Mom on a Mission

When I Write a Book . . .

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

I picked up Alice Hoffman’s The Third Angel because it was recommended in Fearless Writing.

I have a like/dislike relationship with this book, but I’m keeping on with it because it keeps redeeming itself, keeps pulling me along with unexpected delights.

I am not delighted with a woman who is marrying a man she knows to be selfish and flawed, but I am carried away with the answer to her own question:  How do you love such a person?  You just do it.

I am delighted when a book reminds me of the truths in my own life, how love is an act, a sacrifice, a looking like God.  Love is God and I am becoming more transformed into His image when I “just do it.”

Like the character in The Third Angel, I find myself unmoved by the flaws in those I love, even blind to them, when I get on that love train and we both start going places.  Life becomes an adventure of raw discovery, flaws become idiosyncrasies, differences become intriguing – even delightful, and life is good.

There is language in The Third Angel.  If not, the editors would probably say to the author, “This is London, you must have language, no one will believe it otherwise.”  But if I write a book, the strongest language will begin with “sh” and end with “it” even if the plane is crashing.

Wait.  No planes crashing in my book.  I will, as they say, write what I know.  Spaghetti sauce in a favorite antique bowl slipping out of my hand as I swipe it out of the fridge, breaking and splattering spaghetti sauce all over the kitchen.  Living and moving and breathing spaghetti sauce.  Everywhere.  Little faces astounded at the crash and even more at Mommy saying that word.

But then I would forget about a broken bowl and a messy kitchen because there is a much larger issue:  tender and bare feet.  I would shoo them away and clean every last speck – not perhaps every last speck of spaghetti sauce, which I will be finding this time next year, but every single last speck of glass.

Because I know these feet are going to be with me forever.  I know what is real and good, and that is the life of my children.  Life.

I don’t know if Alice Hoffman knows life is good, if her book will end as a good book must, with a satisfactory and victorious ending (a love ending).  I do know if I write a book, it will be filled top to bottom, end to end, and side to side with “Just do it” love.

Amen.

P.S.  Don’t miss The Homefront Show Fridays at 2:00 MTN.  Go to 1360am.co and join the fun!

 

 

Happy Mother’s Day to Me, Maybe Not So Much to Others

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

I wrote a poem for my own therapy this morning after thinking over a women’s meeting I attended earlier this week.  The group leader suggested that Mother’s Day is not a happy day for most women.  She said something to this effect:  they either have a terrible mother, a mother who recently passed away, aren’t a mother and want to be, are estranged from their children, have children far away they miss terribly, were a mother and blew it, etc.

I felt, sitting there among women who appeared to agree with this, that I wouldn’t answer the question of the night entirely truthfully.  The question was this:  What annual holiday, event or occasion is your favorite?

There was some bah-humbugging, and answers such as, “Memorial Day because I don’t have to do a thing” (because someone else’s sacrifice made such a society and therefore such a day possible?); and “I don’t like Christmas, it’s too much work” (rejoicing and celebrating and giving and showing love and looking at lights and listening to beautiful music and thanking God for Jesus is work????); and of course there were positive answers as well, but no one mentioned Mother’s Day as their favorite..

And so, to the question of the evening I answered, “Christmas.”  I wanted to say “Mother’s Day and Christmas and my birthday and my anniversary and violent thunderstorms rolling down the canyons and deep fog settling over the peaks.  I wanted to say my favorite time is early morning when the sun shines on the rocks on the cliff behind my house, and Fall, and really October through December when we have birthdays and our anniversary, and Thanksgiving (Yay!!!) and then gift shopping and gift making, decorating, caroling, wearing red sweaters, getting the tree out of the woods and making a popcorn garland (last year was the first time we did this – so cool!), Christmas music and movies, driving through town to look at the lights, reading Christmas stories like The Night Before Christmas and looking at the art in The Legend of Holly Claus and anything by Jan Brett, packages in the mail, and on and on.  Then comes the after-Christmas party, and my birthday and New Year’s and then the glorious quiet of January.

And the winter rest.

Then Spring hints and pushes at winter’s slackening hold with the first crocuses peeping through the snow.  And robins venture out.  Thank you, God, for Robin Redbreast.

And there’s this morning, when I said to John, “It’s truly springtime!  The ground is absolutely saturated, and the redworms are crawling all over the drive, and the aspen leaves are growing by the minute and the dandelions are here!”

And my thoughts go to my children, hoping for springtime in their hearts, and I pray for one’s salvation, for one’s answering God’s call to preach, for one’s owning his own business and excelling therein.  And for the one at Fort Benning, Georgia –  as I write he’s nearing the end of a 12-hour ruck march – I pray for strength and protection for his spine, for a second (or third) wind, and most of all, that he will give God all the glory for His unmerited grace and favor.

This is the glory of motherhood – being used by God to fight for our children, God’s children, all children, and to never give up until the victory is won.  And God is so marvelous as to bless the childless with spiritual children.  Many are the children needing a surrogate mother, a spiritual mother.  Whether we have natural children or not, whatever our mothering situation and status may be, we are women, and therefore uniquely qualified to nurture and to fight.  And to win.  In Him.

And so, even with great sorrow and a history of prayers for women regarding children – aborted, lost, wayward, rebellious, sick, sorrowing, never conceived – I nevertheless reserve the right to glory in this day, and in the hope of His calling.

And here’s my poem, Happy Mother’s Day to Me.

Happy Mother’s Day to me,

I say because I’m free

Free to win and free to dance

Free to seize another chance.

 

Happy Mother’s Day to me,

Blessed by God to really see

Life to give, life to share

Anointed of Christ who truly cares.

 

Happy Mother’s Day to me

From the God of Love to Be

All He ever hoped and planned

Life so good, life so grand.

 

Happy Mother’s Day to me.

 

The Home Artiste and Mother’s Day

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

LAST WEEK THE RAIN AND FOG AND THE CHILL CAME IN – AND THE BARELY GREEN ASPEN TREES WERE SHROUDED IN CLOUD.  MY DAUGHTER REBEKAH RIGHTLY DISCERNED IT WAS THE PERFECT TIME FOR A TEA PARTY AND SOME GOOD CONVERSATION, WITH SOME LOVELY MUSIC.  I HAD BEEN PLANNING TO DO SOME PAINT PREPPING, BUT IT WOULD KEEP.

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WEDNESDAY MORNING WAS MUCH THE SAME AND WHEN I ASKED JOHN IF HE WAS STILL SURE HE WANTED A SMOOTHIE FOR BREAKFAST IN THE INTEREST OF TIME, HE WASN’T SO SURE.

SO HERE’S WHAT WENT DOWN:

I PUT SPROUTED AND BUTTERED BREAD IN THE OVEN ON LOW, AND THE SERVING BOWLS AS WELL – PUT COLD BOWLS INTO THE OVEN BEFORE TURNING IT ON, NOT AFTER IT’S HOT. (IF I HAD BEEN GOING TO SERVE FRIED EGGS, I WOULD HAVE ALSO HEATED THE PLATES – FOR FOUR PEOPLE I HEAT SIX PLATES, THEN I HAVE ONE EXTRA ON TOP AND ON BOTTOM, AND WRAP IN DISH TOWELS WHEN I TAKE THEM OUT AND THERE’S NO STRESS ABOUT THE HORROR COLD EGGS!).

THEN THERE’S ALSO A PLATE TO PUT THE EGGS ON AS THEY’RE FINISHED FRYING, WITH A LID OR COVERING OF SOME SORT TO KEEP THEM WARM UNTIL SERVING.  WE CALL THESE EGGS “DIPPIES”, AS YOU HAVE DONE WHITES, BUT YOLKS NICELY RUNNY AND GOLDEN FOR DIPPING TOAST INTO!  (I LEARNED TO CALL THEM “DIPPIES” FROM JANE BROCKET IN “THE GENTLE ART OF DOMESTICITY – EXCELLENT, JANE IS!)

I DUMPED HALF A JAR OF CHUNKY CINNAMON APPLESAUCE INTO A PAN AND ADDED WALNUTS AND RAISINS AND BEGAN HEATING. THE TEA KETTLE WAS FILLED AND HEATING AS REBEKAH SET THE TABLE WITH MILK IN A CREAM PITCHER, HONEY, ETC.

I HEATED THE TEAPOT WITH HOT WATER THEN EMPTIED IT AND SET IT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STOVE ON THE WARMING ZONE, ADDED FOUR BAGS OF ROOIBOS TEA AND COVERED IT WITH A TEA COZY ( I WOULD MUCH PREFER A NICE ENGLISH BLACK TEA, ACTUALLY) – ALL READY FOR BREWING. ANOTHER THING I WOULD HAVE DONE IF IT WERE REALLY A COLD DAY IS USE STURDY THICK MUGS AND RUN HOT WATER INTO THEM FOR A BIT BEFORE SERVING TIME.

A PACKAGE OF THIN PORK CHOPS CAME OUT OF THE FREEZER AND WENT INTO A SKILLET WITH WATER TO BEGIN STEAMING APART AND COOKING (I COOKED THEM UNTIL THEY CARMELIZED AND MADE LOVELY BROWN GRAVY, OR AU JUS).

WE HAD LEFTOVER MASHED POTATOES SO I MADE THEM INTO BALLS AND PUT THEM IN THAT SAME SKILLET AFTER REMOVING THE PORK CHOPS INTO A SMALL SKILLET AND PUTTING ON A BACK BURNER ON LOW. ONCE THE POTATO BALLS WERE BROWN ON BOTH SIDES, I PLACED THE PAN ATOP THE PORK CHOP PAN AND PUT A LID ON TOP.

WHEN THINGS LOOKED TO BE NEARLY READY, I DUMPED LEFTOVER HOMEMADE SOURCREAM DIP AND A CUP OF LEFTOVER CHOPPED ONIONS AND SAUTEED THEM GENTLY IN A MIXTURE OF BUTTER AND OLIVE AND COCONUT OILS.

I WHIPPED UP SCRAMBLED EGGS WITH PEPPER AND SEA SALT, POURED THE STEAMING WATER INTO THE TEA POT.

NOTE:  I HAVE A SAUCER READY TO DUMP THE TEA BAGS ONTO BEFORE SERVING, AND A SAUCER OR POT HOLDER TO PLACE THE TEA POT ONTO FOR TABLE PROTECTION (THIS IS ALSO A POSSIBLE ISSUE WITH HOT PLATES, IN WHICH CASE THE TABLE SETTER PUTS A NAPKIN OR A PLACEMAT AT EACH SETTING.

YOU MAY THINK THIS SOUNDS COMPLICATED, BUT IT’S SIMPLY A MATTER OF DOING THINGS IN ORDER, AND GETTING INTO GOOD HABITS.

HAVING A LITTLE HELP IS NICE, TOO. IF YOU DON’T HAVE HELP, THOUGH, YOU JUST PREP AHEAD OF TIME AND THINK THINGS THROUGH.  SET THE TABLE, FILL THE CREAM PITCHER, PUT THE HONEY AND STRAWBERRY JAM ON THE TABLE (NO HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP IN THAT JAM!), WHIP YOUR EGGS AHEAD OF TIME, AND THAW THAT MEAT AHEAD OF TIME!

WHEN IT LOOKS LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE IS READY OR JUST ABOUT, POUR THE EGGS IN TO SCRAMBLE AND WHEN THEY’RE NEARLY DONE RING THE BREAKFAST BELL (YES, I DO HAVE ONE!)

OH, AND IF YOUR LOVELY DAUGHTER PUT ON MUSIC FOR YOU, AS DID REBEKAH WITH COLD PLAY’S “SOMETHING LIKE THIS” BE SURE TO DANCE ABOUT AND SING A BIT. WHAT A GIFT TO YOUR FAMILY:  A HOT, DELICOUS BREAKFAST WITH A DANCING, SINGING, SMILING MUM.

HMMM.  MIGHT THIS BEAR PONDERING WITH REGARD TO MOTHER’S DAY, AND ALL MY FAMILY’S SO HOPING I LIKE THIER GIFTS, AND THAT MY DAY IS TRULY SPECIAL?  COULD IT BE THAT I SHOULD SIMPLY FOCUS ON REJOICING IN GOD FOR MOTHER’S DAY AND ALL IT MEANS?

I AM INCAPABLE OF PUTTING WORDS TO WHAT’S IN MY HEART, BUT I ASK GOD DAILY TO CLEANSE IT FROM ALL SELFISHNESS, SO THAT IT MAY BE FULL OF PRAISE AND SONG.  YES, THAT’S IT, OR AT LEAST A GLIMMER – I WANT MY FAMILY TO HAVE EVEN THE SLIGHTEST INKLING OF THEIR WORTH AND VALUE TO ME.  AND I WANT THEM TO SEE ME SMILE.  AND HEAR ME SING.  AND DANCE WITH ME.

THIS MOTHER’S DAY DON’T LAMENT A SINGLE THING. JUST ENJOY, AND GIVE, AND RECEIVE!

Conversation with Kids

~ Bev Parker ~ 3 Comments

My daughter Hannah was home yesterday, and she followed me around as I cleaned closets and drawers, chatting.  What fun.  What a joy to know she still likes to talk to me.

“How can I help, Mom?” she asked.  I had forgotten to eat, and knew sustenance would be good, so I requested a bit of a tea party.  We were soon sitting on the balcony, joined by Rebekah, and enjoying fruit, nuts and herbal tea.  Better still, we were enjoying conversation.

When I said I had to be gone for a minute and would be right back (putting another load of laundry on) they said, “You’d better be.”  How lovely to be wanted, popular, loved.  And what better way to achieve this exalted state than by loving listening.

This morning I was all set to return to the balcony alone for breakfast and research, but I couldn’t get away from Seth’s conversation.  I wanted to get on with my thing, but I remembered I don’t have anything on earth more important to do than to listen to my children.

“Follow me,” I told him, “and talk to me while I eat my breakfast.”  He joined me and discussed a book he’d read as a child, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Farmer Boy.  Marveling at what was expected and duly performed by kids back then, and discussing the differences in farming then and now, Seth was much more interesting, intriguing, and gratifying than anything I had on my precious agenda.

He left the balcony to be about his business and out popped Rebekah.  “I’ve been praying and searching for answers about my writing and my time management, Mom, (haven’t we all?) and let me show you this.”  She showed me passages from The Founder’s Bible about black American John Marrant, captive and then missionary to the Cherokees, and about his dealings with evangelist George Whitfield.  In listening closely I marveled at how God was reaching Rebekah and how she was receiving from Him.

Conversation with kids.  There’s very little kinder or more worthwhile that we can do with our time.  I’ll never forget the day I was, as usual, regaling my dad with every detail of my day at school.  “And then I go, and then she went, and then I went, and she goes . . . blah, blah, blah.”  Nothing like the beautiful thoughts of my children this morning.  And yet, my dad listened as though completely enthralled.

My older brother, who was waiting to go hunting with my dad, stood holding his deer rifle and tapping his foot.  Finally he could take it no longer.  “Did it ever occur to you,” he asked, “that Dad has anything better to do with his time than listen to you yak?”

I was horrified and embarrassed and suddenly acutely aware of the banality of my conversation.  But before I could answer, Dad answered for me.  “I don’t have a thing in the world more important to do than listen to Bev.”

Wow.  No wonder I pray lots.  No wonder I have every confidence God hears me.  No wonder I have done this great and good thing for my own children.  I converse with them, not at them.  I listen to them.

And they talk to me.  Glory Hallelujah!

happy-stick-girl

P.S.  The Proverbs 31 Woman “watches over the ways of her household.”  How better to watch over the ways of our households, to know what’s really happening in the precious hearts with which we’re entrusted, than to converse, to listen.

I Did Not Need My Economics Degree to Figure this One Out

~ Bev Parker ~ 1 Comment
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Just as I predicted, with the election of Donald Trump, the American economy is exploding.  And I believe that will mean fewer marriages ravaged by financial stress, more opportunities on all fronts, and most of all, I hope it means more moms will be able to be at home.  Homemakers, homekeepers, hearthtenders.

I not only hope, I earnestly and diligently pray that we are about to, once again, become a society where people are nurtured in the most excellent place of all – home.  And by the most blessed and privileged of all people – homemakers.

I wasn’t so privileged when I got the “education”, bought the Italian pumps and sported the chic haircut.  I had a fancy office all my own and a degree – a piece of paper – to prove I was somebody.

But now I have “medals”.  “You and John have medals,” a lady at church recently said to me after we stood together as a family before the congregation.  The pastor had asked our oldest son to come forward for prayer, along with John and me, before leaving for officer training in Fort Benning, Georgia.  Our other three joined us as well.  The pastor prayed, John prayed, and I managed to pray through the tears of an utterly full heart.

There were other words spoken and joys shared and then those words from a lady I didn’t know.  “You and John have medals.”  She paused and I waited as she gazed at our children.  “Your children are medals.”

Indeed.  And we fought for them.  We fought financial fears when I chucked that fancy job to stay home with Benjamin.  “It’s an opportunity to trust,” I said to John when the doctor said if I didn’t abort Hannah I would not survive.  Told I would miscarry Rebekah, again we donned the full armor of God and we fought.  Recovering from the C-section that brought us Seth, I battled for my health and vitality, and John prayed me through those wearying days.

Attempting to hear God and not our own insecurities or preferences, or the opinions of others, we stood our ground when we decided to home school.  John prayed as I sought self-discipline, self-control and patience.

Always, we suited up for battle with the Word of God in our mouths, saying what He said about our children, rather than what we wanted to spew out of our mouths.  This child is impossibly strong-willed, stubborn, willful, and I am at my wit’s end with her!  was the thought.  The words were prayers and positive scriptural confessions:  “This child is my great and glorious gift, fearfully and wonderfully made for God’s purposes and she will live in the light and bring blessings all the days of her life.”

And so on.  Through the years I have made the most powerful and eternally profitable investment a woman ever has the privilege to make:  I have raised my children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  I have been a homemaker.

For John, the husband who supported my determination to do whatever it took to raise my children (for a time we took all four of them with us on our trim and tile jobs) I am grateful beyond all measure.

Because I raised my older children as a single mother, or rather they were raised by the daycare center and the public school system, I know the immeasurably high cost of a “real” job, of a society-sanctioned career.  I know the ever-diminishing returns on that kind of investment – investment in the world’s ways.

“I simply can’t go through that again,” I said to John when we talked about my returning to work and finding childcare for Benjamin.  It wasn’t just about my baby, it was about me, and my peace of mind.  It was about that deepest of needs in my heart, the need to make a home for my family, to be a homemaker.

A homemaker who is also a homeschooler has it made in the shade, especially if she has a strong and good husband.  Her life in no way resembles the stereotype of the harried and frantic chicken-with-her-head-cut-off mommy.  Rather, if she seeks the impartation of wisdom freely given via simply asking the Holy Spirit and reading God’s Word each and every single morning, she grows ever more skillful in battle, ever more confident and in full receipt of her rewards.  Her life is lived in rhythms of grace, rather than in sorrow and regret.

If I had it to do over in what I call my “first life” I would have cleaned houses and taken my babies with me, or lived in a tent by the river, or moved in with family.  But I would not have sacrificed my children on the altar of career, I would not have bought the line that I “couldn’t afford” to do otherwise.

I would have said, “What I can’t afford is the breaking of the little hearts and spirits of my children by leaving them in the care of, at best, indifferent workers while I go and chase the almighty dollar.

I am eternally grateful for this second chance, but regarding my older children, there are no overs.  I urge and exhort you, if you have young children being raised by others as your heart yearns for them, pray and believe God for the highest of callings and privileges, that He will make the way, that He will be the author and the finisher of your parenting, your marriage, your family.  Your home.

Then say joyously to all who ask who you are and what you do:  I AM A HOMEMAKER.

Courtesy Begins at Home

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

heart-in-gate” . . . there is no place in the world where the amenities of courtesy should be so carefully maintained as in the home. There are no hearts that hunger so for the expressions of affection as the hearts of which we are most sure.  There is no love that so needs its daily bread as the love that is strongest and holiest.  There is no place where rudeness or incivility is so unpardonable as inside our own doors and toward our best beloved.”  – Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D. in Home-Making

Rude and disrespectful children were not taught at home the example of kindness and consideration.  They were not shown by their parents the value of respecting the hearts of others.

From the time our kids were small we praised them for their kindnesses to others, and actively taught them how to bring light to the lives of others via small kindnesses.  And it began at home.

“Your sister is a gift from God, one that you will always have.  When you’re a very old man and have a sad day you will call her and tell her your troubles and she will pray for you and tell you she loves you,” we told the boys more than once.

“Some girls don’t have brothers,” I remember telling one of the girls.  “Your brother will grow up to be a good, strong, kind man just like your dad, and he will always care about you and always help you and always love you.”

And so forth.  And then, we would tell them to spend just a little time alone to pray (it’s never too early to teach a child to take their burdens to Jesus) and later they were required to give each other hugs and say, “I love you.”

To this day we have four kids who love each other and show it.  They are kind and courteous almost all of the time.  And if they slip up we are quick to check them.  As I said to our oldest son not long ago, “You will never have a truer friend, you will never know a more quality person, than your brother.  He’s a 17-year-old male right now, and if you’ll think back to when you were a 17-year-old male . . .”

He got the point:  Courtesy begins at home.

“The tenderer the love and the truer, the more it craves the thousand little attentions and kindnesses which so satisfy the heart.” –  Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D. in Home-Making

The Church of Homemade Apple Pie

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

For my son’s birthday (Nov. 3) I made apple pie.

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(I failed to take a picture, so I made use of this picture made by someone whose baking skills exceed mine.)

Three kinds of apples, three healthy sweeteners, lemon juice, spices, a little flour for thickening, then marinating in the fridge overnight.

A crust with two kinds of flour, salt, butter, coconut oil.  Should have had some vodka (keeps it tender) but it was, as are most of my pies, a creative endeavor making use of the materials at hand.

We (daughter and I) peeled enough for two pies, sliced them thinly and smashed and piled them into one pie.  I asked the birthday boy if I could add raisins (no!), and how about doing a crisp top crust made up of oats, butter, sugars, salt, and chopped walnuts?  “No, Mom, just plain, traditional apple pie.”

I don’t really do “plain, traditional” but I came close enough.  The pie was a big pie and a big hit, and it didn’t hurt that I whipped heavy cream with a pinch of salt, a bit of almond flavoring, and a tablespoon or so of honey to liberally pile atop each slice.

The pie was enjoyed with laughter, candlelight, and song.  I was chastised by my wondering children for starting “Happy Birthday” before the candles were lit (we are all in agreement that a large three-wick candle in the midst of the table works just fine for every birthday, and eliminates the cringing we all do when someone spits on the candles, and thereby the pie).

As a student of economics and government, I thought about pie slice sizes, and how my professors talked so often about scarcity, and pieces of the pie.  I thought of the socialist idea that there is only so much pie to go around, and that we must all share and share alike, our tiny sliver of a sliver.

I thought of the apple pie served to the masses – storebought, from old and tired and flavorless apples, with bleached GMO white sugar, thinly layered into a nasty, off-tasting crust.  Said pies are not, as was mine, baked at home in a large red pie dish.  Rather, they are each merely one of hundreds, baked in throw-away aluminum via industrial ovens.  For the masses.  Those of whom there are too many, supposedly creating scarcity.

I am here to submit that God’s way is a very large and luscious and multi-nuanced, soul-nourishing pie.  God’s way is more people to plant more apple trees, to get creative and try new varieties of apples, cooked with various kinds of sweeteners, in pies, cakes, tarts, ciders, juices, sauces, and anything else the unendingly creative human mind can dream up.

God’s way is more pie.  Enough for you and whoever He puts on your heart to invite into your home and partake.

God’s way is a variety (for every individual taste, because He is not the God of stereotypes, of groups – He is the God of each and every precious individual, unique-in-all-the-world human being) of coffees and teas to go with the pie, and the giving of thanks that He is the Blesser, the Giver, the Abundant One.

The Church of Apple Pie.  Try that thought on for size.  Your have a choice:  The Church of Slivers and Scarcity vs. The Church of Apple Pie.

It begins with each of us, looking in the mirror, being Apple Pie to those at home – not stingy in anything at all.  Partakers of His bounty, that we might pass it on.

We live in a world physically and spiritually starving for big, spicy, delicious slices of apple pie.  And since we’re all different, some of us want raisins, some want rum sauce atop our whipped cream.  Some want plain, traditional apple pie.  Some, unbelievably and inconceivably, don’t want apple pie at all, ever.  They want pumpkin, or peanut butter chocolate.  But I think it’s safe to say, whatever pie we prefer, we want more than a sliver, about which we have to feel we’re stealing from someone else.

Let’s do away with the lack mentality.  Like storebought pie, it’s from Hell.

 

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No Thank You Very Much!

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

mother and child hands

You do not want a soul tie to anyone who thinks the brutal demolition of a full-term baby is “reproductive health”.  Period.

In all elections, in all issues, take the life stance.  Take a stand for life.  If someone wants your support for a position on your podunk library board, find out where they stand – life or death, blessing or cursing.  They may run for mayor next, and then for state rep, and perhaps one day be your governor.  It is not hate to have the courage to stand against those who will call you a hater for choosing to choose life.  Life.  If we don’t stand for life, we are bowing to death.

Educate yourself and you will find unborn babies have beating hearts, they feel the pain of their bodies being mutilated, and they are unique in all the earth, as are we all. As the Word of God says, we’re knit together in our mother’s wombs, fearfully and wonderfully made.

The pro-life view is not the view of hate.  What could possibly be more filled with hate, more hateful, than the murder of a baby?  And yet, as in all things Satanic, there is the confusion of people calling those of us who disagree with their positions “haters.”

I, for one, am a lover.   I love my aborted friends, and bleed for them as they struggle with their bone-deep regrets.  I love the children we’ll never know, and their fathers and grandfathers.  And I love those souls, so many of them Christians, who don’t want to see Roe v. Wade overturned.

I also love inconvenience, financial struggles, embarrassment, and having my plans messed with.  Inconvenience means I’m going to sweat a bit, which is good for me.  So, if a pregnancy is inconvenient, hooray!  Financial struggles always bring out the fight in me, and cause me to get smart and creative, another hooray!  Pride is the root of embarrassment, so anything that roots that out is a good thing.  And having my little plans messed with – oh, that is such a grand thing!

Yes, we’re talking about unplanned pregnancies.  I think it’s a good bet that I was “unplanned” by my parents, but God has a different view of me.  I’m sure I was a financial burden, and at times very inconvenient.  So, out of these four reasons people often cite as a justification for killing their baby (inconvenient, too expensive, embarrassing to the family, unplanned), I scored three out of four on arguments FOR abortion.

And then there’s that STUPID “health of the mother” argument.  I was once told I would die if I didn’t abort.  Well, I’m still here, as is my lovely daughter.  As I told the doctor.  “If I die, I die, there will be no abortion.”  He screamed at me, I found another doctor.  But back to the argument:  there is nothing on earth more unhealthy for a mother than destroying her child.

And what could be more unhealthy for a society than the belief that life doesn’t matter?  The ramifications of abortion are beyond measure.  I will never forget having to answer our kids’ question, “Mom, what’s abortion?”  And as I struggled to answer it, watching the horror and the disbelief on their young faces, I thought of the busybody home schooling opponents in our lives.  “You’re overprotective.  Your kids won’t be properly socialized.”  Blah, blah, blah.  In a world where children are ripped from the wombs of the one created to nurture and love them all the days of their lives, there is no way to fully protect a child’s heart.  The best I could do was to assure them that this was the ultimate example of the evil of the enemy of their souls, and lead them in prayer that one day, we would again be a nation under the love and blessing of God, rather than under the curse of abortion.

How are we different from societies who threw their children into volcanoes to appease angry gods?  They at least thought of it as a sacrifice.  We abort because we do not value God’s ultimate gift, the greatest showing of His creative power and grace:  a child.

Let us no longer look to the opinions of liars and fools, deceived to deceive.  Let us look to Jesus, the one who made us free.  Free to choose love, liberty, and life..

Vote life.  Period.

 

“I came that you might have (and choose) life.” – Jesus, in John 10:10

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment
praying baby
          Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women.”  I believe that Mary was much more than we know, that she is a model, a pattern for emulating, and that in his hatred for her, Satan has twisted and snapped the threads of that life pattern for a tapestry of rhythm and grace.  He turns what God intends for life, into death.
          That is how I see abortion – the ultimate success for the ultimate woman hater.  We are endowed with the ability to create the ultimate masterpiece – a child.  We partner, as did Mary, with God, to make sons and daughters who can bring light to the darkness, beauty for ashes, healing for the broken. 
          My brokenness began with buying Satan’s lie that casual sex (no mating for life marriage commitment) is OK.  I had that unplanned pregnancy, the one where abortion was suggested.  I can only thank God and my heritage – not that of a Christian upbringing (which I didn’t have) but that of parents who loved me unconditionally, and who taught by example the preciousness of a child – for the existence of that child in the world today.  How glad I am that Mom and Dad were too unworldly, too “unsophisticated”, to buy the lie from Hell that children are expendable, that abortion is a solution to anything at all, ever.
          And so I sit in the middle of the night, pondering the angel’s words in Luke 1:28.  I do rejoice in the face of temporal stresses, heartaches, things not as I want them to be, children partaking of my past brokenness.  And yet, there is no denying it:  I am highly favored.  God has given me children, and He has shown my volatile and wayward heart over and over and over that He is with me.  I am blessed among women.
          And  therein lies the sadness.  There are too few women walking in my shoes.  I look around me, especially at church, and I want to wear a sign:  GOD DID THIS AND HE’LL DO IT FOR YOU, TOO!!!!  Years ago I looked around as a single mother, bereft of that ever-so-essential ingredient in a family – Daddy.  I looked at the women in church, the married ones, and wanted to know two things:  Is it real, and if it is, is it forever beyond my reach?
          The day finally came when I had the courage to believe, to trust, to call (loudly) on God.  “Lord,” I said, “I need a husband.  I don’t care if he’s tall or short, fat or skinny. I don’t care where he’s from or what he does for a living.  I just want a good, honest man who will love me like I am.”
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          Two weeks later, after a nine-year drought, God sent John.  John the Blessing, John the Family Man.  John who knew the value of a child.  John who God knew would heal my brokenness through the very love of Christ Himself abiding in John’s heart and being passed on to mine. 
          And John who would partner with God and with me to make a family, the most beautiful thing of all. Our children weren’t planned or affordable or convenient.  They were and are simply the greatest of all blessings, the highest of all honors and privileges, the gifts beyond all gifts. 
          And that, Dear Reader, is what you and I are to God.
          Rejoice, highly favored one.

“Well, who do you think is pretty?”

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

mannequin2

When my daughter Jane was ten and carrying on about the latest Hollywood sensations, John pulled a face at her taste.  “Well, who do you think is pretty?” she demanded.

“You.  Your mother.  My mother, my granny, my sister,” he replied.  Out of all the brilliant things John has said, that was one of the most brilliant.

That was years ago, but this morning I awoke thinking about how our society makes heroes out of quite and very unheroic women, at least as compared to those near and dear to me.  What, I wondered, would I say to anyone asking me, not who was pretty, but who was beautiful, heroic, worthy of praise and emulation in my life?

“My mother, my grandmother, my mother-in-law, my sisters-in-law, my friends, my daughters, daughter-in-law, and granddaughters.”

I remember my dad talking about my grandmother chasing a poisonous snake who was trying to escape under their house.  “You’ll not get near these children,” she shouted as she brought a garden hoe down on it, severing it’s head.  When I was little she used to put The Happy Goodmans on to play for me.  She deftly peeled what may have been the world’s best tomatoes (grown in her weedless garden) with her ever sharp paring knife, sliced them into thick, fat, juicy slices and served them to me with salt.   One day, I vowed, I would do that for someone.

tomatoes

But how would I ever emulate my mom?  I’ll never be as strong as she is was my silent concern.  She never stopped moving except maybe once on “slow” days for a cup of coffee and a Lucky Strike.  She was up before us to put a fantastic breakfast (a platter full of meat, eggs, biscuits, gravy) on the table, to starch our jeans, and then off (for the second time) to her many-thousand chickens.  She was up waiting when I got home from basketball games (once it was 2:00 a.m. and there she stood, leaning on the kitchen counter for support, smoking her Lucky Strike).  She didn’t say “I love you” she did love.

coffee

And then there’s my mother-in-law who taught my manly man husband to cook, can, sew, clean, iron, and to always be clean, neat, and presentable.  So when our youngest, Seth, was born, John brought the older three to the hospital looking like little dolls.  The nurses went on about it.  “Who dressed those kids?” one asked.  I was bewildered.  Who do you think? 

“John did,” I told her.  “Well, I never!” she said.  “Just look at them.  All spit and polish!”  And so I looked.  Their clothes were ironed, Benjamin’s hair parted perfectly, the girls’ hair curled, their eyes shining.  In other words, looking like kids should look when they’re coming to see their new sibling and their mother.  Did other dads bring the kids to see mom looking any other way?  Evidently.  Talk about dumb as a post.

And who was to thank for that?  My mother-in-law.  Well, and John being smarter than a post.

And then there are my sisters-in-law (brothers’ wives) who stayed with my brothers through thick and thin, who are excellent mothers, citizens, and friends.  As for John’s sister, even when her life was falling COMPLETELY apart, she was fun, kind, and positive.  How many women “leaders” can say that?  These sisters of mine!  All of them are absolutely indispensable to the welfare of all of us blessed by their presences in our lives.  I really could never say enough about any of them.

I won’t even start with my friends, except to say that my dad was right when he said to me years ago, “Bev, you’ve always had truly good friends.”  Indeed I have.  They have filled gaps, dried tears, inspired, listened, commiserated, advised, and loved me through some pretty dark days.  Real women, that’s what they are.

And then there are my daughters, daughter-in-law, and granddaughters.  Let me just say right here that there aren’t a handful of movie stars in history as lovely as these young women, as brilliant, funny, kind, or true.

I’ve said all this to say that we might stop taking note of celebrities who we’ll most likely never even meet, and start celebrating those women near and dear.

little girl praying