Jillyshelly: Proverbially Speaking

I have been struggling with depression this past week. It’s not clinical depression, rather it’s that short-term version that hits most of us from time to time. The hard part is that it’s hitting me at Christmas. I mean, seriously!?!? I’m supposed to be full of joy. My kids are enjoying this season. My hubby is enjoying this season. I’ve been trying to figure out the source of my depression since I’m not experiencing any obvious reason to be depressed.

I guess I’m just weary right now because our family has been taking turns with various illnesses for the last couple months, our van has required a costly internal makeover, and the list of other minor annoyances goes on. The strange (Holy Spirit) thing is that my face has been turned to Jesus more than usual this Advent season. My thoughts have been full of grief and sorrow for the sinful, dying state of this world. I’ve been thinking a lot about others who are depressed this time of year because they are grieving loved ones, feeling let down because they can’t financially provide the type of Christmas they wish they could, or they’re battling some other physical or spiritual battle. As I pray for the people disappointed and hurt during this season, God reminds me that THIS IS WHAT’S IT ABOUT! Jesus was sent by Father to rescue us from this pain. His rescue did not look like a big red and green wrapping paper fiesta either. It was ugly and brutal. Jesus’s birth and first coming was brutal. No one threw him a baby shower. Yes, he got a few gifts – but they weren’t gifts to pamper him or make diaper changing easier for his parents. The gifts he received were to acknowledge He is King! I believe that is what he wants from me and my family – he wants us to acknowledge HE IS KING. So, I’m praying that I meditate on my rescuer and that it leads me to a gratitude and joy that erases the depression. I’m praying that when my son threw a fit the other day because he wasn’t getting his way, that he took my advice and thanked God for rescuing him from that sinful behavior. I pray it leads him to gratitude and joy and that he finds hope in our rescuer, not in Christmas gifts.

This line from Jars of Clay’s Valley Song has been on my lips for days now, “I will sing of Your Mercy, that leads me through valleys of sorrow, to rivers of joy.”  Amen.

(Abbi 2 years ago.)

This is Ezra around 6 weeks (thanks to our friend, Matt). He’s now 10 months old and he is so big! I am really excited to start updating my blog again, but I don’t have the clarity of thought or access to my pics right now to do so. I know I have a few family members who would like to see some updates from us and I hope to share something more “substantial” later.

After a rather difficult end to my pregnancy (I had such bad back pain I could barely walk for the last month), and a challenging birth (the baby was briefly stuck during the pushing process), Ezra Michael graced us with his presence. He was born one day before his oldest brother’s 5th birthday and eight days past his due date. He was also my biggest baby – weighing in at 10 lbs. 11 oz. I had a wonderful support system during his birth – my sweet and encouraging hubby, my dear friend and doula to guide me, challenge me, and cheer me on, and a wonderful midwife who was laid back and let my body and instincts lead the way. My midwife was such a gift to me – she was not pushy or domineering and only “took control” of the situation when I needed to do some fancy flipping moves to get the baby’s shoulder unstuck (without medical intervention… oh yeah). I thank God for giving me such a wonderful birthing team.

The past six weeks have been challenging and wonderful. The transition from 3 to 4 kids has been more difficult for me than the 2 to 3 kid transition. Much of this is due to the challenge of raising a spunky near 2 year old girl and a strong-willed near-4 year old boy. As the days pass by though, and I regain my strength and work on our habits and routines, my heart gets calmer and I become more hopeful that our new normal is going to be great (still chaotic, I’m sure ).

I’m due with kiddo #4 in 8 days… and back pain and lack of sleep are trying to get the best of me. I say “trying” because the Holy Spirit has really been gracious to me the last couple of weeks. Anxiety started to set in a couple of weeks ago regarding my lack of sleep and the upcoming pain of childbearing. I was up a few nights in a row just praying for hours. I also had sweet friends & my hubby praying for me as well. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be anxious about anything, rather be in prayer & petition… but I kept being seized by fear. After processing things with the Lord, I acknowledged and confessed that I was doubting God’s goodness and his care for me. I felt like He had let me down during Eli & Abbi’s births… (with Eli-midwife being fired & not allowed to labor in tub, with Abbi-not being allowed to birth at birthing center, midwife out on vacation, doula sick, again not being permitted to labor in tub).

Anyway, the Lord reminded that I trust my hubby’s goodness and find tons of comfort with him… and that my hubby is an imperfect sinner. He reminded me that He loves me a million more times than my hubby and that His goodness and care for me is perfect and to be even more trusted than Hubby’s. The Lord also reminded me that He has given me 3 precious children and I need to stop being in a nesting frenzy and enjoy them… embracing the messy house, and putting organizational and homeschooling goals on hold. He reminded me that this precious baby growing in me needs some loving too… right now… so I’ve been talking & singing & petting him a lot more lately (something his siblings have been doing consistently for months now). I feel so much more connected to this little babe, more connected to my family, and thankfully more in tune with the Lord and SPIRITUAL REALITY. I am thankful that the Holy Spirit has helped me face my fears and I am confident he will help me do that during birth. It is amazingly beautiful how this childbearing pain has a purpose. Praise God!

This year I am continuing to use the Advent Tree my mom and I made last year to teach the boys about the true meaning of Christmas, and to prepare all of our hearts to celebrate Jesus’ first arrival on earth as well as his upcoming return. Here is a brief description of what we’ll be doing this season. I have pulled advent ideas from books, blogs and my own brain – then tailored them to meet the needs of my 3 and 4 year old boys. I’ll list my not-from-brain sources at the end of this post.

My boys loved the treasure hunts from last year to find large items that didn’t fit in the pockets, so I plan on doing it again. I use clip art images since they can’t read, though I may add the words for Justice’s sake since he’s starting to sound out and recognize words.  Also, I only purchased one book from the store for them this year as well as a couple other items. The rest of the books were bought at garage sales or given to us. I really tried not to spend too much money on this project.

(Day 1) God Created all Things, Through Jesus

Read: Genesis 1:1, Col 1:15-16:  (On Scripture Card)

Pocket: Scripture Card & Glow in the dark stars & moon to remind us God is The Creator of the world

(Day 2) The Fall & God’s Promise to send a Savior

Read: Genesis 3, Isaiah 42:1-7, Isaiah 7:14 (On Scripture Card)

Pocket: Scripture Card, Nativity Sticker Book

(Day 3) Mary Visited by the Angel

Read: Luke 1:26-33 (On Scripture Card)

Pocket: Scripture Card, The Angel Gabriel coloring page

(Day 4) Christmas Tree & Lights (Jesus = Light of World, Tree = Reminder of Creation)

Read: Genesis 1:1, John 8:12 (On Scripture Card)

Pocket: Scripture Card, Votive Candles

(Day 5) Jesus’ Birth

Read: Matthew 1: 18-25 (On Scripture Card) *Edit* I read Luke 2:1-20 from kids’ Bible since it’s more of a nativity description.

Pocket: Scripture Card & Play Dough to create Nativity Scene

(Day 6) St. Nicholas Day

Review what we learned last year about his life & how Santa is similar & different

Pocket: None, Gift in Stocking, Watch Veggie Tales St. Nicholas Video

(Day 7) Candy Cane

Read: Luke 2:8-11 (On Scripture Card)

Pocket: Scripture Card, Candy Cane & Treasure Hunt to find J is for Jesus book

(Day 8)  Star of Bethlehem

Read: Matthew 2:1-2 (On Scripture Card)

Pocket: Scripture Card, Star-Shaped Cookie Cutters to bake cookies

(Day 9) The Wise Men and Gift Giving

Read: Matthew 2:11, Matthew 25:40

Pocket: Treasure Hunt to find Christmas Mouse Book, Shop online for Compassion International or World Vision

(Day 10) Giving – As Service

Read: Acts 20:35 (On Scripture Card)

Pocket: Scripture Card Only, Possibly serve at Church’s Soup & Socks

(Day 11) Family Christmas Movie Night – God is the Best Gift-Giver (redemption, family, etc)

Read: James 1: 17 (On Scripture Card)

Pocket: Scripture Card, Popcorn for Movie Night & Tree Garland

(Day 12) Spread Christmas Cheer

Pocket: Items to make home made Christmas Cards

(Day 13) The Eyes of the Lord

Read: Psalm 33:18 (On Scripture Card)

Pocket: Scripture Card, yarn & popsicle sticks to create Ojos de dios ornaments

(Day 14) Snowflakes as a Reminder of Purity through Christ

Read: Isaiah 1:18 (On Scripture Card), Revelation 3: 5

Pocket: Scripture Card, Items to make home made snowflakes

(Day 15) Review God’s Plan for Christ the Redeemer

Read: Luke 1:26-38

Pocket: Treasure Hunt to find 3 Trees Book

(Day 16) Gift Wrapping/Bows Remind us God binds up the broken-hearted

Read: Isaiah 61:1-3 (On Scripture Card)

Pocket: Scripture Card, Bows or Ribbon to make bows

(Day 17) Mail Gifts to Family in Other Cities

No Readings Today

Pocket: Hot chocolate to warm us after being in the cold & long line at the post office!

(Day 18) Make a Joyful Noise to the Lord (with Christmas Bells)

Read: Isaiah 66:1-2 (On Scripture Card)

Pocket: Scripture Card, Bell & Songs: I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, Jingle Bells

(Day 19) Death & Resurrection of the One True King

Read: Luke 24

Pocket: Items to make crowns to remember Jesus is THE KING!

(Day 20) Review Jesus’s Life

Pocket: Treasure Hunt to find Jesus Christ, the Best King of All book – Read

(Day 21) Worship God

Read: Psalm 95:1-6 (On Scripture Card)

Pocket: Scripture Card, Treasure Hunt to find Book: The Family Treasury of Classic Christmas Carols

(Day 22) Sharing the Good News Like the Shepherds did

Read: Luke 2:17-18

Pocket: Items to create a banner to hang in entryway announcing Jesus birth

(Day 23) Giving Jesus a Gift

Read: 2 Cor: 9:15 (Scripture Card)

Pocket: Scripture Card, Treasure hunt to find book: Ronnie Wilson’s Gift, box & wrapping paper & writing paper & pencil to help kids record the gifts they can give Jesus. READ BOOK FIRST TO HELP THEM UNDERSTAND WHAT KIND OF GIFT… service, time, praise, etc.

(Day 24) Prepare to Celebrate Jesus’s First Arrival and Upcoming Return

Read: Hebrews 12:28 (On Scripture Card), Revelation 4:9-11

Pocket: Scripture Card, Cake decorations to bake Jesus a birthday cake

(Day 25) Celebrate Jesus’s Arrival with cake & gift giving!

References: Before and After Christmas: Activities & Ideas -Advent & Epiphany, http://www.womenbiblelife.com/p/2010-advent-calendar.html, http://www.jesse-trees.com/

Justice is definitely ready to learn how to read. Our Letter of the Week routine (which I’ll post more about another time) and Before Five in a Row are not challenging him enough and he’s been spelling out words on his own. So, I’ve been exploring how to start teaching him to read… and hope to get over my fear and start doing it next week! Yes, I’m still putting it off.
Eli, however can handle about 45 minutes to 1 hour of focused “school work” before he gets super antsy. I was reminded again of how different he and Justice are. J willingly sings school songs, answers questions, and does the activity presented to him. Eli protests everything – even if he ends up willingly doing it and enjoying it. J was never like this last year!
Abbi is getting more used to school time – which has centered around the coffee table a lot because she participates better with us that way. The first week I ended up putting her in the pack-n-play to get her off the coffee table and out of our supplies – I hated doing this. This week I have given her things to do that are similar to her brothers’ activity, but more at her developmental level (like finger painting instead of paint brush painting). Her attention span at 16 months is so much shorter than her brothers’ spans were at that age…so she hasn’t been paying much attention to the BFIAR stories. Sandra Boynton’s Fuzzy, Fuzzy, Fuzzy is still her favorite and she tries to turn every book into a scratch and feel book!
Anyway, those are my not-so-collected thoughts on our current home education experience.

Before Five in a Row

Last year I started semi-formal preschool education with Justice. It lasted for about three months, then became solely informal again. We spent most week days in Fall going over a new letter of the alphabet, reading books, completing worksheets and crafts, and cooking items related to the “letter of the day.” Justice loved doing “school work” as he referred to it, and missed it greatly once I got caught up in Advent planning and just plain ole life.

Since Don and I are hoping to homeschool our children for an undetermined amount of time (probably through elementary school at the least), I decided I should really focus on teaching Justice and Eli well this year. Justice is 4.5 and Eli is 3, so their young minds are ripe for new knowledge and experiences. I’m hoping to use this year to work out kinks in our schedule and our teaching/learning styles so kindergarten next year won’t offer to many aches and pains for us. Of course, I hope my little boys (and Abigail enjoy our school time as well).

I have chosen to use the Before Five in a (BFIAR) curriculum with all three kids. It’s geared toward children ages 2-4 and is a literature based program that offers many creative ways we can explore animals and other cultures around the world. I think this program will really engage Eli since he prefers books over toys anyway. I also think it will allow us to have quality snuggle time and fun outdoor adventures with Abigail as well. I thought about choosing Five in a Row (geared toward 4-8 year olds) because it might challenge Justice better, but I really wanted to include Eli and Abbi in the education process this year. I still think quality time and play time are the most important for all three of them. J will also have plenty of more challenging instruction from me alone.

Also as a group, I plan to take the kids on nature walks each day where they can be little “I Spy” scientists. They love playing I spy and they love collecting nature objects and identifying animals already, so I’m confident they will enjoy these activities. I’m not going to force our walks to be too focused, other than relating our BFIAR stories to them when appropriate. Basically, they will be armed with their binoculars, specimen gathering equipment, cameras and drawing materials to document what they find (since they don’t write yet).

The last element of our preschool will be focused more on Justice than Eli and Abigail. We will be doing more phonics, spelling, and writing exercises along with some math. We’ve got a lot of great printables and tools to use for this area. Eli will join in on some of this, but Justice will mainly work on these subjects during the little ones’ nap time.

So… there you have it… a basic outline of our Monday-Thursday school days. Friday is going to be our Free Day   I hope to keep you posted on our progress! Pray for us!!!

This IKEA spice rack alteration can be found on various blogs. I first heard about it from my friend, Betsy. Below is a pic of her new bookshelves. I purchased four of these for the boys’ room a few weeks ago, but am in the processing of painting them (my slow process) and don’t have them hanging yet. I told Kate about this brilliant idea when we went to IKEA last week. The racks are only $4 a piece

Ephesians 4:15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

I have several books on the subject of Biblical Counseling. Most of which I have I at least begun to read, but this book was the one that “hooked me.” Yes, I tend to be one of those “I’m not feeling the book right now I’ll pick it up later” kind of people. Anyway, I think the reason this book hooked my attention and kept me reading was that it is written to help Christians be more effective counselors professionally and privately. The author listed countless reasons why the popular psychology, psychotherapy, and personality theories of the day are false and not compatible with Christianity. Since I earned my Master’s degree in School Counseling from a secular program, I totally agree with Powlison’s points. I didn’t choose to study in the Clinical Counseling program because I believed that the theories of how (and why) people change were bunk. Even in the school concentration, I had to study lots of theories I didn’t agree with and the things I did agree with were true because they are biblical truths to begin with – but not acknowledge as such by the secular theorists.

Anyway, I do think about pursuing a Biblical Counseling degree in the future. But for now, my counseling focus is my family and relationships within the church. This book stresses that all Christians are called to counsel one another within our church communities and it designed to empower and encourage us to do so. I suggest Christians either read this book or one with less professional counseling references such as Seeing with New Eyes (Powlison) or Crosstalk: Where Life and Scripture Meet (Emlet). In my opinion (and that of my husband), Crosstalk is a bit dry and redundant. However, he’s studied counseling at a Bible College, so it may just be dry to us because it didn’t offer new information or insight.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

So, I’ve had to make some big decisions in the last few weeks regarding my master life schedule. I feel like I’ve been “back to school” planning as I consider my goals (rather, mine and Don’s goals) for our family and ministry. After wrestling with what I want to do (fleshy, fleshy, fleshy) and what God wants me to do (holy, holy, holy), I finally decided that I would stop teaching the Life Management class at our local homeless shelter for women. This initially was a rough decision for me to make because our next class session scheduled for September and October was going to focus on employment skills. It totally lines up with my previous employment history and I have tons of ideas on how to make the class beneficial to the women and how to utilize people from my church to prepare them for the world of work. Oh yeah, I was going to connect these women to jobs and awesome Jesus lovers!

Oh I would daydream of this next session in my head and think of how dazzling a job I would do and how all of these precious ladies would get great jobs as a result of my career counseling abilities. However, there was another side to what I would think of when planning this class. I would recall how much work it would take to prepare such a dazzling course and even how much work it would take to prepare a not-so-dazzling class. Then I would think about the work I wanted to put into pre-school for Justice and Eli this year, how I wanted to get/keep a grip on housework as I continue this pregnancy and it gets physically harder to do, and how I wanted more time to counsel and meet with women one on one this year. When these thoughts collided I felt completely unsettled. I knew I couldn’t possibly accomplish all of these things – well. I wasn’t willing to let go of the big ministry piece though… until I was reminded by my pastor during a sermon a few weeks ago that Jilly Jill’s flesh could not and would not create a dazzling class unless the Holy Spirit was the driving force behind it… and I knew God was calling me to let go and let trust the class to someone else. So, I did it. I put in my 2 weeks notice I am wrapping up my current session this week. No more Thursday mornings of babysitters and a completely disrupted schedule.

Thankfully, I won’t be completely done with the ladies from the shelter because I really enjoy ministry there. My friend and I started a Bible Study with a few of them last week and I am TOTALLY PUMPED about us growing in our gospel knowledge together! Don’t worry… this study is once every two weeks for 1.5 hours unlike my class which was one morning every week plus prep and follow-up time. The Lord is so patient and gracious with me!