Let Him Sing

Morning Friends,

I had the sweet blessing of posting at Sozowomen again yesterday. Hop on over to read about a
hidden talent of my man. No, really - it's about how I'm understanding to appreciate, to hold precious things dear, and to know and see what's important.


Oh, I am so learning as I go....thanks for coming along with me!

I'm hoping you'll see God's love  in gentle and tender ways today. Have a wonderful Thursday.

(I'll be here now until the end of the month or so.)

With love,

Shawnelle



"Let Him Sing"
http://sozowomen.com/2013/09/04/let-him-sing

Sweet, Small Stuff

Hi dear friends,

Hope this finds you warm, blessed,  with end-of-summer sun on your shoulders...

I'm posting over at Sozowomen today - another gentle in-the-van moment with Isaiah. Precious - how children can help open our eyes to God's wonderful things.

Here's the link. Thanks for hopping over and joining me there.

Sweet, Small Stuff

Monday blessings.

See you on Thurs!

With love,
Shawnelle

So Long, Old Man Sam!

We used to call Samuel Old Man Sam. When he was smaller, he loved to sit around in his robe and slippers. He drank tea. He talked about deep things. He learned to read at an early age so it was a normal thing to find him reading, sipping, wearing....

Sam is eleven now and Old Man Sam has gone out the window.

Sam's my adventure seeker. This summer meant para sailing and diving. It meant learning to water ski, too.

We're on the river and Sam balances on the edge of the boat, toes curling, brown arms at his side. He's about to plunge in. Then we'll hand him his skis. We'll toss in the ski rope. We'll circle around him and put the rope close and when he's ready we'll "hit it" and the boat will surge forward like mad.

My mama's heart beats a mile a minute.

Sam is in the water now. It takes a few times, but before long he's is up. He's standing, water spraying around him. He's grinning so big and he nods his head and we know the signal.

Faster, Dad.

Old Man Sam sheds and this born-to-be-wild son has arrived.

Sometimes I look at this boy and I don't know how we've gone from there to here. Sam was three when Gabe was born. Zay came two years later. I hope some of his precious time, some of those tender moments, weren't washed away in the rush of those crazy-busy years.

But it was good. Now Sam is growing. Changing. And it's a good thing, too.

Father let my son grow in the ways of Your son. Let him, like Jesus, grow in wisdom and stature and favor with You and men.

It's a prayer I lift for my boys often. That they'd grow physically, socially, intellectually, emotionally, but most of all spiritually. That they'd grow in the Lord. That they'd anchor deep as they stretch into men.

Sam's arms are tired. We've turned twice. He was careful not to ski over the wake yet. I know his legs are tired, too.

Eventually he lets go of the rope and glides into the water.

For a second I sit straight in my "spotter" seat. He's wearing a life jacket but the Mississippi - it churns strong.

Then I see his head. Blondness bobbing. We pull a little closer and I see that he's beaming, too.

I love this new boy.

It's okay to hold those memories dear. That little boy will forever be in in my heart.

 But it's also okay to bid farewell to Old Man Sam.

And to reach for the new man he'll become!

SozoWomen

Morning dear Friends,

I've recently been invited to join the beautiful ladies at SozoWomen as a site writer. Sweet blessing! The site is lovely, encouraging, insipiring. Glory to God!

I'll be posting there a couple of times a month. I'll continue to post every Monday and Thursday here, but if I've recently posted at SozoWomen, I'll post the link at Family Grace with My Five Sons.

Like today.

Learning Defense - Shawnelle Eliasen

Please click on the link above for a message I've written on finding time to nurture a marriage, right in the middle of the wild and wonderful!

Have a blessing-rich, end-of-summer weekend. The boys and I are sending warm hugs.

With love,

Shawnelle

Closet Cleaning

It's time to think about getting my homeschool classroom in order. It's a surly mess. Last spring we were lured by the sun on our shoulders, the blue skies, the early greens that brushed like tempera paint over the winter-long browns.

We jumped ship.

Now we're wading through the whispers of last year. Math papers stacked in the cabinet. Flashcards in unbundled piles. Journals holding heart words and binders bulging with science.

And then there's the closet.

My deep, dark mess.

I open the door and step back fast. Hard telling what will come lunging out. A stray bottle of glue. A spelling book. Or worse yet. A wayward compass with a sharp, pointy end.

I sigh.

This cavern of a closet is full.

I have no choice but to dig in. I want this closet in order. This closet needs to be in order. It's my resource place. When I need a book, a text, an answer key...a stick of glue, a ruler, a pair of scissors with ripply edges, I'll need a crisp, clean closet to produce the goods.

I'll want the good stuff to flow - unencumbered by this bulging, dreary mess.

So I pull a wild stack of books from the floor and begin to sort.

A tug a basket of dumped-together art supplies and begin to sift.

Halfway through the adventure, I understand that this closet is like my heart. There are good things. Fruit of the Spirit things. Treasure chest things that hold value like gold. But there's a knot of not-so-good, too. Darker things. Messy things. Things that may clutter the goodness.

And while I'm sitting pretzel-legged in the closet, contents building around me in small mountain heaps, the cleaning becomes a prayer.

Lord, there's a green mass of jealousy in the corner of my heart. Please pull it out.

Father, there's selfish ambition lurking in the deep. Remove it with Your tender hand.

Fear, God. It moves like a shadow. Covering and consuming and making light places gray. Pluck it?

It feels good to ask the Lord to sift through the contents of my heart. To ask him to help me remove the mess. I can't just stack the junk and haul it to the trash.

But the closet door, my heart door,  is open, and His light can shine in. It may take time. But the invitation is there. And He is faithful.

I poke through the markers. Some are good. Some have crushed, dry tips.

 Sorting.

 It's a good thing.

 And as the piles around me grow, as I pray, I feel lighter and more free on the inside.

Like my in-good-order closet, my heart will produce good things.

I'm grateful for the cleaning.

I'm grateful for the grace.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Psalm 51:1-2

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Psalm 51:10

Temptation and the Rescue Rope of Grace

There's a new Eliasen boy. His name is Flash. He's a retired racer. And because he's only known the track and kennel life, the household, the living-in-a-home experience is completely new to him.

Flash loves to be with us. He's gentle. Affectionate. Where we are is exactly where he wants to be.

And last night he wriggled under my bed.

I was perched on the edge, talking on the phone, and Flash was sprawled on his cushion. He disappeared for a moment and I thought he'd gone to seek some good lovin' from someone else. But when I finished talking and walked out of the bedroom, there was a whine. A yelp. Then an all-out cry.

I bent and peered under the bed. Flash was trapped. He tried to stand tall, to shimmy out, but he'd gone somewhere he shouldn't have been and he needed some help getting out.

"Lonny," I called. "Flash is stuck. Come lift the bed."

Lonny came to the rescue. Flash, true to his name, shot out fast.

Poor babe.

Oh, the goodness of being free!

Reminds me of myself sometimes. I'm tempted to wander into places I shouldn't go. Trapping places. Not-fitting places. Places I have really no need to be at all. Maybe it's a place of gossip. Maybe it's letting my thought life twist and travel on forbidden roads. Maybe it's allowing myself to crawl into the dark place of anger and unforgiveness.

Trapped in temptation. Stuck - just like Flash.

When I find myself in these tight-fitting spots, I'm grateful for God's promise. He tells me that when I'm tempted, trapped in temptation, He'll provide an out. An escape. A place to wriggle free.

He's a loving, helping Father - longing to let me loose.

Just like Lonny lifting the bed for pressed-in Flash.

It's a precious thing.

 This "out".

 This help.

This sweet rescue rope of grace.

Lord, thank you for rescuing me when I'm trapped in temptation. Thank you for your faithfulness.

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.  But when you are tempted He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. I Corinthians 10:7

Learning to Rest Part II

I was on the sand, stretched in the sun, when I heard the voices of two of my men.

"What do you think she'll say?" Samuel asked from behind me.

"She'll want you to have the experience," said my husband-man.

I'd just gotten used to Samuel swimming in the deep. Now I knew that something else, something bigger, was about to go down.

Lonny and Sam stepped in front of my towel and I sat and shielded my eyes. Maybe from the sun. Maybe from the impending adventure.

"Scuba lessons," Samuel said. "Mom, can you believe that they're offering a scuba lesson? Right here at the park. Today."

The "they" was a Michigan DNR and a local dive club. And my two bigger boys, previously sprawled on towels beside me, now sat and listened, too. I looked at the hopeful, born-to-be-wild faces of my sons. I was way out numbered. And I didn't want to be left behind.

"Okay," I said. "But if you're all going, I want to go, too."

Lonny's eyes went round and wide. Sam jumped in the air. The two big guys grinned.

And I wondered what I'd done.

I get like that sometimes. I want to be cool. I want to be adventurous. I want to be athletic. I want to keep up with my sons.

Never mind that just the thought of sucking canned air through a tube made me turn half blue.

But I wanted to join the adventure.So we split into two groups (someone had to watch the small boys). Sat on benches and took the class. Suited up. And headed for the lake.

I don't want to do this I thought as we waded into the water. Fear lapped at my heart though the water was only knee deep.

I'm comfortable in the water. I swim well. But something about having that equipment strapped to my back, something about talk of decompressing, something about sitting on the sand, on the bottom of that beautiful lake, breathing in and out, made me just come unglued.

"I'm heading back," I said after we'd gone under twice - in the shallows. It was either that or break my sanity seams. "I'm turning my flippers in."

My sons nodded. One winked at me through his foggy glass mask. An instructor walked me to shore.

And I peeled off the wetsuit and wondered why I push so hard.

I think that it's my season for learning about rest. I think that sometimes rest couples contentment. One follows the other on a sweet, short lead. If I'm content, with where I'm at, with who I am, with what I have, I can find sweet rest.

It's a rest of the spirit. It's a quieting of the soul. It's an allowance to be still, to let go, to stretch in the already-have blessing like one stretches and soaks in the sun.

I found my place on the beach. My towel was sun-kissed and warm. I sat and watched little boys fill buckets and shovel sand and laugh into the breeze.

They were content. They were happy. Their hearts were enjoying the blessing of rest.

I peered across the water, to the place where a line of blue told me the water had gone deep. A red flag floated on a tube. The boys were under.

And I was happy.

I was happy for them. I was happy for me.

I knew that when they surfaced, my boys would come ashore and share the adventure. I'd see the joy and passion and excitement in their eyes. I'd almost see what they had seen. I'd almost feel what they had felt.

And I suspected, now,  that this would be good enough for me.

Because I was learning the comfort of contentment, and in it I was beginning to find rest.

Thank you, Lord, for teaching me new ways to rest...