A Sunshower Kind of Day

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Laha Roi

Pouring rain and bright sunshine.

Appropriate for the return home from dropping The Actor off at his new home for the next 9 months.

When the older kids went to the church internship apartments, they were still in town.  Still working at church.

But this is a slightly different internship.  He'll be actually out of town, going to one of the other campuses for church.  And he's in a...different...sort of environment.  This is not the church program, but an internship with a prophetic evangelist friend.  The intern guys stay in what are pretty much bunk rooms at the ministry center.  Even if nothing else transforming takes place, learning to live in that kind of a space is going to have an impact.

Now, he's 20 years old and he's had two years at the internship at church, riding back and forth with me, so it's not like he's fresh out of high school.  And I know in my heart that this is the right next step for him.  And I know it's just for nine months, and then he'll be back for at least a season.

But tonight...after all is said and done, there are three of us in the house that less than two years ago held six. Suddenly that seems like a very abrupt change.  And I'm wanting to stop, to slow down, to hold everyone for just a wee bit longer.

So I'm indulging my maudlin mom emotions for just tonight, even while I'm very proud of the folks these kids of ours are turning out to be.

The sunshower was the perfect allegory...

Ya Can't Fill what's Already Full

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Thursday was just one of those days...

I have to take The Flute Player to school on Thursdays, so I usually just go on to work.  First order of the day is always making coffee; the coffee maker is across the hall in another office.

We got a new coffee maker last week; I'd only made coffee in it once before but it really wasn't too difficult.  It has a smaller capacity than the old one, so it doesn't require as much coffee in it, and it has a reservoir to fill instead of pouring a potful of water into the machine, but other than that...making coffee is making coffee.

I came in, pulled the reservoir out and filled it up, dumped the coffee grounds and added fresh,  punched 'Brew Now' and headed back to my office to wait for it to be ready.

Did anyone catch the crucial step that I omitted in my prep?

I didn't realize it till I walked back to the office and saw coffee pouring down the side of the small refrigerator that the coffee maker sits upon.

I'd forgotten to dump yesterday's leftover coffee from the insulated carafe. From the looks of the puddle on the floor, it must've been nearly full.

Because I filled a reservoir instead of using the pot to measure the water, I totally did not think about checking to see if there was any coffee in the pot.

So, yeah, we spent a bit of time cleaning up the mess, and I won't make that mistake again, but after I came home I began to wonder...could there possibly some kind of spiritual application (i.e., can I redeem my stupidity by getting a blog post out of it?)

Answer:  Of course.  There's a spiritual application to about anything, if you're willing to just think about it a moment or two.

Maybe even more than one. ;-)

So...here's what I saw illustrated by my coffee mess:

- You can't fill something that's already full.  Yesterday's coffee...or yesterday's dreams, yesterday's visions, yesterday's successes can block the inflow of fresh coffee...or new dreams, visions or goals to achieve.

-Old methods don't always translate to new levels.  Sometimes you just gotta stop and think about where you are before you run and do what you always did.

- Something hidden and overlooked WILL make itself known eventually...and there will be a mess...

I'm really glad His mercies are new every morning... ;-)

The LAST "Last First Day"

Posted to Beer Lahai Roi by Lisa Laree

Somebody asked me at work today if I was having a hard time dealing with the baby of the family starting her senior year today.

I replied that it only bothered me when I thought about it, and I've got so much going on that I haven't had time to think about it so...no, not much.  Yet, anyway.

This year is going to be so different in many ways.  The Actor will be going off to a residential internship program...it's just about 20 minutes down the road with a ministry that is run by a long time friend, so it's not like he was going, to say, Mexico or something, but he will be GONE and he will be busy and when he is at church he will be at one of the satellite campuses.  So we three will be rattling around the house somewhat isolated from the rest of the crew.

We raised our kids to be independent; sometimes I think I did a little too good of a job of that.

But the senior year is going to be the last of so many things.  It will be the last time I chaperone the state drama competition (assuming, of course, that nothing comes up to prevent me going this year).  Out of the 10 state competitions in which my kids were participants, I've only missed two...because there was no need for another chaperone.

It will be the last high school musical for which I am obligated to be part of the costume team.  I am not ruling out the possibility that, if asked, I might take my machine down and sew for an evening here or there, but the days of hauling home massive amounts of work will be done.

To be honest, I am somewhat sad that the years that seemed so tedious day by day have flown by so quickly.  Those cute kids...the unstructured days when I did not have to go out and clock in my hours...in hindsight, it was a blur.  I have a few moments that are in sharp focus, but mostly it seems rather like a dream.

But.

I've been doing the kids-in-school thing since The Princess headed off to 3-day-a-week Preschool in 1990.  24 years is a long time to be on repeat...even if each verse is slightly different than the last.  And, not having a self-motivating child, I am Tired Of Pushing.

As poignant as the moment is, I think we almost have the last boulder up to the top of the hill...

I may not know exactly what to do next, but I will at least have something of freedom to choose.

Off she goes on her last 'first day'.

Class of 2014.

SSMT - Verse 16

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Sometime ago, I found myself reading in Jeremiah, and came across a passage in chapter 14 in which God tells Jeremiah not to pray for the well-being of the people of Judah, for God was going to send judgment on them.  Jeremiah protested, saying in effect, 'But God, all the TV preachers and the preachers who write columns in the paper...our religious leaders...are all telling the people not to be afraid, that destruction isn't coming to them.'

God told Jeremiah that it didn't matter what all the church leaders were saying...because He did not speak to them at all; they were lying.  Furthermore, those folks who were telling the people not to fear destruction were going to fall victim to the very things they were denying.

As I read that passage, I'll confess I identified a bit with Jeremiah, wondering how fair it was, really, for God to punish the people when they had been deceived by the very ones who had the responsibility to tell them the truth.

And I felt God's response, 'They had My word themselves and neglected to keep it.  Had they kept it, they would have known the difference between a true proclamation and a false one.'

And He sent me to Deuteronomy, chapter 6, verses 6 and 7 (NIV 84):

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them upon your children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  

Back in the day, I was a youth leader in a small denominational church.  And I remember several families who did not strongly encourage their kids to follow after God, telling me that the kids 'needed to make up their own minds' or some such thing.

I don't know where those families are today, and I wonder what happened to those kids.  Did they grow up to follow God?   If a prominent and respected church leader or, say, a TV celebrity, spoke something that was purported to be the word of God...and wasn't...would those folks who were raised in that way even know?

Is that not what has happened in our society?

It seems to me that the plain instruction of Deuteronomy 6 is that we should do everything in our power to pass our faith along to our kids, even if it means wearying them of it at times.

Because a generation that does not know the word of God will believe either anything or nothing.