home indefinitely, even after the children are grown and you have grandchildren to visit you. It doesn't mean you can't someday take a job or volunteer outside your home. But that shouldn't be a pie-in-the-sky vision for you as if then--and only then--you will get to fulfill your true potential and be happy. The grass is always greener on the other side. But, like the Three Billy Goats Gruff, you may find on your way to that green pasture on the other side,  an ogre lurking under the bridge, or poisonous weeds mingled in that luscious grass you so coveted.

Myth #4: Contentment means I'll settle for this season at home until I can finally follow MY real calling, to pursue MY gifts.

I think there is too much emphasis among some Christians about the need to identify one's spiritual gifts in order to pursue them. It can quickly become a poorly-veiled attempt at self-actualization. God doesn't give you gifts in order to feel more fulfilled. He gives them to you to serve others. Your calling IS to serve your family. Put your family first, serve them well, and your gifts will automatically be employed in the process, without any effort of your own. You will also find out what weaknesses you need to work on and strengthen. Family life is intended to be a sanctifying experience. It's not easy. Do hard things.

This may be hard teaching for you. There are times when we need to hear some hard teaching. I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it in your life to mould you into His likeness.

³ Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, ⁴ and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. -Titus 2 ESV

My Annual Holiday Mary-Martha Struggle

I have worked hard to love cooking. That may sound like a contradiction, but it's possible and it's true. I know that cooking is central to my role as helpmeet to my husband, home-centered woman, and hospitality hostess to visitors. Cooking is something my mother loves to do. My oldest daughter inherited that love from her. Somehow it skipped me in the generational hand-down. But I have read Debbie Pearls' Created to be His Help-Meet and I have studied my own husband, and I have a drive to keep our houseful healthy--so I have thrown myself heartily into the task of relearning healthy cooking methods a la Weston Price, and organic gardening and husbandry a la Back to Eden and Joel Saladin. I have taken up the cross and died daily a la Paul, counted it all joy a la James, and have had victory in a big way. Thank you, Jesus.

Then came Thanksgiving. I invited three families for a total of 20 people, cooking two brined turkeys, two gravies, four pumpkin pies and three types of dressing, including the gluten-free and nut-free options. When my pregnant daughter became ill the same week I spent a day making broth and caring for her and her children. I did it all with joy and vigor, until Wednesday night. I still needed to fix a meal with my 19yo daughter Alexa helping, and host Aaron's sweetheart as part of it. Aaron and Emily pitched in and were very helpful as well. Still I found myself weighted down and distracted with many things. Sound familiar?

By ten o'clock that evening, as I put the second turkey into the oven to slow-cook overnight, the old familiar friend Resentment visited me. "Why don't my children all want to be in the kitchen with me helping me out? Why are they sitting there watching Fellowship of the Ring for the tenth time instead? Why do I have to ask continually for more help?" I knew the lateness of the hour was making me vulnerable to attack, and I told myself to not listen to the thoughts. They did not steal my joy, and I won the battle, just barely.

Thursday morning at 10am we went to a church service and spotted a family of nine from out of town that we knew. I asked the inevitable: "Do you have any plans for dinner today?" "No, not really." "Do you want to join us? I cooked two turkeys. We have plenty." And they accepted. So our number increased to 29 with two hour's notice before the meal. I felt so hospitable. I knew John, who had preached on hospitality the Sunday previous, would be pleased.

As the afternoon went on and we filled our bellies with good food, with contributions from the guests, I had the nagging feeling that I was not getting enough "relational" time in with my guests and family during the gathering. I was drawn inexorably to the kitchen, because "there was so much to do". I had many hands helping, but still I became rummy with exhaustion. I called at one point for help, rather loudly and probably not winsomely, and a sweet young lady came to help. One of my children, who will remain anonymous, refused to help her when I asked, making me feel like a bad mom for not training them up better.

I had had great plans to lead the crowd in some singing of hymns, rounds, and other favorite songs, but I was just too tired and busy. In the end, the helpers finished cleaning the kitchen entirely, to my great relief. I was happy, everyone was happy, we had honored and thanked the Lord for His abundance, and I had pleased my husband.

Today I am analyzing it all. Did I go wrong anywhere? Why don't I want to repeat this scenario for Christmas? Why have I sworn off cooking for next month's gathering, announcing to the family that I will help with everything else, BUT? Was I too hasty to make the announcement?

I have this picture in my mind of how I would LIKE to spend my holiday with my grandchildren, reading stories to them, playing games with them, teaching them songs, and talking about the spiritual meaning of the season.  Somehow that, to me, is how I should be doing it, doing the Mary thing, not the Martha thing. But it doesn't go that way. I find myself stuck--no, choosing to be--in the kitchen.

So today I searched the web for devotionals on the familiar biblical story of Martha and Mary. What was it about Martha that was wrong? Was it that she worked too hard? That she didn't do it joyfully?

I found this teaching from Mark Driscoll illuminating and helpful. He gives Martha a break (whew!) in his usual inimical way:

And there is a good aspect to Martha. I’ll show it to you here in Luke 10:38, “a woman named Martha welcomed him [Jesus] into her house.” Jesus comes to town, who’s the only person that invites him over? Martha! That’s a good thing. There are benefits to hanging out around Martha. Ask Mary. All right? Apparently, Mary’s sitting in the living room and she’s, you know, I don’t know, getting her quiet time with the Lord, and because Martha invites him over she gets time to sit at Jesus’ feet. That’s a real bonus for Mary that Martha made possible.

He concludes by saying:

I think the point of the Bible here is Mary first, Martha second. Spend time with Jesus, then get stuff done. To worship like Mary and then to work like Martha. If all Mary ever does is sits there and studies and never does anything, she’s sinful in a completely different way. All right? This would be like the guy who’s on his thirty-second year of Bible college. It’s like, “Dude, seriously, go do something.” But if all she does is Martha, do, do, do, do, do, go do, go do, go, go, go, go? She’s gonna end up distracted, anxious, troubled. And so the key is Mary first, Martha second.

Worship, then work. Worship God before you work so that you could worship God in your work. And do the work that God has called you to do, not chasing your potential, but pursuing your calling. Not volunteering yourself as the savior of the world to plug every hole and meet every need. That job’s already taken. And instead to spend time with the savior of the world, asking him what portion of the mission he’s entrusted to your service. So we want Mary’s heart and we want Martha’s hands. Amen? That’s what we want. We want Mary’s heart, Martha’s hands.

And, as Sue Kramer of Internet Cafe Devotionals has said about Mary and Martha,"I realized that this verse is really all about balance and needs to be taken into context with the whole scope of expectation that God has for us as wives and women of God...Balance. God’s Word is filled with balance."

So we shall see if I get it right for Christmas. And for 2013. And the year after that. 

Pursuit - My Daughter's Blog

I just want to indulge in self-promotion for a bit here. Alexa Sleadd, my daughter, has posted several posts regarding her friendship with Josh Eddy that should bless your socks off. It's called Pursuit: click here..

My Father's Stroke and Other Thoughts On Grief

Today I emailed a friend this news about my father's stroke and more on Josh's passing, how the two events are melding together to change me.

"I visited my 87yo dad Monday in Roseburg, who had a stroke last week. He is paralyzed in his right arm, has garbled speech, difficulty swallowing, and now is in rehab. I remember my daughter's prayer the morning Josh drowned (before it happened): "Lord, bring it on. Whatever it takes, I surrender to Your will in my life." He is certainly bringing it on, squeezing the world out of me through grief and tears. I realized I had never really grieved before this, even through the death of all four grandparents with whom I was very close, (and my paternal grandmother killed by my grandfather who had gone temporarily insane) and the death of a friend my age a year ago. This death of a young 19yo with SO MUCH POTENTIAL and so much passion for life, who loved me like a friend even at my advanced years, has struck a chord. I'm sure some of my grief is vicarious for Josh's mother, and for my daughter, who was so very close to him that I and others thought romance might be around the corner, but no, he had this way of being close and deep with many, many people. 

SO my father's condition has not hit me, and I'm not nearly as affected by it as by Josh's passing. It's almost poetic justice in Dad's case, because he has been a hardened, difficult man all his life; and then I feel guilty even thinking that, because it would be just as right that it happen to me--I'm no better in my sin than he is, just forgiven.

Well, I hope you don't mind my blathering. You were the one with an email waiting for me to respond to, so just skip all this if it's too much. I have never understood how other people seemed to wallow in their grief before now, because I had not been through it myself. Now I understand, and am sorry I was ever so judgemental. I can't just put it behind me. I have to walk through it before I get over it. My dad has tried to ignore his hurts all his life, and put up a tough facade, and it really messed him up. I don't want to make the same mistake.

Josh was known to write voluminous, articulate emails to many people, of all ages, about things that really mattered. Those emails were quoted widely in the memorial and have become his legacy, along with his blog posts. Would that I leave such a legacy behind me."

While in Dad's rehab facility, I found myself unable to offer even a greeting to all the lonely people as we walked around. I was so burdened by my own grief, I was repulsed by theirs. How could I be so hard? I know Josh would have reached out to them, asking them all-important questions about their eternal destiny, just as he had on that fateful day when he was being carried off by the ambulance from our home two years ago. I failed the test! Oh, Lord, when will I ever learn???

See also Ariel Strom's post of her memorial of Josh at justanotherrebornhuman.blogspot.com. It has all the links to others' memories of him. It is endless how much impact he has had and will continue to have.